Spin

One of the many accepted definitions of the word "spin" is to impart information with a favorable interpretation. When you think about it, we all engage in spinning of this sort throughout our lives . As children we might say "the dog ate my homework (or perhaps today disconnected the internet)", as teens it might be "but I really love you" and on college and employment applications a sort of "robust" resume might be included. Some would call these lies (little white or otherwise), others might describe them as harmless exaggerations or just doing what everyone else does. But really they're early forms of Spin.

But the real, professional, serious Spin occurs not only in say the business world with unsupported marketing and advertising claims but of course in politics. No matter what, there's a favorable interpretation immediately available of the results of an election, a poll, a debate, a gaffe, an endorsement. You name it. If the candidate does poorly, he or she was the underdog anyway and has certainly exceeded expectations. This only makes sense sometimes if expectations are for a complete failure. Nobody admits that in advance.

It's really curious that the most expert practitioners of this are known as "Spin Doctors"because another accepted definition of "spin" is to give a sensation of dizziness. After the interminable primary season, are you as dizzy as The Normal Blogger? If only the "Spin Doctors" could prescribe something. Probably, the side effects would be horrible (like watching John McCain try to bond with poor blacks) and in any event we'd have to "ask our doctor" (the real one).

This and That

Did you know that after Dick Cheney (!) the current Presidential succession consists of, in order, a sixtyish white woman, an aged Senator and an African-American with a strange first name? No, not Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama. How about (really) Nancy Pelosi, Robert Byrd (very aged) and Condoleezza Rice. If the latter three were the candidates, could it get any more depressing? The latest Democratic debate certainly was incisive and enlightening, wasn't it? Instead of the surrogates (Geraldine Ferraro, etc.) making the gaffes it's the contenders themselves. But do these offhand remarks really provide any evidence on fitness to lead the nation, which is rapidly becoming obsessed with sound bites instead of substance.

Just when the primary season might actually be winding down, last Fall's TV writers strike has inadvertently come to the rescue. Most of the scripted shows (Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, etc.) have been on hiatus, meaning reruns, but thankfully they're all returning. Their outrageous plots are certainly no more bizarre than today's headlines (e.g., pregnant man). And how about the polygamy sect in Texas? There was an HBO series last year called Big Love that might have been based on this real life drama. One of the wives, played by Chloe Sevigny, had a hairdo identical to the women in this sect. The next fashion craze?

Diehard baseball fans are breathlessly awaiting the return this season of three involuntarily retired superstars with lots of baggage--Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. If none of them gets a contract offer, they'll all be first timers on the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot. Could be interesting.

Sports of Sorts

Honestly, how many Americans seriously care about the quadrennial Summer Olympics? About as many as who are passionate about the World Cup of football (soccer to us Yanks). We care about American football, basketball, baseball (see below) even NASCAR over the Olympics. Quick, name some gold medal winners from the 2004 Athens games. But NBC has paid $900 million for the rights to the upcoming Beijing games and has signed up a bunch of increasingly nervous sponsors to bring us many hours of taped results (available real time on the Internet and elsewhere). The sponsors are nervous because once again politics has raised its ugly head (remember Moscow 1980?) pushing drug tests into the background. Caused by protests of China's abysmal human rights record (Tibet, Darfur) but curiously not their penchant for exporting defective and poisoned goods, the torch relay has been interrupted in San Francisco as well as London and Paris. This relay originated not with the ancient Greeks but as part of the infamous 1936 Berlin games. Worse yet, British PM Gordon Brown won't attend the opening ceremonies. Probably President Bush will attend recognizing who exactly owns our country.

Baseball is back and a certain team is attempting to celebrate the centennial of William Howard Taft's election as president by winning the World Series (even getting into it would be the first time since Harry Truman's initial year). All this excitement, coupled with 15 major league games played almost daily provides enormous material for that weird form of verbal blogger known as the caller to sports talk radio. If that's possible, most of these men (there are few females) are less informed and more opinionated than us "real" bloggers. Of course, the callers don't run the same risk as some of the professional bloggers, that is actually keeling over from the stress of coming up with daily or hourly blogs. Unfortunately, even a few deaths have been reported. Don't worry-- the Normal Blogger is certainly not stressed out, and certainly won't be until five or ten thousand people are totally dependent on this blog for unusually perceptive information.

The Entertainment Scene

Once the Democratic race is finally over (but don't count out Hillary yet) what are the late night comedians going to do for topical jokes? Can you expect there to be another Eliot Spitzer or Larry Craig to provide daily material? Probably yes, which is what makes our country great! Out of desperation, I've noticed that even poor George W. is being used to fill the insatiable need for someone to make fun of. Is there no end to the same old, same old jokes about Bush 43? Everyone has the message already. Let's move on to some new targets. Any candidates?

Some readers of the Normal Blog (there aren't very many--yet) feel that the comments about John Adams were unfair to him. But blame HBO and Paul Giamatti for portraying him as totally lacking in personality and charm, unlike his wife Abigail. Contrast him with his opposite number (sort of) on Sunday night on Showtime--- Henry VIII in The Tudors. Now there was a stud, not a dud. Of course, he did have a few of his wives executed, but hey, those were different times. Even the sex on The Tudors is graphic, not discreet as in the Adams household (maybe because John and Abigail apparently never frolicked in the woods with only their horses nearby).

Israel was criticized in some movie circles for not entering The Band's Visit as their official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Oscars. But, after seeing it, I can understand why. Although it's subtitled in entirety, it's primarily spoken in English with some Hebrew and Arabic. By the way, it's an excellent film and you'll love the luminous Israeli actress, Ronit Elkabatz. Speaking of multilanguage movies, there's also the current The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, mostly in Portuguese but with some Yiddish. A very unusual combination.

Fun and Games

It's now apparent why, unlike his contemporaries George Washington ($1 bill), Thomas Jefferson ($2), Alexander Hamilton ($10) and Ben Franklin ($100), John Adams is not portrayed on any US currency. If he was anything like the simpering wimp currently being portrayed on the HBO mini series, it's a wonder he was elected President followed not too long after by his son John Quincy? Is there some historical precedent here? If Abigail had been born 200 years later she would easily have been the first woman to attain that office (also a first lady!).

More fun from Oliver Stone--The director of JFK, Nixon, Platoon, etc. is making a movie about the "formative years" of the current President, with Josh Brolin cast as W. Actually, Oliver should lighten up. Who better to portray Bush 43 than Will Ferrell, who did a devastating sendup on Saturday Night Live? He might need to tone down the unfair portrayal of the President as a boob.

In the games department, I could understand why in this era of violent video games and total impatience on the part of Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z'ers (???) with the slow pace of baseball , it has been replaced by pro football as our unofficial national pastime. But now they have both been eclipsed by March Madness and the millions of people entering NCAA brackets online and elsewhere. Great knowledge of college basketball not necessary. A 10 year old of my close acquaintance is beating me (so is most everyone else). This latest obsession will probably lead to a Las Vegas type sports book in every office and school.

Random Thoughts

Wouldn’t the perfect running mate for Barack Obama be Silda Spitzer? Like an even more famous current candidate, she’s an Ivy League educated lawyer who has years of experience closely watching a superstar politician husband. She would attract the same humiliated woman sympathy that many white women feel for Hillary and to boot she’s a Baptist converted to Judaism, which would attract even more constituencies. But first, she’d have to dump Eliot. We can’t have him only a heartbeat away from being first lady.

I wonder why more political campaigns don’t travel with a resident veterinarian. There seems to be an epidemic of “hoof in mouth” disease. Every other day, it seems, either the candidate (McCain) or their advisors (for Obama and Clinton) are saying something so stupid that the spin doctors have to work overtime. Makes you sort of dizzy, doesn’t it?

Interesting that Bear Stearns offices were in the then relatively new World Trade Center when the 1987 stock market collapse caused them to move out, thus fortuitously removing them from the consequences of 9/11. The current implosion at least didn’t cost any lives. Unlike 1929, most office building windows don’t open. Otherwise, some disenchanted investors and employees might be tempted to do some pushing of the current version of Masters of the Universe. That term was coined by Tom Wolfe in his classic Bonfire of the Vanities written in, believe it or not, 1987. We never do learn from history, do we?

Movie Musings

Every critic (this one too) agrees that Karl Markovics gives an outstanding performance as the protagonist in the Oscar winning foreign film The Counterfeiters. Why then didn’t he receive a nomination from the Academy? After all, Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for her performance in a foreign language film La Vie En Rose. Could it be the dreaded “great roles for men but few for women” syndrome?

After all the Brits and Aussies who play (always very well) Americans in movies set in the Colonies (OK the States), it was a refreshing change to see a movie set in England. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, featuring Fargo’s Frances McDormand playing a Brit—a vicar’s daughter no less. Maybe it’s me but somehow our English accents don’t sound as authentic as their American ones do. Must be the quality of education.

To slightly change the subject, isn’t it sad that we’re so security conscious (terrified) that movie theaters are now locking all their doors from the outside once the last movie has begun? What happens if there’s a family emergency? If you call, you’ll get a recorded message with the show times. The next step will probably be locking the patrons in so they can’t leave even if the movie is awful.