I think that the quality of satirical and iconoclastic elements of our pop culture thrive during the dominance of inept, corrupt and/or oppressive political movements. I guess I'd label this the Fodder Index.
And thus, get ready for the coming four years to be somewhat bland. I first realized this while listening to "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" this weekend, when Peter Sagal lamented the passing of the Bush Administration. He was right, of course, especially with the entirety of the GOP being relegated to the back closets not only of presidential politics, but also Capitol Hill and most state administrations. A positive referendum on appropriate means of government translates to lean times for the funny.
So, with that, I wish the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, the aforementioned radio program (best ever, man), The Onion, and whatever other teats of hilarious-yet-impotent-rage I have been suckling at for these last eight years the best of luck 'til at least 2012. You guys are about to get a whole lot less humorous.
With love, and not a little bit of regret,
David
Monday, November 10, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
John McCain = my new penpal?
I've been getting solicitations from a McCain PAC and, although it is a huge waste of time to do anything other than chuck them in the trash, I can't help but respond and send them back, as the postage is paid. Anyways, hopefully this one will get me off of their mailing list:
John McCain
c/o McCain-Palin Victory 2008
PO Box 7805
Merrifield, VA 22116-9934
Dear Also Friend,
I received your letter of September 29, 2008 with great relish. While I have a social circle of which I am very proud, I have never before been able to boast of so venerable an acquaintance. To think: one of the major party candidates in the 2008 presidential race opens a letter to me with the salutation “Dear Friend.” Me, a life-long Democrat who staunchly opposes the war in Iraq, as well as almost every single aspect of the Republican Party as it currently stands!!!! Truly, Senator, your self-touted reputation for “reaching across the aisle” is an understatement. You appear to be willing to reach across registered voter affiliation, as well.
And not a moment too soon: After watching the debate on Wednesday night, I was left with the impression that you were a braying jackass who felt it appropriate to scoff, sniffle, wheeze, and roll your eyes whenever your opponent put forth not simply an idea that ran counter to yours, but any morpheme or phoneme approximating language. Your mannerisms became so exaggerated and ill-suited for the environment of a presidential debate that I feared you might have suffered a stroke. As someone who both cares about your health as a human being and who suffers mild arrhythmia at the thought of Sarah Palin as President, you can see my concern in this matter.
But your letter has done a great deal to alleviate my worry. Addressing me as “friend” certainly helps. You get more flies with honey, my grandmother always said. She was neither a plumber nor was she named “Joe” or “Six-Pack,” but I nonetheless am willing to rely on her as an authority in this instance. Anywho, not only did you soften me with your greeting, you then went on to make several statements that I simply cannot refute. I quote from your letter, Senator:
Item One:
“From here on out the full scope and power of the Democrats’ relentless and battle-tested money churning engine is aimed at one target: Capturing total control of our government.”(page 1, paragraph 7)
How can I argue with that? Your reasoning is clear and concise: The Democrats are trying to get as many of their candidates to win as possible in the coming election. It is a testament both to their all-consuming greed and to the will of a disenfranchised and abused electorate that this could possibly occur. It’s particularly unfair to you as, for the last eight years, it appeared that the Democrats were so willing to bend to the Republican will that at times I too assumed that they were actively trying to lose elections. I am as shocked as you, believe me, to see them field candidates who appear to have a chance of winning.
Item Two:
“The differences between our Republican candidates and that of the Obama Democrats could not be greater.”(page 2, paragraph 3)
Again with the unassailable point! You, sir, possess a rhetorical skill that mirrors the great Socrates, himself. You don’t merely scoff at Obama’s tax plan, which is the one that will ease my tax burdens directly, nor do you simply disagree over health care, where you favor a plan that will scuttle states’ rights to regulate insurance and penalize employer-based plans. In fact, you plough on through to an energy policy that could not be considered progressive even by 19th century standards. It was foolhardy of Senator Obama, in the debates, to routinely outline his strategies for implementing policy, in contrast to your strategy of ad hominem attack and servile platitudes to a very special repair man. To the untrained observer, it would appear as though Obama were using his time to make a constructive case for his platform to the American viewer. In reality, he had fallen for your rope-a-dope by unwittingly illustrating your point all along: the two candidates have wildly different views on critical matters. Genius. Let him try and refute that point from here on. The American populace will not be fooled.
Item Three:
“The outcome of the November election will not be determined on the day we go to the polls. It will be determined by what we do in these final days and weeks leading up to that historic day. It will be determined by what we do – and do not do – right now.”(page 3, paragraph 10 AND postscript, page 4)
A point so valid you had to make it twice. Could this be a nod to the word-for-word similarities between your convention address and your purportedly new stump speech unveiled this week? If so, you might well be the first presidential candidate to ever introduce the conceits of postmodern fiction to the campaign. Independently of that, however, I agree with your sentiment. Both times. What you do, and do not do, will impact the election. If you speak on the economy, for instance, it will most likely remind the voters that your party (under whose banner you are running, regardless of whether you have butted heads with party leaders over issues) presided over the deregulation of the mortgage and banking industry, a series of acts which almost every economist points to as the genesis of our current meltdown. On the subject of inaction, if you continue to sit silently by as attendees at your rallies shout out hate-filled invectives calling for the murder of your opponent, the majority of voters (and, really, citizens of the entire world) will think that you are at the very least complicit in fomenting hate and violence in a manner not unlike some of history’s most appalling demagogues.
And so I thank you, friend. Not only do I thank you for your generosity in your appraisal of me, nor solely in your desire to reach out to me and find issues upon which we both agree, but also for providing me the opportunity to correspond with you at no cost to myself. The fact that this PAC has seen fit to cover the expense of postage makes me grateful to no end. At this point, I have given both the Obama campaign and Move On a (for me) fair amount of money, but your campaign, despite having never received a cent from me, is willing to pay for me expressing my ideas. Thank you for this opportunity. I will never give you any money.
Warmly,
David Slade
October 17, 2008
John McCain
c/o McCain-Palin Victory 2008
PO Box 7805
Merrifield, VA 22116-9934
Dear Also Friend,
I received your letter of September 29, 2008 with great relish. While I have a social circle of which I am very proud, I have never before been able to boast of so venerable an acquaintance. To think: one of the major party candidates in the 2008 presidential race opens a letter to me with the salutation “Dear Friend.” Me, a life-long Democrat who staunchly opposes the war in Iraq, as well as almost every single aspect of the Republican Party as it currently stands!!!! Truly, Senator, your self-touted reputation for “reaching across the aisle” is an understatement. You appear to be willing to reach across registered voter affiliation, as well.
And not a moment too soon: After watching the debate on Wednesday night, I was left with the impression that you were a braying jackass who felt it appropriate to scoff, sniffle, wheeze, and roll your eyes whenever your opponent put forth not simply an idea that ran counter to yours, but any morpheme or phoneme approximating language. Your mannerisms became so exaggerated and ill-suited for the environment of a presidential debate that I feared you might have suffered a stroke. As someone who both cares about your health as a human being and who suffers mild arrhythmia at the thought of Sarah Palin as President, you can see my concern in this matter.
But your letter has done a great deal to alleviate my worry. Addressing me as “friend” certainly helps. You get more flies with honey, my grandmother always said. She was neither a plumber nor was she named “Joe” or “Six-Pack,” but I nonetheless am willing to rely on her as an authority in this instance. Anywho, not only did you soften me with your greeting, you then went on to make several statements that I simply cannot refute. I quote from your letter, Senator:
Item One:
“From here on out the full scope and power of the Democrats’ relentless and battle-tested money churning engine is aimed at one target: Capturing total control of our government.”(page 1, paragraph 7)
How can I argue with that? Your reasoning is clear and concise: The Democrats are trying to get as many of their candidates to win as possible in the coming election. It is a testament both to their all-consuming greed and to the will of a disenfranchised and abused electorate that this could possibly occur. It’s particularly unfair to you as, for the last eight years, it appeared that the Democrats were so willing to bend to the Republican will that at times I too assumed that they were actively trying to lose elections. I am as shocked as you, believe me, to see them field candidates who appear to have a chance of winning.
Item Two:
“The differences between our Republican candidates and that of the Obama Democrats could not be greater.”(page 2, paragraph 3)
Again with the unassailable point! You, sir, possess a rhetorical skill that mirrors the great Socrates, himself. You don’t merely scoff at Obama’s tax plan, which is the one that will ease my tax burdens directly, nor do you simply disagree over health care, where you favor a plan that will scuttle states’ rights to regulate insurance and penalize employer-based plans. In fact, you plough on through to an energy policy that could not be considered progressive even by 19th century standards. It was foolhardy of Senator Obama, in the debates, to routinely outline his strategies for implementing policy, in contrast to your strategy of ad hominem attack and servile platitudes to a very special repair man. To the untrained observer, it would appear as though Obama were using his time to make a constructive case for his platform to the American viewer. In reality, he had fallen for your rope-a-dope by unwittingly illustrating your point all along: the two candidates have wildly different views on critical matters. Genius. Let him try and refute that point from here on. The American populace will not be fooled.
Item Three:
“The outcome of the November election will not be determined on the day we go to the polls. It will be determined by what we do in these final days and weeks leading up to that historic day. It will be determined by what we do – and do not do – right now.”(page 3, paragraph 10 AND postscript, page 4)
A point so valid you had to make it twice. Could this be a nod to the word-for-word similarities between your convention address and your purportedly new stump speech unveiled this week? If so, you might well be the first presidential candidate to ever introduce the conceits of postmodern fiction to the campaign. Independently of that, however, I agree with your sentiment. Both times. What you do, and do not do, will impact the election. If you speak on the economy, for instance, it will most likely remind the voters that your party (under whose banner you are running, regardless of whether you have butted heads with party leaders over issues) presided over the deregulation of the mortgage and banking industry, a series of acts which almost every economist points to as the genesis of our current meltdown. On the subject of inaction, if you continue to sit silently by as attendees at your rallies shout out hate-filled invectives calling for the murder of your opponent, the majority of voters (and, really, citizens of the entire world) will think that you are at the very least complicit in fomenting hate and violence in a manner not unlike some of history’s most appalling demagogues.
And so I thank you, friend. Not only do I thank you for your generosity in your appraisal of me, nor solely in your desire to reach out to me and find issues upon which we both agree, but also for providing me the opportunity to correspond with you at no cost to myself. The fact that this PAC has seen fit to cover the expense of postage makes me grateful to no end. At this point, I have given both the Obama campaign and Move On a (for me) fair amount of money, but your campaign, despite having never received a cent from me, is willing to pay for me expressing my ideas. Thank you for this opportunity. I will never give you any money.
Warmly,
David Slade
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Mountain View’s Mayor to Everybody: “Speak American!”
There’s a masochistic component to why I love being an American. Namely, it’s that all elements of our population are given a voice, and more often than not, that voice is achingly stupid.
In other cultures, I can’t help but feel that these people would be shouted down by a majority in possession of good sense and at least nominal taste. Probably, they wouldn’t be allowed to rise to a position of prominence in the first place. Not so in Arkansas, however, where Mountain View Mayor Jim Cash has proposed to pass an English-only resolution. In an interview with a Little Rock television station, Cash has stated:
"I think we need to make the English Language or the American Language or what ever you want to call it the number [one] language of Mountain View…If you move to Mountain View you need to speak American and that's the way I feel about it."
In a cruel twist of dramatic irony, Mountain View’s Wikipedia page informs me that the principal driver of the local economy is tourism. I’m aware, of course, that European or Asian backpackers probably don’t descend on the town by the busload. My guess (and it’s a snide one, I know) is that Mountain View’s B&B syndicate relies more on what I’d call Cracker Tourism…the kind that my family and I participate in, it should be noted. The kind that involves watching Fox news in a hotel room after eating a meal that, at one point or another, had a hoof. The kind that does not ask for a wine list, but rather, asks if there’s any White Zin.
And yet, Mountain View hosts many local cultural festivals. Lesser among them is the Great Championship Outhouse Races (the prize for which is a golden toilet seat), but chief among them is the Ozark Folk Festival. There are two elements of irony in this that you guys may have seen coming a mile away:
1. Folk music is, inherently, a celebration of cultural identity and, based on the depth and breadth of the genre, it’s one of the most heterogeneous forms of art that’s out there. Most of what is played at this annual gathering, I’m guessing, stems from cultures that are not English (or American) speaking.
2. “Ozark” is a French portmanteau, historians seem to believe, coming from the words “Aux Arkansas” (meaning “towards Arkansas”). So why not, Mayor Cash: English only, please. Rename your festival, your surrounding mountains, your national forest, and anything else that bears the name “Ozark” in or about your fair berg.
And yes, it’s very easy and a bit lazy to condescend in instances like this. Of course this idiocy is in no way a reflection on the populace of Mountain View. Rather, it’s a sad attempt to stir up frenzy by a bantam-weight, would-be demagogue. But do you see where I’m going with this? With only weeks until Election Day, I think it’s worth ruminating on the fact that our elected officials are our figureheads. They stand in as representations for us as a people. What they do, we become associated with indelibly.
In America, when you cast a vote, you don’t only affect what happens for your household or your street or city or state or even for your country. Your vote, cast only by you, affects the entire world in a manner which, frankly, I don’t see any other citizen in any other country being able to approximate. Of course, that's certainly subject to change as we stumble into the 21st century, but the fact remains: we cannot be cavalier in deciding our leaders. Nor can we can we continue to let divisive domestic social issues have pride of place at the table. It’s time to get over ourselves and understand that these are real positions of power (even the office of the mayor in a town with fewer than 3,000 residents), not to be filled by any goon who promises us that he will punish those different from us.
In other cultures, I can’t help but feel that these people would be shouted down by a majority in possession of good sense and at least nominal taste. Probably, they wouldn’t be allowed to rise to a position of prominence in the first place. Not so in Arkansas, however, where Mountain View Mayor Jim Cash has proposed to pass an English-only resolution. In an interview with a Little Rock television station, Cash has stated:
"I think we need to make the English Language or the American Language or what ever you want to call it the number [one] language of Mountain View…If you move to Mountain View you need to speak American and that's the way I feel about it."
In a cruel twist of dramatic irony, Mountain View’s Wikipedia page informs me that the principal driver of the local economy is tourism. I’m aware, of course, that European or Asian backpackers probably don’t descend on the town by the busload. My guess (and it’s a snide one, I know) is that Mountain View’s B&B syndicate relies more on what I’d call Cracker Tourism…the kind that my family and I participate in, it should be noted. The kind that involves watching Fox news in a hotel room after eating a meal that, at one point or another, had a hoof. The kind that does not ask for a wine list, but rather, asks if there’s any White Zin.
And yet, Mountain View hosts many local cultural festivals. Lesser among them is the Great Championship Outhouse Races (the prize for which is a golden toilet seat), but chief among them is the Ozark Folk Festival. There are two elements of irony in this that you guys may have seen coming a mile away:
1. Folk music is, inherently, a celebration of cultural identity and, based on the depth and breadth of the genre, it’s one of the most heterogeneous forms of art that’s out there. Most of what is played at this annual gathering, I’m guessing, stems from cultures that are not English (or American) speaking.
2. “Ozark” is a French portmanteau, historians seem to believe, coming from the words “Aux Arkansas” (meaning “towards Arkansas”). So why not, Mayor Cash: English only, please. Rename your festival, your surrounding mountains, your national forest, and anything else that bears the name “Ozark” in or about your fair berg.
And yes, it’s very easy and a bit lazy to condescend in instances like this. Of course this idiocy is in no way a reflection on the populace of Mountain View. Rather, it’s a sad attempt to stir up frenzy by a bantam-weight, would-be demagogue. But do you see where I’m going with this? With only weeks until Election Day, I think it’s worth ruminating on the fact that our elected officials are our figureheads. They stand in as representations for us as a people. What they do, we become associated with indelibly.
In America, when you cast a vote, you don’t only affect what happens for your household or your street or city or state or even for your country. Your vote, cast only by you, affects the entire world in a manner which, frankly, I don’t see any other citizen in any other country being able to approximate. Of course, that's certainly subject to change as we stumble into the 21st century, but the fact remains: we cannot be cavalier in deciding our leaders. Nor can we can we continue to let divisive domestic social issues have pride of place at the table. It’s time to get over ourselves and understand that these are real positions of power (even the office of the mayor in a town with fewer than 3,000 residents), not to be filled by any goon who promises us that he will punish those different from us.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Heavy D (and Wolverine) and the Boyz
The opener for Nate Patrin's Pitchfork review of "Murs For President" makes an assertion that I’ve been mulling over, myself, as of late:
Mainstream hip-hop has little time for ordinary dudes. It works inversely to the right wing's O'Reilly-spearheaded, Palin-nominating faux-populism: Heads don't want candidates just like them, anti-elite, down-to-earth, and on your level. They want linguistically supernatural battlers, colossal egos with something to prove and plenty to back it up with, long-striding titans who own a dozen of something you'll never even be let into the dealership to look at.
I've been reading Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem, and have been really interested in how his protagonists -- boys maturing into adolescence in Brooklyn -- thrive on a synergy of proto-hip-hop and comic book culture. A hefty portion of the narrative is about issues of dominance and empowerment, and I think Lethem pretty much nails it by isolating both rap music and comic books as primary points of identification that young people, most typically young males, use to bolster themselves in the face of the awkwardness and the general humiliations of the pre-teen and teenage years.
Which is to say this: comic books are so appealing because they are about completely awesome badasses who are so powerful that they are impervious to the general sufferings that regular people go through. While we’re on the subject, rappers are so appealing because they are presented as completely awesome badasses who are so powerful that they are impervious to the general sufferings that regular people go through.
Of course, as both media have progressed, such sweeping generalizations don’t always apply. Many comic books in the past decades have dealt with exploding the invulnerabilities of superheroes and exploring how quotidian experience affects their human sides. Similarly, many rappers have carved entire careers out of introspective, observational rhymes that come from a desire to identify directly with the experience of the audience, instead of climbing onto a pedestal of unfuckwithability from which to view, but not participate in, the more trivial aspects of existence in which the listener must still wallow.
However, those approaches, I would argue, are niche markets. Mass audiences still seem to prefer larger than life personas and abilities in their heroes. A human side can be revealed, of course, but it must then be followed by some sort of bang, either figurative or literal.
Fundamentally, I think this climate exists because, as a group, youth has the need more than any other stratum of the population to simply feel awesome. In terms of issues of empowerment, so many things happen over the course of our lives as young people that we have no control over. We consistently find ourselves at the mercy of our parents, our teachers, and our peers, all three demographics demonstrating an inclination to routinely make us feel insignificant or worse.
And why, specifically, would a writ-large narrative of archetypes be the trick for making a young person feel empowered? Why not something subtler, whose points resonate more realistically with the workings of one’s daily life? Why so escapist? Why so fantastic?
If anyone were to actually read this, they might get onto me for conflating escapism and fantasy but, since not even my mom checks in regularly, I’m going to do it. Escapism/fantasy (maybe we can call it “escaptasy…”) is at its most tantalizing when the reality of one’s surroundings are bleakest. The quotidian elements of one’s life are precisely the things one wants to escape. This is especially true for young people, particularly adolescents. They don’t need to see a car ride through the Swedish countryside turned into a metaphor. They’re continually turning car rides into metaphors of either struggle (when with their parents, say) or liberation (when with their friends). Everything is a signifier. I can’t think of another time in one’s life when such a huge amount of intellectual energy is spent upon reading deeper meaning into each and every stimulus in one’s immediate environment.
So escapism and fantasy become necessary coping mechanisms, and the simpler and stronger the imagery the better. Day to day, youth is lost in a sea of ambiguity. A clear-cut narrative with as little grey area as possible, that shows a definitive protagonist kicking the shit out of a definitive antagonist is essential. To drive the pint home: it makes you feel awesome.
Again, this is why I love, love, love Fortress of Solitude. With equal deftness, Lethem reminds me of all of the indignities of childhood and, at the same time, completely immerses me in the glory of the tools used to make life bearable. The word “hope” has become filled with an ever-increasing rhetorical import this year, but political appropriation aside, one thing that I will always be grateful to rap and comic books for is that both media were a continual source of hope for me as a kid and as a teenager. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for artists who aim to create something larger-than-life.
Mainstream hip-hop has little time for ordinary dudes. It works inversely to the right wing's O'Reilly-spearheaded, Palin-nominating faux-populism: Heads don't want candidates just like them, anti-elite, down-to-earth, and on your level. They want linguistically supernatural battlers, colossal egos with something to prove and plenty to back it up with, long-striding titans who own a dozen of something you'll never even be let into the dealership to look at.
I've been reading Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem, and have been really interested in how his protagonists -- boys maturing into adolescence in Brooklyn -- thrive on a synergy of proto-hip-hop and comic book culture. A hefty portion of the narrative is about issues of dominance and empowerment, and I think Lethem pretty much nails it by isolating both rap music and comic books as primary points of identification that young people, most typically young males, use to bolster themselves in the face of the awkwardness and the general humiliations of the pre-teen and teenage years.
Which is to say this: comic books are so appealing because they are about completely awesome badasses who are so powerful that they are impervious to the general sufferings that regular people go through. While we’re on the subject, rappers are so appealing because they are presented as completely awesome badasses who are so powerful that they are impervious to the general sufferings that regular people go through.
Of course, as both media have progressed, such sweeping generalizations don’t always apply. Many comic books in the past decades have dealt with exploding the invulnerabilities of superheroes and exploring how quotidian experience affects their human sides. Similarly, many rappers have carved entire careers out of introspective, observational rhymes that come from a desire to identify directly with the experience of the audience, instead of climbing onto a pedestal of unfuckwithability from which to view, but not participate in, the more trivial aspects of existence in which the listener must still wallow.
However, those approaches, I would argue, are niche markets. Mass audiences still seem to prefer larger than life personas and abilities in their heroes. A human side can be revealed, of course, but it must then be followed by some sort of bang, either figurative or literal.
Fundamentally, I think this climate exists because, as a group, youth has the need more than any other stratum of the population to simply feel awesome. In terms of issues of empowerment, so many things happen over the course of our lives as young people that we have no control over. We consistently find ourselves at the mercy of our parents, our teachers, and our peers, all three demographics demonstrating an inclination to routinely make us feel insignificant or worse.
And why, specifically, would a writ-large narrative of archetypes be the trick for making a young person feel empowered? Why not something subtler, whose points resonate more realistically with the workings of one’s daily life? Why so escapist? Why so fantastic?
If anyone were to actually read this, they might get onto me for conflating escapism and fantasy but, since not even my mom checks in regularly, I’m going to do it. Escapism/fantasy (maybe we can call it “escaptasy…”) is at its most tantalizing when the reality of one’s surroundings are bleakest. The quotidian elements of one’s life are precisely the things one wants to escape. This is especially true for young people, particularly adolescents. They don’t need to see a car ride through the Swedish countryside turned into a metaphor. They’re continually turning car rides into metaphors of either struggle (when with their parents, say) or liberation (when with their friends). Everything is a signifier. I can’t think of another time in one’s life when such a huge amount of intellectual energy is spent upon reading deeper meaning into each and every stimulus in one’s immediate environment.
So escapism and fantasy become necessary coping mechanisms, and the simpler and stronger the imagery the better. Day to day, youth is lost in a sea of ambiguity. A clear-cut narrative with as little grey area as possible, that shows a definitive protagonist kicking the shit out of a definitive antagonist is essential. To drive the pint home: it makes you feel awesome.
Again, this is why I love, love, love Fortress of Solitude. With equal deftness, Lethem reminds me of all of the indignities of childhood and, at the same time, completely immerses me in the glory of the tools used to make life bearable. The word “hope” has become filled with an ever-increasing rhetorical import this year, but political appropriation aside, one thing that I will always be grateful to rap and comic books for is that both media were a continual source of hope for me as a kid and as a teenager. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for artists who aim to create something larger-than-life.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Defense of Mortgage Act
I'm more than a bit freaked out by the fact that our banks are going Chernobyl right now. Further, it seems as though the bailouts proposed by the Fed set an unfortunate precedent for protection against the consequences of unchecked greed and incompentence on the part of august financial institutions who really ought to have known better.
It's hard for me to believe that companies didn't see the current situation as the single, inevitable result of dropping entire branches of their business balls-deep into the subprime waters. To paraphrase David Cross, it's like taking an entire hedge fund to the race tracks and putting it all on "Papa's Moustache."
My go-to in situations like this is the glorious Economist, which naturally has an piece on the current situation. The tone is a bit less outraged than I'd like, personally, but I like 'em and believe what they have to say is usually sound.
On the slighty more rant-y side of things (which is where I stand, at the moment), there's an interesting editorial from the Huffington Post by former Goldman partner Greg Zehner. Apart from the name-checking of Ayn Rand (seriously, who does that any more, especially after freshman year of college?), I think this a pretty appealing argument.
It's hard for me to believe that companies didn't see the current situation as the single, inevitable result of dropping entire branches of their business balls-deep into the subprime waters. To paraphrase David Cross, it's like taking an entire hedge fund to the race tracks and putting it all on "Papa's Moustache."
My go-to in situations like this is the glorious Economist, which naturally has an piece on the current situation. The tone is a bit less outraged than I'd like, personally, but I like 'em and believe what they have to say is usually sound.
On the slighty more rant-y side of things (which is where I stand, at the moment), there's an interesting editorial from the Huffington Post by former Goldman partner Greg Zehner. Apart from the name-checking of Ayn Rand (seriously, who does that any more, especially after freshman year of college?), I think this a pretty appealing argument.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Things Not To Say To An 11 Year Old (Who Is Riding In The Car With You)
1. Oh, turn this up...do you like Lil' Wayne?
2. OK, we just need to make a quick stop at the liquor store and then we're done with our errands.
3. (per item 2) I'm $4 short. Did mom give you your allowance yet?
I'd like to thank my little sister for hanging out with me today.
2. OK, we just need to make a quick stop at the liquor store and then we're done with our errands.
3. (per item 2) I'm $4 short. Did mom give you your allowance yet?
I'd like to thank my little sister for hanging out with me today.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Dear HuffPost: Thanks for Nothing
Apparently, the Huffington Post's editors are leaving no ocean bed untrawled in their search for contributors. Capturing the coveted and fickle "Creepy Cult" demographic, they've solicited Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, founders of The Hendricks Institute, to list their top 10 relationship movies. A quick tour of the "Institute" web-site leads me to believe that this is the equivalent of asking the Raelian Movement for their top 10, all-time favorite episodes of Frasier.
I promise that my main beef has to do with their choices of films, but first, a random sample from the guiding principles of the "Institute," so as to better understand why someone thought it was a sensible act to allow these people to proffer opinions about movies:
We take a spiritual approach, grounded in what we call organic spirituality. Our training is designed to produce spiritual shifts which are felt in the body, and which do not depend on changing your beliefs or intellectual understanding. In other words, four people--an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Christian and a Jew--might feel a heart-centered awakening of love and compassion, even though each of them came to the training and left with differing cosmological beliefs. We are not so much interested in beliefs as we are in the underlying consciousness out of which all mental Phenomena emerge.
What I love about random capitalization in my native tongue ("Phenomena," in the above paragraph, for example), is that it is an instant and irrefutable warning that the writer is batshit crazy. Seriously, why "Phenomena" and not "organic spirituality?" The latter term seems like the real copyright jackpot. Organic spirituality...that's a set of faith-based beliefs nurtured with fish emulsion and compost gathered from the dumpsters at Trader Joe's, right?
But I digress. Theoretically, this miscarriage of cultural punditry (theirs...but I suppose by extension mine as well) comes to us in the guise of a ranking of relationship movies. To be fair, this feature is a two-parter so maybe they'll have some honorable choices next Friday, but to get the ball rolling, let's see what the TM set has in their DVD library:
1. Moonstruck
OK, no argument there. A superlative rumination on relationships.
2. The Holiday
Oh yeah, I love Roman Holiday...Wait, you're not talking about that exquisite, Dalton Trumbo-created, Audrey Hepburn-starring piece of excellence? Oh...you're talking about a movie that features the acting talents of Cameron Diaz and Jack Black? Ah. Well, what recommends this movie, then? Whence flows it's organic spirituality?
Pay particularly close attention to Kate Winslet's tirade toward the end when she's finally closing the door on her boyfriend, the quintessential handsome cad she's been putting up with for 'way too long. If you've ever been lied to by someone who's says they love you, you'll laugh and wince and learn a lot at she gives him his come-uppance.
I see. So, what differentiates this romantic comedy from the pack is that one of the heroines tells off her boyfriend.
3. The January Man
Now, I know what those of us familiar with the forgettable eras of Kevin Kline's career are thinking: This movie is about cops and a serial killer! What the fuck are these people on about?!!! Rest assured, the Hendrickses are only pointing to a very specific, very expository scene at the beginning of the film:
This overlooked gem is a thriller that we recommend primarily because of one brilliant scene. It takes place toward the beginning, so if you don't like the thriller aspects of the movie you can skip the rest. Watch closely the scene between Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in the restaurant at the ice-skating rink.
So, this, a film listed under the heading of "The Top 10 Relationship Movies of All Time," makes the cut because of a single scene that happens in the beginning of a movie about cops hunting a killer. To be fair, they're right: you can skip the rest.
4. Truly, Madly, Deeply
I know that it is considered unpleasant to speak ill of the dead, so I'm going to lay off Anthony Minghella on this one. Also, I have not seen--nor will I likely see--this film. What I can say about it is that Alan Rickman sports a mustache (that's good) and that, in addition to winning a BAFTA, IMDB informs me that the film also cleaned up at something called the Mystfest. Oh, wait, here's what makes the film great, according to our Huff Post critics: One high moment of the movie comes when the characters quote a poem from Pablo Neruda. Just thinking of that moment brings tears to our eyes.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
(pause for breath)
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
Just thinking of people salivating over the work of Pablo Neruda brings tears to my eyes, too. Do the characters then go on to quote lyrics from their favorite Don Henley songs? Oh mercy.
5. Monsoon Wedding
Of course, this is not a bad movie. In fact, like Moonstruck, it might actually deserve a spot on a real top 10 list. However, I suspect that its placement here is compromised for a variety of reasons, most notably this: using Monsoon Wedding as "a loving look at the complexities of an Indian culture in which arranged marriages often match partners whose hearts belong to others" is like citing The Birdcage as a frank and probing look at same-gendered parenting. At heart, this is a melodrama and, while it can be argued that melodramas have real analytical purpose when examining sociological trends, it can't be argued very well.
So, like I said, this is the first of two posts, with the second half of the list being revealed next Friday. Until then, I will be watching When Harry Met Sally on repeat, seething all the while.
I promise that my main beef has to do with their choices of films, but first, a random sample from the guiding principles of the "Institute," so as to better understand why someone thought it was a sensible act to allow these people to proffer opinions about movies:
We take a spiritual approach, grounded in what we call organic spirituality. Our training is designed to produce spiritual shifts which are felt in the body, and which do not depend on changing your beliefs or intellectual understanding. In other words, four people--an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Christian and a Jew--might feel a heart-centered awakening of love and compassion, even though each of them came to the training and left with differing cosmological beliefs. We are not so much interested in beliefs as we are in the underlying consciousness out of which all mental Phenomena emerge.
What I love about random capitalization in my native tongue ("Phenomena," in the above paragraph, for example), is that it is an instant and irrefutable warning that the writer is batshit crazy. Seriously, why "Phenomena" and not "organic spirituality?" The latter term seems like the real copyright jackpot. Organic spirituality...that's a set of faith-based beliefs nurtured with fish emulsion and compost gathered from the dumpsters at Trader Joe's, right?
But I digress. Theoretically, this miscarriage of cultural punditry (theirs...but I suppose by extension mine as well) comes to us in the guise of a ranking of relationship movies. To be fair, this feature is a two-parter so maybe they'll have some honorable choices next Friday, but to get the ball rolling, let's see what the TM set has in their DVD library:
1. Moonstruck
OK, no argument there. A superlative rumination on relationships.
2. The Holiday
Oh yeah, I love Roman Holiday...Wait, you're not talking about that exquisite, Dalton Trumbo-created, Audrey Hepburn-starring piece of excellence? Oh...you're talking about a movie that features the acting talents of Cameron Diaz and Jack Black? Ah. Well, what recommends this movie, then? Whence flows it's organic spirituality?
Pay particularly close attention to Kate Winslet's tirade toward the end when she's finally closing the door on her boyfriend, the quintessential handsome cad she's been putting up with for 'way too long. If you've ever been lied to by someone who's says they love you, you'll laugh and wince and learn a lot at she gives him his come-uppance.
I see. So, what differentiates this romantic comedy from the pack is that one of the heroines tells off her boyfriend.
3. The January Man
Now, I know what those of us familiar with the forgettable eras of Kevin Kline's career are thinking: This movie is about cops and a serial killer! What the fuck are these people on about?!!! Rest assured, the Hendrickses are only pointing to a very specific, very expository scene at the beginning of the film:
This overlooked gem is a thriller that we recommend primarily because of one brilliant scene. It takes place toward the beginning, so if you don't like the thriller aspects of the movie you can skip the rest. Watch closely the scene between Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in the restaurant at the ice-skating rink.
So, this, a film listed under the heading of "The Top 10 Relationship Movies of All Time," makes the cut because of a single scene that happens in the beginning of a movie about cops hunting a killer. To be fair, they're right: you can skip the rest.
4. Truly, Madly, Deeply
I know that it is considered unpleasant to speak ill of the dead, so I'm going to lay off Anthony Minghella on this one. Also, I have not seen--nor will I likely see--this film. What I can say about it is that Alan Rickman sports a mustache (that's good) and that, in addition to winning a BAFTA, IMDB informs me that the film also cleaned up at something called the Mystfest. Oh, wait, here's what makes the film great, according to our Huff Post critics: One high moment of the movie comes when the characters quote a poem from Pablo Neruda. Just thinking of that moment brings tears to our eyes.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
(pause for breath)
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
Just thinking of people salivating over the work of Pablo Neruda brings tears to my eyes, too. Do the characters then go on to quote lyrics from their favorite Don Henley songs? Oh mercy.
5. Monsoon Wedding
Of course, this is not a bad movie. In fact, like Moonstruck, it might actually deserve a spot on a real top 10 list. However, I suspect that its placement here is compromised for a variety of reasons, most notably this: using Monsoon Wedding as "a loving look at the complexities of an Indian culture in which arranged marriages often match partners whose hearts belong to others" is like citing The Birdcage as a frank and probing look at same-gendered parenting. At heart, this is a melodrama and, while it can be argued that melodramas have real analytical purpose when examining sociological trends, it can't be argued very well.
So, like I said, this is the first of two posts, with the second half of the list being revealed next Friday. Until then, I will be watching When Harry Met Sally on repeat, seething all the while.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Inauguration
Unfortunately, I find myself completely unprepared to write anything of substance for my first blog entry. As with most things in my life, I've thought about this for a long time, but once I'm in a position to act, all of the urbane or even topical things I've wanted to write about have completely left me. So, in lieu of a post about Kanye West producing the next Jay Z album, or Paris Hilton's response to John McCain's attack ads, I present to you a photograph of my favorite thing in the world:
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