I’m transferring some of my old fashioned on paper ramblings because my pages are starting to shift and tear with age.

Going back in time to October 2008…..

I’m waiting to pick up documents at the LA Superior court and it’s refreshingly old fashioned. Stacks of dusty yellow paper, forms, lines and fluorescent lighting. It seems more like an old DMV or the basement of the municipal building in New York that I loved so much. Sometimes I miss the old hassles of a non-digital life. Or at least my interpretation of what it would have been like had I not been younger than 12. It certainly is a dying breed. They tore out the old bar on campus. Not that I spent too much time there or have years of memories but I was genuinely sad when it closed. It was a time warp. You could feel the generations of college kids in its hard plastic yellow chairs and wood paneled walls. Sports and news on giant analog TVs just seems to go with overpriced beers.

… reading this back I’m having visuals from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Not sure the connection but I’m seeing mountains of paper and orange dust clouding low fluorescentlights.

Yes, it’s been a monstrously long time since I posted anything and I was about to give up on myself and my ‘resolve’ to actually do this. But I found the connector to my digital camera and I figure that since I have pictures I have some reason to get this back up.

My apartment and neighborhood are fantastic. I’m about 2 miles north of downtown right where Sunset Blvd. ends and it’s really convenient to get to school, downtown, Silverlake and Hollywood. I think Vixey is really enjoying it too – we go on super long walks every day up and down the hills of the neighborhood and into Chinatown. She always looks so perky and happy when we’re walking or jogging along. I think she’s proud.

I wish I had more time to get out and do different things – two years is starting to seem like no time at all. Sometimes it seems like all I do is schoolwork and the pile never gets any smaller but at least the majority of it is enjoyable.

I’m posting some pictures from the drive out here. I hope the video we took will be ready soon.

That’s about all of the photo resizing I have time for now – I have to go work on a paper about Cicero’s vision of modern media.

(first USC blog assignment – I’ll post it here too)

My life has always been very far removed from Los Angeles. It was never a place I imagined myself going, let alone living. All of my visions of LA floated like a disconnected dream – a pleasant one but not something to be missed when it was over. Words, phrases and broken thoughts passed through my mind on the advice of friends who came and saw god or returned home with the bitter taste of a harsh world on the tips of their tongues. I apologized and gloated in equally taken breaths.

My first impressions of life in LA were of starts and endings – sunburned and hopeful faces among those for whom Hollywood is just a word that means home. Blue skies obscured by pollution that blocks my view of the mountains yet powers the engine behind the world ‘go’. LA is a microcosm of selves. New selves and old selves. Chinese men learn to dance while sad mothers struggle to see a life beyond the street corner and children collect bottles in the park. LA is everything to everyone creating an uncomfortable blank line behind the question of ‘is the world what you make it?’.

Last night, Flogging Molly kicked off the Florida Music Festival downtown with a bad ass show and I was lucky enough to grab an extra media pass at the last minute and have a fantastic night seeing one of my favorite bands from times badly missed. Back when we used to sit on the hot black tar of Florida asphalt outside Static and Barberellas was the place to be on a Sunday night.

Luckily I didn’t have to mash in with the crowd and risk getting kicked in the head by a crowd surfer as has happened to me so many times. (ahem, dropkick murphies + steel toed boots = pain) I got to be right up front in the scary press zone 4 inches from the stage with all that is separating us and our cameras from the huge, sweaty vortex of a punk show mosh pit is a flimsy metal gate and two beefy security dudes. They were in the fight for their lives to try to keep the gate and the crowd from squishing us like tiny ladybugs.

After a few shots of whiskey, I managed to get some good shots of the band with my much-less nice camera than the other media were toting. During the second half of the show, after the videographers left and they cut the media from the front of the stage I decided to take a chance and head over to the other wing and the stage entrance. The one apathetic security guard just shrugged when I asked if I could get onto stage to shoot from the wings, so I ended up spending the second half of the show about five feet from the band right next to some monitors. It was freaking awesome, I must say. There were a few other drunk media guys there that were just dancing and jamming to the music so I tried to shed my fear of ‘i don’t belong here’ and just enjoyed the show from the best seat in the house. It’s nights like this that remind me why my job is awesome.

I read an interesting article in The Economist today about the dangerous new monarchical tendencies that are sweeping American politics. It accurately pointed out something that is a commonly known fact, but one that we seem to be brushing off as a harmless byproduct of political fame: the Bush/Clinton dynasties that have had a stronghold on political power for 28 years now.

One dramatic quote that really caught my attention was this:

“There is nothing inherently wrong with the children or wives of politicians seeking high office, but there is definitely something wrong when people start treating them as heirs to the throne rather than candidates. And there is something very wrong indeed when people begin to see politics as a game that is played by “them” rather than “us”.”

We have always prided ourselves on our presidents and politicians coming from meager backgrounds and ascending to political fame and fortune. And by some measures it is still alive and well. Few people have to ask John Edwards what his childhood was like – rarely do 15 minutes pass before he makes another comment about being the son of a mill worker.

Candidates for political power still embody much of the proletarian spirit that has built our “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, but those candidates have lately remained just that-candidates. Edwards, though his current financial status takes him off of the list of regular folk, was within grasp of power the last time around, but only by playing second fiddle to a pure bred politico and a descendent of the wealthy Forbes family.

Currently, the media is smacking their collective lips at the fat lead Senator Clinton has gained in the polls against her Democratic rivals. As she barges down the runway to 2008, she is dropping gift-wrapped ratings into the laps of rival network news factions that make a fortune on either loving or hating the Senator. But, unsurprisingly, the media is on a dangerous ledge by failing to adequately discuss what another bout of Clinton presidential power means for the future of our democracy. By creating, if through name recognition alone, apparent heirs to the throne of the president we are jeopardizing the very democracy that we pride ourselves on.

The fact that the Bush/Clinton dynasty is destined to continue (if 2008 is not successful for Clinton it is likely no more than a small pause in the monarchy) is just another symptom of a population gripped by fear of breaking the hold of our oppressive two-party system.

I watch with jealousy the wild and disparate candidates that pepper elections in other nations. I wish that fringe candidates and those that provide strikingly different viewpoints would be seriously allowed into the conversation instead of just tolerated for a debate or two and then left to be laughed at in the op-ed pages. Maybe not in hopes that they will win, but to break the drip of stale and recycled political rhetoric that comes out of so many mouths.

The debate over political dynasties has little to do with the individual politics or personality of anyone in the Bush or Clinton clans. Whatever your political ideology, it’s not healthy for a handful of families to tighten the reigns on political variety. As warm and fuzzy as your memories of the Clinton years may be, or however much you think of the Bushes as a royal family, we must stop this slide towards monarchism.

It is tempting and comforting to return to the familiar, but if this wash of nostalgia has the chance, it will settle like a fog over our political system and blur the vision of democracy that, for better or worse, keeps us going.

*One of my favorite Bill O’Reilly quotes.

Yes, it’s really this big.

A fascinating study by Indiana University was released yesterday creating parallels between the propagandistic tendencies of the FOX News channel’s most popular figure, Bill O’Reilly, and the famed 1930’s Fascist radio commentator, Father Charles Coughlin.

The study, titled “Victims, Villains, and the Virtuous in Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin Zone”, makes the argument that O’Reilly uses similar tactics to berate and degrade his guests, creating an undeniable line of distinction between the offenders and the victims on a broad number of issues.

The study found that during the “Talking Points Memo” on his show, that O’Reilly uses derogatory language towards his guests on average every 6.8 seconds. The most common targets are the media, Democrats, illegal immigrants, and terrorists. Astonishingly, (well, not if you ever actually watch his show) of the group of people that he frequently uses this type of aggressive hate speech towards, terrorist organizations and the media (what he repeatedly calls the ‘liberal drive by media’, lest you think FOX might be included in it) make up an almost identical portion (21.6% and 21.4%, respectively). Now, I’m not a huge fan of the mainstream media, but seriously?!

I’m not going to go into detail, the authors of the study do a much better job that I can. Please check out their findings, though, they make quite a compelling and scary argument that this propagandistic con man is parading around as a journalist. I wonder if FOX is going to cover the story…

Check out the Indiana University study here: HERE

There are few news articles that make me gag anymore. Sad, I know, but I think I’m jaded.

Most news, however scandalous the ’story of the day is’ might be, is monotonous and predictible. The latest corporate scandal or political gaff barely elicits a raised eyebrow these days, so I was quite surprised to have almost thrown up to the news that Rupert Murdoch (of FauX News fame), via his company News Corps., has put out an astronomical bid to buy the Dow Jones company, the overlord of the Wall Street Journal, at approximately 60% over the company’s worth. The WSJ made a point of saying that the bid was ‘unsolicited’, but the fact that they’re actually considering taking the offer surprises me. But it shouldn’t. It’s an offer they can’t refuse.

The Offender

This very much speaks to a larger issue, one that has made me even more adamant not to ever participate in the corporate business of mainstream newspapers.

What disgusts me is the major newspaper conglomerate’s self-appointed birthright to massive corporate profits. We hear a lot of whining in the news lately about the falling profits of newspapers and how the poor papers are struggling to survive and laying off reporters and other staff. But underneath the whining about falling profits is the unmistakable stamp of corporate greed. When profits fall from astronomical heights, there’s a long way to go before you hit bottom. I’m not saying that newspapers should forgo their for-profit status and become a public service, (well, maybe they should) but for the sake of rationality, if you’re whining about your annual income being ONLY $29 million, I don’t think you have much room for complaint. Back in the heyday of newspaper companies, before cable and Internet provided alternatives to the holy printed page, papers were practically guaranteed monstrous profits because they were monopolies. It’s like the major oil companies today. You can bet that they’re enjoying their overstuffed pockets today, and as soon as oil is no longer the black lifeblood of society (and that day will come – soon) and their profits fall – we’ll hear our fair share of whining. What, I only made $9 billion? What a rip off!

That’s what happens when major industries fall out of fashion or are replaced by technology. The newspaper industry is just going to have to figure out how to stay in the game – or accept that they are no longer going to have a guaranteed profit windfall.

Sorry for the tangent, but this really relates to why we shouldn’t be surprised by the WSJ’s consideration of the offer. At a time when they’re whining about not earning as much as they rightful feel they should – why not take the money and run?

I’m sure this was just an attempt not to scare off any potential or current readers that haven’t picked up on the WSJ’s, um, ‘preference’, but their article about the proposed acquisition made only the tiniest reference to the blatant conservative bias that FOX calls news. “And Mr. Murdoch has hankered after the Journal for many years. The conservative slant of the editorial page reflects closely his own political views.” (From online.wsj.com). If the WSJ succumbs to avarice and becomes the next cog in the wheel of the Murdoch enterprise, should we be surprised?

I’m not particularly scared that the WSJ will turn into another megaphone for the Right, (heck, News Corp. own the Village Voice), but it’s just another sad realization of what the newspaper giants are willing to do for a profit they feel they are entitled to. They’re not the first to sell their souls and they won’t be the last. It’s just funny how frequently the devil ends up being Rupert Murdoch.

I’m back after three sleepless days in California scoping for neighborhoods and visiting USC. Saying out loud that I’m moving to California feels strange in my mouth, as if I have to whisper so no one hears. It seems that each step towards going back to school only gets harder and more complex. I keep thinking as I meet each deadline that I have passed the rough part. No more forms, transcripts, test scores, or essays, but now comes the part where my decisions become real. It is no more an arbitrary statement that, oh yeah, I’m moving to Los Angeles. Now I actually have to MOVE to Los Angeles. It becomes a strange test of my hold on reality to sign that registration form. A decision I can’t back out of, which is why I’m waiting until the last minute. Nothing like a little procrastination to ease the soul.

The Annenberg building at USC

More on the trip later…

i had another one of those conversations last night. the ones where you find someone that can talk about more than tv or celebrities or the weather. so you have at it and discuss and debate everything under the sun with no real direction or purpose except to let your ideas and thoughts escape from the cobwebbed cave they live in for most of your days. that pang of sunlight breaks in and they burst forth like an undammed river – our words and thoughts on politics, globalization, human nature and our role in the universe tumble and flow through tributaries and streams until they clash into a rolling sea of the true conversation i crave. and it makes me miss V.

i almost got a tattoo of this

oh, and also go see Hot Fuzz. we went to the preview here (thanks, Matt!) and it was brilliantly funny and grotesque and i loved every minute of it. except for last night, my mind decided to smash elements of Hot Fuzz and the trailer for 28 Weeks Later and create the dream from hell. seriously, it was fucking scary. it was weird and complex and creepily involved the exact type of format and storyline as a film. maybe i should turn it into a screenplay. it would make the perfect movie based on the last scene alone(yes, my dreams have scenes). M. and i and two other people that were trying like hell to escape the zombies swam across this crystal clear tropical bay. when we reached the other side, we split up into two groups and m. and i jumped into his car and sped off but we don’t know what happened to the other two people. when you’re being chased by zombies there’s really no time to look. while we’re driving and feeling like we’re finally safe, i remember that we were indirectly told (voiceover?) that out of the large group of people that started being killed by the zombies – only one survives. we look at eachother and painfully realize that its not over. and that was it. end scene.

Gonzales ‘testified’ before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, apparently to exonerate himself from the scandal involving the fired US attorneys last year. He is taking quite a beating but I am doubtful he will lose his job over the event. If so, he’ll join the ranks of disgraced administration personnel that slip out of the public consciousness long before the residual effects of their actions have faded.

But Bush’s unwavering support of Gonzales, although not exactly shocking, just makes me wonder what an administration official would have to do to get fired. I think that someone should find out. I’m waiting for the Secretary of Energy to run across the White House lawn naked. But since he serves ‘at the pleasure of the president’, it’s all okay.

Jon Stewart’s take on the ‘pleasure of the president’ line. Awesome.

Yet, I think we’re in for a fun year and a half as the RP’s get pounded for only a fraction of their misdeeds during the past six years, but at least it’s something. It just saddens me that the media attention and “outrage” over the administration’s failings cover only the superficial events and gloss over the real issues affecting our basic human rights. It shocks me how cases of human rights and civil liberty abuses get glossed over in favor of smaller, less pervasive scandals.

How much do we hear about the Military Commissions Act, which revokes the constitutional right of due process to anyone, citizen or not, that the president declares to be an ‘enemy combatant’? Are we okay with a ‘redefinition’ of torture to however the administration sees fit without any consideration for the Geneva Convention or basic human rights? I’m not saying we should give anyone a pass on the lesser issues such as dismissed US attorneys. It’s a real problem that those responsible absolutely need to be held accountable for. If any administration can dismiss an appointed US attorney based on political preference, we have a major problem. But I wish that our Congress would stand up for the things that don’t fall into the category of scandal of the day or the most current national distraction. There are good people out there that are sponsoring legislation to fix many of the problems created since 9/11, but the fact that we have to fight for legislation to protect our basic human rights is a symbol of a greater issue that we can’t fix through votes.