Thursday, September 24, 2009

Recommended Reading

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) made some remarks Tuesday at a Finance Committee Hearing about how many nations on this planet manage to have universal health care without having it run by the government. So along comes blogger Ezra Klein to point out that every one of Conrad's examples is a system that is, one way or another, run by the government.

• Posted at 11:38 PM · LINK

Thursday Evening

Sorry again to be too busy to post much lately. This will change.

So I go to an appointment in a medical building on La Cienega Boulevard today and I'm waiting for the elevator. Along comes a man who is also waiting for said elevator. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and I say to myself, "That's Christopher Hitchens." Then I turn and look more directly at him and I realize that he's not Christopher Hitchens. Not at all. Looks an awful lot like him but isn't.

I do not say one word to the man but he sees me looking at him and informs me, "I'm not Christopher Hitchens."

I laugh and say, "How many times a day do you have to say that?" He replies, "There's a certain look some people have...I'm afraid they're going to start yelling at me or trying to debate. Some people have."

Just then, the elevator arrives. We get in, I select my floor and I ask him which one he needs. He tells me, I punch it in and I say to him, "That's a plastic surgeon, I presume?"

He says, "No, but I've considered it."

That's the end of that story. Coming up in a day or so here: Why I like Jay Leno but I'm having a hard time liking his new show. Based on the ratings, I'm obviously not alone in this dilemma.

• Posted at 11:30 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

I mentioned this some time ago but couldn't embed it then. We had a week or two in this country when all talk of Iraq and terrorism and bank failures and even Health Care Reform paled in comparison to interest in the life of alleged drunk mom Brittney Spears. All the talk show hosts had many good laughs at her expense. All but one.

Craig Ferguson went out one night and did an extraordinary monologue on the topic of alcoholism — a topic he knows only too well. It ran 12.5 minutes and all 12.5 are well worth watching.

Drinking is one of those few problems I do not have in my life. I have never, literally, touched a drop of the stuff...not even beer or wine. I can't really tell you why that was up to the age of around eighteen. Then when I was that age, an extremely drunk person killed someone I cared about a lot...and what was worse, this person was utterly divorced from the notion that one is responsible for one's actions. I mean, it would be bad enough if they had to say, "Gee, I'm sorry your friend died because I was drunk." In this particular case, it was more like, "Gee, I'm sorry your friend died but it wasn't my fault. I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing."

I'd never had an urge or even curiosity about alcohol up 'til then but that kind of sealed the deal. I've needed no reminding since then but, alas, about every five years I have to see some friend commit involuntary suicide via booze and usually, they also manage to do a lot of harm to those around them. I am not for temperance or bans or anything of the sort, and I don't even criticize those who can handle it. I just believe, as Mr. Ferguson explains in this video, that there are some people who simply cannot drink without bad things resulting.

Here's the clip. It's long but I remember watching it when it first aired and thinking, "You know...somewhere out there, there's someone who's being helped by hearing this." I don't think that often about things I see on TV.

• Posted at 12:56 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

For years, my Conservative friend Roger has tried to tell me that the main reason that medical care costs so much in this country is that juries award huge malpractice settlements to some patients, and doctors have to spend zillions of dollars to purchase malpractice insurance. According to Dave Leonhardt, the cost is actually microscopic...but that doesn't mean that the current malpractice practices are working to our advantage.

• Posted at 12:46 AM · LINK

Screen Gems

Every so often the last decade or so, we get a little stark reminder of how computers are changing the world, making some businesses obsolete. Around 1990, every typesetting house I'd ever used in Los Angeles went out of business. What had once cost $100 could now be done for free by any kid with Microsoft Word and a good set of fonts. Other markers of this kind come along from time to time. The latest for me is the announcement that the Graphix company is discontinuing its Unishade and Duoshade illustration board. I think they were the last company in the world that made this kind of art paper.

Explaining what it is will be easier if I just focus on the Duoshade variety. Duoshade board is art paper that has two patterns printed on it in different invisible inks. When you buy the paper, you also get little vials of developer fluids that make the invisible ink visible. You do your drawing in black ink and then when it comes time to add "tones" to it, you employ the developer fluids. One developer fluid brings out pattern #1, which in the example here is a pattern of lines that create a (roughly) 25% grey area on the page wherever the fluid is applied. The other developer brings out a 50% pattern. You can see this better in the enlargement below...

This, by the way, is an illustration that Jack Davis did for one of the MAD paperback books.

As you can see, what results is a drawing with two halftone patterns on it. A printer can shoot the page as line art because the "grey tones" are already screened. The paper has been used often for black-and-white illustration work, or sometimes artists employ the Unishade kind which only has one pattern. It came in very handy for years...but now that so much art is being done on computer, the halftone tools in Photoshop have rendered it obsolete. Just another thing that's gone away on us...

• Posted at 12:26 AM · LINK