Obama: The B-Movie

--- by Micheal

I've listened to the media's best packaging of Obama. Just why the media are so infatuated with Obama is fodder for a different post. The important upshot is that the media are feeding us only the glossy best of Obama, much as a movie studio puts out trailers. All the best action shots and special effects get into the trailers. Never the slow talky development scenes. These "trailers" for Obama: The Movie show that Obama's handlers have learned a thing or two from 50s B-movie directors. Let audience imagination fill in their blanks.

A moment's digression to explain: The 50s was a hot market for movies -- any movie. Production of low-budget "B" movies was a thriving market. Monster movies and sci-fi were popular. B-movie producers could not afford an impressive monster costume or elaborate alien robot props. One good long look would reveal that "it" was just a hairy suit and rubber mask, or spray-painted cardboard. A shrewd B-movie director would avoid giving his audience a good look at his budget monster. Instead, he'd use shadows, or a quick glimpse of a claw, etc. Let the audience imagine what the monster was like. Their imagination could cook up a far more impressive monster than his B-budget could ever hope to create.

Listening to the media's chosen Obama bits reminds me of the clever B-movie director. I've been shown very little, really. They're counting on my imagination to conjure up whatever amazing image appeals to me. "Change!" Obama says. Some cheer, imagining between the empty lines whatever change they desire. There are as many utopias as there are dreamers. Since Obama never actually specifies what would change, he's never on any specific hooks to deliver on any of those utopias. Just getting elected would qualify as having made a change. Big deal.

His new slogan "Change we need," is the same B-movie monster shadow trick. There are as many needs as there are needy. By leaving things empty (again), he's left people to imagine that their need is the one he'll address. Given that many of our collected needs are mutually contradictory, someone -- a lot of someones -- are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has too many conflicting interests. Someone is going to get hosed, they just don't know it yet.

Hey, I don't begrudge any politician from making empty promises. That's hardly a surprise. What does concern me are the varied Obama acolytes who dreamily imagine that he will grant their wish. Call me a wet blanket, but he won't. He can't.

If you're envisioning Obama calling down from heaven your vision of a shining New America with streets of gold, etc., you're sadly naive. Worse, you're being used.

Playing It (too) Safe?

--- by Micheal

Is our culture going to hell in a hand basket -- a nice safe hand basket? I got to wondering that. Is America deteriorating due to an overactive sense of safety? We see a symptom of this "disease" as the common foundation of litigation over someone getting hurt. Whatever it was that caused their injury, it's someone else's fault, never the person. You put scalding hot liquid between your legs and get scaled, it's the restaurant's fault. You drive like an moron and flip over your SUV, it's Suzuki's fault. Whatever environment we find ourselves in, the prevailing presumption is that it will be 100% totally safe. If it isn't, someone else's must pay! Big time.

This came back to my attention recently when working on a new playground design for a zoo. There are tons of rules, standards and regulations governing what a "proper" playground must be. Tire swings must be far enough away from their support poles that a kid can't bang himself into one. There must be bumpers beneath teeter totters to cushion the landing and prevent a leg from getting trapped under there. There must be protective surfacing in front and back of a swing twice however high it is.

What sent me into a curmudgeonly rant was seeing the chart for what qualified as "protective surfacing". Grass does not qualify. For a swing, it needs to be 9 inches of shredded rubber or wood chips, etc. to protect the child from a fall from 10 feet up. What? I shouted to myself. What is a kid doing falling from 10 feet up? If he's up on top of the swing set horsing around and falls, why is this the playground owner's fault?

I know, I know, every curmudgeon out there usually begins his rant with, "When I was a kid..." But I'm going to do it anyway. When I was a kid in grade school, there was nothing beneath the teeter-totter but hard packed soil. There was nothing beneath the swings but more hard soil and the stray tuft or two of grass which we hadn't yet trampled to death. Beneath the monkey bars was more hard soil with maybe a skiff of sand. That was just how it was. We could all see it. We knew the risks.

If I jumped out of my swing, I landed on hard dirt. I could skin up my hands if I landed badly. I knew that going in. If a kid was goofing around on the monkey bars -- "Hey lookie what I can do!" -- and fell, he got the wind knocked out of him. I'd seen that plenty of times. What all that did was teach me some respect for the physical world. I learned some important lessons on that playground. (1) The ground is hard. (2) If you do stupid stuff, you can get hurt.

What do kids nowadays learn? (1) Falling should never hurt. (2) Nothing they do is stupid.

If they do get hurt, it's someone else's fault. Mommy will sue the school system or McDonalds or whoever was fool enough to let them in. I'm certainly not suggesting that playgrounds be made of broken glass and jagged rusty steel. It should not hurt to swing or climb the monkey bars. I also feel badly when a child gets hurt, but kids get hurt. Is it ALWAYS someone else's fault?

We're training our new generation to be habitual victims. They won't fail to get hurt at some point. The "world" they are growing up in is designed to protect them from a 10 foot fall. It makes 10 foot falls expected. Trouble is, the rest of the world -- the REAL world -- is not covered with protective surfacing. It's hard.

Isn't this what we're seeing now in the financial markets? Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, they were all goofing around at the top of the financial monkey bars and fell off. Instead of having the wind knocked out of them, like it would anybody else, they're bellyaching that their falls shouldn't hurt. Someone should be providing "protective surfacing" for them.

Our culture is going to hell in a hand basket -- a nice soft, round-cornered hand basket.