lotusland - nervous politics from a laid-back city

days of our lives goes green, as it is the new black

omg, sami and lucas are totally planning a green wedding.  yeah, im posting this.  truly, if this doesnt win the green party the election, i dont know what will.  it's nice to see people give a rat's ass about environmental responsibility, but sustainability isnt necessarily summed up by buying ethical shit.  sometimes, it's about buying less shit in the first place.  oh no, i just outed myself as a total marxist for suggesting we buy too much crap.

do you have half an hour to kill?

i don't, but that definitely did not stop me from watching

THE POLITICS EPISODE OF YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON TELEVISION!

kids these days dont see the value of mocking the democratic process.. grumble grumble.

bonus: this includes retro tv ads.

dave chappelle's lost episodes

chappelle is likely pissed off that episodes from his incomplete 3rd season are currently being aired on comedy central.  it's interesting that the network bills them as something as cutesy as "the lost episodes" when their release was complicated by comedy central's desire to take full creative control away from chappelle.  also, there are more than a few stories of chappelle expressing frustration at how his sketches are received.  if youre some kind of clueless dork who doesnt know the show, he satirizes racial stereotypes/celebrities in an effort to expose their absurdity and (personally) come to terms with racism in the usa.  since this is so personal to him, hes been rightfully pissed off that the conscious subtext of his sketches is lost on a bunch of dumbass fratboys who think the full extent of his jokes is something along the lines of "hee hee, black people eat chicken."

what im wondering is how can someone who is truly a fan of chappelle take part in this bullshit that isnt really endorsed by him in any meaningful sense beyond a contract he signed before all this went down?

so watch it on youtube for free, dont buy the dvd, and dont give comedy central the ratings?  curiosity is a resolve-crushing bitch.  and i guess chappelle's point about people taking his comedy as a racist laugh-along wasnt lost on the producers because they followed the sketch up with a nice little roundtable discussion like this.  its obvious this was the network's way of dealing with the fallout of chappelle's time magazine interview.  on a basic level, the fact they attempted to include dialogue is positive... but i still cant stomach how they treated chappelle.

helena guergis wtf; west wing remains awesome

i have nothing notable to say about helena guergis at this time, except that this looks like a freakin album cover, and isnt that hilarious.  youth vote holla back...

in other news, the west wing continues to be the most awesome show on television despite its tendency to jump an ocean's worth of sharks every single episode.  chief of staff banging the first lady's chief of staff?  please.  president bartlet a)being wrong about war between nuclear powers and b)admitting it to hurricane santos?  yeah right.  the episode did have its moments, though.  after making us look at bradley whitfords homely mug all season, they brought back the hot rob lowe action and then turned it up by having him occasionally stand next to president jimmy smits.  how does that insidious little douchebag manage to be hot while doing such unsexy things as playing an attorney and wearing rimless glasses?   ill never know. 

the west wing, dumped!

if this is true, i have nothing to live for.  i dont know if you can tell by my lifestyle and career choices, but all i live for is indeed an excruciatingly cheesy white house drama.  hat tip to lotuslav, for being a huge bitch and the bearer of bad news.

john spencer

i cant say much about john spencer, the person, because a) i dont know him b) i dont know anything about him besides the fact he is leo.  im respecting the effort he put into that role when i declare im really going to miss leo.

well, its fucking hilarious to see how many of you old people actually watch the west wing, eh.  your collective devotion pales in comparison to the tantrums i threw when my boyfriend wouldnt record it on tivo, the number of west wing torrents i have on standby, the list of quotes floating in my head, etc. he'll probably comment and say some shit about how he sits through all these episodes with me, but its basically a total lie because he complains the whole time and whines about wanting to watch star trek.

leo was totally my favourite, unless by "favourite" you mean "favourite hypothetical shag," because we all know that's will bailey.  watching leo campaign was cute, because kissing babies and smiling pretty isnt really his thing.  santos needs leo, man.  i wonder who theyll put on the ticket.   if they make josh lyman the vp candidate, i will kill myself.  seriously.

the west wing live debate

i was all hyped up for this, you know.  so hyped up that i actually managed to con lotuslav into watching 30 seconds of it, which sets a new record for 'longest amount of time lotuslav has willfully spent watching the west wing' ...

i think next time, it shouldnt be live.  i mean, shit, these are actors, it's impressive they memorized all that crap, but they're professionals for frigs sake.  it's their job.  i miss the other characters and the fancy camera angles.  i miss will bailey.  yeah, mostly, i miss will bailey as a nerdy, bumbling press secretary.  really, nobody needs to know about that.

the west wing debate kinda sucked.  imagine a world where two equally competent candidates got to duke it out without the 30-seconds light... go escapism.  besides being hella masturbatory, one of the reasons it sucked is that it was too adversarial.  too c-span, know what i mean?  i think alan alda kicked matt santos in the nads, but this is only because im culturally conditioned to accept yelling as a valid form of rendering a cogent argument.  i think matt santos was supposed to be the winner because he got to a) wear the navy blue suit and b) not yell as much, which is apparently dignified.  the navy blue suit is presidential.

haha 70% of viewers thought santos won the debate.  go to the poll, fellow junkies.

the west wing is ridiculous

im watching the west wing.  sasha is probably going to dump me.  this show is exactly as i remember it in high school.  the theme song rumbling in the background, a bunch of plots that involve suits whipping through hallways, with people using abbreviations like 'oeob' to seem smart because aaron sorkin is gone and they ran out of ideas.  naturally, it also features josh being a total wad. 

if you click the 'continue reading' thingy, you will be graced with all my insights on this prime time artistic brilliance.

bob novak gone wild

While facing off with Democratic strategist James Carville, the 74-year-old Novak responded to one Carville dig with, "Well, I think that's bullshit, and I hate that." He then walked off the "Inside Politics" set

after watching the incident in question and reading the fcc complaint letters, i couldnt decide who sounded more ridiculous.  one of the concerned citizens expressed disbelief that cnn would air something like that while children could be present (kids love the cnn), or "worse yet," her pregnant friend's unborn child.  i dont know what kind of issues that kid would battle through childhood as a result of fetal crazy pundit syndrome.  if prolonged exposure to crude partisan hackery was a confirmed hazard to fetal health, i would have been stillborn or something.

obviously, "novak was drunk" rumours abound, which is funny, cos he was defending katherine harris, who is also rumoured to be a practicioner of the art of drunken cablenewsery, if you believe crooked timber.

i wonder who will be drunk on tv in september - we cant keep laughing at august news forever.

i had to link to the liberal media conspiracy's comintern (mediamatters.org) cos ifilm makes you watch a car ad, and nobody wants that.

television! teacher, mother ... secret lover.

some would argue i'm utterly unsuited to writing a post on television considering i only watch 1-3 hours per week, counting vhs episodes of trailer park boys. i don't think you need to have a sofa with a permanent imprint of your arse to comment on the crtc thing.

pogge has done a brilliant job of dispelling all the stupid fox news vs al jazeera business. i'd like to remind anyone who is still confused that the war is carried out by soldiers in the middle east, not by television stations and regulatory agencies on this continent.

this wall street journal editorial is cute. i've plucked a few gems for your appraisal:

When it comes to Canadian identity, Fox News Channel is apparently a threat. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, is just another point of view enriching Canadian culture.

A few years back the CRTC told Fox it could enter Canada, as long as its 24-hour programming had 35% Canadian content. That may have implied a little too much televised gopher hunting on Baffin Island, so Fox stayed home.

The darkest interpretation of all of this is that Canada's liberal political elites find al-Jazeera's view of the world more compatible than Fox's. The Arab network is always putting the worst face on U.S. policies, while Fox doesn't mind suggesting that it is rooting for America to win when it goes to war.

yes - not extending rights to fox news really highlights how much canadians loooove al-jazeera. i don't think canada is as much of a posterchild for media censorship as the usa is, from tipper gore's crusade to eliminate profane lyrics to the repressive fallout of the janet jackson wardrobe malfunction. we have a few channels and papers that root for america to win when it goes to war - some are even american. there are people making noise about a liberal bias here, but last i checked it wasn't that different in the states. in fact, i hear this kind of thing has been popular since edmund burke explored the deficiencies of the "literary cabal" while reflecting on the revolution in france. for every disparaging comment made about the usa by a canadian politician, there is a scott brison, a pierre pettigrew, a stephen harper who will step up and convincingly commend america. forgetting figureheads, both in the legislatures and the media, of the people who bothered to vote, lots voted conservative.

i think the bigger question is why isn't fox news bothering to learn these things about canada so they can capitalize on them? could you imagine deb gray's candour being put to use on a fox news canada talk panel? she wouldn't be lonely either - there *are* conservatives in the country, they're just not the governing party.

the crtc has instances of meddling and favouritism - the snub of rai internazionale in favour of telelatino comes to mind. for all one could say about the crtc (mr coyne's contribution is another favourite), the wall street journal comments constitute an uninformed rant. that's about all.

speaking of 1-3 hour habits, that's how long i've been sleeping each day this week - it's paper season. for my english class, i wanted to do something exploring a possible dichotomy between machiavelli's body of work and the adjective 'machiavellian' given it is largely based on the prince and only certain aspects of it, anyway. shut up - it's not a theory paper, it's to satisfy an english requirement i never met having transfered from a french university. i'm currently attempting to cobble together something that proceeds from diIulio's famous 'mayberry machiavelli' comment thanks to the godsend i call sasha who is so very generous and patient while i'm freaking out. has w's administration been acting all machiavellian? i'd be glad to hear from people who have read machiavelli and those who just know the definition of the word.