The Sidewalk to Nowhere

First of all, I'm a strong supporter of the idea that everyone -- EVERYONE -- in this country has the right to vote (over 18, of course). Nevertheless, this video scares the shit out of me:



And for all I know, this happens on the other side of the political divide as well; who knows, this video may have even been rigged. Even so, the responses of these people are a sad commentary on the current state of political discourse in our country.

Settling for less?

To Be or Not to Be: Ralph Nader Confides in Cardozo the Parrot

JibJab 2008: Time For Some Campaignin'

I love JibJab. Their videos make me feel so much better about the world, even if things do look a little gloomy. They also remind me of something very important to my outlook on life: having a sense of humor is an absolute necessity!

Amyway, this new 2008 election video in particular is great (even if McCain's and Obama's voices seem a bit off)...

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

And in case you thought (like me) that JibJab ended with the hit 2004 election videos "This Land" and "Good to be in DC!", think again! There are tons of videos you can watch over at their website, www.JibJab.com. Here are some of my favorites that I've come across so far:

"In 2007"

(You can also see videos for 2006 and 2005.)

"What We Call The News"


"Big Box Mart"

Why we know less than ever about the world

Download Day Is Here!

How about we help set a Guinness World Record with an Open Source product? Trust me, it'll be fun -- you'll even get a free spankin' new version of the best web browser out there -- Firefox 3!

It's scheduled to be released Tuesday, June 17th at 10 a.m. (PDT) -- click here to determine the corresponding release time for your own time zone. Just be sure to download it within 24 hours of release.

Take that Microsoft!

The Great Obama-Nader Debate?

Will it happen? Nader (along with all the other third party candidates) has clearly had difficulties in past years trying to participate in any sort of public debate or discussion with either of the big party candidates, let alone participate in the big televised GE debates in the fall.

However, Obama has recently said he's open to having "a debate, an argument with the Republican Party or any of my opponents". From an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press, Saturday, May 4:

"So I love this country. It is what I have been fighting for, a--that America lives up to its values and its ideals... And what this campaign's about, what I think this moment is about in America is whether or not we are going to fight for those ideals that make this country great, and, and if we miss that opportunity, then I think we will be doing a disservice to future generations. So I'm happy to have a debate, an argument with the Republican Party or any of my opponents about what this country means, what makes it great."

The Nader campaign has already jumped on this statement and asked for Obama to schedule a public debate of some sort with them sometime in the near future. They even suggested something reminiscent of the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates of 150 years ago, to honor Obama and his home state of Illinois.

Words do mean something, as Barack has rightly said in the past, so let's hope that he keeps his word here and is willing to engage with third party candidates like Nader. Now that would be a real sign of hope!

I have my doubts though.

Ralph Nader joins in car roof crush protest at NHTSA

Roof Crush Rally at NHTSA from BBBloch on Vimeo.

Can you imagine any of the other presidential candidates taking time to participate in a protest during their campaign in hopes of helping make government workers and the public more aware of an important issue? I certainly can't. They're all too busy going around making superficial appearances and studying polling numbers.

Let's get past the same old with McCain, as well as the weaker calls for change coming from Hillary Clinton and Wall Street's boy Barack Obama -- by the way, I remain convinced that he's a bigger corporate sellout than Hillary.

If we really want transformation in this country, then there's only one person for the job -- the only one who really cares more about the good of the people than about winning an election: Ralph Nader.

My great great great grandpa

(photograph found on AncientFaces.com)

My third great grandfather David E. Gerber was born in July 6, 1834 and died on May 21, 1921. He lived his entire life on the family farm, located in an area a few miles south of Canton, OH that used to be known as Eden Township. Here's a biography that I found of him and his family in the book Old Landmarks of Canton and Stark County, Ohio (1904):

"DAVID E. GERBER was born on his present homestead, in Canton township, on the 6th of July, 1834, being a son of Elias and Maria (Richard) Gerber, the former of whom was a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Switzerland, whence she accompanied her parents to America when she was a mere child. Elias Gerber was a son of Christian Gerber, who likewise was a native of the old keystone State, to which locality the original American progenitor emigrated from Germany, in the pre-Revolutionary epoch. As early as 1810 Christian Gerber removed with his family from Pennsylvania to Stark county, Ohio, where he took up a tract of heavily timbered land in Canton township, the same being about five miles from the present city of the same name, and here he reclaimed a farm and gave his attention to its cultivation during the remainder of his active career. He died in this township at the venerable age of eighty-four years. His son Elias, father of the subject, was reared on this pioneer homestead, receiving such educational advantages as were accorded the average farmer youth of the locality and period and contributing to the work of clearing and improving the home place. In this township was solemnized his marriage, and he then assumed the practical responsibilities of life, locating on the farm now owned by our subject and eventually becoming one of the substantial farmers of the county, known as a man of impregnable integrity and as a man of excellent business judgment, while through his well directed efforts he attained a success which was worthy of the name. He was summoned from the scene of his earthly labors in the very prime of his manhood, being but thirty-nine years of age at the time of his death, which occurred in 1847. His wife survived him by many years, being summoned to eternal rest in 1892, when eighty-four years of age. The father was a Democrat in politics, and both he and his wife held the faith of the Amish church. They became parents of six children, concerning whom we offer brief record as follows: David E., who is the immediate subject of this review; Margaret, who is the wife of Abraham Gerber, of Indiana; George, who was killed in the army; Adeline, who is the wife of Jonathan Byler; Christian, who lives in Canton, and Solomon, who lives in Pennsylvania.

"David E. Gerber, whose name introduces this article, was reared on his present homestead, whose every field and pasture and wooden glen have thus been familiar to him from the time of his earliest recollection, while in his youth this familiarity was doubly emphasized by the labors which fell to his portion in connection with the work in these same fields and meadows, but he waxed strong in mind and body under the strenuous and invigorating discipline and has never abated by one jot or tittle his allegiance to the noble art of husbandry, and that with a due measure of attendant success. His finely improved farm comprises one hundred and thirty-one acres, and is under most effective cultivation, while the buildings are of the best order, including a commodious and attractive residence, which is a favorite resort for the family's wide circle of friends.

"In politics Mr. Gerber has given his support to the Democratic party from the time of attaining his majority, and he has ever shown a consistent interest in public affairs of a local nature, lending his influence and aid in support of all legitimate undertakings for the promotion of the material progress and general welfare of his home township and county. He and his wife have long been zealous and active members of the German Baptist church, contributing to the advancement of its spiritual and temporal affairs, while they are well known as pioneer citizens and have the highest esteem of all who know them, even ordering their lives on a high plain of rectitude and integrity and being true and sincere in all the relations of intercourse with their fellow men.

"In the city of Canton, on the 14th of October, 1858, Mr. Gerber was united in marriage to Miss Emeline King, who was born in Pennsylvania, whence, as a child, she accompanied her parents on their removal to Stark county, where her father was engaged in farming until his death. She was reared and educated in Canton township and is, like her husband, a representative of one of the county's honored pioneer families. Mr. and Mrs. Gerber became the parents of twelve children, of whom nine lived to attain years of maturity, namely: Clara became the wife of John Shanower and died, in Perry township, when twenty-four years of age; Melissa is the wife of William Shanower, of Massilon; George lives in Massillon; Kate is the wife of Amos Yutze, of Pike township; John lives in Canton; Edward is at home; Nellie is the wife of Charles Miller, of Perry township; Elva is the wife of Homer Riley, of Canton, and Jennie remains at the parental home."

SOURCE: Old Landmarks of Canton and Stark County, Ohio, Volume I, edited and compiled by John Danner (Logansport, IN: R. F. Bowen, 1904), pp. 624-625.

And here are some more photographs I've come across in my research...



The Stark County marriage record of David E. Gerber to Emeline King on October 12, 1858. (Source: Microfilm 5-31MA from Stark County District Library Genealogy Department)



David, Emeline, and their children. Photograph from mid to late 1880s. The little boy in the front row is my great grandfather, David S. Gerber.



David E. Gerber with his mother and siblings. His father Elias died young in 1847 at age 39, whereas his mother Maria lived to be 84 years old, finally passing away in 1893. I'd guess this photograph was taken in the 1880s or early 1890s.



David, Emeline, and family. Photograph from around 1900. My great grandfather David S. Gerber is now the 2nd from the right in the back row.



David, Emeline, and some of their children and grandchildren, outside the Gerber family farmhouse. Photograph from around 1910.



David and Emeline outside the Gerber family farmhouse. Photograph again from around 1910.



Gravestone of David E. and Emeline Gerber in the old Eden Church Cemetery.

The response of the major news networks to the New York Times' breaking story on the Pentagon controlled Iraq TV analysts...

Well, actually, there hasn't really been a response.

According to Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com:

It has now been more than ten days since the New York Times exposed the Pentagon's domestic propaganda program involving retired generals and, still, not a single major news network has even mentioned the story to their viewers, let alone responded to the numerous questions surrounding their own behavior. This steadfast blackout occurs despite the fact that the Pentagon propaganda program almost certainly violates numerous federal laws; both Democratic presidential candidates sternly denounced the Pentagon's conduct; and Congressional inquiries are already underway, all of which forced the Pentagon to announce that it suspended its program.

Still, there has not been a peep from the major news networks at the center of the storm, the integrity of whose reporting on the Iraq war is directly implicated by this story. Even establishment media defender Howard Kurtz called their ongoing failure to cover this story "pathetic."

Like Fox and CBS, NBC News outright refused to answer any questions about the allegations when asked by the NYT's David Bartsow, and its prime time anchor, Brian Williams, has delivered seven broadcasts since the story was published and has not uttered a word to NBC's viewers about any of it. Yesterday, I wrote about an entry on Williams' blog -- which he calls "The Daily Nightly" -- in which Williams found the time to mock one frivolous cultural puff piece after the next in the Sunday edition of the NYT, even as he still had refused even to acknowledge the expose in last Sunday's NYT that calls into serious question the truthfulness and reliability of his "journalism."

Read the rest of Greenwald's story here, as well as some additional commentary from Turkana over at The Left Coaster.

At this point, I guess we can't ever expect to know from the MSM what's really going on in Iraq.

I've never seen news networks sooo liberal and sooo anti-Bush!

(sarcasm intended)

"Liberal media bias"?

Says who?

No wonder so many people still think everything is fine and dandy over in Iraq.

Burn on, big river, burn on...

One of the few Randy Newman songs I actually enjoy is "Burn On". Written in the 1972, it evokes nostalgic feelings about both the charm of Cleveland and all that has gone wrong in that town. It was used perfectly in the opening credits of the sports comedy, Major League. Here it is (slightly cut, unfortunately) coupled with a nice montage of the "city of lights", a delightful phrase of dual meaning that ironically points to both the many lit up buildings at night (part of the charm) and the blazing Cuyahoga river of 1969 (part of the misery):



I came across it in a link from an excellent list of "10 worse things than Joe Borowski to happen to Cleveland". One thing from the list that I didn't know was how silly the reason was for changing the city's name from "Cleaveland" to "Cleveland" in 1831 (see #10):

10. Blame the media — The town's name is misspelled forever when the Cleaveland Advertiser can't fit "Cleaveland Advertiser" all the way across the top of the page, so it drops the first "a" in Cleaveland. Seriously.

9. Earnest Byner, no! — In a football play simply known as "The Fumble," Byner coughs up the ball at the 3-yard line with 72 seconds left in the 1988 AFC Championship game, costing the Browns a Super Bowl berth.

8. "Burn On" by Randy Newman — "There's a red moon rising, on the Cuyahoga River, rolling into Cleveland to the lake." Lyrics immortalizing the river catching fire in 1969 which you also heard on the soundtrack to "Major League."

7. Don King — Many think the Cleveland native's greed as a promoter helped ruin boxing. Wait, is that all?

6. Sam Wyche goes off — Cincinnati fans throw trash on the field at Riverfront Stadium, so the Bengals coach reminds them of something.

5. Red men — The Indians wear these uniforms!

4. Michael Jordan's shot on Craig Ehlo — The Bulls and Cavaliers both tried to be the NBA's next big thing, but Jordan willed his team to the front of the line with a game-winning, series-ending shot on May 7, 1989 that changed the fortunes of both franchises. The Bulls would win six titles; the Cavs would fall into disrepair until LeBron James arrived nearly 15 years later.

3. All that for nothin' — The Tribe wins 111 games and is swept in the '54 World Series.

2. Brother, can you spare a trillion dimes? — It's 1978. Cleveland has no money to pay for anything.

1. Never more — The old, bad Browns move to Baltimore and become the new, good Ravens.

Here's one more video using Randy's song that runs through many of the sports moments just listed and more (however, there is an error -- they show "The Fumble" happening before "The Drive" when it should be after):



*Sigh* Poor Cleveland.

The MSM...Misogynist Sexist Media...err...I mean Mainstream Media

In case people don't think there's any misogyny in the MSM and blogosphere, the first 5 1/2 minutes of this video are pretty revealing...



After that it gets a little too cheesy and pro-Hillary for my taste, even if I am supporting her over Obama in the primaries. Still, it's a good montage of all the crap that the MSM has dished out at her. Of course, the Obama campaign has done much of the same, but that's another story for another day.

(And no, Hillary's not perfect. That's not at all what this post should imply.)

Evolution & Onslaught

Ever since I first saw a video from Dove's Campaign for Real beauty, I've been intrigued by their efforts to raise questions about our social and cultural perceptions of beauty.

Their most famous video is "Evolution", which many of you have probably seen before:



However, their newest is “Onslaught”, which is also really good:



And then there are some older ones. In my opinion, "True Colors" has the best cover ever of Cyndi Lauper's 1986 hit, though unfortunately they've never released it as a full track:



And last but not least, here's a video from Dove's pro-aging campaign:



If only more companies were doing interesting and socially relevant advertising projects like these.

"The Untold Story of How the GOP Rigged Florida and Michigan"

Regardless of whether I was supporting Hillary in the primaries or not (in case you didn't know, I am), I still would have seen the way in which voters in MI and FL have been treated as utterly deplorable. Unfortunately, most people don't realize (1) how badly the DNC has handled the situation and (2) the extent to which Barack Obama's Campaign has tried to avoid resolving the problem. Don't get me wrong here -- I think Hillary would have done the exact same thing if she were in his position. But as things stand, she wasn't and Barack was, and I sincerely believe his action in this regard is more despicable than anything Hillary has done in her campaign.

Let's talk about the DNC for a moment though. Wayne Barrett has an interesting article over at Huffington Post on how we owe it to the Republican leaders in those MI and FL for starting this whole primary date fiasco. Of course, it's not technically an "untold" story as the title suggests, for much of the information has been out there for months. However, it is "untold" in the sense that most people don't care about voter disenfranchisement, and therefore don't care to hear about what's really happening in these two states. (So much for democracy, I suppose.)

Here are some of Barrett's opening remarks on the situation:

Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean came out of hiding last week to announce that there is no reason to rush to resolve the fate of Florida and Michigan. He said he was confident that these delegations, disqualified in 2007 by Dean's own Rules Committee, would be seated at the August convention -- but, apparently, only after a nominee is chosen, which he predicted would occur by July 1. This modern-day Metternich, whose two-fisted handling of this two-state controversy has already had more impact on the 2008 race than his candidacy did on the race in 2004, is promising to mediate the dispute once it's already settled.

The Dean plan is that these two swing states -- big enough to decide the nomination or general election -- will eventually be granted "virtual" seats at the convention because, as Dean imaginatively put it in an AP interview, "the campaigns believe that kind of deal is premature right now." Since one campaign (Hillary Clinton's) was amenable to redoes, even financing Michigan's, and the other campaign (Barack Obama's) opposed every feasible proposition, it is, in a strange way, true that the two sides weren't collectively ready for a deal.

And some more...

If that sounds like a curious way to end a nominating contest that 30 million to 33 million voters will participate in before it's done, even stranger is that the DNC is following only some of its rules -- and that the real culprits who caused this debacle are Republicans, who are now relishing the catfight they provoked...

The Republican role is not some irrelevant anecdote. The DNC is charged, under its rules, to determine whether the Democrats in a noncompliant state made a "good faith" effort to abide by the party's electoral calendar, and to impose the full weight of its available penalties, namely a 100 percent takedown of a state's delegation, only if Democratic leaders in that state misbehaved. So the fact that it was Republicans who fomented the move-up of primaries in both these states to dates out-of-line with the DNC calendar is at the heart of the matter.

The rules also demand that the DNC's 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee conduct "an investigation, including hearings if necessary" into these matters. The purpose of such a probe is to figure out if Democratic leaders in a state that did move up "took all provable, positive steps and acted in good faith" to either "achieve legislative changes" to bring a state into compliance or to "prevent legislative changes" that took a state out of compliance. A DNC spokesman could not point to any real "investigation" the party conducted of the actions of "relevant Democratic party leaders or elected officials," as the rules put it. All that happened with Florida, for example, was that two representatives of the state party made a pitch for leniency immediately before the Rules Committee voted for sanctions.

What a probe might have discovered was a rationale for doing, at worst, what the RNC did to its own overeager primary schedulers in the same two states -- cutting the delegations by half. That's precisely the penalty specified in DNC rules, but the committee, exercising powers it certainly had the legal discretion to exercise, upped the ante as far as it could. In a bizarre reversal of public policy, the RNC, surely aware that the principal miscreants in both states were Republicans, applied a sane yet severe sanction. The Democrats opted for decapitation.

The presumption of much of the national coverage about Michigan, to start with, has been that the Dems did this one to themselves -- a presumption based, in large part, on Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm's endorsement of a January 15 vote, a date far ahead of the anticipated February 9 primary. All Clinton-backer Granholm did, however, was sign a bill. The bill originated in a Republican-controlled Senate and passed by a 21-to-17 straight party-line vote -- with every Democrat casting a no vote.

Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, is, like Granholm, seen as a prime player behind the state's acceleration of the primary calendar. But Crist isn't half the Florida story; Marco Rubio, a Jeb Bush protégé who runs the nearly 2-to-1 Republican Florida House, drove that bill through the legislature like it was a tax cut limited by law to top GOP donors.

Indeed, the tracks under this train wreck trace back, in each case, to Republican maneuvers in state legislatures, political no-man's-lands for all who've blithely dismissed the disenfranchisement of the millions of registered Florida and Michigan Democrats...

Read the rest (i.e. the "details") for yourself.

Concerning the title...

In case anyone is curious as to the inspiration behind the title of my blog, the sources are plentiful, so let me just name a few. To begin, there are those famous ancient statements of which many will recall:

"Know thyself" ~Delphic Oracle

"The unexamined life is not worth living" ~Socrates (The Apology)

"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance" ~Socrates (The Apology)

"I do not understand my own actions." ~Paul of Tarsus (Letter to the Romans)

"I have been made a question unto myself." ~Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)

But perhaps most significant are the more recent reflections of the postmodernists with their valuable explorations of the limits of reason and knowledge, both in regards to our own "selves" and in relation to what many in the 20th century have described as the mysterious "other", i.e., everything from other humans, the world around us, all that is not our momentary conscious thoughts, and even the divine. In this regard, though some of them have expressed dislike for the label "postmodern" (or never lived long enough to even hear of it), the following thinkers have all deeply influenced my thought: Ernst Cassirer, Carl Jung, Eric Voegelin, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricoeur, and John D. Caputo.

And so, here I am, continuing to strive for understanding and the betterment of both myself and those around me, yet through it all life never ceases to be a mystery and (surprise, surprise) I too remain a mystery unto* myself.

*I would have gone with "to" but that domain name was taken, so I had to use the more archaic (and perhaps more pretentious sounding) "unto".

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most dirty and negative of them all?

Big Tent Democrat, a longtime supporter of Barack Obama who isn't afraid to also criticize his candidate of choice, has an excellent assessment of the negative politics in this election season over at Talk Left, titled "Why The Obama/Clinton Rules Led Us To This Rough Campaign":

When the Media and the Left blogs deplore the negativity of the Democratic presidential campaign, especially from the Clinton campaign, they ignore that they are a major reason why it has happened. Why? Because they attack the Clinton campaign no matter what it does while ignoring or defending every negative attack and questionable tactic of the Obama campaign.

The examples are legion. There is not an ounce of doubt that it was the campaigns challenging Hillary Clinton last fall that first engaged in negative attacks. The Media and some of the Left blogs were imploring the Barack Obama campaign to do that and certainly not a single word of reproach was written about it.

Led by Tim Russert and Brian Williams in the October 2007 debate, and followed eagerly by the entire NBC network and many Left blogs, the attacks on Hillary Clinton, especially on her character, were applauded on a daily basis. More.

I criticized the character attacks and dirty politics. I was quite alone in this at the time. (I dropped my endorsement of Chris Dodd as a result.) And Clinton suffered because of these personal attacks against her. To wit, Barack Obama was rewarded for his dirty politics last Fall.

The Obama/Clinton rules were in full flower in the run up to New Hampshire. The Media and some Left blogs led the charge - cheering negative attacks on Clinton, attacking and distorting the Clinton campaign's responses and attacking her for trumped charges of negative campaigning. They were ready to dance on Hillary Clinton's political grave.

Since then the rules have been locked in. No matter what happens or is said - to NBC and to some Left blogs, Hillary is evil and Obama is without sin. The coverage of the Nevada at large district issue led to the most ludicrous charges of "disenfranchisement" from the Media and some Left bloggers.

Then, expecting Clinton to be knocked out in Texas, NBC and some Left blogs were bitterly disappointed and argued Clinton should drop out even though she won both Ohio and Texas (some even float the idea that the Texas caucus results were the true contest in Texas, rather than what they were - proof positive that caucuses disenfranchise voters.)

Indeed, disenfranchisement now becomes the key guiding principle of some Obama supporters - they support it at every turn. My own personal anger is tied up in the attitudes about the Michigan and Florida revotes. Everyone knows that Barack Obama blocked revotes in Florida and Michigan. No one outside of Michigan and Florida seems to care.

Let me put it bluntly, the dirtiest politics practiced in this campaign was Barack Obama's blocking of the Michigan and Florida revotes. There is nothing uglier in politics, nothing dirtier, than blocking voters' chances to vote. The stain on Barack Obama for this will not wash away with me. (BTW, I am not saying Clinton would not have done the same thing, I THINK she would have. But she did not.) Especially since I believe it would have helped Obama in the general election.

The Clinton campaign realizes that no matter what they do, they will be declared evil. They realize that no matter what Obama does, he will be declared a saint. In such an environment, both the Clinton campaign and the Obama campaign will feel no restraint to their behavior.

The Media and some of the Left blogs have created this climate. Pols are pols and do what they do. I expect nothing else from them. I once expected honest assessments from some in the Media and from most in the Left blogs. I no longer do. Clearly neither do the campaigns.

If the headlines and coverage do not change no matter what is done by the campaigns, then you can not expect the headlines and coverage to matter to the campaigns in terms of tactics. For all those in the Media and in the Left blogs deploring the negativity of the campaign, I suggest they look in the mirror for the main culprits.

Personally, I think he's spot on concerning two of the main points: (1) the major role of the media and many Left bloggers in tolerating and even encouraging and helping in the negative politics from other candidates long before Hillary started using her own so-called "kitchen sink" tactics, and (2) how "the dirtiest politics practiced in this campaign was Barack Obama's blocking of the Michigan and Florida revotes".

And I should note that in saying this, by no means do I mean to suggest that I approve of Clinton's negative attacks.

Agree? Disagree?

Corporate welfare is one of our biggest problems...

Here's a clip from an excellent interview of David Cay Johnston by Bill Moyer on the current state of "corporate welfare" in the United States:



Johnston is a reporter for the New York Times (though he won't be there much longer) and Pullitzer Prize winner "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms."

In the interview above, you get a glimpse at how professional sports as a whole make their profits entirely off of government subsidies, how George W. Bush (a man who gloats about his tax cuts) actually made his money off of the people by raising taxes, how corporations like Wal-Mart and Cabellas get major tax breaks and subsidies from the government, and finally, how in the midst of all of this, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Plus, this isn't just a problem with Republicans either -- sadly, most Democrats have gone corporate as well.

See the full interview and transcript here.

Many of Johnston's points are more fully documented in his two popular books, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else (2003) and Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill (2007).

Much of the information is available online as well, if you know where to look, and I'll do my best to post on some of the resources backing up Johnston's claims in the weeks to come. For now though, if you remain unconvinced, feel free to just express your outrage at the possibility that what he says is indeed true.

Guillermo and Matt Damon

So, I just realized that there were a couple additional confrontations between Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon, both involving Jimmy's parking lot security guard turned talk show personality Guillermo Díaz -- really funny stuff folks!

I've added them to my original post below in case you want to see them.

Enjoy!

Nader

Ralph Nader on the Daily Show:

Jimmy Kimmel, Matt Damon, and more...

Let my just say that I've never been a fan of Jimmy Kimmel, nor do I ever watch his show. That being said, this ongoing bit between him and Matt Damon, along with his girlfriend Sarah Silverman, Ben Affleck and countless other celebrities, is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

It all started back on 2006 when Jimmy Kimmel kept jokingly bumping Matt Damon on his show, only to finally really do it with Matt Damon in person:



Then not much happened until the following summer when Kimmel had his former parking lot security guard turned talk show personality Guillermo Díaz offer to interview Matt Damon at a red carpet event for the premiere of Ocean's Thirteen:



Later on in the summer Kimmel would strike again via Guillermo just before the release of Damon's new movie, The Bourne Ultimatum:



Things cooled off for a while until January 31, 2008, when Matt Damon got payback with Jimmy's girlfriend Sarah Silverman:



Jimmy got his own revenge on Matt several weeks later with his lifelong friend Ben Affleck and an all-star cast of celebrities (my favorite appearances are Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Josh Groban, and Harrison Ford):



I thought the Colbert/O'Brien/Stewart fiasco over who really made Huckabee was good, but this series is great!

War on Greed

Robert Greenwald is at it again with a great new documentary project called "War on Greed" that takes a look at the private equity buyout industry, how it works and how it finds loopholes in the tax system (loopholes that need badly fixed!) so as to make out like bandits. The following video is actually a playlist of five, all of which are good, but I especially recommend the third one, titled "Henry Kravis makes $51,369 PER HOUR":



Learn more about Henry Kravis and other borrow-and-buyout corporations here.

Barack, up close and personal...

A very interesting story has been published over at the Houston Press by Todd Spivak, titled "Barack Obama and Me". It gives an interesting picture of Barack's rise to power from his earlier days in Chicago and why many local black politicians aren't the biggest fans of him:

When asked about his legislative record, Obama rattles off several bills he sponsored as an Illinois lawmaker.

He expanded children's health insurance; made the state Earned Income Tax Credit refundable for low-income families; required public bodies to tape closed-door meetings to make government more transparent; and required police to videotape interrogations of homicide suspects.

And the list goes on.

It's a lengthy record filled with core liberal issues. But what's interesting, and almost never discussed, is that he built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year.

Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama's seven-year tenure. Each session, Obama backed legislation that went nowhere; bill after bill died in committee. During those six years, Obama, too, would have had difficulty naming any legislative ­achievements.

Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor's office as well as both legislative chambers.

The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.

Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's ­kingmaker.

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio ­program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

It also shows us Obama isn't always so happy and hopeful, especially when you try to report on something that doesn't make him look so good:

It's not quite eight in the morning and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage.

Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands.

It's the first time I ever heard him yell, and I'm trembling as I set down the phone. I sit frozen at my desk for several minutes, stunned.

Click here to read the whole article.

The Word: Good Bad Journalism

Stephen Colbert shows that good bad journalism can be done in a sonnet or a limerick. Too funny! The writers have come back in full force!

(Note: You have to wait until the end to hear the limerick.)

Breaking idols ...

Dear friends,

When I first wrote about the messianic connections with Obama it was more a joke than anything to me. However, as Obama hype continues to rise (surely the bubble will break eventually, but when?), I grow increasingly uneasy towards many things happening in his campaign. The following blog sums up pretty well all of the messianic and obsessive-compulsive tendencies among many (though certainly not all) of his supporters, something that completely disgusts me (it's pretty funny to read about though!):

"Is Barack Obama the Messiah?"

However, far more so than that, I'm concerned by the very things that Obama is doing and saying and what he stands for as a politician. Now, I for one will be the first to admit that Hillary Clinton has practiced power politics in the past and is far from perfect, but at least that is out in the open, as it is with most other politicians. What I can't stand about Barack Obama is the way in which he has somehow convinced so many that he is taking the "high road" this election cycle when there are countless actions and statements that point to the contrary.

The guy is not a saint but rather a walking hypocrite who I sincerely believe will probably be more corporate and conservative over all than Hillary Clinton (just look at his economic advisers), yet strangely enough, countless numbers of people, including many in the progressive netroots movement, think he is their bastion of hope. In fact, one of the best blogposts out there shows in detail how the Obama campaign has duped the netroots progressives into ironically backing a candidate of Lieberman-esque centrist quality that they would have cringed at and fought hard against several years ago. I highly recommend reading this post, as it points out a number of his weaknesses that have yet to be given much attention in the media or by many of his supporters:

"Who Represents the Progressive Movement?"

Ultimately, I suppose all I can say is that I don't think Barack is what he appears to be, so please carefully consider things before giving him your vote. That being said, I'm probably ultimately going to vote for Ralph Nader in the general election, so perhaps my input here won't matter much to you. Whatever the case, I do plan to vote for Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Ohio primary and I encourage you all to do the same (in Ohio or in your own home state).

There, I've come out and said it: Go Hillary! (for now, at least)

Feel free to question and criticize my present decision (which as always, is open to the possibility of change in the future).

p.s. I realized after writing this that I should have emphasized how I don't think Obama is a terrible candidate. McCain is much worse. I just happen to think that Hillary is better than both of them. Of course, I also think Ralph Nader tops them all. And of course, none of this takes into consideration who might be more "popular", but is simply an assessment of who I think is more right for president according to my views and beliefs regarding what would be best for our country at this time.

My Oscar Predictions

These aren't necessarily all my favorites, but merely the ones I think will win.

[UPDATE: I'll be highlighting the actual winners in green and my incorrect predictions in red. My picks will remain in bold too.]

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Tommy Lee Jones in "In the Valley of Elah" (Warner Independent)
Viggo Mortensen in "Eastern Promises" (Focus Features)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Warner Bros.)
Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War" (Universal)
Hal Holbrook in "Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment)
Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Universal)
Julie Christie in "Away from Her" (Lionsgate)
Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse)
Laura Linney in "The Savages" (Fox Searchlight)
Ellen Page in "Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There" (The Weinstein Company)
Ruby Dee in "American Gangster" (Universal)
Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement" (Focus Features)
Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone" (Miramax)
Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)

Best animated feature film of the year
"Persepolis" (Sony Pictures Classics): Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Brad Bird
"Surf's Up" (Sony Pictures Releasing): Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

Achievement in art direction
"American Gangster" (Universal): Art Direction: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Beth A. Rubino
"Atonement" (Focus Features): Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
"The Golden Compass" (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners): Art Direction: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount): Art Direction: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Art Direction: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Achievement in cinematography
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Warner Bros.): Roger Deakins
"Atonement" (Focus Features): Seamus McGarvey
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Janusz Kaminski
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Roger Deakins
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Robert Elswit

Achievement in costume design
"Across the Universe" (Sony Pictures Releasing) Albert Wolsky
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Jacqueline Durran
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Universal) Alexandra Byrne
"La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse) Marit Allen
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount) Colleen Atwood

Achievement in directing
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn), Julian Schnabel
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production), Jason Reitman
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Tony Gilroy
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Paul Thomas Anderson

Best documentary feature
"No End in Sight" (Magnolia Pictures) A Representational Pictures Production: Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
"Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience" (The Documentary Group) A Documentary Group Production: Richard E. Robbins
"Sicko" (Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company) A Dog Eat Dog Films Production: Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara
"Taxi to the Dark Side" (THINKFilm) An X-Ray Production: Alex Gibney and Eva Orner
"War/Dance" (THINKFilm) A Shine Global and Fine Films Production: Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine

Best documentary short subject
"Freeheld" A Lieutenant Films Production: Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth
"La Corona (The Crown)" A Runaway Films and Vega Films Production: Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega
"Salim Baba" A Ropa Vieja Films and Paradox Smoke Production: Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello
"Sari's Mother" (Cinema Guild) A Daylight Factory Production: James Longley

Achievement in film editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Christopher Rouse
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Juliette Welfling
"Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment): Jay Cassidy
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Roderick Jaynes
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Dylan Tichenor

Best foreign language film of the year
"Beaufort" Israel
"The Counterfeiters" Austria
"Katyn" Poland
"Mongol" Kazakhstan
"12" Russia

Achievement in makeup
"La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
"Norbit" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount): Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Walt Disney): Ve Neill and Martin Samuel

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli
"The Kite Runner" (DreamWorks, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Participant Productions, Distributed by Paramount Classics): Alberto Iglesias
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.) James Newton Howard
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino
"3:10 to Yuma" (Lionsgate) Marco Beltrami

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Falling Slowly" from "Once" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and: Marketa Irglova
"Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"Raise It Up" from "August Rush" (Warner Bros.): Music and Lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas
"So Close" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"That's How You Know" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

Best motion picture of the year
"Atonement" (Focus Features) A Working Title Production: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production) A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production: Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.) A Clayton Productions, LLC Production: Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production: Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production: JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers

Best animated short film
"I Met the Walrus" A Kids & Explosions Production: Josh Raskin
"Madame Tutli-Putli" (National Film Board of Canada) A National Film Board of Canada Production Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
"Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)" (Premium Films) A BUF Compagnie Production Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse
"My Love (Moya Lyubov)" (Channel One Russia) A Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia and Dentsu Tec Production Alexander Petrov
"Peter & the Wolf" (BreakThru Films) A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

Best live action short film
"At Night" A Zentropa Entertainments 10 Production: Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth
"Il Supplente (The Substitute)" (Sky Cinema Italia) A Frame by Frame Italia Production: Andrea Jublin
"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)" (Premium Films) A Karé Production: Philippe Pollet-Villard
"Tanghi Argentini" (Premium Films) An Another Dimension of an Idea Production: Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans
"The Tonto Woman" A Knucklehead, Little Mo and Rose Hackney Barber Production: Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown

Achievement in sound editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Skip Lievsay
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins

Achievement in sound mixing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal) Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
"3:10 to Yuma" (Lionsgate): Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin

Achievement in visual effects
"The Golden Compass" (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners): Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Walt Disney): John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

Adapted screenplay
"Atonement" (Focus Features), Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
"Away from Her" (Lionsgate), Written by Sarah Polley
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn), Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

Original screenplay
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production), Written by Diablo Cody
"Lars and the Real Girl" (MGM), Written by Nancy Oliver
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Written by Tony Gilroy
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
"The Savages" (Fox Searchlight), Written by Tamara Jenkins

Can you tell I liked Juno and No Country For Old Men?
________________________________________

UPDATE #2: Looks like I was right on 6 out of 8 (75%) for the Major Awards, but only 12 for 24 (50%) overall. Bourne Ultimatum really threw me the biggest curveball, picking up 3 Oscars when I didn't think it deserved any. Oh well. By the way, to show that there was some thought put into all of this, out of all the nominees, these are the films that I saw over the past year:

"No Country for Old Men"
"Juno"
"There Will Be Blood"
"Atonement"
"Ratatouille"
"Michael Clayton"
"Sicko"
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
"The Bourne Ultimatum"
"Enchanted"
"The Golden Compass"
"Transformers"
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"

Now it's time to start watching foreign films, beginning with "La Vie en Rose".

The Penny Loafers and the Predatory Wasp

I just came across an interesting a capella cover of one of my favorite songs by Sufjan Stevens (both for the lyrics and the music): “The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!” In my humble opinion, it's not even close to as good as the original, but nonetheless impressive considering it's all human vocals:

A troubling politics of hatred...

An excerpt from Paul Krugman's op-ed piece in todays New York Times, "Hate Springs Eternal":

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC, after pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother’s campaign — as adult children of presidential aspirants often do — asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” Mr. Shuster has been suspended, but as the Clinton campaign rightly points out, his remark was part of a broader pattern at the network.

I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.

But most of all, progressives should realize that [this] is not the country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.

I should note that just this past week I had so-called "progressive" pro-Obama friends citing Republican/conservative rhetoric (just as the Obama campaign has been doing) and conservative writers (is Peggy Noonan, a speech writer for Reagan and Bush Sr., really a progressive?) in order to question Clinton's healthcare plan and campaign. Who really sold out to corporate special interests here though? The one with the plan closer to universal healthcare (i.e. Clinton) or the one further away (i.e. Obama)?

Perhaps Barack's "high road" isn't so high after all though. Perhaps he's the one doing the real "bamboozling" in these elections. I can only hope that Obama's supporters have the intelligence and humility to admit to his imperfections, otherwise their movement of "change" will continue to look to me to be incredibly hypocritical and superficial just like almost everything else in politics, but perhaps even more so precisely because of their continuous claims not to be so.

UPDATE: I just came across two entertaining and interesting blogposts by Stanley Fish, "All You Need Is Hate" and "A Calumny a Day To Keep Hillary Away". He too is writing about the strange phenomena of Hillary hatred that seems to permeate this country, quipping that "Compared to this, the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry was a model of objectivity" and "If she answers questions aggressively, she is shrill. If she moderates her tone, she’s just play-acting. If she cries, she’s faking. If she doesn’t, she’s too masculine. If she dresses conservatively, she’s dowdy. If she doesn’t, she’s inappropriately provocative." The second article, a follow-up to the first, is especially funny.

Mardi Gras: Made in China

Yeah, umm, sorry to ruin the fun, but about those beads...



(here's a link to a better quality Quicktime movie of the trailer)

Have a nice day!

Spin

I really should stop posting Comedy Central videos, seeing as it sort of goes against my siding with the writers, but this one from John Stewart on how the media's spinning the way we understand the election candidates is too good to pass up...



And at this point, I have to agree with Greg Sargent over at Talking Points Memo in saying that the Obama Campaign is definitely winning the spin war right now in playing the "victim" card against the Clinton campaign.

Black and White

Everybody's talking about race and gender in politics these days, but I want to talk a little bit about image and identity in another sense: dress.

Now, I know people do sometimes wear white ties, but let's be honest, it's not that common. So, am I the only one that finds this picture below just a little bit weird? (and yes, I realize the tie is not totally white, but still consider the general whiteness of the portrait)



What kinds of images and ideas does this very clean white picture evoke in you?

Perhaps at best it fosters of sense of redemption and hope for a better future where the wrongs of the present will be made right? Perhaps. Yet I couldn't help several other images also flashing through my mind, such as...

"Geez! Does this guy have a Messiah- or God-complex or what?"



or "Hmm. Is that really the way to show you're the man for the job?"



or finally, "Wow! It's Mr. Clean!"



I'm assuming enough people must like it though, since it also dons the top of his campaign website and his Facebook profile page. Regardless, it gives me the creepies, and far more so than your typical cheesy campaign photo, of which there are plenty to go around. Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" accusation may have been over the top, but I think it's hard to deny this picture having a surreal, "fairy tale" feel to it. That's just my two cents though.

That being said, this post is merely meant to raise a few questions in humorous fashion about the way Obama may or may not be perceived by his supporters (personally, I think that intentional "messiah" symbolism is highly probable), those who support someone else, and those who remain undecided about the candidates (I fall into this latter category). Therefore, please don't take it to mean anything more than that (i.e., it is not meant to be a criticism of his overall campaign and stances on issues).

Let My People Go!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I will be pissed if the Academy Awards don't happen this year, so the WGA strike better be settled by then, with the writers also getting everything they've been asking for from those greedy, money-hoarding studios.



And speaking of the Oscars, here are some of the nominees for the major categories. I know it's kind of early, but does anybody have any favorites (or recommendations for a guy like me who's just now trying to watch many of these films)?

Best Picture:
• "Atonement"
• "Juno"
• "Michael Clayton"
• "No Country for Old Men"
• "There Will Be Blood"

Actor:
• George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
• Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
• Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
• Tommy Lee Jones, "In the Valley of Elah"
• Viggo Mortensen, "Eastern Promises"

Actress:
• Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
• Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
• Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
• Laura Linney, "The Savages"
• Ellen Page, "Juno"

Supporting Actor:
• Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
• Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
• Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"
• Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"

Supporting Actress:
• Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
• Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"
• Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"
• Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
• Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

Director:
• Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
• Jason Reitman, "Juno"
• Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
• Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
• Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"

Foreign Film:
• "Beaufort," Israel
• "The Counterfeiters," Austria
• "Katyn," Poland
• "Mongol," Kazakhstan
• "12," Russia

Animated Feature Film:
• "Persepolis"
• "Ratatouille"
• "Surf's Up"

Documentary Feature:
• "No End in Sight"
• "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience"
• "Sicko"
• "Taxi to the Dark Side"
• "War/Dance"

Oh Chuck!

With all the annoying political games going on between Clinton and Obama, it's nice to see Chuck Norris speaking up and giving us all something to laugh at...



By the way, if you haven't seen them yet, Colbert's interviews with Huckabee over at the Report are definitely worth your time.

And while I'm at it, his "Esteban" interview with Lou Dobbs last week was also great!

What the World Eats...

A few photographs from part I of the new TIME magazine photo essay, "What the World Eats":



United States: The Revis family of North Carolina

Food expenditure for one week: $341.98
Favorite foods: spaghetti, potatoes, sesame chicken




Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna

Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27
Family recipe: Pig's knuckles with carrots, celery and parsnips



Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo

Food expenditure for one week: $31.55
Family recipe: Potato soup with cabbage



Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp

Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23
Favorite foods: soup with fresh sheep meat

The images come from a relatively new book called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio. Check out the rest of the photo essay over at TIME magazine online.

Yael Naim's got soul!

What better way to kick off my new blog than with a fun song I just discovered called "New Soul." I first heard it in the premiere commercial for the new MacBook Air:



The song is by Yael Naim, an artist that has increasingly impressed me over the last couple of days with her beautiful vocals, musical and instrumental versatility, and vibrant imaginative spirit. On top of that, she even sings some of her songs in Hebrew! Her video for "New Soul" (in English) is a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out:



Is it any surprise that she has roots in Paris? (By the way, some of her songs are in French as well.)

At the moment, you can download the song legally over at Aurgasm, a wonderful site for exploring new music -- don't wait too long though, as these free offers are typically only temporary. If you listen to the other song available there for download, "Pachad", you'll discover that her music isn't always so happy either.

A couple other songs from YouTube, "Puppet" and "Paris," help to further show the diversity of her musical interests:





With a sound reminding me at times of Feist or Regina Spektor, yet a style still very much her own, I expect great things from Yael Naim and I can't wait to get her 2007 self-titled album.

UPDATE: I just came across an interesting story on her background: "Cinderella Song". Apparently, among other things, her recent eponymous album is one of the top selling records in France right now.