So glad Quagmire's not Japanese

As Family Guy nears the shark, the writers sometimes seem to think that the way to spice up the show is with sudden left-field revelations about established characters. And so it turns out that not only is Peter's biological father not Francis Griffin, but Peter was born in Mexico and is not a U. S. citizen. Yawn.

So it filled me with dread when in last night's episode, "Halloween on Spooner Street," Quagmire tells Peter that he's part Japanese. "Here we go: now it's not enough to have these left-field revelations about the main characters, we also need to do it for secondary characters," I thought.

But it turns out that Quagmire's not actually Japanese, he was just saying that to set up a prank in which he frightens Peter aboard an old Japanese plane. That doesn't, however, lessen the extreme unfunniness of the whole storyline.

Only my opponent lets violent criminals out early

Depending on which political attack ads you believe, Judge Denise Langford Morris is either tough on crime, or a bleeding heart softy who lets violent criminals out early, or even off the hook altogether. For some reason, "I never sent an innocent man to jail" just isn't a selling point for elected judges (as is the case with Michigan Supreme Court judges).

Personally, and this is just me talking, I'm more concerned about how a potential top state law enforcement officer would handle big insurance and product liability cases. For at least one of these points, there is an attack ad: Bill Schuette, a Court of Appeals judge running for Attorney General, supposedly sided with an insurance company in a case involving a quadriplegic victim of an accident because he took money from the insurance company in the case.

According to LegalNews.com, Schuette did receive a $200 contribution from an individual associated with an insurance company years prior to the case being heard in appellate court. That would be like some random guy giving me a dollar today and then two years later when I'm on jury duty on a case involving that person I vote not guilty. I probably wouldn't even remember the dollar I received from the accused at that point. (Schuette probably had to ask his campaign manager to look it up in the database in order to figure out what exactly his opponents were blowing out of proportion).

Maybe this year we'll get more nuanced voting in the Attorney General and Supreme Court slots. But I'm not using the word "nuanced" here to mean "better informed," just "not all straight down party lines."

Tough nerd gets ahead of himself

"Michigan chooses Rick Snyder," or so claims Snyder's latest spot. Apparently, the Snyder camp is such that present and future are the same tense. Even an unconfirmed potential future. November 2 is still almost two weeks away. Let's say that voters do indeed choose Rick Snyder by a landslide. With a low enough voter turnout, that would still not represent the will of Michigan, mute to say "None of the above."

And supposedly Virg Bernero is a "career politician" and not a "job creator" like Rick Snyder. With both candidates claiming to have created jobs but with neither one actually refuting the other's claims with solid evidence, one has to wonder what kinds of jobs they're talking about. If I pick up a couple of illegal immigrants at Home Depot to fix my gazebo today, does that count as job creation? What if I give my neighbor's kid a buck to mow my grass?

I created a thousand jobs, he lost a thousand jobs

No one disputes that jobs are a very important issue in Michigan for this coming election. Understandably, each gubernatorial candidates will try to present himself as the magic bullet cure for unemployment.

Virg Bernero has made his message about job creation a little clearer but its factuality remains open to dispute. Not surprisingly, one Bernero ad on TV claims that Rick Snyder, while at Gateway, allowed major downsizing to happen at that company. Instead of countering that with some kind of explanation, the Snyder camp has responded with an ad claiming that the unemployment in Lansing (the city Bernero has been mayor of) has skyrocketed to 88%.

Now, in one of Snyder's own ads, the "tough nerd" also lays claim to creating jobs, though avoiding the political pitfall of saying exactly how many. The point of this newer ad is to explain that Michigan lost so many jobs because the business tax is just so gosh darn high. For an outsider, Snyder sure sounds like an inside Republican: the answer to any question is always to cut taxes for businesses and the wealthy. I remain unconvinced that cutting business taxes guarantees that businesses won't cut jobs.

Brian the conservative

Stewie is not the only Family Guy character getting dumbed down. Brian is becoming quite the moron as well. I have a hard time believing that the Brian from Season 2 is a character who could be brainwashed into blindly and idiotically accepting Republican rhetoric after reading Rush Limbaugh's book. From this episode, we're to accept that Brian's liberalism was so shallow it could be easily transmuted and restored. This is perhaps an even sadder transgression against this character than having him eat Stewie's crap.

What is a "terminological inexactitude" exactly?

I'm guessing that the writers of Easy A are patting themselves on the back for their use of the term "terminological inexactitude." The 2-word, 11-syllable term most likely comes across to the audience as puffed up synonym for "lie." Most of the audience anyway. Some nitpickers will however pick apart the use of this term in the film.

The story concerns Olive (Emma Stone), a high school student who quickly gains a reputation for being a slut despite the fact that she is in fact a virgin. On her webcast, Olive talks about the "velocity" with which her "terminological inexactitude" travels through the entire school. Olive invents a college guy and lets her best friend, Rhiannon (Aly Michalka), jump to the conclusion that Olive lost her virginity to that guy during the weekend that just passed. The reality is that Olive stayed at home by herself the entire weekend.

I have no quibble with the first part of the term. My first thought would have been to use "verbal" instead, but it seems like the rumors spread as much through text messages as through phone calls and face-to-face conversations, perhaps more.

It's the second part of the term that gives me pause. The thesaurus defines "inexact" as "imprecise" or "inaccurate" or "vague," etc. I don't see anything like "totally false" in there. It seems to me that most people make a distinction between "imprecise" and "false." For example, it is imprecise to say that π is 3.1, but it is completely false to say that is negative 78 trillion.

Thus, going back to the film, it would have been inexact for Olive to say that she had sex with the guy if she had made out with him on his bed. But the guy doesn't even exist in the first place! Olive actually comes closer to sex with Brandon (Dan Byrd), artlessly described as a "homo," at Melody Bostick's house party. But it seems like she never actually says "I had sex with Brandon," because it is much easier to just let people think that after the weird performance they put in behind closed doors.

On the other hand, even nitpickers must acknowledge that the normal person cuts herself more slack for imprecisions than she does others, that is, if I say something false then it is an inexactitude, but if you say something false it is a lie.

Maybe in another installment we will take a look at what could be the most famous imprecision slash lie in the entire filmic canon: the idea that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker.

Stewie will never kill Lois

With Family Guy finally switching to 16:9, the show remains mired on many of its familiar tropes of more or less recent vintage, such as Quagmire's weird out-of-left-field hatred for Brian or James Woods' obsession with Quahog. But one old trope dusted off for last night's episode "And Then There Were Fewer" was Stewie's supposedly matricidal intentions towards his mother Lois, declared from the very first episode and examined in the episodes "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie."

But let's not forget "Death is a Bitch," in which, with Death incapacitated, Stewie throws Lois down the stairs, followed by an armoire and a grenade. Lois is none the worse for wear, because Death's broken ankle has not healed. Various nitpickers have pointed out that if Stewie really intends to kill his mother, he could've done any of the things he does in that episode when Death was infirm.

In last night's episode we get more evidence that Stewie's matricidal rants are just talk: before Diane Simmons can kill Lois, Stewie uses a long-distance rifle to kill Diane, then declares that if anyone will "drop" Lois, it will be him. Well, Stewie, you missed your chance: why couldn't you kill both Lois and Diane? Did you only have one bullet with you?