NYCweboy

There Are No Accidents

I've been wanting to acknowledge something from comments a few days back - Valhalla, one of a few visitors who's been kind enough to drop a comment here or there, pointed out on my healthcare post (where I mentioned blogs I read):

Give Corrente a spin, please. Lots of info, reporting on activism (esp. single-payer), and connecting the political issues involved in the health care debates with other current politcal issues.

I wanted to bring that forward, because I do read Correntewire (as does J in B), and I've greatly appreciated that blog (especially Lambert) offering supportive links and blog mentions... and I haven't had a chance to say it. The things is, I don't think of Corrente as a "health blog" per se, and I think it's important to make the distinction: there are places to get some important info on the shape of our healthcare crisis... and then there's places like Corrente, which do a brilliant job of breaking down the problems, specifically, within our lefty politics.

And I bring all of this up, because I've found Lambert's connecting of dots, around the realities of corporate interests, the media elite and the Democratic establishment, to be a good tonic for the "how did this happen?" kind of logic that's cropped up in the first year of the Obama Administration.

It's well past the time, I think, to admit that clearly we have not gotten what we needed from the Obama folks, a reality that I agree should have been apparent during the election cycle. People who seem surprised or disillusioned, now, are really very late; what has happened - on the economy, in terms of financial "reform", and surely in the healthcare debacle - were all in the cards well before we came down to Obama vs. McCain (a choice which, I'll say again, left only Obama as any kind of option for any sensible lefty).

This week has seen a, well, confluence, of events that point to the deepening disillusionment: whether it's the sinking poll numbers on Obama approval (a trend that seems all too real and clear, despite any number of denialists), or the incredibly dense tempest-in-a-teapot debate that's developed over an otherwise unremarkable piece from Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone this week pointing to Obama's economic team as major-bank-connected-and-driven apologists... the sense that Democrats are in a problematic place and sinking can't be ignored or wished away.

But at the same time... there are no accidents: we're here for a number of reasons, not least of which is a reality that many observers, not to mention many ordinary Democrats seem to continue to deny: that the Democrats have become the majority of the educated, upper middle class elite. And what follows from that reality is, well, everything we've gotten from the Obama Administration - a concern for proposals and positions which benefit the Democrats true base, and pay lip service to traditional Democratic ideals.

In Any Storm, A Port

Yesterday wound up being a ten hour workday at Starbucks, mostly because of weather and unpredictability; it's odd, when you consider Westchester a part of New York City's environs, to realize that when you get 60 miles north of the city, the weather changes almost completely.

Thus a fairly rainy day in the City became an icy treacherous mess for northern Westchester, shutting most major highways, and even key connecting routes: unlike many suburbs, Westchester is not - by design - heavy with major roads, and thus traveling between towns, especially east-west, is accomplished on what can often seem like winding back country roads... except for the gated million dollar homes off of them.

Starbucks has a toehold in many of the towns of Central Westchester - more along the Harlem line than the Hudson, for those familiar with Metro North - and it's been a pretty successful strategy. Near, or even in, the train station hubs along the route, we get both commuters and the families who stay closer to home and visit the village hub to shop and, in the old fashioned sense, be neighborly.

So yesterday, while all around us was chaos, there was an odd, cheery welcoming feel to the workplace. Stranded travelers came in to wait out the storm, share stories and compare notes on the roads. Regulars hung out, some longer than usual, rather than brave the cold rain and icy sidewalks. But things were slow enough that we could operate on a bare bones staff, and accomplish some key tasks.

I mention this because it was odd to feel safe yet disconnected, unconcerned and yet worried, ultimately, about how I would get home. Everything we heard came through a filter - we saw no car accidents, witnessed no hours-long traffic tie-ups - but it felt very real and immediate. And thinking about it once I did get home - when the temperature rose and the rain was just rain - I realized it was nice to have a port in a storm. And to provide one, for others.

Saturday Singalong: Man, I'm So Strung Out...

Gay weboy doth not live by disco alone...

• Violent Femmes, Blister in the Sun. My friend Cathy turned me on to this, sophomore year in college... and in three minutes, I got College Radio, punk, and a completely different idea of what pop music could be.
• The Cure, Let's Go To Bed. ...and my friend Vanessa pointed out that this song reflected her take on the college one night stand... which made a whole bunch of my feminist notions about women and sexuality far more concrete and real.
• The Jim Carroll Band, People Who Died. When you can count the number of people you knew in your twenties who are no longer here on both hands (and then some), it's not hard to identify with a hard edged punk song about losing your friends.
• The Nails, 88 Lines about 44 Women. It is exactly what the title says, and perhaps I find it interesting because, you know, it's not how I see women, but it comes across dispassionate, observational, and pretty respectful. It's not, you know... 88 lines about 44 girls.
• They Might Be Giants, Ana Ng. Mary Beth, my friend at Lord and Taylor, turned me onto Kiss Me Son Of God, and from there it was easy to discover this paean to the girl halfway around the world you've never met. If there was a me for you...
• My Chemical Romance, Welcome To The Black Parade. Not just old punk and new wave... I still find myself drawn to the theatrical, dark, even goth approach to rock. Nearly operatic, stylized video, dark mutterings about death... works for me.
• 30 Seconds To Mars, The Kill. Easy enough to say this is all about Jared Leto (yes, yes... Jordan Catalano and all the rest), but him plus arresting videos plus intense arena rock... well, not everyone would make that leap, I don't think.

Tiger Woods And The Morality Play

If there's something to be said about Tiger Woods - and count me among those who think most of what's happened speaks for itself just fine without my help - perhaps the most indicative of the moment we're in is how reaction to his troubles is a reminder of the conservative crackup, particularly when it comes to the "values agenda."

For a long time, conservative moralism was one of the right's most successful weapons; agree or disagree with their "traditional morals" viewpoint, one had to admit that complaints of loose morality, enshrinement of poor values, and our general cultural interest in salaciousness did make a point, one that was hard to beat back.

And it's not, as some suggest, simply the steady drumbeat of conservative mess-ups that has undermined the morality play as much as the fact that the shattering of conservative unity has revealed that on the right, as much or more than on the left, there's no firm agreement on just what the "morals" are supposed to be, or when "bad morals" utterly disqualify someone from any defense of decency.

That muddle has been especially true in the days since Tiger Woods crashed his car outside his house, and a world of sneak around infidelities has been revealed. The question isn't who's trying to excuse Woods' behavior - since almost no one is trying to call it acceptable or okay - but the struggle to explain exactly what's wrong, and why, and what it's supposed to mean in a cultural context. And it's telling, I think, that just as no one wants to defend what Woods has done, over the years, few seem to be able to explain exactly why these public revelations should have an impact on his career in golf.

And the dirtiest secret on the morality front is... that's probably because they won't, or shouldn't.

Friday Evening Floralude

jinb
 

I Light My Torch...

..and aim for the New Moon in a Minute:

New Moon in a Minute (Parody) - watch more funny videos

I have my issues with Funny or Die, but that's comedy these days - a lot of dopey (even offensive) stuff, and occasional laugh out loud moments. This really is New Moon in a nutshell.

On Healthcare... The Silence of the Blogs

One other observation about the healthcare reform moment we're in: yesterday's developments, which played out fairly fast and furious (by the time I finished my post, it was clear the Medicaid piece of expansion to 150% was actually DOA), reminded me of another problem we have, that there's precious little good blogging going on around healthcare, reform, and understanding more fully what is and isn't happening.

I've worked this observation from the reverse angle of saying we don't have a good, informative conversation about healthcare in this country... but it's important to understand why that is, and why it's hard to undo. I think a couple of things are in play: one is that, for a number of reasons, healthcare professionals, especially doctors but really a wide swath of the professions, are not online in quite the way others are (like writers, lawyers, educators, etc). This is part of the big hurdle to computerizing and standardizing medical records, in that even now, most doctors use paper for medical notes, and train their support personnel in similar methods. Ever notice that your doc's office has a huge collection of paper files? Ever notice that it's growing and not shrinking? That's the medical records problem... and it's enormous.

And it's indicative of how little daily interaction medical professionals have online; it's just not folded into the daily rhythm of many offices, care centers, or hospitals. Sure, there are exceptions... but many of them underscore that same divide: the medical professionals who do blog tend to be outside of practice (docs who write columns, do TV reporting, write books, and such). Some are working in nonprofits and other groups and are, indeed, working on reforms... but the point is, those people are outside of the practicing mainstream, and their views reflect, often, a narrow subset of the full professional insight on reform and its impact on actual care.

Feeding that narrow range of views is the fact, as I've pointed out before, that much of the energy around reform and thinking ceatively about changing healthcare is happening among liberlas and progressives. There is little activity on health reform on the right - a symptom and an illustration of the conservative malaise right now that there is so little interest in such a key issue - and the lack of knowledgeable opposing views hinders broad, thoughtful debate. Too often, you get panels and discussions among people who all agree, who share very similar backgrounds, exposure to similar data and ideas, and who see solutions in much the same way. It's hard, for many people in the think of things, to understand that there's things that they're missing, important, valuable things that might challenge worldviews and easy conclusions.

And finally, as healthcare reform has moved to the center of political discussions and gained media attention, what's become clear is how many people either don't understand or are only recently getting up to speed on the healthcare systems in this country, and tend to repeat the word of others when caught uninformed, or less than fully aware. I have little or no use for bloggers - many prominent ones - who blog about healthcare by repeating snips of coverage, usually from Ezra Klein and/or Jon Cohn. Both men are doing good (though not great) work covering the day-to-day twists and turns in Congress... but both have limitations and biases that tend to get lost in repetition. And few bloggers are doing, or seem to want to do, the hard work of questing further for more information, or looking deeper at prevailing views to ask if they make sense, or are supported by all the data. Hence, the need for a public option - which should have been a small piece of a number of other, much more significant changes to insurance - became by repetition and general agreement and lack of investigation... a be-all, end-all political chip that distorted the whole debate.

In the end, all of this reminds me that I ought to do more to write about these things, because I do have information to share, insights to challenge the status quo, and the ability to write persuasively. And I don;'t mean to leave anyone high and dry when it comes to looking for other, alternative places for insight. Myself, I'f recommend these in relative order of insight, usefulness and alternative ideas:

• The Healthcare blog - where you will find medical professionals with a variety of experiences sharing a broad range of ideas
• Karen Tumulty - who's been doing some of the best straight reporting I've seen that is both thorough and informative
• Talk Left - where Big Tent Democrat doesn't buy into all the hype of the progressives
• The Daily Dose at Washington Post - the Wa Po's more through (and more thoroughly reported) blog on healthcare, which makes you wonder why they need Ezra separately.
• Firedoglake - not my favorite site, but Jane Hamsher and company are very up to speed on both the politics and a number of the larger issues
• The Prescriptions blog at the New York Times, which occasionally breaks new news, and can be very insightful (but can also be very much the voice of The Establishment, as the Times likes to do)
• The healthcare blog at Change.org - a little likely to rehash the same Ezra Klein/Jon Cohn boilerplate, but with lively discussion threads. For that matter, if you do read Ezra, I highly recommend following his comment threads; a number of his commenters are very good for pointing out the weaknesses in his arguments, theories and political stances.

As I find more, I'll pass them along. I'm always on the lookout, and I appreciate any others you can share.

Still, the lack of anything but repetition of the same ideas, the same political thinking, and the same laundry list of expectations is tiring. As long as healthcare reform is a narrow conversation, among (fairly) informed people with similar poltical and worldviews who reach the same if not similar conclusions... we're not likely to have the good, healthy discussion we need... the one which, I think, would have made the current bill in Congress either a dead issue, or a significantly different, better piece of legislation than it is shaping up to be. The prmoise of blogs is that they offer the potential to challenge the status quo and offer fresh ideas; the challenge is that to do that requires the different thinking, different voices and fresh ideas of outsiders. And we don't have that... instead we have silence. And repetition.

Woof

Winter movie season is an odd time; while there's the energy and buzz of Oscar season, there's also the reality that, for about a month, the big chain theaters are only showing a limited amount of "classy" product, leaving big holesto be filled by more commercial, pandering efforts.

It is, in short, prime time to drop some of the season's biggest dogs into theaters, in hopes of making a quick buck.

You neveer know when these dogs might strike. Thanks to Halloween, fall and early winter are rife with cheap and tacky scare flicks, but it's also a great time to release forgettable romances or counterprogram with cheesy, should have gone to DVD action flicks.

Roll them all together... and you have a good example in Twilight: New Moon.

When I started the "Worst Movie Ever" category, I figured finding one would cover it; I may have muddled taste at times, but surely nothing could compare to the atrocious effort expended on Romance and Cigarettes. Just the title, still, makes me shudder. But occasionally, my middlebrow urges and willingness to be seduced by pretty faces, poor plotting and promises of slight smut lead me to foolish choices.

Mostly, they're just dogs. But sometimes... there's the dogs... and then there's the abyss. Or The Abyss.

Ninja Assassin is merely your average dog. Full of the promise of Hong Kong style martial arts violence and dark tales of hired killers, Ninja Assassin is merely silly, overblown and badly written hash. Things pretty much go south from the get go, in a badly written prologue in a Tokyo gang lounge, when an old tattoo artist tells the young gang members of dangerous ninjas... who promptly show up and kill one and all. The difference between this ham handed sequence and the prologues of better, darker films is like the difference between a designer gown and a cheap polyester knockoff - opbvious, garish, and shrill.

It's pretty much downhill from there, as we follow a young "Europol" (I'm guessing "Interpol"... but who knows) investigator who reports to her boss on the existence of ancient ninja warrior clans (nine of them, we're told) who kill for money - 100 pounds of gold, to be exact. At the same time, we meet a rogue ninja warrior and discover, via flashbacks, his tale of being trained in the ancient ways of the ninja, and how he came to go out on his own.

By the time of the climactic final battle - something about flames, kicking, nunchuks and killing your ancient master - I could hardly keep my eyes open, and for all the shots of spurting blood and severed limbs and torsos, Ninja Assassin 's least interesting moments were its shadowy, pointless fight sequences.  Which is saying something, since the dialogue between major characters in the quieter moments was pretty much laughably bad.

In these things, it's best not to single out performers for career missteps, but Ben Miles, as the lead Europol detective, seemed like especially bizarre casting, while Naomie Harris as the Europol investigator mostly made me feel sorry for her taste in scripts. About the only thing worth the price of admission was solo named "Rain" as the lead ninja, blessed with a soulful look and a killer bod (his inverted pushups on a bed of nails made for an impressive physique display), who almost managed to make the preposterousness seem compelling, but mostly this was a forgettable embarrassment. Best to say... don't bother.

On the other hand, Transylmania easily qualifies for Worst Movie Ever status. An unfortunate mashup of bad vampire cliches, monster movie nonsense, dopey mistaken identity business, sleazy softcore and teen sex comedy hijinks, Transylmania (oy, that title!) was just stupidly, gobsmackingly jaw-droppingly awful - and apparently, it's a sequel! A vampire film with literally no bite, a horror film with no ablity to scare, and a decidedly unfunny comedy,, the film purports to be the hilarious tale of misadventure when a group of lazy, smutty coeds travel to Eastern Europe for a semester in Transylvania. 

Not even armed with the kind of second rate B movie nerve to revel in its tacky, low budget energy, Transylmania is pretty much a catalog of stupid, offensive bits done badly and filmed so poorly as to amaze. Directing? nonexistent. Acting? If that's what you call it. Even the flashes of sleazy, Z-grade toplessness are more sad than offensive, a reminder that an "R" rating is also used to also lure hapless teens to try and get around authority to see the "naughty" bits.

The kind of film you either slink out of the theater in embarrassment, or proudly walk out of with a knowing look, Transylmania may not have the slumming A list stars of Romance and Cigarettes, but I felt just as dirty, just as robbed, and just as bludgeoned into dumbfounded awe. I really did watch that last night. And I'm not looking for your pity, or your sympathy... I'm just trying to save you. Woof.

Getting Down To The Real Public Options

While I've been following the health care "reform" developments in Congress closely, I've written little about it, because I don't think there's much to say, and much of what there is to argue about... is air. Even the "official House version" that passed didn't settle the question, because the Senate's version looked basically nothing like it. To the extent I've tried to weigh in, I've tried to stick to more concrete issues, like the horrifying Stupak Amendment.

And still doesn't. As the Senate lurches along, debating and attempting to pull together a 60 vote winning compromise position, the actual shape of the reforms - if one can call them reforms - continues to shift.

I've been dismayed, most, by the fetsh of the "public option" which progressive and liberal activists glommed onto as the proposal began to take shape, and which has become the "make or break" inclusion item for some lefty support. The shrill, one note approach taken by a number of groups and individuals to this is indicative of how partcipation in the health care debate does not, necessarily, indicate a great depth of understanding or reflect a real commitment to some seriously progressive needs; instead it tends to show how the instinct to score a political win can overshadow the need for good policy, or trump common sense and concern for more than the hot buzzword of the moment.

Even if I was keen on a public option - and, frankly, I think in the context of the ideas under discussion it's a "nice to have" that shouldn't be the most crucial element - I think one has to admit that, as much of the bill has, the idea of a public option health plan has been distorted beyond any useful purpose. The option of offering a government run health plan to individuals who might not otherwise find insurance has always been needed to secure full insurance. But making sure every single, solitary person has health insurance may, itself, be an unnecessary, or unwise goal. Getting to 96% or so insured in this country would, generally, solve a number of problems. Especially if we focused more thoroughly on that 96% getting good coverage that provided access to necessary, quality care.

But more fundamentally, one reason I've been puzzled by the "public option fetish" is because we already have "public options" - namely the government run plans of Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration. And more than anything, those who claim an overarching need for a fourth "public option" tend to show a fairly basic lack of familiarity with what we already have... again, which is why I think we should have done more, and still need to do more, to create an informed general public that can really understand what reform is about. And what it's not.