One Sentence Movie Reviews: "The Last King of Scotland"

The Last King of Scotland (2006): "The seduction of power bears an scary resemblance to the comfort we feel as children with our parents."

Gleanings: The All-Podcast Edition II:

Every now and then, I profile some of the podcasts that have caught my eye

• One listen to WNYC's Radio Lab (subscribe) and I'm completely in love. They use a sound collage (i.e. they don't really introduce guests, transition with ambient noise and edit heavily) to explore a single idea (I heard the episode on zoos which was lovely). In this way, it never feels like anyone's on the show to promote their book. Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich have a wonderful older-younger brother chemistry.

  Esau to To The Best of Our Knowledge's Jacob.

• I now have a horrible crush on Faith Salie, Rhodes Scholar, actress, journalist and host of Fair Game with Faith Salie (subscribe) which is being billed as The Daily Show on public radio, a calculated attempt to draw a longer listenership. I've only heard an episode or two but I dig it. 5 days a week is a big commitment so I'll probably browse. Happily so.
• I'm back in the habit of listening to the Tavis Smiley Show podcast (subscribe) which is currently doing a great series on all the presidential candidates. Smiley also is moderating two presidential debates specifically aimed at voters of color (Video of the Democratic debate. Republican debate will be on PBS in September).
• Sparkletack (subscribe) is a great podcast about San Francisco history.
• Artery (subscribe) is the first podcast from the bestest little public radio station 91.7 KALW in San Francisco. It highlights arts happenings in the region.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "An Unreasonable Man"

An Unreasonable Man (2006): "A man's life's work should be weighed in balance, not on his last mistake."

Notes: Documentary about Ralph Nader and his legacy. I've admired both their work but both Eric Alterman and Todd Gitlin come off as whiny dipshits.

Beautiful Trash:

I was lucky to catch Re:Art The Art of Re:Use, a recycled art show at the Market Street Gallery, before it closed today. I love trash, love discards and junk, and have a fair number of art pieces made from what we hurl in the dumpster every day. Which is why I'm in serious droll mode over the work of John Kuzich (particularly The Trust series. Hmmm mixed media) and Charles Stinson (who needs to handover one of his bronze sculptures before someone gets hurt).

The show was produced in conjunction with Scrap an organization that collects discarded materials for reuse in art projects and with the counsel of the Artist in Residence program at the San Francisco city dump, a revolutionary program that contracts artists to make work out of the dump's content.

This ain't such a bad art town after all.

Shoes...Shoes...

I am the only person on planet earth who has not seen this video, right?

James Fallows is blogging:

I'm probably behind the curve in noticing that a hero of mine, Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows has a blog. But how neat is that? Now if we can only get Eric Schlosser and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc blogging, I'd die happy.

Iraq War Hits Bottom:

According to a CNN Poll, support for the Iraq war is at an all-time low at %30. On the other side, 63% of Americans are ready to bring the troops home with %38 of Republicans opposing the war altogether.

This sound like an abject failure to me. Are we ready to pull the plug?

First iPhone Assesment:

Walter Mossberg, on balance, seems to like the iPhone.

We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

I was thinking that it really didn't suit my purposes (I have an iPod and prefer simple phones) but after reading this, as Homer Simpson once said "I may be all turned around on the subject"

(From the D Conference Blog). Tip-off by Andrew Huff.

Heroes Birthday:

Today is George Orwell's birthday. He's one of my heroes. Animal Farm remains one of the singular influences on my writing life.

According to The Writer's Alamanc, 1 million people read George Orwell every year for the first time, even though Orwell wasn't published until age 30 and died at 47.

Talk about a legacy.

Gleanings: Obama's Serious Problems, Serious Lines, Serious Gaming...

• Huffington Post: Is Barack Obama's campaign losing it's heat? God, I hope not.
• NY Times article on the science of queue management i.e. how to engineer how people wait in line.
• NPR: How does the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction process work? Answer from Kevin: With an eye in its belly button.

World Changing discusses "Serious Games", i.e. video games with a social or environmental mission.