lines in the sand

Please don't vote

The Sentinel recently recently complained about low voter turnout for local elections.  I told them it's okay.

Don't vote unless you care -- OrlandoSentinel.com.

The Sentinel asks where the voters are and has a suggestion to get them out:

Schedule local elections to coincide with national races that attract more interest.

Sounds good, but it would mean low-profile issues would be lost in the glare of the glamorous races. Some people would show up to vote for president and also cast a ballot for dogcatcher of some town they didn't even know had dogs.

Low turnout is not really a problem, because officials should be chosen by those who care enough to show up. I don't want my carefully considered vote offset by someone who gives his to a guy he never heard of because his name is listed first on the ballot. With a multitude of polling places open for 12 hours on Election Day and absentee ballots available for weeks before that, voting is already more convenient than going to a movie. People who care less about an election than the latest Hollywood feast of blood (laughs, music, sex -- whatever) should just go on to the show.

Those who do care will not be kept from voting by movies, wild horses, rain, sleet or snow. The problem is not too few voting, it's too few caring.

DOUG MURRAY

Beowulf - Sixth Century Jock

We went to the movie this weekend.  When you pay thirteen dollars apiece to see a 3D film on an IMAX screen,  you clearly expect an extraordinary visual experience.  Beowulf delivers.  Wishing for a better script or performance doesn't' really matter.  I enjoyed the heck out of this movie.

The warrior in the title is a very-full-of-himself hero eager to describe his exploits with exagerations of exagerations.  After telling of killing nine creatures on one occasion, one of his men is overheard saying,”Last time it was three.”  He is like a stereotypical high school quarterback except his sport is monster slaying.  When he reminds his men they are in it “for the glory” you know he means it.

True to the Old English poem, Beowulf arrives to take on the monster Grendel, who had crashed the  feast christening  King Hrothgar's fancy new mead hall and left it a bloody mess, literally.  After dispatching Grendel, he finds he must deal with the fiend's rather upset mother, which turns into a tougher assignment.  And, as in the epic, he battles a dragon later in life.

The monsters make up three major courses of the visual feast.  Grindel, looking like something back from a very large grave, is plenty repulsive but also has an innocent side.  His mother, Angelina Jolie wearing only a film of gold and an eight foot pony tail terminating in scorpionish pincers, is pure evil and you can't possibly look away.  The dragon in the finale is just plain awsome, possibly my favorite film lizard ever.

If I were a reveiwer awarding stars Beowulf would get all five, not because it's perfect but because it's just so much fun.

Made the Papers

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today.

Bottom Stories of the Day

...
* "Accountants Will Meet in Lakeland"--headline, News Chief (Winter Haven, Fla.), Nov. 13

That's two links in a row for Mr. Taranto.  He should give this paper a break, since in a town like Winter Haven it doesn't take much to qualify as news.  They proved it just last Sunday by publishing an interview with me (paragraphs 11-12).

They actually missed the real story.  The plane pictured in the article was used a short while later to pull a water skier across a nearby lake.  In Winter Haven, water skiing is supposed to be big stuff.

Nostalgia or Just Gas?

Link: OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today.

Baaaad Memory

They say if you can remember the 1960s, you weren't there, and the News-Press of Fort Myers, Fla., has a case in point:

The crowd was light at lunch during the inaugural Peace Fair on Saturday and Jerry Tierney, 56, was not pleased with the apathy.

    "I don't think there is enough being done right now--we're a bunch of sheep," Tierney said.

    Tierney said the 1960s brought a better response to both war and being gouged at the gas pump.

    "We used to boycott the gas stations but now people just shrug and say 'what can you do,' " Tierney said. "If it takes a grass roots effort like this, so be it."

Tierney remembers being "gouged at the gas pump" in the 1960s? We're not as old as he is, but we distinctly remember gasoline cost about a quarter a gallon until 1973, when the Arab embargo and OPEC production cuts caused prices to skyrocket. Maybe someone boycotted gas stations then, though it wouldn't have done any good.

Everybody boycotted gas stations in the sixties but it does take more effort now.  I learned to drive then and we boycotted the quarter gas stations in favor of the one on the next corner selling it for 23 cents.  They were called "gas wars" and were a very popular sport.  There were times when I paid less than 20 cents and "a dollar's worth, please" was a common order (it was illegal to pump it yourself.)

And there always was another station on the next corner.  Most had two pumps, big ones four, and if there were six it was probably a government fuel depot.  This evening I filled up at a RaceTrac station that has thirty-two pumps, or sixteen blocks worth of sixties stations that were all competing against each other.

No, this isn't a diatribe about the Wal-Marts of gas stations killing competition, because we can still boycott the ones that charge more than we need to pay.  Back then, we avoided the gougers that charged an unconscionable 33 cents.

Gasbuddy.com
Mapquest Gas Prices
MSN Autos - Local Gas Prices

Shuttle Pic

 

Shuttle Landing at KSC

I think this guy has a pass.

Give a man a fish...

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.

Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
-Lao Tzu

Buy his fish from him and you begin to make him wealthy.
-Me

TJIC explains to Beth Hanley how helping the poor instead of advocating for them will make her and them both better off.

Na, meet H2O

She: Can you believe those idiot frat boys threw a washing machine off the roof of their house?

He:  A washing machine?  Cool!!

Or better yet, toss ten tons of sodium into a lake!

HT: Coyote Blog