Read the entire colbert bit from the WHC dinner!

The point is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Priceless.

Okay, after reading this piece I desperately want a cheesesteak. Anyone care to join me?

When I walked into the joint, I could tell from the smell of the air that they had something good going there. The air reeked of grease, onions, and peppers -- exactly what you would expect from a cheesesteak joint. (I call it a joint and not a restaurant because I consider a restaurant to be a place where it's possible to eat the contents of your meal without dripping the grease on you pants.)

Any place that gets favorable comparison's to Jim's in Philly is good in my book. Bring on the 'wiz!

Posted, without comment, an image of Sigourney's dog, clearly missing the frisbee tossed at it by a mile:

She's building a super-cool vegetable garden in a series of raised beds. My favorite comment from her? "Now, if only I could grow burgers..."

So tonight is the last night I'm going to be seeing a Filmfest DC film: 3 Needles.

Yesterday I saw Free Zone and the day before John & Jane Doe: Toll Free

I'm normally not much of a documentary film person, yet John and Jane was quite good, with excellent cinematography and a method that eschewed a blatant "message". I entered thinking that the film would be overtly anti-call center, and though it didn't glorify the work, it did show how different Indians attempted to overcome the essential dehumanizing influences of the job.

More than anything, J&J seemed to show that the call center not only dehumanize Indians, but Americans as well. None of the products hawked over the phone seemed useful or necessary. Most of the film's phone calls seemed to involve slamming, that is, the practice of getting customers to switch long-distance providers through unsolicited phone calls. Such actions are currently illegal, yet made up a large portion of revenue for MCI and AT&T in the past.

One comes away with a sense that the products/services being sold by the Indians to the unsuspecting (frequently elderly) Americans are almost as dehumanizing as the work itself. I didn't leave the theater feeling sorry for anyone: I left angry that companies could invest millions in worthless schemes that left no one better off. The sooner the call center could be replaced by an auto-dialer, in my opinion, the better. Either way, the film explores these issues in a way which is ambiguous and yet satisfying by showing an entire range of Indians and their reactions to the work.

Free Zone, on the other hand, I found less than satisfying. Although Pell and I disagreed on the cinematography (she thought it was the best part; I thought the excessive use of the shakicam seemed pointless) we both agreed that the script seemed shaky. The continuous interleaving stories resulted in several subplots being introduced, briefly explored, then abandoned, leaving the viewer to wonder what the point was, if one even existed. You wouldn't think you could make a movie about the intersection between America, Israel and Palestine being boring, and yet, that's just what it was. Don't get me wrong: I think movies that are open-ended are fine, so long as I come away with something. Free Zone merely left me cold. And getting Natalie Portman to leave me feeling that way is an indictment in and of itself.

Today is the last day you can vote to decide who should be memorialized by the DC Commission on the Arts and the Humanities. All the choices are prominent Washingtonians and guests who contributed to our fine city. Once the statue subjects are chosen, and the artists complete their work, the statues will be (hopefully) put into Statuary Hall. Congress doesn't want this to happen, predictably. So go vote today and in a month or two once they're finished, you'll get to see the political firestorm that erupts if Congress tries to stop us.

Time for my regular media update. Since the last installment two weeks ago I've finished the following books:

• Steppenwolf
• Decoding the Universe
• Farewell My Lovely
• The Counterlife

Movie-wise, I've managed to catch:

• Harakiri
• Steamboy
• Band of Outsiders
• Kingdom of Heaven
• Ikiru
• Eulogy
• The Lady Vanishes
• John and Jane Toll Free
• Free Zone

I'll have more to say about the latter two films shortly, as they were both included in the Filmfest DC program, another film of which I'm seeing tonight.

It's that nagging feeling that has dogged me day to day. Not the absence of my car (which is annoying, and yet because of the certainty of its eventual return, not so horribly frustrating), but the loss of a watch.

One knows, eventually, it will turn up. And yet in the interim, after all hiding places have been checked, bartenders asked, and timelines revisited, the thought occurs: what if it is gone?

This morning I found my watch, hiding under a piece of furniture. A great way to begin the day. Now I just have to figure out a way to cancel that e-bay auction I entered for a replacement...

Another near perfect day. A few clouds, but overall cool temps and blue skies.

Only a week or so left until I get my car back, hopefully.

I love giant robot but in the latest issue Erik Nakamura interviews his brother Dan and the result is both satisfying and deeply disturbing.

Early on in the piece (sorry, it's not online!) Dan mentions wistfully the days when artists could sample with abandon, pulling musical moments from all types of media. He laments that today, such an undertaking would be "not financially feasible". He concludes, "It's a shame, because I think it's a very important part of 20th Century music." Sounds like an advocate for smart intellectual property laws, right? Wrong:

Later in the article, when the subject of music piracy comes up, he gets much more agitated.

"I think that the government has to really crack down on downloading music and movies. How far away are we from downloading medical formulas? I'm serious; these guys spend half a million dollars on drug research. Don't you think that in about five years we'll have a chemistry set and be able to do that kind of thing?

Or how are you going to stop somebody from downloading a PDF and then silk screening it onto a shirt? Protecting intellectual property is something that needs to be addressed on a much more stern level than it is right now. It's hurting the music industry, but that's just a small fish in the bigger picture."

Wow. There are so many things wrong with these sentiments I hardly know where to begin. For starters, let's dismiss the "downloadable formula" business. Countries already know how to make generic drugs. America's IP police have kept them from saving millions of lives in sub-Saharan Africa already. If some kid in South Africa could make generic AIDS drugs from scratch, on the sly, they'd be doing it already.

And my god, did he really say that downloading a pdf and printing it on a t-shirt is bad? Where the hell is the thought police when you need them, Dan?

Finally, let's not forget the total disconnect Nakamura elides over: the entire reason that he can no longer make music with tons of samples in it is the burdensome IP laws he's pushing so hard for! If artists in the 80's had the use of a creative commons audio license, he wouldn't be in this bind.

It's enough to make any copyleft robot sign with frustration.

If you didn't get the e-mail, we're having a party on May the 6th, the day after No Pants Day. Of course, it being the day after, we'll expect everyone to be properly attired. And if you didn't get the e-mail, contact me! (As if the readership of this site were large enough to matter.)

As I was saying to Pell last night, I'm not the biggest fan of Senator McCain. But among the GOP, there's few I hold in higher esteem than Senator Warner. Why? Because he's willing to buck the party line occasionally.

Then again, why does the bar get to be set so low for Republicans? Would any Democrat have hesitated to ask for Rumsfeld's resignation at this point were we in control? Even if the president was a Democrat?

One of the hallmarks of America has been civilian control of the military. Rumsfeld has done more to threaten this than any other Secretary of Defense in the past, through his inability to deal with problems in a rational manner. The sign of good leadership is when people aren't afraid to voice problems to your face, without fear of retribution. In this administration, however, toeing the party line is far more important than actually getting the job done.

Most Democrats and voters understand that. Why it's taken so long for the GOP to realize that the voters know this is bizarre.

It's no great secret that I'm not a fan of the idea of the authentic, whether referring to books or social groupings. If someone has a vintage first-edition novel, I'm well aware that it is worth far more than a recent copy or, gasp, an edition hosted on project gutenberg. But in my mind, such a distinction is arbitrary: to your average person, the same amount of information is contained within either.

Yet we privilege one above the other because it is authentic: an actual book rather than a simulacrum. Such a distinction seems silly to me, especially because the things that give a book its authenticity are also the very limitations that bind it; the ability of pages to degrade over time result in rare books being handled by only a few people, thus limiting the very information they seek to disseminate.

In a book, such a failure is a tragedy. Books aren't meant to be kept in libraries: they're meant to be read! The entire purpose of a library is to greater facilitate the transfer of knowledge between individuals. True, in the past and even today, libraries work hard at restoring old books. But such an effort can only be termed useful if the purpose is to continue to spread information. To restore an ancient manuscript merely to keep it locked away is counterproductive.

Authenticity bothers me on a social level, as well. Unlike the disingenuous of keeping books locked away, frequently authenticity is used as a means to separate people. In the past, this worked somewhat well: given a complex power dynamic between two sets of people, limiting access to the other group was part and parcel of keeping a social culture intact. The Japanese were a good example of this: by limiting foreigners access to their country in the eighteenth century, they reduced the chance that their culture would be diluted. As soon as the borders were reopened, western culture moved in rapidly and soon traditional kimonos were being replaced with dinner jackets. Soon, one could tell a "modern" Japanese man from a "traditional" one.

This cuts to the heart of the problem I have with social authenticity. In the past, one didn't choose to become a group. If we look at residents in the ante-bellum South we see they were just that: Southerners. If a person from Illinois moved south, they were labeled a "carpet-bagger", rather than someone from Illinois or a southerner. Thus, one's authenticity allowed access to a wide range of different ideas, curtailed only by same authenticity. Southerners could discuss matters about their own lands, and Northerners could as well. Crossing the line, however, created problems, for both sides.

This power dynamic, however, was clearly flawed. Post-reconstruction, northerners could retreat back to their homes and claim victory over the evils of the South. Yet simultaneously, southerners could begin rebuilding the racist structures so recently demolished. The tacit agreement was to simply ignore racism in the North, and to frown upon its existence in the South, yet wink simultaneously. Only a "true southerner" could opine about the South, and likewise only a "true yankee" could tackle racism in the northern states. By limiting such dialogs to authentic members of each group, racism survived.

Brought into today, millions of different subgroups exist for every possible idea. Living in DC I can identify myself as a southerner, as a WASP, as a resident of Mt. Pleasant, as someone in the upper-class, as a Democrat, etc. Yet unlike any other prior periods, many of my self-identified groups are chosen, rather than forced upon me. This significantly alters the idea of the social authentic.

Don't get me wrong: the vast majority of Americans are pigeonholed into boxes they did not create. All the gender/sexuality/race/class/religion distinctions are, for a large part, assigned to people without much mobility. (The latter two are the most fluid, but even then not as much as the American dream suggests) Yet the old boxes of nationality/geography have morphed into a xenophobic fear of outsiders. The whole "you may look different than me but we both speak English so we're Americans" idea is a mixed bag: it creates new distinctions but glosses over old ones (Irish/Italian/German).

Yet for a small subset of America, the boxes don't properly exist. I'm strictly speaking to a group of highly educated, mostly white men and some women. For these members of society, who haven't had to deal with externally created boxes, they feel the need to create boxes of their own. This is where trouble begins, and as more Americans become included in this group (hey, I'm an optimist, right?) the implications of the "authentic" start to look not as rosy.

If one has, through sheer luck, managed to remain on top of the class system, one also has access to an odd group of people who look out for one another yet are averse to labeling. Rather than go into theories of "whiteness", I'll simply say that members of this group can transcend certain boxes. That ability renders them somewhat speechless, because of their lack of authenticity. How can a white man speak for a black woman? How can a white woman speak for a Hispanic immigrant?

This lack of authenticity creates a new paradigm: instead of being placed into boxes, members of this group tend to actively seek out activities and groups that will give them authenticity, in order to speak the way they wish. This reverses the normal flow of "I can talk about X because I am a member of Group X" path into "I will join group Y so that I can talk about Y".

By reversing the traditional authentic path, we thus give more power to that idea than it had previously. As long as "group X" is composed of a externally selected group of people (never mind the messed up power dynamics) that group's ideas can remain fresh and vibrant. By introducing other people, particularly from the class that may have created "group X" in the first place (through oppression/harassment/etc.) we alter the idea of the authentic in a subtle but striking way: instead of saying that members of group X can all say whatever they wish because they are authentic members, we now have to resort to a different idea; members are members of group X because they agree with group X.

This is a bad move to make. Contrary views in any group are a good thing, but by reducing membership requirements in any group to a set of core ideals, contrary views get pushed outside. The next thing you know, a former member of group X no longer can speak with any authenticity because they've refused to toe the party line. (Think black Republicans! Yes, I know, they're idiots...but that's beside the point.)

The end result is an increasing balkanization of the idea of the authentic, which further alienates people and does a disservice, not only to the group, but to the larger society. Let's take a personal example. I consider myself a feminist. Yet I'm a guy. I see nothing wrong with including myself in a group (feminists) that traditionally was created by women, for women, in order to fight back against a male dominated hierarchy.

My self-selected inclusion in that group is a good thing, I think. But by subscribing to such a group, I implicitly agree with the "core tenets" of feminism. (Yes, yes, I know. If only there were!) And this dilutes the idea of what it is to be a feminist. At this point, other feminists have two options: they can include me and value my opinions, even if I have ones that are contrarian, or they can include me only so long as my ideas reflect the majority opinion.

Obviously, I prefer the former. Yet the latter seems like a possibility, especially because of the work of outsiders to counter the group. (A female anti-feminist, for instance, might claim to speak "for women" merely by her gender)

In the end, I think self-selection is much more powerful force than an external power-dynamic creation of a group. No two people, despite their similarities, should be forced to be in a group against their will. As more people are included into the self-selection group, the whole idea of the "authentic" breaks down: does the female anti-feminist above, merely by her gender, become a more authentic feminist than I do? Currently, I think most people are uncomfortable with self-selection into groups. Yet to continue to allow external forces to force people into Poor or Black or Hispanic is clearly a bad idea.

Because that's why the power dynamic was setup in the first place: you are Hispanic (says the white man) because I say you are and therefore you are an other.

This is not, of course, to white-wash the very real racist/sexist/classist policies that exist today. It's to say that hopefully, through a wider expansion of current self-selected groups, we can tackle these problems as ideas rather than issues. Gender issues in the workplace shouldn't always involve women sticking up for women and men sticking up for men. They should involve people on all sides coming together to determine what is right.

And in the end, I think that diminishes the idea of the authentic, which is a good thing, in a long enough timeline. Problems exist now, and will do so for a long time into the future. Ignoring them won't make them go away, and neither will assigning special roles for those in certain groups. If we're to lick the messed up power structure in America (and believe me, we have to tackle it here because we're actually pretty out in front of the rest of the world on this) we need to do so as a group.

It is absolutely impossible to be stressed when the temperature is perfect, there are blue skies above and one has a great place to read some Chandler.

What does it look like? Well, this:

Tough to top, eh? It sure beats the tiny triangle of grass I'd fight for seats on each day with the homeless back in DC. Nothing feels worse than wanting someone who has almost nothing to give up, to do a favor for you. Consequently, if the benches were full, I walked to a stoop a block away or ate by the soup kitchen next to the church.

Here, despite only four benches, they are rarely in use. It's a shame, but I enjoy the day regardless.

I just came across this interesting history of the Netflix mailer.

Where do they go from here? Obviously: downloadable movies. It's the last mile of video-on-demand and Netflix seems like the player (perhaps with some help from TiVo) to actually make it happen.

In their last quarterly conference call yesterday, they committed to having a solution in place by the end of the year. That's ambitious, if they hadn't already done some groundwork. I'm excited, because with this advance, the final three problems with Netflix disappear (the return time, unplayable discs, long waits for good movies) and the only real question becomes one of revenue. By this I mean that any idiots who subscribe to a "5 out at a time" plan will immediately ratcheted back down to 3, because if there's no wait on return times, you won't need to have multiple movies out at once.

So go have some fun with these free symbols conveniently copyright free. The world needs more of this...

This is absurd.

The sad fact is that more and more of us, as we invest ourselves in the web, entrusting intimate personal information to garish pages, are destined to leave hastily-constructed, poorly-designed memorials online when we die, trivial shrines whose guest books and comments sections will continue to grow even as we rot, puffing up slowly with hackneyed, repetitive, ghoulish, unintentionally funny tributes.

This is merely the modern equivalent of myth-making; instead of an oral tradition, it's moved into the twenty-first century. Is it any more serious than to have people spreading gossip behind your back? I don't think so.

I can see the identity theft angle...but all it would take for this particular person to knock that down would be to sign up for myspace and tell the other guy off. Not difficult at all. Sure, the onus is on the person in question, but that's the price to pay for being a (minor) celebrity.