ABC Sued by Japanese Producer for Ripping Off "Takeshi's Castle"

I'm a huge fan of Japanese culture. Akira Kurosawa is one of my favorite directors and one of the most important filmmakers, period. Japanese animation has had a enormous impact on shaping and influencing my own creative expression. I find it interesting that Japan absorbed many aspects of American culture and made them their own.

Now, Americans are apparently doing the same. In their zeal to impose even more glib versions of 'Reality Television' upon US audiences in the wake of the after-effects of the Hollywood writer's strike apparently ABC is now accused of gleaming it's creative concepts straight from the-often bizarre world of Japanese television.

Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano (pictured above left) played the "Count" in the original Japanese cult hit "Takeshi's Castle" - which ABC apparently ripped off to create "Wipeout".

James Hibbard wrote a nice piece on the subject on the Hollywood Reporter website on Monday, October 6th. Amongst the juicy details:

"From the moment ABC revealed 'Wipeout' to the public, that program has been routinely described as a 'rip-off' and 'knockoff' of Plaintiff's shows," reads the complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. "ABC's willful and wrongful use of Plaintiff's shows to create 'Wipeout' is egregious, inexcusable and not to be tolerated."

"Wipeout" was created by Endemol USA, a production company that speacializes in non-scripted gameshows, reality TV-type productions. It's actually a sub-division of Endemol Holding, a Netherlands-based holding company that produces a variety of television content in 21 countries through various subsidiaries, partnerships joint ventures.

No doubt it's going to be a long day for the geniuses at ABC who decided a blatant, Americanized version of original game show concept developed years ago by the Tokyo Broadcasting System.

TBS also owns the Japanese News Network (JNN) and was the original creator of global television cult-hit TV show "Takeshi's Castle"; which aired from 1986 - 1989. The show featured a "Count" played by actor Takeshi Kitano (pictured above left)who set up strange obstacles for people to try and reach him inside his castle. For any cult fans reading this, Wikipedia provides a concise list of all the challenges; from the "Bite the Bun" to the "Indestruct-a-Ball".

It's really interesting how some of the totally outlandish Japanese game shows seem to go against the reserved nature that is often seen as characterizing Japanese culture and people.

How about the "Nut Buster Show"? Yes guys, it's exactly what you think it's about, with trepidation I offer a link to this painful-sounding game show.

One of the craziest things I ever saw on Japanese television was a show, or sequence of a show called "Man in the Street". A crew would carve out a hole in some street with just enough room for the man to fit into. They'd camouflage him so that it was nearly impossible for passersby to see him lying just below the level of the street carefully painted exactly like the street itself.

Then with the cameras rolling, he'd wait for some unassuming person to stroll by before leaping out of the hole with a scream - terrifying the unsuspecting victim. It was one of the funniest and most bizarre TV shows I've ever scene; unfortunately I couldn't find a link online. But I'll keep searching.

ABC should license THAT one legally and broadcast an updated American version - I'd watch it.

TIRED: Crips v. Bloods - WIRED: Shmira v. Shomrim

The beating of an innocent African-American man in Crown Heights has shed light on tensions that exist within the Jewish community as well as tensions with blacks who live alongside them.

Back in April, 2008 a 20 year-old black college student named Andrew Charles was walking along Albany Avenue in his Crown Heights, Brooklyn neighborhood when a man on a bicycle and a man behind the wheel of an SUV attacked him by spraying him with pepper spray mace and hitting him with a nightstick.

The two men beat Charles then sped away in an SUV. A witness got the plate and it turns out the vehicle was registered to Menachem Ezagui. A local man police say was an active member of the Shmira Civilian Patrol , an Orthodox Jewish community police group that operates in the Orthodox Jewish communities of Crown Heights.

Very quickly law enforcement officers suspected that Shmira members were involved in the beating but were frustrated by noncooperation by the members of the tight-knit community who were questioned.

When it was revealed that Andrew Charles was the son of an NYPD officer, the media spotlight on the story increased dramatically.

It raised the spectre of the tensions of the tragic deaths of 7 year-old Gavin Cato and 29 year-old Yankel Rosenbaum and the chaos of the Crown Heights Riots in 1991. It brought to light long-held allegations of unchecked use of excessive force by members of Shmira and a similar rival organization known as Shomrim, on minorities living in the surrounding neighborhoods.

A September 22, 2008 New York Post article written by Reuven Fenton reported that tensions (which go back years) between Shmira and Shomrim were so bad that NYPD officials were trying to mediate a settlement and bring both groups under the oversight of the NYPD.

Binyan Lifshits, a Shomrim spokesman rejects the NYPD oversight because they worry about non-Orthodox police responding to domestic situations between members of the Orthodox community.

Shomrim split with Shmira in the late 90's after the ejection of Shmira members allegedly involved with unspecified criminal activities.

The 38 year-old director of Shmira Yossi Stern, in the same Post piece, claims that Shmira's approximately 100 members really are there to protect the members of the entire Crown Heights community. Check out the Crown Heights Shmira Webpage for a taste of the kinds of things they claim to be doing.

What's interesting is that Shmira parols now seem to be venturing into African-American neighborhoods, sparking resentment from blacks who remember the anger and polarization of the Crown Heights Riots; as well as from NYPD members tired of mediating disputes with the two organizations they accuse of vigilante-like behavior.

Word is the beating of the son of an NYPD officer didn't sit well with New York's Finest either.

Lubavitcher Hasidim have been living in Crown Heights since the 1940's, I can understand their desire to protect the community, but their leaders need to do a better job of making sure the zeal for peace does not don the cloak of bigotry and prejudice.

Shmira in action!

NBC's Newest Niche: Fey Pods!

I'm a Fey Pod and I'm not the only one.

If you didn't watch Tina Fey's latest send-up of Republican VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live do yourself a favor and check it out. It was my birthday on Saturday night so I timed my primp/departure to catch the 11:30pm SNL opening with Queen Latifah doing a hilarious Gwenn Ifill.

NBC suddenly has this new niche audience. It cuts across race, religion, sex and income level; the common denominator? We don't go out until we watch the opening of SNL. Then we watch it online AGAIN during the week while laughing at it with our friends. Repeatedly.

Like I'm the only one? Fay Pods are like an elusive, fleeting fan base. A reminder to the content creators that audiences will adjust their schedules to willingly put themselves into orbit around something that truly engages them.

There's something about actually seeing the latest Tina Fey Palin-spoof live that can't be recreated online or over a mobile device. In this multi-media, multi-channel world where innovative platforms are constantly evolving, there are still ideas that can only executed on television.

That's reassuring, grounding in some way. I grew up watching Mr. Bill and Samurai Delicatesen. Even when I'm 80 I'll still be inclined to tune into SNL. It's impact on our culture is massive. Garret Morris and Eddie Murphy helped to shape the way we see the black male.

SNL could have something here. I remember staying in on Friday's just to watch the X-Files on Fox.Think about SNL bringing a rotating crop of talent on for 6 - week engagements, just to open the show?

Christopher Walken or Chris Rock. Mick Jagger. Just something completely off-the Wall.
Today's television programming is increasingly populated with superficial reality TV, average TV dramas and glitzy redressed versions of old game shows that deaden, rather than engage or challenge the imagination of the audience.

One of the appeals of Tina Fey's spoof is that it cuts right through the filters and actually uses them to deliver a political and social message that many people are tuned into. It's refreshing television content. Behind the comedic writing, makeup and costume lies truth.

Like it Is

More than 70 million people tuned in for the only VP candidate debate scheduled for 2008 between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin. I think people are not only curious about Palin, they just also enjoy hearing people actually communicating with one another in this era of reality TV.

It's not "sexy" but C-Span and the Sunday morning news discussion shows are some of the best exchanges of ideas, thinking and live debate going on television. My personal Sunday favorite?

"Like it Is" hosted by Gil Noble, one of THE coolest journalist-thinkers on television.

His show comes on channel 7 WABC in New York on Sunday morning's; part of their public affairs programming. Save for Tavist Smiley, Saturday and Sunday mornings are the usual slot for news programs with African-American hosts. The SaveLikeitIs Website says it's the longest African-American produced news program on television.

Bob Marley was interviewed by Gil Noble in 1980 shortly before the singer collapsed in Central Park and was diagnosed with cancer. The video quality isn't the best, but you can see parts 1 - 3 of the interview on Youtube.

Newsday columnist Les Payne is always on. To me he is one of the most interesting media-news people to listen to, but you don't really see him on CNN or any of the network news shows.

Interestingly "Like it Is" was developed during one of the most tumultuous social periods of the 1960's. According to their Website:

"Like It Is" was born amidst the nation's racial turmoil of the 1960s. President Lyndon Johnson's "National Commission on Civil Disorders" issued a (Kerner Commission) report...part of which recommended that African-Americans be hired in major market TV News, so that Americans could have access to a broader perspective of post and present-day issues."

It's the most realistic discussion of the implications of the bail out package I've heard. Not many news shows discuss the influence of corporate ownership on how the media is covering both the sub-prime and credit market fallout and the specifics of the $700 billion bail out.

Les Payne is the only journalist on TV I've heard remind people that Lehman Brothers paid out $8.7 billion in bonuses to their own employees in 2006 or 2007. And we're bailing them out?

AP - Yahoo! Poll Paints a Distorted Perception of African Americans

I don't harbor a lot of illusions about the reality of race in this country. If you want to see how difficult it is just to have a honest dialog about it just look what happens people begin to talk about it.

Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked by actor Michael Richards' (pictured left) bizarre racist tirade in an LA comedy club but I was. It made me wonder how many people harbor such virulently hateful thoughts about blacks in this country.

With economic fears temporarily eased by the promise of a massive federal bailout, there's a story about poll results that's gaining a lot of traction on the Web. I have to confess I'm a little bewildered after actually seeing these hard poll numbers about how voters in this country view Barack Obama as a potential president.

According to a recent poll conducted by AP and Yahoo! in conjunction with Standford University 40% of white Americans who participated in the study harbor negative views about African-Americans.

I'm not a poll researcher or anything but I wonder how much of a genuine reflection of America that poll represents.

According to the article I read on the New York Times Website: ''We still don't like black people,'' said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Why do millions of white Americans I've never even met feel that way about me?

It's a little weird for me to walk out onto a street thinking 4 out of the 10 white people who walk past me on any given day think I am "lazy" and "violent".

Wow, I thought it was 2008?

Macy's, Not Sleeping on the Beat

As I was walking out through the 7th avenue doors of Macy's on 34th street in New York (pictured left) this afternoon about 3:3opm about 6 security guys in identical blue blazers and ties were walking a young man back into the store. They'd obviously busted him for shoplifting, the guys hands were bound behind him with these thin white plastic strips.

He was tall, about 6'2" and he couldn't have been more than 17. He looked mid-eastern or sort of Pacific-Asian and had a handsome gentle face. He was dressed quite well and stylishly urban.

What had he stolen and why? I wondered. He looked like a "good kid". It's wrong to steal merchandise from any store of course, but I felt sorry for him. There was this uncomfortable moment when we passed, customers were stopping to look at him with disapproving looks; a little Hispanic girl no older than 5 clutched her mother's pants leg and looked up at the perp with wide dark eyes as he was led past.

Some part of him had to be embarrassed but he held his head high and stared straight ahead and as I glanced at the meaty left hand of a powerfully built security guard guiding the kid in, I sensed fear in the young shoplifter.

The security guys looked all charged up and exhilarated from the chase, one was breathing heavily and talking excitedly into a walkie talkie; no doubt alerting headquarters that they'sd bagged their guy. In the past couple years there've been some incidents of shoppers, mostly poor minorities but others as well, being falsely accused of shoplifting and taken by Macy's police and held there for unusually long periods.

A grandmother in Georgia was awarded $1.2 million for being falsely accused of shoplifting at Macy's.

Many retail stores are fighting back at shoplifters with elaborate security systems and small quasi-incarceration areas run by private police who process shoplifters by entering their personal information and photo into a national database and serving up stiff fines that must be paid to the store to prevent the real police being contacted.

I guess I'm wary of private policing in this nation given that the prison system is in itself an industry. But it doesn't make sense to clog the NYPD's time and the city's courts with people who try to steal merchandise from a store. So I think the private police system is a valid concept.

I can't seem to shake the image of the boy I saw this afternoon being led to the private police station in Macy's. I really hope the security personnel's professionalism and training is valid too.

GOP Fear Tactics Target Jewish Voters in Florida

According to the Huffington Post Website, The Jewish Council for Education in Research is reporting that at least two Jewish residents of Florida have recently been "push polled" by telephone reps asking them a variety of leading questions that falsely accuse Barack Obama of being linked to Hamas, the PLO and a variety of anti-semitic policy stances.

Looks like the McCain campaign and the GOP are all fueled up by reports of Obama's low poll numbers among the white male and female demographic in some states. Aggressive and misleading polls like this are intended to play upon racial stereotypes and cultural prejudices. It's nothing new for the GOP. Same sleazy tactics, different year.

Republicans were using them on one another during the primary season, you don't think they'll use them against Obama and Biden?

Smells like GOP low-ball strategist Warren Tompkins at work to me; this morally-challenged political hack was working Mitt Romney's campaign during the primary but was likely recalled to the mother ship in advance of the Republican National Convention.

Interesting tactical campaign choice for McCain.

The same man of principle and honor who stood underneath the big banner of integrity and straight talk at the Republican National Convention is determined to exploit the media-generated assumption that Jewish voters will be put off by Obama's race.

With the dismal economic forecast getting even gloomier with the fall of investment bank Lehman Brothers coupled with spiking fuel prices, McCain and running mate Sarah Palin's non-specific plain-folk talk seems even more irrelevant to working towards finding real solutions to the economic problems Republicans don't seem to think exist.

Fishing Legend Frank Mundus Dies at 82

"Farewell and adieu to ye fair Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu ye ladies of Spain!"

The scene in which actors Roy Schieder and Richard Dreyfuss watch Robert Shaw drunkenly belt out this tune in the cabin of Captain Quint's worn fishing boat just before the shark attacks is a contemporary film classic.

For a cinema-addict like me it was particularly sad to learn that Montauk sport fishing captain Frank Mundus passed away (pictured above left) from complications from a September 6th heart attack. The NJ-born angler was a legend on the Jersey Shore and and Robert Shaw's searing on-screen portrayal of him helped make "Jaws" the movie the defining summer blockbuster horror /thriller of the 70's.

Newsday writer Robert Wargas wrote an excellent obituary on the Newsday.com site.

A buddy of mine from Colt's Neck, NJ told me he knew a NJ fisherman who said Mundus would troll his boat around the carcasses of dead whales to find Great Whites - he'd jump out and walk on the carcass, in open sea even with large sharks feeding on it. He liked to use pureed whale blubber in the special chum mix he used to attract sharks. He was nuts, and I mean that with the most sincere admiration.

Don't take my word for it, Mundus wrote "Fifty Years a Hooker" in 2005, a book chronicling his numerous sport-fishing adventures.

It's kind of sad seeing characters like this fade, men who come from the generation forged in the depression. I heard an NPR interview with some of the shrimp boat captains in Louisiana; talking about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the industry.

Higher fuel costs and more profits from each pound of shrimp going into the pockets of middlemen are just some of the factors that are driving shrimp fishermen with family ties to the industry going back generations in some cases, away from their boats and nets forever.

You simply can't replace some of that knowledge and experience, and our culture will be the lesser for it. Fishing has been a staple industry in cities, towns and villages in the United States since it's inception as a nation.

Men like Frank Mundus are one of a kind but people will at least glimpse the spirit of what he was like when they watch Jaws. A movie with an immense impact on our culture and one that will be watched and enjoyed as long as film remains a relevant medium that entertains, teaches and reveals.

McCain Closes GOP Convention with Substance-Free Speech as the Media Repeats Republican Distortion and Femme Nazi Michelle Malkin Rants Against Obama

The Republican National Convention wound to a close last night with Senator John McCain's official acceptance of the GOP nomination for president and the final stretch to the White House begins. As fictional detective Sherlock Holmes oft proclaimed, "The game is afoot."

McCain's speech was big on rhetoric-filled generalities and short on original ideas of any kind. My personal favorite? "I'll keep taxes low and cut them where I can." That's about as specific as it got.

After voting with George Bush for 8 years he didn't even mention the embattled lame-duck president. To the delight of the thousands of petroleum-happy GOP delegates whipped into a bizarre frenzy of "Drill! Drill! Drill!" chants, the former fighter pilot completely flipped on his opposition to drilling for oil offshore - which he promised he wouldn't do as recently as June 19th according to an article in the New York Times.

McFlip also invoked the worn GOP battle-cry by railing against the "left wing media" - Media Matters reports that MSNBC, CNN and Fox all gave MORE prime-time television coverage to the Republican convention than they did the Democratic convention. Fair & balanced, uh huh.

It's simply mind-boggling how Republicans seem to get free reign from the mainstream media to level hollow charges against Senator Obama and the Democratic Party and accuse THEM of doing exactly what Republicans have done and are doing! Need proof? Let's look at one of many examples, shall we?

Taxes. Media Matters reports that many mainstream news outlets including Reuters, ABC's Good Morning America and the LA Times simply repeated McCain's claim that Senator Obama will "raise taxes." That's simply not true. Obama's economic proposal includes TAX CUTS for lower and middle income Americans earning under $200,000 per year. Last week in a Time Magazine interview McCain's OWN economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said Obama's plan is a net tax cut!

Why do these "news outlets" keep repeating distorted political assertions without offering any clarification? Left-wing media? These blatant distortions weren't limited to "real journalists" either, let's look at a sampling of the editorial pages.

The last time I blogged about bizarre conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was in the midst of her delusional right-wing campaign against Duncan Donuts for using an online ad campaign that pictured Rachel Ray wearing a scarf that Malkin INCORRECTLY identified as being a kefiyeh - a traditional scarf-headgear worn in desert regions that is often worn by Palestinian men. Rachel Ray & Duncan Donuts, Islamic terrorists? Okaaay....

Malkin's paranoid mind-set likely stems from her Filipino upbringing, many Filipinos are virulent anti-terrorists and her grandfather supposedly fought against the Japanese under Douglas MacArthur in WWII - perhaps she's projecting her grandfather's experiences onto people she clearly despises to pander to the right-wing audiences she longs to please.

Malkin outraged Asian-Americans when she published a book that defended racial profiling and the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, In Defense of Internment.

Today her column tore into Obama's community activism with a slew of unsubstantiated accusations about ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) the community group Obama worked for - Malkin, who couldn't find the South Side of Chicago with Mapquest, opened the column by sharing the fact that she laughed out loud at former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's disjointed rambling attacks against Obama during his speech on Wednesday night. Rudy, still desperately clinging to his "role" in 911, sounded like he was heavily medicated during his speech and looked like he wanted to shoot someone. The fact that Malkin found him funny says all you really need to know about this self-hating minority-Ann Coulter-wannabe.

Fox News regular and National Review editor Rich Lowry's Thursday September 4th puff-piece on Sarah Palin's idea-deprived, low-ball speech ("Barack, Meet Your Nightmare") took the Republican 'just keep repeating it until it becomes truth!' hypocracy to new heights. In the same piece in which he asserted "She may have given the best speech of either political convention", he opined that she was "merciless on Obama's elitism.." - bear in mind she said that line to the LEAST culturally diverse and WEALTHIEST Republican delegation in history. The same people chanting for oil drilling; and he calls Obama an elitist? Laughable.

Check out John Ridley's hysterical blog- The Guide to conservative 'Palinguage' Vol 2 -- The People's Edition.

For the moment the Democratic brain trust are patiently biding their time as they let the dust settle in St. Paul. Expect Hillary Clinton to take on Palin and start schooling this political lightweight when she visits Florida to campaign for Obama. This thing is just getting started and the Democrats are actually talking about real issues and proposing solutions; which is what this nation desperately needs rather than empty rhetoric, divisive language and petty personal attacks.

Gov. Palin's Daughter Unwed & Pregnant at 17; Is This the New Face of the GOP?

As hurricane Gustav blew into the Gulf Coast on the tail end of the Labor Day weekend, the Republican party is laboring to gain control of the bombshell revelation that 17-year old Bristol Palin (pictured left) the daughter of the newly-selected GOP vice-presidential pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is five months pregnant.

The mainstream media was quick to jump on the story during a lull created by the GOP's postponement of many of the headline speakers at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. It's a top item on each of the national network news broadcasts as well as the BBC television news this evening.

The reaction from the public is mixed. There was a sarcastic tone to many of the blogged responses on the New York Times Website who view the GOP's continual moralizing as wearisome hypocracy given the slew of GOP US Representatives and Senators nabbed for everything from bribery to child molestation in the past 8 years.

Many Republicans and Democrats alike (including Barack Obama) were quick to point out that Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant is a personal family matter that should not become part of the national political debate.

But it is and will be. Particularly given that the Bush administration has packed the Supreme Court with judges determined to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that recognizes a woman's right to have an abortion and also actively campaigned to end federal funding for stem cell research.

If the Republican candidates hadn't waved the "Family Values" flag over the heads of Democrats and painted their party as morally superior, it might not be as big a story.

But Palin actively supports an abstinence-only policy towards teen sex. She also home-schooled the unwed teen mother who's decision to keep her baby and marry her boyfriend Levi is now at the center of the presidential race. What does that say about Governor Palin?

Interestingly it was the blogosphere, not the mainstream media, that thrust this story into the global spotlight; for weeks Websites like Dailykos.com have been rife with rumors that Trig, the young baby with Downs Syndrome who is the youngest of Sarah Palin's 5 kids is actually her daughter Bristol's child.

I'm a skeptic in this matter.

As one blogger observed on the NYT Website, a pregnant teen who isn't married leaves a"trailer trash" impression in the media. It completely negates the wholesome flawless Alaskan family image the GOP was spinning for Palin, who is already being investigated for her role in the 527 group that supported Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens - who allegedly tried to conceal monetary gifts from oil company executives.

McCain must be kicking himself for not choosing Mitt Romeny, who's picture-perfect family and squeaky clean Mormon family life must now seem a God-send that is tantalizingly out of reach.

But McCain caved into, and decided to score points with, the right-wing Christian coalition members who look upon the Mormon religion with scorn and even consider parts of the Book of Mormon to be blasphemy against Jesus Christ.

While it is politically messy, the repercussions of Bristol Palin's sex life is not really high on my list of concerns for the nation. I think it pales in comparison with what's going on in Iraq (where Governor Palin's son is scheduled to be deployed this fall), a new form of Russian expansionism and the situation on the ground in Darfur.

Gas prices, skyrocketing prices for consumer goods and lack of health care for millions of Americans are more important than a 17 year-old's decision to have sex and get pregnant; I mean, come on, how many times a day does THAT happen in this nation?

What John McCain's VP choice is showing America is that Republicans have NO business lecturing people about family values, unwed teen mothers or abortion.

If she hadn't been home-schooled and had access to sex education, maybe she wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Check out this guy from Youtube sharing some very interesting allegations of that Governor Palin covered up her daughter Bristol's pregnancy - he's got photos that he says show Governor Palin (photographed at the time prior to Trig's birth) standing next to her daughter that show Bristol with a bump, NOT the Governor! YOU decide!

And the GOP Nominee for VP is.....Sarah Palin?

Republican presidential candidate John McCain obviously marches to his own beat. His surprising selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has generated a lot of publicity in print, online and across radio and television - unfortunately, for the most part it's not the kind of publicity the McCain camp was looking to create.

Opinions in the blogosphere run from puzzlement to genuine anger. Some conservatives believe he all but conceded the election by overlooking GOP VP candidates with far more experience including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

It was risky, but you can see the logic in his thinking. More people (38 million) tuned into watch Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's speech than watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing. Obama is making history as the first black candidate for the White House with an honest chance of winning and his acceptance speech in Denver was one of the most inspiring I've ever heard from a politician - McCain had to do SOMETHING to gain back the momentum.

Many have commented that McCain's selection of Palin nullified his own ability to critique Obama for his lack of foreign policy experience; Palin is essentially the most unexperienced VP candidate in modern US history.

What's interesting to me is how quickly Palin's being a woman has become an issue for the media. As a mother of 5 children, the perky librarian-like Palin comes off as a ripe target in the political sense and some wonder if Joe Biden and Obama will have to temper their attacks leading into the fall. I think it's way too early to make conclusions like that.

Palin is no pastry puff and her selection does tap into the female vote and might even sway some of Hillary's 18 million supporters. But to hear some of the political pundits on CNN and MSNBC, you have to wonder if the media will treat her differently because she's a woman.

Click on the video on the right side of the page and listen for yourself; no asked Obama if HE will be able to take care of his young daughters and still be an effective president.

Cynthia McKinney - Green Party Candidate or GOP Ally?

Last night Senator Hillary Clinton, proudly sporting one of her patented pantsuits, stood tall before the spotlight of the national media on the stage of the Democratic National Convention and urged her supporters to cast aside the last curtains dividing the Democratic Party and throw the full force of their support behind Senator Barack Obama.

She addressed the country and obviously the convention, but she was clearly speaking to the entrenched hardcore Hillary supporters who are still seething over the results of one of the hardest-fought Democratic primary seasons in modern US history. The media has captured, photographed and editorialized every single move of the emerging battle between Obama and McCain - but I haven't seen much mainstream media coverage of another thorn in Obama's side; 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney (Pictured above left).

McKinney is the controversial former US Representative from Georgia's 11th and later 4th District who made her voice heard on Capitol Hill railing against Bush's complacency in 911, calling for sealed records in the Tupak Shakur case to be released to the public and more famously, getting into a physical alteration with Capitol Hill security guards when they refused to allow her to enter the building because she was not wearing the House of Representatives pin all members are required to wear to gain entry past security. She punched the Capitol Hill police officer who tried to stop her and later apologized on the floor of the House for her behavior.

McKinney was inspired to enter politics by her father Billy McKinney, one of Atlanta's first black policeman who later served in the Georgia state legislature. Days before his daughter's primary defeat in 2002 he made headlines (and political enemies for him and his daughter) in front of a local TV news camera by opining:
"That ain't nothin'. Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S."

She herself has faced multiple accusations of anti-Semitism, blocking support for Israel in Congress and courting the support of people known to be affiliated with organizations that support Hamas and other radical Islamic groups.

She was endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations which sent an e-mail to their membership urging them to support her 2002 Congressional campaign; the e-mail read, in part:
"...support Cynthia McKinney...Pro-Muslim candidate. Supporter of Palestinian State for over 7 years. Against secret evidence. Against Aid to Israel."

In 1988 CAIR co-founderOmar Ahmad told a California audience: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran ... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

If McKinney accepts money from them, why wouldn't she accept money from someone like Roger Stone, the Republican insider who managed and channeled money to support Al Sharpton's failed bid for the presidency in the 2004 election in order to strip votes from John Kerry?

These are critical times we live in. Not since the depression-era election of 1933 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the first of 4 terms in office have registered American voters stood on the cusp of a more significant opportunity to affect change in the very fabric of this society.

Hillary Clinton spoke directly to her most hardcore constituency when she asked them why they were in the race, for Hillary? Or for the working and middle class people of this nation in need of health care and struggling to make ends meet as they live check to check with nothing left over to save.

It's a question this alignment of "progressives" and Clinton supporters need to consider. Are they seriously going to cast a vote for an anti-Semitic, liberal extremist candidate with absolutely no chance of winning the 2008 election, or worse; vote for John McCain just to SHOW Barack Obama how bitter they are?

Will they honestly risk four more years of an unimaginative, elitist Bush-lackey like John McCain occupying the White House, because they are still irked over the primaries that ended months ago?

If their logic is related to policy stances with Obama's/Democrat's platform then they need to step back and acknowledge that no candidate in this race is perfect.

Progressives are only kidding themselves - and the only ones laughing will be the Republicans who've driven this nation into the ground in the past 8 years as the "progressives" of the Green Party strip away votes from the only presidential candidate committed to honest change for ALL Americans.

Michelle Obama Shines on Stage Even in the Shadow of Hate

Tonight was something of a contrast in terms of the media's coverage of the myriad issues affecting our cultural fabric. Clearly the story that resonated across the media was the DNC convention; and one speaker in particular generated a lot of interest.

Tonight Michelle Obama (pictured left) the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama took center stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in what was a barely veiled nationally televised coming-out party for a possible future First Lady.

I watched the touching introduction by her older brother Craig Robinson, a graduate of Princeton University and the head coach of the men's basketball team at Oregon State University. Michelle's speech came from the heart, honored the character of a father who suffered from MS and clearly spelled out the Obama's desire for change, love of this country and broad appeal.

The accounts of her and her brother's upbringing by a working class father who worked for the city of Chicago and a strong stay-at-home mother clearly struck a chord with the crowd and I suspect did much to show Americans that the Obamas are exceptionally bright people cut from the mainstream cloth of the United States. Far from the simplistic, radical stereotypes peddled by the right wing conservatives and right wing media outlets like Fox News throughout the course of the battle for the nomination process.

To me the speech hammered home the need for change, the courage to embrace a vision of a better America and the courage to be an optimist in the midst of what is unquestionably one of the most challenging times in the modern history of the nation.

But amidst the sense of hope this evening conveyed, I was reminded of the fragile state of race relations in this nation and the cultural realities that must be addressed if we are to evolve as a nation.

News reports indicate local and Federal authorities reported that four people were under arrest under suspicion of plotting to kill Obama. There have been a variety of similar threats against the 47 year-old Senator from Illinois. Sadly this one comes in a time when the nation looks to the candidate for hope in the midst of the socio-economic devastation of the past 8 years, high oil prices, continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and rising consumer prices.

This is the world into which Barack Obama has stepped. A world where hate crimes are on the rise as I blogged about last night. Not just here either.

The Daily Mail (UK) Website reports that Mohammed Al-Majed, a 16 year-old student from the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar was savagely beaten and killed by a drunken group of four men and two women in the British seaside town of Hastings in East Sussex. Accosted along with other foreign students after leaving a food stand, the racist attackers beat Al-Majed then repeatedly stomped on his head inflicting massive injuries to his skull.

He died two days after being admitted to the hospital. According to the Daily Mail article, one of the reasons he was in the United Kingdom was to learn more about the language and the culture and to appreciate the need to live in harmony.

Hate Crime Spike in LA Mirrors National Trend

It's been a hot summer in Los Angeles and not just because of the fires.

The mainstream media isn't really devoting a whole lot of coverage to the recent rise in Latino-African-American tensions in the Los Angeles, CA area. Probably because a lot of the victims and perpetrators are minority gang members, but also because it seems as if there is this sense that the growing violence between Latinos and blacks isn't related to a larger national trend of increased hate crimes.

A lot of the problems in LA specifically, including physical assaults, vandalism and shootings stem from the large increase of Latino immigrants, legal or otherwise, into the LA County region in recent years. Black residents who have lived in economically-challenged areas of LA, like Compton and Watts for years are now seeing enormous spikes in Latino populations in areas that were once largely African-American.

LA Times writer Teresa Watanabe is writing about it.
She penned a recent article about some of the statistics contained in the LA County Human Relation Commission's annual report showing a disturbing 28% rise in hate crimes in the City of Angels.

The statistics highlight some alarming trends. Of the 763 crimes that were reported, 50% of them were committed against African-Americans. Also disturbing is the fact that there is a growing diversity in the hate crimes being committed.

The city of Los Angeles is one of the most diverse communities in the nation. For years ethnic tensions between the various cultures who live there have made headlines in the national and global media.

Watanabe's LA Times article quoted a Cal State San Bernardino's official as saying:
"What we're seeing is the democratization of hate crimes," said Brian Levin, who directs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. "We're not only seeing a diversification of victims but also increased diversification of offenders."

In the 60's the world watched as many of the nation's urban communities, including LA, erupted in violence in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why aren't they watching the smaller scale violence that's happening right now?

Spanish Olympic Basketball Team's Racist Team Photo Mocks Asians

In the latest racist sports embarrassment for Spain, photos of the Spanish Olympic basketball team (pictured at left) posing together using their fingers to pull back their eyelids in an insulting racist caricature of Asian eyelids is causing outrage amongst Chinese people around the world.

What an insult to the global cooperative spirit of the Olympics and their Chinese hosts. Spanish soccer fans have repeatedly demonstrated their contempt for black players with racist insults during an era in which the cultural fabric of Europe has changed to include peoples from middle east and Africa.

Sadly this behavior isn't limited to Spain either. This 2004 article from the Washington Post chronicles a number of incidents of racist behavior by European soccer fans as well as anti-Semitic taunts against teams with ties to the Jewish community as well.

This low rent garbage isn't confined to Spanish soccer stadiums either. British Formula 1 racing driver Lewis Hamilton, who is of African descent, was subjected to racist taunts and slurs by obnoxious Spanish F1 racing fans while his team was testing his car and preparing for the opening of the 2008 Grand Prix season at the Circuit de Catalunya track in Barcelona back in February, 2008.

So much for Spanish culture. As "anon" wryly observed in the reader response section in response to a Huffingtonpost article on the incident:

"Oh Spain, it never ends with that country...maybe its residual bitterness from being the centuries long platform from which the Moors culturally and intellectually enriched Europe....who knows."

The same Huffingtonpost article reports the Spanish women's basketball team posed for the photo doing the same thing so obviously the lack of a penis has no bearing on ignorance and alarming stupidity either.

China beat the moronic Spanish hoop players 67-64 by the way. Perhaps the Spanish should quit wasting their time acting like juvenile racist assholes and focus on preparing themselves for competition.

Actors in Blackface an Enduring Hollywood Symbol

Robert Downey, Jr. in the 2008
film Tropic Thunder

According to an LA Times interview by Chris Lee, actor Robert Downey Jr. was excited at the prospect of working with actor-director Ben Stiller on the comedy Tropic Thunder, but he looked at playing a role in black-face with trepidation.

Downey, (pictured left in character) plays the intense, self-absorbed Oscar-winning Australian Method actor Kirk Lazarus, who darkens his skin to completely immerse himself in the role of Sgt. Lincoln Osiris.

As far back as March, 2008 the images and promotional stills from the movie's trailer were fueling speculation about the possible backlash from a white actor in blackface in a comedy.

White actors portraying African-American characters in films, or performing in blackface isn't a new phenomenon by any means.

In 1927 entertainer Al Jolson performed in blackface in Hollywood's first feature-length musical, Warner Brother's hit The Jazz Singer.

If you've never seen it before, check out this brief clip of Jolson singing 'Mammy' in blackface that was typical of the period.

More recently, the decision to cast Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, the mixed-race Cuban-American wife of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, in the 2007 movie Mighty at Heart stirred some controversy.

Particularly among critics who expressed confusion as to why an actual biracial actress like Thandie Newton, who'd demonstrated screen presence, range and ability in successful films like Crash and Mission Impossible II wasn't offered the role.

Especially given the lack of juicy parts that are available for an actress of color in mainstream Hollywood releases.

Angelina Jolie (right) as Mariane Pearl (left) 
in the 2007 film Mighty Heart

My take is that people who might be quick to react negatively towards Tropic Thunder because of Downey in blackface should step back and remember it is satire.

The entire point of having Downey's character choose to play Sgt. Lincoln Osiris in blackface is to lampoon the entertainment industry executives who routinely make the kinds of casting decisions that put white performers in roles that should arguably be played by an actors of color.

Downey is intelligent, socially responsible and hugely talented (If you haven't seen his performance in Chaplin put it on your Netflix queue right now) there's no way he'd take on a roll in blackface without knowing it was intelligently written, or that the black-face itself was an organic component of the story, character and script.

The film takes a comedic swipe at Hollywood actors and filmmakers who create war movies, in particular some of the over-the-top seriousness with which they prepare for fictional roles as soldiers and the assorted idiosyncrasies of the studio heads, producers and directors who bankroll and make these films.

Black-face is just one component of entertainment director/co-writer Ben Stiller lampoons in this film. I don't necessarily think it's inappropriate to use blackface in social satire, as Downey himself observed in an Entertainment Weekly interview:

“If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”

Judy Garland performs in blackface

This isn't the overtly racist minstrel-type of art of the late 19th and early 20th century. Minstrels were white performers who dressed up in black-face to lampoon the physical characteristics, dress, habits and lifestyles of African-Americans and more importantly; play upon and reinforce racial stereotypes.

But remember there were black minstrels too!

Black performers in blackface lampooning themselves to entertain audiences. What's wrong with that picture?

Director Spike Lee explored this question in his 2000 film, Bamboozled

What did blackface and minstrel imagery in entertainment and media look like?

Check out this montage of minstrel clips edited together by Spike Lee for his 2000 social satire, Bamboozle.

The speculative buzz about possible backlash in Tropic Thunder is just that.

Mostly from people who haven't even seen the movie.

It reflects the unhealed pain of this imagery - which was commonplace in America and other countries for years and has inflicted a lot of internal psychological damage to the psyche of black people.

Personally I think Downey's role is a positive thing, one of the ways we evolve culturally is to develop the capacity to look at ourselves, and view the past honestly.

Even when it's difficult to look at.

Who's Singin' About Lynching? Country Singer Toby Keith!

There's nothing that turns my stomach more than a hypocrite country music singer who on one hand claims to support US troops in Iraq and waxes philosophic about America's greatness, but then goes on a television and radio media blitz to display his dim-witted racism and hill-billy ignorance for the entire world to see.

Last week on the Huffingtonpost Website Max Blumenthal wrote an excellent piece on country music buffoon Toby Keith's emergence as an advocate for John McCain, lynching and unbridled simplistic assumptions about African-American behavior, demeanor and language.

The stereotypes of black Americans are so prevalent and ingrained in our culture that many people (of all races) like Toby just assume that all blacks talk the same, dress the same, listen to the same music and think alike. I'm black and I was raised in the suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland outside Washington, DC. My mom was born in Philadelphia and my father in Conway, North Carolina.

My parents were college educated and we did not speak in a manner oft-described as "Ebonics".

Remember the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" ? Well my family was more like that in mannerism, dress and speech than say, the Evans family on "Good Times".

I find it absolutely fascinating that I've had both whites and blacks tell me I "sound white" over the years. What does it mean to sound white? What does white sound like versus the sound of black? When I was 3 I knocked out my front teeth while playing and for years, I lisped words.

So my mother would constantly correct my speech, it became so ingrained that to this day I enunciate every syllable of every word, I'm an actor and I have a beautiful speaking voice and no trace of any kind of accent. Drop me a note at culturegeistny@yahoo.com, I'll send you my voice-over demo oif you want to hear what I sound like.

Just because I don't sound like 50-Cent, doesn't mean I am not African-American; believe me, when a cab drives right past me to pick up a white passenger, I'm black. But when I read a speech I'm white?

During a July interview on Glenn Beck's radio show, Toby Keith made the suggestion that black people think Obama sounds and acts "white". Take a listen to the clip for yourself"

What that suggests to me is what I term a form of "linguistic racism". Why?

It's a sweeping assumption that if you sound educated, well-read and intelligent, which I am; then you sound like a white person. But if you speak in a broken English vernacular that you might hear on an urban ghetto street corner, then you're black.

It's incredible how judgmental our society can be. I don't assume that Toby Keith is a redneck because he speaks with a country drawl; oh speaking of rednecks, just check out the lyrics for Toby's song "Beer for My Horses", Keith's nostalgic look back at the way things were back in his dear old "Grandpappy's" day":

Well a man come on the 6 o'clock news
said somebody's been shot
somebody's been abused
somebody blew up a building
somebody stole a car
somebody got away
somebody didn't get to far yeah
they didn't get too far

Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see

That Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon
And we'll raise up our glasses against evil forces singing
whiskey for my men, beer for my horses

We got too many gangsters doing dirty deeds
too much corruption and crime in the streets
It's time the long arm of the law put a few more in the ground
Send 'em all to their maker and he'll settle 'em down
You can bet he'll set 'em down...

I blogged about lynching here in July, 2007 when a group of activists re-enacted the bloody kidnapping/murder of two African Americans couples near the Apalachee River in Georgia on the night of July 25, 2007.

You're intelligent enough to make your own conclusions about these lyrics. Just remember, Toby Keith sang them on The Stephen Colbert Show, and will sing them on the Jay Leno Show and other mainstream media platforms in the coming days as he promotes his own peculiar sort of patriotism and the crowd claps along to the beat.

Kosher Meat-Packing Giant AgriProcessors Issue Response to Federal Charges

It was almost 3 months ago when Immigration Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials raided an Iowa meat-packing plant and arrested more than 300 Hispanic workers accused of a variety of immigration violations including the use of falsified Social Security numbers and document forgery.

Today the Yeshiva World News Website reports that Kosher meat-packing giant AgriProcessors issued an official response to the charges levied by the US government, denying that it knowingly hired underage Hispanic workers - even citing evidence it fired underage workers after their HR department discovered they were under 18.

Back in 1987, Brooklyn resident Aaron Rubashkin (pictured above with white beard) caused something of a stir when he purchased a large meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa to produce Kosher meats. He sparked tensions with local residents when he brought in a mix of Hispanic workers and Lubavitch chasidim from the Hasidic Jewish communities in Crown Heights Brooklyn as well as Russia according to an Associated Press report.

It was a troubled start for AgriProcessors, the largest Kosher meat-packing plant in the United States. An empire that today controls 60% of the $300 million-a-year Kosher beef and poultry industry. They were fined $182,000 by the Iowa Division of Labor for 39 health and safety violations in March, 2008.

In 2004 a PETA member videotaped the inhumane treatment of cows in slaughter areas of the plant; The EPA was forced to clean up an Allentown, PA mill owned by Rubashkin which was later destroyed in an arson fire; He and his son Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin, who did a year in Federal prison for bank fraud, were accused of collecting worker's union dues then illegally pocketing the money from Cherry Hill Textiles, Inc.

But interestingly, the May, 2008 Postville, Iowa arrests at the AgriProcessor plant also sparked many people, including large numbers of local Postville, Iowa residents to protest the ICE tactics. A number of Iowa residents consider the immigrants hard workers and essential to the local economy which some say has boomed with their arrival.

Regardless of the Rubashkin's ethically questionable business tactics both Iowans and immigrants marched together peacefully to protest the arrests at the AgriProcessor plant.

It's a positive sign for the culturegeist when residents of America's heartland can see past GOP-created anti-immigrant hysteria to welcome the cultural changes that come with the integration of immigrant populations into our own culture.

Are Indians & Pakistanis Racist Towards African-Americans?

I'd like to make a cultural observation that's frankly left me puzzled. There's rarely much analysis written about it in the mainstream media but there's often a palpable tension or almost imperceptible negative energy directed towards black Americans that seems to emanate from some Pakistanis and Indians who live here in the United States.

Not just in the States either. Back in January, 2008 I blogged about the Indian cricket player Harbhajan Singh (pictured left) who faced charges for repeated racial epithets and obnoxious on-field actions against black opponents during cricket matches.

I've experienced it many times while riding in or trying to hail Yellow Cabs here in New York City (that's a blog site unto itself). I've felt and experienced it in bodegas and delis as well. Most recently I experienced it last Sunday, August 3rd in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey while visiting my mother's house.

She lives in a nice subdivision of interconnected town houses that sits off a two lane semi-rural road about two miles from the crowded Route One corridor in South Brunswick. The local area is comprised of a mixture of dwindling farmland and sprawling neighborhoods of recently- built Toll Brothers homes that look too large to be sitting next to each other on the heavily-taxed 3/4 acre lots they sit on.

Many areas of central New Jersey have seen huge increases in the population of well-educated Asian professionals and families settling into the suburban communities for the school systems and access to both New York and Philadelphia as well as the large corporate presence in and around Princeton.

Many have moved into the sub-division where my mother lives and often times, they stare at us. Now I know the difference between a cursory glance at someone you see in a neighborhood and a lingering stare and it's the latter.

Almost a disassociated observation with little concern for tact. If it sounds a rather un-definitive and abstract notion, it is.

Subtle, not in your face but you can feel it in looks and cars that seem to slow down for the occupants to look at you. My brother was driving me back to my apartment on Sunday afternoon and as we drove towards the exit of the sub-division he hopped out of my mom's 2007 Honda SUV to see if his glasses were in the trunk. A woman in a sari driving a grey four-door Japanese sedan drove by and slowed as she passed.

My brother spends a lot more time out there than I do and he noticed her watching him right off, it annoys him. Bugs me too. My mom has owned the townhouse she's lived in ever since my father died of cancer in 1996 and we sold the house we'd built in West Windsor, New Jersey.

We were both raised in middle-upper class neighborhoods; our parents were both professionals with college degrees - my brother has an undergraduate degree from Rutgers, a degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary and is about to start his dissertation at Columbia. My older sister was Merit Scholar who went to Brown. I graduated from Penn State, played football there and was also an NFL player. We trace our family tree back to a slave brought to the United States in the 1700's - but all the woman who drove by us saw was our skin color.

Bear in mind I harbor no resentment towards Indians and Pakistanis. There's no anti-Hindu or Muslim feeling behind this post. I'm just sharing something I know exists that I never see US media cover - and I am far from the only African-American or person for that matter to notice this.

Check out this 1998 article about Pakistani racism written by Saad Shafqat - a Pakistani. It's entitled, "The Overlooked Problem of Pakistani Racism"

Is it scorn? Is it resentment? Or perhaps the product of cultures that have long-held and deeply ingrained simplistic assumptions about skin color and a mind-set forged from a rigid caste-system mentality that survives in various forms in India to this day.

As my mother has often told me, we all bring baggage to the door when we date someone; it seems there are people bringing cultural baggage with them to the doors of the United States.

Strange that certain members of these cultures direct such feelings towards African-Americans when racism is still directed towards both Indians and Pakistanis in places like England; as in the recent case of Indian actress Shilpa Shetty.

Does Rumsfeld Say Flight 93 Was Shot Down by US Fighters?

Last night my friend Tim from Philadelphia sent me a clip of a youtube clip of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld speaking before reporters.

While reflecting on 911, he clearly says in passing that Flight 93 was shot down. Check it out for yourself.



Given what had happened that morning, I don't think many people would be surprised to learn that US fighters DID shoot down Flight 93 rather than risk it crashing into the Capitol Dome in Washington, DC.

Not sure about the veracity of the clip, you can fudge anything these days, but it seemed authentic enough.

My take is that Rumsfeld is way too intelligent to "misspeak" about something like that. There's been so much discussion in the media on the strategic implications of terrorism that I'm not sure how much we really pause and think about how the collective culturegeist of the WORLD changed on that day.

I've never really blogged about 911. It's still something of an unhealed emotional trauma for me and I think I am still processing the reality of what happened and the images broadcast from around the world from the media's non-stop coverage. I'm still not ready to watch Oliver Stone's movie about 911 - the trauma, for me, is still to real.

Like millions of others I was living here in New York on September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center's towers were destroyed in one of the most horrific incidents of violence and terror ever perpetrated upon the people of the United States.

I was off that Tuesday and I sat in my living room for hours with tears in my eyes watching the hellish vision unfold before me on television; scarcely able to believe what I was seeing.

In the eerie silence during the days that followed, many things about our cultural awareness were permanently changed. Differences in nationality, skin color or religion were rendered irrelevant in the face of the blood spilled from over 3,000 innocent people. Those people came from all facets of life, all races and religions; speaking languages from across the globe.

Perhaps the lives of those on board remind us to strive to make a difference in the short time we have here - if the entire population of the Earth were crammed onto a flight that was going to crash, we'd find a way to get past the cultural issues that divide us.

Shouldn't that desire be just as sincere and urgent knowing we're lucky enough to be here, alive in this moment?

Left Out of the Digital Switchover

February 17, 2009. That's really not that far off when you stop and think about it.

That's the date of the nation's impending digital switchover from the analog television broadcast signal. Put simply, if you don't have a digital-ready television, or cable box capable of receiving the digital signal, by next February 17th, you will no longer have access to television broadcasts. Period.

Because the activities of the FCC are often layered in term-laden, technical complexity, many people don't realize that the 700MHz frequency spectrum on which television signals have been broadcast for years, was auctioned off by the government for $19.6 billion earlier this year; a consortium of large carriers and hi-tech companies bought it. It will be used in part to handle the massive increase in mobile bandwidth needs.

I blogged about the digital switch here on culturegeist back on July 10th.

I certainly see numerous television commercials and informational Websites sponsored by the cable companies to advertise government-backed coupons that offset consumer's purchases of the now-necessary digital converter boxes. The animated figure (pictured above) is part of the United Kingdom's ad campaign for their switchover.

What I don't see is a whole lot of mainstream media examination of this fractionally small, but none the less important omission from the digital switchover. It's not going to come as a shocker but the numbers of people who will be without television access are poor and I'd guess slanted towards the more rural areas of the country. They'll come from all races and nationalities.

For me the potential cultural concern is that Hispanics and African-Americans will be left out of the television equation in disproportionate numbers.

What's that going to mean to people? Can sociologists gauge the impact of people in the US with little or no access to TV?

Some might argue they'll be better off but Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood - these public television programs were very important to me as a Gen X kid raised in the burbs in the 70's and 80's. Should you have to pay each month to see TV?

Our desire and need to consume larger amounts of data and media content how, when and where we want and over multiple devices is one of the major drivers of the digital switchover.

But for all the 'enlightened' ways in which we consume media, don't we collectively have some degree of moral obligation to ensure that the information and educational gaps that underline the wealth disparities in the US not divide free access to local news and entertainment along the lines of the ability to purchase new technology and pay high monthly cable fees?

Don't the people of all races and backgrounds living on the fringes of the US economic spectrum deserve to plug in their old rabbit ear black and white and be able to watch something?

After February 17, 2009 not so much.

Tamron Hall's Distortion of Obama's Patriotism: Live on MSNBC!

Is it me, or does it seem as if prominent African-Americans are just all over Obama's case this week? Or is the media just making it seem that way?

Weeks after the incident occurred the Reverend Al Sharpton boldly steps forth and rises to the defense of Jesse Jackson after the latter's vulgar off-air remarks about Obama - in some kind of strange effort to make them both seem more relevant to the current political dialog than they actually are.

Unfortunately both bizarre media missteps only had the effect of making them both seem slightly less relevant and much more desperate.

MSNBC Anchor Tamron Hall (pictured above) is catching heat for a glaring journalistic blunder according to an article posted on the Media Matters for America Website on Monday, July 28th.

MediaMatters.org reports that during a Monday July 28, 2008 broadcast MSNBC Live anchor used a story about a John McCain political sound bite to distort the fact that Barack Obama had visited wounded troops while in Iraq. She repeats the false accusation from the McCain camp without any reference to the actual facts of the case.

The number of her specific commentary points totally conflicting with established facts are so numerous you really have to read the Media Matters piece (click the link above) yourself to appreciate one example of the evaporation of the most basic journalistic principles.

She and MSNBC 's crack research team were apparently totally unaware that Obama HAD in fact visited wounded US troops in the Green Zone along with other Congressional representatives during his trip to Iraq, has visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington on multiple occasions and also made personal phone calls to wounded soldiers at the huge US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany where most seriously wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are flown.

Rumors abound that McCain quietly used Pentagon connections to prevent the Obama camp from flying to Landstuhl - a trip that had been planned for weeks.

Hall actually contradicts a statement MSNBC's OWN chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell made on July 25th that Obama DID visit troops in Iraq!

Check out this video of Hall answering questions at length from Hardball's Chris Matthews, she manages to simultaneously earnestly cement her authority on the story by recounting her experience as a member of the same Chicago Church Obama attended, headed of course by Reverend Wright - and also slam Obama on the Reverend Wright issue.

After a rather long-winded answer the camera pulls back and Andrea Mitchell is one of the Hardball panelists; the video is worth the look on Andrea's face.

I certainly am not suggesting that Hall or any other African-American for that matter doesn't have every right to express their opinion of Obama; but not at the expense of the truth. I mean come on, that doesn't even qualify as analysis.

Call me crazy but he's proved himself a capable and worthy political opponent and a savvy politician; he's kept it above the belt, if you're going to criticize the man at least get your facts straight.

"Crabs in a bucket." My Grandmom might've said. "Crabs in a bucket."