Category: The Dish

Here’s an essay that helps elucidate Tony Kushner’s influence on the politics of Steven Spielberg.

I’m not an expert on what we could realistically do to reduce our reliance on petroleum, but I found this essay on methanol and ethanol interesting. Is there a catch?

Three words I never thought I’d write. Thus gay culture staggers on. Yay!

A reader writes:

Here’s my question:

President Bush worked in the oil industry for years. So did his father. So did many of his close friends. He obviously knows (I hope) that if new technologies were to reduce our total oil consumption by something like 5 million barrels a day by 2025 that no one can simply choose, on a country by country basis, where that savings is going to come from. Yet clearly this is what he implied; that the decrease would all come out of our Middle East imports. If anything, we’re liable to get a greater proportion of our oil from the Middle East. Simple economics tells us that if we reduce our demand for oil imports the country that is likely to suffer most is Canada, as they have the highest costs of production. The cheapest oil comes from the Middle East.

So we’re left with yet another ‘lesser of two evils’ conclusion here: either President Bush spent years in the oil industry (not to mention Harvard Business School) and yet failed to absorb even the most basic knowledge about that industry, or that he knows full well that what he’s saying isn’t true, but is willing to say it anyway if he believes it benefits him politically."

Bottom line on this question of telling the truth: "We do not torture."

So what’s new?

"While America has been run by one of the most doltishly ineffectual governments in history, it has forged ever further ahead of Europe in terms of wealth, science, technology, artistic creativity and cultural dominance. Why does America’s prosperity and self-confidence seem to bear so little relationship to the competence of its government?" РAnatole Kaletsky, telling Europeans what they need to hear.

Islamists in Gaza threaten the lives of European civilians if their governments don’t apologize for supporting freedom of the press. The courageous editor of France-Soir has been fired. It would be hard to illustrate the core issue of our time more vividly: freedom versus religious extremism. From the threat to Salman Rushdie through 9/11 to the murderous thuggery of Zarqawi in Iraq, the line is a straight one. And it must not be appeased.

The Mickster is still obsessing about gay sheep-herders. The movie has already made more then $50 million and it’s well into profitability, and it isn’t being rejected by mainstream audiences … so now his point is that it’s left-wing:

"The Best Picture nominees are four left-messaged political films, plus a movie about Truman Capote!"

I can see the left-wing message in some of the movies, but I fail to see it in "Brokeback." The movie is about two men in a star-crossed relationship. It’s about impossible love and the limits of human happiness. Yes, it clearly aims for the two to be happy – but the pursuit of happiness is now "left-messaged"? Is "Romeo and Juliet" "left-messaged"? Is "Much Ado"? The two men are in love with each other, that’s all. Love – even same-sex love – is not political. It’s personal. There’s no call for marriage rights or any political change or agenda in the movie (although I’d also question whether promoting marriage for gay couples is somehow "left-messaged" anyway). It’s just a story about reality. Tackling reality – complex emotional reality – is not a political project. Ang Lee’s movies have always transcended that kind of trap. But when Mickey sees "gay," he sees "left." Actually, when Mickey sees gay, he can’t see anything but his own panic. Hence the notion that a movie about Truman Capote is also somehow politically suspect. Huh? Happily, Mickey knows he has a problem, and has written an email to Slate’s own advice columnist. He should take her advice to heart.

They were Bush’s flavor of the month in his 2003 SOTU. Here’s the latest report on the program’s progress.

Here’s a plausible theory for how the Bush administration has tied itself up in knots. Yep: it’s John "Waterboard" Yoo again. And here’s a great quote from Jack Balkin, that pretty much sums up my own view of the matter:

"The rule of law … is a political value as well as a legal value. It is a political value of restraint that we take upon ourselves so that we can demand the same restraint from others when the power of the state rests in their hands. The rule of law can be, and has been, used to perpetrate or apologize for many injustices in human history. But it has one saving grace – that it offers us a place to stand when we object to the aggrandizement of power by those who are utterly convinced that they come to us as saviors. For many years conservatives warned us about would-be saviors of the left, who would sweep away legal restraints to pursue their vision of a just society. It is time to stand up to the would-be saviors of the right, who seek to concentrate unaccountable power in order to pursue their vision of national security."

Or as Margaret Thatcher once put it, with her usual bluntness: "Where law ends, tyranny begins."