October 2009 Archives

The radio informed me this morning that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. This immediately struck me as a little odd, as, presumably it did a lot of people, because within seconds of the idea forming in my head, the article described many as wondering whether Obama had done anything substantial to deserve it.

Oh, he’s proven more willing to open diplomatic dialogues than his predecessor—not a difficult target to hit—but what else? Military involvement in Afghanistan is on the rise even as schedules are laid to withdraw from Iraq, no more prosperous or politically stable now than it was under the Bush occupation. Guantanamo is still open for business, and, while it is being slowly closed, the prisoners are not so much being set free or delivered to fair and open trials as being stuffed into another prison with a similar name. Indeed, the Justice department recently argued that it could not free certain prisoners because, while they were almost certainly mistreated and wrongfully arrested in the first place, all that wrongful treatment might have turned them INTO terrorists; by the Obama administration’s estimation, the mere act of being seized under false charges is itself a crime that admits neither trial nor release. Even those vaunted diplomatic pushes are often bought at the expense of quietly pushing human rights off the table. All of which got me to thinking.

The list of recipients consists entirely of four categories:

1. statesmen who initiate or broker peace agreements, such as Frank Kellogg and Nelson Mandela,
2. private citizens who champion a humanist cause, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Yunus,
3. populist organizations, such as the Red Cross or Amnesty International, and
4. statesmen who are offered the prize less for their accomplishments, which are often bloody, than as encouragement to their people to continue to move toward civilized discourse, such as Yasser Arafat and Jose Ramos-Horta.

Obama seems to fall firmly in that fourth category; he certainly doesn’t belong to the other three. He has struck a diplomatic tone on behalf of the US that seems remarkable only after a decade of a go-it-alone arrogance and, often, a positive effort to antagonize other nations. He is pushing (though less aggressively by the week) for a health care program that has yet to materialize and would, at best, merely catch the US up to the kind of safety net and widespread coverage already available throughout the rest of the industrialized world. He stands as a symbol of the slowly vanishing scars of American racial politics. And, of course, he is not George Bush, for which the entire world is deeply thankful.

While I share the world’s general relief to have once again a thoughtful, decent man in the White House—the first since Carter—the actual award reminds me how far we’ve fallen. This year’s Peace Prize feels like one of those patronizing invitations to third-world despots to join, or rejoin, the ranks of civilized nations. And, God help us, it seems we actually need it.

I learned this morning that Fox is planning to launch a new television series, currently untitled. From the THR site:

Described as an epic Western with a sci-fi twist, the show will revolve around "a gunslinger caught between worlds" and will feature a nod to "Planet of the Apes," said Rosenbaum, who is executive producing with Wonderland's McG and Peter Johnson.

"What I'm really interested in is the revamping of the Western genre where you still have all of the iconic Western themes and iconic Western tropes but the idea is that it will feel incredibly contemporary and will introduce the Western to a whole new generation," Rosenbaum said.

Wait, wait, I’m getting a terrible sense of déjà vu…

Oh, right. Fox already had an epic western with a sci-fi twist, didn’t it? Firefly came from phenomenon Joss Whedon, who already gave Fox a big hit with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And it was terrific. (I say this as someone who never understood all the excitement over Buffy.

It was clever. It had compelling characters. It had snappy dialogue that puts all others to shame as only Whedon can. The “cowboys in space” theme which looks so corny on paper proved nevertheless both quirky and coherent—no mean achievement. The show had a core of truly, amazingly devoted fans and rapidly growing interest among more ordinary viewers, following Whedon’s pattern of developing show “legs” over time as his layered and complex stories unfold, and as he moves beyond the necessities of establishing the characters to his strength as an experimenter. It was a revamping of the western genre that had all of the iconic western themes and iconic western tropes but an idea that felt incredibly contemporary and introduced the western to a whole new generation.

But Fox blew it; one might say they deliberately sabotaged it. Producers insistent on immediate blockbuster meddled in the episode order, to the detriment of the show. They moved it about the airing week schedule. They shoved it into an undesirable time slot. And—surprise!—it failed, and producers lamented its “low ratings.” Not that I’m bitter.

So, while I have nothing against Rosenbaum or his as-yet-unnamed show, I can’t help but suspect it is already doomed to the Graveyard of Novel Television Projects. And, to my embarrassment, I might prefer it to end up there rather than upstage Firefly.

The Halloween outlets are everywhere! I may be more immediately exposed to them than most because the Halloween outlet’s natural habitat is the run-down strip mall, and New Jersey is the run-down strip mall capital of the world, but I suspect something else is at work, here.

No, it’s not merely the drive to add Halloween to Christmas as a consumer-driven economic engine, though that’s what underlies the appearance of the outlets in the first place. No, it’s not the transformation of the holiday from “kids’ night out” to “dress like a slut day.” No, it’s not a genuine need for all these merchandisers of costumes and plastic axes—not every couple hundred yards, it isn’t.

It’s property values.

Like locusts or desert vegetation, the Halloween outlets are seasonal opportunists, erupting briefly to exploit a short-lived niche and disappearing throughout the rest of the year. It’s a narrow niche, too; even at the peak of the season, profits are touch-and-go, considering the lease, the cost of making an abandoned shop presentable, shipping the goods in, and shipping them out again because the customers I see inside do more looking than buying. (We want to believe; we want an excuse to buy the toys. But they’re such shoddy toys it’s hard even for a kid at heart to shell out his bucks for them.)

But two of those boundary conditions limiting profit have changed dramatically. The collapse in the housing market, and with it the office space market and other construction interests, have lowered the cost of a lease, including a short-term lease. In good times, short-term leases pay a premium because the lessor knows he’ll have to go through the hassle of drumming up another customer and retouching the space shortly. But in bad times, even a short-term renter is better than the alternative of no renter at all. Add in the construction crews’ desperation to drum up some business, and the overhead for a Halloween outlet drops dramatically.

So the outlets are everywhere. Yesterday, we passed two Halloween shops separated by just two or three store fronts. And they make the area look sketchy. Low-rent. Though not, I suppose, as sketchy as the alternative of no renter at all.

I listen regularly to WNYC, the local NPR station. But when we’re in the car, Eileene often listens to WCBS (AM 880), first for the traffic reports and then because she just wants noise on the radio.

And noise it is: newsoid bits delivered in fifteen- or thirty-second headlines. What really bothers me about the station is not the sound bites posing as news, however; it’s the commercials posing as news. Many ads are delivered in the same bland newscaster voice with little or no warning that the nominal news has given way to sales. I don’t consider “We’ll have the traffic for you right after this,” sufficient. Quickly telling the difference between the two can be very difficult, unless you recognize the announcers by voice, and by the time you’ve separated potentially useful information from blather, you’ve already been distracted from traffic.

This morning, however, I worked out a quick way to distinguish newsoid from commercial: bad news is news; good news is advertising. Earthquake? News. Murder? News. Live healthier? Diet pill ad. First lady insulted? News. First lady gardens? Nursery ad. Riots in Italy? News. Festival in Italy? Tourism ad.

The technique isn’t perfect. The stock market was down this morning, but presumably it’s still news when it’s up. And medical news is tricky; a report on a promising but experimental approach to curing some disease you’ve never heard of sounds almost exactly like a pharmaceutical product placement. But it’s pretty reliable. I’d be willing to bet you could keep up with 90% of the newsoids while ignoring 90% of the commercials once you learned to tune in only when someone speaks with a frowny voice.

Of course, that would only reinforce the sense that all news is bad news, and the world is going to hell starting this Tuesday, but really: how is that so different from the news as it is already?

I am deeply worried at reports that conservative radio host and Fox commentator Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. I don’t suppose I should feel any shock at the news; conservative leaders in our churches, on the airwaves, and in the halls of Congress have repeatedly been exposed as drug addicts, perverts, embezzlers, adulterers, bribe-takers, bribe-makers, rapists, child molesters, and distributors of child pornography. Adding murder to the list should come as no great shock.

There is even some doubt, albeit purely speculative, as to whether the accusations are true. By some reports, Beck first murdered, then raped the girl—which would technically make his second violation a case of molesting a corpse, and not rape. Some point to the mutilation of the victim’s genitals, and suggest the victim was a young boy. Some question the quality of evidence against him entirely, calling it a hoax, or a satire.

But note this: despite ample time since the news broke, Beck has issued no denial to raping and murdering a young girl in 1990. If he didn’t do it, why doesn’t he simply come forward and deny it? Why won’t he agree to release his police records to prove otherwise? For that matter, why does he not turn his high-powered lawyers (and those of the Fox broadcast network) against his accusers for libel? What does Glenn Beck have to hide?

We know he is hiding something behind an expensive legal team, as they have launched a skeevy attempt to silence fair and open examination of the evidence. They are not, however, working through the American legal system, but through the WIPO, an international tribunal on domain names. That’s right: Beck feels the protection of an arbitrary website’s name should trump the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution, as well as concerns about rape and murder. As Beck himself describes the strategy, “If you can’t win with the people, you take it to the courts. If you can’t win in the courts, you go international.” In short, he is prepared to destroy US sovereignty simply to silence honest debate. Why does Glenn Beck hate America so much? Is it because he’s afraid to swear his innocence before God in an American court? Why does Glenn Beck hate God so much?

Beck is a powerful media figure, winning the Marconi Radio Award as a right-wing radio host, preferring to level fantastic accusations at his targets and demand the burden of disproof be placed on his victims. For Beck, the accusation alone, regardless of source, motivation, or evidence, is enough to destroy a career. He has infamously portrayed President Obama as a racist, although Beck himself publicly addressed a Teabagger’s march—which required non-white participants to march at the back—called black men lazy, and castigated Tiger Woods for marrying a “Swedish” woman, demanding Woods “get a job” and “keep his paws off our women.” He has driven presidential advisors, such as Van Jones, to resign on no more evidence than Beck’s own wild claims and the zealotry of his viewers, and the threat of a right-wing outlash. So powerful a media figure should not retain his seat of influence until accusations of his own violent crimes are put to rest. Beck could put the accusations to rest with a simple denial, yet he says nothing.

As of this posting, a recent poll finds that 82% of the correspondents believe Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Beck is by his own admission an alcoholic and drug abuser and “real dirtbag.” He has laughingly simulated poisoning Nancy Pelosi and smiled at the possibility that someone might attempt to assassinate the president. And yet, so far as I know, no police are seriously investigating the charges. No major news outlets are reporting the allegations. Nevertheless, even now, Beck’s rabid supporters, unable to see the irony in Beck being caught up by his own tactics, are rallying to him, hoping to protect him from justice by the force of public opinion. So what can we do about it?

We can start by helping spread the meme. When enough people repeat it, it becomes news, regardless of and more important than the demonstrable truth; just ask colleague Sean Hannity about the birther movement. The brave host of glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com got the ball rolling, getting the facts out to the public on his website for whifchy, but, as noted above, Fox’s legal steamroller is trying to shut the site down by hook or by crook. A meme doesn’t stay viral without help. Link to this site, and to others exploring the accusations. (If the suit goes through, see gb1990.com. A link is important, as search engines like Google pick up on these much more readily than they do simple text. Print and post bills, at the designer’s request. Buy the t-shirt. Share the story with your friends and family, especially with those who may not be so good at critical thinking, such as those who regularly follow Fox commentary. Ask them to write Fox, demanding the truth. Ask them to stop watching Fox for as long as it takes to get this accused rapist and murderer off the air, or at least until he mans up and issues a public denial. We can’t bring him down through appeals to conscience, for he has none. We can’t bring Fox to dismiss him out of appeals to common decency, for common decency has no part in Fox commentary. But we might be able to remove this scumbag from the airwaves by hitting his bosses where it hurts: in the Nielsen ratings, and in the pocketbook.

All he has to do is stand up and make the following, public assertion:

“I, Glenn Beck, did not rape and murder a young girl in 1990.”

That’s all it would take. And yet he does not—perhaps can not—make even this simple, good faith gesture.

It’s time to stop violent psychopaths from directing our national conversation.

Clearly, everyone must now watch Glee. I say this because I’m enjoying it, despite

(A) jumping in at episode 3 and missing bits,
(B) almost every major character doing something reprehensible in the first episode, and
(C) the show being a musical
(D) the show being a musical about making a musical
(E) the protagonists being nerds trying to gain acceptance among the cool kids

That list is a recipe for a disaster. Glee is so extraordinarily far from being my kind of thing that my enjoyment could only mean that it’s either far too screwed up a musical to win any other fans or that it’s a spectacularly awesome show. Since the show is getting rave reviews and high Nielsen ratings, it can only be the latter.

I can point to a few ways that Glee isn’t quite the epitome of all I hate. Though it’s a musical, the musical numbers are mercifully brief, more often a single chorus of a well-known song than an entire performance, so the action doesn’t come to a dead stop for minutes at a time while someone whinges on about their one-dimensional motivation. Nor does it get sappy—unless as a set-up to a darkly comic twist of fate. Nor is there some hapless heroine who perseveres through continually being unfairly dumped on to her happy ending, which is supposed to be a tear-jerker, but isn’t. The characters who get dumped on are either selfish enough to do a fair bit of dumping themselves, or eschew the self-pity I despise in so many musicals. And though it seems everyone except, perhaps, the germophobic redhead is a selfish creep, I was able to get invested before discovering this, by virtue of joining late.

Yet all these observations may be beside the point. I think I’m enjoying the show despite its format, rather than because of it. It’s well written and cuttingly satirical, and clever enough not to tread the weary old grooves of musical theater. That’s good no matter what you look for in a show. So find the back episodes and get caught up. Or even jump in the middle, as I did.