Mission Eradicated: A Musing on the Epidemic of Mission Statements

Shopping at a mini-mart near my office the other day, I could not help but notice the menagerie of freshly painted signs announcing that this particular Gas n' Sip was: "Redefining the Culture of Customer Care". I feel we've achieved some kind of cultural nadir when even the local mini-mart feels it's necessary to not only have but proudly trumpet that they have a mission, and they're not afraid to state it!

When it comes to mini-marts, about the only mission I feel is really necessary is "Every Tuesday is Two For One Twinkies Day" or, perhaps, "Our staff: not on any Top Ten Most Wanted fugitives list in the contiguous United States." "Tenth cup of coffee always free," is also acceptable, but "Redefining the Culture of Customer Care" is frankly unsettling. I do not go to mini-marts for customer care or culture. Gas. Soda. Gum. In an emergency, cat food. This is all I need, or want, from my local gas station. Anything more feels like undue burden.

What is this Mission Statement Mania that has gripped our nation? Upon walking into a business covered with posters declaring "Revitalizing Customer Satisfaction Through Unparalleled Dedication to the Ten Commandments of Service Commitment," does anyone think "Oh boy, this is going to be the best bank deposit experience ever!"? Has it ever been?

I wanted to write a piece about funny mission statements, but what I quickly realized is that while almost all mission statements are laughable in some way, they're rarely funny. A perfect example is the Mission Statement Generator found on Dilbert.com. The idea of the Generator is hysterical. They've programmed in every business buzz word you can imagine like "proactively", "seven-habits conforming", "empowerment", and "paradigm shift", and then the little generator spits out complete mission statements, ready for cutting and pasting into your annual report.

The problem is that the mission statements it generates are so spot on, they're not so much funny as depressing. "It is our business to quickly maintain competitive sources while continuing to globally simplify virtual services." "We strive to globally provide access to multimedia based intellectual capital and efficiently simplify effective sources to stay competitive in tomorrow's world." "Our mission is to collaboratively leverage existing high standards in content while promoting personal employee growth." Try to read them, and your mind just kind of slips off of them. They are so replete with meaningful meaningless, the mind cannot get purchase and instead decides to take early vacation.

Since I'm a person who has been employed in the Aughts, I've obviously been obliged to participate in Mission Statement creation for the organization which employs me. Our system has recently begun a new process which not only involves the Library developing a mission and vision statement, but each department developing one as well. The process my department went through coming up with its mission statement was, frankly, painful, and it's still a sore topic amongst some of my colleagues.

One (although by no means the only) problem had to do with the word "enthusiasm". A suggestion was put forward that our department's mission was to do some particular things involving customer service "with enthusiasm", or "enthusiastically". I'd missed the first planning meaning, or else I never would have opened my mouth, but I made the mistake of suggesting that we NOT use the word enthusiasm. My philosophy is that my library (which I like, by the way — I've worked for significantly worse) can ask me to do many things, can require me to do many things but they really can't mandate my feelings about the process. I can make customers my focus. I can produce things in a timely manner. I can constantly strive to deliver goods of the highest quality, but my feelings about those actions are my own, dammit, and if one day I don't feel like being enthusiastic about it, must that be a crime against our mission?

Well, my friends, a shitstorm was unleashed upon my lack of enthusiasm for enthusiasm. I was raining on a parade of blind veterans. I was pissing in orphan's cornflakes. I obviously hated babies and puppies and soldiers and America. I ruined everyone's day, hurt everyone's feelings and totally spoiled everything. In the end, enthusiasm stayed in and I shut my big heartless cruel mouth and now on days when I'm feeling less than fresh I can take heart in the fact that not only am I ruining my own day, I'm failing my department's mission.

Actually, that's BS. I hardly ever think about the mission when I'm doing my job. (D'OH!) If I do consider it, it's usually with an image of RobertDiNiro in The Untouchables in my head. "Enthusiasms ... enTHUsiasms ... enthusiasms." That's really the problem with Mission Statements. How often can the average person really "live" their company's mission statement in their daily work? Must a person stop in the midst of processing the payroll and think "Am I collaboratively leveraging existing high standards?", like an isometric exercise your doctor insists you do 50 times a day while you're standing at the copier?

Particularly annoying to me are the mission statements which are totally generic, like the one for that poor mini-mart. Nothing identifies "Redefining the Culture of Customer Care" as belonging a mini mart or supermarket. It could just as easily be an ointment factory or a nuclear power plant, although something about it strongly suggests to me a nursing home. Words mean something. If you're going to pick a group of them and label them a mission statement, then either you really like that group of words and want your staff to make them important too, or it's just a bunch of words which might as well have been spit out by Dilbert's machine. If a company really expects their employees to "live" their mission then they need to make a mission statement their employees can actually DO. How is the acne-scarred teenage boy selling me my gum supposed to Redefine the Culture of Customer Care during that process? Do I want him to? Personally, I just want the gum.

Summer Flicks Worth Seeing

I find myself oddly uninspired by the current crop of summer flicks dukeing it out in a theater near you. It’s not that this batch is somehow worse than those of previous years. I’m just overcome with been there/done that-itis. I don’t really care what happens to Peter Parker and Mary-Jane. I can catch Pirates 3 on DVD. I’m indifferent to the Silver Surfer and his Rise. Nothing has convinced me the world needed another Shrek. I find myself standing on the diving board over the pool of Summer Blockbuster extravaganza and all I’m inspired to do is get down and go read a book in the shade.

Two films have tempted me into the theater recently, neither of them Hollywood products, and both have given me great joy. Black Book is an intense, charming, almost retro film brought to us by the notorious Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven has left Hollywood, Starship Troopers and Sharon Stone far behind to present a good old fashioned World War II movie in his native language, Dutch.

Rachel is a Jew who bleaches her hair and joins the Dutch resistance movement. She is asked to seduce an SS officer, so as better to spy upon him, which she does with great enthusiasm. Imagine Hitchcock’s film Notorious if Ingrid Bergman’s character had not been made to feel like a whore in order to guilt her into spying and you have an approximation of Rachel. The SS officer in question, Ludwig Muntz, is a lonely widower who is perhaps not taken in by Rachel’s charade as much as he is entertained by her company. Muntz is also facing the future with a clear eyed reckoning: the war is ending, his side is losing, and the piper will soon arrive with the bill.

In truth, every character in Black Book is wrestling with the same struggle. When you’ve been living your life like there’s no tomorrow, what do you do when presented with a future? One of the more interesting characters in Black Book is Ronnie, a Dutch woman working as a secretary for the Nazis who befriends Rachel. It seems easy to label Ronnie in the beginning as a brainless floozy who has cheerfully done whatever or whomever she needed to in order to save her own skin. But as the movie progresses you come to realize that everyone in the film has done exactly the same thing, though many not as honestly as Ronnie. Whether they end up working for the Nazis or the Resistance or just muddling through with their head down is as much a factor of chance as it is some inherent quality of their character.

While Verhoeven has given us a very entertaining melodrama he has also, in a strange way, given us a much more realistic portrayal of World War II than we are used to. So often the stories of WWII have been given to us in black and white, featuring archetypes rather than people who are flawed and human, regardless of what side they are on. Ultimately we see a story which is not about a rag tag band of resistance fighters besting the Nazis, but a story about all kinds of people trying to avoid being crushed by the wheels of history. Plus, it's Verhoeven, and it's summer, so we get plenty of action and full frontal birthday suit-age which make Sharon Stone's infamous "is she or isn't she flashing us?" shot in Basic Instinct look prudish. Mazel Tov!

And now for something completely different, I must extol for you the virtues of one of the best action/adventure cop buddy films I have seen since possibly the early days of Lethal Weapon. Hot Fuzz gets four stars, two thumbs and two toes up, and a Totally Awesome! for good measure. Things looked promising even from the trailer which announced: "From the guys who watched every action movie ever made", and stars the team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, fellas we came to love in Shaun of the Dead, a delightful homage to zombie flicks and the people who love them.

Hot Fuzz is the tale of a supercop, Sergeant Nicholas Angel, whose perfectionist and overachieving ways manage to get him transferred to a small town outside of London. ("You're making the rest of us look bad," announces the supercilious Chief Inspector, played delightfully straight by Bill Nighy). The town has no crime to speak of, an affable, lazy police department and a cast of villagers straight out of Miss Marple. Angel reluctantly befriends an eager puppy of a policeman, PC Butterman, who Shaun fans will recognize as Shaun's impossible doof of a friend Ed. Sergeant Angel is, of course, played by Simon Pegg, aka Shaun, who also wrote both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Pegg's Angel is so perfect as the straight laced, by-the-book cop that I realized, with some embarrassment, that Pegg is a really fine actor. I so much enjoyed his character of Shaun, the slackish try-to-do-well that I'd assumed he was playing himself.

As in all great cop movies, there is of course something nefarious and sinister going on, and Sergeant Angel must fight to get his laissez fair colleagues to listen to him. ("Have you ever wondered why the crime rate is so low but the accident rate is so high?") And as in all of the best buddy cop movies, Angel and Butterman forge a friendship which improves both of them. Angel teaches Butterman the basics of policework, and Butterman teaches Angel the profound meaning to be found in Point Break and Bad Boys II. One of the great conceits of the film is that many of the scenes between Butterman and Angel are shot in soft focus close up, with poignant music playing in the background. There are no superfluous female love interests in Hot Fuzz, just the only meaningful relationship that matters in a buddy cop movie, that of the buddies.

After watching Hot Fuzz my brother and I had a long chat dissecting the difference between Hot Fuzz and other cop satire films like Police Academy, Naked Gun or Reno 911!:Miami. It's hard not sound airy faerie philosophical but I think the difference comes down to the soul of intent in the creators. Naked Gun is Satire with a capital 'S'. They're satirizing cop shows, cops, actors, Hollywood, cars, the audience, wind, rain and the seasons. It's the world according to Nelson Muntz. Let us point at things and go "HA HA" and see who laughs. Reno 911! is a spoof on the concept of the live action cop show, only it's the cops instead of the criminals who are the real freaks of nature.

Hot Fuzz is an homage to action films created by people who have watched them all, loved them all and would love to have starred in them all, but were burdened by the lack of not being born Keanu Reeves. Yes, Hot Fuzz contains every trademarked cop movie element, each one polished up and delivered with a soft focus shine. It's funny, but it's also an entertaining cop movie. There's some outrageously hysterical gore, like when a church steeple falls on a victim's head, but some worrying moments when some characters we have come to love may or may not be dead. In the process of satirizing the buddy cop genre, the makers of Hot Fuzz have created a damn fine buddy cop movie.

Sense and Proportion: A Parent's Guide to Film

My sister-in-law related to me an interesting incident that happened to her recently. She teaches singing to kidlets at an elementary school and recently decided to show them West Side Story. While the children were engrossed in the film, another teacher peeked in the room and saw Szilvia’s class raptly watching West Side Story, at which point she apparently flounced down to the head of the after-school program and complained. The children (third graders) could NOT watch this movie! The hero dies at the end! The head of the program came up to tell Szilvia she had to stop showing the movie. Szilvia was dumbfounded, but the piano teacher in the class recovered enough to give the program head what for. “Do you REALIZE this movie is a CLASSIC??” Do you REALIZE it was written by LEONARD BERNSTEIN and STEPHEN SONDHEIM? Do you REALIZE it is based on the most CLASSIC play in the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, written by SHAKESPEARE?”

I think it might have been great to also ask if he realized that the kids were completely enraptured and none of them were shrieking at the door or rocking themselves in a corner. (Make the singing ladies stop… oh please… make them STOP!)

One of my own earliest memories is listening to the West Side Story cast recording of the Broadway show with my Mom. I will always remember the album cover: red, with a dramatic black and white picture of Tony and Maria running down a New York sidewalk. My mother told me the story, and she did not edit the fact that Tony dies at the end, and yet I was unscarred. To my child self West Side Story represented all that was glamorous and sophisticated in life: New York City. Dancing. Twirly Dresses.

Truth is, when it comes to scarring memories of movies from my childhood, others rank significantly higher. Bambi (they shot his mother and burned his m**** f*** HOME!). The Wizard of Oz (freaking flying monkeys! Don’t try to tell me - or at least my five-year-old self - freaking flying monkeys aren’t a sign of the Apocalypse). One excruciatingly early Saturday morning my parents awoke to the sound of me screaming at the top of my lungs. They rushed downstairs to find me watching Lassie, who was in a burning barn, trying to save that idiot accident prone Timmy. I also was not fond of The Three Stooges, or I Love Lucy; Stooges for their unconventional dispute resolution techniques, Lucy just for getting herself into those freaky, humiliating jams. The anxiety of wondering how she was going to extricate herself was just too damn much.

My parents were quick to take dramatic action when something in life upset me. When I flipped out at The Wizard of Oz, they took me out of the theater. When they found me watching Lassie in tears, they turned the TV off. Interestingly enough, they did not sue the movie theater for emotional damages or report the TV station to the FCC. Also interesting, I never needed therapy to recover from seeing The Three Stooges, despite their disturbing, violent, co-dependent relationship.

This nostalgia trip reminded me of another school-related movie memory from my childhood. We were shown a film (a real honest to goodness moving picture show, rather than a filmstrip… BING) about bus safety. This was back in the days when no one thought much about scaring the beejesus out of kids to make a point. They’d only recently stopped teaching us to dive under our desks in the event of a nuclear war. The plot of the film is thus: Kids are acting up on the bus. The bus driver keeps hollering at them to settle down. One kid takes a mouse out of a box and dangles it in the bus driver’s face, the driver screams, faints, and the bus crashes, runs off the side of a bridge, and impacts in an exploding fireball.

Actually, the exploding fireball is probably my imagination, but the rest is '70s educational film gospel. The movie totally and completely freaked me out. (Yes, I was a total wuss when I was a kid, and I was no fun at birthday parties either.) The next year at a new school we were gathered together in the auditorium for movie time, and I recognized the same movie starting. I found a teacher and asked her if I could please sit this one out, since I’d seen it before. I don’t think I admitted that I was terrified, but maybe she could see it in my eyes, so she said sure and excused me to the library. That was it. Kids find their own limits, and they tell you what they are. Reasonable adults respond in a sensible, proportionate manner.

Let us contrast this with another more newsworthy, or certainly more reported, story involving a class, a teacher, and a movie. A substitute teacher in Chicago showed a class full of eighth graders Brokeback Mountain. Now the school board is being sued by the family of one of the students, a twelve-year-old girl, for $500,000 for the ever popular “emotional damages”. The girl has been so traumatized by the experience she has had to undergo psychological counseling.

Let’s start with the teacher. What the hell was she thinking? I am more liberal than the next person, particularly when it comes to movies, but the point of film ratings is to help parents decide what they want their kids to see. No teacher with an ounce of sense could assume that most parents would be totally fine with letting their 12- or 13-year-old kids see an rated R-movie. (Let us put aside the fact that most of them have known how to override the parental control setting on the cable since they helped their parents set it up. We are talking about the sanctity of parental illusion.) Lest one wonder if she was confused about what she was showing this class of 12-year-olds, that perhaps she thought this film was a documentary about sheep farming, she screwed herself out of that excuse when she told the class, “What happens in Ms. Buford’s class stays in Ms. Buford’s class.”

I’ve pondered what might inspire a teacher to do something like this. Maybe she was tired of subbing at that school and was looking for a way never to be invited back. Certainly back in my reference desk working days we had dreams of things we would do on our last day, like answering every inquiry with, “What are you? Stupid?” It’s hard not to imagine an Edna Crabapple announcing that it’s time her class learned what the dating world is really like, starting Brokeback Mountain, and then escaping out the back door to Boca Raton. Truth is, the whole story sounds a lot like an episode of The Simpsons, up to and including the family now suing the school.

I think the teacher was an idiot. I don’t have issues with her being reprimanded or fired. She wasn’t striking a blow for gay rights or freedom of expression, and she has single-handedly justified all the oversensitive schools that have banned the use of film as a teaching tool. But she’s not the only idiot in the story, or even possibly the biggest. That prize goes to the grandfather and guardian of one of the 12-year-old girls in the class who is now suing the school for half a million dollars.

His argument is that he’s tried to protect his granddaughter from being exposed to this sort of lifestyle. Before the movie incident he had complained about books she was being asked to read, and his justification for suing the school is to teach them a lesson. The girl has been so scarred by seeing this film that kids in her class have discovered, no doubt to their delight, that they can get her to freak out just by humming the theme music of the movie. I try to avoid mocking children for their behavior, even if a particular child does appear to be behaving like a ninny, on the assumption that children are products of their environment. If this poor child was so scarred by seeing Brokeback Mountain that she needs therapy, that the mere theme song sends her into paroxysms of hysteria, then the blame can be placed firmly on the doorstep of her grandparents.

I also blame them for her inability to speak up while Ms. Crabapple played the movie. She could have told the teacher she’s sure her parents don’t want her to see this. She could have told the teacher she didn’t want to see this. She could have asked to be excused to the bathroom and declined to come back. I was eight when I approached the teacher and asked if I could be excused from Bus Carnage ’76. My parents raised me to be obedient and respectful to my teachers, but they didn’t teach me to be a passive ninny.

All in all, any common sense or sense of proportion is completely lacking from any of the adults in this story. Sadly I think this story could easily be a parable of life in the Aughts, where Shock and Awe have annihilated Sense or Proportion as desirable traits. Somewhere society got the impression that it is easier to raise children in a sensory deprivation tank than to explain things about society that might be uncomfortable.

When the world inevitably intrudes into this illusory sensory deprivation tank, it is easier to write angry letters or sue someone else then it is to explain to children that shit happens. Bad things happen to good people. People have different opinions but that doesn’t make them evil. You can’t always get what you want. Some cowboys are gay, and Tony dies at the end.

Speaking of signs of the unravling fabric of civilization, I have to say something about the recent "debate" about evolution shown on ABC's Nightline. Actually, I'm not going to discuss the debate, which was so far from newsworthy I imagine Ted Koppel dying just to roll over in his grave. I just have to discuss one moment in the "debate" (I'm sorry, I just can't use the word without adding quotes.) when actor Kirk Cameron help "prove" the fallacy of Darwinism by showing a picture of a duck with an alligator head.

Set aside for a moment what it says about a movement that would send a long-past-his-expiration-date former child sitcom star to make an intellectual argument upon their behalf. I simply must point out, for the sake of my own sanity, that a picture of a duck with an alligator head actually PROVES NATURAL SELECTION more than it proves God is behind the whole thing. You see, there are no ducks with alligator heads. Ducks with alligator heads... crazy... funny... nutty. Wouldn't work in real life. Wouldn't last very long. Their mouths are bigger than their stomachs for one thing, which is never a good survival mechanism. In the process of natural selection, weird creatures that make no sense never make it past the mutant embryo stage.

In fact, the only way a duck with an alligator head could come about would be if some almighty powerful being with sense of the ridiculous created it. That's why I firmly believe that God created the platypus, while leaving natural selection to do the rest. Therefore, to use the same masterful, razor sharp "debating" techniques spouted by Cameron and his sidekick: the only thing that could explain the existance of a duck with an alligator head is some all powerful being making up things just to fuck with our heads. Ducks with alligator heads do not exist. Therefore, an all powerful being that makes up things to fuck with our heads, hides dinosaur bones inside mountains for kicks, and provided us with reason and common sense so that hucksters calling themselves spiritual leaders could label them as sinful, does not exist.

Cogito ergo sum.

Books & Stuff

At the end of April I spent a week away at a training class (Please feel free to call on me for any and all of your interest based negotiation needs. After a week of training I feel like Gandhi.) After returning to the real world, I got very excited about writing a piece on graphic novels. I spent a week putting it together in my spare minutes. It was a beautiful work of art. Seriously Pulitzer Prize winning stuff. Then my computer at work ate it.

I'm not an eejit when it comes to computers. I looked all the obvious and non obvious places, but alas. It seems to have evaporated. I'm not quite ready to give up on it and re-write it (because it will be written my friends, one way or another), and I plan to pester the IT guys good and well tomorrow.

I went to not one but two movies last week, but unfortunately neither of them jazzed me enough to write much about them. They were Miss Potter and The Year of the Dog. Not great. Not bad. Not a complete waste of time, but neither rocked my world either. So, until the fabulous graphic novel article is found or re-written, and/or I see or hear something sock blowing, I thought I'd share with you some of the books I've been reading and enjoying lately.

Boomsday by Christopher Buckley -

Thanks to my high level, perks replete job in public libraries, I often find myself in possession of advance reader copies of books. After doing this job for ten (aack!) or so years, one even finds oneself getting quite blase about them. Oh, wow, another Sophie Kinsella clone about a sassy professional woman approaching 30 or 40 or (god forbid) 50 whose incisive intellect and wit frighten all the men around her to flee from her stupendous size six self to sub-zero sized model/actresses. How unique. Hey, if you want to be really original, why don't you put a picture of expensive Italian 3 inch heels on the cover? No one's ever done that before.

Every once in a while, though, a title comes through that does, in fact, still has what it takes to blow my skirt up. Boomsday by Christopher Buckley falls into that category. I eagerly read anything written by Buckley, and would have read it regardless of topic. But, as it happens, Boomsday is about something I can actually relate to: the culture clash between the Baby Boom generation and all that followed.

Buckley writes satirical novels with outrageous enough plots to be superbly entertaining but with enough true to life details, particularly of the swirling cesspool of Beltway politics, that you almost feel smarter for having read it, despite enjoying yourself fully.

The star of Boomsday is PR executive Cassandra Devine who, in her spare time, runs a blog devoted to agitating young generations against the massive Baby Boomer Social Security debt. Say what? Funny Social Security reform? In a not so subtle homage to Jonathan Swift, whose Modest Proposal suggested that the Irish could simultaneously solve the unemployment and famine problems by selling their children as food, Cassandra proposes that the government offer the ominous hordes of retiring Baby Boomers incentives for killing themselves. Her crazy idea gets the attention of an attention seeking congressman who wants to ride the ensuing publicity storm into the White House.

It's typical Buckley stuff. Funny, irreverent, bi-partisan heckling. It's not quite as good as Thank You For Smoking, or even Florence of Arabia, but it's a great weekend read.

Holidays in Hell by P.J. O'Rourke

I found Holidays in Hell at the local used bookstore and, after purchasing, discovered that it was inscribed:

To Bart, Good luck with the article (just make it up!) P.J. O'Rourke, Dec 1, 1989

Dunno who this Bart is, but I'm flattered to think that P.J. won't mind me taking the inscription as my own.

Reading Holidays in Hell is a nostalgia trip, or perhaps an acid flashback, depending on your point of view. The book, first published in 1989, is a collection of essays O'Rourke wrote during the '80s about various parts of the globe, near and far, and the various messes these parts managed to get themselves into, with and without U.S. help. During the time O'Rourke wrote the pieces in Holiday in Hell, the Axis of Evil was Russia-Iran-Russia, with Libya, China and possibly Korea waiting in the wings. George the Pere was the only Bush worth worrying about, and he wasn't even running things yet. Ah, the good old days.

We revisit some almost forgotten classic global shitstorms of yore. Anyone remember the U.S. bombing Libya? Anyone? Muammar al-Gaddafi? If you find yourself thinking, huh, whatever DID happen to that dude, well, I'll tell you. He's still running Libya, although apparently in a way that is now acceptable to the U.S., unlike the 80s when he ran around privatizing U.S. air force bases and nationalizing Libyan oil, pretty much the opposite of what the U.S. had in mind.

We visit cheerful global outposts like post-Marcos Phillipines, Contra-ville Nicaragua, North Korea when Pappy Il-Jung was still in charge and Epcot Center. Along the way O'Rourke drops his trademark acidicisms like "Is Nicaragua a Bulgaria with marimba bands, or just a misunderstood Massachusetts with Cuban military advisors?" He visits some places, like still Communist Poland and still Apartheid South Africa, which one can confidently think, wow, things sure have improved. Other places he visits, like Lebanon, Korea and Palestine, make one feel the wheels of progress grinding ever backwards.

O'Rourke is unapologetically crotchety and conservative, though it's the old school conservatism one hardly sees anymore, at least in avowed conservatives. Reporting on the momentous occasion of Gorbechov's visit to the United States in 1987, P.J. comments on the irony of the American left's love fest for Gorby:

"This is a bit of a mystery since Communists and Republicans both hate liberals. Regan believes that liberals should be deported to Russia, and Gorbachev believes they should be sent to Siberia. The two sides are in perfect agreement on this point."

My favorite essay in Holidays in Hell is "Among the Euro Weenies", detailing a month in 1986 when O'Rourke was stranded in Europe while trying, unsuccessfully, to fly to Libya just as the U.S. began it's bombing campaign. Instead of getting to hang out with his reporter buddies in a war zone, O'Rourke must spend a month in various European countries arguing with airline representatives and catching endless flack from Europeans for the bombing campaign. Although this took place mere months after the Russians almost successfully poisoned all of Europe with Chernobyl, the streets of most European cities were filled with protesters against the United States, and most conversations O'Rourke had were with people accusing him of unhealthy affection for John Wayne and American Imperialism; wanting to build McDonald's everywhere and itching to start World War III. (Never mind the fact that World War III would be antithetical to McDonald's plan to take over the world's food supply.)

I enjoyed this article because, in fact, it absolutely mirrored my own experience while traveling in Europe in 1992. At that time, all were in uproar over Gulf War, the first. McDonald's seem to be a particular bone of contention with many Europeans, which actually led to one of my most satisfying experiences. My friend and I were visiting a friend of hers and his brother, for the sake of jingoistic stereotyping, let's call them Hans and Franz. Hans was a lovely man and a gracious host, but Franz had United States issues. Many of these issues could be traced to his year as an exchange student at the University of Louisiana which happened to coincide with the shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori, a Japanese exchange student, by an overzealous homeowner. So, you know, a kinder person might cut him some slack, but by that point I'd been in Europe seven months and had spent seven months politely smiling while perfect strangers screamed at me about American foreign policy.

I should mention here that I've always been liberal. For the first presidential election in which I was eligible to vote, I walked two miles along a grassy highway median to vote for Dukakis. I'd decided that if George I had been re-elected in the '92 elections, I wasn't going to return to the United States. I wasn't a fan, but months of abuse from perfect strangers about forty years of U.S. foreign policy would be enough to make Barbra Streisand re-consider her party affiliation.

Anywho, Franz made all the usual whines about the evil US. During dinner out one evening a small child at a table next to us made a comment which made Hans laugh. Loosely translated what he said was "But grandma, television without a VCR is like television without cable". We all laughed, except Franz who grumbled "You see? THIS is what America has done to us." Without much thought I shot back "Well you didn't have to BUY it. Besides, I think if you look on the back of your TV, it was probably made in Japan." At that point, it was game on between me and Franz.

One day Hans & Franz took us sightseeing in a beautiful town called Trier. It was just around Christmas, Christmas Eve, or the day after, which meant that many things were closed. At a certain point, my friend and I decided that we were cold and hungry and would like to stop for a nosh, which we suggested to our escorts. Perhaps enraged at our desire to deviate from the day's scheduled activities, Franz snapped "I suppose you wish to go to McDonald's" with as much disdain as an angry German can muster. Uh, no. We just want to stop somewhere heated for a coffee, for chrissake.

We walked block after block past shops and cafes closed for the holiday, at which point we rounded a corner and, behold, the only place open on this day of days, this manger for lost souls, packed to the gills with people lining up out the door, was a McDonald's. In the words of Nelson Munz: "HA HA!" I've never been so happy to see a McDonald's in my life, before or since.

My point, and I do have one, is that reading P.J.'s essay made me realize that apparently, regardless of what may be happening in the world, Europeans are never so happy as when they are miserable about U.S. foreign policy. As someone who likes Europe and Europeans, it seems clear that our best course of action as a country is to continue pissing them off every way possible. In fact, it seems very likely that we will continue to piss them off, regardless of what we do.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars by Max Brooks

In 1984 historian Studs Terkel published The Good War: An Oral History of World War II. A collection of firsthand accounts of World War II from a broad cross section of American society, The Good War offers real insight into the war and its impact at home and abroad. It reveals some of the ugly truths about the war which history has tended to polish over, such as the massive racism facing many soldiers within the armed forces, and, in general effectively shows that while nations may wage wars, they are ultimately fought by individuals.

I will be the first person to admit how utterly bizarre it is that a book about the world under siege by zombies reminds me of nothing so much as The Good War, but there it is. The similarity is, I'm sure, not a mistake. Max Brooks has created a story told entirely through "interviews" with people from all over the world recounting their experiences with the horrible time when the earth was overrun by a nasty virus which transformed victims into the living evil dead. The conceit of the book is complete and seamless, from the introduction explaining the genesis of the book during the author's research for the United Nations' Postwar Commission Report to the grave review bites on the back discussing the importance of the work for future generations understanding of this horrible time.

Lest I make this book sound like some kind of tedious homework assignment, let me assure you that it is a (sorry, pun intended) scrumptious treat. The "realism" only adds to the creepy, compelling story tracing the plague's odd genesis (accidental or engineered?) in rural China to its terrifying spread to almost every continent, decimating populations, destroying civil order and unity and basically grossing everybody out. The zombies are perfect zombies: they're slow moving, lumbering, moaning, rotting corpses whose success lie in their overwhelming numbers, rather than any sort of tactical skills. They can't climb and have the ill luck of freezing in the winter, but they remain animated underwater, so don't try escaping by diving into the pool.

When it comes to understanding history, governments and military, Brooks has the details right. The world does not unite in face of this threat, but fractures. State of the art military weaponry fail spectacularly. The only way to kill these bastards is bashing their brains out, one at a time. To complete the verisimilitude there is even a website which allows visitors to measure their likelihood of survival during a zombie invasion. Mine is an uninspiring 36%, although reading the book I'm surprised it's not lower. Clearly I need to take up some kind of sword training, and perhaps move to a tree house.

The Namesake

Once in a rare while, I see a movie that simply takes my breath away; something achingly beautiful, so familiar it seems I know these people, or come to know them in the brief time in the theater. They keep on living after the credits roll, not in a tidy happily ever after way, but in a true, messy, lovely and painful way. Mira Nair has directed two films that fall into this category for me, Monsoon Wedding and now The Namesake.

The Namesake, based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a story about a family. Like every story about a family, it is actually many stories, the stories of each member of that family, together and apart. The beginning for one is the next chapter for another and sometimes, agonizingly, the last for yet another. It is the story of Ashok Ganguli, a man inspired by a grandfather’s gift and a horrible tragedy to move far from home. It is the story of Ashima, the lovely bride he takes with him, who struggles with desperate homesickness, but comes to love her new country. It is the story of Gogol, their son, raised with all the advantages of a life in American suburbia, who must come to terms with who he wants to be; an American boy with Indian parents or an Indian American? A dutiful son or his own man?

I’ve recently become enthralled with Showtime’s new series This American Life. The day after I saw The Namesake, I watched an episode of This American Life which included a story about a woman who was struggling to leave the Mormon faith without turning her back on her family. There was the most exceptional quote which seemed strangely relevant to the movie I’d seen the day before:

Choosing not to become the person your family expected is painful. You have to leave their world completely so you can make sense of your own life. But fate lures you back in whenever it can, to give you the chance to measure the distance between their world and yours, and see if its just as far as you remembered.


Gogol spends much of the film fighting that lure of fate, trying to broaden the distance between his world and his parents. Like many a young person, he discovers the hard way that a determination to be “not like” his parents is not sufficient to count as an identity.

Mira Nair is an amazing director. She find beauty everywhere; in the mad, vibrant, filthy streets of India or a non-descript cul de sac somewhere in American suburbia. Through the eyes of a newlywed wife, the landscape of a New York winter appears black and white compared to the world from which she has come. As she waves to her husband through a window as he trudges off to work in the snow, you feel the oppressiveness of that white open space upon her. It is as if he has left her to fend for herself on the moon. Fans of Mira Nair's work will recognize her touches, including an impromtu song and dance number which seems both out of place and perfect.

There is something so incredibly American about this story. Frightened young wives from every corner of the globe have stood in dingy American tenements, overwhelmed by mysterious questions like how to do laundry in this strange land. Unless you are full blooded Native American, somewhere in your history, you have an ancestor who did the same thing. Somewhere in your history, you have an ancestor who despaired of the Old World ways of their parents, struggling to understand why they would come all this way just to insist on eating their cereal with curry powder and peanuts. The further away we get from our original ancestors' trek to this country, the more we’re inclined to believe that we are somehow separate from the immigrant experience, when in fact America is a tapestry created by the immigrant experience.

This movie got me thinking about my own scrap of the tapestry, so I thought I'd end this review with my own immigrant roots, and a nod to everyone along the way who had dreams bigger than their original country could contain. My granny on my mom’s side was born in England. She came here with her family to Illinois, by way of Canada. She was an illegal immigrant until she reached adulthood and, though her parents were successful business owners, they lived in constant fear of being found out and deported. My granddad’s mother was from Holland, and I’ve still got a handful of distant cousins who live there. On my Dad’s side, I know less, except that we’re Heinz 57: Scotch, Irish, German… whatever they could pick up along the way. My grandma was born in Oklahoma, but headed West with her family during the Dust Bowl, just like the Joads.

What does your scrap of tapestry look like?

Gee Cardinal Krupke: An Ode To My Favorite Tyrant

It’s hard to know where, exactly, my bizarre affection began. Perhaps it was upon reading The Autobiography of Henry VIII, the novel, despite its title, by Margaret George. Perhaps it was during my college years when I majored in British History. Perhaps it has some connection to my life as a cradle Episcopalian. Regardless of its origins there is no escaping the truth. I love Henry VIII. He’s absolutely my favorite tyrant in all of history.


This affection has caused me no little embarrassment. I’ve found myself making the oddest arguments in defense of his wacky antics. I get cranky when people say he broke with the Church just to get a divorce. You know, it wasn’t just to get an annulment (not a divorce) from his first wife that he caused all that ruckus with Rome. He was standing up to Rome’s political manipulations and attempts to weaken England in favor of Spain. Truthfully, Henry was relatively pious and not a big fan of divorce, which is why he beheaded which is why he beheaded two of his wives instead of just divorcing them.

Like I said, the oddest arguments, the sorts that cause sprains. When a friend of mine heard they were beginning a series on Showtime about Henry, he rather crankily referred to Henry as, I believe, a psychotic sociopath. Well now really. That’s a bit much. He wasn't all that bad, just misunderstood. Deep down inside him there was good! (There was good! There was good! There was untapped good. Likeinside, the worst of him was good.)

Certainly Henry has had an ongoing image problem, particularly in Hollywood. You usually see the fat, boorish Charles Laughten version. Or the fat, boorish and whiny Richard Burton version. Or the executing his best friend Robert Shaw version. Most of his portrayals seem to involve gratuitous eating of turkey legs and copious amounts of “off with his head!!”-ings. Which isn’t to say that Henry wasn’t rather corpulent by the end, or that he didn’t tend to have people who irritated him killed (but seriously now, what sixteenth century monarch didn’t?). It’s just a bit one sided, like judging The King (the other one) solely on his Fat Elvis, television shooting days.


Even if you do think that Henry VIII was a psychotic sociopath (but seriously now, what sixteenth century monarch wasn’t?) you cannot claim that Henry led a boring life. Six wives. Many more female conquests. Untold number of dead and living offspring. Telling Rome to go ‘f’ itself. Dragging England from small dog to big dog status in Europe.  It's a shame that Shakespeare's play had to be the sanitized version, since a more factual representation would have given Macbeth a real run for its money.  It probably also would have gotten Shakespeare executed.  

Which brings us to Showtime’s new series The Tudors. I admit I was a wee bit excited when I heard about this series, excited enough that I actually changed my cable subscription from HBO to Showtime. Weeds. The L Word. Dexter. None of these shows, as interesting as they seemed, were enough to entice me away from my HBO. But a drama about young Henry? Be still my heart! Henry VIII could kick Tony Soprano’s ass eight ways til Tuesday. “Him and what army?” you ask condescendingly. Well his freaking army is what army!

After watching the first episode of The Tudors, I like what I’m seeing so far. Henry was a walking bundle of contradictions, which is honestly where much of his fame comes from.  He has come to represent both the best and the worst a monarchy has to offer.  He was an educated, learned patron of the arts, as well as a bruiser and an athlete. He appreciated humanist philosophy which suggested that the primary duty of a king was to improve the lives of his people, but he longed to build an army and kick whomever’s butt he could, primarily the French.

He fantasized about military victory, but backed more than one clever treaty with his enemies which avoided battle. He loved his first wife, but was an inveterate womanizer. He had deeply held religious beliefs and a strong sense of duty to God, but he wrested the Church of England away from Rome and pillaged the holdings of the Church in England. He loved his daughters, but almost destroyed his empire trying to get a son. He loved his friends dearly, until they failed him, at which point he would destroy them. He was all these things, fine and lousy, brilliant and terrifying, and The Tudors gets that.


The Tudors gives us Young Henry, as opposed to Old Henry, showing us rather clearly that Harry was at one point in his life hot. He didn’t get all that tail just because he was the King. Well, he probably would have gotten just as much if he’d been King Quasimodo, but he wouldn’t have gotten as much willing and enthusiastic tail. Like many a football player, age and injury eventually transformed muscle to fat, but when he was young, he was the bomb.

I’m not convinced that Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the best choice to play Henry, at least based on the fantasy version of Henry I have in my head. Don’t get me wrong. Rhys Meyers is hot. H-H-O-T-T.  Hot.  But Jon is a bit effete for Henry, despite his obviously sculpted biceps. He’s under tall, for one thing. Henry was known for being one of the tallest guys in the room, and despite scenes referencing the King’s very fine calf muscles (apparently calves were like the six pack of its day), I have seen no evidence of them so far. Plus, Henry was fair (his daughter’s Tudor red hair came from somewhere) rather than dark and smoldery. I suppose I always envisaged him a bit more like this, or perhaps this, or even this.  But Meyers does capture his charm and impetuousness, as well as his fierce temper.  And did I mention that he's HOT? 

Like all filmed adaptations of history, the show has got telescoping problems, bouncing liberally across time and space to cherry pick the interesting. But if we wanted reality, we’d be watching the History Channel, so shame on me, really, for noticing or comparing any of these things to my history books. So far, the show is darned entertaining, and Showtime has not let me or my favorite tyrant down.

Extra...Extra

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300 Spartans VS The Modern Media-cracy

300, based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, which was inspired by Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield, tells the tale of Leonidas, King of Sparta, who led 300 Spartan soldiers against the theretofore undefeated Persian army. At great cost the Persians won the battle, but ultimately lost the war, creating a turning point in world history. The movie has received mixed reviews both from people who wish to dismiss it as a video game brought to life and those who would like to wrest from it a modern political allegory.

Blah, blah, history, politics, blah! This movie kicks ass! It is entertainment of the highest order. By the time the first battle scene started, I was grinning ear to ear. I have not been as genuinely and joyfully entertained by an action flick since they shot up the marble lobby in The Matrix. When the movie ended, it is only because I am a grown mature adult that I did not bounce up and down in my chair and cry Again! Again!

“So how do you explain all the crappy reviews?” my brother asked me, based on my breathless adulation of the film. “I really have no idea,” was the best I could come up with.

The number of sources who are trying hard to drag modern politics into the film of a 2500 years past battle is growing. When it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival, Germans booed the film and walked out. The New York Times and Newsweek have both come out decrying the racist and politically insensitive subject matter. Now the President of Iran has joined in, declaring the film an American act of war on Iranian Culture.

Since 18 of the top 25 grossing films in Germany last year were from the Beast known as Hollywood, it’s hard to take German disdain seriously. Maybe they were late for a Leni Riefenstahl retrospective. As for the President of Iran, taking him seriously presumes that he is actually speaking to us. He’s not talking to us. He’s talking to the same group of people they got to riot over drawings of Mohammed in a Norwegian newspaper six months after they were originally published. They never saw those drawings. They’re never going to see 300. I doubt Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has seen it.

To the U.S. media-cracy, I can only offer this one thought: How arrogant are you? Seriously, how arrogant and self centered do you have to be to see American history reflected in every story? There’s a whole lot of human history, most of which has taken place totally without influence of the United States. In fact, it’s only been about sixty or seventy years that the rest of the world felt it was necessary to even invite us to the table.

Cinematographically speaking, the film is an artful combination of live action and computer animation, using the same techniques as critically lauded Sin City. Color is layered upon black and white images, creating something vibrant and unearthly, like something transmitted from Hades itself.

Adding to this effect is the main character, King Leonidas, played by Gerard Butler. Leonidas looks like a relief of the ideal Greek man rendered on an ancient Grecian urn, but then his handsome face will transformed into a mask of glaring eyes and gnashing teeth. The effect is unsettling and great for reminding us that Spartan culture was hardly a utopian one. Boys were taken from home at the age of 7 and beaten into soldiers. As we all learned in the story of Oedipus, weak infants were left on a mountainside to die. Spartans may be the heroes of this film, but that does not make them excellent role models, and the film does not whitewash this fact.

Butler is definitely an actor to watch. By that I mean he is definitely an actor I like to watch. I’d like to watch him chew gum, or tie his shoes. I first became aware of him in a sweet movie called Dear Frankie, which could not be more different than 300. He is, unfortunately, best known for playing the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, a movie I tried, unsuccessfully, to watch just because it had him in it. My opinion of Phantom was really expressed best by SNL: “Phantom of the Opera is the best musical ever about a burn victim who rapes an opera singer.”  

Leonidas leads an army of 300 soldiers who are, among other things, r-r-r-r-r-r-ripped like Jesus. That’s 600 pecs and at least 1800 ab muscles for those of you who are counting, of whom I am not one, of course. That would be objectification, and wrong. The soldiers wear leather BVDs, red capes and gladiator sandals; an outfit that is totally practical for fighting and not even remotely gay.

The film has taken flack for being homophobic, in part because the Persian God King Xerxes is portrayed as being aggressively androgynous. While hardly historically accurate, the decision to portray him that way is a legitimate artistic choice. Ancient gods often had androgynous or hermaphroditic qualities, and the character definitely amps up the fantastical quality of the story.

Along with some really amazing action scenes, there is a secondary plot dealing with the politics going on back in Sparta. Leonidas and his wife, the unfortunately (yet historically accurate) named Queen Gorgo have a surprisingly complex relationship for a battle movie. I actually found myself wondering if they were overdoing the Grrrrrl Power bit while watching the movie, but then I looked it up when I got home. Apparently women in Sparta were unusually powerful compared to their contemporaries elsewhere. When the men are away at war all the time, someone has to keep things running.

Oh dear, there I go again with the history. For a wild action movie, they did include a remarkable amount of historically accurate detail, but it would be silly to call this history. In fact, one element of the story is the idea of storytellers sitting around a campfire, spinning a yarn that is intended to inform, inspire, and entertain, with emphasis on the latter two.  The story of King Leonidas and his band of Spartan soldiers has been told and retold untold thousands of times since the battle occurred, because it’s a great story. It makes me sad to imagine we've become unable to just appreciate a good yarn.  300 certainly creates a fantastic vision which does the tale justice.  I encourage you to leave your politics in the car, buy an extra large bag of popcorn and enjoy it.      

The Higher Power of Scrotums-Book Drives Librarians Nuts!!

As a music and film librarian, kids books are not my area of expertise. Lately, however, controversy has gripped the Library World over a kids book, and like the wreck of a clown car, it’s been impossible to look away. This particular controversy is about the use of a word. A word which, in the opinion of some, utterly negates any value of the story. Although the book, The Higher Power of Lucky, impressed the Newbery Award Committee enough to honor it, this word is making it impossible for some librarians to read the book aloud, to recommend it to children, even to carry it in their collections.

The word is “scrotum”.

The first I heard of this was a column in Publisher’s Weekly discussing the fact that certain library listservs were aflame with this nightmare. I had to re-read the article several times to confirm that the controversy is, in fact, about the actual word “scrotum”, and not the use of some other euphemism for the word scrotum more often found on made-for-cable series about cowboys or gangsters. Alas, the controversy really is about the word “scrotum”.

“Because of that one word,” said a school librarian, “I would not be able to read that book aloud.” Some complained that the use of the word was totally unnecessary. Some implied that there were many other choices the author could have used instead.

I like contemplating this plethora of words the author could have used instead of scrotum, which is the anatomically accurate name for a specific body part. None come to mind that are not on that aforementioned list of premium cable euphemisms guaranteed to get your average ten year old mouth washed out with soap.

Armchair editing like this drives me bonkers. “The author ought to have used this word instead of that word.” “The author used a word that was “unnecessary””, as if the selection of words, specific words in a specific order, is not the very definition of what it means to be an author. It’s like saying it was unnecessary for Picasso to use so much blue paint. It’s ridiculous to argue that an author used a word, any word, “unnecessarily”. They used the words that they used.

Under normal circumstances, it might have been years, possibly never, before I got around to reading this year’s Newbery Award winner, but fortunately controversy made reading it a vital necessity. One does not have to go far into The Higher Power of Lucky to find the word. It’s right there, on page one. Our heroine overhears a dramatic story about a man whose dog was bit on the scrotum by a rattlesnake.

If I’d thought the controversy was silly before, reading the context elevated it to positively asinine. We’re not even talking about a human scrotum, but a canine one, similar to any one of the millions presently on display in living rooms, yards and parks across the country. I had assumed based on the level of hysteria that the scrotum was perhaps doing something vaguely offensive or scatological, instead of valiantly withstanding the attack of a rattler. Considering the average dog’s propensity for doing embarrassing things to their privates, usually in public, this particular scrotum is positively heroic.

If the “controversy” had stopped with the Publisher’s Weekly bit, it would have been easily shrugged off. Unfortunately, what with all the concern over troop surges and military hospital failures and where oh God where on Your Green Earth shall Anna Nicole be buried, it was apparently a slow news week, and the scrotum controversy went national. The New York Times and Newsweek both picked up the story, leading to an explosion in scrotal related newspaper stories.

Many of the articles, like the original PW one, failed to mention the fact that the scrotum in question belonged to a dog. The New York Times article did have one woman insisting that this was yet another example of the “Howard Stern” effect on our country, where people just use nasty words for no reason but to upset good decent people. Comments like this always reveal more about the commenter than the commentated (like maybe they haven't read the book) , but what bothered me more was the thought that the people who actually wrote the articles had not read the book. How else to explain the inclusion of quotes like “you won't find men's genitalia in quality literature” without any kind of fact based alternative perspective? Either the reporters hadn’t read the book (which isn’t that long people) or else the reporters were more interested in la scandale than the truth, and we know that never happens.

For most librarians I know, this sort of thing is just embarrassing, like having a family argument broadcast on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Most librarians are not horrified by the word scrotum. Most librarians have had to clean much worse graffiti off of walls, books and furniture. Most librarians have larger concerns, like the threat of local, state and federal legislators conspiring to keep us from offering any kind of useful computer services to our patrons, but that’s a rant for another day.

In the midst of this controversy, a children’s book catalog was accidentally delivered to my inbox. The back cover promoted several cheerful looking kids books, including one which instantly grabbed my attention. I hurried over to the librarian in charge of buying children’s materials and begged her to add it to the collection. It's called Let’s Look at Animal Bottoms, and features a full color display of several elephant behinds on the cover.

Times like these I realize it’s probably for the best that I never became a Children’s Librarian. I feel I’m lacking some inherent diplomacy necessary to navigate the rocky shoals of children’s lit. My impulse to a scandal like the one over The Higher Power of Lucky is to organize an All Animal Bottoms story time, featuring classic stories like The Truth About Poop and Walter the Farting Dog. No doubt the Library would have some cranky parents on their hands, but I tell you what, if it were up to the kids, it would be a smash hit.

Academy Awards LXXIV: The Wrap Up

The 79th Academy Awards was a pleasant evening of safe comedy, tasteful gowns and almost no surprises. There were no shocking upsets; no shameful Academy shut outs; no war protesters streaking in the background. No winners used their 47 seconds to petition for the release of Leonard Peltier, or for anything more scandalous than an end to global warming. No starlet forgot her slip or committed unfortunate hair.

That said, even the world’s most boring Super Bowl gets an hour post game show, so welcome to the Academy Awards LXXIV Post Game Wrap Up.

First, a note to red carpet coverage producers: The only thing we are interested in on the red carpet is seeing the gowns. That is all. These are the only acceptable red carpet questions: “How are you feeling tonight?” “Who are you wearing?” Here are questions that are not acceptable: “Have you ever met Brad Pitt?” “What’s Brad Pitt like?” "If you ever meet Brad Pitt, can you give him this script for me?" “Since there’s no chance that you’re going to win, why have you bothered coming this evening?”…or its corollary “Everyone thinks you’re going to win. What do you plan to say when you do?” And the most annoying unacceptable question, (Ryan Seacrest, I’m talking to you) “When are you two getting married?”

E! distinguished itself early with some spectacularly bad red carpet coverage. While Ryan Seacrest babbled about his small red carpet work space and the hostess chicks with the interchangeable heads congratulated each other their outfits, actual movie actors drifted by unnoticed in the background. When they actually managed to get a star in a gown to stop to talk to them, the cameras would suddenly cut away to show George Takei wandering the red carpet aimlessly in a kimono.

ABC offered E! some stiff challenge in the stupid department, particularly when the two hosts on the red carpet could not get anyone to stop to speak to them. It was really pathetic watching these two self important poseurs in tuxes yelling “Mr O’Toole!” “Nicole!” “Mr. Takei!” to an unflagging train of stardom passing by. Occasionally they would cut away to their fashion “experts”, a plastic man and woman being catty in a sky box, and a strange looking automaton of a man, theoretically from Vogue, who would lunge at people with his microphone and robot questions to them in a loud monotone.

A nadir was reached when the “style expert” in the sky box sniffed that Jodi Foster simply was not looking sexy enough to pull off the gown she was wearing. (Jodi looked conservatively stylish as usual). It sounded shallow and catty when he said it, but the true depth of his callowness was revealed later in the evening when Foster appeared to present the “In Memoriam” segment, in part to pay tribute to her best friend who had died two weeks earlier. Yeah, sorry the classy actress in mourning failed to bring her sexy back, you twit.

Next year ABC would do well to make whatever trade is necessary to get Tim Gun to do their red carpet coverage. Lost…Ugly Betty…whatever sacrifices it takes to get Uncle Tim on the red carpet.

Most of my Oscar disappointments occurred when the nominees were announced. You can see my take on who oughta been there instead here, but it meant that for the most part, there were no glorious high or crushing low moments to be had during the ceremony itself.

The only one that really surprised me was the Best Foreign Language Award to The Lives of Others over Pan’s Labyrinth. With all the hoopla over the Mexican cinema renaissance and the new “Three Amigos”, Guillermo Del Toro, Alejandro Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron, I was shocked and disappointed that none of them walked away with a major prize. Any mystery over The Lives of Others’ victory was instantly banished during the director’s acceptance speech, however. In accent-less English Von Donnersmarck cheerfully thanked Arnold Schwarzenegger for all his wonderful advice.

Wow, so no politics involved in the Academy’s decision there. Let’s see, should we vote for the cheeky Mexican or Arnie’s buddy? Arnie’s buddy or the cheeky Mexican? Gosh and golly. Let me ponder that over a few rounds of golf at the club.

The ceremony itself opened with a nice moment when Ellen DeGeneres asked all the nominees to stand.  Will Smith gave Kate Winslet a big hug. Helen Mirren crossed the aisle to shake Martin Scorscese’s hand. Mark Wahlberg stood there applauding himself with a smug look on his face. Hell, why shouldn’t he be smug? He clearly used some incriminating evidence against the entire Hollywood acting community to get himself nominated. Then he managed to score the Academy’s cat bird seat, right behind Martin Scorcese, so he managed to get himself in approximately 74% of the evening’s audience shots.

(I’ve always thought Wahlberg was a great artist. Here’s some of my favorite early work.  Why yes, Mark, I do feel it baby.  Thanks for asking!)

From the pleasant opening introduction, it was all downhill from there. There was a sort of but not really funny song from Will Farrell and Jack Black. There were some ill conceived tumblers making movie logo shapes which went from sort of clever to really tedious as the evening wore on. (At least it wasn’t interpretive dance from Cirque du Soleil). There were some film clip montages which, again, went from clever to tedious as the program marched towards hour four.

Sherry Lansing won the Academy’s Humanitarian prize. Apparently at least one of the scientific causes she supports involves cryogenic freezing of the face. I can’t remember any of her speech as I was too distracted comparing the difference between her Jessica Tandy arms and her forehead tight enough to bounce a quarter. It was a little scary when Ennio Morricone began his lengthy Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech in Italian, until it became clear that he was using his five minutes to give a grand and gracious Fuck You to the Academy for ignoring his work for forty years.

Ellen’s hosting was as safe and bland as an American cheese sandwich on white bread with the crust removed. Her edgiest joke was “If it weren’t for blacks, Jews and gays there would be no Hollywood,” and even that was delivered with enough solemnity one questioned if it were, in fact, intended to be funny. WOW! Way to speak truth to power Ellen! Can you imagine Johnny Carson being given four hours of podium duty without dropping a single solitary President joke, or an Iran joke, or a global warming joke? When the real Al Gore is funnier than the jokes, you’re doing something wrong.

Of course, we all wanted to see Marty win. Any doubt over that outcome was erased when Francis Ford Copolla, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas came out to present the Best Director award. Jack Nicholson looking on from the sidelines completed this intimidating Gang of Four, making it clear that, should a name other than Scorcese’s appear in the envelope, it might be best for that person to head for the exit rather than the stage. There was naught to worry. Marty got his prize, gave a fabulous speech (including the great direction to his seven year old “Stay up for ten more minutes, then jump on the bed and make a lot of noise,” a fabulous response to everyone who has ever used their Oscar Moment to tell their kids to go to bed.) and drifted off the stage in a haze of joy and glory.

It would be nice to say that final moment made it all worth while, but who are we kidding?

In summation, Hollywood, Academy, Oscar telecast producers, please note the following: Pre-show producers: Tim Gun needs to host the Red Carpet.

Starlets: there’s too much pretty and safe going on out there. Next year I want to see forgotten slips, unfortunate necklines and at least one profoundly bad hairstyle. Isn’t it about time someone re-discovered the Princess Leia side buns?

Academy: sometimes you give the impression of being bunch of old farts that occasionally do the right thing by accident. I just thought you should know, in case your friends won’t tell you.

Wahlberg: somewhere I think I just heard a timer pass 12 minutes.

Ellen: love your daytime show. Hope you keep that up.

Producers: seriously, no more tumblers, acrobats, shadow puppets, choirs or anything that is not directly involved in propelling the evening forward. A lack of Celine Dion would not harm anything either.  Also, consider a host who is not afraid of making people laugh. Perhaps if you book now, Stephen Colbert might be available.

Certain as Death and Taxes

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's getting harder for me to feign interest in the Academy Awards every year. The Oscars feel increasingly irrelevant to me. Every awards show and its cousin are being televised and new ones are invented every year. Sundance has played out and buzz about the movies we will theoretically be lauding this time next year has already started.

Particularly aggravating is the studio practice of releasing Oscar fodder in two theaters on December 31 so that they will qualify. When half the films on reviewers' "best of" lists and on the Academy nominee roster are titles the Average American has had no opportunity to see, the Average American can be forgiven for losing interest in the outcome.

I used to get righteously indignant when films I loved were neglected by the Academy, but vote Democrat long enough and you learn to separate the concepts of "winning" and "quality". Besides, this is the organization that awarded Kramer vs Kramer over Apocalypse Now; and, starting a 20-year-old tradition which may finally play itself out this year, Ordinary People over Raging Bull. It's enough to make you nervous when something you do like wins.

Now that I've gotten that all off my chest, I confess I am not immune from the urge to handicap the race. An Academy Award win accurately reflects greatness about as accurately as a Presidential win reflects competence. However, there is something interesting about what the nominees and eventual winners say about culture and the politics of artistry. Kramer vs Kramer is so vastly inferior a film to Apocalypse Now it might as well be a different art form. But a look at that win tells you an awful lot about where America's head was at in 1979; a year in which, interestingly enough, my own parents divorced, and people were still crossing the street to avoid talking to Vietnam vets.

The Academy has covered all its bases in the nominees for Best Actor this year. You have the powerful role in a small indie film nominee — Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson. You have the amazing actor channeling a significant historical figure nominee — Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. You have the popular actor in the triumphing over extreme adversity whilst tugging upon the heartstrings like a jazz bass nominee — Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness. You have the Leonardo DiCaprio in a Leonardo DiCaprio role nominee — Leonardo Dicaprio in The Departed, or wait, no, it's for Blood Diamond. In that case, it's the Leonardo DiCaprio in a funny accent role, otherwise known as the Meryl Streep nomination. Finally, you have the nomination for the old guy who's probably going to die soon so they better hurry up and do something so history doesn't remember them as the people who never gave a real award to legend (otherwise known as the Henry Fonda Award) — Peter O'Toole in Venus.

Who Should Win: Either Ryan Gosling or Forest Whitaker would not be embarrassing choices. Whitaker has the edge for finding something human in one of history's most fearsome Evil Doers, a feat which makes his character that much more terrifying. Actually giving the award to Peter O'Toole, as opposed to just nominating him for it, would only emphasize how ludicrous it is that he's never received anything but an honorary Oscar. Not only is Blood Diamond not Leonardo DiCaprio's best role, it's not even his best role this year. And why did he get nominated instead of Djimon Hounsou? As for Will Smith, I don't even know what to say. If the story had been about a single mom instead of a single dad, it would have been right at home on Lifetime. On the other hand, it's the kind of story that Hollywood loves, the pull 'em up by your bootstraps triumph over adversity as God is my witness I will never go hungry again tale.

Who Else Should Have Been Nominated: Clive Owen in Children of Men, a film and a performance that were criminally overlooked in my opinion. Will Ferrell in Stranger than Fiction. Matt Damon in either The Good Shepherd or The Departed. Christian Bale in The Prestige. Edward Norton in The Illusionist.

Who Will Win: I can't guess. For all its pretense, Hollywood is an oddly conservative place. I could see Whitaker and Smith somehow splitting the affirmative action voting bloc. This would be a grave disservice to Whitaker, but it might create an opening for either a Gosling dark horse win or an O'Toole AARP win. Most people aren't even sure what DiCaprio has been nominated for. This isn't his first time to the dance and it's clearly not going to be his last. I think his chances are pretty low.

It's an interesting group of women in the Best Actress category this year, not quite as simple to categorize as the male nominees. Except for Penelope Cruz, every one of them has been nominated for Academy Awards previously. Cruz has struggled to find her niche in American films, and most of her performances in them have been underwhelming. I always had a sense of some greater talent struggling to burst forth from her, which is why it's gratifying to see her nominated for Volver. That the film is in her native language and was directed by Pedro Almodóvar is clearly not a coincidence.

Who Should Win: Meryl Streep's nomination for The Devil Wears Prada is pretty much a lark, much as the role itself was. Otherwise, any of the nominees would be acceptable. It would be nice if Cruz won if only to encourage her to do more roles like Volver, but I don't think that win is likely. I'm not sure enough people saw Little Children to give Winslet much of a shot. Judi Dench has been nominated for playing a bitch on wheels, which is awesome for her, but a bit of a stretch for the Academy who like their Judi Dench to be charming and non-threatening.

Who Else Should Have Been Nominated: I have to tell you, I can't think of any really great female roles this year that got passed over. There were other fine performances, like Natalie Portman's in V for Vendetta or Gretchen Mol's in The Notorious Bettie Page, but was anyone unjustly overlooked? Meh. Not really.

Who Will Win: I'm trying very hard not to fall into knee jerk Helen Mirren resentment caused by Oscar buzz overload, especially since I loved The Queen and I loved Helen Mirren in it. She's won almost every single award possible this year, including an Emmy which she got for playing the other Queen Liz. The prize is hers for the taking, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Now here's the Djimon Hounsou nomination, in the Best Supporting Actor category. I shouldn't get started on the political vicissitudes which nominate a main character for Supporting Actor and a supporting character for Best Actor. I'll just say straight up that I would NEVER imply that it was because of either the race or the box office clout of the respective nominees. The most puzzling nomination in this category is Mark Wahlberg for The Departed. It's not that Wahlberg wasn't fine in The Departed, but was he better than Alec Baldwin or Martin Sheen in The Departed? Was he better than Jack Nicholson? It's a puzzlement. Clearly Wahlberg's publicist needs a raise.

Who Should Win: I admit, I'm rooting for Eddie Murphy. His nomination is such a welcome surprise for those of us who have watched the comic genius who gave us Raw descend into wretched family friendly fart humor. He takes a stock "cautionary tale" role and infuses it with heart, soul, and pathos.

Who Else Should Have Been Nominated: I'd say many performances were more memorable than Wahlberg in The Departed. Michael Caine for either Children of Men or The Prestige, but particularly for Children of Men. Paul Giamatti or Rufus Sewell in The Illusionist. Ben Affleck in Hollywoodland. Alec Baldwin for anything he was in. And of course the trippiest, most mind-blowing best supporting actor role of the year was Robert Downey Jr as a character called "James Barris", but otherwise known as "himself before rehab", in A Scanner Darkly. I'm hoping one of these days the Academy will give Downey Jr an award just for still being here. They missed an opportunity with this one.

Who Will Win: It's possible that Alan Arkin will get the nod for Little Miss Sunshine, but I'm betting on Eddie. There's no certainty that he will ever pull off this kind of powerhouse dramatic role again (can you say Norbit?) so I can't see the Academy passing up the opportunity to give him this pat on the back.

In a complete reversal from the Best Actress category, every nominee for Best Supporting Actress is a newcomer except Cate Blanchett. There's Abigail Breslin, the winsome cutie patootie from Little Miss Sunshine, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi, both from Babel, and, of course Jennifer Hudson from Dreamgirls. Hudson may be the only thing the show American Idol will ever have to be proud of. Hudson should win, Hudson will win and except possibly Princess Diana as herself in The Queen, I can't think of any obvious performances the Academy may have missed in this category.

Like Democrats before an election day, cineaestes throughout the world are lighting candles and muttering to themselves about this year's Best Director category. This will be the year Scorsese wins, they chant. It will! It will! It's hard to imagine that he wouldn't win this year. Clint Eastwood got his (mulitple) awards already, and no one has seen Letters From Iwo Jima anyway. (Note to studios... I told you to stop dumping these pictures in theaters at the last minute every year. It aggravates people.)

Arguments could be made that Paul Greengrass deserves it more for United 93 but, again, how many people actually gutted it out and watched the movie? My work stocking library shelves has taught me that right, wrong, or in denial, the American people are not watching or reading 9/11 stories. (Out of curiosity, I checked our catalog. Right now, 12 people are waiting to see United 93. 240 are waiting for Little Miss Sunshine.) You can ponder whether or not "it's time" for them to do so, but they ain't. Not to diminish a great accomplishment, but that is what Paul Greengrass is fighting, and I can't see him overcoming it. What people love about The Queen is Helen Mirren. Most would be surprised to learn that some dude named Stephen Frears had anything to do with it.

The problem, of course, is that The Departed, as fine as it is, is no Goodfellas. Do you remember what film/director won instead of Goodfellas? The Academy is so often on record as having preferred cinematic piffle over greatness but nowhere is that shame more deserved than in the awarding of Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas. The Academy can finally make up for their deficiencies in honoring Scorsese this year without too much guilt. The Departed was one of the best films of the year. The Academy may never fully erase the shame of honoring Kevin Costner instead of Martin Scorsese that year, but sucking it up and giving Marty the award this year is a start.

Best Picture is a crapshoot. Traditionally the film that received the Best Director award always won the Best Picture award, but in recent years the Academy has begun splitting the two. Give Spielberg the best director prize and Shakespeare in Love the best picture and everyone goes home happy. I'm surprised, like everyone, that Dreamgirls was not nominated for Best Picture. If it had been, I would pick it as the most likely winner. It's the feel good choice. Little Miss Sunshine is another one of those feel good flicks, like Shakespeare in Love, that could edge out The Departed. Neither Babel nor Letters From Iwo Jima feel like they're picking up that Oscar buzz momentum, the way Crash did last year, but they're both powerful message films, and Hollywood does love those. Hollywood's Helen Mirren love, and their lingering affection for Princess Di could push The Queen ahead. Ultimately, it all depends on the Academy's mood.

Other Films That Should Have Been Nominated: Have I mentioned Children of Men enough? It's on every critic's "best" list. It has some insanely high Metacritic rating like 98. I believe that Alfonso Curaron is the next Spielberg. He does everything well. If he'd been nominated, he's the only director that could reasonably give Marty a run for his money this year. Either of the magician films, The Illusionist or The Prestige, could also have fit nicely here, as well as Stranger Than Fiction.

For someone who claims disinterest in the Academy Awards, clearly I have too many opinions about the outcome. I'm not a sports fan, but I think it's similar to people's facination with the Super Bowl. It's not really a contest between the best two teams in the country, and winning is no predictor of quality or future success, but damned if we don't all show up every year.

Seriously

Normally the court marshal of Lt. Ehren Watada is not the sort of thing I'd reflect upon in a venue like "Populucious". But if popular culture is, as Wikipedia defines it, the daily interactions, needs and desires and cultural 'moments' that make up the everyday lives of the mainstream, Ehren Watada’s story is undoubtedly a cultural moment which speaks volumes about where we are as a country, and has created some interesting ‘daily interactions’ for Americans, or at least for me.


In some respects, Watada’s story is nothing new. With every war there come people in opposition, and soldiers who decline to fight.  As Americans, our hazy collective memory is filled with residue from Vietnam: draft dodgers, conscientious objectors, running to Canada and amnesty. But just as Ford’s pardon of Nixon didn’t salve the anger over Watergate in our national conscience, Ford’s amnesty for draft dodgers didn’t erase the anger on either side of the Vietnam issue.

Vietnam remains an unhealed scar on the American body. There is an enduring image of a culture unable to separate disapproval of the war from the soldiers sent to fight it. The image of a draft dodger being praised while a veteran is jeered is a boogieman in the American memory. Even if it never happened, we still smart somehow at the embarrassment. Just the shame of the whole darn thing. We lost. We treated returning vets poorly.

Our unofficial "Heroes of the World" prize, earned in the trenches of World War II became tarnished with napalm and images of death. Society divided itself into those that felt the patriotic response was to question our government and military, and those that felt that questioning was the very antithesis of patriotism, a division which only seems to have increased over time.  Although the war had been over nearly 30 years, in 2004 a decorated and honored Vietnam vet was hounded and pilloried into losing a Presidential race, not because he refused to serve, but because at the end of his service, he publicly criticized the war.  It is no wonder Americans flounder with conflicted feelings about Iraq. We still haven’t resolved our issues over Vietnam.

I had two experiences relating to the Watada trail within 24 hours of each other which have led me to this rumination about our country’s struggle over what it means to be a patriot. It happens that just this week, I’ve been serving on jury duty. Despite assurances from many that I’d spend a week watching bad movies and doing crossword puzzles, on my first day I was assigned to a preliminary jury pool, passed the voir dire stage and was empanelled on a jury.

Waiting in the jury room to be called for opening arguments, the group made small talk and brief introductions. One woman said that she has five children, four of whom are serving in Iraq. The fifth one is still in high school. If she weren’t serving on jury duty, she said, she’d be down at that trail of that…that….traitor. A few, though not remotely all, other voices chimed in…terrible…awful…treason…coward.

I knew I had problems with what they were saying, but I had no idea how to articulate it. The best I could come up with, in my mind, was something about how lucky were all are to live in a society where we can speak our opinions without fear of death. Unfortunately, my eloquent sentiments were also mixed with some decidedly uncharitable thoughts. I mean, there’s no draft Mrs. Ryan. Under present circumstances, to have one child in the military may be considered a source of pride, but four seems like carelessness.

The next day I saw a local midday news report on the trial and the growing circus around it. There were interviews with Sean Penn, who came to town to show his support. Tacoma isn’t really used to celebrity visitation, and this was undoubtedly more exciting then the time Carrot Top was spotted working out at the local Y. Regardless of how one leans politically you do learn things when you spend 10 years living next to an Army base which is probably why, when I saw Mr. Penn, all I could think was, well shit. That’s not going to help Watada’s case one bit.

I quickly forgot Mr. Penn when the reporter switched to interviewing the other side: the people who were there to protest Watada, not the war. One of them said with great glee that he was looking forward to the end of the week when “that weasel” would be “put away for life”.

I couldn’t get that word out of my head. Weasel. It’s such an ugly word, and it was delivered with such relish. I understand someone saying “I don’t approve of what he’s doing.” I get the argument that when you enlist in the military, you are forfeiting the right to debate orders or politics. You are no longer a political animal but a tool. I might not agree, but I get it.

But calling someone a “weasel”, or even a traitor, isn’t an attempt at political discussion. To be honest, neither is standing there waving a sign that the Iraq war sucks. The people who are loudly supporting Watada because all war is bad, man, are just as guilty of overlooking the true meaning of Watada’s action.

Maybe all of this would have just swirled around in my head for a while until I forgot it. But something else happened this week which suddenly clicked the whole Watada case into sharper focus for me. This week the trail date was set for the only officer charged with crimes in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. So far nine soldiers have been convicted and they all have been enlisted personnel, not commissioned officers.

I don’t think that any American, regardless of where they stand politically, believes that the actions at Abu Ghraib were the result of some high spirited high jinx of bored Privates while all the commanding officers were in meetings. Armies don’t run from the bottom up. Top down is what it’s all about. Top down is why the Watada case is getting so much attention. It’s not just that he didn’t want to go, it’s that he’s an officer who didn’t want to go.

Truth is, we know that the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was a top down affair because our leaders, our Commander in Chief, promised us that torture would happen. From the minute we marched into Iraq, the Attorney General and Pentagon lawyers started murmuring about “enemy combatants”. The Geneva Conventions, the Gold Standard by which a country's behavior in wartime is judged, were suddenly being dismissed like a frivolous, annoying Kyoto Treaty.  But strangely now that evidence they fulfilled their promise has come to light, suddenly it seems none but the lowly are responsible.

Repeatedly in the Watada case the issue of morale has been brought up, how damaging to morale it is to have an officer refuse to carry out their commission. I’m trying to imagine what could be more damaging to morale than the knowledge that your leaders are ready to hang you out to dry for carrying out their orders. If we are going to burden certain members of our society with the responsibility for waging war, for shooting their guns and killing an enemy, the least we can promise them is that we wont jail them for doing what they were told.

Vietnam and now Iraq are wounds that have been inflicted on America by our leaders; people driven by political or personal ideologies which had little in common with what was actually best for our country or the world. Now some of them tell us that our lack of success in Iraq is not because they never set a clear goal or strategy, not because they failed to send enough troops or equipment but it is in fact our fault. We have caused the present situation because we questioned our leaders’ judgment. We asked for explanations. Mothers requested reasons for their children’s deaths. We demanded our leaders to be accountable, to take responsibility for the actions they took, and in return they have tried to guilt trip upon us. It is not their fault things have turned out this way, but ours. The saddest part is when, instead of calling them on their BS, we turn on each other, accusing each other of being weasels and war mongers.


In the long view it is our fault. Unlike the military, democracies do work from the bottom up. We elected these people. We gave them the power. Our guilt stems not from questioning our leaders, but not questioning them enough. I’d like to hope that our future history remembers Ehren Watada, and others like him, as people who questioned, who risked questioning too much, because the cost of not doing so was too high. And next time you hear of a soldier being punished for acts like Abu Ghraib, ask yourself where their commanding officer is. Where all of us might be if enough of those in charge had asked the hard questions before ordering things that cannot be undone.