Have you read Franklin’s current article in the New Yorker? I wish I had written it! http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2008/03/24/080324crte_t… The viewing public is far too gullible, but it does not excuse people like Oprah, and Dr. Phil, et al, from taking advantage of the public to pad their own pockets. Harpo is now ding the same thing that journalists and citizens have been beating away at the FCC about - conglomerates taking over the airwaves, preventing diversity in content…one media corporation owning multiple outlets: newspaper, radio programs, TV stations, etc. Philanthropy? Come on. The most philanthropic people I’ve known (and I’ve witnessed multi-million dollar gifts being created) were all by people who insisted on remaining anonymous. The problem with today’s media, newscasts, et al is the infernal anchors, who shout at us 2-1/2 Octaves higher than their actual voices, or the news alerts to keep us tuned in. Secondly, religious and sexual bias exists in programming. We’re being drowned in sports, and then it’s religious programming that’s often “off the wall,” on far more channels than imaginable, and then there’s no respect for “Children’s Televiewing Hours.” The FCC chairman’s a nightmare and we, the voters again, should have done more to outst the idiot for ignoring us, and legitimate journalists, but in the end, it’s all about the sponsors. If they don’t hear from us in a force equal to that which we preceive is hitting us, and threaten, indeed do, turn off TV and radio, or boycott the movies, we can just keep complaining. I was involved in the beginning of Action for Children’s Television, in Boston in grad school, and went on to our first jobs in the SW - where the public believed if anyone tried to “control our airwaves they should be imprisioned…” and Earl Warren was being impeached on the streets and byways of Oklahoma and Texas. Great Scott, there I was in my knee socks, wool plaid skirt from the “Coop,” and straight hair, with 3 babies, and my head still filled with graduate research and programs of merit, surrounded by women in pastel stretch pants, and bee-hive hairdos who hated me, I just knew they hated me. But, I won their hearts through children. In fact, a “write-in” to the FTC done in the parks of Dallas, and surrounding areas, while someone I knew burned the flag on a toothpick in Lee Park and was summarily arrested and put in prison, accounted for the greatest volume of mail ever received by the FTC…they acted. We are not helpless. We are power.

Before the media and the movies it was the world’s people on February 15, 2003 in the largest organized protest in world history on that caused the New York Times to identify them as the world’s other super-power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_2003_Iraq_war

Both, actually. Why? Because the Media reports on what is real [and THAT’s “Reaality”] while in the movies, Hollywood tends to over-drama-tize the story, [but, unfortunately, people take movies and apply it to life, sometimes. sometimes for good and sometimes not. [Go figure people.]

For those women who are eager to change the world, I want to point out an exceptional interview at http://www.theclimateproject.org/ on the environment. I think this is a wonderful opportunity to share their beliefs, behaviors and activism. It is the Al Gore website and the interview link is in the upper left corner. The more of us who stake our right to make a change on our planet the better it will be for the environment and for the world.

movies,like that scene in ATONEMENT. but..NOTHING with torture PLEASE.

i simply love this, even though i wrote it…i wish that i could be a pamphleteer and drop copies of this all around the world from my magic carpet…i actually think i’m on TO something…guess i should change my name to thomas paine-in-th-b*tt! read on! LIFE’S IMITATION OF ART—OR VICE VERSA? Regarding NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD (inspired by Upton Sinclair’s 1927novel, OIL!), and IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (based upon actual events), eager consumers/customers queue up at bookstore cash registers, movie ticket box offices, and DVD rental shops for doses of violence—or enlightenment? Daily, the senselessness of human cruelty is thrown into our faces with every turn of a newspaper page, click of a mouse, or flick of a remote control. Muslims and Iraqi puppies handily disposed of as we voyeuristically watch. Pulp fiction emerges as telling reality while lunching at Wendy’s, browsing at Von Maur’s, purchasing underwear at Lane Bryant’s, or matriculating like a herd of cattle into almost any college/university lecture hall or classroom. Ah, yes—massacres occurring right and left during this recent season, this HUNTING season, where annihilation of Life reaches commonplace status. All three mentioned movies might be categorized as extolling violence, but none of them, nor the blood-letting depicted, conjures comparatively as much audience quaking as once did those rough walks home from school while taunted and harassed by snot-nosed bullies. Remember? These films astonish with their eerily accurate portrayals of the human condition and resonate with total horrible believability. Villains seem difficult to easily identify as life-forces swirl randomly around all characters’ interactions. Classic novels once adhered to the rules of triangular structure, i.e. introduction, climax and conclusion. “Once upon a time” followed by build-up to a significant crisis/dilemma resolved itself into a denouement of “happily ever after”. Modern fiction nearly uniformly breaks from that pattern and for good reason. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN recently garnered the Oscar and, thus, alerted the public to the film’s existence—with mixed results. Advice? View this quirky cinematic endeavor as “a real page-turner”, for the Coen Brothers innovatively transferred the movie’s script from author Cormac McCarthy’s galley proofs somewhat directly to the screen. How dare any of us sanctimoniously sniff that “the book is better than the movie” when the book IS the movie, though no longer held in your own two hands nor upon your lap? This trilogy of 2007 cinematic terror hammers home important themes—allow Muslims to be Muslims, Christians to be Christians, armies to be armies, corporations to be corporations, politicians to be politicians, tribes to be tribes, cults to be cults marching to the beat of the drummer heard, whether singly, in pairs, groups, or clusters. Beware though, upon review of the films, several troubling questions tenaciously haunt the mind. Does group-think somehow create more monsters than usual, either as part of the cliques/gangs themselves—or consequentially produce loners, mavericks, rebels, loose cannons quite simply frustrated with the collective status quo? Also, the ultimate query remains that time-honored cliche’ “Which came first?”…(Forget the chicken or the egg!) violence or the movies? As NO COUNTRY’S dispassionate slaughter-house-foreman-type dispatcher of death, Spaniard Javier Bardem, that soulful skillful young coin-flipping actor, demands of a cross-sectional bewildered member of the family-of-man, ” Call it, friendo!”

Muscle? Is that the standard? I seem to watch a lot of series TV these days. Without a Trace might be my favorite. The writing gets better all the time, if you ask me. I won’t watch Scrubs. I get the BBC News and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, and I usually watch the NBC evening news. I lay in bed religiously every Sunday morning, drink coffee and watch the empanelled pundits chew things over on Fox, NBC, and CBS. And then, after switching over to the TEE-vangelists…just to see what they’re barkin’ about…I start my day. I wan’t always like this. But I had two sons already in the army on 9-11. One’s coming home from his second tour in Baghdad with this next bunch. My younger son (give me strength), after two tours in Iraq, is now enjoying a tour in Korea. (What!) So…part of me tries to stay vigilant. Last movie I saw was “No Country for Old Men.” Last movie I loved? “The Big Fish.” They all give me something, but muscle? I don’t feel bullied by the media until I go on line. The people on Charlie Rose are usually the ones who really give me perspective, even when he’s talking to people I know (and I think he knows) are just spinning a line. Peterson was so comforting to me last week. And he says income disparity’s at the core of the problem. Work on that. Didn’t he? Isn’t that what he said? It’s unfortunate, but there’s a lot more creative re-telling of all the current events stories than any imaginative forethought or plot-lines depicting or suggesting any answers or solutions. We’re all caught up in strategic thinking, but we don’t know where we’re going? What would we like to achieve? Nobody seems to know how to fix these problems. If you mean do I think movies or the media have any impact on administrative policy…? Well, only to the extent that it impacts voters. Documentaries do a more efficient job along those lines because they’re issue-oriented and straightforward. But from Shakespeare to Spielberg theater and cinema have always addressed broader and deeper ethical entanglements in more nuanced, character-driven ways. So who knows how that sinks in or trickles down into governance or behavior. I guess we all have our Pirate hats. My Dad didn’t have much of a father, and he swore he lived by John Wayne’s code of ethics his whole life long. (Little scary.)