Monthly Archives: November 2009

Pearl Jam with Ben Harper in Auckland, NZ, on Thanksgiving (which does not happen in New Zealand). Video to come from this amazing show.

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After their viral hit interviewing Tea Party protesters while politely revealing how little they understood the causes they claimed to support, New Left Media returns with this revealing piece speaking to Sarah Palin supporters at the book signing for Going Rogue. Here the same earnest interviewer tactfully elicits jaw-dropping failures of logic or knowledge. Good thing these people are buying books, they have some reading to do.

I cannot believe I live and drive by each of these oil wells EVERY DAY.

L.A. sits on top of the third largest oil field in the US, and oil wells are scattered covertly throughout the city – around schools, stores and homes. You would never guess this because the oil rigs are built to resemble other buildings around LA, as this creepy video reveals. When the air quality of LA is pinned to the traffic, the fact that we live on an oil field with rampant drilling should also be considered.

Really?

Sarah Palin only signs books for a half hour and people start an ad-hoc protest? It is almost as if she has attracted the kind of people who take everything as a personal offense and thrive in being outraged and make self-righteous demands under a populist pretense.

In response to his cliche-ridden piece in the Washington Post urging Obama to go on in to Afghanistan with $40B more troops (”play the hand your dealt”? This is policy? That’s not even good poker strategy), I wrote the following to columnist David S. Broder.

You oversimplify foreign policy affecting an entire region of the world’s poorest and most decimated, urging the lives of tens of thousands of Americans follow blindly into an historically unwinnable nation, because you have decided, from the outside, that Obama’s judicious decision making is itself the problem with Afghanistan?

If he were to rush into war, to find out later the country was not guilty of what he claimed, would it be okay, because he acted hastily and gave you something to write about? Would you be certain to write a column years later acknowledging if your escalation urgings were ill-fated? Or would you then be blaming Obama for something else in Afghanistan, even if he did exactly what you said he should do? Read More »

The Oscars shortlist for Documentary nominations are out. Haven’t seen nearly enough of these docs. I am impressed that sentimentality did not deliver THIS IS IT, which is an awesome doc, and could just as well get a nod for best picture, since they have 10 openings for some also-rans this year.

But CAPITALISM was also slighted, which I still haven’t seen, though I hear it’s Michael Moore’s best. His is a timely message, that I wish got more attention.

Here’s hoping the astonishing THE COVE gets its due; otherwise FOOD, INC. which explains why America is eating disgusting crap everyday.

Not satisfied with standing out on Dancing With the Stars, Donny Osmond’s continuing strides for hipness lead him to an awkward opening act audition for his Vegas show.  In this episode, comic Geoff Bolt tries to sell Donny on a ventriloquisim act, minus the actual ventriloquism.

Looking at this perception of what a black president would be like as Richard Pryor, it makes me consider: What if someday we will look back and think of Obama as mulatto, because he really wasn’t black enough?

This cartoon is so apt for me.  What kind of political leader, no less one with a brush at the presidency, could devote their time and energy to constantly blaming others for everything and playing victim?  While a new poll today says that only 28% of Americans think Sarah Palin is fit to lead, that is about the same number that still supported George W. Bush while he was running their country into the ground.  Sarah Palin has the presumption of a popular reality show contestant who has long ago assumed that the world is being delivered to her, and anything not favoring her explicitly is considered an attack, and will be maligned into a victimizing falsehood.   Read More »