http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/copperfield/bts.html
Nearly a decade after its first broadcast, David Copperfield stars Daniel Radcliffe and Ian McKellen reminisce about their roles in an exclusive Masterpiece video interview.
For more on Radcliffe, read Masterpiece’s 2001 interview with the young star as he was on the cusp of big changes in his life with the release of the first Harry Potter film.
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I second the emotion with all my heart.
from the last chance democracy cafe
« Seriously bummed about Siegelman
Give Paul Krugman one hour, Mr. President
I won’t even try denying it. When compared to the brainy insider types, people like Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, who are running Barack Obama’s economic policy — and let us all stand with our mouths appropriately agape in awe and wonder at the very mention of their names — those of us supporting disreputable (and socialistic!) things like growing the stimulus package and nationalizing failing banks are a fairly motley bunch. Who can blame Obama for wanting to keep us at arm’s length?
I mean, some of us are even of that lowest of all breeds — quick, lock up the children and the womenfolk — the bloggers. And Obama made it crystal clear in his recent interview with The New York Times that he has little use for such reprobates:
Mr. Obama rode to the White House partly on his savvy use of new technology, and he has a staff-written blog on his presidential Web site. Even so, he said he did not find blogs to be reliable, citing the economy as one example.
“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”
I actually have no problem with the substance of Obama’s comments about blogs (although I could have lived without the dismissive tone). Blogging serves many valuable purposes: directly establishing national economic policy probably shouldn’t be one of them. Even a blog lover like me wouldn’t suggest the president click onto a random Daily Kos diary, then, impressed by what he reads, completely rewrite US economic policy in response (although if the choice is between that and having him continue to listen to Geithner, well . . .).
But as Paul Krugman — blogger and Nobel Prize winner — has pointed out, bloggers are far from the only people urging Obama to be more audacious in working to save what’s left of our economy:
A real fix for the troubles of the banking system might help make up for the inadequate size of the stimulus plan, so it was good to hear that Mr. Obama spends at least an hour each day with his economic advisors, “talking through how we are approaching the financial markets.” But he went on to dismiss calls for decisive action as coming from “blogs” (actually, they’re coming from many other places, including at least one president of a Federal Reserve bank), and suggested that critics want to “nationalize all the banks” (something nobody is proposing).
As I read it, this dismissal — together with the continuing failure to announce any broad plans for bank restructuring — means that the White House has decided to muddle through on the financial front, relying on economic recovery to rescue the banks rather than the other way around. And with the stimulus plan too small to deliver an economic recovery … well, you get the picture.
For all I know, Geithner may be right and Krugman wrong. When it comes to economics, a fair degree of skepticism and uncertainty is always in order. What bothers me, speaking as a non-expert, however, is how one-dimensional the advice Obama’s receiving seems to be. It’s all insider conventional wisdom, all of the time. What happened to the brave talk of the president surrounding himself with divergent viewpoints?
Geithner and Summers? That’s some Team of Rivals you have there, Mr. President. All the diversity of a litter of cloned puppies, but without any of the cuteness.
I suspect Paul Krugman isn’t at the head of Obama’s hit parade when it comes to economists. Krugman’s preference for Hillary Clinton during the primaries was hardly hidden, and he’s been consistently on the president’s (honorable) butt ever since. But the truth is that Krugman not only carries considerable authority on economic issues, he also speaks powerfully to many of the folks who form the base of Obama’s political support — people he’ll need in the fights ahead.
So, here’s my suggestion, Mr. President: swallow hard and, if for no other reason than as a goodwill gesture to your supporters, put your money where your political mouth is by reaching out to “the other side.” Give Krugman one hour of your time to make his case. Let him tell you personally why he (and so many others) believe a more aggressive approach is needed if we are really to address this economic nightmare.
You may well decide to ignore him and stay the course.
But what do you have to lose by listening?
This entry was posted by Steve on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under Comment.
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let’s see if we can get the comments to work…
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my mri came out great again and I AM GOOD TO GO. Feeling great. Out to save the world.
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no shite. review via Kos: Sith Lords of then Ultra Right. hidden in plain sight under the rubric “conspiracy theory.”
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update for post below from Amnesty
from it’s all one thing:
my hate-filled senator
March 9, 2009 by Will Shetterly
Amnesty International thinks Kyl is from Wisconsin. For Arizona’s sake, I wish that was true, but I don’t wish him on anyone else. If you want to sign an Amnesty International petition:
No Discrimination Against Palestinian Refugees in Gaza
On March 6, 2009, Senator Kyl (R-WI) introduced an amendment to the Omnibus bill that would deny Palestinian refugees from Gaza resettlement protection. The US is not likely to resettle this population in 2009, and therefore, the amendment is not only discriminatory but also unnecessary. Contrary to 30 years of extending protection to refugees on the basis of need, the Kyl amendment seeks to discriminate against an entire group based on nationality alone. Tell your Senator that this discriminatory amendment must be defeated.
The results of Kyl’s last courting of militant Zionists: Kyl’s Iran amendment goes down to defeat
Sen. John Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) Iranian sanctions amendment, which the Republican Jewish Coalition urged its supporters to call their members of Congress about, went down to defeat in the Senate by a 51-42 margin last week.
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google news today:
Leahy Likens Palestinians to His Irish Ancestors, Urges Rejection …
TPMDC – 16 hours ago
By Elana Schor – March 9, 2009, 6:44PM I reported earlier today on Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendment to this week’s 2009 spending bill, …
Kyl withdraws anti-Palestinian amendment after admitting it was … Mondoweiss
all 2 news articles »
ABC News
In Debate on Spending, a Detour for Politics
New York Times – 12 hours ago
Mr. Kyl withdrew his amendment on Gaza refugees, and other Republicans urged defeat of his amendment regarding Hamas. Instead, Mr. Kyl focused on an …
Amnesty International
Online Action Center
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=11886&ICID=R0903A1&tr=y&auid=4597149
No Discrimination Against Palestinian Refugees in Gaza
On March 6, 2009, Senator Kyl (R-WI) introduced an amendment to the Omnibus bill that would deny Palestinian refugees from Gaza resettlement protection. The US is not likely to resettle this population in 2009, and therefore, the amendment is not only discriminatory but also unnecessary. Contrary to 30 years of extending protection to refugees on the basis of need, the Kyl amendment seeks to discriminate against an entire group based on nationality alone. Tell your Senator that this discriminatory amendment must be defeated.
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The Scholar
He gets up, shuts the windows
because it is raining, weeping the dust away
he shaves and cuts himself
burns the coffee, breaks a shoelace
finds a button off his shirt
the newspaper screams corruption
loneliness clings to the walls
he gathers up his books, goes out
slamming the door
at the bus stop on the corner
people under their umbrellas
marvel at his face, drenched
him in his raincoat, collar turned up
rough curls under a crown of drops
his smile a conquest, deep, bemused
with secret joy
for he has seen cream-colored Aphrodite
rising from the sea-green froth:
he is still the Apollo of his dreams.
~a.o.howell 
Alice O. Howell
Rosecroft
“Look for the sacred in the commonplace!” 
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watched the trilogy again recently. struck again…
Arwen, her flashbacks / forwards woven into the story (which wasn’t in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but extrapolated from the Silmarillion) makes it also Return of the Queen… as she joins her king at the end it’s a conclusion that rides into the future, dynasty and all. I thought: as a woman, if I could choose between having children or immortality, I would choose children. At some point, this choice was made on a cosmic scale: It’s a wondrous gamble, all of it, powers unimaginable putting their will beyond their reach and into creatures like us… deb
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A knockout.
Buzzflash, Mark Karlin:
[...] CNBC, as Stewart so devastatingly exposes, consistently boosted the Wall Street pirates without exposing what any reporter close to the situation must have known. Through a combination of fantastical stock market theories (fundamental values don’t matter; it’s just the perception of a stock that counts), suck-up interviews with CEOs of failing companies, affirmations of robust financial health for riverboat gambling financial empires that were about to collapse and become multi-billion dollar welfare recipients of our money — and more boosterism — CNBC (with some rare actual reporter exceptions) has become an advertorial for the looting, unregulated, “default swap,” hedge fund, con artist, gambling ways that have destroyed the fundamentals of the heart of our financial system.
In fact, we urge you to watch the entire March 4th Daily Show because in a half an hour, Stewart provided one of the most concise primers of the Wall Street mess we’ve yet seen. Because unless you drill down mighty deep into the mainstream corporate press, it is hard to understand how the ushering in of the Reagan era of de-regulation led to major financial institutions playing craps with our economy to the tune of what is now hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in so-called “toxic assets.”
What is a toxic asset? Essentially a Wall Street gambling debt.more.
Posted in cnbc, wall street scam
