OK, I'm back, and it's time for the mother of all posts - the 2004 wrap up. My trip to New Zealand was great, and it was wonderful to see my family and friends, but it's good to be back here, too. I've been assimilated. It feels right that Christmastime should be snowy rather than sunny, and that it gets dark at 4.30 rather than 9.30. Funny story: one day after arriving back in Minneapolis, my wife Amy and I went to Madison to have a Christmas with her family. On Friday night I awoke at about 4AM with literally no idea which CONTINENT I was in. I kept looking up at the window in Amy's old bedroom, trying to figure out where the hell I was. It was a pure example of being absolutely confused. Finally my wife awoke and informed me of my physical location. I'd like to tell myself I would have figured it out eventually. I'd like to, but I can't.
Ok, so back to the end of the year. I figured I'd just put down a bunch of 'Best-of' lists, with notations only where neccesary. So - to begin, lets start out with TV!
Best TV of the Year:
5. 24 (Fox)- the virus storyline started slow but got great. Favorite moment: an inspired scene where Jack Bauer chops off his partner's arm with an axe - and his partner sincerely thanks him.
4. The Amazing Race (CBS)- not the one that's on now, which I haven't seen much of, but the one with Chip and Kim and Colin and Christy. Favorite moment: Colin tells his fiance "I hate you so much" as he keeps slipping in mud behind an intractible plough-beast. Second favorite moment: "Lord, help her." - this from a wimpy male model as his fiance is sexually assaulted on a crowded Calcutta bus.
3. House (Fox)- brilliant medical show with a fabulous misanthropic title character who also happens to be a genius. Very well written. Favorite moment so far: Nun (who suspects her fellow Nun may be a hypochondriac): "She believes in stupid, made up things." House, (puzzled): "Isn't that a prerequisite for your job?"
2. Lost (ABC)- Impossible to categorize but also impossible to miss. Can't wait to see what twists are in store with this show. Favorite moment: Locke realises he can walk.
1. Angels In America (HBO)- One of the greatest made for TV pieces of art ever. Moving, funny, smart, mysterious, irreverent, stunningly acted. Favorite moment: "The world won't end in a flood - it will end in fire" - behind this 1986 conversation, the Twin Towers loom.
Best Movies of the Year:
5. Dawn of the Dead - perfectly accomplishes what it sets out to do - scare the crap out of you. Favorite moment: birth of the zombie baby.
4. Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino)- a fantastic time at the movies - and an incredible wrap up to a tripped out thrill ride. Favorite moment: The Bride digs her way out of the coffin.
3. Collateral (Michael Mann)- pretty much a perfect movie Tom Cruise manages to be very scary in this story. There was a moment in this movie where you could literally hear (or not hear) the entire audience holding it's collective breath. That kind of control only belongs to the best directors. Favorite moment: Cruise stalks his prey in a crowded nightclub.
2. The Incredibles (Brad Bird)- If Spidey 2 brought comics into our world, this dragged us into their world, and we loved what we saw. Fabulous story, characters, subtext. Fave moment: impossible to pick.
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michael Gondry)- it astounds me that this movie has been forgotten now that awards nominations are being made. First of all Jim Carrey deserves an Oscar for this. He's so wonderful as the timid, nebbish hero of the story its hard to believe he's Jim Carrey. Michael Gondry, the director, also deserves an Oscar for making such a confusing story so funny as well as moving. Favorite moment: "Meet me in Montauk".
Best Videogames of the Year:
5. Halo 2 (Xbox) - great action, great scale, great multiplayer. Favorite moment: Jumping aboard the giant moving cybertank that has been destroying the city and killing its crew before blowing it up.
4. Top Spin (Xbox) - Makes tennis exciting in what may be the best party game ever. I go to bed at night praying for a sequel. Best moment: Any doubles game with 3 real people.
3. Burnout 3 (Xbox) - Two words: Crash Mode. Favorite moment: finally unlocking the fire engine and smashing it into a gas truck.
2. Rallisport Challenge 2 (Xbox) Incredible looking, realistic feel, amazing career mode. Best racing game ever made. Best moment: completing the 15 mile desert hillclimb.
1. Half-Life 2 (PC) - Immersive, groundbreaking, moving and fun. The new benchmark for videogame greatness. Best moment: airboat chase.
Biggest Stories of the Year
5. Torture at Abu Ghraib (Bush administration)- AKA Operation:How To Make Them Hate Us Even More. Favorite moment: Rush Limbaugh says the abuses are no worse than 'fraternity hazing'.
4. No Weapons of Mass Destruction ( Bush administration)- turns out those wimpy UN inspectors were right. Favorite moment: Bush asking the UN for help.
3. Bush wins re-election (Bush administration)- are you still depressed? I kind of am. Favorite moment: "The Internets."
2. Iraq War amazingly not over yet (Bush administration)- but the important thing is, with all the thousands dead, nobody's being held accountable yet. See 3. Favorite Moment: soldier confronts a stunned Rumsfeld with the obvious - why are our troops not as safe as they could be?
1. Global warming accelerates - (Western society/Bush administration) not that you'd know it by reading the mainstream media. This is the biggest danger facing the world right now, as a leaked Pentagon document asserted. In the next 3 decades oceans will rise, cities will fall, and deserts will bloom. And unless we do something quickly, being able to say 'I told you so' isn't going to be very comforting. Favorite moment: Bush saying 'the jury's still out' on Global Warming while Alaska villiages vanish under the melting icecap floods. Don't expect any action from this administration till Kennebunkport Maine gets hit.
Coming soon: Predictions for 2005.
Happy Holidays!
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Apologies for the delay
Well, I've been in New Zealand. To tell you the truth, I'm still there. I came about a week ago to see my family and it's been tricky getting my hands on a computer. But here I am. Hopefully there's still someone out there reading.
Things are great in New Zealand at the moment. The government just passed a civil unions bill for gay people, the economy is sweet, the weather is balmy, and the country doesn't have troops in Iraq. On the minus side, they haven't got 'Lost' here, which outweighs everything.
Naturally, a great number of people have told me how much they despise Bush. New Zealand was really into the U.S. election - maybe more than their own elections. People had election parties, and pubs in town broadcast election night coverage on their giant projection screens. This led, of course, to many people being just as depressed as democratic supporters in the U.S.
The reason is simple, of course. New Zealand, like every other country, feels that four more years of Bush will effect them as well as Americans. New Zealanders are scared that Bush the bus driver is erratic and twitchy, prone to bold and sometimes stupid driving decisions. And like the rest of the world, they feel annoyed that he's back for four loooong years of boneheaded decision making.
I was talking a a good friend of mine yesterday and giving him my opinion - that it's in the nature of the right wing to overreach, and once they do, the pendulum will swing back - and I realized he was looking at me like "poor, deluded fool". That's the kind of smugness they have in New Zealand at the moment, with their center-left government and their nice beaches and their lame tv.
Despite all of New Zealand's ample benefits, I realise that I have been completely americanized - I find the service in restaurants shocking, and they charge you to refill your diet coke. However, I thouroughly understand why thousands of Americans will be rushing to immigrate here in the next year or two. Me, I'll be getting back on the bus in a week. The road is twisty and full of corners - hopefully we won't crash.
Things are great in New Zealand at the moment. The government just passed a civil unions bill for gay people, the economy is sweet, the weather is balmy, and the country doesn't have troops in Iraq. On the minus side, they haven't got 'Lost' here, which outweighs everything.
Naturally, a great number of people have told me how much they despise Bush. New Zealand was really into the U.S. election - maybe more than their own elections. People had election parties, and pubs in town broadcast election night coverage on their giant projection screens. This led, of course, to many people being just as depressed as democratic supporters in the U.S.
The reason is simple, of course. New Zealand, like every other country, feels that four more years of Bush will effect them as well as Americans. New Zealanders are scared that Bush the bus driver is erratic and twitchy, prone to bold and sometimes stupid driving decisions. And like the rest of the world, they feel annoyed that he's back for four loooong years of boneheaded decision making.
I was talking a a good friend of mine yesterday and giving him my opinion - that it's in the nature of the right wing to overreach, and once they do, the pendulum will swing back - and I realized he was looking at me like "poor, deluded fool". That's the kind of smugness they have in New Zealand at the moment, with their center-left government and their nice beaches and their lame tv.
Despite all of New Zealand's ample benefits, I realise that I have been completely americanized - I find the service in restaurants shocking, and they charge you to refill your diet coke. However, I thouroughly understand why thousands of Americans will be rushing to immigrate here in the next year or two. Me, I'll be getting back on the bus in a week. The road is twisty and full of corners - hopefully we won't crash.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Half-Life 2: Games as Art
I ‘m gonna write on video games again here, and I hope eyes don’t glaze over. I had to severely edit this post because it was getting away from me, due to my enthusiasm about the topic. This is the severely edited version. A couple of posts ago, I wrote about Halo 2 and it’s impact on popular culture. I was talking about video games in general and how, like motion pictures a hundred years ago, their impact and artistic merit are being largely ignored by the cultural mainstream. Some might raise their eyebrows that I would compare video games to a financial behemoth like the movie industry, but the truth is, that fight is over. Movies lost. Video games are on track this year to outgross movies by several BILLION dollars. You read that right. The information is out there – its just not making an impression on the evening news. Yet.
Halo 2 made 125 million dollars (place pinky by lips when reading that aloud) in its first 24 hours. No movie has ever done that. Still, at it’s heart, Halo 2 is art in the sense that a ‘Star Wars’ movie is art. It’s great entertainment, and fantastic fun, but it’s not going to convince people that video games are a legitimate artform.
For that, we have Half-Life 2. Let me give a little background. The original Half Life was released in November 1998, which, of course, is 42 Gaming Years ago. It was instantly hailed as the best game ever made. PC Gamer has had six ‘Best Games of All Time” polls since it’s release, and Half Life has won every single one. Why is that? Well, to explain, we need to digress. I know, I know. We’ve already digressed from Half Life 2 to Half Life 1, but this is important. Stay with me. This will all tie together.
The digression will be on the nature of video games. Games in general, well, that’s a huge topic, but video games we can handle here. A video game is basically a 30 second hook repeated for several hours. Look at Halo 2. The 30 second hook is you face a bunch of enemies, you throw a grenade at some of them, you pick off some stragglers while ducking behind some architecture. The scenery changes, the hook does not. Wash, rinse, repeat for 20 hours. That sounds kind of lame, described like that, but it’s not. Great games have a great hook. Bad games have a bad hook. Horrible games don’t have a hook and think their game is about how pretty it looks or how ‘shocking’ they can be. The Halo 2 hook is so well done, and the scenery is so well made, that by some alchemy it becomes a great game. Half Life on the other hand, had that and more. It really made you care about its story. Stories in video game are kind of like stories in porn – an afterthought. If the hook is good, the story doesn’t matter. If the story is good and the hook is bad, then the game is lousy. But if we hit a sweet spot – if we have an intelligent, mature story, and fantastic gameplay….then we really have something. Half Life hit that sweet spot. Gamers immediately began waiting for a sequel. Because the technology of games was getting so much better, and Valve, the company that made Half Life, really seemed to get it, Half Life 2, whenever it was going to come out, was the big hope for the game – the game that would make the legitimate leap from pastime to artform. Rumors swept across the internet. It was like following a soap opera. There wasn’t going to be a Half Life 2. Half Life 2 was going to be a role-playing game, not an action game. Valve had scrapped the original game engine and worked on a completely new engine from scratch, an immense technical undertaking. (This last rumor turned out to be true.) Years went by. No actual information was released. Then, in June 2003, a press release was made. The game was done, and would be released in September 03. There was joy, there was jubilation, there was bellowing in the streets. However – then the game was stolen by hackers. I kid you not. This led to the release date being pushed back by 14 months. There was despair, there was anger, there was weeping and rending of clothing.
Well, now it’s finally here, and I have played it, and it is better than I thought it would be. This is the game that people will point to and say ‘see what this medium is capable of?’
So, what’s the big deal? It comes down to several factors – story, characterization, physics, environments, and polish. I’ll go through them one by one.
Story – the story in Half-Life 2 is phenomenal. It’s about free will, love, fascism, emancipation, slavery, and killing aliens. Don’t turn your nose up at the killing aliens part! The ‘killing aliens’ part is what makes it a game. That’s the hook. The basic storyline is that you are a scientist who awakens in an eastern european totalitarian regime, and wind up starting an uprising. Along the way you meet up with several characters, one of whom you fall in love with. This was definitely not a case of a ‘porn storyline’ By the last third of the game I was playing because I desperately wanted to know what happened. That’s phenomenal for a videogame.
Characterization – a big reason why the story works so well is because of the characters. Videogame people are usually just placeholders. I mean, you can see that they represent people, but you don’t ever buy into the fiction that they are people. Well, the characters in this game are absolutely incredible. The facial expressions alone are capable of such subtlety, you can’t believe what you’re seeing at first. You start to relate to the characters, and then, when the storyline gets more involved, you really start to care for them. The technology that valve software created to create the facial expressions alone took 2 years to create. Ah, you gotta see it to believe it.
Physics – Your character, Gordon Freeman, is a man of science. He’s a thinker, not just a killer. In this game, if you’re smart, you can think your way out of situations without killing people. Everything in this virtual environment that’s been created obeys the laws of physics. If there’s a piece of trash on the ground, you can pick it up, and toss it. Early on in the game, I came across a teeter-totter, and placed a doll on one side. It slowly sank to the ground. Then I picked up a large brick and dropped it on the other side. The doll flew into the air in a perfect parabola. As you make your way through the world, you can navigate past obstacles by building bridges and ramps out of found objects. At one point, I built a raft out of old paint cans and a wooden pallet! And it worked. When you’re in an environment where everything acts like it’s supposed to, filled with believable characters – well, the suspension of disbelief is that much easier. I think what I loved most about the physics is that it allowed me to indulge my inner McGuyver and think up unique solutions to whatever problem was in front of me.
Environments – this is the part that will impress people the most. The environments in this game are utterly believable. The totalitarian city you find yourself wondering around really looks like it should. Early in the game I found myself in a loft with sunlight streaming through the windows and I was struck that I could see the dust particles in the sunlight. That’s a level of detail that is simply astounding to me. The game does a great job of placing you in diverse environments, as well. From the opening in the city, you go on an odyssey that takes you through canals, rivers, warehouses, beaches, bridges, prisons, back to the city, and finally a huge citadel. It’s a heck of a ride.
Polish – polish is what you get when every element in the game is checked and rechecked with every other element to make sure they create a seamless whole. It makes the experience greater than the sum of its parts. This game has it in spades. It’s a phenomenal experience that creates the feeling that only great art can do. It’s easily the greatest game I’ve ever played. In the future, people will look back at this game and say ‘that’s when games became art’. In my opinion, it’s the best art of the year.
Halo 2 made 125 million dollars (place pinky by lips when reading that aloud) in its first 24 hours. No movie has ever done that. Still, at it’s heart, Halo 2 is art in the sense that a ‘Star Wars’ movie is art. It’s great entertainment, and fantastic fun, but it’s not going to convince people that video games are a legitimate artform.
For that, we have Half-Life 2. Let me give a little background. The original Half Life was released in November 1998, which, of course, is 42 Gaming Years ago. It was instantly hailed as the best game ever made. PC Gamer has had six ‘Best Games of All Time” polls since it’s release, and Half Life has won every single one. Why is that? Well, to explain, we need to digress. I know, I know. We’ve already digressed from Half Life 2 to Half Life 1, but this is important. Stay with me. This will all tie together.
The digression will be on the nature of video games. Games in general, well, that’s a huge topic, but video games we can handle here. A video game is basically a 30 second hook repeated for several hours. Look at Halo 2. The 30 second hook is you face a bunch of enemies, you throw a grenade at some of them, you pick off some stragglers while ducking behind some architecture. The scenery changes, the hook does not. Wash, rinse, repeat for 20 hours. That sounds kind of lame, described like that, but it’s not. Great games have a great hook. Bad games have a bad hook. Horrible games don’t have a hook and think their game is about how pretty it looks or how ‘shocking’ they can be. The Halo 2 hook is so well done, and the scenery is so well made, that by some alchemy it becomes a great game. Half Life on the other hand, had that and more. It really made you care about its story. Stories in video game are kind of like stories in porn – an afterthought. If the hook is good, the story doesn’t matter. If the story is good and the hook is bad, then the game is lousy. But if we hit a sweet spot – if we have an intelligent, mature story, and fantastic gameplay….then we really have something. Half Life hit that sweet spot. Gamers immediately began waiting for a sequel. Because the technology of games was getting so much better, and Valve, the company that made Half Life, really seemed to get it, Half Life 2, whenever it was going to come out, was the big hope for the game – the game that would make the legitimate leap from pastime to artform. Rumors swept across the internet. It was like following a soap opera. There wasn’t going to be a Half Life 2. Half Life 2 was going to be a role-playing game, not an action game. Valve had scrapped the original game engine and worked on a completely new engine from scratch, an immense technical undertaking. (This last rumor turned out to be true.) Years went by. No actual information was released. Then, in June 2003, a press release was made. The game was done, and would be released in September 03. There was joy, there was jubilation, there was bellowing in the streets. However – then the game was stolen by hackers. I kid you not. This led to the release date being pushed back by 14 months. There was despair, there was anger, there was weeping and rending of clothing.
Well, now it’s finally here, and I have played it, and it is better than I thought it would be. This is the game that people will point to and say ‘see what this medium is capable of?’
So, what’s the big deal? It comes down to several factors – story, characterization, physics, environments, and polish. I’ll go through them one by one.
Story – the story in Half-Life 2 is phenomenal. It’s about free will, love, fascism, emancipation, slavery, and killing aliens. Don’t turn your nose up at the killing aliens part! The ‘killing aliens’ part is what makes it a game. That’s the hook. The basic storyline is that you are a scientist who awakens in an eastern european totalitarian regime, and wind up starting an uprising. Along the way you meet up with several characters, one of whom you fall in love with. This was definitely not a case of a ‘porn storyline’ By the last third of the game I was playing because I desperately wanted to know what happened. That’s phenomenal for a videogame.
Characterization – a big reason why the story works so well is because of the characters. Videogame people are usually just placeholders. I mean, you can see that they represent people, but you don’t ever buy into the fiction that they are people. Well, the characters in this game are absolutely incredible. The facial expressions alone are capable of such subtlety, you can’t believe what you’re seeing at first. You start to relate to the characters, and then, when the storyline gets more involved, you really start to care for them. The technology that valve software created to create the facial expressions alone took 2 years to create. Ah, you gotta see it to believe it.
Physics – Your character, Gordon Freeman, is a man of science. He’s a thinker, not just a killer. In this game, if you’re smart, you can think your way out of situations without killing people. Everything in this virtual environment that’s been created obeys the laws of physics. If there’s a piece of trash on the ground, you can pick it up, and toss it. Early on in the game, I came across a teeter-totter, and placed a doll on one side. It slowly sank to the ground. Then I picked up a large brick and dropped it on the other side. The doll flew into the air in a perfect parabola. As you make your way through the world, you can navigate past obstacles by building bridges and ramps out of found objects. At one point, I built a raft out of old paint cans and a wooden pallet! And it worked. When you’re in an environment where everything acts like it’s supposed to, filled with believable characters – well, the suspension of disbelief is that much easier. I think what I loved most about the physics is that it allowed me to indulge my inner McGuyver and think up unique solutions to whatever problem was in front of me.
Environments – this is the part that will impress people the most. The environments in this game are utterly believable. The totalitarian city you find yourself wondering around really looks like it should. Early in the game I found myself in a loft with sunlight streaming through the windows and I was struck that I could see the dust particles in the sunlight. That’s a level of detail that is simply astounding to me. The game does a great job of placing you in diverse environments, as well. From the opening in the city, you go on an odyssey that takes you through canals, rivers, warehouses, beaches, bridges, prisons, back to the city, and finally a huge citadel. It’s a heck of a ride.
Polish – polish is what you get when every element in the game is checked and rechecked with every other element to make sure they create a seamless whole. It makes the experience greater than the sum of its parts. This game has it in spades. It’s a phenomenal experience that creates the feeling that only great art can do. It’s easily the greatest game I’ve ever played. In the future, people will look back at this game and say ‘that’s when games became art’. In my opinion, it’s the best art of the year.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
The Incredibles
There’s an interesting thing about this movie. For an animated feature, it really takes its time to get moving. After an action packed sequence as the movie opens, it calms down for the better part of an hour to allow us to get to know about its characters. Bob Parr, the erstwhile Mr. Incredible, works now in a soul-destroying insurance company. Now, if you’re an 8 –year old kid, would you rather watch a frustrated middle-aged executive battle bureaucratic corruption or a red-suited superhero fight a giant killer robot? However, this is just part of the movies cunning plan – it knows that many of the grownups watching the movie will relate to its central subtext – that in growing up, we compromise, but the idealist inside us doesn’t have to die. Mr. Incredible has tried, oh, how he’s tried …to bury the hero he once was, because the world doesn’t want heroes like him anymore. Instead of doing what he most wants to do – help people with his special gifts – he instead has to deny old women their coverage claims. The zenith of the frustration this causes him is when he desperately wants to stop a mugging in progress happening before his eyes, yet his odious boss orders him to do nothing. At this point he snaps and throws his boss through several walls. It’s a satisfying moment, but also a scary one. And it’s meant to be. William Blake has a proverb that I once spent several months trying to understand. “Better to strangle an infant in the crib than nurse unanswered desires.” Wow. That’s pretty intense, no? But think about it. What Blake is saying isn’t that you should strangle a baby. He’s saying that as horrible as that is, the consequences that arise from suppressing your true nature will lead to worse things.
Thus it is with Mr. Incredible. All he wants is to help people, to stop crimes, to be a hero – but the world has no place for that. And this can only be a bad thing. Try as he might, he can’t escape his inherent nature. His wife, Helen, who formerly went by the name Elastigirl, is much better at dealing with this new reality. She’s an elastic person in attitude as well as her abilities. (This metaphor of superpowers mirroring the internal persona plays out with the other characters also – Violet, the teen daughter, literally vanishes when she’s around the boy she likes – she’s a shrinking violet due to her shyness. And Dash’s superspeed is an obvious analog to his AD/HD ness. Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone? C’mon! He’s coooooool.)
The joy that this movie contains is from seeing The Incredibles – particularly Mr. Incredible – get to express their true natures after suppressing them for so long. After being told his whole life to not run faster than other people, little dash is finally told to run as fast as he can. The look of bliss that crosses his face when he realizes he’s moving so fast he’s running on water is the look of someone who has finally accessed his place in the world. That’s a wonderful feeling. After all the set-up the movie gives you, when you finally do get to the giant robot showdowns, you care that much more.
One other point about this movie. Apart from the explicit critique of the insurance industry (which I loved), it also contains a major theme about mediocrity. It’s possible to say this movie is defending the value of elites. Several times the line “Everyone’s special…which means no-one is.” Gets uttered. I think many people will be uneasy about this aspect of the movie. I am certainly not one of them. ‘All men are created equal’ is a great fiction for basing a democratic government on, but it’s a fiction nonetheless. We’re NOT created equal. It’s okay for people to excel. You shouldn’t feel guilty for excelling. I saw something on the news this weekend that made my jaw hit the floor. Apparently there’s a movement among teachers to stop correcting papers using red ink, because ‘the red ink makes the children feel bad.’ Okay, just for a second ignore the fact that if they start using green or purple ink, soon kids will start feeling bad about seeing those colors on their papers. Instead think about how bass-ackwards it is to think that if a kid is upset because they have red all over their paper, the problem isn’t the kid and his issues, it’s THE FUCKING INK!
The Incredibles subtly points out the ridiculousness of such positions, and for that, it’s a much more solid work of art. It’s a truly life-affirming shot in the arm. This will be a movie that people are watching and enjoying twenty years from now. One of the best of the year.
Thus it is with Mr. Incredible. All he wants is to help people, to stop crimes, to be a hero – but the world has no place for that. And this can only be a bad thing. Try as he might, he can’t escape his inherent nature. His wife, Helen, who formerly went by the name Elastigirl, is much better at dealing with this new reality. She’s an elastic person in attitude as well as her abilities. (This metaphor of superpowers mirroring the internal persona plays out with the other characters also – Violet, the teen daughter, literally vanishes when she’s around the boy she likes – she’s a shrinking violet due to her shyness. And Dash’s superspeed is an obvious analog to his AD/HD ness. Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone? C’mon! He’s coooooool.)
The joy that this movie contains is from seeing The Incredibles – particularly Mr. Incredible – get to express their true natures after suppressing them for so long. After being told his whole life to not run faster than other people, little dash is finally told to run as fast as he can. The look of bliss that crosses his face when he realizes he’s moving so fast he’s running on water is the look of someone who has finally accessed his place in the world. That’s a wonderful feeling. After all the set-up the movie gives you, when you finally do get to the giant robot showdowns, you care that much more.
One other point about this movie. Apart from the explicit critique of the insurance industry (which I loved), it also contains a major theme about mediocrity. It’s possible to say this movie is defending the value of elites. Several times the line “Everyone’s special…which means no-one is.” Gets uttered. I think many people will be uneasy about this aspect of the movie. I am certainly not one of them. ‘All men are created equal’ is a great fiction for basing a democratic government on, but it’s a fiction nonetheless. We’re NOT created equal. It’s okay for people to excel. You shouldn’t feel guilty for excelling. I saw something on the news this weekend that made my jaw hit the floor. Apparently there’s a movement among teachers to stop correcting papers using red ink, because ‘the red ink makes the children feel bad.’ Okay, just for a second ignore the fact that if they start using green or purple ink, soon kids will start feeling bad about seeing those colors on their papers. Instead think about how bass-ackwards it is to think that if a kid is upset because they have red all over their paper, the problem isn’t the kid and his issues, it’s THE FUCKING INK!
The Incredibles subtly points out the ridiculousness of such positions, and for that, it’s a much more solid work of art. It’s a truly life-affirming shot in the arm. This will be a movie that people are watching and enjoying twenty years from now. One of the best of the year.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Halo 2
If you're not into video games, the Halo 2 'phenomenon' may well take you by surprise. I mean, Halo was just an excellent shoot-em-up game. Why is the hype for the sequel so huge? I will attempt to explain. First, however, full geek disclosure: I waited at the video game store last night with hundreds of other geeks to get my hands on my pre-ordered copy.
Ok, to understand this phenomenon, we have to buy into the concept known as Sturgeon's Law. Theodore Sturgeon was a Science Fiction writer in the 50's and 60's who wrote dense, clever, intelligent stories which contrasted with the shallow, giant-robot fighting science fiction that dominated the genre back then. He was once asked, 'Why is so much science fiction crap?" He answered, " Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap....but 90 percent of everything is crap." Want evidence of the accuracy of this law? Go to your movie listing page in the nearest newspaper. Look down the list of movies. See what I mean? Now go to your TV Guide. Yep, 90% crap. For the final proof, turn on your radio. So, if 90% of everything is crap, then 90% of all video games are crap. And boy, are they crap. One has to sift through a lot of crap just to find some mediocre titles, let alone something good. Something excellent - if you get one example of videogame excellence a year, you're doing well.
The original Halo was such a game. Smart story, incredible environments, amazing gameplay, and the ability to do it all with friends with an amazing multiplayer element. People played it pretty constantly for 3 years. And in the gamer world, years are like dog years - a 3 year old game may as well be 21. When I hosted the inaugral Moondog's Gamefest earlier this year, (more on the Glory that is Gamefest later), it was Halo that had everyone staying up late and wondering where the time went. So the sequel - well, everyone that loved the original knew they wouldn't screw it up. Such quality is rare in life. It makes grown men stand out in the cold outside Electronics Boutiques accross the country.
And Halo 2 delivers. It's freakishly good. It's so good non video game people look at it and say "Holy shit!" It contains moments where you forget you're playing a game. That is something that only good art can do - it transports you. The crazy thing is, Halo 2 will probably not even be the best game of the year - that will probably be Half Life 2, due out in 2 weeks time. My theory of video games is that, like motion pictures 100 years ago, they're the Rodney Dangerfield of art - they don't get no respect. It took a few legitimate movie masterpieces - Birth of Nation, Citizen Kane - for movies to be accepted by mainstream culture as legitimate art. Until the masterpieces, theatre snobs just turned up their noses at the movies. The advance word is that Half-life 2 is the game that will do that for this new medium. I'll let you know, because guess what? I have it pre-ordered.
Ok, to understand this phenomenon, we have to buy into the concept known as Sturgeon's Law. Theodore Sturgeon was a Science Fiction writer in the 50's and 60's who wrote dense, clever, intelligent stories which contrasted with the shallow, giant-robot fighting science fiction that dominated the genre back then. He was once asked, 'Why is so much science fiction crap?" He answered, " Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap....but 90 percent of everything is crap." Want evidence of the accuracy of this law? Go to your movie listing page in the nearest newspaper. Look down the list of movies. See what I mean? Now go to your TV Guide. Yep, 90% crap. For the final proof, turn on your radio. So, if 90% of everything is crap, then 90% of all video games are crap. And boy, are they crap. One has to sift through a lot of crap just to find some mediocre titles, let alone something good. Something excellent - if you get one example of videogame excellence a year, you're doing well.
The original Halo was such a game. Smart story, incredible environments, amazing gameplay, and the ability to do it all with friends with an amazing multiplayer element. People played it pretty constantly for 3 years. And in the gamer world, years are like dog years - a 3 year old game may as well be 21. When I hosted the inaugral Moondog's Gamefest earlier this year, (more on the Glory that is Gamefest later), it was Halo that had everyone staying up late and wondering where the time went. So the sequel - well, everyone that loved the original knew they wouldn't screw it up. Such quality is rare in life. It makes grown men stand out in the cold outside Electronics Boutiques accross the country.
And Halo 2 delivers. It's freakishly good. It's so good non video game people look at it and say "Holy shit!" It contains moments where you forget you're playing a game. That is something that only good art can do - it transports you. The crazy thing is, Halo 2 will probably not even be the best game of the year - that will probably be Half Life 2, due out in 2 weeks time. My theory of video games is that, like motion pictures 100 years ago, they're the Rodney Dangerfield of art - they don't get no respect. It took a few legitimate movie masterpieces - Birth of Nation, Citizen Kane - for movies to be accepted by mainstream culture as legitimate art. Until the masterpieces, theatre snobs just turned up their noses at the movies. The advance word is that Half-life 2 is the game that will do that for this new medium. I'll let you know, because guess what? I have it pre-ordered.
Friday, November 05, 2004
Four Columns From The Times
I'm gonna stop talking about politics for a (little) while - I want to use this blog to talk about some other stuff too. But I wanted to include these 4 columns from the NY Times Op-Ed page - they seem to really get how I feel about this last week, and the next 4 years. Read on!
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
The Red Zone
By MAUREEN DOWD
With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.
"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."
Democrat: Heal thyself.
W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.
The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."
The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?
While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.
"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.
Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.
Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."
He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.
Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.
But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.
Invading France?
No Surrender
By PAUL KRUGMANPublished: November 5, 2004
Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda.
Democrats are now, understandably, engaged in self-examination. But while it's O.K. to think things over, those who abhor the direction Mr. Bush is taking the country must maintain their intensity; they must not succumb to defeatism.
This election did not prove the Republicans unbeatable. Mr. Bush did not win in a landslide. Without the fading but still potent aura of 9/11, when the nation was ready to rally around any leader, he wouldn't have won at all. And future events will almost surely offer opportunities for a Democratic comeback.
I don't hope for more and worse scandals and failures during Mr. Bush's second term, but I do expect them. The resurgence of Al Qaeda, the debacle in Iraq, the explosion of the budget deficit and the failure to create jobs weren't things that just happened to occur on Mr. Bush's watch. They were the consequences of bad policies made by people who let ideology trump reality.
Those people still have Mr. Bush's ear, and his election victory will only give them the confidence to make even bigger mistakes.
So what should the Democrats do?
One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that's what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, "We've got to close the cultural gap." But that's a losing proposition.
Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn't be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.
But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.
Does this mean that the Democrats are condemned to permanent minority status? No. The religious right - not to be confused with religious Americans in general - isn't a majority, or even a dominant minority. It's just one bloc of voters, whom the Republican Party has learned to mobilize with wedge issues like this year's polarizing debate over gay marriage.
Rather than catering to voters who will never support them, the Democrats - who are doing pretty well at getting the votes of moderates and independents - need to become equally effective at mobilizing their own base.
In fact, they have made good strides, showing much more unity and intensity than anyone thought possible a year ago. But for the lingering aura of 9/11, they would have won.
What they need to do now is develop a political program aimed at maintaining and increasing the intensity. That means setting some realistic but critical goals for the next year.
Democrats shouldn't cave in to Mr. Bush when he tries to appoint highly partisan judges - even when the effort to block a bad appointment fails, it will show supporters that the party stands for something. They should gear up for a bid to retake the Senate or at least make a major dent in the Republican lead. They should keep the pressure on Mr. Bush when he makes terrible policy decisions, which he will.
It's all right to take a few weeks to think it over. (Heads up to readers: I'll be starting a long-planned break next week, to work on a economics textbook. I'll be back in January.) But Democrats mustn't give up the fight. What's at stake isn't just the fate of their party, but the fate of America as we know it.
O.K., Folks: Back to Work
By BOB HERBERT
An iron rule of life is to be careful what you wish for.
President Bush can take his re-election victory to the bank, and his political portfolio has been bolstered by enhanced Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. That's the good news for the president. Nearly all the other news is bad.
A story in the business section of yesterday's Times noted, "Even as President Bush was celebrating his election victory on Wednesday, his Treasury Department provided an ominous reminder about the economic challenges ahead."
With budget deficits exploding, the government will have to borrow $147 billion in the first three months of 2005, a quarterly record. But the record won't stand for long. The government is hemorrhaging money, and the nation has a war to pay for. A new record is almost sure to be set before the year is out.
Managing money is not one of this president's strong points. Plus and minus signs mean nothing to him. If he were actually writing checks, they'd be bouncing to the moon. The federal government's revenue was $100 billion lower this year than when Mr. Bush took office, and spending is $400 billion higher.
Yesterday, at his press conference, the president made it clear that his campaign promise of more - not fewer - tax cuts for the wealthy is at the top of his second-term agenda.
Much has been made of the support Mr. Bush has gotten from religious people. He's going to need all of their prayers that some miracle happens to suspend the laws of simple arithmetic and keep his fiscal house of cards from collapsing.
Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq, overshadowed by the election, is as grim as ever. Insurgents blew up a critical oil pipeline on Tuesday, the latest severe blow to efforts to get the Iraq economy on track. Three British soldiers were killed in an attack yesterday. The assassinations, kidnappings and car bombings continued. The humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders announced that it would cease operations in Iraq because of the unrelenting danger. And Hungary became the latest U.S. coalition partner to announce that it would withdraw its troops from Iraq.
In other words, nothing has changed. Mr. Bush's victory on Tuesday was not based on his demonstrated competence in office or on a litany of perceived successes. For all the talk about values that we're hearing, the president ran a campaign that appealed above all to voters' fears and prejudices. He didn't say he'd made life better for the average American over the past four years. He didn't say he had transformed the schools, or made college more affordable, or brought jobs to the unemployed or health care to the sick and vulnerable.
He said, essentially, be very afraid. Be frightened of terrorism, and of those dangerous gay marriages, and of those in this pluralistic society who may have thoughts and beliefs and values that differ from your own.
As usual, he turned reality upside down. A quintessential American value is tolerance for ideas other than one's own. Tuesday's election was a dismaying sprint toward intolerance, sparked by a smiling president who is a master at appealing to the baser aspects of our natures.
Which brings me to the Democrats - the ordinary voters, not the politicians - and where they go from here. I have been struck by the extraordinary demoralization, even dark despair, among a lot of voters who desperately wanted John Kerry to defeat Mr. Bush. "We did all we could," one woman told me, "and we still lost."
Here's my advice: You had a couple of days to indulge your depression - now, get over it. The election's been lost but there's still a country to save, and with the current leadership that won't be easy. Crucial matters that have been taken for granted too long - like the Supreme Court and Social Security - are at risk. Caving in to depression and a sense of helplessness should not be an option when the country is speeding toward an abyss.
Roll up your sleeves and do what you can. Talk to your neighbors. Call or write your elected officials. Volunteer to help in political campaigns. Circulate petitions. Attend meetings. Protest. Run for office. Support good candidates who are running for office. Register people to vote. Reach out to the young and the apathetic. Raise money. Stay informed. And vote, vote, vote - every chance you get.
Democracy is a breeze during good times. It's when the storms are raging that citizenship is put to the test. And there's a hell of a wind blowing right now.
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
The Red Zone
By MAUREEN DOWD
With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.
"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."
Democrat: Heal thyself.
W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.
The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."
The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?
While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.
"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.
Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.
Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."
He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.
Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.
But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.
Invading France?
No Surrender
By PAUL KRUGMANPublished: November 5, 2004
Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda.
Democrats are now, understandably, engaged in self-examination. But while it's O.K. to think things over, those who abhor the direction Mr. Bush is taking the country must maintain their intensity; they must not succumb to defeatism.
This election did not prove the Republicans unbeatable. Mr. Bush did not win in a landslide. Without the fading but still potent aura of 9/11, when the nation was ready to rally around any leader, he wouldn't have won at all. And future events will almost surely offer opportunities for a Democratic comeback.
I don't hope for more and worse scandals and failures during Mr. Bush's second term, but I do expect them. The resurgence of Al Qaeda, the debacle in Iraq, the explosion of the budget deficit and the failure to create jobs weren't things that just happened to occur on Mr. Bush's watch. They were the consequences of bad policies made by people who let ideology trump reality.
Those people still have Mr. Bush's ear, and his election victory will only give them the confidence to make even bigger mistakes.
So what should the Democrats do?
One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that's what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, "We've got to close the cultural gap." But that's a losing proposition.
Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn't be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.
But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.
Does this mean that the Democrats are condemned to permanent minority status? No. The religious right - not to be confused with religious Americans in general - isn't a majority, or even a dominant minority. It's just one bloc of voters, whom the Republican Party has learned to mobilize with wedge issues like this year's polarizing debate over gay marriage.
Rather than catering to voters who will never support them, the Democrats - who are doing pretty well at getting the votes of moderates and independents - need to become equally effective at mobilizing their own base.
In fact, they have made good strides, showing much more unity and intensity than anyone thought possible a year ago. But for the lingering aura of 9/11, they would have won.
What they need to do now is develop a political program aimed at maintaining and increasing the intensity. That means setting some realistic but critical goals for the next year.
Democrats shouldn't cave in to Mr. Bush when he tries to appoint highly partisan judges - even when the effort to block a bad appointment fails, it will show supporters that the party stands for something. They should gear up for a bid to retake the Senate or at least make a major dent in the Republican lead. They should keep the pressure on Mr. Bush when he makes terrible policy decisions, which he will.
It's all right to take a few weeks to think it over. (Heads up to readers: I'll be starting a long-planned break next week, to work on a economics textbook. I'll be back in January.) But Democrats mustn't give up the fight. What's at stake isn't just the fate of their party, but the fate of America as we know it.
O.K., Folks: Back to Work
By BOB HERBERT
An iron rule of life is to be careful what you wish for.
President Bush can take his re-election victory to the bank, and his political portfolio has been bolstered by enhanced Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. That's the good news for the president. Nearly all the other news is bad.
A story in the business section of yesterday's Times noted, "Even as President Bush was celebrating his election victory on Wednesday, his Treasury Department provided an ominous reminder about the economic challenges ahead."
With budget deficits exploding, the government will have to borrow $147 billion in the first three months of 2005, a quarterly record. But the record won't stand for long. The government is hemorrhaging money, and the nation has a war to pay for. A new record is almost sure to be set before the year is out.
Managing money is not one of this president's strong points. Plus and minus signs mean nothing to him. If he were actually writing checks, they'd be bouncing to the moon. The federal government's revenue was $100 billion lower this year than when Mr. Bush took office, and spending is $400 billion higher.
Yesterday, at his press conference, the president made it clear that his campaign promise of more - not fewer - tax cuts for the wealthy is at the top of his second-term agenda.
Much has been made of the support Mr. Bush has gotten from religious people. He's going to need all of their prayers that some miracle happens to suspend the laws of simple arithmetic and keep his fiscal house of cards from collapsing.
Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq, overshadowed by the election, is as grim as ever. Insurgents blew up a critical oil pipeline on Tuesday, the latest severe blow to efforts to get the Iraq economy on track. Three British soldiers were killed in an attack yesterday. The assassinations, kidnappings and car bombings continued. The humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders announced that it would cease operations in Iraq because of the unrelenting danger. And Hungary became the latest U.S. coalition partner to announce that it would withdraw its troops from Iraq.
In other words, nothing has changed. Mr. Bush's victory on Tuesday was not based on his demonstrated competence in office or on a litany of perceived successes. For all the talk about values that we're hearing, the president ran a campaign that appealed above all to voters' fears and prejudices. He didn't say he'd made life better for the average American over the past four years. He didn't say he had transformed the schools, or made college more affordable, or brought jobs to the unemployed or health care to the sick and vulnerable.
He said, essentially, be very afraid. Be frightened of terrorism, and of those dangerous gay marriages, and of those in this pluralistic society who may have thoughts and beliefs and values that differ from your own.
As usual, he turned reality upside down. A quintessential American value is tolerance for ideas other than one's own. Tuesday's election was a dismaying sprint toward intolerance, sparked by a smiling president who is a master at appealing to the baser aspects of our natures.
Which brings me to the Democrats - the ordinary voters, not the politicians - and where they go from here. I have been struck by the extraordinary demoralization, even dark despair, among a lot of voters who desperately wanted John Kerry to defeat Mr. Bush. "We did all we could," one woman told me, "and we still lost."
Here's my advice: You had a couple of days to indulge your depression - now, get over it. The election's been lost but there's still a country to save, and with the current leadership that won't be easy. Crucial matters that have been taken for granted too long - like the Supreme Court and Social Security - are at risk. Caving in to depression and a sense of helplessness should not be an option when the country is speeding toward an abyss.
Roll up your sleeves and do what you can. Talk to your neighbors. Call or write your elected officials. Volunteer to help in political campaigns. Circulate petitions. Attend meetings. Protest. Run for office. Support good candidates who are running for office. Register people to vote. Reach out to the young and the apathetic. Raise money. Stay informed. And vote, vote, vote - every chance you get.
Democracy is a breeze during good times. It's when the storms are raging that citizenship is put to the test. And there's a hell of a wind blowing right now.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
The Aftermath
If you're happy that George W Bush won the election, enjoy your moment. If,like me, you're experiencing an emotional hole that mere words can't easily describe, remember this feeling.
As hard as it seems to believe, it's going to pass. In a week or so, you'll be amazed at how much better you feel. And that's good - humans aren't built to feel this kind of disapointment for long periods.
Here's a couple of things that I believe strongly in, and that I think it's important to remember. Number one, of course, is that this was a close election. Bush won by 51 to 49%. If you imagine the voting public as a group of 100 people in a town hall, 49 of them agree with YOU. The other 51 people agree with the other guy. Think about that. It's important because the Bush folks want to paint this as a 'mandate'. They won fair and square (this time) but it's not a mandate. All we need to do is convince 2 of those folks to change their mind and we win.
The trick is, how do we do that?
There are some who think we should 'move towards the right' and abandon some liberal principles in order
to get elected next time. I disagree. Clinton moved the dems as far to the right as they could go and not
be repubs. I mean, the new senator for Oklahoma wants to ban gays from being teachers and install the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Do we really want to move closer to that?
Here's why those 2 people went with Bush rather than Kerry. They liked Bush more. He connected with them. They were scared, and thought he could do a better job of protecting them. Those 2 people are not the straw-munching, bible bashing rednecks we keep hearing about. They're regular folks who gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. In four years I don't think they'll be wanting to do that again. I really don't.
The problems that smart people (you know, like us) can see now are going to become obvious even to dumb people in the next four years. Iraq, the environment, the economy. There are no simple quick fixes to these issues. And as soon as they get worse (and believe me,they're going to get worse - a lot worse) then they will trump sideshows like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage. Things on planet earth are gonna get as ugly as a Liza Minnelli honeymoon night.
Of course, that doesn't really make us feel much better, does it? We wanted to win. And not just to be right. We wanted to win because 4 more years are really going to make the world a more dangerous place, in many ways.
So what now? Well, we keep at it. We keep working, we hope that the world won't be irrevocably wrecked in the next 4 years. We do all we can to convince those other two people in the town hall to walk over to our side of the room.
And we keep our sense of humor, because without that, we're really fucked.
As hard as it seems to believe, it's going to pass. In a week or so, you'll be amazed at how much better you feel. And that's good - humans aren't built to feel this kind of disapointment for long periods.
Here's a couple of things that I believe strongly in, and that I think it's important to remember. Number one, of course, is that this was a close election. Bush won by 51 to 49%. If you imagine the voting public as a group of 100 people in a town hall, 49 of them agree with YOU. The other 51 people agree with the other guy. Think about that. It's important because the Bush folks want to paint this as a 'mandate'. They won fair and square (this time) but it's not a mandate. All we need to do is convince 2 of those folks to change their mind and we win.
The trick is, how do we do that?
There are some who think we should 'move towards the right' and abandon some liberal principles in order
to get elected next time. I disagree. Clinton moved the dems as far to the right as they could go and not
be repubs. I mean, the new senator for Oklahoma wants to ban gays from being teachers and install the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Do we really want to move closer to that?
Here's why those 2 people went with Bush rather than Kerry. They liked Bush more. He connected with them. They were scared, and thought he could do a better job of protecting them. Those 2 people are not the straw-munching, bible bashing rednecks we keep hearing about. They're regular folks who gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. In four years I don't think they'll be wanting to do that again. I really don't.
The problems that smart people (you know, like us) can see now are going to become obvious even to dumb people in the next four years. Iraq, the environment, the economy. There are no simple quick fixes to these issues. And as soon as they get worse (and believe me,they're going to get worse - a lot worse) then they will trump sideshows like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage. Things on planet earth are gonna get as ugly as a Liza Minnelli honeymoon night.
Of course, that doesn't really make us feel much better, does it? We wanted to win. And not just to be right. We wanted to win because 4 more years are really going to make the world a more dangerous place, in many ways.
So what now? Well, we keep at it. We keep working, we hope that the world won't be irrevocably wrecked in the next 4 years. We do all we can to convince those other two people in the town hall to walk over to our side of the room.
And we keep our sense of humor, because without that, we're really fucked.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
The Nature of Reality
Okay, I'll post one more time before election night, but this is gonna be the big one. I want to talk about reality here because I believe it is at the heart of this election campaign. If Bush wins, then fantasy will have trumped reality. That's not to say that John Kerry is the arbiter of reality - I'm sure he has some odd ideas or assumptions.But Bush? That boy is as crazy as a shithouse rat.
Lets start by defining Reality. One might think that this would be difficult, but I'm very smart and I've put in the hours. There's a multitude of ways to go, but this one works best, I think: Reality is that which, when you stop thinking about it, doesn't go away.
Allow me to explain. Lets say that you're a mentally ill person. Lets say that you are deluded to such a degree that you believe you are invincible. You decide to cross a busy street, paying scant attention to the 18-wheeler truck barreling toward you. In your particular reality, that semi can't hurt you.What happens? I'll tell you what happens. You get turned into a flesh pancake, irregardless of what you choose to believe.
Objective Reality and subjective reality often diverge, and when that happens, objective reality always wins. In George W. Bush's universe, the truck didn't hit you, and if it did, it shouldn't be reported, becuase that only undermines the crossing the street effort, and even if it did hit you,that only proves his point that we all need to cross the highway in front of semis, and heck,crossing the street is hard work, and why do you hate America?
Bush's entire campaign is based on denying reality. In his universe, Iraq had WMD, Saddam was behind 9/11, we have enough troops on the ground in the middle east,and John Kerry is a liberal whiner. In Bush's reality, the economy is strong and getting stronger, in spite of a deficit in the past 4 years that outweighs cumulative deficits from the previous 200. You read that right. In Bush's reality, if you point out that there's a semi coming, you're putting the troops in danger,even though hes the one who sent them into harm's way for weapons which don't exist. In Bush's reality, he's the hero of the hour, even though its obvious he can't admit mistakes or take responsibility for them, pretty much two requisites for those who want to be heroes.
None of this means that Bush can't win. He could. But I honestly think that the only way he can win is if he is able to convince Americans his fantasy is correct. It's possible, but not likely. To break it down, lets go to the polls.
The first thing to know about the polls is: forget the 'Bush up by 3' or 'Bush ahead by 1' headlines. Those headlines are created because to sell papers, there needs to be a loser and a winner. The science of polls tells us that whenever an incumbent president's approval is below 50%, he's in trouble. Why? Because since 1960, undecided voters break for the challenger over the incumbent at a rate of 86%. That means that the key stat is, how many points under 50% is Bush on election day? At the moment, every poll has Bush under 50, with his best showing being 49% and his worst showing being 46%. All good news for Kerry. Now the fact that 49% of the American electorate believes the fantasy Bush is trowelling out is scary, but the good news is that if you have concluded that he's full of shit, you're very unlikely to vote for the man.
So there you have it. If the public rejects fantasy, this time next week, we will have a new president elect. Lets hope the above column is grounded in reality. :)
Lets start by defining Reality. One might think that this would be difficult, but I'm very smart and I've put in the hours. There's a multitude of ways to go, but this one works best, I think: Reality is that which, when you stop thinking about it, doesn't go away.
Allow me to explain. Lets say that you're a mentally ill person. Lets say that you are deluded to such a degree that you believe you are invincible. You decide to cross a busy street, paying scant attention to the 18-wheeler truck barreling toward you. In your particular reality, that semi can't hurt you.What happens? I'll tell you what happens. You get turned into a flesh pancake, irregardless of what you choose to believe.
Objective Reality and subjective reality often diverge, and when that happens, objective reality always wins. In George W. Bush's universe, the truck didn't hit you, and if it did, it shouldn't be reported, becuase that only undermines the crossing the street effort, and even if it did hit you,that only proves his point that we all need to cross the highway in front of semis, and heck,crossing the street is hard work, and why do you hate America?
Bush's entire campaign is based on denying reality. In his universe, Iraq had WMD, Saddam was behind 9/11, we have enough troops on the ground in the middle east,and John Kerry is a liberal whiner. In Bush's reality, the economy is strong and getting stronger, in spite of a deficit in the past 4 years that outweighs cumulative deficits from the previous 200. You read that right. In Bush's reality, if you point out that there's a semi coming, you're putting the troops in danger,even though hes the one who sent them into harm's way for weapons which don't exist. In Bush's reality, he's the hero of the hour, even though its obvious he can't admit mistakes or take responsibility for them, pretty much two requisites for those who want to be heroes.
None of this means that Bush can't win. He could. But I honestly think that the only way he can win is if he is able to convince Americans his fantasy is correct. It's possible, but not likely. To break it down, lets go to the polls.
The first thing to know about the polls is: forget the 'Bush up by 3' or 'Bush ahead by 1' headlines. Those headlines are created because to sell papers, there needs to be a loser and a winner. The science of polls tells us that whenever an incumbent president's approval is below 50%, he's in trouble. Why? Because since 1960, undecided voters break for the challenger over the incumbent at a rate of 86%. That means that the key stat is, how many points under 50% is Bush on election day? At the moment, every poll has Bush under 50, with his best showing being 49% and his worst showing being 46%. All good news for Kerry. Now the fact that 49% of the American electorate believes the fantasy Bush is trowelling out is scary, but the good news is that if you have concluded that he's full of shit, you're very unlikely to vote for the man.
So there you have it. If the public rejects fantasy, this time next week, we will have a new president elect. Lets hope the above column is grounded in reality. :)
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Putting my money where my mouth is
Ok, for anyone out there who is still waiting for me to post about movies and videogames, you're gonna have to wait a little bit. Like, till November 3. (Although here are my picks for videogames - Halo2 and Rome-Total War, and for movies, you will not go wrong with The Incredibles. Count on it.)
For now, its more politics. So, I was just getting into the shower the other day and I had this feeling sweep over me. A feeling that John Kerry was going to win the election.
A couple of points to note here. One, obviously, I want John Kerry to win. It aint no secret. So therefore, what's the big deal? And two, so what? Why should my feeling be at all significant? Well, first, even though I make no secret of my personal preference, I think of myself as more on the realistic/pessimistic side of the continuum, as opposed to optimistic/misguided. This is a significant intuition because it's very rare. Just looking at this thing as objectively as I can, if Kerry is withing 4 points of Bush on election day, I see him winning it due to undecided voters breaking to the democrats. It just seems to make sense to me. So I figured I'd write it down here beforehand. Of course, if I'm wrong, that'll be the last thing I care about anyway.
I hope I'm not wrong.
You've probably read all about John Stewarts withering takedown of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson on Crossfire last Friday If you haven't, read the transcript here: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf.01.html
John Stewart is my freaking hero. For the record, My favorite part is when he calls Carson a dick. I was just so glad that someone gave the mainstream media a kick in the ass.
For now, its more politics. So, I was just getting into the shower the other day and I had this feeling sweep over me. A feeling that John Kerry was going to win the election.
A couple of points to note here. One, obviously, I want John Kerry to win. It aint no secret. So therefore, what's the big deal? And two, so what? Why should my feeling be at all significant? Well, first, even though I make no secret of my personal preference, I think of myself as more on the realistic/pessimistic side of the continuum, as opposed to optimistic/misguided. This is a significant intuition because it's very rare. Just looking at this thing as objectively as I can, if Kerry is withing 4 points of Bush on election day, I see him winning it due to undecided voters breaking to the democrats. It just seems to make sense to me. So I figured I'd write it down here beforehand. Of course, if I'm wrong, that'll be the last thing I care about anyway.
I hope I'm not wrong.
You've probably read all about John Stewarts withering takedown of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson on Crossfire last Friday If you haven't, read the transcript here: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf.01.html
John Stewart is my freaking hero. For the record, My favorite part is when he calls Carson a dick. I was just so glad that someone gave the mainstream media a kick in the ass.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Well, here are some thoughts before the third debate. It’s become clear that the first debate did something very rare – it changed the campaign dynamic. As much as I’d like to think that was because Kerry did a great job, I think it was more that Bush did such a horrible job. That clanking you heard was the scales falling from undecided voter’s eyes.
Since that debate, the new dynamic has been a dead heat. One poll will show Bush ahead, another Kerry, a third a complete tie. This means that the second debate didn’t convince anyone new to change their mind…or to change their mind back. If the third debate goes the same way, this dynamic will likely last until November 2nd, which means the ground game in each state will decide who wins.
Unless someone scores a knockout tomorrow night.
A knockout in a presidential debate is a very rare thing. In fact, I’ve only ever seen one in a vice presidential debate – Bentsen nailing Quayle for comparing himself to Jack Kennedy. 16 years later, that one still zings. Scoring a knockout isn’t the same as ‘beating’ your opponent. It means making them look so small and pathetic even their supporters have to acknowledge it. Now, I think Kerry has the capacity to do it, and he certainly as the ammunition to do it with. If he’s gonna do it, Wednesday night would be the perfect time. Now, it may be that Kerry thinks that it’s too risky to do, that this new dynamic is actually not so bad. Or – it may be that Joe Lockhart and the Clinton people who have been helping Kerry in the last three weeks have prepped him with certain circumstances where he can unleash the haymaker. I would love to see that happen – it would be a kind of political perfect storm – but we’ll have to see. But it’s a measure of how much this race has changed since before the first debate that I’m now hoping for Kerry to put Bush away rather than just keep in contention.
Oh, and one other thing - Kerry really should use Bush's 'he can run, but he cannot hide' line against him.
Since that debate, the new dynamic has been a dead heat. One poll will show Bush ahead, another Kerry, a third a complete tie. This means that the second debate didn’t convince anyone new to change their mind…or to change their mind back. If the third debate goes the same way, this dynamic will likely last until November 2nd, which means the ground game in each state will decide who wins.
Unless someone scores a knockout tomorrow night.
A knockout in a presidential debate is a very rare thing. In fact, I’ve only ever seen one in a vice presidential debate – Bentsen nailing Quayle for comparing himself to Jack Kennedy. 16 years later, that one still zings. Scoring a knockout isn’t the same as ‘beating’ your opponent. It means making them look so small and pathetic even their supporters have to acknowledge it. Now, I think Kerry has the capacity to do it, and he certainly as the ammunition to do it with. If he’s gonna do it, Wednesday night would be the perfect time. Now, it may be that Kerry thinks that it’s too risky to do, that this new dynamic is actually not so bad. Or – it may be that Joe Lockhart and the Clinton people who have been helping Kerry in the last three weeks have prepped him with certain circumstances where he can unleash the haymaker. I would love to see that happen – it would be a kind of political perfect storm – but we’ll have to see. But it’s a measure of how much this race has changed since before the first debate that I’m now hoping for Kerry to put Bush away rather than just keep in contention.
Oh, and one other thing - Kerry really should use Bush's 'he can run, but he cannot hide' line against him.
Friday, October 08, 2004
The Weight.
I had an interesting discussion with a friend the other day. We were talking about the vice-presidential debate and I was commenting on what I considered to be the astounding number of bare faced lies uttered by Dick Cheney. Anyway, my friend said something like "...ahh...they were both lying." Then he moved on, as if that part of the discussion was dispatched with.
Let's just stay I begged to differ.
First of all, lets, for the same of argument, say that Edwards did lie a few times during the debate. NONE of his apparent misstatements come NEAR Cheney's assertion that he had never linked 9/11 to Iraq. Contrast that with what Cheney says was Edwards' most egregious error - saying that American troops are bearing 90% of the casulaties in Iraq.These two lies are not the same. One of them witholds the fact that there are Iraqi army nationals fighting alongside coalition troops (and to be fair, every news organizationin the world counts the casualties like Edwards). Cheney's lie, on the other hand, is made up of thin air. There are numerous tv and print interviews showing Cheney making the connection. So theres a question of style that distinguishes them from each other. There's also a question of consequences. Edwards 'lie', at worst, misrepresented a percentage. Cheney's lie was part of a deliberate attempt by the Bush administration to connect Saddam and 9/11, thus creating popular support for the war. Thousands of people have died as a result. It goes without saying that these lies are not equal.
The fact that they are 'both lies' does not make them equal. That's like saying that shoplifting a bag of Doritos is the same as killing an old lady. They're both crimes. But they have a different weight. And that's how I feel
about the Bush/Cheney campaign lately. yeah, they're politicians, and yeah, politicians lie - but the scope and consequences of these lies are unprecedented. And that doesn't get seen by the public when they read the 'fact check' table in the paper the next day. These lies aren't equal. Okay. Rant over.
Let's just stay I begged to differ.
First of all, lets, for the same of argument, say that Edwards did lie a few times during the debate. NONE of his apparent misstatements come NEAR Cheney's assertion that he had never linked 9/11 to Iraq. Contrast that with what Cheney says was Edwards' most egregious error - saying that American troops are bearing 90% of the casulaties in Iraq.These two lies are not the same. One of them witholds the fact that there are Iraqi army nationals fighting alongside coalition troops (and to be fair, every news organizationin the world counts the casualties like Edwards). Cheney's lie, on the other hand, is made up of thin air. There are numerous tv and print interviews showing Cheney making the connection. So theres a question of style that distinguishes them from each other. There's also a question of consequences. Edwards 'lie', at worst, misrepresented a percentage. Cheney's lie was part of a deliberate attempt by the Bush administration to connect Saddam and 9/11, thus creating popular support for the war. Thousands of people have died as a result. It goes without saying that these lies are not equal.
The fact that they are 'both lies' does not make them equal. That's like saying that shoplifting a bag of Doritos is the same as killing an old lady. They're both crimes. But they have a different weight. And that's how I feel
about the Bush/Cheney campaign lately. yeah, they're politicians, and yeah, politicians lie - but the scope and consequences of these lies are unprecedented. And that doesn't get seen by the public when they read the 'fact check' table in the paper the next day. These lies aren't equal. Okay. Rant over.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
The Veeps
I agree with most pundits that last nights debate was a tie, which means a net win for the dems. Face it - most debates are a tie. It's very rare that a debate reframes a campaign, as "Kerry v Bush I - Massacre at Coral Gables" did. Cheney is a far superior debater to Bush, and proved it tonight. If you couldn't check any facts after the debate, you might even give him an edge. But the truth is, this guy swims in a sea of lies. He looks staright at Edwards and says "I never asserted that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11". He looks straight at Edwards and says Kerry raised taxes 100 times. he looks straight at Edwards and says "I've never met you before tonight." Lies all.
Cheney has gravitas, which initially, to me, seemed to throw Edwards off a little. But he soon came back and gave it back to Cheney. It was like that a lot - punch, counterpunch. That's fine. All Edwards needed to do was tie. That cements the new dynamic, which is that this race is a dead heat. Same with Kerry on Friday - he doesn't need to clock Bush in round two. The damage is done. he just needs to contend and not make a bad mistake. That keeps it close until the last few days, when who knows what will happen.
Cheney has gravitas, which initially, to me, seemed to throw Edwards off a little. But he soon came back and gave it back to Cheney. It was like that a lot - punch, counterpunch. That's fine. All Edwards needed to do was tie. That cements the new dynamic, which is that this race is a dead heat. Same with Kerry on Friday - he doesn't need to clock Bush in round two. The damage is done. he just needs to contend and not make a bad mistake. That keeps it close until the last few days, when who knows what will happen.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Post-debate dust-settling
Sorry it's been a few days since my last post. I was in Wisconsin for a wedding. I listened to the debate on Thursday night as my wife and I drove across the midwest, frantically hopping from AM station to AM station as each one sputtered out of range. Eventually we managed to get a good signal out of Cincinatti (!) and were able to hear the whole thing.
Now, hearing a debate as opposed to seeing and hearing a debate is a fascinating experience - you wonder what you're missing. You've probably heard the story about the 1960 debates - those who heard it thought Nixon won, while those who saw it thought Kennedy won.
Kerry won on both TV and radio. For the record, I'm not a huuge Kerry guy. I want him to win because 4 more years of Bush is a terrifying prospect (and I don't use that adjective lightly), but he has exasperated me some over the past few months. I think his voting for the war in Iraq was a mistake. That being said, Kerry did a pretty good job at clarifying what is a pretty nuanced position (that is, he voted to use force provided it was done with allies and with a clear, organised plan for post-war reconstruction - those things being left undone, he's against the war as it's been waged). That's quite a cool trick for someone with a reputation for being...less than to the point. He made a few good little jabs, and a couple of solid uppercuts. My favorite lines were .."...colossal error in judgement...'; ..."...I made a mistake about how I talk about the war. President Bush made a mistake in going to war. Which is worse?"; and, ...'...it's possible to have convictions and be wrong."
All of these made Kerry look good, but what really helped him was how bad Bush looked. Honestly, I would have looked presidential next to him. Stammering, whining like a teenager who wants to borrow the car, hunched like a monkey. And making little to no sense at all, while hardly ever answering the questions. This isn't how Americans want to see their president. This is why the White House limits opportunities to see him in unscripted situations. Their curtain of spin falls away and the little chimp is revealed. Still, I expect him to do better in the next two debates - not that he could do much worse. The damage is done though - he missed his chance to put Kerry away, and now - well now, it's on, like Donkey Kong.
A few posts ago I talked about how Kerry needed to win this debate to have any shot at all on November 2nd. Mission Accomplished. Thank God.
Now, hearing a debate as opposed to seeing and hearing a debate is a fascinating experience - you wonder what you're missing. You've probably heard the story about the 1960 debates - those who heard it thought Nixon won, while those who saw it thought Kennedy won.
Kerry won on both TV and radio. For the record, I'm not a huuge Kerry guy. I want him to win because 4 more years of Bush is a terrifying prospect (and I don't use that adjective lightly), but he has exasperated me some over the past few months. I think his voting for the war in Iraq was a mistake. That being said, Kerry did a pretty good job at clarifying what is a pretty nuanced position (that is, he voted to use force provided it was done with allies and with a clear, organised plan for post-war reconstruction - those things being left undone, he's against the war as it's been waged). That's quite a cool trick for someone with a reputation for being...less than to the point. He made a few good little jabs, and a couple of solid uppercuts. My favorite lines were .."...colossal error in judgement...'; ..."...I made a mistake about how I talk about the war. President Bush made a mistake in going to war. Which is worse?"; and, ...'...it's possible to have convictions and be wrong."
All of these made Kerry look good, but what really helped him was how bad Bush looked. Honestly, I would have looked presidential next to him. Stammering, whining like a teenager who wants to borrow the car, hunched like a monkey. And making little to no sense at all, while hardly ever answering the questions. This isn't how Americans want to see their president. This is why the White House limits opportunities to see him in unscripted situations. Their curtain of spin falls away and the little chimp is revealed. Still, I expect him to do better in the next two debates - not that he could do much worse. The damage is done though - he missed his chance to put Kerry away, and now - well now, it's on, like Donkey Kong.
A few posts ago I talked about how Kerry needed to win this debate to have any shot at all on November 2nd. Mission Accomplished. Thank God.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Fable
Fable is a great videogame that's been getting bashed a lot for not living up to its own hype. My take on it is that if I said I was gonna turn water into wine, but only turned it into beer, that would still be pretty amazing. It's an RPG (that's role-playing game for you non gamers)with a moral component. What that means is that while you explore the gameworld (a fairly traditional medieval setting)your choices have real consequences. Break into a house? If the police catch you, you'll have to pay the consequences. Beat your wife? Get ready for a divorce. On top of this complexity is the fact that its a beautiful looking game with a terrific combat mechanic. In some way's its somewhat like Grand Theft Auto. However, its unlike that game in two main ways, one philosophical, one technical. Philosophical: Grand Theft Auto, no matter what its developers say, rewards you for criminal behavior. You can't really play as a good guy in the GTA games. Because of this, the moral component in GTA is limited. Technical: Fable has a beautiful game engine, a fabulous combat system, and a beautiful looking game world. GTA to me is a lousy driving game and a lousy combat game thrown into a huge game world. Because its so huge, its interesting, but to me, its not as satisfying.
Anyway. Fable. Good game.
Anyway. Fable. Good game.
Change in Mood
Lately, I've been feeling a puff of wind, a barely perceptible flutter, that has given me a lot of hope. Ten days ago the presidential race felt static and stale, as if it were already over. The CBS scandal had hit, and had effectively intercepted an opportunity to hurt Bush over the National Guard issue. All across the country, progressives were hitting their foreheads in frustration. But the last couple of days, I've been heartened by a couple of things. First, the polls are tightening up again. This is good news. To me, this shows the Bush campaign's main weakness. They have to keep distracting people, and it's tough to do that all the way until the election. When people start really looking at the issues (mainly Iraq, but also the deficit), it's tough to argue that Bush appears to be governing from fantasyland. Before the GOP convention, the race was tied, essentially. Then those swing voters went away. But, as the swing voters, by definition, are stupid,they need to be constantly tended. Otherwise, little things like a 500 billion dollar deficit or 1029 US deaths in iraq start to make them feel weird. So the Thursday debate is important. I think Kerry has to 'win'. By that I mean, I have to think he won. Unless Bush feels he has been damaged in some way, he can continue to be the evasive, smirking, actor-in-chief he has been this entire campaign. If he actually has to debate the facts - well, then Kerry has a shot. If he loses-then it's pretty much all over.
Gulp.
Gulp.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
The Moronic Middle
Something struck me the other day as I read GW's remarks to the U.N. on Tuesday. Not only is he lying, I realized, he knows he's lying, and so do all the diplomats. These remarks aren't even for the diplomats. They're for the most highly prized demographic in all of democracy - the 'swing voters'. Lets get something straight right here and now. You can be a republican and be smart. You can definitely be a democrat and be smart. But there is no way on God's green earth that you can be a swing voter and be smart. If, after the last four years, a time of disaster, war, and fiscal irresponsibility, you can't make up your mind, you're a moron. I mean, really. What's it gonna take? Is there anything that can be said in these last few weeks that would change your mind if the preceeding thousand days hasn't? How self involved or just plain clueless are these people that they're still waiting for one of these candidates to 'better make their case?'
If any of you swingers are reading. allow me to lay it out for you.
Bush is for pre-emptive war against people he deems to be our enemies. He pulled thousands of troops out of a country that had attacked us (Afghanistan) and threw them into a country that hadn't (that would be Iraq). He did this because he claimed he knew Iraq had baaaaad, baaaad weapons. It didn't. Incidentally, both countries are now falling apart.
Bush is also for incarcerating people without trial, many of which have never even been charged with a crime. he does this by keeping the prisoners on foriegn soil rather than here in the US.
Bush gave the wealthiest one percent 80% of his touted tax cut - a tax cut we can't afford with a 475 BILLION dollar deficit. (By the way, swinger, pre W, Clinton posted 2 straight surpluses.)
Bush is for deregulating the energy industry. Yep, that's right, the Enron boys, who incidentally, were his biggest corporate contributor in the 2000 campaign. Bush is for amending our most sacred national document (the constitution) to legalize disctimination against gay americans.
Bush is for giving the finger to the rest of the world including (but not limited to) Germany, France, Turkey, the United Nations, and anyone else who asks tricky questions.
Ok, thats what Bush is for. So, what's Kerry for?
WHO CARES???? HE AIN'T BUSH!!!! Seriously, Bush makes Nixon look good! If you need any more convincing, I can't help you. Your help should rest in the hands of mental health professionals.
If any of you swingers are reading. allow me to lay it out for you.
Bush is for pre-emptive war against people he deems to be our enemies. He pulled thousands of troops out of a country that had attacked us (Afghanistan) and threw them into a country that hadn't (that would be Iraq). He did this because he claimed he knew Iraq had baaaaad, baaaad weapons. It didn't. Incidentally, both countries are now falling apart.
Bush is also for incarcerating people without trial, many of which have never even been charged with a crime. he does this by keeping the prisoners on foriegn soil rather than here in the US.
Bush gave the wealthiest one percent 80% of his touted tax cut - a tax cut we can't afford with a 475 BILLION dollar deficit. (By the way, swinger, pre W, Clinton posted 2 straight surpluses.)
Bush is for deregulating the energy industry. Yep, that's right, the Enron boys, who incidentally, were his biggest corporate contributor in the 2000 campaign. Bush is for amending our most sacred national document (the constitution) to legalize disctimination against gay americans.
Bush is for giving the finger to the rest of the world including (but not limited to) Germany, France, Turkey, the United Nations, and anyone else who asks tricky questions.
Ok, thats what Bush is for. So, what's Kerry for?
WHO CARES???? HE AIN'T BUSH!!!! Seriously, Bush makes Nixon look good! If you need any more convincing, I can't help you. Your help should rest in the hands of mental health professionals.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Chip and Kim - Real American Heroes
Okay, how often do the people you root for actually win reality tv shows? Lets face it, usually you have some favorite contestant who seems like a decent person, and they survive through to a certain point, and then Darwinism takes over. The nastiest, sneakiest people bring home the victory. Thats why, on Survivor last year, they messed with the premise for Rupert and, after Boston Rob won, the producers awarded another million bucks to the contestant who received the most votes from viewers. The rule has been that in the dog eat dog world of the big reality shows, nice folks finish fourth.
Until now.
I don't know if you've been watching The Amazing Race this season, but its been a fabulous study in contrasts. Just look at the four teams that made up the finalists last night. You had The Bowling Moms, nice, solid ladies from the midwest. You had Colin and Christie, the evil, well off couple from Texas (Colin's tantrums are legendary and actually kind of scary - I seriously worry about Christie). Brandon and Nicole, the vacant Christian models (who, whenever they are in trouble, ask The Lord to help- quick example...on a train in Calcutta packed full of sleazy men who started grabbing Nicole's ass, Brandon's decisive defense of his girlfriend was to say, "Lord, help her")and then...you have Chip and Kim. Chip and Kim are in their forties, are decent family people, are African American, and are Christians who don't ram their faith down the throats of others.
They also did a great job of being decent to foriegners and just basically being the anti-ugly americans.
Of course, I felt they had a snowball's chance in hell to win, especially after they fell hours behind the other teams in a task that involved snowshoeing up a mountain and then overturned their luge twice in the next task.
Well, how wrong was I. How satisfying it was to see them come from behind and take the million dollar prize. I was cheering at my tv screen. Watching reality shows it's easy to believe that most people are backstabbing, self involved, arrogant jackasses. It's wonderful to be proven wrong.
Until now.
I don't know if you've been watching The Amazing Race this season, but its been a fabulous study in contrasts. Just look at the four teams that made up the finalists last night. You had The Bowling Moms, nice, solid ladies from the midwest. You had Colin and Christie, the evil, well off couple from Texas (Colin's tantrums are legendary and actually kind of scary - I seriously worry about Christie). Brandon and Nicole, the vacant Christian models (who, whenever they are in trouble, ask The Lord to help- quick example...on a train in Calcutta packed full of sleazy men who started grabbing Nicole's ass, Brandon's decisive defense of his girlfriend was to say, "Lord, help her")and then...you have Chip and Kim. Chip and Kim are in their forties, are decent family people, are African American, and are Christians who don't ram their faith down the throats of others.
They also did a great job of being decent to foriegners and just basically being the anti-ugly americans.
Of course, I felt they had a snowball's chance in hell to win, especially after they fell hours behind the other teams in a task that involved snowshoeing up a mountain and then overturned their luge twice in the next task.
Well, how wrong was I. How satisfying it was to see them come from behind and take the million dollar prize. I was cheering at my tv screen. Watching reality shows it's easy to believe that most people are backstabbing, self involved, arrogant jackasses. It's wonderful to be proven wrong.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Welcome....
...to Alpo! This is my first post, and my first weblog. I decided to do this because, well, I have a lot of thoughts and opinions. Some are pretty interesting; some are very conventional; some are just plain weird. Either way, I'm hoping people will find them entertaining.
A Little About Me
My 'real' name is Nick Henderson. I work as the Program Director for a summer camp in the woods of northern Minnesota. This camp serves children with AD/HD and similar needs. I hail originally from New Zealand, which is where my family still lives. I fell in love with the US generally when I first came here, and with my wife Amy in particular. My university education had an emphasis on psychology and politics, but I think many of my ideas were grown in the hothouse of family discussions as I grew up. My family are pretty unconventional, to say the least. More on them later.
What I believe
I believe that everyone should have three rights.
1) The right to be safe.
2) The right to learn as much as you can.
3) The right to have fun.
These, funnily enough, are the 'three rights' we use at camp. They are hung up inside every cabin. I truly believe that if these rights were extended to all human beings, we'd be in better shape as a planet. The key thing to remember is that the first right trumps the others, similar to Isaac Asimov's famous laws of robotics. For example, your right to have fun vanishes if it impinges upon someone elses right to be safe. Many of my ideas could probably be described as 'libertarian', except that I also believe that society should help those who need it. Because I support a welfare state, most libertarians would cross the street rather than talk to me. Oh well.
I should also come clean - I'm supporting Kerry in the upcoming election. I'm sure many posts in the next few weeks will be taking shots at the Bush administration - which sure deserves it. Okay, that's it for now. I'll post again later. Thanks for reading.
A Little About Me
My 'real' name is Nick Henderson. I work as the Program Director for a summer camp in the woods of northern Minnesota. This camp serves children with AD/HD and similar needs. I hail originally from New Zealand, which is where my family still lives. I fell in love with the US generally when I first came here, and with my wife Amy in particular. My university education had an emphasis on psychology and politics, but I think many of my ideas were grown in the hothouse of family discussions as I grew up. My family are pretty unconventional, to say the least. More on them later.
What I believe
I believe that everyone should have three rights.
1) The right to be safe.
2) The right to learn as much as you can.
3) The right to have fun.
These, funnily enough, are the 'three rights' we use at camp. They are hung up inside every cabin. I truly believe that if these rights were extended to all human beings, we'd be in better shape as a planet. The key thing to remember is that the first right trumps the others, similar to Isaac Asimov's famous laws of robotics. For example, your right to have fun vanishes if it impinges upon someone elses right to be safe. Many of my ideas could probably be described as 'libertarian', except that I also believe that society should help those who need it. Because I support a welfare state, most libertarians would cross the street rather than talk to me. Oh well.
I should also come clean - I'm supporting Kerry in the upcoming election. I'm sure many posts in the next few weeks will be taking shots at the Bush administration - which sure deserves it. Okay, that's it for now. I'll post again later. Thanks for reading.
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