The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
Wow, Rachel, he really is an ass-hat!!
(As far as I am concerned, no person who very loudly and vocally supported Ralph Nader and helped fuel the incredible hostility toward Al Gore has any right to complain about the 2000 election. As for the war, well — there’s a damn time and place. I’m all for free speech. I’m also for, well, being polite.)
As much as the physical labor of moving sucks — all the cleaning, all the packing, the constant smell of corrugated cardboard, the reduction of a somewhat-orderly home to what seems like a hopeless clutter — what’s infinitely worse is when your three-year-old daughter realizes that today was the last time she’ll get to play with the kids at the Sunday School you just started taking her to a few months ago. I moved a lot as a kid, so I’m in a weird double position: I know that “You’ll make lots of new friends” is pretty much true, but I also know that “You’ll make lots of new friends” is also of absolutely no consolation when you’re about to leave the current friends behind. In all likelihood she will have forgotten these kids’ names by Christmas, but she knows their names now, and three-year-olds are notable for not having yet figured out how to mask their heartbreak.
Notes on the War:
:: A lot of bloggers I read have commented on the sanitary aspects of our media’s coverage of the war, with special focus on CNN’s coverage. I’m told it sometimes borders on “cheerleading”, and the coverage is strangely insistent on showing war-from-a-distance: bombs erupting, loud booms rolling across the Iraqi landscape, et cetera. I don’t have cable, and I’m really watching as little of it as possible — I’m becoming more and more prejudiced toward the written word these days — but I’ve been referred to some very disturbing images on Al’Jazeera. (I mean it. These images are graphic. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
This is the side of war our media almost never shows us.
The language of war is necessarily loaded with terms designed to dehumanize the business, but when I see some of the language out there that not only advocates war, but celebrates it — when I see it becoming an entertainment that we plop down to watch, much as we would to watch Survivor or the World Series — I think we need to force ourselves to look at images like this, and remind ourselves that real human beings are dying horrible, violent deaths, on both sides of the conflict.
I am not a pacifist, and I think there is moral justification for this war (as I’ve said before, what scares me is not the war but our Administration squandering that moral justification afterwards and my suspicion of less-than-moral motives at the heart of it). But I can’t help but feel a bit nihilistic about a world where such things are as common as they are here.
:: But if the pro-war side gets too heady in its enthusiasm, the anti-war side has its own underbelly and it’s just as gross. I’ve been advocating an end to anti-war demonstrations, mainly because they’re pretty much irrelevant now; by continually protesting the war, we lose focus on the fact of the post-war world, which is where the success of this war will ultimately lie. But another, smaller reason I advocate ending the demonstrations is to shut up people like this. I can’t help but note that the guy holding up that sign, on the right-hand side, is wearing a ski-mask.
:: Finally, I found a bit of humor in the BBC’s airing of the minutes leading up to President Bush’s address to the nation the other night. I’ve wondered why Bush doesn’t address the nation from his Oval Office desk more; earlier last week he did it from what I think was the East Room at the White House (I could be wrong), and other addresses have come at other locations, most notably his address regarding his decision on stem-cell research, which seemed to come from his kitchen in Crawford, Texas. But what I found funny here is not that Bush would have a stylist primping him a bit, but that she’s so diligently primping the back of his head, which we would never have seen. Did she shine his shoes, too?
I plan to watch the Oscars tonight, at least as late as I can. (I haven’t managed to stay up all the way to “Best Picture” since Braveheart won.) Of this year’s Best Picture nominees, I’ve only seen The Two Towers, which has no chance of winning, really. I recently read somewhere — but I don’t recall where, specifically — a theory that the Academy is waiting until The Return of the King next year to shower its accolades upon Peter Jackson, which I hope is the case. I don’t have much of a read on any of the Oscar races this year, so I’m mainly hoping for an enjoyable and entertaining telecast. (I’m also glad that Steve Martin is hosting again, because I never really cared for Whoopi Goldberg’s brand of humor at the Oscars. Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that I actually enjoyed David Letterman’s now-infamous turn at hosting the ceremonies. Yeah, he did beat “Oprah, Uma” into the ground, but I loved it when he drafted Tom Hanks for help in a “Stupid Pet Trick”.)
Roger Ebert has a good article about his Oscar memories today. My personal favorite Oscar memories:
:: Clint Eastwood presenting the “Best Director” award to Steven Spielberg for Schindler’s List. Eastwood lost the teleprompter, and you could just see the words, “Oh, God damn it!” forming on his lips before he got back on track.
:: Robin Williams’s speech after winning “Best Supporting Actor” for Good Will Hunting.
:: David Letterman to the Academy President (I can’t remember the guy’s name), after the President’s opening speech: “Sir, there are some guys out back who’d like to talk to you about Hoop Dreams….”
:: Randy Newman, addressing the orchestra that was beginning to play, ushering Newman off the stage after he’d finally won an Oscar for “Best Song” after losing oh, so many times: “Oh, you’re not going to play now. Please don’t play.”
:: Jim Carrey, the year he was denied a nomination for The Truman Show: “I’m here to present [some award], and that’s all I’m here for.” Also, a few years prior when, in presenting a different award, he referred to the Oscar as “the LORD of all knick-knacks!”
James Capozzola is wondering why more people don’t link TRR, the sister-site to The Rittenhouse Review. I haven’t done so because I tend to view Rittenhouse as the “front-page” to Capozzola’s various publications (including TRR and his “Letters Page”), so I just follow my links to Rittenhouse and then follow the subsequent links to TRR.
Of course, I would have done otherwise had I known that Capozzola would specifically single out those blogs who are directly linking TRR. I could use the traffic!
Oops.
Due to a slight problem with my ISP (that’s really my fault, because….well, I forgot to pay them on time), my graphics are obviously messed up, with louses up my template. I probably won’t be able to get things totally fixed until Tuesday — we’re going apartment-hunting tomorrow — so I’ve at least changed my text color to make the thing readable until I get it all squared-away.
Oops, again.
(EDIT: Somehow, the problem resolved itself without my attention today — which is weird, because by my understanding my ISP’s billing department is closed on Sundays….but oh well, looks like things are back to normal.)
Is there any way I can get it off my fingers without betraying my cool exterior?
One of Google’s changes to Blogger and BlogSpot has been to tailor the masthead ad to something that theoretically reflects the content of the blog.
So, imagine my surprise when I load up my page two minutes ago to find an ad for….the books of Robert Jordan !!!!
Ugh….
BONUS IMAGE OF THE WEEK
I was looking through the Astronomy Picture of the Day archive, looking for some new wallpaper for my desktop, and I found this striking image of star-trails on Mt. Kilimanjaro. I just thought this image was amazingly cool, and a big image is always good for taking up some screenspace here on a slow blogging day, thus making me feel a bit more productive than otherwise. (ahem….)
Addendum to my post a few days ago about the TV show Emergency!: Yeah, it was a good show and all, but those guys never had to do this.
Amazing.
I announced last week our impending move back to Buffalo, and the fact that this will entail a hiatus for Byzantium’s Shores. I’ve decided that the hiatus will begin this coming Thursday (March 27) and possibly end on Monday, April 7. However, I may well wait until Thursday, April 10, rounding it out for two weeks. This is also contingent upon unforeseen circumstances like the broken phone lines our current apartment had, unbeknownst to us or our landlords when we moved here back in September.
The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer