When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he’d like to be president of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.
Weekend Reading
“Year after year, undergraduates and M.A. students find themselves on fire to do research and to teach. Some of them burn for other things as well, and follow other paths. Some discover that their vocations are not deep enough to last out the process of testing. But many stick it out—and finish—only to find that the completed quest leads into Rats’ Alley. These are the people whom our system is now chewing up.”
“Kim Jong Il once told Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, that the bombast in honour of himself and his late, great father, Kim Il Sung, was so much nonsense. Bruce Cumings, an historian, wonders what Mr Kim can be thinking, “standing there in his pear-shaped polyester pantsuit, pointy-toed elevator shoes, oversize sunglasses of malevolent tint, an arrogant curl to his feminine lip…and a perpetual bad-hair day? He is thinking, get me out of here.”’
“But sip a Lagavulin 16 Years. It’s an Islay malt, so it engulfs you with peat, though as the smoke clears, you get a long, sweet finish, something like mille-feuille. Now try a square of Valrhona Jivara. Malt, caramel and vanilla ooze across your tongue, and there’s still just enough peat on your palate to dim the sugar and keep things manly. In an evening of whisky and chocolate tasting, this was the combo that got my guinea pigs oinking with glee.”
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
Health and Federalism
The Corner notes that despite the White House’s comments, the Republican Health Coverage proposal has been available online for months. But there’s a big problem with it. And it lies with the states.
Stepping back, while Republicans have asserted—for a long time—that they’ve had a usable plan of their own on the table, there is not a single mention in their proposal regarding universal coverage to all citizens who lack it. (Which has always been the president’s core goal for a health care plan.)
The closest we find is in Division B, Title 2:
PAYMENTS TO STATES. — FOR PREMIUM REDUCTIONS IN THE SMALL GROUP MARKET. — If the Secretary determines that a State has reduced the average per capita premium for health insurance coverage in the small group market in year 3, in year 6, or year 9 (as defined in subsection (c)) below the premium baseline for such year (as defined paragraph (2)), the Secretary shall pay the State an amount equal to the product of — (i) bonus premium percentage (as de-fined in paragraph (3)) for the State, market, and year; and (ii) the maximum State premium payment amount (as defined in paragraph (4)) for the State, market, and year.
So basically, their primary incentive mechanism for reduction in uninsured citizens is…financial gifts to states. The bill then tasks the states with “reducing the average per capital premium for health insurance coverage in the individual market.” If a state somehow manages to cut the cost of private insurance plans in their state, they get a reward. In the form of federal dollars. This is as close as it gets to “expanding coverage.”
The rest of the bill deals mostly in boilerplate, like tort reform (which is included in a watered-down form in the current bills), a reduction of funding for comparative effectiveness research, and a reiteration of party commitment to…Medicare.
What’s really more interesting, however, is the concept of a federalism that is meant to somehow coexist with two overtly anti-federalist proposals: 1) the expansion of insurance companies’ influence across state lines, which would inevitably (as evidenced by the evolution of American telecommunication, communications service, and retail industries over the past 20-30 years) lead to less competition due to intra-industry mergers and acquisitions, and 2) the intrusion of state governments into local free markets. The contradition is totally unresolved in this bill. Yet it’s meant to be the crux of a novel insurance coverage program. How is this supposed to work? And, when all is said and done, how would this leave the states, other than overburdened and quite possibly bankrupt?
Whoever attends a performance of [Beethoven’s] Ninth Symphony and then sits down to draw a wallpaper pattern is either a con man or a degenerate.
Is Avatar Racist?
A friend points us to Newitz at io9, who says:
These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.
This is interesting, but a bit off. There are two distinct but separate race-related issues in the film: 1) a colonizer vs. colonized theme, and 2) a black vs. white theme.
Regarding colonization, Newitz assumes too much. While the film does use role reversal of the main character as a crucial turning point, it is not due to Sully’s “guilt” of the forest people’s (the “Na’vi“‘s) destruction at the hands of humanity. Indeed, the disaster has yet to even occur; Sully takes up an opposing cause in an attempt to prevent it from happening. Simply put, nobody’s doling out reparations here.
The black vs. white theme is a bit more complicated, and prevalent. The first issue is that Cameron made the misguided creative decision that the forest people should physically resemble African people. Uncannily, in fact. Which, for an American audience, quickly calls to mind modern-day racial tensions. Making the fact that a white character single-handedly(!) “saves” an African-looking race from elimination certifiably cringe-worthy.
But is this “racist”? There is certainly some glorification of limited and incremental colonization, as well as a bit of military fetishism (but only a bit—any compliments here are pretty backhanded). But does it promote the “idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others”? Considering the film’s ending, which outright suggests that racial integration is basically impossible…it’s a tough sell.
Rather, as mentioned in the previous post, the film’s greatest offense is its pathetic predictability. These awkward racial undertones simply exacerbate its badness.
Film Review: Avatar
“Movies will never be the same” is the trailer tagline for this effects-soaked drama from the future. But in reality, a bit more modesty would have been appreciated—and appropriate.
James Cameron’s latest is undoubtably entertaining (even more so in 3D). Its foreign lands are brilliant and luminous. Each rich, untouched natural space is breathtaking in its detail, and simply getting to witness the characters effortlessly bound through them is arguably be worth the price of admission.
But the beauty mostly ends there. The plot—that of an intergalactic colonizing power deciding between nurturing and destroying (for great potential profit) a race of forest people—is disappointingly formulaic. For all the unexpectedness that flourishes in the backdrops of Cameron’s world (known as “Pandora”), the bland interactions of the humans and aliens against them seem hopelessly mismatched. While certainly exciting at times, there is no overarching sense of suspense; after nearly three hours, it ends precisely as you would expect Hollywood to end it.
And despite the objection that a strong plot isn’t that essential in a film that leverages an unmatched amount of special effects, the story does matter. A lot. Ever since the emergence of fully-animated features pioneered by the likes of Pixar which depend on, and are complimented by, strong storylines, it is no longer necessary to have to choke down a tepid plot as an excuse for visual-only entertainment. Said otherwise, Avatar is no Titanic. Or The Abyss. Or Ratatouille—one of so many effects-driven films with an equally compelling and original storyline—for that matter. James Cameron can do better. And we should demand as much from him with his next creative endeavor.
One major cost the conventional American media bears in order to achieve its veneer of objectivity is tolerance of a pretty ridiculous level of policy ignorance
