Sunday, November 27, 2005
'Walk the Line' is a fine tribute to Cash
So we went to see this movie yesterday.
I was a Johnny Cash snob growing up. My Dad was a big fan; he used to walk around singing "Hey, Porter", but I was way too much into Kiss and Deep Purple and Black Sabbath for anything from another musical genre to make much of an impression.
It's really only been the last several years that I discovered his artistry, and what led me to his music was reading about his influence on musicians whom I respect.
Now I'll have to go find some of the bios of John and June, because their love story is timeless.
And this will make the FReepers' head explode: Johnny Cash was a progressive populist.
What could be more liberal than this...
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.
I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.
I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.
And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.
Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.
Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black
Saturday, November 26, 2005
NBC censors Thanksgiving Day parade
NBC did not interrupt its broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade yesterday to bring viewers the news that an M&M balloon had crashed into a light pole, injuring two sisters.
In fact, when the time came in the tightly scripted three-hour program for the M&Ms' appearance, NBC weaved in tape of the balloon crossing the finish line at last year's parade - even as the damaged balloon itself was being dragged from the accident scene. At 11:47 a.m., as an 11-year-old girl and her 26-year-old sister were being treated for injuries, the parade's on-air announcers - Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker - kept up their light-hearted repartee from Herald Square, where the parade ends. ...
Ten minutes later, the upbeat broadcast ended without mention of the accident in Times Square. CNN carried a flash about the accident at 11:51, while the parade telecast was still going on. NBC's cable news network, MSNBC, followed two minutes later. And WNBC, the New York affiliate, carried the news at 12:30 p.m. ...
When the balloon failed to arrive at Herald Square at the appointed time, she said, "we rolled with some previously recorded footage."
Does this make you curious about other times this kind of manipulation may have occurred?
Friday, November 25, 2005
Le Grande Thanksgiving
Wide awake this morning for no good reason, with the local "news" reporting the occupancy of the mall parking lots and "interviewing" the lemmings out early to consume.
Trying not to reach the conclusion that this is what our soldiers are dying for in Iraq: our God-given right to go deeper into debt in order to acquire the latest X-Box.
Did you read Art Buchwald yesterday?
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One of our most important holidays is Thanksgiving Day, known in France as le Jour de Merci Donnant .
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Which one is the turkey?
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
The Straw Men of Iraq: Ten Pro-War Fallacies
1. Virtually everyone who saw the intelligence believed Saddam had WMD, therefore Bush is being unfaily singled out for criticism.
The typical framing is: "Democrats got the same intelligence and reached the same conclusion, so blaming Bush for misleading America is purely political." The argument is also presented in 'gotcha' form by people like Sean Hannity, who use a lengthy blind quote about the threat posed by Saddam that turns out to be from Bill Clinton, John Kerry or some other Democrat. The conclusion is that if Bush was lying, they must have been lying too.
There is a false assumption underlying this argument, namely that Dems received the same intel as Bush (they didn't), but setting that aside, here are two reasons why this is a straw man:
a) The issue is not whether people believed Saddam had WMD (many did), or whether there was any evidence that he had WMD (there was), it's the fact that Bush and his administration made an absolute, unconditional case with the evidence at hand, brooking no dissent and dismissing doubters inside and outside the government as cowardly or treasonous. That's what "manipulating the intelligence" and "misleading the public" refers to, the knowing exaggeration of the case for war (whether by cherry-picking intel or using defunct intel or by speaking about ambiguous intel in alarming absolutes). As I wrote in this post: "There we were, more than a decade after the first gulf war, two years after 9/11, and Saddam hadn’t attacked us, he hadn’t threatened to attack us. And then suddenly, he was the biggest threat to America. A threat that required a massive invasion. A bigger threat than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Bin Laden. A HUGE, IMMEDIATE threat. It simply defied belief."
b) In addition to the fear-mongering described above, the contention that Bush 'misled' the public is not simply about Saddam's WMD, but about the way the administration stormed ahead with their plans and invaded Iraq in the way they did, at the time they did, with the Pollyannaish visions they fed the world, all the while demonizing dissent and smearing their critics.
In both (a) and (b), the crux of the issue is proportionality. Whether or not Bill Clinton or France or the U.N. believed Saddam was a threat, the administration's apocalyptic words and drastic actions (preemptively invading a sovereign nation) were decidedly out of proportion to the level and immediacy of the threat. THAT is the issue.
2. After 9/11, we can't wait for the threat to materialize before taking action.
This is often used as a counterpoint to the notion that Bush overhyped the rationale for war. It's a vacuous argument whose logic implies we should invade a half-dozen African countries as well as North Korea, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Every day that goes by that Bush allows these threats to "materialize," he is failing in his duties to protect the American public and should be impeached. And if the pushback is that North Korea and others are being dealt with diplomatically, isn't that exactly the approach this argument purports to refute?
Furthermore, the war's opponents never claimed they'd prefer to "wait" for threats to materialize. This is another straw man. Nobody wants to wait for threats to materialize; they just want to deal with them differently.