Book Review: Lying

    I like to be challenged.  People might not think that about me, because I have a strong inclination to resist change and my suspicion of fixing things that don’t appear to be broken is quite deep.  But it’s true.  I like to be challenged.  I think that’s why I found myself genuinely enjoying reading Nietzsche (for fun, not for a class or something).  And I’m sure it’s why I developed a fondness for the forthright and provocative works of Christopher Hitchens, Penn Jillette, and Sam Harris.  I first encountered Harris through various web videos of debates and speeches, often on the subject of religion and the rejection thereof.  But by the time I found him, that was no longer a challenging subject for me.  He may have helped me find better ways of saying what I meant, but I had already come to terms with my lack of belief in the supernatural.  Where he began to challenge me was in his book The Moral Landscape.  In my gut, I’d never felt right about some of the moral relativism that my 80s-raised mind wanted so much to hold on to.  Something didn’t sit right when it came to justifying barbaric acts in the name of cultural sensitivity, standing silent when I knew in my very bones that something evil was afoot.  And with The Moral Landscape, Harris challenged my thinking, and helped me forge that discomfort into a more coherent and I hope productive way of looking at the world.

    With Lying, Sam Harris has challenged me once again.  As a general thing, I consider myself an honest person.  I suppose most people do, but I have a long standing tendency to call it as I see it (not necessarily as it is) and to play as fair as I can with folks.  Admittedly, I’ve often used silence as a means of avoiding saying truths that might put me in socially awkward positions.  But generally, I’ve tried to be an honest person.  Or so I thought.  Reading Lying, I see that, while on a spectrum, I might be on the honest side of the middle, I still perpetuate our culture of lies.  I’m not a disciplined person.  I’m not going to lie here and say that I will be embracing a strictly and more thoughtfully honest life from this point forward.  It’s not that I don’t think it’s possible (though it would be difficult as I did grow up Catholic, where honestly, especially with oneself, is not generally well received or encouraged).  It’s that I know myself well enough to know that my commitment to being more thoughtful and honest will not be as deep and conscientious as it should be.  Still, the book challenges me to be a better person, and to think more about the damage that lies, even so called ‘white lies’ can do.  I do think that going forward, I will be more careful about telling the truth, more apt to avoid even those socially lubricating fabrications.

    The idea of living in an honest society, a conscientiously honest and straight-forward world, absolutely appeals to me.  And the goal Harris seems to have of shifting our cultural mindset in that direction is an honorable and important one.  Lying seems like the sort of book that should be read by as many people as possible, but probably won't be read by those who could be most served by it (like The Moral Landscape).  Being in business, I can see the need for this book in the business community.  But the medical, governmental, educational, and other arenas could all use a healthy dose of self-reflection and positive reinforcement of honest speech and behavior.

    The book, originally an e-book, now comes in a hardcover edition which features a Q&A between Sam Harris and Ronald A. Howard, a man who was a huge inspiration in Harris’s own quest to lead an honest life.  The two discuss various aspects of lies and truths, and the potential pitfalls and benefits.  In addition, there are questions from readers of the e-book with responses by Harris.  The book itself is quite short (42 pages), with the appendixes bringing it up to 95 pages, plus a few more pages of notes.  But while the book is short, I think there's a lot to think about within its pages.  Again, coming from the business world, this is a heck of a lot more useful and important than something like the oft lauded Who Moved My Cheese.  Whatever your career or lifestyle, I would recommend taking this challenge.  Read Lying, and think more about the truth and lies in your life, how they effect you, the ones you love, and society in general.

Lying
Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Four Elephants Press
ISBN: 978-1-9400-5100-0

-Matthew J. Constantine

Book Review: A Manual for Creating Atheists

    You hear it all the time.  “Faith is a virtue.”  “You’ve just got to have faith.”  “Without faith there is no meaning.”  Peter Boghossian disagrees.  He takes great pains to separate the term ‘faith’ from the term ‘hope.’  And to clarify what atheism is.  Faith is the belief in something without evidence for that something, or ‘pretending to know things you don’t know.’  Whereas, like me, he sees atheist as meaning ‘there is insufficient evidence to belief in X deity.’  It isn’t a dogma or a belief system, just as a Buddhist doesn’t have a specific set of beliefs about there not being a Thor.  With this book Boghossian provides some handy hints on how to deal with those who claim to know things they don’t have know.  Unlike some before, he does not target religion, which he sees more as a social structure, but faith itself.  The root cause, and not the symptom.

    As he puts it, ‘faith claims are knowledge claims,’ statements about how things are (the world is 6000 years old, lightening was sent from Zeus, the Emperor of Japan is a god, Muhammad rode a flying horse, etc.), thus must be treated as such.  And when they are baseless, they must be challenged.  He also calls out relativists, who claim that other cultures either can’t or shouldn’t be subject to judgment or challenge.  Like Sam Harris, he makes the case that relativism isn’t a path to success.  Pluralism, the coming together and peaceful coexistence of many cultures is good, multiculturalism, having different rules for different peoples is bad.  Many ‘academic leftists’ seem to be willing to accept absolutely anything in the name of tolerance.  But both Boghossian and Harris have called them out on this sort of behavior.  If you claim that throwing acid in a little girl’s face or shooting her in the back of the head because she tried to read a book is OK, then you’re either A) delusional or B) profoundly evil.  And excusing this sort of thing because it is consistent with someone’s religion is immoral.

    Like Sean Faircloth in his book Attack of the Theocrats, he also calls out religious exemptions from the normal rule of law that applies to everyone else.  Be it taxes or bad behavior, too often faith based groups are given a free ride and legal protections they should not have.  But we are constantly bombarded with the message that criticizing faith is tantamount to racism and other egregious behaviors.  Because, as Boghossian says, ideas are now given a respect they shouldn’t have.  Attacking a person should be wrong, but attacking an idea should be encouraged.  Ideas deserve only as much respect as they can retain under assault.

    Boghossian takes on many of the common arguments for faith and against atheism, from the Kalam Cosmological Argument to Pascal’s Wager.  He gives categories for where people are on their journey away from faith, from those who have never been exposed to alternate ideas to those who are questioning, and beyond.  He doesn’t suggest that with one or two questions, one can make someone abandon years of indoctrination, nor necessarily should they.  But by presenting Socratic questions, by making a person take a moment to examine why as much as what they believe, you may have done a lot to break the spell.  As he brings up, while many people’s journey to faith is quick (a traumatic experience, for example), people’s journey away from it is often long and carefully thought out.  I think of my own, and I know that the journey away from faith for me took a very, very long time.  There were fitful leaps, but the whole process must have taken more than twenty years.

    Boghossian also encourages us to read up on various schools of thought.  He suggests reading the works of religious scholars like William Lane Craig and peddlers of what he terms ‘deepities’ like Deepak Chopra.  Listen to what others say, question them, challenge them.  Don’t insult the person, don’t try to make a person feel dumb or small.  Just be that voice of descent.  Ultimately the journey away from superstition and faith is a personal one, and should be encouraged and nurtured, but not forced.  And of course, don’t pretend to know what you don’t know.  Not knowing is perfectly OK.  Knowing that one doesn’t know is the beginning of the journey.  And in a life without faith, the journey is what it’s all about.  At least, that’s what mine is about.  I can’t speak for others.

A Manual for Creating Atheists
Author: Peter Boghossian
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing
ISBN: 9781939578150 (I read this as an ebook)

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/17/12-2/23/13)

    I scraped out my penny jar and went out to see a matinee with Ben, Brad, and Paul on Sunday morning.  Five dollars.  Not too bad.  We saw the new Die Hard film (review to follow).  But what I really took away from it was how bloody awful the trailers were.  Scary Movie 6?  Holy crap, it looks terrible.  Like Donovan’s Reef, where you see where you know everyone must have thought they were being funny, but can’t for the life of you figure out why.  And then…the trailer for The Heat.  Good sweet crap.  It’s like looking in to the abyss, and knowing in your very soul that it looks back at you.  Every moment of the trailer was like having my scrotum wound up on a spinning wheel.  Only really unpleasant.  Anyway, I really don’t know how I got so many movies and such in this week.  Because I also did a lot of reading and some writing.  Not to mention some solid music listening time.  Whatever the case, it was a good week.

A Good Day to Die Hard:  Look, I’m gonna say something that will almost certainly earn me some hate, and I know frustrates the crap out of my co-Dork Brad.  I really like the first Die Hard film.  It’s a fun, silly 80s action movie with lots of cool stunts and stuff blowing up (though not even one of my favorites of that time/genre).  But I absolutely HATE Die Hard 2 in every way.  And I think the rest of the sequels are stupid, though mildly entertaining.  This new one is no different.  The script is crap.  The acting (most likely because of the script) is crap.  And yeah, it feels PG-13, because except for one bit of CG blood, the violence is very restrained.  But a lot of stuff blows up, and frankly, that’s all I expect from this series.  They’re not good.  Honestly, they’re not even memorable.  And I never find myself thinking, “I need to watch a Die Hard film.”  I think the only one of the sequels I’ve ever seen a second time was 2, and that was because Brad wanted me to give it another try (still didn’t like it).  Beyond the first one, they’re all pretty meh.  And so it is with this latest entry.  I had fun watching it, but in a week, I won’t remember it. (edit: this latter prediction was brilliantly prescient -Matt of 5 days later).

Destroy All Planets:  Gammera doesn’t think too much of aliens in their striped ball-rings.  Wacky fun ensues when two boy-scouts play havoc with a submarine.  Like some late Godzilla films, this one relies WAY too much on stock footage, showing large chunks of previous films’ Gammera battles in order to pad its run-time.  Clearly, a solid script would have been a bit more helpful.  Once the kids get on the alien ship, it gets a bit better.  Actually, everything that’s not monotonous stock footage is pretty good.  The aliens are freaky.  And it’s kind of horribly violent.  But it also finds a giant turtle riding a giant squid-alien like a jet ski, so all’s fair, I guess.

Attack of the Monsters:  “You’re dumb.”  Trouble makers are out looking for a space ship when they get more than they bargained for.  By this point, these Gammera films were pretty much goofy kids films.  None of the seriousness of the first couple is left.  And having the little kids as leads is rough.  The crappy marching music that plays continuously is aggravating.  I like that this one goes to another world, which makes for plenty of weird things to see.  This is another one of those movie from this era where people don’t seem to know the difference between various cosmic bodies.  In this case, stars and planets seem to mean the same thing.  I remember seeing a lot of movies that talk about going to other galaxies, when really they were talking about other star systems.  Seems basic, but I guess looking in books was too hard.  Whatever the case, untrustworthy space babes are always a concern when traveling between worlds.  Keep watch!

Mmm.  Brains!

Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (aka An American Love Story):  Entirely too made-for-TV.  Though the story of Jefferson and Hemings could make for a fascinating movie, this ain’t it.  Sam Neill is dashing (in a sophisticated intellectual sort of way) as Thomas Jefferson, and Carmen Ejogo is ridiculously fetching as Sally Hemings.  This had to have been a complex and fascinating love affair, as Jefferson was a complicated dude, and from what I’ve read, Hemings was quite a woman.  However, here we have Jefferson seeing a beautiful woman and wanting her.  I have to imagine if it was just a beautiful woman he wanted, he could have had his pick.  And while Ejogo is amazingly beautiful and seems to be a talented enough actress, there isn’t enough in the script to make her seem like someone interesting enough to woo Jefferson.  It comes off as, well as what it is, a Hallmark made for TV movie.  It feels a bit like a visit to a theme park, like all the surface is there, but the content missing.  The old age make-up is generally not good, mostly looking like people have lumps of clay splashed on their faces.  In the end, it’s a different look at Jefferson than one might be used to, though again, not a very deep one.  I feel like there was so much more that could have been done here.  Instead, what we get is one of those high school text book renditions of history.  A few dates, a few names, a couple of anecdotes for color, and done.  No heart or passion.  No dirt under the nails.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers:  “I don’t have any friends, Doctor Kibner.”  The original is a classic.  But this is one of those rare-breed, serious, and worthy remakes.  Starting on some distant planet, we see weird alien life launch into space, like plant or fungal spoor.  It eventually descends on our unsuspecting world in a rain storm, and the horror begins.  Right from the start, there is an unsettling, off balance feel to the movie.  Weird angles, suspicious faces, and creepy lighting.  Paranoia is whipped up with gusto.  This is a story archetype that is one of the fundamentals of science fiction.  Who can you trust?  Is the person you know and love really who you think they are?  Or are they something else, something sinister and alien?  On of the more obvious and frequent uses of the concept was in the anti-Communist films so popular in the 50s, but it goes far beyond that, becoming a timeless look at our fears of the Other.  We can never really know who someone is outside of ourselves.  And can we really know even that?  And this is 70s PG, so there is some strong language, some pretty nasty violence, and a bit of nudity.  It really isn’t a kid-friendly film.

Just Before Dawn:  The 70s weren’t quite over for the makers of this film.  Was there some kind of subconscious fear of rural life, or the ‘country’ that had infected city folk?  So many movies about the horrors of leaving the city were being made.  Right off, this has a dash or two of Texas Chainsaw.  But the way it’s shot actually reminds me of early Sam Raimi (remember when he was good?) and early Peter Jackson.  In fact, the very opening, looking down through the hole in the roof of an ancient chapel felt right out of Peter Jackson’s low budget horror days.  Greg Henry leads a group of young people into the mountains for some camping.  George Kennedy is the local ranger who warns ‘em not to go.  Them woods got the giggling fat guys in ‘em, and nobody wants that.  Not to mention all the twins.  And as The Slammin’ Salmon tells us, twins are disgusting, man (not my actually feelings, all you twins out there).  It doesn’t really cover any new territory.  This was all well explored country by 1981.  But, it still has a certain charm.  And while I can’t say I especially liked any of the characters, unlike most modern horror movies, I didn’t dislike them.  Plus, Deborah Benson is cute, especially when she lets her hair down.

Prince Valliant:  “Don’t bring in religion to confound me!”  The venerable comic gets a 50s Technicolor treatment, staring a young Robert Wagner.  Throw in Janet Leigh (good golly, but she’s lovely in this, and Debora Paget is nothing to sneeze at, either) and James Mason, and you’ve got something.  It’s Christian Viking VS. Pagan Viking in a duel for the hearts and souls of Scandia.  The locations are beautiful, enhanced occasionally with some pretty good mat paintings.  One thing that old adventure films have taught me is that I need to do more wandering/adventuring.  Because that seems to be the surest way to stumble upon beautiful women bathing, who will quickly fall in love with you.  It’s weird seeing King Arthur portrayed as an old man.  I just don’t think of Arthur as old.  He should have died in the prime of his life.  Whatever the case, this is very much in the style and spirit of those other vibrant and somewhat cartoony medieval adventure films, like the Errol Flynn Robin Hood.  It reminds me a bit of that sequence in Time Bandits when they meet John Cleese, and he’s in that ridiculous costume.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance:  “He’s mocked my dirks.” This is one of those films that explores the oft repeated cinematic mistake of screwing with your hired killer.  If movies have taught me anything, it’s that you should always treat your exceptionally competent and deadly help with respect.  If you have a great hitman (or woman) in your employ, and he or she chooses to retire, you give them a care package, a nice bonus, and send them a Christmas card every year for what you hope is a long life.  If your executioner does a fine job of taking some princeling’s head off, but it becomes politically embarrassing at a later date, you don’t take it out on him, you simply accept that these things happen, be honest, and move on (maybe take the executioner out to dinner at a nice place…nothing too fancy…just to show that everything is A-OK).  But don’t kill his wife, or threaten his kid, or sick assassins on him.  Don’t go to some mountain village and kill his master or have his brother shot in the street.  These things may seem like good ideas in the heat of the moment.  But they are not.  Anyway, the movie is pretty cool.  Very stylized, with extreme sound design and buckets of blood.  The violence is pretty extreme.  The duel in the sun drenched field is a nasty highlight.  There are some crazy dismemberments in this movie.  If Akira Kurosawa’s work was inspired by John Ford, I think these movies were inspired by Sergio Leone.

The Island:  “It is no fun in an airplane with a 400lb sow gone ape-shit.”  This movie is crazy.  Crazy.  Michael Caine is a stressed out reporter on a quest to find out what’s up with a bunch of missing boats.  He hires the greatest pilot ever to take him and his boy to the Caribbean.  In the meantime, some sort of nutty killer is roving the waters with a burning crown.  Oh, yeah.  Then things get weird.  I would actually avoid reading up on this movie before you see it.  Not knowing where it’s gonna end up is probably a lot more fun.  Overall, it doesn’t live up to the madness of its first 15 or 20 minutes.  But it’s oddly enjoyable anyway.  The violence in the opening is pretty extreme.  The rest of the movie tones it down several notches.  And the music?  That’s crazy and seemingly inappropriate.

El Condor:  Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef are a dirty pair, out for loads of gold in this odd Western.  Van Cleef is ultra-goofy and spastic, which is odd to see.  And Brown isn’t playing suave, as he normally would.  Lots of killing and shooting.  Some very odd bits.  A bunch of good twists and turns and back stabbings.  Frankly, this was a far better movie than it seemed to be, and much more than I was expecting.  It was nice seeing Van Cleef in such a different role.  And though he gets more serious and more ‘smooth’ as the film goes on, Brown is a bit goofy in the beginning, too.  The women are lovely, and there’s a surprising amount of nudity for a movie of its time.  The violence is pretty nuts, too.

Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord- Terror of the Veroids:  The first story to feature Mel (gah!) finds the Doctor and his companion on a space ship loaded with mystery.  Mel is this perky nightmare of frizzy 80s vacuousness.  I think I had tuned out of the show at this point when it was on PBS in the 80s, because my first memory of her was with Sylvester McCoy.  Dang, she’s aggravating.  Still, when the pod people start a rampage, things got rolling.  The overall story is not too bad.  It’s very Agatha Christi.  The whole season, with its trial frame story is kind of blah.

"I look like a what!?"

Branded:  This satire about advertising, politics, image, and business takes on a bedtime story feel, with a calm, mellow narrator.  Setting it in Russia helps capture all that crazy Cold War history, and the Orwellian boogieman of the State as God.  The speech about how Lenin created marketing with his propaganda to sell Soviet Communism, and how everyone else learned from that is pretty spot on.  There are elements of Brazil, and as one comes to expect in films like this, Kafka, and for some reason, I kept thinking about The Hudsucker Proxy, and by the end, Videodrome.  Like a good bedtime story, it features a weird, transformative quest of a hero who must find himself in order to battle great evil.  Will or can anyone understand the transformed man and the message he brings?  While this movie is kind of a smorgasbord of previously used ideas, it manages to take those ideas in some interesting ways.  Certainly non-standard ways.  Does the ending ring a bit false?  Yeah.  But again, it’s like a fairy tale, and fairy tales often wrap up in less than believable ways.  I can’t say that the film is any kind of genius, but for what it is, it’s pretty good.  In a way, it feels like all the things Cosmopolis wasn’t.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession:  A documentary about the ground breaking L.A. channel that helped bring movies of all kinds to viewers, presaging HBO, Showtime, and the rest.  Wrapped in that is the tragic story of one of the channel’s driving forces, Jerry Harvey, a mad genius.  The wide breadth of what the channel showed made it like a televised version of The AFI theater, or Criterion collection.  From trash to art, from foreign to simply unusual, it showed movies many would never otherwise see or even be able to see.  Sometimes giving movies that bombed a second shot at life, showing what would eventually be known as ‘directors’ cuts.’  Seeing this makes the movie lover in me so  hungry for a taste of all these great movies, and reminds me of the pleasure I receive in sharing my love of film with others.  Obviously, there’s though, as you know from the start that it ends in death, both for the Z Channel and for its tempestuous champion.  Jerry’s life is a depressing spiral that ended where all too many spirals end.  His passion for film and for sharing it was impressive.  But the man suffered from severe mental illness.  Interviews with actors and directors who had their work shown, as well as co-workers and personal friends of Harvey give a human side to the story, both on the part of those involved and those who were effected.  It was an emotional film, and you can see it raw in faces of his friends, who still can not fully reconcile the good times with his violent and ugly exit.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx:  “Gyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”  Our strange heroes are back, eating dumplings and taking names.  This series of films features an especially bleak vision of feudal Japan, where danger lurks in every glance, life is cheap (if it costs anything at all), and everyone is unhappy like it’s their job.  Samurai films in general owed a lot to Westerns, but this series feels like it’s got more than a dash of Film Noir, not in visual style, but ugly human action.  Like the first film, this one features extremely disturbing use of sound design, and for that matter, its own visual language.  The film certainly reiterates that classic advice, I think it was from Aristotle, ‘watch out for crazy bitches.’  The cackling lady and her deadly maidens are not a group to run afoul of (or work for), ninja or no.  If I ever have a kid, I’m getting that stroller.  You can see pieces of this film in many other later movies.  What’s really weird though, is that this movie (trippy as it is) is much less trippy than the first one.  And as I sit her watching what I’m watching (the Three Storms just killed the Wolverines!), that mere fact speaks volumes.

    Started watching season two of Game of Thrones.  So far, so good.  Maybe a bit much on the sex.  I mean, it’s not the later books of Niven’s Ringworld we’re watching, right?  Still, I’m digging it.  And I like a lot of the new cast.  Hope they fare better than some of last season’s.

    I finally got back into Fraggle Rock.  Seriously, one of the best television shows for kids ever.  It’s the perfect blend of thoughtful, ethical, creative, funny, and stamped with that intangible Jim Henson genius.  And it’s not condescending.  I think that’s why I can watch it as an adult and still feel that wistful sense of childhood wonder.  If the stars shifted, water changed course, and the pressures of evolution ever let up, allowing me to have children, this is the kind of thing I’d want them to see.

    On Sunday afternoon I finished God is Not Great.  A solid read, if not my favorite Hitchens book.  Still, gets the blood pumping.

-Matt

Book Review: God is Not Great

“Credulity may be a form of innocence, and even innocuous in itself, but it provides a standing invitation for the wicked and the clever to exploit their brothers and sisters, and is thus one of humanity’s great vulnerabilities.  No honest account of the growth and persistence of religion, or the reception of miracles and revelations, is possible without reference to this stubborn fact.” -page 161

    It was the success of this book that first made me aware of Christopher Hitchens, though it was various footage of him in debates and readings that made me really take note, made me a fan if you will.  So, it is a bit odd that I’ve only just gotten around to reading God is Not Great, after his autobiography Hitch 22, his massive collection of essays Arguably, his book about the process of death by cancer Mortality, and others.  The book stands as a kind of clarion call for people of reason to shake off their placating politeness and collectively call BS on the aggressive, pervasive, divisive, and morally bankrupt purveyors of the ultimate bait-and-switch scheme, religion (you give me money and power now, and when you’re dead you’ll get some vague reward).  And as you might expect from Hitch, it is full of wit and rage.

    As usual, he spares no fool.  Be it the media monster and champion of suffering (not for those who suffer, but for their suffering) Mother Teresa, or blowhard fools like Pat Robertson, or imams, priests, and charlatans of all stripes, he is on the attack.  And he uses the greatest tools of the trade.  He uses evidence, history, logic, and the most damaging weapon of all, the words of the holy texts and of their followers.  Is there a book more obviously cobbled together, disjoined, and nonsensical than the Bible?  Well, perhaps the Koran.  Both draw heavily on the Torah, which is itself a patchwork mess.  Claims of historic merit are at best dubious, and more frequently patently fraudulent.  Connections to historic places and people are often wildly inaccurate or incongruous, but that doesn’t stop the faithful from dubbing them proof of authenticity.  And when considering how many generations (frequently centuries) after the supposed events anything at all was written down, can even those less than air tight connections be seriously considered.

“Who--except for an ancient priest seeking to exert power by the tried and tested means of fear-- could possibly wish that this hopelessly knotted skein of fable had any veracity?” -on the horrors of the Old Testament, page 103

    Reading the Bible, the Torah, The Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, or any text with spiritual lessons or claims of the divine, it should be obvious to all but the most painfully unaware that these books are as much the product of humans (men, specifically), as the plays of Shakespeare, the poetry of Homer, or the music (elevating as it may be) of Beethoven.  The rampant bloodletting, petty local squabbling, complete lack of understanding of the world outside of the knowledge of the original readers, and total lack of knowledge of the workings of the world and greater universe should make perfectly clear that there was no mystical revelation, no angelic dictation, just the fevered imaginings of savage men bent on power and scared of death.  No amount of rape, theft, child murder, genocide, or general awfulness is too much, it seems for the righteous.

“If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished.  The harder work of inquiry, proof, and demonstration is infinitely more rewarding, and has confronted us with findings far more ‘miraculous’ and ‘transcendent’ than any theology.”  -page 71

    And one can easily compare this century’s UFO mythology with any of the major religions.  It relies on vague stories, shoddy evidence, faulty logic, esoteric writings, and an understanding of the universe that relies on faith instead of reason.  And, like the major profits of old, heavenly forces reveal themselves to illiterate yokels on the fringes of society or beyond.  In a world full of well read, literate people, beings wishing to bring their ‘truth’ to the world find people of limited resources and capability.  That’s just poor planning.  Like with the concept of Intelligent Design, it requires that these cosmic forces are either cruel and deviant devils, or blind idiots (I guess a creature evil enough to make people in a specific way, only to condemn them for being that way might be F-dup enough to put the eye together backwards, put too many teeth in our heads, and have waste come out of our mating organ).

“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar.  They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace.  But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.” -page 67

    I’ve always liked talking with, or listening to people much smarter and well read than myself.  Gleaning wisdom and knowledge, and finding new books to read or what have you.  Reading Hitchens feels like sitting down to great dinner conversation, and it’s led me to check out many things, and will continue to do so (one of these days I’m going to try Wodehouse).  But it was pretty sweet when he referenced a book I’d actually read already.  I think it’s the first time outside of one of his book reviews (for a Harry Potter novel) that it’s happened.  I read Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: the Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why several years ago.  A fascinating book.  It was like listening to Dennis Miller back when he was funny (remember the 80s?) or the boys on MST3K, when you manage to catch an especially clever or obscure reference, you feel just that bit more cool, even if it is only for a moment.  Whenever I read Hitchens I feel like I’m learning something, but I also feel inspired to go out and learn more when I’m done.  That is the mark of a great teacher, and I’ve been lucky enough to have many of those (only a very few of them involved in my formal schooling).

    Lest one assume Hitchens only chastises and takes to task those religions more familiar in the West, he does go after several Eastern religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, etc. with both barrels.  Whether exposing the awful hypocrisy of the hereditary horror-show that produced the Dali Lama, or the cult of the god-king that produced the famous kamikaze and was supported by the Buddhist mainstream in Japan, or the sectarian violence between Hindu and Buddhists that still grips Sri Lanka to this day.  And he addresses a couple of the most common attacks on atheism, the Nazis and the Stalinists.  Getting past the problems with the Nazi argument (like that most Nazis were practicing Christians), both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia were more like theocracies than any kind of ‘secular’ state.  They did not attempt to suppress religion so much as replace it with a worship and obedience of the state.  He goes into some depth about the complicity of various churches and religious organizations in the creation and maintenance of these monolithic states, including the support of the Catholic Church for several fascist regimes, including Hitler’s Germany (though he does mention some of those few who stood up, including Catholics, to those same evils).

“But an extraordinary number of people appear to believe that the mind, and the reasoning faculty - the only thing that divides us from our animal relatives - is something to be distrusted and even, as far as possible, dulled.” -page 198

    Perhaps his most bold, but in a way most important question (and chapter title) “Is Religion Child Abuse?” looks into the effects of religion, both physical and psychological on children and on the adults they become.  Not just the obvious stuff like institutionalized sexual abuse or genital mutilation, but the more subtle things like telling a kid his grandfather is in hell, suffering for an eternity, because he was a different religion.  Or of course, racism, the ancient partner in crime of religion.  I remember hearing constantly throughout my Catholic upbringing that those evil (fill in the blank with Protestants, Satanists, Homosexuals, etc.) tried to ‘get you while you’re young.’  And I remember even then thinking, ‘wait, isn’t that what you’re doing, too?’  And of course, it was.  The best way to produce adults who believe in this mumbo-jumbo is to force them to believe it when they’re too young and malleable and credulous to turn away.  Otherwise, if you let children get to the point where they’re more rational, there’s almost no way they’d believe much of the crazy stuff written in the various holy texts.  They’ve lived long enough to spot a con, to know a lie, to see a fantasy.  And they’ve certainly lived to the point where getting the tip of one’s penis cut off or vagina sewn up doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“This is not the result of a few delinquents among the shepherds, but an outcome of an ideology which sought to establish clerical control by means of control of the sexual instinct and even the of the sexual organs.  It belongs, like the rest of religion, to the fearful childhood of our species.” -discussing the horrors of circumcision, mandated celibacy, and sexual repression, page 228

    Though not my favorite book by Christopher Hitchens, nor his most readable, it is a worthy effort and hopefully a conversation starter.  It identifies what he believed to be the great enemy facing humankind, calls it out, and gives it a sock on the jaw.  The book works as something of a call to action for all those who feel that religions of all stripes have a lot to answer for, if not a lot of answers.  And that the denial of reality one must embrace in order to believe in the supernatural is inherently damaging to us as individuals and to society as a whole.  That morality and ethics exist in spite of (and some times as opposed to), not because of religion.  The greatest gift that Hitchens, Sam Harris, Penn Jillette, and Stephen Fry, among others have given people like myself is a sense of community and hope.  We are not alone in our desire to leave behind the damaging and stultifying beliefs of our ancestors in order to create a more just and viable future.  That the way to live need not be dictated by squabbling illiterates who lurked in the deserts of our distant past, but in rational exploration of the world that is.  There are others out there like me, who found no answers to the questions that really matter in myth anthologies written by greedy savages, or in the expectation of rewards and punishments in the hereafter.  I constantly hear people talk about how silly, strange, or unfounded the religious beliefs of other peoples are.  But these same people can’t see the silliness in their own.  My hat is off to the late Hitchens for pulling back those curtains just a bit, and shedding light on a great many shadowed things.

“Yet again it is demonstrated that monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.” -Page 280

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 978-0-446-57980-3

-Matt

Book Review: Infidel

“…I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.” -page 348

    There is a real struggle in our modern world.  We struggle as a man trying to tread water with a weight tied around his ankle.  That weight is religion in all its forms, that constantly threatens to drag our civilization back into the mud and blood our ancestors worked so hard to climb out of.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book is a brutal look inside a world few Americans have seen in more than the glossiest of Hollywood depictions or the abstract of the Nightly News.  This is the world of petty tribal infighting, of genital mutilation, of honor killings, of rape victims blamed for the crimes committed against them, of acts so barbarous it takes religion to be so audacious and blind as to even attempt justification.  With a refreshingly honest, surprisingly light voice, Hirsi Ali tells her story, starting in what was, for all intents and purposes, a bronze age existence, all the way to world renowned political figure and activist.

    She describes her childhood, capturing a child’s eye view of growing up in various parts of Africa and the Mid East, as her parents, each extraordinary in their own way, took different paths, and her cruel, tradition bound grandmother did much of the parenting.  Her father existed like a creature out of myth, as he spent a good deal of time in prison, then as an exiled dissident.  As she grew up, her mother became more cruel and sad, her father drifted in and out of her life, her family came together and fell apart, and moved, constantly moved from one city to another, from one country to another.  Always on the outside, always alien, in part due to her family’s religious and racial bigotry.

    As she is wooed by a sort of revivalist Islamic traditionalism, I was reminded of my own youthful experience with faith.  When I first started to question the ideas of my Catholic upbringing, I too threw myself into its study, trying to make sense of it.  She throws herself more fully into faith, even wearing the full body hidjab and going to spirited religious debates.  In my early teen years, I felt I might be on the path to becoming a priest, my studies and fervor were so strong.  But, I too found the deeper understanding and knowledge of the theology to be hollow and ultimately discarded first Catholicism, then all Abrahamic religion, then all religion, and eventually all spiritualism and belief in the supernatural of any kind.  Her frustration with the lack of answers not only from her teachers and those who profess the faith most loudly, but also in the texts themselves echoes my own experiences.  And I love that, at least in part, she is led to this profound questioning of accepted religion by reading trashy novels.  Of course, I also remember the absolute shame and horror with which sex was talked about (if talked about at all).  Not to the level that Hirsi Ali deals with, which seems extreme even by the most stuffy and sex fearing Christian standards.  From the circumcision of women, to the constant chastisement for causing sin in men (just by being women), to the horrors of wedding night sex (and beyond), the world of Moslem sex she describes is disquieting at best.  And it makes the institutionalized woman hatred in Christianity seem amateurish.

“Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still stoned and enslaved, just as the Prophet Muhammad decided centuries ago.” -page 347

    Throughout the tale of her early life, I was constantly reminded of one of the true evils of religious thought, the denial of reality.  This is a profound denial that is not limited to the more obvious things like evolution.  Religion capitalizes on our very nature.  It takes the things that make us human, and demonizes them.  You find someone desirable?  That’s bad.  You enjoy music?  That’s bad.  Pork tastes great?  That’s bad.  Asking questions?  That’s really, really bad.  And it glorifies things that we don’t like.  Denying yourself food?  That’s good.  Prostrating yourself for hours on end in the most uncomfortable way imaginable?  That’s good.  Abstaining from things that give you pleasure, be they food, drink, dancing, music, or the flesh?  That’s good.  Ignoring contradictions?  That’s really good.  Relegating fifty percent of the population to the status of pack animal, denying them a say in pretty much any aspect of society, calling them unclean, and extracting their creativity from the equation of human advancement?  Oh, you know that’s good.  The fear and hatred directed at sexuality seems to be almost a religious universal.  It’s certainly at the heart of the three desert spawned religions.  No wonder they seem to attract busybody old women and sexual predators with such alarming alacrity.  But I think the essential view of so many religions is that this world, the here and now, is evil or a test or a kind of hell, and only if you accept [Fill in the Blank] can you escape your hell into something better.  So, by this standard, I guess anything in the hell we live in that gives us pleasure can’t be real…or something.  Obviously, this is a self-fulfilling belief system, which creates generation after generation of people who refuse to better the world, and in fact, act directly against improving the world (see: global warming deniers, Luddites of all stripes, Christian Zionists, and so many others who actively fight improving the environment, life satisfaction, peace efforts, etc.).

“If Muslims want to immigrate to open and developed societies in order to better themselves, then it is they who must expect to do the adapting.  We no longer allow Jews to run separate Orthodox courts in their communities, or permit Mormons to practice polygamy or racial discrimination or child marriage.  That is the price of ‘inclusion,’ and a very reasonable one.”  -Christopher Hitchens from his forward

    Once she finally breaks away, arriving in Europe, she discovers a new strength as she discovers the freedom of a society ruled by law, not divine will.  She breaks out of the mold of her fellow refugees, and actually attempts to educated herself and adapt to the country that takes her in.  We then see her exploration of Holland and Dutch society from the inside, through and outsider’s eyes.  She learns the language, is surprised by the customs, warms to the sense of fairness, order and personal freedom.  But she is also wary of their extreme politeness and wish to be inoffensive that allows horrible things to go on in the name of civility.  With education and work experience under her belt, a new confidence allows her to establish herself, become a citizen, and even find love.  But the events of September 11, 2001 shake her to her core and make her face things she has tried so hard to ignore, questions about her faith, about faith in general, what’s right, and who she really is.

“…It doesn’t matter who I am.  What matters is abuse, and how it is anchored in a religion that denies women their rights as humans.  What matters is that atrocities against women and children are carried out in Europe.  What matters is that governments and societies must stop hiding behind a hollow pretense of tolerance so that they can recognize and deal with the problem.” -page 309

    Her discovery of politics and celebrity is surreal, as is her sudden rise to national prominence in Holland.  But of course, the threat of death, while more subtle or less omnipresent, is perhaps even more frightening in the peaceful and pleasant world of the Dutch.  The idea of murdering someone because of their religious beliefs or in this case, non-beliefs is abhorrent to me to such a degree that part of my brain refuses to even accept it as a thing that happens (though of course I know it does).  I mean, I think Scientology is more F-Dup than Mormonism, which is way crazier than the other religions of Abraham, which are totally insane next to paganism, which is just plain stupid.  But I wouldn’t wish death on anyone for thinking they’ve been soiled by evil space ghosts that are trapped in a volcano or whatever that hack Sci-Fi writer made up when he wasn’t putting boys in sailor costumes, trying to get out of paying taxes, and hating Asians.  So, I find her life under threat of death, moving from one safe-house to another, being ushered out of restaurants, etc. because of possible thug gangs and murderers out for her blood to be disquieting.  More so the reaction of many people that seem to think she is to blame for the death threats.  Exactly the kind of thinking (that the victim is responsible for the crime) that she is fighting so strongly against.

    The brutal murder of her filmmaker associate Theo van Gogh and the strange journey of living in secluded protection that followed it is frustrating to read.  So much work tossed away as people knee-jerk react to the events that shouldn‘t have been all that surprising (as so many people had been sending warnings).  Not to say for a minute that she wasn’t in danger, as there really seems to have been a concerted effort to find and kill her, by various Muslims bent on silencing an apostate woman.  Her stays at dingy military bases, trips across the Atlantic to stay in a dive hotel in Massachusetts, and hotel hopping in Germany are all most unpleasant, made more so by a lack of communication with friends or colleagues.  But the real Kafkaesque trouble starts when she finally returns to her adopted home, Holland,  where political maneuvers take away her citizenship.

    Christopher Hitchens said many times civilization can not flourish without the emancipation of women, and if she accomplishes nothing else, Hirsi Ali taken a stand and struck a blow for Civilization.  She has illustrated that religious belief should not, can not be a shield to protect the abuse of women and children.  And it is the duty of civilized people to help those oppressed by failed ideologies.  I would say this book is a must read, especially for anyone interested in social justice, women’s rights, modern religion, or current events.

Infidel
Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8969-6

-Matt

Book Review: The Moral Landscape

“In my view, morality must be viewed in the context of our growing scientific understanding of the mind.” -from page 198

    Sam Harris has some fascinating ideas, and isn’t afraid to challenge the reader on preconceptions.  With a conversational style, he presents his thesis in an approachable format.  Sadly, like so many calls to action, those who most need to be convinced are those who will either a) not read it or b) not allow themselves to understand it.  However, his assertion that morality can and should be studied in the same way we would any other branch of science makes perfect sense to me.  As has happened before while reading Harris, I find that his words express my own thoughts in ways I have been unable.  It’s both frustrating (because I should have been able to articulate my thoughts) and liberating (because I see them more consciously and conscientiously reasoned than I ever could).  Like reading Christopher Hitchens, I find his books to be so rife with excellent quotes that I could spend hours just scribbling them down.  Or perhaps I should get a second copy and a highlighter?

“It seems to me that we already know enough about the human condition to know that killing cartoonists for blasphemy does not lead anywhere worth going on the moral landscape.”  -from page 75

    As a secularist and staunch moderate, I try very hard to look at things from multiple angles.  I try to see both sides (or more) of a debate.  I try to see things from others’ point of view.  And I have always heard that being tolerant of others’ beliefs was a virtue.  But, over time, I’ve found that tolerance of dangerous beliefs and practices, and turning a blind eye to human misery caused by them is a bankrupt, and ultimately immoral stance.  In the book, Harris sites the book by Steven Pinker in which the anthropologist Donald Symons is in turn quoted (that’s too many steps away for me, so I’ll paraphrase).  Symons says basically that a barbaric act (such as the genital mutilation of a child) when committed by a single person against a single child is a shocking, appalling event.  The perpetrator would be reviled and punished harshly by a disgusted community.  However, this same act carried out in exactly the same way, on a large scale can be excused as ‘cultural heritage.’  As Harris himself points out, conservative Islam is a ‘low-hanging fruit’ when it comes to finding examples of things that (extracted from their cultural/religious context) any sane person would consider …let us say, unconstructive behavior.  But it is hardly alone.  In my job, and in my position as a Dork, I frequently come into contact with anime and manga (Japanese cartoons and comics).  And I’ve been called a racist for pointing out the sexualization and fetishizing of children (not to mention the persistent rape fantasy) that runs rampant in the art and writing.  People I consider sane, honest, caring human beings (and especially women who otherwise show every sign of being modern, feminist, free-thinkers) become genuinely upset when I point this out and say that I’m unfair, often attempting to gloss things over by dropping some hints of ‘cultural differences.’  I don’t buy it.  If these same acts were illustrated or animated in an American film, these same people would be the first to condemn it.  Or in the Catholic Church (my own upbringing, from which I actually have little but fond memories), there is the well documented endemic corruption, sexual abuse, and culture of suppression on a level that might best be described as ‘Biblical.’  Yet even the more sane and even handed adherents to the faith seem unwilling or unable to face, much less address the issues.  With that core-deep rot still festering, any talk about it by outsiders is still seen as unfair targeting and intolerance.  Well, yes, I’m intolerant of the sanctioned abuse of children and the systematic occultation of truth in pursuit of maintaining the fallacy of moral authority.  And getting back to that ripe and 'easy pickins' fruit, shooting a little girl in the head because she dared to read is wrong.  I don’t care what collection of fairy tales you get your marching orders from, it’s wrong.  And if you think being born in a different geographic region or to parents to read a different set of myths is enough to justify that kind of behavior, you’re wrong, too.  Anyway, back to the book…

“Doubt about evolution is merely a symptom of an underlying condition; the condition is faith itself--conviction without sufficient reason, hope mistaken for knowledge, bad ideas protected from good ones, good ideas obscured by bad ones, wishful thinking elevated to a principle of salvation, etc.” -from page 175

    Mr. Harris’ discussion of ‘answers in practice’ vs. ‘answers in principle’ is very important, and a distinction that he rightly points out is often misunderstood.  I can’t tell you how many times people have said, ‘well, if there is no God then how do you explain [fill in the blank].’  Often, the explanation is fairly simple (the idiot Bill O’Reilley’s ‘tide goes in; tide goes out’ statement could be explained away by a child of 10 without much difficulty…it’s the Moon, dumbass!) but others might be extremely complex or dealing with subjects I don’t know much of anything about.  Because I don’t know the answer does not for one moment mean or even imply that there is no answer.  Nobody can say exactly how many grains of sand there are on all the beaches in the world.  Nobody.  I’m sure a mathematician can come up with a formula to give a ballpark figure, but nobody can tell you the exact count, down to the very last grain.  Yet, there is a number.  There are a certain number of grains of sand, a specific number of stars at this very moment, and a finite number of cups of coffee being pored.  The fact that no one can tell you the exact number does not mean there is no answer.  There is no answer in practice, but still a very real answer in principle.

“We will embarrass our descendants, just as our ancestors embarrass us.  This is moral progress.”  -from page 179

    The basic point of Harris’ book as I see it is once we admit that there is a worst case scenario for the existence of sentient beings and a best case scenario, then we have admitted that there is ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’  That the end of the spectrum closer to the best possible scenario is ‘better’ than the end closer to the worst.  Thus, things that move us up to the better end are ‘good’ and the things that move use down are ‘bad.’  This can be studied with logic, reason, and yes, scientific method to understand what is moral.  He proposes, in a sense, a new branch of scientific inquiry, using neuroscience as a springboard.  We can no longer stand by and let people say that science can’t answer questions about how we should live, what is right, and what we should value.  And we can’t turn a blind eye to things that reason tells us are evil and detrimental to the well-being of sentient beings, in the name of tolerance.  It doesn’t take much investigation to see that the world’s various religions have little to add to the discussion morality, beyond unhealthy obsessions with the minutia of sexual couplings and dietary choices.  It is well past time we turn to the one consistent source of enlightenment and advancement in this world, open scientific exploration.  We cured sickness, extended lives, achieved connectivity on a global level, and reached out to the stars with it.  So, why not use it to find ways to live the best, most fulfilling lives possible?

“Methodological problems notwithstanding, it is difficult to exaggerate how fully our world would change if lie detectors ever became reliable, affordable, and unobtrusive.”  -from page 134

    If I have a complaint about the book, it’s that the introduction and first two chapters feel a bit repetitive.  I felt similar about sections of The End of Faith, where it seemed Harris belabored some of his points, explaining them from too many angles.  Saying the same thing in several, slightly different ways.  But, considering the responses to his books that I’ve seen, a lot of people, even those with enough education and sense seemingly to know better, might have needed it spelled out in even more excruciating detail.  You may disagree with his interpretation of the facts, or with his thesis in general.  But at least pay enough attention to actually know what he’s saying (which I hope I’ve done).  This sort of ignorant criticism always reminds me of an angry review I heard for the film ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence,’ where the viewer was incensed by the arrival of aliens in the third act.  His anger might have been valid had the third act featured aliens.  The viewer simply wasn’t paying attention to what the dialog clearly explained, jumped to conclusions, and got it totally wrong.  Agree or disagree.  But try to understand what you’re agreeing or disagreeing with.

We're robots, dumbass.  Listen to what we're saying!

“Whether religion contributes to societal dysfunction, it seems clear that as societies become more prosperous, stable, and democratic, they tend to become more secular.” -from page 147

    Some books make me feel good, not because their content is designed to do so, but because of the effort and thought needed to digest them properly.  Like the feeling the body gets after a serious workout, I feel elated, a bit tired, but stronger for it.  Reading Sam Harris is like power lifting with my brain, and I like it.  I was reminded of reading Jane McGonigal’s fascinating book Reality is Broken, which challenged me to look at the world in a different way, and to do something about it.  I’m a working class schlub, but I’m trying to achieve a deeper understanding of the universe, life, my self, and all that jazz.  Understanding and accepting that I am both an animal and a sentient being, the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, was a huge step in knowledge both of myself and the greater universe.  I do not fear my insignificance in the scope of the universe, just as I don’t sell short my effect on those around me.  We humans are amazing creatures and we can be so, so much more.  The petty, fear-based scribblings of long dead power seekers need not dominate our future.  Science is a liberator, and I think Mr. Harris is right that the time has come to turn its revealing eye on the way we live and the things we value.  It’s time to get real about reality, to build a better world.

Sometimes I wish evolution was directed.

“The framework of the moral landscape guarantees that many people will have flawed conceptions of morality, just as many people have flawed conceptions of physics.” -from page 53

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon And Schuster
ISBN: 978-1-4391-7122-6

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/26/12-9/1/12)

    Ouch.  Not my best week.  A week to crawl into a corner and lick wounds.  Which I did, and as it’s me, there was a movie playing the whole time.

Die Nibelungen- Kriemhild’s Revenge:  Right off the bat, this movie had more Huns in it than I was expecting.  Kriemhild’s quest for vengeance against the dirtbags who literally stabbed her husband in the back takes her into the tent of Attila.  OK.  There’s a lot of talk about loyalty in this, and the ‘loyal German soul.’  But everything could be solved if everyone just handed over the betraying murderer of Siegfried and of a baby.  I mean, he’s a scumbag and needs to die.  Frankly, the king should have put him down like a dog himself.  Forget loyalty, man.  It’s a two way street.  There comes a point where you have to realize that some people bring ruin upon themselves, and the only thing to do is step aside and let nature take its course.  Where was all this talk of loyalty while this baby killing/Siegfried stabber was working with a foreign queen to betray the king, his sister, and his best friend?  Now it’s supposed to be heroic to stand at such a piece of crap’s defense?  Forget that.  Almost all the really good stuff is in the first half of the first film.  This movie feels like an extended afterthought.

The Bourne Identity:  Jason, would you please stop throwing away guns!  When a super-soldier has a brain glitch and wakes up in the Mediterranean, he’s got to figure out who he is, what he’s been up to, and who wants him dead.  I never thought much of the idea of Matt Damon as an action hero, but he pulls it off competently here.  The movie isn’t some kind of game changer.  It’s not amazing.  But it’s a solid action thriller with a good cast and plenty of exotic locations.  If I’m ever shot twice in the back and fished out of the ocean with a bad case of the amnesia, I hope Franka Potente is the fist chick I run into.

The Bourne Supremacy:  I enjoy these films.  I do.  But this one has one pet peeve of mine right off the bat.  Scriptwriters seem at a loss when it comes to writing couples, especially in action films, so when Bourne’s lady made it through the first film there were two ways it would play out.  Either she’d be ignored and forgotten in the next movie (see the Bond franchise), or she’d be killed off in the first few minutes.  Getting past that, this movie is more of the same action packed espionage.  Solid, fast paced action with plenty of twists and turns.  Sadly, it is part of the modern school of shaky-cam action.  Not as bad as many, but still, is a tripod that expensive?

The Bourne Ultimatum:  Jason Bourne is back, being chased by shaky-cams and a who’s who of art-house/character actors.  More layers of the onion are pealed back, to reveal yet more interesting actors.  If you enjoyed the first two films, there’s plenty more of what they had.  Again, not breaking a lot of new ground in the spy/action thriller genre, but perfectly fine.  I feel like there’s some kind of direction they could take this series in that would be really interesting (not sure what it would be), but having seen the fourth film (without Damon), it seems they’ll keep doing much the same stuff.  There’s potential here, but I think we’ll get workmanlike entries for years to come, which isn’t bad, just not great.

Terror is a Man:  Yet another not very good movie inspired by H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau.  It’s boring and not very well made.  The bottle blond bimbo is weird, and the lead gives off a serious creeper vibe.  Sadly, this movie never comes close to living up to its potential.  It’s just dull.

The Flesh Eaters:  “I can assure you, we are in for a good pounding.”  It starts out promising, with a seriously cute girl losing her top (before getting eaten by oil?).  Straight out of Long Island, yo.  After landing on one of those mysterious, uninhabited islands just outside of New York City, our intrepid adventurers come across some weird trouble.  And that’s just the local marine biologist.  This movie is kind of awesome.  It’s very weird, with some strange characters and dialog, but it’s strangely charming and charmingly strange.

Conan the Barbarian:  “Crom.  I have not prayed to you before.  I have no tongue for it.  No one, not even you will remember why we fought, why we died.  What matters is that two stood against many.  That’s what’s important.”  Though the details of his origin are frustratingly wrong for this Robert E. Howard fan, this still stands as one of the best films ever made.  Yup.  Said it.  Great music, great production design, some really kick-ass fights.  Like some of my favorite films, it takes its time and doesn’t fill space with needless talk.  Though I still hope not, I expect that this will remain the closest thing to Howard’s stories we’ll ever see.  No camp, serious, and quality.  Arnold doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s spot-on.  James Earl Jones makes a scary villain.

Doctor Who: Planet of Fire:  One of the best looking episodes since the height of Tom Baker’s run, it also feels a bit grander, more ambitious.  Good sets and great location shooting.  I guess that’s a good thing for one of the final Peter Davison stories.  It also introduces Peri, a woman of rather startling dimension(s).  I was also psyched to see Peter Wyngarde (Jason King lives!!!) doing an nice Peter O’Toole.  It’s too bad that it feels like Davison is finally coming in to his own, just as he’s on his way out.  Of course, it helps to not have Tegan.  Man, it helps.

Outcasts:  “You know nothing of my morality, you insect.”  A lot of potential, never really achieved.  Most of the characters are too overwrought to be as interesting as they should be.  The struggles are a bit too obvious.  And the mystery a bit too reminiscent of Earth 2 and Solaris.  It kept feeling like it could have gotten really interesting, but never steps up to the plate.  Chalk this one up on the ‘almost’ list.

The Garment Jungle:  Lee J. Cobb heads an excellent cast in this tale of horror and corruption in the garment business of New York.  Murder, mayhem, and betrayal.  Unions VS. business, hired guns and idealists.  Can Robert Loggia and his fiery Latin wife win against Richard Boone’s smooth thug Wesley Addy?  Can Kerwin Mathews set everything on the right path?  A story about right and wrong, justice and oppression, and a father and son.

The Law:  I guess I’m still to American-centric when it comes to comedy, ‘cause generally I either don’t get this, or don’t find it funny when I do.  The shabby Italian village is all kinds of old world charming, and the ladies are lovely.  But I still don’t think much of the way European men treat women in film.  Otherwise, the sequence of coastal fishing is a highlight.  I found that genuinely fascinating.

Legend of the Fist:  Man, if we could have just found twenty or thirty really good martial artists, we could’a taken down the Keizer in no time.  With attempted touches of Casablanca (more than just the club’s name) and other call backs to older films, it plays a bit (!) fast and loose with history, but this is by Andrew Lau (Hong Kong’s answer to Michael Bay), so no shocks there.  Lau regular Shu Qi shows up to play a femme fatale.  I love the British Stanley Tucci looking dude, even if he can’t act a bit.  Subtlety is not one of Lau’s strong points, so if you’re looking for it, go elsewhere.  The film is all kinds of chest pounding and flag waving.  Though I’ll admit that the strong nationalism is a little hard to swallow when you think of where China would soon go.  Not that Japan wasn’t guilty of extreme horror.  It was.  Or that China’s allies didn’t turn their backs on her in her hour of need.  They did.  But the Chinese system that rose out of this time was a bloody nightmare, too.

Jailhouse Rock:  “That ain’t tactics, honey.  It’s just the beast in me.”  Don’t mess with Elvis or he’ll punch you dead.  He’s kind of a rebel without a clue here.  His run-in with some hip rich people is fantastic.  What a halfcocked dimwit.  It’s hard to root for him, ‘cause he’s kind of a tool.  But the music is nice, the girl is cute, and hey, it’s rock & roll, man.

    I’m making a specific and concerted effort to finally watch The Prisoner from start to finish.  Such a fine show, that I’ve somehow managed to never see in its entirety.  Oddly ended up seeing Peter Wyngarde twice in as many days, thanks to watching the episode ‘Checkmate’ and the Doctor Who story Planet of Fire.  Awesome.

    I read Christopher Hitchens’ book Mortality, about his cancer diagnosis and eventual death.  It’s a rough read, but full of Hitchens’ usual strength.

-Matt