I think a great feature to add to the Netflix service would be a Share With Friend feature that would allow me to send a DVD directly from my Netflix queue to a friend I think may enjoy it. Netflix could wrap the DVD in a special envelope directed at converting those who try the service (through sharing) to becoming members.
Of course there would be some restrictions to curb the potential for abuse. I can foresee three basic rules: 1) Members can only share with any given friend (address) once per year. 2) Members can have only one movie shared at a time. 3) Members are responsible for loss/damages of any shared movies.
With these rules in place and a willing user base this new feature could be a boon for Netflix's existing viral marketing efforts.
I mocked up some screens of how this feature may be incorporated.
We need to recognize the problems that have occured with voting machines and make them better. This process begins with an investigation into the issues that have occured over the last two presidential elections. MoveOn is sponsoring a drive for this type of investigation.
We're all hearing the stories and wondering what's true and what isn't. But at least two cases of
serious problems are accepted beyond doubt:
* In Broward County, Florida, electronic voting machines counted
backwards: as more people voted, the official vote count went down.
* In one Columbus, Ohio suburb, election officials have acknowledged
that electronic voting machines credited Bush with winning 4,258
votes, even though only 638 people voted there.
I have a weakness for shows like The O.C. (and previously Dawson's Creek and even more previously My So Called Life) Some might call these shows "teen dramas" but I always thought that a bit degrading and incorrect to boot. I think these shows are more like adult comedies. Most of the writers are twenty/thirtysomething and bring that sense of humor and perspective of the world and pop culture to bear.
Someone at salon agrees:
It's tough not to suspect that, as fun as these shows actually are to watch, they're a lot more fun for the viewers in their 30s, whose cult references match those of the writers, than they are for actual teenagers. The Über Teen universe depicted therein is an echo of a certain generation, with all of its irony-masked self-consciousness and identity issues -- struggles that aren't likely to be quite so real for today's kids, who appear to struggle far less with earnest, honest, straightforward communication than those who are charged with re-creating them for the small screen. Read a few pages of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" or some short stories by Matthew Klam or a few essays by David Foster Wallace before watching one of these shows, and you'll see the earliest tones of this deeply conflicted voice, this flinchy self with its desperate need to stand for something, but its utter inability to take on any of the risk or the naive taint or the vulnerability that naturally comes with standing for something.
TV teens are a reflection of an older generation's chosen pose: snide, endlessly referential, self-conscious, and über-cool. Let's just hope, for their own sakes, real teenagers are far cooler.
...ahem, not cooler than me mind you but at least "cool enough".
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Platinum Series Extended Edition 4-disc Super Duper DVD set is set to release on December 14 with.... 50 additional minutes of footage jammed in there. That will bring the total duration of the last film to over 4 hours and 10 minutes and the complete Extended Edition Trilogy (which incidentally I am waiting for them to release as one gigantic set) to 11 hours and 22 minutes. There is also an additional 20+ hours (yeah that's right, hours) of documentaries and related footage / goodies that brings the total for the 3 extended additions to well over 50 hours of such special features — not to mention a couple Easter eggs.
In Other Movie News...
I have recently seen Ray (4/5), The Motorcycle Diaries (3.5/5), I Heart Huckabees (4/5) and The Incredibles (4.25/5), and I plan on reviewing them as soon as I get this site set up to handle such things adequately. In the mean time I will share with you some of the movies that I am eagerly anticipating the rest of the year:
Sideways - I loved Paul Giamatti American Splendor so I will give this a try.
Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events - I have been looking forward to this for a while - even before I saw that it actually looks pretty good - definitely Tim Burton-esque.
Meet the Fockers - sequel to Meet the Parents starring Dustin Hoffman as well as DeNiro and the rest.
and most eagerly anticipated...
The Life Aquatic - the new movie by Wes Anderson, writer/director of some of my favorite movies: The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and Bottle Rocket
Regardless of the results of this election there are a few things that I am going to be working towards in the coming years in terms of reforming the campaign and electing process in our Democracy/Republic. Here are the primary focuses:
- Instant Runoff Voting
- Eliminate Fundraising
- Ban Political Ads
- Mandatory, Weekly Debates
- Limits for Time Spent Campaigning
- Reform the Electoral College
Instant Runoff Voting
We need to change our elections from the politics of the "least worst" as Ralph Nader is fond of saying, to the voting for and supporting of candidates that share our views and passions as Americans.
Perhaps the largest hurdle in these suggested reforms, the two-parties do not want this because it will end their dominance over the system. But average Americans, those of us who aren't red or blue but have complicated stances on many issues, require more parties participating in the process. Some who live in countries where there are more parties will sometimes say that nothing gets done because no one has a majority — in the spirit of our founding fathers and especially Ben Franklin, I say suck it up — build consensus or compromise, such is life.
How does it work? Easy Take your top 5 candidate choices (or 3 or whatever) and rank them by preference. Don't like John Kerry but fear another four years of Bush country? Simply rank your candidates — no need to vote out of fear, don't against, vote for. That was the runoff part, now comes the instant, all the votes are tallied once (computer voting is more or less essential to this process) the top two vote getters (or however many) are culled out and the remaining are dropped off. Then the preferences for those top two are tallied and voila, we have a winner.
Eliminate Fundraising
That is, candidates must only use government (see tax) dollars in their campaign efforts. The bad news is that we as citizens cannot choose who our money goes to. The good news is that much less money will be spent on campaigns (see 'Ban Ads' below) and there will be far less wasted efforts (see 'Time Limits' below).
This will eliminate all private fundraising efforts and reduce the current requirement that our candidates be wealthy. Additionally it reduces the am mount of power political donors have, because there are no more political donors. Note that this would also ban 527 and similar groups from raising money to fund campaign efforts.
The only inherent problem with this idea is that it will be hard to determine a "cutoff" for which candidates get public funds and which do not but I am sure that with runoff voting it will be easier for 3rd parties to raise awareness and vote totals to a threshold that could be set for public funding (which we currently have in place in some form).
Ban Political Ads
Imagine no attack ads, I wonder if you can... that's right all political ads would be banned (attack or not). In their place would be 5 minute informational presentations outlining key elements of various candidates’ platforms (produced and presented by a non-partisan group, perhaps governmental) as well as televised public debates (see Weekly Debates below). The time for the debates (which I propose would be once weekly for 8 weeks preceding elections) and platform presentations would be donated by the major networks and they would carry them without interruption.
But what about freedom of speech?! You can still talk about the candidates to your heart’s content, the only restriction is that you can’t put it in an ad and play it on TV or Radio.
Mandatory, Weekly Debates
Without ads, the American people can learn about their potential leaders via debates. There needs to be more debates (1 per week for 8 weeks for Presidential candidates) and there needs to be tough moderators and open formats. If someone tries to give a canned answer, the moderator can call them on it and either force them to address the question thoughtfully or make them look foolish in the process. There needs to be more debates so that people can “get to know” the people running, not just the sound bites that are written for them. Finally the debates must be mandatory. If a candidate feels that they cannot get in front of the public and engage in healthy discourse then they are unfit for office and will be ineligible for the office.
If there are more than 2-5 candidates that meet the voter support thresholds (which there may be) then some mechanism for varying the participants of the debates should be determined, potentially with some sort of rotation — the system isn’t perfect but we can work on it.
Limits for Time Spent Campaigning
Campaigns are incredibly wasteful and in my opinion essentially rob the public of both financial and intellectual resources. Campaigns should be limited to be no more than 8 to 12 weeks in duration for all candidates, incumbents and challengers alike. This (in conjunction with eliminating fundraising (see above) will free our elected officials up to do the work we asked them to do, govern — no more 2 years of government and 2 years of campaigns. We have important issues that need to be addressed and we don’t need any more distraction or drains on resources than we already have.
Reform the Electoral College
Wait for it….that’s right, everyone’s favorite red-headed stepchild the Electoral College most likely needs to be altered or eliminated. I am not sure which route to take as it does serve a couple purposes that have some merit. If all of the above suggestions were implemented there would, perhaps be little need for electorates to cast our votes for us. As it stands now the Electoral College serves to drive people from the polls I believe and also allows entire regions of the country to be ignored during campaigns. Absolving it completely might result in the same behavior only in different areas. I do like the idea of an additional check on the system, however. Perhaps (though only marginally better than elimination) would be to promote that states to split their electoral votes based on the popular vote in their state. This keeps in place the check on the system (where Electorates could ignore the populace in some strange circumstance) but does little to nothing to address the fact that the most populace regions of the country would then get the most attention.
That’s it — maybe this will provide a jumping off point for in-depth looks at these issues in the future. And maybe after the elections I can start thinking about another type of reform, media reform. Ugh.
I find myself amused (but also sad) that most of the conservatives in our county plan on voting for Bush. This is despite the fact, that, by their very nature (indeed its within the definition), conservatives want things to remain more or less status quo, but the Bush administration is making widespread changes that are fundamentally changing our country.
What's more is they are doing it covertly. By duping moral and upstanding American into thinking that they are the party that stands for values, the Republicans are in the midst of a 3 decade long campaign to repeal almost all of the social programs put into place in the 20th century while at the same time bringing the country closer to the pattern of wealth distribution of the nineteenth century. Do we really need to reduce the taxes that corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay? Who do you suppose makes up the difference?
By and large the conservative movement in America has been widely successful. Despite the fact that, when polled, more Americans share a progressive view on most issues, it would seem that people are more than willing to throw their support towards Bush, et. al. because of perceived social concerns. Here is an example:
"...A small-town Pennsylvania man told a reporter from Newsweek in 2001...Explaining why he and his neighbors voted for George Bush, he said: 'These people are tired of moral decay. They're tired of everything being wonderful on Wall Street and Terrible on Main Street.'
- What's the matter With Kansas
This means that there are people voting Republican in order to get even with Wall Street. They have people voting completely the opposite, and happily I might add, from their best interest because of a perceived gap in values.
The problem is, however, that they have it wrong. Bush has consistently shown that he is neither good for most American's best interests or the country as a whole.
"Thomas Mann is a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, noted for his deliberateness of manner, his decency, and his near religious devotion to the ideal of bipartisan comity. Now, he says, "I see the damage to our system and our sense of ourselves as a democratic people as really quite substantial. . . . The consequences of both the policies and the processes have been more destructive of our national interest and our democratic institutions than any president I know."
-
The Village Voice
This is my last attempt to sway any of the swayable. This site has become mostly about venting in the past few months. I have seen what is happening and I cannot stand silently by. Tomorrow I will post about the changes I feel are crucial to the health of our democracy in terms of election reform and after that, I look forward to waking up Wednesday morning to a renewed sense of hope for our country.
