Poor poor piteful me...or whinging

[shadowkat]

(Poor poor piteful me is from an old, 1970s, Linda Rondstadt
song that I last heard when I was 8, fits today.)



Well, I *finally* got hold of the cable company. Appears it's not just a general outtage, it's just my cable that is out, in which case they need to send a technician. Of course the
earliest was Tuesday at 10-noon. Nope. Sorry. Finally got a temp job, can't afford to stay home and play with the cable repair man. So they scheduled an appointment for Saturday at
2-6pm. What this means is - I won't be able to watch Nip/Tuck, The 4400, Rescue Me, or The Dead Zone this week. Or anything else I was watching. The only channels I get are unnecessary ones such as 21, the Food Channel, a couple of foreign language channels, and TV Guide Channel. The good news is they will credit my account for the period of the outtage.
The bad news, I'm without my distracting/comforting toy for the week. Oh well, should probably do more reading and writing anyway. Only one problem, I think I hurt my back last week at work - it feels like someone hit me real hard in the middle of my back and my left calve muscel is still pretty tight. And since I'm doing the same things this week that I did last week, ie. lots of bending and filing, and the computer screen/desk top is way below eye level - this may be a problem.
So coming home, relaxing on sofa, with heating pad would have been ideal solution - harder to do without tv.

Why is it when one thing works out, another falls apart? Want to explain that one to me? Why can't everything work at once?
Yes, I know, whine, whine, whine. I'm frigging lucky to have air conditioning, plenty of books to read, a computer, and wait, a temporary job! What's a little back pain? Or tv outtage?



Oh for anyone who's seen Farenheit 9/11 on my Flist? Check out ginmar's take - this is from someone who is actually in Iraq.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/288220.html?view=3137756#t3137756

Have to say she does a good job of pin-pointing what it is that bugs
me about Michael Moore. I wish he would stop manipulating and editing facts to persuade people and just let the facts speak for themselves.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like Bush. But whenever I watch a Michael Moore documentary, I'm aware of the manipulation behind the scenes, I can feel him pulling my string and that makes me uneasy. It also makes him more of a propagandist than a documentarian in my opinion.

Comments

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

whenever I watch a Michael Moore documentary, I'm aware of the manipulation behind the scenes,

Ah yes, but don't you think that he's actually trying to draw awareness to that manipulation by going blatantly over the top with it? I'm thinking of the parade of nations sequence, where he uses the most bizarre stock footage to represent countries in the coalition, polka-dancers and the like; or when he puts Bush into an episode of Bonanza. By underlining the manipulation it makes the audience aware of the film's artificial nature, it's a bit of a distancing effect that ideally allows for more objective analysis.

There are all different styles of documentary - cinema verite is the kind that espouses straightforward presentation of facts with minimal interference, though there are always debates about how truthful that can be, any time you put a camera in front of something or edit footage you're creating a point of view. Moore's style is most certainly not verite, and even though I haven't heard him claim that he's doing journalism, I'd say he's closest in style to the Daily Show. Those guys avoid a lot of criticism by being very even-handed with their satire, they usually deny the label of journalism but they do try to hold onto some of its principles of objectivity. Moore on the other hand has a very definite agenda. I don't even think it's entirely Bush=evil but rather that Moore is a socialist of the old school. He pursues any link to big business no matter how tenuous usually to his movies' detriment.

The things that for me worked the best were the absurdist moments, and oddly the two scenes that were the most verite: the grief of both the Iraqi mother and the American mother. Of course those have been criticized for being too invasive but I thought they really demonstrated what humanity really is - it is impossible not to connect with those women, not to feel their emotions as something universal. And yeah, it was manipulative in the inclusion.

I think the film was a bit of a mess, and I do think Moore stretches his points near to breaking but the debates are a lot of fun!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Do have a confession to make here - I've avoided seeing the film because Moore's interviewing tactics make me flinch. I barely made it through Bowling for Columbine. (Really have troubles watching people embarrass themselves on-screen.)Also because I can't watch footage regarding 9/11 without bursting into tears, for some reason. I have however seen other Michael Moore documentaries or op-ed pieces and he just annoys me.

But your analysis - makes me wonder about it.
It actually sounds sort of interesting. May wait until it comes out on video or DVD.

Ginmar's take is an interesting one as is the debate going on in her livejournal which she's annoying and I allowed myself to get embroiled in out boredom. LOL!

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Mooore's aim has always been to stir up passions, not present an argument, I think. He's an activist, not a documentarian. The facts are out there, many of these events occur in plain sight. The national media has too many people who let their nationalism overcome their professionalism or were too cowed by the administration's practice of cutting off access for and trashing the reputation of anyone who questioned them. But the information is easy to find through a mutlitude of blogs that cover the full spectrum of political thought. Moore's clever, he knows that te national media won't discuss anything that isn't controversial and doesn't have pictures--look at how quickly the indignation over Abu Graib dried up when the pictures stopped coming out. Most people don't approach a situation intellectually, they do it emotionally--as we have seen many times. So he does the most effective thing he can to persuade them. He provides a lot of manipulative pictures and stirs up emotions to get people angry, excited--to demand answers, vote, write letters. He uses the most effective method he has, the same methods those he opposes are using, escept he has the facts to back up nearly everything he states. I won't say he hasn't made mistakes, but it is not unethical per se to make emotional appeals.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh don't get me wrong - I don't think Moore's necessarily wrong in what he's saying. Part of the reason I haven't seen the film is well, I already know most of the information. So seeing it again with Moore's spin? (shrug).

You are right - pushing people's buttons is a good way to get your message across. My fear is that he's activating the choir and turning off the clergy. The people we need to convince are the swing voters. I honestly can't see Farehenheit 9/11 changing the minds of Bush's supporters, the conservatives who voted for him. What I'm uncertain of is - did Moore's documentary annoy or motivate the undecided group? Because you and I? We didn't need convincing, we're the choir, we despised Bush long before Michael Moore showed up. It's the people out there who voted for him or Nader in the last election or didn't vote at all that need to be convinced. Has Moore done that? Or has he only annoyed them? That's the question.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

No, someone like Moore probably won't inspire the clergy. He's too extreme and unpreposessing. But thanks to Moore, criticism of Bush is much more open than it was before the movie was made. Now that they have Moore to hide behind, the national media will let him absorb all the hatred while stoking their ratings by discussing the issues he raised. So your basic undecided voter will not listen to Moore, perhaps, but she will listen to Katie Couric discuss Moore. And maybe change her mind.

I don't think he'll convert many Bush supporters, though, because his handlers have very thoroughly and effectively manipulated the public with emotional appeals. Bush is conflated with God, freedom, patriotism, and family. It doesn't matter what the man actually does because he is a symbol, like the flag or the cross. Any criticism of him is an attack on everything they hold dear. It's an interesting psychological experiment, in a way. Create or inflate fears, then tell your test subjects that you have eliminated the threat, than tell them that the threat will return if they don't do what you say. Heck, the Church has been doing it for thousands of years.

On Michael Moore and Robert McNamara

[cjlasky.livejournal.com]

'Kat:

Just got finished viewing the DVD of "The Fog of War," Erroll Morris' riveting documentary on former defense secretary Robert McNamara, who went down in history (infamy?) as the architect of the Vietnam war. This is an especially enlightening doc in the context of the current Iraqi situation, and sheds a lot more light on the thinking of American presidents and their cabinets than Moore's fulminations.

McNamara's recounting of the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis is nothing short of terrifying. But Morris' main focus is Vietnam, and even if Defense Secretary McNamara (DSM) is a bit slippery on his culpability here (he doesn't remember authorizing Agent Orange?), there's still plenty of juicy material for political junkies to chew on. DSM tells how a supposed torpedo attack in the Gulf of Tonkin (Aug. 1964) was probably an illusion, and could in no way justify the ensuing escalation of the conflict. There are also interesting snippets of audio tape of DSM talking to President Johnson about Vietnam, and stating bluntly that it's a no-win situation. (So why did Johnson insist on going ahead with full U.S. involvement? There's little here beyond DSM's point of view.) The parallels between Vietnam in 1964 and Iraq in 2003 keep piling up (the faulty intelligence, the ignorance of the region and its politics, the American tendency to think global but ignore the local) and Morris (who's definitely as anti-war as Moore) scores consistently without the need for Moore's theatricality.

And yet....

Which movie has garnered all the attention? Which movie has put the anti-Bush agenda in the forefront? Morris' subtle and more well-crafted argument against imperial hubris, or Moore's shallow piece of rabble-rousing?

Much as I dislike some of Moore's cheap stunts, he's got something. He's taken the stuff tucked away in left-wing websites and brought it out into the light of day. Nobody else, left or right, has been able to get the Bush family's all-too-cozy relationship with the Saudis into the mainstream of political discourse. Nobody else has pointed out with such power that the security on our coastlines is alarmingly thin. Nobody else has dared, DARED to suggest in public that the Terror Alert system is an Orwellian attempt to keep the citizenry cowed and pacified. (Violently disagree? Fine. But somebody had to say it.) The sequence where military recruiters cruise the poorer neighborhoods of Flint, Michigan is nearly pornographic. Riveting and repulsive. I'm sorry, but that's just great cinema.

Yes, there are sequences I would consider crassly manipulative: I, for one, hate "crying mother" shots. They tell you NOTHING about a situation. A man could go on a murder spree across 25 states, kill dozens of people with a smile on his face, then get shot by federal agents at his home--and the camera can click on just as his mother races to cradle his perforated body, tears streaming down her cheeks. (In my darkest moods, I sometimes think two sides of a war should decide it with a maternal cryoff--best weeping mother shot for the camera wins.) Yes, everybody is somebody's child. That's always good to remember. But that's all I'm willing to draw from it. I dislike the "Bonanza" parody and the pointless cheap shots of the Bush crew primping before the camera during the credits; I dislike that the history of Fahrenheit 9/11 starts with Bush and election 2000, and Moore seems as ignorant of the history of the region as those he criticizes.

But again, he comes up with good material almost despite himself. In one memorable sequence, he's interviewing Craig Unger, author of "House of Bush, House of Saud" in front of the Saudi Embassy. Unger isn't saying anything particularly interesting, but suddenly, a Secret Service agent drives up, chats amiably with Moore, and sends Moore a very polite message of "we're watching you" before he departs. It's not as if there's any possibility that the Washington PD thought there were terrorists hanging outside the Embassy; it's clearly Michael Moore and his camera crew. With Dubya's help, Moore creates the illusion of himself as populist champion.

Poor Poor Pitiful Me

[cjlasky.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite songs...


Poor, Poor Pitiful Me
Music/Lyrics By Warren Zevon
published by Warner-Tamerlane/Darkroom Music BMI, 1973

I'd lay my head on the railroad tracks
And wait for the Double "E"
But the railroad don't run no more
Poor, poor pitiful me

Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
These young girls won't let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe is me

Well, I met a girl in West Hollywood
I ain't naming names
She really worked me over good
She was just like Jesse James
She really worked me over good
She was a credit to her gender
She put me through some changes, Lord
Sort of like a Waring blender

Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
These young girls won't let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe is me

Well, I met a girl at the Rainbow bar
She asked me if I'd beat her
She took me back to the Hyatt House
I don't want to talk about it

Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
These young girls won't let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe is me

(Well, I met a girl from the Vieux Carre`
Down in Yokahama
She picked me up and she throwed me down
I said, "Please don't hurt me, Mama")