Category Archives: Commentary

Disgraceful Media

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I was looking forward to tonight’s debate between Clinton and Obama. For those of you who watched it, as I did, I’m sorry. I’m sorry because you probably feel like you wasted two hours, but I’m also sorry to see that this bullshit passes for debate. The ABC News website has a blog with thousands of comments, most of which express great anger at this travesty. I’ll defer to one such commenter:

Our country is engaged in unlawful war, our military is breaking, our economy faces severe recession, our moral standing in the world has collapsed, our currency has lost nearly half its value, our infrastructure is disintegrating, our citizens cannot afford to stay in their homes though Wall Street moguls make billions of dollars annually, our current adminsitration condones and encourages torture – and lies to us about their actions, our borders cannot be adequatley policed for unlawful entry, our school sytems are so underfunded as to be barely above ‘third-world’ standards, our major auto manufacturers refuse to create vehicles that achieve even half the mpg of European manufactures, our minimum wage is slightly above poverty levels, our health care system operates to benefit the pharmaceutical industry, our veterans are ignored; their physical and emotional suffering trivialized, our energy conglomerates purposely stand in the way of advancing alternative energy, our citizens believe elections have been manipulated and stolen – and that our government has manufactured terror to maintain the facade of protecting us, our constitutional rights and responsibilities have been abridged and decimated, our access to meaningful ‘news’ is stymied by corporate media interests, our government spies on us by unlawful means under the guise of protecting our freedoms, our military commanders present disparate assessments of our ‘success’ in the middle east, our citizenry argues about gay marriage and flag burning while congress postures about life-saving possibilities of stem cell research, our airwaves are filled with hate speech spewing from commentators more interested in shocking us than being truthful….. and you waste our time at this most crucial period in US history asking a man as intelligent and insightful as Senator Obama why he doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel? This? This is the best we can do to elect a president?####.Bitter in Seattle

Indeed. Given the multitude of issues that are dogging threatening the very soul of this country, it is shameful that an hour is spent discussing flag pins, tenuous connections to some ex-radical from the 1960’s and other crap. When they “cut to video” to show a concerned midwesterner (who’s hair and home, by the way, looked straight out of the early eighties) ask about flag pins and patriotism, I felt like kicking her head in. I wonder how life is for her… does she have health insurance, a good job, college savings for her children? When she was given the opportunity to address the nation, all she could ask about is a meaningless symbol. I bet she has a magnetic ribbon made in China expressing support for our troops on her Ford Taurus.

But there will always be people like her. The real travesty is the fact that ABC sanctioned this garbage. It should come as no surprise to the older generations, after this debate, that very few people my age (25) watch network news. It has reached the point where the whole packaging of the news is so biased as to render it meaningless. There’s a lot of talk over at Kos about boycotts, etc. and I’m all for that. We need to cut ourself out of this destructive cycle:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

We need big picture talk in these big picture times. Bush will soon leave office, but the damage done to our national institutions, including the media, will take a lot of work to repair. To hear it straight, check out NovaM Radio, home to Mike Malloy, and now, Randi Rhodes. Voices speaking truth to power are out there, but we must actively seek them out. Candidates must do the same and insist upon issues-based debates. If our national networks can not handle this, then let bloggers team up with PBS. No more.

Shepherds in the Night

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I have just returned from an excellent film, Le Grand Voyage. Filmed from France to Saudi Arabia, this understatedly powerful tale is of a young man and his grandfather’s Hajj. The grandson, born and raised in France, associates more with Western culture than his Islamic roots; the grandfather is more traditional and seeks to make this pilgrimage before his death. Thus the two embark, as an unlikely duo, on a road trip spanning not just continents but generations. Much of the time the two do not speak, and when they do, it is often prosaic. However, as with any road trip themed film, they are faced with moments of challenge, both physical and emotional, while all the while there is just the right amount of comedy. Although the young man and the grandfather both believe that they are in control, the reality of the film is that each is dependent on the other, though in different ways. The changing landscape throughout the film leads to some dream-like sequences which are haunting for their prescience. Highly recommended.

My Second Thoughts

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As my previous post (not the psychedelic strobe candle light picture of my Mac) may have imparted, I feel a bit like an outside observer in much of what is going on. When I had this miniature epiphany, I tied it back to how perhaps I’ve always operated, and the re-enforcement of such behaviors by my Peace Corps experience.

As a foreigner in a highly unfamiliar culture, one stands out without much effort and must therefore first become an active analyst before developing any level of understanding about trust and boundaries; since these two attributes constitute much of what defines culture, one must be open to learning them in a method which is likely neither verbal nor written.

Back now in a familiar environment, this angst is channeled into the political process. People often forget that being a good rhetorician does not necessarily equate with being the most loquacious. In this regard, McCain will seem like a wise elder when compared to Bush, which will be in his favor. However, when it comes to inspirational, perhaps transformational rhetoric, Obama is without a doubt the leader of the pack and therefore my choice for President. Don’t worry though, it’s not only the rhetoric I dig, but also the message; Obama has become more Populist recently and seems to have successfully picked up the mantle of Edwards supporters.

Back to what I was saying before that sneak endorsement.

The more I’ve become aware of how deeply the democratic process has been subverted in this country, the more hopeful I am that its exposition and remedy will come in all due haste. No doubt the process has begun, but its accession to the new hegemony will be challenged ruthlessly. The paring of bold Kennedy-era vision with Millennial technology provides a potentially explosive fruit. Key to this is universal domestic high speed broadband access to an open internet (tax funded.)

I think my generation has moved beyond the outside observer status and joined the process via a diverse range of means. In many, if not most cases, the desire of one generation to change the policies wrought by the previous is universal. This fantastic power, does, however, have an often crippling downside, the tendency towards factionalization. If such pitfalls can be consciously avoided, the great power of coalescion can be applied to gravely important matters.

These are shockingly seminal times.

Frozen Seaweed

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On Friday I was witness to a Bates tradition called the puddle jump. On the Bates campus there is a small pond, dubbed the puddle, and every winter a rectangle of ice is cut out of the center and bold students take the plunge. Of course, as this is a college campus, nudity is involved, as each year at least one member of each sex takes the plunge in the nude. I won’t elaborate further, let us just say that I had a great view. Any other crazy college traditions you can think of?

Although my roommate and I do not have cable, we do have an antenna so that we can pick up the networks. This weekend I saw some really fantastic programs. On Friday I watched Bill Moyers’ Journal, a show which is without a doubt the most intelligent news program on air. Bill talked with a range of guests, with insightful discussions about American tax policy and the hypocrisies of our push for democratization in the Middle East.

Tonight I caught a CBS News special about global warming which was surprisingly harsh against the Bush administration. The most shocking aspect of the hour-long report was the part about how science regarding global warming had been obfuscated by a White House political appointee, who was and now again is a lobbyist for the oil industry. Actual documents were shown which indicated the level of censorship, and scientists, one in particular from NASA, complained about how he had been restricted from speaking candidly with the media. It’s shameful how disdainful of science the Bush administration is, but I’m heartened that this news is finally taking center stage on a major network – it’s about time.

My other guilty pleasure was the Amazing Race. As far as TV entertainment is concerned, I find most of it awful, and for reality shows, doubly so. But the Amazing Race taps into so many themes that I like. Not only do participants get to see the world and engage in local traditions, but also each pair must come to terms with one another. As I’ve learned, spending a prolonged amount of time with another individual can bring out a whole slew of tensions, some of which can not always be dealt with. The drama of the show lies not within the race per se, but rather how each each pair copes under stress.

I’ll try not to write too much about TV, but now that I’m back in the US, I feel that my life is more normal than it has been in the past few years, and frankly, I don’t entirely mind.