September 31st?

Anyone who doubts that editorial standards at major newspapers are slipping should turn to page A3 in today's Washington Post. The story about lobbyist donations to GOP presidential candidates includes a graphic that purports to show donations through "September 31st" of this year. I know it's impolite (perhaps even pompous) to criticize grammatical errors in the Internet age, but I really expect more from the Post.

Having and Wanting

When I first heard about the long-rumored plans for a TV and/or movie continuation of Arrested Development, I didn’t actually realize I was hearing about them. A friend had posted a reference to there being “money in the banana stand” on Facebook, and I simply assumed he had been watching his DVDs of the show recently. 

Since learning that there was more to that posting than a trip down memory lane, my feelings have taken a surprising turn, considering how much I love the show. My initial enthusiasm has since given way to a worry that news of the new installments are actually worse news for fans than its original cancellation was. As much as fans like me might hope otherwise, it seems almost impossible that the new exploits of the Bluth family can live up to our expectations. Arrested Development will always be better as a fantastic comedy that was cancelled before its time. Equally, it stands as an ideal symbol of broadcasters chasing the lowest common denominator in the short-term rather than finding a way to leverage a passionate fanbase for quality programs in the long-term. 

If there’s a lesson anywhere in here, I suppose it’s a fairly unexciting one. Having is never as good as wanting, especially when what you want is more of something that was already perfect.

Trying to Rapture My Head Around This

According to Harold Camping, who somewhat prematurely predicted that the Biblical "Rapture" would take place back in May, today is the day of reckoning. When the mass ascensions that were presumed to accompany said "Rapture" failed to materialize, Mr. Camping slightly amended his predictions to say that May 21, 2011 was the day of spiritual judgment and the physical manifestation would come today, ushering in the end of the physical world (and possibly the whole universe). Putting aside what appears to be a further lack of mass vanishings by the "saved", and giving Camping's theory the benefit of the doubt that today was meant to be not the end of the Earth and universe but merely the start of a period of great tribulation for the unsaved, it begs a key question. How will any of us be able to tell the difference between the new wave of trials and the way things have been going so far in the 21st Century?

Move On?

There's a video making the rounds on the web about the Occupy Wall Street protests via MoveOn.org. Billed as the "The Most Powerful Occupy Wall Street Clip You Will See This Month", despite siding with the protesters, I'm very conflicted about the video. 

On the one hand, it is indeed a powerful piece of film-making, skillfully edited to juxtapose the public statements of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton about the political protests in Libya and Syria with footage of the NYPD altercations with the Occupy Wall Street protesters in a way that implies hypocrisy on their part. On the other, for all the skill that went into it, it's ultimately little more than a piece of simplistic and narrow-minded propaganda. Moreover, its assertion that Obama's and Clinton's remarks on the revolutions in the Middle East represent hypocrisy because they haven't voiced similar thoughts on the "Occupy" protests is ridiculous if you know anything about our system of government.

First off, Secretary Clinton's role as Secretary of State limits her remit to international affairs. Secondly, as an official of the federal government, President Obama obviously doesn't have jurisdiction over the NYPD or any other locality's police. And if he did try to exert such control, he'd be vilified for acting in a dictatorial manner. Beyond that, in terms of policy, I think the tax elements of the jobs bill suggest that he's at least on the same chapter, if perhaps not on the same page, as the protesters, which makes picking on him seem a bit small-minded.

As far as the arrests of those protesters, any honest assessment leads to the conclusion that we really have no idea what led up to those arrests. The filmmakers present the protesters' assertions (e.g. one saying she hadn't been read her rights) completely at face value, but between the shaky camera work and the highly selective editing, we have no idea if the police were being high-handed or acting appropriately. Another element not reflected in the film, as it seeks to compare the protests in the Middle East to those here in America, is the fact that the protesters on Wall Street will most likely be released on their own recognizance after a brief hearing, while any protesters arrested in Syria will probably be tortured and/or killed. 

Obviously a piece of propaganda has no obligation to fairly represent both sides of the issue, but the aggressiveness with which it ignores so many basic realities feels wrong - all the more so because I agree with their cause. It's just a shame that the only way people seem to be able to fight for their causes these days is to fight dirty.

I Can't Go For That (On 4th & Long)

The combination of watching Penn State defeat Purdue this afternoon and listening to Daryl Hall and John Oates turned out to be an enlightening combination. I've been a fan of both for many years, but it's only today that I realized that Penn State is the football equivalent of Hall and Oates.

Both emerged from Pennsylvania, coming to national prominence in the 70s and achieving their greatest success in the early and mid-80s. Since then, the fortunes of both have ebbed and flowed, neither of them quite able to reclaim their previous heights but still succeeding well enough on their own terms. In the quarter century since their respective peaks, defined by Penn State's last national championship and Hall and Oates' last #1 on the Hot 100, the landscapes in which they play have shifted in ways that ensure that they both represent a type that will never come around again. 

Under the guidance of Joe Paterno, Penn State seems to be just about the last major college football program where the term "student athlete" isn't a joke. Today, college football seems to have enough scandal to fill a tabloid, and the idea of a coach lasting a decade, let alone over four decades, is hard to imagine. For their part, Hall and Oates were the last, perhaps the only, hugely popular act in the post-Motown era to fuse rock and soul styles into a seamless whole. The lack of obvious hang-ups about whether something would be perceived as "white music" or "black music" is reflected in the way their hit I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) went to #1 on the pop, soul and dance charts as well as having been sampled for over a dozen other songs over the past 30 years. 

Even as the Nittany Lions' win today makes them eligible for a post-season bowl game, some think that unsold seats at Beaver Stadium mean that this season will be Paterno's last. Meanwhile, recent live performances show that Hall's voice isn't the same magnificent instrument that helped define the sound of pop music in the 1980s. In no way, though, does that diminish what they achieved during their "glory years" (and since). We've been lucky to have them.    OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: Subsequent events have ensured that this piece, written three weeks before Jerry Sandusky's arrest, would be the last time I could write about Paterno and Penn State football with a pure sense of fun. While I obviously feel for Sandusky's victims (use of the term "alleged" purposely avoided), that feeling is something I hope to never lose entirely.

Eating Their Own

The all too true joke about how Democrats like to indulge in circular firing squads is getting a fresh spin from the GOP in the current presidential campaign. Not surprisingly, it stems from one of those subjects that we're advised to avoid in polite conversation - religion.

Watching the ongoing discussion about (or, more tellingly in some cases, refusal to discuss) Mitt Romney's faith in and around the Republican Presidential candidates inspires mixed feelings for me. The debate over whether someone who's a Mormon is truly a "Christian" as opposed to a member of some kind of "cult" is troubling in the same way that the late-2006 uproar over Congressman Keith Ellison's decision to swear his oath of office on the Koran was troubling (i.e. something that shouldn't happen in 21st century America). At the same time, there's a certain pleasure in watching a political party that supposedly wants to be more inclusive shooting itself in the foot over something that should be an entirely personal matter while they seem unable to articulate a coherent policy on the things that most Americans care about such (e.g. the economy, the long-term future of social security, etc.).

In any case, assuming that either Mitt Romney or Rick Perry gets the Republican nomination, we're looking at two fun scenarios for the general election. Obama vs. Perry gives us the guy struggling to find a way out of the mess he inherited against the hypocrite who criticizes the first guy's approaches while reaping the benefits when it suits his political needs. Obama vs. Romney, on the other hand, would be a contest between people who share a similar vision on how to approach at least one key issue (i.e. health care) and that some portion of the Republican Party doesn't believe are Christians. I'm not sure which of those is better for President Obama and by extension America, but it does make me wonder if I have the intestinal fortitude to deal with another year of this.

A Member of the Wedding (of River Song)

It felt fitting that I watched the current series finale of Doctor Who on the same flight back from London where I watched The Hangover Part 2. Both involved weddings and told their story by shifting around in time. More significantly, they both resolved their stories using an answer hidden in plain sight.

I'm on the fence about whether the second Hangover movie is better (i.e. funnier) than the first, but The Wedding of River Song was the best episode of Doctor Who this season, more so even than the episode written by Neil Gaiman's whose appeal was based as much on being a love letter to Doctor Who as being a strong Doctor Who story in its own right. After a season full of disappointments, with good ideas colliding haphazardly with some truly awful ones, I have to give Steven Moffat credit. Though some specifics of the season-long story-line's resolution left me cold, the overall episode was a satisfying conclusion. More than that, it also felt like a nice reboot of the show paving the way for what I hope will be a slightly different (and less overblown) take on my favorite Time Lord, getting back to the things I liked about Matt Smith's portrayal in his earliest episodes.

It probably sounds odd considering the storyline has been running the whole season, but I think this finale would have benefited from being a two-parter or at least closer to an hour as in some earlier seasons. The temporally amalgamated Earth we see looked really fascinating and it would have been cool to explore it more. This could have helped better establish the threat to Earth (and time itself) rather than having it be the abstract dilemma it was portrayed as. In fairness, though, that's a minor qualm because the dilemma and danger for the Doctor himself did come across nicely as did the Doctor's way of getting around it.

My hope earlier in the season was that all the seemingly disparate elements were leading up to something satisfying and overall it turned out they were. My hope for the next season is that head-writer Steven Moffat will find a way to balance his grasp of Doctor Who's conventions, his love of twisted time structures and solid storytelling more effectively over the course of an entire season. He'll have a hard time topping The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, but I'd love to see him get there.

Not Just a Job(s)

Though it's certainly a sad event in itself, the death of Apple's Steve Jobs also strikes me as a true milestone in the history of American business. Historically, there's no surer sign that an industry has become truly established than a massive public reaction to one of its titans passing away. What's interesting about Jobs as well is that, in contrast to the heads of most companies in any field, Jobs was not only well-known but also well liked by his millions of customers. A lot of people have one or the other but getting both can be quite difficult. Just ask Netflix's Reed Hastings, who seems intent on shooting both himself and his company's reputation in the foot. Jobs certainly made some mistakes, but he generally seemed to learn from them. Hastings and other information economy leaders could probably take a few pages from their playbook.

Civility Is So 20th Century

Whenever I find myself reading the public comments posted in response to an online news story, I can be equally sure that I'll find myself regretting the choice. It's not just the poor grammar and misspellings, though, they are something to behold (I'll probably spot some in this posting after the fact). It's the lack of civility that characterizes Internet communication.

While I think we still manage to do a decent job of acting decently towards each other in face to face settings, when the Internet is there as a buffer all bets are off. I certainly don't claim to know why that is, but at least part of it must be related to the way the Internet obscures our humanity in the process of connecting us.

When we're face to face with someone, even someone with whom we disagree, we're more likely to engage with the whole person. We don't just consider the opinions but rather the factors that drive them, whether it's their background or economic status.

Just to take one especially contentious issue, some like to paint opponents of the death penalty as out-of-touch liberals untouched by the reality of crime. That reductive approach ignore the millions of people who view the issue through the lens of faith or perhaps have the experience of knowing someone who was wrongly convicted and executed as a result.

As much as we claim to praise diversity in America, the world wide web has made it harder for us to appreciate diversity on an individual level. Without that individual focus to remind us that we're all human, it can be way too easy to treat those who disagree with us as a little less than human.