Foreclosures, Bonuses and the STREET Goes On

A number of articles today bring together an underlying theme of this blog. The first is from USA Today, detailing an unexpected rise in foreclosures for the first time since July (a presumed peak): www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2010-01-13-foreclosures-rise-in-december_N.htm. Just to give perspective, that is 349,519 families that lost their homes last month. Another 2.4 million are expected to happen in 2010. In 2009, the total was 2.8 million homes, the year before 2.3 million and around 1 million in 2007. These numbers are staggering when put together, but there is, of course good news as well.

Things are coming up roses for banking, which some have erroneously blamed for the financial crisis (read sarcasm here). As reported in the Wall Street Journal today: “An analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows that executives, traders, investment bankers, money managers and others at 38 top financial companies can expect to earn nearly 18% more than they did in 2008—and slightly more than in the record year of 2007.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704281204575003351773983136.html#mod=todays_us_page_one). That makes sense, right?

To bring the two articles together, is an oped by Nobel Lauriat Paul Krugman regarding the current Congressional hearings regarding reregulation of the financial sector (www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15krugman.html?hp). Krugman makes the very valid point that it is absurd to talk to Wall Street about fixing Wall Street, when they are so blind to the truth and so inured to the idea of profits over people and the common good. Historically, as I have mentioned many times before, the average person does better when markets are regulated. Wall Street does better when it is not. Yet the marginal return to regulation is better for everyone, given the pain almost all of us feel during financial crises like the Great Depression, 70s stagflation, the 87 crash and the current financial crisis. We need to remind politicians and Wall Street that the country is not built on the elite interests alone and that we need to rebuild a fair and just American economy before we are all forced to fold our cards and start the slow descent into third world country status. It is time for the people to stop listening to foolish talking heads regurgitating old Reaganomic lies and start listening to economists who know what they are talking about. Governments might be bad and dangerous sometimes, but they are necessary if we are to escape this mess.

The Party that Loves to Hate

So as Haitians are literally dying in the streets (www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/americas/14haiti.html?th&emc=th), you assume all would rally to support them in their time of need. Of course, that would be a mistake. Not Rush Limbaugh et al, who are actually criticizing Obama for responding so quickly to the tragedy: www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/13/824726/-Monster. You got that right – he responded too quickly, showing he cares more about Black Haitians than Americans who were unhurt by a failed terrorist attack. But this is mere trifling compared to the words of radical preacher Pat Robertson on the 700 Club yesterday:

"[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'Okay it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti, on the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come."

Who is the real devil here? The good news is the GOP sets the bar pretty low and thus the new governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell invited Robertson to attend his swearing in. The hypocrisy of the grand ole party would be funny . . . if it wasn’t destroying the country.

Lobbying and Democracy II

An interesting article in the National Journal yesterday (http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2010/01/health-insurers-funded-chamber.php) highlights the fact that six of the biggest health care insurers were spending between $10 and $20 million last summer, through the Better Business Bureau, to air ads that argued against the very legislation they were supposedly working on with Obama and Congress. There is, of course, nothing implictly wrong with this -- in fact, Madison argued for the power of factions to battle each other and thus balance out power. Yet one has to wonder what faction is challenging the power these large corporations have to dominate the form and framing of the debate. This spending did seem to reap benefits for the private healthcare industry, by turning the public against the public option and reform in general based on a series of half-truths and lies.

"The ads sharply criticized the high costs of the separate bills, especially the House version. The commercials warned the legislation would raise taxes for Americans and hurt the economy as it tries to recover from the recession. And some chamber-financed commercials attacked setting up a government run plan to compete with private insurers -- a special sore point for the insurance industry -- which is part of the House measure. The U.S. Chamber has spent approximately $70 million to $100 million on the advertising effort, according to lobbying sources. It's unclear whether the business lobby group went to AHIP with a request to help raise funds for its ad drives, or whether AHIP approached the chamber with an offer to hit up its member companies."

Lobbying and Democracy

Some facts from Harper's Index this month:

# of registered drug-company lobbyists in DC for every member of Congress: 2
Average amount spent on Congressional lobyying, per day, by healthcare cos.: $1,500,000
Average amount the U.S. government spends on each child during first 18-years: $140,000

Is there something wrong with these numbers? As with the banks, companies are paying extraordinary amounts of money so they can drain more money out of your pockets. Of course they are scared of the government -- they have the power to make healthcare a public good, like it is in the rest of the world. The definition of a public good is one that is not owned privately, mainly because the social benefits and externalities are so great it is not well served by normal market function. Huh, might healthcare fit that definition? Could there be both individual, family and larger social good from a healthier population with more money to spend on other goods? Um . . .

GOP: “Jump!” --> Media: “How High?”

Item 1: The mainstream media in America has grown increasingly absurd in their obsequious acquiescence to any subject Republicans claim as important. The latest were the comments by Senator Majority leader Harry Reid in 2008. At the time, as I’m sure you heard, he spoke about Obama’s light skin and lack of “Negro dialect” as factors that could help him win the Presidency. Oh my God! He should quit! How could he say these abominable things! This is even worse than when Trent Lott said we would have been a lot better off if a staunch racist and segregationist had become president. Huh, now wait a minute . . . is this a good analogy? I think the GOP might be on the road to failing the standardized tests they love so much. Reid makes a Real Politik comment in support of a Black candidate for President, that probably holds some truth. Lott says the country would be better off with a racist. Me thinketh the lady doth protest out of her asseth: www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/01/10/reid_gaffe?source=newsletter.

Item 2: Last week ex-presidential and New York Gubernatorial candidate Rudy Giuliani goes on CNN and spews a line of bullshit that is hard to believe, arguing that there were no terrorist attacks under Bush, but one under Obama (www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/08/us/politics/AP-US-Terrorism-Giuliani.html). Is he that stupid? Is the media? Well, no one challenged him as he forgot the moment that made him a national superstar or the shoe bomber’s failed attempt, that huh, sounds pretty similar to the we’re talking about now. How daft is the media today? Do they even listen to what their guests are screaming at each other? Do they care? Here is what Host George Stephanopoulos said: ''All of you who have pointed out that I should have pressed him on that misstatement in the moment are right,'' he wrote on his blog. ''My mistake, my responsibility.'' I think maybe it’s time to bring back the “Stop the Insanity” loon Susan Powter, though her insanity should be fully focused on the most inept set of pundits and reporters in history. These clan makes Judith Miller seem like Edward R. Murrow.

Bud Lite Blows

Or at least one wonders if the bottle does, given their latest commercial. In it a young woman is asking her date/boyfriend about who he would save if she and another were going to fall off a cliff. He, of course, chooses her over the dog “buster” (in a riveting supporting role), and his mother, but not, alas, over a bottle of bud light. Now forgoing for a moment the reality that bud light, um, sucks, is why he wouldn’t save his girlfriend and then just buy a new beer. I hate to get too literal, but this level of silliness appears over and over again in beverage commercials.

I remember an old Heineken commercial where a man told a woman he loved her, just so he could have another drink from the beer the girl was blocking with her body. And there is the infamous Dr. Pepper ad where the guy chooses a Dr. Pepper over some other girl, with the Meatloaf ballad “I’d do anything for love.” The important lyrics here is “but I won’t do that,” which is share his soda. While these ads are funny at some base level, I have to wonder if the advertising execs repeating this theme over and over again are the biggest a-holes in the world or repeating these messages over and over again does get people to believe that beer and soda are more important than sex, love, family and friendship (more generally commodities are more important than people)?

Art as Propaganda

Mark Laita is a New York/Los Angeles artist who has just released a new book, "Created Equal." In the book he juxtaposes images of ordinary and famous people based on his journey across the 48 contiguous states over a 7 year period. He explains: "‘I photograph what I love about my country, which is the American. By that I mean the individual who is shaped from more than 200 years of liberty and independence missed with all the successes and failures that America has experienced in its short life. So here is a collection of these creatures. Tragic and wonderful, great and ordinary, they stand proud and ready for scrutiny.’” (http://www.faheykleingallery.com/photographers/laita/press/created_equal_new_work/laita_pr_cenw_frames.htm).  Look here for the images: http://flavorwire.com/gallery/12-30-09/index.html. He further explained in the original 2006 exhibit, "At the heart of this collection of portraits is my desire to remind us that we are all equal, until our environment, circumstances or fate molds us and weathers us into whom we become. America’s extremes seem to be getting more severe. The chasm between the rich and poor continues to grow; the clash between conservatives and liberals is stronger than ever; even good and evil seem more polarized. Created Equal attempts to remind us that we are all connected, no matter how separate our paths may be.” While I think the pictures are interesting and provocative, I am troubled by the racial dynamics of many, the underlying ideology he seems to be invoking and what appears to be a mocking portrayal of the ordinary and (extra)ordinary. Do we really need art right now that seems blatantly racist, tacitly sexist and celebrates the "American dream"? All art is implicitly valid in whatever it is attempting to do, but I find this trite and trivial and silly in its rather naive invocation of equality (while more interesting in exploring the increased polarity of American society).  

The Lunatic Fringe Goes Mainstream

Just whenI thought the tea baggers and Sarah Palin were the far right of the party, I learned crackpot ideas are back in the mainstream of the party (just kidding, they have always been there). Some examples . . .

Allen Quist, a Republican candidate seeking the nomination to go up against Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), has made a serious pronouncement: That the political battle against the Democrats is the defining fight of this generation, even greater than the fight against terrorism: "I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is -- every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes -- but that's not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren't liberals, they're radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz -- they're not liberals, they're radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out."

A Republican candidate for governor in Idaho, who once joked about hunting President Obama, is calling for God to save the U.S. Constitution: "To think that we can save the Constitution without God's help when the government of the United States is corrupt is absurdity," he said. "We are in America's second Revolutionary War to save our freedom, which we paid for with blood. We need God's help and I'm not ashamed to ask for it."

And this from NPR: "Well, it's always politically difficult for Democrats when they are dealing with an issue like terrorism. It remained the Republican's only winning issue through most of President Bush's second term, and it's a particular problem for a Democrat who hasn't served in the military. But the policy problem is that it takes up a great deal of the administration's time, and will from here on out - particularly when the Senate Intelligence Committee starts hearings in a couple of weeks."

Another lunatic right winger, right? No this was long-time pundit Cokie Roberts. Just to refresh my memory, did Bush actually "serve" in the military, or escape doing his service in Vietnam and rarely even showed up for duty? And Cheney et al were war heroes too, right? Oh wait, that is another fiction somehow escaping the mainstream media. It was Kerry who was the coward and liar in the end. That's right. Whew, thank God we resolved that confusion.

The Party of No: Part II

There is a good article in the Washington Post today, detailing the quandary of California and how it may foreshadow a continuation and amplification of the nation’s financial crisis: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123103487_pf.html. As author Klein argues, underlying the financial problems is a profound political problem, the unwillingness of Republicans to collect necessary taxes to provide the social services the state needs. California has a unique problem in that the passage of Prop 13 in the 70s limits the ability of the state to raise property taxes, the major source of income in many states (along with sales taxes). This is underlined by a Republican party that believes we need tax cuts when times are good and tax cuts when times are bad. Klein thus poses the question, "What happens when one of the two major parties does not see a political upside in solving problems and has the power to keep those problems from being solved?" The party of no has succeeded as never before at backing their political and economic ideology under the guise of the financial crisis. Funding for schools, roads, social services, universities, healthcare, retirement, policing and all those services that fall under the rubric of “quality of life” are being cut as states teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and financial ruin.

Too many Americans continue to believe the Reagan line that government is not the solution, but the problem. They believe that markets and individuals are better able to solve our social problems. But as Herbert Hoover all but proved in the late 20s and early 30s, counting on the kindness of corporate and non-profit strangers to serve the needs of the larger society does not always (or even generally) work. The profound crisis facing America requires the government to intervene in areas like economic regulation, healthcare, support for American manufacturing (see the article in Harper’s: www.harpers.org/archive/2010/01/0082768), economic stimulation and support for those suffering through the crisis and a host of other problems that have only grown in the past few years. Republicans continue to claim that government can’t do anything and that it will only exacerbate the problem and destroy America. But what’s really destroying America? And can we really count on those doing the damage to suddenly reform themselves and change? Ultimately the question is whether obstructionism (a strategy first used very effectively by Newt in the 90s) is good for much more than winning elections (if even that anymore)? If I could place a bet, it would certainly be on the short side.

Top Ten Films of 2009

Here is my list of the best films I have seen this year. I have missed some critically acclaimed films (including Hurt Locker, Capitalism: A Love Story, An Education, Crazy Heart, Precious and Departures, among a host of others) and base this analysis on not only on artistic quality but the entertainment value of the work. So here it is . . .

1) The Soloist: A beautifully rendered story of how a friendship between a writer and a homeless musician helps both to grow. Robert Downey Jr. is exemplary and Jamie Fox continues to impress with the range of his acting skills.

2) The Invention of Lying: This film received little press or attention and was attacked vociferously by conservatives for its damning indictment of religion. The film does suffer from lack of imagination at times, envisions a dystopian world not fully explainable within the contours of the plot and ends on a formulaic note. But I believe Ricky Gervais again shine and along with Ghost Town (2008) has shown his ability to translate his skills to the big screen.

3) Inglourius Basterds: Quentin Tarantino continues to display his talent at writing gripping dialogue and creating scenes that capture the drama and nuances of human interaction. This is a Jewish wet dream that succeeds at all levels, even with Tarantino’s continuing penchant for excessive, gory violence.

4) Men Who Stare at Goats: George Clooney has had a busy year and this overlooked film by director Grant Heslov is a wonderfully sardonic satire on the military and new age absurdity. The movie is quirky and sometimes goes overboard, but has some of the funniest moments of the year and an underlying message that we should more seriously heed.

5) Watchmen: This adaption of what many consider one of the greatest graphic novels of all times (by Alan Moore) is inventive, visually stunning and provides a powerful critique of American hegemony within a sometimes convoluted plot. Definitely worth a view, even with a cheesy love story and some excessively graphic violence.

6) Drag Me to Hell: Raimi shines here in his usual mixture of gore and humor, here backed by wonderful work from the perky Alison Lohman and truly terrifying Lorna Raver (as Mrs. Ganash). The nod to the ethical conundrums of corporate America and corrupt world of commercial banking serve as a clever backdrop to a highly entertaining movie.

7) Sin Nombre: This extraordinary debut by Cary Fukunaga captures the perilous journey so many make to cross the border, intermingling human devastation and struggle with a beautifully rendered backdrop seen from atop a train traveling North toward freedom and escape.

8) A Serious Man: The latest from the Coen Brothers is a relatively muted morality tale of the struggles of a Jewish professor challenged by a series of ethical quandaries that threaten to tear his life apart. Michael Stuhlbarg does a wonderful turn as a modern-day Job, trying to do the right thing as a student attempts to bribe him, his wife starts sleeping with his best friend and the whole of his life unravels before him.

9) Avatar: Though at times cheesy in a relatively predictable and formulaic script, the film is a visual spectacle that moves the field of cinema forward (see below for full review).

10) 500 Days of Summer: This quirky romantic comedy succeeds even with clear shortcomings and failures. The indie characters are a bit too comfortable, a bit too materialistic and a bit too much like those hipsters that only play at bohemia. Yet the asynchronous narrative, the charming work of Zooey Deschanel and the nod to nerds like me that love obscure (and popular) cultural references, make it a satisfying venture.

The Party of No

Republicans have shown an adroit tendency to enact the material instantiation of postmodern ideas in the past decade. First was the recount of 2000, where they used revisionist and deconstruction discourses to disable democracy, callously arguing that a recount would undermine the will of the people and that machines were clearly superior to humans. They reinvented their own history (including that of Bush himself) to now claim that recounts were somehow unconstitutional and for maybe the first time in their history became strong anti-federalists (or federalists in the parlance of the constitutional convention), arguing that the Supreme Court should trump state power, leading to one of the most partisan and absurd decisions in recent jurisprudence (lest us forget Plessy v. Ferguson and the Dred Scot decision). Since then they have enacted a series of language games that have been very effective in winning popular support for their deleterious policies including changing the inheritance tax to the “death tax,” advocating a “war to protect the peace,” rearticulating that war when no WMDs were found as the exportation of liberal democracy, speaking of 911 and Hussein together so often most Americans came to believe Saddam himself planned the attacks, claiming global warming as a plot by liberals to destroy capitalism (based on scientists who are almost invariably funded by oil companies) and an endless list of other examples.

This tendency has continued with the recent debates on healthcare, including absurdist complaints about the government advising people to die and blindness to the long-term effects of taking no action. Cheney et al have rewritten the history of the “war on terror” (http://rawstory.com/2009/12/massa-cheney-has-political-tourette) and have even convinced some that the current financial crisis is either Clinton, or more humorously, Obama’s fault. The most interesting aspect of their new strategy might be a nod to Adorno’s idea of the negative dialectic or Derrida’s perpetual critique. The Republican Party argues against everything Obama attempts to do, demands modifications to all major bills, and then still votes in unison against them. And interesting article by Fortune columnist and famed Reaganite Bruce Bartlett calls them out of this position of imminent critique: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/30/republican-voting-politics-government-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html. He argues that current Republican obstructionism to the estate tax reauthorization is yet another example of negation as strategy.

The Republicans believe they can regain power simply by following the lead of the lunatic fringe and pundits like Limbaugh and Beck, becoming the obstructionist party of negation alone. The problem is the media irresponsibly reports their attacks without adequate accountability to the line between what they say and what they do and this strategy could succeed. The blurring line between fact and fiction is where the party resides today, in the desert of the real. Yet can we govern from this position? What will be done about the continuing financial crises, the rising costs of healthcare, the worsening position of too many Americans, the growing disparity between rich and poor, the looming environmental catastrophe, the continued irresponsible behavior of corporate and financial leaders and the declining economic prospects of America in the world? The market remains the answer to too many of these Reagan acolytes. And yet it is the same market that has caused all of the problems enumerated above. Negation alone cannot make the world a better place, particularly when that negation is only of change. You can never enter the same river twice, but Republicans seem to think they can damn that river and then reverse its course, returning us to a utopian past as fictional as their revisionist history. They claim the superiority of their position based on being realistic and pragmatic. But how pragmatic is existing in language games? If we continue to follow their lead, we end up in a literal desert of the real – America slowly marching toward its ultimate demise (with the whole planet to follow at some future date). Let us hope that a more authentic realism, intermingled with a healthy dose of idealism, stands in their way.

Movie Review: Up in the Air (2009)

Up in the Air is receiving rave reviews. George Clooney is winning renewed accolades as the cynical corporate traveler Ryan Bingham, Vera Famiga is up for a number of awards and director Jason Reitman, of Juno (2007) and Thank You for Smoking (2005) fame, has another quirky hit to add to his resume. The film has been nominated for six Golden Globes, won the Austin Film Critics award and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for Best Screenplay, National Board of Review awards for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor and Clooney garnered the coveted New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, among a host of other nominations and awards. Critics love the film and it already has created serious Academy Award buzz. But is the film worthy of this collective encomium?

I would say no. It is a relatively successful send-up of corporate America today, the alienation and emptiness of contemporary society, the heartlessness of technology gone wild and the true human costs of layoffs and corporate downsizing. Yet it does so from too safe a distance and with a muted humor and cynical ending that seems to undermine the ideological force of the whole film. It has a number of funny moments, intermingled with a lot of corny jokes and a saccharine love story that is too intent on reinforcing the theme of the dehumanizing effects of corporate profit-seeking to really inspire my interest. The people laid off in the film, with a few exceptions, are real people who have recently lost their jobs and who were recruited through the classifieds and told to treat the camera like those who just fired them. This leads to some compelling and funny moments, but in other cases the heaviness of these moments seems ill-advised given the failure of any of the main characters to actually change in any meaningful way. When we learn that one woman who threatens killing herself in fact does so, the heartless boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) is more worried about the legal ramifications than the dead women. Bateman does do a wonderful job as a detached boss, intent on embodying the worst excesses or corporate America today. These moments do deconstruct how the corporation has dehumanized us and led the whole of society to lose its way, but for me the film suffers from a dullness that undermines the otherwise effective morale.

In fact the plot, based on the novel by Walter Kim, seems to revolve more around the dehumanizing nature of firing by technology in comparison to the personal touch of sending someone like corporate downsizer and empty shell Bingham to do the job. The approach is based on leading these workers to see their termination as the opportunity to lead better lives (in case we miss the point, the discussions between Bingham and the other workers at makes it clear that their services are about limiting backlash to the companies doing the firing). Bingham travels 290 days doing this job, living in hotels and eschewing any meaningful personal relationships. His apartment is without any personality, he is alienated from his family (until he saves his sister’s wedding) and his only relationships appear to be the superficial ones that one has with a bartender, co-worker or one-night stand. That is until he meets Alex Goran (Vera Famiga) who he quickly develops feelings for. She seems to be pushing him toward something more meaningful, just as his livelihood is jeopardized by newcomer Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), fresh out of the Ivy League and in some ways even more heartless than Bingham.

The two go out on the road so he can teach her the ropes of firing others effectively and to challenge her not to implement the telecommunication technology she wants to use to replace Clooney and the other company agents. Along the way, she pushes Clooney to contemplate how meaningless his life is – including the rather heavy-handed “What’s in Your Backpack” lectures he occasionally gives to convince others to eliminate “meaningless” personal relationships from their lives. As the story unfolds, Natalie and Ryan, of course, grow as human beings, though both suffer losses and heartbreak along the way (I don’t want to give away too much). In the end, the question is how much have they really grown? Particularly for Bingham, has he really found a way to reconnect with the world and find meaning in his life? Many will assume that he has and that the film is funnier and more meaningful than I found it. I found Clooney substantially more compelling in Michael Clayton (2007), and have rarely found Famiga to be much more than a pretty, saturnine actress with little personality or charm. Anna Kendrick certainly shines and Bateman does a wonderful reprise of his Michael Bluth character from “Arrested Development,” though here without a pesky heart to stand in the way of his affectless humor.

It seems at some level as if Reitman lost his will in the end, and decided to find some humanity in this inhumane world, though without the happy ending the audience is rooting for. In his desire to avoid the formulaic we are left cold, not only from the unsatisfying denouement, but from actors who, for all their accolades, seem to give performances that are too muted, too uninspired, too, well, alienating in their individual alienation. Clooney has developed the power to carry a film on his charm and charisma alone, but here it fails as he attempts to crawl into the body of his converse – a man who protects himself from the world by literally flying above us at a safe altitude. Just like his dank, sterile apartment, the film suffers from too dour a view of humanity. You might find it as some surprise that I would still recommend the film, but I do. It is worth a viewing for the underlying message and to watch huge ambition confront the challenges of serious critique within the Hollywood formula. But it is, in many ways, a lovely failure to observe. (B+)

Movie Review: Avatar

I had very little interest in seeing this film, based largely on commercials that made it appear as a B-movie blockbuster wannabe epic and the sort of buzz that usually leaves me cold. And it is true that the script is cast of B-movie noirish science-fiction yore, the plot contrived and convoluted and the underlying message obfuscated by the visceral dynamism and 3D gadgetry. And yet one cannot overlook that visceral dynamism, because this film offers a veritable orgy of images, colors and sounds that is truly stunning to experience.

The plot, for those who have not already seen the film, revolves around a twin brother who, in the year 2154, is sent to complete a mission on the planet Pandora (how much did the internet radio company pay for that plug) for his dead brother. From here we are cast into space and another world that, as with most science fiction, doesn't stray too far from our own – except in its colorful majesty. Here the natives (Na’vi,) who appear as blue versions of our own Native Americans populations, live uncomfortably with the corporate interlopers sent to extract the precious “unobtanium.” The protagonist Jake Sully (Australian actor Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic ex-Marine, who arrives at Pandora to psychically control the movements of his Na’vi-like avatar while confined to a coffin-like container. The program, originally designed for botany research, is overseen by an Alien-reduxed Sigourney Weaver, the most seasoned actor in a relatively modest cast. The opportunity to again walk is never fully explored in the film, but it is clear that Jake has found a renaissance in his blue avatar, leading him quickly to love with the lissome warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who saves him from death on his first trip to the "other side."

At first, Jake appears comfortable lying to his newfound “tribe,” as he continues to offer information and secrets to the corporate boss, played by Giovanni Ribisi (a miscast in my opinion), and the more nefarious Colonel Quaritech (Stephen Lang). Yet predictably, he is ultimately confronted with a choice between the greed and militarism of his own people and the ecumenical, near-Buddhist beliefs of his adopted tribe. The remainder of the film unfolds as one would expect with a series of battles, love lost and regained and a conclusion that fits smugly within the Hollywood formula. In the buildup to the dénouement, we move into the realm of serious, and arguably unnecessary, violence and a revenge narrative that seems misplaced in a film built around the sacred nature of all life and its inexorable interconnectivity.

The real beauty of the film is the combination of live-action and motion-capture animation. The exotic life forms, the stunning colors, the exquisite 3D, that literally jumps out of the screen toward you, all make the film much more than just a movie -- it is a holistic sensory ride. This is heightened by the fact that the year 2154 is "a time of great sorrow," as Earth is in ecological trouble. And this is but one of the many ideological messages Cameron delves into within his magical world. The clearest message is about looming ecological devastation and our need to reconnect with the natural world. At this level, the film appears to succeed, though one wonders if the same people who believe they know more than Nobel Prize winning scientists about global warming will really listen to the soft rantings of “liberal” Hollywood; within a fictitious film. Cameron also delve into the world of politics with a couple of relatively tame (and equally lame) shots at Bush and the Iraq War ("shock and awe" and some incantation of "you're either with us or against us") and a critique of nefarious corporations (and maybe Blackwater specifically) for their profits-over-people bottom line rationality that seem well-timed to the moment. Finally, he begs more serious questions about the legacy of our slaughter of the Native Americans here and maybe native populations all across the globe that, combined with the ecological and capitalist critiques, appear to paint a picture of a civilization that has destroyed too much in its struggle for profit and “advancement,” imperiling its own future in the process.

Whatever your feelings on the political message, this is a film to see for its technical mastery and bold step forward into that blurring line between fiction and reality – an instantiation of the post-modern movement toward the desert of the real. (A-)

Hypocrisy 101

Sometimes Republican hypocrisy is cute, sometimes it is funny and sometimes it is downright despicable. The latest terrorist attempt has allowed their favorite topic to resurface: fear. Yet the interesting side note of this attack is that they appear to be attacking Obama for doing exactly what the Bush gang did with the infamous shoe bomber, namely trying him in a court of law (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/cheney_3.php). We know Republicans don't like courts, particularly as so many of them have been finding themselves or their corporate benefactors in them lately for various forms of malfeasance, but what is the alternative? In this case, the fears seem completely and totally unwarranted as the facts of the case are clear. A Nigerian man boarded a plane with explosives, attempted to blow said plane up and was caught. How will the court system fail us here? He even admitted his intent and a long electronic trail details his evolution (or devolution) toward this choice. But that won't stop Dick Cheny (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31054.html) et al from turning the facts to their advantage. We wonder why anti-intellectualism is so popular in America today. Could it be to allow the masses to buy stories without ever considering the validity of the arguments posed. Luckily fear facilitates the process, as it tends to make us less "rational." The Republicans hope fear will "lift us up where we belong." Let's hope the country has another ditty in mind, one based on a memory that goes back more than a year to all the missteps of those offering their misguided clarion calls today.

New York, New York

So when one thinks of unhappy places to live, New Jersey and Connecticut come directly to mind. Maybe also Louisiana post-Katrina or the ominous deep South ala Mississippi. And of course, if you think about happy places to be Hawaii and Florida would obviously be near the top of the list. Where would New York fit though? The place of dreams where millions come to chase their dreams, make millions of dollars or get lost in the cultural and financial capital of the entire world? One would think this would have to be near the top of the happiest state list, would they? Instead New York is the unhappiest place in the country: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/22/new-york-unhappiest-state/print. How could that be? Well maybe part of the explanation comes from above. Many of those people who come to chase their dreams fail. Many don't ever make those millions -- and even those who do are often disillusioned by the fact that while money does bring comfort, it alone does not bring happiness. Maybe those who come to forget their past, forget their present and future as well. At the top of the list, though, may be the fact that New York doesn't seem to live up to its promise any longer. Most New Yorkers I know spend their time either bragging about how great everything is here (often unconvincingly) or engaging in our favorite pasttime -- complaining about just about anything we can think of, from our apartments, to the weather, to cabbie who seem to have more friends than us (given their constant, ongoing conversations throughout their shift in some exotic language we wish we knew), to a subway system that is under perpetual construction, to traffic, to our jobs, to the new restaurant or club or movie or play that just didn't live up to the hype, to the waitress who is too slow, the buses that drive too fast, to the neighbors who are up too late or complaining we are, to the air conditioning, the heat, the water, the prices, the mayor, the governor, the president, etc., etc., etc. Really it seems to have a lot to do with the "grass is greener" mentality. The married friends I have are bored, the single ones are constantly complaining about the latest relationship gone awry or the guy or gal that never called, texted or facebooked them (or that it took too long), my friends that make truck loads full of money are complaining about never having any free time or dating girls that see them as an ATM machine, those of us toward the lower end of the spectrum constantly worry about money even if we do like our jobs.

Unfriend Joins the Lexicon

Drumroll please . . . the word of the year, according to The New Oxford Dictionary, is unfriend: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/unfriend-beats-out-birther-death-panel-tramp-stamp-for-oxford-word-of-the-year.php?ref=fpa. Defriend was the word that I have been using, but I will bow to the protectors of the English Language. To unfriend is an interesting new dynamic in the world today. No breakup at a coffee shop, no avoiding calls for months, no need to confront the ex-friend with a final salvo. Instead we simply click a button and then confirm the end of a relationship. And who says technology is impersonal?

NFL/NCAA: No Fun for Anyone!

A few weeks ago, a series of penalties in a big college football game helped to decide the outcome (as I don't really care about college football, I can't really remember which game it was). God forbid 18 to 22 year old men actually celebrate a late touchdown that could win them a game! Now the NFL shows they have the sense of humor of a Tibetan monk (actually, I think Tibetan monks are actually much funnier). They have fined Bengal Chad Ochocinco for trying to bribe an official . . . with $1: sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4651092. The penalty?

"According to a league spokesman, Ray Anderson, the league's executive vice president of football operations, fined Ochocinco for violating a rule that "prohibits use of abusive, threatening or insulting language or gestures toward game officials. He was also in violation of Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1 (f) of the Playing Rules which prohibits possession or use of extraneous objects that are not part of the uniform during the game on the field or sideline . . . The NFL also cited Ochocinco using the word "bribe" in his postgame comments to reporters."

Well thank god in this difficult time of major unemployment, international instability, people losing their homes and terrorist plots the NFL is protecting us from a laugh. What would we do without them?

Gossip Girl Talent Just Too Big to Contain on TV Screen Alone

Remember when bands struggled through years of poverty and degradation to get a shot at success. Thankfully we have all but eliminated this route to fame for at least one group . . . the already famous. One actor after another has taken a shot at traversing the musical big time (Keanu Reeves, Bruce Willis, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Danza, John Travolta, Peter Gallagher, Don Johnson, Barbara Streisand, Steven Seagal, Robert Downey Jr., Minnie Driver, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, Milla Jovovich, Zooey Dashanel, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Jason Schwartzman, Kris Kristofferson, etc., etc., etc.). Are they any good? A few are, but can we admit most are slightly better than the American Idol first round cuts.

In case you haven't got enough of these career-benders, actor-cum-pop stars, the siren from Gossip Girls Leighton Meester has joined the list: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb1xmf_leighton-meester-somebody-to-love_music?from=feedblitz_523284_2884808. Who exactly has the poor taste to put this crap out, you ask? The same sort of people that gave us the Backdoor Boys, 'N Sync, Miley Cyrus, and just about anything you hear on the radio these days.

Healthcare Reform or Conservative Revanchism?

The healthcare debate has, in many ways, taken on a relatively surreal tone in the past few months (Obama as a socialist, fascist Hitler-like figure, the healthcare reform somehow leading to a tragedy worse than the Holocaust, the bill allowing the government to decide when people live and die, etc.), but it seems as if the Catholic Church has taken the debate to a new level of inanity. So healthcare reform was supposed to be a movement forward to insure those who are uninsured, to cut costs and to reign in the excesses of hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and others involved in the “industry.” To progressives, it was offered as a way to free people and improve our quality of life. That was until “progressive” Nancy Pelosi decided to heed the warning of Catholic bishops and include a provision that disallows coverage for abortions. Even worse, it prohibits any health plan that seeks federal subsidies from offering abortion coverage. Huh? Last time I checked, abortion was legal in America. So if they can’t win the battle in the courts, or in the ballot box, use a backhanded deal in Congress to undermine a women’s right to chose.

Essentially a potentially huge progressive victory will all but outlaw abortion in America. Women can supposedly buy supplemental coverage for abortion, but isn’t that a stigmatized solution to the problem that will give many women (and particularly young girls) pause? Can the young even get coverage for abortion, given that they are on their parents plan? What of poor women, who might not be able to afford the additional coverage? And how can a rider like that be legal, given the reality (again) that ABORTION IS LEGAL IN AMERICA. Whatever your position on the matter, it is hypocrisy to allow that people should be free to do what they want as long as they don’t do what you don’t want them to. Why are we allowing the government to step in and take control of women’s bodies? And does this make the bill a progressive, or conservative, triumph if it does eventually pass in the Senate? Even with a huge victory in the election a year ago, the Democrats again show that they have the backbone of jellyfish.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-CXZID-rNNxiUfAE2wP4oUU1ZLAD9BT71980

Teabaggers Go Trolling

I’m going to let the words of the Teabaggers largely speak for themselves this week: http://www.americablog.com/2009/11/teabaggers-attack-holocaust-survivor.html. Just for a little context, they continue their attacks on Obama and healthcare reform as some sort of Nazi plan to destroy America. And when Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel questions them, they become Holocaust deniers, Anti-semites and, surprise, surprise, make all Jews culpable for Bernie Madoff. How have these fringe lunatics gotten so much press? Oh yeah, it's the conservative revolution that's been so in fashion since the day after the election ...

The Next Better Thing

I have always been interested in the ways that culture influences our beliefs, values and attitudes. I am particularly interested in the influence of media and overarching economic beliefs on how we act. When I was in Los Angeles, I noticed the way single people interacted. It seemed as if everyone was looking for the next better thing. And because of that a sex culture had developed where men had to put very little effort into “getting laid” and girls, at least the ones I knew, begrudgingly accepted this arrangement. I returned to New York four years later and found a similar dynamic at play. Single and even married people seem to be constantly looking for an upgrade or supersizing of whomever they happen to be with. Not only men, but increasingly the women I meet. They will tell me they are finally in love with a great guy and then ten minutes later be hitting on me or one of my friends. I have friends who date two or more people at a time, and know many more that are cheating on their significant others as often as they try a new restaurant in the city (a veritable New York pastime). The question is why? While we are single, it makes sense to go on a lot of dates and meet a lot of different people. But what of giving a relationship a real shot? I know far too many good people in the city that are single or casually dating but looking for something more. It is hard to find, and so they settle into the single life ala NYC – a few dates, random sex, or relationships thaOr t fade into nothingness as one or the other moves on before really giving the person a chance. And then there are the guys who are completely comfortable being single and have no interest in any sort of commitment. They move from one girl to the next, treating sex as a hunt. While there is nothing implicitly wrong with this, it creates a culture in which no one really trusts anyone else. And many women embrace the lifestyle choice as well.

So what could the source of this dynamic be? Could it have anything to do with the neoliberal penchant to treat greed and self-interest as the most worthy goals? Could it be the way in which advertisers seek to commodify everything from family to love? Could it have anything to do with the American predilection to think that there are always simple solutions to complex problems? Or what of a culture that wants to hide from deep emotional commitment of any kind (often through pharmaceutical drugs that numb us to the world around us and any pain)? Or could it be Hollywood and the way it feeds us one happy ending after another, without sufficient barriers along the way? Could it be the way they venerate the man who never quite grows up until he finds the right women who transforms him into a honorable family many? Or the obsession with infidelity in film? Or maybe even Sex and the City, Gossip Girls, One Tree Hill and all the other shows that celebrate female emancipation through jumping from one bed to the next. This is not a jeremiad discussing the downfall of western morality or even a call for monogamy. It’s just to ask the question of why I know so many people who want real relationships, commitment and love but have such a hard time finding it. These are genuine, good and honest people who get caught in the sexual realpolitik of New York City. I have always believed that love is the answer . . . it’s too bad so many people settle for less. I know many will call me a hopeless romantic, or someone who has fallen prey to the oldest human mythology, or just a fool who doesn’t see the world for what it really is. Even if that is true, I will continue to embrace love as the only truly worthy thing in this flawed world.

GDP and Quality of Life

A report out yesterday showed the unemployment rate above 10% and the unemployment and underemployment number at over 17% (www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07econ.html?th&emc=th). This is a very troubling number and relates to the absurd notion of a “jobless recovery.” Is it really a recovery when people continue to lose jobs or remain un- or underemployed? Is it a real recovery when people continue to lose their homes or remain mired in major debt? Is it a real recovery when the quality of life continues to decline, as social services and education receive huge cuts in funding? Who in fact is benefiting from this so-called “recovery?”

The answer, of course, is those at the top of the income ladder. Everyone else suffers and a future filled with debt and little fundamental change in policy bodes well for the rest of us. What is one cause of this differential between GDP (the indicator of economic health) and quality of life? GDP became a popular indicator around the time of the Great Depression and has been one of the sole indicators focused on since the late 70s. Forget unemployment, inflation is the key economic measure of monetarists and their neoliberal supporters. Forget growing income gaps along the lines of class, gender and race – per capita income is the key. Forget growing populations in our prisons (predominalty youth of color), our middle class is safer – even as the media focuses on crime and terrorism. Forget purchasing power, the real issue is productivity and profitability. Forget most Americans, as long as the super rich are living opulent lives and safe from the results of their own risky behavior. And in case anyone wants to ask these questions, we have the lunatic wing, made up predominantly of working class Americans fighting against their own interests and futures (tea bagging anyone)?

GDP fails because it fails to measure too much that is going on in the economy that defines our quality of life. What about income disparity? What about quality of education? What about happiness and economic security? What about massive depression and legal and illegal drug abuse? What of the contribution of women and educators to the future of the country? What about pollution and serious looming ecological danger? What about the health of the population and the growing percentage of our income many pay each year for services and insurance? What about massive obesity and the dumbing down of America? All of the less tangible, non-profitable activities are excluded from the measure, and yet it defines our collective future.

Reinventing the Wheel?

For years I have been listening to people warn me against “reinventing the wheel.” It makes sense and though I cringe every time I hear it (I have a natural aversion to laziness in language; and the anti-intellectualism it hints at), I never considered the burgeoning crisis it might invoke. Recently I have become troubled that this common cliché might in fact be causing immeasurable harm to humanity. What if a better wheel is out there, but has been left undiscovered because of the demoralizing message spread so far and wide. Is the wheel we have been using for thousands of year really so great? Is there a better design out there waiting to push us forward into an unimaginable future? Probably not, but I really hate that phrase.

On a related note is the pervasive “thinking outside the box.” I have long believed that anyone that uses this phrase is in fact stuck inside a box from which it would take them several years to emerge – given the constricted logic and language available to them. Thinking outside the proverbial box is indicative of the instrumental rationality that forever keeps us inside the prison house (or box) of language and business mentality that in fact makes the world fully enclosed with that box.

The Land of the Free . . . For Some

The results of the same sex marriage ban in Maine are somewhat disheartening to those attempting to end one of the last forms of government sanctioned segregation in America: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05marriage.html. The result, the 31st victory for the anti-gay marriage gang in a state in the U.S., highlights the paradox that is American politics. Our idea of freedom has always been set against the limits on freedoms of others. This started with slavery and the lack of legal or economic equality women had in the newly born nation. Years later, after all the civil rights battles, most Americans now believe (at some level) that all should have equal protection under the law and an equal opportunity to succeed. All that is, except gays and lesbians. Really the discourse on freedom in America appears to be: you are free to do what you want unless my morality or religion says you shouldn't have the freedom to do that or it offends me.

The hypocrisy in this position relates to a number of inconsistencies in the views of the general public today. The government, many believe, is implicitly corrupt and handing them too much power over the economy will lead to our collective downfall. While many of the same people hold increasingly negative views of corporations, they still feel “free” markets and reduced taxation and regulation make America a better place. The same people who fight vehemently against abortion (in the most radical cases, killing the doctors who perform the procedure) believe equally as vehemently in the death penalty. While the paradox here can be resolved by their differentiating between innocent victims (unborn fetuses) and convicted criminals, the larger issue of whether we should trust the government with the ultimate power – to end a life, seems to be ignored by those on the right. This is also the case with a number of other issues, like the power we give to the president, accountability for some and not others, military action oversees, tough mandatory crime laws and the like.

Most troubling, however, may be the very notion of freedom. Individuals should be free to do what they want, as long as they don’t do what I don’t want them too. Corporations should be free to do what they want, unless I recognize that their actions are hurting me. Taxes should be low, but I want the same services I’ve always had (and more when I need them). The idea of freedom has always been complex, but in America it is a symbol without a clear associated content. Too many uber-patriotic folks on the right seem to think freedom only exists in the economic realm, while too much social and political freedom undermine the real America. This paradox remains at the heart of conservative discourse today (and at times on the left as well, as for example decrying censorship and then trying to block visitors to campuses that disagree with their perspective). It appears to relate to the complex relationship between American democracy and religion, where religion is beyond the scope of democratic negotiation – but should inflect our national morality.

So we continue to talk about the Land of the Free, while we limit the freedom of too many Americans. How can America honestly believe that homosexuality is a bigger threat to democracy than the unethical, and often illegal, behavior of big corporations? Only through a determined, inexorable myopia can these contradictory beliefs exist in the same head. It was like watching Fox last night, where the loss of a conservative Republican congressional candidate in upstate New York (where Republicans have held power for over 100 years) can be spun into a victory because “the other candidate would have lost by even more.” It is only in the eternal loop of circular reasoning and victimhood that the right can continue to dominate the political landscape after suffering a devastating defeat a mere year ago. Of course, now we will ignore the reality of the two races they won this year and pretend that Obama is in big trouble because he couldn’t wash away the corruption and unpopularity of Corzine or single-handedly save a lackluster run for governor by Democrat Deeds.

At least CNN (www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/04/election.races/index.html) made a few points worthy of repeating: 1) Since 1989, the gubernatorial races have always gone to the party that lost the presidency and 2) A majority of voters in both states said their choice was not based on the performance of Obama. Fox and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, on the other hand, ignored the polls and stated “Voters say no to Obama policies” -- www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/04/gop-democrats-different-views-republican-victories. Who cares about the truth – we live but for the freedom to spin . . .

Terminate the Terminator Franchise

Terminator Salvation, the fourth installation in the Terminator series, is a major disappointing, putting the latest Star Trek triumph into even higher esteem. Here the talented, but often morose, Christian Bale takes on the role of John Connor -- the last hope for humanity against Skynet and its complex, insidious army of Terminators. The film, like so much blockbuster fare these days, suffers from too much attention to pyrotechics, pornographic violence and, often senseless and overly long action sequences. It also suffers from a an increasingly common trend in action and superhero films today -- an overly somber tone that ignores the old humor and light-heartedness that once dominated the genres. Instead we are thrown into a dystopian, technophobic world where machines roam the planet attempting to kill off the last humans left after the Skynet induced apocalypse. Clear innuendos to 911 juxtapose with the sort of mystical future, past these films so often invoke (think Mad Max, Matrix when not in the Matrix, etc.). John Connor and the resistance have discovered a new technology that could destroy Skynet and end the war for good. But in a time travel paradox that is hard to fully embrace, he must first save his own father, who was sent from the future to impregnate his mother (Sarah Connor), in the first film. A new character emerges here, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) to complicate matters further though, a killer from the past whose body and brain have been integrated into a cynbernetic machine, though he appears to maintain those aspects of humanity the film attempts to juxtapose with the machines. He becomes an ally to the humans, but in a somewhat predicable turnabout, is thrown into a moral quandary that tests his allegiance. Arnold makes a camio as well, in a culminating scene that would be suspenseful but for the necessary denouments of films like this. The action scenes are often bracing, the cinematography striking and the ability of director "McG," aka Joseph McGinty Nichol of Charlies Angels "fame," to develop drama and surprise through the camera work, is impressive. But where did the plot go, dude? Where are the truly compelling characters? Why do I care? I found all these questions difficult to answer. In the end, the film was too long, too boring and too overwrought in its attempt toward profundity.

The more interesting question with films like these is whether the narrative structure inflects fears of technology induced terrorism and destruction or a deeper fear that technology has destroyed our humanity. Is the film the latest incarnation of ongoing fears about technology and human destruction that go back to WWII and the cold war? Does it reflect the "culture of fear" sociologist Barry Glassner has catalogued, where our inability to control our lives from outside influences leads to constant, unabiding fear that dismantles the ability to act and intervene in the world? Or is it a deeper critique of the dehumanizing effects of technology like tv, videogames, ipods, cell phones and the like that increasingly dominate our lives and undermine those aspects of ourselves that we take as constituitive to being human? In the final scene, the machine gives Christian Bale his heart to save him, thus completing the metaphor – we must restore our humanity by dismantling the machines that now control us. (C-)

Election Results

Interesting results in the election tonight. It is clearly a good night for Republicans, but some interesting results could bode well for Democrats in the future. Virginia elected a Republican governor by a huge margin and New Jersey’s Corzine lost reelection, in a relatively close race; maybe closer than it should have been given his relative unpopularity. But the far right candidate in New York looks as if he is going to lose – offering a blow to those on the right that are attempting to take over the party. And even with a huge spending gap between Bloomberg and rival Thompson, it looks as if Bloomberg will only squeak by, even with most of the mainstream media supporting him. The key issue going forward is whether Democrats have the will to push against the tide of the conservative machine, that by most measures seems not to have popular support across the country. In fact, registered Republicans in the country are at their lowest levels in years, while many more call themselves Democrats. The swing vote is the key constituency, now measured as 44% of the electorate. If Democrats can again rally their base next year, if they can pass healthcare reform and stop the obstructionist Republicans from undermining democracy and the will of the people, I think they will be ok. If they become the weak-kneed party they have been for years, shooting themselves in the back by failing to confront Republicans, I believe there stay in power will be short. Even as we hear the poor, victimized right cry about a liberal bias in media, it is clear that the mainstream press tends to be parroting the far right as if they spoke for most of America. It is the job of Democratic spokesmen and activists to challenge this discourse, and offer a more realistic argument on why the country needs fundamental change if it wants to return to prosperity.

Movie Review: Couples Retreat

A friend dragged me to see Couples Retreat on Friday night. Even with a $70 million budget, $87 million in gross domestic sales, Vince Vahn and Jason Bateman, I didn’t expect much from the film. My low expectations were, alas, too sanguine, as I left shaking by head at how bad a movie it was. Like so much Hollywood drivel these days, the film was unfunny, overly earnest and finished with a silly, uninspired denouement that made me look back to remember if marriage was really this depressing. I will leave that thought unexamined, but I have to say that Hollywood has forgotten how to make good comedies in the past several years. Even the promising directors like Wes Anderson seem to get worse not better with age, and the mainstream ilk that now passes for romantic comedy is truly disheartening. The question is how one can spend $70 million without finding more than a half dozen real laughs? How can a decent cast go so wrong? Why do they presume that the American audiences are so daft that they accept a bad relationship suddenly gone right for no other reason than that is what we expected to begin with? The lack of chemistry between the main characters is palpable, the misuse of Vahn’s charisma borderline criminal and the general somber tone deaf to the desire of audiences continuing to be beaten down by the financial crisis.

One wonders if mainstream comedy has gone the way of action film: huge budgets, a big star or three and no plot to speak of. It’s truly depressing when not only HBO and Showtime but the big three continue to do much better writing than those in Hollywood. It appears as if the huge budgets lead execs and producers to put so much focus on marketing they forget one of the most important aspect of filmmaking – a decent script. The humor is generally base, the funny send-up of new age wisdom undermined by the poor delivery of the cast and too quick a shift to depressing treatment of the alienation of modern coupling, and the storyline so dull I have to rethink my next island vacation. It seemed at times as if the film was trying to make two films at once, and neither was developed. One was a screwball comedy on an island, which has never really been a winner. The other was our continued artistic reflection on the ways in which love fades under the force of marriage and kids. In any case, the American filmgoing population seems to have been effectively inoculated from movie reviewers in recent years. The marketing is all around a huge opening weekend, followed by a huge drop off in subsequent weeks as everyone else realizes it is yet another disaster film – though without any dystopia except for those who fall prey to wasting about two hours of their time. Maybe someday the American public will wake up and demand that Hollywood make a decent film besides in the couple of months leading up to Christmas and the Oscar voting season. Of course it seems as likely as stores closing for a Holiday rather than having blockbuster sales to make sure we don’t spend any quality time with our families . . . (D)

Fatcat Republicans . . . or not

I haven't been posting as much because of a busy semester and now three in one day. I couldn't help myself. So John Corzine is running a campaign against literal heavyweight Republican Chris Christie, and his weight appears to be a mitigating, if not deciding factor, for many in New Jersey. So not only does the taller candidate tend to win, but also the thinner one. This seems ironic in a society that is increasingly overweight, or downright obese. But along with gays and "illegal immigrants," the group we seem to love to hate is those seat stuffing, three Big Mac snackers that are both heroes in sitcoms and film and otherwise not to be trusted: http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=2232911. Maybe slimfast is the route to a lasting Democratic majority?

Business Seeks to Bottleneck Reform

The very group that helped get us into our current financial collapse wants to make sure the status quo is maintained: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=6E7B6EA8-18FE-70B2-A87C3F1CB4228163. Toward that end, they are essentially using the profits they continued to accumulate in the run-up to the mess, and during it among some banks. So let's get this straight . . . banks and others act irresponsibly (or criminally by most ethical standards) to help cause the financial crisis. They then get bailed out by the government for their risky and predatory behavior. Then they return to profitability (in some cases) and use those funds to ensure that they can continue this risky and predatory behavior in the future. Makes sense, right?

The media plays along, more or less supporting conventional wisdom on the right, and thus the cycle continues. Who suffers? Everyone else -- including some of the low level workers in the very companies that are spending some of their profits to maintain practices that hurt the average Americans. It is disconcerting to recognize how difficult it is to change the irrational rationality that continues to dominate political discourse in America (tax cuts, inflation and deficits as more important than unemployment and quality of life, shrink size of government, privatize, deregulate, cut social services and increase the gap between rich and poor) -- even as the majority of citizens voted less than a year ago for change. Can Obama break the cycle or will he also fall prey to the power of money, conventional wisdom, a media increasingly bedazzled by money and power and a corrupt system in Washington that continually choses the interests of the elites over everyone else?

Cut-service Tax Cuts

In recent years, any economic expansion is met by calls for tax cuts. Bush used that long lost surplus of 2000 to, what else, cut taxes. States cut taxes as the economy boomed in the 90s and again in the first years of this century. Many of these cuts were based on the assumption that economic growth would continue in perpetuity . . . or maybe not. Is it possible that tax cut advocates saw an opportunity and used the general public's abiding desire for decreases in tax burden to reduce tax revenue in the long run? What is the result?

Service cuts are now occurring across the board in almost every state, right at the moment when social services are most needed. Why? Well, there just isn’t enough money to fund these programs. What services are being cut? Education is, of course, at the top of the list. Schools will have fewer teachers, fewer resources, larger class sizes and a general decline in quality. Universities (both public and private) are losing funding and thus raising tuition, cutting academic programming and, in some cases, the aid available to incoming students. And early education, afterschool programs and other important services provided primarily to poor children and families are all being pushed out. The end result is a decline in quality of life, as unemployment rates rise along with healthcare costs for all citizens. One can also add declining value of retirement accounts and public pensions and a growing crop of homeless (increasingly populated by those who defaulted on mortgages – emobodied as a dire reversal of the American dream).

The ultimate effect of the “tax cuts in good times and cut services in bad times” cycle is a transfer of social services from the public sector to private organizations. It appears to be a return to the retrograde idea of volunteerism that Hoover once advocated, worsening the early years of the great depression. And, as I previously said, a general decline in the quality of life across the nation for all except those lucky enough to work for Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or in the remaining hedge funds (and lest us forget the overpaid, underperforming CEOs). The point is tax cuts are legitimated by overly optimistic economic forecasts and then are fortified by a “no tax increase under any circumstance” mentality that, among other things, installed the now least popular governor in the history of California (Schwarzenegger won partially on a $300 tax that had existed for many years but had been rescinded if the budget remained balanced). If they can’t reduce social services and the size of government along normal lines, they back into this approach by holding out their pockets and claiming penury in tough times. This is a troubling trend that works based on a general distaste for taxes in the U.S. that persisted throughout our history, but accelerated dramatically under Reagan and his followers (including Clinton)!

University Inc. - The Corporatization of American Higher Education

A new book has just come out, Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University (University of Chicago Press): www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/06/wannabe. In the book, the author critiques the changing nature of the university, and the push toward accountability, corporate and management logic, the hiring of adjunct faculty and the undermining of the core mission of higher education from its inception. Like all social institutions, the instrumental rationality of business now reign supreme, undermining the job of teaching the next generation, opening minds, doing independent research and challenging entrenched knowledge. Instead schools have become about efficiency, cost saving, efficiency and reputation alone. What is lost in this push? The last bastion for independent research in the world.

A retired administrator at Miami University of Ohio, James C. Garland has written blog responses to critique the article, and in the process further solidified the point:

"Wannabe U made me squirm at times, because many of the examples paralleled my own experiences. And therein lies the book’s value. I hope my administrative colleagues will read this book, not because they will agree with it, or even because it is, as the dust cover asserts, 'an eye-opening expose of the modern university.' They should read it because people in power seldom understand how their actions are viewed by others, and why their good deeds and intentions often provoke suspicion and mistrust.”

In a second he further solidifies the point:

"I fear Professor Tuchman and her faculty colleagues may have it backwards. Increasing productivity and efficiency are ways to reduce class sizes, teaching loads, and busywork, not increase them. When productivity goes up, it means the quality of the institution can be maintained by fewer people, none working harder or longer than before," he writes. "Efficiency and productivity improvements can’t solve all problems, of course, and when money is running out, a university has few options but to make cuts in services that lower quality and put additional stresses on faculty and staff. But successful efforts to make an organization more efficient and productive can moderate undesirable changes."

And administrators, he writes, have valid, education-related reasons to focus on metrics. "Like it or not, the fundamental responsibility of all senior academic administrators is to improve their institution, by which is typically meant emulating more highly regarded institutions having a similar mission," Garland writes. "However, benchmarking one university against another naturally invites metrics of comparison. For example, if Berkeley chemistry professors publish more research articles, win more awards, garner more federal funds, give more invited papers at conferences, write more textbooks, and serve on more national commissions than do chemistry professors at Wan U, then tabulating changes in these measurable quantities is a way to see whether the chemistry department at Wan U is becoming more or less Berkeley-like.

In other words, efficiency and productivity are the methods to replicate research one universities, and intellectual rigor, good instruction, a vibrant intellectual community and the like are secondary to increasing the stature of the university. The logic is based on competition and markets, not seeing different universities as serving different constituencies and embracing their role. The attack is effective because it bases itself on instrumental rationality and a logic that seems depoliticized, while it is instead ripe with political ambitions and concerns. Research that doesn’t help the bottom line is deemphasized or outright rejected. The humanities don’t “add value” and are thus attacked and underfunded. Theoretical work of any kind is always labeled inferior to empirical work that is “objective” and brings in grant money and prestige. And money making enterprises in universities, like MBA and medical schools, to the neglect of other important work. The role of professors as public intellectuals is neither respected nor counted toward tenure and attacks are levied on those that openly critique the system – or the very logic that marginalizes them.

As its heart, the logic makes universities similar to K-12 in reproducing rather than improving society and deems particular types of knowledge as implicitly dangerous. This undermines the heart of the university from its inception – to challenge entrenched power and, ultimately, to serve the role of the common good.

Conservative Gone Wild . . . Over Losing the Olympics Bid

Conservatives seem to be tap dancing at the edge of sanity these days, apoplectic over the minutest details of any Obama plan but ecstatic over Chicago’s failed bid to host the Olympics in 2012 (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27902.html). This celebration of failure leads me to a series of questions: Is the patriotic party really putting America first? Have they really sunk to the point where only bad news is good news these days? One wonders how low they can go in their competitive limbo to American destruction crawl before sanity prevails?

Equally interesting was there response to the news that unemployment figures were worse than expected – obviously it’s Obama’s fault (in the revisionist conservative mythology, many have pretended that Obama somehow caused the financial crisis he in fact inherited). I just want to make sure I have this right: Obama shouldn’t spend anymore money because the deficit is too high. We don’t want to regulate the economy, because that will hurt business (even as deregulation played a huge role in the current financial crisis). We want to isolate ourselves from foreigners, even as they hold a huge piece of the key to our future economic growth. And even given all of these arguments, it is somehow Obama’s fault that employment has not rebounded. This seems very similar to the arguments about global warming. Sure the most respected scientists in the world think it’s happening, but some right wing nut jobs say it isn’t and are occasionally backed by “scientists” generally sponsored by the benevolent oil companies.

Since at least Reagan, conservatives have succeeded largely based on stirring passion and resentment among working class and middle class voters. Resentment against affirmative action and Blacks in general, resentment toward gays who are “destroying the moral fiber of America,” resentment toward “illegal immigrants” who are both living off our social services and, at the same time, stealing our jobs and resentment toward feminists and their destruction of the American “nuclear family.” Facts are unimportant, or really inconvenient to these discourses. They play on deep-seated resentment at the fading of the American dream, the falling status of the U.S. in the world and the racism at the very heart of America. They play on the nostalgia that the old have for an America that never really existed. And they feed on a popular culture industry that thrives on anti-intellectualism.

At this moment, education and media become key spaces where students can become more critical about the world that surrounds them and cultivate the ability to see through the shroud of ideology and rhetoric to the truths that lie beneath. But conservatives have also effectively attacked these two spaces. They have instrumentalized knowledge in the Weberian sense to extricate real critical thinking and depoliticize knowledge, thus further solidifying the status quo. They have made K-12 about little else but rote memorization and testing, losing the radical potential that knowledge and science once promised to improve the human condition. And they are increasingly bringing their attacks to the university, attempting to institute bureaucratic and professionalist tendencies that undermine the autonomy of professors and students to critically examine social forces and phenomena. In media, they have allowed radical conservative voices to dominate the airwaves and TV screens while shouting out most progressive voices – while pushing the mainstream media away from its position as the fourth estate, holding politicians and social institutions accountable and highlighting the distance between their words and actions (outside the bedroom of course).

With Obama’s victory, a glimmer of hope emerged from the conservative miasma that has enveloped America for almost 30 years, but it seems to be fading under the brute force of a movement that is untethered by truth, rationality or any real interest in the common good.

A Question of Race

Critiques of political correctness generally come from the right. However, I think it is important to acknowledge the ways in which an overemphasis on cultural sensitivity can lead to the "closing of the American mind" (as the late Alan Bloom once argued). We must be able to have open debates about race that acknowledge its importance in how we see each other and interact. While a color blind world or post-racial society are wonderful utopian ideas, they do not seem to capture the reality of contemporary American or global society. Race and racism matter and it is important to confront prejudice, even if it is sometimes done in racist ways. The recent contretempts over Jimmy Carter's comments is one example of our inability to really contemplate race and its effects, but another interesting one just occurred at Tufts University.

An Asian student decided to make fun of a fellow Asian student by putting up posters that played on racial stereotypes of Asians. The campus became astir with protests over its inflammatory message and its potentially negative effects on students (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/28/tufts). I am not supporting the student, but just this kind of approach can be effective at challenging PC culture that quells real dialogue on important issues. The student in fact argued that he was confronting this very culture on campus. Discomfort and confrontation are often effective ways to get people to explore their own ideas, beliefs, values and perspectives. Rather than shying away from it, I believe we should instead embrace it as a more effective form of mediation. I do this in my own classrooms, and while it does lead to heated conversations and anger among my students, I believe it forces many to confront their own feelings on racism. Civility and reasoned, "rational" conversation are a bedrock of white, middle class culture. But they too often stiffle rather than foster meaningful, critical conversations on race, gender, class and inequality. With some reservation, I thus laud the student for confronting his own sense that cloaking something does not mean it doesn't exist.

Healthcare "Debate"

Good article in Salon on the healthcare debate: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/24/healthcare/print.html. While the public continues to support the public option and hungers for real reform, the heathcare industry and the politicians they have bought pretend they are representing them. This is backed by a punditocracy that seems to parrot the discourse of the far right as if it spoke for all Americans. Will the media ever change? Is there such a thing as responsible journalism any more? Too many on television ignore the real public climate in lieu of the very "special interests" they decry. Instead of the reporters who once fought for the public interest, we have too many who are part of the elite. The only hope exists on the margins and we can only hope they have a strong enough voice in the mainstream.

Feckless Democrats and the Upside of Technology

Democrats have been shooting themselves in the foot for years – from the ineffective campaigns of Gore and Kerry to the obsequious Congressional democrats during the Bush years. Obama turned the tide on conservative dirty campaigning and won a huge, and real, consensus from the American people that they wanted change. What has happened since?

He filled his administration with old Clinton lackies, including most troubling the Rubin and Reich neoliberal acolytes like Summers and Bernake
His recovery package fell short of what many wanted, in regards to changing the nature of business and the social contract in America. He made a number of concessions to Republicans who still didn’t vote for the bill
His attempt at regulation has been suspect at best
And now on healthcare, he makes a deal with the drug companies and seems ready to drop the government-sponsored plan altogether (even as most progressives argue it is the only way to solve the long term problems)

On Sunday and Monday, we learned that Obama was not inured to the public option for healthcare (the only real way to intervene and control costs): www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/health/policy/17talkshows.html?th&emc=th. Obama then relents somewhat and says this is not the case. But it is clear he is making deals with a party that has little interest in reform of any kind. We have a consensus from the American people for change, but Obama is somehow still beholden to bipartisanship that is not bipartisan except in making concessions to conservatives who still don’t vote for the bills. He talks about breaking the gridlock in Washington, but has done little to get conservatives to play the game at all. And like so many democrats before him, we are left to wonder what he really stands for. Luckily there are some democrats who claim they will go forward without Republican support (www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/health/policy/19repubs.html?th&emc=th), but whether they will succeed or not is still an open question.

What has happened to the backbone of the party? Have they fallen prey to the very forces that control the Republican party? Are they corrupt and willing to win/keep office at any cost? Are they so interested in Realpolitiks that they have forgotten what they stand for (ala the net roots)? Have they sold their soul to the devil to get the majority (think Lieberman and the Blue Dogs)? Or are Democrats just too interested in dialogue and agreement to actually stand up for their principles, and the people they are supposed to support (in this case the majority). One problem appears to be the people they entrust to frame their agenda, for example a guy who lost presidential election after presidential election become Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, or hiring Emmanuel, who is too used to compromise to be the architect of real change, or Arne Duncan who is a strong supporter of policies that have failed in Chicago and undermined public education across the country. Today a big problem appears to be one that plagues the party – an inability to know what you should stand for and a penchant for falling prey to polls and attack-style politics.

* * * * * * * * * * *

In this blog, I often decry the downside of technology. I also often point out the positive. Obama has been very effective at using technology to mobilize, inform and communicate with the American people. This is particularly important given the relative irresponsibility of the mainstream media. Sometimes I think he sends out too many emails, thus causing me to press the delete button without reading them a lot. But today he offered a good point-by-point refutation of the conservative framing of the healthcare debate. Here it is: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/settingtherecord. While the Internet is full of half-truths and outright lies, particularly in the viral emails so often sent out by conservatives, the savvy Internet user can usually quickly find the “truth.” One great site to facilitate this process is http://www.truthorfiction.com/.

Your Mind on Twitter

An article on Salon yesterday perfectly captures the essence of my problem with technology: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/08/15/twitter_addiction/?source=newsletter. In it, Laurel Snyder admits her addiction to Twitter. And that appears to be the way technology works. We become addicted to it without ever knowing why. Video games, facebook, twitter, blogs, itunes, tv, or any host of other technologies become addictions that are hard to escap the. Is it like having a drinking problem or heroine addiction -- probably not, but what technology tends to do today is waste hours of our day. Is that such a bad thing?

Not necessarily. But what it has done is made being bored a verboten state. There is nothing worse, and I notice the effects in my classroom -- students who expect to be entertained throughout class, who can't concentrate for even 40 minutes, who sneak text messages at every opportunity, who refuse to really think about anything with any level of criticality. There areof course, exceptions. But one student a couple semesters ago went as far as taking a phone call while we were watching a movie. I took her into the hallway to talk to her about it and she never showed up again.

The biggest cost in the end though is time. All of the time we waste interacting with technology far exceeds the time we save through its efficiency. Sure it is great for research and finding information. Sure it can make organizing our lives easier, allow us to pay bills in minutes, keep our checkbooks balanced, allow us to keep in touch easily and quickly with those near and far, facilitate meeting people, help organize events and mobilizations and find others to do just about anything we desire, etc. But what it also does is keep us busy with its prime directive, whatever that may be. It creates an entire society unable to focus of anything for very long. It causes us to more often talk over each other than I remember in the past. And it breaks down the casual street culture that once defined New York City. Is there more good or bad? Hard to say. But what seems increasingly clear to me is that it goes a long way in defining who we are and how we relate to the world.

Movie Review: Waltz with Bashir

I just rented this extraordinary film on Netflix and recommend it to anyone who loves film. Waltz with Bashir (2008) follows writer and director Ari Folman’s quest to remember his service in the Israeli Army during the Lebanese War of the early 80s. The animation is exemplary and at times breathtaking in its rendering of the space between fact and fiction in our own memories and the price of war on those who participate. Its most compelling images juxtapose the horrors of war and how men deal with their own complicity in death and atrocity; often through the mundane and eradication of emotional attachment to actions and their consequences. The animation amplifies the power of the message and somehow captures the truth of the moment better than a traditional documentary or even film could. Ironically, by escaping the limitations of real images he transcends them (as Sontag once argued, a photograph is as important for what it excludes as what it includes – and this is just as true with film). In the denouement he moves from animation to real footage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre and this serves as a perfect ending, unmediated by any context except the story that preceded it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre).

Folman’s approach provides a balanced view of the victim’s of the war, among Israelis, Lebanese and the various other players in the long running civil war that involved many of the surrounding countries. Rather than simply condemning Israeli complicity in the atrocities, it uses images and the words of the veterans to leave the audience to decide. The main characters are all involved at some level in the conflict, but are themselves victims of events essentially beyond their control. Through his extraordinary narrative structure and use of animation, he captures the fog of war explicated so poignantly in the traditional documentary form by Errol Morris in his interviews with Robert McNamara (Fog of War, 2003). Waltz seems to take Hannah Arendt’s perspective of the banality of evil to heart, showing young men pushed to service against their deeper instincts and morality; while simultaneously showing the coldness with which they ignore or justify their behavior and the destruction and killing of civilians, including women and children, in which they partake. The film rejects the bathos that often underlies films in this genre, instead allowing the images to serve as the moral underpinning of the critique of war.

Ultimately, the film is a beautifully rendered tragedy that captures the complex relationship between memory and atrocity, fear and bravery and the long term costs of war to all involved. The surreal dream sequences serve to codify the very real events that surround them and move the film from docudrama to an artistic masterpiece. I am hard pressed to think of a better animated film in history. (A)

Funniest Books in the English Language

This blog is primarily a space where I offer cultural critique, but today I thought I would offer a short list of the funniest books I have ever read in the English language. These would probably be on most lists, but I know a lot of people that have never read one or more of them – so here they are . . .

1) Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole): this brilliant book, post-humous winner of the Pulitzer, follows the travails of chubby, ne’er do well Ignatius T. Reilly and a wonderfully eccentric collection of characters in New Orleans. A movie adaptation has been in the works for years, but seems eternally cursed.
2) Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis): one of the best books ever written on the absurdly esoteric and petty world of academia and another ne’er do well falling in love with the wrong women.
3) Catch-22 (Joseph Heller): an absurdist tale of World War II that deals with some very profound questions underneath; and through the travails of Captain Yossarian added Catch-22 to the American lexicon. The Nichols film doesn’t quiet capture the magic of the novel, but is still worth a view. This was Heller’s one great novel.
4) Vile Bodies (Evelyn Waugh): a brilliant satire of the senseless decadence of the British upper class in the period between World War I and II. Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley both considered Waugh one of the greatest satirists of his epoch. A film adaptation, Bright Young Things (2003), does a decent job of capturing the epic humor of the book.
5) The Russian Debutate’s Handbook (Gary Shtenygart): a wonderfully inventive tale of assimilation in America and Prague in the early 90s, this book (like his second Absurdistan) is brilliantly rendered with rich characters and

A few others that I think fit the bill include Vonnegut, The Cat’s Cradle, Jonathon Safran Froer Everything is Illuminated (movie sucked), Douglas Adams A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Richard Russo Empire Falls (with very serious undertones), David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty Some Day, Bernard Malamud’s The Natural (very funny, unlike the movie) and Nick Hornby’s About a Boy.

Debate or the Texas Two Step?

While the blogosphere and emags have been decrying the nature of conservative discourse on the healthcare “debate,” the mainstream media has again shown its ineptitude at doing much more than reporting what other people say (he said, she said syndrome gone wild). The New Republic weighs in today on the absurdity that has become conservative discourse on healthcare, essentially centered around scaring the old, the disabled and anyone who isn’t really paying attention:

“We're stuck in what Josh Marshall has called a "nonsense feedback loop"--a conversation in which Zeke Emanuel wants to kill grandma, health care reform is bad for the people who can't get health care, and Stephen Hawking has been snuffed out by the British National Health System. Instead of arguments that are unrelated to reality, we're getting arguments that are the very opposite of reality.” (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/08/12/the-swiftboating-of-health-reform.aspx)

Just like the 2000, 2004 and 2008 campaigns, too much of what comes out of the lunatic fringe becomes conventional wisdom with too much of the voting public ((http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/08/from_tpm_reader_cs.php). In 2000, Gore was a liar, based on, well, lies. Then the recount centered around a public restless for a result, that was really just restless of hearing how restless they were. In 2004, the swift boat veterans for truth spread lies like most of us spread butter on toast – but the media including the “liberal” New York Times played along, while finding the truth with a minor lie (in the Dan Rathers coverage of Bush’s suspect service during Vietnam) became a media maelstrom. In 2008, the socialist story line garnered less popular support, but still boiled at the edges of the political penumbra. And now, with healthcare reform, we have moved to the truly absurd spectacle society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle).

Can we have reasoned debate in America today? The answer appears to be no. Instead the lunatics and hardliners on the right take up far too much of our time, while the reasonable are attacked, marginalized or completely ignored. Why do we allow this to happen? Could it be that we are too busy updating our twitter and facebook accounts, watching movies and tv and trying to figure out how we missed out on the boom of the early twentieth century and how exactly we should take the “good news” on the economy. Or could it be that a country that has celebrated anti-intellectualism for far too long just doesn’t have the energy or critical faculties to really consider the issues? Maybe we just can’t figure out the difference between lies and truth or fiction and reality anymore. It appears that the postmodern reality has taken hold like never before.

P.S. Who are these right-wingers disrupting the President's town hall meetings? Here's one: http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/08/12/william_kostric/print.html.