Extreme Home Makeover Rant

But a short one. I've watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition more than a few times, and am as touched by the stories of bad luck, hard times and loss as anybody. But I've always hated the promotional and consumerist aspect of the show, the building of houses that are larger and packed with more goodies than the families who win them could possibly need or use, houses that are more expensive to maintain than some of the families who win them can even afford. I understand that the show is commercial in nature (and is also one giant commercial for the companies whose products are stuffed into the homes) but I've always been struck by the fact that for the cost of the one home they build each show, they could certainly build three or four smaller homes for people who are no less deserving. I think the show is unfortunately symbolic of the American attitude in general; our reliance upon some measure of luck and/or providence to bless a handful of people far beyond what they need as an antidote to poverty, inequality, and misfortune.

"We Shall Remain"

I finally sat down tonight to watch the last two segments of "We Shall Remain", the American Experience program about various critical moments in Native American history. Of the five episodes the final, about the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee, is the best. Though, as usual, the government reneged on it's promise to investigate the goings-on at the Pine Ridge reservation upon the surrender of the activists, it's hard to overstate the impact the moment had on Native Americans across the country. Native Americans were already undergoing something of a cultural renaissance, as a consequence of the general flourishing of cultural identity that accompanied the civil rights and countercultural movements. But the siege served as something of a catalyst, as both a focus and accelerator of a pan-Indian movement that saw Natives both embracing cultures that until then had been dying, and embraced a general Native American "nationalism" that brought together in a kind of fellowship members of tribes that had remained divided even during the worst of the European and American onslaught. Nowhere is this more evident than in the various Pow Wows that take place around the country, particularly in the summer months. Members of all of the nation's tribes come together to celebrate their own and each other's heritages, in ceremonies that are a mixture of various cultures (though strongly influenced by the Plains Indian cultures.) Though many Native Americans who remain on the reservations are mired in poverty and hopelessness, there is no doubt that tribes in general have experienced a resurgence of political power, and both organized tribes and disparate groupings of Native Americans have worked hard to preserve what culture remains after over five hundred years of cultural annihilation. Little of this is a direct consequence of Wounded Knee; rather, Wounded Knee is symbolic of this re-awakening of Native American consciousness.

Anyway, "We Shall Remain" is a great mini-series, and I recommend it.

Annoyance

Wherein a NY Times critic's review of a PBS Nova special on the NSA annoys me. Beyond the general snarky tone and lack of substance, there are statements like this:

The Soviet Union doesn’t even exist anymore, so it’s not really surprising that the government didn’t anticipate that the convicted C.I.A. mole Harold Nicholson would stand accused of continuing to sell secrets to the Russians from jail by using his son as a go-between.

Wait, what? Is it too obvious to point out that even though Russia is no longer Soviet, they might still want to spy on us? The Israelis spy on us for crying out loud. I mean, I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or if the critic Alessandra Stanley really is sympathizing with the CIA for not imagining that a non-friendly power might want to spy on us.

Then:

The film, written and co-produced by James Bamford, the author of a number of books about the intelligence establishment, including “The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret N.S.A. From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America,” buries interesting insights in an old and hackneyed documentary format, with ominous voice-over narration and spooky sound effects.

At times the tone is so lurid and foreboding that the film seems like a “Dateline” exposé of sexual predators.

Okay, now anyone who's ever seen a "Frontline" special knows that this is pretty much the format of every show they do, so that a Nova special might take the same tone regarding an agency that has for years now been spying on Americans (something that is in facts spooky and ominous) really should not be that surprising or remarkable.

Then there's this:

Mr. Bamford, who is interviewed in the film seated at a computer next to a crackling fireplace, makes the case that the government’s decision after 9/11 to extend the agency’s surveillance to American citizens without a court warrant violates a citizen’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Emphasis mine. There's really no other purpose for bringing that detail up except to ridicule the show.

And lastly:

It turns out that the only way to catch huge masses of digital data is to tap into the cables directly — the film says that the agency has a secret office in the same building where it can examine all messages, domestic and foreign. (Those, according to the narrator, include “cries and laughter, hopes and dreams, e-mails, faxes, bank statements, hotel reservations, love poems and death notices.”)

Another detail added, I presume, to highlight the over-the-top nature of the show. Well, okay, but I don't see what's so bad about that. Though I haven't seen the show I have a feeling that, in isolation, that line hardly seems that ridiculous.

Alright, so it's a review and critics are free to be wrong in their review, but what troubles me is more the fact that Stanley seems dismissive of the idea (or importance of the fact) that the NSA is spying on Americans. I could be wrong, but that's the distinct impression I get. And I'm not at all interested in her dismissiveness, since at this point we've safely established the idea that an intelligence agency spying on Americans is kind of a big deal.

Anyway I'm not the only one to question Stanley's politics (or her accuracy.) Fortunately this is my first, and hopefully last, experience with her.

Developments

In case you missed it, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. Powell is held in considerably less esteem than he once was by people of our political persuasion thanks to his participation in selling the Iraq war, but he makes a persuasive case for Obama. Also, the Obama campaign revealed that they raised the ungodly sum of $150 million in September, shattering the record of previous campaigns, and he's using it to absolutely clobber McCain in advertising.

"24" Revamped

Via Volokh Conspiracy, here's an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the future of the hit show "24" (a favorite of ours here at TWM.) The explanation for the show's declining popularity seems to rely mostly on the idea that viewers have tired of the show which has come to enjoy a substantial association with our current policies in the "war on terror", and torture specifically. And while producer Joel Surnow's political leanings did get some attention last year, it seems to me the show's decline is more fundamental than that. The biggest problem I have with the torture rampant in the show is that in later seasons, the writers would simply turn to torture to resolve a problem in the plot. Instead of Jack Bauer having to chase a lead down, he'd simply stumble across a terrorists safe house by sheer coincidence, and then torture vital information out of a terrorist who just so happened to be left alive after a shoot-out. Second, the Hobbesian choices Bauer faces, a hallfmark of the show, are too numerous and too incredulous. How many times does Bauer have to kill/let someone die to prevent an even worse horror from coming about? How much more horrible can the writers make this Hobbesian choice over episode five's Hobbesian choice? And lastly, and probably most crucially, there's just no one-upping nukes and biological weapons. I think those factors have more to do with fans turning away than any rejection of the 24's supposed politics. The show should ditch the over-reliance on clever plot devices, and just go back to its roots as a clever and engaging thriller.

NFL vs. Big Cable = You Lose

You might not have known this, but for us here in Dallas the game was on a local channel, 27, instead of on one of the big networks. Why was that? Well, apparently a spat between the NFL and cable providers over the NFL's "NFL Network" kept the game off the broadcast channels, and off the air at all for anybody in the U.S. who doesn't have satellite:

...when the schedule maker divvied up 2007 games among the league's television partners, it decided the Packers-Cowboys would not go to Fox, the network of the NFC, or the prime-time packages on NBC or ESPN, a trio which anted up $2.41 billion in rights fees this season. Instead, the NFL delivered the game to its own fledgling NFL Network, which will deliver the game to only one-third of the country.

The NFL hoped the promise of a Packers-Cowboys extravaganza in its second season of broadcasting games would ignite a run of viewers demanding their cable carriers offer the network. But a funny thing has happened to the most irresistible force in the sports universe. The NFL has run into an immovable object: big cable carriers.

Time Warner, Dallas' cable provider with more than 2.3 million subscribers across Texas, and Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider, have proved to be All-Pro run stoppers.

Along with the likes of fellow cable giants, Cablevision and Charter, they have refused to yield to the league's demands to carry NFL Network on their basic digital tiers. Comcast does offer the network but on a sports tier, a cable no-man's land.

Cable homes in Cowboys-crazed markets across Texas such as San Antonio, Waco and Austin will be shut out. Same for Packers fans in Wisconsin who live outside Green Bay and Milwaukee.

What does this come down to? Money. The NFL Network wants to charge cable providers about 70 cents extra for each home to carry their network, a charge that cable providers neither wish to absorb nor pass on to their customers (many of whom aren't going to want to pay for the channel anyway, which I presume would only be offered on pricier cable packages.) And the big cable providers say there's no big clamor to provide the NFL Network.

And while at first I thought this was just a greedy fight over money, having watched the NFL Network broadcast free a la Ch. 27, I have to side with the cable providers. The broadcast was awful. Awful commentary, awful sideline antics, awful self-promotion...even the commercials the NFL Network showed for itself were awful (two guys in a bar arguing over whether they could catch Devin Hester? Seriously?) I came close to turning down the sound and turning up the radio, and only the inevitable gap between picture and sound that I hate stopped me. Nobody should have to pay anything extra for that; the NFL Network ought to be paying people to watch it.

As for why the game was on a local channel for those of us lucky enough to live in DFW? Well, the chair of the NFL Network is Jerry Jones, who probably did not relish the thought of tens of thousands of local fans descending on the stadium with torches to burn it down (with him in it) because they couldn't see the game.

Anyway, thanks but no thanks NFL Network. Take a look at how the big boys do it and get back to us. In the meantime, I'm going to write my cable provider and urge them NOT to pick you up.