Mercy!

That’s exactly what I thought when I heard the premise. Actually, I’ve never seen Panic Room, even though I like Forest Whitaker. The trailers made it look too much like your typical damsel in distress crap. I decided to check out Flightplan because I read two wildly differing reviews and because I wanted to see what sort of role choices Jodie Foster was making these days. I thought it was a perfectly serviceable action thriller. Well, maybe not too much action there. But it was mostly, kinda plausible; it dumped you right into a feeling of unease from the very start; and just about the time I was starting to fidget, it ended. What more could one ask of the genre? Maybe I’m just engaging in cheap psychobabble, but I think Foster’s choice to intensely guard her personal life colors her acting. This works to her advantage in flicks such as Silence of the Lambs, but sabotages others where she should be able to be open and expansive.

Live long enough, and I think you finally come to the conclusion that that the appropriate labels are not Democrat, Republican or Libertarian; liberal or conservative; but Social and Anti-Social.

Oh yeah. And don't you know, the salute to RUSS MYER in his sig sealed the deal for me. My kind of theoretician.

Whatever! I can hardly wait for Tuesday.

One self-evident and one unfortunate choice of words:

So I'm thinking, if I ever need more information on Viagra or Rolex watches, this is where the experts come to post?

I don't believe this is accurate. Unless you are referring to some period more than 50 or so years ago. Just theoretically, and not knowing much about this particular nominee, I think it could be a good thing to have one or more Supremes with "real world experience," as long as it doesn't go back to trying to pack the court with political hacks and cronies. Anyway, the pendulum swings in all things political. This sort of choice was probably inevitable (and inspired). I don't think she's just a trial balloon. She's in.

Intriguing choice. You know, it isn't even required that one be a lawyer to be eligible to serve on the Supreme Court.

Assuming "cruisin'" means the cruise ship industry, won't that take a big hit from the oil price shocks. Must take mucho gallons per mile to run one of those behemoths. Whatever - good success to you.

Two words for your patron: Spell Check

Which one is Pacino in? My main beef with him is that he seems to be be shouting all the time now. I guess I gave up following him after Scent of a Woman. Hoo-ah! Or whatever inanity he kept uttering. Hey! Jodie doesn't play teen hookers any more. So what's your beef with her roles? Anyway, I'm humiliated to see that I went to a movie that was #1 with opening week audiences.

Now someone’s comparing overhearing a phone conversation to having to breathe cigarette smoke? Pshsh All you pro-smoking, anti-government regulation types disappoint me. If you refuse to address the SPECIFIC public health and employee safety issues I (and others) raised above, I can only assume that you are incapable of doing so. This has gotten tedious. See ya.

I laughed so hard, I scared my cat who jumped up on top of my computer monitor and started meowing at me. I need to get one of those flat panel ones.

Rex, you're kidding, right? “Insist to their owners to make the place non-smoking”? I regret being rude, but that statement is just immature beyond belief. “stop making businesses cut out what they don't want to cut out because some people who work in a government office think its wrong”? I think you (as well as a couple of other posters) are willfully ignoring the evidence here. Food service workers in the U.S. account for the fourth highest number of employees in the workforce. Many thousands of them work where they are forced to risk their health because others pollute the air around them. Why should your job be a death sentence? How wacky would it be if I went around to everyone at a place of employment and every day poured a legally-obtained toxic chemical in your coffee or water and required you to drink it as a condition of continued employment? Could you respond directly to this point? Cigarette smoke is not only a health problem because of “long term health effects of cancer.” Respiratory diseases; cardiovascular diseases; reproductive effects; how about something as common as it being the number one cause of asthma attacks? The litany of adverse effects is well-established. As I said earlier, 400,000 Americans will die this year, next year, and for many years into the future because of cigarette smoke. You don’t think the government has the right to regulate a legal product that causes death and illness on such a grand scale and costs us billions of dollars annually? Could you respond directly to this point? So you think government has no right to regulate public accommodations at all? Issues of food purity and safe storage; building and electrical codes; culpability for underage and excessive alcohol consumption? Just caveat emptor? That’s silly. Or do you acknowledge that governmental entities have the right, but you just don’t like it? Could you respond directly to this point? I’ll climb off my high horse now. I’d be glad to continue, but don’t want to waste my time if you’re not going to give a serious response. BTW, since someone dropped the “gay marriage” issue into this thread (gee, what a surprise, huh?), I’ve just got to ask. Have you ever heard of a smoke-free gay bar where it isn’t legally mandated?

And you know this because.......you're a black person? Unless you are, I don't believe you get to tell members of the target group that they shouldn't feel insulted. Remember, Mr. Virtue didn't talk about aborting babies in general, or white babies, or babies of mafia dons, or babies of terrorist jihadists. No, no - he just plucked the descriptor, "BLACK" out of thin air? Hmmm. Yeah, no reason to get insulted. Boy, I really wish he'd theorized about aborting the babies of Southside White Sox fans. Wouldn't that have been a hoot?

You’re right, of course. It was seven years ago in California. I was just trying to contrast these two particular large cities. And since I see no one has thrown up that old saying here yet, I’ll go ahead and do it: A non-smoking section in a restaurant is like a non-urinating section in a swimming pool

Congratulations on getting one big hurdle out of the way. Best of success in your new career.

Talk about an idea whose time has come. I don’t even find the same tired, discredited arguments in this thread that one usually hears – that second-hand smoke isn’t dangerous; that everyone in the city would just up and drive to the suburbs and stop patronizing their neighborhood taverns; that it’s socialism run amuck (well, maybe a couple keep trying that out); and my favorite – if you don’t like to work in a toxic environment, just go find another job, all the many thousands of you mopes trying to make a living in the hospitality industry. I’m sorry to hear Mayor Daley supporting “compromises” and making that ridiculous statement that we don’t want to antagonize any industry. He doesn’t even have to be out in front on this. New York City has already led the way with no economic disaster resulting. Yesterday I called my alderman, O’Connor, to give him my opinion and see where he stood; I called the sponsoring alderman, Smith, just to put in my “atta’boy” for all his work; and I phoned to check out a club where I’d really like to go hear some music, but they allow smoking. Maybe next year I’ll be able to go spend my money at that club.

I can’t speak to the massage parlor reference ........ But isn’t it a great feeling when you turn the key and walk through the front door the first time after closing? Congratulations!

Were you responding to Gene’s post about celebrity pregnancies? Hence, you are referring to Cybill Shepherd? http://www.cybill.com/ Or were you casting aspersions on Rex/wino’s apparent multiple personalities, hence the reference to Sybil of based on true life, made for TV fame? http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&...0124802&intl=us I have such trouble keeping up with all the pop culture references hereabouts.

Balta - These are the good old days!

This is a public health issue, pure and simple. According to the CDC, each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. Compare that number to the loss of life in shocking events in your lifetime which have caused public outrage. No natural disaster or war comes close.

In the Small World Department, since I just recently heard about her from a mention on this thread: Australian singer Missy Higgins is doing an in-store performance tomorrow, October 1 at 2:00 PM at Borders Bookstore, 830 N Michigan Ave, Chicago. She also has a regular gig at the Congress Theatre later that day. Another free Borders music event sounds even more interesting – tonight, September 30 at 7:00 PM at their Uptown store, 4718 N. Broadway Avenue, Chicago – Taj Mahal is performing.

The poll wouldn’t let me vote after I chose to view the results first, but I would have chosen winodj (actually, I would prefer WinoDJ. Anyway, there is something incongruous about someone with an aggressive-sounding name like Kickass using such a passive method as a poll for picking a name, no? Wait a minute! Did that name have something to do with knocking Darrin Jackson? Until now, I had assumed it was about alcohol and spinning tunes. Mercy! There's such uncertainty online.

Nah, this is my first time and my only name. And I can only be an honorary dude, I believe. I'm of the female persuasion.