• Beat the Pulp’s David Cranmer points me in the direction of a terrific multi-part BBC-TV biography of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective escapades. Start viewing here.
• Now that Left Coast Crime 2010 is over, it’s time to start thinking about next year’s Left Coast Crime convention, “The Big Chile,” to be held in scenic Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• Richard Robinson of The Broken Bullhorn reminds us that “The annual Paperback Collector’s Show is this coming Sunday March 21. It’s held at the Guest House Inn in Mission Hills. That’s in southern California, just north of L.A.” I dearly wish I could attend, though my bank account might suffer as a result.
• BSC Review has posted a good two-part video interview with author Craig McDonald (Print the Legend), conducted by Keith Rawson. Part I is here, Part II is here.
• Meanwhile, at My Book, the Movie, McDonald noodles over casting options for a big- or small-screen version of Print the Legend.
• Wallace Stroby seems to be all over the place, too. The Web site RedBank Orbit carries a wide-ranging interview with author Stroby, pegged to his participation in a film noir screening series. And Stroby submits his latest novel, Gone ’til November, to Marshal Zeringue’s infamous Page 69 Test. See the results here.
• I’ve never been a big Tom Selleck fan. I watched Magnum, P.I. intermittently, and have seen only the first of his Jesse Stone TV films, based on Robert B. Parker’s second series of crime novels. But it looks as my disinterest in the actor hasn’t hurt his career any. Mystery Books News reports that his sixth Jesse Stone film, No Remorse, is scheduled for a May 9 premiere on CBS-TV. Selleck may also be nearing a deal to star in a CBS pilot called Reagan’s Law, a multi-generational drama in which he would play “the handsome, confident and highly commended chief of police for the NYPD who lives in Brooklyn with his father, Patrick (Len Cariou), the ex-chief who struggles to find a balance between the political demands of the mayor's office and doing right by his fellow cops.”
• Col Bury, the co-editor of Thrillers, Killers ’n’ Chillers, has posted his interview with Nick Quantrill, author of the debut novel Broken Dreams. Catch their exchange here.
• As a longtime Esquire reader, I found this fascinating.
• A fine, short birthday tribute to Mickey Spillane.
• And I don’t know whether Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s turnabout decision this morning to support health-care reform will make the decisive difference in winning final approval for President Barack Obama’s landmark legislation, but it’s got to help. The essentials of that legislation have of course already passed in both houses of Congress, but the two bills must still be reconciled through the budgeting process. Republican’t intransigence on this and other Democratic agenda items, specifically designed to undermine Obama’s authority in the wake of the 2008 elections, and ignoring the crying needs of Americans for change, has been unprecedented. The GOP has really earned its new nickname, the Gridlock and Obstruction Party. And some health-care reform opponents have become ugly in their efforts to stop this legislative advancement and ensure the right of insurance companies to continue screwing American policyholders. But the hope is that this reconciliation step can finally be taken over this coming weekend, and by next week, writes Time’s Jay Newton-Small, media “coverage is likely to trumpet triumph, the most productive legislative session since LBJ, an historic and seminal victory.” Fingers crossed. UPDATE: In light of the Congressional Budget Office’s favorable report on the consequences of health-care reform, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein points out why both liberal and conservative Democrats would benefit by voting for this legislation.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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2 comments:
Tom Selleck only plays himself. Can that be a good thing?
Health-care reform: This bill is complicated one with plusses and minuses for average people with not a lot of money. However, the right wing has lost its mind over it and opposes anything that would control the insurance companies profit-mad policies and practices.
As Paul Krugman said on Friday, this is the only major industrialized country that doesn't insure people with pre-existing conditions. (And the insurance companies look for anything to prevent or cancel coverage, even pregnancy!)
And it's become a major issue over which the Obama administration could rise or fall.
So, I'd say support it but keep upfront and clear about the problems with it, and help those who need it to be insured.
Meanwhile, Medicaid is being cut right and left which is a problem. Arizona just announced it was cutting off 47,000 low-income children from S-CHIP and cutting back on coverage for 310,000 childless adults.
This will intensity the problem of uninsured people, poor people at that.
This has to be reversed.
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