Wednesday, May 17, 2006

From the E-MailBag...

Steven Marsh makes a good point that I originally included in the previous post then deleted...

To those who argue, "If you're not doing anything you shouldn't be doing, you should have no problem with having your calls monitored," I note that "wrong" is in the eye of the beholder. One of the most telling examples from recent history were from McCarthyism, where people who had associated with others legally (either because it was before the 1940 passage of the Smith Act or because the people they had associated with weren't part of the Communist party until years later) were still forced to testify and account for those actions years later; lives were destroyed.

As a more nuts-and-bolts example, I suspect many of these people saying, "If you're not doing anything wrong..." still wouldn't want to be, say, audited on their taxes every year for the rest of their lives. Yet, why should they object? After all, if they're filing their taxes correctly, then they shouldn't have a problem having to disrupt their lives for a week or so every year, getting files together, making sure everything is documented so that another person can pore over it, etc. And, of course, they should be willing to pay whatever fees or penalties for filing incorrectly on the off chance that they have made a mistake within their half-inch of papers; after all, they obviously did something wrong in that case, right?

Yeah, I should have left in that I don't necessarily agree with the first part of that statement; that if you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't be worried about having your calls monitored. Plenty of people in this country have their lives nuked by unfounded investigations that never prove wrongdoing or prove it only on the slimmest of technicalities. This is the reason we have that "probable cause" phrase in the Bill of Rights and so many laws. Authorities should not be able to go on fishing expeditions, prowling through your life in search of something they can twist into an indictment.

My father, as I've probably mentioned here, worked most of his life for the Internal Revenue Service, a job he hated to pieces. He was not involved with audits but he dealt often with people in his office who were. Much of the time, he thought they were fair and benevolent but there were periods — especially during the Nixon administration but only with regard to selected targets — that an auditor was told, in effect: "Nail this guy."

If you were that guy, there was no such thing as filing your taxes correctly. They would keep calling you in and demanding paperwork you couldn't possibly have and threatening to audit your friends and business associates the same way because of your association with them. They'd just scare the hell out of you until you gave in and accepted a plea bargain, paying a fine and maybe even admitting criminal guilt just to end the nightmare. The atmosphere in the department did not allow the auditor to go back to his superior and say, "I couldn't nail that guy. He's clean." So he'd keep you on the hook until you yelled "Uncle!" Of course, at the same time (this is still during the pre-Watergate Nixon era) they were letting their friends make millions a year, lie like hell on their taxes and get away with paying eleven dollars. That's the kind of thing that too often goes on in government departments that can operate without oversight and which assert a sole right to decide what's legal.

I can understand that some people are so fearful of another 9/11 that they're willing to let government officials do any damn thing they say they need to keep us safer. I think they're wrong — I think we'll be safer if those officials are a lot more accountable for any possible abuse of the system — but I understand the fear. What I don't understand is why when you say you want the spying programs to be subject to judicial review, they act like you're saying, "We must stop all intelligence gathering because my privacy is more important than stopping the next terrorist attack."

• Posted at 2:30 PM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

Years ago, there was a State Senator in California — I forget his name — who was accused of a gross impropriety and conflict of interest because he'd voted for some bill that enriched a certain corporation while he was a major stockholder in that corporation. He promptly called a press conference and issued a denial in the clearest and most outraged terms. He did not own stock in that company, he said...and it turned out that was technically true. Some time later, reporters discovered that the stock was registered to his five-year-old daughter. I suspect that some or all of the statements the Bush Administration is making about the NSA situation are "true" in that sense.

A number of commentators seem to also think that and they're likening the hair-splitting to when Bill Clinton said, "That depends on the meaning of the word, 'is.'" I don't know that that's a fair comparison. Clinton may have been trying to weasel on the truth there but at least he was doing it under oath in a deposition where his interrogators could ask him the question again and again, rephrasing it to narrow in on specifics. If you've ever been deposed, you know that's what they do. Unlike a statement to the press, you don't get to give your evasive answer just once with your calculated phrasing because they get to pose follow-ups and you have to respond to them.

That's what I think is missing here. When George W. Bush says, "...we do not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval," I think I'd like a sharp reporter to be able to ask a couple of follow-ups like, "Who is 'we' in that sentence? Does anyone in the government listen to domestic phone calls without court approval?" And given some of the ways in which our Attorney General has attempted to define the powers of the presidency as virtually unlimited, I'd like someone to ask, "Do you believe a president has the right to authorize eavesdropping on domestic phone calls without court approval?"

My objection to the NSA program may have less to do with what they're doing than it does with the fact that they assert their power to do it without oversight. I don't trust anyone in government to wield power without oversight and I certainly don't trust the band of guys who are now going around claiming, "Well, we never actually said there was a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda...we never actually said we were sure there were Weapons of Mass Destruction..."

People keep e-mailing me to say, "If you're not doing anything you shouldn't be doing, you should have no problem with having your calls monitored." I think a fair response to that is: "If the Bush administration isn't doing anything they shouldn't be doing, they should have no problem with letting an independent entity such as the FISA court monitor what they're doing."

• Posted at 1:09 PM · LINK

Things I'm Not Buying - #7 in a series

The diamond-encrusted cell phone. Prices start at $25,600 and go up to a million. If only I'd known about this before I got Marv Wolfman his birthday present.

• Posted at 10:11 AM · LINK

Pops Culture

Saw something shocking today in the market. Once upon a time, Kellogg's had a cereal called Sugar Pops...puffed corn with a sweet coating. They weren't my favorite but when I got a Variety Pak, the Sugar Pops (unlike the Shredded Wheat) did not go uneaten.

Then one day, the word "sugar" began to fall out of favor with parents and maybe even with some kids, too. Sugar Pops became Sugar Corn Pops and then a few years later, they were just plain Corn Pops. I'm not sure if this was part of a long-range plan or not. Maybe someone at Kellogg's thought that if they made the change from Sugar Pops to Corn Pops in steps, loyal buyers would understand it was the same product. (I assume it was the same product. If they'd modified the cereal itself, I think they'd have completely changed the name.)

And now it's come to this: The corn is gone...from the outside of the box, not from the inside. Inside, I believe it's the same puffed corn with the sweet coating I ate when I was five. But the exterior of its container — and I'm sorry I couldn't find a photo to prove this to you but take my word for it. I wouldn't make something like this up. The exterior of the container just says Pops on it. Nothing about sugar, nothing about corn. It's just a box of Pops.

I stood there stunned, blocking the aisle as other shoppers attempted to get by before their DiGiorno's Frozen Pizzas thawed. They had to squeeze past me, staring at the shelf, realizing where this is all heading. I've seen Sugar Frosted Flakes become just Frosted Flakes and Sugar Smacks become Honey Smacks. Next time I go in, they'll probably be just Flakes and Smacks.

It's not a great trend. If people are going to eat sugar, let them be well aware it's sugar. Don't help them pretend it's something else. Why they're doing this, I don't know. If I were running the Kellogg's company, I don't think I'd want to disabuse people of the notion that my product relates in any way to food.

• Posted at 2:36 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

When Johnny Carson announced his retirement, we were saddened but there were consolation prizes. His last few months of shows were wonderful as performer after performer came by and made a little extra effort for his or her farewell appearance with Johnny. For Steve Martin's last turn, which was on May 6, 1992, Johnny prevailed upon him to do The Great Flydini. This was a routine Martin had developed years earlier and performed here and there, mostly for personal appearances and charity affairs. As I understand it, he hadn't done it in years, in part because of the long prep time involved and in part because he'd pretty much quit performing in front of live audiences. (He did the routine again at least once. A year later, there was a big charity concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in downtown L.A. where Neil Young and The Great Flydini opened for Simon and Garfunkel. Bet that was an evening.)

If you'd like to see another Steve Martin appearance with the once and future King of Late Night, there's one from 1976 up on the Johnny Carson website. If you prowl that site, you'll find a lot of fine video clips. You'll also find a history of The Tonight Show containing a couple of errors.

And now, without further ado — The Great Flydini...

• Posted at 12:15 AM · LINK

None of the Above

Back in this item, we talked about a new category that was being added to the Tony Awards — Best Performance by an Actor or Actress in a Recreated Role. The idea here is to honor someone who steps into a role that they did not do on opening night but who does outstanding work. It would or could go to someone who played Max Bialystock in The Producers after Nathan Lane or The Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera after Michael Crawford.

The Tony nominations were announced the other day and you may be wondering who was nominated in this new category. Answer: No one. They decided not to give out the award this year.

Because there are so few Broadway shows — compared, say, to the number of TV shows eligible each year for Emmys or motion pictures that could garner an Oscar — the Tony rules allow for this. Some years in some categories, they decide there just aren't enough contenders so they skip it. This past season, there seemed to be only two possible entries for Special Theatrical Event, an award which usually goes to a one-man or one-woman show. The possibles were Bridge and Tunnel, which stars Sarah Jones and is a critical and maybe a financial success...and The Blonde in the Thunderbird, an autobiographical presentation by Suzanne Somers that opened to withering reviews and closed a week later. Rather than give Ms. Somers a Tony nomination, they're dropping the category and awarding a special Tony to Sarah Jones.

They're not even doing that with the "Recreated Role" award. There were a couple of actors who might have qualified...Jonathan Pryce in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and (if the judges bent the rules on the dates a bit) Harvey Fierstein in Fiddler on the Roof. But it turns out there's a loophole in the rule book. Tony regulations require that all 24 members of the award's Administration Committee see a performance and that 16 of them vote it worthy of a nomination. While all or most of the committee members see shows when they first open, many do not get around to seeing the replacements...so it's hard to muster 16 votes. Someone needs to work on this idea.

• Posted at 12:03 AM · LINK