Emmett Till
In 1955, while visiting relatives in the South, a young black boy named Emmett Till supposedly whistled at a white woman as he exited a grocery store. That night, that woman's husband and another white man proceeded to abduct, beat, mutilate, and then shoot Emmett in the head. As you can see from the before & after pictures above, the only way his mother could identify his body was because of a ring she'd given him just before he went on that trip. An all-white jury acquitted the two assailants, and they've subsequently died quietly of old age after a long, peaceful life as racist child murderers.
PBS just aired a documentary detailing the whole sordid affair and the efforts by Emmett's mother, also recently deceased, to find some justice in the world.
As I think about James Tate down in Texas, I'm reminded that, in some places, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

At Least Powell Hasn't Forgotten
Here, Colin Powell seems to be on the other side of the Affirmative Action debate from Dr. Rice & the President. Thank goodness for small wonders.

Fire From the Gods
The White House appears ready to approve the Prometheus project, a NASA nitiative to develop and build the next generation of reusable spaceflight vessels with nuclear-powered engines capable of interplanetary flight (i.e. trips to Mars). Now, ordinarily, I'd be jumping for joy about anything that helps us boldly go where no man or woman has gone before, but the two words "Bush" and "Nuke" in the same sentence makes me a little edgy. And, since our commander-in-chief isn't known for being much of a futurist, it makes me wonder if this has any relationship to our rejection of the ABM treaty, that specifically calls for a ban on space-based weapons.

A Great Role Model
Here's an article from the Washington Post that suggests that Condelezza Rice was one of the strongest voices in President Bush's ear to get him to denounce the affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan. Which, once again, illustrates my long-held point: tokenism only benefits tokens when the people picked as our pioneers close the doors behind the rest of the community. It's great that Dr. Rice is the first Black National Security Advisor, but, in this case, she went out of her way and out of her job description to effect policy that hurts every other person of color and every other woman (i.e. the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action, I might add) in the country.

Thanks alot.

The Family Business
So, what do you think will happen to the price of oil if a war starts in Iraq? Consequently, what will happen to the profit margins & stock prices of America's major oil companies? How many of those companies might pay dividends, which, if the President has his way, would be tax-free income for anyone who owns stock in those companies? Why is it that the words "conflict of interest" suddenly come to mind, when I remember that G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Evans, and the godfather himself, George Herbert Walker Bush, all have had enormous financial stakes in the oil industry? Did you know there's an oil tanker out there somewhere named the Condelezza?

Ponder that as you check out this L.A. Times article that shows constructing tax shelters to protect deep-pocket investors has been printed on the Bush D.N.A. for nearly 100 years. Still think they're serving the public good?

Whither the Juggernauts?
This has got to be the most asinine sports editorial I've ever read, which is why I'm posting it. Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated is complaining that, now that there's parity in the NFL (i.e. "Any Given Sunday"), there are no dominant teams who can steamroll the entire league for years on end so that the rest of us little peons can grovel at their glorious feet. Is it me? I thought the rest of the country was sick and tired of watching the Yankees win every single year. I know I was sick and tired of watching grown men genuflect to Michael Jordan like he was Emperor Hirohito instead of trying their hardest to dunk on his neck like eternal Macroscope hero, John Starks. The fact of the matter is, I have watched more football this season than I ever have in my entire life, and it's because every single game has the potential to be a heart-stopper. Unfortunately, when everybody has a chance, it does put the professional sports prognosticators out of business, doesn't it? I mean, if there's no dominant team, you, as a sports writer, can't compose reams of paper lauding how superhuman Shaq is. Word of advice - instead of pepetuating the idolatry of celebrities, maybe they should stick to their job description: write about the freakin' games and shut up.

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree..."
Tomorrow, George W. Bush is going to issue a "friend of the court" brief to the Supreme Court regarding the pending case to review the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy. In tha brief, the President will state that achieving racial diversity is not a compelling reason to justify race-based quotas, i.e. affirmative action is bad.

And for all you naive little Black Republicans out there, who believed this man was your friend (see below), I'd like to quote a line from Kevin Costner in JFK:

"What did you expect from a pig but a grunt."

While the Moderates Were Sleeping...
Your President declared January 19, 2003 to be "National Sanctity of Human Life Day". Of course, next week is also the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, just so everyone is clear what issue we're talking about here.

So, let's have the discussion that apparently everyone in Washington is afraid of: Personally, I'm morally horrified by the idea of abortion. One might argue that, at the other end of the age spectrum, it's the moral equivalent of mercy-killing a sick, old relative who's nursing and care needs have far exceeded the family member's capacity to support them. The difference being that you have to look Uncle Jethro in the eye when you pull the plug on his respirator. Do fetuses even have eyes?

Of course, that's because I'm presuming that life begins at conception. Others don't. And, at this point, I don't think we're ever going to find a happy medium between those two beliefs. But, there's a difference between what I believe and how you govern a country.

IF the government makes abortion illegal because they feel it is morally and ethically wrong, then they must, in turn, provide an adequate support network for unwanted or unintended pregnancies, such as universal prenatal care and eliminating the atrocities that are committed in the foster care system. Otherwise, to insist that this child be born to a mother who won't keep or support it and then release it into the jaws of the failed child care system is tantamount to condemning it to a long, slow, painfully abusive life, with potentially dire consequences for anyone who comes into contact with this person in their later life.

So, since governing a nation ultimately boils down to issues of human calculus, abortion should really be looked at in these terms: the life of one unwanted, uncared-for unborn vs. the lives of countless others who could be irreparably damaged through contact with the emotionally & physically scared person that said unborn has a high probability of growing into.

In the end, until the child support system is fixed, legal abortion is the civically expedient and, ultimately, politically ethical choice to make.

Which is why I'm pro-choice.

And human calculus like what I just described above is why I will NEVER run for public office.

G.W. says "Where are The Plumbers when I need them?!?!?!"
Paul O'Neill gained some serious credibility in my eyes last year when he took a trip to Africa with Bono of U2 and actually seemed to understand the issue of 3rd World debt enough that he might actually do something about it.

Then, of course, President Bush fired him because he didn't believe in trickle-down economics.

Well, O'Neill STILL doesn't believe in trickle-down economics, even though it's going under the alias of "dividend tax elimination". See what he has to say.

The Party of Lincoln
Here's a New York Times article, talking about the little group hug the Republican party leadership held with Black conservatives and Black Republicans to show that the party is really concerned about their issues in light of the whole Trent Lott debacle.

Favorite quote: "When you withstand the things we do as black Republicans, and you still stand firm with the party, that's commitment." from Shannon Reeves, secretary of the California State party and chairman of the Oakland, CA NAACP.

Point of clarification: No, Mr. Reeves, that's not commitment. It's blind devotion, bordering on foolishness. After all, isn't this the same reason why Black Republicans say they rejected the Democratic Party in the first place?

Moreover, if the GOP were really serious about demonstrating their commitment to the Black community, where was their REAL leader, President Bush?

Lastly, let me say this: I'll believe that the GOP is serious about including Black Americans when the President starts doing things like publicly denouncing places like Bob Jones University and other institutions that support discriminatory policies, or publicly renouncing campaign contributions from thinly-veiled white supremacist organizations, or publicly stating that the Confederate States of America was an outlaw organization that brought shame to the American ideals by instigating a war to preserve the state's rights to hold slaves.

Then we can start talking turkey. Or, maybe they should just take a hint from the folks at "Black People Love Us". They seem to have figured it out.

The 3rd Degree
A federal judge just ruled that the government could continue to deny Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber", access to his lawyers indefinitely because it would jeopardize the interrogation process, as long as the President has declared him an enemy combatant and has provided a "minimal" showing to justify the declaration.

Let me restate this, just so we're all clear on it.

Mr. Padilla is an American citizen who was arrested in Chicago O'Hare Airport. In other words, he's an American taken on American soil. By declaring him an enemy combatant, they're basically saying that O'Hare Airport was a battlefield at the time of his seizure. Since no one even knew that he'd been arrested until John Ashcroft's spectacular announcement from Russia a month later, I seriously doubt that battefield conditions have ever existed at O'Hare. So, this means the government can seize anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and deny you the rights guaranteed to you in the Bill of Rights, if they can provide "minimal justification".

So, for all intents and purposes, The Bill of Rights has been suspended under President Bush.

And, the answer to your question is "Yes, that should scare the Hell out of you."

The Dark Horse
Months ago, I remember hearing that exactly one person other than George Bush had officially declared himself as a candidate in the 2004 Presidential campaign. And that was Howard Dean, the outgoing governor of Vermont.

And I laughed. I mean, the same way I laughed when I heard Senator Bob Smith of New Hamphire was quitting the Republican party after ripping it on the Senate floor before running for President as an independent in 2000. You'll notice that Senator Bob Smith is now Bob Smith, the guy who got his ass handed to him in the campaign, came crawling back to the Republican party, only to get run out of office by John Sununu. In other words, Howard Dean was a joke and was only going to embarass himself.

But, then, that was before the entire population of Washington D.C. opened an exploratory committe to run for President in 2004. It's starting to sound a bit like Wil Smith on that old Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince track, "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson", with everybody and their cock-eyed grandmothers waking up in the morning saying "I can beat 'em!!!!"

And, as much as I like John Edwards (see below), I do worry that he may be a one-trick pony. So, I started looking at all the people who I thought were jokes in this race, just in case there was something I was overlooking.

Newsflash: after careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that Dick Gephardt is still, in fact, a joke.

Howard Dean, on the other hand, is a different story.

Or, perhaps I should say Doctor Howard Dean, the longest serving Democratic governor in the country (11 years), who is pro-choice, wants to unto the entire Bush tax cut, runs the 1st state to legalize same-sex marriages, but still has an A-rating from the NRA and thinks the world is a mess right now because our foreign policy and trade policy do not support each other from a common vision.

Did I mention that 4 of our last 5 Presidents (G.W. Bush, Slick Willie, Reagan, & Jimmy Carter), covering 26 years of electoral seasons, were governors, and the last sitting senator to win the White House was JFK?

Howard Dean is NOT a joke. Read. Because the brother needs your money.
Bad.

When Xerox Rules All
And now, a nerd-gasm moment.

This article from The New Scientist talks about the current drive in circuit board research to combine 3-D printers (i.e. machines that create 3-D objects buy spitting out molded layers that eventually stack up to create a 3-D object) with embedded electronics, where the material itself is capable of carrying a current in a directed fashion without the need to manually add copper wiring to its surface. The end result would be something like a printer that can spontaneously generate disposable light bulbs or remote controls. One of the scientists interviewed said he's really looking forward to printable robots.

My mind is suddenly filled with images of those old cartoons where characters would turn on a faucet and, instead of water, a car would pour out.

Down from the Mountain Top
Here's a series of articles the New York Times published recently, following ten individuals whose lives are modern day reflections on the Ten Commandments. They include stories like the child of an adulterous affair who grew up in abusive foster homes and is now struggling to be a responsible father on his own with no role models, a girl who obsessively idolized the rock band Phish so much that she basically lived as a nomadic hermit as she followed their tours around the country, and a Vietnam vet who led ambuses where he and his team personally killed hundreds of people who is now trying to find absolution as a priest & chaplain for the Army. Beyond the fact that this is some of the best journalistic writing I've seen in recent memory, it's also an interesting treatise on how how these Biblical edicts illustrate issues that remain at the center of human existance, despite the passage of time.

As I side note, I'd heard somewhere that the actual 10 commandments where really single words or characters in Hebrew or Yiddish or whatever it is they wrote in those days, so something like "I am the Lord your God" is represented as a single character etched in stone. Assuming this is true, this is a stark contrast to the 2nd set of commandments that the Hebrews received, now contained in Deuteronomy & Leviticus, which are much more legalistic and, clearly, culturally specific. Makes me wonder if they were all really written by the same hand. I mean, really, why would God issue an appendix? It's not like that whole Red Tent thing just slipped his mind the first time around.

Bush Fears Edwards
24 hours after Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina) announced he was running for President of the United States, the Republican National Committee issued this statement, clocked in at around 10 pages, ripping the freshman legislator.

Notice, that, when John Kerry, John Dean, or Dick Gephardt announced their candidacy, there were no such statements of this kind or magnitude. If this guy is such a lightweight, as suggested by this annotated press release that can be found at the very top of the RNC's webpage, above the announcement about Bush's economic stimulus package, why is he drawing so much fire?

Fear has such a distinctive smell.

Look for Bush to pull a Gray Davis in the Democratic Presidential Primary, i.e. since he's presumably running unopposed for the Republican nomination, El Presidente will drop a ton of money into the Democratic Primary states aimed directly at Edwards in hopes of knocking him out in favor of a weaker opponent (someone like Gephardt). It's a tactic that, to my knowledge, originated with Richard Nixon and his under-the-table efforts to support Hubert Humphreys instead of groovy peacenik Eugene McCarthy. Governor Davis just raised the shamelessness quotient to Olympian levels last year, which is why he was sworn in for a 2nd term yesterday instead of Richard Riordan.

But I digress.

You think that guy Edwards might be onto something?

Manhattan was just the beginning...
After the United States government crushed and basically enslaved the various Native American nations of this country in the late 19th Century, they cut a deal with them where the Department of the Interior would manage the captured lands on behalf of the Indians and provide them with the proceeds of any profits gained from business and real estate transactions on the land.

Is anyone surprised to hear that our government has since spent the last 120 years cheating the Native Americans out of nearly $140 BILLION (yes, that's right. BILLION, with a "B")?

This New York Times article talks about the noble lawsuit that the Native Americans have brought against the Department of the Interior. But, in a way, suing the government is alot like David asking Goliath to stab himself. The day G.W. Bush OKs any kind of equitable settlement for this dispute is the day, quite frankly, that I might have to change my tune and vote for that dude.

Exactly. It's NEVER going to happen. But, at least the truth is out.

Getting Medieval Again
When I grow up, I want to be Quentin Tarantino.

And it's not just because of my inherent love for megalomaniacs.

He, probably more than any other artist, single-handedly defined filmmaking in the 90's. I mean, people use words like "Tarantino-esque", in the same way that others use the term "Hitchcockian". Without Reservoir Dogs & Pulp Fiction, there probably is no Scream, no Seven, no Usual Suspects, no Trainspotting, no Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, etc. And, let's not forget that Quentin's pen is responsible for the original script for Natural Born Killers, which Oliver Stone used to dissect the entire universe of films that Tarantino had spawned.

A storyteller first. He just traded MS Word for an Arriflex camera. My kind of guy.

Having said that, his latest, upcoming film, Kill Bill, where Uma Thurman becomes a bad-girl cross between Charles Bronson & Bruce Lee, is HIGH on my list for 2003. Plus, it's soundtrack marks the first ever collaboration between The Wu-Tang Clan and Metallica.

What's not to love?

A Tale of Two Articles
The Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, accused the United States of planning to invade Iraq, whether the UN Inspectors find any hidden weapons or not. Here's an article talking about this from CNN.

Now, here's another article talking about the same statement from Tariq Aziz from the BBC.

What you may notice is that, in the BBC article, they quote Aziz as stating that the US wants to invade Iraq to control it's oil reserves to appease the imperialist intentions of the American business community. CNN makes no mention of such a statement, at all. Odd, considering that CNN is owned by AOL/Time-Warner, one of the largest members of said imperialist business comunity.

See, it's things like this that really demonstrate just how transparent Bush's goals are. Sadly, it also shows how narrow, uninformed, and easily swayed the POV of the average American citizen is, too.

What They Really Think
Here's a nifty little website that actually compiles the voting records of virtually every elected government official and comes up with an issues profile. Just something to help you separate their legislative substance from the everyday B.S.

The Truth Is In There
For the longest time, I didn't even believe in the existence of Area 51. Just more grist for the conspiracy nut mill. Well, the Leader of the Free World has determined that, whatever the Air Force is up to over there, they shouldn't have to burden themselves with little things like not polluting the environment. It's things like this that make me wonder: just where is the line between protecting the national security interests of the nation and protecting the collective butts of the poor, immoral, or irresponsible actions of our representative government?

Scared Straight
Charles Rangel, Democratic congressman from New York City, is talking about introducing a bill that will require mandatory military service for ALL citizens.

That scares the Hell out of me.

And, ultimately, I guess that's the point. Clearly Congressman Rangel's been reading Starship Troopers and is hoping that we end up with a more peace-seeking foreign policy if Jenna & Barbara Bush have to trade in their blonde locks for a G.I.Jane buzz-cut.

On the other hand, let's not kid ourselves: It's not like the military is a meritocracy. All men are NOT created equal. If I'd done Marine ROTC at Princeton, I would have joined the Corps with a commission as a 2nd lieutenant, and my cousin, 12 years my senior and a Marine since he was 18, would have had to follow the orders of me and other pampered college boys like myself. Does my Ivy League education really make me more qualified to send men to their deaths than a man who's spent his entire adult life in the trenches with his fellow soldiers? The elite will ALWAYS find a way to stay away from the bullets.

Jack Chat
I'm so attached to the idea of Jack Nicholson as a rapacious matinee icon, from some of my favorite films like Batman, The Shining, & A Few Good Men, that it's painfully easy to forget that the man is, first and foremost, an artist. Here he is, in a rare one on one interview at EW.com, talking about how he's melded his celebrity into his craft, and how an ashtray full of torn-up money may be his single most evocative piece of work. Oh, and I hear his new movie, About Schmidt, isn't bad, either. I'll let you know after I check it out.

When the term "Republican" meant more than just a party affiliation...
The U.S. Historical Society wants to put a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederate States of America. And the Sons of Confederate Veterans are mad.

And, in other news, water is still wet.

But, on a serious note: It has always struck me as the highest form of revisionist history when modern-day Confederate sympathizers depict the North as a morally bankrupt agressor. After all, didn't the Confederacy shoot at Ft. Sumter first? More importantly, wasn't the entire foundation of the Confederacy predicated on the Southern states' desire to maintain their slave labor force? What's there to be proud of, when your ancestors made an immoral stand and then received a resounding ass-kicking for it? I look forward to the day when some prominent Southern politician publicly rebukes and renounces the heritage of the Confederacy.

Moreover, I'm curious to see if the upcoming Warner Bros. film, Gods and Generals, will have any commentary on the ethics of the Confederacy, or simply take the revisionists' favorite route of depicting the "War Between The States" as a mere philosophical disagreement that escalated out of anyone's control? We shall see.....

"Press The Button..."
You Presidential history buffs out there should know who Daniel Ellsberg is, even if you don't. In the late '60's, Ellsberg worked in the Pentagon under Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense for Lyndon Johnson and remained through the earliest days of Richard Nixon's administration. Ellsberg conducted reams of research on the impact & overall effectiveness of the Vietnam War, both from his desk and while dodging bullets in Indo-China. The end result of his research? The war is unwinnable, and the Presidents involved, going all the way back to Eisenhower, know it. When Ellsberg heard that Nixon planned on escalating the war to possibly thermonuclear levels, he resigned his post and, in a blatant violation of the law, published the contents of his research in the New York Times. The so-called "Pentagon Papers" were the first set of documents to illustrate in graphic detail that Presidents can make mistakes that cost the lives of American citizens, largely in the interests of "maintaining the prestige of the United States of America" (i.e. their own ego and self-image). Needless to say, in this snippet from The Atlantic Monthly, he has a few choice words of advice for our current commander-in-chief. As of two weeks ago, Ellsberg was sitting in a New York City jail after he and a few hundred religious leaders were arrested for protesting the pending war with Iraq in front of the American mission to the U.N.

Root Problem Quote of the Day

"What's the matter with the people of South Carolina? That's what I'm questioning. In all due respect, I loved my father, who died at 83. But at age 81, I wouldn't have wanted him making decisions that would have the bearing of the world security and the nation with it. This guy's brought in with bottles attached to him half the time."

- outgoing Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who thinks the real issue isn't what Trent Lott said about Strom Thurmond, but why Thurmond is even still in office to begin with.

"It's the terrorists, stupid!"
In a speech he gave today at the Brookings Institution, John Edwards, a freshman Democratic senator from North Carolina, demonstrated that he has figured out something that clearly none of the other potential 2004 Democratic Presidential hopefuls have.

Dems like Tom Daschle and DNC Chair Terry "Don't Ask Me, I'm Just A Fundraiser" McAuliffe keep trying to rehash the tenpoles of Al Gore's failed 2000 campaign, namely kitchen table domestic issues like perscription drug benefits, unemployment benefits, minimum wage, etc. Despite the fact that G.W. Bush maintains an insanely high approval rating in spite of the crappy economy. And they keep scratching their heads, wondering why the American people aren't running the President and the rest of the GOP out of town.

What these guys don't get is that the American people are still wetting their beds in fear of another September 11th, and Bush has perfected the art of pretending that he's effectively fighting a war on terror. The people don't really care about all the pork barrel spending and corporate handouts that the House Republicans slipped into the Homeland Security Bill at the last minute, as long as there is the appearance of work that will protect them from another terrorist attack. So the lesser Democrats continue to harp on domestic and economic issues and continue to appear out of touch with the underlying concerns of the majority of the population.

Which is what makes this quiet little speech from Edwards so extraordinary. The crux of his argument is something I've felt all along: not only is the Bush administration providing nothing more than window dressing to fight domestic terror, but it's fiscally irresponsible tax policy is putting millions of dollars back into the hands of the wealthy rather than using said money to provide true, substantive efforts to combat terrorism locally. In short, while Bush is pretending to make you safe, he's actually placing American lives in greater risk.

On top of that, Edwards has also outlined his own proposal on the kind of manpower and substantive actions necessary to truly defend the homeland. Now, as you might guess, I have a bit of a problem with this whole "Homeland Intelligence Agency" thing, but, he at least talks about the privacy and civil liberties issues involved in such a step.

This, my friends, is how you beat George W. Bush. Show him for what he really is: reckless, elitist, and willing to sacrifice the lives of millions to line the pockets of his father's golf buddies.

Can you say "Edwards in 2004"? I know you can.

If Bill says so, it must be true
Well, I'd be lying if I said that Bill Clinton & I don't agree on alot of things. But, just as I alluded to below, Slick Willie also suggests that Trent Lott is simply an embarassing exposure of the GOP's dirty little secret: they've always played racial politics that damage & disenfranchise people of color, both to get power and to maintain power.

Separate, But Equal
Notice how, in the fine print of this executive order (Section 4 (c)), G.W. Bush allows faith based organizations to receive Federal tax money while simultaneously engaging in discriminatory hiring practices, which is a clear and direct violation of existing Federal Law. Maybe Trent Lott isn't so out of step with the rest of the Republican party after all....

The Path Through Mecca
Just as medieval Christians committed unspeakable atrocities in the name of Jesus (e.g. The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, The Salem Witch Trials, etc.), so, too, are modern-day terrorists like Al Qaeda and Hizbollah tarnishing the good name of the progenitor of Islam, the prophet Muhammed. Wednesday night, PBS is airing a documentary detailing his life. Should be worth a gander.

Talking Heads
Providing that the idolatry of American consumerist culture knows no bounds, here's a link to a talking George W. Bush doll. And, yes, it does speak such lovely Bush-isms as "We will be putting food on your family". This is the first in a line of talking presidental action figures, including Reagan, Clinton, JFK, & Nixon.

The Man Behind The Curtain
Hopefully, you ALL know who the man on the left is. But who, you may ask, is the man, laughing ever so heartily and somewhat ironically, to the President's right?

I have yet to find Karl Rove's official title in the Bush administration. But, whether you know it or not, Rove is the most powerful man in Washington, right after The President. Even the White House Chief of Staff seems to give only qualified answers when speaking about Rove. As Bush's chief political strategist, Rove has spent the better part of his adult life trying to craft a permanent political majority for the Republican Party. And he may have succeeded.

But what kind of America is that? Well, Rove was a protege of the late Lee Atwater, the former RNC chairman under George Herbert Walker Bush who masterminded the WIllie Horton campaign in the 1988 election. Here, in an article from Esquire magazine, the guy who was handpicked by Bush to run the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and has since resigned, talks about the almost gleeful ignorance Rove & Co. show regarding the actual impact of the policies they advocate for purely political purposes.

God help us.

"Strange, New Worlds"
Here's an article about NASA's new project to develop computer simulated models of what kinds of planets could support water/light based life, to be used as a referential database when they send their new set of deep-space probes to start exploring and cataloging planets with possible neighbors. Too bad that they're just looking for life as we know it on earth, rather than sentience, which may not necessarily be carbon-based. "Baby steps", as they say.

The Conscience of A King
I usually only comment on specific movies at Macroscope when I think it's something worthwhile that you might miss in the daily roar of film advertising, so, it may seem strange for me to say something about the next installment of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, The Two Towers, here. Losing this film on the media radar would be the equivalent of forgetting your standing on planet Earth, giving all the promotional saturation its received. However, I would like to take a moment to comment on one aspect of the film you might miss.

Many folks say that the CGI-created Gollum is the most compelling character in the film, but, for my money, the guy I could not take my eyes off of was Theoden, King of the human city of Rohan, played by Bernard Hill. If you look closely, you may recognize Hill as the Captain of James Cameron's Titanic. It's an interesting bit of casting, since, in both instances, he's a man given the responsibility for the lives of a doomed people.

In light of my recent commentary about the morally questionable activities of the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, my far more conservative brother (and father of two) made an observation that's haunted me ever since: "It's hard to stand on your morals when you're responsible for the lives of others." There's a look in the eyes of King Theoden as the full-weight of his mistakes and the horrible consequences of his actions begin to set in, that made me think of the look in G.W. Bush's eyes, later on that week after 9/11. One would hope that a leader acts in a way that he believes will be the most beneficial for his people. But, as history has taught us, decisions at that level always involve some kind of human calculus - what action will cost the fewest lives while saving the most? Bernard Hill's portrayal of Theoden reminded me that the cost of that job can quite often include your soul.

See the movie.

And watch his eyes.

Stairway to Heaven
I love movies from the '50's. I love technicolor and Edith Head and the days when all your movie heroes wore a coat & tie. So, as you might guess, I have a very special place in my heart for the new film by writer/director Todd Haynes, Far From Heaven. Intended as a deconstruction of 50's melodramas like Imitation of Life or Peyton Place or pretty much any movie by Douglas Sirk, Far From Heaven follows the travails of a perfect, June Cleaver-esque housewife (Julianne Moore) in 1950's Hartford, CT, who catches her business executive husband (Dennis Quaid) in the arms of another man. And the only person she can talk to about this without being ostracized is her somewhat naive, grossly overqualified, and very Black gardner (Dennis Haysbert, also known as President David Palmer on Fox's 24). Beyond the fact that this is one of the most lush, vibrate, and beautiful stories put on film in quite a while, it's also wrenching as you watch these lives completely disintegrate before your eyes. Oscar-worthy? I"m not sure. But it's DEFINITELY noteworthy. There's a real love for filmmaking that just pervades every aspect of this movie. Check it out.

Bride of the Prophet
This is an outstanding interview from Salon.com with Geraldine Brooks, the author of "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women". Here, she uses the recent Miss World riots in Nigeria to illustrate how misogynists and demagogues have completely usurped the modern-day interpretation of Islam, and perverted it from the very sensual and romantic original teachings of the prophet Mohammed. Of particular interest to me is her depiction of the growing tend of female religious scholars in Iran, who are in fact rolling back many of the draconian restrictions on women by showing their contradictions with the actual text of the Quran. She also lays alot of the blame for the current vulgarity of Islam in the Middle East squarely on the doorstep of the Saudi royal family. Personally, I will be very interested to see how Iran & Saudi Arabia interact with each other politically and culturally as time passes.

Stargazing in the Motherland
Here's a little something on ancient ruins in Zimbabwe which may actually have been a stellar observatory, like Stonehenge. Not much to say about it, except "kewl".

The Next Big Thing?
Martin O'Malley is the mayor of my home town, Baltimore, MD. But, how many mayors of mid-sized cities receive letters from Bill Clinton, congradulating them for NOT running for Governor of Maryland because "I won't be surprised if you go all the way"? Here's a story ostensibly about O'Malley's potential to be a Democratic savior, but also about Clinton's efforts to help regroup the Democratic Party. I must admit, I used to be a big fan of the Democratic Leadership Council, but their standard-bearers like Joe Lieberman leave alot to be desired when it comes to artists' rights, and, in the face of the last election, their leaders, From & Bruce Reed, say the party should abandon it's liberal ideals because "The harsh reality is that the Democratic base just isn't big enough to win: there are more conservatives than liberals ... more suburbanites than big-city dwellers, more whites than minorities, more non-union workers than union workers". Well, at least they won't be pretending to court my vote anymore.

Crafting A Strange World
John Cassaday is one of my favorite comic artists today. I first discovered him in the pages of Warren Ellis's meta-genre epic, Planetary, but John has also made me a believer again with his work on the post-9/11 Captain America. Here, he talks about his craft and both titles over a few brewskies.

Buried Alive
Remember the "dirty bomber" from last summer? Well, that man was an American citizen that the government suspects of being a member of Al Qaeda. They promptly declared him an enemy combatant (i.e. someone who is not entitled to due process under the law), and have been holding him a Navy brig ever since. This article shows that, nearly 6 months after he was detained, the government is just now giving him access to his lawyers. I have yet to see what evidence they have that justifies stripping this man of his rights as a citizen. This, and the recent CIA bombing of suspected Al Qaeda agents in Africa is setting a really, really frightening trend, where the government is just going after people with out a shred of justification to the public. Don't sleep on this.

GET YOUR WAR ON!!!
And, now, for the lighter side of American hegemony and genocide, here's a charming little comic strip to help you keep the important things in mind. Yes, it's excessive, but boy, does it tickle my funny bone.

Sun Kings
Here's an interview that Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times conducted with James Cameron and Steven Soderbergh, the producer and director, respectively, of the film Solaris, starring George Clooney.

Favorite quote, from the King of the World himself: "Hollywood is desperate to be loved, and that desperation to be loved causes them to follow you out of the movie theater and down the hall and put a synopsis of the plot in your pocket. It's pathetic."

Now, as far as the movie itself goes, let me just say this: If you go to movies for nothing more than eye-candy and escapist entertainment that will not challenge you or your opinions of the world and yourself, Solaris is definitely not the movie for you. If, on the other hand, you are excited by stories that contemplate the very nature of love, life, reality, and God, I don't know that I can give a much stronger recommendation than this film. Beyond the fact that it's beautifully shot and performed with deep intensity, it really begs the question: just how real are the people in our lives? And, in the end, does it really matter? Do yourself a favor and see it on the big screen before it disappears.

"Feelin' Like A Space Brain"
This article from SPACE.com talks about the statistical and evolutionary probabilities necessary to spawn so-called "intelligent" life (i.e. smart enough to build a radio telescope that could be used to communicate with other entities) on another planet. Personally, I'm constantly amazed by the arrogance of certain scientists to actually assume that, in the entire universe, human beings are the only beings capable of coherent thought. I suppose it supports some more creationist-leaning theories on outer-space, but it just doesn't seem logical. The factors that are necessary for life, relative to the sheer number of stars and planets out there would seem to make it inevitable.

The Shadow King

The Shadow King
Usually, CNN contributer Mark Shields is a little too shrilled for my tastes, but I think he hits it right on the money on the absurdity of Henry Kissinger leading the independent investigation of government screw-ups pretaining to 9/11/01. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times gives a slightly more measured critique of Kissinger, but it's hard to speak softly of the man. I mean, this is the guy who advocated that the President of the United States should maintain it's own, secret intelligence unit to discredit the White House's political opponents. These so-called "Plumbers", like G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were the gentlemen responsible for the Watergate affair. And let's not even get into Christopher Hitchens' fairly convincing case that Kissinger should be indicted for war crimes in the way that he and Nixon sabotaged LBJ's peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese just so they could get elected. Does this man REALLY have the interests of the American people in his heart?

Whither the Democrats?
Here's an article from the Village Voice that contends that the Democratic Party has been in ideological retreat since the 1968 Convention, where the growing progressive, counter-culture movement, led by its principled but, ultimately flawed standard-bearer, Senator Eugene McCarthy, was crushed, literally, by the Powers That Be.
Coincidentally, this occurred a few months after Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated by lone crazy gunmen.
The author also suggests that, while the GOP has become the party of "Big Ideas", those ideas are nothing more than an opiate for the masses, while they continue to do the dirty work of the previously mentioned Powers That Be.

The Party of Apathy
Here's a fantastic article from The Atlantic monthly, that does a demographic breakdown of the 120 million people in this country (i.e. the majority of the population) who do not vote, and how the right political party can take steps to intice them to the booths. Short version: they don't vote because they're young, overworked, and feel no connection to or stake in society. Of particular note is a book mentioned in the article, The Stakeholder Society, that proposes a new Homestead Act that would give every American citizen an $80,000 loan out of the Federal coffers when they turn 21.

"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...."
Here's an interview with Bruce Jones, the current writer for The Incredible Hulk comic book, which has become a much darker, more paranoid title under his stewardship. Here, he ties the Hulk's current popularity to some broader themes about the American people and how we are beginning to see ourselves in a post 9/11/01 world.

Inching Towards the Supreme Computer
Here's an article from The New Scientist on how scientists have just successfully completed the first baby steps towards constructing a quantum computer. Just what is a quantum computer and why should you, the non-geeks, care? Well, consider this example: Theoretically speaking, if you had a multiplication table that went from 0 to 1024 on both dimensions, it would take a traditional computer over a million calculations to find all the numbers in the table. A quantum computer could find all those numbers with exactly 1 calculation. Get the picture?

New Strings Attached for the 3rd World
In a White House press briefing yesterday, Ari Fleischer announced the creation of the Millenium Challenge Corporation, a new government agency to administer the billions of additional funds that the Bush administration is now ear-marking for developing countries. The catch, of course, is that these countries are now going to compete for the money based on a score card that includes things like cleaning up corruption, commitment to democracy, "sound fiscal policy", etc.
So, there are several odd things about this: Why a new agency, when there is already one in existence that does this (the U.S. Agency for International Development)? And since when are government agencies called "corporations"? If none of the countries in a given year meet the criteria established by the corporation, what happens to the aid money ear-marked for that year? And, even more disturbing, why did I have to go to some off-brand news agency like this to get any kind of an in-depth article (not even the BBC covered this)? On the flip side, here's an editorial that suggests that, on the whole, this is a step in the right direction for the U.S. I'll remain cautiously optimistic.