Author Archives: shaun

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At the time of the hijacking, a lot of the news reports focused on Captain Phillips and the nominal exoticism of a 21st-century piracy that had nothing to do with illegal downloads, football or Johnny Depp swashbuckling through a Disney franchise. The existential realities that inform contemporary Somali piracy turn out to be one of the unexpected themes of “Captain Phillips,” which begins as something of a procedural about men at work and morphs into a jittery thriller even as it also deepens, brilliantly, unexpectedly, into an unsettling look at global capitalism and American privilege and power. Phillips is unambiguously a heroic figure, but he’s scarcely the sole point of interest in a movie that steadily and almost stealthily asserts the agonized humanity of his captors.

This humanization hits you like a jolt. The shock isn’t that the pirates are people, however corrupted. But that even as the movie’s rhythms quicken along with your own — Mr. Greengrass works you over like a deep-tissue pugilist with smash cuts, racing cameras and a propulsive soundtrack so you feel the urgency as well as see it — an argument is being created. There is, you realize, meaning here beyond the plot, meaning in the barren Somali hamlet in which Muse and his companions congregate under warlord gunpoint and in the razored angles of their startling, gaunt faces. There’s meaning, too, in the wild eyes and stained teeth of men who never eat, but stuff their thin cheeks with khat, the amphetaminelike plant that, among its uses, helps suppress the appetite.

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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/movies/captain-phillips-stars-tom-hanks-as-a-high-seas-hostage.html?ref=todayspaper

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But you know what separates the “good” from the “significant”? Exposure. Not just initial exposure, like the hoopla surrounding the relatively unpopular Girls, but endured attention and familiarity. Viewers of broad ages and classes and tastes watching. Syndication used to do some of this work for us: that’s how I consumed M*A*S*H, My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, classic Saturday Night Live, original Star Trek, and even MacGyver. It was MTV reruns, for example, and not ABC, that made My So-Called Life a cultural touchstone: the two words “Jordan Catalano” stand in for a host of dude-related agonies and ecstasies. Granted, you could watch Sex and the City on TBS, and The Wire on BET. But those were Frankenstein edits of the originals — and what little extended cable this generation does watch, it’s generally new content.

Netflix, and other forms of cheap streaming, thus takes up the role formerly occupied by second-run syndication. Only unlike the reruns of M*A*S*H I’d watch every night at 7:00 pm, these reruns are there whenever I want them and without commercials. With the rise of streaming services, we’ve avoided the term “rerun” and its connotations of the hot, bored days of summer. But apart from its foray into original programming, that’s what Netflix is: a distribution service of reruns. And as with second-run syndication, what’s available is what gets watched; what gets watched becomes part of the conversation. It’s not a question of quality, in other words, it’s one of availability.

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– http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/deartv/77/

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“A sitcom essentially takes life situations and makes them less boring through unlikely, quirky, and slightly absurd twists. Something always happens in a sitcom — someone gets sick, or a miscommunication causes problems — but there is always a resolution, and in hindsight, the conflict was wholly innocuous. Sitcoms often try to depict TV life as a considerably less boring version of our lives, but that their reach is so limited often makes the shows boring in of themselves. (A county fair gone awry, Tracy Jordan is acting up again!). That our sitcoms, embroidered versions of our lives, start to feel boring is a testament to the prevalent sterility and innocuousness of our daily lives (Wake up, go to work, come home, family time, watch TV, et cetera). It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, if only for a mere twenty-two minutes a week, gives us a chance to enter a world without stakes; their idle schemes are the elixir for our idle generation. For those twenty-two minutes we don’t need to pretend about how boring our lives can be. We can accept it,rage against ennui, and become nihilists: throw glass bottles, blow up cars, be mean to homeless people, make fun of religion, not care about other people, try all of the drugs especially (and frequently) huffing glue, go on welfare just for the fun of it, make fun of molestation, get black-out drunk, dabble in possible incest, hang out under the bridge or in sewers, and generally just act like the stupid, selfish, destructive, children we all want to be from time to time.”

– https://medium.com/editors-picks/cac888bc7f8e

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“Black pepper’s popularity dropped off a bit in the early 17th century, following the discovery of chili peppers in the New World and the expansion of the European diet beyond gruel. But it came roaring back during the Enlightenment. It was, once again, the royal chefs of Louis XIV’s court that elevated black pepper to its current status. Louis the XIV was a notoriously picky eater and preferred his food as lightly seasoned as possible—he considered seasoning a vulgar act. In fact, he banned outright the use of all eastern spices beyond salt, pepper, and parsley (deemed more wholesome and exquisite than ruddy cardamom). Black pepper’s spiky, pungent flavor provided just enough kick to the King’s meals without overwhelming the taste of the underlying foods to satiate his needs.”

– http://gizmodo.com/how-salt-and-pepper-became-the-yin-and-yang-of-condimen-1258049326

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“Purely for the sake of health insurance, people stay in jobs they aren’t suited to—a phenomenon that economists call “job lock.” “With the new law, job lock goes away,” Arensmeyer said. “Anyone who wants to start a business can do so independent of the health-care costs.” Studies show that people who are freed from job lock (for instance, when they start qualifying for Medicare) are more likely to undertake something entrepreneurial, and one recent study projects that Obamacare could enable 1.5 million people to become self-employed.”

– http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/10/14/131014ta_talk_surowiecki

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Before the widespread industrialization of the dairy industry, most butter in the United States was made with cultured (also called clabbered) cream. Fresh cream from the evening milking would be allowed to sit out overnight so that the milk could settle and the cream could rise to the top.

During those unrefrigerated hours, the micro-organisms in the milk caused it to sour ever so slightly, taking on a nutty tanginess. This cream was then churned into butter, which retained those delightful flavors.

Once all dairy was routinely pasteurized the active cultures were killed, and therefore the milk could no longer sour on its own. Thus it became easier for farmers to make butter out of sweet cream, because creating cultured cream added another step (live cultures would have to be added back into the pasteurized milk, which is now standard practice in Europe).

This country grew used to the milder taste of sweet cream butter. That is, until it rediscovered cultured butter via the imported European stuff back in the 1990s. Because of its growing popularity, a handful of American dairy farmers started producing European-style high-fat cultured butter.

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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/dining/making-cultured-butter-at-home.html?ref=todayspaper

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“In a classic example of parody coming to life, a newly published patent filing reveals Google’s ambitions to solve one of the most troublesome challenges known to humanity: Splitting the bill at the end of a meal.

The filing outlines a system (such as a mobile app) for automatically storing information about group expenses, tracking how much is owed by different people in the group, and ultimately settling the balance by transferring money between their respective accounts.”

– http://www.geekwire.com/2013/joke-google-seeks-patent-splitting-restaurant-bills/

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Hospitals don’t have poverty wards; if a patient comes in the door in bad shape, they don’t do a wallet biopsy before deciding what care that person should receive—everyone at a hospital receives the same quality. But if a community has a higher number of uninsured, that means the latest and greatest technology and treatments will drive up the amounts of unreimbursed care. In essence, hospitals that provide the best, most modern, and most expensive treatments in an area with lots of uninsured will be forced to pass unsustainable amounts of cost to their prices. Insurance companies won’t pay it, local governments won’t finance it, and the hospitals will go out of business.

The only option then? Don’t provide the top-quality care to anyone—insured or not. That keeps the cost of uncompensated care down and lets the hospital stay in business.

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– http://www.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/10/truth-obamacare-already-insured

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The Pope comes in and shakes my hand, and we sit down. The Pope smiles and says: “Some of my colleagues who know you told me that you will try to convert me.”

It’s a joke, I tell him. My friends think it is you want to convert me.

He smiles again and replies: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”

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– http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_english-67643118/?ref=HRER3-1

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