The Misfit

Canada: Progressive Paradise

2009-04-17T23:16:00.002-04:00

The deep blue oceans, the golden fields of prairie wheat, the majestic snow-capped mountain ranges, the public parks and playgrounds littered with used needles. Ah, Canada.

Snark aside, this is an awful situation, just awful. Here's a great speech by a popular Vancouver radio host, a liberal who actually spent a great deal of time and effort helping drug addicts and knows that giving them free needles is not just counterproductive, it is actively, morally wrong. As he puts it, if you knew a downward-spiraling alcoholic, would you give him a helping hand, or a clean shot glass?

Though I personally dispute the statistical claims that HIV infections have only increased in those places where the free needle program has been implemented. Doesn't pass the smell test. I mean, next thing you know, they'll be claiming that rates of HIV infection increase with greater availability of condoms, or something crazy like that. Oh, oops.

Hat tip to Kate at SDA, who has a great idea about how to easily put an end to this program. For, as the gentleman giving the speech also explains, the whole reason these absurd initiatives exist is because government wants to appear to be fighting the problem, but refuses to actually take any sincere human interest in or accountability for the people it claims to want to help. Make the politicians actually accountable for the destruction they cause and, watch out, they'll shut the needle exchange down overnight. Reminds me of my stance on parole, which I swear is totally serious even though nobody believes me: if a parole court judge frees a serious criminal, and the criminal rapes or murders again, the judge should have to serve out the new sentence alongside the criminal. Now, of course, this would have absolutely no change on the system, because we all know that Canadian judges take the dangers posed by criminals very, very seriously, as seriously as if the dangers would be posed to their own family, and would never, ever dream of endangering even one more innocent life by letting a potentially dangerous man free. Nope, not ever. Oh, oops again. But, hey, come on, 12% isn't bad! So things really wouldn't be changed, because the judges certainly would be willing to take those 12% odds with their own lives, wouldn't they?

"My Weekly Date with a Liberal"

2009-03-17T20:52:00.002-04:00

This is the absolutely best series over at Big Hollywood, even better than Steven Crowder. Jon David is a brave, brave man.

"Pretentious Stupidity"

2009-03-05T21:41:00.007-05:00

What always bugged me the most about the postmodern, deconstructionist drivel I was forced to study in college was not the trademark duo of impenetrable prose and lazy thinking. My frustration was that once you made the effort to get past all that and by sheer force of will figured out the great thinker's point, well, it was obvious. Not wrong, usually, just really obvious. Stupid obvious. Like, "a picture of a tree isn't itself a real tree" obvious, and I'm not even making that one up. That's why their writing is so muddled, because if they came out and said their point clearly, not only would their essays be a great deal shorter, but the reader's inevitable reaction would be, quite simply, "um, duh."
But lord, do they ever think they are clever. They'll come up with books and plays and entire artistic movements based on the earth-shattering observation that, say, actors are actually, you know, acting. As if it never occured to Shakespeare that the guy playing the king in Hamlet wasn't, in reality, his and the nation's sovereign. No, if only the bard had been a tad more clever, he would have had his characters reflecting on their own inescapable characterness, and then of course he would have written himself as a character into all the plays, too, right before throwing out the last few pages of each one, naturally, because endings are just so artificial.
But postmodern thinkers have no talent and no real intelligence, just a smug belief in their own cleverness, a cleverness which is nothing more than pointing out that which has always been obvious to everybody else and which has simply never been remarked upon before precisely because it was so obvious. They remind me more than anything of a ten year old who thinks he's a genius because he's figured out Santa Claus isn't real, then devotes his entire life to spreading the word. Maybe I'm nuts, but I much prefer the kid who plays along with the illusion, because it's fun for his folks and it's a good tradition. You know, the kid who isn't a giant tool.
These postmodernists are so consumed with stating the obvious about the artificiality of art that the actual truth of art, its beauty and its divinity, goes straight over their heads. But enough of my rambling, go here and read "Obstinate Orthodoxy" and have Chesterton explain it all. Very crudely excerpting:

So long as we are thinking of the thing as copied mechanically and for money, as a piece of monotonous and mercenary ornament,we naturally feel that the flower is in a special sense an artificial flower and that the moonlight is all moonshine.[...]But the moon is the moon and the rose is the rose; and we do not expect the real things to alter. [...] The moon will continue to affect the tides, whether we paint it blue or green or pink with purple spots. And the man who imagines that artistic revolutions must always affect morals is like a man who should say, "I am so bored with seeing pink roses painted on chocolate-boxes that I refuse to believe that roses grow well in a clay soil." [...] Falling in love remains radiant and mysterious, however threadbare be the thousandth repetition of a rhyme as a valentine or a cracker-motto. To see this fact is to live in a world of facts.To be always thinking of the banality of bad wallpapers and valentines is to live in a world of fictions.

Please excuse me as I anticlimax, because all of this is just a very long preamble for me to say that I really liked this review of Watchmen by Debbie Schlussel. She's getting attacked by "graphic novel" fans for highlighting their special brand of "pretentious stupidity," but I'm loving it. Because she's attacking exactly what I can't stand, this bizarre belief in one's own remarkable cleverness for noticing the obvious. As she puts it, "Guess what? We know there are bad people and that people are everyday people with problems. If you don't know that, and you think a movie like this is necessary to make the point, you're even more warped and stupid than I originally diagnosed." I love this part, too, when she attacks the perverted love for sexual violence against women, which its drooling fans justify in the name of edgy realism and sophisticated art:

You're a bunch of dummies with no moral compass, but liking this stupid comic book which pretends violence and the depraved is "edgy" or "sophisticated," makes you feel smart. [...] Quit your pretentious drivel about this being important because it's a "graphic novel." Memo to the creators of Richie Rich and Archie: You missed your calling. If only you'd called your product a "graphic novel" and added scenes of Archie raping Betty and Veronica and Jughead sawing off Reggie's Arms, you'd be in businesss. Dummies.

What she says goes not just for Watchmen, by the way, but for most of the movie industry ever since the seventies. We're so daring and edgy and sophisticated, we're incapable of making decent movies anymore. Argh. And so I end this post like I've ended so many others, thinking God Bless TCM.

p.s. yes, I did like the "graphic novel" The Dark Knight Returns. It's not hypocrisy, it's sophistication, deal with it.

UPDATE: Related, and very true :

[Our cultural critics'] highest words of praise are adjectives like
“shocking,” “disturbing,” “searing,” and “radical.” They swoon over films like
Towelhead, The Woodsman and The Reader that seek to wrong foot our moral senses
by presenting us with sympathetic child molesters and Nazis.
But the truth
is, any fool can pull off crap like that. It’s easy.
The single hardest thing
to do in the arts is not to shock or disturb or sear or radicalize—but to
delight.

My brilliant campaign commercial idea

2009-03-01T21:00:00.002-05:00

Yeah, okay, I don't know a thing about campaigning or commercials, this is just an ad I would enjoy. Start off with an old timey, Ken Burns style retelling of Davey Crockett's "Not Yours to Give" speech , then have an announcer or Bobby Jindal or someone say, "Giving your money to the needy is charity. Giving your neighbor's money to the needy is theft." Then close with the following words on the screen, read by the announcer, too: "Vote charity. Vote Republican."

I know, never gonna happen, but it would be great, and it would really drive liberals mad. And then if they made a big deal out of it you could run a follow-up ad with the stats about how you would never know it to hear Obama and friends talk, but Americans are by far the most charitable people in the world, and how Republicans are more charitable than Democrats. Maybe even throw something in showing a clip about Joe Biden talking how important and patriotic it is to pay high taxes to help the poor, and then flash on the screen while he's talking the numbers of how Biden gave a total of like five bucks and a smile to charity in his whole life.

Steven Crowder is my hero

2009-02-19T20:31:00.001-05:00

Hardliner

2009-02-03T13:17:00.002-05:00

So I was listening to the noon news on the radio, and the anchor was going through a bunch of the top stories, throwing in little editorial comments as he did. There was some story about how North Korea is apparently trying to make a missile that could reach America's coast, and the anchor laughed at it, saying how idiotic the North Koreans would have to be to even consider it, because, as he put, "a minute after that missile would hit America, there would be no more North Korea." Now, I am certainly not here to argue with that sentiment, believe me. But then, a few stories later, the news shifted to Israel's elections, and the anchor talked about how the recent Hamas missile attacks guarantee that "hardliner" Benjamin Netanyahu will get elected. And the way he said "hardliner," well, you had to hear it, the anchor's voice was dripping with disdain and criticism, as if he were talking about a serial killer or something.

I know I'm hardly the first person to notice this, but sometimes the incredible blindness of people about Israel is just astonishing. Nobody except the most extreme America-hating liberal and President Obama's closest friends (but I repeat myself) would think twice about simply ending the existence of an entire country if that country launched a single missile into America. But the Palestinians are literally launching dozens of rockets every single day, deeper and deeper into Israel, deliberately trying to maim and murder as many civilians as possible, and yet if an Israeli leader wants to fight back with only the one arm tied behind his back instead of both, polite society and the media and liberals all label him a "hardliner." If only the Israelis were even remotely "hardline" instead of absurdly and suicidally overcivilized, we would never have to worry about Hamas or their ilk ever again.

And I don't care how eloquent their justifications may be, nobody will ever convince me that anti-Israeli sentiment is anything other than good old fashioned jew-hatred.

Oh, no.

2008-11-06T00:39:00.005-05:00

Michael Crichton died. He was one of my favorites, and the only public intellectual who didn't make me ashamed of my alma mater. The greatest person to come out of the Harvard English department in a very, very long time. Except he didn't stay an english major for long: he got fed up and left. My favorite story about him is that he got so annoyed at his awful, pompous, talentless Harvard writing teacher that for one assignment he just took a George Orwell essay and submitted it under his own name. This is the kind of stuff students talk big about but nobody ever has the guts to do. But Crichton did it, and of course the hack teacher gave Orwell a B minus. That was it for Crichton, and so he abandoned his early major and switched to the sciences and pre-med. I just wish I would have been that smart and perceptive that early on, instead of realizing what I had to do only in my senior year once it was already too late, and having to do premed from scratch after graduation. Better late than never, though, and a heartfelt thanks to a great writer and a great man like Michael Crichton for inspiring me and so many others.

The whole conservative blogosphere is celebrating him today, linking to his famous essays and speeches mocking environmentalist religious hysteria. I was pretty much obsessed as an undergrad with the argument that humans have a fundamental need for religion and that even the most violently secular are driven to live out Biblical archetypes, and was excited to see that Crichton's anthropological research led him to the same conclusion. I would like a moment, however, to present a different side to his ideas. In my senior year, I put aside my secular myth kick and took up a new literary obsession. The Portrait of a Lady, Herzog, Light in August, The Plague, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Flannery O'Connor's stories, all pointed me in one direction. Here are Michael Crichton's thoughts on selflessness, on the importance of losing yourself in devotion to others. That was the message I took away from Henry James and co., and it profoundly changed my life. I never saw that Crichton essay until today, but please check it out and think on what he has to say, it sure is a lot shorter and more straightforward than my reading list was.

Anyway, all a long way of saying that I will miss him, and I hope he rests in peace.

It's not enough that Obama wins and Michael Crichton dies, but now, less than a day after I wrote about how I would love to move to Texas to be closer to people like her, Rachel Lucas announces she is moving to England! It's actually great news for her, and I wish her the very best, but it's been a rough day for America is all I'm saying.

I should add as an afterthought to my Crichton Orwell story that my writing teacher at Harvard was simply amazing. He was definitely a big exception to the rule. His secret? The class was actually all about none other than Orwell! Crichton's trick would not have worked with this guy, believe me. That's a danger with good teachers, though: they keep you under their spell (have I mentioned The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?) and prevent you from breaking out on your own. I'm glad that wasn't a problem Crichton had to worry about.

Just a Matter of Time

2008-11-04T22:55:00.002-05:00

It was, frankly, inevitable. The rest of the world has gone to pot over the last few decades - Britain and Canada both went from brave, proud, fierce gems among the nations to pathetic, cowardly, unfree faces in the socialist crowd in a mere fifty years. America, being America, held out for a while longer, but I am not surprised it's over.

The optimistic take is that the voters don't understand what they are getting themselves into, that Obama will be revealed for what he really is, and that the masses will rally to Palin in 2012. But I'm no optimist. I think Americans understand exactly what was at stake in this election. They are not stupid. I'm afraid it's worse than that. Today's America has, to borrow Kathy Shaidle's terms, more parasites than patriots. Or, as Rachel Lucas put it, if you'll excuse her language, the lazy assholes outnumber the selfish racists. Entire huge segments of the population are living off free money legally stolen from their betters, with no shame! Not even a hint of shame, not a moment's pause for pride, but with loud claims of entitlement, and all the while receiving a great deal of sympathy, far more sympathy than anything felt for those whose hard-earned money is being stolen. If people live like this, if we allow them to live like this, if we encourage it and promise it and reward it, can we truly be surprised that people choose it over a difficult, free, and independent life? It seems not even a million innocent babies being murdered every year is a cost high enough to dissuade them from wallowing in this imitation of humanity that is a government-owned life.

Kathy's post is a must-read, please don't skip it. We only disagree about one thing, as she takes comfort in the knowledge that at least she doesn't have to live in America. I will always love America, and will always live here if I have any say in the matter. I may now be in the minority that clings to guns and religion and to what Virginia congressman Jim Moran today called "the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it," but it is a great minority, the ideological and, more often than not, literal descendants of the brave men and women who once made America the greatest country in the history of the world. And if that means that I have to move to Texas and stay there, well, I very much look forward to it!

If you want a good idea of what is going to happen in the next few years, if it hasn't happened already, just read this and change the British nouns to American ones. Another must read, which I have linked before and which I find myself going back to over and over again, is here. The consequences, unintended or (I suspect) very much not, will be disastrous, and will, like all culture-destroying improvements, be irreversible.

It was a beautiful dream while it lasted.

Nutritious Dinner Update

2008-10-19T01:56:00.008-04:00

UPDATE:

(thanks a lot, guys)

Okay, now I'm mad

2008-10-13T12:22:00.005-04:00

The economy is tanking, the media's already there, people who dare question Obama are being compared to George Wallace, and I have so much work it's insane, but I was fine. Really, I was; there's nothing like a Virginia fall to remind you of how beautiful life is and to put everything in perspective.

Then I found out about this. The liberals have gone too far. You can rewrite political and social history all you want, turn FDR into the man who saved America from the Great Depression, turn LBJ into the man who saved the black family from dissolution, heck, you can even pretend that the Democrats didn't invent the politically-correct lending to broke minorities that caused this whole meltdown, but you. do. not. mess. with. Bette. Davis.

They will have to take TCM from my cold, dead hands. Heck, I would even man the barricades over the occasional Seinfeld rerun.

Mooooom, is dinner ready yet?

2008-08-31T19:02:00.003-04:00

So remember when Michelle Obama was whining about what a pain it was to fix her daughters a decent dinner?

Yeah. Well...

If Sarah Palin were liberal...

2008-08-31T05:44:00.002-04:00

Julia Roberts would already have won an Oscar for playing her.

Sarah Palin is NO Hillary Clinton!

2008-08-31T04:45:00.003-04:00

Please join my new facebook group.

When did Michelle Obama get a pseudonym?

2008-08-27T18:09:00.006-04:00

Haven't blogged in ages because school is keeping me busy, not to mention far away from my beloved TCM (except for one glorious day last week with Barbara Stanwyck, sigh).

I had to pop in for a sec, though, to point you to this modern feminist work of art. The only thing I have to add to Miss Fiano's take is that the self-centered bitterness of it all reminds me of my favorite Michelle Obama quotation ever, one that gets a lot less notice than the many, many others:

"that doesn't include the jobs that happen when you come home from work. Those jobs, quite frankly, that still fall predominantly on the laps of women, things like getting the laundry done, making dinner, nutritious dinners, because you can't just make a dinner. It's got to be a nutritious dinner grown with good, fresh, clean food. That takes time, trust me."

She actually has to feed her own children! And she can't just order up a happy meal, she has to struggle all the harder to make them a healthy dinner! Herself! The unfairness of it all! The ingrateful little bastards - what the heck is stopping them from putting down the bratz dolls and chopping up their own goshdarn arugula?

And so, you see, I'm not joking about Michelle's pseudonym. Motherhood in her speech, exactly like marriage in the article, is transformed from a blessing and a loving duty into a job. Why? Well, for the wife, it's to make it easier for her to come to terms with divorce, transforming it into a brave display of independence against a pointy-haired boss - you can't fire me, I quit! For the mother, well, if only there were as civilized a solution as divorce...

Speaking of infanticide, my favorite Joe Biden quotation: "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat."

"when you end a Flannery O’Connor story, you’re furious at her...

2008-07-19T16:28:00.001-04:00

because you say, 'Well what did that mean?!' You always think there were three missing pages where she was supposed to tell you what everything meant. And what you have to do is keep going over it and over it and over it until you figure it out. That’s the process of saving you. But Flannery really respects her audience. Now granted a lot of the audience misses the deeper level. But you know what, the ones who get it – it saves their soul."

I can vouch for that.

Two Quick Things

2008-07-01T19:10:00.002-04:00

1. Someone in America complaining about an oil crisis is like a vegan in a steakhouse complaining about a hunger crisis. Yes, you're gonna be starving, but only as long as you cling to your silly, privileged lifestyle. And Americans are going to have an oil crisis only as long as they value polar bears they will never see (and that aren't threatened anyway) over their own lives.

2. Michelle Obama spent this past weekend comparing gay rights activists to the black civil rights movement from slavery through Jim Crow. Everybody's distracting her children with criticism about how wrong and perverse her remarks were. Actually, she has a point. Gays today are being oppressed severely. Some, even a few as young as fifteen, are being murdered - hanged, actually - by state officials simply for being gay. Of course, this isn't taking place in America, but in Iran. Yes, the very same Iran Michelle's husband has pledged to cozy up to with friendly negotiations. Wouldn't it be just a tad ironic if America's first black president was the best thing that ever happened to a country that regularly lynches its citizens?

Insecure

2008-06-06T13:45:00.003-04:00

While at Harvard, I must have had five or six different passwords for their various systems, not to mention my ATM PIN. They were all fairly short and contained familiar words or codes that had meaning to me. As such, they were all very easy for me to remember, and I never had to write them down. Here at UVA, though, they're far more intense about internet security, and none of my passwords are permitted. All passwords have to be very long and have to contain letters, numbers, and symbols, in no familiar or oft-repeated pattern. Now, this might make my passwords a whole lot more difficult if not impossible to crack, but there's a problem. They thus also become absolutely impossible for me to remember. They're just long, random combinations of unrelated symbols. The only way I can log into anything is by writing all my passwords down and carrying them with me all the time. Which means if my wallet is lost or stolen, whoever has it has access to every last drop of info about me and can easily steal my identity and generally cause mischief. It is thus my carefully considered professional opinion that these so-called 'high security' passwords are in fact anything but, and serve precisely the opposite purpose: since you have to write them down and take them around with you, they are far more likely to be stolen than the short and sweet ones you easily memorize. I predict this whole system will backfire if it hasn't already. Then again, I also predicted a Lakers sweep, so what do I know?

Sign I'm not at Harvard anymore...

2008-06-05T10:26:00.002-04:00

A ROTC building! Actually on campus. I still feel a little stunned.

Sign I'm not in Canada anymore...

2008-06-05T10:24:00.003-04:00

Walked past a Barnes and Nobles yesterday here in Virginia. Brazenly on display in the front window? Mark Steyn's America Alone.

UPDATE: Welcome, fellow Steyn fans! You might like this old thing, or this one. Have a great weekend!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2008-04-19T01:11:00.002-04:00

I'll be away from the interwebs for a week or so. But not to worry, the blogroll has everything more than covered! I call your attention especially to Rachel Lucas, who has been absolutely blogging her butt off the past couple weeks and doing a great job of it, too. This post is my favorite. And don't forget to wish her a happy birthday on the 21st! I happen to remember the date because, to my everlasting honor and delight, it's one we share. The downside is that it's also the Queen's birthday, so most of the good presents (snow leopards, priceless jewels, small islands) get taken.

And please go and support Kathy Shaidle in her fight against Richard Warman. The more money you give, the sooner the slasher movie version of the trial will get made (tagline on the blood-soaked poster: "He messed with the wrong blogger..."). I almost feel sorry for the guy, I don't think he understands just what he's gotten himself into, dude is in for a big-league butthurtin' (though, just between you, me, and the CHRC, I'd venture that he's intimately familiar with that particular soreness already).

My Brilliant Light Bulb Idea

2008-04-19T00:54:00.003-04:00

Okay, so if I were a Senator (and let's face it, it's just a matter of time), I would bring one of them newfangled efficient lightbulbs to the floor and 'accidentally' drop it. The whole Senate would have to be evacuated because of the toxic mercury fumes, the networks would have no choice but to cover it. The reaction from the average American viewer: "The Senate was evacuated!? What was it - terrorism? Al Qaeda? Another anthrax scare? A sniper?Wait - what? What did he say? A lightbulb? The very same lightbulb that this Senate is forcing us to buy for the rest of our lives? Well, fuck that!" And that would be the end of that.

Old French(-Canadian) Whore

2008-04-05T22:58:00.003-04:00

Few things get on my nerves like modern moralizing. Not because it's nosy, or faddish, or state-imposed (though none of these help), but because it lacks one crucial element: morality. Whether the campaign is anti-drinking, anti-drugs, or even anti-sex, things always come down to one all-important concern: health. In other words, screw your immortal soul, just keep an eye out for your liver and any embarrassing rashes. In fact, I guarantee you that in this godless age, the Ten Commandments would make a comeback, and big time, if it could somehow be proven that worshipping false idols increases bad cholesterol.

All of which leads me to the latest example that grits my teeth: a public service announcement, paid for by the Quebec government, being run endlessly on local radio. The ad is about the importance of having a designated driver. Well, that's not quite right. It's about how designated drivers can still have hot one night stands. The ad in full: A beautiful woman (well, she sounds beautiful!) tells her girlfriend she met a stranger at a bar the night before, and he was a designated driver, which is just sooo sexy, so she invited him home - the rest is left to our imagination, but it's quite clear they didn't busy themselves drafting MADD pamphlets.

Look, I'm not asking that the government broadcast Dawn Eden's articles (though wouldn't that be nice!), but at the very least could they please refrain from actively campaigning for empty, soul-destroying one night stands?

I don't care if they test negative til the cows come home, I for one do not look forward to living in a province full of healthy old whores!

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon... because it went with her shoes

2008-04-05T22:26:00.003-04:00

Via ALDaily comes this article, on a much-needed book. Unfortunately, both essay and book seem to typify the often meaningless, always over-complicated academic writing of our time (and the review's author, judging by her bio, appears to be some sort of abortion lobbyist, disgusting). Still, it's all worth it, for two reasons. One, because it blames the hippies, and anything that blames hippies is all right with me. Two, because of this absolutely priceless anecdote:

"When I asked one of the young female interviewees who wore a pink-ribbon t-shirt what made her choose to wear the garment on certain days, I was seeking to understand whether there were certain situations, relationships and experiences that prompted her to show her awareness of breast cancer. Her keen reply took me by surprise: 'I think ‘it’s got pink in it, what goes with pink?' Actually I wear it with this skirt quite a lot …'."

Times have changed

2008-04-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

Indeed.

The Greatest Sentence Ever

2008-03-20T14:23:00.003-04:00

This was in The Montreal Gazette a couple weeks ago, I put it aside and forgot about it til now. The paper celebrated International Women's Day on March 8th with a feature on feminism. One of their articles, on page B4, included this sentence:

"In her second year of environmental and First Nations studies at McGill, Rea Fenger is not sure she would even have called herself a feminist before she started working on the Radical Vulvas project."

The world has come a long way in my short lifetime for a sentence like that to even be conceivable, let alone to be presented in such an entirely matter-of-fact, unremarkable manner. Ah, progress.

Lower down, on the very same page, just to show us that there are still some perversions which even our society will disapprove of, is an article condemning that great evil, stay-at-home motherhood. Choice excerpts include a call for "a life more challenging than the playground and the PTA," the contention that women who leave the workplace "are neglecting their duty to society in general," and the plea that these women not abandon the public world for "the private world of laundry and kissing boo-boos." I, for one, take solace in the knowledge that for all those incredibly selfish stay-at-home mothers who, let's face it, should have had abortions in the first place, there are brave, progressive pioneers like Rea Fenger, studying the effects of Friday night bingo games on the ozone layer, and radicalizing vulvas wherever she goes.

The weirdest part of that anti-motherhood opinion piece (by The Gazette's Peggy Curran, if anybody cares, and titled 'Get To Work manifesto takes aim at the backlash generation') is this statement, presented not as opinion but as fact: "Conservatives are already asking why society should spend resources educating women." Really? Funny, I know my fair share of conservatives, and while the movement to repeal the nineteenth amendment is gaining ground, I haven't heard anyone suggest women shouldn't be allowed an education. The very idea is profoundly unfair. Can you imagine, women banned from a place like Harvard? The very thought makes me furious - I mean, why should they get all the breaks?!

Announcement

2008-03-18T03:06:00.002-04:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging, I've been SUPER busy, working on lots of big non-bloggable projects and important career stuff, don't really have time to blog like I did when I started and was at school and bored out of my mind. I'll try my best, but you're really much better off reading Rachel Lucas and Kathy Shaidle and the other lovely folks in the blogroll anyway.

If I do post something soon, it'll be about how soul-numbingly awful No Country for Old Men is, I don't think I'll be able to keep that rant to myself.

Anyhoo, the announcement. I'm moving! To Virginia!!! I am beyond ecstatic. What a beautiful state, and I've always longed to live in the South, I set off in June and can hardly wait.

I LOVE This

2008-03-07T03:33:00.002-05:00

Absolutely classic. I doubt the citizens of Ontario will prove as defiant (or imaginative)...

The Nail on the Head

2008-03-06T02:43:00.002-05:00

Very insightful, very accurate observations in this post over at Church of the Masses, don't miss it.

Great Obama post

2008-03-03T00:18:00.002-05:00

Over at Rachel Lucas. Heck, all her posts are great, and if I'd be honest I'd do little more than link to her and Kathy Shaidle all day, but I'm trying to show some restraint here, folks. Anyway, my favorite part from this post:

remember how much fun it was when Hillary was First Lady to call her names,
criticize everything about her (hair, face, clothes, ankles, size of butt,
voice, ideas, you name it)? How easy it was and how only some impotent feminists
cried foul? Well I hope you got it out of your system because you won’t be doing
the same to Michelle Obama when her husband gets elected, unless of course you
like being accused of racism.

The part where I disagree, though, comes here: "it makes no sense to me, because you’d think minorities would be less offended by Whitey treating them the same than by Whitey treating them like sensitive little children who can’t take their punches like everyone else." Come on, Rachel, you know that can't be true - if it were, affirmative action wouldn't even be an issue because black people would be too proud to accept it. We all know that certainly is not the case.

Now that's more like it

2008-02-26T15:25:00.004-05:00

For a while there I felt a bit dizzy, looked liked the Canadiens might finally be getting competitive, a strange and foreign feeling. But then they reassure their fan base with one of their traditional trading day performances, sending a great goalie away for next to nothing and failing miserably in their attempts to do anything else. What, they couldn't lure Denis Savard out of retirement?

Will someone please wipe that stupid smirk off Jon Stewart's face?

2008-02-25T01:57:00.002-05:00

I haven't blogged for a while cuz the nice folks in the ol roll have it all covered, but that is just something I had to get off my chest.

Please watch this movie!

2008-02-18T02:35:00.003-05:00

I watched this on PBS tonight and was blown away. Hilarious, adorable, tragic, depressing, and hopeful all at once. Plus, some American election parallels as both dirty tricks and crying are involved. I couldn't find any info on when or whether it'll be on tv again or available in stores, but here's part one on youtube, the rest is up there, too:

It's a close one, today, folks

2008-02-16T21:47:00.003-05:00

It's really a toss-up as to what was the dumbest, most offensive sentence in this morning's Montreal Gazette.

Reading the opinion section, I was certain this was going to be the winner:

"The modern [Quebec] independence movement was born in Montreal's bilingual francophone intellectual community, inspired by hearing Martin Luther King and Gandhi speak about freedom, justice and liberty" - Georges Boulanger, "Pauline Marois and her problem with English," B7

Because, you know: MLK, Gandhi, Levesque.

But then I read this bizarre statement in the book review section, and was no longer so sure:

"I'd like to think of this as high praise and not offence: I don't think it's a book a woman could have written." - Kirk LaPointe, in a review of Charles Brock's Beautiful Children, I9.

What on earth is that supposed to mean??? In the reviewer's defense, he also praises Don DeLillo, the single worst author in human history, so he can't really be taken all that seriously, he probably doesn't even know how to read and is just one of those illiterate guys artfully bluffing their way through life. Come to think of it, that could make a pretty good story - the illiterate book reviewer. Not all that implausible, either.

Faced with no choice but to open this rag every morning, I sometimes wish I couldn't read!

Where round some mould'ring tow'r pale sharia creeps...

2008-02-13T02:33:00.004-05:00

A kerfuffle this past week. A Harvard student was unexpectedly denied entrance to the Harvard gym. The ensuing email: "Hey has anybody else been turned away from the QRAC recently because they instituted women's only hours on monday from 3-5 (also tu. and thurs. 8-10 AM)? Today I was forced to wait outside in the cold until 5 to get in because they wouldn't let me use 1 of the 10+ open machines.The policy seems sexist and discriminatory to me as there are no equivalent men only hours. Anyone know who I should get into contact with to complain about this new policy?" The debate barely got started before the Harvard Athletic Department released its official statement on the matter. In full: "These hours have been put in place for equality reasons. Whether it is for overall comfort or religious purposes we wanted to offer an opportunity for women to work out without the presence of men."

Left at that, this probably would have become yet another in a long line of arguments about what equality means, between people calling themselves feminists and other people also calling themselves feminists, and going nowhere. But it wasn't left at that. No sirree. Because, turns out, the Harvard Athletic Department's official statement was full of shit.

The real story came out shortly thereafter, in an email from a member of the Harvard Islamic Society. Her explanation: "Harvard Islamic Society, the student group on campus which I am very involved with petitioned for the women only hours (I think the hours are offered no more than once or twice a week). The reason for that is many hijabis (muslim women who wear the headscarf) really wanted to have an opportunity to work out in an environment where they did not have to wear the headpiece or the really long baggy sweats to cover up all parts of their body (as many of you may know, it is rather difficult and unpleasant). Our organization has been talking to the athletic department for a while now and finally, this year they let us do it. Interestingly, the interest was not only coming from the muslim women, but later on some jewish and christian women joined in. The purpose of institutions of those hours was not at all to offend/discriminate against men, but rather give an opportunity to women with certain strict religious obligations to work out in a more comfortable environment. "

So, yeah, wonderful. A great big thanks to the Jewish and Christian women who collaborated.

If only they would have extended this to the classroom as well. I can't tell you the number of mornings I would have loved to have been barred from attending my compsci lecture. "I'm sorry, Prof Roberts, but I just can't enter this room and impose my degraded Western values upon the other students. I'll be in the gym -um, I mean, the student lounge - no, wait, not from nine to eleven, damn - okay, just going back to my room, I'll copy Fatima's notes later."

It is a real shame, though, that working out while covered like Dracula at the beach can be "difficult and unpleasant." I wonder, how could a woman doing the stairmaster in a burlap sack feel more comfortable? A hard one, I know. I'll leave it up to Islamic scholars to figure out, though my guess is that the answer probably involves stones.

Discarding the Elderly in Quebec

2008-02-13T02:17:00.003-05:00

A friend's grandmother, in her early nineties, suffered a sudden illness and had to be rushed to the hospital last week. The staff blatantly neglected her and basically let her die. The doctor wasn't even ashamed. He told the lady's daughter outright that he wasn't going to waste his time on the old and infirm. You know, because a doctor has sworn to dedicate his life to healing the young and healthy. I don't have the family's permission to name the hospital or doctor, but this is just such a disgrace, such an evil, that I had to say something. I have to admit, though, I'm not surprised - once a society has lost its respect for life, it is bound to become a culture of death.

Away

2008-02-02T01:09:00.000-05:00

I'll be gone for about a week. Have fun with the blogroll!

"He doesn’t really mean it."

2008-01-31T19:55:00.001-05:00

Speaking of Libertas, this comment really resonated with me. There's a distinction between constructive criticism and outright contempt and, as the commenter explains, 9/11 showed us exactly where Hollywood stands.

The Lost Art of War

2008-01-31T19:36:00.000-05:00

Via the indispensable Libertas, an absolute must-read. Some of the best lines:

"During World War II, Hollywood stars like James Stewart and directors like Frank Capra enlisted in the military to combat dictators as willingly as Sean Penn and Michael Moore now tootle down to Venezuela and Cuba to embrace them."

"the movie business merely provides the most glamorous example of a greater change throughout our creative and intellectual communities: a decades-long drift toward an idiot radicalism."

"Though European intellectuals and their left-wing American acolytes are loath to admit it, the U.S. had already provided an excellent new rationale for that emotion. Our Founding redefined nationhood along social-contract lines that Europeans can still only theorize about. Our love of nation at its best was ethical, not ethnic. Our patriotism was loyalty not to race, or even to tradition, but to ideals of individual liberty and republican self-governance."

"The English Patient is such a visually beautiful film that the mind has to overcome the eye in order to comprehend its moral emptiness."

Anyway, I liked it, please check it out.

TIME magazine scam

2008-01-31T17:50:00.000-05:00

I talked a friend of mine into cancelling his subscription to TIME magazine, but I was foiled! When they found out he was serious about cancelling, they sent him another offer: instead of paying $247.50 for 56 issues, which they had been charging him until now, they offered all 56 issues for... $25. I still think that's $25 too much, but he accepted the deal.

This is an obvious scam to inflate their subscription rates for advertisers. Anyway, I just wanted to point this out to any other TIME subscribers - just threaten to cancel your subscription, and you can keep reading the mag for just ten cents on the dollar!

Black Math

2008-01-31T17:33:00.000-05:00

An actual example:

"A math lesson about probability had children reaching into a bag full of coloured beads that represented different races. "What the students ended up finding [is] it's not just blacks who are selling drugs or killing, it's other cultures."

[speechless]...

"I don’t know how people will look at this ethically.”

2008-01-31T15:22:00.000-05:00

Some scientists out there are doing such fascinating, wonderful work. Others busy themselves with fascinating, seriously disturbing work. It's like the old Seinfeld joke about the scientists who came up with seedless watermelon - what is the thought process of these people as they choose their careers? "Oh, screw cancer, screw alzheimer's - I wonder if I can turn an embryo into sperm? That would be wicked!" Don't miss Pogo's comment on the banality of evil. So, dear scientists, as the professor suggests, "You might want to think about it. You know, yourself."

Ideas for Judged Shootout Contests

2008-01-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

The NHL All-Star Game introduced a judged shootout contest this year, meant to be hockey's answer to the NBA All-Star Game Dunk Contest. Except hockey players, unlike basketball players, are incredibly lame and unimaginative, and the shootout contest was an embarrassing failure. Half the players didn't try anything fancy, and the ones that did couldn't come up with anything better than juggling the puck on their stick for a bit and then failing miserably at trying to hit it out of the air.

Now, I don't play hockey, but I know my Dunk Contests pretty well, so here are a few suggestions I came up with off the top of my head in less than a minute, all of which are way cooler than anything the NHL stars tried to do.

1. Have a teammate down on all fours halfway between you and the net, and jump over him on your way to shoot.
2. Carry a sticker of your team logo in one hand, and after you deke out the goalie and make him go down, slap the sticker onto his mask before putting the puck in the net.
3. Dribble a basketball in one hand (is this possible on ice? I have no idea) and handle the stick and puck with the other. After you make a move to get the goalie to go down, throw the basketball into the net before slapping the puck in.
4. Get some famous basketball player (Dominique Wilkins was in the rink, for example) to stand near the net. Flip the puck to him and have him alley-oop it back towards you. Knock it out of the air and score.
5. Put a chair on the ice and, after gathering some speed, jump in it so that it slides towards the goal, then shoot the puck and score from the moving chair.
6. Flip the puck up into the air as you approach the net, but then have it come down into your sleeve. Get it to bounce out from under your jersey and score.
7. Flip the puck into the air, but grab it quickly and pull a switcheroo to replace it with an exploding puck (do these exist? I have no idea). Use your slapshot to explode the fake puck, then score with the real one when everybody is freaking out.
8. Look really intense, speed towards the net, and make as if you're about to hit a huge slapshot. Then change your mind, leave the puck behind you, pull a flower out of your sleeve, slip it through the goalie's mask, and skate away.
9. Get a big stereo, start playing the music from Romeo and Juliet, and nail a triple axel on your way to score.
10. I don't know, how about trying to actually get the puck in the net, you freakin' hoser.

You don't say!

2008-01-24T13:10:00.000-05:00

How economically illiterate do you have to be to write about economics for The Montreal Gazette? I mean, seriously, is there some sort of test involved and anyone who can correctly chart a supply and demand graph is immediately fired? I ask because today's huge, front-page headline story is about the nefarious scandal that, and I kid you not, companies pass along the cost of higher taxes to consumers via higher prices. Apparently, these evil corporate fat-cats are greedily unwilling to go bankrupt and, perhaps even more chillingly, unable (unwilling?) to print their own money, insisting instead on prying it from our very hands.

Here's the story. The first three paragraphs are worth quoting in full:

"Quebec energy consumers - not just energy producers - are the ones who will end up paying for the province's new green fund. The bills are in the mail.

It wasn't supposed to be this way: When the provincial government imposed the country's first carbon tax last fall, it wanted producers to pay.

But just as oil refiners have already done, Gaz Métro started passing on the cost of the carbon tax this month."

Now, say what you will about a carbon tax, that's not the issue here; my focus is on how economically clueless you would have to be to be surprised that taxes on businesses get passed on to consumers. I mean, we're not talking advanced econometrics here, this is plain-as-day common sense. And yet, the front page story, the huge font, and "It wasn't supposed to be this way." Not to mention the reaction from confused, betrayed voters like Leonard: "They said consumers would not pay for this - and now here we are, paying for it." Incidentally, Leonard, if you're reading this, there's this bridge I've been just itching to get off my hands, call me.

Thank goodness for Pascal D'Astous, who, unlike many of his fellow Quebecers, is apparently not retarded:
"Pascal D'Astous, a spokesperson for Béchard, said yesterday the government never intended to compel companies alone to pay for the green fund.
'How could we ever have such a mechanism?' he asked.
'We're in a market economy. We could never prove whether or not the carbon tax was or was not part of their prices.'"

Oh, Pascal, you cold-hearted bastard, I think I love you.

"The Day Humanity Became Cheap"

2008-01-22T18:12:00.000-05:00

Interesting article on Canada's version of Roe v. Wade (except, even worse). I knew absolutely nothing about this. Oddly enough, it never came up in my Quebec-government-run history class...

"Shared responsibility"

2008-01-22T18:05:00.000-05:00

Hillary on mandatory universal health care, with the creepiest lines of last night's debate (and that's saying something):

"So I am adamantly in favor of universal health care. And that means everybody is covered. And we will have a system to make it affordable, but it will be required, as part of shared responsibility, under a new way of making sure that we don't leave anybody out and provide quality, affordable health care for everyone."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Funny? Or Just Sad?

2008-01-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

I can't quite make up my mind. The funny side: I got a kick out of some of the lines in this incredibly silly, occasionally outright dumb, article. I'm not even going to bother pointing out all the inanities, because it's a lot more fun if you read it for yourself and just let 'em reach right up and smack you on the nose.

The sad side: considering all the real problems girls and boys are facing these days, and the obvious desire of the author to get her serious thinkin' on and have something important and gendery to say, it's a frightening monument to her utter cluelessness that this is the best she can do.

Aw, nuts.

2008-01-22T15:14:00.000-05:00

Here. The Pats are probably going to win the Superbowl, too. Worst election year ever.

Movie Corner

2008-01-17T02:40:00.000-05:00

Been a while since I've done one of these, and I do watch an awful lot of movies, so I thought I should update you with the best four from the past few months.

The big news: I have a new love. Myrna, Jean, Irene, move over (well, not too far over!). My heart belongs to Ginger. Now I know, you're asking, what took me so long? The truth is, I always stayed away from Ginger Rogers movies because I associated her only with dance routines. This is because I, ladies and gentleman, am an idiot. TCM had a Ginger Rogers day a while back and Fred Astaire was nowhere in sight; hardly a shimmy to be seen, just one top-quality comedy after another. And Miss Rogers was just ... *sigh*. What a voice. What timing. What looks (in both senses of the word). What a dame.

Bachelor Mother

I loved it. Niven and Rogers are both so wonderful, and it's such a funny movie. It also has a great pro-life, pro-adoption message, in a totally non-preachy, indirect way (the plot centers around an abandoned baby being mistakenly forced into Rogers' care). This is around the point you begin to realize I have no idea how to review movies - my goal here is simply to post some good screenshots and to gush like a schoolgirl with a crush, and I'm fine with that. I will say one thing, which goes for three of the four movies in this post. I watch a lot of oldies and am fairly familiar with which ones are considered classics, but I had never heard of this one until TCM played it one afternoon. It's a small, old, low-budget, relatively unknown little flick, and yet it is infinitely better than just about anything Hollywood has put out in decades. With all the joy I get from gems like this, there is always a sadness, too, because I know that the world is changed, that sweet little movies like this simply will never - can never - be made anymore.

Vivacious Lady

Jimmy Stewart as young as I've ever seen him. Rogers at her comic, sexy, and romantic best. Gush, gush, gush.

And speaking of Jimmy Stewart...

The Shop Around the Corner

So obviously this is the one movie in the bunch that I had heard of before watching. Don't know why it took me so long to see it, considering I do like the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks remake (You've Got Mail). Turns out, this one is about a million times better. And I'm not just saying that because it's Hungarian! Also, as far as Jimmy Stewart Christmas movies go, a million times better than It's a Wonderful Life.

The Strawberry Blonde

Rita Hayworth may be the blonde from the title and Jimmy Cagney may be onscreen every moment, but, as terrific as they both are, don't let them fool you: it's all about Olivia, baby. There's this one scene she has with Cagney when she tries to fake a bad-girl persona that is absolute comic gold. The way she winks at him - priceless.

In conclusion, God bless Turner Classic Movies. And please watch these four charming little gems, I promise you won't regret it. Just stay away from Ginger, she's mine!

UPDATE: I immediately thought up an exception to my nostalgic rant above. One of my absolute favorite movies, one which proves that, even in the 70s, if you really put your mind to it, you could make a 30s masterpiece.

Paper Moon

Please, please see this. One of the best ever.

Predictions

2008-01-14T14:54:00.000-05:00

If my political predictions are at all like my football ones, then Fred Thompson is probably going to have a stroke tomorrow. But, because I still hope, and because I was right about the last two elections despite massive ridicule and disbelief (no, I have no proof for this, thus the need for this post), I'm going to jump on this bandwagon while it is still somewhat daring to do so.

Some of you know I started out supporting Giuliani, and I still have the cheesy cut-out membership card to prove it. It's not so much that Giuliani's changed as that I have, becoming more comfortable in my conservatism. And while I think Thompson has all of Giuliani's foreign policy toughness, he also has the cultural confidence that Giuliani lacks (or, as Giuliani would see it, that isn't all that important). Perhaps most importantly, unlike other social conservatives (genuine and phony) in the race, Thompson doesn't pander and he recognizes conservatism for what it is - a cultural movement - and not as a rhetorical tool, a political weapon, or a government program.

That Thompson isn't already a frontrunner is a mystery to me [UPDATE: see here], and extremely disappointing. If things will not soon change as I predict, and people like Huckabee, McCain, and Romney continue to stay ahead, then there is something seriously wrong going on here, people.

Incidentally, unlike some others, I don't think the presence of those three awful frontrunners highlights a major problem within the Republican Party - I think it highlights a major problem within the Democratic Party! No, bear with me for a sec, please. Huckabee is an absolutely perfect Democrat. Not that long ago, people like him - folksy, charismatic, populist, Christian, big-government types - were the leaders of the Democratic Party. The only reason he's a Republican is that the Democratic party has changed so much, become so morally bankrupt, that they don't care how big-government, how liberal, a person is - if he thinks that killing babies might be wrong, he must be mocked and excommunicated. McCain, too, would make a wonderful Democrat, were he not staunchly pro-military. Again, the Democratic party has become so twisted of late that this position, which until very recently came standard for Americans, is enough to disqualify him outright. As for Romney, well, he's just slimy, nothing to say there. To recap, in an only slightly different, slightly less crazy alternate universe, Huckabee, McCain, and Lieberman would be slugging it out for the Democratic leadership and the chance to face Thompson in the general. Instead, in this crazy mixed up world of ours, we have the best Democrats facing off againt the best Republican in the Republican primaries (and, as an inevitable result of the Democratic party's decline, three completely unqualified nobodies facing off in their primaries). So really, the only way to fix the Republican party is either to fix the Democratic party first or, the more likely scenario in my view, for the Democratic party to fade into America-hating irrelevance and the Republican party to split up into two or three new parties. Or, most likely of all, none of this happens and I'm exposed as clueless yet again.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments here, to get an idea of until just how recently it was that Democrats were actually, you know, not totally deranged, see Charlie Wilson's War.

Bring Me the Head of Patrick Crayton

2008-01-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

Argh.

The only thing keeping my television alive this morning is memory of last week's performance of Midnight Train to Georgia on the greatest show ever, 30 Rock. If it wasn't for that recent reminder of the joy that television can bring, I would have thrown my remote through the screen around the start of the fourth quarter.

Reactionary

2008-01-14T14:32:00.000-05:00

Ambivablog has a very interesting post up (as always!), which somehow reminds me of the David Warren piece Kathy Shaidle linked this morning. The line of the day comes from one of my favorites, Evelyn Waugh, as quoted in the Warren article:

"'I refuse to vote for those [persons],' the late Evelyn Waugh is said to have once said, of the British version of the Conservative Party. 'They never set the clock back a single minute.' "

"I had half-expected a combative, missionary-style interrogator. I found, instead, a limp clerk who was just punching the clock

2008-01-13T02:57:00.000-05:00

She had done it dozens of times before, and will do it dozens of times again. In a way, that's more terrifying."

Terrifying, yes, but also strangely hilarious. Maybe it's because I gave up on Canada a long time ago and nothing it does, not even this straight-outta-comintern thought-crime tribunal, surprises me. So yeah, this whole process is chillingly evil and all, but the way the woman reacts and jots down notes, I'm sorry, it just cracks me up.

Things that make Harvard professors sad

2008-01-08T02:32:00.000-05:00

Happy Republicans. Oh, and also genocide. Scroll down for the complete list from one of Harvard's biggest bigshots.

Ellen Goodman goes beyond clueless, reaches for creepy

2008-01-07T20:04:00.000-05:00

The article wanders all over, because it's not exactly a clear thinker we're dealing with here, but the gist of it is that she's very worried that more teenage girls might start, horror of horrors, actually thinking twice about whether abortion is the most fundamental right for women since the vote. She is then taken to school by a letter-writer here, though with Ellen Goodman this isn't really a fair fight, even if the writer is only fifteen.

How Not to be Interesting

2008-01-07T19:30:00.000-05:00

I don't trust these Michael Lewis/Malcolm Gladwell/Thomas Friedman types, what with their multiple orgasm interviews with the latest Genius Who Sees In A Whole New Light That Will Change EVERYTHING, but something did jump out to me in this piece, if only briefly. I was hoping that the broker would pack up and join the Marines or the priesthood or something, not just transition to a slightly less money-grubbing version of his old job. Anyway, the line that drew me in:

"One day, someone may look back and ask: At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, how did so many take up financial careers on Wall Street that were of such little social value?"

Now what kind of writer poses such a fascinating and important question, only to drop it instantly and not even attempt to address it? Well, at least we learned the groundbreaking truth that you can't predict the stock market!

Minor Reorg

2008-01-07T19:08:00.000-05:00

Sorry I was gone for a while, spent New Year's week in one of my favorite places, the Clearwater Public Library. I'm not joking, either, great library. Also drove right under the Ron Paul blimp. Imagine, if it had come crashing down right then - what a way to go.

Anyway, just a quick note that I redid my links. I took some friends down because their blogs are more private and I didn't think strangers who come here should find their way over there. Also took down Instapundit, because he messed with Moxie, and nobody messes with Moxie. Now, without my link, watch his traffic plummet over the next few days.

I got this Chapters gift certificate for Christmas, which I mention only to note that everything at Chapters appears to cost more than twice as much as its Amazon counterpart.

We're in a heat wave now, so all the snow on the roof is melting and sliding down in huge, thunderous, life-threatening chunks. And the melting water dripping off the roof makes it sound like it's always raining. And our entire house is enveloped in a thick fog. That last one is actually pretty cool. Well, happy new year, everybody!

Spoiler Alert: Atheists bitter, annoying

2007-12-27T16:02:00.000-05:00

Ever complain about how Hollywood is just overrun with Christian moralizing? Yeah, me neither. Then again, neither you nor I write for the Canadian press. I would say the guy is a moron (okay, I still will), but he's more likely writing in blatant bad faith (um, pun kinda intended?). In Hollywood, he concludes, "even the gentlest criticisms of church and faith are touchy." Right... because I can't for the life of me remember a movie in which believers were portrayed as intolerant backwards hicks, hypocriticial moneygrubbing sinners, sinister mafia killers, close-minded churchgoing repressives, immature naifs ripe for sexual awakening, child-raping closet-cases, mindless robots, or zombie monster alien sadists from another dimension out to harsh our mellow - can you?

The real story here is the atheist columnist's incredible bitterness over the recent box-office success of a small handful of pro-faith movies (movies which until very recently had to be independently financed, with Hollywood only reluctantly getting in on the act as it finally realized money can be made from movies which don't blatantly insult their audiences), and the terrible showing of the hugely-hyped, viciously anti-Christian Golden Compass movie. Also, his feelings are apparently still hurt from reading Frankenstein in high school (I just thanked God he didn't start ranting about Brave New World while he was at it!).

And did he really have to go and ruin the ending? What a jerk.

If you'd like to read about faith and film from someone who actually knows what she's talking about, see here.

UPDATE: A relevant list.

Christmas Rant - Profanity Warning

2007-12-23T03:48:00.000-05:00

I just spent an entire evening with a person who drives a hybrid Lexus. I am not in a good mood.

I have refrained from vulgarity in this blog so far (well, more or less). Well, I have just about had it this Christmas, and maybe I've been reading too much Rachel Lucas (though, to be honest, there can be no such thing), but the gloves are coming off right now. I apologize in advance for offending your sensibilities.

So, have you spoken out about how commercial Christmas has been getting lately? Have you commiserated with friends over the loss of the true meaning of Christmas? Have you rolled your eyes at all the advertisements and looked reproachfully at the people standing in line for hours at the stores? Have you written a letter to the local paper, advising us to remember that the season is about love, not gifts? Perhaps even suggested doing away with presents entirely, or giving them to charity instead?

If so, I'd like you to do something for me. Look around your house for something Christmasy, but not too commercial. Something really true to the genuine spirit of the season. A pine cone, a candy cane, an ornament, a cross, a little Baby Jesus figurine, whatever you see fit. Anything works, as long as it's pointy. Now, what I'd like for you to do is, I want you to take that object, and I'd like you to please SHOVE IT UP YOUR BUTT, YOU ANNOYING RETARD.

I swear to God, the next time I hear someone, full of smug, holier-than-thou condescension, complaining about the commercialization of Christmas, I will take their I-Pod (because you just know they have an I-Pod) and I will shove it so far down their throat they'll be crapping cute little earbuds into the new year. You do not even want to know what I'd like to do to this guy (hint: it involves a razor-sharp credit card, and his nipples).

I think I finally snapped when my local paper's idiot cartoonist drew Santa's sleigh with a Visa logo on it. How awfully clever! How subversive! How original! Hey, local cartoonist: GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Folks, you know what? WE GET IT. WE KNOW. Christmas is not about presents. It's about Jesus, and being with family and loved ones, and about love and kindness and all sorts of other wonderful, non-commercial things. But there is nothing wrong with giving people presents. IT'S NICE. You are not being a pawn of the capitalist system if you give someone a Macy's gift card; if you think so, I'm very sorry to say, but you are an annoying killjoy dumbass. EVERYBODY KNOWS being with those you love is the most important thing. But, if you can afford it, giving people stuff is also - I loathe to repeat myself - nice. I really enjoy buying presents for the people I love. Getting something neat makes them happy, and seeing them happy makes me happy. And, presumably, vice-versa. Deal with it, you jerkoffs.

Reminds me of that dumb Frank Capra movie (no, not that one, this one). Nobody actually thinks work is more important than those you love. Nobody actually thinks toys are more important than those you love. But you work because you need to support those you love, and if you've got some extra left over, you buy them toys because it makes you happy to see a smile on their faces.

I am willing to concede that the criticism of Christmas commercialism may have been valid the first time, perhaps even the first dozen or so times. Not anymore, not by a longshot. I would even go so far as to say that today, well past its millionth iteration, it has lost all trace of sincerity. I honestly do not believe the people making these complaints truly give a damn about the true meaning of Christmas. I think they are sad, bitter, lonely, unloved, quite possibly deranged individuals who are deliberately trying to ruin the holidays for the rest of us. In a word, grinches. Partly to display their superiority, partly because the sight of happy, well-fed Americans and Canadians (in a world full of starving Africans!) makes them sick.

So, to all those complaining about how Christmas is being ruined, here is my message to you. You want to know what really ruins Christmas? Assholes complaining about how much Christmas is being ruined. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. And Merry Christmas!

Jesus: So Hot Right Now

2007-12-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

Let me start out by saying that, despite my love for Flannery O'Connor, I know very little about Christianity. Not much more than I've picked up from the occasional Christmas song and the Chronicles of Narnia, and that's about it. In short, I'm not the first person you'd come to if you wanted to learn the fundamentals of the faith, not by a long shot. But that's exactly what I had to teach a couple weeks ago.

I was supposed to tutor this Korean kid in American history, which I know (more or less...). But there was some kinda mix-up, what with his parents not understanding English and me not understanding Korean, and so I found myself teaching him world history instead. And, as it happened, the chapter his class was working on was The Rise of Christianity. I gave it a shot, I figure why not - as Evelyn Waugh put it in equally absurd circumstances, it's amazing what one can teach when one tries.

Dude didn't know a thing about Jesus. Not. A. Thing. Never heard of the crucifixion or resurrection or anything. So I had to teach him. I wish I could show you the scrap paper, with my hastily-scrawled stick figure Messiah (sure, drawing stick figures is easy, you might say - but try drawing a stick figure Jesus on top of a crucifix! No simple feat, let me tell ya), my Jew-Christian diagrams, my Old Testament-New Testament bullet point comparisons, I'm telling you, it was great. Anyway, I enjoyed it, but I don't think it went through.

The best part is what he wore, around his neck, every single day, to each of our lessons: yep, you guessed it, a cross. A shiny silver one. So when I mention Jesus' name for the first time and meet a blank stare, I figure maybe I was speaking too fast, so I slow down and point to his neck and say, "You know, Jesus Christ." No hint of understanding. Rather flummoxed now, I ask, "Why are you wearing a cross if you don't know who Jesus is?" Now it's his turn to look at me like I'm an idiot. His reply? "Oh, this is just for fashion."

UPDATE: Well, at least I'm not the only teacher ignorant about Christianity. What a relief!

Very Interesting

2007-12-14T17:44:00.000-05:00

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Canadian law, to put it mildly, but the Supreme Court just came out with a pretty darn interesting ruling you could talk me into liking. The case is about some Orthodox Jews, but, with some luck and a bit of elbow grease, it might one day be used to rule against the far more serious and widespread misogyny of a certain other religion...

Here's the ruling if you'd like to see for yourself. The question is whether Canadian courts have any say over Jewish divorce practices - specifically, the awful Orthodox rule whereby a woman cannot get a (religious) divorce and remarry in the faith without the husband's permission (as the ruling explains, this permission is often used as a bargaining chip by the man to get concessions from the woman in the civil divorce). In this case, the man (a real s.o.b. by the looks of it) signed a contract with the woman promising he would release her from the marriage after the civil divorce, but then refused to do so, and said the courts had no right to enforce the contract, since it was a question of his religious freedom. Today, the Supreme Court stood up for women's rights and told him exactly where he could shove that religious freedom.

Key lines from the decision:
"The claim to religious freedom must be balanced and reconciled with countervailing rights, values, and harm, including the extent to which it is compatible with Canada’s fundamental values." (the Court defending Canada's fundamental values??? please, nobody pinch me - if this is a dream, I don't want to wake up)
and
"Any impairment to the husband’s religious freedom is significantly outweighed by the harm both to the wife personally and to the public’s interest in protecting fundamental values such as equality rights and autonomous choice in marriage and divorce."

Meanwhile, the dissent puts up a warning flag right away by invoking the loathful m-word: "Canada’s adoption of multiculturalism and attachment to the fundamental values of freedom of conscience and religion and of the right to equality guarantee to all Canadians that the courts will remain neutral where religious precepts are concerned."

The other big warning flag is that he concludes with a quote from Gandhi. I have few hard and fast rules about life, but one of them is that anyone who concludes with a quote from Gandhi is a moron.

Though, to give the dissenter some credit, he does somehow talk himself into seeing his dissent as protecting a woman's right not to wear the hijab. He writes, "The courts may not use their secular power to penalize a [...] refusal to wear the veil." I would counter that he's just framing the issue wrong here; the question wouldn't ever be whether the court can intervene to punish a woman's refusal to wear the veil, but, in accordance with Canadian (and not multicultural) values, whether the court can intervene to protect her from having to wear the veil and submit. I think that this ruling will certainly help make such a legal attack on the hijab possible.

But then again, like I said, I'm no judge and will never be, so what do I know? With the Supreme Court's track record, they'll probably make an exception for Islam and use this ruling to force Catholic ordination of transgendered atheists.

Let the bastard go

2007-12-13T14:47:00.000-05:00

If you don't make even the slightest effort to house-break your puppy, is it right to punish him when he pees on your bed? I say no. As Cesar Millan could tell you, when dealing with animals and other primitive retards, it is your responsibility to strictly outline what is acceptable and what is not.

I think fairness requires Canada to adopt a similar standard in the case of the evil bastard who murdered his daughter. As hinted here, no effort was made before the murder by Canadian society or laws to impose Western values on the man. Just the opposite, in fact - he and his 'diverse' traditions were welcomed with open arms, invited to thrive in multicultural bliss. How can we punish him for simply doing what we've been encouraging him to do since he got here - that is to say, holding on to his traditional Muslim (i.e. wife-beating, honor-killing) values?

Some of you will respond that this, this very case, is our opportunity to assert ourselves, to make an example of him. Applesauce. This is just one extreme case, a murder. The message we'll be sending is 'be careful, don't hit them too hard.' The number of burqas and hijabs will only rise, since I remain convinced that their real purpose is to hide the bruises. Though I may be too charitable: the honor killings would likely continue, but now the unassimilated among us will know better than to call the cops afterwards (or to stage the scene as a hate-crime, complete with hastily-scrawled Bible verses, if they do).

No, if I were the judge, I would rule something like this: "The defendant is not guilty, he was simply exercising the religious freedom promised him by his adopted country. If Canada does not wish for its citizens to practice Islamic traditions, it must make such a statement firmly and clearly; otherwise, punishing an honor-killing would be as unjust as punishing a Christian for being literate (well, bad example there, but you see what I mean). Until Canada adopts serious measures to protect its liberal values on a society-wide level (I would suggest a ban on the hijab, for starters), killers like this goat-humper cannot in good faith be held responsible for their actions. He did nothing but live the Canadian dream."

And that's all you need to know about why I'm never gonna be a judge.

Catching Up

2007-12-13T01:33:00.000-05:00

Very slowly catching up on my blog reading. This is hilarious. Poor Moxie; as much as it enlivens her blog and radio show, she sure does live in a messed-up neighborhood.

And I was going to write a rant about the self-service check-in at airports (I spent more than 30 hours in the air this past weekend, no joke), but Prof Althouse beat me to it. I will grant that the Vancouver Airport is simply wonderful, and the people there super-helpful. But Montreal's Trudeau airport? Oh dear Lord. In addition to being incredibly ugly, it's full of super-rude people just like in the Prof's post (except, even worse, they're French!). Anyway, all of us poor travellers go to line up at the counter as usual, but the lady tells us all to scram, to go use the computerized check-in (used to be you could choose to use the counter if you wanted to, but no more). And then we even had to tag our own bags while the lady just stood there and watched us like we were idiots (which, when it comes to checking baggage, I am - since, unlike that lady, it's not my damn job!). Naturally, between self-check computer issues and sticker trouble (yes, yes, feel free to bust out the '..and you went to Harvard???' line, but the instructions were confusing, I tell you! there was a thin layer on top of the adhesive that said in one corner 'Do Not Stick Here,' so I didn't - I took that layer off before sticking. Apparently, this is wrong), most people ended up having to go line up at the counter for help anyway. Totally absurd experience.

Well, that's all the catching up for now, goodnight!

UPDATE: I almost forgot (um, language warning):

Black Snake Moan

2007-12-13T00:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I'll give it an A for effort and a D for execution. By effort, I mean I think it tries to create a Southern Gothic feel and to pass along a Christian, conservative message (and any movie that features an anti-abortion blues number sung by Samuel L. Jackson can't be all bad!). But a D for execution, cuz Flannery O'Connor it ain't. She had herself a real pair, for one, and this movie just doesn't. It chickens out in its Christianity, watering it down with p.c. amateur psychobabble and let's-talk-about-how-we-feel therapy (i mean, literally, therapy - one of the final scenes could have come straight out of Dr. Melfi's office), and no amount of religious symbolism can redeem that. Also, the whole white-guy-really-into-blues-music-because-it's-just-so-damn-real thing can get pretty patronizing and annoying sometimes (see Zeppelin, Led). Plus, it way overdoes the whole Christina-Ricci-writhing-sluttily-on-the-floor-thing (almost as much as I'm currently overdoing the whole connecting-all-my-words-with-dashes thing) and basically ends up glamorizing what it set out to condemn (though, let's be honest, that's a flaw I could live with...). Oh, and Justin Timberlake is in it for some reason.

But, it is Hollywood after all, and if there has to be exploitation and huggery alongside the salvation, well, it's better than the morality they usually give us - that is to say, better than nothing.

And, yes, the music is great. They have Ricci sing this, I leave you with another version:

Tragedy

2007-12-12T02:02:00.000-05:00

So this is what it's come to. A man strangles his beautiful, outgoing daughter to death because she wouldn't wear the hijab. Not in Saudi Arabia, or Sudan, or the suburbs of Paris - no, right here, in Canada.

The spin has already begun among the Muslim groups and the press (I watched CTV news tonight, Lloyd Robertson and co. spent maybe a minute on it, downplaying it as much as possible, of course).

I'll refrain from adding my own spin. I'm in shock. Despite all that I've written, I still cannot believe that this has happened. In Mississauga, for Christ's sake! I just can't get over it. Mississauga. Jesus.

Wonderland

2007-12-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

It snowed yesterday. A lot. I'm back home in Montreal, we live right next to some woods, and it was bee-yoo-tiful. I spent an hour playing with the dog, which was hilarious. He's a big German shepherd, but the snow came all the way up to his belly, so he can't move his legs to run, he has to take these intense leaps that get him maybe half-a-foot forward at a time. It slows him down a lot, so winter is the only chance I get of catching up to him, and we have some pretty intense wrestling matches for the tennis ball in the deep powder, lots of thrown elbows and biting (on both sides), ending invariably with losing the ball completely in some huge white pile.

Then I spent three hours shoveling snow, which, as long as it's not too cold (and it wasn't), is pretty much my favorite thing ever. Yes, shoveling snow is fun! It's great exercise, zen relaxation, and intense natural beauty all rolled up into one wonderful, hot-chocolate-anticipating snowball o' fun.

Writing all of which is my roundabout way of welcoming SarahK to the north country. I like Florida a lot, but life just isn't life without a decent stab at four seasons. Being north enough to frolic in the powder with your dog, yet south enough to stay in a real country? Perfection.

Avant-garde is one way to put it...

2007-12-04T13:17:00.000-05:00

I did not know about this. Married women in Quebec are legally forced to keep their maiden names! Chalk another one up to the Charter of Human Rights. You know, Quebecois human rights, like the right to protect your worthless, low-class, Elvis-impersonating, speedo-wearing, illiterate 'culture' by banning English stop signs, or the right to walk around wearing a Nazi uniform during WWII and then get elected prime minister.

My favorite line from that story? "'It's like collective amnesia,' she said of young women who want to go back to using their husbands' names. 'They have benefited from the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers.'" Yes, because we know that if there's one thing radical Quebec university professor feminists value, it's tradition.

Oh, and please feel free to add your own woman's-right-to-choose joke, we all know how important that surely must be to Prof Langevin.

Elephant? What Elephant?

2007-11-29T15:04:00.000-05:00

You know that completely ridiculous (yet completely unsurprising) story of the teddy bear named Mohammed? The one that has been getting major international media coverage, including front page stories in the National Post and constant updates all over the blogosphere? Well, my hometown Montreal Gazette finally decided to mention it. On page A16, at the very bottom, in a tiny paragraph closing out a bunch of other small news briefs, like about the Krygyz prime minister and American obesity levels. Here, then, is the Gazette's coverage of the cuddly crisis in its entirety:

"SUDAN
Teacher Charged with Islam insult
KHARTOUM - Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher detained in Sudan after her class called a teddy bear Mohammed, was charged with insulting Islam in a move that sparked a diplomatic row between London and Khartoum. Tuesday, a 7-year-old student named Mohammed tried to defend Gibbons, saying the bear had been named after him."

That's it. Not a word about the death threats, the demonstrations, the school shutting down, the interrogation, the threats of lashing, nothing. No elaboration of the boy's statement, which basically admits that had the teacher named the bear after the prophet, she would deserve punishment. Nope, nothing to see here, folks, just a small diplomatic kerfuffle, a silly news of the world brief.

Meanwhile, the very same issue of the Gazette gives a far more prominent place to an opinion piece by a local Muslim. My favorite line: "Finally, I cannot see why some Quebecers feel threatened by Muslims." A mystery indeed - certainly, that is, if you make the mistake of trusting the Gazette for your news.

Next Day Update: Okay, the Gazette has a brief and very reluctant editorial up about it today (no online link I can find), calling the events "disappointing" ("even after one allows for cultural differences") and saying that, though "no disrespect was intended," the teacher did not understand "how off-limits Islam is for foreigners." (btw, is foreigners some sort of euphemism for "non-homicidal maniacs"?) And no mention of this. Still, better than nothing, I suppose!

Junebug

2007-11-28T15:18:00.000-05:00

First off, my belated wishes for a very happy Thanksgiving! Besides everything and everyone I'm always thankful for, I just wanted to give a special shout out to AMC's Thanksgiving Day Hitchcock marathon - add Shadow of a Doubt and Rear Window to the Cowboys game, and I was able to stay almost sane cooped up in a hotel room last week.

I'm very behind on the news and my reading, but looks like the wonderful folks on the ol' blogroll have everything taken care of.

What prompts my return is that I watched Junebug for the second time last night, loved it even more, and wanted to spread the word. Besides being a wonderful movie, it's another example of a deeply conservative movie going right over liberal critics' heads. Yet, unlike Apatow's movies, the morality isn't couched in vulgarity, it's right out in the open, and still some reviewers just don't get it.

Exhibit A. The heart of the movie is Amy Adams' hyper-vivacious Ashley, who the critic says "talks because to be silent would be to confront her life's emptiness." B.S. The refined British visitor is clearly the empty one - Ashley is full of life, love, and God. But the critic, unsurprisingly identifying with Embeth Davidtz' sophisticated Madeleine, just doesn't get it. A key moment occurs when Ashley goes into labor and the entire family stays by her side at the hospital. The entire family, that is, except for Madeleine - she goes off instead to work on a business deal. The filmmakers are anything but subtle about this; some touching scenes at the hospital show us the importance of family, while some ridiculous scenes with her client illustrate the absurdity of Madeleine's career. Yet what does the Boston Globe critic write about this almost too obvious parallel? "At a certain critical juncture, George's family turns against this outsider artiste for reasons we're supposed to share, but such is Davidtz's deep-dish joy in her role that you're likely to stay on her side." Reasons we're supposed to share - you know, weird reasons, like love and family over business. Sheesh.

Anyway, ranting aside, the movie is definitely worth a look. And yes, Amy Adams is everything radiant and wonderful and just plain good.

here's the trailer:

and here's the opening song, light and fun:

Travel Day/Month

2007-11-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

On the road for work and then vacation for the next three weeks, have no idea about internet access (or free time), blogging will probably be very light. Please check out all the wonderful blogs on the right!

Veteran's Day

2007-11-12T08:35:00.000-05:00

LOVE this:

this, too:

God bless America and all the troops.

Yup

2007-11-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

Slowly catching up on my blog reading after a long week.

"Those who are modern and liberal don't want to express old-fashioned moral disapproval, so they won't say drinking or eating too much is self-indulgent and gluttonous. Pleasure-seeking is quite all right these days. And they want to be able to think of themselves as good people, so they can't just say they hate the way you look if you're fat. They have to believe they're actually concerned for your well-being."

Ain't that the truth.

Very much worth a read

2007-11-10T05:53:00.000-05:00

Especially the Hall excerpts towards the end. The comparison between Hall and Harris tells you everything you need to know.

See also here. I'm with Dalrymple and the Dutchman, no question.

and Andrew Sullivan doesn't know whether to cry or to drool...

2007-11-10T01:05:00.000-05:00

This is very possibly the greatest story ever.

Still, no need to hyperventilate into our sleep apnea masks about all this. My take is that cookie-burning only constitutes torture when not immediately followed by milk-boarding.

"For more tips on how you can save the environment,

2007-11-09T10:59:00.000-05:00

stick your head really far up your butt."

Have I mentioned lately how much I love SarahK? I'll even forgive her for liking the most annoying person in the history of the world.*

Related: see here.

*Zach Braff. duh.

Another Triumph for Feminism

2007-11-07T10:32:00.000-05:00

The prosecutor, the DA, and the judge - all pee sitting down. The accused has spent his entire life viciously raping women. The decision? Exactly what you'd expect. Aw, the poor widdle baby. Here, let me kiss it and make it all better. Hush now, your father is a bad, bad man, it's not your fault.

Question 1: Any man worth the name will do whatever it takes, and usually far more, to protect his wife and daughters. Women were never expected to join the posses going after the rapists and deadbeats. So, am I crazy, or would a male judge have been much, much harsher with this monster? Or, is this not a women thing, but a spineless liberal thing?

Question 2: Going by the pic in the article, exactly how comfortable do you suppose the defense attorney's shoes are?

My Book to Help America

2007-11-06T10:44:00.000-05:00

No, not mine. His. Doubt we'll see anything like that again (except, naturally, as an exercise in teaching children irony, workin' 'em up to cheer for Colbert with all the cool kids).

Nobody puts Baby in a corner...

2007-11-03T05:42:00.000-04:00

... unless Baby doesn't actually want to kill babies, that is.

Please take a couple minutes to digest this interview over at HotAir. So creepy.

This went on at Harvard to a much, much lighter extent. Never had one-on-one meetings with RAs, and I'm quite sure none of my conversations were typed up for the university files to keep track of my progress and "treatment." But I do remember the stand-in-the-corners game, good times! The facilitator (this was not the RA, just some random sensitivity trainer, as I recall) would ask about some controversial issue and then have us stand in different parts of the room depending on what our positions were. Always done in small groups of ten to fifteen, so you could see where everyone stood. The only point of the whole silly exercise was to immediately (this happened during the first week or so of school) point out and isolate the conservative minority (it's college, we're always the minority) - to quite literally put them in a corner. Liberals dream these hippie exercises up because they know it would work on them - that is, faced with isolation, they would cave and believe whatever it took to get them back with the crowd, maybe come up with some chants, paint a few signs, pass around a fat j, whatever, it's cool, dude, don't be a fascist. Unfortunately for them, with conservatives, this sort of stuff just backfires, since we enjoy pissing them off and like being troublemakers.

My point being, yes, please do get yourselves all up in arms over the Delaware sitch (yeah, I said sitch, deal with it), which is ridic, but don't forget that less blatant attempts at indoctrination are going on at just about every other campus, too.

And no, it doesn't really matter to most intelligent people (my dad's only concern as he underwent both nazi and communist indoctrination was to keep from giggling), but it certainly does do harm to the naive and unsuspecting. In any case, it's a total waste of time, perhaps even more so than actual college classes.

Now that's what I'm talking about

2007-11-03T02:10:00.000-04:00

You do. not. mess. with Rachel Lucas.

Ann Coulter

2007-11-02T07:43:00.000-04:00

is not just trying to sell more books. She actually believes what she says, and has a sense of humor to boot. Party 'conservatives' who condemn her are batting close to zero in both categories. They're the ones trying to further their careers by playing nice, rather than risking exile from the mainstream by telling the truth. They condemn nothing - not Islam, not the immoral, not the traitors in our midst - nothing, that is, except Ann Coulter (and maybe, if they want to feel extra good about themselves, Bill O'Reilly, too. I mean, he's just so loud!). The same way that the only thing the Harvard Republican Club ever spoke out against was the campus conservative magazine. These people are spineless, pathetic, and, maddeningly, on the fast track to power and influence.

(h/t Hector Owen)

Evil

2007-10-31T04:20:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's my misplaced Western idealism, maybe something is getting lost in translation, but the more time I spend here in Seoul, the more disturbed I get by the people around me.

I'm not talking about the easy cultural cheap shots like the absolutely insane stress over college admissions. I'm talking big questions here. The biggest, in fact: the problem of evil. In South Korea, this is no abstract condition - it is concrete, and it is mere miles away.

The North Korean regime is pure evil. No discussion. Its gulags and concentration camps, its torture, its forced famines, its absolute totalitarianism - this is as evil as it gets, as it has ever gotten.

And South Koreans don't really give a damn.

That's how it seems to me, anyway. Remember that short story about the town where utopia is achieved at the price of one child, locked in a basement, enduring constant abuse? That's what Seoul reminds me of (well, except for the utopia part). People just going about their lives, buying their high-fashion clothes, practicing their SATs, unconcerned that the most evil horrors in the history of the world are taking place a stone's throw away.

And this isn't like Americans being too busy to worry about Darfur. This would be like Americans turning a blind eye to a violent dictatorship in Iowa. Do you think that could ever happen? Even if the Iowa Supreme Ruler had his finger on the button?

I mean, North Koreans are their countrymen, their cousins. And yet, nothing. The only thing here people seem to organize against is the American military presence - the one force keeping them from sharing the North's fate.

Another story: earlier this year, a very small group of Koreans traveled to Afghanistan to help the sick and the poor (they were, oddly enough, Christian missionaries - who would have guessed?), only to be kidnapped by the Taliban. Folks here mostly just shrugged it off, or even made fun of them - the feeling was, they pretty much got what they deserved. Why stick your neck out for someone else? Wisdom, in its twisted, well-educated, immoral modern manifestation, is a virtue here. Sacrifice is not.

I mean, honestly, what is wrong with these people? The more I interact with them, the more time I spend talking to parents and children who think by far the most important thing in life is getting into a famous school, the more I wonder. Churches are everywhere, their neon crosses glaring through the night. Do they know that the only electricity in the North goes into its fences? There might not be any prison camps here, but there is evil nonetheless.

This is gonna be good

2007-10-30T00:04:00.000-04:00

The Bluths, Dwight, and the man behind Thank You For Smoking. I cannot wait to see Juno:

Looks, moreover, like another entry in today's family values funny film renaissance. Like Kathy Shaidle likes to say (well, no, not exactly), you wanna make a difference, put down the rosary and pick up the seltzer!

(h/t to Dennis Miller)

Winona Ryder and Marisa Tomei making out

2007-10-28T07:36:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the light blogging, I've been super-busy at work the past few days.

As for the title of the post, I cannot, alas, deliver. It was just my way of expressing my excitement over what I consider to be the blogosphere equivalent, namely Kathy Shaidle's recent habit of linking to Rachel Lucas (here and here). If Althouse starts linking to the two of them, well, I'll be in my bunk.

A comment on the Derbyshire post Kathy links to: absolutely I agree with the pretty/sexy dynamic, but if you watch The Great Lie and tell me Bette Davis isn't the goshdarned prettiest thing this side of Pollyanna, then you're worse than Hitler.

As for the horror movie list, how on earth can they claim that Tremors is the fifth best conservative horror movie of all time? It is, in point of fact, the absolute greatest movie of all time.

I would also like to disagree with the "liberals are 'vampire' people, conservatives are 'Frankenstein' people" remark, but I won't, because to do so would reveal far more about the Buffyverse than I would ever publicly admit to knowing...

On to the 80's music list. Sorry, Kathy, but "Wanted Dead or Alive" blows. "Eye of the Tiger," on the other hand, certainly is up there, but the greatest 80s song ever is, hands down, "Holding Out for a Hero."

Well, that's it for now. Work should be lighter this week, so don't go away for too long!

Okay, okay, a little Marisa to close with, I can't help myself:

Good Interview

2007-10-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

Check it out.

My favorite lines:

"Smoking kills you, but life kills you, and if you don’t want to die, go into a freezer when you are born and nothing will happen to you."

and, of course: "What is sexy about having something that looks like a goose anus?"

Never read her comic myself, but sounds interesting.

Hey, it builds character!

2007-10-22T09:04:00.000-04:00

I have a deep and personal hatred for communists, so I'm obviously no big fan of China, but of all the reasons to hate them, I cannot understand this focus on lead in children's toys.

Heck, in my pappy's day, kids ate lead sandwiches from asbestos lunchboxes. After school, they'd throw cherry bombs at girls and then have thermometer-eating contests. For dinner, pot roast - but only if they finished all their lead first.

I mean, seriously, they used to ride rusty bikes without helmets and make go-carts out of planks from the dump and eat dirt just because, and there ain't a goshdarned thing wrong with 'em!

Kids today? Forget eating dirt, you're liable to get suspended for bringing a peanut butter sandwich to school! Heck, if a kid would happen to sketch a gun with his knife in some peanut butter, he's bound to be expelled for good and sent to juvy.

I say it's time to stop coddling the little wimps. A little lead exposure never hurt anyone. Let the chicoms poison 'em, it'll only make them stronger!

The Ivy Calf

2007-10-20T09:07:00.000-04:00

Black people in America are walking head-first into tragedy. No, not those black people - not the gangsters, thugs, and deadbeats. No, I'm talking about the decent and the honorable - concerned reformists, devoted teachers, loving parents.

These good people know what's wrong with modern black culture. They know that it must be changed. Their tragedy is that what they believe to be the cure may very well turn out to be the final nail in the coffin.

Bill Cosby has a new book out, speaking more hard truth to black power. Bloggers and commenters, talk show hosts and callers, all are abuzz. And it hit me, as I encountered more and more wonderful and hopeful comments, that black people may be doomed. Comment after comment was about the need for black kids to escape ghetto culture by staying in school and working hard. Everybody was talking about how wrong it was that studious black kids were accused of 'acting white,' how we should try our best to make them see the importance of learning. I remember one caller in particular, a woman on the verge of tears, explaining how she wished her people would realize that their only way to escape, their only way to a brighter future, was not through rap or crime, but through education. That they needed to buckle down and go back to school, go to college, if they were to have any hope at all.

I was thoroughly depressed by that woman. I know how sincere she was, how deeply she meant well, yet she may as well have been encouraging young women to flee from rapists straight into the arms of murderers. I think by now you have a pretty good idea of what my point is going to be, so here goes:

Education will not save you.

Trust me, folks, I've been to college, it ain't what it used to be. If you're lucky, you'll make it out mostly unharmed. If not, you will lose your soul to debauchery, moral relativism, and egotism. And, if on top of it all you're black, you will more likely than not come out of it all hating America, paranoid about racism, and blaming everybody but yourself for, well, just about everything. In other words, you'll be a liberal.

So, concerned black parents, you want to save your kids? Don't send 'em to college.

Send them to church.

At Harvard's founding, its motto, Veritas, referred to the divine Truth of salvation. By now, that meaning is even more obsolete than the campus war memorials. It's probably only a matter of time before they change it to Cave Canem or something. You want to be saved? College is not the answer.

College will not make you a loving father. College will not make you a faithful husband. College will not make you a better person. And it sure as hell won't help you quit taking drugs.

If these are changes you need to make in your life (in other words, if you're a black 'man'), and you feel incapable of making them on your own, then, please, for the love of God, start going to church. Put down that crack pipe, put away that syllabus, and pick up the Bible.

As for the black reformists, those so bravely speaking out and facing the wrath of the Sharptons out there, please, don't let your struggle be for naught. Don't put your faith in the false gods of the campus, they will only let you down.

King Harvest is on his way

2007-10-19T10:22:00.000-04:00

This is silly, but, hey, I'll take whatever chance I can get to post a video of my favorite band:

I like Neil Young, too, so let's put 'em together:

I missed this one last week...

2007-10-19T07:44:00.001-04:00

but you shouldn't!

Well, if you put it that way...

2007-10-17T08:19:00.000-04:00

A budding academic superstar, hurt by mockery of intellectuals in the National Post, responds with true eloquence:

"Mr. Fulford's pot-shot at queer theory is derisive and disrespectful, clearly reaching for the sympathies of a conservative readership. [...] Ultimately, queer theory offers strategies of deconstruction to challenge the way dominant discourses stratify society, to identify and break down the binary oppositions implicit in dominant modes of thought, which have implications for challenging the inner workings of a heterosexist, sexist social system."

Glad she cleared that up!

Sweet, Sweet Revenge

2007-10-16T15:49:00.000-04:00

Death to the grey squirrel!

Tasing works!

2007-10-16T09:30:00.000-04:00

Then: large demonstrations, lewd chanting, political theatre, self-induced vomiting.

Now: twelve-person silent walkout.

(alternate headline: Don't tase me, bro - tase my fetus!)

Movie Corner

2007-10-15T11:57:00.000-04:00

I never liked Cronenberg, and I maintain that Crash may very well be the worst movie ever, but I have to admit, I just saw Eastern Promises, and it was great. Meanwhile, A History of Violence is probably my favorite movie of the past two or so years. My point being, I don't know what's gotten into him, maybe it's just Viggo's influence, but Cronenberg has gone from national embarrassment to international treasure, putting out not only the best movies in Canada these days, but very possibly the best in the world. Anyway, I've become a fan, is all.

As long as I'm talking movies, I might as well throw in my mini-review of 3:10 to Yuma. I'm taking Udolpho's side on this one; I thought it was pretty terrible. Bale and Crowe are the best there is, but the director is a spastic joke. Westerns need to be as cold and distant as their heroes, yet the camera was constantly jostling up close to the men and giving us extreme closeups. It's real hard to be a bad*** gunslinger when the director won't stop moving the camera around long enough for you to get off a good stare, not to mention stop zooming in on every one of your pores. I'm thinking especially of Leone's spaghetti westerns with Eastwood, and Unforgiven, too (which, unlike Udolpho, I love). Those were shot like real westerns; Yuma was shot like City Slickers or something, I kept on expecting Billy Crystal to pop up at any moment. And, yes, the whole cheap psychobabble characterizations and the ridiculous ending were beyond insufferable. Yet people really seemed to enjoy it, which in my mind only goes to show how badly we're in need of some real westerns again these days to show folks what it's really all about. Cronenberg, Viggo, I'm looking at you!

The World This Week

2007-10-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

Al? Apotheosis.
Ayaan? Abandonment.

Adrian? Appalled.

Update: Wow, part II

2007-10-10T11:26:00.000-04:00

I never, ever thought I'd say this, but I am very pleasantly surprised - thrilled, even - by the latest efforts of the Harvard administration.

I wrote about the attack on undergraduate drinking they launched last week. Well, much to my shock and delight, the administration is not backing down. If anything, they've gotten even tougher: all funding to the student council has been frozen until the beer money program ends.

I'll add another link to that Crimson article; I'm too tired right now to go into it at length, but it's definitely worth reading for the unintentionally hilarious college student posturing. The kids just want someone else to pay for their booze, they are so pissed that they might have to buy their own jello shots. But, of course, they cannot actually come out and say that in public, for print. So instead we get all these great lines about social inequality (the rich will don robes to sip brandy by the fire, turning their backs on the faces of the underclass pressed longingly up against the window, their shivering hands clutching tight to cans of PBR) and the creation of a dangerous drinking culture (cheap, low-quality aluminium kegs imported from China are reported to have serious structural flaws, with a significant risk of collapse during keg stand attempts, potentially leading to serious head trauma).

The administration is having none of it. I simply must quote the Assistant Dean's comment: "The reality is the administration is not forcing any student to do anything illegal or dangerous. They’re making a choice to do that." An Ivy League college actually making a case for personal responsibility?? Maybe it's the administration that's been drinking!

Anyway, like I said, I'm loving this, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Because self-absorbed college students these days might scoff at most of the freedoms in America (and don't even get me started on freedoms in the rest of the world), but, I assure you, they will go to the barricades for free drinks. Look for a repeat of sixties radicalism as administration buildings are invaded for massive sit-ins. After all, the choice to not drink yourself senseless on someone else's dime three nights a week is not really a choice at all.

Nothing to add

2007-10-08T13:17:00.000-04:00

to this.

Well, okay, maybe one thing.

Speaking of the many wonders of diversity...

2007-10-07T08:26:00.000-04:00

You know what, I'm not thrilled about it, but I can at least handle the sad reality that our exaggerated respect for Indian cultural sensitivities is destroying children's literature (via Instapundit). But aren't things just a tad out of hand when it also destroys children's lives?

Also: Dr. Markesteyn? Really?

Is the University of Michigan breaking the law?

2007-10-06T05:42:00.000-04:00

From 1995 to 1997, the University of Michigan employed an explicit quota system for black students and certain other minorities. In 1998, after Jennifer Gratz and friends started making trouble, UMich made a cosmetic switch to a points system. In this system, and I swear I'm not making this up, a black applicant automatically received 20 points, whereas an outstanding application essay received . . . 1 point. However, in 2003, the Supreme Court invalidated the points system, basically ruling that the university could still work to ensure 'diversity,' but that it had to do so in a less mechanical, more individualized fashion.

In November of last year, however, the good people of Michigan told off their betters at the Supreme Court and the University by passing Proposal 2, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which amended the state constitution to ban the use of racial preferences in public education and government. The University and its allies did everything they could to weasel out of the ruling, to no avail.

That, as I understand it, is the situation as it stands today. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the citizens of Michigan, after a long and very intense fight, succeeded in banning affirmative action - that the state constitution now prohibits the University of Michigan from using its admissions office to engineer racial diversity.

All of which brings me, at long last, to my point. Here is the Michigan application essay question for this fall:

"'We know that diversity makes us a better university – better for learning, for teaching, and for conducting research.' Share an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences. Comment on how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan."

The quotation in the first line comes from an infamous speech given by UMich President Mary Sue Coleman the day after Proposal 2's approval, in which she told off the voters of her state and vowed to do her best to subvert the law and promote diversity. This question is, then, a second slap in the face to Michigan's voters. True, the text mentions 'intellectual' differences as well, but why am I not convinced?

So, my question is, isn't this, in addition to being an immature and cheap trick, also a blatant violation of Proposal 2?

My second question is, isn't this whole effort by the admissions office also profoundly self-defeating? After all, as I understand it, the whole point of an institution like UMich is to thoroughly indoctrinate the unsuspecting young with all the pc idiocies of modern liberalism. But, if the kids are already drinking the KoolAid to begin with, as would have to be the case to be able to successfully respond to an essay question like the one above, what the heck are they going to do for four whole years at college?

In closing, please see this post for all you need to know about President Coleman and the trouble with affirmative action. Oh, and don't you just love how, whenever something really harmful or just plain nuts happens in our society, Lee Bollinger's name always seems to come up? He's like an even more clueless Forrest Gump.

UPDATE: Welcome, Five Feet of Fury readers! Thanks for the link! If you're interested in a more positive development in higher ed, see here. And to get depressed about college kids all over again, there's this.

A very tiny interlude

2007-10-05T12:22:00.001-04:00

I'm all ranted out and have absolutely nothing I want to blog about. But all of Moxie's talk these days about being gay with midgets reminded me of something silly I wrote a very long time ago, so here it is. It's very dumb, I apologize in advance!

Thoughts on Little People

When I first entered the classroom, I was very surprised to find a little person sitting beside me. How had he gotten out of my pants?

Which got me to thinking, what would life be like if I told people about the little person who lives in my pants?

At a dance
Me: Hi. There’s a little person living in my pants.
Girl: Like I’ve never heard that line before.
Me: His name is Peter.
Girl: I’m sure it is. Listen, just leave me alone.
Me: He’s an entrepreneur. In nanotechnology. It’s the small hands, you know.
Girl: Okay, seriously, get away from me.
Me: He’s very rich. He has a yacht.
Girl: You had me at hello.

At a convenience store
Me: Hi, I’d like a mini-toothbrush, please.
Clerk: What?
Me: A mini-toothbrush? You know, just a toothbrush with a real tiny handle. It’s for the little person in my pants.
Clerk: . . . um . . . I’m sorry, but we don’t have any mini-toothbrushes.
Me: Then why do you sell mini snickers bars?
Clerk: ... I’ll go get the manager.
Me: Is he in your pants?
Clerk: No.
Me: Racist.

At a little person convention
The little person doorman: I’m sorry, but you can’t come in here.
Me: Why not?
Doorman: You’re not a little person.
Me: No, it’s okay – I have one in my pants.
Doorman: Okay, pervert, get out of here before I call the cops.
Me: The little people cops?
Doorman: Yes, the little people cops.
Me: Do they have little tiny guns?
Doorman: Yes, they have little tiny guns.
Me: Aw, that’s cute. But anyway, I’m not a pervert. I really do have a little person in my pants.
Doorman: Then why doesn’t he say something?
Me: He’s kind of shy.
Doorman: Fine, whatever, why can’t you just get him to leave your pants for a minute?
Me: Well, he’s also kind of gay.

They say the Dems' use of children to defend their health program is emotional blackmail...

2007-10-04T06:40:00.000-04:00

but the truth is, they just couldn't find anyone who was alive during Hillarycare to support its return.

Wow.

2007-10-02T12:08:00.000-04:00

Remember how I criticized Harvard for its amoral attitude towards drinking on campus? Well, I take it back! (kind of...) Breaking news: the Dean of the college just landed a major blow against campus debauchery. There was this ridiculous program called the Party Grant in which the student council took money from all students as a so-called 'activities fee' and redistributed it to a handful of students to throw parties in their rooms every weekend. Yep, instead of encouraging individual students to save or earn money to finance their own fun, the student council decided to take money from everyone and redistribute it so a few kids could have some real kick-ass parties, free of charge. Because, let's admit it, there's nothing more fun than throwing a huge party, passing out drinks to all your friends, maybe getting some action, and having it all be on the house. And we wonder why college kids vote Democrat.

Well . . . last call, baby, last call: "the UC Party Grant program is inherently flawed, and must be ended immediately. From this date forward no further funds can be dispersed for private parties, including any that may have already been approved for forthcoming dates." You know that hot girl from section? Well, drunken anonymous sex is still almost certainly in your future, but now you'll have to find someone besides the student body to pay for her booze!

So why did the Dean shut the program down? As you might have guessed, underage drinking was not exactly frowned upon at these gatherings. In fact, not only were underaged drinkers allowed into the parties without any problems, they were often even hosts and given money directly by the student council to buy alcohol. This angle, the underaged drinking, is the excuse the Dean chose. Personally, I'm not against underaged drinking per se, as opposed to primitive debauchery in general, but I understand that in this day and age there is no way a responsible adult could ever chide immature children for immoral behavior without getting tarred and feathered, so if he has to chose the underaged angle, so be it.

When not focused on the legalistic approach, the Dean takes the second refuge of the would-be moralist in our amoral age: health. "[I]t is quite apparent," he writes, "that the UC Party Grant program, in practice, has funded parties where the focus is on drinking. Alcohol abuse is the number one student health concern at Harvard as it is on other campuses nationwide. We have taken many proactive steps to mitigate the harm that results from high-risk drinking and have also tried to develop spaces on campus where students can socialize with alcohol safely and legally. The UC Party Grant program is at odds with the message that students, parents, faculty and administrative leaders of this community should be sending about responsible and safe alcohol use." Like I said, I'll take what I can get, but this health b.s. - the same tack people today take with cigarettes - is such a pathetic, infantile cop-out.

The third angle, and one I am more sympathetic to, is the aforementioned issue of the few vs. the many: "I also would like you to consider recommitting your funds for uses that will benefit the majority of students who are members of student organizations. [...] Failing to fund groups because resources have been diverted to individuals for parties is not in support of the greater good of the students you represent, not in keeping with your mission, and not the intended purpose of these funds." I'm actually against funding for groups, I think there should be no activities fee at all and each student should be able to keep his money to do with as he pleases, but hey, baby steps.

All in all, though, a wonderful decision and I couldn't be happier. Well, I take that back - I soon became a great deal happier when I read all the incredulous emails from shocked and furious students! Tasing, it seems, is far from the worst thing you could do to a college student. Don't take away my beer money, bro!

The Wrong Way

2007-10-02T05:35:00.000-04:00

What amuses me most about Hillary's baby bonus scheme is that, even for such blatant political bribery, it's too understated. Hillary should take a page from Duplessis. He never bribed voters - he outright threatened them! He told them, to their faces, that if they didn't vote for him he would make sure that no new road, bridge, or school ever got built in their town. And it worked! So, Hillary, as far as the nation's newborn go, should get less charitable and more Biblical. And the Republican candidate should promise, if elected, to make it his sworn goal to personally tase every single college student who didn't vote for him. After all, why simply mock their paranoia when you can also capitalize on it? Now that is my kind of politics.