Pop-Tarts is German for Little Iced Pastry O' Germany.

A short heads up: This article at the New York Review of Books by Nicholson Baker explores the hilarity of Wikipedia and I guarantee you will laugh until your sides ache. Way to go NYRB! Not so stuffy after all! (Don't worry, I'm working on something a bit more substantial, but I thought I'd tide all 4 -- or is it three? Hi mom! -- of you over until I've finished.)

Macbeth and Cardassians.

Everyone knows Patrick Stewart is god's gift to acting. His performance on the Star Trek episode "Chain of Command" should prove that to anyone who's seen it. It certainly opened my eyes to the wonders of spectacularly delicious acting as a kid. So it's disappointing that Director Rupert Goold places Patrick Stewart in a largely static Macbeth in it's current run at the BAM.

Goold's take summons the muses of soviet fascist imagery, and jungle camouflaged british actors revolving around Stewart's Macbeth to illuminate his frantic mind. This Macbeth is an AK carrying counterinsurgent in the mold of Mussolini, but terrified of the actual act of treason and murder. It's an interesting take, but its insistence on video art to animate the characters is distracting: largely the actors hit their marks and stick while video projections inject dynamics and tension to the play. Goold has stated that he's taken inspiration from 70s horror flicks, yet he probably hasn't seen much more than their trailers. Every scene, and most apallingly his no wave take on the weyward sister's "Double, Double" speech, is punctuated and fractured like a trailer for the Saw series. This hamfisted approach, in the 2000s no less, is a silly trick to up tension in an overwhelmingly complex introspective work, full of soliloquy and secrecy. It's far past time to throw this cheap cliche out with the baby:

For three hours, Goold's videos play and repeat and it's increasingly frustrating to watch such a misreading of horror. Horror films aren't as slapdash as most think; good ones strive to make the familiar unfamiliar by creating a plausible but off setting. Macbeth does neither. It's set in what looks like a dirty hospital -- you know the aesthetic: dirty tiles, operating tables-- which hardly anyone has ever visited, except in shlocky stupid horror films. The best horror films (Martin, Last House on the Left, Dawn of the Dead) take a familiar setting, the homefront, a mall, a small town, and inject a twist of social commentary to unset the ground, to make a slightly different reality: it's not just flashy lights, blood, and screaming.

(Also, note to the Times: don't send correspondents to galas to get drunk).

Racketeering.

No matter how attractive it is, uttering "And so it begins" is hardly ever warranted. Take Hillary Clinton for example: its hard to say her campaign's dismissal of party rules from running in Michigan and Florida to the recent run on the superdelegates is a strategy wholly unforeseen. But it would be nice just for once to not be prescient:

Mrs. Clinton’s aides said they would also argue to superdelegates that they should give less deference to a lead from Mr. Obama because much of that had been built up in states where there were caucuses, which tend to attract far fewer voters than primaries, where Mrs. Clinton has tended to do better than she has done in caucuses.

“I think for superdelegates, the quality of where the win comes from should matter in terms of making a judgment about who might be the best general election candidate,” said Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s senior campaign adviser.

Unfortunately, Senator Clinton's campaign aides are right; the democratic races in caucus states, even in this heated political season, are attended far less than those in primary states, and even more frustrating, often these races are thrice removed from the popular vote. In Washington, for example, the caucus on Feb. 9th only served to elect delegates to a district caucus held on May 17th at which point the actual Convention delegates are elected. This sort of tiered voting is a far cry from true popular vote democracy, and therefore lowers the quality of the results, which is a hard pill to swallow. However, as you can see in the table in my previous post below, Obama cleaned up in recent primary races, races run in true democratic fashion (as true as could be hoped at this stage at least).

The other tough pill that her campaign is selling is the question of the Michigan and Florida primaries, both of which Clinton won by ignoring the party's ban on campaigning in each state by doing just that (and by keeping her name on the ballot in Michigan). Michigan is a red herring, for she was the only popular candidate on the ballot, and a choice of one, practically -- Mike Gravel et. al really don't count, is a non choice: if you can only vote Hussein, he'll win. But, Florida is unfortunately not. Any argument for democracy must be based on widespread voter enfranchisement, to argue that Florida can not count because they at the state level broke arbitrary rules is disingenuous to the whole democratic experiment. This is a completely infruriating conclusion. In the end, it will come down to, in a framed debate, a matter of allowing votes from neither or both states, and the argument on those terms is over before it started.

Thugs and 'Cuz Written in Urdu.

One of the shining beacons of New Media Journalism is the New York Times. Since their redesign the amount of new offerings in the form of video and specials, like the way they've been handling Campaign '08, are inspiring especially due to the amount of creativity they've been bringing to the table. One of my favorite recent packages is this wildly entertaining video on two rival Urdu language newspapers in Queens. What's most astounding about it however, is its synergy with the print piece. Rather than following the written story closely, the video branches off towards one of the editor's smoking habits, and the other's perfectly encapsulated relationship with his son. The print article adds a bit of color not in the video: the editor's son is a Chomsky quoting upstart who is wary of his father's close, yet troubled, relationship with his rival working in the building just next door. Having a bit of experience in both of these forms, print and video, it's a pretty amazing accomplishment to have one form not directly echo the other, but add to it.

Also, the Times's blogs are completely spectacular. From Nizza's, the Lede focussing on off-beat news (where a recent post covered how a oil platform was evacuated because of a dream), to Errol Morris's Zoom which includes pie-graphs, faked photographs, and dissertation length articles on the problems of photography, it's a wonder that people would read anywhere else on the web (that's a little far but still...). One of the most fascinating discussions you'll see (anywhere on the web), and I'm a little late on the trigger, is this discussion on the Freakonomics blog where an author sat down with a group of actual reformed criminals and watched The Wire to judge the show's accuracy. They call these viewings "Thugs and 'Cuz," 'Cuz' being the author. Over the course of the series you'll find them making great observations over Bunk's guilty conscience and finding fault with Prop Joe's great failing. It's a must read.

Clinton Hill Chill.

JUST SAYIN'!

Waterboarding Afghanis.

Bobby Gates.

Lede: Super Tuesday is a good day to drop news you want ignored. Fact: and what a good news day it was. Double Fact: Journalism is easy! Start with a lede like that and your story will practically write itself, and so here we are.

In the first bit of bad news, CIA director Michael Hayden acknowledged the US's use of waterboarding on al-Qaeda suspects since 9/11. Of course, Attorney General Mukasey quickly fired back with the time-honored argument that waterboarding is less than torture, in fact it's a bit like having a fresh shower (that's a bit unfair of me but humor is humor). According to Hayden's testimony before congress, the CIA is allowed to use waterboarding if it has the consent of the "of the President and legal approval of the Attorney-General."

What we're seeing here is a CIA director shifting blame to the Attorney General's office and using the "just following orders" defense while the Attorney General is saying yes, in extreme circumstances it can and should be legal and not be investigated. Only, perhaps that's not the only story we should be following. Any debate on the use of waterboarding hinges on the right of "enemy combatants" and whether they can and should be held by the US government, and whether the US can hold them indefinitely. Both waterboarding and holding "enemy combatants" are beyond the charter of the US Army, which congress is trying to get the CIA to follow on these two issues. I've gone and buried the lede.

The second bit comes from Afghanistan. In a completely dismissal of unilateralism, Condeleeza Rice is jetting around the world trying to gain combat support for our troops in Afghanistan. Currently in Kabul, Rice demanded that NATO partners support the US's crumbling venture in Afghanistan by sending in combat troops. Of course, the NATO response was basically "No fucking way." The pretext for all this was Robert Gates' quarterback sneak last week against NATO for not "providing troops prepared to 'fight and die' against the Taliban." Although the were asking for a relatively low number of troops, 7500 spread over many governments, it certainly seems that NATO is making the best call here; both in their own interests, and in the interest of the project in Afghanistan. What Afghanistan really needs, and by extension what Iraq really needs, is a force dedicated to building infrastructure in these war torn countries. The US can take care of rounding up the Taliban, hell, we've already done it twice. (Well once it was to give them weapons...)

And all of this in a week when an internet new money success story finally started acting like big slow old money....

Straw Polls and Armchair Analysis.

I've been wondering exactly what the two party's turnout has been, and finding a drought of journalism on the story -- on a national scale; there are many like this -- so, I decided to boot up the good old Excel and spend a bit crunching some numbers. Call it an experiment in Computer Assisted Journalism, I hear it's all the rage. The New York Times out of all of the leading websites -- CNN, The Washington Post, etc. -- has the most efficient web interface for this. Their Primary schedule categorizes the format of each state's election format, whether a primary or a caucus, and because of the trouble with counting voter turnout in caucuses -- see the brouhaha over Nevada's -- I did not include them in my totals.

So far it looks like the Democrats are leading by a considerable margin in pure voter turnout. According to my numbers they have seen close to 14 million participate in the primaries, while the Republicans are lagging at only around 9 million. This is a heartening result, and of course is entirely unscientific; for example, in California, a heavily democratic state, the total Democratic turnout was close to 2 million more than the Republicans managed to poll which skews these partial results heavily. If we ignore california entirely so as to remove some bias, the split is closer 6 million for the republicans to 8 for the Democrats. The numbers for each state are below:

State	Democratic Turnout	Republican Turnout	Margin
New Hampshire	287,322	238,548	48,774
South Carolina	532,227	431,196	101,031
Alabama	542,511	567,291	24,780
Arizona	376,926	451,641	74,715
Arkansas	287,025	209,543	77,482
California	4,059,713	2,323,663	1,736,050
Connecticut	353,515	151,212	202,303
Deleware	96,341	50,237	46,104
Georgia	1,054,799	960,351	94,448
Massachussetts	1,254,537	497,531	757,006
Missouri	823,503	589,289	234,214
New Jersey	1,115,188	558,201	556,987
New York	1,747,978	606,479	1,141,499
Oklahoma	417,096	333,602	83,494
Tennessee	618,723	549,515	69,208
Utah	124,307	284,790	160,483
Totals	13,691,711	8,803,089	4,888,622

Of course, this is a big hay bale of analysis because these primaries were completely separate: neither party was in contest with the other, so the votes are skewed by statistical anomalies too complex to fathom (some Republicans could've voted in the far more media centric Democratic race for kicks). It's still an interesting bit to figure out.

Oh, The Gray Lady.

On the train to work today I read this surprisingly vapid story in The Times. On the frontpage. Above the fold. The basic assumption of this decidedly human interest story is that the credit crunch will bestow upon those Americans who "have proved staggeringly resourceful at finding new ways to spend money" a new found faith in saving money. At the outset we're treated to the popular history of American's love for easy money and fine dining:

"In the 1950s and ’60s, as credit cards grew in popularity In the 1950s and ’60s, as credit cards grew in popularity, many began dining out when the mood struck or buying new television sets on the installment plan rather than waiting for payday."

That Americans have been using credit cards, and credit as a whole, with ever increasing frequency is as strong a fact as global warming, but to attribute this phenomenon to increased consumption of television sets or fine dining is irresponsible. Any undergraduate economics major could tell the reporter that the credit crunch revolves around the increased use of credit as a sort of plastic safety net. During these "freewheeling days of credit and risk" Americans watched their real buying power and salaries stagnate as inflation went up while credit increasingly filled the void. Instead of investigating the hard evidence, The Times, editors and all, thought it apt to interview one Elena Gamble of Elk City (I'll quote it all because it's gold):

Not long ago, Elena Gamble would have looked at the Cadillac parked across the street from her modest home in Elk City, Okla., and felt a twinge of jealousy.

“We live in a small town, and everybody looks at your clothes and what you drive and where you have your hair done,” said Ms. Gamble, who earns about $2,600 a month as a grievance counselor at a local prison.

Now, she and her husband — a prison guard who brings home $2,000 a month — are grappling with $10,000 in high-interest debt. They no longer go to the movies or out to eat, except occasionally to McDonald’s. They quit their Internet service. Their car was repossessed. “What we say now is, ‘If we can’t afford it, we can’t buy it,’ ” Ms. Gamble said.

And when she looks across the street at that Cadillac, her envy has been replaced by pity for the neighbor on the hook.

I wonder if their neighbor is really "on the hook". I have no idea who they are, and the article bases this conclusion on Elena's interview. Is it too much to ask that a Times' reporter go across the street and ask the neighbor, "Excuse me are you able to make payments on your car?" Certainly not the journalistic integrity I expect from the gray lady.

Lawrence Lessig on Barack Obama.

Lawrence Lessig, the ardent supporter of electronic rights, has a post up on his blog about why his support for Obama is based around moral courage and integrity of character. While this tack usually is less than convincing, and actually has more than a hint of boomerism, Lessig throws together a convincing argument for Barack.

He finds fault with Bill Clinton on character issues, especially on his change of face regarding supporting gays in the military. Being Lessig, of course, he holds Hillary to task over privacy rights and the Iraq war. The video's high point for me is it's use of the wayback machine to expose a bit of the strongarm tactics of the swiftboating currently aimed at Barack's opposition to the war, and his analyses of Barack's statement on republican ideas which Hillary's campaign, in a Rovean moment, mutated into an endorsement for Republicans. You can find his video, really just a narrated power point presentation, but as good an argument as any on moral issues, at his blog.

A Little Off the Top.

I'm diving in. Over the course of at least the next year I hope to write 250 words a day on the topics most important in my mind. Promises such as these often have the unfortunate side effect of being unfulfilled, but I hope to at least start writing a bit more. Most of the posts will unfortunately be like this one, long-winded, pedantic, didactic, and full of faulty logic because this blog (perhaps the worst new word in the english language) is for practice writing, a digital update of the whiteboard, or perhaps a digital logbook. I hope at the end of a week my writing has improved noticeably, and that near the end of a month I'm writing more clearly and concisely, and have removed some of my literary crutches. Maybe, even, we'll throw in a little experimentation.

So, on with the show. It seems I've already broken rule number one, but, hey, I'm still learning how to bend my leg.