The midterms for the midterms

Last night Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate race by beating Martha Coakley. Coakley apparently decided that she did not need to campaign real hard or abstain from making fun of the Red Sox IN MASSACHUSETTS. (Source: The Daily Show)

According to the newspapers, this is a major rebuke of the Obama administration and the Democrats. Yeah, it probably is a little bit, though I think the crappy campaigning described above had a major influence. Massachusetts is labeled as one of the most liberal states in the country (mandatory health care for all and legalized gay marriage) and a Republican taking over Ted Kennedy's seat would seem impossible had it not just happened.

So, what can we learn from this? You've got to play all four quarters. No one is safe until they're raising the right hand in Congress.

I think that this defeat (minor or major, I'm not sure yet) puts the first half of the 111th Congress in a more realistic perspective. When you have a tent as big as the Democrats, you're not going to get the more/most liberal stuff passed because those pesky Blue Dogs (the ones who make your party the majority party) are going to demand abortion controls, opt-out provisions, and busts of Ronald Reagan in their capital building. Maybe next time, we should manage expectations a little bit and not think that CHANGE is going to happen by enthusiastic consensus or Presidential Fiat on the authority of his/her approval rating. Obama has not had the Congressional or party unity that Bush had in the wake of major national security concerns.

Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. Yes, Congressional politics will become more difficult, but I'm not sure that it will be SO different. Maybe the party will start getting its act together and focus on this year's midterms. Just like I said yesterday about Texas' loss, maybe losing some in the regular season can help you win the championship.

First Loss, Best Case?

Last night I watched ye old Texas Basketball lose their first game of the season against a riled (but amateur-ish) Kansas State team. First half- sucked. They pretty much owned us. Second half- sparked by Clint Chapman (somewhere above Brad Buckner on the Texas tall White Guy scale) they became more competitive. Ultimately, it was fouls that kept Bradley on the bench, our inside game was swarmed, and there was some awful decision-making.

I'm not going to mourn the loss of the #1 ranking for very long. Texas needs a competitive conference season to get into the kind of shape that makes championship teams. After shooting an abysmal 9-22 from the free throw line, do you think the players are gonna shoot some free throws in practice with a renewed intensity today? Do you think that the veterans are going to kick a little ass and bring a renewed intensity? Are these too cliche?

Of course you want your team to live the dream and go undefeated in a historic championship season. Frankly, though, it is time to make the mental transition from football to basketball and realize that the good basketball teams that lose during the regular season benefit from those losses. So, we will see where we stand at UConn on Saturday.

Industrial Food: The Movie

Embracing my winter vacation, I finally checked out Food, Inc. on the 'ol Netflix. The visuals are shocking and the subject matter is appalling. The two principal food experts are Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, the authors of The Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation, respectively. Having read both, this movie borrows heavily from those books. The original parts were the litigation and the food advocacy sections (which actually may be in FFN, it has been several years since I read it). Liking both books, I recommend those over the movie (FFN over The OD), but if you're pressed for time, the movie will do. Just don't expect to enjoy chicken that much any more.

Paul Blart- Birthday Ruiner

It being a Sunday and having gone out the night before, the roommates and I opted to go to the Harris Teeter Redbox to rent a movie (for $1 I might add). When we got to the front, a line had formed and so after once through "Comedies" I said we should get Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Regular readers know that I'll give almost any movie a fair chance. I like Kevin James: King of Queens and what stand up of his I have seen. Bucking the critics, Paul Blart was a smash success at the box office, I figured, why not?

I'll tell you why not: people are idiots. It is terrible. It is completely predictable and not funny. When the bad guys take over the mall (am I ruining anything? no- this movie sucks) I thought I had fallen asleep and woke up to Home Alone 4: Kevin Really Let Himself Go. No redeeming quality to watching this movie.

Creamy Goodness

For all of you DC FroYo connoisseurs out there, there's this article on the best places to get frozen yogurt in DC. My vote is Mr. Yogato: free chocolate sprinkles and Seinfeld trivia/tetris/challenges/doing embarrassing things will get you free/reduced yogurt. Plus, they let max chill inside when we walked him there one day.

Soccer and more, lots more

ESPN gives soccer the short end of the sports stick a lot of the time, so I'm glad that the did this little feature on US soccer this summer. The pictures are great. The bad thing is that its a features article and not about soccer. Boo on that.

For those not soccer-ly inclined here is an article from my hometown press outlet. Its sort of about human rights but mostly just a human interest thing.

Upon a time

After hearing NPR stories and reading a lot of good reviews about Once, I was excited to watch it, but after such buildup I didn't want to dash the hopes I had for it.

Once is great. It is very touching, and I feel like it needed to be done because it is a low-budget indie-ish film that goes a different way than Hollywood romances. It is VERY cute: in one early scene the girl- whose name we never learn- brings her "Hoover sucker" (vacuum) to the guy- whose name we never learn- to fix it, and she ends up rolling it around town. At points its got a cerebral "what is love" sort of feel like Before Sunrise, but those moments do not dominate and are outnumbered by the number of times when the guy and girl share love.

Oh, plot summary, yes. It is about a guy and girl who meet while he is playing his heart out via guitar on the streets of Ireland. Her insistence at him acknowledging her (not in a romantic or sexual way, but more like "I'm not going to take the hints that you want me to leave, lets establish a platonic relationship because you are interesting.") eventually leads to them forming a romantic bond through music and off the movie goes. She helps him make the leap of faith and act on his dream of being a professional musician.

I loved the art of this movie. Multiple scenes are shot like a music video or a reality TV show. It made me want to go out and shoot a movie (I started playing around with the video editing software pre-installed on my computer after watching the movie). In the special features they talk about it being shot like a movie someone would make and that gives it a very real and approachable feel. The style enhances the simplicity of the story, sucking you in as a participant- sort of like being in the audience at a show- rather than as someone merely watching a movie. The principal actors have great chemistry. Lastly- and I hesitate to make this the last word, because music is a central part of the story-, it goes without saying that the music is fantastic (the most popular song from the soundtrack here).

Watch it.