Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
- Not exactly what Arizona needs right now – Obviously this state subscribes to the idea that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
- One fish, Two fish – Very sad.
- Gene Luen Yang: Why I Won’t Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie – Honestly, I’m more worried about MNS making a crappy film. While culturally set in Asiatic fantasy, ATLA didn’t go out of their way to make their protagonists very Asian-looking (nor were most main voice actors Asian). I think it would have certainly been more appropriate to include Asian actor (hell, from a publicity standpoint, if nothing else), and I certainly agree that non-Caucasian actors are under-represented in Hollywood. But, again, my worries about TLA is that MNS will make a mess of it in more fundamental ways. (And, yes, I’ll probably be going to see it soon after it opens.)
- Now Glenn Beck loves American Nazi sympathizers: Promotes book by prominent Hitler advocate of the 1930s – I eagerly await to see what the Rodeo Clown does next.
- Car Culture, RIP? – That’s a fairly remarkable change in the statistics.
- Built to kill – 40 breathtaking closeup photographs of animals – These are gorgeous (if occasionally gruesome). And, I have to admit, a bit of a relief from endless pics of critters covered in BP oil.
- Why Can’t More Video Game Trailers Be Like Deus Ex 3’s? – An interesting analysis of the state of the art of the game trailer. “We’ve gotten to a point in gaming, though, where innovation in terms of gameplay has slowed down. Everyone in the industry is equally capable of putting epic combat features into their games. Also, there are just so many games constantly being made that truly original ideas are few and far between (though existent). So if you want to stand out these days, it takes a lot more than just a specific gameplay element. The passive experience must be what distinguishes a game from its rivals.” Although I’ll confess, I have less of a desire to play “Deus Ex” than to “see the movie.”
- BP’s spill plan: they knew where it would go, that ecology would never recover, “No toxicity studies” on dispersants – So the response plan seems to have been … “posture and pray.”
- Beck says progressives ‘co-opted’ the Civil Rights Movement. Seems he forgot what conservatives did. – Beck and other conservatives who make this arguemnt get traction with this only by obfuscating sociopolitical alignment (progressives vs conservatives) with party affiliation (Dems vs GOP). Though we tend to think of Dems as progressive and GOPers as conservatives, in the southern depths of the Civil Rights movement, the “Dixiecrats” were highly conservative Democrats (a reaction to Republican-led Reconstruction post-Civil War). This meant the GOP helped break the Democratic deadlock in Congress over the civil Rights Act of 1964. After which, of course, the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” co-opted the Dixiecrats into their own party.
- Sorry I haven’t been to church lately… – Money graf: “This ‘study’ will be mentioned by extreme social conservative nutbags, quoted on talk radio, and mentioned in conversations. It will influence people. It will make senators reconsider positions on issues and spawn still more “studies” that will quote it. Social ignorance is like the telephone game, except only the ‘facts’ change, the message remains clear.”
- LOL: The Reoccurring Prop Newspaper – I love it. (Also note the “Desperate Housewives” one demonstrates it’s double-sided.) Now I seriously want to read that paper.
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