11/29/11
11/26/11
Harper's Index
Percentage decrease in the median U.S. household income during the “Great Recession” : 3.2
During the subsequent “recovery” : 6.7
Portion of income growth since the end of the recession that has gone to corporate profits : 9/10
Minimum number of pigs stolen in Minnesota this September : 744
Amount the Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program returned to the Treasury after its allocation deadline passed : $568,000,000
Minimum amount the U.S. government overpaid for federal services in 2010 : $26,000,000,000
Percentage by which the average contracted project costs the government more than the equivalent government-run project : 83
Estimated percentage of U.S. public schools that will fail this year under the standards set by No Child Left Behind : 82
Chance that a school has lowered its proficiency standards to inflate test scores since 2005 : 1 in 2
Price the Berkeley College Republicans charged white men for baked goods at their September “Increase Diversity Bake Sale” : $2
Price they charged black men : $0.75
Date on which Governor Rick Scott said that Florida doesn’t need “more anthropologists” : 10/10/2011
Date on which Scott’s daughter received her anthropology degree : 1/11/2008
Rank of the U.S. Congress among world legislatures for gender parity : 89
Portion of U.S. mothers who read People magazine : 1/3
Percentage of Americans who say news organizations “hurt democracy” : 42
Chance that an American between 18 and 24 has read a book in the past year that wasn’t required for school or work : 1 in 2
Portion of the “Millennial Generation” that is “absolutely certain” God exists : 2/3
Rank of non-denominational Christianity among the fastest-growing religions in America during the past two decades : 2
Rank of “none” : 1
Number of Bibles that have been to the moon : 100
Number of messages in bottles sent out by one resident of Prince Edward Island since 1996 : 5,230
Number of responses he has received : 3,201
U.S. patent number assigned to a device for building the perfect snowman : 8,011,991
Number of codes in the current nationwide system for describing medical services on insurance bills : 17,849
Number in the new federally mandated system : 141,058
Code number for “crushed by alligator, initial encounter” : W5803XA
For “crushed by alligator, subsequent encounter” : W5803XS
Odds a West Virginia driver collided with a deer in the past year : 1 in 53
Date on which Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, unveiled a sculpture commemorating the Beatles’ 1964 visit there : 9/18/2011
Hours that the Beatles spent in the town : 1
Date on which the Chinese city of Chaohu was “canceled” by government decree : 8/22/2011
Percentage of Icelanders who believe that the existence of elves is “probable” or “certain” : 25
Number of Italian earthquake experts currently on trial for manslaughter for downplaying the risk of a 2009 earthquake : 7
Percentage of the vote received by the Pirate Party in Berlin’s September municipal elections : 8.9
Number of sex dolls distributed to SS soldiers by Heinrich Himmler, according to a book released this September : 50
Number of Afghan army battalions currently able to fight without coalition support : 0
Number of “major threats” the Transportation Security Administration has detected in the decade since its creation : 0
Portion of adults under thirty who think Hollywood is a threat to their values : 1/3
Minimum number of times Newt Gingrich has seen The Hangover : 7
During the subsequent “recovery” : 6.7
Portion of income growth since the end of the recession that has gone to corporate profits : 9/10
Minimum number of pigs stolen in Minnesota this September : 744
Amount the Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program returned to the Treasury after its allocation deadline passed : $568,000,000
Minimum amount the U.S. government overpaid for federal services in 2010 : $26,000,000,000
Percentage by which the average contracted project costs the government more than the equivalent government-run project : 83
Estimated percentage of U.S. public schools that will fail this year under the standards set by No Child Left Behind : 82
Chance that a school has lowered its proficiency standards to inflate test scores since 2005 : 1 in 2
Price the Berkeley College Republicans charged white men for baked goods at their September “Increase Diversity Bake Sale” : $2
Price they charged black men : $0.75
Date on which Governor Rick Scott said that Florida doesn’t need “more anthropologists” : 10/10/2011
Date on which Scott’s daughter received her anthropology degree : 1/11/2008
Rank of the U.S. Congress among world legislatures for gender parity : 89
Portion of U.S. mothers who read People magazine : 1/3
Percentage of Americans who say news organizations “hurt democracy” : 42
Chance that an American between 18 and 24 has read a book in the past year that wasn’t required for school or work : 1 in 2
Portion of the “Millennial Generation” that is “absolutely certain” God exists : 2/3
Rank of non-denominational Christianity among the fastest-growing religions in America during the past two decades : 2
Rank of “none” : 1
Number of Bibles that have been to the moon : 100
Number of messages in bottles sent out by one resident of Prince Edward Island since 1996 : 5,230
Number of responses he has received : 3,201
U.S. patent number assigned to a device for building the perfect snowman : 8,011,991
Number of codes in the current nationwide system for describing medical services on insurance bills : 17,849
Number in the new federally mandated system : 141,058
Code number for “crushed by alligator, initial encounter” : W5803XA
For “crushed by alligator, subsequent encounter” : W5803XS
Odds a West Virginia driver collided with a deer in the past year : 1 in 53
Date on which Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, unveiled a sculpture commemorating the Beatles’ 1964 visit there : 9/18/2011
Hours that the Beatles spent in the town : 1
Date on which the Chinese city of Chaohu was “canceled” by government decree : 8/22/2011
Percentage of Icelanders who believe that the existence of elves is “probable” or “certain” : 25
Number of Italian earthquake experts currently on trial for manslaughter for downplaying the risk of a 2009 earthquake : 7
Percentage of the vote received by the Pirate Party in Berlin’s September municipal elections : 8.9
Number of sex dolls distributed to SS soldiers by Heinrich Himmler, according to a book released this September : 50
Number of Afghan army battalions currently able to fight without coalition support : 0
Number of “major threats” the Transportation Security Administration has detected in the decade since its creation : 0
Portion of adults under thirty who think Hollywood is a threat to their values : 1/3
Minimum number of times Newt Gingrich has seen The Hangover : 7
11/22/11
The Night Watcher (Charlayne Woodard)
The Kirk Douglas Theatre Culver City
Charlayne Woodard’s manner is so disarmingly anecdotal in her effervescent solo show, “The Night Watcher,” that it takes a moment to realize that this isn’t our best girlfriend sharing confidences from the stage of the Kirk Douglas Theatre but a performer whose luminous talent exceeds her limited stardom.
She begins with a tale involving another gifted African American actress, the more famous Alfre Woodard (no relation), who called her up out of the blue to get Woodard and her husband to consider adopting a mixed-race baby that was about to be delivered at a Los Angeles hospital. This would seem to be an unusual thing to urge on a colleague, but it seems that many people have had a similar desire to put Woodard’s nurturing skills to good use.
“The Night Watcher” can be seen as one woman’s defense of remaining childless. But it’s really about the many ways in which maternal love can be shown in a world badly in need of more guiding hands. Given a tastefully simple production by veteran director Daniel Sullivan on a stage with a simple chair and just the right number of suggestive background projections, this modest offering touched me with its generosity, gentle humor and grace.
The night watcher 2Wrestling with her ambivalence, Woodard fears that she wouldn’t live up to the model of the “warrior mother” who raised her. Whatever she sets out to do, she wants to do with all her heart, and the demands of motherhood fill her with doubts. The oldest of five children, she had ample opportunity to mind her siblings. Now that she has become a successful “blue-collar actor,” she has grown fond of her domestic peace and freedom, the lazy Sundays with her husband reading the L.A. Times with their Maltese terrier snuggled between them.
But when godmotherly duty calls, she answers. Her fragmentary stories, briskly arranged over two acts, depict her stepping “into the gap” of foundering young lives. There is one goddaughter from an affluent family in Brentwood who gets pregnant at 14 and comes to her behind her parents’ back for advice. An 11-year-old niece, an adopted mixed-race girl with a snarling attitude, tests her patience with remarks that range from bratty to outright racist. A child who was horribly abused by her mother begins to envy Woodard’s pampered dog. One 15-year-old, the daughter of Woodard’s late friend, reveals that she has difficulty reading but no difficulty in attracting much older men. A nephew running into trouble with the law is at a dangerous crossroads.
Woodard’s interventions are sometimes successful, sometimes inconclusive and sometimes an apparent flop. She is rebuffed by parents who resent her dilettantish concern. Most problems can’t be fixed by weekly phone calls or checks for karate school or heartfelt pep talks. Time, constancy and regular sacrifice have no substitutes.
But Woodard brings other qualities to the table, such as a solidarity with youthful struggle, a playfulness born out of pleasure and empathy and a memory of the “aunties” who made an incalculable difference in her life. Woodard’s young charges are proud that she appeared on the TV series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (though confused why she lives in an apartment and not a mansion). But her flickering fame isn’t as influential as the example she sets of someone true to herself rather than others’ expectations.
Adults in the audience will be as drawn to Woodard as her community of kids. The radiant levity of her stage deportment, the blithe way she slides into accents and adopts signature traits and the strains of songs that joyfully burst from her keep us delighted even when certain segments cry out for more tightening. And anchoring it all is our grounded host with the cultivated voice, the one who has appeared in Shakespeare, Suzan-Lori Parks, countless television shows as well as her own solo plays. Woodard the artist. It is this presence that gives “The Night Watcher” its moral weight and assures us that while we are in her company we are in the safest of hands.
— Charles McNulty
Los Angeles Times
11/20/11
11/17/11
11/10/11
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