A Couple of Hideous Films

To distract myself from the bad economy, the war in Iraq, and my own personal struggles, I watched two of the worst movies Hollywood ever made (and to think, neither one involved Michael Bay).

Let's take the second one first, a film with no conceivable reason for existing except, well, maybe as a stimulus package to keep the Southern California economy going, we have 1978s Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

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Janet Maslin, reviewing this film for the New York Times, described it as "a business deal set to music", and I can't dispute her. The object of the game here seemed to be to find as many people as humanly possible to sing Beatles songs, except, naturally, the Beatles. If you ever wanted to watch Alice Cooper, Steve Martin, or George Burns sing a Beatles song, this movie is talking to you. The plot is some nonsense about the band's retrieving instruments that the Future Villain Band (Aerosmith) stole from them, but the plot is no more important here than it would be in a porn movie. It's all about finding excuses, however strained, to sing Beatles covers. And oh do those excuses grow strained. I pulled muscles just following them. I expect that all the checks cleared, and that the cast did okay for their contributions to soundtracks and image sales for t-shirts and assorted swag. But honestly, who gives a shit?

From bad to worse we go. I can honestly say that Concorde, Airport '79 is a better movie than Monster A Go-Go, for this reason. Monster A-Go-Go lacked both a monster and any trace of a-go-go, while Concorde did have a Concorde (or a model of one anyway) and two airports (or models of them anyway). And from the looks of it, the action did take place in 1979. So the film is, if nothing else, a triumph for the Truth in Titling movement.

Here's a clip. It's in German, but you don't need to follow the dialog precisely to delve the multiple layers of insanity and inanity contained in this six-minute sample.



Yes, it's amazing, isn't it? Who knew you could just open the window of a jet at supersonic speeds, stick your arm out, and fire a flare to distract a heat-seeking missile. If only the Air Force had been hip to this, they could have diverted all that money for countermeasures into schools, hospitals, or urban renewal.

Other things I learned from Concorde:

Men appreciate it when their friends, after setting them up with women they fall in love with, inform them that the woman was a hooker.

That if I want to kill the person who could expose the dark secrets of my industrial empire, it is far easier to try to bring down her passenger jet by rigging a missile test to malfunction, getting a rogue pilot to chase the jet with a French Air Force F4 Phantom, and by planting a device which opens one of the plane's cargo doors and decompresses the passenger compartment than it is to hire a professional killer to shoot the one person I'm actually trying to kill in the back.

That heads of corporations who participate in major felonies always sign their names prominently on all incriminating documents.

That small private jets are nearly as fast as supersonic transports. (And to think that Lockheed never included that in the brochure!)

That old women with bladder diseases who get trapped in airplane bathrooms while the plane is spinning are funny.

That airline passengers feel intense loyalty to their flights. Even after someone launches missiles and combat jets against their aircraft, they'll still come back after a day's layover to continue their journey on the same plane.

That there was an era when someone thought a cameo by Charo was a selling point.

Yep. I watch them so you don't have to.

Productivity, Of Sorts

Yet another agent rejected The Ice Age. Knowing I have to fight through this shit doesn't make it easier. I just keep telling myself that it is desperately unlikely that the only three people in the literary universe who admire this book are Charles Johnson, David Shields, and David Guterson. There's got to be one with a press and some advance money and a decent distribution channel to the chain bookstores.

I also sent the publisher of my novella, "Escape Velocities", the second part of what will eventually be the next book, concerning the misadventures of the adult Derrick Raleigh. He'll either love it, or it'll offend the hell out of him. We'll see.

At the end of everything, I think I can pronounce Let Us Sit Upon The Ground to be a success. It got some media attention, and a couple of hundred people or so took it home with them, one way or another. I've stopped advertising it. I need the money for other things, like being alive.

Update: According to Google, I actually got 448 listeners just from Podcast Alley. I don't have the figures for the other feeds, but combined with Apple, it might just have gotten into the four figures. Not bad for a guy whose budget could be conveniently measured in cents.

The Sorrow and Pity Party

A few days back, bitterspice told me about a conversation she'd had with her sister in which her sister said she wanted Hillary Clinton to win on March 4th because she "hated" Barack Obama. She never came out and explained what bothered her so about Obama, but she really wanted Clinton to win and was angry that Obama was in the way.

All this struck me strange, but I guess that's where things are now. Clinton supporters are unable to fathom why anyone would turn her away for Obama, and Obama supporters are so caught up in their own feelings of inspiration that they're offended when they see anyone who isn't similarly impressed. Speaking as the supporter of a long line of primary losers--Edwards, Clark, Edwards, Harkin, Jackson, Hart, and Kennedy, I have but one thing to say to those in one can't who can't conceive of supporting the Democratic ticket if their candidate isn't on it: get over yourselves.

When the Washington caucuses came along, I hunted down the location and voted for Clinton. I was in the minority in that room, as usual, but I was fine with that. I certainly didn't despise the people on the other side. Theirs was a passion I didn't share, but if it came down to Obama vs. Insert Torturing Right-Wing Creep Here, Obama's easily my guy, and I'll listen to his inaugural speech with as much hope for the future as the last seven years will allow me to have. Besides, now that I'm done with voting, I figure I'm out of it. I'm content to let people who still have a vote decide where to go from here.

But, as James Wolcott pointed out today, other people can't seem to handle this simple idea:

The Sorrow and the Pity Party

Look, I understand the knocks against Hillary Clinton, truly I do. There are no flaming arrows fired her way that I haven't seen traverse the air before, no bill of indictment drawn up containing charges with which I'm unfamiliar. Reciting her sins and liabilities has become a familiar refrain, but if it's the Gregorian chant you live by, if you find Hillary Clinton such an insupportable choice for the Democratic nomination that you prefer to suckle your pride and idealism rather than soil your conscience should she be at the top of the ticket, fine, have fun with that. But, please, I beg of thee, could you at least spare the rest of us your longwinded, preeny, pious dirges?

"I have, in sorrow, come to the conclusion that should Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee, I will not cast a vote for president. I live in Virginia, which she has no realistic chance of carrying, so perhaps it takes little courage for me to make that decision, should it be necessary. But given that I am politically active, that I teach government to adolescents, that I encourage them to participate, it is truly in sorrow that I find I must make this decision.

"I will try to explain, if you care to keep reading, why I have made this decision."

Explain, the Kos Diarist proceeds to do, for numerous earnest, soul-searching paragraphs.

There's more. Read the whole post.

My feeling has always been that if you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul with the muck of real-world politics, then maybe political engagement isn't the hobby for you. It's not nice out there. People say mean, cruel, backbiting things, and sometimes they even fib a bit. And if you want to use the political system to get anything done to help people without power (a hard enough trick to pull off in any political culture), then you need to attract the attention of a cruel, backbiting, ruthless bastard whose interests coincide with your desires. In Star Trek terms, yes, everyone likes the Good Kirk, but he can't live without the Evil Kirk.

I voted for Hillary, at least in part, because I respect ruthlessness in politicians. I was an Edwards guy to start with, but he didn't last long enough for me to vote for him, and Hillary seemed the one willing to go to war to get the things Edwards talked about done. Maybe Obama can be more effective, but I don't know that he has the steel for it. He strikes me as a man who fears making enemies. Now maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he, like John Kennedy, really does have an enforcer's mentality underneath the idealistic patter. But I'm broke and need health insurance that actually pays for things, so when the caucus came to town I didn't feel as if I could work on the if-come. That's why I voted the way I did.

Still, other Democrats have other priorities. I respect that, and wouldn't think of telling anyone what to do. The animosity between the two camps seems misplaced. This isn't, after all, the Stalin-Trotsky split or anything. Hillary and Obama are politically very close to each other, so much so that they have to strain to find things to argue about. They're close in another way too, though, which Obama supporters might want to consider before they get too carried away.

If Obama is to make it to the presidency and survive in it, he's going to have to be every bit as ruthless as Hillary, or the opposition and events will consume him. To accomplish anything worthwhile, he'll have to do things that will put stains on his shining armor. He'll have to do things that offend the moral sensibilities of his supporters. The Corleone family will never be legitimate. Our Evil Kirk will never be exorcised. That's politics. That's life. Accept it or walk away, but spare everyone the wailing and gnashing of teeth. This country's in too deep for us to waste time striking poses of moral innocence.

Moving Up, Diagonally, In the World

From what I'm told, an interview with me will appear on KOMO AM 1000 tomorrow morning. People who wake up earlier than I do should take note.

The Makers of Fashion

Digby asks:

If people object to superdelegates deciding who our nominees should be I would certainly think they'd object to Maureen Dowd and the kewl kids, of all people, doing it. Do they really have our best interests at heart?

No. I'd say they've never given the slightest thought about our interests. They're much more interested in their own.

The rules for modern punditry aren't really anything new. Court gossips have been around as long as there have been courts to hold them, and I'm willing to bet that, once upon a time, pundits stood in the Roman forum to say, "Well, Cicero's second Philippic needed to get around the Circus Maximus in record time. Did it?" "I don't think so, Decius. I mean, it may have won the race by a nose, but it's still not enough to break Marcus Antionius's momentum. It was too shrill, I thought, too angry." Established pundits, like their Renaissance courtier ancestors, sit in a comfortable social position, not high enough to face disaster from ordinary political shifts, and not low enough to suffer the consequences when most political decisions go wrong. (Barring of course the collapse of their country or empire, but how often does that happen?). They see themselves as guardians of the world of power and prestige. And like the doorman at Studio 54, they bar entry to people who don't have the right look, who aren't trying hard enough, or are trying too hard to get inside the club.

The rules of punditry are simple and time-tested, and can be translated to any situation or political moment.

1. Never acknowledge that any event is new or unexpected. Admitting this would demonstrate that the pundit is out-of-touch, unaware, unfashionable, fallible. In the event something new does pop up, the pundit should have a ready excuse for his failure to notice: the weather, a stomach flu, or the CIA. Alternatively, the pundit should employ a tortured line of reasoning to explain that the new thing was always predictable and that he did in fact predict it, then swiftly change the subject or attack a convenient scapegoat: see Gellar, Uri or Friedman, Thomas.

2. When interviewing a politician on television, a pundit must be sure that the question he's asking will enhance his reputation as a tough, brash, ruthless truth-seeker. The exposure of actual truth is incidental. What matters is that the question makes the politician appear uncomfortable on camera. In the event that the politician comes off well, the pundit should immediately declare the politician to be an honest, straight-talking sort who holds up under rough questions, thus enhancing both reputations.

3. While a pundit should always appear to be in good humor, he should, like Sweeney Todd, seldom laugh but often smile. Actual jokes should be left to safe subjects--politicians already judged to be on their way down or who make the mistake of demonstrating obvious ambition or expertise, entertainment figures, and people who can't defend themselves. For guidance, read The Book Of the Courtier (Book II, page 117 of the Wordsworth Classic edition, for those following along.)

Next I will try to tell you , as far as my judgement shall show me, what the means are that the Courtier ought to use for the purpose of exciting laughter, and within what bounds, because it is not seemly for the Courtier to be always making men laugh, nor yet by those means that are made us of by fools or drunken men, by the silly, the nonsensical, and likewise by buffoons. And although these kinds of men seem to be in demand by courts, yet they deserve not to be called Courtiers, but each by his own name, and to be held for what they are.

Moreover, we must diligently consider the bounds and limits of exciting laughter by derision, and who it is we deride; for laughter is not aroused by jeering at a poor unfortunate nor yet at an open rascal and blackguard, because the latter seems to merit greater punishment than that of being ridiculed, and the mind of man is not prone to flout the wretched, unless they boast of their wretchedness and are proud and saucy. We ought also to treat with respect those who are universal favourites and beloved by all and powerful, for by jeering at these persons a man may bring dangerous enemies upon himself. Yet it is proper to flout and laugh at the vices of those who are neither so wretched as to excite pity, nor so wicked as to seem worthy of capital punishment, nor so great that a touch of their wrath can do much harm.

Remember that in America, and particularly on American television, vices include being caught thinking in public, showing an interest in policy, or demonstrating actual knowledge of a subject other than baseball or American Idol. An appetite for too much knowledge is a like an appetite for too much chocolate or alcohol, the sign of a seriously unbalanced and unpleasant personality.

4. A pundit's true loyalties aren't to principles or ideologies, they are to other pundits and the maintenance of their status as a class. Like the Soviet nomenklutra, pundits must always guard their fellows against demands for accountability and responsibility. While it is true that some crimes, murder, child molestation, or an overindulgent sympathy with the poor, can result in expulsion from the class, at no point should a pundit be blasted from the class for spouting nonsense, however laughable or bigoted it may be. It is this feature of pundit life that explains the longevity of William Kristol, Maureen Dowd, and Don Imus.

5. Because pundits, regardless of the ideological livery they wear, are well-heeled and insulated from the effects of most political policies, they judge political activity on the basis of stagecraft and deportment. For them, it is acceptable for a nation's fate to turn on a candidate's laughs, sighs, or smirks, and their criticism of a candidate's perceived faults as actors enables them to burnish their own credentials as mavens of campaign fashion.

6. The pundit class's attitude toward a person in power varies between abject sycophancy and sneering condescension. Sometimes this depends on whether the politician is up or down in the opinion polls, but there are longer term preferences to explore. Because pundits generally like to picture themselves as soap bubbles floating above the world's drabness, they tend to prefer politicians who, on some level, match or exceed their indifference. Politicians who succeed with the pundits are typically those who express a certain nonchalance in the face of what the base vulgar call life. Should these politicians express any interest in the world around them at all, they do it in small gestures, executed gracefully. The rest of the time, they maintain the kind of detachment that allowed George W. Bush to say, during a golf game, "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive." Sneering condescension, by contrast, is reserved for those who show any excess of passion, intelligence, or wit. Such qualities, in a powerful person, might lead that person to do damage to the status quo, or to call silly and hackneyed ideas by their proper names. Anger and indignation,regardless of provocation, are especially frightening, and bring swift condemnation from the pundit class.

There are more rules, but these are the chief ones. I can't say I know how to break the grip of these people on the national discourse, but I don't feel too bad. No one else in the history of civilization has either. So just sit back, relax, and accept that as the U.S. slides into its decadence, the pundits' voices, always in search of a powerful patron to flatter or a threat to slander, will only grow louder.

Hmm, I think I may have written a play about this...

Amy Sullivan, Pro-Choicedness, and Converting Evangelicals

Kevin Drum, who's gets along with Amy Sullivan better than many in blogworld do, offers this defense of her reluctance to accept the "pro-choice" label in an interview with Salon. (I'll quote Sullivan first, then the criticism, then Drum's defense.)

Sullivan:

Well, I don't like the [pro-choice] label. I guess the reason I wrote about abortion the way I did in the book is because I have serious moral concerns about abortion, but I don't believe that it should be illegal. And that puts me in the vast majority of Americans. But unfortunately, there's no label for us.

Amanda Marcotte:

Yes, there is. If you think abortion and other forms of contraceptive birth control should be legal—i.e. that women should have the legal right to decide when they have children—you are pro-choice. Even if you still reserve the right to judge them for it. This entire interview with Amy Sullivan, like all her talk on getting the evangelical vote, makes me tired. She appears to have a definition problem, basically, characterizing evangelicals as if they are all Bible-believing Christians, when most self-identified evangelicals are patriarchy proponents with a thin veneer of Christianity over everything as a moral justification.

And finally, Kevin Drum:

Actually, I think Amy's point is precisely the opposite. In the rest of the interview, she basically suggests that about 60% of the evangelical community is politically conservative and won't ever vote for a Democrat. But the other 40% will, and those 40% are worth trying to appeal to. And one way to appeal to them is to acknowledge their moral qualms about abortion even if you don't happen to share them yourself. Like this guy:

"I think that the American people struggle with two principles: There's the principle that a fetus is not just an appendage, it's potential life. I think people recognize that there's a moral element to that. They also believe that women should have some control over their bodies and themselves and there is a privacy element to making those decisions.

"I don't think people take the issue lightly. A lot of people have arrived in the view that I've arrived at, which is that there is a moral implication to these issues, but that the women involved are in the best position to make that determination. And I don't think they make it lightly."

That's Barack Obama, likely the next Democratic candidate for the presidency. All he's doing is acknowledging the moral dimension of abortion, while remaining solidly in favor of abortion choice, reducing unwanted pregnancies, and encouraging responsible sexual behavior.

Now, I don't know why Amy rejects the "pro-choice" label, and it's pretty likely that I don't agree with her reasons — largely because I don't have any moral qualms about early and mid-term abortion in the first place. But then, I'm not an evangelical, am I?

Okay, I don't have a problem with people trying to label themselves as they like, within the limits of logic, but Sullivan does lose me here. I'm pro-choice because, whatever my moral qualms about abortion may be (I don't actually have any, but bear with me), I don't think they should be the basis of legal restrictions on women's control of their bodies. Sullivan expresses more or less the same idea, so, well, I guess she's pro-choice, whether she wants to call herself that or not.

This does point to something larger, though. Sullivan wants to convince secular Democrats that they should allow their politicians to reach out to evangelicals, and maybe that is an option worth exploring. Considering that our last two Democratic Presidents, and almost certainly our next one, will be evangelicals, while secular Democrats have had, I dunno, Pete Stark of California, I wonder just how much more outreach to evangelicals we frigging need, but let that pass. To get evangelicals and secular Dems talking, Sullivan has to overcome a good deal of mutual suspicion. Speaking from the secular side of things, I can say that most of us are aware that we're a minority in the Democratic party, just as we are everywhere else in the U.S. outside The Skeptics Society and the Center for Inquiry. We're not especially well organized. We've seen one political party overwhelmed by religious zealotry, and we worry that the other one will be too, leaving us nowhere. The seven years of George Bush that evangelicals helped inflict on us have rubbed us raw. We worry that, in order to get the evangelical voters Sullivan wants to attract, the Democrats will easily and gladly sacrifice our interests.

Hair splitting on being pro-choice won't help allay those fears or establish trust. Trust begins by calling things by their proper names. If Ms. Sullivan is by any sensible definition, pro-choice on abortion, where does she think the harm is in saying so?

My Play's Trailer (Belatedly Added I Admit)

Idiocracy

Warner Crocker writes about Susan Jacoby's new book:

Great read with, I'm sure, some controversial facts. Susan Jacoby in the Washington Post takes on "The Dumbing of America." She looks at this from several angles including the march of technology and how it impacts politics. She lists three points along the path of anti-intellectualism: video, lack of general knowledge, and an arrogance about the lack of general knowledge. She's right to a degree that no one would want to tackle these issues in an election year. Where she misses is that, sadly, no leader anywhere will touch this at any point before or after an election.

She also misses, what to me is a crucial fourth point as to why we continue to dumb things down. Money, or rather the pursuit of more of it or the fear of not making any. In my business of the theatre we are in fact our own worst enemies, when it comes to the dumbing down of our audiences. We don't play certain plays because they are deemed elite or will be a poor seller because we have to protect the bottom line. And of course that begins a downward spiral that in the not-for-profit world was supposed to be taken care of by donations, which then became sponsorships, which then got strings attached, which then led to keeping the sponsors happy, which essentially kept the spiral moving ever downward.

As much as I agree that anti-intellectualism, which involves not just general ignorance, but also a pride in that ignorance, is spreading, and that certain people exacerbate the trend by dumbing things down, there's something else here. As much as I, or people in my social circle, value art, science, and intellectual pursuits, the sad reality is that most people feel as if they can get along just fine without them. In our culture, incentives to acquire knowledge beyond the math required to fill out a tax form or the English needed to follow an office memo are paltry. Ignorant people find jobs, make livings, meet spouses, and produce offspring. They can become TV stars and talk show hosts. They can be upwardly mobile, and they can, at times, make substantial fortunes. Sometimes, they even become Presidents of the United States. Given all this, I can see why people don't feel they need to put in any extra effort to learn more than they already think they know (even if they don't know very much).

That said, while the decision for ignorance over knowledge doesn't cost much individually, it is devastating collectively. Societies that can't tell bad ideas from good ones tend to lead the world in the manufacture of corpses. Considering the damage that we can do to ourselves and our planet in the 21st century, we need to find some way to motivate people to learn. Otherwise we might find life very soon becoming, once again, brutish, nasty, and short.

Hmm, I think someone wrote a play about this...

I've Returned

Why? Because there's such a thing as the right tool for the right job.

To Those Still Using This Blog to Get to the New One

I've just made it easier. The new URL for the Third Omnibus is www.jsomnibus3.com.

Meet the New Blog

I feel like it's time to retire the second omnibus. I've got new blogging software. It allows me to put together no only a new blog on the .mac space I'm paying for, but to easily update and link to my new podcast. Head over there for the details, and update your links.

A Real Stand-Up Babe

Bitterspice got me the second season of "The Rockford Files" on DVD. I'm a lucky man.

I'll Do Him Ten Better

Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly said of Casino Royale "Is Casino Royale the greatest Bond film ever? Let's put it this way: It will never be quite as quintessential as, say, Dr. No, the first and (to me) still the finest moment of Bond's Connery/Cold War/Playboy heyday. Yet if Casino Royale isn't a greater Bond film than that, it's a greater movie, period."

Bollocks, Mr. Glieberman.

I can not only name one Bond film better than Casino Royale, I can name ten:

1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. Goldfinger
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. Goldeneye
5. For Your Eyes Only
6. From Russia With Love
7. Dr. No
8. The World Is Not Enough
9. Licence To Kill
10. Thunderball

What makes these 007 films better than Casino Royale? They're shorter. Their plots are tighter. Their villains are more threatening. Their romances are stronger, and M doesn't have to call Bond two minutes before the closing credits to tie up loose ends in the story.

This takes nothing away from Daniel Craig's performance. He was very good. But let's not make his debut out to be more than it is: a promising start attached to a substandard story. I'm glad Craig did well, but I've seen many better films, not just on screens this year, but in my own 007 DVD collection. If it weren't in stores everywhere, I'd offer to let Mr. Glieberman borrow it.

We Live Here

I'll pass this on without comment:

Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — In a letter sent to hundreds of voters this month, Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., Republican of Virginia, warned that the recent election of the first Muslim to Congress posed a serious threat to the nation’s traditional values.

Mr. Goode was referring to Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and criminal defense lawyer who converted to Islam as a college student and was elected to the House in November. Mr. Ellison’s plan to use the Koran during his private swearing-in ceremony in January had outraged some Virginia voters, prompting Mr. Goode to issue a written response to them, a spokesman for Mr. Goode said.

In his letter, which was dated Dec. 5, Mr. Goode said that Americans needed to “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

“I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped,” said Mr. Goode, who vowed to use the Bible when taking his own oath of office.

Mr. Goode declined Wednesday to comment on his letter, which quickly stirred a furor among some Congressional Democrats and Muslim Americans, who accused him of bigotry and intolerance.

They noted that the Constitution specifically bars any religious screening of members of Congress and that the actual swearing in of those lawmakers occurs without any religious texts. The use of the Bible or Koran occurs only in private ceremonial events that take place after lawmakers have officially sworn to uphold the Constitution.

Mr. Ellison dismissed Mr. Goode’s comments, saying they seemed ill informed about his personal origins as well as about Constitutional protections of religious freedom. “I’m not an immigrant,” added Mr. Ellison, who traces his American ancestors back to 1742. “I’m an African-American.”

Since the November election, Mr. Ellison said, he has received hostile phone calls and e-mail messages along with some death threats. But in an interview on Wednesday, he emphasized that members of Congress and ordinary citizens had been overwhelmingly supportive and said he was focusing on setting up his Congressional office, getting phone lines hooked up and staff members hired, not on negative comments.

“I’m not a religious scholar, I’m a politician, and I do what politicians do, which is hopefully pass legislation to help the nation,” said Mr. Ellison, who said he planned to focus on secular issues like increasing the federal minimum wage and getting health insurance for the uninsured.

“I’m looking forward to making friends with Representative Goode, or at least getting to know him,” Mr. Ellison said, speaking by telephone from Minneapolis. “I want to let him know that there’s nothing to fear. The fact that there are many different faiths, many different colors and many different cultures in America is a great strength.”

Me Me Me Me

Time magazine, whose usefulness is declining by the second, named YOU (actually me, you pointless proles) the person of the year. And just to press the point, they put some reflective material on the cover so that you can check yourself out as you examine the cover. (Great. Yet another reason to feel inadequate in the face of Russell Crowe's cover on Vanity Fair. Couldn't those pricks from Time-Warner send along a makeup person and a lighting guy? And where's my green corn tamale and chardonnay? Don't try to slip Pinot Grigio in there instead, you fuckers, because I can fucking tell!)

It did, however, make me think of a stage rap from one of the members of Peter, Paul and Mary: (Peter, I think, and I'm paraphrasing)

In the 1920s, there was a magazine called Time, which covers a lot of ground. Imagine, all of time in one magazine. Wow! Then, in the 1930s, they came out with Life. Now life is a large part of time, but it's not all of it, just life. Then in the 1950s they came out with People, who are a smaller fraction of all of life, and an even smaller fraction of time. By the 1970s, the new magazine was Us. We won't talk about them; we'll only talk about us. Then the 1980s brought us Self. I think that by the 1990s there's only one place for magazines to go: ME. It'll be twenty pages of Reynold's Wrap.

I suppose in selecting its person of the year, Time earns credit for irony.

In the meantime, while all y'all are busy jerking yourselves off with the story that you control the world, people will keep dying in Iraq, companies will keep shipping your pension funds to Switzerland and the Caymans, and the richest 1% of the world will add another percent or two to their share of the world's wealth while you pay an increasing share of their taxes. Don't think of that, just look at the magazine--shiny pretty magazine.

Life's Soundtrack

Here's Bitterspice's list. Here's mine:

1. Opening Credits: Coast of Malabar—The Chieftans
2. Waking Up: Swagger—Flogging Molly
3. First Day At School: You and Oblivion—Robyn Hitchcock
4. Fight Song: Closing Time—Leonard Cohen
5. Breaking Up: Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard—Paul Simon
6. Happiness: All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be A Star)--R.E.M.
7. Life’s Okay: Mary Jane—Alanis Morisette
8. Mental Breakdown: Bittersweet Me—R.E.M.
9. Driving: I Won’t Back Down—Tom Petty
10. Flashback: Drunken Lullabies—Flogging Molly
11. Getting Back Together: Sky is a Poisonous Garden—Concrete Blonde
12. Wedding: 4:50 AM (Go Fishing)—Roger Waters
13. Birth of a Child: Piano Sonata in A, D. 959: 3. Scherzo—Franz Schubert
14. Final Battle: Don’t Get Around Much Anymore—Louis Armstrong
15. Death Scene: Better Version of Me—Fiona Apple
16. Funeral Scene: Tom’s Diner—Suzanne Vega and D.N.A.
17. End Credits: Mountain Song—Jane’s Addiction

I can't picture the sort of battle I'd wage during Louis Armstrong's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", but that's shuffle for you.

What Kind of Seducer I am

Bitterspice turned me on to this:

Okay. I'll take libertine, but lazy am I? Lazy, you pustulent crackwhores?!? I just finished my second book, which makes two more books than the current President of the United States has ever seen. The correct answer is "psychopathic"! Okay. Okay. Calming down. Will. Not. Kill. Tonight. Put. Away. Chainsaw.

Calm. Calm. Serene. Serene.

I learned that from James Coburn, who used it to settle Animal down on The Muppet Show.

I'm Back, Briefly Anyway

I know I haven't blogged in roughly 7.3 million years. Let me make up for it. Trolling around with nothing better to do, I found David Cross's bit on serial liar James Frey. It's damn funny. Check it out.

The War In Bill-O's Head

The holiday season foists its share of unpleasant rituals upon us--the annual declaration of the hot new toy, the obligatory footage of consumer driven idiots forcing their way into Macy's, any TV special with the ending "on ice", and the knowledge that the cousins from Kansas that you hate will once again fail to take a plane that has the decency to crash. Still, there's one miserable ritual that top 'em all, one fatuous, tenth rate holiday habit that, like the evil ring of power, binds all the others into an unbeatable monstrosity of idiocy. That's Bill O'Reilly's annual War on Christmas.

People deal with this unloved and unwelcome intrusion in all sorts of ways. Mocking it can be fun, especially if you're the owner of large amounts of whiskey. (A proposed drinking game: every time Bill O'Reilly accuses the secular left of a plot, you take a drink. During the silly season, you may not make it through his whole show alive.) Others try ignoring it, but I'll try something I rarely attempt here: sincerity.

Until O'Reilly started raising a stink about which holiday greeting Target stores gave their customers, I really didn't think about the distinction between "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays", or the less popular "Season's Greetings". I assumed that those using "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" were expressing good wishes intended to correspond to the specific, named holiday; whereas "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" were used to refer to the period containing the holidays Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. Each greeting had its uses, and no matter which greeting a shopkeeper or passer-by settled on when addressing me, I assumed it was just an expression of friendliness and general goodwill. I'd respond in kind, and go on my way.

What bugs me most about what O'Reilly has done in ginning up this stupid controversy is that he's taken what should be a congenial gesture and turned it into a club to beat his enemies with. O'Reilly's made it hard to hear "Merry Christmas" without thinking of him, and because of that, he's vexed the words. Now I'm not allowed to simply smile and say "Merry Christmas" back. Instead I have to wonder what the person's motive is in saying "Merry Christmas". Is the gesture still friendly, or is it some sort of test? If I respond with "Happy Holidays" instead, or simply smile and wave or say "Thank you", does that mean I don't back Christmas with enough zeal? What should happen to me then? Should I be made to stand in front of a church and subject myself to Stalinist self-criticism? Should I be set in stocks at a mall where people can throw ornaments and fruit cake at me? I never saw Christmas as a chance to force my fellow man to declare a side. In this I must admit Bill O'Reilly's imagination is larger than mine.

Only a man as thoroughly lacking in the Christmas spirit as O'Reilly is would take a holiday meant to celebrate universal brotherhood and pervert it into an occasion for smearing and bullying. You're a punk, Bill. You really are.

Merry Christmas.

I've Seen The Future, and It's Really Hackneyed

I stopped writing in the SF genre about eight years ago. It was an easy divorce, fueled by mutual indifference. I wasn't writing material that excited most SF editors (except for Dean Wesley Smith, editor of the sadly dead Pulphouse), and they weren't publishing material that interested me. So I moved on to literary fiction, and left them to figure out new ways in which people could download themselves into computers and threaten our civil liberties. Sometimes, though, like Lot's wife, I have to look back to see what I left behind. I didn't turn into a pillar of salt upon reading Orson Scott Card's new manuscript, Emprie, but I must say that I envy Mrs. Lot her good fortune.

The blurb for Empire promises a "chilling look at a near-future scenario of a new American Civil War." What Card provides is a tale of two soldiers, Cole and Rube (as their friends, Card says, like to call them) who, in the midst of the devastating war of words between right and left and the terrorist threat of Al Qaida, know that America needs to stop listening to professors and trust good solid military men who always act for the country's best interest and never surrender to anything, not even personal bias. In an introspective moment, Rube wonders whether he's as closed minded as the representatives of the "insane Left", his fellow Ivy League graduate students:

Am I like them, just a bigot learning only what fits my worldview? That's what he kept asking himself. But finally he reached the conclusion: No, he was not. He faced every piece of information as it came. He questioned his own assumptions whenever the information seemed to violate it. Above all, he changed his mind -- and often. Sometimes only by increments; sometimes completely. Heroes he had once admired -- Douglas MacArthur, for instance -- he now regarded with something akin to horror: How could a commander be so vain, with so little justification for it? Others that he had disdained -- that great clerk, Eisenhower, or that woeful incompetent, Burnside -- he had learned to appreciate for their considerable virtues.

Yes, because as we know, the most reliable judge of whether a person is closed-minded or not is the person himself. Just ask Dick Cheney. Under other circumstances, I'd assume that this passage was meant ironically. But after reading this passage, I came to doubt that its author could claim that irony was in his bag of tricks

"I want our babies to be as smart as you and as tough as me," he [Rube] said.

"I just want them to look like me," said Cessy. "Because having daughters that look like you would be cruel."

Their daughters did look like Cessy, and their sons had Reuben's lean, lithe body, and all in all, their family life was perfect. That's what he came home to every day from school; that was the environment in which he studied. That was his root in reality that kept calling him back from the brink of getting seduced into the fantasyland of academia.

Until Averell Torrent decided he wanted Reuben's soul.

Averell Torrent, by the way, is one of those nasty academics, decked out in this passage with horns and a pointy tail (or maybe a black cape and fangs. I can't decide which). Rube's impatience with academia, his tendency to believe that anyone who enjoys the life of the mind is either a fraud or a nut, mirrors Card's expressed feelings about the professors whose love of literary fiction denies Card's books respectability. Rube imagines he's avoiding the crimes of the extremists and elitists, but he commits their worst sin. He assumes that everyone who disagrees with him, or expresses an opinion he finds beyond the pale, is either sinister or stupid. The saner of us figure that some of our opponents are sinister or stupid, whereas others oppose us for perfectly legitimate reasons, from their point of view. But acknowledging that requires us to recognize nuance, and Orson Scott Card doesn't do nuance.

When Empire isn't occupied with putting black hats on Card's--er, excuse me--Rube's enemies and white hats on his friends, it's treating its readers as if they were fools. Take this passage, where the narrator demonstrates a command of the obvious so stunning it rivals Leslie Neilsen's response to the question: "A Hospital! What is it?"*:

They made their way back through the southwest gate, past the same MPs, past the emergency vehicles and military vehicles and the cordon of soldiers that were now completely surrounding the White House. Cole finally asked, "Even if you're arrested, you know they can't convict you of anything."

"I'm not afraid of being convicted," said Malich.

"What, then?"

"I'm afraid of Jack Ruby."

The guy who assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald before he could be tried. The guy who made sure that the tough questions about the Kennedy assassination could never be answered.

Gee, uh, thanks Orson. I'd never heard of Jack Ruby before...um...duh... What's next? "Malich saw a picture of Jack Nicholson. Yes, that Jack Nicholson, star of A Few Good Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Five Easy Pieces."

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Card would stick this line in here. To him, everyone's an idiot. Without him, people wouldn't know how to vote, to read history, or to tie shoes. And failure to heed his warnings and condemn his enemies brings terrible consequences...tsk, tsk...terrible:

"You look pissed off," said Malich.

"Yeah," said Cole. "The terrorists are crazy and scary, but what really pisses me off is knowing that this will make a whole bunch of European intellectuals very happy."

"They won't be so happy when they see where it leads. They've already forgotten Sarajevo and the killing fields of Flanders."

I wasn't so happy to see where it led either. This last quote was from Chapter Five, and the way I figured it, there was a whole lot more book to go after that. And no rube or intellectual, European or American, Muslim or Christian, Freemason or Elk, Mugwump or Whig, Republican or Democrat could claim happiness upon receipt of that news.

*Neilsen's answer: "It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."