"I Hate Hamlet" Opens In Morristown

Tonight is the opening of the stage production "I Hate Hamlet" for the Morristown Theatre Guild, a very funny comedy about love, life, art, commerce, television, fame, ghosts, Shakespeare and what happens when actors do not wear pants -- and it has been my great pleasure to direct this first production of the Guild's 76th season.

Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 2 pm this weekend and next weekend at the Rose Center in Prater Hall. And you can order tickets and make reservations here. And there are a couple of things which make this production a real first ... keep reading to learn more.

Here are a few images from Thursday night's dress rehearsal taken by Roger Fleenor

The ghost of John Barrymore listens in as his history is told

Barrymore woos a long-forgotten girlfriend from his past.

Here is a first - this production is the first time I've had to direct while being semi-silenced by some laryngitis, which hit me hard over the last weekend and has made me all wispy-voiced this week. But this cast is so strong and have been eager to collaborate on the production, that the problem has mostly been one of frustration for me. I likes to talk. I likes to talk a lot.

But now the time has come for me to slip into the background and let the players and the play stand on their own -- and truly, they do far more than just stand - they are going to rock your world.

Cows Break Into Home

Four cows decided to abandon the fields and barns and to move into a house instead.

A woman says the cows broke into her house and stayed there. She told her husband over the phone that she was not injured "but I've got cows in my house," according to news reports. As shown above, a photo from the DallasNews of what happens when a cow takes over your bedroom.

And naturally, the woman's home insurance does not include provisions for damages by bovine intruder.

Forward, Into The Past!

Here's a quote for all the posturing and proclaiming which seems to emerge endlessly from the Conservative/Tea Party/anti-Obama crowd.

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul." -- Mark Twain

It's a concept they need to learn and live. And what are the current gatherings of Conservatives clinging to in lieu of a policy of action?

- Do not participate in any effort to reform the problems of health care.

- Stall all legislation, lie and mislead on all ideas. Take funding from the 2009 Stimulus package while demonizing it's very existence.

- Claim failure as a victory.

- Cling to the celebrity of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

So often, these groups claim they want to "take America back" -- the question is, how far back in Time do they wish to take us?

A History of Pretty Much Everything

Courtesy of The Examiner in Jackson, TN

Hamlet, John Barrymore and Me

Posting here has been sporadic and may continue for a bit as a new task now underway is consuming much of my admittedly often distracted energy and time.

The task? I'm neck-deep in directing the comedy "I Hate Hamlet" by Paul Rudnick for the Morristown Theatre Guild as the first show of their 76th season. I have been most fortunate to work with this group of very talented volunteers for many years and this is a show I have been aching to direct some time.

The show opens for six performances only on March 5-7 and the following weekend, March 12-14 at Perk Prater Hall at Rose Center in Morristown and you can order tickets and make reservations right now at the Morristown Theatre Guild website or at Lakeway Tickets.

The show is a machine-gun blast of rapid-fire laughs, one of the funniest scripts I've ever read. The story centers on a famous TV actor named Andrew who is attempting to play the role of Hamlet in New York City, the Holy Grail for actors. However, he's totally terrified and his real estate agent is eager to get him into a very unusual apartment -- a vast space which was once the home of the legendary actor John Barrymore.

On a whim, Andrew and his friends hold a seance to contact Barrymore. And before Andrew can race back to Hollywood and television fame, the ghost of Barrymore does arrive with a single goal: to help Andrew perform one of the most demanding and challenging roles ever written. Still, Andrew refuses until Barrymore also admits that he can help Andrew resolve another problem which is haunting him -- the successful romancing of his girlfriend Deirdre.

Ah, but performing Shakespeare is never simple or easy. As Rudnick writes it, Shakespeare is like "algebra on stage". And just what the heck is a "fardle" anyway??

As Andrew ponders the challenge of creating capital-A "Art", his producer friend Gary from Hollywood reminds him that one does not "do" Art, one "buys" Art with cash earned from doing cheesy TV shows and commercials.

And of course the one thing tougher than Shakespeare is Love.

So it seems that John Barrymore is in fact the coach he truly needs.

For me, digging into the world and the words of Shakespeare and Barrymore is immensely rewarding. I've been a Barrymore fan for some years but I moved from being just a fan to being truly impressed by the man after I saw Barrymore's version of "Moby Dick". In his version of the story, Barrymore plays Captain Ahab, but he is not some demented figure chasing the white whale. He's a lovable scamp who not only kills the whale but returns home by the end to marry his sweetheart.

And yet, for all the history of this actor and the challenge of Hamlet, the play "I Hate Hamlet" never gets bogged down - the laughs and the comedy play fast and furious and the show is great fun for the actors and the audience as well.

The cast:
Robbie Poteete - Andrew
Gislea Eikey - Felicia
Autumn Leming - Deirdre
Kay Flockhart - Lillian
Logan Propst - Gary
John Carpenter - John Barrymore

So ... the work is keeping me very busy and posting is likely to continue to be hit and miss. And you, dear readers, are most cordially invited to attend the show. I'll have some pictures to show off soon (I hope). For now, an image of Barrymore from his 1922 performance as Hamlet. And as Barrymore once said:

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."

Farewell, Nashville Is Talking

Writer Christian Grantham has turned in his notice and on Friday, the Nashville Is Talking blog from WKRN will cease to be. I hate to see NiT go, having been a fan from the beginning of the work writer Brittney Gilbert originated for NiT. For some years, everyone was talking about NiT. I hosted the site on weekends many times while Gilbert was in charge and it was just an amazing experience.

Amazing because there was more to it than just copying links to other TN blogs - I discovered many writers and bloggers whose unique voice made me a constant reader; also I learned how good Gilbert was at her job, how hard she worked to cultivate a community of readers and writers.

WKRN allowed the blog to flourish for a while, not content to simply focus on politics or pop culture, but not surprisingly, Gilbert left Nashville to head a blog for the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. And also not surprisingly, NiT floundered a bit, until Grantham took control and blended the blogging world reviews with other growing social media trends via Twitter and Facebook and through a very user-friendly form where content could be easily uploaded to the site.

As Jack Lail at the KNS says - NiT was a most innovative step for television station, an innovative step into the online world, and hopes remain that innovation continues in Tennessee despite the closing down of NiT.

It's Tea Party Time in Tennessee!

It's being called a political convention there in Nashville this weekend, a "Tea Party" political convention, but they're selling tickets to the deal where you'll hear The Alaskan speak. Local press is banned from attending, but The Alaskan's speech will be shown live on FAUXNews, along with other events from the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.

A jumble of political anger, ambition, and alienation, the "convention" was to include West Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, but she bailed last week, declining her chance to introduce The Tundra Temptress (aka The Alaskan, aka Sarah 'youbetcha' Palin) who makes FAUXNews talker Chris Wallace hot and randy.

Hilarity ensues.

(Note to Rep. Blackburn - when you are the third member of a trio including Palin and Michelle Bachman, you are entering Kookytown.)

I totally support government reform. Perhaps after this convention, I'll know what this group seeks to achieve. Other than make money, which I also support, but I tend to spend my time making it for me and not for The Alaskan. As for politics - it makes fools of us all:

"Lost" Starts to End

I have watched the show "Lost" on ABC since it began, though I did drop about half of season two, when they corrected course and decided to aim towards wrapping up the story and not tacking on useless side plots. A five-season run for a TV show as unusually story-centered, meant to actually conclude, is a good experiment I hope is repeated. Three and five season (or just one story per season, as "24" has done) shows should be a staple in network TV and not an exception.

(And yes, I know there are enough side-plots in "Lost" to coat the wide side of a rhino. There's still a main story here of plain old sci-fi time travel and mythmaking, so shut up.)

Here's an image of one character, John Locke, who is now really dead but some other very old and nameless thing now is mimicking him and wants off the island they are all trapped on.


Poor John Locke, the real one, is still alive in another (apparently) parallel time line but is back to being in a wheelchair and looking very unhappy. Yes, there are two of everyone ... or most everyone. I think.

While there will surely be much talk of this last season, folks not yet acquainted might like to start watching old episodes. Here's a few thoughts as to why:

-- The show started in the waning days 2004, end of the first term of president George Bush. Terrifying images of a plane crash begin the show and chaos follows on the beach, one person even is sucked into a still-roaring jet engine which then explodes. Violent stuff - especially for a country still reeling from the sheer shock of four plane crashes in September 2001. The characters don't get along, often fighting about what the next step should be or shouldn't be. They've struck a strong cultural tone on the aftermath and recovery from disaster.

-- Beyond the tone, though, have been fascinating character stories, with an ingenious blending of time used as a narrative device. Ingenious because time travel is at the heart of the mysterious forces on this island. There have been some of TV's best acting and writing here, and it's been pretty smart and complex too. We should have more smart TV shows.

-- And it is fun too, despite all the seriousness. It's almost pulp fiction - jungle intrigue, romance, weird science experiments, psychopaths, ghosts, crime, nuclear bombs, even pirates, enough to fill three or four TV shows.

If you have read this far you're either a fan, or just curious about the show. So allow me to geek out with my current list of questions which might perhaps shape the final outcome of the show:

Can you "sideways flash" through time?

Why does the 'time-door' open into Tunisia?

If, as the current season opens with a shot of the island now underwater, why was there also a genetically engineered shark from the nefarious Dharma Initiative, created on the island now under... wha???

I want more time traveling pirates, because that's just good entertainment.

ET Leaders Want Redlight Cameras Protected By State

Even as the state was promoting a moratorium on new "redlight cameras", leaders in the Tri-Cities told legislators to leave their cameras alone.

"Tri-Cities governments asked Northeast Tennessee lawmakers Friday to oppose legislation hindering development of red light/traffic enforcement cameras.

The request, called the “fun topic of the day” by Kingsport City Manager John Campbell, was among a number of legislative policy marching orders given to lawmakers by elected officials representing Kingsport, Johnson City and Bristol, Tenn., during a presentation held at the Millennium Centre.

After the presentation, lawmakers indicated that doing nothing about the cameras is probably not an option this year.

“There are a lot of bad actors out there, a lot of smaller municipalities which are installing speed cameras solely for the purpose of operating their general functions of government. ... These cameras should not be used for revenue enhancement,” said House Majority Leader Jason Mumpower, R-Bristol. “I think potentially, at the very least, we may put a moratorium on the operation of any new cameras before the end of this session.” Mumpower has already filed a number of pieces of traffic camera legislation."

---

"Two lawmakers on the House Transportation Committee, state Reps. Tony Shipley and Matthew Hill, have been dead center in the middle of the traffic camera debate.

Shipley, R-Kingsport, is seeking new attorney generals’ opinions on the constitutionality of the cameras.

“It’s not so much the camera. It’s the process and procedures (used by local officials),” said Shipley.

Said Hill, R-Jonesborough: “No one has ever said ‘We’re not for safety.’ The issue comes down to just respect for our citizens. ... We have to find a balance between those two.”

The state is looking into ways to make use of cameras meet the same criteria statewide. A common suggestion is that by extending the time of a yellow caution light, accidents will be greatly reduced. But the Tri-Cities folks want that left alone too.

Complaints and concerns remain as well since these projects are clearly a privatization of a law enforcement function, and once we are comfortable with such practices, then expect more to appear.

Michael at No Silence Here outlines the legislative issues regarding the use of these cameras from Rep. Shipley.

I'm pretty sure if the state can figure out a way to get steady income from cities and towns using such cameras, then expect their use to spread.

Paris and Prince, Dangerous Words and Weird Things In Coffee

I have great sympathy for kids today as they negotiate their way into our strange and sometimes dangerous world. Often the childhood years are intertwined with horrors - ask the kids growing up in Haiti or Ethiopia who face nothing less than starvation and slavery.

And last night I took note of two kids who's lives appear to be part of a bad American novel. Named Prince and Paris, the children of Michael Jackson spoke briefly to the crowd at the Grammy Awards when the group handed out a Lifetime Achievement honor to Jackson. Their lives are going to be tough and likely gain a visage too weird to predict. Might be different if Prince were named, say, Bill or Frank. (And who can blame the child named Blanket for not making an appearance. Blanket?)

---

Kids in school in one California school district must be attempting to puzzle out just what the deal with adults is.

One week, adults ban a dictionary because one could learn a definition of "oral sex" in said dictionary. Now, the dictionary is back on the shelf, but students must have a parent's permission slip to look at the dictionary.

A couple of points here - if the dictionary is dangerous, then the Internet must be the center of Hell itself.

And why just ban a dictionary? Every dirty word and perverted idea is usually expressed by just a few letters in the alphabet, so why not ban them too?

---

One blogger has created a task few would dare -- put weird things in coffee and see how it tastes.

This is Putting Weird Things In Coffee.

Recent entries include: Eggspresso, Bacon in the Coffee, and putting Salmon in Coffee.

The blogger says "The only rule is that the things I put in coffee must be things that I would tolerate eating on their own. So no, I will not put dog poop in coffee, but you’re right that it would be very weird."

Congressman Roe's Feeble Email on Education In Tennessee

Must be an election year, as for the first time, 1st District Congressman Phil Roe is shooting out an email proclaiming how good it is to get an education. What daring! What bravado!

In emphasizing the importance of a good education, the email from Rep. Roe (who sits on the Congressional committee for Education and Labor) says of No Child Left Behind laws:

"However, the law’s requirement that all schools meet certain standards are faced with severe punishments that are not realistic and are demoralizing our educators in public education."


Rep. Roe seems to need some after-class work on language skills. (Are needing? Are needs work?)

The well-worn (or just plain empty) language he uses in this email trots out some standard (make that bland and incorrect) notions on economic growth and education:

"I believe there is a direct correlation between the strength of our economy and the education that we provide to our young people. The better quality of education we can provide our children, the more opportunities they are afforded in life, and the higher chance they will be able to acquire a job. Economic research has found links between higher levels of cognitive skill—defined as “the performance of students on tests in math and science”—and economic growth. Specifically, Eric Hanushek, Dean Jamison, Eliot Jamison, and Ludger Woessmann write in the Spring 2008 issue of Education Next that countries with higher test scores experience far higher growth rates. In their research, they have found that a highly skilled workforce can raise economic growth by about two thirds of a percentage point every year.

If we create a better education system, I believe we will solve problems like health care and energy because people will simply be able to make the right choices for themselves."

Does that last statement mean "you'll figure it out for yourself one day"? Anyway, these ideas seem to be in direct opposition to the reality in Tennessee, which is that 80% of jobs in this state right now do not require any college experience or degree.

And perhaps Rep. Roe should have taken more notice on the legislation just passed at the state level aiming to increase the number of students who actually graduate from high school. Or take stock of the fact that most Tennessee students heading into college need remedial classes:

"Right now, more than half the students who start college in Tennessee need remedial course work, repeating the same math, reading and writing courses they took in high school. Universities will get out of the business of remedial education.

Instead, students who need remedial course work will be steered into community college, where classes are smaller and tuition is half the price of university courses. Universities, meanwhile, will be able to free their professors and resources to focus on more advanced courses.

This sounds fine in theory to the community colleges, where more than 60 percent of students already take remedial coursework, and the schools have spent years fine-tuning their outreach efforts. But Tennessee is in the middle of a budget crisis, and it will cost money to provide the teaching staff, equipment and classroom space to handle the thousands of new students who will be diverted into the two-year schools.

To make sure Rep. Roe is shoring up his base here in the 1st District, his email also takes time to ask your opinion on "Health Care Reform"(CORRECTION: make that "Health Care Survey" but still, another poorly played political 'gotcha' question) by asking you for your opinion on abortion, and concludes with a few swipes at President Obama.

Pretty feeble stuff - the hallmark of a 1st District congressman.

Local Left Wingers Talk Politics, So Why Do I Think Eisenhower?

I had the opportunity to discuss a wide range of political ideas among a pretty diverse group of friends, most of said group would be labeled Left-Wing, or Progressive, or Liberal or other words used to describe folks not on the Right or Conservative end of the spectrum.

I found most of them had a very poor opinion of the first year of President Obama's presidency. The top complaint was that the crimes and misdeeds of the previous administration had not been pursued, the guilty remain unpunished, and warfare in the middle east continued despite the wishes of the majority of those who elected him.

The president should be much tougher, they all said.

Tougher on who or what? Elected and appointed officials in government who used torture, who lied to Congress; contractors with the government who've used the wars in the middle east to line themselves in solid gold and who've been guilty of fraud, abuse and much worse; and the many financial misdeeds from Wall Street and beyond into the banking system who broke laws and then begged for bailout from the Bush administration and the Congress of '08.

Another complaint - attempting to build a consensus in Congress was a bad idea. Congress is a source of trouble, not open to any meaningful consensus or bi-partisan behavior.

In short - The Very Bad Powers That Be are still The Very Bad Powers That Be.

It wasn't that they had lost all support for President Obama, but they expressed some mighty disappointment.

That discussion of course had many forks -- into talk about the recent Supreme Court decision to essentially allow limitless corporate donations to political campaigns, as well as local politics in towns and counties across East Tennessee. My favorite part of this discussion was the reality that there was no Left and Right Wings here - it's all Right-Wing and Not As Much Right-Wing politics. And the current reality in U.S. politics which already allows for foreign-owned nations to create U.S. shell companies which have been donating to political campaigns.

There were such healthy doses of vigilant skepticism of our current system, it seemed to me that, despite any sudden changes, there remains a growing population of very smart folks who have not lost their passion or their will to demand more changes, to call out hypocrisy on the current state of Left and Right Wing tactics and policies.

There were, as well, a strong and growing sense that local media is in a very poor state, with no change in sight, other than a continuing change for the worse.

As for me, I think President Obama and his team have faced more tough challenges than most administrations. It isn't going to get any easier in 2010 either. I do think he has the support of the majority of Americans, but we remain in an economic turmoil created over the last few decades and altering that course significantly is but one of the toughest jobs he faces.

And politically, I remain pretty much all over the political map - I'm very much a less-government-is-best believer, sometimes landing in the Right, the Center and the Left. No single political party holds much weight for me. And it was heartening to me to see a continued belief that real change and activism begins on the local level and grows out from there.

Still, there remains much passionate anger over the disastrous course the Right has been demanding for many years. And I know from talking to those who are on the Right they too are angry, sensing their own forecasts of Left Wing Doom in every situation imaginable.

It is puzzling that the central notion of a government gone haywire is a part of both the Left and Right and among Independents too, but fixing it is where everyone diverges.

As I have opined here on this humble but lovable blog since Day One: Being an American requires constant vigilance.

Oddly, for a long time now, I have often been reminded that today's political landscape was seen and expressed astonishingly well by a World War 2 General and President, Dwight Eisehnower, in his 1961 "farewell speech" which you can read here. Perhaps these excerpts will show why I hold that speech in some regard:


"Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration."

---

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

Political Notebook: The Vote In Massachusetts and Beyond

It's pretty easy given the current rancorous warfare between Republicans and Democrats to declare that a change to a Republican senator in Massachusetts is a world-changing event, or that it spells out doom for the political goals of the Obama administration.

But I think the reasons are less about Obama and are more easily understandable.

The state of Mass. has, for the first time in over 50 years, elected someone outside the Kennedy family. Since JFK took the senate seat in 1953, it has belonged to a Kennedy (or a Kennedy appointee). So it isn't very surprising and it doesn't hold a secret meaning that the Democrats lost control of the seat - especially since the rest of their entire delegation to Congress are all Democrats.

Both JFK and Ted Kennedy (who served for 46 years) certainly held enormous political clout. And given that the Democrat candidate Martha Coakley who lost in 2010 wasn't very popular, or that women in general seldom are elected in Mass., it boggles the mind to consider her loss some sort of litmus test on Obama. (Congresswoman Niki Tsongas is an exception and she took the job when her husband Paul died.)

Does the loss rattle the Democrats and cheer the Republicans? You betcha. And as Steve Benen writes, there are some key lessons to be learned.

If I were a real pessimist, I would fear that the all-white, all-wealthy panel speaking this week on MSNBC's Morning Joe show might hold some truth: that Mass. Senate winner "looks more American". But when I listen to them and read their words, it evokes some some disgust:

"Donny Deutsch got the ball rolling, suggesting that voters may be "going back to basics" after electing an African-American president and seeing "the female candidates and whatnot." Scott Brown, Deutsch added, "looks like the traditional view of a candidate," which may bring a "visceral comfort" to voters.

Mike Barnicle found value in the observation, saying that "there's something to it."

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan added that Brown is "a regular guy" who "looks like an American."

None of all-white participants in this discussion explained exactly what "an American" actually "looks like," but apparently it has something to do with being white, male, and handsome. Sorry, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, I guess you don't meet the criteria for looking American.

This is, of course, the same program that told us some months ago that "real Americans" like Sarah Palin and don't live in cities.

Tell me again, media establishment, about how MSNBC is a liberal bastion that's shifted to the left, on par with Fox News being a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party."

Limabugh - Proud To Insult Haiti Rescue While Earning Millions of Dollars

An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh --
To: Rush Limbaugh
From: Roger Ebert

"You should be horse-whipped for the insult you have paid to the highest office of our nation. Having followed President Obama's suggestion and donated money to the Red Cross for relief in Haiti, I was offended to hear you suggest the President might be a thief capable of stealing money intended for the earthquake victims.

Here is a transcript from your program on Thursday:

Justin of Raleigh, North Carolina: "Why does Obama say if you want to donate some money, you could go to whitehouse.gov to direct you how to do so? If I wanted to donate to the Red Cross, why do I have to go to the White House page to donate?"

Limbaugh: "Exactly. Would you trust the money's gonna go to Haiti?"

Justin: "No."

Rush: "But would you trust that your name's gonna end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?"

Justin: "Absolutely!"

Limbaugh: "Absolutely!"

That's what was said.

Unlike you and Justin of Raleigh, I went to Obama's web site, and discovered the link there leads directly to the Red Cross. I can think of a reason why anyone might want to go via the White House. That way they can be absolutely sure they're clicking on the Red Cross and not a fake site set up to exploit the tragedy.

But let me be sure I have this right. You and Justin agree that Obama might steal money intended for the Red Cross to help the wretched of Haiti.

This conversation came 48 hours after many of us had seen pitiful sights from Port au Prince. Tens of thousands are believed still alive beneath the rubble. You twisted their suffering into an opportunity to demean the character of the President of the United States.

This cannot have been an accident. A day earlier, in a sound bite from your show, you said "this will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, 'credibility' with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them."

Setting aside your riff on Harry Reid, consider what you imply. Obama will aid Haiti to please African-Americans. Haiti has lost untold thousands of lives. One third of the population has lost its homes. Countless people are still buried in the rubble. Every American president would act quickly to help our neighbor. You are so cynical and heartless as to explain Obama's action in a way that unpleasantly suggests how your mind works.

You have a sizable listening audience. You apparently know how to please them. Anybody given a $400 million contract must know what he is doing.

That's what offends me. You know exactly what you're doing.

Limbaugh - You're a Blockhead With Tampons In Your Ears

(images Haitian disaster courtesy of The Big Picture, more here)
please click here for a list of relief donation links

Offering water, food or just helping to claw through mountains of destruction in hopes of rescuing a wife, a husband, a child ... such are the efforts for Haiti from nearly every nation and aid group on the planet. But two mega-wealthy Americans call such efforts demonic and self-serving.

Showmen first and last, the TV star (and diamond mine kingpin) Rev. Pat Robertson and radio shock jock R. Limbaugh, know their first job when reporting on a disaster of untold lives in Haiti is to make sure the talk is about them, not about the horrors of destruction on an island nation.

Rev. Robertson warbled out anti-humanitarian cheers claiming that the loss of life in Haiti was due to some nefarious 'deal with the devil' ---


"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti ... they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever ... and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the Prince. True story."

This myth is rooted in the days when more than a century again, the anti-colonial movement helped take Haiti out from under the boots of oppression:

"Haitians are Christians. Pat Robertson's language is the reductio ad absurdum of the Christian right. It's so absurd it's almost funny. This notion of a pact with the devil is basically an echo of an old colonial response to the successes of the 1790s Haitian revolution.

What is this pact he's talking about?

• Continue Reading

Part of the revolution mythology is that one of the revolution leaders sacrificed a pig in Bois Caïmin in a voodoo ceremony and made a contract with Petwo [Haitian voodoo spirits]. It may or may not be true, but to call that a pact with the devil is a gross misrepresentation of what voodoo is. It's about anything but the devil. He's imposing an evangelical religious order on a much more sophisticated practice, and he's turning it into a cheap invocation of Satanism.

This is hate speech. It's saying these people are damned. It's a frequent theme among some Christians that Haiti is being punished for this supposed pact with extreme poverty and humanitarian crises.

The reason Haiti is poor is because Europe imposed a blockade on trade after the slave revolt in 1804, and you have an extremely polarized class structure in which a few families stepped into the positions of the former colonial plantation owners. There has been a horrible cycle of plundering and autocracy within Haitian leadership.

Do you think this has been holding Haiti back?

I think other factors are more important in holding Haiti back: the class structure, the dispossession of a largely illiterate populace, the links that the underclass increasingly has with drug gangs, which has generated a lot of violence, and the tradition of sweatshop labor."

As for the daily efforts of R. Limbaugh to distort, damage, and endanger America by calling for the failures of all U.S. policies under the Obama administration, he went a bit further this week, saying that the horrors of Haiti's disaster were just another element in Obama's plan to encourage voters to like him. Oh noes!! The horror that Americans approve of it's president as said president works to help relieve suffering where thousands are dead or dying.

And when a caller grilled RL on such statements, RL replies, naturally, that the comments were not made in error, but that the caller was an idiot:

"What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a blockhead,” Limbaugh shot back. “What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a close-minded bigot who is ill-informed.”

“If you had listened to this program for a modicum of time, you would know it,” he said. “But instead, you’re a blockhead. Your mind is totally closed. You have tampons in your ears."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31539.html#ixzz0chwwnzsv

Yes, only a tampon-stuffed blockhead would tolerate the idea that America works to help other countries in times of harrowing tragedy and loss of life. After all, we multi-millionaire celebs got ours, so screw you and go get your own. You want compassion? Go join a quilting bee with all the other weepy old ladies.

Stay classy, RL.

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 ...