Muttroxia

When I saw the LORD OF THE RINGS movies in the theaters, I was not ecstatic. I read my oldest brother’s copy of THE LORD OF THE RINGS three or four times during junior high and high school, and the trilogy completely dominated my childhood fantasy life, even more than the X-Men. I spent endless hours daydreaming about elves, rings, spiders, Nazgul, filthy hobbitses, and huge armies of orcs crushing mankind. I even named my D&D character after Aragorn (for the geeks out there, “Eoren” was a Ranger, and I got him up to level 15). Unfortunately, the movies all left me feeling disappointed (except for THE RETURN OF THE KING’s battle of Pelennor Fields sequence). Of course, it’s not fair to judge a film by the masterpiece that plays in the feverish mind of a young adolescent desperate for escapism. And to their credit, the movies did help me to understand things that never clicked for me when I read the books – for the first time, I understood the difference between Sauron and Saruman (as a kid I’d always lose track of which one was which somewhere near the last third of FELLOWSHIP – why on Earth did Tolkien give his two villains such similar names?), and I finally understood the differences between Rohan and Gondor (which also ran together in my young mind, with their similar stories of impotent kings. Kudos to Peter Jackson for making the 2 kingdoms so visually and culturally distinct).

My girlfriend had only ever seen THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS in the theater, and wanted to see the rest, so when I saw all 3 extended DVD box sets on sale for $9.99 each at the video store, I went a little crazy and bought them all. This weekend was our long-awaited viewing party. To my surprise, this time I really liked all 3 movies.

The extended FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING is 30 minutes longer. Honestly, the 30 minutes shouldn’t have been cut out in the first place. The longer version is great, and does a much better job of setting everything up. THE TWO TOWERS has added 43 minutes, and RETURN OF THE KING is 50 minutes longer. (thankfully, none of those minutes include a single frame of Tom Bombadil, who should have been cut out of the books too.) In every case, the added material improves, expands, and enhances the existing versions of the films. I don’t think anyone should ever watch the short versions again. Ban them. Watch the extended DVDs – and watch them back-to-back for maximum effect.

While watching, I couldn’t forget one poignant fact from an excellent documentary in the FELLOWSHIP box – that Tolkien, who was already orphaned by age of 12, fought in World War I and witnessed the horrors of trench warfare firsthand. Almost all of his close friends who enlisted with him were killed in battle. He emerged from the war orphaned all over again. The impact of the war on Tolkien is evident throughout the trilogy, which is singularly obsessed with death. All the characters worry about if they’ll die, how they’ll die, or if they’ll die with honor and glory.

As an adult, I get something completely different from the story than I did as a child. As a kid, I was enthralled by the great battle of good versus evil, of massive armies fighting do-or-die battles like that of Helm’s Deep. But I was never able to latch onto the more personal dilemmas of the characters. This time around, I was drawn to the smaller, more human dilemmas, in particular the tragedy of Boromir. Desperate for the ring that he believes will win the war for his dying city Gondor, Boromir is overwhelmed by the ring’s seduction and tries to steal it from Frodo. Frodo flees in terror and the spell is broken. Boromir realizes what he’s done, but it’s too late. As a herd of Uruk-Hai attacks, Boromir fights to his death to defend the two hobbits left in his care, redeeming himself and dying a hero. My heart also broke for Faramir, Boromir’s sad younger brother, who is clearly unwanted by their father Denethor. Denethor wishes Faramir had died instead of Boromir. This storyline gets its due in the extended version of RETURN OF THE KING, which features a long flashback scene between Boromir, Faramir, and Denethor that is one of the best scenes in the trilogy and easily worth the admission price. Suddenly, meaningful human drama that we can all identify with! That’s the secret to good drama, nothing more. Great battles are lots of fun – but when they are reduced to the struggles of individual men, we viewers feel far greater depths of emotion.

A photographer was told by an actor he had photographed, “The more personal my expressions, the more universal they become.” The same principle exists here.

PS – Elijah Wood honestly does suck as Frodo. All gay jokes about Frodo and Sam aside, Wood is wooden – he’s boring and not very expressive. And the last nitpick – why the hell does Théoden lead his Riders of Rohan against Oliphants in a STRAIGHT LINE? The Oliphants have thick barbed wire strung between their tusks – riding straight into that is a bad strategy, o horse king!

The book that started it all…

Or was it this one?

Today I saw a maintenance man cleaning out an outdoor ashtray, the 80-pound cylinders with a few handfuls of sand-like substance on top. This man had a “grabber”, and was slowly aiming for each cigarette individually, getting it firmly in the claw, transferring it to his bag, then starting over. I estimate this one ashtray would take 15 minutes to clean out with this method.

That guy understood the phrase, “paid by the hour”.

Animal Art using the subway map of the London Underground. Very clever.

Myths about the developing world (Amazing graphics) This sounds boring, but is actually a very absorbing 20 minute lecture about how various countries and regions have been evolving economically for the last 40 odds years. The graphic interface is amazing, something they developed themselves, it tells the story better than any text can.

A funny IKEA ad

Here are three sites about discovering music. All share a common theme of telling them what you like or want to hear, and they figure out what else you might enjoy.
Music-Map: Give it an artist. It looks at what other artists people who like the one you chose like. (So if you enter The Who, it might suggest the White Stripes and MC5.)
Pandora: Similar to Music-Map, but will actually build (and play) and entire playlist based on your initial entry.
Musicovery: My new favorite. You suggest a genre, and a flavor of it on a matrix, and it shows (and plays) a bunch of songs in that area. I picked dark blues, and have become a big fan of JB Lenoir’s Alabama Blues, despite never having heard of the guy.

Steve Jobs, on the future of music and copyright

And finally a random joke that’s too good not to share:
Dear Abby:
My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and, when I confront him, he denies everything. What’s worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job six years ago, he hasn’t even looked for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around and bullshit with his buddies while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn’t even pretend to like me and hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do?
Signed: Clueless

Dear Clueless:
Grow up and dump him. Good grief, woman. You don’t need him anymore. You’re a United States Senator from New York. Act like one.

Lately, I’ve been trying to hard to write here every couple of days, even if it’s not very good. I’ve been writing here nearly two years, amd a lot of content is here (175 posts and 257 comments as of this writing). I’m continually annoyed by one aspect of writing here.

At least one of the parental units never reads this. Two of my three brothers and at least some of the parental units also never stop by either. All the more irritating since there are some posts that I know they would like. And my brothers are the tiebreakers in any pizza-related issues (some of my most popular posts are pizza-related).

But the kicker is Mrs. Muttrox never reads Muttroxia. My own wife won’t read my blog! Maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’s not, but I spend a good chunk of time on it, how about showing a little interest? So on Thursday I told her she might want to read it, there was something about her on it. Really? Look for Mrs. Muttrox, I sez.

In the middle of the Superbowl (three days later) she yelled over, “There’s nothing about me in here at all!”

“Yeah, I know, I just wanted you to read it for once!”

So now she’s read the last week of Muttroxia, but she’s kind of annoyed with me. As she says, “I already know all this stuff, you tell me everything already”. Which is true, every dumb idea and fleeting observation I have she has to hear about. But still.

So I’m writing this to see if she will ever see it. It’s a little test. Sshh.. don’t tell her!

I’ll try and summarize, but you really have to read the article.

Two pieces:
1) Every voter gets $50 to distribute to candidates. $10 for The House, $15 for The Senate, $25 for The President. This includes the primaries. Invidual limits are also raised dramatically. This produces a pool of a few billion dollars to be used in the election.

2) Contributions are made through the FEC. They collect and distribute the money. The kicker is that the candidate does not know who gave them the money, they have no way of knowing who any individual donor gave their money to.

It is an oddly compelling idea. And the more you read (read the article!) the better it seems. But I had one thought, which a commenter posted before I could.

Won’t work
Donors would require some sort of receipt from the FEC to demonstrate where their money has gone, or else the FEC itself would be open to charges of fraud in their allocation of money. Then all you’d have to do is show your candidate the receipt and voila, influence obtained (and without the inconvenience of public disclosure).

— Noman

I agree. Anyone know more about this, or see a way out?

Doesn’t all paper have multiple uses? Kind of a step back if you feel that’s a selling point of your paper.

Today, on the front page of the New York Times, the headline was Biden Unwraps His Bid for ’08 With an Oops!

“In an era of meticulous political choreography, the staging of the kickoff for this presidential candidacy could hardly have gone worse.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who announced his candidacy on Wednesday with the hope that he could ride his foreign policy expertise into contention for the Democratic nomination, instead spent the day struggling to explain his description of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat running for president, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” “

It was also prominently mentioned on several liberal blogs.

Oh come on. Is this really what presidential politics has come to? Biden is a serious politician, and a serious candidate. Like him or not, his candidacy should not be a joke, he’s a responsible senator with lots of experience to bring to the race, and to the office.

He deserves better than this. He deserves better than to announce his candidacy, and instantly be grilled about another candidate. He deserves better than to have a pretty innocuous remark thrown all out of proportion. He deserves better than to spend the rest of the day having to talk about Obama and his remark about Obama instead of making a case for himself as president. He deserves better than for this to be front-page news. He deserves better than to have the entire article focused solely on the horserace, with not one single word about Biden’s own qualifications or his own reasons for seeking the Presidency.

And we deserve better. We deserve better than to have truly racist politicians ignored, while those who don’t speak the right codeword are excoriated. We deserve better then to have Democrats with policy experience mocked, and those without to be cheered on as “outsiders”. We deserve better than to have candidates eliminated from the race for trivial reasons. And mostly, we don’t deserve to have yet another electoral campaign reported as a horserace. This is why the media is broken, they simply are unable to report substance.

Update: To cap it off, Biden may not have even said exactly that. The punctuation makes a huge difference. It looks like he said, “the first mainstream African-American, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” or “the first mainstream African-American. Who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” More details are at TPM, these two posts sum it up.

If you’re read Muttroxia for any length of time, you know I’m a fierce opponent of the modern GOP. I have found it hard to find representatives of “the other” side to have rational discussions with. I know there are plenty of smart Bush supporters out there, who have supported him for reasons that make perfect sense, but I haven’t found many.

I also belong to a Yale alumni book group. It’s fantastic, filled to the brim with smart people who seem to know everything about everything. It’s a surprisingly diverse group, except politically. One of my first meetings, I watched as the whole group ganged up on one guy who was a unabashed Bush supporter. He held his own just fine. Since then, I’ve been more and more impressed by him. His outlook on the political world is wildly different than mine. But whenever I have talked with him, he has truly listened to my point, and given it the respect of “trying it out” before replying. He is always quick to acknowledge when you have made a good point, and never distorts his own position to strengthen his debating position.

This makes it very rewarding to talk to him, because you feel like you have a chance to actually change someone’s mind, or at least influence their thinking. The amazing thing is that I find myself getting into the same mindset. When he has a criticism about “my team”, or simply a different way of seeing the world, I find myself much more agreeable, and willing to accept his view as valid.

I am positive that this man would just laugh if someone tried to say he was using Passive, Attentive, Active, or Effective Listening. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that his communication style plays a kind of verbal jujitsu. He changes an opponent into a partner, and by allowing the other person to influence him, is able to influence the other person. He’s a living demonstration of how a communication style can have surprsising results.

At work yesterday, on my way up to the 6th floor, the elevator stopped at the 4th floor. A man got in, pressed the button for 5. He was not carrying anything, and appeared to be in good health. As we got in, he apologetically said to me, “Don’t let me take your time.”

I don’t think I had a choice.

Tapped commented on this LA Times Op-Ed by Jonah Goldberg:

The 11th Commandment for liberals seems to be, “Thou shalt not intervene out of self-interest.” Intervening in civil wars for humanitarian reasons is OK, but meddling for national security reasons is not. This would explain why liberals supported interventions in civil wars in Yugoslavia and Somalia but think being in one in Iraq is the height of folly. If only someone had thought of labeling the Korean conflict a humanitarian intervention back then, we might not face the horror and the danger from North Korea today.

Goldberg’s thesis is easily disproved by looking at Afghanistan. The invasion there was clearly in the national interest, and clearly not a humanitarian issue. Liberals supported the invasion then, as did everyone. Liberals have not reneged on their support. Afghanistan has never been a contentious issue, precisely because that war was so clearly in the national interest.

QED.

(This is slightly edited from the comment I left there.)

OK, a couple comments.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback said:

There was a colossal hidden play at the endgame — hidden plays being ones that never make highlight reels, but stop or sustain drives. Game tied with 8 minutes remaining, New England had first down on the Indianapolis 18. Reclamation project Reche Caldwell, who’s had a fine year, lined up right and was uncovered by any Colt. He waved madly for Brady to snap the ball and toss it his way. When Brady finally did — nothing but turf between Caldwell and the end zone — Reche dropped the pass as if it was a live ferret. New England settled for a field goal, four lost points helping determine the outcome.

That’s as true as far as it goes. But this was not a hidden play, it was an in-your-face oh-my-god we-just-blew-it are-we-really-the-Patriots why-don’t-we-pay-for-a-real-reciever play. What’s more, it was Caldwell’s second play like that. Earlier he had dropped another perfect pass when he was wide open. Luckily for him, the Pats scored a touchdown anyhow, so it was quickly forgotten. But when your number one reciever can’t catch a ball that’s right to him, you are in trouble.

I am also annoyed at the Manning is better than Brady talk. Manning deserves every bit of credit for this game, but it doesn’t take away from Brady that the last-second miracle didn’t happen this time. Brady scored 34 points against Indianapolis. That’s a lot of points. Only one other team did better (Jacksonville, week 13, 44 points). Any other week, 34 would have been plenty. The fact that the defense gave up 38 points doesn’t take away from this achievement.

And finally, the Pats defense. Still giving Manning and the Colts their due, but that was not the Patriots defense out there in the second half. That was a bunch of tired old men. The team was still exausted from their upset over the number one team the week before, and they had the flu. Anyone who has watched the Patriots defense play throughout the season could tell this was not the same thing, not at all.

At any rate, no matter how it happens, you got to hand it to the Colts, they finally got to the big one. I have no doubt they will eviscerate the Bears. And if nothing else, I’m going to enjoy watching Prince at halftime.

Readers have asked me to comment on the game. I can’t do it yet. I can’t read about it yet. I will merely say that Rechee Caldwell should be summarily shot. Possibly Bob Kraft also for not spending the money to get a real recieving corps.

God, I can’t believe it.