As IF Times

link Oscars | Page 8 | Liveblog live blogging | Reuters.com.

And the winner is….THE UNIONS!  It’s not our imagination.  Only last month in another of the litany of self congratulatory love fests, the SAG awards show was notable for the frequent mention of the unions in the acceptance speeches.  In the Oscars presentation last night, the unions were thanked again by at least two winners.  Heck, Christian Bale couldn’t even remember his wife’s name, but some had the presence of mind to thank the unions.  Who knew they were so instrumental as artistic muses?

I can’t recall ever during the history of the Academy Awards when a political figure was featured during the ceremonies.  But this oversight has clearly been rectified as a large image of the current president, Kim Jong Il-like,  smiling benignly at the audience was on big screen display during one of the presentations.  Even Bill Clinton, the much loved darling of the Hollywood crowd didn’t receive that honor during his tenure.  

From earlier times when the Oscars represented artistic achievement, the show conveyed a certain dignity and audiences were entertained by the impressive and articulate acceptance speeches by the deserving winners.  During those earlier times, Hollywood was still able to create the aura of glitz and glamour and even though it was in the spirit of make believe, the public enjoyed it.      When Bob Hope, the best awards host of all time by a long shot was alive, it was all about the industry.  All humor and comments were directed at the entertainment crowd.   He would never stoop to commenting on the events of the world outside.  He knew this was all about a fantasy world and supporting the mystique.  TV sponsors of the event were likely involved in the beauty or fashion business such as Revlon, L’Oreal or Max Factor.   That was then.

Now, it’s the Academy Awards brought to you by, The AFL-CIO! Also by the TEAMSTERS!  With a special word from Dear Leader!  If you’re of the mesmerized masses, you may not even notice this, but for those who just tune in for simple entertainment they may be surprised and offended by the not so subtle partisan messages that have taken over.  My beef is that these political entities should at least take out and pay for legitimate sponsor roles so that people can get up and go to the bathroom or get a beer.  When the messages are weaved into the programming, it’s annoying at best and smacks of state propaganda at worst. 

The owners of the Academy awards are chagrined that their ratings decline year after year.  Well that may be because no one wants to watch political propaganda masquerading as entertainment.   (Interestingly, in real life, there are entertainment shows masquerading as political shows).   We don’t need to hear about the politics of the actors.  Let’s just go back to just it being about art.  Bugs Bunny used to say it best during his opening musical intro entitled, “This Is It”:
Overture, curtains, lights,
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtains, lights
This is it, you’ll hit the heights
And oh what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it

Tonight what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it

It’s about entertainment.  Even a cartoon rabbit can figure that out.

link Rep. David Wu’s staff confronted him over concerns about his mental health | OregonLive.com.

The bizarre behavior of Mr. Wu has been documented by the local papers and paints a picture of someone who may not have all his wires connected.  What the newspaper fails to say is whether his odd behaviour is something that is normal for him and just became apparent, or if he just only recently went Hollywood star on them.  

Mr. Wu is hardly the first politician to exhibit bizarre behaviour.  The donning of a tiger costume may have been a bit unusual, but hey, it’s all good, he’s just eccentric.   The important thing is that he is of the correct political persuasion, so personal eccentricities can be overlooked.  When you take into account the recent utterances of many of his ideological brethren, wearing a tiger outfit and yelling incoherencies hardly moves the needle on the wacko meter.    According to staffers, he was loud and sometimes angry.  Has anyone ever heard of Alan Grayson, thankfully now the ex congressman from Florida?   The article goes on to state that he recently delivered a “belligerent and rambling 19 minute monologue” to fellow Democrats.  Does the name Keith Olbermann mean anything to anyone?  Finally, staffers testified that  “…Wu became unpredictable and sometimes loopy, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and often not making sense …”   Boy, should we list some names alphabetically?

I’m not sure exactly how they could discern that Wu was exhibiting anything other than acceptable  normal behavior for that party.  Incoherency, belligerence, anger?  The article goes on to recount how in 2007, he accused the Bush White House of acting like  “fake Klingons”, whatever that means.   The best incident was in 2003, when he appeared to go catatonic before a vote.  Clearly the sane response was to flee to another state and avoid the vote altogether.   I’m not sure what’s happening in the Democratic party, but if they start to weed out people like David Wu, good luck  fielding candidates in the next vote. 

As far as David Wu is concerned, he just had the misfortune to pick the wrong profession.  If he was in the entertainment business, he’d be adored, have his picture all over the gossip rags and his own TV show.  There just happens to be a job opening at CBS now that Charlie Sheen has gone.  That show would have had to be renamed One and Half Men, but didn’t poll well with focus groups.  On the other hand, Charlie has a possible career in politics…or MSNBC.

link Bundle up as temperature drops below zero in Metro Vancouver.

It doesn’t really matter how much factual information is available to the public.  Ironically, though we live in a time when freedom and access to information has never been greater, so has the exposure to misinformation. As a result, we have not only more enlightenment, we also have more opportunity to spread stupidity and banality disguised as useful  information.  It’s as if we opened the door to let the dog in and all the rats and insects flooded in as well. 

With the explosion of information platforms like Ipads, Smartphones and Social Networking apps, we can all know that Jennifer Aniston has a new hairstyle.  We know that Charlie Sheen goes on the occasional bender.   We can also learn what’s happening on the other side of the world in real time.  For instance, we know that Mohamar Gaddaffi may be at risk of losing his seat on the United Nations human rights council and may drop out of the running for the Nobel Peace prize.  But at least these are all observable events.  They really don’t need anyone to explain what happened. 

Sadly, many people don’t consume news and information critically, they swallow it whole without any thought as if it were Flintstones multivitamins.  It’s easy to find these people because when you ask them to elaborate on why they believe what they believe, they parrot the standard talking points lines they’ve been conditioned with from the popular media.  What they are often unable to distinguish however are facts from opinions.  In this day and age, there are those who still think the moon landing was a hoax.  There are those that think that the terrorist acts of 9-11 were inside jobs perpetrated by the U.S. government.  There are those that still think rap music has any redeeming value and is a legitimate art form. 

And of course, there are those that still believe two of the biggest fibs ever foisted on the public.  One is old and classic, the other one a relatively new whopper.  Both are related and both are nicely summed up by a comment on a recent snowfall in Victoria, B.C. by an unknown writer in response to the news story in the above link: