Right now I'm finishing up reading Timmy's in the Well: The Jon Provost Story. There's something fascinating about the stories of child stars, as they've lived a childhood that is far different from that of the average child, making them different from the onset. Provost didn't crash and burn in the manner of Michael Jackson or Macaulay Culkin, but he also didn't seem to move toward adult fame in the way that Ron Howard, who went on to become an Oscar-winning director, or Elijah Wood, who went on to star in the epic and critically acclaimed Lord of the Rings series, have.

I picked up his book and met him while at WonderCon, the Bay Area comic book convention. I was never an avid watcher of Lassie growing up (though I do remember watching the similiar series Flipper many times), but for whatever reasons he stood out to me and I forked down $27 for his book and took a picture with him.

I have a personal fascination with North Korea. I don't go into it alot, because thinking about life in North Korea is like thinking about armageddon or life after death, it's mysterious, frightening and somewhat unthinkable. I have a suspicion, which is all mine and doesn't have validity in hard evidence, that North Korea may be the worst place on earth.

From the few holes in the society that we have had access to, we have been able to analyze that it is not a fun place to be:

North Korea has been in the news lately, in part because the New York Philharmonic went there, to play a concert. I wrote about this event in the National Review of February 11. You may read that piece here.

In it, I canvass some people whose judgment I respect tremendously: Richard Pipes, Paul Hollander, John Bolton, Harry Wu, Armando Valladares, etc. Some of them were in favor of the visit (the concert took place on February 26); most were not. I came down against the visit: while recognizing the merits of the other side of the argument, and hoping I was wrong.

I also want to draw your attention to an op-ed piece published in the New York Times back in October. It is by Richard V. Allen, the onetime Reagan national-security adviser, and Chuck Downs, a North Korea specialist, among other things. You will find that piece here. And I wish to highlight one passage relating to music:

“During a party on Christmas in 1992, one of the regime’s former propaganda officers, Ji Hae-nam, made the mistake of singing a South Korean song. She was sentenced to three years in jail and, as she testified to the United States Congress after her escape, beaten so severely she could not get up for a month.”

Dick Allen and his friends are doing vital and necessary work. Their organization is the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, whose website is here. The group, and the site, shine a light on one of the earth’s most hideous corners. Maybe it is the most hideous of all.

It's nice to see articles like this whenever they pop up. Only ten years ago, Afghanistan was dominated by a barbaric regime that used stadiums to perform public executions and destroyed all works of art that "worshipped false idols" (as was the case with the destruction of the centuries old Buddhist statues in 2001), and now, women are able to show exhibitions of their art in high school auditoriums:

Seven years ago, the Taliban would have torn these paintings to pieces.

The 93 works show the emotions and images of a war-torn country in which women are still deeply oppressed: war and weaponry, violence, entrapment, hopelessness - and hope.

But the Taliban would have been most offended by the gender of the artists: women.

Twenty-three young artists displayed their work at a recent eight-day show in Kabul attended by 3,000 people, according to event organizer Rahraw Omarzad. The show, which ended Monday, now travels to the western city of Herat.

Under the hard-line Taliban regime, women were forbidden to leave home without a male relative as an escort, and girls were not allowed to go to school. Figurative art was banned and even destroyed.

"I couldn't paint during Taliban regime because I didn't have enough material, and I wasn't allowed to go out and buy paint," said 22-year-old artist Maryam Formuli.

"I was young and couldn't go to the art center to learn because as a girl, I wasn't allowed to go to school," added artist Fareha Ghezal, 19.

Unfortunately, the article didn't have any photos of the art in question. If anyone has any, please provide a link.    

This poster should be the Republican campaign poster for 2008. When selecting a leader, people should be looking for substance and character, not hype and beautiful nonsense.

I was searching through the internets and found a gem of an interview with George Lucas from 1999, about the time The Phantom Menace came out. It surrounds Lucas' views on religion. He says some really interesting stuff, such as this:

I think there is a God. No question. What that God is or what we know about that God, I'm not sure. The one thing I know about life and about the human race is that we've always tried to construct some kind of context for the unknown. Even the cavemen thought they had it figured out. I would say that cavemen understood on a scale of about 1. Now we've made it up to about 5. The only thing that most people don't realize is the scale goes to 1 million.

That is a really powerful statement, and relates to many of the outspoken atheists of today that talk like they have everything figured out. Christopher Hitchens, I'm looking at you!

I am Michael Powell, a professional writer and enthusiastic analyst of the passing societal scene. I have maintained this blog with Townhall.com since the site was aquired by Salem Communications in 2006 and probably will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, though every once in a while I lapse. Many of the posts originate with my personal blog, which can be found on Blogspot.

Ryan Cole argues in the Wall Street Journal that Senator McCain isn't too old to be president, and that it could actually be an advantage if he plays his cards right:

True enough, age can bring its share of infirmities. But with age can also come knowledge, understanding and expertise. Prior to becoming heads of state, many great leaders were soldiers, generals, ambassadors, activists, political prisoners, governors and ordinary citizens involved for decades with the political system of their respective countries. Some of that same patina can be seen on John McCain's résumé.

Given this precedent, a strong case can be made that age should not be a factor in picking our next president -- unless Mr. McCain, to paraphrase Reagan's famous quip to Walter Mondale, chooses to exploit, for political purposes, his opponent's youth and inexperience.

It may be too soon to say this, and seeing as I supported Kerry in 2004 and the Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections, my record for predicting elections is not totally sound, but I really don't see John McCain beating Barack Obama in November.

Democrats are at their best politically when they have fallen in love with their candidate. The natural distrust of all those who seek power that many libertarians have is not present amongst the left, who have a strong tendency towards hero worship. They have been reaching for candidates that have the aura and charm (though not necessarily the politics) of John F. Kennedy, and that was part of the appeal of Bill Clinton. Barack Obama's appeal is the same appeal that George Clooney has. He is more celebrity than a politician, and that will bring out the housewives and young people.

John McCain, on the other hand, is also a charmer, but he is a fossil. He doesn't look as good as Obama for very natural and obvious reasons, and I can imagine a repeat of the 1960 television debate with Obama playing the role of the handsome and idealistic Kennedy while McCain plays the role of the sweaty, career politician Nixon. The long political history of John McCain will undoubtedly spill out numerous skeletons, something Obama doesn't really have to worry about with having written about intimate details of his life already and only serving a little over three years in the Senate.

If the situation in Iraq continues to improve in Iraq, that could be used to beat back Obama. It's almost granted that some extremist Muslim somewhere in the world will do something rash, and Obama's warm-fuzziness may turn off some voters when it's met the ugliness of reality. Many voters who are only interested because they think Obama is cool may not even actually cast a ballot in November, deciding to smoke a bong instead. These are all possibilities, but I really see a combination of dissatisfaction with the sitting Republican president and McCain's baggage (as well as the fact that voters historically clean house after two terms with one party) leading to a Democratic victory in November.

I went to WonderCon, the Bay Area comic book and pop culture convention, on Friday. It was pretty overwhelming, despite my history with comic book conventions. In Seattle I had been used to conventions that were much smaller in size than this one. I usually spend only a small amount of time at places like this that are so overflowing with humanity. I prefer small concerts in nice little venues to big musical festivals, for example. I left pretty early, and with a splitting headache.

I did have the unexpected pleasure while there of meeting Jon Provost, the man who played Timmy on Lassie at the dawn of television. Provost seemed ambivalent about his role on Lassie when I met him, saying in a quiet tone, "Yeah, that was me...' as I'm sure he has said hundreds of times before at similiar conventions. I purchased his autobiography, took a picture with him and look forward to reading his story. I didn't regret paying the full cover price of $27 for it, as he stood out to me in the midst of superheroes, manga and science fiction.

I also surprisingly ran into Nightclubber Lang AKA Karim, of the once Seattle based Boom Bap Project. I had interviewed him along with DJ Scene for Seaspot.com three years and Karim sounded and looked exactly the same. He's now working as an events coordinator for the hip-hop culture TV channel MYX. Boom Bap Project is some serious underground hip hop, with none of the dumbed down ignorance and stupidity of today's pop music. If you have never heard them before, check for their most recent release, The Shakedown.

Events like WonderCon seem like a mixed bag. There's alot to be offered there, but unfortunately they can be overwhelming and disorienting.

No one is unbiased, not even journalists, and the beginning paragraph in this ABC News report on the "Protect America Act" illustrates that well:

President Bush today issued a stark warning to Congress: Renew the so-called "Protect America Act," which allowed the government to eavesdrop on certain phone calls and e-mails without a court order, or aid the terrorists.

Why on earth would it be necessary to describe something that is in quotations as "so-called?" The only explanation is that the writer couldn't write a news article about President Bush without letting the world know that he didn't like him.

Of all the leading powers in the world, China is probably the most influential in Sudan and has done absolutely nothing to stop the genocide occuring there. It's good to see that Steven Spielberg is using his prestige to call attention to the Chinese government's lack of conscience:

Steven Spielberg has decided not to participate in the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing as an artistic adviser, citing the lack of progress in ending the genocide in Darfur.

The move marks a public relations blow to the Chinese government as it tries to prevent the Games from being politicized, not just on the Darfur crisis but other issues.

"After careful consideration, I have decided to formally announce the end of my involvement as one of the overseas artistic advisers to the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games," Spielberg said in a statement released today.

"I have made repeated efforts to encourage the Chinese government to use its unique influence to bring safety and stability to the Darfur region of Sudan," Spielberg wrote. "Although some progress has been made ...the situation continues to worsen and the violence continues to accelerate."

"With this in mind, I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual," he added. "At this point, my time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies, but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that will continue to be committed in Darfur."

Spielberg noted that the Olympic Organizing Committee had sent him a contract nearly a year ago, but he left it unsigned.

I'm not usually the boycotting sort, but I think it would not be a bad idea to refrain from watching the Olympics this year. I'm well aware that I probably aid the Chinese government and economy by buying products made there on a regular basis, but giving them a public relations benefit like the Olympics seems like it's going a bit too far.

I remember there being an explosion in dramatic school shootings at the end of the 1990s, topping off with the infamous Columbine shootings. It seems like that trend is on the rise again, with shootings by the young and unhappy occuring at college campuses, shopping malls and, once again, high schools. I don't know if there's any meaning or relevance to the end of another decade bringing about a great deal of youth violence, but it's certainly interesting.

Maybe it's the libertarian in me who always doubts the ability of officials to be able to do anything, but I really worry about schools only making things worse and creating new problems while trying to keep violence from erupting in their schools. I, as just about any public school student at the time of the last wave of shootings, was indirectly effected by this by well-meaning but ultimately misguided school officials cracked down to make sure this didn't happen again. Teenagers and young people in general are often and almost by definition emotionally unstable, and it seems like common sense that the last thing they should have access to is guns. That doesn't, however, make every teenager who has problems a serial killer. This seems obvious but it needs some reminding. We should meet them with a level of respect and high expectation and not as murderers waiting to happen.

Thomas Sowell's latest column is a simple and devastating attack on the empty suit of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy. Here's an excerpt, with my favorite part highlighted:

It is not too much to ask politicians to talk specifics, instead of trying to sweep us along, turning off our minds and turning on our emotions, with soaring rhetoric.

Optimists might even hope for some logical consistency and hard facts.

Barack Obama says that he wants to “heal America and repair the world.” One wonders what he will do for an encore and whether he will rest on the seventh day.

There's a bizarre connection between the recent Illinois campus rampage and last year's massacre at Virginia Tech. The Illinois shooter bought his guns from the same source, according to CNN:

DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) -- A firearms dealer in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Friday confirmed a bizarre link between the graduate student accused of killing five people at Northern Illinois University and the gunman in last year's deadly shootings at Virginia Tech.

A Web site used to buy gun accessories by Steven Kazmierczak is owned by the same company that operates a site patronized by Seung-Hui Cho, the company said.

Kazmierczak ordered two 9 mm Glock magazines and a holster for a Glock handgun from the Web site February 4, said a statement released by TGSCOM Inc.

He received them February 12, two days before the NIU shootings, it said.

"TGSCOM Inc. also operates the Web site used by Seung-Hui [Cho] to purchase a firearm used in the Virginia Tech shootings last April," the statement said.

Cho killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself in that incident.

I doubt that this is some hideous coincidence. My personal hypothesis is that he bought them from that source on purpose and planned the attack as a copycat. With the way the media gave everything the Virginia Tech shooter wanted in fame and attention, it's no shock that someone would repeat a similar massacre.