Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Jansport vs. Starbucks: FIGHT!
This is a little too complicated (not to mention expensive) for me to pull off, but you have to imagine that this ingenious little contraption is destined for mass production at some point. In two or three years, they'll probably have it small enough to fit on your belt or something. Freaky!
Valencias, Nectarines and Granny Smiths
The Daily Kos (here and here) has broken down the positions on certain issues by Al Qaida/Taliban, the Religious Right (the "American Taliban") and Liberals. It sounds like an unfair comparison at first, but it's all pretty much accurate. A sampling:
And, in conclusion:
Schools
Al Qaida/Taliban: Religious indoctrination. Run by clergy.
American Taliban: School prayer. Religious indoctrination (creationism and "intelligent design"). Private religious school system.
Liberals: Leave religious teachings to parents and sunday school.
Women
Al Qaida/Taliban: No school, must cover entire body, no rights
American Taliban: Government control over reproductive freedoms, hostility to Title IX, hostility to working women
Liberals: Equality of the sexes
Homosexuality
Al Qaida/Taliban: Eradicate them from society
American Taliban: Eradicate them from society
Liberals: Equality under the law
Torture
Al Qaida/Taliban: Torture them or chop off their heads
American Taliban: Torture them or homosexually rape them.
Liberals: No torture
Foreign Policy
Al Qaida/Taliban: World domination - do it our way or we attack
American Taliban: World domination - do it our way or we attack
Liberals: Peace and international cooperation
Executing Minors
Al Qaida/Taliban: Executing Minors OK
American Taliban: Executing Minors OK
Liberals: Find this to be a barbaric and embarrassing practice
Pop Culture
Al Qaida/Taliban: Hate it... kill it
American Taliban: Hate it... ban it
Liberals: Laugh at it... boycott it
Self-image
Al Qaida/Taliban: Belief in their own infallibility
American Taliban: Belief in their own infallibility
Liberals: Willingness to consider other viewpoints
God
Al Qaida/Taliban: God is on our side and will help us kill our enemies
American Taliban: God is on our side and will help us kill our enemies
Liberals: God may or may not exist and will not help us kill anyone
Use of Force
Al Qaida/Taliban: As a means of propagating a world view
American Taliban: As a means of propagating a world view
Liberals: As a last resort
Bush's War in Iraq
Al Qaida/Taliban: Love it!
American Taliban: Love it!
Liberals: It's a disaster
Press
Al Qaida/Taliban: Control of the Press
American Taliban: Manipulation of the Press
Liberals: Freedom of the Press
Free Speech
Al Qaida/Taliban: Anyone who disagrees with us is an infidel and must be silenced
American Taliban: Anyone who disagrees with us is a traitor and must be silenced
Liberals: Anyone who disagrees with us is in for a spirited discussion
Tolerance
Al Qaida/Taliban: Death to the infidels
American Taliban: Kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity
Liberals: Live and let live
Leaders
Al Qaida/Taliban: Subservient to will of its leaders
American Taliban: Subservient to will of its leaders
Liberals: Will served by Representative government
Fear
Al Qaida/Taliban: Life is scary and uncertain, seek refuge in moral absolutes and scorn those that threaten those absolutes
American Taliban: Life is scary and uncertain, seek refuge in moral absolutes and scorn those that threaten those absolutes
Liberals: Life is scary and uncertain, seek refuge in accepting that respect for our fellow man and the individual choices he/she makes is eminently moral
Marriage
Al Qaida/Taliban: Marriage is only between a man and a woman
American Taliban: Marriage is only between a man and a woman
Liberals: Marriage is between any two people who love each other
And, in conclusion:
We could keep this up all day, I suspect. Remember, the point isn't that the American Taliban is just like Al Qaida (though given the chance...), the point is that there's no reason that liberals would ever "root" for Al Qaida or the Taliban or any of the crazies in the Islamic fundamentalist world.
The reasons we hate the American Taliban are the same reasons we hate fundamentalists of all stripes -- they seek to impose their own moral code on the rest of society, and do so with the zeal and moral absolutism possible only from those who believe they are doing "God's work".
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
You won't like him when he's angry
Anybody remember The Incredible Hulk television series?
Aside from it being really entertaining, there also was and is a lot of respect for this show. For one thing, they didn't overreach by choosing to adapt a comic for live action at a time when television special effects could be quite crude (I'm looking at you, The Amazing Spiderman). They simply hired a massive bodybuilder, painted him green, and pointed him towards the balsa wood buildings and the stuntmen waiting to be thrown through them.
In terms of tone, they played it straight. No Adam West or Caesar Romero overacting here. They instead took a tested television actor (Bill Bixby of My Favorite Martian and The Courtship of Eddie's Father) and placed him in a series that took a tried-and-true plot structure from The Fugitive: Man on the run enters a town, befriends nice people, helps them out, almost gets caught, moves on. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It all worked very well, and I have fond memories of watching this show as a kid. But in terms of the pattern this show followed to success, I'm beginning to remember one more distinct element:
This was one sadistic program.
Oh sure, there were plenty of action shows in the late 70's/early 80's with heroes that were occasionally beaten up and stomped on. Hell, I watched a lot of them myself. But none of them seemed to unload on the hero with the consistency that David Banner endured week after week.
This was the nature of the beast, so to speak. The pain from beatings and torture (which, in turn, led to anger) was required in order for Banner to make his two script-mandated changes into the Hulk each episode. And, to be fair, the show would mix it up occasionally by having the change be caused by natural circumstances (like a fire) instead of a fight. But more often than not, Banner was unfortunate enough to face villains who knew how to put on the thumbscrews.
It's no secret that superheroes can be the source of major empowerment fantasies for the kids who read about them. Little geeks could read about them and dream about dispatching bullies in much the same manner. But most of these comic book heroes, when faced a formidable force, often battle in the most fantastic of circumstances. In the case of David Banner, we just have a good old fashioned ass whupping ramped up a couple of extra notches. I suppose this brought it home for kids in a way that other superheroes never could.
I remember one show in particular which, due to the details, may forever be burned into my brain. Near the end, the bad guys take Bruce out to a construction site. They beat the crap out of him then seal him in plastic then throw him in a hole then start filling the hole with cement! This is somewhat different than, say, the old Batman show. Even if there is the threat of Batman and Robin being buried alive inside a giant hourglass, everything is so silly that you can't take it seriously, even if the mode of death is inherently horrifying.
Perhaps I'm wrong and either (a) the beatings weren't as bad as I remember and/or (b) there were beatings just as bad on other shows. I did a quick Google search to find the episode I mentioned. I didn't find it, but I did find a synopsis for a Simon and Simon episode that also featured a bad guy attempting to bury some good guys in cement. So maybe I'm engaging in a bit of selective memory.
Still, I imagine some viewed the dispatching of bad guys by the Hulk as one hell of a cathartic experience. No wonder it lasted for five seasons.
(This can also be viewed at Blogcritics)
Aside from it being really entertaining, there also was and is a lot of respect for this show. For one thing, they didn't overreach by choosing to adapt a comic for live action at a time when television special effects could be quite crude (I'm looking at you, The Amazing Spiderman). They simply hired a massive bodybuilder, painted him green, and pointed him towards the balsa wood buildings and the stuntmen waiting to be thrown through them.
In terms of tone, they played it straight. No Adam West or Caesar Romero overacting here. They instead took a tested television actor (Bill Bixby of My Favorite Martian and The Courtship of Eddie's Father) and placed him in a series that took a tried-and-true plot structure from The Fugitive: Man on the run enters a town, befriends nice people, helps them out, almost gets caught, moves on. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It all worked very well, and I have fond memories of watching this show as a kid. But in terms of the pattern this show followed to success, I'm beginning to remember one more distinct element:
This was one sadistic program.
Oh sure, there were plenty of action shows in the late 70's/early 80's with heroes that were occasionally beaten up and stomped on. Hell, I watched a lot of them myself. But none of them seemed to unload on the hero with the consistency that David Banner endured week after week.
This was the nature of the beast, so to speak. The pain from beatings and torture (which, in turn, led to anger) was required in order for Banner to make his two script-mandated changes into the Hulk each episode. And, to be fair, the show would mix it up occasionally by having the change be caused by natural circumstances (like a fire) instead of a fight. But more often than not, Banner was unfortunate enough to face villains who knew how to put on the thumbscrews.
It's no secret that superheroes can be the source of major empowerment fantasies for the kids who read about them. Little geeks could read about them and dream about dispatching bullies in much the same manner. But most of these comic book heroes, when faced a formidable force, often battle in the most fantastic of circumstances. In the case of David Banner, we just have a good old fashioned ass whupping ramped up a couple of extra notches. I suppose this brought it home for kids in a way that other superheroes never could.
I remember one show in particular which, due to the details, may forever be burned into my brain. Near the end, the bad guys take Bruce out to a construction site. They beat the crap out of him then seal him in plastic then throw him in a hole then start filling the hole with cement! This is somewhat different than, say, the old Batman show. Even if there is the threat of Batman and Robin being buried alive inside a giant hourglass, everything is so silly that you can't take it seriously, even if the mode of death is inherently horrifying.
Perhaps I'm wrong and either (a) the beatings weren't as bad as I remember and/or (b) there were beatings just as bad on other shows. I did a quick Google search to find the episode I mentioned. I didn't find it, but I did find a synopsis for a Simon and Simon episode that also featured a bad guy attempting to bury some good guys in cement. So maybe I'm engaging in a bit of selective memory.
Still, I imagine some viewed the dispatching of bad guys by the Hulk as one hell of a cathartic experience. No wonder it lasted for five seasons.
(This can also be viewed at Blogcritics)
Saturday, July 02, 2005
I'm guessing Aronofsky stopped at about fifty, tops
I remember a dear friend and former roommate of mine coming back to our campus apartment one night and showing off a stack of maybe twenty pages with very tiny numbers crammed together in rows. He proclaimed that it was pi calculated to the whatever thousandth decimal and that it was very, very cool. Apparently he's not the only one to think so (via Boing Boing):
The article also mentions that supercomputers have so far calculated pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places and that it has become extremely useful in all sorts of sciences. My question is, given that the computer already has it calculated to such a length, is it really all that useful for one person to have so much of it memorized?
Of course, this criticism is coming from a man who prides himself in knowing the extensive resumes of the entire cast of Alien, so pots and kettles and so forth.
A Japanese mental health counsellor has broken the world record for reciting pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, from memory.
Akira Haraguchi, 59, managed to recite the number's first 83,431 decimal places, almost doubling the previous record held by another Japanese.
He had to stop three hours into his recital after losing his place, and had to start from the beginning.
Mr Haraguchi had already recited the ratio up to about 54,000 digits last September, but was forced to drop the challenge when the facility hosting the event closed for the night.
The article also mentions that supercomputers have so far calculated pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places and that it has become extremely useful in all sorts of sciences. My question is, given that the computer already has it calculated to such a length, is it really all that useful for one person to have so much of it memorized?
Of course, this criticism is coming from a man who prides himself in knowing the extensive resumes of the entire cast of Alien, so pots and kettles and so forth.
"The Homer of the Old South"
Though I just posted about the death of Shelby Foote, I just now came across his obituary in Slate. Very well done, and my favorite quote in it comes not from Foote but from Edmund Wilson and his book Patriotic Gore. It sums up well my initial impression after watching Ken Burns' The Civil War for the very first time:
The period of the American Civil War was not one in which belles letters flourished but it did produce a remarkable literature which mostly consists of speeches and pamphlets, private letters and diaries, personal memoirs and journalistic reports. Has there ever been another historical crisis of the magnitude of 1861-65 in which so many people were so articulate?
Friday, July 01, 2005
Keith David Quote of the Month: July 2005
There are just some movie titles that will make it's participants forever associated with them, for better or for worse. As many cigar chomping bad-asses that Keith has played, I imagine that the greatest share of movie goers will remember him as Cameron Diaz's stepdad in "There's Something About Mary". It's not that he has a huge role in the film, but he does play an important part in a memorable scene inside a bathroom. I'll refrain from a setup. Those who have seen it, know. Those who haven't, give it a rent, and all will become clear:
Charlie Jensen: Is it the frank or the beans?
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