Five for thirteen and I don't mind

If it means Peter Jackson gets to take home the Oscar, I'm happy to be wrong.

It's obvious that Return of the King didn't really win those Oscars -- though it is the greatest installment of the three -- but rather The Lord of the Rings as a whole. Which is appropriate: it was one long work, broken into three pieces, not really three films.

A few other things:

What is it with Renee Zellweger? I just don't understand what Hollywood sees in her.

It's a pity that A Mighty Wind is already out on DVD, as it would be lovely to see Mitch and Mickey doing the Oscars show in the extras.

It hurt to see Bill Murray walk home empty-handed, but seeing Sean Penn get that standing O was almost worth it.

As he reported today, it was geek comic author Scott Kurtz who swung the vote.

Oscar picks

We'll know soon. I'm usually wide of the mark, but here are my guesses for who the Academy will pick:

Picture: Mystic River

Well-crafted high drama with beloved actors who all give knockout performances. Clint Eastwood has a couple of Oscars for Unforgiven, the Academy loves him and still owes him a couple.

What about Return of the King? I'm holding out for a special acheivement Oscar for the Lord of the Rings trilogy next year.

Director: Peter Weir, Master and Commander

The safe pick is Clint, but I think the Academy may split the ticket for the benefit of Peter Weir. He's been nominated before but never won, he's getting old, and has a terrific body of work -- it's Weir's turn, I think.

Actor: Sean Penn, Mystic River

This is a heartbreaking one, because Bill Murray gave a spectacular peformance in Lost in Translation and is unlikely to ever see another Oscar nomination -- and finally gets to say ''see, I told you I could be a dramatic actor'' after everybody dissed him for Razor's Edge lo these many years ago. And Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow is one of the most indelible film performances of all time, no less than De Niro's Jake La Motta, Bogart's Rick Blaine, or Brando's Stanley Kowalski.

But Sean Penn is a great actor, in a class with De Niro or Brando, he's never won an Oscar, and Mystic River is his best peformance to date: subtle, unmannered, and compelling. He's walking home with the statue.

Actress: Charlize Theron, Monster

This is the only one I feel rock-solid about. First, it's the kind of stunt the Academy loves: a gorgeous actress doing a purely dramatic turn with her glamour stripped away to the point where she's unrecognizable. Second, Charlize has paid her dues in a lot of turkey roles the industry asked her to do. But most importantly, I've seen the film and it worked: her performance is pitch-perfect in every way -- convincing, hypnotic, and complex -- and is absolutely the centerpiece of the film. Charlize with a bullet.

Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins, Mystic River

This one's a tough call, in part because I haven't seen all of the strong contenders in the category. There's good reason to think that any of the nominees could take this one. But I think that Mystic River might have the magic of momentum to bring this one in for Tim Robbins, who did indeed turn in an impressive peformance.

The rightful holder of that statue is Andy Serkis for peforming Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: he was actually on screen as Smeagol in the flashback sequence in the beginning of Return of the King, so the Academy had the chance to do the right thing and nominate him. But in truth it's like the Oscar Scorscese has never won: he's on a level above even the Oscars, and everyone knows.

Supporting Actress: Holly Hunter, Thirteen

Another tough call, as I haven't seen enough of the films in question. The academy likes Holly Hunter (for good reason) so I'm thinking her odds are good.

Documentary: Fog of War

Errol Morris has been doing terrific -- and entertaining -- documentaries for years, has never seen an Oscar nomination, and absolutely knocked it out of the park with this one. Another easy pick, I think. It's too bad that The Weather Underground was up against this one this year; it might have been a winner in a different year.

Adapted Screenplay: American Splendor

In adapting Harvey Pekar to film there are so many opportunities to screw it up that the success of the film in doing it with wit, style, and reverence for the source material that it's hard to believe that the Academy won't reward this screenplay's panache.

Original Screenplay: In America

A tough one. Dirty Pretty Things is clever, with a corker of an ending. Lost in Translation is a terrific picture which deserves some kind of recognition. But nobody's seen the former, and everyone knows that Sophie's got a long career ahead of her. I'm thinking the Academy will want to do something to bring In America to people's attention.

Editing: Seabiscuit

Horses are cinegenic, but horse races aren't. But you wouldn't know it to see this movie.

Cinematography: Girl with a Pearl Earring

I haven't seen enough of the contenders to really have an informed opinion, but it's hard to imagine anything beating a movie that looks like a Vermeer painting.

Art direction: Master and Commander

Another bit of a heartbreaker. The Two Towers was robbed last year, and if that wasn't gonna do it, there won't be an Oscar for Lord of the Rings this year. Plus, I think that Master and Commander really does deserve it this time: not only is the art direction beautiful and meticulous, it's one of the stars of the movie.

Visual effects: The Return of the King

Any other year, ILM would have a crack at bringing home some gold again (at last!) for the amazing work in Pirates of the Carribean, and maybe I'm wrong -- the underwater scene is both gorgeous and technically impressive.

But it only takes one word to dispell ILM's chances: Oliphant. ''That still only counts as one!'' No contest.

Two interviews with Terry Gross

This is a funny post, I swear, but first you have to read this long quote from Mr. Bill O'Reilly on his Fox News show:

Broadway Books, which has published my new effort, Who's Looking Out for You? wanted me to go on National Public Radio to talk about the book.

I told them that NPR would try to smash me because along with some other major newspapers in this country, it has championed the defamation books. But I agreed to do the program called Fresh Air, hosted by a woman named Terry Gross.

For half an hour, Mrs. Gross attempted to embarrass me. Well, finally it came to this:

BEGIN VIDEOTAPE

O'Reilly: I came on to this program to talk about Who's Looking Out for You? And what you've done is thrown every kind of defamation you can in my face. Did you do this to Al Franken? Did you? Did you challenge him on what he said?

Terry Gross: We had a different interview.

O'Reilly: Yes. A different interview. Okay. Fine, ''fresh air''? Is this what ''fresh air'' is? I'll get a transcript of this interview -- you want me -- of the Al Franken interview. You want me to do that, and compare the two?

Gross: You're welcome to.

O'Reilly: And compare it, too? All right, why don't you tell your listeners right now? Were you as tough on Al Franken as you are on me? No. You weren't.

Gross: No, I wasn't.

O'Reilly: Okay. Why?

Gross: Well, Al Franken had written a book of political satire.

O'Reilly: Oh, he was satire now, was it? All right, calling people liars and distorting their faces on the book cover. That's satire now, is it? And my book, Who's Looking Out for You? is designed to help people to show them how they have to know how to read people in the society to succeed. Yet you're easy on Franken and you challenge me. This is NPR.

Okay? I think we all know what this is. I think we all know where you're going with this. Don't we?

Gross: Well, you could say...

O'Reilly: Yes, don't we?

Gross: You can think whatever you want to.

O'Reilly: I am. I mean, I'm evaluating this interview very closely. Obviously you are. Now we've spent now, all right, 50 minutes of me being -- defending defamation against me in every possible way, while you gave Al Franken a complete pass on his defamatory book. And if you think that's fair, Terry, then you need to get in another business. I'll tell you that right now. And I'll tell your listeners, if you have the courage to put this on the air, this is basically an unfair interview designed to try to trap me into saying something that Harper's magazine can use. And you know it. And you should be ashamed of yourself. And that is the end of this interview.

END VIDEOTAPE

All right, the problem here is not that interview. I should have known better. But it's that I paid for it. And so did you.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR, gets a billion dollars a year in taxpayer money. Why is the government allowing a far-left outfit like NPR, which is obviously biased, to operate on taxpayer money?

Now a transcript of the Fresh Air interview with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the hand puppet from Late Night with Conan O'Brian. I've omitted "(laughter)" annotations, since Terry Gross is laughing uncontrollably through most of it.

Gross: Now, Triumph, I don't need to tell you ...

Triumph: Yes.

Gross: ... that one of the more controversial things in the rap world is the use of the word 'bitch' all the time.

Triumph: Here we go again.

Gross: Right. Exactly. Now, it's a word you use a lot...

Triumph: Yes.

Gross: ... in the dog world.

Triumph: It's a word that has -- look, it's a word that everyone uses in the dog world. It's a bitch. A girl is a bitch. Now should a dog be offended to be called a woman? Would that be -- I don't think any dog would be offended, not even Benji. That's right. That's right. You heard me. Benji's gay. It's time people knew that.

Gross: Do you feel that you've been sexist or condescending in your treatment of female dogs ...

Triumph: Holy crap. Listen to this. Let me ask you something. I feel like I'm being bombarded here. I know what's happening here. I know what's happening here. Did you ask the same questions to Kermit the Frog?

Gross: Kermit the Frog didn't do our show.

Triumph: Did you do this ...

Gross: He didn't do our show.

Triumph: All right. Well, OK. How about when Beethoven did your show? Did you challenge him the way you're challenging me? Did you ask ...

Gross: It was a different kind of interview.

Triumph: It was a different ...

Gross: It was a different kind of interview.

Triumph: OK. Yeah, I can see what's going on here.

Gross: Beethoven's funny. No, it's different.

Triumph: Oh, is that right? It's a satire what Beethoven does. Yes, I'm just -- you know, I can't believe the government is paying for this interview. That's what I can't believe, you know? My money that could be going to Pekinese hookers is instead going to this, you know, Public Radio that's obviously more slanted than my (censored) after I've (censored) the St. Bernard. What are we talking about? That's right.

Gross: Triumph, I don't think you're being fair, and I think if you gave Public Radio a chance, you wouldn't feel that way 'cause I think Public Radio has always been fair to the dog world.

Triumph: I'm trying to give it a chance, but you keep bombarding me. You keep bombarding me. I'm evaluating this interview very closely is what I'm doing. You know, this is just 10 minutes of defamation, 70 minutes in dog years. You think it's fair, Terry? You need to get into another business. That's right. No, good. This is all going to be fodder for Harper's magazine, for Dog Fancy magazine, which I know is liberally -- there's liberal publishers of Dog Fancy. I mean, that thing is like gay porn anyway.

Gross: Well, Triumph, I really don't think you're being fair and I'm going to change the subject.

Triumph: Good, because I'm not going to walk out of this interview.

Gross: No, good.

Triumph: I'm not going to do that. I'm better than that, but I am going to take a poop right now. I'm going to poop in this studio right now.

I myself heard the Triumph interview before I learned about the O'Reilly interview, and it was still funny. But now that I know the joke ...

The FMA may be more important than we realized

Now that Sully has flipped a bit and realized that the Bush administration's alliance with the most intolerant strain of cultural conservatism is no joke, he has some very, very scary speculation for us from a lawyer who emailed him with the implications of the FMA.

Under the Constitution of the United States there is no express right to privacy, rather this right to be free from excessive government interference in our personal lives has arisen from Supreme Court precedent that cites the lack of regulation of intimate relationships and the protections of the bill of rights as the basis for an inference of the right to privacy. The right to privacy, according the Supreme Court is found in the penumbras and emanations of these two factors. A shadow of a right, very delicate and now threatened.

By including a provision regulating the most intimate of relationships into the Constitution, the traditional analysis that the court has used to limit government power will be fundamentally changed and the right to privacy, if it is not destroyed completely, will be severely curtailed. As a result, decisions like Roe v. Wade, (Abortion), Griswold v. Connecticut (Birth Control), Lawrence v. Texas (Private Sexual Acts), will all be fair game for re-analysis ...

If you've read the ongoing attacks on the right to privacy reading of constitutional law in conservative jurists' rhetoric over the last decade, this is terrifyingly credible.

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I have a long follow-up post about how thoroughly terrible Andrew Sullivan is.

Stuff

I've been reading James Twitchell's surprisingly interesting book Living it Up: America's Love Affair with Luxury. (A big thank you to Indri at Waterbones, who turned me on to it.) It's a discursive cultural criticism book, and while it has a bit of the lefty uneasiness about consumer culture that you would expect, it takes a pretty nuanced view and argues that there is something profoundly democratic about the marketing of luxury products.

He talks a lot about how a certain lust for luxury things is inevitable, sometimes in spite of yourself. There's a terrific passage written by his daughter, who went with him on a shopping / anthropology expedition.

This was an experiment in how the other half — the decadent, materialistic half who threw money away — lived. I believe myself to be everything the woman in Tiffany thought I wasn't: intelligent, self-sufficient, not given over to the whimsical spending of large amounts of money.

Still and yet, when the saleslady pulled out the Gucci bag of the moment, and when my dad pretended he was thinking of buying it for me, there was part of me that was thinking, quite simply, “I want that.'' Everywhere we went, I spent longer than was necessary inspecting the evidence. I was a sucker. Watching a woman in Armani try on the ^$20,000 beaded dress, I was momenarily entranced — and more than slightly jealous. The stuff was so BEAUTIFUL, and when I looked down at my Old Navy sweater, I couldn't help but feel a bit wanting. And that part of me just kept thinking, “Maybe some day .... ” And so luxury sucked me in, even as I knew I was there solely to be critical of it.

....

Luxury is incredibly powerful, and it gets to almost all of us, even when we're told it's meaningless. Luxury 1, Liz 0.

This makes me think of a strange and wonderful talk I heard years ago by a guy named Brian Moriarty at the Computer Game Developers' Conference. He was talking about why a the web was a success, and a big online hit game was inevitable. On the way, he said something about the roots of human behavior that stuck in my mind.

Biologists explain pleasure by invoking a process they call “natural selection.”

This process is said to favor the evolution of brains that give positive feedback for behaviors which provide a survival advantage.

In other words, nature rewards life-affirming behaviors with pleasure.

That's why it feels good to eat.

Nature rewards a healthy appetite.

That's why it feels good to collect things.

Nature rewards acquisitiveness.

And that is why it feels good to talk and to play.

Nature rewards communicators.

It feels good to communicate.
....
The ways of natural selection are indeed Strange.

Some of you are going to cash in on the Internet and attain positions of power and influence.

Nature rewards a healthy appetite.

Some of you will create new technologies and companies and become comfortably wealthy.

Nature rewards acquisitiveness.

Moriarty's crystal ball turned out to be pretty good, considering that we gave the talk in 1996. Though as my mother will tell you, Moriarty didn't have to look far: the killer app in online games is bridge ....

Film school

OK, I'm going to teach you something important about how films work.

First, go look at a preview trailer for Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1. Then, go look at a trailer for Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

Now, go look at this satire.

Magic.

Legal precedent

Atrios reminds us of Loving v. Virginia (1967)

Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

A modest proposal

Jesus' General has proposed a constitutional amendment that goes directly to the point of ''family values.''

A family in the United States shall consist only of a man and a woman, united in wedlock, and a child or children who are their joint offspring. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that familial status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any other groups.

Think about it.

Wacky gnostic art

So I was looking to brush up on my archons and I found Enemies.com, a weird and wacky Gnostic website. There's a lot of crazy stuff there. Most significantly, it has a number of strange and disturbing cartoons. It has a list of Gnostic movies, with links to reviews: The Matrix, of course, but also Repo Man and (would you believe?) Harry Potter.

And there are jokes.

A Briton, a Frenchman and a Russian are viewing a painting of Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden.

''Look at their reserve, their calm,'' muses the Brit. ''They must be British.''

''Nonsense,'' the Frenchman disagrees. ''They're naked, and so beautiful. Clearly, they are French.''

''No clothes, no shelter,'' the Russian points out, ''they have only an apple to eat, and they're being told this is paradise. They are Russian.''

Plus, of course, a weblog!

States' rights, my left foot!

Brad DeLong sums it up nicely.

For forty years the Republican Party has preached the gospel of federalism and states' rights. Democrats and cynics have said that Republicans did this primarily because federalism and states' rights are useful tools for keeping African-Americans' noses in the mud. Republicans have protested that that is not the case, that their commitment to federalism and states' rights is a deep attachment to constitutional principle.

Now comes the Federal Marriage Amendment, and Republican commitment to federalism and states' rights is out the window faster than you can say ''secure the right-wing base.''

A deep attachment to constitutional principle indeed!

Bunches more to stir your ire in his post, if you like that sort of thing.

What is the point of video game violence?

Clive Thomson observes that a video game about killing Japanese soldiers in WWII sells briskly in Japan because the ''subject matter'' of computer games doesn't matter.

Really hard-core gamers often look past the cultural ''content'' of a game. They're mostly worried about a more prosaic concern, which is whether the game is fun. The geopolitics of a game melt away as players, like philosophers musing on their favorite platonic solid, ponder gameplay in the abstract.

We're accustomed to thinking that a piece of entertainment is nothing but its cultural content. A movie or TV show is just what you see on the screen. But a game is also about play, and play is invisible. That's why outsiders are often puzzled by the success of games that would appear to be nothing but screamingly offensive content. They can't see the play. Sure, you've got raw guts flying around -- but for the player, part of the joy is in messing with physics (even if that happens to be bullets and shoulder-launched grenades) or with strategy (even if that's figuring out how to starve a village).

Computer game designer Brian Moriarty finds this puzzling and provocative.

A conflict without hope. A forever war. I suspect that this is the secret reason why non-hobbyists are disdainful of today's computer games. They intuitively sense the lack of a larger purpose behind the events they see on the screen. Aside from a few jingoistic platitudes, a bit of narrative hand-waving to set up the slaughter, there's little or no justification for anything. The fighting just seems to go on and on. It's not the violence that bothers people, really. It's the uselessness.

Coture au courant

From the nice people at T-Shirt Hell, some ''wait a minute, that's actually kind of sophisticated satire.''

I only support gay marriage
if both chicks are hot

Today's quote

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him,--I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, ''Be silent: I see it, if you don't.''

Abraham Lincoln

Surprise surprise surprise

George W. Bush (address to the nation):

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife.

Andrew Sullivan (weblog post)

Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth.

Captain Louis Renault (dialogue from Casablanca)

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

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I have a long follow-up post about how thoroughly terrible Andrew Sullivan is.

Interracial dialogue

Cobb has a terrific post about one of my favorite points, our lack of a good language for talking about racism in America.

The reason 'racism' seems to be such a squishy term is because of racism. That is to say, blacks and whites and others are not engaged on a permanent basis in discussions about race and racism. They are separate. So if you grow up white talking about racism with whitefolks, then you will have a separate idea about what it is from that of blackfolks. What's also implied is that you will have fewer ways to talk about it in practice because it is a theory to you. So being provocative about it, theoretical discussions about racism within in a single race group only exacerbates the problem of racism itself because it reinforces words with meanings that are not shared outside of the group. Without firsthand experience this dissonance may be irrevocable.

I think this is a powerful insight. It is very, very hard just to get to the point where we are communicating clearly about this stuff, much less are gaining any insight. In my experience, even smart well-intentioned people of mutual goodwill keep saying to each other, ''you're misreading me!''

I suspect this isn't even primarily about miscommunicating the content of what's said -- though there is that. I think a lot of this comes from assumptions in the background. I've had countless dialogues which looked (to me) like this:

Me: I want to get some insight about what kind of things I can do on an individual level to act against racism.

Person of Color: You're letting yourself off easy. Racism exists on an institutional level.

Me: Not at all. I recognize that racism exists at an institutional level, and I think that part of my responsibility is to act against it. I just wanted to open a discussion about individual action.

PoC: I think you're trying to let yourself off the hook, saying ''racism isn't real because look, I personally am not a Klansman.''

Me: I recognize that racism is real. Maybe it's more productive to talk at the institutional level first. There's a lot going on there. What should responsible whites do about it? Voting Democrat sure isn't enough.

PoC: You have to stop accepting the white privilege that comes from those institutions.

Me: Absolutely, but I'm puzzled about how to go about that on an individual, day-to-day level. It's not like I can just sign a form saying ''I renounce my white privilege as of today.''

PoC: You're not recognizing the privilege you experience. Whites don't, because they don't have the perspective that comes from suffering the effects of racism.

Me: Maybe so, but I'm trying to, right here.

PoC: I know you don't see this and you never will, nor are you even capable of even beginning to do so.

There are several breakdowns going on in a situation like this. My perception of this kind of dialogue is that somehow I'm incapable of engaging without repeatedly appearing to dismiss racism as a phenomenon. Indeed, it seems to be hard to ask for elaboration on anything without sounding dismissive of it. It's hard to talk about fixing these rhetorical problems without seeming like I'm saying our problems demand rhetoric rather than action. All of these are in the background before we even get to what's being said.

The net effect is that whites and PoCs both lose interest in the dialogue because it leads nowhere, or even seems to demonstrate intransigence on the other side. I'm stumped for how I personally, or we as a nation, can pull out of this trap.

For readers' convenience, I've created an index of dialogue with commenter Demondoll2001 so you can see the full progress of the discussion

Not that I resent Social Security, mind you

I'm still insanely busy from work, so today it's another dose of ''today's quote'' from my dusty email archives.

Over the next two decades, the Greatest Generation's elderly will be replaced by old boomers, who'll be the largest, noisiest, and most demanding political constituency in American history--you and I among them. Tens of millions of boomer bodies all will be corroding. If you think prescription drug coverage is a big deal now, wait until medical science promises boomers we can look young and have sex like rabbits and party until we drop. Across the land there'll be outcroppings of ''Med-Meds'' for boomer geezers--think of Club Meds combined with medical facilities. Snorkeling all morning; extra oxygen in the afternoon. Worse yet, most boomers haven't saved a dime for retirement. All the equity's in their homes. And home prices will take a dive when the boomers all want to sell.

In other words, brace yourself. We'll be lucky if the Dems, as well as Republicans, don't sell out completely to aging boomers. Increasingly, a fault line in American politics will be generational. Who will represent the young? Who'll inspire them? Enable them to feel the joy of politics? I haven't seen a Dem among the current crop who comes close.

Robert Reich

Warning: Adult language

Another quote recovered from the old email bin.

A free Iraq, a peaceful Iraq will help change an area of the world that needs peace and freedom. A peaceful Iraq and a free Iraq is part of our campaign to rid the world of terror. And that's why the thugs in Iraq still resist us, because they can't stand the thought of free societies. They understand what freedom means. See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction. There will be a free and peaceful Iraq. What's taking place in Iraq is the evolution of a society, to be democratic in nation --- nature, a society in which the people are better off.

George W. Bush, 3 October 2003

When I originally spotted this, my comment to a friend was

Jesus fucking Christ, this rat bastard is a goddamned Kafka nightmare. What the hell is this shit, a fucking ploy to deliberately make intelligent people sputter and swear?

I'm not saying your life is empty in comparison

I've now seen Nina Hagen sing ''Fever''.

Passion

I'm looking forward to seeing Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ which opens Wednesday.

I am not a Christian by a long shot, but I have a weird soft spot for Passion films. It started when, as a teenager working in a video store, I discovered that Jesus Christ Superstar would gather dust on the shelf until you ran it on the TV in the store: by the time Judas shows up on screen, you have half a dozen people begging to rent it. Since then, I've kept an eye on the genre: I own a copy of Scorscese's Last Temptation of Christ and will eventually pick up Jesus of Montreal, which are both terrific films by any measure. Plus you have Max von Sydow as Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told! And Life of Bryan!

Gibson clearly has an interesting cinematic vision. I'm disappointed that the picture will be released with subtitles -- Mel clearly really wanted to do a ''silent'' film.

And there's the dustup over whether the picture is antisemitic. There are reasons to take those concerns seriously. The only way to have an meaningful opinion is to see the picture.

Newsweek has a fascinating article about the film, the history, and the Gospels. Not only does it weave the three strands together intelligently, you have to admire the mainstream media deftness with which it attempts to grapple with the hard questions without offending anyone.

Paranoia will destroy ya

I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.

Teresa Neilsen Hayden

Ain't it the truth.

Still more wedding pictures!

I never get tired of looking at them. And this little tribute makes me weepy.

I cannot help but hope that Atrios is right, that looking at pictures of people sleeping outside in the rain for a chance to get married will start to convince ambivalent Americans that opposition to gay marriage is churlish after all.

More wedding fever

What's this I hear about gay weddings ''eroding the institution of marriage''? It's just not so.

Is Heinlein's writing sexist?

I’m pressed for time today, so I’m going to recycle some comments I wrote an online discussion forum some time ago.

A few folks there called SF writer Robert A. Heinlein a “sexist pig” in his writing. I have to agree that it's as fair a short summation of his attitude as you could manage. But he was a writer extraordinarily resistant to such short summation. If you said that his political attitude was “anarchist” I would agree to that as a fair one-word description. But if you called his political attitude “fascist” I would agree to that as a fair one-word description, too.

That may sound impossible to those of you who haven’t read much of his writing. He’s a complicated guy. I know I have readers who have read him and are chuckling because they’ve probably made both arguments about his politics themselves, at one time or another.

Considering that the man was born in 1907, he was surprisingly un-sexist in many ways. In the 1950s — an era when women showed up in SF to need rescuing, when they showed up at all — he wrote Hazel Stone complaining that none of the men she worked with could solve a double integral without a pencil, and a military recruiting officer telling a young man that he shouldn’t apply for training as a starship pilot because the people with the necessary mathematical and kinesthetic talents are almost exclusively women. Later in his career, his character Friday could take any three of his male characters in a fair fight without breaking a sweat. Women are often in positions of authority in his work, and no one thinks it strange. His characters of both genders routinely assert that women are smarter than men without a trace of irony.

But.

Women in Heinlein’s fiction are still vastly outnumbered by men. While many of them are strong and interesting, more of them are either cardboard cutouts or fools. Even the strong and interesting ones really, really, really like being pregnant. And are discomfortingly deferential to the male characters. And in fact display a nauseating delight when those men treat them like children. And are pornographically willing to drop into those fellas’ beds. And have a particularly unwholesome attraction to grumpy old male author mouthpieces. And are often absurdly psychologically unreal, as any woman — any human — who has read I Will Fear No Evil will attest.

And while I understand that he comes from a generation that sincerely believed that if we could just get over the guilt, sex would be good clean fun, the resulting attitude is chillingly callous toward women in too many places. Women are never frustrated with their feminine gender role, never injured by sexual attention.

And my personal un-favorite: there’s a little attempted witticism he repeats in a few different stories about a female character wearing “a perfume that was probably named something like ‘Summer Orchard’ but would be better called ‘Justifiable Rape.’” At the risk of sounding like a cartoon humorless feminist, Mr. Heinlein, that is just not funny.

Updates

• A Quora discussion with a pointer to this post
• Heinlein: Forward-looking diversity advocate or sexist bigot? Yes by Mitch Wagner at Tor
• Heinlein’s Female Troubles by M. G. Lord at the New York Times
• Dread of Heinleinism by Charlie Stross
• Me talking about Starship Troopers, exploring why I make the weird claim that one could fairly call Heinlein either “anarchist” or “fascist”.

Strange outbreak of politeness

I cannot discern what the hell is really happening in this story.

The skinheads looked at him incredulously, and not without a degree of sympathy. It was obvious that he actually thought he belonged there, amongst white power kinfolk. ''Well, you haven't broken any of the festival's rules,'' began another skinhead, employing the sort of ''I hate to break it to you'' tone of voice of a father explaining to his 5-year-old son why a bed sheet tied around his neck doesn't mean he can fly. ''The thing is, you're not white.''

Crestfallen, the kid stood silent for a few beats, then responded, ''Okay, okay. I understand. I respect that. I just hope you know I didn't mean any disrespect by being here. I just wanted to come out and show my respect for the white race and support the cause.''

''We respect that, and we appreciate your attitude, you not giving us any trouble,'' said a skinhead, gently guiding him toward the exit. ''It's just we don't allow any non-whites here, and, you know, a judgment call was made and that call was that you're not white. We'll be happy to refund your money. Your friends can stay if they like, and if not, we'll give them their money back as well.''

It's just weird, weird, weird.

He forgot dashboard religious icons

In the middle of a piece about how SUVs are more dangerous than cars, Greg Easterbrook makes this wry observation.

Please don't tell me SUVs and pickup trucks should not be regulated because an American has a ''right'' to any kind of vehicle he or she desires. As far as the Constitution lays it out, you've got a right to own a gun and to read a newspaper; those are the consumer-purchase categories specified as hallowed.

Did she just say what I think she said?

I'm too burned from work to write or find anything new, so here are just a few things heard in passing in Berkeley. I didn't even hear them myself.

''So I got an email from The Guy, and I thought--''
''Hold on, hold on, hold on. The Guy? I'm going to need a lot more context here. Knowing you.''
''Shut up.''
''Could say worse.''
''Shut up.''
--Two women talking at Andronico's

---

''It's 'nett' not 'dit'. 'Pundit squares' sounds like a tic-tac-toe gameshow from hell.''
''Or a slimy breakfast cereal.''
--A guy and a girl outside Andronico's

---

''You get a magazine about gardening? What, are there trends and runways like fashion? Celebrity watering tips?''
--One woman to another at Berkeley Bowl

---

''Did you know that cellos can get frequent flier programs? And they can get upgraded to first class? Because you have to buy a seat for your cello, you can't check it.''
''I wonder if cellos get two pieces of checked baggage. Like a violin, and a viola.''
--Two guys outside Triple Rock

---

InPassing.org

''Winning'' isn't everything

Via Atrios, a nice summation from Digby at Hullabaloo of why the Iraq adventure is a catastrophy.

By invading Iraq the way we did and being proved complete asses now that no WMD have been discovered, one of our best defenses has been completely destroyed. It may have always been nothing but a pretense that we had hi-tech, super duper satellites with x-ray vision and all-knowing eavesdropping devices that can hear a pin drop half a world away but it was a very useful pretense. Nobody knew exactly what we were capable of. Now they do. It appears to everyone on the planet that our vaunted intelligence services couldn't find water even if they fell off of a fucking aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

It's this kind of thing that makes really crazy wackos like Kim Jong Il make mistakes. When a hugely powerful country like the United States proves to the entire world that it is not as powerful as everyone thought, petty tyrants and ambitious generals tend to get excited.

Digby writes largely in response to a post by Nick Confessore who sums up the argument that we've bogged down our military, drawing heavily in turn on James Fallows' dazzling article about military preparedness in The Atlantic Monthly.

It's a slight exaggeration to say that the entire U.S. military is either in Iraq, returning from Iraq, or getting ready to go. But only slight.

The basic problem is that an ever leaner, numerically smaller military is being asked to patrol an ever larger part of the world.

''Unanticipated U.S. ground force requirements in postwar Iraq,'' a report for the Army War College noted late last year, ''have stressed the U.S. Army to the breaking point,'' with more than a third of the Army's total ''end strength'' committed in and around Iraq.
...
Meanwhile, barely noticed, the United States still has some 75,000 soldiers in Germany, 41,000 in Japan, 41,000 in Korea, 13,000 in Italy, 12,000 in the United Kingdom, and so on, down through a list of more than a hundred countries -- plus some 26,000 sailors and Marines deployed afloat. The new jobs keep coming, and the old ones don't go away.
...
Despite our level of spending and our apparent status as the world's mono-power, the United States has few unused reserves of military strength. Sending troops in a hurry to the Korean DMZ -- or to Iran, or the Taiwan Strait -- would mean removing them in a hurry from some other place where, according to U.S. policy, they are also needed.

Wedding pictures

There's a bloke who has published some neat photographs of couples at SF City Hall -- I'm tempted to buy one of his cool posters of the rose petal and rice strewn steps.

Plus: pictures from the Chronicle.

Remote control design

A New York Times article today describes the process by which the folks at TiVo created their remote control.

In the pursuit of ease of use, the design team struggled with how to symbolize the notion of rating a program, an unfamiliar button concept for most viewers. (By telling the machines what kinds of shows they like or dislike, users ''teach'' TiVo what programs to record on its own.)

''Rather than pick some esoteric technical term about 'preferred' or 'not preferred' television programming, we came up with the thumbs,'' Mr. Newby said.
...
The next challenge was to fend off an attack of buttonitis.

''Buttons proliferate on remotes like rabbits,'' Mr. Newby said, adding that he and his designers, who ranged in age from 25 to 45, had ''bloody battles'' over which ones to include. They managed to hold the number at 30, a considerable achievement given how many functions the TiVo receiver performs.

Angel in America

Joss Whedon is a little disappointed at the cancellation of his show Angel.

Some of you may have heard the hilarious news. I thought this would be a good time to weigh in. to answer some obvious questions: No, we had no idea this was coming. Yes, we will finish out the season. No, I don't think the WB is doing the right thing. Yes, I'm grateful they did it early enough for my people to find other jobs.

Yes, my heart is breaking.

When Buffy ended, I was tapped out and ready to send it off. When Firefly got the axe, I went into a state of denial so huge it may very well cause a movie. But Angel... we really were starting to feel like we were on top, hitting our stride -- and then we strode right into the Pit of Snakes ’n’ Lava. I'm so into these characters, these actors, the situations we're building... you wanna know how I feel? Watch the first act of “The Body.”

As far as TV movies or whatever, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I actually hope my actors and writers are all too busy. We always planned this season finale to be a great capper to the season and the show in general. (And a great platform for a new season, of course.) We'll proceed ahead as planned.

I've never made mainstream TV very well. I like surprises, and TV isn't about surprises, unless the surprise is who gets voted off of something. I've been lucky to sneak this strange, strange show over the airwaves for as long as I have. I don't FEEL lucky, but I understand that I am.

Thanks all for your support, your community, and your perfectly sane devotion. It's meant a lot. I regret nothing (except the string of grisley murders in the 80’s -- what was THAT all about?) Remember the words of the poet:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN’ SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.”

See you soon.