My family in Florida is preparing for yet another hurricane (this one with the suspiciously-French-sounding name 'Jeanne'!), and it's almost the end of September! Pretty scary stuff. I recall growing up in Minnesota and actually enjoying tornado warnings where the whole family would gather in the corner of the basement and wait out the storms (I also had a stack of comic books that I kept there just for emergencies!). I don't think I'd be quite as excited now.
What does excite me currently is the CBS debacle surrounding the probably-forged documents used by 'reliable' news people in an attempt to damage President Bush, and the fact that not only didn't they get away with it, but that they may indeed suffer serious consequences as a result! The hubris with which Dan Rather defended his 'story', as if it were unseemly that the 'common folk' would DARE question his reporting makes his imending downfall all the more satisfying. I actually took journalism courses in school, and what we were taught was to report what we observed, answering basic questions such as 'where' , 'when', 'what', and 'who' (and probably more, but I didn't pursue the course of study), not to decide on a story and then spend five years attempting to make it true, which is apparently whgt Rather and his producerette, Mary Mapes, did.
That the quite obvious mistakes in the documents were discovered by Bloggers is yet another coupe, in that the media is no longer in the secure position of deciding for us what we 'need to know'. I do think it's healthy for a free society to shine a light on the corridors of power. The problem is that the mainstream media is now its own shadowy corridor, and they run from the light in the same cockroach-like manner that other powerful types do.
Now, of course, Rather claims to have been 'duped', and many others in the media seem willing to accept that, including the once-skeptical Bill O'Reilly. My own guess is that, based upon Rather and Mapes' unwavering scrutiny when it came to allegations made about John Kerry, who, unlike Bush, had hinged his campaign upon his Viet Nam war record, and CBS'glee at granting airtime to anyone with a Bush-bashing book to hawk, the possibiliy of damaging the Bush campaign with allegations of missing a medical exam were too juicy for the newshounds to pass up. Had they approached similar stories about both candidates with equal zeal, and simply been burned by a source, I would agree with O'Reilly. However, that's not the case here.
Interestingly, Mapes previous successful story was the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, which she 'broke' using documents that were to be evidence in prosecuting abusive guards. Even in that story, Mapes' goal was to hopefully bring down a high-ranking official, if possible, and not necessarily to see that justice was done. The fact that, for instance, Rumseld, was not found to be culpable in the scandal, seems to have caused the producerette's sloppiness in the subsequent National Guard story. Whatever happens, I'm certain Mapes will find a career at the DNC not very much different than her current gig.
I haven't seen 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' yet, but it is so visually stunning that I have to go soon! Between it and 'Team America' I am excited about movies once again! I've been on a nostalgia binge lately, and "Sky Captain' especially feeds right into that! When I was growing up in Minnesota, my Grandfather, who lived in New York, would send a 'care package' each week of the comics sections of the New York Sunday newspapers to the frozen North so that my brother and I might read the adventures of 'Tarzan', 'Flash Gordon', 'DickTracy', etc, With the dearth of heroism (as well as basic storytelling) in maintsream comics today, I find myself increasingly drawn to the 'classics'.
I've been listening quite a bit to Phil Hendrie lately! Too funny for Atlanta, his show was taken off of WGST. I've been able to listen to the KFI broadcast, however, and he constantly has his characters doing the most despicable things, often blaming the Bush administration for their bad behavior. Of course, the callers are clueless, incensed by something the character said, and they proceed to converse with Phil and Phil-as-the-character! Good, funny stuff!
Perhaps the best uses of soundbites on radio are the "Laura Ingraham' and 'Matt Drudge' shows! Both keep the funny coming, while providing serious political and social commentary.
The new season of 'Smallville' started, and was worth the wait! The introduction of Lois Lane ruins the eventual meeting of Clark and Lois in Metropolis, but there have been enough versions of the 'Superman' story that it will survive this turn of events. The actress and the way the way the character of Lois was written more than made up for the 'errors', and it was nice to see that Tom Welling, as Clark, had decent chemistry with his future love interest, which cannot be said for Kristin 'Lana Lang' Kreuk. (The scenes with Annette O'Toole and Margot Kidder, the movies' Lana and Lois, were pretty cool as well!) It'll be interesting where they take things this year.
'C.S.I.' debuted as well. Still the best of the franchise. And the addition of Michelle from '24' is a good move, giving the viewers a chance to see the field methodology through Greg's eyes as he's trained.
Cannot get into the 'Apprentice' or 'Survivor' this time around. Too much of a good thing I guess, but there's no one particularly engaging, and I feel as if I've seen it all before (perhaps because I have?). Besides, the reality of hurricanes and forged documents are much more interesting than most 'reality' shows.