Photos from a visit to the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary

This sanctuary is in Boyd, TX, roughly 50 miles from Dallas. They have about 70 tigers, a few lions, bobcats and bears. It's pretty amazing. More on it later.



Two of three white tiger siblings who all live together. The whiteness apparently results from a combination of double-recessive genes.

Mad Men 3.1

There are a lot of spoilers in the following.

I’ve seen Mad Men’s season premiere twice now. Brent used the word elegant to describe it, and after my second viewing that word seems about perfect. Last season’s first episode was more leisurely and mysterious; in retrospect, an apropos start to a season that had a long, slow burn before going pretty deep and dark in the last few episodes. If this episode is any indication, the third season is going to be more action-packed.

Back to the elegance, though. The episode opened and closed with Don Draper thinking about birth stories, Dick Whitman’s and Sally Draper’s. The opening flashbacks reverberated, both in the closing moments, when Don recalls for Sally the circumstances of her birth (which were very different than his own), and in a fleeting moment of a hotel hallway. In the latter scene, Don takes advantage of an elaborate lie (built on a flight attendant's misunderstanding of the name on his luggage) to admit to someone that its his (meaning, Dick Whitman’s) birthday. To me, he seemed just as alone here as he did in the episode's opening moments.

The long scenes with flirtatious flight attendants paid off, again, when the hotel’s fire alarm sounds and Don accidentally finds Sal making out with the hotel porter. It was a nice touch that the married man using a fake name to have an illicit affair and the engaged flight attendant each jump out onto the fire escape wearing only jackets; the gay men in the room below have to take the time to get completely dressed.

Contrast was a big theme elsewhere in this episode, between gay & straight; single & married; American & British; Pete Campbell & Ken Cosgrove; and, as usual, between the genders.

For the second season in a row, the premiere episode had Peggy Olsen scolding a secretary. This might be because Peggy is very serious but it also speaks to her different experience of the professional world. It’s hard to imagine any of the men’s secretaries being as lax and irresponsible as Lola seems to be working for Peggy; she’s earned her defensiveness.

On the other hand, there was John Hooker, who insists that he’s not a secretary, even though everyone (including his boss) regards him as one. It's another sign of the show's thoughtfulness; as Peggy struggles to be taken serious in a male culture, John struggles to be taken more seriously than his female counterparts.

I'm not sure what to make of Don's veiled advice to a terrified Sal ("Limit your exposure"). On the one hand, it seems like if anyone can appreciate the stress of a secret identity, it's Don Draper. On the other, I wonder if this admonition was for Sal's sake, or Don's (as in, "don't make me have to take a stand").

Also, Don continues to be a pretty terrible monogamist, even after his pledge at the end of last season. Even at her stage of pregnancy, Betty Draper is, by far, the less affectionate parent.

The show continues to have very funny, quotable dialogue, e.g.:

• “I picked it for it sensuality.”
  
• "I told them it was a stupid idea, but they don’t always get our inflection.
  
• "Help yourself… not the Stoli."
  
• "I’ve been married a long time. You get lots of chances."
  
• "She’s taken to your tools like a little lesbian."

HB 2154

House Bill 2154, having been voted out of the House Public Health Committee a few weeks ago, was on the floor of the Texas House Friday. The bill would increase funding for a program that pays down student loans for doctors in exchange for a term of service practicing in a federally designated health professional shortage area. The funding increase would come from a $25 surcharge on medical licenses, so the cost to taxpayers, and the rest of the state budget, would be zero.

According to the bill’s sponsor, Al Edwards (D- Houston) the bill “is going to help solve a lot of problems we have with general practitioners in rural areas. We have a shortage of general practitioners. It helps put doctors in your areas, members.”

The first thing that happens is that Edwards introduces an amendment. The amendment increases the surcharge cost to $35. This is because the fiscal note (an estimate of how much money the state would spend or save if the bill became law) for the original bill implied that the General Revenue fund would lose $10 of revenue on each medical license. The $10 increase is to offset that estimated loss and protect the bill from a point of order (a procedural move to kill a bill or an amendment before it comes to a vote).

The Chair hears no objections; the amendment is adopted.

Then there is some congregating at the dais, where a microphone picks up some laughter about someone trying to sub a 20-page bill for a 2-page bill.

Another amendment, this time by Veronica Gonzales (D- McAllen). This amendment would require recipients of loan repayment money to practice in a health professional shortage area. It also establishes maximum repayment amounts based on length of service. The former requirement is already built in to the program, making this one redundant. The latter authority, to increase payments to doctors, also already exists.

Nevertheless, Edwards initially opposed the amendment, believing that the legislation would cover the whole state, not merely the shortage areas. This is just a semantic slip up, though, because the overwhelming majority of the state is a shortage area. The map right below shows, in dark green, the counties that are designated primary care shortage areas. The light green counties have a partial designation.


Edwards withdraws his motion to table the amendment and the amendment is adopted.

Now Warren Chisum (R- Pampa) has an amendment. This amendment produced the laughter at the dais a few minutes before. Chisum had introduced HB 1876, which would have discontinued all the individual health-related loan repayment programs and replaced them with one big one, to be funded with a change in how smokeless tobacco is taxed. For whatever reason Chisum’s bill has not come up for a hearing (perhaps because he was an ally of the previous, divisive House Speaker Tom Craddick, though this is pure authorial speculation). Chisum’s amendment would strike the entire, 2-page bill and replace it with the almost 20 pages of HB 1876 text.

Charlie Geren (R- Fort Worth) calls a point of order, because the amendment is not germane to the original bill

The House Speaker sustains the point of order.

Chisum raises a parliamentary inquiry, asking the Speaker to clarify the mechanics of trying to appeal the ruling. (The scene briefly recalled the much tenser and ultimately explosive confrontation between Speaker Craddick and Jim Dunnam near the end of the previous legislative session.) Chisum explained later that this was just a move to distract from the filing of his next amendment.

Chisum’s next amendment just grafts the funding mechanism from HB 1876, the change in smokeless tobacco tax assessment, onto HB 2154.

Geren initially calls another point of order (“it has the same problems as the last one did”) but a minute later temporarily withdraws the objection.

Edwards asks to postpone a ruling on the point of order, and further consideration of the bill, until Monday.

Last night's episode of The Office was pretty good

Back in it's second and third seasons, when The Office was underperforming, it was clever and heartbreaking in well-measured doses. Since it's become a bigger deal, the comedy has gotten broader. The tipping point, for me, was early in season four when Dwight killed Angela's ill cat. It was funny when the situation was ambiguous (was it a well-meaning accident? Was it a mercy-killing meant to prtect Angela's feelings?). It, and Dwight, ceased to be funny for me when we learned that Dwight had killed it by leaving it in the freezer.

The strength of this version of The Office, which it shares with its British source material, has been its familiarity; the degree to which we identify with the neuroses, longings and triumphs of uncelebrated people working in an uncelebrated field. At the beginning of the fourth season, aside from not finding animal torture very hilarious, I just didn't buy Dwight anymore; he had gone from off-beat eccentric to comedy-killing cartoonishness.

Last night's episode, "Golden Ticket," was one of the stronger entries lately. Michael, taking inspiration from Willy Wonka (though not Roald Dahl, an author he's never heard of), inserts five golden tickets into random boxes of paper, each ticket entitling the recipient to 10% off their orders for a year. The promotion becomes a disaster when Dunder-Mifflin's biggest client gets all five surprise discounts. Michael, in a panic, tries convincing Dwight to take the fall (and the pink slip) for him. Michael and Dwight then compete for the credit when their big customer, so happily surprised by the golden tickets, commits to several more, larger orders.

For me, the show has always been more effective when it's sad than when it's funny. For the last two seasons, I've preferred the more serious tone, perhaps because I have a hard time laughing at some of the broader stuff; in addition to killing a cat, Dwight also went through a phase where he thought the internet was alive and talking to him. I was also disappointed by what a monster Jan turned into, though it beget some great Steve Carell scenes and that entire, amazing dinner party episode in season 4.

This episode was very funny, though. I also appreciated it for both delving into Michael's insecurities (always, uh, golden) while for the first time in a long time, making me feel for Dwight. The scene where the office rallies around Dwight-the-marketing-hero was funny and also kind-of sweet.

I think my appreciation of the show, for the rest of its run, will be proportionate to the degree of humanity I see in Dwight. This episode may be an outlier that way, but last night I remembered what I used to find special about the show.

Some brief thoughts on the Watchmen movie

It was pretty good.

It's very much like reading the book (but takes 10 fewer hours). I've not liked any of the other Zach Snyder films I've seen, but this one has grown on me over night.

It made me think of L.A. Confidential in that it is a very literal adaptation (except for the violence, which has been ramped up considerably), but also effectively streamlined; I didn't miss any of the stuff missing. While it's never boring, it did not move or involve me a whole lot; I might have liked it if they had taken more liberties for the sake of engaging the real world. Like, I don't necessarily consider The Dark Knight a rigorous allegory for the United State's War on Terror but I appreciate the allusions and undertones, or that it bears some passing resemblance to the world outside the theatre.

Snyder probably did not have a lot of latitude for infidelity, though. One of aspects of the book (and its cult) that annoys me is how seriously it's taken (nothing against Moore and Gibbons; I'm not convinced that the book aspires to be anything other than a clever, subversive satire of the superhero genre). For instance, aside from raising its profile I'm not sure how significant it was for the book to be included on the oft-cited Time Magazine's list of the best English language books of the the century. As much as I enjoy list-reading, does anyone rely seriously on Time Magazine for their literary criticism? At least nobody touts it's placement in Entertainment Weekly's list of the greatest novels of the last 25 years. Claiming canonization by Entertainment Weekly is a bridge too far.

I'll repeat since I'm about to sound harsh: I enjoyed the film and I really do think the novel was great. But so much of both is predicated on a straw-man argument that the world is grim and fucked-up that it's hard for me to see the profundity: Nixon has been elected to five terms, the government uses costumed adventurers as mercenaries and assassins, there are riots in the streets, roving gangs brutally beat old men to death, etc. Of course that version of the world is a hopeless, fucked up place. The New York Times' review of the movie summed it up well:

And Snyder's commitment to violence brings into relief the shallow nihilism that has always lurked beneath the intellectual pretensions of “Watchmen.” The only action that makes sense in this world — the only sure basis for ethics or politics, the only expression of love or loyalty or conviction — is killing...
This idea is sickening but also, finally, unpersuasive, because it is rooted in a view of human behavior that is fundamentally immature, self-pitying and sentimental. Perhaps there is some pleasure to be found in regressing into this belligerent, adolescent state of mind. But maybe it’s better to grow up.

I might add to this that the movie also has a lot of slow-motion and a lot of cliched period pop music. I mean, how impressive is it to get the rights to 99 Luftballons or All Along the Watch Tower, anyway?

As for the cast, Jackie Earle Haley is great. Everyone else is fine but not exactly distinguished. The CGI gore looks stupid.

Incentivize

I own multiple print and electronic dictionaries, style guides and usage manuals because I am both self-conscious about my own language use and sometimes judgmental of other people’s. As with food, math, and house keeping, the linguistic and syntactic functional usually satisfies me. I am deeply thrilled and admiring, though, of people whose efforts in all these areas transcend the functional and become artful.

I also enjoy work in government and enjoy electronic communication, both areas given to bizarre shorthand and unpleasant neologisms, for example, congrats, proactive and the tendency to create verbs via the suffix –ize (e.g., utilize). I have been thinking a lot about the latter issue lately, specifically because I have been listening to committee hearings that rely on the word incentivize. It is an ugly word, for sure, but I feel myself softening on, even sort of defending, its use.

Unlike some other frustrating neologisms, I can't think of an existing word that expresses the same thing. For instance, congrats is a clear and (to my way of thinking) somewhat lazy way of congratulating someone (or, perhaps, an enthusiastic way of congratulating someone for an accomplishment or event you are only mildly impressed by); proactive in all contexts means the same as active; utilize just means use.

Incentivize, though, seems, different. Its entry in Garner’s Modern American Usage, 2nd Edition, reads, in full:

incentivize; incent, vb.

These neologisms -- dating from the mid-1970s -- have become vogue words, especially in American business jargon. E.g.:

o "And you know, we shouldn't incent [read 'provide incentives for'] all the wrong behaviors. Right now, what we're doing is incenting [read encouraging] young girls to leave home, to not marry the person they're . . . having a child with because they won't get the welfare check if they're married." Jack Thomas, "Ann Romney's Sweetheart Deal," Boston Globe, 20 Oct. 1994, at 61.

o "Today it is management -- usually incentivized by stock options and the like [read 'having stock options and other incentives'] -- that seeks to be recognized by
institutional shareholders." Benjamin Mark Cole, "New Economic Pressures
Force Banks to Cut Costs, Consolidate," L.A. Bus. J., 24 Mar. 1997, at 29.

"Incentivize," an "-ize" barbarism, is more than twice as common as "incent," a back-formation. There is no good incentive to use either one.

The phrase providing incentives for... is, I agree, ideal. This usage fidelity has drawbacks, though. For instance, in a discussion of education policy frequently repeating the phrase gets repetitive and cumbersome. It also obscures a policy’s intent, which is not really to offer or provide but to elicit a result by promise of reward.

A brief, unscientific survey of some colleagues indicates that induce (which seems like a reasonable synonym to me) connotes childbirth to people. Hayden (and Garner, above) suggested encourage, but in all my dictionaries encourage does something like inspire hope, courage or confidence; there is no suggestion of material compensation (an integral component in incentivizing) for the inspiration.

1/2/2009

I'm working on new blog posts. I hope to have one up this weekend.

Thanks for continuing to stop by.