Absolutely I can see the connection. Actually my love of Wes Anderson movies led me to search out all the Hal Ashby movies I could find. Also great stuff, Being There is a classic that EVERYBODY should see.
I think it's the good natured tone, like the director genuinely loves all the characters even when they're being stupid or horrible.
I got so mad at Gravity's Rainbow I couldn't finish it. Maybe that's my failure but after about a hundred pages I just felt like Pynchon was fucking with me tricking me into reading bullshit.
Djfreshie, spot on! The thing that so frustrating for me when people like derivative dreck like Lady Gaga is that they usually just aren't aware of the stuff being ripped off. My friend was a HUGE Marilyn Manson fan. He is super smart and out argues me all the time. Anyway I'd point out that Manson was just ripping of old goth stuff from the 80's basically doing an impression of Peter Murphy's voice etc. Dude hadn't heard of it and worse! Didn't care!
There's a certain point where there's no accounting for taste but damn I wish people would think things through sometimes.
This is intended to respond to waitingforguffman, I'm not sure where it will actually end up.
Good points!!! Now I will quibble with them. But for the record your comment leads to some really interesting lines of thought.
I think you can judge literature in that some works are of higher quality than others. I happen to love kids books too but they aren't meant to do the same things as some high literature or even normal adult stuff. There is a measure of subjectivity of course but I think you should judge a work based on what it is trying to do. Velveteen Rabbit isn't trying to be For Whom The Bell Tolls and in my opinion both are excellent and moving. But I'd not try to compare them at all. That's one really cool thing is that there are tons of different kinds of stories and we can pick and chose them according to our mood or goals or whatever we want!
Also, as a big ol' Tolkien nerd I have to take exception to the idea that LOTR is a kids book. The Hobbit I can accept but Tolkien couldn't stop himself getting far into the weeds of philology and there are some VERY adult themes especially at the end of LOTR. The movies cut out The Scouring of the Shire and I totally understand why but, that stuff was very much a reflection of Tolkien's own experience of coming home after WWI. He'd lost all of his best friends but one by the time he was 24 (I think that was his age) and nobody understood or even really appreciated what he and his comrades in arms went through. There's also a bunch of other stuff about sacrifice, etc. One of the many beauties of Tolkien's work is that he managed to put all of these deep stuff in stories kids could relate to as well. There's a story Tolkien wrote, Leaf By Niggle that illustrates how he saw what he was doing. A gardener is painting a picture of a tree and he can never finish it because he is compelled to paint every vein on every leaf. People get angry with him for wasting time and being lazy but he just loves every little thing about the tree that he just has to add every little detail.
OK so that was long and probably boring and dumb to you guys. My bad but again very good comment Waitingforguffman, it's fun to nerd out on these ideas.
It's not so much that they are splitting The Hobbit into two movies as much as they are adding a bunch of material from the appendices to LOTR. It's a Hobbit Plus kinda thing and totally awesome. My only quibble is that Thorin Oakenshield doesn't really look all that dwarfy. But anyway, WOOOHOOOO!!!!
That really bugged me too. Why do people always have to fuck in TV shows? Just because they're attractive people doesn't mean they would NECESSARILY start fucking!!
Agreed on Sons. I like it but. . . In fact the whole season marched inevitably toward certain ending then, woops!!! Never mind! Simon Spidermonk is dead on with the Deus ex Machina point.
Justified is probably better than what Sons of Anarchy has become. I don't even really like Olyphant or that big toothed guy from The Shield but the show works. The southerners don't feel like yankees or foreigners with bad accents. Plus it's really Elmore Leonardy fun.
I can't help feeling like Walking Dead is in here because we love to talk shit about it so much. That is truly the only reason I kept watching it.
Lots of other countries have much less pussfied Christmas traditions. In Czech Republic and I'm guessing other western Slavic countries there is a devil that goes around with Mikulas (Santa Claus). If a kid wants a gift he or she has to sing a song. If it's good enough the kid gets a present. If not, the devil takes the kid to HELL!! I am not making that up.
So Lobbying and money in politics:
Full disclosure, I spent 5 years working for in the "government relations" shop of a law firm in DC. We were lobbyists, evil GOP leaning, defense contractor representing lobbyists (our def. contractors were minority owned, small businesses though).
Trying to keep money out of politics is about as useful as the War on Drugs. Not useful at all. Every time we pass a law to restrict contributions lobbyists will find another way to get it to the pols that agree with them. Like drugs, as long as there is a demand people will find a way to fill it. The only way to deal with the situation is to take away or mitigate demand. With drugs, you legalize everything! and shift the wasted interdiction money to treatment and take your lumps from the Bible beaters for the uptick in drug use.
With lobbying we have to take away the demand from corporations, unions, special interest groups to influence the government. How do you do that? Get the government out of every aspect of those businesses. When the Gov is up your butt you are willing to pay someone make 'em pull out or to make it feel better. Unfortunately, corporations/unions like the GOV up their butt because they get to sweet talk it into doing them favors and/or beat up on their rivals.
Good points fondue cheddar!
Markets are not perfect and that ours have not been properly regulated I think is self evident. The only problem is that they are the only system that works. Even the Chinese have figured out that they cannot run a command economy in today's reality.
Also, our big messy inefficient system of gov't is a good thing. Slick, fast moving governments are the quickest road to tyranny. Fascism and Chinese authoritarianism is really fast moving and responsive and can change on a dime. But Madison and the Founders had it right, we might get frustrated with the slow pace of change but the system makes it impossible to fundamentally change the nature of the country without general agreement. If we were more efficient we would be at the whim of whoever happened to be in charge. Most gummers OK trusting Obama's decision I'm guessing (less now than 3 years ago I'm sure) but I am definitely NOT OK with his thinking.
There are not enough rich people for us to tax our way back to solvency. It's a big ol' complicate mess. When roughly half the population is not paying income taxes (they're paying taxes in other ways I fully acknowledge) you've got a pretty big hole in your revenue stream.
But taxing rich people at super high rates doesn't work especially with the current tax attorney's wet dream of an impenetrable, arcane, impossible to decipher tax code. There are so many ways to hide your income or just shift it out of the country that even with a high rate on the top, they will still be able to NOT pay it (see GE, Jack Welch). Scrap the tax code and go with a set of progressive (small on the bottom big on the top) zero deduction/loopholes tax rates and we might see some movement. Otherwise we're just spitting in the wind.
And this is not directed at any one person but here goes. The whole concept of The 1% is bullshit. Income is just one measure of wealth as one commenter has said. However, the people who make up the different percentages in the Lorenz curve (income inequality graph for you ECON nerds) move around. The bottom 20% today will likely be the top 20% in a few years. Think of how poor you are in college or grad school (I'm an insufferable grad student right now). You are super poor! I'm negative poor, Louis CK I've gotta make a buncha money just to be at zero poor. But as most people go through work life their income increases and they accumulate wealth, even people without college or advance degrees (seniority, etc.).
No way! I taught in Gwangju!! I was in Sangmu by the Starbucks and KrazE Burger!!!! I was never allowed to try teaching the kids to sing songs. Although we did have a Ke$ha dance party on Halloween. They have no idea how gross that was. The general cluelessness of RoK is the best. I saw a reality show one time with a young mom (I think it was some K-Pop singer) playing around with her infant daughter and the gramma. She was wearing a t-shirt that said "Too Drunk to Fuck" (I don't think it was a Dead Kennedy's ref though) on the front really big. Normal network TV.
It looked like Sophia was bitten on the neck/shoulder. It's possible she got bit and escaped, only to die from zombie virus while hiding in a closet somewhere.
I honestly didn't think this show had the balls to even give us that lame arse reveal. I did bust out laughing but at least we don't have to deal with the whole "Sophia is out there, I'm not leaving without Sophia!" bullshenanigans.
At this point is only fun to watch so that I can come it trashed here and I am very much a fan of all things zombie. But to be fair most zombie things are not done well, it's sort of the same curse of fantasy and scifi. Most of the time the people who make genre stuff are poorly financed idiots like Uwe Bol or something. Give a good writer/director some decent money and the results can be awesome. (Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner, 28 Days Later, Game of Thrones, Devil's Backbone for random example)
I realize this is really not a big deal but the kid is playing with a butterfly knife, not a switch blade. A switch blade just flips out the side of the handle like those goofy combs we played with as kids. As a former kid that still has a (un)healthy fascination with knives, swords and cool sticks I just couldn't let that pass.
How 'bout Lithgow and Christopher Walken to cover that "they used to be intense and scary but are now just kind of good natured characatures of themselves' angle.
Oh wait, DeNiro and Pacino already have that covered.
A good antidote to this show is the BBC series Survivors. There's not zombies but a virus kills almost everybody and a group of folks come together trying to survive. Much better acting (duh!) Johnson from Peep Show is on it and its great. It's maddening at times but more in a Breaking Bad way than Walking Dead. Some bad guys that keep surviving and thriving that you want to see dead SOOOOO bad.
Apparently it was a series back in the 1970s but I haven't seen that yet.
No kidding! Also, how in the fuck does a zombie get an entire woodchuck head, skull and all, down it throat? No gag reflex obvs but still!! That would have burst the damn esophagus assuming the zombie did a snake jaw to even get it into its mouth. Come on, Walking Dead.
And even more, "Haha fuck you Carl!" Absofuckinglutely!
I don't know, I think Walt's relief when he found out Brock would live was genuine. Like, he didn't give what he thought was a lethal dose but you can never be sure about these things so there was a real risk Brock might die. Walt just assessed it as an acceptable risk. Also, if Brock died that would make things difficult with Jesse even if he never blamed Walt for it. He'd be so distraught he'd likely shut down.
While I'm here I'll say also that I think Huel'sl hand job on Jesse was a red herring. There's too many moving parts in that plan for it to work. Walt took off when he spun the bottle/gun at the plant, that's when he went to poison Brock. Saul is too risk averse to take on a poisoning plan and Huell is NOT Ricky Jay. Walt's poisoning plan only works if he's a lone wolf.
Backwaxer: you say "Most of the world already understands what the complaint is about wall street. "
I take your point seriously and I promise I'm not just poking at you. What do you think the complaint against Wall Street is? I haven't really seen you articulate why Wall Street is to blame for the shitty economy.
As for writing off Tea Partiers, they do have a coherent philosophically based agenda that has policy recommendations to go with it. That is why they have been so successful at pushing the GOP to change course and start talking about cutting spending. Also, there is plenty of anger at Wall Street from Tea Partiers. Corporatism (government - corporate partnership) necessarily leads to corruption and market disruptions. Fanny and Freddie interfering in mortgage markets skewed it all out of natural proportions by removing the moral hazard and we get the housing bubble, etc.
The basic idea is that the more government is involved in business/industry, the more corporations will seek to influence government with money (Unions do this as well) creating a vicious cycle of gov't with their hands in corp. pockets and vice versa. The solution is to separate gov't and business/industry as much as possible by ending subsidies and corporate wellfare. If you go to Tea Party organizations you'll see that they want to end subsidies. Being pro business and free market is NOT the same thing as being pro- big corporations. Think of it as being a champion of Main Street not Wall Street.
The difference with OWS is that first off, they can't seem to agree on a policy agenda. In fact it seems to be a central tenant in the 'movement' that there can be no hierarchy to decide what the values are much less the goals. I am willing to believe the OWS majority would do away with corp subsidies/wellfare but with all the student loan debt forgiveness and abolish credit rating agencies talk it does seem a bit like part of it is young people wanting a bailout so they can stay pure by avoiding the "machine" of the corporate world.
That's really reasonable and well thought out. I think maybe you give too much credit to the OWS people though. No fault of yours if you are trying to be fair, which I think you are.
But, OWS would have to have some policy goals and it seems to be a core tenant of the "movement" that there is no list of demands nor can there be a comprehensive list. The "movement" claims to have no leaders, which is believable but with everyone refusing to have a set of defined policy goals OWS will never be able to push Democratic pols to frame debate to their liking. Also, OWS seems to reject the idea that any politicians can lead to reform at all because by definition they are part of the problem.
My personal opinion is that what OWS is really angry about is that the WRONG people are being bailed out (Banks, Industry, etc) when it should be them (99%) that gets a bail out. (Student loan forgiveness, abolishing credit ratings, etc)
I find it shocking that nobody has mentioned Zach Condon, I mean, DUH!!!! Maybe I just missed it.
It could cut either way actually. He may be too high minded to stoop to the level. But he might just be goofy enough. Teeny boppers would love him and he can sing. Plus he's talking about how great it is that Singing! is being appreciated by indie-types these days (re: Dirty Projectors, TuNeYaRdS or however that's done).
Awesome! That sums it up pretty well. The whole time I'm watching the video all I could hear was Ameeericuh . . . FUCK YEAH!!!!!
I gotta say that is one hilarious campaign commercial. I'm surprised some of the monsters are so freaked out by it. Unless of course, you subscribe to the view that flyover country is a bunch of morons. I'm not saying your wrong necessarily. I can see how dumb the commercial is but at the same time it's fun to see stuff that is proud of America. We should not be embarrassed to be Americans even though we do some bad shit from time to time.
That's precisely what I think the case is. The gov't getting involved in these areas does discourage individuals from charitable behavior. I guess you see this as a neutral fact of life? It's just kind of a bummer to me.
For the record I've not downvoted any of your comments demonkitty, I'm enjoying the back and forth to be honest. It's a rare event for a right winger (I like to call it Classical Liberalism) such as myself get's to argue in favor of government. We DO believe there are legitimate (if limited) functions for which we need a transparent government.
I'd be one of those right-wing ideologues. But I like to call my philosophy Classical LIberalism. Basically constitutional originalism. Federalist #10 is, for me, just about the most perfect explanation/defense of a federalist system of government there is.
Cheers!
So would you do away with private property? How has that worked out where they've tried it? Famine, mass murder, forced migration. Yeh, good idea.
Seriously, you must be aware of the fact that if your compensation is divorced with the quality/quantity of your work, the incentive is to do shitty work. If you make the same either way why bother? Just go to the DMV to see how that works for customer service.
If a person is not allowed to benefit from their own labor human nature is being stomped on and that always leads to bad results.
Contracts and law enforcement are about more than just protecting private property. Others have pointed out that without rule of law there is not reliable economy. When laws are enforced one is able to have confidence that the other party in whatever deal will abide by that deal. Otherwise you would only trade with people you know. And we simply cannot grow all our own food or make our own clothing. We have to trade for that.
So then you abolish private property? Who decides how goods are distributed? All we have to do is look at history to see how that works out. The only country that has no public property is N.Korea and they're starving. Even the ChiComs have figured out they have to let people trade in their own interests.
I was't advocating we leave it all up to Churches, only that they played a larger role back when the Gov't played a smaller role. It all depends on where you're standing as far as the responsiveness of a charity. I worked with an American Church in Nicaragua that ran an orphanage and built houses, schools, gave medical treatment and taught people how to collect potable water. All of this was done 100% by donations by church members which paid for Nicaraguan staff. Some other guys bought a coffee farm and with the proceeds helped the locals take over the business for themselves.
On the other side I worked for a Czech Church in Plzen that got almost all of it's funding from the government. They charged me rent for my flat, kept every Korun of money I brought in for English lessons and were generally disorganized and lazy, if very nice people.
Sounds like your experience post Katrina was at least partially a result of gov't involvement with the NGO's. But you know your own experience better than I do obviously. But the bottom line is any time you get a whole bunch of people together in a chaotic situation there is going to be a large number of fuckups just due to human nature/frailty.
I do think that pretty much only the government has the ability to guarantee that everyone is taken care of. I just think they should take people's incentives into account and recognize that just making a rule doesn't mean people will follow it.
Fair enough, the "Church" may be declining but it still thrives in many places still. Oddly enough the big growth, at least in my (The United Methodist) Church the big growth is in Africa and Central/South America. Anyhoo, the churches are much stronger in the US than Europe, for example, precisely because of the anit-establishment clause of the First Amendment. Keeping the gov't out of the Church has allowed a multitude of faiths to thrive which is partially why charitable giving is so much higher here than in Europe.
That monopoly on violence is also the reason we can enforce contracts and have an economy based on law instead of who you know (like places such as Somalia) and have police to stop bad guys from killing you.
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