Howard and the gang have been discussing the recent Citizens United decision. Stern believes that the Court got this completely wrong, and will makes what he sees as an intrinsically corrupt system even worse. He foresees the wholesale buying of Congress critters by corporations and “special interests”, and compared it to the payola scandals in radio. (As an aside, I don’t see what is so horrible about “payola”; it’s not that different than stores selling shelf space to General Mills, for example.). Stern thinks that we need more regulation of political speech and to ban lobbyists and corporations form the public square. Even if Howard’s analysis is correct (and I’m not cynical enough to agree with him), his prescription is way off the mark.

Let’s leave aside the fact that the First Amendment was intended to protect political speech above all else. Let’s ignore the fact that the Amendment gives absolute protection to the right of the people to “petition the government for redress of grievances” (also known as lobbying). Let’s ignore the irony of a self-proclaimed advocate of free speech calling for censorship.

If the danger or fear is that corporate advocacy will lead to “influence peddling”, the correct solution is to bring the power and scope of the government back to its Constitutional limits. In other words, don’t give the Congress critters anything to peddle! We have little reason to fear that a Federal government exercising the limited and enumerated powers granted in the Constitution will be irretrieveably corrupted.

The answer, Howard, is to limit government, not speech!

I was annoyed by the treatment of the “crying rock star” (can’t remember his name) who had never performed in public or worked with a band. He did not have a great voice (he was merely adequate), did not have much stage presence, chose to sing a bad Bon Jovi song, AND cried and begged, but to get on him because he “hasn’t put in the hard work,” to quote Abdul the Fool and Kara not Kahrah, is absurd. Very few of the kids they send to “Hollywood” have out in the kind of work they’re talking about. Furthermore, they didn’t hold that against one of the final contestants they showed, the nerdy guy who “taught himself to sing in his closet.” His lack of “the hard work” didn’t prevent the judges from sending him on, and his voice was not that much better than CRS’s. Maybe it was because el nerdo allowed Cowell to make a crack about “coming out of the closet.”

Which brings up another disappointment: the producers have reined in Cowell. His acid comments during the auditions are worth the price of admission (in this case, 2 hours of over-hyped TV). Ever since Cowell treated that retarded Special Olympian just like he treats everyone else, and Rosie O’Donnell got her knickers in a twist about Simon being “mean”, he’s toned down his comments. We need the old Cowell for the audition shows to work!

One other comment: why doesn’t anyone ever sing “Renegade” (the old Styx song? If you can pull it off, you’ll be in! Or someone could try an old Sam Cooke tune, or something by Southside Johnny (“The Fever” or “Wait in Vain” will work). Anything where the emphasis is on a clear, heartfelt melody and not on vocal gymnastics!

I don’t look forward to the rest of the series, but if I want to see my family on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I’ll watch with them. Pray for me.

Our narrator is Julius, a composer/sociologist/operations researcher who is over 100 years old. He lives at Walt Disney World with his girlfriend Lil, who is 15% of his age. Living in the Magic Kingdom has been a lifelong dream for Julius (even in the future we have snowbirds). We also meet his best friend Dan (at first via flashbacks). Dan was a “missionary” for the Bitchun Society, but had no work after the whole planet was converted to the Bitchun Society. His Whuffie, which was astronomical, is now down to zero. He wants to crash with Julius and Lil while he brings it back up, after which he will kill himself.

(Whuffie is the currency of the Bitchun Society. It is completely based on reputation. If one’s Whuffie goes to zero, one can still eat, find shelter, etc., but it will be of the meanest kind.)

Dan joins Julius’s and Lil’s adhocracy, which is responsible for Liberty Square and the Haunted Mansion. Another adhocracy, run by Debra, revamps the Hall of Presidents. Julius is murdered, refreshed from backup, and believes Debra’s ad-hoc murdered him so they can take over the Mansion. There are too many spoilers to recount much more; suffice it to say that Julius believes he is slowly going mad.

Doctorow has a good read here. I was disappointed that he did not go into more detail on the Society and some of the questions that arise. For example, what does it mean to be murdered when death has been overcome? How does one dispense justice? How was the problem of scarcity solved? Doctorow doesn’t fill in these details. The book would be better if he had.

Download the book from www.feedbooks.com. You’ll be glad you did.

Later I took the Civics quiz at American Civic Literacy (the one that 71% failed). Got 33 out of 33 right.

I must be doing something wrong.

Now, these shows always need a LOT of filler; they can’t just announce the results, ’cause then they’d have maybe 5 minutes of program. One piece of filler was a segment on how professional ballrom dancers are really athletes, and ballroom dancing is a sport! WTF???

I don’t deny that dancers have incredible control of their bodies, and need to have a great deal of stamina. But a sport? Do they really think that? It’s a competition, but not all competitions are sports! To me, a sport direct, one-on-one (or team-on-team) competition,as well as an objective scoring system. No judges handing out scores (no, I do not consider figure skating, gymnastics, diving, etc., to be sports. Just because something is in the Olympics does not make it a sport). Football is a sport. Boxing is a sport. Track and field is a sport. Ski-jumping, not a sport. And ballroom dancing is DEFINITELY not a sport!

Who WOULDN’T watch MILF Island?  I know I would; I’d even subscribe to the Internet feeds a la Big Brother.  NBC needs to put this show on for real!  It could take out American Idol.  I’m serious:  someone needs to get this into production NOW, even if Seinfeld needs to be paid off(you did pause the credits of MILF Island, right?).

The rest of the episode revolved around Jack manipulating Liz into developing a show for the “Omorosa’ of MILF Island.  Seemed that Liz let loose with a barrage of derogatory comments about Jack to a reporter for Page Six.  Among these were “Class A Moron” and “eat my poo”.  Jack came up with a cock-and-bull story about suffering from a childhood stutter, the State of Massachusetts certifying him as a “class A Moron”, and sweeping up sawdust in the boiler room.  A brilliant plan.  We also found out that Liz “ate her twin” and was pigeon-toed as a result.

This is rapidly overtaking The Office for the best show on television (at least until MILF Island premieres).

• Did Michael dump Jan after the deposition?
• Will Angela go out with Andy? How will Dwight handle things?
• What will Frank’s hat say?
• How will Jack “improve” Liz’s life?

I for one can’t wait to find out.