Month: November 2008

A charming interview with James Franco who plays Harvey Milk’s boyfriend in the new movie, Milk. And then he busses David Letterman, which is a cultural moment.

Ross whacks uber-theocon George Weigel:

[C]alling Catholics who voted for Obama "mindless" and "stupid" is a poor substitute for building the sort of Republican Party that can attract the votes of those millions of Americans, Catholic and otherwise, who voted for the Democrats because they thought, not without reason, that George W. Bush was a disastrous president whose party should not be rewarded with a third term in the White House.

Ya think? How many actual Catholics – not Opus Dei, Ethics and Public Policy Center, K-Lo style cocooners – does Weigel still know?

A very nifty new device to help astronauts drink their coffee:

Fake ones, of course. Introducing the metrognome:

The metrognome comes in several forms. There is the archetypal Pacific Northwestern/Western metrognome, of course, attired in flannels and beard year-round. The metrognome was originally identified, in fact, in San Francisco. The southern metrognome has been known to evoke the Civil War. Then there is the seasonal metrognome, who comes out only when the weather grows cold. This varietal wears a beard, yes, but his clothing also becomes considerably more rugged than is his wont, or than is necessary in an urban environment. The metrognome is not to be confused with the Bear, who is characterized by a certain natural burly hirsuteness. The metrognome transformation, by contrast, is completely inorganic and owes nothing to actual appearance. As "metro" implies, there is an element of deliberate grooming and styling involved.

Philippe Sands shares mail he has gotten in response to his reporting that 24 influenced interrogation practices:

My writings on this subject have generated a decent mailbag over the past few months. But the most interesting correspondence came just last week. "I’m a US actor, living in Los Angeles," wrote the author. "In September of 2007, I was offered a role on 24." The actor told his agent to reject the offer, because he objected to the programme’s message. His agent told him that Howard Gordon, the principal executive producer, wanted to speak. The actor sent Gordon an email, expressing his concerns about the positive depictions of torture on the programme. Apparently, a lengthy exchange followed, in which the two debated the morality of torture and the potential impact of 24 on the moral sentiments of its millions of viewers. The actor offered to make the dialogue public, and Gordon apparently responded with "some enthusiasm", until Fox’s publicity department stepped in and warned him against any exposure of the exchanges.

The actor shared with me some extracts of Gordon’s views. He told the actor that "I lack the conviction that torture is, under any circumstances, an unacceptable option". He lacked that conviction because "I lack the knowledge, I just don’t know enough about the efficacy of torture". I’ve no reason to doubt that Gordon is a thoroughly decent man. He’s smart; he went to Princeton. Through his work he would have access to a great number of lawyers, any one of whom would have told him, if he had cared to enquire, that torture is illegal in all circumstances. His own convictions, or lack of knowledge, are a total irrelevance.

Gordon also told the actor about his belief that it was "essentially true that … 24 posits that torture is a necessary evil that works and is therefore acceptable". There was also an indication of concern. "I would hate to think," wrote Gordon, "that I’ve somehow been the midwife to some public acceptance of torture."

Well, the reality for Gordon, on the account given to me by Diane Beaver as well as others, is that he seems to have become the very midwife he feared. And not just to the public acceptance of torture, but to its actual use on real, living human beings.

Perhaps this might give Gordon and his colleagues some pause for thought. Perhaps this might encourage a rethinking of the entire thrust of the programme. Perhaps Day 7 might do the right thing and embrace reality: that torture is not justified, that it can never be lawful, that it produces unreliable information, and that it serves as one of the best recruiting tools for those who seek to do us serious harm. In short, torture doesn’t work, and it’s not a legitimate tool in the fight to protect national security.

A few weeks ago, a pastor issued an unconventional challenge: the week of sex we’ve all heard about. Less well advertised: How’d it go?

Just three days into the sex challenge he said he was so tired after getting up before dawn to talk about the importance of having more sex in marriage that he crashed on the bed around 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.

Mrs. Young tried to shake him awake, telling her husband, “Come on, it’s the sex challenge.” But Mr. Young murmured, “Let’s just double up tomorrow,” and went back to sleep.

(Hat tip: Poulos/Beutler).

A ripple from Obama’s victory alarms the Egyptian autocracy. Isn’t it great that the forces of democracy are now strengthened by America’s example, rather than her military?

Eliot Spitzer’s dad is even less racist than you are:

In the sharpest exchange during Mr. Spitzer’s hour on the stand, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Anthony C. Ofodile, pushed to get him to admit that he was conscious of the race of the building’s doormen and porters.

“I did not see a white doorman or a black doorman,” Mr. Spitzer said.

Mr. Ofodile immediately challenged that assertion, and Mr. Spitzer quickly elaborated.

“I don’t see the blackness or whiteness or pinkness or yellowness of a doorman,” he said. “I have a mind that focuses on the fact that he is a doorman and functions as a doorman.”

Mr. Spitzer testified without any hint of anger and was unruffled during cross-examination. He wore a charcoal gray suit and light blue tie.

Charcoal gray and light blue: them’s the colors of balls.

David Frum and Brink Lindsey share fond memories. It was dreadful. But within it were the seeds for the three decades of reform and growth that have now come staggering to an end. This time, alas, the economic crisis is merely an accelerant to the death of conservatism, not its rebirth.

Greenwald responds to my post on Obama’s foreign policy mind-set.