Goldberg and Guthrie

This was recently written by a well-known and respected writer on a well-known and respected web site and was not intended as a joke:

[T]he Bengals have depth and success at the quarterback position.

However, the number of writers picking the Bengals as a sleeper is making me very nervous. In fact, this sort of press is the last thing the Bengals players need to hear. I'm predicting a 5-11 record. I hope I'm wrong.

I did not see Bush's speech, as I am stuck at work. However, I am tired of liberals demanding that Bush "level" with us about Iraq, and by "leveling" with us, they always seem to mean that the President should tell us how terribly everything is going.

I'm sorry, but this is just dumb. I agree that Bush should call for more sacrifice on behalf of the American people. I agree that Bush should absolutely stop making continued references to September 11 in speeches about Iraq - history will not look kindly on this. I agree that Bush should clearly explain why it is important that we stay in Iraq. However, I do not think it would be good for our soldiers there or for our image abroad if the President suddenly said, "we are really, really fucked in Iraq. We are getting our asses kicked. There is no hope. Have a nice day soldiers and families of soldiers!"

I'm sure a lot of people criticized this as a "pep rally," and to the extent that it was a GOP-love fest they are correct. But to the extent the President is trying to rally soldiers and people around the cause of winning in Iraq, then it's a good thing since we're there and we have to win, whatever winning entails. Of course, since this is an address to the American people, and since Bush has requested nothing of the American people (except the military) in the War on Terror other than continued shopping, budget deficits and tax cuts, it's not entirely clear what he is rallying the American people to do.


In other exciting news, I would not be surprised to see the Guthrie portion of Goldberg and Guthrie issue an official endorsement for the 2008 primaries in the next week or so. I know this doesn't make that much sense, but I think it might, and I think the answer might surprise some of you. (Or maybe it's someone you expect and I'm just telling you that I'll surprise you so you'll, in fact, be surprised.) Stay tuned.

WARNING, POST FULL OF BATMAN BEGINS SPOILERS

After positive reviews, including one from my co-blogger, I was more than a little excited to see Batman Begins. I haven't been as disappointed and frustrated by a movie since, well, Batman Forever. To be sure, this movie was not as bad as Batman Forever, and neither was as bad as the abomination and permanent stain on humanity that was Batman and Robin, but given Nolan's involvement, the excellent cast, the positive "buzz" and the word that this was a return to a darker, more realistic Batman, I have to say this movie was nearly as disappointing as the Schumacher debacles.

I loved Tim Burton's first Batman. I enjoyed the classic Batman comics of the late 1980s and early 1990s - including A Death in the Family, The Killing Joke, Batman: Year One (which should have been this movie) and, of course, The Dark Knight Returns. So, to be fair, I may have a specific version of what I think Batman should be in my head, and it may be that a movie that doesn't match that will fail. Having said that, I have the following complaints:

(1) There are too many villains. God fucking damn it, this annoys this shit out of me. Why can't there be one villain who is attempting to commit a crime or a series of crimes? Then the movie could focus on two characters - Batman, and said villain. They could fight for two hours, it could be cool, Batman could stare darkly at something, have a flashback or two about his parents' death, stop the villain from committing the crime, save Gotham and we could all go home and talk about how dark it was. There are at least three villains in the movie - the crime lord (played well by Tom Wilkinson), Scarecrow (totally wasted - why do they always turn the best villains into henchmen?) and Raz a Gobba Doo Wad or whatever his name was (played by Liam Neeson).

(2) Despite the clear attempt to return to a more "realistic" Batman, the movie's main villain (Raz a Fondu or whatever) still had a ludicrous and totally pointless plan to "destroy Gotham." I don't particularly care if a comic book movie is realistic as long as it's interesting. This was just another lunatic trying to destroy a city by putting poison in the water supply. Simply adding a few lines about how they are crime fighters and changing the poison to fear gas made from a blue flower found in Asia doesn't change the fact that this was the exact plot of the first Batman movie - except that in that movie we were able to witness the Joker's slow descent into insanity and could sort of understand where he was coming from.

(3) Batman clearly killed a bunch of people. This might have annoyed me the most. I always thought one of the coolest things about Batman was his refusal to kill anyone - a code of honor that he follows in the comics to an almost insane degree - most notably in his refusal to kill the Joker even after the Joker killed Robin. Of course, there are versions of Batman where he doesn't have qualms about killing people - and that's fine. You could still tell a good story. (I'm not sure, but I believe Batman killed people in the first Tim Burton movie.) Also, if you are planning a series of movies, you could have some event in one of the later movies trigger a promise never to kill. But the Batman in this movie said numerous times that he was not going to kill people; starting, I think, after he almost shot the guy who killed his parents. But if you're going to set this up, you can't have Batman blowing up a house on a mountain with 100 people in it and only trying to save one person. You can't have Batman racing his car through the city and causing cop cars to flip over and blow up. I know Alfred said something about nobody being killed, but that didn't really fit in visually with what I'd just seen on the screen. Batman has to be extra clever and resourceful when he fights crime due to his solemn oath not to take life; too bad the lazy makers of this movie couldn't do the same.

Then, in the end, Batman says to Ra Fiddy Doo Doo (or whatever) that "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." The shit? I would say that a promise not to kill people does, in fact, entail a promise to act when you can easily prevent someone from being killed, even if that someone is a sworn enemy. In fact, that is exactly what the Batman of the comics does time and time again. But the writers and artists behind the comics obviously take their character more seriously, and make him either keep his promise or deal with consequences when he does not.

(4) The fight scenes were just terrible. I mean, hold the god damn camera still so we can see the fight. Please.

(5) This might grow on me if I were to see it again, but I don't think it's necessary to spend 10% of the movie explaining where Batman's gadgets come from. I mean, if you have to do it, you may as well have Morgan Freeman explaining them. But I always just sort of assumed that Bruce Wayne used his money to acquire the latest in crime-fighting gear, and not having this explained to me never really interfered with my enjoyment of a good Batman story.

(6) It's really quite a coincidence that the first thing Bruce Wayne/Batman does after he puts on the suit is bust up a drug shipment that just happens to be connected to an evil plan being perpetrated by the very league of shadows he just tried to destroy. I would have liked to have seen Batman break up a few street crimes/violent crimes and then become involved in taking down drug shipments. I don't really understand why the public already has opinions on Batman when all he does is stop some cocaine from coming into Gotham - like, why does the kid say "Batman will save us" when all Batman has really done is beat up some drug dealers. Wouldn't people assume or at least think that he just worked for a rival gang? It's hard for me to explain, but there was just something weird and "off" about all of this.

(7) That little kid was really annoying and profoundly unnecessary.

(8) Katie Holmes was really annoying and profoundly unnecessary.

(9) The killer of Batman's parents was revealed. This is something that also bothered me about the Burton version, and it's really a matter of personal taste. In the comics (or, in the comics I was reading), Bruce Wayne's parents are killed by an unknown mugger. It's just a random street crime. Batman's obsession is created by the desire for revenge coupled with the knowledge that he will never have revenge. I like the idea that every time Batman punches a villain, at some level he thinks he might be punching the guy who killed his parents. This movie sort of ruins that - and goes a step further by making their death a result of their continued quest to save Gotham.


I actually thought the first hour or so was really good, and I also thought Michael Caine was perfect as Alfred. Garry Oldman was decent as well. I was sad to see the whole thing sort of devolve into a boring, stupid, "now if you'll excuse me, I have a city to destroy", Schumacher-like mess.

As for calling this one of, if not the, best comic book movies ever, I mean, this might be another of those issues (like the Flag Burning amendment) that I just can't debate. Just off the top of my head it's clear that Superman, Superman II, Spiderman, Spiderman II, Batman, Batman Returns and X2: X-Men United are all vastly superior.

I wrote a little too much about this, didn't I?

It looks like it might pass.

Oh, and a Congressman said this:

“Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center,” said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. “Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.”

Congratulations, Republicans. You must be very proud to have this patriot in your party.

Also, the minute this amendment passes is the minute the American Flag ceases to have any meaning to me. It will stop being a symbol of anything special or important and will instead become a piece of cloth.

As I have said before, this isn't an issue that can be debated. I think everyone understands the issue. And if you support this amendment, you just don't get it, and there's no point in discussing it with you. You don't appreciate the freedom that thousands have died to protect. I don't so much disagree with you as I feel sorry for you. Not as sorry as I feel for our country, though.

Well, this just happened.

Tired of the spin I was getting from mainstream newscasts, I decided to flip to The O'Reilly Factor during commercials on The Daily Show. During the first segment, O'Reilly was "interviewing" a guest about Durbin's comments - when I say "interview", I of course mean that O'Reilly was ranting and raving about how Durbin's comments hurt America's image abroad and endanger our troops.

When I flipped back, O'Reilly was doing an interview with Judge Napolitano about the murder in Aruba. It was actually a fairly rational discussion about criminal procedure under the Aruban system, and differences between that system and our system. Now, I may have accidentally switched back to The Daily Show, but I'm pretty sure the following exchange took place (paraphrased by me, of course, until I can find a transcript):

O'Reilly: Now, tell me... how long can they detain these suspects for?

Judge: Well, now, they can detain them a long time without filing charges, and that's something that's not just different than America, it's anti-American.

O'Reilly: Why do they do that?

Judge: That's how they do it in many European countries. They do it to break them down. Sure, they have a right to remain silent, but if they're in jail long enough, they'll eventually just tell the police what they think they want to here.

O'Reilly: But that confession would be coereced!

Judge: We'll see.

Yeah, convicting people on the basis of confessions that are coerced is pretty bad, something we'd expect to be "done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings."

So, I haven't blogged much, if at all, during the past month. I apologize to our loyal readers, but I haven't had anything to say as politics just sort of makes me sick to my stomach.

Take this article about the anti-gay marriage movement in the New York Times. It ends with this little vignette:

When I met Polyak [a pro gay marriage activist], she told me how, when she first testified before a legislative committee, an anti-gay-marriage activist, a woman, confronted her with bitter language, asking her why she was ''doing this'' to the woman's children and grandchildren. Polyak said the encounter left her shaken. A few days later, as I sat in [anti gay-marriage crazy person] Evalena Gray's Christmas-lighted basement office, she told me a story of how during the same testimony she approached a blond lesbian and talked to her about the effect that gay marriage would have on her grandchildren. ''Then I hugged her neck,'' she said, ''and I said, 'We love you.' I was kind of consoling her to some extent, out of compassion.''

I realized I was hearing about the same encounter from both sides. What was expressed as love was received as something close to hate. That's a hard gap to bridge.

That's right, the problem is that both sides don't understand each other. Oh, except that's not the problem at all. The problem exists only on one side of the "debate," and the problem is that all people on that side of the debate are fucking morons. They hate people who are different than them and they view gay marriage the same way a racist white family views a black family moving into their neighborhood - as a threat to their way of life.

Also, fuck the New York Times for presenting this story in this way. A crazy person walks up to a gay person on the other side of a debate, tells them that by gaily loving their partner in a public way they are hurting America's children and then grabs their neck and says "I love you." The only gap that needs to be bridged here is the gap that divides the normal, sane world and abnormal, insane Evalena Gray.

Earlier in the piece, one of our anti-gay activist friends says this:

Not long after this period in which she came to feel a new sense of purpose, Laura read about the pro-gay-marriage action in Massachusetts, and she found herself e-mailing news articles about it to friends. She looked at the development not as an effort by members of a minority to win rights that others have long enjoyed but as an attack on society's most basic institution by forces bent on creating an amoral, anything-goes culture. ''The gay activists are trying to redefine what marriage has been basically since the beginning of time and on every continent,'' she said. ''My concern is for the children -- for the future.''

She believed that what happened in Massachusetts could happen in Maryland. ''My first reaction was frustration,'' she said, ''knowing that this is a legislative issue and the court in Massachusetts had overstepped their bounds.'' Laura had never been an activist before, but now she wanted to get involved, so she contacted the national headquarters of the Family Research Council, and they put her in touch with a local group called the Family Protection Lobby, which has monitored state legislation from a conservative Christian perspective since 1980. She talked with Doug Stiegler, a retired plumbing contractor turned Christian missionary, who has been head of the Family Protection Lobby since 1993. Stiegler began to initiate her into the ways of the state government.

Seriously, you have to be dumber than fucking dirt to believe this shit. You live in this world, with all of its problems, and the first thing that makes you want to get involved with politics is that fact that some gay people are getting married in Massachusetts? What in the name of holy fuck is wrong with people?

Well, that's how I feel anyway, and I can't see why anyone would want to read such rants, apart from their comedic value. Despite reader RD's comment of a month or so ago, I don't think I pepper my posts on this blog with the self-loathing that is the basis of most of my humor (in "real" life) and was the basis for most of the artistic endeavors I engaged in back in "the day". Because who wants to read that shit, you know? Not me, for one. And sometimes I just get disgusted with the political debates of the day, and that disgust perhaps borders on rage. While I actually think this is healthy it makes for boring blogging and it's pretty self-indulgent. (One thing I always hate is when art becomes therapy. I guess the same can be said of political blogging.) Also, I'm lazy as shit. But in this case, I actually typed several posts but ended up deleting them because they didn't make sense and I don't know what to say.

Also, I know it's wrong to feel this way about people. And it doesn't make any political sense. I incomparably close by citing the Daily Howler.

Howard Dean just "hates" Republicans. Dr. King always asserted the dignity of Sheriff Bull Connor. And one more thing - Dr. King won.

That's a powerful, complicated point. And of course the Daily Howler is right, and I say this as one of Howard Dean's biggest fans.