She just went up a couple of notches in my book…
What’s funny is that she totally pwns McCain.
Seriously, Senator McCain. When Paris Hilton articulates an energy policy as a joke which is more substantive than yours, it’s time to bow out.
McCain Enters Wife In “Topless” Beauty Pageant
Here’s a video of John McCain saying he encouraged his wife to compete for the title of "Miss Buffalo Chip":
Maybe he didn’t know that the event was topless. It’s kind of hard to believe that he would offer his wife, even as a joke, for something like that. But that says a lot about McCain. He’s trying to put himself out there as the biker’s best friend, but the truth is that he’s a $520-shoe wearing elitist. He’s got nothing more in common with the Harley-riding bike ralliers and he knows it. I mean, there’s pandering and then there’s humiliation. This, I think, comes close to the second category.
Megan Carpentier at Jezebel thinks McCain knew full well what the "pageant" was about, but just has a "woman problem":
He didn’t do it just because she’s pretty or has an enviable body for a 54-year-old woman or because he’s proud of his wife’s brand of socialite beauty. He did it to pander to the crowd’s idea of appropriate masculinity, and that apparently includes over-sexualizing your wife and the mother of your children for the amusement of a few people in a crowd. McCain offered up the thought of his wife objectifying herself for the sexual gratification of others (at his suggestion) in order to get a couple of chuckles, inspire some male fantasy and make a few "friends." Fun!
And you might say that John McCain didn’t think of it as an objectification ritual, or that he didn’t know that it involved nudity and displays of stimulated sex acts or whatever. Well, then, why wasn’t he offering to get his very pretty daughter Meghan up on stage? Suggesting a 24-year-old woman participate in a just-a-beauty pageant wouldn’t be so outside the the norm, if he thought it would be just a beauty pageant. But he knew that it wasn’t, and he doesn’t think of his daughter in that way and wouldn’t in a million years as a father suggest or even intimate that his daughter should get on stage and flash her breasts, ass and (potentially) her external genitalia at a group of strange men for admiration, money or votes.
Ok. That’s plausible, too.
Ironic Headline Juxtoposition Alert
In this corner…. Bush: China must end detentions, ensure freedoms
In the other corner…. Pentagon: U.S. will still detain Hamdan even if he is acquitted
(The next sound you hear will be my head hitting the table….)
Smell A Rat?
Alice Rocchio lives in Flushing, Queens, a modest blue-collar suburb, with her husband, Pasquale. She works as an office manager in Manhatten; He’s an Amtrak foreman.
They rent their home. They drive a 2003 Buick and a 1993 Chevrolet. The average income for their zip code is $58,069.
Nothing unusual so far, huh?
But what if I told you that the couple contributed $61,600 to the McCain campaign this year, the maximum amount allowable by law?
A little curious, you must admit. How can a middle class couple afford to contribute that much?
Now what if I told you that neither one of them has contributed to any federal political campaign before… ever?
Okay. Still a little curious.
NOW…. what if I told you that Alice Rocchio is an office manager for Hess Corporation and they donated most of that money on June 24, the same day that eight other high-level Hess execs and family members (including CEO John Hess and his wife) each shelled out the same amount at a fundraiser?
Oh, and June 24? That was a few days after McCain reversed his position on offshore drilling.
Hmmmmm….
Now, there’s nothing wrong with oil executives giving money to the oil-friendly McCain campaign. But you can’t legally give money to someone else to give to a political campaign as a way to circumvent legal contribution limits.
Anyway, TPM blogger Greg Sargant contacted Mrs. Rocchio, who denies any wrongdoing:
I just reached Ms Rocchio and she insisted adamantly that the contributions were theirs.
"It was my option to give," she told me. "This is my favorite candidate…I fully acknowledge that [the donation] was done by myself personally, my own doing." She added that the same went for her husband.
When I pointed out that the Rocchios’ job titles seemed to jar a bit with the size of their donations, Ms. Rocchio said that no one could guess the real income levels of other people.
"No one knows what someone’s income taxes say," she told me.
Ms. Rocchio declined to say whether the contributions had been bundled by another Hess employee or who bundled them.
Okay. Stick with that story. It’s true… we don’t know what the Rocchio income is. But keep in mind….
A former FEC official said that it’s possible that the Rocchios had the means to make those hefty contributions — their first reported donations to a federal campaign. But the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that their donations also could trigger a complaint or otherwise catch the eyes of the agency’s enforcement staff, tasked to ensure that companies or wealthy individuals don’t illegally circumvent contribution limits by using employees or other third parties as "conduits” for cash.
My guess? She got "her" money from her boss with an implicit (wink, wink) understanding that it should be donated. I think the FEC is going to look into this one…..
*** UPDATE *** WaPo reports on some other possible fundraising shennanigans by Mr. Campaign Finance Reform
Mostly Male
Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 37%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 63%
That’s me.
It comes from a place on the Internet which reads your browsing history, and determines whether you are a man or a woman.
Thank God I’ve made a few visits to mlb.com…..
I Think It’s Safe To Say Obama Won The “Tire Gauge” Battle
Obama, yesterday, in Berea, Ohio:
"Let me make a point about efficiency, because my Republican opponents – they don’t like to talk about efficiency…"
"You know the other day I was in a town hall meeting and I laid out my plans for investing $15 billion a year in energy efficient cars and a new electricity grid and somebody said, ‘well, what can I do? what can individuals do?’
"So I told them something simple… I said, ‘You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels and that if everybody in America inflated their tires to the proper level, we would actually probably save more oil than all the oil we’d get from John McCain drilling right below his feet there, or wherever he was going to drill.’
"So now the Republicans are going around – this is the kind of thing they do. I don’t understand it! They’re going around, they’re sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is ‘Barack Obama’s energy plan.’
"Now two points, one, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.
"You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework. Because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference."
(Emphasis mine)
McCain, later yesterday:
The surprise came during a telephone town hall meeting McCain held on Tuesday with voters in Pennsylvania.
“Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it,” McCain said.
So, to sum up, the McCain campain spent several days mocking Obama for a common-sensical answer to a question about "what we as individuals can do, right now, to help with the energy crisis", and then, after days of mocking Obama, agreed that Obama’s was actually correct and followed the advice of energy experts.
*******
Good analysis from Jonathan Singer:
The McCain campaign appears intent on trying to win the daily media battles — even to the bane of crafting a broader narrative on what their campaign is about, what their candidate stands for, and what type of President he would be. I’ve always thought this to be a risky strategy; as much as the daily ups and downs affect the ultimate outcome, in the end voters decide on the feelings they have on a candidate, which stem not only from the back and forth but even more from events like the debates and the conventions.
But it is a tremendously risky strategy when the meme starts to take hold that a candidate will say anything — even things that he distances himself from just days later — to get elected. We’ve already seen this from McCain, who has changed his position on almost every single major (and even minor) issue facing the country, and whose campaign has been forced to walk back criticisms of Obama (think the visit to the military base in Germany or the claims about Obama’s tax plan that were exposed as wholly false). Now McCain is being forced to back away from yet another claim, again feeding the story line that he will say anything (even claims he must walk back just days later) to become President. And as this meme takes hold, it gets that much more difficult for McCain to claw his way to the White House.
(Emphasis mine).
And indeed, it’s true. I’ve picked up a new theme in the bowels of the lefty blogosphere: "McCain doesn’t speak for the McCain campaign". That’s probably true, and should be repeated often. It seems that McCain’s campaign is dead set on positioning McCain in ridiculous positions, mocking Obama, and then McCain walks back a few days later.
Maybe this is intentional. It’s a way of smearing Obama without having McCain smear Obama. But if that’s the case, it’s not destined to work. After all, few people are going to distinguish between the McCain campaign and McCain himself, especially when he uses attack ads that end with "I’m John McCain, and I approved this message". It also is going to raise questions about the kind of leader McCain will make — I mean, if it appears that he cannot control the message being propogated by his campaign staff, then how can he lead a country?
*** UPDATE *** Obama is taking advantage.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday taunted Republican candidate John McCain for agreeing on the importance of keeping tires inflated as an energy-conservation measure after having joined the GOP in mocking the idea.
“It will be interesting to watch this debate between John McCain and John McCain,” Obama said as he campaigned in Indiana with Sen. Evan Bayh, widely considered a top-tier candidate for running mate.
Mark Your Calendars — Just Released
First presidential debate
Friday, September 26
The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
Jim Lehrer
Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS
Vice presidential debate
Thursday, October 2
Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
Gwen Ifill
Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, and Moderator and Managing Editor,
Washington Week, PBS
Second presidential debate (town meeting)
Tuesday, October 7
Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn.
Tom Brokaw
Special Correspondent, NBC News
Third presidential debate
Wednesday, October 15
Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
Bob Schieffer
CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, and Host, Face the Nation
This Tire Gauge Thing Depresses Me
To summarize, Obama mentioned to voters in Missouri that there are things individuals can do to help conserve energy, including bringing their cars in for regular tune ups, and keeping their tires properly inflated. He added that the amount of energy to be saved by routine auto maintenance is comparable to the savings we’d get from the GOP’s coastal drilling policy.
Unhinged conservatives everywhere, including McCain himself, began to argue that keeping tires inflated was the sum total of Obama’s energy policy. "Hahahaha, what an idiot!" they cry. "Obama thinks we can cure our energy problem and dependance on foreign oil merely by keeping our tires inflated?"
Well, no, morons. What Obama said isn’t particularly difficult or nuanced. He said there that keeping tires inflated is one of the many low-cost and easy things that we can, and should, be doing. To say that it is the sum of his entire energy plan is, of course, insane.
Then, to a lesser extent, some on the right argued that Obama had exaggerated the potential efficiency benefits associated with tire care. But this more reasoned argument, as it turns out, isn’t true either. Time’s Michael Grunwald sets the record straight.
[W]ho’s really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right. […]The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It’s a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.
The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle.
It creates an odd dynamic — conservative Republicans want Americans to believe there’s nothing individuals can do; they should just wait for the government to allow additional coastal drilling.
Grunwald added the right actually has this entire issue backwards.
[T]hings like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and at little cost and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. These are the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station.
Even if one disagrees with the numbers about keeping well-maintained cars, in the aggregate, will help, is there anyone who doubts that it will help conserve? Anyone? And isn’t it just plain irresponsbile for a presidential candidate to mock those ideas in a time of a national energy crisis?
So that’s why the whole tire gauge thing depresses me. A sound, reasonable comment, which is undeniable gets turned into political fodder and makes countless thousands of Americans actually believe — incorrectly — that there is nothing we as individuals can do to help conserve energy.
Kiss The Girl
I’m still vaguely aware of popular songs on the charts, although typically, I’m not in that demographic anymore. When I heard of a song called "I Kissed A Girl", sung by a woman (Katy Perry), I knew it was only a matter of time before the moral majority heads would spin. And now that it is #1 on the Billboard charts, we have a winner.
Okay…. let’s just see what we’re talking about, before we go on…
From the blog of OneNewsNow (the media arm of the National Family Association), columnist Johnnie Moore has some (incoherent) things to say.
HEY! LET’S MAKE MIDDLE SCHOOL LESBIANS!
by Johnnie Moore
Interesting title. Nice phraseology.
Billboard Magazine just deemed Katy Perry’s debut single to be the “Song of Summer” after maintaining six straight weeks in the number one slot on their Hot 100’s chart.
What’s interesting is the song is anything, but “straight.”
Explanation of the joke: See the song spent six straight weeks on the chart, but the song isn’t "straight", because it deals with girls kissing girls. See, "straight" has multiple meanings. Hahahaha! Oh, that Johnnie Moore. Such verbal wit. Like Oscar Wilde…. although (presumably) not as gay.
It is, in fact, the next episode in the never-ending media agenda to make homosexual experimentation a kind of adolescent right of passage.
[UPDATE inspired by Bill’s comment: Yeah, he wrote "right of passage". Don’t worry. It gets worse.]
I would like to know what if Johnnie really believes this. How does this "agenda" come about? Do people sit a room and plan this? Do we have a bunch of media moguls, all dressed in feather boas and really nice shoes, sitting around a very stylish conference room table, asking each other, "Dammit! We’re not doing enough to get teens to become gay! What can we do? Come on! Think outside the box, people!"
To which one impeccably dressed executive named Steve says (in a faux foreign accent): "Why don’t we put a song out there, sung by a woman, about kissing another woman?"
"No!" chimes in another. "We’ve got to get the teens. How about a girl kissing a girl?!?"
And so on….
This time, through lyrics like:
“drink in hand, lost my discretion…just wanna try you…I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chap stick, I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it, it felt so wrong, it felt so right, Don’t mean I’m in love tonight, I kissed a girl and I liked it…No, I don’t even know your name, it doesn’t matter, You’re my experimental game…”In a July 23rd Chicago Sun-Times article entitled, “Even Mild Girls go Wild for ‘I Kissed a Girl’” the music director of a Chicago station said, “I think it’s just a fluffy, light novelty pop song that has a slightly edgy lyric.” He also said he’d only received about two complaints about the song. The Sun-Times says this new song is “capitalizing on the casual kissing epidemic sweeping a generation.”
Kissing epidemic? Oh damn. I wasn’t even aware. Shoot, I miss all the good stuff….
In order to get the full picture of the implications of this number one hit you might consider following around an average middle school or high school student this weekend. No doubt, the song will be blaring in every tween or teen store in your local mall, and you’ll most definitely hear its lyrics incoherently sung through the lips of plenty of teenagers.
And when I’m arrested for stalking, I’m sure the police will understand.
"No, you see, officer… I was following that teenage girl around the mall because I wanted to see if she was going to kiss another girl like the song says. Surely you can understand that. It was totally innocent, I swear!"
Now, I’m no legalistic.
You’re no grammatical either.
My iTunes library has its share of secular music intermingled among the latest Christian tunes, and Podcasts of every shape and size, but I just can’t handle this one.
I wasn’t aware that Podcasts have shapes. See, the things you learn from the Christian right….
How long will all these media moguls be allowed to sit around board room tables and make decisions that alter the healthy development of our nation’s kids?
Hey, he does think they sit around boardroom tables and concoct this stuff.
This weekend there will be many thousands of young girls who will “playfully” choose to “kiss a girl to try it” after they are nonchalantly coaxed by this “fluffy” hit.
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
Seriously, Johnnie. Get a grip. The song isn’t about lesbianism. Nor does it promote it. It’s merely about a girl kissing a girl to see what it is like. And I respectfully suggest that if a kiss is enough to make a girl bat for the other team, she probably had those tendancies in the first place.
And by the way, girls kissing girls isn’t exactly new or novel. I know many grown women, all of them straight, who "practiced" kissing as a teenager with a girlfriend on one occasion. It happens. There’s nothing titillating about it; there’s nothing condemnable about it either.
From the California Supreme Court’s decisions regarding marriage, to the skyrocketing popularity of this song, to the nearly non-stop introduction of the homosexual agenda into almost every facet of our culture, we are facing the rise of the most homosexually friendly generation in history.
How Johnnie longs for the good ol’ old days when gay-hating was the norm, and you could lynch people like Matthew Sheppard and nobody cared.
Homosexual experimentation is also an epidemic. This is the fruit of years of marketing that has literally altered the worldviews of our nation’s 80 million millenials.
You gotta sympathize with Johnnie. Christianity and the moral values folks have engaged in centuries of marketing, and then along comes this upstart "gay agenda" with its cleverly placed GAP ads and #1 songs, totally undoing everything Christianity set out to do, and making girls kiss other girls.
Oh, by the way, Katy Perry’s real name is Katy Hudson. You might remember her from the 2001 album bearing her name on Red Hill records; it was a Christian album.
True. And both her parents are preachers, too. But still, they were no match for those evil media executives and their devious scheme to turn innocent god-fearing Katy Hudson into girl-kissing harlot Katy Perry. NOW just look at her…
The vixon.
I have half a mind to follow her around the mall….
** BONUS ** Prediction of the decade, from ChristianMusic.com, on Katy Hudson’s debut album:
Katy Hudson’s debut easily could have been just another teen songwriter mimicking mainstream music trends with Christian lyrics. Instead, I hear a remarkable young talent emerging, a gifted songwriter in her own right who will almost certainly go far in this business. That name again is Katy Hudson. Trust me, you’ll be hearing it more and more in the next year.
Well, yeah….
The Seventh Sense Recommends…
NYC THEATRE
Boeing, Boeing
This farcical comedy was a real surprise for me.
Written by French playwright Marc Camoletti in 1958, the play never did well in the United States until its recent Broadway revival. It is the most-performed French play throughout the world. After taking Paris by storm in 1958, it was translated into English in 1963 and played in the West End for seven years. But when it originally moved to Broadway in 1965, it closed after only 23 performances.
It then was made into a really bad Tony Curtis-Jerry Lewis movie.
So nobody wanted to touch it here in America until its most recent revival.
The plot is wildly 1960’s. Bernard (played by Bradley Whitford of The West Wing), a successful architect in Paris, is a playboy of immense proportions. He juggles three air-hostess fiancées: an American (Gloria — played by Katherine Hahn), and Italian (Gabriella – played by Gina Gershon) and a German (Gretchen — played by Mary McCormack of The West Wing).
Bernard tracks their airlines’ timetables so that no two fiancees will never be in town at the same time, and his long-suffering housekeeper, Bertha (played by Christine Baranski, most recently known for her role in the film version of Mamma Mia!), reluctantly resets the menus and bedroom decor depending on the arrivals and departures.
Bernard has been successful at convincing each girl that she is the only one. Bernard’s old school friend Robert (played by Mark Rylance) arrives unexpectedly, and Bernard proudly explains to his wide-eyed visitor how he makes his busy romantic schedule run smoothly. He also has a fallback plan for keeping his fiancées separate, involving his country house. Unfortunately for Bernard, a new, faster Boeing jet has been introduced, changing the timetable. Weather delays occur, and complications arise when the girls’ behavior does not match Bernard’s careful planning.
If this sounds very much like the plot for Don’t Dress For Dinner, don’t be surprised. Don’t Dress is by the same author, although it didn’t enjoy as much international success as Boeing Boeing.
Robert steps in to help Bernard by keeping one or more of the girls busy as they arrive ahead of (or behind) schedule. It becomes more and more difficult for Bernard, Bertha and Robert to keep the girls separate once they all arrive, and the lies told become more and more difficult to reconcile.
The performances were outstanding, especially that of Mark Rylance as Robert. Rylance’s Robert enters the play in a bewildered state — a cross between Emo Philips and Bob Newhart — so when the farce gets underway, he’s totally helpless. Rylance deservedly took the Tony this year for Best Actor In A Revival.
The three fiancees are, in their own unique way, all deliciously over-the-top, but Mary McCormack probably is the most engaging. A tall woman, that Mary, and she uses every inch of her imposing body, as well as a ridiculously heavy German accent, to command the stage and everybody on it. When the shy withdrawn Robert tries to seduce her, it is pure comic gold, especially when he succeeds. (McCormack was also nominated, but didn’t win, a Tony).
This is not a subtle comedy. It is for broad acting, without the slightest bit of nuance or shading. But it is hysterically funny and deserving of its Tony for Best Revival. My personal theatre experience was heightened by the fact that I sat next to Nathan Lane (at least for the first act; he switched with his friend for Act Two). Nathan didn’t laugh much.
Also recommended: Well, you probably don’t need me to tell you about Jersey Boys at this juncture. If you love, or merely even like, the music, you’ll love this show. Explosive. But the musical to see is In The Heights, which is being compared to a contemporary West Side Story. It doesn’t have the graivitas of that musical classic, but it has an inner-city atmosphere which just penetrates inside you and warms you up top to bottom. GREAT dancing and fantastic music.
Not so much recommended: Fans of the movie Dog Day Afternoon might enjoy the stage adaptation of Dog Day Afternoon which (rumor has it) is extending its run to an off-Broadway theatre. I know I did. Sadly, the stage version is close enough to the movie versioj so that it invites comparison. And seriously, how can anything compare to Pacino? Also with no intermission and hard seats, it makes for a difficult sitting.
DOCUMENTARIES
(1) MAN ON WIRE
A documentary that chronicles the 1974 high-wire walk of Phillipe Petit between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, as recalled by the participants.
Petit is engaging and energetic, as he was some 34 years ago, and his "partners in crime" also discuss the caper. It was planned and rehearsed just like a bank robbery, which was the appeal back then.
Even if you are familiar with the story, you will probably learn some things, including how they did it. The film wisely does not make any mention of what would happen to the Twin Towers several years later (presumably, the audience already knows, which makes it that much more interesting). The 8mm film of the events, as well as the historical recreations, bring a sense of drama and excitement to the entire picture.
(2) My Kid Could Paint That
A really interesting documentary, now out on DVD, telling the story and controversy sourrounding Marla Olmstead, a young girl from Binghamton, NY, who gained fame as a painting prodigy.
The documentary is fascinating on many levels. For one thing, it makes the viewer question "What is art?" Like many people, I look at many abstract painting — stuff like Jackson Pollack where he just splatters paint on a canvas — and I see those paintings sell for millions, and I get the sense that there is a real SCAM going on.
Then along comes Marla Olmstead doing basically the same thing at the age of four, and her paintings are selling for tens of thousands of dollars, and you kind of wonder: "Uh….gee… my kid could do that."
On the other hand, when you look at some of her paintings, you are struck by something. They do evoke feelings, which is what art (I suppose) should do.
Interestingly, the people filming the documentary originally thought they were making a film about a child prodigy, but, during the course of their filming, controversy struck. We watch them as they view an airing of 60 Minutes II, one of the many media outlets covering Marla. But this 60 Minutes story isn’t a puff piece — it suggests that someone may have "helped" Marla with her art, either by telling her what to do, or touching it up.
Suddenly, the documentary film maker was in a dilemna. He never really had footage of Marla completing a painting from beginning to end. He also has some troubling footage suggesting that maybe Marla had indeed been getting "suggestions" from her father (an amateur painter). And now there was friction between the filmmaker and the subject of his film.
Marla’s parents sought to quell the controversy by creating a DVD showing Marla creating one of her latest works called "Ocean", start to finish. This, they were convinced, would put the controversy to rest. The problem is, "Ocean" is, by comparison to Marla’s other works, pretty trite and childish. (Of course, "art" is subjective, but *I* certainly wasn’t impressed with "Ocean", neither were the filmmakers, and neither was the art dealer who eventually bought it, complaining that "Ocean" simply doesn’t look lilke Marla’s other works).
Toward the end, the documentary gets very meta, as the filmmaker himself begins to question his art.
How does the film resolve itself? Roger Ebert wrote:
Is the little girl the star of a hoax by her family? Amir Bar-Lev, the maker of this film, says he doesn’t know, and the film has an open ending. He grew quite close to the Olmsteads, and at times worried that he was betraying their confidence. My own verdict as an outsider is, no, Marla didn’t paint those works, although she may have applied some of the paint.
But watch for yourself. It’s a film that asks many interesting questions on many levels — not just about the originator of the "Marla" paintings, but the role of the media in creating (and then destroying) celebrities, and the nature of art itself when it collides with business. Plus, it’s about an adorable four year girl.
Morgan Freeman In Serious Condition After Mississippi Car Wreck
Sad….
Happened last night. Car flipped several times.
Let’s hope for the best….
UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting he was talking at the scene of the accident, so that bodes well….
Reflections On The Obama “Celebrity” Ad
UPDATE: Okay THIS is the proper response to the latest McCain ad —
NICELY DONE! Team Obama should turn this into an ad itself…
************
I agree with all these people (emphases are mine)
It appears that the McCain campaign’s new strategy is to portray Barack Obama as a "celebrity" in the sense of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, someone who sells magazines and attracts crowds but isn’t qualified to be president. Indeed, Obama isn’t just a run of the mill celebrity, according to McCain’s latest television ad, he’s "the biggest celebrity in the world."
This strikes me as a bizarre strategy for a number of reasons. First, as a factual matter, Obama clearly isn’t a "celebrity" in the sense that the McCain campaign is implying. He’s not someone who achieved fame outside of politics and then tried to translate that into a political career. In other words, he’s not Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger (someone should ask McCain whether he thinks they were qualified). To the contrary, to the extent Obama is famous now, it is solely a product of what he’s accomplished as a politician. And it’s not as if the American people are going to be fooled on this point. They follow celebrities closely and most of them had never heard of Barack Obama until he began running for president.
But putting all that aside, what makes the McCain campaign think that this particular line of attack is going to work? First, if you’re not really paying close attention to the ad (or if you have the sound off), what you take away is an image of Obama speaking in front of massive adoring crowds waiving American flags. Second, even if you do pay attention to the ad, it seems to me that it doesn’t really help McCain. Negative ads like this are primarily aimed at low information voters, people who haven’t really formed opinions of the candidates. But if you don’t know much about Obama, you’re likely to be struck most by the claim in the ad that he is now "the biggest celebrity in the world." That’s likely to peak people’s curiosity. If I didn’t know much about the guy, I would want to know what it is about him that has made him such a phenomenon. Why is he so beloved by so many people? How did he go from some guy I’d never heard of to "biggest celebrity in the world"?
And finally, even if this ad works as intended and makes people think of Obama as some sort of vapid celebrity, what exactly does that accomplish? All it will do is set the bar lower for Obama as we move into the major general election events, such as the convention speech and the debates. If people think Obama is Paris Hilton, they’re going to be blown away by his debate performance.
Jurassicpork from Brilliant at Breakfast:
[McCain’s ad is taking a] stupid (not to mention a losing) risk to acknowledge Obama’s growing popularity and to try to portray it as a weakness rather than a strength. Sour grapes make for lousy Koolaid.
James Wolcott at Vanity Fair:
I have watched enough television during incarceration to have a few points to make about the McCain campaign’s new anti-Obama "celebrity" ad.
1) Obama looks so cool, upbeat, and confident in the ad that his smiling, waving, striding presence provides a "lift" that doesn’t simply contradict the admonitory tone of the voiceover text, but visually drowns it out through sheer pow of personality. It’d be like trying to warn teenagers in the fifties about the dangers of rock and roll, then showing concert footage of Elvis at his most charismatic–great way to create converts, guys!
2) Regardless of the racial-sexual subtext being purveyed, referencing Britney Spears and Paris Hilton seems a bit tired and dated, the older generation scolding the younger. Picking on Spears in a political ad seems like poor sportsmanship (she’s hardly done the harm to the culture that Ann Coulter has), and in her wealth, privilege, and lathed blondness, Paris Hilton resembles a younger version of Cindy McCain–there’s an almost daughterly resemblance, an enjoined twirl of ruling class DNA. So using her as an object of derision doesn’t quite gel.
3) The closing profile shot of McCain, head tilted as if basking in the soft heavenly glow of Reagan above, is not only corner and kitschy but reduces the candidate to a postage stamp–this, after portraying Obama as a fully engaged energy packet.
4) America is a country based on celebrity, a country where nearly everybody wants to be a celebrity, an American Idol, and decrying the cult of celebrity is an empty exercise in moralizing. After JFK, Reagan, and Bill Clinton, the candidate as glamour figure is already wired into our collective psyches, and Fred Thompson’s celebrity status didn’t seem to trouble Republicans when he looked like a contender, until they realized his gravitas was indistinguishable from indigestion.
5) The real message of the McCain ad is that they’re envious of Obama’s elan vital, and are reduced to mocking what they covet, Envy makes a person look petty, and a petty, peevish John McCain will be indistinguishable from the Bob Dole of 1996 if he doesn’t "big up." Right now his campaign is making Obama look like the mature one, which may explain why at least one longtime McCain loyalist is barking from the shadows.
Steve Soto says the ad is "a direct slap at the adoring crowds Obama gets." Indeed. He adds:
Actually, that’s pretty funny, if not outright envious. But let’s seen how the Obama campaign responds to their opponent belittling the American public in an attempt to get everyone to ignore that McCain’s energy and economic policies don’t add up. I haven’t seen Obama’s national ads (where are they?), but it seems clear that McCain has thrown down the gauntlet and said that Obama is nothing more than a lightweight celebrity, and not a serious candidate. If there was a time for Obama to use a Tier One/Tier Two effort and go right at McCain on real issues and the holes in McCain’s agenda and rhetoric, now’s that time.
And I think Obama did just that:
The Economic Outlook Is GREAT….
…if you’re an oil company. They’ve enjoyed record profits this quarter:
Profits at oil companies this quarter continued to reflect oil prices that almost doubled in the second quarter from the year earlier.
Exxon Mobil on Thursday reported that second-quarter profit rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, the highest-ever profit by an American company. Exxon broke its own record.
The profit of $2.22 a share compared with $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, in the quarter a year ago.
I’m Almost Ready To Say “Let Him Go”
I had no problem with letting Nomar go. I thought he was overrated and more trouble than he was worth. Same with Pedro.
But Manny? He’s the backbone of the team. He rocks.
On the other hand, he’s such a prick:
On Wednesday, he spoke by telephone with ESPNdeportes.com.
"The Red Sox don’t deserve a player like me," Ramirez said. "During my years here I’ve seen how they have mistreated other great players when they didn’t want them to try to turn the fans against them. The Red Sox did the same with guys like Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, and now they do the same with me.
Their goal is to paint me as the bad guy. I love Boston fans, but the Red Sox don’t deserve me. I’m not talking about money. Mental peace has no price, and I don’t have peace here."
Boo-fucking-hoo. Manny, you’re getting paid an unbelievable sum of money to do what most people would give up their first-born to do. Stop the whining.
The trade deadline is 4:00 p.m. today. The latest news is that the Red Sox, Marlins, and Pirates are in a three-way talk for a deal that involves Manny:
The Marlins would trade outfielder Jeremy Hermida and a prospect for Ramirez, and the Red Sox then would flip Hermida and prospects to the Pirates for left fielder Jason Bay. Pirates left-handed reliever John Grabow also is in play, possibly headed to the Marlins.
MLB.com says (at 10:59 a.m.) that this deal "appears close"
Bay for Manny isn’t a bad deal….
| Player |  |
TEAM | |
POS | |
G | |
AB | |
R | |
H | |
2B | |
3B | |
HR | |
RBI | |
TB | |
BB | |
SO | |
SB | |
CS | |
OBP | |
SLG | |
AVG | |
|
|
M Ramirez | BOS | OF | 100 | 365 | 66 | 109 | 22 | 1 | 20 | 68 | 193 | 52 | 86 | 1 | 0 | .398 | .529 | .299 | |||||||||||||||||||
|
J Bay | PIT | OF | 106 | 393 | 72 | 111 | 23 | 2 | 22 | 64 | 204 | 59 | 86 | 7 | 0 | .375 | .519 | .282 |
…especially when you factor in the "prick" factor….
Another McCain “Attack” Ad
I understand what they’re trying to do, but I just don’t see how portraying Obama as being popular and loved all over the world actually helps McCain.
Jason Linkins makes the compelling case that McCain is swinging in the wrong direction.
[E]ven beyond the numb-nutted concept behind this ad, look at all the things that are tactically wrong with it. First, it just reinforces Obama’s brand as one with worldwide appeal. Second, it’s, like, McCain’s FOURTH ad that announces that Obama supports a sensible stance against offshore drilling – which isn’t popular in states McCain needs to win, like Florida, and which McCain himself even admits would only have a “psychological” impact on the economy. Third, you don’t even know it’s a McCain ad until he shows up, approving it at the end!And let’s get a count on how many McCain ideas and policies this ad advances! Uhm…zero. Actually, this might be the most honest feature of this advertisement!
Flashback: Take a look at the memo distributed by the McCain campaign in early March, immediately after John McCain officially secured the Republican nomination.
“It is critical,” the memo explained, “as we prepare to face off with whomever the Democrats select as their nominee, that we all follow John’s lead and run a respectful campaign focused on the issues…. Throughout the primary election we saw John McCain reject the type of politics that degrade our civics, and this will not change.” The memo added that “overheated rhetoric and personal attacks” only serve to “distract” us, and that it was imperative that the campaign hold itself “to the highest standards.”
What happened? This:
On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook.
In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has been waving the flag of fear (Senator Barack Obama wants to “lose” in Iraq), and issuing attacks that are sophomoric (suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist) and false (the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his back on wounded soldiers).
** UPDATE ** Obama camp’s response:
“On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He did it again.’ Our dependence on foreign oil is one of the greatest challenges we face. In this election the American people have a real choice — between Obama’s plan to provide tax rebates to American families while creating a renewable energy economy in America that frees us from our dependence on foreign oil, and Senator McCain’s plan to continue the same failed energy policies by handing out nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies while investing almost nothing in the new energy sources that represent our future."