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October 26, 2004
Late Night Insomnia Blogging, Day 2
Or night two. Really productive day all around, at least. I had the chance to workshop my Capturing the Friedmans article with a few colleagues this afternoon, and they had some great suggestions about how to revise it for presentation and eventually for publication. One of my biggest struggles in writing a film paper is knowing how much background I'll have to offer my audience members, and I'm guessing that with a relatively obscure film (approximately $2 million box office, as I recall), with such a large cast of characters, that some framing/backstory might be needed. Any suggestions on whether or not it would be appropriate to provide my audience members with a cast list or some other handout?
Was reading the most recent issue of Cineaste tonight while watching Monday Night Football when a Wendy's commercial came on, advertising their new kids' menu, complete with milk and mandarin oranges. And while there's obviously no mention of Super Size Me in the publicity material, I have to think that Spurlock's film might have something to do with Wendy's decision. It's also interesting that they're not talking about the mandarin orange option in terms of health/obesity, but in terms of consumer choice. We see one commercial in which the annoying "unofficial" Wendy's spokesperson talks to a kid about the fact that back in the day he didn't get any choices about what came with his kid's meal.
In other news, I'm glad to see that so many of my fellow bloggers are continuing to hold on during this last week before the election. Rusty offers his endoresments for the races in which he'll be voting. Rusty adds that Georgia voters will be voting on two possible Amendments to the State Constitution. One of them would write discrimination into the constitution, by prohibiting gay marriage. Such an amendment could make it difficult for gay couples to share some privileges that hetero couples take for granted, including hospital visitation rights. If it wasn't already clear, I am strongly opposed to this amendemnt.
While I don't know as much about the second proposed amendment, Jen has the scoop on her blog. David has done a great job of providing further evidence of the Bush administration's incompetence and arrogance. Meanwhile, Bitch Ph.D. passes along information that "people are getting calls telling them their polling site has changed, calls that are not true and are clearly designed to prevent people from voting" and provides a link to the very useful MyPollingSite.com.
Thankfully, tomorrow is a worskhop day for my students....
Posted by chuck at October 26, 2004 1:55 AM
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Comments
Creative Loafing wrote a good blurb about amendment 1. Companies like Home Depot, Coca Cola and others use gay partner benefits as an employment incentive. My understanding is if amendment 1 passed the legality of those benefits would be called into question. Companies looking for a place to do business aren't going to want to do it here if they can't use incentives they would be allowed to offer in other states. I was offering hospital visitation rights as a hypothetical example of something that could never happen if amendment 1 passed, since I don't think gays have them now anyway.
Posted by: Rusty at October 26, 2004 9:48 AM
I'm actually pleasantly surprised that Home Depot offers gay partner benefits (they always struck me as pretty conservative when I worked there), but yes, I have a similar understanding of amendment 1 and about the current lack of hospital visitation rights.
I worte this entry at 2 AM, so if my writing isn't terribnly clear, that's probably why.
Posted by: chuck at October 26, 2004 10:58 AM
Now I'm embarrassed I didn't bother to find a link, b/c it sounds like I'm talking out my ass. But I swear I read that somewhere.
McD's is also offering alternatives to their happy meals, says the person with a kid: you can get milk instead of soda, and apple dippers instead of fries. Only the apple dippers are dried apples with caramel sauce to dip, proving that McD's is way more about the apperance of healthfulness than the actual substance, just like with their salads, and the damn yogurt that's loaded with sugar and granola and crap for people who don't actually like yogurt......
But the Wendy's mandarin orange things are kinda nice.
Posted by: bitchphd at October 26, 2004 4:24 PM
Hadn't heard about the Apple Dippers, but they sound pretty slimy, says the inattentive single guy sans kid. Actually, the mardarin oranges are a *much* better call, and I'm not really complainin'. After all, I think Spurlock's film created an important dialogue about nutrition. Just hope it lasts a while.
Posted by: chuck at October 26, 2004 9:40 PM
Here's one source for the "vote challenger" story. Not sure it's quite what you were talking about:
http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?pid=1935
Posted by: chuck at October 26, 2004 10:08 PM
No, it wasn't the suppressing of voters by challenging them at the polls thing--it was specifically about people getting phone calls at home saying "your polling place has been changed to the overpass behind the KFC" (ok, the overpass part is a fiction, but the changing of the polling place to a fictional location is the point), only to find out when they show up at the overpass that, of course, their polling place hasn't changed at all. The idea is to send people on a wild goose chase in order to prevent them voting.
I wish I could find a link. But the internets appear to be broken today.
Posted by: bitchphd at October 27, 2004 4:08 PM
Ah, here we go. I'm gonna post it here b/c blogger is kaput today.
Posted by: bitchphd at October 27, 2004 4:11 PM
Shit, link didn't work. Why? Oh well, it merely means I'm going to clutter the hell out of your comments today:
http://www.dispatch.com/election/election-local.php?story=dispatch/2004/10/22/20041022-A1-00.html
Posted by: bitchphd at October 27, 2004 4:12 PM
Oh, I turned off HTML in comments last week b/c I was getting so much comment spam. Now that it seems to have passed, I'll try turning it back on again. Thanks for the link, though. I'll try to include it in a post I'm working on....
Posted by: chuck at October 27, 2004 4:47 PM