Five feet high and rising

Looking over big media news webpages, I have to wonder how many people are really aware of the giant mountain of hell that's bearing down on us. There are stories about foreclosures, sure. And the business press is aware of the absolute chaos that the financial markets have descended into. But the regular news pages don't seem to be doing a good job of informing non-investment bankers about the stakes in all of this.

I don't think it would be a stretch to assume that most people can't translate "overvalued assets held by investment banks" into plain English. You know, something like: "our economy is being propped up by imaginary money."

This isn't just about houses.

Ew.

This is why I hate men.

This is one of the most disgusting things I've seen in a long time. The response of the stadium management is unbelievable. 'What are we supposed to do? Arrest men who sexually harass women?' Yes. You are.

In which CNN makes an accomplished, intelligent woman demean an accomplished, powerful woman.

Shameful.

Here's my suggestion: the debates should be a round of "Astronauts vs. Cavemen." It would be just as enlightening and less patronizing to women.

An open letter on behalf of the WGA

Dear Studio Executive,

I have been having a bit of trouble understanding the position taken by the television and movie studios in their actions against the WGA. If I were to digitally distribute copies of television shows and movies without paying the people who made them, you would call it "theft" or "piracy," and would no doubt bring the coercive power of the state down on me.

But when the studios do this it's supposed to be okay? I seem to recall an advertising campaign which highlighted the negative impact that digital piracy has on the livelihoods of the cast and crew of movies. It pointed out that when people copy films rather than paying for them they aren't just hurting the rich executives, such as yourself, but the little people--such as the writers--who are just getting by and need that income to make ends meet.

Those ads were correct to point this out. I have family who work making movies, so I know how true this is, and make sure to always watch films through legitimate sources.

And yet you, the studios, refuse to follow the rules you promote for other people. You refuse to pay residuals on profit made from work distributed over the internet. There are words for that. Hypocrisy. Piracy. Theft.

The writers are right to resort to a strike over this. It is a basic question of justice and fairness. I have joined them on the picket lines and will do so again. I hope that you soon decide to do what is right and pay your workers for their work.

Thank you.

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/external/striking-writers-need-your-help.html

Unbelievable:

http://www.allfacebook.com/2007/11/girls-gone-wild-on-facebook/

There is no sexism involved in this. Absolutely none at all. It's just that there are no pictures of teenage boys engaged in this kind of behavior on Facebook. Really, none at all.

Which side are you on?

To add some actual data to my previous post about the Writers Guild strike, Ezra Klein passes along some numbers:

[T]he median earnings of all members of the Writers Guild is only $5,000.

How can that be? About 48% of members do not earn any money from writing in a given year.

Of those writers who do make some money, one quarter earn less than $37,700 a year.

A recent study concluded only 20% of writers already employed would be employed on a TV series for all of the next five years. Another 20% would not be employed at all in the next 5 years.

Some of those 48% of Guild members undoubtedly are not writing anything. Certainly all of them are working in other jobs so that they can, you know, eat. Most, though, are still writing, coming up with ideas, pitching scripts and concepts. All for no pay. It's a cost-free research and development department for the studios. They can just externalize the cost of keeping those writers alive onto the writers themselves, who must work day jobs.

I'm not saying that there is a different or better way that this could work, but it does highlight the importance of this union and of writers getting a decent share when they do find writing work.


Update: Digby reminds us of the violence that the entertainment industry unions had to overcome in the 1940's. Like very nearly all unions in this country (if not the world) the companies tried to kill the union with physical force.

Self-interest

Kos sneers, understandably, at exurban Republicans becoming Democrats in the face of the housing finance crisis. The exurbs are completely unsustainable, and it isn't at all surprising to see the financial mess propping them up give way. The fact that the people who live[d] there suddenly see that an active, helpful government is needed when their own homes are on the line is even less surprising.

But we shouldn't pretend that this inability to see the necessity of protecting the rights of others as something which exists solely on the Republican side of the fence. Back when the Democrats weren't enjoying quite the electoral fortunes they are at present there were plenty of (male) "liberals" who called for the party to give in 'a little' on abortion rights. They proposed, in essence, that we throw women under the bus in order to, in their minds, win on behalf of the greater (male) liberal cause.

Even now, we find (white) people arguing that the Democrats need to ladle on a bit of good old-fashioned immigrant bashing, lest we fall before the might of Republican attack ads featuring scary music and pictures of brown-skinned people.

It's true that there are a lot of people out there who hold terribly sexist views of women and terribly racist views on immigration. But these aren't issues which drive many people's votes across party lines. Democrats giving in to the Dark Side will help them at all. Take immigration:

Last year, Republicans ran Latino-bashing ads in scores of Congressional races. It didn't help--the Democratic Party easily took the House. This year, in Virginia, Republican State Legislators based their campaign on hard-core opposition to immigrant rights. They lost.

If even the Republicans can't win on immigrant bashing, how is that supposed to held the Democrats?

The density of tinfoil hats.

Guy Fawkes Day? Seriously?

Look, people--it's not about celebrating the man who tried to blow up the government--you burn him in effigy!

Libertarians are dumb as rocks.

Strike!

The Writers Guild strike really ought to highlight the fact that unions aren't just for guys in hardhats and factories. Joss Whedon is right to complain about the New York Times' coverage here. And he's right to argue against the notion that writers have it easy. But a more important point is that, although they don't fit the aesthetic for what most Americans think unions should look like, a union is still extremely important for these workers, and would be extremely important for other, non-hardhat wearing workers, as well.

This is a group of people for whom a union is absolutely necessary. In most other industries, firms keep people on the payroll all the time to come up with ideas for future products. GE doesn't wait around for eccentric inventors to show up with great ideas, they have engineers who work for them all the time. The entertainment industry doesn't work like this, nor in all likelihood, could it. Instead, you have a bunch of people who write and write and write, coming up with ideas for new shows and movies all while they are not on the payroll. It's only when an idea gets picked up that the writer gets paid. The studios essentially have an enormous pool of people brainstorming and writing the shows and movies of tomorrow, all the time, for free.

This is worse than piecework--all the scripts and ideas that don't ever get used are still valuable to the studios because having a larger array of proposed scripts gives studios (presumably) better options from which to pick the lucky few that get chosen.

When a writer does get an idea picked up, then, they need to be well compensated for it, because they don't know where, when, and if their next writing job will show up. So they need a union so they can band together and make sure that they can actually make a living doing. They are constantly thrown back out into the reserve army of labor--unemployment--not due to poorly performed work or instability, but as part of the built-in structure of this particular labor market. When the movie is done, the job is over, and you need to hope the residuals are enough to get by.

The current conflict, of course, is about "new media," and it is completely reasonable for the writers to want their contracts updated to take into account changes in technology since the last round of negotiations (in the 1980's--have there been any important changes in technology since then? I forget.).


Support the union in New York.

Today in Racism

Ugly Memory watch:

Bush Administration Homeland Security official gives Halloween costume prize to (white) man dressed in blackface"makeup that was a darker color than his skin".

Don Imus back on the air.

The Second Sex goes to Washington

Pollsters frequently ask questions about whether or not "America is ready" for Presidents who are not straight, white, christian men. Is America ready for a black (straight, christian, male) president? How about a (white, straight, christian) female President?

Given the poll numbers for Senators Obama and Clinton, it's pretty clear that "America is ready" to vote for either of these. But it's painfully obvious that the news media aren't ready to be grown-ups about it.



What set off this most recent round of chest-thumping and chanting from the He-Man Woman Haters Club was a fairly standard declaration from Senator Clinton that attending Wellesley--an all-women's college--prepared her for the boys-club of national politics. This set off a chorus of complaints from the valiant defenders of male privilege that it was unfair to bring up gender in politics.

Well of course her time in college prepared her for national politics--it's college. Who could honestly question that national politics is a good-old-boys network? She is the only viable female candidate for the Presidency in the history of the country. And when is it ever inappropriate to bring up gender in politics? Or in just about any other context? It's. always. relevant.

I could go into a whole speech about how woman are socialized in school to be less aggressive than men, and that women's colleges are important because they help women to overcome this programming, but we all already know this. And, as many others have pointed out, what is going on here is that the men who complaining about bringing up "gender" don't recognize that they, too, have a gender. Chris Matthews , in particular, is bursting with cognitive dissonance, simultaneously complaining about Senator Clinton "playing the gender card" while perpetrating a bizarre romanticization of white male privilege.

Childhood Heroes

Have I mentioned that I think Jon Stewart is awesome?

Friends and enemies

The Bush Administration has just named the last group of people in Iraq who liked us our "enemy."

Not that I'm surprised by this. Frankly, I wondered how long it would take them to realize that we were allied with a bunch of Marxists.

No-where are you really from?

The inevitable consequences of the permanent foreigner stereotype:

On a wall of Deguang Pan's Precise Dental Art office, tucked away on the fourth floor of a building on one of Chinatown's bustling blocks, is a photograph, taken at the fundraiser, of Clinton and Pan against a false backdrop of the U.S. Capitol.

His brother, Desheng Pan, has a similar photo in his dental office across the street. He attended the same fundraiser. A relative who helped put together the event told them about it, the brothers said.
...
Deguang Pan, who speaks only a few words in English, said he's not a U.S. citizen but has a green card*. He said he is interested in American politics and paid the $1,000 donation with his credit card.

"I like Hillary," he said through a translator as he stepped away from a patient whose mouth was agape.

A number of different newspapers and wire services have been writing these scandalized articles about Asian-Americans in Chinatown giving donations to Hillary Clinton. Though they have no actual evidence of any wrong-doing, they are full of insinuations that these donors, most of whom are small business owners and professionals, were somehow coerced into giving to the Clinton campaign.

Their tactic for making it seem as though something unsavory is going on is to throw a lot of Chinese names around, and make a point to note whenever the donors used interpreters to speak to the reporters (do they think that maybe the Chinese language press doesn't mention Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton?). Then to mention Norman Hsu, because he's Chinese too--they must know each other, right?

The story of what actually happened is really dull: a prominent member/leader of several small-business associations in Chinatown is involved with the Clinton campaign, so he arranged a fundraiser, which was attended by a bunch of other small-business owners and a few assorted other community members. The attendees gave money for all kinds of dull reasons: they like Hillary Clinton, they think having a picture of themselves with her in their offices will make them seem important, they appreciate things she did for the community in the past, etc. A couple of people didn't have papers, so their donations were returned (because heaven forbid someone who lives here has a say in their own government!).

But, of course, these people are Asian!-Americans, so their political actions are immediately suspect. White donors get wild west labels like "Bush Pioneers." Asian-Americans, permanent foreigners that they are, get major newspapers and the Department of Justice intimidating them to keep them from getting involved in the future.

And, of course, they get called "smellier than stinky tofu."

The absolute worst thing that could possibly be going on here is that a few of the business owners got their employees to donate as well, and reimbursed them somehow**. Which is illegal, and wrong, and pretty much standard operating procedure for businesses getting involved in politics. But these people are ASIAN! so they must be operatives of Red China or something, so it's totally worse than when big, white-owned corporations do it.


*-Donors to Presidential campaigns must be in the United States legally, but don't need to be registered voters or U.S. citizens.
**-The Clinton campaign returned donations from people with occupations like "cook" or "cashier"