Declining opinion of humanity

There are many problems with growing older. To pick a depressing one at random, consider the phenomenon where the older, presumably wiser population keeps dying off and getting replaced by shiny new fools. If you live long enough, you find yourself totally surrounded by fools. Then you die.

This notion makes me increasingly sensitive to fool sightings. For instance, I've noticed the following flavor of fool on multiple occasions while driving. In every case I have the right-of-way. But since I, from time to time, am able to predict the whimsical impulses of bad drivers, I already have my foot hovering over the brake just as the guy turns left (for example) across my path. It is at precisely this moment that I can see the part of the guy's car that I would have plowed into if I hadn't just read his damn fool mind, and it's already got a huge dent there. How depressing is that? To summarize: the guy pulled that stupid stunt before, got hit, and didn't learn from it!

And to think, his vote counts the same as mine. That is, until he finally tries that move in front of a dump truck, after which he's only qualified to vote in New York, Florida, and Chicago.

The younger the subject, the greater the potential for foolish behavior. Take this Utah pseudo-Scout who was in the news last week. While nobody will say just how this eleven-year-old got lost, it is apparent that the kid wandered away from camp on his own initiative. He just up and left. Then to compound things, instead of trying to be found, the kid played escape-and-evade for four days out of fear of being "stolen" by "a stranger." I know that fourth-graders can be obtusely literal when they want to be, but after four days without food and water, one would think that even a fourth grader might consider contacting a stranger. Say what you will about kidnapers, but they typically provide at least a little food and water. Heck, Elizabeth Smart's kidnapers fed her for nine months. Now at least Elizabeth actually had abductors, whereas the lost boy only imagined them. But Elizabeth conceded that she could hear her searchers calling her name, and yet she did nothing.

What's Utah doing to their kids such that they don't want to be found?

Memo to a car dealer

I have some suggestions for a certain area car dealer (you know who you are). When the cars you are selling are also an acronym for "Killed in Action," it's not a particularly good idea to be flashing "Memorial Day," "KIA," and "sale" across our television screens in succession. While you're at it, you might also consider not airing that particular commercial on the History Channel. During their broadcast of the Battle of Midway.

I'm not saying you need to apologize. I'm just saying that your marketing is probably not having the impact you intended.

I find it mildly reminiscent of the Sony VCR manual that showed Americans how to set the date to December 7th. Faux pas!

Legislating from the bumper

A bumper sticker I saw yesterday:

Save Roe Now

I've been having a really hard time trying to get a handle on this one. Are we talking about the person, or the court decision? Because the person is Norma McCorvey, and as far as I know she's doing fine and doesn't need saving (Christian evangelicals got to her already, in 1995). Or maybe the bumper sticker bearer wants to save Norma from the annual awkwardness of her daughter's birthday (the daughter the Supreme Court was too late to help her abort). We'd all have to band together to get 150th-trimester abortions passed for that, though.

If it's the court decision that's being referenced, this presupposes that Roe v. Wade is imperiled. I don't see it that way myself, but if true, what is Roe v. Wade in peril of? Realistically, it can only be in peril of being overturned by a new Supreme Court decision. Abort by the courts, die by the courts; that's the risk you run!

On a lighter note, I also saw this sticker on the same trip:

Be kind to animals
Don't eat them

I might be inclined to do this once animals have extended this courtesy to one another generally. And it's not as though I've been running around in the forest dragging elk down with my teeth, for heavens sake. As for the notion that I should lead by example, I've been doing a yeoman's job for years in areas such as (a) personal hygiene, and (b) not copulating in public, and I haven't noticed any inclination on the part of the animal kingdom to follow my lead. So for the handful of animals I intend to continue eating: you had it coming!

Sith Slapped

We're over two weeks now since the release of Revenge of the Sith, so I'm not sure whether the following litany of complaints can be considered spoilers anymore. After half a month, if you were gung ho to see Episode III, you've seen it and this material is known to you. Otherwise: you've been warned.

This movie has a screw loose from the first crawl:

War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides.

Really? Name one "hero" on the side of Dooku, the Sith Lord. It is difficult even to name a living thing allied with Dooku, since most of his warriors are droids.

Not that the battle droids don't have colorful personalities. You might think that a droid purpose-built for war might be short on human characteristics (much as astromech units lack facility with the spoken word). Well surprise, surprise! Battle droids yell and groan before keeling over. Battle droids scream "My eyes! My eyes!" if oil is sprayed on their optical sensors. Battle droids use throwaway phrases like "Get 'em," "Hey, you!" and "all right." They are also programmed to take the time to say things like "Uh-ohhhhh" when things are hurtling at them, instead of using that time to simply step out of the way. This programming flaw gets two battle droids smashed to bits by a moving elevator.

What's also unclear is why it is necessary for warships of a Droid Army to bother keeping their vessels pressurized. Surely the droids don't need to breathe? Having nine-tenths of the ship in vacuum still leaves a generous amount of space for Count Dooku to do front flips and for General Grievous to cough up a lung, yet would really cut down the mobility of infiltrating Jedi. Just a thought.

Not that Grievous himself seemed to have much difficulty operating in vacuum. He seemed to do quite well in vacuum, escaping from one ship's bridge to enter again elsewhere on the vessel via a hatch. I don't think I heard him cough once pressurizing or depressurizing.

So far this is pretty much griping from the "miscellaneous" bin. I said beforehand that I expected bad dialog and giant plot holes, so let's visit that.

Padme: "It's only because I'm so in love!"
Anakin: "No! It's only because I'm so in love with you!"

Oh, barf. Of course, the tragic core of this entire love affair is that the Jedi lack health coverage for domestic partners. This means that Anakin must ally with Sidious and the dark side of the force to access proper pre-natal services. Unfortunately for Anakin, Padme's pregnancy is stealthed: the very day of birthing her two full-term babies she is barely showing, and is able to run down her ship's ramp on Mustafar.

Padme is thus is forced to fall back upon the sorry medical care of the Old Republic. This is highly unfortunate, since the medical droid in charge observes:

Medically, she's completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her. We don't know why. She has lost the will to live.

Come to think of it, isn't this exactly what a refitted protocol droid would say? It doesn't know a thing about medicine really, and it's just covering its metal butt. The droid then proceeds to force the dying woman to deliver twins vaginally, rather than by c-section. Malpractice, anyone?

Is it crass for me to bring up Episode VI at this point?

Luke: "Leia. Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"
Leia: "Just a bit. She died when I was very young."

Well, we can discount that conversation now. Lucas couldn't be bothered to get the plot pipes to line up. Unless we're meant to understand "when I was very young" to mean "ten minutes old." Sheesh.

Then of course, Yoda's adoption placement for the twins went something like this: Bail Organa's sitting right here, so let's give him one child. And send the other to that den of bandits and slavers on Tatooine. Specifically, let's have Vader's stepbrother rear the child. Maybe all's well that ends well, but I don't see the wisdom here.

At least the Leia adoption brought us an opportunity to see Alderaan briefly. Unlike the standard Lucas mono-environment planet (ice, desert, urban, lava, cloud, swamp, forest), we see that Alderaan has beautiful mountains, greenery, majestic architecture, lovely lakes, blue skies and white clouds. The downside of this kind of planet is that it's so complex as to confuse the viewer, so it was only natural that Lucas destroyed it at the outset (Episode IV, 1977).

I haven't seen any reviewer comment on this dialog, but it is unintentionally revealing:

Obi-Wan: "Did you press the 'stop' button?"
Anakin: "No, did you?"
Obi-Wan: "No."

Mind you these are two of the Jedi elite, imbued with peerless sensory and intuitive powers, who were standing side by side in an elevator. Little wonder then that the old Chancellor fellow who was the hub of galactic turmoil and who couldn't seem to stop chatting about the dark side kept humming along undetected.

Jonah Goldberg wrote essays back in 2001 and 2002 in which he attempted to explain what bothered him about Menace and Clones. To paraphrase, Goldberg said that what was brilliant about the Star Wars setup was that it was postulated to be "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." It was to be a fully-contained alternate reality, i.e. lacking in connections to and reminders of our own world. Then Goldberg proceeded to give examples of how Lucas littered Episodes I and II with betrayals of that great setup. But Goldberg's utlimate yardstick for franchise betrayal was still an example from a James Bond film (Octopussy) in which Bond issues a Tarzan yell while swinging from a vine.

Well Goldberg doesn't have to stoop to referencing Bond anymore, since Lucas integrates an unmistakable Tarzan yell into Episode III(*). The yell is issued by two Wookies on Kashyyyk, swinging down on vines to board an amphibious attack droid. Besides breaking the mood for about the twentieth time with another inappropriate intrusion of real-world culture, just what the hell were the vines attached to? The droids were making an amphibious landing. Do vines hang from clouds or something on Kashyyyk? And another thing: wasn't this supposed to be the remorselessly-grim, non-crowd-pleasing, not-for-kids, no holds barred, director must tell a dark, tragic story movie? All darkness and death; nope, no levity here!

I'll admit though, not even Vader can suppress the final, clichéd scream of "Nooooooo!" upon contemplating the theater entirely filled with people who just paid six bucks each to sit through all this.


(*) The extra-devoted Star Wars fan might counter here that there was a Tarzan yell in Return of the Jedi as well, but I hardly consider this exculpatory.