Dana Blankenhorn

Leadership

The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is calm in the center of the storm.

• We see it in athletics, where the pitcher or the quarterback or the point guard is able to somehow control their emotions, stay in the moment, slow down the game and deliver the victory.
• We see it in business, where a trader or CEO keeps his head while markets are falling and scoops up assets at a fraction of their "real" price.
• We love to see it in Las Vegas. It's what the great gamblers have. It allows them to bluff and take pots when they have nothing, because they separate themselves from the emotions of the moment and take advantage of others' normal weakness.
• We see it on the stage, in the movies. We see it in religion. The greats all have it. That ability to be still, to hold a mirror to the audience and let themselves be the hero the viewer wants them to be.

We're seeing it in politics this week, in the person of Barack Obama.

It is an extraordinary talent.

Doctor Alford Explains It All

As important as Gilbert Cuthbertson's belief in "Myth, Value, and Power" were to my time at Rice, I suspect Dr. John Alford's latest research may be to that of my son.

Dr. Alford, working with other researchers, had 46 people who claimed staunch political leanings subjected to scary stimuli -- pictures, sounds, etc.

The conservatives were much more easily scared than the liberals.

Now by conservative and liberal we're not talking about the ephemeral definitions these words have in current American discourse? What would Goldwater say about bailing out the big banks? (I think Ron Paul knows.)

What we're talking about is an attitude, a social conservatism that aims first at protecting existing institutions and structures, and only later (if at all) about anything else. And this is the thread which ties the Bush family's politics, and that of the last 40 years together. It's an absolute determination to protect entrenched interests, based mainly on tactics of fear.

Black Camelot

It is almost certain that, in the next few years, Broadway will mount a re-staging of the Broadway musical Camelot, probably with an all-black cast.

This will happen regardless of the election results. If Obama wins, it's an echo of the Kennedy era. If he loses it's in keeping with the play's actual plot, which is that Camelot is destroyed.

How do I know? This is how Broadway rolls. They reprise musicals 50 years after their opening. Kiss Me Kate re-opened in 1999, The Pajama Game in 2005. Camelot, which first opened in 1960, is due.

That's sort of forgotten these days because, in its first run, Julie Andrews took it over. It was all about the singing. She was a marvelous singer. But at that time, she wasn't a great actress. She wasn't ready to play the villain.

That's what Guenevere is, the villain. And that's what she will be when the play is re-staged.

Why an all-black cast? Because, frankly, there are more really talented black folks ready to grab these parts right now than white ones. (Brian Stokes Mitchell doesn't count. He's played both Coalhouse Walker, a black man in Ragtime, as well as The Man of La Mancha and the lead in that Kiss Me Kate I mentioned earlier. If you want to re-do Flower Drum Song I'm sure he'd be great.)

Rather than concern ourselves with the details of the re-staging (what might be added, or dropped, what might the costumes look like, or the staging) it's far more fun to play that great Hollywood Game -- I wanted, I'd take, I got.

As in I wanted Laurence Olivier, I'd take Dick Van Dyke, I got Dom DeLuise. Only to make this game even more sporting, let's play it this way. Who plays the role on Broadway, who gets it in the Hollywood motion picture, and who goes about touring it in the sticks?

McCain-Bloomberg?

It's hard not to feel bad for ol' John McCain, the way you feel bad for the Valkyries at the end of Gotterdammerung, or Ike Clanton at the end of Tombstone.

He's struggled all his life to get to this spot and finds himself a no-hoper, a joke, a punchline. Not Rocky, but one of those one-or-two-round palookas the champ thought Rocky was before the fight happened.

It's not all his fault. Had McCain been his party's nominee in 2000 he might have won. But he also would have been the prisoner of all those dark forces which swirled around Bush, and no more likely to have avoided his mistakes. Besides, he asked for it. He was taking a birthday cake from Bushie when New Orleans was drowning, and he was smiling.

So I should be kicking myself for suggesting this, but there may be a way for ol' John McCain to make this thing closer than it has any right to be.

Housing Bailout, Dollar Bubble

Here's how it's all going down. (Picture from Rev2.org.)

The Federal Reserve prints enough money so that banks can write-off the Big Shitpile and acquire the liquidity they need to make new mortgage loans.

That's what is in fact happening. The Fed has opened its lending facilities to investment banks as well as commercial banks, and is taking whatever junk these guys have for collateral. That's a nice CDO based on Las Vegas sub-prime mortgages you have there, I'll loan you 100 cents on the dollar for it.

It's possible that J.P. Morgan is telling the truth, and the loans being passed to the Fed's hands in the Bear Stearns deal aren't the worst of the worst. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The IMF estimates there's $1 trillion of dodgy paper about, most of it American (although some is British, which is why the Pound is under $2 while the Euro climbs to near $1.60.)

The consumer aim in all this? To keep nominal home values at a level such that millions more home loans won't go underwater. That is, say your $300,000 home should really be worth $150,000 in a real market, as it should. The Fed pumps enough new dollars into the system that it's still worth near $300,000, and you feel pretty good. Trouble is the $300,000 is really worth what $150,000 was worth before the bailout started. The market has done its job but you don't notice until you do the math.

The Manchurian Presidency

The Manchurian Candidate is about a Communist plot to install a dupe, played by James Gregory (left in the photo at right), as President. He claims to be fiercely anti-communist, but he's really controlled by the communists through his wife, played by Angela Lansbury. (Sorry if I spoiled it. Watch it for Frank Sinatra next time -- one of his best roles.)

Ever since the movie returned to vogue politicians have been warning that their opponents are secretly working for the other side. The claim is made this cycle about Barack Obama. That is, Barack Hussein Obama.

Of course, this deliberately misses the plot. The James Gregory candidate is a perfect conservative, a neo-McCarthyite. In 2008 parlance, he's McCain.

But what if the Manchurian Candidate has already been elected? What if, in fact, he's been in office for over 7 years?

Fear Itself

UPDATE: To learn what you can do about this scourge check out our latest post on the Dirty F'ing Haties.

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Liberal bloggers are getting their undies in a bunch over the Far Right's hate campaign against their man Barack Obama.

It's a game, says Josh Marshall. People won't see through it.

There are lots of charges you can make against liberalism, and by far the worst is their assumption of defeat. They're constantly Charlie Brown before the football, absolutely convinced it's about to be pulled away, because Lucy always gets away with it. (To the right, Cincinnati bloviator Bill Cunningham, of the McCain rally. Give him one back.)

Oh, and the American people are stupid enough to fall for it, say the libs fretfully. Again and again and again. They'll never learn. They're sheep.

It's this assumption of American stupidity I find most alarming. If Americans are that stupid, then maybe democracy is a mistake, and maybe we should have government of our betters, by our betters, for our betters.

Problem is, Mr. Liberal Jackass, you think you're our better, but you're not. Our better is always the ruthless one, the man who best harnesses our base fears. It was true in Latin America for decades, true in Europe before that. True in Africa today. You're not ruthless enough or twisted enough or evil enough to be our better.

Our better is giving you the finger.

The Media War

A hallmark of every generational crisis is a conflict between media, with one medium rising while another fights back.

A generation ago TV was the rising medium. Newspapers thought they were serious competitors in terms of political coverage. The decade began with Nixon's loss of the 1960 debate to Kennedy (radio listeners thought he won) and ended with Nixon triumphant, having learned TV stage management from Bob Haldeman.

We're now going through a similar period, only this time TV is on the defensive. And there are many ways in which that medium is fighting back against the Internet onslaught:

• Denial -- Howard Kurtz's new book Reality Show, and the accompanying interview tour, is a great example. He actually claims that people turned against the Iraq War because of the reporting by TV newscasts. Really.
• Advertising -- This is the method favored by incumbent industries, especially the telecom and oil oligarchs. Run a bunch of ads claiming "it's the network" (while seeking a monopoly on the Internet that will let the telecomms close off "selected" sites) or claiming that oil is green (only if it's made from people, Conoco) in such tight rotation that the TV news can't challenge you and people come to believe up is down, right left, and Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.
• Strangulation -- Cable and telephone networks are deliberately strangling Internet bandwidth, defining "TV" and "voice" as separate services, which they're not, and charging out the wazoo for the few bits that are left. What will happen is people will pay until they realize the depth of the rip-off. And that will be the end of the cable and phone networks. The Internet itself will go blithely on.
• Goons -- From silly strategery to paid goons, corporations continue to treat blogs as something that can be managed and overcome. They can't. You have to deal with them, and accept their values, or you're the enemy.
• Competition -- This has been the most effective tack, turning journalists and columnists into bloggers. The New York Times kept Paul Krugman in a cage for two years, then suddenly unleashed him as a paid blogger. This makes some objective sense, since publishers know how to monetize pages in ways regular people can't (Blogads is dead), but some can make the transition and others can't.

Some thoughts follow

Our Better Angels

My rage from yesterday, and some of the response to it, brings up the question of how we get past dehumanization, about how we rehumanize one another. (Jodie Foster seeks the Oscar in The Brave One opening this week.)

It's easy to dehumanize. The terrorists responsible for 9-11 were animals, were evil, must be destroyed. The people who sent them, the same. The people who supported them, the same. The countries which harbor them, the same. The countries which support them, the same. All who speak up for them, the same. All who would humanize them, the same.

Hatred is a process that spreads in ever-widening circles, until you want whole populations dead, until you become the very thing you thought you were fighting against, all your enemy says you are.

Has YouTube Cracked the Video Business Model Puzzle?

One thing has become clear since I began covering the business of the Internet in 1994. It's much harder to innovate business models than it is technology.

Many companies have figured this out and begun acquiring tech outfits even before they have a business model.

The most notorious such acquisition was Google's purchase of YouTube. And now, over a year later, they claim to have that business model problem licked.

The answer -- overlays. Clickable ads run on a portion of the screen, for a portion of the clip's run-time. The alternative, running ads before, during or after the clip, was rejected by Google because, it said, users wouldn't stand for it.