The silly season
The Republican Presidential Primaries are interesting in a Lindsey Lohan-train wreck kind of way. The fact that nobody mentions is that President Obama has
always had the backing of Wall Street and of our establishment financial/political class. He was vetted by Wall Street when he was still Democratic Candidate Obama in 2007, received its stamp of approval then, and has never lost it. Rhetoric to the contrary is-- as they say-- only politics.
How do we know all of this is true? Because if the political establishment really thought that Obama was a "socialist," or a threat to the oligarchy in any conceivable way, we would have a better, and much less comical, slate of challengers on the Republican side (as well as at least one Obama alternative on the Democratic side). No, a second Obama term is A-OK with the wielders of power in this nation, as they've demonstrated time and now time again with their campaign contributions in a pair of national races four years apart, and so the goal of the Republican primary season all along, instead, has simply been to push the media debate further and further to the right. The candidate clowns each take a turn as "frontrunner" in the center of the Big Top, being forced upon the populace one-by-one, until even Newt the Hutt, the lowest-form of pompous, disreputable political sludge not named Santorum, gets a chance.
Trump, Bachmann, Perry, and Cain were all elevated to "serious candidate" status at one point or another this year by a traditional news media still intent on selling the national presidential campaign as a harbinger of meaningful ideas. The large hole in the center fools almost no one. Even the frightened reactionaries of the far right-wing of the U.S. political landscape, the mullahs of the Western World, are smart enough to turn their backs from these bloviating bozos.
I tremble to think how lost we would be-- and indeed, used to be-- in our larger national debate (the one above the news media) without the buckets of stone cold truth being dumped upon us on all sides by Occupy groups from coast-to-coast-- and against the growing threat of violence besides. As always, the use of physical force against truth-tellers betrays the deficiency of ideas to combat them instead. But maybe it's the empty debate we actually have to thank. Into the largest voids often step the clearest solutions.
The second half
It's really happening, people. Moeller Television Festival X, Part II, is exactly one week away, and the multitudes have been clamoring for a screening schedule. (It's listed below.) As always, TV Fest is free to attend, so if you've come upon this blog by accident, don't even think about turning us all in for program licensing violations.
TV Fest X, Part II is at my home in Des Moines, and you're all invited. Email me at christophermmoeller@gmail.com with any questions or for additional details, and don't forget to bring an inquisitive mind and a hat. Oh, did I mention that hats are required to attend the festival this round? MTF X, PI starts at noon-ish on Saturday, December 3rd, with food and drinks (including alcoholic) provided.
The schedule of TV programs:
"Opie the Birdman" The Andy Griffith Show #96 9/30/63
"Mac & Charlie: White Trash" It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia #62 10/14/10
"Soprano Home Movies" The Sopranos #78 4/8/07
"The Larry David Sandwich" Curb Your Enthusiasm #41 9/25/05
"Middle Earth Paradigm" The Big Bang Theory #6 10/29/07
"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Peanuts 10/27/66
"The One With All the Thanksgivings" Friends #105 11/19/98
"Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men" King of the Hill #42 11/17/98
"Xmas Story" Newsradio #17 12/19/95
"The Strike" Seinfeld #166 12/18/97
"New Years Day Show of 1956" The Jack Benny Program #55 1/1/56
The Roots of outrage
We had a display of old-fashioned political subversion Monday night on Jimmy Fallon's late night show when Michelle Bachmann appeared as a guest. The Roots, Fallon's house band, played Bachmann onto the stage with an obscure 25-year-old song (by Fishbone[?]) entitled "Lyin' Ass Bitch."
Though the original tune is not in my wheelhouse genre, I feel comfortable describing it as "obscure" since the band's gag went unnoticed during the broadcast. It was a Tweet by the band's drummer, Questlove, that drew attention to the incident after the fact. It drew a rebuke from Bachmann as well, who told Fox News she thought it was "clearly a form of bias on the part of the Hollywood entertainment elite but it's also I think it's sexist as well."
Pointed subversion of our vacuous, hateful political culture or sexist bias by "entertainment elites"? Golly, can't it be both? I'd like to add also, in the Roots' defense, there's no song entitled "Self-Mythologizing Pandering Dimwitted Religious Sociopath."
Intimidation intent
More on Occupy from
Glenn Greenwald, who points out that the true purpose of institutional violence against dissenters is to intimidate others from participating:
The genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been "persuaded"-- through fear and intimidation -- to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put: "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it's only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest.
It's not a winning public relations strategy for law enforcement to assault peaceful protesters with tear gas, clubs, pepper spray, rubber bullets, or assault rifles. It elicits greater sympathy for the protesters and complicates legal matters. Yet they do it anyway, and this is the larger reason they do. The video of a police assault may engender feelings of anger or sadness on behalf of the protesters' fellow citizens, but if it intimidates most of them into staying on their couch and not joining the movement, the assault will have accomplished its goal.
Greenwald links to the extraordinary video of UC-Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi walking to her car aside a silent vigil by students intended to shame her for her actions in ordering the police action. (I'll directly link to the YouTube clip as well.) Katehi will soon be out of a job, and that will be justified, but the greater significance of the silent protest will be the viral presentation of the power of non-violence. For all of the extraordinary courage being demonstrated by Occupy members across the nation-- and there is little that I find more courageous than sacrificing one's body for the cause of the First Amendment-- there is a helluva lot of creativity being demonstrated as well.
The empire strikes back
The Occupy Movement is changing the world. How do we know this? Because the United States has now evolved into
a full-fledged Police State. The uniformed thugs of our Wall Street government have been aggressively turned on the protesters. ( And
that's not seltzer.)
The homeless, jobless, and impassioned change agents that have been occupying Zuccotti Park in New York City were cleared out by Mayor Bloomberg's storm troopers last week. Few should miss the irony of Bloomberg ordering the assault. He's a billionaire resident of the upper 1% of the nation's top 1%, going so far as to buy his way into the office he holds, an action that would make our Founders shudder, but causes nary a raised eyebrow these days. There are reports almost daily now of police violence erupting in one or more of the many tent cities of protesters that have sprung up across the country over two months, and there has been a clearly-orchestrated change in policing strategies. In many cases now, such as in lower Manhattan, protesters are taking to the streets instead.
Washington recognizes the threat, and Chris Hayes has some proof. Staffers of his television program at MSNBC
gained possession of a memo from a Washington lobbying firm closely associated with House Speaker John Boehner directed to members of the American Banking Association. It advocates an $850,000 smear campaign on the Occupy movement and the politicians that support it.
The monied interests will do whatever is required to hold on to their plunder. They'll use whatever violent force necessary against protesters so long as they feel America's still-lethargic majority will tolerate it. But make no mistake, they're feeling the heat inside the halls of power, and rightly so as the temperature of the oven keeps getting turned up. Oligarchy beware, Zuccotti Park is everywhere.
What they fished out of the Des Moines River
Jeez, people. Izaak Walton League volunteers
pulled 36 tons of garbage out of the Des Moines River this fall, and this was just in the area between the ballpark and the Grand Avenue bridge downtown. Great job, Ikes, but as a people, we've obviously gotta be better about this. I wonder if they're able to track the source of any of this waste before they recycle it. We could re-plant the 55-gallon steel drums in the bottom of the river with the polluters inside.
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If I had known the Cardinals were going to
hire a field manager with no professional managing or coaching experience, I would have applied for the job.
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Save Greendale! The NBC comedy "Community" has delivered one brilliant episode after another for two and a third seasons, but now the AT&T of television networks, the opposite of Batman, is threatening to Britta the series.
Sunday Magazine
As the culture of widespread and organized progressive protest returns to the United States in 2011, it's worth noting that the broader wave of public peace protests in the 1960s very much had their start in the state of Iowa.
The Des Moines Register's Kyle Munson has
the story today of the "Grinnell 14," college students that traveled to Washington in 1961 to protest atmospheric nuclear testing, and whose members included now-well-known actor Peter Coyote.
Here's
Coyote on YouTube talking about the lasting impact of the '60s "counterculture."
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Former NFL fullback Jon Ritchie has known Jerry Sandusky most of his life and is
speaking publicly now about the scandal at Penn State. He's doing so as honestly and perceptively as anybody else I've heard in the sports media. His explanation as to why he probably, like Mike McQueary, wouldn't have acted in the moment to stop the rape of a young boy is as honest as honest gets.
Ritchie's descriptions (beginning at the 8:00 mark of the link, though you should watch it all) about what would be his initial disbelief and confusion over what he has seen really lay false the claims of so many observers this week that they would
"beat (Sandusky) to a pulp", or the like, if they found themselves in the same situation as McQueary. As Ritchie goes on to say, this does not excuse the follow-up silence and cover-up by McQueary and his superiors, but it also ticks me off to hear so many people posturing and blustering that they would become immediately physical in that moment in the locker room in defense of the child. Simply put, I don't believe them. Sad as it is, as many as 90% of child sexual abuse cases in this country go unreported, and this is a topic that everyone has to internalize to some degree. The sexual abuse of a child is still referred to often as an "unspeakable" crime, but "unspeakable" is one thing it should never be. Our conversations about it are vital, and increased awareness is always the silver lining when instances of child abuse become public.
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Time to drop some science on you, which I so rarely do:
Your brain knows more than you think it does. From
Discover, "If you spend an afternoon trying to teach [patients with anterograde amnesia] the video game Tetris, they will tell you the next day that they have no recollection of the experience, that they have never seen this game before—and, most likely, that they have no idea who you are, either. But if you look at their performance on the game the next day, you’ll find that they have improved exactly as much as nonamnesiacs. Implicitly their brains have learned the game: The knowledge is simply not accessible to their consciousness."
That's it. No jokes. Only highly-respected scientific research.
Institutional crimes
A man is walking in the park at night. A woman passes from the other direction and within a moment, a stranger jumps out from the darkness and attacks the woman. How does the man respond? He thinks about it for a day, then immediately notifies Penn State's athletic director and its senior vice president for business and finance.
Forget Jerry Sandusky for just one moment, and just consider how sick a fuck Joe Paterno is? He's told by a 28-year-old underling that his high-profile defensive coordinator, his right-hand man at the throne of a college football empire, has been witnessed, first-hand, anally raping a 10-year-old in the shower of the football building. University police have already investigated this same assistant coach four years earlier for showering with an 11-year-old. Paterno, this time, waits a day, then reports the information not to the police, but to university officials that together make up a fraction of his salary and at a school where the football program produces approximately $70 million in revenue annually.
Flash forward nine years: In a sport in which a coach can be fired for failure to "go for it" on fourth down of an important game, Paterno becomes the winningest coach in Division I college football history. The underling who told him very privately nearly a decade ago about the forced sodomy of an underprivileged pre-teen by the architect of the coach's nationally-renown linebacker program has been promoted from graduate assistant to receivers coach. The assistant coach, though retired, still maintains an office across the street from the football building and is reported to have been in the football building as recently as two weeks ago. He is arrested and charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse against young boys over a 15-year period. Paterno, who according to his son, reported the charges initially to university officials, then never really gave it a second thought, is forced to confront inquisitors. He steps out of his house, doddering and nearly incoherent, to tell a large group of cheering, amoral, and stupid Penn State students to pray for the "kids who were victims or whatever they want to say... It's a tough life when people do certain things to you." He concludes by promising the students yet another victory on the field this Saturday.
That Paterno is not headed to prison says more about Pennsylvania legal statute than it does about the coach's allegedly limited culpability in connection with these heinous charges, even as the 84-year-old Penn State head man lives his life as a demigod in the college town of all college towns. (
Mitch Albom disagrees. He thinks Paterno is being targeted unfairly by a vengeful public and media as he's had the chance to get to know JoePa very intimately over the years asking him questions about third down draw plays and corner blitzes.)
At last tonight, the university's board of trustees removes Paterno immediately from his position as head coach, narrowly sidestepping one last act of cowardice that would have allowed the coach to finish out the current season. Paterno is wildly fortunate to live in a legal climate in which he doesn't have to answer to a criminal investigation about what he knew and when in regards to the actions of his pedarast protege. Joe Paterno, grandfather of 17, will still own the sympathy of all those that believe 46 years of successful football trumps child molestation, and we have not seen the last of JoePa's tears for the horrible ordeal he's had to contend with over these last several days, but this abrupt end is the disgraceful exit Joe Paterno deserves.
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Five years later,
a few people owe an apology to the National Organization for Women.
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Where are the calls for the death penalty in this case-- for the Penn State football program? Here, you have vicious acts against children, institutional and monumental corruption from the very bottom of the coaching hierarchy all the way up to the university president, and nobody is advocating this action as one of the required solutions. Southern Methodist University had an entire season cancelled in 1987 because of "under the table" payments to its football players. In prisons, the convicted sexual abuser of children is the lowest form of criminal in residence. In Division I college football, he's still #2 behind the guy who financially compensates the talent.
The wedding of the century
Aaron Moeller and Alexandra Shouse sealed their wedding vows with a traditional kiss at Prairie Oak Lodge in Marion, Iowa Sunday as party-goers roared their approval.
The kiss followed a glittering service in which the two were pronounced husband and wife by friend and officiant Jay Parsons, "Reverend Jay" or "Parson Parsons." A receiving line followed, then dinner and cake, before the bride and groom both spoke briefly to the assembled guests. The toast was followed by a lengthy slideshow presentation, and before dancing commenced, there was a spontaneous karaoke performance of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's hit 1968 single "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" by bride and groom.
The couple will now embark on an international tour of the 17 overseas territories and crown dependencies that fall under their legal sovereignty.
The wedding cometh
CM Blog contributor Aaron Moeller marries Lady Alexandra this Sunday. Yours truly is penciled in as best man and pleased as punch to be so. This is not like that Kardashian thing. This one is for real.
