Pic of the Week, 3/28 edition

One day early! Woo-hoo!

One recent Saturday, I spent – literally – all day at the movies, just catching up. It’s nice to do that every now and then. Clear the day, hit some matinees, smuggle in some fruit or a wrap (I actually did this once) in your giant purse – hey, it’s either that or the $6 hot dogs. But anyway, I saw some new releases that I’ve been putting off for awhile.

“Juno” (2007)
Yes, I became the last person in America to see the little movie that could. By now, everybody knows the story – courtesy of stripper-turned Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody* – about this preternaturally together teenager who gets knocked up thanks to first-time sex with her BF, whose voice doesn’t seem to have finished changing. (And he sleeps in a bed shaped like a race car.) “Juno” is unique in the pregnant teenager genre because the conflict doesn’t stem from Juno debating what to do about her situation – she decides pretty quickly to give the baby up for adoption to a nice suburban couple (Jennifer Garner and that cute guy from “Arrested Development”). Instead, it’s about a girl with all the external trappings of maturity (oodles of cynical witticisms) thrown into the actual adult world. Juno may be able to wax hipster about Iggy Pop, but she’s still clueless when it comes to adult motives.
Overall, a very touching, human film with an excellent cast. I hope Ellen Page (nominated for an Oscar) doesn’t get pigeonholed into playing Juno for her entire career. My only quibble is with the insanely long closing shot, which takes approximately all day to pull back – but that was mainly because “Juno” was the middle flick in my triple-feature, and I was stressing about missing the beginning of…

“Vantage Point” (2007)
…which is the kind of movie that I usually wait to see on video. But, it was there, it was still good for the matinee cost, so I said, what the hell? And “Vantage Point” doesn’t suck, exactly…it reminded me of “Phone Booth,” in that it’s a movie that really should have been a 45-minute short, and that it’s too obsessed with its own cleverness for me to really buy into it. Unless you haven’t watched TV since Thanksgiving, you’ve seen the trailer for “Vantage Point” about 795 times, which means you’ve pretty much seen the entire movie, minus some third-act twists that I didn’t really care about because I was invested not one bit in any of these characters. So basically, someone sets off a bomb at a rally where the U.S. President is appearing in Spain, and we see a little more of the action as the perspective shifts from character to character. It wants to be “Rashomon” meets “Run, Lola, Run,” but it’s got no heart. And don’t tell me that it’s just a dumb action movie. Plenty of quote-unquote dumb action movies have a soul – the “Terminator” movies, “Die Hard,” “The Matrix” – the heart is what keeps people watching, what makes even the explosions timeless. No one’s going to be watching “Vantage Point” in 20 years. Also, it majorly suffers from the "What on Earth is this A-List Actor Doing in This Thankless Role?" Syndrome.

“Breathless” (1960)
I’m still on my French/Italian New Wave kick. I have a pretty short attention span, so films like “The 400 Blows” or Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” are definitely an acquired taste for me. When I get bored, I remind myself that “Breathless” came out the same year as “Operation Petticoat.” (To be fair, that year’s Best Picture was “The Apartment” – hardly a slouch, but still a very different film from “Breathless.”) This story about a small-time thief/gigolo who holes up with his American sometime-girlfriend in Paris after shooting a cop may be short on traditional plot, but it’s still the kind of film that took another decade to take hold in America. And yes, if every film were done in French New Wave style, I’d probably beg Bruce Willis to shoot me in the head – but there’s a lot to learn here. If nothing else, Godard, Truffaut et al. are largely the guys that got us off the back-lot and on location.
The ending is just beautiful – a dual monologue of sorts between guy and girl that loses some of its impact in the subtitles (I knew I should’ve stuck with French class…), followed by the world’s coolest guy-running-up-the-street-about-to-die shot. I also love the use of jump-cuts, loooooo-ong tracking shots and other existential-moodish stuff we see all the time now, but that was revolutionary 50 years ago.
(Subtitles still frustrate me. I want to know who’s interpreting this stuff. And, I know just enough Spanish and French to know that they’re leaving stuff out, but not enough so that I know what. Grrrr…..)

“Enchanted” (2007)
Kudos to Disney for showing a little sense of humor in this somehow-not-snarky send-up of the formula that made it: fairy tales. “Enchanted” starts off in a magical cartoon world where a happy woodland nymph named Giselle (Amy Adams) summons a Prince Charming type (Cyclops, who’s way cuter without those death-ray eyes) with the sound of her voice. (How do those cartoon woodland fairies come by their fabulous digs, anyway? How do they eat? Where are their parents?) Anyway, before they can get married/live happily ever after, Charming Cyclops’ evil stepmother (*sigh* one stereotype Disney can’t kick) banishes Amy to a world with no magic – Times Square. Luckily, even the live-action Giselle/Amy retains her princess gowns, goofy charm and ability to get animals to do her bidding (and to compose songs on the fly). Even luckier, she encounters a princess-starved little girl whose divorced dad (Patrick Dempsey) gets suckered into helping her get home.
For me, this movie doesn’t work without Adams, high concept or no high concept. She’s got those overwrought Disney princess mannerisms nailed, and she just looks like someone drawn in an animation studio – she’s just that flawless. She’s got this great spirit that just leaps off of the screen (seriously, who else could have made that speech in “Talladega Nights” work?). Did you see her singing “Happy Working Song” at the Oscars, when the sadists put her on an empty friggin’ stage and she still sold it?
The ending goes on a little long. But other than that, it’s a sweet film.

“M” (1931)
Another of Sara’s must-see-if-you-want-to-call-yourself-a-film-geek classics, this one by German director Fritz Lang (co-written with his wife) is Exhibit A in the defense against the film-geek-wannabe argument that every film released before, say, “Reservoir Dogs” was a happy-fest. Peter Lorre, who most Americans know from “Casablanca,” plays a serial killer who preys on children, hunted simultaneously by the police and the criminal underworld, who feel his spree is bad for business. Interestingly, Lorre was pretty much a comic actor before “M,” but was typecast as a baddie after. I was pleasantly surprised by Lang’s restraint in this, his first “talking picture.” So many early talkies go buck-wild with their new-found ability to match dialogue and effects with scenes, but Lang uses sound in a very modern way. For instance, his killer’s presence is always accompanied by a certain whistled piece of music.
My favorite sequence is the one you always read about in your Intro to Film class – Killer buys a little girl a balloon; girl’s mom wanders the streets looking for her; oh, look, there’s the balloon, floating off all by itself. Even when you know it’s going to happen, it’s still cool. Plus, it’s the earliest example of lapped sound I’ve ever seen. (Sorry, more film-geekness.)

Pic of the Week: Tough call. But I think I have to go with “M,” just because even so many of my fellow film-geeks haven’t seen it.

*Interesting that so many, including myself, note Diablo Cody’s former line of work. Is it just a Hollywood marketing angle, or are we seeing something more sinister? Aw look, the stripper has a brain! I can’t tell. But WTF was she wearing to the Oscars?

Barack Obama on: "Sportsmen"

A (hopefully, if my attention span lasts) weekly series in which I explore Senator Obama's various positions.

First up: a topic Democrat candidates ceded to the Republicans about the time I was starting kindergarten - guns 'n ammo. Okay, that's a bit of an oversimplification...but both guns and ammo are definitely involved. This one caught my eye because a) I grew up in the country, so hunting and fishing were definitely a big part of my upbringing, and b) again, you just don't find the allegedly latte-sipping Libs putting this one out there.

Read Obama's full statement here.

He starts off by stating his support of the Second Amendment right of law-abiding people to own guns. Wonderful...but I would've liked a little more on how he plans to balance the rights of law-abiding people to not get shot by other, not-so-law-abiding people. The Virginia Tech shooter never should've been allowed to buy his weapons, for instance. We may or may not need new laws, but we sure as hell need better enforcement of the ones we have. Where does Obama stand on reinstituting the Assault Weapons Ban? No sportsman I know needs an AK-47 to take out a ten-point buck.

Much of the rest of the plan seems to equate preserving places to hunt and fish with environmental protection. YES. I've been waiting all my life to see a Democrat have the balls to frame this issue in this way. Too often, we've allowed ourselves to be depicted as wimpy dilletantes who cared more about some obscure species of root-growing bacteria than about people. It's simply not true. Some of the biggest conservationists I know are hunters and anglers who grasp that it's kind of hard to land a duck or a large-mouth bass in the parking lot of a strip mall.

When progressives failed to draw a distinction between the guy who likes to take his kids hunting once or twice a year and the crack dealer who mows down entire sidewalks full of innocent bystanders, we lost a generation of voters. I'm glad to see Obama acknowledge that hunters and anglers (and, ahem, sports-women, too) have a role in preserving resources for all of us.

Obama All the Way

So, since Bill Richardson dropped his presidential bid, I’ve been calling myself “officially undecided” as to the Democrat candidate. I’ve never fully understood the “undecided” voters we seem to get in every election – are they just not paying attention? – but in this case, I wasn’t choosing between two people so much as two philosophies.

Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama. I couldn’t decide between the people until I figured out whether experience, D.C. connections, all that Beltway insider-ness was a good or bad thing. Clinton really can “lead on day one,” as she’s been saying all this time – that is, until Congress starts in on her a million times worse than her husband ever got it. But hey, she has existing relationships, capital and all that.

On the flip-side, she has relationships, capital and all that. Clinton’s strengths are also her weaknesses. She’s a political genius – and, like her husband, that instinct to try and politic her way out of any jam can get her into trouble (more on this later). Clinton vs. Obama was really a choice between a) more of the same, and b) something new.

Events during the last week made my mind up. First, early in the week, Obama’s beautiful speech on race relations in America, which I firmly believe will go down as one of the greatest pieces of oratory in American history. As Richardson said Friday, Obama talked to us like we’re adults. He was exactly right. We may detest what Rev. Jeremiah Wright says from the pulpit – I certainly do – but we can’t just pretend that he’s not saying it, or that people aren’t cheering him on.

There’s more than one country in this country, and I’m tired of it. How are we supposed to overcome our common problems (crappy economy, for instance) when some of us can’t acknowledge that not everybody in America gets the Rich White Guy Experience? Notice how, in the speech, he mentions that poor and middle class white resentment is just as valid as what Rev. Wright feels.

The powerful would love it if you believed that blacks or Mexicans or Chinese factory workers were to blame for everything wrong with America, because then you wouldn’t be focusing on them. In Barack Obama, I see someone who isn’t too intimidated by the corporate power structure to tell people the truth – as he put it, opportunity isn’t a zero-sum game. He’s someone who can explain to us why we need to unite ourselves.

I haven’t got “Obamamania” by any means. I still want to know more about some of his policy issues. But I would be proud to have Barack Obama as my president.

And I’ve grown more disappointed in Hillary Clinton by the day. Just an example… Bill Richardson, only Hispanic governor in the U.S., former official during Bill Clinton’s administration, also an all-important super-delegate. The Clintons have been trying to lock up his endorsement ever since he suspended his campaign in January, to the point that Bill Clinton went to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with Richardson. Friday, when Richardson announced his support for Obama, Clinton’s campaign sniffed that Richardson wasn’t that big a deal, who needs Richardson? Show of hands – who thinks that, had Richardson endorsed Hillary Clinton instead, it would have been the most important endorsement in the history of the world? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So last week, Richardson is the hot girl Clinton wanted to take to the prom, and this week he’s Judas Iscariot. Or just irrelevant. We can't decide. And we the American people are just supposed to nod our heads and go along, just like we're supposed to go along with the notion that after five years and 4,000 dead Americans, Hillary Clinton still can't admit that she f*cked up. Look, I’ve just had eight years of this 1984-style “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” BS, and I don’t want four to eight more.

Our country does not need more division. It does not need more of this “do whatever it takes to stay in power” crap. It does not need more secrecy and more shading of the truth. I don’t want triangulation; I want integrity. (Before you ask - And also a better economy, no more dead soldiers and the freedom to make my own medical decisions, which is why John McCain is out of the running.)

I’m voting for Barack Obama. If by some chance Clinton wins the nomination, I suppose I can stomach it. But hundreds of thousands of moderates, independents and first-time voters probably won’t – just something to think about.

Pic of the Week returns!

Ah, the (hopefully?) long-awaited return of Pic of the Week. It’s not that I haven’t been watching movies…it’s just that I haven’t had time to think coherently about any of them. Going on the theory that, to write, one just has to, you know, write, here goes…

“Michael Clayton” (2007)
Came out at the $2 cinema the same day I moved it to the top of my Netflix queue, natch. So, though I could’ve seen it on the big screen, I’m glad I watched it at home with the benefit of being able to view certain sequences a second time. Here’s everything you need to know about “Michael Clayton” – it was written and directed by Tony Gilroy, who wrote all three “Bourne” scripts (plus a bunch of stuff I didn’t know about). For me, the Bourne trilogy was remarkable for how smart – and patient – it assumed me to be. They’re movies that only leave in the absolute least amount of information possible for you to understand the story, and “Michael Clayton” is the same way. There were plenty of times in watching “Michael Clayton” where I found myself thinking, “Whaaa?” but trust me, stick with it. Also, the acting is off-the-charts good.

“Once” (2007)
Unless you’re a film geek, the first time you heard of this Irish indie was when it won the Best Original Song Oscar for “Falling Slowly” last month. This was shot in 17 days for something like $150,000. It’s a simple, almost perfect story about a guy and a girl (neither named) who meet, write some songs and…oh, I don’t want to ruin it. It’s got the kind of pacing that shouldn’t work, but does. I spent most of the first two-thirds of “Once” thinking, this is sweet, but where is it going? And by the end I was crying like a teething baby. “Once” is a sweet story about how people come together and sometimes part, and a lovely reminder of that old saying that to love someone is to set him/her free. And you absolutely must download the soundtrack on iTunes this minute

“The Passenger” (1975)
I’ll admit it, “Blow-Up” whetted my appetite for Michelangelo Antonioni. Though “Blow-Up” is Antonioni’s best-known English-language film, I think I liked “The Passenger” better – although that may be because I was a little more prepared for Antonioni’s style this time around. (And also because there are no mimes.) “The Passenger” (original title: “Professione: reporter”) is about a – you guessed it – reporter (Jack Nicholson, back when he was still acting in roles other than “Jack Nicholson”) who’s seriously disaffected with his job, his marriage, everything. On assignment in Africa, he meets an exotic, seemingly free-as-a-bird stranger, who dies suddenly. On impulse, Jack takes the stranger’s identity, only to learn that Mr. Body was – oops! – an arms dealer with a price on his head. (Well, Jack, you wanted adventure…) If “The Passenger” were made today, someone would turn it into a “Bourne”-style thriller. Not bad, but… Instead, it’s an interesting meditation on identity (btw with a strong turn by Maria Schneider of “Last Tango in Paris”). I liked.

“The Namesake” (2006)
Oh, my Hell, I hated this movie. Do yourself a huge favor – watch the trailer and just tell yourself that “The Namesake” actually only lasts two-and-a-half minutes. Or better yet, read Jhumpa Lahiri’s book, on which the film is based. (Note: Lahiri co-wrote the screenplay along with Sooni Taraporevala, a frequent collaborator with director Mira Nair.) This follows the book closely – I think that might be the problem. Book adaptations to film are an interest of mine. And having attempted one, I definitely concur with the advice that one should treat an adapted story no different than an original story. This feels like Nair just threw the book up on-screen, without making any cinematic choices of her own. Sure, it would be hard to find a standard Hollywood narrative in Lahiri’s sprawling novel about two generations of a Bengali immigrant family. But that’s why Nair gets the big bucks. Acting-wise, Irfan Khan and Tabu, who play the parents of the ill-named Gogol Ganguli (Kal Penn) are wonderful. Penn is cute, and not much else. I stopped watching about halfway through – it takes a lot for me to quit on a movie, so this should tell you something – because I was reading the book and didn’t want to spoil it. I’m glad I did.

“The Indian Runner” (1991)
Speaking of adaptations…this, Sean Penn’s directorial debut, was inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song. Huh. I couldn’t believe I’d never seen it, considering that it features two of my favorite actors, Viggo Mortensen and David Morse. They play brothers – Morse is a cop and Mortensen his seriously f*cked up Vietnam vet baby brother. This is the kind of movie that seems like it should’ve been released in the early or mid-70s. It has far more in common with something like “Badlands” than with “Silence of the Lambs,” which won the Best Picture Oscar that year – which is to say that it’s more character-driven than plot-driven. I thought Mortensen was marvelous, not to mention hot as hell (full frontal nudity alert!) – don’t understand why it took him another decade to hit the A-list. Speaking of A-list, Morse’s wife is played by Italian actor Valeria Golino (playing a Mexican, but whatever…), who was all over the place in the late 80s and early 90s (“Rain Man,” the “Hot Shots” movies), but inexplicably disappeared after. Kind of drifty movie, but it’s worth a look.

“In the Valley of Elah” (2007)
Seriously disturbing movie – that’s not to say you shouldn’t see it, just that you should be forewarned. Tommy Lee Jones is marvelous (Oscar-nominated performance) as a former MP investigating the murder of his own son, who went AWOL shortly after returning from Iraq. Some reviewers thought “Elah” moralized too much, and maybe it does – I’m not really sure what co-writer/director Paul Haggis (of “Crash” fame) intended with the last scene. I didn’t really see this as any more anti-war than “Platoon” or any other war-is-hell-and-turns-people-into-monsters movie, except that it’s more topical and WAY more graphic. Seriously, if you or your loved ones are or have served in the military, “Elah” might be hard to watch (and I say that from experience). Also, this might be he first time since “That Thing You Do!” that I’ve bought into Charlize Theron.

“Be Kind Rewind” (2008)
Just to end on a happy note…well, sorta happy. I really wanted to love this movie, and couldn’t quite do it. I mean, it’s tailor-made for movie geeks – an indie video store that only stocks VHS, and really random VHS at that, battles the DVD revolution that apparently took 10 years to hit North Jersey and the evil spectre of urban gentrification. Only their livelihood is threatened when Jack Black accidentally erases the entire stock after being magnetized (don’t ask, just go with it). So, Black and store employee Mos Def scramble to re-shoot movies as they’re demanded, using people from the neighborhood and Jethro-rigged set-ups. You know, if this were a YouTube mash-up done by my friends and I back in high school, it would rock. But this is a major Hollywood production from Michel Gondry, the guy that brought us “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Science of Sleep.” It’s a hot tranny mess. If I brought my writing group this script, they’d kick my ass out. It only works if you buy that most of the characters are operating at a Forrest Gump-level IQ. Okay, I’m going to stop bitching, I obviously have no soul. (btw, this was my first feature-length Jack Black experience – let’s just say I won’t be doing that again any time soon.) Honestly, if they’d focused longer on the “Sweded” (don’t ask) film adaptations, I would’ve had more fun. If they’d picked more classic film geek stuff (no “Goonies”???), instead of “Rush Hour 2,” I’d have had more fun. This is a love-letter to filmmaking, but… I expected better, I’m sorry. Two stars.

Pic of the Week: Do some “Once.” Even if you’ve already seen it, go watch it again.

Like, what bomb was that again?

I used to think my dream job would be White House press secretary. Just think - you get to work in the White House, you get to be the official administration spokesperson, you get to date Mark Harmon - oh wait, that was only on "The West Wing."

Anyway, I let it go because, being a government job, it doesn’t pay nearly enough to make up for the high stress and long hours. And I have to admit, a little part of me wondered if I’d ever have the chops to handle such a pressure-filled job.

Day in, day out, you have to demonstrate a command of the issues and articulate the administration’s position with precision. You have to anticipate what reporters will need to know. Like my job now, except that everyone in the world is watching. You have to be off-the-charts smart to be White House press secretary, I thought.

I guess I was wrong.

(I’m trying really, really hard right now not to make a snarky joke about the intellect of those working in the Bush administration, I really, really am.)

I know, Dana. When you’re dropping so many bombs on so many different brown people, it’s just so gosh-darn hard to keep them all straight...If I only we had dicks with which to absorb the knowledge of these munitions from the atmosphere. *sigh*

Okay, I'm still officially undecided as to my vote, but Barack Obama's speech today is the most perfectly nuance, eloquent statement on race in America that I've ever heard:

Quick(ish) Hits

Here's what I'm reading today...

-- Camille Paglia's regular column on Salon.com. She's always fascinated me: among the "I'll say anything for shock value" inteligentsia, Paglia is unique for at least attempting to ground her opinions in a real-world framework. My problem with her is that, even when I agree with her (as in this piece's "plastic eroticism" smackdown), I never quite get where she's coming from. In the same space, she praises Rush Limbaugh's consistency of principle, waits a whole four paragraphs before calling Hillary Clinton "shrill" and bashes Title IX mere sentences after she's claimed to be an "equity feminist." Now, I'm an equity feminist (which is why Clinton will need more than a set of reproductive organs to get my vote), and I still feel a little dirty agreeing with Paglia on anything.


-- Speaking of feminism and shock value...wtf is up with Geraldine Ferraro? What, did Barack Obama pee in her cornflakes? In case you missed it, Ferraro this week said that if Obama "was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position." [pause for deep breath...] Okay, I agree that Obama's gotten a bit of a pass from the press. But it seems to me that it has a hell of a lot more to do with the media's man-crush on Obama than anything else. It's not like they fall all over black presidential candidates as a matter of course. And if ethnic novelty is at play, then how does Ferraro explain the media's collective ass-kiss of President Bush for his entire first term. (Ah, well, you know privileged white men are so very unrepresented in politics...) It's insulting for Ferraro to suggest that Obama's skin color has more to do with his success than, say, John McCain's war record or Hillary Clinton's husband do with theirs.


-- Speaking of race/gender irrationality...Alternet has a review of Until Proven Innocent, a recounting of the infamous Duke lacrosse non-rape scandal. This case and its aftermath continue to interest me for several reasons, not the least of which is the handling of the case by Duke University's faculty and staff, just because of what I do for a living. Unfortunately, according to this review the book alternates between a rehash of the facts already reported to death by every media outlet in North Carolina and a decidely rightward-slanted interpretation of what happened. Okay, anyone who's been to college knows that there are always a few faculty members who seem hell-bent on simultaneously proving their dissertation theories and avenging themselves on every long-ago jock who stuffed them in a trash can. But are these authors seriously suggesting that the Duke Gang of however-many-it-was have more blood on their hands than, I dunno, the DA who was disbarred after concealing evidence that would exonerate the three accused players?

Two tidbits I love: In discussing other North Carolina cases where men were wrongfully convicted, "...they omit Darryl Hunt, an African-American North Carolinian who spent eighteen and a half years in prison for raping and murdering a white woman, ten of them after DNA testing proved his innocence. (The Hunt saga apparently provides too awkward a counterpoint to the authors' drumbeat about reverse racism.)" It seems that one of the lacrosse players has a far better grasp of the implications of the case than the book's authors: "Reade Seligmann, one of the exonerated players, makes the point succinctly: "If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they would do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."


-- Check out this opinion piece on CNN.com on the debate over whether to get Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, for one's daughters. There are hundreds of strains of HPV, and the viruses can cause everything from genital warts to cervical cancer. The vaccine has been approved for women up to age 26, but it's most effective when administered before a girl or woman becomes sexually active. This writer tries to build up some sympathy for the parent agonizing over the contemplation of a young daughter's future sexuality...but I just don't buy it. Okay, your little girl will one day be a woman, and she will likely want to have sex. As many as 50 percent of other sexually active adults will carry some strain of HPV. If you could prevent your daughter from possibly getting this disease, why in f*ck's sake wouldn't you??? 'Cause the specter of cervical cancer is all that's keeping your preteen from banging the JV football team? Get over yourself, Mom. Get her the damn shot.

(Me, I really stress over whether or not to vaccinate my future kids against whooping cough and TB. I mean, if I do, aren't I telling them it's okay to wander the streets looking for consumptive hookers to lick?)


-- Speaking of f*cked up American attitudes towards sex and the consequences thereof...A study found this week that one in four American girls has an STD. The infection rate for African American girls is 50 percent. The most common STD? Oh look, it's...HPV! Presumably those 25 percent of American girls didn't just go out and start having sex in the 18 months or so since the FDA approved Gardasil. So what gives? If you want my personal opinion, you've got a toxic combination of a culture that tells girls over and over that their only value lies in being sexually desirable to men and then simultaneously sends the message that sex is dirty and should be hidden (for all ages.) Okay,

1. Sex between consenting adults is a beautiful thing, and nothing anyone should be ashamed of.
2. Kids are naturally attracted to what's forbidden. If you told a bunch of teenagers they could never go to church ever again, guess where they'd all be on Sunday morning. This is why abstinence-only sex-ed has never worked in the entire history of the world and never will.

It seriously troubles me that so many young people today treat sex like it's just another extracurricular activity. And I can't help but wonder if it isn't because they a) haven't been taught to have the proper respect for it, and b) don't have anything else going on in their lives. As long as I live, I will never forget my sixth-grade health class, when Coach Johnson wrote that chart on the board showing the success rates of various forms of birth control. Yes, abstinence was at the top, at 100% effective. But condoms (99%), BC pills (86% - see, told you I'd never forget) and others were up there, too. We were 12 and 13, but our teacher treated us like the adults we would soon be.

More importantly, I remember all those days I spent with my church youth group, volunteering at my community theatre or just spending time with my family. A public school teacher doesn't bear all the responsibility for keeping kids from making stupid decisions. And neither does a vaccine.


-- On a lighter note...the King of all Whininess, aka Jack Roush, will not appeal the penalty assessed to Carl Edwards's team after the Las Vegas race. I dunno, could it be because he knows they were caught cheating dead to rights? Oh, no, it's because "In the NASCAR system of penalty administration, simple negligence by itself is never sufficient grounds to overturn or reduce a penalty." Right, it's all NASCAR's fault that your "negligence" scored you, by some estimates, close to 200 lbs. of downforce. Right.


-- Sorry, still can't get over this...Elliot Spitzer, you're the governor of New York, easily the coolest of the US States. You're not an unattractive man. And you have to pay a woman four grand to sleep with you? You're on a trip to DC, and you can't get a referral from one of the hundreds of other overly powerful men at the cocktail bar? You have to violate federal law by bringing in a hometown ringer? Seriously? Dude, if Bill Clinton could get a freebie, so could you.


-- Lastly...you have to read Bill Simmons's column today on ESPN.com about the murder of Jamiel Shaw Jr. Simmons get a lot of flack, but this is tremendously affecting - easily the best writing he's ever done.

A little more on the "Hooter Girl..."

In an earlier post, I referenced the case last summer where Southwest Airlines detained a female passenger for violating its nonexistent dress code. Basically, her clothes were too skimpy, they said, even though no other passengers complained.

The link that I posted was from a follow-up story on one of MSNBC's blogs. I used this source in favor of others because it contained a picture of the woman and the offending outfit. But I had some issues with it, and I've been thinking on this for a few days.

It bothers me that this writer referred to Kyla Ebbert in the opening sentence as someone who "works at Hooters." This might actually bug me more than the fact that they also noted that Ebbert was a 23-year-old college student.

I don't understand why any of this is relevant to the fact that this woman was nearly kicked off of a flight - for which she paid good money - because some unidentified Southwest staffer thought her clothes were inappropriate.

But mainly, I think the Hooters association is incredibly ironic. This is a woman who makes a living wearing hotpants so some corporate entity can sell more chicken wings, and that's totally fine. But when she has the temerity to go out in public in an outfit you could buy at any Wal-Mart in America, suddenly she's a slut?

I have massive problems with the idea that women's bodies are fair game for men who want cheap thrills with their casual dining, but are shameful in any other setting. I also take issue with MSNBC's apparent shorthand: "Oh, she works at Hooters, no wonder - wink wink." Again, what's the relevance?

We have severe issues with sex in this country - wanting to have our cake and eat it, too, so to speak. Don't take it out on a 23 year-old, please.

Somebody needs to bitch-slap the Washington Post

...Or maybe a few people already have.

Earlier this week, anti-feminist writer and commentator Charlotte Allen wrote an op-ed column for the Washington Post about how stupid women are. Really. Her evidence for this? Anecdotal and out-of-context stories about women fainting upon the sight of Barack Obama, watching "Grey's Anatomy" and Oprah Winfrey, women - supposedly - baking cookies for their pets.

According to Allen, "we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental."

"Take a look at the New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the paperback nonfiction chart and pitched to an exclusively female readership is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." Here's the book's autobiographical plot: Gilbert gets bored with her perfectly okay husband, so she has an affair behind his back. Then, when that doesn't pan out, she goes to Italy and gains 23 pounds forking pasta so she has to buy a whole new wardrobe, goes to India to meditate (that's the snooze part), and finally, at an Indonesian beach, finds fulfillment by -- get this -- picking up a Latin lover!

This is the kind of literature that countless women soak up like biscotti in a latte cup: food, clothes, sex, "relationships" and gummy, feel-good "spirituality." This female taste for first-person romantic nuttiness, spiced with a soupçon of soft-core porn, has made for centuries of bestsellers -- including Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel "Pamela," in which a handsome young lord tries to seduce a virtuous serving maid for hundreds of pages and then proposes, as well as Erica Jong's 1973 "Fear of Flying."

Okay, for the record, I can't stand Oprah and I thought "Fear of Flying" was self-indulgent crap (but I can appreciate its place in feminist literature). "Eat, Pray, Love," on the other hand, is one of the most affecting books I've ever read, and was exactly the message I needed at that point in my life. Maybe it didn't resonate with Allen...I find it more likely that she hasn't even read it, and is basing her derisive review on the fact that it's an icky "women's" book.

(While we're on the subject of "Eat Pray Love," two quick points: one, it was recommended to me by a guy friend - happily straight, BTW - who's also an Oprah disciple. Two, when I Googled "Eat Pray Love" and the Independent Women's Forum (the anti-feminist group with whom Allen is affiliated), I got an old forum from IWF's Web site where a reader was recommending..."Eat Pray Love." Suspiciously, I can't find this page anywhere just a few days later. I guess we can't have one of the IWF's own devotees swearing by the very book Allen's bashing. I think that's hilarious.)

Allen's an idiot, this we know. But what's the Post's excuse? I know they need readers, but printing blatant hate-speech in your Sunday edition just to get attention is beyond the pale. I e-mailed their ombudsman (who happens to be a woman) the following message:

Subject: I'm too dumb to read your paper
..at least according to Charlotte Allen. So I guess I'll have to cancel my subscription.

Not half an hour later, I got this message back:

Sigh. I'm writing about this Sunday. I'm with you. Don't cancel until
you've read my column!
Deborah Howell
Washington Post Ombudsman

I dig the sigh. You think maybe she's gotten one or two other complaints?

The Post had a live chat with Allen on Wednesday, during which she further demonstrated that she's either a) on retainer for some pharmaceutical giant specializing in blood-pressure meds, or b) really that stupid.

So today, the Post has an op-ed from The Nation's Katha Pollitt, who proceeds to shred both Allen's drivel and the powers-that-be at the Post for deciding that running the BS Allen piece was a good idea. Absolute must-read.

Charlotte Allen and her ilk are infinitely more dangerous to progressive feminism than any man will ever be. That's because when Allen, the IWF, et al publicly blather about how silly are women and our concerns, it allows patriarchal men to say, "See? She's a woman and she agrees with us, therefore it must be true..." As much as I'd like to, I don't believe for a second that these women really are stupid (that would be way too easy). They're just doing what they have to do to assure a pat on the head and a spot in the power structure. They're wolves in sheep's clothing. They are not on our side.

Southwest, you’re fired

Okay, y'all know I don't like planes. I don't like flying in them, I don't like them flying over me. I don't like when they come in too low to PTI and buzz my office, which has happened twice today.

But I've always told myself that, on those rare occasions when I do need to fly, Southwest Airlines was there for me. They're cheap, they're friendly, they have funny TV commercials.

Unfortunately, they're also sexist, possibly racist and fly condemned planes.

Geez. I thought Southwest were the good guys...

What year is it again?

Seriously.

[*Sara puts her fingers in her ears and starts to hum, gently rocking back and forth*]

Won't send hate mail, won't send hate mail...