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The Swing Voter

PRESTON, Mo. — On the drive from Springfield to Independence, before I committed my traditional travel ritual of Losing Expensive Electronics, I saw Robert Schuetz’s home sticking out like a flaming thumb. Inside the limits of tiny Preston, Schuetz had placed eight gigantic, self-made signs.

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Intrigued, I parked and walked up to Schuetz’s door. An elderly man in jeans and plaid muted his TV — one could hear the japes of Kevin James and the King of Queens cast — and asked me if I was familiar with Obama’s “martial law order.” I wasn’t so, he invited me inside. The well-kept living room was devoted to TV, DVDs, and books, including a red-bound Bible on a handy endtable. An adjoining room was set up with a computer, radios, and reams of paper that Schuetz had printed out.

“I just put in the search term and I find out what I need,” he said. Schuetz handed me some of his latest findings — a WorldNetDaily article about biased polls, a Daily Mail piece about Monica Lewinsky’s book deal, and the name of the the so-called martial law order: The National Defense Resources Prepardness order.

There was so much material doubting the president’s religion that I had to ask: Was Schuetz comfortable voting for Mitt Romney. “Yeah, the Mormons are okay,” he said. “You seen what they’re doing to Catholics now? They’re saying they’ll shut down Catholic schools unless they teach Islam.”

Schuetz went on to explain his fight with the city over water and free speech rights, but I had to go. “The next sign I’m gonna put out there,” said my host, “is gonna say: Impeach the Sonovabitch!”

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via Slate Blogs http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/10/03/the_swing_voter.html

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New York City Subpoenas Outtakes Of Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five After Stonewalling Filmmaker

New York City officials weren’t exactly helpful when Ken Burns and his daughter were making a documentary about the racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger case, but now they’re hoping the finished film, The Central Park Five, will be useful to them.

The film, which got a special screening in New York on Tuesday night, explores the lives of the five men who were convicted and later cleared in the case which became a symbol of racial tension in a metropolis besieged by crime. (The terms “wolf pack” and “wilding” were added to the media’s lexicon of fear-inducing terms as a result of the case.)  The documentary, which was shown at the Cannes, Telluride and Toronto film festivals,  scrutinizes the initial convictions of the Central Park Five, noting, for instance that the five men did not appear to be in the area of the park where the rape occurred, that their DNA was not found on the victim and that their confessions did not jibe with one another’s.

Despite the movie’s perspective, the  New York Times reported  that lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed notes and outtakes from the documentary, which Burns directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon, in order to determine whether the material can help them fight a $50 million federal civil rights lawsuit that five men filed nine years ago as a result of their experience.

In 2009, on the 20th anniversary of the incident, their lawyer Jonathan Moore called that experience “the most racist prosecution that occurred in the City of New York.”

Ken Burns told the Times that the Sept. 12 subpoena came after the city had spent years declining the filmmakers’ requests for interviews to explain the actions taken by law-enforcement officials involved in the case.

“There is a great deal of disappointment that it came to this, given the fact that we had given so many of the factions in this complicated story many, many opportunities, on a regular basis, to comment,” Burns said.

The city insists that cops and prosecutors acted appropriate given the information that they had available to them then.. “We believe that based on the information that the police and prosecutors had at the time, they had probable cause to proceed, and the confessions were sound,”  a city spokeswoman told the Times.  [New York Times]

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via Movieline http://movieline.com/2012/10/03/new-york-city-subpoenas-ken-burns-film-central-park-jogger-rape-89-central-park-five/

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…hugely skilled and poorly paid, and sent out to photograph miserable people pointing at dog turds.

Angry People In Local Newspapers – “Celebrating excellence in the field of local newspaper photography” by showcasing photos of people looking a bit annoyed. Bonus link: sister-site Dull News In Local Newspapers, featuring important happenings such as “Car Slightly Damaged” and “Swans In Road”.

via MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/120516/hugely-skilled-and-poorly-paid-and-sent-out-to-photograph-miserable-people-pointing-at-dog-turds

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Here’s the First Trailer for Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger [Trailer Park]

Here's the First Trailer for Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger

After years of delays and setbacks, the big-budget, big-screen adaptation of iconic Western serial The Lone Ranger is finally being released, and it has the teaser trailer to prove it.

Directed by Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy helmer Gore Verbinski, and starring his weekend son Johnny Depp, Depp’s female counterpart Helena Bonham Carter, and relative newcomer Armie Hammer as Lone Ranger John Reid, the film is currently scheduled to hit theaters July 3, 2013.

Not much by way of plot just yet, but here’s a brief synopsis courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures:

From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the filmmaking team behind the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, comes Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “The Lone Ranger,” a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor, in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice-taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.

[image via IMDB, video via Comic Book Movie via /Film]

via Gawker http://gawker.com/5948518/heres-the-first-trailer-for-gore-verbinskis-the-lone-ranger

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Congress Likely to Punt on Sequesration, Insiders Say

Congress will punt sequestration for a few months when lawmakers return after the election, say a large majority of National Journal Security Insiders.

Seventy-nine percent say they think Congress will come up with a short-term solution, while 13 percent say lawmakers will compromise and avoid the cuts. Eight percent think Congress will fail to compromise and sequestration will take effect.

Here’s Sara Sorcher with some analysis:

Several Insiders said the outcome of the presidential election could be decisive when it comes to compromise on Capitol Hill. Defense hawks pushing for a compromise that spares defense are sure to be shot down,

via Homepage http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/10/congress-likely-to-punt-on-seq.php

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In Real Time, and Beforehand, Checking Facts on the Presidential Debate

The public editor speaks with Times editors about how they plan to fact-check the first presidential debate.

via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/in-real-time-and-beforehand-checking-facts-on-the-presidential-debate/

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In Praise Of Book Bloggers

John Self defends the place of bloggers in the firmament of literary criticism against attacks from Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS and Man Booker Prize judge:

The books that [Sir Peter] Stothard and I both want to celebrate – those with
“extraordinary and exhilarating prose” – tend to come from the edges
rather than the centre, and increasingly from small presses. He would
surely agree, as his panel has this year chosen a Booker shortlist on which half the titles come from tiny independents: Salt, And Other Stories and Myrmidon.
These are the publishers who get more attention from bloggers than they
do from the literary press, because a one-person blog has a flexibility
and manoeuvrability that larger literary publications lack. When
Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home, one of the most interesting titles on the shortlist, was published last October, the first national newspaper review, in the Guardian, was by a blogger – me, in fact. Most other papers didn’t cover it until it was longlisted for the Booker.

The
greatest tool bloggers have at their disposal – to be exercised with
caution – is space. Former fiction editor of the TLS, Lindsay Duguid,
said that “in a short review, you can probably only get over three
points”. A blog can explore a book at a length that all but the most
prominent literary critics would envy.

Norm Geras adds two cents.

via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/in-praise-of-book-bloggers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Daily+Dish%29

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After shooting final footage of Amb. Stevens, Libyan vows change

The camera captured a clamor of voices, a crush of bodies in a corridor, and then the blond hair and white T-shirt of a man lying on the floor.

via Yahoo! News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/libya-man-avenge-amb-stevens-172946003.html

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“Abortions on Women Who Aren’t Pregnant” Common Trope of Anti-Choice Movement | RH Reality Check

Reproductive rights reporter (and RH Reality Check weekly columnist) Amanda Marcotte writes today that Missouri Congressman and Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin, already well-known for his solidly anti-choice positions, gave a speech in 2008 in which he states that, among other things, abortion providers perform abortions on “women who are not actually pregnant.”

via “Abortions on Women Who Aren’t Pregnant” Common Trope of Anti-Choice Movement | RH Reality Check.

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Ina Drew, Jamie Dimon, and JPMorgan Chase’s $6 Billion Mistake – NYTimes.com

Ina Drew, Jamie Dimon, and JPMorgan Chase’s $6 Billion Mistake – NYTimes.com.