The Yin Blog

Early thoughts on CBS's "Person of Interest"

Although CBS debuted "Person of Interest" last week, I didn't get around to watching the Pilot episode until last night. I thought it was reasonably interesting, certainly less flawed than "Terra Nova," though less ambitious as well.

"Person of Interest" is kind of like a post-9/11 mix of "The Pretender" (which was kind of a then-modern version of "The Fugitive") and "The Minority Report." The gimmick is that Michael Emerson's character, a technology company CEO, has hacked a backdoor entrance into a software surveillance program that uses the ubiquitious public cameras to predict future crime. (It seems like the show is set in the present day, except one where the US installed all these public cameras, much as London has.) Jim Caviziel is the ex-CIA operative that Emerson has recruited to determine whether the so-called person of interest identified by the program is likely to be a victim or perpetrator, and to stop the crime from happening.

There are some scenes of quick violence, and Caviziel's character has a penchant like the T-1000 terminator in "T2: Judgment Day," which is to say that he tends not to kill but prefers instead to disable by shooting bad guys in the legs. Well, that is, when he's not beating them up. Indeed, the episode begins with a predictable, yet cathartically enjoyable sequence on a subway, where a gang of thugs approaches Caviziel, expecting to rob him, and certainly not expecting to have him singlehandedly demolish them all. . . .

It seems like this is one of those shows where there is a long arc in the background dealing with the skeletons in Emerson's and Caviziel's closets, but the primary episode to episode focus is on the instant matter, which will of course be wrapped up at the end of the episode. CBS does know what it's doing with these kinds of shows, and I expect "Person of Interest" to be something like a modest hit for this season. I'm not terribly excited about it the way that I was for, say, "24" or "Prison Break," but off the top of my head, it may be the best non-reality drama for me that's not on the USA Network (which has "Burn Notice," "White Collar," and "Covert Affairs" -- all of which are better than any dramas on regular network TV).

The death penalty and moles

We've recently had a problem with a mole (or maybe more than one) in our front yard. In addition to the raised tunnels in the mulched side areas, tufts of dirt started showing up on part of our lawn. At first, we were hoping that we could maybe engage in some non-lethal methods to make the moles go away, but Internet research suggested that ultrasonic speakers, smoke, and other such methods were not particularly effective.

So I headed down to Home Depot and bought some of these brutal but effective traps. My dad happened to be in town and has dealt with gophers, so he had a good idea of where to look for the tunnels. The traps are so robust, though, that he wasn't able to overcome the spring's tension to set it, so I armed the traps.

We hadn't had any new tunnels or dirt clumps, so I thought maybe the moles had left, or perhaps the trap worked. I uncovered the first trap and found it still armed, so I replaced it and moved on to the second trap.

Success! It had gone off, so I put on some gloves and pulled it out. Sure enough, there was a mole crushed in between the trap's jaws. I felt kind of bad, as it was a fellow mammal, and how was it to know that it was disturbing our yard? And yet, there it was, tunneling freely one moment, and then the next, BLAMMM!

Oh well. I still have to clean the trap (it wasn't really bloody or anything, but I should disinfect it all the same) and then reset it in case there are any more moles around.

Marathon runners, McDonald's diets, and the Monopoly game

Apparently there are some marathon runners who have decided that their training includes eating only at McDonald's for the last month before the big run. I thought Morgan Spurlock demonstrated convincingly that this is not a good idea, but I suppose it could add an extra challenge or something.

Anyway, this also happens to be the time when McDonald's is running its Monopoly game. In other words, if you're going to try this ridiculous diet, now is the best time to do so. After all, all those extra meals translate to extra game pieces, which might translate into more prizes. Heck, you might even win the $1 million prize for collecting Boardwalk and Park Place.

Greenwald on Ferdaus

Glenn Greenwald once again mocks the government for "thwart[ing] its own Terror plot" regarding yesterday's Washington D.C. arrest. But the strange thing is that, after fulminating against the war in Iraq, etc., he notes:

If the FBI's allegations are accurate, then it's clear Ferdaus has become hardened in his hatred; he talks about a willingness to kill American civilians because they have become part of the enemy, and claims that he fantasized about such attacks before the FBI informant spoke to him.  

But whatever else is true,  it's simply unrealistic in the extreme to expect to run around for a full decade screaming WE ARE AT WAR!! -- and dropping bombs and attacking with drones and shooting up families in multiple Muslim countries (and occupying, interfering in and killing large numbers before that) -- and not produce many Rezwan Ferdauses.  In fact, the only surprising thing is that these seem to be so few of them actually willing and able to attack back that -- in order to justify this Endless War on civil liberties (and Terror) -- the FBI has to search for ones they can recruit, convert, convince, fund, and direct to carry out plots.

Now, you can argue about whether the war against al Qaeda or the war in Iraq were good policy decisions. But we can't go back and undo one or the other decision. Given where we are today, and assuming the possibility that those wars predictably radicalized people like Ferdaus, it seems to me that the pertinent question is, did Ferdaus pose enough of a threat to warrant government attention?

Note that with his caveat about accepting for the sake of argument the government's allegations, Greenwald seems to give this away. He acknowledges that Ferdaus sounds dangerous, and willing to kill Americans. Forget about his motivation and just concentrate on the actual danger that he did or did not pose. Shouldn't the government investigate someone with such desires and intentions?

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that someone should be locked up just because they're dangerous or they would like to kill Americans. I am suggesting that perhaps the government should investigate such persons and use legal tools, including possibly undercover sting operations, to test the likelihood of actual criminal conduct.

 

That NPR list of 100 best sci-fi/fantasy books, boiled down to a flowchart

Regarding that NPR list of 100 best science-fiction/fantasy books, there's now a handy-dandy flowchart to help you figure out which ones you might like.

Here's an example of a particular thread, assuming you've gone down the sci-fi side:

Cyberpunk? No, I get enough "cyber punks" on Facebook. . . .

Ready to blast into space? Yes

War buff? Yes

Who shall we fight?

-> Man v. bugs = Heinlein, Starship Troopers

-> Man v. far away bugs = Card, Ender's Game

-> Man v. alien = Haldeman, The Forever War

-> Spiritual v. colonial = Herbert, Dune

-> Human v. human = Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (note to self: need to read my copy of this)

-> Everyone = Scalzi, Old Man's War

Another sting operation nets an alleged terrorist

Using another undercover sting operation, the FBI has arrested a Massachusetts man for attempting to pilot a drone aircraft filled with explosives into the Pentagon and the Capitol building. Although the specific alleged plot was different, the undercover operation sounds a lot like that used to ensnare Mohamed Mohamud:

The FBI undercover agents provided Ferdaus with the money to buy the drones, but law enforcement officials said Ferdaus came up with the idea for the attack. Prosecutors said Ferdaus “was presented with multiple opportunities to back out of his plan, including being told that his attack would likely kill women and children,” but that he “never wavered in his desire to carry out the attacks.”

Entrapment has yet to work as a defense in a post-9/11 terrorism case, although we'll see how Mohamud fares next year. My early, tentative thinking is that Mohamud has a better shot than Ferdaus does for a number of reasons:

1) Mohamud was 19 at the time of his arrest, and even the government's affidavit doesn't really lay out a case that Mohamud had any technical capabilities of his own. Ferdaus, on the other hand, is 26, has a physics background, and apparently had constructed some cell phone detonators that were operational.

2) The government gave Mohamud money to buy bomb components, and then built the bomb for him. All Ferdaus allegedly needed was the money to buy the drones. Perhaps if the government had not interceded, he would have been able to get the money from other sources.

3) Mohamud is being prosecuted in the District of Oregon, much of which lies in Multnomah County. It's hard to think of too many better venues for the defense. Maybe San Francisco or Berkeley . . . . Ferdaus is likely to be prosecuted in Washington, D.C., which may be a "liberal" district, but it's also the site of the Pentagon, which was also allegedly one of Ferdaus's targets.

Stay tuned.

SAT cheating scandal -- how cheaply someone sold out high scores!

Two decades ago, when I worked for a test prep company as an instructor, I used to tell the students that there were two ways they could improve their scores: (1) learn the techniques we would be teaching them; or (2) pay me to take the test for them. Option (2) was a joke, of course, but invariably a student would ask, "How much do you charge?"

I would respond, again -- not seriously -- "You can tell me what score you want, and I'll get at least that score, and it will only cost you $10 a point." This was back in the days when the SAT was just math and verbal, both from 200 to 800. One time a student said, "Wait, so it would cost, um, $12,000 to get a 1200? I can get that myself."

Which was the whole point.

Another time, a student approached me before the following class session and said, "My parents want to know if you want cash or a check." That was as serious as my proposal was. I think.

Anyway, it turns out that there may have been an actual cheating ring, per Yahoo news:

Seven current or former students at Great Neck North High Schoolwere arrested Tuesday on allegations that one of the seven — a 19-year-old college student — took the SAT exams for the others in exchange for payments of up to $2,500. In one of the cases, Sam Eshaghoff is accused of taking the SAT for a female student, although in that case he did it free of charge, Nassau County prosecutors said.

$2500? That's it? And free in one case? (Maybe he was sweet on that student.)

Don't forget, the SAT now has three sections, so the total score range is now 600 to 2400. It sounds like he was charging something more like $1 per point, since he was allegedly scoring 2140 to 2220.

This is serious stuff, and obviously it's bad if some uber-test taking nerd is sitting in the place of actual students. At the same time, you have to wonder how much other cheating of a related ilk takes place with regard, say, to college entrance exam essays. I wonder how many of those are ghostwritten for the applicant. Test taking courses, to a lesser extent, present a problem, since there's an obvious income impact; at least there, though, the student is still the one doing the actual work.

Early thoughts on Fox's "Terra Nova"

Tonight I sat down to watch the premeire episode of Fox's much hyped, super-expensive "Terra Nova," which is about humans who escape the poisoned, overpopulated Earth of the 22nd century by going through a time rift into the past. 85 millions years ago, to be specific.

Hmm, 85 million years ago would be right in the middle of the Cretaceous Period -- the time of T rexes, triceratopses, and the other cool dinosaurs!

To answer immediate questions, yes, this looks kind of like "Jurassic Park" in a lot of ways. It's also reminiscent of the Christopher Lambert flick "Fortress," at least, in the opening set-up, where we see that the protagonist dad (played by Jason O'Mara) ends up going to prison because he and his wife had one child too many, in violation of the strict population control rules. It's also reminiscent of "The Road Warrior" with a fortified compound in the middle of an unforgiving environment.

It's too early to say with any certainty, but there's also the possibility that the settlement camp leader (played by Stephen Lang) will turn out to be some kind of control freak psycho not unlike Lance Henriksen's character in "No Escape."

Anyway, there are a lot of plotlines that were introduced in this 2 hour pilot. We've got the rebellious teenaged guy who's upset at his dad and who wanders outside the protected compound because . . . a pretty teenaged girl dares him to follow her outside. We've got a rival group of humans from the future who are engaged in a cold war with the main compound. We've got the compound leader's mysterious secret regarding his son, who came through the rift earlier but is now "missing."

It was a pretty good opening episode, with good amounts of action, some people who made bad decisions and suffered (though not fatally) for them. The cinematography is striking, although the dinosaurs were only adequate on screen. Bonus points to the writers for having a character articulate that they must be in an alternate time stream, as evidenced by the fact that a probe sent back through the rift was never discovered -- because it didn't end up in our time stream.

I'm kind of skeptical that this show will last long, considering how expensive it must be, coupled with the general lack of success for sci-fi shows on regular TV.

About that affirmative action bake sale at Berkeley

Conservative students at UC Berkeley are planning another one of those "affirmative action" bake sales, where the price you pay for the goodies depends on your race:

On Facebook, the group listed the price for a pastry at $2 for white students, $1.50 for Asian students, $1 for Latinos, 75 cents for African-Americans and 25 cents for Native Americans. Women of all races were promised a 25-cent discount.

I've blogged before (but am too lazy to search for it) about how I think these bake sales don't really address the current justification for affirmative action, which is diversity. There's no interaction between the buyers of the pastries, which renders it different from the university setting.

But in any event, what's curious is that this sale has Asians getting a discounted price, albeit less than that for other minorities. Thus, according to the bake sale organizers, Asians benefit from affirmative action. Now, that may be true at other institutions, but when Prop. 209 went into effect, supposedly banning affirmative action by public entities in California, the Asian enrollment at Berkeley went UP, not down. This strongly suggests that Asians were being discriminated AGAINST, not in favor, by affirmative action policies. So if anything, the pastry prices should be more like $2.25 for Asians!

It's not every day . . .

. . . that you meet someone who spent 17 years on death row and then was exonerated.

Over the weekend, I was in Spokane, Washington, to participate in the "Race and Criminal Justice in the West" conference at Gonzaga Law School, and I ended up chatting with Juan Melendez-Colon. Needless to say, it was a fascinating conversation.

Along the same lines, I heartily recommend False Justice: Eight Myths That Convict the Innocent by former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro. This book recounts how Petro, a staunch Republican and prosecutor, became won over by the power and precision of DNA testing, to the point where he, as the sitting AG, was arguing with a local prosecutor about the latter's refusal to accept DNA results as exonerating a defendant whom she had prosecuted! These aren't death row cases, but the instances of innocent men who served ten or more years after their wrongful convictions is pretty powerful.