Bloggasm

Good news for genre readers, there’s a new Best Of anthology called Best American Fantasy that will be released from Prime Books. The editors will be Matt Cheney, Ann VanderMeer, and Jeff VanderMeer.

From the press release:

Prime Books announces the establishment of a prestigious new anthology series, Best American Fantasy (trademark pending), guest edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, with Matthew Cheney serving as the series editor. The inaugural volume will be published in June 2007, showcasing the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year. The editors will apply as wide a definition of the term “fantasy” as is necessary for the integrity and quality of Best American Fantasy—including magic realism, surrealism, postmodern experiments, and all other applicable permutations.

What excites me most about this antho is its line-up of editors. I very often agree with the tastes of Matt Cheney (Mumpsimus) and Jeff VanderMeer, and chances are I’m going to enjoy this book a lot more than the average best-of anthology.

It was one of those movies that I looked forward to since the first day they released the trailer online. Friends and I had joked about the anti-smoking propaganda that assaults us on our TV screens (we were getting sick and tired of those over-dramatic, self-righteous masturbatory TRUTH commercials) and finally, here was a satirical comedy that spun the tables in another direction: Smoking isn’t so bad after all. We were sold before we even read the first reviews.

And indeed, one can’t help but gather even more hope with the opening credits, sporting retro-colored cigarette labels and a catchy tune (“Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette,” by Tex Williams), a song that is both humorous and warm in its old-fashioned antique flavor. But unfortunately, once one dives into the actual meat of the movie itself, hope is bled dry as it moves along a conveyer belt of cinematic cliches and half-developed caricatures.

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a tobacco spin-doctor who works for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, a biased firm funded by various tobacco companies to try and downplay the health-risk factors of smoking. His role is idealistic in that rather than realistically portraying the various complications and major road-blocks that a lobbyist has to go through, he lives in a Lobbyist Utopia where he can magically offer any poorly-argued piece of spin for cigarettes and the opposition is reduced to a stuttering, speechless kid who couldn’t tell a rebuttal from his asshole. In fact, there are several such scenes in which this happens (you’d think that the anti-smoking brigade would get their act together and actually prepare themselves when they square off with Naylor). The worst of which is the scene where Naylor is a guest on Dennis Miller’s show (note to film producers: Dennis Miller isn’t funny), and Naylor has his first encounter with Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre (William H. Macy) who just got done tearing his aide a new one for not preparing himself for Naylor’s spin, and yet he falls into the same stammering, speechless trap.

Now, you might be wondering: What is a lobbyist? What does he do? How does one actually spin an argument? Never fear, dear reader, for this movie has provided these answers for you, in the form a convenient, bright-eyed little boy. Joey Naylor (Cameron Bright) is Nick Naylor’s son, and there’s never a doubt in your mind that he was cast for one reason: So Naylor’s character has a way of providing info-dumps to the audience. Why else would little Joey deliver such stilted, badly rehearsed questions like “What do you do for a living, Dad?” and “But isn’t that lying?” or my favorite: “What if you’re wrong about cigarettes?” When Nick Naylor talks to his son, he’s really talking to us. Joey Naylor is merely a means for delivery, a young actor who speaks in monotones and delivers what is supposed to be an uplifting speech to his father after Nick has been fired, but what instead comes off as corny and sounding like the lines have been nuked in a microwave for too long before being served to us.

Though there are a few laugh out loud moments, we are constantly being hit with caricature characters and factors that are fueled by conveniency. Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) (note to casting crew: Katie Holmes does not fit the role of a seductress) is a journalist who is doing an article on Nick Naylor and yet he never becomes suspicious when she wants to sleep with him and asks him loaded questions while they’re having sex? Cue a scene with the cliche cinematic montage of a population reading a negative newspaper article while it’s being read aloud to us, a scenario that made me gag in Never Been Kissed and didn’t do much better here. Flash forward to Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre conveniently turning on the television just as Nick Naylor announces his triumphant come-back, and flash forward even more to little Joey Naylor and his mother conveniently walking in just as Naylor is called before the Senate Sub-committee, in which he delivers his usual lame spin and is once again met with luke-warm, stammering rebuttal.

But the real reason this movie fails (other than its bad characterization) is the fact that it doesn’t understand its own themes. What does Nick Naylor (and by extension, we) learn from all this? It’s never quite clear. After he has been fired and abandoned by the tobacco industry, he still inexplicably fights for them. And then later when he’s offered his job back, he declines, alluding to some kind of moral guilt that is somehow connected to his son. But right before the ending credits, we learn that he’s still lobbying for companies and that he’s still producing spin.

What could have been the ultimate attack on the essence of truth, a strict analyzation of bullshit, simply degrades itself into a nifty idea: Let’s make a movie that portrays the other side in a (sort-of) positive light. Unfortunately, an idea by itself isn’t enough to carry a movie, and so in the end, Thank You for Smoking wasn’t even worth the matinee price I paid to get in.

–Simon Owens

When I was conducting my interviews with liberal bloggers, one of the things I heard repeated over and over again is that right-wing blogs don’t create spin, they simply repeat the spin given to them.

Well, the Right Wing blogs are at it again. Many are pointing to a Brit Hume Special Report in which he highlighted a quote from General Zinni in a Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert:

“What bothered me … [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.”

And then Hume put this next to another quote from Zinni, made in 2000 in front of Congress:

Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region,” adding, “Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions … Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months.

To the average person watching Brit Hume, he or she would assume that when Zinni says “There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD,” that he means he never saw proof that Saddam had WMDs back when he was a general (pre-2000).

Let’s ignore for a second his use of “solid proof” in the first quote and his use of the word “probably” in the second quote, and look at the actual transcript of the Tim Russert interview.

Said by Russert right before the quote highlighted by Brit Hume:

Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. ‘I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I’d say to analysts, “Where’s the threat?”’ Their response, he recalls, was, ‘Silence.’

Gee whiz. Do you think since Tim Russert had JUST GOT DONE (must fight the urge to put the words “FUCKING” in between “JUST” and “DONE”) making reference to Zinni’s CIA consulting work leading up to the war, that Zinni in his RESPONSE TO RUSSERT, was referring to that consulting when he said “I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew” instead of what his thoughts were all the way back in 2000?

Of course not! That would be, you know, practical or something!

But let’s go even further into how much the spin machines love to take things out of context. Said right after the quote Brit Hume mentioned:

Now, I’d be the first to say we had to assume he had WMD left over that wasn’t accounted for: artillery rounds, chemical rounds, a SCUD missile or two. But these things, over time, degrade.

As I put it in the comments thread of a right-wing blogger: Zinni, in the most recent quote, is referring to the lead-up to the Iraq War, post 9/11. Pre 9/11, Saddam Hussein probably was the most “significant near-term threat” at the time. That was before Osama Bin Laden. You know, that guy that the average American barely knew existed before 9/11? Pundits like to hee and haw and about pre and post 9/11 mindsets, but when it comes to what a general said in 2000 being confused with his views concerning the political climate of 2003, apparently 9/11 never happened!

This is besides the fact that you’ve ignored his use of the word “probably” in his 2000 quote and “solid proof” in his 2006 quote, but who’s taking notes? And for that matter, who cares if the administration’s cross-hairs would logically be more deeply focused on Iraq in 2003 than in 2000, and therefore be expected to be more accurate than a general assessment before a war is even on the table? Hell, before there was even an intense investigation into whether or not Iraq had WMD’s, which would have provided more accuracy to Zinni’s opinion?

Ok, I now await your usual rebuttal that I see commonly in this thread. Here, I’ll even start it for you: “Simon, u r a iDiot111. Liberals r stoopid.”

Ok, here’s the deal: The movie Brick has been released, but only in a few theaters. Like most movies of its kind, it won’t get a wider theater release unless it does well. So if you have a local theater that is playing it, please go see it so that I might one day see it in the theater.

Need some more motivation? Watch the awesome trailer or read this film review.

Ok, it took me awhile to figure out what was going on with this but I finally figured it out. Somebody who has a Total Fark account was surfing the web and sitting in shorts on a chair with wide spaces in it. I guess his balls slipped in between the slats and got stuck. In order to get advice from other farkers, he posted a headline to Total Fark, not realizing that it was going to get green-lit to the main site: I’m stuck to my chair. I’m so very scared. Help.

alright, without going into too much detail, here’s the situation:

I am TFing in my boxers, and sitting on a chair that has slightly spaced out planks. Suffice to say that part of me is now lodged, and any attempt to move just pinches the crap out of me.

Can’t move, need advice, soonish.

Oh god it hurts.

After getting several requests, I guess he managed to take a picture of his balls stuck in the chair: taken with his camera phone

Yay, a bunch of Christians who don’t mind embracing their sexuality. I found a BBC article that talks about a sex toy website run by Christians: Christian pair’s sex shop website

A Christian couple have set up a website offering sex toys and advice specifically aimed at married couples.

Stella and Stan Hagarty, from Bridgend, south Wales, say “sex is a great gift from God” and should be celebrated.

They set up the site after visiting a sex shop to spice up a wedding anniversary, but say they were shocked at the prices and sex aids on offer.

“Sex has that forbidden, dirty image but sex in marriage is God’s idea and it’s great,” said Mrs Hagarty, 32.

They don’t provide a link to the website, but someone else found it: Wholly Love.

via sex drive daily

Just in case you care, here’s a link to my personal journal. It’s not very exciting, just an ongoing account of my life, but thought I’d provide a link just in case: Simon Owens’ livejournal