Film review: Game Change (2012)

Over the weekend I saw this film about the ill-fated McCain-Palin campaign of 2008. The film is based on a book of the same name by two journalists who relied heavily on anonymous sources on ‘deep background’, which means that one has to be wary of the material that took place out of the public eye or was not reported previously, and treat it with some skepticism. As a film I found it entertaining and engrossing even though I was very familiar with the entire narrative. I was not particularly surprised by any of the information in it but then I am a bit of a political junkie and followed that election pretty closely. With that knowledge I can say that events portrayed in the film were largely consistent with my understanding of the people and events. [Read more…]

On sentence spacing and serial commas

All my life, when typing I followed a period at the end of a sentence with just a single blank space before starting the next sentence. It never crossed my mind to do otherwise. But I did occasionally notice that some people left two blank spaces instead of one and on one occasion I was told that it was I who was doing it all wrong and defying the proper convention. I simply ignored that reproof and continued being a one-space writer. [Read more…]

Reflections on Obama’s second inaugural speech

The speech delivered by president at his second inauguration said many good things. He emphasized the value of collective action, of seeing ourselves as needing to work together and not separately to achieve important goals. In fact, his repeated invocation of the phrase ‘we, the people’ was a pointed rebuke to those who want us to see ourselves as individuals, looking out for just ourselves. [Read more…]