411 Mania Presents Fact or Fiction Week 45
Current mood: quixotic
Category: News and Politics
Every week 411Mania offers a debate column called Fact or Fiction which features a statement that the writers respond to. In said writer's opinion, the statemen is either a fact or it is fiction and then they explain why. Occasionally I contribute to the debate. Here is my latest contribution)
1) The media is biased. Outlets are more concerned with picking and presenting news Their Way as opposed to being objective and impersonal.
Fact - and I'm not going to bother with liberal or conservative slants because that's pointless. It's more about the news being owned by corporations. Corporations have one goal, make money for their investors. The news makes money by being content in which to install expensive commercials. Period. Whether it's CNN or FOX, O'Reilly or Olberman, it doesn't matter so long as people are turning in long enough to be convinced to buy the car, drugs or whatever is being advertised. It's the same thing with print media and radio. These outlets may have a political slant but that's secondary to the belief that whatever content they've chosen is a money maker so that's what gets produced. It's liberal or conservative slant is more a of a reflection of the content producer himself and less of media bias as a whole. As long as the show makes money, that's all the bosses care about. As far as being objective and impersonal, years ago somebody figured out that to get Americans to turn into the news en masse, you had to put on shows that were attractive to mass audiences and not confusing or complex, thus car chases overtook intellectual presentations and analysis. This actually started with the vision of bodies being brought back from Vietnam but that's a story for another day.
2) There is a culture war in this country (note: this term was used before Bill O'Reilly made it recently popular, so don't say Fiction just cause you hate him).
Fact - of course there's a culture war. It's a war between those who don't want to be judged for any behavior and for those that believe restrictions on behavior is a good thing. People like to lay this conflict at the feet of solely the secular progressives because typically they are the ones who are for lowering standards of behavior and making arguments for normalization of all behavior, deviant or otherwise but the far right is just as bad. The far right doesn't want to be judged for its radical behavior either. The culture war goes beyond progressive vs conservative and is really a battle between the selfless and mature vs the selfish and immature. Selfish people care only about themselves to the exclusion of all else and they can be either liberal or conservative. Selfish people are the ones lowering the debate to the benefit of themselves without thinking about the consequences for others. Selfish people do all of this without wanting to be confronted because rationally they have no leg to stand on. That's the culture war in a nut shell and it's been going on since the necessity of having to tolerate your neighbor or family member was replaced by the well-meaning but utterly disastrous notion that the government is responsible for caring for individuals.
3) It really doesn't matter who we vote for, or if we vote at all. Politicans are pretty much all the same.
Fiction - some are smarter and more thoughtful than others. Some are dutiful while others simply seek a kingdom to call their own. Some politicians are guided by their personal ethics while others only act in defense of their own elite position. The system balances things out making some politicians less or more effective than others but ultimately if you don't see the difference between Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi and how they affect Washington differently then you are not really paying attention. Now, do all of these have personal foibles? Of course they do as they are human afterall. But that doesn't mean that all politicians are the same just because they are all fallible. Those are two different issues.
4) Having more than just 2 dominant political parties to choose from is one primary solution to our nation's plights.
Fact - If the Europeans do anything right, it's their electoral process. I like having lots of candidates to choose from with more than one decisive election to determine who should be the main leader. I think the run-off elections are a capital idea. I think people like Ralph Nader and Ron Paul should be viable options for American voters rather than having to choose between two lite brands or safe choices (John Kerry I'm looking in your direction). If the CT election of 2006 is any indication, Joe Lieberman shows us that in today's political culture, there is room for independants in the electoral process. Nowing, establing a viable third party than adequately threaten the big two will be a feat considering both are loathe to give up their dominance.
In Defense of Ron Paul
Current mood: cheerful
Category: News and Politics
In 2004, one of the criticisms of John Kerry that was bandied about was that he was too nuanced. In other words, his views of the world and governmental policy therein were as complex as the issues themselves and therefore not clear enough for a public that wants its leaders to speak to them in as plain English as possible. That's a sad commentary on American political life but a reality nonetheless. The voting public seems to be more comfortable with either Captain America or Dr. Phil as president than someone versed in the issues and knowledgeable enough to that one cannot simply project a black-and-white view of things and expect to accomplish anything of value. Contrary to what many on the right seem to believe, the world is just not divided into simply good and bad.
I felt sorry for Kerry in that when he was being honest with himself and the public, the message got muddled in our sound byte happy media and he was made to look foolish when he in fact was thoughtful. But if the media and voters were mean toward Kerry for having more than a child's view of complex issues, those same culprits have been downright cruel to poor old GOP presidential candidate Rep. (TX) Ron Paul.
Paul has been a hoot in the past two debates. He's been brutally honest and he seems to be one of the few people running for the nomination that actually remembers the GOP platform. The Republican's used to be about nothing more than restricted government intervention, low taxes and non-interventionist policies. In other words, Republican's are supposed to believe in leaving people to their own device-win, lose or draw. In social work lingo it's called "rugged individualism" and it means that you take care of yourself and the government will make sure you keep as much of what you make as you can. It is simple math really. Lower or lowest taxes means that the government is only minimally involved in your inalienable rights. This is why traditionally Republicans have been against social service programs and an interventionist foreign policy. Contrary to what the liberals would have you believe, it's not because all Republican are old, white ogres who hate people, it's because entitlement programs and foreign wars costs money and money costs people their freedom and privacy. Paul has been trying to remind people of this in the sparingly little time he's had at the previous two debates.
In fact, at the Fox debate on 5/15/07, Paul made statements that got him eviscerated by the mind-numbingly oafish pundits as well as a jingoistic spanking from the most liberal of the contenders, Mayor Rudy Giuliani. You can hear Paul's comments for yourself in the embedded video but the crux of what he said was that if you want to fix the economy you have to cut spending and the best places to cut are the monsters of bureaucratic inefficiency, the departments of Homeland Security, Education and Energy. He also said that the reason we were attacked on 9-11 is because we had been bombing Iraq for about 10 years prior and said attack was retaliatory in nature.
For this, Ron Paul has nearly usurped Hillary Clinton as the Right's new boogeyman.
The problem is that if you actually took the time to think about, and read about what Paul was saying, he actually makes perfect sense and is telling the awful truth. In our sound-byte happy country, it sounds like he blaming the US for being attacked by Al Qaeda on 9-11. However, if given more time and the ability to set the record straight in an arena where the audience doesn't have Attention Deficit Disorder, I'm sure he would say the following:
We were in fact bombing Iraq after the first Gulf War. That was part of the containment policy. As a matter of fact, part of the reason the liberals thought that Iraq didn't have WMD's is because of said containment policy. We were monitoring them night and day as well as enforcing no-fly zones in the South and over Kurdistan. We were based in Saudi Arabia both during the conflict as well as after the war had ended. This was one of Osama Bin Laden's big demands of the United States. On top of wanting to convert or murder all infidels, he also wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia, or as he likes to call it, the holy land. Now this little wrinkle hardly gets any mention in the news what with all of the focus on the much more easier understand former issue but it was in fact a serious demand. The problem was that he didn't have much of a right to make a demand. The Saudi Royal Family had us there by request and stayed in Saudi Arabia at their pleasure. In any case, the attacks by Al Qaeda in the 90's and then 9-11 were partly his answer to our unwillingness to leave Saudi Arabia. This was Ron Paul's point. Had Osama Bin Laden gotten his way and been allowed by the Saudi Royal Family to lead the Mujahudeen against Saddam Hussein in Kuwait as he did (with CIA help) against the Russians in Afghanistan, there probably wouldn't be an Al Qaeda today. However, as history has shown us, that's not what happened.
The other statement he's being attacked on is his idea that we should cut the department of Homeland Security (and Education and Energy). Again, in sound-byte land that means he suggesting we do not defend ourselves or protect our national interests in time of war. While that assertion made for great television, it was also idiotic. In the land of attention spans, what Ron Paul was getting was that beyond the National Guard and other branches of the military, the job of safety and security is supposed to fall on state agencies and not some monstrous federal bureaucracy that is so convoluted it can't function in a time of crises. His point was that you don't keep people safe by creating more red tape; you do so by giving the state agencies all of the resources they need to get the job done. That doesn't take more bureaucrats, that just takes good common sense and better budgeting.
It's the same thing with Energy and Education. Instead of having the government control something that it does not understand and is woefully unqualified to govern, you should allow but to be provinces of state and private enterprise exclusively. It is the job of the governors of each state to manage their own affairs and getting the federal government involved only muddies up the waters. More to the point, you end up, as we have, throwing away billions in tax dollars are bureaucratic machines don't function very well and don't actually solve the problem.
Ron Paul's problem is not that he was wrong, it's that he was too right for an audience that doesn't have time for long complicated answers.
On Spiderman 3, Hollywood Politics And Gender Roles
Current mood: awake
For months many fans of fantasy and/or comic books looked forward to the third installment of one of Marvel's most beloved and successful comic book movie adaptations Spiderman. What made this movie especially appealing to fans was the inclusion of one of Spiderman's most infamous villains-turned-icon in his own right, the dastardly fiend, Venom. With CGI effects evolving at leaps and bounds and based on the successful representation of previous characters from the comic book, we, as fans, assumed that Venom, in both look and character would be phenomenal and worth the price of admission alone. Couple that aspiration with the general appreciation for all of the characters and unresolved plotlines in the Spiderman movies and you should have had what would make for a stellar movie viewing experience.
However, as the old saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall an in this case, expectations for the fantastic movie fell hard on comic book geeks from Tampa to NY. In short, nearly everyone I've spoken too after seeing Spiderman 3 thought it stunk. On the other hand both my wife and I enjoyed it and for her part, she's not even a fan of the movies or the comic book (I however am a huge fan and even bigger mark for Venom/the alien costume).
I think that this was much like the Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee in that it was a clear case of the director and writers making a compelling movie for the wrong audience. Fantasy fans (Sci-Fi, comic, D&D, etc.) don't particularly want to be bogged down in complex, sympathetic characters and plot lines. The fantasy experience should be fairly straightforward; bad guys are bad, good guys are good, bad guys threaten us, good guys save the day and win the girl. In the middle of all of this there should be lots of fighting, cool effects, and plenty of destruction.
Sam Raimi and company did not do this with Spiderman 3. In fact, one can safely say that Spiderman 3 was not really a fantasy picture, per se. This was a movie about relationships and forgiveness staring characters from the fantasy realm. All of the characters were complex people with multiple motivations, wants and desires capable of being both sympathetic as well as antagonistic. The best example of this that I can think of was the infamous kiss between Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn. Under normal circumstances, a woman in film that feels she has been slighted by her love and finds warmth and comfort in another mans arms does not invoke the reaction of the male audience members in the theater shouting, "Whore!" out loud. This kiss did in fact cause at least two instances of this from what my friends have told me.
Sure in films past a man might have thought that to himself but most would not have been moved to hysterics the way this scene did to it's male patrons. The reason is actually fairly simple. Again, under normal circumstances, it is accepted that a conflicted woman on film might have an on-screen indiscretion that leads to an unfortunate act of intimacy. In fact, this kiss was fairly innocuous considering some other movies portrayal of women and their capacity said indiscretions. But Mary Jane Watson is not a character in a movie that examines these types of issues that plague real people. She's simply Spiderman's love interest; an ornament to be worn by the hero as he fights bad guys and rights wrongs thus she's not entitled to perfectly human imperfections. By kissing Harry Osborne she betrayed the beloved hero and of course that can't be tolerated and thus she's labeled a "whore."
What I believe separates my wife and I from those who hated this film are issues that are actually two sides of the same coin. My wife had no fantasy expectations and was then free to enjoy a movie about people and their intertwining relationships. She even elbowed me when Mary Jane validated her belief that the man should always put his woman before himself or anybody else, even if you are Spiderman. While I can comic fans reacting harshly to such an assertion as it has to place in a boy's playground, the women in the audience thought it was perfectly natural for her to say that nor understood why it might just be a bit out of place in a fantasy movie. Fantasy is where boys can be unfettered in their imaginations so it breaks the rules to be told that you can be unchained save you keep yourself tied to your lady first.
I on the other hand did have fantasy expectations of the movie but once I realized where Raimi and company were going I let go of them and just accepted the movie for what it was and not what I wanted it to be. This is the eternal struggle between audience and Hollywood. Ego plays a part. Most professionals in Hollywood don't want to make the same old thing over and over again. With the amount of crap that gets made year after year this might sound funny but many in the movie industry consider themselves to be artists. Artists typically want to find some new frontier to explore or at the very least something fresh to share with an audience that is becoming jaded to movie magic. I'm not Sam Raimi but I can imagine what he might have been thinking when he and the writers put the Spiderman 3 script together. At the very least he was probably thinking that nobody wants to see the same old super hero action movie so let's do something different. Ang Lee I'm sure had the same thought and ran into the same problem with his albatross, the Hulk.
It's the same mentality that explains why people continue to cheer for Hulk Hogan despite the fact that these days he can't put on very good matches unless guys who can have 4 carry him star matches with broomsticks. We like our hero stories to be simple and easily defined-Black and white, not shades of gray. But when someone like Raimi or Lee goes off the reservation and overly complicates our beloved hero stories, people simply get pissed. We paid for a simple hero story and that's what we want. Now as I said earlier I enjoyed Spiderman 3 but that's only because I knew I wasn't watching a fantasy story anymore and thus I could enjoy it on a different level-the level the director intended for me to enjoy it on.
The last complaint I've heard about Spiderman 3 is yet another example of a fantasy coming to life and falling victim to the harsh politics of Hollywood. Now on this complaint I am sympathetic and I felt the same way as the rest of the detractors but since I understood, I got over it fairly quickly. The problem many had with this film is that both the heroes and villains could not keep their masks on to save their life. Every 30 seconds it seemed like the costumed characters needed to show of their familiar Hollywood faces. This is normal fare for Hollywood. Studios pay good money for name/face actors and their not going the throw it all out of the window because said faces need to be covered with masks (for the oh-so-important-to-the-fans character continuity). As much as it pained me to wait for two hours for Venom to show up and when he finally does he spends nearly the entire time out of mask, (don't even get me started on Spiderman's ever-decreasing lack of secret identity) the studios and producers don't give a rat's patoot about Venom or his fans. They do however care a lot about Topher Grace and the belief (by them) that it is not Venom that puts asses in seats but rather that 70's kid Topher Grace that brings them in a million score.
It's the Judge Dredd effect. You can't keep marketable faces covered up because then you'll lose value. Why pay for Sylvester Stallone, Topher Grace, Tobey McGuire, and James Franco when if they are just going to wear a mask you can get Tom, Dick and Harry Nobody for a considerably lower price. Not to mention with the aforementioned use of CGI, it's much cheaper to film mostly the natural faces of the young actors than it is to film the expensive masked heroes. Topher Grace costs less and is more marketable (in Hollywood theory) than is Venom. Once you understand and submit to this that it is reality, one can enjoy the movie for what it is instead of what you think it should be.
Gender roles and Hollywood politics may not have their place in the fantasy realm but the reality is that are here to stay. I think there can be room for both if given a chance and handled properly. Spiderman 3 might have been able to incorporate both elements without stinking (by the fans assessment) but the fans have to be willing to accept both first. At this juncture, until fantasy fans are willing to compromise and deal with reality, I think we are in for some long summers.
On the other hand, there's always Pirates 3 to look forward to.
April 22nd - Mark wants to talk aboot stuff. Rev. John wants to talk aboot other stuff. It's more of the same old same old from those two citizen broadcaster run amuk and the hotest internet radio show since 2006...Progressive Conservatism Live.
And unless Al Sharpton get kidnapped by Iranians, here's what's they'll be kibitzing aboot:
Virginia Tech, Imus, and Why This Country Has No Class
Going Back to College: Why it Sucks
Mark's offended at something and we'll tell you what
And don't forget the reason you get out of bed in the morning...the polutry sensation that's sweeping the nation...the BUCGAW Report! It's all this Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. You can click here for all the necessary information.
April 15th - Two words for Mark: conservative wack job. Two words for Rev. John: no pants. Yes, it's this standard of hi-brow political discourse you've come to expect from your one-stop shop for punditry, the hour of power known as Progressive Conservatism Live.
And unless Nancy Pelosi visits Siberia, here's what's on tap:
Making the case for Fred Thompson
Grade School Kids Gone Wild
My Humps, and why people take pop music way too seriously
What pisses off Mark?
And don't forget the reason you get out of bed in the morning...the polutry sensation that's sweeping the nation...the BUCGAW Report! It's all this Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. You can click here for all the necessary information.
April 1st - Mark is drunk and can't wait for the UFC. Rev. John wants to learn more about Iran and the environment, but his wife gets upset when he reads. APRIL FOOL! Seriously folks, it's no April Fool's that this is still the most talked aboot show in the BlogTalkRadio Empire. You wanted the best? You're getting Mark and Rev. John instead. This is...Progressive Conservatism Live.
And unless the Sunni's and the Shites come together singing Kumbaya, here's what they have planned:
Greening everything in your path
Election 2008 - Did we miss Election 2007?
Manly things such as WrestleMania and UFC 69 (huh huh "69")
Iran, the UK, and why our world leaders are a bunch of panty wearing sissymarys
And don't forget the reason you get out of bed in the morning...the polutry sensation that's sweeping the nation...the BUCGAW Report! It's all this Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. You can click here for all the necessary information.
It felt good to be back in the saddle again. I was a little overcome with trepidation before the show as I thought having taken a week off the good Rev and I would not sound so good but I'll be damned, the show was a lot of fun. I've opted to go balls out with a new commenting style – less Brit Hume more Mark Radulich. In other words, though I am loathe admitting it, the only way a talk show of this stripe works is if I give more opinion and what's in my heart than I do straight news analysis. So that means less research and more animated discussion on topics I have a solid grounding in. Having done that, I think it worked pretty well.
Even though I don't have the expendable time like I used to, Rev John and I will still talk about the show throughout the week, hashing out what it is we want to say. However, to me the funniest and best part of the show came from a segment we didn't confer about until about 30 seconds before the show started. The BUCGAW Report was to pretty damn entertaining this week and definitely removed some of the tension that the previous political discussion brought on. If you haven't heard it yet, it's worth the price of admission alone to hear Rev John and I riffing on prison show movies staring a cast of a 100 chickens.
April 1st - Mark is drunk and can't wait for the UFC. Rev. John wants to learn more about Iran and the environment, but his wife gets upset when he reads. APRIL FOOL! Seriously folks, it's no April Fool's that this is still the most talked aboot show in the BlogTalkRadio Empire. You wanted the best? You're getting Mark and Rev. John instead. This is...Progressive Conservatism Live. And unless the Sunni's and the Shites come together singing Kumbaya, here's what they have planned:
Greening everything in your path
Another weeks worth of politically shenanigans
Manly things such as WrestleMania and UFC 69 (huh huh "69")
And don't forget the reason you get out of bed in the morning...the polutry sensation that's sweeping the nation...the BUCGAW Report! It's all this Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. You can click here for all the necessary information.
MARCH 25TH - Stop, collaborate and listen. Mark and Rev. John are back with a brand new mission. That mission is to wrap their legs around your torso and give it to you for sixty pulse pounding minutes, with what all the trendy hipsters call...Progressive Conservatism Live. And unless they go back to their jobs of being a "stunt butt" in adult cinema, here's what they'll be kibitzing on:
Mitt Romney...why?
How does excercise make you happy?
Protesting or loitering? We'll report and we'll decide.
All this plus...you guessed it...the BUCGAW Report! It's all this Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. You can click here for all the necessary information.
I have put off writing this entry for some time now but in reality, it's probably more than a year overdue. Since I started this blog, I have tried to conduct myself as something of an opinion writer in training and have treated this blog like it was a real job. I wrote like one would exercise not just because I liked the hobby of writing but also to make myself a better writer, again like someone trying to lose weight and get in shape. When one is single and without many dependents or responsibilities, one can easily delve into a hobby such as this without much thought as to what it's consequences might be because obviously, you are only dealing with yourself. However, once I decided to get married I now had another person and her needs to consider and one cannot be completely selfish and selfabsorbed if you want your marriage to work. Marriage takes a degree of sacrifice, and frankly so does just becoming an adult. This won't be the first time I've opted to put away a childish thing in order to focus on more pertinent issues in my life.
That being said, with a flailing interest in political opinion writing and a life that consumes more of my time away from the computer, it is with some regret and more hope for better things that I have decided to stop writing on a weekly basis. If my heart were still in this I might try to fit it in, in leiu of something else but frankly, until Iran or China actually attack the US or the '08 primaries start up, I can't get excited with what I'm seeing in the news today and that by itself is reason enough not to pursue weekly blogging to the exclusion of all else or the detriment of my life off of the computer. Not to mention the fact that my new job (as of 3/12) will not really permit me the luxury of cosying down with the computer for long enough that I can actually compose something of value.
I have just enough energy to continue with the radio show which you can still find here with my thoughts and occasionally, time permitting, I will still throw something up for giggles but that's about all I can muster.
quixotic
groggy
cheerful
awake