Lewis Lapham, Representin'

Check out L Magazine's typo-pockmarked but otherwise wonderful write-up of our Lewis Lapham reading tonight. Tickets are probably still available; check cultureproject.org.

Lewis is a very funny, very smart man, and his collection of anecdote- and pith-filled letters by great American letterists (letterers?) is second to none.

(Thanks, L: I love your train and your magazine.)

old Gladwell on Hate Speech

and if you are still thinking about imus/racism/hate speech/etc...i found this old blog by his gladwellness...i just think its worth looking a little deeper into the issue of hate speech or racism and his point about how all hate speech is not created equal is important...after all, quick, unconsidered judgment is what racism is all about...

by the way, anyone who likes to read gladwell in the new yorker or in book form should go to his site and check out his blog, you can subscribe to it on google reader to get RSS feed...but mr gladwell's unedited musings and wandering curiosities are quite interesting...

now, back to the bees...

Did Oldboy "Inspire" Me To Feed My Cat This Morning?

Oldboy is not the problem. Hostel II--as poor an example of art or taste as you may ever see--is not the problem. Movies, books, television shows, and Marilyn Manson are not turning America's little ones into gun-toting psychopaths.

From Michael Cieply's "After Virginia Tech, Testing Limits of Movie Violence," today's NYTimes:

Given [Hostel II's] subject matter and the marketing campaign that has already come with it — posters featuring a woman’s severed head and other grisly images are now scattered on the Web — the Lionsgate film is emerging as a test of continued audience enthusiasm for such onscreen brutality, which some commentators have connected with the Blacksburg gunman Seung-Hui Cho’s video and its possible echoes of the Korean revenge film “Old Boy.”

“What might have been traditionally acceptable exploitation in one period can be seen as stupendously bad taste in another,” said Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, which examines the links among entertainment, commerce and society.

We know some commentators will always say some funny stuff about media and violence.

But the New York Times and its staff should better understand and, more to the point, since I'm sure they do understand, better represent the origins of art that deals with bloodshed. As I wrote earlier, there have always been works of art about violence because there has always been violence. Old Boy does not advocate, prescribe, inspire, or even really comment on violence. It is a movie about revenge (and incest, and potstickers, and eating raw octopus--again, a great movie). So is Kill Bill. So are many other movies--good, bad, and stupid.

We hope the Times more carefully addresses artistic violence in the future. For my part, I'm not going to see Hostel II, but not because I believe it will inspire me or someone I know to go on a shooting rampage. I'm not going to see it because it's going to be poorly written, badly acted, and probably more than a trifle boring.

(Kill Bill Vol. 3, on the other hand...)

THE BEES MAN! THE BEES (a rant on colony collapse disorder a.k.a. the rapture of the bees)

okay...seriously people...the bees...i know people are all really hot and bothered about imus and congress's vote(ish)ing against(ish) the war in iraq...but i mean if all the bees are gone who cares!...and if you don't think bees are political, look closer...

maslow's hierarchy of needs people...food is pretty much the bottom of the pyramid...

i am going to introduce the idea of a bee awareness club called "SAVE MAYA: STOP COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER!" after our own maya the bee...and if that puppet vanishes i am gonna freak out...

i am just saying people, big picture!...zoom out...bee rapture...bee rapture...

Two Cities, Same Story

This is not a picture of New Orleans. Or a city anywhere near the Mississippi. In fact this is Baghdad. And the United States government has not only destroyed that city with bombs and insufficient security, we have botched even the most basic construction jobs.

Two stories hit the papers today and they cannot be unrelated, nor should they be taken lightly. The first story in today's Washington Post declares that the United States squandered or never collected nearly one billion dollars in foreign aid. Here is just a taste of the not surprising but outrageous story:

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

The struggle to apply foreign aid in the aftermath of the hurricane, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 billion so far, is another reminder of the federal government's difficulty leading the recovery. Reports of government waste and delays or denials of assistance have surfaced repeatedly since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.

The second story from today's New York Times concerns Iraq reconstruction. If you can call it that. A group of inspectors conducting federal oversight (shocking) found that 7 of 8 projects they assessed, projects our government had declared "successes", were no longer functioning for a variety of reasons. The first paragraph tells the story:

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

Heckuva job, fellas.

Journalism

Bill Moyers has a new series called "Bill Moyers Journal". This week featured an interview with Jon Stewart and my favorite blogger, Joshua Micah Marshall, who broke the US Attorney story wide open. You can watch these segments online now here.

We should just draft him.

Everyone wants Gore. Chris Rock endorsed him on "Saturday Night Live" a couple of weeks ago. I endorse him every chance I get. Now the Republican Mayor of New York City has seen the light:

“I hope Al Gore enters the race; I think it would be good for the country,” the mayor said.

Oh. My. God.

This is Michelle Malkin. Neocon who believed in (and wrote the book defending) the Japanese internment. This is simply....... amazing.

step off Supreme Court!

Planned Parenthood New York just sent an e-blast announcing

Moments ago Governor Spitzer announced his introduction of the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act!

You heard it here first, but we haven't yet found any citation to confirm it...stand by for more news.

ethel says women are canaries

With regard to Virginia Tech, Ethel Spiliotes (5th grade bloggstress) writes on behalf of the women:

Before killing the 30 people in the classrooms, he [Seung-Hui Cho] was ONLY involved in stalking two women and then killing two people in what they were (and are still) calling a DOMESTIC incident (as opposed to MURDER). Why do people think that "people" who only stalk and/or kill women are not dangers to public safety? Aren't women part of the public? First they kill small animals, then women, and then they go for the real people. So watch out!

While we dissect the ins and outs of whether this incident will re-capture the public's attention to gun control, wonder if violent Asian movies provoked the killer, and use it to demand attention to suffering in Iraq, Ethel draws our attention to one of the more relevant pieces of the story - the victims.

Overt Memetic Warfare

Well, the witches don't believe in you, Mr. President.

(Neither do Luminists such as myself, for that matter.)

In any event, we are heartened by the news that America's fastest-growing religion (don't believe Scientology's reports on itself, but look into CUNY's recent study of American faiths, and into this amazing book), Wicca, is now grave-safe, according to our ethics-meting G.I. spokespersons. Bravo, USofA. Bravo.

From the Times,"Use of Wiccan Symbol on Veterans’ Headstones Is Approved," by NEELA BANERJEE:

WASHINGTON, April 23 — To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case...

It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort on behalf of the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to religious discrimination. Many Americans do not consider Wicca a religion, or hold the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil worshipers.

“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference Monday...

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags...

In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United said, it found e-mail and memorandums referring to negative comments President Bush made about Wicca in an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1999, when he was governor of Texas. The interview had to do with a controversy at the time about Wiccan soldiers’ being allowed to worship at Fort Hood, Tex.

“I don’t think witchcraft is a religion,” Mr. Bush said at the time, according to a transcript. “I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made...”

“I was just aghast that someone who would fight for their country and die for their country would not get the symbol he wanted on his gravestone,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which litigates many First Amendment cases. “It’s just overt religious discrimination.”

Points Missed Amid Other, Stupider Points

From A. O. Scott's "Drawing a Line From Movie to Murder" in today's Times:

“Oldboy,” Stephen Hunter wrote in The Washington Post on Friday, “must feature prominently in the discussion” of Mr. Cho’s possible motivations, “even if no one has yet confirmed that Cho saw it.” If he did, Mr. Hunter notes, “he would have passed on the subtitles and listened to it in his native language” and perhaps developed a feeling of kinship with its persecuted, paranoid hero.

WTF?

Scott goes on, in his toothless, meandering way, to down-play the role of movie violence in "inspiring" shootings like the one at Virginia Tech.

But an over-arching note of connection between movies and violence persists.

It is as if Oldboy--a wonderful retelling of The Count Of Monte Cristo by one of the world's great living directors, Chan-Woo Park--could really somehow be blamed for the actions of a single confused young man.

Oldboy, for the record, isn't about shooting schools, or shooting anyone at all. It's about revenge. (Well, and incest.) Its hero uses, among other weapons, a hammer. It's mythic, hyperbolic, beautifully made, and a little ridiculous (with intention). It is not any more violent than the Iliad, or than The Red Badge Of Courage. If the same confused young man who saw Oldboy had been born one hundred years ago, perhaps he would have frequently referenced Poe, or H. G. Wells, or Melville instead of C.-W. Park.

Many people, in fact, abuse metaphors and misappropriate symbols every day. When I say "I was as sad as Gilgamesh when my first cat, Oscar, died," I know that I was not really as sad as that mythic Babylonian king was when his best friend died. I know that the two events are only related symbolically. I am simply very sad. Did Gilgamesh "inspire" me to be sad?

Ask yourself: Did a movie about revenge make the VA Tech killer take revenge? (On whom was he taking revenge? Why?) How could a popular movie, a movie I and many of my friends have seen several times, have "inspired" anything so epic? Had it not existed, would perhaps the Iliad--a tale all about revenge, insane, civilization-breaking revenge--have "inspired" the same actions?

We walk a very slippery, stupid slope when we conflate metaphors with the things they describe. The Deconstructionists pointed this out often, and I think it's worth remembering now. Oldboy no more "inspires" violence than the Iliad, or than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Art, it has been known in all cultures throughout all times, is cathartic. It essentially fights against violence by allowing us to live the arc of anger, release, and forgiveness without actually having to, say, invade Ilium, or to defeat Shredder.

Stupid people will always misuse art for evil purposes (see Germany, the late 1930s, or listen to Fifty Cent), and other stupid people--not necessarily Mr. Scott of the Times, but many people who read his piece today--will misuse the fears of the masses against art.

Because we cannot control all the information that our children absorb every day, we must teach them to discriminate between the true and the untrue, the loving and the dangerous. We must explain why Achilles fought in the Trojan War, why we root for Donatello to dismantle Shredder's Terrordrome, and why the titular Oldboy is not a model of morality, though neither is he a totally unsympathetic murderer.

Oldboy is like all of us: He would rather not get in a fight... until he's pushed "to the limit." What pushed the VA Tech shooter past his limit, what made him feel akin to Oldboy (who, like the Count of Monte Cristo, had been truly and horribly wronged--had been given a clearer grounds for revenge than the young man who murdered his classmates), I do not pretend to know.

But I don't think we should blame--or even hint around blaming--artists Mr. Park.

The Intolerant--Guess What--Do Not Tolerate Theater, Either...

Extremism hits home in the New York theater world.

This makes me want to go see Invincible Summer right away.