Back to blogging? Would not count on it! But every once in a while I may run across something that compels me to post something.
The other day, for instance, I was doing a search for something and I stumbled across a very very old photographic portrait. I'm talking 1840s-1850s. What was even more remarkable was that it was a portrait of a very old person. So not only was I looking at an actual photograph of a man who live 150 years ago, I was actually looking at a man who had been born in the mid eighteenth century. For some reason, I found this mind-boggling.
After a bit of searching, I found this site, which features photos of American Revolutionary War veterans in the autumn of their years. Never mind the fact that these men faced down the redcoats and saw George Washington with their own eyes... One of these fellows, Conrad Heyer, was alive during the Seven Years War. He was ten years old when Wolfe and Montcalm fought on the Plains of Abraham, 250 miles north of his home. And he was already a man in the prime of his life the year his country was founded.
Conrad Heyer of Waldoborough, Maine: Born 1749, died 1856 at the age of 107. He may well be the earliest born human ever photographed.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Worked Up
Let's face it, the blog is moribund. At this point --with the arrival of the twins imminent-- it takes something truly outrageous to sufficiently get my dander up to the point where I feel compelled to post.
That something is the Polanski case, and more specifically, the myriad of "industry" types who have flocked to Roman's defence ever since he got his stupid ass pinched, in Switzerland, of all places.
By now, all the myths and misconceptions around this case should have been thoroughly debunked. It was rape, plain and simple. And Polanski pleaded guilty. And then he fled from justice, and has been a fugitive ever since. Any artistic achievement coming either before the crime, or in the intervening years has absolutely no bearing on the truth of the fact that Polanski never paid for the crime he committed.
If you were looking for evidence that Hollywood's moral compass is irretrievably broken, you can cease searching: Here it is.
Also: Afghanistan is an ungodly mess. It was supposed to be the "good war", remember? In contrast to the "wrong war" that was Iraq, the Afghanistan conflict, with the imprimatur of the UN and the collaboration of NATO, was the one that even the most doveish of the Democrats could get behind. I'm now worrying about it in a way I never worried about Iraq.
Even in the darkest days, I figured Iraq was winnable --as a search through my blog archives will attest. With Afghanistan, though, I have never been certain, and following the debacle that were the recent elections and other developments. I'm less certain than ever. For one thing, the two freelance journalists who were most reliable on what was really going on on the ground in Mesopotamia throughout that conflict, the Michaels Yon and Totten, always gave a realistic picture of that conflict, so in my book they have credibility.
On Afghanistan, both have sounded, and continue to sound, pretty pessimistic. Yon, in particular, seems to have a real understanding of the situation, and his insights are pretty frightening. It really does seem that things need to turn around there, and quick. Frankly, I'm not sure if the Obama administration has the stomach to do what needs to be done.
I've been blogging so sporadically lately, that I feel like Dan Aykroyd, popping by Studio 8H with my lifetime pass for an SNL cameo, blithely ignoring the fact that I have not done anything that merits an appearance in decades.
Well I'm about to become a dad for a second and third time (twins!) so I've had to engage in some radical re-prioritizing. Here's some stumbled-across content from my hiatus
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I think Detroit is the new Palenque--hey that ain't a bad idea for a tourism slogan! Behold, its Feral Houses
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My brain don't work so good. What's the highest form of patriotism again? I keep forgetting that neat little aphorism I kept reading everywhere during the period of 2000-2008.
Well, on mid-day on January the 20th, pretty much everyone ripped off those bumper stickers off the back of their car, and told us now what was important that we should all be united. We should all be one. We should be in effect a one-party state.
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Behold, the worst wrestling match ever:
Nice fireball!
From what I gather, this match basically finished Jim Hellwig as a wrestler once and for all. Given what followed, one could argue that Hogan never recovered from this debacle either.
*** The suberb miniseries Generation Kill has been on HBO all summer, and viewing it has motivated me to hunt down The Wire, which was produced by the same people. This is some truly good storytelling, people. Maybe because it was based on a book written by Rolling Stone's Evan Wright, who was embedded with The Marines of First Recon throughout the invasion of Iraq, it somehow rings true. Maybe it is the way that the filmakers refuse to adhere to tired tropes or engage in Hollywood shorthand and supply us with the usual lazy archetypes within a group (i.e. the black one, the southern one, the jewish one...). Rather, we gradually come to know a few of these young, vulgar and phenomenally brave young Americans in striking, character-revealing moments amidst the crucible of a strangely improvised war. The producers do not condescend to the audience, either: In the end, you are neither pressed to cheer the conquering heroes nor moved to deplore the amoral aggressors, you are merely left to contemplate what you have seen, and draw your own conclusions. It is as if we are being told: "This all happened... now, what do you think?"
One who was there, and has been fairly open about what he thinks, is Nate Fick, who in the miniseries is depicted as the young Lt he was in 2003 when First Recon stormed across the Iraqi border in its Humvees. Here you can see retired Captain Fick, author of his own memoir on his time as a Marine Officer, speaking on his experiences.
Interestingly I had read somewhere that one of the members of the cast was not a professional actor, but an actual marine who played himself. I could not guess who it was while viewing miniseries, and was surprised when I learned it was Rudy Reyes. Here is an article on a most unique member of the USMC. Check out the comments section for a few chuckles.
Friday, July 10, 2009
With the British Army and the ANA in Helmand
Sunday, July 05, 2009
More Leftovers
With some new stuff thrown in for good measure:
Slate has a piece on single-topic-blogs, which I must admit enjoy as a kind of guilty pleasure. My favourite: LATFH
We have a symbiotic relationship, the fan base and I. In a weird way, they get to live vicariously through me, since I'm the tubby kid who made it good, who comes across less like an artist and more like your buddy who suddenly won the lottery of life. They see how I "handle" it, and they're into the fact that it would appear I'm the same person now as I was before I started making films. Plus, I inspire them, in that "If a guy like that can make it, then maybe I can, too" kinda way.
What I get from the fan base is unconditional support. They may not like all the flicks I do, but they'll give each one a shot—which is the most you can ask for from any audience. Contrary to what the haters think, the fan base doesn't lounge around like a giant caterpillar, taking hits off the hookah of my collective body of work; they're normal people with normal lives who just relate to what I write/say. And the relationship doesn't end at the theater: These are folks I play poker with. I spend my birthdays with them (onstage or at a home-made prom). I played hockey against and beside them just last week in Brantford, Ontario, at Walter Gretzky's 3rd Annual Street Hockey Tournament. It makes sense we'd all get along, as we share a common interest: Kevin Smith films. But, Jesus—you can only talk about those for so long. And when the "Then what'd Jason Lee say?" chatter dries up, you find they're more friends than fans.
There is nothing at all that any Western country can do to avoid the charge of intervening in Iran's internal affairs. The deep belief that everything—especially anything in English—is already and by definition an intervention is part of the very identity and ideology of the theocracy.
It is a mistake to assume that the ayatollahs, cynical and corrupt as they may be, are acting rationally. They are frequently in the grip of archaic beliefs and fears that would make a stupefied medieval European peasant seem mentally sturdy and resourceful by comparison.
The tendency of outside media to check the temperature of the clerics, rather than consult the writers and poets of the country, shows our own cultural backwardness in regrettably sharp relief. Anyone who had been reading Pezeshkzad and Nafisi, or talking to their students and readers in Tabriz and Esfahan and Mashad, would have been able to avoid the awful embarrassment by which everything that has occurred on the streets of Iran during recent days has come as one surprise after another to most of our uncultured "experts."
The hoodlum from hoboken was cool back when being cool was a character trait and not a lifestyle choice. They don't make like Frank Sinatra any more, and they don't write stuff this good very often either. You don't event need to be a fan of the Chairman of the Board to dig this article, an early example of the "new journalism".
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She's resigning to spend more time with her media consultant
Amazing what you find back there! Haven't been blogging much lately, mostly because I have been hanging out with the little guy during my vacation. I'm a bit out-of-the-loop as far as pop culture and current events go. Nevertheless, here are a few frost-bearded hunks of months-old leftovers and tidbits
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Because I never get tired of people picking on the UN
Whether you think this is “Zionist propaganda” or a painstaking reconstruction of Hamas tactics during Operation Cast Lead, it's a pretty fascinating video with amazing computer graphics.
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Dante's Inferno
Cool site if you are interested in one of the classics of Western literature:World of Dante.
Apparently the Ciardi translation is the best, though I don't think that was the one I read. I'll have to re-visit...
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Scambaiting is Fun!
Not that I would encourage that potentially dangerous pastime, but some of these elaborate ruses are pretty insane! Incredible what some people are willing to go through if they think that there is a big payoff at the end.
Mr Latif said: 'We have been fighting these Muslim extremists for you. They represent nobody but themselves. 'The community decided to move them on because the police won't. We have asked them, but they did nothing. 'I don't know if they will be back. We have been the victims twice over - from the stupidity of Muslim extremists who metaphorically pour petrol and fan the flames of the right-wing extremists. 'This was a peaceful demonstration and we hope they get the message that the law-abiding community is sick and tired of them.'
Thank goodness that some mainstream Muslims are at long last awakening to this mortal peril in their midst. They must definitely be feeling the squeeze by now, as the far-right in Britain feeds off the anger provoked by the Islamist fringe. Unfortunately, the moderates can continue to expect no help whatsoever from their Government, which, to its eternal disgrace, stands with the extremists.
Incidentally, the worst insult an islamist can level at a "fellow" muslim?
Angry words were exchanged and scuffles broke out between members of both groups, with the extremists shouting 'Shame on you' and 'Get back to your synagogue'.
What a disgrace.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Idolology
I managed to avoid American Idol, for the most part, for six-and-a-half seasons until last year, Nesrine called me into the room to listen to David Cook tear the roof off the place during one of his bravura performances. For the first time, this year I managed to watch beyond the early episodes -- you know, the ones where cruel people like me get to indulge our shameful schadenfreude as Simon Cowell systematically dismantles the hopes and dreams of deluded mediocrities-- and I actually found myself getting into it!
I picked Danny Gokey to win early on, but as the Idol contestants headed into the homestretch, I found myself thinking that Danny-Boy was starting to flag. Maybe this is just hindsight, but in retrospect his last couple of outings just did not pack the punch that earlier performances had shown he was capable of delivering. What's more, when I saw how the final five was shaping up, I starting to think that inverse vote-splitting (vote consolidation?) would come into play. I thought I knew who the final three were going to be (Danny, Adam, and Kris)--and when it turned out I was right, I told Nesrine who I thought was going to win: "it's either Danny or Kris".
Nesrine, who was a Glambert backer from Day-1, thought I was nuts, so I explained my theory:
Danny and Kris, for all their stylistic differences, were essentially from the same AI template: The safe, radio-friendly boy-next-door unit-mover. Adam, however, was an alien from another planet. Sure, the theatrical, sexually-ambiguous vocal powerhouse had all the pundits on his side, and by the time we got to the final three, conventional wisdom was that he was a lock to win, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that the math did not add up.
I tried to imagine, in some alternate universe where the Idol results were determined by preferential ballot, how many people who picked Danny or Kris as their first choice would likely pick Adam as their second. I just could not see it being that many. The kind of people who dug the earnest, religious guy from Arkansas' brand of easy-listening adult contemporary music would probably be drawn more to the earnest, religious guy from Wisconsin's brand of easy-listening adult contemporary music. And on top of it, Adam's opponents appear to have hedged their bets with some effective attack ads:
Let's leave it to others to comment on the red-state/blue-state subtext to this year's finale. I'll stick with the facts: Given that American Idol viewers voted two fairly similar contestants into the top three, it stands to reason that third-place-finisher Danny's fans --those sufficiently motivated to continue voting, at least, would be more likely to switch to something similar, i.e. Kris. That means that Adam, our odd-man-out, would have to have a pretty commanding lead going into the finals if he hoped to see off a contestant who might be boosted by "second choice" votes from disgruntled Danny supporters. Anecdotal evidence prior to the finals suggests that was not the case.
Adam, a juggernaut when it came to buzz and hype from music-biz types, turned out to be more vulnerable when the voting public had their say. After all, he came in the bottom two(!!!) during Rat Pack standards week. Maybe his legion of fans got complacent that week and forgot to vote, but anyone with a huge lead would not have slipped that far down the rankings. So maybe Adam was the giant with the feet of clay, and maybe Danny, who seemed to me to be the superior singer, concealed his own vulnerability with a smug grin as his performances contined to deliver increasingly diminishing returns. I think humble Kris was more than just a dark horse. Just go have a listen to his version of Kanye's Heartless, and tell me that isn't marketable to the Tweens.
With his likeability/inoffensiveness, and his undeniable talent, Kris Allen may have been the stealth frontrunner the whole time.
Well, I just saw the very well executed Star Trek reboot at a real IMAX, and I thought the performances were great all around, but the true standouts were a hilarious Simon Pegg as a Glaswegian Scotty (since they changed the timeline could the alternative timeline have shifted where Scotty grew up to the West Central Lowlands? The mind boggles.), and Karl Urban, who as Dr. McCoy so effectively replicated DeForest Kelley's speech patterns and Georgia drawl without doing an impression or a parody.
I think that in the sequel, they should bring Federation weapons specialist Mohinder aboard the Enterprise to help battle Klingons, and I think I know just the man for the job! Mr. Ansari, clear your schedule...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Startling
Old-timey photoshop job of a 2009 snapshot or Great-great-great Grandpa as a young dandy, circa 1850?
This is the most strikingly modern-looking 160-year-old photo I've ever seen. The handsome young subject, smiling enigmatically as he gazes at something out of our view, seems like he could almost leap out of the frame. How often does one see happy expressions in pictures from the 19th century? The superb quality of the shot reveals details like the texture of the man's jacket, the wrinkles on his (open!) collar, and the carefully curled locks of what may or may not be a wig.
To me, he has the look of a time-traveller, grinning to himself as he contemplates his success at blending into 19th century society!
Minutiae and Trivia The Office and the Peter Principle
The Office has turned into a pretty great show, mostly thanks to the clever way they have developped the character of Michael Scott. Just when you think that they have pushed his incompetence and cluelessness to almost ridiculous levels, he goes and reminds everyone that there was a reason he was made manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin in the first place: The man knows how to sell paper.
I like the idea that Michael Scott is an idiot-savant; that he is generally mediocre and yet displays excellence in one very specific area.
Does that very specific skillset compensate for his gross incompetence as a manager? Of course not, but it at least gives him a somewhat believeable backstory and makes him more sympathetic. I think the Peter Principle is something most viewers of The Office can relate to. After all, how many of us have seen genuinely good workers turn into piss-poor leaders upon promotion? Heck, some corporate cultures seem hard-wired for that sort of thing.
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For no particular reason: A bit of culture
The first time I saw a Masaccio fresco, in the Brancacci Chapel, I actually experienced Stendhal syndrome (no fooling). It seems unreal that those six-hundred-year-old works, still so bright and vital, are considered the birth of Renaissance painting.
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I got a funny e-mail at work the other day...
Not the kind of funny that makes you laugh, though. Apparently, some of my older neighbours have been accosted by local members of the street community under the influence of controlled substances (a.k.a. drunks and crackheads), and are therefore warning everyone to be on the lookout for non-resident interlopers. There are a number of healthy younger guys on my block, and given the fact that there are also a few children around, I don't expect that many of us will be too concerned about the niceties if and when we have to see an unwelcome harmreduction advocate off.
Apparently Ottawa has one of the lowest serious crime rates in the country, but stuff like that makes me seriously consider moving my family away from the downtown very, very soon... before anything like this, anyway.
An enlightening historical examination of a particularly gruesome form of judicial execution. No wonder the early followers of Christ were not big on using the cross as their symbol!
Interestingly, I recall someone saying that Obama is the first President in a very long time whose father was a British subject. So maybe Britain's complicated history in Kenya has something to do with his relative coolness towards his father's colonial overlords.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Slumdog Instant Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is coming out on DVD, and I'm really curious to see what the fuss is about. I have always been a fan of Danny Boyle, who seems to have a knack for crafting nifty genre pictures that always seem slightly askew to me. Trainspotting was not quite a black comedy, and 28 Days Later was not quite a zombie flick, but both were quite excellent.
After all the hype about the explosion of India's vibrant film industry, it is rather startling to read something like this, that really brings the gulf between Bollywood and Hollywood into sharp focus. In some ways, Bollywood is still small potatoes.
In fact, Freida Pinto is not technically a "Bollywood star" since almost everyone agrees that what Danny Boyle has made is not a Bollywood movie, although it does offer a tip of the hat to the genre here and there. Some in Bollywood have actually criticized Boyle's flick as exploitive, calling it a cheap trashy mediocre version of erstwhile Bollywood hits, although that criticism seems a bit rich to me, considering that countless western films have been shamelessly mined, plagiarized, and ripped off by Bollywood.
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Plus:
David Brooks provides us with some hope for Afghanistan. It isn't much, but it's more than we've had for a while.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Love Guru: What Went Wrong
If you have the Movie Network, you may recently have gotten a whiff of a rancid comedy while flipping channels and wondered "What is this fetid stinkbomb, and now how do I get this smell off my clothes?"
If the suspicious cinematic toxin featured a mustachioed Justin Timberlake as a quebecois Goalie and a hirsute, profoundly unfunny Mike Myers as an Eastern Mystic, you got Love Guru on yourself. Quick, go take a shower.
Simply put: The Love Guru ain't really that funny. Worse, it is a self-indulgent and tedious flick that actually makes us like and respect Mike Myers less as a comedian for having spawned the character of Guru Pitka and the movie that revolves around him.
It is hard to overstate how badly things went wrong for Myers, a prickly perfectionist who apparently laboured over Pitka, his latest comedic creation, for months and months before "perfecting" it to the point of deeming it worthy to commit to celluloid. The lack of self-awareness on display here is staggering.
This is no indifferent hack we are talking about, after all. Myers must have really thought that Pitka would be a big hit, else he would not have built a movie around him! Remember, this is the guy that refused to give us a "Dieter" movie he could not get behind 100% artistically --in spite of the fact that he had co-written the script, a courageous stand that resulted in a lengthy suit with Universal Studios, and indirectly, the creation of the cinematic abortion The Cat In The Hat, as a by-product of the settlement. Evidently, we can thank Myers for refusing to allow the legacy of "Sprockets" to be defiled a la "Night at the Roxbury".
One of the best deconstructions of the cinematic travesty that is The Love Guru --as well as an examination of the hubris of the man primarily responsible for it-- can be found on the AV Club Web site as an entry in Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops feature: Kicking A Man While He's Down, Case File #132: The Love Guru. It is a dynamite piece that really cuts to the heart of why and how this movie failed, while marveling at the level of effort Myers put into the creation of this failure. One of my favourite musings from the piece:
A smart, talented, accomplished writer-actor like Myers spending years meticulously creating, rehearsing, and refining an obnoxious one-note cartoon like Guru Pitka is a like a group of brilliant scientists working around the clock for a decade to build a malfunctioning fart machine: a surreal waste of time, energy and manpower.
That's a pretty good example of Rabin's irreverent style. It's also right on the money. I just hope that Mike Myers learns from this fiasco and that this undoubtedly talented man, who after all brought us Wayne Campbell, Austin Powers and Shrek, can bounce back!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Not Funny
There is nothing funny about Afghanistan right now.
The Afghanistan house is burning down and these people are taking the piss out of Canada's Army --One of the few forces that has actually been in real, sustained combat over there? How tone-deaf can you get? Canadians have been eating it in Kandahar for quite some time, and given the gravity of the situation in that benighted land right now, this light-hearted ridicule from a bunch of chuckleheads is both offensive and really clueless. Newsflash: Things are dire! This thing is far from won. This isn't a time to mock your allies.
At least the Canucks are there in a serious way, which is more than you can say for many other NATO countries. Afghanistan is about to make Iraq look like the invasion of Grenada, and we have lighthearted topical comedy about Canada's mission coming from these clowns. We'll see how much everyone is laughing in a year's time...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Looking for laughs in Luton
So some of the local islamist shit-disturbers decide to crash the Second Battalion's Royal Anglian Regiment's homecoming parade from Iraq. Oddly, some were not having it. Here's what ensued:
To me, all the incipient street violence has a bit of a whiff of the Weimar Repubic, circa 1929, about it. Nonsense, right? Well, things were not that bad in the Weimar republic of 1929, even if the seeds of disaster were already sown. I mean, sure, before the economy really went south, you had your marginal elements of society making themselves known in the streets, with the reds of the KPD sometimes going toe-to-toe with some right-wing jerkoffs, but nobody remembers them anymore right?
Look, the point is that when the economy goes south, any unrest and resentment already festering within a society will only get worse, as people look for scapegoats; e.g. "immigrants", "jews", whatever tickles your fancy! And things are not too bad in the UK, at least not yet, but I don't think I am going too far out on a limb in saying we can expect this type of "difference of opinion" to occur more and more often, as fairly ordinary people reach the point of exasperation take matters into their own hands with the endlessly accomodated, constantly aggrieved, and newly emboldened recently arrived muslim supremacists in their country.
If history is any type of a guide, unless brazen provocateurs are denounced and marginalized, and unless the UK government discontinues its folly of pandering to islamists, the mainstream moderate voices in Britain will gradually give way to the folks on the fringes, peddling their simplistic, yet undeniably compelling solutions to the complex problems Britain finds itself faced with.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Hitler is a Fanboy
Warning: Major Watchmen Spoilage Second warning: Not for those who take themselves too seriously
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhHema5PNg
If you explore the related videos on Youtube, you'll find creatively subtitled videos of Hitler reacting badly to bad news from his underlings(not being able to get a Wii Fit, Hannah Montana releasing a new album, etc). It's a meme based on scenes from the acclaimed German film Downfall. I hope this catches on because, let's face it, seeing Hitler throw tantrums over ridiculous stuff is pretty funny.
(...)it is difficult to know what the late Beatle would have made of the Church of England's decision to ring out the tune of his most famous solo work, the anti-religion anthem "Imagine", from the bells of Liverpool Cathedral this summer. Rehearsals on hand bells will begin in March.
The 1971 song, which contains the lyric "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, No hell below us, above us only sky", will be performed from the world's tallest bell tower, which is 100.89m (331ft) tall, as part of the Futuresonic Festival in May.
Lennon described it as "anti- religious, anti-nationalistic, anti- conventional, anti-capitalistic".
A cathedral spokesman said he saw no contradiction in performing the piece, as much anti-capitalistic as it is anti-religious, from Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's celebrated church because Lennon's passionate embrace of the peace movement chimed perfectly with Christian values.
He said: "We obviously took into consideration sensitivities surrounding the song's lyrical content. The cathedral has been very much at the heart of Liverpool's Capital of Culture celebrations and is delighted to embrace the city's artistic energy. The proposed performance will inspire thought as it yearns for peace in a broken and troubled world. We also anticipate that the performance will be a very moving and spiritual experience and will engage with all people including those who do not usually interact with places of worship."
(...) The festival director Drew Hemment, who founded Futuresonic in 1995, said: "When the idea of John Lennon's "Imagine" being broadcast over church bells was suggested I realised that it had to happen in Liverpool and the Anglican Cathedral would be the ideal partner. The cathedral's support for the project has been fantastic and reflects this city's famous tolerance and courage. This special event celebrates the unique spirit of Liverpool that runs through both the Cathedral and Lennon's secular message."
When you have someone like Rowan Williams as your shephard, is it any wonder that the flock can go so far astray? Rumour has it he endorsed the Liverpool gig after being talked out of sponsoring a Finnish black metal festival in the courtyard of Canterbury Cathedral (not really).
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About the NYU debacle (and my post from a few days ago):
Alex Lotorto is the camera guy, and here, a blogger named Blake schools him in the vagaries of the real world --you know, the place that people like Lotorto have almost no clue about? Alex actually stops by to defend himself, which he has been doing all over the place apparently, providing even more laughs. What a generous soul, this Lotorto kid.
Is this whole "activism" fad a generational thing? I mean, I was in university about fifteen years ago, and I can remember things like the political correctness craze, which never really went away, but I cannot recall the type of "anti-authoritarian" farce seen at NYU happening very often --don't get me wrong, even prior to the No LogoNaomi Klein era there were plenty of attempts at imposing leftist dogma upon the student body.
A bit of an aside here: For an illustration of the staleness of Naomi Klein's ideas, and to see how far Ms. Klein has fallen since her halcyon days a decade ago, read Jonathan Chait's comprehensive dismantling of her and her silly little book "The Shock Doctrine" in the New Republic, which, by the way, is hardly a right-wing rag.
Anyway, what I was getting to is that nothing I ever saw or experienced in the pre-WTO Seattle era compares to the magnitude of "activism" we have seen lately, some of which is both deeply subversive and profoundly illiberal. I mean, listening to this kid Lotorto's running commentary, you have to marvel at the effectiveness of his indoctrination. It's like his profs and mentors really stepped up and brought their "A" game: He really is a "true believer", with all the "peace-building" consensus jargon and doublespeak and everything; one of those useful (in his case, useless) idiots.
Is it that the aging boomers of the left who run post-secondary education in the Western hemisphere are, at long last, beginning to contemplate their imminent passage into oblivion? Perhaps it is this awareness of their rapidly approaching dotage and destitution that has spurred some of the greying intelligentsia, who are now stepping up their efforts to indoctrinate young people into their "me generation" world view, with predictable results.
*** My far-fetched prediction for 2009
The character Rorschach will become a folk anti-hero of the right following the theatrical release of the film adaptation Watchmen. Watchmen, by the way, is the best graphic novel ever written. If you only ever read one "comic book" in your life, this should be it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
We're using democratic process here, I don't know if you guys understand that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q6KAg6qEGY
Ain't the Internet great?
I mean, in the pre-WWW days, we would have read some sterile account of the last moments of the NYU Kimmel occupation, and never really grasped the full extent of the narcissism, self-delusion and sheer douchebaggery on display, but with a video like this being made public, the would-be campus radicals are exposed for what they are: a pathetic bunch of poseurs not fit to carry Abbie Hoffman's sweaty jockstrap! The reviews have not been kind.
I bet the camera dude thought he was pretty clever recording events for posterity. He told himself he was ensuring that any repressive tactics or "human rights violations" would be documented for future use.
Great.
Except the cameraman is hoist on his own grassroots vegan petard! Campus authorities come across in the best possible light: Patient and eminently reasonable, particularly in the face of such irritating and contemptuous behaviour from the "activists". The vanguard of the proletariat, on the other hand... I mean, it's all there on damning display in the footage folks:
The incredibly irritating use of jargon like "consensus" and "hierarchy" --particularly coming from a guy who seems like he could not reach consensus on a piss-up in a brewery... how long does it take to gather 10 people in a corner, you tool?
The inevitable multiple explanations of how they are going to "collectively decide" how to proceed... only they don't.... ever!
The patently untrue accusations of "brutality". Son, if you think this is brutality, you ain't ever seen brutality.
Nice random use of uncalled-for profanity and aggressive language from one of the other campus revolutionaries nearby: "Dirty scumbag fucks"? I mean really... If you keep this up, Dad will take away your Prius for two weeks, Justin!
The threats of litigation (Subtext: Do you know who my father is?)
Strange, mute peace-sign girl who seems to be in some kind of tofu-induced trance.
The odd inability to understand, even in the face of all evidence, that the jig is up, and that the radicals simply have nothing and no one to negotiate with.
Hilarious derisive reference to "corporate water" (as opposed to the non-corporate macbooks, ipods, and assorted other revolutionary items found in backpacks)
As a bonus, check out the comments section. Almost universal opprobrium! One particularly vicious one I like:
I love at the end when he's going through their back packs: Macbook, iPod, charger, bottled water, etc. Anything missing? Yeah - TEXTBOOKS.
I'd ask who teaches these kids this shit, but I think we already know the answer to that.
They really don't make dissidents like they used to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFERVA
Saturday, February 21, 2009
I'm Definitely Getting Old
Because every time I hear M.I.A.'s caterwauling, monotonous Paper Planes
I want to yell "What the f__ did she do to STRAIGHT TO HELL!?!"
I get sampling. But there's sampling, and then there is defecating on a classic.
If he had not ascended straight into punk heaven, Joe Strummer would be rolling in his grave!
"Wait, you can't build an economy through speculation on real estate built by foreign laborers and fueled by petro-dollars? Why didn't you tell me sooner!"
***
How House-flippers Have Brought on the Apocalypse:
"The real villains here, the truly bad seeds at the heart of this crisis, have gone unpunished thus far and are still in operation," writes Pressler. "They are Jeff Lewis and Ryan Brown of Bravo's Flipping Out, Armando and Veronica Montelongo of TLC's Flip This House, Kristen Kemp of TLC's The Property Ladder, Kendra Todd of HGTV's My House Is Worth WHAT?, and the TLC, Bravo, HGTV, and Fine Living networks in general. All of them encouraged people to take out massive loans in order to buy and renovate homes and sell them at a profit when, really, most people have terrible taste, and furthermore, are bad at laying tile. These shows are still on! WHY?"
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Christian Bale Goes Apeshit
God love him, he's apologized for it, but this very NSFW rant is worth revisiting, even after all the remixes, mash-ups and laughs at his expense, because I think he almost broke his brain:
Bear with me for a sec... what do you notice about the way he is speaking? His accent... what kind of accent is that? Did he drop character and speak with his normal accent? Nope. Bale is from Wales. Then was it the American accent of his character John Connor? I've heard Bale do a much better American accent than that. Remember, he played Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, and his accent was flawless in that film.
My jokey theory is that the reason he is speaking in a half-British/half-American accent is that in his rage, he somehow got lost halfway between Welsh actor Christian Bale and American resistance leader and Terminator-slayer John Connor. In other words, he was for several scary moments both Bale and Connor! This is frightening.
In all seriousness though, you hear about these so-called “method” guys all the time: like how Daniel Day Lewis walks around in character 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on those rare occasions when he takes a part, or how De Niro put on seventy pounds of weight to play a fat, old Jake Lamotta in the final scene of Raging bull. These stories are the stuff of legend. Thing is, contrary to popular belief, the “method” isn’t really about “becoming” a character temporarily… it is about drawing on your own real emotions or experiences to “interpret” a character.
The way it has been explained to me is that whereas an instinctive actor will, in the context of their performance, determine the emotion their character needs to display (i.e. “sadness”) at a particular moment, given the plot and circumstances, and will attempt to approximate a reasonable facsimile of the emotion (“look sad”) through expressions and behaviour, an actor trained in Konstantin Stanislavski’s method goes a whole different route.
The "method actor" will use things like sense and memory, tapping into their own very real emotions (“feel sad”) to achieve a greater degree of realism. When you hear a rant like this, you can't help but wonder if guys like Bale may be taking things a step too far in their desire to really inhabit a part and do justice to whatever role they take on. Anyone who has read about the pre-conditions that Bale laid out for Joe McGinty Nichol (I refuse to call him "McG") in order for him to take the role of John Connor will understand the degree to which Bale takes his work seriously.
Does that mean that the crew need to be on tenterhooks around someone like Christian Bale when he is doing his thing in a scene that calls for him to “feel angry”… I think his angry tirade is proof that you do.
***
Update: I made some edits put up a spoiler warning for the link to the Wired blog because it is SPOILERTASTIC... seriously, don't go there unless you are willing to have major plot points of Terminator Salvation revealed to you. One of the posters in the comments section calls the Wired editor who posted the article a "Clownshoe" for not providing a spoiler warning. I'm just not sure I can deal with being called a Clownshoe, so you've been warned.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Despair is a Sin
But when you look at the state of the Holy Land as it really is, not as we would have it, it is often hard to see the situation as anything but hopeless...
It is worth checking out Michael Totten's blog. Scroll down a bit on Totten's site and you can read some very bitter commentary from Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab journalist whose matter-of-fact explanations, many contrary to conventional wisdom (i.e. the relative merit of Fatah vis-a-vis Hamas),illustrate the yawning gap between reality and rhetoric in the Middle East and neatly encapsulate the pessimism people have about the whole sorry mess. No pie-in-the-sky platitudes about the "peace process" to be found here! Some of the more jarring excerpts:
You gave Yasser Arafat money to open a TV and radio station. And on this TV and radio station Arafat said “Jihad, jihad, kill the crusaders, kill the Jews, kill the infidels, kill everyone but me.” Now you may ask yourself why Arafat was inciting against his peace partners in Israel, why was he inciting against the Americans and Europeans who were feeding him? It doesn't make sense.
Well, to us it does make sense. This is how our Arab dictators survive. They constantly blame the miseries of our people on the Jews and the West and the Crusaders and the infidels and the Zionist lobby and the imperialists. They use all these slogans. Arab leaders always need to make sure that their people are busy hating somebody else, preferably the Jews and the Americans. Otherwise their people might rebel, and God forbid they might demand reforms and democracy.
This is exactly what Arafat did, but he did it in Arabic. The international community – and even Israelis – did not want to listen to what Arafat was saying in Arabic. They only cared what he said in English. They said that what he said in English was good.
I said “Excuse me, folks, but in Arabic Arafat is telling people to kill you.” But they did not want to listen to the incitement. They underestimated it. They said “you Arabs are all corrupt and don't know anything about democracy so you deserve a dictatorship.”
This incitement drove people into the open arms of Hamas. Arafat was telling people how evil the Jews are, and people then said “Hamas is right, Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs. Why should we make peace with them?”
(...) Israelis brought the PLO into the Palestinian areas, armed the PLO, helped create all these security militias and gangsters and mafias, and then said they needed to protect themselves from their peace partners. And how did they protect themselves? By imposing restrictions and curfews, by surrounding Palestinian communities with checkpoints. Why? Because they needed to protect themselves from the militias and mafias that they brought into the West Bank and Gaza. So Palestinians lost faith in the peace process.
All this radicalized Palestinian society to the point that when Hamas decided to run in free and democratic elections under the banner of “change” and “reform” they won. It was all very obvious. The writing was clear on the wall that anyone who challenged Arafat back then....believe me that if even Ehud Olmert had run in the Palestinian elections promising change and reform and democracy he would have won. Because in January of 2006, the parliamentary elections that were held in the Palestinian Authority were largely about internal reforms in the Palestinian areas. Hamas was ready to deliver. What did they do? They came to the Palestinians and said “Listen, folks. You've tried all these PLO people. They're corrupt. They're bad. Arafat was a thief. Abu Mazen is also a total failure. These guys stole your money. These guys are US agents, they are CIA. Why don't you try us now? We will show you that we can establish good government. And, by the way, look at what we've done for you since 1988. We've established a vast network of educational, social, health, and economic services. Arafat built a casino, and we built two universities. Arafat gave his wife 100,000 dollars a month so she can do her shopping while we gave poor people money. Arafat built bars and restaurants in Ramallah while we built orphanages and charities.” So the Palestinians said “Let's try Hamas. If they come to power there is nothing left to steal. They can't be more corrupt than the PLO.”
That was the basic line. I'm not saying all those who voted for Hamas in 2006 were registering a vote of protest. We have to be very careful. Hamas does have a lot of supporters. What I'm saying is that had it not been also a vote of protest against the PLO , Hamas would not have won. Why? Because I know Christians who voted for Hamas. I know centrist Palestinians who voted for Hamas. I even know PLO people who voted for Hamas because the name of the game back then was “Let's punish the PLO.” And how do you do it? By voting for Hamas, their main rivals. And it worked. And Hamas came to power.
What has been happening since then is also very interesting. The U.S. government, with the help of some Europeans and some Israelis, after Hamas won the election, they went to the guys who lost the election and said “folks, here are guns and here is some money. Go bring down this democratically elected government.” And what was the result of this U.S. meddling in Palestinian affairs? It backfired. It played into the hands of Hamas and even boosted Hamas' popularity on the street.
Reading this kind of stuff, one must really begin to wonder if there is any way out of this godawful mess. Will our great-grandkids be reading about the Arabs and Jews , still slugging it out in the Middle East?
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Return of Slim Shady
This article claims Mr. Mathers has stockpiled over 300 songs during his hiatus. That's more than both Biggie and Tupac released after death combined!
Eminem --who is very much alive-- could end up owning the music scene the next five years, just as he owned the end of the last millennium and the first five years of the new one.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Idiots at Guardian Annoy Kiefer Sutherland, Somehow Escape with life and limbs intact
But if, I ask, 24's influence were demonstrably proven, would he then feel any obligation for the show to modify its depiction of torture?
"No," he says flatly. "24 and 20th Century Fox and Sky TV are not responsible for training the US military. It is not our job to do. To me this is almost as absurd as saying The Sopranos supports the mafia and by virtue of that HBO supports the mafia. Or that, you know, Sex and the City is just saying 'everybody should sleep together now'." He looks increasingly exasperated. "I have never seen anyone - and I really do not believe this - I have not seen an average citizen in the US or anywhere else who has watched an hour of 24 and after watching was struck by this uncontrollable urge to go out and torture someone. It's ludicrous.
"So when I put it like that, do you understand?"
Actually, when he puts it like that, I think he's being a little disingenuous. Sutherland is too intelligent not to know that television's influence can be more subtle than that. 24's creator, Joel Surnow, who has described himself as a "rightwing nut job", has certainly given the impression of being not unhappy if 24 impacts on public opinion, saying: "America wants the war on terror fought by Jack Bauer. He's a patriot." The Fox executive who bought the show has said candidly, "There's definitely a political attitude on the show, which is that extreme measures are sometimes necessary for the greater good. Joel's politics suffuse the whole show." The essential message of 24 is not just that torture can be morally justifiable, but, more importantly, that it works. And in the absence of other more accurate sources of information in American popular culture, it's hardly surprising if the viewing public believes it.
Sutherland repeatedly invokes the phrase "in the context of a television programme", and stresses, "this is a drama", but there are moments when exactly who is confusing TV and reality is unclear.
Thank goodness we have those condescending dickheads at the Guardian, benevolently pointing out instances when the hopelessly unworldly and easily duped American public may become confused between TV and reality. Lord knows how the rest of the world could have stood by and let these yokels possibly not elect Barack Obama! Someone should have struck a committee at the UN or something.
But did I interpret that last bit correctly? Is the Guardian actually insinuating that Sutherland is confusing TV and reality? Would that it were so! Had Sutherland "momentarily confused himself" into thinking he was Jack Bauer, he might have been a little less "Tommy Douglas" with the interviewer. I would have loved to have seen a few expletives (or TV-friendly dammits at least )thrown into the mix.
Maybe next week, the intrepid Guardian journalists can go after Bruno, and hold him to account for his part in the stereotyping of Gay Austrian TV personalities!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Amin al-Ansari: Scholar
Your downer of the day
Warning: Very Disturbing Images
Is it a bit disingenuous of me to post something like this and claim that al-Ansari's "scholarly" take is an accepted version of history and his views representative of widely-held opinions in a certain part of the globe? Fair enough, I won't make that claim.
What do I suspect, however, is that this particular "interpretation" of history is common and accepted at least enough to be broadcast on television in an authoritarian state. Res ipsa loquitur, right?
Given the brain-melting historical revisionism by a cleric who I can only presume is marginally acceptable to his viewers as an authority on his religion (would he be on TV otherwise?), if not on the perfidies of the Jews, I can only conclude that those idealistic naifs who think peace in the Middle East is within reach will inevitably realize they have an Everest of ignorance and hatred to conquer before it even becomes a remote possibility.
After all, this is no "man on the street" interview with a crackpot bigot, or truther conspiracy web-based video nonsense. This is a TV host in the studio of a publicly broadcast channel educating his viewers --you know, just like over here, with Oprah and all the other celebrities telling us what to read and how to vote!
If viewers over there accept that what this guy tells them is the truth (like middle class ladies eat up Oprah), how could they ever contemplate peace with the state --or should I say "entity", of their avowed and implacable foe?
As long as this is the type of "history" being peddled and accepted at face value in certain parts of the world, peace is not within reach.
I'm not "hopeful"
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Barack Obama, Right-winger
Lorrie Goldstein of the Ottawa Sun imagines what it would be like if the new U.S. President got the kind of coverage in Canada usually reserved for politicians with his positions:
Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, an ideological neo-conservative irresponsibly poised to introduce broad based, middle-class tax cuts, despite a huge and growing U.S. deficit and global recession.
Obama's fiscally reckless promises of $275 billion in tax cuts this year, and $2.9 trillion over the next decade, will condemn the U.S. to years of structural deficits, for which future generations will have to pay, say leading economists.
Boasting on the official White House website that his massive tax giveaway will result in a $3,700 tax cut for a married couple earning $75,000 with two children, one in college, Obama ignored the devastating impact such policies, designed mainly for short-term political gain, will have on future generations and on government programs Americans hold dear, such as social security.
Sadly, thoughtful observers aren't surprised by this latest move by Obama, whom some have already dubbed "George Bush Lite."
This, given Obama's support for everything from escalating Bush's disastrous "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan, to his support for capital punishment, to his insistence so-called "clean coal" technology can be part of America's solution to combating global warming.
Indeed, "clean coal" is a major element in Obama's suspect promise to significantly reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, a plan that at best, according to leading environmentalists, will continue to fall far short of the Kyoto Accord, thus shaming America before the global community.
Then again, what else can be expected of a former state senator from coal-rich Illinois, who once voted in favour of a bill condemning Kyoto and prohibiting the state from regulating greenhouse gases, at the urging of that state's powerful coal lobby?
Meanwhile, Obama's knee-jerk support for Israel in its latest confrontation with Hamas, lacked the nuance required of a statesman seeking the role of honest broker in the Mideast.
Instead, Obama delivered a harsh, uncompromising message to the Arab and Muslim worlds last week, through his secretary of state designate, Hillary Clinton.
Making it clear she was also speaking for Obama, Clinton pointedly told her Senate confirmation hearing: "We cannot negotiate with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and agrees to abide by past agreements ... The president-elect and I understand and are deeply sympathetic to Israel's desire to defend itself under the current conditions and to be free of shelling by Hamas rockets."
Where, one must ask, was a similar expression of concern for Palestinian lives, raising fears Obama may be pandering for support from the well-organized, influential and well-financed pro-Israel lobby in the U.S.?
All this, plus Obama's hurtful remarks during his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois that while he supported civil unions for homosexuals, he could not endorse same-sex marriages because, "I'm a Christian," have raised fears progressive forces in the U.S. will find themselves under assault for the next four years of Obama's administration.
Indeed, while Obama has publicly toned down and even modified some of his more controversial views over the years, many worry this may all be part of his "hidden agenda" to impose his values on Americans over the long term.
Whatever your position on the issue, it's a thought-provoking spot.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Idiossey
Iowahawk does Homer. The whole epic poem is pretty funny (featuring Hildusa the Gorgon and King Chimpos), but my favourite part is at the end:
What now?” said Obamacles, irked at Oracle’s salty impertinence and the interruption of his famous pop ‘n’ lock. “For I have conquered all, and there is no challenger left in all the Beltway.”
The Oracle spoke out from the depths of the guacamole:
“I bid thee welcome to the White House where your true test now begins:
Markets deaf to happy buzzwords Blind to Shepard Fairey’s art, Heeding laws of economics, Not the wishful laws of man;
A world of of evil filled with monsters, who are unmoved by flowery talk, Invulnerable to race cards or leftwing blogger insults, Who Hope for Change in megatons.
Do not despair! For look before you, The noble army who brought you here: Thespians and hiphop moguls, Graphic artists, hipster twats, The academic scribes of Athens, basic cable sycophants.
These are the arrows in your quiver, for the coming epic tests; Use them well, but first remember: They’re waiting on those magic tricks.
Good luck with that, well-spoken hero, I think I’ll grab a snack and watch.”
When things get tough, it is comforting to know that the administration will have Keith Olberman, P. Diddy snd Ashton Kutcher onside, right?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Really?
Maybe that's just something they got into in the early days in Chicago... you know what freaky cats Chicago Lawyers can be!
Barely a day or two into the new administration, and Fox is already bringing the crazy...
For someone who has taken multiple chair-shots and fallen off very large structures, Foley writes like a dream!
I highly recommend picking up anything the Artist formerly known as Mankind has written, and not just his autobiographies, either --the retired grappler is a budding novelist, with at least a couple of fiction titles under his belt.
After Cactus Jack's glowing review, I have another good reason to catch a film I had already been eager to see --Aside from being a sucker for comebacks, I'm a big Mickey Rourke fan, and I loved Pope of Greenwich Village
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Asterix et les Financiers
From Agence France Presse:
The daughter of comic book author Albert Uderzo has accused her father of selling out his most famous creation, the pint-sized Gallic warrior Asterix, by ceding control of the series to his publisher.
France's biggest publisher Hachette Livre took a 60 percent stake in the Asterix books' parent company, Editions Albert-Rene, on Tuesday, days after 81-year-old Uderzo confirmed the series would continue after his death.
The remaining 40 percent stake in the bestselling series remains with Uderzo's daughter, Sylvie Uderzo, who attacked her father's decision in an article written for Thursday's edition of the French daily Le Monde.
"Today, I'm rebelling. Why? Because Asterix is my paper brother," she wrote. "I find myself entering into battle against, perhaps, Asterix's worst enemies -- the men of industry and finance."
Sylvie Uderzo said that her father had always wanted to keep the rights to Asterix within his small company, and had intended -- like Tintin's creator Herge -- that no more adventures be written after his death.
The daughter accused her elderly father's entourage of advisers of pushing him into a "180 degree turn" and making him "deny the values with which he brought me up: independence, brotherhood, friendship and resistance."
It is said that journalists write the first draft of history. As the current U.S. administration limps into its final days, most current affairs commentators are already eagerly looking ahead to the Obama presidency, consigning the Bush regime to the archives, where it will be dissected by future historians.
But before they shut the vault in the basement, the current President and his proxies and spokespersons have done their best to stake out the ground for his legacy. The Administration's defenders have been busy laying out, sometimes retroactively, and occasionally in a revisionist manner, the overarching goals of the administration and the criteria by which Bush should be judged.
Bush's defenders often point out, for example, the fact that the United States has been free from terror attacks on its soil since 2001, and use it as justification for the many controversial policies the White House brought in following 9-11. They also point to the successful Iraq "surge", which was a measure that went against the prevailing media narrative and conventional wisdom of the time, which held that the war was lost and that the American military needed to extricate itself from a quagmire, as an example of Bush's leadership and his willingness to sacrifice political expediency in order to do what was right.
His critics, naturally, counter with examples of the many ways in which the President and his administration miscalculated, practiced petty politics, deceived, engaged in abuse of power, and generally failed the country. A good summary, drawing from a multitude of sources, can be found in An Oral History of the Bush White House, in the current issue of Vanity Fair.
The explanations offered for these failures are legion, but already, we see that a few of the old, easy favourites are being rebutted and discredited as serious, thoughtful observers weigh in with their impressions of the man that led the most powerful nation on earth for eight years.
As the Bush era comes to a close, it would appear that the old canard of the imbecilic president as religious zealot, a staple of hack comedians and lazy intellects for years now, has an increasingly limited shelf-life. Witness an exasperated Chris Hitchens go off on Bill Maher and his audience:
Richard Cohen recently noted in the Washington Post, that there may have been more than a bit of artifice in the President's public persona, a sort of pantomime stupidity of a type we once saw here in Canada during the Chretien Years, where a canny political player and longtime Ottawa insider at the centre of power for decades managed to portray himself as some kind of Shawinigan rube:
Still, the fact remains that Bush is a prodigious, industrial reader, and this does not conform at all to his critics' idea of who he is. They would prefer seeing him as a dolt, since that, as opposed to policy or ideological differences, is a briefer, more bloggish explanation of what went wrong. Still, in fairness to these critics (see Rove above), Bush himself has encouraged this approach. Aw shucks is an infuriating defense of a policy.
Let's just consign the "Bush is a moron" stuff to the dustbin of history. It is a silly slander that trivializes and dismisses the very serious issues that arose through the misadventures of his Presidency. It is far more disconcerting to think that a reasonably intelligent and well-meaning man could fail the test of leadership on critical issues like torture and the Constitution. That should be something serious to occupy our minds.
