Kobe, McClellan and Andre Agassi?

Andre was right: image is everything











Aside from this giving me an excuse to track down one of the best examples of late 80s mulleterifficness, Andre's catchphrase is a useful starting point for thinking about our obsession with rehabilitating the "image" of our public figures.

Two extremely fresh examples of this:




Kobe Bryant and Scott McClellan are at two different points in long standing image rehabilitation campaigns. What I find interesting is that these two people with seemingly so little in common, aside from showing up on my various RSS feeds this morning, both find themselves being subjected to the age old question as to whether "good behavior" by those in the public eye is motivated by genuine contrition and understanding of prior wrongs, or simply shrewd manipulation of the media machine.

The ol' computer is dying a bit right now, so I'll be commenting on this point more por la manana. But check the two stories linked above and feel free to comment.

MMMMMM - more shmeat please

A great series in the Washington Post looking at the various angles of the global food supply, intersection with energy costs, political instability, domestic politics, etc.

So as the world descends into turmoil, and a Whopper tops out at $8, a hungry nation turns its eyes to guys in white lab coats. And here's what they've come up with:












NPR asks: Shmeat - its whats for dinner?

Surging Optimism?

A very well-reasoned piece from this month's Foreign Affairs laying out the continuing follies of our military and diplomatic strategy in Iraq. As laid out by Steven Simon, the Bush Administration's touting of the "troop surge" as the key to a stable Iraq

"fails to account for any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely -- by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq."

If the anonymous Administration sources quoted in this piece are to be believed, the White House and DoD are once again ignoring the concerns of the career diplomats and foreign affairs experts at State and agencies regarding the medium and long term impacts of strengthening the Sunni tribal leaders without making strong efforts to encourage / demand their integration into the political process.

Looks like McCain's line about 100 years might not be too far off of the mark if we continue down this road...

And Now for Something Completely Stupid...

Being the good Coen Bros geek that I am, I truly loved No Country for Old Men, moral ambiguity, Bardem wig freakiness, abrupt ending and all.

And this was truly my favorite scene... That said - this kind of puts the melodrama of the whole thing in perspective.



No Country For Gay Men from Lawrence Scaduto on Vimeo.

Immigrants Partying Hard!

From Today's Washington Post

Detainees Drugged For Deportation

This is just plain ridiculous... are they seriously offering up "exciting travel opportunities" to nurses willing to drug people w/ psychotropics (ie Haldol) while they are shipped out of the country?

Mind you, I completely agree that if there is a safety issue (i.e. big, crazed dude flailing about and threatening to kill people) sedation might be appropriate, but this is just getting waaaay too Clockwork Orange to ignore.

Just another example of the "casual brutality" that seems to have infected our foreign relations of late.

Self Glorification V 2.0

I just couldn't leave it be.

Deep down, in the darkest recesses of my soul, I knew that the world still cries out for yet another blog.

I hear it in the yearning, pleading voices of the children, the elderly, the mill workers, the veterans, the goat farmers, the fruitbats - o.k. this is devolving into a Python routine. Back to my point.

Suffice to say, Just...Your...Opinion...Man is back, because, well... because their are just too many odd, silly, maddening, and otherwise rantable goings on in the world. Someone's gotta bitch about them.

Of course I will strive to not be bitter and divisive, and occassionaly shed light on matters of import or at least amusement.

So there you have it. The beginnings of a new and... er... improved(?) blog from yours truly.

Let's see if I have the fortitude to sit down at the the keyboard on a regular basis and make this happen!