Alternatives

So, a lot of people seem to think it would be good for the country to elect a black man to the Presidency. I'm not one to argue; I mean, it couldn't hurt, right? All other things being equal, it would be a good historical moment.

I do think the current front-runner, one Barack Obama isn't the best guy, though. Sure, he's got a pleasing speaking voice and is reasonably handsome, but he's a little light on the experience. Maybe in 2012 or 2016.

However, we shouldn't let that deter us. There is a black man with an even better voice, and not only more experience, but more experience as President--and as God himself!

That's right. You know where I'm going.

Elect Morgan Freeman in 2008!

Busy

One-armed paper hangers got nothin' on me.

BlogRush = Bust

I've gotten fewer hits since I put up the Blog Rush widget.

I'm a niche market.

I was going to add some more breasts, though.... Give the people what they want, right?

Animation Lamentation

This IMDB-referred blog entry by thecynicalgamer laments the state of American animation. It's actually a common lamentation, though sort of unfocused. It begins with praise of Persepolis, a film I also enjoyed. Apparently, a big part of what the blog author liked was its "intelligence" and "social commentary". This is the launch point for--well, for some meandering. It's unclear whether the problem is that American animated features are visually uninspired or socially ignorant or both. One thinks both.

The idea that they're visually uninspired--at least if you're including Pixar, which he makes a point of doing--is hard for me to understand. In the early Pixar films, there's incredible artistry in where the animation is scaled down due to the limits of the technology of the time, while in their recent stuff, the artistry is in the degree they scale back to avoid complete photorealism. Every movie has a few breathtaking scenes but they don't try to beat you over the head with it.

But I'm admittedly geeky, and spend the first few minutes of every Pixar film looking at the way they render the hair and the water, until I'm swept up in the story.

And Pixar is all about the story. They use their artistry in service to the story, and it's quite a balancing act. Too cartoony and you can't take it seriously; too realistic and you find yourself in the uncanny valley, or distracted by swooping cameras and panoramic views, rather than paying attention to the characters.

Here's another great thing about Pixar: Until Finding Nemo, all of their movies were about the individual's responsibilities in with the group, which--to that point--was not a message we got in animated features. To wit:

• In Toy Story, Woody must redeem himself with the group by saving Buzz.
• In Bug's Life, Flick must redeem himself with the group by fighting off grasshoppers.
• In Toy Story 2, Woody must choose between groups.
• In Monsters, Inc., Sulley violates the group's greatest taboo to do the right thing.
• Finding Nemo breaks the mold by only peripherally having a group theme.
• The Incredibles deals with the responsibility that the exceptional have to society.
• Cars was really about choosing which group you want to be responsible to and for.
• Which brings us to Ratatouille which, while it explores interacting group dynamics (rats and chefs, heh), is in some ways the more thematically traditional movie.

What am I getting at? Well, look at the themes of Disney's movies from the '90s.

• In Little Mermaid, Ariel gives up her group for (romantic) love.
• In Beauty and the Beast, Belle gives up her group for love.
• In Aladdin, Aladdin doesn't even have a group, but the love story is the main thing.
• Love conquers all and overcomes group differences in Pocahontas.

Mulan, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan all pit romantic love and the struggle of the individual against his or her group. (I can't watch the Lion King, but I think it may be an exception.) Disney sells love stories, "be yourself," and--whether meaning to or not--that the group is a drag.

Pixar gives the group a lot more respect: Sometimes they may seem like a drag or be embarrassing, but they come through. As the toys did for Woody and Buzz, and the ants did for Flick, and so on. Pixar promotes the idea, not all that common these days, that the greatest fulfillment we have is in service to others.

I suppose that message is trite, but they've explored it in increasingly complex and subtle ways.

So, in that respect, I can't see the lack of intelligence there. The movies are all family friendly, sure. Nobody gets raped, and there's no graphic violence, but they don't pussy-foot around, either. The danger is very real and primal.

Then thecynicalgamer goes on to say Pixar lacks originality. He points to anthropomorphizing animals as an example of that. Chuck Jones once said something to the effect that it was easier to make animals human than it was to make humans human. That is, we're sympathetic to the anthropomorphic animals with the human flaws in a way that we're not to cartoon humans.

The other issue is that darned uncanny valley. The blogger praises Monster House (and I would, too) but there are moments--for example, the opening scene--when the human-esque characters that populate it are creepy. Brad Bird has demonstrated a real talent for making humans out of humans, whether it's The Simpsons, The Iron Giant, The Incredibles or the humans in Ratatouille. But it's not all that easy. I think even Shrek often fails--Fiona is a lot less creepy as an ogre than a human, and most of the humans in that series don't really work.

In short, I think the critique is weak not because there aren't a lot of subpar movies that use humanized animals (I'm tired of typing "anthropomorphic"), but because it's a little like arguing that there are too many movies where people drive in cars to get from place to place. You know? What ratio of animated films with talking animals is the right ratio? A Bug's Life is essentially a remake of The Magnificent Seven, would it be better if it used humans instead of ants? And speaking of the underrated A Bug's Life, compare and contrast with the ants of Antz, who are just awful to look at. Pixar's problem may be that they make it look easy. But people will still be watching their movies decades from now, while even Shrek, that most successful non-Pixar animation, with its temporal reference humor, is likely to fade.

Next, the author complains that Pixar should try being something other than Pixar and casually suggests that there must be plenty of money around for Lasseter and Bird to do something experimental. ("Stop making all that money, boys, in the name of art!") I suspect Lasseter's too busy trying to salvage Disney and Bird's doing exactly what he wants. (If he's not, by this time, he should be. Actually, if you check out The Incredibles extras, you can see how a great manager handles a great creative talent.)

He closes by suggesting that Hayao Miyazaki films (which Lasseter aggressively promotes) and Persepolis show that animation ain't just for kids anymore. But I suspect the least successful and most banal of the movies he derides is more commercially successful than Persepolis, and Miyazaki (whom I also love) doesn't exactly set the box office afire in the US.

The author reveals that he was eight when Toy Story came out, and he loved it. If memory serves, that would make him about 21 now, so it's probably not surprising that he's tired of it all. (Some of us grew up at a time when there were virtually no watchable kids movies and damn little animation whatsoever, so perhaps we're more generous.) But part of me can't help but wonder if he's expecting the world to change because he's changed.

If so, he could be in for some disappointments.

A Cultural Knack

Amy Alkon relays a story (via Hehstapundit) a child taken away from his parents because his father accidentally bought him a alcohol-laced lemonade beverage at a baseball game. (For those of you who think it unlikely, a quick survey revealed lots of local adults who had no idea that Mike's Lemonade was Mike's Hard Lemonade.)

The story is typical of government bureaucracy gone wrong yadda-yadda-yadda, but the more relevant part to what Troop and I were discussing in the Miley Cyrus thread comes at the end. Alkon sensibly notes that the best handling for alcohol is not to forbid, but to introduce in a controlled setting. It takes the mystery out of it.

Indeed, a sweet (? I presume, I don't drink at all, heh), mildly alcoholic beverage at a sporting event is probably the most wholesome way short of the Eucharist to say, "Hey, this is booze. It's okay in moderation." Interestingly enough, according to the report, the boy reported mild nausea and showed up with no alcohol in his blood. (12 oz of a 5% alcoholic beverage over several hours? No big surprise! In a cup with ice, it would be even less.)

But we have a cultural knack for hyperventilating at the most banal things, which then turns us around into ridiculously sheltering children on the one hand and denying that they're becoming adults, while on the other constantly exposing them to adult things. That's how we have sex discussed graphically on daytime TV (and in magazines, on billboards, in music, etc.) on the one hand, and have the FCC wanting to fine ABC for showing Sharon Lawrence's (magnificent) ass on TV at 10:00PM five years ago.

As Synova pointed out in that thread:

Trust me, my desire to DE-sexualize young girls is about as strong as it can be. I just realize that it's impossible. D*mn biology all to heck and gone. It refuses to listen to me when I explain, yet again, that a 10 year old should not be getting boobs. And it wasn't a "Hey, she's 15" T-shirt I seriously considered but a "DUDE, I'M TWELVE!" version.

I realized, once I had kids, that adult things didn't register much with them--and when they did, they registered in a completely innocent, superficial way--but that I still resisted exposing them to those things. And the truth I realized was that we shelter kids because we, as adults, don't want to have to explain things to them. Not really to protect them, but to save ourselves the embarrassment.

I think that's okay, just important to recognize.

It's also important--vital--to recognize when it's time to stop.

We often talk about parental responsibility to kids, but our other responsibility as adults is to the government, which is a lot like a kid--well, a lot like Billy Mumy in the Twilight Zone.

You Keep Using This Word "Warming"....

As the facts trickle in and global warming slowly recedes from the zeitgeist, we'll see this pattern of how the increasing coldness doesn't mean global warming isn't real, then silence, then the increasing peril of global coldening, and finally how the cooling is our fault.

At some point, the cooling hysteria will reach a fever pitch, and a few sober-minded people will recall how familiar this all is, but the new acolytes will claim that it was only a few voices and media hype but this time it's SCIENCE!

Update on Zero Tolerance

Remember this?

The kid in question was forced to transfer to a new school.

I don't get the logic: If they've transferred him because he's a danger, they've just put the danger off on to a different school.

If they've transferred him for any other reason, they're idiots.

I wonder which it is.

More on the Sexualization of Children and Miley Cyrus

There's one other element of the Miley Cyrus/Hanna Montana picture "scandal" that perhaps colors my commentary about the impact on society, "think of the children"-type stuff.

No matter how much kids idolize her, that picture of her back isn't going to nudge anyone into doing something very naughty.

But even if your kid has enough common sense to keep her clothes on, it's guaranteed that one or more of her peers don't. At least in a school setting where she might have hundreds of peers that you don't know at all.

That's obviously not a concern of mine. Someone recently asked me the old warhorse about "socialization".

"Aren't your kids going to miss out on social school things?"
And I asked, "Well, what did you learn at school, socially speaking?"
"Cheating, vandalism, sex, drinking... I see your point."

As they say at the Institutes, the only thing that a five-year-old can teach another five-year-old is how to be a five-year-old--and he already knows that. You can imagine (though you probably don't have to) what 10- and 15-year-olds have to teach each other.

The peculiar zoo/prison-type environment of the current school systems are particularly bad. Kids go from a tightly controlled situation (the classroom) where normal kid behavior is absolutely prohibited to the free-for-all Lord-of-the-Flies of the playground where bullies reign and teachers have a "let them sort it out for themselves" attitude.

I've only found a few schools where ethics mattered. Mostly it's "zero tolerance" and "zero brainpower". So the kids establish a system much like prison. (I have to say about that last link that I did not experience what Paul Graham did, but that's a topic for another time.) Popularity and survival are closely linked--something that the adults who put their children into this situation routinely deride. (Let the unfairness of that sink in for a moment: Parents put their kids into school to "socialize" them--education being a lost cause--and then mock them for thinking their social status is important.)

And for some, the peer pressure is obviously overwhelming. They're the ones who are influenced by trashy pop queens, and they're the ones who bring pressure to bear on your children.

Of course, the other side of the coin is--well, let's say you were going to send your child to a Catholic seminary. Can you imagine the reaction? Why, everyone knows what pedophiles priests are! Don't you watch the news?

Well, I'm not suggesting there's bias or anything, but the rates of pedophile teachers is probably higher than it is for priests, but we only hear the occasional sensational story, rather than the real numbers. At least priests don't have a freakin' union and require tax-dollar bribes.

What I'm gettin' at is this: If you send your kid to a school, you're subjecting him to far greater pressures than a Miley Cyrus picture. Hannah Montana is at the end of a long list of things undermining whatever sense of ethics or morality you're trying to inculcate. (Actually, I don't think you have to do much with kids, who have an innate sense of justice and more dignity than most adults, but they can also be undermined with the 35 hours a week the school gets.) Your job has to be build up what the schools work so hard to tear down. For some kids, this will be easy as they tend to reject authority anyway. Others will need approval so badly it'll be nigh impossible.

Having said that, society can be judged on its kindness to outliers. It would be great if our society didn't encourage situations that are dangerous for kids who don't have the best parental supervision or who just are easily influenced. But more on that when I review the Traci Lords bio.

(I Can't Get No) Stimulation

Just sittin' here waitin' to be stimulated.

All the newsies are talkin' 'bout how it's s'posed to come early.

I figger with my 42 children, glass eye and peg leg, I should be stimulated to the tune of one million dollars.

Ever'body wants my stimulation, too. They keep on sendin' me e-mails 'bout how I should spread it 'round. Big ol' TVs and Canadian pharmaceuticals and what-not.

I figger it'll feel so good, I'll just roll around on it for a while.

To the guy looking for "maelstrom" statistics, and other searchers.....

Search of the day:

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PICKED UP IN A MAELSTROM IN THE LAST 5 YEARS?

In caps, too. Dude, "maelstrom" isn't really a technical term. It's like how asking how many people have been injured in a kerfuffle.

Also, to the guy looking for the "profit reference" in Monty Python, there is no such reference. The 'net meme is:

1. Do something.
2. Do something else
3. ???? <--missing step 3 4. Profit! And I'm pretty sure it's from "South Park". The Underpants Gnomes had a business plan that involved stealing underpants, and it was only lack of knowledge about step 3 that kept them from profiting. It's commonly used to suggest a plan lacks grounding in reality. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe this to be a parody of a classic WB cartoon called "Yankee Dood It", which explains the basic principles behind free-market capitalism. You can actually watch the original here.

Coincidence?

As you probably know, Annie Leibovitz's pix of Miley Cyrus' have created a bit of a stir.

I think it's more bimbo fatigue than anything. Hilton, Spears, Lohan and, uh, Spears have worn us out. The Miley pix aren't, as she says, "skanky".

But I wasn't aware that Disney had hired Leibovitz, and she has been recreating famous Disney movie moments for the past couple of years, including one released just a few days ago.

Huh.

Ugly Eyes

At the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (a school/clinic for handling brain-injuries) they have a phrase: "ugly eyes". Many of their kids are savants (what used to be called "idiot savants") but because they have other problems, some people refuse to see their brilliance. They see only the injury and impose their ideas about what that means over the person. The opposite of rose-colored glasses, if you like.

It should be evident that this phrase could apply to racists. They don't see the person, or even if they do, what they see is occluded by what they believe. What should probably be just as obvious is that it applies to those who adopt a "politically correct" mindset.

There's a minor kerfuffle in the feminist blogosphere that Althouse has commented on. The money quote is "It's not that I didn't see it. It's that I didn't see it." This could be rephrased as, "I only saw what was there, not the pre-formed political paradigm that I'm required to filter not only my communication but my actual perception with."

I was working with a friend of mine whose skin melanin content is higher than the local average, and he had hired his buddy's girlfriend to work with us. She would say things about my friend (to his face) about "being one of the good ones" and other phrases which are commonly associated today with racists (or at least racist caricatures).

We laughed, because these are the kinds of things we would say to each other in ironic jesting, but something about the way she said them struck us both as odd. Ultimately it came out that she was dead serious. (The extra added bonus weirdness that she was, herself, a person of color--she just didn't see herself that way.)

My friend is the sort of person who doesn't have ugly eyes. Now, one is always served better by seeing what is actually there, as this woman did cause trouble for him. But he's still light years better off than those who see racism everywhere.

It's worth observing at this point that we are all beneficiaries of those who suffered and laid down their lives so that we could, today, have the luxury of seeing each other as individuals and not just representatives of some group. But it seems to me that those who do frame everything in the context of identity groups are spitting in these brave peoples' faces. They're saying what was fought for can never truly be achieved.

And that's ugly.

Food Doom

A friend of mine (who taught at the Creative Wealth seminar The Boy and I went to) sends along this video trailer. (I've been meaning to review the seminar but have been letting it digest for a while.)

This is aimed squarely between the eyes for me as I am a Western-medicine-deriding pill-hatin' pharmaceutical-mistrustin' organic-lovin' GMO-sketpicizin' snake-oil takin' left coast fruitbat. My peeps deride "Whole Foods" as "too mainstream".

And yet. I'm not really impressed by this trailer. I guess because I've seen it before so many times. The only thing lacking--and it may well be in the movie--is that Diet For A Small Planet-we're-doomed-because-three-companies-own-all-the-food motif.

I'm afraid I tend to class that stuff alongside of The Population Bomb and Future Shock.

And when people start dissin' pesticides--which I think are overused--I can't help but also think of the million children who die of malaria every year because of Rachel Carson persuaded enough people that DDT was worse than death.

And I get a little deja vu feeling when people start talking about genetically modified stuff. Once again, people are starving in Africa because persuasive people have convinced leaders there that dying is better than eating GMOs.

A cynic might say that environmentalist victories seem to equate to black people dying.

So I have this interesting dichotomy: Western medicine has personally saved people I care about, but it has also consigned people I care about to death. The elimination of whole foods (the concept, not the store) has definitely reduced the health of many people and caused many troubles, but ultimately modern food technologies have essentially saved the world.

It actually doesn't bug me much: I try to use what's appropriate for the situation. My kids don't get a lot of refined sugar, but I don't sweat the occasional cookie or birthday cake. I take them to the doctor when I think that will help, and take them to the witch doctor when I think that will help.

So perhaps this really is a modest post, after all.

A Trivial Mind

I get e-mails from Tiger Direct, as I imagine many of you do.

This week's ad features an LG 42" 1080p high-definition flat screen TV for only $1199 with free shipping!

Why do I care? I don't, really. I was just noticing that the image they used to showcase the TV's screen was the French comedy The Valet (La Doublure). It gets a mere 6.6 on IMDB, but I liked it: It was light and cute, and not sleazy (which is a real problem for French romantic comedies/sex farces).

Immediately to the left of that is a laptop (the HP 530) for sale which has another movie (or maybe TV show) on it--but I don't recognize it. Do you? It's the guy and the blond kissing while another blond watches in horror.

WC Martell reviews Street Kings

Check out Bill's "Sex in a Submarine" blog for a review of Street Kings.

I think of Bill as an old friend, even though our ships barely passe in the night over 10 years ago on Compuserve, in the short-lived B-movie forum. (Now he hangs out at Retromedia, though, so check him out there, too.)

Anyway, Bill is a professional screen writer, and gives lots of good advice on his blog. As part of the topic of pacing, he gives a sort-of insider's review of the new movie Street Kings. Shorter Bill might be: "Too much plot getting in the way of the story" (as Joe Bob Briggs would say).

It's true: Too much "excitement" in a movie can make it boring. I had that problem with Planet Terror.