Broken Record

This Broken Record TV ad from the DNC is the best one I've seen this season, so far. It uses Bush's own canned phrases to damn himself, and hammers away with visual effectiveness. We need more ads like this: stark, fact-based, hard hitting visual communication.

For Kerry to succeed, he's going to need to counterpunch with relentless precision and keep slugging away at the body. Bush has already gone nuclear (or should I say "nukeular"), and the boatniks ads are just the beginning. I would expect to see the accusations heat up in Sept. and Oct. (Kerry as traitor, Kerry as Frenchman, Kerry as unAmerican, Kerry as weakling, Kerry as Frankenstein.). Somewhere I heard that Kerry has been strategically holding fire on the ad buys in August to save money, while Bush has had this extra month up to his convention to spend from his warchest, which probably explains the tightening poll numbers as much as anything. I have a feeling the Democrats are thinking the whole race through much more clearly than in previous losing campaigns, but that's more a hope than anything else. They usually find a way to f*ck up. And despite all this, the race will likely be close enough for the Republican machine to steal it anyway, and it won't just be in Florida this time. Keep your hawkeye peeled on the battleground states.

Garrison takes the gloves off

We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore: Garrison Keillor, gentle don of the middle west, blasts with fury against the current crop of Republicans. Behold what has become of your party, my Republican friends. In 1980 you made a Faustian bargain w/ Reagan and his cadre of Christian crusaders and trickledown moneychangers. Now we see the 20 year byproduct: moral corruption, unabashed greed, cronyism, hate mongering, fear mongering, preemptive and perpetual wars, chickenhawk chest thumping, finger pointing, and lying in the face of overwhelming truth. Conservatives of good conscience ought to be embarrassed.

Call of the Mall

In this Radio Times interview (real audio stream), Paco Underhill, author of Call of the Mall and Why We Shop talks about mall design, retail anthropology, shopping behavior, and trends in retail design -- in short, deconstructing the experience of shopping.

Arcadian fantasies

In a dream the other night, I was working at my college, but the campus didn't look anything like the real place. It was located in the same city, but this dreamland place was a nice Euro-style city situated on a placid small river. The dormitories and classroom buildings were clean, smart, modern, sort of like upscale IKEA -- placidly looking over the riverside parks, the paths and walking bridges. People were tossing frisbees and looking smart. Students were smiling. Moms and Dads pushing baby strollers. Old folks on benches engaged in wise conversation. Happy dogs wagging tails... Very idyllic, and absolutely nothing in common with the real world. The city where I work is possibly the poorest, most dangerous place in Pennsylvania. It's the ass end of our commonwealth. Freud said all dreams were wish fulfillments. I don't think that's categorically true, but this noctural fantasy certainly qualifies.

In academic dreamland, the students are friendly and pay attention, the teachers are dedicated and electrifying, even the sanitation workers have genuine smiles. Everyone is beautiful and healthy. Republican administrations are a dim memory. The terrorists have picked up their bombs and gone home. Cars and buses run on clean energy. The trains are filled with happy urbanites and they run on time. The skies are a little bluer, the clouds puffier, the rain softer.

Stuff is breaking around me

So on Monday, I woke up, padded to the kitchen, let the dog out, and stared at the backyard. Hmm. Something about the car parked in the back alley didn't look right. An angle of difference. I took a closer look. The left front tire was nearly flat. Slow leak? I rushed to the nearest gas station, pumped the tire up to 44 psi and rushed back before my wife had to leave for a morning seminar. By afternoon the bathtub faucet knob broke for the third time. My daughter's wireless Internet card no longer connects to the router. I stubbed my small toe the night before and it hurts, especially with shoes on. And the borough forgot to remind us to pay for a new annual parking sticker.

These things, I have found, come in waves or bunches, and they never come at a convenient time.

I was just getting into last minute panic mode because the semester is on the verge of launching, and then this stuff falls apart all around us: I'm fidgeting, waiting for sh*t to break, trying not to draw mental conclusions.

Tuesday became a fixit day: bathtub knob is ON and WORKS. Tire is holding onto its air. Next up...oil change! I ran ethernet cable to my daughter's computer, plugged an ethernet card in there and removed the wireless card. I delicately drove nails in the wood trim to keep the cable tidy. Then I fixed her mail program. I also got a new parking sticker for the Saturn. I'm filling out benefit forms, trying to remember where I left my social security card, where I wrote down my daughter's SSN. I cleaned some old clothes from my closet. And I fixed my hair -- got a haircut. And, determined to exert some manly control over my curly locks, I discussed sundry products with the hairdresser: mousse, gel, pastes, and pomades.

Just another day in paradise.

Not too swift

The New York Times story today Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad takes you inside a smear campaign. It's good to see reporters following the money and trying to verify claims. I suspect there is more to be found. This is a good start. These swift boat malcontents aren't that swift after all. It's a shame how the righteous right continues pitting veteran against veteran, opening up old wounds for political advantage. They must be really scared of losing to be descending this low so early in the fall campaign.

Cruel and Unusual

Mark Crispin Miller's new book
Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order is a great critique of the Bush administration's dangerous turn to the right and the mass media's failure to function as an independent fourth estate. Miller's well documented accumulation of evidence piles up and gathers force to support his thesis that Bush represents a faction of the right wing dedicated to tearing down the traditional libertarian civil society as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson and replacing it with a theocratic government based on Biblical law. Sound farfetched and paranoid? Perhaps. Now read the book and decide for yourself. A few highlights are worth mentioning: a review of how the media "took down" UN inspector Scott Ritter, the frank critic of Bush policies towards Iraq; an astonishing explanation of why the rabid right demonized Bill Clinton, and for my money, the best analysis of how the right wing propaganda empire projects evil on its enemies. Psychological projection really helps to explain the phenomenon of bullies like Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and angry white dittoheads. Miller builds his case steadily, leading up to his final argument about the the theocratic aims of the religious right, who view the world through Manichean, apocolyptic lenses. Chilling, disturbing and outrageous.

He Oughta Know

In the Washington Monthly, media mogul Ted Turner explains why consolidation is a bad thing, and how the government rolls over to the demands of the giant media conglomerates. If I teach Mass Media again, the students will be reading this one for sure. Turner isn't some pot-shot taking left-wing ranter; he's been a huge part of the mass media, up and down the food chain, so when he says something like the following quote, I tend to trust him:

Unless we have a climate that will allow more independent media companies to survive, a dangerously high percentage of what we see--and what we don't see--will be shaped by the profit motives and political interests of large, publicly traded conglomerates. The economy will suffer, and so will the quality of our public life. Let me be clear: As a business proposition, consolidation makes sense. The moguls behind the mergers are acting in their corporate interests and playing by the rules. We just shouldn't have those rules. They make sense for a corporation. But for a society, it's like over-fishing the oceans. When the independent businesses are gone, where will the new ideas come from? We have to do more than keep media giants from growing larger; they're already too big. We need a new set of rules that will break these huge companies to pieces.

To sign on the line which is dotted....

In the spirit of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, Kirsten Silencia observes how shady selling techniques aren't just restricted to the real estate biz -- investment brokers are capable of the "hard sell" too. Who would have imagined? Always Be Closing, you c*cksuckers!

I think they're pullin' my lever

Note these recommendations from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission: the Help America Vote Act is underfunded and can't fulfill its requirements to establish voting equipment guidelines and maintain a national testing program for voting systems. Typical Bush moves apparent here. Create a nice sounding commission and laws, then drag your feet and starve them of the funding they need to do their job. Leave no vote left behind? Hah!

It's a Brave New World, baby

Full text of Huxley's Brave New World available online at somaweb.org.

Can money buy happiness?

Give me some and I'll let you know! But first check out what Robert Frank has to say on the subject in Daedalus in their special "happiness" issue. See also Darrin McMahon's free download article: From the happiness of virtue to the virtue of happiness: 400 b.c.– a.d.1780.

The right-wing media flush society

Longish 2003 piece by David Neiwert about Limbaugh, Newspeak, and fascism. Good background info on right-wing extremism and how extremist ideas get mediated by Limbaugh and Drudge types, who feed this repackaged sludge into the larger media pipelines. Depressing but mostly true.

Do You Remember Who Was Right and Who Was Wrong?

Remember how the much maligned UN inspector dude Scott Ritter turned out to be proven right on his pre-war claims about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction? Perhaps the media would be wise to pay attention to him this time around. Here he predicts the flourishing of the Iraqi insurgency and the hopeless failure of U.S. "stay the course" policy.

Reason to Celebrate?

Good introduction and backgrounder to Disney's 'Stepford utopia' experiment: Celebration Florida, including stuff about EPCOT.

Blackbox Voting

Count 'em up: Bev Harris, average American, independently researched the brave new world of so-called infallible electronic voting technology. Her findings will make you paranoid. Blog plus book to download. Interesting how citizens are capable of doing the kind of investigative journalism that the professional journalist class should be doing. One wonders what a well funded newspaper or research organization could come up with, if they only tried. You may call me a dreamer...

Mickey Mouse Utopia

A 1999 reviewof the book Celebration U.S.A, an examination of the infamous master planned Stepford community founded by Disney.