Category: words mean things (Page 78 of 223)

What, that custom version of Halo didn’t help?

“The enemy we’re fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against.”

-Lt. Gen. William Wallace, the Army’s senior ground commander

All of these “Oh my god! They’re fighting back!” reactions make me think of the Revolutionary War, when the British were running around saying stuff like “They’re fighting in the trees! They’re not in formation! And they don’t even have uniforms on! What sort of barbarians are they?”

(I just remembered: in fact the U.S. military does have a custom version of Halo. It’s called “America’s Army,” and it cost more than $6 million to develop. Your tax dollars at work.)

Because who am I to refuse to participate in a meme?

The Snow Queen and the Knight Before Christmas sounds like the start of a Bulwer-Lytton sentence. But it’s not.

The Core

One of the best things about “The Core” is how it packs in just about every cliche of the action/disaster movie genre (disgraced hero who comes through, irritating know-it-all who redeems himself in the end, anti-social computer nerd, herd of military/official types who won’t let the heroes do their jobs) and makes them work. The movie has a sense of humor about itself, but it’s just serious enough to make the action involving.

It has problems. It’s too long, and the effects are somewhat cheesy – although with a movie like this, a little cheese actually helps with the ambiance. The “science” is laughable at times. But for a non-summer summer action movie, it’s a great distraction. Recommended.

A warmonger explains war to a peacenik. Another one of those “I wish I’d thought of that” pieces. Stolen, again, from lies.com.

(I swear I’m going to stop stealing from John Callender one of these days. But he just finds such great stuff. If you’re a regular reader of this site, trust me, you want to put lies.com on your everyday reading list.)

The Pianist

Finally saw Roman Polanski’s Holocaust drama, mainly just to see what all the fuss was about. It’s beautifully shot, and Adrien Brody is great. It does give you at least a little bit of a sense what it was like for hundreds of thousands of Jews crammed into the Warsaw ghetto – the day-to-day horror of it. But the bulk of the movie is Brody’s character alone, locked in safe houses or wandering through burned- and bombed-out ghetto buildings, looking for food and shelter. Technically it’s a beautiful film, but I guess I was expecting to be more emotionally affected by it. It’s hard to expect one actor to communicate all the emotions a movie like this involves, with almost no one to interact with and even fewer words to say.

What I was affected by, especially in the first part of the movie, was the idea that these horrible events took place just 60 years ago. My grandmother was about my age when this was happening. This is not ancient history. Movies and history books can only remind us of the horrors we visit upon our fellow men; they can’t stop us from repeating them.

Apparently the brain trust over at Fox News has hit a new low, broadcasting taunts to war protestors on its animated news ticker on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Even worse, the messages weren’t particularly funny or clever, based on the ones quoted in the above article. “How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them.” Don’t they have any joke writers over at Fox? (Bill O’Reilly doesn’t count.)

“We report, you decide,” indeed.

My friend Paul likes to say that since the fundamentalists have hijacked the word “Christian,” it’s actually more accepted if he refers to himself as “Catholic” rather than “Christian.” He thinks of himself as a Christian, but dares not say it, for fear people will think he’s going to preach hellfire or block admission to an abortion clinic or something.

I feel the same way about the words “patriot” and “freedom.” The first one gets attached to missiles and severe infringements on civil rights. And how much more trivial can you make a word that you attach to a side dish in order to piss off the French?

I love this country with a passion. But it’s getting harder and harder to express that. I want my words back.

Not content with riling the Russian bear, Rumsfeld now is talking tough to the next countries on his hit list, Syria and Iran. Scared yet?

Great article by Geov Parrish on Working for Change about the future of the anti-war movement. (via lies.com) Parrish makes an important point that “preaching to the choir” may make us feel better, but it’s not going to change anything that matters.

Best made-up profession: Nipple wrangler.

-Created out of a discussion with John and Nik over lunch at La Hacienda, mulling over who made J.Lo’s nipples so pointy and prominent through her Oscar-night gown.

Having done camera work in the past for large events where you were focusing on speakers at the podium, I could almost hear the producer yelling into his headphones, “Pull up! Pull up!”