Wednesday, March 10, 2010
This blog has moved
This blog is now located at http://snoodguy.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.
For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://snoodguy.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale: A Review Thereof: In Which I Comment On It
This has so many strikes against it. An Uwe Boll film. An Uwe Boll production. A 3.8 IMDB rating. A 2.5 hour running length (seemed actually to be about 2:15). An awkward colon-ized title. Based on a video game that actually had no strong characters or much plot at all. The main bad guys are Krug, who can't possibly not be green guys in toothy masks.
And yet . . . It wasn't so bad. I actually, on balance, enjoyed it a good deal. Sure, you cringe nearly every line Ray Liotta has. Who am I kidding? It's every single line Ray Liotta has. And you're like, what the hell is Burt Reynolds doing in this movie? But then you realize, hey, Burt's not that bad. Noble, even. And there are swingy elves, and ninja scout fighters. And you're like, hey, Matthew Lillard, he's, like, totally overdoing it. And then you're like, hey, that's not actually so bad; overdoing it almost works, in a Jack Sparrow way, but not as good.
The plot is kind of like a 14-year-old basement D&D game - way too many characters, and they don't resolve most of them, but there are some minor bits of foreshadowing, and it holds together if you're willing to be cool about it. It's a strange experience. There are parts that are terribly cool, and there are parts that the MST3K guys wouldn't even touch out of mercy.
The script is by turns achingly horrible and semi-inspiring. It's full - way full - of actual actors, even if they're all B-list. There are some major loose ends not tied up, like what the hell happened to one of the major characters, who's somehow just not seen after halfway through the movie. There are some nonsensical contractions of distance and time. The SFX are not horrid; at times they're even pretty cool, particularly the magic effects. The costumes are pretty awesome, except for Ray, who looks like he walked off the Rocky Horror set. It almost looks like he made his own clothes out of drapes. The battles, both the big ones and the smaller one-on-one duels, are quite well choreographed and shot; you get a sense of tactics on both sides, even though it's obvious that the numbers are far less than they want you to think.
I was trying to think what the parallel here was, and I think it's Krull. Cheesy, not too well acted, some great SFX, some horrible, and kinda fun in a don't get your expectations up way. I'd bump it up your list.
And yet . . . It wasn't so bad. I actually, on balance, enjoyed it a good deal. Sure, you cringe nearly every line Ray Liotta has. Who am I kidding? It's every single line Ray Liotta has. And you're like, what the hell is Burt Reynolds doing in this movie? But then you realize, hey, Burt's not that bad. Noble, even. And there are swingy elves, and ninja scout fighters. And you're like, hey, Matthew Lillard, he's, like, totally overdoing it. And then you're like, hey, that's not actually so bad; overdoing it almost works, in a Jack Sparrow way, but not as good.
The plot is kind of like a 14-year-old basement D&D game - way too many characters, and they don't resolve most of them, but there are some minor bits of foreshadowing, and it holds together if you're willing to be cool about it. It's a strange experience. There are parts that are terribly cool, and there are parts that the MST3K guys wouldn't even touch out of mercy.
The script is by turns achingly horrible and semi-inspiring. It's full - way full - of actual actors, even if they're all B-list. There are some major loose ends not tied up, like what the hell happened to one of the major characters, who's somehow just not seen after halfway through the movie. There are some nonsensical contractions of distance and time. The SFX are not horrid; at times they're even pretty cool, particularly the magic effects. The costumes are pretty awesome, except for Ray, who looks like he walked off the Rocky Horror set. It almost looks like he made his own clothes out of drapes. The battles, both the big ones and the smaller one-on-one duels, are quite well choreographed and shot; you get a sense of tactics on both sides, even though it's obvious that the numbers are far less than they want you to think.
I was trying to think what the parallel here was, and I think it's Krull. Cheesy, not too well acted, some great SFX, some horrible, and kinda fun in a don't get your expectations up way. I'd bump it up your list.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Response to God guy
A colleague sent me a link to this article; I found it interesting and responded; I'm posting the response here.
An interesting article; it seems like both of them are using versions of the same arguments to criticize each other's version. Dawkins attempts to one-up the 747 argument, and says God is even more improbable than evolution, and therefore must not be true if evolution is not. Plantinga starts with the premise that God is necessary, so his probability is 100%, and asks Dawkins to refute that God is necessary, which seems pretty unfair. Conversely, I could argue that life is real (something far easier to prove than that God is necessary), so the probability of naturalistic evolution having worked is 100%. That's no more acceptable an argument than Plantinga's is. The rest of Plantinga's piece seems to get lost in the weeds of theistic statistics.
I've often thought the probabilistic analysis of the evolution of life as completely silly. Hoyle's hyperbole about the tornadic 747 aside, the fact that an event is improbable does not make it impossible. In a universe of billions of galaxies each with millions or billions of planets, the probability of an improbable event may be close to a guarantee.
It's not surprising that those whose existence is shaped by improbable events have difficulty recognizing or understanding that improbability. I'm sure lottery winners have a different take on the odds of winning than do the chumps who put up two futile bucks a week for life, and I'm sure most of them feel that they won "for a reason." That's human nature, and I think the same kind of thinking has given rise to religion.
It's harder to imagine or accept a life that's the result of a confluence of chemical processes and contingency than it is to imagine there's a magical man looking out for you, particularly if your society provides the latter framework for you and exults in it. Ironically, there might even be a selective advantage to thinking you're specially designed, if the alternative is depressing (or gets you imprisoned or stoned to death). Perhaps religion, even false religion, is a beneficial adaptation providing a competitive advantage?
I actually have no problem if people push God far enough back in the process to where he's indistinguishable from contingency (i.e., a good bit earlier than Ussher's October 23, 4004 BC). Suppose the universe we're in or the planet we're on actually is improbably finely tuned for life (something I'd be more inclined to believe were my species to have explored more than two other planets). I might see that as dumb luck. Others might see it as "for a reason." Depends on your view of the lottery, I guess.
An interesting article; it seems like both of them are using versions of the same arguments to criticize each other's version. Dawkins attempts to one-up the 747 argument, and says God is even more improbable than evolution, and therefore must not be true if evolution is not. Plantinga starts with the premise that God is necessary, so his probability is 100%, and asks Dawkins to refute that God is necessary, which seems pretty unfair. Conversely, I could argue that life is real (something far easier to prove than that God is necessary), so the probability of naturalistic evolution having worked is 100%. That's no more acceptable an argument than Plantinga's is. The rest of Plantinga's piece seems to get lost in the weeds of theistic statistics.
I've often thought the probabilistic analysis of the evolution of life as completely silly. Hoyle's hyperbole about the tornadic 747 aside, the fact that an event is improbable does not make it impossible. In a universe of billions of galaxies each with millions or billions of planets, the probability of an improbable event may be close to a guarantee.
It's not surprising that those whose existence is shaped by improbable events have difficulty recognizing or understanding that improbability. I'm sure lottery winners have a different take on the odds of winning than do the chumps who put up two futile bucks a week for life, and I'm sure most of them feel that they won "for a reason." That's human nature, and I think the same kind of thinking has given rise to religion.
It's harder to imagine or accept a life that's the result of a confluence of chemical processes and contingency than it is to imagine there's a magical man looking out for you, particularly if your society provides the latter framework for you and exults in it. Ironically, there might even be a selective advantage to thinking you're specially designed, if the alternative is depressing (or gets you imprisoned or stoned to death). Perhaps religion, even false religion, is a beneficial adaptation providing a competitive advantage?
I actually have no problem if people push God far enough back in the process to where he's indistinguishable from contingency (i.e., a good bit earlier than Ussher's October 23, 4004 BC). Suppose the universe we're in or the planet we're on actually is improbably finely tuned for life (something I'd be more inclined to believe were my species to have explored more than two other planets). I might see that as dumb luck. Others might see it as "for a reason." Depends on your view of the lottery, I guess.
Labels: religion, stuff that will get me in trouble
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Dragonfly - Movie Review
Interesting movie. Not a great movie, or even really a good one, but interesting. It was part supernatural ghost-story thriller, part study of a driven guy suffering through bereavement. The first part was kind of cheap and dumb, while the second would have made for a much more interesting movie if it hadn't been trampled over by the ghost story part. It's not common you'll find me saying, If only there could have been less magic spookiness and more realistic grieving. It's odd, though - in much the same way Kevin Costner was seeing his wife trying to contact him from the afterlife, I saw a good movie trying to contact me through the confused mess of this one.
The ghost story part was cheesy, but somewhat effectively done. The startles were there, and they were cheap, but they were often surprisingly low-key, which made them somehow more scary. The doctor's response to these unrealistic things seemed pretty realistic, at least at first - skeptical, then hopeful, then worried about his sanity, in a believable way. It's when he headed to Venezuela that the movie tossed believability out the window and wandered into some kind of stunt-laden National Geographic special, which seemed a bit exploitative of the individuals depicted. It's one thing for National Geographic to go to a remote tribe and investigate their culture; it's another entirely for these guys to go to the tribe, hand them prop spears, and make them boogeymen in a ghost-story movie.
I figured out what was going on early enough to make the ending not any kind of surprise at all, but not early enough that I can scornfully mock the plotting. I'm sure some poindexters had it all sussed within minutes, but that's not usually me. I watched some of the deleted scenes, and they would certainly have made it a lot more obvious what was coming, so deletion was a good choice. The deleted scenes also showed most of the doctor's hallucinations as dream sequences where he woke up at the end, which would have made for a completely different movie.
The problem I have with these kinds of things, where a rational guy discovers that there ARE supernatural forces, that the dead CAN contact you, and that everybody's linked by some kind of ethereal cheesecloth binding us all together, is that they're just cheap wish-fulfilment. These are things that people want to believe but have no proof of. In a movie like this, there is proof of the supernatural, so there's no reality to it at all, and no ambiguity to the rational protagonist's eventual conversion to spiritualism.
I'm telling you, a much more interesting movie would be one where the doctor could even have had some of these flashbacks, but it remained ambiguous in our minds and his whether he was actually having supernatural contact or just stress-related hallucinations. An even better movie would be one where the ghostly stuff fades, and he actually does have to do what neighbor Kathy Bates tells him to - sell the house, give the clothes to Goodwill, go on with his life, wondering whether he's damaged goods because he went a little nuts when she died.
That's not to say I don't like ghost movies; I thought The Ring was great and scary. Damned scary. Cringe-away-from-the-screen, wonder-why-I-paid-eight-bucks-for-this scary. But that movie establishes early on that regular rules don't apply, that there is a vicious malevolent dead person/demon that wants to hurt us. The movie isn't about whether, it's about how, and how bad. I tell ya, all I need to see is that black-and-white well on a TV and I get chills.
In this movie, the message is that near-death experiences are real. They even present "evidence" for them several times. To their credit, the counterbalancing arguments are also presented, albeit by annoying minor characters. But the main character starts as a non-believer and comes to believe, which isn't fair, because his dead wife is actually rearranging his laundry and giving big-eyed kids secret messages. If that happened to me as unambiguously as it's presented here, I'd believe it too - anybody would. But it's a movie - they can make anything happen.
The problem is, I think the writers and director are true believers themselves. They want us to believe that if you just want to hard enough, you can converse with the dead. In reality, you can talk to the dead all you want, but they don't answer back, no matter how much you want them to. The more time you spend trying, the less time you have to spend living.
The ghost story part was cheesy, but somewhat effectively done. The startles were there, and they were cheap, but they were often surprisingly low-key, which made them somehow more scary. The doctor's response to these unrealistic things seemed pretty realistic, at least at first - skeptical, then hopeful, then worried about his sanity, in a believable way. It's when he headed to Venezuela that the movie tossed believability out the window and wandered into some kind of stunt-laden National Geographic special, which seemed a bit exploitative of the individuals depicted. It's one thing for National Geographic to go to a remote tribe and investigate their culture; it's another entirely for these guys to go to the tribe, hand them prop spears, and make them boogeymen in a ghost-story movie.
I figured out what was going on early enough to make the ending not any kind of surprise at all, but not early enough that I can scornfully mock the plotting. I'm sure some poindexters had it all sussed within minutes, but that's not usually me. I watched some of the deleted scenes, and they would certainly have made it a lot more obvious what was coming, so deletion was a good choice. The deleted scenes also showed most of the doctor's hallucinations as dream sequences where he woke up at the end, which would have made for a completely different movie.
The problem I have with these kinds of things, where a rational guy discovers that there ARE supernatural forces, that the dead CAN contact you, and that everybody's linked by some kind of ethereal cheesecloth binding us all together, is that they're just cheap wish-fulfilment. These are things that people want to believe but have no proof of. In a movie like this, there is proof of the supernatural, so there's no reality to it at all, and no ambiguity to the rational protagonist's eventual conversion to spiritualism.
I'm telling you, a much more interesting movie would be one where the doctor could even have had some of these flashbacks, but it remained ambiguous in our minds and his whether he was actually having supernatural contact or just stress-related hallucinations. An even better movie would be one where the ghostly stuff fades, and he actually does have to do what neighbor Kathy Bates tells him to - sell the house, give the clothes to Goodwill, go on with his life, wondering whether he's damaged goods because he went a little nuts when she died.
That's not to say I don't like ghost movies; I thought The Ring was great and scary. Damned scary. Cringe-away-from-the-screen, wonder-why-I-paid-eight-bucks-for-this scary. But that movie establishes early on that regular rules don't apply, that there is a vicious malevolent dead person/demon that wants to hurt us. The movie isn't about whether, it's about how, and how bad. I tell ya, all I need to see is that black-and-white well on a TV and I get chills.
In this movie, the message is that near-death experiences are real. They even present "evidence" for them several times. To their credit, the counterbalancing arguments are also presented, albeit by annoying minor characters. But the main character starts as a non-believer and comes to believe, which isn't fair, because his dead wife is actually rearranging his laundry and giving big-eyed kids secret messages. If that happened to me as unambiguously as it's presented here, I'd believe it too - anybody would. But it's a movie - they can make anything happen.
The problem is, I think the writers and director are true believers themselves. They want us to believe that if you just want to hard enough, you can converse with the dead. In reality, you can talk to the dead all you want, but they don't answer back, no matter how much you want them to. The more time you spend trying, the less time you have to spend living.
Sleep, with company
So, today Brianna asked me if anybody ever fell asleep the exact same second as anybody else. Awesome kid question, I thought. "Sure," I answered, and then did the math. It turned out to be a lot more sure than my gut told me. Assume:
On the other hand, if you live in a city of 300,000 (she does), and most of the folks in that city go to sleep between 7 pm and 12 midnight, then you've probably got at least 15 people in your city drifting off at the exact same second as you every single night.
Sweet dreams...
- 6 billion humans
- All fall asleep once a day (except college students pulling all-nighters, I guess, but we'll give the college students some back because I've seen some of them fall asleep multiple times in a single one of my sedimentary geology lectures)
- 24x60x60 = 86,400 seconds a day
On the other hand, if you live in a city of 300,000 (she does), and most of the folks in that city go to sleep between 7 pm and 12 midnight, then you've probably got at least 15 people in your city drifting off at the exact same second as you every single night.
Sweet dreams...
Friday, September 16, 2005
Belief
So, that's another thing that drives me nuts. When people say "I believe in evolution" or "I don't believe in evolution." It's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of truth, actual scientific truth. When people "believe in evolution," what they actually mean is, evolution is a compelling theory that explains all sorts of observations consistently. When people "don't believe in evolution," what they mean is that they choose to ignore the explanatory power of evolutionary theory, and in most cases, to ignore the observations themselves. There is no belief or disbelief; there is science, and there is willful ignorance.
Imagine if someone didn't "believe" the theory of gravity. That wouldn't change the fact that he or she falls down, or that it is an objective truth that gravity exists. If that someone went around saying that there was no gravity, and that everybody was actually floating around the world, reasonable people would look at the evidence surrounding them and call the gravity denier a fool.
The only difference between a gravity-denier and an evolution-denier is that the evidence for evolution isn't as personally obvious as falling out of bed. You have to read books and look at bones to get a handle on some of it. But it's still objectively true. Believe it or not.
Imagine if someone didn't "believe" the theory of gravity. That wouldn't change the fact that he or she falls down, or that it is an objective truth that gravity exists. If that someone went around saying that there was no gravity, and that everybody was actually floating around the world, reasonable people would look at the evidence surrounding them and call the gravity denier a fool.
The only difference between a gravity-denier and an evolution-denier is that the evidence for evolution isn't as personally obvious as falling out of bed. You have to read books and look at bones to get a handle on some of it. But it's still objectively true. Believe it or not.
Polls are not Truth
I've been thinking about (and depressed by) polls showing that some large portion of Americans are receptive to creationism. When I see these polls, I feel like they come with the implied suggestion that we should accede to the desires of the creationists and teach creationism in schools. This may well be my defensiveness rather than their intent, although I can't see much purpose in asking the question other than to gauge support for such a thing.
See, polls are really only good for showing what people think. The only cases where public-opinion polls should determine results is in the few areas where it matters what the general public thinks. In practical terms, this is elections and ballot initiatives, where there's a constitutional or statutory mandatory response to polls.
With the case of science education, the general public is clueless, so the polls don't demonstrate anything other than that cluelessness. Suppose you had cancer. Would you rather have a local TV station take a poll as to what treatment you should undergo, or ask a doctor? Obviously, you'd ask a doctor. Now, you might want to know what the consensus among informed people (i.e., doctors) was, in which case a poll of that group would be useful.
Now, suppose you want to teach kids about science (creationists don't actually want to do this, but I bet polls would show - hah - that the general public wants their children to know about science). Would you take a poll of the general public to determine what valid science is, or would you, say, ask scientists? And if you ask scientists, you hear with resounding unanimity that biological evolution is real, and that Earth history makes no sense without it.
You can't take a poll to find out what is true. You can only take a poll to find out what people think is true. So, quit taking the polls. Or act on the real problem they reveal, which is that the average American is ignorant about science. We need more, not less, evolution in classes, even if people don't "believe" in it. Especially because they don't.
See, polls are really only good for showing what people think. The only cases where public-opinion polls should determine results is in the few areas where it matters what the general public thinks. In practical terms, this is elections and ballot initiatives, where there's a constitutional or statutory mandatory response to polls.
With the case of science education, the general public is clueless, so the polls don't demonstrate anything other than that cluelessness. Suppose you had cancer. Would you rather have a local TV station take a poll as to what treatment you should undergo, or ask a doctor? Obviously, you'd ask a doctor. Now, you might want to know what the consensus among informed people (i.e., doctors) was, in which case a poll of that group would be useful.
Now, suppose you want to teach kids about science (creationists don't actually want to do this, but I bet polls would show - hah - that the general public wants their children to know about science). Would you take a poll of the general public to determine what valid science is, or would you, say, ask scientists? And if you ask scientists, you hear with resounding unanimity that biological evolution is real, and that Earth history makes no sense without it.
You can't take a poll to find out what is true. You can only take a poll to find out what people think is true. So, quit taking the polls. Or act on the real problem they reveal, which is that the average American is ignorant about science. We need more, not less, evolution in classes, even if people don't "believe" in it. Especially because they don't.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
The Outlaw Josey Wales - Movie Review
I've gotten more than a few movies from the 1970's and early 1980's from Netflix recently, and many of them, despite receiving critical acclaim when they were released, don't seem to have aged well. For example, I was fairly disappointed with The Deer Hunter, mostly hated Apocalypse Now, completely hated A Clockwork Orange, and thought that The Delta Force, which I remember being intrigued by as a kid, was horrible (it was also difficult to watch post 9-11, but obviously I can't blame Chuck for that). On the other hand, I recently watched Star Wars (the original one) again with my kids, and I loved it.
So, it was with some trepidation that I got The Outlaw Josey Wales, a Clint Eastwood western. I was actually pleasantly surprised. The acting was solid, the story engaging. The bloody conflict between Missouri and Kansas, seemingly far removed from slavery, is a sad but interesting part of the whole Civil War. It was also addressed in more detail by Ang Lee in Ride With the Devil. This isn't as serious a movie, but it's exciting to watch the course of Wales' life through the war and his attempts to deal with what came after. It also has all of that great western stuff I love - tough guys, horses, wise Indians, beautiful scenery, dusty towns.
My one issue with the movie was that Wales is depicted as a superman, almost always impossible to hurt. Sometimes this was because he was clever in the way he approached conflict, which was neat; other times, it was because the guys fighting him just missed him, over and over, which is kind of unsatisfying. It's always a little disappointing when the bad guys lose just because they're bad shots - you want the hero to win because he or she is smart, not lucky.
I enjoyed the movie a lot, though, and would recommend it.
So, it was with some trepidation that I got The Outlaw Josey Wales, a Clint Eastwood western. I was actually pleasantly surprised. The acting was solid, the story engaging. The bloody conflict between Missouri and Kansas, seemingly far removed from slavery, is a sad but interesting part of the whole Civil War. It was also addressed in more detail by Ang Lee in Ride With the Devil. This isn't as serious a movie, but it's exciting to watch the course of Wales' life through the war and his attempts to deal with what came after. It also has all of that great western stuff I love - tough guys, horses, wise Indians, beautiful scenery, dusty towns.
My one issue with the movie was that Wales is depicted as a superman, almost always impossible to hurt. Sometimes this was because he was clever in the way he approached conflict, which was neat; other times, it was because the guys fighting him just missed him, over and over, which is kind of unsatisfying. It's always a little disappointing when the bad guys lose just because they're bad shots - you want the hero to win because he or she is smart, not lucky.
I enjoyed the movie a lot, though, and would recommend it.
Alexander - Movie Review
What a mess. An expensive mess. The good parts:
Speaking of language, another thing bugged me, which was the use of English in maps and written materials shown in the movie. Obviously the characters have to speak English, or the movie becomes a stupid subtitled exercise. But having the wall mosaics and tax documents in English was jarring and lame. Putting them in an Greeky-looking font doesn't cut it.
The portrayal of homosexuality was a puzzle for me. I'm a passionate supporter of gay rights, including marriage. I like seeing shows that portray realistic-seeming gay people in realistic-seeming relationships (e.g. Six Feet Under, not Will and Grace or The Birdcage). I wasn't sure really what they were after in this movie - showing a culture where homosexuality was accepted, or trying to be risque and titillating about gay sex. I have to think that in a culture where male homosexuality was common and approved, the gay folks you'd see most often wouldn't be wearing eyeliner or mascara or be drag queens or do exotic dancing.
This could have been a really neat movie; it had great costumes, great visuals, and a great life as subject matter. I think you could even take the movie that currently exists, cut out all the interpersonal stuff, and turn it into a cool documentary. But what we got was a muddled, often incomprehensible story with enough jangling wrong notes to ruin the rest of it.
- The re-envisioning of the ancient world. I have no idea how historically accurate the portrayals of people and buildings were; I suspect the palaces were far less sumptuous, the people far less clean, the teeth far less straight and white, but darn it, this is a movie, and the vision of Babylon's roof-top gardens, busy streets, and elaborate palace was breathtaking. If I'm watching a dramatic movie about the ancient world, I'm OK with it being grander than life, in much the same way that I'm OK with Shakespeare's re-envisioning of Julius Caesar, where everyone speaks with deep meaning in wry verse.
- The battle scenes, particularly the first sequence; in that one, you could get a sense of numbers and layouts and even follow the strategy to some extent, although it wasn't clear exactly how Alexander could get back through all those guys to the opposing leader. Also, the use of elephants in battles was strikingly portrayed; I admit to often having wondered how effective an elephant could be. I've been snowed by elephants in the wild, in zoos, and in circuses, and neglected to imagine how elephants trained and bred for war might act. The scene toward the end where a charging horse is multiply skewered was amazing; I'm sure it was all computers, but it was visceral, dramatic, and unlike anything I've seen.
- The credits - visually neat-o, especially with the Greek renderings of the actors' names.
Speaking of language, another thing bugged me, which was the use of English in maps and written materials shown in the movie. Obviously the characters have to speak English, or the movie becomes a stupid subtitled exercise. But having the wall mosaics and tax documents in English was jarring and lame. Putting them in an Greeky-looking font doesn't cut it.
The portrayal of homosexuality was a puzzle for me. I'm a passionate supporter of gay rights, including marriage. I like seeing shows that portray realistic-seeming gay people in realistic-seeming relationships (e.g. Six Feet Under, not Will and Grace or The Birdcage). I wasn't sure really what they were after in this movie - showing a culture where homosexuality was accepted, or trying to be risque and titillating about gay sex. I have to think that in a culture where male homosexuality was common and approved, the gay folks you'd see most often wouldn't be wearing eyeliner or mascara or be drag queens or do exotic dancing.
This could have been a really neat movie; it had great costumes, great visuals, and a great life as subject matter. I think you could even take the movie that currently exists, cut out all the interpersonal stuff, and turn it into a cool documentary. But what we got was a muddled, often incomprehensible story with enough jangling wrong notes to ruin the rest of it.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Let there be light...
A recent NY Times poll shows that 42% of respondents think humans and other animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Sigh. Of course, people believe all kinds of weird stuff, but in this case, they want to teach it at school.
It is weird to see this issue actually progress backwards through time. I think we're back to about 1870 at this point. If it continues, we might get back to 1781 or so, when Thomas Jefferson and other Deists were arguing that extinctions were impossible and never happened, because God wouldn't let things die out:
It is weird to see this issue actually progress backwards through time. I think we're back to about 1870 at this point. If it continues, we might get back to 1781 or so, when Thomas Jefferson and other Deists were arguing that extinctions were impossible and never happened, because God wouldn't let things die out:
What's doubly weird is that no other countries are suffering from this plague of boobs - it's mostly a dead issue in Europe and South America.The bones of the Mammoth which have been found in America, are as large as those found in the old world. It may be asked, why I insert the Mammoth, as if it still existed? I ask in return, why I should omit it, as if it did not exist? Such is the economy of nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken. -- From Notes on the State of Virgina, 1781-1782.
