Hagel's Philosophy of Right

It's no secret I hate politics and politicians. For the most part, I try to adhere to a strict "if we ignore them, maybe they'll go away" philosophy. (Pols are like spoiled children -- giving them attention is just giving them what they want.)

But I've been admiring Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel's outspoken criticism of Bush, Cheney, and their stupid war for a while now, and the prospect -- however remote at this time -- of his 2008 presidential candidacy gives me a sort of political thrill I haven't experienced in many years.

He hasn't said he's running, of course, and there's nothing really to say he will. And even if he did, I'm not sure I'd go back on my "don't vote, it only encourages them" vow. But if anyone could tempt me, it would be a guy who says stuff like this:

I took an oath of office to the Constitution; I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.

And this:

We have always been able to protect national security without sacrificing the liberties of the individual. Once you lose those rights, it's very hard to get them back. There have been arguments made that if we just give up a few rights, it will be easier to preserve our national security. That should never, ever happen. When you take office, you take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. That is your first responsibility.

Sending more troops to Iraq? That would be "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." Slobbering all over Israel? That "need not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships." War as a solution to the world's ills? "If we are going to make it, we need a far greater appreciation and respect for others, or we're going to blow up mankind."

Hagel is like the anti-John McCain, that tiresome warmonger for whom I have an abiding contempt. And unlike current media darling Barack Obama, Hagel actually has substance. And balls. Watch him call his senatorial colleagues a bunch of pussies:



The guy's right, too. The majority party in Congress at any given time is the Spineless Douchebag Party.

Even better, though, Hagel has laid verbal beatdowns individually on clueless fucktard Condoallelozzzawhateverthefuck Rice and insufferable prick Joe Lieberman. I'd love to see more personalized tongue-lashings like that.

Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com has gone so far as to herald the "Return of the Old Right" in Hagel. I'm hardly that optimistic, but who knows? Maybe sometime in the not-so-distant future you'll see a "Hagel 2008" sign in front of my house.

Bonus points to any philosophy nerds who get the pun in this post's title.

A Field Guide to Beer Tastings, Part IX

The Loiterer

Description: Why won't he go away? He's got his beer. He's already tasted it. Maybe he even took notes on it. But he just won't move away from the table, and there are other people waiting behind him to get their own taste of what he's taking his sweet time to finish. Even worse, he won't stop talking. About beer, about his gastrointestinal problems, about the dive bar he visited last week or the cool brewery tour he had in 2002. If only the people in line would politely (or not) tell him to step aside...

Typical comment: "This beer's pretty good. Kind of tastes like this other beer I had once at this little microbrewery where I had a tour. It was cool. They took us in the back and showed us the tanks and told us all about their brewing process and everything. Afterward, they gave us some free samples, and it wasn't just the one beer that tasted kinda like this one; they had some other kinds, too. A stout, a nut brown, some kind of wheat ale... what else?"

(Closely related is The Hoverer, virtually identical to The Loiterer, only creepily silent.)

Previous entries: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII.

Stupid Beer News Indahouse

Ever want to give your best friend a beer so you didn't have to drink alone, only to hear that nagging little voice remind you that dogs really shouldn't tipple?

Well, that problem's been solved, thanks to the diligent efforts of a Dutch brewery that now offers "Kwispelbier," a nonalcoholic doggie brew. I await the day when someone makes a cat beer.

(Thanks to SBN correspondent Verd.)

Our Bleak, Horrible, Scary Future

Entertainment Weekly put up its 20 favorite dystopian films and, while the list is interesting and has some good stuff, it has a few glaring omissions. So here is my list of what's missing, including some non-glaring (i.e., underappreciated) omissions and some worth mentioning, even if I don't think they're quite good enough to be on a favorites list.

First, a note. I'm using the term "dystopia" in a somewhat broader sense, meaning "future societies that catastrophically suck because of man's stupidity" or, if you prefer Merriam Webster:

an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives.

Some of these movies are probably better subcategorized as post-apocalyptic or simply science fiction, but I don't want to get into all of that. Also, I'm sure I'm omitting plenty of other fine efforts myself, but I'm sticking to things I've actually seen. On with the show:

Glaring Omissions

1984 (1984)
This movie adaptation of George Orwell's masterpiece from, duh, 1984 isn't nearly as engaging and affecting as the book, but it's well cast and certainly worth watching. (Although I feel one of its major flaws is that if you haven't read the book, you won't always be able to follow what's going on.) Plus, it's pretty much the first thing people think of whenever they hear "dystopian."

Planet of the Apes (1968)
This movie obviously kicks so much ass that there's nothing new I can say about it. EW for some reason included the movie's first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, on its list, but even as the best of the many sequels it's not half as satisfying as the original. Note: Avoid the execrable Tim Burton remake from 2001 -- it truly is utter drek.

The Terminator (1984)
This isn't my favorite movie and could arguably be excluded from the dystopian category (writer-director James Cameron himself described it as "tech noir"), but its wide and profound influence buy it a spot on the list. It is, of course, more of an action movie than a psychological study and has a different mood and focus, but the feeling of doom is still present and it's entertaining enough to watch.

Underappreciated Omissions

On the Beach (1959)
Adapted from Nevil Shute's novel, this film is one of director Stanley Kramer's less bombastic efforts, and it's a much stronger product as a result. A global nuclear war has wiped out most of the earth, with the survivors awaiting their own deaths via a radioactive cloud soon to catch up with them in Australia. Powerful, well acted, and highly recommended.

The Lathe of Heaven (1980)
I remember seeing this made-for-TV movie when it first broadcast on PBS, and it tripped my 9-year-old brain out. It's been a long, long time since I saw it, but Ursula K. Le Guin's story of a man whose dreams shape and re-shape reality has nevertheless stayed with me. Again arguable as "dystopian," but nevertheless a classic mindfuck in the tradition of Philip K. Dick. Remade (and significantly altered) as Lathe of Heaven in 2002.

Honorable Mentions

La Jetée (1962)
A French short clocking in around half an hour, this interesting little experiment would later inspire Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (which made EW's list). People living underneath Paris after a nuclear holocaust send a man back and forth through time to ensure humanity's survival. Ambiguous but hypnotic.

Equilibrium (2002)
This movie's premise is rather preposterous, but if we had to exclude movies on that ground alone, then we'd need to throw out almost everything except boring little documentaries. In an effort to suppress war, the regime of the future has banned human emotions, administering drugs to the masses to ensure they do not feel. Unfortunately, this makes art, books, music, and all the swell things we love verboten as well...

Bonus: Dystopian Novels That Have Never Been Made into Movies (So Far As I Know) But Maybe Should Be

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
In the world of the future, citizens of the One State do not have names and literally live in glass houses. Written in the 1920s Soviet Union, this bleak little novel would later inspire Orwell and many others, yet few people seem to even know it exists.

This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
The "perfect" society is achieved as humanity is controlled via sense-deadening drugs and a vast computer that tracks and prescribes every movement. Equilibrium, mentioned above, shares some plot and setting details with Levin's criminally out-of-print novel of collectivistic oppression, but that film doesn't come close to matching this book in mood, style, theme, or the ability to provoke thought.

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
The third book in Lewis's Space Trilogy (which I mostly disliked), this tale takes place on earth. Yes, it's too heavily laden with Christian allegory and explores themes Lewis would much more brilliantly address in The Abolition of Man and other essays. But for all of its failings, it's still a creepy, sinister story. On second thought, this would most likely make a terrible movie. Never mind.

The Razzies Are Coming! The Razzies Are Coming!

Ian over at Fried Rice Thoughts is all over the Oscar nominees, but I'm much more excited about this year's Razzie nominees. Everyone's favorites, from Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan to Nicholas Cage and -- yes! -- Uwe Boll, are in there, as is perennial nominee Sharon Stone.

I can't wait to see who will "win" the latest round of Hollywood's worst crap.

A Field Guide to Beer Tastings, Part VIII

Mr. Moderation

Description: Beer is good, and so one reasonably assumes that more beer is even better. Not so for Mr. Moderation. Instead of getting angry when he perceives he has gotten a short pour, he gets his panties in a bunch when he is given a full taste. He either has a grand plan to try all two dozen high-ABV Belgian beers and still drive himself home immediately afterward, or else has some hangup about drunkenness you don’t want to know about. In any case, his demeanor is often dour, mildly snooty, even vaguely disapproving, as if he were Donatello among les fauves, or at least an enlightened drinker in the midst of drunken Philistines.

Typical comment: "When. WHEN!"

Previous entries: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII.

Drag Racing Down the Information Super Side Street

Other bloggers have names for those regular or semi-regular posts where they gather links from around the web that catch their attention for whatever reason and comment on them. I've used "Thursday Random Link Roundup" before, but that sucks. The title of the present post sucks too. If someone has a better idea for a name, let me know. Anyway, on to the random links...

The guys over at The Onion must read my blog because now they have Woody Allen contributing a piece: "Somebody Should Make A Movie About My Life":

The movie could open in a sheer white room, and let's say God and I are jousting, verbally. God asks me, "Do you think you should be admitted into Heaven, or Hell?" And I tell him, "I'll go wherever you want as long as I can use the car-pool lane."

This scene, as well as many others I could probably think of, conveys very well, I think, my preoccupation with death, and shows that, in a way, that our time on Earth is totally meaningless, which is one of the central themes of all the great dramatic stories.

Joe Sobran, as usual, has the best take on a public spectacle; in this case, the death of Gerald Ford.

Ars Technica discusses the reason for the increasing prevalence of Defective Retail Merchandise: "Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy" (HT: Maitri).

Is the zombie genre all used up? Heck no! Because no one has made a movie about zombies and retards. Until now. (Thanks Verd.)

Haven't New Orleanians Suffered Enough?

Hollywood weirdoes Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are moving to New Orleans. I don't have a pithy comment, really; it just seemed like a good excuse to post a picture of Mrs. Pitt. (Or whatever -- I can't even remember if they bothered to get married.)

(Thanks, Verd.)

A Field Guide to Beer Tastings, Part VII

After a long hiatus, the Field Guide returns with a new entry. I'm working on transforming this series of posts into an article to submit to Modern Drunkard. More to come soon. Enjoy.

The Girl

Description: She is in way over her head and she knows it, but impressing Chad or Jonathan or Cody by coming along was her top priority. Those guys are totally rad, and if they like these rinky-dink beers no one's ever heard of, then maybe there's something to them. Only these beers are so… unbeerlike. They're dark, they smell funny, and they taste terrible. If only she could find something closer to Coors or even Amstel Light, she could at least get a decent buzz going while those guys tried all the awful stuff. She should still totally get points for coming, though.

Typical comment: "Eww, that's too dark. Do you have anything lighter?"

Previous entries: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI.

Stupid Beer News-O-Rama

Teens steal several golf carts and a bunch of beer from
Jo Daddy's Golf Course in Palm Bay, Florida:

It sounds funny when you hear it at first, golf carts and beer.

Yes, it does. Almost as funny as a golf course named Jo Daddy's.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, laid-off machinist and bar patron Robert Norden dies in a shootout with cops over "dirty beer," proving there's a limit to how much indignity a man can take.

Finally, an Arkansas teacher discovers beer was stolen from his fridge, but a bag of pot was left in its place, raising the question, "Why would you bother going to the cops?" Sounds like a decent trade to me.

(Thanks Verd.)

Warning: Contains Woody Allen Appreciation and Amateur Philosophy

I first saw Woody Allen's Match Point back in March, and I wrote here about my impressions of it then. Last night I watched it for the second time, courtesy of Netflix, and happily it had the same mesmerizing effect on me as it did before, compelling me to put down some more thoughts about it. (Warning: If you haven't seen Match Point but intend to, you might want to skip the following long-winded blather.)

Now, first let me say I'm an unabashed fan of Woody Allen movies in general. Not every one of his movies, of course, as even his most ardent admirers know he has made some real clinkers. But when he's on, he's on, whether he's dishing up screwball comedies like Sleeper or Love and Death, bittersweet romances like Annie Hall, or gut-wrenching melodramas like Another Woman or Crimes and Misdemeanors. The key underlying all of Woody's best movies, of whatever genre, is that he assumes his audience is neither ignorant nor stupid. It sounds like such a little thing, but it really is not. (It might not be a coincidence, either, that Woody Allen is more or less alone among Hollywood directors in retaining complete creative control over his films.)

As a semi-neurotic, insecure, introspective adolescent convinced of his own misfittedness (look ma, a neologism), I found refuge in Woody Allen movies. The suburban kid from the Midwest raised as a Catholic may have known nothing of New York or of being Jewish, but Woody's bumbling, humorous explorations of the Big Questions struck an immediate chord with me. What is the nature of attraction? Why do we begin relationships with others? Why do we end them (or have them ended for us)? Is romantic love real, or is it only a polite veneer we attach to lust or selfishness? Can we really know other people? Can we even know ourselves? What is the ultimate meaning of our lives on earth? Does that meaning depend on God? And if God does not exist, is meaning even possible?

As a semi-neurotic, insecure, introspective adult convinced of his own misfittedness, I find these questions still haunt and fascinate me. Their echoes show up almost automatically in any fiction I write. They sometimes occupy the wee hours as I lie awake in bed, or they come out all a-jumble in one drunken bar conversation after another. Always I am groping for answers and sometimes I feel, as the fella once said, "The more I see, the less I know." At any rate, Woody Allen showed me that all this angsty questing was shared by many like minds, and that there could also be a beauty and humor to it all.

Is that enough background?

Now, Match Point. Some critics have noted the differences in this movie as compared to much of Woody's previous work. The most obvious is that it's set in London, not New York, and features an almost all-British cast. Two other things are that it's devoid of humorous one-liners as well as the inevitable goofy Woody or Woody surrogate character. (Although this is not the first of his movies where either or both of those things were absent: see, e.g., September, The Purple Rose of Cairo, or the aforementioned Another Woman.)

But thematically, it's classic Woody. His conviction that there is, and can be, no God is the starting point and, as in Crimes and Misdemeanors, the rest of the action is a working out of what the absence of a divine moral order means in terms of guilt, innocence, justice, and our most basic notions of right and wrong.

Some people, including me, have referred to Match Point as a noirish film. It has noir elements, to be sure. But because it inverts the basic premises of noir, it could never have been made in the Hollywood of the 1940s and '50s. For one thing, the Hays Office never would have allowed the criminal to not only go unpunished but to actually be rewarded. For another thing, in noir, the criminals are always undone -- murder will out! -- and this fact is intended to confirm the truth of the existence of a moral order. In other words, every true noir movie thematically depends on a belief in justice and the rule of natural (or supernatural) law. In Match Point the main character ultimately exists outside of any moral order and, consequently, outside of justice. Luck, not fate, is the movie's watchword.

Woody is, of course, far from the first to question our assumptions about a moral order, to explore matters of right and wrong in a Godless universe, or to inject a chilling note of dog-eat-dog into our ideas about human civilization. But he's one of the few American filmmakers to continue asking these perennially vital questions while creating entertaining drama in the process. For that, I am grateful. I like silly comedies as much as the next fellow (Beerfest is in my Netflix queue, after all), but sometimes I want to see a filmmaker use the medium for something more ambitious than fart jokes.

Having said all that, it is my belief that there is a moral order and, further, that the ultimate source of this order is God. But I've questioned these beliefs many, many times in my life, and I love and appreciate Woody Allen's thoughtful, probing explorations of the topic, if only to be reminded that the alternative to God is more terrifying than anything out of Stephen King's worst nightmare.

Have We Won Yet?

President Bush gave a speech recently on his new Iraq policy. I didn't watch the whole thing, but the relevant part is up on good old YouTube.



Now, I'm no hotshot political analyst, but this seems like the same old Iraq policy to me. In fact, it seems like almost every other Bush policy, foreign or domestic.

Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Work has been kicking my ass for the past week and a half, so that's why I haven't had a lot of time to post any new brilliant thoughts here.

But I'm still thinking about both of my loyal readers, and to prove it, here's a picture of Scarlett Johansson to enjoy while I slave away at work overtime.


OSU fans: If you're looking at this at the library, press print and then go home before you jack off.

More Scarlett (Homer drooling noises) here.

(Thanks Grr.)

Just Another Manic Carl Monday

Well, another college football season is in the books, and for the sports-inclined, that's the cue to start pretending to care about the regular season of pro basketball and/or hockey.

Ohio State's 41-14 assraping at the hands of Florida makes me feel a little better about Michigan's Rose Bowl loss, if only because our guys didn't look quite as useless and pathetic as the Buckeye squad did in Glendale Monday night. Sure, I would have preferred some Big Ten pride to be represented so we didn't have to listen to another year of bullshit about "SEC speed." But there's also something satisfying about seeing Cheatypants Sweatervest and his team kicked in the balls on national TV. Yes, for the record, I do not like THE Ohio State University Buckeyes and their assclown fans. This is as it should be.

And speaking of Ohio State fans, now that their national championship aspirations have been dashed, they will no doubt be going back to their usual activities: wacking off in public libraries.


Carl Monday is watching OSU fans masturbate.

Note: Although this was a broadcast TV report, YouTube requires you to sign up to view the "adult material" (even though there is none). If you don't feel like doing that, the original broadcast is here.

Note 2: It's a longish video, but totally worth watching.

Note 3: The Daily Show picked up Carl Monday's expose of OSU fan Mike Cooper's library jackoff scandal here (You Jackin' It?) and here.

(Via Deadspin.)

Should All Acquaintance Be Fucked Up

The New Year's Eve party went off great. Thanks to everybody who came. (And to those who didn't: You suck and I hate you.)

I still need help killing the leftover beer in the kegs. Come on over this weekend and help, you slackers.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the sordid event. Somehow the cops weren't called, so I figure it's a victory.

Apocalyptic Zombie Horror + Valley Girls = Genius

Got home from work late tonight, put on the boob tube, flipped through the many movie channels that show the same damn movies all the time, and then—I struck gold, Jerry, gold! One of the Flix channels was playing Night of the Comet, a stupidly awesome movie I haven't seen in many, many years.

Shortly after it came out in 1984, it made the rounds on HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax. Among those three channels, it seemed like it was on about a dozen times a day. And 13-year-old me watched it every time.

This personal history was clear when, watching it again for what must have been the first time in nearly 20 years, I found I still pretty much knew all the dialogue and even the choreography.

In short, this movie sucks in the best possible way, which means it really rules. It's a great blend of dumb comedy, armageddonish horror, 1980s kitsch, and goofy sci-fi. It obviously owes a lot to George Romero, plotwise and thematically, but it's much more lighthearted. And features Cyndi Lauper music.

The good news is it's finally going to be released on DVD this March. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for this jackass movie, so maybe I'll pick up a copy.

(Also, it seems I'm not the only one who recognizes NOTC's brilliance. I feel simultaneously validated and bummed out that others know my secret.)


Daddy would've gotten us Uzis.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Prunes

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Indiana Jones. He got to shtup Karen Allen and kick Nazi ass in the process. Then he nailed Kate "Mrs. Spielberg" Capshaw while kicking some child slave ring ass. In the third movie, he didn't pork that fine blonde Nazi babe, but I see how that whole Hitler thing can kill the romance dead, so I guess I don't blame him too much. (I'da still hit it, though.)

Well, apparently the esteemed archaeologist-globetrotter is going to be back for a fourth movie, despite the fact that the old geezer will need a wheelchair to outrun the boulder this time. But hey, if Rocky Balboa can lace up his Depends and get back in the ring, then Grandpa Jones can put in the dentures for one more adventure. Count me in, George, Steve, and Harrison.