Ethnic Studies, Politics The Invisible Electorate
(SFGate.com)
Outdated polling methods seem innocent enough -- that is, until you realize it's the common way the U.S. political establishment renders America's nonwhite voters -- 40 percent of the American people, according to the latest U.S. Census -- statistically insignificant. That's more effective than the Klan's methods.

(All you have to do is look at how the Democrats treat the Black vote: they're only interested in our votes around election time, then play lip service afterwards. On the national level, politics is still largely a white, and a male game. Kerry or Bush, once in office, they'll still push an agenda that only considers white interests. Black, Latino and Asian voters must wake up and recognize these facts when considering their voting choices. What is the matrix, Neo? It's control. (b/w negrophile.))

« 10:16:40 PM »    

Weblogs, Internet Movie listings
(kottke.org)
"I've redesigned the movies section of this site."

(Man, that's a lot of movies! I have written, not quite as many movie reviews, a few that live on my site, as well as on Epinions.com, remember them? Kottke's implementation is a nice, simple approach that will play well in a "micro-content" world, but maybe I'm missing something: where's the crunchy, XML structure behind the scenes? (b/w marc's voice))

« 9:40:30 PM »    

Television, Entertainment

The Benefactor
(PopMatters)
The Benefactor reinforces a familiar capitalist power dynamic: when you have money, you can do whatever you want...[the players] were just told to show up and "play the game," difficult when you don't know the rules. When you strip away his rhetoric and flimsy efforts to transform banal activities like playing Jenga into "metaphors," what's left is... well, not a whole lot.

(I was trying to put into words what I thought of this show after 'skimming' -- which is possible with a PVR -- two episodes, but this review summarized my inchoate thoughts, and the truth of this waste of airtime, perfectly: the show is asinine. I had higher hopes, given that Cuban's always appeared to be one of the more interesting sports franchise owners, among other things, to burst onto the scene in recent years. Well, boy, was I wrong; not Dan Rather-type wrong, but just wrong that the guy was interesting. He's just another rich *sshole. Which begs the rhetorical question: can one become rich and not become an *sshole in the process, or is that part of the deal when you sell your soul to Satan's cousin, Mammon?

Now I'm drawn to watching the remainder of this show like a rubbernecker spying a 15-car pileup, or like a couch potato watching Jerry Springer: it's so bad you can't help but tune in again, just to see what stupid sh*t they'll come up with next. And the worse thing about the cast is: they take this crap. A game of Jenga for $1 million? A board of "advisors" made up of 6-year-olds deciding your fate, based on your favorite candy? (I will give Cuban a little credit for mocking Trump's show when he told the second graders that he'd meet them in his boardroom to decide which of his "companies" they can run.) What's that line from The Great Gatsby: the rich get richer but the poor get -- children.

These guys, with their hyperinflated egos -- Cuban, Trump, and later, on Fox, Branson -- flaunt their wealth in front of all our faces every day. Isn't that enough? Of course not, because now, with these reality shows they've proven that they can become social engineers, and turn normal, everyday people in literal playthings, simply because they can count on finding enough greedy people to fall for their offer. $1 million, to Cuban, a $250K job to Trump, come on, to multibillionaires like them is chump change. That's like me handing someone a $20 bill: here, dude, who's your daddy, who's your benefactor? Only thing is, I can't make regular people jump through hoops to get it. Moreover, I wouldn't want to. But to them, it is the ultimate game: human chess, played with volunteer pawns. It's the rich exploiting the not-rich for their entertainment and, no doubt, profit. Now where have we seen that before? )

« 1:36:01 AM »