It’s been up for a month or so now, but this latest ‘Buddy Channel’ podcast mix, ‘Badjacket’, is especially good. All over the map in the best ways. Check it out and turn it up. Just click the icon under the ‘Surfin’ listings. If you need to download his player, go ahead – the DL is quick and the file is small.
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Socioculture / Politics
Martin Amis makes a well-researched case that religion is a secondary motivation for terrorism. Ultimately, he says, it’s a (somewhat) understandable reaction to globalism and world markets – it is “about human opportunism and the will to power.”
Politics
Well, I watched a little TV news after work today, and it’s apparently open season on Sarah Palin. This poor, well-intentioned woman is going to be hammered. I have that picture in my mind of David Letterman, standing crouched, hands on his knees, taking a long, slow exhalation with that look on his face.
Now, don’t get me wrong. They’re not after my vote anyway. Politically, I don’t like her. Nope. She’s pro-war, pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-gay marraige, pro-oil industry… it’s a whole carnivorous C.V. of conservative bullet-headed, mouth-breathing wrong-headedness. But do you know who else had this resume? Mike Huckabee. And, while I’d never waste a vote of any kind on any part of his agenda, I genuinely thought he classed up the joint during the Republican primaries. I liked having him around. He seemed unfailingly gracious, positive, and unflappable. Almost…(gulp)…statesmanlike. Aside from the issues, and sides taken thereof, did you really like any of the other ‘pub candidates? Giuliani? Romney? Graham? (Not Graham, Hunter! Can’t keep those guys straight…!) Tancredo?
So that’s my hope for Sarah Palin. That she’ll be gracious, well-spoken, good-humored, well-informed, resilient, and classy. What’s she gonna do, turn down the gig? Say no thanks? Because, let’s face it, if they think they’re going to draw off the Pro-Hillary pro-war, pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-gay marraige, pro-oil industry Democrats, then sheep don’t have pubic hair. They don’t really want Hillary’s votes (although a few of those dopes from PUMA and some other pseudo-feminist dilletantes will follow along regardless) – they want the bedrock, conservative Christian Republican base back underneath them. And while I think declaring yourself an Evangelical Christian should be grounds for disqualification from public office, I’m nonetheless delighted that we’ll have more to talk about over the next few months than McCain-Pawlenty or McCain-Romney.
So God bless you, Sarah Palin. You may be the new Dan Quayle, but you’re our new Dan Quayle.
Sports
Jay Mariotti’s former colleague at the Sun-Times, Roger Ebert, sends Jay off appropriately:
Dear Jay,
What an ugly way to leave the Sun-Times. It does not speak well for you. Your timing was exquisite. You signed a new contract, waited until days after the newspaper had paid for your trip to Beijing at great cost, and then resigned with a two-word e-mail: “I quit.” You saved your explanation for a local television station.
As someone who was working here for 24 years before you arrived, I think you owed us more than that. You owed us decency. The fact that you saved your attack for TV only completes our portrait of you as a rat.
Newspapers are not dead, Jay, and this paper will not die because you have left. Times are hard in the newspaper business, and for the economy as a whole. Did you only sign on for the luxury cruise?
There’s an old saying that you might have come across once or twice on the sports beat: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Newspapers are not dead, Jay, because there are still readers who want the whole story, not a sound bite. If you go to work for television, viewers may get a little weary of you shouting at them. You were a great shouter in print, that’s for sure, stomping your feet when owners, coaches and players didn’t agree with you. It was an entertaining show. Good luck getting one of your 1,000-word rants on the air.
The rest of us are still at work, still putting out the best paper we can. We believe in our profession, and in the future. And we believe in our internet site, which you also whacked as you slithered out the door. I don’t know how your column was doing, but we have the most popular sports section in Chicago. The reports and blog entries by our Washington editor Lynn Sweet have become a must-stop for millions of Americans in this election year. After a recent blog entry I wrote about the Beijing Olympics, I woke up at 5 a.m. one morning, when North America was asleep, and found that 40 percent of my 100 most recent visitors had been from China. I don’t have any complaints about our web site. So far this month my web page has been visited from almost every country on earth, including one visit from the Vatican City. The Pope, no doubt. Hope you were doing as well.
You have left us, Jay, at a time when the newspaper is once again in the hands of people who love newspapers and love producing them. You managed to stay here through the dark days of the thieves Conrad Black and David Radler. The paper lost millions. Incredibly, we are still paying Black’s legal fees.
I started here when Marshall Field and Jim Hoge were running the paper. I stayed through the Rupert Murdoch regime. I was asked, “How can you work for a Murdoch paper?”
My reply was: “It’s not his paper. It’s my paper. He only owns it.”
That’s the way I’ve always felt about the Sun-Times, and I still do. On your way out, don’t let the door bang you on the ass.
Your former colleague,
Roger Ebert
Movies
TK at Pajiba sings the praises of a personal favorite of mine, as well: Ronin.
Economics
I fear most people (and I’m somewhat guilty as well) will find this article pretty dry. But there are some thought-provoking nuggets in here, and overall it’s a fascinating overview of the mechanics of the American economic system over the last forty years.
“At a meeting concerned with green technology this June in Washington, D.C., I pointed out Obama’s linkage of Iraq War savings to the new monies that could be spent on alternative energy—the Iraq War peace dividend. A Congressman pointed out to me that there will be no such dividend as the war was paid for by the Chinese (among others).”
“European countries like Sweden and Finland have done relatively well by combining welfare states, government support of retraining and R&D, with high growth economies. High taxes did not limit growth. Government regulations, linked to Nordic specifications for mobile telephony for example, actually helped spur companies like Nokia and Ericsson. In the case of the Swedish-based Ericsson, Televerket (a quasi-governmental phone company) was a critical partner firm that was actually a key to the Swedish telephonic giant’s growth. None of this matters, however, because it does not fit into the mantra: markets are pro-growth and government and taxation are not.”
“It’s not enough to say, as (David) Leonhardt (N.Y Times) and Democratic Party reformers do, that firms sometimes succeed but sometimes fail (and have to be regulated as a result). The problem is that markets have to be designed. There are good designs and bad ones. Sometimes the key designers work in the government, sometimes they are consumers and other times producers. It’s far more important to discuss the designs of markets than to discuss the abstract trade offs between too much government and too little markets.”
Politics
A new missile defense deal for Poland. Super. Let’s hope they never figure out it doesn’t work.
Movies – Black Snake Moan
There are a few dilemmas to contend with even before you start watching ‘Black Snake Moan.’ If you know anything about the movie, you know that, basically, Samuel L. Jackson plays an older man who chains young wildcat nympho Christina Ricci to a radiator to ‘tame’ her. It’s instructive to learn that Christina Ricci was pretty upset with how this film was marketed, and, according to IMDB, became heavily involved with RAINN (The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), to try to counterbalance Paramount’s lurid campaign. To say that the movie isn’t all about the description above is a kind of truth, but that particular aspect of the story is important nonetheless.
Mr. Jackson plays Lazarus, an earnest small farmer and former blues musician whose marraige has gone south thanks to the seduction of his wife by his own brother. Despite his strong church ties and community friendships, he’s understandably at a kind of wit’s end.
Ms. Ricci is Rae, an extraordinarily ferocious party girl and sexbomb whose first, and best, shot at a real honest-to-God loving relationship, Ronnie, is being shipped off to Iraq. Left to her own devices, she falls back into her old habits. Ronnie’s old friend Gill, torn between the prospect of Rae’s carnal availability for himself and his disgust that she’s so quickly discarded any sense of Ronnie-fostered self-esteem, takes his dilemma out on her by beating the living shit out of her, leaving her seemingly lifeless on an almost-deserted stretch of country road – almost deserted because it happens to be very near Lazarus’ small farmhouse. Laz, waking up from a bender the next morning, happens across her, and spends a few days nursing her back to health.
Laz is familiar with Rae’s M.O. (it’s a small town, after all), and, while tending to her starts out as just the Right Thing To Do, he progressively becomes convinced that she can provide him with a kind of redemption if he can save her from her morally unfettered self-destructiveness. Please trust me when I tell you that At No Time does Lazarus see Rae as some kind of sexual easy-pickings – he’s not remotely interested in gettin’ some – but there are certainly some challenging aspects of gender-power, moral self-righteousness and the personal limits of free will. Rae’s drug and alcohol use, and nymphomania, are, of course, self-generated defense mechanisms against far deeper demons. And Lazarus’ own deeply religious, blues-honed affinities towards those darker demons, as well as his present state of despair, seem to make him uniquely qualified to provide some credible perspective for her. But chaining her to the radiator? Really?
Director Craig Brewer has, I think, an unerring sense of tone in these scenes. On the one hand, we’re in some genuine Russ Meyer territory here (and there’ll be a big effusive blog-entry in the future on The Undeniable Moral And Intellectual Merits of Russ Meyer Films). Meyer’s oeuvre creates a world almost exclusively run by sexually voracious, powerful women wreaking havoc on the culture created by weak-willed and impotent white men, and the almost Shakespearian conflicts They must contend with to preserve their own sense of Dionysian prerogative and free will. We’re also in George Romero-ville in the sense of The Lone Black Man whose moral integrity has been tempered by trials most average white Westerners would never have the resolve to endure, and has become essentially unshakable in the face of huge moral conflict. Brewer refers to these B-movie motifs to evoke our own sense of conflict about Lazarus and Rae. Rae (thanks to the superb Ricci) is a powerful and engaging character. Where the Hell does Lazarus get off subjecting Rae to this subjugation? Sure she’s fucked up, but who decided this guy gets to fix her? And yet, as conflicted and fucked up as he might seem, we never really mistrust him, or get any sense that this situation will put either of them in any deeper trouble. Brewer is smart to set up a few intermittent scenes of Lazarus interacting with other members of his small town – the minister, R.L., and the appealing Angela (S. Epatha Merkerson) – in the midst of his own ministrations to Rae, to assure us that he hasn’t become completely unhinged or ostracized.
On the other hand, there’s some strong medicine here, no doubt. At times there’s some ‘Exorcist’-like intensity to Laz and Rae’s relationship. But ultimately, the overall film is a sex-and-blues infused ‘Pygmalion’, where the back-and-forth interplay of psycho-cultural power between these two compelling people eventually changes them both for the better. Yes, there’s a happy ending, but it ain’t the one the marketers want you to think you’ll see. And the happy ending, like life usually goes, still manages to leave you with some maybe-never-to-be-resolved issues trailing behind.
Recommended.
Politics
Eight Republican senators in tight races have chosen not to attend the Republican convention. Are they really that hunkered down, or are they worried about guilt-by-association in supporting a ‘Bush third term?’
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/13/1263992.aspx
Sports
Many Olympic venues in Beijing, during the games, are half empty. Why? Because, like Chicago’s beloved Mayor Daley, they think Licensed Ticket Brokers are, at best, a good idea, and, at worst, harmless. Scalpers… oops… I mean Licensed Ticket Brokers…, buy up everything early on, then sell them to you for jawdropping mark-ups.Not to mention the corporate freebies that go unused. Ask middle-class Cubs fans how frustrating that is, let alone the Chinese. Then imagine Mayor Daley making any of it better for 2016. As Keith Olbermann would say, “That’s… Not… Gonna… Happen…!”
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=jo-olympictickets081308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Periscope In The Bathtub 