Sunday, August 12, 2007, Eastern Daylight Time

SUN

Sunset                7:58 p.m.

End civil twilight    8:28 p.m.

Begin civil twilight  5:26 a.m. (Monday)

Sunrise               5:56 a.m. (Monday)

MOON

Moonset               8:01 p.m.

Moonrise              6:29 a.m. (Monday)

Mike Douglas: My next guest is an innovative and unique musician who has created his own style of music ever since he first got his group the, The Mothers of Invention together back in 1964. When he had that group he put out some albums, ah, with bizarre titles like Hot Rats, We're Only In It For The Money, Weasel's Ripped My Flesh and Lumpy Gravy - all love songs. Today he's here to talk about his, his brand new group and his new album called Zoot Allures. Here is Frank Zappa.

 

[Applause]

 

Mike Douglas: [garbled] ... You've got some real fans here, they stood up when you came ... those are very unusual titles, how do you come up with titles like that Frank?

 

Frank Zappa: I'm abnormal.

 

Mike Douglas: [laughs] then it's easy for you?

 

Frank Zappa: Yeah, it's just an everyday thing.

 

[omitted for brevity]

 

Mike Douglas: How long have you been into the rock music?

 

Frank Zappa: Umm, since I was fifteen. I'm thirty five now, so that's a while.

 

Mike Douglas: How did you first tune, tune into it - who'd you start listening to?

 

Frank Zappa: ...used to listen to rythym and blues records...

 

Mike Douglas: Ah. Anybody in particular that really reached you at that time?

 

Frank Zappa: Well I used to ... in those days I used to really like Johnny Guitar Watson and Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Howling Wolf, guys like that. You know, all the old favorites.

It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.

OK, so now that you've gotten some basic Zappa under your belt, try this one, Montana. This is a song that's got appeal to the more serious Zappa listener - much more complex music and a very strange story-line. I really like this clip because there are several minutes of onstage banter before the music starts and you get a chance to see Frank interacting with the audience. This is not one of the better line up of musicians. Frank had a lot of really talented people playing for him over the years, including Steve Vai, George Duke, Terry Bozzio (although I think he was kicked out for drugs) and others.


And there you have it. You rocked, Frank, rest in peace.

Some have been more provocative than others. In September 2005, as the city of New Orleans struggled to cope with the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, the church posted, "New Orleans: Natural disaster? Or God's anger with sin?"

Then, as the war on terror raged in Iraq, a sign went up that many people thought insulted members of the American military. While they remember their reaction to that post, no one could recall its exact wording.

By the way, the war on terror is still 'raging', but more importantly I find it amazing that the latter example was so strong and offensive and yet nobody could remember exactly why. Despite listing only three examples in the article, the Globe goes on to say that people are now posting pictures of the signs on the Internet. But they don't actually tell you where, so I checked. I went ten pages into google on two different searches, and frankly, short of the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, the only site I found was this one.

So this is all getting a little silly for me. Look, the church has a first amendment right to free speech, even in these days of declining civil liberties in the United States. But I would like to see at least a picture or more examples. Failing that, I'll have to take matters into my own hands. Here are two photos I previously published of the New England Baptist Church sign. The first is from when the Democratic Convention was in Boston (I blogged the Medford impact) and the second was from later in 2004, I believe.

As much as I disagree with what they say, I have to tell you that I get the point that's trying to be made. And that should be all there is to it.

When America serves others in this way, we show the strength and generosity of our country. These deeds reflect the character of our people. The greatest strength we have is the heroic kindness, courage, and self-sacrifice of the American people. You see this spirit often if you know where to look -- and tonight we need only look above to the gallery.

Bush goes on to praise Dikembe Mutombo (Congolese immigrant now a star basketball player for the Houston Rockets), Wesley Autry (private citizen who saved a man who had fallen on train tracks), Tommy Rieman (soldier and Silver Star recipient for heroism) and Julie Aigner-Clark (founder of Baby Einstein).

It's Baby Einstein I have a problem with, but I'll get to that in a moment. Here's what Bush said about Julie:

After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children's videos in her basement. The Baby Einstein Company was born, and in just five years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales. In November 2001, Julie sold Baby Einstein to the Walt Disney Company, and with her help Baby Einstein has grown into a $200 million business. Julie represents the great enterprising spirit of America. And she is using her success to help others -- producing child safety videos with John Walsh of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Julie says of her new project: "I believe it's the most important thing that I have ever done. I believe that children have the right to live in a world that is safe." And so tonight, we are pleased to welcome this talented business entrepreneur and generous social entrepreneur -- Julie Aigner-Clark. (Applause.)

The backstory here is that the Bush administration, in my opinion, tends to side with whatever will support the growth of companies not matter what the social or financial implications are. And so ironically, the praise was maybe appropriate for Bush even though it seems misplaced. My main complaint is why he chose this company. And it seems clear to me that it's for purely publicity reasons. He wanted to laud a woman entreprenuer with a product that leaves a very healthy, strong impression in the audience. But in trying to reinforce this in the SOTU, Bush made a mistake because these videos do not appear to work. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics is very clear on their recommendations for what kids under 24 months old should watch on TV: nothing.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one to two hours of quality TV and videos a day for older children and no screen time for children under the age of 2. [emphasis added]

Now there must be a reason for that, and we'll get to it in a moment. First, savor the hypocracy of a President praising the character of a business-women who is marketing videos to worried parents who's kids should not watch them. The product exploits every parents' fear of educating their kids: watch Baby Einstein for an hour a day and your kid will be smart. The problem is, it's not true and the opposite might happen. There is now evidence to suggest that these videos make your children dumber.

Today, the results of a study of this very issue were published and they are disturbing. SeattlePI has a more in-depth story. Here's the money quote from the LA Times:

For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as "Brainy Baby" or "Baby Einstein," they knew six to eight fewer words than other children, the study found. [emphasis added]

This doesn't appear to be a fluffy study - there were 1,000 infants involved. Although that specific data was not available when Bush made his SOTU in January, my understanding of the issue at that time was that there was significant concern about these videos and no scientific basis to believe they would work as advertised; the APA guidelines were already in place at that point.  In fact, the SeattlePI points out that the FTC is considering false advertising charges against this class of product for exactly this reason. That puts a little tarnish on the SOTU, doesn't it?

Googlebotter: It's people. IU Search is made out of people. They're making their index out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding them like cattle for links. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!

Slashdotter: I promise, bottie, I promise. I'll tell the geeks.

Googlebotter: You tell everybody. Listen to me, Slashdotter. You've gotta tell them! IU search is people! We've gotta stop them somehow!

ROTFLMAO