Month: December 2008

Only one day left in 2008. Less than one day, actually – just over 17 hours, as I type this.

I’ll have a post in the next day or two about all the movies I’ve seen this year. I’m still pulling it together.

I have also been working on a long post (that keeps getting longer) about what “evidence of god” would look like. I think anyone who reads my blog will understand why that particular post just won’t seem to stop.

But I haven’t had any shorter ideas for posts lately. I really liked the birthday series because I wrote those up in advance, all in one go, and didn’t have to worry about posting on a daily basis for a week and a half. I think I’ll do more of that in the future – picking a topic and writing a series of articles on it.

2008 was, in some private ways, a very stressful year for me. But it had many positives, too. Maybe before the end of the day I’ll have a recap of some of the positives.

Or maybe not.

Happy New Year’s Eve!

I know I’m late to the party on this; I’ve seen several other posts on this topic, and three days is nearly a lifetime in blog time. However, this ties in so neatly with what I said earlier, in my review of “Frost/Nixon”, where I suggested that our traditional media views our political leaders, their policies and actions taken to advance their goals presumably in our behalf, as if they were celebrities.

After I had written that post, I saw that Glenn Greenwald had torn into Michael Calderone’s, the Politico’s “media reporter” year-end wrap-up of his top 10 political “scoops” of 2008. Gaze and marvel:

1. Katie Couric’s interview of Sarah Palin (CBS)
2. McCain can’t say how many homes he owns (Politico)
3. Obama’s “bitter” comment (Huffington Post)
4. Sarah Palin’s shopping spree (Politico)
5. Turmoil in the Clinton camp (Washington Post and Atlantic — “The behind-the-scenes tension was captured by the reporters in one memorable exchange: ‘[Expletive] you!’ Ickes shouted. ‘[Expletive] you!’ Penn replied. ‘[Expletive] you!’ Ickes shouted again.”)
6. Jeremiah Wright tapes (ABC News)
7. The Pentagon’s military analyst program (NY Times)
8. Bickering in the McCain camp (NY Times Magazine)
9. John Edwards’ affair (National Enquirer)
10. Powell endorses Obama (Meet the Press)

Greenwald responds, at least in part, with scathing sarcasm:

Indeed. For a politically engaged person, it is truly difficult to conceive of how any year could ever be more satisfying than one marked by riveting scandals over shopping sprees, bickering among campaign operatives, and an extramarital affair of someone who, at the time of disclosure, held no political office and was running for absolutely nothing. Anyone surveying this mountain-high pile of Pulitzer-worthy investigations can do nothing more than echo the observation of Newsweek’s legendary Senior White House Correspondent, Richard Wolffe, who famously gushed: “the press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general.” Who could review Calderone’s glorious list of the year’s top “scoops” and disagree with that?

In fairness to Calderone and his comrades in the political press, our media currently covers a country that has very few substantial problems and an administration that is renowned around the world for being competent, honest, conventional and quite uncontroversial. In general, countries which enjoy great tranquility, prosperity, and stability — such as the U.S. today — can afford the luxury of fixating on the types of fun and trivial stories which comprise the list of top “scoops” heralded by Politico.

The emphasis is Greenwald’s.

When folks turn on the cable news channels and see endless, 24/7 coverage of Senator McCain’s residences, say, or pick up the national papers, the New York Times or the Washington Posts, and see front page coverage of Senator Clinton’s emotional state or Governor Palin’s financial excesses, instead of discussion about the “unitary executive” and how radical an idea that is, or how outrageous it is that the American military has been ordered by top White House officials to design and implement torture programs, programs that many intelligence officials strongly believe to be worthless for gaining actionable intelligence, not to mention directly reduce the safety of American citizens and our soldiers abroad… that’s when the average American starts to think that politics doesn’t really matter.

How could it matter, if the “most trusted name in news” has Wolf Blitzer moderating a discussion between someone who’s “pro-waterboarding” and “con-waterboarding”? The only conclusion to draw is that Very Serious People are carefully weighing both sides of the debate, so, therefore, either side in the discussion may, in fact, be right. Right? I mean, they wouldn’t spend so much time talking about it if it weren’t important; and since there’s an equal number of people on each side of the debate, that means that CNN is carefully representing the factions who are deciding policy. Right? And since Wolf isn’t giving an opinion or providing any context, well, I guess the average American can just flip a coin. Or, perhaps, doesn’t even need to concern himself with finding out more. Let the eggheads on teevee fight it out. Why bother getting involved? Who’s left on American Idol this week?

There’s so many ways that this game, the “fake balance” game is played – and rigged. Once it’s explained, it’s pretty easy to see. For instance, take a note of the people who get invited in to talk on the Sunday political talk shows, and you’ll start to see a pattern: very often, there are more Republican or conservative pundits than there are Democratic or progressive ones. In fact, I’ll go further and suggest that more often than not, the pundits who represent the Democratic or progressive side on those shows aren’t politicians, but people from a media background – journalists who are representing their newspapers or media corporations, who may be held to an objective, factual, “balanced” standard in their speech.

When those “balanced” pundits go up against men and women who are fiercely partisan, men and women who pursue their talking points with a fervor, who do you think will come across as the “winner”? And since the moderators of those discussions, the Brokaws and the Mathewses, don’t feel the need to correct any factual errors or offer any context for the discussion, the pundits, the ones who are playing to a partisan crowd, can feel free to pull “facts” from their nether regions.

The game is played completely differently on Fox “News” – if you watch them, pay attention anytime that a guest is talking trash about Democrats. You’ll notice that, invariably, in addition to the Republicans doing it, there’s always a token “liberal” who is there to attack their own party. Senator Joe Lieberman is a favorite Fox “News” guest for exactly that role. Even though Lieberman isn’t a Democrat anymore (his constituents voted him out of the party largely for his stance as pro-Iraq War and pro-President Bush), the fact that he still caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate means he’s considered “liberal”. At least in Fox “News” land.

Or count the number of times that any Republican that’s seen as a “loser” is labeled a “Democrat” on Fox “News”. It even happened to Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain. That’s “fair and balanced”? And no correction was issued.

And I don’t expect any of this to change, now that President-elect Obama will be taking the oath of office in January. It didn’t change after Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in 2006. Oh, wait, there was one change this year: there’s one, real, live, progressive now on TV: Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. And, man, what an outcry putting her on caused. You’d think that the world had ended, from all the complaints from our traditional media. But only liberal journalists are called “partisan”.

Is it any wonder that the blogs have grown so much, and so fast, for progressive Americans? Is it any wonder that the younger viewers, the 18-35 set, that coveted demographic, are more informed the more they watch Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and less informed when they watch Fox “News”?

It’s refreshing, though, to see survey after survey show that Americans see the financial crisis, health care, and the Iraq War as the top issues. We can find out what we need to know, these days, and what we need to know concerns our jobs and our sons’ and daughters’ lives.

It’s just too bad our traditional media chooses, instead, to focus on what our leaders are wearing. That focus will be their undoing.

“Dad, what if everything in the world was made of Jell-O?”

A question to stump the mightiest intellects and the most serious philosophers.

What if, indeed.

Today I celebrate the forty-fourth anniversary of my birth.

As I’ve been counting down to this day, I am posting birthday memories. This is the final installment; thanks for indulging me as I reminisce.

So, my birth day – the actual day of my birth. I don’t remember much about that actual day, y’know, directly. But over the years I’ve collected quite a bit of personal mythology.

This is all pieced together from fragile tissue: my own memory of stories told to me. If I’m wrong, it hardly matters. But if anyone out there is reading this and has more accurate stories (Dad? Lisa?) feel free to post ’em in the comments.

It was 1964. My parents lived in a small house in Gladstone, OR, behind Rex Putnam High School. They’d been married since the fall of 1959.

My dad was working as a salesman for Francis Ford, and was 30 years old the day I was born. My mom was 38 – a divorcée. She had been married before, and had an almost-teen daughter from that previous marriage, and I believe my half-sister still lived with mom and my dad, her step-dad, the year I was born.

My full sister had been born the year before, in November 1963, the same month that President John F. Kennedy had been slain in Dallas. She was 13 months old the day I was born; my half-sister babysat her while mom was being driven to the hospital.

My parents told me that I was a premature baby; I was supposed to be due in February 1965. But for some reason, I wanted out early.

The snowpocalypse of 2008 has reminded me of one other fact of the day of my birth; that December was the last time Portland had seen that much snow, until this year. I imagine that the drive from Gladstone, all the way to the old St. Vincent’s Children’s Hospital, up in the hills of Portland, a trip of of over 10 miles and ending with a drive up treacherous and curvy Burnside Avenue, was a white-knuckle experience. Add in an about-to-give-birth woman, and my father behind the wheel, and, well, such is the stuff legends are made of.

But I was, in fact, born in the hospital, not in a back seat, and at 5:57 AM on December 28th, I was born. (This post was published at that exact time) My height and weight are not recorded on my birth certificate, but, being a preemie, I imagine I was fairly small and underweight.

My parents had initially decided that I was to be named, if I was a boy (the gender-determining technology not being available forty-four years ago), Brian Keith Moon. My mom was a fan of Brian Keith, the actor later known for his role as Judge Milton C. Hardcastle in the TV series “Hardcastle and McCormick”, but who was known to my mom as an actor in her beloved Westerns. Little did they know at the time, but I would have had a double in celebrity names: the famously destructive drummer for the Who, Keith Moon, who had, according to Wikipedia, only joined the band earlier in 1964 at the age of 17, and who would die of a massive drug overdose 14 years later.

But that was not to be. Dad, as he tells the story, decided at the last minute that he didn’t like that name, and, since mom was not willing to budge on the first name, dad went out to the nurses’ desk, where they kept the book of baby names, opened it up to the first page, and selected the very first name in the book to be my middle name: Aaron.

The doctor, who was from the Middle East but not a Jew, raised an objection to a Gentile child being given the name of Moses’ priestly brother, but that objection fell on deaf, and largely irreligious, ears. I was given the name of Brian Aaron Moon.

And that’s all I know about the day I was born.

Let me join the multitude of folks that are welcoming back to Portland: the rain!

We have missed you, rain.

And it’s 47° F right now outside!

Remember when that felt cold?!

In one day I celebrate the forty-fourth anniversary of my birth.

Counting down to that day, I am posting birthday memories.

One reader out there, I’m sure, has had a certain interest in these posts. He may have even been reading them and wondering when, if ever, I would be mentioning him. Just because I’m kinda wired that way, I have held off until the next-to-last moment to write about this particular birthday.

I don’t have much memory of this one, because it’s one of the earliest birthdays. It was 1972 1970 (oops, thanks for correcting my math, Kevin!), and I turned six. But, as always, there is some family mythology involved and it makes for a funny story.

Maybe I had pineapple upside-down cake. Maybe I had a little too much. But, the story goes, I wasn’t feeling well that day. All day long.

My family and I lived in an apartment building, a four-plex, on a rural road in Kalama, Washington. Dad worked for Reynolds Aluminum, at their plant in Longview, Washington (I believe). And miles and miles away, in Portland, down south, I had another sister. A half-sister, my mom’s only daughter from a previous marriage.

Sometimes we would drive down to visit her and her husband, a man she married right out of high school (and to whom she remains married today). They lived in another apartment complex somewhere in Portland, I don’t recall which neighborhood. And she’d been pregnant that year with their first child.

She gave birth to that baby, my nephew, Kevin, six years after I was born. I was made an uncle almost before I could really comprehend that concept.

My oldest nephew and I share a birthday, and in many ways, he’s the younger brother I never really had. Tomorrow is his birthday, too. And I couldn’t have a better friend to share it with.

But on the day of his birth, the sixth anniversary of my own, apparently I was sick.