Thursday, January 21, 2010



Hang in there, kitty!

Conservative rage? Avatar is a perfect snowball of Conservative-baiting, from the jabs at the Iraq war and the War on Terror to its heavy-handed environmentalist messages. But that hasn't hurt the film at all, notes the L.A. Times' Hero Complex blog. The Weekly Standard called it "anti-American" and "anti-human." But actually, I'm left wondering if all of the controversy over the film's politics didn't spur more people to go see it so they could find out what the fuss was about.
Certainly conservatives are riled, which they demonstrated by winning the Massachusetts Senate Race and creating panic in the Democrats' ranks.

Here's another theory: Luminous 3-D Jungle, a Biologist's Dream, from the Times's science section.

Everybody Chill the Fuck Out. I’ve Got This. by Jonathan Cohn

Hopefully Obama will give a good State of the Union speech.




Hitchens on Haiti

A year ago I linked to this video where a woman is wearing a nametag with "Free Haiti" on it.



The other aspect of Avatar most conservatives probably won't like is that the villain is another one of James Cameron's immoral corporations. In the Avatar universe, humanity and its corporations have destroyed Earth's environment and left their home world a dying planet. In the real world, an activist US Supreme Court just set us on the same path by overturning a hundred years of precedent and ruling that campaign contributions by corporations are free speech.

Remember, be like Fonzie and stay cool.