Julia Roberts Panned

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

JuliabroadwayApparently, she’s not wowing the critics with her Broadway debut:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Julia Roberts is still Hollywood’s ultimate "Pretty Woman" but her first venture onto a Broadway stage failed to convince the critics whose verdict was "modest," "flat" and "lackluster."

Hundreds of fans gathered outside the theater for Wednesday’s opening night of "Three Days of Rain" and stars who turned up for the hottest ticket on Broadway included Oprah Winfrey, Tim Robbins, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The play is the first professional stage role for the Oscar-winning Roberts, 38. She remains Hollywood’s highest-paid actress, commanding $20 million a film, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the movie industry’s top players.

"For the record, Roberts does not deliver a train wreck of a performance," the Toronto Star said in a review on Thursday headlined "Pretty Woman pretty flat." It said she failed to bring her Oscar-winning screen charisma to the stage.

"Her face, so luminous on screen, barely registers onstage," the review said.

New York Times critic Ben Brantley, whose reviews can make or break a play, confessed to be a "Juliaholic" and said he was nervous on entering the theater "as if a relative or a close friend were about to do something foolish in public."

"Your heart goes out to her when she makes her entrance in the first act and freezes with the unyielding stiffness of an industrial lamppost," Brantley wrote.

"Unyielding stiffness of an industrial lamppost"?

Ouch.

MORE OF THE SAME:

The Boston Globe said the play was a lacklustre "One hundred and fifty minutes of tedium," and added: "Roberts, a cinematic ball of fire, wanders around the stage in the first act as if she’s looking for the Prozac."

"Mostly cloudy," was the Washington Post’s verdict. "As if marooned on an unfamiliar shore, Julia Roberts staggers hesitantly through ‘Three Days of Rain,’" it said.

Okay. This Is All I’m Gonna Say About The Duke Thing

Ken AshfordCrimeLeave a Comment

I refuse to get sucked in to this story.  I absolutely refuse.  I think there are greater issues that we need to be concerned about rather than the media frenzy over the (alleged) horror-of-the-day.  Rapes (and rape allegations) occur everyday, and I don’t quite see what is so special about this one such that it has to dominate the news.

BUT I will say this.  The DA has a bit of a problem.  If it is true that the alleged rape occurred between 12:10 am and 12:30 am (the only gap as set out in this photo timeline), then it really does look like one of the suspects, Seligmann, has a decent alibi:

Around midnight the night of March 13, Seligmann was already at the party when two women hired from a local escort agency arrived to dance for the boys at $400 each for a two-hour performance. A series of time-stamped photographs viewed by ABC News show the girls dancing at midnight and at 12:02 a.m.

By 12:24 a.m., a receipt reviewed by ABC indicates that Seligmann’s ATM card was used at a nearby Wachovia bank. In a written statement to the defense also reviewed by ABC, a cabdriver confirms picking up Seligmann and a friend a block and a half from the party, and driving them to the bank. By 12:25 a.m., he was making a phone call to a girlfriend out of state.

What did Seligmann do after leaving the bank? The taxi driver remembers taking him to a drive-thru fast-food restaurant and then dropping him off at his dorm. Duke University records show that Seligmann’s card was used to gain entry at 12:46 a.m.

In addition to bolstering Seligmann’s alibi, the taxi driver’s written testimony provided a rare glimpse of color in an otherwise darkened night.

"I remember those two guys starting enjoying their food inside my car, but I’m glad I end up with a nice tip and fare $25," the taxi driver said in his testimony.

The Wachovia bank is about three-to-five minutes from the house where the incident took place.  So if Seligmann participated in the alleged rape (and yes, I’m sticking to that word "alleged" for now), it must have been between 12:02 am and 12:20 am.

Is that possible?  Sure.  But according to the alleged victim’s affidavit, the strippers left the party after dancing for a few minutes (so they left after 12:02 am), but were persuaded by team members to come back to the party, after which (according to the strippers) they were allegedly forced into a bathroom, beaten, and raped.  So allowing for several minutes of "leaving" and "being persuaded", we’re talking about a very short time period.

Again, is it possible that Seligmann was there and participated during this time period?  Sure.  And you have to consider the possibility that the time stamps on the camera might be a few minutes off.  But the DA does have a bit of a problem here.

But I’m not getting sucked in to this.

Shorter Renew America

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Yes, we read "Renew America" columnists so you don’t have to…

Shorter Melanie Mills: "A friend and me — we, like, went to this abortion clinic, right?  And we saw some really bad fashion."

Shorter Lisa Fabrizio:  "Hey, if I could wallow around in a trough of the dust and ash from Ground Zero, I’d do that, too."

Shorter Matt Abbott:  "I got an email from someone whose spouse knows someone close to some members of Katie Holmes’ family, and apparently, they don’t like Tom Cruise much.  Yes, I’m a journalist."

Shorter Mary Mostert:  "Car bombs, schmar bombs!"

Shorter Carey Roberts:  "All women are feminists, which is why Katie Couric shouldn’t be anchor at CBS News."

Shorter Jim Kouri:  "The DHS Review Board recently reviewed the ASI program and found, among other things, that it was aligned with the department’s enterprise architecture.  That, and I carry a gun, so don’t mess with me."

RELATED:  Agitprop caught this mind-boggling quote from social conservative wingnut Caitlin Flanagan:

"There is no room in the Democratic party for people who are opposed to gay marriage, but there is room in the Republican party for people who are for gay marriage, and this is the reason we’re in Iraq."

Excuse me while my head explodes.

American Idol Update: That’s All, Ace

Ken AshfordPopular Culture7 Comments

AcemusicLast night was Ace’s night to go.  It was only a matter of time, and better sooner than later.  How approrpriate that his song for the week was Nat King Cole hit, "That’s All".

The startling thing was the voters’ choice for "bottom three".  Granted, at this stage in the competition, you are going to have really good people in the bottom three.

But Chris?  Paris?  They kicked it on Tuesday night!  They were way better than Katharine and waaaaaaay better than Kellie.  Why were they in the bottom three?  I attribute this to the fact that they sang first, which seems to be a clear disadvantage.

Anyway, we’re down to six, and at this point, there’s nobody I don’t like.  Still, I think I can segregate them into two tiers:

LOWER TIER:  Elliot and Kellie

UPPER TIER:  Chris, Paris, Katharine, and Taylor

Next week’s theme is "love songs", which probably means — yup — more power ballads.  Not the best genre for Chris and Taylor, but it’s a broad enough genre that they should be able to find something that suits them.

I think Kellie dodged a bullet this week, and if she doesn’t turn it around next week, she’s gone.

If It Ain’t Broke….

Ken AshfordEducationLeave a Comment

Via Mom, comes news of a push in New Hampshire to scrap the traditional bar exam for a two-year clinic-like program:

Yesterday, officials of the state legal system and the Franklin Pierce Law Center gathered at the state Supreme Court to celebrate an alternative: a new program of classes, clinics and externships at Franklin Pierce that will focus on practical experience and will allow its graduates to obtain law licenses without having to sit for the bar.

***

"If we do it well, thanks to you, we will be a model for the whole United States," Justice Linda Dalianis told the 15 students of the inaugural class of the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program during a ceremony yesterday.

The idea for the program was born in 1992, when the American Bar Association released a report that found gaps between students’preparation in law school and the work expected of them when they started practicing at firms.

"One of the problems then was that when new lawyers got out of law school . . . on average, they weren’t getting as much mentoring as someone who got out of law school 30 years ago, like I did,"Dalianis said after the ceremony.

Okay.  How does it work?

Participants will be required to take certain courses, such as taxation and wills, that are electives for the rest of the student body. A lot of their time will be concentrated in the school’s clinics, which assign them to work on real cases.

They will also serve externships with law firms, judges or corporations to see how professionals deal with their clients. At the end of the program, they will have to present and defend a portfolio of work.

The students and the program will be evaluated frequently by officials from the bar association, by bar examiners, by professors and by the initiative’s executive committee, which includes both Dalianis and state Justice James Duggan.

John Garvey, the director, said the oversight will amount to a cumulative bar exam. At the end, successful students will be fully prepared to enter the profession and they will be eligible for a license allowing them to practice law in New Hampshire, as well as in Maine and Vermont, which honor New Hampshire licenses.

I recognize the problem, and it’s a real one.  There is a huge difference between knowing the law, and practicing it.  Traditionally, law schools do a poor job at the latter, although it is not as bad as the article suggests.  Most top law schools already offer clinical programs, internships, and allow — even encourage — students to work on real cases.

But the legal marketplace has absorbed this flaw in the system.  Most law firms have their own formal or informal mentoring system.  There’s no substitute for actual experience, and law schools cannot provide that.  Let’s be honest: a person out of law school for one year is going to be a bit of a neophyte, and no amount of artificial clinical work is going to prepare him properly.

Secondly, a lot of people go into law school with absolutely no intention of being a lawyer, or certainly not a litigator.  Suppose I wanted to go to law school to become a real estate attorney.  Exactly what good would it do for me to spend a year performing legal aid functions for the poor?

I’m all for students being educated on the practice of the law.  And I think "hands-on" legal experience could be made a requirement for admission to the bar.  But not at the expense of the bar exam which, for all its flaws, tests knowledge of the law.

I’ve forwarded the article to several law professors to see if any of them chime in.  I’ll update this post (below the fold) if they do.

Comet Chunk To Hit Earth On May 25, 2006, Killing You (And Your Pets)

Ken AshfordDisasters1 Comment

So don’t make any plans.  And that put-off task of refinishing the deck?  Don’t bother. Seems pointless.

Chix2

UPDATE:  Don’t worry.  The guy predicting this is a wacko.  He predicts the comet will hit the Earth and destroy most of it.  How does he know?  Because he "received a telepathic message from extraterrestrial friends".

Still, there really is a comet, and it will be passing close to Earth.  Here’s a more serious discussion of the phenomenon.

Bush Hearts Science

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Education, Environment & Global Warming & Energy, Science & TechnologyLeave a Comment

Bush went to a magnet school in Maryland and told the students there that science was totally rad.  Well, he didn’t say that, but he said:

"We saw two scientists who are here from NASA. These are good, hard-working folks who said, ‘I kind of want to lend my expertise to try to convince a child that science is cool.’

"You know, sometimes — you might remember those days, when you were in middle school, people say, you know, science isn’t cool. Science is not only cool, it’s really important for the future of this country, and it’s great to have people we call adjunct professors here, to help lend their real-life experiences to stimulate junior high students to the wonders of science."

That’s right, kids.  Science is cool and important for the country.  So you should try to become scientists!

You could, for example, become an expert in global warming and be ignored or even censored by your government.

Or you can actually work for the government and become smart about toxic chemicals in the water. . . and be ignored.

Want to cure diseases?  That’s cool, too, but don’t expect to be given those little stem cells or anything like that.

Yes, this administration loves science, as long as it is totally made up and/or jibes with the party line.

Asked And Answered

Ken AshfordIraq1 Comment

Melvin Laird (Secretary of Defense under Nixon), and Robert Pursley (who served as Laird’s aide) write an op-ed in the Washington Post about the six or so retired generals now speaking out against Rumsfeld and calling for his resignation.

Laird and Pursley’s thesis is summed up nicely in the title of their piece: "Why Are They Speaking Up Now?"

Perhaps Laird and Pursley should have talked to General Shinseki, who did speak to Rumsfeld during the Iraq War run-up, and warned him about what would be required to occupy Iraq.  For that advice and counsel, Shinseki was "scorned" and his career marginalized.

Or perhaps Laird and Pursley should have talked to Lt. General Gregory Newbold, who voiced his dissent about the Iraq War to Rumsfeld:

Rumsfeld respects the delicate balance between military expertise and civilian control, but in the end the decisions are his to make. Our democracy is designed to favor civilian control of defense decisions. The problem is that when military advice is considered and then rejected, officers are likely to feel sidelined.

Well, that explains it.  Next question.

Maureen Down on Rumsfeld

Ken AshfordBush & Co., IraqLeave a Comment

Good stuff:

He suggested invading Iraq the day after 9/11. He didn’t want to invade Iraq because it was connected to 9/11. That was the part his neocon aides at the Pentagon, Wolfie and Doug Feith, had to concoct. Rummy wanted to invade Iraq because he thought it would be easy, compared with Iran or North Korea, or compared with finding Osama. He could do it cheap and show off his vaunted transformation of the military into a sleek, lean fighting force.

Cloistered in a macho monastery with W. ("The Decider"), Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, Rummy didn’t want to hear dissent, or delve into worries about Iraq, the tribes, the sects, the likelihood of an insurgency or a civil war, the need for more troops and armor to quell postwar eruptions.

"He didn’t worry about the culture in Iraq," said Bernard Trainor, the retired Marine general who is my former colleague and the co-author of "Cobra II." "He just wanted to show them the front end of an M-1 tank. He could have been in Antarctica fighting penguins. He didn’t care, as long as he could send the message that you don’t mess with Hopalong Cassidy. He wanted to do to Saddam in the Middle East what he did to Shinseki in the Pentagon, make him an example, say, ‘I’m in charge, don’t mess with me.’ "

The stoic Gen. Eric Shinseki finally spoke to Newsweek, conceding he had seen a former classmate wearing a cap emblazoned with "RIC WAS RIGHT" at West Point last fall. He said only that the Pentagon had "a lot of turmoil" before the invasion.

Just as with Vietnam, when L.B.J. and Robert McNamara were running the war, or later, when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger took over, we now have leaders obsessed with not seeming weak, or losing face. Their egos are feeding their delusions.

Asked by Rush Limbaugh on Monday about progress in Iraq, Rummy replied, "Well, the progress has been good." He said that if you always listened to critics about war, "we wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War" or World War I or World War II, and America would have been a different country "if it existed at all."

But the conscience-stricken generals are not critics of war. They are critics of having a war run by a 73-year-old who thinks he’s a force for modernity when he’s really a force for fantasy. It’s time to change the change agent.

Rosa Parks Pardoned

Ken AshfordRaceLeave a Comment

Took them long enough:

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) – More than half a century after U.S. civil rights icon Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, the Alabama legislature on Tuesday voted to pardon her and others convicted for breaking segregation-era race laws.

The "Rosa Parks Act," approved unanimously by the state House of Representatives but opposed by three senators in the Senate, also clears the way for hundreds of other activists to wipe out their arrest records for acts of civil disobedience in the struggle for black civil rights.

Three senators opposed?  Jeez.