Monday, May 10, 2004

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations   From Andrew Sullivan last week: GLENN ON IRAQ: Instapundit writes a cogent, sane and eloquent case for staying the course in Iraq. How does he do it? So many links and yet he also writes so well. Sully, pay attention: this is how he does it: ***** Tbogg updates us on Peggy Noonan's appearance on "Jeopardy": According to a multitude of emails I received today, Peggy Noonan was on PowerPlayers Jeopardy where she ran the table in such categories as Dolphins, Papal Nicknames, and Irish Drinking Songs. If you missed her, not to worry. Ari Fleischer is scheduled for Wednesday where he will ring in first on every question and then inform Alex Trebek that "I believe I've already answered that question". Indeed. ***** The good Roger Ailes eludicates Mickey Kaus's stand on what went wrong at Abu Gharaib: Those idiot generals! They never should have allowed the abuse of prisoners ... to be recorded. Kaus never would have made that rookie mistake. By Kaus's reasoning, the abused prisoners should have been executed rather than released, to forestall to propaganda debacle that has now taken place since they gave interviews to the New York Times, Time, etc. Indeed. ***** Peanut at Sadly, No! provides some captions to those infamous Abu Ghraib photos, and then poses some important questions about culpability: Did the administration's desperation to find a smoking gun create an environment where torture was condoned (or encouraged) because the WMD leads had run out? (BushCo's hand-picked 1000+ WMD sniffers weren't doing much beyond underwriting everything the UN team said.) Were prisoners punished for not coming through, and further, made scapegoats for the deplorable circumstances of over-deployed, over-extended, repeatedly misled troops? Read the whole thing. ***** A Case For Staying the Course in Iraq Somebody else wrote something about this with which I agree.  And here are some amplications of what they said. First, we need to show the world that we are the toughest dude in the hood, and that you don't wanna be dissin' us, even if you're a big shot dictator with tons of nonexistent WMDs. Second, we couldn't leave in power a guy who HATED us.  That would just encourage other countries in the region to not like us. Third, invading Iraq showed Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia that they shouldn't be dissin' us.  Okay, this is admittedly the same point as the first one, but this time I'm not afraid to name names!  And sure, the messages that Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia may be getting from the invasion could be different from the ones we're trying to send them, but hey, it's better to take action and totally screw things up than to stop and make plans, and let them diss us while we're doing it. Fourth, we thought that over time a "de-Saddamized Iraq" would be a showplace of democratic (with a small "d", mind you) values that would convince the rest of the Middle East to throw out their dictators and stop being terrorists.  Sure, we were all high when we thought it, but it's still a good reason for going to war.    So, we need to stay the course.  This is a process, not an event (forget you ever saw those "Mission Accomplished" banners).  We can turn over sovereignty to Iraq on June 30, but we're going to be fighting this war for the rest of the century (and paying for it for twice that long).  Which is why we have to keep fighting -- so it (the lives, the monetary costs, the squandering of world-wide good will) will have all been worth it, even it it ends up costing us way more than it was worth in the first place.  There is a name for this kind of logic -- you can look it up. And by the standards of the Arab world, things are already improving there -- charges of torture are actually newsworthy! So, see -- we're on a roll!  We wouldn't want to quit while we're on a winning streak! In conclusion, our goal should be a "self-governing Iraq, under a legitimate government and a reasonable constitution." Even if we have to kill them all to reach that goal. ******* See, Andrew, that's how he does it.  The above took me less than twenty minutes to research and write (they don't call him "InstaPundit" for nothing).   Anyway, Glenn announced last week that he had bronchitis or something similar.  James Lilleks urged him to knock off the grueling blogging for a while:   Instapundit in a nutshell: the tenth post of the day admits that he probably has walking pneumonia, and blogging will be light. "Instapundit in a nutshell" -- so many jokes, so little time. But Glenn did basically take the weekend off, saying he was doing it for Lileks. And then today, Lilkes and Sullivan both indicated that Glenn had showed them the light, and they were going to lighten up on the blogging.   Well, Lileks said that he had to stop writing columns for a week upon penalty of law (proof that the system works), and that was thinking from taking a break from blogging too: Then I got to thinking: well. Why not take the week off for real. But what of my – and brace yourself, I’m about to coin a word so inevitable it may spread, and you’ll find yourself sick of it shortly – what of my blogligations? Answer: I spent some freetime this weekend cooking up a large batch of additions. Tomorrow, many many matches; Wednesday and Thursday a horrible update to the Big Little Books site, and Friday some long-overdue additions to the Engraveyard. Most of all I look forward to a week away from writing about anything topical. I am in full Python Gumby mode. My brain hurts. James, if you want to work this way this FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR, you won't get any complaints from me. And Sullivan says: BLOG FATIGUE: Glenn Reynolds does an amazing job but he is still mortal, and I'm delighted he's decided to take things a little less strenuously in the near future. He's too valuable to be lost to exhaustion.  Yeah.  We'd sure hate to lose him to cut 'n paste fatigue.  So he too should take off a year or so, to rest up.  You know, for the good of the world. And then Andrew reminds us of HIS enormous contribution to literature: I just checked how many words I have written for the blog this year and it's already approaching 200,000 words. Are those original words, or reader letter words, "awards" words, quoted words from other bloggers and journalists, words also used in his Moonie Times columns, etc.?  I can hardly wait for Seb from Sadly, No! to get out of the hospital and figure this out. But life suffers - along with relationships, being able to drink after 8 pm, exercize and reading for - imagine this - pleasure. At this point, the reason for blogging has gotten a little lost. And then I realize we are at war. And I realize my own pathetic part in it is trying to think about it, fight it with words, and that this blog is a small part of that wider effort. At some point, I will have to give it up or take a long break. But when that is, I'm not so sure.  But Andrew, we are at war!  If you decide to give up the blogging, however will this nation continue the fight against terror?  After all, your powerful words have singlehandledly taken out several enemy strongholds, killed half a dozen members of al Queda's top leadership, and re-opened scores of Iraqi schools, hospitals, and prisons.   It's your DUTY to keep blogging -- your President (who is backing that FMA, by the way) is counting on you. And then Glenn weighs in on Lileks' post ("as even Lileks himself notes that blogging can start to feel like a "blogligation," not a hobby. I don't want that") and then on Sullivan's: UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has thoughts on blog fatigue. ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeez, Sullivan's not suffering from blog fatigue. Just go there and see how much he's posted since the item above. posted at 07:50 PM by Glenn Reynolds Okay, since that "Blog Fatigue" post, Sullivan has posted:"Quote for the Day," which is a cut n' pasted chunk of somebody else's work, a 24-word item about a Kerry/McCain ticket, a 215-word post called "Your Turn," in which he says that his readers have opinions too -- and then eight lengthy reader letters (well, since three of the letters are duplicated, only five unique reader letters).   So, to sum things up for Glenn, since that post about blog fatigue, Sullivan has posted about 250 original words.  Get that man a glass of water, because he's on fire! In conclusion, I too feel crummy, and could use a vacation.  But if Reynolds, Lileks, and Sullivan are going to take a break from blogging for the week, I figure this is my chance to RULE THE WORLD!  And besides, I have my blogligations, and there's a war on, you know. 11:18:08 PM     comment [] trackback []   Happy Post Mother's Day Okay, I don't feel up to snuff (and you have to feel really good to put tobacco flakes in your nose), so enjoy this selection from our book, Subliminal Cinema (it's the second part of the chapter which promised to teach you some of the secrets of the successful Bruce Willis/Demi Moore marriage -- next time, we learn from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman). ***** MARITAL SUCCESS AND THINNER THIGHS THE HOLLYWOOD WAY -- Part 2   Our next movie provides us with startling information about marriage; i.e., that it’s tough. In the early days, Hollywood went out of its way to emphasize that while marriage meant sacrifice--working things out, deferring one’s dreams, sleeping in twin beds--the secret to a successful marriage was love. Modern Hollywood believes this is still true, but nowadays the actual work is done by personal assistants, the deferred dreams are excuses ("I passed on starring in Gladiator and instead made Police Academy XXI in order to spend more time with my family"), and the sleeping in twin beds is only the case if you are married to Tom Cruise. But the main difference is that current movies teach us that the secret to marital success is access to an AVID Media Composer 1000. Let’s take a look at the ex-Mr. Demi Moore’s movie about the agony and ennui of long-term relationships, and see what it can teach us about the age-old connection between love, marriage, and postproduction.     THE STORY OF US (1999) Directed by Rob Reiner Written by Alan Zweibel & Jessie Nelson He wore a rug on his head; she wore a pith helmet. Can this marriage be saved? Our story begins with Michelle Pfeiffer telling us that everything she ever needed to know about marriage, she learned from "Harold and the Purple Crayon". See, Bruce is Harold, she is the person who has to wash the walls, and the crayon seems to be a penis metaphor or something. Then Bruce flashes back to how he and Michelle first met--he threw paper clips at her, and she countered by donning a pith helmet with a flashing light on top. We now comprehend the root of their marriage problems: he's abusive and she's clinically insane. Now it's time for a montage of highlights from their fifteen years of fighting, which serves to illustrate Tolstoy's saying about all happy families resembling each other, but each movie montage being boring in its own way. In one key sequence, we see how their differing temperaments lead to a lack of communication. Michelle is trying to cope with a flooding washing machine, two kids who are demanding that she mediate their spat, and her husband's telephone call asking her to get nostalgic with him because the apartment where they first lived--where they "became an us"--is being demolished. Michelle hangs up on him. This scene shows us that Bruce is spontaneous, romantic, and an idiot, while Michelle is practical, diligent, and a shrewish moron. (Note: Those of you who look to the movies to learn how to deal with real life should not follow Michelle's example. No, this is how you really cope with this situation. First, unplug the washer. Second, order the kids to shut their traps and start mopping. Finally, tell Bruce that you are sorry they are tearing down the apartment, because it was there that you first had an orgasm--with his best friend, Paul Reiser.) Bruce and Michelle decide to separate while their children are conveniently at Camp Idawannacustody. With the kids away, Bruce can hang out in restaurants with Reiser and Rob Reiner (who must have slept with the director to get the part). Michelle too has her assigned friends, and the loud, ribald banter of both groups teaches us important things about love, marriage, commitment, and the excruciating horror of having loud, ribald friends who think they are funny. Eventually Bruce drops by the house to pick up his dry cleaning. There are long, lingering shots of Bruce and Michelle's faces. Apparently, we are supposed to think that Michelle is too beautiful to be alone, and that Bruce's toupee is really his own hair. The couple ends up in the bedroom, and they engage in foreplay consisting of flashbacks about their various marriage counselors, including one who said that every time they go to bed there are actually six people there: Bruce, Michelle, his parents, and her parents. And then, in a wacky, Woody Allen moment, both sets of parents are in the bed with them! This kind of kills the moment for Michelle. (And understandably so–who could maintain proper lubrication while Red Buttons and Jayne Meadows were watching?) But Bruce is still in the mood, and is annoyed when Michelle won't put out. "What happened to that fun girl in the pith helmet?" he asks. Michelle replies, "That was Groucho Marx--did you sleep with him too, you pervert?" No, she actually says, "You beat her out of me!" which is even funnier. Bruce finally comes to the realization that love is just an illusion and that life is rough for white, male, rich people. He seeks counsel from Rob Reiner, who tells him that, "We do not possess butts, but merely fleshy parts at the top of our legs." His head brimming with ass-related wisdom, Bruce goes on a vision quest, and has a montage of Michelle crying, fretting, complaining, and shrieking at him. This is a breakthrough for Bruce, who now understands just how great it was to be married to her. He goes home and tells Michelle "Tonight I saw myself through your eyes!" Having learned what a putz she thinks he is, he wants to get back together. The movie could end right there, but it turns out that Michelle has a date with Tim Matheson. Bruce demands a divorce, because he won’t share his wife with the voice for Jonny Quest. Bruce and Michelle go to pick up their spawn from camp, having agreed to tell the kids that while they are divorcing, they still love each other--"But in a different way." You know, the way where daddy calls mommy a whore, and mommy tells daddy that he isn’t the kids’ real father. However, Michelle is suddenly hit by the movie’s trailer, a mega-flashback of ironically juxtaposed moments from their entire marriage, set to the music of "Classical Gas." She is no match for this overwhelming schmaltz, and it causes her to erupt in a five-minute monologue of incoherent nonsense, all done in a squeakily cute voice and without pause for breath, much like Sylvester Stallone’s climactic speech in First Blood. The speech conveys key information, like the location of the Bactine, exactly what did happen to the fun girl in the pith helmet, and how they can’t get divorced because they’re an us! This is enough to mend the rift, so they each say "I love you" and everything is fine! Another marriage saved! So, how can this movie help you revitalize your marriage to a nagging shrew or a whiny baby? Well, to begin with, if you’re meandering along on connubial cruise control and you happen to hit a patch of black ice, don’t talk about it with your friends. They’ll just respond by being embarrassingly loud and ribald in public, or even worse, will recite Zen koans in an effort to prove that your ass doesn’t exist. Secondly, while "Harold and the Purple Crayon" offered Michelle profound truths about her crummy marriage, we think that Bruce’s early exposure to "Curious George" caused his pith helmet fetish, and so led to his misalliance with Michelle. So, search your own childhood reading material and try to determine if you were betrayed by Dick and Jane into forming unrealistic beliefs about gender roles, family duties, and the amount of running done by dogs. And finally, men, whenever your gross insensitivity brings your marriage to the brink of separation, don’t try to make up by bringing her flowers or jewelry. Have a montage! According to our focus groups, women can’t resist them. 2:45:19 AM     comment [] trackback []   Entertainment News   1. An E! headline proclaims "Van Helsing" Slays Olsen Twins.  Now that's a movie I would pay to see. 2.  Guess Who's Getting Censored. Per the NY Times, the new FCC enforcement is making radio and TV execs skittish, and recent objects of concern have included "Masterpiece Theater," "Antiques Road Show," Elton John's "The Bitch is Back," and Rush Limbaugh's radio show. 3.  NBC is accusing Fox of ripping off their new reality boxing show before it's even been aired.  Fox bid on the series "The Contender" (which will be hosted by Sylvester Stallone), but lost out to NBC.  So NBC developed "The Next Great Champ," a show with a similar premise, to be hosted by Oscar de la Hoya.  Mark Burnett, the producer of "The Contender"  (and "The Apprentice" and "Survivor") told the NY Times that he's pissed, but isn't going to sue Fox because it does no good.   Mr. Burnett said, "The courts are loathe to do anything about this." No, Mr. Burnett (and NY Times editor), the courts are LOATH to do anything about this -- and you LOATHE Fox (but claim that you are still good friends with Mike Darnell, Fox's reality programming chief). "I like Mike," Mr. Burnett said. "He's a friend of mine. But I'm not sure what would happen if Stallone met him on the street." You know, THAT would make a great reality TV show: "Celebrity Hate Fox Factor."  It would involve well-known people beating up Fox execs.  Even more fun would be "Pummeling Fox News Celebrities Factor," where regular folks could physically express their annoyance at Fox News' on-air "talent," starting with the host of "The O'Reilly Factor."   And while there's talk about ways to prevent idea theft (such as requiring the networks to sign confidentiality waivers), nobody really believes that anything can be done about it, because plagiarism is what makes the reality TV world go round. "You can't expect these big media companies to police themselves," said Michael Davies, the producer of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," and an ABC entry for the fall, "Wife Swap." Mr. Davies said, "The people who really suffer are the producers." He suggested the only way to protect a producer's idea was to get other producers to agree not to rip them off. "Are you kidding me?" said Mr. Fleiss of that notion. "There's big money in these shows." Mr. Silverman echoed that point, saying. "Producers need to eat." Won't somebody please think of the starving producers?  Anyway, I think Davies' idea of a reality show about wife swapping sounds fabulous -- I'm just surprised nobody has thought of it before now.  And along those lines,  I have a few ideas of my own that I wish to pitch to the various network programming departments: Celebrity Mate Swap (this one would be cheap to make -- just put hidden cameras in the star trailers of some big-budget movie). American Anchorperson (a contest to find a replacement for Peter Jennings, with plot ideas loosely based on O'Reilly's Those Who Trespass). Cannibalism Factor (eating people for money). The Brown Noser (contestants vie for a dream job with a famous CEO -- but the joke's on them, because at the end of the series, SEC violations shut down the company and everybody goes to jail). The Buck Stops Here! (ambitious young people try for a slot in the Bush Administration -- the winner gets to take responsibility for the Plame leak, the missing WMDs, Abu Ghraib, etc. Anyway, just a few ideas -- steal them and I'll have Sly Stallone beat you up good! 1:23:15 AM     comment [] trackback []

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