Me on the FCC

I've got a short piece on the court's rebuke of the FCC's indecency calls against Fox in today's NRO.

“I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for asparagus.” Now, thanks to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, we’ll all be able to do so on network television. Last week, the court took a look at an indecency charge leveled by the FCC against Fox for on-air profanity and said, roughly, “To heck with that!”

Me on the G.I. Film Festival

Because you really wanted to read more articles by me this week (this is four now that I've posted, I think)... I've got a piece on my Memorial Day weekend trip to the G.I. Film Festival in D.C. Here's the opening:

“Support the troops!” It was an exclamation you couldn’t miss this weekend at the first-ever G.I. Film Festival. It was everywhere: on bumper stickers, in conversations, on stage, and on screen.

It became the weekend’s all-purpose response, like saying “Jesus” at vacation Bible school. What are you here to do? Support the troops! Are you enjoying the festival so far? Yes. It supports the troops! What’d you eat for breakfast this morning? Bacon and eggs. Did I mention I support the troops? Eventually I simply started writing “STT!” in my notes every time it came up. There were variations, of course: giving back to those who serve, respecting the men and women in uniform, and, from the festival’s official statement of purpose, celebrating “the successes and sacrifices of the American military through the medium of film.” In fact, festival cofounder Brandon Millett told me that the idea for the weekend came as a reaction to an Los Angeles Times column in which Joel Stein wrote, “I don’t support the troops.”

This, then, was an appropriately powerful, American-military-style response: Joel Stein wrote a single line in a single column; he got a 22-film, three-and-a-half day festival in return. How’s that for U.S.-military might? From Friday evening through Monday night at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in downtown Washington, D.C., the troops were supported — and supported and supported and supported. And whether you were watching movies, singing songs, or meeting the many “special guests” it was, at all times, earnest, sincere, and proudly patriotic, whether in the screening room or outside of it.

Whole thing here.

Movies!

Over at NRO, I've got a review of a couple of movies I saw at the G.I. Film Fest this weekend. I've got about a zillion and a half (roughly) articles to write in the next week or so, but I promise I will shortly return to regular blogging/boring you to death with vapid posts about giant robots and long-winded discussions of George Lucas. Honest. I swear.

Addendum: I also have a slightly longer piece on surveillance technology in 24 and The Wire in the new issue of The New Atlantis, which is now online. Starters:

Two hit television dramas exhibit the complex human response to technological surveillance: 24 and The Wire. Both shows shed light on the growing societal awe of surveillance technology while also reflecting our fear and uncertainty about our ability to master it. Although surveillance technology dominates the worlds of both shows—24’s built-up city of Los Angeles and The Wire’s decaying Baltimore slums—the shows’ overarching attitudes towards surveillance differ greatly. Fox’s 24 bows in awe of the omnipotence and omnipresence of satellites and fiber optics, while HBO’s The Wire regards phone taps and recording devices suspiciously, as flawed tools that reveal the corrupt nature of bureaucracy and are, at best, necessary evils. Thus, the difference between the two shows is one of belief: one’s view of surveillance technology is based in faith, the other’s in doubt.

Ron Paul piece at NRO

I've got a piece on Ron Paul up at NRO today. Internet Paulites (is there a nickname for the die hard web Paul fans yet?) commence swarming... now.

Update: I see that I'm getting a lot of hits from Facebook, and that at least one person has written that I "actually want to be swarmed." Well, I mean, I know that's what I wrote, but I was at least a little bit kidding. From talking to some other journalists, I'd sort of been under the impression that anyone who wrote anything about Paul automatically got a dump truck full of email delivered 15 minutes after the piece went live. So I figured I'd just pull the starting gun myself.

That said, I encourage email, comments, etc. and certainly won't argue if anyone links to this site.