A few weeks ago, I downloaded the full text of the speech Harold Pinter gave in accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature. It made very worthwhile reading. I've excerpted one of my favorite passages below, wherein Pinter describes the process by which the United States's crimes against countries such as Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, and others, have been made invisible.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

It was a strange relief to read these words. It is a relief because it reflects the facts of U.S. history as I understand them, and not the fantasy that is constantly projected here in the U.S.

Although the media often discusses the political frustrations of the Democratic party, I have rarely seen any examination of the daily frustrations of ordinary individuals trying to live in a culture where one is lied to every day. A place where lying is glorified, through the elevation of people who lie boldly, such as the Enron millionaires and our own President.

It is confusing to live in such a culture. One thing that I have been surprised to discover since 9/11 is how ideology can be extremely blatant and still work. Previously, I assumed that ideology was most successful when it acted surreptitiously, almost as an unconscious effect. But ideology must work hardest when the facts diverge most jarringly from "the official record" that is being offered. It is this constant presence of ideology that becomes so tiring, because it becomes such an effort to remember, day in and day out, what is real.

It is possible, I suppose, to be too tapped into the zeitgeist. That is what happened to me yesterday when the Cute Little Red Headed Girlfriend and I went to go see a matinee of Munich. We showed up 45 minutes early only to be met by a complete mob scene. By the time we had sized up which of the many lines to join to buy tickets, the movie was sold out. Who knew so many people would want to see such a solemn film on December 25? Not me, or I would have bought my tickets ahead of time online.

My dear friend Joe has interviewed me for his most recent podcast. Although Joe is still a pretty steady blogger, he's been getting more and more involved with podcasting lately. You can hear me on Joe's beppepodcast here.

I recently read David Denby's article in the New Yorker, The Moviegoer, about Susan Sontag's film criticism. It's a thoughtful look at Sontag's work as well as an interesting discussion of U.S. filmmaking and film criticism in general. Denby explains why Sontag came to feel that U.S. cinema no longer mattered. In doing so, Denby quotes one of those devastatingly accurate remarks that Sontag had a knack for making. Sontag claimed that the the overpowering influence of commercial forces on moviemaking in the U.S. had destroyed U.S. film, leaving a "lightweight cinema that doesn't demand anyone's full attention." If you like Sontag, or care about the movies generally, Denby's essay is well worth a read.

Sontag's insult to U.S. filmmaking made me recall one of the many times when I had gone to hear her speak in person. It was before Bush had been "elected" to the Presidency for the first time. Someone in the audience asked Sontag what her opinion of candidate Bush was. She made the audience gasp when she called Bush "the mass murderer from Texas." At that time, Sontag was only referring to Bush's enthusiasm for the death penalty while Governor of Texas. But it was a good call, considering the tens of thousands of people of many nationalities who have died through his wars of aggression, his incompetence, and negligence in handling his duties.

My friend Joe has put up his first podcast. Even though he lives in the same building as me, and we talk or see each other several times a week, I still found it very fun and intriguing to listen to his podcast. It's a brand new channel for me to experience "Joe-ness" in.

I urge In Sequence readers in the U.S. to write their Congressional representatives and ask for the impeachment of President Bush for his incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina, resulting in massive loss of life.

If you don't know who your reps are, google your state's name followed by the words "state government" and you should find the information listed on your state government's web page. To make it extra easy on you, here's a brief, generic letter you can cut and paste into a web form or e-mail.

I am writing to request that Congress impeach President Bush for his mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. His incompetence and the incompetence of his appointees has resulted in a catastrophic loss of life. It has also exposed the President's inability to effectively protect the U.S. in the wake of 9/11. I am very concerned that you respond to these grave failures with the seriousness that they require and move to impeach President Bush.

By the way, it's better to use e-mail than mail because safety measures put in place after the anthrax attacks make regular mail service to Congress slow.

While listening to Ed Schultz on Air America, I heard that the looting and lawlessness in New Orleans has convinced many in the U.S. of the need to buy a firearm. A brilliant response! Incidentally, the threat level this past week has been at "Yellow."

Although many people are applauding the mainstream news media for their coverage of Katrina, I've still turned abroad for some of my news.This summation of the situation by the BBC seemed right-on:

It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream.

I know people everywhere are aghast at how thin the veneer of civilization is; how we all become animals in the face of survival. But I've found it to be a learning situation myself. For example, I'd never really understood the concept of stoning before. Now that my civilized impulses have been worn away by so many image of suffering, I not only understand, but am ready to embrace stoning. As the "men" say in Life of Brian, "I'll take three of these large flat stones, and a bag of sharp ones as well."

Since I've written several times about podcasting, I figured I might as well share the other podcasts I subscribe to. In the tech category, I listen to two: the Engadget podcast and the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast. I'm already swimming in tech information, but I figure why not supplement my tech news intake with some tech audio? Just wallow in it, I say.

I've been reading Engadget since it started publishing, and once the site began doing podcasts, I started listening to those, too. The show is pretty low-key and very conversational in tone, which is one of the things I like about it. I like that they're not overly partisan about one brand or OS or service provider, and I feel like they advocate for the user, too. I like listening to thier podcast as an extension of following the web site; it allows me to get more of a sense of the people behind a blog that I read everyday.

The other techcast I listen to is the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast. It's a lean show, only about 30 minutes long, which is ideal for a narrowly focused topic. The episodes I've listened to have mostly been review-oriented. For example, one show reviewed the new and incredibly desirable Harmony 880 remote and another compared the low-end HDTVs available at Costco.

I don't have an HDTV, but I do have a home theater set-up, and I enjoy discovering new ways to improve it or tweak it. Earlier this year I bought the O'Reilly book Home Theater Hacks, which mixes basic subject information with quick tutorials. I really didn't have a lot of understanding of home theater before reading the book, but by the time I finished it I was annoying my co-workers with earnest lectures on the superior image quality resulting from a properly calibrated TV.

You have calibrated your TV set, haven't you?

I've been posting a lot lately after a fairly long period of silence, so I thought I should probably explain what was happening during that time. Basically, I was discouraged. Mainly about U.S. politics, but also about blogs as a form of expression, and so I just sort of dropped out for a bit.

When political blogs first started to become popular, I was worried that they would drown out other types of blogs, especially cultural blogs. However, I think there are some great political blogs out there, like AmericaBlog and American Samizdat, and they are essential in a media environment that delivers propaganda, lies and sheer nonsense in place of news.

Although I believe political blogs are on the whole a positive force, there has been some cost to the blogosphere as a result of the attention paid by the media and others. The more that CNN, Jupiter Research, and other mainstream power brokers engage with blogs, the more focused the blogosphere becomes on conversing with the establishment rather than with each other.

I see many blogs moving away from the things that I like most about blogging: a personal tone, generosity and openness towards strangers, the sharing of old enthusiasms and new discoveries. For now, I have decided to continue asserting the value of these aspects of blogging, against the tide of opportunism and self-promotion that have become such prominent features of blogs today.

Joe has weighed in on the music meme in response to my "passing the stick" onto him. Don't get between him and his iTunes.

I don't usually talk about spam on my blog, because talking about it tends to make one more of a target. However, I feel that I have to address it now because it's making it difficult for readers to reach this site.

In the last two weeks, spammers have been bringing sites down with ferocious spam runs. This site has been unavailable several times, and average load times have been longer. I just want my readers to know what's happening and that I'm doing everything I can to make availability better.

Look what I picked up off the sidewalk! It's the music meme, first seen by me on Tom the Dog's site, then plucked from the god-knows-where to which Rose and Steven recently tossed it.

1. Total amount of music files on your computer:
   
   Around 3 gig.


2. The last CD you bought was:
   
   I think the last CD I bought was a gift for someone else, and the last CD I got was one I received as a gift. It was a title I asked for, "Van Lear Rose" by Loretta Lynn.


3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
   
   "From this Moment On," performed by Rosemary Clooney, off the three-disc set "You're Sensational: Cole Porter in the '20s, '30s and 40s."


4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
   
   

   "Smile," performed by Judy Garland. There are a number of versions out there, but I'm referring to the version on Disc 2 of "Judy Garland, The One & Only: The London Sessions." This is such a troubled song to begin with, but when Judy sings it everything that's disturbed about it becomes magnified. When she's singing the lines, "Light up your face with gladness / Hide every trace of sadness," it seems impossible that she's going to get to the end of the song without slashing her wrists.

   
   

   "I Fought the Law (And the Law Won)" performed by the Clash on the album "The Clash." This song title is so profound I think I may have it chiseled on my gravestone. It's a great summation, don't you think? "She fought the law. And the law won." Plus I love the Clash, they do a great version of this song.

   
   

   "Across the Universe" by the Beatles from "Let It Be...Naked." I listen to this track a lot because it makes me feel peaceful. It's sort of like self-hypnosis--I know I can change my mood and clear out my thoughts by listening to it. A lot of bloggers are into productivity tricks and I suppose this song is one of mine, because it lets me get past the trivial stuff that's bothering me and connect to something that feels more eternal. Maybe that large expanse "across the universe." Musically, I like the Indian elements in the song and that sweet cast in John's voice.

   
   

   "Simply Beautiful" performed by Queen Latifah with Al Green, from "The Dana Owens Album." Every track on this album is so fine. Push replay.

   
   

   In the "listen to often" category, I'm going to list "Kill the Poor" by the Dead Kennedys. Not because I've actually played it recently--although I do have it on a 45--but because it's been stuck in my head for the last week. I think it has to do with Bush's budget and his privatize Social Security scheme. It's not as bad as having an annoying song or a an advertising jingle stuck in your head, but it's been pretty upsetting nonetheless. Everytime I see or hear a member of the Bush administration on the news I hear Jello Biafra screaming inside my head:
   
   ALL SYSTEMS GO TO KILL THE POOR TONIGHT!
   
   KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL THE POOR
   
   KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL THE POOR
   
   KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL THE POOR TONIGHT! RIGHT!
   
   



5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
   
   Joe, of course. Federico, because he's been writing about being blocked lately, and nothing cures blogger's block like a good web quiz or meme. And Ron, because he has interesting musical tastes so I want to hear what he has to say.

Steve Martin has written a tribute to Johnny Carson that's personal yet also speaks to his general importance in U.S. culture: "You gave each guest the benefit of the doubt, and in this way you exemplified an American ideal: you're nuts but you're welcome here."

For me, and I expect this is true for others of my generation, Carson's death signals the end of an era. "The Tonight Show" represented a time of common currency in U.S. popular culture, when it was taken for granted that we all shared certain experiences through television. One of my strongest associations with the "Tonight Show" is of seeing, from a passing car late at night, the blue glow of a television set shining out from the window of someone's home and recognizing Carson's outline against the curtain. Of course, they were watching "The Tonight Show."

Carson's reign on "The Tonight Show"also brings strongly to mind the entertainers of the period. Carson was an outstanding interviewer, a fact that seems clearer in hindsight. Some of my favorite guest regulars: Tiny Tim, Shelly Winters, David Brenner, and the strange butch/femme duo of Burt Reynolds and Charles Nelson Reilly, who often appeared together.

I miss it all: the jokes, the acts, the guests, the pencil, the theme song, the conversation, the ALPO commercials and Ed's laugh. I miss Johnny.

In upgrading my Movable Type system, I've encountered some difficulties in getting comments to work correctly. If you've tried to comment recently, you may have found that the forms didn't work properly. I think the forms work alright now, however, they don't look that great. So I expect to do some more tweaking in the coming days and weeks.

Over the holidays, it seems many bloggers--including myself--were especially hard hit by spammers. It's an ongoing struggle to deal with this issue on the backend. Readers will notice a few changes as I've taken steps to reduce the level of spam on this blog. I've closed comments on older entries, stopped using pop-up windows for comments, and all comments are now moderated, which means they won't show up immediately after you've posted a comment.

Susan Sontag was known for her essays, where she often embraced ideas and art that were considered "difficult." Her essays can be intimidating, so I am going to suggest an entry point for those who have not read them before.

Regarding the Pain of Others is a fairly recent book, and one which should be of interest to nearly everyone. It is in fact very timely, because it deals with the topics of war and human suffering.

Regarding the Pain of Others is in some ways an update on views expressed in Sontag's earlier award-winning book, On Photography. Regarding the Pain of Others however, is not a book about art, as her previous book was. It is about our endless exposure to scenes of horror, disaster, pain, war and torture through the medium of photography.

In the past week, I have spoken with many friends about how difficult it is to comprehend the tsunami disaster in Asia. We see the images on television, one picture of terrible loss after another, until the mind goes numb. We do not want to look, yet we can't stop looking. Sontag writes about such images of suffering with great fervor and sensitivity, drawing on many tragic events in recent history that will be familiar to the average reader.

Regarding the Pain of Others struggles to understand what it means to bear witness to horrible things that are happening to other people--whether the events are accidents of nature, like the tsunami, or inflicted by others, as in war.