“Don’t smell it. Sell it!” was a wisecrack/watchword employed by NY and Hollywood agents when I was breaking in as a writer. [Were there men on the moon then?-ed. No, just cows.] Of course the wags were referring to the wretched manuscripts and screenplays they were supposed to be flogging to publishers or producers. Don’t worry about whether you like it or not – just sell the sucker. In fact, why even bother to read it? If the buyers buy, who cares?
And sure enough, without naming names here, most of which I have forgotten anyway, I ran into a variety of agents on both coasts over the years who sold my work and the work others numerous times (sometimes even the same one) without even reading it once – well, maybe the “coverage” (one-page studio or agency outline).
This was especially true of longer works, so I’m more than a little suspicious of whether almost anyone has read either the current healthcare bill or the recent cap-and-trade legislation that just passed the House. But what fascinates me is that these two pieces of legislation have the same agent… er… Congressman ramming them through – Rep. Henry Waxman. And what could be more fitting because I can guarantee you there is no Congressman with more agents living in his district – the California 30th that includes West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades and Malibu, some of the priciest real estate this side of Dubai – than any other representative extant. In fact I’d be willing to wager it’s by a factor of ten, or even a hundred. Waxman’s district is Agent Central. Important, or even half-way important, people here only read the “coverage”. It’s just the boys in the mailroom who read the whole thing – and only those boys in the mail room destined to go nowhere.
So why should we expect Henry to really understand the details in this massive, country-changing legislation he’s been pushing? Anthropogenic global warming? Why ask him? As Henry himself admitted in a recent hearing, he relies on scientists for this. But who does the “coverage” on global warming and healthcare? Certainly not Rahm Emanuel. He knows very well from his brother what the rules of the game are. “Don’t smell it. Sell it!” You got a problem with this? Just remember: if these bills go through and your world changes, it all began in the California 30th. And you can be sure of one thing – most of the people there won’t be using the public healthcare system. They wouldn’t dream of it. (Barbra Streisand without her own personal doctor? C’mon.) Most of their kids don’t go to public schools either. It’s all part of the same game. Do what I say, not what I do. And read the “coverage.”
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28 Comments
1. Terrye:It is almost as if they think they only have so much time to wreck the country and by God they intend to get this job done.
Jul 15, 2009 - 4:36 pm 2. David Thomson:The health care bill will not get out of the House of Representatives. It is dead on arrival. The American people are too skittish. Something doesn’t quite sound right to them. Furthermore, the majority are quite contented with the status quo. They are also rapidly learning about the horror stories in Canada and Europe. It would behoove everyone to email their friends and relatives the link to Steve Crowder’s PJTV visit to Canada’s “free” medical clinics. That should scare the crap out of anyone.
Jul 15, 2009 - 4:53 pm 3. Steve:Isn’t this the third 1000-page bill that no one has read and the House is rushing to pass?
Apparently the Senate has “parked” the Cap & Trade bill because of the heat House members are getting from constituents. That may bode ill for Obamacare.
Jul 15, 2009 - 5:21 pm 4. Andrew_M_Garland:“Do The Right Thing” Bill
=============
Future News:
Congress has debated the “Do The Right Thing” bill for a week, and it is expected to pass today. Senate approval is expected in short order.
A leading Congressman spoke anonymously to avoid “electoral difficulties”:
“None of us has read any of the bills this year before voting for them. Or, for that matter, after voting for them. Even the sponsors don’t know the contents; this is left to the staff and lobbyists.
We certainly are ashamed. It is clear to all of us that we cannot go on this way. The average bill is now 1,500 pages, and the details of government have gotten out of hand.”
‘Do The Right Thing’ will give us open, consistent, dynamic government. It grants President Michele Obama (now in her 3rd successful term in office) all principles and powers to consider all matters and then “Do the right thing”. The Congress retains the important function of advising on the President’s actions should she desire this.
The Congress is now free to do what it does best, arrange for hospital admissions and allocate liquor licenses.
Jul 15, 2009 - 5:58 pm 5. シャークスチームモップ 最安値:=============
シャークスチームモップです。
Jul 15, 2009 - 7:13 pm 6. Barry Dauphin:ブログがんばってくださいね。
With the economy so sick and with no recovery in sight, the general public is losing confidence in the administration and in the never ending scope of government meddling. Each day there is some new, over ambitious proposal. Taxes are gonna get higher. I expect something to trigger an powerful backlash. I don’t know what the something is, but it might be seemingly small, but symbolic. The country is simmering and could change into boiling state.
Jul 15, 2009 - 7:33 pm 7. KingShamus:Waxman as a sleazy Hollywood agent? A little on the nose, wouldn’t you say?
Jul 15, 2009 - 8:58 pm 8. Alan Kellogg:As the first Ferengi to serve in the US House of Representatives, Henry Waxman has done much to uphold his species’ traditions.
Jul 16, 2009 - 12:45 am 9. Fred Beloit:Henry Waxman can’t wait to get himself into the sick care program, I bet.
Jul 16, 2009 - 6:29 am 10. pelaut:Oh? He and other members of the House exempted themselves from the unread bill’s provisions? Well, they must know a few things about it then. They know enough that they don’t want anything to do with it themselves. We need to throw these bums out. But first we need to stop this bill in the Senate.
When I talk with any person under 60 years, they reveal their education came from Hollywood films and NY TV in spite of academic instituitons they may have attended.
People educated by Hollywood disclose a frozen gestalt of image-defined precepts, each one indefinable and therefore illogical and irrefutable. True Believers come from this mold. You can’t beat them with argument.
These people now run and ruin our financial institutions, our corporations, our government agencies and NGOs, our media propaganda mills and, of course our academic institutions from which they continue to disseminate the same recreant skeins of our history and our sciences.
True, the Calilfornia 30th District produced True Believers like Waxman and the Emanuals, but what about the hundreds of millions more across the nation and the world? The robots won. Go Galt.
Jul 16, 2009 - 6:38 am 11. Lazar:“But who does the “coverage” on global warming”
indeed… with such stupid gems as “another anecdotal nail in the coffin”, combined with levels of transparency, accountability, research and fact checking which are actually — amazingly — worse than the msm… i wonder if you guys are msm stooges here to make them look competent by comparison
“really understand the details”
yeh… sure… tell tom blumer (first link) who doesn’t understand the difference between weather and climate… to pick up an atmospheric physics textbook… or talk to a scientist… or read an ipcc report or any popularization…
no wonder you guys lost… and you’re heading to another… and another…
Jul 16, 2009 - 7:08 am 12. Ruben:Can the day be far off when we will just say “no, we will not obey!”? WE WILL NOT OBEY ANYMORE!
Jul 16, 2009 - 7:30 am 13. Tom Blumer:#11, kindly respond to this, if my throwaway remark in my previous column isn’t up to your lofty standards of erudition:
“In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record,” says oceanographer Gerald Dickens, study co-author and professor of Earth Science at Rice University in Houston. “There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.”
You must be really desperate if you have to pick on a clearly ID’d anecdote from a different post to make some kind of point.
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:57 am 14. Войска ПВО:2. David Thomson writes:
“The health care bill will not get out of the House of Representatives. It is dead on arrival. The American people are too skittish. Something doesn’t quite sound right to them.”
..if it wasn’t before, it surely will be now. Drudge slammed that “57% tax on upper-income New Yorkers” on today’s page and that cause a few sphincgters
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:29 am 15. Jack’s Newswatch » Blog Archive » DEM HEALTH RX A POI$ON PILL IN NY (6):[...] 1:29 pm EDT, July 16th, 2009 — Simon: “Don’t smell it. Sell it!” [...]
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:30 am 16. Войска ПВО:2. David Thomson writes:
“The health care bill will not get out of the House of Representatives. It is dead on arrival. The American people are too skittish. Something doesn’t quite sound right to them.”
..if it wasn’t before, it surely will be now. Drudge slammed that “57% tax on upper-income New Yorkers” on today’s page and that cause a few sphincters to pucker up to about f/16.
Still, I marvel at how the Boy King’s agenda is being implemented: each item is Hurry-up-and-wait-but-don’t read. It is surprising how impetuous and undisciplined our government really is.
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:30 am 17. Phineas:Waxman looks so much like a rat sniffing the cheese that I think his agent must be Topo Gigio.
Jul 16, 2009 - 12:30 pm 18. Lazar:tom blumer,
“kindly respond to this”
no thanks… i won’t play the ‘find my pony’ game… have you read the paper?… and the citations and supporting work?… it doesn’t mean what you probably think it means… glenn reynolds linked it… he ‘thinks’ the paper casts doubt on the role of co2 in recent warming… and/or implies that future warming may be less than expected… his interpretations are scientifically illiterate… and his assertion that when people say ‘the science is settled’ they mean on unknowns in the upper tail of climate sensitivity… is a strawman… responsible journalism anyone?
read the paper…
“if my throwaway remark”
if that’s an admission it was wrong… ok… now please no more flippant journalism on a serious issue…
“You must be really desperate”
not at all… you guys are in a pickle… if you want to stay that way… doesn’t bother me…
Jul 16, 2009 - 12:54 pm 19. Lazar:“As Henry himself admitted in a recent hearing, he relies on scientists”
the horror of it…
Jul 16, 2009 - 1:20 pm 20. EdSki:I find it amazing how progressives insist they are progressing, but in fact, they never really change. In my opinion, this is nothing more than an updated version of the “White Man’s Burden.”
Instead of liberals seeing it as their God given duty to lead the world’s savages into the light of European civilization, their new goal is to lead the poor and ignorant (a.k.a. anyone who doesn’t agree with them) into the enlightened world of socialism.
Jul 16, 2009 - 2:11 pm 21. Lightnin' Hopkins:Lazar, if cars ran on smugness you could pull us out of this recession single-handedly.
Jul 16, 2009 - 2:35 pm 22. Lazar:lightnin’ hopkins
… true
Jul 16, 2009 - 3:10 pm 23. Who IS John Galt?:“As Henry himself admitted in a recent hearing, he relies on scientists”
Slight correction: Waxman relies on selected scientists, i.e. those willing to support Waxman’s agenda.
He ignores scientists such as the 31,000 American scientists who signed this anti-AGW petition here: http://www.oism.org/pproject/
He ignores scientists like MIT physicists Richard Lindzen and the hundreds of other scientists that participated in the Heartland Conference here: http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/index.html
Waxman does exactly what the IPCC, Gore, Hansen and all the other warming alarmists do: they ignore and evade any evidence that contradicts their theory. The lie, distort, falsify, and exaggerate their claims then stall, obstruct and block efforts to replicate their results.
They ignore evidence such as the fact that satellite measurements of temperatures in the troposphere — which, according to global warming theory, should show the greatest heating — are right now at the same level they were in 1979 when the satellites went into operation.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Jul 17, 2009 - 4:51 am 24. Who IS John Galt?:EdSki wrote:
“I find it amazing how progressives insist they are progressing, but in fact, they never really change.”
Exactly. There is absolutely nothing “new” — or “hopeful”, for that matter — in what Obama and the Democrats are pushing. Statism in all its forms — socialism, fascism, communism etc. — all were tried and failed globally and spectacularly in the 20th century. Millions were starved to death and millons more impoverished in countries all over the planet. Only a massive evasion of history permits these clowns to pretend this stuff can work or that it is something new and shiny.
Jul 17, 2009 - 5:11 am 25. Lazar:“selected scientists”
for “selected” read 90%+ with almost certainty, 95%+ highly probable…
“31,000 American scientists”
for “scientists” read pop singers and pr people
Jul 17, 2009 - 2:12 pm 26. Lazar:“really understand the details”
roger… so, ummm, what reading has james lewis been doing before writing his conspiracy theory rant… what science papers has he read?… which textbooks has he studied?… he hasn’t even checked his sources… i did his work… so is his rant a case of…
“If the buyers buy, who cares?”
Jul 17, 2009 - 2:41 pm 27. Who IS John Galt?:Lazar, it goes without saying that Wikipedia-sourced information about the “Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine” has nothing to do with — and proves nothing regarding — the Petition Project to which I linked. Are you really so dense as to be unable to grasp that fact?
Nor does some vague assertion about “90%+ with almost certainty, 95%+ highly probable” prove anything at all.
I provided facts. You’ve atttempted to evade them by lamely trying to switch the subject or counter with empty assertions. You’ve merely demonstrated that there is no substance to your arguments.
Small wonder that alarmist like yourself and Al Gore refuse to debate global warming with actual, knowledgable scientists. Hell, Al Gore is afraid to even be in the same congressional hearing room with someone like Christopher Monckton.
Jul 18, 2009 - 4:04 am 28. Lazar:“has nothing to do with”
then you didn’t read it…
“prove anything at all”
why would i do something silly like trying to ‘prove’ something to you…
“I provided facts”
no… you didn’t… as reagan said of the socialists… ‘it’s not that they know nothing, it’s that they know so much which ain’t so’
“refuse to debate global warming with actual, knowledgable scientists”
i talk with climate scientists regularly… some on a personal level… i don’t ‘debate’… i just ask questions all the time… and i study loads… which is how i know you are talking crock…
Jul 18, 2009 - 4:15 am