Mom Killed Baby Over FarmVille
A 22-year-old mother in Jacksonville, Florida, has pleaded guilty to killing her baby because his crying interrupted her game of FarmVille. Alexandra V. Tobias shook the baby to death. She copped to second-degree murder and could face life in prison.
Read it at The Florida Times-Union
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
O'Donnell campaign threatened to sue Delaware radio station "HOW DOES A DUMMY LIKE THIS GET A CHANCE TO BE ELECTED TO THE USA SENATE?"
Christine O'Donnell's Senate campaign has apologized to a Delaware radio station for threatening to sue if the station did not destroy videotapes of an interview with the candidate, the station reported Wednesday.
During the interview, which was broadcast live and streamed on the Web on Tuesday, the Delaware Republican candidate and tea party favorite "answered a variety of questions from listeners as well as the host," according to the station, WDEL.
At the conclusion of the interview, a representative from the campaign who had been in the broadcast studio with O'Donnell asked that the video be turned over to the campaign and not released. He stated that the videotaping had not been approved by the O'Donnell campaign.
O'Donnell also told show host Rick Jensen that she would sue the radio station if the video was released. [...]
O'Donnell's campaign manager, Matt Moran, called WDEL and demanded that the video be immediately turned over to the campaign and destroyed. Moran threatened to "crush WDEL" with a lawsuit if the station didn't comply.
The station reported that an attorney representing the O'Donnell campaign contacted WDEL's law firm "to apologize for charges made by their campaign manager. The attorney agreed that there was no legal issue with the video and expressed regret for the incident."
After stunning the GOP establishment with her primary win over longtime Rep. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) in September, O'Donnell has been besieged by controversy. According to RealClearPolitics, O'Donnell trails Democrat Chris Coons by double digits in recent major polls.
During the interview, which was broadcast live and streamed on the Web on Tuesday, the Delaware Republican candidate and tea party favorite "answered a variety of questions from listeners as well as the host," according to the station, WDEL.
At the conclusion of the interview, a representative from the campaign who had been in the broadcast studio with O'Donnell asked that the video be turned over to the campaign and not released. He stated that the videotaping had not been approved by the O'Donnell campaign.
O'Donnell also told show host Rick Jensen that she would sue the radio station if the video was released. [...]
O'Donnell's campaign manager, Matt Moran, called WDEL and demanded that the video be immediately turned over to the campaign and destroyed. Moran threatened to "crush WDEL" with a lawsuit if the station didn't comply.
The station reported that an attorney representing the O'Donnell campaign contacted WDEL's law firm "to apologize for charges made by their campaign manager. The attorney agreed that there was no legal issue with the video and expressed regret for the incident."
After stunning the GOP establishment with her primary win over longtime Rep. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) in September, O'Donnell has been besieged by controversy. According to RealClearPolitics, O'Donnell trails Democrat Chris Coons by double digits in recent major polls.
BACK TO THE DUCKTAIL HAIRDO? I hope not!
When Tea Party wants to go back, where is it to?
As battle cries go, the Tea Party's "Take our country back" is a pretty good one. It's short and punchy, and it addresses a very widespread sense that the nation that Americans once lived in has changed, and not for the better.
When the Tea Partyers get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong. In the worldview of the American right -- and the polling shows conclusively that that's who the Tea Party is -- the nation, misled by President Obama, has gone down the path to socialism. In fact, far from venturing down that road, we've been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now. The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.
Since 1980, it's been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it's been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined -- going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.
In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007.
Looking at these numbers, it would be reasonable to infer that when the Tea Partyers say that they want to take the country back, they mean back to the period between 1950 and 1980, when the vast majority of Americans encountered more opportunity and security in their economic lives than they had before or since. Reasonable, but wrong. As the right sees it, America's woes are traceable to the New Deal order that Franklin Roosevelt, working in the shadow of the even more sinister Woodrow Wilson, imposed on an unsuspecting people.
In fact, the New Deal order produced the only three decades in American history -- the '50s, '60s and '70s -- when economic security and opportunity were widely shared. It was the only period in the American chronicle when unions were big and powerful enough to ensure that corporate revenue actually trickled down to workers. It marked the only time in American history when, courtesy originally of the GI Bill, the number of Americans going to college surged. It was the only time when taxes on the rich were really significantly higher than taxes on the rest of us. It was the only time that the minimum wage kept pace (almost) with the cost of living. And it was the only time when most Americans felt confident enough about their economic prospects, and those of their nation, to support the taxes that built the postwar American infrastructure.
Since the ascent of Ronald Reagan, though, America's claim to being a land of opportunity has become a sick joke. Unions have dwindled; colleges have become unaffordable; manufacturing has gone abroad; taxes on the rich have plummeted; our infrastructure has decayed.
But the country the right wants to return to isn't the America that the Greatest Generation built. Judging by the statements of many of the Republican and Tea Party-backed candidates on next Tuesday's ballots, it's the America that antedates the New Deal -- a land without Social Security, unions or the minimum wage. It's the land that the Greatest Generation gladly left behind whey they voted for and built the New Deal order. All of us should want our country back, but that country should be the more prosperous and economically egalitarian nation that flourished at the time when America was not only the world's greatest power, but also a beacon to the world.
meyersonh@washpost.com
As battle cries go, the Tea Party's "Take our country back" is a pretty good one. It's short and punchy, and it addresses a very widespread sense that the nation that Americans once lived in has changed, and not for the better.
When the Tea Partyers get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong. In the worldview of the American right -- and the polling shows conclusively that that's who the Tea Party is -- the nation, misled by President Obama, has gone down the path to socialism. In fact, far from venturing down that road, we've been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now. The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.
Since 1980, it's been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it's been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined -- going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.
In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007.
Looking at these numbers, it would be reasonable to infer that when the Tea Partyers say that they want to take the country back, they mean back to the period between 1950 and 1980, when the vast majority of Americans encountered more opportunity and security in their economic lives than they had before or since. Reasonable, but wrong. As the right sees it, America's woes are traceable to the New Deal order that Franklin Roosevelt, working in the shadow of the even more sinister Woodrow Wilson, imposed on an unsuspecting people.
In fact, the New Deal order produced the only three decades in American history -- the '50s, '60s and '70s -- when economic security and opportunity were widely shared. It was the only period in the American chronicle when unions were big and powerful enough to ensure that corporate revenue actually trickled down to workers. It marked the only time in American history when, courtesy originally of the GI Bill, the number of Americans going to college surged. It was the only time when taxes on the rich were really significantly higher than taxes on the rest of us. It was the only time that the minimum wage kept pace (almost) with the cost of living. And it was the only time when most Americans felt confident enough about their economic prospects, and those of their nation, to support the taxes that built the postwar American infrastructure.
Since the ascent of Ronald Reagan, though, America's claim to being a land of opportunity has become a sick joke. Unions have dwindled; colleges have become unaffordable; manufacturing has gone abroad; taxes on the rich have plummeted; our infrastructure has decayed.
But the country the right wants to return to isn't the America that the Greatest Generation built. Judging by the statements of many of the Republican and Tea Party-backed candidates on next Tuesday's ballots, it's the America that antedates the New Deal -- a land without Social Security, unions or the minimum wage. It's the land that the Greatest Generation gladly left behind whey they voted for and built the New Deal order. All of us should want our country back, but that country should be the more prosperous and economically egalitarian nation that flourished at the time when America was not only the world's greatest power, but also a beacon to the world.
meyersonh@washpost.com
Tube-free toilet paper rolls - FINALLY!
Kimberly-Clark rolls out tube-free Scott toilet paper
The toilet paper roll is about to undergo its biggest
change in 100 years: going tubeless.
On Monday, Kimberly-Clark, one of the world's biggest makers of household paper products, will begin testing Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper
at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the Northeast. If sales take off, it may introduce the line nationally and globally — and even consider
adapting the technology into its paper towel brands.
No, the holes in the rolls aren't perfectly round. But they do fit over TP spindles and come with this promise: Even the last piece of toilet paper will be usable — without glue stuck on it.
Suddenly, there's news in the $9 billion — but stagnant — toilet paper market. More important, it's got a "green" halo.
The 17 billion toilet paper tubes produced annually in the USA account for 160 million pounds of trash,according to Kimberly-Clark estimates, and could stretch more than a million miles placed end-to-end. That's from here to the moon and back — twice.
Most consumers toss, rather than recycle, used tubes, says Doug Daniels, brand manager at Kimberly-Clark. "We found a way to bring innovation
to a category as mature as bath tissue," he says.
He won't disclose the tubeless technology used but says it's a special winding process. A similar process is used on tissue the company sells to
businesses but not to consumers. Behind the marketing push is a growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products.
One environmentalist applauds the move. "It's a positive example of how companies are seeking creative ways to reduce environmental impact," says
Darby Hoover of the Natural Resources Defense Council. But more relevant than nixing the tubes would be more recycled content in its paper, Hoover
says. While Scott Naturals normally has 40% recycled content, this test product does not — but
Scott Naturals new tube-free toilet paper design gets a test in the Northeast.
Hoover says she hopes other toilet tissue makers follow Kimberly-Clark's lead. How soon that may happen is unclear. Procter & Gamble, maker of top-
seller Charmin, declined to comment.
The toilet paper roll is about to undergo its biggest
change in 100 years: going tubeless.
On Monday, Kimberly-Clark, one of the world's biggest makers of household paper products, will begin testing Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper
at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the Northeast. If sales take off, it may introduce the line nationally and globally — and even consider
adapting the technology into its paper towel brands.
No, the holes in the rolls aren't perfectly round. But they do fit over TP spindles and come with this promise: Even the last piece of toilet paper will be usable — without glue stuck on it.
Suddenly, there's news in the $9 billion — but stagnant — toilet paper market. More important, it's got a "green" halo.
The 17 billion toilet paper tubes produced annually in the USA account for 160 million pounds of trash,according to Kimberly-Clark estimates, and could stretch more than a million miles placed end-to-end. That's from here to the moon and back — twice.
Most consumers toss, rather than recycle, used tubes, says Doug Daniels, brand manager at Kimberly-Clark. "We found a way to bring innovation
to a category as mature as bath tissue," he says.
He won't disclose the tubeless technology used but says it's a special winding process. A similar process is used on tissue the company sells to
businesses but not to consumers. Behind the marketing push is a growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products.
One environmentalist applauds the move. "It's a positive example of how companies are seeking creative ways to reduce environmental impact," says
Darby Hoover of the Natural Resources Defense Council. But more relevant than nixing the tubes would be more recycled content in its paper, Hoover
says. While Scott Naturals normally has 40% recycled content, this test product does not — but
Scott Naturals new tube-free toilet paper design gets a test in the Northeast.
Hoover says she hopes other toilet tissue makers follow Kimberly-Clark's lead. How soon that may happen is unclear. Procter & Gamble, maker of top-
seller Charmin, declined to comment.
PALIN PAL ADMITS HE LIED!
Joe Miller: 'I Lied' at Former Job
So this is what Joe Miller has been hiding. Newly unsealed records pertaining to the GOP's nominee for the Senate in Alaska show that while he was working for the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Miller improperly used three government computers and then tried to cover up his activities by clearing the caches.
Miller was caught, admitted there was "no excuse" for his actions, was suspended for three days, and referred to an employee assistance program. "I lied about accessing all of the computers," the records show Miller writing in an email at the time.
Miller has been dodging questions about his time at the borough—which he doesn't list on his campaign website—for his entire campaign. He previously admitted only to using the computers to participate in a private poll "for about five minutes."
Read it at The Wall Street Journal
So this is what Joe Miller has been hiding. Newly unsealed records pertaining to the GOP's nominee for the Senate in Alaska show that while he was working for the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Miller improperly used three government computers and then tried to cover up his activities by clearing the caches.
Miller was caught, admitted there was "no excuse" for his actions, was suspended for three days, and referred to an employee assistance program. "I lied about accessing all of the computers," the records show Miller writing in an email at the time.
Miller has been dodging questions about his time at the borough—which he doesn't list on his campaign website—for his entire campaign. He previously admitted only to using the computers to participate in a private poll "for about five minutes."
Read it at The Wall Street Journal
Flu Vaccine, Then and Now - Last year many Americans, fearful of a new swine flu virus, clamored for vaccines that were often hard to find or even unavailable in their area. This year there should be plenty of vaccine for everyone who wants it.
The problems last year stemmed in large part from the late emergence of an unexpected strain — the swine flu — which was impervious to the standard flu vaccines then being prepared.
Manufacturers had to switch plans in midstream and start producing a second vaccine. They got a late start, many experienced production problems, and deliveries of swine flu vaccine ran way behind schedule.
People who sought the vaccine often found that their doctors had run out, or had to wait hours in line if they could find a clinic or a store with a supply.
Meanwhile, individuals who wanted complete protection had to get two flu shots, one to protect against the swine flu that was already circulating, the other against seasonal flu strains that were expected to circulate but never did appear to any significant extent.
This year immunization will be much simpler. The vaccine will protect against both the swine flu and two other flu strains. Most people will need only a single shot.
By mid-October, manufacturers had delivered 139 million doses and were projecting that they would produce 160 to 165 million doses in all for this flu season. That should be plenty to handle the likely demand.
Federal health officials now recommend that all people ages 6 months and older should get vaccinated. Influenza activity is relatively low around the country, but it makes sense to get protected soon, before the virus arrives in force.
Manufacturers had to switch plans in midstream and start producing a second vaccine. They got a late start, many experienced production problems, and deliveries of swine flu vaccine ran way behind schedule.
People who sought the vaccine often found that their doctors had run out, or had to wait hours in line if they could find a clinic or a store with a supply.
Meanwhile, individuals who wanted complete protection had to get two flu shots, one to protect against the swine flu that was already circulating, the other against seasonal flu strains that were expected to circulate but never did appear to any significant extent.
This year immunization will be much simpler. The vaccine will protect against both the swine flu and two other flu strains. Most people will need only a single shot.
By mid-October, manufacturers had delivered 139 million doses and were projecting that they would produce 160 to 165 million doses in all for this flu season. That should be plenty to handle the likely demand.
Federal health officials now recommend that all people ages 6 months and older should get vaccinated. Influenza activity is relatively low around the country, but it makes sense to get protected soon, before the virus arrives in force.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Obama's Approval Ratings Higher than Reagan's Oh My the Birthers are going to jump off high places soon, I Hope!
Obama's Approval Ratings Higher than Reagan's
Were at This Point in First Term
(CBS) President Obama may not be the most popular man on the campaign trail at the moment, but the president is still faring better in the polls than Ronald Reagan was during this stage of his first term, the National Journal reports.
According to a new study by the Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll (which was conducted with the Pew Research Center), 47 percent of Americans would like to see Mr. Obama run for re-election in 2012.
The figure, though short of a majority, is significantly higher than Mr. Reagan's 36 percent rating on the same question in August 1982 - just months before his own party lost 26 House seats (but gained a Senate seat) in the midterm elections.
National Journal points out not only that Mr. Reagan was re-elected to his second term by a wide margin, but that the circumstances dictating his first term are not unlike those that Mr. Obama has faced over the past two years.
National Journal's Jason Dick points out:
"Both were elected during difficult economic times and succeeded unpopular presidents.
Both came promising to change the way things were done in Washington.
Both saw their footings slip and their ratings sag as the economies of their times suffered devastating recessions."
Indeed, unemployment rates in 1982 hovered at 9.7 percent - a tenth of a percent higher than the current national levels.
Ultimately, history seems to show that a president's popularity level two years into his first term is not a strong indicator of his re-election prospects:
The Journal reports that former presidents George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter - both of whom lost re-election bids - enjoyed higher ratings than Mr. Reagan in the months leading up to the midterms.
The poll also says that 51 percent of voters likely to vote in next week's elections support the full repeal of health care reform, in the event that Republicans win a majority in the House and/or Senate.
Were at This Point in First Term
(CBS) President Obama may not be the most popular man on the campaign trail at the moment, but the president is still faring better in the polls than Ronald Reagan was during this stage of his first term, the National Journal reports.
According to a new study by the Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll (which was conducted with the Pew Research Center), 47 percent of Americans would like to see Mr. Obama run for re-election in 2012.
The figure, though short of a majority, is significantly higher than Mr. Reagan's 36 percent rating on the same question in August 1982 - just months before his own party lost 26 House seats (but gained a Senate seat) in the midterm elections.
National Journal points out not only that Mr. Reagan was re-elected to his second term by a wide margin, but that the circumstances dictating his first term are not unlike those that Mr. Obama has faced over the past two years.
National Journal's Jason Dick points out:
"Both were elected during difficult economic times and succeeded unpopular presidents.
Both came promising to change the way things were done in Washington.
Both saw their footings slip and their ratings sag as the economies of their times suffered devastating recessions."
Indeed, unemployment rates in 1982 hovered at 9.7 percent - a tenth of a percent higher than the current national levels.
Ultimately, history seems to show that a president's popularity level two years into his first term is not a strong indicator of his re-election prospects:
The Journal reports that former presidents George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter - both of whom lost re-election bids - enjoyed higher ratings than Mr. Reagan in the months leading up to the midterms.
The poll also says that 51 percent of voters likely to vote in next week's elections support the full repeal of health care reform, in the event that Republicans win a majority in the House and/or Senate.
Wes Craven's Favorite Scary Movies
The master of horror is on deck for his fourth Scream film and just released My Soul to Take.
I chose to name films that were in the era where I first really started watching movies and fell in love with cinema. I didn’t watch movies as a kid because my family was a member of a church that didn’t think movies were a good thing—they thought they were the work of the devil—so I didn’t see many movies until I was out of college. There was an art house in the town way upstate in New York where I was teaching and I went to every movie that opened there.
Don’t Look Now (1973)
This was one of the movies that just completely enthralled me and scared me at the same time, where I was watching a film that was a pretty moving work of art as well. There are several scenes where the parents glimpse their missing little girl—wearing the raincoat she was wearing when she disappeared—appearing down at the end of a dank alleyway in Venice. The sense that the child is either a ghost or is torturing them with her presence by disappearing was a wonderful example (not that I followed it) of being able to scare without showing blood.
Blow-Up (1966)
Blow-Up was also a very mysterious film where you did not see much violence at all. This was one of Antonioni’s films, about a photographer coming back from a shoot who sees something in one of his photographs that he hadn’t realized he’d photographed. He blows it up, then blows it up again, and it appears to be a human foot sticking out from behind a bush, so he goes back to see what it might have actually been. He’s pretty sure he’s onto a murder, and he comes back to his loft apartment after finding nothing, finds his place has been tossed, and realizes his life is in danger. It is a very masterfully constructed, gorgeously photographed, and almost surreal film of impending threat and doom—again without much clue of what actually happened or what is going to happen. It is quite extraordinary. Even though I didn’t go on to make films that are quite this art film-ish, these were the films that really inspired me to take the liberty of even what I did in Nightmare on Elm Street, where I could go into these macabre visions in a way that was permitted by the very nature of the film itself.
Psycho (1960)
The scene that really frightened me the most is the one at the top of the stairs where Martin Balsam, playing the detective, comes up and there’s a high-angle, sort of canted shot, where the mother—or what seems to be the mother—comes out of the doorway with the knife raised over her head, charges at him, stabs him in the chest, and he’s so startled he’s not able to move. Hitchcock did a very surreal thing where he put his actor on a lift so he could be flying backwards in midair in slow-motion in a very surreal, dreamlike way. It was utterly terrifying.
The Virgin Spring (1960)
The basic plot of The Virgin Spring, which was lifted off a Medieval tale, became the framework for The Last House on the Left. Two girls go off on a pilgrimage and while they’re in the woods they run into a band of shepherds who are nearly feral, and they are ultimately raped and then murdered. That was horrific enough, but what really was terrifying to me was when these shepherds are lost in a storm and take shelter at a house that they find, and they do not know that this is the home of one of the girls they just killed. The parents discover who these people are by discovering some of the girls’ clothing, and there’s this long sequence where the parents prepare to kill these men. The father systematically murders each one of these shepherds, and that to me, oddly enough, was the most terrifying because his revenge was done so graphically. There was a young boy that was traveling with these shepherds—he was utterly innocent and he ends up being killed, too. I found that really a stunning thing to be depicted in a movie where you have what in an American movie would be justifiable revenge, but at the end seeing how revenge can itself be a murder of the innocence of the victims, how they can transcend from being normal people to being victims to being murderers themselves. That was fascinating to me.
Repulsion (1965)
Repulsion by Polanski is one of my real inspirations of several of his films. It was one of these films spun out of spiderwebs and ether. A woman was left alone in her apartment, and just bit by bit, her sanity is eroding so that the apartment became the literal symbol of her psyche. There’s a wonderful moment where she seems utterly haunted and locked into her apartment—even though she can leave if she wants to—and one of the walls simply cracks. This crack races across the walls of her apartment as if the very building itself is about to collapse. Years and years later, when I did Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I began the film with an earthquake hitting Los Angeles, and we’re watching the actress who played Nancy on the original Nightmare on Elm Street. So you’re in Heather Langenkamp’s home, and her house is struck by an earthquake, and the first clue that something is happening is one of the walls in her home simply splits in half. Later, I did an appearance where I was showing Repulsion as one of my favorite films, and I’m sitting in the theatre watching the opening of it, and when this crack goes across the wall of the character’s apartment I realize, holy moly, I lifted that whole crack and put it in my movie without remembering where I saw it.
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Beauty and the Beast was again the idea of near-madness and the fabric of reality being created and replaced with things that were surreal. I think I was very affected by surrealism in general as a sort of outlaw form of looking at the world as semi-mad, especially this scene where a character’s going down a hallway and the sconces for the hallway lights are hands, and they begin grasping and reaching out at the character was just terribly, terribly frightening to me. I think there were elements of that in both The People Under the Stairs and certainly in the hallucinogenic sequence in The Serpent and the Rainbow where Bill Pullman is running down between a wall of cells in a prison and these long, long arms and hands are reaching out for him.
War of the Worlds (1953)
I snuck into a theatre with my older brother to see this one. There’s an invasion of aliens and they land in these big saucers, and the scary thing about these saucers is they put out these long sort of…it looks like the goose-neck lamp material that is kind of coiled and you can turn it many different ways, and these things are very serpentine with a kind of snakelike head, and they’re just sort of looking around the room to sense the presence of humans. I just remember being totally terrified by that.
Frankenstein (1931)
I think the most frightening thing to me about Frankenstein, after getting over how Boris Karloff looked, was a scene where he has escaped his tormenters and he’s in a sort of bucolic setting, and there’s a small lake and he comes across a small girl there, he goes up and kind of makes friends with her. In her innocence, she doesn’t turn around and run screaming, and the next time you see her she’s dead. It’s pretty clear he killed her, and there’s that sense that a movie can show you something you just don’t think a movie is going to show you. Obviously, by today’s standards, that’s pretty attenuated, but at the time when I saw it, it was just so shocking that they would show a dead child, that this creature had actually murdered a child.
Nosferatu (1922)
The way Nosferatu looked was my inspiration for casting Michael Berryman in The Hills Have Eyes. Michael Berryman had been born with a series of birth defects that made his skull misshapen, and he just had an extraordinary look. He was completely a normal human being inside but he looked really, really frightening. Nosferatu to me, just as a character, was so utterly frightening looking, it looked to me like it couldn’t actually be a human actor in there—it had to be this sort of monstrous, vampiric creature.
The Bad Seed (1956)
That’s the delight of the evil child, I think she’s just so revolutionary and so anti-American, where the nice little girl could never be bad. I think later, in The Omen for instance, you got into an evil child, but at this time it was very, very shocking to see this little girl who very cogently and nefariously started killing people in a way that always made it seem like she was utterly innocent. I think it was extraordinarily intelligently written, and it’s one of the few things that I saw as a young adult that never was really remade. I was always struck by the fact that they never did a modern version of it.
I chose to name films that were in the era where I first really started watching movies and fell in love with cinema. I didn’t watch movies as a kid because my family was a member of a church that didn’t think movies were a good thing—they thought they were the work of the devil—so I didn’t see many movies until I was out of college. There was an art house in the town way upstate in New York where I was teaching and I went to every movie that opened there.
Don’t Look Now (1973)
This was one of the movies that just completely enthralled me and scared me at the same time, where I was watching a film that was a pretty moving work of art as well. There are several scenes where the parents glimpse their missing little girl—wearing the raincoat she was wearing when she disappeared—appearing down at the end of a dank alleyway in Venice. The sense that the child is either a ghost or is torturing them with her presence by disappearing was a wonderful example (not that I followed it) of being able to scare without showing blood.
Blow-Up (1966)
Blow-Up was also a very mysterious film where you did not see much violence at all. This was one of Antonioni’s films, about a photographer coming back from a shoot who sees something in one of his photographs that he hadn’t realized he’d photographed. He blows it up, then blows it up again, and it appears to be a human foot sticking out from behind a bush, so he goes back to see what it might have actually been. He’s pretty sure he’s onto a murder, and he comes back to his loft apartment after finding nothing, finds his place has been tossed, and realizes his life is in danger. It is a very masterfully constructed, gorgeously photographed, and almost surreal film of impending threat and doom—again without much clue of what actually happened or what is going to happen. It is quite extraordinary. Even though I didn’t go on to make films that are quite this art film-ish, these were the films that really inspired me to take the liberty of even what I did in Nightmare on Elm Street, where I could go into these macabre visions in a way that was permitted by the very nature of the film itself.
Psycho (1960)
The scene that really frightened me the most is the one at the top of the stairs where Martin Balsam, playing the detective, comes up and there’s a high-angle, sort of canted shot, where the mother—or what seems to be the mother—comes out of the doorway with the knife raised over her head, charges at him, stabs him in the chest, and he’s so startled he’s not able to move. Hitchcock did a very surreal thing where he put his actor on a lift so he could be flying backwards in midair in slow-motion in a very surreal, dreamlike way. It was utterly terrifying.
The Virgin Spring (1960)
The basic plot of The Virgin Spring, which was lifted off a Medieval tale, became the framework for The Last House on the Left. Two girls go off on a pilgrimage and while they’re in the woods they run into a band of shepherds who are nearly feral, and they are ultimately raped and then murdered. That was horrific enough, but what really was terrifying to me was when these shepherds are lost in a storm and take shelter at a house that they find, and they do not know that this is the home of one of the girls they just killed. The parents discover who these people are by discovering some of the girls’ clothing, and there’s this long sequence where the parents prepare to kill these men. The father systematically murders each one of these shepherds, and that to me, oddly enough, was the most terrifying because his revenge was done so graphically. There was a young boy that was traveling with these shepherds—he was utterly innocent and he ends up being killed, too. I found that really a stunning thing to be depicted in a movie where you have what in an American movie would be justifiable revenge, but at the end seeing how revenge can itself be a murder of the innocence of the victims, how they can transcend from being normal people to being victims to being murderers themselves. That was fascinating to me.
Repulsion (1965)
Repulsion by Polanski is one of my real inspirations of several of his films. It was one of these films spun out of spiderwebs and ether. A woman was left alone in her apartment, and just bit by bit, her sanity is eroding so that the apartment became the literal symbol of her psyche. There’s a wonderful moment where she seems utterly haunted and locked into her apartment—even though she can leave if she wants to—and one of the walls simply cracks. This crack races across the walls of her apartment as if the very building itself is about to collapse. Years and years later, when I did Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I began the film with an earthquake hitting Los Angeles, and we’re watching the actress who played Nancy on the original Nightmare on Elm Street. So you’re in Heather Langenkamp’s home, and her house is struck by an earthquake, and the first clue that something is happening is one of the walls in her home simply splits in half. Later, I did an appearance where I was showing Repulsion as one of my favorite films, and I’m sitting in the theatre watching the opening of it, and when this crack goes across the wall of the character’s apartment I realize, holy moly, I lifted that whole crack and put it in my movie without remembering where I saw it.
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Beauty and the Beast was again the idea of near-madness and the fabric of reality being created and replaced with things that were surreal. I think I was very affected by surrealism in general as a sort of outlaw form of looking at the world as semi-mad, especially this scene where a character’s going down a hallway and the sconces for the hallway lights are hands, and they begin grasping and reaching out at the character was just terribly, terribly frightening to me. I think there were elements of that in both The People Under the Stairs and certainly in the hallucinogenic sequence in The Serpent and the Rainbow where Bill Pullman is running down between a wall of cells in a prison and these long, long arms and hands are reaching out for him.
War of the Worlds (1953)
I snuck into a theatre with my older brother to see this one. There’s an invasion of aliens and they land in these big saucers, and the scary thing about these saucers is they put out these long sort of…it looks like the goose-neck lamp material that is kind of coiled and you can turn it many different ways, and these things are very serpentine with a kind of snakelike head, and they’re just sort of looking around the room to sense the presence of humans. I just remember being totally terrified by that.
Frankenstein (1931)
I think the most frightening thing to me about Frankenstein, after getting over how Boris Karloff looked, was a scene where he has escaped his tormenters and he’s in a sort of bucolic setting, and there’s a small lake and he comes across a small girl there, he goes up and kind of makes friends with her. In her innocence, she doesn’t turn around and run screaming, and the next time you see her she’s dead. It’s pretty clear he killed her, and there’s that sense that a movie can show you something you just don’t think a movie is going to show you. Obviously, by today’s standards, that’s pretty attenuated, but at the time when I saw it, it was just so shocking that they would show a dead child, that this creature had actually murdered a child.
Nosferatu (1922)
The way Nosferatu looked was my inspiration for casting Michael Berryman in The Hills Have Eyes. Michael Berryman had been born with a series of birth defects that made his skull misshapen, and he just had an extraordinary look. He was completely a normal human being inside but he looked really, really frightening. Nosferatu to me, just as a character, was so utterly frightening looking, it looked to me like it couldn’t actually be a human actor in there—it had to be this sort of monstrous, vampiric creature.
The Bad Seed (1956)
That’s the delight of the evil child, I think she’s just so revolutionary and so anti-American, where the nice little girl could never be bad. I think later, in The Omen for instance, you got into an evil child, but at this time it was very, very shocking to see this little girl who very cogently and nefariously started killing people in a way that always made it seem like she was utterly innocent. I think it was extraordinarily intelligently written, and it’s one of the few things that I saw as a young adult that never was really remade. I was always struck by the fact that they never did a modern version of it.
LAS VEGAS, Congrats! Dumb, dumber -- and we're dumbest?
Dumb, dumber -- and we're dumbest?
You noticed it as soon as you moved here.
From the morons who cut suddenly across four lanes without signaling their last-second exit to the co-worker so inept that you were convinced he spent his childhood eating lead paint, it seemed that locals were just, you know, kind of -- well -- dumb.
That hunch? It's not just you.
Las Vegas has displaced Fresno, Calif., as America's dumbest city based on education levels and intellectual vitality, according to a study from news and opinion website The Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast didn't respond to a request for comment, but the site's findings are important because "regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back" from economic travails, the Daily Beast's editors said in their Tuesday report. "Those without risk a stupor."
Wait -- um, whuh?
Seriously, though: The analysis pierces straight to the heart of an age-old knock on Las Vegas. Some local observers have long lamented that the city won't lure diverse, high-tech businesses as long as it claims a bad rap for its citizens' low educational attainment.
Others counter that Las Vegas is its own kind of town, a nationally recognized entrepreneurial hotbed where The Daily Beast's benchmarks don't apply the way they might play out in other areas.
"We're a unique market. A significant share of our employee base is in service industries, and many of those employees are earning fairly decent wages and have been able to succeed and set up roots here," said local business and government consultant Brian Gordon, a pretty smart guy whose first name also happens to spell "brain." "Some of those positions don't require higher levels of education. Las Vegas is just different than many other major markets."
To understand how Las Vegas differs from other places, start with how The Daily Beast compiled its study.
The site analyzed the nation's 55 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more residents, evaluating those markets based on nonfiction book sales tracked by research firm Nielsen BookScan; the number of libraries per capita; the ratio of colleges and universities; and the percentage of residents older than 25 with bachelor's and master's degrees, though when you consider U.S. Department of Education findings that a third of all students in U.S. colleges need remedial math or English instruction, it's not so obvious that a college degree indicates intelligence.
If you tally all those factors, Las Vegas ranks dead-last among the country's big cities. Of its 1.9 million residents, 14 percent earned bachelor's degrees and 7 percent hold master's degrees. Las Vegans have purchased 1.1 million adult nonfiction books year-to-date, or less than one tome per resident. (But hey, we'll go head to head against anybody on adult-video sales!)
No. 1 Boston, by contrast, has a 24 percent penetration rate for bachelor's degrees, while 18 percent of Beantown's population has master's degrees. Its 4.6 million residents have snapped up more than 7 million adult nonfiction books so far this year.
The final score: Boston's Daily Beast IQ comes in at 176.7, while Las Vegas' Daily Beast IQ totals 3.3.
Ouch.
But none of that makes Bostonians smarter, said one local businessman.
Las Vegas hotelier Stephen Siegel doesn't have a college degree. He doesn't even have a high school diploma. The native Californian dropped out of ninth grade and, at 15, began working in restaurants. Today, Siegel employs 1,000 people inside properties ranging from the Mount Charleston Resort to the Artisan boutique hotel on Sahara Avenue. He also owns the Siegel Suites chain of extended-stay apartments, as well as office buildings and shopping centers in California, Arizona and Texas.
"I think school is very important. Education is very important," Siegel said. "But having a college degree is only the start. If you don't use the degree, it doesn't mean anything. Having a college degree doesn't mean you'll be successful. It means you went through a program. Knowledge is power, but only if you use it."
Instead of learning in classrooms, Siegel attended what he calls the "hardest and most expensive school there is: real life."
Siegel said Las Vegas is home to legions of entrepreneurs who similarly got their start in the service sector and grabbed a chance to launch their own operation. From food-and-beverage workers who built catering businesses to cab drivers who formed transportation companies, the city claims thousands of successful entrepreneurs without much formal higher education. Siegel cited perhaps the highest-profile of them all -- Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. founder who ranks as the country's 13th wealthiest person, despite failing to finish the degree he started at the City College of New York.
"Las Vegas is 100 percent a different city from any other," Siegel said. " It's a very challenging city. You have to understand the market. You really have to educate yourself out there and put a lot of hard work into surviving in this market. It's harder than in most other places."
Gordon added that Las Vegas was, until the recession devastated the city's construction and hotel sectors, one of the nation's fastest-growing cities for the better part of three decades. In the 1990s and early 2000s, you couldn't swing a business license without whacking some magazine that had just anointed the city one of the best places to start a company.
That's because businesses and entrepreneurs don't consider college attainment and book sales alone when they're looking to move or open a new operation, Gordon said. Sure, educational levels and cultural offerings make a difference, but most executives care as well about a city's highway and airport access, its availability and cost of labor, real estate prices and taxes, among other factors. On many of those counts, Las Vegas still has much to offer, Gordon said.
As for the "intellectual vigor" that The Daily Beast's editors say Las Vegas lacks, in the leisure and hospitality space, at least, no other market on the planet bests the city, and that bodes well for the area's economic engine, experts said.
"We're the No. 1 resort and entertainment destination in the world, and not many markets stack up when you look at the core industry of Southern Nevada," Gordon said. "That's been true historically, and it will likely be true going forward."
Which brings us to our final point.
Considering Las Vegas entices upwards of 40 million folks a year from smart markets such Boston, San Francisco and Denver to drop major dollars on elusive jackpots, $300 tasting menus and hookers (OK, not officially), just how dumb can our city really be?
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
America's smartest and dumbest cities
Using a tabulation that accounts for college educations, nonfiction book sales and the number of universities and libraries, news and opinion website The Daily Beast ranked the country's 55 biggest metropolitan areas by intelligence. Here's what they come up with:
The five smartest cities
City Bachelor's degrees Master's degrees Book sales Population
1. Boston 24 percent 18 percent 4.6 million 7 million
2. Hartford-New Haven, Conn. 19 percent 15 percent 2 million 2.3 million
3. San Francisco-Oakland 26 percent 17 percent 6.2 million 7.8 million
-San Jose
4. Raleigh-Durham, N.C. 27 percent 16 percent 1.6 million 1.9 million
5. Denver 25 percent 13 percent 2.6 million 4 million
The five dumbest cities
City Bachelor's degrees Master's degrees Book sales Population
1. Las Vegas 14 percent 7 percent 1.9 million 1.1 million
2. San Antonio 16 percent 9 percent 2.1 million 1.3 million
3. Fresno, Calif. 11 percent 6 percent 1.3 million 626,000
4. Houston 18 percent 10 percent 5.9 million 3.5 million
5. Memphis, Tenn. 15 percent 9 percent .3 million 767,000
JENNIFER ROBISON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Source: The Daily Beast
You noticed it as soon as you moved here.
From the morons who cut suddenly across four lanes without signaling their last-second exit to the co-worker so inept that you were convinced he spent his childhood eating lead paint, it seemed that locals were just, you know, kind of -- well -- dumb.
That hunch? It's not just you.
Las Vegas has displaced Fresno, Calif., as America's dumbest city based on education levels and intellectual vitality, according to a study from news and opinion website The Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast didn't respond to a request for comment, but the site's findings are important because "regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back" from economic travails, the Daily Beast's editors said in their Tuesday report. "Those without risk a stupor."
Wait -- um, whuh?
Seriously, though: The analysis pierces straight to the heart of an age-old knock on Las Vegas. Some local observers have long lamented that the city won't lure diverse, high-tech businesses as long as it claims a bad rap for its citizens' low educational attainment.
Others counter that Las Vegas is its own kind of town, a nationally recognized entrepreneurial hotbed where The Daily Beast's benchmarks don't apply the way they might play out in other areas.
"We're a unique market. A significant share of our employee base is in service industries, and many of those employees are earning fairly decent wages and have been able to succeed and set up roots here," said local business and government consultant Brian Gordon, a pretty smart guy whose first name also happens to spell "brain." "Some of those positions don't require higher levels of education. Las Vegas is just different than many other major markets."
To understand how Las Vegas differs from other places, start with how The Daily Beast compiled its study.
The site analyzed the nation's 55 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more residents, evaluating those markets based on nonfiction book sales tracked by research firm Nielsen BookScan; the number of libraries per capita; the ratio of colleges and universities; and the percentage of residents older than 25 with bachelor's and master's degrees, though when you consider U.S. Department of Education findings that a third of all students in U.S. colleges need remedial math or English instruction, it's not so obvious that a college degree indicates intelligence.
If you tally all those factors, Las Vegas ranks dead-last among the country's big cities. Of its 1.9 million residents, 14 percent earned bachelor's degrees and 7 percent hold master's degrees. Las Vegans have purchased 1.1 million adult nonfiction books year-to-date, or less than one tome per resident. (But hey, we'll go head to head against anybody on adult-video sales!)
No. 1 Boston, by contrast, has a 24 percent penetration rate for bachelor's degrees, while 18 percent of Beantown's population has master's degrees. Its 4.6 million residents have snapped up more than 7 million adult nonfiction books so far this year.
The final score: Boston's Daily Beast IQ comes in at 176.7, while Las Vegas' Daily Beast IQ totals 3.3.
Ouch.
But none of that makes Bostonians smarter, said one local businessman.
Las Vegas hotelier Stephen Siegel doesn't have a college degree. He doesn't even have a high school diploma. The native Californian dropped out of ninth grade and, at 15, began working in restaurants. Today, Siegel employs 1,000 people inside properties ranging from the Mount Charleston Resort to the Artisan boutique hotel on Sahara Avenue. He also owns the Siegel Suites chain of extended-stay apartments, as well as office buildings and shopping centers in California, Arizona and Texas.
"I think school is very important. Education is very important," Siegel said. "But having a college degree is only the start. If you don't use the degree, it doesn't mean anything. Having a college degree doesn't mean you'll be successful. It means you went through a program. Knowledge is power, but only if you use it."
Instead of learning in classrooms, Siegel attended what he calls the "hardest and most expensive school there is: real life."
Siegel said Las Vegas is home to legions of entrepreneurs who similarly got their start in the service sector and grabbed a chance to launch their own operation. From food-and-beverage workers who built catering businesses to cab drivers who formed transportation companies, the city claims thousands of successful entrepreneurs without much formal higher education. Siegel cited perhaps the highest-profile of them all -- Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. founder who ranks as the country's 13th wealthiest person, despite failing to finish the degree he started at the City College of New York.
"Las Vegas is 100 percent a different city from any other," Siegel said. " It's a very challenging city. You have to understand the market. You really have to educate yourself out there and put a lot of hard work into surviving in this market. It's harder than in most other places."
Gordon added that Las Vegas was, until the recession devastated the city's construction and hotel sectors, one of the nation's fastest-growing cities for the better part of three decades. In the 1990s and early 2000s, you couldn't swing a business license without whacking some magazine that had just anointed the city one of the best places to start a company.
That's because businesses and entrepreneurs don't consider college attainment and book sales alone when they're looking to move or open a new operation, Gordon said. Sure, educational levels and cultural offerings make a difference, but most executives care as well about a city's highway and airport access, its availability and cost of labor, real estate prices and taxes, among other factors. On many of those counts, Las Vegas still has much to offer, Gordon said.
As for the "intellectual vigor" that The Daily Beast's editors say Las Vegas lacks, in the leisure and hospitality space, at least, no other market on the planet bests the city, and that bodes well for the area's economic engine, experts said.
"We're the No. 1 resort and entertainment destination in the world, and not many markets stack up when you look at the core industry of Southern Nevada," Gordon said. "That's been true historically, and it will likely be true going forward."
Which brings us to our final point.
Considering Las Vegas entices upwards of 40 million folks a year from smart markets such Boston, San Francisco and Denver to drop major dollars on elusive jackpots, $300 tasting menus and hookers (OK, not officially), just how dumb can our city really be?
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
America's smartest and dumbest cities
Using a tabulation that accounts for college educations, nonfiction book sales and the number of universities and libraries, news and opinion website The Daily Beast ranked the country's 55 biggest metropolitan areas by intelligence. Here's what they come up with:
The five smartest cities
City Bachelor's degrees Master's degrees Book sales Population
1. Boston 24 percent 18 percent 4.6 million 7 million
2. Hartford-New Haven, Conn. 19 percent 15 percent 2 million 2.3 million
3. San Francisco-Oakland 26 percent 17 percent 6.2 million 7.8 million
-San Jose
4. Raleigh-Durham, N.C. 27 percent 16 percent 1.6 million 1.9 million
5. Denver 25 percent 13 percent 2.6 million 4 million
The five dumbest cities
City Bachelor's degrees Master's degrees Book sales Population
1. Las Vegas 14 percent 7 percent 1.9 million 1.1 million
2. San Antonio 16 percent 9 percent 2.1 million 1.3 million
3. Fresno, Calif. 11 percent 6 percent 1.3 million 626,000
4. Houston 18 percent 10 percent 5.9 million 3.5 million
5. Memphis, Tenn. 15 percent 9 percent .3 million 767,000
JENNIFER ROBISON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Source: The Daily Beast
"Ach, du lieber!
Paul the Octopus Has Died
We guess some angry Germans finally got their wish: Paul the Octopus, the animal that correctly predicted the outcome of eight World Cup matches this year (including Germany’s eventual loss, which earned him death threats), has died. He died of natural causes; the staff at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium in Germany said it was “devastated when Paul was found dead this morning.” The aquarium is planning to build a memorial in his honor.
Der Spiegel
We guess some angry Germans finally got their wish: Paul the Octopus, the animal that correctly predicted the outcome of eight World Cup matches this year (including Germany’s eventual loss, which earned him death threats), has died. He died of natural causes; the staff at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium in Germany said it was “devastated when Paul was found dead this morning.” The aquarium is planning to build a memorial in his honor.
Der Spiegel
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