What people may not know is that Breaking Bad is also one of the best shows ever produced, and perhaps the definitive post-recession show. It’s a brooding drama about wasted talent, the struggle to make ends meet on a middle class paycheck, and the dark temptations of power.

The plot follows Walter White, a brilliant but timid chemistry teacher stuck in a thankless job and a decaying marriage. When Walter, played with otherworldly intensity by Bryan “Dad from Malcom in the Middle” Cranston, receives a cancer diagnosis that’s equivalent to a short order death sentence, he takes matters into his own hands. He decides to use his chemistry expertise to create the purest and most potent crystal methamphetamine in the country.

Suburban Albuquerque, NM (ravaged both by the spread of crystal meth and the collapse of the housing bubble) is the perfect setting for this story — sunny all the time yet extraordinarily bleak. It’s also worth noting that the desert, and this unlikely city right in the middle of it, is photographed beautifully.

The show proceeds slowly and awkwardly, as Walter must find some entry into the drug trade while also fooling his innocent wife and son, who sense his desperation. He happens upon a former student, a shiftless drug addict whose affected urban speech and careless attitude clash with Walt’s meticulousness — and (finally) allows us a little fun. The two are hopelessly out of their depth, and soon blunder into danger. Walt’s family life goes from tense to barely watchable, with the threat of a DEA raid or a brutal gang reprisal lurking in the shadows. In order to lead this double life, Walt gradually slips away from the moral mainstream, from mild mannered everyman to fraught anti-hero. As the suspense builds, Walt finds himself enjoying the thrill of this transformation, even as his life crumbles around him.

I am running late so I’m gonna wind this up: Watch Breaking Bad! Like The Wire, it’s so good, and so unexpectedly pertinent to the real world, that it’s hard to believe such a show was ever produced.

(If anyone actually reads this, I’ll keep you “posted.” Zing!)

Anyway, you were promised a thought. Here we go: one of my new roommates appears to have a thing for Ultimate Fighting Championship, the uber-violent cage fighting program that they sometimes show on Spike TV. I have it one some authority that the martial arts style employed in these matches tends to be a roughshod mixture of Thai kick boxing and Brazilian ju jitsu. These two styles form the basis for “Mixed Martial Arts” (MMA) because of their devastating effectiveness in the UFC context. When you’re in a one-on-one, no-holds-barred battle the goal of which is to either knock out your opponent or force him (they are invariably men) to submit, you apparently always turn to these techniques. Thus, even though UFC is supposed to be an “anything goes” forum where you might expect there to be representatives from all of the world’s wondrously different martial arts traditions (kinda like that one Van Damme movie), these get homogenized into dominant strategies for survival. This is less fun for the viewer because all of the more interesting and visually appealing styles succumb to this boring MMA crap.

Now. Yesterday, I very nearly attended the North American Organic Brewers Festival. I’m told that a large proportion of the brews at the event were IPAs. Also, a beer magazine recently ranked the “Best Commercial Beers in America” and mentioned that, “six of the top 10 vote-getters in the competition are IPAs, proving that hoppy beers are still king among readers.” Of course, I love IPA as much as the next guy — but I’m also inclined to pause and wonder whether brewing the “best” possible beer (i.e. the most appealing for the largest number of drinkers) is worth it in the long run when all the other styles of brewing might face elimination. Same thing with martial arts. Shouldn’t diversity count for something? That’s my thought.

End scene.

In sum, I was trying to do this dude a favor and he gave me shit about it! And stiffed me a quarter/a dollar. I must say, like Dustin Hoffman in the last scene from Straw Dogs I yearned for outrageous violence. Only the strictures of “the law” and “customer service” kept me from stabbing him repeatedly with one of the many, extremely sharp knives that were at my cheese mongering disposal. Bah!

So this blog post is really the only socially acceptable way I could think of to vent my frustration after the fact. And, now that it’s written, I can put my revenge fantasies to rest…

Source: Journal of Energy Security, “The Battle Over Rare Earth Metals”

It turns out that the above elements are crucial for the manufacture of a lot of gadgetry, including a large swath of “green” tech. The US and US allies also use them in various hi-tech weapons, e.g. guided missiles. 95% of the current supply of these chemicals is mined in China, which is moving both to restrict their export and increase their domestic consumption of the stuff.

The folks at BBC did a brief video piece on this topic, pointing out that the Chinese monopoly may annoy the Japanese in particular — a point also echoed here. (I would embed the BBC video here, but I don’t appear to be web savvy enough to download it…)

This NYTimes article takes a different angle, focusing on the high environmental cost of mining for these metals. Apparently the extraction process is devastating both to the environment and to communities in the vicinity (similar to uranium mining, I might add.) PBS did a blurb about this as well. So the question becomes: do the benefits of hybrid cars and windmills and cetera outweigh the costs of mining? That’s a legitimate question! It’s just not really a foreign policy question as such…

But then the dude didn’t even look me in the eye! *He* snubbed me. I am flabbergasted.

See, I feel like I’m always singled out for special attention from enviro-type canvassers. They (used to) take one look at my long hair and scruffy demeanor and just zero in. This time, however, my hair is short for the first time in recent memory, I’m walking with (an affect of) purpose, and I’m wearing a conservative suit. So I guess these signals allowed the canvasser to predict — correctly, of course — that I was a lost cause. Still, it stings a little.

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But here’s the irony: I am in costume, for class. In a couple hours I’ll debut my role as the hard-nosed mayor of a fictional rust belt burg hoping to court developers to start work on a new asphalt plant in the industrial zone of the city. During my term in office, I’ve been very successful in re-zoning the city to facilitate economic development, apparently, and I intend to continue bringing in jobs whilst greasing the palms of my construction industry buddies. This asphalt plant may be yet another source of pollution, but it will save the city millions on various construction projects including new highways and a new airport runway, for which I’ve even received Department of Transportation funding! (Thank you, ARRA 2009.) As long as the ambient air quality comes out better than the low state/federal standards, I’m set.

But, what’s this? Now I have to quash a pesky community group!

Said group claims, with moral fervor and regrettably solid public health evidence, that the proposed plant will disproportionately effect their predominantly low income African American neighborhood. This constitutes environmental racism, they say, and all their rabble rousing has created a firestorm of controversy that could empower my opponents at the City Council and jeopardize my political career. (cue: diminished chord!)

Luckily, their avenues of legal redress are limited, especially because the developers voluntarily performed an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and received unanimous approval from the Zoning and Building Authority. But the local Department of Environmental Quality is complaining that the EIA isn’t comprehensive enough, though they don’t have the authority to do anything about it — except to invoke the little known “fail safe” option! (aaand…another chord). Said option empowers the Director of DEQ to delay the permitting process — which is a perilous business, since I have deadlines to worry about for this ARRA money.

Meanwhile, the community group is lobbying the City Council to establish a special Planning Council just for their neighborhood. Of course, I could veto such an initiative — but if I register opposition, I’ll come off as the bad guy. That said, if I just go along with it then other neighborhoods might imitate this tactic. And then I’ll be swimming in community initiatives and the costly legal and bureaucratic hurdles that they present.

So: I favor the status quo. The best way to maintain it would be to buy the compliance of the community folks and other city officials — which reminds me of the excellent scene in Back to School where Rodney Dangerfield scoffs at the ivory tower economics professor who forgot to factor mafia kickbacks into his calculations.

Since corruption is not an option, I could do the next best thing and offer a substantial “development assistance and neighborhood risk reduction package,” or similar, to try to cut down health risks. But much of this funding would have to come from reducing the tax break for the developers *and* requiring them to match the city’s contribution. They aren’t likely to be super happy about that, though of course they’ve already invested a ton of money in buying the site, conducting their EIA, etc…so they are in fairly deep and they become my natural allies in this situation.

We’ll see how the drama plays out. Let’s just hope that the community organizers don’t put together an 80′s montage and break dancing contest — because then they’ll be sure to triumph at the last moment!

Think about a cheeseburger with all the trimmings, including grilled onions. Now replace the two buns with TWO GRILLED CHEESE SANDWHICHES.

Grease. Beauty. Bliss.

The proprietors of the Grilled Cheese Grill (Portland, OR) have called their invention “The Soon-to-be-Famous Burger Behemoth.” This is something of a misrepresentation. Yes, the Cheesus is massive; but more importantly, it is a clever solution to an age old burger problem, i.e. the lack of a crunchy exterior. Pure American ingenuity, yessir. In fact, were the State Department still looking for exhibitor submissions for the US pavilion at the upcoming Shanghai World Expo, I would nominate this sandwich.

My favorite is #3: LISTEN MORE, TALK LESS
According to EWG, “Your phone emits radiation when you talk or text, but not when you’re receiving messages. Listening more and talking less reduces your exposures.”

But if you refrain from talking, won’t your unfortunate conversation partner talk even more, to fill in the awkward gaps? Is their health less important than your own? Of course, if they’re in the know, they’ll also try to keep from talking…aaaand hilarity ensues.

“We had an ancient Prussian acting coach at my drama school who said the worst offense you could commit was to let your subtext show. He would say: [Prussian accent] ‘Your subtext is showing.’ That is the point of acting, it is to be saying one thing and not be allowed by society or your predicament to show what you’re reallying feeling. In a way, I think that’s why the therapy generation has killed scriptwriting, because all you ever get is people going, “Hi, I’m feeling really angry right now.” And if you say that, you’ve got nothing left to act. The excruciating moments of drama are when people are allowed to show or way what they feel.”

Second, from an article on Mad Men that appears in the latest issue of Jump Cut — (if you haven’t seen Season 2 of the show, watch out for SPOILERS):

“In season 2, episode 8 (A Night to Remember), when Office Manager, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), temporarily takes on the job of script reader for the newly formed TV sales department, the opening may be in part due to Peggy’s earlier successes. It’s easy to project some proto-feminist movement, even as the harsh sexist environment reasserts its dominance through the hiring of an inexperienced man to permanently take over the new position. The department has become successful because of Joan’s insight into how to sell soap to women and when interest will be piqued on daytime TV. When Joan discovers that she has been unceremoniously replaced — the torpedo bra torpedoed — and is expected to train her replacement, her disappointment is overwhelming. (Or is that our disappointment?) The emotion is allowed only the briefest moment of escape before Joan’s façade reasserts control.

The program’s richest moments are ruptures like these, brief moments when the characters experience confusion or disappointment but then struggle not to let it show, when their real selves and the images they have constructed come into conflict. These are moments of vulnerability, of reality asserting itself briefly into the world of the image. Our clean, colorful 60s fantasy is interrupted by such casual brutality. We are reminded of the real constraints under the binding clothing, the actual challenges and limitations of the period.”

Mad Men is set in a world where social norms that we take for granted haven’t arisen yet, so it’s doubly poignant when Joan gets passed over for that promotion and can’t do anything about it. I’d argue that you also see this effect in non-Mad Men period pieces where great attention is paid to courtly facade — Jane Austen adaptations, Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, the movie version of Remains of the Day…etc.

So, with respect to Ms. Williams’ remark, *is* acting all about hiding the character’s feelings while also expressing them? Or could it simply be the case that British actors are trained with a certain type of drama in mind?

The essay opens by taking Westerners to task for creating hopelessly nostalgic “new Orientalist” representations of Tibet and glorifying the famous Dali Lama. It then points out not only that Tibetans aren’t all orange clad Buddhist monks, but also that some Tibetans seek to profit from the Western image of “Tibetan-ness” by creating old-timey Tibet theme tourist traps. The essay also notes that folks who consider themselves ethnic Tibetans in fact hail from various locales in the vast expanse of western China, and that, while they tend to be practicing Buddhists, they’re not necessarily pulsating with noble religious fervor 24-7. (Nor are they, as the Chinese media would have you believe, separatist terror mongers.) Instead, they have fairly reasonable grievances against the Han settlers and the Chinese government, which quite clearly discriminates against them. To the degree that there’s a point, it is that Tibetans inhabit reality, not some colorful metaphysical realm.

I would like to take add a couple points about how we formed this image of Tibet in the first place: when the Dalai Lama and his followers escaped Tibet in 1959, they got a few inches of print in Western newspapers — but that was it. The US was ambivalent; the CIA secretly provided weapons and funding to Tibetan guerrillas during the 50s and 60s, but the Dalai Lama was consistently refused a US visa and occupied essentially zero space in the American “popular imagination,” if you’ll allow the term. After Chinese rapprochement in ’72, the US was happy with this obscurity. After decades of activism, along with media coverage of demonstrations in Lhasa in 1987 and 89, Tibet still wasn’t the cause celebre that we know today. It was only in the early 90s, when Richard Gere and others (most notably Steven Segal) became interested in Tibetan Buddhism, that Joe Sixpack saw these sad images of Himalayan tranquility. What I mean to say is this: it wasn’t just traditional “Orientalism” that made us suddenly feel sentimental about Tibet — it was a sustained and expensive PR campaign orchestrated by Hollywood insiders who happened to be enthusiastic about Buddhism. In this way, the DL was annointed as as a public figure (in the West) and began to receive his controversial White House invites.

On a related note, I once read a pretty neat article about how Tibet activists try to constantly manage and negotiate the image of the Dalai Lama. In particular, some of them are angry that “culture” and Buddhism are the main elements of Tibet discourse in the West, and hope instead to re-brand the DL as a political leader — which, from their perspective, he obviously is.

In sum, I enjoyed this FP essay, but I think it should have talked about how the prevalent image of Tibet is actually a commodity. The article seeks to challenge false images of Tibet, but it doesn’t talk about how those images were amplified and perpetuated by a massive PR campaign. (Meanwhile the Chinese are waging an equal and opposite PR campaign, but that’s another story.)

What’s interesting about Inglorious Basterds is that, although it was (sort of) billed as a revisionist historical film, it’s actually QT applying his formula to Hollywood’s WWII genre films of the 40′s and 50′s — which were themselves pure propaganda. So you end up with Brad Pitt doing a John Wayne impression for two hours; one film icon impersonating another.

On a related note, Essayist Lee Sandlin wrote a brilliant piece exploring, among other things, the disconnect between the historical reality of WWII and the American popular perception of it:

Out of idle curiosity, I’ve been asking friends, people my age and younger, what they know about war — war stories they’ve heard from their families, facts they’ve learned in school, stray images that might have stuck with them from old TV documentaries. I wasn’t interested in fine points of strategy, but the key events, the biggest moments, the things people at the time had thought would live on as long as there was anybody around to remember the past. To give everybody a big enough target I asked about World War II.

I figured people had to know the basics — World War II isn’t exactly easy to miss. It was the largest war ever fought, the largest single event in history. Other than the black death of the Middle Ages, it’s the worst thing we know of that has ever happened to the human race. Its aftereffects surround us in countless intertwining ways: all sorts of technological commonplaces, from computers to radar to nuclear power, date back to some secret World War II military project or another; the most efficient military systems became the model for the bureaucratic structures of postwar white-collar corporations; even the current landscape of America owes its existence to the war, since the fantastic profusion of suburban development that began in the late 1940s was essentially underwritten by the federal government as one vast World War II veterans’ benefit. (Before the war there were 3 suburban shopping centers in the U.S.; ten years after it ended there were 3,000.)

Then too, World War II has been a dominant force in the American popular imagination. In the mid-1960s, when my own consumption of pop culture was at its peak, the war was the only thing my friends and I thought about. We devoured World War II comic books like Sgt. Fury and Sgt. Rock; we watched World War II TV shows like Hogan’s Heroes and The Rat Patrol; our rooms overflowed with World War II hobby kits, with half-assembled, glue-encrusted panzers and Spitfires and Zeroes. I think I had the world’s largest collection of torn and mangled World War II decal insignia. We all had toy boxes stuffed with World War II armaments — with toy pistols and molded plastic rifles and alarmingly realistic rubber hand grenades. We refought World War II battles daily and went out on our campaigns so overloaded with gear we looked like ferocious porcupines. Decades after it was over the war was still expanding and dissipating in our minds, like the vapor trails of an immense explosion.

(Read through the Sandlin piece if you have time, or you can listen to an excerpt in episode 195 of This American Life)