Day 42: A Lack of Special Interests

This will probably be my only entry this week as I will be out of town, but a smattering of topics are covered today.

EDIT: The Top 5 Pitchfork Songs of the Year were as follows:
5. Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx...Pt. II

4. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

3. The xx - The xx

2. Dirty Projectors - Orca

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

So I guess I lose on my Parlay, but I did guess 1/5 correct and their #1 overall in the right spot...that's gotta be worth something right?

*This morning at 1 AM the Senate passed a watered down version of Health Care Reform with a completely partisan split vote (60 Dems YAY, 40 Repubs NAY). Although President Obama is touting this as a victory for the people, I'm not entirely sure I feel the same. I feel as though enough concessions were made to the special interests (specifically with Lieberman) that the bill that passed barely resembles the one that was sold to us during the campaign. Though I have no doubts that this will fix many of the problems that are currently deriding the health care system as it is currently, and it will also make insurance services accessible to millions of people who previously didn't have access; however, I don't feel as though this bill was comprehensive enough. At the time I'm writing this, the Senate bill had just passed and the reconciliation sessions between the House and Senate have yet to happen, so perhaps the bill that gets passed will be more inclusive of some more of the aggressive policies that were originally contended.

The biggest issues with it are already well documented (Where is the public option?) but my biggest issue with it isn't even that. My biggest issue with this reform is, I thought the motivation behind this entire movement was to make health care more cost effective thereby opening it up to more people. The health care movement I supported was the one that would remove the profit of the middle-man (the insurance companies) from the equation putting more money in pockets of the insured and the doctors. I don't see how the reform passed in the Senate does anything to really address this problem, I hope I'm wrong and we see some real Change out of this, but it still wreaks to me of special interests (again see the insurance companies).

*Avatar opened this past weekend to a barrage of outstanding reviews. Of the 33 Top Critics to review it on RottenTomatoes.com, only 2 of them have given it poor reviews. I will readily admit that I've already seen the movie twice, and this was the first movie that I went to by myself (during the second showing I went to a matinee because I had the day off). Additionally I'm ready to declare that it is the best and most memorable movie theater experience of my life. Now, that being said, I'm going to refrain from giving an analytical review at this point for sake of spoiling the movie, but what I will do is examine the two dissenters on RT.com to see what other movies these blowhards thought were bad from this year and last.

J. Hoberman:

Voted the following as Rotten (aka Bad) Movies:

-Up in the Air (8.3/10.0 with 2,249 votes, Best Picture Nomination)

-Where the Wild Things Are (7.8/10.0 with 12,964 votes)

-Watchmen (7.8/10.0 with 112,069 votes)

-The Lives of Others (8.5/10.0 with 64,068 votes and #56 of all time on IMDb.com)

S. Zacharek:

Voted the following as Rotten (aka Bad) Movies:

-Up in the Air (8.3/10.0 with 2,249 votes, Best Picture Nomination)

-Where the Wild Things Are (7.8/10.0 with 12,964 votes)

-Funny People (7.0/10.0 with 22,371 votes)

-Away We Go (7.4/10.0 with 8,962 votes)

-Public Enemies (7.3/10.0 with 49,696 votes)

Now these movies aren't the best of the year, but they're certainly not bad movies. The one I just can't understand is The Lives of Others...what the hell dude. I haven't seen Up in the Air yet, but I really enjoyed Where the Wild Things Are and Funny People, the former I might not watch again but it was interesting and the latter I will own and re-watch. These two are just haters, thats it...wake up guys.

*I'm an avid listener of Bill Simmons' podcast the B.S. Report, and his latest podcast was a two hour discussion with author Chuck Klosterman. One of the highlights of this was them talking about how there is a high school football coach in Arkansas who has mathematically proven that its not advantageous to punt the ball, or rather the benefits of NOT punting outweigh the benefits OF punting. They then reference the 4th and 2 Pats play from earlier this season saying that if this play works for the Pats maybe this type of mentality gets adopted in the NFL...man oh man that would be awesome. I used to be a huge NFL fan, but with the botched handling of Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper by the Vikings and, specifically, Mike Tice I lost a lot of my interest in it. Now I basically play fantasy football and make the occasional wager on the games (perfectly legal of course). But could you imagine the NFL with a no-punt movement...how damn awesome would that be? I'm all for it and also interested in reading this mathematicians/high school football coach's thesis (assuming it exists) on this theory.