Crocodile Tears

Earlier today, a tearful President George Bush delivered his brief Veterans' Day speech in Waco, Texas at a memorial service for four fallen soldiers. However, as FOX White House correspondent Wendell Goler pointed out afterwards, the President plans to veto - and continue vetoing - an extra $3.5 billion for veterans' benefits that the Democrats have added into the most recent defense appropriation bill

Thanks, George

" The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday publicly held U.S. debt breached $9 trillion this week for the first time ever, just five weeks after Congress had raised the statutory borrowing limit.

At the end of September, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a measure to increase the debt limit ceiling to $9.815 trillion from $8.965 trillion, allowing the government to keep issuing debt.

The increase in the debt limit is the fifth since Bush took office in January 2001. The U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of his presidency."

$3.5 Trillion dollars in seven years. And NOW he's claiming fiscal responsibility.

And from the new recall of toys from China, AmericaBlog comments: "All we need now to make this even crazier is to listen to Republicans pontificate once again about letting industry self-regulate. Then they can tell us how "the market" will work out the problems. Just ignore those kids who are being rushed to the hospital and think of them as martyrs for industry and cheap toys from China."

SoHo Graffiti

Some graffiti of note I saw in SoHo this afternoon. Things getting artistic in doorways.

Brooklyn Morning

The new high rise nearby is almost done. Seems everyone is building highrises in Brooklyn.

Today's Headline

It has finally happened..... Bush is more disapproved of then Nixon.

"Meanwhile, Bush reached an unwelcome record. By 64%-31%, Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974."

Vishnu Returns

Incredible story coming out of India
From This is London:
"A toddler born with eight limbs and believed by some to be the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess Vishnu, is set to undergo a 40-hour operation to remove half of her limbs.
Lakshmi Tatma was born joined to a 'parasitic twin' and will go under the knife at the hands of 30 surgeons to remove two of her useless arms and legs."

The Telegraph continues, "The £100,000 operation will require differently skilled teams of more than 30 surgeons to work in eight-hour shifts to separate Lakshmi's spinal column and kidney from that of her twin."

Whilst You Were Sleeping

Production Designer colleague Clement Price-Thomas created an art happening on the border of Soho this afternoon entitled "Whilst You Were Sleeping". Tapping into the NYC water sysytem, he shot a spray of water up 50' in the air @ the corner of Houston and Crosby streets.

"By Introducing this artery of water into the middle of Manhattan's busy streets opens a discourse with the people of the city about what is taken for granted everyday and what is suppressed by both man and city."

The exhibit lasted four hours and passerbys were interviewed on their thoughts of this watery jet.

George HW Bush on Fox News

"G.H.W. BUSH: My favorite picture is a picture of American soldiers surrounding a guy in a foxhole, Iraqi soldier, and the American guy says, "We're not going to harm you. We're American soldiers."

WALLACE: This really brings back the sacrifice, doesn't it, sir?

G.H.W. BUSH: Sure does. You see, that side of the war never got — the fact that we treated those people with respect in spite of the fact that they were the enemy was really good.

WALLACE: Then some final thoughts about the decisions he had to make.

G.H.W. BUSH: I still think Saddam Hussein thought he would — one, we wouldn't fight and, two, if we did fight, somehow talked himself into believing he'd win in the ground war.

WALLACE: And then the decision to end it...

G.H.W. BUSH: Yeah.

WALLACE: ... when we were slaughtering them — and again, I mean, I...

G.H.W. BUSH: I think we made the right decision. I've subsequently been criticized for that. But we had an objective. We formed a coalition based on not killing Saddam, not conquering, capturing Baghdad, but on ending the war, ending the aggression. And we did it.

And so we did what we said we were going to do. Had we not done that, that coalition would have fallen apart in a minute."

I can only wonder what his son thinks of these statements. Now that we have such parsing of words of what is and isn't torture..... or of what's left of this weak coalition in Iraq now. And to think of all that unheeded sage advice from Brent Scrowcroft and other Bush 41 advisers that could've stopped this.

On Strike

"Union officials said that barring a last-minute deal, the strike would begin at 3:01 a.m. EST and picket lines would go up in Los Angeles and New York City."

Nobody likes a strike. But being part of a union that has constantly capitulated to the demands of producers for twenty five years, I'm glad to see the Writer's Guild standing firm. Our issues are very different. With us technicians, the argument is always, give us producers what we want or we'll shoot somewhere else (Canada, Romania, Argentina). But with the dollar worthless on international markets, there is almost no place in the world that's cheaper to shoot these days.
The pictures are of me in 1993 on the picket line against the producers of "Harts of the West", a short lived CBS series. I entered the union on this series.

Read more about the impending screenwriters strike here

Weekend Dog

I'm in NYC for the awhile but here is a portrait of Seven I snapped last week before I left for the airport. He always knows.

Dog Treats

With Seven on Postasium Bromide for his siezures, we were a little concerned with the amount of salt in his diet. We've been feeding him a raw food diet, lots of fruits (no citrus) and vegtables as well as meat.
We decided to puree some of the veggie/fruit combination and freeze them in ice cube trays. The dog loves them and the vet says they're better than store bought stuff.
The photos show him with a carrot/yam/banana combo.

PJ Party @ 32,000 Ft.

For those of you who can't wait for a new Victoria's Secret catalog to arrive, Virgin America is offering a chance to get up and close with the VS models on a transcontinental flight this month.

"It all happens November 28th on Virgin America Flight 317. The flight travels from NY to LA - but the real destination will be in the clouds. Victoria's Secret will bring supermodels Selita Ebanks and Miranda Kerr, PJs, prizes and more.

An event this exciting will of course have media on board to capture all the fun, so be ready for your cameo when the cameras roll."

Book now!

Fearing Fear Itself

Paul Krugman dissects the politics of fear. Read the whole piece here.

Excerpts:

"In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then.
Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”

"Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s."

"In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.

Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.

And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear."

Roger Moore Turns 80

Roger Moore turned 80 last week and celebrated by getting a gold star @ 7007 Hollywood Blvd. He then joined up with some of his past costars to be honored for his years of work with UNICEF. Swiss neighbor Audrey Heburn got Moore involved with the organization in 1990 and has since become their Goodwill Ambassador.

The Telegraph tells the story like this while the Daily Mail has the before and after pics of those sexy costars.

From Space: California Burns

Weekend Dog

We came home from dinner sunday night and The Dog had made the couch his own.

Fires

Massive fires seem to be surrounding Los Angeles today. Took this cameraphone pic yesterday from Occidental College @ sunset while walking the dog.

All About My Mother

At the Old Vic Theatre in London is playing the stage adaptation of Pedro Almodovar's oscar winning film "All About My Mother". The reviews are generally positive, and with Diana Rigg in the cast, it'll be worth a trip across the pond.

Debt Ceiling

"U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of Bush's presidency."
Remember that trillion dollar surplus Clinton left the USA? I hope everyone enjoyed their $400 checks Bush sent them in 2002.
After six years of Bush, "The Senate voted 53-42 to raise the debt ceiling to $9.815 trillion, the fifth increase in the U.S. credit limit since President George W. Bush took office in January 2001."
He will have doubled the debt by the time he leaves office. He's racing the dollar downwards as he ends the American Century.
Congress Rises Debt Ceiling

New Gondry

The Motorola ad we did with Michel Gondry a few months ago is finally available online. It was a tough shoot for the art department and we shot long hours but the Gondry dream is there.
On the official site, there are stills and downloads of the the commercial and a good making of. Although there is no real technical discussion of the spot with Ellen. In photo #1, that's my butt in the foreground.
He used one of the dancers from "Be Kind Rewind" to play the part of the robot/drummer.
We start a new project with Gondry soon. In two weeks when he returns from his work in Japan, we'll be doing a Bjork video with him. The concept is crazy and wild and will be very fun.