Sunday, October 16, 2011

Top Secret America

Around 9/11/11 there were so many interesting things to watch on television. I just got around to watching PBS Frontline's Top Secret America which was aired 9/6/11. It is fascinating television.

Watch the entire show

Read the investigation for this show

My All Time Favorite George Carlin Sketch, in print.

Warning: foul language. It's George Carlin, it has to have foul language.

“We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of f-ing Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”

Plastic…asshole.”  

Monday, October 10, 2011

Harry's Law

A completely revamped Harry's Law made the going tense through the first episode. As the story arc moved on it was clear that Harry's Law has been improved, and I believe this despite how much I enjoyed the first season. In fact it has been drastically improved to the point that I feel it is one of the better new shows of the fall season. As the first season had progressed, new characters and some great actors were added slowly. This year, these actors and their characters, while remaining true to their persona's on the first season, have actually evolved suddenly and honestly to support a more serious and involving show that moves seamlessly from episode to episode. The first story arc was full of surprises so unique that I felt compelled to watch each succeeding show as quickly as possible. Had this revamp been in the offing from the first show of the first season onward, I should not be surprised. NBC finally has a strategy for developing shows without tagging them with Law and Order: at the beginning of their titles. After years and years of being disappointed by cancellations of shows before they could come to any development or even closure, I applaud the network for coming up with a show that has at least one concluded story arc that was utterly satisfying. Now hopefully the show will make it through the year and onward to a third season. NBC was just heading south before this sudden focus on quality. They deserve your viewership on this one, and the story arcs are short enough that you can trust them not to ultimately disappoint, like recently with The Event.