Happy wiretap day
I hope you got all of the filthy internet surfing out of your system this weekend because today is the official deadline for most internet providers to plug in their new FBI-friendly surveillance equipment, as mandated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). Was CALEA a by-product of the Patriot Act and/or the Bush Administration's systematic overreach into civil liberties during this decade? Not at all. It was passed and signed into law in 1994 by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President.---
I've never linked author Howard Zinn before-- a terrible oversight. In the May issue of The Progressive, he was terrific advice for liberals-- or citizens of any political stripe-- who feel the temptation to wade into the arena of politicians and forget the importance of being a true citizen activist.
Money quote:
We who protest the war are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress.
Timetables for withdrawal are not only morally reprehensible in the case of a brutal occupation (would you give a thug who invaded your house, smashed everything in sight, and terrorized your children a timetable for withdrawal?) but logically nonsensical. If our troops are preventing civil war, helping people, controlling violence, then why withdraw at all? If they are in fact doing the opposite-- provoking civil war, hurting people, perpetuating violence-- they should withdraw as quickly as ships and planes can carry them home.
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Sopranos-safe reading: I won't reveal plot-points, but for all of you "Sopranos" fans who follow the series on a weekly, monthly, or yearly delay, you won't be disappointed with the season's final arc. David Chase and Co. continue to top themselves week after week, with just three episodes now remaining. But there's a percentage of the weekly media conversation that rubs me the wrong way. I ask the question-- Does a television audience truly have cause to feel cheated by anything that ultimately does or doesn't happen from a plot standpoint to the show's characters? Should Tony live or die? Should he find a certain level of redemption or punishment? Until it's all over, it's enormously fun to speculate, of course, and the most extraordinary aspect of the show, other than the acting, has always been the writers' ability to build the tension and play so coyly with our expectations. Chase has earned carte blanche from me, I've decided. The product is so extraordinary that it's beyond my ability to adequately critique, and I'll accept the final decisions of the show's creator, whatever they might be. That's easy for me to say, though, this afternoon-- I got a lot of closure from last night's episode. They could have ended it all right there.
posted by CM @ 12:25 PM
2 Comments:
I agree with your Sopranos assessment. I'm ready to follow the show anywhere. And leave it anywhere. We should have all figured out by now, I think, that this show doesn't tie up all loose ends, just as in life. This is a novelistic series and yet nearly every episode has had incredibly powerful, poignant and hilarious moments.
Maybe we'll find out this CALEA thing will bring down Tony.
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