Saturday, September 30, 2006
Reading Between The Lines in Politics
Today Floriday Congressman Mark Foley resigned from his post after messages he sent to a teenaged male page were made public. Apparently his messages imply that he may have had a thing for teenage boys and may have crossed the line. What's amazing though is not that a government official has been found to be a pedophile (there have already been several people removed from office for that), but rather how abruptly everything has happened, at least to the public eye. He appears to have resigned almost immediately, without any complaints that his messages were "misconstrued" or "taken out of context". This didn't take several days to percolate through the press, with allegations coming out one day, then several days of back and forth statements, including strong denials, then finally after a few weeks a resignation with a vow to defend his reputation. Instead, there was no news about this in the press until today, when he suddenly resigned.
It turns out that his messages were originally "discovered" last winter, and he was thereafter warned to be "especially mindful" of his conduct with pages. And now, almost a year later, he suddenly resigns. Even more telling, nobody is coming to his defense. Both the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, and the House Majority Whip, Roy Blunt, have publicly stated that the resignation was the right thing for Foley to do.
This tells me that Foley's "inclinations" were probably not a well-kept secret, and that there were already rumblings through Congress before Foley was caught red-handed with his messages. That's probably why this whole thing has been so hush-hush and it's all come to a head so quickly. The GOP realized that Foley had this sexual habit and needed to take care of it quickly and discreetly, so they forced Foley to resign through back channel talk. Thus, hardly anyone in Congress is surprised or shocked, no one's saying that "he never seemed like he could harm a child", etc. etc. Instead Congressmen are saying that Foley did the right thing, that he needed to leave, etc. I think the whole thing was well-planned and executed.
Oh yeah, and for those who keep claiming that politicians' personal lives shouldn't be used to judge their abilities as leaders, this is only one example of many showing how wrong that attitude is. A person's beliefs, desires, inclinations are absolutely relevant. If someone is going to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on stupid wars, send thousands of Americans to their deaths for stupid wars, and pass laws that restrict the freedoms of all Americans for stupid wars, then yeah, I care about who they are, what they think, and what they do in their spare time. I can't screw over millions of people with the decisions I make on a day-to-day basis, so nobody should be allowed to judge my personal life. But the minute I decide to have a job where my actions affect millions of lives, then I relinquish my immunity from people's judgments.
It turns out that his messages were originally "discovered" last winter, and he was thereafter warned to be "especially mindful" of his conduct with pages. And now, almost a year later, he suddenly resigns. Even more telling, nobody is coming to his defense. Both the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, and the House Majority Whip, Roy Blunt, have publicly stated that the resignation was the right thing for Foley to do.
This tells me that Foley's "inclinations" were probably not a well-kept secret, and that there were already rumblings through Congress before Foley was caught red-handed with his messages. That's probably why this whole thing has been so hush-hush and it's all come to a head so quickly. The GOP realized that Foley had this sexual habit and needed to take care of it quickly and discreetly, so they forced Foley to resign through back channel talk. Thus, hardly anyone in Congress is surprised or shocked, no one's saying that "he never seemed like he could harm a child", etc. etc. Instead Congressmen are saying that Foley did the right thing, that he needed to leave, etc. I think the whole thing was well-planned and executed.
Oh yeah, and for those who keep claiming that politicians' personal lives shouldn't be used to judge their abilities as leaders, this is only one example of many showing how wrong that attitude is. A person's beliefs, desires, inclinations are absolutely relevant. If someone is going to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on stupid wars, send thousands of Americans to their deaths for stupid wars, and pass laws that restrict the freedoms of all Americans for stupid wars, then yeah, I care about who they are, what they think, and what they do in their spare time. I can't screw over millions of people with the decisions I make on a day-to-day basis, so nobody should be allowed to judge my personal life. But the minute I decide to have a job where my actions affect millions of lives, then I relinquish my immunity from people's judgments.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Say It Isn't So, Audrey!
I haven't been watching much TV, but one of the few times I did this past week I saw the new Gap ad featuring Audrey Hepburn dancing to AC/DC shilling black pants. Now, I love Audrey Hepburn, including the movie that the clip is from (Funny Face), and I love AC/DC. In fact, Back in Black is one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar. And in general, I don't mind the Gap. But put all three of those together, and I think it's just bad bad bad!
I hate using dead celebrities to sell products after the fact in general. The Fred Astaire "Hoover" commercial was absolutely terrible. I think if a celebrity had wanted to schill for products to make extra money, they would have when they were alive. Once they're dead, I think it's horrible to try and make more money from them, even if (as in this case with Hepburn) some of the proceeds are going to charity. The only exception is a situation where the celebrity already had a clear relationship with the product. If Michael Jordan were to pass away and Nike made a commercial featuring old clips of him, I don't think anyone would mind because Jordan practically put Nike on the map with his Air Jordan shoes. A more real example would be the Steve McQueen Mustang ads, which were a natural extension from the movie Bullitt and from Steve McQueen's general relationship with the car. But Hepburn never endorsed Gap in her career, and never schilled for any products in general. Given her relationship to Givenchy, it's really hard to say that the image that the Gap portrays is in keeping at all with her own spirit.
The use of AC/DC with the clip is also something that bothers me. The dance clip comes from a sequence in Funny Face where Hepburn's character is showing her individualistic side as a constrast to Fred Astaire's very conservative and corporate nature. She's dancing in a jazz club in Paris that's playing very avante-garde-ish music. Putting that against the very un-avante-garde AC/DC is a bit jarring. I love the song by itself, but not when you put the two together. I think if you had no idea who Audrey Hepburn was or where that dance sequence came from, you'd think it was fine ... but then again, why would you use a clip of Audrey Hepburn if you weren't counting on people recognizing Audrey Hepburn?
It feels like another example of a conglomerate trying to "hip-ify" something classic and cram it into a corporate marketing image. That's the really offensive part. The ad itself is actually kind of cool, and if she wasn't schilling for some crappy product it would probably be an interesting juxtaposition of two contradictory ideas, a "mash-up" if you will. But given that it's Audrey Hepburn and the context of the dance moves, it just feels cheap and tawdry.
I hate using dead celebrities to sell products after the fact in general. The Fred Astaire "Hoover" commercial was absolutely terrible. I think if a celebrity had wanted to schill for products to make extra money, they would have when they were alive. Once they're dead, I think it's horrible to try and make more money from them, even if (as in this case with Hepburn) some of the proceeds are going to charity. The only exception is a situation where the celebrity already had a clear relationship with the product. If Michael Jordan were to pass away and Nike made a commercial featuring old clips of him, I don't think anyone would mind because Jordan practically put Nike on the map with his Air Jordan shoes. A more real example would be the Steve McQueen Mustang ads, which were a natural extension from the movie Bullitt and from Steve McQueen's general relationship with the car. But Hepburn never endorsed Gap in her career, and never schilled for any products in general. Given her relationship to Givenchy, it's really hard to say that the image that the Gap portrays is in keeping at all with her own spirit.
The use of AC/DC with the clip is also something that bothers me. The dance clip comes from a sequence in Funny Face where Hepburn's character is showing her individualistic side as a constrast to Fred Astaire's very conservative and corporate nature. She's dancing in a jazz club in Paris that's playing very avante-garde-ish music. Putting that against the very un-avante-garde AC/DC is a bit jarring. I love the song by itself, but not when you put the two together. I think if you had no idea who Audrey Hepburn was or where that dance sequence came from, you'd think it was fine ... but then again, why would you use a clip of Audrey Hepburn if you weren't counting on people recognizing Audrey Hepburn?
It feels like another example of a conglomerate trying to "hip-ify" something classic and cram it into a corporate marketing image. That's the really offensive part. The ad itself is actually kind of cool, and if she wasn't schilling for some crappy product it would probably be an interesting juxtaposition of two contradictory ideas, a "mash-up" if you will. But given that it's Audrey Hepburn and the context of the dance moves, it just feels cheap and tawdry.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Lies, lies, everywhere
Bush has created an incredible atmosphere where lies and zealotry are allowed to obscure the truth with no repercussions. It's completely ridiculous. The latest example is this whole ABC mini-series 'The Path to 9/11'. Now the NY Times is reporting that one former FBI agent was asked to be consultant on the show but when he tried to point out inaccuracies, he was ignored. So even BEFORE all the public flap happened, even before Clinton, Berger, and Albright complained about the scenes, the producers had to be aware that they were making stuff up. And they did it anyway.
Their argument that this is a "dramatization" is just ridiculous. They must be completely insensitive to the sentiments of the American people if they think that making up inflammatory scenes involving specific individuals is alright when it comes to 9/11. I'll all for blaming government officials for letting Bin Laden fly planes into the twin towers, but please, let's not make stuff up! Movies use fictional people when they want to dramatize aliens attacking Earth, they don't defame real people.
And please, let's just stop all the lying!! It feels like Nixon all over again!
Their argument that this is a "dramatization" is just ridiculous. They must be completely insensitive to the sentiments of the American people if they think that making up inflammatory scenes involving specific individuals is alright when it comes to 9/11. I'll all for blaming government officials for letting Bin Laden fly planes into the twin towers, but please, let's not make stuff up! Movies use fictional people when they want to dramatize aliens attacking Earth, they don't defame real people.
And please, let's just stop all the lying!! It feels like Nixon all over again!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Now We Know Why Bush Is Still In Power
Because there are supporters of his that can say things like this:
"There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord," Tomanio said. "I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through."
WOW. Dubbya has his own cult. Congrats.
"There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord," Tomanio said. "I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through."
WOW. Dubbya has his own cult. Congrats.
