Motels with WiFi.

Are there U.S. motel chains that consistently provide WiFi (or at least high-speed internet connections)?

I'd like to know, as I'm driving across the country, which brand names to associate with the internet access I simply must have when I stop. I consider this more important than a television, and of course, you take it for granted that there will be a television. If I knew a particular brand-name motel always had WiFi, I would keep driving until I got to one of those. So, if there isn't such a chain, this is just a suggestion: WiFi should become a standard amenity.

No!

After September 11th, I had a conversation with my sons about whether there could ever be a movie about it. I clearly remember John saying it could never be made into a movie. I noted "Titanic." Surely, after, say, 50 years, a movie could be made? No, John said. Never.

Now, I read that not only is a movie too be made now, only four years after that terrible day, but that the movie is to be made by Oliver Stone. God, I despise that man.

UPDATE: This movie is to be made by Paramount Pictures. Perhaps you will join me in refusing to buy tickets to any Paramount Pictures production as long as it is backing this film. Here is their current line-up:

In Theatres Now:
· War of the Worlds
· The Honeymooners
· The Longest Yard

Coming Soon:
· Hustle and Flow
· Bad News Bears
· Four Brothers
· Elizabethtown
· Aeon Flux
· Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

IN THE COMMENTS: A commenter prompted this response from me:

Your comment underscores for me why I think a movie using special effects would be an obscenity. We already have the images. What is the point of recreating them? To show it can be done? To be more vivid? To put us even closer? To have a roaring sound effect along with it? To show it in slow motion from many angles? To let us see the people inside expressing anguish, then getting crushed? To instruct us with a montage connecting this person suffering and this destruction with someone somewhere else suffering and some destruction somewhere else?

Unappeasable grievances.

Christopher Hitchens on why there is not a political solution for the grievances raised by the Islamist terrorists as there was for the grievances raised by the IRA:

We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are.

The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way....

The[se] grievances ... are unappeasable, one of many reasons why the jihadists will lose.

They demand the impossible - the cessation of all life in favour of prostration before a totalitarian vision. Plainly, we cannot surrender.

Academic appointments committees that fear the blogger.

Here's a pseudonymously written article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about all the many, many problems bloggers present to the appointments committees who may be considering hiring them.

Yeah, all you academics who might be blogging or considering blogging. Be afraid, be very afraid. Don't you dare blog. Close down right now. You've got to choose. Do you want to be an academic or do you want to be a blogger?

Good.

There, now. More room in the blogosphere for me.

Well, really... Here's the Metafilter discussion of the topic. I suppose if I were desperate for a job, this article might scare me into not blogging. So you can discount what I'm saying if you want. But, for me, blogging is so phenomenally satisfying that I would find the possible career advancement sacrifices worth it, and, what's more, I love the idea that this blog automatically functions to deflect people from me who don't like it. Saves me a lot of damned time interacting with people I'm not going to like.

UPDATE: I went back and reread this article, looking for the one really serious danger that a responsible, high-quality blogger faces: revealing your politics. The article has nothing on this, perhaps because it would reflect poorly on the appointments committee. But I think there are people on appointments committees who would set themselves against a candidate who, say, voted for Bush or supported the war in Iraq. If you blog about politics, you're quite likely to write things that will make someone you're going to need to like you hate you.

Another thing I noticed on rereading was this paragraph:

We felt deceived by his overstatement of his academic expertise. In this case, it was not the candidate's own blog, but that of a boasting friend, that revealed the truth. The lesson? Be careful what you let a close associate's blog say about you. What that associate sees as complimentary may cast you in an unflattering light in the eyes of a search committee.

Well, there's little you can do about that! This is the same problem anyone has confiding in anyone. I guess there's just the extra concern that confidences can nowadays be violated on a spectacular scale. Or maybe the point is: don't let any bloggers near you. They might up and tell the whole world just about anything. Scary, scary bloggers!

The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum.

What idiocy! Anyone on the faculty at any time might start a blog and hang out the dirty laundry. It doesn't matter that the person doesn't have an established traffic flow. All he needs is a link -- easy enough to get if you have a juicy post -- and the traffic will gush over. A person with an established blog has a track record of responsibility and an interest in maintaining the blog long term. It's that rash newcomer who's most likely to do something outrageous. How many of my readers think one day they are going to read something nasty about the University of Wisconsin on Althouse?

Man, these people are just too stupid to be trusted with appointments -- and too timorous to deserve to a university position from which to dribble out the contents of their weak little minds.

"MTV's 10-Hour Apology."

The NYT reports:

Stung by criticism of its interrupted coverage of last week's Live 8 concerts, MTV Networks has announced plans to offer 10 consecutive hours of commercial-free performance coverage today. VH1 will broadcast highlights from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and MTV will show highlights from 3 to 8 p.m. "At MTV and VH1, we're in a constant and candid dialogue with our audience, and in the wake of the live events last Saturday, our viewers have resoundingly told us online they want to see full-set performances from their favorite artists," said Van Toffler, the president of MTV Networks Group, who called the concerts "one of the most important music events of our time."

I didn't read the on-line forums, but it's fun (and easy) to think of the colorful statements represented by the word "resoundingly."

News flash: Catholics believe in God.

It's front-page news, apparently, that the theory of evolution as accepted by the Catholic Church actually envisions a role for God.

What would the world be like if everyone talked like Christopher Hitchens?

Did you see Andrew Sullivan's "Quote of the Day" yesterday?

"JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mr. Hitchens, is Senator Clinton correct?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I have no idea. My presumption would be that she's just fooling with the numbers. But that's just because I don't like her and can't stand the sight of her."

Oh, that's rich. What would the world be like if everyone talked like Christopher Hitchens? I think it would be paradise!

Out on Highway 14.

Many times, I'd driven by Peck's, a market on Highway 14. Despite the eyecatching sights, I'd never stopped, until yesterday:







(The flag is at half staff for Gaylord Nelson.)

What to wear for a sentencing walk.

You might not control what you wear on a perp walk, but you may be able to style yourself for a sentencing walk. WaPo's fashion writer Robin Givhan comments on what Judith Miller and Li'l Kim wore:

[Kimberly] Jones emerged from Manhattan federal court dressed in a blue-gray blazer and trim trousers with a simple white blouse. A belt with a large decorative buckle hung low around her hips. She was carrying a rather large blue Louis Vuitton handbag -- Le Fabuleux. It is $3,200 worth of goatskin and brass hardware that says "fabulous." One can imagine that a cell phone, a lipstick and a tin of Altoids make up its entire contents.

Jones's hair, which during her trial was often worn in a prim bun or sweet ringlets, hung loose and straight down her back. Her jaw was set. She did not look angry or sad as much as she looked resigned. (Indeed, her face displayed more emotion when she arrived -- and before punishment had been meted out -- and she had to squeeze through the crowd to get into the courthouse.) To use a description often used in the context of hip-hop, Jones looked hard. She released a statement in which she thanked her fans for their support and noted that her prison sentence was just one more hurdle in her short but difficult life. No worries; she would persevere.

In contrast, Miller arrived at U.S. federal district court dressed in black trousers, a quilted black jacket, a yellow shirt and tortoise frame sunglasses. She was clutching a wad of papers and the usual wireless, digital gear. She was also carrying a black shoulder bag whose most distinguishing feature was its ability to keep a multitude of writing tools within easy reach. In essence, it was an elaborate form of pocket protector. Miller was smiling. It was a pleasant smile. And it was still spread across her face as she was driven off to jail.

The women seemed acutely aware that the sentencing walk -- like its predecessor, the perp walk -- defines them in the public's mind. In its execution, it is not enough to stand straight and hold one's head high. This is a powerful visual image capable of conveying subtleties and broad strokes. Both women were playing to their fans.

Givhan goes on to describe the effect serving time will have on the two women's careers. Since Li'l Kim is a rap artist, according to Givhan, it can only help. For rap fans: "The prison term seems less an ordeal than a right of passage." Well, you can argue about whether that's politically incorrect, but it sure is a usage error. Where are the WaPo proofreaders?

A little Friday goat-blogging.

Aw.

From a roadside market in Wisconsin, near Spring Green.

The shortest movie source material.

The previous post asks about movies and the books they were based on, and in the comments to the post, we are also talking about short stories that were made into movies. As has often been noted, short stories are better material for movies because you can cover all the material and even expand upon it. Books, you have to cut down, and so readers are often disappointed.

This made me wonder what the shortest written source material for a movie is. There must be movies based on a single sentence -- perhaps a squib of a newspaper story or a line of scripture or one famous quote. I know often a movie (like many books) begins with a written quote displayed on screen, but that doesn't necessarily mean the the quote was the basis for the movie. I'd like to hear about movies based on a really short, short source. Got anything?

When the movie is better than the book.

When I started to write this post, I had the misimpression that the article I was linking to was going to be about movies that are better than the book they are based on. Obviously, usually people think the book is better than the movie (although people who've read the book may be a special subcategory of moviegoer whose opinion is not entirely trustworthy for those who don't like to read fiction books that much). So it's interesting when the movie actually is better. I was going to set up a post so that the comments could give a lot of examples, but then that post took a different direction.

Still, one of the commenters -- Joseph Angier -- picked up this theme and wrote:

One thing Caryn James only vaguely alluded to were the times when the movie-makers actually improved on the source book. Of course it's subjective, but off the top of my head I'd include "The Verdict" and "The Shining" on that list. Both times, the filmmakers saw powerful themes that had been given short shrift in the books. In the first, David Mamet and Sidney Lumet turned a so-so legal thriller into a meditation on Irish fatalism (yeah, I know, they're both Jewish). In the second, Kubrick and his writer (Diane Johnson?) added the writer's bloc, plus the word versus image battle between father and son. I read somewhere that Stephen King hated this movie, but as Nicholas Ray once told me (about the author of the book "Thieves Like Us," who'd written the first screenplay draft of what became "They Live By Night"): "He didn't understand his own book!"

So let's have a discussion on this topic. I'll throw out the really, really obvious example: "The Godfather." And I'll add two I feel strongly about: "Fight Club" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Okay, your turn.

UPDATE: Botched backwards post title fixed.

Hidden away images.

John's Paris photo (in the previous post) heightened my awareness of street art as I walked home from State Street today. Here are two pictures. (Click and hit "all sizes" to triple the size.)

Paris graffiti.

~~~
Originally uploaded by John Cohen.

Another photo from my son John, who's in Paris. I love this one!

Oooh, look at my shaved head! Did you know it's for my movie "V for Vendetta"?

So Natalie Portman is driving through NYC with an expired registration, the cops stop her, and now she's all:

"I've never had that happen to me before. It's supposedly random... My registration was expired because I had been out of town, and it was my first day back. I'd been in Israel and Berlin for the shooting. They wouldn't let me go in. But he said to take the bridge instead. And I didn't understand that logic. If you're a suspect, don't take the tunnel, take the bridge?"

So the police must have targetted her because of her shaved head, she tells Newsweek.

You know Natalie, just shut up and deal with it. Don't use it as an occasion for disrespecting the police and -- oh, just by chance! -- promoting your damned movie.

And you "don't understand the logic" that relates to car bombs in tunnels as opposed to on bridges? You were a straight-A Harvard student and you can't run that through your head and come up with anything?

Rehnquist retiring?

Drudge has the siren going.

UPDATE: And the whole day goes by with nothing more than Rehnquist saying "That's for me to know and for your to find out." What a card! How near death can he be if he's horsing around like that? But wasn't the original rumor that he'd retire by the "end of the week"? Presumably, Saturday counts, and Saturday is presidential radio address day. Other things inopportune about today: Bush spent most of it traveling; it's too soon after yesterday's terrorist attack in London.