Voting 3rd Party != Abstentionism (VT statewide officers edition)

A recent post at Green Mountain Daily argues that "a vote for a third party candidate this time around is the same as abstentionism."  That depends.  If you believe that, in the case no candidate receives a majority of popular vote, the General Assembly will elect the Republican or Democrat candidate that you prefer, then a vote for a third party candidate is in effect a vote for your preferred major party candidate.  Plus, if you truly prefer a third party candidate, you effectively get to exercise a limited sort of IRV.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)

Woo, video games.  So, Steam was offering KotOR for $10, so now I've finally played some of it.  I didn't realize that it was based on d20, so that was an interesting surprise.  So far, the game holds up pretty well after 7 years, and loads pretty zippily on a 2006-era desktop.  It's neat to see where BioWare improved on the GUI for DA:Origins -- certain actions in KotOR (going into stealth mode, equipping your character, saving the game) require way too many clicks and are agonizing.  What's a little frustrating is that even DA's equipping GUI isn't as good as Wizardry 8's (a 2001 release).  Sigh.  How hard can it be to drag and drop from the inventory to the paper doll?

Revolutionary Road (1961)

I finished this book on September 7 and returned it to the library weeks ago, but haven't managed to put this together until now.  


Arrrr, thar be spoilers below.


I remember seeing that there existed a Kate Winslet movie called Revolutionary Road, but didn't realize until after reading this book that it was based on this book.  Doink.  I'm very slightly amused to think that this what would have happened to Rose & Jack if Jack had survived; that is, if they were teleported 28 years into the future after the sinking of the Titanic and then lived through WWII before the events of the book.


So, funny story.  When I reached the part about April's 3rd pregnancy, I gave Sarahmac the plot summary to that point, and mentioned the rubber syringe thing.  Sarahmac then gave me a lecture (in the academic sense) about how the internal hemorrhaging mortality rate for young women dropped dramatically after Roe v. Wade because women could get abortions safely.  I said I didn't really think the story was about that, but as it turns out, that's precisely the takeaway for me, even if Richard Yates didn't intend it to be.  He is quoted as saying: 

I think I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the 1950s. Because during the Fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs — a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price.

I'm somewhat conflicted as to whether the novel succeeds at this.  Frank and April openly deride the conformity of the suburbs at the beginning of the novel, but I feel we're given very little actual evidence of it in their community, and they display a kind of blind, desperate clinging to the idea that they are exceptional.  Well, maybe Frank isn't exceptional.  Maybe his talent lies in writing good marketing copy.  April simply made the mistake of falling in love with her idea of what Frank could be, rather than what he was (which she couldn't have fallen in love with).  Frank's great sin is a lack of communication with April concerning his fears of her plan to move to Europe.  This is not a lust for conformity, but an inability to accept that he can't live up to expectations.

The fight against innumeracy

The Vermont News Guy is in my Reader on a trial basis, and so far I'm fairly happy.  And I should love his post on Numbers and Words, but unfortunately while railing against innumeracy, he commits the crime himself.  Sigh.  To wit, the problematic portion of the post says:

Vermonters between the ages of five and 17 had almost the same poverty rate (10.6 percent) as the entire population, but the rate for children under five was a surprisingly high 16.2 percent. Even that was lower than in most other states. In Mississippi, more than 30 percent of children under five were poor.

Unlike most states in the deep South, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and both Dakotas, no county in Vermont had a poverty rate of anywhere close to 30 percent. Still, there were obvious – and perhaps not surprising – differences among the state’s 14 counties. The lowest rate was Grand Isle County’s 8.4 percent; the highest Essex County’s 14.8 percent.

The rates in the rest of the state were as follows: Addison 10.4; Bennington 12.2;  Caledonia 11.8; Chittenden 9.6; Franklin 9,9; Lamoille 10.1; Orange 10.9; Orleans 14.3; Rutland 11.6; Washington 9.7; Windham 9.8; Windsor 9.3.

When he notes that no county in Vermont had a poverty rate close to 30 percent, that 30 percent benchmark is set by the percentage of children under five in poverty in Mississippi.  For the state of VT, the poverty rate for children under five is 16.2, but then he lists the poverty rate for all people, instead of the rate for children under five, by county.  What he wants to look at are the by-county poverty rates for children under 5.

Snow Cake (2006)

Has autism become passé?  Dustin Hoffman rode it to a Best Actor Oscar in 1988 by playing someone with roughly the same affect and self-direction as Ben Braddock.  Leonardo DiCaprio got a Best Supporting nomination in '93 for What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  Sean Penn got a nomination in '01 for I am Sam.  


So why no love for Sigourney Weaver?  Ignoring the ridiculousity of Carrie-Ann Moss's character staying in that podunk for 12 years instead of moving to the city (and it *is* ridiculous; that desperately required some explanation, even a throwaway line that gives us something to cling to while we suspend disbelief), this is a good little film in which Weaver succeeds at portraying a more difficult character than Raymond Babbitt.  It's not like the Academy was full up at the Best Actress slot; they gave a nomination to Meryl Streep for the Devil Wears Prada!  And yes, I love watching Meryl Streep, and she's having a ton of fun in Prada, but it's not more worthy of a Best Actress nomination than Sigourney Weaver in Snow Cake.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

I'm always nervous about watching old comedies, even highly rated ones; some of them make me worried about generational differences in perception of humor and my kids won't understand that Better Off Dead is a work of genius.  Some Like It Hot starts off shaky, but if they cut the first 15 minutes, which don't tell us anything we need to know, it's pretty good.  Certainly not best comedy of all time good (and not even as good as Better Off Dead), but it has a great last line and I'm glad I saw it.

Was 2008 a truly crappy year for films?

We saw 2 of the 5 nominees for the 2009 Best Picture award within the last few days: Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  We couldn't figure out why Slumdog was 2 hours long; once the clever formula was established, it's only clever for a few iterations, but every damn mini-story ended with an interminable chase scene.  When I go to see another movie about India, I'll see one made by Indians, like Lagaan.  Benjamin Button never managed to build up enough steam to get me interested.  I had this odd sense of deja vu, like I was watching Forrest Gump, but with the main character aging backwards instead of being an idiot.