Why I hate hockey, a sport I used to love more than any other to watch.
The first in a series of very occasional sports posts...
2-1 final scores are great in soccer, but hockey's scoring dearth is depressing. the game has been ruined by
a) steroids, which in turn have led to players who are TOO FUCKING BIG. If i want to watch football, i will. I'm sick of every player looking like a linebacker, with hands that match the profile. 6'6" 245 is NOT hockey size.
b) rink size. they are too small. in part, this has to do with a, cuz bigger players take up more room on the ice, obviously. but still, a bigger euro style rink would make for more scoring and skating. course, you would have to get rid of some seats (and premium seats!) so fat fucking chance.
c) goalie equipment. too much too big. every year they say they are making stuff smaller, but come on--goalies should look the way JD did in 1979.
d) bad rule changes. the NHL made several changes to slow down the Oilers in the 80s (couldn't have too many stanley cup games in CAnada now could we?). some of those rules were idiotic--what the hell is wrong with a two line pass? of course, no one can get around to changing the rules back to when hockey was...exciting.
e) a diminished talent pool, though in fact a) is the root of this. i'm sure there are plenty of 5'11" guys languishing in lower divisions or in europe...
f) coaches who are afraid of their own shadows. Anyone with knowledge of Italian Serie A soccer from the 70s knows that catenaccio grew out of coaches worried about getting fired, so thus, play for the 0-0 and you are better off. hockey is thick with coaches who play not to lose, and that leads up to..
g) the trap. the worst thing in hockey, other than a).
fuck it, i can't watch it any more, and it really does make me sad. farbeit from Bettman et. al. to learn from baseball--what energized baseball more than any in modern history? why, it was a home run race between mcgwire and sosa, probably juiced up with the tightest wound baseball since 1930.
my two cents.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Seymour Hersh, in his (as usually is the case) excellent article in The New Yorker says this:
"The government of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, President Bush’s closest ally, was also brought in. As Blair later told a British government inquiry, he and Bush had talked by telephone that summer about the need “to disclose what we knew or as much as we could of what we knew.” Blair loyally took the lead: on September 24th, the British government issued a dossier dramatizing the W.M.D. threat posed by Iraq. In a foreword, Blair proclaimed that “the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt that Saddam . . . continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons.” The dossier noted that intelligence—based, again, largely on the sismi report—showed that Iraq had “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” A subsequent parliamentary inquiry determined that the published statement had been significantly toned down after the C.I.A. warned its British counterpart not to include the claim in the dossier, and in the final version Niger was not named, nor was sismi [ITalian intelligence]. "
Bob Somersby over at the (nearly always) excellent Daily Howler harped for weeks on this particular aspect of the NIger scandal--that Bush's "sixteen words" were NOT in fact a reference to NIger, because Bush repeated Blair's claims that "Sadaam has sought nuclear materials in Africa (emphasis mine)" as opposed to specifically saying Niger, and thus all reporting on Bush's words that didn't clarify this was misleading, lazy, or possibly worse. I think this is important because this is the first time the press, EVEREVEREVER, got around to actually dealing with Bush's raging mendacity, taking a meme from the blogworld and making it mainstream (as always, Paul Krugman gets honorable exception...). But in truth, as one reads the above, it seems clear (and to me has forever seemed clear) that the Niger claim WAS the Africa claim--that is, there was no other evidence to which Blair or anyone else could refer. NOw, ex post facto, vague and hopeful bits of spin were thrown out there by Cheney and others about some third country in AFrica, but none was ever named, no evidence was ever offered--e.g. just more bullshit. So, it seems clear that it was in fact reasonable to assume that Niger=Africa for the sake of this argument, and that sometimes, even my heroes like Somersby can have feet of clay.
"The government of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, President Bush’s closest ally, was also brought in. As Blair later told a British government inquiry, he and Bush had talked by telephone that summer about the need “to disclose what we knew or as much as we could of what we knew.” Blair loyally took the lead: on September 24th, the British government issued a dossier dramatizing the W.M.D. threat posed by Iraq. In a foreword, Blair proclaimed that “the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt that Saddam . . . continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons.” The dossier noted that intelligence—based, again, largely on the sismi report—showed that Iraq had “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” A subsequent parliamentary inquiry determined that the published statement had been significantly toned down after the C.I.A. warned its British counterpart not to include the claim in the dossier, and in the final version Niger was not named, nor was sismi [ITalian intelligence]. "
Bob Somersby over at the (nearly always) excellent Daily Howler harped for weeks on this particular aspect of the NIger scandal--that Bush's "sixteen words" were NOT in fact a reference to NIger, because Bush repeated Blair's claims that "Sadaam has sought nuclear materials in Africa (emphasis mine)" as opposed to specifically saying Niger, and thus all reporting on Bush's words that didn't clarify this was misleading, lazy, or possibly worse. I think this is important because this is the first time the press, EVEREVEREVER, got around to actually dealing with Bush's raging mendacity, taking a meme from the blogworld and making it mainstream (as always, Paul Krugman gets honorable exception...). But in truth, as one reads the above, it seems clear (and to me has forever seemed clear) that the Niger claim WAS the Africa claim--that is, there was no other evidence to which Blair or anyone else could refer. NOw, ex post facto, vague and hopeful bits of spin were thrown out there by Cheney and others about some third country in AFrica, but none was ever named, no evidence was ever offered--e.g. just more bullshit. So, it seems clear that it was in fact reasonable to assume that Niger=Africa for the sake of this argument, and that sometimes, even my heroes like Somersby can have feet of clay.
Sunday, October 19, 2003
Parsing the Times part MDMCXVIII:
So on the cover, we get a story that Bush is saying that THE PHILLIFUCKINGPINES are our template for Iraq. The times reporter in classic "while some claim the earth is round, others believe it is flat" mode gently points out around para 32 that it took 50 or so years for us to leave them to their good graces after our splendid little war. And in para 31 that the precipitating incident, REMEMBER THE MAINE, was bogus.
what they don't mention is that after 50 years, we ended up with Ferdinand Marcos, and the lovely and talented Imelda, fascists who raped and pillaged their own country to the tune of a billion or so dollars. Oh, and if you think this is old news, there was a military coup attempt 3 months ago too. Great fucking template, moron-in-chief. I wish i knew how to curse someone in Tagalog.
So on the cover, we get a story that Bush is saying that THE PHILLIFUCKINGPINES are our template for Iraq. The times reporter in classic "while some claim the earth is round, others believe it is flat" mode gently points out around para 32 that it took 50 or so years for us to leave them to their good graces after our splendid little war. And in para 31 that the precipitating incident, REMEMBER THE MAINE, was bogus.
what they don't mention is that after 50 years, we ended up with Ferdinand Marcos, and the lovely and talented Imelda, fascists who raped and pillaged their own country to the tune of a billion or so dollars. Oh, and if you think this is old news, there was a military coup attempt 3 months ago too. Great fucking template, moron-in-chief. I wish i knew how to curse someone in Tagalog.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Michael Newdow is my hero. Someone should give this guy a fucking medal. He is smart and well spoken, and he doesn't believe in supremedeitythatlivesintheskyandknowseverything. support him here.
This was written, maybe, by Norman Rush and you should click there and buy his new book. Even if he didn't send me this. Like i think, maybe, he did.
US soldiers bulldoze farmers' crops
US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.
The stumps of palm trees, some 70 years old, protrude from the brown earth scoured by the bulldozers beside the road at Dhuluaya, a small town 50 miles north of Baghdad. Local women were yesterday busily bundling together the branches of the uprooted orange and lemon trees and carrying then back to their homes for firewood.
Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."
Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.
"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of US troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.
The destruction of the fruit trees took place in the second half of last month but, like much which happens in rural Iraq, word of what occurred has only slowly filtered out. The destruction of crops took place along a kilometre-long stretch of road just after it passes over a bridge.
Farmers say that 50 families lost their livelihoods, but a petition addressed to the coalition forces in Dhuluaya pleading in erratic English for compensation, lists only 32 people. The petition says: "Tens of poor families depend completely on earning their life on these orchards and now they became very poor and have nothing and waiting for hunger and death."
The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. They said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation. When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt Col Springman, a US commander in the region, as saying: "We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn't tell us."
Informing US troops about the identity of their attackers would be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact, attacking US troops.
Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice: "It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth."
read it here
Comment: Every now and then we hear reports of "friendly fire" or other "accidents." They're not, and they're not "mistakes" or "bad judgment" by some troops or other, either. If I throw a match onto a mattress soaked with kerosene and it lights up, we don't call it an "accident." It's a predictable consequence, as are all of these: the Iraqi cops killed by "friendly fire," etc. When you occupy a nation by armed force, against resistance, the way you do it is to kill people every now and then. If you go around asking if they're the right people to kill, it's already too late. So right now the U.S. military is in the business of killing Iraqis or destroying their property: pour encourager les autres, as the saying goes.
It's important to understand, therefore, that despite what all the pundits and middle-of-the-road Democrats say, the United States has absolutely NO "responsibility" to help rebuild Iraq. That's like saying that after burglars have trashed a house, they have a responsibility to stay and help the householders clean it up--just love to have you guys around. Or after a rapist has impregnated a woman, he should move in and help her raise the child. No--the "responsibility" of the invader is to dis-invade and get OUT--and then, of course, pay what's owed to compensate for the destruction. Who should be rebuilding is the only people who did not support the invasion and consequent destruction--the U.N. With the money the U.S. owes for the job. But of course the U.N. cannot and should not possibly do this until the opponent of peaceful reconstruction, the guys who want to do it all their way for their own profit and fuck the Iraqis--namely the U.S. Bush Administration--are out of there. And if the U.N. can't do it either, that's too bad, history is sometimes disastrous. But the people who brought about the disaster in the first place can only pile more on top of it by pursuing the agenda that brought it about in the first place. That many Iraqis are grateful for the chance at building democracy is a good thing; but they won't have that chance in the present course of events, whether or not they realize that--as more of them every day are indicating they do.
U.S. Out. U.N. In.
US soldiers bulldoze farmers' crops
US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.
The stumps of palm trees, some 70 years old, protrude from the brown earth scoured by the bulldozers beside the road at Dhuluaya, a small town 50 miles north of Baghdad. Local women were yesterday busily bundling together the branches of the uprooted orange and lemon trees and carrying then back to their homes for firewood.
Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."
Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.
"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of US troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.
The destruction of the fruit trees took place in the second half of last month but, like much which happens in rural Iraq, word of what occurred has only slowly filtered out. The destruction of crops took place along a kilometre-long stretch of road just after it passes over a bridge.
Farmers say that 50 families lost their livelihoods, but a petition addressed to the coalition forces in Dhuluaya pleading in erratic English for compensation, lists only 32 people. The petition says: "Tens of poor families depend completely on earning their life on these orchards and now they became very poor and have nothing and waiting for hunger and death."
The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. They said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation. When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt Col Springman, a US commander in the region, as saying: "We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn't tell us."
Informing US troops about the identity of their attackers would be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact, attacking US troops.
Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice: "It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth."
read it here
Comment: Every now and then we hear reports of "friendly fire" or other "accidents." They're not, and they're not "mistakes" or "bad judgment" by some troops or other, either. If I throw a match onto a mattress soaked with kerosene and it lights up, we don't call it an "accident." It's a predictable consequence, as are all of these: the Iraqi cops killed by "friendly fire," etc. When you occupy a nation by armed force, against resistance, the way you do it is to kill people every now and then. If you go around asking if they're the right people to kill, it's already too late. So right now the U.S. military is in the business of killing Iraqis or destroying their property: pour encourager les autres, as the saying goes.
It's important to understand, therefore, that despite what all the pundits and middle-of-the-road Democrats say, the United States has absolutely NO "responsibility" to help rebuild Iraq. That's like saying that after burglars have trashed a house, they have a responsibility to stay and help the householders clean it up--just love to have you guys around. Or after a rapist has impregnated a woman, he should move in and help her raise the child. No--the "responsibility" of the invader is to dis-invade and get OUT--and then, of course, pay what's owed to compensate for the destruction. Who should be rebuilding is the only people who did not support the invasion and consequent destruction--the U.N. With the money the U.S. owes for the job. But of course the U.N. cannot and should not possibly do this until the opponent of peaceful reconstruction, the guys who want to do it all their way for their own profit and fuck the Iraqis--namely the U.S. Bush Administration--are out of there. And if the U.N. can't do it either, that's too bad, history is sometimes disastrous. But the people who brought about the disaster in the first place can only pile more on top of it by pursuing the agenda that brought it about in the first place. That many Iraqis are grateful for the chance at building democracy is a good thing; but they won't have that chance in the present course of events, whether or not they realize that--as more of them every day are indicating they do.
U.S. Out. U.N. In.
Monday, October 13, 2003
So i read the ever-irritating Gregg Easterbrook, whose column runs in the Not so liberal republic, in which he feels compelled to blame Kill Bill on those damn Jews that run Disney (and by extension, Hollywood), particularly as regards to its violent content.
some truth to the fiction:
the head of film at Disney, Dick Cook, is a non-Jew, as are 80% at least of the board of directors (led of course by Roy Disney, non-Jew and son of Walt, non-Jew-fan). Sony is run by the Japanese (not Jews as far as i know), Fox is run by Rupert Murdoch, non-Jew-non-pareil, Paramount is owned by Viacom, a cabal of non-Jews if ever there was one, though what about TW, you say? Dick Parsons, not a Jew. MGM is run by Armenians, so blame Silence of the Lambs and hannibal on them, or something.
and re-read my dad's anti-semitism piece, clearly relevant once again...
some truth to the fiction:
the head of film at Disney, Dick Cook, is a non-Jew, as are 80% at least of the board of directors (led of course by Roy Disney, non-Jew and son of Walt, non-Jew-fan). Sony is run by the Japanese (not Jews as far as i know), Fox is run by Rupert Murdoch, non-Jew-non-pareil, Paramount is owned by Viacom, a cabal of non-Jews if ever there was one, though what about TW, you say? Dick Parsons, not a Jew. MGM is run by Armenians, so blame Silence of the Lambs and hannibal on them, or something.
and re-read my dad's anti-semitism piece, clearly relevant once again...
Monday, September 29, 2003
posted here by me:
no one seems concerned that Plame's networks--networks that were specifically targeted towards WMD proliferation--were rolled up. forget, for a moment, the politics of this. republican, democrat, it matters not. here is what should concern every american--a specialist whose entire job was to smoke out those who could hurt us most, e.g. terrorists or rogue states with WMD, particularly nuclear ones, has been outed, and her network most likely has been rounded up. one can only speculate, but chances are "rounded up" is a euphemism for killed. And let's say that there is a 10% chance that one of those sources who has now been burned was pursuing, oh, say a lost Ukrainian stockpile of enriched uranium, or a belarussian missile that "fell off the back of a truck" or so on. and that trail is now cold. and that missile or material is later used against us.
this is why this story matters. this is why this offense should be punishable as treason (and the death penalty should be an option--i say this as someone firmly opposed to it but in this case if it exists it should be used as a scare tactic), this is what Bush 41 was saying in his now famous quote. Now the partisan in me could take this mighty far, and say that it perfectly encompasses everything that i fear and loathe about our administration, its secretiveness, its mendacity, its inability to discern the difference between moral rectitude and political success... but it doesn't matter. even minus that last sentence EVERY person of moral character, right/left/inbetween, should be enraged by this, and by bush's lack of caring about it.
no one seems concerned that Plame's networks--networks that were specifically targeted towards WMD proliferation--were rolled up. forget, for a moment, the politics of this. republican, democrat, it matters not. here is what should concern every american--a specialist whose entire job was to smoke out those who could hurt us most, e.g. terrorists or rogue states with WMD, particularly nuclear ones, has been outed, and her network most likely has been rounded up. one can only speculate, but chances are "rounded up" is a euphemism for killed. And let's say that there is a 10% chance that one of those sources who has now been burned was pursuing, oh, say a lost Ukrainian stockpile of enriched uranium, or a belarussian missile that "fell off the back of a truck" or so on. and that trail is now cold. and that missile or material is later used against us.
this is why this story matters. this is why this offense should be punishable as treason (and the death penalty should be an option--i say this as someone firmly opposed to it but in this case if it exists it should be used as a scare tactic), this is what Bush 41 was saying in his now famous quote. Now the partisan in me could take this mighty far, and say that it perfectly encompasses everything that i fear and loathe about our administration, its secretiveness, its mendacity, its inability to discern the difference between moral rectitude and political success... but it doesn't matter. even minus that last sentence EVERY person of moral character, right/left/inbetween, should be enraged by this, and by bush's lack of caring about it.
Fun with the NY Times part 74:
the Sunday edition lead photo was of a bunch of Iraqi children being taught football, American-style, by our troops in Iraq. Yes, i can just see the day when Ahmed and Yousef get the thousand dollars necessary for their helmet/shoulder pads/knee pads, not to mention goalposts etc. oh, and steroids, they will need those too. of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone to note that Iraqi children DO love football, only the kind where are you need is a ball and a flat area, i.e. soccer. And in fact, the MLS did give Iraqi kids a ton of balls/goals/shoes etc., to their credit. but there is something so quintessentially empire-ish about that photo--you know, bringing cricket to the natives and all that...
Also, a question about the Victoria Plame/Wilson affair, best followed here via Josh Marshall: is it true, as some have alleged, that in being "outed" as she was, her network has been "rolled up"? (that means killed in spookspeak)
because if so, rove or whomever did this--but it has to be rove--has blood on his hands and should be spending 10 years in jail, which is in fact the maximum punishment possible for publicly naming a CIA officer.
scum, all of them.
the Sunday edition lead photo was of a bunch of Iraqi children being taught football, American-style, by our troops in Iraq. Yes, i can just see the day when Ahmed and Yousef get the thousand dollars necessary for their helmet/shoulder pads/knee pads, not to mention goalposts etc. oh, and steroids, they will need those too. of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone to note that Iraqi children DO love football, only the kind where are you need is a ball and a flat area, i.e. soccer. And in fact, the MLS did give Iraqi kids a ton of balls/goals/shoes etc., to their credit. but there is something so quintessentially empire-ish about that photo--you know, bringing cricket to the natives and all that...
Also, a question about the Victoria Plame/Wilson affair, best followed here via Josh Marshall: is it true, as some have alleged, that in being "outed" as she was, her network has been "rolled up"? (that means killed in spookspeak)
because if so, rove or whomever did this--but it has to be rove--has blood on his hands and should be spending 10 years in jail, which is in fact the maximum punishment possible for publicly naming a CIA officer.
scum, all of them.
Monday, September 22, 2003
So once again i see Viet Dinh's name in the news. As it happens, before Viet was on Ken Starr's prosecutorial star chamber, before he wrote the Patriot Act (I'm not joking, he is in fact the author of that particular ineffective abomination), I had the pleasure of having a long dinner and debate with him when he was but a 24 superstar on the rise. AT that point, he was Sandra DAy O'Connor's law clerk, had graduated from law school, and had written a screed on affirmative action and its negative implications that had caused much delight amongst the hard right.
Viet was up for a job with a prestigious law firm (Munger, Tolles and Olson) in downtown LA, and my girlfriend's father had invited him to a dinner with the partners. Foolishly, i was invited along with my girlfriend. I went and read Viet's affirmative action article--it was risibly polemical with little independent thought or analysis--a basic partisan hack job. I guess that he was young and a prodigy and an immigrant (vietnamese, obviously) made the righties care overmuch about the article, but i didn't get it. so at the dinner, which was supposed to be a "kiss viet's ass fest", i engaged him on his views. I asked, "have you considered that perhaps white folk get some help from legacy admissions policies at universities?". No, he said, hadn't thought of that. Huh. I asked him about job nepotism--the old boy's network tends to bring in those that are its like--e.g. white folk, in the main. No, he hadn't thought of that either. I asked him to look around at the partners of MT and O--notice anything, Viet? Bunch of white men looking to hire one semi-dark skinned right-winger to give "balance"--did that bother him? at this point well over 15,000 dollars per hour of lawyer were staring bullets at me, but the Petrus was flowing and i wasn't backing down. I told Viet that a college drop out could rip mile wide holes through his argument while drunk, and given how obviously brilliant he was, this was a sad statement on what unadulterated ideological rigidity could do to anyone.
He sort of acknowleged my point. I felt like a winner.
later, i decided to try to produced movies. He impeached a president and rewrote the constitution. i guess i didn't win so much.
Viet was up for a job with a prestigious law firm (Munger, Tolles and Olson) in downtown LA, and my girlfriend's father had invited him to a dinner with the partners. Foolishly, i was invited along with my girlfriend. I went and read Viet's affirmative action article--it was risibly polemical with little independent thought or analysis--a basic partisan hack job. I guess that he was young and a prodigy and an immigrant (vietnamese, obviously) made the righties care overmuch about the article, but i didn't get it. so at the dinner, which was supposed to be a "kiss viet's ass fest", i engaged him on his views. I asked, "have you considered that perhaps white folk get some help from legacy admissions policies at universities?". No, he said, hadn't thought of that. Huh. I asked him about job nepotism--the old boy's network tends to bring in those that are its like--e.g. white folk, in the main. No, he hadn't thought of that either. I asked him to look around at the partners of MT and O--notice anything, Viet? Bunch of white men looking to hire one semi-dark skinned right-winger to give "balance"--did that bother him? at this point well over 15,000 dollars per hour of lawyer were staring bullets at me, but the Petrus was flowing and i wasn't backing down. I told Viet that a college drop out could rip mile wide holes through his argument while drunk, and given how obviously brilliant he was, this was a sad statement on what unadulterated ideological rigidity could do to anyone.
He sort of acknowleged my point. I felt like a winner.
later, i decided to try to produced movies. He impeached a president and rewrote the constitution. i guess i didn't win so much.
Friday, September 19, 2003
Watching NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS is disturbing. To see what an actual alert and forthright left-wing press could be on TV--it is more than a breath of fresh air. How it is possible that no one from neither MSNBC nor CNN can see the obvious market to be cornered truly boggles. This is a case where the corporatist and rightist meme is SO STRONG that it actually overcomes the capitalist one. I can't think of many other places in our society where this can be said. Instead one right wing voice after another is added to the former (and watching JEsse Ventura on Bill Maher, one know-nothing voice after another) and the latter goes for "personality" TV with second rate and soft anchors. There is a desperate desire for a true left wing voice on tv, one that is unabashed in its pursuit of its agenda, as dogged as Fox but without the palaver about being "fair and balanced." I could even forgive Fox TV some of its dissembling if they just would ADMIT that this is right-wing TV, all the time. Then you would know that honest voices were being heard, even if you didn't necessarily agree with them. FOR FUCK'S SAKE, ROGER FUCKING AILES RUNS THE NETWORK!!!! surely it would be not overly difficult for him to stop lying for the seconds long enough to say, "Yeah we are the right now get over it". But he just can't admit it, just can't tell the truth. A strong left wing voice, presenting facts like Moyers was tonight, tough but fair (and almost literally eviscerating ex-non-jellyfish Christine Whitman, wow what a devastating presentation) that can make OUR arguments is absolutely priceless. Our voices need, require, such a thing to happen.
so i'm off to make 200 million or so and to make it happen. wish me luck.
so i'm off to make 200 million or so and to make it happen. wish me luck.
Monday, September 15, 2003
more NPR fun! for all your friends!!!
sometimes the targeting on ad-based demographics becomes so disturbingly...accurate? terrifying?...NPR's "All things Considered" sponsored by (not going to mention "commercial free" will let that pass) THE DEAD, no, not the ultimate film of John Huston's career, but rather the warmed over rehashed LSD besotted meta-wankery of messieurs Lesh et al--e.g. the Jerry Garcia lickspittle brass band. words fail.
fucking pathetic.
better than dealing with the horror festival which is our administration, at least for a day. now leave me alone.
sometimes the targeting on ad-based demographics becomes so disturbingly...accurate? terrifying?...NPR's "All things Considered" sponsored by (not going to mention "commercial free" will let that pass) THE DEAD, no, not the ultimate film of John Huston's career, but rather the warmed over rehashed LSD besotted meta-wankery of messieurs Lesh et al--e.g. the Jerry Garcia lickspittle brass band. words fail.
fucking pathetic.
better than dealing with the horror festival which is our administration, at least for a day. now leave me alone.
Friday, September 12, 2003
so this morning on NPR i hear some woman who is a honcho in the republican party here in California continually (or continuously, or quite possibly both) refer to the "democrat" party without rebuke from the reporter. How can a professional reporter let this wack-job right-wing Rush limbaugh renaming of one of the TWO major parties in our country go unchallenged? for those who don't know, far right elements of the republican party feel that called the Democrats the "Democratic" party is a bridge too far, and that they should be known as the "Democrat" party.
I have never suggested that the Republican party be called, for instance, the "no talent ass clown" party, or "Antonin Scalia's bitches", or the "2nd in votes, 1st in gerrymandering" party etc.
not me, nope.
I have never suggested that the Republican party be called, for instance, the "no talent ass clown" party, or "Antonin Scalia's bitches", or the "2nd in votes, 1st in gerrymandering" party etc.
not me, nope.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
"Donald Rumsfeld was right yesterday when he said that anyone who criticizes the administration is giving comfort to the terrorists. If we learned anything from September 11, it’s that dissent cannot be tolerated in a free society. If we resolutely fall in unquestioning lockstep behind our leader and approach this crisis like serious Christians and Jews, then we can beat back this tide of autocratic religious fundamentalism that threatens to engulf us all. "
Yet more proof that Neal Pollack is the greatest writer in the history of seriocomic political post-modern meta-blogdom, perhaps the greatest -dom of them all.
I agree that it is important that you buy his book, which may or may not prove to be the greatest book ever written, based upon how good it will be.
Yet more proof that Neal Pollack is the greatest writer in the history of seriocomic political post-modern meta-blogdom, perhaps the greatest -dom of them all.
I agree that it is important that you buy his book, which may or may not prove to be the greatest book ever written, based upon how good it will be.
As Atrios is reporting, it looks as if CNN has removed their wolf blitzer question of the day. the obvious reason is of course that the poll keeps getting responses skewed against the fool, or president, or whatever we are calling him these days.
of course, it would never ever ever ever ever occur to CNN that maybe, JUST MAYBE, this is because they have a groundswell of more progressive viewers? that maybe, just maybe, being an actual counterpoint to msnfoxbc news might lead to an increase in neilsens? of course, one could argue that accurately presenting actual news items would lead to the same result, but i think that is even more of a fantasy than seeing them pull to the left.
a boy can dream.
of course, it would never ever ever ever ever occur to CNN that maybe, JUST MAYBE, this is because they have a groundswell of more progressive viewers? that maybe, just maybe, being an actual counterpoint to msnfoxbc news might lead to an increase in neilsens? of course, one could argue that accurately presenting actual news items would lead to the same result, but i think that is even more of a fantasy than seeing them pull to the left.
a boy can dream.
Friday, September 05, 2003
fun back and forth with the columbia journalism review regarding their crappy article by David Greenberg, ably destroyed by Bob Somersby at the daily howler.
first my post to them, then their reply. enjoy.
On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 rgreen@mediaventures.com wrote:
> i would assume, after reading www.dailyhowler.com
> 's quite vicious and entirely accurate
> take down of Mr. Greenberg's article regarding lies and journalism,
> that you might either want to a) issue a retraction (given the
> vacuousness and inaccuracy of greenberg's work) or b) hang your heads
> in shame. either way, a sad day for journalism when even CJR can't
> come within 100 miles of intelligent analysis of the most important
> issue of our day.
>
> i am both a creator and consumer of media, and i have finally managed
> to start reading articles as mendacious and absurd as greenberg's (and
> i will not bother to enumerate the list of mistakes and shoddy
> analysis contained therein, Mr. Somersby does that more than well
> enough) while seeing their emptiness as i read, rather than having
> that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach afterwards. I tend to
> assume (partially based, i admit, on Stanley Rothman's rather
> tendentious survey from 1980 that started this whole thing) that many
> on the board of CJR are in fact Democrats, maybe even (the love that
> dare not speak its name) liberals. Your slavish devotion to
> "fairness" has led to a weird and sick kind of self-hatred that is all
> too perfectly crystallized in greenberg's piece. you should all take
> a nice long weekend in the Hamptons to think about what has gone wrong
> both with journalism in this country and with your own work.
>
> best,
>
>
> Robert Green
Hi Mr. Green. Jeez, you're a self-important kind of guy, aren't you? And a little pretentious? I'm actually going to a ball game. bye.
Mike Hoyt, CJR
Well, they got me good.
first my post to them, then their reply. enjoy.
On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 rgreen@mediaventures.com wrote:
> i would assume, after reading www.dailyhowler.com
>
> take down of Mr. Greenberg's article regarding lies and journalism,
> that you might either want to a) issue a retraction (given the
> vacuousness and inaccuracy of greenberg's work) or b) hang your heads
> in shame. either way, a sad day for journalism when even CJR can't
> come within 100 miles of intelligent analysis of the most important
> issue of our day.
>
> i am both a creator and consumer of media, and i have finally managed
> to start reading articles as mendacious and absurd as greenberg's (and
> i will not bother to enumerate the list of mistakes and shoddy
> analysis contained therein, Mr. Somersby does that more than well
> enough) while seeing their emptiness as i read, rather than having
> that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach afterwards. I tend to
> assume (partially based, i admit, on Stanley Rothman's rather
> tendentious survey from 1980 that started this whole thing) that many
> on the board of CJR are in fact Democrats, maybe even (the love that
> dare not speak its name) liberals. Your slavish devotion to
> "fairness" has led to a weird and sick kind of self-hatred that is all
> too perfectly crystallized in greenberg's piece. you should all take
> a nice long weekend in the Hamptons to think about what has gone wrong
> both with journalism in this country and with your own work.
>
> best,
>
>
> Robert Green
Hi Mr. Green. Jeez, you're a self-important kind of guy, aren't you? And a little pretentious? I'm actually going to a ball game. bye.
Mike Hoyt, CJR
Well, they got me good.
Music, ripping, burning and so on, is today's topic. there is an excellent thread over at ATrios on this issue today, but i have a slightly different take. i, like many others, have managed to digitize my entire CD collection. I have approximately 12,000 songs now on my hard drive. I don't share them, a bit because i'm not comfortable with file sharing on that scale and also for security reasons. However, my 40 gigs worth of music, carefully filed and tagged, is easily, in less than a half hour, transferred to a 40 or 60 or whatever gig hard drive via either firewire or USB 2.0. All someone has to do is spend around 120 dollars for the drive, come over, copy the music, and "hey presto" they now are the proud owner of over a thousand CDs worth of music. As the memory technology gets increasingly cheaper and easier and better, i think THIS is the area where the record companies are screwed. people will just exchange memory sticks that will be credit card sized and hold a terabyte and cost probably 30 bucks, all within 10 years or less.
Thursday, August 28, 2003
More fun from the Times today (in case you, and by you i mean the no one that reads this blog):
Two stories--one, the removal of the Ten Commandments stone from the courthouse. i think the weirdest thing about this particular story is the actual content of the commandments themselves. the first four are all self-reflexive--graven image, the sabbath, no other god but me etc. I sometimes think that too many people allow themselves to believe that the ten commandments are all actual legal stuff, and forget that they are also some really pernicious narcissistic bullshit that deserves nothing but the scorn of any intelligent person. thou shalt not kill is a good idea, sure, but it is also something called COMMON SENSE, and can easily be detached from the rest of the commandments, indeed can be detached from the realm of religion (which has done quite a bit of killing in its time, oh yes) and put into the realm of...law. listening to the sadly deluded and sick individuals who are defending judge moore suggests we are getting closer to civil war than many would want to believe in this country. oh, and did i mention that 300 of our fine representatives felt it was necessary to effectively support Judge Moore? sigh. No talent ass clowns, every one.
on the same page (and it's all about juxtapositions this week) we have the continuing debacle of the Houston school system, where all statistics were inflated regarding graduation rates, college rates etc. All done in the name of getting fundie Christian asshole Rod Paige the job of secretary of education under faux fundie born again president george bush. well, that worked, he's there now, spewing forth religiosity from his "pulpit" as sec of ed, a position which oversees public schools, ostensibly the home of the separation of church and state. double sigh. it turns out that everything that paige claimed about the school system he ran was false. it was and remains a disaster where kids are learning nothing. quote of the day:
"Ashleigh Blackmon, a graduate of Yates in 2002, said she did not for a moment believe all her classmates were planning on college but was not sure her school's claims did any harm.
"It doesn't mean anything, because who cares?" she said, and then paused. "But it could mean they lie about a lot more of other things."
No shit, Ashleigh, they sure could.
Two stories--one, the removal of the Ten Commandments stone from the courthouse. i think the weirdest thing about this particular story is the actual content of the commandments themselves. the first four are all self-reflexive--graven image, the sabbath, no other god but me etc. I sometimes think that too many people allow themselves to believe that the ten commandments are all actual legal stuff, and forget that they are also some really pernicious narcissistic bullshit that deserves nothing but the scorn of any intelligent person. thou shalt not kill is a good idea, sure, but it is also something called COMMON SENSE, and can easily be detached from the rest of the commandments, indeed can be detached from the realm of religion (which has done quite a bit of killing in its time, oh yes) and put into the realm of...law. listening to the sadly deluded and sick individuals who are defending judge moore suggests we are getting closer to civil war than many would want to believe in this country. oh, and did i mention that 300 of our fine representatives felt it was necessary to effectively support Judge Moore? sigh. No talent ass clowns, every one.
on the same page (and it's all about juxtapositions this week) we have the continuing debacle of the Houston school system, where all statistics were inflated regarding graduation rates, college rates etc. All done in the name of getting fundie Christian asshole Rod Paige the job of secretary of education under faux fundie born again president george bush. well, that worked, he's there now, spewing forth religiosity from his "pulpit" as sec of ed, a position which oversees public schools, ostensibly the home of the separation of church and state. double sigh. it turns out that everything that paige claimed about the school system he ran was false. it was and remains a disaster where kids are learning nothing. quote of the day:
"Ashleigh Blackmon, a graduate of Yates in 2002, said she did not for a moment believe all her classmates were planning on college but was not sure her school's claims did any harm.
"It doesn't mean anything, because who cares?" she said, and then paused. "But it could mean they lie about a lot more of other things."
No shit, Ashleigh, they sure could.
Monday, August 25, 2003
So the two lead NY Times editorials today say that a) the patriot act is bad and b) dynastic regimes in obscure countries are bad. you know, azerbaijan and all that, some guy giving his kid the job of prime minister. that kind of stuff. but in the first editorial, the writer speaks of Lisa Murkowski's efforts to overturn parts of patriot. good for her and all, but um, didn't her dad Frank hand her his senate seat? goose, gander? pot, kettle? I'm no expert on nepotism, as my father uselessly DOES NOT RUN A MOVIE STUDIO (grumble grumble), but i'm pretty sure there ain't a dime's worth of difference between what Aliyev is doing and what Murkowski has done.
Saturday, August 23, 2003
So, remember when you were around, say, 16? And it seemed like little old middle class you was NEVER going to get a date with mary fingerpants, because the other guys had cars already and nicer houses and flash clothing and so on? But you finally worked up your nerve to ask Mary out, and to your surprise, she kind of liked you enough to say, "sure why not?"
so you racked your brain for what you could do with basically no money and no car...maybe hang out downtown and go to a movie? Mary, piqued by your dashing good looks, figured, "why not?" so it was a date. Friday night. Come Thursday, you got nervous (perhaps partially motivated by all your...level, shall we say, of friends, saying "is she really going out with him?"), and happened to chat with her again. "Are we still on?", you asked pensively... and again, Mary was completely on board. "It will be great, i'm so looking forward to it..."
Life seemed good, if only for a minute.
But then Friday rolled around, and Jimmy Testojockorich had tickets, wouldn't you know it, to the Rolling Stones concert! That night! At the _____ Civic Center! And he asked Mary to go with him! maybe 25 rows back, not dead center or anything, and yeah, sure, the STones at this point hadn't recorded a non shitty song in let's say 15 years at that point. But Mary came to you that afternoon and, all sweet and lovely, said "look, it's THE ROLLING STONES! You have to understand! And hey, we can still go out next week, unless i'm really really busy or something...and anyway, here are some extra tickets I have for a show at the movie theater, you totally take them"
and pussy that you were, what did you do? You said, "oh sure that's ok, i totally understand." Your friends were unsurprised, to put it mildly, but happy to have you for another night of smoking weed and wishing you were getting laid.
This scenario played out in almost perfect symmetry this week on a movie i was about to produce. It was going to shoot in September, but a certain actor who will remain nameless (you know who you are) decided to, in spite of HAVING A CONTRACT with us, choose another movie for the same date.
whatever, we will shoot in january. Mary, you will be mine.
so you racked your brain for what you could do with basically no money and no car...maybe hang out downtown and go to a movie? Mary, piqued by your dashing good looks, figured, "why not?" so it was a date. Friday night. Come Thursday, you got nervous (perhaps partially motivated by all your...level, shall we say, of friends, saying "is she really going out with him?"), and happened to chat with her again. "Are we still on?", you asked pensively... and again, Mary was completely on board. "It will be great, i'm so looking forward to it..."
Life seemed good, if only for a minute.
But then Friday rolled around, and Jimmy Testojockorich had tickets, wouldn't you know it, to the Rolling Stones concert! That night! At the _____ Civic Center! And he asked Mary to go with him! maybe 25 rows back, not dead center or anything, and yeah, sure, the STones at this point hadn't recorded a non shitty song in let's say 15 years at that point. But Mary came to you that afternoon and, all sweet and lovely, said "look, it's THE ROLLING STONES! You have to understand! And hey, we can still go out next week, unless i'm really really busy or something...and anyway, here are some extra tickets I have for a show at the movie theater, you totally take them"
and pussy that you were, what did you do? You said, "oh sure that's ok, i totally understand." Your friends were unsurprised, to put it mildly, but happy to have you for another night of smoking weed and wishing you were getting laid.
This scenario played out in almost perfect symmetry this week on a movie i was about to produce. It was going to shoot in September, but a certain actor who will remain nameless (you know who you are) decided to, in spite of HAVING A CONTRACT with us, choose another movie for the same date.
whatever, we will shoot in january. Mary, you will be mine.
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