Sunday Shows: "This Week"

image: Paul Krugman, Nobel-winning economist, professor and columnist for the New York Times, credit from Newsweek

I realize I never posted last weekend-- midterms ate up too much time. However, I'm back and ready to continue this column. Today I focused on Barbara Walter's version of This Week. Framed largely by an interview with newly elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (the replacement for the late Senator Ted Kennedy). Oddly enough, Senator Brown, who will officially join the Senate next week, seemed rather personable. Adept at non-answers but not so distanced as to appear arrogant, Brown had a successful interview with Walters-- even able to poke fun at himself for his infamous Cosmopolitan photo shoot in the '80's. I was disappointed, however, that Brown gave no clear stance on the possible repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell' while also failing to address the success of Massachusetts's own healthcare policy among his constituents.

What I was must intrigued by during this show was the round table which followed the featured exclusive. Columnists Paul Krugman and Arianna Huffington admonished Fox Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes for Fox News' admittedly biased coverage and contribution to the massive healthcare misinformation campaign of the last 6 months. Krugman and Huffington also pointed out the ridiculous nature of President Obama's proposed spending freeze. In all actuality, the freeze could only affect, at most, one-sixth of the federal budget. Failing also to take the massive steps necessary to fix the 'jobs crisis', President Obama is not fighting hard enough for what he believes our country needs: better financial regulations, more jobs, and healthcare. Huffington made an excellent point when she noted that if President Obama really wants to succeed and make substantial progress, he should return to his own campaign speeches. Last week's State of the Union address did reveal his oratorical skill and reminded the nation of why he was elected in the first place. However, in the political battles to come he will need to spend all of his political capital and exhaust all of the enthusiasm he can muster to remind Americans why they voted Democratic. If for no other reason that Krugman's ingenious remark that what we are really electing these days are parties, not individuals, the Democrats had better pull it together before the Mid-Terms.

Tiger's Wife Now A Super Spy!

While it WOULD be pretty awesome to see Tiger's gorgeous blonde kinda ex-wife Elin Nordegren kicking butt as the herione James Bond movies never have, the title is actually referring to her sneakiness in discovering her husband's trysts. THAT'S RIGHT, GUYS. We now know what went down on Thanksgiving, when Tiger's mysterious car crash caused the story to go out into the open. Apparently, Tiger had caught wind of The National Inquirer's soon-to-be-posted article revealing Tiger's first mistress Rachel Uchitel. Tiger told Elin that he and Rachel were just acquaintances. Rachel and Elin even spoke over the phone, appeasing Elin.



But, later that night, as Tiger was deep in the medicated sleep that only an Ambien could provide, Elin stole his cell phone and texted Uchitel, pretending to be Tiger. Devious. The Daily Beast reports:

There she found text messages to Uchitel’s number—Uchitel was apparently listed in Tiger’s cellphone under her real name — and among them she discovered one that said, “You are the only one I’ve loved.” Shortly after 1 a.m. in Florida, Elin began texting Uchitel, pretending to be Tiger, according to both sources. Elin wrote, “I miss you,” and asked, “When are we seeing each other again?” Uchitel texted back, seemingly surprised that Woods was awake. Elin specifically felt, one source told me, that this response indicated that the two of them spoke earlier that night, before Tiger took his Ambien. At that point, Elin called Uchitel, who answered thinking it was Tiger calling. Both sources said that Elin said something approximating, “I knew it was you.” Uchitel’s surprised reply, according to what Elin told one source: “Oh f--k.” She immediately hung up.

In anger, Elin woke up Tiger who, still in his Ambien-seeped stupor, texted Uchitel to tell her that Elin knew the truth and that "divorce was imminent." This text was again discovered by the wily Elin, at which point she completely freaked out on him and went after him with a golf club, causing Tiger to crash his uber-expensive SUV and causing the first scandal of 2010.



Nice.

LINK OF THE DAY: Super Trooper!

The NYTimes ArtsBeat blog reported that wait for it...a ABBA MUSEUM IS OPENING! While my personal memories of Abba are more of the A*Teens variety. Yes I will admit that I am one of "those" people who spent some teenage years actually watching their TV show- and on that front let me just reiterate just how ridiculous that time-traveling trip to Arizona in that TV movie was; yet, I digress. According the Times, London's Abbaworld will include up to 30,000 square feet of memorabilia. Think of it as a Swedish wonderland.

The official website is, and this is coming from me, a little distasteful. A little too much moving parts/glitter in my opinion but it is Abba.

LINK OF THE DAY: Room Envy

There are rooms that look like they came straight from the Pottery Barn catalog (Not that there's anything wrong with Pottery Barn. Just like there's nothing wrong with J. Crew, but you can't not admit its... matchi-matchi-ness). And then there is Sweet Home Style, a photoblog featuring rooms from mahogany-laced studies with fireplaces blazing to futuristic rooms straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey,  with everything in between. The bonus? It's all pretty. And you thought your room was cool.

Sarah Palin Is Now a Helicopter Parent

I can't believe I missed it. Contrary to popular belief, I tend not to know about the doings of Sarah Palin until after they happen, and it wasn't until this afternoon I discovered that she WAS ON OPRAH yesterday. She and her slightly scandalized daughter Bristol were on the talk show yesterday afternoon, and from the clips I saw on the Daily Intel, it seems it was to talk about Bristol's new public abstinence goal (because that's a big problem now).  And take offense to this, Oprah did. And she has excellent points: not only could Bristol have decided this in private, but she's setting herself up in the public's eye with this very private decision. Additionally, Sarah Palin makes a very bad, no good, and terrible joke in the clip below, courtesy of nymag.com:

And one more after the cut

A New "Please Touch" Museum

For once an art museum is actually giving patrons the opportunity to reach out and touch priceless artwork, well almost priceless artwork. The Queens Museum of Art in New York City, which is subsequently undergoing a massive expansion into its next-door neighbor the World's Fair Ice Rink, unveiled a piece by Daniel Bozhkov that was recently featured in the NYTimes. The work includes a plaster cast of Michelangelo's "Pieta" house behind walls of glass cubes but with a distinct opening through which anyone can reach out and touch what ends up being Jesus's torso.

The cast, on loan from the Met, was made from the original, now housed behind protective glass at the Vatican. After being attacked with a hammer the real Pieta is now housed behind protective glass.

According to the Times:

Mr. Bozhkov, a Bulgarian-born conceptualist, likes to facilitate this kind of interaction with art. Much of his work has to do with the idea of the artist as a tradesman. In past projects he has apprenticed himself to bakers, airplane pilots and other kinds of workers, learning their skills and sharing some of his own.

hile I would never dream of corroding a true masterpiece with oil from my hands, the idea of connecting with such a famous piece through a proxy is incredibly appealing. Maybe, just maybe, the artistic brilliance of Michelangelo as transferred through this mold could inspire the next great master.

image and background from The New York Times

Heidi Montag Would Totally Agree With the Song "Barbie Girl"

"Life in plastic, it's fantastic!", an infamous line from one-hit wonders Aqua, could totally be Heidi Montag's ,of The Hills and being famous fame, new motto. Unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware that Heidi Montag has undergone a ridiculous amount of plastic surgery. I mean, the King of Pop himself might even be rolling around in his grave. She had a reported (Reported? Who am I kidding? She sold the story to People.) ten surgeries in one day. Ten, like the number of fingers or toes the typical human has. One day, like the time you would need to do something that would take 24 hours. Watch the first season of Lost, or something. And Heidi thinks she looks better. What she looks like is a Stepford Wife. Or Barbie. But Barbie could get away with the whole can't-move-my-face thing, because she's a toy. Heidi did a short yet illuminating interview with Access Hollywood. Not only does she reveal that she almost died, but she says, "I feel pretty plastic," not moving her face "It's still hard for me to chew sometimes and I have to speak very quietly because my jaw and everything ... It's kind of a Cinderella story."

As Heidi would say, she was clearly "upgraded." But at 24, is that too soon?

Link of the Day

image from the New Jersey Star Ledger- Getty Images

In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision today floodgates were opened for massive amounts of new campaign financing by corporate interests. President Obama condemned the ruling and committed his administration to bipartisan efforts to curb the effects of any new fundraising efforts.

The New York Times writes:

Justice John Paul Stevens read a long dissent from the bench. He said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings. His decision was joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing.

Read more HERE.

China Continues to Take Over the World

Chinese officials today announced that the Chinese GDP grew by over ten percent over the last year. They said that their economy grew by over eight percent in the LAST QUARTER of 2009. If they continue on  this path, they will soon overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy (don't worry, I looked it up; we're first, because the European Union doesn't count.). Egads!



In other news, I saw a bird today.

Link of the Day: Movie Posters of the Decade

I'm a sucker for a good design. Movie posters and book covers, especially. And no one does movie posters better than The Auteurs's Notebook, who recently put together a list of the top movie posters of the decade, from artsy foreign films to edited-for-TBS movies.

See the complete collection here.

REVIEW: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

This morning I woke up with an instant choice: should I blog about the dresses from the Golden Globes, or write a movie review for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which I saw last night instead of actually watching the Golden Globes. I ended up settling for the latter, because I'm sure everyone has had enough of the fashion police in the blogosphere and on on E! today. (Although I feel it is important that everyone should know how good GLEE's Dianna Argon looked last night. She's kinda been under the radar.)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was, as we all know, Heath Ledger's final film (take that, Dark Knight!), and he certainly went out with a bang in his resume. Parnassus is a fun, crazy ride through the imagination of one, you guessed it, Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer). The movie opens up in modern day London, as Dr. Parnassus travels the city with his huge travelling stage. Every day he and his troupe, which includes Percy (Verne Troyer), Anton (Andrew Garfield), and Parnassus's daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole). The hook of Parnassus's show? A magical mirror that, if traveled through, becomes a physical manifestation of the person's imagination. It turns out, though, that the mirror has a darker meaning: it's a way of collecting souls, for both the good Doctor and the evil Mr. Nick, essentially Satan. And now Parnassus must use this mirror to collect five souls that will hopefully choose the good of imagination over the vice of Mr. Nick's world, or else he will lose his daughter Valentina to Mr. Nick. And trust me: no one wants to lose their daughter to the devil. Ledger's role is that of Tony, an 'amnesiac' that helps Parnassus with this mission, after the troupe saves him from a hanging. But he may be hiding something... (of course he's hiding something. this is movie, after all.)

This movie starts off strong, and all of the actors do a great job. Since Ledger died before the "imagination" part of this movie was shot, actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Ferrel had to step in to become the 'other faces' of Tony in the Imaginarium. All three do decently, although Ledger is the best of them all. Newcomer Cole also does decently, even if she can't pass for 16 years old. Her outfits were nice, though. So I guess it cancels out. The climax and ending of this movie get messy, as the actions in the Imaginarium happen so fast it is difficult to keep up with them. Other than that, though, this movie is a fun ride through, literally, imagination.

And because I had to:

Sunday Morning Shows Review

I needed some sort of impetus to commit myself to watching the Sunday morning shows for a while. I finally realized that I should just initiate some sort of weekly review. Here it goes...

The Chris Matthews Show: By far my favorite program, at least after today's broadcast. Matthews is a talented orator in his own right but seems to live for the back-and-forth battle with guests, always pushing for answers that reveal the truth and not simply a rehearsed answer laced with ''spin''. Today's show delved into the many secrets of the 2008 Presidential campaign as revealed in the new exposee "Game Change: Obama and the Clinton's, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime" (image from Amazon.com) by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. Hailed as one of the best political novels in recent memory, "Game Change" has been featured across the spectrum of mainstream media from Politico to CNN. I appreciated Matthews discussion with his guests, including Senior Washington Correspondent for Newsweek Harold Fineman, over Sarah Palin's presidential prospects in 2012. I was shocked to see so many insiders publicly remark that yes, Palin was indeed preparing herself for the Republican ticket. (I especially enjoyed the fact that such remarks were immediately followed by discussions of Palin's inability to name a founding father other than Washington during a Glenn Beck interview). Overall, full marks.

This Week: Even without George Stephanopoulos this program has managed to maintain its poise. Filmed within the Newsuem several blocks from the Capitol, "This Week" didn't do it for me this morning. I didn't agree with Jake Tapper's questioning of top American commander in Haiti Gen. Ken Keen. Tapper treated Keen as a representative of the American government in a way that characterized him more as an out-of-touch bureaucrat than a soldier working diligently to help a fallen nation. In my opinion, Keen would have no way of knowing the exact duration of the U.S.'s involvement in Haiti nor the amount of troops necessary to secure aid transport. At least for the moment, Haiti is in ruins and needs help. We can discuss how much we spend later on after the recovery efforts have slowed a bit. I just don't see how anyone here in America can criticize volunteers in Haiti.

Meet the Press: I'll admit it-- I didn't really finish "Meet the Press." I was shocked, however, by the same vein of questioning I noticed on "This Week" of Gen. Keen. I promise that next week I'll try and make it through it!

Dr. Evil Takes Croatian Elections

Is This Even Politics? of the Day: Ivo Josipovic won the Croatian elections on Sunday, despite this commercial sponsored by his opponent, Milan Bandic, who sought to make Mr. Josipovic look like a Dr. Evil figure who will bring communism raining down on Croatia. Obviously, he wasn't believed, as Mr. Josipovic won by 60% of the vote. Also, cats!

If you can't understand the Croatian (because, you know, I totally can), the New York Times tells me it's mostly versions of "red" and "comrade" repeated over again.

Link of the Day: the Supreme Court

image from the New Yorker

When I saw this article on the New Yorker's webpage this morning I couldn't help but read it straight through, paying strict attention to the cartoon of course. The story chronicles a day in court with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and her contributions to judicial questioning. Given the lack of high profile cases, some might forget that the Supreme Court is, indeed, in session. It's nice to see reporting on such an interesting topic- a case against a man who sold videos of pit bulls on his webpage that evidently showed animal cruelty. The odd part of the case is really the federal law that prohibits such footage in the first place and it's general vagueness. I am anxious to see how Justice Sotomayor responds in the final verdict. (disclaimer: I in no way find animal cruelty interesting).

Subterranean Berlin

image from the NYTimes

Always fascinated by interesting excursions abroad (regardless of whether or not I will actually get to participate in them), I ran across the Berlin Underworld's tours of subterranean bunkers and tunnels, remnants of Nazi Germany. Featured in the NYTimes's "Globespotter's Blog," the organization that runs the tours, Underworlds, uses the funds to preserve the sites.

According to the article:

The association does... offer tours through Cold War-era bomb shelters, abandoned U-Bahn lines and subterranean escape routes from East to West Berlin.

At present, the most popular tour offers visitors an idea of what German life would have been like while living under the perpetual threat of Allied air strikes. Personally, having never really imagined what life for an average German during WWII would have been like, the objective of this organization seems truly interesting.

The tours are offered in multiple languages by a group of volunteers and meet at the U8 subway station. Check it out!

British Airports to Become Secret Child Pornography Rings

images via nytimes.com

There may be a setback in the plans in install security imaging programs from British airports, and that setback is called child pornography law. The machines generates images that can see if passengers are concealing materials beneath their clothes, much like the case of the would-be Christmas bombing. However, the images generated are highly graphic (because they have to be in order to be efficient) and many are outraged at subjecting under-18's to this treatment is highly unethical due to, well, ethics, and child pornography laws in England.

The Guardian reports:

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to “virtual strip-searching” and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved. Ministers now face having to exempt under-18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offenses under child pornography laws. [...]

A 12-month trial at Manchester airport of scanners which reveal naked images of passengers including their genitalia and breast enlargements only went ahead last month after under-18s were exempted.

Another worry is that, although the images created by the software are supposed to be immediately deleted if the person is clean, workers will save the nude images of celebrities or politicians, perhaps to the public.



Simon Davies, a detection software director in Britain, says that it is possible to blur out the provocative regions of the body, like the breasts and genitals. However, as The Lede muses, "Then again if the man who went through security in Amsterdam on Christmas day with explosives concealed in his underwear had encountered a full-body scanner that blurred out that part of his body, it seems fair to ask if he would have been caught or simply waved through to board his flight for Detroit."



While subjecting children to this treatment is unethical, adults should trade this minor dabble in pornography for absolute safety on airplane flights. Especially since, when you take a look at the actual images generated by the detection software, the images seems too generic to be harmful. Who really cares if some random airport worker can tell you have breast implants if it means that would-be terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab don't get to blow up planes? Besides, we can probably already tell.

One Month of Twitter: a Journey in the Recesses of the Internet

Twitter. The name draws scowls from people at school. Degraded, they complain it is "just Facebook statuses" and that the concept is not only unoriginal, but redundant. And yet, it is one of the most popular sites on the internet. I recall sitting on the floor of the Miami airport, while playing cards with my friend as we waited for our connecting flight to San Jose, and watching CNN discuss the Iranian elections. We, in our exhaustion,  ceased to immediately despise the newscaster repeated the name Twitter on end. Most of the sources and quotes came from Twitter. So, not only had Twitter rocked the internet world, but it was starting to make a real impact in the sociopolitical sphere. But still I was not impressed. I got a Twitter account, of course. But my 100 tweets have been spread over almost a year. I barely logged on, and when I did I felt overwelmed by the multitude of 140 character tweets from blogs and random magazines and celebrities. I soon forgot about it. I'll probably delete that account.

But inspired by David Carr's article for the NY Times, I realized Twitter is not going away soon. It's here to stay, at least for a little bit. And to try and adapt to this, I have decided to actively use Twitter for one month. To see if it enlightens me, to say the least. I may sometimes feel like the Fail Whale (pictured above; Twitter's personal 404 error message), lost in the sea of tweets, but I will hold on. And I'll be tweeting about it the whole time. Hopefully I'll end the same way as David Carr:

And now, nearly a year later, has Twitter turned my brain to mush? No, I’m in narrative on more things in a given moment than I ever thought possible.