Slanted Viewpoint

Every year, it’s the same lament: The Oscar telecast ratings are down. What should we do to prop them up?

Enough already. Let’s be clear: The purpose of the Academy Awards (Oscar) is not primarily to garner ratings (although television executives may dispute this). It is to give out awards.

Ideally, it is to give out awards to the most deserving films. Admittedly, it is not an ideal process. For one thing, many in Hollywood view everything about films, including the Oscars, only as a way to generate money. Artistic value be damned. Movies that don’t make a lot of money are, by definition in this view, not good and should not get Oscars. Another problem is that some of the people that vote don’t take the process all that seriously and may not even have seen many of the films in contention. Or they vote based on which film ran the best “campaign” or which actor has the most sentimental appeal. And don’t even get me started on the screwy way that the nominations work for Best Foreign Film (so that a superb picture such as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and and 2 Days doesn’t even get a nomination). Or the fact that the last time the Best Song category had more than one memorable song (if that many) was several decades ago.

Even so, the Academy Awards is still, even in a bad year, one of the most watched shows on television. So enough complaining.

Instead, revel in the fact that this year’s nominees somehow managed to include a bunch of great films, even though they were not blockbusters. Major nominations, for example, went to No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Atonement, The Savages, La Vie en Rose, Away From Her, and The Valley of Elah.

Yet I keep reading how the solution to the Oscar ratings “problem” is to ensure that awards should go to more popular films. The theory is that if nominations mainly go to pictures that most people actually saw, more people would watch the telecast. A Time magazine column by Richard Corliss expressed this view in its most extreme and despicable form.

I spit on this solution.

The five most popular films this past year were: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now some of these films were enjoyable. No doubt about it. But I’d like to believe that even people who went to these films and enjoyed them can recognize the difference between an enjoyable and popular film vs. a great and award-worthy film. These are not mutually-exclusive categories. But it is far from a sure thing that they will overlap. Does anyone truly want to argue that the 5 pictures at the start of this paragraph should have been the Best Picture nominees? I hope not.

There’s only so much you can do to improve the ratings the Academy Awards. Giving awards to popular but otherwise crappy films should not be one of them. Doing so, in my view, is equivalent to saying that we could improve the ratings of the Super Bowl if we gave the underdog team a 10 point lead before the start of the game, so that the score would likely remain close throughout the 4 quarters. Sound crazy? Sure. But it’s no more crazy than the phony solutions to the Oscar ratings non-problem.

My one suggestion to increase Oscar ratings is to focus more on the films themselves. Creative segments that include clips from great films of previous years, for example, are always one of the highlights for me. Beyond that, leave it alone. Let Oscar be Oscar. Don’t sell him out to the highest bidder.

Here in California, we had State Proposition 91 on yesterday’s ballot. It’s designed to make sure that gasoline tax revenue is used for transportation funding, as intended, and not something else.

In an unusual turn of events, no one supported this proposition, not even the people responsible for getting it on the ballot.

How can this be?

It’s a timing thing. It turns out that the approval to be on the ballot was given in 2006. However, a separate proposal that accomplished the same goal wound up on the November 2006 ballot and was passed. This made this year’s Proposition 91 irrelevant. So the original supporters said not to vote for it.

Don’t believe me? Check out the Voter Information Guide and see for yourself. The section for arguments in favor of Proposition 91 states: “Proposition 91 is no longer needed. We respectfully urge you to vote NO ON PROPOSITION 91.”

Okay. Here’s the punchline:

It’s still early as I write this (only 14% of precincts are reporting) but the percentage of YES votes for Proposition 91 is 44% (that’s over one million votes and counting). That’s right. A greater percentage (and greater number) of people have so far voted in favor of Proposition 91 than have voted in favor of Proposition 92, 94, 95, 96 or 97. Of all the propositions on the ballot, only Proposition 93 has received more YES votes—with an only slightly larger percentage: 48%.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain (the projected winners in their respective primaries) each have less votes (by several hundred thousand) than the votes in favor of Proposition 91.

The kindest spin that can be put on this is that “yes on 91″ voters read the proposal for the first time when in the voting booth and made their decision knowing nothing else about it. Maybe that’s not exactly a stupid way to vote. But it’s sure close.

For the record, I have little tolerance for these endless environment vs. genetics debates. Too often, they make it sound like an either-or debate: Either trait X is “determined” by the environment or by genetics. It has to be one or the other. People who actually study this issue have long ago realized that traits are instead “determined” by some combination of the two factors. True, there is a continuum, where some traits may be more influenced by one of these two factors than the other. But it never reaches 100%. It is similarly silly to say that a given trait is “90% genetic” or whatever. This would be like saying that your mother’s apple pie is determined 90% by recipe and 10% by cooking skill. An apple pie is a result of the interplay of these two determinants. You can never completely isolate one factor from the other—or assign a percentage to each one.

That said, it is also my belief that most human characteristics, both physical and behavioral, are significantly influenced by our genes. Just because an apple pie is not 100% determined by its recipe does not mean that its recipe is irrelevant to how the apple pie tastes. The same is true for genes and human behavior.

When it comes to human behaviors and skills, our genes place upper limits on what we can achieve. I doubt that anyone believes they could match Michael Jordan’s basketball abilities simply by practicing harder or getting the “right” training or growing up in a different environment or whatever else might be mentioned here. Most of us will never and could never be as good as Michael Jordan, no matter what. He started off with a genetic advantage that the rest of us don’t have. In a different environment, he might not have realized his potential. But most of us don’t even have the potential to realize.

This reminds me of a more personal example. I took piano lessons for 10 years, from about the age of 8 to 18. For most of that time, I studied under an excellent teacher and studied quite hard. Still, I struggled to move up the ranks and join the teacher’s “advanced students” group. I eventually made it but it was not easy.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine (we weren’t close friends but we were friendly to each other) was taking lessons from the same teacher. We grew up in the same town, were of the same religion and traveled in similar social circles. My friend had a much much easier time advancing. Indeed, he was so good that the teacher wound up giving him his own solo concert when we were seniors in high school. Quite simply, my friend was incredibly talented.

I was not surprised when, several years later, I discovered that my friend had made a career in music. His name is Randy Edelman and he went on to become a noted film composer. I am confident that there is no way that I could have achieved what Randy achieved, no matter how similar our backgrounds and how hard I tried. There was a genetic component to his talent that I did not have.

I was reminded of all of this when I read the recent article in the New York Times by Richard Nisbett, titled “All Brains Are the Same Color.” The main contention of the article is that any racial difference in intelligence “has environmental, not genetic, causes.”

Leaving aside my prior concern about whether such statements are ever meaningful, and leaving aside concerns about the potential bias of I.Q. testing, I would mainly agree with Nisbett’s contention. It is possible that there is a “genetic cause” for some of the difference, just as there may be for any physical trait, such as the color of skin. But, if there is, it is too entangled in other causes for us to clearly define it. At least for the moment, it is more reasonable to assume no difference at all.

But we have to be careful not to overgeneralize here. It is one thing to say that the intelligence differences between two groups have no genetic basis. It is quite another thing to say that there is no genetic basis for intelligence at all. To me this would be the equivalent of saying that we can all be Einsteins, given the right environment. Or that we can all be Michael Jordan. Or that I could have easily been Randy Edelman. It just isn’t so. Pretending it is so or wishing it were so, does not change that fact.

At some level, we all know that some of us are smarter than most of us, and that such differences are not simply a question of environment. Denying this truth, as with the case of any denial of truth, ultimately causes more harm than good.

Sorry for the long gap between this posting and the previous one. I have been busy finishing up my iPhone book. I hope to return to a more frequent posting schedule now.

A semi-random collection of thoughts too brief by themselves for a solo blog entry:

I remain appalled by Turkey’s near complete denial that a mass killing of Armenians even took place almost a century ago. Turkey’s objection to whether or not it is called a genocide is almost beside the point (see this NYT article). It is too reminiscent of Holocaust denials (which sadly also remain in the news thanks to, among others, Iran’s President) and is just as disgusting. Still, doesn’t the U.S. Congress have more important things to worry about than whether or not to call this chapter of history a genocide? Especially so given the political headaches it is causing? This is one of those rare occasions where I actually agree with Bush’s position.

I haven’t yet seen the new documentary “My Kid Could Paint That.” From the reviews I have read, however, it appears to raise some intriguing questions. Is a 4-year-old capable of producing quality abstract art? If so, what does this say about our definition of such art? What really separates the wheat from the chaff in this arena? The film also raises the question of whether or not Marla received help in producing her art. What the film apparently does not address (although it is of interest to me) is: Why should it matter whether or not Marla received help? If it is a great work of art, shouldn’t it remain a great work of art whoever created it? Or has Marla already become like Picasso. A Picasso painting would turn out to be worth a lot less if it were discovered that it was painted by someone else. In such cases, the value of the work is more due to who created it than the merits of the work itself.

On the face of it, the idea that we may bomb Iran before next year’s Presidential election seems too crazy to be true. With support for the President’s war in Iraq at an all-time low and continuing to fall still further, with the public finally aware of how many lies it has been fed to fuel support for this war, how can Bush even think about getting away with starting yet another Mideast war? Yet, people are taking this prospect seriously. Even worse, many Democrats seem unwilling to vigorously oppose the idea. Hillary Clinton is one of these Democrats (see this NYT column). Democrats in Congress are not much better. They now seem poised to give immunity to the telecommunications companies that assisted Bush in his illegal wiretapping program, another component of his “war on terror.” Is it too soon to say “A pox on both their houses”?

Enough already with America’s anti-attitude towards any new tax. It’s time for it to end. To those of you are wealthy enough to pay an increased tax without any financial burden, I say: “What is with you? Isn’t it enough that you can already afford to fly on a private jet, own three multi-million dollar homes, and take vacations that cost more than most people make in a lifetime? How about also supporting a tax increase to pay for some truly valuable government programs?” And to those with a much more moderate income who still resent any additional dollar given to the government, I say: “Not every tax increase is a bad idea. The government pays for all sorts of things that you support, from police to schools to roads. It is underfunded in key areas that you probably favor, including drug oversight by the FDA and telecommunications oversight by the FCC. We could use more money to fight the effects of global warming. And how about better health care? None of this is free. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want the government to do more, at some point you have to pay more.” Now is that point.

When I listed my Michigan home for sale in 2003, several months went by without an offer. At one point, a friend suggested that I contact their cousin, who was a mortgage broker. We could work out an arrangement where he left flyers in our home with info about how potential buyers could get a great deal on a loan from him. This, in turn, might get the house to sell sooner.

It turned out that the loans would be the interest-only zero-down payment type loans that are the fuel behind the current mortgage meltdown. When I discussed this with my real estate agent, she said that she could not support doing this, as she was ethically against these type of loans.

Later, in 2004, when looking to purchase a home in the East Bay of San Francisco, I was generally aghast at how high the home prices were. I wondered aloud to my real estate agent how anyone who did not already own a home in this area (or did not already have the money stashed away for a huge down payment) could afford to buy here. His answer was that they were all getting the same risky loans that my Michigan real estate agent had rejected. My California real estate agent was against them as well. As was I. We all saw the looming problem: If home prices ever started to fall, the homeowners could not afford to sell their homes because they would get less cash than they would need to pay off their mortgage. The result, if they could also no longer afford their mortgage payments when the adjustable rate started to rise, would be foreclosure. We all clearly understood this. And this was back in 2003 and 2004.

My point with these two anecdotes is that the current mortgage crisis should not have surprised anyone. The risks were clear. So how did it all happen? Who’s to blame?

I believe there is enough blame for everyone to share a bit. But not in equal parts.

The homeowners who purchased these loans deserve a bit of blame. They should have been aware of the dangers involved and resisted these ethically-challenged loans. This is especially so when you are talking about unnecessarily risking a home you have owned for 40 years so you can get startup cash for a new business venture (as was described in this San Francisco Chronicle article). I suppose some sort of “bail-out” effort is needed in the current environment. But there is a limit to what should be done. People who took foolish risks should not be rewarded by getting bailed out of their foolishness.

Still, showing restraint can be very hard to do when almost everyone else is getting these loans, your mortgage broker is pushing for you to go along, and there is no other way you can afford any home at all in an inflated market like the Easy Bay.

Real estate agents should have warned their clients away for these loans. Indeed, as my anecdotes suggest, many did. But not enough. Still, I understand the dilemma. If you are one of the few real estate agents taking a stand on this, it won’t stem the tide. All that will happen is that your clients will go elsewhere to get the loan, while your personal income plummets. It would have required a concerted effort from real estate agents as a group to do something effective. Simply depending on each agent’s personal integrity is not enough.

Mortgage brokers deserve most of the blame in my view. There were rules in place for decades that prevented these type of loans. In the last several years, these rules were abandoned so that brokers could make a quick buck at the expense of a desperate and too gullible public. The sub-prime lenders are the worst offenders here, and they are the ones in the most financial trouble now. But even huge institutions such as Countrywide contributed to this mess.

Finally, the Bush administration deserves a hefty amount of the blame. They could have acted to restrain the policies that allowed these dangerous mortgages to proliferate. But, as usual, they stood by and did nothing—letting the “free market” police itself. It’s the same attitude they take toward environmental regulations, communications policy, and more. It’s a sad case of putting the wolf in charge of the henhouse. I can only hope that next year’s elections send a clear message that we no longer want to support such policies.

Others could be added to this list. Recently, I have read speculations that offer institutions such as the Federal Reserve and Wall Street as culprits. Perhaps so. But my main point remains: Whoever is to blame knew that this day of reckoning would come and did nothing to prevent it. This was an avoidable crisis.