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   Now in our tenth calendar year!
   PCR #485 (Vol. 10, No. 28). This edition is for the week of July 6--12, 2009.

MOVIE REVIEW
"Bruno"  by Mike Smith
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Movies and The Mob: part 1  by Terence Nuzum
RETRORAMA
The Stuff of Legend: 2009 Film Florida Legends Awards  by ED Tucker
FANGRRL
R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett, 1947--2009  by Lisa Scherer Ciurro
SPLASH PAGE
A Date With Disney .... Toy Story Ride & Frenzy .... Mgm Staples .... .... .... .... ....  by Brandon Jones
STATE OF THE NATION
The Jackson Distraction .... Btw Palin Resigned .... Win Win 4 Palin .... The Best Offense Is No Defense? .... Cap & Trade Warning One .... Another Stimulus .... In God We Trust Missing? ....  by Brandon Jones
MIKE'S RANT
Air Mcnair .... Movie Notes .... Another Voice Of My Youth Moving On .... .... .... .... .... .... My Favorite Films, Part 2...  by Mike Smith
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State of the Nation


The Jackson Distraction
Is the idol worship over? Maybe not since the passing of President Kennedy has there been fanfare of this magnitude and there's never been this sort of glorification of an entertainer. The media has presented a full court press focusing only his talents and ignoring (or denying) his demons. We've witnessed a frenzy over tickets to a funeral and hype over the deceased even being present. The finale in this chapter is the shameless exploitation of Jackson's daughter Paris as she sobbed through a few words of praise for her father.

Where were these fans month ago? Was Michael Jackson on everyone's iPOD and the most popular download? No, the staged hype and massive coverage pushes selling white gloves and old CDs. There is more than motivation for record companies and media conglomerates to cash in rather than memorialize.

Is Michael Jackson so much better than Frank Sinatra? Within a day of Sinatra's death, there were bobbleheads, collector plates and other flea market fodder cashing in on the Chairman’s death.

Now we have a $5 million spectacle with 24/7 news coverage of a "has been" entertainer whose legacy is being glorified with marginal acknowledgment that he was a freak. Jackson’s long addiction to pain killers, self-mutilating plastic surgery and disturbing fetishes are public knowledge. Yet Rev. Sharpton dares tell us:

"I want his children to know that there was nothing strange about your daddy, it was strange what your daddy had to deal with, and he dealt with it.”

Mark Twain said: Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

So strap in America and prepare for the endless celebrity spectacles that we may have to endure. Everyone from Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Madonna to Jesse Jackson and Rev. Sharpton (themselves) will have a memorial of even larger scale.

Jackson's musical legacy is nominal compared to Jimi Hendrix, Duke Ellington and his mentor, Quincy Jones. This is another chapter in the circus that has always been Michael Jackson's life.

Addendum: One disturbing fact that Nolan and I were speaking about was the speed of commemorative material to the newstands. I was shocked in late 2008 in the wake of the economic meltdown that there was an entire endcap at Borders of books on the subject -- full length novels only weeks after.

Fast forward to shortly after Jackson's death and we see special displays of CDs in Best Buy or a separate magazine rack in Barnes & Noble. Did these companies race material to printers and install additional deliveries?

These publishers and editors must have resources standing by at all times. An aged celebrity or one that is ill (Farrah Fawcett) it seems more expected, but the race to exploit Michael Jackson should be an eye opening to this subculture of multimedia hype to sales.

BTW Palin Resigned
Sarah Palin's surprise resignation has confirmed the naivete and arrogance of America's political class and the mass media. While Palin has never garnered any support from the leftists at NOW, but it's truly amazing how badly they've misjudged and portray one of the most independent and influential women of our time.

The burden of motherhood has to feel like the world on her shoulders with her eldest in Iraq, her oldest daughter now a single mother, her other daughter Willow who was sucked into the limelight due to a raunchy joke and of course, her young son with Down's Syndrome.

The national spotlight only dimmed slightly after the November loss, as the attacks on Palin (and her family) never ceased. The Palins have endured lawsuits (and legal fees) and 24/7 vile media coverage attacking their reputations with hollow allegations.

Win Win 4 Palin
Palin is by no means retreating to some remote hillside to live next to Justice Souter. On the contrary, she's now positioned to be in highest demand. Other than the President himself, who would be a bigger draw as a keynote speaker for a $200-300 per plate dinner?

We are headed into mid-term elections and the empty suits of the Republican party will soon be tripping over themselves to line up Palin.

Our tasteless society will continue with pornographic jokes and those experts of tolerance on the left will marginalize her as woman, a politician and as a mother.

The Best Offense is NO Defense?
President Obama expert diplomacy with the Russians involved reducing nuclear warheads from 2000 to 1500. Whew, I feel safter. It's like the security of knowing you're only going to be shot 4 times instead of 5!

More importantly, yet less reported, is President Obama's concessions to not implement missile defense systems in Europe if Russia helps with the "Iran problem."

Our chief negotiator thinks it would be a good idea to retreat from missile defense plans which would help protect countries (e.g. Poland, Czech Republic) endangered by nuclear missile aspirations of Iran.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along" -- George W. Bush on Obama in early 2008 regarding Iran.

Obama is racing to become a bigger appeaser than even Jimmy Carter. I'd love to hear the audio of Bush trying to say "ingenious", but I'll admit - he was dead on that one.

Cap & Trade Warning One
The first wave of Cap and Trade analysis has left us with one obvious fact:

If you sell your house, you must go green.

Language in the bill reflects legislature adopted in California requiring home sellers to refit their homes to be "green" and meet new C&T standards.

Go Green Baby!
The Al Gore global warming profiteering spent $300 million to take us down this road. A road where you may need to add the following to SELL your house:

Structural Insulated Panels (SIP) are new green insulation panels costing a mere $6/sq.ft. of home (notes: all the quotes I've found take into account the entire square footage of the home) therefore, a 2000 sq.ft. home would cost approx. $12,000.

From one quote:

SIP panels cost more than stick frame does in form of materials. When you look at the amount of time you save in putting insulation up, and the amount of time it takes to set panels, you start to see the immediate competing factors. Now, when you focus on the long term energy efficiency savings, then the cost differences of going with panels versus conventional framing, the benefits outweigh the cost differences.

Not profitable?

Solution: the government will now force you to install SIPs.

$12,000!

The "cost to benefit ratio" would exist if you upfit your home and can reap those benefits with supposed lower energy costs. When you are forced to upgrade the home you're selling, it's a total loss. Just like finding out your home has termites or mold C&T tell us all one thing: you're home is NOT green and it'll cost you to fix it.

Another Stimulus
Remember when we were told that without the stimulus the unemployment would his 9% by the end of 2010 and the recession could linger on for years and years.

Well, they're out of money and we're already staring at 9.5% unemployment about 1 1/2 years too soon.

Solution: Another Stimulus.

The ridiculous idea of spending your way out of debt has been tried and failed numerous times. This Wall Street journal article was written after ONLY the bailout, not the first stimulus and all of the other obligations.

Warning: you may have to wear a foil hat and you read this in your backyard bunker.

Wall Street Journal: Barack Obama-san

In God We Trust missing?
The mass email circulating attempts to illustrate that new dollar coins do NOT have "In God We Trust" on them. In fact, this is false.

While there have been some coins with printing errors, the phrases "E Pluribus Unum" and "In God We Trust" are etched onto the side of the coin.
Illustration via Snopes.com


The new coins produced in 2009 featuring William Harrison will have the "In God We Trust" back on the front where it belongs. The Treasury has a thorough history of the phrase on our currency on their website.


Quote of the Week
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. ... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard. -- Alan Greenspan, 1966





"State of the Nation" is ©2009 by Brandon Jones.   All graphics this page, except where otherwise noted, are creations of Nolan B. Canova.  All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2009 by Nolan B. Canova.