Yes, But Is It Art?

The artist who made the Britney Spears statue is getting a lot of hate mail from the pro-choice and anti-choice activists over the depiction. But let's look at it as a piece of art. I'm only judging it from the photograph and I'm not a credentialed art critic, but the statue is both tacky and unintentionally comical.

But let's hear from the artist:

"This is a new take on pro-life. Pro-lifers normally promote bloody images of abortion. This is the image of birth," Daniel Edwards said of his work, to be unveiled at a Brooklyn gallery in April, months after Edwards' sculpture of Ted Williams severed head stirred up an artistic storm.
[...]

"I admire her. This is an idealized figure," he said. "Everyone is coming at me with anger and venom, but I depicted her as she has depicted herself - seductively. Suddenly, she's a mom."

His aim, said the son of a mother who gave birth to him when she was 17, was to stir up debate about a difficult topic that "is greater than the issues presented by either pro-life and pro-choice advocates."

Actually, there was no suddenly about it. Spears was pregnant for the usual amount of time.It doesn't strike me as an image of birth, because from what I know of the procedure, women don't give birth in the doggie-style position (36 hours in that pose would put a hell of a strain on the back). As for the "idealized...seductive" aspects, the choice of white clay allows the statue to echo images of Greek classic sculpture (a faint echo, but it is there, and since the Greeks sculpted idealized figures...well...okay); but the bearskin rug was a cliche when Burt Reynolds posed nude on one in the 1970s. No one has thought of the bearskin rug as a genuinely sexy piece of decor for several decades (with the possible exception of Ted Nugent, but let's leave his proclivities out of this). The statue seems like something a pregnancy fetishist would have in his home, if he lacked imagination.

Since the image doesn't read like genuine sexuality and doesn't read like a woman in birth (crowning head notwithstanding), what is it? I'm tempted to go with "some kind of joke"--a humorous riff perhaps on Britney Spears's hackneyed takes on sexuality and pregnancy, a satirical broadside at the various ways we objectify and fetishize the female form. I'd like to think that was what was going through the artist's head, but I don't feel that generous today. It's kitsch: motherhood kitsch, sexual kitsch. It simultaneously celebrates the two things that dull, unthinking men think that women are good for. It's crude, tasteless, chauvinistic, and has nothing of value to contribute to the debate the artist supposedly wishes to incite.

What is left is art, there's no question of that.

Weird

Apparently, this East Indian Muslim said the word "talaq" three times while asleep. According to the local clerics, that means he's officially divorced his wife. I don't really need to say much, except that this is the most bizarre bit:

The religious leaders said that before remarrying, the couple would have to be apart for at least 100 days and that the wife, Sohela, would also have to spend a night with another man and then be divorced by him.
PTI reported that the couple has been ostracized because of their refusal to abide by the decision of the village leaders.

Who made this rule? Some ancient cleric who saw in accidental divorce a shot at some sport nookie? I can picture the conversation. Cleric knocks on the door: "A man who wants me to score with his wife says talaq." "Talaq?" "What?" "Talaq?" "What?" "Talaq!?!" "Done and done, sir. Come with me, darlin'. You can have her back in the summer."

I guess this shows that it's not always a good thing when religious authorities get to decide who's married and who isn't.

V for Vendetta

I've been dumping on a lot of movies lately, and as many of you know, I hate a lot of things. But V for Vendetta compels me to positivity. I loved this picture. It's the best big budget film I've seen since Batman Begins, and my favorite of all Wachowski brothers movies (yes, I'm including The Matrix).

I won't reveal much story because I really want you to check it out if you haven't already. Those who know me can call me afterwards. Those who don't can geek out with me in the comments section. And those who know me and live in the same area I do should know that I am definitely up for seeing this picture again.

The Raiders Sign Aaron Brooks

The Raiders signed QB Aaron Brooks today. I like the move. He has mobility, a live arm, and some leadership qualities. Is Brooks the answer the Raiders are looking for? I don't know. But he should be fun to watch, and, because they're both scramblers, he'll be a big help if the Raiders choose to bring in and develop Vince Young.

The Next Ten Worst Sequels in Movie History

Okay, recapping 25-15

25. Godfather III
24. Jaws 2
23. Nighmare on Elm Street 2
22. Amityville II
21. Hello Mary Lou, Prom Night II
20. Star Trek V
19. Terminator 3
18. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
17. The Karate Kid III
16. The Exorcist II: The Heretic
15. The Cave Dwellers

Now to continue:

14. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Okay, the Ewan McGregor scenes were okay, and everyone loves to see Christopher Lee; but long term exposure to the Anakin/Amidala "I love you yet I cannot love you plot" has been known to kill housecats and small dogs. Check out the scene where Amidala's top gets ripped in half so that she can sport a Britney Spears-like look. That is the second worst skin-exposure-during-battle moment in film history. The worst? When the bad guy punches the hero of Future War in the face, and KNOCKS OFF HIS SHIRT!

13. Batman Forever. The sequel to this one is coming. Trust me. But this film hurt me. Susan Sontag defined camp as failed seriousness. What do you call failed camp? A film directed by Joel Schumacher. Taking the terminally, tragically divided Harvey Dent/Two-Face and transforming him into a generic psychotic thug is a deep and terrible crime against Batman. Further, the movie does nothing worthwhile with Chris O'Donnell. It's loud and garish, but dull. I ended up turning it off before I could get through it, finally catching the end several months later on cable. A big letdown.

12. Jurassic Park 2. I've never made it all the way to the end of this one. I recall a lot of pseudoscientific rigamarole between Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore, and a googleplex of stock disaster movie characters parading by; but after a while I turned away from the movie and looked outside because at least outside things, however mundane, were happening. I saw a man dragging his garbage to the trash and I ENVIED HIM. Piece of Crap.

11. The Mangler 2 This one I haven't seen, but when the director of the movie sinks to writing poorly edited third person defenses of the film in the imdb comments section, you have to know you're in for far more shit than shinola. A little tip, Mr. Wright: when Michael Bay defends his crap on imdb comments, he employs an alias. It doesn't stop people from making fun of him, but it gives people slightly less to make fun of.

10. Bad Boys 2. Some of my memories of this film get mixed in with the original Bad Boys, which contained similar footage of Will Smith running around with his shirt open or off while bathed in saturated yellow hues. (I suppose Michael Bay used the same lighting in a milk commercial or something and just kind of stuck with the style.) Most hateful scenes: the one where the two Bad Boys intimiate the prom date of one of their daughters (they pull guns on him); the gratuitious speedboat chase; and the Hummer crushing the shanty-town scene (people do live in those places, Mr. Bay). I'll say this for Michael Bay, the man can aim a camera. But his films seem to actively hate human beings so much that I really don't give a shit.

9. Under Seige 2. Yes, I know, the originial Under Seige was nothing special either. But Tommy Lee Jones gave a wonderful over-the-top performance as the villain in that one, and Erika Eleniak was easy on the eyes. Its success, sadly, made the sequel inevitable, so we got this piece of crap. Eric Bogosian is the baddie in this movie, and while I really like Eric Bogosian, I ended up feeling sorry for him. Was he thinking, as he read his crummy dialog, that given ten minutes with a laptop he could spin something much richer and more interesting. (Or maybe he was just thinking about the nice house this movie would buy, but we'll get to Michael Caine in Jaws the Revenge shortly.) Steven Seagal beats up a bunch of people on a train, then stops Eric Bogosian from using some satellites to do something mean to somebody. There's your fucking plot summary. Next film.

8. Halloween 5. Or was it 4? They run together after a while. The original Halloween was a touchstone in horror film history, like The Exorcist, Psycho, The Shining, or the first Hammer Horror Dracula. Done fast, cheap, and scary as hell, the Carpenter redefined the genre for the next twenty years. Unfortunately, it also provided commerical justification for this piece of crap. Michael Meyers escapes again and goes off on yet another rampage while Donald Pleasance (between this movie and L'uomo Puma, I'm gussing Pleasance had many, many college educations to pay for) fights to protect a girl with psychic powers who can see into Mike Meyers's mind, or something like that. In the end, Michael Meyers is trapped and once again defeated. Or is he?

7. The Final Conflict. Hey, I'm a big Sam Neill fan. From Reilly: Ace of Spies to The Piano, the guy really is superb, and he should be much more famous than he actually is. James Mason must have spotted the talent in him, because he recommended that Neill play Damien Thorn in the final (uh-huh) chapter of the Omen Trilogy. Neill is okay in the flick, but, oh, Roger Ebert says it best: "In addition to its opening sequence, THE FINAL CONFLICT has one other great scene involving a fox hunt and a plot by the priests of the Italian monastery to lure Damien away from the hunt and kill him. This scene is wonderfully staged and edited. But the movie is otherwise a growing disappointment, as we realize that the apocalyptic confrontation between the forces of good and evil is being reduced to a bunch of guys with Italian accents running around trying to stab Damien in the back." As with most other religious expressions, this film is probably best admired for its music. Everything else about it is pure bullflop.

6. Return to the Blue Lagoon. Okay, remember the original couple from The Blue Lagoon? Apparently, they died on their way back to civilization, but their child lived to be picked up by a passing ship. Sadly, this ship later starts to suffer from the plague, so to save the child, this woman gets on a lifeboat with her adopted child and her natural son and floats back to, BOING, the same island. This is a stroke of luck, because the previous tenants left their infrastructure behind. (I'd have broken it down to build a better raft, but that's why I'm alive and they're dead, I guess.) The mother then drops dead so that the way is clear for the two children to develop into adolesence, discover "bumps" (sorry, I flashed to that Dr. Who parody where the Master, played by the marvelous Jonathan Pryce, explains that his new breasts are, in fact, Dallek bumps, which can detect energy transmissions and...everything.), and otherwise follow the plot of the original film. A line from the MSTified version of Cave Dwellers comes to mind when I think of how they cast this film: "If you can look bored and speak haltingly, you're in."

5. Jaws the Revenge. Yes, this time it was personal, but not in the way the blurb writer meant. I hated this movie, and if I ever get my hands on the sonofabitch who greenlighted it, I'll... Okay, trip this. Remember the shark that Sheriff Brodie blew up in the first Jaws picture? Well, aparently that shark, or a relative of that shark, or a clone of that shark, or a shark who went to middle school with that shark, took offense and decided to hunt down the entire Brodie family. (Not that this involves a lot of hunting. There are only two sons and they both live on coasts. Now, if this fucking shark wanted to impress me, he'd have munched on Sheriff Brodie's shitball fundamentalist cousin in Nebraska.) Killing the first son is easy. He's local, and works on a boat. After that, though, the shark has to get the other son and Mrs. Brodie. How does the shark know where the other Brodie son lives? Bet you'll never guess. Go ahead. Try. Give up? Mrs. Brodie gets on a plane after her son's funeral and flies down to the Carribean, and the shark follows her! Evidently this shark, though bloodthirsty and bent on revenge, remains capable of exploiting his many connections with the upper echelons of the airline industry. Anyway, the shark starts harassing Mrs. Brodie's son, which makes it slightly harder for a local pilot (Michael Caine) to put the moves on her. Eventually, to prevent further death, Mrs. Brodie goes out to sea to sacrifice herself while having flashbacks to events in Jaws that she wasn't around to see. Caine and Brodie's kid fly out to rescue her, crash, but end up getting into the boat, shark notwithstanding. Then some random things happen that end with the shark impaling himself on the prow of the boat, roaring his death agony(!) At the end, the Michael Caine character threatens to tell another story, and everyone moves, leaving no forwarding address.

Why I'm Jaded About 2006

I'm sure I've brought up many of my reasons for looking at the 2006 elections pessimistically, but Kos wraps them up in a neat little package.

It's Contagious

Three reasons I'd like to visit Italy:

1) I can kinda get by in the language.

2) The culture, the history, the food. (Sort of a 2a, 2b, and 2c there)

3) They can't give me too much shit when they have a leader like this:

In a campaign that has largely avoided pressing issues, Berlusconi managed to win what amounted to an endorsement from President Bush and a rare opportunity to speak before the U.S. Congress early this month. Although Bush is unpopular in Italy, Berlusconi has used his friendship with the president to prove his importance on the world stage.

And many Italians buy it. They laugh at him, or roll their eyes, but they also, begrudgingly or not, admire his successes. He has managed to portray his many legal troubles, including calls Friday for yet another indictment, as a plot by communist judges and prosecutors out to get him. Even his embarrassing comments he later blames on leftist journalists out to get him.

"He's a megalomaniac," said supporter Giuliano Ferrara, editor of the Il Foglio newspaper, which is partly owned by the Berlusconi empire. "But he's also a great victimist. He knows how to act like a victim."

Berlusconi, whose hair seems to grow thicker and darker by the day, has acknowledged having face-lifts. A short man pushing 70, he often wears makeup and heels and sports a George Hamilton tan. He is known for making poor-taste jokes that often insult or embarrass world leaders and for grabbing headlines with comments such as saying he would abstain from sex until the election and promising to sail to Tahiti if he lost. A former cruise ship singer married to an ex-actress, he plans to release a new CD of his songs ahead of the election.

"I am the Jesus Christ of politics," he told supporters over a dinner late last month.

"I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."

And a few days before that, on a TV talk show: "We have worked a lot. Only Napoleon did more than me — but I am certainly taller than him."

Actually, the sailing to Tahiti thing sounds like win-win to me. But Italian politics sounds awfully American right now. (Right down to that Tahiti thing. Bush made a similar remark back in 2000.) A rich guy with no real thoughts runs on the I'm-With-Stupid ticket, achieves power, then spends all his time figuring out how best to remain in power, building a personality cult that, while not unversally effective, works for people dumb enough to fall for his okeydoke. My guess: Berlusconi will slither back into office again, allowing Italy to continue as a kleptocracy, just like us.

Bushism. Think of it as the political bird flu.

Silliest. Shooting. Ever.

Cyborg 2. Can't stop laughing. Just click the link.

Preach on, Brother Digby

I can't improve on this post from Digby demolishing the "knee-jerk left's" supposed hostility to religious Democrats. I volunteered for John Kerry and Al Gore, and I voted twice for Clinton. For Christmas, I bought my dad Jimmy Carter's most recent book, which we both like a lot. In the '88 primary, I pushed my mom to caucus for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Hell, I was even there for Mondale--the son of a preacher man. Where were the rest of you?

I've always thought the crap that we freethinkers get from people like Amy Sullivan, implying that we somehow intimidate Democratic presidential candidates into hiding their religious faith, was pure bunk. The freethinking left just doesn't have the numbers to intimidate any but the most enfeebled candidate, and over the years we've happily tossed votes to, gee, thousands of overtly religious candidates at all levels of government. (It's that or don't vote.) Much of the squeamishness some Democratic candidates have shown about discussing their religion stems less, I think, from fear of nonbelievers than it does from simple good manners. When I was a lad, not so very long ago, I was taught that well brought-up people didn't air their religious opinions among strangers. Such discussions, my parents said, made for itchy, brittle evenings. It's a pity this standard of etiquette has fallen on such hard times. But I don't think for a minute that John Kerry seemed uncomfortable with public piety because he feared anyone or wanted to hide his Catholicism; it was because his mom and dad raised him right. I appreciated his reticence because it recalled better times, when the winners of Presidential elections actually became President. (Ms. Vowell, that joke of yours is gold, pure gold!)

Manners aside, all religions in this country may be equal, but some are more equal than others in the public square. White evangelicals and fundamentalists have been bullying their way onto the airwaves and into political parties for the last hundred years. There has been little to stop them, of course. America has been white Protestant-friendly since, well, always really. But it wasn't that long ago that Catholics couldn't join country clubs in this country. The KKK had, and may still have for all I know, Catholics on their enemies list. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, does nothing to hide his Mormonism; but he seems every bit as reticent to talk about his faith as John Kerry was to talk about his. (The Christian Right doesn't like the Mormons, as a rule, and Romney needs their support in '08.) When Joe Lieberman was running for the VP spot on Gore's ticket, pundits asked whether people would vote for a ticket with a devout Orthodox Jew on it. My response: not if that's the way he's going to debate Dick Cheney. And somehow I don't think America would feel quite so comfortable with out-and-proud Buddhists, Hindus, or Muslims. (Does X take orders from Osama Bin Laden? What if Y reaches enlightenment just as the North Koreans launch their missiles? We put these questions to James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell tonight Hardball.) Many people who believe in minority religious faiths would have good reason to very twitchy talking about their faith in during an election campaign for fear of electoral failure, scorn, ridicule, and physical danger.

And as for atheists, well, George H.W. Bush's quote says it all:

I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

A very specific God. If Amy Sullivan wants to find out who has been making it hard for people of all religions--or no religion--to rub shoulders comfortably, she might want to recall the words of her Lord in Matthew 7:3: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

The Answers To Questions Nobody Asked

I don't know how big a movement it is, but it appears that a growing number of pharmacists want the right to refuse to serve patients whose prescriptions conflict with their religious beliefs.

"We are not dispensing machines," Rod Shafer, executive director of the Washington State Pharmacy Association, said, "We are professionals who have as many rights as anybody else."

No, they're not machines, but by refusing to provide medicines to people who legitimately need them, it seems to me that they're behaving unprofessionally. Maybe it's part of our pundit-infused culture, but we have a lot of people walking the Earth assuming that the demand for their opinions is brisker than it really is. (At this point, your friend and humble blogger eyes himself uncomfortably.) A pharmacist is free to publish his opinions about birth control or biotechnology or physician-assisted suicide in any newspaper, magazine, or bathroom wall that will accept them. If he feels so conflicted about what he's doing that he's uncomfortable in the job, this signals a moment for a career change. The clergy, I hear, takes people who enjoy dispensing religious advice.

Imagine if other professions started pulling this crap. Suppose you go to the drug store to pick up some cold medicine and a pack of condoms, but the only cashier on duty, a Christian Scientist, refuses to ring up either? Or how about a waiter at a restaurant who refuses to serve you a glass of wine or Coca-Cola because he's a Mormon? We could run things that way, I guess, but it would make life a much bigger pain in the neck than it really needs to be, and could prompt a good deal more religious resentment than a healthy society wants.

I don't deny that many people feel they have religious responsibilities, but they also have the duties associated with their jobs. If the devout find that their religious duties conflict with their work, they should seek what they regard as a more righteous way of turning a buck.

Declensions of Suck

Larry asks a simple but wonderfully complicated question. Why must people suck? I don't have an answer, but it might help things along if we break this question down, teasing out the variations of suckitude that permeate our species. After 2.3 million years of wandering around and asking each other for lettuce, we've come up with many varieties.

Epic Historical Sucking: Leading lights include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Milosevic, Torquemada, Nero, Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, Gilles De Rais, Countess Bathory, Vlad Tepesh, and many many more. Those who suck on this level share a number of nasty traits. They are utterly ruthless, see no value in the lives of others, and enjoy playing out their sadistic fantasies. Most of them also express absolutist sentiments about right and wrong, and most feel a need to surround themselves with an aggressive personality cult that raises them to the level of godhood. Will George W. Bush, who displays most of these traits, rise to this level of suckitude? We must wait and see.

The Mediocre: Examples include Michael Bolton, Christopher Cross, Kenny G, Kerry Collins (we've released him at last!), David Brenner, Aaron Spelling, Glen Larson, Bill Frist, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more. This is a large, but not the largest, category of suck, involving those who have reached a position of success in their field that their talents don't warrant. I'd hoped that George W. Bush would stay in this category, but he's much more ambitious than he ever lets on. If these people were less successful at eating up resources that could otherwise nourish the more talented, people might resent them less.

The Lazy: These people do the absolute minimum necessary to get by in life, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't often inhabit positions that can do us damage. Anyone, in any profession, can suck this way, which is really bad if you need new spark plugs in your car, new plumbing in your house, a good defense in a lawsuit, or a competent heart valve replacement. The masters of the half-assed job, the Lazy are ubiquitous.

The Spineless: Relatives of the lazy, these people always flinch at the first sign of danger. While this is sometimes a useful quality (A spineless Hitler would have been a lot easier to manage--"I want to kill the Jews and enslave the Russians, but, um, that's just me. What does everyone else think?"), it more often leads to disaster (the Democratic Party). The worst of the spineless encourage others to be brave on their behalf. I'm looking at you, Jonah Goldberg.

The Lickspittles: Often, those who are mediocre become notable for it by this route. These people are the Rosencranzes and Gildensterns of the world--slick, servile little friends to anyone who can do them the slightest favor. They are untrustworthy largely because, even if you're in the position to grant them favors, someone else is always in a position to grant more. Elizabth Bumiller is a lickspittle, as is Chris Matthews.

The Pious: Those who imagine themselves as on the side of that which is pure and good, while imagining that all others are degraded and evil. This kind of suckiness crossses all ideological lines, though it tends to be strongest wherever a clergyman is present. The pious can rationalize any awful deed they commit by invoking their piety. They're exhausting to deal with.

The Mingy: Those who delight in putting others through petty torments. Tall people who will seek out a short person in a movie theater and sit in front of them, hackers who write viruses for computers, urinators who piss on toilet seats, these people seek the attention of their fellow humans by giving them a small slice of hell. In countries ruled by people who suck on an Epic Historical level, the Mingy are the bureaucrats who take special delight in stamping DENIED on forms. In the corporate world, they're the people who haul you into their offices whenever you're a minute overdue from a bathroom break.

The Violent: Self explanitory. This applies both to physical violence and the crippling emotional violence common among certain cliques of teenaged girls.

The Duplicitous: Again self-explanitory. In the movie Excalibur, Merlin says that truth is the most important value for a knight, because every time a lie goes unchallenged, part of the world dies. That's more or less right. In our current politics, that part of the world is Iraq.

Now, for extra credit, class, match each declension of suck to its corresponding circle in Dante's Inferno.

Re: Impeachment

I've been listening to the debate about impeachment between Lewis Lapham and Harold Meyerson. While I see that there are enormous practical problems with it (President Cheney? President Hastert? How to get past a Republican congress? How to get 2/3 in the Senate), I still see it as something the Democrats ought to pursue. It may not confer any advantages on the Democrats for '06 or '08, but that's beside the point. The point to me is that, since High Crimes and Misdemeanors aren't spelled out in the Constitution, what we and future generations have to go on is precedent--how the statement has historically been interpreted to decide what is impeachable and what is not. It would be sad indeed, if future Americans were to look back and decide that lying a nation into war, torture, kidnapping, domestic spying, defiying the legislative and judicial branches, and degrading the checks and balances meant to secure the republic were unworthy of impeachment, while lying in a deposition about a blowjob or leaping into a congressionally set impeachment trap merited trial in the Senate.

UPDATE: Actually, Congress, not just congressional Democrats, should pursue the matter. There must be one or two Republicans in Washington who have enough dignity and self respect left to resent all the lying, all the stonewalling, all the criminal assaults on our liberty. Must be? Well, probably not. But it would be nice to think there are.

Goodbye, Collins

The Raiders cut Kerry Collins this evening to free cap space. I'd expect Collins to turn up in Baltimore, where his former mentor, Jim Fassel, is the offensive coordinator. It's too bad Collins never found a way to ressurrect his career in Oakland the way Rich Gannon did. He seemed like a decent guy, but we can't be too sentimental about a quarterback with a 7-21 record.

So the Raiders move on. To where? It's anyone's guess. If the CBA isn't extended tonight, free agency is going to be tough for everyone. Chad Pennington is out of the picture, and my guess is that Miami will make a stronger play for Drew Brees than we will. Daunte Culpepper is still a possibility, but Tui or Walter would have to start the first few games of the season for him at the very least. Or it could be that the Raiders make a play for one of the top three quarterbacks on the board in the draft. Who knows?

Still, the Raiders need a fresh start, and so does Collins. It's for the best.

UPDATE: Collins gets a reprieve. Boy I'm sick of being jerked around on this.

Are You Threatening Me? You Do Not Want to Face The Wrath of My Bunghole!

Neuropolitics.org has a survey up that seeks to discover the psychological profiles of liberals and conservatives. I took the quiz, and here's my profile:

Your responses are consistent with the following attributes: You have a lower propensity for large-group social bonding than most people. Higher involvement of your olfactory system in your relationships. You have a probable elevation in your dopaminergic activation system. Possible reduction in serotonergic activity and a corresponding reduction in dominance-seeking behaviors. Your right prefrontal cortex is more involved in your political decision-making than your left. Indicators of enhanced right prefrontal and bilateral temporal activity in humor detection. Prefrontal cortical regions are facilitating greater than average behavioral inhibition. Color preferences may indicate an enhanced dopamine level in your visual cortex. Responses point to a probable increase in activity in the right anterior cingulate and amygdala. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguity in your thinking styles, and a greater inhibition of your left inferior parietal cortex. Your responses indicated a tendency to classify facial expressions as more threatening, and an elevation in activity in your right amygdala. Overall, your cognitive style is shifted more towards your right hemisphere.

Okay, a lot of the neurophysical lingo lost me, but I do find it interesting that I see most facial expressions as threatening. Maybe that's why I always loved the Cornholio character on "Beavis and Butthead". IN MY COUNTRY WE HAVE BUT ONE BUNGHOLE! ARE YOU THEATENING ME? THE STREETS WILL FLOW WITH THE BLOOD OF THE NONBELIEVERS!

Sorry.

Neuropolitics.org also discuss their survey data in this article. I think their discussion is based on a larger and more extensive survey than the online version. (Either that or I accidentally skipped questions.) Anyway, it more or less matches my experience. I do prefer cats to dogs. I'm very territorial but despise heirarchies (which is why I put up with all the crap involved in being self-employed). I oppose great concentrations of wealth. I never participated in high school team sports, and I've always been deeply introverted. I have a general preference for more saturated colors, though my favorite color is the color of Johnny Cash and the Oakland Raiders--black.

The Twenty-Five Worst Sequels In Movie History (Well, Ten of them anyway)

Entertainment Weekly put up their list, which to the best of my knowledge is not available on-line (sigh). Here's mine:

25. The Godfather Part III. Who'd have thought the Corleone family could be so dull? I tried three times to make it through this movie before I gave up.

24. Jaws 2. The other Jawses will be along shortly, and this one is as low on the list as it is only because it's hard to remember any of the characters in it. (Spoiler: The shark eats a lot of them.)

23. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. This movie I remember mainly because they showed it at Tracy Empey's birthday party in 1986--the first birthday party I was ever invited to. (I also had a bit of a crush on Ms. Empey. She looked great in that Tzeitel costume in Fiddler.) This movie was an okay bit of amusement at the party, largely because we were encouraged to mock the proceedings as they unfolded on-screen. We formed sort of an impromptu MST3K, saying things like "When she said 'slip me your pickle, she didn't mean that.'" (Those who've seen the movie know which shot I'm talking about.) Fundamentally, the movie is just more cheesy than it is scary.

22. Amityville II: The Possession. No one has ever hated anything as much as I hated this movie. The only reason it's not higher on the list is that a higher position might encourage people to watch this miserable, steaming pile of offal. I usually step off when I see the opening credits, but sometimes I make it all the way to the casual incest scene. (The older brother asks his younger sister to take her clothes off so that he can snap photos of her and SHE JUST DOES IT?!? This family was diseased before it was possessed.) The movie manages the amazing trick of being both offensive and dull.

21. Hello, Mary Lou. Prom Night II. Less offensive than Amityville, but just as boring. I only saw it because they were running it before The Shining on a Halloween night some years back. It's basically a warmed over Exorcist plot (a trait it shares with Amityville II, come to think of it) where lots of thirty-year old teenagers get naked and die in the most boring ways.

20. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. While it is true that Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis were all pretty mediocre films (note to Paramount: forget the whole even/odd thing. One word titles just aren't lucky for this franchise), this one is the bad one everyone remembers and the reason why Dennis Miller's "Star Trek VI: The Apology" joke spread so far and wide. Nimoy says he warned Shatner during pre-production that the story was bad, but Shatner, in perhaps the world's first George W. Bush imitation, ploughed ahead, assuring everyone that it was going to work. Well it didn't. And the lousy special effects, forced by the rushed production schedule, failed to make the story look better than it was. Ugly.

19. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. A great moment in The Princess Bride is when the kid, hearing that the hero is dead and that the evil Prince is going to live, cries, "Jesus, Grandpa, what did you read me this thing for?" I felt the same way at the end of Terminator 3. This movie did not seem to appreciate that in Terminator 2 the stakes changed. We were no longer interested so much in whether John Connor died. We were interested in whether we were going to die. Once this movie tells me that John Connor and his girlfriend get to live while my future involves being launched into the stratosphere and spread over a wide area, I'm sorry but I really can't express glee. And the future's not even so great for John Connor. He and the rest of humanity get to fight an endless war against an implacable computerized enemy. If that's what survival is all about, who needs it? I don't mind depressing cinema. We're all headed for a pretty ugly end some way or other and it's worth some thinking about. But movie romances don't lend themselves to those kinds of thoughts. It's like ending a fairy tale by saying, "And then the black knight killed Galahad, raped the virtuous Maid Enyde, and drove her into a life of degradation, alcoholism and prostitution. She died, naked and filthy, in hovel, rotten with syphillis and choking on her own vomit. Sweet dreams." Yeah, thanks Arnold.

18. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Nothing of any importance really happens in this movie. None of the characters arouse more than a flicker of interest, and every time one theatens to do so, Jar Jar Binks jumps into upstage them. Now I'd have tolerated Jar Jar's presence if he'd been either narratively important or remotely competent. He was neither, so I wanted him to die in a messy accident.

17. The Karate Kid III. During the first Karate Kid movie, I'm sure all Mr. Miyagi figured was that he'd teach this dumb Jersey kid a few moves and get some household chores done in exchange. Okay, maybe a friendship would develop. Then the kid would go out into the world, maybe dropping Miyagi a postcard or e-mail now and then. A wedding invitation or godfathership was not out of the question. A life sentence of rescuing Daniel Laruso from a never-ending series of contrived problems with bullies probably never occurred to Miyagi. Or us. And they don't get more contrived than they do here. See, the guy who ran the evil dojo whose students lost in the tournament to Daniel in the first movie goes to a friend who promises to help him get revenge and his business back. This involves bringing in a karate ringer and then convincing Daniel to re-enter the tournament and defend his title. Then, the reasoning goes, the ringer can beat up Daniel in the middle of the ring for all to see, and in this way, Mr. Evil Dojo gets more students. (Why this would work, I don't know; but I'm not really in a position to speculate on the psychopathology of karate tournament spectators.) Since Daniel won't sign, however, the ringer has to threaten him, Mr. Miyagi, and Daniel's friend until Daniel signs. It's called extortion, and you can go to prison for it; but does anyone call the police, or have security cameras installed, or anything? Of course not. Instead it all comes down to Daniel learning an even more unanswerable karate move from Miyagi so that he can win the tournament again.

16. The Exorcist II: The Heretic. John Boorman has made some wonderful films, as had Richard Burton. This is not one of them. The movie wants to contemplate the nature of evil and the power of good, but ultimately it's more about seeing Linda Blair's nipples and Richard Burton's sweat. And the less said about James Earl Jones dressed as a grasshopper the better.

15. The Cave Dwellers. Like Satan, this film is known by many names--The Blade Master and Ator L'invincibile 2 among them. It's the story of a really boring old man who shows his hot valley girl daughter his invention, which is everything and nothing. Everything and Nothing must be defended lest a man with a bird shaped hat use it to do something evil. So the valley girl must go to Ator, who gained his fame in the first movie by fighting the worlds largest velour spider puppet. Mr. Bird Hat attacks the boring old guy's castle, but even though the old man makes no attempt to hide Everything and Nothing, Bird Hat can't seem to locate it. Valley Girl runs to the Ends of the Earth to find Ator, and well, the rest of the movie is about them coming back. Along the way, they fight mimes and guys in wicker armor, encounter invisible villains, duel heart eating cannibals, and battle the best looking man in the middle ages. Eventually, Ator hang glides over the castle, carpet bombing it to clear it of guards, then fights the climactic battle with Mr. Bird Hat. A fun movie if you have a bunch of friends or the MST3K boys to watch it with.

I'd go on, but these memories are all painful to one degree or other. The next ten at a later date. Cheerio!

Yeah, Imagine What He Can Do

Senator Ted Stevens claimed that he backed off a bill that would have increased the number and the size of oil tankers that pass through Puget Sound at the request of Mike McGavick, Republican candidate for Senate here in Washington. Said McGavick: "I'm pretty proud of the role I played in this. If I can do this as a candidate, imagine what I can do as a senator."

Actually, he didn't do much of anything. According to the Seattle P.I.: "Since November, the legislation has been all but dead, anyway, mostly because of a filibuster threat by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash." Stevens's withdrawl was basically a stunt, meant to make McGavick seem more effective than he is. Indeed, it raises a couple of questions about his candidacy. If McGavick could stop Stevens all by himself as a private citizen, what do we need him in the Senate for? And, if this was just a stunt meant to boost McGavick's candidacy, what would McGavick owe Stevens after the election? How many bridges to nowhere and repeals of environmental legislation would McGavick be obliged to support?

This could turn out great for Stevens. In exchange for giving up on a bill that wasn't going to pass anyway, he has a chance to install his own pet in a nearby state. Stevens could then stick his tanker deal in some omnibus legislation next year, and McGavick could vote for the whole thing without having to endorse the policy.

Where The President Learned Governance

From King Richard IV, of course:

Messenger 3: My Lord, news...

King: What?

Messenger 3: Lord Wessex is dead.

King: (raises his arms in triumph; Messenger 3 raises his arms too) Ah-- (lowers his arms) This news is not so good.

Messenger 3: Pardon, My Lord?

King: I like it not. Bring me some other news.

Messenger 3: Pardon, My Lord?

King: I LIKE NOT THIS NEWS! BRING ME SOME OTHER NEWS!!!

Messenger 3: Yes, My Lord!

(Messenger 3 leaves; King tosses things aroung angrily; Messenger 4 enters -- actually just Messenger 3 pretending to be a new messenger delivering new news.)

Messenger 4: My Lord, news...

King: What?

Messenger 4: Lord Wessex is not dead.

King: Ah, good news! (lifts his arms halfway; Messenger 4 does also) Let there be joy and celebration; let jubilation reign!

Messenger 4: Yes, My Lord.

In our version the part of Messenger 3/4 shall be played by Michael Brown/Donald Rumsfeld, and Lord Wessex will be played by either Baghdad or New Orleans, depending on the day. For U.S audiences we've retitled the story Mission Accomplished.