Abuse Common in Tennessee Justice System

Some very damning judicial rulings in the case of death-row inmate Paul Gregory House indicate House should already have been released, but he remains in in jail. The questions raised by the rulings about how the state is operating it's judicial system reveal that abuses are a constant.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling of two years ago urged his release, and 10 years ago, DNA evidence showed his conviction was an error.

Yesterday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said House should have never been tried, that the case was jammed through the system riddled with mistakes and have ordered a new trial. Hopefully, barring some as-of-yet unknown evidence, the state will drop this case.

Presiding Judge Gilbert Merrill spoke about the critical failures and abuses of the justice system in Tennessee:

"The blatant prosecutorial misconduct in this case shows two things," Gilbert S. Merritt, the presiding judge on the panel, said in an interview after the ruling.

"First, the local district attorney in East Tennessee should never have prosecuted House in the first place, but certainly should have released him more than 10 years ago once he received the exculpatory DNA evidence.

"Second, the local district attorneys, rather than the Attorney General or the Governor, exercise almost complete control over the system of criminal justice in Tennessee.

"They are frequently mistaken and frequently abuse their power," Merritt said."

And this:

"These gross injustices will continue so long as law enforcement agencies and the Attorney General, the governor and the legislature continue to overlook or countenance this kind of prosecutorial misconduct."

WBIR has more on the story here.

The Tennessean report has links to PDF files of the rulings in this case.

UPDATE: This story is a good example of why the creation of the Tennessee Justice Newladder is most timely. An explanation of the Newsladder reads:

"A new forum dedicated to highlighting the urgent need for criminal justice reform in the Volunteer State. Every day, the 6 million residents of Tennessee depend on a fair and accurate criminal justice system to determine the truth when crimes are committed. Too often, however, the system comes up short for a variety of reasons. The problems include inadequate representation for indigent defendants; excessive caseloads; geographic disparities in the administration of justice; unreliable eyewitness identification; false confessions; jailhouse snitch testimony and more.

An unjust system produces unreliable results."

The Tennessee edition above is a local extension of a national blog, which is explained here on The Huffington Post.

The Business Of Running Government

There's an interesting post via MCB regarding Governor Bredesen's comments that Tennessee government and its budget must operate more like a business. The concept that government should operate like a business has been often touted by those in elected office (and sometimes by pundits in the public arena too).

But should government follow business models?

One comment on the post from Southern Beale says "Government should be run like *government* — of the people, by the people, for the people. Running government like a “business” has lead us to the problems we see in Washington right now."


On the one hand I agree with with SB - the two groups seem to be best operated separately, with different priorities.

But the reality is that business relies on government for success, and government relies on business for success as well. I can think of very few products made and sold by any business which is free from governmental policy or regulation.

The oft-mentioned episode in the American Colonies called "The Boston Tea Party", resulting in dumping crates of tea into the harbor, is surely an episode too of government insuring success for big business and failure for smaller businesses. As noted on this web-site:

"Many people today think the Tea Act—which led to the Boston Tea Party—was simply an increase in the taxes on tea paid by American colonists. Instead, the purpose of the Tea Act was to give the East India Company full and unlimited access to the American tea trade, and exempt the company from having to pay taxes to Britain on tea exported to the American colonies. It even gave the company a tax refund on millions of pounds of tea they were unable to sell and holding in inventory.

One purpose of the Tea Act was to increase the profitability of the East India Company to its stockholders (which included the King), and to help the company drive its colonial small business competitors out of business. Because the company no longer had to pay high taxes to England and held a monopoly on the tea it sold in the American colonies, it was able to lower its tea prices to undercut the prices of the local importers and the mom-and-pop tea merchants and tea houses in every town in America.

In an article for Harper's this month, writer Kevin Phillips shows that intentional governmental policy has altered the way government reports on business and the economy in general, with the result being that few Americans get an accurate picture of how weak or strong the economy truly is. How we have allowed massive changes to the definitions of unemployment rates, inflation, the consumer price index, etc, has had a very plain result: the average person has no idea what the economic status of the nation or individual might be.

All of the above to say that really, business has been running government for a very long time.

Camera Obscura: 'Iron Man'; "Cloverfield'; Nashville Screenwriters

I took my first trip out to the 18-screen Turkey Creek Pinnacle Theater to see "Iron Man" in digital projection and it nearly became a huge folly.

All through the previews, the image and the sound stuttered and screeched as the digital process seemed to just collapse. Just as I was about to go and complain, a woman behind me called the theater on her cell phone and told them to fix it. So she gets the Best Use Of Cell Phone in a Theater Award.

Sadly, we all had to watch all the previews again when the problem was fixed. After seeing the review for Adam Sandler's new movie, where he plays an Israeli super commando who really just wants to cut hair, I'm positive it is a movie I will never watch.

And for all the hoopla for digital projection, I didn't see enough difference between a crisp film image and a digital one. Plus, that 7-dollar matinee and a 4-dollar small soda is insanely high. Thank goodness the movie made all the effort and cash more than worth it.

Tony Stark's character weaves in and out of much of the Marvel Universe. He is a mega-wealthy, irreverent playboy and brilliant engineer running Stark Industries, which manufactures and develops weapons for the military. For the movie, we discover Stark pitching a new weapon to U.S. officials in Afghanistan. When his convoy is attacked, he is kidnapped and held by Afghani militiamen because they want him to build them a super weapon. Instead, he creates an armed metal exo-skeleton which he uses to escape.

But his experience rattles his carefree worldview and he remakes the exo-skeleton not as a new cash cow for the company, but for a more humane purpose.

Stark has always been a rather complex creation - smug, indifferent and rakish - until he decides to take his Iron Man creation into the world as a force for fighting "injustice", a fight which almost casts him as an anti-war, anti-corporate kind of liberal hippie. But he isn't. He loves technology, but he is also seeking a balance of power. As with Spiderman and the X-Men, Marvel's heroes are touched with an anti-authoritarian streak which makes them far more interesting than most comic heroes.

The movie expertly navigates all the thorny issues of Stark, thanks to director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. Downey is able to handle the odd shifts of Stark's personality and makes an essentially unlikable playboy into a compassionate character. Job very well done. Favreau also has a knack for allowing dialog to overlap and conflict, so it rolls out like an old Howard Hawks movie, plenty of natural style and quite a bit of humor.

And also as good in the movie is the presentation of the various stages of the Iron Man suit - from a clunky home-made metal monolith into a sleek, layered machine which seems both unstoppable and more important, fun to wear. Several scenes of Downey conversing with the robotic appliances in his workshop stand out - he feels more at ease with them than with the people around him.

Audiences get teased with one of the most fascinating (to me) creations of Marvel: S.H.I.E.L.D. And if you stay to the very end of the credits, you'll get to see the one and only Nick Fury, played by Samuel Jackson. I hope that they have Nick Fury on the fast track for a movie - and maybe they should go ahead and think of making Favreau the director.

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A near-perfect monster movie hit DVD this week, and as producer J.J. Abrams has said, it plays much better on the small screen than it did on the big screen. "Cloverfield" is presented as but one random video artifact made during an attack on New York City by some unknown creature. The video was being made at a farewell party for a young man about to head off to Japan. But before long the earth violently trembles as something happens outside.

The story never appears too staged as the party-goers and the video document-maker take to the streets. It's a nightmare of chaos and a city under attack, and despite efforts to leave the city, it gets worse and worse for all involved in this small scale version of a massive disaster.

On a TV screen, it looks and feels very authentic, full of panic and unknown dangers which are barely glimpsed. Writer Drew Goddard and director Matt Reeves have done an astonishingly good movie here. And I think the movie has the perfect ending too -- even if you've seen the movie on the big screen it is better at home.

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The end of May will bring the 10th Annual Nashville Screenwriters Conference. Congrats to the organizers for reaching the decade mark!

What's The Best Cover of a Beatles Song?

A video pops up on YouTube of a wee boy singing "Hey Jude" and the video shows up on the pages of MetaFilter and quick as a wink, listing of cover songs of Beatles music spins out.

So be sure and check out what the MeFites are saying about the cover songs.

And really, any musician worth listening to has cut a version of some Beatles tune - this list is only a brief sample of performers ranging from Frank Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix to The Brady Bunch and even a listing of Give Peace A Chance by Louis Armstrong (that's one I'm still tracking down!).

There is no denial that The Beatles changed the world of music forever - every song on every album is a thing to celebrate. Their reach was endless.

Below is a short sample of the wide range of artists who've done The Beatles -- maybe you have a favorite to mention as well.


SeeqPod - Playable Search

Creation Seminar is Certainly Creative

A near-miracle is taking place as Creationists are now claiming Darwin's theory of evolution is also the theory of how the universe and the planets were created. Taking a theory about natural selection within life forms on this planet and converting it to a theory about the creation of stars and planets - that must be some kind of miracle, right?

The claims were offered at a "Creation Seminar" being held in Greeneville this week. Dr. Alan White, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry said:

"In his talk, White made his case for a created universe -- rather than one that somehow evolved naturally without creator or design -- by using examples relating to the complexity of a single cell, or amoeba.

"White stated that, in his view, the traditional biblical description of six days of creation makes sense in a scientific context, starting with Earth, space, time and light being created first, with God as the Creator, or cause."

With the presence in movie theaters in towns across the country of the movie "Expelled" hosted by actor Ben Stein, this linking of theories on the development and growth of life on this planet being also linked to the creation of the universe itself will surely add more ignorance than knowledge. And it will add cash to Ben Stein's wallet.

Court Rejects Voter ID Challenge

By a vote of 6 to 3, the US Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Indiana's Voter ID law on Monday.

In one sense the court left open challenges to Voter ID cases, but also placed emphasis on states to resolve election issues.

Two good case assessments from the SCOTUS blog note:

"The voter ID ruling may turn out to be a significant victory for Republicans at election time, since the requirement for proof of identification is likely to fall most heavily on voters long assumed to be identified with the Democrats — particularly, minority and poor voters. The GOP for years has been actively pursuing a campaign against what it calls “voter fraud,” and the Court’s ruling Monday appears to validate that effort, at least in part. The main opinion said states have a valid interest in preventing voting by those not entitled to do so, even if there is no specific proof of that kind of fraud in the state.

While the Court’s main opinion said it was “fair to infer that partisan considerations may have played a significant role” in enacting the photo ID law, it went on to say that that law was neutral in its application and was adequately supported by the justifications the state had offered."

That's from their initial report. Here's the analysis today:

"Democrats argued that voter impersonation is rare and that voter ID requirements, by making voting a more onerous task, actually tend to undermine public confidence in elections; Republicans submitted evidence that, they asserted, demonstrated the precise opposite. The Court made clear that such factual disputes should be decided by legislatures, not courts. The court exhibited the same hands-off attitude that it has exhibited toward redistricting disputes in recent years."

I'd expect more states to quickly adopt Voter ID laws, where challenges may be pushed forward on the local levels and appeals may bring the issue back to the Supreme Court further down the line.

As this post says, more challenges to such ID laws are almost being invited by the court:

"The lack of a majority opinion, moreover, injects some uncertainty into the appropriate standard for reviewing other challenges to onerous election laws. The Court’s specific split in this case will blunt charges that this is a politicized 5-4 decision — and it is significant that the Court, once again, has failed to cite to its opinion in Bush v. Gore."

Goodbye, Local Franchises

AT&T gets what it wants as the state legislature caves in to their desires.

Will you see decreased rates? Will they add jobs in Tennessee?

The answers no longer matter - the legislation they wanted is almost in place.

The Politics of Religion

It is not very tough to find a critical reaction to something said by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - he speaks his mind about what he believes.

But I don't buy into the notion his views are those also held by Sen. Obama, much less that Rev. Wright is seeking to control American government and politics. His words and/or actions never reach the level of the right-wing Moral Majority, which actively entered the political world in 1979 and has been tackling political changes with lobbying organizations, contribution campaigns, voting guides and much more.

Rev. Wright is not playing at politics, but is being played instead.

Take the ad campaign from the North Carolina GOP - serving up snippets of Rev. Wright's sermons and comments, they seek to link him with every candidate and member of the Democrat party. But as one editorial in N.C. said: "And what does any of this have to do with improving the lives of North Carolinians?"

I can't blame Rev. Wright for coming forth to challenge and repudiate the media and their reports about him. It's his freedom to speak as he wishes in the pulpit or out of it. Folks are free to weigh the value of what he says, too. Weighing others with Wright's words just makes little sense.

The fact is Americans have allowed for considerable influence from certain religious beliefs to dictate policy and promote programs. Take the first two Executive Orders from current President Bush - the creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Here's a federal program, based in the White House, which in the year 2006 funneled over $2 billion to church groups.

It's just more difficult for the media to challenge the existing church-led government, easier to stack sound bites of a single pastor as proof of Sen. Obama's wacky belief system, regardless of whether it has a basis in fact or not.

Evaluating the place of religion in American politics is a dicey issue - your views of how or if the two go together may be used against you.

Weekly Best of Tennessee Blogs

Here's the weekly wrap-up (via TennViews) of what the good folks of Tennessee have been blogging about in the world of politics in general and on a personal level too. After a year (sort of) of hard knock campaigning for the presidency (and why take the job after the Bush disaster? because it will be easy to look better next to that wreckage, I suppose), the personal is getting really personal.

And when you do check some of the links below, be sure and read more than just one post from the blogger mentioned. You'll be glad you did.

• 55-40 Memphis: I'm a Hillary-hater now

• BlountViews: Republican County Mayor charges Sunshine Law violation against commissioners helping citizen investigate county finances. Plus: Local paper discovers blogs, interviews yours truly.

• Carole Borges: Hillary please do go gently into that good night

• The Crone Speaks: Abstinence Only Doesn't Work, and Barrack’s Senior Problem

• Cup of Joe Powell: Search For Terrorism in TN Nets Seatbelt Violations , plus: this is not a pipe.

• The Donkey's Mouth: Tennessee's Republican Congressional delegation votes against Medicaid Safety Net, TN GOP doesn't get the memo and blames Bredesen.

• Enclave: Beth Harwell has no interest in protecting Tennessee kids from dangerous toys (wonder why?), and any effort to regulate dangerous toys at the state level usurps the federal government's right to not regulate dangerous toys.

• Fletch: See Chattanooga on a Segway, plus Temple of the Gods: When the temple is occupied, the gods will command a magnificent air-conditioned vista of downtown, the Tennessee River, and Lookout Mountain, while processing the paperwork and making life and death financial and health decisions for the mere mortals down below who pay their tithes to the gods.

• KnoxViews: Straight talk about real life, plus McCain wins Pennsylvania primary. Bonus: KnoxViews voted best local blog by Metro Pulse alt-weekly readers. (Instapundit was a runner up.)

• Lean Left: McCain Opposed To New Benefits for Veterans, plus: Lean Left: You don't stop doing business with Pizza Hut because you don't like their corporate policies. You stop doing business with Pizza Hut because they have sh**ty pizza.

• Left of the Dial: No Deal

• Left Wing Cracker: It's time for some MISSIONARY work, my Democratic brothers and sisters, plus: Democrats for LAMAR!

• Liberadio: Steve Gill’s Gas Problem, and Phil Valentine’s Lying Problem

• NewsComa: Now famous in Pakistan.

• Progressive Nashville: Lamar Alexander Votes To Deny Justice to Tennessee Workers: Alexander and Corker both feel safe in their seats, so they had the freedom to vote party line over common sense. They should both be ashamed. Plus: What do coral snake bites and German rooftops have in common? Hint: the so-called free market.

• Resonance: Is Conspicuous Consumption Out? Plus, People Get Outraged Over The Silliest Things: And somewhere near the bottom of the list would be the horror of having my precious snowflake exposed to a few seconds of Spanish over the school public address system one day a year.

• RoaneViews: Becky Ruppe Officially announced her campaign for State Senator

• Russ McBee: McCain's Pander Bus stops in New Orleans, lies to the Lower 9th. Plus: happy blogiversary!

• Sean Braisted: Let the Caveats Begin: John McCain is backtracking on his tough talk over earmarks... Plus: Willie Horton Part Deux

• Sharon Cobb: Reverend Jeremiah Wright Gives First Interview: I bring all of this up to underscore how much your average white person does not know about the black churches, and how Rev. Wright is going to get his words twisted. Plus: Hillary Clinton Runs Her Campaign Like A Republican, And It Will Backfire

• Silence Isn't Golden: Dear Senator Obama: Hi. I know you're busy right now, and you've got a lot on your mind. But if you can spare a few minutes, then for God's sake, call this woman! Bonus: Awesome spring break, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. (And the amazing thing is, she still found time to blog for Obama!)

• Southern Beale: Rep. Jim Cooper recounts an embarrassing trip aboard Air Force One ("These are astronaut mattresses!") Plus: Back to the Kitchen!

• Tennessee Guerilla Women: Chelsea Clinton at Duke On Hillary's Position On Feminist Issues: In the video clip below, Chelsea Clinton campaigns at North Carolina's Duke University (on Equal Pay Day) and points out that numerous feminist, um, human rights bills fail to pass in even a Democratic Congress. Plus: NY Times Whines: Hillary Made Politics Mean!

• TennViews: Democratic Convention 101, Plus: Fight higher grocery prices: Buy local

• Vibinc: Harrowing Healthcare Hedge, And: Whiners and Hand Wringers

• Whites Creek Journal: No She Can't: Ohmygod!!! Obama is Willard Scott! Plus: Pictures from the Morning Hike: My yard is a bit unusual, lying in three counties and two time zones, and having over 800 feet of elevation change from bottom to top.

• Women's Health News: Drug-Addicted Women Need Medical Care, Not Jail Plus: Happy Earth Day - Alternative & Reusable Menstrual Products

UPDATE: Also, Don Williams.

A Boring Talk About Art Which Shocks

Yale art student Aliza Shvarts stirred up a real controversy with her student project, a project about abortion - her own, she claimed, something she achieved by attempting to artificially inseminate herself and then induce miscarriages all over a period of many months. All of which she had videotaped, she said, and which were to be shown on a 4-foot cube wrapped in plastic and smeared in Vaseline.

Outrage and horror poured forth, many from online and many others in print and television. Finally, Yale officials came forth saying the project was in fact a hoax, a bit of performance art, but that they would not allow the project to go on display unless a signed statement from Shvarts was made in which she admitted the hoax. She declined, no project was displayed, her professors were disciplined, all as the media rumbled with the story.

It impresses me that with all the things happening in the world that a proposed art project can cause millions to react with such intensity, because, after all, it was just the idea of the project which drew massive response - Shvarts never showed any of her work. (And even I just yesterday railed against a project proposal which I myself find offensive. It happens.)

Art - what it is and what it isn't - is a discussion sure to bore many people, excite many others, but I'm marching into. It is completely infused with our human experience and always has been. One of the best artistic representations of that debate came in 1929 from painter Rene Magritte with his painting shown below - the translation of the words on the canvas -- "This is not a pipe".



Nope, sure isn't a pipe. Just a painting of one.

It does rather neatly provide the idea that art is not the thing, but a symbol of it, a representation of it, and confronts the idea too that each of us construct the world into signs and symbols which might be held in common or held by an individual.

So anyway, I'm reading some local blogger commentary (here and here) about Shvarts and wanted to share some thoughts. See, I think she should have been allowed to show the project - and, as a student, then been given a grade for her work. She could have gotten an F - and learned something in the process. Do I think her project was Art - don't know, didn't see it - so judgement belongs to those who did see it. Except that no one did. She may get some gallery to pay her big bucks one day. Maybe not.

Art can rattle the bejesus out of us, it can calm and soothe, inspire, haunt, and invoke all types of response. My good friend Mr Horton and I have had hundreds of discussions about Art with him holding fast to the idea that if an Artist makes something which only he understands, then he has failed, that Art must communicate something to more than the maker of it. I have often taken the other view - a support of Art for Art's sake, for example, very few cared for the paintings of Van Gogh as he made them, yet today they are auctioned off for tens of millions of dollars. Art and Time need to coincide.

And all this furor over Shvarts reminded me of a movie I saw recently called "The Shape of Things" by Neil LaBute, based on his play. It's a very compact and ultimately stunning bit of work about Art and relationships. It begins with the nerdy and awkward museum guard and student named Adam (Paul Rudd) who sees another student (Rachel Weisz) trying to spray paint a penis onto a large statue of a male divinity on display. He gets her phone number and allows her to make her 'statement' with spray paint.

As the pair begin to date, she often criticizes him for his looks or attitudes and in short order Adam eagerly alters his looks and clothes to receive approval - he gets contact lenses, loses 20 or 30 pounds, has a nose job, starts wearing trendy clothes. He is eager to do anything to make her happy, even abandon his longtime friends. But all the time watching this unfold, watching Evelyn (Eve? and Adam too, huh?) I knew there was something else, more dire, more weighty happening.

Not to ruin the movie for you (spoilers ahead!!), but Adam discovers he has been an art project. Evelyn invites him to her student show and on prominent display is a banner reading: A Moralist Has No Place In An Art Gallery.

That's a quote from writer Han Suyin, famous for her book "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing".

Here's filmmaker and playwright LaBute talking about that quote:

"I think moralists have a place in an art gallery, I think everybody has a place in an art gallery, they just should keep their mouths shut. They're free to walk around as long as they pay the price, I just don't think they should be dictating policy. I'm big on what the argument the film proposes about subjectivity about art itself. This [picks up glass of water] can be art because you made it, or it can be a glass of water to me and I can think you're a loon for calling it art, and we could both be right. So I'm big on "I'm okay, you're okay" but if pushed, it turns quickly into "I'm okay, you're a piece of shit".

[Laughter]

Because ultimately... I'm happy to come out even, but if forced, I want to come out on top. And that's what was happening up there, two people who are having an argument about something, where one's having a breakup and one's having a discussion about art - we often just see things through our own lens and it's difficult to understand what somebody else is saying when we're so driven to take care of our own needs."

Often Art is an act of manipulation from the artist. Whether it is in the construction of the entire artifice of a painting or sculpture, or perhaps it occurs at a more basic level of commerce, such as the constant photoshopping of images of people on magazine covers to make them look thinner. Manipulation is a sly thing - no matter the intent of the manipulator for good or ill. Each of us decides, many times a day, to respond how we will to influences artistic or real or perceived.

Perhaps the Artist gets the reaction from the public, good or bad, or perhaps the Artist is ignored. Our response, no matter what it is, is a moment of communication. There are real-world actions and events which are life and death matters. Art is at best a pale recreation of the real.

Some bit of Art on display will not (or hasn't yet) destroy the world. It's ideas which can prompt upheaval and change.

Camera Obscura: Worst Remake Ever, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" with Eddie Murphy

It's a jaw-dropping, bone-dumb, chunk of stoooopid to remake "The Incredible Shrinking Man" with Eddie Murphy. And written by the same pair who have given us "Herbie: Fully Loaded", "The Pacifier", and "Taxi" and directed by Brett Ratner. At this rate, Jackie Chan will show up in a tiny kung fu battle and Jessica Simpson will be his wife, and arrrghhh ....

I am with Scott Weinberg here - it's enough to make me weep openly. Of course, the classic script and novel by Richard Matheson is going to get a "comedic approach to the fantastical material, telling the story of a famous Las Vegas magician who is put under a spell that causes him to shrink. He must find a way to reverse the spell before he gets so small that he disappears."

It makes me want to rake a cheese grater over my eyeballs.

It also makes me think that I should push through a remake of "Casablanca" as a teen sex comedy with Dane Cook and Lindsay Lohan set in a wild and crazy summer on Lake Havasu and film it with a cell phone.

Don't laugh - Spike Lee is making a cell phone movie right now, which you can submit content for, as part of what Lee calls "the democratization of film".

Yes, please, let's eliminate that pesky elitist element of talent from filmmaking.

And I had some other movies and topics to tackle today, but I've lost the will.

Plus, I'm finishing up my script for a new hot movie that's "Driving Miss Daisy" meets "Road Warrior", about a female android with irritable bowel syndrome running a day care full of the children of international spies who battle a rival day care, run by former NASCAR drivers and staffed by chicks who work at Hooters.

John McCain Is Homer Simpson's Dad?

I like it even more because they used my favorite line from Abe Simpson. And the "Matlock" music too. Matlock!!!! (thanks to The Kenosha Kid)

Living Fast and Senile At 30

There's such a serene and calm quality to the madness of this quote from "1984" that DeMarCaTionVille shared today:

"Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death?”

I was just thinking that I am slow to respond to hot-button, buzzflash responses to the massive investigation and judicial intervention into the FLDS child-bride story out of Texas. But it takes me some time to read and ponder on what the heck is happening and has been happening there. It seems I read so many blogger-commenter-pundits whose opinions arrive all neatly organized and outraged to such events.

I read these arguments that the simple folk of the FLDS church have every right to live and worship as they please without fearing investigation -- but who the heck gets to experience that level of living? Claiming a religious foundation for behavior isn't a Free Spot on Life's Bingo Card, though I know some see it that way (and what troubles the world today more than that view?). Likewise, unchecked interventions into family affairs is hardly advisable. But the more I read of that sect, it seems to me that they really mean family and affair in the worst kind of ways.

We do have freedoms of choices, but the actions we take based on our principles will always have consequences. And the events in Texas demand much thought and time to both gather information and digest its meaning. Sadly, I'm sure that before all the facts tumble out of this tale, the nanosecond news cycles and attention spans will be off on some other curious event.

Senile at 30 may be altered to 30 seconds and not years. With each passing day, I gather a wealth of confusion above all else.

X-Box 360 Live Gets Local Assist

Tune in tonight online for a new show called LAGtv, which is co-produced by my friend Jessie, and is a tri-weekly live internet broadcast aimed at X-Box 360 gamers. Jess (aka Mountain Girl) has been a very active part of the gaming world for a while and I know she'll find much success with this relatively new enterprise.

Tennessee Jed clued me into this new enterprise, and he designed their logo, too.

Go here for the broadcast. What is it, really, you ask?

"This show is raw gamer television, where we talk about what the gamers want to hear. If you are wondering if a game is going to be worth getting, we’ll show you game play LIVE so you can make up your mind easier. If your wanting the latest updated news on what’s going on in the game world we’ll talk about it, and since our show is ALWAYS LIVE, you can even call into the show via Phone, Chat, or even use your Xbox Live Vision cam to actually be on the show!"

Live gaming is a blast to play, no doubt, and I have extremely poor skills. With a bit of practice, it can be seriously addicting. The site also has previous episodes to check out too.

Search For Terrorism in TN Nets Seatbelt Violations

A three-state, 50-agency project called "Operation Sudden Impact" in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi was conducted last week to ferret out "terrorists", but what was really happening?

Reports note that law enforcement officers taking part in this search for terrorists stopped vehicles at random at a Walmart in Covington and issued 9 citations for violations of the state's seat belt law. So now you know that if you see a driver or passengers in a car without a seat belt, you've seen a terrorist????

The "sweep" was first touted as proactive anti-terrorism raid, then as a crime-fighting effort, and also a test of law enforcement communications and cooperation.

Was something else taking place here?? Did they know something they did not want to admit?

And do we really need nifty military-style nicknames to accompany law enforcement actions? I know it isn't a new thing, but still ...

At Reason, pundits note a lack of focus and intent ("They also issued about 1,300 traffic tickets, and according to one media account, seized "hundreds" of dollars") in this "operation" (which they call "martial law lite") and indifference by the local media. Were there warrants for all these searches?

If law enforcement stops every car and driver, searches every business and home, they will likely find some kind of violation of something somewhere ... but that's playing a game of blind luck and not 'enhancing security efforts'.

Corn Wars and Food Riots

Here's a Monday kind of apocalypse - Corn Wars and Food Riots

Corn is a part of so many foods and in the production of food, from beer to eggs to bread and meat and now it's an element of the world's energy supply. A recent documentary, "King Corn" aired on PBS focusing on how much the world relies on it and so corn is one hot, hot controversy and commodity. It's all perfect storm-like as many nations are seeing something once reserved for 19th century history (or maybe for sci-fi future history): Food Riots.

A New Statesman article notes:

"The EU, the United States, India, Brazil and China all have targets to increase biofuels use. But a look at the raw data confirms today's dire situation. According to the World Bank, global maize production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that time, biofuels use in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million tonnes, soaking up almost the entire global increase.

Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million tonnes - nearly a third of the whole projected US crop. American cars now burn enough corn to cover all the import needs of the 82 nations classed by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as "low-income food-deficit countries". There could scarcely be a better way to starve the poor.

The threat posed by biofuels affects all of us. Global grain stockpiles - on which all of humanity depends - are now perilously depleted. Cereal stocks are at their lowest level for 25 years, according to the FAO. The world has consumed more grain than it has produced for seven of the past eight years, and supplies, at roughly only 54 days of consumption, are the lowest on record."

International agencies are getting worried, and a slow but steady diet of gloom is building. Food riots have been reported in a growing trend. (See this report from Amy Goodman for more details.)

Is there a solution? Today, the KNS had several reports about farmers in Tennessee working to make switchgrass a bio-fuel success rather than corn-based ethanol. The scramble for new energy sources and the current uses of the food supply indicate that solutions won't be easy or quick or will take place without real human costs.

More and more, it seems that dire times are looming large:

"People may think these are scare stories, but the price of rice has tripled this year to $1000 per tonne and global wheat stocks are at their lowest for 20 years. Last year we saw the so called ‘Tortilla riots’ in Mexico and only last week, the Bangladeshi government couldn’t buy any rice on the global markets. Not only does this create a more volatile social environment for many UK multinationals, but for food companies it also poses the very real threat that they can’t source essential raw materials at all."

If Lincoln And Douglas Debated on ABC

The idiotic questioning, baiting and nonsense of the last debate hosted by ABC gets ripped apart in this post from Obsidian Wings. They present the transcript of a debate between Lincoln and Douglas if ABC had been in charge. The idiocy on display this week from ABC offered us a glimpse of a presidential campaign debate run by Ryan Seacrest and E!, a hard-hitting example of just how shallow and aimless television can be.

A Sample:

"STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think Mr. Douglas loves America as much you do?

LINCOLN: Sure I do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But who loves America more?

LINCOLN: I’d prefer to get on with my opening statement George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: If your love for America were eight apples, how many apples would Senator Douglas’s love be?

Go read the whole thing.

Camera Obscura: "Tennesse" Opens; Coolest Movie Star Ever; Most Unwatchable Movies; and Sartre, Nebraska

Last Spring, independent filmmakers and music star Mariah Carey came to Tennessee to film a movie called, duh, "Tennessee." Scenes were shot in Nashville, McMinnville, and Dunlap. The movie premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival next weekend.

The story follows two brothers who travel from the Southwest to Tennessee in search of their estranged father and they are joined on the journey by Carey, who plays a waitress with dreams of a singing career in Nashville. Director Aaron Woodley says the film is a very personal and intimate story of the fleeting time we all inhabit, and found the script to be an excellent tale of the tentative nature of life.

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The coolest person ever on film? Many think that person is Jean Gabin. Yeah, who??

He first found great success "The Grand Illusion" and then in "Pepe Le Moko" (which was also the source of inspiration for the Warner Bros. cartoon character Pepe Le Pew).

A two-volume(!!) biography of the actor has just been published, "World's Coolest Movie Star", and it contains exhaustive info on his 95 films, many which have never been made available in the U.S. I suppose you have to be French to be cool.


I like both of his most famous films, yes, but come on, as far as French cool goes it's Jean Paul Belmondo. American movie cool? Hard to beat James Dean and his three (and only three) movies. But cool is also the kingdom of Steve McQueen - jumping motorcycles over barb-wire fences while fleeing Nazis, digging the cool jazz sounds as a Mustang-driving policeman, or my favorite is when he keeps yelling "punch it baby!!" to his driver, Ali McGraw, while escaping the cops in "The Getaway".

I have to give props to Jack Nicholson for always wearing sunglasses in public, indoors or out, day or night. But his cool factor fell fast and hard with "The Bucket List". Then there's Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, and honorable mention for Tim Matheson - the one and only Jonny Quest and Eric Stratton in "Animal House." Plus he was Van Wilder's dad.

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What movie is the toughest to actually watch and endure to the end? (Yes, you might suggest any previous Mariah Carey movie.) In all my film-going experience the only movie which ever caused me to hurl a god-awful concession stand cheeseburger at the screen was "Xanadu".

A list of the Top Ten Difficult But Awesome movies is offered here, and there are some sound choices, like "The Isle", a Korean film about love and mutilation, and two films by Takashi Miike, "Audition" and "Ichi: The Killer". (Most people would say all of Miike's movies are nearly impossible to endure.)

Back in the day, some friends and I would frequently gather to watch movies and one game we played was Who Can Watch This Movie?

They weren't really meant to be "awesome" film experiences. One of my choices was "Bloodsucking Freaks", a movie I've yet to watch without hitting the fast forward button, a sign in my mind of good mental health. It's vile.

"A Clockwork Orange" would be on some lists, but it is an awesome piece of work and still able to disturb nearly 40 years after it was made. A more recent effort to catalog the awful nature of teenager-dom is on the above list, "Elephant" by Gus Van Zandt.

But after all is said and done .... the only movie that made be throw a cheeseburger at the screen - "Xanadu". I mean, just look at that image - it's as if she was asking me to throw it!
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The most-watched and most talked about video of the week and the month is one-time playwright Tricia Walsh-Smith ranting about her divorce settlement. Go here to see it if you wish. She hauls out her Tarot deck and also grills her hubby's assistant over the phone about his Viagra. I had to hold back on the urge to throw a cheeseburger at the video.

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Three reasons I am considering watching "Zombie Strippers" ---- the title, the fact the script is an adaptation of Eugene Ionesco's surreal comedy "Rhinoceros" and that it is set in a town called Sartre, Nebraska.

Truckers Plan More Strike Action

Independent truckers are continuing to voice concerns about high fuel prices and are planning new strategies to express them.

A convoy of truckers it headed to Philadelphia today - wonder if it gets the attention of the presidential campaigners? Reports say more convoys and shutdowns of work are ahead, including a rally in Washington.

And some are trying again to organize a nationwide strike effort, for May 1st, and now they are seeking the involvement of non-truckers who are likewise being squeezed by the ever-increasing price for fuel. The American Driver blog is aiming for more attention via the internet.

We all know the high costs now, and expect it to reach higher during the summer. Will any protest, national or local, have an effect? The more fuel station/convenience store owners I talk to, the more they say the same - as fuel prices go higher, all their other sales fall in a ripple effect. Energy makers and providers seldom feel a moment of discomfort.

Bristol School Bans Cancer Relay T-Shirts & Newspapers

Some Bristol Middle School students found out that wearing t-shirts in support of the Relay For Life cancer awareness program is not suitable - their shirts were taken from students. And copies of the Bristol Herald Courier newspaper which reported the problem were also banned from the school as well.

From Tri-Cities.com:

"On Wednesday, Matt Smith wore to school the controversial purple Relay For Life cancer awareness T-shirt that Vance Middle School administrators banned Friday, claiming the shirt was disruptive to the school environment.

"[A faculty member] made me take it off. But I put it right back on," the defiant 12-year-old said.

Matt said he was one of several students wearing the shirt, or other purple-colored clothing, in protest on the fourth day of a controversy that began when administrators said students wearing the shirt banded together and caused a disruption in the school’s hallways.

He said his T-shirt wasn’t the only thing confiscated in school hallways on Wednesday. Copies of the Bristol Herald Courier were, too.

"No kids were allowed to read the newspaper today," Matt said. "The teachers usually get stacks, but [faculty] took them all away."

So what's the disruption? Here's more details from the report above, but it all seems fairly muddled to me.


"The Herald Courier ran a story in Tuesday’s edition about the T-shirt controversy, which outlined circumstances surrounding the dispute.

In the article, some students claimed the shirts – and all purple clothing – were banned because faculty said they had become symbols of a developing gang; allegations Vance Middle Principal Rigby Kind and Vice Principal Scott Latham said were untrue.

Both administrators said the shirts were banned under dress code guidelines that dictate any clothing that causes a disruption or draws undue attention to the student is counter to school policy.

Latham and Kind did not immediately return phone calls to the Herald Courier on Wednesday for this story.

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Tuesday’s story prompted a flurry of phone calls and e-mails from parents and citizens who took different sides of the issue.

Sheila Moore, whose son is also in the seventh grade at Vance Middle and who was asked to take off his shirt on Friday, said the students’ behavior isn’t what disturbs her about the controversy, but rather the administrators who were quoted in Tuesday’s article, saying the issue was not gang-related and that Latham had received no phone calls from parents.

"I’m not saying that the kids did nothing wrong. I mean, kids will be kids," she said. "... But for [Latham] to say no one contacted him, that bothered me, and when he said no one was alleging it was a gang, well, that isn’t true."

Moore said she had a telephone conversation with Latham on Tuesday afternoon, about two hours before he told the Herald Courier that no parents had contacted him. She said he told her the shirts had been banned because "he said the children have passed out these T-shirts to form a gang."

Latham could not be contacted to respond directly to Moore’s contention."

See Also: Tri-Cities blogs.