Alternate Entries

Friday, March 05, 2004

I don't mean to, uh, flog this, but from the Financial Times review of Gibson's Passion:

The Passion is a more realistic film than its uneasy antecedents in the way that last year's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was more realistic than the original. It is a tribute to X-treme Acting and special effects, to writhing and rubber. How utterly depressing, in an age of still-virulent fundamentalisms, to see the greatest story ever told, one of them at least, portrayed in terms that limit, rather than stretch, the imagination.

Christian doctrine is nothing if not subtle. Like the life and death of Christ, it inhabits that twilight world between the human and the divine. It nestles, at times uneasily, between the mortal blackness that is Good Friday, and the unlikely triumph of Easter Sunday. Gibson, with his fleshy version of the Passion, goes nowhere near that awkward space. Look, he says; this was a nasty story. Nastier that Lethal Weapons 1, 2, 3 and 4 put together. And you will, nail by nail, be forced into compassion for this tragic figure.

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Hollywood, with its cheap addiction to supernatural redeemer figures, ironically finds it hard to deal with the most supernatural, most redeeming figure of all. Jesus was no X-Man. And Gibson, in turn, fatally confuses realism with truth.

posted by jeev | 10:56 AM |

Thursday, March 04, 2004

A history lesson:

Long before President Bush's call for a "constitutional amendment protecting marriage," Representative Seaborn Roddenberry of Georgia proposed an amendment that he said would uphold the sanctity of marriage.

Mr. Roddenberry's proposed amendment, in December 1912, stated, "Intermarriage between Negroes or persons of color and Caucasians . . . is forever prohibited." He took this action, he said, because some states were permitting marriages that were "abhorrent and repugnant," and he aimed to "exterminate now this debasing, ultrademoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy."

posted by jeev | 7:30 PM |

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

From Dubya's new TV ads (Ad #4):

"I know exactly where I want to lead this country. I know what we need to do to make the world more free and more peaceful. I know what we need to do to make sure every person has a chance of realizing the American dream. I know what we need to do to continue economic growth so people can find work.

If he knows all this, WHAT HAS HE BEEN DOING THE LAST FOUR YEARS? You know, when he a) led the country into a seemingly endless war based on lies and deliberately distorted information, b) proposed a Constitutional amendment to prevent a segment of the population from marrying, surely a significant part of the American dream, and c) ran the economy into the ground, losing hundreds of thousands of jobs while he turned a budget surplus into an awe-inspiring deficit that will haunt the country for decades to come? Oh, yeah, all of that bad stuff? It was Clinton's fault. Except for the part that was Osama's fault.

Based on these ads, the campaign seems to believe that's really going to fly.

posted by jeev | 8:10 PM |

There's a country to run, and this is what the Senate is spending time on:

A House committee, seeking to crack down on nudity and profanity on the airwaves, approved legislation today that would increase the fines to a maximum of $500,000 for violations of federal indecency rules and require a license revocation hearing after the third violation.

The Energy and Commerce Committee voted to send the "Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act" to the House floor as early as next week. It was the first congressional roll call on the issue since Janet Jackson's breast was bared in her Super Bowl performance, causing a bipartisan uproar on Capitol Hill. The tally was 49 to 1, with only Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.) voting no.

It's a breast. Everyone has them. Get over it.

posted by jeev | 7:44 PM |

Monday, March 01, 2004

More on Richard Perle's supposedly voluntary departure, from The Dreyfuss Report at TomPaine.com:

But his resignation wasn't voluntary. Already embroiled in a tangle of commercial conflict of interest controversies, Perle last year stepped down as the DPB chairman, but held onto his membership. Now, according to reliable sources, Perle was outright fired because of two last straws.

Last Straw No. 1--maybe it should be called Next-to-Last Straw--was the report in the Times of London that an internal investigation at Hollinger International, where Perle served as a member of the board of directors, turned up the fact that Perle failed to disclose to shareholders a $3 million bonus that he received--among other things, a violation of Securities and Exchange Commission rules. Sources report that the Pentagon's inspector general brought this to Rumsfeld's attention.

Last Straw No. 2 was Perle's call for the ouster of Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Rumsfeld might have fired Perle over the Hollinger mess, but his attack on the DIA chief tipped the scales. The DIA has recently weighed in forcefully on the intelligence scandal over Iraq's AWOL WMDs. The DIA, in particular, attacked Ahmad Chalabi, Perle's friend, who is the leader of the Iraqi National Congress--and whose bogus, lying defectors were responsible for misleading the U.S. intelligence community, including the DIA.

posted by jeev | 11:04 AM |