g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
Steven Den Beste
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
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Secular Islam
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.clue
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Cartago Delenda Est




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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
09:51 - At least the trains run on culture

(top) link
Remember this?

AVC: Right, right. Culturally, how do you feel about it?

AM: It may sound weird, but I don't really look for culture, particularly in an American city. I went to Havana, and I was like, "Wow, there's culture everywhere!" I don't think the American government has a lot of respect for culture. That was one thing that I did notice when I went to Cuba was that artists are paid to be artists, and poets are paid to be poets, and musicians are paid to be musicians by the government. The government—and I'm not saying that the Cuban government's perfect—but the government does place a value on culture. Much more so than here, where culture is just a matter of commerce. So, you know, I don't really look for that, and I don't expect to find it in any city. You know, I'm not crazy impressed with New York. I mean, I don't buy into that whole thing: Everyone in New York is all sophisticated, and they're into art and sophisticated things, and everyone in L.A. is just shallow entertainment people. I think people are just shallow across the board.

AVC: You mentioned going to Havana. What was it like meeting Fidel Castro?

AM: It was really cool. It's cool because it's Fidel, and it's a world leader, and there's so much history behind the man and who he is in this hemisphere. And then at the end of the day, he's, I think, just like a big mayor. There's only, like, 11 million people in Cuba. He's a big mayor. He just talked a long time, and he talked and he talked and he talked and he talked... and he talked. I think it was about four hours. But I guess that's part of the Castro spirit. But, you know, it was cool, and Cuba was fantastic, at least just in terms of... Not to romanticize or glorify it, but just seeing a place that had not really been touched by the hand of American capitalism. Because it's a genuinely different place. A lot of times when you travel, things start to feel the same from place to place to place, because the same people own everything all around the world, you know?

No wonder Aaron McGruder is the fresh hotness of the Turner empire:

Ted Turner: "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There’s really no reason for them to cheat [on nukes]....I looked them right in the eyes. And they looked like they meant the truth. You know, just because somebody’s done something wrong in the past doesn’t mean they can’t do right in the future or the present. That happens all the, all the time."

Wolf Blitzer: "But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn’t that a fair assessment?"

Turner: "Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look — in the pictures that I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most other people."

Blitzer: "But, look at the way, look at the way he’s, look at the way he’s treating his own people."

Turner: "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but–"

Blitzer: "A lot of those people are starving."

Turner: "I didn’t see any, I didn’t see any brutality...."

— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, Sept. 19.

Dictators know who their friends are.

UPDATE: Okay, I kinda didn't want to ruin the sheer impact of the direct quotes with too much blathering on my part, but—in the pictures that I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most other people?! What is this guy, an infant? I'm completely at a loss as to how someone can say something like that with a straight face, on national TV no less. How does such a toddling naif get to be in such a position of financial power? Did he free a genie from a lamp or something? Geez Louise.


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