We can breathe a little easier here in America, because you won’t find this filthy bastard on our shores. His name is Hans, and he was last seen haunting the frozen fjords of Norway. It’s a good thing too. Let the vikings have him! We don’t want that kind of trouble here.
Don’t be fooled by clever disguises. It ain’t bears this man is hunting (though that is what he would have us believe). No, it’s trolls. That’s, right. Hans hunts trolls.
Now you might have thought, as I did, that trolls don’t actually exist. And that is just what the documentary film crew that made this movie thought too. But they found out for themselves just how wrong they could be. These things actually do exist, and they live in the mountains and forests of Norway.
And this dirty son-of-a-bitch kills them.
Now you would think a species so rare as to be regarded by most folks as mythical would be something you’d want to preserve and protect, but no, not this man, nor the Norwegian Troll Security Service (TSS). It seems the government of Norway hires him to slay any trolls that venture near civilization. Sometimes they even send him into troll territory where Hans engages in murder on a scale worthy of a war crimes trial.
All of this is top secret of course.
So, how do we know about it? Hans lured a team of college film students into joining him on his quest to commit cryptocidal atrocities. Oh he pretended that he didn’t want them to follow him at first, but at a critical moment Hans shouted the word ‘troll’ and ran away.He then let the poor innocent babes wheedle the truth out of him. It isn’t often that such violent men resort to passive aggressive manipulation, but apparently Hans knows no shame, not even that of a serial murderer.
This is Hans
As with so many violent criminals, it seems that Hans longs to share the guilt of his awful deeds. Like a master assassin teaching his tricks to apprentice killers, Hans shows the college kids how to track trolls, find them in their lairs, and even kill them. Hans even takes care to introduce them to a scientist who explains in excruciating detail just how painful the troll hunter’s murderous methods really can be. Everyone knows that light kills trolls. What they don’t know is just how much the troll suffers when it hits him. At least until this terrible man, Hans, shares the insight with his chosen band of accomplices.
Of course there is flaw in Hans’ plan.
The government of Norway doesn’t want anyone filming trolls, much less its hired thug doing their dirty work for them. What exactly happened to the film crew, no-one will ever know. You see the video tape of their documentary just showed up, but no-one really knows what happened to the college kids who made it.
Nor does anyone really know the current whereabouts of Hans.
Now some might say that this film bears a striking resemblance to the Blair Witch Project, and some might even say that film was fake. But then again some people serve mild salsa to dinner guests or sell crack to innocent children. Remember that when some pimply faced snot-fer-brained kid tries to wax skeptical on you about this film. Some folks don’t even think jackalopes are real. Try telling that to any small game hunter in Wyoming!
Anyway, the point is that this isn’t just any movie. It’s just the tip of the mixed metaphor, and the truth is staring us all right in the face. It’s out there somewhere dammit.
…armed with UV rays.
So, I take back what I wrote earlier; we are not really all that safe here in America. People everywhere should be afraid of this terrible bastard. Hans could be anywhere at this point, and who knows how many people he has with him now. I think everyone should watch this documentary and take good care to commit this man’s face to memory. Lean his tactics and his habits, and be on the look-out.
The fate of Chupacabra and the Jersey Devil may well depend on it.
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Remember those names. And should these “children” ever show up at your door…
Run like Hell!
These are not really children. They are demons. Just ask their beloved uncle, Count Olaf. A Series of Unfortunate Events, my ass! The terrors of this story-line are precisely what happens when the world is thrown out of balance, which is exactly what happens whenever these kids enter the story.
The Baudelaire children are way too smart for their own good, solving problems children aren’t suppose to solve, and generally proving themselves smarter than the adults around them at every turn. Even the world which they inhabit seems somehow way too interesting and way too clever for a children’s movie. And you may think that is hardly their fault, but you would be wrong to think that.
Just ask Violet!!!
You see the whole point of a children’s movie isn’t to tell a story that children will find entertaining; it is to tell a story that adults like to think children will find entertaining. The children in such movies have faults we can live with; they might like candy a little too much or want to stay up a little too late. But they are not too cool for the whole school.
Not so, the Baudelaire Brats! They are smart. They are savvy.
Shame on them!
A good child would accept without question the wisdom of the adult world, but these little demons notice things. Oh yes they do. And they exchange knowing looks.
More a living shark than a little girl, the youngest (Sunny) is a true freak of nature. The middle brat reads incessantly. Like some sort of uber-nerd who won’t settle for throwing the class average, Klaus consumes whole libraries and then uses the knowledge contained therein to crush his enemies and bring about their downfall. Worse yet, Violet is a devious inventor. Give her a ribbon and a few trinkets and she will fashion for you a gadget to solve whatever problems you may have.
So, where did she get the ribbon, you may ask?
Could it be ….Satan!?!
You bet your sweet ass it was Satan that gave this little girl her powers. When Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads all those long years ago, he took the spirit of this sweet little girl with him and she sowed the fate of her family that very evening.
Small wonder that the children lost their parents. Why did that happen you may ask? And we are supposed to believe it had something to do with a giant magnifying glass? Not a chance, baby! The fate of their folks had been sealed down at the crossroads. You know it, I know it. Robert Johnson knows it and so does Eric Clapton. Most importantly, Violet sure as HELL knows it. So, let’s not hear of any more great mystery deaths okay. The Devil torched the Baudelaire house when he came to reclaim is due. Her parents were just collateral damage.
And that was just the start of it. Are we supposed to believe that the deaths of Uncle Montgomery and Aunt Josephine are mere accidents? With Uncle Montgomery being so brave and Aunt Josephine so careful, do you really think they could be offed so easily as this movie suggests? I don’t think so. And don’t even try to tell me it was Count Olaf that killed them. No, it was their love that condemned them.
Their love for these demon-children.
Anyone could see those deaths coming. When children are too smart for their own good, bad things happen to those that care for them. It’s as obvious as sending someone else down to the planet with Mr. Spock, Bones, and Captain Kirk. These characters were dead from the moment they opened their doors to the Baudelaire children. Blaming Uncle Olaf is like condemning a gun for serving as the instrument of a murder.
It should come as no surprise that the film culminates in a blasphemous attack on the institution of marriage. Violet rejects her marriage to Uncle Olaf just as she rejects every other good wholesome value that may fall in her path. What’s next? A pact with the ACLU?
I wouldn’t put it past her.
And then of course we get the final insult. These characters somehow contrived to avoid parts 2 and 3 of the trilogy altogether. Yes, that’s right, the actors who played the children are now well into adulthood, thus forever ending the hopes of a sequel. Don’t think it’s an accident either. Only the likes of the Baudelaire children could have foiled plans for a sequel by aging out of the narrative, letting the real world stand in the way of a good story.
Devil children, I tell you!
I know damned well that Count Olaf would have gotten them in the end. Cheated, he is, out of his money, just as we were all cheated out of a righteous and proper ending. We will not be seeing a Lemony Snickets Two and Three, and that is indeed a crime for which the Baudelaire Brats should be condemned for all time. They have cheated all of us out of this ending, I tell you.
I suppose the furor over Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke is dying down. The smoke is beginning to settle, and some on the left might be thinking we have gained a victory of sorts. But I wonder.
Ten years from now, how will I remember Sandra Fluke’s testimony? Will I remember what she actually said? Or will I remember Rush Limbaugh’s flagrant misrepresentation of her testimony? Something tells me that most folks will remember Limbaugh’s take. They might not like his insults, but they won’t really remember just how far off the mark his interpretation of her testimony was to begin with.
It’s a common pattern. Folks tend to remember the headline even after the have forgotten the article. They remember the outrageous accusation long after they have forgotten the reasoned rejoinder. They remember the error long after the correction has faded from memory.
And that is of course the point of Limbaugh’s politics. It doesn’t really matter whether or not his critics prove louder than his supporters, much less whether or not they are right and he is wrong. What does matter is that Limbaugh has replaced a substantive debate over the merits of an insurance regulation with one about the imagined sex life of one particular college student.
Rush Limbaugh characterized Fluke’s testimony as a plea for public assistance with contraception to help sustain her personal sex life. The fact that Fluke made no mention whatsoever regarding her own personal sexual activities seems to have escaped Rush Limbaugh, or at least his public comments on the issue.
Subsequent outrage has focused primarily on the ethics of Rush’s personal attacks on Fluke. That Limbaugh has apologized does little to help matters. The apology was limited to his use of two words. It was followed immediately by renewed attempts to misrepresent Fluke’s testimony and eventually stirred into a narrative about sinking to the level of liberal rhetoric (because apparently such tactics are distinctively liberal).
Really, there are too many errors and lies in Limbaugh’s take to correct them all. One hardly knows where to begin!
But herein lies the central problem. What Fluke was actually doing was trying to show the need for the availability of insurance policies that cover contraception. She explained the financial needs for such policies and she testified to the existence of medical uses of contraception beyond birth control. Her testimony only begins to touch upon that latter subject.
One can certainly question Fluke’s presentation. A critic can double check her math on the cost of birth control. He can ask for documentation of the actual cases she mentions (or others like them). He can even raise questions about the total impact of laws requiring the availability of coverage, or the acceptability of Obama’s present compromise with Congress. All of these might be reasonable questions to which reasonable answers might be offered.
We could have such a debate.
And of course some of these arguments are taking place, but they must now take place in the shadow of Limbaugh’s personal attacks. Long before anyone on Fluke’s side of the discussion can begin to answer the real criticisms of Obama’s policy and Fluke’s testimony, they must first wade through the poisoned waters of Rush’s lurid imagination. And the real problem here is that imagination, perverse as it is, remains far more vivid than the details of the actual political decision at hand.
This is a victory for Limbaugh and the right wing echo chamber. One may pray that it proves to be a Pyrrhic victory, that he and those who have joined in Limbaugh’s tactics will pay dearly in lost advertizing revenues and diminished public status.
But that is a vain hope.
What Rush and his ilk do best is to inject this kind of personal invective into an already difficult subject. He brings public support for the conservative cause, not by appeal to conservative principles, but by triggering the anger of those with little real grasp of conservative politics (much less those of liberals). And those with but a thin grasp of fiscal conservatism or the ironic politics of Federalism may yet be moved by contempt for the morals of a loose woman. This the bet made by Limbaugh and others mocking Fluke.
It is unfortunately a sound bet.
In the end, Limbaugh’s story will prove more compelling than Fluke’s, not because it is the more sound argument, but because it is the more psychologically moving.
This is the power of Limbaugh, of Oreilly, of Hannity, of Savage, of Coulter, of Beck, and of all the other professional bigots working the right wing echo chamber. It is a force for which the left has never found an adequate solution.
But the problem is not simply that the din of slut-shaming, race-baiting, and liberal bashing keeps the left on the defensive (and often beats left wing defenses outright), it is that these voices have also beaten the conservative thinkers of the nation as well. Those who might have sound reason to question left wing politics have long since fallen to the way side in American politics, their own points just as difficult to hear above the thunder and clash of the right wing hate-machine.
And what passes for ‘conservative’ comes ever closer to the living caricature that people such as Limbaugh embody.
The United States has been shifting steadily to the right, led not by the Republican party leadership or conservative intellectuals so much as the shrill voices of folks such as Limbaugh. Voices that are always happy to tell us this woman is a slut, that man is a communist, or that those on any form of public assistance are as undeserving as the day is long. It is frustrating to see how often these herders of prejudice have defeated the left in one political conflict after another.
It is still more alarming to see that people calling themselves “conservative” are increasingly unable to recognize their own political heritage, or take note of established political compromises. Cap&Trade (a free market counter-point to environmentalism) is now a socialist ploy. Because it is a Federal rather than state policy, Obamacare is a radical effort to destroy the free market. And Obama’s current compromise proposal parallels that offered in 28 states. While right wing bigots do their best to convince the public that the President’s new policies constitute an unprecedented attack on religious freedom, it is in fact a variant on policies already established in other jurisdictions.
Far from a demand that the public pay for her private sex life, Fluke sought to explain the benefits of covering birth control under insurance plans. The wisdom of such provisions has already been born out by the insurance industry itself which recognizes the option as a long-term cost saving measure. That private individuals, particularly those struggling their way through school, may find it difficult to pay for contraception should come as no surprise to anyone who has actually tried to live on a student’s budget. But insurance companies can discount the present cost of contraception against the savings it generates. It is for precisely this reason that such coverage need not lead to extra cost for anyone, much less the fantasies of public assistance touted by Limbaugh and his fans.
For women such as Fluke, the issue may well be the chance to get through school before finding themselves at the mercy of their own bodies. It is well enough to tell these women they should take responsibility for their own choices, but men do not have the choice pressed upon them with quite the same degree of urgency. Of course an accidental father may be required to pay child support, but that still falls far short of the consequences for a woman who must bear the child (and who will be far more likely to raise it). Insurance coverage makes possible a degree of protection from unwanted pregnancy (among other things) which would otherwise be unavailable to them. In practice, it can mean the difference between a successful education and dropping out of a program.
Limbaugh’s slut-shaming is nothing other than an attempt to dismiss the value of such benefits, to ensure that they are not weighed against the value of religious freedom as conservatives are now defining it.
Of course institutions such as the Conference of Catholic Bishops will argue that providing such policies contradicts their faith. This too is a value demanding our attention. But how far does the right of religious freedom extend? Does it really entitle an institution such as Georgetown to deny the option to its students? The requirement that insurance companies serving their students provide such coverage on their own is a reasonable compromise on the issue, one well established at the state level. Whether or not a co-payment would prove necessary or even acceptable remains an outlier in this discussion, but it is needn’t prove to be a deal-breaker.
If the Obama administration has shown unusual aggression on the issue, so has the Council of catholic Bishops, and so have the Republicans. Time and again, Boehner and other Republicans have sought to preserve the religious liberties of institutions to discriminate against individuals on religious grounds. (Witness the Head-Start debacle of 2005.) If their is an argument to be made that such policies protect the religious liberties of corporate entities, another argument can be made that they threaten the liberties of those that deal with such entities. Ultimately, the Republican vision of religious freedom is most salient to the interests of those with significant political power. It has little to offer the individuals who may for one reason or another find themselves doing business with such entities.
The public must now weigh the value of preserving religious freedom for entities such as Georgetown against the possible costs to women such as Fluke and her classmates. There is every reason to hear the testimony of both sides, and to find a solution which facilitates the interests of all concerned.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard the concerns of those in religious institutions. What Fluke sought to do was explain the concerns of women who must deal with those institutions. There is no reason that testimony could not have been given due consideration.
Okay, so we just started a section on slavery and the civil war in my American history class. One thing that always irritates me here, or maybe it just amuses me, I don’t know… Anyway, I think about it whenever I cover this subject. Every textbook I have ever used on American history explains that California was admitted as a free state under the terms of the Compromise of 1850.
So, what’s the problem?
The problem is a little known law passed in California that very year, ostensibly for the protection of Indians. The law imposes a $50.00 fine on anyone forcing an Indian to work against his will. So, that should be good, right?
Actually, no.
The law also contains the following provisions:
When an Indian is convicted of an offence before a Justice of the Peace punishable by a fine, any white person may, by consent of the Justice, give bond for said Indian, conditioned for the payment of said fine and costs, and in such case the Indian shall be compelled to work for the person so bailing, until he has discharged or cancelled the fine assessed against him…
and
Any Indian able to work and support himself in some honest calling, not having wherewithal to maintain himself, who shall be found loitering and strolling about, or frequenting public places where liquors are sold, begging, or leading an immoral and profligate course of life, shall be liable to be arrested on the complaint of any resident citizen of the county, and brought before any Justice of the Peace of the proper county, Mayor or Recorder of any incorporated town or city, who shall examine said accused Indian, and hear the testimony in relation thereto, and if said Justice, Mayor or Recorder shall be satisfied that he is a vagrant, as above set forth, he shall make out a warrant under his hand and seal, authorizing and requiring the officer having him in charge or custody, to hire out such vagrant within twenty four hours to the best bidder, by public notice given as he shall direct, for the highest price that can be had, for any term not exceeding four months; and such vagrant shall be subject to and governed by the provisions of this Act, regulating guardians and minors, during the time for which he has been so hired.
Oh there is a lot more to the act, and plenty of reassuring clauses that appear to keep people from exploiting natives, but it should not take a lot of imagination to read between the lines here and see how this story actually went down. To say that this law opened up the native labor-market to exploitation would be putting it mildly. …too mildly.
In essence, the law made it illegal to enslave an Indian, at least on one’s own initiative, but if someone was caught being an Indian on a city street, the city could bond him over to you for a price. Oh yes, folks would have to go through the trouble of slighting the moral integrity of the Indian first, but how difficult do you think it would be to find a white guy willing to do that?
Not very.
It’s not the most efficient form of slavery one could devise, but it is slavery non-the-less, and that is why it always bugs me to see textbook after textbook announce that California was admitted to the Union as a free state under the terms of the compromise of 1850.
…in the very year they created a legal procedure for enslaving Indians.
Oh I get it; this kind of issue simply falls outside the scope of the narrative in question. It was not even on the horizons of those debating the major issues of the day in Congress. So, if one is recounting the events leading up to the Civil War, then this piece of information does not really change that story much. Neither does the existence of a viable slave-trade in the interior Southwest. If one is focused on the question of slavery as it was framed in the national politics of the day, then yes, California was certainly admitted as a free state.
Or is that the problem, the terms of that debate?
The bottom line is that ‘slavery’ is just a word, and you can choose to use it or not as easily as you can any other term regardless of the realities of the labor conditions in question. So, historians can skate right past these instances of captive labor (much as the great figures of the era did in their own approach to the issue) while focusing on the institutional forms of slavery that were the main issues of the day. But of course that same sleight of hand is necessary to cap off the story of the Civil War in the standard way, describing it as bringing about the end of slavery in America.
To give closure to the issue of slavery in our national storyline, one has to ignore the use of debt-peonage in conjunction with Jim Crow Laws, or at least classify them as a whole new kind of problem. Using the word “slavery” in the chapters leading up the Civil War and dropping it afterwards creates the illusion that the new social problems are significantly different than the old ones. This approach suggests that the problems associated with slavery were somehow resolved with the closing chapters of Reconstruction, perhaps not to the satisfaction of all concerned, but resolved nonetheless. And Jim Crow then becomes a whole different kind of problem, as do a host of similar practices.
Just like the California Law for the protection of the Indian.
Note: The law can be found in the California Statutes from 1850. It is also included in the primary documents for the following textbook:
Albert L. Hurtado, Peter Iverson. Major Problems in American Indian History: Documents and Essays. Second Edition. (Houghton Mifflin, 2001).
What is it that her principal love interest keeps saying to lovely Buttercup at the beginning of the movie? “As you wish.” Whatever Buttercup tells him to do, Westley answers with “as you wish.” Seriously, if hearing that doesn’t make you shudder, then this witch’s powers have already reached through your flatscreen TV monitor and bitch-slapped the good sense out of your soul. That isn’t love; it’s co-dependency. Learn the difference people!
My God, what that poor soul, Westley, must have been through to have been reduced to such a wretched state by the start of our little fairy tale. And this is but the first caress, a mere taste of the suffering Buttercup is capable of inflicting on people. Long before Lt. Columbo begins to relate this tragic narrative to the helpless little boy he is about to horrify, the dreaded Butterup has already reduced our would-be hero to a mere shadow of a man.
But of course Westley’s suffering is only just beginning, because it is “true love” that keeps him alive when he is captured by pirates. Are we really supposed to believe that this witchcraft is benign? Small wonder that when our kitty-whipped hero re-emerges he is clothed in black just like any other form of living dead would be. One can only guess at the horrors his own victims have suffered, all at the hands of a man empowered by little other than his morbid devotion to a woman far away!
It does not end there, no. First the lovely miss Buttercup seduces a boat-load of innocent men and leads each of them one by one to their ruin. First Inigo, then Fezzik, and finally Vizzini, each in turn meets our mere shadow-of-a-man on their own terms, and each faulters in a test of his own greatest strength. Are we really supposed to believe that the spineless little co-dependent has developed so many talents in his short years as an undead pirate? No, my friends, it was the malevolent power of the lovely Buttercup that weakened these once proud men and brought them all to ruin.
I know it’s a fairy tale; strange things are supposed to happen. My point is that fairies can be fricking scary. If Buttercup does not scare you yet, then you have got balls of steel my good reader.
Or do you?
Let us not even consider the many examples of Buttercup’s other monstrous powers; her moral destruction of a Prince and likely his entire kingdom, the reduction of a high priest in all his dignity to a mere Pythonesque caricature, the pointless slaughter of unusual and probably endangered swamp creatures, and the morbid double reanimation of twice-dead Westley by a pair of witches who conveniently enter the story just in time to keep the finally-vanquished abomination going.
Seriously, they say that it takes 4 witches to make a coven. We know who the first 3 are, but Princess Bride never reveals the fourth. I have my suspicions.
But that is of course the real power of Buttercup, Mistress of Ultimate Evil. She reaches right through the story and corrupts to heart of a young and defenseless boy. Does he not ask his uncle to read the part with all the kissing? And what self-respecting young boy would ever do that? None, I tell you. And in that moment, this movie reveals the real target of Buttercup’s mischief. It was the boy she was after all along. It was his heart she sought to corrupt, his will she sought to weaken. And she succeeded, did she not?
Buttercup’s powers are not merely restricted to characters in her own story. No, she has the capacity to reach right through the narrative frame and corrupt the hearts of those for whom she is supposed to be a mere character in a story.
And THAT my friends is precisely why you must fear this woman. Can you name any apparent chick-flick about which grown men have ever sung so many praises? How many self-respecting testosterone-poisoned grunt-brains have taken time away from a good wrestling match to tell you they actually like THAT movie, as if to suggest that this is the exception to their normal preferences. No, they haven’t succumbed to the power of the girlie-romance; it’s just that this movie is so damned good and so unusual that they cannot help but like it. The story of the Princess Bride is not really just another girlie-flick; it’s a romance movie that even men can love. That is what so many men want you to believe.
Take care, my friends! For, that is also what SHE wants you to believe.
So, I finally watched “The Wrestler,” and I almost liked it.
Almost.
I find myself wondering, at what point does failure to resolve a conflict amount to the same thing as letting the hand of God resolve it for you. The movie goes well out of its way to show us that this character has depth, that he has feelings, that the bits and pieces of his broken life matter to him in deeply personal ways.
All of which just makes the final ending such a disappointment.
The way I read it anyway, the central problem is what is he going to do with his life now that wrestling is over. Sadly, the final answer appears to be “pretend that it isn’t.” The move is tantamount to suicide, of course, but that is beside the point. It really doesn’t matter if we imagine the main character dying two minutes after the closing credits or surviving the match, even somehow doing another one. The bottom line is that this solution doesn’t work unless we ignore the very premise which led to it, namely that his heart won’t allow him to wrestle.
Of course the main character has his reasons which he delivers in a compelling speech to the love interest he is turning his back on to go wrestle, but that is the main problem. This guy can’t find any other way to proceed with his life than to go back in the ring? I think the writers believed in this character less than they wanted the audience to. In the end, they could not let him be anything but a meat-head. And all the rest goes out the window with that decision.
We can breathe a little easier here in America, because you won’t find this filthy bastard on our shores. His name is Hans, and he was last seen haunting the frozen fjords of Norway. It’s a good thing too. Let the vikings have him! We don’t want that kind of trouble here.
