Zooming By

Time is kind of whizzing along. Not necessarily a bad thing - it's just the way life is, especially when I'm in a show (Two more weeks! I am steadfast in my attempt to prove that there is no such thing as a small part...) and the dayjob is off-the-hook busy.

On the other hand, I get more than a little miffed at myself when I realize that I have missed pretty amazing things like the Undead Jazzfest without even registering that it was happening until it already happened. Many slaps on my wrist! Much mortification of my flesh with a barbed lash!

Sigh...

In other news, here's an article about Charlie Sheen's work release program. While I'm the first to assert that theater does in fact serve the community, it strikes me as rather odd that a celebrity can beat his wife and be sentenced to... regional theater. There is humor in this, of a bleak sort. It has been mentioned that this simply reflects his individual skill set; it certainly can be interpreted as adding value to the theater company and its education program (though by the same token there are those whose eyebrows are raised at the notion of being assigned to teach children as part of release for domestic abuse); and the case has been made that it's not all that different from, say, a lawyer doing pro-bono work as a condition of a plea agreement. Discuss.

Wrong

With a capital W.

...Judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

And people say Amy Goodman is a wacko alarmist for referring to the Prison Industrial Complex. Yes, ok - I realize this is an extreme example (though I don't think it's unwarranted, if you'll pardon the pun, to ask how many cases like this there are where the creeps responsible just haven't been caught), but it's also a symptom of a society in which Private Security is one of the fastest growing industries.

Epic fail, people. Epic. Fail.

Taking Self Defense to a New Level

Found this little tidbit in The Gothamist.

Right over in Brookhaven, Suffolk County. Evidently the woman behind the counter (all 4'5" of her) could tell that the guy's gun was fake, or at least suspected so enough that instead of opening the register as she told him she'd do, she went for the ol' axe.



Holy Moly!