Month: February 2003

If I ruled the world.

Former Authority scribe Mark Millar offers his vision for revamping Detective Comics. (Via Neilalien.) What with Marvel finally feeling the movie mojo (Daredevil notwithstanding), it’s kinda sad to see DC languish these days. I remember the days when DC/Vertigo were pretty much firing on every cylinder while the X-Men were dinking around the Australian outback and Marvel was trying to garner new readers by having the Secret Wars Beyonder traipsing around dressed like Phillip Michael Thomas. How the mighty have fallen.

When (Old New and New Old) Worlds Collide.

I am very late to the table with this link, but oh well. A friend of mine in the department passed along this recent controversial essay, Robert Kagan’s “Power and Weakness”, on the philosophical underpinnings of foreign policy differences between Europe and the US today. I don’t agree with everything he has to say (the Morrison and Worley responses here point out some key flaws, for example – is all of transatlantic difference really reducible to a question of disparate power?), but it is food for thought nonetheless.

xXx and Elizabeth.

I can already see the sparks fly. Garth of Dark Horizons reports on the movie pairing you’ve all been waiting for: Vin Diesel and Dame Judi Dench. I know the Pitch Black sequels are set in space, but hopefully they can squeeze in a scene of the two of them simultaneously screaming from out the front windsheld of a car. In other Dark Horizons news, along the lines of K-19, director Kathryn Bigelow is now working on a historical film about the Scottsboro case, which could be quite interesting.

The D’oh of Homer.


Since we’re discussing philosophy, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention those paragons of postmodernism, The Simpsons. On the eve of Springfield’s 300th episode, EW picks the top twenty-five episodes of all time (Via Listen Missy and this archetypal contrarian-for-the-sake-of-it Slate story.) In the spirit of Comic Book Guy, the fanboy sensei, I have actually amassed a sizable World of Springfield collection. I would put up a picture for you, but that would invite social humiliation [as with Foopster‘s now-lost reaction to this old desk pic posted years ago (6/19/00)], and my life already has too many Ralph Wiggum moments as it is, thank you very much. So I’ll leave it at this: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie – here’s to another 300.

Truth and Consequences.

Misread misanthrope or principled truthteller? Louis Menand and Leon Wieseltier battle over the legacy of George Orwell. Only recently in my readings (in Menand’s Metaphysical Club and James Livingston’s Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy) have I encountered this notion that the pragmatism of the Progressives (such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, and John Dewey) eventually leads to the same moral relativist conclusions as post-structuralism (in fact, Livingston argues that much of the postmodern devotion to figures like Foucault and Derrida is mainly a reflection of the European indifference to, if not ignorance of, American scholarship – James and Dewey came to the same philosophic conclusions decades earlier.) And, indeed, Herbert Croly’s 1909 The Promise of American Life, considered the bible of the Progressive moment, attacks abolitionism for much the same reasons as Louis Menand – that it was dangerous and destructive in its reliance upon absolute moral certainty. (Sadly, to say the progressives had a moral blind spot when it came to America’s racial dilemma is an understatement.) But, then again, the “prophetic pragmatism” of Cornel West is cleary infused with a moral sense that is based on certain underlying truths. (“Like Foucault, prophetic pragmatists criticize and resist forms of subjection, as well as types of economic exploitation, state repression, and bureaucratic domination. But these critiques and resistances, unlike his, are unashamedly guided by moral ideals of creative democracy and individuality.”) So, I’d say that, while I fall somewhere between Menand and Wieseltier on the subject of Orwell, and while I usually find Wieseltier to be a pompous ass (his own attack on Cornel West comes to mind), in the end I side with those who say keep the aspidistra flying. To paraphrase Orwell, all truths may in fact be equal, but some truths are more equal than others. It may involve some intellectual doublethink, but one can recognize that a truth may have some basis in subjectivity and still hold it – and fight for it – with conviction.

Agents Orange.


Speaking of Orwell (is it Eurasia or Eastasia today, Saddam or Osama?), the Dubya administration capitalizes on terror panic to drum up war fever (and good media coverage.) It’s amazing to me how worried many people here in town seemed about the recent orange alert (status update via Looka.) One friend told me that his out-of-town guests cancelled their flight into the city because of a possible attack, and a handful of other folks I know wouldn’t use the subway. I dunno…I just can’t get too stressed about something that’s so completely out of my hands. Besides, it’s probably true that living in New York City increases the chances that I’ll die as a result of terrorism, but it also vastly decreases the chances that I’ll die in a car wreck, which is still the leading cause of death in America for people under 33. So, it’s basically a wash. Not that I’m ambivalent about perishing in a gas attack or something worse, mind you, but I just don’t see the utility in freaking out every time the US intelligence community decides to cover its ass by issuing warnings based on non-specific “specific information.”

Is this a test, sir?

Ok, that’s enough love…now it’s time for hate. Celebrities ponder, Who could you take in a fight? (Seen all over the place, but I caught it first at Webgoddess, Lots of Co., and All About George, none of whom I feel like tussling with.) Whether it be due to Gaelic disposition, number of siblings, or a decade on the school bus, I’ll generally take all comers, be they right-wingers, warbloggers, or whomever made the terrible decision that [Daredevil SPOILERS] a wounded Ben Affleck could beat up Michael Clarke Duncan in three minutes of screen time. (He’s the Kingpin, for Pete’s sake. Fisk should’ve thrown him out the window immediately. Yet another problem in a disappointing film.) At any rate, if you want to throw down, leave a message here and we can meet behind the Piggly-Wiggly after school.

Worth a Thousand Answers.


Big news and bold statements are issuing forth from Greenbelt, MD. “We’ve now laid the cornerstone of a unified cosmic theory…We have not answered all the questions. But we’ve certainly turned a corner.” Thanks to NASA and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), scientists now have visual evidence of the universe’s origins with which to test out all the prevailing cosmological theories. Great news! Not only is any new empirical data in this field a boon to science, but, if ridiculous amounts of new information are gleaned from just this one little probe…well, it won’t help NASA in the manned space department, but the agency could still use a few unmitigated victories these days. On another note, looking at this map brings back some old memories. For my high school science thesis (required at SCGSSM), I used similar COBE DMR data to figure out that early galaxies displayed a fractal distribution. (Hey, it was the early ’90’s – fractals were the rage.) I wonder if this new data bears out that old rinky-dink thesis.

Academy Fight Song.

As most everyone knows by now, the Oscars were announced yesterday, with Miramax the big winner. Like Missy, I’m tempted to just ignore the Academy, since very rarely have the movies I would’ve chosen been recognized. Titanic is the only Oscar winner in years that I think legitimately deserved best picture, and I know I’m in the minority on that count (particularly as it’s become fashionable nowadays for everyone to say they hated it. Well, somebody else out there helped it make a billion dollars.) It’s hard to respect an awards ceremony that continually honors schmaltzy dreck like The English Patient, American Beauty, Gladiator, and A Beautiful Mind over films like Fight Club, Fargo, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings, Traffic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, and In the Bedroom. But, I suspect I’ll eventually make my picks here and then be disappointed as usual. All I know is, Return of the King better get a lot of love next year.