Thanks for your patience while I upgrade the site. I will post frequently and with great vigor once the changes are complete. In the mean time, please discuss amongst yourselves the following question:
Is 28 Days Later a zombie movie?
I have contended for some time that the answer is an emphatic yes, even though the director himself says that the answer is no.
After all, the 28DL zombies sure look and act like zombies. A person trapped in 28DL wouldn't care whether they were zombies or just zombie-esque. And the movie is so beholden to Romero's films that it is almost dishonest not to think of the film in terms of zombies.
I think it makes a lot more sense to define a zombie by its behavior and by the nature of the threat it presents, rather than by anything so narrow as how the zombification occurs. After all, zombies can be created in lots of ways.
Originally speaking, zombies were the hypnotized victims of voodoo masters. Although people believed them to be reanimated corpses, they were, in fact, alive. In film and in literature, though, zombies have also been created by
- infection
- supernatural curse
- the rapture
- radiation from outer space
- radiation from a comet
- vampires from a comet (woohoo, Lifeforce!)
- breakdown of our consensual reality (woohoo, Cemetery Man!)
... and so on.
28DL's zombies transmit their zombieness via a bite, just like the classic Romero monsters. The only difference is the technical one of whether they actually died first. And who is to say they didn't? Or, who is to say that Romero's zombies did? We must place zombies in the context of the rest of the horror/sci-fi universe, where death itself is a tricky subject.
In other zombie news, Josh Levin, who also thinks 28DL was a zombie film, has an interesting piece in Slate about when Zombies started running so darn fast.
Wacky Science Wednesday
extra super duper unity
I was interested to read today in Japan.com that a musician named Kohei Minato has created a motor that
... consume[s] just 20 percent or less of the power of conventional motors with the same torque and horse power. They run cool to the touch and produce almost no acoustic or electrical noise. They are significantly safer and cheaper (in terms of power consumed), and they are sounder environmentally.
Sounds good, huh? Unfortunately the article goes on to say:
With the help of magnetic propulsion, it is feasible to attach a generator to the motor and produce more electric power than was put into the device. Minato says that average efficiency on his motors is about 330 percent.
That's perpetual motion, or as the inventor dubs it, 'over unity.' It's probably impossible. And yet, he has just closed a deal to sell 40,000 of the motors to power fans in convenience stores around Japan. I sure hope the buyer keeps the receipt.
Jasonblog Needs Your Help
(this is not a request for money)
On April 1 (or 2), I am planning on making this site a tad more professional, and a double-tad more anonymous. Along these lines, I need a little help.
First of all, does anybody know why the lines of my table show up in Internet Explorer? They don't show up in Safari, and that's the way I want it to look. If anybody who is less of a HTML moron can help me out by posting the answer in the comments, I would very much appreciate it. I might even send you an 'If I gave a damn, I'd vote for Sharpton" coffee mug.
Second, does anyone have a copy--or access to the artwork--of The Hunting of the Snark illustrated by Ralph Steadman? I need a piece of it for my new logo. Same offer of the coffee mug applies.
Breathing, But For How Much Longer?
A lot of .jasonblog. posts this month have been about how, when, and why the Bush administration has been lying. So for me it is just icing on the cake of lies that Richard Clark (whom Condi Rice persisted in calling 'Dick Clark' on CNN this morning) backed up Paul O'Neil's claims that the administration had their heads all the way up Iraq's whoopsididdle before 9-ll, and that they used 9-11 to advance their let's-get-Saddamn agenda. It may take a week or two for the facts to settle, but reading the papers so far it seems like the 'he's a disgruntled ex-employee' argument is not going to work this time. Hopefully this will convince a few more of my fellow Americans that Bush will lie about anything.
Of course, now it's time for some of that revisionist history Condi complains about so much.
Wacky Science Wednesday
Premiering on Monday!
Beer bubbles don't just go up--they can go anywhere they like (like heat (that's a joke (go read some Pinter!))).
"... anyone that goes into a pub and orders a pint of Guinness is a scientist."
I'm dusting off my nobel prize acceptance speech (again).
Also in weird science, Zwichenzug discusses the ramifications of NASA's new I-didn't-actually-say-it speech recognition technology.
Friday Culturepost
Also Premiering on Monday!
If you are the kind of person who would go to the new Dawn of the Dead movie, you will probably therefore go to the new Dawn of the Dead movie, and you will enjoy it.
If you are the kind of person who likes Terry Gilliam movies, you should also go see Charlie Kaufman's new joint, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Don't read any more reviews, just go. The use of what used to be called special effects is completely wedded to the Phillip K. Dick style story, and the acting doesn't get in the way, either. It makes me think that Charlie and Terry really need to get together.
P.S., isn't it great that we can talk about 'the new Charlie Kaufman film,' and be talking about the writer instead of the director? This guy's films have all been awesome, regardless of who directs.
Cubicle-Free Existence
Thanks to pimpdaddysantaclause, I have access to a 17" powerbook with a 1 ghz G4 processor which is currently running Mac OS X version 10.3.3. Let me tell you as someone who has used a lot of portable computers and a lot of operating systems, this is amazing. When I say 'jump,' my applications say 'how high!' When I flick my wrist, windows flow away and rearrange themselves. When necessary, I can directly access the underlying unixy core. It is a pleasure to use. (Thanks pimpdaddysantaclause!).
Nonetheless, I think I spend too much time using the aforementioned supermachine. Between using it for work, writing short stories and this blog at home, and generally screwing around reading text on the internet, I spend most of every weekday staring at this (awesomely huge and brilliant seventeen-inch) screen. So when I had a few days off from work, I put the powerbook on the shelf and actually spent some time outdoors, and read from books made of paper. I began using vocal cords to communicate with my fellow humans. It was strange.
So I apologize for the slow pace of blogging. Now, as you can plainly see, I have once again tethered my soul to cyberspace and am catching up on last week's missed posts. As the man says, 'excelsior!'
No Brain Drain in Spain
Everybody is suddenly an expert on Spain's politics. One might conclude that Bill O'Reilly and Joe Scarborough had been reading the Spanish dailies with their morning coffee for, like, ever.
But predictably enough, the free expression of the will of the Spanish people is being seen, by American punditry, through an American lens. Everybody's projecting.
The claim on the right is that the attacks scared the fight out of the Spaniards, and that their decision to elect a centrist party that wants to get Spain out of Iraq is "the worst kind of appeasement." Now (comes the desperate shriek from the right), the terrorists will know they can effect true change with their attacks. They'll be bombing before every election!
The terrorists might really think just that, but, if so, they have seriously miscalculated. With all the money, manpower, and brainpower we are dumping into Iraq, America does not currently have a lot of resources for hunting down groups that would perpetrate acts such as 9-11 and 3-11. Europe, on the other hand, still has several powerful nations that didn't tie up their military, intelligence, and national spending in our Iraq mess. And if the international papers are any indication, Europe is pissed. (They sure are fond of their trains).
This is a net loss for the terrorists. 9-11 would have been the beginning of the end of effective global terror networks if it had happened under a president who had any clue about how to handle it. But 3-11 might just do it.
As for what really happened in the polls in Spain, maybe the people were just tired of being lied to. A significant portion of the Spanish people felt that the Iraq war was the wrong war at the wrong time. They also felt that the government was in the habit of using the war on terrorism to pursue unrelated and questionable political goals.
And they forget a very simple thing: Aznar had huge support for his hardline policy of non-appeasement of the ETA terrorists and their supporters, however, there was discontent about his lap-dog act towards Bush's war on 'global terror' which, wrong or right, was perceived as inefficient and counterproductive. Discontent extended to other pressing domestic issues, he had antagonised practically all other political parties and more than a few regional governments due to his "you-are-with-me-or-against-me" attitude, his arrogance and his intolerance.
Sound familiar?
So, the PP knew that their antiterrorist policy (against ETA) was one of its main winning cards, and they didn't hesitate to blatantly manipulate the 11-M attack, suppressing information, calling people to demonstrate against ETA, knowing all the while that the Antiterrorist Information Brigade had as good as discarded ETA authorship a few hours after the attack. The antiterrorist police heads even threatened to resign at the madness of it all, and this was leaked to the opposition and the press. [Beautiful Horizons]
The administration used the war on terrorism to bully its opposition, and blatantly manipulated the facts to serve their short-sighted and arrogant aims.
Oh, maybe I'm projecting, now.
P.S.: Juan Cole says Spain made a cost-benefit analysis of continuing to be Bush's bitch, and decided it was no longer worth it:
Zapatero's speech is a victory for Bin Laden?
No, it is a defeat only for the Bush administration and the Neoconservative philosophy of Perpetual War. They hold that the US, the UK and Turkey are the only permanent allies and shifting coalitions "of the willing" are put together for particular wars, depending on who can be cajoled, bribed or bamboozled into joining up. This system of US-led shifting coalitions removes all restraint on US militarism. If you have permanent allies, like Germany and France, you might have to pay attention to them. If all you have is a shifting coalition, you can do what you please when you please. Multilateralists are like a set of married couples who are old friends; the Neocons' unilateral superpower is like Hugh Hefner, surrounded by a constantly changing bevy of hand-picked "girlfriends."
Worth a read in its entirety.
Putting Terrorism in Perspective
Once again, instead of a lighthearted Friday blog about my cats, I had to post this, because on Fox "News" this morning all the pundits were arguing that the Spain bombings couldn't have been possible unless Iran was giving support to the terrorists.
Iran!
So, here's what I have to say about terrorism:
An increasing meme in American politics is this idea that half the country thinks we are at war, and the other half thinks we aren't. The half that thinks we are is very apprehensive about voting for anyone--anyone like John Kerry--who may not see it that way. If you don't think this is how half of the country thinks, read Andrew Sullivan on any random day.
I am in the latter half. We are not at "war" against the terrorists. One can call our fight against terrorism a "war" only in the loosest sense of that word.
As with the "war" on drugs, the use of the word "war" is a crass attempt to bully the country into irrational, immoral, and highly suspect policies, such as the actual war in Iraq. Also like the "war" on drugs, the "war" on terrorism is unwinnable.
We may be able to (and we should!) thwart specific terrorist groups, but they will always exist in some form or another. Terrorism is not a nation which can ultimately surrender in the face of our incredible military might. Terrorism is a crime in which small groups of individuals can engage.
In 2001, 14 times as many Americans died from traffic accidents as did from terrorist attacks. In 2002, 43,000 people died in cars, and zero died from terrorism.*
Terrorism is of course different than traffic accidents. It is mass-murder with a vicious intent of disrupting our society. We have to fight terrorists, both the international variety and our home-grown loonies.
But as a nation, we need to recognize that 9-11 didn't "change everything." It woke us up to the fact that there is as group of people who have the will and the capability of conducting serious terrorist attacks against us, and I support policies that go after those folks in all sorts of ways.
But we apparently can't trust Bush to fight that fight. He and his people keep using his standing as a wartime president to pursue their highly suspect, if not morally bankrupt, agenda.
March 11, 2003
Shot A Man For Snoring Too Loud
From today's news:
The president made no remarks at the ceremony attended by several hundred people, uniformed Nassau County firefighters, a color guard and bagpipers who played strains of "Amazing Grace." But earlier, at a factory in another part of Long Island, Bush said the lesson of Sept. 11 is that "we must deal with threats before they fully materialize."
The doctrine of pre-emption is the single most disturbing thing about the Bush presidency for me. Kerry seems to be taking the view that pre-emption is okay if handled correctly, which I reject. I think this nation (and the world) would benefit from Americans having a serious discussion about what kind of nation they want to be a part of.
As I have earlier stated, although I'm not a fan of violence of any sort, I understand those who say that we should disproportionately respond to attacks on Americans. I see the point, and I acknowledge that it is one way of keeping us safe. But this new, untested doctrine of pre-emption seems only likely to bring us misery.
And besides, it's just wrong. Even in the John Wayne westerns that Bush tries to evoke with his "plain Texas talk," the hero waits until his opponent actually pulls a gun before shooting him down.
March 9
How Do You Know They Are Lying?
...Well, are they still breathing?
Let's see:
Bush and Ridge's Department of Homeland Security is making Americans safer? But anyone who looks at the DHS becomes angry or alarmed. Check out this New Republic article, if you want to be alarmed and angry, too. Some highlights:
One official I spoke to recently wasn't sure of the current name of her office. Bio-expert Tara O'Toole says such disorder has very real consequences. "I don't know who's in charge of biodefense for the United States. And, given that I do this all the time," she says, "that's very alarming to me."
....
Assessing the nation's thousands of vulnerable industrial sites, railways, electric grids, and so on is supposed to be central to the DHS mission. But 30 months after September 11, almost nothing has been done. Last year, an impatient Congress asked DHS to produce a plan for its nationwide risk assessment--not the actual assessment, just a plan for devising it--by December 15, 2003. The deadline came and went. Two days later, the White House quietly issued a directive giving DHS an entire year to develop a "plan" explaining its "strategy" for how to examine infrastructure. An actual infrastructure analysis, one DHS official told Congress last fall, could take five years. ....But DHS looks curiously slow when you consider that, by last summer, a George Mason University graduate student had used publicly available data to map every commercial and industrial sector in the country, complete with their fiber-optic network connections.
Job growth is just around the corner? Sometimes it takes a picture to point out just how dishonest the administration's projections have been. That's why Krugman gave up several column inches in the New York Times to print this graph:
Yup, still breathing.
March 8
Kos runs down the various vice presidential picks Kerry might make. I think this is premature. If The West Wing has taught me anything about politics--and I think it has--Kerry won't pick until the news cycles are turning against him. Whoever he picks, the pick itself will drive other stories off of the front page. Ya gotta save that kind of powder for a big bang.
And a big bang it would be if Kerry could actually convince Tom Brokaw to run as his veep. Brokaw would need to take a break from his quest to personally fellate every member of the greatest generation in order to run, but if duty calls....
note: I stole that last line from Cliff.
note: I got sick after playing poker on Wednesday, so I apologize for blogless days.
March 2
February was a banner month for the culture war, and March may be a worthy contender as well, so let's discuss the phenomenon of the religious right.
Here are some of the features of their ideology:
Creation science: They believe that the teaching of evolution is an affront to their religion, and that is absolutely true: They believe that the earth is 6000 years old and that all creatures--including the dinosaurs who were later killed in the Flood--were created in six days by Yaweh. This is what they would have taught in schools, in the form of the oxymoronic 'creation science.' And make no mistake, creation science does not in any way try and teach that Genesis is a metaphor for currently accepted scientific theory. It teaches an alternate explanation that is based on Genesis and that is poorly propped up by cherry-picked scientific evidence. An example from The Creation Science website:
The "geologic column", which is cited as physical evidence of evolution occurring in the past, is better explained as the result of a devastating global flood which happened about 5,000 years ago, as described in the Bible. Even evolutionists acknowledge that the fossil record is one of "fully-formed abrupt appearance" and "stasis" (that is, no change over time).
The belief that the atoms of a "Big Bang" eventually produced people ALL BY THEMSELVES (that is, without any intelligent guidance) is contrary to the well-proven Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the fundamentals of Information Theory. The universe is known to be "running down" yet evolution postulates it is "building up". Atoms to people evolution is much more a "religious belief" than a scientific fact.
There is no reason not to believe that God created our universe, earth, plants, animals, and people just as described in the book of Genesis!
This is what they want to teach our kids in school, and in some states they are in position to get their wish. My home state of Kansas succumbed a few years back, but at least we came to our senses after not too very long. I don't think I understate the point when I say that adding 'creation science'--or even just suppressing the topic of evolution completely--in public school curriculum would be a major blow to science, and would put American children at a serious disadvantage on the world stage.
Questionably motivated support for Israel, or "Christian Zionism": Before anybody freaks out, I support Israel. It is a mainstream American view that democratic nations are our friends, and that Israel, due to its location and situation, really needs a friend. I have nothing but goodwill for the Israeli people, even when I have serious questions about their government.
The religious right drives support for Israel to a higher level, but for scary religious reasons. From the very top result of my google search for "religious right" with "support for Israel," I offer you these paragraphs.
Who's Your Daddy?
"I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves." (Zech 12:2-3) Israel's last friends in the world will have left in the Rapture. All the nations of the Earth will take up arms against her, and God's chosen people will be surrounded. But He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep, (Psalm 121:4) and the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. (Zechariah 14:3)
The last battle in the Age of Man will be for control of Jerusalem, a place no one wanted until God chose it as His own. (2 Chron. 6:5-6) Since then the forces opposed to Him have tried without ceasing to take it from Him, for in the spiritual realm control of Jerusalem signifies victory over God. It is quite simply the most important piece of Real Estate in the entire Universe. And for all those who would seek to divide it or give it to someone else or even "internationalize" it, be advised. He still wants it. "This is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever." (Ezekiel 43:7)
That article starts out being about how if America's alliance with Israel is to be maintained, it will be because of the religious right. First of all, that's not true. But more importantly, support for Israel is not equivalent to support for Jews--a lot of these people see no problem with the litany of anti-semitic imagery in Mel Gibson's new Jesus gorefest, after all.
Israelis and Jews around the world should be deeply suspicious of the motives of America's religious right in this--this kind of craziness has real potential to turn against Jews.
(For more information, see Religious right relishing Road Map's collapse.)
Opposition to gay marriage and general bigotry: The religious right can't stand the idea that two dudes who love each other can call themselves 'married,' which is odd, since they seem to have no trouble with the biblically-proscribed act of divorce.
But these people used to be against integration and interracial marriage as well. Although as this amazingly funny excerpt of Paul Cameron (which I found over at Atrios) illustrates, the homosexuality issue might strike a little closer to home:
"Untrammeled homosexuality can take over and destroy a social system," says Cameron. "If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one's own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get- and that is what homosexuality seems to be-then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men and women on women, if all you are looking for is orgasm." So powerful is the allure of gays, Cameron believes, that if society approves that gay people, more and more heterosexuals will be inexorably drawn into homosexuality. "I'm convinced that lesbians are particularly good seducers," says Cameron. "People in homosexuality are incredibly evangelical," he adds, sounding evangelical himself. "It's pure sexuality. It's almost like pure heroin. It's such a rush. They are committed in almost a religious way. And they'll take enormous risks, do anything." He says that for married men and women, gay sex would be irresistible. "Marital sex tends toward the boring end," he points out. "Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does" So, Cameron believes, within a few generations homosexuality would be come the dominant form of sexual behavior.
To sum up: Not everybody who shares one of these beliefs shares them all, but the overlap is significant. These are crazy, superstitious people. I mean, really, if "666" started showing up in numbers on tickets for the Lord of the Rings, do you think anybody would even notice, or care if they did?
My own economic views are out of step with mainstream America. I'm not happy about it, but that's the way it is.
But these folks are really out of step. And their crazy point of view exerts far more influence over our nation than my economic utopian ideas. They are a true and terrible enemy in the culture war, and a lot of my mainstream friends don't even fully realize it.
March 1
That Vast Sucking Sound You Are Hearing
Everybody who is anybody--or anybody who doesn't want to be branded a nutjob by the current terms of our economic debate--will assure you that free trade is good.
I'm for capitalism. It is a powerful means to certain valuable ends. But it is not itself a worthy end, so since I don't see the great good for the common man that free trade is to have produced, I start wondering. And I'm not alone. Jeff Faux writes,
In all three countries NAFTA has worsened the distribution of income and wealth. While ordinary people paid the costs, the benefits went to the continent's "rich and powerful." Canadian and US corporate investors got guaranteed access to Mexico's cheap labor as well as its privatized public assets. Mexican elites brokered the deals. In one example, well-connected Mexicans bought the country's second-largest commercial bank from the government for $3.3 billion and sold it to Citigroup for $12.5 billion.
This reminds me of the underpants gnomes of South Park, who posited:
Step 1: Gather the Underpants
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Huge Profit!
...but they were a little unclear on step 2. With free trade, step 2 is similarly unclear:
Step 1: Allow corporations to find the cheapest places for goods and labor by giving them unfettered access to unprotected workers and an undefended environment.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: "The rising tide lifts all ships."
I'm starting to think Step 2 is just another visit from our old friend Trickle Down Economics. Let's add Bush's old-fashioned version of Trickle Down Economics--the Bush tax-cuts--to the mix, and what do you have?
Step 1: The rich get huge tax cuts to stimulate their investment.
Step 2: The rich do invest that money, but they invest it in foreign plants and jobs.
Step 3: ???
Step 2 is suddenly a lot more clear. But what about Step 3?
Other Stuff:
Apparently it is a weekly, not daily dose of architecture. But what if I need more than that? I need a dose today! Don't hold out on me, man!
My new subtitle is taken from the frivolous idea that, metaphorically speaking, Bush has "only one notion for crossing the ocean." Go read some Lewis Carroll, for heaven's sake.
jasonblog updates
Mar 22 - fantastic plastic blog.
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See also: Current Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
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A R C H I V E D
February 2004
January 2004
December
2003
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Jason is a writer in Austin, TX.
Email Jason.
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