Joss Whedon, that’s why.

Mr. Whedon, who feels like a personal friend of mine even though I will never ever be so lucky to be sitting next to him on a plane anywhere, has always mixed his sweeping arcs of storytelling with wryness that nods to the fan-base. Honestly, I’ve watched the Buffy seasons (all seven) so many times that I actually recognized shots he was plagiarizing from himself. The crater caused by the tesseract bomb at the beginning of The Avengers? Completely klepto’d from the finale of season seven of Buffy. The younger cop of the duo bantering with our heroes before the big set battle-piece? Enver Gjokaj, who played Victor in Dollhouse. The focus techniques and shaky camerawork during the flight shots in the same battle? Straight out of Serenity. There was even one point at which one of the Avengers (I think it was the Cap, but the second viewing will help with that one) gave me  a frisson of dialogue deja vu back to Firefly. Mr Whedon has no fear of his infinite variety going stale, even when he uses leftovers (which we all know are better after some time in the fridge, anyway).

What gratified me as I was walking out is that Mr. Whedon can now take his place in the modern canonical lists of truly great directors. We have Spielberg, who stopped being fun after the second Indiana Jones outing (and who should just be smacked for that Crystal Skull nonsense),  we have Cameron, who is going to pump out Avatar for at least two, if not three more outings with those dopey blue aliens, and we have Christopher Nolan, who will be finishing his Batman oeuvre this summer.

Whedon, who has been held proprietorially to the collective chest of his fan base for years, has now drawn attention to himself globally. No longer can we who’ve dwelt in the Whedonverse claim him as the best-kept secret in tv/moviedom any longer. Now we have to share.

This man's brain is SO SEXY it burnt off all his hair.

While Whedon has certainly earned his chops on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, et. al., he’s never been given top shelf professional gravitas in his industry. This film, in the can by 2009, languished on the shelves due to studio/money hideousness, was made in concurrence to Dollhouse. Much has been made of Whedon’s rabid fan base keeping cancelled-in-the bud shows alive, but I can only imagine that adoration doesn’t give off the same warm glow as adoration and success. Those in the know despaired of ever seeing the film on screen. It’s out now, though, and just in time for Whedon to have the year of his life, since he directs The Avengers.

• The first reason this is a love letter: He openly references the history of horror cinema, and in every possible way. From the design choice of the title card, to the basement where the teens seal their doom, to the teenagers themselves, the video monitors which will require the Special Dork HD Edition DVD for me to fully appreciate, almost everything was referential to the finest horror films that have come before. I hereby freely acknowledge that “finest” is specifically defined here in terms of the horror genre.
• Joss Loves His People: Casting Fran Kranz as the stoner oracle was no kind of stretch- Kranz was the agoraphobic genius programmer of Dollhouse, and the shift merely required a bag of weed. He didn’t even need to change his clothes or cut his hair. But this happens all over the place in the Whedonverse. It’s the fact that he loves to work with the people he loves to work with that makes such a term as “Whedonverse” even possible.
• The special effects are astonishing, but not because they’re a technological breakthrough. In fact they’re nothing special at all, per se; it’s their use and blending that makes them lovely. It actually is the same grab-bag of CGI and prosthetics that made Buffy such a hoot- cheese is delivered with just that soupçon of irony that puts the audience in on the joke. While self-reverential humour is nothing new, Whedon’s voice unmistakably puts his heart on his sleeve. All one needs to see is the whiteboard to know that.

OK, so I’m a huge nerdfan whose shame is barely theoretical. Whedon’s love of Story makes mine look like a piddling little note under the windshield of my car, while his looks like a great big cinematic funride on the screen. So?

So I think you should go to the theater, sit down in one of the stadium seats at the El Con, and catch this while it’s still being shown large enough to blow your socks off. Don’t forget the popcorn. Even if you get the mondo-large artery-busting size with extra grease, you’ll still have less corny fun than Whedon had making this movie.

The Whiteboard from Cabin in the Woods

Babeau with Senator Jon McCain concerning a useless boondoggle of a border fence

Sheriff Paul Babeau, a formerly closeted gay man, has outed himself to prevent his alleged boyfriend from doing it for him. There has been a lot of hyperbole on this topic, especially in our own little TC pond, concerning coercion and deportation. There’s been more discussion concerning the alleged boyfriend’s legal status as a resident of the United States.

While this is yet another boring Republican sex scandal, it’s got some potential to use this chaos to foster new societal growth.

We’ve come a long long way from Larry Craig calling Bill Clinton a “naughty boy” and then insisting he’s not gay after the busting up of the bathroom fandango. We’ve come even further from James McGreevey outing himself, quitting, and making his wife eat crap with a smile on national TV. At this point, the right wing is so up-in-arms about the (non) issue of gay marriage that they haven’t made much fuss about gay politicians openly running. This is refreshing, I suppose.

There are two things about this issue that are distressing to me.

1. Did Babeau threaten to deport the lover if the lover blew the whistle? If so, there goes his nascent Congressional run before it even gets started. No-one wants to elect somebody who will use their power of office for their own personal *ahem* butt-saving.

2. I wonder how much of a sigh of relief came from the Romney campaign? It’s one thing to say that they don’t want somebody accused of personal misconduct working for their campaign, but with the current right-wing anti-gay-marriage agenda, I’m sure they’re not all that sad to be rid of him altogether. They’ll never have to say it, though, because Babeau’s given them the perfect straw-man argument.

There are other issues that have been covered with racial invective and hyperbole, so I’m not going there. Others have tread that ground already.

What I do find to be hopeful? That it’s the abuse of power, and not his orientation, that’s causing the kerfuffle.

Still not gonna vote for him, though.

Come on, if this were any more cute...

Last week I attended the Yuma Rodeo, which I’ve been able to attend more than I have the Tucson Rodeo (I did go a few years ago, and it was a hoot). My husband’s family has been involved in the Yuma Rodeo for almost forty years, and my father-in-law was deeply involved in its planning, promotion and presentation. He was even President of the rodeo in the early 70s.

The first time I ever went, it was amazing! I’d never seen these classic events up close and live, complete with smells and sounds that happen nowhere else (‘cept for the ubiquitous kettle corn). One bull even threw himself and his rider right over the far fence into the crowd, and that alone was worth the price of admission. Fortunately, no-one was more than bruised. The mutton busting, which is the most hilarious sporting event known to man, instantly became my favorite part of the rodeo. I mean seriously, watching willing 6 year olds cling to the back of cranky sheep until they lose balance and face-plant into the dirt had me laughing until my sides hurt, especially when the little toughies got up and wanted to try again. I love tough little girls in pink boots! They give me hope for the future.

The second time I ever went to the rodeo, my own father was with us, and my father-in-law arranged to have him officially welcomed to the rodeo over the PA. My dad was so chuffed by this honor his mustache was twitching! We had a great day out with the family, and even though I haven’t been on a horse since I was about twelve, it started to feel like a family tradition in my heart.

The third time I ever went to the Yuma Rodeo was on February 11th just gone. My father-in-law, who passed last March, was being memorialized during the opening ceremonies. My MIL invited the entire family down for the weekend, and didn’t tell anyone that the others were coming, so that weekend felt like an unscheduled Christmas. We all got ready to go together, and followed each other to the rodeo grounds. We settled into the family box, and waited for the opening ceremonies.

I won’t go into the memorial that they pretty much botched- that’s my mother-in-law’s rant and I wouldn’t take that from her. However, what I will mention is the shock with which my husband and I watched the opening ceremonies, which were different from the ones I’d seen, and from the ones my husband grew up with. There were still rodeo queens, there was still much with the flags and the bunting, but the rah-rah America nationalism and almost belligerent insistence about “keeping God in the rodeo” had my husband’s jaw on his chest. He couldn’t believe the tone, the “Made In America” sing-along (I didn’t even know that was a real song), the aggressive invocation of Jesus and Christianity. Seriously, it was like the whole thing was sponsored by a conservative superPAC.

Then my sister-in-law nudged me, and told me to look around me at the audience almost filling the stands. The majority were old fluffy-haired snowbirds, and they were having a grand time. They were smiling, singing along with the music, and were all kinds of relaxed and happy. That’s when I realized how specialized this form of entertainment had become- the rodeo was simply giving the audience what it wanted.  I was the one who was swimming in strange waters.

We left after the mutton busting- that was still far and away the best part of the day- and as we scuffed through the dust to the car, my husband was a little sad. “This wasn’t what the rodeo was about,” he said. “It used to be about rodeo stuff. Now it’s about reinforcing the snowbirds’ Foxified vision of America. I won’t be back next year.” I floated my catering-to-the-audience theory, and he asked me what rodeo was going to do as a sport when the demographics they were catering to passed on. “There was almost no-one under 50 at this thing,” he said. “How are they going to continue without reinventing themselves for a younger audience, which would be turned off pretty hard by all the nationalistic jingoism?” I shrugged, for I had no answer for him.

Before I wrap up, I will say that the one time I attended the Tucson Rodeo, there was none of that silliness with the militant nationalism. They did the national Anthem, spoke well of the war-dead, and got down to business. They let the activities of the day speak for themselves. That was what impressed me- not how loudly folks proclaim that they’re American, but how American they are, day in and day out. The husband will be on tour with the band in San Diego and LA during Rodeo Weekend, and I’m thinking of heading out to the Tucson rodeo to see it done right again. Anyone know when they’re doing the mutton busting?

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California’s same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for likely consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a lower court judge correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedents when he declared in 2010 that Proposition 8 was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

huffingtonpost.com

Having performed an unofficial gay marriage ceremony a year ago last summer, I am delighted to see my country becoming more equal, bit by bit. Whether you’re gay, straight & gay friendly, bi, transgender or whatever, it’s nice to think America is still moving incrementally closer to more perfect unions, no matter what they look like.

But the last time we discussed the Occupy movement in Tucson, the general internet consensus I inferred was that while they did a great job grabbing attention and imagination last fall, they didn’t do a whole lot with that attention once they had it, and the encampment became not a means by which to protest, but the point of the protest itself. That, plus (some negative, some positive) interaction with the homeless population and internal squabbling (which can’t seem to stop on Facebook especially- come ON, guys) cause the positive, aligned energy to first dissipate, and then sour.

BUT- from chaos comes growth. With a greater awareness of the challenges of the life of the homeless, Occupy Public Land has taken concrete, positive steps to contribute to a city that someone told me yesterday is the dumping ground for other cities’ homeless. (when I went to research this, I found reference to Fresno CA. Any clarification from long-time Tucsonans would be gratefully received). Occupy Public Land has organized and become a 503(c), a non-profit charitable organization. It seems at least this particular Occupy group has finally internalized the idea that actions speak louder than words, and direct community involvement will win hearts and minds far more thoroughly than idealistic ideology.

So what is it that they’re concretely planning to do? Their vision is of a kiosk, a simple structure at Viente de Agusto Park, where the transient population can find a central clearinghouse on services and charities where they can get clothing, food, shelter. They’d be able to refer these folks to a shelter where they could grab a night’s sleep.  According to OPL, they would like to partner with the Primavera Foundation for information and references for the booth. There would be resources to find support groups, AA meetings, whatever these folks might need to pull themselves out of the vicious downward spiral that landed them where they are.

OPL is not restricting their plans to the info booth- they are also continuing their work to have the public lands such as parks freely available to the public- meaning that other groups, such as the eminently DIY Food Not Bombs of Tucson (whose website is woefully out of date- can you get on that, guys?). FNB is a national movement of local organizations that simply believes in showing up somewhere and feeding people. Then they clean up and leave. Because of city ordinances and statutes, that simple project often gets choked out by police, and OPL’s work to amend the laws would bear benefits beyond their own group.

These are concrete plans organized around the socially and legally acceptable banner of the non-profit organization. Whether one agrees with the principles behind the organization, laid out below, even detractors who shudder involuntarily at the very word “Occupy” can’t deny that instead of a an ineffective”leaderless leadership,” OPL has actually acknowledged that co-operation in the framework, and the accommodation of that framework in the form of compromise, might not actually be the devil. Occupy Public Land, if their hearts and guts stay in it (and I’m pullin’ for ya!) may be the group to  bear beneficial fruit for the community.

We look at the rail-riding bums of Steinbeck as romantic, tragic characters full of the downtrodden dignity of man, but that vision tends to fade in the face of actual transient people. But y’know what? They’re people, and they deserve at least that much respect. Considering that we might be looking at a homeless population increase over the next couple of years, despite the economic “upturn,” Occupy Public Land strikes me as a highly appropriate example of forward thinking.

From OPL’s Facebook:

Purposes of Association     

(A) #Occupy Public Land was organized specifically to create a system to replace the plutocratic system of pseudo-democracy now controlling the United States of America.  The Association has three major goals:

(i) Bring the consensus-based decision making process to the neighborhood and community organizations which make over-arching decisions concerning the governance of residential areas;

(ii) Create a system to remove financial considerations from controlling the exercise of civil and political rights;

(iii) Create a system in which economic power is evenly distributed amongst the people; which shall include for the protection of the commons—public spaces, lands, and waters—for the continued use and enjoyment of the human race and animal species.

(B) The primary purposes of the Association are to provide community services that are charitable, educational, scientific, literary, preventing cruelty to children or animals, and protecting our environment. The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes:

(i) relief to the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged;

(ii) advancement of the civil and political rights of the homeless, disenfranchised, or underprivileged;

(iii) advancement of education and science, to include advancement of educational and scientific knowledge aimed at creating and maintaining a perpetually sustainable human societal order;

(iv) erecting and maintaining public buildings, monuments, works, and public land with an eye towards sustainability;

(v) lessening the burdens of government by creating stream-lined and sustainable programs for human governance;

(vi) lessening neighborhood tensions by introducing the consensus-based decision making process into neighborhood and community organizations;

(vii) eliminating prejudice and discrimination by encouraging and fostering social integration;

(viii) defending human and civil rights secured by law and international treaty; and

(ix) combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.

I’ve always been a fan of dystopian literature and film. From 1984 toBrave New World, Clockwork Orange, If, We, The Unit, The Handmaid’s Tale and even, God help me, Anthem, I’ve read them all. There’s something every single one of these books has, which is a downtrodden majority that is manipulated and utilized for the benefit of the overclass.

• Winston Smith dreams of the revolt of the proles, even though every genuine example of the proletariat class is unsavory, uneducated, and rather unclean.
• The majority of the population of Brave New World are genetically modified drones. Even the intelligentsia is the product of genetic manipulation, with the most unique personalities isolated.
• Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a first-person account of a member of the breeding class, and how her fertility enslaves her in the days after some calamity all but sterilizes the human race.
• And of course, some animals are more equal than others.

Wherever possible, the links above lead to full online copies of the novels. -QS

I can’t help, after a steady diet of this kind of thing, see signs and portents of this underclass-ness in America.

• Arizona herself is the third-highest foreclosure state in the nation. Losing one’s home has to be one of the most horrifying processes one could live through, and can leave a profound insecurity. That now affects a significant part of our population. Disheartening, to say the least.
• Unemployment figures don’t account for the officially “discouraged” worker: “[T]he Department of Labor also tracks people who were in the job market {at} some time in the last year, but haven’t done anything to try and land a paycheck recently. Maybe they had to care for a child or they got laid off, and they’re close enough to retirement to just be retired. Or maybe they’re so fed up with not finding anything, they’ve stopped looking” (Marketplace.org). That last has been growing more and more over the last few years.
• I don’t think I need to discuss the lameness of corporate media any more thoroughly than it’s been discussed everywhere else, or to what uses that media is put. It may be to our entertainment, but don’t tell me Kardashians add to the moral, ethical, or intellectual tone of our nation. GTL, anyone? Don’t even get me started on “cable news,” of ANY stripe.
• If SB1070 isn’t “some animals are more equal than others” applied to human beings, then what is the point of Orwell? LOOK, it’s RIGHT THERE. Even if you dismiss the source, how can we as Americans do this again? Gila Bend is the second camp on the list.
• 2011 was a rough year if you had a uterus.

Literature has been an outlet for human imagination for centuries, and for the last 300 years or so, the novel has been the primary vehicle. Maybe I’ve got the dystopian literature version of a sugar high, but then again we’d have never gotten to the moon if Edgar Rice Burroughs {for example} hadn’t stirred the imagination of scientists. What a positive manifestation of imagination the moon landing is! To end on a deliberately posi note, I’d love some suggestions on what I can read that to mitigate this gloom. Enjoy your three day weekend, and HEY- there’s another example of positive human imagination making the world a better place. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Then, the powers that be over there started messing around with the commenting threads; one of the most affecting changes was the institution of community moderators from among the hoi-polloi. These elevated posters had the ability to heavily flag (mod1) or delete (mod2) comments that ran counter to the vaunted Users’ Agreement.

While I will admit to becoming delete-happy during the heyday of the 2008 election, I really didn’t start using the “bam-stick” as therapy until Arrianna sold the site to AOL.com, a move which combined the two Internet giants. All of a sudden, the threads over at (what I call affectionately ) Huffpoo were flooded with not-so liberal posters, adding parity to the discussions in theory at least. However, it turns out that most of these folks coming in on the AOL flood are the sort who actually think paying AOL for their services is still a good idea, and they seemed offended that *gasp* most of the posters on HP were “commie pinko liberals,” and that they had no problem whatsoever dismissing these old, creaky, dial-up types entirely.

Flame wars would occasionally erupt, providing me much appreciated therapy time with the bam-stick. I cannot say that every deletion I made was in the spirit of the Users’ Agreement, but most of them were. This state of affairs carried on happily until right before the holiday season, when Lady de Rothschild posted an article. I don’t remember the content, but it was about the unrest and rumblings of the 99%, and she was firmly in the camp of the “job-creators.” I reacted with high indignation at the manor-born telling the masses to shut up and be happy about their lot in life, so I started commenting on how she married up, and that folks should google her (third) husband, and that she ought to siddown and shuttup.

Well, her Ladyship didn’t care for that overmuch, and got my account suspended. The account has  since been reinstated, but site-wide, the flagging and community moderating has been disabled. I do not think this is the effect of my situation; they have a brief and unenlightening post on their tech page (if you can even find it- they bury it on purpose, I think).  They’re revamping the whole system, which is probably a good idea. It was way too easy to give in to my baser instincts and just delete people as I pleased.

However, the time without the bam-stick has given me time to reflect; hitting the now-defunct “delete button” is inherently unsatisfying. But even if it became functional again, I don’t know that I would ever view it in the same way.

Reading Mr. Evans’ post from Monday, I’ve been thinking about one thing I can do to make the world I live in a kinder, gentler place. Since I’ve used Huffingtonpost as a place to vent my spleen, its enforced absence has made me reconsider whether or not I should continue to bother with the site. I’ve  survived the last month without my bam-stick, and I’ve gotten my news elsewhere just as satisfactorily. So even when they do restore the moderating privileges over there, I think I’ll just give it a miss.

Of course, all this is pointless if it was just me, and not the whole site. That would be kinda funny.

The Tucson City Magistrate has dismissed 85 citations issued against Occupy Tucson at the request of the Tucson City Attorney because the City may not be able to prove its case against those citations issued between October 15th through November 1st at Armory Park. The City may not have been able to prove that there were signs posted showing the hours that the park was closed during that time.

WPA stamps can be seen all over Tucson

The weather’s been lovely for the past few days, but over the holidays, it became evident that the recent spate of rain has taken its toll on the roads of Tucson.  The main arteries of our city such as Speedway and Grant are an adventure in testing one’s suspension. I drive an American car with the suspension of a frat-house sofa, so I feel every single bump and jolt. If you feel a pothole needs attention, please consult this information below.

President Roosevelt’s New Deal created the WPA, which according to the Oklahoma Historical Society, “was to employ as many people as possible on projects that would provide long-term benefit to local communities. Ideally, workers would also receive on-the-job training to prepare them for further employment. The WPA made a significant impact on Oklahoma. Ultimately, of 166,000 Oklahomans certified for WPA jobs approximately 119,000 were employed at some point between 1935 and 1937. Including those recruited into a special drought-relief work program, more than half the state’s work relief recipients were farmers. To assure that private employment remained attractive, project wages were lower than prevailing rates. ”

In Arizona, one can see WPA stamps on many of the sidewalks and guardrails around the city. It’s an excellent reminder that the Federal government has done good work, and under decent management could do good work again, if we can just stop “conservatives” from screaming “socialism” every time somebody thinks the government should fix something. Arizona’s infrastructure grade, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, is a C.

REPORT GRADE: C
Definition of the Issue
The issue brief for Roadways is based on:
• Condition (Pavement)
• Need vs. Capacity (Congestion)
• Safety
• Funding

Grade
Although Arizona ranks high in Pavement Quality and does okay in Congestion, the final grade (C-) is low due to the fact that Arizona ranks very poorly on Safety, with Phoenix having one of the highest fatality rates of any city in the nation.

 

Condition (Pavement): B+
The condition of Arizona Urban and Rural pavements ranks pretty well nationally. This may be to the relatively benign climate in much of the state. Urban pavement quality benefits from the extensive amount of recent freeway construction in the Phoenix area.

 

Need vs. Capacity (Congestion): C
Keeping up with exploding population growth and roadway usage has been a challenge for Arizona. Phoenix’ roadway network has managed to keep pace with this growth thanks to the 1985 ½-cent sales tax which funded construction of hundreds of miles of freeways. The Tucson area has struggled to fund road improvements, and congestion is significantly worse there than for most other similar sized cities. Congestion in other parts of the state, especially in rapidly developing areas such as Prescott and Yuma, is a concern.

 

Safety: D
Perhaps the single most important finding of this study is that Arizona Roadways are among the deadliest in the nation. Arizona routinely ranks in the top 15 states in fatality rates, and Phoenix is the worst (2002 data) for auto and pedestrian fatality rates of any of our largest cities, with fatality rates nearly twice the national average for large cities. Tucson is only slightly better (editorial emphasis-qs).