Dave Shiflett: News

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg)-- Back before prime-time television became the land of wiggle, jiggle and grind, there was Mary Whitehouse, who got her knickers twisted every time someone said “knickers” on the British Broadcasting Network.
Her story is told in “Filth,” a terrific 90-minute biopic airing Nov. 16 on PBS at 9 p.m. New York time.
Whitehouse (played by Julie Walters) didn’t set out to be a moral crusader. She was an art teacher from the generation that beat Hitler and survived worldwide depression.
Then came another blitz -- the swinging sixties – which proved more formidable.
According to this Masterpiece Theater film, Whitehouse’s road to Damascus event occurred one afternoon when she turned on “the box” and was confronted by a BBC show on premarital sex.
“Sex at tea time!” says a deeply aghast Whitehouse, who bears a resemblance to Mrs. Doubtfire. The permissive generation had thrown down its thong, which she quickly picked up and converted to a battle flag.
Initially it seems Whitehouse will be a portrayed as a run-of-the-mill self-righteous, Bible-thumping bluenose though she becomes a sympathetic figure whose world is being invaded by forces she is ultimately unable to deflect.
“We have not borne our children or built our homes to have them undermined by this,” she says of racy programming. When she hears students parroting what they hear on the Beeb, she fears television, rather than family and faith, will largely determine their views on sex, violence, and language.
A reasonable enough analysis, as it turns out.
The film pits Whitehouse against Sir Hugh Greene, (Hugh Bonneville), director general of the BBC. He’s rich, arrogant and something of a horndog with his own crusading spirit.
He’s sympathetic to a bishop’s declaration that “God is dead” and nixes a religion-oriented program. He dismisses Whitehouse as a “suburban crank” who’s the “voice of my maiden aunt.” Groups like her Clean Up TV organization are “run by people who aren’t very intelligent or imaginative.”
Whatever her brainpower, Whitehouse is deeply motivated and creates a cadre of supporters, mostly female, though husband Ernest (Alun Armstrong) stands by his woman even though he’s clearly not averse to a bit of televised spice with his tea.
Whitehouse and company, who may remind some viewers of the anti-saloon league, eventually gathered over 300,000 signatures on a petition protesting the BBC’s programming, often in the face of stiff opposition. Yobs attempted to shout her down at a public meeting with chants of “We want sex!” while the postman regularly delivered obscene mail. Press suggestions that Whitehouse was a streetwalker were finally echoed in BBC ridicule, with Greene’s blessing. Critics even paid women to seduce their sons, though without success.
The film is fast paced and includes historical references that may baffle younger viewers. In one scene the Whitehouse’s parson dances about the room with a set of rabbit-ears, trying to tune in the picture, and there’s also a mention conservative MP (and to some, ultra-crank) Enoch Powell, whom Whitehouse says “turns out a lovely chutney.”
Whitehouse gets the last laugh, sort of.
Her nemesis is finally put under the control of a director sympathetic to Whitehouse, or at least her ability to raise public outrage, and resigns.
Yet her cause’s ultimate fate is summed up in an emblematic, if clunky, scene in which the Whitehouses pull alongside a car in which a young woman is smooching with not one but two fellows as Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” blasts over the radio. Whitehouse rolls down her window and denounces the hussy, then breaks into “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
History indicates the Tambourine man firmly gained the upper hand, though some viewers may find themselves trying to remember exactly who he was and what he was trying to say.
Whitehouse kept up the fight until her death in 2001.
www.pbs.org

Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – Given the choice between going directly to hell and returning to high school, many of us would choose the former.
We’re reminding why in “Summer Heights High,” an Australian “mocumentary” series debuting on HBO Nov. 9 at 10:30 p.m. New York time.
The show is the brainchild of comic Chris Lilley, who plays its three leading characters: Jonah Takalua, a 13-year-old bully/delinquent; Ja’mie King, a graceless 16-year-old private school transfer student; and Greg Gregson -- Mr. G. – a self-infatuated, power-groping drama teacher.
Many viewers will likely be reminded of the good old days when we were trapped with such people nine months of the year, our escape options limited to moving away, being expelled, or experiencing early death.
Of the three, Jo’nah is the most annoying, at least initially. He’s been booted from two other public schools for setting a locker afire and defacing the principal’s car with his trademark graffiti – a grandly drawn male member he enthusiastically replicates around the grounds of Summer Heights High.
He’s got a thug for a father, attention deficit issues, reads at an eight-year-old level and deploys a vocabulary heavily reliant on the F-word.
Yet Jonah has his own humble dreams, aspiring to become a professional break dancer and even learning to read. He also wants to be liked, at least by his reading teacher, and one feels a bit of sympathy creeping in for the little lout as the series progresses.
Ja’mie, meantime, is rich, arrogant and none too easy on the eyes, or ears. During an assembly convened to welcome her aboard she points out that while private school students are likely to be highly successful later in life “wife beaters and rapists are almost all public school educated.”
Like Jonah, her aggressive exterior masks an inner awkwardness and she too wants to be liked, though in the long run she may have been better off transferring to a convent.
Then there’s Mr. G, a drama king of the highest order. He misses few opportunities to strut his stuff before his captive audience, dancing about in a large pink sack and, as the series progresses, hatching a scheme to build a performance center bearing his name, complete with a 500-car parking lot to accommodate the crowds for “Mr. G – The Musical,” a work in progress.
All of which, or course, is undertaken on behalf of his students. “Most of what I do has a grounding in education,” he explains, also insisting his dynamic presence “gives them confidence.”
A bit of patience is initially required, though after ten minutes or so the characters start to grow on you. While short on knee-slappers there are plenty of amusing takes on life at a modern public school, where students paint anti-rape murals and endure high-minded, and highly ineffective, attempts to mold them into productive, civilized human beings.
The 30-minute opener closes with an example of progressive pedantry, a program called “Polynesian Pathways” designed to stave off unemployment, crime, and drug abuse, a member of the teaching staff explains.
Jonah’s reaction strongly suggests this path leads in the opposite direction; he’s close to homicidal over having to wear a grass skirt, which he believes compromises his masculinity (he doesn’t put it quite that way), nor is he particularly spooked when a guest speaker warns that bad boys sometimes end up behind bars.
“Were there girls in your jail?” Jonah bellows, following up with the eternal student inquiry:
“So when is this sh** over?”

www.HBO.com

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett
Wall Street Journal
The Olsen twins – actresses, designers, fashion icons and entrepreneurs – sensed a general wonderment about who has been instrumental in inspiring and guiding their sparkling journey to the center of world consciousness, a project also important, Ashley adds, because she’s taking her life “to the next level” and that trek “requires you to pay attention to everyone and everything.” Assisted by writer Derek Blasberg, these interviews with 23 or so “creative visionaries” who left their marks on the girls were “treated like a religious pilgrimage,” albeit one devoid of holy men or women, or for that matter serious authors, scientists, economists or even apostles of the high colonic. They instead focus on A-listers from the world of glitz who share iconic thoughts, smocks, boots, art and home furnishings. We behold interior architect David Collins’s dip-dyed and embroidered curtains -- to die for no doubt -- and the paintings of George Condo, which in some parts of the world would still attract torch-bearing mobs. His Jesus appears to be transubstantiating into a cloud of Fruity Pebbles while his God looks like a Hobbit who just swallowed a bad oyster. Photographer Terry Richardson shares his picture of Robin and Batman smooching it up – is nothing left sacred? – and we also get plenty of inspiration messages, including Diane von Furstenberg’s take on human husbandry: “We have to be very careful who we have sex with. So you better know whom you’re spreading the seed with. Even if there’s no seed being spread.” Karl Lagerfeld, meanwhile, notes that jeans “are becoming too tight. You can kill yourself in those jeans.” Ashley and Mary-Kate also focus inward, submitting to the “Proust Questionnaire,” which reveals “true characteristics and emotions.” Ashley reveals Jane Austen as her favorite prose writer and Freud as her favorite poet, while Mary-Kate’s favorite occupation is “being a full-time Gemini” who likes Plato and Kafka. The twins include plenty of photos of themselves, sometimes looking like innocent schoolgirls, other times like drug-addicted hookers, along with a host of Polaroid snapshots – Polaroid being this crew’s true Boswell.

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – “Crash,” the new Starz series starring Dennis Hopper, is starting to come together.
Inspired by the 2005 Oscar-winning movie of the same name, the 13-part series, which debuted in mid-October, started off with several seemingly disconnected story lines.
While it’s too early for certainty, one senses some sort of redemption is afoot, featuring a mysterious Guatemalan last seen running toward America in a dead man’s shoes.
A strange prediction, but this a strange show.
The story to date:
Ben Cendars (Hopper), is a music mogul we first encountered as he enjoyed intimacies with himself in the back of his limo.
All told, his life is pretty lame. He can’t find any new music he likes and is tired of the current craze, which won’t go away. “Hip hop’s a zombie,” he observes, “and you can’t kill a zombie.”
Gray haired, wiry and given to philosophical meanderings, Cenders is also haunted by death, noting “that good dark night” is closing in though he’s not ready to give up his ghost quite yet.
Meantime, most of the other characters in the LA-based show, which next airs Friday at 10 p.m. New York time, are caught up in their own dramas, none of which are especially heroic.
Christine Emory (Clare Carey) is a horny housewife deeply lusting after a new kitchen, among other things. Her husband, a real estate shark named Peter (D.B. Sweeney), instructs her that this is “not the time to be asking for a raise on your allowance.” In a bow to tradition, Christine squeezes a commitment out of him the old fashioned way. We assume she’s warming up for other conquests.
The crisply written series also features corrupt and philandering cops Axel Finet (Nick E. Tarabay) and Kenny Battaglia (Ross McCall), a paramedic named Eddie Choi (Brian Tee) who recently left life as a gangbanger, a world-class nympho named Inez (Moran Atias) and, most intriguingly, Cesar Uman (Luis Chavez) a young Guatemalan making his way toward America and enduring hell every step of the way.
Last week Cesar was captured by the Mexican police, a gang of meaty thugs who shook him down for his last peso, then attempted to put him on a bus back home.
Cesar managed to escape, thanks in part to a pair of shoes he took off a corpse. He was last seen running in the direction of his promised land, where one senses he may change the lives of at least some of the desperate Angelenos.
Cendars seems primed for transformation. While initially a mere weirdo with a cashbox for a heart, he is an increasingly sympathetic figure -- lonely, unhealthy, and now determined to make a rap star out of his limo driver, Anthony Adams (Jocko Sims), despite Anthony’s lack of credentials.
“What do you mean you don’t rap?” Cendars asked after lining up a studio session with a local magnate.
“I write poetry,” Anthony replied.
No matter, the boss declared in fine philosophical feather. “This is Saint Crispin’s Day. True genius is never planned.”
Cendars also waxed poetical about how Anthony should “feel the beat of the African Diaspora cruising through your veins,” underscoring a habit of sending illicit substances through his own bloodstream.
“My clarity is crystal until the devil offers his confections,” he tells Anthony, and there are plenty of demons in Los Angeles, one of whom lights Cendars during the recording session.
“I’m dying,” a deeply stoned Ben utters at the end of last week’s show. “This is what death looks like.”
Yet maybe help is on the way, wearing resurrected shoes. Or maybe Cesar is Cendars’s love child. The show, though quirky, is worth watching to learn weird Ben’s fate.



(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – If you consider your boss a hazard check out George Packer’s “Betrayed,” which airs on WNET-New York Oct. 23 at 9 p.m.

The boss here is Uncle Sam, deadly as an IED to some Iraqis who cast their lot with the United States.
The play is based on Packer’s 2007 article for The New Yorker about Iraqis who served as interpreters for the U.S. when their country went under new management.
In short introductory remarks Packer explains that initially the American presence provided “a chance to realize their potential for the first time in their lives.” Yet ignorance, suspicion and indifference crushed many of those dreams and sometimes proved fatal.
Packer’s play, he explains, allows him to “speak more directly to Americans than journalism can allow,” though many viewers may not be happy with what they learn in this live-to-tape performance.
This is a sad story powerfully told by a cast of six utilizing the sparsest of staging.
The story centers on three young Iraqis who sign on as embassy employees in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Adnan (Waleed F. Zuaiter) was nearly delirious with hope after the invasion. “Everything was shocking, everything was new,” he says, including open defiance of Saddam Hussein. Soon, he believed, “my time will come.”
Laith (Sevan Greene) is blessed – or perhaps cursed – with a viewpoint so sunny that he was able “to find the positive aspects of even a car bombing.”
Intisar (Aadya Bedi), an attractive woman from a progressive family, skipped school the day Saddam Hussein visited out of fear she might scream at him “How many years of my life are you going to steal from me?” She loves Emily Bronte and dreams of riding a bicycle through Baghdad, cooking French dinners and taking her family skiing.
Unfortunately, these dreamers have hitched their wagon to an unsteady star.
The Americans aren’t so much ugly as clueless.
Prescott (Mike Doyle) is a foreign service officer who sounds like the jukebox at Fox News. “I believe in American exceptionalism,” he chirps, explaining that “the Middle East is my generation’s Europe.”
His boss, a bald-headed and empathetically bereft ambassador (Ramsey Faragallah), takes his cues from the embassy’s security officer (Jeremy Beck), a paranoid bully. When Adnan, Laith and Intisar beg for heightened security clearances to help avoid snipers and surveillance by jihadists, they get the back of the official hand.
Without revealing too much, the dreamers suffer a casualty rate much higher than experienced by troops on the battlefield.
Prescott eventually opens his eyes. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on out there,” he admits, and insists on being taken outside the Green Zone. He finds a different world beyond the safety perimeter, where fanatics behead both humans and their pets and hold in suspicion those who carry spare tires in their cars, which betrays a lack of faith in a benevolent deity.
He is lonely in his enlightenment. Even being marked for death is not considered ample reason for the ambassador to provide visas. Why? That would suggest the U.S. had lost the war.
Adnan, who opens they play saying he believed learning English would expand his horizons, ends with an obituary for his hopes. “Until this moment I dream about America,” he says.
He will see new horizons, though they will be Swedish in nature. His perspective, safe to say, will find no home in the ambassador’s memoirs.

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)


To contact the writer of this story:
Dave Shiflett at dshifl@aol.com.

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – The much anticipated duel between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin produced no fatalities, or even flesh wounds.
Viewers hoping for an on-air flameout by Gov. Sarah Palin were disappointed. Those who expected Sen. Joseph Biden to foam at the mouth got no satisfaction.
Palin fans are no doubt breathing much easier than they were yesterday, when it was generally acknowledged that the chirpy Barracuda has morphed into an albatross after poor interview performances with Katie Couric.
While there were times that the girl from the North Country seemed lost in the forest – as when attempting to discuss the sub-prime problem – she had clearly been burning the midnight oil. She even pronounced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s name right four times (though she flubbed the name of the commanding general in Afghanistan). Take that, John McCain.
The debate got off to a folksy start with Palin talking about the political banter at a soccer game. Biden chimed in about taking the pulse down at the local gas station. Before the night was over Biden was quoting the regulars at a favorite restaurant while Palin hailed Joe Sixpack and sent a “shout out” to elementary school students.
You almost wondered why they weren’t wearing overalls.
Both wore dark suits and directly addressed the camera throughout the 90-minute event. Biden exuded most of the gravitas while Palin ruled the nose-wrinkling and winking competition. She left Biden in the dust when it came to ignoring moderator Gwen Ifill’s questions.
The Klondike Kid’s handlers, and McCain himself, had tried to paint Ifill as a deeply biased interrogator, but if anything she was toothless when compared to the resurgent Barracuda. There was no mention of creationism, abortion, or that Kenyan witch hunter whose blessing apparently aided Palin in her quest for the Alaska governorship. Ifill could have fairly probed Palin’s view that young rape victims should be counseled against abortion, though gave her a pass.
Palin did give fair warning that she’d be the one to decide what questions she’d answer, explaining in the first few minutes that she was not there to respond to Ifill’s inquiries the way the PBS stalwart might wish. That turned out to be a significant understatement, cleverly underscored when Ifill asked Palin “Are you interested in defending senator McCain’s health care plan?”
Well, not much. Instead, Palin spent much of her time reciting talking points and carefully crafted, if not always crispy delivered, paeans to her running mate and his policies. One reasonably imagines Biden was thinking, but dared not say:
“Thar she blows!”
Biden was on his best behavior, avoiding condescension and not once leering at the governor as if she were a pole dancer. He spent much of his time conjuring up a three headed monster – Palin, McCain, Bush – once adding that Dick Cheney was the “most dangerous vice president” in U.S. history.
Neither committed any serious gaffes, or memorable lines, though both gave their pet clichés a pretty good workout. “Change is coming!” Palin chirped, adding that she and McCain not only “talk the talk” but – wait for it – “walk the walk.”
“Past is prologue,” countered Biden, who did provide the most authentic moment, albeit brief, when he choked up while apparently alluding to the death of one of his children.
The conventional wisdom has it that vice presidential debates don’t determine the outcome of elections. This one might have, but didn’t.

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – Sarah Palin and Joe Biden should have little trouble outshining the top of the ticket when they meet for their one and only debate Thursday night in St. Louis.
Senators Barak Obama and John McCain set the bar fairly low during Friday night’s debate in Oxford, Miss. At first it appeared the Dixie slowdown would never get off the ground.
Jim Lehrer tried his best to get things rolling but initially looked like the moderator at a cockfight where the birds wouldn’t tangle. A few feathers eventually flew, though neither contestant did much damage to himself or his opponent.
Out in TV land, many of us were expecting much more. Both senators were fresh from trying to steer America away from what was generally billed as a financial abyss.
The week echoed with dire references to the Great Depression, bread lines, living in cardboard boxes and the greatest foreign policy challenge of our time: How to make sure China keeps lending us enough money to stay afloat.
There were even reports of a panicked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson going down on one knee before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who no doubt appreciated the gesture.
Yet all that drama produced no soaring rhetoric, no heartfelt plea to keep the faith, not even a desperate petition to the Almighty to ensure the Chinese cash flow.
The only slightly memorable line came late in the show when McCain unexpectedly stated that North Koreans are three inches shorter than their South Korean cousins, though the point wasn’t entirely clear.
The audience had little difficulty following Lehrer’s orders to keep quiet.
Many viewers no doubt expected more from Obama, who usually wags at least a silver tongue that sometimes goes golden. Friday night he rarely rose above copper though was conversant enough in foreign policy to make it clear, as one commentator put it, that he is ready “to sit in the big chair.” In that sense he gained the most from the debate.
He also engaged in several instances of unrequited cordiality.
McCain grumped often about Obama’s lack of experience, though his complaint had a decidedly prefabricated whiff about it, as did his joke about not being voted Mr. Congeniality, no funnier the second time than the first.
The body language was equally uninspiring.
Obama had a habit of leaning backward, sometimes pointing his index finger skyward, as if posing for a sculptor who specializes in pieces for branch libraries. Some camera angles also reminded of Ross Perot’s line: “I’m all ears.” Cartoonists will be in deep clover if he wins.
As Obama rattled on, McCain leaned over his podium scribbling notes, bringing to mind Old Man Potter going over the week’s foreclosures in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” One wished a probing camera had shown us what McCain was writing – maybe something along the lines of “Callow Dolt.”
There were a few important moments.
McCain promised that under his watch the United States would no longer be in the torture business. Considering his wartime history this was a particularly poignant moment, though one that likely inspired considerable forehead slapping at the White House.
More surprisingly, Obama indicated his future Middle East policies might be as aggressive as McCain’s, maybe more so.
Like McCain, he won’t tolerate a nuclear Iran, and is all for sending more troops to Afghanistan ASAP. He also supported uninvited military incursions into Pakistan, a country that actually has weapons of mass destruction and perhaps the will to use them, or loan one to someone who will. McCain seemed stunned by Obama’s willingness to go public on the issue.
It seems we’re all neo-cons now.
One hopes that between now and the next presidential debate, scheduled for Oct. 7 in Nashville (unless interrupted by another national emergency), the candidates will work on their rhetorical chops and gin up a bit more stage presence.
Meantime, the junior varsity team has a grand opportunity to shine.
Joe Biden made the post-debate rounds, spinning and bloviating and making it clear he won’t need much prodding to tangle with Sarah Palin.
The Alaska Amazon was elsewhere Friday night, perhaps brushing up such things as the definition of selling short and asking advisers “what in the hell is a long bond?”
She had had a pretty dynamic week herself, including growing interest in that YouTube clip of her being blessed – successfully it appears -- by an African witch hunter prior to her bid for the Alaska governorship.
She ought to park the Kenyan in the wings Thursday night. She may need him.

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

Breakthrough
Eight Steps to Wellness
Suzanne Somers

Crown, 450 pages, $25.95

Suzanne Somers begins her latest book with a fantasy – perhaps appropriate for an author whose famously sculpted thighs have sent countless imaginations soaring. She’s 94 years old, clear-minded, energetic, and starts most days “with wonderful sex with my 105-year-old husband, Alan.” From this vantage point she also looks back – and perhaps down -- on friends who chuckled at “intravenous drips of Vitamin C” and other life-prolonging strategies, but “who’s laughing now?” The scoffers are either in the grave or drooling away their days in nursing homes. Ms. Somers, a cancer survivor, promises variations on her bliss for those who practice what she preaches, including hormone replacement therapy, wariness of pharmaceuticals, a well-maintained gastro-intestinal tract, stockpiling stem cells, and avoiding bad stuff like diet sodas, which can cause dementia in 30 year olds (and we always blamed video games). The book includes interviews with ‘cutting edge’ doctors who, she says, courageously face ridicule and even possible legal action in their war against the setting sun. Ms. Somers writes with the passion of the prophet, though one suspects she also suffers from an acute fear of aging and death. There’s humor when she thanks those responsible for “designing this beautiful book cover with their usual style and taste” – a cover featuring a close-up of Ms. Somers’ pretty face, which will eventually go the way of all pretty faces, though perhaps a bit later than sooner.

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – If you’re in the mood to see an investment swindler get his due, instead of perhaps a bonus check, be sure to tune into “The Shadow in the North,” a pleasantly creepy mystery airing on PBS Sept. 28 at 9 p.m. New York time.
The crook is Axel Bellmann (Jared Harris) a twisted Scandinavian who pinched a respectable old lady’s life savings, apparently thinking she’d just go away. Screwing this investor turned out to have very serious consequences. She hires Sally Lockhart (Billie Piper), to get her dough back.
Piper, last seen playing a London-based hooker in “Secret Diary of A Call Girl,” is in a new line of work in this 90-minute film, based on the novels of Philip Pullman. She’s an investment counselor/private investigator who rolls over for no man.
She also has a different look this time out: a large pile of blond hair sometimes topped with a comical little hat. Sarah Palin comes up a few inches short in comparison.
Many eyes, to be sure, will be focused a bit south: Miss Lockhart has a blue-ribbon cleavage and knows how to work it. This may represent a bit of historical wardrobe license: The film is set in Edwardian London, where flashing the goods was frowned upon.
But who’s complaining? Certainly not the reference librarian mesmerized by Miss Lockhart’s charms. She also has plenty of spunk, which she’ll need to crack this case.
There’s a supernatural element to the story, which starts with a gruesome stabbing, a vision of which haunts the minds of characters who were nowhere near the scene of the crime. Those afflicted include Nellie Budd (Dona Croll), a saucy clairvoyant who’s a bit of a con herself.
We see her working a séance, where she channels the spirit of a participant’s dead husband.
“Ella!” the medium screams.
“Charles, is that you?”
“Tell Perkins in the shop to mind his cheese!”
Then she is suddenly gripped by an unsolicited vision of the stabbing and takes to shouting about “blood on the snow” before letting go a piercing scream. For the record, she also has a piercing cleavage, though at this moment all eyes are likely to rest on her sonorous orifice.
There are skeptics, including Fred Garland (JJ Feild), a detective with a hard view of the spiritualist league and a soft spot for Miss Lockhart, who repays the favor. Sadly for Fred, he’s no match for our heroine at any level, including survival skills.
The plot moves quickly as she pieces together Bellmann’s plot, which includes bilking investors, murder, and the creation of a steam-powered weapon of mass destruction. There’s a fair amount of carnage along the way, including beatings, a knifing and even a roasting. Yet these are all tastefully portrayed, as we’d expect from a co-production of the BBC and WGBH/Boston.
The saddest scene involves the death, by gunshot, of Miss Lockhart’s dog, a massive black hound nearly big enough for her to ride. Animal fans in the audience will immediately conclude that no fate can be too heinous for the perpetrators.
They won’t be disappointed.
The end is somewhat bittersweet, though our sensuous sleuth does get her client’s money back without relying on government intervention, which these days seems a truly supernatural feat.

(

Vamps Depart Coffins, Seek Mainstream in HBO Series

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – The time has come to rethink the vampire question.
“True Blood,” a strange but often amusing new HBO series debuting Sept. 7 at 9 p.m. New York time, disputes the historic belief that the only good vampire is one with a stake through his heart.
The scariest creatures in this show sleep in beds, not coffins.
The series, based on novels by Charlaine Harris, is set in the small Louisiana hamlet of Bon Temps. Thanks to the invention of Tru Blood, a synthetic hemo-drink, vampires can establish meaningful relationships with humans without guzzling their gore.
Another example of better living through chemistry, though not everyone believes vampires belong in the mainstream. The struggle for tolerance is one of the show’s themes, though at heart this is a love story.
Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), is a goodhearted waitress who has the ability to read minds. That’s not an enviable talent during business hours at Merlotte’s, where the brain waves are far from elevated. We’re reminded that if we really knew what was on people’s minds we’d want to bang most of them over the head with a lead pipe.
Her life changes dramatically when a tall, dark stranger walks into Merlotte’s. Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) sends Sookie swooning. “I’ve been waiting for this to happen ever since they came out of the coffin two years ago,” she gushes.
Yes, Bill is a vamp. And it appears to be love at first site.
Though 173 years old, Bill could easily pass for a twentysomething, and that’s not his only attribute. “I can’t hear you,” Sookie says of her inability to monitor his mental transmissions. She’s also a bit surprised by some of his other qualities, including room-temperature hands, until she is reminded by a workmate that he’s not really alive, in the traditional sense.
“That’s not his fault,” she says protectively.
Bill is clearly attracted to Sookie, sensing a superhuman element in the chirpy blond. One suspects they may be exchanging vital fluids soon, yet for now they are embodiments of innocence, which distinguishes them from several locals.
The debut features steamy sex scenes you won’t find in any Bela Lugosi film, including an extremely animated vamp/human encounter augmented by a rope. There’s also a murder pinned on Sookie’s brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten), a local horndog of note. Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), Sookie’s best pal, has a salty tongue but good heart, while bar owner Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) carries a torch for Sookie. Maybe he should get himself a set of fangs to improve his chances.
The vilest characters are the Rattrays (Karina Logue and James Parks), who supplement their dope-selling income by “draining” unsuspecting vampires and selling the blood on the black market. That leaves Bill a few pints low before he’s rescued by Sookie, though at show’s end it looks like he’ll soon be in a position to return the favor.
The tolerance theme provides plenty of jokes. A spokeswoman for the American Vampire League tells Bill Maher (who plays himself) that “we never owned slaves or detonated nuclear weapons.” Good point – and that’s a nice set of incisors you’re packing, sweetheart. “Fang-bangers” are vampire groupies, and there’s a Vampire Rights Amendment embraced by the more progressive members of society.
Not a show for everyone, though it’s likely to find a loyal audience among open-minded viewers, plus those who believe vampire/human rope-sex is a taboo worth retiring.



(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – There’s a devil in Steven Bochco’s new legal series, and she’s not wearing Prada.
Judge Trudy Kessler (Jane Kaczmarek) has a heart as black as her robes in “Raising the Bar,” which debuts on TNT Sept. 1 at 10 p.m. New York time.
She’s a hanging judge who, in a just world, would be strung up herself.
The pilot pits Kessler against New York City public defender Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), who definitely wears the white robes in this drama.
Jerry, shaggy and sometimes stentorian, is given to dramatic declarations about truth, justice and the wretched nature of the legal system. You often get the feeling he really, really wants you to know what a saint he is.
His clients aren’t complaining, however. Jerry will go to the wall for them, and to jail, where he lands a couple of times thanks to the evil judge.
The hour-long show is tightly written and features other vibrant characters, including a couple of babes who could easily have made the “Law & Order” varsity team.
Michelle Ernhardt (Melissa Sagemiller) is an assistant DA with an idealistic streak of her own. Blond, thin and bold, she steps out of the shower late in the program to reveal a world-class back. Bobbi Gilardi (Natalia Cigluiti), a brunette from the public defenders office, should also command a loyal oogleship.
Judge Trudy has a creepy counterpart in District Attorney Nick Balco (Currie Graham), a bloviating reptile also obsessed with putting scalps on the wall. He notes that if a criminal on trial didn’t actually commit the crime “trust me, he did something else we didn’t get him for.” The cool head in this office belongs to attorney Marcus McGrath (J. August Richards), whose sense of justice is totally at odds with Balco’s.
The public defender’s office, run by Roz Whitman (Gloria Reuben), is right out of central casting, complete with a Greenpeace bumper sticker and one proclaiming “Make Love, Not War.” Yet there’s an odd man out: Richard Patrick Woolsley (Teddy Sears), a rich kid who wears cuff links to work and has the hots for Roz. Immaculate or not, he’s defending a guy who stabbed a man 36 times, then did a Lorena Bobbitt procedure on the corpse.
“I was angry,” the budding surgeon explains.
The central combat is between Jerry and Trudy, who spar over the fate of a man falsely accused of rape. Trudy lectures Jerry that “process creates truth,” though her process includes piling on 7 years for possessing a pocketknife and setting bail beyond reach.
Jerry has another view of her motivation: “Sadist!”
The show has addiction potential, fueled by intertwining romantic story lines, especially Trudy’s. She’s hot for her law clerk, Charlie Sagansky (Jonathan Scarfe) who has, she purrs during a brief nibbling session, the “softest lips in the world.”
If she finds out where else those lips have been she’s going to freak. Maybe there really will be some justice in her world.
We shall see.
Jerry’s not the only crusader on the air Monday. Curious George is back for his third season on PBS Kids (check local listings). His mission: save the Earth.
Still dapper in his basic brown suit and joined by longtime associate the Man with the Yellow Hat, George is out to teach kiddies the joys and nobility of recycling, composting, and saving various critters.
He spends most of his opener with that big smile on his face, making some of us wonder if he might be smoking a few of those bananas.
If so, let’s hope Judge Trudy doesn’t find out. She’d probably have him shot and stuffed.

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)


To contact the writer of this story:
Dave Shiflett at dshifl@aol.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Manuela Hoelterhoff in New York at +1-212-617-3486 or
mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

By Dave Shiflett
August 25(Bloomberg) – Being black in America isn’t like it used to be, but not all it should be, either.
That’s the message from ”The Black List: Vol. 1,” a poignant HBO special featuring Colin Powell, Toni Morrison, Chris Rock, Kareem Abdul—Jabbar, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Serena Williams and other prominent African-Americans. The 90-minute documentary film airs August 25 at 9 p.m. New York time.
There’s a distinct age divide, with the older generation recalling days when being black invited harassment, and worse.
Powell recalls driving his Volkswagen, complete with LBJ bumper sticker, through rural Alabama when a state trooper pulled him over.
“Boy,” he recalls the trooper telling him, “you need to get out of here as fast as you can.” Powell says that was some of the best advice he ever got.
Sharpton, much more reflective than on the cable shout-shows, praises the black church as one of the “few places we could assemble” where “whites didn’t dictate the program.” Churches, he adds, nurtured political and cultural leaders who would eventually transform white America.
He singles out singer James Brown as an especially powerful mover and shaker. While other blacks had entered the mainstream, Sharpton says, Brown “made the mainstream go black.”
Journalist Elvis Mitchell conducts the brief interviews, shot by filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Several of the celebrities, including tennis star Serena Williams and Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison, pay tribute to their parents.
Morrison’s father instilled a spirit of independence by insisting she was “not beholden to someone else’s opinion” while Williams’ parents taught her and sister Venus to play tennis; she also praises Muhammad Ali, whose willingness to go to jail for his beliefs was a profound inspiration.
Youthful A-listers also acknowledge a debt to their professional elders. Comic Chris Rock says he was fortunate to follow in the footsteps of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Bill Cosby, while rock guitarist Slash praises Jimi Hendrix and also says he was “never phased by the color barrier.”
Perhaps the most engaging interview is with basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who recalls finding musket balls and arrowheads while growing up in New York. His interest in history eventually inspired him to write “Black Profiles in Courage” from which he delivers an arresting quotation: “I’d rather be a lamppost in Harlem than governor of Georgia.”
Abdul-Jabbar also tells of meeting jazzman Miles Davis, who eyed the towering ballplayer and said “It must cost you about five hundred dollars to get a necktie.” Abdul-Jabbar says he expected a “more meaningful moment” though the two later became close friends.
Black advancement has created resentment, including complaints of “preferential treatment” that are directly addressed by Powell and Sharpton.
Powell says whenever he’s accused of getting a job simply because he is black he smiles and replies, “Okay, well for 200 years I didn’t get the job because I was black.” Sharpton recalls a discussion with a black conservative who told him he didn’t owe his success to the civil rights movement. Sharpton replied that the movement “made somebody read your resume.”
While great advances have been made, he adds, not all is well in Black America. “Manhood has become thuggism,” he says. “You’re a real man because you got shot.”
Powell concludes that while Barack Obama’s candidacy is a leading indicator of positive change, America will not be where it should be until all blacks, Hispanics, and poor whites have greater opportunity than they do today.
As the Reverend Sharpton might say, Amen to that.

www.hbo.com


(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett

Clyde Edgerton’s latest novel features a Bible salesman and a professional car thief, as well as fishin', grits eatin', rabbit skinnin’ and dispute resolution via small arms fire. Yes, we are in the South.

Henry Dampier, the main character, sells holy writ from door to door in rural North Carolina. He is both a believer and an entrepreneur, but when we meet him he is beginning to entertain doubts about his fundamentalist faith. Genesis in particular doesn’t seem to add up when he reads it literally. As for his personal life, it doesn’t add up all that well either. Henry’s love interest, Marleen, works in the agricultural sector (a fruit stand) and leads him, Eve-like, to a knowledge of good and evil. Satan’s stand-in is Preston Clearwater, a handsome, silver-tongued rogue who convinces Henry that he is leading an FBI sting operation and gets Henry to drive his stolen cars.

Mr. Edgerton, who teaches writing at the University of North Carolina/Wilmington, spins a breezy and sometimes humorous yarn, though the stereotype police may come knocking. Some characters make Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel—the regular redneck on “The Simpsons”—seem like a Rhodes scholar. “I didn’t kiss my husband afore we was married and I didn’t kiss him after” says Sarah, mother of 11. Wondering about her dental profile? “She had two teeth down bottom, and that seemed about it.”

Henry continues to wrestle with writ, wondering how David, the noted psalmist, could live in the Lord’s house forever since he never met Jesus. Real fundamentalists, of course, know that, for an Almighty who can create the universe in six days, talking snake and all, it’s a cinch to get David a berth in Glory Land. The tale concludes pleasantly, with Clearwater getting his due—Southern style—while Henry heads toward matrimony and something akin to a mild Methodism. A few chapters more and he would no doubt have gone Unitarian.

By Dave Shiflett

August is the cruelest month, at least for many American students force- marched back to their classrooms.
The poor dears should check out “Baghdad High,” a HBO documentary on a year in the life of four war zone students airing August 4 at 9 p.m. New York time.
The footage was shot during the 2006-2007 school year by the 17-year-olds and crafted into a compelling 90-minute film by Ivan O’Mahoney and Laura Winter.
The soundtrack features the famed composer Kalashnikov, whose rat-a-tat small arms chatter is a constant in the film, augmented by mortar fire, bombs, and helicopter flyovers.
It’s a miracle that Hayder, Ali, Mohammed and Anmar get anything done.
Their school day begins in a dirt courtyard with the raising of the national flag, followed by a harangue by the principal.
“My sons, you are the sons of Mesopotamia, an ancient civilization that has been here for thousands of years!” he bellows. As we soon see, even Mesopotamia has experienced profound updates.
Hayder is an aspiring songwriter who warbles along with Britney Spears. Rap provides background music during Koran studies. One senses the religious police might run Hayder up the flagpole if they ever caught onto him.
Ali, meantime, has interest in becoming an architect, while Anmar is a soccer whiz. Mohammed is the troupe’s clown, with a big smile and a soft heart. At one point he befriends a mouse, though unfortunately his mother is old school and poisons the rodent. Death’s constantly at the elbow in this neighborhood.
Life is also marked by continuous electricity outages, shortages of fuel for generators (sometimes remedied by draining the family car’s gas tank) and nightmares of being shot or abducted.
The young filmmakers do a good job of capturing the edgy nature of their environment. In a particularly stunning scene, a mortar attack on a gas station has sent a massive pillar of black smoke into the blazing blue sky. We’re also reminded that Iraq remains a man’s world.
“Iraqi women cannot claim citizenship for their children,” Mohammed’s mother complains, and since Mohammed’s father left home before his son’s birth, the latter may not be able to receive documents allowing him to enroll in the university and get a passport.
Being a good mom, she eventually gets the paperwork done, apparently with the help of a bribe. Viewers will also note there are no girls at the high school, though there are love interests.
At show’s start Anmar hasn’t heard from his girlfriend in four days. “I don’t know what to do,” he frets. She finally checks in via a text message: “My love, call me in an hour and a half,” she beckons. Batteries recharged, Anmar boasts that “she loves me too much – it’s abnormal.”
The film also focuses on world-shaking events, including Saddam Hussein’s execution, a cause for cheering in Mohammed’s household. “Saddam offered two things,” Mohammed says. “Security, and killing.” As for the American presence, Hayder’s mother says that like many Iraqis she initially saw American troops as “saviors” though things hadn’t gotten better as promised. “We shouldn’t blame the Americans for everything,” she adds. “There’s something wrong with us, too.”
Despite being surrounded by death, the four boys seem normal, hopeful, and humane. Ali and Mohammed rescue a wounded pigeon, which they name “As You Like It.” It also appears that living in a deadly neighborhood has its appeal.
Ali eventually leaves with his family for the Kurdish regions to the north, which, while peaceful, has drawbacks. There’s limited knowledge of western music, he complains: “They only know Michael Jackson.”
Worse yet, there are “no bombings, nothing, just boring,” Ali says. “There is the action element in Baghdad. It’s all about action all the time.”
In war zones, as elsewhere, boys will apparently be boys.


(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

By Dave Shiflett
“Mad Men” fan alert: not all is well in Weasel-land.
Bristling with 16 Emmy nominations, the AMC series about Madison Avenue’s grimy underbelly opens its second season Sunday night at 10 p.m. New York time with plenty of alcohol, tobacco, sex and intriguing story lines.
Set at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, circa 1960, the men remain weasels, the gals are mostly dolls, and everyone’s on the make.
Writer/producer/creator Matt Weiner, however, is shaking things up a bit.
Creative director Don Draper (Jon Hamm) retains his slick hair, impenetrable arrogance and silver tongue, though all is not well elsewhere.
We first encounter him in a doctor’s office, where he gets a report of high blood pressure and a subsequent lecture about his five-drink, two-pack-a-day lifestyle (one assumes he’s confessing to half his actual alcohol intake).
The doc writes him up for blood pressure medication and Phenobarbital, which may come in handy down the road.
His ticker’s not the only thing in danger. A Valentine tryst with wife Betty (January Jones) ends with a whimper, not a bang, suggesting his plutonium-powered libido may have developed a short circuit.
Meanwhile, back at the ad shop, ambitious underlings Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) and supreme weasel Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), have troubles of their own.
Agency partner Roger Sterling (John Slattery) wants to bring in some fresh blood. “Clients like the thrill of young talent,” he says. Draper, perhaps barbiturate braced, proclaims that “Young people don’t know anything.” Yet if a knife lands in his back in episodes to come, its pilot may be a twenty-something, a couple of whom he interviews in the opener.
Weiner’s characters are mostly the types whose obituaries would warm readers’ hearts. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), the junior copywriter with the varsity rack, is a preening suck-up. Office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) has a heart of ice, while, for Pete, the best Christmas present would be a d-Con cupcake.
Draper’s mounting woes may humanize him but he’s still an arrogant blowhard who takes himself and his trade far too seriously. In one of Weiner’s more amusing scenes in the sometime sluggish opener, Draper and Olson brainstorm the right line for an airline ad. After some intense back and forth, Olson comes up with “What did you bring me, Daddy?”
We’re reminded that in the persuasion industry, a genius is often the person who comes up with the most pedestrian phrase or cliché.
Another holdover from last season: prodigious alcohol consumption. Cocktail hour starts around noon and ends when blissed heads hit the pillow. Viewers worried about their own consuming habits will likely find comfort in comparison to these lushes. If not, it really may be time to book a berth in the detox ward.
These are also world-class cigarette smokers -- everyone seems to smoke except Draper’s children -- who also take their wardrobes and grooming very seriously: The guys’ shoes are so shiny they could use them to look up their co-workers’ skirts. Maybe that’s the idea. Up top, hair is carefully combed, lubed and seemingly impervious to high winds.
There are nice period touches, including an archived televised White House tour by Jackie Kennedy, who appears a bit stiff and flat-faced. There are also suggestions of deep intrigues ahead, including what appears to be Betty’s budding interest in the world’s oldest profession.
Don better get his mojo workin’ and keep those prescriptions filled.

My brother-in-law, Harvey Laub, died July 13. His memorial service was July 20. Last count, there were 205 cars there, which by my estimate puts 4-500 people at the memorial service, held in the meeting hall at Innisfree, outside of Charlottesville, VA.

Harvey was a family doctor who began his medical career at a reservation for the Spokane Indians in Washington state. He later practiced family medicine in Virginia. He died at age 53, far too young. His was a hard death, from lung cancer. He maintained his spirit and dignity until the very end.

His was a life that mattered, in a positive way. It's my hope that somewhere in this universe, or perhaps the one beyond, Harvey's seeing patients. There's no doubt he lives in the hearts of all who knew him.

After his diagnosis with stage four lung cancer, Harvey wrote a song for my sister. It is a terrific song -- entitled 'Just Want to Know (That I've Beeen Know By You)' and you can find it on the Music Page. Another friend who lost a family member to cancer said that Harvey had said just what she wished her dad had said to her mom before he passed on. So, please send Harvey's song around to anyone you think might benefit from it. And God bless you, Harvey Laub.

Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – HBO’s “Generation Kill” will thrill fans of David Simon and Ed Burns, who brought us “The Wire,” that gritty tale of urban warfare in Baltimore.
This time the target is Baghdad and environs. The seven-part miniseries, which runs Sunday nights starting July 13 at 9 p.m. New York time, is told from the perspective the Marine’s First Reconnaissance Battalion, the “tip of the spear” in the ground invasion of Iraq.
You wouldn’t want to meet these guys in a dark desert – or a well-lighted one. You might not want you sister to meet them either, unless she’s very tough.
Based on the award-winning book by Evan Wright, a Rolling Stone reporter embedded with the First Recon, the series starts out as the troops cool their heels in northern Kuwait awaiting the green light from Lt. Col. Stephen “Godfather” Ferrando (Chance Kelly), whose raspy voice, he informs Wright (played by Lee Tergesen) is not the result of smoking, but throat cancer.
“I guess I got lucky,” he croaks.
The large cast also includes David Barrera, Josh Barrett, Neal Jones, Billy Lush, Michael Kelly, Alexander Skarsgard, John Huertas, Marc Menchaca, Eric Nenninger, Wilson Bethel, Benjamin Busch, J. Salome Martinez Jr. and Brian Patrick Wade.
They portray very tough guys, though Wright says there are no fictional or composite characters in the series. One Marine has A-bomb envy, wishing he had been in on the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soldiers mock letters from school children who believe peace is better than war. Au contraire, comes one response: “War is the mother------- answer.”
Viewers with G-rated ears may want to find something else to watch. These Marines often make the street criminals on “The Wire” sound like ushers at a tent revival.
They’re also a sensitivity trainer’s worst nightmare. In one of the more printable cultural observations, one Marine recalls a woman with “eyes so slanty you could blindfold her with dental floss.” Racial and sexual epithets are delivered with mini-gun speed.
And while there are no women at the tip of this spear, they have a definite presence. The grunts are wary of Wright until he reveals that he once wrote the “Beaver Hunt” feature for Hustler magazine, which makes him an immediate hero. And in a profoundly unprintable analysis, a soldier explains why the entire war could have been avoided if the sexually repressed Republican Guard had spent a week in Vegas.
There’s not much combat in the opener, though one soldier is burned by an exploding espresso machine. Instead there’s a focus on the mundane aspects of military life. Skoal smokeless tobacco is popular, and while Skittles candy is allowed in Humvees, Charms are banned because they’re thought to bring misfortune.
Meantime, soldiers endure pettiness at an extreme level. Sergeant Major John Sixta (Neal Jones) enforces the unit’s “moustache protocol” with howitzer-level ferocity, one reason why he’s known, far behind his back, as “Mr. Potato Head.”
While the series focuses on the initial weeks of the war, it includes controversies that have marked the five-year conflict. The first encounter with armed Iraqis results in the Marines being ordered to hold their fire, an example of rules of engagement many soldiers believed are dangerously stringent, and perhaps of a killjoy nature.
“I had a beautiful head shot,” complains one sharpshooter.
Meantime, refugees given promise of safe haven are given serious reason to regret their trust.
Yet this isn’t a politicized version of the invasion, but instead promises to show the war in realistic terms. Simon and Burns do deliver some memorable lines I don’t recall hearing from network embeds, including a classic from a soldier watching the bombardment unfold through night-vision glasses:
“Damn, I wish I had some ‘shrooms.”


www.hbo.com

(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)


To contact the writer of this story:
Dave Shiflett at dshifl@aol.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Manuela Hoelterhoff in New York at +1-212-617-3486 or
mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – “The History Detectives,” just into its sixth season on PBS, provides a cool antidote to this summer’s overheated political yack.
There’s no ranting or raving, though plenty of reminders that political treachery and buffoonery are hardly modern inventions.
The July 7 episode, airing at 9 p.m. New York time, opens with a segment about a flag purchased on the Internet. It’s not much to look at: a red handprint on a white background, bordered by red vertical stripes and American flags sewn on front and back corners. Its owner, a black female veteran, suspects it may have belonged to an African-American World War I infantry unit.
Elyse Luray, a nice-looking blond and former Christie’s appraiser, goes in search of its origins. In the process she revisits a painful chapter in America’s long history of racial discrimination: wartime officials didn’t want blacks to rise even to the level of cannon fodder.
According to the show, 700,000 blacks signed up for military service the first week of the war, proving they were patriots despite being, in many respects, second-class citizens. Some 2 million joined the military during the conflict.
Yet they were largely assigned to labor details, perhaps out of fear that black combat heroes would upset notions that African-Americans could not or would not fight. Protests ensued, however, and two black divisions were created, though even then the U.S. excluded most black soldiers from combat. Instead, they were assigned to French commanders, who knew better.
Luray discovers the flag was the pennant of a French general whose black unit took heavy casualties. She further reports the heroic sacrifices of black soldiers were sometimes left unrecognized until long after hostilities ceased.
Cpl. Freddie Stowers, the only black soldier from World War I awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, was killed Sept 28, 1918. Congress didn’t get around to honoring him until April 24, 1991.
An innocent oversight, no doubt.
There’s nothing fancy about the hour-long episodes. The “detectives” simply visit experts who help them piece together their historic puzzles. If there’s a prevailing theme it’s that seemingly ordinary objects are sometimes part of a large, often troubling, mosaic.
In another segment Gwendolyn Wright, a Columbia University professor of architecture, planning, preservation and history, sets out to shed some light on a ramshackle building located in Isleton, California. While the structure looks like wrecking ball bait, she eventually discovers it was home to a branch of the Bing Kong tong, headquartered in San Francisco.
While tongs are routinely associated with violence and crime, Wright learns that most were simply community organizations for belabored and sometimes besieged Chinese immigrants.
Some members did take part in the “vice trades” of prostitution and opium smuggling, partly because the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which declared that the presence of Chinese laborers “endangers the good order of certain localities” and put many immigrants out of work.
One hopes that legislative triumph doesn’t give contemporary politicians any ideas.
The remaining segment traces the origins of a painting, also bought on the Internet, supposedly the work of 19th century artist Seth Eastman. The Belfast dealer let it go for a song – a bit over $300, even though some Eastman paintings have brought more than $900,000.
Tukufu Zuberi, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, eventually discovers the painting, which features a couple of Indians playing checkers, is a fake. In the process he stumbles on another example of political infamy, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which expelled all Indians who lived east of Mississippi.
Eastman, he reports, was not only a painter who documented Indian life but a soldier who helped implement the expulsion policy. An apparent Renaissance man, he had a secret Indian wife with whom he had a child, a descendent of whom Zuberi tracks down.
She declines an invitation to trash he famed relative, explaining she was “raised to respect” her elders.
A refreshing program that reminds us “the good old days” have yet to arrive.

20th Century Pox: War, Race Hatred, Mass Slaughter

By Dave Shiflett
(Bloomberg) – Historian Niall Ferguson compares the 20th Century’s unrivalled bloodletting to the mayhem depicted in H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” with one difference: Humans played the part of marauding Martian invaders.
Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard, counts the bodies, and suggests causes, in “The War of the World,” which airs on PBS starting June 30 at 10 p.m. New York time.
The three-part series, which opens with footage of a flamethrower doing its signature work, deeply challenges the notion that we’re an advanced species, save at the art of extermination.
Why was the century so bloody?
Ferguson argues that three factors converged to create a “hundred-year global war”: economic volatility, the breakdown of formerly harmonious multi-ethnic societies in places like Yugoslavia and Poland, and the unraveling of old empires, which unleashed a wave of revolutions and similar power gropes.
Racial animosity also reached new levels of virulence, Ferguson says. Hate recognized no borders. The Russian press denounced the Japanese as “jaundiced monkeys” in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese war; the Japanese repaid the compliment by sending most of the Baltic fleet to the bottom of the sea in 1905.
The Japanese held the Chinese in similar regard, starting a war in 1937 that Ferguson says was the real outbreak of World War II. Then there was Hitler and company: Ferguson argues that the Holocaust, while not the first of the century’s genocides, was unique because it was carried out by one of the most sophisticated and highly educated societies in history.
Hitler, he adds, considered Americans a “decadent” and “racially mongrel people.” Whatever our racial credentials, we were very good at building weapons, which we gladly lent to Joseph Stalin, another ferocious race-baiter.
Viewers who believe Stalin has too long walked in Hitler’s murderous shadow will find a kindred spirit in Ferguson, who closely examines Stalin’s bloody policies, many of which, he argues, were “racial persecution disguised as class warfare.” Stalin, he says, was “deeply suspicious” of all non-Russians, and Stalin’s suspicion was often a death sentence.
In an arresting segment, Ferguson peruses the archives of the Soviet Gulag – row upon row of brown-covered books containing the names and pictures of victims. He finds it “rather haunting to look at these faces” and reads the entry of a woman who got ten years in the camps for simply criticizing the government.
Ferguson’s views on the Allies’ victory in World War 11, featured in the second installment (July 7), will likely be the most controversial. Ferguson argues that 1943-45 was the “cataclysmic crux” of the “war of the world,” during which the Allies adopted some of the same strategies as the Axis powers.
American troops often killed Japanese soldiers attempting to surrender, he says, partially explaining why some fought to the death. Allied bombers also targeted civilian populations, killing 35,000-50,000 in Hamburg, at least 35,000 in Dresden, followed by the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
While Ferguson makes a distinction between gassing innocent civilians and attacking cities in nations that unleashed war, he says the effects were frightfully similar, and calls the Allied effort a “tarnished victory.”
While the world wars featured massive killing grounds – Ferguson says the pivotal battle of Kursk (1943) between Germany and the Soviets took place on a battlefield “the size of Wales”— many deaths occurred in more remote places and circumstances. The “age of genocide” kicked off, he says, with the 1915 Turkish slaughter of up to 1.5 Armenians, many of whom were driven into the desert to perish. Within Russia, millions died from either execution or starvation policies.
All told, the dogs of war have been insatiable and Ferguson warns they’re hardly sleeping.
The series concludes July 14 with a look at the last half of the 20th century, which wasn’t so great an improvement over the first. With some 20 million deaths in conflicts including proxy wars between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, it’s safe to say the Age of Aquarius was mostly a theatrical phenomenon.
Meantime, a new Eastern power is rising – China – whose expansive designs may cause as much mayhem as Japan’s imperial excesses, Ferguson warns. The Middle East, he adds, could unleash a conflict as staggering as “anything we saw in the 20th Century.”
One comes away thinking a backyard bomb shelter may be a wise investment after all.

Not so secret, this diary reminds why many of us don't take up sex professionally.

By Dave Shiflett
Most people like sex but probably wouldn’t want to do it professionally.
“Secret Diary of A Call Girl,” which debuts on Showtime June 16 at 10:30 p.m. New York time, reminds us why.
Inspired by the books/blog of a hooker named Belle, the London-based series was a hit in the UK and is slated for eight episodes this year.
It’s not likely to make anyone forget “Sex And The City,” though it has a few charms.
Belle, played by Billie Piper, is a plain-spoken professional. “The first thing you should know about me is that I’m a whore,” she says early on, though not the type who works the stalls at the bus station.
“I’m very high class,” she discloses while sitting on the john, which isn’t the first john she’ll be sitting on during the opener.
Belle’s no skank, to be sure. She has a pretty face, a fairly low-riding set of customer incentives and nice buns she rents out for lots of dough.
“I charge by the hour. I charge a lot,” though she doesn’t disclose her fee. She adds that she’s no stereotypical streetwalker with abuse and/or addiction in her past. Instead, she simply has two loves -- sex and money -- though not in that order.
One of her iron rules of commerce is that she gets paid up front.
Belle discloses a few other tricks of the trade: stay in control, practice good hygiene, and wear men’s deodorant. A hooker doesn’t want to send a customer home smelling like a dame, she explains.
The half-hour show features some slightly steamy sex, if you can get past her sometimes unimpressive partners. Though she hands them a toothbrush and a towel before encounters they don’t always clean up so well.
Her first client, for instance, is a somewhat sallow fellow with long sideburns and minimal muscle tone. That he and attractive Belle are in the same room, much less bed, is a stirring reminder of money’s power to bring people together.
She takes him where he wants to go, leaving him nearly in need of a session with a defibrillator. He’s clearly stricken and returns before the curtain drops.
Belle also takes on a younger, more sensitive john whose initial encounter is somewhat limp, though he eventually comes around. One notices that Belle can go from cold to hot in the flick of a switch – or, more precisely, as soon as she has cash in hand. She moans and shrieks like she really means it, which probably comes in handy at tip time.
On the business and administrative end of things, Belle has an “agent” named Stephanie (Cherie Lunghi), who serves as madam to several other girls. She’s strictly business and somewhat grasping; perhaps she attended Wharton. At a restaurant meeting Belle tells her she’d like to order some food but assumes Stephanie will take a sizable cut of the entre. And no doubt leave Belle the bone.
Despite her professional pride Belle is not keen on her family learning what she really does for a living. To them she is known as Hannah and works as a legal secretary. Future episodes take up this additional source of friction in her life.
Meantime, this is a fairly sterile presentation of the sex trade without much feeling for its grittier aspects, such as dealing with mean drunks, massively fat people, mysterious rashes and perhaps the occasional discovery of a well-fed tick.
Yet the opener does end with an amusing example of the breadth of desire. The sallow fellow returns for an equestrian adventure. He dons a saddle while Belle drives, crop in hand, reminding us that humans are rarely more humorous than when amorous.