Most of both houses of Congress, and possibly a majority of high-level politicians these days (especially G.W. Bush and Co.), all seem to operate American affairs the way executives operate global businesses. Which isn't surprising, since so many politicians come from business and law backgrounds, scores having worked as CEOs or for corporate lobbyists and the like. The problem, though, is that modern business has become extremely top-heavy, eagerly rewarding everyone of the executive class regardless of how much work they're doing on a daily basis or how much they're truly contributing to the company overall. And thus that same attitude has crept into government thinking.
Yes, good management can do great things for a company, as can a CEO with vision and passion. But real day-to-day operations are successful based on good middle -management and the quality of the staff beneath them. While executive-level management spends 90% of their time taking meetings where ideas are discussed but nothing is accomplished, and then they all give themselves raises.
Sound familiar? Think it’s just an urban myth? Well, that's the U.S. government for you. And it's Halliburton, GM, and every other corporate business and big-city bureaucracy in the country.
Case in point:
When Delphi Corp. started considering bankruptcy as part of it's efforts to slash auto-worker pay in half and remove benefits from retired employees, they immediately commenced a flurry of meetings, in which the executives decided that, well, all of the executives in the company weren't getting paid enough. Also, if any executives were fired, it was reasonable to assume that they should be healthily compensated with at least six months of pay and a partial bonus. So for the sake of staying competitive in the market place, maintaining quality, and retaining the best workforce possible, the day-to-day laborers and bottom-level management types would have their salaries drastically reduced, while the executives would have theirs raised. What kind of logic is that?
Of course, many people cried foul and Delphi Corp. had to backpedal some. But the fact remains that even after all of the corporate greed and corruption uncovered in the aftermath of the entire 1980s and then, more recently, Enron and its spiritual brethren, companies such as Delphi Corp. will still happily, publicly, boldly, blatantly try to pull off schemes such this where the money of the masses is transferred to the pockets of few.
’Tis not surprising then, that Congress continues to give itself raises and increased health and retirement benefits while also turning down opportunities to bring better health, retirement, and education benefits to the general public. Will a senator or representative a give themselves a raise? Sure. And more power too ’em. But will they raise the minium wage by a buck? Nahhhhhhh....
***
Word of the day: Manichaeism, a philosophy that centers around the concept of dualism (good vs. evil, light vs. dark, yin vs. yang). The ancient religious form of Manichaeism combines Zoroastrian, Christian, and Gnostic beliefs and elements with Babylonian folklore and Buddhist ethics. Also see: Manichaean. Wild stuff.
Comic creator of the hour: Chester Brown, writer-artist of "The Playboy," "I Never Liked You," "Ed the Happy Clown," "Underwater," "Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography," etc.
Site of the minute: Dogsbody, TCJ reviews of art/indie comics, including archived reviews by good ol' NYC-Florida writer Daniel Holloway.
Ms. Hollywood Science, I'd Like You to Meet Mr. Government Bureaucracy...
I just read a blurb in Premiere magazine noting that the U.S. government is offering screenwriting grants to scientists, in the hopes of sexing up the science industry and recruiting today’s youth into such disciplines as nuclear physics, genetic modification, and other serious realms of scientific study that videogame playing, reality-TV watching, celeb-mag reading Americans are running away from in droves.
But after searching the Grants.gov and U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science grant databases, I was unable to unearth greater details or a grant application. However, a Google search did yield “Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts,” a related New York Times article by David M. Halbfinger:
I’d like to argue that a good screenwriter—or a good writer of any sort—can write a great story without having the “direct experience” that Valerie Weiss claims is required. Also, Nia Vardalos’ "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," although highly profitable and occasionally funny and touching, is not a masterwork example of impact-laden cinema. It’s a goofy little comedy.
Writers need to do their homework: reading, research, interviews, and endless imagining. But you don’t have to be a female Harvard science PhD to write a dating comedy about a female science PhD. The education, skills, and experiences of a writer will likely culminate in a better story than a “direct experience” person throwing ideas down on paper. “Direct experience” does pay off with memoir writing, but for romantic comedies and action thrillers? Not so much.
Novelists such as John Le Carré (aka David Cornwell) are the rare exception. Le Carré, a former spy that writes spy thrillers (“The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” etc.), is probably a better fiction scribe than actual espionage mastermind. And there are others in this vein. Scientists, soldiers, construction workers—great writers come from a variety of backgrounds and day jobs. But the work of a great writer is not limited by his or her past.
The U.S. government should try offering grants to all writers—not just scientists—encouraging them to write exciting, scientifically accurate science-themed screenplays. And more importantly, programs such as this should help writers find scientists that they can rely on for fact checking and research. Maybe even co-writing.
Imagine that: The federal government hooking up writers and scientists to work together on new projects. Scientists helping writers flesh out their screenplays while writers help recruit today’s kids into the world of hard science. Scientists correcting writers when they lose track of facts, and writers smoothing out the story arcs and dialogue of the microscope gazers and number crunchers.
That would be a worthy program. But ignoring writers while funding scientists to take a break from science so they can learn how to write? That’s nothing more than a study in entropy and thanatology. We might as well start paying screenwriters to design cloning technology in their spare time...
***
Speaking of Scientists: "Life is an anti-climax for some but for most of us it adds up to 16 hours of orgasmic pleasure. Researchers in Germany have calculated that is the number of hours that the average person spends enjoying orgasms during his or her lifetime.... and people spend six weeks doing nothing but playing during childhood, will watch television for a staggering five-and-a-half years ... spend seven years doing nothing but working ... [and] 24 years and four months in the land of nod." -- Allan Hall, "You've got it coming: all 16 hours of it," The Age (Victoria, Australia).
Talkin' 'bout Filmmakers: writer-producer-director Judd Apatow gets focused in an all-out interview conducted by Mike Russell. (Apatow's one of the the new comedy masterminds behind “The Ben Stiller Show,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Undeclared,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “The Cable Guy,” “Anchorman,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Fun with Dick and Jane.”) Read on...
But after searching the Grants.gov and U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science grant databases, I was unable to unearth greater details or a grant application. However, a Google search did yield “Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts,” a related New York Times article by David M. Halbfinger:
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 3, 2005 - Tucked away in the Hollywood hills, an elite group of scientists from across the country and from a grab bag of disciplines - rocket science, nanotechnology, genetics, even veterinary medicine - has gathered this week to plot a solution to what officials call one of the nation's most vexing long-term national security problems.
Their work is being financed by the Air Force and the Army, but the Manhattan Project it ain't: the 15 scientists are being taught how to write and sell screenplays ... Exactly how the national defense could be bolstered by setting a few more people loose in Los Angeles with screenplays to peddle may be a bit of a brainteaser. But officials at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research spell out a straightforward syllogism:
Fewer and fewer students are pursuing science and engineering. While immigrants are taking up the slack in many areas, defense laboratories and industries generally require American citizenship or permanent residency. So a crisis is looming, unless careers in science and engineering suddenly become hugely popular, said Robert J. Barker, an Air Force program manager who approved the grant. And what better way to get a lot of young people interested in science than by producing movies and television shows that depict scientists in flattering ways?
... Teaching screenwriting to scientists was the brainstorm of Martin Gundersen, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California and sometime Hollywood technical adviser, whose biggest brush with stardom was bringing a little verisimilitude to Val Kilmer's lasers in the 1985 comedy "Real Genius."
More recently, he was asked to review screenplays by the Sloan Foundation, which awards prizes for scientific accuracy, and found most to be "pretty dismal," as he put it. "My thought was, since scientists have to write so much, for technical journals and papers, why not consider them as a creative source?" Dr. Gundersen said.... The Air Force is providing $100,000 annually for three years; the Army Research Office has added $50,000 this year....
Dr. Gundersen, meanwhile, offered Valerie Weiss, a participant in the 2004 workshop, as a potential success story. A film buff at Harvard while she was getting her Ph.D. in biophysics, Ms. Weiss switched careers to film four years ago and is now trying to sell a comedy built around a Bridget Jones-like biochemist who applies the scientific method to her hunt for a mate.
She said she hoped her background would give her film the kind of personal touch that Nia Vardalos brought to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" as a Greek-American. "To write a film that is going to have impact like that, it needs to be from somebody that has direct experience," she said.
Ms. Weiss said Dr. Gundersen's notion that scientists could make good screenwriters stood the test of reason.
"They're inherently creative, and willing to take more risks than other people," she said. "They're searching for the unknown, they're compensated very minimally, they're going on blind faith that what they're searching for is going to pay off. And filmmaking is exactly the same way."
I’d like to argue that a good screenwriter—or a good writer of any sort—can write a great story without having the “direct experience” that Valerie Weiss claims is required. Also, Nia Vardalos’ "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," although highly profitable and occasionally funny and touching, is not a masterwork example of impact-laden cinema. It’s a goofy little comedy.
Writers need to do their homework: reading, research, interviews, and endless imagining. But you don’t have to be a female Harvard science PhD to write a dating comedy about a female science PhD. The education, skills, and experiences of a writer will likely culminate in a better story than a “direct experience” person throwing ideas down on paper. “Direct experience” does pay off with memoir writing, but for romantic comedies and action thrillers? Not so much.
Novelists such as John Le Carré (aka David Cornwell) are the rare exception. Le Carré, a former spy that writes spy thrillers (“The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” etc.), is probably a better fiction scribe than actual espionage mastermind. And there are others in this vein. Scientists, soldiers, construction workers—great writers come from a variety of backgrounds and day jobs. But the work of a great writer is not limited by his or her past.
The U.S. government should try offering grants to all writers—not just scientists—encouraging them to write exciting, scientifically accurate science-themed screenplays. And more importantly, programs such as this should help writers find scientists that they can rely on for fact checking and research. Maybe even co-writing.
Imagine that: The federal government hooking up writers and scientists to work together on new projects. Scientists helping writers flesh out their screenplays while writers help recruit today’s kids into the world of hard science. Scientists correcting writers when they lose track of facts, and writers smoothing out the story arcs and dialogue of the microscope gazers and number crunchers.
That would be a worthy program. But ignoring writers while funding scientists to take a break from science so they can learn how to write? That’s nothing more than a study in entropy and thanatology. We might as well start paying screenwriters to design cloning technology in their spare time...
***
Speaking of Scientists: "Life is an anti-climax for some but for most of us it adds up to 16 hours of orgasmic pleasure. Researchers in Germany have calculated that is the number of hours that the average person spends enjoying orgasms during his or her lifetime.... and people spend six weeks doing nothing but playing during childhood, will watch television for a staggering five-and-a-half years ... spend seven years doing nothing but working ... [and] 24 years and four months in the land of nod." -- Allan Hall, "You've got it coming: all 16 hours of it," The Age (Victoria, Australia).
Talkin' 'bout Filmmakers: writer-producer-director Judd Apatow gets focused in an all-out interview conducted by Mike Russell. (Apatow's one of the the new comedy masterminds behind “The Ben Stiller Show,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Undeclared,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “The Cable Guy,” “Anchorman,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Fun with Dick and Jane.”) Read on...
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