Add yourself!

This just torques me off...

I'm sitting here in my office watching Studio 60 (the best new show of the season, as far as I'm concerned!) when a commercial for Friday Night Lights comes on. There's a contest where a high school can win $50,000 for its football program.

We live in a culture where schools don't have enough money to properly fund libraries or guarantee Internet access or get up-to-date textbooks, but money for football is there for the asking.

Violent death on television

The Black Dahlia is currently ranked as the sixth highest-grossing film for the weekend of September 22-24. As I've posted previously, it's the story of a victim of one of the most notorious crimes in recent American history. There are scenes in the film showing her mutilated corpse; her body had been cut in half, burned with cigarettes, a breast nearly sliced off, and the corners of her mouth had been cut to give her a grotesque smile reminiscent of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs. Indeed, the novel and film versions feature prominently in both James Ellroy's noir novel and in the current film.

In the past, news photos of her body showed her covered, with both halves together to resemble a more normal body. In fact, a search of the Corbis photo archive (formerly Bettman Archive) brought up a news photo. (In the interest of delicacy, I won't post the image here, but here is a link.)

This brings me to my point. Man's inhumanity to man is pretty well documented. You can make the argument that seeing images helps to raise awareness of the problem at hand and hopefully do something about it. Back in the 1980s, the Western news media showed images of the Ethiopian famine. People were forced to confront the fact that so many people in an area of the world most Westerners don't often think about. The ensuing reaction was awesome. There were two benefit songs, one from the UK and one from the US; people donated money to aid in the relief effort. In that case, the publicity worked.

And that's one example. Another, perhaps better, example is documentary footage of Holocaust victims. Most of us have seen pictures of skeletal human bodies stacked like cordwood or film of crematoria as the smoke billows up into the sky. It's gruesome, but necessary if we are to remember the atrocities committed on the European Jews.

So, from the historical perspective, it's not hard to accept that some upsetting imagery is desirable. But there's a difference between historical and news footage that is intended to enlighten and inform, and the gratuitous display of violence in the name of entertainment that is intended to entertain and shock the audience.
The Black Dahlia is in the latter, the Black Dahlia is in the former.

A movie review

Los Angeles is a city that doesn't want to remember its past. It has one, and it's pretty well documented in such lovely tourist destinations as the La Brea Tar Pits, Olvera Street, William Mulholland and his legacy, and a bunch of other things. Oh, and Hollywood.

Its past includes some pretty bizarre murders. William Desmond Taylor is an example, as is Virginia Rappe. The Manson Family murders of Sharon Tate et al. are probably the best example.

But one murder that still fascinates those knowledgable about L.A. history, and probably the most bizarre single murder is the Black Dahlia. Born Elizabeth Short in Massachusetts, she moved west in the 1940s to become an actress. She was a drifter but not a prostitute. Her body was found in two pieces in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. The murder is officially unsolved, although given the fact that it's been nearly 60 years, it's unlikely that anyone will be brought to justice; the case seems destined for the Jack the Ripper-style theories but no definite culprit. (For the truly interested, here is the FBI's file on her murder.)

Some 40 years after the murder, noir writer James Ellroy published The Black Dahlia, now made into a movie starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Scarlett Johanssen, and Mia Kirshner. The novel is excellent. The movie, sad to say, is not.

It is possible to make a movie from an Ellroy novel. It was done quite successfully with L.A. Confidential, for my money one of the best recent noir films. It can be done.

Unfortunately, it can't be done by Brian DePalma, who also directed Scarface, Carlito's Way, and Dressed to Kill. In fact, a quick once-over of his filmography reveals that his most famous films are known for violence. And so it is with The Black Dahlia. From the beginning, gore pervades the movie like an unwritten, unwanted character. Even as Short enters the scene, her corpse is treated not with respect, but as a piece of meat. In the vacant lot, the audience doesn't see it, but a crow lands to peck at it. When the body is finally shown, it's on an autopsy table in two discrete pieces, and we see all of her facial injuries. "Graphic" doesn't do the violence justice. It's violence as pornography. It doesn't advance the plot or clarify things. It's there just to be there. That was strike one.

Strike two was the very confusing plot. L.A. Confidential's writers cut a lot out of the original story to come up with a small handful of cogent plots. Josh Friedman's adaptation of The Black Dahlia tried to use all of the novel's plotlines. The end result is a muddled story that was hard to follow, and that didn't give any necessary back story. I've read the novel numerous times and still couldn't follow the movie. I felt like I needed to take notes for future reference; if there had been a quiz at the end of the movie, I wouldn't have passed it.

Finally, the acting was horrible. It was mostly flat and without any sort of inflection; it was as though the actors couldn't stand to be around each other and resorted to the flat affect of forced civility.

So, with three strikes, this one's outta here. Save your money and if you must, wait for it to come out on cable or Netflix. Spend the money on the novel instead. It's worth it.

New Jersey is the fourth-largest spinach producer in the United States, and its spinach has not been affected by the recent E. coli outbreak.

Apparently, the toxic waste kills the E. coli.

Comments on the Declaration of Independence

Every year, NPR has some of their people read passages from the Declaration of Independence, which then gets mixed into a montage. Throw in some dramatic music and it's really kind of cool. This year, I swiped it by copying it from Windows Media Player into Audacity.

As I was doing this, the text of the DoI made me think about that in light of the current political situation here in the Good 'Ol US of A. Most of you know that I am fairly liberal in my political leanings and as far as I'm concerned, Bush has a special place in hell waiting for him. But juxtaposing the current situation against the DoI makes me think the Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves at what their brainchild has become.

What follows is the text of the DoI along with some commentary. You are not only free to disagree, but the debate is welcome.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

No argument from me here.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Bush presumably believes in a Creator; he bangs that drum constantly. Obviously, he disagrees with the concepts of Life (witness his record as Governor of Texas and his jokes about Karla Fay Tucker and the 15 minutes he gave to each capital case that crossed his desk), Liberty (just ask the people currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay without trial or counsel), or the pursuit of Happiness (his opposition to stem-cell research on purely religious-pandering grounds is depriving many millions of Americans of their happiness by putting a cell before a living, breathing human being who wants a shot at a normal life).

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Or the "signing statements" which he thinks give him the right to ignore what he doesn't agree with or what he doesn't want to enforce. Or the military tribunals which, fortunately, got slapped down by the Supreme Court.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,

Vote the bastards out in '06 and '08. You've got the ballot, USE IT!

and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I repeat: VOTE! Complaining doesn't accomplish anything if your vote doesn't back it up.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The devil you don't know is sometimes better than the devil you do know. It's too dangerous right now to let apathy take over.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. (emphasis mine)

The Founding Fathers and subsequent generations made sure we have the tools at our disposal to do that. We can vote our consciences and speak out without fear of arrest. Unless we're tied, however tenuously, to an organization that the government thinks is related somehow to terrorism. Then all bets are off.

--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Okay. This paragraph, not so much. As of December, 2005, Bush has refused his assent to exactly zero laws Congress has passed. In fact, thanks to the aforementioned "signing statements" and other Executive-branch "national security" programs, he's had a hand in legislation that doesn't belong there. Of course, this has been overtaken by events. He has vetoed exactly one law having to do with stem-cell research.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

Hm. I don't know about Representation in the Legislature, but it looks like the people of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were deprived of the right to vote.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

These two don't apply. It's hard to dissolve a legislature when they're in full agreement with you, and when they operate by inertia.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Hmmm... immigration debate, anyone?

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

Wow. This is a biggie. It seems like the Founding Fathers were foretelling the existence of the Department of Homeland Security, whose job it is to peek under our collective (and individual) bed for the bogeyman. To do this, they inspect our telephone records, financial records, and personal belongings including personal communications, whether they have a court's permission or not.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

Ask a Guardsman how he feels about rotating from Iraq to Afghanistan to hurricane zones to border patrol. For that matter, just think of the servicemen who stand accused of committing murders and rapes while stationed in Iraq. But it's okay. They're doing their jobs. Oh, and torture is OK because the Geneva Convention is "quaint". (Memo from Alberto Gonzales, 2002) I guess things are different when their skin is brown.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

The armed services prosecute some murders. But not all.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

So much for the FISA courts and the poor schmucks at Gitmo. And thanks for imposing future taxes when the bills for Bush's tax cuts and the Iraq war debt come due.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

Sucks to be Canada.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Maybe not all cases, but where it counts.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

This definitely applies to Iraq. How's that new puppet government working out?

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

See above. If their skin is brown, then a new paradigm is involved, so torture is okay. Gotcha.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

Right. Unless the Indians had the good fortune to be able to afford Jack Abramoff's services. (Further update: Bob Ney of Ohio has pled guilty to various crimes involving Abramoff.)


A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

Nah, we're too chicken to warn anyone about anything.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;

and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

A-bloody-men!
Let's not piss on the graves of the people who fought and risked their lives so we could live freely. Speak out and VOTE.

My iPod is my constant companion. It gives me hours of faithful service, assuming I remember to charge it up. Thanks to the podcasting phenomenon, I can learn about any subject, even Russian. Mine happens to hold my entire music collection and according to the little bar at the bottom of my iTunes window, it's just over half full.

I bought the iPod as a gift to myself last fall. I was about to graduate from college and had landed my first professional job. Okay, it's just a part-time gig that came along with an internship, but it's in radio, and I'm optimistic that it'll turn into a real job with benefits and everything.

I could wax rhapsodic (hee!) about my iPod for hours. I could talk about the "MOM'S toy" etched into the back. I could talk about the video screen. I could talk about the hours and hours and hours of entertainment at my fingertips. But I won't.

The reason why is because it seems everyone has one. This afternoon at school, it seemed everyone walking past me had those white earbuds. I'm sure the squirrels on campus have them, too, but I'm not sure how they'd get into the computer labs to download music, but if they could get in, I'm sure they'd listen to the Squirrel Nut Zippers. (I slay me.)

And, of course, there's lawsuit pending about the noise levels these things deliver. They are pretty loud; if I've got my studio headphones plugged in, I can't hear myself think if the volume's set much more than half. I prefer it that way, although the voices in my head disagree. They claim the iPod has been detrimental to their efforts to communicate with me.

The reason I've been thinking about this is because all those people who answered the siren call of the white earbuds remind me of the Walkmen of my youth. (Walkmans? Walkpeople?) Back in the day, everyone had the black headphones on. The usual mavens whined about the excessive personal space people made for themselves. I agree, it's hard to strike up small talk on the bus with someone who's listening to a Tom Clancy book on tape. Of course, who wouldn't want to engage in casual coversation with a guy who smells like he hasn't bathed since the Carter administration and who thinks you're purty. In the 1980s, we were all dancing to the beat of our own drummer, or at least, to the beat of Madonna's drummer.

But the Walkman is so 20 years ago. Thanks to the iPod, we can still ignore the unpleasantness of the world around us and we can continue to go deaf in the process. Who needs self-amusement skills when we can simply plug in and watch all of Season One of Drawn Together or Desperate Housewives?

The real question is this, and I await more whining from the usual suspects: Are we so starved for entertainment that we must spend hundreds of dollars to take it with us? In an age when we can access the Internet from our cell phones, do we really need constant musical and video entertainment? Are we all so alienated from each other that a small box the size of half a deck of cards seems like a good alternative to conversation?

If you were around 20 years ago, the answer is "yes".