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

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 …'."

The Lost Art of War

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.

Reactionary

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.' "

Don't miss this one

MKH exposes the pointy underbelly of free needle programs.

A compassionate and logically flawless liberal initiative leading to unintended consequences? Who knew! (well, besides them)

Not feeling smug enough this evening?

Introducing Google's new, environmentally friendly search engine: Blackle. Please, folks, just shoot me now.

Does seem to work well enough, though.

The Wrath of God

I saw Aguirre today. Nowhere near as good as I was expecting. For a supposedly sophisticated foreign movie, the themes were childishly black and white. More importantly (I am, after all, by this point rather immune to simplistic anti-religious, anti-American attitudes in film), the cinematography was amateurish (and yes, I am aware that that is probably the most snobbish phrase I've ever written in my life). I was expecting some beautiful nature shots, but Herzog does very little with all the lush material the forests and the river give him. A far better director, who uses similarly slow pacing, but to much greater effect thanks to the beauty of his nature shots, is Terrence Malick. Still, there were some good moments, and it was probably all worth it just for the scene of Aguirre chasing around the monkeys on his raft.

A far, far superior movie, with a similar setting, that deals with the same themes in a far more complex and accurate way (and has deeply, deeply beautiful visuals), is The Mission. Morricone's music doesn't hurt, either. So here's the trailer (try and ignore the awful voiceover dude), it's one of my all-time favorites, please check it out!



UPDATE: Speaking of Roland Joffe, who directed The Mission, this ending to his movie The Killing Fields is worth a look. Given the role hippies played in getting America to wash its hands of Vietnam and Cambodia, this could very well be the most ironic use of a song in a movie ever.

Dawn Patrol

Been catching up over at Dawn Eden's blog, and wanted to make a couple points.

First, on her prostitution post. I love this: "It's an important question because, taken from the ultra-liberal or libertarian side, it could be taken as an argument in favor of legalizing prostitution. After all, if casual sex is transactional in every aspect save for actual money changing hands, why penalize those who do it for money?" I hear that argument a lot - 'well, what's the big difference between buying dinner and a movie or just giving the money up front?' or something like that. In other words, I've heard legalizers say, as Dawn anticipates, that if women are screwing strangers anyway, it's crazy to punish the ones who are the most honest about it. I always find that argument funny. I don't know, maybe instead of legalizing prostitution because it's no different from the norm, we should, you know, try to change the norm and perhaps even, if we want to get really crazy about it, actually encourage men not to treat women like whores. [UPDATE: and women not to see themselves in that light, either] Hey, just a suggestion.

Another post, on depression, is really gonna get me in trouble. Basically, I don't think that depression exists. At least, not as an illness - I think it's just a natural state. Life, if you look at it a certain way, is incredibly depressing, empty, devoid of meaning, etc. To borrow the old saying, if you're not depressed at some point in life, you're not paying attention. No amount of medication is going to change that. The trick is in not looking at it in that way, at least not for dangerously long periods of time - yes, your life is devoid of greater meaning, it's nothing but dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but so what? Doesn't mean you can't create your own meaning, or at least enjoy yourself trying. So you can stay in bed all day moaning, or you can go out and choose to have a good time or help someone or something. As Dawn tells it, for her the cure was in God. That's not the case for me, but there are lots of other places to find reasons to live: in duty, in loved ones, and, of course, in a right bit of silliness. As my idol, Woody Allen, so eloquently put it, "Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh... Like what... okay... um... For me, uh... ooh... I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh... um... and Willie Mays... and um... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony... and um... Louis Armstrong's recording of Potato Head Blues... um... Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... um... those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's... uh... Tracy's face... "

Obviously, I am not talking about legitimately insane people (of which I have, in truth, known a few). But as for all the 'depressed' people these days on Valium or whatever, I don't buy it for a second [UPDATE: And you thought all I had in common with Tom Cruise was my stunning good looks]. Get off the meds, don't take yourself and your problems too seriously, have some fun, try and do something worthwhile, and things will be all right!

UPDATE: Speaking of Dawn, her blog leads me to this great article, I love it!

Good Point

About the hair. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that neanderthals had significantly better hygiene than actual hippies.