That awful Michael Moore movie

So I finally put my money (or my Netflix queue) where my mouth is, and after years of criticizing Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, I decided to actually see the film. Having a degree in film, and another in marketing, I was prepared for a masterful piece of propaganda that would steer the unprepared mind to Moore’s perceived outcomes. But instead, I was greeted with crap. Simple crap. This is the kind of half-assed propaganda that appeals to a Deaniac or Air America listener, but event the casual observer could pick up the bullshit and contradictions. This was not masterful it was hackey; and hackey makes me angry.

Wow! Sometimes a movie has such effrontery, such malice, and fills me with such revulsion that my own words are not enough to describe it. I'll quote Chris Hitchens masterful review of this "film":

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of dissenting bravery.

The rest of his review is brilliant and certainly worth reading.

"Top" Stories?

This is what I'm greeted with at the top of my newsfeed... Someone at Reuters should examine how they rank top stories. Isn't there a war or goat-rape or election generating news somewhere?

Goat Rape

O, I wish I was in Dixie!
Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand
To live and die in Dixie
Away, away,
Away down south in Dixie!

Northwest Florida Daily News: Authorities investigating goat’s death


Here's some excerpts to tempt you to read the story:

• "A female goat might have been sexually assaulted and killed Saturday ..."
• "...no evidence ... of a ritualistic animal sacrifice..."
• "Semen was found inside the goat..."
• "...the incident ... would be a felony because the animal died..."

O, I wish I was in the land of cotton

Old times there are not forgotten

Look away! Look away!

Look away! Dixie Land.

Worst Christmas Gifts, Ever!

Every winter, I like to revisit this compendium at somethingawful.com (http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=440). The most wonderful thing abou this list is it's [probably] all true.

Goal abdication

It's Friday. Not too long ago, I'd be zipping in to work, going to the gym before starting my non-stop action-packed day, eager to get through it so I could hit the gym for a bit after work and shower before going out. I'd go out in the city, usually not before 9pm, drinking like it was free, getting home whenever.

Now I'm just hoping to get through today, go home and eat meatloaf.

Make Patriot Day a Federal Holiday? Nope.

Tara blogs about a national time-off holiday for 9/11 here

Since news coverage of the anniversary was almost inescapable, the same question occurred to me – should “Patriot Day” be an officially-observed holiday? Though I was there that day and almost lost my wife (then fiancée) and father in the attacks, I wonder if our standard day-off-from-work-for-a-bbq way of commemorating events is appropriate. After all, how many of us remember the solemn meaning behind Memorial Day: it’s not just about a department store sales event.

I believe that what is truly needed cannot be legislated on to the calendar: a national day of outrage.

In our overly-sensitive, politically-correct, “don’t want to offend” society we focus on mourning and remembrance; we forget that these attacks were committed by people who consider America a land of people that feel neither pride nor rage. Abandoning these fundamental emotions and the impassioned response they engender (or should) emboldens those who would attack us again. That was a painful lesson of Pearl Harbor; too bad we had to learn it again 5 years ago. Having a day off to “commemorate” probably won’t help us out – neither as individuals nor as society – in the long run.

I hate "Constant Gardener"

Constant Gardener

Drivel is not a word I frequently use, but I will be generous in it’s application here. The word applies to the disappointing demagogic movie that stole two hours of my life, which I’ll never get back. “Constant Gardner” is a half-hearted attempt at leftist propaganda; you walk away with the feeling that they’re not even trying anymore. I expected a suspenseful, “gritty” (another word I don’t like), violent British drama, replete with interesting multifaceted characters… something like Layer Cake or The Lime or something by Guy Ritchie. Instead this was a tepid diatribe against the EEEEEVVVVVIIIILL pharmaceutical companies. Apparently the filmmakers are shocked – SHOCKED! – to discover that drug companies intend to turn a profit. The evil in question in the film is about a drug company that has the audacity to test a TB drug in Africa while daring to insist that Africans actually pay for name brand drugs for AIDS. Apparently the moral course of action is to test the drugs on Europeans, and then *give* them away to the Africans, who are all portrayed as inept and dying, or corrupt and greedy. The film never addresses who will actually create new drugs when the pharma company that does this goes out of business, but hey that’s someone else’s problem.

Besides being an unwitting example of a Randian “looter” philosophy put to film, Constant Gardner had the unintended consequence of reinforcing to me how horrid a place Africa is; apparently it is comprised exclusively (according to this film) of dying babies, AIDS-infested villagers, rampaging “tribesmen” (the film was made before the word Janjaweed joined our vocabulary), rich colonial oppressors replete with British accents and black servants, and all forms of gruesome death. While Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes give their usual excellent performances, their characters are shallow and one-dimensional and don’t do the actors justice.