Now here we are at the end of 2009, nearly a year into our new age of hope, post-partisanship, and change we can believe in – but the “with us or against us” dichotomy has found new life, this time in the minds and actions of the same Democrats who epitomized it as that which was wrong with our country for the last two-terms.

Though the sentiment has gained steam throughout the entire healthcare debate, we’ve reached a boiling point as Joe Lieberman threatens to vote against Harry Reid’s healthcare bill. In the Washington Post, Ezra Klein goes so far as to say:

At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.

It seems we’ve reached a point where being opposed to healthcare isn’t simply wrong, but is instead, effectively, genocidal. Disregarding the fact that a dozen Democrats in the Senate have expressed concern about Reid’s legislation, what the left is doing – in no uncertain terms – is further polarizing this country by branding both moderates (Lieberman is not a party-line anything) and conservatives as the enemy.

In George Bush’s case, the black-and-white claim was at least logical – either you support terrorism or you don’t.  In the current manifestation, the shades of grey that have been eliminated represent nothing more than the desperation of a party too incompetent to get the job done.

Barbara Boxer just made this claim about the abortion debate central to the bill’s current progress:

“Why are women being singled out here? It’s so unfair,” Boxer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We don’t tell men that if they want to … buy insurance coverage through their pharmaceutical plan for Viagra that they can’t do it.”

At a very, very basic level, Boxer stupidly misses the underlying functionality of abortion and Viagra – the former prevents life while the latter enables it, and this puts the two on very separate fields. Or, if you want to remove life from the conversation – which I would bet she does – then she is equating the two, which would mean that she sees abortion as a form of sexual enhancement. And that…well, I don’t think any person would be able to make a convincing argument about that.

But the larger concern with abortion as a healthcare reform issue is that the current legislation would require citizens with deep moral opposition to pay for others to have the procedure. Attempts to strike abortion coverage from mandated insurance have no bearing on the availability or safety of the procedure. In fact, mandatory abortion coverage is in direct conflict with Barack Obama’s promise to reduce the number of abortions. No surprise there, unfortunately.

Anyhow, the other side is that there has not been, as far as I know, any concentrated moral claim against the use of Viagra. The use of the medicine does not run against the firmly held beliefs of any religious institution or political organization. If the healthcare bill was attempting to block access to period-related medicine, for example, Boxer would have a point.

But as it stands, she is just a loud moron making a ludicrous claim about a very important issue.

It’s always sad, and especially sad because me and my wife were at fault hooking her up with him and we probably thought he is a better guy than he is…He’s lost all my respect, I mean, all the respect I had for the guy is gone, that’s pretty much all I can say.

Amen, Jesper.

The media’s handling of celebrity affairs is absurd, but I think it derives almost exclusively from a mentality that developed out of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. In that particular case, roughly half of our country risked being epically disenfranchised if they damned their political hero. The result wasn’t a defense of Clinton’s actions, but instead a deferment of responsibility – “What he does privately is his own business.” Of course that isn’t true when you are a public leader and role model, but the claim offered some shallow sense of safety for Democrats, liberals, and some moderates.

The media, however, has taken that mentality and extracted the unspoken and untrue element – that people weren’t ready to criticize Clinton’s actions. As such, with each affair uncovered since, the media digs as deep as possible but does not criticize. It will push headline’s like, “John Doe apologizes” and follow-up with, “Does this hurt his image?” or “Should this affect his stature?”

But the media – and nearly every individual voice in it – lacks the tenacity that Jesper Parnevik displays. It won’t launch an attack on bad behavior. It won’t speak on the public’s behalf to say “We don’t trust you anymore,” and “You have done a terrible thing.”

It is essential for the health of our society – for the preservation of relationships, the sanctity of family, and even more basic human-to-human trust – for the media to tear Tiger Woods apart. It is of the utmost importance to send a clear message that when a celebrity – grown to success and riches through the trust and money of common people – sets a terrible example, the public will not tolerate it. We must demand more of our role models, and we must scrutinize their images if they are to represent us to the rest of the world. To simply chalk Woods’ behavior up to another in a long line of celebrity scandals is unacceptable.

To err is human, but to abuse the trust of the public is simply wrong. Parnevik hits it on the head: “[W]hen you’re a world-class athlete you probably should think a bit more before you do stuff.”

Academics from NYU and Kansas State have proposed two potential forms of near light-speed travel – an engine that collects and annihilates dark matter to accelerate, and an engine powered by a contained blackhole, respectively. Truly fascinating stuff, but the greatest part?

No one disputes that building a ship powered by black holes or dark matter would be a formidable task. Yet remarkably there seems to be nothing in our present understanding of physics to prevent us from making either of them. What’s more, Crane believes that feasibility studies like his touch on questions in cosmology that other research hasn’t considered.

Read straight through. The end is the best part. It is hard to see past all of the problems we have on this planet, but articles like this remind one of the awesome possibilities that our universe holds.

“Throughout this period, our troop levels in Afghanistan remained a fraction of what they were in Iraq,” Obama said. “Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.”

In response, Donald Rumsfeld said:

“I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006…The president’s assertion does a disservice to the truth and, in particular, to the thousands of men and women in uniform who have fought, served and sacrificed in Afghanistan.”

Now I’m not naive enough to believe that Rumsfeld wouldn’t defend the Bush administration as a political measure, but the precision (not a single request between 01-06) of this statement carries a definite degree of honesty. Added to Obama’s cowardly tendency to consistently blame the last administration for all of his problems and his extended indecision on war policy, this just seems like another example of the Commander in Chief failing to live up to the stature of his position.

At what point will Obama take some responsibility? At what point will the public take that option away from him and hold him accountable?

Voiced confidently by George Clooney (to the point where one feels convinced that the animated character is actually being portrayed by the actor), Mr. Fox is faced with a mid-life crisis. Having sacrificed his career as an expert chicken thief, Fox has settled into a safe life of domestication as a husband, father, and newspaper columnist. But he feels inadequate as a provider – and is disappointed with how little he shares in common with his son – so he compensates by moving the family out of their foxhole and into a tree.

The view from his new front window – of the three neighboring estates of menacing farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean – rekindles his passion for thievery and in an act of defiance against his dull life, Fox steals from his old enemies. This ignites a massive turf war between the humans and Fox’s wildlife peers, and the two sides engage in a tense and consistently amusing game of increasing stakes.

Typical to a Wes Anderson self-titled “Empirical Picture,” the dialogue is pitch-perfect as it strikes a balance between wit and a profession of things better left unsaid. Clooney’s Fox is a wonderful mix of cunning, ego, and stupidity, and the supporting characters like Bill Murray’s lawyer Badger or Willem Dafoe’s sinister Rat bring a level of believability to the stop-motion animated characters that is foreign to just about anything that Pixar hasn’t made.

And if the story, dialogue, or characters don’t claim a viewer’s full attention, the stunning style of animation surely will. It is so vibrant and unique that it simply needs to be experienced, but suffice it to say that it belongs firmly to Wes Anderson’s genius mind.

5/5

For full disclosure, I have to admit that I did not like McTeigue’s V for Vendetta. And the quiet production/very late marketing push for Ninja Assassin had me worried in recent weeks. But Warner Brothers has an impending cult classic on their hands because this movie delivers in all the ways it should. Mostly.

The opening segment is fantastic. A group of cardboard cutout thugs wave their guns around and abuse an old man. The old man cringes in fear as an envelope filled with black sand appears. Some clichéd banter about this ancient symbol of impending doom is thrown around, and then the lights go out. Ninja stars and body parts fly in every direction. The tone is perfect.

Unfortunately, after the title card the movie spends a good twenty minutes setting up some shoe-string, ludicrous plot about a Europol agent (Naomie Harris) investigating ninjas clans. This is intertwined with a flashback-heavy introduction to Riazo (Korean popstar Rain) – raised as the favorite son of a ninja master, he betrays his clan out of a sappy reliance on emotional morality. She’s out for the truth, he’s out for revenge. Whatever.

Much like Stallone’s brilliant action spectacle Rambo, the plot really only exists to guide set pieces and lead characters into preposterous situations. The final hour or so is what really matters, because it is nothing but fantastically bloody violence with ninjas jumping out of every shadow to fight with both Raizo and Europol’s strike force. The audience is treated to gruesome answers to questions like: What happens when you fire a rocket-propelled grenade at a ninja? Can dozens of ninja stars shred a speeding car? Do ninjas splatter blood all over the place when they dismember somebody?

The final showdown is probably the coolest extended action scene since The Matrix. A description would do it a huge disservice.

My only two complaints about this movie are that Naomie Harris is a terrible lead actress who gets far too much screen time, and the ninjas – badass as hell as they might be – are all bad guys. Disregarding these two things, the movie hits the mark. Rain is excellent as a star, the choreography only rarely relies on camera tricks, and the action never once cedes to any standard of tastefulness. I can’t wait for a sequel.

4/5

The point of a Roland Emmerich movie, after all, is to stack the odds against humanity and then let holy hell break loose. It is meant to be mind-numbing and exhilarating. And nothing more. In this tradition, 2012 wildly succeeds.The premise is simple: the earth’s crust is ripping apart and a few groups of characters are trying to make it to secret international government-sponsored “arks” to survive. There’s an author (John Cusack in his most mainstream work to-date) trying to save his ex-wife and kids; some White House suits making big decisions for the rest of the world (Oliver Platt, Chiwitel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton); a kook who saw it all coming (Woody Harrelson); and assorted other minor characters who are supposed to represent the diversity of humanity. One could attempt to wax philosophical about the fate or free will that unites these characters, but really, all are simply sufficient props for the spectacle. None are worth mentioning beyond that – although I’m always glad to see John Cusack.

2012 is a much more interesting movie than The Day After Tomorrow, and the stakes are higher, too. It falls second to Independence Day, though, because there can only be so much satisfaction in survival. That is to say, in 2012 and Day After, the adversary is impossible to defeat. No resistance is sufficient, no revenge possible. Independence Day was tremendously exciting because the 4th of July was “they day we fight back” and watching squadrons of jets in dogfights with UFOs tapped into some vaguely vulgar semblance of human control or, at least, intergalactic patriotism.

Between Day After and 2012, Emmerich needs to apply his scope of vision to something else because man vs. nature is completely covered in these movies. For what it is worth and nothing more, 2012 is a good time at the movies. If nothing else, it features the single greatest volcano eruption in the history of film (tease: triple mushroom cloud).

3.5/5