4 years, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Michael Moore is starting to bore me even more than he offends me. I suspect I’m not alone. So this will be the last thing I have to say about the Great Bloviator and his film. Anyway, I recently linked to Christopher Hitchens’ critique of Moore, which brought this lively response from one “Kafka” who had this to say:
Right right fascist idiot: people like to criticize someone’s idea “not objective” because they don’t include what you wanna them to say, as if you can always take the observer out of the observation, not to mention you didnt even watch the movie before spilling out this nonsense. Son of the bitch, you dont fucking look cool by recommending Dostoyevsky by default. You don’t get laid at the weekend for this.
Most of this is of course typical leftist blather, but you can distill the essence to “You are a fascist idiot because you criticize Moore for not including what you want him to include, plus you didn’t see the movie.”
My dictionary defines fascism as
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Anyone who’s actually read anything I’ve written should know full well that if anything, I err to often on the side of deference to the individual. If anything, I’m a libertarian (in the modern sense) or a liberal (in the classical sense). Even considering only the last clause of the definition, “forcible suppression of opposition,” nothing Hitchens or Jeff Jarvis or any of the myriad online critics of Moore have had to say amounts to suppressing his voice.
In case it’s not clear, I’ll cut to the chase. Moore can say whatever he wants to say. The blockheads pressuring theatre owners to not run the film are wrong on the merits (the answer to speech that offends is more speech, not less) and on the tactics (this kind of pressure is nothing but good publicity for the offensive speech). Disney, of course, was well within its rights to not spend its capital distributing the film, but no one should advocate suppressing it. To criticize, however, is not to suppress. Loony leftists decry everyone who disagrees with them as fascists. It doesn’t make any more sense than loony conservatives who think everyone to the left of them is a communist.
As to the larger point, the argument isn’t that Michael Moore has an obligation to be “objective,” whatever that means. It’s that it is a perfectly fair criticism to point out the ways that he draws inferences based on connections that, if they exist at all, are the flimsiest of connections, the way he manufactures events when actual film doesn’t hammer his point home enough, and the way he makes his point not through sound argument but by belittling and demonizing his opponents.
I have a lrger problem with the adulation being heaped on Michael Moore and his film - it further debases the medium of documentary filmmaking. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ rules define a documentary as
a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is probably non-fiction, although Moore’s previous efforts are a tougher call. Under criticism, he now claims that his movie is more akin to a filmed op-ed piece than objective journalism, and I think that’s a shame. Partisan hackery has debased other media, and now we’ve moved on to film. It is undoubtedly true that a documentary feature is necessarily subjective - it’s hard to take the observer out of the observation - and need not give equal time to opposing viewpoints. But documentaries typically do not ignore contrary evidence to make a partisan point, do not manufacture evidence when none exists, and do not exist primarily to belittle one’s opponents.
Moore’s revisionism is on target - if F9/11 were a book, you’d shelve it with Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Franken, not with Stephen Ambrose. Unfortunately, film is a different media - the rise of “Look at me, aren’t I great” documentarians displaces less nihilistic observers. How many documentaries can theatres realistically support and studios realistically finance? Whn O’Reilly releases a new book, I can still skip the polemics and head for the history section, but the rise of films like F9/11 means there will be fewer true documentaries in the theatres, fewer true documentaries nominated for Oscars, and fewer true documentaries available to me. Not really anything to do about it, it just makes me a little sad.
Irving Kristof makes many similar points in the Times:
A consensus is emerging on the left that Mr. Bush is fundamentally dishonest, perhaps even evil — a nut, yes, but mostly a liar and a schemer. That view is at the heart of Michael Moore’s scathing new documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
In the 1990’s, nothing made conservatives look more petty and simple-minded than their demonization of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were even accused of spending their spare time killing Vince Foster and others. Mr. Clinton, in other words, left the right wing addled. Now Mr. Bush is doing the same to the left. For example, Mr. Moore hints that the real reason Mr. Bush invaded Afghanistan was to give his cronies a chance to profit by building an oil pipeline there.
“I’m just raising what I think is a legitimate question,” Mr. Moore told me, a touch defensively, adding, “I’m just posing a question.”
Right. And right-wing nuts were “just posing a question” about whether Mr. Clinton was a serial killer.
and this:
Some Democrats, like Mr. Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman, have pushed back against the impulse to demonize Mr. Bush. I salute them, for there are so many legitimate criticisms we can (and should) make about this president that we don’t need to get into kindergarten epithets.
But the rush to sling mud is gaining momentum, and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ marks the polarization of yet another form of media. One medium after another has found it profitable to turn from information to entertainment, from nuance to table-thumping.
Talk radio pioneered this strategy, then cable television. Political books have lately become as subtle as professional wrestling, and the Internet is adding to the polarization. Now, with the economic success of “Fahrenheit 9/11,” look for more documentaries that shriek rather than explain.
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4 years, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Well, at least she’s honest:
Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.
Hillary Clinton, speaking to a fundraiser for fellow traveler Barbara Boxer. Comrade Clinton, how ’bout you let me keep the fruits of my labor, seeing as I trust neither you nor Comrade Boxer to spend it any better than I could? Or maybe we could barter - I’ll read Bill’s book if you read one of these.
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4 years, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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From the Associated Press:
Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles. Not yet 5, he can hold seven-pound weights with arms extended, something many adults cannot do. He has muscles twice the size of other kids his age and half their body fat.
DNA testing showed why: The boy has a genetic mutation that boosts muscle growth.
No word yet on whether the boy suffers when exposed to Kryptonite. Also no word on whether the boy’s mutant myostatin-blocking DNA segment is vulnerable to the Legacy Virus.
Seriously, this is the first documented human case of this particular mutation. In November 2002, Sasha Bogdanovich and colleagues demonstrated that inhibition of myostatin in mice could be used to treat diseases such as Muscular Dystrophy:
Antibodies against myostatin were tested in the mdx mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The treated mice gained weight, and displayed increased muscle mass and caloric output. The treatment caused a functional improvement of the dystrophic phenotype, suggesting that similar pharmacological strategies targeting myostatin might be applied to treat human muscular diseases and offer an alternative to gene therapy.
[via diepunyhumans]
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4 years, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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My new favorite unsubscribe message, courtesy of Warren Ellis’ Bad Signal list:
You have successfully escaped Bad Signal. And we don’t like you even a bit. No.
Warren Ellis is a writer of many things that I like (Planetary and Orbiter especially, also Transmetropolitan, if you’re into that sort of thing). He has a website, a blog (Die Puny Humans) and a photoblog (screaming wireless). Plus a fun mailing list, BadSignal. From which I unsubscribed only because I’m moving webmail from hotmail to gmail.
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4 years, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Needless to say, I have no intention of giving mirthless mound of mendacity Michael Moore any of my hard-earned cash, so I’ll leave it to others to criticize Moore’s latest “documentary.” Today’s entrant is Christopher Hitchens, who writes:
With Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.
It only gets better from there. Although I do think Hitchens does Riefenstahl a disservice by putting Fahrenheit 9/11 in the same class as Triumph of the Will on “filmic standards” (by which one presumes Hitchens means that they are both pieces of filmed propaganda, but as promotion of a particular view through film, putting aside the merits of the particular underlying view, Moore fails miserably, whereas Riefenstahl, well, Triumphed).
Roger L. Simon liked what Hitchens had to say, too.
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4 years, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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A blissfully generally-news-free vacation and some business travel leaves one feeling somewhat refreshed. The news is full of the good (the economy appears to continue to gather steam) and the bad (another American beheaded in the Middle East). I have relatively little to say on either subject that others are not saying more eloquently than I ever could. My attention, moreover, has been drawn not to Saudi Arabia or Iraq but to another desert altogether.
On Monday morning, an as-yet-unidentified pilot will soar to an altitude of 62 miles in a private craft, becoming the first private sector astronaut, in Burt Rutan and Paul Allen’s SpaceShipOne (fueled intriguingly by rubber and nitrous oxide). Here’s space.com’s summary of the event:
Weather permitting, the craft will be carried aloft aboard the White Knight, a somewhat conventional airplane built specially for this purpose. An hour after taking off from the Mojave Airport, at about 50,000 feet, the White Knight will release SpaceShipOne, whose pilot will fire a rocket, powered by rubber and laughing gas, for about 80 seconds.
SpaceShipOne should soar to 62 miles (100 kilometers), crossing the threshold of space on a suborbital trajectory. The pilot, who has not yet been named, would officially become an astronaut.
According to plan, the craft will spend about three minutes in weightlessness, then glide back to Earth. It will land about 1 hour and 25 minutes after the initial takeoff in the same location.
The importance of this event cannot be overstated - for the first time, a privately-funded company will accomplish what heretofore had been the sole province of the state, and will let slip the bonds of earth. In so doing, they will open space to the individual, both in the sense of conceivably taking individuals to space (too bad Pan Am, which once took reservations for trips to the Moon on the theory that private flight to the moon was bound to happen sooner or later, is no longer with us), and, more importantly in my view, by releasing space exploration itself from the bonds of hidebound and earthbound government bureaucracies.
Suborbital flight by a single pilot as part of an international competition under rules requiring two 62 mile flights in a 2 week period is not in and of itself necessarily a monumental event. That it is possible is the monumental event. Where will the next private craft go? The one after that? What will competition produce now that space flight is not the sole and exclusive province of the state, now that the explorers need have no complusion to respond to the inevitable query “Why waste tax dollars on this when we haven’t solved [insert problem here]?” My fervent hope is that we will soon see manned space exploration that has higher ambitions than to be a supply barge for the International Space Station. To explore Mars in a way that rovers cannot. To meet the future personally, rather than by proxy.
In this vein, I like the Belmont Club’s take on the history of the moment:
In an age when bravery itself is suspect and achievement considered a kind of oppression; when every new technology is hedged around with anticipatory restrictions it is wonderful to know that some men at least would like nothing better than to rise on a column of fire toward the beckoning stars. For every successful flight of this nature slips not only the “surly bonds of earth” but also breaks hidebound modes of thinking. It departs not just from a place but from a time. It takes us not from where we ought to be, but to where we belong.
boing boing’s Xeni Jardin is in Mojave and is providing commentary from the front. Dale Amon from Samizdata is going there too. Space.com has good coverage, including a “Viewer’s Guide” to the launch. And rumor has it that CNN may cover the launch live on Monday. May have to set the tivo for that.
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4 years, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Posting will be light-to-nonexistent next week while I take the kids on stop 2 of Grandparents Tour 2004. Highlights of this trip are likely to include Cedar Point, particularly Camp Snoopy and Kiddy Kingdom, the Cleveland Zoo dinosaur and butterfly exhibits, the Seiberling Naturealm, Invent Now (the National Inventors Hall of fame), the Akron Aeros and Put-in-Bay.
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4 years, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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This looks kind of interesting - volumes upon volumes of weird stuff:
William Corliss, a maniacal archivist working alone has steadfastly cataloged all reported anomalies in biology, chemistry, geology, archeology, physics, and the atmosphere. He lists everything: ball lightening accounts, out of sequence fossils, ancient glass lenses, geological deposits where they shouldn’t be, weird ruins, musical sands, unexplained radioactivity, out of place historical artifacts, unusual ancient buildings, strange weather formations, and anything odd that has no easy explanation.
Kevin Kelly provides an excerpt (actually several, but I like this one):
Blundellsands, England. June 5, 1902. “The evening was dull and grey, a strong northwesterly wind was blowing in from the sea and the tide was flowing in. In the distance we first saw smoke with frequent jets of fire bursting forth from the mud of a shallow canal. Drawing near, we perceived a strong sulphurous odour, and saw little flames of fire and heard a hissing sound as though a large quantity of phosphorous was being ignited. It was impossible to detect anything which caused the fire, only the water where the flames appeared had particles of a bluish hue floating on the surface. The area over which the tiny flames kept bursting forth was about 40 yards. A gentleman present stirred up the mud with his walking stick, and immediately large yellow flames nearly 2 feet in length and breadth burst forth. The phenomenon lasted some time, until the tide covered the part and quenched the fire.”
From “Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological”
Unfortunately, the books are self-published, available on Amazon, which means they’re expensive. Kind of reminds me of my Stephen Jay Gould period.
[via boing boing]
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4 years, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Driving over to the Y at lunchtime today, I caught a snippet of NPR talker Terry Gross .interviewing NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, narrator of the new Discovery Channel doc The Other Side of Outsourcing. Friedman was explaining that the reason tech jobs were contracted to Indian workers is that India is on almost exactly the other side of the world from the US, allowing US programmers and their Indian counterparts to work a 24-hour day (work on a project in Silicon Valley, send it to Bangalore at the end of the CA day, let the Indians hack at it while the Californians sleep, rinse, repeat). Gross’ follow-up: so the reason the jobs are outsourced to India is that labor costs are so much cheaper, right?
A minute later, Friedman was explaining how he went to India and the call centers were filled with employees sporting American clothes, drinking Cokes, and working on Dell and HP computers, to which Gross responded with a statement about American jobs lost, and how outsourcing is responsible for increased unemployment.
This proved two things to me.
- Artsy talk show hosts shouldn’t expound on economics.
- Talk show hosts who don’t listen ask bad follow-up questions.
Clearly lost in all the bluster was an essential point - American companies outsource labor not just to increase profits by reducing labor costs (although that’s some of it), but to increase efficiency. The software company that hires Indian programmers likely gets better results by two programmers working a 24 hour day than by hiring an American and having two Americans working a 12 hour day together. Further lost is the more important point - the call center job sent to India saves, on average, $1200 a month per job in labor costs, and results in an American being out of a $18,000 a year job. It also allows an Indian worker, who earns as much in an entry-level job as his parents do in a high-seniority position, to buy Levi’s and Coke and other American consumer goods, helping the American economy in the process. Not to mention the other Americans with more disposable income because the reduced call center costs reduce the price of domestic goods. As Friedman noted, its as wrong to think globalization is all bad as it is to think it’s all good (although free markets are pretty darn close to all good, in my view).
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