THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE
REVENGE OF THE SITH has been hovering around the 80% fresh mark for the past few days over at rottentomatoes.com (In contrast, the first two movies in the prequel trilogy ended up around 60-65%)
A. O. Scott, the New York Times Critic says "This is by far the best film in the more recent trilogy, and also the best of the four episodes Mr. Lucas has directed. That's right (and my inner 11-year-old shudders as I type this): it's better than "Star Wars."
My own inner 11-year-old is starting to get seriously amped about this last movie. Here's hoping George pulled it off.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Fault lines shifting
Are we heading for a major re-alignment in the political landscape? Like the Federalist/Sovereignist divide in Quebec, the issues of the role of the Federal power and how power is shared among the different orders of government cuts a swath across the political spectrum, bringing quasi-commies and borderline libertarians under the same ideological umbrella:
What is your vision of this Canada
Big Federal Government in a strong Federation: NDP-Liberals
Small Federal Government in a loose Federation: Conservatives-Bloc
Big Federal Government in a loose Federation: Liberals-Bloc
Small Federal Government in a strong Federation: Conservatives-Liberals
Throw each party's attitude toward the U.S. into the equation and well....
it's enough to make your head spin!
Are we heading for a major re-alignment in the political landscape? Like the Federalist/Sovereignist divide in Quebec, the issues of the role of the Federal power and how power is shared among the different orders of government cuts a swath across the political spectrum, bringing quasi-commies and borderline libertarians under the same ideological umbrella:
What is your vision of this Canada
Big Federal Government in a strong Federation: NDP-Liberals
Small Federal Government in a loose Federation: Conservatives-Bloc
Big Federal Government in a loose Federation: Liberals-Bloc
Small Federal Government in a strong Federation: Conservatives-Liberals
Throw each party's attitude toward the U.S. into the equation and well....
it's enough to make your head spin!
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
A laboured analogy
Paul Martin reminds me of a guy I went to high school with in Thunder Bay. He was a couple of years ahead of me and several steps above me in the social echelon. He was the younger brother of a student who had been very popular, and had,with little effort, inherited his sibling's mantle. Above average athlete, clever enough to get by, winning personality, but his most noteworthy attribute, as far as I could tell, was his incredible ability to ingratiate himself with the teachers. He was a permanent fixture on student council and sailed to the presidency in his final year, which meant that he spent a ton of time out of class. I doubt that this guy did half the schoolwork of a normal student. He always seemed to be organizing this, or spearheading that. Too busy for silly stuff like homework, you see. I'm pretty sure he was on a first name basis with most of the teachers, both of the VPs and our weird Principal, who wore white socks with every suit he owned, no matter the color. If ever there was a chosen one, this guy was him.
I remember hearing teachers saying that this guy was destined for big things. I was perplexed. I found it remarkable that a guy who apparently spent so little time in pursuit of academic excellence managed to pull off straight As, but as some students noted sourly, teachers are a forgiving bunch, if you make the right noises, and you know which buttons to push. Needless to say, on paper, the guy was a scholastic superstar, a real leader who had been heavily involved in running the school from nearly the first moment he arrived in Grade nine as a snot-nosed greaseball in a Club Monaco sweatshirt and Zubaz pants. Universal admiration gave way to adulation when the faculty and student body heard the news that our man had made it into one of the best schools in the nation. A promising young man justifies the faith of his legion of supporters. And yet.... there were whispers of skepticism. Some questioned if this guy, who had coasted on charisma, could cut it as a small fish in the much bigger university pond. Could he meet the impossibly high expectations that had been set?
Fast forward one year later: Total wash out. Having had it easy, having had everything handed to him on a silver platter for five years, he was completely unprepared to take it to the next level when push came to shove. Maybe the doubt began to set in the first time he spoke up in a lecture. Instead of obsequious head-bobbing from cronies and a benevolent smile from the teacher, his words were greeted with the hostile stares of his fellow freshmen and a dismissive chortle from a prof thoroughly unimpressed with his intelect.
Maybe he found himself dismayed to discover that his quips, which played so well in the cafeteria, bombed in the pub, surrounded as he was, by wittier and cleverer guys.
Was he shocked to see the kind of guys he had dismissed as dull nonentities back in high school become the stars of their new fraternities, puking their guts up after shotgunning a couple of wobbly-pops behind the bleachers at the game? How about those weird hippy guys who were so terribly tiresome in high school, with their social activism and their hemp clothing... what were they doing chatting with the brainy co-eds in the student centre? When did they get so cool? Maybe he tried to join some clubs, but it wasn't the same. He was deprived of his ready-made high school social network and someone else, some other alpha-male, had usurped his spot as "the man".
I'm sure he tried to work those relationships with the faculty. But an overworked prof is too busy meeting with grad students and lecturing dozens and dozens of students to pay much attention to an anonymous freshman. Didn't do your assignment? Tough. Failure compounded failure, and the golden boy eventually found himself on academic probation. Eventually, our hero dropped out of school, and returned to his hometown, defeated and chastened.
"What happened?" incredulous observers asked. I think that ultimately, he was crushed by the weight of expectations, and reaching the dizzying heights to which he had aspired, a position that by rights, he was told, BELONGED to him, he found that he simply wasn't cut out for the gig.
Oh, to have been tested and be found wanting.
Paul Martin reminds me of a guy I went to high school with in Thunder Bay. He was a couple of years ahead of me and several steps above me in the social echelon. He was the younger brother of a student who had been very popular, and had,with little effort, inherited his sibling's mantle. Above average athlete, clever enough to get by, winning personality, but his most noteworthy attribute, as far as I could tell, was his incredible ability to ingratiate himself with the teachers. He was a permanent fixture on student council and sailed to the presidency in his final year, which meant that he spent a ton of time out of class. I doubt that this guy did half the schoolwork of a normal student. He always seemed to be organizing this, or spearheading that. Too busy for silly stuff like homework, you see. I'm pretty sure he was on a first name basis with most of the teachers, both of the VPs and our weird Principal, who wore white socks with every suit he owned, no matter the color. If ever there was a chosen one, this guy was him.
I remember hearing teachers saying that this guy was destined for big things. I was perplexed. I found it remarkable that a guy who apparently spent so little time in pursuit of academic excellence managed to pull off straight As, but as some students noted sourly, teachers are a forgiving bunch, if you make the right noises, and you know which buttons to push. Needless to say, on paper, the guy was a scholastic superstar, a real leader who had been heavily involved in running the school from nearly the first moment he arrived in Grade nine as a snot-nosed greaseball in a Club Monaco sweatshirt and Zubaz pants. Universal admiration gave way to adulation when the faculty and student body heard the news that our man had made it into one of the best schools in the nation. A promising young man justifies the faith of his legion of supporters. And yet.... there were whispers of skepticism. Some questioned if this guy, who had coasted on charisma, could cut it as a small fish in the much bigger university pond. Could he meet the impossibly high expectations that had been set?
Fast forward one year later: Total wash out. Having had it easy, having had everything handed to him on a silver platter for five years, he was completely unprepared to take it to the next level when push came to shove. Maybe the doubt began to set in the first time he spoke up in a lecture. Instead of obsequious head-bobbing from cronies and a benevolent smile from the teacher, his words were greeted with the hostile stares of his fellow freshmen and a dismissive chortle from a prof thoroughly unimpressed with his intelect.
Maybe he found himself dismayed to discover that his quips, which played so well in the cafeteria, bombed in the pub, surrounded as he was, by wittier and cleverer guys.
Was he shocked to see the kind of guys he had dismissed as dull nonentities back in high school become the stars of their new fraternities, puking their guts up after shotgunning a couple of wobbly-pops behind the bleachers at the game? How about those weird hippy guys who were so terribly tiresome in high school, with their social activism and their hemp clothing... what were they doing chatting with the brainy co-eds in the student centre? When did they get so cool? Maybe he tried to join some clubs, but it wasn't the same. He was deprived of his ready-made high school social network and someone else, some other alpha-male, had usurped his spot as "the man".
I'm sure he tried to work those relationships with the faculty. But an overworked prof is too busy meeting with grad students and lecturing dozens and dozens of students to pay much attention to an anonymous freshman. Didn't do your assignment? Tough. Failure compounded failure, and the golden boy eventually found himself on academic probation. Eventually, our hero dropped out of school, and returned to his hometown, defeated and chastened.
"What happened?" incredulous observers asked. I think that ultimately, he was crushed by the weight of expectations, and reaching the dizzying heights to which he had aspired, a position that by rights, he was told, BELONGED to him, he found that he simply wasn't cut out for the gig.
Oh, to have been tested and be found wanting.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
The Rock Under John Paul II
Father Ray DeSouza in the National Post speculates on the name choice of the new guy, whom has already been pilloried in the media for his rigour and orthodoxy -- as if those were flaws in a Pope:
...what then did the new pope wish to say to us? Vocabor Benedictum. "I will be called Benedict."
Commentators immediately looked to Benedict XV, the last pope of that name, who, assuming the papacy in 1914, tried to stop a Europe on the brink of the First World War from committing suicide. With Europe today in an advanced state of cultural decline and demographic suicide, the comparison is apt.
Yet it was likely that the newest Benedict had in mind none of his predecessors on the Throne of Peter, but St. Benedict himself, the father of Western monasticism and patron saint of Europe. Benedict (ca. 480-547) studied in Rome as a young man, but was soon disgusted with the decadence and degeneration he discovered amid the detritus of the Roman empire. He fled the city, and so attracted to himself the monks who would found the monasteries that would preserve the cultural patrimony of the West during the Dark Ages.
There will be no fleeing from Rome for Pope Benedict XVI. He must now attend to what he indicated on Monday was the pressing need of preserving the Christian patrimony of faith and culture in the third millennium.
Father Ray DeSouza in the National Post speculates on the name choice of the new guy, whom has already been pilloried in the media for his rigour and orthodoxy -- as if those were flaws in a Pope:
...what then did the new pope wish to say to us? Vocabor Benedictum. "I will be called Benedict."
Commentators immediately looked to Benedict XV, the last pope of that name, who, assuming the papacy in 1914, tried to stop a Europe on the brink of the First World War from committing suicide. With Europe today in an advanced state of cultural decline and demographic suicide, the comparison is apt.
Yet it was likely that the newest Benedict had in mind none of his predecessors on the Throne of Peter, but St. Benedict himself, the father of Western monasticism and patron saint of Europe. Benedict (ca. 480-547) studied in Rome as a young man, but was soon disgusted with the decadence and degeneration he discovered amid the detritus of the Roman empire. He fled the city, and so attracted to himself the monks who would found the monasteries that would preserve the cultural patrimony of the West during the Dark Ages.
There will be no fleeing from Rome for Pope Benedict XVI. He must now attend to what he indicated on Monday was the pressing need of preserving the Christian patrimony of faith and culture in the third millennium.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Sunday, April 10, 2005
It's all about ME
I think that essentially modern post-Christian Europe, and Canada, and large
parts of the United States, too, have replaced the traditional impulses of
civilization, which is to breed, and to prosper, and to expand and survive with
a culture of narcissism. You know, I'd like to have, if you put it to me in
those terms, I'd like to have meaningless, promiscuous sex, and just think about
myself all day long, and all week long, and all year long. But in the end, when
you prioritize that, you actually destroy the culture that enables it. It's a
completely absurd culture and brazen. And that's what we've done.
Mark Steyn on Hugh Hewitt show.
In contrast:
It's all about YOU
"TOTUS TUUS"
All the more profoundly I feel myself totally in the Hands of God — and I remain continually at the disposition of my Lord, entrusting myself to Him and to His Immaculate Mother (Totus Tuus).
the preceeding is text found in the last will and testament of a recently-departed fellow, who lived in opulent surroundings, and walked with kings, yet was buried in a simple wooden box and, except for a few personal articles left no property behind him.
I think that essentially modern post-Christian Europe, and Canada, and large
parts of the United States, too, have replaced the traditional impulses of
civilization, which is to breed, and to prosper, and to expand and survive with
a culture of narcissism. You know, I'd like to have, if you put it to me in
those terms, I'd like to have meaningless, promiscuous sex, and just think about
myself all day long, and all week long, and all year long. But in the end, when
you prioritize that, you actually destroy the culture that enables it. It's a
completely absurd culture and brazen. And that's what we've done.
Mark Steyn on Hugh Hewitt show.
In contrast:
It's all about YOU
"TOTUS TUUS"
All the more profoundly I feel myself totally in the Hands of God — and I remain continually at the disposition of my Lord, entrusting myself to Him and to His Immaculate Mother (Totus Tuus).
the preceeding is text found in the last will and testament of a recently-departed fellow, who lived in opulent surroundings, and walked with kings, yet was buried in a simple wooden box and, except for a few personal articles left no property behind him.
Monday, April 04, 2005
FATBODIES
HARTMAN Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts, Private Pyle?
PYLE Sir,no, sir!
HARTMAN And why not, Private Pyle?
PYLE Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!
HARTMAN Because you are a disgusting fatbody, Private Pyle!
PYLE Sir, yes, sir!
Full Metal Jacket
I've been accused of having a weight obsession. I like to think of it as more of a fat obsession. I don't care if someone is stout or thick-limbed, because stout people can be "built solid" (hard-fat, some call it), but I despise excess fat, particularly on myself. Maybe it stems from my youth --I was a porky kid growing up, in spite of the fact that I was quite active and played alot of different sports. Slow metabolism, maybe? My parents were delighted when I got a paper route at age 12. Besides the valuable lessons to be gained in managing one's own business and learning responsibility, they also imagined that the daily physical activity would help me get rid of my baby fat. Unfortuntately, they did not forsee my eventual transformation into a newspaper delivery tycoon and the inevitable delegation of legwork that followed.
At my peak, I was managing the deliver of 200 newspapers a day on 4 different routes. I say "managing" because I wasn't really delivering the newspapers myself. I devised an ingenious business model which involved recruiting a couple of lucky neighbourhood kids every day to accompany me on my deliveries (they tended to hang out near my house in hopes of getting "the word" --think the longshoremen in On The Waterfront. Carrying two bulky newspaper bags over each shoulder, like bandoliers slung on a bandito's chest, I shuffled up and down the streets of my town, handing papers out to my "runners". The runners were the two or three snot-nosed urchins whose job was to sprint up each driveway and drop off a paper. My job was simply to hand each of them a fresh paper as they returned. It was a fantastic system with very low operating costs --payment for the kids consisted of one chocolate bar at the end of the route (worth about 50 cents in those days). I myself could clear eight or nine bucks a day. As my wealth grew, so did my waistline. I was walking less and less, and eating more and more chips and chocolate bars as a result of my newfound prosperity.
Eventually, I overextended myself when I tried to take on an extra route and adapt my clever system to bicycles in order to make my deliveries on time. Newspaper bags are heavy, and they bump your knees when you try to pedal. A few scraped knees and hands convinced me of the folly of my ambitions, and I eventually scaled back my volume of business as new kids (potential paperboys who did not want to work for me) arrived in the neighbourhood to threaten my racket. I was under pressure. The circulation manager had menaced me with the loss of one-or-more of my routes if I didn't finish deliveries sooner. Luckily, I was saved from this ignominy by a timely career change courtesy of my dad: I was forced to quit the route when we moved to a new town.
In spite of my continued participation in a number of team sports; soccer, hockey, football, I remained chubby throughout my early adolescence. It was only when I became a lifeguard and took up running, cycling and weightlifting that the chub began melting away. Sure, I could get in great shape if I put my mind to it, but I distinctly recall that the minute I stopped working out, lovehandles would appear as if by magic, a symbol of my egregious slackery. I gritted my teeth through high school as I watched beanpole classmates down triple-decker cheeseburgers and tubs of coca cola in the cafeteria. I suppose I wasn't blessed with their metabolisms--which, incidentally, seem to have slowed down significantly in the intervening years, so that formerly svelt boys have now become lard-bellied men (much to my delight). Not so for this boy. My slow metabolism turned into a blessing in disguise. I figure that as I approach the start of my fourth decade on this earth, I still have to maintain approximately the same level of activity as I did when I was in high school in order to stay trim. How many other guys my age can say that?
My neurosis, if you want to call it that, truly coalesced when I joined the military. In the military, thin is ALWAYS in, and FAT equals LAZY plus undisciplined, which is a bad thing, if you are part of an organization that sees discipline as an absolute imperative. It stands to reason that lardasses are treated with contempt in the army. On basic training, I distinctly recall one of my fellow recruits, a tubby fellow, tortured by sergeants as he attempted to do pushups: Private, you look like a dog humping a football! You look like a f*cking beached whale, you fat piece of sh*t and so on... There was little sympathy for the guy. After all, if you are going to join the military as an infantryman, one of the most physically demanding jobs around, it stands to reason that you will get in shape before showing up for training. In this, as in most instances, the transgressor is not the one punished, the group is, as a whole. Everyone does pushups FOR the guy who can't do them himself. It was left to his fellow recruits to "motivate" the private and show him the error of his ways. I think a blanket-party (see Full-metal jacket)ensued, and possibly an RTU (return to unit, for discharge or re-training at a later date), but I don't remember.
I suppose in our infantilized culture, it is conceivable that someone would say to themselves "ah, I won't worry about taking responsibility for my own health and fitness... I'm joining the army! The army will take care of that for me"(Mark Steyn would say this is an inevitable result of the growth of the Nanny-State). Some recruits show up out of shape because it hasn't occurred to them that they bear a share of the responsiblity for ensuring their own well-well being and preparing themselves for their new career-- and that there are consequences if they don't. Nowadays, it seems individuals have abdicated all responsibility for their own personal fitness and health.
Maybe that's why some seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions from Morgan Spurlock's acclaimed film Supersize Me: the "Corporations" (traditional scapegoats and boogeymen of the left)are conditioning young people to eat shitty food, and therefore are to blame for the obesity epidemic in North America. Excuse me? What about the fact that people are simply too bloody lazy to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments that their questionable dietary choices demand? Normally, I wouldn't have any regard for an opinion on this subject from Colby Cosh, a very sharp journalist-turned-Blog superstar who happens to be an overweight chain-smoker (from what I gather), but he makes a fairly good point in bringing up the seldom heard-of idea "personal responsibility" and Les Sayer's clever little experiment, where he actually managed to LOSE weight eating a McDonalds-only diet. HOW you ask? Short answer: Unlike Spurlock, he worked his ass off. Says Les:
Seeing my fat and sugar intake be 200% of "normal values" while eating McDonald's food for a month, caused me to really value the importance of regular exercise. If I can lose weight, lower my cholesterol and triglycerides, and have blood work that reveals a healthy liver and kidneys, and all the while eat at McDonald's, it proves to me two things: firstly McDonald's food isn't laden with the "poisons" some people believe it to be. This makes me smile because the same people who earnestly warned that my liver would "collapse" or "explode" within a couple of weeks of the diet, are now insisting that 30 days wasn't long enough. Some people really believe this stuff. And secondly, diet is important for a healthy lifestyle, but not essential. Exercise, however is essential.
Ultimately, I'm more on Les's side than on Morgan's. I don't think that MacDonalds is trying to con me and everyone else. I don't think that they need to change their menus or their marketing practices (but bully for them if they do it, even as just a PR thing) While I find their food mostly distasteful, I recognize that it is marketed cleverly and I can appreciate the appeal it must have for youth. Nevertheless, as far as I'm concerned, McD's should keep doing what it does --unapologetically selling fatty food of questionable nutritional value to folks. I sure don't think that it's their fault that everyone is getting fatter and fatter because we are eating too much, and letting our kids eat too much, of their crap, or that we are not getting enough exercise, and that we are not forcing junior to get off the frigging couch and go split his XXL trackpants doing a few laps around the track. That's where the personal responsibility part comes in. It isn't a corporation's responsibility to fix things. It's up to you and I.
When I start to put on weight (which happens every once in a while), I know I basically have three options:
A) Eat healthier (How do you know you are on the right track? A good clue is when you stop putting on weight)
B) Exercise more (how much? As much as it takes to stop putting on weight)
C) A combination of A&B
Failure to follow one of these three options will result in me becoming a fatbody -with all the attendant health implications that has (body acceptance my ass-- being fat is unhealthy. Period).
YES, it is that simple. I'm responsible.
HARTMAN Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts, Private Pyle?
PYLE Sir,no, sir!
HARTMAN And why not, Private Pyle?
PYLE Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!
HARTMAN Because you are a disgusting fatbody, Private Pyle!
PYLE Sir, yes, sir!
Full Metal Jacket
I've been accused of having a weight obsession. I like to think of it as more of a fat obsession. I don't care if someone is stout or thick-limbed, because stout people can be "built solid" (hard-fat, some call it), but I despise excess fat, particularly on myself. Maybe it stems from my youth --I was a porky kid growing up, in spite of the fact that I was quite active and played alot of different sports. Slow metabolism, maybe? My parents were delighted when I got a paper route at age 12. Besides the valuable lessons to be gained in managing one's own business and learning responsibility, they also imagined that the daily physical activity would help me get rid of my baby fat. Unfortuntately, they did not forsee my eventual transformation into a newspaper delivery tycoon and the inevitable delegation of legwork that followed.
At my peak, I was managing the deliver of 200 newspapers a day on 4 different routes. I say "managing" because I wasn't really delivering the newspapers myself. I devised an ingenious business model which involved recruiting a couple of lucky neighbourhood kids every day to accompany me on my deliveries (they tended to hang out near my house in hopes of getting "the word" --think the longshoremen in On The Waterfront. Carrying two bulky newspaper bags over each shoulder, like bandoliers slung on a bandito's chest, I shuffled up and down the streets of my town, handing papers out to my "runners". The runners were the two or three snot-nosed urchins whose job was to sprint up each driveway and drop off a paper. My job was simply to hand each of them a fresh paper as they returned. It was a fantastic system with very low operating costs --payment for the kids consisted of one chocolate bar at the end of the route (worth about 50 cents in those days). I myself could clear eight or nine bucks a day. As my wealth grew, so did my waistline. I was walking less and less, and eating more and more chips and chocolate bars as a result of my newfound prosperity.
Eventually, I overextended myself when I tried to take on an extra route and adapt my clever system to bicycles in order to make my deliveries on time. Newspaper bags are heavy, and they bump your knees when you try to pedal. A few scraped knees and hands convinced me of the folly of my ambitions, and I eventually scaled back my volume of business as new kids (potential paperboys who did not want to work for me) arrived in the neighbourhood to threaten my racket. I was under pressure. The circulation manager had menaced me with the loss of one-or-more of my routes if I didn't finish deliveries sooner. Luckily, I was saved from this ignominy by a timely career change courtesy of my dad: I was forced to quit the route when we moved to a new town.
In spite of my continued participation in a number of team sports; soccer, hockey, football, I remained chubby throughout my early adolescence. It was only when I became a lifeguard and took up running, cycling and weightlifting that the chub began melting away. Sure, I could get in great shape if I put my mind to it, but I distinctly recall that the minute I stopped working out, lovehandles would appear as if by magic, a symbol of my egregious slackery. I gritted my teeth through high school as I watched beanpole classmates down triple-decker cheeseburgers and tubs of coca cola in the cafeteria. I suppose I wasn't blessed with their metabolisms--which, incidentally, seem to have slowed down significantly in the intervening years, so that formerly svelt boys have now become lard-bellied men (much to my delight). Not so for this boy. My slow metabolism turned into a blessing in disguise. I figure that as I approach the start of my fourth decade on this earth, I still have to maintain approximately the same level of activity as I did when I was in high school in order to stay trim. How many other guys my age can say that?
My neurosis, if you want to call it that, truly coalesced when I joined the military. In the military, thin is ALWAYS in, and FAT equals LAZY plus undisciplined, which is a bad thing, if you are part of an organization that sees discipline as an absolute imperative. It stands to reason that lardasses are treated with contempt in the army. On basic training, I distinctly recall one of my fellow recruits, a tubby fellow, tortured by sergeants as he attempted to do pushups: Private, you look like a dog humping a football! You look like a f*cking beached whale, you fat piece of sh*t and so on... There was little sympathy for the guy. After all, if you are going to join the military as an infantryman, one of the most physically demanding jobs around, it stands to reason that you will get in shape before showing up for training. In this, as in most instances, the transgressor is not the one punished, the group is, as a whole. Everyone does pushups FOR the guy who can't do them himself. It was left to his fellow recruits to "motivate" the private and show him the error of his ways. I think a blanket-party (see Full-metal jacket)ensued, and possibly an RTU (return to unit, for discharge or re-training at a later date), but I don't remember.
I suppose in our infantilized culture, it is conceivable that someone would say to themselves "ah, I won't worry about taking responsibility for my own health and fitness... I'm joining the army! The army will take care of that for me"(Mark Steyn would say this is an inevitable result of the growth of the Nanny-State). Some recruits show up out of shape because it hasn't occurred to them that they bear a share of the responsiblity for ensuring their own well-well being and preparing themselves for their new career-- and that there are consequences if they don't. Nowadays, it seems individuals have abdicated all responsibility for their own personal fitness and health.
Maybe that's why some seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions from Morgan Spurlock's acclaimed film Supersize Me: the "Corporations" (traditional scapegoats and boogeymen of the left)are conditioning young people to eat shitty food, and therefore are to blame for the obesity epidemic in North America. Excuse me? What about the fact that people are simply too bloody lazy to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments that their questionable dietary choices demand? Normally, I wouldn't have any regard for an opinion on this subject from Colby Cosh, a very sharp journalist-turned-Blog superstar who happens to be an overweight chain-smoker (from what I gather), but he makes a fairly good point in bringing up the seldom heard-of idea "personal responsibility" and Les Sayer's clever little experiment, where he actually managed to LOSE weight eating a McDonalds-only diet. HOW you ask? Short answer: Unlike Spurlock, he worked his ass off. Says Les:
Seeing my fat and sugar intake be 200% of "normal values" while eating McDonald's food for a month, caused me to really value the importance of regular exercise. If I can lose weight, lower my cholesterol and triglycerides, and have blood work that reveals a healthy liver and kidneys, and all the while eat at McDonald's, it proves to me two things: firstly McDonald's food isn't laden with the "poisons" some people believe it to be. This makes me smile because the same people who earnestly warned that my liver would "collapse" or "explode" within a couple of weeks of the diet, are now insisting that 30 days wasn't long enough. Some people really believe this stuff. And secondly, diet is important for a healthy lifestyle, but not essential. Exercise, however is essential.
Ultimately, I'm more on Les's side than on Morgan's. I don't think that MacDonalds is trying to con me and everyone else. I don't think that they need to change their menus or their marketing practices (but bully for them if they do it, even as just a PR thing) While I find their food mostly distasteful, I recognize that it is marketed cleverly and I can appreciate the appeal it must have for youth. Nevertheless, as far as I'm concerned, McD's should keep doing what it does --unapologetically selling fatty food of questionable nutritional value to folks. I sure don't think that it's their fault that everyone is getting fatter and fatter because we are eating too much, and letting our kids eat too much, of their crap, or that we are not getting enough exercise, and that we are not forcing junior to get off the frigging couch and go split his XXL trackpants doing a few laps around the track. That's where the personal responsibility part comes in. It isn't a corporation's responsibility to fix things. It's up to you and I.
When I start to put on weight (which happens every once in a while), I know I basically have three options:
A) Eat healthier (How do you know you are on the right track? A good clue is when you stop putting on weight)
B) Exercise more (how much? As much as it takes to stop putting on weight)
C) A combination of A&B
Failure to follow one of these three options will result in me becoming a fatbody -with all the attendant health implications that has (body acceptance my ass-- being fat is unhealthy. Period).
YES, it is that simple. I'm responsible.
Action Comics Presents... POPEMAN!
Please excuse my irreverent take on this subject, but it just occured to me that John Paul II was the nearest thing the 20th century ever had to a real life superhero.
Popeman's origin issue introduces a young Polish man and his intrepid band of seminarians boldly pursuing their studies in wartime Cracow under the very nose of Uncle Adolph and his nefarious Nazi no-goodniks. Right from Panel one, you know that this story will have major fan appeal: a dark street in the Polish city, circa 1943: Spoltlights scour the rooftops as sinister SS men run through the streets. "Mein Gott!" says Hauptmann Heinrich "That Jew-loving priestling has escaped me again!" -- "Better luck next time, herr Heinrich" Young Karol shouts from the roof of the cathedral, before leaping down into the alley and running off to live another day.
No one can forget that successful multi-issue run in the seventies, when the Crimson Cardinal (that's Popeman before he got his new identity in the Action Comics 1978 Super Special Rendez-vous Rome issue) battled the Poland's red menace "the Communist Establishment" with the help of the Social Justice League and a squad of crucifix-wielding nuns; the first of what would be many memorable team-ups and cross-overs.
One of my personal faves was Issue 453 (still have mine mint condition in mylar), where Popeman took three bullets from a would-be assassin and came back to lay some serious doctrinal ass-whuppin' on would be reformers a few pages later. At this point in the his run, the globetrotting caped-and-capped crusader presented the very picture of the man in charge.
No one stepped out of line with this successor of Saint Peter. He was a muscular man of the cloth, an ascetic avenger, a power-packed pontiff. Our hero ran a tight ship. Woe to the hapless political figure who challenged his authority--You best believe that he would set the fool straight with a well-placed encyclical to the proboscis.... and of course, he would be back battling human rights abusers a few pages later-backed up by his priests and bishops. Foes trembled in fear of the Papal ban, but Popeman also had a softer side, and every issue issue featured a friendly encounter with one of the members of his legions of adoring faithful, who were always there to cheer their hero on no matter where he went.
Following his defeat of most of his commie arch-nemeses (and their nefarious Atheist Acolytes) at the end of the eighties, some observers thought that the character had run his course and should be put out to pasture, but Popeman emerged revitalized at the beginning of the nineties, thanks largely to the introduction of the Young Catholics, who had always been background characters, but who now began to take on a greater role in Popeman's struggle against secularism and agnositicism.
After a run of several decades, which has seen Popeman confront every major evil of our time and emerge triumphant, the series now comes to a close. It is fitting that in the final issue of his title, Popeman leaves the world with a message of hope, arms his followers with his greatest superpowers --faith and love-- and urges us onward in our battle with the forces of darkness.
Don't toss out any of the back-issues folks. They are all collectors editions.
Please excuse my irreverent take on this subject, but it just occured to me that John Paul II was the nearest thing the 20th century ever had to a real life superhero.
Popeman's origin issue introduces a young Polish man and his intrepid band of seminarians boldly pursuing their studies in wartime Cracow under the very nose of Uncle Adolph and his nefarious Nazi no-goodniks. Right from Panel one, you know that this story will have major fan appeal: a dark street in the Polish city, circa 1943: Spoltlights scour the rooftops as sinister SS men run through the streets. "Mein Gott!" says Hauptmann Heinrich "That Jew-loving priestling has escaped me again!" -- "Better luck next time, herr Heinrich" Young Karol shouts from the roof of the cathedral, before leaping down into the alley and running off to live another day.
No one can forget that successful multi-issue run in the seventies, when the Crimson Cardinal (that's Popeman before he got his new identity in the Action Comics 1978 Super Special Rendez-vous Rome issue) battled the Poland's red menace "the Communist Establishment" with the help of the Social Justice League and a squad of crucifix-wielding nuns; the first of what would be many memorable team-ups and cross-overs.
One of my personal faves was Issue 453 (still have mine mint condition in mylar), where Popeman took three bullets from a would-be assassin and came back to lay some serious doctrinal ass-whuppin' on would be reformers a few pages later. At this point in the his run, the globetrotting caped-and-capped crusader presented the very picture of the man in charge.
No one stepped out of line with this successor of Saint Peter. He was a muscular man of the cloth, an ascetic avenger, a power-packed pontiff. Our hero ran a tight ship. Woe to the hapless political figure who challenged his authority--You best believe that he would set the fool straight with a well-placed encyclical to the proboscis.... and of course, he would be back battling human rights abusers a few pages later-backed up by his priests and bishops. Foes trembled in fear of the Papal ban, but Popeman also had a softer side, and every issue issue featured a friendly encounter with one of the members of his legions of adoring faithful, who were always there to cheer their hero on no matter where he went.
Following his defeat of most of his commie arch-nemeses (and their nefarious Atheist Acolytes) at the end of the eighties, some observers thought that the character had run his course and should be put out to pasture, but Popeman emerged revitalized at the beginning of the nineties, thanks largely to the introduction of the Young Catholics, who had always been background characters, but who now began to take on a greater role in Popeman's struggle against secularism and agnositicism.
After a run of several decades, which has seen Popeman confront every major evil of our time and emerge triumphant, the series now comes to a close. It is fitting that in the final issue of his title, Popeman leaves the world with a message of hope, arms his followers with his greatest superpowers --faith and love-- and urges us onward in our battle with the forces of darkness.
Don't toss out any of the back-issues folks. They are all collectors editions.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Friday, March 18, 2005
"George Lucas raped your childhood?"
I'll admit it... I am an unrepentant STAR WARS fan. That being said, most of the real fans would laugh at such a bold statement. Although I have seen each of the installments more than once, and can remember the odd quote from a memorable scene, I'm not, you know, THAT INVESTED. Not so, the true Star Wars devotee. The true fan lives and breathes Star Wars. Anyone who has seen that hilarious bit from Late Night with Conan O'brien with TRIUMPH and the geeks at the "Attack of the Clones premiere knows the type of person I'm talking about.
There are men and women (but, let's face it, mostly men) who own thousands of dollars worth of priceless memorabilia, from the first edition action figures still in their original packages to the hundreds of comics and movie-tie ins and crappy merchandise trinkets, not to mention multiple versions of the Original Trilogy -VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Original Trilogy, Special Editions, etc... These are the jokers that wait in line in their costumes at each of the premieres for days before tickets go on sale, clusters of Jedi Masters, legions of stormtroopers, and the occasional Princess Leia with cinamon-bun hairstyle. Many of them first saw the original movie (now known as Star Wars Episode Four: A New Hope) in theatres when if first premiered in 1977, long before it was the cultural landmark that it has become in the years since. They are now in their thirties, and they take their Star Wars very seriously.
If you needed any greater proof of this seriousness, harken back, if you will, to those heady days of 1999, when, in the wake of the triumphant release of the 20th Anniversary Special Editions, George Lucas birthed the first of his prequels, a movie which told the story of how Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would become Darth Vader, was discovered by the Jedi. The ear-shattering buzz around this film, brought on my a wicked-ass trailer and brilliant marketing campaign, infected the fans in the weeks leading up to its release and was impossible to ignore... many outside of the general fan community could not help but feel a frisson of excitement as well. This would be a cultural event for a NEW generation, a space mythology updated and beefed up with CGI to cater to our more jaded and discerining movie-viewing eyeballs.
While some like me kept expectations as low as possible in order to avoid disappointment, others proclaimed the second coming of the Jedi, and made of the as-of-yet unseen film a golden calf to be worshipped mindlessly. A backlash was inevitable. At pre-screeings, some of the mainstream critics grudgingly recognized the briliance of the visuals, even while they panned the performances in the same breath. The word was out, and it was not good. George Lucas had botched the direction. The dialogue was stilted, the performances, particularly those of younger castmembers, woefully poor. I remember a quote from an actor in the OT (I think it was Carrie Fisher, or maybe Harrison Ford): "You might be able to write this shit, but you sure can't speak it" --or words to that effect. i hesitantly interrogate those who had "seen the elephant", as it were: "Yeah, but the action... great action right?" I had heard about the amazing lightsaber fight that put anything in the OT to shame, and my hopes rested on that, if nothing else.
Ultimately, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace , or TPM, as the fans call it, proved to be a pretty satisfying movie experience for me. Was Jar Jar annoying? --Does a bear shit in the woods? The only justification I can find for that egregious creation was that it was there to amuse the kiddies. Yeah, the dialogue was groan-enducing... and how! But I distinctly remember some cornball lines from the Original Trilogy, too. The story was a bit dense and sometimes difficult to follow, but the visuals more than made up for it. Bottom line, I was entertained.
But how did the true believers greet the movie? Well, some of the more forgiving ones seemed to find it acceptable. "Third-best Star Wars movie" was an opinion I heard more than once (Some of the original fans had never gotten over the feeling of being let down by Return of the Jedi after the crowning glory of the Empire Strikes Back, strangely, and figured anything was better than Episode 6). But in some corners of the Internet, the Dark Side held sway. The indignation and vitriol that I saw spewed out onto movie site message boards like AICN and TheForce.net when the first movie in the new trilogy was released was nothing short of alarming.
"Lucas sold his soul for CG!" they raged. The legions of Internet critics- a distinctly diffenrent breed from the Eberts and Roepers of the world- piloried it: "Derivative kiddie-popcorn fare devoid of the magic of the OT (original trilogy)!". "George Lucas Raped my Childhood!" one despondent dork wailed.
Jesus, why don't you tell me how you really feel! The only way I could account for these puzzling deep-seated feelings of anger and betrayal was to hypothesize that somehow, over the years, because of nostalgia and the subjective nature of our childhood memories, these three movies released so many years ago (lest we forget, they were MOVIES, people!) had grown into something much more singular and significant in some people's twisted psyches, a philosophy, a zeitgeist, a way of life -- the same way that Star Trek has for others. "IT BETTER NOT SUCK" had been the mantra of their trepidatious and timorous subconsciouses for so long as they awaited the messiah's return. For these people who had invested so much of themselves in this imaginary universe, so much more than an entertaining cinematic experience was at stake. A trivial film could trivialize their very selves, the essence of who they were.
Fast forward three years, much the same story: For some, Episode II, Attack of the Clones (AOTC) the 2002 follow-up to TPM, was redemption or vindication, for others, it only added insult to injury, as their hopes were again dashed. Personally, I found the second film an improvement on the first, but a flawed film nonetheless. Entertaining overall, and containing some virtuoso sequences, but certainly not in the league of, say, The Lord of the Rings movies, for example. How traumatic it must have been for those sad fellows who had spent countless hours dreaming of new star wars movies to not have their gargantuans expectations met. "But I thought the Jedi would be cooler!" "I thought we would see Darth Vader being a bad ass!" "I would have shown more of the Clone Wars!"
So now we come to the moment of truth. We are on the cusp of the Third Act, the denouement, the one that everything has been leading up to. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith opens on May 10, 2005. The movie tells of Anakin's final descent into evil and his betrayal of the Jedi will be the yardstick against all the other films will be measured. The Trailer looks very promising: Plenty of kickass action and mayhem and a decidedly dark tone. "Ah, but the other trailers were great too... and look how the movies turned out" the haters warn. Will ROTS provide a suitably spellbinding and thrilling climax, tying up all loose ends and bringing the Saga together in one cohesive narrative, or will it be the final betrayal: a sprawling, shambolic mess that colapses under its own weight and ends the series on a bad note?
The fascinating thing is that it may end up being the former to some and the latter to others. Perhaps ultimately, it wil be seen as a flawed masterpiece lacking the wide appeal of the best episodes in the series, but rising above the level of the lesser installments in Lucas' opus.
Lucas himself has said "I feel that I've made the movie the best I can and it turned out the way I wanted it to be, so I'm happy. I never try to anticipate what the world's going to think or even worry about whether they're going to like it or not. That's not my job, to make people like my movies. They either like them or they don't. That's completely out of my hands."
Wise words from the original Jedi Master.
I'll admit it... I am an unrepentant STAR WARS fan. That being said, most of the real fans would laugh at such a bold statement. Although I have seen each of the installments more than once, and can remember the odd quote from a memorable scene, I'm not, you know, THAT INVESTED. Not so, the true Star Wars devotee. The true fan lives and breathes Star Wars. Anyone who has seen that hilarious bit from Late Night with Conan O'brien with TRIUMPH and the geeks at the "Attack of the Clones premiere knows the type of person I'm talking about.
There are men and women (but, let's face it, mostly men) who own thousands of dollars worth of priceless memorabilia, from the first edition action figures still in their original packages to the hundreds of comics and movie-tie ins and crappy merchandise trinkets, not to mention multiple versions of the Original Trilogy -VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Original Trilogy, Special Editions, etc... These are the jokers that wait in line in their costumes at each of the premieres for days before tickets go on sale, clusters of Jedi Masters, legions of stormtroopers, and the occasional Princess Leia with cinamon-bun hairstyle. Many of them first saw the original movie (now known as Star Wars Episode Four: A New Hope) in theatres when if first premiered in 1977, long before it was the cultural landmark that it has become in the years since. They are now in their thirties, and they take their Star Wars very seriously.
If you needed any greater proof of this seriousness, harken back, if you will, to those heady days of 1999, when, in the wake of the triumphant release of the 20th Anniversary Special Editions, George Lucas birthed the first of his prequels, a movie which told the story of how Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would become Darth Vader, was discovered by the Jedi. The ear-shattering buzz around this film, brought on my a wicked-ass trailer and brilliant marketing campaign, infected the fans in the weeks leading up to its release and was impossible to ignore... many outside of the general fan community could not help but feel a frisson of excitement as well. This would be a cultural event for a NEW generation, a space mythology updated and beefed up with CGI to cater to our more jaded and discerining movie-viewing eyeballs.
While some like me kept expectations as low as possible in order to avoid disappointment, others proclaimed the second coming of the Jedi, and made of the as-of-yet unseen film a golden calf to be worshipped mindlessly. A backlash was inevitable. At pre-screeings, some of the mainstream critics grudgingly recognized the briliance of the visuals, even while they panned the performances in the same breath. The word was out, and it was not good. George Lucas had botched the direction. The dialogue was stilted, the performances, particularly those of younger castmembers, woefully poor. I remember a quote from an actor in the OT (I think it was Carrie Fisher, or maybe Harrison Ford): "You might be able to write this shit, but you sure can't speak it" --or words to that effect. i hesitantly interrogate those who had "seen the elephant", as it were: "Yeah, but the action... great action right?" I had heard about the amazing lightsaber fight that put anything in the OT to shame, and my hopes rested on that, if nothing else.
Ultimately, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace , or TPM, as the fans call it, proved to be a pretty satisfying movie experience for me. Was Jar Jar annoying? --Does a bear shit in the woods? The only justification I can find for that egregious creation was that it was there to amuse the kiddies. Yeah, the dialogue was groan-enducing... and how! But I distinctly remember some cornball lines from the Original Trilogy, too. The story was a bit dense and sometimes difficult to follow, but the visuals more than made up for it. Bottom line, I was entertained.
But how did the true believers greet the movie? Well, some of the more forgiving ones seemed to find it acceptable. "Third-best Star Wars movie" was an opinion I heard more than once (Some of the original fans had never gotten over the feeling of being let down by Return of the Jedi after the crowning glory of the Empire Strikes Back, strangely, and figured anything was better than Episode 6). But in some corners of the Internet, the Dark Side held sway. The indignation and vitriol that I saw spewed out onto movie site message boards like AICN and TheForce.net when the first movie in the new trilogy was released was nothing short of alarming.
"Lucas sold his soul for CG!" they raged. The legions of Internet critics- a distinctly diffenrent breed from the Eberts and Roepers of the world- piloried it: "Derivative kiddie-popcorn fare devoid of the magic of the OT (original trilogy)!". "George Lucas Raped my Childhood!" one despondent dork wailed.
Jesus, why don't you tell me how you really feel! The only way I could account for these puzzling deep-seated feelings of anger and betrayal was to hypothesize that somehow, over the years, because of nostalgia and the subjective nature of our childhood memories, these three movies released so many years ago (lest we forget, they were MOVIES, people!) had grown into something much more singular and significant in some people's twisted psyches, a philosophy, a zeitgeist, a way of life -- the same way that Star Trek has for others. "IT BETTER NOT SUCK" had been the mantra of their trepidatious and timorous subconsciouses for so long as they awaited the messiah's return. For these people who had invested so much of themselves in this imaginary universe, so much more than an entertaining cinematic experience was at stake. A trivial film could trivialize their very selves, the essence of who they were.
Fast forward three years, much the same story: For some, Episode II, Attack of the Clones (AOTC) the 2002 follow-up to TPM, was redemption or vindication, for others, it only added insult to injury, as their hopes were again dashed. Personally, I found the second film an improvement on the first, but a flawed film nonetheless. Entertaining overall, and containing some virtuoso sequences, but certainly not in the league of, say, The Lord of the Rings movies, for example. How traumatic it must have been for those sad fellows who had spent countless hours dreaming of new star wars movies to not have their gargantuans expectations met. "But I thought the Jedi would be cooler!" "I thought we would see Darth Vader being a bad ass!" "I would have shown more of the Clone Wars!"
So now we come to the moment of truth. We are on the cusp of the Third Act, the denouement, the one that everything has been leading up to. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith opens on May 10, 2005. The movie tells of Anakin's final descent into evil and his betrayal of the Jedi will be the yardstick against all the other films will be measured. The Trailer looks very promising: Plenty of kickass action and mayhem and a decidedly dark tone. "Ah, but the other trailers were great too... and look how the movies turned out" the haters warn. Will ROTS provide a suitably spellbinding and thrilling climax, tying up all loose ends and bringing the Saga together in one cohesive narrative, or will it be the final betrayal: a sprawling, shambolic mess that colapses under its own weight and ends the series on a bad note?
The fascinating thing is that it may end up being the former to some and the latter to others. Perhaps ultimately, it wil be seen as a flawed masterpiece lacking the wide appeal of the best episodes in the series, but rising above the level of the lesser installments in Lucas' opus.
Lucas himself has said "I feel that I've made the movie the best I can and it turned out the way I wanted it to be, so I'm happy. I never try to anticipate what the world's going to think or even worry about whether they're going to like it or not. That's not my job, to make people like my movies. They either like them or they don't. That's completely out of my hands."
Wise words from the original Jedi Master.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
DELWIT!
My brother and his friends came up with this word a couple of years ago. When I first heard them use it in conversation, I couldn't quite figure out what they were saying. They would use it as a response to a question: "Are you going to go out tonight?" Answer: "Del-wit!". It worked as a greeting "Wassup?"..."DEL-WIT!" or as a description for someone "That dude is so delwit."
Sometimes it would be modified into an emphatic statement "Del-wit... TOTALLY!"... or made into a prediction "Soon to be... del-wit" (or to be del-wit soonly). In time, it became as ubiquitous within my brother's peer group as that most Canadian of exclamations: eh.
I find the etymology of this word fascinating. It is basically a contraction of the words "dealt with", as in "That issue needs to be dealt with".
Apparently, the word originated from the good-natured mimickry of an acquaintance of theirs who made constant over-use of the verb "to deal": "Deal with that open window" (close the window, please). Could you deal with the phone? (Answer the phone for me, will you?). Naturally, over time, the standard response to the request after someone had carried it out would be to say "It's totally dealt with",
In time, this became "totally, deal'with!" and eventually, "totally delwit!" (or when you feel like changing things up: "totalled!"). If you hadn't done something yet you might say "soon to be delwit", or "to be delwit soonly" (Why soonly? I don't know, I'm not an etymologist!)
Now everything is delwit. I find myself using the expression all the time with my brother. It has even developeed into a bizarre patois that sounds like gibberish to the unaccustomed ear. If I want to know if he'll be catching a lift with me to go visit our parents, for instance, I might ask "Will you be delwit down to mom and dad, soonly?" To which he would answer, of course: "Totally!"
Somehow, this weird dialect hasn't gotten stale for us yet... in fact, I have a feeling that if we keep using it, it may CATCH ON...
Now deal with that.
My brother and his friends came up with this word a couple of years ago. When I first heard them use it in conversation, I couldn't quite figure out what they were saying. They would use it as a response to a question: "Are you going to go out tonight?" Answer: "Del-wit!". It worked as a greeting "Wassup?"..."DEL-WIT!" or as a description for someone "That dude is so delwit."
Sometimes it would be modified into an emphatic statement "Del-wit... TOTALLY!"... or made into a prediction "Soon to be... del-wit" (or to be del-wit soonly). In time, it became as ubiquitous within my brother's peer group as that most Canadian of exclamations: eh.
I find the etymology of this word fascinating. It is basically a contraction of the words "dealt with", as in "That issue needs to be dealt with".
Apparently, the word originated from the good-natured mimickry of an acquaintance of theirs who made constant over-use of the verb "to deal": "Deal with that open window" (close the window, please). Could you deal with the phone? (Answer the phone for me, will you?). Naturally, over time, the standard response to the request after someone had carried it out would be to say "It's totally dealt with",
In time, this became "totally, deal'with!" and eventually, "totally delwit!" (or when you feel like changing things up: "totalled!"). If you hadn't done something yet you might say "soon to be delwit", or "to be delwit soonly" (Why soonly? I don't know, I'm not an etymologist!)
Now everything is delwit. I find myself using the expression all the time with my brother. It has even developeed into a bizarre patois that sounds like gibberish to the unaccustomed ear. If I want to know if he'll be catching a lift with me to go visit our parents, for instance, I might ask "Will you be delwit down to mom and dad, soonly?" To which he would answer, of course: "Totally!"
Somehow, this weird dialect hasn't gotten stale for us yet... in fact, I have a feeling that if we keep using it, it may CATCH ON...
Now deal with that.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Why Paul Martin blows, big time, according toSteyn:
I overestimated Paul Martin. I assumed that, underneath the autopilot boilerplate pol-drone, he had a view on Iraq, Canada, the world, etc., and it was only because of the interminable holding pattern he was stuck in, waiting to land at Sussex Drive, that he felt unable to reveal it to us.
But, if anything can be clearly seen these days, it’s that Paul Martin has wanted to be prime minister his entire life and has worked ruthlessly toward that end, and yet has never troubled himself to acquire a political philosophy. I don’t mean like Thatcherism or Reaganism. He doesn’t have to invent a top-to-toe Martinism; he could just latch onto someone else’s philosophy, one he happens to--what’s the phrase?--believe in. But it’s clear, and it’s increasingly being clearly seen to be clear, that he doesn’t believe in anything.
I overestimated Paul Martin. I assumed that, underneath the autopilot boilerplate pol-drone, he had a view on Iraq, Canada, the world, etc., and it was only because of the interminable holding pattern he was stuck in, waiting to land at Sussex Drive, that he felt unable to reveal it to us.
But, if anything can be clearly seen these days, it’s that Paul Martin has wanted to be prime minister his entire life and has worked ruthlessly toward that end, and yet has never troubled himself to acquire a political philosophy. I don’t mean like Thatcherism or Reaganism. He doesn’t have to invent a top-to-toe Martinism; he could just latch onto someone else’s philosophy, one he happens to--what’s the phrase?--believe in. But it’s clear, and it’s increasingly being clearly seen to be clear, that he doesn’t believe in anything.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Blogosphere hails The 'Donkey's return!
Fans clamoured for more heaping helpings of bloggy goodness.
Indeed, like Julius Caesar, Triumphant triumvir, entering the Eternal City at the conclusion of the Civil Wars, I have returned... Now that my classical allusion has you convinced that I an insufferable blowhard, allow me to elaborate.
Three long months have passed since I had a decent internet connection, and for several reasons, after months of living web-free, I fell off the wagon. What that means, dear reader, is that you'll be hearing from me a bit more often.
Fans clamoured for more heaping helpings of bloggy goodness.
Indeed, like Julius Caesar, Triumphant triumvir, entering the Eternal City at the conclusion of the Civil Wars, I have returned... Now that my classical allusion has you convinced that I an insufferable blowhard, allow me to elaborate.
Three long months have passed since I had a decent internet connection, and for several reasons, after months of living web-free, I fell off the wagon. What that means, dear reader, is that you'll be hearing from me a bit more often.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Hollywood runs afoul of Hebrews
I had to laugh a bit when I read this article. Somehow, the image of the loverly miss Portman getting chased through the streets of Jerusalem by enraged ultra-orthodox jews brings a smile to my face. Never mind the fact that the Israeli-born actress has been studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for several months and should have known better... what the heck were the film producers thinking? I mean, how clueless and disrespectful can you get? This is why, Kabalah bracelets aside, its nice to see trivial, narcissistic, secular Hollywood take a big bite to the ass (a la
Passion of the Christ)every once in a while from some old-school religious types.
I hope the director got his ass kicked by some IDF guys for that....
I had to laugh a bit when I read this article. Somehow, the image of the loverly miss Portman getting chased through the streets of Jerusalem by enraged ultra-orthodox jews brings a smile to my face. Never mind the fact that the Israeli-born actress has been studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for several months and should have known better... what the heck were the film producers thinking? I mean, how clueless and disrespectful can you get? This is why, Kabalah bracelets aside, its nice to see trivial, narcissistic, secular Hollywood take a big bite to the ass (a la
Passion of the Christ)every once in a while from some old-school religious types.
I hope the director got his ass kicked by some IDF guys for that....
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