Q:Lost. WTF?
A:I get this one a lot. I write about this a lot — once a week, give or take — at Red Carpet Crash. The same link holds answers to late night television questions, at no additional charge (or, in fact, charge of any kind).
Judging from my inbox, my RCC posts should tell you everything you ever wanted to know about anything. What, you have a question that isn’t about Lost or late night television? Ask away, either right here or over on Twitter.
Q:Why do fools fall in love? — M.
A: Pheromones, boredom and lack of proper safety equipment.
Q:Why are objects in the rear view mirror closer than they appear? — Larry
A: Objects in the rear view mirror are not closer than they appear. You’re probably thinking of the side mirror — specifically, the one on the passenger side of a car, which usually carries such a warning.
Passenger side mirrors are convex. The convexness increases the mirror’s field of view, but makes things look smaller — and, hence, farther away.
The very concept of “convex” may also dredge up memories of elementary school math. But that would be between you and your therapist.
This morning, the California Supreme Court ruled to uphold Proposition 8, which amended the California state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. They also ruled that the 18,000 marriages performed before the ban were still valid.
As a civil rights-loving Californian, I’m disappointed in this ruling, but as a lifelong follower of California politics I’m not at all surprised. The question before the court was not specifically about same-sex marriages. It was about whether, under California law, the voters can amend the state constitution with a simple majority on a ballot referendum. In the decision, the justices take great pains to note what the case in question was about:
Regardless of our views as individuals on this question of policy, we recognize as judges and as a court our responsibility to confine our consideration to a determination of the constitutional validity and legal
effect of the measure in question. It bears emphasis in this regard that our role is limited to interpreting and applying the principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs and values. (p. 3)
In a sense, petitioners’ and the Attorney General’s complaint is that it is just too easy to amend the California Constitution through the initiative process. But it is not a proper function of this court to curtail that process; we are constitutionally bound to uphold it. If the process for amending the Constitution is to be restricted . . . this is an effort that the people themselves may undertake through the process of amending their Constitution in order to impose further limitations upon their own power of initiative. (pp. 12-13)
(You can read the decision in its entirety on the Court’s site. There’s also an in-page version at laist.com. If you care about politics in California, you really should peruse it.)
In other words: The Court’s hands are tied by precedent. If we Californians don’t like the system, we should get off our asses and change it. ‘Cause heaven knows, the system is screwy. Take it from Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He’s in Sacramento right now, trying to preserve funding for cities in the California state budget. His take:: “[W]hen a bare majority can strip away a fundamental right – yet it takes a two-thirds vote to pass a budget – then our system is fundamentally broken.” He should know; he’s a former speaker of the state Assembly who wants to be Governor some day. Why anyone would want to try to be governor of this state, I don’t know; it’s less a state than a collection of several industries clamoring for money. Schwarzenegger’s starting to look like he’d like to un-recall Gray Davis. (Gray Davis, sipping a margarita on a Century City patio: “Oh, HELL, no. You wanted it; you deal with it. Hey, how’s that budget going?” Arnold: “Shut up.” Gray: “Hey, you know what would be a great way to raise some revenue for the state? Start doing same-sex marriages again! That’ll bring in the tourist dollars.” Arnold: “SHUT. UP.”)
Two pieces of good news, though. First of all, the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed prior to the election are still valid, because there’s nothing in the amendment that can be construed as making them retroactively invalid. The people behind Proposition 8 like to use skewed perceptions and scare tactics to convince voters that if same-sex marriage is permitted, all matter of calamity will befall our society. The continued existence of those marriages will just continue to show how stupid that argument is.
Second, things are changing. Prop 8 put the issue on the national table in a way that nothing else had previously, and the more people talk about it, the more they realize that the only reason not to allow same-sex marriage is that some people don’t like it.
As I noted in a previous post, the younger someone is, the more likely they are to support same-sex marriage. Among voters under the age of 30, the approval rating is 66%, and it’s just a matter of time before the demographics shift enough to win back same-sex marriage in California.
How long? Political stats guru Nate Silver is glad you asked. He recently crunched some numbers, picked out the important variables, and concluded that same-sex marriage bans are losing ground by about 2% a year. Given the narrow margin by which Proposition 8 passed, he figures that the California electorate would vote to repeal it in 2010 if it were on the ballot.
So, let’s get cracking, my fellow Californians – especially you doggedly single straights like me. Because this isn’t just about same-sex marriage rights. It’s about the preservation and extension of civil rights in all areas, to everyone in the state. You can’t legislate reality. A bunch of people not liking something should not be sufficient grounds for revocation of its existence. If it were, we would live in a world with no baseball or Russian literature. And that would suck. Especially the part about the baseball.
Q: Kris Allen. Over Adam Lambert. Really?
A: Apparently so.
I don’t usually pay much attention to American Idol, but this year I’ve had a lot of couch time to fill. Still, I think I could have addressed the final outcome without watching a single episode. It was a numbers thing, plain and simple.
Since Fox doesn’t release vote breakdowns, the best I have to work with is DialIdol.com reports. DialIdol uses an admittedly unscientific method of sampling Idol voters, but their predictions are usually spot-on.
Accounting for margin of error, the penultimate week’s voting breakdown showed a virtual three-way tie. With one of those performers eliminated, this theoretically leaves a third of the votes up for grabs.
The eliminee, of course, was Danny Gokey. Danny Gokey, who was as wholesome as he was bland. I mean, the guy looked genuinely thrilled to be singing with Lionel Richie during the season finale. Danny Gokey has no Elvis in him.
The majority of Gokey’s votes were not going to go to the guy who seemingly spent the whole season auditioning to be the new lead singer of Queen. If they couldn’t vote for the guy who might get through that godawful “No Boundaries” song with conviction, at least there was a finalist who could almost make it through with a straight face. You know what Adam was probably saying to Kris at the very end there? “Congratulations, man. Have fun singing ‘No Boundaries’ every night!” Isn’t it curious how Idol’s judges say they want to find an original voice, and then the producers make the winner sing some boring pseudo-inspirational pablum every single year? Oh, show. You’re funny even when you don’t mean to be. But I digress.
When I say that most of Gokey’s voters were going to prefer Kris over Adam, I’m saying that from a purely stylistic perspective. The is has nothing to do with personal style or sexual orientation, and everything to do with the fact that Adam Lambert’s style is about as opposite from Danny Gokey’s as one can get. Kris Allen’s performances just sound more like Gokey’s. The finalists were both one-trick ponies, which is not a bad thing to be when you’re trying to make music that people will buy. Judging from the vote, more people prefer stripping-down to amping-up.
Much has been made of the sexual orientation issue. (Adam’s not officially out, but he’s not exactly in, either.) I don’t think it affected the voting. Idol’s viewership skews young. There’s no reliable way of tracking Idol votes by age, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the younger viewers are the most active voters. Older viewers have other things to do with their time, like watching their 401(k)s dwindle, or voting for Dancing with the Stars.
Meanwhile, recent polling shows that the younger someone is, the more likely they are to support same-sex marriage. For example, the take-away from a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll:
Sixty-six percent of adults under age 30 support gay marriage. That drops to 48 percent of adults age 30 to 64 – and plummets to just 28 percent among senior citizens.
I don’t think it’s a big leap to infer that if someone supports same-sex marriage, they’re probably cool with the overall idea that someone might love, and/or lust after, someone of the same gender. (Note that I am not implying that if someone is against same-sex marriage, they’re homophobic – though if you take a look at the poll, I think you find a significant correlation.) There may be a segment of the Idol viewership that wouldn’t vote for Adam because he wears eyeliner, but the demographic odds are that they’re pretty small. In other words, they didn’t not vote for Adam because he looks like an ersatz Freddie Mercury. They didn’t vote for him because he sounds like one. They’d rather go with the ersatz singer of the Plain White T’s. And that’s just a matter of personal taste. Not my taste, but I’ll take either one of them over the ersatz Lionel Richie. That would just be wrong.
Q: Why do we drink that awful Maneshewitz wine at Passover? — D.
A: Not one of the classic four questions, but close enough. As the Passover seder is obsessed with the number four, I have four answers for you. Pick and choose at your whim.
Please excuse the unannounced hiatus. Turns out that surgery can knock you out for a while.
I have a backlog of questions to get through, but don’t let that stop you from sending in yours. I make no guarantees about answering them in the order received. I’m a little snippy like that.
Also, it seems that a bunch of comments disappeared. Really, everything goes to hell when I’m not around to run it. So feel free to re-comment on old posts, so it looks like people actually read this. (They do. They just don’t want to re-break the comment ice. Be bold.)
Q: What’s a smoke editor? — Ali
A: A video effects editor who uses the Smoke non-linear editing system.
Yeah, I know. Pretty dull to those of us who don’t do visual effects editing. But there you go.
Q: How can I get a job in the Obama administration? — Job-seeker
A: They do seem to be the only ones hiring, don’t they?
For high-level positions, it helps to be a former candidate for the Democratic nomination; a governor or senator who plays well with people on both sides of the aisle; or a senior staffer on the Obama campaign. Come January, it might help if you’re a hypoallergenic puppy in need of a good home.
The rest of us can apply via change.gov. According to the confirmation email I got, the administration will keep applications on hand well after the election – so even if you don’t get an administration job, you could still put “considered for position in Obama adminstration” on your resume. It’s a better talking point than your certificate in some technology that hasn’t been applicable since 1996.
Q: What, exactly, is going on with the economy, and should I worry about it? — Char (and, probably, you)
A: People have been asking me this question, or close variations thereof, for a couple of months now. I keep trying to write answers, but by the time I finish, something’s changed. So I am officially throwing up my hands, making some general statements, and pointing you to some places where people can explain things more frequently and thoroughly than I can.
Much of the American economy runs on credit, and I’m not just talking about our Visa bills. Companies need some cash, so they go to banks. Banks loan them huge amounts of money. Companies do whatever they needed to do with the dough, and pay it back with interest. As long as the companies can pay back that money as promised, everyone’s happy.
This worked for a while. And then the whole mortgage thing happened. Lenders enticed people to buy houses with no money down and manageable interest rates for the first couple-few years, and a lot of people who thought they weren’t in the financial position to buy houses were happy to believe that they suddenly, miraculously were. Higher rates in the future? Oh, don’t worry your pretty little heads, dearies. Just sign on the line. You can refinance in a few years when housing prices go up and your house is worth more.
House prices. Bubble. Pop. Oops.
Up until this point, mortgages were considered pretty safe debts to have scheduled to be paid back to you, so there was this whole market where lenders and investors were selling and buying the risk involved. So people start defaulting, and suddenly you have all these investors who’ve taken hits. That’s not good. (I’m having a hard time getting into more detail than that. If you want the down-and-dirty, check out this Wikipedia page.) Oh, and it doesn’t help that a lot of those financial companies seem less concerned about their shareholders than they do in paying almost unfathomable sums to their top levels of management.
Meanwhile, the price of oil kept getting ratcheted up and up, which impacted everything from global food production to the American auto industry, until that little commodities-specific bubble popped because people just plain couldn’t afford to keep playing.
So: Consumers with less money. Financial institutions taking hits and getting skittish, and having bizarre internal priorities — so, less money getting put back into the market. Take cover, kids. If you can afford cover, that is: Odds are higher and higher that you’re not working, or are underemployed.
Should you worry? Probably. But, honestly, I don’t think it’s worth it to work up any more than your usual low-lying dread about how you’re going to pay for everything. The market’s going to be careening around for a while. You’re probably just happy that gas prices are creeping down enough that you won’t have to charge your power bill to your overextended MasterCard this month. Lay low for a while. Don’t make any major purchases that you don’t need to make. Pay your rent, save anything you can, and hope you don’t get sick. ‘Cause that would really wipe you out.
So that, there, is my attempt to generalize. For actual information, I recommend:
If you have more resources for the masses, please send them along. And if you can explain this mishegas better than I can, or have clarifications or corrections, post those as well. For now, I’m going to check the job boards again, to be followed by curling up into a ball and trying to fit myself under my bed.
People ask me stuff. I answer, if I feel like it. Pretty straightforward, really.
