Giving Dictators The Boot - I Mean, Shoe

From Cairo, February 2011. It worked - Mubarak resigns presidency.

The shoe?? Oh, right, the shoe ... Some "notable shoe incidents". Wait, the shoe is a sign??

Meanwhile, the story in America ... cut off assistance for the poor, for innovation, and aim for a government shutdown.

(NOTE: this is not related to the previous post -- just synchronicity I suppose.)

Rotten Foot; or My Own Health Care Meltdown

I have a good excuse for not having created new posts at my normal rate.

I have what could best be termed a metabolic derangement.

I've altered and adjusted my dietary intake to affect some change - with little success. One doctor tells me I have a hereditary predisposition for the condition, so I'm stuck with the problem. The problem - a fiercely painful problem called gout - was long referred to as a "rich man's disease" or a "king's disease" or the product of "indolence" - none of which apply to me (okay, maybe I am a little bit indolent, as I most often spend my hours at a desk and keyboard). Historians tell me that such luminaries as Alexander the Great and Isaac Newton suffered this problem.

It first dug into my hide last February, I woke up thinking I had broken my ankle during my sleep or something. (A true sign of aging, indeed - waking up having injured myself in my sleep.) I actually had to get a dang cane and hobble into the doctor, who promptly said "Oh, it's gout" and gave me a few prescriptions, which did scale it back to a more normal Joe kind of day pretty quickly. But it keeps coming back. It sort of feels like someone is pounding on my feet with a ball-peen hammer repeatedly.

History, again, reveals that it was Ben Franklin who, suffering the condition, obtained a a medicine made from the autumn crocus, aka, meadow saffron, called Colchicine. The same medicine was prescribed for me. However, the medicine was banned last fall by the FDA, as it had never undergone the standard testing procedures modern medicines must undergo. It was also only 6 dollars a for a month's supply.

A new drug, Uloric, is being promoted instead, and it costs about 200 dollars for a month's supply.

Thanks. Like I can afford that.

Now let's get even more confused.

One doctor claims that the FDA only banned the sale of injectable Colchicine. An article in the Oak Ridger by Dr. William Culbert Jr says the drug has been approved by the FDA, but fails to note the massive change in prices, up to $5 per pill.

What I have learned is that since Colchicine was "grandfathered" by the FDA since it had been used for centuries before there was an FDA, that allowed for a company called URL Pharma to step up in 2009 and pay for the FDA testing and for a new patent on Colchicine, now called Colcrys. The result of their actions forced all other makers of generic Colchicine to halt all sales. It's buy their product or nothing. Their product also costs about $300 for a month's supply.

URL Pharma was quick to eliminate even a discussion by doctors about the change from generic to a very expensive medication. "Shake-down letters" - that's what some physicians called the communications from URL Pharma. "Liability" replied URL Pharma.

Which all leaves me without medicine, as that price tag is too large. I'll have to try and get on a "patient assistance program". Which I am loathe to do.

And, frustrated, in pain, and more than a little confused, it's been tough to sit down and write something for my blog. And so here I am, offering instead far more personal information than I really wanted to provide. Who wants to read about my health problems? (And I am most grateful this is the only medical woe I have, as millions of others have far more horrifying conditions and limited treatment tales.)

Like millions and millions of Americans, I am left with a simple conclusion - doctors don't operate our health care system, but pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies run it instead.

I suppose I should be happy I don't need a prescription to use a cane ..... yet.

Camera Obscura: Goodbye Tura Satana

I'd have to turn in all my cult movie fan credentials if I failed to mourn the passing of cult cinema superstar Tura Satana, who fled this mortal plane on Feb. 4th.

With one single movie, "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!", made in 1965, Tura created a performance which earned her a much deserved legendary status. The NYTimes blog notes that it was another legend of cinema, comedian Harold Lloyd, who urged her to go for a career in movies.

Goodbye and thanks, Tura.



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A 2011 Super Bowl commercial submitted without comment.



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Behold, the Actor With A Thousand Careers, William Shatner is prepping a full-on heavy metal album, with performances from:

"Peter Frampton and Mike Inez (who will be playing "Iron Man" with fellow Ozzy alum, Zakk Wylde) are definitely participating and our source claims artists slated to perform (but who haven't done their parts yet) include Steve Howe of Yes, Ian Paice of Deep Purple and the god among men, Brian May of Queen."

And since I've made reference to Star Trek, then you should also know the sci-fi franchise that will not die has now been immortalized in a potato format.

Are We Further Away or Getting Closer to Figuring Out Health Care in America?

It appears that after many decades debating health care, insurance, and all the costs involved with medicine and doctoring and all the legislation to subsidize drug-making and drug-dispensing, we are inching closer and closer to the basics behind all these issues. Or are we?

Getting medical care when needed and paying for insurance, in America, can be a mammoth undertaking.

And it's pretty sad and utterly short-sighted to hear Tennessee's new governor, Bill Haslam, offer this comment regarding the current health care law approved by Congress:

"Our goal should be advocating for an approach that embraces healthy choices and personal responsibility and accountability for a healthy lifestyle."

So ... if he is right, then why do we even allow doctors and hospitals to operate?

We're all on our own, and if we make a decision or take an action, or by inaction allow for some illness or sickness to take hold of us, then each of us should just find some way to cope with it. After all, being in a human and an inherently decaying and injury-prone body, we must expect it to fall apart eventually. So, don't expect me to help you out since I'm planning on being self-sufficient.

If you seek zero government involvement in health care, then eliminate medical licenses and prescriptions and drug-testing, and we'll each just do our best, on our own to figure out why we are ill and how we can get better.

That's certainly an option and a direction our society could take.

Or maybe, using the idea of group involvement through insurance to help cover the costs, one could find a group to be a part of which will provide medical insurance at a lower cost. How about a group made of people who are your age, weight, height and eye color who also work at the same type of job? Or why not make the group really, really large - say, everyone who has a birth certificate in America?

Regardless of age or job or any "lifestyle choice", everyone would be in one group - would that make insurance premiums available at a low cost? Or will insurance companies and health care providers raise their prices so they don't have to alter their income levels?

It appears there are some mighty complex basic issues left to resolve. And we, in America, still have a long way to go before such resolution is to be found.

SEE ALSO:
A discussion of Governor Haslam's ideas at KnoxViews.

Some ideas from Dr. Paul Hochfield

What Was Not Spoken In the 2011 State of the Union Speech But Probably Should Have Been Said

The real fight over tax breaks debated last fall in Congress was centered on folks who make $250,000 or above. So that's really who they are developing policy for. The rest of us are pretty much on our own it seems ... and here are a few other ideas which were not expressed by anyone in defining the state of our Union in 2011.

"Millions of people face severe financial hardship, if not ruin, due to the obscene and irresponsible greed of a very small number of folks. Because the Congress is captive to anybody with large sums of money to spend, nothing particularly effective will be done to prevent things like this from happening again.

There are about 25 professional registered lobbyists for every member of Congress."

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"The country goes deeper and deeper into debt on a daily basis. The greatest financial threat the nation faces is the cost of health care, and nobody in a position to actually make or enforce policy has any freaking clue how to manage or control that."

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"We have very low inflation, unless you include food and energy. So if you don't eat, heat your home, or drive, the dollar you make today will we be worth about what it is today for quite a while."

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"Over the last 30 years, the American middle class has been gutted by the loss of jobs to offshoring and automation. We continue to have a strongly entrepreneurial and innovative economy, but when it's time for bright new ideas to scale up to an industrial level of production, much if not most of that happens overseas. So, wealth, but jobs, not so much."

Also - America's Current Queen of Comedy Sarah Palin says that President Obama's call for a Sputnik moment to promote innovation should have been a call for a "Spudnut moment" ... and no I am not making that up ... no one can invent stupid crap like Palin can all on her own:

"You know what we need is 'a spudnut moment.' And here's where I'm going with this, Greta.... Well, the spudnut shop in Richland, Washington -- it's a bakery, it's a little coffee shop that's so successful, 60-some years, generation to generation, a family-owned business not looking for government to bail them out and to make their decisions for them. It's just hard-working, patriotic Americans in this shop.

"We need more spudnut moments in America. And I wish that President Obama would understand, in that heartland of America, what it is that really results in the solutions that we need to get this economy back on the right track. It's a shop like that.

Ah, America, 2011 will be tougher than you know.

Except for comedy and self-parody. We're pretty much overflowing there.

Tennessee Teachers Battle Bargaining Ban

The Tennessee Teachers Association may lose their right to collective bargaining under legislation just introduced in the state legislature, legislation drafted by those who normally are on the other side of the bargaining table from the teachers union - the state's school board association.

Union reps warn that the proposal is a step backward -

"We had more than 100 years in Tennessee without collective bargaining to see how that works," said Al Mance, executive director for the Tennessee Education Association, which represents some 52,000 teachers and administrators in the state.

"Ninety percent of teachers in Tennessee are covered by collective bargaining," Mance added. "Without it, we'll go back to the previous way of doing business, when male teachers were paid more than female teachers; when African-Americans were paid less than Caucasians; when there was no voice for the teachers in the process."

Today, Governor Haslam met with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission today, and said he does not think the new Republican-led legislature is "anti-teacher", but the does think the state is ripe for education reforms, adding:

"The newly elected governor did say he opposed collective bargaining for police and firefighters during his tenure as mayor of Knoxville.

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“You realize, Tennessee is hot right now,” he said. “You realize, Tennessee is the place people are talking about when it comes to innovations in higher education.”

If you also consider proposed legislation to make it a crime for any union group in the state to contribute to a political campaign, it could be said the state is looking for ways to decrease employee-organized groups from having a voice in the state. Or, as No Silence Here puts it - "Some Lawmakers Stomping On Free Speech".

Defunding Public Broadcasting Represents A Failing America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Peckinpah and actor William Holden on set

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

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

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

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

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

Masterpiece. That's it.

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

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

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

That's a story than can never be remade.

Outrage at the Outrage of Congressman Cohen

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

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

Predictably, outrage at his outrage followed from Republicans.

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

However.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loving The Technology That Does Not Love In Return

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time For Congress to Telecommute to Work?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TN Tea Party Supports More Stupidering of History for Students

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

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

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

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

New Designs for Your Cup of Joe

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

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

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

Inhalable Food and Disappearing Dogs

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

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

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

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

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

What, no Bacon Whiffing?

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


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

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

Palin Flailing and Gun-Totin' Beck

Hoo boy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hoo boy.

Arizona Assassin - Fueled By Political Rage?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Digital Afterlife

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

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

And as previously mentioned here - The E-Tomb.

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

Publisher's Shameful Censorship of 'Huckleberry Finn'

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

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

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

Wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Empty Theatrical Motions of Cable News

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

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

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

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

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

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

Both simply present spectacle as entertainment.

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

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

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

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

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