Books Lying Open
¤ DragonSinger, Anne McCaffrey
¤ Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken

Soul-Devouring Worry:
¤ Kitty being a dildo.

Answer of the Day:
¤ Because lifting heavy things pays long term dividends.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May your chips fall short in the flavor department.

nce again there's a review below, and news above. In fact there's so much news, written Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, that I'm not even going to bother talking about Kali, or the weather, or the cats, or our weekend plans, or upcoming movies, or any of the other topics I so frequently dive into.

It will be an eventful weekend though, since we're planning on seeing Blade: Trinity even though the reviews suck, and we're going to Malaya's office Xmas party on Friday night, and we're going to a BBQ with some other people in our Kali class on Saturday, and we'll likely go to the gym the next three days as well, and so on.  Check back Monday for chat about some or all of those things, or perhaps none at all.

As for the shooting, it was a truly insane scene.

The shooter sounds like a real winner too.

So he was a Pantera fan, he was a big dumb jock, and he was unhappy that Pantera was no more. How he makes the leap from that to mass murder is the mystery, and since they didn't take him alive, we'll probably never know.  Maybe he just had such a miserable, empty life that he was thinking about dying, was angry that Pantera broke up, and figured why not go out and take someone famous with him?

The oddest part, in a matter of speaking, is that he wasn't just obsessed with Dimebag or his brother, the drummer. He shot Dimebag first, multiple times at close range, so obviously he really wanted the man dead. And then he shot a bouncer who was trying to grab him; you can sort of understand that one as sort of self defense in the heat of the moment. But then he starts banging away at the fleeing audience, and there the obsessed fan theory goes out the window.

This perfectly illustrates the perils of being a public figure, eh? And this guy wasn't even a stalker; he didn't think Dimebag was his spiritual twin, or that Pantera was sending him messages via the CIA implant in his ass, at least not as far as we know. He was just a loser with a gun, and he was probably completely unaware that his moment of glory took place on the 24th anniversary of John Lennon's murder.

¤ While skimming through the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (December 10th, with the Oceans Twelve cast on the cover) I eventually got to the Stephen King column on the last page. This one is his "2004: The Year in Music" article, and while I have no comment on his musical choices (mostly since I never listen to the radio or Mtv) I found something he said in the introduction interesting.

"I love end-of-the-year lists (although I have a tendency to avoid the ill-tempered 10 Worst bitchfests.) I love them so much that in fact it's going to take me three whole columns to elucidate my own favorites.

I quoted this since I wanted to comment on his dislike of "10 worst" lists. It makes me wonder if he's always been like this, or it's entirely as a result of being a writer for so many years, and being shat upon by critics for most of them. I'm quite the opposite of King in my preference for best lists, since I hardly ever read them, while reading every word of worst lists. I skimmed over the rest of King's column, once he got to his listing of music, since I'd never heard of 75% of it and didn't care. But if it had been a worst list, where he talked about how much this or that sucked, I would have read every word, even though I'm sure I would have had no more familiarity with those songs than I did with his favorites.

Which brings me back to my initial question; has he always disliked worst lists, or was he a nasty cynical sniping son of a bitch when he was younger, and it's only after decades of writing horror and being dissed by so many armchair critics that he's lost his taste for snark and venom?  I don't have the quote in front of me, but I remember reading Ebert say something along the same lines when someone asked why he didn't review more bad movies, and why he was constantly posting his lists of Great Movies. Ebert's comment was something like, "Life's too short to sit through crappy movies." and while that's something I certainly agree with, 1) our definitions of crappy differ widely, and 2) It's much more fun to read negative reviews than positive ones. For me, at least. Not so much for Ebert, or Stephen King, apparently.

¤ Depressing news about "honor killings."

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Men all over the world distort the teachings of Islam and Christianity to justify abusing their wives and daughters, leading to thousands of "honor" killings a year for which courts provide virtual impunity, experts say.

U.N. estimates show that more than 5,000 women are murdered every year in "honor"-related violence, but the real number could be much higher, said experts at an international conference near Stockholm, which ended Wednesday.

Horror stories of women and even girls as young as seven being beheaded, burned to death, maimed, beaten, raped, forced into suicide or mentally abused underscored that patriarchal violence against women pays no heed to religion.

In many cases it is rooted in cultural and tribal beliefs.

The article goes on to survey various cultures and religions, while never really getting to the point. Men have the power in most of the world, so obviously they are going to create and perpetuate belief systems and cultures and traditions that allow them to remain in power. After all, what could be more convenient than having your Bible or Koran or legal system or whatever say that you have the ultimate authority over your spouse and children?

But some experts believe any male-dominated religion, in which God and his prophets or apostles are male figures, creates conditions for the subordination and abuse of women.

Predominantly Catholic Poland, although free from "honor killings," has a problem with violence against women, rooted in the strong influence of the Catholic church on public life, Polish minister for gender equality Magdalena Sroda said.

"Catholicism does not directly support or oppose violence against women. But there are indirect links through culture which is strongly based on religion," Sroda told Reuters. "It is a structure based on patriarchal domination of God the Father and the less important role of women can be seen for example in the letters of Saint Paul," she said.

Maggie here is reading a lot into things, and she's correct, but it's simpler than this. People in power will always interpret or create laws that let them retain their power. It's a pity that no matriarchal societies persisted into the modern days, since then we'd have something to directly compare to all of the patriarchies around the world.

I'm sure the issue has been explored in SciFi, but I wonder what the future will bring? Much of the world is still completely sexist against women, whether due to primitive living conditions that value strength over intellect, or "tradition," or (misused and twisted, to paraphrase the article) religion. But for the first time in centuries, some of the world is not; Western Europe more than the US, at least for now. Whether the current uprising of the Bush-supporting Christian Conservatives in the US is a dying gasp or the beginning of a new Dark Age remains to be seen, but as of now the US is still almost entirely dominated by men, when you look at the heads of companies, universities, national elected officials, etc. That's changing though, since women are getting better educations than men, are enrolling in and graduating from college in larger numbers than men, and are narrowing the gap in wages in many industries.

The Old Boys' Network will keep men in charge of most things in the US for at least another generation, but that's beginning to crack now, and it will fracture completely, over time, at least in some fields. I don't see men giving up power voluntarily, even if their "another man is the best one to pass my job onto" attitude is entirely subconscious, but when 70% of the mid level managers are female and 75% of the top MBA school grads are women, it's going to happen just through strength of numbers.

At least I think there will be, but it's far from guaranteed. Look at pro and pro-am sports in the US; 70%, 80% of the basketball and football players in major college and pros are non-white, and yet non-whites make up maybe 5% of the coaches. That's all about the old boys network though, and connections, and the time lapse; as more blacks and other minorities start trying to get into coaching, they'll work their way up from high school and small colleges into the pros.

I have no data to measure this with, but it seems to me that in the 60s and 70s and even 80s, being an ex-player was a very good way to move into coaching. It still is in baseball and somewhat in basketball, but increasingly in those sports, and especially in football, you hardly see any successful players in coaching. Lots of coaches played some at a lower level, but didn't have the talent or physical skills to move on, and lots of other guys went to college to learn coaching, or to be a general manager, and most of those guys seem to be white. On the other hand, a paranoid black analyst could probably make a pretty good argument that football teams mostly stopped hiring ex-players as coaches around the time that most ex-players started to be black, and at that time teams suddenly wanted smart, young, college-educated coaches who hadn't necessarily played the sport at all. Men who were almost 100% white, coincidentally enough.

Anyway, going back to the females in power thing, as "equal rights" becomes more prevalent in more industries, and women start to get enough power that they can start thinking they deserve it, the world may become a very different place. What will it be like in white collar businesses in 100 years?  Will men continue to gift and legislate themselves power and wealth disproportionate to their numbers? How much longer can they get away with that, as women grow in power and numbers? Will there be some really nasty gender issues as male power reaches a tipping point in various areas? After all, the various anti-affirmative action groups didn't get going until there began to be enough qualified minorities to start taking jobs away from whites, and the father's rights groups didn't get going until women began to win court cases and legal rulings in proportionate numbers, and so on. Groups that are entrenched in their power tend to be benevolent to others... as long as their power isn't threatened.  As the tipping point approaches though, things usually get pretty ugly.

¤ I think we all suspected most men would give their left arm for a longer penis... I just never thought that would literally be an option.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some men with abnormally small penises gave a portion of their left arm so that surgeons could create a more normal-sized organ. The operation, known as total phallic reconstruction, dramatically improved their quality of life and, for some, allowed them to experience a full sex life for the first time.

...

As the name implies, total phallic reconstruction is a comprehensive operation that addresses all aspects of penile function. The main tissue for the new penis is obtained from the forearm and incorporated into the patient's existing penis. Microsurgical techniques are used to connect blood vessels and nerves. Lastly, an inflatable penile prosthesis is placed to mimic normal erectile function.

In the present study, Dr. David Ralph and colleagues, from University College London, describe nine men, between 19 and 43 years of age, who underwent the procedure at their institution. The subjects included three hermaphrodites and two men with testosterone problems. The average penis length was just over 1 inch.

All of the men were satisfied with the cosmetic outcome of their operation, which aims for a new penis length of about 5 inches. In addition, the operation allowed four men to urinate in the standing position and allowed four to have regular sexual intercourse.

As of now this is only available to turn men with micropenis into slightly below average men. But you just know there are 3 and 4" guys out there who would risk it in order to get 8", so I wouldn't say we've seen the last of this procedure.

¤ I can't imagine that anyone ever believed still believes the official Pentagon story that all of the torture in the Iraqi hellhole Abu Ghraib prison really was perpetrated by a few low ranking bad apples. But just in case, numerous new revelations in that case should wash away that blissful ignorance.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - U.S. special forces accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq threatened Defense Intelligence Agency personnel who saw the mistreatment, according to U.S. government memos released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The special forces also monitored e-mails sent by defense personnel and ordered them "not to talk to anyone" in the United States about what they saw, said one memo written by the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, who complained to his Pentagon bosses about the harassment.

In addition, the special forces confiscated photos of a prisoner who had been punched in the face.

Prisoners arriving at a detention center in Baghdad had "burn marks on their backs" as well as bruises and some complained of kidney pain, according to the June 25, 2004 memo.

...

The memos reveal behind-the-scenes tensions between the FBI and U.S. military and intelligence task forces running prisoner interrogations at Guantanamo and in Iraq as the Bush administration sought better intelligence to fight terrorists and the deadly Iraq insurgency.

"These documents tell a damning story of sanctioned government abuse — a story that the government has tried to hide and may well come back to haunt our own troops captured in Iraq," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the New York-based ACLU.

It was systematic, it was widespread, and it was done with the approval and direction of senior officers. Just accept it. This doesn't mean we're as bad as Saddam was, but it's not exactly an epaulet on the chest of the US Armed Forces, and if this administration ever held anyone accountable for anything, heads would roll. Starting with Rumsfeld's, obviously enough.

Another June 25 memo describes how a task force officer punched a prisoner in the face "to the point he needed medical attention," failed to record the medical treatment, and confiscated photos of the injuries.

In the July 14 letter obtained by the AP, Harrington suggested that the Pentagon didn't act on FBI complaints about four incidents at Guantanamo, including a female interrogator grabbing a detainee's genitals and bending back his thumbs, another where most of a prisoner's head was covered with duct tape and a third where a dog was used to intimidate a detainee who later was thrown into isolation and showed signs of "extreme psychological trauma."

...

The U.S. military says prisoners are treated according to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment. Still, at least 10 incidents of abuse have been substantiated at Guantanamo, all but one from 2003 or this year.

Many detainees at Guantanamo have been held without charge and without access to attorneys since the camp opened in January 2002. The United States has imprisoned some 550 men accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaida; only four have been charged.

To quote Ted Rall, "Nothing says fascism like a concentration camp."

Desperado is the second film in a trilogy of modern day "westerns" set in Mexico, all written and directed by Robert Rodriguez.  The first film, El Mariachi, was released in 1992. Desperado followed in 1995, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico concluded things in 2003. Desperado is the only one of the three that I've seen, (though we've got the borrowed Once Upon A Time In Mexico DVD sitting on the TV right now; review to come soon) I watched it on video in November 2004, and until I checked the date on IMDB, I would have said it was released in 2000 or so. It feels contemporary, looks modern day, and feels as or more current than any other action film in the theaters today.

The plot of Desperado, what there is of it, involves a mysterious black-clad Mariachi guitarist who wants revenge on a drug dealer who killed his wife and shot him in the hand, years before. You're not seeing Desperado for the story though, since the "plot" serves the same purpose as the plot in a porno film; it's just a way to move the characters from one action scene to another.  Not that you'll have to watch Desperado with the fast forward button at ready; the non-action stuff isn't bad, it's just entirely irrelevant to the motion of the story, which inexorably heads towards a big face off as the lone mariachi guns down the drug dealer's army and moves towards a battle with the drug dealer himself.

Overall, this isn't a very good movie, but it's fun, it's got a lot of action, it's photographed beautifully, and they shoot a lot and blow a lot of things up. It's also far cleverer and funnier than your average dumb action movie, with lots of relatively witty dialogue, very inventive action sequences, and humor all through.

To the scores:

Desperado
Script/Story: 4
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: 7
Humor: 6
Eye Candy: 5
Fun Factor: 6
Replayability: 6
Overall: 6.5

(Click here to see these categories explained.)

I'll run down the scoring elements on this one, since I don't have any more general comments to make.

Script/Story: 4
The weakest part of the film, and what keeps it from getting a higher score, simply because there is almost no plot or story. Rodriguez obviously had a bunch of fun stunts and action sequences in mind, and for him the "story" serves the same purpose it does in your typical porno. The acting is fine, and there are a few nice scenes of dialogue, but there's no logical order to anything, and no sense of rising action or conflict. Antonio Banderas' character is the hero, he wants revenge on the evil drug dealer who shot his hand off, and he's going to get it.  We get the set up in the first few minutes, and are on cruise control ever after.

Acting/Casting: 7
Despite the actors having very little of importance to do, they all did a good job. Banderas was fine, Salma Hayak was hot and fiesty, Cheech Marin was a funny bartender, the guy playing the evil drug dealer was good, etc. The acting was fine; the problem was the story they were acting in, not their performances.

Action: 7
There's a lot of it, and it's much more inventive than your typical action movie (not that that's saying much), but it's never really all that exciting. It's more clever than thrilling, as characters do relatively realistic things, until the story calls for them to do incredibly silly and unrealistic things. The budget was clearly small for this picture, so they aren't any huge stunts with dozens of vehicles or helicopters or anything like that. But the smallness makes the action that is there much more intimate and intense, as characters battle and shoot almost face to face.

The action is also somewhat surreal; it's not Charlie's Angels fake, and there's not a bunch of cheesy wire fu, but the gun play and explosions are far from realistic, since the good guys seem to have about 10x the hit points of anyone else. There are several scenes with at least a dozen bad guys banging away with machine guns, the bullets of which simply vanish before tearing the good guy apart as he takes shelter behind a flimsy piece of wood.  Nothing different than your average early Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, really.

Humor: 6
It wasn't a comedy, but almost every little scene has a few small funny touches, and quite often there are laugh out loud moments when you least expect them. The script is very well done in that way. You also have to realize I'm grading this one on a curve, since after all, it's an action movie with a few scenes of comedy. I don't even score the "comedy" in most action movies, since there's not enough of it to bother with, and if I did I'd just give them a 2 or a 3 at best. In light of that, a 6 for Desperado is a very high score, for this type of film.

Eye Candy: 5
It all takes place almost entirely in a very western-looking Mexican town, with run down cars and old buildings and dirt streets and such, so aside from eye candy in the form of Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayak, and lots of pretty fire explosions, there's not much to look at. Even this 5 is a bit high, in retrospect, and I'd lower it if not for the so sexy black miniskirt and belly-baring black top Salma trotted around in for the last half of the movie.

Fun Factor: 6
Ehh. With enough of a plot to make the action sequences seem at least slightly logical, this movie could have been a lot of fun. It wasn't bad, but I was bored some of the time, waiting for the bad guy to stop his latest crazy rant, or for Antonio to stop brooding and just get to the next action scene.

Replayability: 6
Another "ehh" score. I borrowed the tape from the library, watched it once, and took it back. I have no plans to buy the DVD, but if it were on TV tomorrow I'd watch it, at least enough to skip back whenever whatever else I was watching went to commercial.

Overall: 6.5
This one really makes me want to go back and redo the overall score for every movie I've ever reviewed, or at least the action movies. Not so much for the sake of Desperado, but just because I've rated every movie at that time, on its own merits, but without comparing them to other past scores. Looking at the 80+ scores now, I'd like to do some tweaking of scores, to get them into something with more overall cohesion. Desperado is clearly better than derivative crap like Van Helsing (6) or one-note amusement like Freddy vs. Jason (6.5), or flawed eye candy like The Day After Tomorrow (7), just to list three recent films and my wacky scores for them. But at the same time it's not really a very good movie, since the story is so non-existent. Yet I gave a few quality action movies that were boring even lower scores (X-men 1 got a 5 from me) even though they are inarguably better movies than Desperado or the other three I've listed in this paragraph.