The Mormons' "Perfect Storm"

A respected historian says that, since the passage of Proposition 8, the Mormon Church is facing a PR nightmare, the likes of which it has never seen before.

Remember that the LDS Church poured millions of dollars into an effort to help pass Prop 8.



(Hat tip: Sheldon Rampton)

Spirit Award Nominees Announced

View the list here. I guess Slumdog Millionaire wasn't eligible for nomination, because it didn't get nominated for anything.

I'm puzzled by the fact that the Spirit Awards announced their nominees today, December 2nd, when the awards aren't held until February 21st (the day before the Oscars), almost three months from now. The Oscars, by comparison, announce their nominees on January 22nd.

Mel Martinez Not Running In 2010

The Republican junior senator from Florida, still in his first term, will return to the private sector. Martinez was briefly chair of the RNC and was one of those ho-hum Republican candidates swept into power by the 9/11 Republican wave of 2002-2004 (think John Sununu, Liddy Dole et. al.).

Florida has a moderate Republican governor who may or may not be gay, a Democratic U.S. senator and just voted Democratic for president for the first time since 2000... er, 1996.

Martinez's exit will set up a big battle for the heart and soul of Florida for the next half-decade or decade or so. The Democrats are going to go after this seat hard, and for good reason:

Martinez was one of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection in 2010, with multiple polls showing him with approval ratings well under 50 percent and with weak reelect numbers.

A November Quinnipiac poll showed a 38 percent plurality of Florida voters believe Martinez doesn’t deserve another term, while only 36 percent believe he should be reelected. Against an unnamed Democratic opponent, Martinez trails by 4 points, 40 percent to 36 percent.

It's two years away, so no need to get one's hopes up. But based off the success at the presidential level in 2008, Florida Democrats should be feeling pretty confident about their chances, especially now that Martinez is gone.

He Said He'd Do It All Along

I know that I've had some periodic queasiness over the non-liberalness of Obama's appointees thus far, and others in the blogosphere have as well. It's important to keep in mind, though, that the divergence in policy and world views between Obama and his more hawkish Cabinet is not a broken promise of some kind, and should not come as a surprise:

Some liberals might have cringed yesterday seeing Obama unveil a national security team consisting of Hillary Clinton (who voted in favor of the Iraq war), Bob Gates (Bush's current Defense secretary), and Jim Jones (who is close to McCain). The truth is, however, that the president-elect is simply following through on a promise about changing the tone and creating a bipartisan atmosphere in Washington. Yes, Obama opposed the war in Iraq and probably owed his victory in the Iowa caucuses to that fact. But outside Iraq, he never pandered to the left as much as they thought he did; the left simply heard what they wanted in Obama. Some examples that come to mind: his reversal on FISA, his support for merit pay for teachers, and his championing of faith-based services.

If you look at Obama's appointees, coupled with the Lieberman situation, it does seem like he is thus far following through on his promise to be bipartisan president for all, and someone who just leaves the old Washington bullshit at the door ("No Drama Obama"). That's music to my ears after eight years of Bush, Cheney and Rove, who played politics with everything - including our soldiers' lives.

Oh, By The Way...

...we're officially in a recession, in case you hadn't noticed.

So on December 1, 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that we have been in a recession since December 2007:

The announcement means that the downturn is already one year old. That is longer than the average length of 10.5 months for recessions since World War II. The current record for the longest recession over the last half-century is 16 months, which was reached in both the downturns of 1973-74 and 1980-81.

So we're already in worse shape than we've been in at least 35 years, and there's no end in sight, either.

Incidentally, I didn't even know that we had a National Bureau of Economic Research, but as long as we do, how about they research these things as well:

• Why does the bailout money seem to not be having any effect?
• Why are the credit markets still frozen?
• Is a multi-trillion dollar stimulus package (like the one Obama is proposing) really going to help us get out of this rut?
• Should we let Detroit go bankrupt?
• When is this going to end?

The scary thing is that I feel like I hear these questions all the time on the news - but I never hear any answers. Now, a lot of the questions asked on the news are very dumb questions indeed, but still - with all the back-and-forth incessant parroting of the mainstream media, you'd think that by this point someone somewhere would have somehow come up with some kind of sensible plan to get us out of this mess.

I'm an economics newbie, if not an economics know-nothing (which is probably closer to the truth), yet even I can tell that it seems like for this mess, there are no quick fixes or easy answers.

Oscar season is arriving just in time, my friends.

Awards Preview: "Slumdog Millionaire"

Each day between now and December 11 (when the Golden Globe nominations are announced), I'll be previewing the awards "mojo" of an Oscar contender.

Tonight, we start with the hot movie of the moment, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire.

Since I have yet to actually see the movie, I'm going to start with what some of the web's cinephiles have to say about its Oscar chances. For Slumdog, I'm going to include the opinions of two highly informed movie buffs named David (obviously, this is the only reasonable way to gauge a film's prospects of winning an Academy Award). Here's Oscar guru Dave Karger at Entertainment Weekly:

I also found the important reviews to be terrific, though not so terrific that the film will be considered merely a critics' darling. Rather, as it was in Toronto, Slumdog should end up emerging as an audience film, building momentum among the public (and the Academy) as the next few weeks and months go by. As I said on Friday, it really is the only "little" film with a real shot at scoring a nomination.

Isn't it interesting that a film can be "so terrific" that it could only be a "critics' darling?" It's true. Let's remember, folks: Crash won Best Picture. That got some good reviews, but fuck Crash. The real critics' darling that year (2005) was Brokeback Mountain, and we all remember how that turned out (i.e. the gays get shunned again). And now here's the aforementioned other David, who is actually my friend david (intended to be lower-cased) over at All Things Fangirl:

slumdog millionaire appears to be the frontrunner at the moment despite relying on its fairy tale nature to deflect attention from its suffocatingly trite narrative turns and eye-poppingly obvious characterizations. i guess when you jazz up some third-world cinema with broad trappings, that just plays. it's a film with emotions that are as big as they are cavernously hollow... so it's pretty much a lock for a nod. sigh... and i LOVE danny boyle. sunshine was magical. alas...

Though I do know david personally, I do not share his sentiment that Sunshine was magical - I actually thought that the non-Chris Evans parts of the movie were pretty shitty (I usually think this about the non-Chris Evans parts of Chris Evans movies, because Chris Evans usually does shitty movies) - but I do respect his cinematic opinion more than almost anyone. A lock for a nod, it would seem. But any good? Is it worth the hype? Well, maybe:

WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 11TH BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS

The British Independent Film Awards are proud to announce the winners of their 11th annual awards.

Best British Independent Film
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director of a British Independent Film
Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

Okay, so, in all fairness to the BIFA (is that even what it is?), they aren't good predictors of the Academy Awards. But from what I've read and heard, it seems like Slumdog Millionaire is a lock to be at least a contender for some trophies. Buzzmeter over at the LA Times' The Envelope blog - a MUST-READ during awards season - currently has Slumdog at #2 in Best Picture "buzz" behind The Curious Case of Brad Pitt Still Being Hot Even Though He's Old. That being said, I highly doubt - and will continue to highly doubt, until a) I see the film or b) it wins something other than the BIFA - the feasibility of its prospects to win Best Picture, but it certainly seems like it's in the conversation.

Scratch that: it's definitely in the conversation.

I, admittedly, feel like a douchebag. How can I actually write an "awards preview" if I haven't even seen the fucking movie? Well, I probably can't. But I sure can link, can't I?

Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. That's true. But there's another thing you should know about me: if there's one thing I know, it's the Oscars. I'm kinda obsessed with them. So I do feel like my gut is liable to be pretty good... even when, yes, I haven't seen the freaking thing.

The buzz around this film seems to be that rare combination of an unexpected critical hit that audiences actually like and whose word-of-mouth keeps its box office going strong for months and months to come (like, if the director of Trainspotting had a bottle, and happened to catch the magic of Little Miss Sunshine in it... or something).

So I would expect it to be nominated for a couple Golden Globes next week (though the Globes are weird and stinky), and it will probably win more hardware between now and Oscar time (OMG, just wait for the Spirit Awards...). But Best Picture winner? I just feel like it can't and won't happen.

Though we now live in a country in which the Philadelphia Phillies are World Series champions, Oklahoma passed Texas in the BCS and Barack Hussein Obama is the president-elect. So I guess anything is possible.

Bloomberg Wilting in Re-Election Bid?

NYC Mayor Mike "No Term Limits For Me!" Bloomberg's latest poll numbers don't look that great. He can only get to 50% against a pair of relatively unknown Democratic challengers.

A word of caution: the election is about a year away, and lots and lots and lots of things can change in that time. This promises to be a very interesting race, as the snafu over Bloomberg's rewriting of city law to allow himself to run for a third term seems to have made a dent in his approval ratings (though, frankly, it could be worse).

Until I have a change of heart (and even as a past Bloomberg supporter, I don't anticipate that happening), this blog will be in full support of Bloomberg's Democratic challenger. It's our little response to his misadventure in law-changing. Elected officials can't be allowed to just change laws they don't like - against previously decided wishes of the public - in order to hold onto a powerful office. And, if we hold these people accountable, and accordingly - and democratically - remove them from power, they won't be able to get away with it anymore.

December at The 'Festo

My dear readers,

Creating this blog has been one of my better ideas, and with the wintry season and soon the new year upon us, I am brainstorming ways to be a better blogger and to provide you with more fun and interesting content.

I have what I think are going to be some very exciting ideas planned for December and the months ahead. Without giving too much away, I can say that you should keep your eyes peeled for a lot of Oscar and awards season buzz, continuing coverage and thoughts of the Obama transition, a look back on 2008 and a forward-looking tilt towards 2009.

In the meantime, enjoy the regular stream of news, gossip, observations and random thoughts, as well a continuing flow of Gold Stars, Seward Awards and - God forbid - Sarah Palin alerts.

Happy December!

Bailout for Dummies

Here's a credit crisis glossary to help you with the who's who's and what's what's of the bailout and economic mess.

I'm also ashamed to admit that I first saw the link to this in the toolbar above my Gmail inbox, but I went to the site and actually found it pretty helpful (keep in mind that I am dumb when it comes to the economy...).

Thoughts on Obama's Nat'l Security Team

As expected, here's what it looks like:

Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
Attorney General: Eric Holder
Secretary of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano
U.N. Ambassador: Susan Rice
National Security Adviser: James Jones

Obama is taking questions now at his press conference in Chicago, and I have a couple observations:

1. Obama is in charge. For all the talk from some in the media that Hillary would be running some kind of rebellious shadow government from the State Department, Obama is clearly the one in command. He is supremely confident, though not in the dumb Bush "I'm the decider!" kinda way. He's brought in a bunch of pretty hawkish people, as well as a woman who routinely belittled his accomplishments and abilities (and vice versa). But that's all water under the bridge now. And Obama is clearly the guy on top.
2. With the introduction of the Attorney General as part of the national security team, Obama is signaling that he believes Bush's extravagant abuses of power and destruction of our national and international justice systems have harmed our national security. This is a sign that Guantanamo will close - maybe not on January 20, or even in the first year, but it will close. I was also impressed with Holder's vows to go after criminals "on the street" and also "in the board room." No more Enrons, God willing.
3. Biden recycled the beautiful line Obama used in one of the debates, about America leading "not just by the example of its power, but by the power of its example." Beautifully worded, and so, so right.
4. Jim Jones looked kinda cranky.
5. Hillary showed humble and respectful deference to Obama - "Thank you, Mr. President-elect" and thanked the people here in New York for adopting her and sending her to the Senate. It was a classy touch.