I’m not calling the opponents on the right or left Stalinists or Nazis when I say they are totalitarians...It's all like that. Save yourself the headache.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
COP CROCK. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not being too harsh, and sometimes maybe I am, but I can safely say that I will never regret saying that Michelle Malkin is utterly delusional:
And these very brief glimpses into the shadows of law enforcement are completely overriden by the fictional portrayal of cops in the "mainstream media," which borders on deification. Cop shows from the Law & Order franchise to the CSI franchise, and everywhere in between, uniformly portray the boys in blue as paragons of honesty who cut far fewer corners to make a murder case than the average salesman would cut to close a deal. Indeed, cops are portrayed as morally superior to just about all non-uniformed citizens: watch a station-centered cop show like NYPD Blue and compare the skels, victims, and lawyers who drift in and out with the police -- you see a world gone terminally venal, in which only cops can be trusted (which is presumably why they seem only to fuck their colleagues).
The success of the ridiculous CSI shows I attribute to their reassuring underlying theme: that cops are not only immaculate honest and zealous in pursuit of the truth, they are also scientifically predestined to find it. (Someday Minority Report will be done as a cop series, and young people will be shocked to learn that it was originally a dystopian vision.)
I don't begrudge the police this heroic treatment -- though I would prefer, as I suspect they would, that they got the love in their pay-envelopes rather than from mass media. But to say that the MSM is out to make cops look bad is just nuts.
When was the last time you thanked a cop? And wouldn't it be nice if, for just a brief moment, the mainstream media would hold a ceasefire in its incessant cop-bashing crusades?Bullshit. The nets show us a bad-cop story only once in a very great while: only the most incontrovertible egregiously bad bluecoat behavior (nightstick-sodomizing, outright murder of citizens, etc) qualifies. (Even Malkin doesn't dispute that the stories she protests are true.) And that's it. Simple brutality charges, an everyday thing in this City and perhaps yours, don't make the cut. The presumption of truth is always with the police; generally, only when film footage inescapably overturns this prejudice do the news outlets give the civilians complainants a little airtime.
There are good cops, and there are bad cops. But national press outlets, predisposed to harp on law enforcement as an inherently racist and reckless institution, hype the hellions at the expense of the heroes.
And these very brief glimpses into the shadows of law enforcement are completely overriden by the fictional portrayal of cops in the "mainstream media," which borders on deification. Cop shows from the Law & Order franchise to the CSI franchise, and everywhere in between, uniformly portray the boys in blue as paragons of honesty who cut far fewer corners to make a murder case than the average salesman would cut to close a deal. Indeed, cops are portrayed as morally superior to just about all non-uniformed citizens: watch a station-centered cop show like NYPD Blue and compare the skels, victims, and lawyers who drift in and out with the police -- you see a world gone terminally venal, in which only cops can be trusted (which is presumably why they seem only to fuck their colleagues).
The success of the ridiculous CSI shows I attribute to their reassuring underlying theme: that cops are not only immaculate honest and zealous in pursuit of the truth, they are also scientifically predestined to find it. (Someday Minority Report will be done as a cop series, and young people will be shocked to learn that it was originally a dystopian vision.)
I don't begrudge the police this heroic treatment -- though I would prefer, as I suspect they would, that they got the love in their pay-envelopes rather than from mass media. But to say that the MSM is out to make cops look bad is just nuts.
SHORTER JAMES LILEKS: We kicked their asses in the last election, all my pals make fun of them, and yet they persist with their accursed bumperstickers! Ooh, I will parse them, parse them good, the goddamn godless... don't get the wrong idea about me, I'm a tolerant guy... come on out, you atheist whore, so I can spit blessings in your face... here's my videogame! Bye!
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS. I'm getting a little tired of Malcolm Gladwell. The Tipping Point was a neat little book, taken in the narrow context of marketing analysis, but his book-reading for the New Yorker mostly demonstrates how limited his POV is when applied to just about anything else.
For example, last year he suggested -- using a psych paper about successful survivors of child abuse, The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit, and other such data -- that trauma isn't really that big a deal, that in most cases "our psychological immune system[s] will kick in and take away the sting of adversity." On its face this seems an unremarkably homey finding, but Gladwell made so much of our ability to soldier on in the face of horrors that a careful reader would eventually wonder why he thought it worth writing about. The answer, of course, is that in our pyschological age we talk so much about trauma and its effects that a fellow who comes around and says, look, it's not as bad as all that -- especially if he uses scholarly and literary sources -- seems to be bucking some sort of tide. When faced with the overwhelming task of processing and sorting out all the various categories of human suffering that our very advanced information-gathering has revealed to us, it may be soothing to hear an intellectual version of Quitcher Bitchin'.
Now Gladwell works his happy-chappy contrarian angle on the subject of our under-edumacated children. Taking off from Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good for You, he says that the kids' preference for video games and TV over book-learning is OK, because pop culture exercises a certain set of intellectual muscles which, though they are different from the muscles exercised by the study of American History and other such old-timey disciplines, are valid and worth strengthening. "Being 'smart' involves facility in both kinds of thinking -- the kind of fluid problem solving that matters in things like video games and I.Q. tests, but also the kind of crystallized knowledge that comes from explicit learning," Gladwell says, and while he admits that the latter sort of learning might at present be somewhat neglected, he is much more concerned with our inability to see the riches that the former kind might yield.
What Gladwell fails to mention is what specifically is gained by video-game learning, and what is lost in the neglect of what he calls "explicit" learning -- which category of knowledge he somewhat unfairly attaches to the Gradgrindian more-school-less-recess mandates of some modern educational policies. He seems to think that gaming and TV-watching provide some sort of information-absorption and problem-solving skills:
Though I cannot speak to the aesthetics of Doom and Grand Theft Auto, I will say that, much as I love The Sopranos, complicated plotting is the least of its excellencies; and that, while the ability to follow multiple story lines may be admirable and perhaps useful, it would better suit a young person to learn how to tie various story threads into an analysis, a skill that far predates the digital video disc.
It has been my experience as a remedial English tutor that even the brightest students are undertrained in, and often unaware of, the simplest analytic tools -- including grammar, sentence structure, and outlining. These are not nearly so easy to absorb as the skills Gladwell values, but the fact that he can make himself clear in essay form shows that he has himself mastered them, which makes it rather disturbing to me that he seems not to care much that we make so little effort to wrench our kids away from their entertainment modules long enough to learn how to diagram a sentence or tie three supporting details to a main idea.
We are all futurists nowadays, and it is to be expected that the author of The Tipping Point would hope to find some bright, positive New Paradigm in the video obsessions of our young people. But it is a stubborn fact that some sorts of machinery, greasy and earth-bound as they may seem, are yet necessary to our progress, and that this goes for intellectual as well as physical realities. If we don't teach our young citizens to think rather than merely process information, all the video-savvy in the world isn't going to save their sorry asses. As seductive as the Information Age fantasy is, we will never be a nation of managers, magically summoning prosperity with our Blackberrys, without something to manage. Something has to be created first. And to create we need tools. Noun-verb agreement is to my mind a good start. You can do your part by collaring some young ruffian and making him or her learn it.
For example, last year he suggested -- using a psych paper about successful survivors of child abuse, The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit, and other such data -- that trauma isn't really that big a deal, that in most cases "our psychological immune system[s] will kick in and take away the sting of adversity." On its face this seems an unremarkably homey finding, but Gladwell made so much of our ability to soldier on in the face of horrors that a careful reader would eventually wonder why he thought it worth writing about. The answer, of course, is that in our pyschological age we talk so much about trauma and its effects that a fellow who comes around and says, look, it's not as bad as all that -- especially if he uses scholarly and literary sources -- seems to be bucking some sort of tide. When faced with the overwhelming task of processing and sorting out all the various categories of human suffering that our very advanced information-gathering has revealed to us, it may be soothing to hear an intellectual version of Quitcher Bitchin'.
Now Gladwell works his happy-chappy contrarian angle on the subject of our under-edumacated children. Taking off from Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good for You, he says that the kids' preference for video games and TV over book-learning is OK, because pop culture exercises a certain set of intellectual muscles which, though they are different from the muscles exercised by the study of American History and other such old-timey disciplines, are valid and worth strengthening. "Being 'smart' involves facility in both kinds of thinking -- the kind of fluid problem solving that matters in things like video games and I.Q. tests, but also the kind of crystallized knowledge that comes from explicit learning," Gladwell says, and while he admits that the latter sort of learning might at present be somewhat neglected, he is much more concerned with our inability to see the riches that the former kind might yield.
What Gladwell fails to mention is what specifically is gained by video-game learning, and what is lost in the neglect of what he calls "explicit" learning -- which category of knowledge he somewhat unfairly attaches to the Gradgrindian more-school-less-recess mandates of some modern educational policies. He seems to think that gaming and TV-watching provide some sort of information-absorption and problem-solving skills:
To watch an episode of “Dallas” today is to be stunned by its glacial pace -- by the arduous attempts to establish social relationships, by the excruciating simplicity of the plotline, by how obvious it was. A single episode of “The Sopranos,” by contrast, might follow five narrative threads, involving a dozen characters who weave in and out of the plot...For what sort of future does this training fit young minds? Perhaps the jobs of CEO and General; but, and I hate to break it to parents, very few of our children are going to get those jobs. In general, the training gleaned from gaming and watching TV shows prepares most of us for more gaming and more watching of TV shows. In this regard we may say our children are well-, perhaps over-educated.
...[In gaming] players are required to manage a dizzying array of information and options. The game presents the player with a series of puzzles, and you can’t succeed at the game simply by solving the puzzles one at a time. You have to craft a longer-term strategy, in order to juggle and coördinate competing interests...
Though I cannot speak to the aesthetics of Doom and Grand Theft Auto, I will say that, much as I love The Sopranos, complicated plotting is the least of its excellencies; and that, while the ability to follow multiple story lines may be admirable and perhaps useful, it would better suit a young person to learn how to tie various story threads into an analysis, a skill that far predates the digital video disc.
It has been my experience as a remedial English tutor that even the brightest students are undertrained in, and often unaware of, the simplest analytic tools -- including grammar, sentence structure, and outlining. These are not nearly so easy to absorb as the skills Gladwell values, but the fact that he can make himself clear in essay form shows that he has himself mastered them, which makes it rather disturbing to me that he seems not to care much that we make so little effort to wrench our kids away from their entertainment modules long enough to learn how to diagram a sentence or tie three supporting details to a main idea.
We are all futurists nowadays, and it is to be expected that the author of The Tipping Point would hope to find some bright, positive New Paradigm in the video obsessions of our young people. But it is a stubborn fact that some sorts of machinery, greasy and earth-bound as they may seem, are yet necessary to our progress, and that this goes for intellectual as well as physical realities. If we don't teach our young citizens to think rather than merely process information, all the video-savvy in the world isn't going to save their sorry asses. As seductive as the Information Age fantasy is, we will never be a nation of managers, magically summoning prosperity with our Blackberrys, without something to manage. Something has to be created first. And to create we need tools. Noun-verb agreement is to my mind a good start. You can do your part by collaring some young ruffian and making him or her learn it.
Monday, May 09, 2005
A BRIEF BUT, AS ALWAYS, AMUSING STROLL AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE: "If you're like me you see the beatified Che Guevara as a mirage in the desert that is the fashionable Left's conception of human nature." -- Jeremy of Who Knew?
That's really very funny on several levels, but it should be mentioned that there is no "fashionable Left." The new thing is to care passionately, and be right-wing, and to call every Lebanese woman in your camera "babe." (Did you know that the word "snapshot" was originally a hunting term?)
If this gruel is too thin for you, you might go a few degrees further right to Redstate.org, where we learn that man-on-boy action isn't so very bad when performed by a Republican like Spokane mayor Jim West:
The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
UPDATE. Jeremy asks in comments, what's so funny? Respectfully submitted, respectfully answered:
1.) Any sentence that begins "If you're like me," and is neither ironically meant nor testimonial advertising copy, is prima facie hilarious.
2.) Che Guevara = a mirage in the desert? I guess that means we liberals are crackbrained sufferers from heat stroke, running blindly and desperately toward Che Guevara, who looks to us like Paul Wellstone holding a bottle of cold, cruelty-free soy milk, only to trip over our Birkenstocks in the sand, while Jeremy and his whatever-they-ares are driving alongside us in air-conditioned Hummers, drinking out of Evian bottles and pointing and laughing.
3.) The fashionable Left! "Omigod! Is that the new Nicole Miller hacky-sack?" Besides, I heard we were all Out of Touch with America, which is not fashionable at all.
4.) Better yet, the fashionable Left's conception of human nature! Here Jeremy has us to the life. We stand in a large, white space, striking fashionably thoughtful poses, and after a suitably Pinteresque pause (Pinter hates America, like us; that's why we use his pauses instead of, say, Neil Simon's) one fellow-traveler (a person of color! Can't forget the diversity) announces, "Human nature -- isn't there some way we can tax it?" And the rest of us go "Word to your Mom" and nod in that really annoying way.
I could go on but I may be overthinking this just a bit.
That's really very funny on several levels, but it should be mentioned that there is no "fashionable Left." The new thing is to care passionately, and be right-wing, and to call every Lebanese woman in your camera "babe." (Did you know that the word "snapshot" was originally a hunting term?)
If this gruel is too thin for you, you might go a few degrees further right to Redstate.org, where we learn that man-on-boy action isn't so very bad when performed by a Republican like Spokane mayor Jim West:
Moreover, if, as his legislative record indicates, West is worried about teens having consensual sex with each other, and gays having access to youth at work, it could be seen as skating too close to the edge of hypocrisy that he was seeking out a supposed teen (admittedly, one who clained he was turning adult, or 18, in March) in a gay online forum, and offering inducements including an internship."Could be seen as skating too close to the edge of hypocrisy"! A very tolerant attitude, I must say. Of course, this toleration vanishes in comments, as the topic turns to homosexuals who are not Republican officeholders ("Replace 'homosexual' with 'incestuous' or 'pederast.' Now, should we 'tolerate' incest and pederasty?" "Look, I don't 'hate' homosexuals - I think a much better job should be done of educating people to the dangers of homosexuality" etc).
The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
UPDATE. Jeremy asks in comments, what's so funny? Respectfully submitted, respectfully answered:
1.) Any sentence that begins "If you're like me," and is neither ironically meant nor testimonial advertising copy, is prima facie hilarious.
2.) Che Guevara = a mirage in the desert? I guess that means we liberals are crackbrained sufferers from heat stroke, running blindly and desperately toward Che Guevara, who looks to us like Paul Wellstone holding a bottle of cold, cruelty-free soy milk, only to trip over our Birkenstocks in the sand, while Jeremy and his whatever-they-ares are driving alongside us in air-conditioned Hummers, drinking out of Evian bottles and pointing and laughing.
3.) The fashionable Left! "Omigod! Is that the new Nicole Miller hacky-sack?" Besides, I heard we were all Out of Touch with America, which is not fashionable at all.
4.) Better yet, the fashionable Left's conception of human nature! Here Jeremy has us to the life. We stand in a large, white space, striking fashionably thoughtful poses, and after a suitably Pinteresque pause (Pinter hates America, like us; that's why we use his pauses instead of, say, Neil Simon's) one fellow-traveler (a person of color! Can't forget the diversity) announces, "Human nature -- isn't there some way we can tax it?" And the rest of us go "Word to your Mom" and nod in that really annoying way.
I could go on but I may be overthinking this just a bit.
Friday, May 06, 2005
MORAL RELATIVISTS. You want to know how they do it? Here's a good example. A Wall Street Journal writer looks at some confusion over CDC figures concerning obesity and mortality. His conclusion: no one really knows if being fat is bad for you. In fact, no one really knows much of anything -- not when it comes to the dark arts of medicine and climatology:
But for conservative functionaries such as Henninger, doing his bit to further the antiEnlightenment, the grey areas of scientific enquiry are proof that science is, after all, just guesswork, no more valid than your guesses or mine if it comes to that, so that the science community's consensus on, say, global warming can be easily ignored if your spritual or political leaders require it of you.
This attitude has long been in effect further down the food chain, of course -- as in this Washington Times laugher, in which evolution is referred to by its old name of Darwinism -- not an institution, after all, but just the ditherings of one guy who was not Jesus! If some folk prefer to "use a little imagination" on behalf of Intelligent Design, who are the labcoats to squawk? But now that the prestigious Journal has taken it up, we may note a change in the weather, so to speak. You're either with them or against them, as always, whether they're right or wrong -- but now, even if you know what you're talking about and they don't have the slightest fucking clue, "against them" is still the wrong place to be -- maybe even more wrong than ever.
This is confusing--and that's the point. Science, of its nature, is always confusing. Medicine is uncertain. But public-policy formation in the U.S., especially as concerns health policy or the environment, whether obesity or the melting of the polar ice caps, admits to very little confusion. We claim to know. But in fact we usually don't know.Contrast the approach of this WSJ guy, Daniel Henninger, with a different sort of assessment of the same basic data: Thomas Maguire takes the few extra steps needed to reveal that the statistical blips do not prove that packing on the pounds is a risk-free activity. The rest of us may come to similar conclusions using what our ancestors called common sense, paired with our powers of observation.
But for conservative functionaries such as Henninger, doing his bit to further the antiEnlightenment, the grey areas of scientific enquiry are proof that science is, after all, just guesswork, no more valid than your guesses or mine if it comes to that, so that the science community's consensus on, say, global warming can be easily ignored if your spritual or political leaders require it of you.
This attitude has long been in effect further down the food chain, of course -- as in this Washington Times laugher, in which evolution is referred to by its old name of Darwinism -- not an institution, after all, but just the ditherings of one guy who was not Jesus! If some folk prefer to "use a little imagination" on behalf of Intelligent Design, who are the labcoats to squawk? But now that the prestigious Journal has taken it up, we may note a change in the weather, so to speak. You're either with them or against them, as always, whether they're right or wrong -- but now, even if you know what you're talking about and they don't have the slightest fucking clue, "against them" is still the wrong place to be -- maybe even more wrong than ever.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
SELECTED SHORTS. Saw a few movies:
The Red Violin. This Girard is an odd duck. If I hadn't seen Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould I would have expected something like Diva. Well, while The Red Violin is episodic, it's also got a big old McGuffin to pull you through: artistic inspiration as a barrier-breaking, life-changing motive-force. Plenty of other movies have worked this side of the street -- Lust for Life, Quills, Dr. Zhivago, etc. But using the violin and its sad backstory instead of a single artist-hero makes the trick a little dicier. It's easier to identify with the madness of Kirk Douglas than to imagine oneself risking the wrath of Maoist thugs for the music of John Corigliano. But I was impressed by the clever and highly specific takes on historical eras, especially the opium-addled British Romantics. And I wonder why Sam Jackson doesn't do more roles like this where he can, you know, act. Because he's very good at it.
Wag The Dog. Speaking as a jaded roue myself, I admired the unshakable cynicism, which has given the film life past its heyday as a Clinton joke. I didn't like DeNiro's performance. I'm sick of seeing him tuck the corners of his mouth, especially since watching him do it in that wretched Scorsese ad for American Express; it's become his personal Del Sarte schtick for "I don't know how to handle this emotion, folks." Wasn't Ron Silver available? Dustin Hoffman is more the thing. There's a man comfortable with his solipsism! Props also to Woody Harrelson, who made me think of Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World."
Hotel Rwanda. The best thing about it is: no arc. Shit just keeps coming, and Don Cheadle just keeps putting on his nice clothes and taking care of increasingly precarious business. The scenes of horror are suitably appalling, but cleverly titrated so that you don't grow too numb to take them in. The madness seems as if it will never stop, and every un-mad moment is only carved out of it by the righteous will and cunning you have seen expended. By the end, even the money-shot restoration of (some of) Rusesabagina's extended family can't deceive you into thinking that the story is really over -- it merely pauses, in medium-long shot, to acknowledge a moment of grace before the film runs out. It's no shock that Terry George also wrote the relentlessly grim The Boxer, but it is a surprise -- a pleasant one -- that he was again given such a big canvas for so muddy-bleak a vision.
The Red Violin. This Girard is an odd duck. If I hadn't seen Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould I would have expected something like Diva. Well, while The Red Violin is episodic, it's also got a big old McGuffin to pull you through: artistic inspiration as a barrier-breaking, life-changing motive-force. Plenty of other movies have worked this side of the street -- Lust for Life, Quills, Dr. Zhivago, etc. But using the violin and its sad backstory instead of a single artist-hero makes the trick a little dicier. It's easier to identify with the madness of Kirk Douglas than to imagine oneself risking the wrath of Maoist thugs for the music of John Corigliano. But I was impressed by the clever and highly specific takes on historical eras, especially the opium-addled British Romantics. And I wonder why Sam Jackson doesn't do more roles like this where he can, you know, act. Because he's very good at it.
Wag The Dog. Speaking as a jaded roue myself, I admired the unshakable cynicism, which has given the film life past its heyday as a Clinton joke. I didn't like DeNiro's performance. I'm sick of seeing him tuck the corners of his mouth, especially since watching him do it in that wretched Scorsese ad for American Express; it's become his personal Del Sarte schtick for "I don't know how to handle this emotion, folks." Wasn't Ron Silver available? Dustin Hoffman is more the thing. There's a man comfortable with his solipsism! Props also to Woody Harrelson, who made me think of Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World."
Hotel Rwanda. The best thing about it is: no arc. Shit just keeps coming, and Don Cheadle just keeps putting on his nice clothes and taking care of increasingly precarious business. The scenes of horror are suitably appalling, but cleverly titrated so that you don't grow too numb to take them in. The madness seems as if it will never stop, and every un-mad moment is only carved out of it by the righteous will and cunning you have seen expended. By the end, even the money-shot restoration of (some of) Rusesabagina's extended family can't deceive you into thinking that the story is really over -- it merely pauses, in medium-long shot, to acknowledge a moment of grace before the film runs out. It's no shock that Terry George also wrote the relentlessly grim The Boxer, but it is a surprise -- a pleasant one -- that he was again given such a big canvas for so muddy-bleak a vision.
HALFWIT. A New Republic article cites a Dominionist nut as an example of what American People of Faith are thinking. Hugh Hewitt blows his stack: "It would be as if I made a claim that the Democratic Party believed 'x' because Michael Moore and the Greenpeace Board of Directors said 'x,'" huffs Hewitt.
Actually, Hewitt has claimed, repeatedly, that Michael Moore represents the Democratic Party, even without the "Greenpeace Board of Directors." Here's Hewitt at the 2004 Democratic Convention:
I guess when you're working for Jesus, you don't even have to fact-check your own ass.
Actually, Hewitt has claimed, repeatedly, that Michael Moore represents the Democratic Party, even without the "Greenpeace Board of Directors." Here's Hewitt at the 2004 Democratic Convention:
The podium speakers are acting the part of Penelope in the Odyssey — unraveling all that has been woven by the delegates during the day, or in this case, by Michael Moore during the day. It is a hard-Left group of delegates, and Moore's their crown prince even if Kerry's king for a day...Throughout that Convention, of course, Hewitt made a mantra of referring to the Dems as "the Kerry-Moore Democrats."
I guess when you're working for Jesus, you don't even have to fact-check your own ass.
NO COMMENT. "That particular girlfriend loved Prince, which was my first clue this wouldn’t last and would end hard." -- James Lileks.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
PROGRAM NOTES. I forced myself into the template and, instead of setting the whole works on fire and hopping up and down, naked and screaming, as a sane man would, I added some links. I don't know what kept me from putting Tbogg and Fafblog up there before; sloth, perhaps, or jealousy. Dum Luk's, author Martin Langeland's new showroom of high-definition language, is added as a rebuke to us all.
Atrios I'm leaving off. Not out of pique. It just seems ridiculous, like saying, "You know who you should listen to? The Beatles," at a party.
Atrios I'm leaving off. Not out of pique. It just seems ridiculous, like saying, "You know who you should listen to? The Beatles," at a party.
WHEN NERDS ATTACK! The previously-noted Kulturkampfer rage at George Lucas for not admitting Yoda is really Alan Greenspan has been relayed to major wingnut disseminators. Clearly their Right-sabres are all bent out of shape.
All I can say is, anyone who couldn't see what Lucas was up to from the very first appearance of Imperial Storm Troopers should be embarrassed to admit it, not loudly bewailing his fanboy betrayal.
UPDATE. If that's not enough KultKampf action for you, at OpinionJournal Harry Stein explains at great length that Jon Stewart isn't really funny.
I don't understand their need to deny the artistic abilities of people they don't agree with. I mean, I thought it was kinda funny when Bush jerked off that horse, and I'm not afraid to say so.
UPDATE II. Speaking of jerk-offs, at The Corner they explain that they're no prudes -- quite wild actually! They make jokes about Star Trek! -- but Laura Bush went too far -- though she may deserve a pass based on the agricultural nature of her blue material ("Farm humor isn’t about sex, it’s about life") -- the Bush Twins went too far, The Flintstones was a total ripoff of The Honeymooners, etc.
If they did go totally mad, how would we tell?
All I can say is, anyone who couldn't see what Lucas was up to from the very first appearance of Imperial Storm Troopers should be embarrassed to admit it, not loudly bewailing his fanboy betrayal.
UPDATE. If that's not enough KultKampf action for you, at OpinionJournal Harry Stein explains at great length that Jon Stewart isn't really funny.
I don't understand their need to deny the artistic abilities of people they don't agree with. I mean, I thought it was kinda funny when Bush jerked off that horse, and I'm not afraid to say so.
UPDATE II. Speaking of jerk-offs, at The Corner they explain that they're no prudes -- quite wild actually! They make jokes about Star Trek! -- but Laura Bush went too far -- though she may deserve a pass based on the agricultural nature of her blue material ("Farm humor isn’t about sex, it’s about life") -- the Bush Twins went too far, The Flintstones was a total ripoff of The Honeymooners, etc.
If they did go totally mad, how would we tell?
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
LICENSE TO SHILL. Just in case you were wondering how the Culture War's higher-ed front was going, Roger Kimball provides an update:
In other words, after a long explanation of the bad Marxist way of getting things done, Kimball pretty much tries the same thing himself. Evidently he means what he says about a "license for thuggery," but also believes that he possesses such a license. I wonder where he imagines he got it from?
The old Marxist strategy of “increasing the contradictions”—a strategy according to which the worse things get, the better they really are—is a license for thuggery. It excuses all manner of bad behavior for the sake of a revolution that will (so it is said) finally transform society when all the old allegiances have finally collapsed. If one or two tottering institutions require a little push to finish them off, so be it. Shove hard: You cannot, as comrade Stalin remarked, make an omelette without breaking eggs.Then he goes on for hundreds of incendiary words about how bad liberal professors are, and ends by threatening their tenure ("An arrangement that was intended to protect academic freedom and intellectual diversity has mutated into a means of enforcing conformity and excluding the heterodox").
As with anything to which the word “Marxist” applies, there are at least eighty-seven things wrong with this strategy. Morally, it is completely irresponsible. Intellectually, it depends upon a fabricated “contradiction” to confer the illusion of inevitability. In real life, the only thing inevitable is the certainty of surprise.
Nevertheless, as one looks around at academic life these days, it is easy to conclude that corruption yields not only decay but also opportunities. Think of the public convulsion that surrounded the episode of Ward Churchill blah blah blah blah...
In other words, after a long explanation of the bad Marxist way of getting things done, Kimball pretty much tries the same thing himself. Evidently he means what he says about a "license for thuggery," but also believes that he possesses such a license. I wonder where he imagines he got it from?
Monday, May 02, 2005
SHORTER JANE GALT: Not only are Hollywood actors liberal and wrong -- they don't even know how to act! Jane Galt must school them in empathy!
(Refresh my memory, folks: back when libertarians actually existed, what were their distinguishing characteristics?)
(Refresh my memory, folks: back when libertarians actually existed, what were their distinguishing characteristics?)
BED-WETTERS AT CAMP KULTERKAMPF. How goes the Culture War? Bit of a snag at Libertas ("a forum for conservative thought in film"). The author has found an interview where Geoge Lucas mentions Fahrenheit 911 without spitting.
"Wired put Lucas on its cover, his face half-encased in the helmet Darth Vader," says the disappointed fanboy. "That may be more appropriate than they imagined."
His fellow Jedi rush in waving their light-sabres. "I still believe that despite Lucas’ own personal philosophy, his films belie a deep rooted conservatism," says one. "Perhaps Lucas doesn’t realize it," insists another, "but he is subversively conservative and even pro-life when he depicts this cold Cloning facility with a million babies in jars."
Yeah. And if Princess Leia ever got to know you, she'd really, really like you.
UPDATE. The Libertas post has received more comments; so far this one is my favorite. In case they've taken it down, here's the complete text:
"Wired put Lucas on its cover, his face half-encased in the helmet Darth Vader," says the disappointed fanboy. "That may be more appropriate than they imagined."
His fellow Jedi rush in waving their light-sabres. "I still believe that despite Lucas’ own personal philosophy, his films belie a deep rooted conservatism," says one. "Perhaps Lucas doesn’t realize it," insists another, "but he is subversively conservative and even pro-life when he depicts this cold Cloning facility with a million babies in jars."
Yeah. And if Princess Leia ever got to know you, she'd really, really like you.
UPDATE. The Libertas post has received more comments; so far this one is my favorite. In case they've taken it down, here's the complete text:
As though there needed to be a subset of the “Star Wars Loser Group” now we have, whiney conserva-geek-star-wars-losers. What’s more, they’re looking [for] depth in a Star Wars movie. Depth! Meaning. Important political statements!Whoa -- looks like someone's gonna get a purple nurple.
Time to turn off the computer, get out of the basement, move out of mom’s house and get a life.
Q.E.D. "I know Andrew [Sullivan] has a tendency to believe his own personal political preferences should and must be in perfect accord with external reality, but I’ve never subscribed to such a view." -- Jonah Goldberg.
The qualifier "external" suggests there is an internal reality by which one might make sense of Goldberg's politics. It probably resembles Porky in Wackyland.
The qualifier "external" suggests there is an internal reality by which one might make sense of Goldberg's politics. It probably resembles Porky in Wackyland.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
DEATH OF A DREAM. I took a stroll by the former Plaza Hotel this fine Spring afternoon. In its day, the Plaza was a monument to all that was splendid in the Big Apple – the gold standard of hospitality, the home of Eloise, the monogrammed bathrobe at the end of the rainbow for countless mid-level managers.
But that Plaza is gone. In its place stands a cruel mockery: Its windows, as high as rocks can reach, have been brutally shattered, and rough workmen’s planks obscure their once-majestic views. The fabled doors, once guarded by proud men in splendid uniforms, now swing loose on their hinges, freely admitting squatters and prostitutes -- not the new Plaza’s guests, but its masters. Its white façade has been pitted by gunfire and scarred by graffiti; the scrawled legend BROKEN PROMISES looms over a family of three huddled against the north wall, sharing a makeshift supper.
The Oak Bar, in former days redolent of expensive cologne and fine wines, today reeks of crack cocaine. A visitor to the capacious bathrooms receives, instead of a gentle whisking of the shoulders and a posture suggesting that a tip would be appreciated, blows to the head and a rough frisking.
"This our house now," says "Crick," a self-styled "Customer Service representative" who patrols the lobby, a baseball bat in his right hand and a Blunt perched insouciantly between his teeth. "You got any problems, you fill out a card an’ give it to the desk clerk."
The effects of the Plaza’s decline reach far beyond its own walls. High life has drained from Fifth Avenue. Brooks Brothers is now a Dress Barn. Elizabeth Arden is a nail salon. Only the NBA store thrives. This famed thoroughfare, where splendid Easter bonnets were so recently displayed, is deserted after nightfall. "Since the Plaza moved to mixed-used, Fifth Avenue is a no-go zone," admits a weary-looking Sgt. William Daniels of the NYPD. "We only come in at dawn to carry out the dead."
"This is a wake-up call to our fellow citizens," declares Business Improvement District President Charles F. Gordon from behind the sandbag barricades of what was once F.A.O. Schwartz. "It’s too late for the Plaza, but for Christ's sake, keep the Helmsley open. Because if they get the Helmsley, it’s just a short hop to the Oyster Bar, and then God help New York!"
But that Plaza is gone. In its place stands a cruel mockery: Its windows, as high as rocks can reach, have been brutally shattered, and rough workmen’s planks obscure their once-majestic views. The fabled doors, once guarded by proud men in splendid uniforms, now swing loose on their hinges, freely admitting squatters and prostitutes -- not the new Plaza’s guests, but its masters. Its white façade has been pitted by gunfire and scarred by graffiti; the scrawled legend BROKEN PROMISES looms over a family of three huddled against the north wall, sharing a makeshift supper.
The Oak Bar, in former days redolent of expensive cologne and fine wines, today reeks of crack cocaine. A visitor to the capacious bathrooms receives, instead of a gentle whisking of the shoulders and a posture suggesting that a tip would be appreciated, blows to the head and a rough frisking.
"This our house now," says "Crick," a self-styled "Customer Service representative" who patrols the lobby, a baseball bat in his right hand and a Blunt perched insouciantly between his teeth. "You got any problems, you fill out a card an’ give it to the desk clerk."
The effects of the Plaza’s decline reach far beyond its own walls. High life has drained from Fifth Avenue. Brooks Brothers is now a Dress Barn. Elizabeth Arden is a nail salon. Only the NBA store thrives. This famed thoroughfare, where splendid Easter bonnets were so recently displayed, is deserted after nightfall. "Since the Plaza moved to mixed-used, Fifth Avenue is a no-go zone," admits a weary-looking Sgt. William Daniels of the NYPD. "We only come in at dawn to carry out the dead."
"This is a wake-up call to our fellow citizens," declares Business Improvement District President Charles F. Gordon from behind the sandbag barricades of what was once F.A.O. Schwartz. "It’s too late for the Plaza, but for Christ's sake, keep the Helmsley open. Because if they get the Helmsley, it’s just a short hop to the Oyster Bar, and then God help New York!"
Friday, April 29, 2005
WISHFUL NON-THINKING. Lot of death-knells for newspapers lately, and what they have in common -- from the Ole Perfesser's smug solipsism("...it does seem as if we're undergoing a major change. I know that I pay less and less attention to newspapers and television...") to Richard Brookhiser's L'Envoi -- is that they're ridiculously premature. U.S. newspaper circulation, as even hostile reports admit, is down maybe about a point -- which means our papers are outperforming the national economy. Hey, maybe America's finished, too!
Certainly this is not a good time to grow rich in journalism, but -- this may shock the libertarians; cover their ears -- often getting rich is not the point. Sometimes the incentive is power. For decades certain gazillionaires (cough Murdoch cough) have been operating their tabs at a deficit just to keep their journalistic hobby-horses alive. 'Twas ever thus. You think James Callender got published on the strength of any fan-base besides Thomas Jefferson?
So why the declarations of irrelevance? Simple. These guys are pushing something called blogging. In this blog thing, some very few make money on ads, but mostly the practice is meant to burnish reputations sufficiently to get the reputees gigs with Media Matters, right-wing radio, or some other venue in a for-profit branch of the Fourth Estate. Some idiots, like myself, do it with only mild recompense from confused Blogad shoppers who perhaps picked a handful of sites from top of an alphabetical list, and some bloggers get nothing from it but the satisfaction of knowing that unseen dozens of bored office workers now know what the blogger had for dinner last night, what sort of stool the dinner engendered, and the blogger's thoughts on Faulkner and the Law of the Sea.
Sounds like quite a revenue stream, eh? Well, maybe, just maybe, if they can get everyone to believe that the Paper is dead, there'll be a reverse Tinker Bell effect. Then those few Americans who still know how to read will come running to Powerlineblog, jettisoning sports, weather, local news, and any other service Powerlineblog cannot deliver, just to be on trend!
It obviously works in politics, their reasoning seems to be; and since everything is politics, why should it not work for me?
Certainly this is not a good time to grow rich in journalism, but -- this may shock the libertarians; cover their ears -- often getting rich is not the point. Sometimes the incentive is power. For decades certain gazillionaires (cough Murdoch cough) have been operating their tabs at a deficit just to keep their journalistic hobby-horses alive. 'Twas ever thus. You think James Callender got published on the strength of any fan-base besides Thomas Jefferson?
So why the declarations of irrelevance? Simple. These guys are pushing something called blogging. In this blog thing, some very few make money on ads, but mostly the practice is meant to burnish reputations sufficiently to get the reputees gigs with Media Matters, right-wing radio, or some other venue in a for-profit branch of the Fourth Estate. Some idiots, like myself, do it with only mild recompense from confused Blogad shoppers who perhaps picked a handful of sites from top of an alphabetical list, and some bloggers get nothing from it but the satisfaction of knowing that unseen dozens of bored office workers now know what the blogger had for dinner last night, what sort of stool the dinner engendered, and the blogger's thoughts on Faulkner and the Law of the Sea.
Sounds like quite a revenue stream, eh? Well, maybe, just maybe, if they can get everyone to believe that the Paper is dead, there'll be a reverse Tinker Bell effect. Then those few Americans who still know how to read will come running to Powerlineblog, jettisoning sports, weather, local news, and any other service Powerlineblog cannot deliver, just to be on trend!
It obviously works in politics, their reasoning seems to be; and since everything is politics, why should it not work for me?
GRAB BAG. The new Jonah Goldberg column is chock-full of idiocies, and I am very short of time. So I'll grab one of the idiocies, and you guys do what you will with the rest.
Obviously I am a conservative. Goldberg's wrong about Sullivan, though, who is conservative -- as everyone possessing the bullshit-penetrating x-ray glasses known to my people as "common sense" knows -- only because the gravy train marked "Gay Conservative" still had empty seats when he turned up at the station.
Over to you.
In the world we live in today, to be an American conservative requires two complementary forms of argumentation: skepticism about the new and faith in the old. You must have both to be a conservative of any stripe. Which new things you’re skeptical about and which old things you revere distinguish the kind of conservative you are. I think, unlike many readers, that by this criteria alone Sullivan is a conservative.I revere our democracy and am skeptical of the government con men to whom it has been entrusted. I revere Social Security and am skeptical of the government con men etc. I revere our national resources etc.
Obviously I am a conservative. Goldberg's wrong about Sullivan, though, who is conservative -- as everyone possessing the bullshit-penetrating x-ray glasses known to my people as "common sense" knows -- only because the gravy train marked "Gay Conservative" still had empty seats when he turned up at the station.
Over to you.
SHOWING THE LOVE. Next to a drawing of him in which his narcotized-psycho features are scrunched into something resembling a smile, John Bolton is rhapsodized by the Crazy Jesus Lady:
Then here's some Bolton-style friendship, you brain-damaged old harpy. There was a time when your flights of flackery were so diabolical that we often had to step back out of sheer awe at your evil. But this here's some feeble shit. Where'd you get this he-shows-his-love-by-screaming-and-throwing-things strategy -- your marriage counsellor?
I don't care how many unwashed Gipper-touched-me-there spots you've collected, you've clearly been out there in the ether so long you don't even know what solid ground feels like. No wonder you had to go freelancing your propaganda skils during the last Bush campaign -- the White House guard-shacks are probably wallpapered with your mug shot. You're only fit to feed wingnut theo-fantasies in the Journal and play Prop Female at think-tank events.
Now way be my government appointment? Clearly I have the required temperment!
It has long been said that in Washington a friend is someone who will stab you in the front. Mr. Bolton, again if the charges are true, has been a friend to many. He tells people off to their faces. That's refreshing. As a human tic, if that's what it is, it is probably more individually controllable than the temptation to damage people behind their backs, which is what people in intense environments more commonly and destructively do.Really, Peggy? You really mean that?
Then here's some Bolton-style friendship, you brain-damaged old harpy. There was a time when your flights of flackery were so diabolical that we often had to step back out of sheer awe at your evil. But this here's some feeble shit. Where'd you get this he-shows-his-love-by-screaming-and-throwing-things strategy -- your marriage counsellor?
I don't care how many unwashed Gipper-touched-me-there spots you've collected, you've clearly been out there in the ether so long you don't even know what solid ground feels like. No wonder you had to go freelancing your propaganda skils during the last Bush campaign -- the White House guard-shacks are probably wallpapered with your mug shot. You're only fit to feed wingnut theo-fantasies in the Journal and play Prop Female at think-tank events.
Now way be my government appointment? Clearly I have the required temperment!
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