tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103328632024-03-12T22:34:37.837-04:00Views from a ParkedCarWhere You Always Seem Smarter...Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-76954347631542418412006-08-18T13:55:00.000-04:002006-08-18T14:28:06.161-04:00Blood on Her HandsWe've always found the Wall Street Journal to be the most intriguing of newspapers. Journalistically, they are one of the top papers in the world. Editorially, what they lack in insight they more than make up for in conservative consistency.<br /><br />It was expected that they'd be against the ruling. Anything remotely critical of President Bush or Republican idealogy is fodder for their pages. But their editorial today on Judge Taylor's ruling permanently enjoining the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program was particularly snarky and hysterical. They argue, for example, that the wiretapping program is an intelligence operation and not a law-enforcement proceeding, as if this is a meaningful distinction. We suspect that if or more likely, when, the Administration actually starts using the information obtained in a criminal proceeding it will matter little to the victim that his or her civil rights were denied because the information was gained for intelligence purposes.<br /><br />But where the WSJ really goes astray in its argument is in its view that the program should be judged by its results rather than its essence. According to the WSJ, there is no evidence of any single specific domestic abuse of the program to this point. We struggle mightily to understand why this matters. A program that is illegal is per se an abuse and simply because the perpetrators haven't compounded the problem by engaging in further abuse doesn't somehow make it more palatable or legal. The suggestion that because an individual may not realize that his or her rights have been violated by an illegal wiretap somehow makes the more program more palatable is an extremely distasteful rubric.<br /><br />We also find it unfortunate that with her opinion, Judge Taylor will now have blood on her hands because "no one can hold her accountable for any Americans who might die as a result" of her opinion. As long as we're applying a results-based analysis, we'll wait patiently for the WSJ to identify the first victim but won't hold our breath. But they can't really be suggesting that's the test, can they? Protecting civil liberties is never easy but assuming for the moment that Judge Taylor's right, isn't that exactly why we have 2000+ dying in Iraq in the first place?<br /><br />It may be that Judge Taylor's opinion will be overturned. Given the make-up of the Supreme Court, it's likely. But until then, we'll respect the rule of the law and leave it to the editorial board of the WSJ to argue for a different outcome.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1147110983911160572006-05-08T13:24:00.000-04:002006-05-10T06:58:59.603-04:00Bromides for All OccasionsI heard this on a tv show the other day and it stayed with me: "You can have anything you want if you're willing to sacrifice everything you have." I'm not sure it's true, but like most philosophies, it sounds true enough. You can just picture the inspirational poster, can't you? Some athlete up at the crack of dawn or out at the last speck of daylight, practicing their craft.<br /><br />But just because we're cynics doesn't mean we always have to be cynical. Which in turn got me to thinking about William Swanson's "Unwritten Rules of Management." By now we've all heard the story. Swanson is the CEO of Raytheon who supposedly created this folksy little booklet of unwritten rules. It got great press (see <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-12-18-raytheon-advice_x.htm">USA Today</a>, for example) and Raytheon made it publicly available for a small fee. At least they did until, of course, it turned out that Swanson had actually cribbed these rules from others. Swanson made light of his lifting (see <a href="http://wwwxt.raytheon.com/communications/whs_rules/">Raytheon statement</a>), suggesting that there are no original rules anyway. Kaavya Viswanathan, however, hasn't been so lucky. Viswanathan is the Harvard sophomore and budding novelist that had a large book deal. I say had because that's now in question given her belated admission that she lifted portions of her novel, somewhere between 12 and 40 passages, I believe, from two novels by Megan McCafferty. There was an excellent column in last week's Wall Street Journal which questioned why we make so little of this credibility lapse by Swanson, a powerful CEO while simultaneously excoriating Viswanathan for essentially engaging in the same conduct in her first <strong>novel</strong>.<br /><br />My guess is that we do this because whatever the source, we still like our daily bromide. Ben Franklin was probably the first to cleverly exploit this need to provide simple, generic justification for our underlying complex actions. And at this late date, who am I to argue with such success, which, as of now, I'm officially making one of my core philosophies. Along with these:<br /><br />1. The more you give, the more you get.<br />2. Appreciate what you have instead of lamenting what you don't.<br />3. If you cannot give of yourself, then you cannot give to yourself.<br />4. When people are negative, mean, or uncaring to you, they are really negative, mean, or uncaring to themselves. Never forget that.<br />5. The little things do matter, especially to people you care about.<br />6. Life, sadly, is finite. Every second counts.<br />7. If you believe life is full of opportunities, you'll never face another problem again.<br />8. Since you have to think anyway, you might as well think big.<br />9. If you miss the opportunity to give your heart away because you can't be guaranteed it won't be misused, you'll never have a life worth living.<br />10. Have faith in your instincts, they're generally right.<br /><br />My guess is that I probably can't take original credit for any of the foregoing, so I won't. Some geek with too much time on his hand and a much better grasp of search engine technology will likely see to that. But I think these fit nicely into formulating a core set of principles. And besides, they're just generic enough to fit damn near any occasion, the key, really, to any great bromide.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1146753435654092242006-05-04T10:30:00.000-04:002006-05-04T10:37:15.686-04:00Death Be Not ProudHere’s a heartwarming death-penalty story out of Ohio. It seems that the state with the most inept, ineffective governor, according to no less an authority than Time Magazine (available <a href="http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1129553,00.html">here</a>) also has the most inept, ineffective method for killing its prisoners. According to numerous press stories ( see <a href="http://eyewitnessnewstv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4848357">here</a> ), Lucasville Prison officials took nearly 90 minutes to execute Joseph Clark, a death-row inmate for the last 22 years. Apparently, it took prison “doctors” several minutes to even find a vein in Clark’s arm. After consulting Grey’s Anatomy, apparently, prison doctors injected Clark with their supposedly lethal cocktail, only to have Clark look up several minutes later and mumble “this isn’t working.” As far as last words are concerned, these may not be particularly quote worthy but they sum up rather well the state of the Buckeye State under Taft and his Republican stooges.<br /><br />But fret not, Ohioans. Come this November, you’ll have a real choice about your future. Kenneth Blackwell, a panderer of the worst sort to the religious right, squares off against a solid Democratic hopeful, Ted Strickland. While Strickland may be an unknown to the good folks north of Columbus, Blackwell is a known commodity throughout the state. A shameless self-promoter, Blackwell currently serves as Secretary of State and George W.’s wingman in Ohio. It was Blackwell, after all, who served as co-chair for W’s 2004 re-election effort despite the obvious conflict of interest with his duties as secretary of state. Blackwell’s gubernatorial platform consists of two planks: the tax and expenditure limitation amendment and protecting Ohioans from the plague of same-sex marriage, two hallmarks of the ultra ring-wingers in the Republican party. And this is considered progress when compared to the Taft administration, whose dubious accomplishments include having Ohio ranked the 31st smartest state and dropping further (see <a href="http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm">here</a> ) and being ranked near the bottom in population lost, presumably as the availability of quality jobs shrinks (see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/us/20census.html?ex=1146888000&en=c781179338ceaea1&ei=5070">here</a>)<br /><br />So if Ohio lives down to its neo-Republican roots come November, expect the population loss to hasten. And expect the state’s infrastructure to crumble even further. And expect the state’s commitment to education become even more tenuous. But on the bright side, we won’t have to worry about those damn gays trying to live in committed relationships, work at respectable jobs, and pay badly needed taxes. Oh, and if you needed some good news, at least things aren’t looking up much for Taft himself as he faces potential disbarment (see <a href="http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/7151">here</a>) after being convicted of omitting numerous gifts and other swag from financial disclosure forms. He might as well be as unemployed as the rest of Ohio.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1131457746722565122005-11-08T06:41:00.000-05:002005-11-08T08:49:07.206-05:00No Fun League?Sometimes you just have to spend a little time in the sandbox.<br /><br />It was interesting to read this morning in various media outlets the exhortations of the increasingly clueless George W. that the United States "does not torture" and that we follow the law when it comes to interrogating terrorist suspects. I suppose that's good news, I don't know. And I admit that it's a complicated topic. But while claiming we don't torture detainees and that we scrupulously follow the law, W. also was standing firmly behind the efforts to have the CIA exempted from the John McCain backed Senate bill to outlaw torture. This is noteworthy on at least two counts.<br /><br />First, it clearly illustrates who exactly is running the country and while you can have 3 guesses as to the answer, the first two don't count. In the old days, that is, pre-W, the vice presidency was more or less a thankless role. If called upon to do anything at all, the vice president's job was to stump for important presidential initiatives that needed an extra push and to attend funerals in incovenient locations. But in this wacky, but dangerous, administration however it's the other way around, as if we didn't know that already. W's push for a CIA exemption is being driven by, give up? Cheney. Roll that around in your mind for a moment. In context, this is one of the more important philosophical decisions to be made by the Senate in recent memory and rather than seizing the opportunity himself to stake out a claim for the higher moral and ethical ground, W is out shilling for a vice president sorely lacking in either. Oh the pictures Cheney must have from W's party boy days!<br /><br />Second, finding the flaw in W's logic as he articulates, poorly, his rationale for torture, is so easy, it ought to be the test question on the student achievement tests dictated by the No Child Left Behind Act. "If George can get Congress to exempt the CIA from any laws against torture, can he then proclaim that we are only following the law if we still torture detainees?" And W and his handlers why an increasingly overwhelming majority of the American people no longer find this frat-boy lap dog credible?<br /><br />But when things get this bad, sometimes you just need a diversion into the irreverent and irrelevant. That's right, I'm talking about Terrell Owens, along with virtually everyone else. There is no doubt that T.O. is the worst teammate of all time, as Jim Rome noted yesterday. And it more than illustrates why the only way to enjoy professional sports these days is to follow the plays and not the players.<br /><br />That all being said, the Owens saga does underscore one of the fundamental differences between pro football and its pro sports brethern. NFL owners have consistently held the line on refusing to guarantee contracts for its players while the guaranteed contract is virtually the way all other pro sports do business. In this way, the NFL is like most workplaces--you are just a bad hair day from being fired without anything more than the personal effects on the top of your desk. But is that a good thing?<br /><br />From the NFL owners' perspective, it's clear that the guaranteed contract wreaks havoc on major league baseball. Studies demonstrate, time and again, that players rarely live up to the value of their contracts and ultimately the fans get left holding the bag as clubs raise ticket prices to pay, in part, legacy money owed to players no longer with the club but whose contracts have yet to expire. This tends to argue for non-guaranteed contracts. But by going this route, NFL owners, with the complicity of the players union, has created major instability in other ways.<br /><br />At its core, the Owens saga is about money. While it is true that poor T.O. signed a 7-year deal last year for approximately $49 million, the only (and I say that gingerly) money Owens was guaranteed was his signing bonus. That coupled with his first year salary pocketed him $9 million last year. Not bad, but not $49 million, either. The rest of the contract is back-loaded, as they like to say in the trade--earned in subsequent years through increasingly higher salaries and roster bonuses, assuming he wouldn't be cut before either kicked in. In other words, the only way T.O. has a chance to earn the other $40 million is if he plays the full 7 years with Philadelphia. Disregarding the fact that T.O. is the clubhouse leader on the all-jerk team, the fact is that neither the Philadelphia front office nor T.O. ever expected that he'd play out that contract or earn that money. The salary cap implications of high yearly salaries and non-prorated (from a salary cap standpoint) roster bonuses all but prevent that from ever happening. As a result, the only way for a jackass like T.O. to get more money before he blows out a knee for good is to parlay his immediate accomplishments into a re-negotiated contract with more upfront bonuses. That's the game the owners and players engage in each and every season and is a dance that T.O. knows all too well.<br /><br />In this way, T.O. is like the Judith Miller of the NFL--the right issue but the wrong spokesman. While no one will muster any sympathy for T.O., there is no doubt that this saga and its underlying implications will have a dramatic impact on the negotiations currently taking place between the NFL and its union. If the lack of progress in those negotiations thus far is any indication, a labor dispute in the form of either a lock out or a strike is on the horizon. And we can blame this on T.O. as well.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1129843877674461252005-10-20T19:30:00.000-04:002005-10-20T19:28:56.750-04:00Whose Music Is It Anyway?There was an interesting column by Walter S. Mossberg in today’s Wall Street Journal in which he posits that media companies have gone too far in curbing consumers’ activities. At issue is the use of Digital Rights Management software that more and more is imbedded in music and video files in order to restrict further, illegal distribution.<br /><br /> Viewing it strictly from the lens of a consumer, I can't really disagree with his overall conclusion that consumers should have broad leeway to use legally purchased music and video for personal, noncommercial purposes in any way they want. But to a certain extent I think he miss the point for underlying his conclusion is, I think, a basic misunderstanding of what one purchases in the first place. When you buy from iTunes, for example, you don't buy unrestricted music. You buy a restricted version of that music and pay a price that presumably is an acceptable trade-off for those restrictions. To a certain extent, even the purchase of music via the LP was restricted--you needed a record player. In any event, theoretically, if what you want is an unrestricted version of that music, the price you're charged should be higher to compensate the owner of the music for the risk that some Marxist, or teenager, will illegally send it downstream. Considered in that light, it's hard to believe it's taken the music owners this long to utilize what is essentially a hedge against its risks--Digital Rights Management. Thus, while as a consumer I'd like greater freedom (or at least the opportunity to buy music in an unrestricted format), I understand that that's not what I purchased. I just wish that the various on-line services engaged in much greater disclosure of this fact.<br /><br /> On a related front and although technically not a DRM issue, the same concepts are being employed by the likes of Rhapsody, Napster and Yahoo Music by restricting the number of players to which you can download subscription music. (To the unintiated, these services not only allow you to purchase tracks, they also allow you to pay a monthly rent to essentially download an unlimited number of tracks to your mp3 player. As long as you keep your subscription, you can c0ntinue to listen. Let the subscription lapse and the license to listen magically expires.) Napster is the most restrictive, allowing a subscriber to download to only two devices per subscription. The other two services allow three active devices. To add an additional device, the subscriber has to deactivate one of hisr other devices for at least 30 days, which is just long enough to invalidate all of the music you previously downloaded to that device. These restrictions are undoubtedly driven by the record companies as the tradeoff for making their content legally available. Apparently the fear is that allowing more devices on a given account will only encourage people to share accounts with hundreds of others, thus depriving the record companies of revenue. But in essentially taking the default position that pretty much all of their customers are criminals, the record companies continue to place at risk their ability to leverage the internet to their economic value.<br /><br /> But in designing everything for the worst case scenario, the record companies and their surrogates--Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo and the other similar entrants--create real world problems for families of three or more, each of whom posses an mp3 player. Since none of the services offer "family" discounts, you'd have to purchase a second fully paid subscription in order to satisfy every member of the family. My humble guess is that most are not opting for the second restriction with more opting to just junk the idea of a subscription altogether.<br /><br /> I think subscription music is a good idea that has little chance of succeeding as long as the record companies remain this paranoid. At some point they'll embrace the digital age and the great commercial possibilities of alternative and cheaper methods of delivering their content, but I won't hold my breath that it will occur anytime soon. In the meantime, they'll continue to leave mega dollars on the table and while watching their antiquated business models crash and burn.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1129655976703521642005-10-18T12:52:00.000-04:002005-10-18T13:56:59.793-04:00Justice DeLayedWho knew that the currently defrocked House Majority Leader Tom DeLay would seek vindication on a technicality? After loudly proclaiming his innocence and seeking to blame the indictments on a vast left-wing conspiracy (see NY Times article <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B1EFE3A540C778CDDA90994DD404482">here</a>), the Hammer has dispatched his crack legal team to get him out of this mess on a technicality. The motions recently filed seek to vindicate DeLay by arguing, essentially, that the underlying conduct he engaged in supposedly wasn't illegal when he did it. In one particularly rich paragraph, DeLay claims that he is being indicted for the money laundering of "funds", but the funds in question where in the form of checks and checks do not meet the definition of "funds" under the Texas penal code. I suspect they still spend the same, though.<br /><br />Nonetheless, whatever the merits of the case, we do know at least that DeLay's filing makes short work of the the major tenants of his professed innocence--that he did nothing wrong and that he is being victimized by the left. Perhaps he can skate on the technicality. Many criminals do. But always keep in mind that a finding of "not guilty" doesn't necessarily make one innocent.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1129553823294362612005-10-17T08:55:00.000-04:002005-10-17T19:22:28.373-04:00Judy, Judy, JudyUsually I’m quicker study than this but I have to admit, it took me way too long to get this whole Judy Miller/New York Times/Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson/Karl Rove/Scooter Libby thing. I attribute it to the fact that I’ve been out of the journalism game for too long, particularly as it is practiced by the so-called media elite in D.C. and the City.<br /><br />At its core, the story is about the branding and marketing of the war in Iraq and the Administration’s dogged determination to crush any debate or dissent. The brilliant Frank Rich wrote about that in yesterday’s Times where he lays out the scary but true life story of the White House Iraq Group or WHIG that was fast at work selling the war in Iraq to the American people long before W claimed he had made up his mind. Here’s the link: <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/opinion/16rich.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fFrank%20Rich">http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/opinion/</a><br /><a href="http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/opinion/16rich.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fFrank%20Rich">16rich.html?n=Top%2fOpinion</a><a href="http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/opinion/16rich.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fFrank%20Rich">%2fEditorials%20</a><br /><a href="http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/opinion/16rich.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fFrank%20Rich">and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fFrank%20Rich</a><br /><br />But while understanding the underlying story is of graver concern for the welfare of our nation, I think we should not lose sight of the train wreck that is now Judy Miller. After reading the Times story about the Miller debacle and Judy’s own unintentionally funny mea culpa (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16leak.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16leak.html</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16miller.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16miller.html</a>) I can now fully understand the Times’ angst. As some Times editors readily acknowledged, Judy Miller was not the ideal candidate for this kind of principle. Miller admits now that she got the whole WMD story wrong, blaming, typically, not herself but her sources. It was pretty clear, though, to everyone else in that newsroom and outside that Miller’s stories on WMD were not credible and that she had become a stooge, as it turns out, for the WHIG.<br /><br />Sensing her career spiraling out of control, Miss Run Amok used the on-going special prosecutor investigation and her subsequent subpoena to determine the source of the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as the perfect opportunity to resurrect her flagging career on the back of the First Amendment. The problem, of course, was that this forced the hand of the Times, who now must realize how badly they were handled by Miller. In the first place, according to Miller’s own account, she’s not even sure if Libby ever revealed Plame’s identity to her. But that’s almost beside the point as it’s pretty clear that Libby had given a voluntary waiver to Miller about a year before she went to jail to allegedly protect that source. Miller’s claimed doubts about that waiver just don’t ring true, know matter how she spins the notion that Libby was truly telling her not to testify. Miller sounds like someone desperate to find a diversion. Frankly, Mary Richards heading to prison to protect her source on the old Mary Tyler Moore show was more credible.<br /><br />The irony here, of course, is that had Miller just testified when first subpoenaed, her career would like have been saved. I think most folks would have ultimately given her a pass on the wrong WMD stories. Believe it or not, people still use yesterday’s newspaper to protect the hallway from dog droppings. But by falsely raising herself as the standard bearer for journalism, Miller has brought nothing but shame to the Times and herself. For that she doesn’t deserve any more plaudits. She deserves to be fired.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1118866661306229962005-06-18T15:30:00.000-04:002005-06-18T18:10:40.356-04:00Once Again, the Facts Get In the WayFrom the day of her tragic accident until the day she died, it seemed like everyone was looking for someone to blame. Surely a young person doesn't just slip into a vegetative state and then die without someone being at fault.<br /><br />But as it turns out, you can't blame Michael Schiavo or the doctors or the courts. The recently released autopsy findings confirmed, in dramatic fashion, what he and the doctors and the courts had been saying all along—Terry Schiavo was in a persistant vegetative state with no hope of recovering. Allowing her to pass, then, was not the act of convenience that some alleged, but instead a simultaneous act of courage and despair.<br /><br />You can't blame her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, either. Sure, in the waning days of this tragedy they allowed themselves and their long-suffering daughter to be used as a tool or the ever-strident Right. But their motives were pure. Children are always supposed to outlive their parents and when the natural order of things is turned on its head, so too then is our equilibrium. Anyone can understand them wanting to believe otherwise. For them, it was purely personal.<br /><br />But there is enough blame to go around elsewhere but we need to start, where we seem to start more and more these days, with the right-wing demagogues who chose to exploit this deeply personal and private matter for their own political gain. At the top, of course, is the man at the top, the fearless and peerless W. It's tempting to give him a pass since he’s a relative neophyte at practicing this brand of radical Christianity. Having lived the life of the hard-partying frat boy long past its expiration date, W gave himself precious little chance to let things like God or even one’s place in the universe soak into his gin-soaked brain during his formative years. His religious conversion, coinciding as it did with his political aspirations, has always been a work in progress anyway. Presumably he’ll get it right at some point, hopefully before it’s too late, and recognize that his political and imperialistic ambitions should acknowledge that their unifying purpose—freedom—doesn’t mean simply replacing one implausible form of religion with another.<br /><br />Special mention, too, must go to the Fredo of the Bush clan, Jeb. As Govenor, you would think Jeb would have something, anything more important to do than order prosecutors to re-open the "Schiavo" case. Showing the true Bush pluck that there is no shame too great, Fredo Bush wants someone to explain why, 15 years ago, paramedics were allegedly not summoned more quickly to the Schiavo case after Terry collapsed. Of course, the context for this probe is the allegation, also proven wrong by the autopsy, that Terry was both strangled and beaten. Apparently Fredo and the boys want to be wrong on each and every aspect of the Schiavo case and this is the last stone apparently unturned. So while Florida suffers, Fredo fiddles.<br /><br />Moving beyond the Bush clan, let's save some blame for the archangel of American politics, the inherently evil Tom DeLay. What makes DeLay more dangerous than the Bush boys is that he actually has enough intellect and arrogance to both hatch an evil plan and see it through to fruition, the cost be damned. True, he can be a political hack at times prone to the kind of outsized rhetoric that makes Texas politicians such rogues in the first place. But putting aside his best quality for a moment, let's remember that DeLay is the kind of American who truly hates America. Neither he nor the radical Right that he represents have literally any concept of what freedom and democracy really means. I don’t see how one can be for America and all it supposedly stands for and at the same time try to regulate away anything that does not comport to the values of the Christian Right.<br /><br />Their fight about Terry Schiavo had nothing whatsoever to do with her needs or that of her family. Had it, they wouldn’t have been so quick to try and sully the reputation of Michael Schiavo by slyly implying to their friends at Fox News that Michael’s motives were less than pure—he wanted his wife dead so that he could get on with marrying the woman he was already living with. This kind of twisted character assassination had nothing to do with Terry Schiavo. It was done, as only the Right can do, to advance a radical religious agenda. Tell me what, again, are we fighting for in Iraq and Afghanistan? The irony, of course, is that our founding fathers came to this land to escape religious persecution. For all the technological progress we’ve made in the last 200 plus years, we’ve also made some embarrassing regression as a society.<br /><br />And for now, we'll conclude with the good doctor, Bill Frist. As most recall, even if he doesn't he actually from the comfort of his Georgetown home (or was it his DC office, I forget), that Terry Shiavo didn’t seem all that bad to him. Maybe he should be sued for malpractice. Maybe he should lose his license. Or maybe he should just learn to keep his pie hole shut and leave medical work to those imminetely more qualifed. Dr. Bombay comes to mind.<br /><br />What the autopsy really shows is that the good doctor is fast becoming the Enron stock of the Senate. A high flyer with misguided Presidential ambitions, he so wanted to look like a leader of national presence and wasn't afraid to do iton the back of poor Terry Shiavo and her grief stricken and confused parents. But as noted, his diagnosis was wrong and his awkward and wrong-headed legislative workaround failed miserably. It's been quite fun, actually, watching the doctor try to heal thyself since by trying to muscle through first, the bizarrely ill-tempered John Bolton, and second, the so-called nuclear option fo break the Democrats fillibuster over pending judicial nominees. Those were no more successful. As it turns out, Frist was no match for the lone Senator from his own party who doesn’t blindly think what Frist and his cronies tell him to think. And if Bolton was a disaster, how then to categorize his failure to pull off the "nuclear option"? Once again, the good doctor misdiagnosed the patient. At some point, before he completely implodes, perhaps Frist will realize, like most doctors do eventually, that having a God complex does not actually mean you are God.<br /><br />We’d all like to think that the Schiavo autopsy report would be the cold slap in the face that the likes of W, Jeb, DeLay and Frist need to at least measure their public rhetoric more carefully. But that's doubtful. It just feeds the beast as it gives them a new group to rail against--activist doctors. I suspect it won't be too long before DeLay calls for a public lynching of them as well.<br /><br />But my thoughts continue back to Terry Schiavo. She never asked for this circus. While her exit was not as graceful as it should have been, it least she had her dignity. The same can never be said for our friends on the Right.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1117582549258557352005-05-31T19:12:00.000-04:002005-05-31T19:35:49.263-04:00Bragging Rights and Random ThoughtsI'm not one to brag, at least not too much. But I was a good three months ahead of the newspaper of record on this one. In my posting of February 9, 2005, (see archives, "What's That Saying, Too Many Chiefs...") I slightly tweaked the proliferation of the title "chief" in today's corporate world. Lo and behold, a very similar article in the Sunday NY Times, May 29, 2005 ("A Title That's Not as Boss as it Looks" by Patrick McGeehan.) Of course, I neglected to add in the requisite quotes from the "experts" but the point was the same--calling someone "chief" anything is the corporate equivelant to grade inflation. It's like the local department store--you know the one that seems to always be in the middle of its "semi-annual" sale? If everything's on sale, then nothing's on sale. So it is with today's chief. When that title degrades to the wait staff at the local Applebee's, then it will be time for a new moniker. I give it about 6 months.<br /> ***<br />But I digress. There was a story in the newspaper of record a few weeks ago about the pickle the environmentalists have gotten themselves into. It seems that some of the success they've had in controlling pollutants from fossil power plants is contributing to the ever increasing rates the average consumer must bear, with no end in sight for the forseeable future. It turns out, too, that the so-called alternative energies like windpower continue to be little more than a pipe dream when it comes to large scale implementation. How, then, to power the computers on which they rely for their incessant fundraising? Well, it turns out that nuclear power, the bad boy of the industry, is clean burning and cheap, once you can navigate the byzantine regulatory process and actually get one of them suckers built. But embrace nuclear power? We'd have to re-write the '70s, and, frankly, if I had to re-experience the awful music of that era (save for Bruce Springsteen, who single handedly saved the music industry from its disco excess) I'd just assume pound out my ear drums. This has some environmentalist groups turning on each other as the more thoughtful among them actually reconsider their prior resistance to nuclear power. The truth is, of course, always in the middle. Nuclear power is inherently dangerous. Its risks are enormous. On the other hand, it is so tightly regulated now that the risk of a major radiological exposure is virtually non-existent. The industry has learned many valuable lessons from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and applies them on a daily basis to ensure that the nation's nuclear plants are among the most safely operated plants of any stripe anywhere. Nuclear power deserves to be back on the table as a viable middle ground.<br /> ***<br />Quick movie tip: Go see "Cinderella Man." These are things I know. It is a guaranteed nominee for best picture and a likely winner. Both Russell Crowe and Renee Chesney (which is much easier to spell then Zellweger) give career-defining performances, again. It's a movie, frankly, that should have been made long ago, because the story is the story of us.<br /><br />Another movie tip: "The Aviator" is a masterful movie from a masterful director, Martin Scorcese. Although I was partial to "Million Dollar Baby", "The Aviator" had the misfortune of falling in a stellar year for movies or it surely would have won best picture. Leonardo DiCaprio deserved the Oscar. See it on DVD. Now.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1113996561073461092005-04-20T07:25:00.000-04:002005-04-22T16:43:24.273-04:00Losing My ReligionMaybe I was just dreaming, but....<br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><strong>George W. Bush Elected Pope, Calls Results a "Mandate."<br />MoveOn.Org Files Suit</strong></div><div align="center"><strong></strong></div><div align="left">In a move that caught even the most seasoned Vatican watchers by surprise, George W. Bush was elected Pope late today. Bush, a devout Protestant who attends the United Methodist Church in Midland Texas, becomes the 264th Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and succeeds the universally-loved Pope John Paul II, who died April 5, 2005. White House spokesman Ari Fleischman told a stunned press corps that the two-thirds majority Bush garnered from the College of Cardinals signaled a strong mandate for both his economic and domestic programs. Fleischman quoted Bush as saying "this election gives me the kind of religious capital I've been looking for and I intend to spend it." Fleischman said that Bush plans to adopt the name, John W. Paul II, when he is ordained as the Holy See later this week. Bush was elected on the third ballot.</div><div align="left"><br />MoveOn.org, the left-leaning political action committee that gained prominence during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, vowed to fight Bush's election. MoveOn spokesman Sheila Zeinstein claimed wide-spread election fraud was behind this surprising development.</div><div align="left"><br />"Right now we have lawyers on the ground, collecting affidavit after affidavit from nearly all of the 120 Cardinals in the conclave. To a man, they can't explain how Bush was able to secure this new appointment," Zeinstein said. "We have credible evidence that will demonstrate rampant fraud, the kind of fraud that will make the recent elections in Iraq look wildly legitimate by comparison." </div><div align="left"><br />On the advice of counsel, Cardinal Vito Salazano, Vatican spokesman declined to address the voter fraud allegations. Salazano did say, however, that "I suspect that this election will come as a mild surprise to the flock. I'm the one that got the results and had to send the smoke through the chimney signifying that a two-thirds majority had been reached. Thank God I wasn't drinking the Holy Blood at the time or I might have done a spit-take." </div><div align="left"><br />Seeking to make some sense of this, U.S. House Majority Leader Thomas DeLay said that the results signals a desire for the Catholic Church to better align itself with the burgeoning Christian majority that has taken a chokehold on American politics. "This is smart, damn smart, of them Catholics," DeLay said. "They were losing ground both here and abroad. I don't blame them for glombing on to the popularity of probably the single greatest president--ever."</div><div align="left"><br />Cardinal Szen Valcowicz of Poland disagreed with DeLay's assessment. "I don't see this result--assuming it's legitimate--as any attempt to leverage the popularity of a current political figure to assist the Church. It just makes good, philosophical sense. Look, being Pope is hard work, just hard work. You have to be able to stand resolute in the face of overwhelming opposition--whether it's opposition to an unjust war or opposition to ancient dogma that has little relevance in today's environment. I think Mr. Bush, excuse me, Pope W, will make a remarkable Pope. I believe John Paul II would be proud."</div><div align="left"><br />Asked if the Cardinals were concerned that the new leader was not Catholic, Valcowicz noted "Personally, I don't see that as a major problem. The United States is not all Republican and yet he is effectively leading that country. Just look at the respect it garners these days on the world stage." Salazano added that the Cardinals felt that this move represented a "bold new direction for the Catholic Church and a chance for us to bridge our differences with the Protestants, something we've not been able to accomplish in, like, 200 years." </div><div align="left"><br />Zeinstein, however, said that MoveOn.org plans to contest the election as soon as it can find a court to hear the case. "Right now we're just looking for a forum. We'll keep filing legal actions until we can get someone, anyone, to listen. We're confident that if we can just be heard, if the courts will just look at all of the evidence, this election won't stand," Zeinstein said. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">DeLay, however, warned MoveOn.org against pursuing an agenda that sought to overturn the decisions of the Cardinals. "These are very personal and very private issues. As everyone knows, I simply have never believed that one should invoke the Courts in such disputes." DeLay said. DeLay further warned that should MoveOn.org persist, legislative or administrative intervention would not be out of the question.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left">"Those are certainly options we need to consider," DeLay said. Asked to elaborate, DeLay said "We need to look at legislation specifically tailored to denying fringe groups like MoveOn.org status to file legal actions. We also need to look at stronger regulations to close up the loopholes that allow these kind of anti-American groups to gain tax-exempt status. And we need more frequent tax audits of these groups. After all, that put the NAACP back in line, didn't it?"</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left">"But," DeLay said, "however it plays out, should there be judicial intervention to overturn this decision, the wrongdoers will be made to pay. Believe me, the men responsible for this kind of unwarranted legal activism will be held responsible for their actions," DeLay said.</div><div align="left"><br />In a separate development, a small earthquake, measuring 1.3 on the Richter scale, rumbled near the Vatican shortly after the announcement made. No injuries were reported, although the caskets of the previous 263 popes buried beneath St. Peter's Basilica were reportedly turned completely askew.</div>Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1112876413754996112005-04-07T08:08:00.000-04:002005-04-07T08:20:13.756-04:00Help A Brother OutFar be it from any of us to doubt the sincerity of someone of the stature of Tom DeLay, the U.S. House majority leader. When he threatens judges with retribution for their blatant judicial activism in response to his House-led unwarranted legislative activism in the Terri Schiavo tragedy, it is rather doubtful that he is serving any personal interest. Certainly, DeLay would stand to benefit from a suddenly timid judiciary should he be indicted as a result of the on-going investigation in Texas that has already ensnared three DeLay associates. But who are we to connect those dots? No, DeLay couldn’t possibly be that transparent. Perhaps his motives are much more nefarious—like an on-going agenda to perform an Extreme Makeover on the Constitution by eliminating such clutter like checks and balances. While DeLay may be able to bully his way into rewriting House rules in order to avoid further wrist slaps for his ethical violations, fortunately it’s doubtful he’ll have as much success bullying his way to eliminating a separate judiciary, but who knows? I never thought Paris Hilton’s "reality" show would be renewed for a second season either.<br /><br />Rather than ponder DeLay’s motives, it’s much more sporting to spot the inconsistencies in his approach. Think of it as a civics lesson version of finding the hidden objects in the picture at the back of Children’s Highlights magazine. For example, wasn’t it DeLay, as the New York Times reported, who was part of pulling the plug on his old man when he was terminally ill? There was no dramatic photo-op request for federal intervention then. But much more deliciously ironic is his panting for the intervention of the evil trial lawyers by encouraging more litigation in the name of the sanctity of life? I know, everyone hates lawyers, until of course we need them to further the Christian right’s agenda.<br /><br />While context might not be his strong suit, that still doesn’t explain how DeLay missed this case. Recently, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania threw out a case brought by the heart of DeLay’s power base--the hillbilly redneck faction. It seems that the particular hillbilly redneck in question wouldn’t remove the Confederate bumper stickers from his pick-up, which ultimately got him fired (Storey v. Burns International Security Services). Curtis Blaine Storey was employed as a security guard by Burns International. Burns, trying to convey an image of diversity intolerance as they were embarking on a hiring program, asked Curtis-Bob to remove the stickers from his pickup. Like any good gun-toting hick still fighting the Civil War, Curtis-Bob said no and was called in to explain his reticence. When he refused, again, to remove the stickers, he was tossed out, no doubt by the hair on his back. If you’re like me, you probably thought his defense went something like "What in tarnation are y’all doing? I just got my ride up off of the cinder blocks in front of my trailer and them there stickers are the only thing holding it together." But Curtis-Bob, with the help of the kind of trial lawyer who is just as likely to file the kind of endless, frivolous pleadings we saw in the Schiavo case, was more creative. He claimed his termination was national origin discrimination. His national origin? "Confederate Southern-American." As Dave Barry would say, "I’m not making this up." For good measure, he threw in that "the Confederate flag is a religious symbol because it incorporates the cross of Saint Andrew, a revered religious symbol."<br /><br />The Third Circuit, exercising the kind of judicial activism we’d all like to see more of, summarily tossed this loser suit out.<br /><br />Strangely, and I checked, Brother DeLay was no where to be found. No friend of the court brief in support of ol’ Curtis-Bob. No emergency amendment to Title VII to clarify that hilljack, I mean, "Confederate Southern-American" is a protected national origin. No Sunday evening taxpayer-financed presidential helicopter delivering George W to the Rose Garden to put his stamp of approval on any new legislation. I know that DeLay is busy fending off the enemies of freedom trying to derail his career by holding him to the same ethical standards that he accused Hillary of violating, but certainly he could have freed one of the lawyers on his ever-expanding legal team for a few minutes to help a brother out. I’ll be he would have had Curtis-Bob had the dough of, say, Jed Clampett.<br />Hey, I know it’s been a little frustrating trying to demonstrate, on a macro level, to the Confederate Southern-Americans among us the evil that these men are trying to inflict on this country. But if all politics are local, then, hopefully, it will be these personal slights to the likes of the Curtis-Bob that will be their undoing. Now get me some muskrat. I’m a hankering for some viddles.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1112395968253932442005-04-04T15:49:00.000-04:002005-04-04T16:46:45.796-04:00Wake Me When Something Important HappensWhile it may not have a coherent energy policy, give the Bush administration credit for at least having a policy of unending energy--the better to wear down the rest of the country who, by visual evidence, is mightly struggling with obesity and laziness. How else to explain the collective yawn and slumber that greets each new outrage that is foisted upon the masses?<br /><br />Exhibit 1,264 on the ever expanding list is the recently released, but suspiciously overdue, latest report on the massive intelligence failures that were used to justify the imperialistic and deadly march into Iraq and beyond. To this we first won't dwell on the slight of hand the administration performed to switch the debate from Al-Qaeda's attack on our soil to the supposed threat that the evil and decadent Saddam Hussein posed to these shores. Of course, we already knew that Saddam was an unmitigated abuser of basic rights. But we also knew, didn't we, that Saddam's greedy insticts manifested itself more in the form of an incessant need to build 10 more summer homes in and around Baghdad than in a need to control the world, or even his little corner of it. Like a pale imitation of Michael Corleone, whom he admired, Saddam spent most of his time since the first Gulf War skimming the profits from the United Nation's oil for food program, as if it were the Tropicana. But he did so more as part of a 10-year plan to encrust his bed sheets in diamonds than he did to arm his zombie-like followers, if the ease with which we went through Iraq is any barometer (and it is).<br /><br />While this seemed obvious to even George Sr., who eschewed a further drive into Iraq when he had a better chance and more justification, by the time this administration worked its magic on us, we were simply worn out to challenge by the onslaught from damn near everyone in the administration but the pool that Saddam was sitting on anything more elaborate than a gold-plated toilet. But for those few brave soles who could stay awake, we watched as the administration pulled out its trump card, hidden in its ever-lengthening sleeve. Using the likes of hatchet men like Tom DeLay and Bill Frist, they labeled them "unpatriotic." And here I thought hunting for the traitors among us had died with McCarthy.<br /><br />Now of course comes that prickly report, well into the third year of our occupation of Iraq--an occupation that has brought untold heartbreak and grief on thousands of families across the land--that essentially concludes, "oops." While it is more likely that Jessica Simpson will get admitted to Mensa than it is for the country (let alone the world) to get an apology from the Bush administration for this colossal screw-up, the least they could do is pretend they're sorry. Instead, and not surprisingly, we get the kind of spin that makes Michael Jackson's handlers sound positively candid by comparison. Rather than be embarrased (for which it has no such capacity), this administration sees the report as vindication for their claim that "hey, we got bad info too and it wasn't our fault." They feign frustration while hoping that we won't notice that they are responsible in the first instance for getting the right information or that it was their own brand of reverse engineering of the intelligence gathering process that created this mess in the first place.<br /><br />The report claims that no one in the administration influenced the intelligence process. While that calls for a "fill in your own punch line here" sort of conclusion, isn't the real trick all in how you ask the question? And does anyone really think that anyone in the administration ever asked an objective question in their lives? To our "patriotic" friends on the right, there is a difference between a question that asks for the status of Iraq's arms capabilities and one that asks how soon can we expect Iraq to launch its weapons of mass destruction.<br /><br />But lest anyone think that this report will make any meaningful difference, keep in mind that there no credible exit strategy from Iraq has been articulated and the administration has already begun laying the ground work for their next excellent adventure--target Iran--with even less intelligence or understanding of any potential threat they might impose beyond bad fashion. If the hallmark of our foreign policy is trust but verify, we too should demand that of this administration. But that appears unlikely. They just plain have more energy than we do and, frankly, whatever we have left is being consumed trying to determine the next American Idol.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1111003544140224132005-03-16T15:04:00.000-05:002005-03-17T08:37:41.260-05:00The Media Is The MessageAs it turns out, we were asking the wrong question. The mystery isn't how George W won re-election. The mystery is why he didn't win by a bigger margin.<br /><br />The last election season sparked the kind of bitter arguments among friends usually reserved for such weightier issues as Ginger or Mary Ann? But having engaged in many such debates, I always left a bit puzzled how otherwise right thinking individuals could not, would not see that their emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. And while I'm a big personal responsibility kind of guy, I think that in this instance it may not actually have been their fault. I mean, if you are told often enough that the emperor is smartly dressed, eventually you go beyond just believing it. You start seeing a wide array of outfits.<br /><br />For those of you who missed it, NY Times reporters David Barstow and Robin Stein filed a lengthy story about the W’s aggressive use of tax-payer financed, prepackaged, ready-to-serve news reports that, coincidentally, provide a, wink, more balanced view on controversial issues ranging from the war in Iraq to the new prescription drug program under Medicare. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html) In doing so, W has turned the government into pretty much a turnkey operation: create the news, write the news, report the news. And the budget-conscious local news hacks, who have slashed their news staffs, lap it up faster than the free scotch at their cousin’s wedding.<br /><br />What Barstow and Stein tell us is that any number of federal agencies have taken to producing and distributing news segments for broadcast on your local Action 9 News without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in the production. These news segments are purposely crafted to fit seemlessly into the broadcast with the "reporters" (in many cases, former reporters who have gone to the dark side) making sure they are "careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government," according to Barstow and Stein. And if their observation that the "government’s news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration," leaves you slack-jawed, then you just haven’t been paying attention, have you?<br /><br />The local news hacks are just as complicit in this dirty little secret, conveniently forgetting to tell their viewers of the source of these "stories." While that, in and of itself has got to be a breach of journalistic ethics, the misconduct is far more insidious. The Times report noted, for example, the case of News 10 Now in Syracuse (which could easily be Buffalo or Des Moines) broadcasting one of these news releases but editing out the narration from the government’s reporter and replacing it with near word-for-word narration from one of its own reporters. But for real laughs is the case in 2002 involving WHBQ in Memphis, in which Tish Clark Dunning (I’m not making this up, folks, that’s her name) "reworked" one of the State Department’s puff pieces on how swell things were now going for women in Afghanistan. The unintentionally ironic Ms. Dunning noted that she didn’t actually go to Afghanistan but instead reworked the story, doing some research on her own. The nature of that research? According to Ms. Dunning, "I remember looking on the Internet and finding out how it all started as far as women covering their faces and everything." Thank God for Google.<br /><br />Interestingly, the GAO has come out against this potential "covert propaganda" three times in the past year, according to Barstow and Stein. But W is nothing if not persistent and if patently false information wasn’t going to stop Americans from being slaughtered in Iraq, then a pesky little bit of legalese out of GAO isn’t going to shut down the administration’s mult-million dollar p.r. machine.<br /><br />It’s true that these "video news releases" have been going on since the first Clinton administration. But according to the Times, under W, more federal agencies are producing more releases on a broader array of topics. Which, too, shouldn’t leave anyone slack-jawed.<br /><br />In the end, while this may be the most direct example, it is just more evidence of the current administration’s abject distrust of the first amendment and its continued shaping of a government-controlled media. While the majority of Americans collectively yawn, we can just throw this on the scrap heap that includes the case of columnists like Armstrong Williams, who sold his journalistic sole for a nifty $240,000 to shill for the No Child Left Behind Act without ever revealing the conflict and the odd case of "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute" wannabe Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert, a faux journalist with a real press pass, lobbing softball questions during administration press conferences. But at least there’s an upside: as long as W and his cronies are in control, Tish will never want for work.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1110394123616283422005-03-09T15:30:00.000-05:002005-03-29T08:41:30.713-05:00Who Knew We Were So Close to the Edge?I know the adage, if you're not living on the edge, you're not living. But if the delicate balance between living in bliss and total chaos can be tipped by the kidnapping of a Hollywood B-actor, then I need to find a more stable boundary.<br /><br />An item being reported by Reuters says that New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe may have been targeted for kidnapping by Al Qaeda as a plot to destablize our culture, at least according to Russell. Russell told reporters that sometime in 2001 he was interviewed and provided protection by the FBI because of reports that Osama and his poorly-groomed posse, were looking to carryout their attacks on America by eliminating our cultural icons. Now, of course, this leads to a number of questions, not the least of which is whether or not Crowe is still taking his medication.<br /><br />Correct me if you must, but didn't Crowe star in "A Beautiful Mind", an academy-award winning movie about a paranoid Princeton mathematics professor who claimed he was being targeted by, perhaps, aliens because of his scary talent? And didn't Crowe, as Nash, gain protection by the FBI and other shadowy government operatives in order to ensure that our great nation remained the sole recipient of Nash's gifts? Hmmm.<br /><br />Far be it from me to accuse Crowe of being paranoid. Bizarrely egocentric perhaps, but never paranoid. Can't you just see Osama now, gathered around some crude fire pit with his inner circle, picking the flies out his ever lengthening beard finalizing his plans for his attack on the U.S.<br /><br />"Followers, I brought you here today to so that we can reach consensus on how best to attack the great Satan. We have a short list here and we need to bring closure because I need to head back to the mountains to winterize my cave. Mousaoui, whaddya got?"<br /><br />"Oh great seer, our cell has been working on an intricate plan to destablize the cultural institutions of the great Satan. According to our contacts in America, the infidels spend hour upon hour each day watching Entertainment Tonight, the E! Network, and reading People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. If we can destroy these underlying cultural institutions, then we will create a country without a soul or purpose to which we can then convert them all to our radical and incomprehensible vision of Islam."<br /><br />"Interesting. Pass me the bread. Go on, how do you expect to destroy these cultural institutions?"<br /><br />"If you don't mind, please save me the end piece from the bread. It's my favorite."<br /><br />"Fine. Now go on about your plan."<br /><br />"Well, we have operatives on the ground, ready to take out the greatest of their heroes, Mr. Russell Crowe. With him gone, there will be no programming for their devilish television networks, no pictures for their pornographic magazines. Their culture will collapse."<br /><br />"Not bad, not bad. But isn't he Australian?"<br /><br />"Let me get back to you on that one."<br /><br />"Fine. Muhammad, whaddya got?"<br /><br />"Well, we were thinking of flying planes into the World Trade Center. The buildings would collapse, thousands would die, and the country would be despondent and feeling vulnerable to further terroist attacks."<br /><br />"Not bad, either. Tough call but I've got to play my hunches here. Let's go with the plane thing. If that doesn't work, we can always kill Crowe, so finish the background check."<br /><br />Well, at least we still have our culture.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1109023837486985932005-02-27T15:30:00.000-05:002005-03-03T14:00:41.360-05:00More Ritalin, please.I’m not much for dwelling on the "good ol’ days". For one, they weren’t all good, no one’s were. But it is fascinating to consider how the memory does play havoc with your psyche. Take this test. Think about your last performance review. I defy you to remember anything good your boss may have said. The only thing you remember is the how your boss unfairly focused on the mistakes in that report that went up to corporate. Anything good has long since been forgotten and, you know, the boss is such a jerk anyway.<br /><br />But think about your good ol’ days, however you choose to define them, and if you are like most, everything seemed easier, less complicated and certainly less hectic. It’s one thing when there were only 3 or 4 channels to choose from and nothing was on. Now you have to wind your way through upwards of 100 just to come to the same conclusion. Man, that’s complicated.<br /><br />I thought of all this recently following our recent celebration of the ubiquitous "Presidents Day." It may be just me but I think life was better when we just celebrated Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday. (I know, save your cards and letters. At the federal level, we still celebrate Washington’s birthday as the third Monday in February.) The reason is that when I was growing up, before our good friends on the right gave us the completely misnamed "No Child Left Behind" act, teachers gave us history lessons about Washington and Lincoln. Year in and year out. You couldn’t help but learn some history. Now, with public education focused almost solely on forcing kids to learn just enough to pass embarrasingly easy proficiency exams, precious little time seems to be spent on basic U.S. history. Either that or we, as a society, have the collective attention span of a puppy. How else to explain the incredibly high rankings of George W. Bush in a recent poll commissed by Washington College in honor of, there it is again, "Presidents Day."<br /><br />That poll rated Ronald Reagan as the greatest president. But I'll forgive the populace for this one given that it's been more than 16 years since he left office. In this day when most people can't remember the last time they flossed, it's rather unfair to ask them to remember something that is so last millenium. That tends to make it easy to erase from our collective conscience the arms-for-hostages, Iran-Contra mess that made Reagen look like a dottering old fool on the witness stand. But I can't give a pass to those who put George W. in the top 5. <br /><br />Putting politics aside, which is always hard, W. is still in office. Don't you think we ought to at least wait until we can judge his whole body of work before placing him in historic context? This is the equivalent to watching hearing Clay Aiken on "American Idol" and concluding, after one song, that he's the greatest singer ever.<br /><br />But putting politics in the mix for a moment, I wonder, exactly, how these folks define "great", recognizing, of course that many of these also use the word "genius" to describe the latest Lindsey Lohan CD. Is is the soaring deficit under his watch when he inherited a surplus that makes W. great? Is it the senseless American casualties (1500 and counting) piling up in Iraq because of a war being fought under outrageously false pretenses that makes W. great?<br /><br />If W's Medicare prescription drug program works every bit as well as, say, his education program, then his legacy is safe. We won't be able to afford the ritalin we apparently need in order to pay attention for more than 30 seconds.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1108664383607210142005-02-17T21:00:00.000-05:002005-02-18T12:50:14.680-05:00Fart Jokes and Hypocrisy--Let's Hear it for the RightOne of the more troubling developments over the last year is the Salem witch trial like atmosphere our good friends in Congress, the FCC (read, Michael Powell), the Parents Resource Council and other fringe "groups" have created for proponents of free speech. Every time the Right takes down its perceived enemies, it lights up a $25 cigar, cracks open the courvoisier, and damn near tears a rotator cuff patting itself on the back because of the great good it did in the name of free speech. Then, without any sense of irony, they snuff out the cigar, take the last swig of their drink, and then jump feet first in the fight against free speech by grousing about Howard Stern and Janet Jackson's left breast and all other similar evil. The bill likely to be passed by Congress to raise the fines for "indecency" is nothing more than a direct attack on free speech itself. And don't you just hate when they hide behind the "responsibility" banner that has become both sword and shield for the Right in its justification for ridding the public airwaves of fart jokes and pierced nipples. When broadcasters are fearful that televising "Saving Private Ryan" will expose them to crippling fines, there is no question that free speech is being chilled and that the populace and the greater good are much worse off for it. Two of the patron saints of the Right--Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved--would, if they had their way, destroy every print of "Million Dollar Baby" because they believe it makes the case of compassionate assisted suicide. Never mind the ridiculousness of the proposition to anyone who has actually viewed the movie, the insidious nature of their diatribe is what galls me. We are quickly becoming a society intolerant of opposing view points. Rather than listen and reject (it's too hopeful to believe someone could learn from an opposing viewpoint), the right believes it is better that any speech that fails its ever shifting litmus test of "offensive" be outright banned. Personally, I find anything involving Paris Hilton offensive. But I don't think she should be banned. Ultimately she'll suffer a much greater indignity--rejection. That kind of stuff always does die its natural death. Why can't the right be comfortable with that notion?<br /><br />Ok, enough for now on the rather bizarre indecency bill floating its way through Congress. There is enough through the looking glass activity going on there to scratch one's head bald. You have religious right fanatics in bed with politically correct left wing loonies both proudly and boldly proclaiming that it is their full intent to chill speech and engage in censorship. We certainly aren't in Kansas any more. I suspect that this bill will die in conference, but who knows?<br /><br />More disturbing to me, though, is the rather odd confluence of events on the journalism front. I'm a recovered journalist myself and therefore I still have an unhealthy obsession on this subject. But even someone who cares little about it should be very, very concerned. The bloggers on the Right, Power Line is a good example, and others, proudly touted the resignations /retirements of a couple of real journalists because, dammit, they were sloppy and irresponsible. But I checked Power Line and barely a word about the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert situation, except a gratuitous isn't it amusing take. How does the White House allow a paid stud like Gannon/Guckert to get credentialed when a legitimate journalist with whom the administration disagrees--Maureen Dowd--can't get her press pass renewed? Is it because Gannon/Guckert, a cubic zirconium of a journalist if ever there was one, is shilling for the administration while the often-shrill Dowd works for that last bastion of liberalism, the New York Times? Nah. My guess is that it's probably because Dowd's extensive background check revealed that she probably burned a flag in protest or some other similar crime against America and Gannon/Guckert's background check only revealed his insatiable interest in gay porn and male escort services. If that's the standard, then Larry Flynt has a much greater claim to seeking press credentials. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that one.<br /><br />By Frank Rich's count, there are now at least six "journalists" on the Bush payroll, and probably more. Yet the Right and its bloggers remain oddly silent even complacent in light of this and the extensive, multi-million dollar budgets allocated to the military to produce its own "spin" about the war. Give the Bush administration credit for one thing, though. It can learn a lesson or two even from its sworn enemies. They didn't just watch, amusingly, as Baghdad Bob railed against the infidels in the early days of the war. They've stolen his act. If the bloggers on the Right truly are about accountability and responsibility then I would expect and accept nothing less than a series of posts demanding the resignation of Scott McClellan, who clearly participated and fostered this fraud, and anyone else in the administration associated with any program to pay and create fake news. If this is what we are fighting the war in Iraq over, we could have saved billions. Iraq already had state-sponsored journalists and were doing quite well at it.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1107368554508165312005-02-09T11:33:00.000-05:002005-02-18T12:50:56.233-05:00What's that saying, "Too many chiefs, not enough..."They coronated another chief today. Maybe it's the inferiority complex we here in the second city feel, but whatever the explanation there is no doubt in my mind anymore that we lead all nations in chiefs.<br /><br />Once upon a time, the corporate America hierarchy was easy to discern, quaint even. Like our government, the top spot was reserved for the President. Everyone understood in an organization that if you were President, you were the top dog. But if one Vice President is good (an arguable tenent given the rather irrelevance of that position in the context of our government), several has to be better. Thus begat the naming of Vice Presidents for each of the major operating units. For those within each business unit, you still more or less understood the pecking order. That is, until the banks got involved.<br /><br />Looking to further improve on that model, banks took this to an extreme. Pretty soon, damn near everyone but the tellers had the title "Vice President" somehow attached to their name. There were "Associate Vice Presidents", "Assistant Vice Presidents", "First Vice Presidents", etc. ad nauseum. Not only did they cheapen the title, but you could no longer figure out the pecking order--which is really the only point of titles anyway.<br /><br />Luckily, most other companies decided not to follow the ridiculous path being forged by our brethern in the banking trade. Unluckily, we just couldn't leave well enough alone, which is what happens when you become an $85 billion multi-national behomoth. Pretty soon we, too, started inflating the titles of the heads of our business units. What were once Vice Presidents thus became Presidents. On the plus side, it relegated the title "Vice President" back to the irrelevant scrap heap from which it arose in the first place. (We still have Vice Presidents, of course. Who doesn't? But unless that title is followed by an "and" then take it to the bank. You have absolutely no chance of ascending to a President title. In other words, you've basically been told that you're not much to look at but you have a great personality.)<br /><br />Having cheapened the title of President by passing it around like high school boys pass around a bottle of Boone's Farm on a Friday night, the deep thinkers in human resources were in a real pickle. One must be able to distinguish, for example, between a mere President and a real President. Let me think. Let me think. That's where the chief comes in.<br /><br />So we named a Chief Executive Officer, of course. He still has President in his title, but he's been appended, as in "...AND Chief Executive Officer." What this means, of course, is that when all the executive officers meet, he's the one that gets to sit at the head chair and control the meeting. Believe me, that is the single best perk, ever. Forget the paycheck, the personal driver, the corporate jet. Forget the country club memberships, the stock options and the summer house in the Hamptons. If you get to control the meeting--when it starts, what the agenda is and, most importantly, when it ends, that is the real power of life. It's like holding the remote control, permanently.<br /><br />We then named a Chief Operating Officer. He's also an appended one, too, as Vice President AND Chief Operating Officer. One thing to know about this job, though, is that it comes with a wink, as in, we know, wink wink, who really gets stuff done. In every day terms, this guy is the wingman. His main job is to make sure he's got the CEO's back. If he's loyal, if he doesn't step in it too bad, someday he too may get to hold the remote control.<br /><br />Acting like Michael Jackson in a plastic surgeon's office, we just couldn't control ourselves. If one is good and two is better, eight chiefs must be the bestest. That is, until there are nine. So we added an entire menu of chiefs--Chief Governance Officer, Chief Ethics Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Procurement Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. And that's just on the executive level. Among the serfs, we added Chief Clerk, Chief Mechanic, Chief Sales Associate and Chief Engineer. But before our friends in HR tear a rotator cuff patting each other on the back at what they wrought, they ought to recognize that the light at the end of the tunnel is an on-coming semi. If past be prologue, and it is, we'll have to title inflate again. That's what we do. You see it in government with the incessant need to name Czars, which, admittedly, has a certain ring to it despite its spotty history. I think the only remaining question is the order of the titles on the business card, which, pretty soon, will have to be printed on 8 1/2 by 11 stock.<br /><br />Me? I supect there's not a chief in my future. I suspect there's not an "AND" in my future, either. I'll die a happy man if I could just get more than one word in my title.Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1106850915446823952005-01-27T16:35:00.000-05:002005-01-27T16:03:26.143-05:00The Death of Network Television as We Know ItI swear, pretty soon this will be about corporate America, but...
<br />
<br />An item in the Life Section of the Wednesday USA Today really caught my eye. It said that ABC has "yanked low-rated family sitcom <em>Complete Savages</em>...From its Friday lineup and will substitute repeats of <em>8 Simple Rules.</em>" Roll that around on your tongue for awhile and then ask yourself, "Is This The Sign I've Been Looking For?"
<br />
<br />If that happens to be a sign that the world is about to end, then the answer is, I think, "no." But as for the future of network television, well that's another matter. Who knew, for example, that there was even such a show as <em>Complete Savages</em>? But more to the point, if the only thing ABC has lying in the bank is repeats of <em>8 Simple Rules, </em>it ought to get out of the entertainment business--yesterday. Frankly, I thought that <em>8 Simple Rules</em> was cancelled after John Ritter died, not that it was much to watch even with the deceased Mr. Ritter. Whatever talent he once had (and you can make your own judgments by checking out his career-defining work each night on Nick at nit reruns of <em>Three's Company</em>), by the time this painfully unfunny and achingly unrealistic look at parenting hit the airwaves it was not exactly making me forget McLean Stevenson's masterful work in <em>Hello Larry</em>. And now it's the fall back for another failed sitcom? How bad does that make <em>Complete Savages</em>?" and how come the programming director who let this dreck on the air still has a job? Anyone? Buehler?
<br />
<br />The truth of the matter is that network television is barely relevant anymore. Who among us doesn't think that <em>Desperate Housewives</em> on HBO would be far superior? But while the networks barely stay above the ever rising quicksand when it comes to the one-hour drama (what's next, <em>CSI: </em>Akron<em>?</em>), they've pretty much stopped trying in the sitcom department. From what I can tell, NBC, for example, has exactly 3 sitcoms on its regular schedule: <em>Scrubs, Committed, </em>and <em>Joey. </em>God help us if <em>Committed</em> gets cancelled and replaced with back-to-back episodes of <em>Joey. </em>And the network heads continue to scratch their head and wonder why they lose market share to televised poker.
<br />
<br />
<br />Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1106572935414304642005-01-24T16:02:00.000-05:002005-01-24T13:03:20.230-05:00As the kids would say, "that's so random..."I really wanted this to be about corporate America. And it will be, I promise. But there are other things on my mind.
<br />
<br />Scrolling through the weekend...
<br />
<br />I had a chance to see "In Good Company." I was forwarned by my teenage daughter that it really wasn't very good. On the other hand, a host of very positive reviews elsewhere and I found myself at the local multi-plex.
<br />
<br />It turns out, both were right and that's not necessarily a good thing. From a performance standpoint, it was just fine. But now I do understand where my daughter was coming from. First, the marketing simply doesn't match the movie. Despite what you might believe from the ads you've seen, this is not a simple boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, contrived circumstances pull them apart, and love wins in the end. That's the kind of movies teenage girls, and their mothers, like most. But that wasn't this movie. There were breezy comic moments, to be sure. But the movie was much less boy-meets-girl than I suspect anyone in the audience could have imagined based on the TV ads.
<br />
<br />Second, in the end I'm just not sure what the heck the movie was about which ultimately left me frustrated. When you pitch a movie idea to a studio, the rule of thumb is to keep it to one sentence. If it takes much more than that, there's little chance it will get made, unless you plan on distributing your "vision" yourself. This is something to keep in mind as you watch. When a movie's over, try to figure out that one-sentence pitch. If you can do that, chances are the movie was successful. I've struggled for the last two days to figure out the one-sentence pitch of this movie. "Early 50s corporate manager, too young to retire and too old to start over, struggles to find his place in today's corporate environment"? "Mid-20s, upwardly mobile corporate hot shot stuggles to find his place in today's corporate environment"? If either were the case, then how does the Topher Grace/Scarlett Johanson "relationship" figure into this matrix? Simply put, it doesn't and, I suspect, that's why the relationship itself lost its steam in the movie and, ultimately, is the reason why I think my daughter and her friends were unimpressed.
<br />
<br />The sense I get is that the director, or perhaps the writer, didn't want to make another "romantic comedy" as if that's a bad thing. I don't accept that premise. Irrespective of the subject matter, a movie that knows what it wants to achieve and goes out and does just that will always be a successful movie. In the romantic comedy genre, think "My Best Friend's Wedding", "Love, Actually" or "Notting Hill." Nothing necessarily weighty in the subject matter, but in each case the movie was a success. The writers, directors, and actors all understood what they were trying to accomplish and then set about doing so. And in each case the experience was fulfilling.
<br />
<br />But here, if anything was clear, the writer, director and the studio were not on the same page. Too many compromises were made in the editing. The sense I got was that the writer wanted to say something about corporate America. The studio wanted a romantic comedy. The poor director tried to balance the two and didn't end up delivering on either.
<br />
<br />To me, the scene that perhaps served as the best metaphor for this movie occurred when Topher Grace's character is talked into buying the Porsche and crashes it as he drives off the lot. The crash didn't render the car inoperable, but it certainly took the steam out of the experience. So much promise, so little payoff.
<br />
<br />Which brings me to...
<br />
<br />The Pittsburgh/New England AFC Championship game. If you were a Pittsburgh fan, you had to like your chances. It had all the elements. History--never has a team with such a lofty record been denied a Super Bowl birth. Fate--the stellar record of their pact-with-the-devil quarter, Ben Roethlisberger. But in the end, they crashed and burned. Not only to a better team but a better coach. Bill Cowher comes from the Marty Schottenheimer coaching tree, having got his coaching start under Marty as the special teams coach with the Cleveland Browns. Marty has proven to be the ultimate tease as a coach, which is why he remains employed, albeit with his fifth team. He can get a team on the precipice, but like an undersized groom with an oversized bride, he can't lift the goods over the threshold. So too it appears with Bill. He's now lost 3 AFC Championships and one Super Bowl. And while I'm usually a team kind of guy, yesterday's loss is laid at his feet. With the game in the balance and the opportunity to do something great, he laid up, eschewing a chance to get within 7 points with nearly the entire fourth quarter to play in favor of a rather meaningless field goal. If ever there was a large sucking sound, that was it. You could visibly hear the air come out of the team, the fans and the entire city. I suspect the <a href="http://www.firebillcowher.com">www.firebillcowher.com</a> web site was up and running within seconds. I remember the last time I saw that kind of lay-up. It was at the 15th hole of the 1993 Masters when Chip Beck, three strokes down with four holes to play, refused to try and reach the reachable par 5 15th. Instead, he laid up, tried to get it close with the third and putt in for a birdie, none of which happened. Since that time, Beck has all but disappeared from the PGA Tour (where he once was an elite player and former Ryder Cup member). While I haven't yet checked the local papers, I'm suspecting there's a healthy dose of Pittsburghers just praying that Bill Schottencowher will do the same.
<br />Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10332863.post-1106438032612539542005-01-22T21:53:00.000-05:002005-01-22T18:53:52.613-05:00Another Cold Day in HellNot necessarily wanting to make this solely or even about politics, I nonetheless ate some bad pizza the other day, fell asleep and had the weirdest dream that this story appeared in the New York Times:
<br /><div align="left">
<br /><strong>Bush Promises to Divide the Country</strong></div><div align="left"><strong></strong>
<br /> In a stunning rebuke to nearly half of the voting public and Democrats across the country, President George W. Bush pledged during his inaugural to divide the country even further during the next four years.
<br /></div><div align="left"> Speaking to the highly partisan Republican crowd attending last Thursday's inauguration Bush promised an aggressive agenda to eliminate those civil rights that get in the way of our war on terror while pushing through "value-based" initiatives that will steer this country more closely to God.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> "I want a country that is one, big, united, big country," Bush said, "But we can't get there, we really can't, if we continue to allow the liberals in this country to keep criminals on the street and God out of the classroom."
<br /></div><div align="left"> Outlining the planks of his self-styled "War on Liberals", Bush promised to:</div><div align="left">
<br /> 1. Sponsor the "No Bible Left Behind" initiative that would mandate the teaching of creationism as the only explanation for the origin of man.
<br /></div><div align="left"> 2. Propose a package of Constitutional amendments that would: mandate teaching Christianity in public schools; specifically authorize the private possession of assault weapons; and, specifically deny a woman's right to choose.
<br /></div><div align="left"> 3. Eviscerate nearly all environmental laws and regulations, or at least those that get in the way of progress.</div><div align="left">
<br /> 4. Extend current tax breaks for those making in excess of $100,000 and eliminate all taxes on capital gains.
<br /></div><div align="left"> "These are just the beginning," Bush said. "In year 2 I'm thinking that maybe we need evern tougherer, mandatory jail sentences for welfare cheats and narrowing, as much as possible, liability for medical malpractice and job discrimination. Those things are really a big drag on business."</div><div align="left">
<br /> Bush shurgged off criticism that an aggressive agenda premised on the suspension or elimination of most civil liberties could alienate the U.S. in the world community, saying "Who gives a damn about pissing off the French--again. I know this will be hard work. It's hard. It really is. But I prayed about this last night and I know this will be best for the country in the long run. A nation that is more friendly to business, where everyone prays to the same God and, dammit, where everyone gets along is a good idea, it really is." Asked whether he recognized that his views were eerily similar to Hitler's vision for Germany in the 1940s, Bush said "I don't know much about that. That was a long time ago. But as I said on election night and I'll say again, 'this election has given me political capital and I intend to spend it.'"</div>Gary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.com0