I am happy and sad that Al Franken took the oath of office on Paul and Sheila Wellstone's bible.
The moment was the Wellstone memorial. The chapter in Frankens Lies and the Lying Liars about that event is perfect. Because the Coleman forces used their dirty tricks to smear the campaign of Senator Wellstone.
And thereby they benefited by Wellstone's death.
I think that the planecrash was sketchy as hell. Cold and quiet. Remote woods. The Wellstone campaign, starting to pull away after Paul took the risky vote against Bush's war. Remember, 2002 was the year that the invasion of Iraq saved the Republican's electoral bacon. The war was about to become bloody. The woods were bloody.
Norm Coleman benefited from the death of Paul Wellstone. Norm, who was beloved of Rove and Cheney. Cheney, who was spending a lot of time in those undisclosed locations. Doing what? Planning what? Pulling a Michelle Bachmann? "I'm not saying that Wellstone was assassinated, I'm just thinking someone should take a look..."
And so now Al used Paul's book to take the oath on.
I think it was magic today, magic that was connected to the debt of blood. The debt of blood that had stained Norm Coleman's senate seat, which is now Al Franken's. I think something is at rest now.
And just as Senator Coleman moved into Senator Wellstone's University Avenue office, Al Franken gets the fancy Washington Senate office they were holding for Coleman, on the off chance he would get the seat. So the perk that 'rising star' Coleman got now goes to the nice boy from Saint Louis Park who is Senator Al Franken. Good going, Al. We finally won the election for Paul Wellstone - it just took a while.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Monday, June 01, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Star Trek 2009 Part Two
Once again - this is full of spoilers. Beware!
CHARACTERS
Spock rocked. I think his character was far more the driver than Kirk's, and he got balls. Literally. I LOVE that he's Uhura's lover. His 'mother' moments were ehh, but overall the character who did the most growth and was generally the most compelling.
Kirk was fine. The role was pretty amusingly written, and the kid did fine at it. He was way more bloody than the original - that's the Dark Knight phenomenon - and I swear, he was hanging by the edge of a cliff so many times it's a motif. And if it's a homage to Kirk's kid hanging by the edge, or the I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU it wasn't that good. I thought he was too much of a horndog, but he was compelling a lot of times, looked amusing a lot of times, fit the role pretty well. I thought it was kinda lame to have him be in black the whole movie, basically. "It's like Kirk, but with a dark edgy edge!" "How we gonna do that?" "He'll wear... black!"
Uhura rocked. Hot, strong, making out with the Vulcan. Skilled. I might have missed something in the role, but I don't think it was misogynistic. I kind of think it was too bad they gave her long straight hair - like the recent post at Racialicous on Storm in the X-Men not being really black. There was a woman with the afro on the ship - they panned past her during combat; she had a command yellow uniform on. But the character was cool. I do wish she'd given the last punch at the bar fight scene when she and Kirk met.
Bones was bearable. He'd been written out of the canonical triumvirate in favor of Uhura, so he didn't get the same character development treatment and that was too bad. His delivery of the "I'm a Doctor, not a..." line was stilted, and when you make a movie, you can re-shoot the stilted lines until they get them right. The diseases stuff that got Kirk onto the Enterprise was funny, and he has a certain amount of hearty southern character.
Sulu for the win. The initial 'oops' moment was not so great, but the fencing was awesome. He wasn't Takei but he was Sulu, just as well as the new Spock was Spock. (A different Spock, however.)
Scotty? Well, he seemed way more Irish than Scottish to my ear, but that could have been because I don't know what lowland Scots sounds like. But I really liked this character A LOT. Like Spock, he'd been ret-conned, so he's not the very military engineer that James Doohan was. But cool. The 'you're a brilliant scientist' thing was awesome. BUT
The one amazing loser was the fucking midget. I apologize to midgets, and I liked the short nonverbal alien when the actor was acting the new Oompa Lumpas. BUT cute little characters like that are anathema. The "Beedee beedee" robot wasn't in Star Trek, he was in what - Buck Rodgers? This is the Ewok, this is the Jar-Jar. This is the marketable stuffed animal character so the under-six set has something to franchise to. That character alone was worth dropping to an A from an A+. (Or actually from an A- to a B+, because anything with a character like that won't be starting from an A+, because characters like that indicate an fundamental poor grasp on reality that would show in other areas as well.)
Whew.
Who am I missing? Chekov. My sweetie didn't remember Chekov from the original show, and this ret-con didn't work nearly as well. "We'll make him an idiot savant, brilliant kid, who's like a Russian chess genius. And he'll talk in an accent." OK - do you do any backstory on this? No - one is left to fill in the blanks. The scene where the voice recognition can't understand him was lame - see continuity errors.
Sarek: Very good. Of course, all you have to do is be stoic for a Vulcan, but you can do it with dynamism or not. Dynamic Sarek.
Spock's Mom: Uhhh - nice tit shelf? Sorry, the tit shelf really distracts. I guess she was Winona Ryder, whatever. Did a 1.5 dimensional job of playing her 1.5 dimensional character.
Captain Pike - good! As someone said - he looks like he should, from the Menagerie. And he gets old. And the final handshake has him in vintage old-skool Federation arm sleeve rank stuff. Except the fan service with the 'creeeeture in his boooody' was lame, and he spent the last chunk all tied up. That he's in the show, however, and does a decent job makes him a plus overall in the 'respect the source material' category.
Romulans: Fail. Sorry, just that. Fail. Orc ears, orc tattoos, orc tech, scary alien orc ship (how that was a practical mining ship is beyond me) and Nero? Good ranting, you're no Khan, it's not your fault they made you the Space Orcs.
More: Plot and stuff. Including list of stupid things.
CHARACTERS
Spock rocked. I think his character was far more the driver than Kirk's, and he got balls. Literally. I LOVE that he's Uhura's lover. His 'mother' moments were ehh, but overall the character who did the most growth and was generally the most compelling.
Kirk was fine. The role was pretty amusingly written, and the kid did fine at it. He was way more bloody than the original - that's the Dark Knight phenomenon - and I swear, he was hanging by the edge of a cliff so many times it's a motif. And if it's a homage to Kirk's kid hanging by the edge, or the I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU it wasn't that good. I thought he was too much of a horndog, but he was compelling a lot of times, looked amusing a lot of times, fit the role pretty well. I thought it was kinda lame to have him be in black the whole movie, basically. "It's like Kirk, but with a dark edgy edge!" "How we gonna do that?" "He'll wear... black!"
Uhura rocked. Hot, strong, making out with the Vulcan. Skilled. I might have missed something in the role, but I don't think it was misogynistic. I kind of think it was too bad they gave her long straight hair - like the recent post at Racialicous on Storm in the X-Men not being really black. There was a woman with the afro on the ship - they panned past her during combat; she had a command yellow uniform on. But the character was cool. I do wish she'd given the last punch at the bar fight scene when she and Kirk met.
Bones was bearable. He'd been written out of the canonical triumvirate in favor of Uhura, so he didn't get the same character development treatment and that was too bad. His delivery of the "I'm a Doctor, not a..." line was stilted, and when you make a movie, you can re-shoot the stilted lines until they get them right. The diseases stuff that got Kirk onto the Enterprise was funny, and he has a certain amount of hearty southern character.
Sulu for the win. The initial 'oops' moment was not so great, but the fencing was awesome. He wasn't Takei but he was Sulu, just as well as the new Spock was Spock. (A different Spock, however.)
Scotty? Well, he seemed way more Irish than Scottish to my ear, but that could have been because I don't know what lowland Scots sounds like. But I really liked this character A LOT. Like Spock, he'd been ret-conned, so he's not the very military engineer that James Doohan was. But cool. The 'you're a brilliant scientist' thing was awesome. BUT
The one amazing loser was the fucking midget. I apologize to midgets, and I liked the short nonverbal alien when the actor was acting the new Oompa Lumpas. BUT cute little characters like that are anathema. The "Beedee beedee" robot wasn't in Star Trek, he was in what - Buck Rodgers? This is the Ewok, this is the Jar-Jar. This is the marketable stuffed animal character so the under-six set has something to franchise to. That character alone was worth dropping to an A from an A+. (Or actually from an A- to a B+, because anything with a character like that won't be starting from an A+, because characters like that indicate an fundamental poor grasp on reality that would show in other areas as well.)
Whew.
Who am I missing? Chekov. My sweetie didn't remember Chekov from the original show, and this ret-con didn't work nearly as well. "We'll make him an idiot savant, brilliant kid, who's like a Russian chess genius. And he'll talk in an accent." OK - do you do any backstory on this? No - one is left to fill in the blanks. The scene where the voice recognition can't understand him was lame - see continuity errors.
Sarek: Very good. Of course, all you have to do is be stoic for a Vulcan, but you can do it with dynamism or not. Dynamic Sarek.
Spock's Mom: Uhhh - nice tit shelf? Sorry, the tit shelf really distracts. I guess she was Winona Ryder, whatever. Did a 1.5 dimensional job of playing her 1.5 dimensional character.
Captain Pike - good! As someone said - he looks like he should, from the Menagerie. And he gets old. And the final handshake has him in vintage old-skool Federation arm sleeve rank stuff. Except the fan service with the 'creeeeture in his boooody' was lame, and he spent the last chunk all tied up. That he's in the show, however, and does a decent job makes him a plus overall in the 'respect the source material' category.
Romulans: Fail. Sorry, just that. Fail. Orc ears, orc tattoos, orc tech, scary alien orc ship (how that was a practical mining ship is beyond me) and Nero? Good ranting, you're no Khan, it's not your fault they made you the Space Orcs.
More: Plot and stuff. Including list of stupid things.
Star Trek 2009 Part One
For those of you who get this in RSS - this is full of spoilers. Turn back now!
Saw the new Star Trek movie last night, and I wanted to write about it.
Dude, that was sooo cool!
Also - letter grade bobbing between a B+ and an A-. Definitely in the 'Pay full price for it' category - as a matter of fact, pay an extra buck for the Ultrascreen.
So I absolutely loved it, even when it bothered me, and I came away feeling great! Seriously, this movie invoked such a sense for me of the positive, of the crazy utopian post-capitalist integrated society of the United Federation of Planets - it put a spring in my step! Serious.
In the intervening time since walking out - floating out awash in positive endorphins - I've had to come face to face with some stuff. Like the fact that there were really quite some starship-sized holes in the reality, which is always a problem with action-adventure genre movies. The big stupid things like basic physics being ignored, inconsistencies from one minute to the next, stuff like that. And I'll be listing them, see if I don't.
But this is mythic territory. In my grading, I had to admit that I had a full possible letter grade of 'fanboy' that I could give this movie, depending on how well they serviced my fanboy-ness. And in this case, they'd already signaled that they would be changing the reality some, so not to expect full continuity. (The geek term for this is ret-conning, or retroactively altering the continuity of the world.) So if they did well by the source material, a full letter grade boost; if they did poorly, possible minuses.
And, frankly, the original was a three season TV show, with some good writing, some so-so writing, some simple hammy acting doing some simple morality play SF stuff. They do get props for first interracial kiss, that's fine. And they had the liberal utopian stuff I refered to earlier.
The movie also suffers from the Dark Knight phenomenon, which also befell Lord of the Rings. By this I mean the good guys are less good and the bad guys are twice as bad and three times as violent. I attribute this to the long brutal years of Bush, the torture and the warlike nature. Hopefully this will be less the case in coming years, but both of these adaptations feel a need to take the good guys and 'show the bad side' and then to EXXTREME the baddies. However...
Next chapter: Characters
Saw the new Star Trek movie last night, and I wanted to write about it.
Dude, that was sooo cool!
Also - letter grade bobbing between a B+ and an A-. Definitely in the 'Pay full price for it' category - as a matter of fact, pay an extra buck for the Ultrascreen.
So I absolutely loved it, even when it bothered me, and I came away feeling great! Seriously, this movie invoked such a sense for me of the positive, of the crazy utopian post-capitalist integrated society of the United Federation of Planets - it put a spring in my step! Serious.
In the intervening time since walking out - floating out awash in positive endorphins - I've had to come face to face with some stuff. Like the fact that there were really quite some starship-sized holes in the reality, which is always a problem with action-adventure genre movies. The big stupid things like basic physics being ignored, inconsistencies from one minute to the next, stuff like that. And I'll be listing them, see if I don't.
But this is mythic territory. In my grading, I had to admit that I had a full possible letter grade of 'fanboy' that I could give this movie, depending on how well they serviced my fanboy-ness. And in this case, they'd already signaled that they would be changing the reality some, so not to expect full continuity. (The geek term for this is ret-conning, or retroactively altering the continuity of the world.) So if they did well by the source material, a full letter grade boost; if they did poorly, possible minuses.
And, frankly, the original was a three season TV show, with some good writing, some so-so writing, some simple hammy acting doing some simple morality play SF stuff. They do get props for first interracial kiss, that's fine. And they had the liberal utopian stuff I refered to earlier.
The movie also suffers from the Dark Knight phenomenon, which also befell Lord of the Rings. By this I mean the good guys are less good and the bad guys are twice as bad and three times as violent. I attribute this to the long brutal years of Bush, the torture and the warlike nature. Hopefully this will be less the case in coming years, but both of these adaptations feel a need to take the good guys and 'show the bad side' and then to EXXTREME the baddies. However...
Next chapter: Characters
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Field Negro
BitchPhD, where I've guest posted, has got some good race discussions. The reminded me lately of a blogger - the FIELD NEGRO - from who I ripped the following. Amazing.
Monday, May 11, 2009
I will take Rush over the black guy.
"Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think,"..." I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican."
That was the devil himself disguised as an old white man named Dick Cheney. He was telling CBS News and anyone who would listen that he would rather have a fat drug addicted [alleged]pedophile in his party, than a genuine "American hero", Colin Powell. Wow!
Now I am no political expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I am guessing that if you asked most A-murder-cans who they would trust more to be their leader, they would say the good general and not anyone from the new "axis of evil"; Cheney,Rush, and Newt. Just a thought.
Friday, May 01, 2009
First of May
First of May - Outdoor F'ing Starts Today (NSFW) (but cartoony)
OK - and for other light news; this comes from Rogers over at Kung Fu Monkey. It also made me laugh.
OK - and for other light news; this comes from Rogers over at Kung Fu Monkey. It also made me laugh.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Protest Coleman - Who and Why
Off of a comment thread on Bitch PhD - is there any reason to protest against Norm Coleman? Or is it pointless, because it's just a legal case right now?
I think there are reasons to protest.
First, there's Norm Coleman, who is indeed an actor in the play but by no means the most powerful. He loses with the general public, somewhat, by continuing to twitch. But he gains with his Republican donor money base by delaying.
Then there's that Republican money base, which wants to keep the seat locked down in permanent NO territory. Can't invoke cloture when there's no-one in the seat! See here:
http://nihilix.blogspot.com/2009/04/letter-to-norm-coleman-concede.html
Then there's Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a progressive Democrat who wants to be seen as 'fair', and Tim Pawlenty, who I maintain has less power than previously maintained, what with the veto override last year (bridge fall down money overridden) and being passed over for Yukon Barbie for the VP nod. These two could certify, and protest could make a difference there.
THEN there's the US Senate, which could ignore Minnesota altogether and just seat him.
So there's plenty of political actors, not Coleman, in that mix. Protest could change media coverage, perception of strength, etc.
Actually, I'd target Ritchie to say he's willing to sign the statement in light of the not-so-expedited MN Supreme Court timeline. That would be calls and letter writing. Then would be Pawlenty, which ups the pressure on him and that's a good thing.
Or a 'Throw in the Towel' game - it's like lawn darts - paint a big open-mouthed Norm on a bit of plywood, cut to give the hair wave, and show up at festivals with towels with tennis balls wrapped inside and see if you can 'toss the Norm towel'. Winners get little bags of cash and a job at a right-wing think tank. Losers get one of their two Senate votes taken from them.
I think there are reasons to protest.
First, there's Norm Coleman, who is indeed an actor in the play but by no means the most powerful. He loses with the general public, somewhat, by continuing to twitch. But he gains with his Republican donor money base by delaying.
Then there's that Republican money base, which wants to keep the seat locked down in permanent NO territory. Can't invoke cloture when there's no-one in the seat! See here:
http://nihilix.blogspot.com/2009/04/letter-to-norm-coleman-concede.html
Then there's Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a progressive Democrat who wants to be seen as 'fair', and Tim Pawlenty, who I maintain has less power than previously maintained, what with the veto override last year (bridge fall down money overridden) and being passed over for Yukon Barbie for the VP nod. These two could certify, and protest could make a difference there.
THEN there's the US Senate, which could ignore Minnesota altogether and just seat him.
So there's plenty of political actors, not Coleman, in that mix. Protest could change media coverage, perception of strength, etc.
Actually, I'd target Ritchie to say he's willing to sign the statement in light of the not-so-expedited MN Supreme Court timeline. That would be calls and letter writing. Then would be Pawlenty, which ups the pressure on him and that's a good thing.
Or a 'Throw in the Towel' game - it's like lawn darts - paint a big open-mouthed Norm on a bit of plywood, cut to give the hair wave, and show up at festivals with towels with tennis balls wrapped inside and see if you can 'toss the Norm towel'. Winners get little bags of cash and a job at a right-wing think tank. Losers get one of their two Senate votes taken from them.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Hold them accountable
Right wing violence will occur and it will be backed by media like Fox and politicans like Bachmann and Perry from Texas.
When some nutbar goes off - like they do and have done - we gotta pump up the volume and challenge folks - what do you think about this? These people claim to be pro-life, but they use violence for their cause. As a pro-lifer, do you condone this action? Call them on it.
When some nutbar goes off - like they do and have done - we gotta pump up the volume and challenge folks - what do you think about this? These people claim to be pro-life, but they use violence for their cause. As a pro-lifer, do you condone this action? Call them on it.
Obama: In it to win it
Good post at the Booman Tribune about poker and politics. Apparently, the Republicans overplay their hands, and in this case they don't have the political chips to back it up.
Ahh, what a difference community organizing and a spine and soul make. Steve Perry in Minnesota did a great analysis in 2002 about the Democratic Party - that they were in it to lose it. They didn't care. There needed to be two parties and they would take that role, with some jobs, some positions, some perks, and no control of the process. Keep things quiet.
Frankly, Bill Clinton was like that, at least as far as Wall Street and the military-industrial complex were concerned. Want some spending? Let's do some bombing. Want some deregulation? Here, and here's some more. NAFTA? No problem.
Barack Obama is in it to win it. The order of major bills is important and the order has been thought out and determined. Start like Roosevelt did - one for the banks, keep Wall Street happy. Then buy some votes AND do some good with the second one, some Big Old Federal Pork, Just What the Economy Ordered (I am very supportive overall of the stimulus bill, even if larded with corporate crap) keep the cities and states happy. And he opened the process and gave some to the Republicans and got nothing, and nothing again.
So now he has set the narrative, and can legitimately roll all over them on something that's very popular.
Obama's claiming power. While the USA may be a relative 'change of government is orderly' country, the assholes who were just in there are, well, assholes, and vindictive, and anti-democratic, and, well, neo-fascist. (OK, not EVERY one was a neo-fascist, but Cheney in the Undisclosed Location with a DOJ Memo sounds like the end of the Clue game on who killed the Constitution.) Anyway - ugh, and those dudes won't give up easy.
But Obama's chipping away. Got the northern banks vote to split the Republicans on the bank bailout, and got the stimulus through. Yes, the Republicans are filibustering EVERYTHING, which, of course, used to be anathema but is now best patriotic practice. And yes, Obama hasn't moved against the intelligence community (actually, he's setting up the opening steps of that dance) but he had a meeting with the credit card companies the other day about being jerks, and the meeting with the auto industry CEOs was not a love-athon (although not as dramatic, perhaps, as Ozymandius's meeting with the auto and oil CEOs in Watchmen. At about 1:50 in this video)
The corporate media is a problem. The world and the rest of the country are, statistically, in hot infatuation with Obama so far, as far as polling data goes. Really it is. But not if you watch cable news, where there is still a strong Republican bias. Not just Fox, mind you, but the rest of the news is acting as a Republican propaganda vehicle. (Fox is just off-the-edge, pure lies part of the machine. The kook who legitamizes the right-wing agends.) There is some MSNBC, but the heart of most of the networks and cable news departments are broadcasting a very biased political narrative. This will be a problem for Obama, but the existance of SOME outposts, and the great lefty Internet, help mitigate that.
This, actually, gives me hope for the labor bill. If Obama succeeds in getting a just plain policy / new program bill like the health care bill through, that'll grease the wheels for the Free Choice Act.
The only drawback to calling the Republicans bluff is that they're threatening civil war if they don't get their way. Or succession, or federal non-compliance, or whatever you want to call it. Their electoral base IS the south, after all. Nice to have a Yankee negro in charge to put down the War Between the States - the Rematch.
[Obama]... made concessions to the House GOP during the stimulus debate and he got absolutely nothing in return. In essence, he folded a good hand and lost a pot that rightfully belonged to him. The Republicans had been bluffing about bipartisanship. He's not about to trust them again over the signature domestic issue of his campaign: health care reform.
Ahh, what a difference community organizing and a spine and soul make. Steve Perry in Minnesota did a great analysis in 2002 about the Democratic Party - that they were in it to lose it. They didn't care. There needed to be two parties and they would take that role, with some jobs, some positions, some perks, and no control of the process. Keep things quiet.
Frankly, Bill Clinton was like that, at least as far as Wall Street and the military-industrial complex were concerned. Want some spending? Let's do some bombing. Want some deregulation? Here, and here's some more. NAFTA? No problem.
Barack Obama is in it to win it. The order of major bills is important and the order has been thought out and determined. Start like Roosevelt did - one for the banks, keep Wall Street happy. Then buy some votes AND do some good with the second one, some Big Old Federal Pork, Just What the Economy Ordered (I am very supportive overall of the stimulus bill, even if larded with corporate crap) keep the cities and states happy. And he opened the process and gave some to the Republicans and got nothing, and nothing again.
So now he has set the narrative, and can legitimately roll all over them on something that's very popular.
Obama's claiming power. While the USA may be a relative 'change of government is orderly' country, the assholes who were just in there are, well, assholes, and vindictive, and anti-democratic, and, well, neo-fascist. (OK, not EVERY one was a neo-fascist, but Cheney in the Undisclosed Location with a DOJ Memo sounds like the end of the Clue game on who killed the Constitution.) Anyway - ugh, and those dudes won't give up easy.
But Obama's chipping away. Got the northern banks vote to split the Republicans on the bank bailout, and got the stimulus through. Yes, the Republicans are filibustering EVERYTHING, which, of course, used to be anathema but is now best patriotic practice. And yes, Obama hasn't moved against the intelligence community (actually, he's setting up the opening steps of that dance) but he had a meeting with the credit card companies the other day about being jerks, and the meeting with the auto industry CEOs was not a love-athon (although not as dramatic, perhaps, as Ozymandius's meeting with the auto and oil CEOs in Watchmen. At about 1:50 in this video)
The corporate media is a problem. The world and the rest of the country are, statistically, in hot infatuation with Obama so far, as far as polling data goes. Really it is. But not if you watch cable news, where there is still a strong Republican bias. Not just Fox, mind you, but the rest of the news is acting as a Republican propaganda vehicle. (Fox is just off-the-edge, pure lies part of the machine. The kook who legitamizes the right-wing agends.) There is some MSNBC, but the heart of most of the networks and cable news departments are broadcasting a very biased political narrative. This will be a problem for Obama, but the existance of SOME outposts, and the great lefty Internet, help mitigate that.
This, actually, gives me hope for the labor bill. If Obama succeeds in getting a just plain policy / new program bill like the health care bill through, that'll grease the wheels for the Free Choice Act.
The only drawback to calling the Republicans bluff is that they're threatening civil war if they don't get their way. Or succession, or federal non-compliance, or whatever you want to call it. Their electoral base IS the south, after all. Nice to have a Yankee negro in charge to put down the War Between the States - the Rematch.
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