Dr. X's Free Associations

Masters of Sex: Another Take

My summary and review.

Nancy Nall's take:

“Masters of Sex,” which started strong, has stagnated into the same half-dozen or so themes over and over — Sex is science, sex is emotion, sex follows a script, sex never follows a script, blah blah blah. Will Dr. Masters overcome his emotional repression? Will Virginia Johnson get the respect she craves? We interrupt this repetition to display Lizzy Caplan’s naked breasts again. We interrupt those breasts to show you the saucy blonde secretary’s breasts again. And so on.

Also, I’m tired of these allegedly period shows dumping 21st-century language and attitudes hither and yon when it suits the writers. The previews for next week show one character raging, “I’m just an organ donor to you people,” a neat trick for 1959 or thereabouts, when organ transplantation was in its very earliest days and the phrase “organ donor” was hardly in common usage.

Late To The Party: Alec Baldwin And Taboo Utterances During Meltdowns

I'm familiar with some of Alec Baldwin's cruel outbursts and some of his dopey public statements, but I don't know the man and don't really care about him. So, to be clear, I'm not posting to defend Alec Baldwin, nor do I claim to know whether or not he's a bigot. In this post, he's just a device for discussion.

At my most clearheaded, I would hesitate to make sweeping judgments about a person based on what they might say during an angry meltdown, other than that they may be subject to fits of rage. It isn't that the words are meaningless, but words uttered in such moments don't necessarily define the so-called true character of a person.

Consider emotionally volatile couples. Are the worst words said in the heat of anger the essential truth about their attitudes and feelings toward one another? What about the positive and loving things they might otherwise say? Are the latter false, an act, a pretense?

I'm Dr X, not Doctor X

This popehat commentor is not me. I don't read popehat and I always abbreviate my comment handle.

The Speeding Sweet Spot

Joe Mahr:

Speeding has become rampant on the Illinois tollways around Chicago, a fact well established by the Tollway in several studies obtained by the Tribune. The data, like that collected on the Everett Road overpass in April, showed that along seven tollway stretches with 55 mph limits, most drivers are pushing the speedometer above 66 mph.

Only a few are obeying the law. In those stretches, an average of 1 out of 20 motorists drives at or below that limit.

As the state prepares to increase the maximum speed to 70 mph on some interstates starting Jan. 1, the Tollway studies and other research suggest that those large black numbers posted on roadside signs don't dictate how fast people really go. Instead, drivers are influenced by other factors, from road conditions to traffic flow and even some basic traits of human psychology.[...]

Box salesman Lew Monckton, who travels the Illinois Tollway frequently, sets the speed on his Chrysler at 9 mph above the 55 mph limit, except on I-294.

That's exactly what I do. On the stretch of tollway I drive weekly, 64mph is just fast enough to prevent other drivers from tailgating, but slow enough to avoid speeding tickets.

 

Happy Black Friday

Sonic Sleeping Pill

Could this be the world's most relaxing song?

DNA Testing Service Ordered to Halt Sales

Something about this rubs me the wrong way:

23andMe Inc., the Google Inc.-backed DNA analysis company co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, was told by U.S. regulators to halt sales of its main product because it’s being sold without “marketing clearance or approval.”

Curious Pigeon

Batman

"The French Are Right"

Steinberg:

Wellllllll, this is awkward.

So the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs website issues a security warning for visitors to 16 U.S. cities, including Chicago, advising: “éviter le West Side et le sud de la ville après la 59ème rue.”

The Washington Post’s GovBeat blog translates that as: “Stay away from the West Side and anywhere south of 59th Street.”

This is dangled under the nose of our mordant mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who offers up a smooth political response, “Don’t get me started on what I think of the French,” which simultaneously conveys a proud pugnacity without actually saying anything negative; Chicago won’t move up the world-class city ladder by picking fights with Paris.

And while no American pundit can go wrong dissing the French — though it is impossible to top “The Simpsons’” deathless epithet, “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” — it is my unfortunate duty, even though the Kabuki of journalism dictates that this story dwindled away days ago, as we rush to flutter our fingers at some new trifle, to quietly point out: The French are right....

Well, kinda, sorta right, but... Contd.