ribble's: 2009

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Obama Can Relax Some Time in 2016

So a few days ago I was still thinking how I hope Obama can finally get health care passed so he can move on to other stuff, because there's a lot of it: energy, the environment, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the 2012 election, the 2010 election, education, South America, financial regulations, the economy, jobs, Guantanemo, Mars, senior positions, Africa, federal court appointments, corporate compensation, reengagement abroad, race, the U.S. intelligence apparatus, Asia, drug policy, immigration, gays in the military, Europe and Antarctica (Australia can suck it.)

Please do not email me to tell me what I have left off this list.

J/k no one every reads this shit.

Then yesterday happened. My first thought was about my opinion of the whole plan which is not terribly interesting and no one cares about. My second thought was about how the Senate would react (in case you missed it) and about what in general the consensus or narrative on this thing was going to be (which I think is still emerging but may be "Repubs. favor, Dems. oppose.") My third thought was "okay, obviously this is all anyone on any news channel will be talking about for a while. What's happening with health care?" (answer: amendments, etc.)

But just now I had my FOURTH thought, which was "Obama is never, ever going to take care of everything on that list."

When I saw Obama in the last week or so of the election, I thought "laugh it up, Fuzzball." He looked soooo confident and soooo relaxed. It was sort of inspiring. Obama had seen all the numbers I was watching obsessively and decided that he was going to win.

Thing is, I knew that the minute a president takes office is the minute he loses control of his agenda. I could literally count the days until Obama was no longer master of his own destiny. It wasn't his fault - there's just too much that a president has to contend with for him to focus on his ideal priorities whenever he wants. I mean, people actively trying to foil you at every turn is just ONE of your problems. Imagine if you had to deal with that in YOUR job.

This is why I was pulling for Obama to front-load - stuff is always going to happen that throws the president off, but early on is when he has the most momentum, political capital, control of his agenda and ability to govern.

All of which was going fine until health care. There's no shame in it. Health care has been foiling politicians in this country since at least 1906 (fun fact: the first time, it was shot down as "Prussianization.")

So I have been waiting health care out. It was touch and go for a bit (4:38), but I was confident health care would pass eventually and if maybe we lost the public option, whatever (Act Three or point two of a National Review summary here.)

I had hoped that once we had taken care of health care, Obama could maybe take on some easy stuff, some one-acts. Fixing gays in the military is just a matter of signing an executive order, calling everyone who doesn't like it unpatriotic, starting a more interesting news cycle and then six months later letting everyone know how many lives our new Arabic translators have saved, thanks to you. It's like a political appetizer.

But here was Obama piling one major and controversial life-or-death political issue on top of another major and controversial life-or-death political issue. It's not that he wants to - it's just that he doesn't have a choice. Afghanistan needed announcing and health care is coming along but it just wasn't done yet. What are you going to do?

And so I must now kiss goodbye to my imaginary hypothetical breather for Obama. This is simply the highest level of difficulty for a presidency since FDR. I mean, Obama was getting grey hairs back in March (they come and go.) Pass or fail - and this plan is going to be make or break for his legacy - Obama still has his work cut out for him. This guy is not going to get to rest until he's done with the whole damn game and napping on the porch of his coming-soon political library in Honolulu, I am guessing somewhere by the beach.

Until then, good luck to him and all of us.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Can the Internet Answer Wildchild's "Wonder Years" Questions?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Fall Is Not a Time for Dan Brown

Fall reading spotted on the Brooklyn-bound F train: Meditations of Mind and Body, The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett, Introduction to Scholastic Process. (I myself am listening to a Yale Intro. Psychology courses courtesy iTunes U.) Conclusion: Fall is when our brains go back to school (if not necessarily our bodies.)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Q and W

Some shockingly typical Questions I have seriously considered just in the last 12 hours, and the reasons Why I'm Asking them (it's a Q & W).

Q: Can the past truly be said to exist if it no longer exists in the present?

W: Hearing this iTunes U lecture, in which a charmingly-accented biographer, Richard Carwardine, reminds us that Abraham Lincoln is the most biographied man to ever live. Then wondering if anyone can really be said to be right about Lincoln.

Q: What happens if the villain succeeds in Act 1?

W: Re-reading Mell's strangely gratifying first attempt at world domination in Narbonic: Director's Cut. (*spoiler:* Mell does okay, but later admits that she made some crucial mistakes.)

If the villain fails in Act 3, that's normal. If he succeeds, that's a tragedy. Plenty of villains are foiled in Act 1 only to make a better go of it in Act 3. But what if the villain succeeds in Act 1, and so thoroughly that there's no hope of beating him back?

Thing is, in the real world, villains succeed all the time. Stalin died sleeping in his own bed. People like Alexander the Great even occasionally conquer the world.

However, unless someone is particularly bad off or goes about seeking out people who are, we don't usually think of this as a world created by villains. We tend to accept the world as it is presented to us early on.

Maybe that's because the run of history is where a traditional story act structure breaks down. It's like Malcolm says in Jurassic Park (page 369 of the paperback, or you can search for "destroy the world") - we may be in peril, but "the world" is not. Maybe it's not about good or evil, only change.

Maybe I should change my blog's motto to "making the case for relativism." Or is that too subjective?

Friday, October 09, 2009

ribbles on Taliban on Nobel Committee on Obama

The Taliban is apparently immune to both aerial bombardment and irony:

"The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the 'Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians'," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

(via Reuters)

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Outbreak Theory

Just finished reading a very comprehensive New Yorker article [log-in required] on the events leading up to the collapse of Lehman and, by extension, the world economic crisis.

The article's conclusion is that despite the extensive (and arguably justified) critism of the bailout, the feeling that at least some comprehensive plan was in place prevented the worldwide financial panic we feared in the nervous months after Lehman.

This reminded me of two things. First, an article in Wired about virus theory wherein researchers ran thousands of computer simulations to predict the spread of world-threatening viruses if they found their way in to the population. The other, a practical guide to removing stains.

In both cases, the conclusions were the same. I doesn't so much matter what you do as long as you DO SOMETHING. Close the schools, quarantine, stop interstate travel, rub with soap and warm water - any preventative measure is better than nothing and, generally speaking, enough to stop a crisis.

Monday, September 21, 2009

First Draft Complete, Cue Soul Searching

This weekend, I biked out to the end of an isolated pier in Red Hook and read the first draft of my script, out loud, to myself.

This was a big moment for me. Just like it says in the book, there are things I thought were there that weren't there, and things that are there that I had never expected. The most unexpected of the latter: what I have seems to be a completed story. It's a script. It's a first draft, with big chunks missing and other chunks that will need to be completely reimagined and rewritten, but it is a whole script, heavy, made of paper, physically indistinguishable from, say, Good Will Hunting or Poltergeist 2, except for the words on the page.

This is a HUGE relief.

I had gotten so focused on each individual part of the script that I didn't quite understand that by the end I would have a whole thing, a coherent work that I had written, an object made of words.

Right now, I am sitting in the lower 60s section of Riverside Park, reading my reference book, and thinking about what comes next. I am trying to figure out what the biggest changes will need to be so as to make them first. Giving my main character more of a role in the main action of the story seems to be my greatest initial challenge. There will be many others.

In the book it says that once you finish your first draft, you're a writer. I don't know if that's true exactly. But when I was working on the first draft I found that the best time to stop writing was when I started wondering if maybe I was doing absolutely everthing wrong - something I wondered literally every day that I wrote. I assumed that once I'd finished a first draft, I'd spend the next week as drunk as physically possible. Instead, I find myself thinking, anticipating, and hoping just to make it through the second draft.

Wish me luck.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

And Waitresses Learn to Hate Food

It's always tricky watching a movie when you're writing a movie. Good example of the worst case scenario: I was watching Empire Strikes Back with a friend last night just after she read the first draft of my script, and she decided to illustrate a point about a central conflict for the main character by saying "See - your movie should be more like that."

No movie should ever be compared to Empire because Empire is (arguably) the best movie ever, and my shitty first draft of a script should even more never be compared to Empire when I know there's a problem with the scenes with the dad character and I'm working on it, thank you. It's like if I tried to pick up chicks at the Cattyshack — it's a losing man's game.

Then there's the TV Tropes effect where you spend so much time thinking about media that you just spend the whole movie waiting for the act break, the page 45 analogy, the part on page 75 where the hero almost give up, blah blah blah.

But - sometimes! - you watch a movie and say "Aha! That part of that movie is great in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as a similar part in my movie will be great!"

This just happened to me.

I am watching Sneakers, an old favorite of mine. Like my movie, Sneakers has a team of people working on a single thing. And it's a heist movie, so it's a team of quirky character actors. Oh, and the cast is fucking brilliant - like, Pres. Roslin, Sundance Kid and Ghandi brilliant.

Anyway, some of the greatest moments in this movie are when everybody these brilliant character actors get to just turn and react to something. There first time Robert Redford casually mentions Mary McDonnell, everyone just turns and looks at him.

It's a fucking genius moment. And, the best thing about this moment - super easy to write. I can watch this moment and think "Aha! I'll bet my movie will have a ton of moments where everyone turns around and looks at one of the other people! I can in some way be as good as Sneakers, one of my favorite movies!"

Now, if I can just work in some light saber battles ...

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Action Action

Ugh. Action scenes are hard to write, but it's a sports movie so I have to end with one. I just want to finish this draft so I can get on with my life / start drinking.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

In The Loop and Dario Fo

I saw In The Loop and, one quick Google search later, I was very surprised that no one is comparing it to Dario Fo.

Maybe this is because In The Loop is still in limited release (spoilers ahead, by the way). Maybe it's because not too many people are still thinking about Dario Fo (if they even know who he is in the first place).

But In The Loop accomplishes very neatly what Accidental Death of an Anarchist did in its original context - get audiences laughing uproariously until they realize that the absurdities they're watching are very, very real.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Life Pilot, Pilot Light

Watching the first season of Life in bed with the fan on because it is too hot in New York to do a goddamn thing.

Season 2 ended in April and I'd forgotten how noticeable the light is in Life. Life is set in L.A. (I often refer to it as my novelty murder show) and the light is somehow very L.A. Bright, contrasty - almost blown out by default.

I started thinking about light this Summer because my fun, light, Spies shooting at each other Gabrielle-Anwar-with-no-bra-on Summer show is Burn Notice, which is set in Miami. Miami also has a very distinct light - I talked about it a bit here, or maybe that was Hawaii, same dif.

Now, USA put on a new show to follow Burn Notice, Royal Pains, and on the surface it seems like a good follow up. It's a Summer show, except instead of spy in Miami it's a doctor in the Hamptons. But it's a bit like a methadone dose - it's technically a substitute, but ultimately it just leaves you jonesing for the real thing.

I'm sure the creators of Royal Pains are sick of the comparisons, but it's hard not to make them and find RP has trouble stacking up. The biggest advantage Burn Notice takes is that its characters are more flawed and interesting.

But the contrast that always strikes me straight away is the light. The light in the Hamptons seems weak, diffused - less harsh, but less interesting. Where Burn Notice / Miami light is brutal, exotic, uncompromising, Hamptons light is doing the best it can with limited resources. It's like a Summer day in Oslo.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Writing Fail?

When you start thinking "maybe I am doing everything wrong," that's when it's a good time to stop writing for the day.

No good can come from taking that thought to any logical conclusion.

Friday, August 14, 2009

More Writing

I opened Final Draft and then got distracted by internet and then went back to Final Draft, and I saw a blank page and panicked.

What was really happening was that Final Draft had opened a blank document and I was looking at a blank document and not at my sports movie that I am writing. I figured this out and opened my sports movie (I am on page 66 of maybe 120.)

What happened before I had time to figure out what was happening was that I saw a blank page. A blank page is just very scary when you are writing something.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Rise of Randy

I saw comedian Aziz Ansari doing a character, Randy, in a Comedy Central special that showed standup routines Judd Apatow taped for his new movie, Funny People.

So I did a search for Aziz Randy on YouTube. What's interesting is that Ansari only wrote a few bits for his Randy character, but he tried them out in a bunch of different places. Watching the same bits over and over, you can really see how Ansari perfected these bits and the character.

Randy in Athens, GA Dec. 11, 2008
Randy in NYC Jan. 1, '09
Randy at Bonnaroo June '09 (you can also see him doing some of the same bits more or less out of character for contrast.)
Randy in two bits that showed in the Comedy Central special last week: Jacuzzi and CVS. (This one was maybe a little dirty for cable.)
Ansari discusses his process in character here.

Here is how I know I am going to end up in grad school: even when I am fucking around on the internet late at night, I am still basically doing research.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Sims

ribbles: I only ever made one Sim. I worked quite hard on getting her life together. After awhile, I realized I was putting a lot of work in to micromanaging the life of a fake woman who would never know I existed. I still think of her from time to time (via The Regret Index, a very handy window in to your soul.)

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Writing

I finally started writing this script again after nearly three weeks off for research and getting the rest of my life out of the way (I also took an additional week off because it was scary to start again).

So far, I think my sports movie has at least one good joke in it. That's a good enough day's work for me.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Sport Movie References

So I'm writing a sports movie, and one of the fun things about it is that I've gotten to run down all these great movie references while trying to figure out this movie. It's so gratifying to be putting my favorite things about movies in the world of my movie. It's like I get to experience my favorite movies for real.

Like there's a scene where a character has to start everybody on their training by giving a rousing speech, and I got to think a lot about the rousing speech Sean Connery gives in The Man Who Would Be King - the one that begins "We're going to teach you soldiering. The world's noblest profession. When we're done with you, you'll be able to slaughter your enemies like civilized men." I've always wanted to start a speech by saying "I'm going to teach you how to be PAs - the world's noblest profession."

Or I decided that I was going to spend my first act introducing a bunch of characters because I needed a bunch of characters on my sports team. So I've watched the first 30 minutes of favored ribbles movie Ocean's 11 like four times (and taken notes.) I have come up with like a dozen new reasons this movie is genius (example: each character gets an appropriate individual version of the theme music in their introductory scene.)

Another interesting phenomenon: because I am trying to write pretty close to formula for the first draft of this film, thinking about bad sports movies has been just if not more useful than thinking about good sports movies. Enough so that I can no longer figure out which category Cool Runnings falls in to.

Ooh! And because it's a woman's team, I get to name everyone after my ex-girlfriends.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Our Common Origin Porn

Finally, a new way to waste time on the internet.

Ready for the dorkiest story of all time? I was taking a What D&D Character Am I? survey that I stumbled on while looking through the Erfworld forums. Turns out I'm human, but I was almost a gnome. I wasn't super-clear on what a gnome was, I Googled, and I found an intriguing description at DnD wiki.

Then I went back to my survey results (Neutral Good Human Wizard 4th Level) and I saw that "Humans are the most adaptable of the common races," which I liked, and then (and this is where I am getting to the nut graf here) I thought "What does the WikiVerse think of humanity?"

Human at Wikipedia
Ugh. Who has time to read 26 screens on the one thing we all ought to know something about? I like that we are classified under "Ape-related articles."

Human at Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
What distinguishes humanity? They don't have any "dominant or noticeable bony ridges around their face."

Human at Wookiepedia
"The galaxy's most numerous and politically dominant sentient species with millions of major and minor colonies galaxywide."
Whoo humanity! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! That's how we do, son! None of this evolving second on our planet after some throw-away reptilians shit.

Human at Simple Wikipedia
Is it weird that I feel kind of condescended to by Simple Wiki?

Human at WikiFur
"This item may not be appropriate for WikiFur." Heh. It's weird how that Pioneer 11 plaque seems a bit more sinister in this context. Lots about conflict and being a persecuted minority.

Human at Guild Wars Wiki
I don't know what Guild Wars is, and reading this isn't helping.

Human at Encyclopedia Dramatica
"People are a species of smooth, smelly creatures who populate the earth and the internets." AE consistently entertains me more than anything else in the Wikiverse. It's like listening to a bunch of 12-year-old boys who are smart but everyone says they don't apply themselves, no one likes them and maybe you don't want your kids hanging out with them either because you're pretty sure they're anti-semites.

Human at Uncyclopedia
I think the problem with Uncyclopedia is the fundamental conflict of building consensus and being funny.

Human at Transformers Wiki (if you don't understand how there can be such a thing as a Transformers Wiki, read some Shortpacked!)
It's a little strange being compared unfavorably to a transformer. If being able to transform yourself in to a car is the norm, how can we possibly measure up?

Human at DnD, the Dungeon & Dragons Wiki
We are adaptable, ambitious and diverse. Also, we die off fast compared to everyone else, so stuff changes faster for humanity.

Human at WoWWiki
We are aggressive, inquisitive and resilient. My eyes always seem to start glazing over once I get to our origins, history and important individuals in whatever made-up war you've got there.

Human at TinWiki ("the first online encyclopedia dedicated exclusively to all the topics that inspire the authors to consider tin foil hats.")
TinWiki treats evolution and creationism with the same skepticism as it does intervention from extraterrestrials and migration to Earth from other planets.

Human at Conservapedia ("The Trustworthy Encyclopedia")
The shortest entry on this list. Talk a lot about God, mention some social sciences for good measure, and you're done.

Human at RationalWiki
Nevermind, SimpleWiki. This is definitely the most condescending Human entry in the Wikiverse.

Friday, March 20, 2009

ribble's Brief Foray in to the News Cycle

Everyone's accusing the Obama administration of being distracted (or trying to distract us) - by AIG bonuses (iTunes link), by Rush Limbaugh.

Can an entire administration BE distracted? I know those guys are short handed, but I'd like to think that there's one part of the administration that's working on AIG's $165M in bonuses and some different guys working on the $170,000M bailout.

Or, to address the other issue I mentioned, take a look at the transcript of Gibbs's March 2 White House Press Briefing. Gibbs answers maybe five questions on Limbaugh, but it's one of many issues that he addresses, most having to do with the economy.

Now, Gibbs has seen Frost/Nixon same as the rest of us. He understands that of the things he says in a daily briefing, maybe 20 seconds will get endless play on cable news.

But does that mean Gibbs is distracted? Or that he's distracting us? Or should we blame the media?

Is it that this is the most interesting thing that Gibbs said that day? Or is it simply what got the most attention - maybe some sort of media path dependence at work.

Obama / Leno

Stayed up late to watch Obama on Leno.

After watching hours of Sunday talk shows and like every episode of Planet Money, I kind of get the feeling that Leno's reaaally dumbing it down for me.

I mean, Obama's dumbing it down, too, but he's just doing it for Leno's audience.

Basically I am saying Jay Leno is dumb.

MSNBC report here.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Three One-Sided Rivalries

There's nothing wrong with a healthy rivalry, but when one side is an adversarial relationship that the other side doesn't even know about, that's not a rivalry — it's just dumb.

Dartmouth v. Harvard

My friend the Harvard guy tells this story: Dartmouth kids and Harvard kids camp across from each other in the woods on their respective Freshman trips. Dartmouth upperclassmen spend hours loudly teaching their 'shmen anti-Harvard fight songs. Harvard finally sends a freshman representative to the Dartmouth camp. "We're sorry, but all our songs are about Yale."

New Mex-Mex v. Tex-Mex

For the record, New Mex-Mex is very good, and certainly distinct from Tex-Mex (their enchiladas are flat, for goodness sake). It's just that Tex-Mex's real rivalry is with Mexican food. Or "Mex-Mex."

Brooklyn-Manhattan

BROOKLYN SAYS: Manhattan is for tools.
MANHATTAN SAYS: And where is Cobble Hill again?

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Bush's Cheney Impression

Watching Cheney on "State of the Union," thinking about this quote from David Brooks on NewsHour:

"And then the final thing I would say is, I think, in the last couple years, Bush understood the weaknesses of that and I think distanced himself from Cheney. You know, Bush does an impersonation of Cheney. And that began to surface a little more in the last couple years."

I would love (LOVE) to see Bush's Cheney impression. I'm running in to too much Google flack to do a proper search. Anyone who can help my search?

Republican Self-Destruction Watch

(Alternate title: GOP 2012 Where Are They Now?)

It is very easy for a president to be re-elected. His main advantage, as Bill Clinton famously put it (in a different context) before he handily defeated well-meaning erectile dysfunction sufferer Bob Dole: "The President is relevant." The President can command the global stage simply by opening his mouth. Tough to compete with that.

Like watching the Spurs win an easy game, there's a certain satisfaction to watching this play out. Specifically, there's something very enjoyable about watching the other team's potential candidates self-destruct.

The most satisfying Republican presidential candidate self-destructions so far:

Bobby Jindal
Rudy Giuliani (pull quote: "The more that Republican voters saw of him, the less they wanted to vote for him.")
George Allen

(I am sure I'll be updating this list.)

[June Update: Ensign
Sanford]
[July Update: Palin
Keep it coming, guys! Best party ever!]

The hardest self-destruction to watch is always the guy who wins the nomination. With the arguable exception of Gore, every general election loser hasn't been so much outmaneuvered as outmatched.

Sorry, other guy.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Information I Can Never Retain

Information I can never retain, no matter how many times I've tried to learn it.

Dance steps

The difference between whiskey, Scotch and Bourbon.

Your birthday.

The full Windsor.

Unit conversion of any kind.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Cramer-Stewart

I just watched the Jon Stewart - Jim Cramer interview, but I have not yet switched on CNN, so don't yet know the sound bites that will come to define this night of television. For what it's worth, then, here are what I think are the most damning sound bites for Cramer.

ONE
Cramer: I'm a commentator (...) I'm a guy trying to do an entertainment show about business for people to watch.

TWO
Cramer: I think that... that, your goal should always be to expose the fact that there is no easy money. I wish I'd found Madoff. I wish that...
Stewart: But there's literally shows called "Fast Money."
Cramer: I think there's people... there's a market for it and you give it to them...
Stewart: There's a market for cocaine and hookers!

THREE
Possibly a montage of Cramer saying "We were wrong."

After watching parts of the interview again I'm guessing it's going to be Stewart's quotes that get the most play. Stewart gave an unrelenting, articulate and (given that this is Jon Stewart) surprisingly mature indictment of CNBC last night, but what was most striking was his righteous anger. If you watch closely at the very end of the interview as it played on television, you can see that he's STILL angry.

UPDATE:
CNN report here. News reports seem to be generally focusing on Stewart saying "I know you're trying to be entertaining, but it's not a fucking game" and the inevitable Cramer apology montage.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Inside Baseball Infighting

Listening to a NewsHour report on Obama's anti-earmark policies and thinking about Clinton's first two years in office. Then, having a president and a congress from the same party did not lend itself to the sorts of legislative striving you may expect.

I think it fundamentally comes down to the fact that the President will always be in a fight with whomever is in charge of congress - it is in the nature of our lovely power-seperated multi-branch governmental system.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Things That Make Me Angry

Inspired by this post slash years of counseling.
Fox News in general
Former McCain campaign aids in particular
People who clip their nails on the subway
The drunk guy who stands behind you at the concert and narrates the whole thing to his girlfriend
People who bring children to movies and won't leave once the kid inevitably starts crying
Family
Short films from L.A.
Eye boogers

Last updated 3/6/09

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

How Liberals Watch Fox

The thing about Fox News is, nine out of ten things on it are just regular news - this happened, that happened. But the other one in ten things will be so infuriating that I simply will not be able to watch the other 90%.

The last time I watched Fox News was election night, and I wanted to call them out on something then, but I couldn't find it again until I saw Jon Stewart calling out Michelle Malkin for calling out Joe Biden.

Election night, Malkin was talking about this video of a visibly moved African-American woman, Peggy Joseph, talking to a reporter after an Obama rally in Florida.

Malkin's case, which you can read here if you're in to that sort of thing, was that this woman was saying that if Obama were elected, he would buy her gas and pay for her mortgage. Therefore liberals were all stealing commies, black people will take your money, etc.

But even in the brief clip Malkin showed, it was clear to me that Joseph was saying that if Obama were elected, he would help fix the country so Joseph would have the money to take care of these things herself.

Malkin was calling her "Peggy the Moocher." That's the sort of Fox News shit that really pisses me off.

Monday, March 02, 2009

BAM DELIVERS

I'm thinking about how Obama's first few months in office will compare to Bush's.

I remember before September of 2001 when it started to become clear that George Bush was going to govern like a very typical conservative despite the "compassionate conservative" rhetoric of his campaign. I'm talking about stuff like missile defense, "un-signing" treaties, ignoring the conflict in Israel like any true isolationist, social conservative stuff like gay marriage legislation - you know, the usual.

I'm not sure if anyone was surprised when this started, but I wasn't. If it weren't for 9/11, we would have seen plenty more of it.

Now, it's hard to hear the Midwest from Brooklyn over all the cheering, but I'm wondering if conservative are looking at the stuff Obama is doing and saying the same things I was saying when Bush started. Fact is, Obama is doing some of the things any liberal president would do - expanding climate control legislation, for example.

But if you missed the one news cycle when, say, Obama repealed the ban of federal funding for family planning organizations abroad, you can forgive yourself. Because most of the typical liberal stuff is being overshadowed by the huge, world-shifting stuff that Obama is also doing.

I would like to suggest a New York Post headline: BAM DELIVERS. Succeed or fail (and I'm sure we'll get some of each), Obama is making the big changes he promised. I think it's good news that he'll be judged on that, and not on the small stuff that this crisis has forced to the wayside.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Fear of Zombie Attack

I had to stop playing Fallout 3 because my zombie dreams were getting a lot worse than normal.

Now it's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I'm thinking about playing again. Having nightmares about a game is a good sign that I should stop playing.

My question is, what is the sign that is a good idea to start playing again?

Is it just that you don't think about zombies as much? Is it when you find yourself looking around your neighborhood picking out your post-apocalyptic sniper positions? Or is it like I'm saying "what's a good sign that you should start smoking again?"

Two Quick Notes on the Presidency

Obama also made a sort of off hand remark with Lehrer: that this was a time of great peril and great possibility, and naturally that's when you want to be president, but it would be nice if it weren't that every crisis was coming at him at once.

As I mentioned before, a president is really most effective in his first few years in office. Right now, big crises are letting Obama focus his agenda on the things that really matter, and the fact that they are all happening at once lets him move forward aggressively with a complete agenda.

I just want everyone to be prepared for Obama's second term when it seems like his main job is protecting his legacy from congressional meddling.

This is normal.

Note #2: I saw ribble's all-time favorite band They Might Be Giants live tonight. It reminded me of reading about Pres. Clinton's 50th, when Hillary got Bill's favorite band to do a concert for him at the White House.

Ever since I read that, I've wanted to be president just so I could get They Might Be Giants to do a private concert for me at the White House. This would have the advantage of my being the first person in like 30 years to request a song successfully during a TMBG set (they use a set list) and, second, my really freaking out the people who elected me with some new and surprising depths to my own dorkiness.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

A Small and Obscure Point About Something No One is Talking or Thinking About Any More

Is it possible the Joe the Plumber thing, and specifically the video of Joe speaking with then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, actually helped Obama to win the presidency?

I was thinking about this while watching David Brooks on last night's NewsHour. Brooks was talking about Obama's interview with Lehrer following Obama's S. Carolina announcement of a new troop drawdown in Iraq.

Brooks was talking about how Obama comes off, "as usual," as someone who takes his responsibilities seriously, someone you can have confidence in. It reminded me of how, at its heart, the full YouTube video of the Joe the Plumber encounter is an eloquent defense of Obama's tax plan made by Obama itself.

McCain was basically directing both voters who favored him and those who favored Obama towards a 6-minute video of Obama standing off stage and talking patiently, eloquently and frankly with a voter who obviously disagreed with him.

Lesson (for politicians): always be prepared to behave as if you are on camera in front of the entire nation because these days, you always are.

Lesson (for opposing politicians): if you're going to try to call your opponent out on something he said, try to make it a moment when he doesn't look so goddamn presidential.

Lesson (for the media): now you've got a new angle for the next time Joe Wurzelbacher makes the news.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

State of the Union-ish

Know how they say in Summer camp the days are long but the weeks are short? Well, like a pre-teen with an accelerated activity schedule, Obama has chosen to live life faster than the rest of us.

Case in point: Obama decided to move what looked a whole lot like his first state of the union address to tonight.

It's kinda a genius move. A president is always most effective in his first year in office (first two years if you're lucky). Besides, he's got friendly majorities in the House and Senate now; who knows how it will look in two years. He's already done in a month what most presidents would do in a year. Why not cram what should by all rights be four years of governing in to the next twelve months?

One thing he won't be doing is wasting time. Obama is helped here by so far having only problems that are so big and awful that they've been pounding us since before the end of the campaign. That means that a lot of the things he said tonight sounded like familiar promises from his campaign.

Unlike, say, the Clinton administration, which was very much a reactionary administration, and the Bush administration, which lead the federal government where it wanted to go despite what the actual problems were that the country needed to address, Obama here is both actively pushing forward on his agenda and addressing problems that the nation needs to deal with.

Someone on CNN is punditing now: "Look, if he's able to achieve even half of what he said, a lot of folks will pleased."

Yes, Obama is ambitious. Yes he's confident. We knew that when we hired him. So what we've got now is a smart, focused, ambitious guy who learns wicked fast and is pointing this country in exactly the direction it needs to go, just like he's always said he would.

It's perhaps a sign of how bad things have gotten, how challenging the obstacles that Obama will have to deal with, that my main thought is "let's wait and see how he'll do." We should be a lot more excited than this. But, for now, Obama is everything we could hope for.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Memo to Department Heads

Do to a change in technological circumstance and the diligent work of volunteers, I am now not only watching television in HD but also sitting much closer to my TV.

Quick heads up for HD TV show makeup departments: we can see the makeup now. You'd better either dial it down, or starts putting your guys on some sort of Kino-Flo-type innovation that accomplishes your all-important smoothing and blemish concealment without making it look like there's someone standing just behind the camera with a tray of powder and a pad.

Disinhibition Porn

Finally, a new way to waste time on the internet.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present: reviews of personal lubricants on drugstore.com.

Sample quote: "Feels ok once you get past the burning sensation."

PS: One more post about new ways to waste time on the internet, and I've got a series.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

How You Can Make $200 From the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Yesterday, President Obama signed in to law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the full text of which you can read here.

It is very long.

Now, I want my piece of the government's money same as anyone. However, I just bought some new novels, and my docket is a bit full at the moment. Plus, 900 page resolutions are just not suitable subway reading.

Here's what I propose: first person out there to read H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - the whole thing - and tell me how I, Richard, can make money off it: $200 dollar reward.

Bam! Two hundred smackers, in cash, right there in an envelope of your choice delivered to an address of your choosing. It's my little investment in our future.

Now, I am no stickler for protocol, but let me make clear on some ground rules. First, although you must read the whole bill, skimming is allowed. It's also ok if you've read H.R. 1 for some other enterprise (like you work in a senator's office) as long as it is the final version of the bill that you've read and not some previous incarnation.

However, for my $200 I am expecting some advice that is tailored to me. We'll talk it over as I verify that you've read the whole bill, but if you want a little guidance as you work your way through this thing, you should know these money making-relevant things about me:

First, I am not above starting my own business although I'm a bit lazy about running one. I would not be putting a world-changing amount of money in to this theoretical enterprise, but I do have what people refer to as "life savings."

Finally, I have only the mildest form of business training and only a few marketable skills (making movies, writing unreadably long essays about pop culture minutiae, etc.), none of which would qualify me to, say, build a new national power grid. However, you can assume that I am a clever and able-bodied American in the classic tradition.

Please leave your submissions in the comments section of this post. First to read the bill and sell me on how it can make me money is the winner!

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Notice to the Daily Show Re: Michael Steele

Guys,

I have just finished watching newly elected RNC Chairman Michael Steele's first This Week interview, and I am ready to say that it is time to stop making fun of Michael Steele for being a black Republican and time to start making fun of him for some of the stupid shit he has said.

Steele spent several excruciating minutes explaining why creating "work" had nothing to do with creating "jobs." The distinction being that "work" created by the government only lasted until the end of a contract, whereas "jobs" created by small businesses, like the millions lost so far: "When they go - they've gone away before, and they come back."

If that makes sense to you, you are either thinking too hard or not hard enough.

Steele then went on to slam Pell grant allocations as having no effect on the job you lose today. When George Stephanopoulos asked him if he Steele would agree that a school construction component of the bill would create jobs, Steele said Sure, short term construction jobs, if that's all you're after.

If he's interested in creating a stronger economy in the long term, why not help train the American work force to create them? And if he's interested in short-term jobs, why not let small businesses have a few government contracts until banks start lending again?

It's funny that America's historically most racist major party elected a black man their chair [at 1:36] two weeks after the Obama took office, but, trust me - listen to this Steele guy. What he's saying is a lot funnier than the color of his skin.

Sincerely,
ribble's

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Post-Anticipation Post-Bush

Just before the inauguration, everybody on every television news show was giving his analysis of the failings of the Bush administration. Everybody, even hard-core Republicans, was able to come up with something, but most people had a very long list. Of course, it would take a book-length treatise to detail all the failings of the Bush administration, and several have already been published.

Now we've got this new guy, and there's been a shift in tone. Where previous reports tried to list the failings of the Bush administration, the news since the inauguration has been much more effective by characterizing it. The results have been bone-chilling.

For the record, then, if you want to understand the true legacy of the Bush administration without wading through Fiasco and Scott McClellan, take a look at Clinton's liberation of our foreign policy apparatus (beginning at 2:41), this New York Times article about American science's Bush hangover, and This American Life's podcast entitled The Audacity of Government (it's from 2008, but you'll see what I mean.)

Real News Disorientation Syndrome

I watch the NewsHour on Fridays, and it's always a little disorienting to do that after a cable news-heavy week like this one.

Unlike most American news programs, when the NewsHour plays a clip of a politician speaking, they play a full clip. Most American television news programs play less than a single sentence - a sound bite.

The shift always leaves me a little mixed up - I keep anticipating the end of a clip, but the politician always ends up talking longer than I anticipate.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

It's Times Like This I Really Miss Peter Jennings

If there is a heaven and I am lucky enough to be able to go, the first guy I am looking up is Peter Jennings.

Watching this occasion from here in media market #1 has really made me miss his straight-forwardness, his ability to contextualize a story, and his good reporting in the old school where the facts came before the spin, if the spin was even allowed to make an appearance at all.

I don't just want to see Peter Jennings in heaven because I miss seeing him on TV. I feel like Peter Jennings is the kind of guy who would know a lot about heaven and would have no problem filling me in - how it works, what the important institutions are, what kind of controversies God has involved with lately, and where to go for the best stories, food and cigarettes.

I hope that Peter is up there right now with Ed Murrow, just clownin' on Tom Brokaw.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Shimon Peres on Gaza

I just started watching George Stephanopoulos interviewing Israeli President Simon Peres on This Week.

Usually I half-watch this show until the roundtable in a lazy Sunday sort of way, but Peres is an engaging interview, and by engaging, I mean bone-chilling.

The nice thing about American press interviews with foreign leaders versus, say, American press interviews with ranking Senate Republicans is that foreign leaders do not have the same level of constant, institutional preparation for the American media, and so are less likely to be rehearsed, carefully-crafted talking points aimed at an American constituency.

It's always a little jarring at first. You can see the same thing in Roger and Me, when Michael Moore is interviewing GM managers about plant closings. These guys talk about capitalism in some pretty stark terms - their message is basically "yeah, we're costing Michigan tens of thousands of jobs, it's in our own self-interest to do that and so you can't hold it against us."

This is back in 1989, before Moore was a genre, and, from a modern perspective, these stuffed shirts don't seem cruel so much as naive. I'm sure the people making the decision about American plant closings are thinking about them in pretty much the same way now as then - but they sure aren't talking about it like that.

By modern standards, Peres gives us a pretty sharp look in to his soul.

Peres's main point on This Week is "we're not going to stop shooting at them until they stop shooting at us," which may sound reasonable until you realize that if the other guys are thinking the same way, then, logically, the shooting will never stop.

But it's not so much what he says as how he says it. Know how I said Indians and Pakistanis were basically the same people and would probably get along if they just stopped with all the posturing and brinksmanship? Not so much with Israelis and Palestinians.

That's why you can see something in Peres that no media-savvy American leader would allow himself on T.V. (unless he thought he only needed to talk to his base) - you can see hate. And that's why there won't be peace in the Middle East in His lifetime.