Not gone in 30 seconds

Is it possible that the most powerful communicators in human history have gone from working on epic poetry to plays to novels to movies to :30 second tv commercials?

I feel like I now regularly see commercials that I really like, to the point I'll stick around to watch it (whether it gets me to buy the product is incidental).

I wonder if we're living in some sortof golden age of commercials, the last days of an art form that's being strangled by Tivo and the end of a mass audience.

Here are some of my favorite tv commercials from this year:

-Snickers "Bald': Starts with a bald guy wearing the 'wig' made out of Snickers bars sitting in his car crying while thinking of his day, while Make Your Own Kind of Music by Bobby Sherman plays in the background. It's an odd concept, but it's well-done, from starting the commercial with the guy just sitting there quietly crying to the quaver in his voice when he responds to his office mates. BBDO New York

-Nextel 'Dance Party': Three (diverse!) coworkers are dancing in an office to Salt N' Pepa's Push It when their boss walks and demands some answers. The expressions on the faces of the two dancers and their moves are hilarious, as is the dead-pan look on the guy just sitting there holding the boombox and watching.

-T-Mobile 'Caffeinated Cheerleader': An arena of white-coated scientists study a teen cheerleader as she talks a mile-a-minute on her phone. Her voice is funny and she says these totally real-sounding yet random things, I particularly like the chewwwing gum and whole she was like whatever, I was like whatever part at the end.

I think commercials really started getting better after Nike was able to license the Beatles' Revolution for their AirMax shoe--after that, it was okay for all these reputable musicians to let commercials in the U.S. use their music, which add so much to a commercial's appeal.

(Incidentally, it's interesting that big Hollywood stars never used to do commercials here, only in Japan--as if what happens in Japan, stays in Japan. But as the article mentions, now the Japanese, like other Asians, are starting to prefer their own in commercials... wonder if someday historians will look back on this as one of the early signs of Asia's rise).

Frame grab of Nextel commercial from Adweek.

A good soul, passing through

He Loves New York, and It Loves Him Right Back

The Times: Yuki Endo was just 10 years old when the city first took hold of him. His life in New York might have been a lonely one after his mother moved him here from Japan in early 1996. He was born with a rare chromosome disorder that left him disabled and makes it hard for him to speak clearly.

But in the decade since, the city has nurtured Yuki in small, graceful ways and become his best friend. Through a quirky combination of luck and his own bottomless curiosity, he has formed a kind of extended family out of the firefighters, doormen, security guards, teachers, librarians and shopkeepers he meets on his daily explorations.

He is a landlocked Huckleberry Finn, restlessly caught up with the mystery and minutiae of New York, at least until 7 p.m., when his mother wants him home. He writes poetry about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and memorizes train conductors' announcements. He entertains firefighters by singing to them in their firehouses, unaccompanied by music, because he likes to. His first home is an Upper East Side apartment; his second is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has spent so many afternoons inside the Met that the security guards call out his name when they see him. He tells them what subway lines to avoid because of weekend service changes, which he monitors religiously.

"I want to make sure they won't be late to the museum," explained Yuki, now 20.

This is definitely one of my favorite New York Times articles of 2005. It's got all the hallmarks of what makes the paper great--it's interestingly well-written, it looks at something seemingly small slant, it makes you sad/happy, you appreciate it in different ways depending on whether you live in New York (wow, I never knew) or not (boy, what a city), there's no sense of strings being pulled, you've never seen it anywhere else before, you wonder how the Times found this guy, you forward it to your friends, you find yourself giving it a new headline, you shake your head after reading it and want to go back and read all the back issues of the newspaper you've missed.

And who knows, maybe Endo will one day write for the Times, just as he's written for Wordsmiths: An Anthology of Writing by Teens on the Web.

Don't give up!
When you come to something difficult
Never give up
Just do it or just skip and come back when you have time

Photo of Endo Yuki by Robert Caplin for the New York Times.

When pigs develop wings

You can slap some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

Just because you start calling Christianity 'Intelligent Design' doesn't make it a suitable reference for a science class.

If you read the judge's opinion in the celebrated Dover case (ok, the excerpt that appeared in the Times), all Christians have done is taken the textbooks that have been sitting in the basement since the Supreme Court ruled you can't teach creationism as science, and replaced the word 'creationism' with the phrase 'intelligent design'.

Don't let the weasel phrase ID fool you--just substitute the word Christianity whenever you hear it. None of these textbooks or Christians are saying let's tell kids in a biology class to check out how Muslims believe the world started, when you push kids toward ID textbooks you're pushing Christianity.

The judge's point is there is no such thing as a scientific theory called 'Intelligent Design'.

ID is Christianity... which is a religion. Its precepts depend on faith, not replicable laboratory experiments.

So you can't answer whether a religion is 'good science', as entirely separate fields the standards by which you would judge one doesn't apply to the other. It'd make as much sense to ask whether science is 'good religion.'

That's why you study one in a religion class, the other in a science class.

I actually have no problem if someone wants the Bible to inform their science class, to inform their economics class, to inform their math class. That's what Catholic schools do.

I obviously have a problem when it's my taxpayer dollars in a public school that's going to evangelize for Christianity.

Let's be clear: To require teachers to tell kids in a science classroom to check out a textbook on ID for an alternate to Darwin is to force public school teachers to evangelize for Christianity.

To suggest ID as an alternate to Darwin is like suggesting loaves and fishes as an alternative to Adam Smith in an economics class.

It's a silly game to say jeez, evolution used to be thought wrong, just like people are saying I.D. is wrong; so let's expose kids to both and see what turns out to be right. There are lots of theories that people think are wrong--we don't teach any of them in a science class.

The whole point of developing a school curriculum is not to say this is everything that anyone thinks about anything. From a logistics and standpoint, schools teach what the most expert current view of each subject matter is--if there is strong debate, then you teach what the most current views are.

There is no debate in this case. 99.9% of biologists think Darwin is the explanation for how life as we know it came to be. Sure, the .1% of biologists who believe Christianity explains life could be right--just like the .1% of scientists who believe horoscopes foretell the future could be right. If we open the door to Christianity in science classes, it would only be fair to teach horoscopes too.

The judge's point is Christianity's proper place in a public school is among its peers in a religion class, not shoulder to shoulder with Darwin in a science class.

Gary Larson's "Great moments in evolution" cartoon from Oxford's Astrophysics department website.

Race runs through it

I was skeptical at first, reading Jimmy Breslin's take on the New York transit strike, Race underlies transit strike.

But, as usual, Jimmy was right.

A day later, we read in the Times: Race Bubbles to the Surface in Standoff

The standoff between the Transport Workers Union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, tense and perilous, was already taking a harsh physical and economic toll on New Yorkers.

But now, as representatives of a mostly nonwhite work force trade recriminations publicly with white leaders in government and at the transportation authority, the potentially volatile issue of race, with all its emotional consequences, is bubbling to the surface.

The examples are both blatant and subtle, some open to interpretation, some openly hostile. Regarding the latter sort, the union - representing workers who are largely minority - shut down a Web log where the public could comment on the strike after it became so clogged with messages comparing the workers to monkeys and calling them "you people." (Seventy percent of the employees of New York City Transit are black, Latino or Asian-American.)

And what may have begun inadvertently, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City," took on a life of its own yesterday as minority leaders and union members attacked the mayor's conduct as objectionable, or worse. "There has been some offensive and insulting language used," said Roger Toussaint, the union leader. "This is regrettable and it is certainly unbecoming for the mayor of the city of New York to be using this type of language."

But others were more extreme in their response. Leroy Bright, 56, a black bus operator who is also a union organizer, saw racial coding in Mr. Bloomberg's choice of words. "The word thug is usually attributed to people of color whenever something negative takes place," he said, adding that the language was "unnecessarily hostile."

...

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who called an evening news conference to blast Mr. Bloomberg, said in an interview: "How did we become thugs? Because we strike over a pension?"

...

Ed Skyler, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, dismissed those comments, saying, "It's despicable for anyone to inject race into this situation.".

Inject race into the situation? It's already there, Ed. Like most white Americans, Ed seems to think racism only exists when a white guy says it does.

It's bad enough the MTA and Mayor Bloomberg are using the kind of language that usually precedes the Bush administration sending troops to take out some foreign leader. But to then turn around and tell us it's just rain you're feeling?

Come on--people feel what they feel, you can say that's not what was meant, but you can't say you aren't allowed to feel that way.

Unfortunately, I think it's indicative of the way the city is treating the Transit Workers Union, almost as chattel. Listen carefully to the language that's being used--there's a tone of how dare you, if you know what's good for you boy, you'll take what we give you, say thank you, and go back to work.

But the people of New York--a city that is rapidly approaching majority minority status--feel through it and still support the workers. Those who can afford the strike least, those who don't have the money for cab rides and trade hours waiting in the cold for the chance to get to work, are the ones who are telling the workers to fight the fight, brother.

Tell the MTA that when they announce a $1 billion surplus and blow it all on 'holiday farecards' to try and buy the public's support right before they sit down at the table and tell the union to tighten their belts, it's insulting at best, downright despicable at worst.

Tell blue-stockinged MTA Chair Peter Kalikow when he deigns to come down from their Park Avenue offices only an hour before the deadline to negotiate, they shouldn't be surprised if talks go nowhere.

And keep up the fight for benefits that allow blue collar workers to live a middle class existence in New York City.

Photo of Transit Workers Union president Roger Touissant by Stephen Chernin/ Getty Images.

Woman of mass destruction II?

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

New York Times: Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

It's an absolutely astonishing article, and it's already showing once again the impact of an unfettered Times. As the Washington Post noted in its article on the Senate's rebuke to Bush on the Patriot Act,

In today's Senate debate, several lawmakers cited a New York Times report disclosing that Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying.

The vote was essentially 53-46 to cut off debate; Republicans needed just 7 mores votes to prevail, how many of these were swayed by the Times piece to not change their vote?

But a few paragraphs in the article is this disclosure:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

A year! The article is about twice the length of normal Times pieces, and obviously touches upon a sensitive subject. But the Times should disclose how much of it was established by the year's worth of extra reporting--a time period during which perhaps thousands of Americans were spyed upon via quite possibly illegal means.

This was not coincidentally a time period during which the Times was preoccupied with its own Judy Miller. As the New Yorker's media critic Ken Auletta noted in an online interview and a lengthy profile of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Judy's self-inflicted saga colored everything in the newsroom, and was close to the heart and constantly on the mind of the publisher.

Was the Times constrained by its concern for Miller? Was it not as aggressive pursuing a sensitive investigation of the administration at a time when one of its reporters was languishing in jail, a confinement that was directly tied to the paper's relationship with the administration? Were people at the Times a little gunshy over Judy's high-profile investigative screw-up?

Because it doesn't seem like taking a year to do 'additional reporting' matches the urgency of the subject matter. This was--and is--an ongoing rank violation of all that this country holds dear. The Times obviously needed to get it right; but I'd rather have a shorter article as soon as possible that gets this out in the open, than something that's been getting worked over for a year. Journalists need to be responsible, but I trust the Times reporters who had an article ready to go a year ago.

Maybe, like Bill Clinton being held hostage in his second term by Monica Lewinsky, internal Times management was hobbled by Judy Miller for the past year--the Auletta piece certainly shows she took up an inordinate amount of the time and energy of the paper's top brass.

If her situation even partially contributed to a delay in publishing this article, it's not just the Times that's suffered from Miss Run Amok, it's possibly thousands of Americans.

Maybe we can get Maureen Dowd to do some digging.

Postscript: President Bush said at a news conference on Monday: "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is discussing the enemy."

Is he kidding?

Lions, witches and wardrobes--oh my!

Disney's take on the classic C.S. Lewis work The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe isn't bad, actually. It's not that good--but the special effects, cinematography, and above all Lucy's character as played by newcomer Georgie Henley will keep your interest.

The problems with the film have less to do with Disney, and more to do with two factors beyond its immediate control: the books themselves, and our society today.

First and foremost, the Narnia series consists of seven uneven books. The LWW, although the first written (in 1950) actually comes second in Narnia time, The Magician's Nephew (1955) being a prequel that explains how Narnia and the wardrobe came to be created.

I probably liked MN the best, and LWW second, but all the books suffer from the unfortunate fact the Lewis was a clunky writer and often winds up 'cheating' by just inserting or asserting things.

Rereading them last year, I was struck at how limited Lewis seemed. The writing was often flat, sentences didn't flow, tart asides seemed the work of a cranky old man, and the story just didn't seem all that compelling.

It's tricky writing fantasy, even trickier when you take on the constraint of writing it for children. You need to create a believable, rich world populated with interesting characters tied together by an imaginative plot wrapped up with interior logic. So when John Doe does thing Z or says statement Y, it flows and seems inevitable, so that you don't see the strings dangling at the behest of the author's wand.

The master of this was Tolkien; anyone who's read the Hobbit/Fellowship books can't wait to reread them and yet is always wistful about not being able to rediscover them for the first time each time. Lewis is no Tolkien; Narnia is to Middle Earth as Aesop is to the Bible.

In my opinion Lewis is not even a Philip Pullman, whose His Dark Materials trilogy (the first book of which is the only children's book to ever win the prestigious British Whitbread Prize, placing Pullman in the company of Ted Hughes and Kazuo Ishiguro) is referred to by some as the anti-Narnia.

Maybe I'm expecting too much out of Lewis--after all, I remember being delighted with Narnia the first time I read through the series as a kid. It could be the books just aren't for adults.

Certainly the racism and sexism aren't for (most) adults. Don't get me wrong--I like Lewis as an author; Out of the Silent Planet is quite interesting, Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity are thought-provoking, and I'm definitely giving my kids Narnia.

But the racism is in the books like the N-word is in Huck Finn. Read the series and you'll find yourself cringing time and again. Lewis, after all, is a product of his times (and religion). I'd typify his as quietly seeping racism and sexism. It doesn't rush out at you and Lewis probably wasn't conscious of it, but it's always there, like the old man on the porch who good-naturedly tries to pat the head of his "Oriental" neighbor's kids while praising their work ethic.

The Horse and His Boy in particular really plays up the white people are the natural leaders over the swarthy masses aspect, but it's a foundational theme of every book.

The racism leaps out at you in a visual manner in the Disney film--four white children fall into a world and instantly are accepted as the natural leaders (think for a moment--if four black kids took over running a war with no previous training, don't you think the audience would've groaned a little at such PC-filmmaking?!), battling a White Queen (read race traitor) with her general (big black bull) leading an army of mostly swarthy and non-white foes (there's even a fleeting scene in the movie with evil Chinese-looking archers).

It'd be odd, actually, if Lewis were anything but racist and imperial--everything in Narnia is discernably from his post-WWII British perspective, when having been devastated and reeling from the loss of their sun-never-sets empire English authors churned out fantasy like never before, all emphasizing plucky yet cool white characters coming into their natural due after trials and tribulations against the forces of darkness. Ah, the poor British, rarely in the course of human events have so many lost so much so quickly!

But bad as the racism is, the sexism is what really rankles. Few people, after all, are holding up Narnia as a paragon for relations between whites and non-whites; but people are pushing it onto little girls everywhere hoping they'll model Lucy and Susan (wonder what they'd think of Polly or Aravis or Jill....)

Yet rereading the series as an adult, I thought Lewis definitely sexist, if not misogynistic. Philip Pullman wrote a much-celebrated (but short) essay that mentions this.

Most obvious is the White Queen as the serpent cum Eve cum women, a trope that appears literally in the Magician's Nephew but is always there elsewhere. Part of her sin is she dares usurp the natural order of things, trying to take over in a world where she does not belong after having literally destroyed her own world.

Thematically and literally, in the end Lewis' women are all subordinate to his male characters. The ultimate authority is always male, and there are many scenes in his series where the male character--Aslan, Peter, and others--is paid homage to in a way that emphasizes their manliness.

In the movie, for example, Peter forces Edmund to wear a girl's coat at one point, during the period in which Peter's asserting who's in charge. (Incidentally, how odd is it that the children spend much of their time in Narnia wearing fur coats while talking to beavers and other animals)

Lucy is the pluckiest of Lewis' females, but it's important to realize she's a young girl and hence not for real. She doesn't count ultimately, and indeed it's been suggested Lewis liked his women to stay child-like.

While Susan, who is womanly and could be on an equal footing with Peter, is consistently portrayed as shrewish and at the end of the series is singled out for punishment.

Like the Christian church, ultimately Lewis's women are all under the male's rule like children/parents, and submit to the natural authority of the male. Again, he was merely a product of his times--I'm not condemning him or saying not to read him. Let's just not close our eyes (or misread) and hold him up as some visionary.

Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker touches on some of these points about the underlying power dynamics of Narnia; he brings up another interesting point that gets at how Narnia isn't really a shill for Christianity, unless you're Christian the way Jerry Falwell is:

Yet a central point of the Gospel story is that Jesus is not the lion of the faith but the lamb of God, while his other symbolic animal is, specifically, the lowly and bedraggled donkey. The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side.

If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory.

A powerful lion, starting life at the top of the food chain, adored by all his subjects and filled with temporal power, killed by a despised evil witch for his power and then reborn to rule, is a Mithraic, not a Christian, myth.

Whatever happened to the meekness and not lording it over others that seems so much a part of Jesus's teachings?!

Like the lion vs. the donkey, given the priviledged position white Christian males occupy in our society it's difficult to buy into the right's view of a religion under siege. And it's even harder to believe Jesus, were he to reappear, would gather Christians as his bretheren. Christ was always for the powerless--camel/needle's eye is the heart of his teachings; he'd be apalled by Falwell and his ilk, no matter how many times they whisper his name at night.

Gopnick's article also discusses how Lewis came to Christianity as simply the culmination of his lifetime interest in myth. It's an important point, because evangelicals are trying to reinvent Narnia as Christian allegory, much as they've tried to recast the Constitution as a Christian document (somewhere the founding fathers are rolling their eyes in their graves).

And indeed it seems to me the poor misreading of literature that Marxist scholars pushed in the 70s has given way to the poverty of evangelicals trying to suck the marrow out of every act of creation by anyone who happens to be a Christian.

Did C.S. Lewis Create Narnia as an Allegory? has an interesting take on this; I would add that to see Narnia, or Tolkien's works, as Christian allegory is to demean and sadly miss the entire point of what they believed and created.

Drafting it as allegory means you're saying the true heart of the work is in what it says about Christianity. But both authors strongly believed creating a world for its own sake was their highest purpose, and would be horrified and saddened by those who parsed their works, sifting out 'mere story elements' while looking for the Christian bits.

In Lewis' case especially, he wrote Narnia as children's stories--they were informed by his experience as a Christian, but in a way perhaps unimaginable to evangelical Christians today, the relationship of an Anglican and his faith was comparable to the relationship of a veteran to the war in which he fought.

It's a major, perhaps the major, experience in shaping who you are and what you believe and will permeate what you write. But it is still an experience mediated by you the person. It is not all-pervading, it is not your soul--otherwise, you suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome... or pre-rapture stress syndrome.

For both Lewis and Tolkien WWI and WWII, their love of mythology, and the effects of academia were as important in shaping their writing as their Christian background. You may as well read Narnia as a WWII allegory (well, the White Queen is a Nazi, Aslan the Americans...), which would likewise sap some of its life away and serve as blinkers on your understanding of the work.

It's not surprising to me that evangelical Christians are trying to claim Narnia for their own. It's just another dying gasp of this most-fearful segment of society, along with the putting the Christ back in Christmas hoopla, the puffing of Mel Gibson's wretched and anti-Semitic Passion, claiming credit for Bush's re-election, and pretending that Christianity is under siege.

It's not surprising that Lewis's mild racism and sexism feels familiar to the religious right, acquainted as it is with much uglier manifestations of two sins that apparently were left off their God's tablets.

But you know, Narnia is no Earth, and England circa WWII is not America today. Those days are over.

Frame grab from Disney's Narnia from unidentified website.

Not black and white

There's a lot being made of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the Blood and Crips gang who by the time you read this will have been executed in California after his last-minute bids for clemency were turned down by Governor Schwarzenegger and then by the Supreme Court.

I had no real opinion on this case--oddly enough the latest cause celebre of a bunch of Hollywood stars doesn't stir me much--until I saw this headline: Chinese Voices Absent in Tookie Verdict.

Hmmm, odd. At first I thought the article was about how every group in California seems to have an opinion one way or another about Tookie, but Chinese Americans, true to their don't rock the boat nature, were just going about their daily business.

And the article is sort of about that. It's weird; in all the coverage I've read about this case, I'd just assumed the victims were members of other gangs--I'd seen nothing that led me to think otherwise.

But....

Williams was convicted for the slaying of Yen-I Yang, his wife Tsai-Shai Yang, and daughter Yee-Chen Lin during a robbery at the hotel that the family owned in Los Angeles.

Hmmm. The article continues:

According to a Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily report on Dec 11, Yen-I Yang, a former middle school English teacher, immigrated from Taiwan to the United States in 1970 after he retired. The Yangs invested their money in a motel in south Los Angeles called Brookhaven. Mr. Chen, a friend of the Yang family, told the Sing Tao Daily that customers at the motel only stayed for one or two hours at a time, creating a quick flow of clients and a large cash reserve that attracted robbers.

On the morning of March 11, 1979, Williams allegedly broke down the door into the motel, shooting Tsai-Shai Yang, who was sitting at the front desk. Williams then shot and killed Yen-I Yang, who was sitting on a couch nearby and his daughter, Lin, who came into the room. Williams then took $100 from the cash register and fled. Yang’s son, Robert Yang, was in an adjacent room, heard the commotion and found his father, mother, and sister, who were all shot at close range.

Chen, who had been with Robert Yang after the murder, said that Robert Yang found his sister shot in the face and his father shot in the abdomen, his organs exposed. Chen said that it was a sight that still haunts Robert Yang. Although many groups, including celebrities, have come out in support of Williams, Chen said that court documents showed Williams bragged about the murders to friends, saying that he “blew away three Buddhaheads.” When he heard about the support for Williams’s clemency, his first reaction was, “Mr. Yang and his family are truly unfortunate.”

There's a lot more in the article about the Chinese-American community's reasons for staying silent, but that's grist for another day's post on how different immigrant groups define being American.

I now have an opinion on Tookie Williams: I don't give a damn what happens to him.

I generally don't support the death penalty, for the usual myriad of reasons. On those grounds, I think Tookie should rot in jail for the rest of his life.

But to hear his supporters, keeping this murderer in jail not only is the worst form of injustice, but as an apology from society he should also get the Nobel Peace Prize upon release.

Oh? I've seen no evidence this man is innocent of the crime he's imprisoned for. You can lead a model life after you're sent to prison, but let's not demean the memory of the victims by lying about the person responsible for the heinous crime that ended their lives.

No matter how much good you do or change you undergo, there are some things so horrific that they cannot be forgiven no matter what. I'd say the cold-blooded murders of four people falls in that category, especially if you never apologize or show any sort of remorse.

Telling others not to kill carries with it an arrogant holier-than-thou feel when you don't begin the conversation by saying I should know, I killed myself.

Governor Schwarzenegger's statement turning down clemency had this interesting detail:

After Williams was arrested for these crimes, and while he was awaiting trial, he conspired to escape from custody by blowing up a jail transportation bus and killing the deputies guarding the bus. There are detailed escape plans in Williams’ own handwriting. Williams never executed this plan, but his co-conspirator implicated Williams in the scheme. The fact that Williams conspired to murder several others to effectuate his escape from jail while awaiting his murder trial isconsistent with guilt, not innocence.

It's also telling that the L.A. Times article says:

Despite persistent pleas for mercy from around the globe, the governor said Williams was unworthy of clemency because he had not admitted his brutal shotgun murders of four people during two robberies 26 years ago.

Clemency, I'd think, starts at home, from the heart of the man requesting it, and requires honesty above all--it cannot be gainsayed by lobbyists on your behalf.

Tookie maintains he's innocent, so I can see how it'd be hard for him to ask forgiveness for his crime. But as far as I can tell he's playing us for a fool when this co-founder of the Crips says he didn't kill these people. I have no problem with others arguing otherwise, but I'd say you better be damn sure about his innocence, and devote your energy to first establishing that case above all, before you go parading in the streets and let loose cries of racism.

It's bizarre that the L.A. Times, in its lengthy article, leads with the case's "racial overtones and compelling theme" yet does not once mention the ethnicity of his victims, nor his racist braggadocio. Any coverage of racial overtones has been dominated by African-American voices--whether that of Williams, or his celebrity and political supporters, or as on ABC's Nightline tonight the voices of family members who lost loved ones to gangs. [The African-American community, like any other group of Americans, isn't of one mind about Tookie--many of them know all too well about Tookie's legacy, in the form of the Crips gang.]

It's troubling to me that the racial overtone of the deaths of three Asian Americans is not part of the discussion around the Tookie case (everything else seems to be). I can't imagine what it was like in 1979, where maybe a generation of Americans who went through Vietnam were desensitized to the point that killing Asians abroad and Asian Americans at home seemed somewhat no big deal.

But I know that at this moment in New York, the New York Times can write about a spate of Chinese deliverymen murders:

The authorities say that two 16-year-old boys decided to set up the deliveryman, that they stabbed him and beat him with a baseball bat for fear that he could identify them, that they wheeled his body out in a shopping cart before shoving it into his car, that they dumped his body in a pond about three miles away and that from this endeavor they realized about $50.

The boys were charged with murder, and the news media briefly revisited one of this city's continuing narratives, the victimizing of Asian food deliverymen. John C. Liu, a city councilman from Queens, who is Asian-American, called for a one-day moratorium on such deliveries, and suggested that while picking up their food, customers get to know the people on the counter's other side.

People needed to be reminded "that there are human lives and human faces behind the preparation and delivery of their food," Mr. Liu said this week. The reminder was necessary, he added, because he detects a racist component to the beating and killing of deliverymen - men like Mr. Chen.

"It's as though we're not American," Mr. Liu said, his voice rising in anger. "We're not human, even. We're not real people."

I think the fact that none of Tookie's victims were white, and specifically, that three of them were Asian American, is what allows this debate to exist.

I think most people would agree there is no way if Tookie killed four white people he'd have lived this long--he'd have been strung up, or executed by the state, long ago, and there would be no room made for any other view.

If all his victims were black, I don't think you'd see Hollywood's brightest out there excusing black-on-black crime.

But because three of his victims were Asian Americans, and it's easy for our society to see Asian Americans as part of the furniture, and the Asian American community seems to be sitting this one out, there was a vacuum created.

And into this vacuum rushed a lot of no doubt well-meaning people, but ones with their own agenda, an agenda that is served by the invisibility of his victims (just try finding a photo of any of the three dead Asian Americans).

In some ways I feel bad for Stanley Williams. We're all in part the product of our environment--he must have had a pretty bad upbringing to turn out the way he did.

But let's not lose sight of personal responsibility, and the importance of truth. You can dress it up six ways to sundown, but a man who murdered four people in cold blood, tried to murder his way out before his trial, and refuses to admit to any of it, has forefeit his right to complain about how society decides to deal with him.

Of his own choice, he's laid his neck down on the chopping block, and shouldn't be surprised if the executioner's axe comes down. It's a choice his victims never had.

If you have the stomach for it, photos of what Tookie did to his victims are at this site.

A museum grows in Manhattan

So I have a traditional list of the best museums I've been to:
-British Museum in London, gives you a good sense of all the things this little island nation has done, both positive--spectacular reading room--and negative--stolen, poorly-displayed Elgin Marbles.

-Imperial War Museum in London, possibly the protypical only-the-British museum--only people with an almost pathological sense of superiority could spend their free time cheerily visiting a recreated WWI trench, sitting through a simulated a WWII blitz, and climbing over a dowdy British-made Mark V tank in order to snap photos of an immense German Panzer.

-Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, a brand-new, huge collection smack in the middle of downtown that somehows smacks of authenticity.

-National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan, it's essentially thousands of years of China's cultural treasures, stolen away just ahead of the Communist's victory--unbelievably, the intricately carved ivory and beautiful jade jewelry all survived the long trip unscathed.

-Freer and Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., a world-class Asian art collection coupled with unparalleled arts and cultural programming, staffed by some of the nicest people around.

-Noguchi Museum of New York, dedicated to sculptures and other works of Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese American who seemingly existed out of time.

-The Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth is worth going to just for its Louis Kahn-designed building (fitting that it's the most prominent photo on the website).

-The Terra Museum in Chicago is my favorite small museum--it's tucked into a modest building right along the Magnificent Mile's shops, and is a wonderfully calm place to find some unexpected gems.

-The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the best museum I've ever gone to.

So now I've got to add a 10th museum to the list: The Rubin Museum of Art, dedicated to the art of the Himalayas.

It's located in Chelsea, near Loehmann's, in a building that was the original Barneys department store. Two of the amazingly friendly and knowledgeable gallery guides told us Donald Rubin, the museum's founder along with his wife Shelley, was looking for a site to open his museum in, happened along, went in, liked the building, and bought it.

It's that kind of a place--the collection is essentially whatever caught the Shelleys' eyes, the descriptions on the walls are refreshingly straightforward (WHAT is Himalayan art; WHERE does it come from; WHY does it look this way; HOW is it made), the staff walks around and talks to you, the space is airy and simply-designed, and there's even an area where you can write and submit your own exhibit captions.

And because the museum, organized around its geographic idea, is inherently multi-cultural and multi-media, you leave feeling as if you've really gotten a thorough education about the art of the region and the cultural and religious beliefs of its Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Bon adherents.

Bon? Even one of the Rubin curators said she'd never heard of this faith before coming to the museum. It seems to have hundreds of thousands of practioners today, mainly living in Tibet--but its roots may stretch back thousands--5,000?!--years, and who knows, like Sanskrit gave birth to many of the world's languages, maybe Bon is one of our uber-faiths.

The Bon Foundation says:

The ancient roots of Bon religion derive from a profound respect for nature and emphasize the healing of physical and environmental as well as spiritual afflictions.

As Indian Buddhism was being established in Tibet, many native Bon elements were incorporated into the incoming religion, resulting in a distinct religion known today as Tibetan Buddhism.

In turn, Buddhist influences are abundantly evident in Bon religion as it currently exists. The two religions are distinct in many ways but share a strong and identical commitment to bringing an end to all suffering.

Although they trace their origins to ancient times, Bonpo practice a living doctrine dedicated to perpetuating the teachings of their founder Tonpa Shenrab, who occupies a preeminent position in Bon culture similar to that of Sakyamuni in Buddhism. Tonpa Shenrab's teachings are collectively known as Yungdrung Bon or the "tradition of Eternal Wisdom" and include the Nine Ways of Bon that outline the laws of cause and effect on the path to spiritual liberation.

Image from Rubin's 'The Demonic Divine in the Himalayan Art' exhibit.

Hail Australia

Racial Violence Continues in Australia

Young people riding in vehicles smashed cars and store windows in suburban Sydney late Monday, a day after thousands of drunken white youths attacked people they believed were of Arab descent at a beach in the same area in one of Australia's worst outbursts of racial violence.

Ah, Sydney, the third best city in the world--if you happen to be white.

Here's the reaction of Australia's prime minister, who I've always thought to be racist:

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has played down claims that racism fuelled the weekend riots, putting him at odds with the NSW Premier, the Police Commissioner and many community leaders.

"Mob violence is always sickening and always to be unconditionally condemned," he said. "Attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians, irrespective of their own background and irrespective of their politics."

But he said the riots were primarily a "law and order issue".

"I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country. I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people. I do not believe Australians are racist."

Well, it's easy to be optimistic when you're not the one getting beaten up.

And it's easy for mobs feel empowered to go after minorities when your prime minister says things like Muslim women should make themselves less conspicuous.

Contrast Howard's denials with that of a young editorial assistant at the Sydney Herald, who says "Young Lebanese Australians now feel they are second-class citizens" in his article, headlined Treat us like dogs and we'll bite back.

Howard has been described as leading the last openly racist country in the developed world; it's not a surprising characterization, given that until the 1970s the Australian government still kidnapped Aboriginal children and gave them to white parents, and enforced a 'White Australia', apartheid-like immigration policy.

It's clear that Australians have a major racial problem--they've always thought of themselves as an isolated outpost of white civilization, never mind the convict background of their forefathers.

But with China on the ascendancy and the new 800-lb regional gorilla, sooner or later Australia is going to have to look itself in the mirror--either by choice or by compulsion.

Photo by of a man being surrounded and beaten with bottles by Andrew Meares for the Sydney Morning Herald.

First the Olympics, now this

London Is The World’s Favourite City Brand

London is the world’s favourite city brand according to the Anholt-GMI City Brands Index, an annual survey which measures the strength of a city’s brand. The Index was co-created by branding expert Simon Anholt and global market research solutions provider GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) The Index is unique because it demonstrates how we respond to city brands in exactly the same way as when we're shopping for cars or clothing brands. Second place in the survey went to Paris and third place went to Sydney. The highest American entry was New York in seventh place behind Rome (4th), Barcelona (5th) and Amsterdam (6th).

Hmm... 7th?! One spot ahead of L.A.? And behind a bunchof European cities?

Yeah, right. Oh well; it's interesting how the "17,502 respondents worldwide" (GMI, which is apparently a consulting firm, doesn't give much of a methodology) perceived New York:

-New York’s overall position was boosted by its high marks as a place for higher education (ranked second [behind London]) and for the diversity and variety of languages it offers (also ranked second [behind London]).

-New York came in first place for [how much the city has contributed to culture, science and how cities are governed].

-In addition to having a good reputation for its cultural contributions, New York is America’s city of opportunity, coming in second place in the Potential category after London.

-On the flip side, the “Big Apple” was also seen as both ‘dirty’ (ranked 26th out of 30) and unwelcoming or cold toward visitors (28th). Lagos, Nigeria and Johannesburg, South Africa both ranked better in terms of cleanliness.

-American cities fared the worst when panels were asked, “How safe would you feel in this city?”

I don't think any serious person would rank New York below third in a survey of the world's greatest city. London and Paris are its only real peers, with traditionally Rome and Tokyo the other members of this group of five (poor Tokyo was rated #19 in this survey, behind Edinburgh). And I would say with the ugly underbelly of French racism that's being exposed nowadays, it really is a two-city race against London.

But in terms of actual importance to the world, there's no question it's New York, with London Scottie Pippen to our Michael Jordan.

Facing up to history

Dude, where’s my white privilege? Take 2: “Blackface Jesus”

Mixed Media Watch: Oh hell no. The trend of white boys in literal or figurative blackface continues. First we told you about the Kill Whitey parties. Then we told about the rash of “thug” or “gangsta” parties spreading across predominantly white high schools and colleges. Now comes perhaps the worst case of this flaunting-of-white-privilege-disguised-as-hipster-irony bull.

It's an interesting post; the upshot of the self-admitted rant about this guy who puts on blackface before going out to parties in NYC is:

So in other words, just because this guy considers himself a part of the downtown hipster set, just because he thinks he’s sooooo ironic and clever, just because he’d classify his costume as “un-PC” rather than “offensive,” doesn’t make this any less racist! There is absolutely no difference between Blackface Jesus and the blackface minstrel performers so popular at the turn of the century. It’s just as offensive as Mickey Rooney’s yellowface getup as Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

I agree with a lot of what the MMW poster says, but I happen to find Mickey Rooney's portrayal so stupid that it makes me laugh.

That's not to say I support producing more racist humor, just for laughs--but given that Breakfast at Tiffany's has already been made, and is what it is, I for one think of Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River, or that wild party scene, or George Peppard picking up Cat in the rain, when someone mentions the film. To allow Rooney's buffoonery to ruin a delightful film and dominate one's recollection of it is understandable, but it just doesn't happen to be the way I remember it.

If anything, I feel bad for a post-WWII America that still had such a two-dimensional, inaccurate view of its recently-vanquished foe. Every time I watch that movie it's a reminder to me that when cultural conservatives wax rhapsodic about the good old days, they forget to add assuming you were a well-off white male.

For everyone else, the 50s and 60s were a time of lynchings, beatings and other forms of oppression stemming from the naked open racism and hatred of well-off white males; a time when non-whites and women still weren't in control of how they were portrayed culturally. And even those well-off white males suffered; America was poorer then than it is today because for the most part it didn't value the contributions of most of the world. For the average American there was no sushi, no ukiyo-e, no Zen buddhism, no karate... just Mickey Rooney. How rich can anyone's life be when you've closed your eyes to most of the world?

The great thing about life in multicultural America today is (for the most part) everyone can think and say what they want, regardless of background, and we're all free to shape the debate and resulting imagery.

So if some Asian Americans loathe Rooney as Yunioshi, while it makes others laugh, it's fine--we don't all think alike, anymore than we all look alike.

As for blackface Jesus, I personally think whoever he is, he's probably an idiot who gets a kick out of being noticed and a rise out of being able to draw responses, even if he has no clue why it's such a visceral reaction by many.

As another (slightly misguided) poster on MMW says, part of the intensity of the reaction stems from the historical context party boy is ignorant of:

Actually, I find the commonly-depicted “Whiteface” Jesus more offensive than this sole example of a “Blackface” Jesus (which actually looks closer to the historical truth).

Jesus was an ancient Jew who likely resembled modern-day Arabs like Saddam Hussein, NOT Paul Walker-esque Aryan hippies. http://www.religioustolerance.org/jesusface.jpg

But since White folks would never “stoop” to worshipping a brownfaced god, they gave him a Michael Jackson Whiteface treatment. The fact that no one is up in arms about this racist revisionism and its MASS ACCEPTANCE amongst 1/3 of the earth’s religious people (Christians) - is what’s TRULY outrageous.

And then they have the nerve to call Michael Jackson wacko? When they did the EXACT SAME THING to their GOD???

Hmm, a whitewashed Jesus; some would say that's redundant.

Photo of 'Blackface Jesus' by Nikola Tamindzic on Gawker.

Hooligans

Ad projected onto Grand Central stirs controversy

Newsday: When a towering Starbucks ad was projected on Grand Central Terminal last Saturday night, some New Yorkers were left to wonder if the landmark's façade was now for rent.

The answer, it turns out, is no. Kind of. "The law is very gray when it comes to projections," said Nasir Rasheed, co-owner of Seattle-based marketing firm Neverstop. "It's not legal, but it's not illegal."

What's not gray is how 'guerilla marketing'--now cynically being employed by the very corporations the movement was established to undermine--is pulling apart our social fabric.

Unlike other forms of vandalism such as graffiti, there's no counter-consideration of free expression, rebellion, or even cleverness involved here. It's a net negative for society, unless you happen to be one of these executives chortoling in the boardroom about the 'edginess' of these defacements, and reveling in the free publicity.

These corporate executives are hooligans, no more, no less--they're free-riders, taking advantage of buildings erected at taxpayer expense to peddle their commercial goods.

Projecting ads onto buildings (imagine the poor tourists trying to take a photo of historic Grand Central that night!) and Microsoft's well-known campaign of placing stickers on sidewalks pollute our public spaces, and like other forms of corporate pollution and weaselly operating procedures seem to stem from from some belief that if it's not explicitly forbidden, it's allowable, even if it's wrong.

You don't have to be much past kindergarten to know that you shouldn't cover up things that don't belong to you. If you need society to tell you so in the form of a law, we can accommodate you--apparently 'red tape' is the only restraint some corporations respect.

In the meantime, these profoundly toxic acts take a toll. New York City is stressful enough without any open public space being plastered with buy! now! ads. And, as artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf showed in their Delete! project when they covered up the advertising on a Viennese street in yellow, we're surrounded by a sea of ads as it is.

The impact of this visual pollution is increasingly being recognized by a society that's also waking up to other mind-body links traditionally scoffed at as Eastern mysticism. There's a reason why gardens, Zen or otherwise, impart feelings of well-being.

And it's not just the stress and health impacts of blaring ads. There is a deeper psychic impact--these corporations are thumbing their noses at societal norms, and much like movie and music studios drain away the pool of goodwill the peaceful co-existence of mass society requires by their constant undermining of all that society holds decent.

Let's be clear here: I'm not talking about artists excercising their First Amendment rights, no matter how misguided or poorly done. I'm talking about corporations trying to pad their bottom line with 'products', whether a projected billboard or a violent film, that they shut out of their own neighborhoods/homes. If you only ever yell fire in crowded theaters belonging to others, it's not free speech you're exercising.

So if projecting billboards is key to your life, that's fine--just make sure it gets projected on the sides of your own home as well. Anyone know the addresses of some Starbucks executives?

Photo of Starbucks store at Grand Central Terminal by Winter (who's trying to visit every Starbucks in the world). Photo of Delete! project in Vienna from Art MoCo.

Gold ricebowl

Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese

New York Times: One of China's newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse. Posters of World of Warcraft and Magic Land hang above a corps of young people glued to their computer screens, pounding away at their keyboards in the latest hustle for money.

Workers have strict quotas and are supervised by bosses who equip them with computers, software and Internet connections to thrash online trolls, gnomes and ogres.

The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash.

That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them.
...
"It's unimaginable how big this is," says Chen Yu, 27, who employs 20 full-time gamers here in Fuzhou. "They say that in some of these popular games, 40 or 50 percent of the players are actually Chinese farmers."

Gosh, it's bad enough losing in these games to some 12-year-old kid--but a rice farmer?!

Taking Christ out of church

When Christmas Falls on Sunday, Megachurches Take the Day Off

New York Times: Some of the nation's most prominent megachurches have decided not to hold worship services on the Sunday that coincides with Christmas Day, a move that is generating controversy among evangelical Christians at a time when many conservative groups are battling to "put the Christ back in Christmas." Megachurch leaders say that the decision is in keeping with their innovative and "family friendly" approach and that they are compensating in other ways.

Ah, now I get it--the reason why some members of the Christian right want Christianity in public schools, stores, and courthouses is because going to church doesn't fit into their busy lifestyle.

So they're trying to spread Christianity everywhere, so when they'd rather be shopping they can still be 'in church'....

So, why not? Why shouldn't a nation where the vast majority of people are not evangelical cater to the views of a narrow segment of the population?

I mean, some might object to having public funds paying to support what a few million Americans believe happened 2,000 years ago, some might nitpick about constitutional issues, some might wonder who'll get to decide which sect's interpretation of the bible is controlling, but I say let the devil worry about the details.

Let's get religion integrated into public life. Prayers should be read over the P.A. system in schools, biblical displays set up in the public square, those stone tablets should be brought to our courthouses (just make sure it's the right version of the ten commandments that gets displayed).

Cause given current demographic trends, the day will come when a public school district is majority Muslim. And then, it'll be the Christian kids who'll get to listen to the Muslim call to prayer over the intercom, five times a day.

I wonder what'll happen then? Jews, Muslims and Hindus all have had experience having Christmas carols and other Christian theology shoved down their throats. But I wonder how Christians will react when mixing religion and the state no longer means their religion.

Frame grab from A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), Charles M. Schulz via DCist.

Imagined

Images of John Lennon are projected onto the side of the Mersey Tunnel Exhaust Tower in Liverpool, England, Lennon's hometown, marking the life of the former Beatle on the 25th anniversary of his death. The Tower stands between the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company building, left, and the Liver Building on the banks of the River Mersey.

AP Photo and Caption/ Paul Ellis

Second act problems

It's interesting how many films Steven Spielberg manages to ruin. And they're always ruined the same way.

The problem with watching one of his movies is you have expectations--he's a good director, and you always think maybe this'll be like E.T., or Raiders of the Lost Ark. The best moments of Spielberg's best films (I'd include Schindler's List, A.I., Minority Report, and Saving Private Ryan) tell you that he really is no hack; the man has potential.

So you walk in expecting something delightful and novel from a Spielberg film. You know he's a smart guy, who can do pretty much what he wants with whom he wants--all the ingredients are there for success.

And yet, I always leave disappointed and dissatisfied, thinking he should've gotten more out of his subject matter. I usually don't think it's a bad movie, per se. After all, he cheats by taking on easy topics full of dramatic potential. War, the Holocaust, the future--I mean, the audience is half-way with him when they walk in through the door.

And his films always start well. He skillfully introduces you to the world he's created, introduces compelling characters, and gets you into the movie quickly.

But then, like a man reminiscing about his glory days at the bar, he doesn't seem to know what to do next once he's got you hooked, except more--much more--of the same. He pulls out all the stops to bowl over the audience; things get louder, come faster, and ultimately he's off building this fantastic house of cards. When all you want is a good story, well-told.

I wonder if Spielberg ultimately respects his movie audience. He often forsakes nuance and in doing so ruins things that could be nice touches. Does he trust us to understand more than what he spells out? Does he feel like we deserve to see him bare his soul?

Or does he want to wrap himself in the mantle of commercially-sucessful director? Not for him is the label of head-in-the-clouds artist, he seems to want to come across as a hard-nosed professional. Maybe he's afraid of being accused of putting on airs, so as a result he sticks things in his films that he imagines blue-collar schmos want.

The problem, though, is he's no Sylvester Stallone, who did have an authentic sense of what the man on the street would stand up and cheer for. Spielberg for a lot of reasons, some self-imposed others not, will never be one of the folk.

Nor is he a Martin Scorsese, who seems to make the films he wants, the way he wants them. You get the sense that Marty works the same with or without the eyes of the world on him, that he doesn't sit in the edit bay conscious of Joe Public looking over his shoulder. Spielberg, I feel, almost makes movies by focus groups, albeit badly-tuned ones.

Steven isn't even George Lucas, whose track record of cringe-inducing moments that mar otherwise pretty interesting movies (he's gotta be doing this on purpose, right--no one could have dialogue that bad by mistake, there's gotta be a deeper meaning here; maybe a statement about the inherent nihilism of lover's talk?) rivals his fellow filmmaker. But Lucas at least is pushing the boundaries of film technology; he's been spending his time and energy on things that film geeks appreciate. Does Spielberg have a fan club for what he's made in the last 20 years?

His latest failure is Terminal. I really wanted to like this movie, and actually enjoyed it in many ways. I always like Tom Hanks, and the storyline--a man outof water manages with the advantage of unlimited time and the goodwill of those around him to make the best of a bad situation--is appealing. And who doesn't appreciate airports as a metaphor for modern life?

But Spielberg does his usual too-cute-by-half act, and the piling-on-too-much thing. As a result, by the end of Terminal you just don't care, you've lost all ability to be empathic with a character who's now gone 10 steps beyond anything we're likely to experience. It's a shame, because the real-life story would've made an interesting film.

I once read a critic who said the thing about great science fiction, like that of H.G. Wells, is that the author asks you to suspend disbelief about one, usually big, thing.

Once you internalize and go along with that one thing--aliens are invading earth; there are two kinds of humans, those that live above and those that live below ground--the rest follows with full interior logic. There aren't any more stumbling blocks or moments where you say what?!

Spielberg, unfortunately, keeps throwing things at you, it's like he's not sure his big thing is enough so he figures I'll just offer plot twists and the feeling this is a BIG FILM with BIG STARS and BIG MOMENTS.

Steven, stop the merry-go-round. Step off it, we know you're a legendary director who can set box-office records.

Go off and make a movie you want to make. Don't worry so much about what we'll think when we watch it, don't try to push our buttons or make us feel a certain way. I'm sure you have interesting things to say.

Photo found in various places online, all uncredited--if anyone knows the photographer/venue, let me know.

Holding us back

Not Guilty Verdicts in Florida Terror Trial Are Setback for U.S.

Actually, I'd say it's a victory for U.S.

The article begins:

In a major defeat for law enforcement officials, a jury in Florida failed to return guilty verdicts Tuesday on any of 51 criminal counts against a former Florida professor and three co-defendants accused of operating a North American front for Palestinian terrorists.

0 for 51--ouch! Particularly galling when you read:

The trial, lasting more than five months, hinged on the question of whether Mr. Arian's years of work in the Tampa area in support of Palestinian independence crossed the threshold from protected free speech and political advocacy to illegal support for terrorists. Prosecutors, who had been building a case against Mr. Arian for 10 years, relied on some 20,000 hours of taped conversations culled from wiretaps on Mr. Arian and his associates.

I think at some point in this country we have to look at how cases like are hurting our ability to fight terrorism.

It's extremely unlikely that the next terrorist attack in the U.S. that involves Muslims will feature Americans carrying out the attacks. In this country we settle our disputes at the ballot boxes, and the American Muslim community is as committed to democracy as any other group--perhaps more so, given that many of them are here because they fled oppression in their homelands.

Instead, the next attack is likely to, again, involve foreigners in this country illegally.

But when Muslim Americans like Mr. Arian's only contact with law enforcement and the criminal justice system comes when they're being prosecuted, does that help or hurt our ability to get tips and information from this community?

Would you go out of your way to flag down a cop who's been harassing you? Because many Muslims right now feel that the entire law enforcement and criminal justice apparatus is systematically harassing them.

Aside from the fact that it's illegal and morally wrong and a waste of resources, in this day and age racism on the part of these government employees is making this country unsafe.

A racist cop or official is about as unpatriotic a person as I can conceive of. A racist person in these positions of authority is in essence willing to indulge in their personal animosities on the backs of our public safety.

He or she does more real harm to this country than all the flag-burners in history combined. His or her failure to keep their private lives off the job has the potential to not just hurt the morale of our troops, but to cost them their lives, not to mention the lives of civilians.

I think if the South Florida prosecutors had spent the past 10 years working to build relationships with local Muslims, I'd feel a lot safer than I would even if Mr. Arian had been found guilty and was behind bars.

As it is, I feel tremendous sorrow for Mr. Arian, and for all of us.

AP Photo of Sami al-Arian by Chris O'Meara.

Our blood and theirs

Someone could create an entire blog or PhD thesis around this article: Raised as Catholic in Belgium, She Died as a Muslim Bomber.

Religion, terrorism, racism, xenophobia, generation gap, nihilism, capitalism, Times speak, provincialism, sexism, cultural blindness, it's all in there.

I mean, where to begin?

[Muriel Degauque's] unlikely journey into militant Islam stunned Europe and for many people was an incomprehensible aberration, a lost soul led astray. But her story supports fears among many law enforcement officials and academics that converts to Europe's fastest-growing religion could bring with them a disturbing new aspect in the war on terror: Caucasian women committed to one of the world's deadliest causes.

The Times then tells us what these women are thinking:

Most of those in the conservative ranks are motivated by spiritual quests or are attracted to what they regard as an exotic culture.

And then, buried in the piece, is this:

Her mother told neighbors that she was pleased because Islam had helped her daughter stop drinking and doing drugs.

Muriel's Europe, I think, is lost; a rapidly aging Caucasian population is struggling against an influx of young non-white immigrants that it desperately needs to do the menial work and pay taxes, but that it deeply resents, is bewildered by and fears, the way old people everywhere always are by the young.

The age-old generation gap is supercharged by this clash of cultures that is finally stripping away the genteel racism Europe has always worn, and revealing the ugly bedrock racism that comes out when you fear for surival.

Survival on a personal level (terrorism) and societal level (Christian Europe not just being tuned out by the young, but being actively saturated by Islam).

And it's the old's fear of losing their young to such foreign forces as Islam and love across color lines that pervades the Times piece.

To this ancient conflict add the simultaneous crumbling of an economic system built upon the anachronism of socialism, speeded by the sense that new (non-white) powers are afoot in the world and are leaving old Europe behind.

A similar collision between just the generational and economic forces was sufficient to forge the soixante-huitards and barricadiers, the 1968 generation of radical political leftists that went from running from police in the streets to reshaping their countries by running for office and running businesses.

It is ironically this very generation of grown-up radicals that now finds itself at war with Muslims. And it is war, not civil war--because for most Caucasian Europeans, these Muslims among them are not Europeans; they are not the prodigal sons of '68, whose terrorism was all within the family and something to be grappled with and gone through together and ultimately worked out, no matter how hard and long the journey.

For Caucasian Europeans, the 'Muslim problem' is something that could end with separation. This 'if all else fails we'll just send them back' mentality is at the root of the ugliness in the streets.

This mentality allowing for the wholesale excisement of 'foreign' elements, like much else at the root of the Holocaust, wasn't brutally ripped out with the end of World War II.

There is still no concept in Europe today of citizenship being open to all; no parallel to the American assumption that anyone born in a country is a citizen like everyone else, or that all you need to do is live here X years and pass Y test and you're a full citizen.

Europe, to a degree unimaginable in the U.S., is still run on blood (yours and your parents), religion, and skin color.

Germany is a good example--believe it or not, until five years ago, in the words of the BBC, "an ethnic German from Kazakhstan who has never lived in Germany can claim citizenship, but not a Turk born and raised in Germany and speaking only German."

Until 2000, as the Germany Embassy in Canada explains, Germany's citizenship laws were "based upon the principle of the jus sanguinis ("right of blood"): a child inherits German citizenship from German parents."

But perhaps caught up in the euphoria of the new millennium, the Germans changed their laws:

The most important change in Germany's citizenship law is that the principle of jus sanguinis - of defining citizenship by inheritance - is supplemented with the principle of the jus soli ("right of soil") - of defining citizenship by place of birth.

Five years isn't much time for your average hausfrau to think of the Turkish immigrant she passes every day in the street as her equal, in the eyes of the state or otherwise.

Of course, even if you're born in Germany you're not a citizen unless one of your parents has lived there for eight years; as for becoming a naturalized citizen, a U.S. government study tells us it's still "at the discretion of the German naturalization authority."

Although this post is about Europe, a recent article in Japan Review entitled "Measuring Citizenship: Is Japan an Outlier?" adds additional perspective. The abstract suffices:

This paper explores the notion that Japan is an outlier in its definitions of citizenship. It looks at 190 states around the world and their sample political aggregates in order to test if "jus solis," or "citizenship by birth," is a common feature of all states. Analysis of the data indicates the opposite: that jus solis conferring states are within the minority. Japan is not an outlier.

The study finds that only two countries in Europe, France and Ireland, recognize anyone born there as a citizen.

But it's one thing for de jure recognition; citizenship in the eyes of your neighbor is very different. At least Caucasian Germans find it difficult to hide from their racism--it's just too obvious being there in black and white.

The Caucasian French, perhaps with typical Gallic ostrich flair, seem intent on proclaiming their model egalitarianism even as their cities burn.

As Semou Diouf said in the Times:

"I was born in Senegal when it was part of France. I speak French, my wife is French and I was educated in France." The problem "is the French don't think I'm French."

The Times piece continues:

That, in a nutshell, is what lies at the heart of the unrest that has swept France in the past two weeks: millions of French citizens, whether immigrants or the offspring of immigrants, feel rejected by traditional French society, which has resisted adjusting a vision of itself forged in fires of the French Revolution. The concept of French identity remains rooted deep in the country's centuries-old culture, and a significant portion of the population has yet to accept the increasingly multiethnic makeup of the nation. Put simply, being French, for many people, remains a baguette-and-beret affair.

The riots in France are just the latest in Europe's struggle with thousands of years of inured racism--when everyone around you has always been white, it's easy to spend your time lecturing America about its 'race problem'.

America is without question the least racist place in the world, which says something about how bad it is in other countries. We talk about race and struggle with it all the time because we have to--there are too many African Americans and Hispanics and Asian Americans to ignore the way Europe has tried to in various forms ignore or erase non-Caucasians. An archetypical example being the French's repeated avowals that it's their fundamental egalitarian nature driving things like banning headscarfs and yarmulkes in schools as ostentatious displays of faith (but not crucifixes or observing Catholic holidays).

Maybe the last word should just be this:

Ms. Degauque's mother answered the door at her home in Monceau-sur-Sambre on Monday, her blond hair neatly coiffed but wearing a weary frown. "I have nothing to say," she said, "I'm mourning my daughter."

Color and white

I saw a pair of interesting exhibits at the Met recently--the first called simply enough Vincent van Goh: The Drawings.

Unless you're truly a Van Gogh fanatic, the exhibit could be a bit of a tough slog since it's (crowded) room after room of dimly lit drawings, many simply prepatory sketches that weren't meant to be 'shown'.

What pulls you through is watching the iconic artist evolve--Van Gogh was apparently no Mozart, he had to painstakingly learn how to draw, and he tried different techniques before settling on his built-up style.

It's interesting how psychologically fragile he was; he'd send multiple copies of a drawing to different friends, and in particular his brother, seemingly holding his breath for their feedback. I wonder whether he altered his style based on what they said?

And as you near the end of the exhibit you're jarred as you come across some of his paintings. Suddenly you see beneath the familiar vibrant colors and thick paint that he painted the way he learned how to draw, piling line after line together to create a sense of dynamism.

And you realize how much you miss the colors; there is beauty in his drawings and you can appreciate them, but they're just not the same, there's too much peering and examining somehow, versus the 'wow' of his paintings.

It's the same way I feel everytime I go to the Guggenheim and finish one of their interesting modern art exhibits and duck into the familiar gallery of Old World masters.

That's not to say 'long time ago good, now no good'--the other exhibit at the Met I saw was Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture.

Caltrava is one of my favorite architects (along with the incomparable Maya Lin), purely because I like the way his buildings look.

They're usually functional structures like train stations or bridges, but he makes them more beautiful than you would think they need to be. Without it looking tacked on or showy.

It makes sense, then, that he started out as a sculptor--his buildings have a good sense of flow, and although not basic could be described as minimalist, the same sleek way a swan is minimalist.

Just looking through some of the online photos now, it strikes me that both Van Gogh and Caltrava can be reduced down to curved lines.

Vincent van Gogh's Street in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and Santiago Calatrava's World Trade Center Transportation Hub rendering, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tokyo Orimpikku

I've been watching Tokyo Orimpikku, an idiosyncratic documentary of the 1964 Olympics by the Japanese director Kon Ichikawa.

From the opening scenes--which list each and every one of the previous 17 Olympics and host city--to the amateur joy of the athletes at the closing ceremony, it's unlike any sports-related film I've seen.

There are tight closeups of athletes, to the point that you feel disoriented not being able to see the context. Long minutes of natural sound from competition--just grunts, groans, screams, thumps, cheers.

And although the documentary roughly follows the chronological order of the Games in show each sport, from the perspective of someone used to the scripted storytelling of contemporary televised sporting events there can seem to be no rhyme or reason to what is shown.

Ichikawa spends minutes on minor events while big-name athletes in the glamour sports are seen only in passing. And he often doesn't follow an event through to conclusion. (You may feel the urge to visit this site afterwards).

This is the Olympics of gymnast Larisa Latynina, swimmer Dawn Fraser, and 5-time gold medalist Deszo Gyarmati--but the competition footage Ichikawa shows tends to linger on athletes who catch his eye for sometimes inscrutable reasons. It may just be a case of the camera happens to be where it happens to be, something rarely seen in today's world of replays from every conceivable angles coverage.

(A contemporary New York Times review says Ichikawa used 100 cameramen and 148 technicians to shoot 16 sports over two weeks.)

But once you adjust, you settle into the rhythm of his world. There's a certain nostalgic aspect to watching the film today--this is very much the 60s of mostly sunshine lighting up gray stone buildings, when the narration dwells on the brotherhood of the Games it doesn't jar or ring hokey. It's a world where Bobby and Martin are still alive, Vietnam hadn't exploded, Munich is just a town in Germany....

You understand what hosting the Olympics meant to post-war Japan; the feeling that they were once again taking their place among the world's leading nations after the self-inflicted devastation of World War II. Just by seeing the buildings and streets of Tokyo you get a feel for the gritty rebuilding the Japanese had undergone.

And Ichikawa lingers on the faces of ordinary Japanese, the spectators in the stadiums, fans lining the streets--bright excited kids, giggling groups of pretty teenage girls, strong and clean-cut young men in their suits, the spotted and deeply-etched faces of the old.

And even Emperor Hirohito makes his appearance as one among many spectators; there is no deity, just a spectacled man who haltingly opens the Games reading from notes.

My favorite scenes include:
-Russians and Eastern Europeans walking around straight out of central casting (these are the Communists who Americans feared were taking over)
-Tight shots of shot-putters with the shot up against their necks, with cuts to the shot thumping into the turf
-A Japanese gymnast's clean, exuberant floor exercises
-A runner from the "new nation" of Chad alone wherever he goes
-Various shots of chattering athletes and their food
-Segue from Herculean spotlit weightlifters to struggling wrestlers
-Joe Frazier walking off quietly under the stands after winning the gold
-Japanese women beating the Russians in the volleyball finals
-The slogging, rainy walking event (subject of a unique Cary Grant film)
-Elite marathon runners stopping to grab their drinks during the race

It's interesting that the other well-known documentary about an Olympic Game is Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, about the 1936 Berlin Games.

In my mind, Japan and Germany are twinned:
-Historically hated and feared by their neighbors, yet also traditionally a regional power
-Hard-working, arrogant, disciplined, racist populace not known for their sense of humor
-Guttural language built on compound words
-Appreciative of clean art
-Obsession with women's roles in the home
-Makers of fine automobiles in robotized plants
-Perhaps best-described as 'brutally professional'?

Ichikawa, though, is the farthest thing from a fascist, unlike Riefenstahl, who in many ways (down to her stabs at revisionism) can be seen as one of the uber-fascists. (For more on this, see Fascinating Fascism, Susan Sontag's seminal essay on Riefenstahl and the aesthetics of fascism.)

I found Tokyo Orimpikku beautiful to watch--like the best in Japanese art it has a sense of purity without heavy purpose. There is no coercion in this film; you take it or leave it as you may, you won't feel guilty if you get a little bored and fast-forward.

And while Ichikawa does have his points (Hiroshima, participation, rebirth) he doesn't marshal film/sound/narration/script/graphics in lockstep to make sure you get it.

It's a refreshing break from contemporary sports coverage with its multiple announcers setting up the storyline, telling you what you're seeing, and circling what you missed; and the telegraphed films of Hollywood.

Photo of the Olypmic torch passing in front of Mount Fuji from Tokyo Orimpikku, via Terra Media.

Snow comes to New York

A pedestrian walks past a Christmas tree decorated with lights at a tree vending stand on Avenue A in the East Village that is covered in snow.

AP Photo and Caption/ Mary Altaffer

What humans can survive

If you only read one article on the one-year anniversary of the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia, let it be the one from last Sunday's New York Times.

It's an amazing piece that tells the stories of six Indonesians: a fisherman who remembered his grandfather's advice, a doctor who tried to save lives with no supplies, a housewife who agonized over her kids, a deliveryman who clung to life by himself for days, a social activist trying desperately to save his daughter, and a shopkeeper who was at the mercy of strangers.

They're all from the town of Bandeh Aceh, which lost 90,000 people (the total death toll is at a quarter-million, which is like if every single person in Madison, Wisconsin disappeared in a day).

It's an emotional and heartbreaking read, leaves you almost breathless at how people ever physically survived such a relentless disaster, both the immediate event and the days afterwards. And thinking about what you could possibly have done in their shoes.

The article, the longest the NYTimes magazine has ever published [NOTE: The Times a few days later ran a correction saying this was actually not at all the longest article the magaine's ran], will remind you why you love the paper. Like all Times articles there are tone problems (if only they weren't so knowing about everything!); but in the end, it's the stories that come through, the paper and writer are just a vehicle for bringing them to us.

Survivors, clinging to stalwart trees, were chanting prayers. "Asyhadu an laa ilaaha illallahu," "I swear there is no God but Allah." Maisara, astride a palm tree, was comforted to hear the familiar devotions. Then the prayers suddenly gave way to exclamations of terror. "Air laut naik lagi!" Another wave was coming.

Photo of Maisara just outside Banda Aceh is by Taryn Simon for The New York Times.

Love kills

Girl with peanut allergy dies after kiss

Where have you gone, John Wayne?

In this day and age it's not every day you get a United States Congressman who, in the words of the Times:

-Pleads guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes to help friends and campaign contributors win military contracts,

-Tearfully acknowledges his guilt and says "The truth is, I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions and, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family."

-Faces up to 10 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures,

-Is known both for his combative conservatism and his emotional outbursts

-Was a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot in Vietnam

-Goes by the nickname 'Duke' and lives, while in Washington, on a 42-foot yacht named the Duke-Stir (owned by one of the military contractors)

-Receives, as illegal gifts, a Rolls Royce and a graduation party for his daughter.

I don't know, is it just me or should we feel a little sorry for Representative Randy Cunningham (formerly R-San Diego--what is it with politicians there?)?

His crimes are so old-fashioned and almost touchingly naive; who takes a Rolls as a bribe nowadays?! Hasn't he heard about PACs and 527s?

And somehow, I can't imagine Tom DeLay saying:

"In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame. I cannot undo what I have done. But I can atone."

Photo of Randy Cunningham by the AP/ Lenny Ignelzi