Mixed Links
Added to the blogroll, or as I like to call it, the list o' links...
*From a Spitgroove alumnus, Melpster's new blog Monster On A Rope. Tales of a modern woman trying to get by in a crazy mixed-up world.
*Another Spitgroover, the "ludickid" Leonard Pierce, has a perceptive and often funny journal, El-Buff-Ali-Rugg's Skullbucket. I've taken Leonard's blog Ludic Log off the blogroll while it is on hiatus, but I'm told it will come back soon, and after it does I'll link it back up.
*Billmon over at Whiskey Bar consistently puts out intelligently righteous (or is it righteously intelligent?) commentary on politics. When a blogger's hooked me enough to have me jonesin' for another post, they've earned a place on the blogroll, and Billmon has done that.
*Professor Juan Cole's Informed Comment. Arguably, no one in Blogistan is thinking about the Iraq clusterfuck with more intellectual firepower.
*And speaking of clusterfucks, James Howard Kunstler writes with flair and expertise on the subject in his blog Clusterfuck Nation. Prepare to sober up.
And here be three more gems I found on the Internets...
*A Baghdad MP identifying himself as Bill shares his recent experiences in Iraq, and his thoughts about the Iraq War. Harrowing, heartbreaking...and sadly, a story that has become predictable.
*Another outstanding piece by Matt Taibbi, Four Amendments and a Funeral, about the frustrated efforts of Vermont congressman Bernie Sanders as he tries to get something, anything through the GOP House of Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert.
*Welcome to my world, TBogg:
And should we mention the families that have had to move out past the suburbs to find affordable homes in outlying communities only to have to drive 100 miles each day to get to and from their jobs? Five and six dollar a gallon gasoline? You do the math.
Been there, done the math, got several T-shirts.
My current job is the best I've ever had, but it's 32 miles from my house, and my wife has a lengthy coming and going to her work as well. Together we log nearly -- whaddaya know, TBogg -- 100 miles every workday. And if the gas prices keep going up, I may have no choice but to look for something closer to home.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Sunday, August 21, 2005
For Thee, But Not For Me?
It may seem trite, but I'm here to tell ya that the saga of Cindy Sheehan has been a welcome summer stimulant. Perhaps largely by accident, she found a weak spot in George W. Bush's wartime armor: the fact that for all his corporate-supported bluster and Git-R-Done in the War Against Some Terror, the media picture has always been lacking in human dimension. It never has gotten far beyond the level of a glorified videogame called "Kill The Swarthy Bad Guys" for too many Americans, and plenty of them still like it fine that way. But for those who've learned that there are families and livelihoods being ruined every day by Iraqnam, the videogame aspect now seems absurd, a relic of a discredited way of being.
Sheehan, putting a human face on the increasingly unanswered (by BushCo) homeland grief about the Iraq war, and remaining mostly immune to attacks of being a naive & manipulated tool of antiwar groups, did what might seem almost impossible in these dark days, when many of us have Orwellian boots in our faces: she pulled off an effectively creative protest. She made real the pathos of unanswered grief, in a way that was somethin' new, somethin' fresh...and don't think the corporate mythmakers didn't take notice of that.
The concern I have, is that antiwar Democrats will take the wrong lessons from what Cindy Sheehan did. Rather than try to emulate her daring to do something new and provocative, they'll fall back on the tired standbys of '60s-style protest and activism in their "tributes" to her. And I've been saying since 2002 that there will be no substitute for innovative, aggressive kinds of mass protest -- borrowing from the Gandhi and King playbooks, and eventually expanding into the difficult areas of relentless public dissent (think of the nurses in California following Arnold from event to event) and coordinated boycotts of those who enable the Republican neo-fascism. We can no longer depend on the politicians in Washington to provide anything but perhaps a short-term reprieve from the stubborn right-wing march to corporate feudalism and fundamentalist theocracy.
That all sounds dramatic and revolutionary, but I must add that I'm going to shut up for awhile about the whole matter of warmongering American fascism, because I'm finding my soapbox grandstanding increasingly undignified and hypocritical, for a couple reasons.
One, I consider myself poorly equipped to take part in the aggressive (and quite possibly dangerous) activism that will be required. Unlike the online Republican chickenhawks, however, I won't try to defend my avoidance of highly uncomfortable situations with bullshit about how noble I am as a guy with a keyboard and a righteous opinion. I'll admit it straight up: I am weak and paranoid, I am bitter and contrarian, I am Mr. Alienation. Ninety-nine times out of 100, you get me involved with a group of activists who I'm supposed to be on the same side as, and they'll end up hating to be with me and I'll end up hating to be with them. And it seems unseemly for me to publicly call for others to do necessary "dirty work" that I myself cannot.
Also, I have some conflictedness about the notion of supporting the troops. Of course, as a matter of basic fairness and decency I'm firmly against keeping them in harm's way with the sloppy, immoral battleplan they've been given by Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. But I must also admit a certain personal loathing of the Military Way -- not because it doesn't have potential defensive value in both wartime and peacetime, but because the macho elements of it greatly intimidate me.
As a new high-school graduate in 1980, I was getting no financial help for college from my parents or from scholarships, and I found that joining the military was the only way to ensure getting enough money to comfortably go to college (and avoid the "starving student" trap I fell into later.) But as badly as I wanted to do college right, I couldn't bring myself to go the military route. It wasn't just, or primarily, my post-Vietnam skepticism about how military plans could go horribly wrong...rather, it was my fear of being ostracized for not playing the macho social games with enough skill or passion. For being too wimpy, too different, too seemingly gay. I knew what it was to be bullied, to be weak & weird & alienated, and I couldn't see how the military wouldn't be that kind of experience for me. Sure, if I survived I'd have more money for college and I'd be in better physical shape than I otherwise would -- but at what mental price?
So it seems unseemly for me to publicly talk about supporting the troops when in fact I'm scared of them, and resentful of how many of them would treat me if I were a part of their personal lives. And I think, because of my own chronic weaknesses, it's best that I just stay quiet for awhile about my political opinions. From here on, my blog will be more of a personal journal -- and you might find it less interesting that way, but it's not as if there aren't plenty of other worthy political blogs you can read.
It may seem trite, but I'm here to tell ya that the saga of Cindy Sheehan has been a welcome summer stimulant. Perhaps largely by accident, she found a weak spot in George W. Bush's wartime armor: the fact that for all his corporate-supported bluster and Git-R-Done in the War Against Some Terror, the media picture has always been lacking in human dimension. It never has gotten far beyond the level of a glorified videogame called "Kill The Swarthy Bad Guys" for too many Americans, and plenty of them still like it fine that way. But for those who've learned that there are families and livelihoods being ruined every day by Iraqnam, the videogame aspect now seems absurd, a relic of a discredited way of being.
Sheehan, putting a human face on the increasingly unanswered (by BushCo) homeland grief about the Iraq war, and remaining mostly immune to attacks of being a naive & manipulated tool of antiwar groups, did what might seem almost impossible in these dark days, when many of us have Orwellian boots in our faces: she pulled off an effectively creative protest. She made real the pathos of unanswered grief, in a way that was somethin' new, somethin' fresh...and don't think the corporate mythmakers didn't take notice of that.
The concern I have, is that antiwar Democrats will take the wrong lessons from what Cindy Sheehan did. Rather than try to emulate her daring to do something new and provocative, they'll fall back on the tired standbys of '60s-style protest and activism in their "tributes" to her. And I've been saying since 2002 that there will be no substitute for innovative, aggressive kinds of mass protest -- borrowing from the Gandhi and King playbooks, and eventually expanding into the difficult areas of relentless public dissent (think of the nurses in California following Arnold from event to event) and coordinated boycotts of those who enable the Republican neo-fascism. We can no longer depend on the politicians in Washington to provide anything but perhaps a short-term reprieve from the stubborn right-wing march to corporate feudalism and fundamentalist theocracy.
That all sounds dramatic and revolutionary, but I must add that I'm going to shut up for awhile about the whole matter of warmongering American fascism, because I'm finding my soapbox grandstanding increasingly undignified and hypocritical, for a couple reasons.
One, I consider myself poorly equipped to take part in the aggressive (and quite possibly dangerous) activism that will be required. Unlike the online Republican chickenhawks, however, I won't try to defend my avoidance of highly uncomfortable situations with bullshit about how noble I am as a guy with a keyboard and a righteous opinion. I'll admit it straight up: I am weak and paranoid, I am bitter and contrarian, I am Mr. Alienation. Ninety-nine times out of 100, you get me involved with a group of activists who I'm supposed to be on the same side as, and they'll end up hating to be with me and I'll end up hating to be with them. And it seems unseemly for me to publicly call for others to do necessary "dirty work" that I myself cannot.
Also, I have some conflictedness about the notion of supporting the troops. Of course, as a matter of basic fairness and decency I'm firmly against keeping them in harm's way with the sloppy, immoral battleplan they've been given by Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. But I must also admit a certain personal loathing of the Military Way -- not because it doesn't have potential defensive value in both wartime and peacetime, but because the macho elements of it greatly intimidate me.
As a new high-school graduate in 1980, I was getting no financial help for college from my parents or from scholarships, and I found that joining the military was the only way to ensure getting enough money to comfortably go to college (and avoid the "starving student" trap I fell into later.) But as badly as I wanted to do college right, I couldn't bring myself to go the military route. It wasn't just, or primarily, my post-Vietnam skepticism about how military plans could go horribly wrong...rather, it was my fear of being ostracized for not playing the macho social games with enough skill or passion. For being too wimpy, too different, too seemingly gay. I knew what it was to be bullied, to be weak & weird & alienated, and I couldn't see how the military wouldn't be that kind of experience for me. Sure, if I survived I'd have more money for college and I'd be in better physical shape than I otherwise would -- but at what mental price?
So it seems unseemly for me to publicly talk about supporting the troops when in fact I'm scared of them, and resentful of how many of them would treat me if I were a part of their personal lives. And I think, because of my own chronic weaknesses, it's best that I just stay quiet for awhile about my political opinions. From here on, my blog will be more of a personal journal -- and you might find it less interesting that way, but it's not as if there aren't plenty of other worthy political blogs you can read.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Book 'Em
106 Books I've Read (1971-2005)
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience, Greg Tate
Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950, TS Eliot
Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken
Oh, The Things I Know!, Al Franken
Why Not Me?, Al Franken
1984, George Orwell
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant
Rock Albums Of The '70s, Robert Christgau
Rock Albums Of The '80s, Robert Christgau
Why I Am Not A Christian, Bertrand Russell
Mere Christianity, CS Lewis
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels
Siddartha, Hermann Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker
Oswald's Tale, Norman Mailer
Ancient Evenings, Norman Mailer
Burr, Gore Vidal
Creation, Gore Vidal
The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter S. Thompson
Hey Rube, Hunter S. Thompson
A Separate Reality, Carlos Castaneda
Tales of Power, Carlos Castaneda
The Eagle's Gift, Carlos Castaneda
Truman, David McCullough
John Adams, David McCullough
Nixon Agonistes, Garry Wills
Reagan's America: Innocents At Home, Garry Wills
The Kennedy Imprisonment, Garry Wills
White Noise, Don DeLillo
Literary Theory: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra, Kitty Kelley
The Family: The Real Story of The Bush Dynasty, Kitty Kelley
Chronicles Volume One, Bob Dylan
Fanny, Erica Jong
Shrub, Molly Ivins
Bushwhacked, Molly Ivins
Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, JK Rowling
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Your Cheatin' Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams, Chet Flippo
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK s Assassination, David R. Wrone
The Run of His Life: The People vs. OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Toobin
Shout: The Beatles in Their Generation, Philip Norman
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Can Love Last?, Stephen Mitchell
The Worldly Philosophers: The History of Economic Thought, Robert Heilbroner
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball, George Will
Writings and Drawings 1961-1985, Bob Dylan
The Story of Hockey, Frank Orr
The Stand, Stephen King
Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s, Gerald Nachman
Sunday Nights At Seven: The Jack Benny Story, Jack & Joan Benny
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
Contact, Carl Sagan
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
Hocus Pocus, Kurt Vonnegut
Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut
Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong
Roots, Alex Haley
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
America: The Book, Jon Stewart and the Cast of The Daily Show
A Reporter's Life, Walter Cronkite
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Street Lawyer, John Grisham
The Rainmaker, John Grisham
No One Here Gets Out Alive, Danny Sugarman
Buddha, Karen Armstrong
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra
Jaws, Peter Benchley
Go Ask Alice, Anonymous
King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, Shawn Levy
Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing from America's Favorite Humorist, Erma Bombeck
Just Wait 'Til You Have Children Of Your Own, Erma Bombeck & Bil Keane
5001 Nights at The Movies, Pauline Kael
My Point (And I Do Have One), Ellen DeGeneres
The Lazlo Letters, Don Novello
Having Our Say, Sarah & Elizabeth Delaney
Pure Drivel, Steve Martin
Collected Poems 1947-1980, Allen Ginsberg
How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan, Mortimer Adler
The Selling of The President 1968, Joe McGinnis
Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, Fredric Dannen
Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford
Slouching Toward Nirvana: New Poems, Charles Bukowski
Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, James Joyce
Quite the middlebrow list, eh?
Oh well, I decided long ago (for better or worse) that there were too many classic, canonical, serious books for me to get to in this lifetime, and so I always gravitated toward whatever tickled my fancy at a particular moment.
I'm not counting school textbooks, nor any books at the bookstore I skimmed enough to possibly consider read. I figure I've missed or omitted as many as 15 other books, and my list doesn't reflect the huge amount of magazine, newspaper and Internet articles I've read over the years.
I start at 1971 because that's the first year I remember reading lengthier books that could have some interest to adults: two sports books, The Story of Hockey by Frank Orr; and a "Pro Basketball Yearbook" previewing the 1971-72 season.
If I figure that I've read about 120 non-textbook books over the past 34 years, that means I've read an average of 3.52 books per year...or hell, let's just round it up to four a year.
Four books a year doesn't sound like very much to me, but again I must factor in all the news, sports and opinion articles (and posts) I've read as well. And in the last 10 years I've utilized my library card more, which has raised my total average, I think.
106 Books I've Read (1971-2005)
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience, Greg Tate
Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950, TS Eliot
Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken
Oh, The Things I Know!, Al Franken
Why Not Me?, Al Franken
1984, George Orwell
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant
Rock Albums Of The '70s, Robert Christgau
Rock Albums Of The '80s, Robert Christgau
Why I Am Not A Christian, Bertrand Russell
Mere Christianity, CS Lewis
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels
Siddartha, Hermann Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker
Oswald's Tale, Norman Mailer
Ancient Evenings, Norman Mailer
Burr, Gore Vidal
Creation, Gore Vidal
The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter S. Thompson
Hey Rube, Hunter S. Thompson
A Separate Reality, Carlos Castaneda
Tales of Power, Carlos Castaneda
The Eagle's Gift, Carlos Castaneda
Truman, David McCullough
John Adams, David McCullough
Nixon Agonistes, Garry Wills
Reagan's America: Innocents At Home, Garry Wills
The Kennedy Imprisonment, Garry Wills
White Noise, Don DeLillo
Literary Theory: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra, Kitty Kelley
The Family: The Real Story of The Bush Dynasty, Kitty Kelley
Chronicles Volume One, Bob Dylan
Fanny, Erica Jong
Shrub, Molly Ivins
Bushwhacked, Molly Ivins
Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, JK Rowling
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Your Cheatin' Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams, Chet Flippo
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK s Assassination, David R. Wrone
The Run of His Life: The People vs. OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Toobin
Shout: The Beatles in Their Generation, Philip Norman
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Can Love Last?, Stephen Mitchell
The Worldly Philosophers: The History of Economic Thought, Robert Heilbroner
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball, George Will
Writings and Drawings 1961-1985, Bob Dylan
The Story of Hockey, Frank Orr
The Stand, Stephen King
Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s, Gerald Nachman
Sunday Nights At Seven: The Jack Benny Story, Jack & Joan Benny
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
Contact, Carl Sagan
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
Hocus Pocus, Kurt Vonnegut
Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut
Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong
Roots, Alex Haley
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
America: The Book, Jon Stewart and the Cast of The Daily Show
A Reporter's Life, Walter Cronkite
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Street Lawyer, John Grisham
The Rainmaker, John Grisham
No One Here Gets Out Alive, Danny Sugarman
Buddha, Karen Armstrong
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra
Jaws, Peter Benchley
Go Ask Alice, Anonymous
King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, Shawn Levy
Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing from America's Favorite Humorist, Erma Bombeck
Just Wait 'Til You Have Children Of Your Own, Erma Bombeck & Bil Keane
5001 Nights at The Movies, Pauline Kael
My Point (And I Do Have One), Ellen DeGeneres
The Lazlo Letters, Don Novello
Having Our Say, Sarah & Elizabeth Delaney
Pure Drivel, Steve Martin
Collected Poems 1947-1980, Allen Ginsberg
How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan, Mortimer Adler
The Selling of The President 1968, Joe McGinnis
Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, Fredric Dannen
Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford
Slouching Toward Nirvana: New Poems, Charles Bukowski
Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, James Joyce
Quite the middlebrow list, eh?
Oh well, I decided long ago (for better or worse) that there were too many classic, canonical, serious books for me to get to in this lifetime, and so I always gravitated toward whatever tickled my fancy at a particular moment.
I'm not counting school textbooks, nor any books at the bookstore I skimmed enough to possibly consider read. I figure I've missed or omitted as many as 15 other books, and my list doesn't reflect the huge amount of magazine, newspaper and Internet articles I've read over the years.
I start at 1971 because that's the first year I remember reading lengthier books that could have some interest to adults: two sports books, The Story of Hockey by Frank Orr; and a "Pro Basketball Yearbook" previewing the 1971-72 season.
If I figure that I've read about 120 non-textbook books over the past 34 years, that means I've read an average of 3.52 books per year...or hell, let's just round it up to four a year.
Four books a year doesn't sound like very much to me, but again I must factor in all the news, sports and opinion articles (and posts) I've read as well. And in the last 10 years I've utilized my library card more, which has raised my total average, I think.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Best Served Cold
Morgan Freeman's given a few over-the-top lines to narrate in the summer sleeper hit March of the Penguins, but that's not really his fault...and his presence is so elegant and mature that when he talks about penguin love and loss like the birds are anthropomorphic Disney toons, it's easy to let slide. Especially when the cinematography is so skilled and beautiful. And you'd have to have a heart of stone to not feel respect and empathy for those pengies, who as I write are spending yet another South Pole winter protecting their eggs and stubbornly helping to keep the evolutionary game going.
As cinematic objets d'art, "Penguins" director Luc Jacquet's little birds fare better than director Tim Burton's main go-to guy, Johnny Depp, fares in another summer hit, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, a movie I was surprised at how much I didn't like.
Depp is one of my favorite actors, and Burton has directed two of my favorite (read: in my Top 30 or so) films, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, so I had high hopes that they could do justice to Roald Dahl's classic children's story about the eccentric candy man and the unusual children who visit his secretive chocolate factory.
This is a movie better represented by the TV commercials that have advertised it, than by its whole. In the ads we see brief excerpts from the film, showing Depp as Willy Wonka the candy mogul at his most endearingly goofy-weird, and we get strong hints of Burton's talent for trippy visual flavor. But as the movie is taken in whole, I noticed a lead actor too often strangely off-key, like he's trying too hard to give a now-expected (in the wake of Pirates of The Caribbean) over-the-top comic performance. (A cold-fish persona that combines Carol Channing with post-Thriller Michael Jackson?! I'm sorry, but Gene Wilder's 1971 Wonka better fit the context of a children's story -- Burton and Depp seem like they're clumsily trying to slip subversive stoner humor past the security moms.) I also noticed a director resorting to a tacky CGI gimmick, having one not especially charismatic screen presence (Deep Roy, game but overwhelmed here) play all the many Oompa-Loompas who help run Wonka's factory. I wish Burton had found at least three or four others to share Roy's load...but then again, maybe the idea of one guy was hilarious after a couple of bong hits.
With a little tweaking however, Burton's vision of Wonkaland and Wilder's relatively restrained Wonka (something strange to say about his performance), plus the best child actors from the '71 and '05 versions, would be ideal. If only CGI could pull that trick off.
***
God bow to Math, as D. Boon said.
I say believe what you want -- be as imaginative and out there as you wanna be (hell, be Willy Wonka if you want to) -- as long as your belief is accompanied by proper respect for the transcendent power of the analytical brain.
This is obviously not the credo of the Christian heartland, which is dominated by simpler, more strident dogmas. And for me, a key psychological question is, why do so many people in the heartland feel compelled to these cheap beliefs, Christian and otherwise? Is it the confusing, draining blur of modern technologies that makes people in general say, fuck it, I'm gonna indulge in my own private Fantasyland?
It's true that the masses have always tended toward simpleton beliefs, but only in the past 50-100 years or so has a truly secular education been easily available...and yet most people still want their cheap opiates. Gotta be a byproduct of this alienating, machine-like mass of Information Overload we call "modern times."
***
Speaking of cheap belief, many diehard Republicans idolize Bush to the point of worship because:
a.) He defeated the evil Klintoon's VP and wiped away most or all of the evil Klintoon's effect on government policy.
b.) He's offered results (frustrating liberals, attacking ragheads, promoting Jesusland principles, expanding corporate wealth) and effectively winks and nods to all in his base, from the ruthless rich to the goober poor, that there'll be more to come.
Does that make him a genius, a visionary? No, but his knack for giving his base what it wants (however wrongheaded) is such music to Republican ears, that they're prone to hyperbole about him.
***
Two 21st century presidential elections, two Democratic "losses": one clear theft, and one very suspicious contradiction of exit polls and election-eve polls.
Can we expect the next presidential election to be different for Dems? Maybe, if the corporate interests feel it's time (and "safe" enough) for change. But if not, expect unverifiable electronic machines and partisan state hacks to do dirty work for Republicans yet again...unless Democrats can somehow stop the insanity between now and 2008. (And don't slack on those midterms -- Saxby Chambliss over Max Cleland in Georgia in '02? Um, no.)
Right now, I'm not seeing enough groundswell to ensure fair elections next year and in '08. And chances are that Dems will again be vulnerable to election-time ratfucking.
Why? One or more of three reasons:
a.) Too many prominent Dems are arrogant enough to think that they don't have to deal with that elephant in the room, because this time for sure they'll run the right candidate to make the election(s) theft-proof. Good luck on that one -- hasn't worked for three election cycles now.
b.) They're in denial enough to think the problem is overblown, that the system generally works. These are people who have probably stopped taking John Conyers' phone calls.
c.) They're afraid of attacking (or weak at subverting) the GOP-supporting money men who dominate the voting-machine process, and rather than take them on directly, they hope for a dream candidate to forge some kind of mandate -- and if he/she doesn't materialize, most of them are comfortable enough in the power structure to exist in Washington Generals mode.
Democrats need fighters like George Soros and Howard Dean to go state by state and rid partisan bias and unverifiable machinery from the vote counts. (Simple strategy, and the Right Thing for sure, but not at all easy.) For without serious electoral reform, Dems are going to find themselves "mysteriously" losing most pivotal close elections.
Morgan Freeman's given a few over-the-top lines to narrate in the summer sleeper hit March of the Penguins, but that's not really his fault...and his presence is so elegant and mature that when he talks about penguin love and loss like the birds are anthropomorphic Disney toons, it's easy to let slide. Especially when the cinematography is so skilled and beautiful. And you'd have to have a heart of stone to not feel respect and empathy for those pengies, who as I write are spending yet another South Pole winter protecting their eggs and stubbornly helping to keep the evolutionary game going.
As cinematic objets d'art, "Penguins" director Luc Jacquet's little birds fare better than director Tim Burton's main go-to guy, Johnny Depp, fares in another summer hit, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, a movie I was surprised at how much I didn't like.
Depp is one of my favorite actors, and Burton has directed two of my favorite (read: in my Top 30 or so) films, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, so I had high hopes that they could do justice to Roald Dahl's classic children's story about the eccentric candy man and the unusual children who visit his secretive chocolate factory.
This is a movie better represented by the TV commercials that have advertised it, than by its whole. In the ads we see brief excerpts from the film, showing Depp as Willy Wonka the candy mogul at his most endearingly goofy-weird, and we get strong hints of Burton's talent for trippy visual flavor. But as the movie is taken in whole, I noticed a lead actor too often strangely off-key, like he's trying too hard to give a now-expected (in the wake of Pirates of The Caribbean) over-the-top comic performance. (A cold-fish persona that combines Carol Channing with post-Thriller Michael Jackson?! I'm sorry, but Gene Wilder's 1971 Wonka better fit the context of a children's story -- Burton and Depp seem like they're clumsily trying to slip subversive stoner humor past the security moms.) I also noticed a director resorting to a tacky CGI gimmick, having one not especially charismatic screen presence (Deep Roy, game but overwhelmed here) play all the many Oompa-Loompas who help run Wonka's factory. I wish Burton had found at least three or four others to share Roy's load...but then again, maybe the idea of one guy was hilarious after a couple of bong hits.
With a little tweaking however, Burton's vision of Wonkaland and Wilder's relatively restrained Wonka (something strange to say about his performance), plus the best child actors from the '71 and '05 versions, would be ideal. If only CGI could pull that trick off.
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God bow to Math, as D. Boon said.
I say believe what you want -- be as imaginative and out there as you wanna be (hell, be Willy Wonka if you want to) -- as long as your belief is accompanied by proper respect for the transcendent power of the analytical brain.
This is obviously not the credo of the Christian heartland, which is dominated by simpler, more strident dogmas. And for me, a key psychological question is, why do so many people in the heartland feel compelled to these cheap beliefs, Christian and otherwise? Is it the confusing, draining blur of modern technologies that makes people in general say, fuck it, I'm gonna indulge in my own private Fantasyland?
It's true that the masses have always tended toward simpleton beliefs, but only in the past 50-100 years or so has a truly secular education been easily available...and yet most people still want their cheap opiates. Gotta be a byproduct of this alienating, machine-like mass of Information Overload we call "modern times."
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Speaking of cheap belief, many diehard Republicans idolize Bush to the point of worship because:
a.) He defeated the evil Klintoon's VP and wiped away most or all of the evil Klintoon's effect on government policy.
b.) He's offered results (frustrating liberals, attacking ragheads, promoting Jesusland principles, expanding corporate wealth) and effectively winks and nods to all in his base, from the ruthless rich to the goober poor, that there'll be more to come.
Does that make him a genius, a visionary? No, but his knack for giving his base what it wants (however wrongheaded) is such music to Republican ears, that they're prone to hyperbole about him.
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Two 21st century presidential elections, two Democratic "losses": one clear theft, and one very suspicious contradiction of exit polls and election-eve polls.
Can we expect the next presidential election to be different for Dems? Maybe, if the corporate interests feel it's time (and "safe" enough) for change. But if not, expect unverifiable electronic machines and partisan state hacks to do dirty work for Republicans yet again...unless Democrats can somehow stop the insanity between now and 2008. (And don't slack on those midterms -- Saxby Chambliss over Max Cleland in Georgia in '02? Um, no.)
Right now, I'm not seeing enough groundswell to ensure fair elections next year and in '08. And chances are that Dems will again be vulnerable to election-time ratfucking.
Why? One or more of three reasons:
a.) Too many prominent Dems are arrogant enough to think that they don't have to deal with that elephant in the room, because this time for sure they'll run the right candidate to make the election(s) theft-proof. Good luck on that one -- hasn't worked for three election cycles now.
b.) They're in denial enough to think the problem is overblown, that the system generally works. These are people who have probably stopped taking John Conyers' phone calls.
c.) They're afraid of attacking (or weak at subverting) the GOP-supporting money men who dominate the voting-machine process, and rather than take them on directly, they hope for a dream candidate to forge some kind of mandate -- and if he/she doesn't materialize, most of them are comfortable enough in the power structure to exist in Washington Generals mode.
Democrats need fighters like George Soros and Howard Dean to go state by state and rid partisan bias and unverifiable machinery from the vote counts. (Simple strategy, and the Right Thing for sure, but not at all easy.) For without serious electoral reform, Dems are going to find themselves "mysteriously" losing most pivotal close elections.
