Susan and I are hooked on an HBO TV series that our son Stu turned us on to. "The Newsroom" starring Jeff Daniels, Sam Watterson, and Emily Mortimer, among others. (Information on cast here.) We've burned through six of the ten first (and only)-season episodes in a couple of days. It's about the team of people who put out a nightly newscast. This is a product of the same guy, Aaron Sorkin, who created "The West Wing." Susan liked that better than I, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, too.
Is the show flawless . . . oh, no. It's got quite a few. See the "how to fix" article cited below. But it's entertaining--zippy dialog, good looking women, and idealism (pretty good qualities for me) and a great fantasy for me to imagine a news show that really was dedicated to reporting the news truthfully. What a concept.
Here's a taste.
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
The American Way
What upsets us? Not much. It seems to me that what concerns us are not the horrifying things, but the trivial things. How did I come to this conclusion today? Nothing more unusual than the day's headlines, which I for one, find horrifying quite frequently.
But this is not the sort of thing that seems to hold our attention. Pick just about any day in America and what do you get inundated with on the TV, in the culture? Nothing but shit, really . . . I wrote my $50 check for PBS today (I wish it could make them stop asking me for now every night in the middle of the News Hour.), and I realized that just about the only things I watch that are not on PBS are Ranger games, the few football games we watch, and a smattering of other stuff. This has been Susan's and my pattern for a long time. Why? because PBS is our only antidote for the incredible torrent of garbage everywhere else on television. Collectively, we seem to have embraced all the lightweight diversions we can seize upon to keep us from having to confront ourselves. Do you realize how many people in this country are utterly captivated by celebrities? A horrifying number. Is there anything more
The big news today is the American soldier who methodically murdered 16 Afghan civilians including women and children. Is this going to upset anyone? Not really. Horrify anyone? No more than abuse of Iraqi prisoners, pissing on the corpses of our enemies, and all those innocent people we kill "accidentally" with our lethal drones. No, people are more concerned about whether their favorite on "American Idol" advances. Horrible things like our war crimes, the number of people homeless in this country, our collective callousness and selfishness . . . we don't lose a wink's sleep. We're inured to horror, oblivious to anything that doesn't amuse us. It's the American way.
But this is not the sort of thing that seems to hold our attention. Pick just about any day in America and what do you get inundated with on the TV, in the culture? Nothing but shit, really . . . I wrote my $50 check for PBS today (I wish it could make them stop asking me for now every night in the middle of the News Hour.), and I realized that just about the only things I watch that are not on PBS are Ranger games, the few football games we watch, and a smattering of other stuff. This has been Susan's and my pattern for a long time. Why? because PBS is our only antidote for the incredible torrent of garbage everywhere else on television. Collectively, we seem to have embraced all the lightweight diversions we can seize upon to keep us from having to confront ourselves. Do you realize how many people in this country are utterly captivated by celebrities? A horrifying number. Is there anything more
The big news today is the American soldier who methodically murdered 16 Afghan civilians including women and children. Is this going to upset anyone? Not really. Horrify anyone? No more than abuse of Iraqi prisoners, pissing on the corpses of our enemies, and all those innocent people we kill "accidentally" with our lethal drones. No, people are more concerned about whether their favorite on "American Idol" advances. Horrible things like our war crimes, the number of people homeless in this country, our collective callousness and selfishness . . . we don't lose a wink's sleep. We're inured to horror, oblivious to anything that doesn't amuse us. It's the American way.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Colbert on the Contraception Crusade
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Really. What kind of comment would do justice to this?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
A Pox on Netflix
David Pogue has a great column today on what was once my, and apparently millions of other people's, favorite company, Netflix. For about $15 a month they would provide as many DVDs as you wanted to watch, just so long you didn't have more than three DVDs out at any one time. I'm not sure exactly when they went into business, but it's been a while back, and I've been with them for a long time. Later the company developed a streaming movie function, too. Different price structures depending on how many DVDs you had out at a time, but you got both services. But recently Netflix, without any warning or preparation of its customers,changed the rules of the game in a big way. They split the two functions, you could have either streaming or physical DVD, but if you wanted to have the two together, they jacked the price way up.
People were pissed. I dropped DVD service altogether. Reportedly over a million customers just left. Now the company has made matters worse. The CEO came out with an "apology" that just made people madder. I won't go into details. You can read the Pogue article. Suffice it to say, people are going to have to deal with two different outfits--Netflix for streaming video, and a new company called "Quixster" for DVDs. Two bills, two web sites. More than twice the headache.
Hell, if I weren't in the middle of "Mad Men"--an HBO TV series Susan and I are watching--I'd be inclined to drop the company too. I am paying $8 a month for streaming, and most the movies offered are distinctly second tier. Just like the company now. They are going to have to reverse field pretty quickly are they are, I think, cooked.
People were pissed. I dropped DVD service altogether. Reportedly over a million customers just left. Now the company has made matters worse. The CEO came out with an "apology" that just made people madder. I won't go into details. You can read the Pogue article. Suffice it to say, people are going to have to deal with two different outfits--Netflix for streaming video, and a new company called "Quixster" for DVDs. Two bills, two web sites. More than twice the headache.
Hell, if I weren't in the middle of "Mad Men"--an HBO TV series Susan and I are watching--I'd be inclined to drop the company too. I am paying $8 a month for streaming, and most the movies offered are distinctly second tier. Just like the company now. They are going to have to reverse field pretty quickly are they are, I think, cooked.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Class Warfare
A snippet from a recent episode of "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart knows how to skewer the pretentious blowhards from Fox better than anyone I know. But behind all the laughter this invokes, just remember that there are (many) people who think taxing the rich is "socialism." And "class warfare." Every time anything derogatory about the rich is said, they pronounce it class warfare. Anytime there's a suggestion that these people ought to be paying their way for the advantages this society affords them, it is pronounced by the bozos at Fox and others on the right. These jokers talk about socialism and class warfare as if they knew what they were talking about. Dumkopfs all . . . and the people that believe this crap, I'm afraid to say, are even dumber.
This is the continuation of the sketch above. They are of a piece. Underneath the laughs, I repeat, there's a really mean and sinister purpose. As Stewart puts it in his inimitable way at the close of this clip: "F--k those people . . . the poor."
Friday, January 21, 2011
Bye Bye, Keith
Many nights I watch Keith Olberman's "Countdown" show on MSNBC. Tonight I did not because after my brother and sister-in-law left this morning for home, after several days Susan and I were in catch up mode with recorded shows. So I didn't see the bombshell he dropped tonight: he is leaving his program on MSNBC effective immediately. I'm sure the reason for this abrupt departure will be forthcoming soon. For the moment all there is a bare announcement that the network and Olberman had ended their contract.
I will miss him. I've heard the guy on the radio also. I can say this: a really forceful voice for the progressives of this country has been silenced. I cannot but think that the executives of Comcast, which recently purchased MSNBC had something to do with this. I'm sure the new guys really couldn't abide his outspoken and biting presentation of the news and his frequent "special comments" on major events. In other words, there's obviously been some kind of break between Olberman and his future bosses. One of the things that makes me fairly certain of this is that the network is vociferously denying it.
Good luck, Keith. I feel sure you're going to be landing on your feet somewhere, and I hope to hear and see you again soon.
Here's what Olberman had to say about the recent killings in Arizona:
I will miss him. I've heard the guy on the radio also. I can say this: a really forceful voice for the progressives of this country has been silenced. I cannot but think that the executives of Comcast, which recently purchased MSNBC had something to do with this. I'm sure the new guys really couldn't abide his outspoken and biting presentation of the news and his frequent "special comments" on major events. In other words, there's obviously been some kind of break between Olberman and his future bosses. One of the things that makes me fairly certain of this is that the network is vociferously denying it.
Good luck, Keith. I feel sure you're going to be landing on your feet somewhere, and I hope to hear and see you again soon.
Here's what Olberman had to say about the recent killings in Arizona:
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Word of the Day: Words Matter
"Words matter." You bet your sweet bippy they do. Hell, any poet, any serious writer, can tell you that. They matter a great deal. They can lift or lower, enrage, frighten, raise to the heights, bring one to tears, take you away to worlds that don't exist. "Words matter." We've been hearing this a lot lately. The news and blogosphere and TV are all still full of chatter about the horrific shootings in Tucson last Saturday. Among other things, the pundits, scribblers, and talking heads are considering the question of the quality and tone, especially the latter, of political discourse in this country. What we need they say, is more civility. To tell you the truth, I'm getting sick of hearing the word civility. We don't need more civility, although more of it would be nice; civility is nothing more than good manners. Good manners aren't going to get to the heart of the problem in this country. The heart of it is hate. And it ain't going away, I greatly fear. Sometimes I think we hate our domestic "enemies" more than we do all our invented foreign enemies.
Here is an article my son Stu sent me some days ago that I just got around to reading. This writer, William Rivers Pitt, says better exactly what I would say. And he minces no words. Here's the way his piece begins:
You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul who pulled the trigger. The poison you injected into our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage.
There it is. The share of blame, the huge share, that the hate-mongers in this country have earned for this tragedy. I could not agree more with Pitt's assessment of this situation. Plus he points out something that may have escaped you. And that is the complicity of the mainstream news media in this horror. Have you noticed how swiftly the "truth" about the killer got out there, i.e., he is a deranged loner? Certainly not the inevitable spawn of the hate-churners on Fox and right-rant radio. Naw.
Think about it. How many times have you heard or read the commentators explicitly make the point that blaming the right-wing crazies of the media and their incessant hate speech, their never-ending stream of lies and distortions, their vicious character assassination of anyone on the left . . . how many times have these media mavens intoned the mantra that our poisoned, hate-twisted political speech had nothing to do with these killings? That it was the work of crazy man.
Well, yeah . . . but the lunatics are listening, Fox News, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, and the rest of you despicable, opportunistic liars. And like Pitt, "I'm talking to you, "mainstream" media people, who created this atmosphere of desperate rage and total paranoia out of whole cloth because of your unstoppable adoration for spectacle, and ratings, and because the companies that own your sorry asses agree with the deranged cretins you helped make so famous and powerful."
And those deranged cretins spew their hate bile into millions of minds. Every day. All day. It is a relentless stream. And this has nothing to do with atrocities like Tucson? Are you serious? Those of us who realize what's really happening have a good reason to be fearful. First of all, I think we're seriously outnumbered. For the pathetic yet dangerous population of dupes just seems to grow exponentially. And you better believe that this armed-to-the teeth bunch is getting more frustrated and angry by the hour. Do you think these post-Tucson bromides are going to cool them down? Do you think all the talk about "civility" is going shut Limbaugh, Savage, and Hannity up? How long before we have another Jared Lee Loughner with a Glock stride into an office building or crowd or church or school and blow people away right and left just for the sheer hell of it? For as sure as God made little green apples (as my Mom used to say), this is going to happen again. Count on it.
Here is an article my son Stu sent me some days ago that I just got around to reading. This writer, William Rivers Pitt, says better exactly what I would say. And he minces no words. Here's the way his piece begins:
To: Palin-lovers, Fox "News," the "mainstream" media, and the Far Right, et al.
From: William Rivers Pitt
Date: Monday 10 January 2011
Re: The blood on your handsHere's a key paragraph:
You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul who pulled the trigger. The poison you injected into our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage.
There it is. The share of blame, the huge share, that the hate-mongers in this country have earned for this tragedy. I could not agree more with Pitt's assessment of this situation. Plus he points out something that may have escaped you. And that is the complicity of the mainstream news media in this horror. Have you noticed how swiftly the "truth" about the killer got out there, i.e., he is a deranged loner? Certainly not the inevitable spawn of the hate-churners on Fox and right-rant radio. Naw.
Think about it. How many times have you heard or read the commentators explicitly make the point that blaming the right-wing crazies of the media and their incessant hate speech, their never-ending stream of lies and distortions, their vicious character assassination of anyone on the left . . . how many times have these media mavens intoned the mantra that our poisoned, hate-twisted political speech had nothing to do with these killings? That it was the work of crazy man.
Well, yeah . . . but the lunatics are listening, Fox News, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, and the rest of you despicable, opportunistic liars. And like Pitt, "I'm talking to you, "mainstream" media people, who created this atmosphere of desperate rage and total paranoia out of whole cloth because of your unstoppable adoration for spectacle, and ratings, and because the companies that own your sorry asses agree with the deranged cretins you helped make so famous and powerful."
And those deranged cretins spew their hate bile into millions of minds. Every day. All day. It is a relentless stream. And this has nothing to do with atrocities like Tucson? Are you serious? Those of us who realize what's really happening have a good reason to be fearful. First of all, I think we're seriously outnumbered. For the pathetic yet dangerous population of dupes just seems to grow exponentially. And you better believe that this armed-to-the teeth bunch is getting more frustrated and angry by the hour. Do you think these post-Tucson bromides are going to cool them down? Do you think all the talk about "civility" is going shut Limbaugh, Savage, and Hannity up? How long before we have another Jared Lee Loughner with a Glock stride into an office building or crowd or church or school and blow people away right and left just for the sheer hell of it? For as sure as God made little green apples (as my Mom used to say), this is going to happen again. Count on it.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Two Holy Mackerel Stories in Today's News
The first one's a Whoopee! The Obama administration in a fit of unaccustomed dedication to justice is fixing to slap a $120 billion fee on the nation's huge banks to partially reimburse we taxpayers for TARP losses. The bare outlines are clear enough: the too-big-to-fail banks whose asses were saved by hundreds of billions of taxpayer losses are expected to announce not only record profits for 2009--what bank could not profit borrowing money from the Fed at zero percent interest?--but also correspondingly huge bonuses for CEOs and executives. So with the coming announcement we poor strapped taxpayers, who have been savaged by massive unemployment, foreclosures, and a myriad of woes connected with what the too-big-to-fail banks visited upon us, will finally get some glimmer of pay-back. Not nearly enough, but the Wall Street fat cats are already screaming. And you can bet that their tools in Congress are going to do the same.
The second one's a we-shoulda-seen-this-coming. Guess who is going to become a regular commentator on Fox Faux News? Right, boys and girls, our favorite bubble-headed dingbat, the former governor of Alaska, and still the favorite of Tea Party dunces everywhere: Sarah Palin. Listen, I think any commentary on this would just be superfluous. Is this a surprise? No. Will this boost Fox Faux News ratings? Yes. Will this confirm for the thousandth time that this woman knows next to nothing about anything? Of course. Will it help to fatten her already bulging coffers from the sale of her ghost-written bestseller book? Of course. Is there justice in the world? Hell, no.
Update I: Palin debuted on Fox , as a "news analyst" (I cannot help but pause and just savor the unspeakable irony at work here) with another right-wing immortal, Bill O'Reilly. According to reports, she was, to put it kindly, less than glib and way south of insightful, and he was his usual horse's ass self. I'll bet the Nielsen ratings went through the roof.
Update II: I just heard on NPR in an interview with Timothy Geithner, that the fee being charged the piratical scoundrels of Wall Street is now $90 billion over the next ten years. And of course this is just fine with him. It's "fair." In view of the fact that the big banks are going to pay out $50 billion in executive bonuses this year, this doesn't seem all that burdensome, does it? This is what happens when they've got you by the short and curlies, brothers and sisters.
The second one's a we-shoulda-seen-this-coming. Guess who is going to become a regular commentator on Fox Faux News? Right, boys and girls, our favorite bubble-headed dingbat, the former governor of Alaska, and still the favorite of Tea Party dunces everywhere: Sarah Palin. Listen, I think any commentary on this would just be superfluous. Is this a surprise? No. Will this boost Fox Faux News ratings? Yes. Will this confirm for the thousandth time that this woman knows next to nothing about anything? Of course. Will it help to fatten her already bulging coffers from the sale of her ghost-written bestseller book? Of course. Is there justice in the world? Hell, no.
Update I: Palin debuted on Fox , as a "news analyst" (I cannot help but pause and just savor the unspeakable irony at work here) with another right-wing immortal, Bill O'Reilly. According to reports, she was, to put it kindly, less than glib and way south of insightful, and he was his usual horse's ass self. I'll bet the Nielsen ratings went through the roof.
Update II: I just heard on NPR in an interview with Timothy Geithner, that the fee being charged the piratical scoundrels of Wall Street is now $90 billion over the next ten years. And of course this is just fine with him. It's "fair." In view of the fact that the big banks are going to pay out $50 billion in executive bonuses this year, this doesn't seem all that burdensome, does it? This is what happens when they've got you by the short and curlies, brothers and sisters.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Doom Bunker
I had never heard of this jerk before.Which, I suppose, puts me in the category of some woefully uninformed person. But this guy Beck is, after all, a Fox News person, and before that a CNN bubblehead. So how was I supposed to know who he was?
Never mind. It's not necessarily important that we knew who he was then. We know him now and . . . surprise! Like many another conservative millionaire, he's loony. (Maybe his migration from barely-high-school graduate to alcoholic Catholic to Mormon has something to do with it. Sounds like a good way to get whiplash of the brain to me.) I've bemoaned the distressing fact that way too many wingnuts like this are afforded a public platform to reach millions with their pronouncements on what's wrong with the world (government and the existence of liberals) and how to fix it (eliminate both). Well, unless you saw this stuff, you cannot imagine how crazy these people are.* Check out this video of Beck's program of Friday, February 27. (The accompanying Crooks & Liars commentary isn't bad either.) The "War Room." Scenarios of the disasters that will befall the country as a result of a Democratic administration. This is so damn scary and creepy. These people are for real, and they number in the millions. And you watch and tell me if it doesn't sound like wishful thinking by these guys.
Well, check out what Stephen Colbert does with this in the video above. The best thing to do with idiots and their ideas is to mock them. And that's what he does, thoroughly. Like the Jon Stewart piece the same week, it's brilliant satire, and it plainly exposes the fear-mongering for what it is: crazed hallucinations.
*I'm assuming that you aren't familiar with this tripe because you just don't waste your time watching it. But millions of people do, and they believe every word of it. Encouraging, no?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Verse Umpteen
As announced in my previous entry, here are several more passages from the excellent "Notebook" section of the current Harper's. There's not a word of these passages that doesn't comport with what I've been saying, far less eloquently to anyone who would listen for the past several years.
The attentive reader will also note that this species of thinking, if that's what we chose to call it, is exactly what Stephen Colbert lampoons every day on "The Colbert Report." Nobody so illustrates this kind of thinking and its inherent danger than people such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and others of their ilk. These people who wield huge influence on basis of bluster and manipulation of the truth. Whose success absolutely depends on the ignorance of the audience. An audience too ignorant to understand that they're being manipulated by people whose ignorance in some ways rivals their own.
So, to continue:
The gut tells us things. It tells us what’s right and what’s wrong, who to hate and what to believe and who to vote for. Increasingly, it’s where American politics is done. . . . We know because we feel, as if truth were a matter of personal taste, or something to be divined in the human heart, like love.
I was raised to be ashamed of my ignorance, and to try to do something about it if at all possible. I carry that burden to this day, and have successfully passed it on to my children. I don’t believe I have the right to an opinion about something I know nothing about—constitutional law, for example, or sailing—a notion that puts me sadly out of step with a growing majority of my countrymen, many of whom may be unable to tell you anything at all about Islam, say, or socialism, or climate change, except that they hate it, are against it, don’t believe in it.
Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you.
But there’s more. Not only do we believe that opinion (our own) trumps expertise; we then go further and demand that expertise . . . those with actual knowledge supplicate themselves to the Believers, who don’t need to know. The logic here, if that’s the term, seems to rest on the a priori conviction that belief and knowledge are separate and unequal. Belief is higher, nobler; it comes from the heart; it feels like truth. There’s a kind of Biblical grandeur to it, and as God’s chosen, we have an inherent right to it. Knowledge, on the other hand, is impersonal, easily manipulated, inherently suspect. Like the facts it’s based on, it’s slippery, insubstantial—not solid like the things you believe.
The corollary to the axiom that belief beats knowledge, of course, is that ordinary folks shouldn’t value the latter too highly, and should be suspicious of those who do. Which may explain our inherent discomfort with argument. We may not know much, but at least we know what we believe. Tricky elitists, on the other hand, are always going on. Confusing things. We don’t trust them.
There’s no particular reason to believe, after all, that things will improve; that our ignorance and gullibility will miraculously abate, that the militant right and the entrenched left, both so given to caricature, will simultaneously emerge from their bunkers eager to embrace complexity, that our disdain for facts and our aversion to argument will reverse themselves. Precisely the opposite is likely.
And this is exactly what I'm afraid of. That the situation is now irreversible. I'm personally convinced that the tide of ignorance is now irresistible, that it is going to overwhelm us no matter what we do with our educational system, no matter what Obama does. And what makes this so dangerous is that people will not be equipped to resist any of the many species of evil charlatans who will certainly be vying for power. A populace armed with nothing but ignorance will fall for any kind of lie, little lies, big lies, outrageous lies. Like waterboarding somebody is not torturing them, or that torture is a legitimate interogation technique under certain circumstances. Somebody convince me that I'm wrong. Please.
The attentive reader will also note that this species of thinking, if that's what we chose to call it, is exactly what Stephen Colbert lampoons every day on "The Colbert Report." Nobody so illustrates this kind of thinking and its inherent danger than people such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and others of their ilk. These people who wield huge influence on basis of bluster and manipulation of the truth. Whose success absolutely depends on the ignorance of the audience. An audience too ignorant to understand that they're being manipulated by people whose ignorance in some ways rivals their own.
So, to continue:
The gut tells us things. It tells us what’s right and what’s wrong, who to hate and what to believe and who to vote for. Increasingly, it’s where American politics is done. . . . We know because we feel, as if truth were a matter of personal taste, or something to be divined in the human heart, like love.
I was raised to be ashamed of my ignorance, and to try to do something about it if at all possible. I carry that burden to this day, and have successfully passed it on to my children. I don’t believe I have the right to an opinion about something I know nothing about—constitutional law, for example, or sailing—a notion that puts me sadly out of step with a growing majority of my countrymen, many of whom may be unable to tell you anything at all about Islam, say, or socialism, or climate change, except that they hate it, are against it, don’t believe in it.
Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you.
But there’s more. Not only do we believe that opinion (our own) trumps expertise; we then go further and demand that expertise . . . those with actual knowledge supplicate themselves to the Believers, who don’t need to know. The logic here, if that’s the term, seems to rest on the a priori conviction that belief and knowledge are separate and unequal. Belief is higher, nobler; it comes from the heart; it feels like truth. There’s a kind of Biblical grandeur to it, and as God’s chosen, we have an inherent right to it. Knowledge, on the other hand, is impersonal, easily manipulated, inherently suspect. Like the facts it’s based on, it’s slippery, insubstantial—not solid like the things you believe.
The corollary to the axiom that belief beats knowledge, of course, is that ordinary folks shouldn’t value the latter too highly, and should be suspicious of those who do. Which may explain our inherent discomfort with argument. We may not know much, but at least we know what we believe. Tricky elitists, on the other hand, are always going on. Confusing things. We don’t trust them.
There’s no particular reason to believe, after all, that things will improve; that our ignorance and gullibility will miraculously abate, that the militant right and the entrenched left, both so given to caricature, will simultaneously emerge from their bunkers eager to embrace complexity, that our disdain for facts and our aversion to argument will reverse themselves. Precisely the opposite is likely.
And this is exactly what I'm afraid of. That the situation is now irreversible. I'm personally convinced that the tide of ignorance is now irresistible, that it is going to overwhelm us no matter what we do with our educational system, no matter what Obama does. And what makes this so dangerous is that people will not be equipped to resist any of the many species of evil charlatans who will certainly be vying for power. A populace armed with nothing but ignorance will fall for any kind of lie, little lies, big lies, outrageous lies. Like waterboarding somebody is not torturing them, or that torture is a legitimate interogation technique under certain circumstances. Somebody convince me that I'm wrong. Please.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Peace through Music
Opening and closing videos today are from one of the best shows on TV, "Bill Moyer's Journal" on PBS. It's one of the few television shows I try not to miss. Last night, due to the tremendous response it got, he did a reprise of a segment that ran about a month ago. I and apparently many others found this particular segment tremendously moving. It's about a guy named Mark Johnson, a guy with a vision about the transformative power of music. It has the power to bring people together. (Here's a transcript of the full interview.) Mark Johnson has started an organization called "Playing for Change: Peace through Music" that tries to embody that vision in various places throughout the world. He spent ten years putting together the videos you see here. It was a labor of love and an inspiration for all those idiots like me who believe that peace is possible. More than ever I'm convinced that it's the only choice we have.
Monday, November 17, 2008
I Like These People
Like probably a bizzillion other people, I watched Steve Croft's interview with President-elect Obama (who had his wife Michelle with him for most of it) last night on 60 Minutes. If somehow you missed it, you can watch it here. Just a few observations.
- I told my wife: "I really like these people." And I do. Both he and Michelle come across as natural people, easy with who they are. Great sense of humor, true devotion to their children and each other. Obama made a point of saying that he thought they were probably as ordinary, regular, everyday people to ever be president and first lady. They certainly appeared that way to me. You can imagine having them over to your house for nachos and beer.
- It's obvious that concern for their two daughters is uppermost in their minds. Obama wants them to remain as "normal" as they are now, despite the spotlight that's on them now (probably for the rest of their lives to one degree or another.)
- I thought it was touching that Obama said he couldn't take his walks like he used to. Yep. Everything he does, poor man, is going to be an event now.
- I like the sound of what he plans on doing immediately: close Guantanamo, begin drawing down in Iraq (although a plus-up in Afghanastan looms), outlaw torture.
- He's familiar with FDR's first hundred days and his approach to the depression he faced. Like him, Obama promises to "try things." All of them may not work, but he thinks the American people expect that of him.
- He promises to be straight with the American people--tell them what he's doing and why. What a concept.
- He's reading a lot of Lincoln, he says. He could certainly do a lot worse than this.
- He favors an 8-team playoff for college football national championship. "This is important," he says. Another good idea.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Ah So . . . Side Bets
If you didn't get a chance to catch it, Steve Kroft had a great story on "60 Minutes" last night about CDSs, the now infamous credit default swaps that have brought the US economy to the brink of implosion. This is the clearest explanation of these things that I've seen, a lot more clear than the Wikipedia article I just linked to. You can watch it here or read the text of the report. Either way, if you're a relative simplton about such things, you'll have a better grasp of it.
Only one quibble--well, actually, more than a quibble, a strong objection: the story laid blame for the deregulation of the financial industry on Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton. This is patently incorrect. The culprit is the Republican party and that genius of financial acumen Phil Gramm, who at the last minute tacked a near-300 page amendment into an appropriations bill that had to be passed. This amendment is what undid regulations of the banking industry that had been in place since the Great Depression and let the banks and greedy sharks on Wall Street loose to do their nefarious deeds. I have talked about this before, right here.
Only one quibble--well, actually, more than a quibble, a strong objection: the story laid blame for the deregulation of the financial industry on Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton. This is patently incorrect. The culprit is the Republican party and that genius of financial acumen Phil Gramm, who at the last minute tacked a near-300 page amendment into an appropriations bill that had to be passed. This amendment is what undid regulations of the banking industry that had been in place since the Great Depression and let the banks and greedy sharks on Wall Street loose to do their nefarious deeds. I have talked about this before, right here.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Are You Joking?
Get a load of these questions that one Barbara West, a so-called reporter for the ABC affiliate in Orlando, put to Joe Biden:
And before you dismiss stupidity as an explanation, read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason, which makes it clear, that that explanation cannot be dismissed lightly. So, too, with the defense of this silly woman West by her news director. According to him, this was "hard-hitting journalism." What are you going to do in media climate like this?
- If Biden is "embarrassed about the blatant attempt to register phony voters by ACORN," since Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., worked with the organization in the past;
- If Obama's comment about wanting tax policies that "spread the wealth" is "a potentially crushing political blunder";
- "You may recognize this famous quote: 'from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.' That's from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?";
- Regarding Biden's comment that the world would test Obama and the Obama-Biden administration will need the support of Americans since it might not be immediately apparent Obama did the right thing -- "Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and America's days as the world's leading power are over?"
- "What do you say to the people that are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a Socialist country like Sweden?"
And before you dismiss stupidity as an explanation, read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason, which makes it clear, that that explanation cannot be dismissed lightly. So, too, with the defense of this silly woman West by her news director. According to him, this was "hard-hitting journalism." What are you going to do in media climate like this?
Thursday, July 17, 2008
It's a F**king Cartoon!
Just found out that a first cousin of mine, in the same generation as my kids--I'm the old first cousin in this bunch--is blogging out of Lafayette, LA on Louisiana politics and that he's been at it for years. If you're the slightest bit interested in a (rare) solid leftist viewpoint from those environs, check him out. It's encouraging to know that there's a young person down there in the heart of the red, red bayous bleating out a small voice for sanity amongst the natives. Even if you're not interested, check it out because Louisiana politics are more fun than a circus with twice the number of freaks.
One of the things that people who are reading him are worried about is something I intended to ignore here because it's yet another triviality that's been pumped up by the airheads of the media into something that's supposed to be news. It fits right in there with flag lapel pins, terrorist fist-bumps, and bitter, gun-toting, religion-hugging blue color voters.
I'm talking about the now famous New Yorker cover depicting Barrack and Michelle Obama in outlandish outfits: Muslim and terrorist, respectively. After reading several comments along these lines, I had to respond. Herewith that response:
One of the things that people who are reading him are worried about is something I intended to ignore here because it's yet another triviality that's been pumped up by the airheads of the media into something that's supposed to be news. It fits right in there with flag lapel pins, terrorist fist-bumps, and bitter, gun-toting, religion-hugging blue color voters.
I'm talking about the now famous New Yorker cover depicting Barrack and Michelle Obama in outlandish outfits: Muslim and terrorist, respectively. After reading several comments along these lines, I had to respond. Herewith that response:
Don't necessarily agree with the hand wringing over the Obama cover on The New Yorker. I'm with Jon Stewart on this one, a guy who's correct far more often than he's not. "It's a fucking cartoon!" is what he says. Check out: http://www.thedailyshow.com/vide...e=obama- cartoonI'm afraid this manufactured flap about nothing is the kind of thing we're going to be seeing from now till November on the tube, that monster of distortion and that haven for the overpaid lame brains who call themselves journalists. Don't get me started.
Yeah, there are bigots and pea-brains all over the country, and yeah, you've got a lot of 'em in Lafayette. But believe me when I tell you, there are more of them per acre here in Oklahoma, the so-called "heartland," than you want to think about.
Alas and alack, a lot of people are simply not going to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. My mother, for example, and my wife's mother. Both from Louisiana. Half my siblings, all in Louisiana. All of my wife's siblings. All from Louisiana. Same will be so for bigots and bumpkins nationwide no matter what the hell was on the cover of the magazine. Hell, they could have had a photograph of Obama garroting a terrorist while wrapped in a huge American flag with an Uzi in his belt wearing a monstrous McCain lapel pin . . . wouldn't matter.
Do you think for one second if The New Yorker had never run that cartoon, it would have made the slightest difference to these people? I don't.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Unleashed Keith . . .
There are not enough hours in the day for me to do a lot of things I'd like to do. For example: keep up with reading everything interesting Harper's, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Catholic Reporter, and read a book a day and read all the fascinating stuff on the Web that interests me or watching all of The Colbert Report episodes (I do manage to keep up with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Simply not enough hours. Olbermann lasts an hour. My TV news allotment is an hour. So I use that hour watching The Lehrer Newshour on PBS, which is the best news program out there. So I have to leave Keith off my record list.
Olbermann is the antidote for the right wing idiots like Bill O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and others of that ilk. He can be funny, and he is passionate in his disgust for the Bush administration. His blast at Bush, which aired on May 14, is classic Keith, but this piece has been described as his angriest ever. He is outraged at the Iraq war and near apolplexy with Bush's assertion that he has shown his solidarity with the parents of soldiers killed in Iraq by giving up golf. He ends by telling the vile little pretender in the White House to "shut the hell up!" Apparently MSNBC executive was a little nervous about the lack of respect shown the president in this last line and asked Olbermann about it. (Well, you know how I feel about respect--it's not a given, it's an earned. Unless we're talking about old people . . . I think respect for them is automatic. Certainly the little pygmy in the White House has done nothing meriting respect.) Olbermann had a great comeback. He told the president to "shut the hell up" only because he could not tell him to "shut the fuck up" on television. Too bad. It's what needs to be said.
"The line stayed in," Olbermann observed.
Olbermann is the antidote for the right wing idiots like Bill O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and others of that ilk. He can be funny, and he is passionate in his disgust for the Bush administration. His blast at Bush, which aired on May 14, is classic Keith, but this piece has been described as his angriest ever. He is outraged at the Iraq war and near apolplexy with Bush's assertion that he has shown his solidarity with the parents of soldiers killed in Iraq by giving up golf. He ends by telling the vile little pretender in the White House to "shut the hell up!" Apparently MSNBC executive was a little nervous about the lack of respect shown the president in this last line and asked Olbermann about it. (Well, you know how I feel about respect--it's not a given, it's an earned. Unless we're talking about old people . . . I think respect for them is automatic. Certainly the little pygmy in the White House has done nothing meriting respect.) Olbermann had a great comeback. He told the president to "shut the hell up" only because he could not tell him to "shut the fuck up" on television. Too bad. It's what needs to be said.
"The line stayed in," Olbermann observed.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
We've Been Corn-holed
About that world food crisis I was just talking about. Coincidentally, I just ran across an entry in James Fallows' blog that lays out several excellent reasons that the diversion of grain into ethanol production is stupid. In fact, the stupidest bi-partisan policy of the last 50 years by popular acclaim. Naturally, it isn't stupid for the beneficiaries: all the big corporate agricultural giants, who, in keeping with the policy of this administration, belly up to the trough of the hundreds of millions of dollars that we middle class saps have poured in there. And who lobbied themselves a fat subsidy for this stupid policy in that abortion of an energy bill Congress passed last year.
It's harmful because: 1) it helped to catalyze higher levels of food inflation, 2) it consumes as much energy to make and distribute as it provides, 3) it deflects attention from developing trying sound policies to enhance our energy security, 4) it didn't allow for removal of taxes on the import of truly energy efficient ethanol produced in Brazil from sugar, and 5) it's a such an extreme example of government disfuntionality it causes people like me to become truly disillusioned with the political process."[Inspiration for the title of this little essay from a recent Stephen Colbert "Word" segment on The Colbert Report, an incisive, satirical, and hilarious TV show I never miss.]
I would add on my own that, to my limited understanding, most of the money for ethanol goes to large corporate farms and trickles down and around through agro-business, with only minimal impact on small family farmers (the ones our politicians claim to support), making the whole venture politically disingenuous in addition to economically-unsound and environmentally dubious.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)