Friday, August 30, 2013

The sad state of television today: The critics forcing acceptance of R and NC-17 rated programming by giving them Emmy nominations

Movie theatres have a problem when the rating of a film is “R” or “NC-17” (an X rating before 1990) because they will appeal to adults only. Restrictions against children are strictly imposed in the theatre. However, it's clear now with the proliferation of cord-cutting and Web-only viewers they can escape the restrictions of theatres. Yet, with television's “TV-MA” rating, which is the equivalent of an NC-17 (or X) rating in television, we are seeing the rewards of the R/X-class programming on television.

Consider that HBO, Showtime, and Netflix can air TV-MA grade programming, and the Emmy nominations went mostly to that triumvirate, while the broadcast networks, which have a restriction of Y7, G, PG, and some 14 after 10 PM ET, were shut out of the prestigious drama category, you have to wonder what it says when pay television, with no restrictions on content, is defeating network television, which must cater to as many people as possible.

Does it seem that television's equivalent of the R and NC-17 ratings, unlike movies, is worth artistic gold, with Emmy nominations, while network television with their PG and PG-13 ratings, are being shut down by these R and NC-17 type shows? If the Emmys believe raunchy content that's not capable of being on network television is the golden goose to earn accolades, we are in trouble.

Speaking of which, the report on Al Jazeera America's launch this week is only fitting considering Al Jazeera effectively shut down three Fox sport-related channels (Speed, Fuel, Fox Soccer) as much of their content has gone to the pan-Arabic Qatar channel (and their partners at Time Warner Cable, for legal reasons), Comcast (see the rise of NBC Sports Network), and Fox is starting a basic cable channel with the R and NC-17 type HBO/Showtime/Netflix unrestricted raunch (FXX) to replace the football channel, while replacing the motorsport and action-sports and MMA channel with general sports channels (Fox Sports 1 and 2). Already, according to a report posted on ESPN, television providers are balking at FS1 and FS2 because of the carriage fees.

It is a sad sign of what we have become when acceptance of deviancy in violation of the Bible is glorified and mandated by federal law. Now it's even worse that Hollywood and the critics are forcing on us their attitudes of grotesque material that would not have been put on television years ago.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

This weekend's Darlington Stripes

The news about disgraced soldier Bradley Manning, whose campaign to change the military to a sexual deviancy activist organisation was successful via Public Law 111-321, and his Wikileaks scandal that sent him to prison is very disturbing. But if he wants the identity of Chelsea, he must wear this shirt.

MTV has been the target of Our Word over the years here, especially since we regularly attend the orchestra and have an appreciation of classical music (just witness what happened when, during my daily Bible reading, I sensed the words from masterpiece I had sung months earlier came to life). The story over two grotesque performances by two major artists popular with this generation at the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday, held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, showed the most banal standards that Fox Business anchorman Stuart Varney blamed it on the previous generation for accepting it in their time. Sometimes, I have a sense that someone's sitting in the Oval Office (fka Big Red Truck) and calling all three offending artists into the office for consultation. And at this pace, maybe the Barclays Center needs to be renamed the Sky Bet Centre. The calibre of "singer" there was a far cry from the Barclays-calibre type singers such as Анна Нетребко and the Minnesota Opera's Rebecca Krynski (in the upcoming performance of Manon Lescault; the author has seen her perform in college and the infamous St. Peter's Catholic performance of The True Story of Cinderella), Walter Cuttino, or the LaRoches (Michael and Serena).

And speaking of such outrageous performances, I think we've gone too far in sport and art with costuming, and even in schools. Who would want their kid to dress like those bad pop stars? We see that at sporting events and we rarely hear any complaints about it. But do it on television at the MTV awards, we hear complaints. Why is there a double standard?

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Teenage criminal rampage: UN treaty not ratified by the Senate, but by the Supreme Court, protects the criminals

At church recently, we were informed of a robbery at a bakery where three teenagers ransacked the business and killed an employee there. She had ties to the local community. In Oklahoma, a college student, originally from Australia and a baseball player at a college there, was killed by teenagers "for fun". In Spokane (WA), an elderly war hero from the Greatest Generation died after teenagers attacked him with a weighted flashlight.

In each case, the criminals involved were teenagers. In each case, there will be no justice for the victims' families. The teenage criminals will be protected to the full extent of the law, and may not even serve as much as thirty years in prison, and that is a problem in our justice system. A popular trend in the United States Supreme Court is a virtual relocation of the nation's legislative capital to Geneve (Suisse), as a rash of Supreme Court decisions has stated foreign law trumps local, state, and federal laws.

In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court declared a “constitutional” right to sodomy based on foreign laws. Justice Scalia warned this decision would push liberals' to attack churches in redefining marriage based on "bedroom laws," and would be the lightning rod to elimination of a fundamental freedom (of religion) and replacement with a forced acceptance of sin as normal. Two years later, again on foreign laws, Roper v. Simmons cited more foreign laws, and in an attack on the nation's sovereignty, violated Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 4 of the United States Constitution, which requires a treaty to be approved by a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate, by de facto ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that had been signed by Ambassador Albright in the 1990's, but rejected by the Senate. This decision barred death sentences on teenage murderers. Five years later, Graham v. Florida, citing the treaty-infused decision, codified the UN treaty by banning even life sentences on teenage criminals, in effect giving them a "get out of jail free" card. Not even 30 years is now legal for a sentence for teenage criminals.

Considering in the past decade the courts have ruled foreign law is superior to local, state, and federal law, and the criminals cannot be sentenced properly for their crimes, have we reaped what the courts sowed by giving criminals special rights? Is there an incentive for teen criminals to perform heinous crimes, knowing the penalty cannot be enforced because of their age?

With nullification being a major issue in many states, have we seen the price of Lawrence, Roper, and Graham, where the adoption of foreign laws and unratified treaties has taken our country back to a savage time, where there is no punishment for those guilty, as they are under special protections caused by foreign laws that coddle criminals at the expense of justice for the victims?

Think about it. As foreign law and unratified treaties creep into our country by court fiat, their mandates to appease moral relativism does not match with strict law and order that form the backbone of the American criminal justice system. These criminals have taken advantage of the laws that protect them, and punish victims. My fourth grade history book discussed the failure of the United Nations since its 1945 founding, and protecting of dictatorial despots while oppressing freedom-loving nations (such as the betrayal of Taiwan). Now we are seeing how they are now protecting teenage criminals at the expense of families they victimised.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The power to move the world

Lately, I've been spending a good amount of time in the year 1968. Several of the TV Guides I've written about in the last few weeks have been from the 1967-68 period, and I've been studying some media coverage of the news events of that year, in particular the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

I've never been a fan of the Kennedys politically, but I have often admired their style if not their substance. John was in a class by himself, and Ted had a long life, which means that Robert has been caught somewhere in the middle. To be honest, I'd never given a great deal of thought to his impact on history, despite the fact I have clearer (if still limited) memories of his death than I do of John's.

Quite by accident, I happened to stumble onto a website that proved a treasure trove of radio coverage about RFK's assassination and funeral, which I wrote about over at the TV blog. In listening to the broadcasts, and investing some money in the accompanying television broadcasts, I came to a bit more of an appreciation of Bobby Kennedy's style, and some of the convulsive reaction to his death. There is much that is hyperbole about his life and death; for example, I don't think he would have won the Democratic nomination, much less been elected president; Hubert Humphrey was already quite close to the number of delegates needed to win, and RFK's victory over Gene McCarthy in the California primary (which Kennedy had been celebrating when he was shot) was in fact much narrower than it should have been. Many of Kennedy's most astute advisors (Lawrence O'Brien, for example) felt that he never really had a chance of winning. At most, he might have assumed the position that wound up residing with George McGovern, and in that light one can contemplate whether or not Kennedy would have given Richard Nixon a run for his money in 1972.

Kennedy speaking at the University of Cape Town, 1966
But I digress. One of the benefits of being plunged into the Kennedy phenomenon is that it's given me exposure to some quite remarkable things. Whereas Jack's gift was his charming demeanor, and Ted's was his debauchery, Bobby's appears to have been his eloquence in the written word. In 1964, introducing the JFK memorial film at the Democratic convention, he quoted Shakespeare, which was perhaps the last time anyone spoke that literately at any political convention. I excerpted one of his most famous speeches last week, one that he'd given in South Africa in 1966, and I'm going to present another, longer excerpt here in a moment. I've recordings of Kennedy giving this speech, and I'll admit it comes across with a bit more power on paper than in his delivery, which at the time was more halting, more self-conscious than it would be later on. This portion of his speech was read by Ted at Bobby's funeral, and for all the grief I've given Ted Kennedy over the years for his bloviating style, in this particular case he nailed it. The words themselves, and the phrases, carry such power that Ted's flat, emotionless delivery stays out of the way and allows one to ponder their true force. If you want to hear either Bobby or Ted delivering it, you can easily find clips on YouTube; I prefer to look at them on the page. Some comments will follow.

"There is," said an Italian philosopher, "nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation and the road is strewn with many dangers.

[M]any of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation.

[…] It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. […]

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change. […] I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world.

[There is] the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of an education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged -- will ultimately judge himself -- on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.


These are timeless words, more stunning because of how applicable they are to our times. For as we've experienced the collapse of confidence in government, the contempt (most of it justified) in which politics is seen, the decay of institutions formerly held in esteem, we realize that much that is important in life has been reduced to a bare essential.

There are many ways to, as Kennedy put it, "enter the conflict." It is not necessary for us to do everything, but imperative that we do something. For one man to stand up and fight the machine, whatever that machine happens to be, may seem a futile act; it is when others see and follow that man that change becomes a possibility. But, as Kennedy says, it takes the courage to stand up - despite threats, despite ridicule, despite the loneliness and isolation that often comes from being the first one to stand up.

And the change that will happen, the change that must happen, cannot come from institutions, but must come from people acting together. When I retired from competitive politics I remarked on the single most important lesson I'd learned: you can't change the world by passing a law; you can only change it by converting hearts and minds. And it isn't done in Washington, or in some state capital; it comes in your interactions with your family, your friends and loved ones, your neighbors, your co-workers, those in your wider community. It comes in the church you attend, the organizations to which you belong, the places you spend your spare time. And all the money, all the power, all the prestige in the world doesn't mean a damn otherwise.  You can't let the standards of the world determine your definition of success, of happiness, of making a difference.

There is much lamenting within the conservative movement that the culture war is lost, that Hollywood and the media have combined to freeze out the conservative voice. There are those on all sides who decry the corruption of Big Business, of the multimillionaires that often worship at no higher altar than the bottom line; and of Big Government, and those politicians who seek only to preserve their own power and line their own pockets. And here we must exhibit the courage of which Kennedy speaks, to turn away from the wealth and power which the modern world offers, in order to take the road less traveled, one which may contain hardship and heartache but ultimately emerges triumphant.

As I said, this is a remarkable speech, and whether or not RFK was responsible in toto for writing the words, he undoubtedly believed in what they meant. One of Kennedy's contemporaries, Ronald Reagan, was even more gifted at it - unparalleled, in my opinion.  Is there anyone today who uses such words to appeal to man's higher nature with an essentially optimistic message? And if not, why not? And what does that say about us?

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The sad state of television today

Movie theatres have a problem when the rating of a film is “R” or “NC-17” (an X rating before 1990) because they will appeal to adults only. Restrictions against children are strictly imposed in the theatre. However, it's clear now with the proliferation of cord-cutting and Web-only viewers they can escape the restrictions of theatres. Yet, with television's “TV-MA” rating, which is the equivalent of an NC-17 (or X) rating in television, we are seeing the rewards of the R/X-class programming on television.

Consider that HBO, Showtime, and Netflix can air TV-MA grade programming, and the Emmy nominations went mostly to that triumvirate, while the broadcast networks, which have a restriction of Y7, G, PG, and some 14 after 10 PM ET, were shut out of the prestigious drama category, you have to wonder what it says when pay television, with no restrictions on content, is defeating network television, which must cater to as many people as possible.

Does it seem that television's equivalent of the R and NC-17 ratings, unlike movies, is worth artistic gold, with Emmy nominations, while network television with their PG and PG-13 ratings, are being shut down by these R and NC-17 type shows? If the Emmys believe raunchy content that's not capable of being on network television is the golden goose to earn accolades, we are in trouble.

Speaking of which, the report on Al Jazeera America's launch this week is only fitting considering Al Jazeera effectively shut down three Fox sport-related channels (Speed, Fuel, Fox Soccer) as much of their content has gone to the pan-Arabic Qatar channel (and their partners at Time Warner Cable, for legal reasons), Comcast (see the rise of NBC Sports Network), and Fox is starting a basic cable channel with the R and NC-17 type HBO/Showtime/Netflix unrestricted raunch (FXX) to replace the football channel, while replacing the motorsport and action-sports and MMA channel with general sports channels (Fox Sports 1 and 2). Already, according to a report posted on ESPN, television providers are balking at FS1 and FS2 because of the carriage fees.  [Ed: Time Warner, DirecTV and Dish have yet to sign up with FS1, and here in Dallas we're seeing the Time Warner-CBS standoff.]

It is a sad sign of what we have become when acceptance of deviancy in violation of the Bible is glorified and mandated by federal law. Now it's even worse that Hollywood and the critics are forcing on us their attitudes of grotesque material that would not have been put on television years ago.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Wish I'd Written That

And even government by the consent of the governed, as in our own Constitution, must be limited in its power to act against its people: so that there may be no interference with the right to worship, but also no interference with the security of the home; no arbitrary imposition of pains or penalties on an ordinary citizen by officials high or low; no restriction on the freedom of men to seek education or to seek work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man may become all that he is capable of becoming.

These are the sacred rights of western society. These were the essential differences between us and Nazi Germany as they were between Athens and Persia.

They are the essences of our differences with communism today. I am unalterably opposed to communism because it exalts the state over the individual and over the family, and because its system contains a lack of freedom of speech, of protest, of religion, and of the press, which is characteristic of a totalitarian regime. The way of opposition to communism, however, is not to imitate its dictatorship, but to enlarge individual human freedom. There are those in every land who would label as "communist" every threat to their privilege. But may I say to you, as I have seen on my travels in all sections of the world, reform is not communism. And the denial of freedom, in whatever name, only strengthens the very communism it claims to oppose.

- Robert F. Kennedy, speech in Capetown, South Africa, June 6th 1966

It would seem to me that if we substitute the word "terrorism" for "communism," we might have a very accurate description of the state in which we find ourselves today.

More thoughts on this and other things to come.

Friday, August 2, 2013

If the lockout's settled, will he win the Nobel Peace Prize?

I had a long chuckle the other night at the news that George Mitchell had been enlisted as the mediator in the dispute between the Minnesota Orchestra and its musicians.  It was partly a reflection of how far Mitchell has fallen over the years - from attempting to broker a peace settlement in the Middle East to investigating PEDs in baseball to mediating a mid-level orchestra lockout.  After he's done with this, I'd like to see if he's available to talk to our upstairs neighbors about not walking so heavily late at night.

Seriously - and I guess we're supposed to take this seriously - I'm most amused by how Mitchell is held in such awe by everyone commenting on the situation.  We'll grant at the outset that he deserves credit for his efforts to broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland.  His efforts on the "Good Friday Agreement" were noble, and successful.  But it would be a mistake to view his entire career through that one event.

As a U.S. Senator, Mitchell was - in my opinion - a partisan hack.  He was in fact my U.S. Senator for the four years I lived in Maine, and I'm not sure I agreed with him once.  And he was partisan - the opposite of the statesman that his supports like to portray. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with being partisan; Mitchell was, after all, Senate Majority Leader. But let's not try to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Mitchell's "even-handed" approach in the Middle East was a disaster, quite possibly because the Palestinians didn't want an agreement that would work for everyone - they wanted something that would work for them.  One of the chief problems with negotiating a Middle East agreement is that the two sides aren't in search of the same thing: Israel looks for an agreement that acknowledges its right to exist, while the Palestinians - to the extent that their factions are even on the same page - seem more interested in wiping Israel off the map, not reaching an agreement for co-existance.  As one commentator put it, it was Mitchell's success in Northern Ireland that ultimately led to his downfall in the Middle East - by assuming he could broker a deal because he'd already done it before, he not only naively assumed that both sides wanted the same thing, that even-handed approach actually resulted in a further Palestinian intransegence that made the agreement all but impossible.

As for his involvement with Major League Baseball, reviews on the Mitchell Report were mixed at best - nobody named in the report was convicted of much of anything (save a minor charge against Barry Bonds), and Roger Clemens was actually acquitted (although his charges were a result of his testimony before Congress, he was prominently named in the Report).  Oh, and then there was that conflict of interest thing - Mitchell was on the board of directors of the Boston Red Sox, and as it happens no active members of the Red Sox were named in the report.

So, what should we anticipate from his turn as mediator? I don't know. What I do know is that this whole farce has increased my admiration for The Onion by leaps and bounds. After all, it shows how hard it is to write satire nowadays when the whole world's stealing your punchlines.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

25 years...

I never thought about it until after finishing my morning workout the importance of this day.

It's the 25 year anniversary of the birth of the modern talk radio movement, when WABC and Ed McLaughlin agreed to syndicate Rush Limbaugh's radio show, originally a KFBK (Sacramento) show, nationally. Never did we know that today marks a quarter century since the revolution in radio.

Why I'm uneasy about the (short-term) future of the Church

It's been a while since we've taken any time here to discuss the Pope. It's mostly a futile exercise, since nobody really cares what I think, and in any event my opinions aren't likely to change anything.*

*Until I publish my forthcoming papal novel, that is, which isn't likely to change anything either but which I'd hope might make me a lot of money and a movie deal.

Nonetheless, since I am the blog editor, I do have something of an obligation to you, the reader, to share my opinions from time to time, and this seems as good a time as any.

I make no secret that I'm troubled by the trends of the current pontificate, thought I fall into neither the trap of the traditionalists ("The sky is falling!") nor the liberals ("Everything is new again!"). That is to say there is a happy medium between the two; however, it also is to say that I probably fall on the pessimistic side of that medium, which makes me not-very-happy.

Feelings alone aren't enough to justify that unease, though; if they were, then we'd all be worshiping Oprah Winfrey. And so when I find an article that clearly articulates why I have this discomfort, I like to highlight it and pass it on. Such comes from the blog of English priest Fr. Ray Blake, who has also voiced his apprehensions on this papacy from time to time. This is, I think, one of the best articulations of a concern I share, one that continues to spread like a dark inkspot on a white shirt:

One thing that does worry me about the the present Papacy is that on the one hand the Bishop of Rome is calling for transparency, especially with regard to the IOR [Institute for Religious Works], the Vatican Bank, and yet on the other hand seems to act as if he is unconstrained by Law or custom, just like a Renaissance Prince.

Setting as a priority the clearing out of any hint of waywardness in the IOR is certainly important and it is good place to start, It is important the Church can be trusted, especially with money but transparency has to be attached to everything in the Church not just its finances.

I admit I was quite shaken by Francis' disregard for liturgical Law and washing the feet of women despite what the rubrics plainly say. The recent negation of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate's right under the rules set out by Summorum Pontificum, which gave every Latin Rite priest the ability to choose which form of the Roman Rite he wished to use, seems not only worrying but also high handed and most probably illegal, that is worrying too. Even the decision to Canonise the Blessed John XXIII without the necessary divine sign of a further miracle, and today it is reported that the Pontiff is seriously considering the Canonisation of Pius XII. These things might be good or possibly necessary or pastorally fitting or whatever you might describe them as but what is worrying is that they cut across the proper and due process of Law. There is a very serious danger of the Church being seen as a Renaissance Principality, Papa vult is not the basis of the Church's law. If the Pope wishes for transparency he cannot act like a Renaissance Prince, he too has to be subject to the Law, bending his personal desire to it, not bending the Law to his desire.

If the Church's Law is disregarded then the Church simply becomes an institution based on it earthly leader's whim. The most important role of the Pontiff or any ruler is to ensure the law is as clear as possible and immediately obvious to everyone. The Church must be 'a just society' because God is Just. If the Pope acts without due regard to the Law why can't anyone, the answer is obvious, if we do not obey the Law we become not a just society but a band of robbers. Bringing in confusion, muddying the waters, does no good whatever and in the long term destroys the Church's credibility, especially in a time when, as His Holiness tells us some pretty dramatic reforms are likely to take place.

Perhaps Francis does not feel he is a "Renaissance" pope because he doesn't style himself pope at all, preferring instead the title Bishop of Rome. We can call ourselves anything we want, of course, but that doesn't necessarily make it so, any more than tying a cape around my neck and calling myself Superman means I'm going to be able to fly once I leap off the garage roof. It can, however, tell us a great deal about the one using the words, and the words he uses. And, as Rush Limbaugh says, words mean things.

The words that this Pope uses may indeed give us a picture of the man. Were he a mere politician, I would probably accuse him of half-asseninery. Because of his office, though, he deserves more respect than that, and will get it from me. I would merely add that the sooner we realize the power of the written and spoken word, the sooner we stop trying to play a Catholic version of linguistic Twister and take these words at face value, the sooner we deal with the implications of these words, as Fr. Blake has done - the better off we'll all be.
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