Tag: China

Manchurian Candidate

“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.” That is the line, recited word-for-word by each man who served with Shaw, which piqued Frank Sinatra’s curiosity in the original Manchurian Candidate. The fact that they all said it, while still remembering Shaw was totally unlikeable, was only part of their subconscious conflict.

Today, my curiosity piqued, I went to see the new version (not a remake, as much of the detail of the story has been changed) with Helaine. It’s a great movie. That not withstanding, I’m sorry I brought Helaine along. It is violent, suspenseful, very intense and not what she wanted to see.

In the original movie, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is captured along with members of his unit, fighting in Korea. It is the Chinese (hence the title) who brainwash them all, sending Raymond home to assassinate a presidential candidate, allowing his stepfather to run in his place.

Angela Lansbury, as Raymond’s mother, plays one of the most evil and believable villains I’ve ever seen on the screen. The sexual tension between mother and son makes the whole thing even more disturbing.

Having this much respect for the original I went today expecting to be disappointed. I was wrong. The movie scores on nearly every level.

Liev Schreiber as Shaw brings the same distant, cold, aloof feel as Laurence Harvey’s original portrayal. He was brought up with privilege and power and no connection to the common man. He is devoid of warmth or compassion.

Denzel Washington is Major Ben Marco, the Frank Sinatra role from the original movie. You’ve seen Denzel playing this part before; the honorable man in a troubling situation. It works here.

Meryl Streep is not Angela Lansbury. I guess it’s unfair to even make the comparison because Lansbury’s original portrayal was so amazing – something I’ve never seen her come close to replicating.

Still, the role is intense and evil. And, the scene where she and her son come perilously close to a passionate kiss is as unnerving as similar imagery from the original.

I’ve heard a lot of people (including my wife) say that Streep’s role was modeled on Hillary Clinton. I actually didn’t see that – though I wasn’t particularly watching for it.

The interesting twist here is the center of the evil, originally Communist China, is now replaced by a multinational company which looks very much like Halliburton. There is no doubt that director Jonathan Demme went out of his way to make a number of analogies to our current administration. We’re not at the Oliver Stone level here, but approaching it.

The end of the movie, the portion past the actual climax, confused me. But, by then, the movie had made its points. Without it, Denzel Washington’s character would be dead, and I don’t think the producers wanted that.

The bottom line is, I recommend this movie… but with a huge proviso. There were a number of intense, sometimes gory scenes that I looked away from. If that kind of movie troubles you, stay away.

Ikea

For the last six months to a year our television station has reported on the ‘soon-to-be’ Ikea store about thirty thousand times. Well, why not? It’s a big deal. The largest retail opening in New Haven in anyone’s memory.

About a week ago the store opened, and we reported again. This time it was the traffic and the impact on the businesses nearby.

Tonight, as Ann Nyberg (one of our lead anchors) and I were heading to dinner, we decided to take a detour and see Ikea. Ann, of Swedish ancestry, treated this a like a homecoming or a visit to a long lost relative.

The store is immense – not only in square footage but in its vertical reach. The concept is similar to warehouse stores, like BJ’s or Costco, in that the stock is adjacent to the selling floor, stacked to the very high ceiling. Judging by the signs, the idea is to walk through Ikea as if you’re on a trail, going from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’ and so on. Somehow we started at the end and walked against traffic for the rest of our visit.

On this Monday night, the parking lot was full and the store jammed. I have been told, and had seen on our news stories, that it was busier last week. That’s to be expected.

We turned first to the Swedish food section. Ann bought some sort of Scandinavian cookies which she later opened with her teeth as we drove back to work. I bought a small tin of herring&#185. Then we walked through the store.

The furniture and furnishings for sale are spartan but nicely designed… maybe aesthetically pleasing is a better phrase. Though the word Swedish is liberally thrown around when describing the place, I picked up a few items and they were all from China. I guess they were designed in Sweden. At least I hope they were.

As we waited to pay for our items, we ran into the Achilles heel of the organization – the checkout line. Though our items all had UPC stickers on them, the clerk had to look them up in a book and then scan those UPC codes.

For a store that’s so streamlined and efficient, the checkout was too long, too tedious.

As we waited to pay, two families from Fairfield County, shopping together for their, soon to be entering the workplace, daughters let us get ahead. This furniture is perfect for them. It’s also perfect for Ann’s daughter who will enter college in the fall. I could see it as the right thing for a spare room or a first house. It’s simple, functional and relatively inexpensive.

As long as you’ve got a way to carry it home, you’re set.

I’ll be curious to look back at this store in a year and see if the throngs are still here. I guess, since it scratches an itch unserved by others, it will do well. There are no others in New England, and the closest Ikea to our south is opposite Newark Airport.

I just wish everything wasn’t made in China.

&#185 – My tin of herring is 2.5 servings. Somewhere along the line the idea of nutritional information has become a scam with companies ‘gaming’ the serving size in order to post acceptable calorie, carbohydrate and other numbers.

On the Street Where You Live

Over a month ago a fairly round hole opened up on the street between my neighbor and my driveway. The town was called and they brought out a small construction horse and non-working blinking light.

Since that time, nothing.

Well, nothing on the part of the town. I did a little exploration, staring down the hole. From my learned standpoint, the hole goes all the way though the Earth to the Indian Ocean (when I was a kid we used to say if you dug deeply enough you’d end up in China… but what did we know?).

A few weeks ago, and a few feet from the first hole, a second hole opened up. I called the town’s highway department, where a person with the excitement level of either hole, said they’d look into it (hadn’t I already taken the burden off them by looking into it myself?).

Today, the holes sit. One covered by the high tech horse, the other out in the clear.

Won’t the joke be on the town when one day a UPS truck breaks on through and starts delivering packages somewhere in the Indian Ocean? Maybe they’re just waiting for the hole to heal itself?

School – and Hard Knocks

My ‘career’ as a student at Mississippi State University continues. This semester I’m taking courses in Severe Weather and Statistical Climatology.

Last night was not my finest educational hour.

The way it works is, each week you are supposed to watch a lecture, read some text, do homework and take a quiz. Then, every three weeks you take a test based on your homework answers. Finally, there is a midterm and final.

Except for some ridiculous ‘cake’ courses, I watch the lecture (at double speed if it’s on DVD, as most are) but seldom read the textbook or do the homework. I have found that I can skim the book when I need it and do the homework questions I need during the allotted time of the test.

That was until last night!

I had waited until the last minute and had one lecture, two quizzes and two tests to complete before I went to bed. I watched the Severe Weather lecture and then took its quiz and test first. No problem. It was thought provoking, but in the end, I got 100% on both.

The Statistical Climatology test was different. I immediately realized I had sorely underestimated the time it would take to do the problems. The math is simple, but there were a number of problems that demanded multiple calculations on 31 separate numbers.

My heartbeat quickened and I started to sweat.

I rushed through and actually got just about all the math right… but not doing as well as I might.

When I looked at the test result this morning, I had an 80. I know that’s not bad, but my goal has been to maintain a straight “A” average… to somehow make up for my first, ill fated, poorly executed, youthful, college experience. An 80 is awful. All is not lost, but I’m sure I’ll really be scared the next time.

One interesting thing was, two questions, one on the test and one on the quiz, had answers graded that didn’t match what I thought I had entered. That’s troubling. I have written the instructor, but more as a cautionary note should they hear this from others, than a plea for leniency.

I realized, after the test, that I could go about 50 times faster and more accurate with a statistical calculator. We have one very fancy TI model that Steffie uses and an older TI model that would probably do the job, except we no longer have the manual and TI doesn’t have it posted on its web site.

So, this afternoon, I stopped at Office Max and picked up a new calculator. It is a wiz at standard deviation, mean and other statistical calculations I’ll need to do. The amazing part is, it was $7.95.

So, now I’m wondering how do they do that? How did Casio get someone to write the software and design the circuitry, print the instructions (one giant piece of paper folded a bunch of ways like a road map), produce the calculator, package it, ship it from China, and sell it at Office Max with profit being made every step of the way. It’s only $7.95. There aren’t too many ways to split that.