-
Their is such a gross through-line of disconnect from the working/middle working class in these profiles, it really sickens me. Such an achingly ingracious acknowledgment of the disparity, in human terms, between the banker and the doctor. Interesting that the there was no mention, in any empathetic way, of the effect that this homophilic culture's self-interest had and still has on the 401Ks of normal working Americans, who are merely trying to, and excuse the mundane humility of it all, earn a living and carve out an education and a somewhat improved future outlook for their family. We hear again and again, keep the government's hands off my money! Well how about this: keep Wall Street's hands off my money. Hmmm...how would that privatization of Social Security have worked out, do you think? These fund managers and brokers are bright people who are not, I hasten to point out, blinded enough by the context of their own uber-cultural environment to not be aware of the ramifications in HUMAN TERMS to the type of folks with whom most of them, I suspect, would squirm if expected to spend longer than 5 minutes at a Thanksgiving table. They were irresponsible and the consequences of their actions reached far and wide. I feel absolutely no sorrow for their plight, especially in light of the fact that they were rescued by the tax dollars of those very same folks that will never register on their moral radar screens. It makes my skin crawl.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
RePost From Comments on Fox
Fox may be the most watched by, and therefore, "trusted" source, an ironic and elastic term in this day and age, but this is due largely to the demographic of it's viewing audience, which ranges from the minimally to marginally educated shallow thinkers, to the educated and accomplished status-quo, "I've got mine and got over" capitalist conservatives who endorse and support the effective way with which this shrill rhetoric maintains that status quo in a time when they are threatened by a liberal administration.
The trajectory of the Fox agenda originates from a sensational, disingenuous source and I have a difficult time separating the political agenda from the commercial one, and wonder if even those folks purveying the programming can discern where the motive meets and greets the merchandise. They most certainly win the "who's most vocal" contest within the broadcast media, and therefore, the most heard, but the caveat there should be "by whom".
As kids, when we would hear something outrageous, offensive or incredible, my father would mollify us with the instruction to "consider the source". We should be able to do that on our own, as sentient, thinking adults, without someone prompting us to while then providing us with thoughts for our heads and words for our mouths. In this day and age, so much information is available to us, yet we've allowed the bullies to rule the schoolyard. It's unfortunate, for the common folks--and by that I mean most of us--that, so far during this administration, we've failed to maintain that same bombastic and resolute tone while helping to push through reasonable, thoughtful reform. It's given me a wimpy feeling. I have high hopes that President Obama will redirect a purposeful agenda with his address tonight.
Our leaders on the left are guilty of corporate cowtowing in the name of concensus, while we the people put up with the Fox-generated haranguing of the right who have successfully sold the scenario of "behind-closed-doors" opaque wheeling and dealing to an angry and hurting populace many of whom are unrealistically looking for overnight redemption. Fox has successfully manufactured a "failed President", who has been in office one mere year. It's time for a lazy electorate to wake up and not stand for this hijack job.
We must maintain the message and push through reason with informed clarity. The bailout needs to be sold again. Jobs need to be created NOW. Reform must continue. With that, perhaps we would not be so eager to have our heads turned by the Fox bullies of the world. In the meantime, folks need to READ MORE and LISTEN LESS.
I firmly request that TVs which are tuned to FoxNews in public places be switched to something else, or demand a good reason why they are tuned to Fox. If they refuse, I follow through on my threat to not patronize their business. This was more difficult recently when my wife and I had a medical emergency. Our Fairfax Hospital had Glen Beck on Fox playing on BOTH its TVs in the ER waiting room. I looked around and no one in the burgeoning room appeared to be watching or even interested. I requested that they change the channel to something more "neutral". The Discovery, Weather or ESPN channels seem to be palatable alternatives.
The trajectory of the Fox agenda originates from a sensational, disingenuous source and I have a difficult time separating the political agenda from the commercial one, and wonder if even those folks purveying the programming can discern where the motive meets and greets the merchandise. They most certainly win the "who's most vocal" contest within the broadcast media, and therefore, the most heard, but the caveat there should be "by whom".
As kids, when we would hear something outrageous, offensive or incredible, my father would mollify us with the instruction to "consider the source". We should be able to do that on our own, as sentient, thinking adults, without someone prompting us to while then providing us with thoughts for our heads and words for our mouths. In this day and age, so much information is available to us, yet we've allowed the bullies to rule the schoolyard. It's unfortunate, for the common folks--and by that I mean most of us--that, so far during this administration, we've failed to maintain that same bombastic and resolute tone while helping to push through reasonable, thoughtful reform. It's given me a wimpy feeling. I have high hopes that President Obama will redirect a purposeful agenda with his address tonight.
Our leaders on the left are guilty of corporate cowtowing in the name of concensus, while we the people put up with the Fox-generated haranguing of the right who have successfully sold the scenario of "behind-closed-doors" opaque wheeling and dealing to an angry and hurting populace many of whom are unrealistically looking for overnight redemption. Fox has successfully manufactured a "failed President", who has been in office one mere year. It's time for a lazy electorate to wake up and not stand for this hijack job.
We must maintain the message and push through reason with informed clarity. The bailout needs to be sold again. Jobs need to be created NOW. Reform must continue. With that, perhaps we would not be so eager to have our heads turned by the Fox bullies of the world. In the meantime, folks need to READ MORE and LISTEN LESS.
I firmly request that TVs which are tuned to FoxNews in public places be switched to something else, or demand a good reason why they are tuned to Fox. If they refuse, I follow through on my threat to not patronize their business. This was more difficult recently when my wife and I had a medical emergency. Our Fairfax Hospital had Glen Beck on Fox playing on BOTH its TVs in the ER waiting room. I looked around and no one in the burgeoning room appeared to be watching or even interested. I requested that they change the channel to something more "neutral". The Discovery, Weather or ESPN channels seem to be palatable alternatives.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Writing my Congressman
Most Honorable Representative Wolf~
As your constituent, I'm writing to tell you why I'm such a strong supporter of health reform.
Other than for the obvious reasons, which you may deem ideological, I feel that more and more affordable health care for all is something toward which our country should begin to make adjustments in order to move away from where she is at present: on the wrong side of history.
We have a chance to show the world (albeit in an incremental deliberate fashion which, let's be honest, is the manner in which a process of hammering out and implementing any major reform bill has been and will undoubtedly continue to be) that we have the GUTS to do what's right and good for EACH CITIZEN within our union.
Some recent Republican administrative policies, and/or the insufficient oversight of their functions, resulted in a near total crash of our economy. To cite cost as a prohibitive factor for the progress of health care reform is not acceptable to many a discerning mind. The recent CBO figures clearly place this bill's cost well within the realm of plausible consideration, even with the added caveats and potential yet to be encountered real aspects.
The specter of unknown future realities was not so intimidating when ramping up for our long-lasting and ongoing involvement in two major mid-east wars, why is it now such a confounding and looming factor coloring the issue of nominal health and welfare for our fellow American men, women and children?
Congressman Wolf, the campaigns of rhetoric and disinformation (chronically issued from both sides of the aisle) should now be abandoned in the interest of BEGINNING real reform. It bears reiteration that when intransigence gives way to cooperation, progress can be made. History has proven it repeatedly.
There are other potential benefits awaiting a thoughtful and progressive effort toward this end. Our own foreign policy might also gain more gravitas, respect and additional traction with a show of codified compassion within our own government for our own people. The citizens of foreign lands were encouraged by the election of our president, for it exhibited an optimism and faith in the achievable--this in the face of discouraging, even terrifying, circumstances.
We have a chance to re-bolster that faith in the U.S. by those abroad with a show of unified concern for making the common welfare of the citizens of our country a national priority. After all (and this is embarrassing for some), we are one of the last--if not the absolute last--industrialized nation NOT providing health care for all its citizens.
Our President has been, and surely will continue to be, pragmatic in his assessment of what is attainable through bipartisan efforts, including dialogue, compromise, and innovation. To aid in, not obstruct, this process would be a great credit to anyone who nobly believes that real improvement is possible.
I feel that a NO vote--the only rationale for which is to "start all over"--is tantamount to "throwing in the towel", and doing so for all the wrong reasons. Documented voting records and the historically verifiable paucity of any Republican initiated program for the reforming and restructuring of a clearly out of control health care cost system (please, the numbers don't lie) would clearly reveal that a NO vote, at this point, would be a vote devoid of any hopeful or positive essence on this most basic human issue.
I have great pride in the courage and can-do spirit residing in the collective soul of our great nation, but I also feel that a defeat of this bill would, at worst, show to the rest of the world a critically fractured country with diluted morals and compromised principles. At best, we spotlight a reeling law making body with a profoundly flawed legislative process.
We all know that "starting over" would push this issue well down the road, and many folks--good hard working folks and families--are now running into, or are rapidly and imminently approaching, a cold, hard and hopeless dead end right now.
Your positive approach to this most profound issue would be most admirable, and a YES vote would hold many gains for you and your constituents within the ranks of the working middle class. It would be the right thing to do, for all the right reasons.
I thank you most kindly.
Sincerely Yours~
~Jonathan Carroll
As your constituent, I'm writing to tell you why I'm such a strong supporter of health reform.
Other than for the obvious reasons, which you may deem ideological, I feel that more and more affordable health care for all is something toward which our country should begin to make adjustments in order to move away from where she is at present: on the wrong side of history.
We have a chance to show the world (albeit in an incremental deliberate fashion which, let's be honest, is the manner in which a process of hammering out and implementing any major reform bill has been and will undoubtedly continue to be) that we have the GUTS to do what's right and good for EACH CITIZEN within our union.
Some recent Republican administrative policies, and/or the insufficient oversight of their functions, resulted in a near total crash of our economy. To cite cost as a prohibitive factor for the progress of health care reform is not acceptable to many a discerning mind. The recent CBO figures clearly place this bill's cost well within the realm of plausible consideration, even with the added caveats and potential yet to be encountered real aspects.
The specter of unknown future realities was not so intimidating when ramping up for our long-lasting and ongoing involvement in two major mid-east wars, why is it now such a confounding and looming factor coloring the issue of nominal health and welfare for our fellow American men, women and children?
Congressman Wolf, the campaigns of rhetoric and disinformation (chronically issued from both sides of the aisle) should now be abandoned in the interest of BEGINNING real reform. It bears reiteration that when intransigence gives way to cooperation, progress can be made. History has proven it repeatedly.
There are other potential benefits awaiting a thoughtful and progressive effort toward this end. Our own foreign policy might also gain more gravitas, respect and additional traction with a show of codified compassion within our own government for our own people. The citizens of foreign lands were encouraged by the election of our president, for it exhibited an optimism and faith in the achievable--this in the face of discouraging, even terrifying, circumstances.
We have a chance to re-bolster that faith in the U.S. by those abroad with a show of unified concern for making the common welfare of the citizens of our country a national priority. After all (and this is embarrassing for some), we are one of the last--if not the absolute last--industrialized nation NOT providing health care for all its citizens.
Our President has been, and surely will continue to be, pragmatic in his assessment of what is attainable through bipartisan efforts, including dialogue, compromise, and innovation. To aid in, not obstruct, this process would be a great credit to anyone who nobly believes that real improvement is possible.
I feel that a NO vote--the only rationale for which is to "start all over"--is tantamount to "throwing in the towel", and doing so for all the wrong reasons. Documented voting records and the historically verifiable paucity of any Republican initiated program for the reforming and restructuring of a clearly out of control health care cost system (please, the numbers don't lie) would clearly reveal that a NO vote, at this point, would be a vote devoid of any hopeful or positive essence on this most basic human issue.
I have great pride in the courage and can-do spirit residing in the collective soul of our great nation, but I also feel that a defeat of this bill would, at worst, show to the rest of the world a critically fractured country with diluted morals and compromised principles. At best, we spotlight a reeling law making body with a profoundly flawed legislative process.
We all know that "starting over" would push this issue well down the road, and many folks--good hard working folks and families--are now running into, or are rapidly and imminently approaching, a cold, hard and hopeless dead end right now.
Your positive approach to this most profound issue would be most admirable, and a YES vote would hold many gains for you and your constituents within the ranks of the working middle class. It would be the right thing to do, for all the right reasons.
I thank you most kindly.
Sincerely Yours~
~Jonathan Carroll
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Winter
Winter sucks.
Fuckabunchowinter.
Think about it, and you might rationalize it away: you've a bad attitude, a lack of tolerance or sport any one of the multitude of less than admirable examples of spiritual or constitutional shortcomings.
Which are easy to have, even for the saintly, who can blessedly manage somehow to find this sort of spicy dicey hardship somehow perversely salubrious or rudely character building.
Because in winter there is no color, save for grey, white, brown that crackles and jags and stings if you rub into it, slip over it, fall hard onto it, at any odd or unfortunate careening angle.
When the sky is not overcast, rendering all that's above, beneath, within and without into a bone zinging shaley metallic pale, still and bemoaning the impending and too early jointly mortis worthy of an octagenarian (reminders, unto themselves and all youngers that yes, this will only grow ever worse and worse and worse as life cycles and rolls creaking and shuddering through the sadistic changing of the seasons until all stiffened frames succomb to rest finally in this cold...hard...earth, forever), when the sun manages to shine (usually during a resident high pressure system..tauted by the insideously upbeat and agitpropped weatherwonks and meteorlogical lizzies---"isn't this glorious?"), it is replete with clear, cold, brisk and brash air that brings blood to your tissue quicker than you can stuff vaseline into and around your poor reddened toward raw nostrils.
Winter sucks.
Fuckabunchowinter.
And that's during a nice dry spell.
When on-high mare's tails auger the approach of a gloom-seething low-pressure system, we're faced with the prospect of either a lucid and drizzly cascading cold--that will permeate every fabric, invade every cranny, and angle for each and every orifice. That or sleet, snow, or maybe merely that no-nonsense falling ice itself. Sometimes the shiverish rain falls like chilled water onto a sub-freezing surface, for that wonderfully vacuum sealed layer of Zamboni-ice on which not even a penguin can gain nominal purchase. Good luck there, granny.
Sometimes--most times lately, the deluge is delivered in the form...of...(big NASA-looking ski gloves on now, please) snow...flurries, dusting, 1 to 20, who in hell really knows...
...and that is something that truly challenges even the most stout-hearted and broadly-backed bubbas of our species. More on that later, apparently.
More to follow, indeed.
Winter sucks.
Fuckabunchowinter.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Taylor Swift's Live Intonation Problems
Article in The Tennessean
Everyone and anyone is liable and likely to be challenged with endemic obstacles in any live performance arena, be it musical or otherwise. I'm concerned that the younger generations are coming up not only to accept remedial technology as part of the process, but to expect it as a safety net, even in a live situation.
Ms.Swift certainly appeared to not have a firm foundation on which to stand in the face of what may have been an in-ear (a relatively new technology) monitor discrepancy. If she were more experienced, and indeed experiencing a malfunction, we might have seen her take one of the plugs out, to enable herself to hear the live room. There are many variables minded by numerous operators that may have been askew.
If one views and listens to video of early Rock-n-Roll/Soul performances, you'll see that many of those fine singers had NO monitors whatsoever--in-ear, speaker wedge, anything. They were in the moment, on the stage, nothing but a microphone between they and the audience. In other words, delivering the truth--on their own. Every now and then, you'll see a finger in an ear, the original tactic to hear one's own pitch. They knew what the score was, and they were players, even on a rough night. Ms. Swift was relying on an external.
Today's technology has enabled singers with noticeably limited skills (and, hey--it's only Rock-n-Roll, its a widely forgiving genre) to make commercially successful products. Nothing new, but every now and then the clueless and helpless factor seems embarrassingly in evidence.
To blame the audience and indict them for being discerning is absurd, insulting, really. No technology can mask this empty and baseless defense.
Everyone and anyone is liable and likely to be challenged with endemic obstacles in any live performance arena, be it musical or otherwise. I'm concerned that the younger generations are coming up not only to accept remedial technology as part of the process, but to expect it as a safety net, even in a live situation.
Ms.Swift certainly appeared to not have a firm foundation on which to stand in the face of what may have been an in-ear (a relatively new technology) monitor discrepancy. If she were more experienced, and indeed experiencing a malfunction, we might have seen her take one of the plugs out, to enable herself to hear the live room. There are many variables minded by numerous operators that may have been askew.
If one views and listens to video of early Rock-n-Roll/Soul performances, you'll see that many of those fine singers had NO monitors whatsoever--in-ear, speaker wedge, anything. They were in the moment, on the stage, nothing but a microphone between they and the audience. In other words, delivering the truth--on their own. Every now and then, you'll see a finger in an ear, the original tactic to hear one's own pitch. They knew what the score was, and they were players, even on a rough night. Ms. Swift was relying on an external.
Today's technology has enabled singers with noticeably limited skills (and, hey--it's only Rock-n-Roll, its a widely forgiving genre) to make commercially successful products. Nothing new, but every now and then the clueless and helpless factor seems embarrassingly in evidence.
To blame the audience and indict them for being discerning is absurd, insulting, really. No technology can mask this empty and baseless defense.
Friday, February 5, 2010
On Music In Film
Film is an abundant, multitudinous art form which contains, in discrete and discerning fashion ALL art forms. In this respect, the layers and routings of narrative structure have all expressive art forms as realms unto the realm of an emotional, spiritual, political, resolute human statement. That, of course, in the director's idiom to achieve the efficient end of purposeful, resonant and effective storytelling. All comprising elements, including music, and choices therein should be deliberate and poised to contribute to the story beats, and the larger arching phrase, with flexibility to accommodate emerging discoveries and remedy potential obstacles along the way. As a composer, I prefer a collaboration that starts before anything is seen or heard, to discuss tone, tilt and comparative reference works. As with all collaborative projects, each project progresses in its own distinctive, and ultimately unique fashion. Music and sound design, as one of these many elements, its presence or absence, tone, mood, texture and its place in the aural mix is as crucial and important as any other in the long list of artful aspects that comprise the whole work. I do believe, as an aside, that storytelling in film is, first and foremost, a visual medium. Many endemic decisions are simple ones in light (!) of that fact.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Palin More Qualified For....
A new survey for a liberal website shows GOPers overwhelmingly believe ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is more qualified to serve in the WH than Pres. Obama.
More than half, 53%, say Palin is more qualified than Obama, while 14% say she is not. Meanwhile, 63% of self-identified GOPers say Obama is a socialist.
The poll, conducted by Research 2000 for the liberal DailyKos website among 2,003 self-ID'd GOPers between Jan. 20-31, is clearly intended to embarrass the party. It surveys GOPers on questions about Obama's birthplace (36% do not believe he was born in the US, while 42% think he was) and whether ACORN stole the '08 elections (21% think they did, 24% say otherwise).
39% of GOPers, a plurality, think Pres. Obama should be impeached, while 32% say he should not be. And 31% of GOPers say Obama is a racist. In most questions, Southerners choose the anti-Obama side in higher proportions than those from other regions in the country.
Palin leads the pack among possible WH contenders, according to the Kos poll, though not by much. She scored 16% of the vote if a GOP primary were held today, leading ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (11%), ex-VP Dick Cheney (10%), ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (7%) and ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee (7%).
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) scored 3%, while Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) both won 2% of the vote. 42% say they remain undecided.
The poll had a margin of error of +/- 2%.
More than half, 53%, say Palin is more qualified than Obama, while 14% say she is not. Meanwhile, 63% of self-identified GOPers say Obama is a socialist.
The poll, conducted by Research 2000 for the liberal DailyKos website among 2,003 self-ID'd GOPers between Jan. 20-31, is clearly intended to embarrass the party. It surveys GOPers on questions about Obama's birthplace (36% do not believe he was born in the US, while 42% think he was) and whether ACORN stole the '08 elections (21% think they did, 24% say otherwise).
39% of GOPers, a plurality, think Pres. Obama should be impeached, while 32% say he should not be. And 31% of GOPers say Obama is a racist. In most questions, Southerners choose the anti-Obama side in higher proportions than those from other regions in the country.
Palin leads the pack among possible WH contenders, according to the Kos poll, though not by much. She scored 16% of the vote if a GOP primary were held today, leading ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (11%), ex-VP Dick Cheney (10%), ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (7%) and ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee (7%).
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) scored 3%, while Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) both won 2% of the vote. 42% say they remain undecided.
The poll had a margin of error of +/- 2%.
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I have accepted the extreme and vociferous right as absurdist-politik. There is no realm within which to constructively co-exist.
It's worth pointing out that this isn't an altogether new dynamic phenomenon in American politics, but at present, the political wing of the Republican Party is adrift. This just may be the GOP's opportunistic smoke-screen of populist rabble-rousing implementing the low-brow cult of personality at their disposal at the moment with Ms.Palin. The sad and sick part of the equation is our nation's ship is also adrift, with much threatening our economic stability, and the Right is posturing as resolute future-workers while the dollars, from a trickle to an ever corrading stream, continue to migrate upward and away from the broad majority of Americans.
China has already achieved status as the premier manufacturer of solar and wind energy hardware while we continue to "make history". And what does the GOP have to say about that? Not much, save for maybe "drill, baby, drill", but I'd bet that they're privately investing heavily in the meantime before China calls in the balance of our national debt. All the while, drilling away, hollowing out the American middle-class from the inside.
~JC