Monday, October 06, 2008
zlatan!!!
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Some Primers on CDS
Sunday, October 05, 2008
YouTube - Keating Economics: John McCain and a Financial Crisis
Monday, September 29, 2008
Barney Frank is the cat: the republicans are the mouse
Sunday, September 28, 2008
the only funny thing about this clip are sarah palin's actual words
b) because sarah palin and unintentional (yet mordant, let's remember the job she's up for) hilarity go hand in hand.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
McCain and the Keating 5--a refesher course
Friday, September 19, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
1. jill owns the images of mccain. the atlantic had a (very) short embargo, and only for the purposes of selling said images.
2. jill's photo is on the cover of the atlantic magazine. i know this. i'm looking at it. she was asked to do a shot. she delivered on time and on budget. as always.
3. amy frickin' dresser IS NOT JILL'S PHOTOSHOP PERSON!!!!!!!!! she worked for jill YEARS ago, and learned her style from jill. ferfuxsake. the next person who guesses that amy is the "real talent" gets a slapping with some kind of wet noodle.
4. john mccain is a very powerful man who may soon become even more powerful. he can send people to war where they die, he can change tax law, he can press nuclear buttons. jill greenberg is a citizen of this country and can't do any of that stuff. and while notionally john mccain works for her in that regard, in fact we seem to be slipping ever more towards fascism here where Dear Leader Must Not Be Questioned. taking the side of the powerful against the less powerful is the character trait of the sycophant. (also, LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALONE WAAAAAAAHHHHHH)
5. jill has taken a significant chance of hurting her career in order to express her political beliefs. this used to be called courage. on strobist it is called "an opportunity for me to get a job that jill would have done." if there has ever been a bigger group of whiny opportunist yuppie-wanna-be bitches in history than non-working-photographers, please let me know where to find them. that i might kick them. nice solidarity, guys, but then you all underbid each other on a daily basis. stay classy.
6. i understand that part of being on strobist or such forums requires that you say "of course her lighting/photography/imagery sucks". i get it. it's the law. but, um, it makes you look like a bunch of jealous children.
7. the right wing in this country, or at least that portion of it that sends out e-mails en masse, simply cannot spell to save its life. it really is depressing. though oddly those e-mailers seem quite aware of how to spell "cunt" and "bitch". sexism is pretty much where they start: vitriol and death threats is where they end.
8. if michelle malkin, ann althouse, WND, Little Green Footballs, gerard "aware of all internet traditions" van den leun and strobist's publisher david hobby all hate you, you are obviously a good person.
9. any of those said right wingers who say "now i will vote for mccain, i was on the fence" are liars. like mccain and palin, lying seems to the main character trait of the far right.
10. if jill loses work because of this, so be it. it's a chance she's willing to take because she loves her country (she's an american citizen, she left canada when she was 2) and doesn't want to see it slide further into the abyss of neo-con stupidity. i support her in this, in all of this, 100%.
this post is necessarily not about the atlantic and the statements of their publisher, per the advice of counsel.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, September 01, 2008
I know much of what follows may seem hard to believe, but links provided are all genuine.
SARAH PALIN IS NOT QUALIFIED TO LEAD OUR COUNTRY. She consorts with far right fringe groups. She lies about her public life. She lies about her personal life. This combination is far too risky for our country in these uncertain times.
There are dangerous forces at work trying to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. There are groups actively working to break up the United States, fringe groups that make it their mission to infiltrate major parties and break this great country into pieces.
And the Republican candidate for vice president supports these groups. The specific group is the ALASKAN INDEPENDENCE PARTY.
As GOVERNOR OF ALASKA, she stated that she was “proud of the contributions they made” to state politics. Their platform includes the hope that they create an independent Alaska, one that could hold the rest of the US hostage to their oil hegemony. http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/the_alaska_independence_party.php
SARAH PALIN, who didn’t even follow the war in Iraq until 2006 - and didn’t even have an OPINION about a cause our SOLDIERS FIGHT AND DIE FOR – is not qualified to lead our country. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/palin-surge-wha.html
SHE LIED about opposing the “Bridge to Nowhere,” and took the pork barrel money anyway. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-31-palin-bridge_N.htm?csp=34
SHE LIED about being a tax cutter as mayor of her hometown, as she raised the sales tax often. http://www.adn.com/sarahpalin/story/511471.html
SHE THINKS NOTHING OF CALLING OTHER WOMEN IN POLITICS “BITCH” and was party to making fun of another women’s breast cancer (LINK CONTAINS THE AUDIO, AND IT IS UGLY)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/31/palin-laughs-as-opponent_n_122776.html
SHE LIED about using her political office to exact revenge on her former brother-in-law. http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=8933043
Do not succumb to the temptation to think that criticism of Governor Palin is anti-feminist. To choose such a manifestly unprepared and unworthy candidate for the possibility of serving in the highest office in the land shows John McCain understands nothing about women’s rights, or the struggles many of our own mothers went through to overcome every obstacle put in their way. Instead, he insults women with a move born of tokenism and desperation.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1214055407/bclid1342094282/bctid1683827951
jill hangs out with lebron james. he's...tall. really tall.
cover out on monday.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
nice one, danielle. some good old fashioned e.o. wilsonian action going on there.
Google Reader (393)
Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new poll. Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.Google Reader (393)
as tommmy friedman once said:
suck. on. this.
i am in love with this fact as listed above. it is a STFU to so many people i know both of the liberal worry-wort persuasion and right wingers as well.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Enquête sur les dangers de la télé au berceau - Le Monde 2 - Le Monde.fr
jill's work on the cover of le monde's sunday magazine!!!!
supercool, as they might say.
The (Annotated) Gore Energy Speech - Dot Earth - Climate Change and Sustainability - New York Times Blog
not that i agree with everything revkin adds here, but this is a superb speech from the great visionary public policy statesman of our era. when gore was VP he seemed ok but not necessarily a world-changer. but between his absolutely spot-on speeches in 2002 about iraq (speeches which enraged pretty much every jerk-off in american politics and the media) and his proselytizing on climate, he has risen to the occasion more than anyone else in my lifetime.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Monday, July 07, 2008
Cheney's third term | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
John McCain takes the "conserve" out of "conservative." His entire energy efficiency strategy would fit on one side of a very small file card and can be summarized as follows: Ban Porsches, green federal buildings, and applaud homeowners who do stuff on their own!Cheney's third term | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Monday, June 16, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
bad producer in action
take that, dinosaur media FNC asswipes.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
YouTube - McCain Endorser Pastor John Hagee: God Sent Hitler
john hagee--john mccain's buddy. a hundred times worse than jeremiah wright.
we must keep pounding away at this.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
did you know that we consume 200 billion hours a year of TV in this country?
and that all of wikipedia, in all its languages, and including all its edits/talk pages and so on, totals in human hours 100 million?
pretty mind-boggling. this discussion by clay shirky is well worth following all the way through.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
http://view.break.com/491919 - Watch more free videos
fuck the fucking earth before it fucking fucks you.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Climate change is back, baby! | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Let's start with the temperature. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has their monthly global temperature dataset out through Feb. 2008 (it starts in Jan. 1880). January was only 0.12 degrees C above the 1951-1980 mean (for that month) and a full 0.74 degrees C colder than Jan. 2007 (the warmest January record).
But Feb. 2007 was 0.26 degrees C above the monthly mean, and a mere 0.37 degrees C colder than Feb. 2008. The "legitimate science writer" David Appell explains the staggering implications (if we used the same reasoning as typical delayers):
... the world is warming up at 0.14 degrees C/month, or 3 degrees F per year, or a dramatic 30 degrees F per decade! By 2018, Fairbanks Alaska will be like Atlanta was this year. Atlanta will be ... well, like Hell ...More seriously, this February ripped the tornado record books to shreds as if they had been caught in a giant whirlwind whose intensity had been amplifed by global warming. The country suffered through a stunning 232 tornadoes -- almost triple the previous record, a mere 83 tornadoes in 1971. (Reliable records go back to 1950.)
right. so what is it about climate change that turns rational people into raving anti-science assholes? i've noticed a trend amongst "soft" global warming deniers (non-scientist fox news watching folk) and the "hard" ones--the CEI types, the Bjorn Lomborgs etc. they all tend to be older white males, typically wealthy or at least upper middle class. perhaps there's something there: perhaps these older relatively wealthy men know something. they know they have lived off the fat of the land, and that rather than handing their children and their grandchildren more land and more fat, i think they know on a deep level they've stripped the land bare. and you know what? denial is a perfect way to deal with the fact that your lifestyle has done a ton to contribute to the potential charred hellscape of your grandchildren. because (and here i'm speaking from personal experience) even wealthy white men who watch fox news 24/7 love their grandchildren. so rather than deal with reality, it's easier to make nonsensical claims about climate, rejecting science in most cases for the first time in their adult lives.
it's sad, but if the cause of this stupidity is a sense of hopelessness, then they should get over it. there are things that can be done, and i've noticed that wealthy older white men wield a lot of power in this world.
so--get over yourselves, and get on the stick. because otherwise the kid below is going to smother you in your sleep when he gets a bit older.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Bush Tied to Child Prostitution - Resignation or Impeachment Expected! | Democrats.com
eliot spitzer--asshole, hypocrite, and self-destructive fool.
george bush, war criminal.
it's all about emphasis.
Monday, March 10, 2008
an inspiring story of how students can be the engine of their own change (just like we were in the 80s with apartheid). living the change you believe in--a beautiful thing.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Look, ma, I did it!!!!
fine, others were involved. indeed, some of them may have been as if not more integral to getting this pilot shooting ready than me. possibly.
but is this their blog?
no, no it is not.
so nyah nyah to them.
exactly. i've received some of the hate mail being circulated by jews against obama, and all i can say is: the crap is ridiculous, self-destructive and ultimately self-hating.The reason I refer to chickens coming home to roost is because I believe that Russert would not have mentioned Farrakhan if segments of the Jewish community had not raised this rather insignificant Muslim preacher into prominence. They did that by publicizing every nasty comment about Jews or Israel the man ever made, as if he had a huge following, was a candidate for high office, or was successfully instigating pogroms.
But that is what some segments of the community enjoy doing. It is as if our identity is only secure when we can point to enemies. Unfortunately, and predictably, our well-publicized responses to Farrakhan's attacks gave him national prominence he does not deserve.
In that sense, it is our own fault that Tim Russert asked Barack Obama about his non-existent relationship with Farrakhan. But it is Russert who asked the question and he is the one who needs to be called out for it. It is also worth noting that Farrakhan is seriously ill with cancer and has been out of the limelight for years -- at least until Russert decided to make him a story when he no longer is one.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
but what does joseph stiglitz know? i mean, other than winning a nobel prize and being a VP of the world bank.
the linkage between the war and the subprime mess is interesting. and depressing.
3.3 trillion, for those who won't click through. that's how much it's cost us.
charles pierce pointing out the obvious:
tim russert is teh suxxor times infinity.
as it were.
O! Canada!
why?
tar sands oil from western canada--tied with monstrous new coal plants in china for the coveted "world's most devastatingly deadly idea" trophy.
canadians are just as bad as americans when it comes to lacking forward-thinking leadership, and this cements that fact.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
damn it i knew this would happen.
military-industrial complex, i'm shaking my fist at you!!!!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
goodbye, coal world.
don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
maybe, just maybe, we can a) save appalachia while b) stopping some of the effects of global warming while c) promoting other energy technologies and efficiencies while d) paving the way for china and india to find alternative sources of energy.
or we can kill ourselves, pretty much.
tough choice. to paraphrase bill hicks: "anyone here work in the coal industry? (applause) great--go kill yourself. seriously. now."
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Glenn Greenwald - Political Blogs and Opinions - Salon
Glennzilla:
Most importantly of all, the guardians of our political discourse -- the Chris Matthews and Howie Kurtzs and Mark Halperins and The Politicos, all of whom dwell in Matt Drudge's kingdom -- traffic almost exclusively in puerile, vapid fixations with these types of petty conflicts and substance-free controversies. They're the decadent ringleaders of the freak show which dominates our political discourse and dictates the outcome of our elections.
Just this morning alone, Howie Kurtz's entire column is filled with quoting the likes of The Weekly Standard, Captain Ed, Kathryn Jean Lopez and David Brooks in order mindlessly to re-circulate every slimy, small-minded attack from this week on Obama. None of them is going to change in the slightest, because slothful, empty, small-minded chatter, driven by their Matt Drudge overlords, is all they are told to do, all they're capable of doing, and all they want to do. No matter who the nominees are, the behavior of our media stars won't change, because it can't.
Nor, contrary to what appears to be the unduly optimistic belief of some Obama supporters, will the sleazy right-wing noise machine change its tactics in the slightest. Immediately before I read Lisa Schiffren's "half black/half Jewish, red diaper baby" rant, I watched Mike Gallagher on Fox News explain, to a sympathetic host, that Sharon Stone ought to be "charged with treason" for pointing out that insufficient attention is paid to the death of Iraqi civilians.
It's vitally important to remember that our political life is suffuse with lowlifes and hatemongers like this. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter -- the heart and soul of the right-wing -- aren't going anywhere, nor are the media-connected, Swiftboat-spewing operatives who function in the shadows and the sewers. As Digby pointed out yesterday, the Right has already created a new, extremely well-funded organization -- overseen by the incomparably slimy and truth-free Ari Fleischer -- preparing to unleash exactly this sort of bile. As Digby said, the Democratic primary is exceedingly polite when compared to what is coming: "Just wait until you see what Ari Fleischer and his quarter of a billion have in store for us."
So the question isn't whether Obama will be relentlessly pelted by the sprawling appendages of the Right-wing edifice and its media allies with the most grotesque, bottom-feeding, substance-free, personality-based attacks. Of course he will be -- ones as ugly as, if not uglier than, anything we've seen yet.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
factory farming of meat. is. evil.
read this one and weep.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
it's...food for thought, though maybe not my cup of tea.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
there has been much discussion of "what he knew and when he knew it". was powell mendacious or just unprincipled (there isn't any better option i'm afraid, given what we now know from powell and lawrence wilkinson) when he gave the speech?
but it's not the important question. governments lie--it's what they do best. gulf of tonkin incidents are the rule, not the exception. there is one extremely important question that does need answering, however: how does an elite opinion maker consensus develop on an issue, and how can it be that so many "insiders" with special knowledge, allegedly, can be so horribly shockingly wrong.
to whit: there were no WMD's in Iraq and there was a strong body of evidence at the time that this was the case. though many try to ass cover with "clinton thought so too, and germany, and even france" it's all bullshit: scott ritter existed. mohamed el-baradei existed. hans blix was not a figment of my imagination. three people with the most direct knowledge of the situation were quite clear that something was very wrong with US intel, and yet this fact did not penetrate the op-ed pages, nor the salons of washington, nor the idea factories there either. and many of my ostensibly liberal friends bought into it too (or my dad's friends, people like michael walzer, who essentially threw away a lifetime of good work with his argument for the war from the left).
the thing about consensus when it comes to ideas, to memes, is that it seems that any meme that gets all of them: AEI and the WaPo op-ed page and richard cohen and george will and NBC and Fox and on and on and on--should of course be part of a fact-based narrative. but it's not necessarily the case. i often say that truth is the enemy of drama when i'm developing a script based on "actual events"--if the lead character in real life just decided to back away quietly from the situation but we can write him in as having come in guns blazing, guess which one hollywood will choose. every time. and here we see this writ large: war is more interesting than UN inspections. anything can happen! cool visuals!!! embedded reporters!!! realtime hot death action, now with 30% more blood!!!! so fuck the truth, what we wanted was a narrative that would deliver a satisfying kick, and we got one from powell, a man who should be permanently banned from polite society. he was doing the bidding of some evil people, but then he knew that (and he did the same thing in my lai, putting his career on its upward trajectory).
anyway, don't trust the consensus. it's often just a shared hallucination. and never trust anyone who says they know something because "insiders" told them so--the closer you get to power the more necessary it is to share that hallucination (or create it) in the first place, and the less chance you will know what you've done.
UPDATE:
an excellent refutation of powell's presentation, showing that we knew then it was all a crock.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
but that's not really a surprise. what is a surprise from that article is how quickly you can get horrible chemicals out of your children's systems--as little as 5 days!
anyway, another reason to start thinking organic. now the question remains: how can organic food become as available and abundant for those less well off as for those fortunate enough to be able to afford whole
it reminds me of the introduction of airbags into the US marketplace--first only people who could afford fancy cars (mercedes, IIRC) were able to have this life-saving device. in fact, lee iacocca swore they would never catch on, by which he meant "i can still sell crappy unsafe cars to my american customers."
it took 10 years before airbags became legally mandated. i'd like to see organic methods become legally mandated as well.
Monday, January 28, 2008
from the american prospect (via the poorman) comes the following fun facts and comments of american talibanical fascist vermin mike "nice lunatic" huckabee:
3. Huckabee Compares America to Nazi Germany
In a speech to the Florida Renewal Project Monday night, which in an unprecedented move was live streamed on the American Family Association's Web site, Huckabee compared America to Nazi Germany. He first implored the audience to renew their "commitment to Christ" and "to our nation, to its heritage, as well as to its future," adding "do we expect the seculars [sic] to do it? Do we expect the unbelievers to lead us, and if so, how will they lead us and where?" He then engaged in an extended description of his visit to the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem with his 11- year-old daughter, who asked, "why didn't somebody do something?" Huckabee, who has called abortion a "holocaust," then issued a dire warning:
... I pray that no father ever stands over the shoulder of his own daughter and after her witnessing the decline and the fall of a great nation, writes, and sees her write these words, "why didn't somebody do something?" You see, I believe the reason we're here is because we are the somebodies. And we're to do the something and if we don't, who will? And if we don't act now, when will it happen, and will it be too late? You leave this conference with this haunting question, and pray that no one would ever ask of you or of me, why didn't somebody do something.You read that right. Huckabee thinks if the "seculars" are allowed to rule America, our country could suffer the same fate as Nazi Germany. A resounding insult all around from this "Christian leader."
4. Huckabee's Christian Constitution
Huckabee has been consistently cagey about answering questions about his views on biblical law and Christian Reconstructionism. In the Times this weekend, Oran Smith, a conservative Christian activist in South Carolina, portrayed Huckabee as "Houdini," but he really is more like Zelig, adapting his answers to particular audiences to satisfy his radical fans while assuaging his critics.
Huckabee has offered his view that the Bible prohibits marriage between people of the same gender, and hell, between humans and animals, and hence the Constitution should be clear on that point, too. He slaps his opponents around for their lack of support for a federal marriage amendment and a human life amendment. Many supporters of a human life amendment believe that birth control pills cause abortions, and therefore should be outlawed under such an amendment. In a meeting with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register last year, Huckabee sidestepped answering the question directly but strongly suggested he thinks at least certain types of birth control pills should made illegal. In his Renewal Project speech Monday night, on the eve of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Huckabee made yet another inappropriate and insulting comparison, maintaining that overturning Roe is "not good enough," and that letting the states "handle something that is a moral issue is the logic of the civil war."
given how often "secularists" (whatever the hell that mean) are accused of having some sort of specifically "anti-religious" agenda, i would like to throw one out there:
i propose the following:
- those bastards have to start paying taxes. period.
- no more blue laws--they should be unconstitutional.
- hammer the living fuck out of any preacher who ever says anything about politics. they should never be allowed to preach again.
- absolutely no religious schools of any sort should be allowed, and there should be an even greater attempt to stamp out any religious influence in public school.
- no allowance for religions such as lubavitch "judaism" or mennonites and so on to separate themselves from their surrounding societies.
- all televangelists to be non-profit, and to be audited on an ongoing basis. any televangelists who make any money in excess of a living wage (set at the same level as the local living wage and not a penny more.
- all religions must open their "spiritual" books to the scrutiny of neutral scholars, and must be put on the internet for the perusal of all at any time. no more bullshit secrets.
- no special privileges for any prelates or officers of any religion. they must be treated like regular citizens, not like doctors or lawyers. or people who actually deserve respect, like janitors or laborers.
- US to become an asylum for anyone trying to escape religious persecution anywhere in the world.
also, as usual, where is the ADL when this creep uses the holocaust in such a perverse matter? nowhere, of course, because huckabee may be psychotic but at least he's pro-israel!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
the poorman regularly delivers some of the best commentary on the web IMHO, so check it. they seem to be back to blogging.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
oh, and this one goes out to jonah!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Monday, October 23, 2006
Another way to put it would be that Shrub has finally, at long last, completed the process of failing upwards.
billmon. getting it so precisely right it hurtz. doesn't even need a link, that one. on the leftblogosphere, we have billmon and glenn greenwald, two true geniuses, plus the excellence of josh marshall's reporting and kos's agitating and coordinating. on the right?
of course, there is always CEO of some world dominating Halliburton company as bush's next job, and he could fuck that up pretty badly if his past business history is anything to go by. and FSM help baseball if Bush becomes commissioner.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
read more | digg story
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
"I'm an optimist," he says. "I think that after the warming sets in and the survivors have settled in near the Arctic, they will find a way to adjust. It will be a tough life enlivened by excitement and fear."
and that is the optimistic view of our life 20 years or so from now, per James Lovelock, pre-eminent scientist in the UK.
time to buy a place north of the hudson bay, i think.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Jill on Inside Edition and CBS local news.
not a bad piece, in the continuum from terrible to ok. however, local news/inside edition is still creepy and obsessed with stupid controversy. the lead in to this story featured lindsay lohan and her slightly damaged wrist.
it will all end in tears, as they say.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Jill's book!!!
on amazon.
and about me, this:
and a kerfuffle on dailykos
such mishegas, such excitement.
toronto is a nice city, and they throw a fine film festival.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
hey, a journalist quoted me at the toronto film festival, for some reason.
as above.
Friday, September 08, 2006
so here's a primer on how it works.
there aren't very many of these made any more--the heyday of the TV movie is long since behind us. when selling to the networks only an event is going to get their interest. 9/11 was always going to be a movie on one of the networks or on cable--it was just a question of where. when cyrus was pitching the story, he had insider info as a movement conservative, so he knew how to get the line on the commission report and so on.
what follows is speculation (a dramatic recreation, if you will, with some license taken, some composite character, and some fictionalizations. hell, maybe there's even some improv.)
at ABC, you have various lines of defense. someone in the middle ranks (a VP or slightly higher up) gets a call from cyrus's agents saying: "we have a great take on 9/11 as a mini-series". a pitch would be set immediately, because cyrus is considered a solid writer (he in fact IS a solid writer, with some decent credits and a few good scripts behind him). And given the profile of the pitch, Steve MacPherson would be in that first meeting, most likely. I doubt VERY much that Cyrus pitched a political slant--more likely he just pitched a "i know people on the inside" angle. as well, everyone wanted to tell john o'neill's story (that was oliver stone's original angle as well) and cyrus had a bunch of info from that end as well.
ABC probably bought this in the room, as they say--a good writer, a great story, a true event. kind of a no-brainer. with that deal done, cyrus commenced to writing, with some input from ABC but probably very limited at that point. once he finished his draft, then the network got involved. notes are written (by both VP types and probably higher ups) and those notes are both creative and now quite possibly political in nature. the highest-ups at ABC would be well aware of this project, and were i'm sure very keen to have this movie on for the fifth anniversary, putting everyone under the gun. that this coincided with the election coming up was most likely not on people's minds-i am reconsidering my intemperate remarks on digby's blog yesterday. airdates have their own logic--this one was too obvious to need to question.
now here's where things get murky: i'm sure cyrus did what he has promised to do--delivered a piece of right wing propaganda, albeit a well-written one. or maybe he figured he'd add the sneaky stuff in when the shooting draft was done with the director (david cunningham was attached early on in the process as well, so they were collaborating from the get-go) and kept it neutral. but given that the highest ups care and cared about this (though McPherson is the president of ABC believe me he has bosses as well, and those are the guys who make decisions about, for instance, where to donate political dollars) project, they may have given their own notes.
now they have a start date, and they go out to actors. actors are actors--their are some juicy roles in this project, and ABC was not afraid to pay actors well to be in it. so the actors do what they do--read for parts and hope to get cast.
what they don't do: have strong political opinions about major material that probably didn't read so tendentiously on the page. i can assure anyone reading of that. harvey keitel or patricia heaton (NB my company distributed her last TV movie) and their political views have nothing to do with it. that doesn't mean that cyrus might not know someone like patricia via political meetings--hell, i got my first job in hollywood because i was a member of Southern Californians against the Death Penalty--just that actors do what they do, not anything more, unless they are producers or writers on a project as well.
so, the scorecard on who most likely is and is not responsible for any political and polemical content in this movie:
ABC mid-level exec: not responsible, 90% chance a lefty like me.
ABC prexy: probably not responsible
ABC highest ups: possibly responsible
Writer/producer: definitely responsible
director: definitely responsible
actors: definitely not responsible
ABC affiliates: definitely not responsible
advertisers: definitely not responsible
tom kean: a total dickhead liar and most assuredly responsible
all in all, it's doubtful to me that there was a concerted effort to attack Democrats here by ABC in general, they were hoping to be more subtle than that. i think that too much autonomy was probably given to cyrus and david c. and those guys took that autonomy as license to unleash their own biases and prejudices, ones that might well dovetail with ABC (at the VERY TOP) execs own beliefs. someone else will have to check on policial donations at the top of the company, but i would be shocked if they didn't skew right wing.
then comes marketing. marketing took one look at this movie and said--hey, rush limbaugh will love this. so will hugh hewitt. remember, ABC owns lots of radio as well, and in paticular right wing talk radio. synergy! and their audience will watch our movie if they tell them to (they don't call them dittoheads for nothing.) so marketing took the ball and ran with it (probably with cyrus's "friend of limbaugh" help). that's all about generating ratings and buzz.
well, that's what i'm guessing is the case, with limited (but some) insider scoop. it's both better than some are positing here, but bad in result, i'm afraid.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm
a note to john kay, who sort of works for the same company i do: are you totally useless, or just on this story? quoting 8 year olds? some random woman at some random "special needs" day care? who is she? what is her qualification to aver that taking a lollipop from a child will cause permanent damage? given that her opinion is so patently absurd, could you supply the evidence from a study that agrees with that opinion? no? there is no study to support that supposition? so you just literally pulled someone's opinion out of your/their collective ass? well, i thought the 8 year old who thought jill's work was "Cool" balanced this very well.
ass.
pathetic. and the bbc puts this tripe on uncritically. you should all be ashamed of yourselves. whatever.
but i do like the radiohead music! very portentous!
Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Announcing CIA Leak Investigation Book by Marcy Wheeler: We Need Your Help!
Bush remains keenly interested in the game and watches often. His recall for
names and statistics is well known.
In greeting Bennett, Bush referred to the catcher's game-ending grand slam
against the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 27.
"He's one of the most powerful men in the world. He's got a lot more important
things on his mind," Bennett said. "To remember something relatively
meaningless in the grand scheme of things ... it's pretty impressive."
impressive is one word you could use. i might go towards the phrase "desperately horrifying and depressing".
what a waste to have this idiot running our country. sigh. double sigh.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
how is it that on what is an excellent three-day weekend, there is no one in the mainstream of punditry agitating for a shorter work week? i think we all agree three days off is a nice thing. it makes people happy, simply put. more time to listen to music, hang out with friends, chill with the family, go to the lake/beach/pond/crick, time to grab a ballgame (i'm particular to soccer myself, but for most of you that's baseball i'm sure), play a game, and so on.
so, here we are, it's all nice and good, and nothing. there simply is no mainstream pundit who would ever argue for such a thing. that's not so weird, as much of our pundit class is too rich and 4 days-a-week-and-then-the-hamptons to care. but where is labor? where are those trying to get positive steps taken to improve our lives as workers? nowhere. the statistics (less americans now repped by labor unions then ever in our unionized history, wages stagnant to negative for the vast majority of americans, hours longer than ever, productivity as high as it's going to get) don't lie: we're fucked.
how did this happen? labor used to win huge battles: the five day week, the 40 hour week, vacation time and break time mandated, child labor laws, health and safety laws--shit, we were making the world a better place, not just for the working man, but period. the rising tide would lift all boats, and labor would be a respected partner in the business of business. well, when the rich saw how they could get richer, in fact stay that way and hand the whole shebang off to their spawn who had done nothing to earn their place at the (head of the) table, they changed the laws (written by their factotums, the highly paid lawyers) to accomadate such needs. and here we are.
now everywhere you go, someone has a story. i'm not sure which was more depressing: my flight on Northwest, where the whole workforce will be forced to take a 20% pay and benefits cut, or the conversation with Drea, the super cool security woman at my office building, telling me she's got to come in on LABOR DAY!!!!!! or she won't get paid for time off. WTF? anecdotes, you say? sure, but it seems everyone i meet has such a tale to tell.
i think it's bhutan that has a measure for "Gross National Happiness". i think it's time to institute something like that in the USA. i think we won't be near the top of the heap.
