dimanche 23 décembre 2007
Wishing you festive feasting
Thank you dear readers for all your comments, feedback and emails throughout 2007.I'd like to wish all readers of Grab Your Fork a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays. May you bask in much festive feasting and ring in an even bigger, brighter and tastier year for 2008.ps. Menu for Hope funds raised now stands at US$86,971! Pim has extended the raffle ticket sales
Oh, brother...
The panic over John Edwards' rise in the poll continues.
In yet another astounding example of craptacular journalism at the Grey Lady, today's New York Times features an article by David Leonhardt in which he attempts to draw parallels between Mitt Romney's background as the scion of a prominent family with John Edwards' background as the son of a mill worker:
Nope no difference between Edwards' background and Romney's at all.
Here's Mitt's hardscrabble background: his father George Romney was head of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, then headed the Automotive Council for War during WWII. He got a job at what would become American Motors through a contact made during his term as head of AAMA, rising to a humble job as CEO of American Motors from 1954-1962. Then he was Michigan's governor from 1963-1969 and a candidate for president in 1968 and served as Nixon's HUD secretary during Richard Nixon's first term.
Edwards' background is somewhat less hardscrabble than his stump speeches would have you believe, but it's hardly in Romney's league. His father was a supervisor at the mill at which he worked and his mother ran a furniture shop. Edwards, like Mitt Romney, graduated college where his father had never attended, but unlike Romney, paid his own way through.
I'm not looking to build a point-by-point comparison between the backgrounds of John Edwards and Mitt Romney. And in fact, George Romney was the kind of Republican that would be kicked out of the party today for being a bleeding-heart liberal (as the article points out). But to draw parallels between the scion of a well-connected and wealthy family and the son of even a mill supervisor, and say that they both got where they are through sheer hard work and perseverance and ignore the role that Romney's famiy contacts may have played, is more than a little disingenuous. And it's clearly designed to reinforce and parrot the Republican meme that it's mandatory for anyone who's been successful to want to pull up the ladder behind him. They can't imagine any other way to be.
That John Edwards can live in his huge house and still think that working Americans deserve a fair shake never occurs to these people, and the fact that he has this disconnect between his own wealth and the policies he advocates flies in the face of the "I got mine and fuck you" doctrine of contemporary Republicanism.
And like the good little hacks that they are, the mainstream media, even the so-called liberal New York Times, are dutifully playing their roles as skeptics of Democratic humanity.
UPDATE: Teh Awesome Elizabeth explains her husband's background:
In yet another astounding example of craptacular journalism at the Grey Lady, today's New York Times features an article by David Leonhardt in which he attempts to draw parallels between Mitt Romney's background as the scion of a prominent family with John Edwards' background as the son of a mill worker:
Mr. Edwards, then making a nice salary as a lawyer at a small North Carolina firm, spent early December staying at the Inn on the Plaza in downtown Asheville. Scattered around his room were documents relating to his first big malpractice case, a lawsuit filed by a man named E. G. Sawyer, who used a wheelchair after his doctor had overprescribed a drug. On Dec. 18, at the courthouse opposite the hotel, a jury awarded Mr. Sawyer $3.7 million.
In Boston, Mr. Romney had risen to become a vice president at Bain & Company, an upstart management consulting firm, and had been chosen to run a spinoff investment firm known as Bain Capital. He spent the end of 1984 flying around the country — in coach class, to save money and to show his investors how serious he was about turning a profit — visiting companies and deciding whether to invest in them.
In the decade that followed, Mr. Edwards would win one big verdict after another, and Mr. Romney would oversee a series of hugely profitable investments.
Like thousands of other Americans in a global, high-technology economy in which government was pulling back and wealth was being celebrated, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Romney used talent, hard work and — as both have suggested — luck to amass fortunes. They became a part of a rising class of the new rich.
Nope no difference between Edwards' background and Romney's at all.
Here's Mitt's hardscrabble background: his father George Romney was head of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, then headed the Automotive Council for War during WWII. He got a job at what would become American Motors through a contact made during his term as head of AAMA, rising to a humble job as CEO of American Motors from 1954-1962. Then he was Michigan's governor from 1963-1969 and a candidate for president in 1968 and served as Nixon's HUD secretary during Richard Nixon's first term.
Edwards' background is somewhat less hardscrabble than his stump speeches would have you believe, but it's hardly in Romney's league. His father was a supervisor at the mill at which he worked and his mother ran a furniture shop. Edwards, like Mitt Romney, graduated college where his father had never attended, but unlike Romney, paid his own way through.
I'm not looking to build a point-by-point comparison between the backgrounds of John Edwards and Mitt Romney. And in fact, George Romney was the kind of Republican that would be kicked out of the party today for being a bleeding-heart liberal (as the article points out). But to draw parallels between the scion of a well-connected and wealthy family and the son of even a mill supervisor, and say that they both got where they are through sheer hard work and perseverance and ignore the role that Romney's famiy contacts may have played, is more than a little disingenuous. And it's clearly designed to reinforce and parrot the Republican meme that it's mandatory for anyone who's been successful to want to pull up the ladder behind him. They can't imagine any other way to be.
That John Edwards can live in his huge house and still think that working Americans deserve a fair shake never occurs to these people, and the fact that he has this disconnect between his own wealth and the policies he advocates flies in the face of the "I got mine and fuck you" doctrine of contemporary Republicanism.
And like the good little hacks that they are, the mainstream media, even the so-called liberal New York Times, are dutifully playing their roles as skeptics of Democratic humanity.
UPDATE: Teh Awesome Elizabeth explains her husband's background:
samedi 22 décembre 2007
Looks like I got out of doing movie reviews at the right time
Three years ago, when reviewing movies became a chore instead of a joy, and my partner in cinematic hoo-hah said I really should start a blog, I balked a bit at giving up something that I'd been doing for six years and for which I had gained somewhat of a decent reputation. But after being only moderately engrossed by No Country for Old Men, walking out of it scratching my head and thinking "WTF???", and now this, I know I made the right decision:
I feel badly about the position in which Comedy Central has placed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Apparently not even being the most influential pseudo-news guys in America gives you the clout to fight a corporate boss forcing you to be a scab.
But given the state of movies in this country over the last few years, perhaps this writer's strike is precisely the hairball the industry needs to cough up. It may mean the destruction of the industry, because who's going to write the scripts that the directors (who look like they're going to negotiate after all) direct and in which the actors perform?
Well, no one wants to say it but you will be reading this shortly: The Golden Globes and the Academy Awards will be cancelled.On Monday December 17th, the WGA turned down requests for waivers by the Oscars and the Golden Globes to put those telecasts on air without the Guild’s writers. With the rejection of the waivers for the Academy Awards (ABC), set for Sunday February 24th, and the much faster approaching Golden Globes (NBC), set for January 13th, the WGA has essentially cancelled both awards shows by its actions.
The SAG Awards did receive a waiver and are scheduled for Jan. 27th.
But the other two awards shows will be cancelled and no one or should I say everyone in the industry is avoiding the mention of this 600 pound LaMotta because a) they are holding out the now near impossible hope for a settlement and b) no one wants to interrupt the cash flow from the media promotions of the potential nominees.
That is unless they want to go the route of the People’s Choice Awards which announced it will air its show Jan 8th (CBS) in a 2 hour “magazine” format of prerecorded videos and no audience yet featuring Queen Latifah as the prerecorded “host.”
The Oscars and the Golden Globes will not play that game.
Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said, “It’s very difficult for me to envision that we would follow the model.”
But the folks who put on the Oscars and the Globes still feel they will somehow put those shows up despite their failure to receive the requested Guild waiver. It will never happen. Here’s why. No publicist is gonna send their client to run the gauntlet of Writer’s Guild’s strikers who will be on hand to make things extremely impossible for any stars who have the nerve to cross the picket lines into the event. No stars. No Oscars. No Globes.
I feel badly about the position in which Comedy Central has placed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Apparently not even being the most influential pseudo-news guys in America gives you the clout to fight a corporate boss forcing you to be a scab.
But given the state of movies in this country over the last few years, perhaps this writer's strike is precisely the hairball the industry needs to cough up. It may mean the destruction of the industry, because who's going to write the scripts that the directors (who look like they're going to negotiate after all) direct and in which the actors perform?
I'm waiting for Chris Matthews to hammer Mitt Romney on truthfulness
The clock starts ticking at 5 PM on Wednesday, next time (presumably) Hardball is live.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? To October 11, 2000's Hardball:
Now let's look at Willard Mitt Romney:
Does it all depend on what the definition of "saw" is?
The last time we heard Chris Matthews say anything substantive about Mitt Romney was December 13, when he talked about Romney's "As long as you believe in a Great White Alpha Male in the Sky, you're an American" speech. As the "My father marched with Martin Luther King" story has developed over the last week, and Romney has devolved into Clintonesque parsing, Matthews has been strangely silent. Given Matthews' harping on statements falsely attributed to Al Gore, is his fawning, nearly homoerotic praise of Romney from August 13, going to keep him from giving Romney the same treatment he gave Al Gore in 2000?
UPDATE: OK, so he expressed some mild exasperation on Friday's show. That still doesn't equate to the relentless hammering he gave Al Gore in 2000.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? To October 11, 2000's Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Does Al Gore have a truth problem, and is it going to hurt him?
ESTRICH: He's got this little problem, but it's not really about truth. I mean, you have to say about Clinton that when he lied, at least it was worth it to lie.
MATTHEWS: Right. Let me put it this way --
ESTRICH: Gore -- this is like --
MATTHEWS: -- you're not answering the question --
ESTRICH: -- [former Rep.] Dan Rostenkowski [D-IL] --
MATTHEWS: -- I want to try it again. No --
ESTRICH: -- and postage stamps.
MATTHEWS: -- no. If you apply to college, or you apply for a job, and you say, "I discovered Love Canal, I invented the Internet," these little --
ESTRICH: Oh, no.
MATTHEWS: -- problems are serious questions of character and resume inflation.
Now let's look at Willard Mitt Romney:
Mitt Romney acknowledged yesterday that he never saw his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. as he asserted in a nationally televised speech this month, and historical evidence shows that Michigan's Governor George Romney and the civil rights leader never did march together.
Romney said his father had told him he had marched with King and that he had been using the word "saw" in a "figurative sense."
"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described," Romney told reporters in Iowa. "It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."
But historical evidence, including news accounts at the time, shows that George Romney never marched with King, though he supported King's agenda.
Susan Englander, assistant edi tor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, who is editing the King papers from that era, told the Globe yesterday: "I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with Martin Luther King."
She said that when he was governor of Michigan, George Romney issued a proclamation in June 1963 in support of King's march in Detroit, but declined to attend, saying he did not participate in political events on Sundays. A New York Times story from the time confirms Englander's account.
Does it all depend on what the definition of "saw" is?
The last time we heard Chris Matthews say anything substantive about Mitt Romney was December 13, when he talked about Romney's "As long as you believe in a Great White Alpha Male in the Sky, you're an American" speech. As the "My father marched with Martin Luther King" story has developed over the last week, and Romney has devolved into Clintonesque parsing, Matthews has been strangely silent. Given Matthews' harping on statements falsely attributed to Al Gore, is his fawning, nearly homoerotic praise of Romney from August 13, going to keep him from giving Romney the same treatment he gave Al Gore in 2000?
UPDATE: OK, so he expressed some mild exasperation on Friday's show. That still doesn't equate to the relentless hammering he gave Al Gore in 2000.
In commemoration of the Solstice....
...another snarky Christmas song. Because nothing says Christmas like a Jewish guy doing a darkly comic parody video from 1986 that seems weirdly timely today:
Snappy Answers to Silly Questions
This question is from our most welcome newbie to the Force, John Cole:
You have to ask?
Seriously- the Republican field is just an exercise in absurdity. The leading candidates are a flat-earth religious huckster, a serial liar, and a cross-dresser with an authoritarian streak and mob ties. Is this really the best the GOP has to offer?
You have to ask?
Look who's actually doing something to support the troops
Remember when the Democratic-controlled Congress, which can't seem to end this war or do anything other than pass resolutions declaring Christianity "an important religion", decided that its most important work was defending Gen. David Petraeus against those blue meanies at Moveon.org?
Well, look who's spearheading a drive to send phone cards to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan so they can call home during the holidays? I'll give you a hint: It isn't Bill O'Reilly. It isn't Jonah Goldberg. It isn't Rush Limbaugh. It isn't the Christian Coalition.
It's Moveon.org, working with USO:
Alternatively, you can also send USO care packages, which let you also enclose a personal message.
Just as pro-life conservatives believe that insurance companies should be allowed to let seventeen-year-olds die in the name of profits, they also believe that supporting the troops and their lives means leaving them in a war zone indefinitely without a clearly-defined mission.
Let's show them who's REALLY got their backs.
Well, look who's spearheading a drive to send phone cards to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan so they can call home during the holidays? I'll give you a hint: It isn't Bill O'Reilly. It isn't Jonah Goldberg. It isn't Rush Limbaugh. It isn't the Christian Coalition.
It's Moveon.org, working with USO:
Dear MoveOn member,
This winter, thousands of U.S. servicemen and women are spending the holidays far away from their families, and calling home can cost them a large part of their paycheck. Troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the globe actually have to pay for phone calls to the U.S.—and many of them just don't have a lot of money to spare. Imagine being stuck in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Korea and being unable to afford a call to your spouse or kids on Christmas or New Year's Eve.
That's why we're helping the USO to provide thousands of phone cards to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world to let them call their friends, family and loved ones this holiday season.
These phone cards don't cost a lot—only $15 each, but they are incredibly valuable, providing about 45 minutes of talk-time and holiday wishes for service members.
Can you give $15 to buy a phone card for troops stationed overseas? Click here to chip in:
https://civ.moveon.org/donatec4/holiday_troops.html?id=11827-1466176-BdZUyf&t=2
MoveOn members are committed to seeing our troops come home as quickly as possible, and we'll keep working to make that happen. But right now, supporting the USO is a simple way to make a genuine difference in the lives of brave men and women who've sacrificed a lot for our country.
Can you chip in to buy phone cards for troops stationed overseas this holiday season? Click here to contribute:
https://civ.moveon.org/donatec4/holiday_troops.html?id=11827-1466176-BdZUyf&t=3
Happy holidays from all of us and thanks for all you do.
–Nita, Adam G., Karin, Marika, Noah, Laura, Joan, Wes, Justin, Jennifer, Anna, Eli, Matt, Ilyse, Daniel, Adam R., Carrie, Tanya, and the MoveOn.org Civic Action Team
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
P.S. To learn more about the USO, a non-governmental, non-partisan organization, please visit www.uso.org.
Alternatively, you can also send USO care packages, which let you also enclose a personal message.
Just as pro-life conservatives believe that insurance companies should be allowed to let seventeen-year-olds die in the name of profits, they also believe that supporting the troops and their lives means leaving them in a war zone indefinitely without a clearly-defined mission.
Let's show them who's REALLY got their backs.
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