An Absent GOP Reduces Public Debate on Healthcare Reform

During the presidential campaign of 2008, then-candidate Obama said he would make sure that "healthcare negotiations" were televised, so Americans could see who was making arguments for proposed changes (and who was voicing the concerns of business). But there has been a problem with that promise --

" ... since no Republican voted for either the House or Senate versions, the legislation has become purely a Democratic creation for Democrats to shape (and to take the credit or blame).

So, the first hurdle for C-SPAN’s cameras is that there will be no public conference meetings to record."

However, there has been much coverage on C-SPAN of the discussions and decisions regarding healthcare changes:

"Legislation is on the Web for all to read, and reporters will be working their sources. Nor is it the last chance for citizen input, as members still have to vote on the bill. Ultimately, voters will hold lawmakers accountable.To date, C-SPAN has televised hundreds of hours of committee hearings, markups, and floor debates on healthcare. That’s been a useful window into the process, but at the same time, the cameras have not stopped the flow of lobbying dollars or the intense partisanship surrounding healthcare legislation."

So what is making the media wheels spin today?

As Southern Beale writes, mostly celebrity gossip:

"This morning’s news has all been about Simon Cowell leaving American Idol, Mark McGuire using steroids, the Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien story, and Sarah Palin getting a show on Fox. None of which is actual news. I guess the assumption is that we’re getting our information about the world from somewhere, leaving the media to cover itself the rest of the time. Very odd."


Or just stories about where Tiger Woods is not, who is or isn't his lover.

Or, in Knoxville, lots of talk about a proposed sperm bank/music center in Sequoyah Hills has comments sure to make you laugh.

Meanwhile, Tennessee's legislature still refuses to enact rules to improve voting reliability and confidence two years after the measure passed. So, today, members are giving reasons why they are refusing to enforce their own laws and will likely vote to delay action on improving voting standards for as long as possible. Mary Mancini at Liberadio has been tracking this story -- the state's mainstream media outlets, however, barely mention the events in Nashville.

If the state media had applied one-tenth of the amount of coverage about cold weather to voting standards and hypocrisy in the legislature, then voters might understand what the legislature is doing.

The Simpsons - Television That Embiggens Us All

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man

Where do you beginulate praise for such a cromulent moment in American television history?

I had barely begun my career as an entertainment writer when a new TV network called FOX hit the television airwaves of America. Today, I still have a collection of posters the fledgling network sent out to promo their line-up of programs in 1987, featuring such shows as "Married With Children", "21 Jump Street" and "The Tracey Ullman Show". Airing only a few night a week to begin, the network added and trashed shows faster than most viewers could follow.

One element of Ullman's underrated show were these little animated segments of an oddball family created by cartoonist Matt Groening. In 1989, "The Simpsons" got their own half-hour show and the show marks it's 20th anniversary tonight -- a special show, "The Simspson's 20th Anniversary Special In 3D on Ice" airs tonight, and you can take a sneak peek at what's ahead in this special right here and learn how the show has saved at least one life.

20 years of broadcast history, 20 years of success that began with a family that looks yellow and whose only son, Bart, told the world to "Eat my shorts".

Think about it - without Bart Simpson, we would not have Glenn Beck, as the ever-growing Fox Network soon begat FOX News. In truth, Beck surely seems a twisted creation from the weird world of Springfield as he writes his bizarre theories on a blackboard, just as young Bart found fame by writing on a blackboard in the opening sequences of every episode.

I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are. -- Homer Simpson

In the early days of the show, Conservative politicians and religious leaders degraded the show, howled of the abysmal influence of the rude Bart, the drunken Homer and the very idea that America could even be satirized. It was not only a battle such figures lost, it was a war they lost. Just last month, the Pope hailed "The Simpsons" for promoting religion in an article titled "Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnuts".

That title alone is something to celebrate, commingling Aristotle, the Catholic church and Homer Simpson's love for doughnuts.

"Without Homer Simpson and the other yellow-skinned characters "many today wouldn't know how to laugh .....

"Religion, from the snore-evoking sermons of the Rev. Lovejoy to Homer's face-to-face talks with God, appears so frequently on the show that it could be possible to come up with a "Simpsonian theology," it said.

"Homer's religious confusion and ignorance are "a mirror of the indifference and the need that modern man feels toward faith," the paper said.

"It commented on several religion-themed episodes, including one in which Homer calls for divine intervention by crying: "I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!"

"Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong," L'Osservatore said. "But these are just minor mistakes, after all, the two know each other well."

Astonishing, really, that authority figures might see such a view ... but since authority figures cannot beat them, then ...

The Simpson family too has changed the way America talks --

"According to Mark Liberman, of the University of Pennsylvania Linguistic Data Consortium: “ The Simpsons has apparently taken over from Shakespeare and the Bible as our culture’s greatest source of idioms, catchphrases and sundry other textual allusions.”

How many among us, on those occasions when we have made a mistake, of judgment or communication or thinking, how many of us have learned to say the word "D'oh!" as Homer might, in order to earn some indulgence, some forgiveness.

Serious Simpson's fanatics debate which season is the best, which the worst, if the show has far-outlived it's genius, but, as Homer himself has said, there is really one thing we should all remember:

"You can't depend on me all your life. You have to learn that there's a little Homer Simpson in all of us."

SEE ALSO:
Bart's Blackboard
Make Your Own Blackboard
A Simpson's Dictionary
A Simpson's Database

Camera Obscura: A-Team Returns; Lana Turner Does LSD

-- Are there actually people who will pay cash money to see a movie remake of the old "The A Team" TV show? Really? Trailer (including a parachuting tank and requisite explosions) here. I suppose since Liam Neeson is playing Zeus in the remake of the 1980s movie "Clash of the Titans" he was a natural to play Hannibal (and who better to direct the movie than Joe Carnahan, who oozes bullets and blood in his previous movies, like "Smokin' Aces", which of course has a sequel on the way).

-- Hollywood is gearing up for their annual awards, but there is a real problem in a fundamental part of filmmaking -- a problem many of us have seen for some time. Good writing is scarce. And when you add in a list of rules so byzantine and twisted, the nominees for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adaptation from another work, turn very odd. One example: the critical acclaim for "Inglorious Basterds" is likely to earn a Best Picture nominee, but Quentin Tarantino won't get a script nod because he is not a member of the Writer's Guild. Then there's writer Nick Hornby, whose movie "An Education" is gaining lots of praise and nominations, but since he belonged to the 'wrong chapter" of the Guild, he is not eligible for an Oscar nod. The rules in place are making a shambles of the potential race for "the best" and a fine write-up at Cinematical details how everyone is being disqualified.

---

Tonight, film fiends will want to stay up late for a chance to see movie star Lana Turner in her one and only wacky LSD trip motion picture. Turner Classic Movies will air "The Big Cube", made in 1969, and certainly a vivid snapshot of ... hmm, well, a snapshot of Weirdness, in a groovy sexy '60s kind of way.

It airs at 2 a.m. and is followed by another drug/romance tale, "I Love You Alice B. Toklas". But since The Big Cube barely was released to theaters and just hit DVD last year, that is the one to watch.

Turner plays an aging actress (what a stretch) who has a daughter who speaks with an eastern European accent for some reason, and the daughter falls under the seductive allure of a Bad Man (George Chakiris from "West Side Story") and pretty soon murder, orgies and crazed LSD trips fill the movie screen. Here's the trailer for the movie (all nudity is genteelly blocked):

Citizens For Accountability Target Morristown, Hamblen County Government

Some local residents have decided the city and county government in Morristown and Hamblen County needs some rigorous oversight and dedicated input to improve how they function.

Citizens for Accountability has launched a website to provide information about how these local governments operate, where they have failed and what needs to be done to improve conditions overall. WBIR offered a small feature on their efforts in their Tuesday news report.

One comment from that report by interim city administrator Lynn Wampler stands out -- that to get accurate information about city government, residents should attend the council meetings rather than visit the CFA website. However, with the meeting time of 4 pm, it's a tough to schedule or plan to attend.

What to do to change that? A very simple act, something the city has refused to do, is to record and replay the meetings for broadcast on the local cable Government and Education Channel. The county government has been doing this for years. The city refuses to participate or even investigate how to use very ordinary technology to inform and educate the public.

Why? Why not allow for meetings to be rebroadcast? Why allow only after-the-fact reporting from local media of city meetings?

Maybe the city council and mayor and city administrator want to keep their actions cloaked and obscured because what has been taking place has not been legal under state guidelines ....

Writer and blogger Linda Noe offers some perspective on the current financial mess in the city at the CFA website:


"This year the City is “caught” with a 6/30/09 deficit that it can’t erase with another illegal, unauthorized loan. While there is no official loan, the auditors are apparently going to report that “$1 Million + is due from the General Fund to the Sewer Fund” and “$1 Million + is due to the Sewer Fund from the General Fund.” Sounds like a loan but it just doesn’t use the word loan. When state officials get the city’s audit, they will likely see and know what’s going on this time and report that the city is in violation of state law.

This three-year fiasco highlights a number of serious problems at the City Center:

1. Auditors that have allowed illegal, unauthorized loans (Sewer Fund to General Fund) for 2007 and 2008 without reporting them to the Mayor and Council.
2. Budget and Finance Personnel who have been a party to these illegal, unauthorized loans without reporting or seeking approval of the Mayor and Council.
3. A former City Administrator who was a major player in these illegal, unauthorized loans without reporting or seeking the approval of the Mayor and Council.
4. A Mayor and Councilmembers who did not take the time to examine the yearly audits, ask questions, and get answers. [The cash poor condition of the General Fund was evident in the audits--but you had to actually open the audit and look at a few key pages to see that unauthorized loans were being recorded in the audits to "cover up" the dire financial condition of the City].

Elected office is not just a fancy title with a nameplate and special parking place. It is a high calling when you are entrusted with other people’s money. Elected officials ask to be put into office. If given the opportunity to serve, they have an obligation to give whatever time it takes and to do whatever is necessary to see that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and legally."

2009 Year In Review - Did A Decade Just Go Past?

Dispute continues (in certain circles) as to whether or not 2009 is the end of the 1st decade of the 21st Century, some say yes, some say no, and some blame the number zero. Zero just seems to be poorly regarded all around, really. Historically speaking, despite the efforts of many, math and numbers make many of us just suspicious.

Still no denying that 2009 has ended, timewise, and we Americans, we humans march onward. To round up the year, I've always enjoyed the fairly brisk and yet thorough job done at Harper's Magazine in their Yearly Review.

"Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States and ordered the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year. George W. Bush gave his final press conference. “Abu Ghraib was a huge disappointment,” he said. “Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment.”
A federal appeals court in Texas ruled to permit the sacrifice of goats. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele announced an “off the hook” Republican publicity campaign, targeting “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” “We need to uptick our image with everyone,” Steele said, “including one-armed midgets.”
... Thirty-nine million Americans were on food stamps, 54 percent of graduating U.S. business majors lacked job offers, and two gunmen robbed a man of one dollar in the parking lot of an Ohio Wendy’s. A top Pentagon official said that “cutbacks at Best Buy” made it easier to recruit better-qualified young people for the military. The war in Iraq turned six; the war in Afghanistan turned eight; SpongeBob SquarePants turned ten. In Afghanistan, where the Taliban threatened to chop off the fingers of anyone who votes, the government passed a law allowing men to starve wives who refuse sex."

So goes the opening lines here. But there is so much more to read:

"... a man in Munich received a two-year suspended sentence for beating another man with a swan. Highly aggressive supersquirrels were menacing gray squirrels in England, where the Law Lords were replaced with a new Supreme Court whose justices wear no wigs, and where cosmetic nipple surgery was increasingly popular. A London taxi driver tied one end of a rope around a post and the other around his neck and drove away, launching his head from the car. Anglican hymns were sung at Darwin’s tomb.

Two Yellowstone National Park workers were fired for peeing into Old Faithful. Sarah Palin published a book, and Sylvia Plath’s son hanged himself in Alaska. Scientists in San Diego made a robot head study itself in a mirror until it learned to smile."

Goodbye, 2009. We hardly knew ye ...

Live Webcast from Times Square

Ring in the new year of 2010 live with folks from Times Square and beyond for over 6 hours of live coverage right here starting at 5:45 PM. Merry New Year!!

Watch live streaming video from 2010 at livestream.com

Watch The Official Times Square New Year's Eve Webcast On This Blog

I am most fortunate to meet and work with some exceptional people. As I told one of those talented friends just recently, "it certainly makes me look good that I know you, however, I'm afraid you might lose points for admitting to knowing me." In plain words: I'm very lucky to know them.

One such friend, Mike Abbott, whose year has taken him to a brand new project he is working with which is, I think, quite momentous. He's helping to produce the first official online interactive full six-hour-plus live Webcast of the New Year's Celebration at Times Square in New York City. To see it all, viewers can go to TimesSquareNYC.org; Livestream.com/2010 or Facebook.com/TimesSquareNYC. IPhone users can visit their own special site.

Or you can just come here on New Year's Eve, as Cup of Joe Powell will host a live link to the Webcast, too.

Oh, and that giant ball of light they drop at midnight? It's all LED this year - welcome to the second decade of the 21st Century!

Things We Do Not Need In 2010

Each year culture in America spews out a wide range of meaningless words and certain types of fame and/or infamy, and trends that outlived their viability the moment they were created. So here are a few such things which to my thinking, we need to abandon for 2010.

- Don't ever use the phrase "Man Up". Ever. Just stop it. It is usually used in conjunction with ideas or "news" stories which just make no sense. If you say someone should "man up" about anything, it is a clear sign you are clueless in regards to the topic being discussed.

-- Prime-time cable network talk shows which pretend to be some kind of news show when it is not remotely news, it's mindless gossip, the kind which might be spoken by a dunce wasting time in the company break room. Likewise, the "trial" and/or "investigation" by public pundit whose only job is to be on camera as a featured former something-or-other is likely the very worst American trend of the decade. Same goes for reading someone's email or "twitter" utterance as viable commentary on any topic. It's pure proof that a cable network is refusing to pay anyone with ability to write a news report, and is far more willing to simply tell lurid lies.

-- Texting someone on a mobile device when you are talking face to face with another person. It's a pretentious habit.

-- Advertisements for "hover" chairs. Given the near 24 hour bombardment of this ad over the last decade, I'm pretty sure every single person on the planet who might actually have a need for a "hover" chair already has one.

-- There exists absolutely no reason to mention what Sarah Palin is doing. The woman has no skills, speaks very poorly, thinks even less so and has not been able to achieve any act of merit other than to be a mother -- and she does that poorly as well, being so narcissistic as to exploit her children as tools of self-promotion. See the above: a dunce gossiping mindlessly in the break room. If you are a fan of hers and think her a wise representative of American ideas, it at least tells the rest of us you really should have very few responsibilities in life. Being a fan of hers is reminiscent of those t-shirts popular in the 1970s that said "I'm With Stupid". (The same lack of worth Glenn Beck - the one way to tell if he is lying is if his lips are moving.)

-- Speaking of stupid, when someone claims that people who talk about Global Warming or Green Energy are really just evil conspirators trying to make tons of money, here's a reality check for you: all companies which currently sell energy (oil, coal, gas, etc) are doing it to make money. The real complaint is that such companies will quite naturally turn belly up and die off, like buggy whip manufacturers in the 1900s, as we develop more sustainable and less polluting forms of energy. Duh.

-- America needs to join with the rest of the world and ban advertising prescription medicine on television. No nation save America allows it.

-- And here are a couple of questions for the state of Tennessee -- why make it illegal to smoke inside a restaurant or bar but make it legal to carry in a loaded firearm? And why does every city and county governmental board have to conduct their business in public forums where images and records are made of their actions, but the state government is itself exempt from any such rule or accountability?

-- It's time to reverse the trend of charging the public huge fees and interest rates when they borrow money or use a credit card and pay only the tiniest of interest for saving money.

The Annual Christmas Monkey Caption Contest

Submit a caption for this image in the comments. The Christmas Monkey is a standard Christmas guest here on this humble and lovable blog.

And Merry Christmas!!

Snowball Fight In D.C. Brings Angry Armed Police

A massive snowfall Washington DC brought out a few hundred residents to play in the snow and have a snowball fight -- prompted apparently by a widespread Twitter notice. All seemed to be going well - and much fun was had ....

Fun until a passing Hummer got pelted with a snowball and the driver, an off-duty police detective, got out of his car and began threatening the crowd with a gun.

Images via D.C. Dispatches

Video of the event is here (via Gawker) including another video of the detective admitting he drew a gun on the unarmed crowd. Yeah, in the middle of a snowstorm, he gets angry for getting snow on his car?? And apparently he never identified himself as a police officer.

The crowd even helped one policeman helped get his car unstuck from the wintry mess. The Washington City Paper reports:

"Like so many others, Robin Bell heard about the snowball fight at 14th and U Streets NW and decided to go and check it out. He tells City Desk that prior to the incident, a cop car got stuck in the road and everybody stopped the snowball fight and helped the cop get his car out of the snow. "The crowd cheered and everybody was happy," Bell says.

Soon, though, he started hearing people shouting: "Don't bring a gun to a snowball fight!"

"Then I walked over and I saw a police officer brandishing a weapon," Bell says referring to the uniform cop. He says he didn't see the detective brandish his weapon--only the furious aftermath. He says the detective was yelling and "kind of out of control." "It was really strange to see a police officer so upset and angry over what seemed at best a misunderstanding," Bell explains. "At worst, it was some kids throwing a snowball at him."

And according to this report on FOX News -- the snowballers were some deadly crowd of anti-war protesters who needed to be brought to Justice. War on Christmas is more than just a slogan for the hacks at FOX.

Camera Obscura: 'The Runaways'; Bad Girl Movies: Blondie's Christmas Carol

I woke up today planning to write about a movie now on DVD which is likely my favorite for the year ... only to have all train of thought hijacked effortlessly by the likes of Joan Jett and Cheri Currie. So I am chucking the original plan here today and going in a whole new direction thanks to the just released trailer for the movie "The Runaways", a bio-pic about the all-girl band from the 1970s headed by Jett and Curie which lands in theaters in March 2010.

First, the trailer:

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

With the legions of Twilight fans tracking every move of the series star Kirsten Stewart, who plays Joan Jett in the Runaways movie, it's deeply pleasing to know that a new generation is about to get hip to the band whose name, music and images made teenage boys like myself get a bit crazy back in the mid-1970s. (holy moley is that really Dakota Fanning as Curie in that clip?? I thought she was like 12 or something ...)



Jett was 17, Curie was 16 when the band hit the record stores with their first album. Whenever a new Runaways album hit the stacks, all us boys would stare silently at the images wondering why the heck no girls in our school looked so cool or dared rock so hard. Sure, some girls had some of those clothes and mullet-like haircuts but there was nothing around our school to match those mythic girls who rocked the nation. They looked dangerous, like they could not get a good fake ID, but could buy liquor, had cartons of smokes, drove motorcycles, said curse words to any parent or adult, could break out windows with their music, might break out windows with their hands if they wanted, might slug you in the face just for standing near them.

Dangerous girls.

Jett produced this new movie, a project she has been shepherding for many years, going so far as to block a documentary, "Edgeplay", about the band from using any Runaways music and refusing to appear in the movie, though most of the rest of the band are there telling pretty terrible tales of how used and abused those young girls were. They were more often placed in dangerous worlds than they were dangerous themselves. Jett also spent some time with actress Stewart earlier this year, sharing some stories and such, and Stewart is doing her own singing in the movie (but I'm pretty sure that is not Fanning singing "Cherry Bomb" in the trailer ...)

Speaking of Cherry Bomb, here's the real band rocking that song, with Cherie on lead vocals and which Jett wrote:


There was another movie about the band, called "We're All Crazy Now" (or "Du-beat-e-o") which is a mangled slab of footage Jett was contractually forced to work on and deserves the utter absence of attention it has earned.

A fictional movie I have mentioned before is a decent riff on the band, starring Diane Lane and Laura Dern, called "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains" which is pretty good really and worth checking out. Lane plays a Jett-like rocker who takes no crap, plots a meteoric rise to success and learns about the mean old music business and the dangers of fame. The trailer for the movie is here.

Cherie Currie did some acting stints in the 1990s on shows like Matlock and Murder She Wrote (!!!) but she took the romantic lead in a very underrated and odd low budget science fiction film from 1983 called "Wavelength", opposite Robert Carradine. The movie centers on the young couple who discover the secret government lab where aliens from another world are stored and help break them out. Tangerine Dream did the music for the movie, and you can check out some scenes from it right here.

If you need a few biographic details of Joan Jett's career, then you, dear reader, need to go back to the basics of rock and roll education. It's like this - the 51-year-old is an icon in music and pop culture and even has her own Barbie doll. 'Nuff said.

---

Speaking of bad girl movies, Turner Classic Movies will show a seldom-seen blaxplitation chick flick at 2 am tonite called "Darktown Strutters", a movie that nearly defies description -- but the TCM site tries:

"... a cult film still looking for its audience. Combining elements of black action, soul and funk music, musical numbers, science fiction, slapstick comedy, and surprisingly blunt race-relations satire, this one-of-a-kind cinematic phantasmagoria offers a case study in how a screenwriter’s personality can fuse unexpectedly with that of the director. When prominent abortion clinic owner Cinderella (Frances Nealy) goes missing along with a string of other black community leaders, her singing daughter Syreena (Trina Parks) and her fellow female biker gang members tangle with the bumbling, racist police and equally inept Ku Klux Klan members before uncovering a nefarious plot by barbeque ribs magnate Commander Cross (Norman Bartold) to undermine the entire political organization of the black community."
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One more bad girl today, just in time for Christmas --- though she is really 65 years of age and is prepping a new album for 2010 - that's Debbie Harry, singer for Blondie. They have a new version of "We Three Kings" which makes me smile:

Congress Unanimous: Miles Davis Was Cool

Congress continues to strangle any meaningful health care reform package (and a potential funding loss for the U.S. military just in time for Christmas!!). There have been elements to the reform proposals I have not agreed with, but to do nothing, to scrap all plans for reform is a nasty rebuke to the average person and a big hug and sloppy wet kiss for insurance lobbyists and drug companies. "We love ya! Can I get me a campaign contribution honey???"

The majority of any debate on reform ideas was shot in the starting gate, thanks to the leadership of the Republican party (i.e. Rush Limbaugh) whose stated goal was to insure that all their efforts were aimed at one target: seeing the Obama administration fail, no matter the cost to the nation.

No lie has been left behind by the Republicans as they attempt to distort and destroy any proposal from the White House or from Democrats in Congress. It is a fact though, that much has been changed over the last 11 months since the oath of office was taken by President Obama.

Sadly, many in Congress are slaves to their own political party, and rather than act in the best interest of those who elect them they instead play a ill-conceived game of knocking down any effort to reform or improve policies if a Republican did not introduce the legislative orders. The Knoxville Sentinel reports that East Tennessee's representatives made sure to include millions in funding dollars in a massive spending bill which they then voted against. (Except our congressman here in the 1st District, Phil Roe, who sought no federal dollars for Tennessee and voted against funding anything. Not sure what the heck Dr. Roe/No is even doing in D.C.)

And yet ... in the middle of this mess, 409 members of Congress were all in agreement on one thing this week -- that the Miles Davis jazz album Kind of Blue was great, legendary, world-changing and full of coolness. And even though Miles' response to Congress might be the tune So What from that album, at least Congress has found one thing in America they agree on.

One Home, Totally Wrapped in Christmas Paper

While the owner of a Chicago apartment was away for a week, a host of friends descended upon the home, wrapping pretty much everything in Christmas paper - including the commode and everything in the refrigerator too.

The result looks like this:

Ash Spill Disaster One Year Later

Almost one year after the catastrophic coal ash disaster in Roane County from a TVA power plant, the news continues to grow worse. The most glaring aspect is how the disaster could have been prevented if only warnings were accepted and acted upon, or if TVA's own plans to reduce the massive coal ash storage site had been followed.

At KnoxViews, some recent posts have been tracking the probe into the disaster:

-- A report on how TVA's policies and plans contributed to the disaster and that TVA's plants are among the most inefficient in the nation. (link)

-- The ash spill released more toxic pollution into the land air and water than was released by ALL the combined energy plants in the United States. (link)

RoaneViews has likewise been following the disaster and the aftermath very closely with in-depth coverage far more consistently than the mainstream media in the state.

And almost a year later, little has been done to change the way coal ash is stored and handled in the country, despite numerous hearings in Washington. Plans are proposed, ideas are offered, but action still awaits.

Camera Obscura: Best Food Shows On TV

I've been watching hours and hours of the Food Network, which has to be something only an American would do. We have such abundance and crave more than the old-fashioned 'some-dude-in-an-apron-makes-some-casserole' segments which used to air on local noon news programs. So there are a few shows on the network which both entertain and inform.

Alton Brown gets all into the chemistry and physics and history of food on his show, so watching "Good Eats" from time to time makes me feel like I am being educated more than entertained. It's the network's 3rd highest rated show and it's the only food program other than Julia Child's to receive a Peabody Award. And Good Eats is also marking it's 10th anniversary on the air. Go behind the scenes here. (Bonus: Alton was a music video cameraman in the early days, serving as director of photography on R.E.M.'s video for "The One I Love"!!!!)

"Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" features a squirrely looking guy named Guy. Guy Fieri, in fact, who was a sort of American-Idol-like winner, except the contest he won was the Next Food Network Star show. But what I like best about this show is that it features honest-to-pete local restaurants, usually family-owned and a place locals hold in high regard. Our nation is overgrown with chains of identical restaurants, which I find to be god-awful places to feed. And then there are the food troughs, aka buffet-style places, which make me run away in fear.



Here in Hamblen County, likely the one notable non-chain outfit is "Hillbilly Cabin", which is sort of okay in a way. It has pretty tame fare, though when Harrison Ford comes to town to visit his soon-to-be-in-laws, he always goes there for a meal.

There used to be a lot more individually owned and creative eateries than we have today, and I'd like to see more of them. And too often, Guy's show focuses on some 4 pound stack of goop getting served up and I don't eat 4 pounds of anything much at one time. Okay, maybe I could eat a pound or too of unagi sushi. Or a pizza, I could eat a whole pizza, as long as it is not 4 feet in circumference with 10 pounds of ingredients.

Cooking contest shows are getting common, on several networks, but none of them offer the simple challenge provided by "Chopped". The set-up is very simple and the contestants are either good chefs or they are "chopped" away pretty fast. The set-up: four chefs must make an appetizer featuring a few ingredients which they do not see until the clock starts, and then they have maybe 20 minutes to make and serve the dish - one contestant is then out. Then they go onto an entree section, same deal, making a dish using secret key ingredients, one contestant is dropped and finally a dessert course is required.

A well-stocked pantry is there, sure, but chefs must make use of whatever secret ingredients the show offers -- and these can be some insanely challenging ingredients: one appetizer challenge was to use bittersweet chocolate, mussels and figs; kiwi, wonton wrappers and gummi bears ... you get the idea.

It's sort of like the game I play here at the house - what can I make to eat out of these left-over barbecue beans, a can of condensed milk and some old black olives .... it ain't pretty. But then I am no chef. Here's a sample of the Chopped show:



Another food show I have seen recently is one on the Travel Channel called Man vs Food -- no I am not linking to it 'cause it is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Some dude travels about looking for a restaurant which serves gigantic sized portions of food and dude tries to devour it in record time. Why would someone purposely try and harm themselves with food (and not in a food fight, just through gluttony??) It's weird and unpleasant and kinda sad to watch someone be so debased for a 12 pound double-deep-fried cheeseburger. Would this show even be on anywhere except America?

If you run the phrase "food blogs" through the old Google Machine, you get around 349 million returns. That's more blogs than people in the U.S.

Google says in 2009, the fastest rising search in the food and drink category is for "acai berry". What is Acai Berry?? An Amazonian berry which is food for many in South America and popular in the U.S. because Oprah talked about it.

Theremin Christmas Music 2009

While it certainly appears too, too easy to find some politico in today's America to ridicule (see previous post) it is absolutely not easy to play Christmas music on a theremin.

And I cannot tell you exactly why I like Christmas music on a theremin. I just do.

Here are two examples, which seem both slightly creepy and utterly sincere all at the same time.

A Decade With A Heavy Toll

The names and faces of some folks with astonishing influence which tumble past this Decade In Memoriam piece made me pretty sad.

Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, Johnny Carson, Cap'n Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, George Harrison, Gregory Peck, Paul Newman, Barry White, Ray Charles, Marlon Brando, James Brown, Richard Avedon, Bettie Page, Les Paul, Walter Cronkite, Mary Travers, Koko Taylor, Ted Williams, John Hughes, Wernher Von Braun, Andrew Wyeth, John Updike, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Unitas, Anne Bancroft, Katherine Hepburn ......

Thousands at the World Trade Center and beyond on a terrible day ...

Over 1800 from Hurricane Katrina ...

Over 200,000 in a post-Christmas tsunami ...

Thousands killed and wounded in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

Plus some of my own friends and family ... hopefully very few of yours.

Mayor Russell Wiseman Is Sorry We Found Out How Idiotic He Is

Arlington, TN Mayor Russell Wiseman issued a non-apology apology for his idiotic and strange comments about President Obama on Monday, comments which nabbed national attention for Wiseman and for the town of Arlington. My original post on Mayor Wiseman's clueless rant is here.

The town, by the way, posted on their web site that Wiseman's views and comments do not reflect those of the town:

"The views of Russell Wiseman, Mayor of the Town of Arlington, expressed on his Facebook account do not reflect an official position of the Town of Arlington.

"His comments were not made on a Town computer, or using Town computer services. The Town recognizes Barack Obama as the President of the United States, and in accordance with the Constitution, recognizes both the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech. We welcome all law abiding people to our town.

"We do not discriminate and we provide essential services to all Town of Arlington people without regard to their religion, race, color, age, gender, sex or national origin."

As for Wiseman's apology ... he says he only meant for his friends to hear his angry, hateful views about President Obama and is sorry that the rest of us found out. He says he was just joking, and his real friends understand the humor he used is not angry or hateful. He goes on to say he is the victim here, and that he is not going to talk any more about what he said.

His lame attempt at self-defense is identical to the argument put forth by Republican legislative staffer Sherri Goforth, who emailed some racist crap about President Obama this summer - that is, she was sorry the wrong people saw her email, it was only meant for friends. Friends who share Goforth and Wiseman's Fear of a non-white President.

Don't bother sending out emails to Wiseman - his mind is closed up tight. Below is Wiseman's non-apology:

"Regarding all of the reports about my recent Facebook remarks, I want to take this opportunity to say how much I regret that I offended anyone with my poor attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor amongst friends. While my comments were certainly blown way out of proportion, I do recognize that I allowed things to go too far."

As you might have guessed, I don’t really care for President Obama or his policies. That being said, I understand how my comments might have been interpreted by people who don’t know me and who have no reason to give me the benefit of the doubt. When defenders of President Obama started chiming in on the Facebook comment thread, I’m afraid I let my frustrations and my sarcastic and joking nature get the best of me, and so I egged and goaded them on within the confines of what I considered at the time to be a semi-private conversation among friends.

I trust that we have probably all experienced things getting out of hand from time to time, and I do regret it. I also take some measure of comfort in knowing that the people who know me best, and who know my background, my work in the community, and my heart — they understand that I am a progressive and tolerant person who believes wholeheartedly in the rights and equality of all people. I think my record and the way I live my life certainly reflects those views, and I hate that I may have caused anyone to question my commitment to it. I also regret any embarrassment that might have been unfairly visited on my friends, my family, my church, and the citizens and officials of the Town of Arlington.

One troubling and eye-opening aspect of this whole episode has been the literally hundreds and hundreds of fanatics who have directed some of the most vile and profane comments towards me and my family that I’ve ever heard, including making physical threats and even posting my home phone number and address online for the benefit of the fringe element.

In the interest of moving forward, I will not be giving interviews or fielding questions because I have no interest in taking any step that might perpetuate this whole episode or inadvertently be interpreted as an attempt to dignify my unfortunate comments. I have learned a valuable lesson, and I look forward to moving on and focusing on the business of the Town of Arlington in a manner befitting the good citizens I represent.”

Comcast Mergeapocalypse Now

Alarms and worries are rising over the proposed takeover of NBC Universal by cable giant Comcast, a deal which Comcast promises will be pro-consumer and which most industry insiders view as the beginning of a "mergeapocalypse".

From the Consumerist:

"Blocked content, rising rates, forced bundling, and more. Despite claims from NBC and Comcast that this merger would be "pro consumer," the end result will be more restrictions on what content consumers can access and how they can view it. And it will inevitably be more expensive. Consumer and media rights groups are urging the FCC and/or Department of Justice to either block the merger outright or impose very strict conditions to prevent the problems listed above. To read more about the proposed rules, visit FreePress's release on the merger."

From Daily Finance:


"If the proposed $30 billion deal between General Electric (GE) and Comcast (CMCSA) for NBC Universal is approved, Comcast would lead the market with control of access to 25% of U.S. households. Moreover, Comcast-NBC would own prized content, including The Tonight Show, The Biggest Loser and Bravo's Real Housewives series, according to The Washington Post.

In all, Comcast-NBC would control 20% of Americans' television viewing hours -- which might give it the market power to charge higher prices to competing networks seeking its content -- particularly online -- and to consumers."

No matter the promises, that's a massive amount of media control of everything from production to distribution which seems to run contrary to most anti-trust laws of the past. There is a vast chasm between the pace of the internet/media growth and our current laws and few in Washington seem to even see it.

GOP: No Lie Is Too Big To Fail

"The combined crazy quotient was enough to nearly cause a rift in the space-time continuum."

It's easy to dip into a set of projected statistics in Washington DC and emerge with some kind of shocking OMG!! slab of information, coat it with tongues of lies and sell it as fact to some in America. Congressional members like Michelle Bachmann takes her lies to Pat Robertson and the 700 Club, while John Boehner repeats it. Their plan: repeat lies over and over until a section of people believe it to be true.

FOX News Channel ("we lie, you decide to like it") picks another liar to boost their oft-stated plan to insure failure at every level of government. No lie is too big to fail, they wail on a 24-7 time frame.

"Former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino played her usual role on Fox News yesterday, trashing economic recovery efforts. Most of her comments were easy to dismiss, but a couple of remarks stood out.

She noted, for example, that White House officials "try to claim that the stimulus bill worked and I just look at all the polling data and no one believes it." In other words, it doesn't matter what's true -- it matters whether people can be misled into believing things that aren't true. (That is, of course, why Fox News exists.)"

Tennessee's two senators, Alexander and Corker, meanwhile decide that finding a catch-phrase to spread like manure over the health reform bill debate, is a WIN!

As noted above, what is real matters much less than what is believed. Stoking fires of paranoid fear is job number one for the GOP.

For Alexander, Corker, Bachmann, Boehner, Robertson, Beck, Limbaugh and others leading the GOP the ends justify the means. They're playing a losing game and have decided that cheating to score a point or two is honorable.

Republican Orin Hatch took to the Senate floor to whine that if only the GOP could control the House, the Senate and the office of President, then by God, they could fix everything. Oh Senator - you did control all branches for many years and that led to 99% of the problems Americans face today. Lying about it might soothe some, but it's still a lie and a huge one.


"I dream some day of having the Republicans have 60 votes. I’ll tell you one thing, I think we would finally have the total responsibility to get this country under control and I believe we would. But we never come close to that. There are essentially no checks and balances found in Washington today just an arrogance of power with one party ramming through unpopular and devastating proposals on after the other."


Oh really??? The truth?? It's right in front of you Senator:



"Republicans controlled for years — but their agenda of tax cuts for the super rich did little to “get this country under control,” so to speak. Throughout the Bush administration, “the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked.”

Republicans ignored the health care crisis. Throughout the years of Republican dominance, the rate of uninsurance grew and employer-sponsored insurance continued to erode. “When Clinton left office, the number of uninsured Americans stood at 38.4 million. By the time Bush left office that number had grown to just over 46.3 million, an increase of nearly 8 million or 20.6 per cent.” Between 2001 and 2005 — when Republicans had majorities in both chambers of Congress — the number of uninsured employees grew by 3.4 million and employer-sponsored health insurance premiums grew by no less than nine percent each year, while wages only grew between 2.2% and 4.0% each year. (In fact, the share of Americans who received health insurance through their employer declined every year of his presidency.)