There's a scene in the THE FIRM with MITCH MCDEERE and AGENT WAYNE TARRANCE at a GREYHOUND racing track. Mitch asks "Doesn't the dog ever get the bone?" Agent Tarrence replies "Yeah. I hear it happens once it a while. It's a disaster. They can never get that dog to run again." I think about that concept a lot. Can you ever go back? Is there a behavior acceptance threshold we cross that is incapable of correction? I worry about this when it comes to the presidency. We have a POTUS who has no regard for ideals, laws, institutions, public servants, honoring deals, the greater good of the country, and our standing as a global leader. To him, the presidency is not a honor, privilege or responsibility. It's a trophy. A thing. A magnifying glass to be used to aggrandize only him. What AMERICA stands for and the moral leadership of the world is a really big deal. Even when we haven't lived up to it. Or have been hypocritical or self-serving. The ideal is what we strive for and how we judge leadership. We've all agreed and disagreed about one president vs. another. But has one ever had as little respect for the ideals? Can we reverse the impact? In THE ATLANTIC, JACK GOLDSMITH asks "Will Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency?"... From 2m10s to 4m10s maybe the best guitar playing ever. At least for my money... Wanted to drive more attention to a great FIVETHIRTYEIGHT piece by WALT HICKEY and DHRUMIL MEHTA about the flaw in online movie rating systems and their impact. Democracy in online movie reviews is a good thing but can have dangerous consequences. Especially when reviews are skewed by gender and the reviewer may or may not have seen the movie. We live in a social media world now where people share things they haven't listened to, read or watched. Reviews can be just like that. "The thing about a democracy is that it really does fall to the user, the voter, and the vote counter to ensure that the will of the masses is correctly manifested." Everyone in the movie business is reading this article. I know because I sent it to them... As my interest in WWII grew so did my interest in the emergence of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. I usually start with docs and movies. A very underrated film is THE GOOD SHEPHERD. Directed by ROBERT DE NIRO and produced by my dear friend JANE ROSENTHAL. That film is loosely based on the CIA's beginnings with characters based on those who built it. It's on cable weekly now given the political climate. One such character (played by DE NIRO) in the movie is GENERAL WILLIAM SULLIVAN. A quick jump from the movie to WIKIPEDIA explained that he was based on GENERAL WILLIAM J. DONOVAN, the chief of the OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES (OSS), AMERICA’s wartime spy agency and the precursor to the CIA. From there I went to GOOGLE and found a great VANITY FAIR piece on him from 2011, "Spymaster General"... I haven't digested the APPLE event yet. But our friends at THE VERGE take a look at "the five most important things"... When I think about those that can't afford healthcare and the difference healthcare would make in their lives. I think of this and I get choked up... I flee LA during award show weekends... Happy Birthday to SRIRAM KRISHNAN, SALOME EDGEWORTH, VIVIAN SCHILLER, and SEAN MILLS.