Dusting off Dusty (with audio review)

Take one maverick country singer-songwriter. Add Rod Stewart-inspired vanity "covers" project. Fold in the arrogance of covering an all-time-great album. Then, slow everything down. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?\nTell that to Shelby Lynne.\nIn five days, Lynne recorded a grab bag of songs from Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis era, an unusual blue-eyed soul choice for the rebellious Lynne. Then again, maybe it's the perfect fit. Lynne doesn't try to replicate the Springfield voice. Instead, she changes the arrangement to fit her own emotive voice. Like one actor taking the same role as a classical great, Lynne absorbs the past performance to make it her own. Low-key drums and guitar keep it reserved, with the occasional electric piano flourish to keep us from falling asleep.\nNot that anyone would while listening to Lynne's hypnotizing voice. Without that, the album might be little more than Starbucks soul-lite. Instead, Lynne adds her smoky twirl to a classic such as "The Look of Love" or glides over her accompaniment on "Anyone Who Had a Heart." Taking on these songs seems like a fool's errand, but Lynne attacks them with the same urgency that she does her own material.\nThe one Lynne original, "Pretend," has all the pain and vulnerability of Springfield ("Abuse me one more night /And pretend you love me") without giving up the iron will inside. Lynne has managed to cover covers, yet still imbue them with her personal style. You wouldn't mistake this for anyone else.\nThe arrangement actually reveals something about Springfield's original work, as well. Although Springfield was often categorized as "white soul," Lynne shows that without the soul backing brass and strings, these songs fit into a greater pop tradition -- one that the volatile Lynne slides into with surprising ease. When Lynne coos, "I only want to be with you," I want to sing along to match her yearning warmth. \nOne disappointment is that Lynne only gets to show off half her talents here, with her incisive songwriting left by the wayside. Nevertheless, the singing half of her artistry can still blow, smolder and belt the competition away.

cartoon

Xiu-gazers

The oft-overlooked morbid and intensely beautiful angst-rock weirdos Xiu Xiu (pronounced shoo shoo) have created yet another album worth adding to your record collection. "Women as Lovers" offers up a piping-hot plate of tunes sure to take you on a taboo roller-coaster ride of utter despair and empowerment.\nFirst off, you need to know that this album includes a fairly reverent cover of the David Bowie/Queen collaboration "Under pressure," which definitely pays homage to the Starman and Mr. Mercury.\nWomen as Lovers could have been cut in half, though; only about half the songs on it are really worth listening to. "Child at arms" sounds like it took about 10 minutes to write. "The leash" just feels rhythmically awkward because the vocals are not quite aligned with the music. \nOn the positive end of the spectrum, Xiu Xiu has created some solid songs.\nThe opening track "I do what I want, when I want" sounds a lot like what Tortoise might sound like if the addition of vocals were ever made. The marimba in this song along with the strange synth lines and freak-out sax solos take Xiu Xiu into new territory.\nThe dynamics of "In lust you can hear the axe fall" are great. The band added a string section to this song that helps propel it to epic levels. Lyrics with overtones of angst and sexual taboos -- the standard Xiu Xiu fare -- are still to be found here.\n"You are pregnant you, you are dead" is filled with the overdriven drums and guitar, with surprisingly mild lyrics for this band. It might be going too far to say this, but the lyrics sound almost like something on a folk-rock album -- not that folk-rock suits Xiu Xiu poorly.\nThis album would serve well as a good introduction to Xiu Xiu's music or as just another addition to a Xiu Xiu collection. The band has touched on some new territory but hasn't strayed too far from what we expect.

I heart hearts

Instead of the usual warnings about the end of American democracy and what not, I thought I’d turn my eye this week to a concern of equal importance — the use of “heart” as a verb. \nIt all started with “I [heart symbol] NY,” an innocuous-enough phrase plastered on posters and T-shirts from coast to coast. The rebus was a winking gag bound solely for the bumper sticker and its ilk. Then, of course, the Internet had to get involved. Suddenly the emoticon

cartoon

cartoon

King’s ransom

Though Martin Luther King Jr. entered our mythology with his “I Have A Dream” speech during the March on Washington, few remember that his greatest feats were organizing and activism, not oratory. Today, King’s legacy is torn at by political tribes as everyone attempts to appropriate him into their fold. Yet, his wide-reaching and radical message contained little accepted by the ruling class today: disobedience, anti-militarism, brotherhood and radical equality. \nWould the crowd holding up King as a hero be supporting him if he were around today? Each of the Republican candidates for president mentioned King in passing before getting to more important things, like bashing Washington. President Bush, who spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day praising the courageous man, has also essentially said that dissent is dangerous and threatens to undermine our “war on terror.” The elites who are lauding King have a vision of him as a quiet citizen who lived an obedient life, not as a rabble-rouser who questioned the authority of the powers-that-be.\nConsider this myth of compliance in the context of King’s statement from his 1967 speech at Riverside Church, “Beyond Vietnam.” He states, ‘A time comes when silence is betrayal.’ That time has come for us in Vietnam.” At a time when public opinion still supported the war, such a statement was made in the face of a hostile public. As a result, the insults hurled at him for such a speech were horrific. The venerable magazine Life called his speech “ demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.”\nSuch language from Americans during the run-up to war is still considered equally appalling today. One need look only at the fate of anti-war protestors, regarded by the mainstream press as rabble-rousers and dirty hippies, to see that the spirit of King is alive, as is the spirit of his most virulent detractors.\nHow sad it is, then, that King has been canonized into the pantheon of the establishment, and his dream something that most people believe has been totally realized. What we must appreciate is that King’s dream of a fundamentally equal society was not something to be achieved and forgotten, but rather something to be carried out each day. \nThe moral charge with which King acted demanded urgency in the present moment. When we see an absolute wrong, prudence and deference should take a backseat to the action we wish to take. What we hear from our King-praising politicians is to wait; wait for help after Hurricane Katrina; wait for the surge to “work” in Iraq; wait for the promise of King’s radical equality to happen. What does King say? \n“For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every African-American with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”\nKing’s urgency has been lost in the rush to shove him into sainthood. We have remembered King as a dreamer when we should remember him as a doer.

cartoon

cartoon

LARP it UP, baby

Sword-bearing vampires are running amuck in the Indiana Memorial Union. For the IU Live Action Club, it's just another Friday night.\nLive Action Role Players, or "LARPers" as they call themselves, take the dice rolls of Dungeons & Dragons to the next level, actually acting out their characters. \nAs Margaret Lion, IU instructor, a.k.a., Ta'aam, asserted, LARP is akin to "Dungeons & Dragons smashed together with improvisational theater." \nThis improvisational quality also stretches into LARPers' custom-made costumes and set pieces: "Blood" is handed out as red carnival tickets, while the Hoosier Room's drab decor must double as the set for a medieval market.\nGames regularly last three to four hours, with everyone remaining more or less in character for the duration. Armed with protein bars and energy drinks for stamina, these costume-clad enthusiasts take over a room in the Union every weekend to act out their imagined worlds. A number of different LARP groups organize a variety of games based on fairies, wizards, vampires and werewolves. The game this past Friday based itself on a system called "Lion, Lilly & Sword," a scenario that describes a clandestine community of vampires in France in 1348. \nThough dressing up in costume to act as vampires seems like child's play, the crowd last Friday looked at its scene as a hobby like any other, undertaken with great earnestness. During the game, you could hear the occasional hiss of "Stay in character!" while the participants argued over historical accuracy. Like any game, LARP has complex rules, both spoken and unspoken, that dictate its unfolding action, such as combat and mind-reading. Keeping everything believable within the game's constraints dictated everyone's actions. \nThe excitement, though, came from bending the story with ad-libs and lateral thinking to create more unpredictable scenarios that drive the action forward. A rather banal scene of a few LARPers standing in a circle talking disguised secret intrigues and plotting against old nemeses and mysterious newcomers. \n"It's all about using your imagination as an adult," said Lion.\nLARP may seem like a fringe activity, but it wouldn't be fair to describe its participants as shut-ins. If anything, this small gathering of 12 people embodied a fair cross-section of the Bloomington community, with IU instructors, IU students, a Taco Bell manager and a few high school students among its participants. The high schoolers in attendance were a bit inexperienced at the game but still extolled its virtues. \nRachel Little, a student at Aurora Alternative High School, a.k.a., Elizabeth Videl, has only participated for three months, less than half the time of a typical player, but she already feels at home.\n"We all respect each other and love each other," she said. "We're like a family."\nCaitlin Holahan, an IU freshman, worried that the games might be childish. Instead, she found a mature and thoughtful community where she can "escape the regular rules of society." Her character, a vampire spy named Victoria, provides an outlet for a life she can't pursue in reality. \n"You can go into danger and save countries like James Bond. We can do what we wish we could," she said. \nThis community, however, doesn't just provide escapism for its members. The real-life interaction is arguably more important than the role-played action. David Michel, a.k.a., Durkopf Stroykovich, has been LARPing for 12 years and has participated in this group for "the last seven or eight months."\nA full-time IU bus driver, Michel confidently strode in character and credited LARP with helping him break out of his shell. He described himself as a "geek" and "nerd" who has played Dungeons & Dragons for 20 years, as well as other role-playing games such as Whitewolf and the various Star Trek and Star Wars variants. \nMichel enjoys the interactive feel of LARP. Formerly shy and depressed, Michel has learned that LARP provides more than just stress relief. \n"LARP is great social interaction for people who are more withdrawn," he said. "It can be easier to interact with a character than with a person."\nWhat does LARPing offer someone who has never so much as glanced at a 12-sided die? It's hard to say. Perhaps your average student doesn't need the escapism LARPing provides. Yet, as Michel noted, video games and comic books, once the domain of nerds, have entered the mainstream. And as one LARPer put it, LARPing involves far more social interaction than an average barely conscious night at Kilroy's. \nUltimately, LARP represents just one more of Bloomington's communities just beneath the surface. \n"Some people cruise the bars. Some people go watch basketball games," Holahan said. "I come here"

Spooked in Spain

Horror movies, good and bad, can shock and appall, but only rarely do they genuinely open a door to a deeper part of our humanity. Spain's "The Orphanage" does just that, with doors and windows continually appearing to pass the audience from one world to another. \nThese portals transport Laura (Belén Rueda), a mother whose son Simón (Roger Príncep) has gone mysteriously missing, deeper into her house in futile search, with ever-increasing paranormal activity around her. Even as her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) tries to convince her otherwise, Laura believes she is growing closer to putting together the puzzle of her son's disappearance.\nI'll hold off on plot points here because the shocks alone are worth the price of admission. I barely made it through without cowering behind a chair. Suffice it to say, all the typical elements of a horror movie are present: the chanting kids, the haunted ex-orphanage, the bumps in the night, etc. \nThe genius of J.A. Bayona, in his stunning feature film debut, however, lies in his ability to fill in the gaps between the "Boo!" moments, or more accurately, to force the audience to fill in the gaps for him. He pulls the tension as tight as possible right from the start and doesn't let go, leaving no slack moments to relax.\nIn addition to this proper balance of suspense and horror, Bayona avoids the cliches of modern horror. He refuses not only the high-gore teenager body count of American horror, but also the endless "Gotcha!" gimmickry of Japanese imports. \nInstead, much like in his friend (and the producer of the film) Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," fear takes hold of us in Bayona's film because we believe in his characters. As Laura goes deeper into the alternate world inside her house, we believe in her quest because we can see it: In her sagging eyes and rough voice. Rueda plays Laura with force; she is never a victim. She always chooses her path, and we willingly follow behind. Whether she's really seeing ghosts or simply going insane, the audience has faith in Laura as a mother and human being.\nJudging by the sparse crowd, I imagine this movie doesn't have much of an audience, but it deserves one. "The Orphanage" opens a door that will remain open long after you've left the theater.

Tapes ‘n’ tapes

What ever happened to those destroyed CIA interrogation tapes? The CIA taped its interrogations of two al-Qaida operatives, then destroyed the hundreds of hours of footage. The heads of the 9/11 commission say the CIA obstructed their inquiry. President Bush claims to have “no recollection” of the tapes of their destruction. A federal judge who asked for the tapes was told they didn’t exist. Yet someone looking at the news would hardly know anything had happened.\nWhile every political correspondent in America books it from Iowa to New Hampshire to watch the infamous mud match, this story has dangerously slipped through the cracks. Some may think that with a change in the White House on the horizon, we shouldn’t continue to document this administration’s crimes. Yet the destruction of these tapes by the CIA is part of a pattern likely to continue in any incoming administration, unless we address it now. A few questions:\nIs it really possible that Bush didn’t know? Somehow, members of Congress knew about the destruction, as well as Bush confidante Harriet Miers. President Bush and Vice President Cheney seem obsessively occupied with the importance of reviewing intelligence extracted from interrogations. Yet, somehow, neither knew anything about the tapes’ existence or destruction. Either Bush knew about their destruction and is lying to hide something, or he is so ludicrously incompetent that he doesn’t know what his CIA is doing, even when it’s going around town telling everyone else. Neither scenario provides much confidence in our government.\nCould Congress please do its job? Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., was informed that the tapes would be destroyed by the CIA back in 2003, two years before their actual destruction. Incensed, she did what any ranking member of a Congressional oversight committee would do: She wrote a strongly-worded letter. She sits on the committee that controls the CIA’s funding and can ask for an investigation into anything she wants. Instead of actually stopping the destructions, she kindly asked the CIA to cut it out. From our elected officials, that ain’t good enough.\nWhy were the tapes destroyed? This is the $64,000 question, but it’s the toughest to answer, as long as the CIA and the Bush Administration continue to stonewall any efforts to find the truth. The official CIA response that the destruction protected agents’ identities is transparently false. Tons of files have the identities of agents, yet none of them were destroyed. Were the tapes destroyed for the content of the interrogations or the torture techniques used? Or was it all just a bureaucratic mix-up?\nOne of the principal goals in the aftermath of 9/11 was the restructuring of a broken intelligence community which missed all the warning signs and failed to connect the dots. Now, this poor excuse for the Keystone Kops, which stands as America’s first line of defense against foreign terrorism, has destroyed an essential piece of evidence for inexplicable reasons. \nMy list of questions above needs answers before we fully trust the system to protect us, because in this case, every safeguard failed and every oversight was ignored. The road to a safer America begins with untangling a pile of shredded tapes.

Wu's the boss

After the delays, the friction between Clan members and the six years since Iron Flag, the Wu-Tang Clan has at last completed its re-emergence.\nPerhaps the most striking aspect of the album is that it's truly a team effort. For all the tensions, you might expect the album to be a disappointment or an incoherent nightmare. But somehow, all the members' professionalism shines through on the album, with even the most vocal complainers such as Raekwon rapping like men possessed, on top of the RZA's woozy, layered beats.\nThose beats make 8 Diagrams sound like a throwback in an age of Soulja Boy and hyphy, with an honest-to-God darkness pervading the album from its kung-fu opening in "Campfire" to the ODB's rhymes from beyond the grave in "16th Chamber." Menace lurks behind the scratchy rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by guest Erykah Badu on the Beatles "interpolation" titled "The Heart Gently Weeps" and the brass samples on "Rushing Elephants." The RZA has outdone himself here, producing every track and cooking up the thick, gothic beats for which he's renowned.\nThis menace echoes in the rhymes, as each member sounds explosive while unwinding these druggy crime-drama yarns. Sure, Ghostface puts in his requisite excellent musings, but the other members more than hold their own. The Inspectah Deck chomps through his verse on "Unpredictable" with ferocity, and Masta Killa, who hasn't sounded this good in years, lends his laid-back threats to the threatening "Get Em Out Ya Way Pa." As Masta Killa states, when in trouble, every member can feel free to simply luxuriate in the beats for a while ("Take cover over RZA instrumental / I'm damn near invincible").\nOne member, however, stands apart on this album, unwilling to simply sleepwalk through his verses: Method Man. When his gravelly voice grabs your ears on "Wolves" or the ODB tribute "Life Changes," it waves a gun in your face, daring you to stop listening, reminding everyone of how he held together the first Wu-Tang album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).\nMaybe the album is refreshing simply because the Wu can do what the rest of hip-hop has long forgotten: tell a story, cut the fat off an album and make original beats. The Wu-Tang Clan has always been an enigma in the world of hip-hop, with its literary aspirations and dorky kung-fu obsessions. This album further sets it apart from the pack by refusing to compromise musical originality for a few extra bucks. \nThese guys may be dinosaurs, but they can still roar.

That’s my Bush!

President Bush must be kind of lonely these days. His staff and aides are jumping ship like mad, and rather than embrace the incumbent’s legacy, the entire Republican field is invoking Reagan, not Bush. I hardly need to mention the torrents of criticism that Democrats are heaping upon Bush and his historically low approval ratings. \nYet, no one has stepped up to take responsibility for Bush’s legacy, and it will be far-reaching. Despite the boondoggles of Social Security reform and comprehensive immigration reform in his second term, it’s tough to remember that Bush’s first term was a huge success, during which he achieved every legislative goal he wanted. Back then, he was everyone’s favorite, and Democrats as much as Republicans enabled his policies. \nNow, Bush is lonely, even though his ideology is firmly fixed as our nation’s ideology. For these shmoes to now turn around and say “It was all Bush’s fault!” represents the most disingenuous kind of politics. Jokers like Peggy Noonan who now decry Bush as a non-true conservative had no problem celebrating him during his re-election campaign. \nPolitics demands duplicity, but to see Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., spit fire and brimstone at Bush for his supposed incompetence seems particularly lame. If only this kind of critic had some sort of power in American government, maybe some sort of vote or filibuster power in the Senate. Oh, that’s right! They did have that power and still do. I would feel sympathy for their positions if they were just commentators or pundits, but they’re not. They hold positions of power, and failed to use them in any way to impede the Bush administration.\nIt’s both funny and sad to see everyone now stepping away from Bush as if he were political kryptonite, because the legacy of the Bush administration comes from our own actions. The war in Iraq, the failure to address climate change, the destruction of our international goodwill – these are as much Bush’s work as our own. Until our elected leaders truly embrace their complicity in this administration’s crimes, we can’t expect anything to change in a new administration.\nI’m not trying to make this some sort of giant liberal guilt-fest. Guilt is really what we’re best at, but still, I’m not asking for feelings of guilt. I’m asking for feelings of acceptance that we got exactly what we asked for.\nWe wanted the war in Iraq, and now we’re dissatisfied but unwilling to change. Recent polls show that Americans are now split over military action in Iran. Unless we accept responsibility for our actions in the past, we can’t be surprised when we make the same mistakes in the future, nor can we bellyache about the consequences. \nBush is not some specter who got his power through magic. He’s the representative for what Americans wanted, and his legacy will be ours, as well his.

Blood brothers

All the elements of an action-thriller are here: the body count, the chases, the suspenseful camera shots of doorknobs and grizzled men with guns. Yet "Die Hard" this ain't. \nTaking the genre exercise seriously, the Coen Brothers craft each scene to perfection. There's just enough shaky-cam in those chases, and for a movie with this much wanton slaughter, it's not sloppy. Every shot lasts just long enough to establish something -- a man sawing a shotgun or a cop drinking a glass of milk -- then moves on, with nothing left to spare. \nThe plot of the movie, based faithfully on a Cormac McCarthy novel, is an old one: Our hero finds and takes someone else's money, and then everyone tries to kill him, with the cops in clumsy pursuit. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), the ex-Marine with the misfortune of taking the drug money, finds himself pursued by Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a psychopathic hit man with no morality and the worst pageboy haircut this side of He-Man. Tommy Lee Jones plays the cop two steps behind, and Woody Harrelson provides unexpected comic relief as a hit-man competitor.\nBefore I get to Bardem's dead-eyed performance, which will dominate any conversation following the movie, I want to mention how hard it is to evaluate "No Country." On one hand, everything about it is formally faultless: from the lighting and soundtrack to the acting and directing, nothing falls out of place. But this technical precision makes the movie all the more unsettling, because it exudes nothing but death, nihilism and testosterone-fueled masculine apocalypse. \nLook, for example, at how blood oozes everywhere in "No Country for Old Men." Across hotel room floors and down limping legs, we see that sticky red mess spreading out, but Chigurh always picks his feet up, checking his boots for any trace of his victims.\nAnd it's the assassin Chigurh who transfixes us, daring us to laugh at his ridiculous non sequiturs (and hair) right before he blows our brains out. Bardem turns in an extraordinarily sinister performance, sure to draw comparisons to Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter. Bardem's character, however, has none of Lecter's sophistication; he's a force of nature independent of civilization or society. As Harrelson's character says, Chigurh lives by a different but severe moral code.\nPerhaps, then, this is where my problem with the movie lies. Its dips into metaphysics can't compare to the magnificent and hypnotizing storytelling, and much like their murderous creation Chigurh, the Coens create swaths of violence without passion or purpose. Then, when all the carnage rests and the credits roll, they put their feet up and check for stains. Sure, the filmmaking stretches miles beyond "Hostel II," but is the message any different? Is mankind really doomed to hideous violence?\nThere's no doubt that the Coens have made a masterpiece. Whether you'll enjoy it is another story.

As is not without faults

No longer anyone's prodigy, Alicia Keys has solidified into a confident musician in every respect: writing without regret and singing without apology. Even her production has eased into a groove of older R&B and soul classics, steering away from the hip-hop overtones of her last album. Yet all this confidence makes me wonder whether a little more vulnerability could do her some good, especially since Keys' poise seems misplaced at times behind clunky lyrics and mid-tempo snoozers.\nYou can see some of these highs and lows on Keys' first single "No One," which rings like a true pop single should, with a straight, uncomplicated beat and simple pop lyrics ("I don't worry 'cause everything's gonna be all right"). But beneath the technical perfection of each hyper-enunciated word, I wonder whether the song could have been something more. For a songwriter who has tacked her autobiography so close to her work, such a song feels less like a creative work and more like a meticulous copy of a 1970s Stax single. \nI don't mean to put down the album too heavily. There are plenty of highs, like the smoky funk throwback "Where Do We Go From Here?" and the anthemic belting of "Go Ahead," the album's raucous opener. I just wonder whether all that talent and praise (along with those shout-outs in Bob Dylan songs) have hampered Keys' development. Gone are the humor of Diary of Alicia Keys and the white-hot passion of Songs in A Minor, replaced by a hyper-produced smooth automaton declaring, with no irony, "I'm a Superwoman!" It's not a raw feminist ballad; it's star-glorifying schlock, and Keys can do better.\nPerhaps most telling of the over-polished Keys is "Lesson Learned," her collaboration with Tiger Beat guitar idol John Mayer, whose talent (and ego) seems comparable to hers. Instead of following her proper muse, Keys' voice drowns beneath the lame descending riff, while Mayer adds a frightening double-track of his own bland voice (Multiple John Mayers? Shudder). At this point, both artists are so sure of themselves that it's hard to find humanity in their colorless tune.\nNext time, Alicia should stop trying to be Aretha or Janis and just be herself, as she is.

We suck

Often, we journalists wonder why no one takes us seriously. We wonder why we’re considered so untrustworthy. According to a CBS News/ New York Times poll, only 15 percent of people trust the media “a great deal.”\nWe often say it’s because the media just puts out the garbage that people want.\nBut here’s the truth: We suck. A lot.\nThere are few occupations as self-righteous as “journalist.” No other job so readily calls itself “courageous” and “important,” and none pats itself on the back as gleefully. It’s no wonder that the biggest target of “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” is the media, not President Bush.\nFor all that we talk about representing the people and defending a higher right to a free press, journalists seem to be doing very little with those rights. It’s easy to blame Fox News for everything, but perhaps people went to Fox because normal news blew so much. Would people read about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears if journalists hadn’t enlarged their own statures? We thumb our noses at the masses for loving Paris, but we’re the ones who made her. Did we ever consider that we’re the reason people hate us?\nLook at our track record: If news media had been doing their jobs in 2003, maybe someone would have figured out that the run-up to the Iraq War was a sham and that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rather than questioning anyone, the talking heads and pundits nodded approvingly, urging everyone onwards to war. Then, once the sham was revealed, journalists acted duped, as if they weren’t the ones who should have gotten the right information in the first place.\nNow, in the run-up to a new election, journalists are playing the same old tricks again, choosing personality over substance, and polling over issues. During the unending presidential debates, the questions are hand-picked by the networks and unsurprisingly highlight wedge issues and “gotcha” moments squeeze candidates again and again. Of all the questioners in the debates, it’s the journalist moderators who do the worst job. Consequently, the most asinine questions, like the soft-ball “diamonds or pearls?” question for Hillary Clinton, turn out to be specially selected by the networks.\nInstead of fighting for the most accurate story, news organizations scramble to get the fastest story. Instead of treating the public as people of intelligence, who can understand complex issues, we treat them with contempt. Instead of talking to “the people,” powerful journalists gravitate to the same circles. \nWe read daily about the increasing ignorance of the American public. People don’t vote, don’t know who’s running for President and don’t know who their congressional representatives are. The news media moan in anguish that people don’t care about what’s important. Yet, no guilt ever seems to fall on the journalists, whose only job it is to distribute the information and judge what’s important. \nIf journalists wonder why people loathe them so, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror.

I'm a business, man

"This is America." The statement, uttered by the titular gangster Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), resonates throughout "American Gangster," and the movie proves its Americanness to a fault. A sprawling, sometimes plodding, often confusing epic, "Gangster" is American through and through, tracing the rise and fall of Frank Lucas in Harlem.\nDon't believe the hype. It's not the black "Scarface" or the black "Godfather." Comparing "American Gangster" to other gangster movies misses the mark, because few others wear their morality on their sleeve the way "Gangster" does. By refusing to choose between a bleak crime saga and a cat-and-mouse cops-and-robbers tale, director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Steven Zaillian try to find a middle way.\nPlaying the adversary to Frank Lucas' "honest gangster" is Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), the "honest cop" who is trying to take down the mysterious super-pure heroin flowing through New York. As it turns out, Lucas is smuggling the drugs in the coffins of dead soldiers being sent home from the Vietnam War.\nBoth actors are at the top of their game, each playing a layered character without chewing up the scenery with showboating Best Actor bait. Washington plays Lucas without expression, taking the businessman mentality to its extreme, only occasionally flashing violence; even then, he barely blinks. Crowe, muddling his Jersey accent, seems to bumble about as Roberts, but that dazed expression hides the single-minded intensity of his pursuit.\nDespite these solid performances, the film's real star is Ridley Scott, whose directing turns down the action to a slow boil -- occasionally too slow -- but usually just enough to keep our interest without turning into some testosterone-drenched '80s cop show. Even though the movie stretches events out, the action set pieces work, too, including a riveting chase in a housing project. The whole contraption moves with the exactitude of a Swiss clock.\nPerhaps, then, it's this cool precision that makes the movie feel too disconnected from its viewer. The frigid menace of Frank Lucas seems like Superfly without the soul. His whole idea of family, though he constantly refers to it, also seems distant. None of his brothers or partners in crime distinguish themselves from each other.\nThe myriad of supporting characters, Lucas' interchangeable brothers included, serve as further distractions from the central plot. The honest cop even has a host of "Serpico" refugees as teammates. Sprawling out too far, the subplots that slow the movie's pace also zap its passion. If anything, this is less a story of American gangsters than of American corporations, headed by cold-eyed CEOs, hounded by relentless investigators.\nIn the end, Denzel and Russell still make it worth the price of admission, but "American Gangster" could have been much more.

The Last Word

For every light, there must be darkness. For every peak, there must be a valley. For every best, there must be a worst.\nAnd the Best of Bloomington is no exception. So, here, I give you the darker side of our fair city, those moments and places in dear old Bloomingburg that we wish we could forget -- the Worst of Bloomington:\nWorst Annual Event -- Move-in week. As much as IU hypes Orientation, the actual move-in day becomes a god-awful mix of crammed elevators, sweaty parents and some grandpa driving the wrong damn way on Third Street. (Furthermore, "Orientation"? I'm not one to pull the race card often, but come on. Would you have "Western Europation"?)

Defeat-o-crats

We do not torture.” So says George W. Bush. Without telling us what constitutes torture or telling us what methods our interrogators use, President Bush wants us to simply take him at his word. And, like the spineless pushovers they are, the Democratic Congress gladly acquiesced, with many voting for the Military Commissions Act in October 2006 that essentially ended any judicial review for terror detainees.\n Now, Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, refuses to call waterboarding torture. What is waterboarding? Someone raises your legs, straps you down and pours water into your mouth to simulate drowning. On average, a CIA officer can take 14 seconds before caving in. It is a simulated execution, which is banned under international law and the Geneva Conventions, of which the United States is a signatory. The Khmer Rouge used it. The Nazis used it. We use it. \n Mukasey, like all the torture-enabling cronies that Bush loves, dances the same semantic line as his peers. Mukasey, at his confirmation hearing, said, “If (waterboarding) is torture, then it’s not constitutional.” Yeah, and if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hopped. \n Supporters of Mukasey might say that it doesn’t matter that he waffles on waterboarding. After all, who cares? He’s only the nation’s top lawyer. What does it matter if he knows what’s legal and what’s not – let alone what’s right and what’s wrong?\n Luckily for Bush, it turns out that Senate Democrats care about the moral high ground about as much as Republicans. Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., both members of the Judiciary Committee, have said that they will vote to send Mukasey’s nomination to the full Senate, where more of their feckless colleagues will surely bend over for the Bush Administration. \n The Democrats, after seizing control of Congress with a promise to change Washington, have instead given Bush everything he wanted. Iraq funding with no strings attached? Here you go. Kids need health care? Eh, not worth the fight. Immunity for illegal wiretaps? Why not? \n After railing against Bush for illegal domestic surveillance and the Iraq War, Democrats proceeded to enable Bush’s schemes, while successfully enacting no legislation of their own. \n When you refuse to sacrifice anything to stand up for something, were you ever really standing for it in the first place?\n When will the Democrats realize that politics is the ultimate zero-sum game? There are a limited number of offices, and if you lose, they win. Every time the Democrats give Bush the benefit of the doubt, they give him more than he deserves.\n Americans today are more fed up with the government than ever before, and their anger now translates to both parties. \nTorture is torture. Waterboarding is torture. No matter what former CIA director Porter Goss says, waterboarding is not a “professional interrogation technique.”\n By approving Mukasey and his reasoning, every one of us is a torturer. \n If Democrats won’t stand up for what’s right, then America should find someone who will. Otherwise, we’re not choosing the lesser of two evils. We’re choosing the same evil.