Free-Form Friday

*  Haven't been diligent this week in producing daily posts.  I am not sure if it is because, for all of the events in the news, nothing much has changed over the week.  I am glad that the Occupy [fill in the blank] story has finally moved into the so-called Liberal Media.  I am also not surprised that the media reports still seem to echo the false notion that the Occupy movement is leaderless with no specific aims made up of dope-smoking smelly hippies (or slackers).  The corollary to that frame is that the Tea Party idiots were in fact patriotic Americans driven to protest (and violent rhetoric and behaviors) by the mean Democrats in Congress and the White House). That the Occupy protests target the actual perpetrators (the Wall Street banks and pseudo-banks and their collaborators in DC) while the Tea Party agenda just coincidentally matches up with the most conservative wing of the Republican Party (aka TeaPublicans) seems inconsequential to the reporters and pundits who have jobs and other cool stuff.  One cartoon says it better than I can.

*  I have been watching some of the new television season (dramas only, I gave up on sitcoms long ago).  Two shows in particular are interesting to me: Person of Interest (CBS) and Homeland (Showtime).  Both shows are products of our post 9/11 security apparatus, but unlike  24,  the most (in)famous show to emerge in the 2000s, these shows focus on the personal impact of our increasing lack of privacy.  What I find fascinating is that both shows accept this security state as the status quo.  In one show, the "good guys" use the now ubiquitous technology of surveillance to save a single person.  In the other, a CIA analyst believes a returning POW is actually a sleeper/mole for Islamic terrorists and uses illegal  (at least unwarranted) surveillance technology to find evidence for her suspicions.  While the shows have the look and feel of  "quality television," I find both shows disturbing in their blanket acceptance of the "end justifying the means."  I wonder of George W or Darth Cheney are paid consultants.

* Tonight is the beginning of college basketball season with various schools staging opening night extravagances.  To me, these Midnight events are of marginal interest (they are for the students), but what it really means is we are on the road to March Madness and the NCAA Final Four to be played here in New Orleans.  As a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, I have only one things to say: "Go Heels!"