Day: November 26, 2002

Honesty is the worst policy

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Except for all the others. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Jennifer Saranow, though online dating has skyrocketed in popularity, many of the happy couples who’ve resulted from online unions are reticent about telling their friends and families the truth about how they met.

Of course, my wife Karen and I met online. I think we’ve been pretty honest with most folks about how we met. The only time I recall fibbing or stepping around it was at the wedding of one of Karen’s cousins last year. But I don’t think that was so much out of embarassment as it was laziness. It takes time to explain that we met online, what that involved, etc.

And I know that I don’t really go out of my way to tell mere acquaintances how we met, out of laziness but also because of the stigma that is still somewhat attached to it. But if you can’t be honest with friends and family about that kind of thing, what’s the point anymore?

Gwine ta dig a hole ta put Dubya in

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Chapman has it right again:

Stopping proliferation is not a one-time fix. Says University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, author of “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,” “It’s not viable just to conquer and occupy a country to get those weapons.”

That’s because the next government may also want to acquire nuclear weapons, even if it’s a democracy — as democracies such as India and Israel already have. “You have to stay forever,” he warns.

And the $442 billion Dubya wants to spend on this offensive defense in 2007 is just not worth it, considering that the containment and deterrence strategy currently in place has worked pretty damn well. It doesn’t require stationing troops in Iraq forever or installing a secular, constitutional democracy amid a hostile populace.

This all would be simply academic if it weren’t for the fact that real dangers continue to evade our supposed protectors.

Invading Iraq is like the War on Drugs. Isolated, it’s a bad policy. But combined with the fact that much greater dangers actually exist (in the War on Drugs, murderers, rapists and thieves; in the Iraqi war, Al Qaeda terrorists) and our ability to combat it is weakened by this distraction, the policy is just about insane.

Choi is not a toy

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Another entry into the idiot columnist sweepstakes is Jay Mariotti’s facile piece on how the Cubs’ not blowing wads of money on a slugger on the down side of his career when they’ve got a great young slugger at that same position and plenty of other holes to fill indicates their supposed unwillingness to win.

Yes, Jim Thome would be a great addition to the Cubs. It would be wonderful to have him back up Sammy in the clean-up spot. But even at the discounted rate he supposedly offered the Cubs (somewhere between $11 and $15 million annually for four years), the Cubs could get a good third baseman and two solid relievers. People seem to forget that the name of the game in baseball is the best team.

For all the money, Thome would still only bat four times a game. And he’s already 32. Certainly, such a deal would make a lot more sense if the jewel of the organization, Hee Sop Choi, didn’t already play that position. It is not a cheap-out to stick with the talent your organization has scouted and developed over an extremely costly free agent.

Phil Rogers offers up a bevy of options for signing Thome and trading Choi. At least he’s thinking, something Mariotti seems allergic to. And if the Cubs could pull off one of these deals, it might be worth it.

But I don’t blame the Cubs or general manager Jim Hendry for not rushing out there to take a chance on another organization’s hot prospect. It doesn’t matter how many home runs your first baseman hits if your bullpen blows the game in relief anyway. And good relievers come at a premium these days. Period.

Think Troy Percival. Think Robb Nen. Think Mariano Rivera. And, finally, think Byung-Hyun Kim, the only reason the D-Backs had to go seven games in 2001.

Critics adore, fans abhor

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Such is the consensus opinion about P.T. Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love,” according to this Tribune story by Barbara Brotman, citing as her source postings to the Yahoo! movies message board.

Yet it merits an 8.1 out of 10 rating from users of the Internet Movie Database, which is about as precise an instrument. Over at Epinions.com, “PDL” has received an average of four out of five stars from 21 reviewers. That said, Brotman’s explanation of why critical and popular opinion often diverge is on the money:

Critics tend to be deeply appreciative of movies that are unusual, said Lester Friedman, a film professor at Northwestern University.

“Reviewers see an awful lot of bad films,” he said. “I think something which shows a spark of creativity or a willingness to invest genres with new insights and twists will certainly get their attention.”

Columbia film & video professor Reid Schultz also makes a good point in the story:

“The reviews were awful,” he said. “Basically, what they talked about was that this is a different Adam Sandler movie. ‘Look, Adam Sandler can act.’ But they don’t talk about what all those abstract colors are doing in this movie. … The analysis hasn’t been there.

“Of course people are walking out, because there’s nobody to help them understand it.”

But part of why the reviews did such a poor job of capturing the spirit of the movie and conveying it to their readers is because it does such an excellent job of defying genre conventions. My impressionistic reaction would probably have done most readers as well as most reviews from the nation’s best critics.