All over the United States taxpayer funded public schools are teaching this little lesson? It’s from a documentary, The Story of Stuff, and it’s about how the developed world, especially America, destroys everything it touches to make stuff no one needs and then dumps it and kills all the animals. 

We’ll start with extraction which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation which is a fancy word for trashing the planet. What this looks like is we chop down trees, we blow up mountains to get the metals inside, we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals. — The Story of Stuff  

This and other ‘teachable moments’ are being brought to a classroom near you by The Story of Stuff. According to the New York Times it has been watched by over 7 million children in the US. Annie Leonard, the filmmaker, says she spent 10 years traveling the globe collecting the information contained in the 20-minute film.  (more…)

No one should take any pleasure when someone else loses their job (Dan Rather being the exception), not even elitist, left-wing newspaper critics. At one time or another, most of us have had the employment rug pulled out from under us. It’s a traumatic experience to say the least, one that transcends politics. We all have a monthly nut to crack and a family to support. That said…

I’ll tell you what I could do without, though: all the self-important lamenting that spreads throughout the critical community each and every time another critic loses his or her job. When Todd McCarthy was let go at Variety, if you didn’t know any better you would have thought the Pope died. And now that “At the Movies,” or whatever they were calling it this year, has been put down, we get 1600+ words from one of the show’s co-hosts, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott.  

He asks himself (and us): Is criticism still important? Do critics still matter? Does anyone care? Should they care? But the fact that Scott spends 1600+ words in the New York Times asking those questions makes them all but rhetorical. Oddly, most of the blame seems to be directed at the Internet as though it’s impossible for writers to find success and a living online. (more…)

L. Arnold Weissberger!

I am very proud to say that he had been the first and unquestionably finest “representative” within my entire career.

I hesitate to use the title of his profession … lawyer … since, indeed, its implications are, and just by mentioning the word, not what I’m here to convey.

Since I’m in retirement from the theatrical, film and television careers I did have, I can speak quite categorically and with my own, aging and well-earned crankiness.

I am known as “Grumpy Grampy” to my grandchildren.

There aren’t really many things in my professional life that were ever quite as clear as Arnold Weissberger’s nobility.

At his memorial service, with shining new lights of talent and legendary mountains of genius such as Meryl Streep and Orson Welles in attendance, I had the opportunity to quietly “stick it” to some of the superstars there by saying that I had met many great artists in my life but very few great men and women. (more…)

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times, and I’m probably in on the scam with you – or I am a fool.

James Cameron’s next project may well be a film about Hiroshima.  Sure, after the powerful show of solidarity he gave to our troops in the largely Oscar-free Avatar, you are probably thinking, “Hey, this will be a fair-minded project that shows that dropping the A-Bomb on Japan was a tough but necessary decision which ended up saving hundreds of thousands of American lives – and probably millions of Japanese.”

Pellegrino and Cameron

Surprise!  Instead, it promises to not only be another round of America-bashing but, moreover, one based on the work of a gentleman with a demonstrated track record of fraud and distortion.  Cameron’s long-time pal, Dr. Charles Pellegrino, wrote The Last Train from Hiroshima, the book that Cameron wants to turn into a movie.  It’s a shattering tale of horror told in part from the point of view of an American flyer who deeply regrets his participation.  There’s just one little problem with this important new addition to the historical canon – it seems to have been largely made up by the good doctor.  But, of course, Cameron would not be the King of the World if he let a little thing like rampant fraud get in the way of some gratuitous America-bashing.

So who is Charles Pellegrino - and I use the title “Doctor” here loosely, since this clown’s academic credentials are on par with Dr. Dre’s?   Well, for one thing he does not appear to be a PhD holder from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, as he has claimed.  At least, that was the finding of a reporter from The Telegraph.  Those wacky Brit newspapers and their reporters – going out and actually investigating and reporting instead of acting as unofficial stenographers for their favorite leftist subjects can turn up the darndest things!   (more…)

If you ever need to a definition for “loser,” in just two simple words, I’ve got it.

Howell Raines.

If the name doesn’t strike you as familiar, congratulations – you’re one of the many billions of people who never read the New York Times as Raines’s arrogant incompetence steadily drove it into a ditch.

In this Sunday’s Washington Post, Friday, Raines writes a sweaty editorial, lamenting the evil that is Fox News. Probably scribbling from the Unabomber’s abandoned cabin, Raines sputters like the engine of a troubled Prius, spewing…

“For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party.”

He then blames part of this on the “collapse of print newspapers,” something he was responsible for, as he turned the Times into a punchline of plagiarism. Raines resigned, inevitably, because he was more interested in advocacy, than accuracy. (more…)

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Some highlights form today’s must read article on Oliver Stone’s new Showtime project from the Hollywood Reporter’s Live Feed:

Director Oliver Stone’s upcoming Showtime documentary miniseries “Secret History of America” promises to put mass murderers such as Stalin and Hitler “in context.”

“Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena.

“Stalin has a complete other story,” Stone said. “Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’ Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He’s the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect … People in America don’t know the connection between WWI and WWII … I’ve been able to walk in Stalin’s shoes and Hitler’s shoes to understand their point of view. We’re going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated.” (more…)

Anyone who has formally studied film certainly knows Robin Wood, who was a pioneer of the academic study of film as we know it.  One of his most famous essays, “Ideology, Genre, Auteur,” is one of the most important and influential essays in modern film theory.  In it, Wood provides a bridge between auteur theory (director is author of film and drives its content) and genre theory (genre characteristics drive film’s content) in a way that doesn’t try to disprove the other (which many theorists tried to do).  Wood lays out a good approach to both theories:

“One of the greatest obstacles to any fruitful genre is to treat the genres as discrete. An ideological approach might suggest why they can’t be, however hard they may appear to try: at best, they represent different strategies for dealing with the same ideological tensions.”

He provided a deep understanding for each school of thought and put them together in a way that continues to help students of the discipline over thirty years later. A good overview of his life and work can be read in this recent New York Times post. (more…)

“Even World War II is cast as a false model for American military domination.”

Los Angeles Times:

“Class division is a drumbeat throughout “The People Speak,” which is a primer of liberal ideology with a decided bent toward socialism; no one’s reading a few rousing passages of Ayn Rand’s, for instance. The letters and journals and speeches selected cover the American timeline, from the abolitionists through AIDS activists, but the theme of personal and political enfranchisement, tolerance, peace and American humility is the consistent theme. Equal rights, protection of workers, protection of children, even rent control are celebrated while concepts such as patriotism — the last refuge of scoundrels, according to pacifist and anarchist Emma Goldman — and national security are portrayed as the whip and cattle prod used by the power elite. Even World War II is cast as a false model for American military domination.”

At the UCLA event, producer Chris Moore said something about “The People Speak” being “two hours of anti-WWII programming.” (more…)

So while Copenhagen airport expects up to 140 extra private jets during the Climate Change summit, everyone else in the eye of the global warming storm is circling their solar-powered wagons.

Predictably, New York Times says those Climategate emails reveal nothing more than the pettiness of a few scientists – and in no way undermines global warming science. Meanwhile, The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that greenhouse gases are endangering people’s health, making way for the Obama administration to enact regulation without congressional action. And no surprise, both Robert Gibbs and the chair of the IPCC dismissed the Climategate scandal as no big deal.

Oh look – Here’s some tape of all delegates arriving.

Oh, how the planet weeps! (more…)

In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks described a 1975 Bruce Springsteen concert as the start of his “other education,” not the intellectual one from schooling but the “emotional education” from the popular culture. 

Brooks is a superstar pundit.  A featured journalist at The Weekly Standard, in 2000 Brooks was author of “Bobos in Paradise,” a smart look at “bourgeois bohemians,” the educated, “counterculture” crowd that had become America’s new blue state power elite.  Brooks went on to occupy the house conservative Op Ed position at the liberal mainstay New York Times and the equivalent chair on PBS NewsHour’s version of crossfire, with ever-apologetic Brooks pitted against the always garrulous lefty Mark Shields.  These two roles established Brooks as the left’s favorite conservative, a position he solidified as one of the Obamacons, prominent conservatives who supported Obama, believing him to be a moderate centrist, or in Brooks’ case, even a closet Burkean conservative. 

Last week Brooks went with his 15-year-old daughter to see a Springsteen concert in Baltimore and witnessed her joyous astonishment.  Her arrival at utter abandon echoed the exhilaration, the emotional learning, Springsteen had long ago imparted to Brooks, the depiction of a world of “teenage couples out on a desperate lark, workers struggling as the mills close down, and drifters on the wrong side of the law,” tales told with a jolt for “10,000 people in a state of utter abandon.”   

Brooks fondly describes the artistry and stories of Springsteen’s universe, “a distinct map of reality” seen on an epic and anthemic scale, in which “losers” always retain dignity and their choices have immense moral consequences, with emotions like stoicism, seen through veils of exaltation and nostalgia.  (more…)

16 November 2009

When New York Times journalist David Rohde was kidnapped last year in Afghanistan, the company engaged in a painstaking effort to squash the story. They succeeded in persuading major media who learned of the kidnapping to keep quiet. The cover-up was so good that a New York Times reporter I spoke with in December 2008, while she and I joined Secretary Gates on a trip through Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq and back to the United States, had not heard about the David Rohde kidnapping.

The New York Times openly agrees that publishing such articles increases the peril to the lives of hostages, yet it published details about a British couple being held hostage in Somalia, and thus increased the value of the hostages to the kidnappers.

Some months after Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping started leaking, I published a generic blurb about the case, but made sure none of the information was new. (more…)

Nidal “Gary” Hassan – All-American boy was haunted by memories of Gitmo, ‘Nam, Hiroshima INEVITABLY, ANOTHER SOLDIER SNAPS Distraught pacifist conscientious objector tormented by horrors of war, as far as you know Newsroom experts: stress, violence, stupidity, tragedy a way of life for GIs Former M*A*S*H stars say it’s finally time to disarm the military Hollywood insiders: Sean Penn early favorite for lead in planned Oliver Stone biopic

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Last night a brave and insightful documentary was aired that accurately portrayed the wave of ObamaMania that swept the nation. It was called “V” and aired on ABC to mostly rave reviews and tremendous ratings.

There was another documentary about the Obama campaign on HBO, but that left out a lot of relevant facts, so spaceships and lizard-people aside, ABC wins the veracity award.

The parable is, an attractive group of aliens show up, out of the blue, and offer universal health care, advanced technology and world peace in exchange for our trust and devotion. All we have to do is believe everything they say without question. Which means, don’t ask anything about their hidden motives or past associations because that would be racist impolite. In fact, one reporter who is offered an exclusive interview with their leader is admonished not to say anything negative or they would be denied access (Hi, Fox!).

And what do you know, the aliens are really here to eat us. And maybe even take over our car companies and banks. That part is unclear. But I’m sure they will reduce unemployment, because there will be less people looking for work. Oops, I guess “V” has nothing to do with Obama, because he sure isn’t doing well on that front. But anyhoo–

The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait was outraged by the pilot. Outraged, I say! (more…)

Dennis Miller in today’s Washington Examiner:

“Who’d have thought that the heretofore ubermeek Obama administration would attempt the first surge of its tremulous tenure against my Fox News Network? As every demented B-lister in a leopard skin fez and a doorman’s outfit from the Plaza Hotel steps up to the psychotic speaker’s corner to tear the Great Satan (uh, that would be us) a new one, our guy has been loathe to return rhetorical fire for fear of stepping on any sandaled toes.

“But Fox News? That’s another story. That’s a sitter at the net for the quasimystical LOTUS POTUS. With the mainstream (downstream?) media more in his pocket than a grizzled train conductor’s pocket watch, he had to look far and wide for a news organization that had not signed a 5 W’s abrogation/suicide pact with David Axelrod. And there stood Fox, still skeptical of public officials and under the stellar rein of Brit Hume, still skilled in the ways of good old-fashioned “Woodstein” shoe leather journalism. (more…)

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Nothing plays on that little violin inside my heart more than hearing some child-sodomizing fugitive has got himself a case of the incarceration blues:

Director Roman Polanski is feeling depressed two weeks after his arrest in Switzerland to face U.S. extradition for a 1977 case involving the rape of a 13-year-old girl, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Sunday.

“I found him to be tired and depressed,” Herve Temime told the Sonntag newspaper, one of two newspapers he talked to after visiting the Oscar-winning director in a Zurich prison.

“Roman Polanski, who is 76, seemed very dejected when I visited him,” Temime told another newspaper, NZZ am Sonntag.

“Polanski was in an unsettled state of mind.”

“Dejected,” “unsettled,” “depressed.” About 1/1000th of what his victim went through. Michael Cieply’s New York Times piece over the weekend probably didn’t do the fugitive director’s mood much good. Cieply makes a very convincing case that had Polanski taken his medicine in 1977, he would have received a lighter sentence than what he’s likely to face today if extradited: (more…)

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To which I respond to my unofficial biographer Conor Friedersdorf’s Daily Beast criticism of your’s truly and bigger fish Andrew Sullivan’s two-thumbs-up to it:                             

Andrew Sullivan (left) and Conor Friedersdorf

In the piece you link to and affirm in the Daily Beast, “The Right’s Lesser Press,” Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions. It’s sloppy and you, of all people, should know better.

Breitbart.com is MOSTLY a news aggregator. It carries the Associated Press, Reuters, even, Agence France Presse, from those dreaded croissant eaters!!!

It even carries the New York Times on its front page — a benefit that even Big Government and Big Hollywood don’t receive.

Big Hollywood is what it is: a counter-voice to the virtually monolithic Hollywood left. How dare I grant a platform, and a means for the defense of those in Hollywood who would dare go against the strident and intolerant Hollywood left.

Big Government, too, is providing an outlet for voices and ideas that are not proportionally represented in the traditional and mostly biased mainstream media.

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