For the purpose of this question, a “term” is defined as the span of time between a president’s taking of the oath and their leaving of the office. So, for instance, the four years for which Kennedy was elected to serve counts as two terms. Kennedy’s only term and Johnson’s first term.

Presidential terms are traditionally four years in length to the day. There are, of course, some exceptions to this. Twenty presidential terms have been of lengths shorter than one year four years. Eight of those terms were cut short because of a president’s death. Nine because of a Vice President ascending to the office to fill out a term after a death or resignation. So the question is this… to which three presidents did the three remaining terms belong and why were these terms less than four years in length?

Clarification: Presidential terms are usually cut short (in other words, do not last a full four years) because a president has died or a vice president takes office and is only serving the remainder of that term (unless re-elected in his own right). There have been three instances where terms were shorter than four years for different reasons than death or VP ascendancy. Who were the presidents whose terms were cut short and why were they cut short?

Transplanted Lawyer (self-declared atheist) brings up the story of the American Atheists trying to stop the Utah Highway Patrol’s desire to put up a white cross next to places where officers have been killed. He doesn’t think that it’s a good idea because it’s something that does not elicit an iota of general public support. And it risks backlash of the sort where the court can declare a cross a “secular symbol”… which is what the courts actually did. TL isn’t pleased by that result:

There you go — a ruling that the cross is now a secular symbol of death and mourning. Which means that not only can it go up on roadside memorials, it can go up on the walls of courtrooms, city halls, and the Utah Legislature because it can be called a “memorial” to fallen soldiers, 9/11 victims, or anyone else that no one with the remotest bit of political sense would dare attack. Good job protecting the wall of separation of church and state there, American Atheists!

There are two great ironies here:

1. The white crosses in the state of Utah are almost certainly secular in nature.
2. The Utah Legislature would have almost certainly no desire to put the cross everywhere, even if they could.

If a state in the south were to argue that the white cross is a secular symbol, I would probably scoff. Actually, not just the south. Almost any state. Any state except Utah, that is. And maybe Idaho. Why? Because Utah happens to be the only state in the continental United States that I am aware of where the dominant religion (or denomination, depending on how you look at it) does not recognize the cross as a holy symbol. Utah is, of course, predominantly Mormon. Mormons are particularly active in positions of authority such as police departments and government because they are united and civilly active. So it stands to reason that most of the people behind the push for the white cross are Mormons. And Mormons do not recognize the cross as a holy symbol.

Their churches do not have crosses. Their temples do not have crosses. Necklaces around their neck do not contain crosses. In short, Mormons don’t do crosses. So if Mormons (or Utahns) want crosses on the side of the road, it is almost certainly secular in nature.

What’s bizarre is that someone in the American Atheists must know this. Or if they didn’t know if off the bat, the Utah branch of the ACLU might have given their erstwhile allies a heads up. I had to check, but there is an ACLU in Utah, though I couldn’t find anything on American Atheists of Utah. Somebody, somewhere must have told them that this was not the fight to pick. Even if knowing that crosses are not a Mormon thing and that the crosses are religious in content if not in intent, surely someone, somewhere must have looked at this case and known that it was a fool’s quest. Right? Or are these people so insulated that they don’t know any Mormons to inform them of the whole cross thing or that suing cops wanting to honor their fallen brethren is a bad idea?

In short, to the extent that this case drew my attention, it actually convinced me that white crosses are a secular symbol. Had this taken place in South Carolina, I would have doubted it very strongly. And if you would have told me that someone was suing the state of Utah because of some improprieties involving Church and State, I would almost certainly give the plaintiffs the benefit of the doubt. This is the case that convinces me that Utah isn’t always wrong on Church/State issues and that the cross is indeed a secular symbol, at least in it’s white-by-the-road form.

I don’t think that’s what the American Atheists were going for…

This review (actually more a collection of thoughts) is split into two parts. No spoilers above the fold, but spoilers below.

On the whole I think that it was probably the best movie that could have been made while keeping faithful to the source material. I have a few nitpicks that I will get to below the fold, but even those for the most part I know why they deviated. My concerns about the most major deviation, the ending, were largely rendered moot. It was even, perhaps, an improvement over the comic book. Watchmen fans really have little to realistically complain about. For the movie to include every scene we wanted to see, it would have had to be far too long to even be called a movie.

But every cut scene still hurt. Not only those of us that loved the graphic novel but also those that didn’t. The elimination of the non-costumed characters (the Bernies, the psychiatrist’s backstory, the lesbians, etc) took a bite out of a particular event by making the repercussions a little less personally significant. The cutting down on both Dr. Manhattan’s and Rorschach’s stories made the events of issues #4 and #6 – possibly two of the best individual issues ever made – less poignant. More broadly, the trimming – however efficiently done, gave viewers less time to get to know and care about the Watchmen themselves as much as the comic book readers did (and that’s arguably an area where the comic book was already a bit weak, excepting #4 and #6).

This movie was in a much tougher spot than a lot of other movies. They’re not just taking six characters and moving them from one medium to another. They’re taking an entire story. An entire universe built on the back of the comics. And they’re taking it from its native medium which it was written for and put it into another medium that was simply incapable of taking advantage of everything the original had to offer. The most obvious example is the text (in the form of letters, articles, book excerpts, etc) that appears at the end of 11 of the issues that goes a long way towards explaining and setting up events. Different media have different strengths and weaknesses and any story that fully takes advantage of its native medium can’t be ported over very easily. Books to movie are of course the classic example of that. So too it is with this story.

Despite all of that, though, I think that a lot of people are being way too hard on the movie. Particularly from the standpoint of a fan of the comic, but I think otherwise as well. Though they didn’t do as good a job as they might have in keeping future events from spilling, it’s still the case that you don’t entirely know where the story is going. I guess for some people they felt that this was aimlessness rather than unpredictability. I wouldn’t recommend the movie to people that are lukewarm on superheroes the same way that I might do the same with the comic, but it was still a heck of a lot better than a lot of comic movies out there despite in some ways having a much tougher hill to climb.

I thought that the acting and characterization were really quite good with one major exception. Ozymandias is a pretty sticky character and unfortunately I don’t think that the movie got him right either from the comic book standard or from the standard that would make him an interesting character to anyone. Not sure if the problem is the script or Matthew Goode’s acting, but I suspect it’s a little bit of both. On the other hand, I never liked the Silk Spectres in the comic book and found the parts in the movie much more sympathetic. Maybe I need to see their flesh to better appreciate their humanity or maybe the acting was just that good. Jackie Earl Haley was brilliant as Rorschach. So much so that it made every cut scene a tragedy. Jeffrey Dean Morgan also did a great job with the Comedian, though I think that’s an easier part to cast. I was worried when I saw the pictures of Patrick Wilson to play Nite Owl because I really thought him too young and too good-looking, but they really did a good job with that. They managed to make him fat-seeming and frumpy without making us look at a fat dude shirtless. No real strong opinion any which way on Dr. Manhattan.

The general sense of the movie was also pretty. The opening sequence was a bit odd at first, but it was probably the best way that they could convey the amount of information that they needed to convey in the time that they had to convey it. Some of the physics of the movie strain credibility, but I honestly don’t have a problem with that. It’s neither possible nor desirable, I don’t think, the want to apply all of the laws of physics to superheroes without some selectivity. Some people thought that the blood was excessive, but the blood very much there. The nudity of Dr Manhattan might have been better off avoided (though I frankly didn’t care, the people behind me did), but the nudity of Silk Spectre II was greatly appreciated.

In the end, I would recommend this to people that enjoyed the comic book, enjoy comic book movies, or enjoy seeing movies. I wouldn’t recommend it to people that take enjoyment in finding flaws in film because this one does have plenty. I’m going to watch it again in the theater for sure. Probably more than once. I went in with my fingers crossed, hoping that if nothing else I would get some great visuals. I got a lot more than that. The realization of something I’ve waited fifteen years for. And leaving it without a sense of disappointment. That in itself is an amazing accomplishment.

See below for more tidbits with spoilers: (more…)

Audiobooks are a godsend when it comes to long commutes. If you’re driving less than half an hour to work, music is better. Anywhere from 30-60 minutes it depends. If your drive is an hour or more, though, audiobooks can keep you sane. In fact, they can give you something to look forward to on your commute. No surprise, but I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks over the past few years.

There is more to an audiobook than some guy reading the book to you. In the good ones, the actor or actress can come up with good voices for the characters that are distinct enough that you can tell them apart even without every line ending in “he said” and “she said”. It’s also helpful to have a good voice to match the overall tone and mood of the book and/or its narrator. It’s interesting the different way that different producers have approached this:

Most Audiobooks: Have a man or woman doing the reading depending on who the narrator is or main character is. Typically, their voice works best for the main character, but the actors are versatile enough that it’s not a distraction when they’re reading other parts, regardless of gender and ethnicity. Special props go out to the narrator of Richard North Patterson’s “Protect and Defend” for being able to produce different, geographically appropriate southern accents. The main reader for most of Scott Turow’s books also has a special gift for differing voices with different ethnicities without sounding condescending or cartoonish. The one Turow book (so far) read by someone else had the absolute perfect actor for the part of the narrator. In the Discworld series, the narrator sounds like you would imagine Terry Pratchett himself sounding. That works, too.

Harry Potter Series: Read by Jim Dale or Stephen Fry, depending on which version you’re listening to. Since HP is ostensibly a series of children’s book, having a grandfatherly voice reading it works pretty well. It’s easy to overlook the man’s voice dedicated to the female characters because it’s all part of bedtime storytime as you listen.

Ender’s Game Series: This was a particularly novel approach. Each book has numerous voices reading the book. Different sections are read by different people. The ones that focus on female characters are read by women and the same for men. Though Orson Scott Card writes in the third person, it tends to be the limited third person so each one is told from the point of view of the character and the language is altered accordingly. But the female reader for the Valentine-centric scenes also reads the parts for Ender or Peter or whoever. So it’s this odd sort of thing where each character’s lines are read by half-a-dozen readers. Sometimes during dialogue is split between the actors. It’s all really skillfully done. It’s one of those things that I couldn’t imagine it working if it were described to me, but it may well be my favorite format.

Graphic Audio: Graphic Audio bills itself as a “movie in your mind” so it’s only one-part audiobook while being another part radio show. Unlike most audiobooks, there are sound effects and music. There are a lot of actors and each of the main characters seems to get their own and the narrator is a voice unto himself. But unlike a radio show, there is description of action. The narration and music makes for a really neat combination and makes what would seem difficult (putting a comic book to audio) very compelling.

Old-Time and BBC Radio: When I was a kid I was a big fan of old radio shows that would come on a local news radio channel from 8-10 on Sunday nights. For my birthday I would get Shadow cassettes. I enjoyed them greatly, but without narration it’s a tough format. Particularly for anything that has action, wherein you’re left with characters saying things like “Look, he’s going at Jerry with a knife! Keep evading him, Jerry! Go! Go! Go!” Interestingly enough, this could be the type of broadcast that I would be most suitable to write since I’ve always been very dialogue-driven, but it’s really a small sandbox with which to work.

Nothing to worry about for now. One more appointment to confirm, but so far so good.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve had my eyes dilated. The hardest part isn’t the harsh sunlight, but rather the inability to read anything. I was stuck off computers for three whole hours. I’m not sure how I made it through! Fortunately, television came to the rescue.

How you reckon I convince Clancy that our next vacation needs to be to Quebec?

Without mentioning the real reason as to why?

Unfortunately, I let it slip when I recommended New Orleans (See #4) and now I’m not sure if I’ll ever convince her to go…

The commentariat over at MamaPundit are outraged at a law that requires drug tests and (if applicable) intervention in cases of:

(1) No prenatal care;
(2) Late prenatal care after twenty-four (24) weeks gestation;
(3) Incomplete prenatal care;
(4) Abruptio placentae;
(5) Intrauterine fetal death;
(6) Preterm labor of no obvious cause;
(7) Intrauterine growth retardation of no obvious cause;
(8) Previously known alcohol or drug abuse; or
(9) Unexplained congenital anomalies.

In the minds of the commenters, this law was obviously written by men with little or no understanding of pregnancy. Or by pro-lifers looking at a back door towards obtaining control over a pregnant woman’s body.

There are things to object to in this law. I for one and unenthusiastic about how the vague language of the law could be interpreted so that a doctor is liable if the woman does not seek help. And the question of how the state should intervene in the cases of drug use on the part of mothers during pregnancy is pretty rocky terrain filled with potential disagreement even among people who usually agree.

The odd thing about the post and the comments is that they focus at least in large part on the criteria used. This is odd to me because if this law was drafted by a bunch of men without a clue as to how pregnancy works, they obviously consulted doctors. It reads almost line-for-line what Dr. Wife describes as indicators of drug use. And if a woman has the above, chances are that she’s already being tested. And if a test comes up positive, there is already a mechanism in place to inform the authorities. The whole bit about meetings and attendance checks is new, but by and large on the doctor’s end it’s codifying what is already done.

Further, if a doctor has a patient that has the above indications of having taken drugs and does not run any tests because the mother lies and says that she does not do drugs, the doctor is liable for malpractice if something goes wrong. The notion that “Oh, well the patient assured me that she did not do drugs” isn’t going to cut it. I personally would not bet much money that the lawsuit of a mother that did drugs suing the doctor for something going wrong that can be traced back too the drugs would get very far, but it doesn’t have to get very far for the doctor to be professionally negatively impacted.

The concern of MamaPundit and her allies is that they’re targeting women that don’t seek prenatal care because the medical establishment wants to gain more control over the process and/or because they want the money that they get with prenatal visits. Sure, sometimes there are women that for one reason or another did not seek prenatal care, but the most frequent reason that a woman wouldn’t seek any is if she has antagonistic attitudes towards the medical establishment or she doesn’t want to be tested because she knows it will come up positive and social services will be informed.

In the case of the former, it’s unlikely that the law is going to apply to the woman anyway because women that don’t trust the medical establishment for prenatal care don’t suddenly trust them when it comes to delivery. In the case where a woman wants to go it on her own but changes her mind when problems occur, chances are she’s going to get a full work-up anyway and that’s going to include the drug test.

The in the case of the latter, well that’s the case that it turns out frequently enough to be to make a drug test worthwhile. I have heard this story over and over again. A woman knows if she goes to get prenatal care that she will be tested and then social services is likely going to get involved. Presumably, she puts off prenatal care in hopes that she can get it out of her system prior to delivered. All too frequently, that never happens and so the woman has put the fetus’s health unnecessarily at risk in two ways.

But what about cases that fall between the cracks of the above? Do they happen? I’m sure that they do. But the worst-case result is a test that comes up negative. I’m not entirely sure what the downside is here except for hurt feelings. The further stigmatization of having a miscarriage or having an unconventional approach to childbirth.

That’s hardly the goal, though. Doctors need to know these things in order to know what risks to keep an eye out for. Drugs and alcohol during pregnancy are known to increase risks. Doctors need to know what these risks are. They can be sued for being insufficiently thorough. Then, once the baby is born, it’s no longer a part of her and it gets health care independent of her and there is, of course, the question of whether or not the baby should remain in her custody..

Interestingly, according to Clancy, few women object to getting drug tests and almost none consider it remotely the imposition that MP’s commenters do. I was a little surprised by this, to be honest. Mothers that come up negative aren’t offended and mothers that come up positive and don’t want to fess up spend more time trying to explain why there might be false positives than arguing that nobody has a right to ask for a sample.

There were a couple posts that accidentally got posted before they were ready. They were removed and will be posted later. If you happened to see either of them, rest assured that you are not crazy.

It involves comprehensive auto insurance, a town about 400 miles from here, and my green 1998 Ford Escort.

I have been waiting for a Watchmen movie for almost fifteen years and today it’s happening. Even the knowledge that the movie cannot live up to fifteen years of anticipation probably won’t stop me from being disappointed at one thing or another.

This post has two major parts. If you’re interested in comic books or comic book movies generally, read the first part. If you’re interested in the Watchmen in particular, read the second.

It’s hard to say for sure. It depends in part on how good the movie is and whether Word of Mouth spreads like it did for Iron Man. I have my doubts, though. Comic book films do not succeed and fail on the basis of comic book fans. Non-fans (and casual fans) are typically looking for something different than fans are. Watchmen appeals more to the latter group than the former.

Who who knows? My intent isn’t to answer the question. We’ll find out soon enough. The intent is to stress its importance of the answer.

Movie-goers tend to really like comic book movies and critics generally don’t. Or, at the least, critics are tired of them. Superhero movies can be rather formulaic. Some movies perfect the formula or bend it a bit in the right way and are good while others are simply by-the-numbers tedium or aggresively awful.

I agree with the critics in that I would like to see move movies that do different things with the genres. Bend it further as they do in the comic books themselves. Expand it to characters that aren’t name properties with which the writers have more freedom. I would love to see a movie about The Authority, to pick an example.

Unfortunately, the more expensive the movie the more people it needs to appeal to and the less flexibility the directors have. Superhero movies tend to be expensive. If Watchmen fails, the clear message is that you need to be making the movie with a name property or follow the formula spectacularly. The best we can hope for at that point are low-budget movies and shows in the vein of the Darkman sequels. Or maybe animated movies. Even if The Watchmen succeeds in something short of an extraordinary fashion, we probably won’t even get that. A lot of its success will be attributed to the popularity of its source material.

It’s supposed to be very faithful to the comic book with the exception of the ending which supposedly needed to be revamped for different times.

I am frankly a bit suspicious of “revamping for the times”, to be honest. Though I liked the V for Vendetta that came out a few years ago, almost every contemporization was more a distraction than helpful. I thought that they did a good job of killing the subplots that weren’t necessary and creating a good flow. I mostly think that the efforts to make it more “socially relevent” (putting in pieces to let people know, “Psssst, we’re talking about Bush!”) make it so that it will date faster than the source material did, which didn’t feel dated even though I read it a decade or so after it was written.

Watchmen, ironically, would feel less dated today than when I did read it. It’s essentially a Cold War story and the Cold War had been won by the time I read it. Now, with the War on Terror and everybody quite a bit more anxious about things, it takes on a new resonance. Even though the graphic novel is still in an alternate 1986. I am really hoping that they don’t make it about the WoT with plants as unsubtle as V for Vendetta.

Then again, I haven’t read as much about the movie as other people have because I want to be more surprised. So maybe I misheard something and the ending revamp was because the original ending is too 9-11ish or somesuch. Seven years later, that would be pretty lame. But artistically it might result in a better movie than contemporization.

As concerned as I am about their decision to deviate from the source, I am also concerned about their loyalty to it. The Watchmen is already a pretty dense work in twelve comics. Trying to fit the whole thing in to three hours could lead to whiplash.

An example would be a couple audio adaptations I’ve listened to on my commute, Superman Lives and The Knightfall Saga. Particularly Knightfall. They did an amazing job of fitting just about everything relevent into three hours of audio, but the result that there was so much happening so quickly that you never got time to actually care about what was going to happen. When Azrael commented that it had been almost a year since he met Batman, I wanted to yell “Dude, it’s been less than two hours!”

The good news is that Knightfall was trying to fit material from 60 or so comics into three hours while Watchmen has 12 to fit into the same timeframe. Also, The Watchmen comic book is slower-paced, which might give them more opportunity. On the other hand, Watchmen is also celebrated in part due to its depth and re-readability, a lot of which is necessarily glided over in film.

All that being said, in a sense I don’t care if the movie is the inevitable disappointment I figure it to be. And if it’s going to fall short, I prefer it do so faithfully. Just having many of the individual scenes put up there to film will make the whole exercise worthwhile to me.

Probably not to Warner Bros, who is probably going to take a bath on this.