Camera Obscura - Knotts, McGavin, Weaver and A Quiz

It's a big week for movie fans as the mutual admiration society known as the Oscars arrive on Sunday and yeah, I'll include some predictions. I also found a small movie quiz to test if you are a bona-fide movie fanatic or just a casual observer, which I'll include today. And some of my observations too on the careers of some entertainment greats who shuffled off the mortal coil this week.

The death and remembrance of actor Don Knotts received much press/blogging this week, a comedian whose quaking nervousness became a trademark and whose lines often became part of the national lexicon - I think too, we here in the South have fond memories of Knotts as Barney Fife, and we all know what it means to "Nip it in the bud! Nip it, nip it, nip it!" And I think many of us know the quality of character that is indicated if you need to carry the bullet in your pocket rather than carry a loaded weapon. Knotts made a name for himself on the "Tonight Show" with Steve Allen in 1956 doing "Man on the Street" segments that were hilarious, but when he landed the role of Fife on the Andy Griffith Show, America loved him - he won the Best Supporting Actor Emmy Award five times between 1961-1967. I lost count of how often he appeared in Pigeon Forge over the years, making people laugh and laugh.

I also have great fondness for his movies too - notably as Luther Heggs in the 1966 movie "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." It has a terrific supporting cast, but it's really Don's movie through and through, twitching in fear in an alleged ghost house or just attempting to make a speech ("Atta boy, Luther!!") Another movie I always liked, purely for it's bizarre premise is "The Love God?", wherein the goofy man is cast as a Hugh Hefner-like publisher of what they used to call "nudie magazines." Yeah, he's a sex symbol. Well, it was 1969 and it is a comedy. The old advertising tag line for the movie was "So many women. Not enough man."

By the time he hit the TV show "Three's Company" as Mr. Furley, that toupee he wore just frightened me more than made me laugh. One other movie I'll mention is "The Private Eyes" with Tim Conway, as it was shot in the Biltmore Mansion in North Carolina - look carefully and you can see many of the hidden doorways to secret passages that really exist in the mansion - kinda handy next time you take a tour of Biltmore. His most recent work was a voiceover in the animated 2005 feature "Chicken Little". But it's Barney Fife that's the cultural icon and a role he made vivid and real for generations of TV fans.

Actor Darren McGavin also died this week, and my twisted little horror-movie loving heart remembers him best for the single television season of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." He was a rumpled, wrinkle-clothed smartass reporter in a straw hat with a knack for encountering crimes committed by vampires, devil-worshipping politicians, zombies, sword-wielding motorcyclists, and all manner of supernatural beings which local politicians always wanted to be kept out of the news. Sort of typical of audience attitudes in the 1970s when the show aired.

More recently, his performance as the father of the Parker family in "A Christmas Story" is perfect example of acting without overwhelming the movie. His swearing at the furnace in the home is a mish-mash of rage and syllables - his son describes it this way in the movie: "He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oil or clay." And his joy at winning a table lamp shaped liked a woman's leg wearing fishnet hose is hilarious.

Another actor famous for work on television, Dennis Weaver, also went the way of all flesh this week, but I'd like to focus on two movies and one TV appearance that are stuck in my memory.

The first is a TV movie, the first solo feature as director for Steven Spielberg, the 1971 TV movie "Duel". It's a gripping, relentless battle between Weaver, driving a 1970 red Plymouth Valiant, and a never-seen driver of a nasty, smoke-belching, diesel-stained truck that seems to want him dead. It's a common fear on the road - encountering some unknown driver whose mindless rage could flatten you like a pancake. The movie is a seamless suspense thriller, and Weaver's performance makes it all very real, very believable as he tries to puzzle out just what has this madman on his bumper, and we watch Weaver's mental state crumble.

Spielberg selected Weaver because he was a fan of Weaver's small but memorable role in a nearly-forgotten classic film noir thriller by Orson Welles, "Touch Of Evil." If you've never seen the movie, search for it - it ranks as one of Welles' best. (And look for the restored version made available in 1998) Rumor has it his character as night manager of a sleazy motel served as inspiration to Hitchcock for the creation of Norman Bates.

And one more favorite from Dennis Weaver - as the voice of Buck McCoy, the washed-up one-time famous movie cowboy in an episode of "The Simpsons" called "Lastest Gun In The West." Bart thought he was great. And Buck said one of his old movies was called "The Wild Lunch" and he lassoed a bag of potato chips to prove it.

Now on to the Sunday awards show - I'm not going to hash thru the typical newspaper movie critic crap of what will win or what should win and what It All Means.

I will say I have much sentiment attached to the movie of the early days in the life of Johnny Cash and June Carter in "I Walk The Line." Yes, it's more Hollywood than History, but I truly enjoyed how Joaquin Phoenix captured the style of Cash, aiming that guitar like a rifle and leaning into that microphone like he was telling secrets or having an argument. Reese Witherspoon as June - well, let's just say June was never, ever that pretty. Another excellent quality to the movie was the music score of classic early rock hits and T. Bone Burnett's original score.

And finally, as promised, a movie quiz - just click on the link, and it will take you to the page where you can see a photo from a movie and your job is to ID the movie. Some are pretty easy. Some are a little tough. Many are from pretty popular movies, and it's a fine way to waste a bit of time at work or home. If you get really, really stuck for answers, just ask for help here at yer Cup of Joe and I'll try and give you some hints. The movie quiz is here.

Just Odd and Odd Justice

Like you, I'm sure you've encountered in the news and your communities some of the real horrors related to the rising human toll of meth addiction - folks make this toxic crap in cars, homes, wherever they can. Now, the war on meth is part of the Patriot Act.

A member of the Tennessee task force combating meth informed me a few years ago that the life span of someone who gets addicted to this home-made poison is five years. So the state legislature took action, and made a law requiring over-the-counter cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine be sold only after the buyer shows ID and signs for it. Other states have done the same.

But now that same language (inserted by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of CA) is part of the newly passed federal Patriot Act, you know, that collection of laws created to combat "terrorism." If states were already addressing the issue, why add it to this most questionable "Act"? Was it just to help push the bill through? Don't want a potential candidate to point a finger and say "He/She voted against laws to protect your towns from meth addicts"?

Another oddity is emerging in Alabama's legal system (and God bless you if you live in Bama, and hope you can find another home soon). Alabama's newest Supreme Court Justice, Tom Parker, has declared his own profession a hotbed of radical activists (via Law.com) , that is, everyone but him. He's opposed to a guideline that the death penalty should be withheld for those whose crimes were committed while under the age of 18. Heinous crimes could obviously be committed by someone aged 17 or 16 or even 10. Why not just make the death penalty apply to every person of every age, from the moment of birth on?

Justice Parker penned an op-ed piece, writing:

"State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are precedents," he wrote. "After all, a judge takes an oath to support the Constitution -- not to automatically follow activist judges who believe their own devolving standards of decency trump the text of the Constitution."

Justice Parker seems to be decrying "judicial activists" and calling for that same activisim if it suits his temperament. He earned his law degree at Vanderbilt (a school he says he disliked), and claims professors never presented the Constitution in classes at Vandy, though he did continue his legal studies in Brazil.

He's a fascinating and outspoken member of the bench - much more of his career can be read here.

Worse and Worser

Kudos to the Associated Press for finding the video conference of federal officials talking about how bad Hurricane Katrina was going to be for the Gulf Coast made before the storm bashed the coastline. You can access it here via Crooks and Liars. It is a scathing, blistering bit of reporting.

And ol' "heck of a job Brownie" comes off sounding kinda smart!

What's worse, this video is the same one the White House denied existed when a congressional committee was holding investigations into the failed response (claiming someone forgot to push the record button on the videotape machine), though the White House somehow "leaked" to Newsweek Wednesday morning that they somehow found it. More on this part of the story here, via Firedoglake.

TVA, Enron and The Spin Game

I haven't seen much state press coverage of the testimony in the trial of Enron executives where cash reserves set aside for payments to TVA got raided to help falsely inflate earnings for Enron. Did TVA get the monies they were owed? TVA has certainly been in the news (and on the editorial pages) in recent days.

With TVA increasing rates nearly 18% in six months, plus getting the approval to alter rates on a new sliding monthly scale then the Public Relations efforts to spin these increases are underway. Voicing concerns about the massive energy company, sadly, is as effective as looking up at the sky and saying "More blue!" or "Fewer clouds!!"

R. Neal at Knox Views has two fine posts that highlight the spin TVA chairman Bill Baxter has sent out to papers in Knoxville and Chattanooga (among others). The first post indicates the wagons are being circled to deflect criticisms of the increases and criticism that the plans for expanding their board include many paybacks for Bush supporters but zero citizen input.

The second post notes that the plans for nominees to a newly expanded board are ... well, dubious at best yet still supported by some for reasons like ... well, as R. Neal says, I'm sure they are good reasons, whatever they are.

"Rabbit Season - Duck Season!" for Rep. Jenkins

It's been rumbling around the GOP in the state for a few weeks that they need a candidate to run for governor against Phil Bredesen, but so far the running is away from such a chore - in other words, Gov. Bredesen is the likely winner. However some in the GOP are pushing for 1st District Congressman Bill Jenkins take the challenge.

In the Feb. 25 issue of The Greeneville Sun, both GOPers and a Sun reporter tried to nail down Jenkins on the idea at the annual Lincoln Day Dinner. Jenkins, who had already announced he would not seek re-election to Congress, dealt with the fawning and sort of kind of maybe gave a non answer. State Senator Steve Southerland of Morristown started off the "please run!" approach.

From the Sun story:

"State Sen. Steve Southerland, R-1st, who introduced Jenkins, mentioned to the congressman that “rabbit season is over at the end of this month, and that would be a good time to start campaigning for governor.” Jenkins began his remarks by saying that “This talk of governor is pretty heavy.” He said he had spent “most of the morning” on the phone with people who wanted to talk about that.

“I want to remind you all, I did that once,” Jenkins said, with a big grin on his face. If the state had voted the way Greene County did that year, Jenkins said, he would have won.

At that time he was 33 years old, he said, and “people said I looked 20,” not nearly old enough to be governor.

“I guess I’ve gotten old enough,” Jenkins said, adding that he will be 70 on his next birthday.

He stopped short of making a flat statement one way or the other about running for governor. He also said that his last year in Congress will be one of the most difficult that the country has faced in a long time, with much that needs to be done.

After the event, he told The Greeneville Sun for the record that he is pondering the idea, and will have to make an announcement soon.

But he also told the Sun that running for governor “would undo all the reasons” he is leaving Congress.

When Jenkins announced he will not seek re-election, he said he wants to spend more time with his four children and 11 grandchildren, and actively operate his large farm on the Holston River near Rogersville. The tone of Jenkins’ remarks Friday night was very much that of a longtime public servant leaving public life."

You can read of the rumors at Newscoma.

Can Public Trust Be Restored?

I had a conversation over the weekend with a teacher who works in Kingsport, and after a few minutes he began to say in hushed tones that he had grave concerns about the turn in recent years of the Conservative political movement. Daring to disagree with friends, he said, had harmed those friendships. "Something has gone wrong," he said.

You may or may not see it - the enormous divide that continues to grow between the incomes and lifestyles of a small (but growing) elite class and the rest of the working men and women in America. When I interviewed Tennessee's 1st District Congressman Bill Jenkins during his last re-election campaign, I asked him to address the concerns about "outsourcing jobs" and the difficulty in finding American made goods, like clothes and shoes for example. He replied that he too, had to spend some time and effort to buy his most recent pair of American-made cowboy boots - and that he paid just less than $200 for them. He smiled and said it was worth it to him. I kept thinking that $200 was more than a week's pay (after taxes) for someone on minimum wage.

Median incomes nationwide range between $45,000 to $48,000 annually. (Which means I suppose, they can afford those boots a little easier.) In 1960 the gap between the top 20% and the bottom 20% of income earners in the U.S. was thirty fold. Now it is seventy-five fold. Thirty years ago, the average annual pay for the Top 100 CEOs was 30 times the pay of the average worker. Today it is 1000 times the pay of the average worker.

The above information was mentioned in a speech by Bill Moyers, and he has some other mind-numbing information to share -

+ 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress

+ The total spent, per month, by special interests to wine, dine, etc federal officials is $200 million. Per month, oh faithful readers, per month!

+ Less than one-half of one percent of all Americans made a political contribution of $200 or more to a federal candidate in 2004.

Moyers speech, titled "Restoring The Public Trust" points out again and again a vast gulf between how many officials experience life and power in ways that have sown much distrust and disgust for those who labeled themselves Conservatives and I urge you to read the entire essay.

Here are some excerpts:

"I will leave to Jon Stewart the rich threads of humor to pluck from the hunting incident in Texas. All of us are relieved that the Vice President's friend has survived. I can accept Dick Cheney's word that the accident was one of the worst moments of his life. What intrigues me as a journalist now is the rare glimpse we have serendipitously been offered into the tightly knit world of the elites who govern today.

The Vice President was hunting on a 50-thousand acre ranch owned by a lobbyist friend who is the heiress to a family fortune of land, cattle, banking and oil (ah, yes, the quickest and surest way to the American dream remains to choose your parents well.)

The circumstances of the hunt and the identity of the hunters provoked a lament from The Economist. The most influential pro-business magazine in the world is concerned that hunting in America is becoming a matter of class: the rich are doing more, the working stiffs, less. The annual loss of 1.5 millions of acres of wildlife habitat and 1 million acres of farm and ranchland to development and sprawl has come "at the expense of 'The Deer Hunter' crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the rednecks of the south and the cowboys of the west." Their places, says The Economist, are being taken by the affluent who pay plenty for such conveniences as being driven to where the covey cooperatively awaits."
--------

"Two years ago, in a report entitled Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality, the American Political Science Association concluded that progress toward realizing American deals of democracy "may have stalled, and even, in some areas, reversed." Privileged Americans "roar with a clarity and consistency that public officials readily hear and routinely follow" while citizens "with lower or moderate incomes are speaking with a whisper.

The following year, on the eve of President George W. Bush's second inauguration, the editors of The Economist, reporting on inequality in America, concluded that the United States "risks calcifying into a European-style, class-based society."

--------

"The [former] Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, famously told the lobbyists: "If you are going to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules." Tom DeLay became his enforcer.

The rules were simple and blunt. Contribute to Republicans only. Hire Republicans only. When the electronics industry ignored the warning and chose a Democratic Member of Congress to run its trade association, DeLay played so rough - pulling from the calendar a bill that the industry had worked on two years, aimed at bringing most of the world in alignment with US copyright law - that even the House Ethics Committee, the watchdog that seldom barks and rarely bites, stirred itself to rebuke him - privately, of course.

DeLay wasn't fazed. Not only did he continue to make sure the lobbying jobs went to Republicans, he also saw to it that his own people got a lion's share of the best jobs. At least 29 of his former employees landed major lobbying positions - the most of any Congressional office. The journalist John Judis found that together ex-DeLay people represent around 350 firms, including thirteen of the biggest trade associations, most of the energy companies, the giants in finance and technology, the airlines, auto makers, tobacco companies, and the largest health care and pharmaceutical companies. When tobacco companies wanted to block the FDA from regulating cigarettes, they hired DeLay's man. When the pharmaceutical companies - Big Pharma - wanted to make sure companies wouldn't be forced to negotiate cheaper prices for drugs, they hired six of Tom DeLay's team, including his former chief of staff. The machine became a blitzkrieg, oiled by campaign contributions that poured in like a gusher."

UPDATE: Tam over at View From the Porch doesn't seem to care much for Moyers' opinions or what I said about them. Check it out.

Racial Paranoia

Within the small confines of the Tennessee blogging world and within this country and many many others, a debate is being held on the topics of race, racial profiling, bigotry, bias, prejudice and terrorism.

I noticed a post by Bob Krumm about an incident where he reported to the Secret Service he had seen some dudes of "middle-eastern" appearance in the Belle Meade community in middle Tennessee because they were lost and wanted to know how to find former v.p. Al Gore's home. It seem suspicious he says.

Another blogger, Chris, at My Quiet Life, responded with his own take on Bob's post, and said Bob was showing bigotry, pure and simple, in his reaction to the encounter in Belle Meade. Not unexpectedly, Bill Hobbs chimed in with some insults about Chris in the comments section on this debate at Nashville Is Talking, and R. Neal had some wit and humor to add in the comments on Chris' page.

Some mention is made in these discussions of the concerns about the sale of operations at numerous American ports to a company in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai has been a major port for our Navy, certainly, and now Congress is examining the sale to determine if it should be approved or not. Much of the national and media debate about the sale has been of the "we don't want THEM owning operations in the U.S." (Them apparently meaning "Arabs" or perhaps "questionable allies".)

Let me be plain: there is a palpable paranoia in the U.S. and other countries about non-whites. While some see a value in being skeptical and suspicious about the presence and actions of non-whites, it blinds us to the more pertinent issue, which is that certain political agendas and those who share those political views have been and continue to threaten national security here and in many other countries as well.

So my question is - how can you tell by just looking at someone what their political beliefs might be? In this country, can you tell if someone belongs to the Republican or Democratic party? Or if they are members of neither?

I'm somewhat concerned that the notion of placing a usefulness on the concept of "racial profiling" may soon be exchanged for developing an approach to "political profiling." Arguments could perhaps be made that if our nation could protect it's citizens and security if we had the ability to define an individual's political views, and to be troubled if an individual has no specified political party affinities, then we should then create such a system of "political profiles."

The continuing emotion of Fear is making some very murky perceptions, and that we as both a nation and as an individual then base policy and personal decisions arising from those Fears is only going to make our perceptions murkier and encourage the value of Fear among us all.

Camera Obscura - Decades Defining The Bad Guy

The focus today is on the sadly obscure career of an actor whose work spans movies and television from the 1940s to 2006 and likely will continue for many years - at least I'm sure he will keep working as long as he is alive, but in addition to the acting he's also a winner of the Purple Heart, and perhaps is best known for being bad guys in biker movies, westerns, courtrooms, horror and action films, comedies, and claims to be a direct descendant of Daniel Boone and Kit Carson. And he's still at it, and is apparently working on a book to tell his life story.

As I was growing up, it seemed he was in almost every TV show playing some bad guy and when he appeared as Conan the Barbarian's dad in the 1982 movie (that's where the screen capture above originates) it seemed a natural. I recently read an interview where he says he mostly ad-libbed his dialog with the young Conan:

"Bill: I wrote the whole speech. They hadn't written one. Every now and then [director John] Milius would come to me and say, "I want something about fire and wind and steel." The line he liked best was "For no one, no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. This you can trust." [points to sword] He loved that line.

Q: Didn't the review in Time magazine say something like the movie started going bad when you stopped talking?

Bill: Something like that maybe. [a little smile]"

Some quick highlights might jog your memory - he played in the final episode of the 1960s "Batman" TV show as a character named Adonis; he was also the last actor to play The Marlboro Man in the last Marlboro television ad; he was the villainous Falconetti in the first TV-miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man"; and he was in a bare-knuckle fighter who fought with Clint Eastwood in "Any Which Way You Can", a brawl the demolished half the town.

He began at the age of eight in small roles, in "Ghost of Frankenstein" and a small part in the musical "Meet Me In St. Louis." He found fame after some television roles in "Perry Mason" and many TV westerns as a young man and then hit the silver screen again in the biker movie classics "Run Angel Run" and "Angels Die Hard".

I happened to see an old movie the other night in which he was the son of a vampire who had turned vampire hunter called "Grave of the Vampire", which set my memory of William Smith in motion. And a little min-bio at IMDb had more details about this highly educated actor who has appeared in about 300 plus movies. Outside of acting, he earned a Purple Heart in the Korean War, held a Guiness World Record for reverse-curling his own bodyweight (someone has since surpassed his record), he was a two-time Arm Wrestling Champ, has a 31-1 record in amateur boxing, and on and on the list goes. (We're talking a career that goes through "Dukes of Hazzard," "Lassie," "Simon and Simon," "Fantasy Island", "The A-Team," "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," "Deep Space Nine," "Knight Rider", and on and on and on.....)

For the next day or so, I happened to see him over and over on various movie channels, such as the often forgotten Western comedy "The Frisco Kid" with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, and then late yesterday, in his villainous turn as Col. Strelnikov in "Red Dawn".

More recently, he's been voicing the character of Dragga in the "Justice League" cartoon series and is still working on some direct-to-DVD movies for 2006 release.

Few, if any other actors, can claim to have worked with so many legendary performers in movies and TV and if he does ever write his autobiography, it will be a book that sprawls across the history of television and movies.

Monster Cat of China

In yet another shameless attempt to appeal to people who surf the internets looking for pictures of cats, and I do mean big, fat, cat -- here is the Monster Cat of China.

Of Ports and Power

Comedian Steve Martin's old routines appear to be part of the Bush administration's policy and Congressional oversight. Martin used to do a bit about how he had the perfect excuse for any mistake or problem. Three simple words: "I didn't know."

Americans stunned that non-U.S. companies control U.S. ports?

Congress says: "I didn't know"

Rumsfeld says: "I didn't know"

Bush (via the always funny Scott McClellan): "I didn't know."

I wonder how many Americans/Cabinet/Congressional chairmen are aware that company Westinghouse has been sold to Toshiba, making it one of the largest providers of nuclear energy in the world?

Oil Addiction and Tennessee Science

Sorry, but I am deeply skeptical of the President's recent pep-talks about the problems of oil addiction, since he and his VP are drenched in oil dollars, and his secretary of state once had an oil tanker named after her, until she was appointed to the cabinet when they renamed it. And yes, encouraging alternative energy sources is a fine idea that dates back many years.

Although, one of Exxon's senior VPs, Stuart McGill, says it's ridiculous to consider ending the addiction, and that if America were to be more active in developing positive trade relations with other countries for energy needs, the world's political strife would become more stable.

Given that the President's recent trip to a high-tech lab where employees had just been laid off, though re-hired just before the visit, these speeches appear to be just that - speeches.

Tennessee has a major voice in government regarding Science and Commerce in Bart Gordon, who recently issued his own ideas about alternative energies and legislation to support it's development:

"We’ve been chipping away at energy policy for years — increasing production here, a tax incentive there, funding energy R&D when it’s convenient and letting programs languish when it’s not, even regarding energy conservation as a “personal virtue.” It’s time we think of new ways to approach this problem. Decades of energy research only pay off if truly innovative technologies come to fruition. Frankly, we’re still using technologies from the 19th and 20th centuries to address the problems of the 21st century. Replacing “traditional” energy sources requires an unprecedented basic research and technology-development effort, not the same conservative approach that has kept us where we are."

Gordon also backed the need for realistic goals and more scientific support at NASA during congressional hearings, where he said - " I want to make it clear that I don't want to see Congress signing up for another big, underfunded hardware program, that winds up costing more, doing less and cannibalizing other important NASA missions," Gordon said. "We have been down that road too many times in the past, and I've got no desire to do so again."

Recent announcements about plans for a Spaceport in the United Arab Emirates, and a smaller one in New Mexico reveal a contining trend that both non-U.S. and private developers are pushing technology while we linger on out-dated programs at NASA and the Bush Administration has a long record of belittling Science.

In some related news, efforts are underway to attract a massive National Bio and Agro Defense Facility to Pulaski, TN which boasts high tech jobs even though it means some very dangerous diseases will be under review and research.

Cat of Joe Bunny

So I'm having coffee and catching up on my morning reading and considering ideas from the past few days to talk about and then I see it.

I've been selected by Newscoma (along with most every blogger I personally know here in ET) to answer a few questions in a tag-list and present some personal details to readers. I was actually working on the perpetual puzzle of why it is that serious posts I make, say the corruption and greed in the state's school board association (oh, the children, Joe, the children!!), gets little attention but a picture of a big bunny brings readers and comments in droves.

In my unschooled web-walking, I have found indeed that a site with pictures of people's cats or dogs or hamsters or bunnies get far more visitors than anything else. Maybe I should rename this page "Cat of Joe Bunny".

But I'm avoiding the tag game. So here we go - as I understand it, I pick five others to answer these same queries, but that list will appear at the end of all this.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

- Using a 114K modem to access the internet, which was like watching paint dry.
- Being on call 24/7 as a radio news director.
- Working with some incredibly talented friends on a half-hour comedy show for public access TV in Knoxville and also performing with them in a touring improv comedy act, both called "Full Frontal Comedy". ("Jurassic Pork Sausage" and "Elmo's Topless Clogging Bar" were the things I was writing then.)

What were you doing 1 year ago?

- Using a cable modem to access the internet, which is like sliding down a bobsled run compared to that 114K modem.
- Working solo to write, produce, and host a morning talk radio show which was so good it terrified the guilty and entertained everyone in 100 mile radius awake and listening to the radio. Yes, I was and am that damn good. Though the worldwide broadcasting the internet allows is much more satisfying.
-Taking a lot of naps and moving into a new apartment.
-About three months away from seeing the radio station where I was working get sold to someone who would fire me in the middle of a show so the guilty could get back to business and local voices would be silenced.
-Playing the "Star Wars: Bounty Hunter" game a lot. And "Hot Shots Golf 3".

Five Snacks You Enjoy

-Um, let's see ... if it's food I like it. What makes it a snack? That it isn't served on a plate or with silverware???
-Any kind of chip in a bag.
-Popcorn
-Apples
-And I'm with Newscoma on the plain ol' Hershey's chocolate.
-Is that five yet? No? Then I'l have some more chocolate, thanks!

Five Songs To Which You Know All The Lyrics

- Anything by the Beatles
-I think I know most of all the lyrics to "Thick As A Brick" by Jethro Tull
- "When I Paint My Masterpiece" by Bob Dylan
-"Summer Wind" by Sinatra
-"Where It's At" Beck
- And no, I will not sing for you.

Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire

- Live on a yacht
- Buy an Arriflex movie camera
- Edit the footage on an Avid computer system
- Give some money away
- Fish

Five Bad Habits

- Hope
- Fear
- Belief
- I started smoking cigars after I had been off cigarettes for four years and boy is my doctor mad.
- I often like people.

Five Things You Would Never Wear Again

- Um, I hardly am a fashionable or stylish person. I still like t-shirts and jeans and tennis shoes. So I don't wear a tie unless it is an emergency. But I wouldn't ever wear those stupid stack shoes that I and everyone wore in the mid-70s like we was pimps or Huggy Bear or something. I'm still not sure why I caved into that particular type of footwear, so I blame peer pressure. I would however gladly wear those black and white checkered Vans again if I could find them, even though they look really stupid.

Five Favorite Toys

- This computer
- And I don't play with them, but I have a couple of cool looking Silver Surfer action figures and a few Buffy the Vampire Slayer items which are still sealed up in their boxes but on display. The Silver Surfers, however, are not boxed up. Kind of kills the thrill of surfing to be boxed up.
- My PlayStation2, though mostly I use it nowadays to play DVDs.
- My CD player.

Ok, now for who I would like to answer these same questions.

A cat
A bunny
A dog
A hamster
You

What??

According to press statement read by hunting accident victim Harry Whittingrton:

"My family and I are deeply sorry for all that vice president Cheney has had to go through this past week. We send our love and respect to them as they deal with situations that are much more serious than what we’ve had this week."

School Board Association Backs Greed, Corruption

If the Tennessee State School Board Association is teaching by example, then the lessons for our children and our 100-plus state education boards to learn are that Greed is Good, that taxpayers are endless supplies of money and personal benefits.

I've posted here before about Dan Tollett, the former head of the TSBA, whose actions led to an investigative state audit in which nearly 2 dozen findings detail hundreds of thousands of dollars he received which may violate the law and the TSBA's own policies. More on that here.

But as noted this week by blogger Bob Krumm in several posts, the problem continues to simply expand and grow and feed the good ol' boy corruption like hogs feeding at the trough. Krumm notes:

"For example, the leaders of the Tennessee School Board Association would have seen that, in the midst of statewide political scandals, and right after an audit found that a million dollars in public money had allegedly been used for personal purposes, it wasn't a smart time to just do more of the same.

But no, they couldn't help themselves. In an apparent mix of arrogance and political tone-deafness, the TSBA's Board of Directors appointed as replacement for the man who allegedly stole a half million dollars, that same man's personal lawyer: former Senator Bob Rochelle.

We've covered all this before. But there's more to the story of arrogance and tone-deafness at the TSBA.

There's the issue of TSBA (read that to mean "taxpayer") funds being used to pay for former Executive Director Dan Tollett's personal attorneys. One of those attorneys is no less than John Lyell, who in 1998 was named by the Tennessean as "the number one lobbyist in Tennessee."

Then there's the conflicts of interest. Simultaneously Dan Tollett was receiving a pension from TSBA, even while he was employed full time by the newly created, and wholly-TSBA-owned subsidiary "Center for Educational Leadership." Tollett was also the administrator of two of TSBA's divisions, the Risk Management Trust, and the Unemployment Compensation Trust at the same time. Quadruple-dipping. Because of his interconnected and overlapping (not to mention, probably illegal) areas of responsibility, "he was in a unique position to oversee, initiate, and control transactions between all the entities."

All of this was brought out in the State Comptroller's audit released in January. That report precipitated Monday's hearing before both the House and Senate Education Committees. And that's when stupid got even stupider. "
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"Which brings me back to my original point about self-awareness. Tennessee's ruling political class is afflicted with a severe self-awareness problem. They hire connected cronies perilously close to the corruption they're supposed to fix. They keep corrupted officials on to manage their affairs. They hire the most insider of political insiders to fix a problem created by political insiders. And then they're dumbfounded when people question those actions. Heck, they should have at least had sense enough to know that you don't hire a crony legislator, in the midst of a state-wide legislative scandal that's all about corruption, connections, and cronyism."

Well said and Krumm's posts are well worth reading.

The same TSBA board recently praised Hamblen County's Board of Education as the best in the state. I suppose birds of a feather flock together. Let the taxpayer beware.

Camera Obscura - Loch Ness Meets Herzog

Do people have a true physical or psychological need to invent, to create realities that might or even might never exist? And if so, why? Now let's add some more to that mysterious question - what if the act of faking realities were to become a multi-national business? These are just some of the questions raised in a very odd and very, very funny Mock-umentary from the enigmatic filmmaker Werner Herzog called "Incident at Loch Ness."

Herzog has been working in the fields of deciphering realities through his long film career as writer, director and producer. He almost always presents stunning images and compelling stories and also has become something of a myth himself for all his mythmaking. "Fitzcarraldo", based on a true story, is an astounding study of the urge to create Art at any cost, and likewise "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" details the madness of exploration.

But the topic here today is the utterly hilarious fake documentary of his quest to make a film about the fabled Nessie. If you liked "This Is Spinal Tap" or were intrigued by "The Blair Witch Project", you'll truly enjoy Herzog's wild and mad quest. I'd bet cash money that the makers of "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" took much inspiration from Herzog's crazy adventure.

Herzog plays the role of himself with such sincere and earnest character, it's almost easy to be fooled by what you see. Make no mistake, he loves playing his part and playing the joke on you. He and writer Zak Penn (whose screenwriting credits include "S.W.A.T." and "X-Men 2" and "Elektra") co-wrote this comedy and Penn nearly steals the movie as the bizarre producer of the Nessie movie who dares to hold a gun to Herzog's head to get the movie he wants (which is from Herzog's myth, that he allegedly pointed a gun at actor Klaus Kinski's head during a movie shoot). But in what could be a scary moment, Herzog just laughs at Penn: "It's not even a real gun, it's a flare gun and it's not loaded."

Penn and Herzog are supposed to make a movie about the myths and fantasies about the Loch Ness Monster, and fortunately, as this begins, another film crew is at Herzog's home to film a documentary about Herzog. The two fake projects eventually overlap into a maze of madness, a madness called Hollywood.

Penn gets the crew to Scotland, and wants everyone to wear special "expedition outfits" to give legitimacy to the Nessie project - though the word "expedition" is misspelled on the outfits. He also recruits a cryptozoologist to explain the Loch Ness mythos - a fake scientist, in other words. He also brings aboard the boat a drop-dead gorgeous former Playboy model as the Sonar Expert, but he is constantly trying to get shots of her in a g-string bikini, and we find out eventually he is dating her.

On the second day aboard the boat searching for Nessie, Penn hauls up a badly made paper mache Nessie floating head and throws it overboard demanding the crew film it. Herzog storms away and by day three, the cinematographer and the sound man go back to America. So that leaves Penn, Herzog, the fake scientist and the fake sonar expert to forge ahead with their movie.

And that's when something happens.

Somehow, their sonar equipment picks up a massive unknown object. Their boat is "attacked" and one by one, those on board the boat fall off into the icy waters of Loch Ness. Will anyone survive?

Herzog's fame for being eccentric and demanding become the joke here, and the madness of a Hollywood producer who constantly lies all add layers of fake realities and the movie is a marvel of comedy and oddity. It's not to be missed.

Whittington, Funeralgate and FEMA

I'm sure by later today some bloggers and some in the national press might bother to actually gather more background on super-rich attorney Harry Whittington who was shot by Vice President Cheney the other day. Whittington's history with Bush coincides with a grisly graveyard discovery which the Texas press dubbed "Funeralgate" and led to hundreds of millions in fines. Former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh was also a player in this scandal from Bush's days as governor.

"Funeralgate" was the name given the case involving the nation's largest funeral service company, SCI, and then Gov Bush was subpoenaed to testify in the case but refused, as was his then chief of staff Allbaugh. Luckily then governor Rick Perry called a halt to the case just in time for W. to begin his campaign for the White House. One story on this part of the case is here.

SCI was caught by then Texas funeral service regulator Eliza May after numerous complaints were made against SCI for all kinds of "grave" errors. The company paid $100 million in a class action lawsuit by families for moving bodies into the wrong locations and other "errors". However, the claims were so disturbing and May's actions so bothersome, she was fired from her job, which prompted her to file a suit which was eventually settled out of court.. More details about the cases here.

It was in May's case that she alleged Allbaugh and Bush hassled her to drop her claims, but she didn't. And it wasn't long before questions about lying began to emerge.

And it was about this time Whittington was appointed the take over SCI and help smother the complaints. SCI had been one of the biggest contributors to the Bush campaign for governor.

But, thanks to the help from Allbaugh and Perry, the case was quietly silenced.

However, just a few weeks after Whittington took over, it was found that another SCI operation in Florida (the irony is so thick here you can't cut it with a titanium chainsaw) had been playing hide-the-cadaver in Menorah Gardens and dumping the bodies into the woods.

"... the plaintiff's attorney said that SCI secretly broke into and opened burial vaults and dumped remains in a wooded area where the remains may have been consumed by wild animals.

Additionally, SCI buried "remains in locations other than those purchased by plaintiffs; crushing burial vaults in order to make room for other vaults; burying remains on top of the other rather than side-by-side; secretly digging up and removing remains; secretly burying remains head-to-foot rather than side-by-side; secretly mixing body parts and remains from different individuals; secretly allowing plots owned by one part to be occupied by a different person; secretly selling plots in rows where there were more graves assigned than the rows could accommodate; secretly allowed graves to encroach on other plots; secretly sold plots so narrow that the plots could not accommodate standard burial vaults; secretly participated in the desecration of gravesites and markers and failed to exercise reasonable care in handling the plaintiff's loved ones remains."

But the story isn't over yet.

A subsidiary of SCI , Kenyon International, got handed a no-bid contract to operate a "mobile mortuary" to deal with the bodies left in the destructive wake of Hurricane Katrina. Yep. It pays and pays to be a friend of Bush.

Charged with desecrating corpses? Get a FEMA contract.

In addition (this story seems to have no end!) the same SCI was also the same owner of the crematory in Georgia a few years ago where bodies were never cremated but stacked up like cordwood and stuffed into sheds.

The company's web site proclaims they are dedicated to "compassionately supporting families at difficult times, celebrating the significance of lives that have been lived, and preserving memories that transcend generations, with dignity and honor."

(big thanks to Dr. R. Fleenor for bringing all this to my attention)

Your Implant Is Ready

Read this today about an Ohio surveillance company that is "testing" some RFID implants on a couple of employees (thanks Newscoma).

The most chilling part of the news story is how the FDA has already approved a single company to make and sell trackable implants which can be inserted into humans.

Fear Grows Like Kudzu

Some Americans got all twisted over the recent Cartoon Or Not To Cartoon madness of the last week or so, but the raging paranoia here at home is gaining strength with equal madness. In one case at a public Missouri High School, three e-mails from some church members successfully terrorized a high school drama class production of the musical "Grease" - even though those who complained never actually saw the production. Oh, the vile wickedness of a musical about the 1950s.

The drama teacher will likely lose her job and the school is so terrified now of offending anyone they have also decided not to attempt the planned production of the classic play "The Crucible" - even though the play itself is still required reading in the school. The school's superintendent Mark Enderle admits he was acting in a "McCarthy" fashion and the decision to cancel it was to prevent the school from being "mired in controversy" all through the Spring.

It appears that Miller's play - which shows how rampant and mindless fear makes a small community turn to murder in the name of "self-protection" - might give students and other audience members the thought that hysteria is a destructive force. Some fear the mindless murders of the Salem witch trials shows Christians in "a bad light." I suppose hysteria should never be questioned.

The new law of the land is - if it scares you, destroy it and destroy it quickly.

Another recent case (hat tip to Julie and Cherokee Sage Woman), cited in Editor and Publsiher, reports that a nurse at a VA hospital got investigated after she wrote a letter to the editor in Albuquerque expressing her unhappiness with the current Bush administration. Her office computer was confiscated, began investigating accusations she was causing "sedition" and she too fears her 15-year job status to be in jeopardy. Her congressman is looking into the case, but once letter writers are accused of a potential crime, how long before the Fear of expressing an opinion outweighs any other concerns?

Right here in good ol' Tennessee one mother in Williamson County has been waging a war to stop children in school from reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (HEY WILLIAMSON COUNTY KIDS - order your own copy at this link for only seventy-five cents!!)

The mother claimed she did not like "the profanity in the book, of how people talked in that time and in that society." Read more about this poor deluded case here.

All this reminds me of the old Robert Heinlein story called "If This Goes On" where in some future America, led by a theocracy, free thought is forbidden and fear is the key to controlling the population. Maybe it isn't science-fiction after all.

Little Profits In Shredding Mountains For Coal

Writer Bobbie Ann Mason has some eye-opening info on the poverty that remains after shredding our mountains in search of coal in this article:

"Appalachians love the mountains fiercely, yet mining is a way of life. Many don't want to protest the destruction of their mountains for fear the region will lose jobs. But nearly two-thirds of the mining jobs in Kentucky have been lost in the past 25 years because mountaintop mining is more efficient than deep mining.

The United States gets half its electricity from coal, and about a seventh of that comes from Kentucky. But coal money has not lifted eastern Kentucky out of poverty. In fact, the strip-mined counties have the highest poverty rates in the state, not much improved from when President Johnson visited about 40 years ago and declared war on poverty. Eighty percent of the coal, more than $2 billion worth, leaves the state, much of the profit going to distant corporations."

Here in Tennessee, grassroots actions have made coal mining operations take notice and seriously rethink their plans. Who says individuals have no voice or rights in our system? It took much time and consistent effort, but changes have been made:

"1. Tennessee will no longer issue ARAP (Aquatic Resource Alteration Permit) permits for the alteration of undisturbed perennial and intermittent streams

2. Tennessee will enforce a 100 foot buffer zone around these streams

3. Tennessee will no longer issue permits for mines where the coal seams are highly acidic (Ph 5 or lower)

4. Tennessee will tighten permitting restrictions on haul roads."

The Birth of the Cool

Allow me the opportunity to bypass the normal movie post for a Friday and share this clip of a legendary musical performance recorded live in 1958 of Miles Davis and the band he gathered for his album "Kind of Blue". The tune here is "So What".

This album, along with the one preceeding it, "The Birth of the Cool", are classics in jazz and rock, and "Kind of Blue" still sellls thousands of copies each month, more than 50 years after it's release. This video shows why - it is Cool incarnate.

Miles brought John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderly, Paul Chambers and Bill Cobb together for sessions that still impress the most casual listener. They all stand and wait for each moment to step into the tune with their talents. No color picture could capture the Cool here. It needs black and white photography. And I love the way Miles hangs back smoking when he isn't wailing on that trumpet, stabbing notes into the song, and that shot at the end, when he finishes his last notes and then casually walks off smoking again.

No wonder that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will be inducting Miles this March - Cool starts with Miles and spreads across the rest of the music industry throughout the 20th century.

If you've never dipped into the music before, you're in for an amazing journey. If you have, you'll enjoy the video above.