Thursday, June 19, 2003

Readers:  I have just switched my weblog over to a new computer, so my archives have been wiped out. (There is probably a way that I could have transferred my archives to the new computer, but I haven't had the time and energy to figure it out.) I am repeating my last few posts below, however, and I'll be posting new content soon. Here's a preview: Film review Fish & game "Finding Nemo" is the summer's -- and perhaps the year's -- best film so far, and the documentary "Winged Migration" is an antidote to the usual summer movie fare. Sore losers California Republicans won't take responsibility for the fact that their 2002 gubernatorial candidate, Bill Simon, was a dud, and they won't wait until the next gubernatorial election in 2006 -- they want to unseat the unpopular and ineffectual but democratically elected Democratic Gov. Gray Davis now, even though he is not accused of any wrongdoing. If the sore losers get their recall election, California taxpayers will pay millions of dollars for the election only to elect Davis again, and it will set (yet) a(nother) dangerous precedent for democracy: Just keep holding elections until your party wins. Past few posts: Sunday, June 15, 2003 Are you a Commie? Take the test to find out! Authoritarian Left Right Libertarian The red dot above represents where I sit on the graph that plots one's political views on two axes: economic issues (from the extreme left to the extreme right) and social issues (from the extreme authoritarian to the extreme libertarian). You answer a series of questions at The Political Compass and then get your results in the form of a graph, like my results above. I showed up on the graph about where I expected to show up, so the thing seems pretty accurate to me. The graph below from The Political Compass indicates that I am fairly deeply inside the "Libertarian Left" quadrant: (I am not a member of the Libertarian Party, which belongs in the "Libertarian Right" quadrant. [Libertarians, as in members of the Libertarian Party, are socially liberal but are as economically tight, if not tighter, than typical Republicans.]) The Political Compass also plots some famous political figures on the graph: Note that I appear to have out-Libertarian Lefted the Dalai Lama (and I answered each question honestly and to the best of my ability). I out-Libertarian Lefted Gandhi, too, as he is plotted on another graph on the Website. Anyway, I found out about The Political Compass at fellow Salon weblogger Jan Haugland's Secular Blasphemy. It should take you no more than about 10 minutes to answer the questions on your political views (you answer each question, which is actually a statement, with one of four responses: "agree," "agree strongly," "disagree" and "disagree strongly") and then find out where you appear on the graph.    Monday, June 09, 2003 Twilight Zones and parallel universes  The Internet, if you play on it long enough, can play with your mind. A few years ago, for instance, while aimlessly surfing genealogy sites, I stumbled across a message that my cousin's long-lost half-sister had left on a "Crook" message board. She was looking for my cousin. With first e-mail and then the telephone, I was able to unite them; they met for the first time as adults. (I still don't know my ancestry, however. All I know is that I'm white.) More recently, I discovered that there's a weblog out there called Soapbox Canyon. Weirdly, its creator also is named Robert and he also writes about politics with a left bent (he is, I must report, kinder and gentler than I am, however). It gets even creepier: I graduated from Northern Arizona University with a bachelor of science in journalism in 1990, and Robert of Soapbox Canyon told me in an e-mail in April that he's working on his master's degree at NAU. (The Soapbox Canyon Robert found out about my blog from the blog Ojo Caliente. I found out about Soapbox Canyon from my referers because the Soapbox Canyon Robert put a link to my blog in his blog.) Most recently, and most eerily, I discovered, through my referers, that there is another Robert Crook -- who is the webmaster of the right-wing Website conservativeunderground.com. I had discovered, through my referers, that right-wingers were discussing, on conservativeunderground.com and on another right-wing Website, the strange coincidence of the conservative Robert Crook and the liberal Robert Crook. Within a few days, the Other Robert Crook e-mailed me about the coincidence which I had already discovered. As I told the Other Robert Crook in an e-mail, if he hadn't contacted me I most likely would have contacted him. While most of the chatter on the two right-wing Websites strikes me as the usual right-wing stuff* to which I wouldn't bother to respond because right-wingers are about as likely to change their viewpoints as I am to change mine, I was glad to see that one of the right-wingers has a sense of humor. In discussing the two Robert Crooks, the right-winger posted this: This is a still from the episode of the original "Star Trek" television series titled "Mirror, Mirror," in which the crew of the Enterprise find themselves in a parallel universe inhabited by their evil twins. While the right-winger no doubt considers me to be the Evil Robert Crook, again, at least he seems to have a good sense of humor, which is rare among right-wingers. The Other Robert Crook and I have exchanged a few surprisingly friendly e-mails and we're talking about writing opposing viewpoints on the same topics and posting our opposing viewpoints on our respective forums -- a kind of Internet "Crossfire" with Robert Crook on the right and Robert Crook on the left. (Through our e-mails I discovered that the Other Robert Crook also has a bachelor's in journalism -- downright scary.) I wonder, though: Don't they say that when something reaches an extreme it becomes its opposite? The Other Robert Crook might turn me into a conservative and I might turn him into a liberal. Like something out of "The Twilight Zone" or "Star Trek." Nah. *For example, one of the regular commentators on conservativeunderground.com uses the tagline "It is better to have a gun and not need it rather than need a gun and not have it" on every post of his. While I support the Second Amendment -- with John Ashcroft, Tom Ridge and the rest of the Bush regime in power, we very well might need guns to protect ourselves from the federal government -- I don't think that I'd want this guy as a neighbor...  Monday, May 19, 2003 Film review Keanu Reeves, as Neo, does what he does best (and just about all that he does) in "The Matrix Reloaded." THE MATRIX RELOADED "The Matrix Reloaded" is an unfortunate victim of its predecessor's success and of its own big budget -- and proves that bigger isn't always better. "The Matrix" remains one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time because it doesn't sacrifice its plot and character development to its special effects; further, "The Matrix" both entertains and presents some deep concepts, such as how the masses, who think that they are free, in truth are meticulously controlled and manipulated. Of all of this summer's movie releases, I was looking forward to "The Matrix Reloaded" the most, so I was deeply disappointed to discover that most of the film looks and feels like a video game (OK, in fairness, there is a scene that looks like a music video). What dialogue there is seems to exist only because the filmmakers, Andy and Larry Wachowski, figured they had to have some dialogue in there between action scenes, like a porn flick has some dialogue in between sex acts. (I can imagine testosterone-filled young males using the fast-forward button while they watch "The Matrix Reloaded" on DVD as much as they use the fast-forward button while they watch porn videos.) I won't bother to rehash the plot of "The Matrix Reloaded," as obviously the plot wasn't the point; outdoing the special effects of its predecessor is the only discernible point of "The Matrix Reloaded." "Reloaded" woefully lacks the heart and soul of its smaller predecessor. While it took George Lucas at least a few sequels to lose the heart and soul of the "Star Wars" franchise to slick, glitzy special effects, it took the Wachowski brothers only one to destroy the "Matrix" franchise. Yes, "The Matrix Reloaded" is bigger than "The Matrix." "Reloaded" features exponentially more evil "agents" (you have to love that the villains are appropriately dressed as Republicans) and exponentially more human heroes who are fighting against the Matrix. There are considerably more and longer action scenes and they are on a considerably larger scale. But instead of making for an improvement over the smaller first film, these elements only dilute the powerfulness of the first. While James Cameron was able to make the second installment of the "Alien" franchise bigger and better than the original, with "Reloaded" the Wachowski brothers failed miserably. While "The Matrix" managed to be profound, I found myself laughing at lines in "Reloaded" that are supposed to be profound. Much as George Lucas somehow managed to turn Yoda from a lovable sage into an irritant, the Wachowski brothers somehow managed to turn the philosophical musings of "The Matrix" into gibberish that we stop even trying to decipher because we quickly realize that there's nothing to decipher; it's just the obligatory dialogue through which the young males will fast foward. If you want to truly appreciate how far the Wachowski brothers have fallen, watch their brilliant first film, "Bound," on DVD or VHS. My grade: C- Sunday, May 11, 2003 Is this man worth the loss of one human life? Dying for Gee Dubya People had already died for George W. Bush before we ever heard of him. A BuzzFlash.com editorial gives the names and biographical information of 16 "young men from Midland, Texas (Bush's hometown), who died in Vietnam in place of George W. Bush, as he stayed in Texas, afraid to go to war." And God knows how many of those 500 men who were on the Texas Air National Guard's waiting list before George W. was mysteriously put at the top of the list ahead of them had to go to Vietnam and died there. (Reported the Boston Globe in May 2000: "The ease of Bush's entry into the Air Guard was widely reported last year. At a time when such billets were coveted and his father was a Houston congressman, Bush vaulted to the top of a waiting list of 500. Bush and his father have denied that he received any preferential treatment. But last year, Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House in 1968, said in a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit that he called Guard officials seeking a Guard slot for Bush after a friend of Bush's father asked him to do so." See also the great Web site awolbush.com.) So people were dying for Gee Dubya even before he became governor of Texas, and under his watch as governor, Texas executed at least 150 people, including the mentally retarded, setting a record for the death penalty in the United States. The death and dying under "President" Bush continues. At least 146 American military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the second Bush regime began its illegal, immoral, imperialistic and unprovoked attack upon the oil-rich nation in March. Iraqbodycount.net estimates that more than 3,700 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the United States began its military conquest and occupation of Iraq in March. God knows how many thousands of Iraqi military personnel have been killed; it is not as though the Iraqi military could have counted the bodies, and the United States didn't even bother to. Thousands of people have died because of George W. Bush. Does this faze him at all? I would feel awful knowing that one person had died because of me. How does "President" Bush feel about the number of deaths he has caused? Here's a clue: On March 22, early in the U.S. attack upon Iraq, the Associated Press ran a piece titled "Bush's Routine Changes Little Despite War" (unfortunately, the link to the AP story is no longer active; however, I can e-mail the full, original text of the story to anyone who would like it). It is worth recapping most of the AP story here: War has brought little change to the regulated, by-the-numbers life of President Bush. He is not worried or plagued by doubts, aides say, and is hewing closely to his usual routines and habits even as American bombs pelt Baghdad and allied tanks dash across the Iraqi desert. "The president is following his normal routine," Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said before the president left to spend the weekend, as he has often throughout his term, at the secluded Camp David presidential retreat in the silence of Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. He has been working out almost every day, and a longtime Bush aide said he also seems to be sleeping well, is sticking to his diet and even giving up desserts as he tries to shave seconds off his running time. Aides portray a war leader who prefers to make big decisions, then let them be implemented by the experts with little meddling from the commander in chief. With public support strong, demonstrations relatively quiet and the war proceeding well so far, Georgetown University government professor Stephen Wayne says it's to be expected for the president to keep to the activities, such as exercise, family and time at Camp David, that make him most comfortable. "I don't see any reason to get excited, from a presidential point of view," Wayne said. ...Since the air war's opening runs Wednesday night, Bush has been formally briefed on military operations several times a day and informed of crucial developments as they occur. But he doesn't seek out details in the Situation Room and, never a big TV watcher, isn't following television news accounts closely as the dramatic events unfold. Through the incessant tension, Bush apparently has not lost his sense of humor. He was overheard laughing heartily during a meeting with his Cabinet. And although White House aides were angry that a live feed was broadcast abroad of Bush being coifed and made up before his Wednesday night speech to the nation, the president himself joked later about whether he had looked OK, the official said. ...Daily since the start of the assault in Iraq, reporters have asked about Bush's wartime mood, schedule and activities. "The president's state of mind is very much focused on the missions and the country," Fleischer said Wednesday night, shortly after Bush had ordered the first airstrikes. "He's comfortable with this." Asked if the responsibility of war, particularly the likelihood that innocent Iraqis will die, weighs on him, Fleischer said: "There's no question about that." But, he added, the president believes the blame for that suffering will fall on Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, for putting "innocents in a place where their lives will be lost." Bush, Fleischer said, also is determined he is taking the right path, despite the near-constant presence of protesters in front of his house and around the world, in large part because he believes it will prevent the deaths of American innocents like those lost on Sept. 11, 2001. That clarity of purpose contributes to Bush's calm demeanor, Wayne observed. "One of the remarkable things about this president is that this doesn't seem to have been an agonizing decision," he said. What kind of person loses no sleep when hundreds of people are dying because of him? The answer, I think, is contained in an interview with Kurt Vonnegut in which he describes what he calls "psychopathic personalities – hereinafter P.P.s – the medical term for smart, personable people who have no conscience. P.P.s are fully aware of how much suffering their actions will inflict on others but do not care. They cannot care. "The classic medical text about how such attractive leaders bring us into unspeakable calamities is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. An American P.P. at the head of a corporation, for example, could enrich himself by ruining his employees and investors and still feel as pure as the driven snow. A P.P., should he attain a post near the top of our federal government, might feel that taking the country into an endless war with casualties in the millions was simply something decisive to do today. So to bed. "With a P.P., decisiveness is all...." With the exception of being smart, G.W. fits Vonnegut's definition of a "P.P." to a "T." But even as I find the answers to my questions, even more questions come to mind: Why do we allow people to die needlessly for George W. Bush? And how many more people will die needlessly for George W. Bush if we allow him a second term? 2:52:30 PM    Comments []