The US Constitution is Broken

The US Constitution is permanently broken

The American form of government has been amazingly resilient for over 230 years.  It has withstood economic panics, world wars, depressions, do-nothing Presidents, Presidents with delusions of grandeur, incompetent leadership and dazzling leadership.  It has vacillated between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, and has always, seemingly intuitively, course corrected when it seemed on the edge of going too far in any direction.  It is a testament to the genius of the Founding Fathers who drafted the Constitution with the zeal of academics grounded by a solid understanding of human nature.

But the Constitution is broken, and it can’t be fixed, at least not easily.

This is the result of a number of cultural forces in American life, coming to a head in the early 21^st century.  The Founding Fathers were (I sincerely believe) geniuses, but even James Monroe couldn’t have envisioned the impact of social media and Fox News.

When the Constitution was formed, the Founders were skeptical of pure democracy and so put a number of safeguards in the document to avoid a “tyranny of the majority” from throttling minority rights.  One of these safeguards was the composition of the US Senate, where each state got the same number of senators despite the state’s relative population.  This was to protect states with smaller populations from having their opinion over-ridden by the more populous states.

Back at our country’s origins, everything was smaller, including the size difference between states.  Let’s look at data from the 1810 census (the third census done after the nation’s founding) to give them a couple of tries to get it right (and only looking at the original thirteen colonies, to exclude newly created states from territories).

state	pop	% of NY
New York	959,049
Virginia	877,683	91.5%
Pennsylvania	810,091	84.5%
North Carolina	556,526	58.0%
Massachusetts	472,040	49.2%
South Carolina	415,115	43.3%
Maryland	380,546	39.7%
Connecticut	262,042	27.3%
Georgia	251,407	26.2%
New Jersey	245,555	25.6%
New Hampshire	214,360	22.4%
Rhode Island	76,931	8.0%
Delaware	72,674	7.6%

The largest state was New York with 959,049 inhabitants, and the smallest was Delaware with 72,674, or 7.6% of New York’s total.  The second smallest state was Rhode Island with a population of 76,931, or 8.0% of New York’s; the third smallest was New Hampshire with 214,360 people, or 22.4% of New York.

Obviously, the spread has gotten wider as the population grew, but the gulf between small states and large states is now a chasm.  In the 2010 census the most populous state was California with 37,253,956 people.  The smallest state is Wyoming with 563,782 people, or 1.5% of California.  To find a state with a population that is 7.6% of California’s you have to go all the way up to Kansas, which is the 33^rd largest state population.  So, the United States now has 17 states with a percent difference in population from the biggest state that is larger than the difference in 1810.  And 1810 had two unusually small states; using the figure from the third smallest (New Hampshire’s 22.4% of New York), in 2010 you’d have to go all the way up to #12 Virginia.  There are now 38 states with a relative population to the largest state that is larger than the spread between the biggest state and third smallest in 1810.

Now the United States has a plethora of teeny tiny little states.  But each of these states has as many Senators as California or New York.  The population of the 26 smallest states, which controls a majority of the Senate, is a little under 51 million, or 16.5% of the nation’s total population.  Yes, 17% of the country’s people control a majority of the Senate.

But wait, as the ads say, there’s more!  Given the fact that there is a correlation between population density and political leaning, then the Senate is effectively gerrymandered for Republican control.  According to the FiveThirtyEight article linked to above, 31 states lean to the right, mostly small, homogenous ones.  The Democrats made large gains in the more representative House of, um, Representatives in 2018, but even with a hugely unpopular GOP President and a motivated Democratic Party, it seems unlikely that the Democrats will take the Senate in 2020.

The skewing of the Senate towards small states also skews the Electoral College, where votes are apportioned by the number of Representatives and Senators. This gives small, conservative states extra influence, which has manifested itself in two Republican Presidential candidates winning despite getting fewer popular votes than their opponent.  Quick, name the last non-incumbent Republican candidate to win the most votes in a Presidential election: if you said Ronald Reagan in 1980, you win the prize.  No GOP candidate has won a Presidential election without the benefit of incumbency in 38 years, yet the GOP have controlled the White House for 22 of the past 40 years.

Maybe you consider this good news.  Maybe the though of permanent Republican control of the White House and the Senate makes you chortle with joy.  Fine.  But it’s not sustainable.  Given the partisanship that currently exists, and is likely to continue to grow, a Democratic Party permanently subjected to minority status by an increasingly radical Republican Party, despite being favored by a majority of American voters, will lead to . . . well, I don’t know what.  Democratic Party control isn’t regional so there can be no secession like the Civil War (unless the coasts can secede from the mid-west and south).  But at some point, and soon, there will be a breaking point.

What is the answer?  I have no idea.  The problem lies deep in the heart of the US Constitution, a document conceived before social media, mass communication, and leaders without souls or morals.  This will take a fundamental re-thinking of the structure of the Government, more than tinkering with the composition of the Supreme Court.  And it will have to be done by leaders who care more about creating a valid system of government than winning political advantage.

The three people in Washington, DC, that qualify can meet in a phone booth, if DC still has phone booths.

Update: A quick clarification based on one of the comments (thanks for the comment!).  George HW Bush won in 1992 as the incumbent Vice President running to succeed a termed-out President, so he was the incumbent in that election.

And while Bill Clinton won in 1996 with less than 50% of the vote, he did get more popular votes than George HW Bush.  So, in the past twenty years, the number of Republicans who won the Electoral College despite getting fewer popular votes = 2, Democratic winners in the Electoral College despite getting fewer popular votes = 0.

And by the way, Clinton got fewer than 50% of the popular vote largely because of third party candidate Ross Perot who, contrary to myth, did NOT cost Bush the election.

The future of TV is the past

“What’s past is prologue.”  The Tempest, act 2, scene 1

“The past isn’t dead.  It isn’t even the past.”  William Faulkner

Once upon a time, in a far away era called the 20^th century, a new form of entertainment arose called television.  Despite the vast resources available, and vast fortunes to be made, there were only three networks (let’s just forget about the Dumont network, okay?).  And so it was for many decades until Rupert Murdoch said, “Let there be FOX,” and lo, there was a fourth network.  And all was good, until the rise of cable, and premium channels, and DVDs, and streaming.

The monolith that had been “broadcast TV” broke wide open, and suddenly there was a din of voices in the ether, all competing for attention.  Where once TV shows needed an audience of 10 million to survive, now pulling in less than a million in the right demographic kept the lights on.  But despite the seeming chaos, there was one force that brought cohesion to the world of televised entertainment; one force that enabled people to have one portal for most (but not all) of their entertainment needs.

I am, of course, referring to Netflix.

Netflix has acted as a cohesive agent, being a portal for almost all movies and a lot of TV shows for the past several years.  If you are a curmudgeon who finds going to a movie theater annoying, just wait and you can either stream or get the DVD in the mail a few weeks after the film closed (and films don’t linger in theaters the way they used to).  TV series from all the networks were available.  In the ocean of visual entertainment, Netflix was your one-stop place to get not quite but almost everything.

But the writing is on the wall, and soon streaming services will resemble the plethora of channels you see listed on your cable directory that you’ve never heard of.  First Hulu, then Amazon Prime, rose as alternatives to Netflix.  Okay, three sources aren’t that bad.  Then Netflix announced that they were aiming at making most of their content “original” content, and in 2018 they spent more on original content than acquired content. To me, this meant that if I wanted access to long gone TV shows, Netflix wasn’t going to try and outbid Hulu for them.  That was the first crack I noticed in the Netflix monolith.

The huge iceberg on the horizon, though, was the threat of a Disney streaming service.  In 2017, Disney announced that when they started their own streaming service,  Netflix could kiss Marvel and Star Wars goodbye.  In 2019, Disney has fulfilled its promise and has announced that the most popular film in history, Avengers Endgame, will not be available on Netflix.  So now there is Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ (please ignore the fact that Disney is also in control of Hulu). 

But there is also the fact that every network has their programs available as on-line content.  And with media corporate mergers, media companies that once had small on-line content now are subsidiaries of conglomerates with lots of on-line content.  Increasingly, everyone will want to control their own on-line footprint instead of letting Netflix make money off of it.

Netflix used to be the one-stop place to go for streaming services.  But then Hulu arose to mainly carry TV series, but also to develop shows like The Handmaid’s Tale.  Then came Amazon Prime, and then CBS All-Access, and now Disney+.  Now that Netflix is no longer a monolith, will networks still be willing to sell the rights to their shows to them, or will they keep them on their own streaming platform, or on Hulu? 

One survey found that nearly half of subscribers between 18 and 29 would drop Netflix if it lost The Office and Friends along with the Marvel content (28% said they’d drop it if it lost Marvel, which is about to happen).  The default, as far as subscribing to streaming services, used to be “Netflix and . . . “ but in the new Balkanized universe it might be “Netflix or . . . .”  Before, I might do Netflix and Hulu, or Netflix and Amazon, but with so many options I might do Hulu and Disney+, or Amazon and CBS All Access.  This might be why Netflix chose to focus on original programming; it knew at some point the non-original programming would migrate to other streamers.

Or maybe the universe will re-order itself.  In a marketplace of multiple streaming services, will someone like Roku sell bundles of streamers?  That is, create a marketplace where you can choose from among various streamers and pay one bill instead of subscribing separately.  This is the accordion theory of organization—first options contract and there is only Netflix, then they expand, and multiple streamers enter the market and things become confusing, then in order to avoid competition the streamers start getting bundled together or buy each other up until there are fewer option.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

This sort of reminds me the shift that took place in the economics of TV networks.  For years, local affiliates paid the networks in order to gain access to their content; then at some point networks had to start paying affiliates in order to gain access to their audiences.  At first creators of content were eager to sell their wares to Netflix for access to Netflix’s vast subscriber base, but now everyone wants to have their own streaming service and Netflix is left to become a content creator to fill the void.

I don’t know how this will ultimately work out.  It was convenient having Netflix being the premier streaming service, just like having three major networks made picking shows to watch simpler.  How people choose to watch content on their TV screens will be resolved through a combination of economics and technology.  Will the technology ever exist where we can choose WHICH of the 500 cable channels we want to buy?  Will it ever be economically feasible for someone to offer an “a la carte” menu for channels instead of forcing customers to buy content they don’t want? 

The trend has always been for increasing amounts of customer control, so maybe buying only cable channels we want to pay for is only a few years away.  Then after we get that, Detroit can start working on those flying cars we’ve been promised for decades.

Tanking redux

I’ve written before about the futility of ending tanking through minimizing the chances of winning the draft lottery, but after hearing the talking heads on ESPN declare tanking to be over after 3 of the 4 worst teams in the NBA got bad draft picks thanks to poorly bouncing balls, I guess the subject is worth going back to.

The Knicks tanked, going so far as trading their only good player, and finished with the league’s worst record.  In any normal system, this would mean they would have the first pick in the upcoming draft.  This is fair; how can poor teams get better unless they get dibs on talented players coming out of college?  Talented free agents don’t want to go to losing franchises (although a lot of people think NBA superstar free agents will sign with the Knicks or the Lakers, two of the worst franchises going right now).

The Knicks, Cavs, Suns, and Bulls had the 4 worst records last year, and they got (respectively) the 3^rd, 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th picks in a draft where experts say there is a huge drop off in talent after the third pick.  The pundits argue that with three of the four top teams failing to get a substantial draft pick, teams will no longer try to lose when they see the playoffs slipping away.

There are two reasons why the revised draft format, which reduces the odds of bad teams getting good draft picks, won’t eliminate tanking.  The first one is obvious: the team with the worst record still has a 14% shot at the number one pick; teams with better records have less than a 14% chance.  Which is better, the 14% chance the worst-record Knicks had, or the 9% chance the 6^th worst Wizards had?  It may not be a one-to-one correlation, but losing more games still gives you a better shot at the glory of a first pick in a draft; the fact that yu subsequently got unlucky doesn’t alter the odds.  The Sacramento Kings just missed the playoffs and had a 0.1% chance at the #1 pick; so, were they better off than the Knicks with their 14% chance because they tried to win and failed?

The second reason is that tanking does not just increase your chances of picking first, but it also decreases your chances of picking 9^th.  The experts on ESPN have announced that there are exactly 3 good draft picks in the 2019 draft; the Lakers at #4 are out of luck.  The NBA draft isn’t like the NFL draft, where you can pick up a Hall of famer like Tom Brady in the 6^th round.  I haven’t done the research, but I suspect few members of the Basketball Hall of Fame were drafted after the first round (of course the NBA draft only has two rounds).  The Football Hall of Fame lists 16 members drafted in the 4^th or 5^th rounds.  Heck, Bart Starr was drafted in the 17^th round.

If you draft outside the top two or three, the best you can reasonably hope for is a low-price role player.  That’s not going to turn your franchise around, so if you aren’t going to make a deep dive into the playoffs, tanking gives you the best chance of drafting someone that will make a difference, instead of someone who will allow you to dump the salary of a bench player.

One could argue that the paucity of talent around in the NBA draft is due to the one-and-done rule, where athletes with natural talent shine after one year in college but players that need development don’t get the chance to hone their skills before being drafted.  When players spent three or four years in college, the NBA draft was a lot deeper.  Heaven knows what would happen if they get rid of the one-and-done rule and let kids out of high school compete in the draft.

So tanking will continue, even if the best a team can do is get a 14% chance at the #1 pick.  This means the worst teams will stay bad, but the NFL has never been about equity (look at all the championships hogged by two teams, the Celtics and the Lakers).  The mere fact that Philadelphia was able to go from doormat to NEARLY making it to the conference championship round will be a model for other teams with no other way to get better.

TV Review: Lucifer season 4

TV Review: Lucifer season 4

What an age we live in!  In days of old, when a TV series was cancelled, that was it.  Finito.  Oh sure, a few shows switched to another network, but it was rarely successful (JAG being the major exception).  But now when a niche genre show bites the dust, and a popular streaming service just might bring it back from the dead.

So it is with Lucifer, FOX’s adaptation of a graphic novel about the Price of Darkness getting bored and solving murders in Los Angeles (as the Devil says in the pilot episode, where else would the Devil go for a vacation?).  I wrote a favorable review of the pilot episode, but the rest of season one was hit and miss.  Then, surprisingly, things improved dramatically in season two.  There was a murder case to solve each week, but they gradually got less important as the show’s theological musings got more entertaining.  The show’s producers read the Bible and found lots of references to Lucifer’s Father but none for his mother, so they created one.  Better yet, they put her in the form of actress Tricia Helfer, better known from Battlestar Gallactica.  Helfer was a great addition to the cast: well known inside the SF/fantasy genre, smokin’ hot, and a very good actress.  The show got better, but FOX thought it ran out of steam after season three.

Based on the 10 episodes produced for Netflix, FOX was wrong.  The Netflix incarnation of the show delivers the same bawdy humor, off-beat theology, and entertaining musical numbers that made the show so irresistible (the season four finale begins with a music video set to Kenny Loggins’ “I’m All Right” that ranks with this fight in an Asian drug den as Lucifer’s best set piece).  

A quick recap: The Devil (Tom Ellis) got bored and decided to spend some time in LA, where he runs the nightclub Lux as Lucifer Morningstar.  He met an attractive homicide detective named Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and so he decided to become a consultant to the LAPD and share his expertise on the dark side of humans with her.  She works with her ex-husband Dan (Kevin Alejandro) and a forensic expert named Ella (Aimee Garcia).  Lucifer spends his time, when not engaged in orgies or other debauchery, with his brother, the angel Amenadiel (DB Woodside), and his protector, a demon named Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt).  Because it’s LA, Lucifer also has a close relationship with his therapist (Rachel Harris).

The good news is that the Netflix version of Lucifer is successful in keeping the team together, with all of the cast members (except Tricia Helfer, whose character died at the end of season 3) returning.  Often when shows are resuscitated a few minor cast members are sacrificed for budget, but everyone is back (well, Chloe’s daughter Trixie is absent for most of the episodes, but with the episode count reduced to 10 there is less time for Decker’s home life). 

The major addition to the cast in Inbar Lavi, who plays an old crush of Lucifer’s.  A VERY old crush, as she plays Eve, as in Adam and. . . .  This follows the show bringing back Lucifer’s mother in season 2 and Adam and Eve’s son Cain in season 3.  While Lavi is no Tricia Helfer, she does an excellent job of portraying Eve as a party girl who means well but has been out of circulation for a few thousand years. 

If there is a down side to the Netflix reincarnation of Lucifer it is that the homicide “case of the week” (I guess that is a non-sequitur in a binge environment instead of a weekly network show) are given even shorter shrift than they were when the show was on FOX.  The cases always served mostly as a tent-pole to hang Lucifer’s antics on, but the Netflix version makes almost no effort to portray any of the murder investigations as the least but interesting; in fact, I’m pretty sure at least one case was solved with no explanation as to what the killer’s motive was. 

The upside of being on Netflix, as Tom Ellis mentioned in a Hollywood Reporter interview, was a slightly more permissive Standards and Practices attitude.  Mostly it is the language, which gets a little saltier, but there is a visit to a nudist colony in episode 6 that shows off aspects of both Lucifer and Ella that had previously been unseen.  It’s hard to do a show about the Devil without some cursing and mild nudity.

The returning actors are all at the top of their game.  DB Woodside, as Amediel, manages to be the stern, humorless big brother of Lucifer and also the funny fish-out-of-water interacting with humans on Earth.  Brandt, who generally got to do little more than look menacing as a demon, gets a chance to shine as she slowly falls in love with Eve, even as Eve only has eyes for Lucifer.  Mazikeen always solved all of her problems with violence, so watching her deal with unrequited love is something new.

The one actor who doesn’t come off well is Alejandro.  His character, Dan, reverts to his uninteresting “Detective Douche” mode from season 1, when he was just a bad cop and Chloe’s ex, before he started doing improv and getting into a relationship with a woman whose body was possessed by Lucifer’s mother (you have to follow he show to understand).

The arc of the 10-episode season 4 mainly deals with the tension between Lucifer and Decker, who saw Lucifer in his persona as the Devil for the first time at the end of season 3.  With them on a break, Eve enters as Lucifer’s old flame, and they pick up where they left off; the problem is, while they both are fond of the other, neither feels good about themselves in this new relationship.  Oh, there is also a fanatical Vatican priest determined to send Lucifer back to Hell.

If you were a fan of Lucifer when it was on FOX, then by all means check out season 4 on Netflix.  If you are a fan of the graphic novels, probably skip it as I understand the TV show is significantly different.  If you are unfamiliar with Lucifer, go to Netflix and either start at the beginning or, maybe better, pick it up at the start of season 2.  Season 4 is good enough to work your way through seasons 2 and 3 for.

College coaches are a privileged lot

There’s a quote I first heard a few months ago that I haven’t tracked down the source, but I think it explains a lot of what’s going on in this country.  The quote is, “When people of privilege lose their privilege, it feels like oppression.”

You can apply this to so many situations, but I want to talk about college coaches, specifically this quote from UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma:

“The majority of coaches in America are afraid of their players,” Auriemma said, via ESPNW’s Mechelle Voepel. “The NCAA, the athletic directors and society has made them afraid of their players. Every article you read: ‘This guy’s a bully. This woman’s a bully. This guy went over the line. This woman was inappropriate. Yet the players get off scot-free in everything. They can do whatever they want. They don’t like something you say to them, they transfer. Coaches, they have to coach with one hand behind their back. Why? Because some people have abused the role of a coach.”

College coaches have led privileged careers compared to pro coaches, or people in other professions.  If a player didn’t obey your every command, you could threaten to take away his or her scholarship, taking away their ticket to high paying pro jobs AND their ability to get an education.  You could block any student who wanted to transfer to another college because they didn’t fit into the system, or a better player was recruited after them, cutting their playing time.  Auriemma complains that students can transfer, but the reality has been that coaches can tell students and parents that they will make the student into a professional, and then leave the second a better school offers them more money.

Auriemma complains that players can transfer if they don’t like how they are being treated.  Imagine a workplace in the private sector, where if a boss is abusive the workers can quit and go to work at a rival company.  Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine that, it’s how the real world works.  Only in the rarefied world of college coaching can someone berate their underlings without fear that they will take their talents elsewhere.

Auriemma makes nearly $11 million a year to coach the UConn women’s basketball team and given his success one can’t quibble about the price.  But of course, the fact is the school is able to afford to pay him that because the workforce that generates revenue for the school is unpaid.  Oh, they players get a “free” education, but the marginal cost to the school of providing that education is close to zero (and, as I said above, the education gives the school leverage over the player).  Meanwhile, UConn men’s basketball players have complained about going to bed hungry because they couldn’t afford to buy food.  I bet Geno Auriemma never goes to bed hungry.

Not paying players to play is one thing, but the NCAA also forbids students from raising money off their names and their faces, things no one should have to give up their rights to in exchange for an “education” (said education usually lasting one year for basketball players headed to the NBA draft). As the Bard said, “Who steals my purse steals trash; . . . But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.”  Willie was not quite accurate, as colleges steal their student-athletes names and sell jerseys and paraphernalia featuring the name, enriching them; the students are, however, left poor indeed.

College coaches, Geno Auriemma included, have led a privileged existence.  But that privilege is shrinking.  They can no longer abuse their students (and college basketball players are, technically, students, even if many rarely see the inside of a classroom).  Someday they may have to allow students to make money off their name and their image, depriving coaches of the control they had over scholarships.  Someday they may have to stop treating student-athletes like slaves.

Geno Auriemma seems to think this is a bad thing.  But then he has 11 million reason to believe that.

All the Marvel movies ranked!

All the Marvel Movies Ranked!

Captain America—9.5

The gold standard.  The only Marvel movie with a true character arc (well. . . maybe Iron Man 3).  Also, one of the few with an interesting antagonist.  It wasn’t easy adapting square-jawed Steve Rogers to a modern audience, but Chris Evens found exactly he right tone.  Bonus points for Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, the best love interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series (with due respect to Pepper Potts).

Avengers—9.2

Maybe this should win based on degree of difficulty, because only the genius of Joss Whedon could have brought together all the threads of the individual heroes together to make a coherent story with character interaction.  It also boasts the best single line of the MCU, when Hulk says to Loki, “Puny God.”

Black Panther—9

Black Panther solves the problem that nags at most of the Marvel films, coming up with an interesting antagonist who has almost a valid point of view.  It’s not surface gloss; the depth that went into constructing Wakanda shows a filmmaker who pays attention to detail (1/3 of Wakandan extras are barefoot in keeping with African culture).  Superior script, direction, and acting; it deserved its Best Picture nomination.

Guardians of the Galaxy—8.5

Easily the biggest surprise of the MCU, the Guardians were grade C heroes that found the right vessel in James Gunn to transition to the silver screen.  Thank heaven Gunn was rehired (after handling his dismissal exactly correctly) for part 3 because, unlike the other MCU components, Guardians relies on his singular vision to work.

Thor: Ragnarok—8.3

Talk about surprises!  After the so-so Thor and the dismal sequel, Ragnarok found its own vessel in Taika Waititi to find the funny in a musclebound, one-eyed Norse deity.  Hemsworth’s charm has always been the main appeal of the Thor films, and pairing him with dour Bruce Banner is pure genius.

Avengers: Infinity War—8.1

I have the nagging feeling I’ve overrated this one, but you can’t fault the spectacle of all of Marvel’s various threads coming to fruition.  This is a victory for spectacle over brains (also, this film makes ZERO sense if you haven’t seen all 20 previous films).

Iron Man 3—8

In which Tony Stark learns a valuable lesson: Iron Man without Tony Stark is an empty suit, but Tony Stark without Iron Man is still pretty awesome.  Probably Downey’s best work in the MCU, and Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley at least try to make the villains interesting.

Iron Man—7.8

Robert Downey Jr. does a great job introducing the MCU, but Jeff Bridges is way over the top as the baddie, and the whole things runs on a little too long to stick the landing.

Ant Man and The Wasp—7.7

The first Marvel film with a female hero in the title, and also a female antagonist.  Adding the back story of Hank Pym’s wife adds some pathos to the otherwise nutty adventure, and the whole chase sequence with shrinking/enbiggening things is imaginatively done.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2—7.5

A solid entry that treads a little too closely on the heels of its predecessor, but great fun and Kurt Russel, of any age, is a hoot.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier—7.2

Frankly I found this rather dreary, but there are some nice set pieces (the elevator fight with Captain America is possibly the best fight of the MCU) and the ensemble is running on full speed.

Ant Man—7.1

Marvel’s first attempt (sort of) at a mostly comedic take on the superhero genre works, thanks to Paul Rudd’s goofy screen presence and the inestimable spunk of Evangeline Lilly (aka TV’s Lost’s Kate).  The origin story takes a while to get going, and I still don’t buy the whole “he can control ants with his mind” thing, but solid fun.

Doctor Strange—7

The film benefits greatly from the casting of Benedict Cumerbatch as the arrogant title character and some imaginatively used special effects.  It struggles to merge its mystical focus with the scientific basis of most of the other superheroes, and frankly I thought some of the special effects were way too busy.

Captain America: Civil War—6.7

It was at this point the MCU started to fold in upon itself.  A month after seeing this film I couldn’t remember the plot, just the airport scene that introduced Black Panther and the new, slightly improved Spiderman.  The plot, such as it is, is incomprehensible to anyone not immersed in the MCU.

Thor—6.5

Chris Hemsworth’s charm carries most of the baggage in the movie, indifferently directed by Oscar nominated director Kenneth Branaugh.  I never bought Natalie Portman as a legitimate love interest for a demi-god. The best thing I can say about it?  It’s better than Thor 2.

Incredible Hulk—6

Okay, I didn’t see this film, I saw the prior Ang Lee version.  But since Edward Norton was subsequently replaced by Mark Ruffalo, I have no desire to check it out for the sake of completeness.

Spiderman: Homecoming—5

The third Spiderman, Tom Holland, is better than Tobey Maguire, but I still prefer Andrew Garfield’s snark.  I like the casting of Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, as I never understood why Peter Parker’s aunt looked like his grandmother (some critic said, “Aunt May? She looks more like Miss February”).  But I found the plot mundane and Michael Keaton a surprisingly uninteresting antagonist.

Iron Man 2—4

This film had nothing to add to the Iron Man oeuvre; it was like they made it only because they could cast Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke as the villain.

Thor: The Dark World—3

The only good thing about this movie is the ad libbed moment when Thor delicately hangs his Hammer on Jane’s umbrella rack.  Bleak, confusing and ultimately uninteresting.

Avengers: Age of Ultron—2

I adore Joss Whedon.  I revere Joss Whedon.  I did the research, and this is easily the biggest piece of crap Whedon ever wrote/directed.  The villain is concocted out of thin air from Tony Stark doing something incredibly stupid (and is impossible to take seriously), yet no one really blames Stark for the fallout.  The opening party has some fun moments, but otherwise it is an interminable slog.  Dr. Horrible’s Sing a Long Blog is infinitely superior.

Captain Marvel—I haven’t seen it.  So sue me.

Learning lessons about college admissions

I suppose the question comes down to this: who is stupider, the offspring of Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin, and others who couldn’t get into college without their parents spending (collectively) millions of dollars on bribes, or the parents who got caught spending millions just to get their kids into a college they weren’t qualified to get into?

This reminds me of a Chinese kung-fu movie whose name I don’t know, but the plot dealt with a young man whose family was killed by outlaws and he wanted to learn kung-fu to extract revenge.  The problem was that he failed the test to get into the local kung-fu school, so he had no way of learning martial arts.  He then concocted a brilliant idea—he would get into the school by applying for a position as a teacher at the school, and once he was inside, he could learn kung-fun and revenge his family.  Of course, the problem is, if he isn’t good enough to get in as a student, how could he get in as a teacher?

If Lori Loughlin’s kid couldn't get into USC by way of her academic credentials (credentials that could only be burnished by having a rich parent who could pay for private schools), then how would she do well there once she got in via being on the crew team?  If you aren’t smart enough to get into a college but you are admitted anyway, you’ll spend four years surrounded by classmates who are smarter than you because they did get in legitimately.  Maybe you’ll graduate with what used to be called “a gentleman’s C” (I’m not sure what it would be called in tis “MeToo” era) but your GPA won’t make the Dean’s list.

Of course, I’m applying logic to the situation.  From what I understand from perusing various articles in the general media, no one involved thought the college admissions process was logical.  Wealthy, famous people had kids who couldn’t get into prestigious schools, so OBVIOUSLY the selection process was biased (it never occurred to these people that it was biased in favor of intelligent people).  A huckster convinced rich idiots that, to get into college, your kid doesn’t have to be smart; your kid needs a “brand” that will impress admissions offices.  I’m a little unclear on how paying off coaches to say your kids are on crew team helps their “brand,” but then I got into an Ivy League law school by doing awesome on my LSAT.

Prestigious schools are prestigious because they can be selective; they can be selective because they attract a large number of applications because they are prestigious.  It’s a “chicken and egg” situation. 

One of the consequences of the scandal is that now there is a lawsuit for $500 billion by someone who claims their kid was kept out of a “good” school because of all the corruption.  One source said that the plaintiff’s child ended up at UC Davis, which was on Money’s list of the 20 Best Colleges in America.  Of course, as was pointed out in the movie Lady Bird, who wants to go to a college known for its veterinary department?

The most ridiculous aspect of all this is that most studies agree that going to a prestigious college does NOT increase a young person’s chances for success.  Extensive research has shown that where your kid goes to college doesn’t have much, if any, impact on subsequent success in life or business.  People who go to prestigious schools succeed because they are smart enough to get into a prestigious school legitimately, and if these types of students opt to go to a non-prestigious school (for financial or geographic reasons), they tend to succeed anyway because of their inherent qualities, not the quality of their education.

But the point of the offspring of famous, wealthy people getting into a prestigious college is not to succeed later in life, but to be seen as being a prestigious student.  In a way, it’s like buying military medals on e-Bay and then wearing them to show how brave you are; or, the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz becoming smart just because he’s handed a diploma without having gone to school.

Legislators in California have naturally jumped on the band wagon and are demanding UC do something about the broken admissions system, as if no one with good grades or test scores can get into UC Berkeley because of the tens of thousands of wealthy parents sending checks for $500,000 to the admissions office there (if there were really that many wealthy parents willing to pay $500,000 to get their kid into UC, they could the few non-rich students who somehow squeak in attend for free). 

I don’t understand parents who want to cut corners for their kids and give them stuff they didn’t earn on their own.  Dim-witted kids who get into an elite school are either going to learn how stupid they are, or decide brains are for suckers and stop working.  I agree with the old joke about the dying man who went to his lawyer to draw up his will.  The attorney asked him what he wanted to leave his family, and he said his oldest son should get a million dollars, his two younger sons should get $500,000 each, and his daughter should get $250,000.  The lawyer told him his entire estate was worth $100,000, so where would the children get this money?  The man replied, “Let ‘em work for it, just like I did!”