"In a Lonely Place" (dir: Nicholas Ray, 1950)

This film noir has Humphrey Bogart playing a Hollywood screenwriter, an unusual role for him. The characters are fairly one-dimensional, and we never really get to know any of them well enough to care about them.

Bogart brings a hat check girl home so she can tell him about a book he is supposed to read so that he can write the screenplay, but he is too lazy to read it himself. The girl then gets murdered on her way home from his apartment.

The police suspect him of murdering her, and in the process of the police investigation he gets to know, and falls in love, with a beautiful neighbor. It turns out Bogart has a Jeckyll and Hyde personality, capable of flying into uncontrollable rages.

The ending is rather unsatisfactory and unimaginative. I can't recommend the movie, though Bogart and his love interest, played by Gloria Grahame, are worth watching.

The Upheaval in TV News

Both CNN and MSNBC lost 50% of their audience during the first month after the November election, but in January they bounced back somewhat. Still, massive layoffs are taking place and both networks are reworking their lineup of daily shows.

Thankfully, MSNBC got rid of Joy Reid, who I found to be unwatchable due to her abrasive nature. It almost made me sick watching the other MSNBC hosts slobbering all over themselves last night expresing how tragic they thought losing Reid was. Give me a break!

Alex Wagner will still be with MSNBC as an analyst, but she won't be hosting at 9 PM anymore. Rachel Maddox bemoaned the loss of the two primetime anchors of color, an obnoxious example of political correctness which I could have done without. The fact that Wagner is more white than black adds to the ridiculousness of this whole over-emphasis on race.

CNN has really shot itself in the foot with their use of the idiot Scott Jennings as a Trump apologist. The problem isn't that he's pro-Trump, but rather that he comes across as totally obnoxious, constantly interrupting anyone he doesn't agree with, and never having a friendly word or smile for anyone else. Abby Philip, who I really love, is forced to have him on her nightly panel, which totally ruins the show for me. What a shame.

CBS made a drastic change to its evening news show, with disastrous results. Ratings have continued to plummet, and critics have universally panned the new format. A sad plight for the once-great CBS news department.

NBC, which took over from CBS as number one after the retirement of Walter Cronkite in 1981, has faced a decline in its flagship program, "Meet the Press", after the sudden death of popular host Tim Russert in 2008. There were disastrous replacements tried in David Gregory and Chuck Todd, until the network finally found a winner, Kristen Welker, in 2023.

The market is changing, and TV will never again be the primary place where people get their news in this country. Neither will newspapers, unfortunately.

Roberta Flack

I heard an interesting backstory this morning from Joe Scarborough on "Morning Joe" about Roberta Flack's great song, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". Her producer wanted her to do it faster and she insisted on doing the slow version.

The song went nowhere, but three years later Clint Eastwood heard the song and chose it to be part of his 1971 movie "Play Misty for Me". The song then took off and charted.

To me Roberta Flack represented the best of music in the 70s, the last decade in which pop music was special, before the depressing slide into country, disco, and rap. R.I.P. Roberta Flack (1937-2025).

"Contrary to Popular Opinion", by Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz was once known as one of the best attorneys in the United States. Unfortunately, he pretty much self-destructed after the turn of the century, when he became more and more obsessed with issues relating to the state of Israel, and less and less concerned with U.S. legal issues. His credibility was completely destroyed after he joined the Trump defense team in January of 2021 for the second impeachment case. He argued that proof of a crime was necessary for an impeachment to succeed, a pathetically weak argument, and the exact opposite of what he had argued during the Clinton impeachment in 1998-1999. To cement his dishonor, he lobbied President Trump for clemency for his past clients still in federal custody, and his efforts played a role in at least twelve clemency grants.

"Contrary to Popular Opinion" is a collecton of Dershowitz's newspaper columns during the period of 1988-1992, when he was still at the height of his legal abilities. The book is divided into five parts, containing a total of fifteen chapters.

Part One deals with the state of our legal system. Dershowitz writes that "Our judges, including Supreme Court judges, are among the least qualified in the democratic world today....Many judges are incredibly lazy, regarding their position as a kind of benign retirement from the rigors of law practice." He concudes that "There is no excuse for our present system of judicial selection, which focuses so heavily on rewarding poitical hacks. We are entitled to better."

In contrast to his low opinion of judges, Dershowitz gives high marks to juries. He likes the fact that jurors are "independent of the powers that be", and are thus free to vote their consciences.

Regarding the Supreme Court, Dershowitz bemoans the loss of Marshall and Brennan to reitrement, and oberves that "Big government is beginning to win nearly every case in which the rights of individuals are pitted against the power of governments". But he is enouraged that a centrist plurality in the Court may be emerging, consisting of O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.

Part Two consists of three chapters devoted to free speech issues. Dershowitz is a strong advocate of the first amendment's free speech provisions, and he skewers both the left and the right equally when either side calls for censorship of the expression of ideas from the other side. This book was publioshed in 1992, before the rise of the Internet, so it's possible Dershowitz may have moderated his zealous free speech views.

Part Three consists of three chapters on issues relating to individual rights. He says that the right-wing emphasis on increasing penalties and decreasing defendants' rights in the interest of achieving "law and order" is just plain wrong, and would result in no real decrease in violent crime, which is "primarily a function of factors beyond the control of the legal system". Regarding drugs, he thinks that decriminalizaton should be considered.

Part Four consists of four chapters on sex, life, and death. Abortion is extensively discussed, as the repeal of Roe v. Wade was on the table in several Supreme Court cases during this period. Capital punishment and the right to die were also burning issues.

But the issue Dershowitz devotes the most attention to is that of rape. His greatest ire is reserved for the rape shield laws, which protect the itentity of the alleged victim from being reealed. He sees these laws as a residue of outdated thinking that there is a stigma attached to being a rape victim. He points to the unfairness of the names of defendnts being made public, but not that of their accusers. He points out that if the name of an alleged victim is published, people who know her might come forward with information useful to the case. He repeatedly cites a case in which, once the name bcame known, it was discoverd that she had made eleven false rape reports in another state!

Dershowitz emphasizes that the presumption of innocence before trial is vitally important. He points out tht FBI statistics show that 8.6% of rape reports are unfounded, compared to 2.3% for other crimes. He correctly points out that we need to be extra skeptical about all "single-witness cases". His well-reasoned conclousion is that "Only when we come to realize that rape is a crime of violence, an aggravated assault, will we be able to treat it like other crimes of violence--both in court and in the media."

Part Five consists of four chapters on the rise of anti-Semitism. Here Dershowitz veers off away from the law and into politics, so I won't comment further.

The value of this book is threefold. First, it provides a useful historical snapshot of the burning issues during the 1988-1992 time period. Scond, we get the benefit of seeing how a gret legal mind analyzes some important legal issues. And third, the insights are provided in succinct two-page bites, never failing to hold the reader's interest.

My Ten Favorite "Criminal Minds" Episodes

1. Empty Planet (S2, E8). This is the most memorable "Criminal MInds" episode, and the one I have watched the most often. The team travels to Seattle to pursue a serial bomber who has stated that Seattle is "where it all began". Reid wonders what the "it" is, and Morgan says that all he can think of is "grunge music and overpriced coffee". When Gideon talks by phone with the bomber and asks what to call hinm, the guy says "Allegro". Reid hears the name and he recalls that Allegro was the name of the adopted son in a book, "Empty Planet", that he had read as a child. On the way to interview the author, who happens to be a professor right there in Seattle, Reid asks if they can stop by a bookstore to buy a copy of the book because he wants to reread it, saying "It'll only take ten minutes." When Gideon asks, "To buy it or to read it", Reid responds "Both, actually".

By this time the team has the bomber's manifesto, a la the Unabomber, and the team asks the prof if she can identify which of her students it might remind her of. As the team is leaving, Reid asks, "Mind if I ask you a question?" She consents, and he asks, "Why didn't you ever write another book?" She responds that she guessed that she had nothing more to say.

Another memorable moment occurs when the team identifies a professor who is next on the bomber's hit list. They call him in and offer to provide security for him, and he responds, "Do I look like the kind of guy who wants to be followed around by a government goon squad?"

The bomber comes to see the prof who wrote "Emopty Planet", and we discover that he is convinced that she is his birth mother. He takes her hostage, and the team rescues her. On the way back to D.C., Morgan tells Gideon, "I heard you were worried about me back there...'A young man who I grestly respect and admire'", referring to what he had said to the prof earlier in Reid's presence. Gideon then utters the greatest episode-ending line, "And what he said I said, I said."

2. Jones (S2, E18). This is the second-most memorable episode. The team goes to New Orleans to catch a serial killer who is killing men in the night club section of town. They eventually figure out, about half-way through, that the killer is a woman. They search for past rape cases, and Garcia discovers the police reports of an incident nine years earlier in which a young woman was assaulted, but the PD refused to pursue criminal charges.

It turns out that the police chief is the son of the man who had worked the case, along with his partner. The dad had died in the recent Katrina storm, but the partner is still alive. When they visit the partner, he is quite hostile and explains that he was convinced that she was "asking for it" and that in his opinion no rape had occurred. They obtain the name of the victim by interviewing the assailant, Prentiss uttering the memorable line "Does she make an impression now?" They discover her current location at a motel, through her credit card records, and they interrupt her latest assault.

Two side stories are seen thoughout the episode. Reid makes contact with a friend who dropped out of the FBI Academy on their first day, and is now a piano player in a New Orleans bar. The encounter comes at a time when Reid is struggling, but at the end he tells Gideon, "I'll never miss another plane". The other side story is the connection made between J.J. and the police chief, William LaMontagne Jr.; in later episodes they re-connect and eventually get married.

3. Pleasure Is My Business (S4, E16). The BAU team goes to Dallas to investigate the murder of corporate executives. It turns out that a high-priced call girl is doing the killings. We sympathize with her because she is damaged by resentment against her father. She endearingly sees Hotchner as a man she can trust, a sort of substitute father. At one point she asks Hotchner, "How could your wife have ever left someone like you? You're the first man I ever met who didn't let me down. Will you stay with me?"

The opening voiceover narration has Hotchner saying, "The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror. An outlaw who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture. --Camille Paglia."

4. Lessons Learned (S2, E10). The BAU team gets word that a terrorist attack is being planned to take place in the next 36 hours, involving anthrax. Gideon, Reid, and Prentiss fly down to Guantanamo Bay to interrogate the man believed to be the mastermind of the attack. Gideon interviews the man while Reid and Prentiss study his mannerisms. Gideon treats the man with respect, in stark contrast to the brutal torture the people running Guantanamo have been subjecting him to. Gideon tricks the man as to the time of day it is, resulting in finding out enough to foil the attack, which was due to take place at the Grand Opening of a shopping mall. On the way back from Guantanamo, Gideon beats Reid in a chess game and Reid decides to take a nap. Gideon then aske Prentiss, "Do you play, Prentiss?" She says, "Yes sir, I play." This exchange illustrates that Gideon has now accepted Prentiss into the group, after his initial skepticism at the start of the episode.

5. The Tribe (S1, E16). The team goes to Terra Mesa, New Mexico, to investigate the brutal murder of five 19-year-old students in a vacant house. The killers have staged it to look like it was the work of Apaches, but, with the help of a local tribal policeman, the team figures out that the killers were not Apache.

The appeal of this episdoe is that it spotlights the difference between the Anglo and Native Americn cultures. The tribal policeman, John Blackwolf, explains why he doesn't carry a gun: "Inside twenty-one feet, I win. Outside twenty-one, I have other options besides shooting a man."

When Blackfoot tells Hotchner, "There are many paths to the same place", Hotch tells him that he "sounds like a fortune cookie". However, at the end of the episode Hotch repeats Blackfoot's aphorism, showing that he has learned from their time together.

6. Somebody's Watching (S1, E18). In Los Angeles for a seminar, the team gets invloled with solving a series of murders. All the murders involve associates of beautiful actress Lila Archer, wonderfully (and winsomely) played by Amber Heard. Reid gets assigned as her bodyguard while the others investigate, and he develops feelings for her that he has trouble dealing with.

7. The Longest Night (S6, E1). The bad guy here is a crazed man who calls himself The Prince of Darkness, memorably played by Tim Curry. He kidnaps a yung girl, and the team works to free her from his clutches. The evil of the Prince of Darkness is illustrated by his quote, "The question isn't why do I kill people, the question is... why I don't kill everybody. I decide who dies... but mostly I decide who lives. I'm like... God." The girl is an awesome character, full of spunk, and she matches her captor's repartee all the way through.

The ending, in which Morgan and the girl reunite in a touching scene, set to Leonard Cohen's "Who by Fire", brings tears to my eyes every time. Other Cohen songs appearing easrlier in the episode are "Night Comes On", "The Sisters of Mercy", and "Dance Me to the End of Love".

8. Entropy (S11, E11). The whole episiode has Reid and the "bad guy", played by the awesome Audrey Plaza, talking in a restuarant. Sounds boring, but it is anything but.

9. Conflicted (S4 E20). College kids at South Padre Island for Spring Break are getting murdered. The team profiles that there are two unsubs working together, a submissive female who lures the victims, and a dominant male who does the raping and killing. It turns out that the two unsubs belong to the same person, a guy with a split peronality. Reid bonds with the guy in an attempt to understand him/her.

10. Riding the Lightning (S1, E14). A very poignant episode. The team is looking into the case of a woman shortly before her scheduled execution. At the end they locate the son she was convicted of murdering, but they allow the execution to go forward, honoring the mother's wish to give up her life for the sake of her son's happiness.