5 Conservative Themes Hidden in InterstellarOh for... John Boot, ladies and gentlemen:
3. Christian teaching continues to be immensely powerful.
Though we won’t go into detail about it, there is an element introduced in the second half of the film that celebrates the story of God sacrificing His only son in order to give salvation to humankind.Christ imagery in a movie? That's a new one.
4. Climate change isn’t going to doom us.
Nolan’s Dust Bowl sequences seem to be the latest iteration of the idea that climate change is going to have sweeping consequences. The difference in this film is that, thanks to the confidence and competence of the Cooper character played by McConaughey — his motto is, “We’ll find a way, Professor, we always have” — there isn’t the slightest doubt that Nolan’s view of climate change is that it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man is equipped to cope with...Just the thing to get people to stop worrying about climate change: Civilization as we know it may be wiped out, but we'll find a wormhole and pull this thing out!
Sometimes I think these things are written on bets -- it's the only possible justification for paying the writers.
UPDATE. Way back on October 30, James Pethokoukis actually wrote a National Review post called "Just What Are the Politics of Christopher Nolan’s New Film, Interstellar?" You hope for his sake and humanity's that he's kidding, but...
Is Nolan making a point about the Common Core? Fiscal austerity? Or just about the belief that we need to focus exclusively on problems here on this planet and forget about space exploration? That last one affects folks on the left and right. You have liberals who think NASA dollars might be better spent on universal pre-K. And just the other day the Federalist ran a piece...Someone give this guy a Princess Leia doll and a bottle of NyQuil.
The fuck?
ReplyDeletethe liberal hope that America would someday be cut down to the same
size as every other country has come to pass. But as humanity prepares
to breathe its last breath, there is a rescuer in the form of NASA,
which has supposedly been dissolved but is actually operating secretly
underground.
How the fuck do you manage to run a muti-billion-dollar space program "underground'? Did they pretend that the roaring of rockets taking off was just a car backfiring? What the fuck does this have to do with the real world? Should NASA "go underground"? Why can't wingnuts tell fiction from reality?
there isn’t the slightest doubt that Nolan’s view of climate change is
ReplyDeletethat it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man
is equipped to cope with
Climate change is real but if we make a serious, concerted effort we can save ourselves is a conservative message?
I like how being saved by a government agency is now conservative.
ReplyDeleteThey're right: Let's just continue to destroy the only planet we have and hope for a wormhole. But we'll also continue to defund NASA so that those NASA scientists can't do any more pesky research on climate change or ozone levels. And then, I guess, Richard Branson's grandchildren will be willing to fly all of us to the wormhole?
ReplyDeleteOh, but, see, we libs think man is just a dumb monkey and we should all live in trees or some such!
ReplyDeleteWhy can't wingnuts tell fiction from reality?
ReplyDeleteTrickle-down economics
Faith-based initiatives
Creationism
Need I go on?
And then, I guess, Richard Branson's grandchildren will be willing to fly all of us to the wormhole?
ReplyDeleteUnless the spaceships disintegrate.
his motto is, "We'll find a way, Professor, we always have"
ReplyDelete"Just because we've shit the bed doesn't mean we can't get a good night's sleep. We can always cover that spot with a pillow!"
Or force someone else to sleep on it.
ReplyDeleteNolan’s Dust Bowl sequences seem to be the latest iteration of the idea that climate change is going to have sweeping consequences.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. THE WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE IS ABOUT THAT. They make a last gasp effort — with few humans still alive — to move to a more inhabitable planet. Because we killed this one.
Nolan’s view of climate change is that it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man is equipped to cope with...
If only some prominent liberals wrote books about that. Maybe we could claim it as ours. Too bad it's an inconvenient truth.
Or force someone else to sleep on it.
ReplyDeleteSay, someone with an excess of melanin or some such.
Huh. "Christian teaching continues to be immensely powerful" and that teaching being about "the story of God sacrificing His only son" -- that's a conservative theme? Funny. Seems more like their theme is "Christianity is on the ropes! People don't even say Merry Christmas to Jews anymore!" Oh and also that the teaching is the story of DON'T be gay, DO be rich.
ReplyDeleteWe're the majority, and we're persecuted, and our days are numbered, but we're prevailing, and Hollyweird hates us, but makes strong conservative movies like this and . . .
ReplyDeleteJohn Boot's hypothetical review of Independence Day:"This movie proves that America doesn't need any cities or 95% of its population to triumph over genocidal aliens. Conservative themes ensure a victory as stirring as it is total."
ReplyDeletethe liberal hope that America would someday be cut down to the same
ReplyDeletesize as every other country has come to pass.
This completely gratuitous swipe at liberals as abject traitors is a shining example of the precious civility conservatives are so anxious to restore.
"We're from the government. We're here to...oh, fuck it."
ReplyDeleteClimate Change Isreal!
ReplyDeletesimply another of the many environmental situations that man is equipped to cope with...
ReplyDelete[switches on transmit function in breathing apparatus]
"Okay, kids! What kind of animals did we see in the park today?"
[Many muffled young voices, speaking at once]
"Cockroaches!"
"Me too! Cockroaches!"
"I saw a scorpion!"
"Locusts! They were cool!"
"Dead bodies floating down the creek! Do they count?"
Is John related to Max, perchance?
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's a hell of a concept that saying that America is not the beloved nation of God and Truth and is a nation among equals constitutes treason.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering that myself, actually.
ReplyDelete"Is Nolan making a point about the Common Core? Fiscal austerity?" Why not both? It's a movie about space right? There's room for both!
ReplyDeleteIf Jesus cared at all about the poors, he would have gave a big sermon (perhaps on a hill of some sort) about that cause instead of spending all his time preaching against gays, abortion and contraception as the gospels tell us. Explain that libtards.
ReplyDeleteWell, to be honest, if we turn into the next neutered England or Germany, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Or for the world.
ReplyDelete"...whatever problems man’s technological advancements have caused, the solutions will be found in more exploration, invention, and innovation." All brought to you by the free market, untainted by the grubby hands of government rocket scientists.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, welcome our new batshit cray Republican Congresscritter overlords.
ReplyDeleteSomeone give this guy a Princess Leia doll and a bottle of NyQuil.
ReplyDeleteWait till I get this pinhole camera rigged up. The entire internet will wanna see this...
Well, if it's got a Dust Bowl, an' people perseverin', an' some good ol' Jayzus symbolism, it must be a conservative thing.
ReplyDeleteI think the conservative view of wormholes as a means of escape to a new place in the sun, should be encouraged. Enormous gravitational variations over a short distance, i.e. human body length, are such fun.
ReplyDeleteOr are shot down by the people who can't wangle a ticket. Which would be, like, almost all of 'em...
ReplyDeleteJust What Are the Politics of Christopher Nolan’s New Film, Interstellar?
ReplyDeleteIt's like peeling an onion of stupid. Pethokoukis quotes Andrew Klavan in 2008:There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past. Jeez, it's bad enough they feel the need to ask the ludicrous "what are the politics of..." question to assess if a work of art is ideologically safe, but it's even more pathetic to see from how deep within their own asses they need to excavate the answers.
Das.
ReplyDeleteThis effing prick actually had the cojones to say "Christian teaching continues to be immensely powerful?" Really? FOR EFFING REALZ??
ReplyDeleteAs you might imagine, this may have pushed one of my wee little buttons. Let me tell you, as a cradle Episcopalian, a 35+ year choir member, and a Lay Eucharistic Minister that pretty much anyone who spouts shit like that don't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
So, Sparky -- 'splain to me why y'all are so intent on shredding the safety net when Jesus, whom you profess SO LOUDLY to love an follow had these things to say:
"Feed my lambs." (John 21:15), and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40).
Fuckers have no more understanding of what a Christian is than my cats. (I take that back -- my cats will give each other baths and snuggle together.)
/furious rant
Should these folks be allowed to hire drilling rigs?
ReplyDelete"And look, there goes Keith Richards!"
ReplyDeleteWow, WoT has this review of pjmedia.com:
ReplyDeletebnoury 10/27/2011
I haven't rated
Good site
Best independent news and opinion on the web. "
Uh?
Supply Side Jeebus did not say none of that, nohow.
ReplyDeleteAgree, of course.
ReplyDeletethere isn’t the slightest doubt that Nolan’s view of climate change is
ReplyDeletethat it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man
is equipped to run away from
In dicereet, discrete, carefully selected groups. And if anybody thinks "diversity" will be any kind of issue on Terra Nova, Forest Tucker and I have some Arizona ranchland to discuss with you...
I feel neurons grabbing their car keys and saying "fuck it, I'm outta here" as I read that.
ReplyDeleteand then we will all wish we could UNSEE it.
ReplyDeleteHeh heh Forest Tucker. F Troop? I'm asking for an older friend.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if he did something like that, someone would have written it down somewhere.
ReplyDeletelike in a book.
Do gooders, took him out of context.
ReplyDeleteOr World War Z: "The zombie plague is clear evidence that Obama is a failed leader, but conversely, Brad Pitt shows that it doesn't matter if most of the world is eaten by rotting zombies, as long as one man with strong family values still lives."
ReplyDeleteJack.
ReplyDeleteOr for us. Quality of life in Germany's nothing to sneeze at.
ReplyDeleteI read that first Klavan sentence and, setting politics aside, it is still the worst sentence possible. Pethokoukis quotes it, which means he can't have noticed. Meanwhile, no commenter at alicublog has ever written such a mush-mouthed, self-aggrandizing, redundant, grammatically incorrect sentence. So, occasionally, I find myself wondering: Who do these guys admire? They didn't learn this style from Orwell or Fairlie. They didn't get it by reading too much Joan Didion or Tom Wolfe. They sure as fuck didn't pick it up from Lester Bangs. Who the hell do these guys admire?
ReplyDeleteJoe Isuzu?
ReplyDeleteSpencer, Tracy and Kong.
ReplyDeleteNow THAT's a conservative film: a celebration of the free market system, no welfare moochers, no greedy union bosses, no gays or blacks, GOOD TIMES.
ReplyDelete'I'm gonna cut the soles off my shoes, live in a tree and learn to play the flute."
ReplyDeleteEasy for you to say from down there.
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteMuley was a true conservative hero. He didn't sashay off to California looking for government campgrounds with flush toilets. He stayed behind and COPED.
ReplyDeleteFrom Neil to Stretch?
ReplyDeleteThe con. mess. is "once we use all this shit up we make a serious, concerted effort to move on to a new mine continentplanet, whatever.
ReplyDelete5 Conservative Themes So Deeply Buried in Interstellar No One Can Find Them
ReplyDeleteJIMMY: "Shouldn't we change the sheets, Professor?"
ReplyDeletePROFESSOR: "Not necessary. The machine to un-shit the bed will be ready before you know it."
JIMMY: "But Professor, won't the presence of untreated feces have a negative effect on our health?"
PROFESSOR: "That's defeatist talk, Jimmy."
Hell, at its current pace Germany will own the rest of Europe in another fifteen years.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? William F. Buckley Jr. & Norman Podhoretz. That's where they pick up their Old High Punditese.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that these people who see a pro-business subtext in every blockbuster they watch are the same group who believe that the Parable of Talents is literally about investing.
ReplyDeleteWell, sure, that's why it's hidden. Otherwise people might think they were completely full of shit.
ReplyDeleteWait, for real? (Haven't seen the movie yet.) Not that I'm surprised that 1) he's actually that dense 2) he would instinctually translate "man is equipped to cope with" into "I am in a geographic and socioeconomic position to suffer minimal consequences, and my children will probably be too, but if not, fuck 'em."
ReplyDeletethere isn’t the slightest doubt that Nolan’s view of climate change is
ReplyDeletethat it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man
is equipped to cope with
So it's like Dr. Strangelove, is what you're saying.
Yeah, Arglebargle and Loadpants and all the other yearn to sound a sexily intellectual as the young Buckley did.
ReplyDelete+1 for having New Testament-influenced cats. Mine are more Old Testament.
ReplyDeleteAlls I know is what's in the trailers. Which clearly show that the planet is dying, most humans are gone and the last hope for those who remain is finding another habitable place to ruin. That this is proof of mankind's capacity to deal with absolute catastrophe is, well, fanciful. But, for now, I, even as a liberal, think we have the ability to mitigate much of the worst of climate change. That we aren't currently engaging in those efforts are one of the more insane things in the history of human folly.
ReplyDeleteAnd, by extension, basically every superhero/adventure/hero-cop/PI movie made since 2001 is... apparently about George W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteI mean, they could be applying the long-preexisting template that has been present in Batman since the character was actually created to George W. Bush, and not Christopher Nolan making a paean to a dumpster fire of a president. But which is the more likely scenario, really?
Conservative themes in Interstellar? Pfft. Only if "conservative" is code for "commie atheist." Listen up, Boob and Pissokook, 'cause I'm only gonna tell you this once: It's "God created the heaven and the earth," not "God created the heaven and the earths." The very notion of a new earth outside of Revelation 21-22 blasphemes against the infallibility of Scripture. On your way out, be sure to turn in your keycards, your autographed copies of God and Man at Yale, and your Duggar(TM) cock rings.
ReplyDeleteThat's no wormhole.
ReplyDeleteWow, speaking of Jeebus and the like, I just found this on one of my surveys of Disqus comments:
ReplyDeleteNo, I was speaking in the spiritual realm of The Holy Spirit. You can not serve two(2) masters, GOD and Mammoth.
*facepalm*
Hm, if it were a conservative movie, wouldn't he be talking to, I dunno, an Amway salesman or something instead? You know, since all the scientists would have already been executed for godless factualism? Or is the professor in question a Southern Baptist theologian?
ReplyDeleteOh jeez, I dunno. Buckley would reach for the fifty-cent word, but he was more incisive once he had hold of it, wasn't he? Klavan writes like a big gassy parody of Buckley's public persona -- but Buckley's writing wasn't this appalling. At least, the bits I've read.
ReplyDeletePodhoretz I've read even less of -- part of a thing he wrote on Kerouac in the early days of the Republic, that might be all, and he seemed to really be evaluating Kerouac somewhat fairly. I should go reread/finish that; I don't quite recall it.
GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, PG Wodehouse, any other British guy with initials instead of first name.
ReplyDeleteThey aspire to upper class twitdom.
It's kind of funny to watch McArdle try to be Harriet Vane or Dorothy Parker.
ReplyDeleteBecause, see, like, God will be all "do unto others" and "The eye of a needle is in the beholder" while Mammoth will be all " 'Ello Mister, got any bananas, then?"
ReplyDeleteUpdated for "godless factualism"
ReplyDeleteBut...but...but....certain people are making billions of dollars to add to the billions of dollars they already have by burning the planet to the ground. Making an effort to mitigate the damage would infringe on their right to own everything and do whatever the fuck they want.
ReplyDeleteEven though we have something a lot like this in development, I want to greenlight this comment.
ReplyDeleteRelevant.
ReplyDeletehttps://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1239783462/kbb.png
"Human beings are not just another animal. Once this proposition would have been uncontroversial, but not anymore. Today liberals hasten to remind us that we’re just one among many species.... Nonsense, says Interstellar: the hero of the film, a pilot played by Matthew McConaughey, says humans have a special gift for adjusting and overcoming the sometimes dire circumstances of nature. Man is unique."
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's not like animals adapt to continue the species.
Well, give him credit for being a stickler for clarity with that "(2)"...
ReplyDeleteWatch out there -- you're treading VEEERY close to the edge of the cliff that would imply that evolution Isreal...
ReplyDeleteGesundheit.
ReplyDeleteSo I assume that's the point where McConaughey mentions that the Lincoln MKZ comes in a hybrid version.
ReplyDeleteThis guy has issues.
ReplyDelete"The can-do spirit of the frontier reaches all the way back to how the west was won, even back to the Mayflower. Americans have never been afraid to take chances, to explore new fields, to use our swagger and muscle to make new worlds. As Ronald Reagan was forever at pains to point out, things are a lot less complicated than liberals believe them to be, with courage, élan and moral righteousness providing a sound foundation for our values."
I suppose those values are why we first landed at Jamestown with gentlemen, their servants, jewelers, goldsmiths, and a wig-maker. Our values made us look for another India, rich in gems and gold.
After a certain point all this go-team rah-rah starts to be embarrassing. You want to look away because it's so openly needy.
,,,Morgens die Welt.
ReplyDeleteAs Ronald Reagan was forever at pains to point out, things are a lot
ReplyDeleteless complicated than liberals believe them to be, with courage, élan
and moral righteousness providing a sound foundation for our values.
Of course, then, Reagan was a simple-minded idiot who seemingly sincerely thought the United States was one big dude ranch.
That kind of bullshit gumption might have carried people through in frontier times; now we're living in a world larger and more complicated than worrying about the pregnant horse in the barn. If the conservatives can't deal with that, fuck it - maybe we NEED to find another earth so they can stay here and masturbate into their Cheetos while the rest of us move on with living.
They keep saying they'll go galt but they never do.
ReplyDeleteAmericans love to fight, traditionally. All real
ReplyDeleteAmericans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today
for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your
homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self
respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third,
you are here because you are real men and all real men like to
fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired
the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer,
the big league ball players, and the All-American football players.
Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser.
Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time.
I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.
That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war;
for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.
--Gen. George Patton, 1944
Maybe someone needs to PUSH them, then.
ReplyDeleteLet 'em find out how useless they are the hard way, nd yes, I'm being an intolerant pissant these days, but, FUCK, I gotta get back to civilization.
No dumb babister ever wub a wub by dybing for his cubbie.
ReplyDeleteMore like "Anals of the Culture War" hurr hurr.
ReplyDeleteThat's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war*
ReplyDelete*Offer not good after 5/30/1975.
Rectalfication of the Names, huh?
ReplyDeleteAw, creepees, Mudhead!
ReplyDeleteThat's one small doll for man, one giant stretch for mankind.
ReplyDeleteI think the Canadians might like a word or two here.
ReplyDeleteWhere's your school spirit?
ReplyDeleteAmericans have never been afraid to take chances, to explore new fields, to use our swagger and muscle to make new worlds.
ReplyDeleteFuck, we can't even repair a bridge anymore.
Nonsense, says Interstellar: the hero of the film, a pilot played by
ReplyDeleteMatthew McConaughey, says humans have a special gift for adjusting and
overcoming the sometimes dire circumstances of nature.
We have an even greater gift for eating the seed corn and/or fouling our living quarters.
"He stayed behind and got COPD"
ReplyDeleteFTFY.
Sasquatch Isreal!
ReplyDelete~
unless, of course, your chosen god is a mammoth
ReplyDeleteto hell with govt rocket science, I'm buying my space ticket from Sir Richard
ReplyDeletePlus everyone knows that mammoths is for huntin'. Not by me, of course, what with the gatherin' and whatnot.
ReplyDeleteLike back in 35,000 BCE, when the human population is estimated to have been around 3 million people (per the always impeccably sourced Wikipedia), and moving 3 million mostly nomadic hunter-gatherers away from flooding coastal regions would be do-able, even if all 3 million grumbled about it. But now we're around 7 billion. We're gonna need some specialer gifts.
ReplyDeleteHey now, Wodehouse made his career out of taking the starch out of upper class twits, and could write circles around these joyless troglodytes to boot. Also, I would rather pal around with Bertie Wooster over one of the NR/PJ apparatchiks any day of the week; he at least isn't willfully ignorant, nor is he a sociopath.
ReplyDeleteFlooding coastal regions are great for omnivorous terrestrial animals which don't have permanent dwellings, and have the sense to seek higher ground during storms. I wish I could live within walking distance of an uncontaminated oyster bed.
ReplyDeleteThe Culture of the Anal Warts
ReplyDeleteOh my GOD! Man down1!1! Sheriff Joe feels by Storm drain cover. Sturm and drang eh?
ReplyDeleteYeah. Who you gonna worship, some sissy possum or sloth totem, or a tusked bad-ass who can stomp you dead w/o noticing?
ReplyDeleteThis Interstellar is starting to sound like a Lost in Space remake w/ more backstory & less Dr. Smith.
ReplyDeleteIf you make American exceptionalism one of the cores of your philosophy and you cite as evidence the thoroughly massaged plot developments in an IMAX science fiction movie, you need to take a long hard look at yourself.
ReplyDeleteNolan must have gotten the directions backward.
ReplyDeletePillow deep in the Big Shitty
ReplyDeleteAnd the big fool says to sleep on
Well, Christian teaching sounds a little different when you have an armful of stones to throw and you can't remember any of your sins.
ReplyDelete..to move to a more inhabitable planet. Because we killed this one
ReplyDeleteSo, Nolan has basically remade Independence Day, with us as the aliens? Brilliant!
So Mr. Snuffleupagus is against God?
ReplyDeleteI like how being saved by a government agency that was just coming back from a conservative-House- imposed furlough exactly one year ago is now conservative.
ReplyDeleteFixed
Some movie says "Climate change isn’t going to doom us", and Fappy the Clown is relieved.
ReplyDeleteOh well, I suppose he did warn us he's a "christian" - So often these days what was once one of the world's great religions seems to have become nothing more than a license to substitute a comforting-if-utterly-implausible fable for the glinty glare of reality.
.
Except all three of those guys could write better than that if they were scribbling blind with pens stuck in their asses.
ReplyDeleteThe Naked Un-Civil Conservative
ReplyDeleteDanger! Danger!
ReplyDeleteIt's also become a pathetic license to substitute a comforting-if-utterly-implausible "greed is good, screw over everyone else to get rich" message for the actual doctrine espoused in the teachings of its divine savior.
ReplyDeleteLost in the Plot
ReplyDeleteSturm und drain
ReplyDeleteThat never gets old... anybody check up on Dondug lately?
ReplyDeleteFor my brother Mammoth is an hairy proboscidian, but I am a smooth one.
ReplyDeleteFirst black senator elected by popular vote in the South: Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
ReplyDeleteThe South Carolina Republican is the first black senator to be elected by popular vote in the South. Scott, 49, was initially appointed to the Senate in 2012 by Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, following the resignation of Republican Sen. Jim DeMint. In the 2014 general election, Scott won handily (61.2%) against Democrat Joyce Dickerson.
First black Republican woman elected to the House: Mia Love (R-Utah)
Mia Love, 38, hit the national stage in 2012 after speaking at the Republican National Convention. In 2012, she lost her first bid to represent Utah's 4th Congressional District, but was successful on her second try, winning 50% of the popular vote against Democrat Doug Owens.
First Iraq War combat veteran elected to the Senate: Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
Republican Tom Cotton, 37, is the first combat veteran from the Iraq War to be elected to the Senate. Cotton joins Joni Ernst as the only Iraq-Afghanistan veterans in the Senate. Exiting Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) had served in Iraq. Walsh was appointed to the Senate following the resignation of Sen. Max Baucus in 2013. Walsh opted not to run for his seat following a plagiarism scandal over his graduate work at the Army War College.
First female veteran elected to the Senate: Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)
Joni Ernst — the hog-castrating, gun-toting, motorcycle riding Republican from Iowa — will become the first woman war veteran in the Senate. A lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard, she served as a company commander in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
First female senators from Iowa and West Virginia
Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia) are the first female Senators elected to represent their states in the upper chamber.
First female governor of Rhode Island: Gina Raimondo
Democrat Gina Raimondo was elected the first female governor of the Ocean State. Raimondo, 43, beat out Clay Pell — the scion of the Pell political dynasty and husband to Olympian Michelle Kwan — for the Democratic nomination.
First U.S. governor in a wheelchair in the 21st century: Greg Abbott (R-Tex.)
Greg Abbott became a paraplegic following an accident in 1984. He served on the Texas Supreme Court and then as state attorney general. In the governor’s race, he was victorious over Democrat Wendy Davis, winning 59.3% of the vote. Abbott is married to Cecilia Phalen, who is Mexican-American. She is the first Latina First Lady of Texas.
First openly gay state attorney general: Maura Healey (D-Mass.)
Maura Healey, a 43-year-old Democrat, was elected attorney general in Massachusetts, making her the first openly gay attorney general in the U.S.
Youngest woman elected to Congress: Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)
At the age of 30, Elise Stefanik, an alum of the George W. Bush White House, is the youngest woman to ever be elected to Congress. Stefanik scored a 22-point victory over Democrat Aaron Woolf for New York's 21st Congressional District.
First openly gay Republican in Congress?
It’s still too close to call, but Republicans in San Diego hope to celebrate the election of Carl DeMaio, who is openly gay, to represent California’s 52nd Congressional District in the House.
Uni,
ReplyDeleteI can't be arsed to write about historical achievements if it doesn't fit the narrative Media Matters espouses for me.
" Americans have never been afraid to take chances, to explore new fields, to use our swagger and muscle to make new worlds."
ReplyDeleteOr, failing that, to use our swagger and our muscles to, er...acquire new worlds from people who didn't really deserve to have them anyway. You know, because of swagger deficiency or whatever.
Nolan's not saying we won't get our hair mussed...
ReplyDeleteSometimes you gotta crack 6 billion eggs to get a two-figure by-the-barrell price of crude oil omelette. The human race, will still survive, what's the problem?
ReplyDeleteDEMS: The Tired Party:
ReplyDeleteThe midterms were a commentary on the exhaustion of the Obama Democrats:
http://t.co/vYFRjwl1Ut
OMG, I just pulled that movie up Netflix earlier this evening. Just finished 'Killing Patton' and decided to watch the movie, which I hadn't seen in over 30 years.
ReplyDeleteJoy! The scabby-scrotum-rubbing weepy troll that believes it's "beneath" others has come back for more creepy affirmation that it's not utterly ineffectual.
ReplyDelete"Not-entirely-ineffectual", now there's a life-goal.
And this time it's so desperate its actually talking to itself.
There's lonely an then there's lonelier-'n-fuck.
.
Nolan’s view of climate change is that it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man is equipped to cope with...
ReplyDelete"...err, except that "climate change" is a libruhl scam, so we won't cope with it at all, which means we're all gonna die!!!" according to wingnut logic.
I gave up trying to figure out a long time ago why taking care of "God's gift of the world" isn't a conservative goal. Even for the non-religious ones, the conservatoid master race of inbred generational wealth, you'd think the long-term goal would would be to preserve the Earth's resources so they and their descendants can continue their parasitic existence--what are they gonna do when they've killed off all their livestock of peasants? Their evil great-grandpa/uncles are rolling in their Gilded Age mausoleums at their idiot offspring.
I now just assume they are insane, and it is only the relative ease of living in modern civilization that has kept these bozos alive long enough to be bothersome to humanity. They are living the drunkard's dream that the rest of us will save them, after they've burned it all down.
Dude,
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with every liberal here having a strange infatuation with scrotums?
You're like a middle-school kid.
GAFL.
I agree that Americans have a history of shitting where they live and moving on to cleaner pastures.
ReplyDeleteIs that what this Bold Pioneer means, or is he just excited about the World of Warcraft expansion coming out?
We don't need no Guvmint Billion-dollar Agency to flush our money down the shitter. Some plucky Texas rancher will build a rocket in his barn and discover the Warp Engine just in time to ship off all the libruhls to their own planet Eden.
ReplyDeleteWin-win!
Disdain for public education
ReplyDeleteShiny things
24/7 Behavioral Conditioning
Faux News
Oppressive Consumerism
Personal fucking responsibility, Joe.
ReplyDeleteMCCONAUGHEY: We'll find a way, Professor, we always have.
ReplyDeletePROFESSOR: Sure. Evolution and lowered standards will do that for you. Sure would be nice if we'd done something, anything, about climate change while we still had the chance, though, and had NASA operating openly instead of hiding in a big cave with "Deficit Reduction" painted over the front, though. Then, instead of one planet we're not adapted to live on and one planet that's unliveable, we could have two planets.
MCCONAUGHEY: Two planets. Wouldn't that just beat all. ...But it wouldn't work, Professor, Dick Cheney said so.
I knew that was an anti-Semitic remark!
ReplyDeleteYou get back to your life with that ball of fat Rebecca, you libtard weirdo.
ReplyDeleteGet some sleep, cowboi.
ReplyDeleteOr it's like they read Kai Lung and didn't get the joke.
ReplyDeleteWoah! Headrush.
ReplyDeleteSo exactly right .
ReplyDelete"Weeh! Liberals are making me eat this shit sandwich!" [Omf, nomf]
ReplyDelete"Weeh! Liberals are making me eat this shit sandwich!" [Omf, nomf].
ReplyDeleteAlso, we are sorry that you mistake “pointing and laughing” for “abject terror.” It must be a very confusing world for you.
ReplyDeleteThe various Bureaux of Propaganda and the College of Emotional Engi- neering were housed in a single sixty-story building in Fleet Street. In the basement and on the low floors were the presses and offices of the three great London newspapers-777e Hourly Radio, an upper-caste sheet, the pale green Gamma Gazette, and, on khaki paper and in words exclusively of one syllable, The Delta Mirror.
ReplyDeleteYour use of "and" and "the" was also incredibly persuasive.
ReplyDeleteArpaio claims a faulty sidewalk is to blame. But shortly after the fall, he said he blamed himself for the injury. From the next day, Arpaio gave a message to the public:
ReplyDelete"What happened ... I blame myself," he said in a video statement from his hospital bed. "I fell and I broke my arm."
But Arpaio is now suing Hines GS Properties, which owns the Renaissance Square in downtown Phoenix, alleging an improperly installed storm grateis to blame for causing the fall.
During a media tour Thursday at his jail, Arpaio expanded on the comments he made at the hospital that he blamed himself.
"I did say that because nobody pushed me," he said. "They did not push me.The people that pushed me were those that had a bad sidewalk."
Personal responsibility, indeed.
i saw someone point out that the type of propulsion drive used in the film has the potential to act as a wave-front planet bulldozer - so it cld also be a remake of Hitchhikers' Guide w us as the aliens!c
ReplyDeleteBTW, OT: I switched computers this morning (a certain feline is slowly denuding my laptop keyboard of letters) and Firefox pulled up an older post from here.
ReplyDeleteI fucking hate it when I'm right, sometimes:
Pere Ubu•12 days ago
You know that's exactly what the Very Serious People in the Village
will tell them. "This is a sign that the American people want Democrats
to reach across the aisle and work for bipartisanship!"
Wanted to recommend two movies we just saw that really don't comfortably fit into a left/right spectrum at all--surprisingly. I know you all won't want to see them because not enough things blow up and not enough worlds collide but still: Dean Spanleyhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135968/ It is hard to describe but its available on Netflix. And then The Funeral http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089746/which is a slow, funny, film by the team that did Tampopo about what happens when a citified, younger generation, has to go to the old homestead in rural Japan and hold a funeral for the old curmudgeonly recently deceased father-in-law.
ReplyDeleteA character on "Sesame Street"? Of course he's against God.
ReplyDeleteso who can play Slartibartfast? Jonah Goldberg? or is that Fartrybartslast?
ReplyDeleteso we get to take a chance every time we drive over said bridge. Uniquely American, isn't it!
ReplyDeleteI'll go for the 15-foot tall flightless eagle that once roamed the Southeast.
ReplyDelete"It's a fap!"
ReplyDeleteConservative Admiral Akbar
He looks as pitiful as ever - red-baiting, scrambling to call the election a Republican revolution ("wave", "denunciation of far-left"), kissing Malkin's anti-immigrant ass.
ReplyDeleteA long line of 0 comments on his posts, as well. One could suggest that folks might want to stop by and cure that, but that would be encouraging cross-blog flaming and that would be wrong, as Nixon said.
or indeed the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapahoe. Red Cloud represent
ReplyDeleteKelenken:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_la8EiANYjY
I gotta go for the low-hanging fruit, after all.
ReplyDeletethe Pastoral on the Protuberance?
ReplyDeleteI once heard a myth about a sermon on a mount, and I think it's true because only the son of a god could make a memorable speech while standing on a moving donkey. Me, I'd just sound like a keanu reeves impersonator
The Vermeer of pron
ReplyDeleteYou might want to take a look at the HTML on those links.
ReplyDeleteThat said, this is a line I want to preserve:
Fisk Senior:
There's no point to regretting things that have gone to the trouble of happening
Smittens gonna smite!
ReplyDeleteThe difference in this film is that, thanks to the confidence and competence of the Cooper character played by McConaughey — his motto is, “We’ll find a way, Professor, we always have” — there isn’t the slightest doubt that Nolan’s view of climate change is that it is simply another of the many environmental situations that man is equipped to cope with...
ReplyDeleteI kinda like this logic. The next time I pull the charred-to-coal lump that was supposed to be toast out and throw it in the trash it will demonstrate my incredible cooking skills. I can master any recipe!
well, personally, I'm a Toys 'R Us adult
ReplyDeleteHe means personal responsibility for people not called Sheriff Joe. Also "media tour at his jail"?
ReplyDeleteWell, that settles it. By means of SCIENCE, for our household's Thanksgiving this year we'll be serving turduckenken.
ReplyDeleteOh, for---Okay, look, I have sometimes identified myself as a progressive, which means ... Are you sitting down? ... that I'm a believer in making progress. I'm willing to admit to a form of speciesism, because I do value humans at least a bit more than other life forms. Which is why I don't want them to be starving to death under bridges when we could so easily do something to avoid it. Which is why I don't slaver for blowing human beings into bloody rags overseas just to show how tough my country is. Which is why I believe in the availability of decent, affordable education for all, the engine of all that progress and can-do accomplishment. Which is why I believe in working with others in making the world at least a little bit better for our precious children. What I don't believe in is constantly sharting that we can't afford to do anything for the general welfare any more, lest some parasitic billionaire fuck pay an additional percentage point in taxes. What I don't believe in is wrecking the ability of a representative democratic government to address the problems of its citizens. What I don't believe in is treating science and scientists like shit out of stupidity or greed. What I don't believe in is actively cheering on the world becoming a complete crapsack because it means Jesus will come back soon. Which is to say, I'm not an American conservative. Humans are unique? Yes, we can plan and cooperate in grand ways that other animals can't. We can also be titanic shitweasels that make even chimps on a bad day look mild-mannered and forward-thinking. And by the latter, I mean all of you, wingnuts. So the next time you presume to lecture the straw-liberals in what passes for your minds on human progress, consider shutting your goddamned willfully ignorant pieholes instead.
ReplyDeleteSCENE: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN'S study, in late 2012. A tv is on in the background, showing a Romney/Obama debate. NOLAN sits in front of his typewriter.
ReplyDeleteNOLAN: (cracking knuckles) I am going to write a movie that is going to blow the lid off of Common Core!
CUT TO CLOSEUP OF TYPEWRITER, AS THE WORD "INTERSTELLAR" IS TYPED OUT.
CUT TO MONTAGE OF WRITING: BALLED UP PAPER BEING THROWN AT TRASH CANS, PAPER BEING FED INTO TYPEWRITER, FURIOUS TYPING, COFFEE BEING POURED, CAT WALKING ON TYPEWRITER, TRASHCAN OVERFLOWING WITH PAPER, NOLAN SHAKING FIST AT TV AS ELECTION IS CALLED FOR OBAMA, ETC.
CUT TO NOLAN HOLDING A COMPLETED SCRIPT.
NOLAN: This'll show those lie-bruls! (LAUGHS, PICKS UP PHONE, BEGINS DIALING)
CUT TO MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, ALONE ON A DESERTED BEACH, AT SUNSET. HE IS NUDE, AND SMOKING AN ENORMOUS BONG. HIS CELLPHONE RINGS, AND HE ANSWERS.
MCCONAUGHEY: All right all right all right.
NOLAN: Matty! Chris Nolan! I just wrote a script to a science fiction movie that will blow Common Core out of the water! And I want YOU to be my star!
MCCONAUGHEY: All right all right all right. Wancha ta know, though... (TAKES ENORMOUS BONG HIT) that mah fee has gone up... (EXHALES GIGANTIC CLOUD OF SMOKE) ...sub-STANCHA-lee.
NOLAN: No problem! I believe in the free market, and paying what things are worth! Just get over here!
MCCONAUGHEY: All right all right all right. (HE GATHERS UP HIS BONG AND WALKS AWAY. THE CAMERA LINGERS ON HIS MAGNIFICENT BUTTOCKS).
CUT TO NOLAN, WHO IS LEAFING THROUGH AN ENORMOUS LEATHER-BOUND VOLUME ENTITLED "BIG BOOK OF ELDERLY BRITISH STARS." HE BEGINS DIALING A NUMBER.
CUT TO A PALATIAL ENGLISH ESTATE. MICHAEL CAINE IS LOOKING THROUGH A PILE OF BILLS AND YELLING AT HIS SERVANT.
CAINE: What do you mean, the Bentley needs a new transmission? You were only supposed to blow the bloody fuel injectors out! Get out! You disgust me!
PHONE RINGS.
CAINE: Chroist, what is it now? (ANSWERS PHONE) What the bloody hell do you want?
NOLAN: Michael! Chris Nolan! Listen, I just wrote a script that will make the liberals SCREAM! I want you to be in it.
CAINE: Does it pay more than Jaws: The Revenge?
NOLAN: Yes! Lots more!
CAINE: All right, then.
The Boots seem to continue stamping on human faces forever.
ReplyDeleteI would like to tattoo this post on the eyeballs of every wingnut in America so they have no choice but to see it their every waking moment.
ReplyDeleteWe can't just go and shoot a few Indians any more to fix things.
ReplyDeleteA film about a making a film? Hmmm it might work. "Fart of Dorkness" as a title?
ReplyDeleteRighteous, mds.
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason that right-wing religious types aren't interested in the stewardship of the Earth, and James Watt laid it down long ago:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owc1pTVcnl8
The guy doesn't go to lunch without it being a media tour.
ReplyDelete"Pass me your mess kit, will you? Mine seems to be out of commission..."
ReplyDelete"Someone give this guy a Princess Leia doll and a bottle of NyQuil."
ReplyDeleteHis parents took his Princess Leia doll away from him when he was a kid, along with the rest of his Star Wars collectibles. He's never recovered from the shock. I can tell. (His shock became particularly acute after he found out that his parents sold his stuff off at a profit.)
For one, the ecological disaster in the movie isn't global warming, it's some sort of genetic collapse caused by too many years of genetically manipulated food monoculture. At least that's what it looked like to me. The overall temps on Earth looked pretty much like modern times, and they specifically mentioned blights as wiping out species after species of cultivated plants. But then maybe it affects all plants because Batman's butler mentioned something about the blight causing the atmosphere to be lacking in oxygen due to some nonsense about nitrogen.
ReplyDeleteThere was a religious strain in the movie, but it was more about woo woo love conquers all and transcends the world we can experience rather than anything to do with an old tribal religion and their specific traditions.
I won't get into specific things that bugged me about the movie, but the science in the movie is laughably bad, but a good science fiction story if it's well written can get you to buy into the suspension of belief ... well, this one didn't.
Other things, the robots, although they had more personality than most of the actors were insanely badly designed. It was cool to look at for about 1 minute, until you realized that it was just a terrible design.
Anne Hathaway is one of the weirdest looking human beings on the planet. Every scene she's in, you're distracted by her Anime character like eyes. I think her agent must have seen Sandra Bullock in 'Gravity' and decided this was the correct vehicle to expand her career into action movies. I think she did an ok job acting in this movie, but her appearance was so distracting, that she was completely unbelievable in her part.
Despite all its flaws, I predict it will be a pretty successful movie, and I was entertained by many of the action sequences, despite the complete lack of plausibility of them.
One other thing, they got relativity and black holes completely wrong ...
The political message I got from this movie was that if you put Matthew McConaghey in a movie, you can make a lot of money with a pretty silly script. Nothing more than that. If you think you can read a conservative or liberal message out of this mess of a movie, good luck to you.
Yes, thanks, I've Edited my post to reflect the information that the original link was borked. Also that line is one of the best and quirkiest in a very quirky movie.
ReplyDeleteJesus was a gang banger
ReplyDeletehttp://kstp.com/news/stories/S3613450.shtml?cat=127
http://zspss.ru/Raboti/Iisus_Hristos.jpg
I finally watched the clip now and, if Nolan was "making a point" about anything, it's about pin-headed conservatives who censor textbooks to take out the bits about Godless sex and evolution. Jesus fuck, but Pethokoukis must be so dense that light bends around him.
ReplyDeleteI would like to be stuck in development hell with this comment.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree re The Funeral, and pretty much any of Juuzo Itami's films. Funny you thought of it now, because I've just last night re-watched Departures (2008, 'Okuribito' in Japanese) which, while neither a comedy nor an Itami film, it co-starred Tsutomu Yamazaki (the 'ramen cowboy' in Tampopo) and is a beautifully filmed, funny, lovely, albeit highly tear-jerky film. If you havent seen it, it's worth a watch.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/?ref_=nm_knf_i1.
The "ramen cowboy" has such a distinctive face! Is Okuribito the one about the yakuza? My mother just watched that and seems to have a copy to loan me. She said it was very good.
ReplyDeleteThe Yakuza one is called Minbo, It stars the wonderfully expressive-faced Nobuko Miyamoto (who is Juuzo Itami's widow, and starred in most of his films - she was Tampopo). A very funny film, too.
ReplyDeleteIf you like it, try A Taxing Woman, in which she plays a similar role, tracking down tax cheats.
.
PJ Media helps NOT AT ALL in finding this out; their bio is fucking cute and makes me want to punch them all the more than I already did:
ReplyDeleteJohn Boot is the pen name of a conservative writer operating under deep cover in the liberal media.
"They gave you a number and took away your name..."
Then also, there's the call of the wingnut:
ReplyDelete"NOT RESPONSIBLE!"
Pethokoukis must be so dense that light bends around him.Liberal relativist.
ReplyDeleteThat screaming metal soundtrack knocked that fucker out of the park!
ReplyDelete