Round Numbers

Confession: I have a bit of an obsessive-compulsive thing with symmetry and round numbers. So despite the strong temptation to end 2008 with with a sleazy-joke-baiting 69 posts, the desire to finish instead with an even 70 trumps. 

Thanks to any and all who have read my ramblings this past year, and have a very happy 2009.

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

In an article on the Slate website today, writer Emily Bazelon complains that G-rated movies, ostensibly created with young children in mind, are too violent and scary. It rubbed me the wrong way - like most complaints about movie, television and music content.

Bazelon talks specifically of how her six-year-old son and his friend were wound up a little too tight after watching the Tale of Desperaux, a film that apparently includes some images - scurrying rats, sharp-toothed cats, etc. - that could frighten young viewers. She makes some very interesting points about how animation has become so sophisticated and lifelike that kids might not always be sure what's real and what's fake, and how this might make movies like Desperaux more frightening than the patently ridiculous Road Runner-Wile E. Coyote cartoon battles of yore.

Still, I couldn't help but picture Bazelon's son as a hypersensitive scaredy-cat, rendered thin-skinned by parental overprotectiveness. Uncharitable and without any basis in reality - I don't know the Bazelons, after all - but still, I couldn't help it. I think what irked me the most is Bazelon's suggestion that it's not so much the violence that's the problem, but rather the "extended suspense that keeps my kids up all night." I get why kids movies shouldn't be bloody. But not suspenseful?

I'm probably biased her by my own early movie experiences, which included an unexpected exposure to the ending of the original Friday the 13th along with the usual kiddie fodder. But the fact is, kids can be scared by anything. When the mysterious government scientists in their white uniforms and masks came for E.T., I was horrified. I had nightmares about the end of Superman III, when one of the bad guys (bad girls, actually) gets turned into a metallic zombie by a machine that goes haywire. Numerous scenes from other kid-oriented movies left indelible and scary impressions on me as I was growing up.

In fact, those scenes have tended to last longer in my memory than most of the movies that surround them. Maybe that speaks to my own horror and suspense-y leanings, but I think it also says something about the point of going to the movies. You go to experience feelings, and those feelings can, and maybe should, also include fear. A safe kind of fear that, regardless of subsequent nightmares and racing heart rates, can be escaped when the curtain comes up.

Depriving one's child of the joys of a good, suspenseful ride seems to me to be more of a case of a parent not wanting to deal with an overexcited or sleepless kid than one of protecting said kid from any lasting damage. But being scared is part of the movie experience, just like children's nightmares are part of the parenting experience.

Caveat: These wise words are written by someone with no children.

Right Solution, Wrong Problem

It just occurred to me that George W. Bush is a genius. He has a knack for coming up with brilliant solutions in times of crisis. He just tends to pose the wrong solution for the wrong crisis.

For example, in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush calmly told Americans that everything was all right and that, in the name of patriotism, they should "keep shopping." In the aftermath of this year's financial meltdown, meanwhile, Bush proposed that the U.S. government do an end-run around capitalism in order to save capitalism, a process that required something akin to creative diplomacy.

These solutions might have worked to perfection, if applied to the opposite problem. Shopping hasn't brought an end to either the Afghanistan or Iraq wars, and while the U.S. hasn't been attacked on its own soil since 9/11, that can hardly be credited to citizens doing their patriotic duty at the malls. But a little creative diplomacy on top of all the military aggression might have made the whole "war on terror" more successful and would have kept the U.S. from squandering its reputation internationally.

However, the sliding economy is a crisis that actually could be minimized if people kept shopping. In particular, the super-rich - those people whose wealth far exceeds what they or their offspring could possibly spend in a lifetime - could use their recession-proof status to pump much-needed dollars into the economy in a time of need.

So to all the billionaires out there (who surely have this blog bookmarked), do your country proud and get that Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course installed in your backyard.

And to President Bush (whom I expect is also a regular reader), you're a genius. Almost.

Fine Moments in Journalism

Once again, I will serve more as aggregator than commentator. But commentary first.

Barack Obama has chosen celebrity mega-minister Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life (whose own life purpose has included amassing millions of dollars from his faithful following and who, therefore, seems inevitably driven to some kind of Jim Bakker-like scandal eventually), to serve as the official priest at his inauguration next month. Why does this supposedly secular occasion need an official prayer-leader? Because it's America, of course - the land where church and state separation is eternally compromised by the GPS ankle bracelet that church keeps on state to make sure the latter doesn't stray too far.

And because it's America, and because he's America's top politician, Obama has to pay lip service to this game whether he wants to or not. But Rick Warren is a disappointing choice, for reasons that celebrity atheist Christopher Hitchens illuminates, in typical biting fashion, in this article. Let's hope that Obama's mistakes are confined strictly to ceremonial gestures.

Fine moment #2:

In the latest Vanity Fair, William Langewiesche delivers a teeth-grindingly suspenseful account of a mid-flight airplane crash that happened in South America two years ago. This is just outstanding journalism. Langewiesche's reconstruction features fastidious detail that builds a mounting sense of dread as the piece goes on. By the time of the accident, you feel like you're on both planes.

Fine moment #3:

From the same issue of Vanity Fair, a profile of Tina Fey by Maureen Dowd. If you're looking for Dowd to fawn over Fey, and if you're looking for Fey to play into any sexy-teacher stereotypes that correspond with her recent rise to stardom, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for a window into a celebrity that changes your perspective of the subject, you won't be. What surprised me is that Fey comes off as a bit of a nag and a prude - very curious to see how her camp reacts to the story.

Potpourri

A few short hits after several weeks of relative inactivity here.

1. I swear I'd never even heard the word "prorogue" until Canada's Governor-General agreed to do it to Parliament in order to buy Stephen Harper some time. Never let it be said that a constitutional crisis can't have a positive effect on the nation's vocabulary. From now on, when someone accuses me of procrastinating on a story deadline, or household chores, or a bill payment, I will explain that I am not avoiding these responsibilities but rather proroguing them.

2. Prediction for 2009: Shoe-tossing will become the new vogue for registering one's distaste. I can't say much more about President Bush's dodging of an angry Iraqi's shoes at a weekend press conference that Pop Crunch doesn't already say very cleverly at the linked site. But I do wonder whether there's ever been a president in American history who was more eager than Bush (likely) is to see his term come to an end. He's like the PC to Obama's incoming Mac.

3. A lot of what I support politically might be decried by conservatives as "nanny state" stuff. But if you want to read about the real definition of a nanny state, read this.

Hopefully I'll get a few posts up over the holidays. But in the event that I choose to prorogue, I hope everyone has a good, relaxing time.

Harper's Bizarre

Apparently the current political wrestling match in Ottawa has catalyzed the coming-of-age of Canada's political blogosphere. Good. It's about time this country truly embraced the practice, well-established in the U.S. and elsewhere, of hurling poorly-spelled sub-kindergarten insults at each other while hiding behind anonymous noms-des-plumes (like McGarnicle. Or Arrowsplitter).

This blog yawns and rises on its own sweet time, of course, so it's taken until now to post about this. Not that I haven't discussed it with people. And in fact, that might be the primary good that comes of all this - spurred on by the question, "can they really do this?", Canadians are becoming at least mildly interested in their own country's politics again.

The situation in review, as I'm sure everyone knows: Last week, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released an "economic update" that did not include a major economic stimulus package but did propose the elimination of public funds for political parties, the elimination of public employees' right to strike and, I believe, dilution of some pay equity laws. All of this - especially the part about political funds - stuck in the craw of the Opposition parties, and the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois have since agreed to team up in a coalition that would constitute a majority and oust Stephen Harper and the Tories from power. The Green Party has also said it would support this coalition, which would, if it follows through on its threats, make Liberal leader Stephane Dion the Prime Minister and implement a 24-member cabinet consisting of 18 Liberals and six NDPers.

Having fun yet? If you like naked power politics wrapped up in outraged, won't-somebody-think-of-the-country rhetoric, you have to be. Harper has called the coalition and its motives undemocratic for attempting to seize power without actually being elected. "Through the back door," as he puts it - a fine turn of phrase for a guy experiencing the political equivalent of forced sodomy. Dion and NDP leader Jack Layton, meanwhile, have bounced the "undemocratic" accusation back at Harper, suggesting that withdrawing public funding for the parties was a way to gain unfair political advantage (the Tories would lose the most in raw dollars under such a move, but that's misleading - they also draw by far the most on corporate donors, meaning that their financial edge over the other parties would increase). 

They're all kind of right, and they're all very wrongheaded. Certainly, Harper has a point when he says that installing a coalition government just two months after the Conservatives won a fairly strong minority seems to go against the expressed will of the people. And Dion, Layton and their supporters are right to say that Harper/Flaherty's economic update was a sneaky, egregious exercise in pure partisan politics. 

But what should happen now? The headline in the Toronto Sun yesterday bleated that "this must not be allowed to happen." However, unless they're suggesting a complete overhaul of Canada's political system, it absolutely must be allowed to happen - this is how the Parliamentary system works. 

Nevertheless, don't be surprised if it all comes to nothing. That's the view of a writer at a prominent national magazine, and I see his point. There's too much to lose here for the coalition parties. The Liberals, chastened in the last two elections for their corrupt sense of entitlement during 11 years of continuous rule, would come off looking more than ever like a party motivated solely by gaining power, elections be damned. They'd also be putting the embarrassing Dion, who, more than any other single reason, was the cause of their historic electoral defeat in October, in the Prime Minister's chair as a complete lame duck. He'll be replaced in May, meaning that Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae or Dominic Leblanc would take over, also without being elected. And the NDP, while it would enjoy the chance to get closer to government than ever before, would be seen in some circles as selling out their principles and basically be conceding their inconsequentiality as a distinct party.

A lame-duck and uninspiring Prime Minister. Three leadership candidates squabbling amongst each other. An NDP that would surely become frustrated by the lack of attention paid to its agenda. A Bloc party that would always be there, offering helpful reminders about its own separatist agenda. How could this coalition possibly govern? How can any meaningful, coherent voice emerge from the racket?

The magazine writer I spoke to felt that, more than anything, this was an opportunity for the Opposition parties to kick Harper in the teeth after two and a half years of bullying by the Conservative leader. And, tail between his legs, Harper has clawed back some of the contentious items in the economic update. Having gotten these concessions, the Opposition parties might be wise to withdraw their threats of a peaceful coup. It could - especially if it results in a snap election - result in a major backfire in which election-fatigued voters end up giving Harper a majority.

Who said Canadian politics was boring?