Defunding Public Broadcasting Represents A Failing America

Plans put forth by Republicans like Rep. Doug Lamborn to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting reveal a basic lack of understanding when considering the value of arts, education, and public discourse for our society.

And the cost currently of funding - some $420 million - is just a bit more than one dollar per year from every American. That's too much to help produce and promote the arts in America? Too much to promote educational programming for children? Too much to provide public debate on the issues of our nation?

What a shame to see so little vision from our leaders.

While I'm sure public broadcasting will endure - thanks to the millions and millions of Americans and tens of thousands of businesses who give financial support to the CPB - this loss of valuing arts, education and much more has a crushing impact on our society.

Beyond the truly meaningless "savings" the Republicans proclaim, what lies at the root of the issue is a cultural emptiness among our leaders in government - to no longer place value on any of the arts - music, film, dance, theatre - and no value on the promotion of literacy for children.

An individual won't get rich on tax dollars working in public broadcasting - but they can enrich the spirit of our nation and our creativity, which seeks something other than celebrity, fame or high profit returns. Explorations of our world and ourselves which are limited to whatever the market allows will present a most hollow, shallow culture.

States, cities and county governments could easily fall into this abrupt dismissal of valuing arts and education, which is barely acknowledged even now. Perhaps even at the best, government funding has only been a token, but there is an acknowledged value - without that, many generations to come will also fail to grasp the importance of arts, education and a richly diverse cultural world.

Such rejection will not eliminate the human desire for more than tangible, bankable products. It will simply mean that America will abdicate being a leader, making us a distant follower, as we are today in science and math.

Sadly, we'll likely see Tennessee's congressional delegation embrace this dumbing down of our culture in hopes of being re-elected. What a high price for their power.

Camera Obscura: The Horrible Mistake of Remaking 'The Wild Bunch'

Bad ideas float up and out of Hollywood so often, you'd think it was a required habit.

Recently a Warner Brothers exec, Jessica Goodman left the studio, and some projects she had shelved were dug up and are now being hoisted about town as 'good ideas'. That includes a proposal to shoot a remake of Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece, "The Wild Bunch".

This is ridiculous and dangerous. Dangerous because any producer worth two cents knows full well that Peckinpah will claw himself out of the grave and haunt the living hell out of anyone who tries to tinker with "The Wild Bunch." If Sam were alive, he'd take far more grievous action. A producer or writer or director who does not fear Peckinpah, even today, is doomed. Remakes are common, true, but you just don't remake a masterpiece unless you desire to be made a fool.

Word this week that Clint Eastwood is exploring a remake of "A Star Is Born" starring singer Beyonce causes no ill will - the movie has been made 3 times already and a new one can not be any worse that the Barbara Streisand-Kris Kristofferson version from the 1970s.

But "The Wild Bunch" is solely and utterly the creation of Peckinpah. It's not based on some novel which is open to differing versions. Peckinpah punched an un-healable hole in cinema history with his movie, and no one - ever - is going to be able to match or top that creation. Not. Ever.

It's a flawless movie. As one writer recently noted, the movie is torn from a fever dream in Peckinpah's skull, no other person could have made it. And the movie isn't a 'franchise' to be cultivated.

It breathes and moves like a bone-weary fighter struggling to stand for one more fight, much as Peckinpah himself. That's his guts and his worries and his strengths up on that screen.


Peckinpah and actor William Holden on set

And yes, the movie is one of my all time favorites to watch, since it never fails to offer something rewarding with each viewing. True, for many years, the movie was shown only in a shorter version than Peckinpah made, as the studio wanted a movie that would allow theaters to reload ticket buyers faster. But even that shorter version forever changed the way films were made, especially action films.

The 144 minute version fleshes out the past of the character Bishop Pike (William Holden), exploring how mistakes he made in the past with his friends have haunted him and motivate him to never fail a friend again, no matter the personal cost. Also, the opening scenes of the movie as bounty hunters gun down anyone in their effort to kill off Pike and his gang are longer - Peckinpah's goal was to make everyone watching feel that keen horror and shock of actually being in a gun battle and the terrifying toll such violence takes.

There's so much to be said of the movie - the complex layering of relationships, the unflinching examination of violence, the brilliant editing which creates tension and terror, the attention to the details of place and time, the performances of the actors, the music, and on and on.

Film critic Roger Ebert penned a great essay on the restored version in 2002 on the genius of the movie, which you can read here. He also writes about the day the first time the movie was screened for some seriously stunned critics back in 1969:

"After a reporter from the Reader's Digest got up to ask "Why was this film ever made?" I stood up and called it a masterpiece; I felt, then and now, that "The Wild Bunch" is one of the great defining moments of modern movies."

Masterpiece. That's it.

One imagines the producer or studio which aims for a remake of "The Wild Bunch" also has plans to remake "Citizen Kane", or "The Godfather", or "Dr. Strangelove". All fools' errands.

And true, a remake of Peckinpah's controversial "Straw Dogs" is headed to theaters this year. Since the movie was based on a novel, I say have at it. But the movie was not welcomed in 1971 and I doubt it will find much of an audience in 2011 - still, have at it, I say, as new interpretations on film of a book are quite common and can often be well done - see the new version of "True Grit" for proof of that.

Yet, Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" is the work of an artist at his best, a personal story of honor and of deciding when to take a stand, no matter the outcome. And the outcome was not good for Pike or his gang, just as Peckinpah's constant battles with studio heads, alcoholism and his own demons ended badly for Peckinpah.

That's a story than can never be remade.

Outrage at the Outrage of Congressman Cohen

There's a momentary online/news-cycle of outrage 'n infamy swirling around Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen for comments he made this week criticizing opponents to the Health Care Reform Act. He said there was a "big lie" made when claims were made that the law was a government takeover of health care, and he attributed the power of a repeated lie to Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels.

Here's a link to the actual speech from Rep. Cohen (I did not hear him say the word "Nazi".)

Predictably, outrage at his outrage followed from Republicans.

Likewise, a steady defense of Rep. Cohen's comments and views emerged too, such as from TN blogger Vibinc. Vibinc points to the reality that "propaganda" tactics harm the nation, and he's right about that.

However.

Everyone, including the congressman, is having a tough time accurately detailing where the phrase "big lie" or about repeating lies originates.

It was Lenin who said "A lie told often enough becomes truth."

Hitler - according to WikiPedia - coined the phrase "Big Lie" in his 'Mein Kampf" book, claiming Jews used such a tactic to lay blame for World War 1.

Goebbels wrote that is was the British who used "big lies" to create truth. "The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it."

In the U.S., a psych profile from the OSS on Hitler during the war reads:

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

As Vibinc wrote - the tactic being overworked in our time is relentless propaganda.

Truth or facts are dubious clouds we might perceive but cannot grasp as they shoulder out the sun above. And apparently, for most folks, history is a murky place from which we draw out incorrect information at a steady clip.

Passionate cries of outrage overlap and fill news reports and political commentary, obscuring the issues. Word games obscure policy debates, and we all lose when that happens.

Loving The Technology That Does Not Love In Return

I'm well aware that I have "friends" and "relationships" with people I have never met face to face. We interact with a technological extension I (or they) have made - blogs, email, social networks, etc.

There are also "bots" and other types of software which try and capture my attention, want me to respond, to form a "relationship". Some folks, for instance, use Facebook and become "friends" with a manufactured, non-human product. One can, for example, be a "friend" with Tide detergent. Tide's Facebook page reads on Jan. 2, 2011 - "Tide wants to know if you made any New Year's resolutions?"

It's rather unsettling to consider that a box of detergent "wants to know" anything.

Professor Sherry Turkle at MIT has been studying the impacts of technology on society and has a new book on the way out, "Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other", which examines the current usage/relationships with social networking, with robotics and other similar issues. She's considering how the habits we cultivate now with technology might play out --

"During her research, Turkle visited several nursing homes where resi­dents had been given robot dolls, including Paro, a seal-shaped stuffed animal programmed to purr and move when it is held or talked to. In many cases, the seniors bonded with the dolls and privately shared their life stories with them.

"There are at least two ways of reading these case studies," she writes. "You can see seniors chatting with robots, telling their stories, and feel positive. Or you can see people speaking to chimeras, showering affection into thin air, and feel that something is amiss."

In the article linked above, another researcher, David Levy, considers that robots which might attend to the elderly or babysit to be a wonderful concept, but Turkle views such ideas dangerous:

"David Levy is saying: For someone who is having trouble with the people world, I can build something. Let's give up on him. I have something where he will not need relationships, experiences, and conversations. So let's not worry for him. For a whole class of people, we don't have to worry about relationships, experiences, and conversations. We can just issue them something."

Turkle continues: "Who's going to say which class of people get issued something? Is it going to be the old people, the unattractive? The heavy-set people? Who's going to get the robots?"

Levy's response: "Who is going to get the robots is an ethical question, and I am no ethicist. What I am saying is that it is better for the 'outcasts' to be able to have a relationship with a robot than to have no relationship at all."

It's a fascinating article worth reading and considering and I look forward to reading Turkle's new book. I have many, many books, and some are among my favorite things to read. But I doubt a book ever has thought of me.

Time For Congress to Telecommute to Work?

In November of 2010, The Telework Enhancement Act was signed and adopted by the Federal government. It requires Fed agencies to develop policies and guidelines so that all Fed employees can use our Internet to telecommute to work. Democratic Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland sponsored the bill, which aims to reduce the cost of agency operations and allow employees to work from home or other locations to get their jobs done. Rep. Sarbanes has more on the new law here.

Today, Oak Ridge resident and writer Richard Cook takes the next logical step in this area and proposed in his editorial in the Tennessean that Congress itself needs to adopt telecommuting to conduct business too. It would keep them at home in their districts more often, and keep representative in closer touch with constituents and reduce the time they spend being surrounded by lobbyists - and perhaps offer much more to the nation:

"Members now live in Washington. They get soaked in the power, the money and the lobbyists with the money. It stains their perspective and warps their judgment. They forget whom they work for. A virtual Congress will have them live among the people they serve.

The public's business can be conducted online, while politicians attempt to be in line with their constituents.

Committee meetings can be held online, with members participating from their offices or even a local elementary school. That will be a wonderful civics lesson.

Citizens can travel a few hours to attend these Internet committee meetings. Lobbyists can attend those committee meetings, too. That would be a civics lesson of a different sort.

A virtual Congress will give members real time feedback on their decisions. Congressmen will vote online in the late morning and then will have to defend their vote at the local Rotary Club luncheon a few minutes later.

Richard is not alone in his call to consider such a change.

Of course, the Always-Oppose-Obama crowd sees nothing but horror when it comes to any change in the way government works, as evidenced by this response to telecommuting from Instapundit, who worries it would make it impossible to fire someone.

Since Congress has required every Federal agency to develop telecommuting practices, then why not Congress itself?

TN Tea Party Supports More Stupidering of History for Students

Those damn dirty history books has just done plain ruint Amurica and TeaNessee and hit all needs a good cleanin' 'n white-warshin'!

"The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”

Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

Will the Tennessee Legislature adopt these ideas? I'll bet the answer is going to be "Youbetcha!"

New Designs for Your Cup of Joe

I'll have to ask for some patience from readers as I work on a variety of design changes for this blog.

Which means this site is under reconstructive efforts for the next few days and apologies for any inconvenience.

Some additions added already - some buttons added to each post to make it easier if you wish to email posts, put them on Facebook or Twitter, or just to share them with others on the InterWebs.

Inhalable Food and Disappearing Dogs

Winter's cold hands have been far too familiar this first month of 2011.

Attempts on my part to find something more light-hearted or at least less dire to share have been floundering against obstacles real and imagined.

But perhaps surreal information can lighten the load or at least distract us from the cold.

For instance - breathable food. Efforts to create a "food inhaler" for breathable chocolate have been underway for the last few years. While I had always thought "inhaling your food" to be a negative assessment of consumption habits, as usual, I was wrong.

"Le Whif traversed the entire idea funnel. It started as a catalyst of education, soon became a catalyst of cultural exploration, and went on to be a catalyst of commercial sales revenue that helped keep our labs running. It also inspired new culinary art and science experiments, from whiffed coffee, which launched in the spring of 2010, to whiffed vitamins, scheduled to launch later within the year. And on the horizon was yet another design, Le Whaf, which I conceived with the French designer Marc Bretillot as a new way to "drink by breathing." This was a new form of food--a standing cloud of flavor that falls between a liquid and a gas, just as whiffed food fell somewhere between a solid and a gas."

What, no Bacon Whiffing?

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Taking a picture of your black dog can be quite problematic. As evidence:


The image is one of a series of photos which is also part of a series of books on repeated photos of the same subject. I liked this one best, which chronicles a series of photos of a Dutch lady over the years (from age 16 to age 88!!) as she shoots targets in a fairground shooting gallery.

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The quiz show Jeopardy is prepping for a giant IBM computer to compete against the show's human champions in February. IBM says their computer, dubbed Watson, operates at 80 teraflops. (If I knew what that meant, I could be impressed.)

Palin Flailing and Gun-Totin' Beck

Hoo boy.

If, in your time of trouble, you consider it valuable to turn to the twittering celebrity Sarah Palin, then you'll be rewarded with ... well, let Steve Benen explain:

"Palin has been unusually quiet since Saturday's massacre in Tucson, and as interest in the toxicity of political rhetoric has grown more intense, her role in cheapening and dragging down our discourse has generated a fair amount of attention.

Today, Palin broke her silence issuing a video, which is nearly eight minutes long. It's a standard tactic -- the right-wing media personality can't subject herself to questions or muster the confidence to deal with cross-examinations, so to communicate, Palin's forced to hide behind statements others write for her, and then upload them. It's not exactly the stuff Profiles in Courage are made of.

In any case, the statement/video is about what one might expect. Palin, speaking from Alaska with an American flag over her right shoulder, has no regrets and no apologies to offer. Instead, she's concerned about "blood libel."

"If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."

I don't imagine Palin actually knows what "blood libel" means, but historically, it's referred to the ridiculous notion of Jews engaging in ritual killings of Christian children. More commonly, it's a phrase intended to convey the suffering of an oppressed minority.

In other words, Palin is apparently feeling sorry for herself, again, using a needlessly provocative metaphor that casts her as something of a martyr.

I was also struck in the same paragraph by the notion that media figures are "inciting" "hatred and violence." Palin didn't cite any examples, so I don't know what she's referring to, but there is something odd about the accusation. As she sees the events in Tucson, a "deranged, apparently apolitical criminal" committed a despicable act, but that's no reason to "claim political rhetoric is to blame." That's a defensible argument. But if that's the case, why is Palin concerned about criticisms from pundits "inciting the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn"?

Excessive political rhetoric is fine, but criticizing those who engage in excessive political rhetoric is fomenting violence? How does that work, exactly?

Palin went on to note that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) participated in the reading of the Constitution on the House floor last week, and happened to read the First Amendment.

"It was a beautiful moment and more than simply "symbolic," as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just 'symbolic.' But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive."

I agree that responding to the tragedy by curtailing the First Amendment would be a mistake, but let's be clear about the context: what Palin chooses to overlook is that Giffords has taken a leading role in trying to lower the temperature of those who engage in rhetorical excesses, and specifically complained publicly about Palin's use of rifle crosshairs targeting Giffords' district just last year.

To suggest that Giffords and Palin are on the same page on this is at odds with reality.

And with that, the former half-term governor will probably go back into hiding for a while, content with the knowledge that the media will air her video over and over again, and that she need not have the courage to answer questions to get her message out.

Palin had an opportunity to step up, demonstrate some real leadership, and prove to everyone that she deserves a role on the national stage. That opportunity is now gone, and Palin has failed."

Maybe you prefer to await the Word from Glenn Beck - turns out he gives ya words and pictures, calling for condemnation of violence while playing with his handgun.

Hoo boy.

Arizona Assassin - Fueled By Political Rage?

The grim and deadly attack on a member of Congress, a child, a Federal judge, and the public in general all gathered for a question and answer session with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is prompting much speculation and debate - especially on the notion that America's current political climate is a hothouse of hatred and blossoming violence.

Let's be honest about one thing - America, along with the most of the planet, is a world of political violence. People do horrifying things to one another while claiming to pursue higher purposes.

The assassin's motives and "reason" are largely unknown at this time. That may change, or the speculation may forever muddy the questions about his motives.

In the last few years, certainly, the language and ideas swirling together in the realm of politics has been vicious, violent and hateful. But, seeking blame and/or reason for the heinous attack makes a chilling error, according to some thoughts from Slate writer Jack Shafer, whose thoughts bear the headline "The awesome stupidity of calls to tamp down political speech in wake of the Gifford's shooting" -

"The call by Sheriff Dupnik and others to take our political conversation down a few notches might make sense if anybody had been calling for the assassination in the first place, which they hadn't. And if they had, there are effective laws to prosecute those who move language outside of the metaphorical. I can't be overly critical of the sheriff. After all, he's the one who has spent his career witnessing how threats can turn into violence: gang wars, contract killings, neighborhood rows, domestic disputes, bar arguments, and all the rest.

The great miracle of American politics is that although it can tend toward the cutthroat and thuggish, it is almost devoid of genuine violence outside of a few scuffles and busted lips now and again. With the exception of Saturday's slaughter, I'd wager that in the last 30 years there have been more acts of physical violence in the stands at Philadelphia Eagles home games than in American politics.

Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power.

Shafer also adds sarcasm to his article (perhaps not the wisest decision given the deaths caused by the assassin) -

"The wicked direction the American debate often takes is not a sign of danger but of freedom. And I'll punch out the lights of anybody who tries to take it away from me."

In response, Alex Parene at Salon provides a host of speakers, videos and more to catalog the constant drumbeat in recent years for violence against those in government:

"At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?

At some point soon, it will happen. It’ll be over an innocuous issue."

Parene's list is hardly complete, but it provides a good glimpse of those seeking power being willing to offer language which is meant to incite action, from /radio/TV/internet rants and from politicians too.

"When this is the bed you make, you can't be too shocked when monsters hide under it."

And Arizona is certainly in the grip of political and unprecedented financial turmoil on almost every front, as this article from Harper's in 2010 clearly indicates - cutting out programs to aid the sick, the poor, those seeking public education and much, much more.

Just last week I wrote about how the cable "news" outlets present information as a battle between two forces locked forever in combat - but it's a "battle" created to gain ratings, not to report information for the public good. So these tactics too bring distorted realities forward. It's a game in which we all lose.

Will we continue to fall under the intoxicating spell of anger or will we begin instead to demand better of ourselves and of those who claim to speak for us?

SEE ALSO: Newcoma writes about the tragedy and the questions left in it's wake.

Camera Obscura: The Beatles Version of Lord of the Rings; Spielberg's New Sci-Fi TV Plans

In the mid-60s, John Lennon was apparently pushing hard to get the rights to make a 'Lord of the Rings' movie and also wanted Stanley Kubrick to direct. It all sounds bogus to me, as Kubrick had not made his special effects opus "2001" yet.

But several folks agree the plan was for John to play Gollum, Paul for Frodo, George for Gandalf and Ringo for Sam. Reports claim that it was Tolkien himself who refused to go along with it. So, in honor of what might have been, the above poster was created and more posters are offered here.

The Beatles were keen on getting some more cinematic efforts underway, including a version of The Three Musketeers and providing music for Disney's 'The Jungle Book". A complete list of other failed film projects is here.

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i09 has a full rundown on all the fantasy and science-fiction shows ahead in 2011 here.

Most interesting in my view - two produced by Steven Spielberg. First up, scientists and soldiers flee a dying Earth in 2149 and travel back in time to prehistoric Earth. The series is called "Terra Nova" and set to debut in mid-summer.

The other show is about life on Earth after aliens invade, titled "Falling Skies".

Your Digital Afterlife

The Library of Congress claims to be archiving all the Twitter posts, but how will your loved ones handle your digital remains? If you want to make sure your digital legacy is handled according to your desires, then perhaps it's time now to start digital estate planning.

"One estimate pegs the number of U.S. Facebook users who die annually at something like 375,000. Academics have begun to explore the subject (how does this change the way we remember and grieve?), social-media consultants have begun to talk about it (what are the legal implications?) and entrepreneurs are trying to build whole new businesses around digital-afterlife management (is there a profit opportunity here?). Evan Carroll and John Romano, interaction-design experts in Raleigh, N.C., who run a site called TheDigitalBeyond.com, have just published a tips-and-planning book, “Your Digital Afterlife,” with advice about such matters as appointing a “digital executor.”

And as previously mentioned here - The E-Tomb.

If you've got a wide range of personal videos, photos, tweets, emails, and online writings, would you like a construct created which could speak for you and which others could converse with after your flesh has shambled off the organic stage? Soon, there will be an app for that.

Publisher's Shameful Censorship of 'Huckleberry Finn'

An Alabama-based publisher is making news as their new edition of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" will be censored to remove what they call "hurtful epithets" and to halt "preemptive censorship" of Twain's novel. But the motive is most likely to A.) get publicity and B) sell books.

So no use of the word "injun" and the word "slave" will replace the word most often referred to today as the "n-word". It's a cheap shot at fame or infamy from the publisher, NewSouth Books, which offers a defense here and even has a blog on their actions here.

"We may applaud Twain’s ability as a prominent American literary realist to record the speech of a particular region during a specific historical era, but abusive racial insults that bear distinct connotations of permanent inferiority nonetheless repulse modern-day readers. Twain’s two books do not deserve ever to join that list of literary “classics” he once humorously defined as those “which people praise and don’t read,” yet the long-lofty status of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn has come under question in recent decades. In this connection, it seems relevant to remember that Twain habitually read aloud his day’s writings to an audience gathered on the porch of his summer retreat overlooking Elmira, New York, watching and listening for reactions to each manuscript page. He likewise took cues about adjusting his tone from lecture platform appearances, which provided him with direct responses to his diction. As a notoriously commercial writer who watched for every opportunity to enlarge the mass market for his works, he presumably would have been quick to adapt his language if he could have foreseen how today’s audiences recoil at racial slurs in a culturally altered country."

Wrong.

The assumption is that the novels are fundamentally flawed. And it's likewise sad to see educated people and publishers embrace censorship rather than scholarship. By dropping the language the publishers remove and reconstruct the history and the themes of the book, which focused a laser-sharp attention on prejudice and the destruction that prejudice leveled at our nation.

Claims that the changes will halt the books from being banned, to allow for more school-age youngsters to read the books are deceitful. Any Twain scholar worth a dime can offer up Twain's own response to censorship of his work and his response to allowing children to read his works:

"I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave."

Such a deft handling of idiotic worries of so-called community standards.

Another defense of the censorship - strike that - another defense of changing the entire meaning of the novel claims:

"New South is simply giving educators and other readers the option of enjoying Twain's work without tripping over a derogatory term, especially one coming from its hero."

Wrong. The derogatory worldview Twain presents is precisely what he wanted readers to confront. If you remove the challenging language, what's left? A light-hearted romp across the countryside? If the characters don't address the reality that many in America at that time viewed Jim as sub-human just because of his skin color, then the book's meaning is gutted. If a teacher wants students to read Twain's work absent it's meaning and context, then what is it exactly they are teaching?

And one more note for these alleged "scholars" about what kids today read or are capable of comprehending - the top bestselling Young Adult book last year? The Hunger Games: a futuristic tale where the government selects a boy and a girl from various districts to fight to the death on live TV.

The Empty Theatrical Motions of Cable News

I was momentarily perplexed during the holidays watching the alleged news on cable television. Numerous shows - especially those on the CNN which is hemorrhaging viewers - are barely gossip. Their format tends to be A) report some story and then B) get viewers to comment on the story via Twitter or Facebook or email or sometimes by phone. That's news? That's reporting?

An old news axiom says if a reporter goes out "on the street" and gets one person to support something, another to oppose it and a third who has no opinion, then that reporter has submitted nothing as news.

This "what do you think - lets us know" formula has only brought tumbling ratings to CNN, but they continue.

Other cable news outlets - FOX and MSNBC - offer, at best, what I call the Bobblehead Report. An anchor sits at a desk, inserts of two or three other "professional commentators" are added, and you the viewer are left with nothing again. Oh, they argue passionately - one supporting, one opposing, one unsure of anything - offering the viewer another slab of nothing. At best, the anchor then gets a "final word" claiming that "word" finally defines the issue at hand.

At the end of 2010, a report on cable news ratings showed that the O'Reilly Report was the top-rated cable news show, followed by other FOX shows hosted by Hannity and Beck and Sustern, etc etc. But the real story is that the average high ratings of O'Reilly's 3.1 million viewers is pretty low among all cable viewing. The wrestling broadcasts of WWE, for example, tend to be highest, with some 5.7 million viewers, followed by more WWE, NCIS reruns and Spongebob Squarepants.

As I said, I was momentarily perplexed - then I realized that cable news is competing for viewers who watch wrestling (in far higher numbers). So to compete, news has become a verbal wrestling match. Cable news cannot and does not offer information, in the same way that wrestling is not presenting a sport.

Both simply present spectacle as entertainment.

Writer Roland Barthes laid out this scenario - which matches today's cable news business - quite succinctly in 1957:

"The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. ... The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so; it abandons itself to the primary virtue of the spectacle, which is to abolish all motives and all consequences: what matters is not what it thinks but what it sees.

"Thus the function of the wrestler is not to win: it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him.

"Wrestling therefore demands an immediate reading of the juxtaposed meanings, so that there is no need to connect them. The logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling-fan, while on the contrary a boxing-match always implies a science of the future. In other words, wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function: each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result."

See Also: O'Reilly: "I saved Spongebob single-handedly."

Camera Obscura: Secrets of IMDb; Seeking Greta Gerwig; Olga Kurylenko Battles Romans

For most of us, the Internet Movie Database has always been there. It has always been the best and most complete movie information site ever. Ever.

And while I've been profoundly grateful for it, I had not really considered how it came to be - until this report last Friday told the tale of Colin Needham, who created the site, still manages it and how it became an industry and a public juggernaut.

Colin is 43, and began the site with information he collected himself in 1990. Today, pros use the site in ways no one foresaw:

"I have been told that when people ring up for an appointment with someone important in Hollywood the personal assistant or secretary checks where they are ranked on IMDb before their call is put through."

And Colin, who remains as CEO though he sold the company to Amazon in 1998 for cash and stock (oh, that has to be an stunningly wealthy investment) now walks the red carpet himself.

"I took my daughters to the premiere of the new Narnia film in Leicester Square a couple of weeks ago and it was magical. There was snow falling and the stars were all there. I get to play cool dad and introduce my daughters to film stars. When we got into the cinema there were two seats in front of us draped in gold. Two buglers came on to the stage and then the Queen came in and sat down in front of us, it was quite an amazing moment."

Obsessions with movies can bring unimaginable rewards.

Which leads me to the next topic worth sharing.

Go and find the 2010 movie "Greenberg" now. There's much to recommend in the movie, but the real jewel here is actress Greta Gerwig. She's a writer/actress/director and has a hefty indie film resume ("Hannah Takes The Stairs", "Baghead") and in this film she plays a young California girl named Florence who is warm and rather timid and a little she's lost, but agreeable to what is or might be. She connects - and doesn't connect - with her world and with the manic mind of the lead character Roger Greenberg played by Ben Stiller in one of his best performances too.

But this is Florence's movie through and through. And her performance is spectacular, though never demanding. One fine example of her ability her begins with the film's opening, as she is driving through L.A., asking "Will you let me in?" quietly to another car, and sometimes she smiles slightly to herself, eyes bright, scanning her world. And then towards the end of the film, she's driving again, but her entire demeanor is starkly different. Again she asks "Will you let me in?" of another car, but there's no hope in her voice, her eyes are dulled with worry, there are no smiles.

Gerwig has turned in strong work before, but with Florence, she owns the movie and the screen. You'll be hearing much more from her.

Oh and since I'm talking about IMDb and Greenberg, I had noted the movie was co-written by actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, another startlingly fine actress outside the Hollywood mold ... but it wasn't until I was reading her bio on IMDb that I discovered she's the daughter of an actor who I sort of grew up with, with roles in films and TV from "The Blackboard Jungle" to "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Thanks IMDb!

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One more current film crush.


That's actress Olga Kurylenko, who's from the Ukraine, and captured my eye in the movie "Hitman", (another performance which pretty much made the movie) and then landed a plum role in the last James Bond film "Quantum of Solace".

The picture above is from 2010's "The Centurion", which was utterly ignored by critics and media, about a small band of Roman soldiers in Great Britain in 117 A.D., fleeing for their lives from Celtic Picts chasing them from their homeland. Olga plays a Pict warrior named Etain who is mute and ferocious. Michael Fassbender plays the lead Roman solider. Silly gratuitous violence? Yes. Action-packed? Oh Yes.

2010: The Year At Your Cup of Joe

A quick look back at 2010 through a blog filter --

While recently reading through the information about those who visit and read here often, I learned that in 2010 this blog had landed on a site which declares Cup of Joe P. to be in the top 5 best political blogs in the country. And yes, that's certainly an wise observation. The reason, according to the writer(s) is that I am apparently the lone liberal in Tennessee pushing out political posts. Quote: "The political experience of supporting the extremely minor party in what's essentially a single-party state is compelling." Which is not true. I think there's at least five of us here in Tennessee who write something other than the usual political hype.

But I won't link to the site that says this, as my browser advises me the site has a dubious quality (meaning it's probably a site full of malware) and it has the odd, odd title of 'guide to online schools' and seems, though flattering to me, just a strange aggregator of hackerish infamy.

A more reputable bit of praise came in 2010 from Knoxville's Metro Pulse newspaper, marking me as being a site worth bookmarking and reading, though they also noted I was somewhat of an 'old-fashioned' thing, a blog, while the modern now-a-go-go kids all Twitter instead. You know I've always hated the word blog but twitter sounds even sillier. I thank MP for the mention, though in truth, Knoxville-centered sites like the News Sentinel's No Silence Here and R. Neal's KnoxViews have been consistently supporting my work here since just about day one. Welcome to the Cup of Joe party, MP.

Of course, my family continues to look at me with a hairy eyeball since I do not earn big bucks with this page. Not that they ever read this page. My family has generally been supportive of my creative efforts since I made it my profession some 25 years ago, but they think I'm ten kinds of crazy to continue writing as I haven't made tons of income nor tons of fame and I admit I often have to look anywhere and everywhere for other ways to make money. (Pleasing family is hard/impossible.) And 2010 was a horrible year for writing work. Newspapers, magazines, online web sites and other places where I have usually made decent money all shut down their programs of paying for freelance writing. And then there was another writing job I took this year where someone else got all the credit for writing it. Thanks for the ego kick.

Writers just don't get much respect - even those who make big bucks have to wade through derisive assessments of their work (regardless of the quality). Here's a way of looking at this situation -- let's say you have need of a plumber, or attorney, or mechanic or consultant or etc. etc at your home or office. If you contact that professional you know, you know, that you will have to pay a fee just for getting them to examine your problem, then there is a steep hourly fee for work they do. But a writer - we work first, submit the work for someone to approve and only if said someone likes it will you get paid. And you don't get paid by the hour. They offer pennies per word. If I told the folks who ask me to write something that there is a non-refundable fee just for considering their request I would be brushed aside like some funny smelling leftover in the fridge.

And really, I knew since I started putting my writing efforts online, for anyone to read for free, that while I was bypassing all the kings who control publishing, I was going to have to endure long waits for a payoff. So be it. Great satisfaction arrives as I see that readers from such places as Great Britain, France, India, China, Australia, Chile, Morocco, and on and on, land on this page and read something I've written.

I don't feel bitter, even if a touch of bitterness is discernible in these words. I knew long, long ago this compulsion to write was a personal thing. And I have learned over the decades that I can (and so I do) demand certain levels of compensation and fees for my work. Especially if you seek me out to write something for you to use. The way I see it, such demands should make us both feel good that we are working for something of a higher quality.

(Now back to the topic proper)

In 2010, some of the posts which brought the most readers (note: while there were many posts which were of a serious nature and/or garnered state and national attention, it seems the odd and offbeat items I comment on are usually the top draws for visitors):

-- This post on Iran's legal/religious perspective on a mullet haircut was quite popular (especially since Instapundit and Pajamas Media made mention of it).

-- A consistent hit among Google searches this year came from this 2009 post wherein a theory is presented by comedian John Hodgman that President Obama is somehow linked to the fictional 'Kwisatz Haderach" from the Dune books by Frank Herbert and the tale wins my own personal award for Weird Political Delusions in a most delusional political year.

-- Cows invading a home also brought many thousands upon thousands of visitors, as is proper, it seems to me, when cows invade.

-- My favorite item here on this page is not my own creation - but this video, wherein doodles and flipbooks craft the vast tale from creation to the present day still amuses me greatly.




Meanwhile, here are a few other items from TN bloggers as they review the year 2010 -

Southern Beale has her take on the best in books/movies/music of 2010.

Newscoma is celebrating her 5th year of blogging (and really, I am working on finding another word besides "blog" to categorize the online writers/writing I am part of).

News stories, politics and more which held attention in 2010 at KnoxViews is presented here.

SEE ALSO: Google has compiled the info on the most popular searches on their system for 2010. The World Cup was the big winner, followed by disasters from around the world.

And here's to you, dear readers, for making a habit to visit and return often. I wish you each and everyone the very best 2011 possible.

Nutcrackers Sing A Christmas Tune

More great Christmas music of all kinds here.

A Basil Marceaux Christmas Song

Well, at least ol' Basil did not become a lobbyist or something after attempting a run for governor of Tennessee in 2010. The video sort of makes clear he's plenty happy not to be in government though.

Surveillance Cams Turning U.S. Into Santa's Naughty-or-Nice Indicator?

Nationwide - and here in Tennessee - we've been watched and we are going to be watched even more in coming years, with a near-constant observation of everyone.

"The story also details Memphis cops using military equipment to find license plates with warrants attached to the owners; a citizen taking pictures of a local police boat in California triggering an FBI datamining frenzy; local law enforcement officials instructed that "Most Muslims in the United States want to impose sharia law here"; and loads of vague useless scary reports tossed down to locals by federal DHS, and locals targeting lawful and harmless gatherings for intelligence fearmongering.

The Post story also explains what local "fusion centers" do with federal terror money in a land decidedly bereft of terror:

The fact that there has not been much terrorism to worry about is not evident on the Tennessee fusion center's Web site. Click on the incident map, and the state appears to be under attack.

Red icons of explosions dot Tennessee, along with blinking exclamation marks and flashing skulls. The map is labeled: "Terrorism Events and Other Suspicious Activity.

But if you roll over the icons, the explanations that pop up have nothing to do with major terrorist plots: "Johnson City police are investigating three 'bottle bombs' found at homes over the past three days," one description read recently. ". . . The explosives were made from plastic bottles with something inside that reacted chemically and caused the bottles to burst."

Another told a similar story: "The Scott County Courthouse is currently under evacuation after a bomb threat was called in Friday morning. Update: Authorities completed their sweep . . . and have called off the evacuation."

"Watch Everyone!" certainly appears to be the fearful policy guiding security in private and public business. I wonder if the following tale became a notation on the "anti-terror" networks:

"A Mid-South man was arrested after police said he broke into a Jackson, Tennessee school and danced in the nude early Tuesday morning.

Lt. Tyreece Miller with the Jackson Police Department said Dakotah Lamuska broke a window at Northeast Middle School. His nude dance was caught on surveillance camera.

"What it shows is a white man dancing in the nude," said Miller.

Miller said Lamuska started dancing for no apparent reason. He did not take anything from the school or destroy anything other than the window.

Jackson Police would not release the surveillance video of Lamuska dancing."

Well good, really, I don't wanna see it. But the suspect here seems guilty at best of breaking and entering with the added action of skinny dipping without anything to dip in.

Perhaps our safety does depend on us all being watched and recorded all the time whatever we do and wherever we go. But I'm not convinced yet.

And what about "watching the watchmen"? Congress surely does not abide for more than a very limited peek at what they are doing:

"House floor debates are currently televised by cameras owned, operated, and controlled by the House. Reaction shots and wide shots of the chamber are not permitted under House rules. C-SPAN, as well as other media outlets, must use the floor feed provided by the House in its coverage. Congressional policy does allow for C-SPAN's coverage of other Congressional events, such as committee hearings, press conferences, speeches, and the like, to be produced by its own cameras. C-SPAN argues that allowing its cameras to be installed in the House chamber would give the public a more complete and transparent view of Congressional debates. If granted permission to install cameras, C-SPAN proposes to make its feed available to accredited media and stream it live on its web site."

UPDATE: Tennessee "fusion centers" say Free Speech is suspicious activity.

One Last Christmas

There's a stunning wealth of music on the Internet, of course, but thanks to some who craft items for this digital domain, we also have many, many Christmas songs which are not repeated infinitely during this season. And in seeking those songs today, I discovered a bona fide Christmas miracle ... one you do not want to miss.

These seldom-heard or brand-new tunes of Christmas have always been quite fascinating to me, though I can't really explain why it holds such interest. The songs, perhaps, are like forgotten gifts.

First up for your listening pleasure is the podcast from WBEZ's Sound Opinions web site, from Christmas music collector Andy Cirzan. This podcast is the 20th annual Christmas collection spectacular, full of seasonal music which are described as "Yowls & Yodels from the Yule Vortex...further adventures in holiday obscura."

The link to this dazzling podcast, about an hour long, is here. Free downloads are available until Jan. 1, 2011, but you can just listen to it at the link. Cirzan wisely includes a complete song list and footnotes for the collection too, which features tunes from Jimmy McGriff and Sunny Boy Williamson and opens with a great selection from a 1968 album recorded by the U.S. Air Force band with arrangements by The Free Design. Most unusual and fun stuff.

Another location to find amazing holiday music is at Stubby's House of Christmas, a blog devoted to holiday tunes and videos which can easily fill many hours. One of their recent selections is from R&B singer Tasha Taylor, daughter of the great Johnny Taylor ("Disco Lady", "Who's Makin' Love") which is best described as a "an all new original--a simmering, steaming, hot buttered stoned-soul R&B Christmas miracle". Listen/watch the video here.

Stubby also has a real Christmas tear jerker via musician Matthew West and his song "One Last Christmas". It's a powerful true story, about an infant boy named Dax, diagnosed with leukemia and his parent's overwhelming desire to create one more Christmas for him. I'll let Stubby take the story:

"Dax's family was determined to give the boy one last Christmas and started putting up their decorations early--like middle of summer early. The neighbors inquired and, when told the reason, began putting their decorations up as well. Soon, the whole town was decked out in full holiday style, well in advance of the actual holiday. A web site went up and pictures began coming from all over the world from people putting up their Christmas decorations early in honor of Dax. Dax lost his battle with Leukemia, but not without seeing a last Christmas. In Dax's memory, St. Jude's is trying to raise $1.6 million--the amount required to run St. Jude's for a single day. Go to DaxLocke.com and make a donation to St. Jude's so that other children might see Christmas and beyond."

Please donate if you can. And grab a handkerchief and watch this Christmas song for Dax.

Annual Christmas Monkey Caption Contest

Yes, we're just days away from Christmas, so it is time once again for our Annual Create A Christmas Caption Contest for the Annual Christmas Monkey!



Here's a caption to start things off:

"One does not refudiate the Christmas Monkey!!"

Massive Strike Underway By Georgia Prison Inmates

UPDATE: The most recent info (Dec. 17) says the protest appears to have ended.
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Details are few and far between, but apparently since Thursday, Dec. 9th, inmates in 6 to 11 Georgia state prisons have refused to leave their cells or do any work in a protest against a variety of conditions, the protest coordinated via cell phones and other social networking methods.

In the last 24 to 48 hours, the media has begun to pay attention and report on the situation, such as the Chattanooga Times Free Press to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The state of Georgia does not pay anything to inmates for work - unlike Tennessee, which pays from 17 to 54 cents per hour to inmates for work they perform.

But inmates claim much more is at stake - including no educational opportunities beyond getting a GED, no skills-training or rehabilitation programs, little exercise, very low nutritional meals, and little, if any, health care.

This is a pretty big story getting very little attention as it affects thousands of inmates and numerous state prisons. Chances are if negotiations don't work soon, the situation could easily become tremendously volatile.

A Brief History of My Coffee Cup

I was reaching for my favorite coffee cup this morning when my half-asleep hands fumbled and the cup fell to the floor and broke into two halves, as if someone had sawed the darn thing right down the middle.

I really did like that coffee cup. It was a gift from my mother some years ago, with a hand-made fired clay look to it, all gnarled and dark brown and it had the word "Chickamauga" on it, and an image of some cannons and a stack of cannonballs. Best of all, it was the right size for the amount of coffee I wanted. Too many cups are barely thimbles for containing coffee, and some are like small buckets which hold too much. This one was "just right".

The name Chickamauga was most familiar to me - both my parents were from the Chattanooga area, and many summer days were spent at the TVA-created Nickajack and Chickamauga lakes with relatives, and often we would watch the operations of the massive river lock at the Nickajack Dam. The night-time operations were completely fascinating feats to witness.

Chickamauga also lends its name to a brutal, bloody Civil War with casualties second only to the battle of Gettysburg. Many of those youthful summers also brought chances to tour the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park which were created by acts of the Congress beginning back in 1890 to preserve the site of the deadly warfare - tens of thousands killed, injured and missing.

I'm not one of the Men of the South who act as some historical custodian of that war. But living in East Tennessee, one cannot escape awareness - on any casual summer day one could easily probe the landscape and find bullets or buttons or other remnants of the soldiers who roamed here with great purpose in mind, and there are also those grim, grey historical markers dotting the landscape wherever one travels here. I do have a more sympathetic affiliation, as I know the words Chickamauga and Nickajack were names of the Cherokee. I was always told our family had some distant genetic ties to those native Americans, so in my youthful imaginings, the untamed and wise way of those people seemed far more appealing than tattered and torn soldiers dying by the thousands.

I also read a most stunning short story growing up titled "Chickamauga" by Ambrose Bierce. It remains a vivid, powerful tale of a young boy out playing one day who gets lost amid the battle of Chickamauga. The story scared the bejesus out of me and it still has to power to conjure the most powerful emotions. You can read the tale here, and it won't take long to read but it will take your breath away.

But today, my favorite coffee cup, which had a word that held some imaginations for me, that cup is in two pieces. Searching for another to use today instead, I had to settle for a cup with a Santa picture on it and a handle shaped like a candy cane. I feel utterly ridiculous using it, even if it is seasonably appropriate.

So as I sip from my Santa cup (no dignity there), I decided to noodle about the Internet and see if I could find what definition the word Chickamauga had for the Cherokee. Apparently, there is no consensus, and much confusion. WikiPedia says at one time, folks thought it meant River of Death:

"In popular histories, it is often said that Chickamauga is a Cherokee word meaning "river of death".^[12] Peter Cozzens, who has written arguably the most definitive book on the battle, This Terrible Sound, wrote that this is the "loose translation".^[13] Glenn Tucker presents the translations of "stagnant water" (from the "lower Cherokee tongue"), "good country" (from the Chickasaw) and, "river of death" (dialect of the "upcountry Cherokee"). Tucker claims that the "river of death" came by its name not from early warfare, but from the location that the Cherokee contracted smallpox.^[14] James Mooney, in Myths of the Cherokee, wrote that Chickamauga is the more common spelling for Tsïkäma'gï, a name that has "lost any meaning in Cherokee and appears to be of foreign origin."^[15]

Another collection of Tennessee tales offers the following:

"CHICKAMAUGA: The name of two creeks in Hamilton county, entering Tennessee river from opposite sides a few miles above Chattanooga. A creek of the same name is one of the head-streams of Chattahoochee river, in White county, Georgia. The Cherokee pronounce, it Tsïkäma'gï, applying the name in Tennessee to the territory about the mouth of the southern, or principal, stream, where they formerly had a town, from which they removed in 1782. They state, however, that it is not a Cherokee word and has no meaning in their language. Filson, in 1793, erroneously states that it is from the Cherokee language and signifies "Boiling pot," referring to a dangerous whirlpool in the river near by, and later writers have improved upon this by translating it to mean "Whirlpool." The error arises from confounding this place with The Suck, a whirlpool in Tennessee river 15 miles farther down and known to the Cherokee as Ûñtiguhï', "Pot in the water" (see number 63, "Ûñtsaiyï', the Gambler"). On account of the hard fighting in the neighborhood during the Civil war, the stream was sometimes called, poetically, "The River of Death," the term being frequently given as a translation of the Indian word. It has been suggested that the name is derived from an Algonquian word referring to a fishing or fish-spearing place, in which case it may have originated with the Shawano, who formerly occupied middle Tennessee, and some of whom at a later period resided jointly with the Cherokee in the settlements along this part of the river. If not Shawano it is probably from the Creek or Chickasaw.

Concerning "Chickamauga gulch," a canyon on the northern stream of that name, a newspaper writer gives the following so-called legend, which it is hardly necessary to say is not genuine:

The Cherokees were a tribe singularly rich in tradition, and of course so wild, gloomy, and remarkable a spot was not without its legend. The descendants of the expatriated semi-barbarians believe to this day that in ages gone a great serpent made its den in the gulch, and that yearly he demanded of the red men ten of their most beautiful maidens as a sacrificial offering. Fearful of extermination, the demand was always complied with by the tribe, amid weeping and wailing by the women. On the day before the tribute was due the serpent announced its presence by a demoniacal hiss, and the next morning the fair ones who had been chosen to save the tribe were taken to the summit of a cliff and left to be swallowed by the scaly Moloch."

Yes, that last bit sounds like a crazy white man invention to cast harsh cruelties on the Cherokee.

And yes, you may be wondering why I would exert my efforts today to write about a broken cup. I simply really liked it, it was my companion as I wrote - and now it is gone. I'm not going to try and SuperGlue the pieces together, because a paranoid portion of my mind would always assume I was drinking some globs of glue with my coffee. So farewell to my favorite coffee cup. It once held the deep, dark marks of thousands of servings of coffee like geologic strata, etched with a name whose true meaning has been lost in time, and a name which holds many meanings.

For now, it's me and the Santa cup.

Camera Obscura: The Worst Santa Claus Movie Ever; 10 Best Unseen Movies of 2010

Before we get into the Good Stuff, a short jaunt into some truly odd and weird moments of the week.

For reasons unknown, this week CNN aired a story on the rather horrible illness of inflammatory bowel disease ... and to promo the story, they aired a clip from the movie "Dumb and Dumber", wherein the character played by Jeff Daniels experiences a thunderous blast of diarrhea. News anchor Ali Velshi was visibly stunned by the clip and said "We didn't just air that one live TV did we?"

Yes, you did. Cinematical has the story and the CNN clip.

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What gift this holiday season might satisfy (or dumbfound) the Stanley Kubrick fan in your life? How about a toy version of the Space Monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Think Geek has one ready for sale (which they call an "action figure").

No word if it also plays the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" theme, but that would be cool. Now if I could just find a toy bone I could throw into the air which would transform into a spaceship. Are there other toys from "2001"?

Well, yes, and all Christmasy ones too -- eBay has the space shuttle Orion Christmas tree ornament: And also for sale, the EVA Pod Christmas tree ornament.

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Now on to what is likely the worst Christmas movie I've ever run across - and you can watch it late tonite (around 2 a.m.) on Turner Classic Movies.

It's a 1959 Mexican-made feature called "Santa Claus", which is surely one of the oddest Christmas movies ever made. Forget all that "Santa Claus vs The Martians" nonsense. This feature is truly a bizarre entry, which actually did quite well when released in the U.S. back in the day. TCM's write up explains the tale, where Santa, living in a floating space castle, is trying to help a wee young girl get a doll for Christmas, only to find that Satan (that's Satan, not Santa) sends an envoy named Pitch to Earth to muck up the whole deal. But let's go to that TCM write-up:

"Dividing the action between Earth, the heavens (Santa occupies a cloud-straddling castle cum Fortress of Solitude) and deep in the bowels of Hell (where horned demons with beatnik goatees caper like Fosse dancers as the damned trudge mournfully to tarnation), Santa Claus is all the more strange for honoring a holiday not at all native to Mexico.

"St. Nick's anthropomorphic toyshop (whose ordinances include a Nemoesque/Phibesian pipe organ cum communication console, a privacy-violating "master eye" and an alarmingly labial computer voice generator) points to the polymorphous perversity of key 80s era "new wave" productions, notably Stephen Sayadian's Café Flesh (1982), Richard Elfman's Forbidden Zone (1982), David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983), Rene Daalder's Population: 1 (1986) and even the popular CBS Saturday morning show Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986-1990)."

The movie gained much fame one more time when the Mystery Science Theater 3000 folks spoofed the movie, and it is even funnier than the original film. And you can watch the MSTK3 send up for free online via Google video.

And speaking of TCM, the Movie Morelocks blog has an excellent list of movies from 2010 which too few have seen and all of which are very much worth seeking out. These aren't horribly weird movies, these are truly original movies which deserve far more attention and praise than they received.

The full list is here, and I have only seen one of them, which I really enjoyed. It's "The Killer Inside Me", starring Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Ned Beatty and directed by Michael Winterbottom. Based on the novel by Jim Thompson, it's a crime story like no other. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Affleck) is a casual and brutal killer, who begins to accept the reality that his darkest side is growing and he ponders on how much enjoyment it brings him. The story has been filmed before (badly) and while I was skeptical at first at Affleck's casting, he captures a man of perfectly natural innocence and innate brutality exceptionally well. The movie does not veer much from the novel, which I confess was so rugged it was a gut-wrenching read. The movie doesn't flinch away either, resulting in a movie that boggles the senses and is hardly mainstream fare. But it remains a completely fascinating descent into the darkest of criminal minds. Thompson's genius is brought to vivid and horrifying life.

The full list is chock full of movies which should be on your list of must-sees. One other I look forward to watching is the animated (no CGI here) "The Illusionist," taken from French filmmaker Jacques Tati's last finished screenplay.