Iraq: The Neverending Story 2

It's been a while, but I've just been so rivited by the Petraeus/Crocker testimony. Or as the LA Times referred to it the "Iraq is too important to lose, so we've got to keep on trying, no matter the cost, and though it's not clear when we will succeed" testimony. It seems like it can't get worse and then it does. And today is a horrible example. Maybe some of you have heard about the really stunning op-ed by seven US soldiers in Iraq published in the NY Times a few weeks ago. Here's a copy of it, and while you should really read the whole thing, here's a very short excerpt:

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal.
...
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Really, really, please read the whole thing. If you do, not only will you read one of the best, clear thinking yet emotional analysis of the current situation, you'll find out one of the seven authors of the piece, "The War As We Saw It" was shot in the head during its writing. He is expected to live, but the past tense of the piece's title has proven all to presenent today:

The Op-Ed by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq questioning the war drew international attention just three weeks ago. Now two of the seven are dead.

Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died Monday in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad, two of seven U.S. troops killed in the incident which was reported just as Gen. David Petraeus was about to report to Congress on progress in the "surge." The names have just been released.
....
Mora, 28, hailed from Texas City, Texas, and was a native of Ecuador, who had just become a U.S. citizen. He was due to leave Iraq in November and leaves behind a wife and daughter. Gray, 26, had lived in Ismay, Montana, and is also survived by a wife and infant daughter.

Bush will give a speech tomorrow and by all signs we will STILL be in Iraq with over 130,000 troops this time next year. Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Victoria Clarke, Richard Perle, Michael Gerson, David Frum, Dick Armitage, Douglas Feith, John Yoo, Richard Myers, Tommy Franks, Karen Hughes, Harriet Miers, Tony Snow, Alberto Gonzales, and Karl Rove will all probably still be alive, making millions in the private sector, and appearing on television everywhere praising the end of the Bush era and questioning the patriotism of others who argue. And Sgts. Mora and Gray will still be dead, and their children like all the children of all the dead Iraqis and other US troops and contractors will still miss them. And General Petraeus will probably continue not to want to guess if any of this makes us safer.

It's feels pointless, but I'm going to call my elected representatives today. I hope you do too.

The wonderful future of our country

It sad, funny, and ultimately kind of scary, but you have to see this Max Blumenthal video of him visiting a recent College Republican conference. Watch how Tom Delay explains how we wouldn't need illegal immigration if it wasn't for all the aborted fetuses! Hear liberals compared to Iraqi insurgents! Learn why we have to fight them over there so we don't fight them here!

Actually, you don't learn why, you just hear them say it again and again. Plus, I guess they are fighting them over here, they just are dressed up like progressives. Still, learn bitches!

Even the Wind God will bow down before the Beijing Olympics

I'm not saying anything....except to point out the People's Republic is literally claiming to have the power to control the weather.

I heard their next plan is to set the world to Beijing standard time next year: no tape delay!!!

You know who hates losers? Winners!

All you need to know about the DC area free-alt weekly's article about Late Night Shots, an invite-only DC social networking site, are the comments are awesome!

# Comment: By: possumfest Jul. 12, 2007, at 7:33 pm
The reality of your hipster lifestyle is that most of you will live poor lives in cramped basements, have unattractive wives/husbands/partners, bitch about Republicans while benefiting from the tax burden we shoulder, and in general, not be able to experience much at all because you are very unsuccessful professionally and personally. We are better athletes, smarter in business, more attractive, tougher, and, in general, winners of the genetic lottery. Angela Valdez was treated well by almost everyone she encountered until she wrote this hyper-sexualized caricature of the 20-something Georgetown set. She is a known embellisher and clearly a loser in her personal life. Everyone who supports her on this thread is intellectually dishonest and probably a loser as well. Have fun being poor and insignificant, hipsters.

Wonkette has a collection of LNS stuff if you are interested including this hilarious, possibly made up tale tale involving a broken condom, online confrontation, and offline avoidance. Be careful though, next thing you know you'll be reading this post on LNS with its nod to Lacanian psychoanalysis, Zizek, nationalism, and the Other and hours of your life will be gone with only this in exchange:

Postmodernism is often invoked as the age of fragmentation and unlimited inflation or plurality of subject positions. In this respect, postmodernism follows the logic of rampant capitalism, according to which the more production grows, the greater becomes the need to produce, without ever achieving satisfaction. Similarly, in Freudian terms, the greater the repentance stimulated by the transgression of the Law, the greater the guilt. Opposite to the logic of capitalism of superfluous overproduction and of the postmodern dispersion of subject positions, nationalism assumes excessive identification with one particular ethnic position, at the expense of all other possible subject positions. Zizek emphasizes that, "the more the logic of Capital becomes universal, the more its opposite will assume features of 'irrational fundamentalism'" (220).

In their discussion of the manifestation of national identity, both Zizek and Salecl bring up the issue of a postmodern type of racism, which Etienne Balibar has called "meta-racism." If the old type of racism was based on the idea that racial differences were biologically determined, "meta-racism," even though no longer supporting an argument based on biology, makes these differences culturally and historically contingent. In the latter case "culture itself functions as a 'natural' determinative force: it locks individuals and groups a priori into their cultural genealogy. "Meta-racism" [explains Salecl] perceives cultures as fixed entities and tries desperately to maintain 'cultural distances'" (Spoils of Freedom 12). 'Meta-racism' is identified as even more dangerous than racism, because it employs racist measures while pretending to oppose racism, thus falsely posing as its opposite.

Wait, does reading stuff about Zizek make you a "hipster loser"? I don't think so, but then again I think Ivy-league schools are in the Ivy League, not lame Coach K forever fan clubs...and I'm unattractive, so what do I know!

Moore vs. CNN

Okay, maybe everyone has seen this already, but here's the Moore on CNN clip reacting to be kept honest by the fact check squad!

Moore's site does a great job debunking the debunking of the piece. The best part is CNN's claim Sicko doesn't mention that Cuba is ranked lower than the US in quality of health care when in reality it is ON THE SCREEN WHEN THE US RANK IS GIVEN. In fact, it would have been on CNN too, but their scrolling text blocked it out. Wow.

Although the whole piece is supposed to be about Sicko, its really interesting how it all goes back to the war (aka that stupid, pointless, endless war). The war on the other...um, terror is everything, it is the beginning and the end. It is not only costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, it is posioning our political discourse, warping the minds of a generation of the US army, and closing down the foreign and domestic possiblities for our nation. Don't worry though, the guy in charge is sleeping easy. A lot easier than [asshole citizens] would assume!

Is it lucky to be born Mormon?

Funny...

This time, for realz

Looking at this story in the New York Times this morning I had to check the date to make sure I hadn't fallen into a wormhole or accidentaly traveled around the sun, a la Star Trek 4: The Journey Home.

White House Debate Rises on Iraq Pullback

White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

This story reminded me of something....oh yeah, the same garbage they have been "said" to be debating for months now. This is so well trodden ground that even this crappy blog wrote about a similar story in the Times in May! Even though it is to another post on this blog, please check out the link and be freaked out about how little has changed these last few months despite all the rhetoric that things have/must change.
This is the best part of the article:

Officials describe the meetings as more of a running discussion than an argument. They say that no one is clinging to a stay-the-course position but that instead aides are trying to game out what might happen if the president becomes more specific about the start and the shape of what the White House is calling a “post-surge redeployment.”

Forget the (mom and dad aren't fighting, we're having a) running argument part for a second. What you have to do is run and mark you calendars with the first reference to a meaningless phrase that will come to dominate our political discourse for months to come: "post-surge redeployment". Welcome militaristic euphamisms! Take your rightful place next to "stay the course", "cut and run", "fight them there so we don't fight them here", and, of course, "surge".

Considering this story and the fact nearly 150 people died this weekend in one truck bombing in Iraq, I was pretty feeling pretty hopeless of anything positive being done in the near future. But then I read that Colin Powell tried to talk Bush out of the war for 2 1/2 hours!!! Wow, who says there aren't heroes anymore?

Happy belated July 4th!

Celebrate with a great post by Rick Perlstein from Common Sense about a very interesting sounding book by Daniel Brooks called The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America. Should by highly relevant to many of you......LIKE FN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Probably the only Cato link ever on this blog

But when you're right, you're right.
Commute these sentences, Mr. President

The Los Angeles Times had this great graph below along side a story about the Libby "jail time for perjury is excessive" thing.


He's commuted 4 sentences in SIX years??? Jerk.

Be your own historian!

An artist is going around the Silver Lake and marking gentrified bars with monuments memorializing their past lives as Latino gay bars. The link is to a story by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez (the man with the best name in public radio).

You don't need to accept governmental sanctioned landmark plaques, just like you don't need to swallow the AFI's ridiculously lillified top 100 film list as Ken Burns Hates Mexican reminds us.

"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past" (dude)

Scientific proof cats can barley stand you

"Study Traces Cat's Ancestry to Middle East"

Unlike other domestic animals, which were tamed by people, cats probably domesticated themselves, which could account for the haughty independence of their descendants. “The cats were adapting themselves to a new environment, so the push for domestication came from the cat side, not the human side,” Dr. Driscoll said.

All that draft stuff

means we are destined for more KG trade stories...
...plus Jordan is CRAZY!

Summertime and the living is easy

Project for Excellence in Journalism news coverage index June 17-22:

At the same time, the Iraq policy debate—the Washington-based battle over war strategy—generated only 1% of last week’s coverage and failed to make the top-10 story list. Those findings are indicative of a trend in recent weeks in which coverage of the political debate over the war has diminished substantially.

For the first three months of this year, PEJ found that the policy debate was the leading news subject by a large margin, accounting for 12% of all the coverage. (The next biggest story was the 2008 campaign at 7%.) But on May 24, after a lengthy political showdown, Congress approved war funding without including troop withdrawal timetables. Since then—in the period from May 27-June 22—the policy debate has been the sixth-biggest story attracting 3% of the coverage. This suggests that the May 24 vote was viewed as a major victory for President Bush over the Democratic-led Congress that, temporarily, brought some kind of resolution to the policy fight.

It's a good thing the Dems folded and agreed September, SEPTEMBER, SEPTEMBER would be when they'll do something about that endless, pointless war. Apparently it's not like anyone cares. You know, except all those dead people. And the people those dead people knew. No one except them!

Is Bill supposed to be AJ

You've probably already seen this by now, but what is the deal with this???


The obvious implication to me seems to be Hillary is Tony, is that what her campaign is going for? Also, I don't want Hillary "watching out" for me by ordering carrots instead of onion rings when I met her at a diner, I want her to do it by not invading and occupying other nations and actually reading intelligence reports! It is good to see Johnny Sac is doing slightly better.

Meanwhile Bill O'Reilly says reporting on the death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan is pointless while telling his viewers about the things that "really affect their lives", like bears and Playboy spreads. Seriously.

Is it irony or hypocrisy?

On Friday I met LW at the Formosa at happy hour for a drink. A guy there waiting for his cab asked us (but mainly me) where we're "from", and not from but FROM. After that he told us he was in town to premiere his film at a Tom Tancredo fundraiser at the Nixon library, he had smoked weed in SFO during the 60s, one day we'll think we had fallen asleep and will wake up old, and that he's good friends with the owner of Geno's Chessesteaks in Philadelphia. Maybe you know about Tancredo and his run for the GOP nomination solely on the issue of the horrors of illegal immigration (if you think I'm overstating this, check out his website), but don't know anything about Geno's in Philadelphia. They made some headlines last year when they started an "English-only when ordering" policy. Headlines on Fox News at least.

I was really bothered about this guy a bit later: I should have told him off. I don't know what I should have said, but it bugged me that someone would ask someone like me, out of the blue, where I'm from, and then go on brag about knowing nativist politicians and ignorant restaurant owners. I just doesn't make sense, what do you expect to hear? "Yeah, I can't stand all these illegal too, let's go harass the busy boy here and then call INS on the cab driver taking your drunk at 5pm ass home!"

I felt bad until I read about this article in a post on the Carpetbagger:

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions -- state deputy political director -- and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.

That's right, apparently in the entire state of California there is no one qualified to hold the position of state deputy political director in the state's Republican Party offices. They can hire whoever they want, but its a bit confusing considering their party's position on immigration as a whole. What about all the homegrown political hacks? Maybe the wages are too low so no self-respecting American would work in that job?

I was going to make a larger joke about there being something about Canadians being not as scary and bloodthirsty as the Aztec nation to the south, but I think this about sums it up. Yeah, its not very funny.

Ang Lee: Colossal Tease

Thanks to FN for this, which actually reminds me of a friend, especially towards the end...

David Chase doesn't have time for your theories

He's nice about it than that, but that's pretty much the nut of it.

By the way: he picked that Journey song, and convinced everyone it was sick. And for the record, it is sick!

UPDATE: Chase might not have time, but here's an interesting one I'm sure you have time for. Close shot analysis in the house!

Two strangely hypnotic videos

Am I the last person here to have seen this video of Edwards combing his hair?


The music is funny. As a political object its kind of unfair, but it does literalize the GOP's major argument against Edwards: he's gay.

AT sent this from the Made blog (home to dorks making weird shit worldwide). Its pretty amazing how long it is even with time-elapse photography. Still, the music here is LAME!

DC: Delusional funhouse or Delusional crackhouse?

Here's Bush on the failed immigration billed (which one commentator referred to as "the death of his domestic presidency"), Peter Pace's aborted renomination, and the impending no-confidence vote on his boy Alberto:

“It’s an interesting comment about Congress, isn’t it, that, on the one hand, they say that a good general shouldn’t be reconfirmed, and on the other hand, they say that my Attorney General shouldn’t stay,” he said today. “And I find it interesting. I guess it reflects the political atmosphere of Washington.”

1. Congress didn't say the general shouldn't be reconfirmed, you didn't want to deal with uncomfortable questions like: WHEN THE HELL IS THIS F-IN WAR GOING TO END?!
2. They are saying your AG (who you don't refer as "good") shouldn't stay because he probably broke the law and doesn't seem to remember places, events, times, policy decisions, personal, law, etc.
3. How often is this guy going to hide behind the world "politics" as if its a horrible thing that immeditately indicates the opposition is evil. Dude, you're a politician! And how do you think that immigration bill is going to pass? With the brilliant strategic thinking you showed with working Putin? Um...homeboy worked YOU! Actually that's grammatically incorrect: homeboy had, has been, and will continue to work you!

Anyway, maybe he's right about the atmosphere in DC being fucked up. Here's Glenn Greenwald ripping into Joe Klein for saying (seriously) Paris Hilton going to jail is for the good of the nation, but Lewis Libby serving time for "obstruction of justice" makes baby Jesus cry. No, seriously.

Why does LeBron get more pressing questions about passing the ball or scoring in the last seconds than our political class about the logic behind its decisions?

Don't Stop Believing!

We're still here, with Putin's life lessons and the most important news to come out of the Stanley Cup: Al-Jazeera Banned!

And Wii-less, I just got around to watching Children of Men, I'd say I'm still a few months from see The Lives of Others. Also, you know what's a great double feature, Children of Men followed by Knocked Up. It will BLOW YOUR MIND DUDE!

Been telling you LeBron is the Global Icon!

Just like I've been telling you Fahrenheit 451 was about television!

The ascension of King James (in your face haters!) into the LAST NBA playoff series means one major thing: no more television till September. No basketball, soon no Sopranos, another confounding Lost finale, and the President saying don't worry about Iraq till the fall? While that last one is a joke, what the hell am I supposed to do? Watch movies? As one student seem to be arguing this quarter: movies are only about sex and violence and they appeal to the lowest common denominator. Plus, Transformers isn't coming out for another month.

I guess I could get religion, or more precisely a radical humanist, neo-Marxist, anti-fascist form of Hinduism as expressed through blog posts.

Or maybe watch You Tube clips, like this Huell Howser puppet tour of the LA River:

Or this trailer for Godfather IV (which has been kind of beaten to the ground, but still funny?):

Religion or the Internet or television. That's it, no other choices!

Maybe during the offseason LeBron can get that Darfur info

It might seem like I'm just piling on LeBron sometimes, especially in his self-stated quest to become a "global icon". But just so you know: I'm not the only one.

Athletic. Amazing. Powerful. Phenomenal.

America's airwaves are jammed with superlatives to describe basketball star LeBron James, who began his first semifinal playoff series this week. No matter how Mr. James's Cleveland Cavaliers fare in their matchup against the Detroit Pistons, however, I've got my own description for his off-court decisions.

Cowardly.

The piece makes some good points, check it out.

Cat Power video!

Not actually "Cat Power" as "Cat Power". AT has way too much time on her hands...

Isn't 50% of 146,000 troops 73,000 troops?

Military accounting might be a specialized subset of advance number theory these days, but this key graf from the top NYTimes story today titled "White House Said to Debate '08 Cut in Iraq Troops by 50%" is very confusing:

The concepts call for a reduction in forces that could lower troop levels by the midst of the 2008 presidential election to roughly 100,000, from about 146,000, the latest available figure, which the military reported on May 1. They would also greatly scale back the mission that President Bush set for the American military when he ordered it in January to win back control of Baghdad and Anbar Province.

It is hard to think what is most annoying about this story. It's so hard let's make a quick list!

1. It contains NO on-the-record Washington sources. Not a single fucking one. In fact, the only named quotes are from a Sec. Gates press conference and a US general in Iraq who disagrees with the feasiblity of the entire supposed/possible/made up plan!

2. The entire story sounds like a planted leak from inside the White House to make it seem like the administration gets it has to plan to draw down troops even though just one day before the President was openly hostile to the SAME idea.

3. The article itself acknowledges this!

Still, there is no indication that Mr. Bush is preparing to call an early end to the current troop increase, and one reason officials are talking about their long-range strategy may be to blunt pressure from members of Congress, including some Republicans, who are pushing for a more rapid troop reduction.

4. Given all of the above (and pretty much the last six years), this story is still the paper's top story.

5. Oh yeah, that whole wrong math thing.

As we go into this holiday weekend meant to reflect on the ultimate sacrifices of the dead in the name of the nation, we should ask ourselves why our leaders, all of them, political, military, civilian, are unable to face the cultural equivalant of a paper cut to stop this mindless, horrible war.

Keeping with that, and this blog's long record of stealing from Crooks and Liars and questionable sports/politics connections, watch this video.

We play to win the game = we vote to stop this war

UPDATE: Greenwald says pretty much the same thing about the Times article that I do here, but with, you know, facts and shit.

So lazy

Pitch a show for Cuban and HDNet (like an apprentice knock-off!)

LeBron seeks more information on Darfur

Why WAS I Not Informed About Bruce Lee?

Russert is kind of weird about horn honking:

I have not honked my car horn since September 11 as a gesture of respect to all of them. 9/11 also gave me a whole new insight into my Dad and why he left school in the 10th grade to enlist after Pearl Harbor.

What is this love of white players in the NBA? (P.S. Slate sucks!)

A heartwarming story of racism and xenophobia out weighing Bush loyalty

Jerry Falwell, beat again by Larry Flynt

Don't like to speak ill of people who have literally just died, but luckily the great, don't-give-a-fuck Rude Pundit has no problem with it.

Lost better be good tonight!

Given what happened on The Sopranos Sunday night and the attention its been given, it's even odder not much was made of the end of last week's Lost with its ending involving one the main characters shot in the gut, bleeding to death, on top of a pile of roting corpses. Obviously, the show has "lost" lots of its audience for lots of reasons. The main one though seems to be the sinking feeling the writers have no idea where they are going. Sure, its cool to check out the Lostpedia, get links to sites trying to figure out why Richard doesn't seem to age, and read in detail about the weird black light writing on the hatch blast door that is cutting of Locke's leg, but if it doesn't really MEAN anything, what's the point? I have felt for most of this season, especially with the lame Juliet (come on, she's so lame!) and all the Others hand wringing (maybe they aren't so bad???), the only reason I've still been watching is simply the amount of time I have ALREADY watched. All the while, the feeling paying this close attention actually adds value to individual episodes or the larger, overarching themes and concerns, like in film (gasp!) and on shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and BSG, has been slowly dripping away.

I mean, thinking of Season One and Two, Locke wants to get in that mysterious hatch, he is willing to sacrifice the lives of the other survivors to get in the hatch, the hatch is the answer. What's in the hatch then? Okay, not an answer, but this machine that is supposedly saving the world one B.F. Skinner experiment at a time. And then so on: one mystery after another "solved"....with another mystery!
That all being said, the last few episodes have been great, and I'm totally sucked back in. We here at The Crackpot Times have been saying if this season continues on the lame Juliet-lined path it has been on for the last few months, that's it. (come on, fertility issues on the Island??? Why would you want to have a baby on that crazy Island? Maybe this can be the first issue for the Grey's Anatomy spinoff.) Especially with the last episode, it seems the Others won't be redeemed by the shows creators (with something along the lines "oh, your murderous, violent behavior was cause you really loved us!"). And, for me, the callous, horrific elimination of the Dharma Initiative and its hopeful anti-VC-like campaign returns the show to what has always been its central focus: mass catastrophe, dystopia, and the group/individual responses to shared trauma.

So these next three episodes are kind of important. Frankly, I'm more about less creepy Jacob stuff and more answers. And not "answers" like interviews without transcripts or oaths, but ANSWERS like live televised sworn testimony. Cause if we can't get it from scripted television, there's always the sports and government corruption that weirdly mimics The Godfather.

By the way, this is funny and related (for grad students...):

It's hard out there for a television tech

So the Utah/GS series is going back to totally racially sensitive Salt Lake City with the Jazz up 3-1. Much to say about that, but I just wanted to do some reporting! Actually, more like "reporting". After the game they started showing the highlights, and they were for Game 2 where Fisher came back in Utah! Barkley was the first to catch it, while Kenny Smith and Ernie said he was crazy and then realized he REALLY was paying attention. Barkley really has been on top of his game, realizing this obvious mistake AND having an interview in the New Republic about his political views. Seriously!

It is hard though to do live television stuff. There was this (great) recent mistake on the BBC that was up for a few minutes:

And Gordon Brown is dreamy

Wow, I'm really moved (i guess):

“Just as my first act as Chancellor of the Exchequer was to give away power to the Bank of England to restore trust in economic policy, so one of my first acts as Prime Minister would be to restore power to Parliament in order to build the trust of the British people in our democracy. Government must be more open and more accountable to Parliament — for example, in decisions about peace and war.”

Powerful stuff, Government must be open to Parliament, which runs Government. I'm waiting for his controversial stand on how voters should vote for candidates for Parliament, and that they in turn be open to choosing their respective party leader as Prime Minister.

And what is up with this photo along side the NY Times article? Is their campaign running with Guy Ritchies's support on the Lock Stock ticket?

Maxine Waters doesn't have time for this shit

Gonzales apparently thinks everything is going to be okay. Essentially, he's done such a great job of lying/forgetting about just WHO fired those US Attorneys. Sure he looks like incompetent and has lost all the credibility and respect needed for the job of Attorney General, but when you see everything in service to your Liege, what do you care? It's sort of like Odom being asked last year if he's ready to win a championship and he answered "You know, I'm really happy about playing in the league". Totally different expectations.

That all being said, Gonzales is an even BIGGER moron if he really thinks this is over, before he even started his House testimony this morning. This is a great clip, and all Gonzales has to defend himself is a stupid, "your big questions mean nothing to mean" smirk. Wonder where he learned that from?

About that fire

On Tuesday I tried (again) to get my car radio finally fixed and ended up (again) just having lunch with AT. Driving back down Los Feliz Blvd I saw cops diverting traffic from Griffith Park. I even saw some hipster Observatory bus driver outside his bus in a left turn lane with his hands up in the air asking what to do. Then I went home to grade midterms as nearly a fifth of Griffith Park burned. I knew it was bad, but I didn't really notice till I went to the Ralph's on the corner and could see the HILL ON FIRE much like in this photo (from the LA Times link above):


There were tons of helicopters, fire trucks, and news vans. There were evacuations, not our neighborhood, not right next door, but close.


We went out on the roof to take a peak at it only to find 5 people quietly already up there (one filming it on his camera). There was a kind of apocalyptic feel to the evening, and some worrying about not having a kitty evacuation plan, but everything was okay. At least it felt that way; like all fires, it was hypnotic.

The Queen in the house

Now that she (or is it She) has gone back to her massive crib, here are my two fav photos of her visit:


Can you call this anything but a look of disgust? Its very similar to the one she gave Bush when he "accidentally" joked she visited the US in 1776 and the WINKED AT HER. It's one thing not to be serious about the soldiers you are sending off to die in Iraq, but to diss the Queen?!


Apparently kissing the Queen's hand is a faux-paux, but he doesn't care. He's MICKEY ROONEY, the biggest box office draw from 1939-1940, spanning two decades. I know CG loves this photo...

How do you start a film festival?

Here's a cool video interview with the director of IFFLA from the Passion for Cinema folks, if you were curious. You'll like it, seriously. You might see me scurrying in the back.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with horses. I just think Muybridge is neat.

"I felt good about myself"

The five people who read this blog seem pretty smart, so maybe you all can explain this Washington Post op-ed from Sally Quinn about Obama. Quinn is a kind of queen of mainstream, inside-the-beltway political journalism, and statements like this represents that worldview in all its smallness and obliviousness:

I was reminded of [the time I went to Brazil 30 years ago and talked to someone who may or may not have been black] the other day watching Barack Obama. I realized that when I look at him, I don't see a person of color. I see a really smart, appealing, thoughtful person. There is something about his manner that seems to demand that he be seen for who he is and not for what color he is.

Apparently this is why Obama is doing so well, when the arbiters of political culture see him, they don't see a man of color, they see someone smart (and clean!). This resulting feeling by (white) establishment of noticing themselves noticing themselves not noticing his race makes them feel all warm inside. "Look at me not noticing this black man running for President isn't black". No, seriously, it goes on like that:

In every country, when people learned I was American, the questions were the same: Could a black man possibly be elected president of the United States? More important, would Americans actually elect someone like him to represent their country? In almost every case the reaction at the possibility was admiration.

What really worries Quinn is "who are [Obama's] people". She's okay with Hillary because she knows the bad boys she's bringing to the table, like Harold Ickes and Terry "I couldn't beat a drunken Grant" McAuliffe. And besides Hillary, we know who everyone else running might bring with them to Washington (obviously!). But just who will this smart PERSON Barak Obama bring, WHO ARE HIS PEOPLE?!?! Once we know we can decide....

This is all fairly ridiculous, but what is amazing to me is Quinn doesn't seem to think a column like this is unflattering to whatever cosmopolitian image of herself she is trying to present. There seems to be no real point to the entire piece than to say she's down with (well-spoken) black people, doesn't even notice they are black, but secretly (and still open-mindedly) worries about the kind of people this black person will take into power with him. Smush's statements make more sense than this.

I guess Quinn should feel good about not seeing Obama as a person of color, what with all the evil hippiedy-hoppiedy culture destroying our youth and our very best talk radio hosts. As AH pointed out to me the other day with the video below, they are even going back and destroying the greatest American movie of all time. What will we "normal" people do with this destruction of our cultural landmarks???

I personally won't vote for Obama till he goes through every Public Enemy song lyric and denounces it line by line. And when he tells us who is people are.

Grading isn't about the money, it's about the passion!

Why care about sports? Cause sometimes you think about all the pressure and stress you are facing in your day to day life, and then you realize how luck you are your horrible breakdowns won't be the focus of months of media coverage. It is a bit silly to feel bad for someone who makes millions a year and will probably pick up the highest individual achievment reward for his profession next week, but how can you not feel bad for Dirk? Who I don't feel bad for is Smush Parker, who still doesn't seem to get it. As the Lakers struggle to figure out how to get Toronto to trade them Chris Bosh or Orlando to give up Dwight Howard for Brian Cook and the 19th overall pick, one thing is crystal:

One thing Jackson did make clear -- Smush Parker will not return next season. Parker started 162 straight regular-season games before being removed in favor of rookie Jordan Farmar with two games left in the regular season.

Parker, an unrestricted free agent, said he lost motivation late in the season.

"The game wasn't fun anymore," he said. "I don't play for the money. I play for the passion, the love of basketball."

When asked if in a perfect world he'd return to the Lakers, Parker paused before saying: "I don't know. Next question."

So Parker lost motivation before the beginning of the F-IN PLAYOFFS because he plays for the love? Does that make any sense to anyone?

His comments reminds me of some of the student papers I've been reading this week. Some are full of statements that are so powerfully empty of any sense of logic, reason, or fact it just boggles the mind. It kind of related to the recent Indian University study that found Bill O'Reilly goes to name calling 8.88 times per minute (nearly twice as much as good ol' anti-Semite Father Coughlin). In a country where 40% consider this guy a journalist (compared to 30% who say the same about Bob Woodword) and the starting point guard for the Lakers quits before the playoffs because he doesn't "feel the passion", why not turn in a paper on a topic you know nothing about, with no research, poorly written, full of unsubstantiated opinion, condesending to the reader, and expect to receive an A? You feel you deserve it in your gut, and you can just demand a detailed explanation for why your shitty work doesn't get what you feel from your loser TA who made a terrible life choice.

Too bitter?

Happy May/Loyalty/Mission Accomplish Day!

It's a couple of hours late, but the Mavs/Warrior series is ruling my world and I don't even live in Europe. With the Lakers all but eliminated and the focus being who is going to be blown out when the team is blown up (Lamar, really?), the great drama left is that shocking grudge match. Game 6 in Oakland Thursday = Game 7.

But yesterday might be more noteworthy for the clusterfuck of observances/anniversaries that happen on May 1st. It was the fourth year anniversary of the fantastic "Mission Accomplish" speech, which Bush now claims wasn't really a mission accomplish speech. It's mostly noteworthy for a specific example of just how glorious our glorious leader once was (and how well everything has actually turned out!). People on television, who are still on television, actually said things like this:

MATTHEWS: We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like [former President Bill] Clinton or even like [former Democratic presidential candidates Michael] Dukakis or [Walter] Mondale, all those guys, [George] McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits. We don't want an indoor prime minister type, or the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or a [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin. Can you imagine Putin getting elected here? We want a guy as president.

I don't know if Matthews knows this, but Putin actually is a guy. A guy who will kill you with low grade radioactive waste and then suggest his enemies killed you just to make him look guilty. They don't say Putin '08 for nothing!

May 1st is also May Day and this year marks the one year anniversary of the enormous, politically earthshaking immigration march in LA and elsewhere. Guestavo Arellano has a very interesting op-ed in the LA Times about how huge those protest were, essentially saying the immigration "debate" and immigrants won. I want to believe this is true, but I don't think any of us are in the mood of believing progress actually happens.

Especially on Loyalty Day. AT sent this to me not believing something like this was for real, until she found a similar resolution from Clinton. It does sound way weird, but after doing some in-depth research (on wikipedia), I confirmed what I originally suspected: Loyalty Day is capitalism's answer to May Day. For real. Supposedly it was first celebrated in 1921 when it was called "Americanization Day". For real. Too bad that name never caught on, otherwise we would read headlines like "Large groups of protesters demand amnesty on Americanization Day". That way it would probably be harder to vilify people who wish to become Americans and have lived in America for years for being "illegal", lazy, and untrustworthy.

It would be harder, but not impossible.

Pay a dog to burn down a hospital!

At The Crackpot Times we are huge homers and crazy. Lakers in six! There has been some shocking happenings in the playoffs, mainly the Mavs/Warriors and the brink of being swept Miami/Bulls. But if you have any doubt how huge the NFL is, think about how the biggest sports news today was probably the NFL Draft. I don't have much to say than "boo-hoo" about Brady "He shows courage in 24 point defeat!" Quinn and the Eagles picked up a QB who recently was bagging groceries at ShopRite.

The NFL draft now just reminds me of the massive Pat Tillman cover-up that is only just now being uncovered. Actually, take "uncovered" back and replace "reported on nationally". This Frank Rich column makes much of the timeline surrounding Tillman's death by friendly fire in relation to the exposure of the tortures at Abu Ghraib and other events in April 2004. This is a good point, but I think another, often unspoken reason was Tillman's death occuried the week of the NFL Draft. Why bother saying he was killed in a senseless, bizarre act of friendly fire when you could just say he died a hero, bury him, and hope the family never asks anymore questions? Here's a key section of Rich's column and this weeks White House Correspondents' Association dinner:

It’s the practice on these occasions that the president do his own comic shtick, but this year Mr. Bush made a grand show of abstaining, saying that the killings at Virginia Tech precluded his being a “funny guy.” Any civilian watching on TV could formulate the question left hanging by this pronouncement: Why did the killings in Iraq not preclude his being a “funny guy” at other press banquets we’ve watched on C-Span? At the equivalent Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association gala three years ago, the president contributed an elaborate (and tasteless) comic sketch about his failed search for Saddam’s W.M.D.

But the revelers in the ballroom last Saturday could not raise that discrepancy and challenge Mr. Bush’s hypocrisy; they could only clap. And so they served as captive dress extras in a propaganda stunt, lending their credibility to the president’s sanctimonious exploitation of the Virginia Tech tragedy for his own political self-aggrandizement on national television. Meanwhile the war was kept as tightly under wraps as the troops’ coffins.

But whatever, this is depressing sports and politics related stuff. Let's learn and laugh by watching this educational video about sloths. Enjoy!

Paradoies have so much to teach us about the NBA

Thanks SC! (who would like to draw your attention to Bynum in the upper left...)

Double double standards

Maybe you know about Luis Posada Carriles, maybe you don't. He is an anti-Castro activist with an extensive history with the CIA and has been accused of various acts of terrorism including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. While in Venzualian jail awaiting to be put on trial for this crime he escaped and eventually showed up in the US. Where he was arrested for immigration violations and freed on bail.

So a suspected terrorist is found, and let go because, well, we're down with HIS terrorism. Needless to say this isn't going over well with some people and is providing a clear example of the hypocricy of American foreign policy that calls for the invasions of nations based on fears of attacks against "the homeland", but could care less about the daily violence inflicted elsewhere.

Of course it isn't just this that makes the US look like huge assholes, its the site of US reps yelling I HOPE IT'S YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DIE at other foreign, elected officials who have the adacity to question the legality of black prisons and secret rendition (torture) flights. When/if the next attack happens here, will anyone in the world really care?

I don't know, but I do know that Bush and his wife will climb on top of the burning bodies and remind us all how no one suffers like they do. NO ONE BITCHES!

And we're back!

So the festival "wrapped" (as they say in the biz) Sunday night. It was a pretty cool experience, interesting to be so involved in such a big production, and I got to see Deewar, which was amazing.

But I know you don't read this blog cause you care about me, you read it because....actually I have no idea why. Anyway, sorry for being away for a while, it won't happen often. In that vein, I would like to post some stuff sent by all you great (six) readers!

1. Ken Burns Hates Mexicans is a great blog not only for the obvious reasons, but because I think its the first blog ever to link here, like ever! A friend's of CG and based out of Echo Park its a site I'm going to keep reading because I'm down. He has a recent post about the latest THE F-IN WAR (Subtitle: These 17 hours are not meant to be comprehensive) and the hiring of well-known Chicano documentarian Hector Galan that points to the work of Defend the Honor on this issue. Check it out!

2. I don't agree with the argument made here about the irrelevancy of the NBA playoffs to mainstream America, but it is an interesting view and the comments section has a good exchange. I think its funny that the photo along with the post is of Kobe because here in Los Angeles you KNOW its the playoffs, even with this current group. I remember interviewing the head of programming for the American Cinematheque and him telling me during late April and May they usually had a noticeable drop off in attendance. Then again, this was during the three-peat years and as EV (who sent this post) said today, there probably won't be any playoff ball in LA this time next week...

3. SS told me about this amazing, amazing goal Lionel Messi scored a few days ago in the Copa Del Rey where he breaks down nearly half the team from the center of the field:

Obviously, the Maradona/World Cup comparisons are not over-hyped.

4. Yes FN, myspace has jumped the shark. Soon you won't be able to become president of the World Bank without having a myspace page AND personal blog. By the way, I'm half-way there World Bank board, keep me in mind!

5. It might not be true, but AT sends this angry, sad rant from the Best of Craigslist that reminds us to Fuck this Fucking Fucked War lead by the Fuckhead in Chief.

6. Okay, last thing from me: George McGovern has responded to my prediction regarding Cheney's eventual departure and up-ed it a Bush! From his Los Angeles Times Op-Ed:

The Vice President spoke with contempt of my '72 campaign, but he might do well to recall that I began that effort with these words: "I make one pledge above all others — to seek and speak the truth." We made some costly tactical errors after winning the nomination, but I never broke my pledge to speak the truth. That is why I have never felt like a loser since 1972. In contrast, Cheney and Bush have repeatedly lied to the American people.

It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

McGovern is a kind of a hero of mine, but I don't know about Bush being forced to resign before the end of his term. Homeboy says he doesn't CARE that people hate/disagree with everything he says and does. I don't think he's talked to a non-military public audience in MONTHS. He is so arrogant, entitled, callous, and delusional that it will take nothing short of a battalion to remove him willingly from office. It is kind of like saying the Lakers are going to beat the Suns this year. It could happen, I hope it happens, but it's a kind of crazy dream.

No more extremely long posts like this for a while, but I just wanted to point it out. With the end of one project and the avoidance of the next: the blog is back.

Bow before the power of the blog

Obviously there is a straight line from this to this. I guess I shouldn't be too celebratory, it is a dark day for making jokes mocking someone's race or sex. Without our hilarious dumb blonde, "me so sorreh...", "Obama is a pimp, really!", and "boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jew boy" jokes, the terrorist have won. There is lots to say about this, like how in the last moments Imus began to show real bitterness at people like Harold Ford, Jr. not standing up for him. You know what, after showing scenes from Birth of a Nation to students in section today, I'm over slamming Don Imus. So much has changes, and really, so much hasn't. Imus is a loser and I'm happy a career of belittling others humanity has lead him to this humiliation. And I'm not sorry. Okay, last thing, this post from Digby and this post from Athenae from First Draft best sums up the role of the national (white) news media and their role as enablers in all of this.

What I'm not letting go though is how lame its the Olympics are in China next year. Well, not lame cause the Olympics are lame. How to describe it...Mia Farrow?

Ms. Farrow, a good-will ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund, has played a crucial role, starting a campaign last month to label the Games in Beijing the “Genocide Olympics” and calling on corporate sponsors and even Mr. Spielberg, who is an artistic adviser to China for the Games, to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur. In a March 28 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, she warned Mr. Spielberg that he could “go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games,” a reference to a German filmmaker who made Nazi propaganda films.

Apparently activist like Farrow have put enough pressure on the Chinese government to actually distance themselves from the Sudanese government. The Chinese official that traveled Sudan to give them the message though also made a point to say:

During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Zhai called activists who want to boycott the Games “either ignorant or ill natured.”

That's funny because "Ignorant or ill natured" was an alternate name for this blog when it started.

Is Smush Bush then?

Kobe just blew your mind:

BRYANT CONCEDES

Lakers guard Kobe Bryant was asked if he's pulling himself out of the running for Most Valuable Player.

"Yeah," Bryant said. "I'm Al Gore-ing myself."

Bryant, who was getting some support for MVP after a March scoring spree, doesn't believe the Lakers (40-38) have a good enough record for him to be considered.

"I don't think so," Bryant said. "I'd like to one day be fortunate enough to win the MVP and be on a team that has one of the best records in the NBA to do so."

Thanks to SC for sending me this. Is he "giving up" like Al Gore, or is saying he's been railroaded like Gore? I personally think he's saying he's not interested, but secretly wants to be wooed into the race as the obvious solid choice against the inevitable and the still unproven. You know what I'm saying!

Speaking of Los Angeles and tortured connections, the LA Times has a nice article about the you-are-here.com guy. He's a German engineer who spends his vacation time visiting LA, taking architecture photos around town, and putting them on the web. Check out the site, seriously it's really cool. Except for his leaving out Little Aremenia, what's up with that?!

Only small men where cowboy hats, indoors, on-air, in NYC

Imus might have just told his last not-funny, actually pretty insulting racial "joke". For those of you who don't know, Don Imus is a daytime nationally syndicated radio show that is simulcasted on MSNBC. Many years ago he and Stern were the battling local shock jocks, and after Stern pretty much beat his brains in ratings, Imus took a strange, more "respectable", political turn, but kept its high school level of humor. He couldn't run with Stern, so now he does his same lame material (jokes about blacks being monkeys and women being dumb whores, funny stuff) but with Senators and Tim Russert. Stern gets George Takei and fined millions for cursing; Imus gets Joe Lieberman, does comedy consisting of racial slurs, and is seen as a "get" in the cable news machine.

The recent controversy is over him calling the Rutgers women's bball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hos". You see, that's the joke, funny right? The big problem for Imus this time though is this isn't the first time and he might have finally exposed himself in a way that isn't easy to dismiss. Cause see, calling a bunch of black women athletes hos isn't really funny, that was a trick! It really isn't being, gasp, non-PC! Its sort of like also laughing as your guest rifts that "The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the [National Basketball Association's] Toronto Raptors": it's a bigoted, insulting, and, the most important, NOT FUNNY!

Is the big old bad National Association of Black Journalists piling on by calling for a boycott of his show? Even after his wonderful apology where he said the comments were "ill-conceived" and "inappropriate"? (By the way, your mother is subhuman and you are a skank. You know what, that was ill-conceived, let's move on!) There is this lovely section from Imus's wiki page:

Imus and his crew, Charles McCord and Bernard McGuirk, are frequently accused of racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Imus referred to sports columnist Bill Rhoden as a "New York Times quota hire" and PBS anchor Gwen Ifill as a "cleaning lady".[5] Imus has repeatedly referred to Arabs as "ragheads."[6] He has berated many female newsreaders, most recently being his last one, which caused her, Contessa Brewer, to quit the show. After she quit or was fired, depending on who you believe, Imus went on a tirade. “With that fat ass she’s got, she wouldn’t be one of ‘em,” (a beautiful woman). Imus said on the air, "That skank has to spend three hours with makeup in the morning." That tirade was also tied to comments that were overheard of Contessa calling Imus “a cantankerous old fool” at some dinner in a restaurant in 2005, when she was the newsreader.[7]

There was an interesting story on On The Media about Imus's game of serious/racist split. The "shockingly bad taste" here is saying the Williams sisters are "animals" that should be in National Geographic instead of Playboy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this summer one of Imus's second bananas, Sid Rosenberg, made a joke in shockingly bad taste about tennis players Serena and Venus Williams. Imus fired him. And then promptly re-hired him. He explained that back in the bad old days of his own drug and alcohol abuse, people gave him about 50 second chances. Imus is all about forgiveness. But he admitted in an interview with Mike Wallace a few years back that he hired his staff to make racist jokes.

MIKE WALLACE: You told Tom ANDERSON, the producer, in your car coming home that Bernard McGuirk is there to do "nigger" jokes.

DON IMUS: Well I've n-- I never use that word.

MIKE WALLACE: Tom?

TOM ANDERSON: I'm right here.

DON IMUS: Did I use that word?

TOM ANDERSON: I recall you using that word.

DON IMUS: Oh, okay, well then I used that word, but I mean-- of course that was an off the record conversation-- [LAUGHTER]

MIKE WALLACE: The hell it was!

The fact this On The Media story was from 2001 (!) you get the idea Imus might have reached the end of all the morning zoo forgiveness. Al Sharpton is going to start picketing his studios tomorrow, and I'm not to sure Imus's response will be reasoned and measured. Especially when Sharpton says about Imus's apology,

"I accept his apology, just as I want his bosses to accept his resignation,"

Then again, we should never underestimate the lack of concern of slurring blacks in the national media. Chris Matthews, Senator McCain, see you soon!



UPDATE: Atrios provides an example from THIS MORNING that proves my point above. Howard Fineman, a Newsweek columnist, says its a "different time" because Obama made a lot of money, and Imus exposes the hypocracy of the NABJ for not being interested in his fight against sickle cell anemia!

Yes, this is the weak stuff he's bringing. I think he's going to dust off the good ol' I'M NOT A RACISTS, THAT'S WHAT SO INSANE ABOUT THIS!

Two weeks till the NBA's crowning drama

Hype for the playoffs. It's not for Game 4 Lakers v. Suns, but its from (for me) the second most epic game of the playoffs last year, scored by Arcade Fire. EV found it during his 5 hours a day looking on YouTube for Mavs stuff.



And while I'm stealing/HYPING EV, he's right, this Free Darko post about Kobe is awesome! Kobe for MDGFP!

Y yo pensé que hablo espanol terrible!

Newt Gingrich is standing up for English in the United States (about time someone did!).

"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

Wow, 100 people! Anyway, apparently people don't like hear their mother tongue is the obvious language of poor, dispossessed people. Or blacks, or Jews. Actually "the language of the ghetto" is not entirely clear what he means other than "America ain't that shit, and if it is, it's poor Americans who probably deserve it!" Gingrich did issue a "I'm sorry you don't understand my point" non-apology...wait for it....in SPANISH! OH DAMN, DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!! WHAT, WHAT?! or QUÉ, QUÉ?!



So let's sum up: "Hey 100 members of the National Federation of Republican Women (Federation? Sounds classy!), Spanish is weird, poor people in bad neighborhoods speak it!....Yo, hombre! I shouldn't have said Spanish is from the ghetto, I should have said English rules and you should totally learn it! But Spanish is cool, check it, I've been learning it to reach out to you fast breeding LEGAL immigrants! Muchos gracias, de nada!"

This is the untenable position the GOP is in, the way the country is changing they can't keep winning national elections with white males. Even Bush understands this. But how do you reach out to other groups when so much of your message is based on dividing groups (GAYS! FEMINISTS! SCARY BLACKS! JOB STEALING ASIANS! DIRTY SPANISH SPEAKERS! IMMIGRANTS THAT I DO NOT PERSONALLY KNOW! OMG, DIFFERENCE!). It ends up causing candidates to publicly diss a language, and then dropping a YouTube video speaking that same language.

Its kind of like being an all around sleaze ball, like divorcing your wife as she gets cancer treatment or having an affair while you are leading an impeachment of a US President for having an affair, and then "confessing" about all of it to a conservative Christian POLITICAL leader to prep for a 2008 White House run. Eat it Federation, this man has your class right here.

Tony P!

Giving a bad name to French hip-hop!


(thanks EV...I guess)

On the Tony Parker related front, the AOL Fanhouse NBA blog had a post a few weeks ago calling Parker annoying (agreed!) and theorized its because he's French (don't know about that, but why not!). What's great about this is after getting attacked for Francophobia, Parker's coach, Greg Popovich complained about essentially the same thing. He actually said Parker is too "laissez-faire" with his training and attitude.

This reminds me: Caché is sick!

And this is a great magazine cover

Adam Nagourney is gay?

I just love this image

Ken Burns is a jerk

Seriously, what is up with this guy? Ken Burns of the Ken Burns effect has been spending four years putting together his 17 hour (SEVENTEEN HOURS!) documentary series for PBS about WWII from "the bottom up" with extensive interviews and research. Apparently the series, titled The War, doesn't include a single interview with a Latino soldier who fought in WWII, even though there were lots of them involved in key battles (like the Philippines) and they won more Congressional Medals of Honor than any other ethnic group in proportion to the total. People are pissed. And people understand why they are pissed:

“If you had to hit a sore point in the Latino community, this is it,” said Chon Noriega, a filmmaker and associate director of the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California in Los Angeles. “The Second World War,” he said, “is where the community felt it had earned the right to citizenship that had been denied since 1848,” the end of the Mexican-American War.

“This is a critical turning point in their recognition as citizens and they’re not there” in Burns’ series, Noriega said. “You can understand why people would be upset.” PBS is a “public entity receiving public funding to describe this history and they’re just not there in the image.”

Now I'm not sure about making PBS change the documentary series like some are calling for, and if this is Ken Burns "vision", the last thing we would want to do is pollute the artist's vision! I guess.

What really bothers me is Burn's response to these complaints as "it's not that kind of movie":

The filmmakers weren’t looking for representatives of specific ethnic groups. “That is not what the film is about,” Burns said. “It’s about the experience of combat from the perspectives of a handful of people—most of whom are from [the four towns focused on].”
...
“People, when they see the film, they will see the universality,” Burns said. “The comments that people make are not based on their ethnicity but on their humanity.”

Besides belonging in the Colbert realm ("People say I'm white, but I don't see race"), the quote from Burns shows he fundamentally does not get the point of the protests. These groups aren't looking for Latino representation in the film as a victory on some PC checklist somewhere, but want acknowledgment of Latinos' inclusion within this great American universality/humanity. Acting as if Latinos fighting for America in World War II (or Vietnam, or Iraq today) is some kind of one-off, minor story that fails to capture the true essence of what the war meant belittles those soldiers and the ideas they were/are supposedly dying for.

At seventeen hours (SEVENTEEN FUCKING HOURS!) to not have ONE interview with a Latino soldier and to actively argue against it shows a real, and frankly bizarre, refusal to acknowledge these groups as really American. If you think that's not true, just take a saunter at the message boards on the Free Republic about this issue. Lots of great stuff! Latinos were fighting, and dying, as Americans, together with other Americans. Now when they and their representative groups ask to be remembered as part of the "greatest generation", they are labeled as trying to divide the country, not being loyal, or required to prove, once again, their claims to American history being their history too.

Why not just be cool Ken Burns and find some time in your seventeen hour (seriously, seventeen hours?!) doc for this story? Its telling when the best argument against this is the ridiculous "well, what about representing transgender people or people with bad hair cuts???" (actually said). We aren't talking about that you moron, we are talking about this topic, about Latinos, about how they have been citizens and an active part of the nation's history for hundreds of years but are still treated like they and their families just got here and are stealing Medicaid. Media obviously creates these public perceptions, especially historical, "good for you" multi-hour public broadcast programming that merely maintains national myths of a certain type of American saving the world in the 1940s.

I say let's move on to the next battle: trying to include Latino non-US citizens who died during Operation Iraqi Freedom in Burns's planned 20 hour series for 2016.

Bob Kraft, Paul Allen, 5 NFL fans, and this guy devastated

Peter King, the Bob Woodward of the NFL, is reporting on SI.com that the NFL pre-season game this August to be played in China between the Pats and Seahawks has been canceled. Did the NFL decide it is somewhat distasteful to promote their mixture of graphic violence and hyper commercialism in a nation full of people getting by on dollars a day who might be thrown in prison for years for suggesting things like voting for their leaders and being able to question their decisions? Um...sorta. They'll wait till after the Olympics do it!

And the league won't take just a one-year hiatus from the Asian experiment, according to those with knowledge of plans for the game the NFL was calling the China Bowl. Because the Summer Olympics are set for Beijing in 2008, the league will skip 2008 and look to put a game in Olympic Stadium, now under construction, in the summer of 2009. The Pats and Seahawks were to have played Aug. 7 (the morning of Aug. 8 in the United States) in the well-worn Workers Stadium in Beijing, built in 1959 and renovated three years ago.

It's too bad, because I can't wait till the NFL opens up the Chinese nation to democracy and freedom and all that good stuff, like how electronic products and manufacturing have done so far! I'm sure the Communist Party would love to learn more about how to better deal with their own Pat Tillman situations.