The stated premise of "MLK Boulevard," a "documentary" film airing on the Discovery-Times Channel (formerly Discovery Civilization - it's available on satellite and some digital cable outlets) is intriguing.
The film is positioned as an examination of the phenomenon of renaming streets across America after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. According to the film, King has more streets named after him than anyone in U.S. history except Washington and Lincoln.
Is the renaming of a street in honor of King a fitting tribute, or is it a meaningless gesture that does nothing to promote King's vision and is just the default tribute required for all cities to pass NAACP muster?
This is supposed to be the question answered by "MLK Boulevard." Instead, the filmmaker - a young black man from New York - uses his platform to push an agenda. That's not surprising, as most leftist filmmakers use the "documentary" form as political platform, but it was very disappointing.
The filmmaker travels the country examining MLK Boulevards, pointing out poverty, asking strangers on the side of the road for directions to their MLK street (to show, I suppose, that if nobody can tell you how to get there, that's a bad thing), and reducing what was a legitimate argument in Eugene, Oregon about a King renaming into a "white businesses verses black residents" struggle.
He travels to Cuba, Alabama to find an MLK street that is, as he points out in shame "only 1100 feet long". He says Cuba is a very small town, but doesn't feel the need to explain that the entire town in about 500 yards square. Cuba features streets named Outside Street, Railroad Avenue and a New York City-style grid of numbered streets and avenues. The entirely of Cuba exists between 1st and 4th Streets and 1st and 8th Avenues.
Part of MLK Street in Cuba is a dusty dirt road. He shows the road without comment, and then pulls up to a trailer in which he finds an poor, old black man. The filmmaker seems upset that a black man living on MLK Street would be living in such poverty. Nevermind that half of Alabama lives like that.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mac Diva
This would be amusing in a way if it were not pathetic. How can someone write more than a dozen paragraphs about a filmmaker and not even accord the person the dignity of naming him? (Never mind. I suspect that is easy for someone like YOU to do.) However, saying he faked footage with no proof of it is shameful. Furthermore, you have not credited the sources you reprinted material almost verbatim from. Passing other people's material off as your own is unethical, and ironic considering you are attacking someone else's ethics. In summary, yuck!
For the record, the filmaker's name is Marco Williams. Interested persons can read an intelligent account of his reasons for making the film here.
2 - kara
Mac, if you disagree with Ken's position, then provide some facts to back up your position. Your post leads me to believe you didn't actually watch the documentary you're hammering Ken for critiquing.
Rather than refute his position that the documentary was an ineffective propaganda piece instead of an intelligent and informative discussion on fitting and appropriate tributes to the memory of MLK, you lapse back into your usual M.O. of name calling and finger pointing.
I bet you were the kid who wrote down names when other kids talked while the teacher was out of the classroom.
3 - kara
Let me also add that MLK Blvd in Cuba, AL - while only 1100 ft. long - is probably the longest street in town.
The population of Cuba, AL is 363, and occupies 4 sq. miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba,_Alabama
4 - Cap'n Ken
Mac - are you, in fact, "Silver Rights"? If not, you've got to at least be conjoined twins. Maybe we can spend millions to separate you.
5 - TCL
A theory no longer. The contact e-mail for both Mac Diva* and Silver Rights is escritoria@mac.com. Silver Rights's "Amazon Wishlist" link links to the page "J.G.'s Wish List." Not surprisingly, Mac Diva's "Amazon Wishlist" link also links to "J.G.'s Wish List." Clicking on "About J.G." link returns the page "About woman_warrior," with contact escritoria@mac.com and this pithy description: "I am a writer with an educational and professional background in journalism and law. Blogging, which allows me to combine those and other interests, is my latest avocation. I also write fiction, usually domestic and dirty realism."** What an asshole.
I think this pretty much cements your point about hiding.
*This "writer with an educational and professional background in journalism and law" couldn't think up a better fucking name than "Mac Diva"?
**As opposed foreign and clean fantasy.
NB: Strangely enough, it occurs to me that I am a "writer with an educational and professional background in journalism and law" (hey, I write stuff). As such, I must say: What an asshole.
6 - Mac Diva
Envious, luv?
Perhaps I am not trying to hide anything. That would explain why nothing is hidden, you know?
As for writing for more than one blog and doing it well, it comes easy to me.
7 - kara
"As for writing for more than one blog and doing it well, it comes easy to me."
Supporting your position with facts seems to come harder to you. Perhaps that's why you're focusing on blogging instead of being a lawyer or journalist?
8 - Cap'n Ken
Mac Diva / Silver Rights:
Both of your blogs are predictable, tiresome and uninteresting.
And, yes, that does seem to come pretty easy for you.
9 - TCL
And you definitely need to use more Britishisms. A few "luvs" and "arses" sprinkled here and there aren't nearly pretentious enough.
10 - Mac Diva
You don't have to use two names on this thread, Ken. You can cuss me just as well as Cap'n. We'll let the market decide who has an interesting blog(s). The thousands of people who have read mine would disagree with your and Kara's assessment, I suspect.
For the record:
Kara may be well-caffeinated, but her fortune stops there.
As I realized when I came across his blog months ago, Cap'n Ken is a thoroughly self-centered person who spends a lot of time talking to himself.
Oh, for people who want to read about the MLK documentary, here's the entry. (You may notice it also appeared on Blogcritics. However, the Cap'n is too stuck on himself to bother reading the posts of other Blogcritics -- even here.)
11 - Chris Arabia
mac, someone with your pretensions should know how to type a simple blogspot address.
12 - Mac Diva
Chris, feel free to demonstrate with this URL. Perhaps doing so will attract readers and links to your blog. Lord knows you need some help.
13 - Joe
I'm not sure I understand the the point of the Technorati links. I'd assume that that would really only matter if you were in the top 100 or something or if you had some misplaced sense of importance associated with the significance of the numbers.
14 - Mac Diva
The point is that some of the most critical people here have blogs no one reads. They haven't even figured out their way around the blogosphere yet, but mistakenly believe they are setting it on fire. And, BTW, Mac-a-ro-nies has been in the top 100 blogs.
15 - Joe
"Has been" being the operative phrase, and how many of those links on Mac-a-ro-nies can be traced back to your other blog or orginated from here by you? Setting it on fire, man, that's arson!
16 - Mac Diva
The answer to your silly question is none. Mac-a-ro-nies was in the top 100 before I joined Blogcritics.
Now, would you like to discuss that thing you call a weblog? . . . I thought not.
17 - Chris Arabia
mac, you couldn't even type your own blog address without making a mistake:
at BC in comments, putting the cursor over "mac diva" links to the following:
macaronies .blogspot.com
notice the space? if you click on this address, it leads nowhere. i laugh in your general direction. what a blunder.
how hard is it to type a blog address? too hard for yac hiva.
18 - Chris Arabia
oops, it's http://macaronies. blogspot.com.
that's:
http://macaronies. blogspot.com
see the space after macaronies--that's your error, mac.
i typed it wrong, but any idiot could do that. it took a special idiot to mangle her own blogspot address.
19 - Joe
No, feel free to leave a remark in the comments, I'll do likewise in yours...oops, you don't have comments. What's the matter, scared that people might actually provide feedback?
20 - Mac Diva
At least my blog has an address people actually visit, Chris. Eat your heart out.
The word 'comments' is longer than your entries, Joe.
Now, run along, members of the fraternity Unread. Fooling around with y'all is too reminiscient of an elephant stepping on mice. After looking at your stats, I've been laughing so hard it has made my stomach hurt. You guys are pa-thet-ic.
21 - Joe
For some reason I'm reminded of an underendowed man bragging about his sportscar as if that compensated for something. Sad.
22 - Chris Arabia
mac, what's more pathetic: your inability to type a simple blogspot address (especially in light of your ceaseless blabbing about your imaginary intellectual superiority) or your belief that blog links are the final arbiter of a person or writer's worth?
23 - Cap'n Ken
Chris:
I think the most pathetic thing is Mac's belief in that imaginary intellectual superiority.
Or maybe it's that Mac believes we should give a rat's ass what she thinks about her and our relative worth in the blogsphere.
Wow, you sure do have a lot of links in and out of your blogs! I'm damned impressed.
Doesn't make your stuff any less yawn-inspiring, though.
Nor does it change the fact that MLK Boulevard was rendered pointless by the filmmaker's (man, I'm such a racist - WON'T EVEN SAY THE BROTHER'S NAME!!!) agenda.
Doesn't it say something about the potential value of the topic that a racist, conservative, lying cracker from Louisiana such as myself would deem it worth valuable disk space on the DVR?
In case anybody's wondering how this old post got active with comments again, it came from Mac - using an alter-ego blog Silver Rights (hey, maybe all of those links are her blogs, too) - to spew all sorts of lies and accusations about me based on this post and the one about "hate crimes". My response and links back to her stuff is here
24 - Phillip Winn
Folks, why feed the troll? Didn't your mother ever teach you that if you leave the pretentious bully alone long enough, she'll eventually leave you alone?
25 - Mac Diva
(Yawn.) Another loser joins in.
The bottom line is a racist, self-centered know-nothing wrote a piece attacking an African-American filmmaker for no reason. A good blogger who writes well wrote a piece about the same topic, briefly citing the bigot. Case closed.