Speak Up, Pot

No, this isn't about marijuana.

Sometimes, the pot needs to call the kettle black. Sometimes, even if you've got a bit of sin, you need to cast, if not a stone, maybe an indictment of behavior. Not being perfect may not give you a right to criticize, but it doesn't give them a right to get away with it.

Basically, that's what a lot of finger-pointing has devolved to at this point. Either the pointer of fingers must be totally without blemishes, or what they say is discounted.

Guess what? If I'm a mass-murdering jerk, if I say that you shouldn't kill people, that's hypocritical. But if you did kill someone, and I'm the first person to point it out, while I may have no business denigrating you for it, I do have business calling you out on it.

If we wait until we're utterly blameless before pointing out other people's shortcomings, no one will ever get called on anything. International diplomacy seems to consist of one country saying, "Hey, you're treating your people terribly," and then the other country replying, "Oh yeah, well so do you." Maybe that first country should reexamine its own rights record, but the point still stands that the second country is treating its people terribly, whether or not it can be judged by the first country. If the United States tells China its human rights record is lousy, China can't simply improve its human rights record by saying, "Jim Crow!" really loudly.

You can look at it another way: it takes one to know one. It's a common childhood rejoinder to insult, but guess what: all you're doing when you say that is acknowledging that you are. If someone accuses you of being a liar, and you say, "Takes one to know one," then you're admitting that, well, fine, you may be a liar, but the other person is also a liar.

Not good enough. In fact, if someone who's a huge jerk says, "Man, you're a jerk," you might want to consider that you must be a pretty big jerk if someone who is a massive jerk thinks you're one. Sometimes it does take one to know one, and no matter what that says about the person making the accusation, it still says that the accused is guilty as well.

It shouldn't be tit for tat. If everyone has to be perfect before anyone can be... well then, no one will be perfect. It's the classic, "I will when he does," dodge. Frankly, international diplomacy is sounding more and more like the schoolyard. I'm surprised anyone takes it particularly seriously. It would be amusing, if it weren't so important.

Neo-Cons

It's funny. Well, not funny, so much as perplexing. And not so much perplexing as it is frustrating, infuriating even.

I'm talking about neo-cons, of course. Specifically, their bizarre extroversion in terms of interference.

Let's cut right to it. Neo-cons believe that the US should reach out and improve the world. We should intervene in foreign situations, stick out noses in other people's business, because we know what's best for truth and freedom.

But since all these neo-cons are conservative (hence the "con" part of the name, although I guess it could also stand for "convict" or "confusion") they also believe that the US, in the person of the government, should stay out of people's business. The government should butt out and let the free market take care of it. The government handles things poorly, and thus should be minimized or eliminated.

Now I know there are weird, convoluted ways of reconciling those two beliefs. And not all of them involve simply ignoring the hypocrisy and hoping it goes away on its own.

But mark ye: the neo-cons care more about other countries' welfare than they do about their own. They're willing to throw their own people to the wolves because it's destiny, or freedom, or whatever, but other people, they march in, dollar-signs blazing. Spend, spend, spend.

Welfare is bad. It encourages people to rely on corrupt government, to suckle on the government teat.

Military intervention is good. It encourages people to rely on freedom-bringing government, to suckle on the teat of freedom.

I could go on, but I'm sure the point has been made elsewhere. Besides, neo-cons are, at the moment, something of an old hat. At least, they've gone to ground, to continue their struggle in a more guerrilla-type aspect. One might almost call them freedom-fighters, underground resistance. Everyone will eventually forget that they were dead wrong about pretty much everything, and then they will rise again and embroil us in another pointless land war in Asia.

I'd just never cut through this particular knot of cognitive dissonance before. It was there; it simply hadn't occurred to me.

Tell, Don't Show

I was going to be cute and start out obfuscating my point, but I'm just not up for it. So here goes:

Hey Internet, if I want a video tour, I'll ask for it.

Okay, that's not true. Hey Internet, chances are good that there is a better means of communicating that information than a video. That's better.

See, right now, everyone seems to think that everything needs to be a video. Ask a question? Get a VIDEO ANSWER! Looking for features? Get a VIDEO TOUR! Interested in what happened in the news? Here's a VIDEO!

Well, videos are great for some things. How-to, for instance. Or illustrating movement. Basically anything animated. And I believe that videos of news events are important, just as I believe that video documentaries can be a great way to learn about subjects. I genuinely believe in good documentaries. There are a few.

But frankly, if I ask a question in text, I want an answer in text. If I'm looking for a features list, I want a list, not a video tour. And if I'm looking to catch up on the day's news, I'll read it.

Why? Well, for one thing, I can skim a paragraph of text in about 10 seconds, whereas that same text read aloud takes much longer. And if we're talking about a large amount of information, I want to be able to skip to the parts that I care about. Can't do that with a video. Plus, I can read it faster than I can hear it even if I'm reading all of it and reading it closely.

Plus, what if I were deaf?

In that vein, because I'm not but there are many people who are, how about offering transcripts of videos which contain valuable information that you seem to feel is worthy of video format? How about even just a summary of what the video says? Too often are you taken to a video which has nothing but a title without any explanation. I don't care to watch videos most of the time. News in particular; I don't want televised news programs because in half an hour, they give me the same news I could get in ten minutes with no commercials.

So please, Internet, remember that you were originally designed to transfer text. Remember that not everyone thinks your brand-spanking-new-ness is the greatest. Remember that there are deaf people who can't necessarily hear what your video is saying (and forget about trying to read lips in online videos what with the frame decimation and lagging). Stop giving us videos as the only way to get the information.

And then improve the quality of the information you give, video or not. Because a lot of it is garbage.

An Open Letter To Hollywood

Dear Hollywood,

It's often said, "There's nothing new under the sun," but you didn't have to take it so literally. Seriously, we could stand it if you decided to make even a thinly-veiled rehashing of a story that's not new under the sun.

But no. We get sequels, and we get remakes. Sequels we can dismiss out of hand. But a remake takes balls.

Remaking a movie is basically saying, "I know better." Really, Hollywood? You really know better? Remaking a lousy movie suggests that it was a good premise but lousy execution, and I don't hold a lot of faith in a second try making any difference in that regard, even if I buy your premise, which I usually don't. See, a lot of movies are bad because they're lousy premises. Even with great execution, epic execution, they're still going to be lousy movies because they are built on faulty bedrock. Your foundation's got cracks all through it, Hollywood. I'm afraid that a giant gaping sinkhole has opened up underneath some of your movies. Gonna have to dynamite that sucker, move to higher ground.

Instead, you've decided to pull down the trim, maybe knock down a few walls (pray they aren't load-bearing), paint the outside a new color, and sell it as a new house. "Stick a few sugar packets under that table, it'll be level," you tell prospective buyers. Problem is, you can't let them see the basement because it's all crazy and tilted down there, with groundwater bubbling up from between the concrete slabs and doors to the outside that no longer function because there's two feet of earth over one side of them. The house is a dump, Hollywood, and even if we could get a sub-prime mortgage on it, we wouldn't.

To set aside the metaphor for a moment (or perhaps forever), Hollywood should look into film piracy and cinema attendance. See, I posit that, if you really want to see a good movie, you should see it in the theater. There's something about that screen that almost makes selling a kidney to get in worthwhile (yes, I know, low-hanging fruit, but prices are a big factor here). So if fewer people are going to movies in the theater, I believe it has less to do with the availability of other (lower-quality) options and more to do with the fact that the movies aren't worth seeing in the big screen, which means they're not good movies.

But stick with me here, because it gets better. So there are a lot of people saying, "Eh, whatever, I'll see it in DVD." But there are people saying, "Eh, whatever, I'll pirate it from the Internet." I'm not sure that any movie execs have gone to the trouble of researching their competition, but frankly, a lot of pirated movies are crap. They require a certain amount of effort and time to procure, and the quality is hardly DVD-worthy. If I would watch something in a pirated video, it's because not only would I not care to see it in the big screen, but I'm not even willing to spend the money to see a decent version in the small screen.

I understand that there are some pirated copies which are leaked, a la the Wolverine movie. But the vast majority of piracy comes from people who want to watch the flick, but not so much that they're willing to pay for it. If there's a choice between crappy and cheap (free but with investments of time and energy, not to mention a degree of risk) and good and expensive, there are a lot of people going with the former, which says something about the level of quality present in the product in the first place.

I've seen some pirated movies. Some I've seen because they're not available in any other form. But mostly, I've seen them (notice how I'm winking at possession) because I sort of wanted to see the movie, but not enough to do anything strenuous.

Film buffs don't pirate movies. People don't pirate movies they love. They pirate movies which are so-so, or which were awful but they had to see them for whatever reason. The fact that attendance is down and piracy is up says more about the quality of movie being put out by Hollywood than I ever could.

But Jesus, Hollywood: make some new movies. It's not just remaking the old crappy movies. It's remaking old, decent movies. Just because it was made back in the days before the ability to computer-generate a 10-ton gorilla having sex with a two-headed Angelina Jolie clone while blowing up inside the Death Star in Technicolor with particle effects, that doesn't mean it needs to be "improved upon."

Sincerely,

A Guy Who's Tired of Remakes and Sequels