TAKING THE MICHAEL

Dear Readers,

This weekend marks the release of Michael Jackson's This Is It movie, and already, film industry number-crunchers are worried that it may not live up to box-office expectations. The film, culled from Jackson's rehearsal videos made in preparation for a 50-show engagement in London, was expected to have a $50 million opening weekend, but may fall short, based on the first-in overseas numbers. Michael, you just can't win, even from the grave.

While I appreciated the enormous talent Jackson possessed, I can't say I was actually a fan. But one thing I did feel was sorry for the man. I know, I know, he seemed to have gotten up to some weird things at Neverland (a paedophile's dream house if ever there was one), but I never thought he was actually guilty of any wrongdoing - bad judgement, maybe - but I don't think he did anything illegal. Any sane adult would not have left their children alone with a non-relative stranger, and the ones who did leave them in the charge of Jackson must have had sinister designs of one kind or another, and using their kids in an attempt to make themselves some money or fame was the only illegality going on at Jackson's fantasy camp, IMHO. The parts of the story I do believe are the ones that make the erstwhile King Of Pop seem a very unhappy person indeed.

Real and pseudo psychologists must be knocking themselves out trying to peddle books on what made Jackson behave as he did, but the truth will never really be known, even with all the stories and rumors that accumulated over the years about the singer's lifestyle. But let's face it, nobody will ever really know for sure, because nobody has ever been as famous - or as scrutinized - as Michael Jackson was. A little bit of fame is probably OK, but that much fame is usually lethal.

So now the undertakers of Jackson's legacy are in charge, and this film of his last performances is only the beginning - even if it doesn't live up to the industry's financial expectations. For as we've learned over the last 13 months or so, money is everything to an awful lot of people, and, one might add, fame is for suckers. 'Cash is King' and maybe this quote from Mark Twain completes that nostrum - "Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident. The only earthly certainty is oblivion". So rest in peace, Michael, while those still earthbound continue to flog your corpse.

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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD SPACEMEN

Dear Readers,

I doubt that many people knew about today's postponed launch of the Ares 1-X rocket, NASA's latest product that was designed to take man to the moon again. In fact, most people today probably think NASA is a new cellphone company, or maybe a new Apple product that somehow escaped being called an I-NASA. Sadly, (I am a long-time fan of real space stuff) apart from the occasional Shuttle explosion, NASA has pretty much disappeared from public view and it's administrators are realizing that it's become a faded hero in search of a role.

Recent U.S. Presidents have tried to revive the coolness of space exploration by dreaming up new things for the federally-funded space agency to do - like technical genius George W. issuing a 'challenge' to fly to Mars - but have never really put the people's money where their rhetoric is, leaving NASA to work up detailed plans for missions that will never get off the ground, so to speak. The failure today (because of the weather) to launch the Ares rocket can't help much, and even if it does go up tomorrow- as now planned- the whole program is doomed to expected budget cuts that have already made it obsolete. In a world awed and increasingly run by palm-sized gadgets, the irony is that the launch of a 370-foot technical marvel attracts less interest than the latest I-Phone App.

The trouble is that, after all the great interstellar science-fiction of the 20th century, real space travel turned out to be, well.., boring. The sight of American Astronauts actually dancing around on a dry, dead and colorless orb like the moon was awesome at first, but quickly faded where it counted most -in the TV ratings. Earth-bound technology's best brains turned to creating special effects for movies, inventing the home computer (all all that flowed from that) and designing a virtual gaming universe that was far more exciting than the dull, real thing.

So all we have left from 'The Space Age' are commercial satellites (and their sinister cousins, ICBM's), an international space station that is a pointless dump, and a lot of space debris circling the earth like a restless junkyard. Oh, and a few hundred pounds of rocks from the moon that have told us the obvious - we're it in this universe. The aging group of 60's -era Astronauts must be bewildered at the neglect of space exploration that will certainly continue for the foreseeable future, but in a sense, it's their fault - their skill and courage proved that space is just not all that interesting - compared to Space Invaders.

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ANOTHER UNWINNABLE WAR

Dear Readers,

Freedom of speech -and by extension, freedom of the press - is perhaps our most cherished privilege, and I absolutely defend the right of the Fox News Channel to be as nasty, unfair and scathing in their non-stop criticism of the current administration as they wish to be. As their viewing figures reflect, many, many people agree with the 'fair and balanced' approach they peddle. But the Obama administration's 'war' against FNC is a futile one which they ought to know they will certainly lose, and for this group of supposedly smart people to waste even a second of the people's paid-for time on this battle is disappointing.

The struggles of the administration are already grist for the Fox mill on a daily basis, so why add a personalized feud to this feast as garnish? Like some scene from The Sopranos, White House major domo, David Axelrod and FNC overlord Roger Ailes recently had a 'sit down' at a NYC steak house to discuss ways of solving the problem, but nothing much has come of it to date. In fact, the shrillness from the Fox stable of highly-paid whiners has only increased, while bashing of the network and petty reprisals (like The President refusing to appear on Fox chat shows) has been the response from the Obama camp. And it's not like they should have expected that FNC would join in a new spirit of co-operation either, after all, the network is a barely-disguised right arm of the Republican Party - and always has been. If President Obama thinks that he's stepping into a boxing ring, expecting a fairly-refereed match, then think again; in the Fox corner is a gang pulling out switchblades, tire-irons and brass knuckles. It's the WWE, not the Marquess Of Queensbury rules, with WWE-sized ratings as well, which only FNC will reap the benefits of. The President's advisers would do well to remember who the Marquess Of Queensbury was, apart from the guy who devised boxing's basic rules. It was he that Oscar Wilde sued for slander (Queensbury accused him of 'posing as a sodomite' -strong stuff in them days), a case which Wilde lost, paving the way for his eventual arrest, conviction and imprisonment on morals charges. (One shudders as to what the Fox News Channel would have done with Wilde).

So, note to Axelrod: before your guy gets pummeled so badly that he has to end his career, please throw in the towel, there's no prize for your side in winning this bout anyway.

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WAITING FOR SARAH

Dear Readers,

President Obama has been in office a mere 9 months, but the impatience over his lack of progress in cleaning up the frat-party mess of the Bush regime is growing. It was to be expected that the GOP would start whining and backbiting as soon as the inaugural parade was over, but now, liberal and moderate Democrats seem to be adding to the national grumble as well. Unemployment is still about 10%, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still grind on, Gitmo is still an operational prison, Wall Street remains largely unregulated (and their bonuses are as big as ever) and the health care-reform bill is beginning to look like a soviet-era Lada that's been hammered out of all recognition by a group of Japanese Kodo drummers (and about as useful). After years of disastrous decisiveness, we seem to have forgotten that just because decisions are taken quickly, that doesn't mean they are correct. But fear not, dear readers, for help is on the way.

Yes, we only have a few more weeks until the public re-emergence of America's new sweetheart, Sarah Palin. Her new book is already a best-seller- thanks to preorders- and soon, she'll be on every television and radio talk show (including Seasame Street, probably) in the nation, hawking the thing. I'm sure American hearts will quicken as our Sarah reduces major and complex issues to George W.- level understandability and we can all relax at being reminded of how simple it is to run the country. I'm sure she won't immediately announce her intention of running for president in 2012, but the implication will be there as she succeeds in appealing to our intellect-reductive impulses, and positioning herself as the anti-Obama. No snob, our Sarah, she's one of us.

So, those of you who miss the good old days of ignoring terrorist warnings, complete de-regulation of Wall Street, hanging out at a #$%&*ing ranch in Texas while a major US city gets wiped out by a hurricane, cooking up wars based on phony 'evidence', putting psychopaths in charge of the Defense department and other such simple solutions, don't worry, we only have about three years before Sarah puts it all right again. I imagine somewhere, Dick Cheney must be rubbing his hands and salivating.

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RUSH 2 JUDGEMENT

Dear Readers,

Pity poor Rush Limbaugh, as his attempt to be part of a group trying to buy the NFL's St. Louis Rams was scuppered by the football league's commissioner, many NFL players, and a general outcry of negative public opinion. Limbaugh, a shameless purveyor of racism, right-wing paranoia and general hatred of anybody who disagrees with him in the slightest, issued a bitter statement of withdrawal that whined about 'liberal-types' who prevented him from moving into the mainstream. What? This self-important windbag who could give Joseph Goebbels lessons in mind manipulation is seriously deluded if he thought anybody would consent to be an employee of his, white or black.

As right-wing Republicans continue to push our nation into a kind of Bosnia-like ethnic-cleansing fantasy, the frustration they display at their ouster from power knows no bounds, and the attempt by Limbaugh and his ilk to assuage their hurt at not being able to run the country in their own selfish manner by trying to buy into the world of sport is sad and pathetic. If only one could feel sorry for them. As Rush takes reassuring calls on his radio show from his legion of dittoheads, he must feel as if he has public opinion totally on his side, and therefore, feels as if anything he wants to do has the unquestioning popular support of the general public. But the outcry at his attempt to turn an escapist pastime such as Pro Football into a ideological playground must have dented his Goodyear-blimp-sized ego just enough to produce the whiny, self-pitying reaction that he must have been so surprised to have to issue.

I thought that the NFL had reached the bottom of self-respect when it allowed Michael Vick to return to playing, but if it had turned a blind eye to the likes of an intolerant bigot like Limbaugh to become part of the sport's fabric, well...

I can take sweet satisfaction that the NFL, at least, considers Rush Limbaugh to be lower than a dog-killer, which is just about right.

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MOORE IS LESS

Dear Readers,

It's not easy being a liberal these days. The exuberance and relief the country felt when it replaced George W. Bush with Barack Obama has itself been replaced with disappointment and a kind of 'buyer's remorse' over it's investment in the Democratic Party. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq remain unsettled and unchanged, the economic stimulus plan hasn't stemmed the hemorrhaging of jobs and the health care reform plan is quickly becoming a program that everybody hates in one way or another. Add to this the resurgence of the hateful and spiteful, over-simplifying GOP, and you have an atmosphere of unease and confusion in a country that had so much optimism only nine months ago.

Into this miasma, Michael Moore has dropped his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, and it's landed with a bit of a thud.

I've not yet seen the film, but I imagine it's Mr. Moore's usual mix of facts, fictions, comedy and the absurd, led from the front by the bulky, un-shy filmmaker. Not surprisingly, a movie chiefly about the economy has only been a modest success, probably disappointing Hollywood and it's amoral bean-counters. Even with Moore enacting hilarious stunts like placing crime scene tape around the Stock Exchange, anything to do with economics is both dull and painful. Also, since Moore is a unabashed liberal, he's temporarily (at least) on the wrong side of history.

All of Moore's films manage to stir up controversy of one kind or another, but unlike taking on GM, the NRA and Big Healthcare, taking on capitalism maybe leaves him too vulnerable to right-wing charges of hypocrisy and fudging of facts (he is, like most all of us, a capitalist). The re-statement by Moore of the evil of greed in light of the latest big-banker led economic guacamole seems like old, obvious news (and still-unresolved issues) and perhaps translates into the film's soft box-office numbers. We both love and hate capitalism (depending on which side of the whip you happen to be on) but we don't necessarily want to hear anything bad about it.

So while the Republican neocons club President Obama over the head on a daily basis with charges that he's a socialist with a secret socialist agenda, we need celebrities like Michael Moore pushing in the other direction with equally overstated charges to try an achieve a rough balance. It was once said that 'in war, truth is the first casualty', an adage that Hollywood-bashers could change to 'in movies, truth is the first casualty'. But micro-fact-checking Michael Moore documentaries is a misguided endeavor, best left to those who have the most to fear from their overall verity.

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NOBEL PRIZE: FIVE FOR FIGHTING

Dear Readers,

The uproar over President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win only goes to show how misunderstood this honor is in this country. The cries of 'What has he done to deserve it?' tend to obscure the sometimes subtle motivations behind the selection of a Peace Prize recipient. In addition, the frenzied, childish and hysterical reaction from the schoolyard-bully, 12-year old mentality of right wing Republicans and their shills - like Rush Limberger, Glenn 'What-The-Heck' Beck and Sean Hate-etty- only go to underline the importance placed on this most maligned of prizes even when the motives for it's presentation are unclear.

Despite the rather flimsy explanations offered by the weedy Norwegians who give out these prizes, the real reason Mr. Obama won is that the whole world is so damn relieved that George W. Bush is no longer the US President and that the current occupant does not dance to the tune of the crypto-retrograde, would-be dictators like Dickhead Cheney.

To my way of thinking, this is a perfectly sound excuse to award the prize to Obama, and I only wish that the Oslo committee had not been so feckless in avoiding saying so. The GOP and other hate groups probably realize the real reason he won, and besides, they're always going to be freaked out by any success that this President might have. They discount the fact that Obama did not lobby or campaign for the prize and despise him not only for winning, but being perceived as a man who stands for peaceful relations - an anathema to the belligerent neocons.

As a matter of fact, many other Americans have won the Peace Prize over the years, and yet a fair number of them have won the honor by fighting. Here's a partial list:

1925 - Then Vice-President Charles B. Dawes fought for the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, which renounced war as an instrument of national policy.

1931 - Settlement house movement leader Jane Addams fought for women's rights through the Women's International League for Peace And Freedom.

1945 - Secretary of State Cordell Hull fought against US isolationism before America entered World War II and started kicking Nazi butt all over the place.

1962 - Linus C. Pauling, chemist and vitamin-C freak, fought against nuclear weapons.

1997 - Jody Williams fought for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel land mines.

That's a heck of a lot of fighting in order to win a peace prize, ain't it? So ease up on President Obama already, after all, isn't this country all about winning? I never heard such a hoo-ha over somebody winning something. Sometimes winners win undeservedly, but a win's a win, yeah?

In addition to bagging the Peace Prize, Obama collects a cool $1.4 million off a guy (Alfred Nobel) who invented dynamite - plus, that geezer was a foreigner! Even Rush ought to applaud that.

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