Yesterday was one of those days reading Facebook made me feel stupider. A number of Friends of the NN.C Empire noted that George Steinbrenner managed to die during the Year of No Estate Tax, saving his heirs millions. And one of their friends — because I hope I don’t have friends this dumb — wondered if we might see a rash of rich-old-people suicides, as the year draws to a close.

And then, with a soft click and faint buzz, a compact fluorescent bulb went on over my head. Elevator pitch!

After enjoying a holy and prayerful Christmas with his family, a rich man considers suicide on New Year’s Eve, to avoid the fearsome Death Tax. He stands on a bridge built with stimulus money, ready to take the leap, when he’s approached by the angel ghost of Ronald Reagan, who convinces him to wait. The two visit a world where the man’s grandchildren nod on heroin binges with Kennedy offspring, having been relieved of the burden of earning a living. The man wonders what happened to his old hero when the ghost tells him this isn’t the result of confiscatory death taxes but the relaxation of social norms in place for generations. They go back in time and kill the inventor of birth control, several labor leaders, and all the filthy hippies they can find, for God. They return to the present, and there is no President Obama, just a thousand-year GOP reich, er, democratically elected government, which is lean and funded by a 3 percent flat tax on income.

“How can I get out of paying this 3 percent?” the man asks, as Reagan prepares to depart. The Gipper ghost winks and says, “That’s for the sequel” and disappears to the sound of ringing bells across the land.

So, it needs a little work. But I think it has promise for one of those right-wing movie-making projects. Mel Gibson can play the lead. I’m pretty sure he’ll be available.

Actually, I didn’t have much time for Facebook yesterday. It was crazy busy, interrupted by a trip downtown to check an election filing that wasn’t downtown, I learned, but in Lansing, and on the web to boot. OK. But a trip downtown is never wasted, especially when you can visit the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. And find a street parking spot. I drove home along Jefferson, just for the hell of it — freeways are fine for getting where you need to go in a hurry, but the scenery’s better at street level. The town’s not looking any better than it did the last time I took the long way home, but it’s not looking worse. In this economy, that counts as redevelopment. Hang in there, crazytown.

So, the I Write Like meme was sweepin’ the internets yesterday, and I paused long enough to plug a few paragraphs in the analyzer, to see which famous writer I write like:

I write like
Leo Tolstoy

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Oh, I do not. Let’s try again:

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Hmm. One more time:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I’m thinking this is randomizing crap. But entertaining.

Why it sucks to look for work in the digital age.

Finally, a funny from Sara Benincasa. She sounds just like her.

And away we go.

Anybody who’s been to the movies with me knows how much I love a good montage scene. A bad one — and there are so many — not so much, but a good one? Glorious. Nothing like a lot of quick scenes accompanied by music to get a lot of storytelling water carried in a short time. They’re easy to screw up, but when they work, nothing feels more cinematic to me. You can’t do a montage on the stage, nor on the page.

What does a montage do? It collapses time. How did Rocky manage to fly up those museum steps so easily? It was all that training. How do we get the couple from first date to the night of the proposal? A fall-in-love sequence. They’re made to order for any movie or show with lots of characters, because it allows you to put an epilogue on the whole season, or even series, without having to do too much ponderous, expository writing. The rest of the crew will work harder than ever. A good montage is no small trick.

I was hoping to post a clip from one of the most famous, and maybe my favorite of all — the baptism scene from “The Godfather,” but it looks like the copyright police have been out on YouTube lately, and I can’t find an unadulterated cut. But what the hell, you’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. I remember reading somewhere that the scene was the result of a lot of bad footage from the church scenes. It was too dark except for just a few shots, and Coppola’s editor said, “Hang on, I think we can still save this.” That might be urban legend, but I like it. Sometimes art is an accident.

There’s no doubt David Chase’s second-season ender on “The Sopranos” was an homage to Coppola’s, but a little cheeky, too — his way of saying this Mafia family is as important as the Corleones. But the structure and material is the same — the boss’ families, blood and criminal, contrasted with his criminal activities, which was the engine of the whole series. What makes this special, I think, is the unusual music choice — “Thru and Thru,” a track from the Rolling Stones’ “Voodoo Lounge,” released well into their irrelevant years and one that would have been forgotten along with the rest of the album if not for its bluesy counterpoint to the celebrations of this scene:

As good as that one is, I like “The Wire” montages better. Each season ended with one, because with a Russian novel of a cast, it really is the only way to wrap up everyone’s loose ends. It also underlines that show’s thematic material — the gods will not save us, the war on drugs is a fool’s errand, we do our work and our work does us, etc. And for all of David Simon’s deep, deep music choices in these season-enders, I still like this one best, Jesse Winchester’s “Step by Step,” finishing out season one:

But what brought this on was what happened the other night, channel-surfing. I landed on “Casino,” exactly as this scene was starting:

I’ve seen this a dozen or more times by now, and I always notice something new in it. This time it was the little one-line performances by Nicki’s tipsters. Martin Scorsese is one of the best directors of actors working, but I marvel at how he got just the right note out of each one in this seven-minute sequence, which required about a million setups and actors delivering one line, but perfectly. I like the way the secretary says, “Mint-condition coins.”

Warning that may be too late: Most of these clips contain major profanity, the latter a great deal of it. (Shrug.) Joe Pesci. What are you gonna do?

Sorry I’m late today, but an early phone call and errand sort of upended my schedule. Since I’m late and behind and all the rest of it, no bloggage today. Suggest your own, or recall your ab-fave movie montages. Because I gotta go.

Happy Bloomsday.

If I were a clever blogger, I’d write this entry in the style of “Ulysses,” but sorry — I haven’t read it. (Lance Mannion, take it away!) Always wanted to. Hope to, someday. But on numerous tries, I’ve failed to get much past stately, plump Buck Mulligan, and you know where he shows up.

Once, in a newsroom far, far away, I admitted to never reading “Ulysses.”

“Really?” asked one of my colleagues archly. “You haven’t?” Like this was unusual.

“Really. Have you?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. I asked when.

“Oh, you know…” She fluttered her hand a bit. “High school.”

The smoke alarms trembled as the fumes of her burning pants wafted through the room. She knew enough about “Ulysses” to know she’d made a grave mistake. No one reads “Ulysses” in high school, even a great one. An ambitious teacher might do a side unit on the book for honors students with a few excerpts, but face it — the book is the Mt. Everest of literature for a reason.

The Columbus Dispatch book critic once announced he was going to read it, and just to make sure he finished, he was going to read it in public, a chapter a week, discussing it in a weekly column he called Nighttown Journal. He got through, I believe, chapter three, maybe four. Then Nighttown Journal quietly disappeared. I e-mailed him once, asking if he ever finished it. His reply was sheepish. You know what he said.

On Bloomsday — June 16, the day upon which the events of the novel occur, for you non-English majors — celebrations are held throughout Dublin, including public readings at places mentioned in the text. Our own John C, who lived in Detroit until recently, suggested we do something similar in October, on Elmore Leonard’s birthday. Call it Dutch Day, and lead a group on an odyssey through the city, stopping at places mentioned in his books to read aloud. I think this is a tremendous idea. For one thing, I’ve actually read all the books involved.

Yesterday I had a bit of business to do at a shopping center right around lunchtime, and found myself passing under the exhaust vents at a well-known Chinese chain restaurant distinguished by twin horses at the front door. It didn’t smell greasy, it smelled grill-y and delicious. Friends, I may be the last American extant to have never eaten there, so it was time to rectify the situation. We have terrible Chinese food choices in the Pointes, and I’ve been jonesin’ for some chicken fried rice forever. So I went in and ordered the very same.

Twelve minutes later, the waitress deposited a five-gallon bucket of it under my nose.

It’s been a long time since I had my first portion-size shock, at a Mexican chain place. To be sure, it was mostly lettuce. Then came Bucca di Beppo, but they at least say up front that the dishes are meant to be shared. But it doesn’t take a genius to make a few connections, and one is: Restaurant meals in general have many more calories than their homemade equivalents. People eat more restaurant meals every year, for a variety of reasons. Put them together and you get a reasonable answer to the question posed by Richard Simmons’ vanity license plate: YRUFAT?

I try to be a libertarian about some things, but I have my limits. If they’re going to serve this much in one portion, then I want to see a calorie count on the menu. (Best online estimate: 960.) Sorry, folks, but you’re part of the problem. And don’t give me that “our customers want it” crap. Portion size is determined by economies of scale. Rice is cheap, and it’s easy to cover it with flavorful fat, serve it by the truckload and charge $7.50 a plate for a food cost of probably less than a buck.

I ate less than half. The rest is in my refrigerator. And I’m not going back. I resent being slopped like a hawg.

Bloggage: Everybody knows the Michigan tax incentive is leading to lots of film production here, but it wasn’t until yesterday I learned that scripts are now being vetted for content, and — sorry — but cannibalism is now out:

“This film is unlikely to promote tourism in Michigan or to present or reflect Michigan in a positive light,” wrote Janet Lockwood, Michigan’s film commissioner. Ms. Lockwood particularly objected to “this extreme horror film’s subject matter, namely realistic cannibalism; the gruesome and graphically violent depictions described in the screenplay; and the explicit nature of the script.”

Yes, no one will come to Michigan if they think we’re lousy with cannibals, but have you seen the calorie counts at that Chinese joint lately? Whew, through the roof. Rustic man-pig is far more slimming. Anyway, the NYT Cityroom blog asks where cinema would be if New York had such picky standards:

King Kong (1933)

After arriving in New York via luxury steamer, the giant simian genially poses for photographs while held in mock chains at his Broadway unveiling. At a subsequent cocktail party in his honor, Kong briefly dons a waiter’s white jacket (it didn’t quite fit, to say the least!) and hands out canapes to startled and then amused guests. Later he takes a stroll through the city and discovers that the elevated trains are experiencing a bottleneck near 30th Street. Using hand signals, he helps clear it up, receiving a jaunty wave from a thankful conductor in response. Finally, he scales the Empire State Building to take in the view, cleaning a few windows and reaching into one woman’s apartment to help her arrange her furniture, before arriving at the top, where he is joined by Ann Darrow. The two take in the dawn while discussing their hopes and dreams for the future.

Ha. Off to the salt mines. God knows who wants to take a bite out of me today.

The catering gig was a mixed bag. I miscalculated for lunch, and came up short by about three people. Of course it’s embarrassing and unfair; the people who come to lunch last are frequently the hardest-working of the crew, and you feel bad that they have to settle for peanut butter. But I miscalculated on two fronts — the weather (freezing) and the fact this is a war movie, and young men possess the sorts of appetites that make mothers all over the world put off buying new clothes, for fear of running short for the groceries. Should have doubled the chili.

But we did OK at dinner (lasagna), and I felt somewhat redeemed. When people are working for nothing — and with every one of these things we do, we get more people, and they work harder — the least you can do is feed them.

I mentioned the weather. Boy, did it suck. A front blew through Friday night with tornado watches and violent thunderstorms, followed by temperatures that didn’t touch 50 degrees all day, with a steady 25-30 mile per hour wind, many stronger gusts. In other words: Suckitude. And I was inside all day. A memo ahead of time mentioned the need to keep lots of water on set, as some of the actors would be wearing rubberized costumes and would need to hydrate frequently. Ha ha. They were the lucky ones.

But that’s water gone by, and now we look forward. I had lots of down time between meals, and spent it catching up on my web-surfing. As Monday is my busiest day, I offer you plenty of bloggage:

Beautiful Lena Horne, gone at 92. I saw her a few months back in “Cabin in the Sky,” which TMC was showing during Oscar month. Fun fact from her NYT obit:

One number she shot for that film, “Ain’t It the Truth,” which she sang while taking a bubble bath, was deleted before the film was released — not for racial reasons, as her stand-alone performances in other MGM musicals sometimes were, but because it was considered too risqué.

She had the va-va, and certainly the voom.

Why Two-Newspaper Towns are Good, this chuckle from the Detroit News. Short version: New pedestrian bridge opens in Detroit, is instantly hit by taggers. Surveillance cameras clearly show one of the taggers is a Free Press copy editor and blogger, whose blog frequently mourns the collapse in civility and good citizenship. Here’s the passage that caught my eye, from her spectacularly lame mea culpa:

I was excited when I saw the bench and that people had written on it and wanted to add my tag to it. That’s what we did in New York City when I was young: We put our tags on the park benches.

Social scientists speak frequently of “new norms.” There’s one, right there.

Deadspin has a remarkable document, a letter of castigation by the owner of a party lodge where the Miami University chapter of the Pi Beta Phi sorority had their spring formal. Short version: They arrived drunk, got drunker, puked everywhere, peed in the sinks, pooped in the bushes. Miami University had a reputation, when I was growing up in Ohio, as academically rigorous, preppy, snotty and very Greek. The Pi Phis at Miami would be 10 times worse, on all measures, than those at Ohio University, where I went to school. I guess that’s …changed.

Via Lance, Digby on the Kent State shootings. She quotes Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland” on the reaction to the tragedy:

When it was established that none of the four victims were guardsmen, citizens greeted each other by flashing four fingers in the air (“The score is four / And next time more”). The Kent paper printed pages of letters for weeks, a community purgation: “Hurray! I shout for God and Country, recourse to justice under law, fifes, drums, marshal music, parades, ice cream cones – America – support it or leave it.” “Why do they allow these so-called educated punks, who apparently know only how to spell four-lettered words, to run loose on our campuses tearing down and destroying that which good men spent years building up? …”

…A rumor spread in Kent that Jeff Miller, whose head was blown off, was such a dirty hippie that they had to keep the ambulance door open on the way to the hospital for the smell. Another rumor was that five hundred Black Panthers were on their way from elsewhere in Ohio to lead a real riot; and that Allison Krause was “the campus whore” and found with hand grenades on her.

As Digby, and Lance, point out: Ann Coulter et al is nothing new in this country.

Hank Stuever on Betty White in the WashPost, and on his own blog, the SNL Homowatch. From the blog, after the Scared Straight sketch:

I would need several thousand words to dissect why America has always thought prison rape is so hilarious. (Not only hilarious, but acceptable. We are a culture that believes strongly in “don’t drop the soap” jokes as a normal way to taunt criminals; indeed, we seem to hope that our most offensive male criminals will in fact be repeatedly raped by other men in prison; “making” someone your “bitch” is recess playground vernacular now.)

And because I’m late getting to this, Hank, again, on why writers should tackle the subjects that scare them. Wise words, those. And now, I’m off.

Maybe it’s because of my recent experience in filmmaking, but these days, I find different things catch my attention when I watch a movie. So it was with “You Don’t Know Jack,” the HBO film about Jack Kevorkian; I kept noticing the production design. For you civilians, that’s a term of art that describes the general visual look of a film — everything from the costumes to the sets to the way the actors’ hair is styled. Many people have a hand in creating this, but it’s the production designer who oversees it all.

The design of “You Don’t Know Jack” is… I guess you’d say it’s fitting. It’s blue and damp and chilly and depressing, all of which suit a story about a man who helped dozens of people, in debatable degrees of illness or disability, end their lives with a number of contraptions he assembled from spare parts, from his “Mercitron,” which used saline and potassium chloride, to various gas arrangements. No one looks good. Everyone lives in a crummy apartment and drives a beater. The actors who aren’t cadaverous are Michigan-fat, or are buried under heaps of unflattering wardrobe — you can practically see the pills on the cheap acrylic sweaters, and you just know every sleeve has a snotty Kleenex shoved under the cuff. Only the lawyers look good.

Kevorkian gets a 360-degree portrayal from both the script and Al Pacino, who nails the look and manner and muffs the Detroit accent. (No shame, Al — it has confounded many others.) As the story unwound, and Kevorkian and his lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, make fools of the Oakland County prosecutor time after time, the design becomes key, because you see what made Kevorkian so dangerous to the status quo; he had nothing to lose. He didn’t care about anything but his passionately held beliefs and his odd hobbies (his macabre paintings in which he used his own blood as pigment, most notably). Take his medical license away? Lock him up? His lodgings behind bars weren’t much of a step down from his place in Royal Oak, or wherever he was living at the time.

The state finally had to write a law specifically aimed at him, which he defied just like he said he would, before they could finally lock him up for longer than a few days. And he did the time like a pro, I have to say, getting out last year and heading back to another crummy apartment. He’s not assisting suicides anymore, but he’s out and about. One of my Facebook friends spotted him in the Royal Oak library last weekend, got a picture taken with him and posted it. Local celebrity. The prosecutor who forfeited his public-service career — he was turned out of office by an exasperated public tired of financing his Ahab-like pursuit of Dr. K — wound up at the Thomas More Law Center, i.e. Tom Monahan’s Catholic Warriors, who in their high-profile cases aren’t doing much better.

(pause)

I wasn’t going to post this today; we’ve had so much discussion of death in this space of late, and some of us are having some uncomfortable brushes with it of late ourselves. But as if to mock my recent mention of a tax refund, last night our power went out. When I was checking the breakers, I flipped the main one, and couldn’t flip it back. Neither could Alan. Which means I have to call an electrician this morning and, assuming the worst, pay a huge bill. My laptop battery is down to 6 percent, so I’m hitting Publish and then going offline until I have juice again. Argh.

The AP carries an interesting story today about huitlacoche, known as corn smut to you Hoosiers and others with a more English-speaking connection to the land. The black, slimy plague upon the ears is actually pretty good for you:

…test results just published in the journal Food Chemistry reveal that an infection that U.S. farmers and crop scientists have spent millions trying to eradicate, is packed with unique proteins, minerals and other nutritional goodies.

Corn smut has a Spanish name because — this is no surprise for you foodies — it’s considered a delicacy in Mexican cuisine. (“Considered a delicacy in” is the grown-up version of belching at the dinner table, which, every 13-year-old who does it will tell you, is actually considered a compliment to the cook in some cultures.) You can find huitlacoche recipes in Rick Bayless’ excellent Mexican cookbook, but I’ve never made it myself. My former colleague Carol Tannehill made some in the newsroom once, for a story on strange ingredients, if I recall correctly. The corn smut had to be specially ordered and arrived frozen, but it thawed into something that very closely resembled drain-clog slime — black and gooey and entirely gross.

Carol prepared it in a simple tortilla-wrap recipe, sliced it up and passed it around. And readers? It was delicious. It tasted like dirt, but in a good way, the way the best mushrooms do. If there was gourmet dirt, that’s what huitlacoche tastes like. I didn’t expect to like it, and only sampled it because I’ve always been a human garbage disposal and can choke down almost anything in the name of science or a blind taste test. And I had seconds.

I don’t have much for you today because I spent my morning catching up on some long-neglected friends, including Hank, and read his rave review of Kim Severson’s new book, which I didn’t even know existed. Severson is one of my favorite food writers, and probably my single fave among newspaper food writers, and this news is welcome, indeed. I bet Kim has eaten huitlacoche, and please, save the lesbian jokes.

I was happy to read this because I finally caught “Julie and Julia” on DVD, and have this review: Cute. It’s a cute movie with moments of shining grace. Once again, Meryl Streep didn’t so much act as disappear into her character, and I appreciated the movie trickery involved in getting her to stand head-and-shoulders over everyone around her (step stools, I imagine). The best lines I’ve read before, as they’re mostly Nora Ephron’s, not Julie’s or Julia. The line about the predictability of cooking in an uncertain world — that’s Nora’s, as is the stuff about not crowding the mushrooms. As a coming-of-age movie for women that doesn’t overemphasize sex (the big theme in all male coming-of-age movies) but makes it part of the narrative just the same, it worked beautifully. It’s Ephron’s best work to date, and that’s something, IMO.

And now on to the bloggage on this sleep-deprived morning. Just one piece, but it’s a good’un:

So, what do we think of the Jewish joke Obama’s National Security Advisor told yesterday? I note the reaction of the crowd, at a pro-Israel think tank, presumably full of Jews: Laughter. Good enough for me. Jews are famous for their collective sense of humor, so I’ll take my cue from them, but Roy ventures into the world of the rightbloggers, a very humorless place.

Phoned-in this may be, but I have a busy day ahead, and so: Farewell.

I regret to say that the weekend mail did not contain my invitation to the Obama family’s White House seder. As the weekend’s NYT story points out, you don’t have to be Jewish to love the springtime tradition of a long ritual dinner featuring matzoh, horseradish, charoset and four cups of wine — but it takes real guts to host one if you’re not, and I admire the first family for doing so.

I understand some Christians hold seders at Passover, as a way of honoring the first of the Big Three of Monotheism, but I don’t know if I could do that. You know how people resent converts to any religion, the way they take the plunge into whatever your particular baptismal font might be, and then surface telling everyone what they’re doing wrong? That’s what it would feel like. You need a real Jew at the head of the table. I suppose if anyone could pull that off, though, it would be our multi-racial, multi-cultural president.

One detail from that story sticks with me:

Then came what is now remembered as the Macaroon Security Standoff. At 6:30, with the Seder about to start, Neil Cohen, the husband of Michelle Obama’s friend and adviser Susan Sher, was stuck at the gate bearing flourless cookies he had brought from Chicago. They were kosher for Passover, but not kosher with the Secret Service, which does not allow food into the building.

Offering to help, the president walked to the North Portico and peered out the door, startling tourists. He volunteered to go all the way to the gates, but advisers stopped him, fearing that would cause a ruckus. Everyone seemed momentarily befuddled. Could the commander in chief not summon a plate of cookies to his table? Finally, Mr. Love ran outside to clear them.

Mr. Love is Reggie Love, whom the NYT calls Obama’s “personal aide.” The job is informally known as “body man.” A politician’s body man — Hillary Clinton has a body woman — is a combination doppelganger, stand-in and walking purse. The body man carries your cell phone and hand sanitizer, gently takes your elbow when you need to be freed from a too-clingy supporter and opens the door for you. The body man frees a big part of your brain for other things.

Remember when George W. Bush, in China, spoiled his exit by trying to open a door that was locked? He should have paid attention to his body man, who was standing by the correct exit.

It goes without saying that the body man has the best seat in the house for watching presidential history in the making, but it takes the right kind of person. If you think you’re too good to fetch a plate of macaroons, it’s not the job for you. On the other hand, note Love’s position in this photo and ask yourself: Would I be willing to carry the Kleenex for this sort of fringe benefit? I would.

It’s a relatively new position in American politics, and I don’t think any have written their memoirs yet. I expect the best ones never will.

Love will be at this year’s seder. Just in case anyone tries to bring unapproved cookies.

So, as long as we’re a little light and gossipy today, someone tell me, maybe someone who follows the gossip columns a little more closely than I do: Is Jennifer Lopez still a diva?* Still buying Creme de la Mer for her ass, still insisting that she be surrounded by her special grapefruit-scented candles at all times? Does she still keep her eyebrow shaper on retainer? Travel with a beauty entourage?

I have to wonder. Not that Lopez is some sort of hagatha at 40, but at some point you have to get over yourself, and if you keep making movies like “The Back-up Plan,” it’s going to come sooner rather than later. Just the trailer — the funniest, most marketable moments of the movie — makes you want to stick your head in the oven. The woman’s capable of doing good work. She did it once (“Selena”) and did it again (“Out of Sight”) so I guess she has it in her. But lord spare us from more rom-coms where the audience is supposed to identify with her in her million-dollar shoes.

Tina Fey — now there’s an everywoman. If she weren’t so busy making television, she could turn out three of these a year and still keep it fresh. I have to watch “30 Rock” on demand, so I can re-run it and catch all the funny lines that slipped past when I was laughing at the last one. This week’s contender was Jack Donaghy’s: “(Irish Catholics) mate for life. Like swans. Like drunken, angry swans.”

“Date Night” — now there’s a romantic comedy. That one I’ll see. Eventually. Maybe I should write one. What do you think of “Body Man” as a title?

Any good bloggage? No. It’s all depressing. Suicide bombers in Moscow, lunatics in the Michigan woods — it’s just not a good day.

So try to have a good one, and I will as well.

* I know I had some comments a few days back about overuse of this word, but I think J-Lo qualifies.

How well I recall those halcyon days when newspapers had space and occasionally put something in it. The wires were like our own private internet, bringing the wonders of the world to our desks. One day, it brought a lengthy Sunday piece over the transom, an excerpt from a new book, “The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless.”

It was set up as a day in the life of a childless woman, let’s call her Betty Barren, as she navigates her hostile world. Terrible things happen to her. She has to cover for a co-worker who left early to watch her kid’s soccer game. Another one is out on maternity leave and it was recently announced that when she returns, she’ll be working reduced hours, which equals more work for Betty. Betty finally is able to get away from this horrible place — nearly suffocated by all the featherbeds lying around — and stops at a drugstore for headache relief. She pulls into a space, only to see the sign: Reserved for expectant mothers. Not that she has much money to spend on Tylenol, anyway, the parents having sucked up all the tax credits.

It went on at some length like this. Poor Betty! Is she the unluckiest childless woman in the world? No, just typical.

As an introduction to the nascent social movement sometimes known as the Child-Free, it was an eye-opener. I did a little internet research, the internet being where a lot of them hung out, bitching on Usenet boards about all those things Betty endured, and about a million more. They had their own vocabulary. Children were spawn, sprogs or crotchfruit. Parents are breeders, of course. There were long, long threads on whether this or that celebrity or supermodel had lost hotness since she sprogged. (The consensus, inevitably, was that she had.) There were self-righteous rants about not taxing the fragile earth with more destructive humans, interspersed with whining about why they can’t stay home from work when their pets are sick. (They all had pets. They called them “fur children.”) There were even a few beefs I could absolutely get with, about misbehaving toddlers at symphony orchestras and the like. But the overwhelming impression was of a group of people carrying a double load of resentment and free time. Yes, even with all those unpaid extra hours at work, covering for the parents.

“The Baby Boon” excerpt was of a piece with this, with the same tone of hectoring indignation.

(I should pause at this point and say that I don’t want to make this a debate over the choice of whether or not to have a child, which is about as personal as it gets and, ultimately, not very interesting. There are rewards and costs for both choices. I enjoy many friends and acquaintances in both camps, and love them all. And in case you’re wondering, every anecdote about Betty Barren can be matched with one from the other side, about Patty Party and her tendency to show up for work late after a night on the town, etc. The tax policy, etc. I’ll leave for another day, although the late journalist Marjorie Williams took the book apart rather ably here.)

Anyway, after reading Betty’s sad story and a gloss over the terribly unfair culture and government policies that support this state of affairs, I scrolled back up to see who had written this screed. Elinor Burkett. The name stayed with me.

So when the lady in purple hip-checked her partner away from the microphone last night at the Oscars, surely the rudest display in some time, I knew there was a reason her name sounded familiar. Her speech was mush, by the way, but I love the look on his face. You will not be surprised to learn they’re not speaking. Salon has a backgrounder.

And if you’re still interested, John Scalzi’s “Trolling the Childfree” is sort of magnificent. Oh, and I always park in those “reserved for expectant mothers” spaces. They’re not enforced by law, and my sore knee frequently bothers me more than a late-term pregnancy ever did. If anyone ever challenges me, I plan to say, “The doctor just called. It’s twins! I’m so happy!”

So how was your weekend? Mine was OK, except for getting sick with some sort of chesty/bronchial thing. I swing between 100-degree fevers and soaking sweats, which isn’t pleasant. But I’ll survive.

I think.

Nathan Gotsch, one of those young squeaky-clean Fort Wayne guys for whom the phrase “you went to Concordia, didn’t you?” was coined, is trying to produce a TV pilot far away from the Man, man. It’s an expansion of his Josh Jennings for Congress spoof of 2006 — he produced a campaign commercial for a fictional character who decided a job in the House of Representatives would be way better than one at Subway. He got a little attention, if “being mentioned on Tucker Carlson’s show” counts as “a little attention,” and I think it does.

Anyway, Nathan got some attention from the Man, and after considering what going the traditional route would entail, decided to blaze an indie trail. He’s put together a budget for a $25,000 pilot production, and is trying to raise the dough via Kickstarter. Here’s his fundraising page.

I read the script and it’s pretty funny. (Funnier than “Reno 911,” anyway.) If you’d like to help Nathan, go to his Kickstarter page, watch the video, marvel at how much he resembles the absolute essence of a Concordia graduate, and, if you’re so inclined, kick him a few bucks. He has a week to raise about $15K. Goad to my fellow Hoosiers, past and present — although the pilot script never explicitly says so, the story’s set in Fort Wayne, and I can assume this would come up in subsequent episodes. However, if it gets picked up, I think we can expect to see Nathan’s crew in Michigan for exteriors shooting, because we have the fat tax incentives. (For now.) So win-win all around for my Midwest playas.

No pressure, just a chance to use a Web 2.0 idea for good, for a change. (You know how Kickstarter works, right? Nathan only gets the money if he reaches his goal. If not, you’re not billed. That way you aren’t giving him cash to drink away his sorrows because he didn’t get enough to make his pilot.)

Given the bummer tone of recent days, let’s make this Twinkle Thursday, and strive for optimism in all things. It’s what Josh would do.

While this isn’t exactly a happy-news sort of thing, I’m calling it out because it makes me feel optimistic about the future — of journalism, anyway. One of our readers, Kim, left it low in the comments of yesterday’s post, but let’s drag it out into the light of day:

Bob (not Greene) and all the other journos out there who have been accused of making it up: Here’s the story we used from a student journalist who was at the boring press conference but paying close attention (and recording it) because she didn’t want to get it wrong. Note the link to actually listen to the state delegate saying the words he now says were “poorly chosen” and misinterpreted. As you might expect, there’s been a fecal avalanche as a result. Rachel M., HuffPost, Sally Quinn – everybody’s weighing in. There’s a movement to skewer the student reporter because she is a student and because much larger, “actual” papers were present and totally missed it. Why’d they miss it? My guess is they were just making the doughnuts, going to a conservative legislator’s press conference about de-funding Planned Parenthood and filing that Saturday feed-the-beast story. Similar to the reason a local delegate who was present as a supporter of de-funding PP did not hear it – she admitted to not paying attention because she was talking to another delegate. Quite a lesson for the student. I’d say for public officials everywhere, too, but that would make me seem much younger than I am.

The story, if you’re not inclined to click through, quotes a state delegate’s interesting opinion about why there are so many disabled children in the world:

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.

That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? Marshall, well, he now says he didn’t exactly say that:

“No one who knows me or my record would imagine that I believe or intended to communicate such an offensive notion. I have devoted a generation of work to defending disabled and unwanted children, and have always maintained that they are special blessings to their parents.”

In other words: Shit. And you were recording? Double shit.

I love it when Roger damns with faint praise. In this case, reviewing “The Crazies.”

“The Crazies” is a perfectly competent genre film in a genre that has exhausted its interest for me, the Zombie Film. It provides such a convenient storytelling device: Large numbers of mindless zombies lurch toward the camera as the hero wreaks savage destruction; they can be quickly blown away, although not without risk and occasional loss of life. When sufficient zombies have been run through, it’s time for a new dawn.

“The Crazies” stars NN.C crush object Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell, two actors who class up the joint, although I watched the trailer and it uses the old “no signal” cell-phone trope. As they say in that other zombie movie: One more for the bonfire. (That link doesn’t go to an imdB page, by the way, but to a great “no signal” montage, via John August, which he credits to FourFour. Has all due credit been passed around? I hope so.)

It’s 9:47, which means my Flex Appeal class starts in 13 minutes and I must away. The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you, dear readers. So I’m going out to play.

From the number of times this story turned up in my Facebook feed yesterday I have to assume everyone’s seen it by now, but not all of you stay online all day, so what the hell. It’s about Roger Ebert, and what his life is like now that he’s lost the ability to speak, eat and drink. (He lost his jaw to cancer four years ago, and reconstructive surgery has been one failure after another.)

Ebert posed for a picture; with his imperfectly fixed face, that requires no small amount of courage in and of itself. I’m glad he did, not just because it’s better to show one’s broken face than to hide it, but because even a face that’s half-gone can still show the man within. Look at the eyes, squinched a little in what looks like merriment, although you can’t say for sure at first glance — the mouth has been shaped by surgeons into a simulacrum of a smile, and maybe that’s what leads your impression. But once you read the story, you know: This is a man who smiles, who still smiles, who in fact seems to be smiling much of the time. He’s angered not by the fate of his physical body, but by the same things he was angered by before, that anger us all — petty bullshit, money-grubbing, spotty internet service.

There is no need to pity me, he writes on a scrap of paper one afternoon after someone parting looks at him a little sadly. Look how happy I am.

I came late to my appreciation of Ebert. I was a Siskel partisan, once upon a time. Siskel was like me — snooty, irritable, a fan of Art. Ebert, the tabloid critic, was more of the hoi polloi, giving three and a half stars to action movies, space epics and other crap. It was a while before I realized he was as difficult to please as any discerning arbiter, but he knew enough about movies and why people see them to judge them as individuals. “Con Air” is not “Citizen Kane,” but he didn’t see any reason to rub anyone’s nose in it if they preferred action to Orson Welles. Mostly, I was in awe of his productivity. It’s pretty common — or was — for large newspapers to have an A critic and a B critic, the latter of whom was sometimes a freelancer. The A critic does the big-movie reviews and most of the related stories, roundups and the like, while the B critic sweeps up behind him or her, or just lightens the load. It’s not unusual for half a dozen movies to open on a summer weekend, ranging from blockbusters to art-house fare, and that’s a lot of stuff to see, consider and review in a week. Five years ago, I changed planes in Chicago on a Friday and picked up a Sun-Times. Ebert had bylines on six reviews, and I believe they covered that range of ambition. His take on the barrel-bottom straight-to-video entry was as considered, and as respectful, as his thoughts on the $200 million tentpole playing in all the multiplexes.

Respectful doesn’t mean boot-licking, by the way. Like my old screenwriting teacher Terry, who was also a critic, he walks into every film expecting to enjoy himself. (That’s what the audience does, after all; why would you pay eight bucks to be punished?) To the extent that the film fulfills or disappoints that expectation is what he bases his reviews on. It seems like a small thing. It isn’t. You might think you’re a movie fan, but imagine what it would be like to be required to see everything, and then write about it afterward, to have to form an opinion, support the opinion, and then present it to a general audience in a more stylish way than merely saying whether it was awesome or sucked.

Now imagine doing it for 40 years or so, never losing your enthusiasm, and in fact adding to your workload with extra assignments like his Great Movies series (which began as a Sunday column, swapped off every other week with the music critic, who wrote about the Great Albums), and the TV show, and the teaching gigs, and the film-festival work, and all the rest of it.

Now add cancer and facial mutilation, the literal loss of your voice. Tell me how you feel about it then.

The fact Ebert is still at work in any capacity, much less at full speed, is nothing short of a miracle. His last extended leave, when he nearly died, he missed months of movies. When he came back, he resumed his old blistering pace, and then watched the movies he’d missed, a few at a time, writing reviews of them, so that the record would be complete. I think he knows what his opinion means to the moviegoing public. I don’t see a lot of movies in theaters, but I try to catch up with the bigs eventually, and I never feel like I’ve watched it all the way until I’ve opened the laptop afterward to see what Roger thought of it.

Lord knows he’s not perfect. I disagree with him on many films, and his fondness for Spike Lee will always come between us. But in every other way — expertise, attitude, practice — he is nothing short of a hero.

Ebert is dying in increments, and he is aware of it.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled “Go Gently into That Good Night.” I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

Years ago, I was watching the cultural kerfuffle over “The Passion of the Christ,” probably on Amy Welborn’s blog, because that was the sort of thing she wrote about a lot, back then. Ebert gave the film four stars, but the review is hardly worshipful, and he states outright that “it is the most violent movie I have ever seen.” I mentioned this review somewhere in her comments sections, and someone else retorted, Roger Ebert is an old man and he’s dying. His opinion no longer matters, or words to that effect. This was before his illness had taken its most serious tolls (he’s fought it for years), but I was amazed by not only the cruelty of that remark, but its utter ignorance. Roger Ebert’s opinion not only still matters, it will matter for a long time after he’s gone. If that isn’t the best epitaph a writer can hope for, I don’t know what is.