Word for the Day

From those wacky folks at my new favorite blog Thursday Night Fever comes this neologism:

Crunktageous

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

The Memphis unemployment rate may be a laggardly 5.5% -- down three-tenths of a point, though! -- but there's jobs out there in the Memphis television market, especially if you are a photojournalist.

* WPTY 24/30

* WHBQ 13 (Click on "Inside FOX13") -- They're looking for an Executive Producer. No mention of a main evening anchor, though. According to SouthTVNews they will announce their chief meteorologist this week.

* WMC 5 They need a News Producer for the overnight shift. Hey, you'd get to work with Peggy!

* WREG 3

Thanks to SouthTVNews for the pointers.

UPDATE: The NewsBlues website has an article titled "Head scratching hires at Memphis FOX O&O." Unfortunately, it's behind a subscription wall. Does anyone have the news? Has FOX13 officially announced anything yet?

Blogger Bash

Now that everyone's back from the holiday weekend, let's talk Bloggers Bash. I've only heard from a very few people so far, but I suspect quite a few more will be attending.

Let's start planning. How's June 16th, Wednesday, at 6:30PM? Slightly earlier start because more folks will be there and we still ran out of time last Bash. I need suggestions for a place that can handle up to two dozen people. I'm guessing less of a restaurant and more of a bar this time? Any thoughts on Blue Monkey? Could they do it? Or are there other favorites? Can we stay in Midtown or should we move elsewhere this time?

Some enterprising types want to suggest their own space?

Found Another One!

Memphis blogs just pop out of the oddest places and cover the oddest subjects. Take, for example, this latest discovery: Thursday Night Fever.

Any description I give will be inadequate, believe me. They go to the hot spots of Memphis night life and live to report it.

Think of it as a complement to Rachel's and Marc's nightlife reporting. Kinda....

UPDATE: Captain T nicely points out that they "are more than just night-life reporters. We like to think of ourselves as Cultural Resources." Duly noted! Can't have too many Cultural Resources here in the Bluff City.

The Story You Don't Hear

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette comes a great story about the differences between the experiences of soldiers on the ground in Iraq and what gets reported by the national media and press over here:

What really happened in Fallujah was a great deal different from what was portrayed in the news media, said Robert Kaplan of The Atlantic Monthly, the only reporter embedded with the Marine company (Bravo, 1st Battalion of the 5th Regiment) that led the advance into the heart of the city in the pre-dawn darkness of April 6.

The Marines won the battle in the streets, only to lose it in the news accounts, Kaplan said in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal May 27.

Shades of the Tet Offensive!

"I have never been anywhere else in the world where the people were so happy to see an American," said Todd (last name withheld), an airman stationed in Nasiriyah, in an e-mail. "The media never tells that side of the story."

"Almost everybody loves [the Americans]," Maj. Bob Broody, an Army reservist who spent a year in Iraq, told his hometown Rotary Club in the Philadelphia suburb of Coatesville. "The news media doesn't want to tell us about the good side."

It should make you wonder, and hopefully ask questions.

Media Bias? What Media Bias?

Yet another report from the trenches, this time from San Francisco.

In many instances, according to the poll, the general public is more conservative than conservative journalists are. For example, one of the questions asked in the survey was whether a "belief in God was necessary to be moral." Among Americans in general, 58 percent agreed, whereas only 26 percent of conservative journalists concurred -- but more startling is that a mere 3 percent of liberal journalists accepted the statement.

Gaps were even greater in the hot social issues of our day: Among the general public, 42 percent believe homosexuality should be discouraged, but just 8 percent of the moderate journalists and only 2 percents of the liberal journalists thought so.

Air America's Continued Turbulence

Great story from the New York Times about the continued troubles of Air America.

In early March, the network's chief executive, Mark Walsh, said that the company had raised more than $20 million, enough to keep it broadcasting for months, if not years, before making a profit. At the time, Mr. Walsh said that the network's primary backers included Evan M. Cohen, a venture capitalist who was the network's chairman, and Rex Sorensen, a business partner of Mr. Cohen's who was the chairman of Progress Media, the parent company of Air America.

But in an interview on Friday, Mr. Walsh said: "I was misled about that number.'' Mr. Walsh refused to say who had misled him, but he said that he had resigned in April because "the company wasn't transparent'' and "I was unable to decipher how it was being operated.''

Less than a month later, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Sorensen, who had previously operated radio stations together in Guam and Saipan, resigned under pressure from the company's other investors. David Goodfriend, who served as general counsel and later as acting chief operating officer of Air America, resigned about a week ago, having done his best, he said, to hold the company together in the wake of the departures of Mr. Cohen, Mr. Sorensen and Mr. Walsh. (Separately, Dave Logan, executive vice president for programming, also left, in late April.)

In fact, they claimed to have raised $30 million. And the source of new funding is still murky and shadowy.

Still, there is good news. Their ratings in at least one market are near the top. But it's also worth remembering that this is for the launch of the network, when the curiosity factor was at a high and their mere existence was a lure to check them out. As time goes on, their ratings may change. Give it a few more months for the novelty to wear off and then report the numbers. That'll really tell the story.

I also noted that the story didn't mention the abrupt resignation of evening flame-thrower Randi Rhodes, she of the famous "take Bush to the center of a lake like in The Godfather and put a bullet in his head" remark. Did she not quit?

Memphis Redblogs

Yeah, still continuing the plugola for Memphis Redblogs, "red state bloggers in the Home of the Blues." If you haven't, head on over and check it out. We're off and running now.

Here's the pitch: Have you wanted to blog yourself, but loathed the idea of fooling around with all that programming? MRB may be your answer. Mick is handling all the setup and maintenance, all contributers have to do is log in, click on "Create post," write up what they want to say (or cut'n'paste what they wrote off line), and then click "Publish." That's it! I think MRB can even be set up so that posts can be sent in and published from email. Check with Mick to see if I'm right.

Calling all Memphis and Mid-South conservatives, libertarians and Republicans! If you have good powers of observation, analysis, persuasion or rhetoric, if you have access to information not otherwise available, if you can write a readable sentence properly punctuated, if you have a burning desire to say something but nowhere to say it, MRB may be your answer. Look at the blogs of the MRB contributors, look at the Rocky Top Brigade blogs; see if you can write like that (or better!). MRB might could use you.

We have all summer long to get our game together so that by Fall we can deploy ourselves and maybe make a difference in local politics, or national politics as it plays on the local scale. MRB can fill an important role as an information clearinghouse. Real-time news reporting is another possibility. Think of that: no one else in town is set up for sharing news and information, in detail, on the spot. It gives us tactical advantages.

There are no limits on how often your post, so far as I know, nor on how much. It's up to you! Contribute what you can. It's more about quality and sharing, communicating and influencing. The subject of anonymous blogging hasn't been broached yet, but I'm sure we'd consider it. After all, Alpha Patriot is psuedonymous, but he's been at it a while and is a known quanitity. Newbies may need references. But if your work or position or color or politics keep you silent against your will, MRB can become your outlet.

So, if you've teetered on the edge of blogging, take the leap. Give it a try.

You have nothing to lose but the chains of oppressive government. You will gain freedom.

DVD Review: The Office

The Office is a British sitcom that casts an unflinching eye on the mishaps and horrors of corporate office life for the employees who work at Wernham-Hogg's Slough (rhymes with cow) division. The second series DVD has just been released over here and if anything, I think the second season may be funnier than the first.

In typical Britcom fashion, the main character, office manager David Brent, is a horrid, self-obsessed weasel who is wildly insecure. He constantly craves attention, even to the point of stealing it back from those he thinks are taking it from him. He can also take the most PC phrases or ideals and torture them into horribly un-PC situations. This year, Brent must try to please his new boss -- his former peer in management -- while deflecting all attempts to change anything.

The main cast consists of newly-promoted senior sales manager Tim, who is now nine years into a career he insists is simply a diversion from his university schooling. There's Dawn, who is strongly attracted to Tim and flirts with him all the time. But don't try to take her up on it. She'll shut you down immediately. Then she'll restart the flirting. Gareth is also back, and just as insensitive and "laddish" as ever.

The show has a great cast of secondary characters, though only Keith and Finchie survive from the first season. Keith is the enigmatic, Buddha-like, passive-aggressive one. He rarely says anything or acknowledges someone when they speak to him. When he does speak, it is to offer opinions of a deeply personal, and unwanted, nature. Finchie is the same vulgar, lower-class roughy we loved last season. New this season is a host of people from the just-merged Swindon office. Chief among them is Rachel, the office hottie who takes a fancy to Tim, causing jealousy and confusion for Dawn. We also meet Gareth's mates The Ogg Monster and Jimmy the Perv.

The creation of Steven Merchant and Ricky Gervais, The Office gets its humor from just watching things happen. David Brent alone is a walking disaster. The series continues its style of faux documentary: hand-held cameras, long takes, long shots that feel like eavesdropping and rambling scenes that seem to always go on just a bit too long.

That is the vehicle of the humor. Whenever Brent says something that no one should say on camera, you always see someone acknowledge that camera, and us, by flicking a glance as though to say, "Can you believe he said that?" The scenes are never cut, but kept going, held, for delicious anticipation of Brent's recognising his stupidity and then trying to cover it up, which is always worse. It's this squirming discomfort we stew in. There are no punchlines to release us, only Brent's efforts to rescue himself or to slink away with his image unscathed.

The engine is the hilariously blunt and non-politically correct talk of the staff, and Brent's stupefyingly unbelievable efforts to appear cool, knowledgable and capable. He is a jerk, a buffoon, an attention hog, and every kind of "ist" there is: rascist, sexist, genderist, handicappist, etc.

The Office is an acquired taste, and not just for its "no laugh track," fake documentary style. Much to most British humor is based on the class distinctions of their society. Those barriers and markers between classes are real and clear. England is a class-based society and consequently most English chafe under the rule of someone who is their superior only by luck of birth. Anger and resentment at bosses is endemic.

So, their humor reflects that. The main character will be someone who is an object of scorn and ridicule. Examples abound: Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, One Foot in the Grave, Waiting For God, Brittas Empire and more. Then there are the shows which focus on the ensemble, but put them under an unlikeable boss: Are You Being Served?, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, etc.

American comedies just don't do this. We demand likeable characters that we can embrace. Even our villains and bad guys get softened up over time into plush toy versions of themselves, one whose badness we "understand" because it has a "motivation." For example: Archie Bunker, Frank Burns, George Jefferson, Lou Grant.

The Office is a comedy of uncomfortability. It is fantastic at letting its characters take all the rope they need to hang themselves, giving them some more, then letting them twist slowly in front of the camera for our delectation.

Highly recommended!



Combined First & second season DVD
Office 1 scripts
Office 2 scripts
The World of Ricky Gervais

Fred and Bart Go Deep, Drown; Part One

The past two Sundays have featured articles by Frederic Koeppel and Bartholomew Sullivan which try to make parallels between the Iraqi War and the Vietnam War, Koeppel through photographs and Sullivan through similarities. Both tell more about the writers than they instruct the reader. Both strive for a profundity of tone that will impress the reader into buying their point. Let's take a look.

Koeppel's piece, "History in focus: Photographs capture unyielding images", compares "iconic" photos from Vietnam and Iraq. His choice of photos is a mixed bag. Nearly everyone would agree the Vietnam pic of the naked young girl running down the dirt path, covered in napalm and screaming, is immediately recognisable with profound associations attached to it. Same for the photo of John Kennedy, Jr. saluting as his father's casket passed by, the photo of Ruby killing Oswald, and the photo of the South Vietnamese offical executing a peasant for the camera. They are clear distillations of a moment (amplified into a cultural moment) that still carry impact and meaning today.

But his choice of armored vehicles passing "I Am A Man" protestors during the sanitation strikes of 1968 in Memphis isn't. That period has other photos that are more culturally embedded with deeper resonance. I suspect it was the presence of military vehicles and troops in an American city that motivated the choice, to bolster Koeppel's thesis, and his equating of Iraq and Vietnam.

Same for a picture in the print edition not online of the evacuation of Saigon. Their photo is a poor substitute for the famous shot of a line of people crossing the roof of the US embassy to board a floating chopper.

But the image that will stay in the consciousness of the world for years to come displays Pfc. Lynndie England, 21, a petite woman in army fatigues, her face somber under a cap of dark hair, holding one end of a leash the other end of which is fastened around the neck of a naked Iraqi man cowering on the floor of the prison at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad.

It's a horrible perversion of "Beauty and the Beast," of all our notions of decency and sovereignty.

Such a photograph can pierce hearts and change minds, lodge in memories. Such a photograph can bring consternation and conflict to an entire country and its government, as the images of physical and sexual humiliation and abuse from Abu Ghraib have done recently in America.

I think it's the "change minds" remark that is foremost on Koeppel's mind.

And then there is the Lynndie England picture of her holding a leash on an Abu Ghraib prisoner. I've seen this one, but the one I've seen more is the picture of England looking two sheets to the wind, cigarette dangling from her mouth, pointing to a naked Iraqi's digitised genitals and laughing for the camera. That is the iconic photo of that incident.

But is this picture emblematic of something important in the Iraq war? It is if you buy in to leftist beliefs that everything to do with the war is illegitimate. It says to them, "This is what America's all about: abusive master leading their dog around." Is the issue of prisoner mistreatment a prism of wider wrongs in Iraq?

Again, if you already think America has and continues to screw up, it is. But it's only some of the people, and those mostly in the media and the Democratic left, who do. What you see over and over from Iraq is pictures of failure and destruction. What I can find online but rarely see in papers or on the news is pictures of grateful Iraqis and happy soldiers rebuilding a nation. Lots of those pictures out there if you look, just not on the media menu.

Which is the point. The Abu Ghraib pictures needed to come out and be seen, but they point out the self-correcting processes and open nature of American democratic-republic law. Unlike the government of Saddam, we showed the pictures, recognised and condemned the wrong, arrested and tried the perpetrators and will punish them. We will try to make amends to the prisoners. Did Saddam do anything like that?

"The icons," said David McCarthy, associate professor of art history and director of the American Studies program at Rhodes College, "are the images of people in moments of the most intense vulnerability and frailty. They're the images that reveal humanity's anger and resentment, shame and humiliation and a very powerful response to another human being's moment of suffering and revelation. It's the image that says, irrevocably, for good or ill, 'This is real.'"

Another, and I think truly iconic, picture came out about the same time, of an Islamofascist terrorist holding the decapitated head of Nick Berg up for the camera. If Abu Ghraib shocked, then this stunned. It gave us a clear image of what we were fighting, of the beliefs and tactics of those who would see our nation-building fail. It sickened because it reminded. So I wonder why we don't see it any more, though we still see the Abu Ghraib pictures often.

Weeks after the beheading, I still get regular visitors to the site looking for the Nick Berg video. I cannot recall ever seeing searches for "Abu Ghraib" in my referrer logs.

Absent the amplifying and distorted repetitions of the media, the paticular Lynndie England photo Koeppel picks out will not impress itself into history the way the other England picture will. And I suspect years from now people will be able to clearly recall the Berg video images with a sharp emotional stab that no Abu Ghraib picture will similarly have.

Of course the brutal images emanating from Abu Ghraib (or from the gruesome death chamber of the anonymous beheaders of Nicholas Berg) weren't taken by objective photojournalists who happened upon the scene; they were taken by the participants.

This is a bit specious, since even "objective" photographers will still try to massage their shots. Did the guy who took the John-John shot just happen to be there, or did he position himself across from the family for maximum advantage? Did the photographer who took the sanitation strike picture just happen to be up above the street, or did he spot the parallelism of the pacing protestors and the line of armored vehicles? It's not widely known, but in fact the Viet execution photo was partially staged for the benefit of the photographer. Of Koeppel's examples, only the Ruby pic was truly spontaneous.

I think Koeppel's true point is where his article wanders into examining the psychology of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib. It's only those folks as "photojournalists" he wonders about, not any of the others. He ends up with some paragraphs about "power." Everything that came before seems only to have been a setup for accusing the soldiers at Abu Ghraib of abusing power and control.

In other words, Koeppel set up an argument for the "iconic" power of photographs, using photographs from the anti-war, protesting, Vietnam era as his sole selection pool, conveniently skipping over Iraq I, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. He then falsely equates the Abu Ghraib photos with them. Then he makes arguments about the circumstances of the taking of the pictures he doesn't apply to the Vietnam pictures. He whips up some stuff about the photographer "controlling" his subject and doing so out of some misguided "power" issue. Yet he doesn't apply that dialectic to the Vietnam pictures. Is it because he would have to implicate the photographers of the napalmed child and murdered peasant with their killers?

It's all about the Vietnam-era nostalgia so much of the media and press seem consumed with, and not an honest analysis.

Sorry, Fred. Bad argument.


PART TWO NEXT

Fred and Bart Go Deep, Drown; Part Two

Now we take a look at Bartholomew Sullivan's article from this Sunday, titled "Vietnam, Iraq: How alike are they?" Pretty much states the thesis right there. Unsurprisingly, Bart answers "Yes." But then, Sullivan is an unreconstructed Great Society liberal.

Put on your waders, as this one gets mighty deep:

Whether it's the murky rationale for the war, international opposition to America's unilateral approach, initial public support followed by disillusionment, the suggestion of profiteering or the shame caused by high-profile misbehavior toward civilians, many Americans see clear parallels between the country's experiences in Vietnam and Iraq.

And right away we see Sullivan's agenda. "Many" Americans? No, only those with a particular political agenda. There was nothing "murky" in how the war in Iraq got started. Most American's aren't "disillusioned," as polls still show. He's using language vague enough to support his point without having to back it up.

His next paragraph supposedly shows the "other" side:

For others, though, the scope, duration, context and purpose of intervention in Iraq - and the goals of a "war on terrorism" - have no legitimate comparison with any past conflicts. They say the ventures abroad that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an immediate response to real threats, unlike the gradual buildup in Southeast Asia to thwart an ideological menace. To them, the nature - and reality - of the threats are different.

Notice the language of these two paragraphs. Supporters of the analogy are "Americans." Those who don't support it are "others," "they," and "them." Pretty clear isn't it?

Politicians, especially, say they see no comparison between America's lost cause in Vietnam and the rough going depicted on television screens and front pages today.

"[R]ough going depicted..." made me laugh. Sure, if you only follow the papers and the news! Thankfully, we now have the Internet to see what the agenda-setters at those gate-keepers don't show. Try Winds of Change, the Command Post, Citizen Smash or these Iraqi bloggers for a view of the Iraqi War that may surprise you, since it has success, progress, happiness, gratitude, selflessness and humility.

The folks that Sullivan talks with are an oddly selected bunch: politicians first, and then academics and military historians. He doesn't talk with soldiers at all. Pretty much all of them, especially the military historians, flatly refute what Sullivan tries to argue!

The real fun is toward the end.:

Twinned images in popular culture suggest other Vietnam-Iraq links:

Walter Cronkite telling us "that's the way it was" and Ted Koppel reading the names of the dead; napalmed children and bombed wedding parties; B52s raining terror on Hanoi and precision bunker busters hammering empty palaces in Baghdad; Vietnamization and Iraqization - the gradual transfer of American obligations to local troops; My Lai and Abu Ghraib.

And then there are Lyndon Johnson's and Dick Cheney's connections to a big construction company responsible for massive military projects: Once called Brown & Root, when it built facilities in South Vietnam, it's now Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary.

No! And don't forget that the women who exposed the coverup of military coffins at Dover were also Halliburton! The Presidents who got us deeper into the wars were Democrats and the ones who determined to put an end to the mess were Republican. It's conspiracy everywhere, I tell you.

That Cronkite/Koppel paragraph is a howler. Random things plucked from the mediasphere are contrasted as though there is equivalence. "Iraqization?" Did he make that up? Directly comparing My Lai and Abu Ghraib? Jeez....

Crawford noted two other similarities. The fighting and dying is still largely relegated to soldiers from the lowest socioeconomic strata, he said.

This is demonstrably untrue. Today's armed forces are majority white and professional. Read these comments from Lance from another post down below:

The leftist meme that the US military is predominantly comprised of minorities and working class folks is bull. In my NG unit (headed to Iraq this fall), we have physician's assistants and doctors that can't wait to go. We also have 2 lawyers - one is an armored ambulance driver, the other does administrative stuff, but neither do JAG work - who can't wait to deploy. Today's soldiers like the fact that WE ALL VOLUNTEERED. It makes discipline and unit cohesiveness much easier. Nobody wants conscripts.

That Sullivan repeats a disproven stereotype with total assurance that it's true should tell the reader volumes about Sullivan's prejudices.

He ends with this:

Pohlmann found a last parallel that today's political leaders may hope they can forestall.

The Iraqi people who side with the United States may find their roles untenable in the long run, he said, like the crowds of Vietnamese refugees news photographers captured in April 1975 seeking a place on the last helicopters departing from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

"I think you're going to see somewhat the same ending," he said.

This isn't a parallel because one side is a supposition, not a fact or event! Sullivan is reduced to making up an ending to the Iraqi War (and once again, notice how he ends it) to make his argument.

It's a shame to see the Commercial Appeal waste so much space on such limp and flaccidly buttressed articles. I have no problem with opinion pieces, only with ones which set out a thesis and then cheat like hell, in a brazen way, to make it.

Shame on the Commercial Appeal.

Thought For the Day

Next time someone talks about the "$250 million" FedEx Forum, kindly correct them for me. At this time, the actual cost of the FEF to Memphis is $300 million!

Forum itself: $250 million
"Improvements" to surrounding streets and parks: $15 million
Debt on useless Pyramid: $35 million

The Pyramid was killed completely with this deal, so it is only fair to include remaining debt costs (and maintenance on the closed building) in the costs of the FEF. If they hadn't built it, the Pyramid would be a going concern, not a dying duck.

Just so you know.

Change of Tack?

Monday's lead editorial in the Commercial Appeal is an interesting change of direction for the paper, if I'm reading it right, and a seeming recognition of something that warms my little libertarian heart.

About the sale of a county-owned retirement facility, the paper's editors write:

ASSURANCES THAT current patients will be taken care of have cleared the way for the sale of the county-owned Oakville Health Care Center, which appears to be in the best interests of Shelby County taxpayers....

In fact, Wharton said, the sale will improve patient care by supplanting county operation of the facility with a private company that has the resources to improve the facility and make sure the staff is well-trained, competent and efficient....

On balance, the sale and the planned additions to Oakville should solve a problem that county government, with its limited resources, seems no longer equipped to confront. The plan should easily win approval at the county commission and state levels.

Of course, the usual weasel words are there, but they seem to be saying that there are some things County government shouldn't do and can't do well. They also advocate for private-run health care.

Not only that, but the whole tone of the thing is an acceptance of the limits of government, in effectiveness, reach and taxes! Wonderful to see the paper get the religion. Too bad they didn't feel this way when the Memphis City Council voted to fund an ambiguous plan with no costs attached to "train" day care employees.

Read it carefully and the primary reason they endorse this, to judge by the focus on costs and operations with little mention of patients' needs and fears except as they will mitigate against the deal, is the money it returns to the County.

This sentence is the shiner:

...what has emerged as the guiding principle of county government operations: taking on only those responsibilities mandated by law.

The way they use it, it seems to be cover for them to endorse this while keeping blame and responsibility on others, ie. AC Wharton.

Let's see how long the Commercial Appeal keeps this up. I'm guessing with a new mayor or flush economic times they'll revert to their old ways.

Good Morning

It's Memorial Day. Do not forget to thank all those you know who served their country. Their blood and sweat bought all the freedoms and comforts we take for granted!

A reminder to check out Memphis Redblogs, "Red state bloggers in the Home of the Blues." So far we have five bloggers and plenty of room for more. We're looking for conservative, Republican and Libertarian voices from the blogosphere. If you've wanted to blog, but don't want the fuss of maintaining your own site, this may be the way for you to go. Click over and see!

The Al Gore's Dean Moment page did pretty well over the weekend, drawing well over one thousand visitors, and sending a couple of hundred here. I've also added four more images to the Kerry Mockery & Other Political Shenanigans page. One more to come later today.

Sometime this evening, I'll have some Commercial Appeal blogging, and a couple more DVD reviews. I hope. And, of course, the usual hooha you all love and expect.

Grill 'em if ya got 'em!

AC Wharton Plays the County Commission

So, last week County Mayor AC Wharton unveiled his "doomsday budget" to the County Commission. It purports to use draconian cuts in the Sheriff's office, the Health Department and other areas to balance revenues without a property tax increase. Everyone is shocked, shocked! It's a horrible, unthinkable option.

It's hogwash.

Wharton proposed a budget with a 23 cent property tax increase that otherwise held the line. Seventeen cents of that increase went solely to retiring County debt. He's got $1.6 billion in debt to pay and not enough money coming in to meet the payments. Commission head Cleo Kirk shot that budget down on final approach. Reason? None of the County Commissioners want back-to-back tax increases on their heads when they go to face the voters.

So, in retaliation Wharton thumps them with this budget, his variant of the same "Armageddon" budget that State House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and former Governor Don Sundquist tried to frighten voters with. Just as Naifeh & Sundquist knew their budget stood no chance of passage, Wharton knows no sane Commissioner will vote for his.

It's a tactic to bully the Commission into accepting his first budget. That's all. He's just stirring folks up to get the Commissioners to yield.

Watching television and newspapers taking this seriously is hilarious. They really should know better! It's all a ploy, a show, a low-stakes gamble.

Remember, AC Wharton is a lawyer by training and profession. This kind of brinksmanship is what they do. Someone will blink and the previous budget, or something remarkably like it, will magically appear and pass with much talk from everyone -- Commissioners, Mayor, newspapers, etc. -- that is was the right thing to do, that they avoided the horrible, horrible possibility of Armageddon.

Libertarians Have a Candidate

The Libertarian Party concluded their convention in Atlanta this weekend with the surprise victory of Mike Badnarik, who now becomes our Presidential candidate. Front-runners Aaron Russo and Gary Nolan essentially cancelled each other out. You can read more, and find more links, on Blogcritics.

DVD Review: The Eye

[WARNING: This discussion contains spoilers. While I do not reveal the movie's final act, nor much of the second act, I do examine a lot of the rest of the movie. It will take away some of your enjoyment, so reconsider reading this if you already think you might see the movie. It's best seen completely cold. If you're not sure, then this review will not ruin the movie's final surprises for you, but it will give away some really great stuff from the first half.]

It's impossible to guess how this movie will end from the way it begins. And it's not because the directors cheat. (Danny and Oxide Pang; wouldn't you love to be named "Oxide Pang?") The script unrolls just slightly ahead of you until the fateful conclusion.

The Eye, made in Hong Kong in 2001 and released to DVD in America earlier this year is a superior horror movie. It is atmospheric and tense, constantly playing with the audience's identification with the main character point of view and her state of confusion. We watch as she sees things we know aren't real, waiting for her to understand. Watching her innocently interact with death and ghosts keeps us on the edge of our seats. The tension is exquisite. It is a ghost movie with an Asian and Buddhist tint that makes it different without being dislocating.

A young woman, Mun, has been blind since she was two. Now grown, she is given a cornea transplant that restores her sight. At first, she experiences the confusion of someone who has not seen. As her doctor notes, she doesn't know she's looking at a stapler until she touches it, until she uses a familiar sense. Everything for her is new.

She slowly begins to realise that what she's seeing is wrong -- frightfully, terribly wrong. People she meets behave in ways even a blind woman knows are bizarre. Then she begins to experience hallucinations of her room morphing into someone else's room. She slowly grows more and more terrified as her world grows stranger. Mun fears she is going mad and wants it all to stop.

The film's script, cinematography and editing are the equal of anything you'll see in Hollywood film-making. The look and feel of this Hong Kong is not like your standard-issue HK gun ballet or chop-socky action film, but a bit grittier and worn looking. The acting, too, is great, especially Angelica Lee as Mun and Lawrence Chou as Dr. Lo. Even the supporting cast is outstanding.

Probably the biggest obstacle to American viewing is that there is no dubbed soundtrack, only a well-done subtitling. Which is a problem. You really can't afford to take your eyes off the screen at all, but the dialogue is a necessary part of the movie. It's a bit wearying, I'll admit, to have to constantly jump from one to the other. I can only strongly hope you'll give this movie a chance, as the rewards are substantial.

Since this is a movie about ghosts, sprituality is an important ingredient. As I noted above, that spirituality is Buddhist; but that won't be an obstacle, as the film's dialogue explains what Westerners will need to know. What we learn is that if death is sudden or the deceased has an unresolved problem in life, their spirit will stay on Earth instead of going to heaven. These are the people that Mun sees, who in their mindless way distract and harrass her.

They are some spectacular ghosts, too. We meet the first one almost right away, in a brief throwaway moment that portends what is to come. As the movie progresses, we encounter more and nastier ghosts. Some we don't even realise are ghosts! Jealous ghosts, confused ghosts, children who don't understand they are dead.... It just gets creepier and more disturbing as we go along. I really want to highlight this aspect, talk about the many manifestations and shocks, but I'm restraining myself to give you the thrill.

The ghost effects are subtly handled -- often just a hint of makeup and some some good acting. Some are heavily done up so as to frighten when they appear. Some you don't even know, until their "guides" or angels show up for them.

This is one of the movie's strongest choices. The angels are never seen clearly. Often they seem little more than black smoke or heat haze. Long, attenuated forms with slicked-back hair in black, long-sleeve unitards that also cover the neck, with heavy white makeup that removes all their features except for their cavernous eyes. They never speak or gesture or seem to react to the living. They are truly unworldly.

The first half of the movie, its first act, is one long exercise in building tension and apprehension. Mun slowly grows more frantic until she snaps and retreats into pretend blindness, isolating herself from the rest of the world as she never did when she was truly blind. After Dr. Lo's intervention leads to catharsis, she seems to accept that she now sees a very different world than others and grows more calm.

The movie's second act is almost a different film. Moving from her metropolitan urban world, Mun and Dr. Lo take off for Thailand's tropical jungle to find out the identity of the woman who donated her corneas. A more confident Mun asserts herself, takes charge and drives the story. Here the movie changes tone with the changed setting, resembling the first two Evil Dead movies or the earliest "slasher in the camp in the woods" films. The collapse into madness and despair of the first part is traded in for a more standard problem-solving, ghost hunting narrative.

There is a brief flashback sequence that utilises black-and-white, choppy editing, echoey sound, and hand-held camera quite well to shoehorn in some information and atmosphere without feeling like an infodump. Clues left in the beginning, more information learned in Thailand, and through Mun's actions, all lead to a seemingly satisfying resolution -- or so we think!

The film's final act slips up on you and simply cannot be foreseen, but once we get there it's a stunning and inevitable epiphany! The moment we learn what's about to happen is like a cold, lead lump in the gut. As we learn the scope of the horror to come, the dread of the first act comes rushing back full bore. The return of the angels is chilling. The climax is perfect and complete. Suddenly, everything makes sense.

The movie's real end is a type I particularly love: a circular ending that leaves our heroine right where she started, but wiser and sadder.

The Eye's central theme can be seen in several ways. On the purely Buddhist spiritual level, the unfinished business of a spirit must be resolved. Mun is just the vehicle and once done, is left behind. On a different level, her new eyes have given her new sight: she now sees the world completely, without blinders, but that knowledge is more than she can handle. Mun cannot handle enlightenment. She cannot bear up under the pressure. There is also the superhero angle: with great power comes great responsibility. Having discharged her responsibility poorly, though not entirely through her own fault, she has that power taken away. And there's the more mundane level: chance gave her both a gift and a curse, but chance also took it away from her.

I've stayed away from describing too much of the movie's ghost encounters because many are truly memorable, but I have to mention a couple of things. First is the now legendary elevator sequence. It will have you squirming in your seat! That's all I can say. Well, and it will also make you think the next time you get on one. Also, watch the edges of the frame, the background, and the crowds for the appearance of ghosts, especially in train windows! That's all I'll say.

One final note. The soundtrack to this movie is wonderful. The opening/closing theme is a throbbing, pulsing track rooted in industrial, but expressed orchestrally. Synth strings recall the Bernard Hermann score to Psycho's famous scenes. It perfectly serves the movie. The sound design also reinforces the many shocks and dislocations of the narrative. Spare and effective.

The DVD only comes with one worthwhile extra: a making-of featurette that discloses the surprising level of special effects in the film's latter act. Don't watch it until after the movie, as it spoils pretty much everything.

I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. For non-fans of foreign films, the subtitles will be off-putting and distracting more than many foreign movies. You simply have to keep your eyes on the screen. But if stylish horror unlike anything you've seen in American films intrigues you, then you have to see one of the best films to come out of Asia in years. Some of the movie's images will stay with you for quite some time to come.

Unfortunately, Tom Cruise bought the rights to remake this movie for American audiences. He will ruin it, especially if he casts himself as Dr. Lo. Look at the dumbed down Americanised The Ring versus the more subtle Japanese original, Ringu. There are other great Asian horror movies being redone right now. Ju-On's original director is filming a nearly shot-for-shot American cast version, but with his usual Japanese crew working in Japan. The director of Dark Water, now starring Jennifer Connoly, is literally refilming his movie in America with American actors. It's good to see such interest, but sad to know that American studios don't trust American audiences to work with good subtitles or high-quality dubbing.

If you are interested in learning more about Japanese and Korean horror, go to Snowblood Apple, an English fan site. They have detailed synopses and reviews of a couple of dozen movies, including everything mentioned above. They also have a lot of screencaps, so you can get a clear sense of the movies. And there are tons and tons of links to explore.

It's a Whole New World

I log on today to the Commercial Appeal website and find out they've redesigned it. Woohoo!

Same basic layout, though there are now four columns. Same navigation bar on the left. The main story teaser / links and subsection links column hasn't changed much. All the old ads, polls, tickers, blinking things, ads, etc. are gone, hopefully for good. (Please tell me it's for good.) New fonts and section headers. New main colors: a calm blue and a mauvy brown. The page did seem to load a bit faster, too.

It's still a crowded page, but looking at this one how can I complain? Overall, the new look is cleaner and crisper. Good work guys and gals!

Mr. Mike's Sunday Link Party

Once again, interesting links have piled up in the bookmarks folder. Here we go with a lot of quick shots to clear them out.

* News from Ain't It Cool that the new "director's cut" of Donnie Darko is a winner. It's going out later this year into limited theatrical rerelease. I first saw the DVD and was confused though mesmerised by this film. Watching all the deleted scenes, suddenly the movie made a lot more sense! The producers had mutilated this film for time constraints. The rerelease restores the cut stuff, enhances the connections to the "theory of time travel" book and comes with some tweaks to the transitions between the hallucinations and "reality." It's now supposed to be a more understandable movie. I'll be watching for it.

* It's the Portrait Illustration Maker! That's right, you can now have your very own anime-style icon for message boards, LiveJournals, etc. Like this:


Hey, it's me!


* Having late last year encouraged Ralph Nader not to seek their nomination for president, now the Green Party is courting him again. Guys, you made your bed, now go to sleep. It's also funny to note that when googling for this bit, all three sponsored links on the Google page were from "Stop Nader" groups. Gotta love it.

* I don't understand this, my compu-tech skills being minimal, but it seems like something folks might want to know. Rocky Topper Say Uncle has created something nifty: a "roll up" of RTBers' posts that works in RSS. NO idea what it means, but it seems good.

* SNITCH is the Strategic Network of Intelligence on Terrorism in our Communities and Homeland. Learn how to spot terrorists, take quizzes to hone your terrorist-spotting skills, get the kids involved! Fun and patriotism for the whole family. If you don't click the link, I'll report you to the FBI.

* Here's a long-over due idea, one I thought some blogger would have taken up by now. But no, it's a major news net that runs with it: a daily summary of stories from the three major network evening newscasts. Still a little too bare-bones, but it's a start. I should note that I still miss the guy who used to do the summaries of the weekend talk shows; he was great.

* Pictures continue to leak from the new Batman Begins movie. I've also heard rumors that the film is being made for an "R" rating and not a "PG-13." It's looking good.

* Mick pointed me to this oddity, the Memphis News Bureau, a feel-good, good news story source. They bill themselves as "an independent source of accurate information for the news media about Memphis, Tennessee, and the Mid-South Region," but are a bit short on information about who they are funded by. I have a sense this is a product of local businessmen and civic booster types. Any ideas? By the way, does anyone notice that their header image strongly resembles a certain blogger's header image?

If you want real "independent" news, you might try the Tennessee Independent Media Center, an off-shoot of IndyMedia.

* An excellent article from Catherine Seipp about Hollywood films and film-making today and sixty years ago. Let's just say that today is lacking....

* Michael Moore Hates America: the documentary that tells the truth about a great nation. As if you didn't already know all that. Paraphrasing Christopher Hitchens: Europeans think Americans are fat, stupid, slovenly, arrogant, sensationalistic and shallow; Moore proves them right. Watch the trailer at this site and support the film-maker.

* Did you know that John Kerry has said he would "consider" anti-abortion judges? He did! It didn't get much play a week or so ago. It's also in typical Kerry waffle-speak, so he can deny it if he has to, though the way this nugget has been ignored I don't think that's a problem.

Kerry is also channelling Richard Nixon: "[Iraq] will not be like Vietnam," Kerry said. "I will get our troops home from Iraq with honor and with the interests of our country properly protected." Peace with honor? Man, the Sixties allusions just keep comin'.

* I've been blogging for a while now about various Federal government moves which, taken in a whole, would seem to indicate that the mechanisms are being put into place for a draft to start up in 2005. I'm not the only one, either.

But these folks are getting it wrong. The "draft bill" they worry over is the one introduced last year by Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel before we launched into the Iraqi War. Rangel intended it as a defiant challenge to President Bush, a political move to somehow force Bush's hand. It's not the real thing, though heaven knows it could be hijacked and used for one. But seeing folks making this fundamental error is unnerving.

When I see Congress approached by the Department of Defense to increase appropriations for men and materiel to increase the size of the Army, then I'll get worried.

Sorry Janet

In comments below to the post about the Al Gore's Dean Moment page, Janet Dagley-Dagley urged me to read Al Gore's Moveon.org PAC speech and address it.

Well, I tried. It's so full of dishonesty and mis-remembering I found myself skimming it by the halfway point. I found a couple of moments where Gore tried straight-faced to shame the Bush administration and I asked myself if he remembered the president he served under and the long stream of moral and ethic lapses then. It was also full of the mischaracterisations that permeate the media's narrative of the post-911 years.

I gave up. Sorry, Janet. If you want refutations and criticisms, then try here and here and here. Oh, and here too. I don't have the time for this.

Gore is drifting more and more to the screaming Left and as he does so he is losing rapidly whatever credibility he once had. He's become a spent force who can only cater to folks more interested in hysterical theatrics than rational debate.

I read you impressions from the speech and what struck me is your observation that a lot of folks couldn't hear what Gore was saying, but were enthusiastic nonetheless. That tells me it wasn't stirring rhetoric that was appealling, but simple emotionalism.

Make of this what you will, like the Moveon crowd did last week with Gore.