Waiting to Go (Fight the Faux "News")

Have you ever been bothered by Fox "news" at your local gym or bar or elsewhere? At the gym, I object whenever more than 2 TVs are showing Fox.  

Fight the stupidity! Get involved and do you part to improve political literacy in the US. Whenever you are subjected to Fox, demand relief from those responsible. Below is the mail I sent to my local airport. Feel free to copy and edit to suit your situation and thoughts.

Dear Sir or Madam,

While waiting for an early morning flight from XXX, I was offended by the highly partisan Fox cable 'news' showing on 4 of the 7 TVs visible at the time. Who decided that we in the captive audience will be subjected to one-sided political propaganda? I think most fellow-travelers would prefer something certifiably unbiased, informative, or educational (e.g., CSPAN, the Weather Channel, PBS). Or even better, perhaps one of our fine local channels? 

Thank you for your consideration and reply.
All the best,
"Reuel" 

I also provided my email address and they promised a reply, which I will be waiting for. If they don't promise a change, I will write to my local newspaper. (BTW I did intend the slightly provocative "fellow-travelers" reference.)

Snarling SCOTUS Set to Deliver Good News to Obama

This promises to be a “I win or you lose” week for the President. If the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rules his health care law constitutional, then he has a historical, signature accomplishment as President. Add the Bin Laden capture, our extraction from Iraq, reduction in Afghanistan, and avoidance of going over a economic cliff to depression (so far), most thinking people will judge that a successful first term (though paraphrasing Stevenson, “thinking people” do not constitute a majority, which is needed by Democrats if not Republicans to win).

If the Supremes say “no”, it deflates the agitated right-wing clamoring for repeal, galvanizes the left and center to vote for he who bringeth (or promises) the much-needed health care reform, and underscores the importance of having a moderate President (i.e. Obama) appoint the next justice. He loses only an imperfect program about which even lefties are ambivalent. He is left (pun intended) with a clean slate for a better effort during his second term, with the support of a Democratic House that will be elected in a landslide.

Or am I hallucinating?  Maybe I need to have my medications adjusted. 

Facebook friends (FBF) are not BFF

Facebook, with a billion users (rounding off), was until recently widely thought to be on a course to dominate communication on the internet. Now the suspicion is dawning that it is, like MySpace before it, a fad. Fie on you fickle friends of Facebook!

Whatever it proves to be, FB has earned a “like” for nearly single-handedly ensuring against another tech 'bubble' by right-pricing their initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which promptly sank. FB's purchase of a photo-sharing start-up for a cool $1 billion in the weeks before trying to raise cash, probably raised some eyebrows and suspicions about the company's direction and understanding of value.

 FB could throw around many more billions so long as it remained the main site for hundreds of millions. However, its cool is cooling. The most chastening or dispiriting barometer of lost coolness is a Toyota ad mocking a young woman worried about her parents not having many “friends” on FB, while they are shown doing many things with real people (involving driving around, inevitably). Hilarious. It is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

Zoom, Zoom... zoom

Memorial Day has 3 big car races: (1) the prestigious Monte Carlo Grand Prix, (2) the “greatest spectacle in racing”, the venerable Indianapolis 500 mile race, and (3) the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600, an outlier in terms of history, spectacle, and prestige. Indy reaches the Century-plus/minus mark this year depending on how you calculate it (years or races), Monaco has been going on for about half that time, and it is a relatively new Coke. The two American races mix a sort of commercial patriotism that has grown perfunctory in the years following 9/11 and the “up close and personal” stories that are supposed to interest us in one or another driver or team or cause. An east coaster can have breakfast watching Monaco, lunch watching the Indy 500, and dinner watching the Coke 600.

And how did they go?

Monaco was a morning parade, albeit a quick one, with practically no on-track passing and the only position changes occurring during pit stops. The tight street circuit has little room for the cars to go side-by-side. The best parts were watching fast cars snap around corners improbably quickly and dance impossibly close together, albeit nose-to-tail and never side-by-side, and seeing the 6^th winner in the first 6 races of this F1 season.

Indy started and ran safely, always welcome at a track where many have died, with some excitement and time for a couple naps in between. There was more passing on lap #1 than during the entire Monaco Grand Prix. The race has lost relevance since the days of A. J. Foyt and Mario Andretti but even then it was more grind than flash. A couple former F1 drivers competed and one, Japanese Sato, challenged for the lead on the last lap but lost to a now 3-time winner Scotsman Franchitti.  The traditions are the best part of the afternoon, including the command “Gentlemen, start your engines” (now with “Ladies and” appended), and the singing of “Back Home Again in Indiana”.

The Coke 600 is really just another weekend NASCAR race, lengthened to try to eclipse the fame of the “500”. The longest race of the day is at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a slightly-elongated skid pad, 400 laps that ensure monotony even for tolerant (or oblivious) fans. A few foreigners compete, including former F1 and Indy winner Montoya, but they never threatened the American dominance of this series.  Little "tradin' paint" tonight, unfortunately.  Almost all is preparation: you can usually tune in for the practically guaranteed restart with 3 laps to go, at 99.5% distance, and green-white-checker finish. But not tonight, when the last 50 or so laps were raced under the green flag.

Only a few weeks to the 24 hours of Le Mans.  

I chose to write this!

All choices must fall somewhere on the spectrum from the extreme of compulsion, being a wealth of reasons that amount to a “no-brainer”, to random, being a complete lack of reasons. Where do our free will's choices fall on this spectrum? Frankly, there is no attractive place for “free will” on this spectrum.  I choose to answer the conundrum with “nowhere”, because free will is an illusion.

Ok, I gotta go.  I mean I want to go.

Lord Biden

Vice President Joe Biden shut down air travel in Washington DC smack dab in the middle of the Friday evening rush. Or at least that was United Airlines’ excuse for our sitting at the gate for nearly an hour, cabin door shut (no personal electronics for you!). After having dutifully emptied, stripped, and bared for TSA, sorted and queued in the correct sub-flock among the dozen boarding classes, hoisted and stuffed and stowed our gear, and hurriedly seated ourselves, hoping for an on-time departure, the delay was deeply frustrating and disruptive.

The absurdity of this is at least twofold: (1), we commercial air travelers pose no realistic threat to Air Force 1 or 2 or Air Force anything. Why not just give an extra wide safety margin to the VP and continue normal operations? Any threat scenario should be subjected to a credibility test, e.g., United flight 631 threatens Air Force 2… somehow… ok, folks, ah, this is high concept, ya gotta work with me here…. (2) how does the Vice President – or even the POTUS – rate this sort of disruptive power? When dozens of flights carrying thousands of citizens are swept up in absurd security theater, the deference is excessive and smacks of an imperial presidency. New unis for the White House guards (Nixon) or shredding the Constitution (bush jr), fine, but lemme fly! Even conceding that “security” is theater, and that it is important to make people feel secure, we need to re-balance toward practicality (less drama, more box office please).

I missed my connecting flight but my biggest disappointment is Joe; I thought he was a railroad guy.

“Pretty Woman”, Ugly Lie

“Oh Pretty Woman” was a great song by Roy Orbison and a shallow, superficially attractive (albeit fundamentally disgusting, and ludicrous) 1990 movie. The song is about a “pretty woman walking down the street, pretty woman, the kind you'd like to meet”; the movie is about a “streetwalker”, the kind you'd have to pay to "meet".

The movie tells about an LA hooker (Julia Roberts), improbably innocent and fresh, who is swept away by a rich, attractive, young, corporate raider (Richard Gere). Think “Officer and a Gentleman” but substitute a jerk and a whore and add a large cast of “Johns” off screen and uncredited. It is a twisted perversion of the princess and knight in shining armor. Nothing beats a prostitute as a healthy role model for young women idolizing Julia Roberts. That this movie became iconic speaks volumes about modern America, none of them good.

Both the song and the movie were a long time ago, so who cares? Well, what once-upon-a-time was dirty and essentially embarrassing – pornography – has somehow now gone entirely mainstream. The “industry” amounts to over $10 billion annually, more than the professional football and baseball combined! The magazine “Playboy” and it's associated clubs went from aspirational in the 1960s, to pitifully outdated in the 1980s & '90s, to an miraculous rebirth as a prime time TV show. Stripper poles are now exercise equipment. Snoop Dog and Howard Stern are considered good businessmen, instead of perverts.

I don't say make pornography illegal, but stop justifying, stop legitimizing it, and put it back where it belongs – in the darkness.