Aguanegro wonders…

…about the wisdom of boycotting the ‘08 Beijing Olympics because of the PRC’s crackdown in Tibet while the United States is in the midst of two military occupations. (Oh wait, Iraq and Afghanistan are totally different from Tibet? Bullshit.) Tell Richard Gere to clean his own house before he tries to fix up someone else’s.

A timely return to the political trenches.

My first post in much time. The tables sure have turned. Barack Obama appears to have turned into the Messiah, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign looks to be in its death throes? I have a sneaky suspicion that this one needs more time.

Why? It’s not because of all the talk about split conventions or superdelegates. It’s not because the Clinton “attack machine” has yet to hit overdrive (far, far from it–do you really think the whole plagiarism thing was that bad?) or that Obama is too civilized to jump into the fray. This is Hillary Clinton we’re talking about. And her husband is Bill Clinton. Who is kidding who? She’s spent her entire life working up to this point: does anyone really think she’s going to give up before she’s exhausted all possible options?

DON’T: expect this to be over before the convention in August, barring extraordinary circumstances.

DO: get your flak jackets and protective eyewear.

DON’T:  underestimate the Clintons, even if they seem to be tottering in the wind right now.

DO: dig your foxhole and jump into it. Then pray to your gods, because this is going to be the summer of political total war.

Oh wait, maybe the Iranians aren’t the ones trying to start World War 3.

Alas, the Times does good work. Apparently, Iran isn’t pursuing nuclear weapons to destroy us, Israel and our freedom. Apparently there are times you can believe some of the things about Iran, like “civilian nuclear program” and “Iran Generally Truthful About Nukes“. I know, I’m way too cynical. But seriously, nobody could have seen this one coming. Quote of the new millennium, right here:

“In interviews on Monday, some administration officials expressed skepticism about the conclusions reached in the new report, saying they [political appointees] doubted that American intelligence agencies had a firm grasp of the Iranian government’s intentions.” Naturally, italics mine.

Turkey attacks PKK across Iraqi border

Uh-oh.

Hostage situation at Hillary Clinton’s Rochester, NH headquarters

A hostage situation is developing at Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Rochester, New Hampshire. The Edwards and Obama in the area have also been evacuated. The hostage taker is said to have a bomb duct taped to his chest. He currently has two hostages, after releasing a woman with young baby. Here are some links:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043358/

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.office/index.html

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/hostage-situation-at-clinton-office-in-nh/?hp

Who yearns for mainstream music? Viva la long tail.

I hate hearing critics ragging on the proliferation of niche musical genres, like David Brooks did today in his column. He’s nostalgic for the 1970s, which “…were a great moment for musical integration. Artists like the Rolling Stones and Springsteen drew on a range of musical influences and produced songs that might be country-influenced, soul-influenced, blues-influenced or a combination of all three. These mega-groups attracted gigantic followings and can still fill huge arenas.”

He goes on to say that were a group like the Rolling Stones to become popular today, they wouldn’t get enough commercial airtime because, as Steven Van Zandt says, “…there is no broadcast vehicle for all-purpose rock.”

Actually, if a band like the Rolling Stones were to become popular today, they wouldn’t get enough airtime because the actual Rolling Stones have been stealing it all for the last thirty years, along with the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, and other “all-purpose rock” groups.

The difference between now and the 1970s is that bands don’t have to sign with a major record label in order to make an album. You can record and produce an album for a fraction, literally a fraction, of what it cost thirty years ago. The result is that artists aren’t forced to soften, censor, or mediocre-ize their sound or lyrics to fit with generic, mainstream radio formats.

Brooks seems to think it’s better to dedicate the majority of airtime to the same “mega-hit” rock groups, rather than splitting it up between lots of more varied, original, and creative artists. His theory is that these hugely popular groups that draw “…on a range of musical influences” build cultural cohesion and bring people together. It’s funny, however, that all of the mega-hit artists he lists in his column-The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, U2-are white groups that borrowed from African-American music and who generally market to the white, middle-class demographic. I think we need a more varied repertoire.

The only artists that come close to filling “huge arenas” on par with Bruce or the Stones is your Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, or Beyonce.

And they’re all talented. But are they really the only ones that should dominate the airwaves?

Bill prefers briefs. Hillary prefers both diamonds AND pearls. CNN considers itself a news agency.

Deja vu. The heat on Hillary Clinton is building. Every move her campaign’s made over the past few weeks has been ridiculed, slandered, and scrutinized by every reporter, pundit, and blogger under the sun.

Most recently we saw “DiamondsorPearlsGate” at the Democratic debate on November 15. This is one of the more interesting events in the primary season to date, for a couple of reasons.

We had the Clinton campaign threatening that Blitzer better not “Pull a Russert” at the debate. Blitzer claimed he was not pressured by anybody to act one way or another at the debate, but who knows. What should be a flashing red light that the Clinton’s people probably did exert some kind of pressure him is the fact that the campaign came out and congratulated Blitzer for doing such an “outstanding” job.

Now, down to the issue. Clinton was asked by an audience member whether she preferred diamonds or pearls. She rolled with it and said she likes both. A softball question, without a doubt. What makes it interesting is that Bill Clinton was asked a question along the same lines during the MTV “Rock the Vote” campaign in 1992: “Boxers or briefs?”

Here’s the problem. Clearly, CNN was not unaware of the dramatic symmetry between the questions and the two Clintons, separated by 15 years. They had to be aware of what they were doing, there’s simply too much staging that goes on for it to be a theatrical coincidence.

But when it happened in 1992 it was on MTV. CNN is now taking journalistic cues from MTV? A so-called “trusted” television news outlet is mimicking the network that produces Laguna Beach?

A softball question in response to “pressure” from the Clinton campaign? Maybe.

A PR stunt? Yup.

Bad journalism? Absolutely.

It reminds me of the time when Jon Stewart went on CNN’s Crossfire, and thrashed Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for being the political hacks that that are, and for “hurting America”. It’s one of my fondest and proudest moments in television history. It shook up the CNN producers quite a bit, and eventually lead to the show’s cancellation. The best part about the interview was the mere fact that at one point, the Crossfire hosts, who are supposed to be the “real” journalists, grilled the guy on a Comedy Central show about why he, the comedian, wasn’t asking the guests on his show tougher questions.

Such astounding irony only reveals itself in such humorous ways once in a blue moon.

Stop the presses!

What is this? An Associated Press article titled “IAEA: Iran Generally Truthful on Nukes“? This should finally prove to Bush and the United States, Israel, France…maybe not. Why is it that policies are dictated by the talking heads, columnists, and “faith-based” (As Scott Ridder calls them) analysts, rather than by the people who use evidence and reporting? It’s too bad the IAEA is completely disregarded by almost all of the important players in this situation. They’re doing their job (and quite well apparently) just like they did in Iraq before the war, yet still no one believes them because the agency isn’t finding any of the things in Iran that we’ve been imagining.

The AP actually made a little slip up in its headline. The story is about how Iran has been honest about its nuclear program, which it has always states as being for peaceful purposes. The AP headline ignores this fact and automatically jumps to the “they’re building nukes” frame of mind.

Although the link above leads to the New York Times, I’m almost positive the headline comes from the AP newsire. If you google the headline, you’ll see that it’s nearly identical on all the other news sites except for USATODAY, which changed “nukes” to “nuke history”.

Shoot the copy editor.

From Friedman’s column titled “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda”:

“We simply cannot go on being as dumb as we wanna be. “

Since the world has become so flat, Friedman is apparently abandoning all those “grammar 1.0″ rules (you know, like in the New  York Times stylebook) and embracing the more hip, internet-friendly, and “2.0″ contractions like “coulda, woulda, shoulda, and wanna.”

Yes, it’s true I’m reading his column on the internet, not in print. And I don’t have a problem with altered grammar rules when it makes reading content/hypertext on the internet easier (see, I just used the altered rules with that “/”).  But the New York Times is not a blog or a website. It has a website and blogs, but it is a newspaper. Therefore  Friedman and his copy editor should stick to newspaper-style rules.

I’m actually not opposed to the title, “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda” since it’s a popular phrase and retaining the colloquial form adds to the article’s color and readability. There are always exceptions to the rule The “wanna”, however, in “We simply cannot go on being as dumb as we wanna be” is simply horrible. The Times simply cannot go on being dumb enough to let allow one of its worst columnists to destroy the paper’s integrity any further than it already has on its own.

I should also mention that even if we disregard the “wanna”, it’s a horrible sentence to begin with. It appears that bad writers beget bad grammar. I pray that this is just a slip up and that it’s the editor’s fault. But if this becomes standard practice at the Times…I don’t know. It’ll just sink the paper a little bit further down the slope of credibility.

Follow up: Hillary Clinton and question planting.

This question planting “goof” may be turning into a mini-scandal (Here are links to part 1 and part 2). CNN sat down for an interview with Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, the college student who first brought to light Hillary Clinton’s preference to only give answers to questions she knows beforehand.

Yes, everybody does it. Political campaigns are fanatical, psychotic PR micro-managers that grow stronger in the soft glow of prime-time television and softball questions about the “issues.” Yes, they’re targeting Hillary Clinton because she’s Hillary Clinton.

But maybe the incident will signal to others who’ve seen question planting during the Obama, Edwards, Thompson, or Giuliani campaigns to blow the whistle and come forward. And that just might force these political campaigns to be a little more honest, and the candidates to be a little more candid with their answers.

Then again, it could all backfire, and the campaigns will just become more secretive and shady. Who knows.