June 30, 2007

Al Gore as the new Babbitt

What fascinates about Al Gore is not - as this article from the Chicago Sun-Times shows so clearly - that he is full of hooey when it comes to his global warming "scientific" pronouncements. It is that so many people believe him and that he is more popular than ever.

As so much has changed in our society, fuddy-duddy "liberalism" has become the most conventional or, dare I say it, conservative of belief systems. It's almost as if the novels of Sinclair Lewis have been resurrected in our times with Al as Babbitt or Elmer Gantry - actually a bizarre contemporary combination of the two. We have a public, most of which does not have any serious or formal scientific training in climatology - listening to the opinions of someone who may have even less. Our media, of course, is equally bourgeois and conventional in its simplistic response to his Alness, simply accepting what even the most normal inquiring mind would delve into on a more sophisticated level. But you won't find that in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Instead we got non-stop applause replete with endless Nobel Prize speculation.

Besides being ridiculous, this Babbittry is finally anti-environmental. Any reasonable person should be concerned about the environment. Any reasonable person should be concerned about conservation. But turning global warming - anthropogenic or otherwise - into a self-aggrandizing personal crusade replete with constant misrepresentation of fact is reactionary and ultimately dangerous. Our environment is a serious matter, not a cause upon which to resurrect a floundering career.

UPDATE: Didn't realize Maggie's Farm beat me to the punch way back in February.

Posted by Roger at 10:45 AM
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Blogging through California

I am sitting in the passenger seat of our Subaru SUV (sorry, no hybrid) typing this on my MacBook with a Verizon modem card beamed upward. We are on the dreaded Highway 5, headed all the way to Seattle and, ultimately, Bainbridge Island. It is now 10:12AM Pacific. We got on the road around 5:15AM to beat the traffic and ran smack into two accidents that slowed everything down for about an hour. Then we made the obligatory stop at Harris Ranch for breakfast (it's not great but it's all there is on this cuisine starved highway in such a foodie state).

What tickles me is that I can contact the Pajamas crew on iChat as I go, watching the Verizon bars bounce up and down at the top of my screen. So far reception has been pretty good. Speeds are so-so, not equal to broadband (as the company brags), but still it's amazing to be able to do this. And, unlike an iPhone, I'm typing away right on normal keys with the computer jacked straight into the car, not wasting batteries.

Posted by Roger at 10:10 AM
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June 29, 2007

Goodbye, Joel

An old friend of mine, film critic Joel Siegel, just passed away from cancer at 63. These days, that's young. Years back Joel was part of a regular poker game at my house in Echo Park. I owe him big time for a review he wrote of my novel The Big Fix in the LATimes back in the Seventies. It helped jump start my career. Later on he would review movies I wrote on ABC, not always as kindly. By then we were living on opposite coasts and wouldn't see each other as often. But when we did, it was always relaxed and amusing. Joel Siegel liked to laugh.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:47 PM
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It's a Rave for Jesse Simon!

Excuse a father's pride at his son's rave review in today's Los Angeles Times.

It isn't difficult to imagine a cargo cult gathering around Simon's sculpture, which seems to have washed ashore from a world more intriguing than this one.

If you're in the Southern California area, hustle down to the Patricia Faure Gallery before the show closes July 14.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:37 AM
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Welcome to your new job, Gordon Brown

For the foreseeable future, those who covet such jobs at President of the United States and Prime Minister of Great Britain are entering prime be-careful-what-you-wish-for territory. Two days after installation, Gordon Brown was faced with a potential attack that PJM Barcelona editor Jose Guardia told me on IM when I woke this morning would have been "Madrid-level or worse". And he should know. (Jose did his usual superb job of providing the important links to the event - while California slept).

I imagine most of us wish this stuff would just go away and we could return to what passed for our normal lives. I know I would. Unfortunately, it's not. The most logical prediction is that it only is going to get worse. And it has been brewing for a long time - long before the Iraq War and 9/11 or even the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. If you're looking for benchmarks, you're more likely looking at the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. But even that is just one bump in a road going back centuries. Where will it stop?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:27 AM
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June 28, 2007

Beware of The Documentary

I have been meaning to write for some time some thoughts I have about the documentary film form and have been inspired to do so because of an article on Pajamas - A Liberal College Kid Sees Sicko. We published that piece because we like to stimulate discussion and because, frankly, we want to bring younger people into Pajamas Media. (The CEO is, as many of you know, of a "certain age.")

Now my intention in this post is not to bash Michael Moore - I've done plenty of that - but to examine the documentary form. To be blunt, I am suspicious of it, no matter what point of view is taken by the filmmaker. Film, to begin with, is highly manipulative, but documentaries purport to be truth. Are they? Not really. They are an arrangement of the version of the truth the filmmaker wishes to portray or promulgate. In fact, in most cases, they are a HiMarks outline of that version of the truth, because the film is at most two hours long. (Of course there are exceptions - The Sorrow and the Pity, etc.)

In the best documentaries (Crumb), this arrangement of the truth is brilliantly and subtly done. In other cases, flashy techniques are used to preach to the converted (Leni Riefenstahl... or, to a much lesser, cheesier effect, Michael Moore). But still it is an arrangement. It almost always lacks the intellectual rigor of text. If you look at Wikipedia, for example, even given the inherent biases, a basis for fact-checking is established. Documentaries, almost deliberately, obfuscate the facts. Fiction films, of course, are fictions. (Ironically, they may often be closer to the truth.)

Now of course all written forms - film and text - (including this) obfuscate facts. But the issue is the feedback and the checking. You can give me feedback - right now - in the comments and tell me where I am wrong. You can't do that with a documentary. The name itself is fallacious.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:17 AM
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June 27, 2007

Fairness for what and whom

The Fairness Doctrine is back in the air, most recently inspired by the ever-witty John "El Ponderoso"Kerry as well as Mesdames Clinton, Boxer and Feinstein. They all seem concerned by the preponderance of conservative voices on talk radio. A lot of this stems from the embarrassing failure of Air America. (Note to "liberals" - why would you expect Air America to succeed? There already was a liberal station on the air whose quality is and was about a thousand times better than Air America. It's called NPR. Why would anyone waste a second listening to Air America?)

But leaving that aside, what exactly is "fairness" and to whom do we give this coveted "equal time?" Anarcho-syndicalists? Royalists? Members of Opus Dei? Jihadists? Scientologists? Retired Mugwumps? Or do we just give equal time to Sean Hannity and Al Gore? (who already have their voices drilled so deeply in our brains we'll never get them out)

Sorry, John, Hillary, Barbara and Dianne, last I checked this is a democracy. A Fairness Doctrine means fairness for you. It's no more than a scam. And it's deeply reactionary.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:06 AM
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June 26, 2007

Rosie O'Donell has joined Fatah...

... or it Hamas? I used to think Rosie O'Donnell was just a deadly boring loudmouth. Now... with this picture of her child.... I think should be put away. Any television network who puts the mother of a child posed like this on the air should have its collective head examined.

Posted by Roger at 12:20 PM
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Richard Cohen on the GOP

Richard Cohen has a rather conventional column in the WaPo this morning, which, in essence, states the obvious: the coming presidential election can sway either way because of the ever-present national defense issues. Both sides will use and abuse it after their fashion.

Okay.

But his article does include this howler: The GOP is adept at painting Democrats as soft on national security. It is equally adept at saying so in the most scurrilous way. And while most Americans would like the war to end, they do not favor a precipitous withdrawal and neither have they forgotten Sept. 11, 2001 -- the entirety of Giuliani's case for the presidency, after all.

Say what?

Rudy Giuliani is also greatly responsible for making New York - our biggest city of course - livable again after decades of high crime and disrepair. No other candidate in either party can cite a leadership accomplishment anywhere near that.

Your response, Richard?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:13 AM
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"What is it with women and backrubs?"

John Podhoretz asks this question in the lead-off comments for Dr. Helen Smith's new advice column on Pajamas.

(No, I don't have an answer. I just do it... Yours is not to reason why... yours is just to do or... etc.)

BTW, new column by the Instawife looks to be fun. Jump in.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:33 AM
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June 24, 2007

Steve Jobs has killed art

No, I'm serious. When I was young (or younger), we used to wait for the next Fellini movie. Or Warhol show. Or Dylan album. Or Bellow novel.

Now who cares about that stuff? It's the iPhone, baby. The medium really is the message. Tech is art. Forget about movies, books, music, paintings and all that Twentieth Century stuff. And don't tell me about all those cool movies on YouTube. They ain't Lawrence of Arabia or La Dolce Vita.

Oh, wait a minute... there is some art left.... Pixar! (you see what I mean - it's all Steve!)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:02 PM
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June 23, 2007

Rushdie, Rutten, Rose, Reynolds and the whole damn thing

Back in the early Paleolithic Age, when I was a Yale Drama student, I played the role of Quentin - the Arthur Miller surrogate - in some scenes from Miller's After the Fall. I had a line - "How few the days are that hold the mind in place" - that I could never handle well. I thought it was the awkward syntax, but in retrospect I realize it was because I was too young to understand the meaning, at least in a visceral sense. Now I do - and how.

But today was one of those rare positive "mind in place" days, a part of it anyway, because Tim Rutten's article in the Los Angeles Times - "Where is the West's outcry?" - made me proud to be part of Pajamas Media. Rutten's piece is about the lack of response in Western media to the Islamic worlds' outrage at the knighting of Salman Rushdie. The exception Rutten cites is Flemming Rose's article in Pajamas Media.

I am pleased to say I commissioned that article because I thought there was no one better than Flemming - the instigator of the Danish cartoons - to comment on the new campaign against Rushdie. But before you accuse me of bragging, let me go on to say that what I did, in normal circumstances, was painfully obvious. Many should have done that. And let me also reassure you that the good mood I referred to above didn't last long. Thought instant to thought instant, Heaven to Hell, as the Zen Buddhists say.

The cause of my mood swing was my friend Glenn Reynolds. He also linked to the Rutten article with the following comment:

"Frankly, I think the best argument for electing a Democrat as President is that as long as a Republican is in office the media powers-that-be will refuse to condemn even the worst atrocities on the part of Islamists, for fear of helping the real enemy in the White House."

How true and how pathetic.

And what a terrible pass that puts us in.

As one who is fundamentally disinterested in whether one is a Democrat or a Republican - or even a liberal or a conservative, since those terms have been reduced to intellectual rubble - I found what Glenn wrote terrifyingly dark. Because even though I don't much care any longer for political parties - they come and go and rename themselves, etc. - I care passionately about the Enlightenment, free speech, separation of church and state, freedom of assembly and the rest of that short but delicate list that makes life decent in the West.

Therefore, I truly and deeply support Salman Rushdie as a fellow writer and as a citizen of the world.

But that's the easy part. And I imagine many of the media-types who regularly read Rutten's column will respond "Oh, yes, Tim's right. We forgot... Go, Salman!"

Unfortunately, however, the curious absence of response to Islamic religious totalitarianism in our media is far more serious than the Rushdie Affair, as serious as that may be...

So I want to take this a little further. The partisanship of our society has struck us blind. Iraq, as everyone knows, has driven us apart. But looking back on it - it could not have been otherwise. We were doomed. In a society with a supposedly-free (though often reified) press, it becomes almost impossible to win an assymetrical war. The same prejudices that Rutten describes in his Rushdie article are the ones that have seriously undermined the possibility of victory for democracy in Iraq. A media that could call obvious fascists and religious fascists "insurgents" (a term once reserved for Pancho Villa) in the interest of "objectivity" encouraged a specious atmosphere of moral equivalence to democracy from the start. Whether this was conscious or unconscious is beside the point. Whatever it was, our enemies, the enemies of the Enlightenment, seized on it for propaganda purposes and continue to do so. (Note that in the new Daniel Pearl movie, Pearl's beheading is not even shown - that was praised as tasteful by Roger Ebert.) And, as everyone knows, the playing field of assymetrical war is the media, far more than the battlefield. Only in the world of public opinion can we be defeated.

Now I am not accusing anyone here of lack of patriotism. This was partisanship and bias in action. But it was blind and it was stupid. And Bush and company weren't too bright either. They walked right into it, having played the partisanship game themselves for too long. Now there is no question we are in the very heart of darkness. I am not sure how we will get out.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:04 PM
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June 22, 2007

Separated at Birth - Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul

On one level you have to laugh that Kucinich and Paul were the only two dissenting votes in a 411-2 Congressional resolution urging the UN Security Council to charge Iran's president Ahmadinejad under genocide conventions. But it is interesting these particular men stood alone in supposedly principled opposition to the obvious. And I'm sure their supporters would cite these "principles" as being great and idealistic. I'll leave aside all the usual Neville Chamberlain clichés, because, well, we all know them, and cut to the chase - my view of their true motivations.

I think both of these men became highly-rigid narcissists decades ago. Their entire public personae ... and the attention they crave... are totally dependent on maintaining an inviolable public image. You can invariably predict everything they are going to say, every attitude they take. There is never a surprise, because they are playing roles they have chosen for themselves and for which they were rewarded with public and media attention from years in the past. If they changed their positions and became more reasonable, even in a few areas, they would simply disappear because they no longer fulfilled their roles.

This disappearance, of course, is intolerable to the narcissist. The point - for both Kucinich and Paul- is not to win, but to bask in that reflected glow that justifies their existence. This is also an indication why both do not appear to listen when others talk. To do so would be to have their thought processes challenged and to risk change. What fascinates me in this, however, is that, unlike in national polls where they barely register, a large number of people in their home areas actually voted for the Congressmen. Perhaps Paul and Kucinich have different personalities for the hometown crowd - a kind of sudden practicality - or maybe it's just earmarks or maybe... those folks back home bask in the glow of the narcissism too. Hey, this famous guy comes from our little town!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:41 PM
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June 21, 2007

Vaclav Klaus vs. Al Gore

As I have written several times before, I am a global warming agnostic. Even though I rather suspect my scientific background is at least equal to Al Gore's (whose academic career was, shall we say, "checkered"), I do not consider myself qualified to opine. (And, yes, I do favor conservation, anti-pollution measures and energy independence... duh... it's anthropogenic global warming we're discussing here.)

But... you knew there'd be one, didn't you... I was fascinated by the dialog on the subject between Czech President Vaclav Klaus (an economist whose academic career was anything but "checkered") and readers of the Financial Times. Klaus writes well in his second language, a lot better than almost all American politicians (including Gore) in their first language, so perhaps I am seduced by his literacy and learning. But Klaus does seem to make a number of strong points from the point of view of a professional economist with some scientific background, points that most of our politicians (in the present "religious" cllimate) do not dare to make, even if they agree with them.

I wonder if Gore would debate Klaus. I doubt it. There's no profit in it for Al. The Czech Republic is a small country, after all, and Al is after bigger game. Why risk having your arguments eviscerated?

But I don't think it's the US Presidency that Al's after. I think it's the Nobel Prize. Reason: there's more money for him in the Nobel. And I think money (and fame) is a lot of Al's goal at the moment. Can you imagine how much he's making touring the world as the Apostle of Environmental Armageddon? Tens, maybe even hundreds of millions. Why give that up? Why put that at jeopardy with pesky facts - or worse, with the inevitable clamor for full IRS disclosure were he to run for office?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:03 AM
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June 20, 2007

Congress: the joke's on us

I never thought I'd say this, but the US Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid makes me yearn for the days of Dennis Hastert. And I gather the vast majority of my fellow citizens feel the same way since Congress' approval rating is at an all-time low of 14%! [You could get 14% approval for Attila.-ed. He gets 30%.]

This should give a little pause to those Democratic Party triumphalists who think their crowd is going to waltz into the White House in '08. But that's the least of it. The more important question is why our government is run by such dimwitted mediocrities on both sides of the aisle. I have written before that Silvestre Reyes is the poster child of our Congress - a man who, as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee [sic], couldn't tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. And he's still in office! Think about that, those of you who run businesses large and small. As CEO of Pajamas Media, if one of our editors were that uniformed at this point in history I would have no choice but to show him or her the door (not that any of our editors are even remotely that ignorant).

The comparison between government and business has been made many times before and I used to give government the benefit of the doubt. And I am still convinced that there are many things government does better than the private sector, things that it must do. But if government is run by the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Reyes and Hastert, then Heaven help us.

The first thing we need to deal with this is term limits. Government has become a sinecure for the inept. We already have a two-term limit on the Presidency. Similar limits on the House and Senate would be just fine. Of course, we all know such limits stand little chance of passing. The incumbents, on both sides of the aisle, want to stay in office for life. This is most probably an example of how our elected officials are in complete opposition to the will of the people. Given the results of the Gallup Poll linked above, what do you think the percentage of the populace is that would support term limits? My guess is something close to 86% (with the usual margin of error).

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:50 PM
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French BlackBerrys, mon amour

I have not made the leap to a BlackBerry - reason being I value those few moments of privacy I still have (all three minutes of them). FULL DISCLOSURE: I am - as a dutiful servant of Lord Steve - considering an iPhone.

Nevertheless, I had a good laugh that the French have their knickers in the proverbial twist over possible US spying on their BlackBerrys. Tel Aviv editor Allison Sommer got off a good line about it over on Pajamas: "Quel horreur! We wouldn't want them giving away those valuable French military secrets..."

Actually, there may be a bit more to it than all that, given French footsie with mullahs (Total Elf, etc.). But I'm more interested in the dish. Can you imagine the hanky-panky you would hear in thirty minutes listening to a dozen French BlackBerrys? Forget Peyton Place or Desperate Housewives. And forget national secrets too. This would be Colette on steroids. [Are you saying there's money to be made selling French BlackBerry tapes?-ed. My lips are sealed.]

Posted by Roger at 10:32 AM
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June 19, 2007

Fred Fever - The First Blogger revisited

DId Pajamas Media do it? Of course not. But the rise of Fred Thompson to number one on the latest Rasmussen Poll before he has even announced is quite amazing. I submit it is the harbinger of a new kind of politics.

Without reference to McCain-Feingold or any other form of campaign finance regulation, Thompson, by going around the traditional political methods, is in the process of demolishing, or at least significantly weakening, the importance of money in politics.

No matter how you slice it, this is a good thing.

Thompson, via Internet blogs and videos, has gone directly to the people. Of course, he began with considerable fame from his acting career, but that is and was not enough.

Thompson has been paying attention to new media in a manner heretofore not used. Howard Dean (via his then campaign manager Joe Trippi) exploited the Internet from the outside. Thompson is doing it from the inside. He is indeed running for First Blogger. This is unprecedented and, so far, a brilliant strategy.

No doubt he will have difficulty keeping this up as times goes on. But if he maintains at least the spirit of this - with direct links to the American people - he will have changed our political landscape forever. We have all spent our lives bemoaning the role of Big Money in politics, but wrestling to find some way to restrain it without restricting free speech. Thompson may have found that.

Blog on, Fred!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:32 AM
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June 18, 2007

Support Sir Salman

The backlash against Salman Rushdie's knighthood has (no surprise) begun.

I'm supporting Sir Salman. Care to join me? [I know - all you novelists stick together.-ed. You mean like Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal?]

UPDATE: FYI - from Parliament:

THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
(HANSARD)in the third session of the fifty-second parliament of the
united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland commencing on the
seventh day of may in the forty-sixth year of the reign of

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it would be invidious for any
Minister to discuss the tax affairs of any UK national. The level of
protection which will be provided to Mr Rushdie during his time in
America is entirely a matter for the American authorities.

Posted by Roger at 10:19 AM
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Ban Ki-moon on Darfur

New UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon may be right in blaming some of the Darfur situation on the global climate crisis... but as far as a I know there has always been drought in Africa. It seems as if global warming is not only the new religion, it's the new global excuse. But Ban is at least to be praised for doing something about Darfur, as opposed to his creepy predecessor.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:52 AM
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June 16, 2007

Pizza in Minneapolis? Let's get serious....

James Lileks is a terrific writer, but when he writes a paragraph like this, you know he has spent too much of his life in the Middle West.

Disagree? Have any pizza recommendations worth driving across town to try? Want to defend that peculiar substance the New Yorkers call pizza, or get into a bitter slapping match over the merits of corn-based crust? Here you go.

James, sorry, if you want to talk pizza, start with Naples, not Minneapolis or even New York. But failing that, start with Nancy Silverton. And if you don't know who she is - you're disqualified from culinary discussion.

Posted by Roger at 9:08 PM
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Saturday Night Live in the Palestinian Territories

I'm in a hotel room in New York and the Middle East seems strangely near. And I don't think it's just the 3000 miles LA - NY difference. You can almost hear that land of Palestine imploding. Things have spun so far out of control it's hard to imagine what will happen. And in the midst of it all, somewhere in that benighted land some Hamas lunatic has run off with Yasser Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize - a joke on a joke. I wonder what the pompous fakes in Oslo who awarded the psycho-killler the prize in the first place must be thinking. I'll tell you what I'm thinking - it's poetic justice. With luck the silly medal will end up melted down for BBs in some Jenin basement.

Meanwhile Debka says Hamas walked off with the intelligence haul of intelligence hauls, rifling Fatah. If Debka is right, it would seem that the one-time Holocaust denier Abbas was a CIA agent. If he was one, he stank. And since, it's Debka, I'm skeptical anyway. But what I'm not entirely skeptical about is the report from the Times Online that newly-installed Defense Minister Ehud Barak is lining up 20000 troops to say sayonara to Hamas. I'm not entirely skeptical because Ehud Barak has demonstrated something in his past that Ehud Olmert never has - balls - even if he demonstrated them dressed as a woman. It's going to be an interesting summer.

Posted by Roger at 7:30 PM
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June 14, 2007

Gaza: Better Call Human Rights Watch... or someone

According to the AP, those "spiritual" Hamas fighters "dragged vanquished [Fatah] gunmen into the street and shot them to death execution-style."

So it goes in Gaza, where the Israelis once supposedly practiced apartheid, if we are to believe that other great "spiritual" leader Jimmy Carter, who, in my view, is one of the great self-righteous fakes in American history and a creepy racist besides. [But how do you really feel about him?-ed. You heard me.] Still, even if we are to buy into Carter's palaver, the Palestinians must be yearning for a little apartheid these days. Left to their own devices, they have turned Gaza into the charnel house of charnel houses.

And with Hamas taking over Gaza, and declaring an Islamic state, that can only mean one thing - Welcome Ayatollah Khamenei and his Psycho-Dwarf Ahmadinejad. The Mullahs will now be ensconced on Israel's southern and northern borders. [Maybe someone should call Javier Solana?-ed. I thought I fired you.]

Unlike Jimmuh, I am not, alas, a very spiritual person. I tried Zen for a while, but I didn't have the discipline. And being inside synagogues and churches doesn't fill me with awe the way it does others (though I admire the architecture). Being inside a mosque, of course, fills me with the desire to watch my back. But if I were a believer, I'd be thanking God right now I wasn't born in Gaza, because I think the Palestinians there are about ready to experience a Hell the likes of which even they have never dreamed about. Because Hamas, being basically a psychopathic organization, will be unable to control themselves if they win, especially since they will be the lackeys of their overlords in Tehran. This means they will overreach quickly. This time, I am relatively certain, the Israeli response will be swift and in no way measured, as it was in Lebanon. And no one will make much of an attempt to stop them because almost no one cares much for the Gazans anymore. [What about Jimmuh?-ed. He's hard of hearing.]

Posted by Roger at 2:02 PM
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More Sarkozy fall-out?

One of my favorite blogs - The Dissident Frogman - is back. Of course, he, like Steyn (see interview linked below), is skeptical of Sarko (the default position for politicians).

Posted by Roger at 10:58 AM
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Steyn on Pajamas line

My video interview with Mark Steyn is up on Pajamas. You can see it here. Or you can see it on our front page in our spiffy new video theater.

Posted by Roger at 4:19 AM
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June 13, 2007

First Rather, Now Moonves

Everybody's got some explanation for the extinction of a dinosaur (the Evening News). First, according to Dan (see below), it's because Ms. Katie is "dumbing down" the news; now it's because, according to CBS honcho Les Moonves, Ms. Katie is a Ms.

Oh, please. Find a new spin doctor someone. We live in an era when a woman is quite possibly on her way to the White House and Moonves wants us to believe that horse hockey. No one (or almost no one) cares whether it's a man or a woman blabbering on on the Evening News - it's just that people are tired of the forced blabber. History, technology and everything else moves on.... but not, apparently, CBS, which seems to be sinking fast in the LaBrea tar pits (not far from CBS hq, as it happens).

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:10 AM
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June 12, 2007

Dan Rather will always be Dan Rather

If I had been Dan Rather - and been so humiliated for flagrantly lying on national television and then losing my job for it - I probably would have just gone away or tried to do some kind of penance to feel good about myself.

But then I'm not... obviously... Dan Rather.

Dan is back today to criticize Katie Couric for "dumbing down" the news - lying being, I suppose, intelligent. But never mind, Dan decries this new trend in "tarting up" news and opines that it is behind the declining ratings for CBS. No, Dan, what's behind the declining ratings is that no one needs the evening news anymore, no matter who is delivering it. The evening news is pernicious. It assumes people are too stupid to go find the news themselves when they want it and must have it spoon fed to them by some pompous ass, male or female.

And now I must go because I vowed never to write another word about Dan Rather. Paris Hilton is more interesting - and more newsworthy.

Posted by Roger at 9:30 AM
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Ron Paul in the Land of Oz

Or I should say Ron Paul supporters in the land of Oz... but I'll get to that in a moment.

The background is that Ron Paul has returned to the Pajamas Media Poll because the Presidential candidate got one percent of the vote in the most recent Gallup Poll. He immediately shot into the lead with ... at this moment ... an amazing 52%. And that figure is amazing considering Paul is going nowhere fast on statistically sampled non-Internet polls, sometimes making one percent and sometimes not. In the big world, he's no Fred Thompson.

So who are these Paul supporters that are so devoted to their paleo-libertarian hero? [Full disclosure: I find Paul brain dead, as I do most ideologues.] They certainly are a feisty lot. When Paul fell below one percent for a couple of weeks, they wrote PJM tons of obscene email. I could quote a bit of it here, but this is a family blog. [I didn't know that.-ed. Neither did I, but their emails are too boring to quote and most of them were deleted immediately anyway.]

But their obscenity is only one way the Paul people are out of touch. (Their repeated obscenity and abusiveness is not exactly the way to win friends and influence people.) They seem to think that organizing and bombing an Internet poll is a good way to get their candidate noticed and elected. ("Hey, guys, let's all run down to Pajamas Media and vote like crazy.") Well, maybe. And given Paul's low standing on the national polls, they would have to do something. But attacking one poll in this manner is so obvious to readers - we get a stream of email now telling us to ban him altogether for the sake of the poll - that I cannot help but think it just turns people off. It does me.

Of course, psychological sophistication isn't a hallmark of Paul supporters. Ideological purity is. More than most groups, they live deep in the world of theory, typing away on their computers with very little connection to the real world. In that way they are somewhat like their candidate - a man who, I confess, was not on my radar screen until recently - who seems to suffer from a kind of cognitive dissonance. When you listen to him answer questions at the debates, he never appears to answer directly. And I don't mean that he spins in the way nearly all politicians do. He seems so lost in ideology he doesn't quite comprehend. Can you imagine this man actually being elected and telling the G8 he wants to go back on the gold standard? I guess his supporters would applaud.

But obviously the last thing we have to worry about is Paul winning. And I don't think his supporters really want that anyway. What they really want - and I think their behavior makes it clear - is the feeling of being right.

Posted by Roger at 6:25 AM
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June 10, 2007

At Jesse's Opening

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:28 AM
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June 9, 2007

Come Ye Sons (and Daughters) of Art!

At a loss what to do this evening? Looking for some so-so white wine but really terrific art? My son Jesse Simon's show is opening. Reception is between 6 and 8 (still time for dinner) at the Patricia Faure Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. (Address at link. Show will be up for a month.)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:52 AM
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June 8, 2007

Gaza: "Al Reuters" gets with the program

Events in Gaza are getting so extreme even the organization known to some as "Al Reuters" is impressed. I can't remember ever seeing a paragraph like this concerning the Arab-Israeli situation from the news service:

Jum'a said ordinary Palestinians were so fed up with the armed groups "they now wish the Israeli occupation would take over in Gaza or hope for the return of Jordanian rule in the West Bank" to get rid of them.

What does this mean? Probably not good things for the Palestinian Cause - though better perhaps with the Palestinian people, who appear to be fed up with Fatah and Hamas.

How long this will last for the Palestinians or the news service is anybody's guess, but it does, in an interesting way, validate Sharon's decision to withdraw. With the madness of the Palestinian leadership now completely exposed, for the first time we are seeing ... in Reuters of all places ... talk of reunification with Jordan. Now that is a sea change.

Meanwhile, and speaking of sea changes, the annual Gay Pride Parade in Israel continues to grow. Here in LA these events are so routine we just regard them as yet another stopper in our hideous traffic. But over there I suspect they are a great message to the rest of the Middle East. Just like the rest of us, millions of Arabs are gay. They must look on in envy and wonder.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:05 AM
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June 6, 2007

Sexual Segregation in Saudi Arabia: Et tu, Starbucks?

Naive me... I had assumed Starbucks - with its high-minded CEO who has received an award for "ethics in business" from Notre Dame and its general do-gooder, post-hippie ethos - was on the more progressive side of corporations and that they would never (heaven forfend!) engage in practices like segregation.

Yet they do. Sexual segregation. According to a fascinating front page article in the LAT today by Megan Stack, the Starbucks in Saudi Arabia have a small women's only section accessed through a back door. The full bore Starbucks that we all know and sort of love is for men only. And Stack knows of what she speaks. She spent months walking around that medieval center of psychopathic misogyny in a black abaya.

Evidently other American fast food joints are in Saudi Arabia (I think I knew that), obeying the misogynistic Sharia laws, as are some of our hotel chains. Pretty bad... but Starbucks? Hath they no shame?

I guess the argument is they are subverting the system from within (remember Google and Yahoo in China) but reading Ms. Stack's article I think they are just giving the Saudis another venue for expressing their sick Wahhabi value system. Actually, Starbucks and the others are enabling the system by allowing one half of Saudi society to live modern or semi-modern lives while treating the other half like chattel.

Time for Starbucks to pack up its frapuccinos and get out. Time for the rest of us to stop drinking the oil of these creepy potentates.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:13 PM
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Hello, Iowa... It's 2007!

Rudy Giuliani was spot on in opting out of the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa today. In fact, he should opt out of the whole Iowa thing - and so should everyone else - in my not so humble opinion. Straw polls and caucuses are all well and good on the internet, where we know they are pretty much just for fun. But when votes start to count, they should be accurate and fairly administered. In other words, no more caucuses and straw polls. Just primaries, please. Iowa should find a better way to put itself on the map. An Iowa Primary would be just fine.

UPDATE: Of course the rise of Fred Mania may have something to do with the above. (Fred T. is now number two on the Rasmussen Weekly Poll - and he's not even officially declared ). Also, Rudy's weakness in early primary states, as pointed out in the Barone Blog link above.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:58 AM
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June 4, 2007

The FBI Meets the Zabar's Zeitgeist

Nora Ephron has written a snarky piece for the Huff Post, which purports to reveal the dishonest nature of FBI terror investigations like the latest one at JFK and, presumably, Fort Dix a few weeks back. A hundred and fifty or more commenters applaud her post like the congregation at a gospel meeting.

I found the whole thing depressing. Actually I could barely read it. Why - after Bali, Madrid, London, Amsterdam, New York (twice), Casablanca, Istanbul, on and on - is someone so intelligent as Nora writing this trendy tripe? What does she expect law enforcement to do? Not to investigate these things? Nora implies it's all entrapment... but is it? How does she know? Indeed, she doesn't and couldn't. She just assumes it to be so because it is a comfortable world view for her.

People like Nora in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were supporting such actions themselves, but soon grew weary. It put too much strain on their self-images, so it became easier to make snotty comments about the FBI, as if J. Edgar Hoover was still in charge and the Palmer Raids never ended - only he's dead and they have. Long ago. Times have changed. And how.

It is, however, an (endless) election season and the subtext of all this self-indulgent nonsense is that another Republican cannot be elected, even if it is not Bush. Rational thinking does not apply. We live in a strange world of signs and symbols, not that different in a way from that tribal society we are having so many problems with in Iraq. People are still stuck in their tribes - whether they are Harif or Howetat, Sunni, Shiite, or Zabarians. Zabarians, it seems, never trust the FBI. It's just not done.

Posted by Roger at 7:57 PM
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June 3, 2007

The Man Who Broke Godwin's Law

In 1990, Mike Godwin famously wrote: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Wikipedia goes on to explain the import of this law: "There is a tradition in many online discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically 'lost' whatever debate was in progress."

But what about this guy? Where do we even begin with him?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:31 AM
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Fareed Zakaria gets it wrong...

Fareed Zakaria tries to slip a multiculti mickey in our drink in his latest thumbsucker "Beyond Bush: what the world needs now is an open, confident America". That's not a bad idea, But what actually does he think is wrong in this neurotic land? Well...

We have become a nation consumed by fear, worried about terrorists and rogue nations, Muslims and Mexicans ...

No, Fareed. We are not worried about Muslims and Mexicans. We are worried about Muslims. Most of us have been living with Mexicans for years. Millions and millions of them. And quite decently. Sure, we need to rationalize immigration because the rule of law - like openness - is a good thing, but we're not consumed by fear of our neighbors, not even remotely. And if there is any real worry about Mexicans, it is because of Muslims.

Not coincidently, immigration became the issue it is in our society after 9/11. It wasn't Mexicans who tried to blow up the World Trade Center twice and succeeded on the second attempt, who went after other targets worldwide from Madrid to Bali, who only yesterday were revealed to have been trying to explode Kennedy Airport. I could go on endlessly, but you get the point. We need to secure our borders because of those events.

So stop trying to equate Mexicans and Muslims. Until Muslims start to face what they are doing, there is little hope for any of us.

And on another matter, your nostalgia for Reagan in the article strikes me as a phony pose. I wouldn't be surprised if you were anti-Reagan in those days (I was ). And who knows what Ronald himself would have done in the post-9/11 era? Again, I wouldn't be surprised if it would have made Bush look like a pacifist.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:59 AM
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June 2, 2007

"Hoop Dreams" revisited

Every time I post about Kobe Bryant on here, I get bombarded with negative email and comments. Seems as if I'm the only one who likes the guy (other than all those folks making his jersey the number one seller in the NBA again).

But the recent contretemps over Kobe's diva-like behavior regarding his wish to be traded (as if) and the subsequent scurrying about by the Lakers to shore up their roster has sent my mind off in another (related) direction - how much money these dudes make. 64 million dollars in three years for Jermaine O'Neal??!!

It's been thirteen years since the release of the documentary "Hoop Dreams," which I liked a lot because I thought it was extremely well made and admired its message - that inner city youth were spending too much time aspiring to a career in the NBA and not enough time on something more realistic (like school). Unfortunately, like most well-intentioned movies, it apparently didn't make much of a dent. And how could it - what with those salaries and the obvious corollary that playing basketball is probably a lot more fun than studying dentistry? Maybe we could Al Gore to make a doc about the perils of basketball - "Global Hoops!"

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:21 AM
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June 1, 2007

Oh, Danny Boy

I have always known Danny Glover was on the left side of things and I certainly know how difficult it is to get serious films made, but taking millions from Hugo Chavez to produce movies seemed a bit much. Not surprisingly, the local Venezuelan filmmakers were peeved.

I wonder what Danny is feeling now, reading this week's news from Caracas. The whole world - even the Carter Center - is lining up against his hero Mr. Chavez.

What is it that makes people able to overlook so much? To preserve their leftist ideals people like Glover are able to ignore the likes of Castro murdering the (often very liberal) opposition, jailing artists and homosexuals and so forth. They can turn the other way as Chavez embraces Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad or closes television stations and arrests hundreds of students protesting for free speech, as he did this week. (At least he didn't throw them through the dormitory windows, as his friends in Iran did in 1999 when the "reformer" Khatami was in power.)

It's sad when talented people you admire, like Glover, do crazy things. I wonder at the source of the disconnect. I mean the deeper source - not the obvious Bush hatred or racial grievance that seems unabated in era when race-baiting now cuts both ways. I suspect that people like Glover, although they are not aware of it, are expressing a pain that goes considerably beyond issues of race or supposed social injustice to something buried in their DNA or imbued in early childhood. Why else would an essentially good man give allegiance to such an obviously ruthless horror?

Posted by Roger at 11:20 PM
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"The Marriage of the Actor and the Anti-Candidate"

... Fred Thompson and Pajamas Media in this morning's USA TODAY.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:11 AM
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