Romney Win in Florida Supports Impact of TV Debates

So why, in terms of media theory, did Romney do so well in Florida, as well as Gingrich did over Romney in South Carolina?

If you listen to Chris Matthews on MSNBC, you'd think the answer was that Romney and his pac outspent Gingrich by a large margin, with a torrent of negative ads against Romney.   This was the same reason Matthews (and other commentators) gave for Romney's evisceration of Gingrich in Iowa.

Except ... Rick Santorum beat Romney in Iowa (or came in just a few votes behind Romney, when Matthews offered his assessment), and Santorum spent next to nothing on ads in Iowa compared to Romney.  And Romney outspent Gingrich not only in Florida but in South Carolina.

Which means the ad expenditure theory in primary wins and losses just doesn't add up.

What does add up is this:  Gingrich pummeled Romney in the two debates prior to the South Carolina primary, and seemed weak and even befuddled in his two debates with Romney prior to Florida.   In terms of a simple experiment, you can get much better evidence than that.

What this means for the future is ... well, it depends upon which Gingrich we see in upcoming debates.  The pre-South Carolina Gingrich in debates could and may well get the nomination, whatever Romney spends.  The pre-Florida Gingrich in TV debates doesn't stand a chance.

Person of Interest 1.11 and 1.12: Realignment and Revelation

Catching up with Person of Interest 1.11 and 1.12, and good thing I didn't wait any longer - episode 1.11 had a quick little conversation which, if I heard it right, changes the very premise, pulls the rug out from the under the foundation, of the very series.  Which is the kinda thing I really like in a television series.

The set-up in 1.11 was pretty good, even without the revelation.  Reese needs at last one episode to convalesce from being shot pretty badly back in December in 1.10.  Finch puts him up in a nice apartment, but, as he tells Reese, the machine waits for no man, and there's a life to be saved, of someone who lives in the building. Lots of good twists and turns in this story, good to see Dexter's David Zayas on hand.  But the biggest twist, which is nice, seems to be that Reese in a wheelchair takes over Finch's work, and Finch, who can still move, even with the limp, is out in the field, i.e, mostly in the building.

A nice temporary twist and reversal, but not the biggest twist or reveal at all.  That comes when Reese realizes that Finch is still figuring out all kinds of deep background things, even though Finch has had no access to the machine.  Reese confronts Finch and says you're the machine, aren't you.  Finch neither confirms or denies.

A fascinating revelation, if true.  But, if true, what are those little boxes we see around everyone at the beginning and throughout each episode.  If you think about it, we never see them on a screen Finch is looking at.   So they are, what, on the government's machine?  But ... is there really a government machine?  Or does it all come from Finch, who sends info to the government through some secret back door to make them think there's a machine?

Reese certainly wants to find to find out more, and at the end of 1.12 - the next episode - we see that he has Fuchs trailing Finch. He's entering some potentially dangerous, more relevatory territory, with his slain partner's son now on hand and wanting to know what his father and Finch really did.

But Reese and Finch at least now have Carter in the fold, and that's a good realignment of what Reese and Finch do.  As we've seen in these last two episodes - and many before, including, especially, 1.10 - Reese is not indestructible.  He gets hurt, and even when not briefly out of commission, bad guys can on occasion get the better of him.   With the CIA still out to kill him, having Carter on his side may be necessary for his survival. 

Good story ahead ...

See also Person of Interest of Interest  ... Person of Interest 1.2:  Reese and Finch ... Person of Interest 1.5: Potentials ... Person of Interest 1.7: Meets Flashpoint and The Usual Suspects ... Person of Interest 1.8:  Widmore and Ben, At It Again ... Person of Interest 1.9: Evolution of a Series ... Person of Interest 1.10: Carter Returns the Favor

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Fringe 4.10: Deceit and Future Vision

One of the things I'm really enjoying about this 4th season of Fringe is how every episode in some significant way moves along the central story.  Tonight in 4.10 we get a tender, sad story about a girl who can see bad things slightly or  a little more into the future.  She thinks her visions are unalterable. But Olivia and Peter et al stop a courthouse from blowing up as per her vision, just in time.  They're unable to stop, however, her own death via a stroke, but -

An Eternal Bald Observer told Olivia, at the end of the episode before last, that he saw her death, which will be unavoidable in all time lines.   What does the future-seeing girl see about Olivia?  Not clear, but -

At very least, she has been looked into by Massive Dynamics aka Nina Sharp, whom we last saw at the end of last week's episode, knocking Olivia out, and planning to do something to her unconscious body, which will leave her with a headache.  My guess is install some kind of tracking device.

This week, Olivia is indeed suffering from headaches, and goes to Nina for advice about the girl who can see the future.  She provides none, but shows up to Olivia's place to make her some soup (Nina is the closest person to a mother for Olivia in this reality), and order some medicine for Olivia's headaches.  Likely the last thing that Olivia needs.

Broyles is doing the best he can to look out for Olivia, and so is Peter. but unfortunately Olivia doesn't (yet) feel comfortable enough to be completely truthful with him.  He sees her looking at photos of the EBOs - earlier, she was looking at them with Broyles - and he tries to explain to her what the EBOs do.  Of special interest to Olivia, or course, is can they see the future, like the young doomed heroine in this episode.  Peter explains that they experience all times simultaneously, rather than time travel or see the future and past. (Great nonverbal acting by Joshua Jackson in this scene, by the way, where his body language and facial expressions convey as much as his words.)  But when Peter asks Olivia if one of the Observers has "reached out" to her, she says no.

Peter no doubt sees through that.  It's heart warming to see these two working together.   Olivia's best chance at survival will be Peter.    Her and Peter's ability to stop the girl's visions from coming true is no comfort to her about being able to do anything to stop what the EBO saw from coming true - since he didn't really see it, he experienced it ...

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology




See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man ... Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realities ... Fringe 4.9: Elizabeth

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

 

Good for Gingrich Talking about the Moon

Newt Gingrich has received considerable ridicule and flack for his statement that we would have a permanent base on the Moon by the end of his second term as President, and when the Moon attained 13,000 permanent settlers, it could become another U.S. state.

I say, good for Gingrich for thinking so big.  We need more of that.  One of the reasons our efforts in space have stagnated is because no one after JFK had the requisite vision to see us get off this planet in a sustained way.

The fact is that we are citizens of the cosmos, not just this Earth.  We'll never truly understand who we are, what we're doing here, from a vantage point stuck down here on this planet.   Carl Sagan got this.  Isaac Asimov understood this.  Unfortunately, not enough politicians and Presidents.

Although I expect to vote for Barack Obama in this election, as I did in 2008, I was never happy with his weak position on space.  Obama has been no better on space than his predecessors after JFK, and in some ways worse.

Conversely, I'm not likely to vote for Gingrich (though, if I were a Republican, I would over Romney).  I get that he's presumtuous about the second term. I get that he's grandiose.   But sometimes, as in the grandeur of space, that could be a good thing.

Any Bad Results from Obama's Health Plan?

I just saw a pro Newt Gingrich anti Romney ad airing in Florida that, unsurprisingly, attacked Romney-care in Massachusetts as being the basis for the "disastrous" Obama-care.

I put "disastrous" in quotes because every time I hear something like this, I wonder, what, exactly is the disaster that has occurred because of Obama's health plan?

I'm not talking about some courts that have said the mandate part of the law may be unconstitutional.  I disagree with everyone being obliged to get health are, whether or not they want it, too.  But that's hardly a "disaster" - it's just a part of the law that I and many disagree with.

To say the law has been a disaster would indicate, I would think, that one of more patients or people needing medical care died or got or remained very ill due to some application of the health law.  Or maybe that a doctor went bankrupt or had to give up her or his practice as a result of the law.   Or a hospital had to close.  Or a business of any sort had to shut down because it could not meet some provision of the law.  Or, even, an insurance company went bankrupt (I can't see being too upset about that, but I'll list it as a criterion of disaster just to show how reasonable I am).

So ... any takers?  Can anyone cite a single instance of a bad result obtaining from Obama-care?   Not a disagreement in policy, not a concern that something bad will result from the law, but an actual, real-life, non-hypothetical, bad result?

If not, then, the incessant Republican repetition that Obama's health care plan is "disastrous" is just a piece of classic propaganda - tell a lie often enough, and maybe you'll get some people to believe it.

The Renaissance of Television in Poliics?

Television has never been unimportant in politics - beginning with Nixon's "Checkers" speech in the 1952 campaign and progressing into JFK's victory over Nixon in the first televised Presidential debates in 1960.

But, more recently, lots of people including me have talking about how Barack Obama in 2008 and Republicans in 2010 won by mastering social media - or, what I call "new new media".  Paul Saffo even coined a new term - "cybergenic" - to describe Obama in 2008, an evolution of JFK and Reagan being telegenic.

Has television come back?  Newt Gingrich clearly smashed Romney in South Carolina because of two brilliant performances in television debates in the past week.   With two more debates coming up in Florida this week, the question of the impact of television debates could be crucially important.

David Gergen just said on CNN that he thought Gingrich's victory indeed shows that television is playing the decisive role in this year's primary - so far.

I'm not surprised.   Even though I've written extensively about the role of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in today's politics, I'd never discount the role of television.   Older media don't just disappear when new media arise.  The written word is still important today, as is radio.

Television never really went away.  The Internet is still crucially important.  But for the right candidate, television can be even more important, precisely because of its old mass media magic - it's unique capacity to speak to millions of people at the same time.

Gingrich clearly is such a candidate.   His particular talent is looking great on television attacking television.

But Obama is powerful on television, too.  That's part of his being cybergenic.

Stay tuned for an exciting election.

Lesson in Gingrich's Win for Obama

If I were Barack Obama, I'd be very unhappy about Newt Gingrich's win tonight in South Carolina.  As it is, I'm a mostly supporter of Obama, and I'd much rather the see the President face the robotic Romney than Gingrich.

Gingrich not only is a highly effective debater, he has a capacity to surprisingly endorse positions that pull the rug out from under his opponents.  In the debate the other night, what I most noticed was Gingrich's powerful condemnation of SOPA and PIPA - the now shelved Internet anti-piracy legislation that would have crippled the Internet.

In contrast, Obama was mostly silent about this and eventually came out with a mild backing off statement expressing reservations with the bills.

Obama cannot afford to be outflanked like this in the general election.  My best advice would be that he be true to his progressive views, take a more libertarian position on respecting the First Amendment and the Constitution, support Occupy Wall Street, and energize his base which he has not especially done in the past few years.

Romney the robot - whom I called  a Cylon back in 2008 (attention Battlestar Galactica fans) - would have been a push-over for Obama, or indeed any candidate with a real passion for his or her ideas and ideals.

Obama has that, and he'll need to call upon all of it to beat Gingrich.  The Republican convention is still a long way off, and anything can happen in the rest of the primaries, but tonight could change everything.

Fringe 4.9: Elizabeth

A tender - yes, tender, even beautiful - Fringe 4.9 tonight, mainly because -

Alt-Elizabeth - our Peter's mother - visits Walter, to convince him to try to help Peter get back to the world and people he loves.   She forgives Walter for kidnapping Peter - in which her transformed alternate reality, Peter died as he and Walter were crossing the lake.  And she convinces Walter.

A little later, when Walter comes to see Peter, it's clear that Peter is starting to feel a real connection to Walter.  It may be that the main help that Walter can give Peter to get back "home" is getting Peter in touch with the fact, or, at least, almost fact, that Peter is home already.

Otherwise, I'm really enjoying the smooth way the alternate sets of characters relate to each in this new transformed double set of realities.  Sitting across a table from one another, out in the field shooting bad guys, mixing Peter in as a a wild card who knows things that neither set of characters does,  Fringe is giving us a wild and wildly believable and satisfying tableaux.  Not easy to do even in a novel, let alone television show.  Fringe is setting standards in complex story telling that we may not see again for years.

And the villain set is pretty impressive too.  Alt-Broyles is a damned good, dangerous double agent.  He's even got me wondering if he's somehow brought our straight-laced Broyles into his web.  Alt-Broyles and his boss Jones make a powerful combination.   And the revelation at the end that Jones is taking his orders from our (transformed original universe) Nina promises a tough fight even against the assembled intelligences of both Walters, Olivias, Lees, and Peter.

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology




See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man ... Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realities

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Setting Dodd Straight on SOPA

Former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), now the head of the MPAA and the main spokesperson for SOPA and PIPA (now shelved or withdrawn), just told Andrea Mitchell a bunch of nonsense on MSNBC.  Here are some of his major points, with translations into truth to set the record straright:

Dodd:  Most people misunderstood what the bills were about - which was, to stop the loss of American jobs due to Internet piracy.

Truth:  Everyone understood that purpose of the bills.  What we also understood were the provisions of the bill that would have held entire sites responsible for even one pirated item on their otherwise massive, non-pirated sites and could have crippled the Internet as we know it.  Dodd said nothing whatsoever about that.

Dodd:  the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 has been effective against Internet pirates and has led to the shutdown of many sites.  SOPA and PIPA were just trying to extend its provisions to international pirates operating here.

Truth:  Right, the DMCA has been very effective.  So why not just extend its provisions to cover international pirates?  The DMCA has none of the provisions of SOPA and PIPA which could have crippled the Internet.

Dodd:  The First Amendment does not protect criminals, people who libel and slander others, etc.

Truth:  Right, but the First Amendment does protect from government regulation all modes of speech and press which are not engaged in criminal, slanderous, or libelous actions.   If The New York Times, for example, inadvertently published something deemed libelous, it could be sued for libel under the current laws.  Those same laws can be used against anything online - without the need for SOPA and PIPA - and the same applies to piracy (with extension of DMCA to cover international pirates).  The problem with SOPA and PIPA is they went way too far, and would have have seriously violated the First Amendment.

In sum - Dodd, after being rebuked by the withdrawal of SOPA, is starting off on the wrong foot for where we go from here.  A little truth would help.

Challenging Schumer and Gillibrand on SOPA

Largely missed among the online protests against SOPA and PIPA today - protests with whose goal I strongly agree, though I disagree with the tactics of shutting down online systems, as I indicated on Monday - were in-person demonstrations at the Manhattan offices of US Senators from New York Schumer and Gillibrand.

Unlike Wikipedia going dark, which inconvenienced millions of innocent people, the protests against Schumer and Gillibrand were lodged exactly such protests should be, in the faces of people who support SOPA and PIPA and apparently don't care about the damage such law if enacted would do to the Internet, and thereby our lives.  Not only support these bills, but in the case of Schumer and Gillibrand sponsored the Senate version of SOPA - that is,  PIPA.

I've lived in New York all my life, and yet I still find myself surprised when a New York elected official, let alone a Democrat, has such a benighted, retrograde position.  But Schumer has been a disrespecter of the First Amendment for a long time.  He loves the FCC and the fines it levies, and speaks glowingly of the Fairness Doctrine and hopes to see it reinstated.  He probably thinks all the First Amendment prohibits is the government's shutting down newspapers in the middle of the night, but I wouldn't put that past him, either, if the paper printed something he judged in bad taste.

I guess I expected more of Kristen Gillibrand.  Truthfully, I was disappointed when former Governor Paterson passed over Carolyn Kennedy for Hillary Clinton's replacement, and appointed the little-known Gillibrand.   She's done a pretty good job, until SOPA.  I tried to give her a chance.

But the Schumer-Gillibrand position on SOPA-PIPA is insulting to anyone with any intelligence.  Internet piracy is something we all want to stop.  Especially me, as an author.  But Schumer and Gillibrand think it's costing New Yorkers jobs.   Hardly - the movie and television industries are still situated in Hollywood, and the old music business, the RIAA-kind, isn't situated anywhere anymore.   What would cost jobs in New York are Internet companies going broke because of unconstitutional Federal fines and shutdowns in pursuit of pirates.

But speaking of jobs - I hope New Yorkers put someone up against Schumer next time a primary comes around, and as for Gillibrand - let's hope she comes to her senses and withdraws her support from SOPA and PIPA before she loses whatever support she still has from New Yorkers who want to build a better future.

Wikipedia Wrong to Go Dark for SOPA Protest

The New York Times reported late this afternoon that Wikipedia plans to go dark - shut down - this Wednesday, just for that day, joining Reddit and other online sites in protest of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act now under consideration by Congress.

I think SOPA is an unconstitutional, dangerous waste of time - that is, a violation of the First Amendment that won't achieve its ends, and could cripple the Internet with its provision that sites could be liable for any pirated material posted on their online premises.  No site can possibly police every post - text or video - for adherence to copyright.

Wikipedia actually does a pretty good job of making sure every image on its site violates no copyright. But I think Wikipedia should not shut down on Wednesday to point out the danger of SOPA.

Wikipedia is a source of information,  a site which by its very existence stands up to ignorance in Congress.  It won't be able to make this point on Wednesday when it's shut down.  And in doing so, Wikipedia will inconvenience millions of people, including students of all ages, who rely on its services.

Wikipedia could make the same point by putting up a page about SOPA which everyone who goes to Wikipedia would see.  A page like that will indeed greet people when they try to go to Wikipedia on Wednesday.  What is gained by then preventing them from getting the information they're seeking?

In times of revolution, even just in opposition to authority, it is especially important that lines of information remain open.  The world will survive Wikipedia's day of darkness, but it is a wrongheaded, unnecessary move, and SOPA will be defeated without it.

The Good Wife 3.13 meets Murder on the Orient Express

A good Good Wife 3.13 last night, in which the standalone part of the story concerns the Feds - in the person of Bob Balaban's well-played taxman - go after the creator of Bitcoin, on account of its being an allegedly illegal currency.

Bitcoin, in our real world (i.e., off the television drama), is a real online currency - much like the Linden dollar in Second Life, except that people can use Bitcoin money to buy real things anywhere online (not just in-world with the Linden dollar in Second Life), if the seller is willing to accept that kind of payment.  Still in our real reality, we think we know who created Bitcoin, but there may be some pseudonymity involved.

Back on The Good Wife, Alicia and the firm are defending Bitcoin's lawyer, who may or may not be the creator about whom he the lawyer is prevented from discussing, owing to attorney-client privilege.  There are two other suspects for creator, and some typically brilliant investigation by Kalinda uncovers the truth:  all three have in fact created/marketed Bitcoin.  Reminded me of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, where the murderer turns out to be everyone of the train with a motive.

Moving over to the continuing story, it turns out that Will may be a little vulnerable - though not really guilty of any wrongdoing - after all.   He lets Kalinda take charge of the touchy paperwork, to do what - destroy it?   All we know if she hands something that looks like those files over to Assistant DA Dana Lodge (played by Lie to Me's Monica Raymund), who's in possession of the document unknowingly signed by Alicia last week, when she was set up by David Lee in the alienation of affection case.  It could be enough to get Alicia disbarred.  Dana's happy to use this to blackmail Kalinda.

It's certainly enough for me to look more forward than ever to the next episode.

See also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Hell on Wheels Season One Finale: Greek Tragedy, Western-Style

Hell on Wheels pulled in to its first season finale last night with a Greek tragedy of a story, one that is as old and heart-rending as human story-telling itself ... killing the wrong the man.

The episode open with the scene that has motivated Bohannan's life since the scene and just about everything we've seen of his life this season - he comes home to find his wife in a noose.  He lovingly cradles her body, buries her and their son (also killed by the Union marauders), and rides off to begin his journey of revenge.

The only dent in his quest - the only time he even considers for a moment abandoning it, and moving on with life - is when Lily in a tender scene puts her hand on his chest and implores him not to destroy the man his wife and his son loved, not to consume that man in his hate.  Bohannan says nothing to Lily, walks out, but her words had enough impact on him that he goes to see Rev. Cole for advice.  Follow your hate, Cole advises, with the head of the Union guy he severed last week nearby, and an impromptu homily about God existing, but with arms and legs severed, and only able to hear us, and not able to do anything to help us.  Not, in other words, what Bohannan needed to hear.

So Bohannan goes after Harper, the Sgt who Bohannan believes joined in the rape and murder of his wife.  We already know Harper was not the man who did this - he shows his Army discharge paper to the Swede, which proves that Harper could not have been in Bohannan's home at the time of the murder.  Harper tries to tell this to Bohannan, tries to show him the paper,  but to no avail.  Bohannan kills Harper, only to find the discharge paper in Harper's dead hand.

Bohannan not only killed the wrong man, but if there is a Sgt out there who was part of the group who killed his wife, Bohannan now has to find him.   He looks at Lily, dancing perfunctorily with Durant.  She sees him and is glad.  But when she looks for him after the next spin in the dance, he's gone.

Gone with the wind, but now there are wanted posters out there with his name and likeness.  Bohannan's no longer under the radar, to throw in an anachronism.  But should I see one on some lamppost in 2012 New York City, it'll only remind me how much I'm looking forward to Season 2.

See also  Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on the Track, and the Telegraph ... Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail ... Hell on Wheels 1.8: Multiple Tracks ... Hell on Wheels 1.9: Historical Inevitable and Unknown

---

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realites

Fringe's first episode of the new year - 4.8 - continued the careful, brilliant multiple-reality building that has been the glimmering, slithering spine of this 4th season.

First, I think we need to be clear - i.e., here is what I think is the case - with the multiple realities we've been seeing this year.  They came into being, in their current form, when the Eternal Bald Observers not only whipped Peter out of existence at the end of last season but, in doing so, also made him never having existed in the first place.   And what this therefore did is significantly alter both our reality (with Walter, Olivia, etc) and the alternate reality (with Walternate, Fauxlivia, etc), so that characters who died in either of the original realities could now be alive in the new sans-Peter realities, characters we didn't know before in one of the original realities could be now be on center stage, etc.   Lincoln Lee would be an example of an excellent character who now has a role in our reality as well as the alternate.

Peter - if this analysis is correct - does not quite have it right when he says he wants to go home to a third reality.  Because this implies that there are three or more co-realities  - Walter now with no Peter in the past (both Peters died), Walternate now with no Peter in the past (both Peters died), and the reality of the first three seasons (alternate Peter taken by Walter, and Peter lives and grows up in our reality).  I would say that third reality does not exist in the same way that the first two do.  The only way Peter can get back to that reality is if the Eternal Bald Observers or someone somehow reverses his being yanked out of existence and memories, or at very least Walter, Olivia (and perhaps Walternate and Fauxlivia) get back their original memories.

Ok, so, with that in mind, we had a fabulous, action-packed episode last night, with Peter and Lincoln Lee (our Lincoln) going over to the alternate reality.  Peter hopes Walternate can get Peter back to the reality where the people he loves (Walter and Olivia) know and love him.  Lincoln's hoping he can learn more about how Waltnernate is responsible for the new scourge of shape shifters in our reality.

They of course get neither - and we can get something much better.  Peter meets his mother - his real, alternate reality mother - on the other side.   She's alive in this alternate (with no memory of Peter) version of reality.  Powerful, satisfying scenes.  (By the way, alternate-Broyles is alive here, too.)

And as for the shape shifters?  Well, Walternate's apparently not responsible for them.  The man behind them is no other than David Robert Jones, he of teleporting from Germany to the US and other scientific wonders fame from Fringe long ago.  He's almost in Walter's and Bell's league as far as sheer scientific brilliance and chutzpah.  He played a major role in earlier Fringe, dying as he tried to cross the portal to the alternate reality and Walter closed it - slicing Jones in half in the process.   But Jones had not been sliced in the new realities our characters are now inhabiting and contesting.  Should be some good times ahead with Jones back in play.

And that's the not all.  In a stunning last scene, an Eternal Bald Observer - September, the main one we've seen over the years - comes to see Olivia, on our side of the portal, where she's waiting for Peter and our Lincoln Lee to return.  He's gasping, and tells Olivia with regret that she will die in all realities.   And he's gasping because he's shot in the chest.  And he disappears.

Just on the last point - he disappears because he dies?  Nah.  I'd say he disappears because someone did something somewhere down the line to trigger an alternate world in which this EBO never existed at all.  Maybe that's part of the process Peter getting back to the people he loves.

But who shot him and in what circumstances?   And surely Olivia has some option for life that even the EBO doesn't know (though, I suppose we could have a Fringe in which only Fauxlivia lives, and she and Peter get together - again).  Should be good viewing indeed for the rest of this season.

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology




See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Bones 7.6: The Reassembler

Yay!  Finally a villain in Bones 7.6 worthy of the brilliance of our team!  Meaning, although I think and have often said that the new Bones-Booth relationship is a wonderful transformation of the series, the actual cases this year have lacked the intensity of the Zack Addy and other tension-tingling shows and stories of Bones past.

And tonight we finally got both.  Booth and Bones decide on a house, and the baby is just six weeks away, and it's balm for the soul to see them still so happy together.

But they're faced with a sociopathic killer who rearranges the vertebrae of the victim to deliver a code, inscribes another code for a worm (the computer kind) on the end of a bone which, when scanned, shuts down the lab's massive computer, and, like that.  Booth says the killer MacGyvered it, Jack and Angela can do little more than break the code and admire it, and Angela's the first to say the guy's a genius.

He has a great alibi.  He has a security bracelet around his ankle which tells his monitors where he is, at 30 second intervals, but he's managed to beat that system and commit his murders.   Further, he's not only brutally dismembered his victims, but has Booth and Bones in his sights.   Bones can't believe she's encountered someone who's smarter than her ...

And there this story ends.   With Bones, you never know if the reassembler will be back when the series first comes back in the second half of this season, or it he'll jump back into play later this season or even next.  I'll be glad to see him again, either way - though I just hope he hasn't in some way bugged or rigged the new home that Booth and Bones are so happy in ...

See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ... Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ... Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Rick Tyler's Good Defense of Anti-Romney Ads and Movie

I just saw Rick Tyler (on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC show) give  a spirited, excellent defense of the Gingrich PAC-group attacks ads and movie directed against Mitt Romney.  You've no doubt seen them - "When Romney Came to Town" - a scathing portrayal of what Romney did at Bain Capital, destroying rather than creating jobs in the companies Bain acquired.

Republicans ranging from  Limbaugh to Giuliani have condemned the ad and the anti-Romney campaign, saying it plays right into Obama's hands.  That would be enough to make me kindly disposed towards the ad - I can't recall the last time I agreed with anything Limbaugh and Giuliani have said - but Tyler made some good, objective points that make a lot of sense.

We're in a primary, not a general election, he said of the contest now going on among Republican contenders.   This is a time when candidates are supposed to be vetted by the press, and then voters.

Some economists have joined the critique of the ads, saying that what Romney did at Bain embodies Schumpeter's notion of "creative destruction," as one of the necessary, healthy engines of capitalism.  I'm Darwinian in my theory of media evolution - see my The Soft Edge - so I'm well aware of Joseph Schumpeter's work.   But Tyler had a valid response to this, too:  it doesn't matter whether you dress up what Romney did at Bain in sophisticated economic theory.  Romney did preside over the dismantling of weak companies Bain had acquired, and profited from this.  

And Romney apparently enjoyed it.  Vultures may be part of the natural world, and play a role in evolution and survival of the fittest.  But that doesn't mean we have to like them, or want one to be President.

Beyond that, as I said last week about Gingrich's handwringing about Romney Pac-group attack ads on Gingrich:  people are not that influenced by them, anyway, people can separate truth from falsity, stop whining.
 

The Day After New Hampshire

I take Ron Paul's strong second-place in the Republican New Hampshire primary last night as a very good thing for people like me who want more government respect for the First Amendment and an end to unconstitutional wars.

Yes, there are positions that Ron Paul holds which I strongly oppose - notably his call for a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortion, which is inconsistent with libertarian philosophy and its view that the government should stay out of our lives.  And I'm not at all happy about the racist observations that appeared under his name in his newsletter two decades ago.

But there's  a lot to commend in Ron Paul.   He not only opposes undeclared wars but the NDAA signed into law by Obama and SOPA now under consideration in Congress.  He wants an end to the massive Federal anti-drug enforcement, which he correctly sees as an invasion of privacy, and which has especially targeted minority groups.

And his Republican rivals, who share none of his virtues, share all of his serious political defects.  No Republican supports a woman's right to have complete control over her own body, and Gingrich and Santorum have both recently made racist statements.

Would I vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama in a general election?  Not very likely.  But unlike in 2008, when I first supported Ron Paul for the GOP nomination and then withdrew that when I became aware of his 1990s newsletters,  I think our country would be much better served by an Obama vs. Ron Paul election than it would by Obama facing any other GOP candidate.

Hell on Wheels 1.9: History Inevitable and Unknown

The thing about Hell on Wheels is that we know that Durant succeeded with the Union Pacific railroad.  That's our unchangeable history, and the unchangeable foundation of the series, because it's historical drama not time travel.  So it's a measure of how good a job the series has been doing of keeping us on the edge of our seats that it comes as a refreshing surprise when Durant pounds in the spike that completes his forty miles - winning him the right to continue building his east-west half of the first transcontinental railroad.

But, of course, there's no guarantee at all of happy endings for the other characters.   Elam's finally doing fine, getting money (for the Indian scalps that he took), a better position from Durant, and the exclusive relationship he wants with Eva.   Lily's doing fine, free from Durant and proving her surveyor acumen.

Well, not totally free, because as we see near the end of the episode, Durant still wants to keep her clear of Bohannan. Durant see Lily and Bohannan talking cosily in the bar, we see the flash of passion in their eyes which we knew was there all along, and this spurs Durant to speak to Bohannan privately and give him a "bonus" for his great work in getting the crew to complete the 40 miles.   The bonus isn't money, which Bohannan doesn't want.  It's the information that Federal marshals are coming to get Bohannan for the serial murders of his wife's killers he's been committing.

Bohannan realizes that Durant is doing this not really to help Bohannan, but to get get him out town (whether he realizes that this is to get him away from Lily is not yet completely clear).   Durant says the Swede alerted the marshals.  Whether the Swede did this on his own or with Durant's knowledge - or even on Durant's orders - is also not completely clear.   Durant, as far as we've seen, values his railroad above all else.  But the love of a woman - smart, strong, and beautiful - can be a pretty strong motivator to man like Durant, who would go far to have someone like Lily beside him.

We'll find out next week in the finale of this too-short season what becomes of this.   I'll be back here with a review of that after the train finishes whistling.

See also  Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on the Track, and the Telegraph ... Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail ... Hell on Wheels 1.8: Multiple Tracks

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits

The Good Wife's first 2012 episode - 3.12 - brought us two suits.   Not clothes, law suits.  And against the Lockhart Gardner.

The first was essentially another David Lee boondoggle, an "alienation of affection" case arising out a divorce case that Lee handled for the firm a few years ago.  The most important part of this suit - other than the humor - was the role that Cary unexpected plays.  His testimony helps the firm - deliberately.  And when Alicia, seeing him out, thanks and asks him what's going on, he says he's  a different man now, happy with his job as Peter's deputy.  It's good seeing a character grow like that.

The alienation of affection suit also may hold some unexpected affection for Diane, with a new character, played by Bryan Brown, a charming process server.  Not only is there a little chemistry between the two, but Bryan Brown is a cool choice to bring in as an actor: he starred in the 1987 movie, The Good Wife, a completely different story, also starring Rachel Ward.

Back to our Good Wife, the second suit of night has been progressing for a while - it's the one against Will.  Wendy Scott-Carr is tightening the vice.   Her motive is still not completely clear - she presumably wants to get back at Peter, for getting the State Attorney job she wanted,  but going after Will seems a little of a roundabout way to do this.   Fortunately for Will, he's hired the quirkily brilliant Elsbeth Tascioni as his lawyer on Alicia's recommendation, and it will be fun seeing Elsbeth ultimately take down Wendy (I hope).

The Good Wife continues as one of the best lawyer shows in that oft-practiced genre on television.

See also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

LP's Into the Wild

Hey, you've all seen that Citibank commercial, with the woman climbing to the top of an awesome rock formation, and another woman belting out "Somebody left the gate open, Save us a runaway train".  Jeanne Moos had a good piece about it on CNN this weekend.

I'm no fan of Citibank, and I've climbed no more than a few feet up in my life, but I was knocked out enough by the lyric, melody, and performance to seek out the full version of the song, and -

Wow, it's "Into the Wild" by LP, the most energizing, emotionally brilliant song and performance I've heard in years.

Here are two video versions - the recording with a picture, and LP's live performance.   Laura Pergolizzi not only sings but whistles evocatively, that stand-up bass player in her group reminds me of The Seekers, retro-rocked-up and launched out of this world into more than the 21st century.