Erik Emery Hanberg

Made me laugh.

(Via mstoddard)

Michael Medved had an interesting presentation last night at Theatre on the Square. He recently wrote about "The 10 Big Lies About America" and during the presentation he covered three of the lies he covered in his book.

One--that America is in an irreversible state of moral decline I've long believed to be false, and I'm glad Medved argued against it as passionately as he did.

The second--that America is "uniquely" responsible for slavery and that slavery in the US was worse than anywhere else in the world ... I found to be a bit of a strawman's argument. I don't think I've really heard anyone say that the US is "uniquely" responsible for slavery in a way that other nations with slaves were not. And a passing knowledge of what was done to slaves in South America, for example, would disprove that slavery in the US was the most cruel form of it, horrific as it was. In short, this is a lie, yes, but not a lie I've heard a whole lot of people espouse.

And finally--Medved did make me re-think Ranked Choice Voting, though that wasn't his goal. The "lie," he said, is that America needs a third-party in order to challenge the stranglehold the Democrats and Republicans have on the country/politics/etc. I've never believed that, but a lot of my support for RCV comes from a notion that it's a good thing to make third-party candidates more viable. Medved threw at me some food for thought on whether that's true, and whether it's not better to have those activists fight to get their voice heard within their parties instead of in an ideologically pure third-party. I'll be thinking on that one for a bit, but I'm tending to agree.

Anyway, I certainly did not support many (most?) of Medved's arguments or positions. But he was smart as a tack, funny, and a good speaker. And, as you can see above with RCV, gave me something to chew on later. So I'd call that a pretty successful event, though having 130 people show up, including lots of new faces to City Club, certainly help me call it a success as well. :)

Thanks to so many people who showed up!

I've been negligent on posting here as well.

Music
Just discovered the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album. What an odd combination of musicians! And with a pretty great result. I've been listening to their cover of Gone Gone Gone by the Everly Brothers.

Here's the Everly Brothers performing it. It's a really fun pop song, though in this case the highlight is definitely the dancers.

Television
Mary's been watching Weeds and whenever I drop in for a few episodes I've really liked it.

I've been interested in Glee and FlashForward but have decided to save both for DVD. The only TV on DVD I've been watching is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is wonderful when it's on the mark and just so-so when it's off.

For current TV, I'm on a diet of just How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, and The Simpsons pretty much. Looking forward to seeing Lost start up again. Oh, and I TiVo'd "V" last night. We'll see how that is.

Theater
I forgot to mention that The 39 Steps in Seattle was a lot of fun. A good comedy built around a Hitchcock movie with an absurd premise.

Movies
I can't believe I wasted a Netflix rental on Supergirl.

Books
I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in about 24 hours, which is pretty common with his books. Like his others, it's high-octane, can't-put-it-down utter nonsense. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history or science can spot where he's twisted things to suit his facts. The science-y stuff is like a novelization of The Secret (which I didn't read) thrown in with a little Bible Code (which I did read). The book isn't as good as Angels & Demons, which is still Brown's best, I think.

And John Adams, of course, which will get its own separate post later.

I've been out of touch from my blog recently, so this is my opportunity to try to correct it with a lot of little short notes.

1) It would appear that R-71 will be approved, which I am glad to see. Last year I wrote this, and I still think it's true:

My own nuptials next month are lessened, when my gay friends who love each other can't get married. How difficult has it been to invite a friend to a ceremony that they themselves cannot participate in?

3) I like Bloomberg and, since I don't really like term limits, I think NYC will be well-served by him again.

4) Locally, the mayoral race is very interesting with so few votes between the two candidates! Wonder what news the 4:00 update will bring.

As part of my recent Presidential biography reading, I read River of Doubt, the story of Theodore Roosevelt descending an unexplored Amazon river after his Presidency. The book pretty well convinced me that I don't want to spend a lot of time exploring the Amazon.

The Lost City of Z did the same thing. I don't think I've ever read the line, "The men were never heard from again" more frequently than in this book.

Z is very well written; it tells two stories. The first story is that of PH Fawcett, an explorer who set out to find evidence of an ancient Amazonian city that he called simply "Z." The second is of the writer himself, on the trail of Fawcett, the literally hundreds of people who died looking for him afterward, and possibly Z itself.

A great non-fiction read. Thanks to Matt and Mary for the book!

As to the Presidential reading, I finished McCullough's John Adams on Thursday. I'll post on that in a bit. I read Z in about 24 hours. It was a well-told tale.

I shouldn't give the White House photographer such a hard time about the Obama halo. I remember this photo from 2002 (or so. I can't remember for sure) that lined George W. Bush up on Rushmore.

Photographers love to be clever.