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From New York Times:

President Drops in on ‘Deal or No Deal’

That night, the NBC game show bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Weitz’s satirical film “American Dreamz.” In both the television show and the movie, a president with low approval ratings decides to appear on a popular reality show. In the film, which was released on April 21, 2006, Dennis Quaid played the commander in chief. On the game show, aired on April 21, 2008, President Bush played himself.

Mr. Bush was not lucky for NBC, either, as the “Deal or No Deal” episode delivered 10 million viewers, matching its lowest Monday time slot rating.

Interesting article from AdAge:

Creatives Have a Crush on Obama

Ralph Nader is going to run for president again. If you recall, Nader ran for president in 2000, and stole enough votes from Al Gore to put George Bush in the White House. Now, he wants to do it again, so we can see another 4 (at least) years of War in Iraq, corporate tax breaks, and conservative rule.

To be clear, I like Ralph Nader. If your life has ever been saved by a seat belt, you owe Ralph Nader a debt of gratitude. I also agree that there is an inherent flaw with a two party system. But there’s too much at stake in this election, and Ralph Nader isn’t going to be president. If he believes that, he’s delusional. If he doesn’t believe he will win, then he’s talking like the kind of politicians he claims to be fighting (i.e. he’s lying).

I support Barack Obama, but I will be voting against the kind of politics we’ve seen in the last 8 years, and I will be voting for a candidate that can actually win so that this change can happen, not just the idealistic vote for someone who could do a great job and stand up to the system. The promise of change is one thing, but right now, we need actual change.

By now you’ve probably all seen the Barack Obama posters designed by Sheppard Fairey. I was made aware of these posters the day they were announced, but refrained from posting after a conversation I had with a fellow designer in which he implied (not directly mind you) that Fairey has copied another designer at every step of his career.

I like Fairey’s work, more for the business model than the design, and, more importantly, I believe Barack Obama can steer this country in a new, better direction.

Here’s an article about the popularity of these poster, on the New York Times’ website:

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/beyond-red-white-and-blue/

The first time I saw this poster, I was excited. My brief conversation curtailed some of that enthusiasm. The non-argument argument cited an article that implied (not accused) Fairey of copying a designer, even though the only real similarities were the public domain images they both used. The article never accused Fairey of copying, but implied it by showing his images next to the others. To say that Fairey is a copy-cat, or worse a plagiarist, would imply that the other designer is as well, as all the images shown were public domain, originally designed as propaganda at various times in the last century.

I think the real basis of the vague argument is the difference between art and design. In my opinion, art is an expression of an individual, pure and simple, where as design is an artist’s expression of something someone paid them to express, to an audience that absolutely must understand it in order for it to work.

Milton Glaser said: “I’ve always believed that the life of a designer is a life that is very much between two sensibilities, that of a business man, and that of the artist.”

The fact of the matter is, Fairey has received more mainstream success than the other designer (whom I shall not name, as I can’t find the article on my own). I believe that art and designer are for the world, and I reject an elitist approach to design. That’s what Obama’s campaign is about, rejecting an elitist government, and re-establishing a government by the people, for the people. Fairey designed these posters for the people, in the interest of a cause that he believes in, as well as millions of Americans of all race, color, and creed.

In the rhetoric of the last, oh, 6 years or so, I’ve heard the works of George Orwell (a.k.a. Eric Blair) referenced a lot. In particular, his novel 1984, in which a government uses the notion of a foreign war to enact total control over it’s citizens. The book was written in 1948, right around the beginning of the cold war.

If you haven’t read the book, I highly suggest you do. I’ve even given you a link to Amazon so you can purchase it. My copy was free. It was a stamp from my brother’s middle school library. Not sure what that’s all about.

I was reading this article on NPR’s website, and it seems extremely Big Brother (no, not that crappy reality show).

“American citizens must understand, clearly understand that there’s still a threat on the homeland. There’s still an enemy which would like to do us harm,” Bush said. “We’ve got to give our professionals the tools they need, to be able to figure out what the enemy is up to so we can stop it.”

“By blocking this piece of legislation, our country is more in danger of an attack,” he said.

To be clear, if you’re not up on it, the law the President wants in effect is a law that would protect telecoms from law suits. This is not in the interest of the people. It’s in the interest of big business, most assuredly used against the people. This is about control. This is a government that has brought us closer to 1984. They caught us sleeping, dreaming, wishing this hadn’t happened to us, and like a sexual predator, they attacked us when we were most vulnerable with the promise of safety, and it has come at the cost of freedom. But are we really safer? “By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.”

Interesting and scary article about the American disdain for knowledge.

I thought it was funny that this banner ad ran right above the story. Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” on her experience on 11 September 2001:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

I don’t see how a party whose leaders insist on perpetuating a failed war can still be human.

When I was a kid in the Texas public school system, there were always teachers that would subtly inject their own opinion into certain arguments. There was one teacher that said the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery. He gave a list of reasons the for the war, but it almost feels like saying that diminishes the atrocity, not to mention if it wasn’t the only reason, it certainly was the most important.

We were once given an example of why unions are bad, a hypothetical situation that seemingly rewarded the young and punished the veterans. Texas is a “Right to Work” state, which means you don’t legally have to be part of a union in order to work. There was never really much about ethics, and practices of business leaders. I guess that was the point of college. But I shutter to think how one friend talked so negatively about how unions make workers lazy, and just wanted what they didn’t deserve, without being able to see the other side of the argument. I have several friends that had the same educational experience I did, before college. I know what kind of trite they were fed. Some of them have changed.

Fox news has decided to try and trivialize one of the most important elections in U.S. history. On Sunday, Fox will merge it’s coverage of the Super Bowl between two teams I don’t really care about (but maybe some of you do) with their coverage of Super Tuesday, the day that 22 states hold their primaries to nominate a candidate to run for the President of the United States in November.

Fox has already trivialized the democratic process. It was Fox News that first erroneously declared W the president in 2000. Most television news organizations followed suit, only to retract when they realized that it was still to close to call. The damage had already been done, and Bush sued his way into the White House.

But, I’m cynical. I’m sure Fox wont try to inject their bias politics into their coverage of the biggest annual television event.

My favorite part of this article is the discussion of the trend, noting how CNN will follow suit with “Ballot Bowl,” and how NBC has already “spiced up its football broadcasts with Keith Olbermann…who brought along the form, if not quite the ideological content, of his cable show.” Of course, Keith Olbermann was a sportscaster at ESPN before he came to MSNBC, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with NBC’s decision.