8:41:  Martin and Baldwin. Now it’s just non sequitiers and in-jokes.  Par for the course. But Steve and Alec seem to be having fun.

It all reminds me of being a kid and watching Bob Hope and old Hollywood and now Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are old Hollywood.

8:44: Penolope Cruz presenting supporting actor.  My better half just started to pay attention.

I have not seen anything this year! But from what I heard Waltz deserved it.

8:50:  Ryan Reynolds?  Brian Reynolds? WTF.  Who is this person?  Boy, do I not want to see The Blind Side! Was it written by randomly putting together cliches?

8:56: Animation…. Oh crap — Waltzing with Bashir was how many years ago?

9:02 — Why does Miley Cyrus need a bustier? She’s a teenager.  Her breasts should be able to hold themselves up.  I like Randy Newmann.  I’m really old.

9:05 — Chris Pine?  Chris Hine?  What am I Emily Latella?  (My better half also said, “Who?”)  District 9 looks worth seeing.

Commercial break: Let’s talk about me.  When we do go to the movies we go to what we refer to as the “Lincoln Center Home for Adults” it’s where they show foreign films to New Yorkers.  I don’t think anyone under 45 is allowed in.  The whitest crowd in NY except for Elvis Mitchell.  Or we go to the multiplex in Edgewater NJ — the little city across the river.  It’s kind of like going to Florida to see my in-laws except for the weather.  In the dark, nobody knows you’re in NJ.

9:12 — I think Robert Downey Jr. is high and Tina Fey is having a nervous breakdown about it.  Live!  Anything can happen. Oh, that’s the bit!

9:14 — Damn, just checked Facebook.  David Rees is live blogging the Oscars.  He’s famous.  I’m not.  I hate you facebook friend David Rees.

9:15 — The Hurt Locker, another film I kinds wanna see, maybe.  Oh shit.  Doesn’t anyone even ask wtf all those troops are doing over there?

9:17 — John Hughes memorial thingy:  Molly Ringwald really does look like a deer in the headlights.  Matthew Broderick has that weird look of a never aging elf.

9:22 — Now they’ve sprung a bunch of 80’s has beens out of rehab.   It’s like a high school teacher’s memorial.  I’m finding this whole thing iccky.  Was he a GREAT filmmaker?  Are they giving him a posthumous award?  WTF?

9:24 — Audience shot of Ed Asner.  Anyone for a pool of who’s next to go from the MTM show?

9:27 — Zoe Saldana’s dress:  First, it looks like it weighs a ton.  Second, I’m trying to figure out how you use a toilet in a dress like that?  Third, the slit goes up to the crotch?

9:30 — We’ve hit some horrible dead zone in the descriptions of short films.  Don’t they have a pre-Oscar show for this?

Animated shorts:  now I’m having some flashback to being a teenager and Sunday night after Monty Python, channel 13 followed with a half-hour animation show.  If this wasn’t a special hour for stoned adolescents, then what was it?

The short docs actually look interesting…

The winning is making a speech and OH MY GOD who is this awful woman!  And now the music.  Do they take them off stage and yell at them for going past 45 seconds.

Short feature –  This is sad.  The first guy makes his speech.  Then they start the music before the second guy makes his.  This is a terribly ungracious way to give an award.

9:38 — Ben Stiller bombing in the Avatar bit.  (Haven’t seen it, but my friend Maria Bustillos wrote a scathing review for The Awl — no time to link — live blogging)  I hope Star Trek doesn’t get it.  I did see that one and thought the kabuki Romulans were just silly.

Oh crap!  They won!  Well, maybe it was better than the other guys.

9:43 — Jeff Bridges.  Oh Jeff I remember your perfect behind from Starman.

We are SO netflixing A Serious Man!

Commercial: Why no comments?  Is it because all my friends are also blogging?  Or asleep? Or don’t own television machines?

9:48 — Adapted screemplay:  Haven’t read the books.  Haven’t seen the movies.   I’m glad Precious won.  I used to teach high school in NYC and for lots of girls Push meant everything.  They loved that book and found it hugely inspiring.

9:52 –  Queen Latifah!  Yay!  I love that now allow large lesbians to be Cover Girls!  What a thankless task she’s got having to basically present highlights from the Governor’s Award. Are those the awards they don’t do on TV anymore?  That sucks!  I wanna see Lauren Bacall  and Roger Corman live! Oh good, they are bringing them out!  Oh no, they’re not letting them speak. This sucks!

9:55 — Supporting actress — Penelope Cruz.  Penelope Cruz with glasses.  My better half is drooling.  Vera Famiga — I’ve never actually seen her in anything.  Maggie Gylenhall –I don’t want to see her being Jeff Bridges girlfriend.  It’s icky!  What’s her name, not Vera from, Up in the Air, — gotta netflix that.  Monique — They’ll give it to her maybe.  They like comedienne’s playing serious parts.

Called it!

Monique — great way of addressing the “controversy”.  Smart speech.  I’m now a fan.

10:05 — Sigourny Weaver — Is that a dress or did she just grab a bedspread?  She’s doing the award for set decoration.  Do we care?  Oh, it’s Avatar so this could be a portent.  There’s a theme here:  James Cameron is god or the king of the world or something.

10:09 — Steve Martin made a joke.  Sarah Jessica Parker has something weird growing out of her skull!  Costumes: Is the winner the one who had that credit card dress a few years ago?  Yes, I think she is.

10:11 — Charlize Theron — She is fierce!  And she does a great American accent.  She introduces Precious.  Is this because she once said on TV that she was an African-American because she’s born in South Africa?  My better half and I discuss Precious which we haven’t seen but we both agree that Helen Mirren would have been terrible in Mariah Carrey’s part which she was initially slated for.

10:17 — Back from the commercial.  Martin and Baldwin in a bit.  Strangely funny.

10:18 — Two more people I haven’t heard of.  I am ANCIENT.  Are these The Twilight kids? That would be the logical guess.  They are presenting something about “horror films.”  I don’t consider movies about vampires who have to wait until marriage, horror films.

Jaws – That was when Spielberg was good.  Psycho by the master!  Poltergiest — scary.  The Shining — great!  Rosemary’s Baby!  I’ve seen most of these!  Movies used to be fun.  I miss movies.  Shit now they showed the twins from The Shining.  I won’t sleep for a week!

10:23 — Oh, they’re making the poor girl who just lost to Monique present an award.  She’s presenting Morgan Freeman doing one of those “educational” videos explaining what a sound editing and mixing means.  Can’t they just give these at the show that’s not on the TV?

Yayyy!  Sound editing.  Let’s applaud like we know these guys.  Hmmm.  It’s the Hurt Locker.  Does that mean something?

It also won for sound mixing.  Now I’m thinking there’s a pattern — a CONSOLATION pattern. It’s not going to get best picture.  Or will it?

10:28 — Sci Tech awards! Elizabeth Banks.  Has she been in any movies?  Did they make her speak?  Now John Travolta, Mr. Scientology himself, is talking about Quentin Tarrantino and introducing Inglorious Bastards.

Commerical break. Are these commercials national?  Geoffrey Canada, I love you!

10:34 — Martin introduces Sandra Bullock who looks pretty in her dress.  It’s cinematography. Sandra seems to like pronouncing the Italian name of the winner.  It’s another Avatar win and Cameron again gets thanked.

10:37 — Demi Moore presenting this year’s dead.  No, she’s presenting James Taylor who will sing a song about this year’s dead. Will this be a medley of dead people names?  No, it’s an old Beatle’s song.  Ironically, one played at my sister’s wedding,  so not one I associate with dead people.

They are now showing pictures of dead people while James Taylor sings.

I do not forgive Ron Silver for speaking at the Republican Convention.   Yeah, it’s personal.  I don’t care if he could see the Towers burning from his house in New Jersey. I was less than a mile away, could smell the smoke and feel the earth shake as the Towers fell.  I didn’t suddenly  lose my mind.  Maybe he already had the cancer and it was interferon or something messing with his brain.  If that turns out to be the case, I will forgive him.

Commercial.

10:45 — Jennifer Lopez and Sam Worthington.  Best score.  So they are playing all the scores, while having dancers running around the stage?  I think?   I’m watching the dancers.  This looks like a combination of old West Side Story choreography, jogging on stage and some break dance moves leftover from teh eighties.   The music changes, but the basic dance moves and whatever “story” the dance is trying to tell doesn’t.  They are getting more acrobatic at points, more frantic, but there’s really a desperation and clulessness to the choreography.  It’s showy, but meaningless and distracts from the scores rather than enhancing them.  If dance moves are letters, isn’t choreography supposed to form them into words or sentences?

Winner is…. Michael Giachino (?)  for Up. Another movie I will never see.

Ladies and gentleman:  Gerod Butler and Bradley Cooper — or was it the other way around.  Presenting Special Effects.  They just showed a clip from Avatar and better half says:  “It doesn’t look that outstanding.”  But then, he doesn’t have the special glasses and we still don’t even have a flat screen.  Avatar wins.  James Cameron gets thanked again.

10:56 — Jason Bateman, introduces Up in the Air. We like Jason Bateman.

11:02 — Matt Damon — best documentary.  Oh my god there’s a documentary, The Cove about people killing dolphins for food.  And another about food and bad meat.  Do I sense a theme here you Hollywood radical vegans?   Now a documentary about Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers.  And another about Mexican kids trying to get over to see their illegal parents.

The dolphin film wins.  Wow.  Documentarians are heros!  Could we have an all documentary academy awards next year?

11:06 — Tyler Perry  explaining “editing”.  The Academy Awards, it’s kind of like going to school and being left back and having different teachers explain the same shit to you year after year.   Hurt Locker wins again.

11:08– Keannu Reeves presenting  Hurt Locker.  He is a very pretty, is Keannu Reeves.

Commercial.  If it were just me, I would have changed the channel at the score/dance fiasco, but having started this I’m going to see it through.

Pedro Almodavar and Quentin Tarrantino! — Yeeah!  Best Foreign Language Film. Did I miss something or is the actual name of the Peruvian film: The Frightened Tit?  Argentina wins.  Given that we live in New York and are snooty intellectuals, we may even see it at the movies.

Back to Martin and Baldwin.

Commercial break.  Toilet paper commercial.  My better half is now actually arguing with me about “over” being the only correct way.

11:25 — The woman who used to be Michelle Pfeiffer is talking about what a swell guy Jeff Bridges is.  Like Sigourny Weaver, she is wearing a red dress made out of a bedspread.  It must be the look for “older’ women in Hollywood.

11:27 — Vera what’s her name is talking about Mr. George Clooney, but they keep cutting to him and he is just soooooo  hot.

11:31 — Kate Winslett announcing best actor. Jeff Bridges wins.  Jeff Bridges is  talking about his parents, and thanking a lot of people.  I dare them to start the music.  I guess the biggies get more than 45 seconds.  I love when he keeps saying “man”.  He is, after all, the dude.

11:39 — It’s a commercial break, but I predict that the jokes about going over will now be starting.

11:40 — Best actress.  They’re doing the presentation thing.  Why is Moon River playing?  Haven’t seen any of them, but if Helen Mirren doesn’t win, then I hope the young woman from Precious does.  I want a tee-shirt that says: What would Jane Tennyson do?  Helen Mirren should get the lifetime achievement award for fierceness.

11:44 — Oprah introduces Gabaney.  Oprah’s introduction sounds like a lawyer making her case. If I am ever indicted for murder, I want Oprah defending me.

11:47 — Sean Penn to present.  Man, he was great in Milk. Winner is: Sandra Bullock!  I don’t think so.  WTF?  I’m moving to Canada.

11:52 — Babs. That is one ugly tux or whatever it is.  What’s that around her neck? Did she borrow Rachel Ray’s keffiyah?

Winner:  Kathyrn Bigelow!  I am SOOO happy that Avatar didn’t win! Amazing though she gives her speech about the military, but no one this evening ever questions the mission.

Tom Hanks:  Explaining the 10 nominee thing and then boom.  He just reads the winner without going through the other stuff.  I guess they really have to be done by midnight! It’s Hurt Locker.

Now the writer who was embedded is speaking.  Will he address the occupation in any meaningful way?  Nah.

It’s midnight. Bigelow is speaking again and I’m expecting the music.  She thanks the military one more time. “They’re there for us.”   Ok, I know there’s a time and a place, but ….

Cheesy joke by Martin about going over time “Avatar now takes place in the past”.  A thank you to our sponsors.  And we’re out….

Also you might want to take a look at the “literary work” page here.  Just updated with new samples and links to work in progress, a podcast and more!

So have a listen. It’s probably safe for work, but kind of sad.

jackradiostory3

“No, thanks,” he replied. “I’m eighty-six. I’m not looking to draw things out.”

Three to six months without chemo, he was told.

Nine months later, winter 2005, despite the prognosis, he had only slowed down, a little. The ache in his leg kept him up some nights though he wasn’t sure if it was the pain itself or the knowledge of what it meant. The waiting was harder than he’d expected. He’d read obituaries of people who died in their sleep and feel a twinge of envy.

One afternoon the sun was bright, and he was restless.

“I’m going for a walk,” he announced.

“A what?” his wife said grappling with the concept. “It’s freezing. There’s ice.”

“I’m going.”

“But we don’t need anything,” she shouted.

He dressed warmly and stepped outside, moving slowly at first. Then realizing the streets were dry, he quickened the pace. His lungs were clear and he’d learned to live with the dull throbbing in his thigh. He said hello to a neighbor who asked after his wife. He passed the playground and wondered when he’d last been inside. Could his oldest really be pushing sixty?

He walked by stores, mostly new in buildings mostly old, not as old as he was, though many had been up when he’d moved to the neighborhood half a century before.

Half a century. He remembered a parade he’d seen as a child, men as old he was now, civil war veterans. How was that possible?

He was not in denial, but it seemed hard to fathom that he could feel so physically well while his body was in the process of shutting down.

He found himself in the industrial area of L.I.C. on a quiet block as yet undiscovered by artists or developers. Facing southwest, before him was the lower Manhattan skyline — that gap between buildings filled by the sun. He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, suddenly aware of the beating of his heart and the realization of when he had last stood on that spot. Fall, 2001. There had been an acrid smell, and all he could see across the river was smoke.

A voice said, “This too shall pass.”

No one was there. A life-long agnostic, he did not believe it was the voice of God. Still, it was something.

As he walked home he noted everything as though seeing it all for the first and final time.

When he returned, his youngest daughter was waiting. She’d stopped by after work as she often did in those days.

Lately, even she, who dealt with suffering on a professional basis, had developed a catch in her voice when speaking to him.

“How are you, Dad?” she said.

“Great,” he replied, without a touch of irony.

You may know about sockpuppets . Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

“A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person,[1] like a ventriloquist manipulating a hand puppet.”

You may have also heard of meatpuppets. Meatpuppets are other people, friends, relatives, employees, slaves whom we get to promote us online while they keep their relationship to us secret.

Ghostpuppets are different. Say you find yourself spending too much time online at a “social networking” site. Someplace like authonomy maybe. And finally you break away and leave. Only the real world is a cold and lonely place where no one wants to hear your theories about literature and speculation about publishing. So you go back. Only you tell yourself it’s just to play, just to forumcate a bit. But you’re not quite out, not quite yourself. Some people know who you are. Some don’t recognize you. You’ve got a new screen name and a gender neutral avatar. You are in some ways a shadow of your previous self. Not a sockpuppet as you have nothing to promote and no other identity. A ghost.

Like it?
Also do I get bonus points for forumcate? The noun form is forumcation. The definition is “to spend endless hours on a forum posting shit.” Or as my British friends say “shite.”

The novel opens with two heroin addicts on their way to a fix. The griminess of the dialogue is pitch perfect in its rhythm and authenticity. Ronnie, one of the fortunate few with a prescription for heroin and cocaine is eighteen minutes away from his chemist’s and would gladly die sooner to make up the time.

Our “hero”, the son of an abusive, alcoholic, upwardly mobile Scotland Yard officer, survives by staying in squats and selling small amounts of his excess stock on the black market.

Harrison skillfully makes it easy for the reader to identify with Ronnie despite the character’s being vain, selfish and occasionally cowardly. He is, after all, an adolescent trying to understand the world and his place in it. Ronnie, fiercely intelligent, tells himself that he is not constricted by his addiction but enhanced by it. He is a self-proclaimed rationalist and anarchist, identifying with the beats. Since age twelve, he has “collected extreme experiences in a conscious attempt to destroy childishness.”

Ronnie reminds us of other young, unreliable characters on the precipice of manhood in an imperfect world. The reader is immediately aware that no matter what else happens, Ronnie will either grow and change, or he will not. We root for Ronnie’s potential, hoping he will live to tell the tale.

Harrison’s Soho is not a land of flower children and love beads. There’s still a sense of post-war deprivation. Ruth Ellis has recently been executed. Political scandals involving naughty politicians and call girls are in the news, while on the streets police corruption is endemic and gangsters have celebrity status. Heroin addiction, however, is relatively rare. While addicts like Ronnie scam the system, which allows him to walk away drugs in hand for easy resale, the black market in illegal drugs is small.

Early in our story, Ronnie is caught shooting up in a restroom. While his heroin and cocaine are legal, he has a small amount of opium that isn’t. In jail, he is interviewed by an elderly (at least to his adolescent eyes) prison doctor. When she tells him that he’ll be dead soon if he keeps going, he replies, “We’re all going to die… You’re going to die a lot sooner than I am.”

She believes she’s been threatened, classifies him as a psychopath, and Ronnie is sent to a mental hospital that reminded this reader of a cross between a Dickensian workhouse and a Ken Kesey nightmare. Ronnie overhears the nurses discussing how easy psychosurgery will make their jobs and soon escapes.

Several chapters are told from different points of view. We see both the war and early post-war years through the eyes of Ronnie’s parents. Freddy’s drinking, jealousy and violence eventually drive Flo to leave and return to her hometown of Swindon — a place Ronnie will always deny being from. Freddy has managed to rise to become a senior officer, but his son has been out of his life for years.

While the atmosphere and depth of characterization is strong, so is the pacing and plot development. Ronnie’s initial arrest, psychiatric diagnosis, escapes and recaptures all lead to a situation where he is forced to turn informant even though he knows nothing about any large scale narcotics dealers and does not believe that any exist. The shifting points of view allow the reader to know more than the characters, and the last quarter of the novel is a compulsively addictive page-turner in which Ronnie’s fate is anything but certain.

Harrison who has written nonfiction books on alcohol and drug issues, seamlessly weaves in the growing panic over narcotics. While the world was on the brink of nuclear Armageddon and scandal reigned, Britain — influenced by the US — was changing its policies, moving from treating addiction as a public health issue to criminalizing addicts. Ronnie is as much a victim of these changes as he is of his abusive father and his own self-destructiveness.

Glimpses of a Floating World is described on its back cover as “a lyrical and triumphant elegy to a seedy, vice-ridden London of the 1960’s. ” It is that, but also a tale of familial tragedy, a history lesson, a novel that offers much more than simple glimpses.

Glimpses may not be easy to find in your local bookstore though you can order it online as a paperback or download FOR FREE as an ebook through the link provided. It’s from Year Zero, a writers’ collective dedicated to creating a new relationship between readers and writers without the filter of the publishing industry. Agreed, there are many skeptics who still won’t touch books not given the imprimatur of even a small publishing house. This novel puts lie to the myth that important literature can only be found on store shelves. In addition to reading like a lost classic, it’s polished, proofed and edited. If you’re a serious reader, skeptical about anything that sounds like self-publishing, I urge you to rise to the challenge and sample it online for free. Believe me, it’ll be a more rewarding experience than a trip to Border’s to browse through the latest Jane Austen with zombies tome.

The Most Dangerous Moment on our trip was at about 5 in the morning on the tourist shuttle mini-van to the airport on the road from Antigua. The road is curvy, but newly paved and well-lit. Up ahead a truck is turning on to the highway. The truck isn’t moving fast. Suddenly, we are stuck in a moment. The van hasn’t slowed down, but time decelerates as we are very closely approaching the metal wall that is the side of the truck. I am sitting in the middle seat of the second row with no seat belt, perfectly positioned to fly through the space between the driver and the front passenger seat and crash through the windshield. The moment lasts long enough for me to experience the irony of my coming death. My husband is the uncomfortable flyer. I’m the one always arguing that you can trust the pilots who are for the most part professionals. It’s the idiots on the road who will kill you. The van suddenly without even the screech of breaks comes to a halt about a foot from the truck bed. The truck pulls onto the highway, and then we keep going.

The book I’m currently reading is Larry Harrison’s, Glimpses of a Floating World. Here’s the mini-review, I posted on Amazon: “1963, London, Soho, sex, drugs and yes even rock and roll. Ronnie is like a strung-out, hipster, Holden Caulfield if Holden had been a seventeen year old working class Brittish junkie. Harrison perfectly portrays Ronnie’s world, “the scene” that Ronnie will do anything to get back to — the “floating world” of illusion so expertly shown that the reader will never forget the journey. This is an amazing story and a very addictive read.” I promise to write a better, longer-one soon, but please buy the damn book.

State of the Union — I so want to believe in Obama. Travelling, I kept thinking about the President’s mother and how she was a woman who if she hadn’t spent so much time in Indonesia, could have loved Guatemala and isn’t it remarkable that the son of a woman like that could be President of these United States? And then tonight I’m watching that speech hoping for something that doesn’t sound like the sos, and he says how he’s going to “work with Congress” on repealing don’t ask don’t tell? Work with Congress, my ass. This is an easy one. Executive order Mr. Commander in Chief. Harry Fucking Truman did it with integration.

The Writing Life – So I come back to the good news that I’ve got honorable mention for my 3 day novel entry! No money or publication but the possibility that if I turn the damn thing into a full length book, I could at least mention the honor in a query. Needs work but think Lolita from Doleres Haze’s POV meets The Shining or maybe The Lovely Bones for cynical adults without a happy ending. Meantime, Loisaida is sitting, requested as a full on some agent’s desk.

My addictions – Honestly think that the internet/social networking may now have taken over my life more completely than even the television machine. Still experiencing authonomy withdrawal. Having just got back from a vacation to a previously “remote” part of the world, I’m more and more concerned about how the net (and easy access to it) may affect how we experience travel. Anyone remember the ritual of the picture postcard or letters? Stopping to write them on the road. Maybe if you could find a place to make a copy in case they got lost or mostly you took your chances and sometimes finding the post office was an adventure itself. If you came across a phone, you probably used it to check in same as you would a clean toilet whether or not you needed to go. You were forced to talk to people or to no one because you didn’t have IM or the office party atmosphere of facebook at your disposal. (We didn’t have laptops with us this trip and actually didn’t spend much time on the web, but it was available everywhere.) I remember meeting people simply by asking for directions which I’m sure in a couple of years won’t be done when every street in every town in every country is instantly on google maps and accessible on a variety of devices.

More to come. Stay tuned boys and girls.

——————————————————————-

1968, flashback to my 8 year-old self: I wake up to the news on the radio that Bobby Kennedy has been shot. I stumble into my parents’ bedroom waking them with the announcement. My mother still groggy says, “I never liked him. He was a carpetbagger.”

More than thirty years later, the year 2000, both my parents are thrilled that Hillary will be running for a New York senate seat. I bring up the “carpetbagger” remark which my mother denies making. My father points out that Bill was “our” President and he’s willing to consider the Clintons honorary New Yorkers.

January 6, 2010, The New York Times reports that former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. may be planning a Senate run against Kirsten Gillibrand — the plucky, upstate congresswoman appointed to fill Hilary’s seat by hapless Governor Paterson, after the whole Caroline Kennedy mess.

According to The Times, “discussions between Mr. Ford and top Democratic donors reflect the dissatisfaction of some prominent party members with Ms. Gillibrand, who has yet to win over key constituencies, especially in New York City.”

Certainly there is an upstate/downstate divide. Paterson had wanted to appoint an upstater for balance, a practical measure to help him in his planned run for the office to which he was appointed as a result of the Elliot Spitzer scandal. Before her appointment, there was concern that Gillibrand was too conservative for downstate particularly on issues like gun control. Gillibrand had been known as a strong supporter of gun ownership and “hunters’ rights.” For an upstate politician, any other position would be political suicide. She’s since moderated or at least finessed her stance and has even worked with crusading anti-gun Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. McCarthy had previously considered running against Gillibrand over this issue.

Ford is from a conservative southern state. He is chairman of the Centrist Democratic Leadership Council and the son of a former congressman. He moved to New York in 2006 after his unsuccessful senate run in Tennessee and took a job as vice chairman of Merrill Lynch. For most New Yorker’s he’s an unknown quality, a handsome talking head/political consultant -commentator on MSNBC.

The democrats supporting him are an elite group of donors — high-powered people in the financial sector. The Times alludes to Ford’s “formidable track record as a fund raiser” and potential ability to “tap into African American voters nationwide.”

There is no mention within the article of how the two candidates, both centrists, differ on any policy issues. New York City and the downstate region are known for being more liberal than upstate. Why run someone in opposition to Gillibrand who has no substantial policy differences?

One can foresee the drama that would play out should Ford enter the race. This is one show that New York does not need. Her side: The spunky, blonde upstater standing up to the liberal elites power-brokers from the City — she tried to work with them, but they were against her from the start and brought in an out of town hired-gun to do their dirty work. His side: A young, smart African American man just like the president New Yorkers have come to embrace running against an attractive woman playing to the worst fears of the white working class.

In a sick way, the blonde gal versus the black man of course evokes Hilary vs. Obama as well as Obama vs. Palin. Ford and his backers should remember, however, that Hilary whose campaign was already losing a lot of its luster and who had alienated many of her constituents by voting for Bush’s war, still managed to eek out a victory over Obama in the New York state primary. In the general election, Obama was victorious over McCain/Palin — but this had to do with actual issues about which New Yorkers cared.

The city may not have warmed to Gillibrand yet, but she’s working on it and at least she’ll never have the “carpetbagger” label. A bunch of big name fat-cats reaching out to Ford and hoping to market his blackness seems like the worst kind of pandering. It insults voters the same way as the McCain campaign did by picking a female vice presidential candidate hoping it would bring in alienated Hilary supporters. The idea that Ford will succeed with urban voters based on his image versus his substance does no service to Ford or the people of New York.

Gillibrand has already shown herself to be an adroit politician and a tough one. There’s no way that a primary fight over personalities and not issues especially one with an upstate/downstate divide can be good for the dems especially in what will be a tough season for them all around.

As for Harold Ford Jr., my advice to him — if you’re really committed to the people of our state, wouldn’t it make sense to start working for them on a local level even in a non-elected capacity? There’ll be other opportunities to run. Let us get to know you. We love immigrants and have been known to take them into our hearts.

(This blog is also available at Marion’s Open Salon page where it was an “Editor’s Pick”. More comments there.)

He points to the contributions made by traditional publishers in creating the finished product that goes to the public. In addition to marketing, design and layout, Galassi speaks of the role of editors in making sure that the final version of a book is the best that it can be.

Galassi does not discuss the other important role of traditional publishers. They have been the gatekeepers, not only ensuring that no book would bare their imprint before it was ready, but that any book with their stamp would be one worth reading. Publishers could be depended upon to bring us new and interesting authors, and beyond that to expand the very foundations of literature.

But the publishing industry abandoned these tasks long before e-books came on to the scene.

Any visit to a bookstore will show that nowadays it’s only name brand best selling authors and celebrity writers getting onto store shelves. If William Styron were starting out today, an editor would never have taken a chance on a book like Lie Down in Darkness (unless perhaps Styron added vampires or zombies) and Styron himself might have been forced to publish only as an e-book if for no other reason than to prove to potential agents or publishers that he could gain a following and his books would sell.

While books may still need “the care and dedication” of a good editor, publishing houses are not going to provide that to any novels they don’t believe are marketable and most of the books they believe will sell, no amount of editing will help.

The result of this is that sales are down and the publishing industry is in trouble. If only it would occur to those involved to look inward, they might find that the problem is not competition from e-book distributors. Perhaps what they need to do is look for books that have literary merit to begin with. Maybe they should be using that marketing acumen to make serious reading “sexy” again, or to find out what kinds of books would compel readers who aren’t buying theirs. Of course they need to make other changes as well. Changes might include a different type of distribution, the realization that e-book and print pricing can’t be the same, a rethinking of how royalties are set, and new ways of incorporating digital marketing. As in any industry, new technologies require new approaches.

Galassi makes a valid a point. The publishing industry plays an important role in the production of books. If they are going to continue to play an important role in the production of important books — both print and electronic, they need to change.

(This blog also appeared in Marion’s Open Salon page with lots more comments.)

Marty Tankleff, wrongfully convicted at age 17 of murdering both his parents. The conviction was based on a “confession” drafted by a police detective after hours of interrogation. The confession was never signed and Marty renounced it. It took years before his conviction was overturned. The likely killer, a business partner of Marty’s father lives in peaceful retirement in Florida despite witnesses who put him at the scene and his own highly suspicious behavior in the aftermath of the assault.

Kelly Michaels, one of many childcare workers caught up in charges of sexually abusing their charges during the 1980’s when such trials were all the rage. Kelly was convicted despite there being no physical evidence that any molestation had occurred. The physical set up of the day care center would have made it impossible for this kind of abuse to have taken place without others being aware of it or there being some physical evidence of its taking place. Michaels was in prison for years before a judge finally threw out the conviction.

The Malleus Maleficarum, the infamous treatise on witchcraft written in 1486 by two inquisitors for the Catholic Church which set off European witch hunts leading to the burning alive of thousands (mostly women) over the next three centuries for crimes including consorting with Satan.

Marty Tankleff and Amanda Knox — Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Affect.
In both the Tankleff case and Amanda’s a “confession” swayed the jury. False confesssions don’t need to be beaten out of young suspects easily susceptible to police manipulation. Marty’s interrogator told him that his dying father had regained consciousness and named Marty as the assailant. Knox has asserted that she was exhausted and hit twice on the head during hours of interrogation before her “confession” that she was at the scene — not that she had stabbed her roommate. She also named the owner of the bar at which she worked as the murderer. The bar owner had an airtight alibi and was released. One wonders if he had not had the alibi, if he would now be convicted as well despite a lack of any physical evidence. Both Tankleff and Knox have been accused of acting “inappropriately” in the aftermath of the crimes. Marty’s affect seemed flat, unemotional. Amanda and her co-defendant boyfriend are seen in video holding each other outside of the house as the police investigate. The prosecutor insists their holding each other and hugging shows indifference to the crime. Others may see a young woman who looks like she’s in shock and a young man (who didn’t know the victim well) trying to comfort and distract her.

In the Tankleff case as well as Knox’s, it’s easy to find the “real killers.” Marty’s father Seymour lingered in a coma with his injuries. Seymour’s business partner, who owed him thousands, fled in the aftermath of the crime and was found living under an alias. He was never investigated since the police had Marty’s confession and it wasn’t until years later when several witnesses to his involvement came forward that Marty finally got a new hearing. In Amanda’s case, Rudy Guede a young drifter and criminal confessed to being at the house. There is physical evidence of his presence and he fled the scene and the country in the aftermath of the crime. While he is part of the conspiracy under the prosecutors scenario, there is much more evidence to support his presence at the scene than to support Amanda’s or Sollecito. How could they have managed to clean the crime of their DNA and not his? Guede did not initially name Amanda or her boyfriend as co-conspirators though he did claim that the murder occurred while he was in the bathroom and that he came out and saw a strange man standing over Meredith with a knife. It was three months later when he began to go along with the prosecution’s scenario.

In addition to the “behavioral” evidence and the “confession” what other evidence exists? There was DNA of Sollecito on a bra clasp of the victim’s, but this was found months after the crime and could have been contaminated. The defense argued that the amount of trace DNA of the victim on the blade of a knife found in Sollecito’s apartment that also had Amanda’s DNA on the handle was so minute as to be unreliable and the knife didn’t match the bloody outline of a knife left at the crime scene.

The family of the victim believes that justice has been served. Because the physical evidence is so scant, stories about the case inevitably turn to the inconsistencies in Amanda’s statements and her behavior after the crime. But none of this is proof of guilt.

Any New Yorker old enough to remember the Central Park jogger case, can understand what is happening here. For those too young, the jogger case involved the rape and brutal assault of a woman in Central Park who was left in a coma and unable to recall her attack. A group of teenaged African-American boys confessed to raping and beating her. An entire city, a nation, was convinced that these young men were guilty. Their own words, videotaped, implicated them. Other people in the park that night, attested to their “wild” behavior. Their affect was cold with no remorse. They were monsters and we wanted to see them put away forever. It wasn’t until many years later after a serial-rapist murderer long imprisoned finally came forward with the truth that he was the lone assailant. DNA evidence corroborated that it was his semen and no one else’s found on one of the jogger’s sock. He was the only one who beat her and raped her. And suddenly, all of us saw these boys for what they were — boys. Not angels. Maybe boys who were in fact “up to something” in the park that night, but not rapists or (almost) murderers.

Amanda Knox may be selfish and immature. Maybe she lacks the compassion we’d want in a friend or a daughter. You might not want her as a roommate and really she should have been more on the ball when she came home to a bloodstained bathroom. But none of that makes her a killer.

The evidence points to Rudy Guede, alone. Perhaps he didn’t realize that Meredith was home when he broke in. Once he did, he raped and killed her. He then fled the scene and the country. There is plenty to support that theory. There is no evidence or motive for the three of them to have conspired and participated in this together.

Kelly Michaels and the Malleus Maleficarum.
In the Kelly Michaels case, there were no actual victims until the children began to be questioned and Michaels was arrested. Like the witch-hunts of old, this was a case in which the crime itself was a delusion shared by among others, an overzealous prosecutor. In the Knox case, the crime was real, but the scenario around it a complete fantasy.

Amanda’s prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, already has a reputation for believing in satanic ritual abuse and applied that belief to his theory that Amanda, Sollecito and Guede were all involved in a satanic sex game gone bad with Amanda ritualistically stabbing Meredith as the men held her down. It’s the same type of delusional thinking that led to many false accusations and convictions in the US in the 1980’s. It’s also the same thinking that led to three hundred years of women being burned at the stake for consorting with Satan.

The reason why you should care about Amanda Knox is simple. By shouting, “Witch! Witch!” loudly and often, Mignini not only persuaded a jury, but the murdered girl’s family, and the press as well. We don’t normally think of pretty, young white American women as able to inspire this kind of hatred and resentment. All the more reason to be concerned. If a modern day witch-hunt can happen in a wealthy European country, then it can happen anywhere, and if it can happen to Amanda Knox, it can happen to any of us.