Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Tom Cruise Front-Runner for Worst Acting Award

Yahoo! Movies: Movie News –
Cruise will compete for the year’s worst actor award with Will Ferrell (“Bewitched,” “Kicking & Screaming”), Jamie Kennedy (“Son of the Mask”), Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (“Doom”) and Rob Schneider (“Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo”).

It seems to me that Rob Schneider has done some work that wasn’t so bad. His original “American Gigolo” movie, for example, was sort of cute. I haven’t paid any attention to Jamie Kennedy, so I can’t comment on him. The Rock — hey, who watches him for his acting, anyway?? And Will Ferrell — I know he’s famous but I haven’t paid any attention to him either.

Tom Cruise, on the other hand — oh, I’ve been noticing him for years! He’s a terrible actor — always has been! He’s completely wooden. He’s one-dimensional. He’s got a single sort of “duh” look that he assumes whenever he’s supposed to be “feeling” something on screen. And he’s ugly — in an “electrolysis cured my uni-brow” sort of way. AND, do I even need to mention that he’s really stupid? (I mean, really… Scientology?!? What a joke!)

I’ll certainly be rooting for him to win at the Razzies, though. It would be good to see him get some of the recognition he truly deserves.

Diphenhydramine HCI

Maybe, like me, you take diphenhydramine HCI once in a while to help get to sleep. You might know it as Nytol, Unisom (sleepgels), or as the “sleepy” ingredient in Tylenol PM. (And, by the way, don’t take the Tylenol PM if you don’t have PAIN. Tylenol can fuck up your liver if you take too much of it.) The Tylenol people are also now selling something they call Simply Sleep — that’s just diphenhydramine HCI too.

Here’s the thing, if you’re at the grocery store or pharmacy looking for this stuff, STAY AWAY FROM THE BRAND NAMES OR EVEN THE GENERIC STUFF SOLD AS A “SLEEP AID”. It’s so much more expensive that way. Instead, what you want to do is wander on over to the antihistamine aisle and look for the generic equivalent of Benadryl. Check out the active ingredient… uh-huh, Diphenhydramine HCI, 25 mg, just like in the sleep aids.

Today I bought a generic “allergy relief” — straight diphenhydramine HCI — for a third the price of the very same drug sold as a “sleep aid” — same doseage, same number of capsules per package. The same drug! And I’m just talking about a generic-to-generic price comparison here! The generic antihistamine was about a quarter the price of the brand name “sleep aid”.

What a racket!

Just be sure, if you get the generic antihistamine instead of the “sleep aid”, that there aren’t any other ingredients in the antihistamine that might keep you awake. You want just plain diphenhydramine HCI.

Good stuff.

Yawn.

Toast the Earth with Exxon Mobil

Exxon Mobil has just announced that in 2005 they made a $36.13 billion profit — the biggest profit ever recorded by an American corporation. No doubt they’ll use some of that money to buy more fake scientific reports to dispute the reality of global warming, they’ll use a few million more to lobby for drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and of course there’s a big pile of money reserved for “campaign contributions”. Can’t forget those! (They keep managing to forget to reimburse some of the losses from the Valdez oil spill, though… hm…)

Months ago I took the “Exxpose Exxon” pledge and quit buying these creep’s gasoline. You should do the same thing. In the meanwhile, check out this great little video on the Exxpose Exxon site.

The Republican Party Attracts More Bigots

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases
Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups. That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

I’m shocked. Simply shocked.

Heh, heh… NOT!

This is interesting. I actually participated in the online implicit association test they talk about in this article. You can read about my experience here.

The Generosity of James Galway

The flutist Sir James Galway has recently become involved with a Yahoo chat group: Galway-Flute-Chat.

Even if you’re not a flutist, you’ve very likely heard of James Galway. He’s been on The Muppets, for heaven’s sake! He’s sold more records than probably any “classical” musician before him — certainly more than any other flutist. He’s a really famous guy. And for good reason, he is without a doubt one of the best flutists in the world. (I won’t say he’s THE best only because at that level it’s largely a matter of personal preference.) Anyway, so he’s BIG.

And yet, this really hugely important and busy man very regularly takes the time to answer people’s questions on the Galway-Flute-Chat group. Get this: one Russian girl studying in London was having trouble figuring out the best way to hold her flute so she asked about it on the group. Sir James has arranged to meet with her before an upcoming concert in London to help her. Can you believe it? In a post I’m reading this morning, Sir James is explaining how he became a famous soloist — someone asked!

Clearly, the great one is comfortable enough in his role that he can give to others. He’s in no danger of losing his position at the top! As a friend of mine recently remarked, Galway’s reached the top of Maslow’s heirarchy. He’s self-actualized.

Besides all of his written (and occasional “in person”) advice, Sir James has also been making audio recordings to help with various flute technique issues. He posts these on his web site for any member of the Galway-Flute-Chat group to download. They’re things like “Here’s how I practice scales”, “Here’s what I do to practice tone”, “Here’s how I practice the Taffanel exercise number 1″…. And it’s more than him just playing. He also explains what he’s doing and why. Each recording is like having a private lesson with the master. If you’re a flutist, it’s just an amazingly wonderful thing!

Certainly there have been other famous musicians who have been wonderful, giving teachers. But Sir James Galway is the first (that I know of) to use the internet in such a creative way.

If you’re a flutist, you absolutely MUST join this group.

The Green Goat

Sierra Club Compass: Green Goats
Hybrid cars may get all the attention, but hybrid locomotives are also making inroads.

This is pretty cool. The Green Goat is a hybrid switcher — a locomotive that moves train cars around in the rail yard. It’s impressive that RailPower, the company that manufactures the Green Goat, has gone to the effort. Using trains to ship goods around the country is already significantly more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than using trucks. Now, the Green Goat makes it even better.

If you’re into trains, you really need to check out the Green Goat Demonstration Video on RailPower’s web site — just click on the link above.

RailPower is a Canadian company. No surprise THERE, eh? Those Canadians….

I Love Eugene Robinson

Using Our Fear
[Bush's] political grand vizier, Karl Rove, was perfectly transparent the other day when he emerged from wherever he’s been hiding the past few months — consulting omens, reading entrails — and gave the Republican National Committee its positioning statement for the fall elections: Vote for us or die.

Bwahahahahah! Heh…ah… very good!

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson is always so good — so right on. What a cool guy.

Another View of the Palestinian Election

If it irritates you to have to sit through an ad in order to read an article on salon.com, here’s another view of the Hamas victory from the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr.

Two Elections and a Lesson
But the world is a complicated place. Of course free elections in Iraq are hugely better than dictatorship. But when free elections become more a census to count members of warring ethnic and religious factions than a way of settling underlying disputes, they do not necessarily pave the way for enduring democracy. They do not provide voters with ways of test-driving the various alternatives.

I think Dionne is making the common mistake of thinking “dictatorship” automatically means “evil meanie in charge”. A dictatorship need not be a bad things for the people who live under one. (Ergo, the term “benevolent dictator”.) Particularly if those people, like the Palestinians and Iraqis, are so strongly tied to their different ethnic identities that they are unable to consider what would be best for their entire country outside of what would best for their particular group.

It’s like I said before: individualism vs collectivism. We here in the United States have a strong cultural history of individualism that, for the most part, enables us to be more objective about choosing our leaders.

Democracy, Yes, But Not Our Kind of Democracy.

Salon.com | How do you like your democracy now, Mr. Bush?
But then when Bush was asked if the United States would end aid to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas government was formed, he implied that it would, unless Hamas changed its platform, which opposes the existence of the state of Israel on the grounds that the territory belongs to the Palestinians. He said, “Well, I made it very clear that the United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally Israel, and that people must renounce that part of their platform.”

Talk about a classic example of “Watch what you wish for, you just might get it.”

Haven’t I said it over and over?

Insisting that all countries adopt Democracy is stupid.

I guess Bush believes in two kinds of Democracy: the good kind where “the people” elect rulers who do what WE want them to do, and the bad kind where “the people” elect rulers who do what THEY think is right.

Two of Six

If you listen to a classical music radio station at all you must know that January 27th will be the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. Mozart and his wife had six children, of whom only two survived into adulthood. This was the typical survival rate for children at that time.

Can you imagine it? Knowing that your child had only a 1 in 3 chance of living? It might make a person less likely to become very attached to their infant — knowing it most likely wouldn’t survive. In fact, I’ve read that this was true. People just didn’t have the same kind of deep feeling for their children back then. (Which is not to say they didn’t love them.) It kind of puts that whole “child labor” thing into a new perspective. If you’re lucky enough to have a kid who lives to an age where he could actually be useful, you might as well take advantage of that.

Whatever. So, of Mozart’s six kids, only two lived to adulthood. Neither of them married. One was some kind of financial bureaucrat. The other, who was only about 5 months old when Mozart died, became a mediocre musician.

I guess having kids must be pretty much a crap shoot no matter how you look at it.