Oscar thoughts for tonight

It's pretty tough to live in Hollywood and not have dozens of conversations about which of the big studio films will garner the most awards, and since I do love films, for what it's worth - here are my hopes/predictions:

What are yours? 

Picture: The King's Speech (For: the combination of history/characters connecting beyond their social class)

Director: Tom Hooper (For: bringing out the above, though Fincher will probably win for The Social Network)

Actress: Natalie Portman (For: an emotional performance)

Actor: Colin Firth (For: a masterful performance, years of fine acting, and being very easy to look at)

Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham-Carter (For: the nominations she's had and lost, and her subtle, understated performance)

Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (For: character immersion, and the audience reactions when I saw the Fighter screened at the Director's Guild before the Sag awards)

Original Screenplay: Inception (For: Being creatively brilliant and inspiring debate amongst viewers)

Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network (For: The Larry Summers scene)

Animated Feature: Toy Story 3 (For: My nephew)

Art Direction: Inception (For: Being captivating)

Cinematography: Inception (For: The same)

Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland (For: bringing my Lewis Carroll obsession to life)

Documentary (Feature): Inside Job (For: capturing the true seediness/greed beneath the crisis)

Documentary (Short Subject): Poster Girl (For: the emotion/irrevocability that lingers post our wars and because Sara Neeson is awesome)

Film Editing: The Fighter (For: Pamela and gritty evocation)

Foreign-Language Film: Outside the Law (For: the struggle for liberation of Algeria, especially given where we are today)

Makeup: The Way Back (For: what happens to faces in the most intense of weather conditions/political oppression)

Music (Original Score): The King's Speech (For: the classics)

Music (Original Song): I See the Light

Short Film (Animated): The Gruffalo

Short Film (Live Action): The Confession

Sound Editing: Inception

Sound Mixing: Inception

Visual Effects: Inception

Did Tim Geithner really say something that dumb?

It's been at least a week or two (or maybe I've just been paying attention to other things that he doesn't appear to be noticing), since Tim Geithner reminded us how little he understands (or cares) about - everything. But, his Bloomberg Breakfast statement this morning, just nailed it. 

"The global economy is in a much stronger position to handle rising oil prices than it was in 2008 when crude shot up to a record US$147.27 a barrel in New York... Central banks have a lot of experience in managing these things.”

I mean, really ?!? What part of the global economy basking in the stability of its strength would that be, Tim?

The part uprising in the streets, in nations where a third of the population lives in utter poverty? The part getting kicked out of homes, while lenders stash their subsidization money with the Fed, and get interest on it? The part that has all but stopped searching for employment, as the pool of applicants drowns the drop of available jobs? The part that can't afford to eat? The part being asked to give up their right to collective bargaining, so that the part that collectively bargains constantly (under the corporate collective bargaining label 'lobbyists') can defund state and federal revenues while chewing on unnecessary tax breaks?

What part?

A significant chunk of the Middle East and Northern Africa is in revolt against corrupt governments and soul-destroying economic conditions - chief amongst those, a hopeless level of unemployment, particularly for the growing youth populations in those regions (and by the way, Tim - also in our own country), as well as a paralyzing financial chokehold unleashed by record high food and agricultural prices and rising oil ones. No, Tim, the global economy doesn't need more pain.

But wait. Tim, maybe you've got a point about crisis management. Central banks, especially ours, are really good at managing crises on behalf of - banks. They are brilliant at manifesting any required amount of money to subsidize the crisis creators, and patting themselves on the back when that money pumps up stock market prices, corporate cash reserves, and commodity costs. And, when this wall of 'so-called recovery' that you talk about, shows fractures you strive to conceal, due to the reality of an anemic, depressed economy, our central bank is excellent at springing to action. Bernanke just lobs a QE maneuver to inflate the value of our debt and deflate the value of our currency, much the same way the ECB moans a bit, each time a Greece, or an Ireland, or a Portugal begs for a reprieve from the international capital regime that colluded with their local banking systems to trash their citizen economies.

And you, Tim, so heroically helped our central bank manage the crisis, as the Treasury department issued $4 trillion of debt (in two years!) while now, nervously talking about budget spending cuts and deficit reduction and hoping no-one will remember your part in the financial imbalance that is our national economy. This, in co-hoots with a reckless Federal Reserve determined to pretend that the cheap money it continues to pump into the speculative class has nothing to do with the inflation in commodity prices it refuses to acknowledge, and that the trillions of dollars manufactured to enable our negligent, accountability-immune (h/t to the magnificent Matt Taibbi) banking system to remain functional was no hardship to our country, whereas say, advocating the raising of taxes and revenue seeking measures on those recipients would be.

Yeah. Nothing like management experience.

Author Michael Deibert's letter to Muammar Gaddafi

As revolution continues spreading across the Middle-East and North Africa, and intensifies in the blood-soaked streets of Libya, amidst its 30% unemployment, a 60% youth population, and a third of the country's citizens living below the poverty line, despite being the largest oil producer in North Africa, Michael Deibert (Author, "Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti") wrote this concise and pointed 'farewell' letter to Libya's corrupt and violent dictator:

Dear Muammar.  Check it out.