Will Pollock's Open Salon Blog

Keith Olbermann: 'The World is Barren Enough' Without Him

Sat, 6 Nov 2010 13:11:22 -0400

For the past few days, I had been planning an impassioned plea for Keith Olbermann to bring back Worst Persons in the World - one of his most popular and effective spots.

With recent events of his indefinite suspension, the finished post has morphed into a rally cry for reality and truth in media - and to put Keith back on the MSNBC airwaves where he belongs. A few snippets:

"Keith gives light to marginalized people. He elevates stupidity for what it is (which was the purpose of my original post to urge him to keep WPITW) and calls out specific individuals who act like the world is not enough for them. They act like ownership applies to culture, to principle, to people - and it doesn’t. And despite breaking NBC protocol, Keith’s donation pales in comparison to what FOX is doing - as the de facto fund-rasing and PR wing of the GOP. Anyone doubting that point has not been paying attention to the slow and steady - and Supreme Court allowed - involvement of corporations in our political system. Fox News has become a festering money machine for the far-right agenda, with primetime hosts posing as politicians and vice versa. They are policy impostors when the world needs true heroes."

Since I'm always a solutions guy, I'd be remiss without suggesting one:

"Allow me to volley a solution. Take a break, go to the beach, do some writing, read some Thurber, watch some tape of the Mets winning the series, whatever. Then, come back on air and promptly anoint yourself Worst Person in the World. Elevate the rules of NBC as, in fact, the standard bearer in your sane media world and hold yourself accountable as violating them. You can rise above the fray. Because there’s no other way forward than to slot yourself in to the same standards to which you hold others - plus, it would play right into your unvarnished, Bush-league contrarian honesty."So, allow me to volley a solution. Take a break, go to the beach, do some writing, read some Thurber, watch some tape of the Mets winning the series, whatever. Then, come back on air and promptly anoint yourself Worst Person in the World. Elevate the rules of NBC as, in fact, the standard bearer in your sane media world and hold yourself accountable as violating them. You can rise above the fray. Because there’s no other way forward than to slot yourself in to the same standards to which you hold others - plus, it would play right into your unvarnished, Bush-league contrarian honesty."

Jump directly to my blog for more. Thanks for reading and reposting - there are links galore after the jump to the latest news stories as well as the petition to bring him back from BoldProgressives.com.

This is the perfect chance for Keith to restart and relaunch himself as the cornerstone of MSNBC's line-up. He got there for a reason, and to leave now would be a betrayal of sorts to that accomplishment.

The title I used here and in my full blog post borrows a line from Keith's impassioned Prop 8 Special Comment in which he questioned denying expression of love. It was a true watershed moment in the search for marriage equality - he won a GLAAD award for it.

Sandra Day O'Connor: Last of the Good Straight Girls?

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:08:14 -0400

(Chautauqua, N.Y. - 26 August 2010) Is neutrality dead? Is the political center in this country officially gone, or just being shouted down by fringes, or both?

As Sandra Day O'Connor was interviewed at her old haunt, Chautauqua Institution - she met her husband here - one begins to wonder about how the radical right and "professional left," as Robert Gibbs terms it, are eating away at our independent nation.

Her tone would suggest that she's concerned by what's happened here during the past few decades. "Our young people today are not being taught how government works," she said, adding that simple civics classes are no longer on schools' agendas with the math- and science-heavy No Child Left Behind Act. That focus caused school systems to drop civics and government as a study area. (O'Connor has a fix for that, though, in icivics.org - and she's actively working on it today.)

She was an unintentional mythbuster for me - and even took on the disgusting idea of having state judges elected by popular vote. Andrew Jackson was a crusader on this issue; Georgia, my home state as an Atlanta resident, was the first to adopt the practice. As a result, "The special interests are buying judges, and it's wrong. We need to move to a system away from the popular election of judges."

An audience member at Chautauqua asked about the election of Elena Kagan as Supreme Court Justice, and how sitting on the bench must be a precursor to the Supreme Court. "Fully one-third of the justices in the history of the Court had no previous experience as as a judge." I don't think this fact was properly reported by our national media.

The first woman to sit on the Supreme Court still keeps an office there, which means she must, by U.S. law, preside over cases on a lower court. "I'm seeing more cases now than I ever did on the Supreme Court," she said with a laugh.

O'Connor, for me, is the last bastion of fairness and "mainstream empathy" - not the empathy that was so disgustingly twisted and maligned during the eventual nomination of now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sandra Day should be our model in any future Justice selections.

My headline draws from a song by Susan Werner of the same name - with "straight" meaning down-the-middle fair and straightforward. Is she a dying breed or a just a hint of Justices to follow?

In Defense of Vocals: 'Idol'izing a Phony Approach

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:08:55 -0400

As we approach some sort of announcement on American Idol's newly cobbled judging panel for season 10, I'd like to take the opportunity to call for an end to the show's practice of lip syncing during group numbers.

Granted, there are a number of other nauseating practices through which we must fast forward - falsely plucky Ford ads, judging-panel shuffles, maudlin visits to Africa, the prevalence of Coke cups on nearly ever stage surface - but this is by far the worst. To wit:

What message does it send that a singing competition allows singing to track during group numbers? Further, how disingenuous is it for judges to scoff, "this is a singing competition" during a critical review of Toderick Hall's flamboyant arrangement - when they sit as first witnesses to this lip-syncing drivel?

We know they can sing fairly well as a group:

Much like cerebral men "just read Playboy for the articles," I watch "Idol" for the singing. The rest of it is Fox Crap, selling me shit I don't want (with the pointed exception of "Glee" previews). So, get the singing - and judging of said art - correct or you'll lose this viewer for good.

I'm still hoping for Kara Dioguardi to return to Idol, but it's not looking that way. She was one of the few singer-songwriter voices on the panel (J-Lo is the replacement for that?) and she'll be missed. This is a cool cover of "Terrified" that she blew out of the water on the YouTubes:

Self-starting Philanthropy Is Good for the Soul

Thu, 5 Aug 2010 08:08:24 -0400

After the death of my aunt in 2006 - and stress-induced health problems of my own - I launched ARTvision as a way for emerging artists to donate 100% of their wares to benefit charitable causes.

Five years and $14,000 later, we are going strong and looking to expand even further. Our beneficiary, Atlanta's own Positive Impact, provides culturally competent mental-health services to those affected with HIV. That is to say, each $100 an artist brings in with their art donation translates to more than 3 hours of counseling - or a month's counseling for an individual client.

I thought it a good point to post since we just finished our promo video for this year's event. We are also looking to do "ARTvision Live!" next March, which would feature comedians and musicians giving of their time.

In December 2011, I'll self-publish a book on how to use parties to generate goodwill for charity. Next year I'll celebrate 10 years of doing just that on New Year's Eve.

Meantime, please help me get the word out on ARTvision's fifth anniversary. I'm now 42 and in the best shape of my life - thanks in no small part to enthusiasm around ARTvision and all of its terrifically talented artists who give of their time and energy.

'Only When We Laugh' Does Relationship Bliss Bubble Up

Tue, 3 Aug 2010 18:08:55 -0400

New on EquallyWed.com, "Emo.Intel" for August: "Only When We Laugh," featuring comedian Steve Hofstetter, who says an injustice anywhere occurs everywhere:

“The idea that gay people can't get married is ridiculous,” he adds. “If marriage were sacred, Elvis priests and reality dating shows would be against the law, too. I once saw two guys making out on the street like they were in 8th grade and had just discovered what making out was. That wouldn't happen if they were married. Homophobic people should realize that the way to get gay people to stop making out in public is to let them get married.”

Click here to view the full column, or go directly to EquallyWed's Emo.Intel archives.