Thoughts on The Wire Season One

(From January 7)

Over the break Kathleen and I watched a bunch of movies, but season 1 of The Wire delivered beyond the hype it got from friends. It gives a crash course on the frustration and futility of local cops fighting drug gangs on the street level in West Baltimore. The police jump through major hoops to get an idea of the shape of the organization, and use civilians who risk their lives informing on the gangs, but there’s zero day to day effort made to actually keep drugs out of the hands of people.

The police would do more good just walking up and slapping drugs out of the hands of dealers directly all day. What you have instead is the slow methodical building of cases designed to put away upper level gang members. This takes a lot of time, and in the meantime people suffer from addiction and the added pressure applied to the gangs results in increased violence. In the end a few people designated to take the fall (or with the least information to barter with) get sent away, and the addicts remain potential customers, ensuring the business continues to attract new members. Continue reading  

Have no fear, we’ve got stories for years

Entertainment Weekly gives their top 25 Simpsons episodes in light of the up-coming 300th episode. The writers still seem to be well on top of things, meanwhile FOX is craparama all around. Those pissed about about Futurama’s cancelling might already know this, but it was picked up in syndication and is now on nighty on the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” line-up. Don’t miss Aqua Teen Hungerforce either!

This morning I listened to a ton of Lilys songs; a wash of painfully trebley guitars is nice way to start my day. I did make out a new lyric: “Charity division’s been out sick all week,” in a ridiculous song involving pharoes, for which Josh dreamed up a whole video. Let’s just say it had Kurt Heasley busting out of the top of a pyramid playing a guitar solo.

I’m getting back into doing Tonevendor work again and revisiting its usability and features. From the excellent WebDesign-L mailing list, I’ve got some new ideas for reworking database-managed URLs like .../view.php?item=123 to the nicer .../item/123/. Pretty exciting stuff (sigh) Oh yeah, this post needs more Sandi.