Daily Ramblings:
Until Then ...12/11/2004 10:26:08 am
Via LGF, a link to this very poignant and tasteful tribute to the military and military families. It'll take a while to load on dial-up, but, as they say, it's worth it.
Isn't the internet wonderful? Imagine a world where ABC News put something like this together? Instead, we get to appreciate a little something created by someone called T. Clegg of GCS Distributing.
It Ain't Me Babe ...12/08/2004 10:13:04 am
Delightful, in a perverse way, is this idiotic piece of bile from Richard Oxman in the looney left journal Counterpunch, titled Down With Dylan. In it, he rails against Dylan for the substance of the 60 Minutes interview, as if Bob controlled the questions CBS chose to ask, and Bob made the editing decisions that determined which handful of minutes would actually air. He even says:
Please don't bring in anything about the cutting room floor here. I used to have TV and radio gigs, interviewing stars (quite a bit lower on The Ladder), and...that was him, trust me.
Oh, of-course, he's earned our implicit trust. Especially when he refers to Dylan going through "30 minutes of such an experience without a single reference to another star (except Elvis!)" Don't know what channel he was watching, but the Dylan segment on 60 Minutes was 15 minutes long, if that, and the actual air time of interview footage (versus old 1960's clips etc) was clearly less than 10. And CBS themselves told everyone that Dylan and Bradley sat down for 90 minutes in Northhampton, Massachusetts.
I have never had "TV and radio gigs," but it seems to me that anyone with a modicum of experience watching TV, and a reasonable capacity for critical thinking, can tell when cuts take place in an interview. One exchange Oxman rips Dylan apart for concerns Bob's parents. Even a neophyte can watch that segment of the interview and see that Bob's answers are clearly cut up. Bradley asks a question about how Dylan's father considered it a joke that Bob referred to New York as the capital of the world, and then it cuts quickly to Bob, answering not in the tone of someone beginning an answer, but rather the tone of someone in the middle of a longer statement. (I just tried to make an audio clip, but my technical know-how only extended to recording a loud electrical hum.) This kind of thing happens frequently in the inteview - as indeed it must, considering that they cut 90 minutes down to less than 10. So, Oxman rips Bob for not being kind to his parents, when any kindlier words he said are locked away in CBS's vault forever (along with the closed-circuit footage of Dan Rather printing out Bush's National Guard records.)
It's amusing that it particularly sticks in Oxman's craw that Dylan referred to America as the "land of the free."
Oh yes, no words about any wars either from The One-Time Master of Anti-War Song. He would rather be known as a Zionist and/or a Song and Dance Man than to be billed as The Archbishop of Anarchy? Y'know, maybe that was a better line than the one above about "Land of the Free."
So, the left bites back at Dylan once again for failing to be their Messiah. It never ends.
Of-course the piece-de-resistance is this nugget near the end:
There are things to do about Arrogance and Greed in this country whether or not the target is Bush or Bob.
Bush or Bob! When the looney left starts to equate Bob Dylan with the hated George W. Bushitler, we here at RightWingBob.com know that we can afford a satisfied sigh and maybe even a few hours off.
Ahhh ....
Go Get Me My Pistol, Babe ...12/07/2004 07:56:11 pm
Amazing. On NBC Nightly News tonight (with Brian Williams) a clip was played from a surveillance video in a convenience store, taken as it was being robbed. The robber had said he had a gun, but didn't display it. The clerk, a female, handed over money from the register. The robber then asked her to step back from the register. She said later that she felt particularly threatened by that instruction, so she pulled out a gun from under the counter and blasted the guy. An excellent piece of shooting, by the way, especially given the circumstances. As he writhed on the floor she apparently told him to stay put while she called the police.
What's amazing is how Williams introducted the piece: (roughly) "Now a clip from a surveillance tape that should make all convenience store robbers think twice."
That's it. Afterwards, he came back on to say that the guy had been arrested and charged with robbery or whatever.
Again, that's it. What the hell is happening here? Where was the gratuitous and obligatory commentary raising questions as to whether the woman should have shot him, seeing has how he didn't actually point a gun at her? Where was the citation of some fallacious statistic or other saying that guns in convenience stores are more likely to cause innocent deaths than to save lives? Where were any of the flights away from common sense that we have come to depend on the network news to provide?
At the very least, they could have just ignored the story. I mean, people defend themselves successfully with guns every day in America, and it generally gets consigned to the Police Blotter section of the local newspaper. But let one psychopath misuse an illegally owned weapon and it leads the news on all channels.
I'm willing to admit it - this kind of coverage from the NBC Nightly News completely flummoxes me. Just what is the idea of showing a thing like that as it happened - a good citizen having her life threatened and defending herself successfully with a firearm - and not warning impressionable viewers that this kind of thing is terribly dangerous and under no circumstances is to be taken as an example? Instead, Williams introduced the piece with a warning to robbers! For Pete's sake, people are going to think they have a right to disobey the orders of criminals, and use guns to defend themselves, instead of waiting for the police to come and remove their bodies according to the correct evidentiary procedures. There's no telling where something like this could end!
Is this just a terrible mistake on the part of some newbies at the Nightly News, or has some kind of line been crossed here?
I don't know, but I think I'm going to fix myself a drink and retire early.
When I met you, baby,
You didn't show no visible scars.
You could ride like Annie Oakley,
You could shoot like Belle Starr.
(with thanks to Clint Eastwood)
Addendum: Too much could be read into this, but, hmmm ...
The Really Big Show ...12/05/2004 07:27:25 pm
Addendum 08:41:06 pm
Bob conveys his excitement at being included in Ed Bradley's 15 minutes of self-indulgence and lousy journalism:
Not sure how much time I'll have tonight to type, but anyone who wants to comment here on the 60 Minutes interview, please feel free to add to this string:
Addendum: 12/06/2004 09:32:01 am - As others, e.g. Russ, pointed out in the comments above, there were some worthwhile Bob moments, though our bile at the overall missed opportunity may have obscured them. My favorite moment last night, and still, was Dylan's great example of economy of expression - when Bradley made this statement in an incredulous tone: "It's ironic, that the way that people viewed you was just the polar opposite of the way you viewed yourself ... ?"
... and Bob just replies, "I'n't that something?"
UH OH ...12/04/2004 11:18:57 am
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Tomorrow Night ...12/04/2004 09:27:05 am
I guess it has to be said now that there's less than meets the eye to the upcoming 60 Minutes interview. As it's now going to be just one of three segments on the show, it's bound to be a tightly edited piece that says more about the priorities of Ed Bradley and Co. than anything else. That said, any Dylan interview is always entertaining. The way it's being promoted is of-course disingenuous. "The reclusive Bob Dylan finally speaks out!" Dedicated Dylan fans know that there is an enormous body of interviews that he has done down through the years. The fact that the great majority are print interviews somehow allows them to be ignored by those who wish to label Bob a hermit. Actually, Bob chooses his words carefully and so they really benefit from the print medium. Several books have been compiled grouping various interviews together, and the most striking thing about them is the fundamental consistency and, dare I say it, wisdom of this folk/rock/protest/Jesus loving/substance-abusing sicko (to paraphrase the spoken word intro he uses at gigs these days). There must be few artists of any type who have spoken repeatedly, at such length and with such clarity and insight, regarding their own work and occasional other subjects, as Bob Dylan.
So, it's hard to know what of any significance will be added by a chopped-up quarter hour of chatting with Ed Bradley - aside from the novelty of being able to see him speaking. As to why Dylan is choosing to engage with a medium (TV) that he has a demonstrable aversion to, the obvious answer would seem to be the obvious one. He has a book out. He's grateful (however hokey that might seem) to the people at the publishing company who supported him in getting it done, and getting it done his way, and he's making an effort to be a good little author by doing the necessary promotion.
One wonders to what extent having to go through all this will discourage him from ever completing Volumes 2 and 3.
Imagine, sometime in 2007, Volume 2 hits the shelves. Dylan is booked onto 20/20. The promotional spot features a shot of Bob twiddling a pen in his hands while under a spotlight. We hear Diane Sawyer breathlessly exclaim, "The reclusive Bob Dylan finally speaks out!"
It ain't no stretch.
The Right Men ...12/03/2004 09:33:38 pm
Bernie Kerik, nominated today by President Bush to be the Secretary Of Homeland Security, is a spectacularly good choice, though most of the news stories on his nomination miss the real reasons why. Yes, he was the New York City Police Commissioner at a time of great reductions in crime - but that process had been started by others and so it could be said that his credit is largely for continuing the trend. It is his achievements previous to that, specifically at the New York City Department Of Corrections (mentioned by President Bush in his remarks today), that make clear he has the stuff needed to conquer the mind blowing collection of bureacracies that make up the Department of Homeland Security.
As described in Rudy Giuliani's book "Leadership," Kerik took over Corrections in 1995, when reported cases of inmate-on-inmate violence were soaring at 1,093 incidents in that year alone. Budget crunches required reducing the number of corrections officers, while strong law enforcement on the streets was making the prison population boom. Warnings of imminent disaster were commonplace in the press. Of-course those were like the warnings we heard about the war in Iraq causing "instability" in the Middle East. The prisons of New York were already a disaster.
Kerik implemented strict accountability standards for managers, according to quantifiable results, and fired anyone who didn't get with the program. Attacks by prisoners on prisoners, previously brushed off as just part of your normal jail experience, suddenly were to be prosecuted. So, people already in jail for 20 years would be rearrested, charged, tried and convicted of assaults - all so that they could get another 5 years tacked on. Where others had shrugged and said, "What's the difference?", Kerik and Giuliani understood that the alternative to punishing people for these crimes was absolute anarchy; i.e., the status quo ante. It turned out that even these hard cases in the prisons were not at all eager to have more years added to their miserable sentences. Under the new regime of accountable management and accountable inmates, violence in the prisons didn't just drop - it plummeted at 500 mph. That total of 1,093 reported acts in 1995 had fallen to 70 in 2000. A reduction, if anyone's counting, by about 93 percent.
Kerik took on problems that just about everyone else had considered intractable - and he, well, tracted them. If anyone can get accountability and results from agencies like borders, customs, immigration, the transportation and security administration, and so on, he's the man. And everyone knows where he was on September 11th. He's got that passion behind his eyes. No one is going to fall asleep when he gives a press conference about the latest threat.
I called this posting "The Right Men," plural, because the other big decision today was to keep on another spectacularly qualified individual - the Secretary Of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. In their story on this, the AP included this nice summation of his achievements in the first term:
Rumsfeld's tenure has been marked by unanticipated postwar violence in Iraq and more than 1,250 U.S. deaths, as well as enormous increases in spending on the military after the 9-11 attacks.
That is really and truly unbelievable, but there it is. I guess it would have been a sign of the apocalypse if they had actually given a fair encapsulation of what's been accomplished under his leadership ... something more like this:
Rumsfeld's tenure has seen the liberation of 50 million Muslims from viciously oppressive regimes, in two textbook military campaigns that stunned most observers. In Afghanistan, an unprecedented combination of special forces working with indigenous allies, utilizing precision weaponry from the air, routed the seemingly entrenched Taliban in a landscape historically lethal to invaders - in a space of about two months. Further adding to the scope of this achievement was the fact that the plan was hatched and implemented in a few short weeks following the September 11th 2001 attack on the United States, and was carefully designed to avoid civilian casualties.
In Iraq, the Saddam Hussein regime had been digging in for years and knew the timing of the Coalition attack. Nevertheless, U.S. forces successfully swept through the country and seized Baghdad in 21 days. A host of anticipated disasters were averted - there was no destruction of oil fields, no destruction of dams, no mass civilian casualties or refugees. However, due in part to a last minute refusal to cooperate by the Turkish government (preventing U.S. forces from an approach via the north), many dedicated Saddam loyalists disappeared - only to regroup and contribute to an insurgency which continues to this day. Those attacks have pushed U.S. deaths to more than 1,250 - still extremely low by historical standards for an operation of this scope.
Of-course even that only gives credit for the war making - and not the remaking of the U.S. military for the 21st century - a battle which goes on in any case.
So, President Bush continues to set up a cabinet that will not mark time, but will push ahead aggressively and advance the agenda that he was elected to pursue. He's picking some great new people, and keeping the best of the old.
Hold on tight, nervous liberals - this is not going to be fun for you.
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Baby Stop Crying ...12/03/2004 05:58:07 pm
Completely beyond parody, is this story on Post Election Selection Trauma, from the Boca Raton News.
“There’s an overall sense of emotional helplessness and abandonment,” said
Sheila Cooperman, a licensed AHA psychotherapist from Delray Beach. “In
psychology, we call it ‘learned helplessness.’ After you zap a caged dog
twice, he stops moving because he knows there is no place to go. That’s what
happened with these Kerry voters. They’ve been zapped so many times that
they’re on the verge of giving up on politics.”
Cooperman, also a practicing psychic, added, “One person today said he
thinks the country is now run by fascists. Another felt personally
threatened by the president’s love for big business. Many believe Bush is
going to draft their grandchildren. The anxiety may not affect them every
day, but it affects their energy level.”
An additional 30 people are signed up for two other AHA election support
groups, which will meet for the remainder of the year and possibly beyond.
Gordon said his patients’ emotional problems typically started with the
“hanging chad” debacle of 2000.
“First, they need to realize they’re not going to overturn the 2004
election,” Gordon said. “They have to live with it. The problem is they have
no faith because they think the religious right has hijacked the political
system. We try to tell them there is still an election in 2008. You can’t
just give up and be apathetic.”Initially with this story, which has been bouncing around for weeks, the funny thing was that anyone would consider the post-election blues to be a mental disorder. At this point though, one must concede that it's not funny. These people really do have a mental disorder. I'm willing to agree that these people need help - they need to be cured. No matter what the cost. No matter the means. Heavy duty drugs, lobotomies - you name it.
Make them better, please. And when it's achieved with this test sample of lunatics, then the same means should be applied to the MoveOn.orgers, the Democratic Undergrounders, the Skull & Bones enthusiasts, and anyone else suffering from what should be called Obsessive-Bush-Hating-Delusion/Psychosis. It's one case where the cost to the taxpayer should not be considered an object.
You're No Good ...12/02/2004 09:57:31 am
Avowed Dylan fan Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota takes time out from reading all the letters generated by the "Dylan For Dubya Campaign" to write his own piece on the mind boggling corruption at the U.N..
While financial scandals involving "other people's money" tend to make eyes glaze over, it's worth meditating on the lethal results of these crimes. As Senator Coleman writes:
The consequences of the U.N.'s ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.
Since it was never likely that the U.N. Security Council, some of whose permanent members were awash in Saddam's favors, would ever call for Saddam's removal, the U.S. and its coalition partners were forced to put troops in harm's way to oust him by force.
In other words, even as many members and officials of the U.N., including Kofi Annan, pranced and posed in advance of the war, pleading for "more time for diplomacy to work," it was the U.N.'s own complicity in the stealing of billions of Oil-For-Food dollars that gave Saddam the resources and confidence to endure.
And they want more room in Manhattan to expand their racket? Phooey.
I'm Going To Speak To The Crowd ...12/1/2004 09:06:05 am
CBS has run a commerical during their Early Show - and maybe other times - promoting Bob's 60 Minutes appearance. A voice-over asks a question similar to, "What would make Bob Dylan break his public silence?" and then you see Dylan - looking pretty snazzy in my opinion - saying, "The common perception was that I was either a drunk or a sicko."
And that's it ...
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