The Guys in “Terriers” Are Terrible People

[The following contains spoilers for the first 5 episodes of Terriers (Season 1).]

This weekend, for the first time after several weeks/months of intense working/recording, I was finally given the opportunity to relax for a few days. So, after an intense Twitter poll last night, I decided to sit down and blow through the first 5 episodes of Terriers, whose first season wraps up this week on FX.

I really enjoy the show, and people on Twitter say that it only keeps getting better. The dialogue is sharp, the one-liners are consistently funny, the acting is uniformly solid, and the direction and pedigree absurdly great for a basic cable show (Clark Johnson, Guy Ferland, and Rian Johnson take on directorial duties, among others. And that’s just in the episodes I’ve watched so far).

That being said, I was a bit taken aback by the complete amorality of the main leads, Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James). Sure, their camaraderie is intoxicating, but do they really have to commit so many crimes?

In the first 5 episodes alone, these are some of the criminal/wrong acts that the guys have performed:

Planted a gun in a man’s house, leading to his arrest for murder (though in fairness, he was framed for a crime he DID commit)
Directly provoked a mentally unstable bank manager to commit suicide
Threatened to destroy a woman’s house, in an attempt at flushing out her boyfriend, all for the sake of obtaining a state reward for his arrest
Broke into a crime scene and stole $250,000 that potentially might have served as state’s evidence
Chased a desperate criminal into the path of an oncoming car, killing him
Covered up the true cause-of-death of said criminal

Typically, when protagonists flout the law, it’s in the service of a greater good. Nope, not these guys. Dolworth is mostly out for revenge, and for money to buy his old house back from his ex-wife.

I get that these guys are meant to be anti-heroes. Their flagrant violations of the law are thrilling to behold (in particular, the crime scene heist was pretty well-executed, given the show’s limited resources). I also understand that their collective ethical character will undoubtedly improve as the show goes on. But the show doesn’t seem to grapple much with the flagrant violations of the law that these guys perform on a regular basis. Based on the things I’ve read about the show, neither do most viewers. Perhaps the fact that we’re willingly taken along for the ride is a testament to the show’s greatness; it’s hard to get us to root for the cuckolder, yet this show achieves it.

More reactions later, possibly on the /Filmcast, when I finish the series…

Black Friday Makes Me Proud/Ashamed To Be An American

Today was Black Friday, and while I’ve enjoyed participating in this day of madness in the past, I just wasn’t feeling it this year (probably because I feel like I have everything I need in the realm of material things…for now). Farhad Manjoo has a “Black Friday survival guide” that’s also a great summary of why the hell it is that normal, everyday people will turn into complete freaks when it comes to getting $10 off a toaster:

Black Friday superfans concede that they’re an odd bunch. They all know that these days it’s possible—and maybe even likely—that you’ll get better deals online. So why go out at all? Because for some people, shopping on Black Friday is insanely fun. And if braving the cold and the crowds isn’t your idea of a good time, you shouldn’t bother.

“I love the thrill of going out and getting a deal,” Zahary says. “It’s very satisfying, like you conquered an objective in life, while still saving money and getting something wonderful for yourself, family and friends.” Steffj89, a BFads forum regular, writes, “I love the crowds, the thrill of the deal, the people, the noise, this is MY SUPERBOWL.”

Meanwhile, Gizmodo has a great rundwon of “The Ten Most Absurd Black Friday Trample Videos You’ll See.” Here’s a taste:

What I’m Thankful For (2010)

I’m pretty sure I spent most of the past year not really believing that second chances were possible, or (quite frankly) that my life, as currently constituted, was worth living.

And while I can’t say I’ve been completely pulled out of that darkness yet, I can say I’ve been pulled back from the brink.

If there is one word that can sum up the past 12 months since my last Thanksgiving post, it would be “change.” And while i didn’t believe the highs and lows in my life would get anymore extreme, this year has in fact brought with it a series of events so bizarre and unexpected that i haven’t been able to step back and recover from the madness until today. Sometimes, life whisks you along through breathless turns, and the most you can hope to do is hang on, try to enjoy the ride, and pray to God your appendages are still attached when the dust is settled. Maybe that’s all I’ve been able to manage this year. I think that, on the journey from darkness to light, I’m maybe about halfway there.

Despite the events that have ripped into my emotional well-being, there have also been so many encouraging developments that I can’t help but be grateful. I work two jobs; one in education and one in the online film world. Both are difficult to obtain and afford me a number of benefits that are the envy of many citizens. For the first time in my life this year, I was accepted into a Harvard educational institution. This has brought my family great pride and joy. I am surrounded by wonderful people in both areas of my life. And while stress threatens to completely destroy my life on an almost daily basis, I really wouldn’t have it any other way. As George Clooney once famously put it, “We are not swans. We are sharks.” And sharks thrive on constant motion.

Last year, I listed a bunch of people and things I’m thankful for. All those sentiments are still true. It would be redundant to just repeat everything again, but it really is a mostly-accurate representation of how I feel today. Nonetheless, I wanted to quickly re-iterate some of them, while adding a few others, lest I forget the goodness in my life. Here is what I’m grateful for:

For Matt – For his valuable friendship, his deep understanding, his giving heart, and his unstoppable passion for telling stories. Our meeting has perhaps been the best thing to come out of these past few years.

For Chi – For her continued patience with me, even as she enters a whole new phase of her life.

For my brother, Mike – For the ways in which he inspires me with his non-stop hard work, and the way he makes me laugh with his over-the-top no-nonsense attitude.

For Linda – For her kindness and companionship, which have been a valuable comfort as of late.

For Stephen Tobolowsky – For the stories, the profundity, the memories, the laughs, the tears that he has brought into this world, and that I have helped to facilitate. For giving me something to be proud of helping to create. Truly, I feel we are at the beginning of something amazing, and not the end.

For Lily – For her compassion, and for reaching out to me under circumstances where few would have dared.

For Deirdre – For her friendship and random acts of kindness.

For Mydhili – Because she is too cool for school. Also, her name is awesome. Seriously though: When people arrive at a new country and at a new school, the process by which they become friends with others can often feel random. I’m grateful that our friendship has somehow emerged newly from this selection process.

For people like Mary HK Choi, Matt Zoller Seitz, Myles McNutt, Alan Sepinwall, Adam Kempenaar, Alison Willmore, Dan Trachtenberg, Jeff Cannata, Matt Singer, Tasha Robinson, Eric D. Snider, Clay Shirky, Bob Garfield, Brooke Gladstone, Kim Masters, Maria Popova, and Katey Rich (and too many more than I can name here) – You inspire me with your writing/broadcasting. And with a few of you, I’ve been honored to meet and chat with you in the past year, and honored to call myself your friend. The pleasure has been mine.

For Instapaper + my Kindle – Because it has changed the way I read and (arguably) made me smarter.

For Sara – Because she shows me what is possible.

For Garron – Because his generosity and cooking skills know no bounds.

For Angie – For listening to my crazed ramblings when I need to be listened to the most.

For Bob and Jeff – For helping me to laugh with life. And for supporting me and giving me good advice when the time is right.

For everyone at /Film -From Peter, who makes everything possible (but I’m also grateful for his friendship), to Devindra and Adam, who constantly surprise me with their insights into film, to Germain, Russ, and Chris, who constantly churn out interesting and informative content. I can honestly say I’m proud to work for this organization, but I know that there is still much work to do.

For Salon – Because if you look beyond their ultra-left leaning views, you’ll find stories about life and stories about love, written with such honesty and grace that they can’t help but inspire some kind of admiration.

Again, for you – For reading, for listening, for engaging. For making what I do possible. For giving me the strength to keep going. Thanks all. Until next year…

Why Do News Sites Look So Horrible?

Lauren Rabaino shares some astute points about the sins that news sites make in their designs.

Calm the Hell Down, America: Defending the TSA

A number of people have come out in defense of the TSA’s enhanced pat down practices. Kevin Drum writes an “anti-rant” for Mother Jones, saying:

The fact that you personally are annoyed — you! an educated white-collar professional! — doesn’t mean that the process is idiotic. I’ve heard it called “security theater” so many times I’d be rich if I had a nickel for each time it popped up in my browser, but although the anti-TSA rants are often cathartic and amusing, they’ve never made much sense to me. All the crap that TSA goes through actually seems pretty clearly directed at improving the security of air travel.

Drum does bring up a pretty frightening point, though: If, God forbid, a terrorist attack were to succeed, our ease of air travel would undoubtedly decrease even further.

Over at Politico, Michael Kinsley urges us to remember that TSA officials are people too:

For the most part, the critics have taken aim at the agency and its rules, not the humble employees. But there are jokes about what kind of pervert would want to spend all day looking at X-rays of the privates of overweight Americans and then have the wonderful opportunity to run their hands up your leg. Don’t flatter yourself: Your leg is no thrill. What kind of pervert is attracted to the TSA? The answer is a pervert who needs a job. I favor jokes in all situations, but it would be nice if TSA jokes were accompanied by a note that your intended target is the rules, not the folks who are just trying to enforce them.

But perhaps my favorite response is from Foster Kamer, who just wants America to “Stop Freaking Out“:

America, get your shit together and buck up. This is a complex problem that lacks an easy solution. You freaking out at the airport — regardless of how violated you do or don’t feel — isn’t going to make anything better for anyone. Contact your congressional representatives! Do something that will actually make a difference. But whatever you do, do NOT mess with my holiday travel plans. I have an airport bar to get to, and when I get there, I will drink away the trauma of having my cock grabbed by an equally uncomfortable stranger, and then channel this fury into calls and letters forcing the elected officials I appointed to do their jobs into actually doing their jobs. For the moment, though, all of us — you, me, and TSA screeners — are going through variations of the same hell. Don’t make it worse.

How Amazon Screws Over Local Buinsseses…And Everyone Else

Man, isn’t Amazon amazing? I seriously order from them all the time, primarily because they are so cheap. One of the big reasons for the price gap between Amazon and virtually anywhere else I can shop it is the fact that I don’t have to pay taxes on Amazon goods.

Farhad Manjoo has a post over at Slate explaining why this is the case. It’s nothing new, but Manjoo does what he does best, which is aggregate all the information into one, easy-to-consume article:

Why doesn’t Amazon charge you sales tax? It has to do with the regulations states use to determine which companies must collect taxes. According to Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, companies are only required to collect sales taxes from their customers when they have a presence in the state in which they reside. If you buy something from the Web site of a company that has physical stores nearby, you’ll most likely have to pay taxes. When you shop at online-only stores, you pay tax only if the store has substantial operations in your state. Since Amazon’s headquarters are in Seattle, you have to pay taxes if you live in Washington State, and because it has warehouses or other facilities in Kentucky, Kansas, and North Dakota, you’ve got to pay taxes there, too.

Pope Says Condoms Are Okay For Women Too

In the Vatican’s latest effort to clarify the Pope’s recent remarks about condoms, Vatican has said that that condoms are also okay for women. According to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi:

“I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine,” Lombardi said. “He told me no. The problem is this … It’s the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship. This is if you’re a woman, a man, or a transsexual. We’re at the same point,” Lombardi said.

My guess? There’s going to be a lot more clarifying on this stance in the days to come, but if this pope finally does bring Catholic sexuality into the 21st century, it will be a thing to behold.

TSA Updates Procedures To Make Them More Unreasonable

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, Flying With Fish (via BoingBoing) reports that the TSA is going to start threatening to eject people from airports for refusing patdowns.

The new clarified policy for those who refuse pat downs by a TSA Transportation Security Officer (TSO), any pat down, is that the person who is refusing the pat down will be advised that they will be denied entry into the airport, and be escorted from the security screening area by TSA TSOs or police officers. If the person refuses the pat down again, they will be approached by a Supervisor TSO (STSO), who will again explain that a refusal of the pat down will result in the immediate removal from the security area by police officers. Following an escort out of the security area to the pre-security area the person will be informed that that they are being denied entry and that they may not attempt to reenter security.

TSA procedures are awesome for creating an illusion of safety, but I think Americans are starting to realize that the price of this illusion is becoming far too high.

In an interview with NPR last week, TSA Head John Pistole defended the new invasive pat downs, but was unable to answer Melissa Block’s question about what we’re doing to get ahead of NEW threats. It seems that everytime some terrorist does something crazy (shoe bombs, underwear bombs, etc.), we update our procedures to catch those people. But what will those crazy terrorists think of next? John Gruber points out one problem with this approach to airport security:

Here’s the question for Pistole, and anyone else who argues that these new TSA procedures are an appropriate response to that [underwear bomb] incident: What happens if the next guy hides his bomb up his ass?