It’s times like these when a list of the 101 hottest tattooed women in the world seems fascinating. Somehow, though, putting Angelina Jolie as #1 doesn’t seem very creative anymore. Not that I disagree with the choice.
Call it the ingenuity of American capitalism fueled by the Internet.
Call it a crass, insensitive insult to the departed.
Call it karmic retribution.
Call it a kinda funny, kinda stupid t-shirt.
I’m most likely done with Falwell commentary now.
It is tempting to give Jerry Falwell the same amount of respect in death that he gave to others–i.e., none. It is probably impossible to keep snide comments from slipping in throughout anything I say or write about him. But I say this with no particular malice or disdain, but rather as an observation I have made based on reality as I see it:
Jerry Falwell was a truly terrible, dangerous man, and the world is no better off now that he is gone.
Jerry Falwell did not create bigotry or intolerance, nor was he the first to turn Christianity from a religion of peace to one of war. He was just a spokesman, enabled by all of those who gave him a forum from which to spit venom. There is any number of similar hacks lined up to take his place, if those who would provide them that same forum will let them. If anything, Jerry Falwell was the scorpion:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.” The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?” Replies the scorpion: “Its my nature…”
Arianna pointed out something that had eluded me in my earlier post mocking Paris “Jailbird” Hilton–namely, that hopefully this will not be the only time that an absurdly wealthy, mind-bogglingly vapid aristocrat has finally been taken to task for repeatedly pissing on the rule of law. At least this is someone we’ve all seen naked. Honestly, I had merely thought of it as yet another distraction to keep us proles in line, but in a broader context, perhaps this is a harbinger of greater things to come. No, I do not mean a Condi Rice sex tape, I mean more accountability for people who think they can get all Judge Dredd or Joe Francis whenever they want. One can dream.
In the wake of the tragedy in Virginia, it is important to remember the following: Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
They often do so with guns.
All guns do is make the killing incredibly efficient. Remember a few years ago when that student at Imaginary State University killed 17 people in a thirty-minute garrotting frenzy? Or the Great Jambox-In-The-Bathtub Massacre at Make-Believe Tech? Oh wait, those didn’t happen.
I have to agree with the NRA, though. Guns aren’t really the problem, it’s the people who would take advantage of the efficiency they offer in killing that are the problem (at least, I think that’s their argument). The solution is either (a) kill anyone who might go on a mass killing spree to prevent said spree, or (b) fix human nature to prevent inter-person violence in the first place. Since option (a) quickly collapses under the weight of its own sarcastic irony, I guess we’re left with (b)–if improving human nature is the plan, though, then why is the NRA such a bunch of dicks?
Besides, can we not agree that, had Mr. Burns not been packing heat, Maggie never would have been able to shoot him?
What do you think, 1970’s sci-fi gimmick Zardoz?
Hey, Zardoz is a Republican!
As if any additional evidence was needed that Fox News is entirely staffed by dicks, here’s Eugene Volokh’s recap of their obituary of Kurt Vonnegut.
As happens when someone I admire passes away, I am at a loss for words, but I emphatically second the thoughts expressed here and especially here:
With luck, Vonnegut’s ideas and words may live on to influence a new generation of young people who can follow his example of the artist who encapsulated the feeling of pessimism of the intellect with an optimism of the will. Vonnegut’s love for the human species, while hating the violence humans inflict upon each other, sets a high standard for all of us to follow.
I had the fortune of hearing Kurt Vonnegut speak at the 1998 Rice University commencement ceremony. I can say this much: the world is a lot less salty now, and a lot less bitter, and that’s too bad.
Truth be told, I have never seen a single episode of America’s Next Top Model, and before reading about this today, I already would have said I never will. Now I’m too dumbfounded to even find the TV remote.
Ain’t nothin’ hotter than a dead girl. That’s the take-away message from this week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, in which Tyra “I care so much about my girls” Banks & co. created the most brazen bit of ad-industry misogyny ever to grace the reality TV genre: an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty.
The story has a link to the pictures, along with comments from the show’s judges about how beautiful the girls look pretending to be dead and mutilated (several also have fake bruises–in the sense that the bruising probably caused the death.)
As I have stated before, I do not have a problem with people doing what they want, so long as there is informed consent all around and no one gets hurt. I will assume, for the sake of argument, that all models depicted herein consented to have fake blood and brain matter splashed on the wall behind them and so forth. I’m more troubled by the fact that this is considered “beautiful” or “entertaining” at all. I have my doubts that this little presentation is any more likely to lead to more violence against women than the average episode of CSI (dead showgirl of the week). This is more like a slightly-higher-concept Friday the 13th–array a bunch of hotties, provide little emotinal connection, then knock them off in a series of unoriginal and dramatically unsatisfying ways. How many people genuinely find this entertaining?
I am somewhat reminded of the Coliseum scenes in Gladiator (“Are you not entertained?”)–after the film I recall remarking to a friend that our culture is still in decent shape, at least compared to what Romans found entertaining. I’m less sure now.
Ever since I started writing here, I’ve been wondering exactly what the hell I’m doing. While at times it is very cathartic to get things off my chest, I sometimes wonder if this isn’t just getting me even more keyed up. A post from Glenn Greenwald at Salon helped put some things in perspective for me:
The point here — as always — is to try to force the media to write about the stories it covers in a more critical and factual manner, to compel them to abandon the cheap and lazy cliches that otherwise frame everything they write. That is one of the most critical functions of blogs, and it is one of the goals that is realistically attainable by bloggers and their readers working together.
I have no illusions that anyone in the mainstream media pays any attention whatsoever to this blog, but someone out there is reading it (I think), so at least I’m getting to put my own warped take on things out there in the stream of consciousness. I will not stop until I have wiped out idiocy in its entirety. Or until I come up with something better to do.
I went to see the new movie “300” last weekend, and pretty much decided I was going to put it out of my mind as quickly as possible. Then the inevitable conversations, analogies to current events, etc. ensued, so now I have to write something down to get it back out of my head.
My favorite review (for its not-quite-intentional hilarity), is this one from Ben Shapiro:
The Spartans of “300” are brutal. The opening scene of the movie depicts a Spartan soldier, standing on a cliff overlooking a valley of skulls, inspecting a baby to make sure it is hardy enough. If the baby is too weak, we are told, it will be left for dead. This isn’t exactly civilized conduct.
But the Persian hordes make the Spartans look like members of a British tea club. Xerxes is an androgynous giant of a man with more body piercings than Christina Aguilera. His camp is full of decadent bisexual promiscuity. He seeks worldwide dictatorship and threatens Sparta with mass murder of its male citizens, rape of its female citizens, and use of women and children as slaves if Sparta fails to submit to his rule.
The Spartans, by contrast, say they are fighting for “freedom.” In which case, “300” is an old-fashioned battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of oppression.
And the left doesn’t like it at all. Many reviewers have panned “300” not on artistic grounds, or even on grounds of inanity, but on the grounds that the Spartans in the film are a bunch of jackbooted thugs; that the tyranny they fight is less tyrannical than Sparta; that good vs. evil is too simplistic. “His troops are like al Qaeda in adult diapers,” writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post. “Keeping in mind Slate’s Mickey Kaus’ Hitler Rule — never compare anything to Hitler — it isn’t a stretch to imagine Adolf’s boys at a “300” screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again.” A.O. Scott makes the obligatory racial point: “It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white.”
First off, the reviewer here states that “the Left” doesn’t like this movie “on the grounds that the Spartans in the film are a bunch of jackbooted thugs” and that “that good vs. evil is too simplistic.” He quotes two other reviewers (one from the N.Y. Post!), neither of whom say anything about these claims–one seems to be making the opposite, that the right would like this movie (Nazis were right-wing, after all), and a rather obvious racial comment. So how do we have any idea at all what the “Left” thinks, at least based on his selected quotes? What we do know, however (POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT), is that the Spartans kill newborn infants deemed to be “unfit,” that the Persians have threatened to kill or enslave all Spartans if they do not submit, and that the Spartans’ claims to be fighting in defense of “freedom” are not especially credible. In fact, the Spartans are ultimately betrayed by an “unfit” Spartan who would have been killed at birth had his parents not hidden him, and who grew up to resemble a Gollum and Quasimodo hybrid. He is shunned by the Spartans (although not at all rudely or unreasonably) and is wooed by the Persians’ kick-ass parties. Still, it begs the question of why he had to wait until adulthood to even ask for the right to exist from his own people. The Spartans of “300” are only the “good guys” if you seriously shut out and ignore most of their culture (then there’s the whole Council of Sparta subplot that makes no sense at all, but I’ll leave that aside.)
Calling this a classic “good vs. evil” story is really stretching it. Calling it a high-tech visual masterpiece with little or no substance is more accurate. Really, very few good stories perfectly state a good vs. evil dichotomy. “The Lord of the Rings” films were hailed a few years ago for their depiction of good vs. evil, but even those films presented the theme with a distinct lack of simplicity. (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT, ALTHOUGH IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIES BY NOW I DOUBT YOU CARE) The little-discussed fact of that story is that the hero, Frodo, actually failed in his quest. At the critical moment, evil won out, and he refused to destroy the Ring. It was only destroyed because Gollum was (a) even more under the sway of its evil, and (b) clumsy. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the greater power of good, but a more believable story in many ways (if you accept the existence of trolls and such).
But going back to “300,” if I have to choose between a despotic city-state that was safeguarding the cradle of Western civilization and a despotic empire that had goat-headed lute players and the villains from Stargate SG-1, I guess I’d have to side with Sparta. But don’t ask me to feel all noble about it. After all, they practice eugenics and take their marching orders from pederastic lepers. Just enjoy the dang movie, to the extent possible, and save the politics for the blogs.
