Bits and Pieces


Because the Camera is an opinionated so-n-so

Heath Ledger -- the latest to be found dead. Is the personality-type that leads people to become actors just too fragile to handle what passes for fame today? Is it because fame is a pretty-much instantaneous thing due to electronic media, rather than something to be accumulated gradually like it was pre-television, which means it comes to people who do not have the experience (or age) to handle it? Or is it just that the majority of people who achieve fame and handle it get no press, but the bad boys and girls do? Sometimes I wonder if the old-fashioned studio system didn't have its advantages. Yeah, yeah, I know, that's like saying a controlled press during a war is a good thing. It's not. But neither are dead twenty-something actors and musicians.

The world-wide stock market drops because of an expected American recession -- WTF? Usually the news outlets are talking about the expected recession -- because hey, bad news sells -- well before the market goes tumbling. I thought I'd been paying attention, but I hadn't heard anything. Was it because of the primary elections noise, or Bush making a spectacle of himself in the Middle East, or what? And just why are we supposedly going into a recession? Unemployment, national debt, what? I read the newspaper, watch the network news, and follow some political blogs. Where did this come from?

I really need to sort my head out re: the primary on Super Tuesday. It's closing in fast.

The complete closure of a major hunk of I-64, an interstate / commuting artery -- the metro area is dealing with it. The same thing happens every time they close a major commuting route around here for a long period (say, half the I-70 bridge over the Missouri River): the news media scream for months about what a disaster it's going to be and how everybody should make major plans to change their work hours, or telecommute, or move closer to their workplace, etc. Then somebody decides it's their bounden duty to try and stop the roadwork at the last minute never mind that contracts have been signed and the penalties would run into the millions of dollars. And then it happens and sure, traffic's a bit heavier but barring a major accident, the likes of which would FUBAR traffic even if every commuting artery were wide open and running at the speed limit (and they never are), people get where they're going. If the reasonable traffic flow is because of the months of media screaming then I guess it's a good thing, but I sure could live without the pre-closure hysteria. Makes my head hurt.

Related -- rehearsals for Comedy of Errors are mid-town, which is no problem because my alternate interstate goes there almost as easily as the closed one would, and I'm going against traffic and at the end of evening rush hour. But... the performances are at a Catholic high school (this show has daytime performances for high school groups, and the location is better for them) on one of the major non-highway detour routes, a teeny little two-lane road. My commute to the 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. calls is gonna be ugly.

Missouri's Baby Guv Matt Blunt, son of U.S. House Whip Roy Blunt -- not running for a second term. Even though he's got a majority in the state legislature to rubber stamp his slash-and-burn bills... Best guesses: the deleted email scandal (yes, we have a state version to match Bush's national one) is gonna get uglier than anybody's let on so far; secret polls by his admin show him a lot more unpopular than released ones do; or (Hub's suggestion) Kit Bond's ready to retire from the U.S. Senate. I voted for a dead man rather than have Ashcroft in the other Senate seat, and we ended up with the so-n-so as U.S. Atty. General. Knock wood there'll be a Democrat in the White House to prevent the same sort of nonsense should we keep Baby Blunt out (which I'm kinda doubting, seeing the overall red-ness of this state.) But right now I imagine the state Republican committee is plotzing; Baby Guv has no obvious successor, at least not one with state-wide name recognition.

...and speaking of the upcoming gubernatorial election:

It looks like the current best-bet someone with the last name of Nixon. I'm old enough for that to give me the willies.

Posted: Wed - January 23, 2008 at 08:07 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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