intertribal: (the only one who could ever reach me)
intertribal ([personal profile] intertribal) wrote2009-01-30 10:06 am

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.

[identity profile] royinpink.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:04 am (UTC)(link)
Hm, that sounds like something Democrats and Republicans actually agree on. At least, in popular opinion. I don't really remember CI except having current events quizzes, but then, i took it at the zoo. I actually remember Amer. Govt. better, because it was more full of Republicans who thought we should punish people who burned flags and erect monuments to the ten commandments and save the unborn.

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.

[identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
Oh yeah, they definitely do agree on that.

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.

[identity profile] royinpink.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
Hm...I dunno, business is just profitable. When honor starts coming into it, it seems like that's where you mix morality or justice with business, then you separate it into 'good business' and 'bad business', and get the different sorts of compromises you're talking about. Maybe.

[identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:21 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, you know I'm a pinko, I don't think business is honorable. But I think a lot of people do see business as honorable. I always thought that was very Protestant. Although, there's always the possibility of bad business, I mean, there's bad everything.