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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
tonyx3
Published Letters: 73 Editor's Choice: 15
...where it's not just Democratic legistlators carve out pork empires. Up until the Republican Revolution, The Right decried pork barrell spending as unique to Democratic hegemony. It's pretty clear that any party that has a solid majority behaves this way. As much as the Cato Institute would like to beleive otherwise, pork is how legislators shore up their political position, no matter which side of the aisle they're on.
Well, it's not quite a problem, but it's a fact of life. People who are complete literalists about political indeology or religion are simply not equipped to appreciate the subtleties and nuances that makes for interesting storytelling and art. The people who picket movies about gay people, or movies like "The Last Temptation of Christ" can't look past the the surface of those movies. People like that prefer a movie like "The Passion of the Christ" which is all surface; Jesus gets betrayed, he gets whipped, he gets crucified, he is resurrected, bada bing, bada boom. There is no subtext, except maybe that of the source material, which would be the Bible (and as we all know, fundamentalists are not big on finding subtext in the bible). It sounds like there's plenty of subtext in C.S. Lewis's original book (having never read it), and it's probably going to hard to make a watchable movie version with retaining some of that ambiguity.
I will not avoid "The Chronicles of Narnia" because the book it was based on was written by a Christain who intended his story to teach the gospel. The worst case scenario is that it will be an on-the-nose tract, and I'll be out $9.00. "The Chronicles of Narnia" certainly wont turn you or your kids into a Christain, anymore than "Brokeback Mountain" will turn you gay. Christain Fundamentalists have ridiculously stringent standards for what constitutes a good movie. Beacause of this, they are rarely satified with most of the movies that come out, and they are apt to gush over anything that they expect will meet their requirements. If it is a good movie, it will be accessible to Christians and non-Christains alike.
It is it is barely there, but it is unmistakable. It is the beginning of the process whereby the magnetic ribbon crowd starts to parse and qualify it's support for the troops as it becomes apparent that the troops will soon be close at home, as opposed to overseas. It is a lot easier for these people to offer unconditional support to the troops when they are in Iraq; it's different when they come home, looking for jobs, with messy physical and psychological problems.
It remains to be seen whether we will continue to support our troops when they need it the most; after the war. I hope that the majority of our citizens will not follow Mr. Rumsfeld's example.
The difference between soldiers killed and injured in action and killed and injured in accidents or by disaease is not "...a nontrivial difference", the real difference is that they're over there, by choice, serving our country. They are willfully exposing themselves to harm, regardles of its source.
First; as appealing as an a la carte channel menu might be, I think the cable companies are, unfortunately, correct in asserting that it would not work. Each and every cable channel supports itself mainly by advertising, not cable subscription fees. If advertisers knew that any given channel had a finite number of viewers at any given time, they would pay the channels much less than what they're paying now, which would put the channels in an impossible position; the only way they could get more subscribers is to produce new shows (keep in mind that they're bringing in a lot less money now), but those potential subscribers won't see those new shows because their not paying to get the channel in the first place. An a la carte system would probably eliminate most of the interesting, quirky, and idiosyncratic progamming that cable has now (and that goes for the shows you like, too).
Second; people frustrated with the cable companies' local monopolies shouldn't rejoice at this type of debate. Cable TV's detractors, in this case, are not interested in some kind of reasonable reform. They simply hate cable because cable channels provide racy content, and they hate the fact that they can't leverage these channels like they do with the networks (mainly because these channels know uptight fundamentalists aren't watching, anyway). They don't care about people getting to see the shows they want to see; They're goal is to make cable TV as homogenous and tepid as network TV is, and to make sure you can't hear bad words and see nudity - even if you're paying for it. Of course, they can't come out and say that, so they shift the debate to the welfare of a hypothetical family that insists on paying for cable (in spite of all the filth), and allowing their children to watch it unsupervised, yet can't be bothered to figure out how to use a v-chip.
Third; If anyone still doubts it, this should prove how truly hypocritical the conservative wing of the Republican party is. They are champions of de-regulation in every instance, even in industries that directly affect the physical well being of workers and customers, but take the exact opposite position when it comes to TV, movies, and music. Imagine the whining and bleating we would have to endure from the right if a Democratic congress tried to regulate any industry as aggressively as the FCC is suggesting cable be regulated.
As much as I dislike the influence of corporate money on the political process, this is one case where I'd like to see Viacom create a war chest for Ted Stevens' opponent in 2006.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
