Pop!

In the context of all the controversy over the President's upcoming address to the nation's schoolchildren, Lonely Sandwich reflected on Channel One, the classroom television program that delivers the daily news and feature stories, always punctuated by commercials aimed at a captive and impressionable audience.

I taught at a Channel One high school for two years in the Bronx and wanted to share my perspective with you.

When I first joined the school and heard they used Channel One, I was pissed and was bothered that it would interrupt my curriculum with the kids. For the first few weeks, I tried to ignore it and wouldn't bother turning the TV on during the ordained time, usually to much protestation and clamor (when the kids remembered).

But eventually I tried to be more productive in my approach to it, and I settled on the following, which I think many teachers (who care) have some equivalent of:

1. Don't let the kids talk during the news programming.
2. Do let the kids talk during the commercials.
3. Set the expectation that there may be a brief quiz on the news afterward. (Do it regularly enough so they expect it.)
4. Occasionally spend an extra 10 minutes or so discussing the stories presented.

I was teaching during the early days of the Iraq War, so there was plenty to talk about. While Channel One's means of delivery is entirely suspect and arguably corrupt, the quality of the programming is quite good. They know their audience well, and they also know how to do real reporting.

One segment that sticks out in my mind is when they sent their own reporters to the no-man's-land between North Korea and China, and visited camps where severely impoverished North Koreans sneak over to the Chinese side to scavenge for food and goods. This was 5 years ago, and I still remember the piece vividly. (Not sure if the kids do. :-) )

On a couple of occasions early on, I tried to engage my kids in a discussion about the ethics of Channel One, their being a captive audience to the commercials, and so on. This was early in my teaching career and I didn't really know what I was doing teaching-wise yet, and/so/but the conversation never got off the ground: the kids had literally no idea what I was talking about or why it was something I thought they should possibly be concerned about. Their frames of reference were, for the most part, entirely different, and I was unsuccessful in changing that in that would-be dialogue.

Later on, I had a much more successful conversation with them about biases in the media, and I got them talking about the impact that, for example, an oil company advertising in the newspaper could have on the stories about the oil industry in that newspaper. I can't quite remember, but I think I turned this into something like, "So what if Channel One was running ads about video games, and then ran a story about how video games are good for kids?" I can't recall the specifics, but I do remember being happy when the kids began understanding and discussing the concept of media bias.

Anyway, Channel One is something I thought a lot about during the time I was teaching, and talked about with the other teachers, some of whom cared, many of whom didn't. In short, I feel that if framed properly by the teacher, it can be an effective way of engaging the kids in current events.

All of that said, I entirely agree with Sandwich's implicit point on the idiocy/hypocrisy that allows something like Channel One to go on every day in thousands of schools across the country without objection, and yet when the President of the United States has something to say to these same kids, it is cause for hysteria.

Posted by ADM at 2:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's Ari Fleischer, doing the rounds:

"I think that as his administration went on he became unpopular, he became increasingly chastened," Fleischer continued. "He became increasingly less, in his rhetoric, where he used to talk about 'wanted dead or alive' tough guy talk, he started toning that down and out substantially. It was too late by then and it was because of the facts on the ground not because of the rhetoric he was using."

Fleischer also offered some advice for President Obama, but counsel that sounds like what got his former boss in trouble.

"The most important thing in public life is to stand by your principles and act on them. This is what attracts people to you. Because you might be right, you might be wrong. Nobody is smart enough to really know. But if people think you are sincere, it comes from your heart people will back you up. That's why George Bush won in 2004."

Actually, that's NOT the most important thing. If you are president, the most important thing is defending the nation and upholding the Constitution. One's own "principles" should be sacrificed accordingly. It's disheartening that neither Bush nor Fleischer understand this, despite spending 8 years engineering and observing the consequences of wrecking our country and ignoring the Constitution.

Even more disheartening than that, though, is Fleischer's implication that "the most important thing in public life" is politics, not service. That explains a lot.

Posted by ADM at 8:23 PM | Permalink

I thought the episode reflected the confidence that Matthew Weiner earned in the off-season. The cinematography and editing were a lot bolder than last season. A few sequences were like The Sopranos in their boldness but, perhaps, a bit too bold.

Thematically, I thought the episode lost its way by almost hounding on some themes that had been handled much more subtly last season. (You ever hear those Soderbergh director's commentaries where he says he was worried something was "too on-the-nose"? I felt a lot of this episode was "on the nose.")

Weiner said in his big NYT profile that he didn't want his show to be like a TV show, but I thought the season premiere was very much like a TV show in terms of its lack of subtlety and willingness to shoehorn dialog into its thematic ambitions. For instance, Weiner tries to replicate his brilliant "Carousel" monologue with a similar bit about Mohawk Airlines. But the sequence doesn't quite work -- Weiner rushed into it without laying the groundwork. That scene would have fit in much better a few episodes from now. Mad Men works because of the tension under the surface. When the tension is brought too far above the suface, as it was in this episode, it doesn't resonate as deeply. (The ep was also very much like Far from Heaven, that Julianne Moore/Dennis Haysbert period piece that people couldn't shut up about a few years ago, although this episode, at least, was less deft.)

I think when Weiner settles down, the show's "on the nose" aspects will diminish. That said, the themes that he set up last season and is bringing to the fore this season -- primarily, the impending chaos of the middle- and late-1960s -- seem like fertile ground. I liked the scenes that show Draper not just disconcerted by the forces of chaos and hipsterism, but completely impotent against them: the elevator scene where he feebly removes the guy's hat, the scene in the bar where he lacks a retort, and so on. These strip away Draper's heroic affect and show him to be the cog in the machine that he is.

We see Betty going in a different direction. Rather than be repulsed by the chaos bubbling up from underneath, she is drawn to it. The emptiness she feels amidst the status quo is replaced by excitement as she begins to understand, maybe sub-consciously, the possibility of escape from her emotional coma. I thought the show chickened out a little in the scene with the tow truck driver, though. There was not enough threat or heat...The buzzing she would have felt in her head was not transferred to the audience strongly enough.

But, the episode did more firmly establish the unavoidable themes presented in the second half of last season. Let's hope, though, it's not week after week of more of the same. In other words: More plot, please!

Posted by ADM at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And that's what this album is about. It's like, "Guess what: I came from the fucking mud hut and I got here and I'm here and I did it in 15 fucking years flat." [source]

M.I.A. doesn't belong to you. She belongs to everyone except you. Do you see it? Look closer:

This video of M.I.A. performing live in what looks like a sub-basement at MTV is pretty much the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. Watch it in full-screen.

We -- all of us in New York, LA, the middle class, the United States of America, Europe, the industrialized world -- are obsolete now. We just need to drop a giant bomb on ourselves and get out of her way. Look at what she is doing. We don't matter anymore, even if we're too arrogant to admit it.

Don't believe me? Take another look at this:

Do you see it? That right there is the aesthetic of the 21st century. And guess what...it doesn't belong to us.

I've been wondering for a long time what post-post-modernism would look like. This is it. We can all stay home now: there is nothing more for us to say.

Posted by ADM at 12:59 AM | Permalink

The annual Style issue of Vanity Fair is out, and loaded with ads, including this awful one from Hilfiger. Who is the target audience there? Who would want to hang out with those idiots and their Hilfiger fishing suits?

In the same issue, there is a great spread from Ports 1961, a brand I never took notice of before seeing their minimalist but striking ads. I asked them to send me their photos, and if they do, I'll post them here.

Posted by ADM at 1:15 PM | Permalink

From today's NYT article about how Congress accidentally gave the President even more warrantless surveillance authority than they thought he asked for:

Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess [More like during the last six years -ADM] as being soft on terrorism.

Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, "is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president's Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence."

So our cowardly Congress has reduced itself to an "advisory" role and they're afraid to take a stand because they don't want to look soft on terrorism.

Posted by ADM at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are some illustrations from The Modern Sex Manual by Edward Podolsky, MD. The book, published in 1942, employs a conversational "Q&A" style to discuss the sorts of things people wanted to know back then, but were afraid to ask. For instance:

Does masturbation have anything to do with dulling sexual feeling during intercourse?

Yes. Masturbation, if it has been indulged in excessively before marriage maybe be a cause of lack of orgasm during coitus. In women, masturbation brings into play abnormal channels of nerve stimulation, and as these are not stimulated during the normal act, the woman fails to achieve and orgasm. In most cases if masturbation is dropped completely and normal sexual activity substituted for it, the normal channels of nerve stimulation will in time bring about a normal enjoyment of the act.

Well, okay, Doc, if you say a clitoris is an "abnormal channel of nerve stimulation," that's good enough for me. Hands off, ladies!

Of the seven illustrations I've scanned in, the most elaborate is this detailed infographic that shows how to use the rhythm method, which is shaded to show how clean and fertile you are according to "Jewish or Mosaic code" and the "Ogino-Knaus" rules for intercouse.

Other illustrations show everything from how blowing some oxygen through a woman's fallopian tubes can clear up sterility issues, and how a bifurcated penis might interfere with "successful intercourse."

Posted by ADM at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was reading a post on TV Newser today when I noticed a peculiar advertisement:

It advertises MediaBistro's $15 video "course" on how to use Wikipedia to raise your media profile. The preview video raises the specter of the Seigenthaler controversy, and offers to "explain what Wikipedia is, how it works, and how people and businesses can increase and influence an identity on it" [emph added] and describes three "rewards of being on Wikipedia":

• Lends credibility
• Maintains public awareness
• Put forth clear and factual information

Setting aside the debatable parts of points 1 and 3, let's continue. The course synopsis says:

It's only a matter of time before you or your business finds its way onto Wikipedia's pages. But what approach should you take toward creating or developing these pages? Are you allowed to influence your own Wikipedia presence?

Well, that's a great question. The point of the video seems to be that you can influence your own Wikipedia presence. Although the preview is to brief to identify the precise methods endorsed, the instructor says, in regards to the Seigenthaler controversy, "with a little bit of foresight and effort, this does not have to happen to you."

The instructor in the video is identified as Manoush Zomorodi, a voice-over talent, former reporter for the BBC, and media consultant for Hardy Robin Media, which claims to be "a consultancy that specializes in media training and new media strategy."

I think if Hardy Robin Media were such an expert on Wikipedia and new media strategy, they would know that manipulating Wikipedia for purposes of public relations is widely considered unethical and is strongly discouraged, and that those who have been caught editing their own entries (including Microsoft, David Pogue (allegedly), Adam Curry, and even Jimbo Wales himself) have paid a price for getting caught with their hand in that particular cookie jar.

MediaBistro should also know better than to offer courses that skirt ethical guidelines like this one does. It undermines its own credibility.

Posted by ADM at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Next time you are wondering how terrorists rationalize the killing of innocent civilians, have a look at this quote from a Marine who is a witness at a murder trial for a fellow soldier who shot an unarmed, 52-year-old Iraqi at point-blank range:

"I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy."

He said Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency. [source]

Posted by ADM at 8:28 AM | Permalink

Update: I had to remove the file because I exceed my generous bandwidth limit. Sorry. See if you can find it at Google Video or The Pirate Bay instead.

First things first:

Download Sicko [722 MB]

(Watch it with the great, free, open source video player VLC or with Google Video Player.)

As you probably heard, the new Michael Moore movie Sicko leaked onto the internet last week. It was even available for download on Google Video until late Monday.

Moore has gone on the record before saying he didn't have a problem with people distributing his film through non-traditional channels, as long as they weren't profiting from it. He repeated this sentiment the other day in several interviews. To wit:

Separately, Moore said he would not prosecute those already circulating bootleg copies of the still-unreleased documentary on the Internet. "I'm happy for people to see my movie. I'm not a big fan of the copyright laws in this country," he said.

Because Sicko is good, and raises points that should not go unanswered, I am making the film available to be downloaded. Please host the movie on your site, too, if you are able. I have only limited resources, and I don't want to piss off my amazing host, Dreamhost. (Also, if the Weinsteins ask me to take it down, I will, but I hope they understand that everyone is better served by letting the movie generate word of mouth ahead of its release.)

If you link to this, please link to this post and not directly to the downloadable file. If you mirror it, please post a link in the comments. If you watch it, please consider giving some money to a decent related charity or action group.

ps. I've watched the film, and although I think it runs a little long, I can say that every American should watch this movie and ask themselves, and their elected officials, where we went wrong and what we can do to fix it.

Posted by ADM at 2:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)