Month: October 2010

Let Them Eat Beanie Babies

by digby

Am I the only one who thinks this is the most ill-timed display of ostentatious wealth ever?

Meg Whitman’s record-breaking spending in the race for governor has enabled her campaign to blanket California with more TV ads and mailers than any other in state history, while also tapping new technologies to further broaden her reach.

With nine weeks left until election day, Whitman has donated $104 million of her own money to the campaign, more than any other candidate in California history and within striking distance of the national record for a non-presidential contest, the $109 million spent by businessman Michael Bloomberg to secure a third term as mayor of New York City.

Those donations have allowed her to target her campaign mailings to the smallest subsets of voters and sort out which television shows are popular among independent voters. (It turns out they are big fans of “Bones,” the crime show rife with romantic tension, on which Whitman has aired ads.)

Dozens of outside consultants and a paid staff the size of some presidential campaigns run an operation that seems to be the living embodiment of Whitman’s book title: “The Power of Many.” After record amounts spent on television advertising, mail and ground organization, there has even been enough money left over to sponsor a youth soccer team.

It’s not like we’re exactly living in good times here in California. I think this is a deadly strategy. The optics are just terrible and I suspect that subliminally people find it horrific that she’s spending like a drunken sailor in the middle of a terrible recession.

My one hope is that the lesson will be learned that wealthy CEOs with obscene golden parachutes are probably the last people we should be looking to for answers at a time like this. (Sadly, I’m afraid it will only female CEOs, but that’s better than nothing. After all, they’re all Republicans.)

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With The Help of Robots

by digby

I think everyone who has been reading this blog for the past eight years knows how I feel about Atlas Shrugged, so I won’t bore anyone again. Instead I will direct you to this entertainingly scalding analysis of what fuels the enduring love for the Great Romance Novel, by John Scalzi. Enjoy.

Here’s an excerpt:

[I]t’s a totally ridiculous book which can be summed up as Sociopathic idealized nerds collapse society because they don’t get enough hugs. (This is, incidentally, where you can start your popcorn munching.) Indeed, the enduring popularity of Atlas Shrugged lies in the fact that it is nerd revenge porn — if you’re an nerd of an engineering-ish stripe who remembers all too well being slammed into your locker by a bunch of football dickheads, then the idea that people like you could make all those dickheads suffer by “going Galt” has a direct line to the pleasure centers of your brain. I’ll show you! the nerds imagine themselves crying. I’ll show you all! And then they disappear into a crevasse that Google Maps will not show because the Google people are our kind of people, and a year later they come out and everyone who was ever mean to them will have starved. Then these nerds can begin again, presumably with the help of robots, because any child in the post-Atlas Shrugged world who can’t figure out how to run a smelter within ten minutes of being pushed through the birth canal will be left out for the coyotes. Which if nothing else solves the problem of day care.

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God and Tasers At Yale

by digby

As the reader who forwarded this to me commented, perhaps when the children of the elite are subjected to tasering and a ban on recording police brutality, someone will wake up. This took place at an annual Yale party that was being held in a local nightclub:

When the NHPD arrived at the club, Melendez said officers could see that students were getting in without showing proper identification. Gentry said that of the five students that were arrested, one was for illegal possession of alcohol by a minor; two for interfering with police officers; one for assault on police officers and related charges; and one for disorderly conduct.

As police swarmed around the dance floor early Saturday, students stumbled to get down, the lights flickered on and the music dimmed.

Students who tried to text or photograph the scene were told they would be handcuffed and arrested if they did not desist, witnesses said.

By 2 a.m., as the officers were handcuffing uncooperative students and putting others in what witnesses said police called “time out.”

Within the hour, eyewitnesses said, a sophomore was Tasered, jumped on and beaten in the middle of the dance floor by at least four New Haven police officers — as more than a hundred students looked on — because the student was “uncooperative during the raid.”

The raid took approximately an hour to complete, he said, adding that the Liquor Control Commission will handle any liquor-related offenses. It was not until nearly 3 a.m. when police cars, lights flashing, departed Crown Street and the area outside Elevate darkened.

In the hours following the raid, students made their way back to campus in fits and starts. Some were detained because they could not locate their IDs; others, because they had left their personal belongings inside the club and were not allowed to retrieve them until the raid had ended.

About two hours after the raid, Morse College Dean Joel Silverman sent an e-mail to address the onslaught of concern he had been receiving from students.

“We have received many upsetting reports about a police raid which took place downtown, early this morning, at the nightclub in which the Morse/Stiles dance was being held,” Silverman said.

They got lucky. Nobody was killed.

The good news is that people are slowly starting to wake up. ViaAllison Kilkenny here’s the latest on the recent taser killing in Minneapolis, along with the news that Taser is finally succumbing to some pressure to modify their weapons to be less lethal:

David Smith was buried last week, the seventh person in the past seven years to have died in the metro area after being shot with a Taser.

While the investigation into the mid-September confrontation with police that led to Smith’s death continues, a leading police research group and a major manufacturer of the devices are rolling out new safety measures nationally in response to the relatively small but troubling number of deaths linked to them.

And on Friday, Minneapolis police unveiled a new Taser policy that for the first time designates the device a potentially lethal weapon.

The manufacturer, Taser International, sent users a bulletin last year suggesting that they avoid shooting people near the heart.

And after lobbying by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), Taser International has agreed to offer by early next year a weapon that shocks for a maximum of five seconds with one trigger pull. Current models deliver voltage as long as the trigger is depressed.

“We think there’s a time and a place for them,” said Chuck Wexler, PERF’s executive director. “They shouldn’t be a substitute for talking through an issue with someone. And there’s a limitation. There’s a point at which we are convinced we have to go through another option.”

Yeah. The taser isn’t a magic weapon to be sure. It’s a weapon that makes police lose their common sense and forget their other skills. It makes some of them lazy and turns too many of them into bullies.

My main objection to tasers is not that they are often lethal, although that’s a huge problem. My objection to tasers is that I don’t think the police should have permission to electrocute citizens to get them to comply with their orders. If they used them only in situation where they would otherwise use deadly force — in self-defense or to stop someone from hurting another — then they would be useful. But it is indefensible for them to use these things the way they have been used and I have a feeling that we’re going to look back on this unbridled era of taser torture with horror at our barbarity. At least I hope so.

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Dontcha Know That You Can Count Him In

by digby

Call David Boren and Sam Nunn and tell them to grab their muskets. The Revolution is a-coming:

I am ready to hazard a prediction: Barring a transformation of the Democratic and Republican Parties, there is going to be a serious third party candidate in 2012, with a serious political movement behind him or her — one definitely big enough to impact the election’s outcome.

There is a revolution brewing in the country, and it is not just on the right wing but in the radical center. I know of at least two serious groups, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, developing “third parties” to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation’s steady incremental decline.

Yeah right. What deluded villager is that, you ask? Why, it’s little Tommy Friedman, 6 years old.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to these people when they realize there are no grown-ups rushing in to rescue them from all this political ickiness. The right wing has gone nuts and a bunch of “radical centrists” aren’t going to save them. They’re going to need the hippies to do the heavy lifting on this one and it’s extremely debatable if they are up to the task either. But one thing is clear — a bunch of handwringers bleating about civility and telling everyone to find common ground with psychopaths is about as necessary as a second bellybutton.

But if some of those silicon valley radical centrists would like to pitch in some cash to help get the job done, it could be helpful.

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Rahm and Rouse

by digby

We’ll never know what would have happened if the administration had aimed some of that aggression at Republicans.

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Saturday Night At The Movies, Part II

Two new stars in Heaven

By Dennis Hartley

Match me, Sidney: RIP Tony Curtis 1925-2010

Tony Curtis was likely better known to the general public in recent years from his appearances on TV talk shows (and as Jamie Lee Curtis’ dad), but for those of us “of a certain age” he was, and will always remain, a Movie Star-in the classic sense. He may not have vibed the smoldering, “Method” intensity of contemporaries like Monty Clift, Brando or James Dean, but there was no denying that he was ridiculously handsome, charismatic, and possessed of an effortless versatility (the latter of which many critics seemed to overlook-undoubtedly due to that Bronx honk). Granted, the bulk of his best work may have been behind him by the late 60s, but it’s still an impressive body of work.

I’m sure that the majority of people would say that his memorable pairing with Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder’s wonderful and riotous 1959 screwball romp Some Like It Hotrates as their favorite Tony Curtis performance, but for me, that runs a close second to his role as the slime ball press agent Sidney Falco in the 1957 film noir, Sweet Smell of Success. Curtis gives a knockout performance as the toady who shamelessly sucks up to Burt Lancaster’s JJ Hunsecker, a powerful NYC entertainment columnist who can launch (or sabotage) show biz careers with a flick of his poison pen (yes, kids-print journalists once held that kind of power…JJ is sort of a cross between Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge, if you need a contemporary analogy). Although it was made 50 years ago, the film retains its edge and remains one of the most vicious and cynical ruminations on America’s obsession with fame and celebrity. Alexander Mackendrick directed, and the sharp Clifford Odets/Ernest Lehman screenplay veritably drips with venom. Lots of quotable lines; Barry Levinson paid homage in his 1982 film Diner, with a character who is obsessed with the film and drops in and out of scenes, incessantly quoting the dialogue.

Rounding off my Top 10: The Boston Strangler(Curtis received a Golden Globe nomination), The Defiant Ones, Operation Petticoat, Spartacus , The Great Impostor , Houdini, The Vikings, and Insignificance (1985 Nicolas Roeg sleeper-recommended!)

American maverick: RIP Arthur Penn 1922-2010

And alas, more sad news-we also lost an artist of note from the other side of the camera this week. Director Arthur Penn was responsible for crafting some of the most significant films of the late 60s to mid 70s (America’s “golden age” of the maverick moviemakers). He was a filmmaker of great intelligence and vision, with deep roots in the theater (which I’m sure is what helped make him such a great “actor’s director” as well). Most of the more perfunctory obits floating around the last several days might give casual filmgoers the impression that the only movie he ever made was 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde ; and while the importance of that breakthrough work cannot be overstated (as most famously championed at the time by then-fledgling New Yorker critic Pauline Kael), one certainly cannot ignore a resume that also includes The Miracle Worker, Alice’s Restaurant and Little Big Man(in which Penn reinvented the western just as surely as he reinvented the crime drama with his 1967 masterpiece). My personal favorites by this director, however, are two less-heralded efforts, which I feel are also two of the best post-1950s film noirs.

Mickey One (from 1965) stars Warren Beatty as a standup comic who is on the run from the mob. The reasons are never made clear, but one thing is for certain: the viewer will find him or herself becoming as unsettled as the twitchy, paranoid protagonist. It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare, with echoes of Godard’s Breathless . A true rarity-an American art film, photographed in expressive, moody chiaroscuro by DP Ghislain Cloquet (who also did the cinematography for Bresson’s classic Au Hasard Balthazar and Woody Allen’s Love and Death). The other Penn film that I feel compelled to return to now and then is Night Moves. In this 1975 sleeper, which you could call an existential noir, Gene Hackman gives one of his best performances as a world-weary P.I. with a failing marriage, who becomes enmeshed in a case involving battling ex-spouses, which soon slides into incest, smuggling and murder. Alan Sharp’s multi-layered screenplay cleverly parallels the complexity of the P.I.’s case with ruminations on the equally byzantine mystery as to why our relationships, more often than not, almost seem engineered to fail.

More Penn to explore: Four Friends, The Missouri Breaks, Target, The Chase.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Wall Street: Port of call Lehman Brothers

By Dennis Hartley

Don’t ever take sides against the family again. Evah.

So what’s today, Saturday? Has it really been 23 years since writer-director Oliver Stone and co-scripter Stanley Weiser first “released the Gekko” in Wall Street? Michael Douglas’ indelible portrayal of a ruthless, soulless and obscenely successful corporate raider transformed the character of “Gordon Gekko” into the pop culture figurehead for the Decade of Excess. Gekko’s immortal credo-“Greed, for lack of a better word…is good”-became both a mantra for self-absorbed yuppies and anathema to anti-corporatists.

Of course, with Oliver Stone being the lib’rul, anti-‘Murcan, Chavez-lovin’ DFH filmmaker that he is, he wasn’t about to let Gekko get off scot-free for his veritable laundry list of highly profitable capitalist crimes. When we last saw him at the end of the 1987 film he was getting hauled away by the Feds, after being betrayed by his protégé (who learned from the best). It looked like the man who once admitted that “I create nothing-I own” was about to learn a nice new “creative” skill-how to make license plates.

It’s interesting to note that the real world has since not just merely merged with Stone’s hellish vision of a financial system that affects all of our lives being driven by the avarice and bemused gamesmanship of a handful of self-serving weasels who “create” nothing but bigger piles of personal treasure, but managed to surpass it (see: the bailouts of ‘08 and the current double digit unemployment/record corporate quarterly profits). The real life “Gekkos” of the 80s, like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky (who also ended up in handcuffs) have since been eclipsed by financial super villains like Bernie Madoff. Oops-I’m in danger of venturing way above my pay grade here…so back to the movie review.

In view of current events (I am assuming) Stone and co-writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff have seen fit to resurrect the aforementioned Gordon Gekko, in the new film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. In the prelude (Stone loves the prelude) we catch up with Gekko in 2001, as he is being released from prison. Stone has a little self-referential fun with this sequence, especially as Gekko’s personal effects are summarily returned to him. “One gold money clip…no money,” says the poker-faced clerk, emphasizing the last two words with barely disguised relish. The biggest audience laugh in the film is prompted by the cameo appearance of Gekko’s elephantine DynaTAC mobile phone, an amusing techno-relic from our not-so-distant past (I expected the clerk to next hand Gekko a Walkman with a half-played Culture Club cassette tape still inserted-but it was not to be).

Fast-forward to 2008, on the eve of the Lehman Brothers collapse. Gekko seems to be making a comfortable living (if not up to the standards he had once been accustomed to) on the lecture circuit, where he is plugging that inevitable book that every white collar crook writes after getting out of prison. In the meantime, we are introduced to an up and coming young Wall Streeter named Jake (Shia LaBeouf) and his girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan)-a liberal blogger (point!) who happens to be Gekko’s daughter. Winnie has disowned her father for years, blaming him for a family tragedy. Unlike the recklessly ambitious young stockbroker played by Charlie Sheen in the previous film, Jake brings a certain amount of idealism to his work; he is trying to steer his employers (a group of investment bankers) toward putting capital into “green” projects (talk about lost causes). The only sympathetic ear belongs to his long-time mentor, Louis (Frank Langella) who is the managing director of the company. Louis is also a Wall Street rarity-a thoughtful man who actually seems to possess a heart and soul; you can glean why Jake looks up to him.

All bets are soon off, however, when the financial collapse of 2008 intervenes, and Jake’s employers feel themselves beginning to circle the drain. When Louis attempts to finagle a government bailout, he finds himself “Gekkoed” by an old rival, Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who buys out the company at pennies on the dollar. This is apparently the last straw for Louis, who then commits suicide. Although he knows his girlfriend (and now fiancée) would not be pleased, the grieving and now rudderless Jake, curious about his future father-in-law, introduces himself after attending one of Gekko’s public appearances. The two begin a cautious relationship, based on “trades”. Gekko wants to re-bond with Winnie; Jake wants to exact Machiavellian revenge on James, whom he blames for Louis’ death (and who better to consult for Machiavellian revenge tips?). Of course, this is Gordon Gekko-so maybe he has his own Machiavellian plan brewing here.

Curiously, Stone has not so much made “Wall Street 2” here, but remade Godfather III. Gekko is at a point in his life not unlike that of Michael Corleone in the aforementioned film. He is much older, and his empire has crumbled. The pull of the abyss is now much more palpable than the lure of acquisition. Both characters are taking inventory of their past; and each man, in his own self-deluding fashion, is making atonement for his sins. And Stone’s emphasis, as was Coppola’s, is on the family melodrama, not the family “business”. It’s about trust and betrayal. It’s about the father-daughter relationship. I could go on with the parallels (and point out that weirdly, Eli Wallach has a supporting role in both films), but at this point, you’re likely wondering about the most important consideration: does Stone tell an interesting story? Well, that depends on what you seek.

If you are seeking the Oliver Stone of Salvador, Talk Radio, and JFK– i.e., the passionate, politically charged, angry prophet of the American cinema, denouncing the hypocrisy of our times (to paraphrase Paddy Chayefsky), then, well-you might want to look elsewhere (in fact, if anyone runs into that Oliver Stone-have him call me-I need the pep talk). Considering the potential he had here to be “bullish” and really deliver a scathing, spleen-venting indictment of our royally fucked-up financial system (infused with that inimitable and bombastic kind of muckraking voodoo, that only he do, so well), Stone is leaning more on the “bearish” side. On the other hand, if you’re up for a slightly better-than-average family soaper (with a NYC backdrop beautifully captured by DP Rodrigo Prieto), then this should fit the bill. Douglas steals the show (again) as Gekko. Langella is excellent as always. Brolin is suitably slimy as the villain. It was kind of fun to see Austin Pendleton back on the big screen again. Not all of the casting works; Susan Sarandon’s formidable talents are wasted here. As for the leading man-this was only my second exposure to LaBeouf (my first was when he hosted Saturday Night Live a while back, when I said to myself-“Shia who?”) so I’m ambivalent about his performance (it’s not “bad”-but not particularly noteworthy either). I just hope that this director (and know I am a fan) still has more truly great films in him down the road-it would be a lesser (and more complacent) universe where people felt compelled to say “Oliver who?”

Previous posts with related themes:

Capitalism: A Love Story

The Yes Men Fix the World

The International

Michael Clayton

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Why They Call It Broderville

by digby

It looks like the Villagers are very relieved that “the grown-ups” are going to be back in charge. It never, ever changes:

If the margins of control shrink in January, as I think they will, it might well be time to negotiate a truce.

I’d like to see Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leaders take Boehner up on the challenge he has raised, not try to demean it. He said, for example, that rather than stifling debate through the manipulation of rules, “we should open things up and let the battle of ideas help break down the scar tissue between the parties. . . . Let’s let legislators legislate again.”

It would be great if the leaders could engage each other seriously at the start of the next Congress on rules and procedures for doing the nation’s business. There’s no excuse for the House failing to pass a budget resolution, as happened for the first time this year. As Boehner said, it boggles the mind that spending bills for major government departments are lumped together in an indigestible mass.

When large majorities of the nation’s voters voice disdain and distrust for a Congress that is supposed to represent them in writing the laws, it is not just a problem for one party or the other. It is a threat to our system of government.

Boehner was a serious legislator for five years at the start of this decade as chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, before he became a floor leader for his party. His diagnosis of the problems in Congress offers a starting point for a cure. Let’s hope the Democrats respond.

That’s why they call it Broderville. We are actually supposed to believe that the people who called for “Obama’s Waterloo”, filibustered more than any congress in history and obstructed the majority in every possible way are acting in good faith when they say they want to “end gridlock.”

I’d laugh if I weren’t so busy holding down my lunch.

h/t to bb

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The Stimulus Worked … As Far As It Went

by digby

One of my biggest gripes about the administration is the fact that they have a terrible, hubristic habit of taking premature victory laps. They aren’t alone — the Democratic congress and the Republicans do the same thing. I suppose they worry about not being allowed to take credit at the later date if things don’t work out so they want to insure they get a celebration for their hard work.

One of the earliest examples was the stimulus which has, it turns out, been very sufccessful on its own terms, but falls short of the unfortunate high bar the administration set for it when it extolled it as the (first of many) “greatest” pieces of legislation passed in the last half century. Kevin Drum writes:

According to CBO reports, the stimulus has created 3.5 million jobs and kept unemployment about 1 to 2 percent lower than it otherwise would have been, and apparently it’s accomplished this efficiently and with minimal waste. It’s a testament to what happens when you take good policy seriously.

And the fact that the country considers it a horrible, budget busting failure that did absolutely nothing is a testament to what happens when you fail to take good politics seriously. As Kevin notes, if they had set their projections lower, they would be sitting on a policy success that exceeded expectations. Instead, the self congratulations and the back patting nearly insured that it would fall short. And even more sadly it insured that it would be much harder to come back for more (not that it ever would have been easy.)

And Joseph Stiglitz (along with many other economists) think we desperately need one:

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called for another round of federal stimulus dollars to spur the economy. He spoke Sept. 30 to the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) at its Fall Workshop.

“We will see in the next two years the real cost of there not being a second round of stimulus,” he said. “We will see the economy slow down at a very high economic cost.”

I never thought there would be much chance of getting a second bite of the apple because it was clear to me that the GOP would take a nihilistic approach and do everything it could to make things worse. And it was also fairly clear they would make the deficit boogeyman the “cause” of the problems rather than the result. And they succeeded.

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It Depends On Who’s Doing The Criticizing

by digby

Quick question for those who believe that criticism of the the president and the Dem leadership is what’s depressing the Democratic base: is this criticism a problem?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is giving Democratic candidates a free pass to run against her and other party leaders.

A number of moderate Democrats are running against her, portraying themselves in ads as a check on the liberal House speaker from San Francisco.