Truly tragic development in the Enron debacle. One can only hope the human toll doesn't continue to rise.
- posted by levinson @ 1/25/2002 09:22:00 AM

 
It's the first step in getting reform into the political system, but I'm none too confident that reform will get through the House this year. As the Post story points out, the legislation faces major procedural hurdles from both DeLay (all too poignant a name in this case) and Hastert and we've already seen that Hastert will use all of his power as House speaker to thwart the will of the body he chairs.

If this legislation does get through, the Dems better be prepared. Republicans have historically been much more effective at raising hard money than the Dems. The party machine should be looking at this problem anyway, but it will become central to winning close races should reform actually be passed.
- posted by levinson @ 1/25/2002 06:49:00 AM

 
I don't agree with his domestic or large portions of his foreign policy, but this is one situation where Dickey C. and I see eye to eye. Now if we could only get him to take an honest look at Saudi Arabia...
- posted by levinson @ 1/25/2002 06:29:00 AM

 
I love that the freaky left is up in arms about the treatment of the prisoners at Camp X-ray. A photographer snaps some shots of the prisoners being escorted around the camp or being held while something else is going on, and the pinkos get all hyped up about inhumane treatment. Not sure what else I expected since we all have to get back to normal and howling about phantom government mistreatment is certainly normal for the freakies.
- posted by levinson @ 1/23/2002 06:36:00 AM

 
Saddam is contained and not going to do anything too overt. Talking about attacking him is all well and good and he definitely needs to be dealt with. However, he's a pazzo and the Arab street knows it. If the US is going to be serious about terrorism, Arafat is the man to take down. Then the radical element in Iran. After those two, it will be time to seriously deal with Saddam. My two cents, but clearly something in Israel is going to break with or without us. As Ha'aretz wants to know, where is Uncle Sam? Not addressing the issue.
- posted by levinson @ 1/18/2002 08:47:00 AM

 
Talk about a gateway drug. Forget leading to harder drugs, this Accutane will apparently turn your child into a terrorist. But hey, at least he'll suicide bomb with a good complexion.
- posted by levinson @ 1/09/2002 11:35:00 AM

 
Short, and dead on is Scott Rosenberg's assesment of the conservative commentary on John Walker and Charles Bishop.
- posted by levinson @ 1/09/2002 07:52:00 AM

 
I'm a tremendous Sci-Fi fan. Done well, it is a true art form that requires tremendous devotion and meticulous attention from its creator. Tolkien's LOTR and Asimov's Foundation are the two finest examples in my mind. Outside of literature, there is no peer to Star Wars, and by that I mean the original episdoes (4, 5, 6). Here Jean Tang writes about the differences between the two and falls horribly short of her intended point that Star Wars is the better film. Ultimately she shows only her own bias for Lucas's trilogy and her seeming distaste of the Tolkien fanatics. "In 'Star Wars,' humanity is the point. In 'LOTR,' with fans and followers in the tens of millions, Tolkien's world is the point. ... Fanatics in any realm are difficult to satisfy, but Tolkien's are the type who engage in prolonged, heated debate over authenticity, all the way down to the technical accuracy of props." Coming from this angle, Tang seems unable to balance to two movies. Indeed, she is unwilling even to focus on the plot twists in LOTR that she feels are lacking and thus contribute to Star Wars being the superior flick. "[S]o loyal Jackson and his crew to its detail, 'LOTR' becomes a sort of glorified video trivia game, with dense graphics and a relentless pace."

• First, dense graphics. Of course there are dense graphics. Without the dense graphics, the movie's fight scenes would look like Braveheart with bad costumes. We also know that Lucas's graphics in Episdoe IV would have been more dense had he the capability. It was a lack of technology, not desire, that Lucas had limited special effects in SW. Indeed, we've seen that, given the opportunity, he will go back and put some CGI in even when it doesn't work particularly well (see the inserted scene with Han and Jabba).
• "[R]elentless pace." Apparently Tang missed the lines, "Sauron needs only this ring to cover all the lands with darkness. ... He is constantly searching for it. ... [The ring] wants to be found." Also, I found the relentless action distinctly broken up by the stops in Rivendell and Lothlorien.
• "As the reluctant hero, the worried, one-dimensional Frodo Baggins comes up short against Luke Skywalker, a young, impatient man with a sense of loyalty that tempers his desire for adventure[.]" This is just nonsense. Luke's sense of loyalty tempers his desire for adventure? Again Tang seems to have missed the, "but you promised I could transmit my application to the academy this year!!!" That Luke listens to his Uncle makes him obedient, not loyal. Fear, "but it's such a long way from here" tempers Luke's desire for adventure.
• "Whence comes hobbit buddy Sam Gamgee's unswerving dedication to Frodo?" Line missed (spoken, I think three times): "Mr. Gandalf said, 'don't you leave him Samwise Gamgee.' I made a promise and I mean to keep it." Just in case Tang has trouble with Sam's loyalty to his promise to Gandalf, the wizard lost his life defending the Fellowship from a three story fire-monster wielding a two-story sword and a flaming whip.
  I'd like to go on, but the evidence continues to overwhelm Tang's attempts at several points. She does make a good point about the lack of development of Merry and Pippin and I think it would have taken nothing away from the movie to leave the plot line from the book in the movie. That said, it remains the only point I agreed with in the article.

There is one final line that cannot go unrefuted as it is near total nonsense and calls into question her depth of knowledge of the very movie she is extolling the virtues of, "[e]ven though [Star Wars] was a pioneer in both sound and visual technology, its relative restraint..." Restraint? Lucas was inventing visual effects as he went along. Refraining from the use of stop-motion photography (something never attempted in a film or anywhere before Star Wars) would have shown restraint. Indeed, we have now seen that Lucas simply couldn't push the visual effects far enough at the time and has gone back to add in some bits he wanted the first time. I don't know which movie is superior and I think it is a worthy debate, but declaring Star Wars the winner with such dubious arguments as Tang's is folly.
- posted by levinson @ 1/09/2002 07:42:00 AM

 
By the way, as we say in Boston, the Karl Rove watch is now on.

Main Entry: watch ('w�ch, 'woch) transitive senses: 2a: to observe closely in order to check on action or change [in employment]

- posted by levinson @ 1/05/2002 01:26:00 PM

 
Wait, this shot is better, this will be the one:

Remeber that scene in Animal House where Neidermeyer says, "Oh my god I don't believe it"? That keeps playing over and over in my head.
- posted by levinson @ 1/05/2002 01:14:00 PM

 
Belaboring the previous point. Will this video be W's equivalent of Bubba's "I did not have sex with that woman" video where he's shaking his finger?

- posted by levinson @ 1/05/2002 01:09:00 PM

 
To be filed under, "The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree":

"Read My Lips" was a bad idea. "Not over my dead body." Now that's just silly. Maybe it's a kind of Williams Jennings Bryan thing that W is going for, but this is sad in my opinion. If the dems can't take both houses with W making hay for them, a massive change in leadership is in order. Do you think Daschle snarfed his drink when he heard W's statement?
- posted by levinson @ 1/05/2002 01:07:00 PM

 
All right, vacation over. There's enough in the papers and on-line today that I can't really wait until Monday to get back in the saddle.

• An interesting letter on Salon by a man who studied with Taliban-American John Walker Lindh. Didn't we all know the guy who go so into something in high school or college and was so into it that he found everyone that wasn't insufferable? Didn't you also eventually find him insufferable?
• Krugman with a piece that is thought provoking about the shift in the political climate. Currently reading Too Close to Call by Jeffrey Toobin. These tie in because Toobin cites the recount in Illinois in 1984 where the Democrats rammed into the House an incumbent Dem that had lost his recount as the turning point in Republican thinking. From there on out, Toobin asserts, the Reps looked at all of politics as war. Through the 80's and 90's you see the Reps moving further and further right on the economy and some other issues, according to Krugman's source. Bears further scrutiny.
• Debka breaking that Arafat will declare a Palestinian War of Liberation within the next two weeks. It's got to come some time, so why not now? It's not a good time, but when is there a good time for an attempted revolution?

- posted by levinson @ 1/04/2002 10:24:00 AM