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UPDATE: Note the environment Cameron’s in when he’s lashed out at conservative “Avatar” critics:

• According to the Hollywood Reporter Cameron called Beck a f–king a–hole “surrounded by journalists inside a West Hollywood hillside mansion.”


• Last month Cameron took on his right-wing critics in a Hollywood Cafe while being interviewed by an L.A. Times reporter.


• In January the Malibu Mansion Dweller gave us hell from the Arclight Theatre at a screening for Hollywood Insiders.

Interesting. And with that I end the update.

Uh, oh, James Cameron’s angry and you know how James gets when he’s angry… Stupid:

“Glenn Beck is a f—ing a–hole,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “I’ve met him. He called me the Antichrist, and not about ‘Avatar.’ He hadn’t even seen ‘Avatar’ yet. I don’t know if he has seen it.” …

“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads,” Cameron said. “Anybody that is a global-warming denier at this point in time has got their head so deeply up their a–, I’m not sure they could hear me.”

Cameron said conservative criticism of the environmental message of “Avatar” aren’t necessarily attacks. “They’re just people ranting away, lost in their little bubbles of reality, steeped in their own hatred, their own fear and hatred,” he said. “That’s where it all comes from. Let’s just call it out. Let’s have a public discussion. That’s what movies are supposed to do, you know. You can have a mindless entertainment film that doesn’t affect anybody. I wasn’t interested in that.”

My first question for Mr. Global Warming would be to ask why a mansion-dweller so concerned with the welfare of the planet would initially release ”Avatar” on DVD and Blu-ray with no extras whatsoever.

Here’s what a cynical charlatan James Cameron is. The first “Avatar” DVD release occurs on Earth Day to take full advantage of all his Stupakky fans who want to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything to further their cause. But it’s a barebones release. This way Cameron can make a whole lot more money in the future releasing the same film again and again in Special Editions, Deluxe Editions, Platinum Editions and so on.

Does this sound like someone who gives a hi-ho hearty damn about Mother Earth? No, this sounds like just another greedy capitalist wringing every possible nickel from his wares by finessing the market in a way that promotes as much consuming as possible of a product that, by the way, comes in a thick plastic case that must have a landfill half-life of a couple thousand years.

For the record, I have a tremendous amount of affection for greedy capitalists who wring every dime out of their product.

It’s lying hypocrites who slander the military I can’t abide.

James Cameron doesn’t believe the planet’s in trouble. If he did, he would live and behave differently. And if he does, his behavior is a form of genocide. He’s intentionally conducting his life and business in a  way that will kill us all. (Who’s the f–king a–hole now?)

If Beck calls Cameron’s bluff (pretty please, Glenn), I’d bet all kinds of money Cameron locks himself in his air conditioned mansion and refuses to come out.

I don’t mean to pick on Fred Wilson. It’s just that of all that I found notable in Doree Shafrir’s cover story in this week’s New York Magazine, “Tweet Tweet Boom Boom: How Tech Startups Like Foursquare and Meetup Are Trying to Overthrow Old Media and Build a Better New York” — and there was a lot! — I found this quote most illuminating:

“We have a two-year program here, and we try like hell to hire women into that program,” says Union Square Ventures’ Wilson (whose office, except for his assistant, is all male). “We tell the world we’ve got this opening, and anybody who’s interested can apply, and it’s 90 percent men who even bother to apply. I mean, I don’t know what the problem is.”

Imagine for a moment that Fred Wilson just gave a start-up a big chunk of money, and a goal. If that goal was 90% a failure, do you think it would be enough if they were just “trying like hell?” If you “don’t know what the problem is,” you tackle it and find out. Fred Wilson knows that, it’s how every single startup is born. But that problem has to first be a priority.

As for “telling the world” — well, it depends how you define “world.” Wilson has advertised it in his popular wee-hours email (see here and here) and on the Union Square Ventures blog (see here and here), but that seems only to be telling his world. And if that world reaches 90% men and you’re trying to bring in women, then maybe a different solution is required. To paraphrase Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley: “To make a foosball table smarter isn’t that different from ‘Let’s make a VC smarter.’ ”

There is a lot to this article — including some friends of mine! — so pardon me for focusing on the demographics first. As Joe Coscarelli pointed out yesterday at the Village Voice, “It’s a boy’s world, still: of the 53 entrepreneurs photographed, only 6 are women.” Sigh. Those odds not only suck, but they don’t reflect my own experience in this milieu — who I see at events, at SXSW, at Tom & Jerry’s. (12% doesn’t even reflect the audience at a New York Tech Meetup, at least in my experience. Though if you’re a single guy on the prowl, you may want to try elsewhere.) These companies don’t run themselves and so many of the crucial team members are women — not necessarily founders, but their right arms and guts and blood — who are integral to strategy and growth and implementation. I’m not saying it would be 26.5 out of 53, but more than 6? It would have to be. Even if you just want to attempt to approximate the ratio in the actual industry.

But Wilson is talking about the people at the top, and I guess NYmag is, too. Paging through the online gallery, I looked for the pic featuring Drop.io, knowing that they’d recently hired Soraya Darabi, an SAI 100 designee and well-known new media/tech industry maven. I know she’s there providing crucial support in the background, but you’d never know it from the pic, featuring three guys. (Sidebar: Apparently being a young tech entrepreneur in New York City also means being photographed upside down.) And of course, more women were mentioned in the article than were shot — Emily Gannett of KlickableTV, Brooke Moreland of Fashism.com, Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson of Gilt Groupe — all which launched before 2010, unlike a number of those photographed.

So: If only 6 out of 53 featured NYC tech superstars are women, then are we using the wrong criteria? And by “we” I mean the royal we – we the media, in the criteria we are using to assess “success,” and in how we the industry are looking to galvanize, recruit and train. I would venture to say yes — below the surface (or, at least according to the average Foursquare leaderboard) there is a robust presence of women — more than 12%, at least! — making things happen and contributing to the whole. If the data is there, and the resources are there, then all that remains is to do something about it. If we can make a foosball table smarter, than surely we can do that.

Tweet Tweet Boom Boom [New York]

Photographs from NYMag.com by Jake Chessum.

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UPDATE: Note the environment Cameron’s in when he’s lashed out at conservative “Avatar” critics:

• According to the Hollywood Reporter Cameron called Beck a f–king a–hole “surrounded by journalists inside a West Hollywood hillside mansion.”


• Last month Cameron took on his right-wing critics in a Hollywood Cafe while being interviewed by an L.A. Times reporter.


• In January the Malibu Mansion Dweller gave us hell from the Arclight Theatre at a screening for Hollywood Insiders.

Interesting. And with that I end the update.

Uh, oh, James Cameron’s angry and you know how James gets when he’s angry… Stupid:

“Glenn Beck is a f—ing a–hole,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “I’ve met him. He called me the Antichrist, and not about ‘Avatar.’ He hadn’t even seen ‘Avatar’ yet. I don’t know if he has seen it.” …

“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads,” Cameron said. “Anybody that is a global-warming denier at this point in time has got their head so deeply up their a–, I’m not sure they could hear me.”

Cameron said conservative criticism of the environmental message of “Avatar” aren’t necessarily attacks. “They’re just people ranting away, lost in their little bubbles of reality, steeped in their own hatred, their own fear and hatred,” he said. “That’s where it all comes from. Let’s just call it out. Let’s have a public discussion. That’s what movies are supposed to do, you know. You can have a mindless entertainment film that doesn’t affect anybody. I wasn’t interested in that.”

My first question for Mr. Global Warming would be to ask why a mansion-dweller so concerned with the welfare of the planet would initially release ”Avatar” on DVD and Blu-ray with no extras whatsoever.

Here’s what a cynical charlatan James Cameron is. The first “Avatar” DVD release occurs on Earth Day to take full advantage of all his Stupakky fans who want to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything to further their cause. But it’s a barebones release. This way Cameron can make a whole lot more money in the future releasing the same film again and again in Special Editions, Deluxe Editions, Platinum Editions and so on.

Does this sound like someone who gives a hi-ho hearty damn about Mother Earth? No, this sounds like just another greedy capitalist wringing every possible nickel from his wares by finessing the market in a way that promotes as much consuming as possible of a product that, by the way, comes in a thick plastic case that must have a landfill half-life of a couple thousand years.

For the record, I have a tremendous amount of affection for greedy capitalists who wring every dime out of their product.

It’s lying hypocrites who slander the military I can’t abide.

James Cameron doesn’t believe the planet’s in trouble. If he did, he would live and behave differently. And if he does, his behavior is a form of genocide. He’s intentionally conducting his life and business in a  way that will kill us all. (Who’s the f–king a–hole now?)

If Beck calls Cameron’s bluff (pretty please, Glenn), I’d bet all kinds of money Cameron locks himself in his air conditioned mansion and refuses to come out.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Democratic Solutions? Republican Solutions? Let�s Have Both.    [Andrew Redleaf & Richard Vigilante]

To the extent one believes that regulators can actually get a firm grasp on what the megabanks are doing, what they own, and what they owe, or reliably distinguish risky and reckless practices from safe and sound ones, the president’s vision — the vision espoused in the Dodd/Frank bill — has a chance of succeeding. We certainly don’t want to get in the way of his trying. By all means, give the regulators the tools they ask for and let them do their best.

It’s just that there is so very little evidence that they can succeed. The glaring and disheartening truth is that the regulators endorsed every one, and required some, of the practices that led to the crisis. Even the staggering complex mortgage-backed securities at the heart of the crisis, with their bogus AAA ratings (conveyed by government-regulated ratings agencies), were produced in such huge volume largely because the regulators had blessed them as the safest of all possible bank investments short of U.S. Treasuries.

Still, some version of the Dodd/Frank bill will become law within weeks or days. Republicans should not obstruct that effort. On the contrary, they should offer their full support. Better regulation is one possible answer to the problem. But in return, Republicans should ask for one little thing.

The Democrats want better regulators. That’s a Democrat thing. Republicans should want better markets. That’s our thing. And they way to get better markets is to give them better information. Markets failed two years ago because for many years, markets were denied the information they needed to make good decisions, to separate good mortgages from bad, good banks from bad, and shift capital accordingly.

For too long, American banks have operated in the shadows, their inner workings hidden not from regulators (who have an invincible legal right to examine every line in the banks’ books) but from citizens and investors. That’s why we have proposed the one truly radical reform that would have prevented the both the mortgage crisis and the crash and would do far more to prevent future catastrophes: Require every significant financial institution in U.S., every firm managing other people’s money, to disclose every investment position, every asset, and every liability every week, between market close on Friday and market open on Monday morning.

We don’t mean mere accountants’ summaries. We mean the raw data. Every stock, every bond, every long, every short, every hedge, every swap. All of it. Collectively millions and millions of lines of data.

At first it would be too much data even to be useful. But as the short sellers and curmudgeons, the rag-and-bone shops of the financial world, gradually absorbed the data and constituted massive parallel-processing systems over months and years, we bet the result would be an early-warning system that would run rings around the regulators and do far more to keep the banks on the straight and narrow than any grand high council or regulatory poo-bahs.

We say not one word against the grand high council. Let them commence their duties this minute. But let’s give them some help. Let’s back up dozens, nay hundreds, of regulators with millions of citizen investors. Let’s build redundancy into the system. In the end, letting our fellow citizens back into the game is the best protection we can have.

— Andrew Redleaf and Richard Vigilante are respectively CEO and communications director of Whitebox Advisors. They blog at www.capitalismbetrayed.com.

04/22 06:19 PMShare

The inner Circle

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In a March 21 interview, Kelly Tilghman of The Golf Channel asked Tiger Woods about media reports that indicated members of his “inner circle” knew of “misdoings“.

Woods:

That is not true, it was all me. I’m the one who did it, I’m the one who acted the way I acted, no one knew what was going on. I’m sure if more people would have known in my inner circle they would’ve, they would’ve stopped it…or tried to put a stop to it but I kept it all to myself.

Larry Dorman of the NEW YORK TIMES follows up with Woods about that statement, which based on hard evidence presented by alleged Woods mistresses, appears to be untrue.

In a statement to Dorman, Woods said:

“No one is responsible for my behavior but me. Even though there were times when I deceived various people in my organization, most were simply told little to nothing and kept in the dark. Obviously, I did this to avoid owning up to my actions. I expressed regret for that manipulation because the fault is mine alone and so is the blame.”

So is Woods now intimating that members of his “inner circle” may have unwittingly aided in the execution of his extramarital affairs?

Yes.

It isn’t impossible to believe that Woods childhood friend and president of his golf course design company Bryon Bell didn’t realize what he was doing when he  allegedly booked flights, hotel rooms and other logistics for Josyln James and Rachel Uchitel to meet Woods on the road. (And in the case of Uchitel, actually fly with her to Australia.)

But considering the closeness of Bell’s relationship to Woods, the golfer was to be Bell’s best man at his wedding recently, it is impossible to believe that Bell wouldn’t have at least suspected that an extramarital affair might be going on.

If I was Woods and I actually believed Bell never suspected anything, I’d be rather worried about Bell’s soundness of mind and ability to operate a golf course design company that generates millions for me annually.

I bring up Bell first, over Woods agent Mark Steinberg and caddy Steve Williams, because we have verifiable documents that point to his involvement in setting up the logistics of alleged affairs. Though Steinberg is linked to the alleged deal to prevent a National Enquirer expose about a Woods affair by brokering an interview of Woods with Muscle & Fitness, both properties of American media. (American Media has denied that happened.)

Joslyn James also recently said in an interview that Williams was “aware” of her and knew of the “dynamic” of their relationship.

Williams has repeatedly denied knowledge of Woods affairs, but Steinberg and Bell have said nothing - despite numerous inquiries from the media.

In a perverse sort of way, I admire the relentless defense Woods is providing for his friends and business associates. Though I doubt Woods wife Elin Nordegren is nearly as excited about his unbending loyalty to those who, in my opinion, had to have known that something wasn’t quite right.

Also from Brooks this week:

Greek Pole Vaulter gives Greece’s Dancing With The Stars a lift:

Soccer player blows a boog, wipes it on Olympic hero Lindsey Vonn:

 The secret Tweet life of pro athletes and their groupies on Twitter:

March Madness is going to 96 teams?! What could’ve prevented it.

More from Brooks on Twitter, updated round-the-clock every single day.

Learn more about SPORTSbyBROOKS, the original and most-read independent sports blog. (Since 2001!)

He probably regretted not just having him killed, though, when he had to bail his father out of jail. Word got back to Ellen’s reporter friend with benefits. That, of course, made Tom’s plan possible.

Tom redeems himself
It’s not clear to me how far back Tom has been plotting. I venture to say that he saw the error of his ways after realizing Ellen took the fall for his mistake in approaching Tessa against Patty’s orders. Nevertheless, he made up for it this week.

After leaking his connection to the Tobin Ponzi scheme himself, Tom publicly resigned from the firm. That allowed him to contact Leonard when he too was cast out from the Tobins after Ellen informed Joe of Leonard’s carpet-bagging past. With no one else to turn to, Leonard strikes a deal for immunity with Tom (via Ellen’s district attorney connections), a deal which I'm not sure is really happening, and agrees to get him back some of his money.

Tom, cast out by his wife as well, takes up residence in one of Leonard’s apartments where the homeless man finds him. By the way, how did he get into the apartment? Will he have something to do with killing Tom? Like I said, no one is what he or she seems right now.

Patty is fooled
It doesn’t happen much, but Patty hasn’t been as astute as we’re used to. She’s borderline schizophrenic with that crazy horse showing up outside her dreams now. She seems indecisive, such as in the firing of the new associate Alex in the last episode. We also see her on the verge of giving up on the case before Ellen gives her a rousing pep talk. She’s not exactly at the top of her game right now. In fact, she was totally clueless about Tom’s plan and her son’s girlfriend’s deception after Patty paid her off to leave. I do have faith that Patty will pull it all together in the finale, but we already know she’ll lose another person from her inner circle before this is all over. How will that affect her already unstable being?

So, it’s that time now: What are your predictions for the finale? How does Tom die? How will Patty recover the Tobin cash? And, why has the show returned to the conspiracy surrounding Ellen’s fiancé’s death?

-- Jethro Nededog (Follow me on Twitter @TheRealJethro)

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'Damages': Knee deep in this mess

All 'Damages' coverage on Show Tracker

Photo: Tate Donovan in “Damages” on FX. Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / FX


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If you, like me, will be scrambling to complete your taxes this weekend, and feeling a bit disgruntled about being taxed more than the big boys on Wall Street, Jobs with Justice has a great plan on how to work out your angst.

Jobs with Justice, the feisty union representing workers in 25 states, is calling for a Tax Wall Street Day of Action on April 15th.

"Big banks helped plunge the nation into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. They lobbied for deregulation and corporate tax breaks, then went on a reckless gambling spree, creating complicated, risky mechanisms to make profits off of destabilizing the economy. They have tightened lending for consumers and small business, and they have refused to modify home mortgages. Millions of Americans have lost their homes, their jobs and their retirement savings," says a Jobs with Justice flyer.

Indeed, Americans have lost $14 trillion in wages, savings and housing wealth since the start of the financial crisis. According to the Center for Media and Democracy's Wall Street Bailout Cost Table, we are still $2 trillion in the hole for the bailout, plus we read with astonishment that the bailout enabled Wall Street to pay out $140 billion in bonuses in 2009 to top executives. With tax lawyers and accountants up the wazoo, big bankers know how to dodge taxes on their earnings and bonuses leaving middle class Americans holding the bag.

The solution? It's time to take it back.

Jobs with Justice, SEIU, AFL-CIO and the broad coalition Americans for Financial Reform are all calling for a teeny tiny Bankster tax, 0.20 percent, on the sale or purchase of a share of stock, bonds or derivatives, which would would help us to recoup our losses and put the money to work rebuilding America. The idea is supported by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz as a way of dampening high-speed, high-stakes gambling on Wall Street and raising a steady stream of revenue. It was even touted at one time by President Obama's chief economic adviser Larry Summers. A bill has been introduced in Congress recently by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that uses the revenue to create jobs and reduce the deficit.

"Champagne, caviar, tell us where our good jobs are!"

You too can join the fun. Take action on April 15th at a local branch of a big national (bailed out) bank like Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo or Goldman Sachs. Get an easy to use action kit and learn more by visiting the Jobs with Justice site.

"Hey Wall Street, its not fair, it's time for you to pay your share!"

For new readers, I'm a laid off teacher looking for input and stories of others around the nation that I can share on my blogs. This article contains most of my post originally written on March 15th, but worth sharing on Huffington Post as well.

I received an email from my friend Josh. Josh and I went to college together, and have had similar career paths. We both started teaching at inner city schools in Milwaukee, WI and our current jobs both serve large populations of low income students, though I have since left Wisconsin. He currently teaches at Milwaukee Montessori IB High School, a school which he helped open, and is now a part of the team of leaders there as well as a classroom history teacher. His successes in education make me proud to be his friend. In fact, his school was recently the subject of a positive article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is the type of person who will always have a discussion with you about education, but most likely the discussion will also include the word "reform".

He wrote me this:

"I have crafted a new theory recently while wondering, where did all of the money go?

I started with the realization that the political right has only made two significant contributions to the education discussion in the past two decades: choice schools (private schools that receive public funding) and No Child Left Behind. As the Left has spent the past decades creating and studying different educational models: project-based learning, differentiated instruction, constructivism, the Montessori approach, direct instruction, integrated curriculum through regular public and charter schools (public schools with greater autonomy over curriculum and instruction in exchange from greater accountability for results).

How does NCLB affect the funding of public schools?

Slowly, over the last decade, money has been siphoned from local districts to buy and expand the testing services from the test companies. Then the local districts need to buy the new text books aligned to the new tests, and hire the consultants (who always seem to be Texans) that will help the schools teach the kids the skills to pass the new tests. In Wisconsin in 2009, the Department of Public Instruction declared that the tests did not accurately reflect what the kids know, and since it took six to nine months to get the results, it was too late to do anything about the findings anyway. A new test is being developed, but it will not be ready for three to five years. Sounds like a pretty nice contract for the testing company who develop the new tests, as well as the consulting firm who facilitate the process. Wait, and then the entire state will have to buy all new text books from a company in Texas to allow the kiddies to learn algebra in a new way so that it can be reflected on the new test. Looks like another round of consultants will have to be brought in to teach the teachers how to teach the new textbooks so the kids do well on the new tests.

Even more laughable is Illinois's version of the high school test, the ACT. Illinois uses a college entrance standardized test to assess the quality of the state's high schools. To my knowledge, Illinois high schools are tasked to teach the state standards of education, not the content of the ACT. This would be like assessing the effectiveness of a driving school with a boater's safety exam. Sort of related, but not the material taught or applicable to all participants. I cannot wait to read about the contracts to redesign Illinois's testing system. So, No Child Left Behind is an unfunded mandate for continuous improvement, which requires significant funding from local districts to the Testing Industry, the Textbook Industry, and the Educational Consultant Industry.

Tom, I guarantee you can find a job in one of those three industries because they are always hiring and always expanding. And, I hear Texas is beautiful this time of year."

Ah, Josh, never one to shy away from an opinion. He makes some valid points (though I don't want this blog to become a conversation on politics -- if you are laid off, you are laid off whether Democrat or Republican, and the fact is while I sit jobless for next year, I haven't heard any politician offer anything other than garbage talking points about what we "need to do" instead of actually doing something). It bothers me that there isn't more investigative journalism into how much money states actually spend on standardized tests. There are a lot of people that are getting rich on public education, and just the fact that I had to write that statement makes me disgusted by how wrong it is.

At least it looks like NCLB is on the way out the door. I'm going to dedicate a later blog post to this article.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, Josh. I look forward to more people sharing their views with me so that I can post them on this blog.