stupid nudists

This is just stupid.

After many awkward dinner preps in communal kitchens with strangers whom I'd seen naked, I've realized that the awkwardness has nothing to do with the genital factor. Cooking next to a stranger requires far more intimacy than exposing your body; it's an extension of the shame you occasionally feel while scrutinizing strangers' groceries, their habits and predilections bobbling along the conveyor belt.

Not only is the assumption-heavy second person precocious without being useful (as it can be when reviewing films or books or other things that are experienced by the reader), it's just a patently false assertion.

The next time Ms. Julavits meets a new friend, I suggest she offer this unlucky person the option of either cooking together or lounging around naked for a few hours, then try to claim that "cooking next to a stranger requires far more intimacy than exposing your body."

Feeling serene

Conservative megasite Townhall.com is sponsoring screenings of Serenity (official website here), the new Joss Whedon film based on his sci-fi Western TV show Firefly this evening, and I'm expecting to be in attendence.

This film has been through multiple rounds of screenings, building excitement from the small-but-dedicated fanbase (who, like all good nerd cliques, have a name: Browncoats).

Anyway, Firefly was clever and fun, a sarcastic blending of both satire and homage to science fiction and western tropes that also managed to present some compelling ideas about government and social justice without ever descending into speechifying punditry. Reviews of the various Serenity screenings have so far been mostly positive, and with the addition of Chiwetal Ejiofor - so great in Dirty Pretty Things - to the cast, I'm expecting good things. My full review will be up at Relevant next week sometime, but for now, here's the official word:

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

The pharmavillain straw man

Over at The New Republic, the normally astute Stanley Kaufman ends his piece on The Constant Gardener with this bit of silliness:

Note: film critics have received an e-mail message from a group representing the
pharmaceutical industry, asking us--before we review The Constant Gardener--to
consider the reality of that industry's activities in Africa and elsewhere.
Obediently, I have considered the facts in the message and also have considered
le Carré's statement about his book: "As my journey through the pharmaceutical
jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my
story was as tame as a holiday postcard." I note, too, the e-mail's point that
"from 1998 to 2003, the pharmaceutical industry donated $4.1 billion ... to
improve global health." The email says nothing about the prices of drugs that
made those billions available.

Kaufman is making the bled-to-death argument that drug prices are too high because of those nasty pharmaceutical companies. And yet with the average price of bringing a new drug to market approaching the $1 billion mark, what does he expect drug companies will do – toss their products away like candy at a Christmas parade? If anything, the real problem is the overregulation of the drug trade, which artificially drives up costs and keeps life-saving drugs from those in need by prolonging the development process. Kaufman and his liberal ilk fail to realize (or simply don’t want to believe) that without the incentive of profit, the financial risks inherent in drug development would rarely if ever be incurred. The best way to reduce drug costs and save more lives is to get rid of regulatory laws that make it harder for drug companies to deliver their products.

Pitchfork notes the surreal new indie rock universe

Pitchfork notes:

Death Cab’s new album, Plans, debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 this week, after selling almost 90,000 copies. Yes, we live in some strange alternate universe where Death Cab for Cutie sell more records than Mariah Carey.

And yes, despite having already listened to it at least a quadjillion times, I did the appropriate populist emo weenie thing and bought it first day on my lunch break.

So much better indeed

It's only September, but I'm already calling album of the year.

Hurricanes vs. Terrorists

James Wolcott has a rather asinine post in which he claims that conservatives are eager to minimize the horror of Katrina’s death toll because, if it surpasses that of September 11^th, it will weaken the rationale for the war on terror. This is such an absurdly facile claim that one wonders why the normally biting (if eye-rollingly off base) Wolcott even bothered to make it, except as a feeble attempt to stick it to the NRO crew.

What Wolcott completely fails to understand is that explaining the difference between September 11^th and Hurricane Katrina is not tantamount to minimizing Katrina’s horror. Let’s be utterly clear: Katrina was a horrific, unbelievably sad event. Its tragedy would be difficult, if not impossible, to overstate, and it warrants the strongest possible response both logistically (future planning) and emotionally.

But a hurricane and a terrorist attack require patently different responses for the incredibly obvious reason that one of them was intentional. Despite what enviros like Wolcott might think, hurricanes are not the result of Gaia’s wrath. They are just another “natural” event, a part of the wild that we’ve yet to learn how to control (and may never). If anything, weather catastrophes should be proof that the greeny ideal of returning to the chaotic state of untamed nature is undesirable – natural existence is violent, harsh and unforgiving.

Terrorism, on the other hand, is an intentional, constructed effort by men, and should provoke outrage, anger and military response accordingly. It’s the difference between getting struck by lighting and being shot in an alley. Both are tragic; only one deserves justice.

Insert random hippie slur here

Arctic Refuge Action gets even sillier (you're acting surprised, but I know you're not). They've got an ad on the back of the City Paper advertising the little camp out they're planning later this month, and here's part of the text:

Step Congress from cutting Food Stamps, Medicaid, College Aid, Veterans' Benefits and destroying the ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE.

Why not just take out a full page ad that says "BE A LIBERAL"?

Er, well, I guess they kind of did.

"Egon, there's something very strange going on in here."

Edward Morrissey, writing in The Weekly Standard, picks up where I left off, noting not just the laughably liberal assumptions that films like The Constant Gardener and The Great Raid take for granted, but the self-satisfied triumph exhibited by critics who accept these assumptions as unquestionable reality.

The mainstream media's reactions ... provide insight into a significant disconnect from reality demonstrated by the film industry and the liberal media that covers it.

The film industry and its critics ... prefer films that take fiction and pass it off as uncomfortable fact, while excoriating the recreation of real and uncomfortable history onscreen. They consider The Constant Gardener--with its recycled plot and its politically-correct details--a credit to the industry, while a generally faithful recreation of the Cabanatuan raid and the circumstances of Japanese oppression in the Philippines during World War II is derided for its "stereotyping."

Summer turns to fall guy

It's been clear for at least a week now that Brown would be the fall guy in the Katrina aftermath, but surely no takedown has been as powerful as TNR's:

When Brown left the iaha four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer--a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the wake of charges of impropriety. At this point in his life, returning to his long-abandoned legal career would have been very difficult in the competitive Colorado legal market. Yet, within months of leaving the iaha, he was handed one of the top legal positions in the entire federal government: general counsel for a major federal agency. A year later, he was made its number-two official, and, a year after that, Bush appointed him director of fema.

And the forehead slapping commences...

Arctic Refuge Action, a group opposing exploring for oil at ANWR has a weblog in which they feature, among other things, a picture of some of their members standing in front of a logo-painted minivan. If anything, this is an implicit recognition of the necessity for oil, all the more reason we should be getting it from ANWR.

Their insta-letter to Congress includes this fun line:

Any drilling in the Refuge would mean permanent and irreparable harm to wildlife, and would betray our moral responsibility to save wild places like the Arctic Refuge for future generations.

To call this a "moral responsibility" has got to be someone's idea of a joke. Our moral responsibility is to provide the highest standard of living as possible for as many humans as possible, and, judging from that minivan, humans need oil. As with so much liberal do-gooding, it plays off the entirely fallacious idea that anything natural is also inherently good when, as a general rule, the opposite is true. Just as babies have to be taught to restrain their natural impulses, and indeed, adults must continually fight to control their own, natural settings seem poorly designed to meet human needs without significant tinkering.

It’s widely known that the surest path to higher standards of living in any given nation is development and wealth creation. “Natural” existence is a poor substitute for one in which man exerts his wealth and will to customize nature for his purposes. Only the stupid-rich have the luxury to think otherwise – a luxury, amusingly enough, created by the industry that these airheads so despise.

"Some constructive criticism would be nice."

I don’t typically read TPM Café, and I’m on record as making fun of its stodgy, self-serious liberalism (sort of like something else I wrote about recently). However, I’ve often appreciated Matt Yglesias’ writing, and his blog there has some insightful material. Especially noteworthy is this:

I'm constantly reading Weekly Standard articles about how Don Rumsfeld or someone is messing something up and betraying Bush's pure and awesome vision, or seeing National Review writers talk about how Bush is a great president and it's too bad he doesn't care about limited government. Meanwhile, we've seen huge numbers of mainstream media types accept the view that "strong leadership," "moral clarity," and "bold vision" are the proper metrics for evaluating the performance of an elected official rather than actual policy results. The view that it's his fault when bad things happen -- or, at a minimum, that it becomes his fault when he refuses to take corrective action -- doesn't seem to occur to a very large number of people.

Yeglesis is right to call out the conservative movement for its unbending support of the President, even when his actions need criticism. There’s far too much lockstep Bush-love in today’s conservative movement, partly out of fanboyish appreciation for a President that speaks to so many deeply felt conservative causes, and partly as a response to the continuous, outrageous pummeling he’s received from the liberal press and its rapidly developing blogosphere farm team.

This is not to disqualify myself from the legions of Bush supporters. He’s done much good, drawing attention to important social issues and displaying the willingness (if not always the managerial skill) to make some tough military decisions.

However, there’s a protective tendency in much conservative media that simply won’t allow strong criticisms of the President’s management. These nonstop infusions of praise have had a dual result, encouraging his best tendencies to become stronger, but similarly allowing his weak spots to go uncriticized. In many ways, we’ve taken a somewhat lefty approach to the President, praising him for his good qualities but blaming others for his failures.

Criticism from the right (and in this case I actually mean “right”) sources helps an elected official shape his or her policies, knowing when to pursue an agenda and when to modify it. Republicans shouldn’t be afraid to publicly frown on an idea, even from within their own party. With Bush, it’s not a criticism of the man, who I like, but a criticism of his policies, which aren’t always desirable. The nasty, partisan edge to political discussion these days makes that difficult; but honest commentary, like a good vaccine, can only make conservatives stronger.

because everyone likes a good discussion about free will

Looting may have been rampant a few days ago, but I've never felt safer in New Orleans than I do driving around today. Such are the benefits of an occupying force. High-riding military vehicles and gun-toting troops blanket every block. Every so often, someone asks me to roll down the window and show ID before waving me on, but the soldiers mostly look like they're killing time.

Besides providing an excellent, scene-of-the-disaster look at the New Orleans wreckage, Josh Levin makes an important point today about the benefits of miltary occupation in a disaster zone. Just a few days ago, the area was, by many accounts, a minor warzone. But cover those streets with highly trained men carrying guns and the gangland brutes think twice.

What's more, this puts a fairly heavy damper on the idea that violent looters were somehow acting out of desperate humanity, unable to control themselves in their unhinged, disturbed situation. As soon as the troops arrived, the violence, for the most part stopped. Yes, there was an early incident on a bridge where Army Engineers were shot, but the troops guarding the engineers took out several of the gunmen, and since then, reports of the sort of anarchistic violence that seemed so prevalent in the early days of the disaster nearly disappeared. Clearly, these drug addicts and hooligans, who Mayor Nagin has tried continually to excuse (or at least play down), were able to control their impulses once the troops showed up. Why shouldn’t they have been expected to control them before?

To blame the government – or anyone other than the perpetrators – for the violence committed at the Superdome or around New Orleans, is fallacy. People are responsible for their own actions, and subsequently must be held accountable for them. If they can control themselves in the presence of a superior security force, then they ought to have been able to control themselves beforehand as well. To excuse reprehensible violence because of difficult circumstances is to remove these individuals of their free will, all for the sake of partisan blame-shifting.

Armondo hyperbole

Look, I'm sure that The Transporter 2 is loads of high-octane fun (and that it rots your brain in the same way as most gasoline-based amusements), but Armond White seems to think it's something more than a dumbass genre goof fest. Ross Douhat already pointed this out, but White's latest nutty essay compares the new Statham flick to Torque, which, as you'll all recall, White loved.

Now, I've not seen either film in entirety, but I saw the first Transporter and caught just enough of Torque on HBO to know that there's no way either deserves such drooling praise. Drooling might be appropriate, actually, but only because the movies are brainless enough to send you into a catatonic stupor.

I love White as a critic. There's no question that he can write, and he never fails to surprise. But really - Torque? Sahara? War of the Worlds equivalent to Godard? Next thing you know he'll be championing Supercross.

If it bleeds

WaPo leads with the “Katrina will hurt Bush and everything is still a disaster” meme, despite having the following great news to share (though burying it 10 paragraphs in):

Many of the tourist sites in New Orleans appeared relatively unscathed. Sunday afternoon, a caretaker swept the leaves from in front of Cafe Du Monde, a city landmark. Elsewhere in the French Quarter, residents and shopkeepers tended to their buildings. The mansions along St. Charles Avenue in the Garden District showed little damage, most of it to trees.

Quoting myself and saying how right I am

After several months of quoting and linking from this tiny space, I have my first piece up at National Review Online. It's a politically oriented (who would've thunkit?!) review of the film The Constant Gardener, the new picture from City of God provocateur Fernando Meirelles. The short of it is this: it’s a well made movie, but it’s also a political mess, advocating all sorts of nutty leftist flag-waving. As is to be expected, there are all sort of plant and garden related words. Hopefully, I’ve created some interesting verbal foliage, and you can decide for yourself over at NRO.

It's malaise, not mayonnaise

The Bush administration is getting raked over pretty hard in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As a veteran of more hurricanes than I can remember (though none even remotely so devastating), my reaction is to say that loading this incident with partisan blame is just hideous. Hurricanes are notoriously unpredictable, and worse, each one proffers a fairly specialized sort of damage.
Even at the point (Friday) that the Hurricane seemed clearly heading for New Orleans, there's not much more that could've been done on a federal level because no one knew how the damage would manifest. First reports suggested storm surge and wind damage would be the main destructive forces, and then predictions got somewhat toned down when the storm weakened before landfall.

But, probably understandably, no one could've predicted that the worst damage would come a day after the storm form a broken levee. And the ensuing violence and chaos was probably both inevitable and equally unpredictable.

So now Bush is reacting, but problematically, he's under the burden of negative public opinion and is apoligizing.

President Bush ordered more than 7,000 active duty forces to the Gulf Coast on Saturday as his administration intensified efforts to rescue survivors and send aid to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in the face of criticism it did not act quickly enough.

"In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need," Bush said.

Usually Bush is, if anything, too good about refusing to apoligize and being proactive in his messaging (I seem to recall one of those insipid NYT Sarah Vowell columns being about how Bush would never live up to Carter's allegedly great legacy because Bush would never apoligize a la the malaise speech). But just like those awful BP oil ads - "we're working on it" - political excuse-making not only keeps the actor on the defensive, it mainly just serves to further associate the actor/company with wrong doing. You're playing into your opponents' hands.

The choice

The choice isn't between a lean, fiscally responsible, Republican budget and a porcine Democratic budget which included money for first responders. The Republican Congress has proven to be just about as disgusting in its spending as a Democratic Congress might have been. Sure, perhaps Democrats would have spent a bit more, but Republicans are supposed to be against bloated government and the stealing of tax dollars for personal projects and missions. So whatever pennies we've hypothetically saved with Republicans, their hypocrisy and betrayal of principle more than compensates.

-- Jonah Goldberg on the unfortunate state of government excess