Monthly Archive for September, 2002

09-25-02 01:23:44 AM Tairngire

Liberals will always want to change everything for a variety of reasons. Their approach is folly, they would fail in the same way that a sterile mutant would.

Conservatives will always want to keep everything exactly as it is, for a variety of reasons. Their approach is folly, they would fail in the same way a dinosaur would.

The true path doesn’t exist. As much as people believe otherwise, the only way a cell/person/community/nation/planet can survive is by keeping them in balance, always on the knife edge. Too liberal, and things are shaken so much that all the wisdom of the past is lost. Too conservative, and all wisdom that might be gained is ignored. The only way to success is balance. And the only way to balance is to have both sides constantly duking it out for whatever idea they believe is best.

FLAME ON!

Lots of bloggers think it, I dunno. I do see it as a major lack of the whole “objectivity” thing, not sure on which side. Actually, I do have an opinion. I have an opinion! But let me explain what I’m talking about first.

War on Iraq. For years we’ve thought, gee, wish we could get rid of this Saddam fellow. Then someone says, “let’s get rid of Saddam” and suddenly the media is all very much against it.

I don’t care if its a good idea or not, what I can’t understand is why NO ONE on television, print, radio, whatever can put forth a good story on why we shouldn’t be attacking Iraq, oh, and also…maybe why we should? Cause apparently 70% of Americans would like to…and the news doesn’t want to admit it.

Instead of blaming it on a liberal bias that I just don’t see, I would look to what I learned last semester in Socolow’s great News on Screen class about how today’s press doesn’t like covering anything unless its being debated by politicians.

Basically, there is no “dissent” in the public (represented by the media) until a leader objects. War on terror? Unified as good. Until Tom Daschle comes out and says…maybe not so good. Then there are stories on that.

A few politicos said war, the rest called them warmongers, and there we go, easy way to slant the coverage. When every politician is saying its bad, and a few are saying its good, and no one is saying WHY its good, and a lot are saying WHY its bad, that is obviously what the news is going to report.

Neat how that works, huh?

Maybe some Republocrats should throw a big press shindig and talk about all the evils of Iraq and what we could do and why we’d do it and what it would accomplish. Might change the tone of the news coverage a bit.

I’ve only just now seen the end of this season’s West Wing.

I was disinheartened with the show for a while, and after September 11th it just seemed so petty. And then I got back into it, slowly, grudgingly, because I know that it can be good sometimes, and I really wanted some good politics. Like, politics that don’t infuriate me with their stupidity, but politics at their most important and most…touching. Government touches everything, changes things. And I was again getting very disgusted with our government, so I needed some relief.

Anyway, West Wing was getting pretty good again, and then they decided to kill Donovan, and boy was I pissed. They always have to kill someone, is that it? Have to ratchet up the drama a bit? No, by the end I realized it was useful. It wasn’t great. I liked that charater. It wasn’t fitting for him to die in that way, after we spent so much time demonstrating the superiority of Secret Service training. He didn’t see the second shooter? It rung false. But it was a good plot device.

Bartlet had to make the choice of assasinating a foreign leader who is also a terror kingpin. And the decision is clear, yet agonizing. And he has family too. And when people die, it affects other people, and it cascades. The writing was good at demonstrating this. One year later we begin a search for a replacement to Mrs. Landingham, a wonderful woman who died suddenly in a traffic accident on the eve of a big Bartlet decision. Then Donovan dies here. And, of course, in the first season we had our shooting as Roselin to end it all.

Maybe Sorkin can’t figure something else out. Dunno. Regardless, the issues raised were deep and powerful and well executed. My ideas of politics continue to change. And the George W. Bush impersonation who is Bartlet’s opponent is just so good. They don’t show him as an idiot, but certainly as a dolt (and no I don’t know where that line is).

I think the question really becomes this: when it is time to assasinate a foreign leader, to weigh a decision and execute it in accordance with your morals and with the good of your country, when you have to do something that really matters, not just politicking…

When a leader has to do that, make that choice, who would you rather have in office? And I personally would like someone well educated, even if it means I have to deal with some manner of elitism.

I’ve learned after much struggle that there is no reason to detest those who are smarter than me. Everyone has their own unique abilities, and sometimes someone is just right for president, and someone else is not. Me, for instance. Not president material, at least not yet.

Aimee Mann on Boston:

I think that one of the reasons I wound up here is that Boston — because there are so many colleges there, it’s like a constant string of 20-year-olds. When you start reaching your late 20s you feel out of place, there isn’t a peer group for you.

Aimee Mann on LA:

You can encounter a lot of people who are really misguided or really disturbed or really sort of awful. But you can also encounter people who are desperate to meet other people who are creative. There just aren’t a lot of natural meeting places. You can go run errands, go to the dentist even, and literally not see a single person. It’s a very weird feeling.

Quotes from Aimee Mann on her new album.

Thanks to pajor for this one:

“The growing and dangerous intrusion of this new technology,” threatens an entire industry’s “economic vitality and future security. [It] is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone.”

That was Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA, testifying before Congress. He wasn’t talking about DVD pirating. He was talking about videocassettes. Good thing the Supreme Court disagreed.