Category: Life

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Summer movies I love

I got to see Spider-Man 3 this weekend and it was pretty good. There was a lot of “stuff” crammed into the 2 1/2 hours with many story threads. The part I liked best was several shots of Peter Parker tooling around the city on his beat-up scooter. And there were a few out loud funny bits involving J Jonah Jamison.

This weekend was Superhero weekend for me. I rented the DVD of Superman Returns which I saw last summer and I fell in love with the film all over again. I forgot I wrote a review on IMDB so here is a clip of that:

When an iconic film is remade you can go two ways – totally go down a different road and destroy what made the previous film iconic – think “Poseidon”, or you can do what Bryan Singer did and almost duplicate the feel and humanity from the previous Superman series of the late 70’s early 80’s.

This isn’t just a rehash but Singer tips his hat enough to the Donner directed films to satisfy this old fan and bring enough of current culture to satisfy new fans.

It starts with the return of the classic style for the opening credits and liberal amounts of the fantastic John Williams score. I did expect to hear some hip-hop or some bland pop music but luckily that wasn’t the case.

A Great Homage to Donner and Reeve

One of my favorite scenes is actually the first time that Superman reveals to the world that he is back and comes about 40 minutes into the film. Lois is on an airplane covering the launch of a new version of the Space Shuttle when a blackout scrambles the computers and the Shuttle can’t detach from the jet she is on. The main engines come on and sends Lois flying to the back of the plane and as she is struggling to reach an oxygen mask she happens to look out the window and *blip* sees Superman streak by to save her and all those on the plane. The look on her face and the music cue just chokes me up every time. Real tears.

The last part of the sequence is also a hoot. After Superman sets the plane down on the ground, he rips the door off and goes inside. He asks if everyone is okay and he and Lois make eye contact. Then after a bit of a pause he says, in a homage to the first Christopher Reeves film, that he hopes the emergency doesn’t put people off flying and that statistically it is the safest way to travel. He then flies off. Lois stands at the door watching him leave then she faints and falls down the emergency slide.

Here is a clip from that sequence so you can see why I love it so much:

I hope the coming summer movie season has a few more favorite scenes that I can watch 50,000 times on DVD.

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If you think the Walter Reed scandal was bad

If you think the Walter Reed scandal was bad…

I read an article in the Nation tonight that talks about the rash of military discharges of wounded Iraq war veterans, in order, it seems to save the VA money on benefits.

The article, How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits, by Joshua Kors, highlights a previously unreported practice of discharging wounded soldiers as having a personality disorder, which happens to be one of the ways a soldier can be discharged and not be eligible for any future benefits.

The article highlighted the case of Jon Town, from Findlay, Ohio, who was seriously wounded, in 2004, when a rocket slammed into a wall 2 feet above his head. Since then he has suffered from deafness, memory failure and depression. In 2006 it was determined that he would never recover enough to go back to active duty.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town’s wounds were actually caused by a “personality disorder.” Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans’ rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it’s doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.

How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

Not only did Town lose his disability pay or chance to receive long-term VA medical care, but he left the Army actually owing $3000 when they took back his $15,000 bonus.

The article reports that up to 22,500 soldiers have been discharged for a “personality disorder” in the past 6 years with a sharp increase since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The US once again shafts veterans.

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I want my NFL please

I am a long, long, long time fan of the Cleveland Browns football team. Since the days of Brian Sipe and the Kardiac Kids I have ridden that roller coaster and have come close to tasting the ultimate prize of getting to the Super Bowl. The lowest points have been “Red Right 88”, “The Drive”, “The Fumble”, and the move of the team to Baltimore at the end of the 1995 season.

When I was a kid I had no problem watching the Browns games on TV. The AFC was on NBC then and living close to Toledo, Cleveland games were the AFC default. The closest NFL team to our market was Detroit and they played in the NFC.

When I moved to Columbus the issue because troublesome. I am now in the middle of 2 team’s market area (Cleveland and Cincinnati) and also could be included in a 3rd (Pittsburgh) and all of them are in the AFC. Our local CBS station has the thankless job of deciding which team to show each week of the season especially if they are playing at the same time – which seems to be most of the time. The NFL and CBS doesn’t allow WBNS to move the other games to another channel like WWHO which is a broadcast channel or to a dedicated digital cable channel.

Each week one of us group of fans is going to lose out and be forced to listen to the game on radio. With the poor play Cleveland has had the past few years and the improvement of the Bungles, Cleveland fans in Central Ohio lose out most of the time.

Sure there are options if I want to pay a large amount of money to see games I don’t want to see just to see the games I want to see. I do enjoy football but I am less inclined to watch games I have no interest in.

This issue came up again for me with the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this week. WBNS is showing not only the regional games for our city since Ohio State is playing, but they are also showing games from the other regions on 3 digital channels on the local cable systems. They do this by splitting the feed from CBS. If the technology is there to do for basketball then CBS should be able to do for football.

I’m NOT talking about a Seattle fan living in Boston being able to watch the Seahawks, I am talking about allowing an affiliate that straddles more than one team market being allowed to show all the nearby teams each Sunday.

I don’t fault the NFL for being particular on the right to watch games as their TV rights money is basically what keeps them in business but they are missing the opportunity of giving some of us what we want and blowing the opportunity of getting us to buy more merchandise, going to a game in person, and breeding another generation of fans.

The NFL

Cleveland Browns

WBNS 10 TV

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No, I don’t listen to Glenn Beck

I discovered that this site was mentioned on the listener forum for conservative radio host Glenn Beck. So I checked it out.

To answer some of the questions posed by the readers there:

1. No, I don’t listen to Glenn Beck. I like thinking for myself and I don’t need to hear people parrot my views back to me. In fact I don’t listen to talk radio in general. I find 99% of it unbalanced in views and topics presented. I did once use to watch Rush Limbaugh on TV during his brief stint on TV (before the drugs). But mostly such people just make me angry and there is more to life than being angry all the time. Since I know shows like Beck’s will make me angry – and I will never be able to respond – I choose to not listen to them. Mainstream media does a great job of reporting what those hosts say so I know when Glenn is mad and what he is mad about – at least I don’t have to hear him talk about it.

2. I am not a “flaming” liberal. I do move left on social issues – like privacy and church and State separation – but you’d be surprised that I support capitalism as it is intended. I don’t support what passes for business ethics today but I want to see people be able to make money off their own labor – both business owners and workers. I also supported the Welfare Reform Act in 1996 even though it didn’t provide job training. A change was needed and that might shock some since a couple of times growing up our family was on welfare.

3. I didn’t finish college. That is true. I also think I am intelligent. Having a college degree doesn’t make one intelligent. I also have common sense and I use Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detector quite often. I left Ohio State with Senior status and 54 credits short of degree. I left for a couple of reasons – Ronald Reagan’s need to force me to take out massive student loans instead of increasing Pell Grants. I was also just tired and bored having entered college right from high school.

4. As for being an ass or looking down on those who don’t vote “liberal”, how one votes is up to them. What bothers me is some ignore the facts and only vote for superficial reasons like knowing the name of the person or just because they are from one particular party. Uninformed voters bother me. I am sorry if some think I come off as an ass. I have things to say and I want to be as truthful as possible – sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth. That isn’t my problem.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask and thanks for visiting.

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Snow Emergencies – An Update

While checking out the stats on who has been visiting my blog and what they have been reading I noticed I had over 700 hits yesterday and other 500 today. It is the most visits I have had on this blog EVER. The most popular article is one I wrote in 2005 about Snow Emergencies here in Ohio.(check out A Level 3 snow emergency, doesn’t necessarily mean employees must stay home)

The reason that article is popular is because yesterday Ohio was hit with its largest snow storm since 2004 when we got hit with snow, ice, and then more snow. The article was about Hancock county leaders and business owners having a conference to complain about employees using a called Level 3 Snow Emergency to ditch work. The government leaders told the business owners that while a Level 3 means not to drive on the roads – they wouldn’t interfere with businesses that forced workers to drive in it to make it to work.

The employees think that an absence caused by complying with an order not to be on the roads should not count against them at work for missing time. Business leaders are worried about losing money if they have to close down because they don’t have enough staff to work. Hancock government leaders sided with the businesses and said even though the order was to stay off the road, law enforcement wouldn’t arrest people who did. They would only act if the driver caused an accident or impeded emergency workers from doing their jobs. The penalty would be no worse than a ticket depending on the seriousness of the action.

Today, a reader sent me a note that said:

I have more questions about these “Level 3 Snow emergencies”. They’re on the radio now saying that anyone on the roads will be arrested. They’re saying that any business that refuses to close will be issued a citation.

How can they do that? When were the police given such broad powers to ignore our right to work and earn a living? What law exists that gives the police such huge powers to prohibit legal commerce? How can this possibly be constitutional. Just because they have a gun doesn’t mean they’re god!

The answer is that police have powers to protect order and the health and safety of citizens. If you being on the roads during a severe snow storm interferes with any of those duties then they can arrest you if that is what is called for by your actions.

If they have to take the time to pull you out of a ditch then that is personnel and time you take away from someone who might really need help somewhere else.

Or if you are on a road that provides the only access to area and you have an accident that blocks that road. You might prevent another person from getting prompt medical care because you just had to earn a living.

The general rule about such powers is asking if the power is reasonable given the circumstances. I think for a Level 3 snow emergency – arresting offenders is a reasonable police power.

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