intertribal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
intertribal) wrote2009-01-30 10:06 am
intertribal) wrote2009-01-30 10:06 am
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that's a tomato... no wait, that's a fetus.
Title from the ever brilliant KSK. Talk about my only light in dark times.
From the NYTimes (Oscar-Nominated Films Deliver Triumphant Tales for Dark Days): "And the best-film nominees this year — give or take “The Reader,” which has the Holocaust as a central concern — reflect an appetite on the part of the Academy, and by proxy, the public, for a nice, big chunk of uplift... Consumers who are motivated by the laurels heaped on these films to plunk down increasingly scarce disposable income will leave the movie house with the message that circumstance is just that, and no match for the indomitability of human will. The films are built on individual successes — kids from the slums who better themselves, a television celebrity who finds his inner newsman, a newborn who overcomes old age and the midlife closeted man who steps into the light — that accrue to the greater good. That message, that darkness can be overcome by individuals working for the common good, is not so distant from the current collective impulse."
Why did How Green Is My Valley beat out the "vastly superior" Citizen Kane for Best Picture in 1941? Why, could it be because How Green Is My Valley had a more uplifting message about family togetherness?
I assign the entire Oscar committee to watch Hot Fuzz, and meanwhile I guess I'm rooting for The Reader, even though I've never seen it. Ha ha ha.
From the NYTimes (Oscar-Nominated Films Deliver Triumphant Tales for Dark Days): "And the best-film nominees this year — give or take “The Reader,” which has the Holocaust as a central concern — reflect an appetite on the part of the Academy, and by proxy, the public, for a nice, big chunk of uplift... Consumers who are motivated by the laurels heaped on these films to plunk down increasingly scarce disposable income will leave the movie house with the message that circumstance is just that, and no match for the indomitability of human will. The films are built on individual successes — kids from the slums who better themselves, a television celebrity who finds his inner newsman, a newborn who overcomes old age and the midlife closeted man who steps into the light — that accrue to the greater good. That message, that darkness can be overcome by individuals working for the common good, is not so distant from the current collective impulse."
Why did How Green Is My Valley beat out the "vastly superior" Citizen Kane for Best Picture in 1941? Why, could it be because How Green Is My Valley had a more uplifting message about family togetherness?
I assign the entire Oscar committee to watch Hot Fuzz, and meanwhile I guess I'm rooting for The Reader, even though I've never seen it. Ha ha ha.
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That and it reminded me of what DFW said about entertainment in modern America. "And it is this, I think, that makes Kafka's wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance."
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Heh, yeah, I like the quote. That dude was great.
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Yeah, American foreign policy used to be all about business. One of America's founding principles was "anti-politics".
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hm, the things they don't teach you in Citizenship Issues.
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Well, they do sort of teach you in CI to be anti-politics, in a very, very subtle way, in my opinion. And you can tell just reading letters to the editor too... the most common insult in domestic politics fights is always that the hated candidate is too mired in Washington politics... etc. etc.
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Maybe it has something to do with "Another important distinction was the Puritan approach to church-state relations. They opposed the Anglican idea of the supremacy of the monarch in the church (Erastianism), and, following Calvin, they argued that the only head of the Church in heaven or earth is Christ (not the Pope or the monarch). However, they believed that secular governors are accountable to God (not through the church, but alongside it) to protect and reward virtue, including "true religion", and to punish wrongdoers — a policy that is best described as non-interference rather than separation of church and state," but then again, "Alexis de Tocqueville suggested in Democracy in America that the Pilgrims' Puritanism was the very thing that provided a firm foundation for American democracy, and in his view, these Puritans were hard-working, egalitarian, and studious."
*shrug*
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I don't know.
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(not directed at you, but the professor)
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But yeah, I don't think Osama is the public enemy of every individual American. You could probably make a wider claim that he is a public enemy to everyone if you base your argument on "justice", though.
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but you can't base public enemies on justice. they don't threaten your way of life... ahaha.
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ooh, but justice is part of our way of life...
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I guess, but...yeah, that's why these distinctions don't quite make sense to me.
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Well, I guess I'm ok with the Aristotlian tragedy, or whatever.
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i think we don't read Plato 'cause we're also supposed to have read The Republic in Hum 110 (even though I don't remember much of it).
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The Republic... ew. That's all I have to say. But I've had a strong dislike of Plato since AP Lang. You know who did like Plato? Anika.
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We're supposed to resolve our differences peacefully and with logic and reason, as rational beings, not through smear campaigns, etc. That's not the definition of politics I'm using though. I guess politics in the sense of... uh... compromising and wheeling-and-dealing in governmental decision-making.
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I guess politics in the sense of... uh... compromising and wheeling-and-dealing in governmental decision-making.
But that's what he was saying was business and not politics. According to Schmitt. He took the phrase "bargaining and leniency" from Scalia.
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Well, I think business is seen as honorable. Whenever there's compensation, it's fair. Like, that's how we justified conquering all of Mexico and shit, was that we "paid them". Whereas politics is skeezy and involves moral compromises, the kind that might doom you to eternal hellfire (deal with the devil, as opposed to deal with the guy down the street for spare parts)... not monetary compensation.
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