April Patriot Article

I make fun of about 20 different lefties, here. Especially the "Save the Oaks" people.

Patriot Radio Show 6

The latest episode of the Alex Marlow Show is now online at www.patriotradio.org (click "Alex Show 6" in the little ipod). My guest is Kyle Tibbitts, the External Vice President of the Berkeley College Republicans and the Executive Director of Patriot Radio. He had a White House internship working under Karl Rove in the Political Affairs Department this past semester, and we discuss his experiences, rehash the 2006 election, and discuss prospects for the ’08 presidential races.

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Here is a link to my latest article for the California Patriot. I go into more formal detail about the Abu Ghraib exhibit I discussed in my fifth Patriot Radio show.

Larry Elder Article on Abu Ghraib

Here is my latest "Bias in Berkeley" column for Larry Elder. It covers the Abu Ghraib exhibit I talked about in my last Patriot Radio Show.

Good News!

Patriot Radio is now functional for 2007. Go to www.patriotradio.org and click on the top show in the little ipod. You must leave the window open to play the show. We will be updating the website in the near future, but until then, please enjoy in this format.

See below for show postings.

First Patriot Radio Show of 2007

UPDATE 2/7/06: Show should be posted tonight. Also check out our myspace page.
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My first Patriot Radio show of 2007 will be online today.

Here is the link to some of the art I reference in the show. I guess there were some windows.

Here is the link to more info on the Botero Abu Ghraib exhibit.

Here is the link to the Daily Cal article by Gazelle Emami that I reference.

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The next show will be covering the 2006 election and the potential Republican nominees for 2008. Please post any thoughts in the comments sections.

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Check out www.gop.berkeley.edu to see the March issue of the Berkeley College Republicans Newsletter (I am the publisher).

Ya know, Slurpees... and stuff

Wow! Blogger has been changing around its features and it confused the crap out of me, so I haven't published anything in a while. I have some cool stuff developing, but for now, all you get is more football stuff:

Make sure to root for all Pac-10 teams in the bowl games, and don't spite rivals like UCLA and USC (see this article for more info). UCLA-Florida State is a very even match-up (played tomorrow), as is Cal-Texas A&M (Thursday). I believe the Rose Bowl (USC-Michigan, to be played on New Years Day) is the most compelling match-up of all of the BCS Bowls. All games should be pretty good and I can’t really pick a line on any of them, although I would probably bet against Cal (but root for them anyway!). They finished up their season with two losses and a lazy win against the abysmal Stanford Cardinal, while Texas A&M was playing well at season's end. Texas Tech is probably thrilled to be in the Holiday Bowl, while Cal managed to finally share part of the Pac-10 title in the first time since anyone can remember, and they still got the Holiday Bowl birth while the USC Trojans will be playing in their fourth Rose Bowl in the last three seasons.

Borat: Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Rookie Patriot Columnists

I wanted to write the movie review for Borat for that last Patriot, but some dude named Aaron Solin beat me to it. I don’t know Aaron, but his piece sucked, so I am going to talk snaze about it on my blog using my patented "highlight dumb segments and p0wn them one by one” approach... If you are too lazy to read the whole thing, then scroll down to my BIG POINT:

Background: Borat is a comedic film where Kazakh journalists Borat Sagdiyev, played by Cambridge-educated comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and Azamat Bagatov (his producer) go to America to make a documentary about American culture to benefit their native Kazakhstan.

…the mock-umentary entitled Borat

No! It is not a “mock-umentary,” dingbat! A “mock-umentary” is a fake documentary (think Best in Show); Borat is a movie about getting footage to make a documentary--it is not a documentary itself. Right-off-the-bat, Solin establishes that he doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.

Naturally, the two mustachioed foreigners do not realize their new course takes them through the part of the country that was still heavily segregated until almost a century after the Civil War ended.

Uhh…making excuses for the South’s racism is dumb because they make up a huge percentage of the country. The stuff many Southerners said in the movie is unacceptable under any circumstances and there is no need to waste 33 words (5% of the article) explaining why the entire South is one big aberration. A more intelligent commentary would have included some analysis of whether or not Southern racists still pull weight in America.

One of the strongest political statements in the movie comes when Borat and Azamat decide to drive across America instead of flying, lest the "Jews restage their attack of 9/11."

If you watch the movie, this comment easily goes under the radar. What the hell does he mean by “political statement” anyway? I am not sure if that quote "stated" anything.

“It [the above joke] is actually a dig at a popularly held view in the Arab world.”

Without stats, saying this is risky. You can’t just say that as if it is common knowledge. Are there Arab anti-Semites? Yeah. Do they believe the Jews caused 9/11? I don't know, and I need stats to make a comment one way or the other. Do anti-Semitic Arabs care a heck of a lot about who caused 9/11? I doubt it. Solin is about as good a journalist as Borat himself.

”It is disheartening that the most effective way to disseminate a pro-Semitic view to a mass audience is through a movie like Borat, but if people need to be shocked in order to understand their prejudices.”

This is the point in the article where Solin gives Michael Moore, Al Gore, Rob Riener, and other lefties in the industry a free pass to over-exaggerate anything they want, so long as it ultimately makes a point about a situation or issue that they deem moral. Besides, I don’t gather that most people, including Cohen himself, thought that the film had a particularly “pro-Semitic” message.

Borat is a film that simultaneously pokes fun at Americans’ awkwardness and apprehensiveness in dealing with foreigners

Here comes my BIG POINT: This is the first thing in the article that shows any in-depth thinking on the part of Solin, and it is severely understated. Borat is an extremely smug movie that has, if anything, an anti-American sentiment. Borat takes a very sarcastic approach to American culture. Everyone seems to look up to American technology and pop culture around the globe, but the reality is there are still huge portions of our population that still think that hanging gays, blaming inequality on the Jews, and wearing their pants below their asses are all virtues of our great country. Of course, they are both wrong and easily exploitable.

It is my guess that Mr. Cohen’s objectives with the movie were nearly 100% comedic and the anti-American sentiment is not meant to be taken very seriously, but neither is the “pro-Semitic” one.

The article was to be turned into Cal Patriot editors just the week after Borat opened, which leads me to believe that Aaron Solin may not have actually seen Borat. He might have gotten some quotes off the internet and wrote what he thought would sound “Republican.” Booooo!

Pretty weak job, Solin and Patriot staff. We probably lost some potential readers by dumping this fun topic off to a writer who wanted to do nothing more than cheerlead.