14 Comments on “Sunday Reads: Time Machine to Rome’s Trevi Fountain and Back”

1. JJ Lopez Minkoff says:

   January 11, 2015 at 12:26 pm

   It is one of those days y’all…but I have so many links saved for the post coming up.

2. ANonOMouse says:

   January 11, 2015 at 1:52 pm

   I’m a Science Fiction lover so of course Rod Taylor in “The Time Machine” was one of my favorites.

   • bostonboomer says:

     January 11, 2015 at 6:59 pm

     I loved that movie.

3. dakinikat says:

   January 11, 2015 at 3:24 pm

   http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/this-college-instructor-has-a-masters-degree-and-shes-still-living-in-poverty/

   Much political rhetoric these days is devoted to the importance of broadening access to college—and there is plenty of evidence that it’s still better financially to have a degree than not—but in the postcrash world of 2014, a good education may not keep you from hovering near the poverty line. The number of people with graduate degrees receiving food assistance or other forms of federal aid nearly tripled between 2007 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census. More specifically, 28 percent of food-stamp households were headed by a person with at least some college education in 2013, compared with 8 percent in 1980, according to an analysis by University of Kentucky economists.

   The hypereducated poor, as I’ve come to think of them, are as hidden to the country at large as Bolin is at Columbia. “Nobody knows or cares that I have a PhD, living in the trailer park,” says a former linguistics adjunct and mother of one child, who lives in Eugene, Oregon, and was on welfare and food stamps. A St. Paul, Minnesota, librarian, who admits that few of her friends have any clue how broke she is, puts it this way: “Every American thinks they’re a temporarily embarrassed millionaire: I am no exception.”

   • NW Luna says:

     January 11, 2015 at 9:43 pm

     hypereducated poor

     Oh yeah. Or else hypereducated hanging in there, provided nothing happens. The average financial increase that a college education gets you is weighted by the extremes at the end with the hedge-fund banks and similar types. I imagine the mean is much different.

4. bostonboomer says:

   January 11, 2015 at 7:06 pm

   Hi JJ,

   I was hoping you would write about Rod Tayor. But I don’t understand why you characterized The Birds as a “B” movie. It had a great director, good actors, and beautiful cinematography. I doubt if it was a low-budget film. Do you think horror movies are automatically “B” movies?

   Here’s a definition of the term “B movie” from B Movie Central:

   Although there are many differing opinions as to what a b-movie actually is, there is only one real technical definition to the term. The actual technical definition is that a b-movie was the second movie on a double bill. It was typically a low budget formula type film, which fell somewhere in the suspense, horror, sci-fi, western, exploitation or gangster genres, although there were other genres covered as well.

   This definition later gave way to the wider definition of b-movie, which basically encompassed any low budget film. Now I personally have a problem with this definition, because as a classic film reviewer, I’ve reviewed a wide variety of classic b-movies that taken as a whole, have a feel that truly sets them apart as an all encompassing genre unto themselves.

   So what exactly is a b-movie? Well if you’ve ever seen one of those cheesy sci-fi movies from the 50’s, or seen a goofy old monster movie where the monster looks like something out of a Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday morning kid’s show, then you’ve seen a b-movie. B-movies have a feeling and a style all their own. They’re low budget, formulaic, and often feature some of the cheesiest acting and dialogue you’ll ever see on film.

   • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:

     January 11, 2015 at 9:12 pm

     I meant b movie like this one: World Without End (1956) – IMDb I am having trouble with the browsers but it is getting better.

     • bostonboomer says:

       January 12, 2015 at 7:11 am

       Oh, I’m sorry. I misread what you wrote. I read it as “B movies like The Birds.” Sorry about that!

       Taylor was in lots of TV shows too.

5. bostonboomer says:

   January 11, 2015 at 7:30 pm

   I see on Twitter that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler opened the Golden Globes with rape jokes. I’m glad I’m not watching.

   • NW Luna says:

     January 11, 2015 at 9:46 pm

     WTF? Some women are womankind’s own worst enemy.

     Imagine if they’d opened with black slavery jokes. They wouldn’t have gotten away with that.

     • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:

       January 11, 2015 at 11:06 pm

       http://www.vulture.com/m/2015/01/tina-fey-amy-poehler-golden-globe-monologue.html it is at the 9 min mark.

   • Sweet Sue says:

     January 12, 2015 at 12:14 pm

     Not rape jokes; jokes about a rapist. There’s a difference.

6. NW Luna says:

   January 11, 2015 at 9:49 pm

   The Seattle City Council is poised Monday to change the name of the crime “patronizing a prostitute” to “sexual exploitation,” and the state Legislature may in its new session increase the offense’s maximum penalty from 90 days to a year in jail.

   “In a nutshell, the idea is to attack the demand-side of prostitution and human trafficking,” said Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, who supports both measures. “You do that by recognizing that in most cases the prostituted person is a victim … and by making it clear that there are consequences for coming to Seattle to buy sex.”

   City officials can’t change the crime’s maximum penalty on their own. They need the Legislature to upgrade it from a simple misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor. State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, has been working on a bill that would do just that and plans to introduce it during the legislative session that begins Monday. “I’ve worked on anti-trafficking legislation since 2002. We were the first state in the country, in 2003, to enact a state crime of human trafficking,” Kohl-Welles said. “The new focus is demand reduction — trying to curb the demand by the johns.”

   • bostonboomer says:

     January 12, 2015 at 7:12 am

     That’s a terrific idea.