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Thursday, March 31, 2005
FOR ONCE, YOU MUST NOT TRY TO SHIRK THE FACTS: Kesher Talk remains a necessary source for understanding what happened to Terri Schiavo. Again, I think this is the most important thing most people can read about this case. All of us have an inoperable illness. For the best of us, death is the crown of our lives, the title of the story. For those of us in the wealthy West--where, honestly, I'm not going to die from a mine explosion or a suicide bomb or a factory fire--death is at least one of three things. It's the expression of the most humiliating, unconquered urges (all those hamburgers, all those cigarettes, all those whiskey-and-Diet-Cokes); or it's the unfair, weirdly singular fact of a genetic problem or a sudden illness, where you're singled out and it's horrible because no one else is; or it's the last laugh of all us carnivorous, smoking, drinking people against the rest of you. "Hah, you're dead too!" None of these three situations is especially attractive. Richard Brookhiser cited this limerick on the seven ages of man: Seven ages: first, puking and mewling; I've been thinking a lot, lately, about humiliation. I think at the very least we should all be deeply skeptical of any worldview that attempts to present humiliated, helpless human lives as somehow less worthy than autonomous, dignified lives. It's bullies and torturers who try to convince us that if you can show someone humiliated and helpless you've somehow shown her as less worthy of sympathy. CIGARETTES AND WHISKEY AND WILD, WILD WOMEN: Reviews of comics and movies and TV. Comics: Planetes v. 4.2. I don't know why this is "volume four, part two" rather than something sane like, say, "volume five." Nonetheless, I loved this manga book. (Manga = cheap. You should read it!) It's really funny. The Golden Age sci-fi wonder at the beauty of the universe is still brilliantly combined with a 21st-century disillusionment about human perfectibility. (Wherever you go, there you are.) And in this volume, we seem to be set up for a three-way final conflict between Christianity or something close to it; a vague and emotional secular humanism based on a Christian-derived understanding of "compassion" (she said, unsympathetically); and a ferocious, attractive, driven desire to become God through technological conquest of nature. I'm really loving this series. This book is the best since Planetes v. 1. Go read it now! Character-rich, sweet, funny, philosophically intriguing, just lovely. Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, issue 1. Oh, how many ways did this issue suck. I... I really wanted to like this, you know? I'm not much for DC Comics. I don't know why. For whatever reason, I've never yet read a Batman comic that grabbed me, let alone Superman (why? why is he here? why isn't he incredibly creepy?). The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is pretty much the closest I ever got to enjoying Superman comics. So I accept that I'm not the target audience here. Still--I thought it sounded neat. Superman as creepy alien overlord, Lex Luthor as fierce representative of all that is best and worst in humankind. So I picked it up. Oh lordy. Here's an inventory: a) too many captions. Why? Why??? WHY???? It is not hard to just not write a daggone caption! Are these people paid by the word? If so, could they consider Top Ramen as a dining option, just for my sake? b) LL comes across as weirdly condescending in scenes where I think he's supposed to be Connecting with The Little People (= his janitor). I really hated him in these scenes. c) Ooh, a female! This is a great opportunity to draw someone with man hands, creepily exposed cleavage, a rear end that somehow finds its way into every picture, and no brains. GROWL. d) LL has these forehead-wrinkles that... just... no human has ever had. He's vaguely Klingon here. And not the cool, "Trouble with Tribbles" Klingons, but the lobsterhead "Woof!--I mean, Worf!" Klingons. e) Oh and there's no plot. If there had been a plot, I might have considered picking up later issues anyway, because hey, price of an ice cream cone really. But there are just hints and insinuations that if I stick around long enough there might be a plot later. Therefore, no. Wow. I loathed this comic. Three dollars I could have spent on, like, an ice cream cone! Or slapping myself in the face; or having a mime follow me around pretending to be in a glass box, or a chewed-on My Little Pony. GRRRR. Movies: The Castle. Australian libertarian flick (Australibertarian?) about eminent domain and why it's evil. This is a manipulative, cheesy, incredibly effective film. I loved it. It's about a family whose house is gonna get taken so the government can do some corporately-approved thing, I forget what. It's sweet and it goes for cheap laughs and I adored it anyway. Just a real heartwarmer. Play it for all your lefty friends. Galaxy Quest: I saw this because Alan Rickman is in it; but he's not the reason it's good. Basically, if you ever loved Star Trek: The Original Series, you will adore this movie. It's an homage/parody that hits every single cliche, every single opportunity for loving mockery. It isn't mean-spirited, and it doesn't misunderstand or fail to care about the reasons people love space opera in the first place. It's engaging, fluffy, and utterly pleasing. Ripley's Game: Based on the same sociopathic Patricia Highsmith character as The Talented Mr. Ripley. Ripley in this film is played by John Malkovich, whom I liked a lot--I think this is the first time I'd experienced him and his gentle, chalky, dissociated voice--and the wonderful Lena Headey is also in it. Nonetheless, it felt a lot more standard-issue than TTMR. That might just be because it hit on fewer of my personal obsessions than that other movie, which is a lot more concerned with homoeroticism, loss of identity, and what it means to be American. I liked this, but could have lived without seeing it. Uzumaki. Live-action movie version of the uber-creepy Japanese killer-spirals horror comic. A pretty good movie. The leading girl (Kirie) was great, and looked freakishly like her comics equivalent; her best friend (Shiho) was also fun; some of the minor characters were great (the snail-boy, the freaky father). The special effects didn't start seeming dumb until the very end, which, for me, is a big thing in horror movies. I do think this idea worked a lot better in the comics, though. It's a very visual idea, and those visuals can't really convey the same sense of surreality when they have to be somehow faked through SFX. Maybe that's why some of the most horrifying moments came via the soundtrack (for example, the noise the kiln makes). Anyway, this was a good movie, but really only worth seeing if you already liked the comics. The comics, on the other hand, I'd recommend to any horror fan. Television: Just saw the first Netflix disc of "Absolutely Fabulous." Just watched it twice, actually. For about one and a half episode, I thought this was pretty lame. I hate fat jokes, and thought Edina's actress was overacting (which is true really--I mean, I know it's supposed to be overdone, but there's OTT and then there's just kinda embarrassing--but once you get used to her it's fine). But I'm now thoroughly in love with Patsy Stone, and I could watch this more or less endlessly. This show brings out all my dykiest impulses. Purrrrrr. Champers, darling? Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
AGAINST MUGABE: A senior Zimbabwean clergyman has issued an unprecedented plea for a peaceful Ukraine-style "popular mass uprising" to remove President Robert Mugabe after elections this week. (more) Via Sed Contra. I THIRST: Amy Welborn has a lot of links on Terri Schiavo. You should click through to all of them. If your time is limited, you should especially click through here (how common?), here (how humiliating!), and here (Congress). Sunday, March 27, 2005
ONE FINAL VICTIM OF THE RAPE OF NANKING?: From the Times of London ...Were it not for the crinkled maps of China, the pictures of mass graves and the two desperately overstuffed Rolodexes on her desk, Chang might have been just another former high school homecoming queen from the aptly named Sunnyvale. But she had become one of the foremost young historians of her generation after publishing, seven years ago, a bestselling account of the Rape of Nanking, one of the worst episodes of human cruelty in recent history. Her book brought international acclaim and controversy, and many spoke of a stellar future. It was not to be. In November she killed herself, no longer able to bear the weight of horrors from seven decades ago. The Rape of Nanking in 1937 began with the march of invading Japanese soldiers up the Yangtse River. They occupied the Chinese capital of the time and soon conquest was followed by bloodlust. Soldiers slaughtered between 100,000 and 300,000 civilians sheltering in a few city blocks. Slowly. Over a six-week period, up to 80,000 women were raped. But it wasn’t so much the sheer numbers as the details that shock--fathers forced at gunpoint to rape daughters, stakes driven through vaginas, women nailed to trees, tied-up prisoners used for bayonet practice, breasts sliced off the living, speed decapitation contests. ... Orphans, rape victims and Holocaust survivors all wanted to bare their souls to her, finally relieving themselves of agonies sometimes decades old. They felt encouraged by the passion that she brought to the sort of grievances few of them could tackle on their own. ... But the Japanese attacks were the easy part. With her newfound fame, Chang felt compelled to visit Chinese communities around the globe to hear more horror stories of Japanese occupation, forced prostitution in so-called "comfort houses" and nerve gas experiments on prisoners in Manchuria. After these encounters with people who would often approach her in tears, she felt utterly drained even hours later. Friends said that she was beginning to look frail, and she admitted to them that her hair was coming out. The more of others' suffering she absorbed, the more her old energy and intensity drained away. Each horror story seemed to pull her down a little farther. (more) Via Arts & Letters Daily. DAPPLED THINGS' EASTER SERMON: "...Christianity, and particularly Catholicism as the perfect manifestation of what Christianity is, is fundamentally a joyful, an optimistic religion. Twelve unkempt fisherman are made the pillars of a Church that encompasses the world. A meek and humble Virgin from Nazareth becomes Queen of Angels. Bread and wine become God's Body and Blood. A murdered Rabbi rises from the dead and promises us the forgiveness of our sins. If the Christian God can do all of that, there's even hope for people as messed up as you and me." (more) MESSAGE OF REDEMPTION FOR INMATES ON HOLY THURSDAY: From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The overcrowded chapel was sweltering, but Catholic Bishop Donald Wuerl had an utterly attentive audience as he prepared to wash the feet of inmates at the Allegheny County Jail. (more) Via Amy Welborn. Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown in union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin. For a dead person has been absolved from sin. If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as being dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus. --Romans 6:3-11 Thursday, March 24, 2005
IN THE TEST OF DEATH: Amy Welborn has written a must-read post on Terri Schiavo's life and our own lives here. "It's deepened my interest in preparing myself and my family for the day that will come for me and for them, as well -- not in terms of legal documents, but in terms of our spiritual stance." (much more) Also, the Old Oligarch notes that BlogsForTerri needs money to pay its server fees. BY THE WAY: The fine people who bring you the National Catholic Register (for which I occasionally write) also have a guide to the rosary and a companion guide to the movie "The Passion of the Christ." Wednesday, March 23, 2005
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE: Fascinating collection of quotations typically taken out of context--or, one might say, more honored in the breach than in the observance! "LET ALL MORTAL FLESH KEEP SILENT": SAY GOODBYE TO ALL THIS. The dystopia story is finished. Probably you all have seen my warning by now: This story is distressing in about six different ways. I think it's worth writing, but I do realize in a healthier age it would probably have ended up on the Index. (Then again, in a healthier age I doubt it would have been written at all.) So: the final section is here, and the story as a whole is here. There are lingering problems with this story--problems of pacing, problems of motivation and underexplanation (I think coyness might be my biggest weakness as an author), and a possible theological problem at the very end--but I think it has potential to be one of my best so far. For what that's worth. My heart is by dejection, clay; And by selfe-murder, red. NOT DEAD AT ALL: Disability activist Harriet McBryde Johnson on Terri Schiavo. Also, "Florida's House and Senate are considering a dehydration and starvation protection act that would require stronger evidence of informed consent prior to removing assisted food and fluids from an incapacitated patient." (more) [ETA:] Some powerful posts at Kesher Talk. Tuesday, March 22, 2005
RIGHT REASON: Blog of "philosophical conservatism." Includes Rogers Scruton and Kimball as contributors. Here. FAMILY SCHOLARS has a lot of important posts up--mostly news links, mostly on divorce and children of divorce. AND MEANWHILE, SHE IS BEING DENIED FOOD AND WATER: Amy Welborn is an excellent source for eloquent statements of the pro-life/Catholic viewpoint on Terri Schiavo; Welborn also covered the Congressional debate. CodeBlueBlog: Medical blog disputes common interpretation of Schiavo CT scan. Discussed here and here. The Corner is having a kind of John Derbyshire vs. the world discussion--most of the arguments you'll hear are being discussed there. KausFiles. The editors of National Review. Noli Irritare Leones: I was struck by the comments on "dignity" and helplessness, and the question of how common these cases really are. Ron Bailey has an interesting column on brain death here. I really disagree with his presentation of the issue of "what Terri would have wanted"; but the article is very much worth your time nonetheless. I am more with Colby Cosh: "I'm in favour of continuing to feed Terri because the law seems to have used a simple, cold balance-of-probabilities analysis to determine her presumptive wishes. There's no written living will; the only evidence we have is oral, and it comes from one source. The chance that she would regard her feeding tube as an instrument of rape is being treated with more respect than it deserves, since the decision to withdraw her food and water is irreversible. I think the standard's got to be much higher than that before you starve somebody to death. And while I'm not qualified to comment on the possibility raised recently that her husband is engaged in destroying evidence of spousal abuse, that's a possibility in principle with all these cases--which is one good reason death shouldn't be treated as having claims equal to those of life." Unqualified Offerings: I disagree strongly with Jim's framing of the situation in the first part of this post--and he himself backtracks on it in the update--but thought this bit was a good summary: "My preference is that, absent a clear, written directive from the sufferer, that if someone is willing to speak for her and assume her care, they should be able to assume custody. The alternative, our present system, strikes me as worse." He adds: "Not speaking to the facts of the Schiavo case specifically, while your spouse is the person most likely to know your wishes, your spouse is also the most likely to profit (in various senses) from your death." (more) I don't, myself, have a lot to say. Will be praying for everyone involved. I have noticed, as I expect you have as well, that as a general rule someone's beliefs about Terri Schiavo can be predicted if you know his beliefs about the sexual revolution--gay liberation and abortion, mostly. This is obviously a huge generalization, and there are lots of exceptions--Derbyshire on the one hand [ETA: I take it back], and the blogger at the Independent Gay Forum on the other (probably? I don't actually know what the IGF blogger thinks of abortion, and would be quite pleasantly surprised to learn he's pro-life), to take just two examples. But nonetheless, as a generalization it holds. For some people I'm sure that's primarily a result of conflicting answers to the "who do you trust?" question, but for many people I think it also reflects a deeper, more fundamental divergence of beliefs: possibly, the belief that the human body has an intrinsic, given meaning that neither helplessness nor suffering can destroy, vs. the belief that the human body is essentially a useful tool for the purposes set by individuals' minds. I also am struck by, but unsure what conclusion (if any) to draw from, the fact that the three prominent "right to die"/end-of-life cases of our time all involve women: Nancy Cruzan, Karen Ann Quinlan, Terri Schiavo. All right. Now to pray. Monday, March 21, 2005
You come here looking for the ride to glory, Head back home with a blogwatch story... After Abortion: "The world feels much less safe if it seems to be a world where we chronically notice and repeat bad things about each other. An unsafe harshly critical world is not a good world to be pregnant in." Hit & Run: Internship at Reason. R. James Woolsey recommends spy novels. Via The Corner. Friday, March 18, 2005
"LET ALL MORTAL FLESH KEEP SILENT": COUNSELING AND COMPROMISE. Next scene of short story. In which Irina breaks the rules for Leon, Alison breaks the rules for Irina, and we see both women doing their jobs. The basic idea, at this point: We're watching three people who are embedded in a deeply evil system, like ticks buried in flesh. We get right inside their heads, at least if I'm doing this right. Therefore, this story is very disturbing. The second scene is the one it's easiest to slap an NC17 rating on, but really, that scene (of sexualized violence, and vice versa) is only the most heightened representation of what the society in the story is all about. Anyway, story so far is here; new scene is here. There's probably only one more installment. SERIES ON PRO-LIFE WOMEN WHO ABORT: At After Abortion. Powerful. "I'm writing this series because of the mistaken belief that if you teach your children that abortion is very wrong, your children will therefore not have abortions, even if they agree with you that abortion is very wrong." RISING STARS OF MANGA: TokyoPop is running a "readers' choice" poll with lots of new manga artists. Frequent ET.com commenter Joshua Elder has an entry, "Mail-Order Ninja," here. I don't have time to read any of these today, but you might; today is the deadline for picking your favorites. Definitely do check out Joshua's piece! BOOK REC: Steve Sparrow writes: Couldn't agree more with you vis a vis fighting materialism with socialism. I reckon it's a crying shame high schools all over the world don't study these two novels back to back, viz. Orwell's Animal Farm and Hilaire Belloc's The Mercy of Allah. Orwell dissing Socialism and Belloc unbridled Capitalism. Most read Orwell but few Belloc. Mercy of A is brilliant fantasy/satire on money. I highly recommend it. Thursday, March 17, 2005
Some boys blog and some boys watch, And that's all right with me. If they can't raise my interest then I'll have to let them be... Home, Throne, Altar: Three kids & the making of a conservative. Powerful and right-on. A lot of this resonates with my experience at the pregnancy center. The only thing I'd add would be stories of parents trying hard to do right by their kids in the teeth of a culture that constantly rejects and thwarts them. ...HTA link via Hugo Schwyzer, who comments here. (For my part, I think fighting materialism with socialism is like fighting a wood fire with an electrical fire.) Relapsed Catholic: Thousands pray for Hollywood. Seriously? Can any of you all pray also for journalists? I for one could use the help. SoDakMonk: He's moved. For all your South Dakotan monastic needs, go here. I am usually not so thrilled by Cathy Seipp--her "on the one hand, but on the other hand" shtik wears thin--but this rambly column on women journalists makes several good points. Excerpts: ...Many of my readers are the sort of old-fashioned, hard-headed guys feminists assume are in need of enlightenment (military men, cops, prosecutors, engineers, etc.), and I get all sorts of reactions from them, but one that I've never encountered is any whiff of that patronizing, "Now-see-here-little-lady..." attitude. ... mas JK ROWLING AS DETECTIVE AUTHOR. Posting this to remind myself that these principles don't only apply to detective stories. Things that matter to the climax of the story need to appear earlier, rather than coming from out of nowhere. (That's one of the many kinds of problem with "Kissable Pictures.") Also, I tend to write rough drafts very intuitively, and then go back and see which intuited moments or images were actually advancing the point of the story and which ones were superfluous or distracting. Thinking about this relationship between the end and the beginning of the story, where elements that appeared earlier are crucial to the resolution of the plot, is helping me figure out some things that will happen in the big finale ("and then they exploded") of "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent." SHERLOCK HOLMES MEETS H.P. LOVECRAFT. Not really my thing (I'm more of a Scream for Jeeves kind of gal), but I bet a lot of you people will like this. Wednesday, March 16, 2005
IHS!: Darin Lowder writes: I thought your readers might appreciate a reminder about the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) Summer Seminar deadline approaching March 31, 2005. Tuesday, March 15, 2005
HONEY, WHERE YOU BEEN SO LONG?: Not only is it a blog specializing in the blues. But it is a blog, specializing in etc., which is having a Stagolee week. All Stagolee all the time. Here. DISHONOR AT GUANTANAMO: Jendi Reiter [Parts of this are overstated. But the bits I'm quoting are powerful and right. --Eve] ...A culture that treats the body as a mere machine for pleasure will produce the perfect recruits for the machinery of pain. The breakdown of ethical restraints in our military prisons has been made possible by the liberal idolatry of the self, whose will to power cannot tolerate the restraints of chastity or religious obligation. ... more Monday, March 14, 2005
"LET ALL MORTAL FLESH KEEP SILENT": COLD AND RAW THE NORTH DID BLOW. Irina might be in trouble. She talks with her supervisor, and remembers V-Day. There's champagne and cognac, and Irina learns what month it is. This section is g-rated, but as I've said before, the rest of the story very much isn't. This is definitely the story that has most disturbed me in the writing of it, so, you know, forewarned. Anyway, story so far is here; newest scene is here. There are maybe two more segments. Saturday, March 12, 2005
I AM BOURBON, HEAR ME ROAR: Congratulations! You're 116 proof, with specific scores in beer (60), wine (66), and liquor (78). Test your Alcohol Knowledge here. Old O, if you get less than the highest score, I will never respect phenomenology again. SOME DO IT WITH A SIX-GUN, SOME WITH A FOUNTAIN PEN: MLY writes: "Your political art post made me think of Hugo's Last Day of a Condemned Man and the movie 'Dead Man Walking.' Is the former better than the latter, according to your criteria? Do they both succeed? Might be interesting to give examples of successful and failed political art." Unfortunately, I haven't read the Hugo nor seen DMW. And it's hard to think of examples of successful political art--in part because it is, you know, very hard to do without falling into caricature, or assuming that your audience already knows the score so you needn't be surprising, or exploiting our desire to feel superior to others. Here are some artworks--narrative art, since I think the rules are different for something like (an example brought up at Teachout's talk) the song "Strange Fruit"--that I think are both political and great. You all should feel free to comment if so moved. In rough order of how quickly they came to mind: Pat Barker, REGENERATION and THE EYE IN THE DOOR: Anti-war novels, basically. Flawed, and the flaws are often those specific to political art; but nonetheless, I'll recommend these books to anybody. See this post for more commentary on what succeeds and what fails here. Ralph Ellison, INVISIBLE MAN. Succeeds because it's stylistically brilliant, and because it hooks the experience of being black in America into universal human experiences of rage and alienation without ever abstracting or moving away from the particulars of race. I had a high-school English teacher who said this book reminded him of some of the writings of Soviet dissidents. That distressed some of the other students. I don't think the point was, "OMG America is as bad as Soviet Russia!!!" I think the point was more that if literature is about human experience, one of those experiences is what it's like to be oppressed; there are different kinds and degrees of oppression, just like there are different kinds and degrees of sexual jealousy, ambition, self-sacrifice, or any of the other themes of literature. I think part of my point here may be that where Teachout draws a bright(ish?) line between religious art and political art, I don't; something like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (novel, not movie) is going to knock against and perhaps change your views of criminal justice, I think, as well as your views of free will and moral evil (Burgess at one point described his book as "a sort of allegory of Christian free will"). That's because the latter subjects have implications for the former. There are other possible examples--I don't think you can watch FAREWELL, MY CONCUBINE without coming away with a visceral sense of the ferocity of the Cultural Revolution, even though that's more the setting of the movie than what the movie is "about." I'm not sure whether satire shouldn't get its own category; but then, most great political works are salted with satire. How much really separates INVISIBLE MAN from DR STRANGELOVE there? There are political artworks with lower (ON THE WATERFRONT maybe?) and higher (RICHARD II) levels of ambivalence. There's the fact that almost all narrative art has a political context, and thus political implications--Chandler, not just CHINATOWN; BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, not just GRAND ILLUSION. (This corresponds to the fact that even artworks that are trying to be "just" political necessarily also have a moral and a metaphysical, religious context.) So in the end, I think I'm less interested in categorizing than in saying, Look, I don't care what you do--do whatever works--but realize that these are the big dangers. Please try not to caricature; or dehumanize; or refuse to challenge or surprise or even implicate your audience. I think those cautions hold for political art only because they hold for all art. DEPORTATION CASE FOCUSES ON DEFINITION OF TORTURE: From the NY Times: ...No one disputes that for ex-convicts like Mr. Auguste, 28, who completed a 10-month jail sentence for the attempted sale of cocaine, deportation to Haiti is a grim prospect. Under Haitian policy, federal and immigration courts have found, deportees with a criminal record are placed in indefinite preventive detention, without food, water or toilets, in cells so crowded that they cannot lie down; prisoners are subjected to police beatings, and sometimes are burned with cigarettes, choked, hooded and given electric shocks. Some have died in custody. more Friday, March 11, 2005
TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR SOMEBODY ELSE TO DIE. Funny Discworld quiz that makes me want to read the books. Thursday, March 10, 2005
"LET ALL MORTAL FLESH KEEP SILENT": JEUX SANS FRONTIERES. Second verse, same as the first. A little bit louder and a little bit worse. Or, in other words, the second scene of the dystopia story. Alison mixes business and pleasure; Irina forgets. NC17. Here. We all feel blogwatch in the dark... Dr. Weevil: Ten things (academia nuts). St. Blog's Parish, UK, is seeking British Catholic bloggers. Awesome interview with Sandra Miesel about Catholicism and science fiction. I'd love to hear her comments on Kathe Koja. "Rendition Realities," a.k.a. as close as the Washington Post is going to get to endorsing outsourced torture. Um. I'm not persuaded by this argument. And I really want to know what the hell "family pressure" means. If it's like, mom pleads with terrorist to renounce his terrortacular ways, then okay. If it's (as it has been in the past, you know) more like, "We've captured your family members, so if you don't talk I don't think they'll be very happy," then that's absolutely wrong. And I'm not reassured by the fact that this piece doesn't make clear which of the two scenarios is under discussion. Mark Shea on Catholicism and torture. If I needed persuasion that human nature has no history, that attempts to end history through genetic modification would merely reify the constant, recurring effects of original sin, I'm pretty sure the fact that torture is a contemporary political question would do it for me. Well--that and infant euthanasia, I suppose. Welcome to the working week. Wednesday, March 09, 2005
TENS, ANYONE?: (Sorry!) Laudem Gloriae (Viet Nam, fried guinea pig, and saving a life--not all in one entry); Mommentary has a fine comments-box going, including crazy Polishness from the century of blood; Pax Nortona on Alcatraz. LUV ACTUALLY: Jesse Walker writes (my comments in itals): You left out the two worst things about Love Actually: "LET ALL MORTAL FLESH KEEP SILENT": IN THE NEW CENTURY I THINK WE WILL ALL BE INSANE. First scene of new short story. Um. This is a rough one. Rated for sexualized violence, and vice versa. (Mostly in the second scene, not this one.) It's a dystopia, with all that implies; this is about Bad Things happening. I don't, you know, write this stuff unless I think the story requires it. Anyway: Irina tries to figure out whether it's winter, and Alison prepares her materials for an experiment. Here. Second scene probably tomorrow. ART OBJECTS: So on Monday night I heard Terry Teachout talk on "The Problem of Political Art." I should have taken notes, but I didn't; I'm lame. Because of the lack of notes, I can't give you a reaction to the substance of his talk, just a series of scattered points. So here goes. 1. I went away from the talk more convinced, not less, that political art is possible. I'm defining "political art" the way Teachout sometimes seemed to define it: Art that makes the audience leave the theater, or put down the book, or close the CD case, wanting to do something about a current political question. Sometimes Teachout seemed to think that this action-oriented art was "instrumentalized," opposing art to politics and subordinating the former to the latter, and so it was bad. Other times "instrumentalized" seemed to basically mean "propagandistic": manipulative, appealing to the worst in human nature rather than the best. But those aren't really the same definitions. Politics, ideally, springs from ethics; which springs (am I wrong to use the singular here?) from metaphysics. There's no escaping politics. Some things in life are really entirely wrong or right, and if you try to show a believable world you have to at least acknowledge that part of the architecture of the world is its moral architecture. 2. So I came up with two rules for political art--that is, art about contemporary, pressing, controversial political issues. a) All characters must be actually human. No caricatures. No straw men. No predictable villains. b) The work--at least if it's a narrative work, like a novel, a short story, a movie, a comic, or maybe also an opera--should show how political issues derive from and hook into ethical, metaphysical, and, ideally, also aesthetic issues. In other words, if you're writing something that can fairly be described as a play against the death penalty, that's fine. But show us how the death penalty relates to broader ethical questions of responsibility, like the nature of justice, or free will vs determinism. If you can, suggest how the death penalty relates to metaphysical questions (to what or to whom are we responsible? what does the nature of justice tell us about human nature?). If it works, shape the narrative's structure around the points you want to make. (For example, if you want to show that "responsibility" can be understood as loyalty to particular people or to principle, you want to shape your narrative such that one character has the first kind of loyalty and another character has the second.) I think this sounds a bit formulaic, and I don't mean it to. Presumably political artists want to make political art because of something they (...we) have actually seen or experienced. There are then two necessary things they must do: Go back to the source experience, and look carefully at the particular people and situations involved, so that you can portray the unpredictability of lived human experience; and figure out your core philosophy, so you can know what counts as a distillation of life and what counts as a dilution of life, which gestures are telling and which are red herrings. 3. My problem with Shaw, as a playwright, is that his plays basically read like Platonic dialogues. And while part of the point and poignance of the dialogues is their dramatic structure, that doesn't actually make the dialogues successful as plays. 4. This is bouncing off something Teachout said: Conservatives tend not to create political art because the kind of energy that, on the left, is invested in politics--that sense that here we are approaching the heart of things--is more often, on the right, poured into religion. The "Four Quartets" are maybe Eliot's "Angels in America." For my part, I do find that even my stories that are in some obvious way about politics (mostly abortion--I find I write a lot of stuff that is in one way or another pro-life) are mostly really about the grappling match between God and man. 5. Professionalism, in e.g. journalism, is a tradition; and like many traditions, it's a way of transforming a necessary subordination into beauty. (The subordination in this case is that of the newcomer, the rookie.) Boys may blog and boys may watch And that's all right you see; Experience has made me rich and now they're after me... The Agitator: Will Ohioans need an auctioneer's license to use eBay? (Via Dappled Things. And if you think this is a ridiculous idea, maybe you want to reconsider entry barriers for other economic activities, no? Related link.) Elayne Riggs: Um... I really appreciate the link, and all, but I'm not a progressive blogger. I think "progressivism" is incoherent as a philosophical concept (progress vs decay can only be judged in relation to an unchanging moral standard) and deeply destructive as an actual existing political movement. I'm a conservative with libertarian nostalgia. I certainly hope that opposing torture and believing in the preferential option for the poor doesn't disqualify me for those parties... because you know, the punch is stronger on the right. --Or actually, you know, if you want to predict my political stance, I hope the best guide is just to know that I'm Catholic. Hugo Schwyzer: Interesting points on the changing age of menarche, and on fathers and daughters. And, ten things: Hugo Schwyzer (money for good and money for evil); PapaFamilias (reader, he married her). SHADOW DANCE: "Hot out of the box with a brand-new cinematic meme is Cinetrix, who asks: "What movie character do you identify with the most?" at worst: Scottie, in "Vertigo"--actually I think most writers would identify at least to some extent with Scottie. at mediocre: Martin Blank, in "Grosse Pointe Blank" at best?: Edward G. Robinson's character, in "Five-Star Final." My, that's a crappy "best"! Hey big spender, Watch a little blog with me... Dave Tepper: bankruptcy anecdotage. The Volokh Conspiracy: Pointed quotations about free-speech issues. Some fun stuff there. And: "Welcome to gallery of anti-alcohol posters from soviet propaganda era." Via Hit & Run. LOATHE ACTUALLY: I just watched a very bad movie. It was bad in so many different ways that I will try to enumerate them for you, although I'm sure I will miss a few. So: The Crimes of "Love Actually." 1. too much music... 2. ...all of it horrible. 3. too many characters (so many that I confused one scrubby-Englishman-and-thin-blonde couple with another), thus 4. none of the plotlines ever get enough development to provoke emotional investment, so 5. the script relies on stereotypes, stupidly broad humor, and cliche. 6. so sugary my back teeth are still hurting. 7. lots of very dull culture-clash comedy, 8. including "defining British cultural identity solely by opposition to the United States." Which... when you're making a really really bad movie, best not to slap at the country that gave the world Hollywood. 9. I don't think Hugh Grant can act. Am I wrong about this? Because I don't know if I've seen any of his other movies (except for the truly great "Lair of the White Worm"), but he was pretty bad in this one--making cliches more cliched. 10. two "boss dating subordinate female" subplots. 11. horrid cute-kid subplot, with not great kid actor. 12. movie is set at Christmastime. Bad idea. 13. love at first sight/falling in looooooove despite not speaking same language. 14. creepy subplot requiring lots of "funny" nudity. OK. Enough. Am now going to try to forget this whole thing ever happened. Saturday, March 05, 2005
BOUND BY CONVENTION: A look at interrogation techniques; via Noli Irritare Leones. ...I had spent hundreds of hours with the interrogation teams first assigned at Bagram. At one time or another, the Bagram crew had considered versions of the methods listed in the right column of that Abu Ghraib sign. They had rejected most as beyond the law, and adopted a few others in less potent form. But the trend line was clear--the longer they were at the prison, the harsher the methods they employed, and the better the information they got. ... more X: Yet more ten-things lists! Cacciaguida has a roundup here. Also, Mansfield Fox (almost flirting, bowling, destroying, and enlisting), Noli Irritare Leones ("Got called on to replace software because the customer's copy had been left behind when his country got invaded"), SoDakMonk (monkness, wild things, banjo), and DGM (the Ronald Coase thing is one of the funniest things I've read in a while). Friday, March 04, 2005
Maybe I'm just like my blogwatch, too bold... Hit & Run: Al-Jazeera shaking up the Middle East. The Old Oligarch: Phenomenology of married life, and cute zoo animals. Also, I resemble that remark: "How about an application of Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity to Beavis & Butthead? It was Beavis, after all, who recalled man's estrangement from nature to the minds of a generation, when, upon seeing a goat for the first time, said, 'Hey, Butthead, that's a wolf!'" And lots more "ten things I've done and you haven't" lists! Bluepoppy (nun vs. firemen, Nureyev vs. foot), Hadleyblog (fire in the sky), DeepYogrt (Pope Paul VI meets Iron Butterfly), Mommentary (who has churned butter!), and Woodstove (only six, but one of them involves turpentine, tar, and seaweed). I really love reading these. |