Barbarian legacy
I recently discovered that Adobe sells an OpenType font called Visigoth. Of course, I had to have it, although I’m not sure how I’ll ever use it. The university probably won’t accept my thesis if I use this font.
Race, color, ethnicity, tribe
Although I don’t watch the show, two things strike me when reading this article about plans for the upcoming season of the reality TV show, “Survivor.”
Get ready for a segregated “Survivor.” Race will matter on the upcoming season of the CBS show as contestants will be divided into four tribes by ethnicity. That means blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians in separate groups.
First, it shows the crassness of the entertainment industry. (And I don’t mean to restrict my comment to just the American TV executives. After all, the “Big Brother” show originated in Europe.)
Second, it is always difficult to make sense out of the words “race” and “ethnicity” in modern American parlance. In this case, race and ethnicity are used in the same sentence. Are they synonyms here, or not? How does one divide a group of people into the categories “blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians”? Are there no black Latinos, white Latinos? Does Asian include people from India, Iran, or Israel, and will the producers consider their skin color in assigning “tribal” affiliation?
The show’s producers (ostensibly) are doing this in response to claims that the show “was not ethnically diverse enough” in past seasons. So now we will have the Orwellian situation where segregation is diversity. Maybe one of the tribes will be Eurasia and other will be Oceania. After all, they have always been at war with each other.
My Movie Trivia
Joe Gillis, William Holden’s character in Sunset Boulevard, was from my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, before he moved to California, and his birthday was on the same day in December as mine is.
My wife and I watched this movie last night. Although we had seen snippets of it over the years, I think it was the first time that either of us had watched the whole thing. The dialog is outstanding, with a lot of memorable lines. Gloria Swanson, in the character of Norma Desmond, was, of course, superb. The short appearances by Hollywood notables were fun to see. Jack Webb, as Artie Green, was very young in this movie, but his voice was immediately recognizable. Buster Keaton, C. B. DeMille, and Hedda Hopper, among others, were very entertaining. This movie gets five out of five stars from us.
Fighting the Threat to Liberalism
I have normally avoided posting political comments on this blog, but I’m making an exception for this commentary by Martin Bright from the UK. I don’t know anything about Mr Bright or the publication, the New Statesman, for which he is the political editor, but I take it by his comments in the article that he is not a right-winger. This observation of his is enlightening, and damning:
While any attention is always welcome, these offers of solidarity [from the right] are also a challenge. . . . It is depressing that so few on the left have been prepared to engage with the issue of the Foreign Office appeasement of radical Islam except to minimise its significance. In contrast, the responses on the right have been largely measured.
He hopes that those on the left will not shy away from joining the right in calling fascism by its true name, and transcending political divisions in order to fight the threat to Western rationalism and liberalism posed by militant Islamists.
Fast and Furious
My wife and I, along with a friend and his son, went to the San Jose Grand Prix last weekend. The race is held on a temporary course in the streets of downtown San Jose, with the long front straightaway running right next to Adobe, where I work. It was a lot of fun to see cars racing by at more than 100 mph.
I have a few pictures online here. John Nack, another Adobe employee, posted some comments and links to more photos at his blog. Oh, the fight? Champ Car imposed penalties on Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani for that.