The Maybe Baby News

Have you noticed the trend in the news to waffle and wiggle away, to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge?

Take this guy. First he hid his arrest, then said he was sorry but not gay, then he was resigning and now, maybe not.

Or here - he was sort of in, he plans to announce his announcement, and another lackluster leader steps forth. Case in point: the ducking and dodging of campaign fundraising laws.

It's a music player, it's a web surfer, it's a phone, it's a web surfer, it's $599, it's $399. It's iNconsistent.

It's a slam dunk. It's a quagmire. It's a battle for the Future. It's a parade of surrender monkeys. It's a work in progress. It's winnable. It's a quagmire again.

It's microwave popcorn. It's a delivery system for lung disease.

It's a child's toy. It's a deadly toxin.

It's a non-nuclear transport. It's an accidental transport of nuclear weapons. Five of them. No, six.

It combats angina. It fights strokes. It treats MS and jet lag. It gives hours of stiffness. Heck, maybe it is a wonder drug.

Is it any wonder this song is stuck in my head?

The Golden Record

30 years ago today, the efforts of a collection of humans sent something fantastic into space, which continues to travel through the stars.

Voyager and it's Golden Record stand as a marvel of human achievement.

"The record represented the idea that science and technology could come together with art,” said Ann Druyan, who also designed the sound essay.. “It’s one of the few totally great stories that we have about humans. It cost the taxpayers virtually nothing, nobody got killed. It was a way to celebrate the glory of being alive on this tiny blue dot in 1977."

“This was the most romantic and beautiful project ever attempted by NASA. It had the sounds of a kiss, a mother saying hello to her newborn baby for the first time, all that glorious music. Remember, this was during the Cold War. Everyone was living with the knowledge that 50,000 nuclear weapons could go off at any time, and there was a lot of angst about the future. This was something positive -- a way to represent Earth and put our best foot forward. That was irresistible.”

Carl Sagan’s son Nick was six years old in 1977 when the Voyager records were being assembled. The records feature a recording of him as a child saying, “Hello from the children of planet Earth.”

“I had no sense of the magnitude of it at the time,” said Nick Sagan, who partially followed in his late father’s footsteps by pursuing a career as a science fiction writer. “Literally it was my parents putting me in front of a microphone and saying, ‘What would you say to extraterrestrials?’”

Sagan said he began to realize what the record meant as he got older, and as a teen he started to realize what a “strange but wonderful honor” it was.

“It’s been a challenge for the rest of my life to live up to that honor. It’s always there in my subconscious,” he said. “My dad inspired so many people to do so many great things -- to not take things at face value and to look at evidence to search for the truth. It’s something that I look to as a beacon.”

Explore the Golden Record for yourself here.

'Twas TN Jed Made Boomsday Boom

Who was it who made the 20th Anniversary Boomsday special?? Tennessee Jed:

"He did a count down over the Nextel and when I flipped the switch I heard the roar of a sea of humans reflect off the Tennessee River. It gave me chills and made my face blush to think I did that, hell yea!"

No ID, No Freedoms?

A writer/blogger details an event that led to his arrest outside a Circuit City in Ohio for refusing to show a rather rude employee his receipt and for refusing to show a policeman an ID. The post was featured here at Boing Boing and both the post and the many comments which follow it are fascinating reads and raise many questions. (Yes, Boing Boing has updated and is allowing comments on posts.) The story has been also featured on Digg, Fark and other sites also with much debate.

In the blogger's version of events his rights and liberties were trashed by business and government alike - if the events follow his account. He was asked to show a receipt on the way out of the store and refused and continued on to his car. When store manager Joe stood so the car door could not be closed, here's what was said:

"Me: “Is there a problem?”

Joe: “I need to examine your bag and receipt before letting you leave this parking lot.”

Me: “I paid for the contents in this bag. Are you accusing me of stealing?”

Joe: “I’m not accusing you of anything, but I’m allowed by law to look through your bag when you leave.”

Me: “Which law states that? Name the law that gives you the right to examine my bag when I leave a Circuit City.”

Then, says, the blogger:

"I twice asked Joe to back away from the car so that I could close the door. Joe refused. On three occasions I tried to pull the door closed but Joe pushed back on the door with his hip and hands. I then gave Joe three options:

“Accuse me of shoplifting and call the police. I will gladly wait for them to arrive.”
“Back away from the car so that I can close the door and drive away.”
“If you refuse to let me leave I will be forced to call the police.”

However, after he did call the police, the officer then challenged him and demanded to see his driver's license - even though he was not driving a vehicle and was instead standing on the sidewalk. When he refused, he was arrested, even though the store officials examined his belongings and admitted he had a receipt for all purchases.

Some will say the blogger, Michael Righi, invited trouble for refusing to comply with the store employee. And more trouble was invited by not showing the policeman an ID. The comments on Boing Boing alone bring up central and related issues that are worthy of debate.

And as I said, since I think Righi is telling the truth, I also agree his freedoms were needlessly challenged and curtailed. The events also highlight the problematic issue that corporations, like Circuit City, are identified as having the same rights as an individual. That fact most often means the rights of the corporation will trump the honest-to-God human's rights every time.

And as we continue on the current legal path where National IDs, under provisions of the Real ID Act, are going to be mandatory each of us will likely be faced with demands that we provide papers to engage in a host of routine activities.

Such requirements are more than lunacy. It's a perversion of our basic freedoms to be required to have papers to simply exist. Righi was not engaged in some unique activity which requires a license - such as fishing or hunting or operating a business.

More and more we have become a society where each of us is perceived as guilty, each of us is a criminal-in-waiting, each of us is forced to agree our rights are subservient to that of our own government and to the needs of business. Dismissing this story and it's implications is perilous for all.

(image from the Hartford Courant, Oct. 30, 2001)

UPDATE (9/5/07): R. Neal at KnoxViews featured this post and thoughtfully added in the comments the law in TN regarding what a merchant has legal rights to do if they think a person might have taken something without paying.

Also worth noting is that Righi was charged with obstructing a police officer, even though Righi is the one who called the police.

Glad to see this story is getting some discussion and thoughtful review in numerous blogs. The willingness to abandon individual rights is a repulsive trend which endangers us all.

Final Words

An obituary notice can be far more than just announcement, as it aims to encapsulate the essence of a life snuffed out by the wisdom of God's time management. Here in the Southern lands, notices and accompanying rituals can certainly make metaphorical mountains.

I have always been amazed by some of the floral monuments friends or family have devised, such as my favorite: a colorific collection of flowers surrounding a gigantic foam desk phone and the foam-carved legend "Jesus Called."

Will we see in the future a giant foam-cell phone with a simple text-message emblazoned upon a foam screen: "U R L8, Home Now -- Jesus"?

I have now in my possession a collection of laminated plastic rectangles which contain copies of the obituaries of friend and family past. I'm not sure what to do with these - using them as bookmarks or dangling them in a tenuous mobile just doesn't seem right. So they reside in a plain brown envelope.

The poet Robert Burns penned an epitaph for his friend William Muir which reads:

"If there’s another world,
he lives in bliss.
If there is none,
he made the best of this."

And there are some who take the time to carve into stone a Final Witticism:

"Beneath these stones do lie,
back to back, my wife and I.
When the last trumpet the air fill,
if she gets up, I will just lie still."

The somewhat unique Southern style obituary gets a jolt from Angie at DeMarCaTionVille, who says the following should be published upon her demise:

"Angie isn’t with us anymore. Last year, after her seventh nervous breakdown, a dark-skinned Jesus pulled up in a red convertible and carted her swiftly off into Heaven with the radio playing loud and her hair blowing in the breeze. And on the back bumper, there was a sticker, which read, “Honk if you love Jesus, Jorge, Isabella and all the other Immigrants!"

Yeah, I like that. Jesus motorvating upon the human plain in a shiny red convertible, maybe with Elvis working the MapQuest of Souls.

Stats on Blogging American-Style

Finding a survey about blogs is as easy as finding a blog, and new surveys, like blogs, arrive almost daily. A new study does indicate that more Americans know what the term blog means, and that bloggers are more likely to be female.

Certainly, I would say that women write or administrate many of the blogs I frequent. I like that they use them as platforms for writing, for offering strongly-held beliefs, and as community touchstones. (Men utilize the media much the same, however.)

WebPro writes about the survey and some findings include:

"Loyalty to specific blogs is relatively strong with 46 percent of blog readers reporting that they visit the same blogs regularly compared to 54 percent who search for new or different blogs.

Awareness and usage of blogs, along with people writing their own correlates to age, with younger people being more active. Close to 90 percent of people ages 25 to 34 know what a blog is, compared to 65 percent of those 65 and over. Seventy-eight percent of those ages 18 to 24 who are aware of blogs have visited a blog, compared to 45 percent of older Americans.

The survey found that there are more women bloggers than men, with 20 percent of American women who have visited blogs have their own versus 14 percent of men.

When it comes to reading blogs 39 percent read them less than once a month, another 28 percent visit them monthly, 15 percent visit them daily and 5 percent read them several times a day.

While blog usage continues to grow, so does its potential as a marketing tool. Forty-three percent of blog visitors said they had noticed advertising on blog sites, increasing to 61 percent among those ages 18 to 24. Around one-third of readers have clicked on an ad while reading a blog.

Even though people are spending more time with blogs they are not replacing other media. Only 13 percent of blog readers said they spend less time with other forms of media (newspapers, television, radio) since they started following blogs.

When questioned about the kind of information they get from blogs, 65 percent said they get opinions, 39 percent get news and 38 percent get entertainment.On the main reason people read blogs, close to half said they find blogs entertaining, and another 26 percent read them to learn about hobbies or other areas they are interested in."

I too tend to visit sites I like often, but also search daily for new sites to visit. As for how often each day I visit and re-visit sites, I am in that smallest percentage. Which means I either have too much free time or am nearly obsessed with creating and reading online content.

Davis Talks Nuclear and Alternative Energy with Alexander, Wamp and Shuler

The headlines this summer about Erwin, TN's Nuclear Fuel Services plant were focused on how the company had used national security concerns to halt even information the public should have known - such as a small radioactive spill. This week, Senator Lamar Alexander and Rep. David Davis toured to plant and said all was well. No mention from them in press reports that the plant may be sold in the near future.

Earlier this summer, stories followed the facts that security concerns allowed company officials to designate all documents as secret, an action going back for years:

"[NRC] Agency commissioners, apparently struck by the significance of the event, took a special vote to skirt the "Official Use Only" rule so that Nuclear Fuel Services would be identified in the report as the site of the uranium leak.

Some 35 liters, or just over 9 gallons, of highly enriched uranium solution leaked from a transfer line into a protected glovebox and spilled onto the floor. The leak was discovered when a supervisor saw a yellow liquid "running into a hallway" from under a door, according to one document.

The commission said there were two areas, the glovebox and an old elevator shaft, where the solution potentially could have collected in such a way to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

"It is likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute health effects or death," the agency wrote.

"We don't want any security information out there that's going to help a terrorist," agency Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. said in a newly released transcript from a closed commission meeting May 30. But "that's entirely separate" from dealing with an event that could have killed a worker at the plant.
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"Nuclear Fuel Services Executive Vice President Timothy Lindstrom, a Navy veteran who joined the company in September, said the company had already made "significant progress."
"I think it is important that the public recognize that we do have a very robust safety program at NFS. We live in this community and take our stewardship very seriously," he said.

"I think if we were to have an event like this again, we would push to make it public," he added. "Clearly it would have been better to have this discussion 18 months ago than it is to have it now."

Meanwhile, NFS told its 700 employees this past week it will be "exploring the possibility of a sale" over the next 12 months - not because of the commission's disclosure, but because of the company's increasing value to a booming nuclear power industry."


I have to wonder if safety records and public notification must be on the public record BEFORE a sale could occur. Meanwhile ....


Late this past week Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. David Davis toured the facility, which is Unicoi County's largest employer. They said they think the public needs to be better informed on accidents at the plant and Davis praised security measures at the facility as being as good as those in Iraq:

"Both lawmakers said they believe rules can be relaxed that prohibited letting the public know about a spill of radioactive liquid at NFS last year that did not endanger public safety, and that they will support such a change to loosen the information restrictions. "
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"Rep. Davis, who grew up in Unicoi County near where the NFS facility is located, told the media that his mother-in-law has lived for years within a half -mile of the facility, and still does.

He said, “I don’t think my mother-in-law would live within half a mile if she was worried” about the plant’s safety.

Davis said he also believes the plant, which employs 715 people and has its own large plant security force, is safe from terrorists.

The congressman noted that he recently returned from Iraq, where he saw several military bases. He said he believes NFS’s perimeter and internal security is as good as, or better than, the security at U.S. military facilities in Iraq."

Rep. Davis was making several public appearances this week to talk about (or more accurately listen to others) on the topic of energy needs and costs for businesses in East TN. One stop was made with N.C. Congressman Health Shuler.

Democrat Shuler said he was happy that Republican Davis was willing to "cross party lines to talk about what was right for America."

Another visit was a conference in Morristown , where he was joined by Rep. Zach Wamp and others from the University of Tennessee to hear ideas on alternative fuels, like 'grassohol', which though perhaps full of potentials, is likewise problematic for a wide range of reasons:

"Currently, the market for fuel made from switchgrass is limited, because so few vehicles can burn it. Not enough switchgrass is being grown currently, and transportation of the harvested grass to a refinery is also an issue that will have to be addressed, though plans are in place, [agricultural economist and is director of external operations for bioenergy programs at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, Dr. Kelly] Tiller said.

Plans call for $8 million in incentives for farmers to grow switchgrass for the pilot refinery, over a five-year period. As a practical matter, most of those farms will need to be within a 50-mile radius of the refinery, [chairman of biofuels farmer education programs with UT Extension, Dr. Clark] Garland said.

About 92 acres of switchgrass have been grown with Department of Energy funding on five farms in Benton and Henry counties, both of which are in West Tennessee. One acre, on average, can produce enough switchgrass to convert to 500 gallons of “Grassohol,” Garland said."

Camera Obscura - Elephant Fu; Halloween; Most Desired Movie Props

Something you don't say everyday: This movie features Elephant Kung Fu.

The movie is "The Protector" ("Tom Yum Goong") from 2005, and sadly the American version 'presented by Quentin Tarantino' is about half an hour shorter than the original Thai version.

Actor/stuntman Tony Jaa stars in the movie as a young man who is a protector of an elephant, a historical fact in which the royal families did assign people to be the caretakers and protectors of elephants. And of course, evil poachers attack Tony's dad and steal not just one but two elephants and whisk them away to Australia for .... well, I think it was for a crime boss who wanted some mystical elephant power, and because there is a notable Thai population in Australia.

Look, the reason to make and watch such a movie is simple - jaw-dropping action scenes. "The Protector" delivers those in large amounts. And yes, stuntman/actor Jaa is the real deal - no wire tricks of CG shots. He created his own variation of Muay Koshasan, which literally means Smashing Elephant Boxing. It is impressive to see the moves, which rely on grabbing, breaking and stomping on the bad guys with true elephantine glee.

A scene in a parking garage has Jaa facing off against a gang of extreme sportsters on roller blades, bikes and motorcycles and is a reminder of Jackie Chan's movies. Later, a single-shot steadicam tracks Jaa as he goes up the spiral staircase of the bad guys' lair and grabs and stomps them all. It is a real workout for Jaa and for the stuntcrew. Also stuntman/fighter Nathan Jones, who was in Jet Li's "Fearless" appears in two fight scenes which are notable as Jones is about three feet taller than Jaa.

One thing I liked about the movie is that it's focus on the traditional Thai world and the unusual Aussie cities makes the whole thing look futuristic or even science fictionesque. (Sorry, I could not think of a better word.) Also for added strangeness is the fact that the Aussie/Thai crime family stealing the elephants is headed up by one Madame Rose, who is actually a transsexual and is played by one too.

A fine write-up on the movie and the DVD sets which have both American and Thai versions are here. As to why the Thai title is also the name of a shrimp soup ... well, food is a plot point. 'Nuff said.

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It is no surprise the reviews for Rob Zombie's new version of the movie "Halloween" are not full of praise. The movie, opening today, was not screened for critics, usually a sign the movie is not that good. Still, I think many will see the movie this weekend and then it will find it's own cult on DVD.

One thing often missed in the tales of why John Carpenter's original movie was so good: Dean Cundey. Cundey's work as cinematographer is just pure excellence. While he started in low-budget drive-in fare like "Satan's Cheerleaders", he also worked with Carpenter for many great results, not only in "Halloween" but "The Fog" and "The Thing". Later he was cinematographer on the "Back to the Future" movies, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "Jurassic Park", and "Apollo 13."

In "Halloween" especially, he uses a very fluid and seamless style, far above the B-movie origins, and his framing and scope make the original a true standout. Really. Watch it again and marvel at how the look and style of the movie is hardly ordinary.

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A fine murder-mystery from the 1970s, "Sleuth", is getting the remake treatment too. Kenneth Brannagh takes the director's chair as Michael Caine (also in the original) takes on Laurence Olivier's part and Jude Law plays Caine's old part. Some changes in the set-up are made by writer Harold Pinter, who adapted his script from the original.

Set for a mid-October release, the new version is some 85 minutes, compared to the original's running time of 138 minutes. Will a shorter tale be a better one?

Some tasty takes on this remake and other set for release are here.

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Best Movie Trivia Topic o' The Day: what do you think would be the most awesome movie props which you would like to own? USA Today writer Whitney Matheson poses the question and offers her choices, which include Indiana Jones' hat, Darth's lightsaber and Dude's carpet from The Big Lebowski. Meanwhile, at Cinematical, writer Scott Weinberg notes the best choices from readers, which include Rosebud from "Citizen Kane", the Holy Hand Grenade from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail', a can of Dapper Dan and the glowing suitcase from "Pulp Fiction."

Me? I'd love a Hattori Hanzo sword, the Maltese Falcon, some of that lab equipment from James Whale's "Frankenstein." Oh, and I would love to own Mr. Pointy, Buffy's favorite vampire stake.

The History Mash-Up, or Bush's Vietnam Redux

Five days ago I attempted to corral and correlate my thoughts and those of a few others in response to a brain-twisting speech on warfare and history from President Bush, and ultimately I found my efforts, though accurate, fell short of the mark I was hoping to make.

The overwhelming collision of factual errors, misconstructions and misrepresentations of history itself were not simple to catalog and comment upon.

Thank goodness for the insightful overview and spot-on analysis from Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings. I'll include some quotes from the post below, but I do hope you find the time to read the entire post:


"Before getting to the details, let's consider the overarching premise: that the choice we now face is whether to keep fighting and ultimately prevail, or to withdraw and abandon the Iraqis to their fate. As I see it, this premise is completely false. If we keep fighting, there is no reason whatsoever to think that we will "prevail", and every reason to think that we will simply sacrifice a lot of American and Iraqi lives for nothing. If we withdraw, we will abandon the Iraqis to their fate, and that is a horrible thing. But a lot turns on whether you think that there is anything we can do to avoid the bloodshed that will follow our withdrawal. I do not think that there is. If I'm right, then unless we are prepared to remain in Iraq until the end of time, we will, at some point, have to leave, and that bloodshed will probably follow.

If staying in Iraq will not lead us to "victory", but will only postpone the consequences of our withdrawing at a terrible cost both to us and to the Iraqis, then the decision before us looks very, very different. But Bush does not stop to consider this possibility. He frames the question in a way that ensures that the only possible answer is the one that he wants, and then, surprise, he gets it.

But Bush's fundamental assumption about the nature of our choice is not just false; it's a profound evasion of his own responsibility. I think it would have been very difficult to create a functioning, legitimate government in Iraq, difficult enough to make invading a bad idea even without all the other reasons to oppose it. However, I also think that success was not impossible. That it is impossible now is largely this administration's doing. They never, ever appreciated the magnitude of the task they had taken upon themselves, the care and concentration and resources that it would require, or the consequences of getting it wrong. They dismissed the plans of others, and forbade their own people to plan. They allowed an insurgency to develop and to arm itself from stores of weapons that they never bothered to secure. They did not send in enough troops to ensure basic security to the people of Iraq, and ridiculed those who suggested that this might cause problems down the line. They made catastrophic decisions -- disbanding the Iraqi army that our soldiers are now risking their lives trying to reconstitute, imposing a de-Baathification regime that the Iraqi parliament is now trying and failing to undo -- and they made them in a careless, thoughtless way that still takes my breath away.

And now, when all this carelessness and stupidity is having its inevitable effect, Bush pretends it doesn't exist. The only way we can fail, he says, is if the American people and their representatives withdraw their support -- ignoring completely his own role in making failure inevitable. And he adds that if we withdraw our support, that will constitute a failure of will and an abandonment of the Iraqi people -- ignoring completely both the extent to which his administration abandoned them from the outset, and the extent to which Americans' support of withdrawal reflects a loss of confidence in his administration and its basic competence."

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"If he had any shame, he'd be hiding under a table right now, wishing the earth would swallow him."

If You Can't Cope With The Game of Tag ...

A northern Colorado elementary school system has decided to ban the playing of Tag during recess.

Causes violence, say administrators, who have created a "Trouble-Free Playground" program.

At the risk of being callous and cruel, I can only offer this advice: if an elementary school game of tag is too tough and hard for a kid, then adolescence and adulthood will be shockingly unbearable to you.

Stay at home, pack yourself in cotton-wadding and bubble-wrap and disconnect the TV and the phone.

NOTE: While I did not like the advice at the time, when a football coach told me to "walk it off", the advice was fairly good. Get over it or do not play. (I opted not to play, became an 'athletic assistant' and got to ride on the bus with the cheerleaders and the band, which was waaaaaay more fun.)

Visit The Psychozilla Tribune

Yes, I said Psychozilla Tribune.

Why?

Because the world needs to know there is much in existence which is "far beyond the ken of mortal men."

Plus I am a contributor, and with the other writers, we'll try our best to keep you informed of things Which Defy Explanation and are Slightly Off Center.

Tracking Failure In The Gulf Coast After Katrina

The information and facts reveal little but staggering failure in the promises made to the cities, states and vast populations in the Gulf Coast region following the landfall of a natural disaster called Katrina two years ago.

Thank goodness that writers with Facing South have been covering the details of chaotic response and scant rebuilding with great skill. An assessment on the 2nd anniversary has a truly distressing conclusion - our government has deep structural flaws and has failed far more than it has succeeded.

As noted in this article, pollster James Zogsby says:

"Our polling shows Americans, faced with a major disaster, don’t want the federal government to solve all their problems by dominating state and local governments with bureaucratic dictates from Washington. Instead, they want a nimble federal government that acts as a clearinghouse, an organizer, a traffic cop for all levels of government and other organizations, including faith-based groups and non-governmental organizations."

Americans on the Gulf Coast received the worst after the disaster. And I can't help but notice the wounds in the South are like those in downtown Manhattan at 'ground zero', that no rebuilding has occurred and as late as last week, decaying buildings nearby are still deadly.

What has (or has not) happened in the coastal U.S.? What about the $116 billion meant to aid in the repair and recovery? Some answers in other reports from Facing South:

"Although it's tricky to unravel the maze of federal reports, our best estimate of agency data is that only $35 billion has been appropriated for long-term rebuilding.

Even worse, less than 42 percent of the money set aside has even been spent, much less gotten to those most in need. For example:

* Washington set aside $16.7 billion for Community Development Block Grants, one of the two biggest sources of rebuilding funds, especially for housing. But as of March 2007, only $1 billion -- just 6 percent -- had been spent, almost all of it in Mississippi. Following bad publicity, HUD spent another $3.8 billion on the program between March and July, leaving 70 percent of the funds still unused.

* The other major source of rebuilding help was supposed to be FEMA's Public Assistance Program. But of the $8.2 billion earmarked, only $3.4 billion was meant for nonemergency projects like fixing up schools and hospitals.

* Louisiana officials recently testified that FEMA has also "low-balled" project costs, underestimating the true expenses by a factor of four or five. For example, for 11 Louisiana rebuilding projects, the lowest bids came to $5.5 million -- but FEMA approved only $1.9 million.

* After the failure of federal levees flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received $8.4 billion to restore storm defenses. But as of July 2007, less than 20 percent of the funds have been spent, even as the Corps admits that levee repair won't be completed until as late as 2011.

The fact that, two years later, most federal Katrina funds remain bottled up in bureaucracy is especially shocking considering that the amounts Washington allocated come nowhere near the anticipated costs of Gulf rebuilding.

For example, the $3.4 billion FEMA has available to recover local public infrastructure would only cover about one-eighth of the damage suffered in Louisiana alone. But this money is spread across five states -- Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas -- and covers damage from three 2005 hurricanes, Katrina, Rita and Wilma."
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"Included in the $116 billion figure is $3.5 billion in tax breaks to jump-start business in Gulf Opportunity Zones -- "GO Zones" -- across 91 parishes and counties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. But many of the breaks have been of questionable benefit to Katrina survivors, like a $1 million deal to build 10 luxury condos next to the University of Alabama football stadium -- four hours from the Gulf Coast."

The critical failures may seem far removed from you or your town or your state. At least today. Who knows what lies ahead and who can you count on? Stacking up loyalists to leaders in Washington only serves that leader and those loyalists. Serving America, protecting American lives, all that seems of little concern.

(hat-tip to R. Neal at KnoxViews for sharing the info at Facing South)

SEE ALSO: video accounts and a Flickr photo petition

Fear

Is it case of nerves so frazzled by fear and fearful warnings? Or perhaps a case of over-stimulated, over-funded police departments? The bottom line is that two members of a running club face felony charges for outlining a running trail with flour:

"Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns."
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"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," [Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga] said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

hat-tip to Russ McBee

House Ethics Group Not Done With Davis Aide

It turns out that despite efforts from the 1st District Congressman David Davis, the House Ethics Committee is still reviewing what actions might be taken for Davis' PR Chief Timothy Hill who was caught removing factual details about contributors to Davis from the WikiPedia website.

Hill took the 'ethics training' classes earlier this year, and Rep. Davis said last week it was 'up to him' to decide what disciplinary actions Hill should get, which Davis said would be more ethics classes.

But the committee itself hasn't ruled on the case yet and likely won't until Congress re-convenes next month:

"[Chief of Staff Brenda Otterson said Friday] the committee asked her to clarify her Thursday announcement noting that Davis decided Timothy Hill should be required to take ethics training classes in September for editing Davis’ and Matthew Hill’s Wikipedia entries by using a congressional office computer.

“My communications with the committee regarding the issue at hand have been proactive, but informal and with committee staff, not formally with the committee itself. The committee has not taken any formal, official position on this matter,” Otterson said in an e-mail. “I just want to make it clear that this was an informal inquiry by phone with staff on the committee to see how we should handle this matter, and I sought advice and counsel from them — no formal investigation by them — just our seriously looking into what the precedents were, and to see how we should or could address the issue.”

Davis, during a stop Friday to tour Kingsport’s Holston Business Development Center (HBDC), said he didn’t think the House committee will take further action.

“It’s not worth going through the process. I don’t think there will be another statement coming out of that committee. They left it up to me to decide,” Davis, R-1st District, said before addressing business and government leaders at the center.

The U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is chaired by U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, who represents a Cleveland area district. Congress is currently in recess and will not convene until September."

Rep. Davis continues to hold the position that the deletion of facts from WikiPedia is no big deal, since WikiPedia is not a reliable source of information:

"This is not uncommon. (Wikipedia) has an edit button. I’m sorry Timothy actually took the word edit literally,” Davis said.

Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia project run by the Wikimedia Foundation (WF), encourages “appropriate participation” from politicians, WF Chairman Emeritus Jimmy Wales said in an e-mail.

“We hope that in the future, this participation will take the form of posting comments and requests to the discussion pages, rather than directly editing articles where people have a conflict of interest,” Wales stressed.

"Nobody pays any attention to Wikipedia,” Davis said. “My daughter is a college student and was told in her college classes ‘If you use Wikipedia, you will lose a letter grade.’”

The facts remain that Hill's work is likely a violation of ethics rules, despite protests to the contrary.

The full report is in the Kingsport Times-News.

Ripping Into The War Profiteers

One hell of an intense indictment on the private contracting in the 'war on terror':

"And just maybe, reviewing this appalling history of invoicing orgies and million-dollar boondoggles, it's not so far-fetched to think that this is the way someone up there would like things run all over -- not just in Iraq but in Iowa, too, with the state police working for Corrections Corporation of America, and DHL with the contract to deliver every Christmas card. And why not? What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureauc­racy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profit­eering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole.

It was an awful idea, perhaps the worst America has ever tried on foreign soil. But if you were in on it, it was great work while it lasted."

The full report from Rolling Stone is here.

National Guard Cheers For Iraq Withdrawal

A meeting this past weekend for the National Guard Association in Puerto Rico heard an earnest plea from the Governor of the island state which resonated loudly with the Guard's leadership:

"The war in Iraq has fractured the political will of the United States and the world,” he said at the opening of the 129th National Guard Association general conference. “Clearly, a new war strategy is required and urgently.”

Acevedo said sending more troops to Iraq would be a costly blunder.

“By increasing the number of National Guard and reserve troops, we put our soldiers in danger for the umpteenth time since the beginning of the global war on terrorism,” said the governor, adding that U.S. territories and states need Guard reserves in the event of natural disasters and domestic disturbances.

Acevedo, a Democrat, has called on Washington to withdraw troops from Iraq in the past, but has not been a vocal critic of the war.

Col. David Carrion Baralt, the Guard’s top official in Puerto Rico, said Acevedo received a standing ovation.

“Maybe the [officers] were not expecting those kinds of comments, but having a dialogue is the point of conferences like these,” Carrion said by phone."

Report from the Army Times.

The Return of Ted Haggard & Other News

Poor troubled quasi-evangelist Ted Haggard says he is so poor that he need you to give him money each month for the next two years, and then he'll be financially fine.

Despite receiving a settlement salary this year of $138,000 and owning a house worth $715,000, he says he needs your checks and cash for the next two years - which he says will bring you rewards in Heaven - as he goes to school to learn to be a counselor for a facility which has a dubious reputation.

"[The families With A Mission in] Colorado Springs mailing address is the same one to which Haggard is asking people to send donations. However, Secretary of State records show that Families With a Mission was administratively dissolved earlier this year, on Feb. 23. And the man who is listed as the president of Families With a Mission, Paul Gerard Huberty, appears to be the same Paul Huberty who was convicted in 1996 of having sex with a 17-year old girl while he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force stationed in Germany, and who later registered as a sex offender in Hawaii. The organization Family Watchdog, which tracks sex offenders, currently lists Huberty at the same Monument address that was the principal address of Families With a Mission."

The report from Colorado Confidential is here.

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Even though some strippers at Nashville's Deja Vu club were faking their erotic interests (with some possibly fake body enhancements) for a customer, it turns out he was faking them out too - with home-made $100 bills.

Smyrna resident Damon Armagost found out the Secret Service will investigate fake bills. Erotic fakery is no crime, however. It may be an art form.

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Forget changing with the times -- Time itself is being changed in Venezuela, which is also no longer the actual name of the nation, it's now the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. And now they are moving their clocks forward by half an hour by command of Hugo Chavez.

He has also announced a plan to build a group of artificial island-cities to claim sections of the Caribbean as his own.

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Tired of waiting for new episodes of the intermittent TV show appropriately called "Lost"??

Thanks to Todd McFarlane and his company of creators, a new series of "action figures" (NOT dolls, dammit) is on the way to a store near you. You can force them to act out your vision of the TV show.

Also available - The Hatch Play-Set. You get to decide what they do now! Make them build a raft and just go home!!

Bush's Use of History 'Perverse'

The speech this week from our President on the war in Iraq and previous warfare in US history left me, as usual, utterly confused as to the point and the methods used in his deductions. Historian John Dower of MIT heard the President reference a book by Dower on the reconstruction of Japan following World War 2 and was pretty angry at said usage:

"They’re desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse.

"In the case of Iraq,” Dower said, “the administration went in there without any of the kind of preparation, thoughtfulness, understanding of the country they were going into that did exist when we went into Japan. Even if the so-called experts said we couldn’t do it, there were years of mid-level planning and discussions before they went in. They were prepared. They laid out a very clear agenda at an early date."

Notable as well is the recent history - a 2002 editorial by Dower - in which he outlined 10 reasons why the success in Japan could not be applied to Iraq in any way. The interview with Dower is here.

A spokesperson for the White House responded to Dower's outrage:

"While professor Dower may disagree with the applicability of the quote, the president in no way endorses his view of Iraq."

Wha??

This careful picking and choosing of words and historical meaning is a disservice to our current deployment of troops and our hopes for success in Iraq. Instead, what I am constantly seeing, is a policy in search of a strategy, actions which go in search of meanings after the action has occurred.

Distorting the past, the present and fumbling for the future - is this the best the White House can do?

Camera Obscura - The Lookout; Sunshine; Lynch's Empire: and Finally Some Real Kubrick on DVD

It's time for some movie recommendations, meaning good movies, and only partly obscure. Also some fantastic news for fans (like me) of the late, great Stanley Kubrick.

I was eager to see "The Lookout" from writer/director Scott Frank, a highly praised screenwriter responsible for the stories in "Get Shorty", "Out of Sight" and "Minority Report." Those scripts were just first-rate work and showed a film noir style with modern settings, somehow both easy-going and taut at the same time. Characters are vividly captured in such works.

"The Lookout" does not disappoint, though it easily could have. The story follows Chris Pratt, played in an Oscar-worthy performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Chris was a hot-shot high school athlete from a very wealthy family until a senseless, random car crash scrambled his brains. Now he can just barely make it on his own, working as a night janitor, sharing an apartment with a blind friend (Jeff Daniels in an excellent supporting performance) and forced by his mental incapacities to keep a notepad with him at all times to remind him of what to do and when to do it.

Chris can remember his glorious past and yearns for it desperately - which plays perfectly into the plans of a group of violent thugs who want to rob a bank where Chris works. The story is carefully told from Chris' viewpoint and the details of his past and present are revealed in layers and through great writing and acting. It reminded me of the work of John Huston and other great crime-caper directors and writers.

As the movie reached it's final scenes I was almost cringing, fearing where and how the conflicts would be resolved. It is so carefully constructed and based in realism, it needed an ending true to the characters and not the needs of a Hollywood ending. Frank does end the story well, much to my surprise, and stays as real as the characters and the tale being told. It's one of the best films of 2007.

I also watched one of the highly praised films of 2006 this week, "Little Miss Sunshine". The reason, despite it's acclaim, that I was reluctant to watch is some shoddy marketing. I could not tell what the movie was really about and what I could tell did not interest me. The story of how the movie had to travel far and wide to reach production and distribution must be linked to the fact that it is so hard to easily summarize into a type. So let me first say - just watch it!

The movie follows a dysfunctional and comical family -- Dad (Greg Kinnear) is a bumbling and somewhat offensive wannabe Self-Help Expert, Grandad (Alan Arkin) has been kicked out of a home for the elderly because he's often snorting heroin ("I'm old! I can do what I want!!), Mom (Toni Collette) is patient and caring for all the loose ends of her family, and has just brought home her suicidal brother (Steve Carell), and her teenage son (Paul Dano) reads Nietzsche and has decided not to speak until he can get accepted as a fighter pilot, and young daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) is suddenly given a chance, amidst all the family chaos, to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. (See, very hard to make all that into an advertising headline!)

Very sharp and simple writing brings all the characters into hilarious life, matched by excellent acting by all the cast. The trio of Arkin, Kinnear and Carell is just brilliant. These three are at the top of their game, though Toni Collette manages to keep them all in line and remind them they are a family.

Not long after the family has decided to drive from New Mexico to California so Olive can compete in the pageant, the cheery yellow VW van they drive blows out the transmission. The only way they can drive it is to push it so Kinnear can get it into 3rd gear and the family then has to run from behind the van and jump in while it's moving. It's a funny scene, but clearly shows that despite all their anger and frustrations with each other, this family is a solid, unified unit. And it tells you that as the journey progresses, they'll find themselves firmly united. For all the weird elements here, this is a nice little family film, though it is for adults and not the kiddies to watch.

Now on to the more obscure recommendation of the day -- David Lynch's newest movie, "Inland Empire". I traveled through two counties to find a copy to rent, and found just one, which of course no one else bothered to rent or even notice. My good fortune!

"Inland Empire" is a three hour dream/nightmare and the companion disc is even longer, chock full of behind the scenes info. What's the movie about? Well it's kind of like stretching Lynch's subconscious musings over your own brain, raiding someone else's dreams and never being sure if you'll ever find your way out. Mysterious or meaningless, it all depends on you.

Actress Laura Dern plays an actress, who is cast in soap-opera style movie, which, it turns out is based on a script which has been cursed by Polish gypsies. And yeah, that makes me laugh to just write that down. As with most all of Lynch's work, there is mystery and character doubling and even a symbolic family of rabbits added for ... well, I'd have to watch it a few more times to figure that out.

I suppose you could say the movie is about the abuse of women (with the subtitle "A Woman In Trouble"), but it's also about how Lynch uses the screen as a canvas for abstract expression. On the extras disc, there is a fascinating behind the scenes collection of Lynch overseeing the large and the tiny elements to this movie, one of the best examples ever of how he works. He absolutely has this movie as a finished product in his mind, even though it may seem to be nothing more than a collection of his abstractions. Still, he certainly knows how to make his imaginings find life on the screen.

It was all shot on digital video, so at times the movie has the intimacy and immediacy of a news report or a home movie, sometimes so close it becomes claustrophobic, all blended together. Yes, I like the movie, though non-Lynch fans will think it dull and pointless. It isn't. It's a major mark from a truly cinematic composer.

Which brings me to the best DVD news I've heard in a long time. Warner Brothers is releasing both boxed-sets and individual DVDs for Stanley Kubrick's movies: "2001: A Space Odyssey", "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining," "Full Metal Jacket", and "Eyes Wide Shut." These double discs are loaded with extras, like commentary from Malcolm McDowell for "Clockwork", and the movies are finally remastered in widescreen. And also, "Eyes Wide Shut" will be offered in the unrated and rated versions, so those digital additions made to the orgy scene for the US release will be gone!!

I've been waiting for decent and original presentations of these classics, which hit the stores in late October.

UPDATE: Dennis Lim at Slate pegs the intentional look and feel of "Inland Empire", created by digital video:

"Watch Inland Empire on the DVD that came out last week and you sense that this lurid, grubby fantasy springs from deep within the bowels of YouTube as much as from inside its heroine's muddy unconscious. The DV that Lynch has come to cherish is the medium of home movies, viral video, and pornography—the everyday media detritus we associate more with television and computer monitors than movie theaters, more with intimate or private viewing experiences than communal ones. And not only does Inland Empire often look like it belongs on the Internet, it also progresses with the darting, associative logic of hyperlinks."

What the Heck is a 'Booze Belt'?

Some church folk and some business folk appealed to City Council members about where beer can be sold in the wee city of Morristown. The council approved a smaller boundary limit, from 500 to 150 feet. But the headline on the WBIR-TV report had me scratching my head:

"Booze Belt Loosened In Morristown"

It sounds kinda lewd. Sure hope Morristown has it's Booze Boxers (or Briefs) on. Please, oh please, no Booze Speedos.

The decision got the local comment boards rolling, and I thought this recent entry was most interesting:

"Two weeks ago when the ordinance was first read and passed, Mayor Barile stated that no matter the outcome of this ordinance, we must remember that as a community, we live together, we work together, we play together, and we WORSHIP together. Behind me, one of the ministers grumbled, "No, I won't worship with her."

"And that my friends, is the scariest problem of all, scarier than if one person has a beer or two with their meal...That's the problem of HATRED which made me, a citizen of Morristown and Hamblen County extremely ashamed and saddened of how our religious "leaders" reacted to this and ashamed that they are unable to see things differently. No one has to agree, but that's the beauty of being an American. You can be Baptist, Catholic, or even Jewish and still have the same rights and freedoms as each other."

Now where did I leave my Booze-Mobile?

It's Working, Eventually, Maybe

First, we were successful.

Yesterday, it was like Vietnam.

Now, Tennesse's senators say the "strategy is working" although the U.S. needs to adopt the bill from Alexander to change the strategy. He also added that the US should not interfere with who is leading the Iraq government.

????

The Defense From Rep. Davis - Everyone Does It

Fudging the facts about campaign contributions, or just eliminating them from WikiPedia, as Congressman David Davis' PR Chief did, gets a fairly lame defense - everyone does it:

"Moreover, we have learned that editing of Wikipedia files is a relatively common occurrence among many government and private sector offices."

Tom Humphrey's full report in the KNS is here.

Boy Suspended For Sketch That Kinda Looks Like Gun

Imaginary doodle or sign of insane violence? Maybe it's a teacher and principal who are already far too stressed out to remain in the public school system.

"An East Valley eighth-grader was suspended this week after he turned in homework with a sketch that school officials said resembled a gun and posed a threat to his classmates.

"Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the school is not allowed to discuss students’ discipline records. However, he said the sketch was “absolutely considered a threat,” and threatening words or pictures are punished.

"The school did not contact police about the threat and did not provide counseling or an evaluation to the boy to determine if he intended the drawing as a threat.

"The sketch was one of several drawings scratched in the margins of a science assignment that was turned in on Friday. The boy said he never meant for the picture to be seen as a threat. He said he was just drawing because he finished an assignment early."

Full story here.

Baking South

If you have a pulse and live in the South, this isn't news. But the weather is definitely making headlines and leaving many dead. A current round-up of the truly dire conditions in the Southeast was made by R. Neal at Facing South:

"Ninety-one percent of Tennessee has been parched by extreme drought, suffering major crop and pasture losses and widespread water shortages or restrictions. A growing area of the state, particularly the southern agricultural counties, is now in an exceptional drought emergency, facing devastating crop losses and widespread water emergencies as reservoirs, streams and wells dry up.

"It's so hot, TVA had to shut down a nuclear power reactor at Browns Ferry due to unacceptably high water temperatures in the Tennessee River caused by intake water used to cool the reactor core being discharged back into the river."

House Ethics Committee Probes Rep. Davis Aide

The U.S. House Ethics Committee will investigate the actions of Congressman David Davis' PR man, Timothy Hill over his malicious edits to WikiPedia, according to MensNewsDaily:

"Timothy Hill is the congressional press secretary working for U.S. Representative David Davis (R, TN-1) in Washington, D.C.

This news story originally broke as an article appearing within the August 11, 2007 edition of the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Tennessee) in which Hill first denied any personal involvement in the "blanking" vandalism of the Wikipedia articles David Davis (Tennessee politician) and Matthew Hill (Matthew Hill is a Representative within the Tennessee General Assembly and older brother of the press secretary) during a first interview with a KNS reporter. Hill later called back the KNS reporter for a second interview in which he reportedly admitted to using a government computer within the Washington, D.C. congressional office of U.S. Rep. David Davis to "edit" both the David Davis and Matthew Hill Wikipedia articles .

Hill repeatedly blanked six to eight paragraphs of reference text at each article pertaining to both U.S. Davis' and Tennessee Rep. Matthew Hill's political lobbying and/or campaign finance connections to Altace, Hoechst AGand former King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. CEO John M. Gregory. Hill's Wikipedia article edits were then linked through the article histories back to Rep. Davis's congressional office via an IP (internet protocol) number to the U.S. House of Representatives Information System."

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"There is also an IP number indication that U.S. Rep. David Davis' congressional office has also been anonymously "shadowing" online blogs with at least one blog (The Tennessee Waltz) originating in East Tennessee with content that was critical toward Rep. Davis for his voting against the federal 2007 Animal Fighting Prohibition Act."

If his office is tracking ALL the blogs/bloggers who have been critical of his actions in office, how busy will Davis and his staff be? And what is the point of such activity other than intimidation?

Kudos to The Editor for calling out Rep. Davis office for some questionable behavior.

(hat tip to ACK at Volunteer Voters for this report)

UPDATE: The KNS reports that Tim Hill will have to take some "Ethics Classes" for his stunt, though further disciplinary action is unlikely.

You Said It, You Own It

A bizarre rant/opinion from State Rep. Stacey Campfield (of which there are many to pick from) has brought national attention. And ridicule.

His response -- "the Left" are crazy "loons" who have no civil discourse.

Look, you said it all, Mr The Rep, word for word, and posted it proudly on your blog. It made no sense. It brought ridicule. No one made up your words for you. (No one spell-checked it either.)

You said it, you own it.

UPDATE: Snikta takes Mr The Rep to the mat with facts, not insults.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Elections

I'm starting to wonder what the function of a county election commission might be -- counting the votes, yes (or these days running a computer program to tally votes), but insuring proper ballots seems low on their list of duties.

In Hawkins County last year the election commission failed to make a proper ballot (they blame the city for not telling them there was a need for an election of school board members.) Bill Grubb's headline is simply "Oops!"

Are residents to assume the election commission knew nothing of vacancies? Did the outgoing members just stay quiet? Did potential candidates just stand back all helpless, never bothering to mention an election was needed?? How do you just forget an election is ahead?

Since it was forgotten, now the city mayor and alderman will just appoint two people. Was that the intention all along, carried out with the help of some willful ignorance? And if voters don't bother to seek information or require adherence to rules, then are they to blame as well?

And over in Knox County, it has taken half a year, thanks to a KNS lawsuit, for the highly dubious back-room dealmaking which led to the appointments of 8 commissioners and 4 countywide offices to get some type of correction. But now what? A "do-over" by those who made the original decisions makes less than no sense. A special election should be mandatory, given the fact voters had been cut out of the election process for so long.

The public was quite vocal about the shoddy and dubious 'appointments' in Knox County in Jan. of 2007, but when will it (if ever) be corrected?

A change in Knox County's charter for term limits went unnoticed by the election commission there for 18 years, which led to the last-minute, post election appointments.

Instead of election commissions waiting to be told what offices should be on the ballots, they need to be the authority for notifying one and all which offices are up for consideration.

On Blogging and Media

Traditional media seems to be at a loss as to this whole blogging/online world - what does it all mean and is it journalism or news or online gossip or what?

The best way I know to describe it is -- an online, real-time (though sometimes not) on-going discussion of news and events and personal accounts of the day-to-day world and public presentation of ideas and thoughts, all shared and broadcast outside the traditional media. No radio signals or publishing or televising traditions are followed.

Some who participate intensely follow the news, some share recipes for cupcakes, share pictures of kitties, detail their personal agonies and ecstasies, rant and rave or cheer and praise any and every thing imaginable. There simply is no nailing down of this mercurial online blob of activity. What I do know is the online world is really starting to bother the typical media outlets. As noted here on this post from MCB.

What I have found is that many (like me) read both online news sources and other blogs and we write and discuss those things, often linking readers directly to what we have read. Some folks do report on activities they have seen or participated in themselves. Some simply satirize or just insult and deride the various topics of the moment or the day or rail against pet peeves. There are many, many opinions offered. Finding validity or importance to any of it is a rather personal thing. In other words, the traditional yardsticks used to determine worth just do not apply.

The online world is a new and constantly evolving world, often the subject of stinging criticism from the same media sources it both by-passes and utilizes. I often wonder if the news and magazine or radio/tv sources will decide to stop providing free links to info and start charging high fees or mandatory and closed memberships. Some news media outlets, such as CNN, now offer a daily or minute by minute update from online users who capture images and information via cell phones or video cams. The recent YouTube presidential debate is a good example of finding free sources for news outlets and businesses.

Writing here on this blog is often a perplexing act -- I am one of literally billions of online voices, a small wave in a thousand-mile whirl of a hurricane racing across the planet. I may have some impact on a wave right next to me, but none on the waves miles and miles away.

Still, I peck away on this keyboard and inject it into the blogosphere, like everyone else, not knowing for certain where it will land or if it will land at all.

And your perception of whether the online talk is a billion jabbering ones and zeros signifying nothing or a vital new world of human interaction all depends on what point you perceive from. Reading online is a participation, not an outside peeking-in, because the reading requires a technology which you must engage and disengage in order to read it at all. It's a new thing.

But the value of it all -- that remains mostly a decision you must make. And as this activity continues to grow and expand, I think that critical viewpoint of determining value or worth is also now being turned toward the traditional media, and what many have found is how lacking said media has been.

Your thoughts and mileage may vary.

UPDATE: Press releases today are heralding a first-of-its-kind World Bloggers Convention this fall in Las Vegas... except bloggers not attached to a media company can NOT attend.

Nonsense

I have been wondering what it is that eludes some people about the crime of dogfighting. It isn't an act of Fine Southern Culture or a Basic Right of Southern Life.

The problem and confusion over the crime stems (possibly) from some deep-seated confusion over what dogfighting is and what it isn't. State Rep. Stacey Campfield provides a glimpse into the confusion with this statement:

"Dog fighting is cruel and inhumane. But if Vick could have figured out a way to pit two unborn babies against each other in a fight to the death, maybe we'd outlaw killing children as quickly as we rushed to enhance penalties for crimes involving our pets."

Honestly, what the hell does the above even mean? It's pure crap.

Try sticking to the issue at hand rather than playing a miserable game of bait-and-switch politics. Shameful, really shameful Mr. The Rep.

(hat tip to Aunt B. for pointing out Campfield's nonsense)


SEE ALSO: The dogfighting in Morristown takes place in the middle of town, less than half a mile away from the Sheriff's Dept.

Is Morristown Talking?

Noodling about on the internets, I've been searching for other bloggers and blog-keepers in Hamblen County and haven't really found anyone. I thought that was most curious. There are many, many folks connected via Charter Communications (like me) but where are they talking/writing/commenting about the world around them?

There are some MySpacers, to be sure, but that wasn't what I was looking for.

Then I ran across the many forums for Morristown and Hamblen County at Topix.net.

Not a pretty thing, I'm sad to say.

It's a free-wheeling, wild west, guns a'blazin, anything goes, nothing held back host of discussions and debates. And while that appears to be fairly normal on the necessarily open internet, some of the comments and debates can be pretty intense or wildly ridiculous.

Having overseen some public discussion via my old talk radio show, I do consider the open public discussions are still a new and developing habit locally. While the locals (on Topix) are willing to share info and argue, I do hope the discourse improves with time.

Some intense debates currently are about local problems with dogfighting, concerns about the Sheriff's Dept. and the Humane Association, concerns about immigrants (legal and not) and more happy talk on the news about the Morristown Girl's Softball World Championship.

So on one hand, I am delighted to see/read all the online activity. On the other, I hope some of those involved find a higher degree of civility -- but that will arrive with more use and practice.

Camera Obscura - Boll Madness, Directors as Actors, and DVD Super-Collections

ABC has a new show, "iCaught", which spends an hour playing videos from YouTube. Lame, lame, lame. It is just short of an admission that the entertainment available on the internets is far better than what is on television. Oh sure, there have been "reports" asking "How do you make a video which will get millions of hits?" but let's be honest ABC. The reason the show is on is that it costs almost nothing to make, needs little writing, and is little more than filler infomercial for YouTube. I wonder who this appeals to? Other than people who never go on the internets. What's next? The LOLcats Adventures Hour? (Please note that idea is mine and if a TV station uses it, I'm suing.)


The Ed Wood of the 21st Century, director Uwe Boll, fresh from fighting (no really fighting) in the ring with his critics, held a preview for his latest ... um ... "masterpiece", called "Postal." Wired magazine sent a writer to the show and he offers a hilarious take on the event: (via Cinematical)

" ... Chris Kohler describes the film's story as being about "a guy shooting a bunch of people in order to stop Al Qaeda and a religious cult let by Dave Foley from unleashing on the world a batch of avian bird flu hidden in a shipment of penis-shaped children's toys voiced by Verne Troyer (pull the string and it says 'only my father and my priest can touch me there!')"

Cinematical also features a report this week on famous film directors who performed as actors in movies, and notes, of course, Orson Welles in "The Third Man" and John Huston in "Chinatown." (Huston as Noah in his version of "The Bible" is a true comedy gem, by the way.) I would add a few to their list, like Martin Scorcese's terrifying turn as an angry boyfriend spying on his girlfriend from the back of Robert De Niro's cab in "Taxi Driver" and David Cronenberg as the only good part of the Clive Barker movie "Nightbreed", where he plays a nasty serial killer. And though brief, Croneberg does have some fun in "Jason X". Do you know some other director-as-actor movies worth noting?

As of this weekend, we now have four versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", the newest is a bona fide disaster-behind-the-camera starring Nicole Kidman called simply "Invasion." And while the 1970s version from Phillip Kauffman is an eerie and creepy Nixonian nightmare, the 1950s original take on Jack Finney's novel just can't be beat. It follows Finney's story the best and has a slowly building sense of terror which is most impressive. Even the tacked on 'studio ending' does not harm the movie.



The original version also has a short performance by Sam Peckinpah as a plumber. So there's that. But the acting, the music and the careful build of paranoia as pod-created aliens take over everyone is simply so well done, that there is no need to re-invent it.

And since I'm talking about multiple versions of one movie, director Ridley Scott wins that award, hands down, as he releases a massive 5-disc ultimate collection of his movie "Blade Runner," which comes with it's own shiny, futuristic briefcase. The movie(s) in this collection will give you a headache as you try and keep up with new version after new version. The set includes the 'brand new' cut of the movie, for which Scott actually filmed new scenes and dialog last year, the original theatrical cut, the international cut, the first Director's Cut from Scott and even a working cut which has even more changes.

Ridley, dude -- stop. Just stop. Put the movie down and walk away.

Remaking a movie might perhaps be left to Jack Black and Mos Def, who play video store owners who decide, after accidentally erasing their entire stock of movies, to go ahead and remake some famous films themselves and rent the new versions to their customers. Based on this preview of Michel Gondry's "Be Kind, Rewind", out early next year, I will make every effort to see this:

Revealing the Inner Oatney?

Kat has noticed it. So have I.

It refers to some apparent blind spots in the vision of certain GOP supporters/bloggers, namely Dave Oatney.

Maybe it's just that he sees his fave political party as incapable of error. Like excusing Rep. David Davis for protecting criminals engaging in dogfighiting 'cause the good old boys like it and seeing Biblical justification for Rep. John Duncan's legislation regarding credit.

This isn't just a knock against Oatney for it's own sake - rather that, to me and Kat, it seems he wants to eat his cake and have it too.