Inappropriate Content: July 2004

In Soviet Russia, blog reads you.

Future Flashback

So, with tech problems taken care of, here's a couple of my pictures from Alpha Confrence in DC last week:

Seen Farenheit 9/11? Then you'll recognize this protester in front of the White House.

And here I am in the chair of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia in the senate office buildings on capital hill. A preview of myself, some years from now, in a desk of my own?

3:48 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, July 29, 2004

The Blog-Free Convention

I have not read a single blog regarding the Democratic National Convention this week in Boston; I have been in Washington, D.C., not meeting with West Virginia's democratic senators who were, not surprisingly, in Boston. So I had an an opportunity to do something cool. Sit in Senator Robert Byrd's chair.

Oh, and to watch the speeches on CSPAN without the benefit of any analysis whatsoever. Unless you count five minutes of Tucker Carlson on CNN, which has baised me with the opinion that Tucker Carlson is a pinhead in a bow tie, and I hope he gets attacked by that dancing monkey who wants it's outfit back.

So, impressions of the convention. First, in the interest of completeness, here are the too-many people I wanted to see, but did not get to:

Al Gore
Carol Moseley-Braun (saw half)
Elizabeth Edwards
Dennis Kucinich
Al Sharpton
Joe Biden
Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson and all the other governors.

It'll be interesting to see how much of this mirrors what's going on in the Blogosphere.

Bill Clinton is now the elder statesman of the Democratic Party; far more partisan than Jimmy Carter and more influential by an order of magnitude than Ted Kennedy. I suspect it's something he'll be good at, unless Hillary runs in 2012.
Jimmy Carter is much more fun to listen to if your eating Chinese food.
Nancy Pelosi is a very, very focused leader determined to get democrats elected to congress, and not above some very shallow partisan rhetoric to do it.
Theresa Heinz Kerry delivered an excellent sound bite, along the lines of, "I am what some people have called 'opinionated.' ... Women should be called well informed just like men." I am predicted she gets trashed for knowing five languages and having a funny accent and, of course, for being "strong willed" and "controlling." But maybe I'm just being cynical.
Wesley Clark and Margaret Thatcher have set themeselves up for possible positions in the administration. Kerry's short list for State should now be Powell, Clark, McCain and——unpopular as it'd be on the left——Colin Powell. The last is unlikely, unfortunately.
Howard Dean is not in a posistion to get a post. He is too left. Unless they give him HUD as a way to make up to the radicals for keeping Powell on. But that is even more unlikely than keeping Powell on in the first place.
In the even more unlikely than that category, Judith Steinberg-Dean would make a great Surgeon General. But that's just plain silly.
Edwards' speech was very similar to the very best opening arguments I heard in the national mock trial competitions I attended in St. Paul and New Orleans. I think he will play better than anyone expects in the south, where lawyers are still respected as professionals.
Ron Reagan's sydicated radio show (LA area, I think) will be picked up by Air America and, hopefully, upstage Al Franken. If Franken & Co are stupid enough not to grab him with the enthusiasm of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Victoria's Secret, then satellite radio will pick him up the way they did former NPR host Bob Edwards.
Barak Obama will be the first black president of the United States of America.
And I'm gonna be working for him.

9:02 PM 2 Comments

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

The Best Political Analyists are Film Critics, Part 2

Ty Burr at the Boston Globe reviews Antoine Fuqua's "King Arthur," which is apparently written specifically to piss off english majors, literary buffs and T.H. White. It seems that the Knights of the Round Table were Roman conscripts (?), Arthur -- ah, Artorius -- was a commander who had learned about equality and democracy from the Roman Empire (??), and Merlin a rebel chieftan (!).

When the Romans pulled out of Britan (!!), the evil Saxons began to overrun the island from the north (!!!), until Arthur and his knights teamed up with Merlin and the natives to stop them (♠♣♥).

Historical accuracy in films is a pet peeve of mine, but Burr keeps it in perspective:

What does any of this have to do with King Arthur? If you have to ask that, you're in the wrong multiplex.

Those last scenes are so well turned, in fact, that you may briefly forget a war movie is the last thing we need just now. I know, I know, it's silly to play geopolitical metaphor with a hunk of summer headcheese, but tell that to Bruckheimer and company, who happily position Arthur as an early adopter of all-American democratic values. He is us, they're saying. Funny, the last time I looked at the headlines, we were playing the Romans.

12:17 PM 0 Comments

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Boston

That's a Boston sunset in the background and me in
the foreground, playing with my big, ah, camera.

10:13 PM 4 Comments

Happy Independence Day

President Bush celebrated the 4th of July by giving us independence from the Endangered Species Act! Fafblog:

The new rules take a more "optional" approach to the Endangered Species Act, replacing "enforcement" of existing laws with "incentives" that make it easier for you to "get away with killing protected species." Bush's Secretary of the Interior calls this "New Environmentalism," which is probably more accurately descibed as "Not Environmentalism."

Liberal wonk Matthew Yglesias reacts with "Who cares? Species die, shit happens, get over it."

I used to say Martin Sheen in West Wing mode would make a better president than Bush. Now, I'm thinking Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now mode would do better.

5:02 PM 0 Comments

The Best Political Analysts Are Film Critics

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in Washington, D.C. with my aunt and uncle, and was impressed at Moore's most effective, moving film. Oh, yeah, disturbed, too.

Here's a good review of Fahrenheit 9/11 curtsey of City Weekly's Scott Renshaw:

What do you do when you approve of the message, but doubt every word that comes out of the messenger's self-aggrandizing mouth? Michael Moore’s already-record-smashing documentary presents the filmmaker's partisan case that President Bush stole the 2000 election, bumbled his way through response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and has prosecuted two wars that stand to benefit friends in high places. Make no mistake, partisanship isn't the problem here——Moore asks valid, critical questions about the administration's policies and motivations. But his journalism of convenience allows him to employ "facts" that serve his cause while grossly misrepresenting reality——and worse yet, too rarely does he make his point in an entertaining or artistically interesting way. Either you believe that buttressing your political argument with specious reasoning is wrong, or you don't; it shouldn't matter that the guy trying to make the end justify the means is on our side.

Renshaw has one bit bass-ackwards; Moore's best features is his ability to make his points in an artistically interesting way. His lament that no senator would sign a protests at the massive disenfranchisement of black Florida voters is made with the emotionsubtlety(and sutlelty) of Kubrick. But Moore's laundry list of the administration's sins comes across as proof of a great conspiracy. In fact, it is simply a far from complete list of the myrad mistakes of a spectacularly incompentent and self-delusional administration.

But something that disturbs me even more is that there is so much attention from everyone at Moore's dishonesty, while Bush continues to get a free pass. Or, as Matthew Yglesias puts it:

The really funny thing, though, is that while George W. Bush is president of the United States and wrecking (a) the country's foreign policy and (b) the country's fiscal policy, Michael Moore is a somewhat famous guy who makes movies. Get it?

12:14 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, July 03, 2004

What I Dishonestly Think

The Living Room Candidate is a history of presidental campaign commercials dating back to the beginning of television, and if you have DSL or cable, a capsule history of the last fifty years of American politics.

My favorite ad, Ronald Reagan's first commercial, campaigning for Goldwater in '64. Just Reagan, standing there, talking. He uses the phrase "do you honestly believe" about three times and debunks the "nonsense" about Goldwater being a right-wing nut so thoroughly I actually forgot for a second that Goldwater was a right-wing, anti-pinko nut who wanted to nuke 'nam.

Goldwater lost because his televison commercials were a cavalcade of people more interesting than Barry Goldwater.

A Goldwater commerical goes something like this: First Goldwater says something like "we do not choose to be ruled; we elect to be governed," thus alienating the english majors. Sometimes he'll praise NATO, reminding us that right-wingers weren't always unilateralists. Then he stands next to, and is overshadowed by Reagan, Ike Eisenhower, Random Housewife 1, Sen. Margaret Chase (picture Maggie Smith, drunk), Random Housewife 2 and, at one point, the caption "juvenile deliquency."

Other highlights:

The 1952 "Dancin' Uncle Sam" Eisenhower cartoon spot, sounding a whole lot like the Oscar Meyer weinger jingle.
Also from '52, Stevenson gives us the first gay-baiting negative ad in television history, "Ike & Bob."
Viva Kennedy! or, Jackie Reading Spanish Cue Cards in an Emotionless Monotone!

4:46 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Where's Waldo--er, Me?

Here's me, lit by the pale, life-giving glow of the computer in my aunt's basement in Washington, D.C. I am embarking on a two week journey across the great American northeast. For those of you who are curious, here is my schedule:

CITY ARRIVAL DEPARTURE
Washington DC ~7am 7/1 1:00a 7/6 (six days)
New York City 5:30a 7/6 6:30a 7/6
Boston 10:50a 7/6 4:00p 7/12 (seven days)
New York City 8:30p 7/12 10:00p 7/12
Washington DC 2:20a 7/13 3:00a 7/13
Durham, NC 7:10a 7/13 8:15a 7/14 (one day)
Greensboro, NC 9:50a 7/14 9:30a 7/14
Charlotte, NC 11:00a 7/14 12:05p 7/14
Spindale, NC 1:50p 7/14 2:05p 7/14
Knoxville 5:35p 7/14 11:55a 7/18 (five days)
London, KY 1:35p 7/18 2:05p 7/18
Lexington, KY 3:50p 7/18 5:50p 7/18
Grayson, KY 7:40p 7/18 8:00p 7/18
Chaleston, WV 10:00p 7/18 November/December

Notice that nowhere on that schedule does it say "update InappropriateContent." So, unfortunately for those of you out there riding the blogosphere (that the right verb?), your content for the next two weeks will continue be, in all likelyhood, appropriate.

I may post more pictures, perhaps pictures of stuff.

11:01 AM 0 Comments