A Plague On Both Your Houses

Newsroom – Good TV, Even if One-Sided

The first season of Newsroom is in the books. I musts say I loved it, primarily because the writers are so good. Sorkin’s rapid fire dialog and wit are really unmatched, certainly on television. That said, what you want to say to the whole thing after a while is “Aw come on.” The premise is good and straightforward - that news television, like all television, is run by a bunch of marketers and we would all be better served by having reporters report the news, instead of marketers feeding us the drug of "Casey Anthony Bombshell Tonight!!!" like heroin dealers. The wit and wisdom of Aaron Sorkin, unfortunately, only takes us so far. At the end we all feel like everyone does when Will McAvoy is just plain vicious and mean spirited to the black advocate for Rick Santorum on the show. The show in the end just piles onto the Tea Party without respite(not exactly a “hard” target) or counterpoint (or really give us anything else to sink our teeth into) and is just kind of nasty about it.

In truth the Newsroom, like Fox News in the real world, despite its protestations to the contrary, is only one-sidedly idealistic. McAvoy even says in the last episode that only “democrats and 'real' republicans” are smart enough to understand, implying of course that all democrats and only a very few outcast republicans are smart. The idea that tea party republicans are stupid is both demeaning and naïve. The leadership of the tea party is not stupid nor are the members. The leadership is smart and the members are pissed off for legitimate reason. The 2010 election was won by republicans (many from the tea party), not because of tea party venality, but because of democratic bullying and refusal to compromise on health care among other things. The American people were tired of Nancy and Harry running rough shod over everyone and everything simply because they could.

This is not a show about the “truth” as it purports to be, but a show about one side's view of the truth. Exactly like Fox News. The truth is that most Americans believe both the far right represented by the tea party and the republican leadership, and the far left represented by the democratic leadership, are bad for the country and Newsroom-worthy. It’s fine to report the corruption and big money behind the tea party movement, but if one is wondering about the Kochs, shouldn’t one also wonder about the sons of Richard J. Daley and the Chicago machine? I have always wondered why it isn’t news that Junior Senator Obama’s house in Chicago was partially paid for by a convicted felon who helped run the Chicago machine and why no one raises an eyebrow when Richey Daley steps down, Rahm Emmanuel goes from chief of staff at the White House to mayor of Chicago and Richey Dailey’s brother becomes chief of staff. Isn’t that something that makes somebody go “hmmmm…?” After all the Chicago machine, run for years by the Daleys, is one of the most corrupt political machines in American political history (and machine politics' last real surviving example). Just ask JFK or Richard Nixon (or just about any native Chicagoan).

This is also not a show about reality, as some reviewers would have us believe is its failure. The good thing about this show is the same as the good thing about the West Wing. It is idealistic. It is how you would wish newsrooms around the country could be run. Truth-seeking, fact based, not concerned with ratings or marketing or fluff, willing to step up against the established political and business elite including the marketing people running the companies who own the news. So it is unrealistic. That is exactly the point. So it is one sided. So what? Of course one sidedness is remediable, but I doubt Sorkin et al will remediate it. The show does what a good, in the vernacular of Sorkin, “swashbuckling” drama should do; it presents us with idealism and realizes that ideal in the fictional world. Idealism is always “unrealistic.” That’s why it’s called idealism, not realism. Mchale and McAvoy are ideals and idealists, and a lot of fun in their quirky way. And that’s what it, and they, should be – fun. Kind of like the Three Musketeers or Captain Blood. The show’s oft cited Don Quixote, which is a tale pointing out the unreality of idealism at the same time as it points to its value, is really an analogy for the show itself and less an analogy for what the characters on the show are doing.

So, in the end the show is fun, idealistic, swashbuckling and witty with good writing.  The only thing more you could want on a Sunday evening is maybe a little beating up on the other guys. They deserve it too.

The Death of Privacy

Science fiction with a smile | Salon Arts & Entertainment.

Heather Havrilesky may be writing in this article about a show on the Science Fiction Channel, but her opening paragraphs speak to the idea that privacy is dead, a current cultural phenomenon (accepted as gospel) that is, I believe, really really bad.

“Mystery is a dying art. Holding on to your secrets during the digital revolution feels as antiquated and prudish as holding on to your virginity during the sexual revolution.

Not only is trying to keep your personal life private nearly impossible, but the whole concept of being a "private person" is patently outdated. What does it even mean? Not mentioning your tubal ligation on your Facebook page? Not tweeting about your disintegrating marriage?

Nothing is confidential anymore; those who'd like to pretend otherwise are greeted with suspicion and raised hackles. In an age when "community building" seems indelibly linked to casting your secrets into an unfathomable digital void, self-censorship can strike people as downright unneighborly. Information wants to be free, and no doubt about it, it's prepared to break your kneecaps and make a run for it if necessary.”

First, the obvious flaw with the analogy (and its not a bad one) as an argument in favor of giving up your privacy is that there are many people who either died of AIDS or live with HIV who wish they had remained virgins during the sexual revolution.  There are probably a whole slew of others who wish they had (or had not) participated in the sexual revolution for a variety of reasons.  Merely having a trend is not a reason to conform to it.  Following lemmings off a cliff, no matter how many there are is not a recipe for success or survival.

Second, isn’t privacy to be valued?  Does the Big Brother of the social networking universe need to know everything?  Should everyone know everything?  Does this breed responsibility or just fear?  The problem with the cacophony of the Internet is that people might not speak for fear that what they say might not be popular.  They might not do for fear that what they do might not be favored by the loudest and most vocal.  Yet it is those who speak up, who do not fear to say the emporer has no clothes, who insist the earth is round and it revolves around the sun who may be drowned out by the masses and the lack of privacy.

As history would have it, those who berated and despised privacy, those who argued that your private thoughts and actions should be exposed (possibly to ridicule), those who live by the phrase “if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear,” are not exactly those whom I would characterize as the “good guys.”  Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Inquisition, Senator Joseph McCarthy, to name a few of the rogues gallery. 

The mob does not like privacy.  Lemmings do not like privacy.  For now, I will try to keep what I have and fight for people’s rights to have theirs. 

 

Don Imus Fired - Shame on CBS, Shame on Al Sharpton

"The message of the ongoing Imus scandal is simple: Verbal offenses against anyone, other than conservatives or Christians or Jews, will be treated as crimes, and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the judge and jury."

Before I get to the quote above, let me say that Don Imus' unrepeatable statements were rude, deplorable, outrageous, wrong, stupid, misogynistic, immature, horrific, sickening, moronic, unthinking, insensitive, racist, sexist, mean spirited and practically every other epithet you can throw at them. That he should have apologized is a given. That he should have pleaded for mercy in front of African American and women's groups is unquestioned. That everyone should object, and be outraged and call him out and call the words out and bring attention to the evil that was spewed is the American way. It is the whole point of free speech.

And that is why CBS should not have fired him. People in the media should not be fired for what they say or how they say it. I said elsewhere that is a dark alley down which we are about to descend.

Which brings me to the quote above - the quote is from Tom Delay. He is a man who's politics of extremism I abhor. And CBS and Al Sharpton have put me in his corner. If CBS is firing Don Imus why isn't ABC firing Rosie O'Donnell. She after all called Christian right wingers fascists. I don't like to be called a fascist. But then I'm Jewish so I don't like to be called a big-nosed money lender either. I once slapped somebody around for calling me a kike. But I also think the ACLU was right when they defended the Nazi's right to march in Skokie.

Where are all the free speech people now? Was the ACLU just kidding? Is it really all right to fire people for what they say on radio? On TV? Is the FCC right to censor all those vulgar words? Where's George Carlin? It appears there are more than 7 words you aren't allowed to say on radio, they've just changed. Every person who called for Don Imus to be taken off the air better watch out because Delay is revving up his big guns: "What the Left is doing is not a fluke - it's a concerted strategy. And it works. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That's why I am calling on conservatives to use the available media (radio talk shows, blogs, letters to the editor) to protest and demand that Rosie O'Donnell be kicked off The View." What are people going to say? It only counts if it is insulting? Well, what Rosie says is insulting to Christians. Its not political? So now we are only protecting political speech? Kiss freedom of artistic expression goodbye.

CBS and the people who put pressure on them have gone to that scary dark back alley, and it's already looking like the lurkers are ready to pounce.

Shame on you and damn you. You have done something very wrong and very bad for this country. I believe you have done something that could seriously damage the fabric of the first amendment.

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