And no, we are not going to talk about the movie version

I have a pet theory that you can get some of the best insights into a period, not from the serious novels and plays of the era, but from good, successful popular art. You can learn a lot about a group by studying the stories that connected with them. You can also see how those people change over time

Case in point, in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, it was remarkably easy to find Soviet bogeymen in movies and television. By the mid 60s, sympathetic and even lovable Russian characters were commonplace in movies and television. Think the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Chekov from Star Trek and many others.

Even James Bond changed with the times. In the 50s, he battled SMERSH, a fictionalized version of a real Soviet organization combined with elements of the KGB. In the 60s it was SPECTRE, a cartoonish terrorist network with a propensity for playing East against West.

I originally assumed that the change in attitude was a reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the more I look, the more it seems the shift started earlier.

Which takes us to Matt Helm. Donald Hamilton's Helm wasn't just the American answer to James Bond; he was the Fawcett Gold Medal answer. A contemporary of Travis McGee and part of a tradition that stretched back to the film noirs of the 40s and the pulps of the 20s and 30s. As Anthony Boucher pointed out, Hamilton brought the sensibility of Hammett to the novels. Helm was as unsentimental and clear-eyed as the Continental Op.

This exchange from the 1960 novel the Wrecking Crew illustrates that sensibility, and you'll notice that the tough-mindedness extends to the political as well. Helm doesn't claim to be fighting on the side of the angels nor does he demonize his opponent. Instead he explicitly equates his role and motives with those of the man he was sent to kill.

Donald Hamilton wasn't John LeCarre and this isn't The Spy who Came in from the Cold. The Helm novels are meant to be fast-moving adventure novels with great mass appeal. That makes the lack of jingoism all the more interesting.

Page 107

"If you got other orders," she said, "would you really – –"

I said irritably, "let's not go into the morality lecture, honey. I've heard it before."

"But it doesn't make sense!" She cried with sudden vigor. "You're a… an intelligent person. You're even kind of… kind of nice at times. And still you'd hunt down the human being like… like…" She drew a long breath. "Don't you realize that if this man Caselius is so evil and dangerous that he must be removed, there are other ways, legal ways… Can't you see that I resorting to violence, you just bring yourself down to his level, the level of the animals? Even if you should win that way, it wouldn't mean anything!"

There was a change in her attitude that puzzled me, a kind of honest indignation that was incongruous and disconcerting under the circumstances. A day earlier, a few hours earlier, I have spent some time trying to figure it out, but it was too late now.

There comes a time in every operation when the wheels are turning, the die is cast, the cards are dealt, if you please, and you got to go on as planned and hope for the best. I can name you names, too many of them, of men I've known – – and women, two – – who died because some last-minute piece of information made them try to pull a switcheroo after the ball had been snapped and the back field was in motion. When that point comes, to scramble the similes even further, you just take the phone off the hook and walk away from it. You don't want to hear what the guy at the other end of the line has to say. You've done your best, you've learned everything possible in the time at your disposal, and you don't want anymore dope on any part of the situation, because it's too late and you can't do anything about it, anyway.

I said, "That's kind of a funny speech from you, Lou. It seems to be kind of a set speech in these parts. Sarah Lundgren – – I think you've heard the name – – made it to, a few minutes before your Caselius put a nice accurate burst from a machine pistol into her face and chest."

I made an impatient gesture. "What the hell makes everybody feel so damn superior to this fellow Caselius? As far as I can make out, he's a bright, ruthless guy working like hell for his country, just like I'm a bright, ruthless guy working like hell for mine. His country doesn't happen to like my country. He's responsible for the deaths of a couple of people I'd rather have seen keep on living. I even got some sentimental objections to his methods. Therefore it's not going to grieve me deeply if I get orders to go ahead and make the touch.

"But as far as feeling superior to the guy, nuts! I'm perfectly happy to be on his level, doll. It's the level of a tough, intelligent, courageous man who could probably make a better living selling automobiles or insurance or whatever they sell in Russia, but who prefers to serve his country in the front lines, such as they are today. I don't hate him. I don't despise him. I don't look down upon him, as everybody else seems to, from some kind of a higher moral plane. I'm just prepared to kill him when and if I get the instructions to do so, whether it means anything or not. Meanwhile, I'd like to find out who he is."

With all this talk of moon bases and Mars missions

The unique conditions of the Post-war Era, tremendous optimism and prosperity balanced by Cold War anxiety got us to the moon. Space enthusiasts tend to overstate the part that the first element played and to overestimate the inspirational impact of the space race – the initiative was always controversial – but inspiration did play a role. Understanding that excitement is an important part of understanding what came next

The idea that conquest of the heavens was not just possible but eminent was greatly furthered by this...

From Wikipedia:

Man Will Conquer Space Soon! was the title of a famous series of 1950s magazine articles in Collier's detailing Wernher von Braun's plans for manned spaceflight. Edited by Cornelius Ryan, the individual articles were authored by such space notables of the time as Willy Ley, Fred Lawrence Whipple, Dr. Joseph Kaplan, Dr. Heinz Haber, and von Braun. The articles were illustrated with paintings and drawings by Chesley Bonestell, Fred Freeman, and Rolf Klep, some of the finest magazine illustrators of the time.

For more, check this out.

Cracked.com: " Why Hollywood Can Lose Billions & Still Make Terrible Movies"

One of these days we ought to do a deep dive into dysfunctional corporate decision-making, but for now I think the missing piece in the explanation of the green-lighting of seemingly doomed projects is the asymmetric risk associated with conventional versus unconventional decisions.

When everyone else is doing something, even when it is something that has failed badly and consistently in the past, you probably won't lose your job for doing the same thing. While your mother may not have been impressed by the "everybody else was doing it" defense, it is generally good enough to satisfy a Board of Directors.

Terrestrial superstation blogging – – MGM's the Works

[The over-the-air television industry continues to show remarkably strong and steady growth both in revenue and in number of stations (the last time I rescanned my television, I found well over 100). Press coverage has grown too, but at a far, far slower rate. The cynic in me might point to this as yet another data point in the argument that 21st-century reporters are only interested in stories that focus on the top quartile of the income distribution and have massive PR budgets behind them. Whatever the reason, there is remarkably little being written on the subject, so I thought it would be a good idea to do an occasional series of posts introducing some of the players.]


From Wikipedia:

The Works is an American digital broadcast television network that is owned by the MGM Television division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.   …  Through its ownership by MGM, The Works is a sister network to This TV, a joint venture between MGM and Tribune Broadcasting which also focuses on films and classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s and carries programming from The Works' corporate cousin MGM Television.

Compared to most studio--affiliated terrestrial superstations, the programming here is a bit of a hodgepodge, ranging from old movies to stand-up comedy shows to the odd sporting event like the Home Run Derby to HuffPost Live. This does not necessarily have to be a bad thing if the people running the channel know what they're doing, but no one at The Works appears to have put any thought whatsoever into pulling together the various strands. Nor has there been any apparent effort to come up with interesting and distinctive branding ideas.


The Works is also not at all insomniac friendly. While most of its peers program 24/7 (NBC/Universal's trainwreck COZItv -- which, for some reason, throws in a couple of hours of paid programming a day -- being the most notable exception), the Works runs late-night infomercials. I feel this is almost always penny-wise and pound-foolish. Late nights are a great time to build viewer loyalty, reinforce your brand, and just play around. To take an example from the world of cable, look at Cartoon Network and Adult Swim.

I do, however, have a couple of very nice things to say about the channel, One general and one specific.
Like all terrestrial superstations, MGM's the works is a good thing. For starters, you don't have to pay for it. More importantly(And this is the part I really, really like), you don't have to pay a cable company for it. I know I'm not alone in my feelings toward cable providers, phone companies, and satellite services. All of these industries have horrible reputations and long records of despicable business practices. This pattern of bad behavior is largely the result of operating mostly under monopoly or near-monopoly conditions. Even with the internet, you still have to deal with many of the same providers. For the moment, over-the-air television represents by far the healthiest competitive force in the field of live TV.

The second reason is specific to the Works. As you probably know, virtually every major piece of  popular art you can think of that is still under copyright is owned by a tiny handful of major players. Most of those companies appear to own or be in a relationship with at least one terrestrial superstation and these stations have been aggressively mining their owners' libraries. Furthermore, many of these stations are either operated by Weigel or modeled after their channels. As a result we have a lot of smart people who know what they're looking for digging through a fantastically rich collection of material.

Someone at the Works must've realized that MGM currently holds a great collection of major and minor gems of British cinema from the 30s through the 70s. A given week is likely to have multiple showings of something vintage from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, David lean, or Noel Coward. There are also lots of not necessarily good, but interesting and hard-to-find films like Richard Lester's unique surrealist black comedy the Bed-sitting Room or First a Girl (the English remake of the German film Viktor und Viktoria which was in turn later remade by Blake Edwards as a vehicle for his wife Julie Andrews). I even saw a very nice print of Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 film the Lodger, nicely restored with an original soundtrack and tinting of selected done, I assume, to match the original.

On the plus side, it's an industry disruptor from a visionary CEO

I'm just going to post videos till I get my head around things

More thoughts on the economy

This is Joseph:

From the Guardian:

Median family income is lower now than it was 16 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Workers without college degrees – the old working class – have fallen furthest. Most economic gains, meanwhile, have gone to top. These gains have translated into political power to elicit bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, favorable trade deals and increasing market power without interference by anti-monopoly enforcement – all of which have further reduced wages and pulled up profits.

This is both a reasonable explanation for the rise of Trump, and it does not require any special appeal to racism or misogyny (not that both weren't present, but they would be very depressing as a complete explanation).  The key item is to think about ways to tackle these issues without introducing xenophobia.  Once the Democrats have decided on how to do this, the path back will be a lot clearer.

h/t: Mike

Talking Points Memo

This is Joseph

It might seem to be a very odd time to subscribe to Talking Points Memo; I did so on Tuesday, only after the subscriber drive and election were both pretty much over.  But the publication is considering taking an interesting direction.  One thing that seems clear to me is that it probably cannot hurt to put some real reporting into recent political shifts.  I have some suspicions about what happened, some of which are humbling.  But no matter what the cause, improved media depth of coverage cannot hurt matters, and may well really help.

"Click"

The Windblown Hare is not one of the great Looney Tunes -- McKimson and Foster were never on the studio's A-team -- but at 5:20 you will find one of my favorite cartoon gags. It is also one of the most fertile for metaphor. I'll let you fill in the details.




Bugs Bunny - The Windblown Hare by bugs-bunny1

Prehistory of the TED talk

At least he's not using PowerPoint.

Post-election pondering

This is Joseph

I had been thinking of writing something like this piece by Matt Yglesias, but he seems to have bounced back faster and said it better.  It is true that Democrats do work in mid-term elections, the house appears to be very effectively gerrymandered, and the senate tends to be in defense for the Democrats in the mid-term years (as they have to defend gains made at a presidential cycle). 

It's also not good to hear that:

The GOP now controls historical record number of governors’ mansions, including a majority of New England governorships.

So what next?  I think Democrats should consider trying to compete at all levels.  After all, states are where the gerrymander is executed and there is no reason not to start thinking about how to win some of them.  The 2020 census is closer than it may look.  The presidency is important, but it may have left the party complacent about the rest of the political process. 

More post-apolitical posts

Admittedly, a television producer supporting a Democrat is not particularly surprising, but, as mentioned before, the Donald Trump campaign has changed the social norms around when and where and how it is appropriate to express that support.

From Ken Levine's blog today [emphasis in the original]:

This is the man you want controlling nuclear weapons?  His aides don't feel he's responsible enough to have his Twitter account. This is the man you want at the helm during major international crises? It’s just terrifying. Yes, I’m a Democrat, and I’ve had this blog for eleven years. You never saw me write a post like this about Mitt Romney, or John McCain, or even George Bush. But this is different. This is life-threatening.

It's important to remember the good moments as well

Joe Tone writing for the Washington Post:

But Vega and other voters said that at least in this swath of suburban Dallas – in the dense and diverse neighborhoods where they live and work – things didn’t feel especially different. “We all want to live in peace,” he said, walking out of a bustling community college here.

A couple miles away, a Pakistani immigrant, who asked not to be identified, told a similar story. She’d driven in her minivan to her neighborhood’s Islamic community center, which happened to double as her polling place. “We just want peace,” she said. Asked about the effects of Trump’s candidacy – and a potential Trump presidency – on her neighborhood and the local Muslim community, she stiffened and said it made no difference, for better or worse. “We just wanted to be treated fairly, no matter what we worship.”

She didn’t want to say for whom she cast her ballot. Still, she was giddy about having cast it. With her 5-year-old, Texas-native son in tow, she described how she’d walked into the mosque’s near-empty gym, clad in an ornate tunic and hijab, and handed her ID to the elderly white poll workers. When she told them it was her first time voting, she said, they burst into applause and cheers.

An important cultural literacy note

Listening to various experts over the past few months, the phrase "super-genius" has often come to mind. For those readers who have not had the benefits of a classical education, I thought I would share the source.




Bugs Bunny Operation - Rabbit by playeden

Going out like he went in...

… classy

From Tim Mak writing for the Daily Beast

The parting jab occurred on Saturday evening, when Republican Nevada chairman Michael McDonald darkly hinted at a Trump rally that there was wrongdoing by election officials in the state to advantage a “certain group.” It was clear that he was referring to Latino voters.

“They kept a poll open ‘til 10 o'clock at night so a certain group could vote,” said McDonald, referring to Clark County, which is 30 percent Hispanic. “You feel free right now? You think this is a free or easy election?”

Trump echoed this sentiment, alleging, without evidence, some form of misconduct at “certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County.”

“Folks, it’s a rigged system. It’s a rigged system. And we’re going to beat it,” Trump said.

Organizations that have spent years encouraging this “certain group” to vote immediately cried foul, accusing Trump of suggesting that the citizenship of Hispanic American matter less than others.

“Donald Trump’s campaign has been one defined by its dog-whistle statements of communities of color, and this is no exception,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, president and chief executive of Voto Latino. “Donald Trump has continually tried to make Latinos feel less than American with his insistent attacks against our community… Party officials like Chairman McDonald are again showing just how out-of-touch the GOP is about welcoming new voters into its party by discouraging people from casting their ballot.”

Just to review a couple points we've made before:

1. The damage Trump has done to the GOP with respect to the Latino vote is twofold. He has tarnished the Republican brand for years to come and he has greatly increased the community's political awareness and participation. Remember back in 2013 when everyone agreed that the GOP absolutely had to improve its standing with the Latino electorate in order to remain viable? This would be the opposite.

2. A big part of the anger within the GOP that allowed Trump to get the nomination came from the feeling that the two previous elections had been stolen. This notion did not occur spontaneously. It was planted and carefully cultivated by Fox News and talk radio and countless other right-wing media outlets. Telling the base this story one more time and at a much higher volume is highly risky for the party. It will almost inevitably make these voters more angry and ideologically extreme and there's a real danger that a large number of them will simply give up on the system and stop voting.