Saturday Miscellany

WOS's Words of Wisdom:

"Do you talk like this in public, or is it just for my displeasure?"

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Did you know that today is National Drink Beer Day?  Did you know that not every day is National Drink Beer Day?

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The new season of "Masterchef" is a "Junior" edition: The competitors are children between the ages of 8 and 13.  I don't think it works too well: Part of the appeal of these shows is watching Gordon Ramsay go berserk on people who disappoint him, and somehow, I don't think the producers will give him the leeway to call a nine-year-old girl a donkey-fucking piece of owl-shite.

Well, That Was Awful

Earlier this year, I wrote about my disappointment in season 7 of "Dexter."  What had the writers done?  For six-plus seasons, we accepted Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall)--loved him, even--despite his somewhat substantial character flaws: extreme introversion, general social awkwardness, and his frequent tendency to wrap people up in plastic and kill them.  We accepted this murderousness because Dexter operated by a code--a code that called on him to channel his homicidal urges and to kill only those people who truly deserved it: primarily, murderers who had eluded the criminal justice system.  This code was unbreakable; indeed, at an earlier point in the series, Dexter, confronted with the decision of whether to kill an innocent in order to avoid arrest, seemed prepared to turn himself in rather than break the code.  At the end of the seventh season, though, all that seemed to go out the window, as Dexter prepared to kill his lieutenant--and then condoned (if not encouraged) her murder by his sister Deb--in order to escape justice.  The shark had been jumped.

Nevertheless, when I heard that this season of "Dexter"--the eighth--would mark the end of the series, I decided to tune in.  I had come this far.  I might as well see how the whole thing ends.  And I have to say, having just watched the series finale, that I wasn't disappointed: It was as bad as I thought it was going to be.

To get the spoilers out of the way: At the end of the series, Dexter fakes his own death in a hurricane and leaves Miami for what appears to be the Pacific Northwest.  He has traded in his police laboratory for a logging camp (?)--and gotten pretty paunchy, too, I must say--and the last image we have of Dexter Morgan is him sitting at a dining room table, staring vacantly into the camera.  I was expecting at least to hear a "Tonight's the night" in voiceover--a nice way of bringing the series full circle and assuring us that Dexter was at least back to his old, righteous serial killer ways--but we were denied even that.  Which is to say, I have no idea what the ending is supposed to mean.  Oh, and Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) is dead.  And Harrison (Jadon Wells), Dexter's son, has been sent off to Argentina to live with Hannah McKay (Yvonne Strahovski),  the beautiful serial poisoner that Dexter fell in love with in season seven.

Yeah.

The worst part of all this is that the writers had a perfectly good--or at any rate, infinitely better--way to end the series.  They set everything up so well in the middle of the season.  Dexter got himself a protégé, Zack Hamilton (Sam Underwood).  Zack struggled with the same murderous compulsions as Dexter, and Dexter was training Zack in "the code."  And Zack was doing well, too, chalking up his first kill of "one who got away."  How appropriate would it have been to end the series with Dexter passing the torch to the next generation?  Hell, if the writers were totally married to the idea of ending the show with "Yukon Dexter," they could have done that, too, but at least they could have left us with a better sense of where things go from here.  But no: Zack gets killed off about two-thirds of the way through season eight, so. . . . Yeah, I don't know.

So for anyone out there who has not yet watched "Dexter," here's the deal: Watch the first four seasons (masterpieces--especially season four with John Lithgow).  If you desperately feel the need to decompress, season five ("Lumen") is a fitting denouement.  But stop there: You'll only disappoint yourself if you go further.

Not Shaken, Not Stirred

Mr. Rouhani, who had mounted an aggressive charm offensive in the weeks before arriving in New York, also declined a chance to shake hands with Mr. Obama — avoiding a much-anticipated encounter that would have bridged more than three decades of estrangement between the leaders of Iran and the United States.
--"Obama Defends U.S. Engagement in the Middle East"

Despite what that quote might lead you to believe, President Obama himself was ambivalent at best about the opportunity to "grip and grin" with the Iranian president.  Indeed, senior White House advisers were so concerned about the political repercussions of such a handshake that they drew up extensive contingency plans to avoid just such an eventuality.

The following memo was drawn up at the highest echelons of the Obama administration, outlining plans to avoid a handshake between Presidents Obama and Rouhani.  (By the way, I fully expect to be extremely renditioned for sharing this information.  I can only hope my legion of fan will rally to my support--and prove more effective than the supporters of Chelsea "Don't Call Me Bradley" Manning.)

FROM:  REDACTED
TO: REDACTED
RE: DACTED

Working with a select team of kinesiologists, etiquette experts, and modern-dance choreographers, we have devised a set of options for allowing President Obama to avoid shaking hands with President Rouhani of Iran.  We have taken pains to ensure that the President maintains dignity and an air of statesmanship at all times.

OPTION ONE: THE MULTI-TASKER
The simplest option for avoiding President Rouhani's presumably outstretched hand calls for President Obama to be surrounded at all times by a "moving shield" of people.  For the sake of diplomacy, the President must appear extremely busy at all times, so these people should appear to be mid-level members of the presidential staff.  We recommend they frequently thrust pens and papers at President Obama, requesting his signature, demanding decisions, etc.  The drawback, of course, is that this level of frenzied supplication is generally associated with true national security emergencies, and the Iranians may well become suspicious when they find out that no such emergency has arisen.  Perhaps a small fire can be lit at the Air and Space Museum Gift Shop?

OPTION TWO: THE FRESHMAN
Should the moving shield be impractical, we could simply load President Obama's arms with briefing papers, portfolios, binders, etc., thus leaving his arms too full to extend a hand in Rouhani's direction.  Should a handshake be offered, the President can simply smile, shrug, and point his chin at the unwieldy load with which he is, unfortunately, weighted down.  (Concern: Too implausible that Leader of Free World would not have someone to carry his books for him?  Or at least a luggage cart?)

OPTION THREE: THE SENIOR
In this scenario, President Obama confidently walks up to Rouhani, extending his hand, smiling broadly.  Then, at the last second, just before Rouhani clasps the outstretched hand, President Obama whips his hand up and "smooths" his hair--perhaps throwing in a "Psych!" for good measure.  (NOTE: The Israelis are particularly fond of this option.)

OPTION FOUR: NO HARAM, NO FOUL
As we all know, pigs are considered "Unclean" in the Islamic faith.  We therefore suggest that President Obama be issued a presidential pot-bellied big to carry around the United Nations.  President Rouhani will obviously be dissuaded from shaking a hand that has touched a pig.  Added bonus: Malia's birthday is just around the corner, and the pig can be repurposed as an early b-day gift.)

OPTION FIVE: THE NUCLEAR OPTION
Seal Team Six breaks all of President Rouhani's fingers.  (NOTE: This option, too, is an Israeli favorite.)

The New Season: Marvel Agents of SHIELD--A Brief Review

I enjoyed "Marvel Agents of SHIELD."  Actually, I enjoyed watching it even more than I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, when it was called "Alphas."  I trust I am not alone in happily welcoming back Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who has recovered nicely from his slight case of, um, death.  But do we have to call it, "Marvel Agents of SHIELD"?  How corporate-conscious do we need to be?  It's like always referring to "Yahoo" as "Yahoo!"

Has He Never Seen American Football?

The other day, during a fall version of spring cleaning, the staff discovered an old metal yardstick buried in a pile of miscellaneous detritus.  One of the tutors, fascinated, grabbed the yardstick and began running around the tutoring center, measuring everything in sight.  The source of his fascination?  He had never seen a yardstick before.  He's Canadian, you see, and this magical, non-metric device represented just the most amazing piece of technology he had seen in his life.

Damn Equal Employment Opportunities!

Probable Impossibilities

What's more likely, the impossible or the improbable?  I was thinking about this the other day, as I watched a show featuring a magician.  Magicians, of course, perform the impossible all the time: Massive objects disappearing before our very eyes, rabbits materializing from silk-lined hats, attractive women sawn in half with nary a scream nor a drop of blood.  And we are unfazed, because we know that it's a trick; that is, as impossible as it is that we are seeing what we are seeing, we know that, if someone would just explain the secret, we would not only consider the events possible, but actually probable--obvious, even.

The improbable, though, never seems to happen.  Just ask anyone who's ever bought a lottery ticket.  Indeed, if you consider the likelihood of two events--that you will win the lottery next week or that the attractive magician's assistant will survive her turn in the slicing box--you will obviously choose the latter, impossible event as the far likelier outcome.

Busy

Busy day grading papers. Currently watching the Emmys and waiting to be outraged when "Breaking Bad" is snubbed again. Hope to have a fuller post tomorrow.