The most important and the best directors of the decade in alphabetical order:

Wes Anderson

What do you do when you’re a rising filmmaker with hipster cred on top of the indie scene? This was Wes Anderson in 2001, when “The Royal Tenenbaums” to widespread acclaim. Characters in the Andersonverse are invariably all ex-prodigies who dress in psychedelic 60’s garb and have family problems. This explains not only “the Royal Tanenbaums”, but also “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” and “The Darjeeling Limited” as well. Alright, quirky, dry humor may not be to everyone’s liking. That’s Anderson’s style through and through. That and his love of vintage Kinks tracks. Yet it is hard to deny his monopoly on independent auteur films. He’s got a legion of followers. Plus, his latest film, the children’s book adaptation, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” has gotten rave reviews despite allegations that he directed the film through e-mail. I say that takes talent.

Danny Boyle

In 2003 Danny Boyle reignited the zombie genre, making a film that took itself seriously and represented the zombie apocalypse in an edgy and intense way. The fact that he did the film for 8 million and still managed to create the incredible sense of isolation that he did is pretty amazing. He then went on to make indie hit, “Millions” a family film about a 7 year old who finds a big bag of dirty money. Then the great sci-fi flick “Sunshine” about a group of people sent to reignite the sun with an enormous bomb as it is dying. Unfortunately the film was hardly released by Fox Searchlight and very few people saw it in theaters. Finally he has his big break, after 14 years of directing feature films he hits it big with “Slumdog Millionaire”. An extremely popular film with an insanely odd premise. A film about a poor Indian kid who is chosen to play “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and ends up knowing the answers to all of the questions by coincidence because of very specific memories throughout his life. The fact that it was executed so well really shows Boyle’s ability to evoke emotion with film.

Guillermo Del Toro

He had such a good decade, he was chosen to direct the “Lord of the Rings” prequels, “The Hobbit” Parts 1 and 2. How did he land the gig? By doing a lot of films and making them all good. My personal Del Toro favorite was his Mexican film “The Devil’s Backbone” from 2001. It was creepy and emotionally effective, one of the best horror films ever made. He then went on to make “Blade II” in 2002 which was okay, but many hold it high above the original “Blade” which he did not direct. “Hellboy” in 2004 was a moderate success and started a franchise he could call his own. People enjoyed the sarcastic and odd film, and the film has now become sort of a cult super-hero hit. His big break of the decade oddly came in the form of another Mexican film, “Pan’s Labyrinth”. It didn’t win best foreign film for the year it was released, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it is absolutely one of the most popular foreign films of the decade. “Hellboy II” came in 2008 to great reviews and solid word of mouth, but the large 85 million dollar budget was a bit much for the odd film and it had a hard time making to much here in the states. Del Toro is an important filmmaker who only looks to becoming more important in the near future.

Clint Eastwood

At almost 80 years old, “Dirty Harry” is one of the most prolific AND consistent Hollywood directors there is. The actor’s career spans 50 years in television and movies, and he embodies an endangered breed in all his roles as the American tough guy. His films, like John Ford of cinema yesteryear, convey a nostalgia for American values and readjustment in hard times. This decade alone, Clint Eastwood was nominated for ‘Best Director’ three times, winning in 2005 for “Million Dollar Baby”, about a resilient young waitress who wants to become a boxer. His latest film, “Invictus”, about apartheid in South Africa and a beleaguered rugby team, is up for a handful of Golden Globes and is receiving Oscar buzz. There is a story that on the night that Eastwood won his first Oscar for directing “Unforgiven”, a young director approached him and said Eastwood had inspired many like him. The young director? Steven Spielberg. The rest speaks for itself.

Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson had a sort of Sam Raimi-to-David Lean metamorphoses after the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was released. Here was a short and burly director from New Zealand whose reputation came from cult classics like “Heavenly Creatures” and “The Frighteners”. He shocked the world with his commitment to bringing Middle-Earth to life in “The Fellowship of the Ring”, adapted from the epic novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Jackson spent the better part of a decade bringing these films to life. It took a whole year JUST to grow the set that would be used for the Shire. His dedication was finally rewarded with the ‘Best Director’ statue at the 2004 Academy Awards. Jackson went onto make a 3-hour remake of King Kong and most recently, the adaptation of Alice Sebold’s “The Lovely Bones”. He has also proved very successful in the producer’s chair (District 9, anyone?) but we can save that for another time.

Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes arguably had his best film in 1999 with “American Beauty” which went on to be a huge success and win best picture at the oscars. He did 4 more films this decade, all of which were arguably quite good. First he did “Road to Perdition”, a fantastic, but awards starved gangster film starring Tom Hanks. Then he did the worst film of his short career, “Jarhead” which was still a very well done and interesting film. It talked about a new aspect of modern warfare, the aspect of possibility of being completely bored as a soldier. Unfortunately audiences largely felt the same way and the film wasn’t all that successful financially or in accolades. He then did “Revolutionary Road” which was another great drama in the vein of his first film “American Beauty”, but set in the 1950’s. He sealed his spot with his very solid romantic dramedy, “Away We Go” which was released earlier this year.

Michael Moore

Love him or hate him, Michael Moore is probably the most famous documentarian in the world… if you call his works documentaries. Hollywood as whole does tend to swing left, but Michael Moore would probably be anti-Hollywood, so where do you think that points him? He first surfaced on everyone’s radar way back in 1989 with a picture about corporatism and its impact on local economies, in “Roger & Me”. This decade, Moore directed four ‘documentaries’: “Bowling for Columbine”, which discuss gun control; “Fahrenheit 9/11″, the patriot act and a Bush conspiracy; “Sicko”, the healthcare system, which just recently was the subject of an unwieldingly complex reform bill; and most recently “Capitalism: A Love Story”. The last should come as a no brainer. Even his critics concede that he has a knack for finding flaws in different systems. But it’s not just because he’s influential: having made blockbusters from works of nonfiction, Moore secured a chance for other doc-filmmakers to get the same opportunity. And the topical doc has become a very vogue concept during the aughts. Moore should know because he was responsible for it.

Christopher Nolan

Chris Nolan burst on the scene in 2000 with the release of his neo-noir thriller “Memento” to rave reviews. Following a man who has had some part in a murder both after AND before the incident takes place via nonlinear storytelling, Nolan became a champion of this technique, and it would come to be used in future films. He’s perhaps most known to mainstream audiences for popularizing the reboot with “Batman Begins” and the record-breaking “The Dark Knight”, but Nolan’s other titles include psychodramas like “Insomnia”, “The Prestige” and hitting this summer, “Inception”. Strictly speaking, Christopher Nolan is probably the most powerful director in the world at the moment, excluding Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. Yet you can be sure that Nolan knows what he’s doing: none of his films have a lower score than 75% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Jason Reitman

The youngest and most savvy director on this list probably is the orthodox libertarian-minded Jason Reitman. Reitman, whose first claim to fame came in 2005 with “Thank You For Smoking”, a satire about the tobacco companies, has since gone onto make several critically acclaimed dramedies. These include the Gen-Y favorite “Juno” and now “Up in the Air”, which is steadily expanding across the country. If you recognize his name, it’s because he’s the son of Ivan Reitman, who wrote, directed, and starred in “Ghostbusters” among other things. At only 32 years old, we still expect great things from Reitman, if he keeps a firm level of quality control on all his future projects.

Martin Scorsese

How could you have a best director list without the quintessential American director? A student of the French New Wave and member of ‘New Hollywood’, Scorsese has made several strong films throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90’s. Along the way, he won several awards, but never ever an Oscar, after having been snubbed time and time again by the Academy, going all the way back to “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” in 1975. This decade, Scorsese submitted 3 more modern masterpieces to modern cinema: “Gangs of New York”, “The Aviator”, and “The Departed”. While “The Aviator” received the most nominations of any of his films since “Raging Bull”, it was “The Departed”, with those familiar themes of betrayal versus loyalty, that finally won him the one prize that had alluded him: an academy award. This year, he will be receiving an honorary Golden Globe for lifetime achievement and there is no one else on this (except maybe Clint Eastwood) who deserves it more. We hope his contributions continue well into his late ’90s.

Written By Riley B. and Adam G.

Honorable Mentions:

Gus Van Sant

Michel Gondry

Steven Soderbergh

Ang Lee

Quentin Tarantino

This rumor first surfaced in November and we’d sure hate it to be true. With two high-profile projects coming out within the next year, including tomorrow’s “Sherlock Holmes” (the other is “Iron Man 2″) is RDJ about to call it quits?

Last month, in Entertainment Weekly, this is what he had to say:

“I’m f—ing really good at what I do — and have been for a long time, so I don’t waver on that. But here’s the thing: I can only be a guy on a call sheet probably, I don’t know, maybe a couple more times. It’s something I’m so grateful to have in my palm, and yet I already see its inevitable decay.”

“If Sherlock Holmes performs well, I could be busy for the next 5 or 7 or 10 years.”

You may be thinking, “that arrogant prick!” before you relent and agree. It’s not that he has a big ego, he’s just incredibly aware of himself and his success. A lot of celebrities like to play the articulate, but with Robert Downey Jr., you’re getting the real deal.

What about all the other high-profile actors that were rumored to be quitting the game this year? And why should we care if he DOES decide to throw in the towel?

Firstly, RDJ experienced one of the greatest comebacks in Hollywood history this decade, after his bout with alcoholism and drug abuse. He spent the 90’s in and out of rehab. He took some pretty underrated, often times embarrassing roles the first half of the 2000s where he could get them.

Is it just a sign that Hollywood is slowly becoming the completely desensitized shell our conservative grandparents warned it always was? Whatever the case, Robert Downey Jr. went on to star in a host of beloved roles, including Tony Stark in “Iron Man” and Kirk Lazarus in “Tropic Thunder”. ”Sherlock Holmes”, though, isn’t receiving stellar reviews and it’s not yet known just how it will play out with Avatar at the box office. But that’s all okay.

Actors these days are beginning to realize when they’ve been overexposed and are slowly starting to adjust. Still, we’d hate to see RDJ go, because in addition to those blockbuster roles he’s done, he also starred in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, “Good Night and Good Luck”, “Zodiac”, and others.

Yet at the end of the day, we have to learn to respect whoever is making the decision. So RDJ completely quitting acting? I’m going to say: no, don’t be alarmed. His name in the credits might just get more rare, that’s all.

A test post from the blackberry.

Genesis

Lesson 3

Day Two

Intro: Brief review of previous studies

In looking at day two, let’s look at some things about the number two in scripture.

The number two is the number of division or separation. It affirms that there is a difference. Exodus 8:23 reads “I will put a division between my people and they people.”

We see that the light was divided from the darkness, (the night from the day); the waters from the waters, (the saved from the lost). The first Adam and the Last Adam.

Jesus sent the seventy out by two’s, two is the number of witness (Luke 10:1; (1Timothy 5:19).

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.”

The physical miracle that took place here is enormous. God formed the sky and separated the waters above from the waters beneath. The water vapor which continually remains above us in our atmosphere is estimated to be 54 trillion 460 billion tons. Water is 773 times the weight of air, imagine the power it took to lift it.

The amount of rain and snow that falls every year is the equivalent of 186,000 cubic miles. The supply of water above the earth is constantly maintained by evaporation, by the power of the sun.

Thus far in our study we have looked at the original creation, & the gap theory. Next we looked at the condition of the world in Genesis 1:2 and how it corresponds with the condition of the soul of a lost man. It was empty, confused, and in darkness. Being all of these makes it a fitting picture of a lost soul. Then we looked at the fact that God’s Spirit moved upon the face of the waters and God did not make a full end. Next we looked at Genesis 1:3 “And God said, let there be light, and there was light.” And we looked at how this pictured the work of the Holy Spirit in enlightening a lost soul to it’s lost condition. Day one is also a picture of Christ being born into the world. Into a world which had again become dark, confused and empty; Light came by way of a little virgin girl in the town of Bethlehem. We looked at the fact that John bore witness of that Light in John 1; and we noted how the Holy Spirit shines the light of the gospel in the heart of a darkened soul.

In the first day we see pictured:

1. The incarnation of Christ

2. The first work of the Holy Spirit in a lost soul

3. The condition of the lost soul revealed

We looked at how some people accept the truth and come to repentance, and some will deny the truth and fight against the convicting power of the Holy Ghost. We also looked at why many refuse to accept the truth;

1. pride

2. shame

Isaiah 58:3 says “We hid, as it were, our faces from him.”

We also noted that the light and the darkness can not get together. They are separate, they do not mix.

Day Two

The first thing God dealt with was the darkness in day one. The next thing that God dealt with is here in Day Two. Here God deals with disorder. We see a dead planet, overflowed with water. There is nothing in sight but water. As yet there is no atmosphere either.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.”

Let’s look first at the fact that this is the second day. The number two, as we study, we will see is very significant here. A serious bible student should always consider any numbers, colors, seasons, names, etc. in the text of great importance. All things in scripture are of the utmost importance for us in seeking to know God better.

In the sacrifices there are two birds, one slain and the other set free; two goats, one slain, the other set free. There are two masters which are the two covenants, old and new. The woman and her seed – Satan and his seed. There is clean and unclean, righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, law and grace, Christ and anti-Christ, physical and spiritual; and many more illustrations of the fact that two is the number of division.

The number two is also the number of witness, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses ever word may be established.”

Our Lord sent His disciples out by two’s. Also in illustration of this are Caleb and Joshua spying out the promised land.

Moses and Aaron,

Elijah and Elisha,

Paul and Barnabas,

Peter and John,

Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration,

The two angels at Christ’s resurrection,

Two men at His ascension,

Two angels were sent to get Lot out of Sodom,

And the word of God itself with the two witnesses, the Old and New Testaments.

Much more could be observed but for the sake of being short we will stop there.

Now looking at day two and the physical act which was in itself infinitely miraculous. God formed the sky by separating the waters which were above from the waters which were beneath. The physical miracle which took place on this day is passed over unnoticed. In considering the statistics that we already mentioned think of the sheer power that it took to do this. On day two there was no sun yet, just the Power of Almighty God. Step back and look at what a miracle working God, a powerful God, we serve. Imagine the power of God if you can.

In the second day’s work, the making of the firmament, we have pictured before us the cross on which our Lord was crucified. We have already noted that day one was a picture of the incarnation of Christ. The first step in God’s plan to redeem fallen man was the incarnation of Christ or His birth here on earth. I have said many times that Jesus Christ was the Love of God personified. The Son given in John 3:16.

The firmament is a picture of Calvary or of Christ’s death. It is in looking back to Calvary that we see man at his worst and God at His best. We see…

1. The cost of sin

2. The price of redemption

3. The law executed

4. Judgment administered

5. And the Justice of a Holy God satisfied

AT CALVARY

Notice three things on this second day

1. Division – Jesus was suspended between heaven and earth, between God and man, between the two thieves.

(Both the thieves were condemned men, dying for their transgressions but notice them. One was still mocking Jesus while the other recognizes Him as Lord and calls on Him for Salvation. All men are in the shape that those thieves were in. Dying, without hope until they look to Jesus, and cry out to Him.)

2. We also see SEPERATION, Only He could do this, only Jesus could be the perfect sacrifice. Separate man because He was sinless and perfect, separate from the Father because He was made to be sin for us. (Greatest of all is this beautiful truth; This was a voluntary separation. Jesus separated Himself for us. “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”)

3. And ISOLATION, Pushed back toward heaven on a rugged cross by a humanity that was saying, “we will not have this man to rule over us,” and rejected by heaven because He had become sin for us. The Father turned away His face from His precious Son. For the only brief time in eternity, the fellowship of the Trinity was broken, that we might be brought back into fellowship with the God of Heaven. Oh, praise God for His wonderful sacrifice.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and it divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.”

The firmament here is a picture of the cross, it was on the cross that God’s precious Son, Jesus, was for a moment, separated from God and man. Our Lord cried out on the cross “My God My God why has thou forsaken me?” And the Father in heaven turned away from His only begotten Son. We can not understand it, I can not explain it, but the Blessed Trinity was broken for a brief moment in time. This is one of those mysteries, one of the awesome truths of God’s word which we as men can not understand, but we accept it in faith though we can’t understand. The fact before us is that God turned away from His only Son. Jesus is, and has always been God, we see this in John chapter 1. Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Jesus could not be killed, but chose to die.

“No man taketh my life from me but I lay it down,” John 10:14-18

Jesus chose to die,

“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Luke 23:46

Jesus chose when to die.

We as men can not understand this but the word of God tells us these things. He said that He would lay His life down and that He would take it up again. He was never out of control, nor did He ever lose power. He proved it on the third and Glorious day when He arose. He got up from the grave and showed heaven and earth and all creation that He is still God and He is still in control.

Oh, friend, all of this is true and we stand in awe and we look at Calvary and wonder at what Jesus suffered for us on the Cross. This is just truth, to be believed and accepted. On the cross Jesus was separated from man, rejected by a God hating world which hung our precious Saviour on a cross, then shoved Him back toward heaven, not realizing that one day He will rule. He is the Lord of all creation. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

(Notice His Thirst)

His thirst was much deeper than a thirst for water, it was much greater than any physical need. He suffered a thirst for,

1. Partnership – fellowship with the Father and the Spirit was broken

2. Citizenship – no place to call home, neither world would have Him

3. For Fellowship – no communion (there was none to relate too, He was all alone)

Notice also that the firmament is a picture of the cross in that it was purposed by God before it was made. God commanded it to be so and He was very careful to let us see that it was of Great importance because it did not simply come to be at His command. Other times things were commanded and “it was so”. Here it reads, “And God made the firmament”.

By the same token, Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. God purposed it and God did it Himself. Abraham understood this when he was walking up the mountain to offer up Isaac. That is why he said that God would provide “Himself” a sacrifice and not “for Himself”.

Next, notice where the firmament is, “in the midst of the waters.” It is a well known fact among bible students that water is a type or a picture of the word of God in bible study. Still waters, as in Psalm 23 is also a type of the word of God. And again when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John 3. But here the word is plural and in a plural sense the word refers to or is a picture of the people or nations of the world. We will see later that the sea or seas are also a type of peoples or nations. In this verse this word is a type of people. The place where our Lord was crucified, I have heard it said, was the geographical center of the world. I really don’t understand the statement. If you look at the map it is around 33degrees North by 35degrees But the bible “the midst of the waters,” in describing the firmament’s position. I believe there can be no more simple or beautiful comparison. Jesus was crucified in the midst of humanity. This great gift to the world from God was not given in secret, but for all to see. He was crucified on the pass-over which would mean that Jews of every nation would be present in the city of Jerusalem. Hence we see that He was in the midst of the waters.

“And let it divide the waters from the waters,” And so we all know that the cross is a dividing line for the people of the world. Even then it divided the believing thief from the unbelieving thief. And today the preaching of the cross is still foolishness to the lost world.

The firmament is also a picture of the cross in that it was purposed, designed, and fore-ordained of God. “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” (Acts 2:23)

If you will also notice, the second days work is the only one which the word of God does not say that God saw that it was good. Because it pointed to the cross and there God had to deal with sin. It was there that the Precious Son of God willingly gave Himself to die for sinners like us. This is the cup of which Christ spoke when he prayed, becoming sin and enduring the broken fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Many fail to see this. The physical suffering Jesus endured and never complained, the beatings, the scourging, the mockery, the cursing that He endured were nothing to Him compared to what lay ahead. This is why the bible tells us the He endured the cross despising the shame. To despise it meant that He thought little of it. Why? For the joy that was set before Him. He was willing to lay down His life in anticipation of all the souls that would be saved as a result, and He focused on the joy ahead instead of the current circumstances. The bitter cup that was the great difficulty was the thought of being made sin and suffering that horrible separation. Jesus went to the cross and hung there for us. In all the things that He suffered, he never once cried out until,

“My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?”

Oh, how little we think of that fellowship today. We lapse into sin at nothing. Let’s take a fresh look at day two, at the firmament, at Calvary.

I loved this e-mail sent to me by Lena Harrison.  What an analogy for our Christian walk! 

Life is a series of lessons – some difficult, some joyous, but to know that whatever our trials, HE is there. 

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of Passage?

His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him an leaves him alone.  He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it..  He cannot cry out for help to anyone.

Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him . Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could  become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.  He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone.  

Even when we don’t know it, God is watching over  us, Sitting on the stump beside us.  

When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him.

If you liked this story, pass it on.  If not, you took off your blindfold  before dawn.

Moral of the story:

Just because you can’t see God,

Doesn’t mean He is not there.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Children will like this…

TRACK SANTA TO YOUR TOWN ON THE OFFICIAL SITE:

NORAD TRACKS SANTA

END OF POST

Dr. Cornelius answers the question here. (H/T ECM)

Here’s the criterion specified by naturalists to make an explanation scientific:

…in order to qualify as legitimate science a theory must distinguish between different outcomes. Naturalism is needed because otherwise each outcome is equally probable and the theory is not true science.

Deciding what does and does not qualify as legitimate science is notoriously difficult. There seem to be exceptions to every rule. But perhaps Felsenstein’s criterion is reasonable. Shouldn’t a scientific theory say at least something about the probabilities of what we might observe in the data?

Does Darwinism satisfy the criterion? Hunter argues that it does not.

Whatever we find in biology, evolutionists say it must have evolved. Their predictions and expectations are often falsified and they have to patch their theory repeatedly. And there is no distinction between a new, fantastic design and a repeated design–both are equiprobable under evolution.

If a new, fantastic design appears such as the trilobite eye, then evolutionists ascribe it to natural selection. If similar designs are found in different species, then it is ascribed to common descent. If later cousin species are found to lack the design, then common descent can be dropped as an explanation and the design can be said to have evolved independently. The evolutionary explanation is extremely flexible.

If distinguishing between outcomes is the hallmark of true science, then evolution is the theory that doesn’t qualify.

Read the whole thing!

Since it’s Christmas Eve and I’m in the spirit of the season I’ve decided to compile a list of my favorite Christmas movies and TV Specials. Some are beloved classics while others make you wonder, “What on Earth is he thinking?” but I love them anyway. None of these are in any particular order, but the higher on the list something is the more I enjoy it.  Have a Merry White Christmas (speaking of which, check my latest edition of “Todd’s Take”, “Stopping by Ring of Honor on a Snowy Evening”. I know it’s a shameless plug but I needed to get it in somewhere.) and enjoy my picks…

• White Christmas- The Bing Crosby classic that puts into words what we all dream of.

• A Charlie Brown Christmas- Charlie Brown directs a Christmas Pageant…and decorates the littlest Christmas tree in the process.

• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer/Frosty the Snowman- A beloved Christmas carol flawlessly brought to life via the stop-motion animation of Rankin-Bass. Includes such memorable moments as an elf that wants to be a dentist, the reindeer coach, the Island of Misfit toys, and the answer to why the Abominable Snowman is so cranky. And then there’s Frosty. I put these two together because they were usually a package deal.
• Elf- From the director of “Iron Man” comes Will Ferrell as a human being raised by Santa’s elves on a journey into the real world.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas- Only Tim Burton could make a kid receiving a shrunken head on Christmas family friendly.
• A Christmas Carol- A classic in any incarnation, be it Patrick Stewart’s one man show or the Mickey Mouse cartoon (Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge. Genius) you can’t help but love the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge from stingy miser to jolly old man.
• Christmas with the Joker- All Dick Grayson wanted was for Bruce Wayne to take the night off and watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” unfortunately the Joker’s putting on his own Christmas special, one that involves plenty of fireworks. Will Batman and Robin save Christmas and get home in time for “It’s a Wonderful Life”? Watch to find out.
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe- The Pevinsies enter Narnia where it’s always winter but never Christmas. Luckily for the Narnian’s that’s about to change.
• Miracle of 34^th Street- A little girl learns to believe in Santa Claus. Charming.
• It’s a Wonderful Life- A story about how important one man can be. Which leads me to my next pick…
• It’s a Bundyful Life or any Christmas episode Married With Children- Christmas with the Bundys. What else is there to say? Other than Al learns how happy his family would be if he was never born.
• Every South Park Christmas Special- Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo. Evil Woodland critters. Santa being shot down in Iraq. Cartman ripping on Kyle every year for being Jewish. Saddam Hussein taking over Canada.  Mr. Garrison fighting the war on Christmas. Every year South Park comes out with something else to offend and bring joy to us all. But for now check out the original South Park Christmas Classic, Jesus vs. Santa to determine “the Spirit of Christmas”. (Warning children course language ahead!)

• Beavis and Butthead Do Christmas- A classic that should be shown year round. “Santa Butt Head will happy to grant you wish” And how can you not like Ebenezer Beavis? Bumhug.

• He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special- He-Man and She-Ra team up to save Christmas from Skeletor, who thanks to two Earth kids and robot puppy learns to be…nice. Say what you want but there’s nothing like a guy with a skull for a face getting into the Christmas spirit.

• Home Alone- A Christmas Eve showdown between a lone boy and two inept burglars.
• A Christmas Story- “You’ll shoot your eye out!” “I triple dog dare you” “You look like a pink nightmare”. If you don’t know any of these quotes watch TNT anytime on Christmas Day.

And last but certainly not least…

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas- The greatest Christmas story EVER! Nobody sums up what’s great about Christmas and what drives you crazy about it better than Dr. Seuss. Catchy rhymes, catchy music, great characters, and quotable quotes (Cindy Lou Who who was no more than two. The Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea), and the triumphant image of the Grinch power lifting Christmas. Brings a tear to the eye every year.

I’m sure I left something out. The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Christmas specials come immediately to mind as does Garfield’s Christmas Special, the ALF Christmas Special, anything involving Mick Foley, or the Simpsons Christmas Specials. I haven’t seen the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” Christmas special yet so that’s why it’s absent. But, like on Christmas, you can’t have everything you want. In closing I leave you with some Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Merry Christmas to all!!!!!!

The title of a recent Mac Night Owl column by Gene Steinberg grabbed me as a question that might have been more relevant 10 years ago. “Can You Survive Without a Desktop Mac?” Gene queries rhetorically.

From my perspective, and I think that of many others these days, the operative would more aptly be, “can you survive without a laptop Mac?” After all, the New York Times first reported that laptop sales exceeded desktops in May 2003, Apple notebook sales surpassed its desktops sold in July 2005, have done so consistently since April 2006, and now represent roughly three-quarters of Mac systems sold, although from time to time desktops gain back some ground, such as with the hot-selling new iMacs. Industry-wide, laptops began outselling desktops globally in Q3 2008, nearly four years sooner than anticipated.

I was somewhat ahead of the curve, making the switch from desktop to laptop as my main production platform in October 1996, when I bought a PowerBook 5300. Aside from a brief dalliance with a G4 Cube in mid-2001, and purchasing a brand-new leftover SuperMac S-900 tower clone for $300 a year before that to use as a backup machine, it’s been all laptop, all the time for me now for more than a baker’s dozen years. I honestly can’t imagine myself trying to get along with just a desktop Mac anymore.

Not that there aren’t some enticing and compelling Mac desktops. I found that Cube difficult to resist, at least conceptually. I loved the design, but in practical use I found it less enchanting and myself pining for laptop virtues, so after six months I grabbed an opportunity to swap the barely broken-in Cube even-trade for a year-old PowerBook G3 Pismo. I’ve never regretted the decision, and now, more than eight years later, I still have that same old Pismo in regular service. I’ve still got the big S-900 as well, but it’s been quite a while since it was booted up.

Meanwhile, since that first PowerBook 5300, which is also still around and in working order, I’ve owned a PowerBook G3 Series WallStreet, two PowerBook 1400s, three Pismos, a dual USB iBook G3, a 17-inch PowerBook G4, and my present number-one machine — a late 2008 model unibody MacBook, purchased last March. Desktops simply haven’t been a significant part of the picture for me for nearly a decade, and I can’t say there’s anything I really miss about them.

There’s a bit of irony I suppose in that my MacBook serves mainly as a desktop workstation, perched on a laptop stand, connected to three USB hubs, an external keyboard, several pointing devices, a printer, a scanner, a USB microphone, and an Ethernet LAN. In many respects a desktop Mac would be a more logical and rational choice for my main home office production machine. I’ve seriously mused about a Mac mini (which I’ve always admired) for years, and the latest iMacs give you an awful lot of power and display real estate for your dollar.

Never say never, but even though I keep at least two other laptops in service as utility portable/road machines, I would still find it frustrating not to be able to unplug my main axe from its spaghetti-tangle of workstation peripheral cables, drop it in a computer case or backpack, and take it along elsewhere — whether elsewhere is just another part of the house or on a road trip, with full, untethered functionality intact.

If I ever feel the need for a larger display (it does appeal), that’s easy to arrange as well. On the other hand, with a desktop, you’re limited to the availability of 110V wall current or some equivalent, and an iMac, or even a Mac mini with monitor and pointing devices, would be a lot more cumbersome to take along. Also, if the power goes off, as it does fairly frequently in my neck of the woods, I can just keep on computing — for a long time if my emergency 12V battery pack is fully charged.

For me, getting along without a laptop would involve too much compromise. How about you?

Tyler Cowen asks why pay across software programmers is not more unequal. He cites John Cook, who argues that differences in programmer productivity are difficult to identify and measure. Since I do know something about this (though not a comprehensive answer), I thought I would comment.

Cook contrasts programmers to salespeople: “In some professions such a difference would be obvious. A salesman who sells 10x as much as his peers will be noticed, and compensated accordingly. Sales are easy to measure, and some salesmen make orders of magnitude more money than others.” Although this is the most-cited example around (except perhaps for traders), I don’t actually think it’s true.

OK, I’ll concede that sales are easy to measure. But I won’t concede that sales bear more than a loose and passing relationship to sales productivity (unless you make the circular definition of sales productivity as sales). I’ve been a part of dozens of major, high-dollar sales efforts, and there are many, many factors other than how “good” the sales rep is: the sales consultants (pre-sales, sales engineers, application engineers, whatever you call them) involved; how happy the customer is with previous products from the same company; executive involvement; random personality fit; recommendations by industry analysts (who are primed by marketing); the user group meeting; and on and on. If you simply reward successful sales, you end up rewarding people who are the best at monopolizing the best sales consultants and the best at getting top executives to come along on their deals; is that really what you want? And of course, by far the biggest factor in any big deal is luck. In enterprise software, where the deals are so big and so few that a salesperson can make his or her quota with one big deal, luck trumps everything.

That said, most companies do pay salespeople on commission anyway, because they can’t think of another way to do it, and the salespeople want it that way. In addition, the people in charge of most companies, at least technology companies, came up on the sales side, so they are disinclined to realize that a lot of their success was due to luck, and they are inclined to keep the same metrics that they succeeded on.

Turning back to programmers, there are a lot of reasons why differences in pay don’t match differences in ability. One is that most programs of any significance are written by teams, and the productivity of a team is to some extent limited by the productivity of its least-productive member. Another problem is that quality of code is very hard to measure up front; you really don’t know how good any component is until it’s been used by real customers in lots of ways you didn’t anticipate it being used.

That said, if you walk around any good development team and ask who the superstars are, you’ll find out that people really do know who the great programmers are. So why don’t the top people make more?

Well, to some extent they do. Although pay for employees of, say, Oracle goes pretty much by seniority and responsibility (like for most jobs), there is also a big market for independent contractors, who typically get paid much more (per hour) than employees. Second, as Cook says, “Someone who is 10x more productive than his colleagues is likely to leave, either to work with other very talented programmers or to start his own business.” There are many software programmers in the world; some do maintenance for decades-old internal systems at midsized manufacturing companies in the Midwest and some work for Google or Microsoft. The latter make a lot more than the former. Finally, historically in Silicon Valley the most sought-after jobs were not the ones with the highest salaries; they were the jobs at new hot startups, where you could get a non-trivial amount of equity as an early employee. I assure you, those jobs do not go to mediocre programmers.

But still, within a given “hot startup,” differences in pay do not fully reflect differences in ability. And I think the reasons are more sociological, or cultural, than anything else. (As I said above, not only do I think it would be easy to identify the top programmers on a given team, generally it would be completely uncontroversial who those people are.) One factor is that major pay discrepancies can have a corrosive effect on a team of people who have to work together. Most sales departments, by contrast, have such a strong individualist ethos that it’s assumed from the beginning that everyone is in it for himself, so there is nothing to corrode. In this sense, software programming is like almost every other job other than sales or trading; pay differences don’t reflect differences in ability, because the social convention is for them not to.

Another factor that is probably more important is the way salaries are set at companies. At a high level, they are set by management teams, headed by a CEO (who is rarely a former developer), and supervised by a board of directors. The people making these decisions do not understand the nature of software development, and are often prone to idiotic ideas like thinking that you can ship a product in half the time if you have twice as many people. My observation is that top executives, for all they say about the importance of people, revert to a bean-counter mentality when it comes time to deciding how much to pay those people.

Now, there are some companies that go out of their way to pay top developers more than they would make on the open market. But they don’t have to pay them very much more, because there aren’t very many of those companies. The market price is set by companies run by bean-counters, who are like the famous “noise traders” of Larry Summers, Brad DeLong, Fischer Black, and others. So a developer who is 10x as productive as the average will make 20% more than average and probably be content, because he or she doesn’t expect to make 10x the average and is happy to be recognized. If not, he or she can go be a hired gun.

This is neither an elegant nor a complete explanation, but I think it’s pretty realistic.

***

I am hoping to take a break from the Internet from Friday through Monday, so I won’t be blogging again until Tuesday (unless something compelling comes up). Happy holidays to all.

By James Kwak

Join us as we play highlights from our favorite programs of 2009 on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, premiering Monday, Dec. 28 at 10pm ET, 7pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio, with a rebroadcast Tuesday, Dec. 29 at 11pm ET, 8pm PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org. Tony Figueroa will also lead us through a special year-end edition of This Week in TV History. All this, plus commentaries by David Krell, and more.

Best wishes to you and yours for the holidays and beyond, and thanks for listening.

TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte
Mon-Sun 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Shokus Internet Radio
Every other Tuesday at 11pm ET, 8pm PT
Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org
www.tvconfidential.net
blog.tvconfidential.net
Also available as a podcast via iTunes and FeedBurner

The Arcade Fire's "Funeral"

With the impending end of the first decade of the century looming in the distance, all one can do is take a look back at the last 10 years in music and create another list, this one ranking the best 30 albums of the last decade (With a sentence of explanation for the first 15).

1. The Arcade Fire – Funeral

This album made baroque pop cool again, something that seemed unachievable after the Beach Boys fell apart.

2. Ryan Adams – Gold

Gold is alternative country at its very best, chocked full of sublime instrumentation and sentimental lyrics.

3. Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

The Boss sings Pete Seeger and brilliance results; there is something fantastic about the combination of Springsteen’s voice and Seeger’s lyrics.

4. Yeasayer – All Hours Cymbals

All Hours Cymbals is an album for the decade lyrically, thematically, and instrumentally.

5. Jonsi and Alex – Riceboy Sleeps

Jonsi and Alex’s post-rock/ambient masterpiece is an album to listen to all the way through (8+ times) to really catch it’s flavor.

6. Radiohead – In Rainbows

Radiohead offered this album to the public using a “Pay what you want” system; this album is by far the most cost-effective offering of the last decade.

7. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Indie pop with depth and from France? Sounds like a winner to me.

8. David Sanford & The Pittsburgh Collective – Live at the Knitting Factory, NYC

A Jazz album of famous classical songs, it is bizarre at first but develops into hands down the best live album I heard over the past 10 years.

9. Seabear – The Ghost that Carried Us Away

Simple melodies and thoughtful lyrics make this an album to listen to again and again and again.

10. DJ Danger Mouse – The Grey Album

The Grey Album brought the Mash-Up genre to forefront and paved the way for many other artists, such as Girl Talk and Super Mash Brothers, to craft what might amount to the music of the decade.

11. Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III

Tha Carter III is a Hip Hop opus. It’s really everything I look for on a rap album.

12. Bjork – Vespertine

Since the breakup of the Sugarcubes, Bjork has morphed her music into a alt-dance-pop genre that is all her own, this album is a true testament to that.

13. Jens Lekman – Night Falls over Kortedala

Soft and low-fi, Jens Lekman’s awkward lyrics, high tenor vocals, and orchestral instrumentation are a beautiful combination on this album.

14. Sigur Ros – Takk….

The name of the album means “Thank You.” Indeed this album is worthy of thanks from all of mankind.

15. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

This is dream-Pop’s finest offering – ever.

16. Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali

17. Gui Boratto – Chromophobia

18. Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise

19. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

20. The Shins – Wincing the Night Away

21. M83 – Saturdays = Youth

22. Brian Wilson – Smile

23. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

24. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

25. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

26. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

27. Yelle – Pop Up

28. Gregory and the Hawk – Moenie and Kitchi

29. Sin Fang Bous – Clangour

30. Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring

Honorable Mention:
Beach House – Devotion; Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism; Familjen – Det Snurrar I Min Skalle; Feist – The Reminder; Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – Once; Justice – Cross; Karen O and the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are; MGMT – Oracular Spectacular; Okkervil River – The Stand Ins; Ray LaMontagne – Gossip in the Grain; Tokyo Police Club – Elephant Shell; Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend; Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca & Escargot, Sundays at 8-10 PM Eastern Time on WRBC.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas ghost hunters, paranormal researchers and anomalous phenomena investigators!  Nothing says “Christmas” like a Ghost Hunters marathon all day today on SyFy.

The topic of today’s post has to do with the relationship between interests in history and “ghosts.”  Someone recently brought up an interesting observation.  It seems many, if not most, people interested in the paranormal also have a strong interest in history.  In my experience, I find this observation holds true.  Most researchers I know are also history buffs.

For example, I’ve had an equally long interest in history as I’ve had in studying anomalous phenomena.  I enjoy learning about history and visiting historic sites; in fact I’m completing a master’s degree in history.  For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of an investigation is time spent in the archives leaning about the history of the location and the people.

In terms of application, I think the interest in history makes us more “in-tune” with a location.  We’re more aware of the history and the people.   This makes us better observers.  It also allows us to separate the wheat from the chaff.  We’re able to get through the urban legend to the historic truth.  Many times the historic truth puts to rest the urban legend and “paranormal;” however sometimes the historic truth proves even more intriguing than the urban legend…

Merry Christmas to all of my fellow bloggers and followers out there in the aviation world. Heres to a safe and joyous Christmas and prosperous New Year!

Thank you all for helping make my blog a success, your input, comments and suggestions have helped me add to this endeavour and look for more posts in the New Year. I am taking a brief break to do some contract work in the NY area over the holiday.

Cheers!

Today is the Day!

You'd be surprised at how inexpensive health insurance is for many Americans.

By Gregory Moore

I wanted to share a personal story about why healthcare is affordable now even though some may look at it as a sacrifice.

Insurance in general is about securing and protecting your future.

Everyone in this country who is able bodied should have life insurance to protect their loved ones from the high costs of a burial service yet each and every day I have seen families be financially inept at paying for such services because they didn’t believe in having an adequate life insurance policy.

Everyone who owns and operates a motorized vehicle should have appropriate insurance and yet we all know that in this country there are individuals who do not have such coverage and it is a state law in all 50 states to have it. Rarely is anyone held accountable because it’s a state law/mandate and not a federal one; something that really should be a federal law because it protects the citizens.

Health insurance is in the same harbor as well and the reason why most people who don’t have it blame their finances, or lack there of, as to why they don’t have it. They are expecting their employers to foot the bill; not them.

So when the Senate passed their version of the healthcare reform bill earlier this Christmas Eve, I thought about sharing my story with the world because it is that important and it was time that real people showed others who had doubts as to why the passage is important in the future but that right now they could have their own healthcare coverage before the new year gets here.

So I wanted to share a piece of my life with you on the matter and try to help you see why it is affordable; even with some issues you may be facing.

As of this writing, I have health insurance that I personally pay for out of my paycheck.

My premium is $142 a month and will be going up to $162 a month in February of next year.

Am I worried?

No.

My coverage is a Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage called the Select Saver 75/60 plan and it covers a great deal for me including vision and dental services along with the usual medical procedures.

My deductible, should I need to have a major type of medical procedure is $1,500 within the network; $3,000 outside.

Now you may say, ‘Greg, that’s an awfully high deductible. Can you afford it?”

The question is how could I not afford it.

Even at 43 years of age, I was able to find myself a plan that I could afford.

$162 a month breaks down to $37.41 a week or basically $5.35 a day.

Do you know what you do with $5.35 a day?

Gas? Ice cream? Pack of smokes?

Yes that’s how affordable it could be for some people if they really wanted health insurance.

For about $40 a week you could be covered and putting another $40 a week away for the deductible but so many individuals do NOT want to take the initiative and get coverage for themselves or their families; especially during this time of the year.

Let’s be honest about our expenditures for a moment.

Christmas is a day a way and how much have you spent on gifts?

For some families we are talking about a grand or more easy.

We all want the new electronic toys, cell phones, and cars but have we even thought about how much money is being wasted on some frivolities that none of us really need?

Probably not.

Yet how many think forcing you to have health care coverage is wrong and that government shouldn’t be in the enforcement business?

Now are you raising your hand in front of a brand new computer that you just bought because you had to have it and there was nothing wrong with your old computer that you bought just twelve months ago?

I am going to go out on a limb and say that there are some things that the government should be enforcing and one of those items is everyone should have insurances of various kinds; at least in the auto realm.

Health and life insurance may not need to be heavily enforced but a mandate needs to be in place because what we are talking about is the protection and security of not just yourself but those around you.

Ask yourself the following questions and see if you couldn’t afford your own health care coverage either six months ago or in the near future.

Do you spend more than $40 bucks a week on what is considered a want in your daily existence?

Are you spending at least $200 a month on ‘entertainment’ for yourself?

If the answer is yes to either one or both of the questions, maybe you should be prioritizing how spending habits and look into protecting yourself and/or your family.

The reason why we are at this stage where the federal government is about to impose something on us is because we do a piss poor job at taking care of our necessities.

I’ll be the first to admit that it takes a major sacrifice of some sort to afford health care insurance and I realize that not everyone can do what I do, just take it right out of expendable income. And maybe that is why we need the government to pass that legislative piece; to help those who need that extra help.

But the rest of us who spend money like its water, who love going on gambling junkets, smoke fine cigars, drink great whiskey, etc., we don’t have an excuse.

We can afford coverage.

We don’t have any excuse.

So this year, do something about it.

Give a gift that will be more precious to your loved ones than the new fangled toy; the gift of knowing that their medical emergencies will not be a financial strain if something should happen.

You’d be surprised at how ‘inexpensive’ the coverage is over the long run.

I offer my profound apologies for doubting you, my readers, in the arena of WikiWednesday.  The entries on yesterday’s post were epic.  We went from The Church of the Nativity to STDs, Beowulf and Charles Manson by way of such ludicrous links as Dharma and Bromance.

I stand in awe at your creativity – and twistedness in some cases.  Well done (if this was Skype I would insert the clapping hands emoticon right here).

If I were forced to award a winner from this outstanding field of competitors, it would have to go to Meghan for overall quality.  Also, honorable mention to Paul for best final entry (Manson) and Aaron for funniest individual link in the process (bromance).

There was a big name Filipino martial artist, a name you would recognize, I’m sure. I was thrilled at the prospect of meeting him and studying with him. In order to study with him I drove an hour to my teacher Tim Evans’ house, and then we drove another hour and a half to Bakersfield.

Yet once we got to Bakersfield this big name never really taught anything. He had not heard of GM Estalilla, and he was curious about what he taught, so I demonstrated some of Estalilla’s Kabaroan techniques. I hoped that Mr. Big Name might reciprocate by showing me something, but no. And I drove several hours home on the return trip late at night.

I was getting frustrated (I was paying for these lessons.), so I approached Mr. Big Name and told him I felt I was spinning my wheels. Well, in order for me to study with him, I would need to pay several thousand dollars (Keep in mind this was in the early 80’s). I wanted to study with him, but I just didn’t have that kind of money.

Mr. Big Name put on a seminar sponsored by my teacher, and so I drove long distances again and paid yet again for a “seminar” that was a slow motion train wreck, only without the excitement. Mr. Big Name taught us how to twirl a stick and later, after my teacher approached him with everyone’s complaints, admitted that he just made the whole thing up as he went.

It was in the middle of that disastrous pseudo-seminar that the late GM Leo Giron unexpectedly entered with two of his students and put on a demonstration. That was the highlight of that otherwise miserable day.

Years later I heard that Mr. Big Name had died. I was shocked because he was young. As I reflect on my experiences with him, I realize that I learned more from GM Giron, even though I was never a student of his and only met him a few times, than I did from Mr. Big Name’s classes. Hell, I taught Mr. Big Name more than he taught me. How ironic is that?

I’m writing this post because we are in a season symbolized by giving. What are you giving to the art and to others in the art?

I look at Mr. Big Name, and to me his legacy is empty. I am not suggesting that you should teach for free or let yourself be exploited by insincere takers and users. But my memory of Mr. Big Name is of a guy stalling, of someone angling for the big payoff, and willing to collect gas money from you until you were desperate enough to sell your kidney to pay his king’s ransom.

If this judgment seems harsh, that’s the real bitch of dying, in that you can’t change the impression you’ve made and the legacy you’ve created. The minister standing over your coffin is obligated to say nice things about you, even if you’re Jeffrey Dahmer, but the truth is out there, and as you’re lowered into the inky void there’s nothing you can do about it.

I’ve decided that I’m going to give. Sure, I like money, but I want my legacy to be of eskrimador who remember me for have shared something with them, for having given something of value, for having been a friend, and for having a passion for advancing the art.

Tim Evans Sensei

Copyright © Heather Johnson

Heather Johnson’s series on the small beach community of Oak Beach in New York couldn’t be timelier. The photos have a certain kitsch value that seems to be making a comeback with shows like The Jersey Shore on MTV gaining so much pop culture momentum and success for the outlandish characters being introduced to the public. While it’s true that the people in this photo series and on that show may seem tacky, they are still people and not some strange alien race invading the world to show us a new lifestyle. There’s a real cultural symbolism to what you’re seeing (this is not sarcasm). Johnson has tapped into the middle-class vacationer who mostly just wants to have a good time, get a good tan and be comfortable amidst friends and family.

Copyright © Heather Johnson

I think a project like this encourages us to be less judgmental and yet it also taps into the schadenfreude we have developed over the past ten years of watching so many people expose themselves on television. I mean look at how these people are posing! This is what a decade of learned exhibitionism will do to a society. I love how Heather had so much luck getting these people to pose for her in such open and honest ways; I wish I had more luck approaching people I want to photograph. I usually have to be so stealth about it because if I tell someone I want to take their picture, they immediately do those things people do when a camera is aimed at them. They purse their lips, raise an eyebrow and mostly try to look attractive when in reality I want to take their picture for reasons having nothing to do with superficial things like beauty. Getting back to Heather, I’ll be interested to see how this series continues to develop and if eventually she brings in other beach communities to the fold. Now is definitely the time to start developing this on a bigger level.

Roby Brock files an extended report on this story, which is linked below. In summary:

U.S. District Judge James Moody sided with former Alltel and former Verizon executive Lewis Langston, who now serves as CIO of Allied Wireless Communications, in a case brought by Verizon seeking an injunction order against his employment.

This is just a raw nerve with me. It is so typical in radio that so-called management comes to believe that they own employees in the same way that plantation owners of the 19th. century owned slaves. They destroy the opportunities which have been rightfully earned. Those are hard fought chances for economic betterment. The kind of tactic employed by Verizon is a form of economic murder.

We don’t mind firing people for any kind of whim and so-called non-compete agreements can be used to threaten less sophisticated people who just don’t know any better. That type of strategy is also used to constrain market competition by keeping talent tied up and unable to work if they should quit.

I am reliably informed that, once upon a time (and it may continue today) Clear Channel had a clause in the pile of papers they put in front of people when they take a job that says the employee will not go to work for somebody else in the market AND that the employee does not depend on the radio job to make a living.

I ain’t making this up.

This I can say because it has been litigated and subject to state laws. It was at one time a Citadel practice to place in the non-compete clause that the employee of a local station could not go to work for the competitor of any Clear Channel station in any market. I don’t think they do that any more.

Just so you know, I never signed a non-compete at Snider of Citadel when either owned KARN. I did sign a non-compete at Signal Media, but there has never been any conflict over that agreement. ” Signal was very fair about that.

It is, however, true that broadcasters sometimes LIE about whether or not an air talent is under contract.

This time of year I think of my friend Bob Harrison, who died on December 22, 2005. His problems started with a radio non-compete. It was a contract he had no idea was ever entered into. Yep, Bobby should have been smarter.

Human beings need to work and they ought to be permitted to work in their accustomed professions with a little bit of dignity. Again, it you take away somebody’s right to work, you have as good as murdered them.

There I go! It’s not that I am taking up for some Allied fat cat. They guy in this case is probably sitting on a ton of dough. (Heck, people THINK I’m sitting on a ton of dough! All I’ve got is a ton of bills and I’d really like to find a second part-time job.) It’s the principle of the thing. Businesses do not OWN the human beings that keep them going. We got past that in 1865.

Our business decisions have actual consequences on the lives of other people. We are our brother’s keeper.

There, I feel a little better. Take time to appreciate your family and friends. Cherish every single one and every breath you take. Merry Christmas.

JUDGE SIDES WITH LANGSTON IN VERIZON TRADE SECRETS CASE (UPDATED).