I’ve spent the last couple of nights watching examples of a subgenre of documentary film I’ll call “feel-good documentary.” These films are firmly in the realm of Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom, and firmly not in the realm of, say, An Inconvenient Truth, or Jesus Camp. They’re both films I should’ve probably seen a lot sooner, so forgive me for being a Johnny-Arrive-Recently.

The first is Wordplay, which it’s ridiculous I didn’t see sooner, considering how much of a crossword junkie I am.

One thing this film drove home, however, is that I’m a downright novice compared to some of the endearingly obsessive fanatics who convene every year at Will Shortz’s annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. These are people who do the Monday crossword in under a minute and the Saturday in under twenty. These are people who create puzzles and mail them to Will Shortz for publication in the Times. These are people who look at a road sign reading “Intercoastal” and immediately say, “That’s an anagram for ‘altercations.’”

And then there are the appearances from celebrity puzzle solvers like Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart. Every film, no matter what it is, would benefit from cameos by Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart.

What I’m saying is that, as much as I’d love to attend the tournament, I’d get my ass handed to me right quick. I’ve done the Monday in six minutes, and I’ve finished the Sunday in under forty-five, but otherwise I don’t time myself. Still, though … I may just book myself a flight for Stamford CT next March.

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Posted: March 6th, 2007 under Film, Politics, Music.
Comments: 3

Bush unveils a sexy new campaign that will change the way we think about ill-conceived geopolitical quagmires.

Posted: January 11th, 2007 under Images, Politics.
Comments: 1

1. Saw Jesus Camp

2. Read “Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian Right is reimagining U.S. history” by Jeff Sharlet, in the current issue of Harper’s

Going into Jesus Camp, I had my reservations. I worried that it would be another pointed confirmation of cosmopolitan Blue-Staters’ worst fears; yet another chance for people on the East Coast and in Western Europe to have a good chuckle about those nutty, misguided fools in the flyover states.

And to some extent, it was that. I sat in a theatre full of young, liberal Minneapolitans who laughed at the wayward provincialism of the people in the film, at the homeschoolers who don’t believe in science and the youth minister who aerosols her frosted hair into submission before blessing her flock’s hands with Nestlé bottled water.

And I laughed with them. But not nearly as much as I cringed at the film’s scenes that clearly weren’t being played for laughs: specifically the ones where children, young children under ten years, were driven to tears and writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues as adults browbeat them and called them sinners and explained that everything they liked in life (Harry Potter, ghost stories, recess, fun) was a direct product of Satan.

That made my face red, made me sink further into my seat, made me grit my teeth, perhaps because it got in and needled at something deeper and personal about my own childhood and the history of my relationship with religion and religious types to a greater degree than I really would have preferred any film was capable.

Needless to say, I did a lot more seat-sinking than chuckling.

The second item is also disturbing, perhaps more intellectually than viscerally. It’s about the attempt on the part of fundamentalist Christians to literally rewrite history, using specially-commissioned textbooks for homeschoolers and religious schools, so that every historical event and person is and was working in the service of, or in reaction to, God’s will. For example, did you know that:

1. The British defeated the Spanish Armada with help from God’s “Protestant wind” so that “the New World would not be overly settled by agents of the Vatican”?

2. The two world wars, the Great Depression, JFK’s assassination, Vietnam, AIDS, 9/11, and Iraq are God’s punishment for the New Deal, Roe v. Wade, and various Supreme Court decisions favoring secular institutions?

3. Stonewall Jackson is a national and religious hero, practically a saint, because he was a civil rights pioneer who taught slaves to read and led a crusade for states’ rights? and that the North was going against God’s will by “striving to alter basic American structures”?

4. Alexis de Tocqueville was an Evangelical Christian in disguise? (Yeah, I don’t get that one either.) (UPDATE: In disguise as a Frenchman, as Meredith helpfully pointed out—but I still don’t get it.)

A good companion piece is Sharlet’s previous feature for Harper’s, about the Rev. Ted “Meth and Male Prostitutes” Haggard, whose appearance in Jesus Camp can only be described as the very quintessence of irony.

I need to go do something fiercely secular. I’m still gritting my teeth.

Posted: November 20th, 2006 under Film, Politics, General.
Comments: 4

This morning, Karen and I walked over to our polling place, Marcy Open School, which has the dubious honor of being the inspiration for the name of one-hit wonders Marcy (”Sex & Candy”) Playground.

I cast my vote with as much rage about the past six years, and especially about the past two, as I could muster. Because our voting machines were not manufactured by Diebold, and I don’t live in a precinct predominantly comprised of racial minorities and/or Ohio, I am reasonably confident that my vote will be counted.

Also, I’ve installed a widget, courtesy of the good folks at Minnesota Public Radio, which will post live returns from several Minnesota races. This may only be of interest to my readers in Minnesota, although the rest of you might enjoy such hilarious candidate names as Klobuchar and Wetterling.

So. Let’s not fuck this up, okay?

Posted: November 7th, 2006 under Politics.
Comments: 6

Here’s something funny.

First of all, you’ve all done this, so don’t even try and flex like you’re morally superior.

Yesterday I was Googling people I used to know. I looked up one young woman with whom, during a misguided and very drunken summer a few years ago, I made out with on several consecutive evenings. Let’s call her Molly, since that is her name.

Here are the results. Of particular interest are the first and third items.

Posted: October 11th, 2006 under Iowa City, Politics.
Comments: 13

So I just watched Bill Clinton go apeshit on Chris Wallace during Fox News Sunday, and while it’s certainly infuriating to consider the way the channel set it up, and the way Wallace delivers his smarmy, loaded question, Clinton’s impassioned and justifiably angry response is ten times more satisfying.

Take the time to watch it if you miss the days when we had articulate leaders.

Update: Hmm. Seems Fox has demanded that YouTube remove the “unauthorized” clips of this interview (i.e. the ones shown in their entirety). The only clips left are the heavily edited ones that expurgate much of Clinton’s response.

Huh. I wonder why they’d want to do that?

Good thing Google Video hasn’t caved to the Fox News Empire. It’s also much better quality:

Posted: September 25th, 2006 under Video, Politics.
Comments: 1

On Monday I returned the keg from my party to the liquor store. The woman who processed it lifted it and said, “Seems like you didn’t drink a lot.” I told her how the tap was a little wonky and even those present who had worked in bars and/or were hippies hadn’t been able to get it to work. She apologized and gave me a $25 gift certificate. (I’m determined to use it for something classy like nice wine, rather than two cases of PBR. We’ll see how that goes.)

Then, about an hour later, I’m at home reading when the doorbell rings. It’s a man and a woman from NARAL going door to door, collecting signatures and donations. I admire what considerable chutzpah it must take to go around a neighborhood (even an ostensibly progressive neighborhood in an ostensibly progressive town) and essentially say, “Do you support abortion? If so, give us money.” (Their pitch was admittedly a bit more nuanced than this.) So I gave them $25 and felt pretty good about myself.

So but then, as anyone who was outdoors in the Twin Cities area yesterday afternoon will know, there was a little plane flying around towing an enormous benner that said “10 WEEK ABORTION.” My initial reaction, before I could fully parse the message and its intent, was that the plane was advertising 10-week abortions. (I’m pretty sure I was not alone in this assessment.) Further inspection revealed that the banner also had an enormous photo of an aborted fetus. Classy!

I don’t know what relation the third paragraph has to the first two. Maybe a freakish, dispiriting epilogue.

Posted: June 21st, 2006 under Minneapolis, Politics.
Comments: 2

I woke up to NPR this morning, and laid there for a while half-asleep while snippets of the news announcer’s copy passed in and out of my consciousness. It was while I was in this rather pleasant fugue state that I dreamt that Dick Cheney had been shot. I must admit that I initially felt a vague exhilaration, which immediately gave way to confusion and anger (all experienced while essentially unconscious, mind you) when I received the decontextualized information that Dick Cheney had, in fact, shot someone else.

I was in a hurry this morning, so I didn’t peruse the online news sources I normally do, and so it wasn’t until I got to school and asked Tara, “Did Dick Cheney shoot somebody?” that I got the full story.

What’s strange but perhaps not surprising is that I don’t feel any less informed receiving my news piecemeal and while asleep than I do receiving it in the maddeningly fragmented and sensationalized (absence of) context that the 24-hr cable news networks provide.

Posted: February 13th, 2006 under Politics.
Comments: 1

Approx. 2005 hrs CST Pre-show commentators mention that it’s his fifth State of the Union address. Jesus, has he really been in office that long? Will it be over soon? This further cements my suspicion that all good things came to an end when the 1990s did, and my adulthood will continue to be one long, Republican-majority-controlled slog.

2011 First beer. Plans to devise a one-person drinking game wherein I drink every time he stumbles over a word, invokes 9/11, receives applause, or says “nucular” are quickly dissolved when I decide I don’t want to get totally schlitzed this evening.

2012 Bush throws his semiannual bone to black people by giving a shout-out to Coretta Scott King.

2015 He and Cheney and Hastert are all wearing the same color suit. Good choice.

2016 First invocation of 9/11.

2017 Honors everyone’s favorite SOTU tradition, the meaningless platitude, with “No one can deny the success of freedom.” Or Coldplay, really.

2018 Lays out his controversial two-pronged geopolitical paradigm of democracy=good / terrorism=bad.

2019 Entire audience rises to applaud his ability to insert the word “freedom” into a sentence 4,187 times.

2019 Stumbles over the phrase “vicious attackers.” Perhaps he meant “viscous” attackers. You know, like Jäger Bombs.

2024 Camera shows John Kerry with his head down, presumably in the throes of a gin-sodden fever dream.

2026 Invokes the memory of a newly dead solider and introduces the young man’s family, who is conveniently sitting in the balcony. They rise, everyone goes crazy, and Bush winks at them. I’m not making this up: he winks at them. The administration’s policy of irony-free political exploitation continues unabated.

2029 Yells at Hamas for winning an election the administration itself insisted on holding prematurely. Hey, who was in charge of making sure the wrong guys didn’t win? Why can’t they run elections more like we do?

2030 Looks directly into the camera and yells at Iran. Man, I’d hate to be Iran right now! Probably just sitting at home, totally not expecting a nationally televised call-out. Why can’t you be more like your chaotic, militarized-into-submission older brother Iraq?

2034 Asks Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act, producing the clearest instance yet of the “Okay, now just this side of the aisle stand up!” effect.

2035 Starts defending his use of wire taps. “Appropriate members of Congress have been informed” of this survelliance. Hint: “appropriate” = “those who agree with me.” The extreme right wing side of the room goes nuts. Camera catches Hillary Clinton giving him the finger.

2037 Decrying economic protectionism, he claims that “old temptations tend to return.” You know, like cocaine, drunken driving, and the National Guard.

2040 Lauds “four years of uninterrupted economic growth” due to tax relief. As long as we’re getting excited about completely imaginary phenomena and faulty logic, I’d like to take this moment to extol the virtues of my luxury late-model sedan, which runs extremely smoothly and whose driver’s side door closes all the way because I never hit a metal fencepost while sliding into a ditch during a snowstorm in January 2000.

2042 Invites everyone’s favorite innocuous political bogeyman from 2005, the Social Security Crisis, onto the stage. In a lamentable move, he reminds Congress of the one time he didn’t get his way when they voted against his Social Security reform package. The evening’s first unscripted applause erupts on the Democratic side of the room. The camera catches Hillary Clinton dry-humping Chuck Schumer.

2043 Recalls 2005’s smattering of ethics violations by various Republican members of Congress, apologizes to the American people for such flagrant abuse of power, and vows to more vigilantly monitor the ethical conduct of elected representatives.

2044 Just kidding.

2045 I realize I haven’t even made it halfway through my first bottle of beer. I vow to step up my beer consumption.

2046 Second beer.

2047 Bush makes a reluctant overture to immigration reform and stronger border control. Doesn’t bother to explain who will work at Wal-Mart if illegal immigrants are deported.

2048 Gains momentum by getting the Health Care trolly rolling. Unveils his new plan for free health care, which is that there won’t be any free health care. Americans will “get to” deposit their own money into “health care savings accounts” which will “allow” them to “continue paying for their health care out of their own pockets, unlike the rest of the developed world.”

2049 Completes the first of twelve important steps by admitting that America is addicted to oil … delicious oil. Vows to invest more money in alternative energy sources, such as the can’t-lose, totally new, safe and uncontroversial idea of nuclear energy.

2050 Vows to convert America entirely to solar and wind power within six years. Or coal power within ten. Or cotton-powered spaceships to Venus within the next three months. I’m not sure; I’m too busy chugging beer to pay attention right now.

2051 Announces more tax credits for private-sector research and development into energy conservation. You know, private-sector like Enron and Halliburton.

2052 Wants us all to encourage our children to take more math and science courses so that the next generation can compete with the world in technology and industry. I think that, with my genes, encouraging my children to take more math and science could be reasonably construed as abuse.

2055 Reassures Americans “discouraged by activist courts seeking to redefine marriage.” Promises them that the new members of the Supreme Court will not legislate from the bench, but instead make, redefine, and nullify laws through judicial decisions. Totally different.

2057 Throws a bone to Sandra Day O’Connor by saying she did a “heck of a job” and tells security to give her a thirty-second head start before releasing the hounds.

2057 Decries stem-cell research, confident that as far as his base knows, stem-cell research is 100% the exact same thing as abortion, global warming is a myth, and intelligent design is science.

2058 More platitudes, an extremely long pull off my bottle of Harp.

2059 Devotes slightly more words to Hurricane Katrina than he did to the allegation that Sadaam Hussein saught significant quantities of uranium. My need to pee wins out over my desire to listen to the high irony of Bush talking about how totally awesome his response to Hurricane Katrina was.

2101 Tara says, “He’s actually said a couple of things that are nice to hear.” I let her put on shoes before forcing her to stand outside in the snow for the remainder of the speech.

2102 Camera settles on Barack Obama. I notice that television adds about ten pounds to his halo.

2103 Brings the speech to an abrupt close with a time-honored “God Bless America. Now who’s hosting the afterparty?”

2105 Moves among the crowd pressing the flesh. Reprises last year’s kissing-Joe-Lieberman stunt by licking Chuck Hagel’s neck.

2111 I am disappointed when what I initially think are gunshots are revealed to be Hastert pounding the gavel and telling everyone it’s last call.

2113 Debate whether to stay tuned for Virginia governor’s Democratic response. Surprised to learn that Virginia has a governor.

2112 I let Tara back into the house, open another beer, successfully ignore Tim Russert’s post-show commentary, and remember that I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am.

Posted: February 1st, 2006 under Politics.
Comments: 6

“Hmm, let’s see … What’s the best way to broadcast my admiration for a senile war criminal who lived to be 317 years old, while at the same time ridiculing the memory of a beloved local politician who was killed well before his time and under suspicious circumstances? Hmm … Hey, I’ve got it!”

Posted: October 23rd, 2005 under Minneapolis, Images, Politics.
Comments: 4

From Get Your War On:

Posted: October 22nd, 2005 under Images, Politics.
Comments: 1

BART: Look at me, I’m a grad student! I’m 30 years old and I made $600 last year!
MARGE: Bart, don’t make fun of grad students! They just made a terrible life choice.

I hadn’t really seen any live coverage of New Orleans until I came home to Grinnell last night and stayed up late getting drunk with my mom and watching CNN. Unless you’re one of what is probably a disappointingly large number of people who find themsleves unable to feel sympathy for black people, it’s hard not to be really, really pissed off. Maybe Katrina needs a new name, like “Hurricane How Badly Can The Federal Government Possibly Fuck Up A Natural Distaster”, or “Hurricane America’s Race Relations Suddenly Thrown Into Sharp Relief” or “Hurricane Too Little, Too Late, Mr President (You Asshole)”. This is really all by way of saying that Kanye West is my new hero.

Posted: September 3rd, 2005 under Politics, General.
Comments: 6

So, I think I might be an entrepreneur.

The backstory: Driving through Minnesota and Wisconsin this past weekend afforded me ample views not only a lot of BUSH-CHENEY 04 bumper stickers—which, after living in Wicker Park for a while, you begin to forget exist—but also a lot of enormous SUVs with those hideous yellow (or sometimes RW&B) magnetic “Support Our Troops” ribbons. What pisses me off about this whole meme—besides the too-obvious-to-really-be-very-delicious irony of the fact that these magnets are on the SUVs that guzzle the fuel that indirectly caused us to go preemptively start a meaningless war 2.5 years ago—is the ribbons’ syntax, issued as an imperative, an order, an admonishment: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, practically yelling at me from the aft side of their giant vehicle. If I wasn’t such a wimp, I would politely confront these people when I park alongside them at rest stops and ask them what specifically they’re doing to support our troops, besides spending $1 on a magnet. Where was that magnet manufactured, and under what conditions? Where do the proceeds actually go? Why don’t you do something more substantial to support our troops, like driving a more fuel-efficient car, or donating to veterans’ organizations, or voting for leaders who have a viable exit strategy for the war? Who don’t want to cut the troops’ supplies, salary, health care, and veterans’ benefits? Or, god forbid, why don’t you encourage your own sons and daughters to enlist? After all, recruitment numbers are abysmally low. I wonder why that is.

Sorry about the rant. I’m not raising any points that aren’t already painfully obvious to anyone with a solid grip on reality. The real point of this post is to present the little brainstorm that’s going to net me a shit-ton of bling once I patent and mass-produce it. I’m going to exploit the already-glutted but extremely lucrative snarky-left-wing-bumper-sticker market. Here’s a photo of the prototype, which I made yesterday and put on my car.

I made a couple backups to keep in the glove compartment, for when the first one is inevitably ripped off. I’ll make you one for $1, which will go towards the Support Graduate Students Who Need Beer Foundation.

Posted: August 9th, 2005 under Images, Politics.
Comments: 17

Here’s one.

So last week (on my birthday, as a matter of fact) I woke up with severe pain in my neck and back muscles, making it all but impossible to really turn my head in any direction, let alone sit or stand up straight. (A classic sign-of-getting-older-on-your-birthday-itself scenario.) I managed to find a chiropractor/masseur/acupuncturist near my office who could see me that day, and I went there after work and he improved the situation a bit, and then again a few days later, and then again yesterday for a follow-up. This doctor seemed like a decent guy, a genial aging hippie who repeatedly asked me what I like to do in my free time and if I’ve met any girls. He’s apparently pretty hung up on whether I’m getting any heterosexual action, in fact, and at every appointment has asked if I’m meeting any beautiful women. (I wonder if maybe he has a policy against treating gay men.)

Yesterday, for example, he asks me what I did over the weekend, and I tell him briefly about Intonation (he asks if I got any phone numbers, and I admit that I didn’t even try) and he in turn begins telling me about a CSO concert he saw at Pritzker Pavillion on Saturday night, etc. etc., and how he’s also a big fan of Ravinia, and there are always beautiful women at these events, and so on and so forth. (All this while, I should mention, he’s examining my prone shirtless form on his table with various implements whose shape and function I can only guess at, because my face is pointed at the floor, and I’m offering the tersest of responses because I’m shirtless and prone and not good at small talk even under the best of circumstances, let alone humbling shirtless/prone modalities. In general, I hate small talk of any kind, but especially when I’m the captive audience of a hairstylist, dentist, doctor, etc.) But anyway, he’s going on about all these great outdoor summer attractions and events and activities he enjoys, and mentions the Air & Water show, and how impressed he was when they brought out the stealth bomber at the end of the program, and how (verbatim, here), “You’d have to be a major asshole to even think about fucking with our military.”

I give a small perfunctory chuckle, hoping he’ll change the subject or, even better, be quiet and finish needling at my back with mysterious metal objects. But instead he says, “I mean, the nerve of those fucking towelheads.”

At this point, I suppose he was hoping for some kind of reaction, but I didn’t do anything. I just remained there (prone and shirtless, as I believe I’ve already made clear) and waited for him to finish with both his diatribe and his examination. He thankfully didn’t say anything after that point that was not clinically germane. I suppose my liberal conscience would be a little cleaner if I’d leapt up (my back still bristling, for all I know, with acupuncture pins or the proboscis of some elaborate clinical apparatus, or whatever the hell it was he was jabbing me with) and admonished him for his cultural insensitivity and his brutish, jingoistic, oversimplified take on foreign affairs, and decried him as part of the problem rather than part of the solution, and put on my shirt and marched out of the office, head held not quite as high (owing to my condition) as righteous indignation might have dictated.

But of course, I didn’t do that. And I find myself in these situations all the time. Don’t we all? Held hostage by those to whom we are beholden for whatever reason, but whose views might differ from our own in important ways—in a double-bind that maybe requires we brook their insensitivity, their garish lack of conversational decorum, so that we may get our back realigned or our tires changed or our job not terminated. I generally err on the side of discretion, or politeness, or (some might say) docility or complicity. I hate confrontation, especially when it comes to politics, which is problematic for someone who is as passionate about those issues as I am. (I spend a lot of time quietly seething.) I tried to play the angry-liberal part a little bit, in college, and I was terrible at it. And besides, I’m paying this otherwise professional and evidently capable man (or rather, my health insurance is paying him) to fix my back pain, not to agree with me on the finer points of geopolitical affairs. I guess I may have failed some kind of political sensitivity test, but I’m sorry; my back hurts.

Posted: July 20th, 2005 under Politics, General.
Comments: 8

I followed a link from DailyKos to a website called Dumb Laws (which linkage caused the latter website to be Slashdotted for most of yesterday), which compiles all those silly, archaic state laws that are technically still on the books. In honor of my home state, I’ve listed the dumb laws for Iowa.

Tanning bed facilities must warn of the risk of getting a sunburn.

Ministers must obtain a permit to carry their liquor across state lines.

Doctors who treat a person with gonorrhea must report this to the local board of health and include the disease’s “probable origin.”

All boxes used to pick hops must be exactly 36 inches long.

It is a violation of the law to sell or distribute drugs or narcotics without having first obtained the appropriate Iowa drug tax stamp.

Kisses may last for no more than five minutes.

A man with a moustache may never kiss a woman in public.

Same-sex marriages are not legally recognized by the state. There are no other forms of relationship recognition for same-sex couples in state law or policies.

Iowa law does not address discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Iowa law does not address school issues relating to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The possession of any amount of marijuana is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

The manufacture or delivery of 50 kilograms or less of marijuana is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $750 - $7,500.

These laws are downright WACKY!

Posted: May 26th, 2005 under Politics.
Comments: 1