"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.