1. I ended up missing three whole days of school this week due to my illness. I kept thinking I was coming out of it, then another symptom flared up.

2. I had happened to hear Miley Cyrus’s Party in the USA recently, and I was thinking to myself “You know, Weird Al’s version is much better than hers, lyrically speaking. There are more and more varied lyrics, the rhymes are much better, you name it.” Then I pulled up Party in the CIA to find some people in the comments making the same points…along with something I really should have considered sooner: why on earth wouldn’t we assume that Weird Al Yankovich was a vastly better lyricist than Miley Cyrus(‘s corporate songwriter)?

Sometimes the obvious doesn’t click right away.

3. It was brought to my attention this week that one of the most effective ways a bureaucracy can shut down a complaint or inquiry is to give a definite answer to the wrong question. For instance, if someone petitions to have their road fixed, they might reply “We cannot change the route of that particular street at this time.”

Ross Scott, of Accursed Farms, released an update on his campaign to end the practice of destroying games (see here for more on that), in which the UK government answered his carefully-worded petition…with extended reasons on why they can’t do something he specifically did not ask for.

4. The reason this sort of thing is so powerful is that it wrecks the flow of communication, which is already difficult due to the nature of the bureaucracy. You had to jump through a series of hoops to even present your petition to the government, only to have the government pretend that it miss-heard you. You then either have to go through the same hoops again (if you still hold out hopes that it was a real misunderstanding), or trying something else entirely. But either way, the bureaucracy can label your issue as officially ‘solved’ and even put out PR notices to that effect, and your position has suddenly been partially undermined.

5. Last week’s movie night was Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, with Billy Wilder having a writer credit. It’s a romantic comedy in which Garbo plays a dour Soviet official who gets sent to Paris to oversee the sale of some confiscated jewels to shore up the Soviet economy (the Soviets actually did this, by the way, since it was initially the only way they could avoid a complete collapse). There she crosses paths with a charming French count, who happens to be helping the jewels’ rightful owner get them back.

In typical Lubitsch fashion, it’s a hilarious and warmly humanistic film centered around deeply flawed, but understandable characters. Garbo’s extreme, robot-like coldness in the early scenes leads to some hilarious lines (“Do not make an issue of my womanhood”), and there are a lot of jabs at the Soviet system (“There will be fewer, but better Russians”). Bela Lugosi is also on hand in a rare non-horror role as Garbo’s Soviet superior (which is such a perfect role for him that it suddenly seems incredible he didn’t play it more often).

That said, I did find there to be something slightly uncomfortable about the light-handed approach to the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Not that they present the USSR positively, but it’s not the absolute rejection that it would be for, say, Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. Of course, they have to make the romantic lead sympathetic, but it’s still a little off-putting. Just imagine the exact same film, only with Garbo playing a Nazi official.

6. I stumbled across this video tonight:

To my delight, in reading the comments section I found that essentially the entire fan-base agreed with my spontaneous reaction: that I was rooting for the knight rather than the generic adventuring party. The knight is the one fighting against three opponents, each with a different skillset, and he’s trouncing them with nothing but raw physical strength and skill (his swordwork is actually really impressive: note the way he uses the pommel as a short-range club). From all we can see, he looks like the one who deserves the win.

I love the fact that the studio made this trailer to try to show off their three character classes, and the reaction is “can we play the guy they were fighting?”

7. This week I also came across this story:

On August 20, 1987, a crazed gunman broke into a news studio and forced reporter David Horowitz to read his rambling manifesto on air.

Take a look at how Horowitz handles the situation.

Now, it turned out that ‘gunman’ was wielding an empty bb gun, but of course Horowitz had no way of knowing that. The best thing he can do is keep the guy calm until the police could get there. So he goes full professional mode and treats the situation like any other broadcast. He accepts the new ‘copy’, politely and gently asks for the guy’s name (actually, if you listen, he asks if he can ask: letting the guy feel he’s in charge) and where he’s from. This both helps keep the guy calm by granting him the professional respect due to a guest on a news broadcast, but also gives authorities information about him.

An awesome example of cool under pressure.