Jeez Jon

Smoke And Coughing And Power Outages, Oh My!

The wildfires in the Angeles National Forest just north of Los Angeles is the story on our minds here in La-La Land.  The smoke is filling up the basin and causing lots and lots of problems.  Over the past few days, my neighbors and I have been watching the fires from our building.  Huge plumes of smoke are rising up, dominating the airspace and the views from all over the city.  The sheer size of the fires were crystalized for me when Tom and I drove back to our building from Santa Monica yesterday. You couldn't not see them,  you couldn't not stare in awe and fear.  Yesterday, around 2:05pm I took this picture from my home office:

Scary, no?

Add those fires plus a massive heat wave in the past couple of days (where it's been 106 degrees in the afternoon), and Los Angeles has not been a fun place to live.  Since it's been so hot, and the wiring in our buiding is not the best, having our air conditioner and TV on at the same time as been a bit of a problem.  'Cause it's been so hot, the AC was working overtime trying to cool down our living room.  Adding something else on the same circuit yesterday proved to be a bad idea.  The combo of the AC & TV caused our circuit breaker to keep flipping off.  So, the TV stayed off and the AC on.  Low. 

After I went to the gym, I came back, rarin' to do this very blog post about the smoke and the heat and the coughing.  (Did I mention the breathing problems?  My asthma has been triggered, as you can imagine.  I'm coughing a bit, and blowing my nose a lot.  Sexy!)  Just as I was about to login to Typepad, boom, the power went out.  At first, Tom and I thought it was just another breaker.  but then we looked around the apartment and realized "No, everything is off."  We went outside and checked in with our neighbor Mitch, whose power also had gone out. More neighbors started popping out and yep, our neighborhood had a power outage.  The group of us stood outside, watching the fires in the distance, feeling the heat, and just processing what was going on.  After a call to DWP confirming that yes, we had a power outage and no, it won't be taken care of for a few hours, we decided there was no point in standing around in hot apartments with no lights.  So, we popped over to the Souplantation in Pasadena for some cheap salad bar action.  Decadent Hollywood lifestyle! 

On the way to dinner along the 134 freeway, we could see the lines of fire making their way through the Santa Monica Mountains.  We stared and marvelled at the sight, in awe of the devastation.  The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful -- quality time with friends, salads, and then some ice cream.  All the while, the air was heavy with the smell of burnt wood.  And that smell has carried over to today, only this time the air is full of white smoke.  I'm staying inside today, as you can imagine. 

Bump

Last week, I was coming home from running some errands and stopped at a stop light on Silver Lake Blvd.  I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the car behind me.  Not stopping.  Out loud to myself, I believe I said something along the lines of "Oh my God he's not stopping, he's not AHHHH!"  And I was rear-ended... and not in the fun way.

My head hit the headrest pretty hard.  I then looked in my rearview mirror, then angrily flipped on my turn signal and pulled over to the side of the road.  At that portion of street, all the parking spaces were full, so I pulled in front of someone's driveway and put on my hazards.  I got out of my car, my head aching a bit, and met up with the woman who hit me.  It was apparent this was her first accident as the first thing she said to me was "I'm so sorry, I was looking behind me and not seeing where I was going."  Jeez, lady, ya think?

I'm shaken up, she's shaken up and apologizing profusely.  Her 5-year-old son was in the back seat, crying.  We looked at both cars, and all things considered, the damage on my car didn't appear to be that bad.  The bumper got dented, of course.  (I noticed the next day that the trunk wasn't closing all the way either.)  Her front hood however was totally crumpled.  We exchanged insurance information and then we heard honking.  The guy whose driveway I was blocked pulled up and started blaring on his horn, yelling at us to move.  Angry, I complied. I pulled up the road about half a block, pulled over in a red zone, put on my hazards and parked.  I then called my insurance company and started the whole process.

I saw a doctor the next day and she ordered a CT scan.  To make a long story short, everything is checking out fine with my head, though the headaches I'm experiencing should continue for the next several days.  All things considered, this is not bad, as accidents go.  If my bad car karma is limited to a fender-bender every 5 years or so, I'll take it.  The car's in the shop right now, and her insurance (which is the same company as mine) is taking care of the repairs. No one was seriously hurt, no major damage was done.  No one was killed.  I'm now dealing with lots of paperwork and some inconvenience, which I'll take over death or paralysis any day of the week.

That's been my excitement for the week.  How're you?

Mucho Kudos To Barney Frank

Awesome Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) had a townhall meeting with his constituents and one of them compared health care reform to, of course, the Nazis.  And Rep. Frank has the best comeback:

Fantastic, Rep. Frank.  Freakin' fantastic!

[H/T to Joe.My.God]

Glenn Beck Got SERVED

One of the people railing against health care reform is Fox News pundit Glenn Beck.  Sixteen months ago, a Headline News pundit has botched surgery and called for health care reform.  That pundit?  Glenn Beck.  As always, The Daily Show puts it together for us here.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Glenn Beck's Operation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Brilliant, as always.  With segments like this, it's no wonder a recent poll named Jon Stewart the most trusted newsman in America. Keep up the good work, sir.

I've Had Enough

For years, my mom taught elementary school in some of the rough-and-tumble areas of Chicago and its burbs.  One thing she taught us is that you don't talk while someone else is talking because that means you aren't listening and therefore are being disrespectful.  Which means, you are being rude.  So, as you can imagine, I've seriously had my fill of the shouting mobs at the healthcare townhalls across the country. I can't deal with it anymore. I can't watch anymore footage of it, I don't want to hear about it, I am just done.

Keep in mind, there isn't even a voted-on bill in Congress yet.  But, because the health insurance industry is scared shitless about the possibility of actually competing against a public option, they have hired Dick Armey's lobbying group Freedom Works (link goes to Rachel Maddow's investigation of Freedom Works) to go wrangle up a bunch of panic about what could happen.  "There will be death panels!"  No, there won't.  You can opt to get some counseling on end-of-life care.  Emphasis on the word "opt", as in you can choose to do it or not. "There will be federal funding for abortion."  No, there won't, due to the Hyde Amendment.  "There will be rationing of health care!" If you've ever seen the movie Sicko, the health insurance companies are already doing it, ruling on what they will pay for and what they won't. 

What this basically means is that the other side of the aisle has decided not to actually offer a competing solution but to try to torpedo what the President and the Democrats have to offer. Honestly, this is the coward's way out.  If you want to debate the issue, let's debate the issue.  Let's discuss it.  But if we are going to it, we're going to do it like adults.  Let each side speak and then respond.  And we're going to actually discuss the facts, not some fabrication about death panels.  Shouting over anybody to get your point across is a bullying tactic, pure and simple.  We are taught at a very young age that bullies are bad people, and must not be tolerated.  If we aren't going to tolerate this behavior with our kids, then why should we tolerate it from adults? 

I know plenty of Republicans, and none of them are these screaming harridans you see on basic cable, screaming at Arlen Specter or Claire McCaskill.  And when I see these people having full on temper tantrums (and seriously, that's what they're doing), I feel sorry for my Republican friends.  I'm sure they felt the same way about me when the extreme left was pulling their Bush Is A Nazi stuff during the Iraq war.  Anytime you have to resort to screaming and/or comparing anyone to Hitler or Nazis, you have lost your argument, and a lot of respect from people.  So let's all take a chill pill, a deep breath, and talk to each other like adults.  Please.

Oh, one last thing, and this is to all of the wingnuts who are screaming and yelling and ripping up people's pictures of Rosa Parks.  All of your bullying hullabaloo has had an effect on me.  Oh yes, it's motivated me... to call my Congressman and my Senators tomorrow and tell them to stay strong on health care and pass the reform.  The more you scream and yell, bullies, the more I will dig in my heels.  And trust me, there are plenty of people like me who will do the same.  So scream all you want.  The more you scream, the more you will lose.

Oh Captain, My Captain Jack

Through Netflix and with the recent acquisition of BBC America in my digital cable retinue, I've become a huge and fast fan of BBC's Doctor Who spinoff  Torchwood.  No surprise there, since it's a British masala of Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel tropes. It's about an underground British organization committed to fighting aliens coming into Cardiff, Wales.  In Cardiff, there is a rift in space and time (like Sunnydale's Hellmouth) where aliens come out of and are also drawn to.  The organization is lead by a mysterious, charismatic man with a dark past who is, for all intents and purposes, immortal (like Angel). In the organization is a regular guy with no powers but some well-times quips (a la Xander) and a nerdy girl with lots of tech skills but not not well versed in romance (a la Willow). 

Now, this is not to say that Torchwood doesn't stand on its own merits. It very much does.  It's a well-paced, fun sci-fi show with lots to offer.  One final similarity between Buffy and Torchwood?  Both figure LGBT characters.  With Buffy, it's Willow and the two girlfriends she's had through the series.  Torchwood? Mmm... well, it's all of them.  Every single character on Torchwood has at least made out with both sexes during the series.  At the center of this is Capt. Jack Harkness, played by out actor John Barrowman.

See? Very dashing but also rather playful.  Barrowman plays Capt. Jack with just the right balance of whimsy, pathos and command.  Through some sci-fi happenstance on Dr. Who, Capt. Jack cannot die.  That is, he can't stay dead.  He's a fixed point in time and space, and will be around forever.  Which brings loads of baggage, as you can imagine, and this is something that the show and Barrowman's portrayal exploits beautifully. 

The dynamic portion of Capt. Jack's makeup is that he's pansexual.  He is equally attracted to both male and female, human and alien.  There's this great exchange in the 2nd season episode Meat, where Torchwood is dealing with some alien foodstuffs being put into Britain's food supply.

Gwen: You've had alien meat before?

Capt. Jack: Yeah. 

Gwen:  How was it?

Capt. Jack: He didn't seem to mind!

One of the best elements of Torchwood was the relationship between Capt. Jack and his assistant, Ianto. Their playful relationship had tons of genuine chemistry and a deepening of affection as well, and to be honest, there is a dearth of good same-sex couples on television right now (Kevin and Scotty on Brothers & Sisters notwithstanding). 

The character of Capt. Jack Harkness is unique in the current television landscape.  He's dashing, haunted, masculine, smart, friendly, and is essentially bisexual. He is a great role model in that while he's flawed, he is essentially a good person.  The fact that he's LGBT is both essential to his character and beside the point at the same time.  When I was growing up, my gay male role models were Bea Arthur and C3PO.  I'm glad that the young'uns now have a Capt. Jack (and by extension, John Barrowman) to look up to.  He is as good as a scifi hero as Han Solo or Mal Reynolds in my mind.  Capt. Jack is spending eternity trying to better himself and his universe, which to me is the ultimate type of hero.

[Special hat tip to Brett for introducing John Barrowman & Capt. Jack into my consciousness here.  Thanks, man.  Thank you very, very much.]