Jonathan V. Last's Blog, page 42

A Measured Response to the Charge that Jesse Pinkman Is a “Bad Person”

Santino has gone on a mini-tear about how the character Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad is a “bad person.”

Well let me just ask Santino this?

Does Jesse Pinkman have kids in private school?

Case. Closed.

Great Moments in Law Enforcement

Cops wearing cameras turn out to be more polite:

In her ruling in a recent civil suit challenging the New York City police department’s notorious stop-and-frisk rousting of residents, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Federal District Court in Manhattan imposed an experiment in which the police in the city’s precincts with the highest reported rates of stop-and-frisk activity would be required to wear video cameras for one year. . . .

Earlier this year, a 12-month study by Cambridge University researchers revealed that when the city of Rialto, California, required its cops to wear cameras, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percentand the use of force by officers dropped by almost 60 percent. Watched cops are polite cops.

This is not surprising. Also not surprising would be if the citizens interacting with these cops turn out to be more polite, too.

To the extent I’ve thought about it, I’m nominally against the idea of a CCTV surveillance state, because it extends the eye of the state everywhere, at all times, essentially making the state a disembodied, virtual presence.

But having actual law-enforcement officers–who are in persona civitas–wear cameras is quite different. Because the purpose isn’t to extend the reach of the state, but rather to limit it, by curtailing the ability of officers to make things up. For bad cops, this is a good thing. For good cops, I can imagine how it might seem to be micromanagement. But the upside is that it also protects them from bad actors and, I would guess, improves their day-to-day interactions with the average citizen.

It should be win-win-win for everyone.

Is It Live or Is It Memorex?

I assume this is legit, but it’s such an amazing performance that it’s almost hard to believe it’s not CGI.

 

 

Sad Update: Of course it’s fake. Sigh.

Santino Goes Yard (Again)

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but the Free Beacon has become my absolute favorite blog. Santino has been, as our elders once said, en fuego for months. And Bobby Charette is Brendan’s brother from another mother. It’s just awesome.

Anyway, Santino lights it up again with this piece about why people who use private transportation are monsters. Enjoy.

In Defense of the Batfleck

Wait–what?

“LOVEINT”

This is a thing.

The more we learn about NSA surveillance practices, the closer we are to embracing the Full Rand as a country.

Feminism’s High Water Mark

This ESPN magazine piece on the Billy Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” match is amazing, and full of stuff I never knew about the match. Such as:

Four months earlier, Riggs had crushed Margaret Court, the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player, 6-2, 6-1, in an exhibition labeled by the media as the “Mother’s Day Massacre.” Court’s defeat had persuaded King to play Riggs. Nearly everyone in tennis expected a similarly lopsided result. On the ABC broadcast, Pancho Gonzales, John Newcombe and even 18-year-old Chrissie Evert predicted Riggs would defeat King, then the No. 2-ranked woman. In Las Vegas, the smart money was on Bobby Riggs. Jimmy the Greek declared, “King money is scarce. It’s hard to find a bet on the girl.”

But by aggressively attacking the net and smashing precision shots, King ran a winded, out-of-shape Riggs all over the court. Riggs made a slew of unforced errors, hitting soft returns directly at King or into the net and double-faulting at key moments, including on set point in the first set. “I don’t understand,” Cosell said after a King winner off a Riggs backhand. “He’s been feeding her that backhand all night.”

Like I said, I never knew any of that. Maybe you did. But I bet you’ll never guess where all of this is going: Riggs threw the match to get out of a hole with mob men. It’s an amazing story.

And the one person in it who refuses to believe is King. But I guess she kind of has to. That’s the match that put her name on the U.S. Tennis Center.

 

On Darren Young and Gayness in Wrestling

I have a shortish item over at the Standard.

You should really click through just for the unspeakably awesome video of Shawn Michaels clowning on the Hulkster.

Don’t Ask

Ultimate blame for this goes to Galley Friend B.D., who sent me a link to this bit of insanity with a father writing publicly about how much he wants his teenage daughter to have zex–lots und lots of zex!

And within three or four clicks I found myself at the TARDIS Glory Hole Chamber.

No, really. This is a thing.

Journalistic Malpractice at “Bust” Magazine

Last week a writer named Solange Castellar misattributed a quote to me over at Bust magazine. You can read about it here.

I emailed the magazine’s editor, Debbie Stoller, to bring the error to her attention. A bunch of people tweeted it to the Bust Twitter account. Someone in the comments section of the article mentioned the mistake.  And over the weekend, Bust went in and made some changes to the piece–they deleted one of the misattributions, but not the other. (There’s not indication on the piece that it has been updated.)

So clearly Bust has gotten the message that they’ve made an error. They’re just choosing not to fully rectify it.

It’s kind of frustrating. On the one hand, it’s only Bust. But on the other hand, Bust isn’t some random blogger. It’s a real magazine and the quote has me saying something I very much disagree with. And it’s the kind of thing that can easily get recycled by people looking to mischaracterize What to Expect, of which there turn out to be more than a few.

I’m open to any advice.

Update: Bust corrects the misattribution . . . and leaves the book’s title in mangled form.