Another Whodunnit

Cast of "Whodunnit?"

I wish they hadn't named the show "Whodunnit?" 'cause how would I know?  It doesn't even mean anything.  It's throwing me off.  Last night Melina became the next victim of the killer...?  She's the one I thought WAS the killer.  But, in the previews for next week she was walking near Giles (who is tied up with guns pointing at his head), so I'm not sure what's going on.

And, if the killer is Lindsey then that's no fun 'cause she was the obvious choice since she kept switching sides.  And, would the killer really win as often as Lindsey has?  Of course, if that's my criteria, the killer is Cam 'cause I don't think he's won as many as Chris or Lindsey.  And I don't think it's Cam.  Although he seems like he's 'acting' less than the others.  Cam or Chris seem like they've done some good work to get where they are.  Lindsey as well except I'm going to hop on board the 'Lindsey is the Killer' train.  

Oh, I don't know!

I guess at this point it doesn't matter.

I liked the idea of this game, and it's been compared to The Mole, but even in that series I couldn't figure out how I could play along to answer the question who is the Mole?  Or, in this case...Whodunnit?

I like the puzzles though and that's what keeps me coming back.

(I've previously written about "Whodunnit?" here and here)

The Kiss Off

"I do desire that we may be better strangers."

That's a nice kiss-off from "As You Like It"

I have no idea the context in which this line is spoken.  I have never read a Shakespeare play.  I believe I've seen a play or movie by, or based on, Shakespeare, but I couldn't tell you which ones or when.

Everything I know about Shakespeare is from other people's references to him or his stories.

I like to think I'm well read - but, I'm not.  I just listen to what people who are well read have to say.

(and even then, I forget quickly until it comes up again and then it will pop into my head)

I want to say "I do desire that we may be better strangers" to someone.  Love it.  Where did I hear this?  On Slate's Dear Prudence column today.  

Naked and Afraid in the Louisiana swamps

Ky Furneaux and Billy Berger in the Louisiana Swamps

Well, these two had a really wet adventure

They both seem like nice people

Billy was not a big ego on two feet. (Yay!)

In the swamps they had to be constantly on alert for snakes and alligators.  I never saw them jump or get startled when they saw the snakes in the water (that they were walking in).  

Really great episode.

All six of the Naked and Afraid episodes have been fantastic.  

In Borneo, Puma drank bad water, and had to be evacuated, leaving Julie alone for another week before she decided to leave a bit early.

I thought I'd mentioned all the episodes, but I guess I missed one...Laura and Clint in Panama?  

Next week is a final episode with a reunion of the participants in this season's six episodes.  

Fascinating stuff, and once again, I'm reminded how amazing our earliest ancestors were to have survived - thrived - in this world.  

I attribute it to the innate knowledge they had as biological beings (as with all other animals) and then that 'spark' that pushed us to build fire, and tools, and other things that make humans special.

That 'spark' is the interesting moment, right?

:) 

Let's talk about unions

A union is a combining of resources to accomplish a goal.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters is a union of workers
The Chamber of Commerce is a union of businesses.

Both have dues and both are involved in the political process to accomplish goals beneficial to them.

The logo on the UBC emblem is Labor Omnia Vincit, Latin for "Work conquers all"
The logo on the Chamber emblem says "Standing Up for American Enterprise"

People who say they're 'against unions' aren't really against unions.
Right?
They aren't against the Chamber of Commerce.
They aren't against their local neighborhood association.
They aren't against the Rotary Club.
They aren't against the National Federation of Independent Business.

People who say they're 'against unions' are either reflexively repeating what they've heard in conservative circles, or they are against workers.

Most of us are workers.  We have the right to organize into a group for our own best interests, just like the businesses do.

People may not like the way labor organizes their unions, but if that's the case, they should also take a look at the way big Pharma organizes, and the way the Banking system organizes.

Somebody has defined the conversation so that labor unions are bad.
I wonder who that was...

(I'm looking at you big business union, and people who have lots of money and want to keep more of it for yourselves)

Whodunnit, again.

This is who I think the killer is (Melina).  I've thought that for the last two episodes (if only I'd made this post last week I could prove it!).  All season long, she's been overreacting to the deaths, the reveal of the scare/spare cards,  and the 'creepiness' of the scenarios.  She acts like the innocent, but she's the killer.

One note though - I think this 'killer among us' thing isn't very interesting.  There's no way I can play along because based on what I see, anyone could be the killer.

So, my guess is based on intuition.  And none of the rest of them think it's her.

Mandela Day 2013

The first Mandela Day was in 2009, when Nelson Mandela was 91 years old. 

I heard about Nelson Mandela for the first time when he was in a South African prison. I heard a song on the radio - the only words were "Free-ee-ee Nelson Man-del-a" sung over and over.  I still hear the tune in my head.  

I must have started hearing his name more and more on the news.  I clued into it because I recognized his name from the song.

I recall the day he was freed from prison.  They broadcast it live.  I remember he walked out of the prison and down a long road lined with people cheering him.

And then everything started moving very fast in South Africa.  He became president, there was a Truth and Reconciliation council, there was scandal in the African National Congress (that was the name, right?)

I can't imagine what a strange time that must have been.  The whole South African society was changing.  

What must it be like to be this man?

How has he managed to inspire the world?  

I imagine he's fairly ordinary in many ways - even now there's bickering among his extended family and there have been some scandals (right?).

I don't know much about him.  

Courage.

He stood up against the state and wore them down.  

And then, he didn't seek revenge.  He moved forward.

Just like Gandhi.

Updated 7/21/2013 - I did the a small amount of Google research which reveals Mandela did end up advocating violence after years of nonviolence.  He was imprisoned for the violence.  So, not Ghandhi.  But, in any event - a remarkable, courageous life.

George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

photo from...

Everyone's talking about this.  Here are my two cents.  

George Zimmerman made the wrong choice to shoot Trayvon Martin.  If he was in fear for his life, but he could see Trayvon was only fighting with his fists, why didn't Zimmerman fire a warning shot first?  Or shoot him in the leg?  Why did he shoot to kill?  

Americans have a 2nd amendment right to own and carry deadly weapons.  They should also have a responsibility to pay the price when they use the weapon.  You use the gun, you pay the price.  Even if you think that's your only choice.  You saved your life, great.  Now the price to save your life is that you have to live in prison for an amount of time.  Not life, not even 20 to life, but some period of time.  

At least, though, you have a life to resume.  You killed a person and they don't have any life to resume.

Bottom line, we shouldn't have had any trial because he knows he shot Trayvon and there's no disputing that.  In my world, the only reason there may have to be a trial is to determine the length of the sentence...it could be longer if there was premeditation or cruelty or intent.  

That's what I think.

Let's just get rid of guns.  That would solve a lot of problems.

More on the Hijab...

Hollywood Game Night

I had high hopes for this show.  I like games.  I like to watch people play games.  I like to guess along while people on TV play games. 

I still like the idea of the show.  But, it's execution is making it less appealing.  

1.  Two teams competing...3 celebrities and a contestant on each team.

They sit on couches facing each other.  In the middle, is Jane Lynch, host.  And, at the end of each couch, a buzzer.  Problem:  Not all the celebrities care about the game.  It's annoying.

2.  Games on the pilot episode:  Crunch Time (name the snack item in the picture).  Really?  Take a Hint (one word clues to guess the person, place, or thing) I like it, if only people understood how to play.  Lil Picassos (children draw pictures of celebrities - name the celebrity).  Okay.  Timeline (put 6 pictures of one celebrity in order from earliest to latest).  Pretty fun - and only one celebrity had to get up off the couch.  And finally, Charade.  Fast moving.  Pretty good.   Bonus round was good.

3.  To play, one member of each team faces off for one question.  Then, another face-off with two other people.  And so on.  8 questions.  Each person has two questions, but not consecutively...they go through all four people and start over again for the second question.  So, for every exchange the celebrity has to get up off the couch (which is sunk pretty low so it's awkward to get up), walk up to the middle and around the buzzer podium so they're facing each other.  After ONE question, they go back around and back to the couch, inevitably bumping into the next two who are going up to the podium.  What a time waster.  And awkward and boring and uncomfortable.  I suspect they hope for crazy hijinks and interactions while they're switching places.  I'd rather watch people actually play a game.  They could set the stage up different and make the game a little more difficult. 

I just don't think it's fun to watch people not play a game. 

4.  I love Jane Lynch, but I wish she'd tone it down a bit.

I'll keep watching since it's already on my TIVO, I really like games, and maybe it will get better.  I know a lot of the Hollywood crowd like to play games so some of them are smart and ready to play.  And others?  Not so much.  Just hammy.  Ugh.

I'm reminded of the old Bert Convy show called "Win, Lose, or Draw".  

It's Pictionary with celebrities.  Lots of action.  Fun.  

Here's a YouTube of "Win, Lose, or Draw"

Naked and Afraid

 Episode 1 - Costa Rica - Kim and Shane

 Episode 2 - Tanzania - Kellie and EJ

Episode 3 - Maldives - Alison and Jonathon

I've watched three episodes of the Discovery Channel series "Naked and Afraid". 

A man and woman, strangers at the outset, are left, naked, in a wilderness location.  They're allowed to bring one survival item each.  The men chose hatchet, ax, and knfe.  Women chose fire starters and a cooking pot.  A small camera crew will follow them, with strict instructions not to interfere.  The adventure lasts for 21 days with no material prize at the end.  The only prize is the experience, the challenge, surviving and learning.  

I'm most proud of the women, but also proud of the men who, in the end, expressed their respect for their female partners.

Each of the men on the shows I watched were originally reluctant to accept their partner's skills and abilities; they were dismissive of the idea that a woman would be able to contribute equally, just because she's a woman.  In each instance, the women more than rose to the challenge.  

It's not that the women 'earned' the men's respect, it's that the men were forced to see they should have respected the women from the beginning.  

My favorite episode was Tanzania because it was easy to see how precarious life was for our ancestors. It's a miracle we survived.  

Check it out...Naked and Afraid on the Discovery Channel

The News is Back in the Morning

If you're me, you watch CBS This Morning.  

If you're not me, you might want to take a look.

The first hour focuses on news items, while the second hour is more interview and entertainment.

"Your world in 90 seconds" is a quick overview at the top of the show that gives the headlines of the morning.  

They regularly feature interviews with CEO's from a wide variety of companies.

Music between segments is fun.

News and Business - it's what I want.  

There are still irritating moments - sometimes the anchors don't listen to their guests, they don't allocate enough time for a complicated topic, and there's excessive flirting at times.  

Overall, though, I enjoy the show and feel I'm getting an informed start to my day.

A Commercial I Love

Geico's Hump Day commercial in AdWeek magazine.

This ad gives voice to the camels among us!  Love it.

Cover Yourself!

Photo Credit Erika Schultz

I've noted in another post that I'm offended when I see women who are fully covered.

I find it offensive that women - not men - are told it's their responsibility to be 'modest'.  

What of the modesty of men?  Men have huge egos.  Where is their sign of modesty?  

If I see men walking around covered from head to toe in a shapeless fabric, I'll believe there's more to this than the subjugation of women.  

When all women have the choice to cover or not cover, and men make similar choices for similar reasons, it will make sense to me.

Until then, I've linked to a blog post by Seattle Times photographer Erika Schultz in which she presents many women who cover.    

Fourth of July

Do people sing along to the music when they go to a Fourth of July fireworks show?  It's been so many years since I went to one I don't know what people are doing anymore.

If not, then I suggest that someone organize a sing-along with the fireworks show.  They can get a setlist from the organizers.  They'll put out the word that everyone who wants can learn the songs and sing along.  They'll meet at the north end of the park.  That would be fun.

And in later years there'd be the rebel group who would plan their own songs to sing and it wouldn't match the music at all.  They'd meet at the south end of the park.

There'd be a big rivalry between the establishment singers and the rebel singers.
But, it's about SINGING and that's GREAT!

It would be very American.

Celebrate our Godless Constitution

This is a paid ad from this morning's Seattle Times sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

I wish I could make it big enough to read on this blog post.  Check it out here.

Although I was surprised to see the ad, I'm glad I did.  I believe the concept of separation of church and state is always at risk.  We need to be vigilant and brave.  Religious people can become religious zealots.  

Benjamin Franklin

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, 'tis a sign , I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

Thomas Jefferson

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

Plastic Surgery

"Plastic Surgery" by LeWelsch

There are lots of reasons to get plastic surgery.  

I'm curious, though, about people who get plastic surgery to conform with their understanding of beauty.  

Survival of the fittest would say that people with 'beautiful' characteristics will be 'selected' for reproduction more often, which genetically promotes the characteristic.

People who get plastic surgery are hiding their supposed 'less than beautiful' characteristic, so they're mistakenly selected more often for reproduction.

As a result, the 'ideal' of beauty is reinforced in culture, but the people who think they're flawed in that ideal, are genetically passing on their flaw in greater numbers.

Strange.

CBS's "Under the Dome"

On Monday I watched the premiere episode of CBS's "Under the Dome".
It's based on a Stephen King novel that I've never read.

I thought it was an interesting idea.  A dome comes down on a town and they're stuck inside.  They can see outside the dome, but they can't hear and they can't pass through it.
What will happen?

Guess what?  I'm not going to watch it.
Why?  Because the stock characters - I'm so bored of these archetypes.  Can't anyone be mostly normal?  Wouldn't that be interesting enough?

1.  The town councilman is obviously bad and nobody in the town knows it.  He wants power.
2.  The councilman's son is a psychopath and nobody knows it.  He wants to hurt people and has already trapped a girl in a fallout shelter.
3.  The main hero guy is a mystery.  Is he good, is he bad?  We don't know yet.
4.  The journalist with a supposedly philandering husband.
As you might suspect the journalist and the hero have joined forces and he realizes her husband is the man he buried at the beginning of the episode (I missed the first few minutes, did he kill the guy? I don't know.)
5.  Earnest young high school kid who is curious and kind and has befriended the mysterious hero.  His parents are both outside the dome and his friends want to use his house for parties.
6.  Older cop who has a hand in some of the bad stuff happening in town, but he doesn't like it.
7.  Younger cop who is honest and true - she has a fireman boyfriend who's on the other side of the dome.
8.  A wealthy lesbian couple with a daughter who's been in trouble - they're taking her to a camp when they get caught inside the dome.

I enjoyed the show, but really didn't like the councilman and the councilman's son.  I don't dislike those characters because they're evil, I dislike them because there's no motivation for them to be evil.  They're evil only to cause trouble for the hero and the good guys.  I can't imagine it's always in their best interest to be evil, but they will be - just to be the bad guys.

Although the book had an answer for the dome, I read the creators of the television show are giving it a different answer.  They asked Stephen King about their change and, according to them, he liked it and wished he'd thought of it.

Given all that, I read the synopsis of the original Stephen King story.
Eh.
There was an original Star Trek episode about that.

So - good show for those of you who aren't tired of the same stock characters in the way I am.  If you haven't watched as much TV as I have - they're new to you...:)

ABC's "Whodunnit?"

On Sunday I watched the premiere episode of ABC's "Whodunnit?".
I was intrigued - I'll continue watching.

Although, in a couple ways, it confused me.

First, if the contestants are regular folks who signed up to be part of a game, how are they playing dead so well?
The first victim was electrocuted and it was real enough to be creepy.
In the 'morgue', three contestants examined her body for clues.  I would be too self-conscious to lay on the autopsy table realistically.
I suspect the first 'victim' was an actress, but what about the others?
I wouldn't have suspected there were this many ordinary folk who are that comfortable in front of cameras.

Second, the contestants are trying to figure out who the 'murderer' is, and it's one of them.  Very quickly there are alliances and lying.  One group of three who viewed the victim's body in the morgue decided to keep a clue all to themselves and then each one of them went back to the group and told someone else - and got mad at the other ones for telling.  Ridiculous.
So, someone is lying because they're the murderer.  Fine.
But, everyone else is lying too.  I can't tell if the format of the game encourages typical reality game lying, or if the idea of lying on a reality game is typical so no matter what the format, the players would respond the same way.
The contestants themselves make the reality game less interesting when they act unrealistically.  Do they lie in real life when trying to solve a problem?
Wouldn't it be nice if someone came up with a different way of playing?
I find that aspect irritating.

I still think it's a good show.  They had a puzzle that took some thinking (with a little luck), and the game has been setup well.  It reminds me of The Mole, which was also a fun reality game.

#StandWithWendy

Wendy Davis filibuster in Texas

Thank you Wendy!

I'm watching live on the Internet and it's horrifying and uplifting at the same time.  The Republicans are trying to ramrod sweeping anti-abortion laws through, Wendy Davis tried to filibuster, had three violations (weird), Senator Van de Putte (female) tried to call for a motion to adjourn and wasn't heard.  She said "At what point must a female senator raise her hand to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?"  At that point, the people started clapping and shouting and the voting was suspended (?)  I think they're trying to get to midnight without the vote being completed.  The crowd's been going strong for almost 10 minutes now.  The State troopers are not quieting the people down.  Crazy stuff.
Thank you to all the people who are making an effort to keep a woman's right to control her own body.

Except, I think in the end, the 'question was adopted'.  It's moving too fast for me to know what's going on as it's happening.  I don't really know what the 'question' was...parliamentary procedure is hard to follow.

None of this is on the 24 hour news networks.
No wonder the Internet is winning.

Update 6/27/2013
Governor Rick Perry has called the state senate back into special session on July 1 to vote on SB5 again.  It's expected to easily pass the Republican controlled Senate.
Wendy Davis is getting lots of media attention.
She energized a lot of people and made everyone proud.
I would like Senator Van de Putte to get some attention as well...her question was great..

ALEC - American Legislative Exchange Program

Check out Moyers and Company - "United States of ALEC-A Follow-Up"
ALEC claims to be a "nonpartisan public-private partnership".
Their members are big corporations and legislators.

How are we ever going to get our government back?