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Moore Sicko Kenefick

Jim Kenefick runs a blog called MooreWatch, which is apparently committed to denouncing Michael Moore's behavior and work product in real time. After reading his last three posts, my impression is that he spends half his time complaining about the inadequacies of his hosting services, but I think that's the mission.

Moore has a new film Sicko at Cannes, giving the health care aspect of how

instruments of the corporate state, like student loans and bottomless credit-card debt, perform a crucial function for that state. They undermine democracy by creating a docile and hardworking population that is addicted to constant debt and an essentially unsustainable lifestyle, that literally cannot afford to quit jobs or take time off, that is more interested in maintaining high incomes than in social or political change. Moore seizes on this insight and makes it a kind of central theme; both in the film and aloud, at the press conference, he wondered whether some essential and unrecognized change has occurred in the American character.*

Actually, that's a pretty good reason why the government did nothing to stand in the way of the housing bubble. So, Kenefick complained on his blog that his insurance premiums approached $1000 monthly, and Mr. Moore payed for a year's worth. He did it anonymously at first, but closes the movie with this gesture.

Now, Michael Moore seems to want to imply he has a charitable arm that finds people and gives them money.

"I asked myself, would you be doing this if it weren't in the film? I decided that I would, and I should, and that that's the way I think we should live."

I can't really comment on that. For all I know he does, but I suspect this was more or less a one-off event. Kenefick's somewhat suspicious, although he expresses gratitude in bits I'm not quoting.

$12,000 is equal to his ding-dong budget for the week. Or what it costs to make one of those suits for award shows. Add to this growing list the fact that it was never altruism and every human being alive who knows anything about Moore knows that. He paid $12,000 so he could manufacture a “gotcha” moment in his film. Sounds pretty cheap to me.

What am I supposed to be grateful for? The chance to look like an ass? The chance to be in his movie? For him throwing me pocket change in order to try to humiliate me later? That’s why he did it. Period.

For no good reason -- and, as you know, that's what drives all these posts -- I wanted to give my own take on Moore's motivation. I think he was just showing off the addiction. How he could find one person who was sure to disagree with the central point of his movie, and be able to tell the story of how that person who was being crushed by the system is going to defend it. His movies all have a component about people being duped into defending the very systems that are ravaging their lives, and this opportunity really fell into his lap. The $12,000 gift is the personal injection shtick that Mr. Moore uses to tie his movies together. He was probably glad to be able to help someone who needed it, but Mr. Kenefick's no doubt correct that he did it for the movie.

* -- this is Salon.com's Andrew O'Hehir's digestion of Sicko's presentation of the argument of "Tony Benn, a leading figure on the British left."

I need a word!

I was chatting with a friend this morning about how we cry after speaking with particular ex-lovers, not because of anything that happens in the conversation, but just in grief over the loss of that life.

So, it seems to me there must be a more specific word than 'regret' to cover the mourning of a broken way of being, and that it's probably German (Danish?), but I couldn't think of what it was.

A little help?

Goodbye the the first named storm of 2007!

Oh, Andrea. You portend so little. I'm sure everything will be fine.
Earlier in the day, NHC said GFDL thought Andrea might resurge as part of the next storm, but it looks like she didn't make it, and we're going to have to use up another name in a couple of days.

Yeah ... you guys hang on. I'm going to go.

I was watching this on my Google home page's NOAA satellite widget, which I accept makes me an obsessive (in my defense, I also have an USGS earthquake widget -- does that defend me?) I'm going to go hide on an Eastern Boundary until the ice age hits. You guys enjoy your hurricane season.

SPECIAL TROPICAL DISTURBANCE STATEMENT
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
1115 PM EDT TUE MAY 8 2007

A NON-TROPICAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM...CENTERED ABOUT 175 MILES EAST
OF JACKSONVILLE FLORIDA AND ABOUT 160 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF
CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA...HAS BEEN MOVING SLOWLY WESTWARD AT 5
TO 10 MPH.  THE LOW IS PRODUCING GALE-FORCE WINDS NEAR THE COASTS
OF NORTH CAROLINA...SOUTH CAROLINA...GEORGIA AND NORTHEASTERN
FLORIDA.  THIS SYSTEM HAS CHANGED LITTLE SINCE THIS EVENING...AND
NO SIGNIFICANT STRENGTHENING IS EXPECTED.  THE LOW IS BEING
MONITORED FOR SIGNS OF TROPICAL OR SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE
DEVELOPMENT...AND AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT
IS SCHEDULE TO INVESTIGATE THE SYSTEM TOMORROW MORNING.

INTERESTS ALONG THE COAST OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES SHOULD
MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST
OFFICES.  ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS SYSTEM CAN ALSO BE FOUND
IN HIGH SEAS FORECASTS ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE...
UNDER AWIPS HEADER NFDHSFAT1 AND WMO HEADER FZNT01 KWBC.

FORECASTER BROWN

More Information on Girl Distribution

As you may recall, this distribution of men and women has had a persistent fascination for me. A reader sent in a link to 'The Singles Map' at the Creativity Exchange, so I thought I'd share. It shows the difference between men and women in absolute terms. It's interesting that New York and LA both have a reputation for hot women, but LA is actually overrun with men. I guess the women are competing for the nation's attention, not any local man's.

10163-3663

Like Nordstrom*, I now have my own zip nine code. I know that a lot of you are looking for ways to send me physical gifts and submission packets, but I haven't really enabled that. I decided it was time for a change, and so I went up to Grand Central Station and got me a PO Box.

Now! If I had been quicker on the mark, I would have requested box 6101, and then I would have a true palindrome. But, as it is, it's a pretty neat dual quasipalindrome. 101 and 6336 together are cool enough, but it's the last 63 that really makes it art. It's as if you took the 63, and turned it over once to make a 36, and another time to get back to 63 ... three elements where the middle element is the inversion of the identical outer elements. There should probably be a name for that, but I'm sticking with quasipalindrome.

The blog address is:
Fears and Frets
PO Box 3663
Grand Central Station
Manhattan, NY 10163-3663


* -- um, maybe it was The Bon Marché. One Seattle-area department store had a billboard series in the 90s about how they now got enough mail to rate their own zip code.