Recently in Media Category

A few months ago I saw it mentioned somewhere that Drew Carey, the famous guy from TV, was going to give the Lance Armstrong Livestrong Foundation, one million dollars, if he could get one million Twitter followers by the end of the year. If he didn't achieve the one million follower mark, he would donate one dollar for every follower that he did have.

As of this writing he is tickling the 301,000  number, which surprises the heck out of me. It surprises me that someone as famous as Drew couldn't get one million followers in a few months, when Larry King was able to do it in about a week, and there wasn't even a worthy charity involved.

So if you're reading this, and you use Twitter, please log in and follow @DrewFromTV. It doesn't cost you anything, it will add another dollar to the amount being donated, and you can always un-follow him on January 2nd, if you like.

We've got a little over a week. Let's get on this!

After watching all of the health care coverage on television of late, and after having watched television news shows for decades, I am trying to figure out when the age of 'Punditry' arrived.

I seem to recall watching television news when I was a child, and reporters would do their jobs... they would report. I don't recall too much punditry at that time, except for the occasional 'expert' or 'analyst' when a huge event was unfolding, like the murders at the 1972 Winter Olympics, or the Iran Hostage Crisis. Now all that you see on television news shows are analysts and pundits telling you what to think. It's not just limited to television, of course. Daytime radio is filled with political pundits regurgitating the week's events with their own added spin, as well.

What bothers me most about this, is that people are surrendering their ability to think for themselves, to the talking heads. Why would anyone do that? I appreciate the fact that I was taught to think for myself, and value my right to free speech. I enjoy expressing myself while debating with others, and have no interest in doing anything other than forming my own opinions based on the facts at hand. If I'm out of my league, then I default to my guru of choice, but only after finding ones who are what my friend David would call Expert Practitioners.

But perhaps people are not actually surrendering their ability to think for themselves. It seems as though people are no longer being taught decision-making, and critical thinking skills, so their only choice is to let other people do their thinking for them. This is a frightening concept, because if people can no longer think clearly, for themselves, what hope for Democracy is there?

The following is one of my favorite quotations on this topic. I think it perfectly expresses what I am feeling right now:

"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments."

  --Noam Chomsky

Because I still have a lot of time on my hands, I decided to catch up on another one of the pay-TV shows that I don't get to see first run, since I do not have any of the pay channels. This show has been getting a lot of hype in various media circles, so I thought that it might be time. The first series that I did this with was the Sopranos, then Rome, then Sex And The City, and now, the Showtime series Californication.

Odd as this may seem, this is my first real exposure to David Duchovny.  I never watched the X-Files, nor have I seen any of the X-Files films. From what I have read, this series is also loosely based on Duchovny's life as a sex addict. I have only watched the first season, and they are currently airing the third, so I have not quite seen half of the episodes.

David Duchovny stars as Hank Moody, a sex-addicted New York writer transplanted in Hollywood. Once upon a time Hank was in a relationship with Karen, played by Natascha McElhone. Hank and Karen never married, had one child together, split up, and now Karen is engaged to another man and Hank is trying to piece his life back together, after the split. He is a successful, published author, and his most recent work was actually the basis for a Hollywood film.

Hank's agent, Charlie, played by Evan Handler (Sex And The City) puts up with Hank's foibles because they are good friends, and because he knows that Hank is capable of producing brilliant work, and hopes to steer him back in that direction.

I find Duchovny's Hank character to be very likable, and I can actually relate to him on some levels. What's most fascinating for me, is that he's a walking contradiction in so many areas of his life. Despite the fact that he sleeps around with nameless women, he's strangely moral, and is really a one woman man. The exact circumstances of his breakup with Karen are still a bit of a mystery, but it's made clear that Karen cheated on him, not the other way around, as one might expect based on all of his sexual and self destructive proclivities. Hank also makes it very clear that he still loves Karen deeply, and wants nothing more than to get back together with her.

Karen however, seems to be moving on. She's become engaged to a successful businessman widower named Bill, who also has a sixteen year old daughter named Mia.

For all of Hank's faults, he is a good father, and Karen recognizes and appreciates this. While for obvious reasons, Hank doesn't like Karen's fiance, Bill, very much, he is often around Bill and Karen's house doing his shared-custody parental duties of dropping off and picked up his daughter. As you might imagine, this leads to a lot of tension and drama between all of the main players.

So far I have enjoyed the show very much but I do find it to be occasionally predictable, and I am having trouble overlooking something that I see as a giant plot hole. Toward the end of the season, an interesting plot-line develops around Hank having finally written a new novel. He wrote it on an old-fashioned typewriter (yeah, I know) while back in New York for his father's funeral, and only has the one copy. He ends up losing the manuscript, but is surprised one day when he learns that someone else is pitching it to his agent. I am finding it unlikely that anyone would believe that the person who is claiming to have written the manuscript, actually wrote it, and that the people nearest and dearest to Hank wouldn't have recognized it as his work, immediately.

Despite these minor criticisms I think the show is strong, and am looking forward to seeing the second season. Hopefully it will only get better.

I have been thinking a lot in the last twelve hours about Rep. Alan Grayson (D, Fla), his use of the word 'holocaust' on the floor of the US House of Representatives, and Rachel Maddow's having called him to task about it on her program.

I consider myself to be an absolutist on free speech. I believe that free speech allows us to pick and choose from the lexicon of words to achieve the kind of subtlety, lack thereof, or nuance that we want. However, living in a free society also means that others are free to criticize you for your choices, and I recognize that.

Many people, including the Republicans and Rachel Maddow have taken issue with Rep. Grayson for having used the word 'holocaust' to describe the plight of those who have died in this country due to lack of access to health care. I myself initially used the word 'regrettable' to describe his choice of words, but the more I think about it, the less I agree with that point of view. After seeing both the video footage of him in The House, and after seeing him on television interviews afterward, I believe that he was describing a holocaust, not The Holocaust.

Yes, in some ways using that word was regrettable, because it allowed the Republican opposition to briefly attempt to occupy the moral high-ground in their criticisms of him and its usage. Sadly, however, the health-care debate really has no moral high-ground because Democrats and Republicans have allowed this issue to fester, unresolved for decades.

The word 'holocaust' has been around for a long time, and my brief research shows that over the centuries it has had many meanings, including but not limited to the Nazi slaughter of twelve million people in the 1940's. So why is it no longer OK to use it?

After reading the definitions from various online and print dictionaries, it's clear to me that large losses of life, either intentional or otherwise can be, and have been referred to as 'holocausts' in the past. It's clear that lots of people die every year in the United States (and around the world) from having no access to health care, and it's also clear that it's preventable. So why then should Rep. Grayson's usage be criticized? It seems to me that when large groups of people die needlessly, it is a holocaust.

For this criticism of Rep. Grayson to be valid I think there would have to be proof that his use of the word was either meant to be reckless, or irresponsible. From the evidence that I have seen, I don't think either is true. Yes, he was excited and spoke very passionately on the House Floor. Yes, he was very probably angry over the Republicans doing everything they can to block the passage of a Public Option, but I do not fault him for his anger. I would be (and am) angry also. Do I think he went to far? Yesterday, I probably did, but today I no longer do.

Let us contrast that with the people who were carrying around photos and signs of Obama saying that he was a Nazi. From what I have seen, there is no evidence to support any of those allegations, so those posters and signs were used recklessly and irresponsibly, and what Rep. Grayson did does not compare on any level.

You are of course free to draw your own conclusions, but I for one was very excited to see someone speaking plainly, and passionately on the floor of The House. We've been subject to Orwellian Double-Speak from most of these politicos for decades, and yesterday, Rep. Grayson challenged that paradigm.

Yes, I hate those 'week-in-review' type posts, but I feel like I have to write something both just to write something, and perhaps to shake out the cobwebs.

I've been to three pottery classes now and I've started to learn those techniques that I mentioned in a previous post about pottery, that will allow me to start making more complex shapes like Vases and Amphorae. My first experiment in making a closed shape was very successful, but I chose not to keep it. Next week I hope to make several.

The health-care debate rages on, but now we're at the point where legislators are beginning to introduce Bills. The Senate Finance Committee has rejected the only two Bills proposed that included a Public Option, but fear not, the fight isn't over. There are still ways in which a Public Option can happen, but we need to get on the phones and remind the 'honorable people' that inhabit our Congressional Halls, that two thirds of the people in this United States Of America, support the Public Option.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, since I'm not much of a TV junkie, but in the last two weeks I've really become a huge fan of the Rachel Maddow Show. She's smart, and witty, and she calls out all of the hypocrites who tell lies, or attempt to obfuscate the truth. That's so rare in the media today, that I find it refreshing, and addictive.

Today, Alan Grayson (D, Fla) made me smile with his outburst on the House Floor when he called out all Republicans (and their Blue-Dog Democrat friends) on their opposition to any form of health care reform. I regret his use of the word 'holocaust' in his sarcastic 'apology' that he later made on the floor after the Republicans had called for one, but I agree with everything else that he said. Why aren't more Democrats speaking out like this? Unfortunately his regrettable choice of words has allowed his critics to completely ignore the truth in most of what he said, but instead, to deflect and talk about everything but.

I have mixed feeling about the Fall Season. I love it because it cools off, and the foliage is amazing, but I hate the fact that Winter is coming. Hopefully this winter will be tolerable for me, and some cool things (no pun) will happen. Here's to already hoping for an early Spring.

My best to you all.

Today, I started my third semester learning Pottery at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute.  It felt really good to get my hands into the clay again.  I was afraid that after four or five months of not being in front of a pottery wheel, that I would have lost my chops.  Well, the good news is that it's as if I had never left.  I was able to do what I wanted with the clay, immediately.

Lest semester I did nothing but makes bowls.  Bowl, after bowl, after bowl.  Of course repetition is a great way to learn, and if you know me well, you probably have one of those bowls.  This semester I intend to make more bowls, and to learn a few techniques that allow you to close the form to a smaller diameter, so that I can eventually move toward classic forms like Vases, and really classic forms like Amphorae.

I have always loved pottery, and had wanted to learn to do it since I was in the sixth grade.  It took thirty years, but I finally got around to it.  Despite the fact that I enjoy modern technology, one of the things that I love about pottery, is that it is a technology that in thousands of years, has changed very little.  All you need is clay, and heat.  How beautiful and elegant is that?

Last year I was on the phone with a friend late one night.  He had called after midnight because he couldn't sleep, and apparently I was supposed to baby-sit him until he got tired.  I happened to be awake so it was really no big deal.  To entertain him we both got online and I gave him a tour of the MWPAI.  For years I had been telling him about the Independent Film Series that I attend there on Friday nights, and more recently, the Pottery Studio.  He was under the impression that because Utica in a small city, that I went to some backwater podunk theater to see films, and some tiny cellar studio to make pots.  He was quite surprised to see the photos of the facility, and I feel lucky to go there every week to learn, and to work.

Hopefully some day I'll get really good at this.


 (Pictured is the back of the Pottery Studio from the Courtyard looking into the Glazing Room, and below that, some of my pots.)

I don't know how this developed so quickly, but I really am at the "shit or get off the pot" stage with my record label idea. I have an artist ready to go now, and I have no infrastructure.  This guy is a super talented guitarist, who is starting his own publishing company to promote his original compositions.  He hopes to get them into commercials, and movies and such.

I contacted him at apparently the exact time that he had been thinking that he needed a label to help distribute his music, as well.  How fortuitous!

The problem is that we will need a real E-Commerce web site, and I have no skills in that arena, and I really don't have the money to pay for it.

How did the Vanderbilts and Guggenheims get their start?!

For many years now I've had the idea of starting my own record label.  Call me crazy.

It would be my kind of label, where I am the A&R guy, and I get to choose what artists appear in our catalog.  The primary focus of the label would be to feature artists who write interesting and original music, that you simply don't get to hear on most radio stations and in most clubs.  I sometimes refer to it as "player's music."

Me?  I prefer the creative end.  I want to find artists and record them and I want nothing to do with the paperwork end.  But, we still would need a paperwork end, and that's what scares me the most.  I want to be sheltered from the paperwork end.  I want nothing to do with it, but in a venture like a new boutique label featuring non-commercial music, I guess that in the beginning I would have to be the only employee, most likely working for free.

Do people really do this kind of thing?  I mean I know I read about stories like this, but is it like winning the lottery?  Does anyone actually succeed at such a crazy thing?

As of this writing, I have actually purchased a domain name, and contacted several people whom I would love to have as artists in my galaxy of stars.  Most have agreed, or at the very least have been very receptive.

I'm bursting with ideas, and my friends are being very helpful and supportive.  Now the only question that remains is: Do I have the Gonadicals to attempt the difficult parts of starting a project like this.

I started watching the Animal Planet TV series, Whale Wars, last season.  The idea of a bunch of people, on a boat in the Antarctic Ocean, defending whales from the Japanese whaling fleet, seemed intriguing.  I don't think that I saw every episode from last season, and I certainly didn't see all of them this season, but I think I have an idea what they are about, nonetheless.

The activists on the ship 'Steve Irwin' represent a group called the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and they go to the Antarctic to keep the Japanese whaling fleet from killing, and harvest whales.  Sea Shepherd contends that the Japanese whaling fleet is harvesting whales commercially, for meat, in treaty violation, and the Japanese whaling fleet contends that they are doing legal scientific work, harvesting whales to study them.  The captain of the 'Steve Irwin' is Paul Watson, who also founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society after he was kicked out of Greenpeace for being too radical.

Apparently when whaling was banned a few decades ago, a huge loophole was put in the treaty's language allowing countries to harvest so many whales for scientific purposes.  I don't know the exact number of whales allowed to be harvested by the treaty, but they have quoted the number on the show, and it is in the hundreds.  This number seems excessive to me.  If you were indeed only analyzing stomach contents as the whalers contend, then it doesn't seem as though you should need to kill hundreds of whales.  This combined with the fact that whale meat is apparently sold in Japan leads me to believe that the Japanese are not just examining stomach contents, and that the treaty prohibiting commercial whaling has done nothing at all to stop it.

Why create a treaty prohibiting commercial whaling if you are going to include a loophole big enough through which you could drive a Panzer division?

Sea Shepherd contends that their goal is to stop whaling, and that they use non-violent means to bring about this end.  In the first season, they would approach the various Japanese whaling vessels and throw bottles of Butyric Acid, which is a harmless, but really smelly substance, onto the Japanese vessels.  In their efforts not to harm anyone they attempt to throw the bottles of Butyric Acid onto parts of the Whaling vessels that aren't crewed by people.  Sea Shepherd's goal with this tactic is to make the deck of the Japanese ships unworkable, unusable for processing whales, and just to make it generally unpleasant for the crew.  Both sides from this "war" also use the media to help spread their message.  Often after an offensive action from the 'Steve Irwin' both sides would issue press releases to various media outlets in an attempt to get their message out.  It should come as no surprise to you that the press releases from each side, describing the same event, often sound very different.

In the second season, the crew of the 'Steve Irwin' used essentially the same tactics as in the first season.  They also continued to use the long nylon ropes which they would release in front of the Japanese ships, in the hopes that it would get twisted up in the propellers of the ship, and "foul" the prop.  However, in the second season, the "prop foulers" that were employed were much thicker, and allegedly much stronger.

The Sea Shepherds might not have changed their tactics much between seasons, but the Japanese fleet did.  They learned much and started equipping their ships with LRADs, which are non-lethal sonic devices which can be very debilitating.  They also did things as simple as hanging netting down the sides of their ships to keep the Sea Shepherds from being able to throw the bottles of Butyric Acid onto the decks, and putting powerful water canons on the ships to keep the Sea Shepherds at a distance.

In addition to those measures, the Japanese ships also started throwing heavy objects at the Sea Shepherds.  Things like large metal bolts, which can clearly be very dangerous.  In the first season Paul Watson also alleged that the Japanese shot at him with a gun.  The bullet did not harm him, but like in all bad western movies, miraculously managed to hit a large metal coin/object on his person, both denting the object and keeping him from harm.  It is still not clear whether this event actually happened as alleged.

At the end of the second season, when the 'Steve Irwin' sailed into port in Australia, they were met by Federal Australian Authorities, and had to surrender any and all logs and video footage relevant to an event that happened toward the end of their campaign.  For the first time, the Japanese fleet chose to kill and harvest a whale in front of the Sea Shepherds, and this was not well-received by the crew of the 'Steve Irwin' at all.  They were determined to keep the dead whale from being transferred to the larger processing ship, and in their efforts to do so, came in contact with one of the Japanese vessels, slightly damaging their own ship.  The Japanese authorities asked that this event be investigated, which is why they were met in port by the Australian authorities, and I believe at the time of this writing, the incident is still under investigation.

One thing that is clear after watching this show, is that the crew of the 'Steve Irwin' is very passionate, and is willing to do anything, including putting themselves in harm's way, to defend the lives of the whales.  After watching two seasons of the show, it is still not clear to me exactly how effective they are at keeping the Japanese fleet from harvesting whales.  Nor is it clear to me exactly who has the law on their side, but despite that, I am in favor of their efforts as long as they do nothing to endanger the lives of others.  One thing that has been missing for the last twenty years or so, is activists who are willing to go out there and put their bodies in harm's way to defend, or stop, immoral or illegal activities.  There once was a day when protesting was common, and I think we need to return to those days to effect change, whatever it might be.  Hopefully the show and the efforts of those on the show will shine some much needed light on this topic, and help facilitate the changes necessary to keep people from killing whales.

The Sea Shepherds vow to return to the Antarctic to defend the whales again, next season.  One thing is certain, and that is that I will be watching.

I've been watching the debate on health care reform of late with subdued interest.  It's not that I don't care, because I care immensely.  It's just that I feel so powerless.  I am currently unemployed, and having some sort of "Public Option" would benefit me greatly, because if I get injured and need some sort of real procedure done, it will certainly bankrupt me or put me in debt for the rest of my life.  You're probably wondering, then, why my interest isn't more than "subdued."  Well as of last night, I got fired up.

Last night I was watching Larry King Live, and his guests were Ron Paul, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Dr. Paul Song, and it was the first time that I've seen where these ridiculous claims being made by the conservatives, were being properly addressed, and crushed, as they should be.  Ron Paul was making the classic Libertarian/Conservative argument that any health care reform measure should include "more freedom."  What the hell does that mean?  Right now half of the people in the US have no health care coverage of any kind, and they currently have the freedom to get sick and die.  Is that the kind of freedom that Ron Paul advocates?  In watching that program, I learned that Ron Paul is a physician, and I am shocked that anyone who took the Hippocratic Oath could be against well-intentioned health-care reform like a Public Option, or single-payer system.  I've said this before in various debates, and on my (former) podcast, but I believe that health care carried out for profit, is against the Hippocratic Oath.  That is not to say that Doctors don't have the right to make a living, indeed they do, but so does everyone else in the country.  No one should be faulted for wanting to make a good living, but for me, much of the obscenity of the system lies within the insurance industry, and the politician lap dogs to which they pay legal bribes (campaign contributions) to do their bidding.

The reason I got fired up last night was because for every canned argument/talking point that Ron Paul regurgitated, Paul Song, and Sanjay Gupta had FACTS that showed that the arguments currently being used against the Public Option are hyperbolic fiction. Song and Gupta systematically dismantled Ron Paul's "arguments" and reduced them to the pile of smoldering nonsense that they were.  I love a good debate with well reasoned arguments, and for the first time that I've seen (I don't watch a lot of TV) we had a debate where the subject was actually discussed thoroughly, without a lot of theatre, and addressed properly so that the people at home could actually make a reasoned decision based on what they had witnessed.

The transcript to that Larry King Live Debate can be found here.  Scroll down about half way.

Another recent Town Hall Meeting had an angry woman asking Senator Arlin Spector, why we were moving to a Socialist system, which she argued, was a slippery slope, and the next thing you know we would be like Soviet Russia.  Whether or not Soviet Russia was truly Socialist or Marxist, is a debate for another time, but I have a question for this woman.  Does she really believe that just because Canada and most European countries have some sort of single-payer health care system, that they actually resemble Soviet Russia?  Are the people who are making these arguments truly that deluded?  Do they think that if we adopt some sort of single-payer system, that Stalin will suddenly rise from the dead and banish us all to the Gulag??  Sadly the clip that I saw of this particular town hall meeting ended before I got to see Senator Spector's reply.  I would be interested to know what he said.

A friend just posted this link of Barney Frank addressing a woman at a Town Hall Meeting who was calling the Public Option a Nazi health care plan, and carrying a photo of President Obama defaced to make him look like Hitler.  Mr. Frank gave this woman and her claims the EXACT kind of response and consideration that they required, and I hope that all people who speak up with such nonsense at these meetings are treated exactly the same way.

What confuses me the most about these fake-grass-roots-protesters-paid-off-by-the-insurance-industry-to-disrupt-meetings-and-spread-rumours, is that their arguments are not even on point and consistent.  One day they're saying Obama's plan is Socialist, and one day they're saying Obama's plan is Fascist.  For those who don't know, those two things are on polar opposite ends of the economic spectrum so they both certainly can not be true.  I understand that these people are there just to create chaos and use propaganda to evoke emotional memories of Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia, to keep the status quo and to keep insurance industry profits high, but they should be ashamed of themselves.  Ultimately they are arguing against their own better interests because with the state of the current economy and where it's potentially heading, they might need a Public Option themselves.

All of these Astro-Turfing protesters remind me of a time many years ago, when a friend of mine and I were driving past the local Planned Parenthood clinic, and my friend looked at all of the abortion protesters and yelled, "GET A LIFE!"  To this day I am still not sure if his words were seen as positive or negative by the protesters that day, but to the crazed protesters whose job is to do nothing more than to disrupt and interrupt the current health care debate, I say, "GET A LIFE!" because you don't know what tomorrow will bring, and it just might be you who needs access to urgent health care.