Recently, my family and I went to the Washington, D.C. National Zoo. I hadn't been there in about a decade, and I was astonished at the woeful condition it was in. I've always loved visiting the zoo, but noticed even in the past how large sections of it seemed to be in a perpetual state of construction. Since the late 1970s or so, visitors have been detoured around various parts of the sprawling grounds due to continuous "upgrades" that never seem to transpire.
This time, however, the entire place seemed like a construction site. I felt like I needed a hard hat. Apparently, they are in the midst of building a new elephant exhibit, but this has resulted in the elephant house-once the highlight of the place-being left nearly deserted. There were no giraffes, no rhinos and one pathetic hippo. I love hippos, so that really irked me. Then today, I read news stories about how that lone hippo had been transferred to a zoo in Milwaukee. So now there are no hippos there, either. The rest of the place wasn't much better; a single female lion and a single tiger. I didn't even ask about the bears; they've been scarce there for years.
I decided to surf around the net and see if anyone else agreed with my bleak assessment of our National Zoo. I wasn't too surprised to find mostly positive reviews; after all, people who rate things on the internet seem to adore awful movies, trite books, pretentious restaurants, etc. There were a few insightful souls, however, who shared my disdain for this place, which is a blight upon the Smithsonian name.
The National Zoo has been plagued by scandals in recent years. Clearly, the mismanagement of the place continues and is visible everywhere. It should be a shining source of pride, like other historical Washington, D.C. landmarks. Instead, it's a national embarrassment with little indication its flaws will be addressed in the immediate future. Spruce up the place. Ventilate the buildings-especially the odious ape house. At long last, complete construction and finally allow access everywhere. First and foremost, add more animals. Visitors will want to see giraffes, rhinos and hippos. They will expect more than a single depressed lion or tiger. But at least, as those who gave the zoo an inexplicable great review online pointed out (without mentioning the $20 parking fee), admission is free.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Why Does Hollywood Love Female Fighters?
The other night, I was watching the Nickelodeon teen show I Carly with my kids. It's usually a pretty decent show, but it has a strain of ugliness in one of its characters that really came out full force in this episode. Carly's best friend, Sam, is a girl who is constantly portrayed as a physical threat to everyone. She is not big. She is thin. She doesn't look to be into bodybuilding at a very early age. In short, it's ludicrous to suggest she could easily beat up almost any male. But that is just what this program regularly shows her doing. In celebration of her birthday, all her friends lovingly recount the past times when she has physically assaulted and/or beaten up someone. Eventually, she begins to feel sad and rather unfeminine, and vows to change. Nice idea, but by the end of the show she attacks and overpowers a much, much larger female bully.
This has been a consistent theme in movies and television for many years now. In fact, I would say that females beating up males has been the single most enduring theme coming out of Hollywood for at least a decade. This isn't played for comedy any longer, as it was in the days when Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble would beat up Fred and Barney, or when Mary Tyler Moore would beat up Dick Van Dyke. In those days, there had to be a "gimmick" utilized to explain the obvious improbability of smaller women overpowering larger men. Usually, as was the case with shows like The Flintstones and The Dick Van Dyke Show, this was because the women had been trained in judo or karate, which was then becoming in vogue.
Now, the female characters simply are able to punch out a larger male, and no questions are asked. The females are almost always the pretty, thin, super model-types Hollywood regularly employs. On the rare occasions when a fat or large boned woman does the beating up, then it is done for comic effect. The females are not merely defending themselves from male ogres, either; more often than not, they appear to actually be looking for a physical fight. They wear the same mean spirited, I-don't-take-any-shit expressions that nearly all actresses seem to wear nowadays, and often they start the fights. Well, it's not usually much of a fight, because the man usually is knocked cold (or at least down) with one mighty feminine blow. The Lois Lane character on the otherwise excellent show Smallville is one such bully character. She has been beating up men, often armed (once she overpowered a huge SWAT team member in full gear), with nothing more than her pretty fists and her magical, flying-Matrix-like drop kicks. This lady looks for trouble, all the time. She is the aggressor, not some neanderthal male trying to paw at her. Despite this disturbing character flaw (which in all reality should cause her to be reported to the authorities as a menace to society), she is well liked by all the other characters on the show. The audience is supposed to like her, too.
This female-as-aggressor campaign has been especially prominent on children's television shows. There are countless examples. On The Rugrats, Angelica was the physically dominant child, always bullying the others. On other nicktoons like Doug, Patti Mayonaise was the best athlete and could clearly beat up the boys, and on Spongebob Squarepants, Sandy Squirrel was the toughest creature in Bikini Bottom. On the otherwise entertaining Nickelodeon teen show Drake And Josh, the same actress who plays the lead in I Carly, Amanda Cosgrove, then a very young girl, bullies and utterly dominates her older teenage brothers. She beats them up frequently, and they are terrified of her. The character is completely odious, with not a single redeeming quality (not to even mention the impossibility of the tiny child being a physical terror to her much older brothers), yet she never gets her comeuppance and is portrayed positively. Again, the audience is supposed to like this little monster.
In the otherwise brilliant Batman The Animated Series and Superman The Animated Series cartoons, these elements were still recurring. The Joker's new female accomplice, Harley Quinn, was an exceptional fighter and in fact can beat up everyone except Batman. Lex Luthor, Superman's arch enemy, actually has a female bodyguard. Since Harley Quinn was, for all intents and purposes, Joker's bodyguard, we have the completely impossible portrayal of two of the world's greatest criminal masterminds hiring small (yes, they are both cartoon versions of the super-model-like actress) females to protect them. I'm sorry, but I don't believe anyone would hire a female bodyguard unless they were forced to. In yet another excellent cartoon series by the same creative team, Justice League, the character of Hawk Girl is ridiculously over the top in terms of aggressiveness and looking for fights (which superheroes are not supposed to be doing). In the short lived television series Birds Of Prey, the female characters, though none possessed true super powers, were so aggressive and unconvincing with their Matrix-like flying drop kicks, and willingness to kick male butt at the drop of a hat, that one invariably ended up rooting for the criminals.
I'm very selective about the new movies I watch, but I see commercials for upcoming films on television all the time. Without fail, almost all of them include the obligatory clip of some 100 lb. actress punching a hapless, much bigger male. Why? What is the sense of pushing this patently absurd notion so consistently for so long? I've greatly enjoyed the Harry Potter films, but in one of them, the lead female character, young Hermione, unleashes a mighty punch at the much bigger and older male teen Malfoy, who falls like he was hit by a ton of bricks. He then whimpers on the ground, as the tiny girl towers over him menacingly. I thought it would have been a bit ridiculous for Harry himself to have punched out the much bigger Malfoy, but apparently it was quite believable for Hermione to do so. I'm all for girl power, and for women being able to defend themselves, but what message are we sending when we all supposedly teach our kids that fighting is wrong, but every girl and woman on television is free to punch men whenever they want?
Another recent episode of I Carly featured the lead character, by some truly ridiculous plot twists, ending up in the ring with a renowned female MMA fighter. What? I didn't even know there was such a thing as mixed martial arts fighting for women, and think the entire phenomenon is just another sick indication of the collapse of civilization, but who in their right mind promotes such a thing on a television show that lots of children watch? But then again, when women aren't punching out men in the movies, they're punching each other out in the ring. Witness the inexplicable popularity of Million Dollar Baby a few years ago. As recently as the 1970s, any woman who made a living as a boxer would have been considered totally uncouth and trashy. Certainly, no one would have considered it sexy, let alone respectable. We ought to be seeking the abolition of brutal "sports" like boxing, not pushing women into it, or creating even bloodier, ultimate fighting games.
Much of this is tied to the dark side of feminism; instead of forcing men to be more sensitive and less brutish and aggressive, we are now seeing more belligerent, in-your-face females. That is hardly a cultural advance, in my view. Aggressiveness is not an attractive quality, and anyone who looks to engage in fisticuffs at any age should be reprimanded. Any grown adult who physically fights others should be shunned as a cretin, not cheered and respected.
Curiously, while female aggressiveness and fighting prowess has been lauded and promoted nonstop onscreen, males are now consistently portrayed as submissive, indecisive wimps. Whether it's a sitcom, where all fathers are dumber than the youngest child and can be beaten up by the youngest female, or the action adventure where any 100 lb. female is a natural leader and able to punch out any male, regardless of size, the message is strong and clear. Males are not as smart or strong as females. That's just as socially damaging as portraying women as scatter brained and unfit for anything other than cooking and housework.
An even more dangerous aspect of all this bizarre propaganda is the new trend of portraying super model-type females as being capable of overpowering and beating up fully armed males. Think of this message; ladies, if someone is holding a gun on you (well, at least if it's a male), you should attempt a flying Matrix-drop kick, which the male will always fall for and result in you being able to then punch him out. If any females out there are swallowing this nonsense, and actually try to disarm males in this way, please remember that things don't work that way in the real world. Maybe if a few women die because of this preposterous message, then Hollywood will ease off a bit.
We've also seen, on You Tube and similar Internet sites, a recent spate of young girls physically attacking each other. My children tell me that physical fights between girls now occur regularly after school. This simply didn't happen in the past. I'm not that old, but any high school girl who fought with another girl in my day would have been ostracized by her peers. She would be shunned by others, and not considered attractive by boys. No parent would consider it appropriate for their child to hang around someone like that. We need to start stigmatizing that kind of behavior again, instead of glorifying it in movies and television. There is no question in my mind that these fights are happening because females have been absorbing all that propaganda from Hollywood for many years.
Positive female role models are a good and necessary thing. Wimpy, indecisive males can be funny. However, there are some males who are smart, strong and able to easily win, in the unlikely (and irrational) event of a physical altercation with a female. Hopefully, there are still a lot of females out there who don't accept the notion that fisticuffs is a viable alternative for them. I don't want to use the antiquated term unladylike, so let's just say that it's uncivilized.
Enjoy your movies and television shows, but recognize the propaganda.
This has been a consistent theme in movies and television for many years now. In fact, I would say that females beating up males has been the single most enduring theme coming out of Hollywood for at least a decade. This isn't played for comedy any longer, as it was in the days when Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble would beat up Fred and Barney, or when Mary Tyler Moore would beat up Dick Van Dyke. In those days, there had to be a "gimmick" utilized to explain the obvious improbability of smaller women overpowering larger men. Usually, as was the case with shows like The Flintstones and The Dick Van Dyke Show, this was because the women had been trained in judo or karate, which was then becoming in vogue.
Now, the female characters simply are able to punch out a larger male, and no questions are asked. The females are almost always the pretty, thin, super model-types Hollywood regularly employs. On the rare occasions when a fat or large boned woman does the beating up, then it is done for comic effect. The females are not merely defending themselves from male ogres, either; more often than not, they appear to actually be looking for a physical fight. They wear the same mean spirited, I-don't-take-any-shit expressions that nearly all actresses seem to wear nowadays, and often they start the fights. Well, it's not usually much of a fight, because the man usually is knocked cold (or at least down) with one mighty feminine blow. The Lois Lane character on the otherwise excellent show Smallville is one such bully character. She has been beating up men, often armed (once she overpowered a huge SWAT team member in full gear), with nothing more than her pretty fists and her magical, flying-Matrix-like drop kicks. This lady looks for trouble, all the time. She is the aggressor, not some neanderthal male trying to paw at her. Despite this disturbing character flaw (which in all reality should cause her to be reported to the authorities as a menace to society), she is well liked by all the other characters on the show. The audience is supposed to like her, too.
This female-as-aggressor campaign has been especially prominent on children's television shows. There are countless examples. On The Rugrats, Angelica was the physically dominant child, always bullying the others. On other nicktoons like Doug, Patti Mayonaise was the best athlete and could clearly beat up the boys, and on Spongebob Squarepants, Sandy Squirrel was the toughest creature in Bikini Bottom. On the otherwise entertaining Nickelodeon teen show Drake And Josh, the same actress who plays the lead in I Carly, Amanda Cosgrove, then a very young girl, bullies and utterly dominates her older teenage brothers. She beats them up frequently, and they are terrified of her. The character is completely odious, with not a single redeeming quality (not to even mention the impossibility of the tiny child being a physical terror to her much older brothers), yet she never gets her comeuppance and is portrayed positively. Again, the audience is supposed to like this little monster.
In the otherwise brilliant Batman The Animated Series and Superman The Animated Series cartoons, these elements were still recurring. The Joker's new female accomplice, Harley Quinn, was an exceptional fighter and in fact can beat up everyone except Batman. Lex Luthor, Superman's arch enemy, actually has a female bodyguard. Since Harley Quinn was, for all intents and purposes, Joker's bodyguard, we have the completely impossible portrayal of two of the world's greatest criminal masterminds hiring small (yes, they are both cartoon versions of the super-model-like actress) females to protect them. I'm sorry, but I don't believe anyone would hire a female bodyguard unless they were forced to. In yet another excellent cartoon series by the same creative team, Justice League, the character of Hawk Girl is ridiculously over the top in terms of aggressiveness and looking for fights (which superheroes are not supposed to be doing). In the short lived television series Birds Of Prey, the female characters, though none possessed true super powers, were so aggressive and unconvincing with their Matrix-like flying drop kicks, and willingness to kick male butt at the drop of a hat, that one invariably ended up rooting for the criminals.
I'm very selective about the new movies I watch, but I see commercials for upcoming films on television all the time. Without fail, almost all of them include the obligatory clip of some 100 lb. actress punching a hapless, much bigger male. Why? What is the sense of pushing this patently absurd notion so consistently for so long? I've greatly enjoyed the Harry Potter films, but in one of them, the lead female character, young Hermione, unleashes a mighty punch at the much bigger and older male teen Malfoy, who falls like he was hit by a ton of bricks. He then whimpers on the ground, as the tiny girl towers over him menacingly. I thought it would have been a bit ridiculous for Harry himself to have punched out the much bigger Malfoy, but apparently it was quite believable for Hermione to do so. I'm all for girl power, and for women being able to defend themselves, but what message are we sending when we all supposedly teach our kids that fighting is wrong, but every girl and woman on television is free to punch men whenever they want?
Another recent episode of I Carly featured the lead character, by some truly ridiculous plot twists, ending up in the ring with a renowned female MMA fighter. What? I didn't even know there was such a thing as mixed martial arts fighting for women, and think the entire phenomenon is just another sick indication of the collapse of civilization, but who in their right mind promotes such a thing on a television show that lots of children watch? But then again, when women aren't punching out men in the movies, they're punching each other out in the ring. Witness the inexplicable popularity of Million Dollar Baby a few years ago. As recently as the 1970s, any woman who made a living as a boxer would have been considered totally uncouth and trashy. Certainly, no one would have considered it sexy, let alone respectable. We ought to be seeking the abolition of brutal "sports" like boxing, not pushing women into it, or creating even bloodier, ultimate fighting games.
Much of this is tied to the dark side of feminism; instead of forcing men to be more sensitive and less brutish and aggressive, we are now seeing more belligerent, in-your-face females. That is hardly a cultural advance, in my view. Aggressiveness is not an attractive quality, and anyone who looks to engage in fisticuffs at any age should be reprimanded. Any grown adult who physically fights others should be shunned as a cretin, not cheered and respected.
Curiously, while female aggressiveness and fighting prowess has been lauded and promoted nonstop onscreen, males are now consistently portrayed as submissive, indecisive wimps. Whether it's a sitcom, where all fathers are dumber than the youngest child and can be beaten up by the youngest female, or the action adventure where any 100 lb. female is a natural leader and able to punch out any male, regardless of size, the message is strong and clear. Males are not as smart or strong as females. That's just as socially damaging as portraying women as scatter brained and unfit for anything other than cooking and housework.
An even more dangerous aspect of all this bizarre propaganda is the new trend of portraying super model-type females as being capable of overpowering and beating up fully armed males. Think of this message; ladies, if someone is holding a gun on you (well, at least if it's a male), you should attempt a flying Matrix-drop kick, which the male will always fall for and result in you being able to then punch him out. If any females out there are swallowing this nonsense, and actually try to disarm males in this way, please remember that things don't work that way in the real world. Maybe if a few women die because of this preposterous message, then Hollywood will ease off a bit.
We've also seen, on You Tube and similar Internet sites, a recent spate of young girls physically attacking each other. My children tell me that physical fights between girls now occur regularly after school. This simply didn't happen in the past. I'm not that old, but any high school girl who fought with another girl in my day would have been ostracized by her peers. She would be shunned by others, and not considered attractive by boys. No parent would consider it appropriate for their child to hang around someone like that. We need to start stigmatizing that kind of behavior again, instead of glorifying it in movies and television. There is no question in my mind that these fights are happening because females have been absorbing all that propaganda from Hollywood for many years.
Positive female role models are a good and necessary thing. Wimpy, indecisive males can be funny. However, there are some males who are smart, strong and able to easily win, in the unlikely (and irrational) event of a physical altercation with a female. Hopefully, there are still a lot of females out there who don't accept the notion that fisticuffs is a viable alternative for them. I don't want to use the antiquated term unladylike, so let's just say that it's uncivilized.
Enjoy your movies and television shows, but recognize the propaganda.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
We Need To Share The Wealth
My political hero is Huey Long, former governor of Louisiana and also a United States Senator, who was assassinated in 1935, when he was on the verge of becoming a strong presidential contender. Long was the last great populist in the U. S. Senate; through his "Share The Wealth" program, he advocated a more equitable distribution of income in this country. It's a simple solution to virtually all our society's ills, but one we are still inexplicably avoiding.
Statistics show that, as of 2004, the richest 20% of Americans possessed about 85% of privately held wealth. http://http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html This means that the vast majority of Americans, the working class and the poor, only own about 15% of the real wealth in this country. That's an absurd situation, and given today's nightmarish economic conditions, one we absolutely have to address. For any true statesmen, the overriding issue of the day ought to be the undeniable fact that the vast majority of workers are not paid enough to meet the ever increasing costs of living. The system is rigged, because all those who have a hand in running the system are in that top 20%, and thus have quite a vested interest in maintaining it. The financial problems that most individuals and families in America face will never be solved until someone with the power to solve them comes from that 80% group. No one in Congress, or in the establishment press, faces these economic difficulties, so they don't feel any need to examine them, let alone take any corrective actions.
This isn't about "class envy" or "class warfare." These are the sobriquets that politicians, business leaders and media talking heads invariably invoke when someone mentions the giant elephant in the room. The reality is that the rich declared class warfare on the rest of us centuries ago, and it's long past time for us to start fighting back. The problem with this issue is that very few people think of themselves as "rich," even when they are by any reasonable measuring standard. The details of any "share the wealth" type initiative could be worked out in reasonable debate between reasonable people. I believe you begin at the top; no one, for instance, needs to be a billionaire. That's just ridiculous. Think of all the good Bill Gates' billions could be doing, for example. Instead, his answer is to continue to rape and pillage consumers by charging for every new software "version." The least he could do at this point is start allowing freeware. Then he could concentrate on getting his crappy products to work better.
The bottom line is no person's life is thousands of times more valuable, let alone millions or even billions, than anyone else's. No one is doing that good a job at anything to warrant the kinds of sinful salaries most CEOs make. Maybe if one brilliant individual came up with a universal cure for cancer, or a universal pill that greatly increased life expectancy, then that individual would be worth all the billions we could give him. However, I just don't see that kind of brilliance, or positive societal impact, from the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, etc. Why should upper management of virtually every corporation be paid millions (not to mention huge bonuses, which their underlings never receive), while those whose sweat make those millions possible are struggling to make ends meet, often working two jobs to do so? It isn't a good thing for Americans to be working more than one job. They shouldn't have to. Huey Long talked about us all enjoying our "blessings." In the 1930s, he was advocating a 30 hour work week. I'm sure he must be spinning at wharp speed in his grave over the miserable mess our greedy and incompetent leaders have put us in.
There are many ways to correct the tremendous inequities that decades of greed and corruption have wrought. We can return to a huge (90% or higher) tax rate for the highest incomes. We can give "bonuses," based on need, to the poor and working class. My personal favorite is to institute a new minimum wage, tied to a maximum wage. You could say that the top wage earner in a company couldn't be paid more than 20 times what the lowest wager earner was paid. So, if your company was doing so stunningly well that you could afford to pay the CEO a million dollars, then you'd have pay the janitors and clerical staff $50,000. Since we obliterated our industrial base by outsourcing and building plants in other countries, not to mention lowering the wages at the bottom of the pay scale with immigrant workers, we have to find a way to give all those consumers enough money to afford the bright and shining items in our consumer society. When that 80% of woefully underpaid workers can no longer afford the new cars, computers, high definition t.v.s and cell phones that are such an integral part of our economy now, then things will truly start collapsing.
It's curious how the present system works. If you're a distressed citizen, whose house is being foreclosed on, and whose family is on the verge of breaking up, you must "learn to live within your means," "try harder," or find some other unrealistic method of dealing with your "personal problem." If you're the banking industry, and your bloated profits are down because of some short sighted, unwise loaning practices, you don't "sacrifice" anything. You simply whine to Congress that you need help, and our fearless leaders, even when over 90% of their constituents let them know how strongly they oppose it, write you a blank check so you don't have to pay the least bit of penalty for your failures. The same holds true for the American auto industry. Instead of lowering the prices of their crappy products, which ought to be the first thing they tried when sales were down, they whined and cried to Congress that they needed "help" to save them from their own incompetence. Then they had the nerve to blame the union salaries, instead of their shameful executive pay and bonuses. When one of the unwashed masses fails, he or she must trust in that "rugged individualism" we know and love. When an elitist group of plutocrats sees their enormous profits shrink, they are bailed out courtesy of those same unwashed masses. It's like the drowning man tossing his life preserver to the ones safely in the boat.
Despite every effort to avoid it, this issue will have to eventually be faced. Much like the coming Social Security disaster, our unthinking leaders can only pass things off on future generations for so long. Not too long from now, there will be far more people retired and expecting Social Security payments than there are workers to tax to pay them. Not too long from now, there will not be enough consumers with the ability to purchase the products our economy now depends on, thereby throwing even more companies into crisis and more workers into unemployment. We have to face the fact that either we start paying workers a much higher salary, or we dramatically slash prices across the board. It's that simple.
Statistics show that, as of 2004, the richest 20% of Americans possessed about 85% of privately held wealth. http://http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html This means that the vast majority of Americans, the working class and the poor, only own about 15% of the real wealth in this country. That's an absurd situation, and given today's nightmarish economic conditions, one we absolutely have to address. For any true statesmen, the overriding issue of the day ought to be the undeniable fact that the vast majority of workers are not paid enough to meet the ever increasing costs of living. The system is rigged, because all those who have a hand in running the system are in that top 20%, and thus have quite a vested interest in maintaining it. The financial problems that most individuals and families in America face will never be solved until someone with the power to solve them comes from that 80% group. No one in Congress, or in the establishment press, faces these economic difficulties, so they don't feel any need to examine them, let alone take any corrective actions.
This isn't about "class envy" or "class warfare." These are the sobriquets that politicians, business leaders and media talking heads invariably invoke when someone mentions the giant elephant in the room. The reality is that the rich declared class warfare on the rest of us centuries ago, and it's long past time for us to start fighting back. The problem with this issue is that very few people think of themselves as "rich," even when they are by any reasonable measuring standard. The details of any "share the wealth" type initiative could be worked out in reasonable debate between reasonable people. I believe you begin at the top; no one, for instance, needs to be a billionaire. That's just ridiculous. Think of all the good Bill Gates' billions could be doing, for example. Instead, his answer is to continue to rape and pillage consumers by charging for every new software "version." The least he could do at this point is start allowing freeware. Then he could concentrate on getting his crappy products to work better.
The bottom line is no person's life is thousands of times more valuable, let alone millions or even billions, than anyone else's. No one is doing that good a job at anything to warrant the kinds of sinful salaries most CEOs make. Maybe if one brilliant individual came up with a universal cure for cancer, or a universal pill that greatly increased life expectancy, then that individual would be worth all the billions we could give him. However, I just don't see that kind of brilliance, or positive societal impact, from the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, etc. Why should upper management of virtually every corporation be paid millions (not to mention huge bonuses, which their underlings never receive), while those whose sweat make those millions possible are struggling to make ends meet, often working two jobs to do so? It isn't a good thing for Americans to be working more than one job. They shouldn't have to. Huey Long talked about us all enjoying our "blessings." In the 1930s, he was advocating a 30 hour work week. I'm sure he must be spinning at wharp speed in his grave over the miserable mess our greedy and incompetent leaders have put us in.
There are many ways to correct the tremendous inequities that decades of greed and corruption have wrought. We can return to a huge (90% or higher) tax rate for the highest incomes. We can give "bonuses," based on need, to the poor and working class. My personal favorite is to institute a new minimum wage, tied to a maximum wage. You could say that the top wage earner in a company couldn't be paid more than 20 times what the lowest wager earner was paid. So, if your company was doing so stunningly well that you could afford to pay the CEO a million dollars, then you'd have pay the janitors and clerical staff $50,000. Since we obliterated our industrial base by outsourcing and building plants in other countries, not to mention lowering the wages at the bottom of the pay scale with immigrant workers, we have to find a way to give all those consumers enough money to afford the bright and shining items in our consumer society. When that 80% of woefully underpaid workers can no longer afford the new cars, computers, high definition t.v.s and cell phones that are such an integral part of our economy now, then things will truly start collapsing.
It's curious how the present system works. If you're a distressed citizen, whose house is being foreclosed on, and whose family is on the verge of breaking up, you must "learn to live within your means," "try harder," or find some other unrealistic method of dealing with your "personal problem." If you're the banking industry, and your bloated profits are down because of some short sighted, unwise loaning practices, you don't "sacrifice" anything. You simply whine to Congress that you need help, and our fearless leaders, even when over 90% of their constituents let them know how strongly they oppose it, write you a blank check so you don't have to pay the least bit of penalty for your failures. The same holds true for the American auto industry. Instead of lowering the prices of their crappy products, which ought to be the first thing they tried when sales were down, they whined and cried to Congress that they needed "help" to save them from their own incompetence. Then they had the nerve to blame the union salaries, instead of their shameful executive pay and bonuses. When one of the unwashed masses fails, he or she must trust in that "rugged individualism" we know and love. When an elitist group of plutocrats sees their enormous profits shrink, they are bailed out courtesy of those same unwashed masses. It's like the drowning man tossing his life preserver to the ones safely in the boat.
Despite every effort to avoid it, this issue will have to eventually be faced. Much like the coming Social Security disaster, our unthinking leaders can only pass things off on future generations for so long. Not too long from now, there will be far more people retired and expecting Social Security payments than there are workers to tax to pay them. Not too long from now, there will not be enough consumers with the ability to purchase the products our economy now depends on, thereby throwing even more companies into crisis and more workers into unemployment. We have to face the fact that either we start paying workers a much higher salary, or we dramatically slash prices across the board. It's that simple.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Where Are All The Original Ideas?
We live in a time of startling stagnation. The basic design of the automobile and airplane haven't changed in my lifetime. Medicine has made only baby strides in the fight against cancer, which is the black plague of modern times. Life expectancy has risen, but primarily because of the introduction of antibiotics, immunization and sterilzation, which dramatically reduced childhood deaths decades ago. It's a disgrace that the United States ranks 50th in the world in life expectancy, just behind Wallis and Futuna. As of 2004, the U.S. ranked 29th in the world in infant mortality. Those figures are a shameful indictment of our horrendous medical establishment. See Michael Moore's Sicko- it does a great job of illustrating this.
Hollywood has become almost incapable of producing anything original. When will they stop torturing the public with awful remakes of old television shows? How low will they go with the non-stop juvenile fart and potty humor "comedies?" When will they stop remaking movies that are barely a few decades old? When they reshot Psycho scene for scene a while back, that convinced me that there was little or no hope for them. How could they think they could top Alfred Hitchcock? It must be frustrating for all those struggling waiters and waitresses who have a gem of a screenplay at home in a drawer, but no one to peddle it to.
Message to Hollywood and the publishing world; not every story has to be centered in New York or Los Angeles. There are 48 other states in the union. Not every character has to be a lawyer or doctor. Some people aren't divorced, and get along well with their biological children. Some large men cannot be punched out by small women. Just some food for thought.
Sorry for being so grumpy- some days are like that. Our culture is just becoming so dumbed down that it's hard to stomach sometimes. The movie Idiocracy didn't paint such a far-fetched picture at all, in my view. What would Charles Dickens do in today's world? Imagine agents looking at some of his opening chapters, with their long sentences and deliberate pacing. It would be a miracle if he became published at all. Even a writer as recent as Vonnegut wouldn't have a chance either; "where are you going with this- it's all over the place" or "I don't know what you're trying to do here" would be some of the typical responses he'd get.
Sometimes it's hard not to feel as bitter as Ambrose Bierce, who of course would have no chance of being published today, either. I can only imagine some of the entries he'd have in a modern version of The Devil's Dictionary. Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken would be like kids in a candy store today, with the plethora of juicy targets for their poisionous barbs. They'd have no one willing to give them a public vehicle for their criticisms, but they'd certainly have plenty to comment on.
Okay, now it's back to watching the Disney Channel with my kids....
Hollywood has become almost incapable of producing anything original. When will they stop torturing the public with awful remakes of old television shows? How low will they go with the non-stop juvenile fart and potty humor "comedies?" When will they stop remaking movies that are barely a few decades old? When they reshot Psycho scene for scene a while back, that convinced me that there was little or no hope for them. How could they think they could top Alfred Hitchcock? It must be frustrating for all those struggling waiters and waitresses who have a gem of a screenplay at home in a drawer, but no one to peddle it to.
Message to Hollywood and the publishing world; not every story has to be centered in New York or Los Angeles. There are 48 other states in the union. Not every character has to be a lawyer or doctor. Some people aren't divorced, and get along well with their biological children. Some large men cannot be punched out by small women. Just some food for thought.
Sorry for being so grumpy- some days are like that. Our culture is just becoming so dumbed down that it's hard to stomach sometimes. The movie Idiocracy didn't paint such a far-fetched picture at all, in my view. What would Charles Dickens do in today's world? Imagine agents looking at some of his opening chapters, with their long sentences and deliberate pacing. It would be a miracle if he became published at all. Even a writer as recent as Vonnegut wouldn't have a chance either; "where are you going with this- it's all over the place" or "I don't know what you're trying to do here" would be some of the typical responses he'd get.
Sometimes it's hard not to feel as bitter as Ambrose Bierce, who of course would have no chance of being published today, either. I can only imagine some of the entries he'd have in a modern version of The Devil's Dictionary. Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken would be like kids in a candy store today, with the plethora of juicy targets for their poisionous barbs. They'd have no one willing to give them a public vehicle for their criticisms, but they'd certainly have plenty to comment on.
Okay, now it's back to watching the Disney Channel with my kids....
Sunday, May 10, 2009
My JFK Assassination Obsession Pt. 2
When the House of Representatives finally voted to authorize a new investigation into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. (but not, for some reason, Robert F. Kennedy), I was very excited. Surely, I thought, my liberal heroes in the Democratic party would be certain to leave no stone unturned in their search for the truth about these pivotal events in our recent history.
Early on, amid steady media references to the cost of the investigation (like these reporters are ever worried over the enormous size and cost of government), a rather incomprehensible feud developed between Rep. Henry Gonzalez, who'd been one of the loudest supporters of a new investigation in the House, and Richard Sprague, the noted prosecutor who'd been tabbed as chief counsel for the House Assassinations Committee (HSCA). Those of us who'd witnessed the similarly inexplicable infighting between intrepid critics like Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg, and the split over the Jim Garrision investigation, were all too familiar with this kind of power struggle and battle of egos, stoked perhaps by an unseen hand that stood to gain tremendously in the process. Anyone who participates on JFK assassination internet forums to this day, knows how common nasty, personalized arguments are between individuals who agree that JFK was killed by a conspiracy. These deep rifts seemingly ensure that no peace can ever be reached between many of the most high profile members of the critical community.
When G. Robert Blakey replaced Sprague as HSCA chief counsel, the fix was in. Under Blakey's stewardship, the committee signed an odious secrecy agreement with the CIA, which Sprague had rightly refused to do. They also supported every untenable conclusion of the Warren Commission, even the long discredited single bullet theory. I watched the few televised hearings with stunned disbelief. There was such a clear agenda; every single member of the Committee, including all my beloved Democrats, revealed their support for the impossible official fairy tale with a transparency that was obvious to those of us who knew the subject matter. Even with their belated "probable conspiracy" finding, due to the last minute inclusion of the acoustics tape evidence, the whole congressional "investigation" was terribly disillusioning.
In the aftermath of the HSCA fiasco, I still kept connected to the research community through a subscription to Penn Jones' excellent monthly newsletter The Continuing Inquiry. They were even nice enough to publish an article I wrote, in January 1983, entitled "Who Really Killed JFK?" In the article, I argued for a larger conspiracy, involving very powerful forces, and expressed skepticism over the popular view that right-wing extremist groups like the John Birch Society or the Minutemen, in conjunction with anti-Castro groups and "renegade"elements of the CIA, had been behind the assassination. Although Penn could often go overboard with scattershot predictions that rarely came true, and didn't painstakingly research every tip he got before publishing it, he was responsible for unearthing a lot of tremendously important information over the years. Jack White and Gary Shaw edited TCI, and Gary Mack (back when he was a true believer in conspiracy) wrote a lot of pieces as well. It's interesting to think about where these three are, some twenty five years later: Jack is the scourge of official skeptics everywhere, with a strong presence on internet forums; Shaw has opted to withdraw from the critical community, which is a huge loss for everyone; Mack has a highly visible position with the Sixth Floor Museum, and appears regularly on t.v. documentaries that promote the lone assassin nonsense. Even Penn Jones himself retired from research in the final years of his life, fatigued with years of effort that had made little inroads against the monstrous official lie. I can certainly understand how Jones felt, and how Gary Shaw feels now; when I read some of the more childish threads on an assassination forum, or watch yet another dishonest t.v. production, I often question why I still care about this issue. After the especially distorted ABC 40th anniversary special, hosted by Peter Jennings, even my sister told me I'd been wrong about there being a conspiracy. Years of my lectures on the subject were blasted out of her mind with one fell swoop by the soothing voice of a trusted talking head; mass media is more powerful than blood, I suppose.
I read David Lifton's Best Evidence with great interest in the early 1980s. I thought his body- alteration theory was compelling, but ultimately not something that would convince the public at large, let alone "respectable" historians and establishment reporters. Of course, with the way the mainstream press has ignored real information while swallowing the official lies about this case without the least bit of curiosity, it is doubtful that anything would convince them. I found his reliance on ex-Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler disquieting, as his performance with the Commission had hardly been honorable and trustworthy. I believe Lifton produced some invaluable research, and think there's definitely something there, but ultimately I have to reject his particular interpretation of that research, much as I deeply respect John Armstrong's pioneering "Harvey and Lee" work, but dismiss the theory he formulates out of it all.
When the 20th anniversary of the JFK assassination arrived, television aired many programs devoted to the subject, but as always they adhered to the lone assassin myth. A few years later, in 1986, the Showtime network aired the program "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald," using real witnesses like Ruth Paine, Harold Norman and Buell Wesley Frazier. The show was a real farce, with the verdict a preordained certainty. Defense attorney Garry Spence (who would go on to talking head fame over the next decade or so) did an absymal job of "defending" Oswald. His knowledge of the case was so limited that he referred to Officer J.D. Tippit as "Tibbits." By the end of the decade, Marina Oswald, whose inconsistent and maddening testimony had helped to convict her husband in the public eye, was publicly proclaiming a belief in conspiracy. So was journalist Jack Anderson, who had helped to smear the original band of critics.
To be continued....
Early on, amid steady media references to the cost of the investigation (like these reporters are ever worried over the enormous size and cost of government), a rather incomprehensible feud developed between Rep. Henry Gonzalez, who'd been one of the loudest supporters of a new investigation in the House, and Richard Sprague, the noted prosecutor who'd been tabbed as chief counsel for the House Assassinations Committee (HSCA). Those of us who'd witnessed the similarly inexplicable infighting between intrepid critics like Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg, and the split over the Jim Garrision investigation, were all too familiar with this kind of power struggle and battle of egos, stoked perhaps by an unseen hand that stood to gain tremendously in the process. Anyone who participates on JFK assassination internet forums to this day, knows how common nasty, personalized arguments are between individuals who agree that JFK was killed by a conspiracy. These deep rifts seemingly ensure that no peace can ever be reached between many of the most high profile members of the critical community.
When G. Robert Blakey replaced Sprague as HSCA chief counsel, the fix was in. Under Blakey's stewardship, the committee signed an odious secrecy agreement with the CIA, which Sprague had rightly refused to do. They also supported every untenable conclusion of the Warren Commission, even the long discredited single bullet theory. I watched the few televised hearings with stunned disbelief. There was such a clear agenda; every single member of the Committee, including all my beloved Democrats, revealed their support for the impossible official fairy tale with a transparency that was obvious to those of us who knew the subject matter. Even with their belated "probable conspiracy" finding, due to the last minute inclusion of the acoustics tape evidence, the whole congressional "investigation" was terribly disillusioning.
In the aftermath of the HSCA fiasco, I still kept connected to the research community through a subscription to Penn Jones' excellent monthly newsletter The Continuing Inquiry. They were even nice enough to publish an article I wrote, in January 1983, entitled "Who Really Killed JFK?" In the article, I argued for a larger conspiracy, involving very powerful forces, and expressed skepticism over the popular view that right-wing extremist groups like the John Birch Society or the Minutemen, in conjunction with anti-Castro groups and "renegade"elements of the CIA, had been behind the assassination. Although Penn could often go overboard with scattershot predictions that rarely came true, and didn't painstakingly research every tip he got before publishing it, he was responsible for unearthing a lot of tremendously important information over the years. Jack White and Gary Shaw edited TCI, and Gary Mack (back when he was a true believer in conspiracy) wrote a lot of pieces as well. It's interesting to think about where these three are, some twenty five years later: Jack is the scourge of official skeptics everywhere, with a strong presence on internet forums; Shaw has opted to withdraw from the critical community, which is a huge loss for everyone; Mack has a highly visible position with the Sixth Floor Museum, and appears regularly on t.v. documentaries that promote the lone assassin nonsense. Even Penn Jones himself retired from research in the final years of his life, fatigued with years of effort that had made little inroads against the monstrous official lie. I can certainly understand how Jones felt, and how Gary Shaw feels now; when I read some of the more childish threads on an assassination forum, or watch yet another dishonest t.v. production, I often question why I still care about this issue. After the especially distorted ABC 40th anniversary special, hosted by Peter Jennings, even my sister told me I'd been wrong about there being a conspiracy. Years of my lectures on the subject were blasted out of her mind with one fell swoop by the soothing voice of a trusted talking head; mass media is more powerful than blood, I suppose.
I read David Lifton's Best Evidence with great interest in the early 1980s. I thought his body- alteration theory was compelling, but ultimately not something that would convince the public at large, let alone "respectable" historians and establishment reporters. Of course, with the way the mainstream press has ignored real information while swallowing the official lies about this case without the least bit of curiosity, it is doubtful that anything would convince them. I found his reliance on ex-Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler disquieting, as his performance with the Commission had hardly been honorable and trustworthy. I believe Lifton produced some invaluable research, and think there's definitely something there, but ultimately I have to reject his particular interpretation of that research, much as I deeply respect John Armstrong's pioneering "Harvey and Lee" work, but dismiss the theory he formulates out of it all.
When the 20th anniversary of the JFK assassination arrived, television aired many programs devoted to the subject, but as always they adhered to the lone assassin myth. A few years later, in 1986, the Showtime network aired the program "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald," using real witnesses like Ruth Paine, Harold Norman and Buell Wesley Frazier. The show was a real farce, with the verdict a preordained certainty. Defense attorney Garry Spence (who would go on to talking head fame over the next decade or so) did an absymal job of "defending" Oswald. His knowledge of the case was so limited that he referred to Officer J.D. Tippit as "Tibbits." By the end of the decade, Marina Oswald, whose inconsistent and maddening testimony had helped to convict her husband in the public eye, was publicly proclaiming a belief in conspiracy. So was journalist Jack Anderson, who had helped to smear the original band of critics.
To be continued....
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
What Did They Do To The Simpsons?
Most television shows, even the best ones, tend to diminish in quality the longer they are on the air. However, there is no precedent for what's happened to the long- running Fox series The Simpsons. For most of the 1990s, this show was a hilarious, satirical romp, featuring a multitude of diverse characters and sharp and witty writing. Seasons 3-8 constitute some of the best stuff the medium has ever produced. However, over the past ten seasons or so, it has deteriorated into an objectionable, run of the mill series that is hardly recognizable to once loyal fans like myself.
There are many reasons for the decline of the show. Series creator and guiding force Matt Groening threw all his undivided attention into his new creation Futurama. Some of the old writers and producers left, to be replaced by the likes of Mike Scully and Ian Maxtone Graham. Another Fox cartoon series, Family Guy, had an unfortunate impact on The Simpsons, as the writers clearly borrowed from Peter Griffin's obnoxious, wildly over-the-top personality, which resulted in a newer, much less lovable Homer Simpson. The overuse of celebrity guest voices, which was never a strong point of the show, became ridiculous. The fact that these guest stars almost always played themselves, with too much fawning and not enough satire involved, really became embarrassing. Finally, the point of all too many shows became Homer's annoying behavior, which often took the family on trips to various locales. These plots were usually inexplicable and surreal, and relied far too heavily on cheap gags and crude humor, something the old shows did a good job of avoiding.
There are those who think The Simpsons hasn't jumped the shark, and is just as good as ever. I simply don't understand how anyone can watch an episode from season 4 or so, and compare it to one from the past five years, and not see a tremendous difference. It is a completely different show now. The voices are the same, the characters look pretty much the same, and some of the original writers are still there, but the show has degenerated into a sophmoric mess that can never be repaired. In my opinion, the writers often use the Comic Book Guy character to lampoon their own once die hard fans, who began complaining about the show's decline years ago on internet forum message boards. If you've read interviews with Groening or any of the other creative forces behind the show, or listened to the commentaries on the DVD sets, you get the sense that the character's catch phrase "worst episode ever" was a sarcastic slap in the face to those fans who were rightfully noticing the dramatic turn the show took in 1999 or so.
I still treasure the DVD sets I have of The Simpsons, but will not buy any beyond season 10. As it stands now, because it's been on the air for so long, there are actually more bad episodes of the show than good ones. Never has any television show that was so great become so terrible over the course of its series run. I try to remember all the highlights from the glory years; Bart losing his soul, Homer trying to gain weight to become declared handicapped, Bart offending Australia, the lemon tree episode, the monorail episode, Bart missing the Itchy and Scratchy movie, Flanders going insane and all the classic Halloween shows. But with the plots now centering around things like Homer getting raped by a panda, Marge taking steroids or Homer becoming a mnister so he can conduct a gay wedding, with Lisa's whining, eight year old vegetarian-Buddhist presence hovering in the background, it isn't easy.
There are many reasons for the decline of the show. Series creator and guiding force Matt Groening threw all his undivided attention into his new creation Futurama. Some of the old writers and producers left, to be replaced by the likes of Mike Scully and Ian Maxtone Graham. Another Fox cartoon series, Family Guy, had an unfortunate impact on The Simpsons, as the writers clearly borrowed from Peter Griffin's obnoxious, wildly over-the-top personality, which resulted in a newer, much less lovable Homer Simpson. The overuse of celebrity guest voices, which was never a strong point of the show, became ridiculous. The fact that these guest stars almost always played themselves, with too much fawning and not enough satire involved, really became embarrassing. Finally, the point of all too many shows became Homer's annoying behavior, which often took the family on trips to various locales. These plots were usually inexplicable and surreal, and relied far too heavily on cheap gags and crude humor, something the old shows did a good job of avoiding.
There are those who think The Simpsons hasn't jumped the shark, and is just as good as ever. I simply don't understand how anyone can watch an episode from season 4 or so, and compare it to one from the past five years, and not see a tremendous difference. It is a completely different show now. The voices are the same, the characters look pretty much the same, and some of the original writers are still there, but the show has degenerated into a sophmoric mess that can never be repaired. In my opinion, the writers often use the Comic Book Guy character to lampoon their own once die hard fans, who began complaining about the show's decline years ago on internet forum message boards. If you've read interviews with Groening or any of the other creative forces behind the show, or listened to the commentaries on the DVD sets, you get the sense that the character's catch phrase "worst episode ever" was a sarcastic slap in the face to those fans who were rightfully noticing the dramatic turn the show took in 1999 or so.
I still treasure the DVD sets I have of The Simpsons, but will not buy any beyond season 10. As it stands now, because it's been on the air for so long, there are actually more bad episodes of the show than good ones. Never has any television show that was so great become so terrible over the course of its series run. I try to remember all the highlights from the glory years; Bart losing his soul, Homer trying to gain weight to become declared handicapped, Bart offending Australia, the lemon tree episode, the monorail episode, Bart missing the Itchy and Scratchy movie, Flanders going insane and all the classic Halloween shows. But with the plots now centering around things like Homer getting raped by a panda, Marge taking steroids or Homer becoming a mnister so he can conduct a gay wedding, with Lisa's whining, eight year old vegetarian-Buddhist presence hovering in the background, it isn't easy.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Will The Last Civil Libertarian In America Please Close The Door
Where have all the civil libertarians gone? Nat Hentoff does what he can with the forum he has, and Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are about all that's left in Congress. The country has tilted strongly in a get tough/law and order/three strikes you're out direction. There is little or no sympathy for the imprisoned, even when DNA evidence proves their innocence. The fact that a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty is only mentioned now when a celebrity or wealthy person is on trial. A staunch reluctance to see justice done runs through the entire legal profession as well as the general public at large.
We've become all too willing to grant police, judges and prosecutors the kind of power that no human being should have. "Power corrupts," as the classic nineteenth century civil libertarian Lord Acton noted. Every week, we can see new examples, on You Tube and elsewhere, of police officers caught on video tape blatantly abusing their authority. Where are the so-called "liberal" politicians speaking out about this obvious problem? Is anyone, even Reps. Paul or Kucinich, demanding more oversight and accountability for law enforcement officers?
The simple fact is we have too many laws and too many Americans in prison. The answer is not to make it easier to imprison more of them, for longer periods of time, for things that were formerly legal. The drug "war" has been a monstrous failure. The average citizen has little awareness of and less respect for the Bill of Rights than ever before. For a country that boasts constantly about our affinity for "rugged individualism," we place a depressingly unimportant value on individual rights. The Thought Police that Orwell warned us about are just around the corner, and more citizens each day wouldn't object in the least to their presence.
Classic liberalism is all but dead in American politics. The term "liberal" now describes a hack career politician who is devoted to mouthing empty, bureaucratic rhetoric to a few special interest groups. No one fights for the civil liberties of each individual citizen any more. Few seem to care about the injustices inflicted upon others, as long as it doesn't directly affect them. "There but for the grace of God" seems an antiquated expression now, especially among those who consider themselves religious. Civil liberties are crucial to the survival of any free society. From my quiet corner of the internet, here's a toast to civil libertarians.
We've become all too willing to grant police, judges and prosecutors the kind of power that no human being should have. "Power corrupts," as the classic nineteenth century civil libertarian Lord Acton noted. Every week, we can see new examples, on You Tube and elsewhere, of police officers caught on video tape blatantly abusing their authority. Where are the so-called "liberal" politicians speaking out about this obvious problem? Is anyone, even Reps. Paul or Kucinich, demanding more oversight and accountability for law enforcement officers?
The simple fact is we have too many laws and too many Americans in prison. The answer is not to make it easier to imprison more of them, for longer periods of time, for things that were formerly legal. The drug "war" has been a monstrous failure. The average citizen has little awareness of and less respect for the Bill of Rights than ever before. For a country that boasts constantly about our affinity for "rugged individualism," we place a depressingly unimportant value on individual rights. The Thought Police that Orwell warned us about are just around the corner, and more citizens each day wouldn't object in the least to their presence.
Classic liberalism is all but dead in American politics. The term "liberal" now describes a hack career politician who is devoted to mouthing empty, bureaucratic rhetoric to a few special interest groups. No one fights for the civil liberties of each individual citizen any more. Few seem to care about the injustices inflicted upon others, as long as it doesn't directly affect them. "There but for the grace of God" seems an antiquated expression now, especially among those who consider themselves religious. Civil liberties are crucial to the survival of any free society. From my quiet corner of the internet, here's a toast to civil libertarians.
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