Clinton Global Initiative

For whatever reason, Bill Clinton's Global Initiative Summit didn't seem to get much press coverage this year, so for those who missed out or, for that matter, anyone who asks "where is the good news?" or "how can I make a difference?" just take a look at some of the highlights of the wonderful, philanthropic and forward-looking endeavors and commitments put forth over the last week:

From the official organization website:
"I'm ecstatic about the work that's been done here over the past three days. We have seen firsthand that one commitment of action inspires a myriad of others," President Bill Clinton said. "The quality and level of commitments that we have seen this year are a testament to the positive impact our CGI members and initiatives are having around the world."

Examples of the impact this year's commitments will potentially have around the world, include:

8.5 million out-of-school children will be enabled to enroll in school for the first time.
50 million people will have access to treatment of neglected tropical diseases.
170,031,331 acres of forest will be protected or restored.
11.2 million people will be empowered with increased access to sustainable incomes

In addition to the long list of new commitments made at this year's meeting, hundreds of commitments were made by more than 40,000 people who visited the newly launched MyCommitment.org. Through this online tool, nearly 200,000 hours of volunteer time and close to $130,000 were committed.

To help further cultivate a new generation of philanthropists and citizen-servants, President Clinton announced that CGI is launching CGI-U, an effort to expand CGI to college campuses.

"I believe the world has never needed a community of givers more than it does today. CGI-U will serve as a catalyst for commitments of action by young people around the country to make a difference in their world," Clinton said.

Several celebrites got involved:
"Actor Brad Pitt is expanding his commitment to New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward with his Make it Right project to create a community of 150 affordable and sustainable homes in one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Pitt and his partner Steve Bing are challenging members of the Clinton Global Initiative to join them in rebuilding the Lower Ninth Ward by each pledging to match $5 million in contributions to the Make it Right project, for a total of $10 million.

"The heart and soul of New Orleans, specifically the people of the Lower 9th Ward, are paramount to this project," said Pitt. "The words of one elderly man who is determined to return to New Orleans led to the name of our organization: he asked us, directly simply and profoundly, to help make it right. So that's what we're doing. We're going to help to make it right with 150 sustainable, affordable houses - houses that stand out for their design both aesthetically and structurally, so that these people can live in beautiful safe structures that respect their spirit and provide a good quality of life."

Jessica Biel and her father Jon Biel founded the Make the Difference Network to allow everyone to be a "grassroots philanthropist" by creating a social networking site that brings thousands of small- to medium-sized non-profits together with millions of potential donors. Users will be able to search a list of specific "wishes" posted by non-profits and then fund those wishes. After the first year, $30 million will be donated to 5,000 non-profits at an average of $500 per month. The second year should see those numbers rise to 10,000 non-profits and $60 million donated, with a two-year total of $90 million.

"Shakira, known for her provocative outfits and sex-infused songs, looked downright prim and proper as she shook former President Bill Clinton’s hand--a gesture which brought Clinton out from behind the podium--as he announced her organization's $40 million commitment to help relieve the effects of natural disasters in Peru and Nicaragua through investment in education, sanitation and water systems."


Other commitments include:
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Wal-Mart commits to reducing the water, plastic and cardboard used in laundry detergents, both by committing to stock only concentrated detergents, and by creating conditions that encourage other retailers to follow. By May, Wal-Mart will sell only concentrated detergent in all of its US stores. The impact of this effort will save more than 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic resin and 125 million pounds of cardboard.

Starbucks Coffee Co.
To aid the emerging African coffee industry, Starbucks will increase its regional coffee imports, and set up an on-site Farmer Support Center to provide technical assistance and credit access to aspiring coffee growers. Over this two year commitment, Starbucks will double the amount of coffee it purchases from East Africa and provide $1 million of credit to farmers.

H.J. Heinz Company Foundation & Helen Keller International (HKI): Sprinkles® for Rural India
HKI and the H.J. Heinz Company Foundation are making a $300,000 commitment to distribute Sprinkles, a vitamin and mineral supplement to 6.5 million children in India, providing the necessary iron, iodine and vitamin A for a healthy diet.

Mexican Reforestation by Coca-Cola Company
The $6.2 million Mexican program will plant 30 million trees to restore 25,000 hectares of important natural habitat with native species, helping to reduce greenhouse gases and remove more than 350,000 tons of CO2 over five years. Coca-Cola has also made a reforestation commitment in Brazil.

Princeton-Brown-Dillard Partnership
This commitment is the first example of a high-level partnership formed between relatively wealthy educational institutions and a relatively poor one. Brown University, in partnership with Princeton University, will give much needed academic, administrative, technical and consulting assistance to support Dillard University in New Orleans. Dillard University, a historically black institution, was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. This commitment will directly impact Dillard's 100 person faculty, as well as the more than 1,100 students currently enrolled.

Room to Read: Scaling Success: 10,000 bi-lingual libraries by 2010
By 2010, Room to Read aims to extend its geographic reach to 15 countries, including a launch in Latin America. As part of this $25 million commitment, Room to Read will expand its flagship Reading Room program to open 5,000 additional libraries, bringing the total to 10,000 libraries and self-publish more than 3.5 million children's books in local languages across three continents.

Harnessing Geothermal Energy in Africa
This $150m funded by the Geothermal Power Company of Iceland will help countries in the African Rift Valley to develop their geothermal energy resources helping them to develop sustainably. The project will invest in comprehensive research into the geothermal potential of Djibouti and if successful will build a large power plant driven on geothermal power.

Maternal and Infant Health Initiative
Maureen Mwanawasa, the First Lady of Zambia, made a 5 year, $2 million commitment with a number of partners to strengthen Zambia's maternal and infant healthcare system and improve the country's health statistics. The commitment will benefit more than 50,000 expectant mothers living in Zambia's Central Province annually.

Fighting Malaria with Bed Nets
The United Methodist Church commits to donating at least 150,000 insecticide-treated bed nets in the areas of the Côte d'Ivoire that are most affected by malaria. Because The United Methodist Church of Côte d'Ivoire is spread throughout the country, it has a "ready made" system for providing education and for distributing nets. In addition, members of the Texas Annual Conference and other US church leaders will help distribute the nets throughout the country. This action will affect the lives of 600,000 people.

Vehicle Leasing Program
The Skoll Foundation will provide credit support of $15.9 million to purchase 224 vehicles (motorcycles, double-cab pick-ups and ambulances) which will be leased to the Gambian Department of State for Health. These vehicles will be put into the established Riders for Health fleet management system in Gambia, allowing Riders to help Gambia to occupy a unique position as the first African country to have total health coverage for its entire population-every man, woman and child.

Micro-Land Ownership in India: Providing Economic and Social Opportunity for the Poorest
In this commitment that totals nearly $8 million, the Rural Development Institute together with nine partners will assist rural Indian families securing land rights for small plots of land. This will provide them not only with a place to live but an opportunity to produce food on their land from which they can make an income.

No, No, No, Laws Are For Criminals, Not Me

While everyone with a TV camera and a week's worth of 24-hour news cycles to fill was down in Jena last week covering protests and asking Al Sharpton his opinion on things, a tiny hamlet up in New Hampshire was also being plagued by a high school legal scandal of it's own.

It appears that at the end of last semester a group of up to dozens of students conspired to cheat on their finals to ensure good grades, and in the process broke into the school one night to steal the exams. Well, after an investigation the authorities decided to press misdemeanor charges against several students, dubbed "The Notorious Nine", with the threat of having them bumped up to felony charges if the parents insist on taking the case to trial.

Here, as in Jena, no is arguing what happened, the students and parents admit and accept that they unlawfully broke into the school to steal the tests and beat a kid unconscious, respectively, and in both cases, the supporters of the students feel the charges, any charges, are too severe for the offense; outrageous that their children are being treated as though they were criminals for a "schoolyard fight" or pulling a stupid prank. What is it with these so-called "pranks" recently, anyway? Breaking into school? Just a prank. Hanging nooses? What's not funny about that?. Robbing a bank? Haha, it was a joke.

Thankfully, there are people in the town that get why this was serious and inexcusable:
"The parents need to be reasonable," she said. "This is technically a Class B felony offense. How can you reduce that to a violation-level offense - which is for something like spitting on the sidewalk? Although you don't want to hammer them, you want them to know this is serious."

"We have never called the police for a cheating incident. But there is never a time when we would not call the police when someone breaks into our building," said Wayne Gersen, superintendent that oversees Hanover High School.

"They're cheating. They're breaking into the school. They deserve what they got," said Hannah Stone, a freshman.

There is talk that because this city is home to Dartmouth, the students feel added pressure to perform academically that led these students to commit these otherwise inexplicable crimes (one might argue there can't be too much pressure otherwise they'd have been well-prepared to take their tests already instead of cheating). I wonder how many of these parents and pundits pushing this excuse would allow for the same defense for crimes committed by kids from urban areas, that environmental pressures excuse illegal activity.

Is it just men, or does there seem to be a real push toward getting knee-jerk public revenge, a kind of politically correct mob justice, instead of finding the facts and applying the relevant law, even if it doesn't immediately right itself with our internal sense of the due punishment for the offender. Michael Vick got caught in dogfighting (technically, interstate gambling) and the animal rights folks want him locked away forever. Of course, according to typical sentencing, first-time offenders for his offense don't even go to jail, but don't tell that to PETA, they'll call you a soulless dog-hater and flood your e-mail inbox with pictures of mutilated dogs. The law doesn't serve their bloodlust and they clamored loud enough and so now Vick is more than likely going to prison for 12-18 months. Public pressure affecting the justice system in this way goes against the founding principles of our nation, designed to protect the few from the tyranny of the masses. (Not to mention, one might take a gander at the 14th amendment, time permitting)

Moreover, we are told the Jena case is about race relations, but what is anyone doing in Jena to foster the desired racial reconciliation by calling the town a haven for racist behavior? If anything, wouldn't that drive the wedge deeper? In Hanover, NH, is anyone actually working to round out the lives of students so academic pressure doesn't lead to further anti-social behavior? Or will we just point fingers and assign blame on somebody else, anybody else.

*******************

In other news, the First Amendment Center released their annual "State of the First Amendment Survey" results last week -
This year’s survey, being released to mark both annual Constitution Day (Sept. 17) activities and the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, found:

** Just 56% believe that the freedom to worship as one chooses extends to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme — down 16 points from 72% in 2000.

**58% of Americans would prevent protests during a funeral procession, even on public streets and sidewalks; and 74% would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others.

**34% (lowest since the survey first was done in 1997) think the press “has too much freedom,” but 60% of Americans disagree with the statement that the press tries to report the news without bias, and 62% believe the making up of stories is a widespread problem in the news media — down only slightly from 2006.

**25% said “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees,” well below the 49% recorded in the 2002 survey that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, but up from 18% in 2006.

“Americans clearly have mixed views of what First Amendment freedoms are and to whom they should fully apply,” said Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center. “To me the results of this year’s survey endorse the idea of more and better education for young people — our nation’s future leaders — about our basic freedoms.”

The right to practice one’s own religion was deemed “essential” or “important” by nearly all Americans (97%); as was the right to “speak freely about whatever you want” (98%) and to “assemble, march, protest or petition the government (94%),” Policinski said. “Still, Americans are hard pressed to name the five freedoms included in the First Amendment,” he said. Speech is the only one named by a majority of respondents (64%), followed by religion (19%), press and assembly (each 16%) and petition (3%).

Kant & Petraeus & Bush & Escher

For anyone who has been living under a rock this week, the Commanding General of the Multinational Force Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus testified before Congress this past week. In the course of the various lengthy hearings, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) asked Petraeus if the current course of action in Iraq is "making America safer". The General responded that he believed the current course is the best way to achieve our objectives in Iraq. The senator asked again, but it is making us safer. Petraeus responded, "Sir, I don't know, actually. I haven't sat down and thought it through..." Many jumped on him for this, Joe Biden calling it "unconscionable", but ol 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant had his back....

Excerpted from Immanuel Kant's "What is Enlightenment':
"The enlightenment requires nothing but freedom: freedom to make public use of one's own reason in all matters....On the other hand, the private use of reason may frequently be narrowly restricted without especially hindering the progress of enlightenment. By 'public use of reason' I mean that use which man, as a scholar, makes of it before the reading public . I call 'private use' that use which a man makes of his reason in a civic post that has been entrusted to him...and where arguing is not permitted: one must obey....Thus it would be very unfortunate if an officer on duty and under orders from his superiors should want to criticize the appropriateness or utility of his orders. He must obey....This is nothing that could burden his conscience. He speaks as one who is employed to speak in the name and under the orders of another."

In other news, unfortunately, it looks as though I may have been more correct than I cared to be about 2 months back when I wrote a post entitled "We Are Not Leaving Iraq", in which I laid out why I thought we are probably stuck there for the long haul, no matter how much grandstanding and fervor comes out of the left, ending with the prediction, "We aren't leaving Iraq. Not today. Not 6 months from now. Not January 20, 2009. Maybe not ever."

Then the president addressed the nation last night with just such a proposal for perpetual presence :
"This vision for a reduced American presence also has the support of Iraqi leaders from all communities. At the same time, they understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops."

So we stay there "until the job is done" or we stay there because the job is done? Looks like M.C. Escher somehow saw this coming too:


Back to Kant, Mr. President:
The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state; the natural state is one of war. This does not always mean open hostilities, but at least an unceasing threat of war. A state of peace, therefore, must be established, for in order to be secured against hostility it is not sufficient that hostilities simply be not committed; and, unless this security is pledged to each by his neighbor (a thing that can occur only in a civil state), each may treat his neighbor, from whom he demands this security, as an enemy.

Bloomberg Is At It Again

After eliminating trans-fats and banning the N Word already this year, Lil Mikey B. is at it again in the Big Apple.

Excerpted from Newsweek:
Paying kids for good grades is a popular (if questionable) parenting tactic. But when school starts next week, New York City will try to use the same enticement to get parents in low-income neighborhoods more involved in their children's education and overall health. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has raised more than $40 million (much of it from his own money and the Rockefeller Foundation) to pay families a modest amount for small tasks—$50 for getting a library card or $100 to take a child to the dentist—that could make a big difference.

The experimental program, called Opportunity NYC, is modeled on a 10-year-old Mexican program called Oportunidades, which has been so successful in reducing poverty in rural areas that it has been adopted by more than 20 countries, including Argentina and Turkey. International studies have found that these programs raise school enrollment and vaccination rates and lower the number of sick days students take. Bringing this idea to Harlem and the South Bronx may not make a radical difference, concedes Linda Gibbs, the deputy mayor for Health and Human Services. But, she adds, "It makes these activities matter in a new way...A mother might demand an early-intervention evaluation [to look for developmental or learning disabilities] for a child" to get the $150 payment, Gibbs says. "If she can't find a doctor to do it, the cash incentive might make Mom more likely to ask why those services aren't available in her community."

The idea behind Opportunity NYC is called conditional cash transfer, and the program is the first of its kind in this country. It's also the exact opposite of traditional social services for the poor, which hand out money without demanding much in return. In order to find out whether this reversal works, the city is enlisting 5,000 families to take part in the social experiment. They are being chosen randomly from lists of people getting housing assistance from the city. Half will receive the incentive money and the other half won't but will function as a control group, similar to clinical trials where some patients get a drug and others get a placebo.

"At first blush, this offends every sensibility I have," says James Oddo, the Republican minority leader of the New York City Council. "But then the fiscal conservative in me takes over and I think maybe it will cost me less as a taxpayer to pay a little on the front end." At this point, taxpayers aren't being asked to pay anything. Bloomberg decided to roll out Opportunity NYC with private funds in order to evaluate the program for two years without having to endure what could have been a bruising political battle.

But if it can help families who live in the city's poorest neighborhoods, it may be a risk worth taking. Some of the Opportunity NYC participants will come from East New York, a predominantly black and Hispanic corner of Brooklyn where half of the residents live below the poverty level and only half of all adults are high-school graduates. The local high school was shut down in June after years of abysmal academic performance and a graduation rate hovering around 29 percent. "The lack of education and of significant wage earners are the biggest challenges," says Bill Wilkens, coordinator of East New York's Local Development Corporation. "This is the last frontier."

Kanye vs. 50 vs. Kenny...Who Ya Got?!?

From Entertainment Weekly:
"Whose new CD will sell more when they both drop on Sept. 11, 50 Cent or Kanye West? While those two rappers continue to busy themselves trading verbal jabs over that question, a third contender is now staking his claim to that week's hotly contested sales crown: country superstar Kenny Chesney.

''It's funny how with every record that comes out, we're aware of the urban [competition], and none of those acts acknowledge that I exist,'' Chesney tells EW via email. ''Until I have that No. 1 debut on the Top 200.''

Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates, Chesney's 11th studio album, goes on sale the same Tuesday morning as 50 Cent's Curtis and Kanye West's Graduation. Chesney's last four studio efforts have opened atop Billboard's albums chart — including his most recent effort, The Road and the Radio, which beat the original soundtrack to 50 Cent's film Get Rich or Die Tryin' when both debuted in November 2005.
50 Cent has said that he will retire from his recording career if West outsells him."


I think the odds on favorite has to be Kenny, he is the most popular artist of the decade thus far by record sales and concert sales, (as I reminded us last November), he's still on top of the country world right now and that's a large fanbase that almost certainly won't have any interest in either Kanye or 50 who will split each other's sales, but Kanye's been pushing himself out there early this week, bashing MTV again and again about having Britney open @ the VMA's instead of him, so maybe that'll help him out. Either way, as long as we can all agree that 50 Cent must lose this competition and thereby retire.

If their respective most recent videos (to my knowledge) are any indication of the quality of album, I think Kanye wins, although Kenny puts up decent competition with a tug at the heartstrings).


VS.



Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure 50 will outsell Kanye and we'll be stuck with this mumbling gibberish for years to come.

Summer Movie Season '07 Recap

August is over, and as a result so is summer movie season. Kids are back in school, football is back, and so on, so summer movie season is therefore over as well, at least as far as I'm concerned. There are still a few summer titles in theaters, but in my opinion September starts the weak, but brief 6-7 week fall movie season before the "prestige pictures" of Oscar season start to roll out in late October/early November. Ok? Great, on to the movies!

By my count and recollection I saw 20 films in theaters this summer and for the most part they were fairly enjoyable, (only Transformers was a real waste of time) which I think says at least 1 of 3 things: 1) I try pretty hard to find the good in everything, 2) I only watch movies I know I'm going to like, or 3) This was a good summer for movies.

I think they rank out fairly well. So here we go:

The Elite:
1. Stardust - Best movie of the summer. An sweeping adventure movie experience that reminded me of the first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Princess Bride (though not quite on the level of those two), the way fantasy used to be made before it was hijacked and serialized by LOTR and Harry Potter. How this movie is not an absolute hit is beyond me.
2. Ratatouille: Best Pixar offering since their first (Toy Story). I had it pegged as the best of the summer, until I saw Stardust last week.

The Very Good:
3. Hot Fuzz
4. Hairspray
5. The Host
6. Waitress

The Good:
7. You Kill Me
8. The Simpsons Movie
9. Knocked Up
10. Superbad
11. Sicko
12. Mr. Bean's Holiday
13. Sunshine

The Respectable:
14. Becoming Jane
15. Oceans 13
16. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
17. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

The Forgettable:
18. Resurrecting the Champ
19. Spiderman 3
20. Transformers

WIth the 1st Pick in the 2008 United States Military Draft the Army Selects.....

Excerpted from a Newsweek.com editorial by a marine calling for the reinstatement of the draft:
The real failure of this war, the mistake that has led to all the malaise of Operation Iraqi Freedom, was the failure to not reinstitute the draft on Sept. 12, 2001—something I certainly believed would happen after running down 61 flights of the South Tower, dodging the carnage as I made my way to the Hudson River [I worked at the World Trade Center as an investment adviser for Morgan Stanley at the time]. But President Bush was determined to keep the lives of nonuniformed America—the wealthiest Americans, like himself—uninterrupted by the war. Consequently, we have a severe talent deficiency in the military, which the draft would remedy immediately. While America’s bravest are in the military, America’s brightest are not. Allow me to build a squad of the five brightest students from MIT and Caltech and promise them patrols on the highways connecting Baghdad and Fallujah, and I’ll bet that in six months they could render IED’s about as effective as a “Just Say No” campaign at a Grateful Dead show.

On a macro level, we are logistically weakened by the lack of a draft. It takes six to seven soldiers to support one infantryman in combat. So, you are basically asking 30,000 or so “grunts” to secure a nation of 26 million. I assure you, no matter who wins the 2008 election, we are staying in Iraq. But with the Marine Corps and the Army severely stressed after 3.5 years of desert and urban combat in Iraq—equipment needs replacing, recruitment efforts are coming up short—you tell me how we're going to sustain the current force structure without the draft? The president’s new war czar, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, essentially said as much earlier this month, when he announced that considering the draft “makes sense.”

Of course, the outcry was swift and predictable. America has rejected selective service before, though always in the guise of antiwar movements. But they should really be viewed as antidraft movements, and they existed, en masse, when the wealthy could buy their way out of serving—as Teddy Roosevelt’s father and his ilk did during the Civil War, or as countless college kids did during the deferment-ridden Vietnam conflict. Not every draftee has to be a front-line Marine or soldier, but history shows us that most entrepreneurial young men, faced with a fair draft, almost always chose the front. A deferment draft, however, is a different story, and ultimately counterproductive because of the acrimony it breeds. By allowing the fortunate and, often, most talented to stay home, those who are drafted feel less important than what they are asked to die for. At the end of the day, it was this bitterness that helped fuel the massive antiwar movement that pushed Nixon to end the draft in ‘73.

I don’t favor a Vietnam-style draft, where men like the current vice president could get five deferments. I am talking about a World War II draft, with the brothers and sons of future and former presidents answering the call (and, unfortunately, dying, as a Roosevelt and a Kennedy once did) on the front line. That is when the war effort is maximized. Quite simply, the military cannot be a faceless horde to those pulling the purse strings of our great economy.

That last point is most interesting to me because I recall a few weeks back a reporter on one of these cable news shows or maybe Meet the Press said he had been talking, a few years back, to Korean War veterans who were still serving in Congress and asked them if they thought the coming generations of politicians who would never serve in the military would be more gun-shy about rolling out the Army. Almost to a man, he reported, they felt the exact opposite; that those who had never experienced combat and didn't really understand the military would be infinitely more willing to put troops into combat, thinking the military is simply a blunt instrument that can solve any and all problems around the world; unfortunately, to dare say there may be situations and problems the American military is incapable of solving is tantamount to treason in the eyes of many today.

So, is a draft the answer? Maybe, maybe not, but the calls for it are certainly getting louder, and as they do, so will the calls for us to simply end the current conflict instead.

Unnecessary Piling On

Sen. Larry Craig did (or at least pleaded guilty to) a misdemeanor crime of a dubious nature. The whole incident from all accounts is at the very least bizarre and his present claims to having done nothing wrong seem to directly contradict his guilty plea. I would almost be willing to chalk this up to misunderstanding and police over-reach if it were not for that guilty plea. And his claim that the officer solicited him. According to the tape as I heard it, he tells the officer "you solicited me", but then the way he tells the story, there was no solicitation of any kind. He was simply reaching down to pick up a paper when he saw a police badge. It doesn't add up. At all. Go home, Sen. Craig, you are finished.

That said, there is no need for the incessant cries of "hypocrisy" and so on from the left, declaring incongruous the conservative stand for "traditional values" against a backdrop of never-ending corruption and moral morass (pun intended) from their end of the political spectrum. The problem is, when you set out as the champion of traditionally held beliefs and transgress them it is easier to be called a "hypocrite" than to call out someone who believes things need to change who then toes the conservative line. Conservatives are just happy you are "doing the right thing" on that particular issue. I think there should be less pointing fingers on moral issues, in a general sense, and more introspection (as an aside, I don't know how the Congress got tied up in making policy on "moral" issues in the first place. Where in article 1 of the constitution does it mention socio-cultural policy? [well, other than saying slavery could not be outlawed until at least 1808, which even then, I believe they'd argue had more to do with commerce than moral virtue]). There are no saints in Washington, and just because you don't (or can't) always live up to the ideal standard you believe in does not make you a hypocrite, does not make you a liar or a cheat or a criminal. It makes you human. But you have to try to do better or you are unforgivable and make fools of those who would forgive you. To quote Ben Franklin, "To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish".

That said, the conservatives need to realize that the sort of forgiveness they are advocating for Sen. Craig does not (or at the very least should not) only be extended to fellow conservatives. When are the Tom DeLay's of the world going to start advocating forgiveness for Michael Vick or Bill Clinton? No, forgiveness does not extend across the aisle, or out of the hallowed halls of Congress (unless it's for a fellow GOPer). Who cares if the other side piles on your guy when he falls, you should be the bigger pers...who am I kidding, these are politicians we're talking about; Bury the other side! Kill! Kill! Kill! Vote for me, because while I may not have anything to offer, look at those other guys, they're scum! Larry Craig was entrapped! Heckuva job, Brownie!

In other piling on related news:
Picking on kids is never the right thing to do, but nobody's perfect and this was too good to pass up (forgiveness please).

Remembering/Looking Forward to the Good ol Days

We are a nation nostalgic for high school. The two big entertainment phenomena from the second half of this month were High School Musical 2, the Friday night premiere became the most watched event in the history of basic cable and the 2nd most watched program ever by the Disney target demographic 9-14 age group, and SuperBad, a hilarious raunchy, R-rated comedy about that one unforgettable night at the end of high school that should be instantly enjoyable to anyone who has ever been a 17-year old boy scored back-to-back #1 weekends at the box office despite the existence of the 2nd wave of threequels from Bourne and Rush Hour.
In both films, high school is idealized as the apex of acceptable irresponsibility and social freedom.

What I find interesting is that neither of these movies about the high school experience is really targeted toward high school kids (although I imagine high school boys will probably flock to see Superbad, they aren't technically supposed to be allowed in without an adult...but tell that to the group of unchaperoned 8th graders that were in the same showing of 300 that I attended). "Tweens" (a ridiculous designation if ever there were one) watch HSM 2 and are excited over the prospects of their coming high school year being filled with dancing, singing, and everyone gets along in the end tales. The out of high-school viewer of Superbad remembers the good ol days of high school and reminisces about the crazy adventures they had or wild schemes they concocted back in their own adolescene.

Now to the films themselves:
High School Musical 2
High School Musical 2 suffers from the worst fate that can befall a musical: the story doesn't 'sing'. Musical writers the years over stress the importance of telling a story that creates situations wherein the characters can't help but break out into song and HSM2 only has 1 such moment and its the first scene of the film. It is the last 2-3 minutes of the school year and when the bell finally rings and summer is here the characters break into song and dance in a number that compares favorably with a similar scene from Disney's mostly overlooked mid-90's stroke of genius that is A Goofy Movie.


Beyond that scene, which borrows heavily from the original High School Musical, right down to the dancing with basketballs, it descends into an extended episode of Saved by the Bell from the summer they spent at the Malibu Sands Beach Club, which isn't altogether bad, but there are several songs that are added in for the sake of having songs that aren't any good, feel needlessly tacked on, or go on too long, especially at the end of the movie. The only other song in the film that comes close to justifying its existence is I Don't Dance, a humorous number during a baseball game (once again, drawing heavily from the first movie).

The first film was carried by great musical numbers which made the meager acting/dialogue between tolerable and the sometimes surrealistic visuals of East High more acceptable, but this time around the bad songs only underscore the bad acting and lazy directing (other than in the scene with Sharpay's big number which is, at least visually, a great homage to the classic, lavish musical choreography of Busby Berkley).

I suppose this one is worth seeing if you loved the first one, but it really is forgettable by comparison. Probably better to just watch the first one yet again. Or better yet, introduce the youngsters (and face it, most likely yourself as well) to the dance-floor wizardry of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers in Swing Time or Shall We Dance.





Superbad
Superbad has that same winning formula of the other two comedies Judd Apatow has a hand in since switching over to movies (40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up after failing to find an audience with critically acclaimed television shows Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared) in that the characters spout off pop-culture rich, profanity-laden dialogue for 2 hours, but while the dialogue is full of raunch the movie is really fairly staid in terms of what actually takes place on screen. The characters tend to make the "right" choices when faced with moral dilemmas and there is a strong theme across all three films of male camaraderie and how the "loser" (the titular 40-year-old virgin, the unemployed illegal immigrant in Knocked Up, and the chunky kid and awkward kids in this movie) can ultimately be "the man" in the end, continuing the cultural oscillations on the definition of masculinity.

Though set in the present day, the movie features a great soundtrack of 70s music and new 70s-sounding music recorded for the movie which serves to underscore the sort of goofy tone the same way it did in Undercover Brother.

The thing that sets it apart from most high-school movies is the rejection of traditional high school archetypes/stereotypes in the characters. For the most part, there are no clearly defined "cool kids" or "nerds", although the Fresno Bee's high school movie reviewer perfectly describes the one truly nerdy character in the film as a cross between Urkel and Harry Potter.

Seth, Evan and the rest of the high school seems to be one big group of kids who've more or less known each other since forever, but have separated themselves out over the years for the sake of appearances, conveniences, whatever. There is no impenetrable social hierarchy that the characters feel they are fighting against. Jules says she is having a party and invites Seth to come. No strings attached, no qualifications, she just invites him. Perhaps as a joke, perhaps because she doesn't expect him to come anyway, but there's no evidence of that. She seems to genuinely think he's an okay guy. This sort of subversion of genre makes the film worth the ticket price. That and the first 10-20 minutes of this are as good as anything that's been out this year in terms of comedy. The jokes are vulgar, but come on, that's how it is with 17/18 year old boys and what else would you expect from a film called Superbad.

Recommended Reading: If you enjoy Superbad, you'll probably also enjoy I Love You, Beth Cooper, a highly amusing novel about, you guessed it, that one infamous night at the end of high school in the life of unpopular class president Dennis Cooverman (picture a male version of Diane Court in the high school classic Say Anything) and his buddy as he tries to hook up with the head cheerleader while being chased by her just-back-from-Iraq, slightly psycho boyfriend and his army buddies.

Up next: The War on....Gangs?

A professed gang member was quoted in today's Fresno Bee saying, "None of my boys are changing. Maybe one out of 20 wants to get out. A lot of them are locked up, but they get out and do the same things - get faded and rob some fools."

Stanley Crouch of the NY Daily News offered up the following information in a recent op-ed:
Addressing a dilemma tantamount to terrorism, a few months ago Ben Stein wrote in the conservative American Spectator that, "In the five and a half years since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been roughly 40,000 killings by gangs and gang members in this United States of America, mostly in the African-American and Hispanic sections of large cities." ...Besides all of the human costs of these murders, the burden is estimated by the World Health Organization to cost an annual $300 billion. That amounts to about 150 weeks in Iraq, or three years.
This would seem a good subject for presidential debates, right? Wrong, apparently.

Given that there have presumably been nearly 10x as many Americans killed as a result of domestic gang violence as opposed to foreign radical terrorism in the half decade since we began our "War on Terror", it would seem to me that we have either a distorted set of national priorities or an unsettling lack of compassion for our fellow member of the body politic.

To those who are, in fact, concerned, the question remains what can we do about it? Local authorities have been trying, mostly in vain, to curb gang violence for decades. The problem continues to be that most gang members, seem to be impervious to reform, just recall that quote I started this post with. The only real solution to this is probably the very unspecific concept of prevention. Keeping kids involved, strong parents, focus on education and opportunities and so on. But these are the same notions and aspirations we have been telling ourselves are the cure for poverty and social disaffection for generations, and still we have the problems. We know "poverty" is a relative term and that the lifestyle maintained by some considered in poverty in America today would not have had such a distinction a century ago or in certain other countries; nevertheless, such comparisons are, perhaps, beside the point as the statistics fail to account for those today who either can't reliably be counted (i.e the homeless) or don't want to be counted (i.e. illegal immigrants) and their relative conditions would undoubtedly skew the statistics downward. Oh, the successes of the War on Poverty!

To Mr. Crouch's last point there, that the issue is not even on the general national radar, is an interesting one. I think the issue tends to be concentrated in certain areas (most notably California and Florida) so most of the country, at least geographically, isn't directly affected by gangs. I don't know if the FBI should be involved in ridding us of gangs, but I do know local level authorities have been struggling with it for decades, with decidedly mixed (if not downright disappointing) results. In England the answer the national government devised was a ban on handgun ownership, even to the point where the police do not carry guns (one of many facets of English life hilariously skewered in the unmissable Hot Fuzz, now on DVD), but the result was not what they expected):
In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

The Home Office figures - which exclude crimes involving air weapons - show the number of deaths and injuries caused by gun attacks in England and Wales soared from 864 in 1998-99 to 3,821 in 2005-06. That means that more than 10 people are injured or killed in a gun attack every day.
(More on the Brown/Blair adminstrations recent fudging of these stats here).

One commentator opined that much of this youthful aggression was abetted in previous generations through mandatory national service of some sort and maybe that is the case (a case Charlie Rangel has advocated bringing back and presidential candidate Chris Dodd advocates sans the mandatory-ness).

Ultimately, though, perhaps this is simply a sad fact of life that we will have to abide, and there is no real way to rid ourselves of gangs and other unprovoked acts of violent crime; there will always be young, out of the mainstream, frustrated individuals who will feel slighted/disrespected by "the system", don't want to change their ways and don't even necessarily even want to be broadly accepted, will likely act out in rash and often violent ways as a means of gaining some respect (read: fear) or status in the public eye. If that sounds like a form of domestic terrorism maybe that distinction is not too far off (see the death toll at the top of this post once again for a reminder of the devastation), although if you thought there was a ruckus about calling Katrina victims refugees, just imagine the maelstrom that would ensue from classifying fellow citizens as terrorists.

Laws Apply Even To Those We Don't Like

From Leonard Pitts Jr at the Miami Herald:
Meet Jack McClellan. You might want to shower afterward. Nobody in the greater Los Angeles area will have to ask what I mean. In the last month or so, McClellan has roiled Southern California by saying in effect: I'm a pedophile, and there's nothing you can do about it.

The hell of it is, he's right. You cannot, or in any event, should not, be arrested for what you are, only for what you've done. McClellan has done nothing. Or at least, nothing for which he should be prosecuted, there being no law against making people nauseous.

The story goes as follows. In late July, McClellan was confronted by police. They had been summoned by a woman who saw him loitering around the children's section of a library in Santa Monica. McClellan, who, according to news reports, lives mostly out of his car, was cooperative even to the point of allowing officers to take his picture. He was also candid and unapologetic about his sexual attraction to little girls. But McClellan, 45, evidently has no arrest record or warrants anywhere in the country, so police had no choice but to let him go.

The bizarre encounter quickly catapulted McClellan onto the local news and talk show circuit, where people learned that he had a website (since taken down) featuring photos taken of little girls in public places and ranking the best places for pedophiles to see children. It was also said that McClellan was thinking of moving to the city of Santa Clarita.

Two Santa Clarita lawyers were sufficiently alarmed to seek a restraining order requiring McClellan to stay away from the city's children. A judge was sufficiently alarmed to give them even more: an order prohibiting McClellan from coming within 30 feet of any child in the state. In effect, the judge imposed house arrest on a man who had committed no crime.

Predictably, McClellan was twice arrested last week for violating an order it would be almost impossible to obey. Just as predictably, legal experts are now saying the obvious: The order is unconstitutional.

Yes, Jack McClellan is a reprehensible freak. And that opinion holds, by the way, even if, as some suspect, he turns out to be merely some kind of bizarre prankster. But for our purposes today, take him at his word that he really is a man with a sexual fetish toward children. The urge to imprison such a creature for the rest of its days is more than understandable.

The problem is, there is no legal rationale for doing so. The law is a broadsword and it is being used here to peel an apple. It can't be done. You only destroy the apple and smear the sword.

There are limits to what the law can do -- and sometimes you find yourself stranded beyond those limits, faced with behavior that is clearly wrong and yet, just as clearly, legal. To respond to that behavior with acts that please the crowd but stain the law is to cross the line that separates the citizenry from the mob.

Californians should publicize McClellan's face and fetish until every child in the state knows to run, screaming, on sight. Put up fliers, organize online. But they ought not prosecute him for what he has only said.

Yes, fliers and such are unsatisfactory options. But any option -- the restraining order included -- that did not involve closing a fist on McClellan's windpipe would be unsatisfactory. At least those don't require us to sell out fundamental values for the fool's gold of security.

Even Jack McClellan enjoys the privileges of the First Amendment. He is free to say he's a child molester. He's free to say he's a Satanist. He's free to say he's a racist.

You think it's terrible that a man can say such things? I agree. Indeed the only thing more terrible would be if we lived in a country where he could not.

In Defense of the Long-Shot Candidate

As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on this movie all week so I just got around to watching the Democratic debate from Iowa this past Sunday. About 30 minutes into the forum Dennis Kucinich called out moderator George Stephanopolous for creating artificial divisions and drama between the two front-runners and attempting to marginalize the rest of the candidates. About 20 minutes later when George asked a question about belief in the power of prayer to each of the candidates, Kucinich replied, "I've been up here praying that you'd ask me a question for the last 45 minutes"

Bravo, Congressman Kucinich. Take every chance you get to call out the nonsense of the process as it stands at these forums, as there's no real point in delivering the message of your candidacy or your policy ideas (curtailing free trade, creating a state-run, not-for-profit health care system, expanded civil rights for homosexuals, repealing the Bush tax cuts, etc), because they aren't going to recount your ideas/arguments on any news programs later in the day or throughout the week, so only the few thousand viewers and the few dozen in the audience will ever hear it. Which is not to say you don't deserve to be heard, quite contrary, I think every candidate deserves an equal and fair hearing, instead of incessant coverage of whether Michelle Obama is taking veiled shots at Hillary Clinton, questions about Obama's "blackness", or the never-ending "Just testing the waters" drama of the Fred Thompson non-campaign, but if you're not going to get a real shot to lay out your message for the people, then at least attempt to open people up to the idea that the process itself is something that must be fixed, regardless of who becomes president.

Ruben Navarette of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote about the long shot candidates today.
Excerpted:
Long-shot presidential hopefuls may not get elected, but they do tend to grow on you – especially when they're being marginalized, insulted and picked on by everyone else. With the first primaries about 150 days away, the front-running candidates and the media elite no doubt prefer to simplify things by getting rid of those who are given no chance to win.

And I thought the job of thinning out the crop of candidates went to voters, not to the powerful and the power-brokers.

Try telling that to George Stephanopoulos. In a recent interview with Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, the host of ABC's “This Week” asked the candidate for his definition of success. Paul predictably responded that it was to win. “That's not going to happen,” Stephanopoulos informed him. The candidate then asked the host if he was willing to bet “every cent in your pocket” that Paul couldn't win. Without hesitating, Stephanopoulos said, “Yes.” Ouch.

Then it was Mike Gravel's turn for a reality check. In an interview, Stephanopoulos asked the former senator which Democrat he intended to ultimately support. “I'm going to vote for myself,” Gravel responded. “But you're not going to be president,” Stephanopoulos told him. Double ouch.

Apparently, not even John Edwards needs to apply, despite the fact that he usually comes in third in polls behind Clinton and Obama. In fact, in an extra dose of humiliation, Stephanopoulos introduced the candidates with their standing among Iowa voters in a recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Obama had 27 percent, while Clinton and Edwards each had 26 percent – statistically a dead heat. Several weeks ago an open microphone caught him whispering to Clinton that “we should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.” Now, poetically, some folks in the media aren't taking Edwards seriously.

This will all sort itself out. But what's the rush? The field will be winnowed down soon enough. So why speed up the process? It's not fair to the candidates, and it's not healthy for our democracy. That's the message we hear over and over again from the long shots. And by spreading it, they're making a valuable contribution. Campaign 2008 would be much duller without them.

Where I've Been

I apologize for the lengthy sabbatical from posting here, but for the last week I've been working like a mad man on a little short film and as a result, I had no free time or energy to give to anything else. As of 2 hours ago that project is officially complete (I say complete, but perhaps its more accurate to quote Leonardo da Vinci, "A work of art is never finished, only abandoned") so I'll be back to the blog tomorrow as lots has happened in the last week or so that I wish I'd had time to get to here. So, be on the lookout for that.

Ron Paul's Guerilla Tactics

This is the third time I've seen stuff like this around town this summer, so I figured I should document it as something new in the political culture around here, a veritable guerilla marketing tactic for a national candidate, probably without any prompting from the candidate himself or his official "people":


The Ron Paul Revolution soldiers on...

More on Dr. No
ronpaul2008.com

(Not) Keepin' It Real

Back in February, I wrote the following in regards to the phony righteous indignation I saw regarding the judge in the custody hearing for Anna Nicole Smith's child:
Well, here's my question. How would those, who now claim moral authority over this judge, know how he was handling the case unless they were watching? Don't tell me they have an overriding interest in family law or that Court TV is required viewing in their households; they were watching for voyeuristic entertainment value. They and virtually all media figures around the country were complicit in the exploitation of the Smith family and those around them over the past 2-3 weeks, gossiping about these lives for their own entertainment or profits. These are the same people who created Judge Judy, People's Court, and all of those other showcases for judge personalities that turned our judicial system into an attempt at entertainment. But none of them claim or take any responsibility, and now want to express indignation about this judge who might be trying to fit into their system.

Well it appears the phenomenon has reared its ugly head again and many notable folks are once again feigning outrage (to say nothing of the ridiculous self-imposed "bans" on Paris Hilton coverage back in June when she got of prison after the 'round the clock play-by-play leading up to her imprisonment):

Many of the candidates running for president have taken their pot-shots at Barack Obama for saying he would act on actionable intelligence if he knew where bin Laden was and the leaders of the harboring nation would not or could not act. The outcry from Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Chris Dodd and so on has been phony because they have all advanced similar ideas in the past and would do exactly the same thing in the situation outlined by Senator Obama, but they attack for the sake of political posturing, calling him naive for saying out loud what they might say in private. We all know they would do the same, so there is no practical sense in them pretending we don't know and pretending to be shocked B.O. would say so publicly. Joe Biden concurred with Mr. Obama, saying of course the U.S. would move in that situation, but no one has said anything about Biden's naivete. Perhaps it's because he's not a "front-runner" and the position is a good and honest one. Or maybe its just that no one heard him; the crowd at that candidate forum was pretty rowdy, so they could've just missed it.

In a press conference today, President Bush called out the Congress for holding too many politically-motivated hearings and not passing "meaningful legislation the American people require of them". Of course, this is phony indignation too because anyone who pays attention knows the president threatens to veto everything this barely Democratic-controlled Congress does manage to pass. And they wouldn't need to hold so many hearings if everything were on the up and up in his administration, the legislative branch wouldn't have to spend so much time doing oversight. But of course, it's easier to block any possibility of real progress and call them out for failing, calling it political expeditionism, as if that isn't exactly what he and his White House have been doing.

And then there's this, excerpted from Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen on Barry Bonds and the home run record:
Everybody who's mad about Barry Bonds, everybody who wants an asterisk next to his home-run record because they think he uses steroids, step forward. Raise a hand and repeat after me: "I'm sick of cheaters, and I'm not going to watch another baseball game, much less any movies starring actors with surgically enhanced noses, lips and breasts -- or 4-inch lifts in their shoes." Hey, where did you all go?

Bonds' home-run record is fine with me -- because professional sports is entertainment, and has been since Babe Ruth started making more money than the president...Fans and media covering these games desperately want to believe there's a big difference between the World Series and the movies. Or the Super Bowl and rock concerts. But there isn't. Professional sports and Hollywood are fantasy worlds constructed on a business transaction. Fans pay to see stars perform.

But the business interests behind professional sports go to great lengths to convince us that games matter, records matter and that athletes compete on level playing fields. Film is fake, but we have a great time anyway and have no problem supporting actors with more modified body parts than a customized '32 Ford roadster. Baseball? We want it "pure," whatever that means, and we want to believe it's possible to compare Ruth to Henry Aaron to Bonds.

Good luck.

Ruth played when blacks were banned from baseball. Aaron played a good part of his career at a time when pitchers dominated the game. Bonds is part of an era known for small ballparks, intense weight-training and voodoo elixirs that build biceps bigger than bikini-movie beach balls.

You might as well argue whether Kate Hepburn has a leg up on Meryl Streep or Humphrey Bogart is better than Jack Nicholson. Some people are born with special gifts. Others enhance pedestrian talents with hard work. Or surgical tinkering. Think Morgan Fairchild. Dylan Thomas drank himself to death and wrote raw, lyrical poetry. No one is demanding an asterisk next to "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."

But Bonds hits 756 home runs, controversy erupts and it's much ado about nothing. He's an adult, and if he has pumped up his body with magic potions -- running the risk of early death along the way -- that's his business. He will have done what entertainers do. The sports leagues are free to make rules in their futile effort to maintain the cover story that sports is much more than entertainment.

All I ask is that if baseball wipes out Bonds' record, it happily return the ticket money to millions of fans who've watched, cheered and booed him during his nearly 3,000 big-league games. Ineligible for refunds: anyone tummy-tucked, chin-lifted, Lasiked or holding a prescription for certain wildly popular and heavily advertised male-enhancement drugs.

I say, rage on oh occasional defender of what you perceive to be right. Defend, every now and then, integrity and truth and honesty. From time to time stand up against all that is wrong with the world. Speak out against every 3rd evil that befalls mankind. The rest of us need your reliable moral vacillation to guide us through this truly trying, semi-charmed kind of life. I'm hoping for a famous person or two to screw up soon so you can let them pass by unscathed, because I know the next person after them is soooooo gonna get it and I can hardly wait for that.

756 and Other Semi-Related Musings

Congratulations to Barry Bonds on attaining the most hallowed record in American sports (though on a personal note, I am still more amazed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 38,000+ career points and Cy Young's 511 career wins...and there is still the legend that Josh Gibson hit up to 920 HR in the Negro League).

And with that, I have fulfilled my baseball-related posting quota of 1 for the season. Let's move on, shall we?

Or so it seems to go in the sports media. I can understand the news media's quick shuffling off of this story, it's just sports and it's not like baseball means to the country today what it meant in say 1961 when Maris broke Babe Ruth's single-season HR record, heck it's even less relevant today than it was 5 years ago when Bonds broke McGwire's single-season HR record. The fact is, we live in a cynical culture in which we, as the axiom goes, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Why else would we go straight away to the possible financial value of the Bonds ball? I understand the desire to become an instant millionaire (by the by, to whom is this ball worth $5,000,000 exactly, if everyone is interested in it only to sell it off for large sums?) Gone are the days when kids would hit the ballpark and try to get autographs and collect baseball cards and know the stats for all the players. It's much easier in a SportsCenter culture to catch the home runs, strikeouts and diving catches once a day on ESPN than to watch the games at all. The only people who do know the stats are the fantasy geeks and they have no allegiances to teams, only the individual players; they don't even care about the outcome of the games their various players are in (unless they have a pitcher in the mix and need him to get a win with at least 6 IP, 4 strikeouts and no more than 2 walks and 3 runs given up to lock up the top seed in his/her league playoffs).

This reminds me of the way the passing of two master of the cinema, Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni, last week, passed without much of a blip. People don't know who they are, nor do they care. The films remain, but folks today don't seem particularly interested in seeking them (or much of anything else) out. If it's not readily available, it's not worth my time to seek out seems to be the mantra of today. Youtube has become the preferred source of entertainment for a generation. How much longer can we see pet tricks and people running into poles or falling down in painful ways, 1:06 at a time, before we realize how low our standards have gone? Is this really the future of entertainment? And don't even get me started on what passes for entertainment on TV these days.

There's been an interesting running discussion across the web about who/what in our entertainment will stand the test of time the way The Beatles, Babe Ruth, Alfred Hitchcock (at least in name), or Shakespeare (to go a little further back) and the like have. I saw a great argument that we no longer live in a "must-see" world. The ability for any event/song/movie/show/speech to affect the culture widely and immediately no longer exists here. There is no longer the shared experience that creates a cohesive culture. What it means to be an American, culturally, is constantly expanding (or eroding, depending how you look at it). Whether this is a good thing remains to be seen, but it certainly represents a shift that I think is worth taking note of, no?

Are You Ready For Some Football!?

Real football, not the Beckham-less MLS masquerading as "football". It's been 6 months since the Colts waxed the Bears in the Super Bowl and it's high time the boys get back out on the gridiron. Granted, we'll suffer through the requisite conversations and arguments about the necessity of a 4-game preseason, but who cares, really, it's football and bad football is always better than post-HGH baseball (except maybe the Yankees, I don't think they could be scoring as many runs as they are right now without doping). Football returns just in time to lift the us out of out of our collective athletic apathy and I'd say the American sports fan has earned it after another miserable summer of sports (other the Iraq-Saudi Arabia classic in the Asia Cup final and another Federer-Nadal classic at Wimbeldon.


Congrats to Michael Irvin, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Matthews, Roger Wehrli, and Gene Hickerson on being inducted into the Hall of Fame this afternoon.
In Hall of Fame Game tonight, I'm picking Mike Tomlin to lead the Steelers to victory in his head coaching debut.

For the 2007-08 regular season, I'm picking the Raiders to win the Super Bowl over the Eagles in a rematch of Super Bowl 15.
Raiders 27 Eagles 10

What's More Fun Than A Saturday Night on Capitol Hill?

Wow, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), chief opponent of earmarks in the House was on fire tonight. Did anyone else see it? (Assuming you, too, found yourself riveted to C-Span on a Saturday night). Offering up nearly a dozen amendments to strike but a handful of nearly 1300 earmarks in the $460,000,000,000 Defense Appropriations bill, Flake took his time attempting to take on spurious, garrulousy worded earmarks for items like a charter school, glove manufacturers [cold-shielding hand protection-ware or something to that effect], Sherwin-Williams paint, and so on, "We cannot continue to go down this road with earmarks that are considered duplicative and wasteful".

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) continued to rise in defense of the earmarks along with several other members from both sides of the aisle (including the perfectly contemptible Jerry Lewis of California). Pressed on continuing to fund the National Drug Intelligence Center which the Bush administration has requested be shut down declaring it unnecessary, Murtha glibbly offered up, "The Bush administration has made a few mistakes in the past...The administration believes a lot of things I disagree with".

Then, a devastating rant by Flake: "I would gladly yield time to anyone who agrees with the chairman of the Appropriations subcomittee that 1) these earmarks are competitively bid. Anybody in agreement here? or 2) that the US taxpayer, after paying for these earmarks, has the rights to the technology developed by these earmarks? Any takers there? I didn't think so. That is simply wrong. An earmark by definition is a sole source contract, it is circumventing the competitive bidding process. Now maybe you don't like what the bureaucrats over in the Defense department do, but to say that this is a competitively bid contract is simply wrong...if anybody can contradict, please take time."

No one rose to argue this point. However, they did shout him down on every amendment he proposed to strike earmarks. Some Congress we have. Press on, young Mr. Flake, fighitng the good fight against wasteful spending; thank you for not sticking to your 2000 campaign pledge to only serve three terms in the House. Without you, things would....be exactly the same unfortunately. Spotlighted on last week's Bill Moyers Journal, Mr. Flake was credited with getting one earmark stricken from the last appropriations bill, saving taxpayers a negligible $129,000. It's a start, and though things may look bleak, lets hope that's not where it ends:

Perhaps the most frequent justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking is that, quote, 'Members of Congress know their districts better than some faceless bureaucrat in Washington' But, let's face it: when we approve congressional earmarks for indoor rainforests in Iowa or teapot museums in North Carolina, we make the most spendthrift faceless bureaucrat look frugal...The truth is, we can try all we want to conjure up some sort of noble pedigree for the contemporary practice of earmarking, but we are just drinking our own bathwater if we think the public is buying it. It seems that over the past few years we've tried to increase the number of earmarks enough so that the plaudits we hear from earmark recipients will drown out the voices of taxpayers all over the country who have had enough"

Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover, But After The First Chapter...

From CNN, April 2001:
A panel examining media issues concluded Monday that coverage of the Bush administration has been affected by reporters with "low expectations" in their view of the White House.

Six panelists with Boston University's Washington Journalism Center on Monday applauded the Bush administration's management of the media during its first 100 days, but criticized the fourth estate for its apparent preoccupation with the outgoing Clinton administration.

One result, according to panelist and former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, is that the media have "been managed quite well by the Bush political people."

Lockhart said even after the inauguration, there was an "obsession with following what Clinton was doing." He said that allowed an "opportunity for the new president and his staff to figure out where everything was in a way that if they did make mistakes they didn't get a lot of attention."

Members of the panel agreed that the Bush administration is far more restrictive with the flow of information from the White House compared to the Clinton administration.

But [Thomas] Edsall, a veteran political reporter for the Washington Post, gave the administration kudos for its managing of the press corps."You really have to give the Bush administration extraordinary credit for its media operations during these first hundred days, not in terms of good relations necessarily but well managed relations. They have succeeded in gaining credibility under very difficult, trying times with not a strong base to come in to office on."

What the Michael Vick Episode Can Teach Us About Us

Michael Vick is in a heap of trouble, but his trouble points out a few troubling things in our society not that have little to do Mr. Vick.

#1: The Court of Public Opinion

How can you possibly get a fair trial after being convicted in the media, decried as "Barbaric!" (see the video above) on the Senate floor? Where can you find "12 good men and true" to hear that case impartially? Media coverage is so ubiquitous today it's almost impossible to not be innundated with the opinions of the various public figures (in this case those opinions are very one-sided), which will undoubtedly shape the opinions of anyone subject thereto and this makes it incredibly difficult to get a fair hearing. But legal ramifications aside, we publicly convict famous people immediately upon charges being leveled, for any occurence and it is nearly impossible to shake this label once applied, even if one is found not guilty or charges are dropped. It's possible that the very liveliehood of a person could be stripped away for false accusations and trumped up charges. I know that there is the public trust to win/lose, but in some cases, the public condemns you on the basis of not much other than emotion and you can never regain your same position or status even if you've done nothing wrong.

Syndicated columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson puts it this way:
Even if Vick somehow beats the fed charges in his trial which is scheduled for November, that’s a doomed hope. In fact, as was the case with [OJ] Simpson, that will ignite even greater public fury. They will wag fingers at Vick and say that he was able to use his fame and name, and his A team, high priced attorneys to massage the legal system to skip away scot free, even though he’s guilty as sin. Vick will pay an even steeper price for that presumption.

He will lose any chance at endorsements. Sportswriters will rail against him. Animal rights groups will hound Vick in every city he sets foot in waving “Convick” signs in his face. Fans will rain boos and catcalls down on him when he sets foot on the field.

We show our (often justifiable) cynicism with the legal process by thinking any celebrity cleared of charges is only freed or offered leniency because they are rich. We forget that a jury of citizens hears the evidence and decides based on the facts presented. That's how the courts work and always have. It's this rational procedure that aids in our maintenance of civility instead of the vigilantism and mob justice, regardless of the facts/evidence, that rears its ugly head in the Court of Public Opinion.

#2: The Price of Fame or: The Blessing and Curse of Celebrity in America
You are beloved and popular and rich. But when you screw up, we will tear you a new one. Look at the ridiculing of Britney Spears these days. Mel Gibson became a punchline. The campout at Paris Hilton's house before she went to jail. Watch the Tonight Show sometime. We build 'em up so we can tear 'em down. Steven Spielberg tells a story that late New York Times film critic Pauline Kael told him after Close Encounters was a critical and commercial hit (his 3rd in a row to start his career) that there was chum in the water (an obligatory Jaws reference), as the critics' community was just waiting for him to make a mistake. 1941 was a slight misfire and they buried him (albeit very briefly, he followed up with Raiders of the Lost Ark, then ET and found himself back in their good graces forever). But the point is there. We want to tear down the idols so we love having paparazzos milling around like vultures waiting for some calamity to befall them, waiting for them to do something dumb/illegal. Why do think sites like TMZ and Perez Hilton and The Superficial are so popular? I wrote a couple months back about the phenomenon of not viewing high-profile celebrities as actual people, and I think that separation of them from their humanity is something they can start to do to themselves as well and it can become really problematic and creates the sort of problems we can see in folks from Vick to Lohan.

#3 The Race Thing
Two common arguments: "You're singling Vick out because he's black" and "You're only defending Vick because he's black". The first points to a deep-seated mistrust of the establishment (both state and media, though the distinction is increasingly blurring) and an entrenched perception of racial discrimination (if not an outright state of racial discrimination). The second points to stereotypes borne as a result of the first. If there were no feeling of the media conspiring to portray minorities negatively there would be no need to be overly protective of "one of your own" against perceived oppression.

While there are no doubt some who fall into the categories laid out, neither charge is necessarily accurate. It's possible to single Vick out because he is charged with a heinous crime. The fact is, even being tangentially connected to dog-fighting is problematic. Having the FBI say they have been tracking you and activity on your property for 4-5 years is problematic. Likewise, it's possible to attempt to defend Vick from the legal perspective by saying he is innocent until proven guilty, and the trial isn't set to commence until November and most who are out protesting haven't even read the indictment so though they may espouse, in that Howard Beale tradition, the "Mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" attitude, they don't really know what exactly they are railing against.


#4: Pet the Dog, Eat the Cow
Sen. Robert Byrd stated, "God created the dog to be man's companion". A Sports Illustrated article quoted a few local Atlanta residents as saying this case was much worse than the case of Chris Benoit's double murder-suicide.

The Salt Lake Tribune reprints this Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed:

I watched cable news recently, and almost every anchor interviewed an official of the Humane Society, and all expressed horror, especially that Vick's indictment had accused him and his fellow defendants of executing dogs in ways apparently designed to be as cruel as possible: drowning, strangling, electrocution. One official compared the practice to child pornography. Then I went into town for some lunch, driving past all of the franchises peddling ground cow for human consumption - the same ones you'll find on every American highway exit. If killing dogs is the equivalent of child pornography, while eating cows is simply a way to put off mowing the lawn, we seem to be conflicted - or reeking with hypocrisy and confusion.

We have a set of intuitions, driven partly by our interactions with pets, that many animals can experience pain in a morally significant way, that they can suffer, or be used and degraded. Perhaps they have somewhat less of a claim on us than human beings do, but they make a claim. But another set of intuitions is driven by our dietary habits or our experience of thumping squirrels and armadillos on the road: that an animal is little more than an inanimate object, and can be used in whatever way a human being sees fit.

Our moral evaluation of animals seems to vary with their proximity to ourselves - both their everyday interactions with us and their perceived similarity to us - so that by the time you're done attributing love, loyalty and inferential reasoning to your dog, you have recognized her as a de facto human being, a member of the family. It works both ways, and your dog recognizes you as leader of the pack. Cows have big, sad eyes, but less personality of the sort that arouses our recognition. And these days, unless you're directly involved in the farming and food industry, your interaction with cows is limited to, let's say, the drive-through lane.

In practice, the moral claims of animals vary by species and track our sense of the animal's proximity - cognitive, emotional, physical - to ourselves. We become truly sentimental: We write memoirs with our dogs, talk baby-talk to them, let them lick our faces. But about other species we are as hard-nosed as possible. Essentially, we do whatever we feel like to them whenever we want. But there is no rational justification for this distinction. Pigs aren't more stupid, or less emotionally complex or less capable of experiencing pain than dogs, but they seem to lack that certain something (well, all except Charlotte's Wilbur).

We need to decide: (a) Do animals count? and (b) How, exactly, not as dwarfish, or four-legged, or stupid people, but as real things whose existence is, though connected to ours, profoundly external and different?

That last question is especially important, because we tend to think of our relationship to pets in human terms, and all other animals as a distinct other, yet how we arrive at that distinction is never really considered. What of those who have no pets and no real attachments to the "animal kingdom" (a phrase which itself confers human qualities on animals, the "king" of the jungle and so forth).

Well, that's all I got and I'm tired of writing. What say you? (I'm guessing nothing. That's usually how it goes 'round here).

RIP Ingmar Bergman

The Cinema has lost one of its all-time greats, perhaps the best European filmmaker ever:
Death and demons haunted the anguished works that made Ingmar Bergman a film-making legend. But the Swedish director — one of the greatest artists in cinema history — had overcome his intense fear of death by the time it finally found him.
Bergman died Monday at age 89, at home on the Swedish islet of Faro, the Ingmar Bergman Foundation said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

"The world has lost one of its very greatest film makers. He taught us all so much throughout his life," said British actor and director Richard Attenborough.

Bergman's movies won numerous awards and international acclaim, including Oscars for best foreign film for "The Virgin Spring," "Through a Glass Darkly" and "Fanny and Alexander." The 1973 "Cries and Whispers" was nominated for Best Picture.
Bergman, who retired from films in 2003 after making more than 50 movies, first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."
Bergman's works combined deep seriousness, indelible imagery and unexpected flashes of humor in finely written, inventively shot explorations of difficult subjects such as plague and madness.

More info on a legend for the unacquianted (an unacceptable status you should rectify post-haste should it apply to you):
The history of the cinema has seen directors whose works have been more "original" or "groundbreaking" (such as Eisenstein, Ozu or Godard). And there are plenty of directors who have made as many, if not more films (Griffith, Hitchcock or Chabrol). Yet the question remains: is there anyone who so epitomises the concept of the auteur – a filmmaker with full control over his medium, whose work has a clear and inimitable signature – as Ingmar Bergman?

One of the reasons one immediately recognises a Bergman film is that he is one of those rare filmmakers who has created his own cinematic world. (This is also the reason that we have a section on this website under the heading Universe.) Through recurring environments, themes, characters, stylistic devices, actors and film crews, Bergman has created his own kind of film, almost a genre in itself.
If Alfred Hitchcock is the epitome of the psychological thriller (despite the fact that he also made films in other genres), Bergman has become the hallmark for the existential/philosophical relationship drama (although he, too, has made other kinds of films). His films often use the narrative techniques of "classic" cinema with the addition of "modern" stylistic devices. Quite simply, Bergman fitted in perfectly with the ideal they wished to promote: the auteur who uses the film camera as a writer uses his pen.

In this mould Bergman's films rapidly came to typify the concept of "art house cinema". In a period when film was once again striving for legitimacy, Bergman demonstrated that film could be something more than entertainment: it could indeed be art. As such, it is important to remember that Bergman immediately preceded the other "modern" European directors with whom he is often mentioned: Antonioni, Buñuel, Fellini, Godard and others. The fact that film studies emerged at the end of the 1960s as an academic discipline in its own right is in many respects down to Bergman, whose films of existential exploration naturally lend themselves to systematic analysis.

To a large extent, Bergman's themes laid the foundation for his fame. His Strindberg-like conviction that marriage is hell on earth, and his recurring doubts about God were, ironically enough, and to put it crassly, not much more than a summary of the Scandinavian cultural tradition at the time, with its budding sexual freedom and its already far-reaching secularisation. Yet abroad at the time, not least in the catholic European and South American countries, or in the morally conservative United States and Eastern Europe, Bergman's films appeared revolutionary.

Neither can one totally ignore the contribution to Bergman's success of what were, for the time, quite daring depictions of nudity and "natural" sexuality. Bergman' films, with their unfathomable language, scenes of unspoilt natural beauty and blonde women, were widely regarded as the embodiment of a Scandinavian kind of exoticism.

A highly important director, Ingmar Bergman today seems ironically to have been virtually forgotten. His impact has been so all-pervasive, his influence so great and his films such obvious benchmarks, that his work has almost become invisible. Yet just as one occasionally has to revisit the Bible to understand something of western culture, one needs to see Bergman's films anew. For many it was a long time ago; for others it will be for the first time. Whichever it is, the films will feel familiar.

Mid-Summer Mix: Best of 2007 pt. 2

It's that time again, it's the middle of the summer and the oppressive heat is beating us all into submission, and a result you are probably feeling a little worn down. In an effort to provide even a slight pick-me-up for the summer blues, I offer you free music!

The Best of 2007 pt. 2 (with just a few not from 2007 that needed to be included):
Tracklisting (with links to the albums from whence these songs emanate)
1. Devon Sproule - Old Virginia Block
2. Michael Buble ft. Boyz II Men - Comin' Home Baby
3. Fionn Regan - Hunter's Map
4. Chrisette Michele - Your Joy
5. JJ Grey & Mofro - By My Side
6. Electric Soft Parade - Misunderstanding
7. The Sleepy Jackson - Dream On (2006)
8. Kaki King - Happy As A Dead Pig In The Sunshine (2003)
9. Donnie - Over-The-Counter Culture
10. Norah Jones - My Dear Country
11. Maroon 5 - Little of Your Time
12. Roark - Letters
13. The Greencards - Waiting on the Night
14. Jon McLaughlin - Perfect
15. JJ Grey & Mofro - The Sun is Shining Down
16. Lewis Taylor - Song (Acoustic)

As usual, enjoy!.....or tell me I have terrible taste in music, either way, although I would ask you to showcase your superior taste by offering your own mix (that last statement of course being equal parts ego and desire for free music).

I think Ben has a new one due out this weekend as well, so when that becomes available I will link to that as well.