Monday, January 18, 2010
Two or three random notes
OK, maybe five random notes.
Going through security at Newark Liberty, the TSA team spotted a small corkscrew that I had accidentally left in my travel toiletries kit. They calmly extracted it, tossed it in the garbage, and waived me through with no worries. Didn't even shut down the airport. All good judgment, I thought, and I apologize for having forgotten about it.
On the flight from Newark to Puerto Rico, just completed, I saw the new remake of the movie "Fame." What a mess. The original version from my college years (late Seventies) was orders of magnitude better, and free from at least one amateurish error: One of the kids purportedly comes from "Sioux Falls, Iowa." Of course, there is no such place. It is Sioux City, Iowa. Sioux Falls is in South Dakota. Like, who doesn't know that?
Then, on arrival at my room in a comfortable Courtyard Marriott I switched on Fox and saw a segment on (retired) Senator Bill Frist's humanitarian surgery in Haiti. He flew all day, got off the plane with the rest of his surgical team, and went straight to work. Dr. Frist has been doing this stuff for years, going to Africa and other hellish places and performing weeks of pro bono surgery, generally beyond the vision of the press or the flacks. He used to write a slightly trafficked blog on the work, but it has since been taken down. I captured an example of his work in this post, though, almost three years ago. I always thought Frist was the right stuff, and wish that he would return to politics. We need more like him very badly.
Finally, I read a good bit of Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
Oh. And I spoke to two Democratic friends of mine today, both of whom said they would vote for Scott Brown if they lived in Massachusetts. Or even Massachusettes. So there you go.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jan 19, 06:34:00 AM:
Being a native of Sioux City, Iowa, I'm glad you told me this. I probably wouldn't have seen this movie, but now I certainly won't.
Also, did I miss the post where you celebrated the Hawkeyes dominating victory in the Orange Bowl?
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Tue Jan 19, 09:01:00 AM:
Like, who doesn't know that?
The same imbecile writers who get even the most trivial Sci/Tech details wrong in their scripts when something good enough to not be an embarrassment is a Bing/Google search away.
A large reality suppression and hubris amplification field encloses Hollywood.
By , at
Tue Jan 19, 11:06:00 AM:
TH - did your two Democratic friends say why they would vote for Brown instead of Coakley? I think this is instructional. Is it the candidate or statement against the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda?
By Bomber Girl, at
Tue Jan 19, 12:56:00 PM:
I am shocked, shocked to find that TH has Democratic friends.
By , at
Tue Jan 19, 01:29:00 PM:
It's Princeton. It would get very lonely if one didn't have Democrat friends! I'm even married to a Democrat (though, after 26 years of filing joint returns, she's slowly coming around and may soon be a Republican).
