My Scream: We Need Howard Dean!

Upfront: the Dean Scream was one of the lowpoints of modern journalism. The So Called Liberal Media (SCLM-- made popular by Eric Alterman's excellent book,) failed us all miserably when it took the rather silly-sounding rallying cry that Dean yelled out to his disheartened supporters to try to pump them up...then played the scream 1000 times in the week between Iowa and New Hampshire on network news--yes, someone actually counted.
Those airings don't by the way, include local news, nor Jay Leno/Jay Letterman. That scream ran 1000+ times in less than a week!

So the SCLM turned a highly respected multi-term governor into a cartoon. Inquiring minds want to know how this could happen. Here's how: They allowed themselves to be manipulated by the powers that be...and they acted with a herd mentality. What they didn't act like are journalists.

Answer me this: when have you seen--before or since--the playing and replaying and replaying of what's considered an embarrassing moment by a politician? I think the word you're looking for is n-e-v-e-r. I have a bite we could play 1000 times: How about when GW Bush said "Too many OB-GYNS aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country"? This is a bite you didn't see again and again followed by furrow-brow'd pundits wondering whether the Bush Presidency could rebound from one of the most asinine things ever said by a public figure. And by the way, where was that SCLM we're always hearing about?

Dean had a medical degree and 14 years in and around the governor's office, during which time every Vermont adversary--and he had some--could have uncovered his bizarre behaviors. Surely if Dean were the wacked-out guy he was portrayed to be, tape would have surfaced that would have verified his insanity. Strangely though, no tape ever surfaced.

But Dean was from outside the Washington power structures. He wasn't in the Clinton camp and instead of towing the acquiescent party line, Dean said in uncompromising terms that Bush was absolutely wrong about Iraq and the Democratic party needed to find it's backbone and resist the war. Democrats searched with both hands, but couldn't find their backbones. Instead, they decided to kill Dean.

And kill his presidential bid, they did. But now Dean, a man of near limitless intellect and drive, has risen like a Phoenix. And I applaud the guy. It took a doctor to help the Democrats locate their spines. And I think he will make a fine Democratic party chair. I urge to you cast aside your pre-conceptions provided by the SCLM, and research for yourself the career of Howard Dean. You might well be surprised.

What the Heck Is Going On In Boerne Texas?

The short story: the Boerne (BUR nee) city council approved a rough draft of a loop that would encircle the 8500-person town 25 miles north of San Antonio. The objective is to alleviate traffic problems and to position the city best for future growth. Buy the property for the road now while land prices are nearly unaffordable instead of later when they’re ridiculous beyond words.

Suddenly (Boom!) a local blog-http://www.boernetownhall.com/-is created to talk about local issues, from politics-to-restaurants. Then another pops up--http://www.boernetogether.org—designed generally to fight sprawl and unplanned growth, and specifically deal with the question of the loop.

Ya gotta understand: Boerne is an old German-rooted berg which has become a bedroom community for San Antonio professionals. With an 82% Bush voting record in November’s election, this is NOT considered a liberal town. But wait! Also in that election was approved a 6 Million dollar bond issue to buy land to develop parks so Kendall County will have more greenspace. Mmm…and let’s not forget: Boerne’s Cibolo Nature Center is one of the premiere natural areas in the state, and its new 1.5 million dollar near state-of-the-art nature center is nearing completion.

So Boerne’s far harder to define than just to say it’s just conservative or just liberal.

The aforementioned http://www.boernetogether.org/ secured the Bear Moon—a local better-than-Starbucks bakery/coffee bistro—for an evening meeting to rouse the rabble. The 100 people that who showed up spilled out onto the sidewalks. A passionate couple of dozen people got up to speak, and the shared conclusion was that the people needed to become more knowledgeable, and to attend City Council meetings. So...did they?

Next city council meeting 90 show up, spilling out into the hallway. City council determined they need a new master plan and commit to getting one written. They also will form an advisory committee, including 2 members appointed by boernetogether.

City council has heard the people speak!

This is the way people can affect the direction their cities are going. I offer up this local tale as an object lesson. If it can happen in little ol' Boerne, I see no reason why this “Think Globally/Act Locally” scenario couldn’t play out in YOUR town. All it takes is some belief, some will, a web site, and a good cause. The world is out there to make better or worse; the choice is yours.

Eeee-Ron

By most any measure, our war with Iraq has been a massive failure.
--Instead of flowers thrown at us, bombs were.
--Instead of the people rising up and joining us, they've risen up and joined Al Quaeda.
--Instead of Ahmed Chalabi being an invaluable font of important information, he ended up being an amazingly overpriced font of worthless disinformation.
--Instead of the war being fought by a coalition of the willing, the members are less willing all the time to be IN the coalition.
--Instead of Iraqis taking to the idea of free elections like ducks to water, the Iraqis at the polls will probably be doing a lot of duck-n-cover.
--Instead of Iraqi oil revenues paying for the war, the new 80 Billion dollar request about to be made will put our costs at 300 billion dollars. Did you hear me? I said 300 BILLION. And that figure doesn't count interest(!).

1 victory: we deposed the mayor of Baghdad!

As you know, I could go on and on and on at the miscalculations, the pipe dreams and the out-n-out fantasies that this administration has indulged in, to the detriment of us all. But wait! There's more. Seymour Hersh has written an article on the very real possibility that the Neoconartists co-responsible for the Iraq war remain unsated. They still want to dominate the world.

These guys are bulldogs for democracy...and since they've sunk their teeth into the flesh of Afghanistan and Iraq, they just don't want to let go...'til they get Iran, too. The neoconartists would like through targeted air strikes to expose to Iranians that the powers that be are less powerful than the people believe. Pray tell why, you ask? Because then the people would rise up and finish the job, deposing their rulers.

I think I've read this script before! Bad script! Bad movie! Bad neoconartists!

My question is this: if these neoconartists had gotten laid in high school, would they still be trying to measure their manhoods by dominating the world? Is that what's really going on? And more importantly, can't we just hook these guys up with some nice conservative girls with loose morals and maybe just maybe they'll get laid and leave the worldwide domination fantasies where they belong: as fantasies. Hey, I can hope, can't I?

Good People, Good Works

There was once a railroad track that ran through Boerne Texas, but has been unused for quite a few years. It was called the Old #9, and it cut a straight, diagonal line through Boerne from southeast to Northwest. After the tracks had been pulled, some progressive someone decided that the right-of-way could be put to use as a hike-n-bike path.

The city of Boerne came on board with it and a few years later the town has the beginnings of a nice hike-n-bike corridor. It begins at the Cibolo Nature Center, Boerne's premiere preserve that features four separate natural environments all within a small 100 acres. Plans for the bike path call for it eventually to continue past where it ends in north Boerne, to go underneath I-10, and all the way to Boerne's City Lake. I can imagine a time when Boerne kids can bike all the way to the lake in safety, swim for a while, and bike back home.

Enter the Native Plant Society of Texas, Boerne division. The Native Plant Society, as you might guess, promotes the use of native plants in home and business landscapes. Since they're more easily grown than exotics, the success rate is far higher than if one tries to grow something native to Great Britain. Besides, planting native helps a locale keep its overall sense of self.

So yesterday morning me and about 27 Native Plant Society folks showed up at the Southeast terminus of the Old #9 Bikeway and planted 28 trees and shrubs. The city of Boerne had already dug the holes for the trees with an overly-ambitious machine (B-I-G holes!), so it wasn't as much work as it might have been. Parents brought kids to help, old folks showed up and defied their age with their labor. It was a great endeavor, and the fruits of our labors will only grow as the years go by.

There's something supremely optimistic about planting trees. It metaphorically says "I believe in the future..." and if you're 80, like a friend named Ellie who worked particularly hard, you're not really planting them for yourself. The trees she planted are for her kids and grandkids to enjoy.

So I salute the Native Plant Society for its energy and efforts, and the City of Boerne for its wisdom and attitude. And if you're ever down this way, be sure to bring your bike and seek out the Old #9. Maybe by then part of your sunny ride will be shaded by trees we planted yesterday.

The Coronation of King George

Did you catch the Coronation of King George Thursday? Here's the text, if you're masochistic in nature.

I didn’t get to sit and watch, as I was at work and particularly busy. I’m glad I was because whenever I passed by a TV monitor, I was surprised at how overwhelming a sense of despair I felt. The American public had plenty of information to tar and feather that guy, and send him packing. Instead, we re-elected him.

I actually got stuck in front of a monitor long enough to hear these lines.

"Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen," said Bush, who declared, "America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling."

So if we're not imposing in Iraq, what the hell are we doing? When it's necessary to introduce Freedom to a people through the barrel of a gun, this should be your first clue that something's just not quite right with this picture.

But according to his speech, freedom has to be a matter of Iraqi choice. So, exactly which Iraqi chose that we import our Freedom there? Could we get a name, and an address? I suspect the actual Iraqi who requested Freedom went by the name of Achmed Chalabi.

No, what really happened is this. We invaded a sovereign country on the basis of an ever-changing series of reasons, killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, destroyed much of the country, and all, as King George would explain, in an attempt to bring them Freedom.

There's something going on here that's disturbing, and in no small amounts. It’s as though Karl Rove has figured out that there's no real stock in small lies. Instead, tell whoppers. Look straight into the camera and say things that are so amazingly untrue that no rational, intelligent, informed American could possibly believe them.

Then they do. In droves.

Throw in the words TRUTH and FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY a whole bunch of times. We the public, in true Pavlovian style, are infused with a near-religious patriotism when we hear those words. They have a power that's involuntary over many of us, eliciting a response of sobering trust in the listenter.

Then Bush throws in a reference to GOD, or DESTINY…and in reverential, church-like tones. And voila! A sizeable portion of the country interprets his words, his look, his delivery, his message...as somehow being connected to God.

AMERICA: you are brighter than this. You deserve better than this. Many of you have put your lives on the line for this country, and now Bush, this scion of wealth and privilege, is standing on the shoulders of your sacrifice, preaching to the world in lofty terms as if he’d earned the right to even understand their meaning.

I know that this changing-too-fast world is a scary place, that it's damnably daunting and it’s not easy to know what direction to go. But let me give you a tip: THIS direction is the wrong one!

The Republicans Be Damned, and I 'Spect They Will Be

Jim Wallis has a book out called God's Politics:Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. I haven't read it, but I did just see Jim Wallis on The Daily Show.

This rather mixed Slate review tells more about the book.

It appears the book's thesis line can be summed up by this excerpt: "Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican?" To which I say a resounding, yet reverential "Hell, yeah!"

This is one of the great big thorns-in-my-side about Republicans. Many of them fight tooth-n-nail to keep you from getting an abortion, because they're fighting for the rights of the unborn, which can't fight for its own rights.

But once that baby gets born, few Republicans show up to adopt that unwanted child. Since they (supposedly) believe in small government, they don't want their tax dollars going to help provide health care or food to children born in poverty. They tend not want tax monies going toward single moms' day care costs, which is a great big incentive to not get off welfare.

Lost in the shuffle is that unborn baby. It's as though Republicans think that the womb, being a God-created mystical locale, allows the baby a certain set of concerns. But once that baby has drawn air and known a diaper, they've been corrupted and are beyond Republican concern. The hypocrisy inherent in that logic--and in their inactions--is shameful.

And so after the November elections, many shallow pundits concluded Democrats just don't get why "those who have morals" voted Republican. I have a far different take on this. I'd maintain that Republicans hijacked the verbiage of Christianity and manipulate a sizeable percentage of people who are scared and looking for traditional answers from a traditional place. I think they're bruised and battered and confused in this fast-changing world and, since they're Christians, hope that the politicians who speak like the good people in church do are doing God's will.

Many of these folks are hoodwinked into thinking Mr. Bush is an honorable man, and that there is a spiritual connection between him and God which embues him with an innate ability to steer this country using a moral compass.

Try as I might, I really can't not say this: That is one heaping, steaming load of crap.

George Bush is sure to look out for corporations, for the rich, and for those who support him. But traditional Christian targets of generosity--the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised--need look elsewhere for kindly thoughts and works. They won't be finding refuge in the House of Bush, or with Republicans.

Explain This For Me, Wouldja?

Since I was a young guy I've heard from parents, from banks, from businesses one consistent message: you've got to pay your debts. And if there's been one consistent place I've heard it from, it's been conservatives. Conservatives have always wanted to align themselves with balanced budgets. Until recently.

Yet here we have a Republican president, said to be as conservative a president as we've had in several decades, who's spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave after a 6-month cruise.

There's a Republican majority in the senate.

There's a Republican majority in the house.

There's just no blaming this on Democrats. Remember the phrase "Tax-n-spend Democrats"? If you ever ever hear a Republican say that phrase again, stop them in mid-sentence and ask how they can possibly fault Democrats when the Republican-controlled government is spending our kids' tax dollars before they are even old enough to have a taxable wage. Do not let these folks get away with this. We need to fight when others try to spread disinformation about the way things are.

Since the explosion of talk radio, where bravado and wild, unchecked "fact-oids" are offered up as gospel, actual facts aren't too pertinent to political discourse. Consequently, right-wingers say the foulest and most wildly ridiculous things about liberals and they tend to get away with it.

Surely you've been on the receiving end of some of those e-mails that get passed around--stuff like Heinz Catsup closing down American plants and outsourcing to other countries...or one of the hundreds that circulated about either of the Clintons. When you get one of those e-mails, go here. It's a fact-checking site that's non-partisan. It debunks urban legends, and occasionally verifies them, when in fact they're true. And if the rumor that's been offered you as truth turns out not to be, do a reply to all and explain to them that in fact, that wasn't true, and include the URL from the story at the site that disproves it. Besides spreading the URL around so that people can check it out for themselves, it also tells the people spreading rumors that you'll be checking. And they can be hung out to dry by the facts.

The truth. That's what we want, right?

The Great GW Bush Sociological Chasm

In NO previous election has ANY sitting president had more votes cast against him than GW Bush. So despite many Republican claims of a mandate, this country is quite nearly divided in half. And there's a Grand Canyonesque divide between the two generally shared evaluations of GW Bush.

How can nearly half this nation see Bush as a man of delightful unpolished charm...who rules not from Rhodes Scholarly egg-headedness, but from his heart, where God has taken firm root, and guides him through difficult, but unwaveringly RIGHT decisions...and the rest of the country sees a buffoon who rode his daddy's coattails through an alcohol-powered young adulthood, and who now operates with few discernible skills other than to fool the slighly larger half of the country into thinking that he actually knows something about ANYthing?

Why is it that so many tens of millions of people cut this guy slack through dozens of what are clearly mistakes, that they'd never allow even a 2nd time for a guy who was dating his teenaged daughter? In my noggin', this is tantamount to seeing the Harley-riding, body-pierced, tattoo-covered beer-drenched guy who was picking up my daughter and thinking with a smile that "gosh, he's quirky..."

I know good people--intelligent people--who think the sun rises and sets on George W. Bush, and who look askance and me and wonder why I don't see what's so plainly in front of my face: that GW's right. And this question isn't just an unimportant whimsy of a guy blogging away in the blogosphere. Democrats' inability to understand and properly react to this is why Bush has just been given another 4 years to dissassemble the fine works of men and women of the last 230 years.

There is such a MASSIVE ability amongst many Republicans to forgive nearly everything Bush has said or done, and it's a forgiveness they'd extend to no one else. What in the world about GW Bush inspires in so many to suspend disbelief in common sense? What is this shared psychological aspect that is common in slightly more Americans, and absent in the rest of us?

It's one of the strangest aspects of life in these United States. And it inspires in me a 2nd theory: that the chasm is merely a sociological place, but the repercussions of all of his decisions happen in the real world.

That the cumulative effect of his decisions can't help but finally be undeniably measureable, and that facts and figures and dead sons and daughters, and jobs lost and debts due...that all these realities will finally, FINALLY somehow cause this shared mirage of a concept to begin to draw that chasm closer...'til finally it disappears.

I'd have thought it would have begun a couple of years ago, but that's one BIG chasm. Because there are still people lining up to sing this man's praises despite all he's done.

Lawd, Lawd have mercy...I suspect history won't.

Why You Should Get Cable:

Jon Stewart.

I'm a Broadcast Television kind of guy. It's free. All ya need is a TV and an antenna and it's there. The picture may not be so pretty, but there you have it. Local news. Entertainment. Maybe a PBS station if you're lucky. No real price for admission.

But The Daily Show isn't there because it's only available on cable. Surely you know The Daily Show . If you don't, you definitely should. In fact, Daily Show virgins should go here. The web site has all kinds of clickable video pieces which will show you the outstanding writing, the unique Stewart style, and the individual bizarrity of their various "reporters." It's all fake news, and all quite funny.

Tonight's episode showed a Town Meeting that President Bush held in...Maryland, I believe. The subject was Social Security reform, and strangely every one of the people in the town meeting supported Bush's plan. Several clips were shown, and of course the President, operating in a crowd of Bush-loving devotees, had that cocksure Chimpy McFlightsuit demeanor that rubs so many of us the wrong way.

But I digress...what kind of country have we become wherein we actually accept an alleged Town Meeting where everyone has been pre-screened to reflect the president's view? That's NOT a Town Meeting. It's a pep rally. It's a Republican infomercial. Why can't we in the media, instead of swallowing label of "town meeting," make the fact that it was not a town meeting an issue? An inquisitive and skeptical media would ask and re-ask the President to have a real town meeting wherein a diversity of opinion was represented, and wherein the President can assuage real people's misgivings.

But alas: that inquisitive and skeptical press is on life support, so we have to rely on fake news programs like The Daily Show to point out how ludicrous the event was. It's a sad truth, but news that's intentionally fake is far better than fake news that is intended to be believed as presented...

Arm Strong, Ethics Weak

First off, a kind-of kudos to Armstrong Williams. I read your apology column and I compliment you for admitting your error. If you had said "I did not have fiscal relations...with that administration...the Bush adminstration..." then I would think far less of you.

But you came clean and admitted what you did and apologized for it. And you deserve some measure of credit for that. But one thing you said hung me the hell up. You said that you had excercised "bad judgment."

No, you didn't. You exercised your right to manipulate your position and your relations with the Bush administration to make yourself nearly a quarter million dollars. There's a big difference there.

Bad judgment is this wonderful little PR-spin catchall that's become the politically correct way of NOT saying you did it for the money. Or you did it for the sex. Or whatever you might have done it for.

It's the mature and innocuous way of saying you operated in a VERY sleazy way. It just kinda smells less than saying you were on the take. And when you write columns like this criticizing teachers for sleaziness when it's you that's actually on the take...I don't know. That kinda bugs me.

Was there a written contract? Did you have to espouse the beauty of No Child Left Behind on X number of national TV news programs? What exactly was the arrangement? Actually, I don't need to know that to determine that you didn't use the so-called "bad judgment." You judged the fabulous benefits of a quarter million dollar windfall VS. the possibility that someone in the press would find out and make it known to the rest of the world.

One does NOT go into a $240,000 arrangement with the federal government without thinking of all the angles. The ups and the down sides. You thought of them. You ruminated long and hard. And you thought "I believe in No Child...why not?" And you became a shameless huckster for cash, not telling TV viewers and radio listeners that you were being a paid spokesman. You'd have done it without pay, but there it was.

There was no bad judgment. There was a gamble. And you lost. Sorry Mr. Armstrong but you DID have fiscal relations with that administration...the Bush administration.

Bush Wins November, Michael Moore Wins January

I've been hearing since November 3rd, "George W. Bush won. Get over it! The people have spoken."

While I still have my misgivings about Ohio and Diebold voting machines, I'll give them that. Bush won. As to getting over it, not a chance. I "got over" Florida pretty quickly and the problems weren't fixed. There were clearly voting problems in the 2000 Florida debacle and I naively thought those problems would have effectively been addressed in the 4 years since.

Yet in Ohio there were 8-hour waits to vote--in poor neighborhoods of course, where people can less afford to take off work to vote. There was an Ohio county which initially registered more votes for Bush than there were registered voters.

And by the way, ever heard of one of these scenarios which have benefited Democrats? The mistakes always benefit Republicans. Mysterious, eh?

At any rate, Bush won in November and claimed a "mandate" and wants to cash in his political capital to get more done. Yikes.

So tonight's People's Choice Awards gets to the point I'm waiting for: People's Favorite Movie of the Year goes to...Fahrenheit 911! Michael Moore with a stylish little goatee goes up to the podium and dedicates the award to the men and women serving in Iraq. He says this is a great country and reminds people that this place isn't just for Democrats or Republicans, that it belongs to us all.

All very good sentiment. All very hard for the Sean Hannitys and the Rush Limbaughs to spin other than what it was: the people saw Shrek 2 and Spiderman in record numbers, then passed over those two films to choose Fahrenheit 911.

The people have once again spoken.

Meet Your Attorney General To-Be

Alberto Gonzales. To see him and hear him talk, it's hard not to like him. He's got that great Hispanic Texas accent that's so easy on the ears.

But then if you actually LISTEN to what he's said, you can quickly find reasons not to like him. He signed off on only defining torture as that which causes organ failure or death. Vermont Senator Pat Leahy noted that you could cut someone's fingers off and cause neither organ failure or death, but that would NOT by the Gonzales' memo standard be torture. Breaking someone's leg wouldn't cause death or organs to fail. You could pull off every toe nail and fingernail, and by Gonzales' definition, still not be torturing anyone.

Hello??

I think this bears repeating: Legal minds at the highest levels of our government approved coercive interrogation techniques which only drew the line at acts that would cause organ failure or death. What's it take to make a liver fail? A knife stuck in it? A club landing a direct and home-run swing type of blow?

Is this the United States you were raised on? If ever you heard the word torture back in high school history, I'll bet it was NEVER American soldiers doing the torturing. We learned about the Bataan Death March and the Nazi Death Camps. But I'll bet you thought Americans we're psychologically incapable of torturing others. Nope. We're just as human as everyone else.

It's up to our leaders to set tone and standards. The standards Alberto Gonzales set were wrong. They were un-American. And as he always seems to do, Bush rewards incompetence (Tenent, Rumsfeld, Rice) with the nation's highest honors, or increased duties/job titles. This is the man George Bush has chosen as the nation's top legal mind.

I don't remember where the phrase comes from, but it came to me again just now: a confederacy of dunces.

Learning Curve: Year 5

Okay, I'll admit it. I came up with a phrase in my last entry that I really like and I simply want to repeat it: Bush is our never-leave-the-learning-curve President.

It only makes sense and is humorous though, to those of us who haven't drank the Kool-Aid, those of us who see bufoonery and don't consider it country charm, for those of us who have come to the conclusion that the greatest portion of the brain power in the White House is actually in the building maintenance staff, for those of us who respect the concept of how verbs and nouns can be combined in a fashion so as to construct a complete and coherent thought. If these descriptions sound vaguely like you, then I have a treat for you.

I have a favorite web site for when I want to indulge in pure, unadulterated fits of laughter--because sometimes it's a choice between laughter and tears, and Lawd knows I prefer to laugh--and this my dear friends is the place to go for that.

Control Room

I just finished watching Control Room. In this year of many must-see documentaries, I can recommend this one heartily. Control Room is a behind-the-scenes look at the lead-up to and the fighting of the war in Iraq from the perspective of the Al Jazeera network.

If you've only heard Rumsfeld and others complain bitterly about Al Jazeera, you might be surprised to know that Al Jazeera is hated by many of the rulers in the middle east because of what the network dares to say about them. There's an old axiom about journalism that if you're doing your job well, most everyone is gonna hate you. I think this might apply to Al Jazeera.

Another saying: Journalists should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Yes, that borderlines on advocacy journalism, but I think the comfortable are entirely capable of shoring up their comfort against whatever onslaught the truth will out.

But back to Control Room: Particularly interesting was the clip of "Bagdad Bob"--Saddam's unintentionally comic spokesperson who denied, even with the sounds of bombs going off in the near distance, that American troops were anywhere near Bagdad. Ol' Bagdad Bob is shown in the movie saying harsh words against Al Jazeera for giving the American perspective on the war.

Working in the TV bidness, whether or not there's a writing or reporting spin--in either direction--isn't just something I can just postulate on. With 20 years in television, I have a perspective that a lot of viewers can't have. I've seen the planning for the story, the assignment of a reporter to it, rough drafts on the script, been involved in the promotion of it, then see the final product on air and online.

The movie is a pretty unflinching look at the process and the perspective of Jazeera journalists, revealing the journalists' opinions as well. Particularly interesting though, was an American Army spokesman named Lieutenant Josh Rushing. He seemed distinctly honest, and also seemed to have some personal revelations about the distance between what we think we're there for, and what those in the middle east think we're there for. He was a many-textured character, as were many in this film.

Anyway, you can find Control Room even at places like Blockbuster.