barack obama's "new foundation" as our new president said this morning, "the state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act--not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth"
like franklin delano roosevelt's "new deal" or lyndon banes johnson's "great society" now is the time for new programs to lift up the people and get them working again, get the economy healthy again. "build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together" and all else that is needed to raise this nation out of the mire of the last 8 years, to improve our worldy image and make us respectable again.
let us be in a position to reflect johnson's words: "The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community."
even in selfpublishing, i don't know what i'm doing been trying out lulu the last few days, reformatting my selfpublished novels to go over there from cafepress cause i'd be getting ISBN numbers for them. had to alter the original page sizes and reformat the covers--couldn't manage to get a pdf from a png properly which would have made "the empress of time" cover very unfortunately impossible and to a lesser degree the "clubhouse blues" cover (though i could have gotten around that one)--had to rework the covers a second time after the png/pdf issue, and only then learned of a long list of requirements for formatting and whatnot to get an isbn (not to mention i can't place the barcode, which kinda makes it hard to plan for my lemming drops studio logo on the backcover) and distribution (though there is a free option in distribution, the good ones seem to cost money)
and, i think there might have been a sentence in there when i started, but it got lost... as did i
anyway, while the novels will still be at cafepress, for now there will be no links to them at lemmingdrops.com or anywhere else as i discovered some old formatting troubles i missed the first time (good thing i've not sold a significant number of copies) and i'll be fixing those and then all 3 books will be back, as will be a 4th
commodity fetishism - social relationships are defined by the values placed on commodities. labor is traded for money which is traded for commodities. the social nature of society is destroyed by the abstraction of commodities--the separation of use-value and exchange-value (eg a pearl of no use worth more than a wrench of practical use). the purchaser of an item is alienated from a social relationship with the maker of said item, creating a "false consciousness" as to the nature of capitalism and the value of material goods and human life (or the social or societal value thereof).
to interrupt the page i found, i should mention that last night i was doing an inventory at diesel at the beverly center, and mostly i was going through item tags too fast to notice much detail. two details did catch my eye, though, one interesting but pointless, the other interested and quite pointed. the first: black leather bags were listed as neon yellow. the second: they had jeans that cost $220... there were also bags in the hundreds of dollars range but that's more common these days. but, seeing those jeans--and there didn't seem to be much too great about them; they weren't even "diesel" brand or some brand i'd heard of, where the cachet would have some alleged value in our modern society. they were just expensive jeans. the local salvation army shop in glendale is closing up and having a 75% off sale, and seeing those jeans made me want to stop by and pick up some clothes, maybe even some jeans, at 75% off just to demonstrate how fucked up our system is, when i could get jeans for mere cents, maybe a dollar, and there are some jeans for $220--and i'm sure there are even more expensive jeans elsewhere. the use-value and exchange-value sure are separated, and it's like society at large doesn't care... or if many do, it's not enough, not enough people, and not enough caring or something about all this would change...
but i digress. back to the paper i found:
cultural hegemony - rather than necessarily working toward its own collective needs, the working class accepts cultural innovations like compulsory schooling, mass media and popular culture serving the perspective of the ruling class, further subjugating the working class, despite any organization efforts to the contrary (eg labor unions or political parties [the lesser parties, anyway]). the rhetoric of the ruling class adn the resulting institutions, practices and the beliefs create (again, that term) a "false consciousness" as to the reality of "the Man" keeping us down, rejected because the masses do not want to believe themselves gullible or easily manipulated.
except, oh so many do accept some vague notion of "the Man" keeping them down, but they ignore it as best they can, hoping against hope that maybe someday, if they work hard enough and dream big enough that they can be "the Man" and keep others down--or maybe they are misguided enough to think they can lift others up by inserting themselves into the body of "the Man"--that thay can achieve the "American dream" with its accompanying riches... and then, they can buy some expensive jeans
also on this same sheet of paper of mine were two quoted bits of graffiti from the 1968 student uprising in Paris:
"Down with a world in which the guarantee that we will not die of starvation has been purchased with the guarantee that we will die of boredom"
"vivez sans temps mort" live without dead time
these are the things i write down from time to time, the things that get stuck in my head, but we've got over 4000 dead soldiers and thousands upon thousands of dead iraqis buying us cheap gas, right? and the world is a wonderful, peaceful place, so why should i even care how much jeans cost or what our "false consciousness" tells us is so, and what reality actually is in its difference... and its indifference
hell, i just queried an agent about one of my novels for the first time in a while. maybe this time will be the time i get something sold and i can be rich and famous and wear expensive jeans and wonder what the hell i was rambling about when i wrote this blog entry. let's all keep out fingers crossed
for our final group presentation in korean 101, we had to make a film. i wrote and directed this one, and am in there, starring as kungchalkwan (police officer)
this isn't it so, i'm watching north and south, all three books, recently, and i'm getting in my head ideas for reimagining it as an adaptation into an hourlong series, maybe a season per book, lots of historic detail, and still all the fiction that makes north and south good...
or i'm in history class planning to take more history courses, imagining being a history teacher...
but in a week, i'll be looking for temp work, probably some office job; it's what i used to do for years
life has a tendency of destroying ideas. no wonder the world sucks
spoken word night, korean filmmaking and the local paper in that last week and a half, i've been published twice in the local paper, once (as mentioned in a previous blog entry) with my own little section at the bottom of the page, and i've performed publicly some poetry and made a movie from a script i wrote.
the local paper thing was some debate (me pro, some other people con) about dual language programs in elementary school
the public performance was at the "spoken word night" at GCC (where, since i haven't been updating this blog in a while, i'll mention i've been a student since winter semester this year). my first time up, i read a poem called "bored" and a poem called "two and two is five." then, a while later, the guy in charge asked if i wanted to go up again and i read "bondage to bondage." i got the feeling the audience liked it and sarah said i did great.
and, i mentioned it in passing in a previous blog entry last week i think, but the movie was in korean, for korean 101 at GCC. I wrote the script and starred as kyungchalkwan (police officer) and did what there were of the director/producer duties (bringing props, telling the other actors and the camera guy what to do). it's a simple little thing, a single scene basically, something like 15 camera setups to cover it though I specifically wrote it so it could feasibly be shot with a single shot. it's got no plot really, an incomplete mystery, a crime scene, a somewhat ornery detective, and in the end a talking dead guy. it was called chuseokaysuh sarin (murder on chuseok, chuseok being a korean holiday). i'm suppose to be meeting with my camera guy tomorrow, as he's also the editor, about finalizing what music goes on the final cut of the thing
just some more of my more (realtive to previous ones, that is) outgoing year
Published: Last Updated Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:28 PM PDT
Regarding Glendale Unified School District’s dual-language program and the comment by Carlos Mejia of Glendale in his letter “English should be the only language taught” (Mailbag, Friday): The notion that a child will be confused and unable to be proficient in any language if that child is taught a foreign language alongside English is, and has been shown in numerous studies, wrong.
According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, learning a second language at an early age has a positive effect on intellectual growth and mental development leaves a child with more flexibility in thinking and improves a child’s understanding of his own native language.
Add to that the cultural and social awareness and openness that comes from learning a second language and learning about the culture that comes with it, and a child already has a distinct advantage over other children, and that is before it comes to the future and the benefits of bilingualism in getting a job.
I think much of the dislike for the Foreign Language Academy Glendale dual-language program is coming from a misunderstanding of its purpose, which is keeping some people from looking at the aforementioned benefits.
I am choosing here not to assume cultural bigotry and xenophobia on the part of certain News-Press readers. Some people hear “dual language” and probably think of classes meant to coddle non-English speakers in this, a primarily (and officially) English-speaking nation, teaching them in their own language to ease them into English. And, while that sort of program is debatable separate from this, the current foreign language academy programs offer Spanish/English at Edison Elementary School, Armenian/English at Jefferson Elementary School, Korean/English at Keppel Elementary School and German/English at Franklin Elementary School, and are about educating both the foreign-language-speaking child and the English-speaking child to be fluent in both and, in the long run, to have the extra intellectual growth and mental development that comes with bilingualism at an early age.
To suggest that these programs are being imposed on the children is accurate only inasmuch as any of us parents, or our state or national governments for that matter, are imposing the general public education on them.
A program such as this, which adds to the curriculum already offered and helps promote the intelligence and cognitive skills of our children is nothing but a plus.
My previously mentioned assumptions aside, to suggest that in elementary school the only language should be English without any real qualification is xenophobic and comes across as culturally narrow-minded if not outright bigoted.
The world is not just the United States, is not just California, is not just Glendale, and even those three political units are more multicultural than that statement about the only language would seem to recognize. Each new generation will need more tools at its disposal to face our global economy and worldwide society. I would suggest that we would be better off with many more of these Foreign Language Academy Glendale programs (and similar programs in other cities as well) so rather than imposing English-only onto the world, we would be more open to more of the world’s people; after all, as far as native speakers go, English isn’t even the No. 1 language in the world.
boring useless details redux it's late saturday, everyone's asleep. chuseokaysuh sarin (rough bit of phonetic spelling there) got its production tonight. that is, our group project short film for korean class--i wrote and directed it and also played kyungchalkawan (police officer). good time filming.
right now, i've got a rerun of wire in the blood on the tv. been watching reruns of this show every week since that new stand alone episode set in texas, and hadn't actually found them familiar until this one... i suppose i hadn't seen those particular episodes before.
anyway, had the laptop out to check the episode listings for wire in the blood and somehow happened over to the lemming drops studio site, found my old blog "boring useless details" and kinda missed that sort of rambling, unlike my other blog ("against the world") of my old essays, the b.u.d. blog wasn't about trying to make a point, political or otherwise, just me rambling about tv and movies and books an whatnot.
so, anyway, other than this wire in the blood on now and the filming earlier, i watched episodes 2 and 3 of ken burns' civil war today, took saer to a birthday party, made banana bread, and made an odd lego cave racer for a contest
of course, it's worth noting that i miss the other blog as well. ranting can be as fun as rambling, and doing both at the same time is just amazing
couple more episode of civil war tomorrow maybe, my niece's baby shower tomorrow also, sarah's got school, and tomorrow night i've got work
this weekend in (short) film saturday was my last day at my job in the language lab, and mostly i stayed out of the way for the new supervisor--oddly, i think i ended up doing more work than many of my days before, with all the questions and assistance--and stuck to a computer in the back, finding myself some short films online. see, for this year's oscars, i made an effort to see nearly all the films nominated for everything. i had even managed to watch 7 of the 10 nominated short films online before oscar weekend... and oscar weekend, my wife and i made it to a screening of all 10--and the danish poet (which won for animated short) is awesome and worth seeing if you get the chance. so, then i learned, after the oscars, that the documentary shorts would be screening this weekend, and between watching some short films in february and researching these documentary shorts--not to mention my own interest in producing a short film--my interest in short films was piqued, so there i was at work, scouring youtube for animated shorts listed on the oscars archive site and i managed to watch 12 at work, made it to the documentary short screening and watched all the oscar nominees for 2005 on dvd, plus happened upon harvie krumpet (which won the oscar for animated short for 2003) on sundance late saturday night and loved it. checked sundance ahead and recorded two more short films on the dvr, watched them late last night
anyway, a quick rundown:
the fan and the flower - simple visual style, wonderful story--a ceiling flan and a flower in a pot fall in love but can't be together--nice narration by paul giamatti
gopher broke - a pixar short i hadn't seen, amusing--a gopher deliberately sets up speedbumps to knock food off delivery trucks--but not nearly as clever as some of their other work
guard dog - ok visual style and an amusing little story, delving in the paranoid fantasies of a dog out for a walk, showing how his imaginings of what might happen to his owner make him bark at even innocuous squirrels
ryan - lacking in content (a little short and inconclusive) but a fantastic visual experience, using cgi to show emotional and other non-visual conditions as visual
the chubbchubbs - simple and short or i probably wouldn't have enjoyed this one much. alien janitor wants to sing, but the chubbchubbs are coming and folks freak out
katedra (the cathedral) - awesome (and i use that word properly here) visuals but the overall metaphor comes off a little like the ending of apocalypto, easily taken as an affirmation of religion by someone religious or taken as a condemnation of religion by an atheist... i'm pretty sure it was supposed to be the former, but either way, the visuals alone are worth it
das rad (the wheel) - all human history from the perspective of a couple piles of rocks, nicely done with a great visual style
atama yama (mt. head) - overall lacking in style but clever in its content, as a stingy old man finds a cherry tree growing on his head and people come there to picnic, and ending with an amazing visual i won't spoil here
give up aul yer sins - a little girl's telling of the story of john the baptist put to animation, lacking only because the girl just didn't embellish as much as one might hope
fifty percent grey - a very simple film about a guy finding the afterlife to be empty but for a tv, very funny
father and daughter - perhaps a little long, but its meditative tone works well at going slow, so i guess it isn't too bad. some nice visual metaphors but if i hadn't known ahead what this one was about i might have gotten lost in the slow middle
rejected - hilarious collection of supposedly rejected promos for the family learning channel and some other products, taking more and more absurdist directions as they go on
the blood of yangzhou district - the winner for documentary short this year, this film was 1) seriously sad in its subject matter, orphans left behind after their parents are dead from aids, some of them with aids themselves, and all shunned because of the lack of education about the disease in the poor area in which they live and 2) blatantly manipulative and self congratulatory as it was made by the people who were so proud of themselves for helping these orphans, or at least trying to
recycled life - an amazing look at the lifestyle of people living off of, and sometimes in, a massive dump in guatemala city, better in the first half when it is just presenting these people and their lives, losing some of its power as it moves on to talk about the attempts to school the children of these families
rehearsing a dream - at least in its objectivity, the best of the four documentary shorts this year, in my opinion, easily expandable into a feature length sort of thing like spellbound or the like. details the 7 day afaa affair in miami, in which 160 high school students interested in the arts got to workshop together and with professionals in their various arts. no agenda to this one
two hands - like the previous one, objective and lacking an agenda, but this one was too much just leon fleisher telling his story--about how a hand injury led to years unable to play piano and further hand problems once he got to play again--and not enough visual record, archival footage i'm sure would be available at least for more performances or something
harvie krumpet - harvie likes to be naked, can't help but touch things (and people he meets) with his finger, and, after an injury and a lightning strike, has a magnetic metal plate in his head, but he grows up, grows old, marries, raises a child and all of this displayed with some great claymation work. a beautiful little film, if you ask me
badgered - simple and plain, but amusing still, the tale of a badger trying to get some sleep, bothered by some noisy birds and some army missiles buried under his hole
the moon and the son - subtitled "an imaginary conversation" this is a conversation between a son and his now deceased father, an abusive drunk with ties to the mob and a life story he kept mostly secret until he was old and dying. pretty good, if maybe a few minutes too long, but it kept my interest, unlike...
the mysterious geographic explorations of jasper morello - despite some amazing visuals and designwork, this film, about a navigator desperate to prove himself sets out on a voyage that may just cure a plague, managed to be a little boring, and it's only 26 minutes long, so that's saying something
our time is up - live action short about a psychiatrist who changes how he deals with his patients wehn he gets some bad news from his doctor. it ends abruptly, but it's funny and gets done in its short time more than some much longer films manage sometimes
Ausreißer (the runaway) not much to say about the plot of this one without maybe giving too much away. a guy gives a boy a ride to school and... gets stuck with him for the day. a simple film that borders on some cliches but avoids them pretty much because the two actors are quite good
the last farm - a wonderful visual in the end, at the grave, but a little pointless otherwise--seriously, i'm not sure what the point to showing the family on their way was at all
cashback - what could have been a nice treatise on midnight shifts and hellish jobs turns into an excuse to show naked women--which you'd think would be a good thing--but seems a little pointless in the end... apparently a feature length version was completed before this short even got nominated for anything. i'm curious what that's like, so i guess it wasn't all bad
six shooter - four people affected by recent deaths ride on a train. one of them just might be psychotic, and at least one of them suicidal. if you're into black comedy, especially tinged irish, this one's good
iota - sundance sceduled this one wrong and my dvr missed the ending, so i'm not even sure what happened in it--and i can't find it online--but i still liked it, something happened to a little girl, drawn out of her room under mysterious circumstances, a year later her deaf sister and her father deal with the trauma
the mood - a man's bad mood proves contagious and eventually dangerous </ol>
and i still managed to watch the finale of daybreak online and the latest episode of battlestar galactica--and i really hope the writers come up with a way out of this without starbuck being a cylon, or katee sackhoff sinks her all into being a cylon--on the dvr and spend time with my family--trip to the flea market yesterday yielded some nice little people toys for saer, among other things--immediate and extended six shooter
a political comic by me haven't done one of these in a while, but the last few days i've been reading my old liquid thought comic strip from a few years back and rather liked a lot of it, and this image came to me after hearing recent news:
on the death of... i'd like to believe in the notion that "the aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress" (1) but it seems harder and harder as time goes by and our modern world turns darker and darker corners, to find any hope for progress, and only barely a dream for any true victory, for victory is defined by the man still standing after the fight, the nation still intact after the war, regardless of the scars, regardless of the casualties, the numbers, the statistics. it all comes down to the semantics of those in power, the words of those who will (or can) tell us of the goings on about our world, the media telling us what's what and who's who and what we should think about it and god damn the lot of us who ever care to speak against any of the more popular notions or to speak against any of the popular traditions, against the idea of a good war, the idea that religion can actually bring peace, the idea that executing a man already proven powerless will change a thing.
of course, then one has to wonder, if there is no change to come of it, why rail against it anymore than cheer for it? why bother getting up any ire on either side of the issue if this singular event does not hold the purported monument than those at the extremes of either side might think or hope? why dare suggest that the execution of a "bad" man is a bad thing (nevermind that my notion of why he may be bad is not necessarily the same notion as to why the bloodthirsty masses call for his death, nevermind the fact that most of those masses probably don't even know for what criminal act he was actually convicted)? see, the thing of it is "the trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels," like in my (that is mine, not that of mencken (whose quote i am interrupting) oft noted essay in defense of hitler and other politicians. "For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all" (2). you cannot expect to fight the dictator in your own midst when you've already handed him all the power he needs to keep you down forever while you sat by and watch him bully some other dictator in some other land, because he's a bad man who kills folks who fight against him--not that our own government has ever fought against groups internal to this nation who don't appreciate or support the federal government's control over them, unless of course you count, for example, our own civil war, or on a lesser scale, say, the branch davidians or even vicki weaver (3).
oh no, did i mention the branch davidians and turn away what few people bothered to read this? surely, there can be no comparison between our own government, by way of the ATF and FBI, shooting and gassing and burning 76 people who didn't want to live how the government wanted them to live and saddam hussein (or rather, the iraqi government under saddam hussein, as we wouldn't want to make it personal and fuel the hatred of said person) gassing a town full of folks who would have rather he not rule over them as part of his nation and many of which were armed peshmerga, kurdish revolutionaries, who ahd previously actively fought against iraqi government forces and had even attempted to assassinate hussein himself. 148 people by the way. that was the guilty that got the death penalty and got the execution, "148 people in dujail, a mostly shiite town north of baghdad, after a 1982 attempt to assassinate him" (4). in a culture and a geography where bloodshed is a historical constant, his government lashed out and killed its detractors. one has to wonder if it is not to be expected that such lashings might present themselves differently in the middle east than they would here, with gassing and torture and death rather than imprisonment and only unsanctioned torture (not counting the sanctioned torture at guantanamo bay or in iraq) and only "humane" death. though there may be a degree of scale to the difference of it all, is that necessarily enough to pretend that one is so much better, morally or ethically, than the other? i suppose our modern society does put a certain value on genocide that separates it from everyday homicide, but is a healthy distinction to make if we truly believe that peaceful coexistence among the numerous cultures of the world can ever be possible? should we not subscribe to an actual "culture of life" (5) based on the notion that the betterment of the world for all peoples is a greater goal than some de facto notion that a certain way of life--democracy--is the be all end all of cultural evolution?
of course, to subscribe to that, we would have to also accept the idea that our species is not the be all end all of natural evolution, or, gods forbid, the idea that a great, perfect creator didn't put us here and put everything else--be it animal, vegetable or mineral--here for our bidding and our amusement. we would have to put aside a great many of the religious ideals that separate us in the first place, that cause our wars, the dictate our public policies, that make us believe some lives have greater value that others--now would probably be as good a time as any to mention that i happen to support abortion and euthanasia and think feeding the starving masses of the world only increases the number of starving masses rather than solve anything or save anyone, so find any hypocrisy you like in the notion of my arguing the value of life in general at this time--that sunnis or shiites or kurds or baptist or protestants or catholics or hindus or even atheists have some greater value over the rest because they have found the answers and, well, how can any other answers be right if yours seem oh so right? i ask you, though, what if there are no answers, as such? what if we are here and that is all, no gods, no masters, no rules but those are cultural evolution has ascribed to us--the basic tenets of the golden rule and don't take a thing which is not yours (be it life or property) omnipresent in the cultures of the world, the rest nothing but details.
"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking" (6). hippy, pinko, leftist claptrap, right? love your fellow man and sing "kumbaya" and don't eat meat and give a hoot, don't pollute and everything will be well. the bullshit notions of a liberal atheist who can't even hold down a regular job... or i just did the common political thing and tricked you. i admit, i play the game sometimes also, and i recognize the tricks all too often--not that tony snow or any of the voices of the powers that be bother with games much anymore, at least not in any cute, coy sense, instead outright lying ("who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past" (7) and all that) or avoiding the issue, or presenting the picture only bit by bit, coaching the audience "in ever so slight increments, pulled in deeper and deeper without knowing where it's going or seeing the total picture" (8). see, "monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. more dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions" (9). and, sometimes you have to be a monster, a functionary to the master's cause or a monster in your own right, to get anything done or said. sometimes, you have to play the game. and, sometimes you have to quote saddam hussein speaking against hatred to make a damn point.
but, what is that damn point?
should we all just hug each other and accept each other's faults, come what may? or is that so obviously simplistic that you couldn't even suggest that i, or any of those horrible Liberals (capital L), would recommend it? just what is the fucking point here? a mass murderer (by chain of command) has been put to death, and i can sit here and hint at defending him, at condemning those who would cheer on his death, who would look forward to watching the video footage once it's released, but do i have some great solution to it all? will this essay end with the magic words that will fix everything, put an end to religious disputes, to oil wars, to torture, to death? of course not.
but then, again, i don't want victory. i want progress. i don't want to be right, necessarily, even when i'm arguing you are wrong. i want there to be common ground, even if its is agreement to disagree. but, you see, that doesn't mean we avoid the issue and leave it up to the powers that be. that doesn't mean we shrug off this execution or any other because it's just one more life--or that we cheer it on for that matter. "big government needs ever growing power to enforce more and more laws, to intervene in more and more foreign nations' affairs, to levy more and more taxes--and to handle public discontent with these laws, interventions and taxes" (10), and it us up to the citizens to stand up to the growing of that power. "this country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it" (11). just like the iraqis had the right to overthrow saddam... hell, just like those kurds had the right to try to assassinate him to keep him from telling them how to live, we have the right to do what we can to keep our government from turning its mostly accepted (though obviously still disputed) role as the world's policeman into the world's bully or the world's dictator. when our president redefines torture so we can start using it against the enemy, when we find ourselves cheering execution and clamoring to watch it on youtube, maybe we shouldn't pretend we are so highly evolved beyond men who behead infidels on video or gas villages full of revolutionaries. when the tactics of the enemy become all too familiar as reflections of our own--or vice versa--how humane are we? and, who will overthrow us and cheer on our death? and, would they be so wrong to do so?
we humans tend toward arrogance, believing that whatever it is that we have decided is true must actually be true and anyone who sees different must be on something. it doesn't matter if we are religious. these days, agnosticism and atheism fall into that same style of boat, as it were, but what else can we expect with more than 6 billion lives, each unique and individual but all the damn same, go on about one another in a limited space but dispute and confrontation? though humane and human are separated by but a letter, it would seem that history tells us that our tendencies are anything but. and, we americans may be on top of the heap, but that does not mean we can do what we want to those below us, nor that we can ignore them either. "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (12) and bloodshed anywhere might as well be right on our front porch as the blood is on all of our hands, and that, i would think, is not something worth celebrating.
(1) joseph joubert
(2) h l mencken
(3) that's a ruby ridge reference for those of you who aren't up on your conspiracy theorist terminology, players or victims
kidnapped, political junk mail, and that fucking esperanza fire so, kidnapped, a nice, intelligent show, in the thriller genre sure but still quite intelligent, not a suspension-of-disbelief kinda show like prison break or 24, and not overly stylized like vanished--and, yes, this is all subjective, but that the show is good is not my point, so bear with me--a well put together show with a good cast and an actual direction, an end in mind. so, it was notable when nbc, instead of cancelling the show outright, told the producers (who apparently, had mentioned this possibility preemptively back when the show got picked up, so kudos to them) to finish their story in 13 episodes, cause that was all they were getting. and, sure they banished the show to saturday night, a dead night for television in recent years, but they were going to keep it on the air, let it have its 13 episodes (and, they still may, but that is not my point here either), let it have a complete story (the more to sell dvds later, of course) and be done, wrapped up in a nice, neat little package. nevermind that many many shows would do well limited to less episodes, a la pay cable series or numerous british shows (the former often doing 13 episodes per season, the latter sometimes only doing 6). and, after a brief gap, sure enough kidnapped showed up on saturdays and continued its run...
for a whole two episodes
and now, for november sweeps, it will be replaced by reruns of law & order criminal intent. sure, it might still be back after sweeps, sure the network may stick with... well, their second agreement. but, what the fuck? you want to have shows be watched, but, even when you make a point (at least for those paying attention) of mentioning big schedule moves, changes to the episode order numbers, and the like, you still fuck with the schedule all over again in favor of sweeps... on a fucking saturday? that night will be dead either way. anyone remember when a show was given a chance to grow an audience for itself? no? me neither
the cynic in me says they only did the second agreement to draw some attention for the fans paying attention, to keep the title in our minds a little longer to insure dvd sales, but... well, i guess there is no but. the cynic wins this one. keep us thinking about it, keep us wanting it, then take it away again, so we'll be desperate to buy it to sit on our shelves along with threshold, firefly, ez streets, and wonderfalls*
the cynic in me would also like to complain about a couple other things today:
political junk mail, ie email from political candidates, which my hotmail junk filters have kept away until recently. see, it's only been in the last week or two that this particular brand of junkmail has found its way past the filters to reach my inbox. now, i could assume hotmail is in on it, but i know how easy it is to get around bulk email filters. and, it seems so fucking convenient, just when its too late to complain--hell, the ubsubscribe function (cause, you know every one of these emails claims i subscribed to them, even though they are apparently one time emails and not one of many, worthy of a "subscription") will probably barely go into effect in time for next week's elections (assuming of course, there were more to come in my "subscription")--and just when it's close enough to the election to get these people's names in our heads. of course, for me at least, it makes me want to lash out at these fucking politicians rather than vote for them, but who's got the time?
and, it's october in southern california, or was until yesterday anyway. that means fires. that there is a big fire raging is not national news, that firefighters died is not fucking national news, and fires do not deserve fucking names, damn it. scientists name hurricanes because they track them and study them and all that nice, scientific shit. we don't track these fires. we don't study them. i'm fairly sure we've got the whole fire thing figured out. so, we don't need to name them. and, i don't care how much this country worshipped firefighters 5 years ago, they do a dangerous job, they sometimes die, we don't have to pretend each one is important enough to get on fucking cnn
and don't even get me started on political proposition ads.
* to mention a few, and mix networks and styles and be, once again, completely subjective about quality
the military commissions act one of my myspace friends posted about this and it occurred to me to post something also, just to be sure more people see it (different circle of friends and all)
under the new act, signed by president bush yesterday:
If the government chooses to bring a prosecution against the detainee, a military commission is convened for this purpose. The following rules are some of those established for trying unlawful enemy combatants who are not citizens of the United States. [Sec.948b (a)] The Act does exclude these rules from being applied when trying unlawful enemy combatants who are American citizens, per sections 948b(a) and 948c.
Certain sections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice are deemed inapplicable - including some relating to a speedy trial [Sec.948b (d)(1)(A)], compulsory self-incrimination [Sec.948b (d)(1)(B)], and pre-trial investigation [Sec.948b (d)(1)(C)].
A civilian defense attorney may not be used unless they have clearance to view materials classified Secret. [Sec.949c(b)(3)(D)]
Based on his findings, the judge may introduce hearsay evidence [Sec.949a(b)(2)(E)(i)], evidence obtained without a search warrant [Sec.949a(b)(2)(B)], evidence obtained when the degree of coercion is disputed [Sec.948r (d)], or classified evidence not made available to the defense [Sec.949d(f)(2)(B)].
A finding of Guilty requires only a 2/3 majority [Sec.949m(a)]
No defendant may invoke the Geneva Conventions in legal proceedings on their behalf. [Section 5(a)]
The President determines “the meaning and application” of the Geneva Conventions banning the torture of prisoners. [Sec.6 (a)(3)(A)]
The accused may be tried for the same offense a second time “with his consent” [Sec.949h(a)].
If the military commission returns a finding of Not Guilty, its convening authority is not required to take action on the findings. [Sec.950b(c)(3)]
no, you (or anyone) can be arrested and held indefinitely. you're attorney, if you are allowed to have one, won't necessarily be shown the evidence against you. you may be tortured if you aren't cooperative enough (or if the guard is in a bad mood, i suppose). and if, by some fluke of fate and luck, you are found not guilty, that doesn't mean anyone has to actually let you go free
when the dragon stomps the rabbit was pointed to this birthday calculator this morning. you put in your birthday and it tells you stuff like your astrological sign (which most people know anyway even if they don't believe in them meaning anything), your life path number (which i'd be most people don't know even if they think it means something), the amount of years and months and days (and hours and seconds, but those woiuld likely be inaccurate since the site doesn't ask what time you were born) you've been alive, your native american sign, your egyptian and hebrew birth months, celebrities that share your birthday, the top songs the year of your birth, and, well, numerous other things
much to my surprise, i learned this morning that the year of the dragon began two days after i was born, and for three decades i've thought myself a pathetic dragon when in fact i'm a rather impressive bunny rabbit
actually, my first impulse was to tell my wife my worldview had been shattered, taking it all as a negative, but now i have decided to take it as a positive. like mulder wanting his pegleg, i've got my handicap now, a fuzzy little tail that makes all my cynicism and sarcasm and pessimism worthwhile
The role of leader is the only one the Dragon wants, the better from which to give orders and be king of the hill
but, that's not me anymore. now i am "timid and attractive," and while i can "lapse into pessimism and may seem stuck in life," i can enjoy my "contemplative pace" with life and hop over all the dragons fighting for leadership roles
being robert black robert c black (usually just called bob black) was...
one of the earliest to advocate what is now called Post-left anarchy. His writing style is vociferously confrontational, criticizing many of the perceived sacred cows of leftist, anarchist, and activist thought. An unaffiliated New Leftist in his college years, Black became dissatisfied with authoritarian socialist ideology and after discovering anarchism he spent much of his energy analyzing authoritarian tendencies within ostensibly "anti-authoritarian" groups. In his essay "My Anarchism Problem" he writes: "To call yourself an anarchist is to invite identification with an unpredictable array of associations, an ensemble which is unlikely to mean the same thing to any two people, including any two anarchists.".
he argues that "the only way for humans to be free is to reclaim their time from jobs and employment, instead turning necessary subsistence tasks into free play done voluntarily" and "no-one should ever work" because work, defined as compulsory productive activity enforced by economic or political means, is the source of most of the misery in the world."
there's more, but let's move on to another
this robert black was a serial killer and paedophile in scotland. he kidnapped, raped and murdered 3 girls during the 1980s, kidnapped a 4th he didnt' kill, tried to kidnap a 5th, and is suspected of a number of unsolved child murders dating back to the 70s and is currently behind bars.
robert black is also edinburgh university's professor of Scots Law. has been since january 1981. "Between 1983 and 1999 he served as Head of the Department of Scots (later Private) Law. From 1984 to 2003 he was a member of every Dean's Council of the Faculty of Advocates (the Scottish Bar)." now semi-retired, he's notable for his "close personal and professional interest" in the pan am flight 103 bombing in 1988.
robert black is also a double bass player, who "presents recitals throughout North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Japan, appearing at major festivals..., on radio and television broadcasts... and as artist-in-residence."
robert black is also a web designer/engineer in australia; a producer of films like "1,001 Ways to Eat My Jizz;" a university of nottingham professor with interests in "the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of probability, practical reason, necessity and possibility, and the philosophy of physics;" an apparently gay model/actor/massage therapist, into "leather, bondage, and other kinks;" an army ranger who served in korea and vietnam and wrote books about his experiences; a doctor "currently engaged in randomized trials and effectiveness evaluations of rotavirus, Hemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal and shigella vaccines; zinc and iron supplementation in children; nutritional counseling; and the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness approach;" an actor/director with bits parts in "so i married and axe murderer" and "sweet home alabama;" and a college in hong kong.
and then there's me, an unsuccessful writer steeped in bitterness and cynicism, a bit obsessive compulsive, an avid tv watcher and failed student of film... who, as you can see, enjoys insulting himself to a level beyond self deprecation, enjoys connecting himself to the likes of pedophilic serial killers and pornographers and anarchists despite being relatively content and happy with his life
the new tv shows been busy, what with the new fall season of tv (details and opinions to follow) and working part time again (a few hours a few nights a week plus daytime on saturday) and all the rest of life's stuff still going on
the job is easy enough, though it is a weird schedule for me, tv obsessive that i am. i get home a little after 8 weeknights and am taking advantage of the dvr for just about every show...
and, as for those shows:
heroes - premiered last night and, while i was looking forward to this one, i just couldn't be bothered to care. it started boring and continued boring and i would have turned it off after less than 20 minutes if i'd been more decisive about what i wanted to watch instead... actually, it didn't start boring; it started annoying and pretentious and pathetic and pissed me off with its stupid text scrawl about an epic beginning and i was NOT in the mood to care. and, what followed thereafter bored me into giving up completely
runaway - and this was where i went after i turned off the broing heroes, and i regretted it (for a while, anyway, as i ended up watched the latest episode of the wire on demand instead). writing was trying to be clever for a pilot, joining the plot already in progress, leaving the audience in the dark as to what's going on even though the premise is obvious. the line about the dead grandma was hilarious, but this show is not a comedy and i turned it off a short time after that
vanished - aka the bad abduction show of the season, but probably the one that will last, cause fox seems like it will put up with this crap. they couldn't be bothered to put up with firefly a few years back, but now, i think they will let this shit linger
kidnapped - aka the good abduction show of the season, and the one most likely to be cancelled. nbc is not the network to let a serial like this last, methinks. but, i hope they will cause this one had a strong cast and a fantastic pilot
standoff - a great balance between crisis drama and romantic comedy and a nice cast, if they can just keep the crisises from being too repetitive. this is one of the shows this season that would work better as a movie plot than a series plot, but i like it so far
shark - and, as for shows that would work better as movie plots, there's this one, which, without james woods, would probably suck. as it is, though, with woods in the lead, it should be entertaining for a while, though i don't see the series having far to go. i did like that woods' character was just as horrible a person when he's doing "good" things as when he's doing "bad" but i wish they a) hadn't bothered showing us the case that broke him or b) made it better, spent more time on it. but, his dealings with his new underlings were entertaining and his daughter's choice to live with him because he's obviously still a seriously flawed guy could make for an interesting plot... for a little while. i don't see my interest in this show lasting more than a few episodes, even if the daughter's a little cute
justice - and this lawyer show had something great going for it, but only one "something": the jury manipulation stuff. that stuff was great in the first few episodes, but the overall style of the show, the ending gimick (which hadn't really revealed anything too shocking or even interesting yet) and the dialogue, not to mention the annoying computer displays or the notion of the tv-universe lawfirm of four people doing everything, just couldn't sustain any of my interest. give me a show about jury manipulation, a straight drama, and i could watch that, but not this
jericho - started well enough, but i don't think it will last long. too potentially dark combined with a little too much potential schmaltz (even if mcraney can pull off cheesy speeches fairly well). ulrich was good, but some beats along the way in the pilot could have been left out, notably the prison bus, an easy plot for a later episode, even the second episode, that did NOT need to be set up ahead of time
six degrees - didn't expect to like this show at all, but the first episode was enjoyable enough, although i don't give a shit about christenson's past. the photographer's story was great and i almost wish it (and that of the woman he's got his eye on) wouldn't be stuck in this high concept, ensemble show
brothers & sisters - the problem with this show's pilot is it didn't set up what this show is. there were hints at political content, but that seemed like it could just be subtext for family problems, there were shady business dealings but no real detail to those either... again, i think they serve more as subtext for family problems. but, if this show is just about the family problems, why bother hinting at politics and business? or, if you will be bothering with them, get into more detail, damn it. a nice cast (though i should look into the changes, since i heard a bit about pilot reshoots and cast changes and whatnot) and some great acting out of them along the way, but i still gotta wonder what this show will do with itself over time
studio 60 on the sunset strip - and aaron sorkin is back, and he hasn't changed much, but i'm ok with that. the big tv names will have their styles and, though they may change it a bit sometimes (see deadwood or rome for examples), it's comforting when they give you exactly what you expect (and exactly what you wish they'd been giving you for years now, if only certain shows hadn't been cancelled). still not sure how well this show will pull off the show within the show--really, a pirates of penzance musical number?--but i think, like sports night, it can focus plenty on the behind the scenes drama enough to not have to bother with the sketch comedy... like early west wing could confine itself easily to the office stuff
and i'm still planning to check out the nine and 30 rock and maybe friday night lights and already watched the pilot for showtime's dexter online and enjoyed it a lot
as for not so new shows, brotherhood just finished its first season and went out strongly, the wire is back for season four and is probably the best show on television... at least until battlestar galactica comes back in a couple weeks. house is still house, lost and veronica mars return next week, grey's anatomy had a mediocre start to the new season. survivor's been boring so far, but it (and amazing race, also recently returned) have trouble early on with too many "characters"
and in non tv news, i finally edited clubhouse blues and should be putting together a cover soon and getting the book onto cafepress, and i have two chapters left to write in on the slopes of stanjantuwel, but i'm still not keeping up with that as regularly as i should
instead, i've been watching some dvds of late, notably the production diaries for king kong (pre and post), and space above and beyond (about halfway through the show, i think)
and my most recent movies were the last kiss in the theater saturday night--went out for japanese food and to the movie with sarah, kids with my dad for the night, and it was a great date and a pretty good movie (it made me want to watch other things, though (garden state and huff) which isn't often a good sign)--and the great new wonderful, which was nice to watch but ultimately didn't amount to much
the crocodile hunter... leave it to me to disagree that is, not that i'll disagree about how a great a guy he was or how enjoyable his show(s) could be, cause he seemed a truly great guy and his show was fairly enjoyable, but one little detail regarding his death keeps bugging me
see, they keep calling it a "freak accident" or a "freak encounter" like the stinger on a stingray isn't actually there specifically to sting things that invade its space. sure, there are only 17 human fatalities resulting from stingray stings on record, but come on, being stung by something that stings is NOT a "freak" anything. it's what happens
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robertegblack's journal
disappointed
mischievous
apathetic
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