The New York Times has a three part series of articles–the result of “a yearlong investigation. . . of the live and history of New York State’s town and village courts.” These courts, helmed by men and women who are, for the most part, not lawyers, decide real cases in which jail time, eviction, or protection from domestic abuse hang in the balance.
These are New York’s town and village courts, or justice courts, as the 1,250 of them are widely known. In the public imagination, they are quaint holdovers from a bygone era, handling nothing weightier than traffic tickets and small claims. They get a roll of the eyes from lawyers who amuse one another with tales of incompetent small-town justices.A woman in Malone, N.Y., was not amused. A mother of four, she went to court in that North Country village seeking an order of protection against her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state officials, but later told the court clerk, “Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then.”
I haven’t finished reading them yet, but this series seems well worth exploring. Looks like you may need to register, if you haven’t done so already, but the pieces are all free and available.
Here’s an example of how digital media and hardware sellers have dropped the ball:
A couple of months ago I made an ill-advised bid on a set of DVDs for a television show that I enjoyed a lot in my youth. But I’m a busy guy and haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch all 90-some episodes. Or any of them, for that matter. You know what would be great? If I could put the DVD in my computer, rip the episodes to little iPod screen-size video files, and load them up to watch on my commute. But–surprise!–I cannot do that. It’s illegal to decrypt DVDs, and even if I were willing to break the law it’s an extremely complicated and arcane process; and then I’d have to figure out how to get the file into a format that would work on my iPod. Suffice it to say that I gave up on this plan and anticipate putting off watching Optimus Prime battle the Decepticons until some years into my retirement.*
Now this situation is dumb for any number of reasons, the largest one being that if they just made this process a) legal and b) simple it would significantly increase the value of their products. I’d pay 20% more for a DVD or music file if I knew that I could archive it in an unencrypted format and that I could transfer it to any piece of hardware that could play it. But I can’t, and it drives me crazy! That’s actually a significant problem that can’t be quantified so simply: how much money are these companies losing due to pissing off their customers? To be honest, it’s probably not much–most people I know are quite content buying songs and TV shows from iTunes and putting them on their iPods. But for me, there’s not much appeal to the idea of paying more money for a season of TV shows on iTunes than I would on DVD, and getting a set of lower resolution encrypted files that won’t play unless I use Apple hardware and software. And, more importantly, if I could just put television show DVDs on my iPod I would buy a lot more of them–and when my iPod breaks the day after its warranty expires I’d be a lot more likely to buy a new one. That seems like a win-win situation to me.
And Apple is actually the BEST purveyor of these goods–everyone else’s offering is more restrictive (and none of that will play on iPods at all). It’s a disturbing situation in which decisions are made based not on what the consumer wants but instead on what the producer wants. That doesn’t make sense at all, but as long as the consumer doesn’t realize how thoroughly and unnecessarily the producer is screwing up the process I guess it’s never going to change.
* Why didn’t they make DVDs as easy to use as CDs? Because they wanted to make more money off of them, and by restricting the ways in which we can use them they preserve additional channels of profit (like selling the files on iTunes in a low-resolution format that looks terrible on big screens, ensuring that dedicated fans will buy shows twice). And digital rights management ensures that the next generation of media will be even more difficult to use in ways that we’ve grown accustomed to–making copies, sharing with friends and family, even editing for our own uses. Unless something big happens soon, those days are over–we’ve surrendered our right to media ownership for the superficial convenience of what is essentially a complicated long-term media rental. (What happens when a new format comes out? Think Apple’s going to transfer all of your music files for free? Even the ones you bought on CD and ripped yourself–and lost the CDs somewhere along the way? Don’t count on it.)
I thought the second episode was pretty good. The acting’s solid, the camera work and set design and lighting and all the technical stuff is artful and smooth, and the writing is getting there (I think it’ll be a few more episodes before Sorkin gets back his sense of what works and what is just quirky garbage, but it had its moments). And I love the fact that the goofball from Wings is playing the heavy.
But I think there’s a major problem built into the show’s premise, a problem that will keep coming up over and over again: it’s about contemporary pop culture. The stuff about the White Stripes would have been pretty clever at some point but the “are they married or brother and sister” quandry really peaked 5 years ago. Sorkin sort of acknowledges this point with Danny’s dated comment assuming the continuing existence of the Stone Temple Pilots, but acknowledging a problem isn’t the same thing as fixing it (see also all the references to NBC, as if to make perfectly clear that Studio 60 isn’t on NBC, even though we all know perfectly well that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is in fact on NBC–I’m not ever going to write the whole name of the show again, incidentally).
On a related note: Someone’s going to have to break it to Aaron Sorkin that nobody knows or cares about Gilbert & Sullivan anymore. I mean, it was believable that nerds like Sam Seaborn and Ainsley Hayes would have a familiarity with the comic operettas of G&S, but the idea that an SNL kind of show would ever do a parody of a song from The Pirates of Penzance is laughable, and not in the good way. So that was awkward and brings me to another concern I have: are they going to make a habit of showing skits from the show-within-the-show? Because, best case scenario, they’re funny but jarring (since they will of course not match the tone of the rest of the show); worst case scenario, they’re not funny, which a) makes it hard to take seriously the premise that Matt and Danny and their performers are the best in the business and b) just means there’s five minutes of the show that are awkward and unenjoyable. For example, I’d describe the song last night as somewhat amusing. Not a total disaster, but certainly not ROFLHOUSE hilarious. And I spent most of the time that it was on my screen thinking about how dumb it was to parody Gilbert and Sullivan and wondering how Sorkin managed to get NBC to okay a reacharound joke.
So how to fix this (not the Gilbert and Sullivan part–if there’s any justice we won’t have to deal with that again)? Man, I dunno. When was the last time that a network show of any kind (including, appropriately enough, SNL) referenced pop culture without it seeming forced and stupid? And yet, how can you write a show about a variety show without making constant references to current events and pop culture? Obviously, you can’t, so they’re just going to have to keep a steady stream of metahumor about stunt-casting and corporate trend-chasing coming down the pike. And as much as I love the postmodern condition, I think that’s going to get old real fast.
I just hope that by the middle of this season there’ll be a rumor that NBS is going to get bought out by Quo Vadimus and they will probably scrap all the programming. I mean, if you’re going to stunt cast, why not go all out and have a full-on crossover with Sports Night? Danny vs. Danny for all the marbles! Or what the hell, why not throw in the West Wing and make it Danny3?
Bonus link: The Studio 60 drinking game. This is genius. [Defamer]
Did Green Day just equate the Superdome with a whorehouse?
Hosannas are in order, for the Redskins have vanquished the mighty Texans. This masterful performance is sure evidence of a season-long domination of all our rivals. A Super Bowl win is all but assured.
Our fearless, rocket-armed quarterback completed 24 passes for well over 130 yards, and Clinton Portis played a full game without getting injured. Chris Cooley had at least 18 yards receiving. I haven’t checked the stats, but I bet we even had a sack or something.
Yep, there’s no other way to look at it–after beating the Texans, the Redskins have proved their mettle. They won’t lose again.
I was at a publick house last night and Budweiser was running a promotion in which they gave out scratch-off tickets to win some kind of prize package and give out ugly branded crap (t-shirts and hats with the Bud Lite logo). So that part makes some sense to me–it gets potential customers to associate the brand with Winning! and Prizes!–but then the other part of the promotion sort of befuddled me. You see, the Bud Lite lady would go around to people at the bar and say “do you mind if I buy you a round of Bud Lites?”
Now here’s the thing. It’s not like there are people out there who would be Bud Lite drinkers, but they just haven’t had the pleasure of trying it yet. So basically it seems like Budweiser is just buying beers for no purpose whatsoever.
I understand the idea that in a market with two or three dominant brands (i.e. Coke and Pepsi; or Budweiser, Miller, and Coors) each competitor must engage in huge marketing campaigns just to maintain its market share. And I understand the fact that for some reason people often pick one of the interchangeable brands and forms some sort of emotional attachment to it. But I don’t know anybody who’s ever been convinced to switch brands based on a free sample. I mean, there’s at least some sense to those taste tests where you find out that–hey!–you prefer Fanta to Minute Maid. What’s the sense in giving away free samples of a product that is essentially indistinguishable, in price, taste, and popularity, from its competitors?
The only thing I can think of is that it’s no different from all the other stupid crap they give away–people will think about how Budweiser gave them free stuff and want to buy Budweiser products. But there’s a huge difference between a free beer and a stupid hat: if you give me a stupid hat I will still have it tomorrow; I will have flushed away the free beer by then.
The McRib, while disgusting, is undisputably awesome. But you want to know what’s way more awesome? I’ll tell you: the “Save the McRib” website that is actually just part of a viral marketing campaign sponsored by–guess who!–McDonald’s. At any rate, the site is hilarious and filled with awkward attempts at with-it-osity. For example, you can theoretically input your zip code and get back information on when the McRib will be available as part of its “farewell tour,” and after you send it your info you get this message:
“Working on it, just a sec dude. I am searching the entire U.S. tour schedule for locations near you and when McRib is there, please do not hit send again until I throw you an answer.”
It’s cooltastic!!! Unfortunately, the website appears to be busted–it never did throw me an answer :( :( :( Still, I added my name to the fraudulent “Save the McRib” petition and did some totally extreme browsing. It was totally radical.
And while I’m here, I should pass along this awesome link: Calvin and Hobbes: Magic on Paper is an exhaustive collection of C&H info, ranging from promotional rarities to Bill Watterson interviews and writings to an assortment of blatantly illegal bootleg merchandise. I would love to know what Watterson has been up to for the last 10 years–I hope we haven’t heard the last of him (although he certainly doesn’t owe us anything). Watterson was a rare idealist in a shockingly heartless industry, and his thoughts on the cheapening of comics are well worth reading. And those of us who spend all day in an environment emphasizing the importance of material and professional success may find Watterson’s commencement speech at his alma mater a welcome reminder that there’s more to life than climbing the ladder.
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