Monday, January 27, 2003

A Birthday Wish for a Rational President

Why is it that supposedly important birthdays in my life seem to be punctuated with important events? I was born on the day of the Roe vs. Wade decision. When I turned 18, President George Bush was embroiled in the Persian Gulf War. And I just recently turned 30, with the new President about to drag the United States into yet another conflict with Iraq. At this rate, I might be lucky enough to have the first incident of nuclear terrorism around my 40th.

To be fair, it’s purely coincidence that all of these things happened when they did, and that my birthday seems to fall around them, not the other way around. But the newspapers have been filled with unending arguments about Roe vs. Wade for nearly 3 weeks now, and I’m getting sick of it. Of course, that’s nowhere near as bad as the war drums playing over the U.S. these days.

When I turned 18, I was forced to sign up for the draft in the midst of a war, and I was absolutely terrified. I was convinced (and still am) that we had no business being in Iraq, and that the war wasn’t about freeing the Kuwaitis, but rather about securing Kuwait’s oil through liberation. If the Gulf War had been about anything besides oil, we wouldn’t have left Hussein in power, free to oppress his people as he had been for decades previously. At the time, it seemed like I was the only person who didn’t buy into the war propaganda that was flying around, and every time I went out in public during the entire war, I wore a peace pin. I joined a support group at my high school for people who had family in Iraq, and I had to face jeers and angry glares the entire time because my fellow students felt I was a whiny, wimpy liberal. Wearing that pin for the entire Gulf War is one of the things I’m most proud of.

I think it’s just about time to pull out that pin again. I may have to go hunting through some of the boxes in the basement that I haven’t unpacked yet, but I will find it. And if the President goes to war over oil again, I’ll wear it again. I’ll wear it every time I leave the house: to the movies, the grocery store, to restaurants, probably even to interviews and certainly to work after I get a job.

And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – this is a war for oil as much as the last one was, with the added element of personal vengeance. But like 1991, we’re concealing the purpose of the war within the auspices of grand concepts and ideas, specifically Iraq’s links to terrorist organizations (unproven links in the case of al-Qaeda) and questionable nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon threats. The idea that a nation that was reduced to third-world status 12 years ago immediately threatens the U.S. stretches the President’s credibility to the breaking point. If there is evidence, why not reveal it to the world. Ostensibly it’s because revealing the evidence would reveal the sources or the methods used to gather the evidence. And yet, any government willing to go to war and sacrifice it’s own young men and women on the field of battle should be willing to sacrifice an informant if doing so would solidify international support around a war that is presently dubious at best.

I can’t imagine that any modern government would be unwilling to send people to their deaths for a good reason, and justifying a questionable war to the rest of the world is a good enough reason for me. I won’t buy into any argument that suggests that the U.S. government wouldn’t sell out it’s informants for a gain in national security or international position – NOT selling out informants when it’s necessary would be egregiously stupid. Since incontrovertible evidence would help to create a coalition and improve the international position of the United States, and since that evidence hasn’t been forthcoming, I am forced to conclude one of two things: either there is no evidence, or we have elected an irrational man as President.

In case you missed my point, allow me to make it abundantly clear: Either there is no evidence to support an attack on Iraq or the President is irrational.

If we assume that the President truly does have evidence of Iraq’s imminent threat to the United States, either directly or through terrorists, then this implies one of two things: either that the President is blinded to the political gain by personal feelings, poor advice, or raw stupidity, or that the President realizes the political gain from releasing the evidence but just doesn’t care.

Let’s think about this for a minute. If the President is blinded to the political gain by personal feelings, he is making decisions based off he feels, not what he thinks. He would be running the country by the seat of his pants, acting before he thinks things through. If the President is instead blinded by poor advice, then he’s allowed himself to become placed in an ivory tower so far removed from reality that any decisions he makes are based on the fantasies that the Cabinet feeds him, not on reality. And if the President is blinded by raw stupidity, then he’s the one who’s creating the fantasy, rather than the Cabinet. Finally, if the President just doesn’t care, then he’s decided that the United States is his own personal playground, that it’s ok if we bully the rest of the planet, and he’s behaving like a despot, not a democratically elected leader. Regardless, the President would be irrational, and having an irrational President cannot be good for the country.

I strongly hope that we have a rational President with no evidence on Iraq. In that situation, Bush is making a strategic decision to grab natural resources in a bid to secure them for the United States, a strategically viable if morally questionable justification for war. That’s such a better option than having an irrational man running the world’s only current superpower.

So, as a belated birthday wish for myself, I’d like to wish for the following. I wish that the President would either put up the evidence about Iraq’s threat to the United States or shut up about going to war and stand down. At least that way I’d know we had a rational President, and that would be a wonderful birthday gift.

Unfortunately, that’s probably just wishful thinking.

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Radio A-Z

The radio station that I listen to the most, KBCO, is running through it’s annual “World Class Rock A-Z” program, where the station theoretically plays their entire music library in alphabetical order. While I love hearing music I’m either unfamiliar with or haven’t heard in years, I have a few problems with the program. First off, “A-Z” reveals just how small KBCO’s standard playlist actually is. Second, the music played cannot possibly be the station’s entire library. And third, it brings to mind just how far KBCO has fallen since it was acquired by Clear Channel Communications.

KBCO, and radio stations in general, seem to have serious problems with small playlists. I can’t count the number of songs that I liked the first time I heard it, loved 3 hearings later, and was sick of to the point of never wanting to listen to the artist(s) ever again 20 hearings later. I love David Grey’s Babylon, but can’t stand the version I hear on KBCO because it was overplayed so much. I generally enjoy listening to the Dave Matthew’s Band, but their newest song now makes me want to vomit because I’ve heard it so often. The Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Barenaked Ladies, Melissa Etheridge; all are artists I thoroughly enjoy listening to, yet at one time or another, KBCO has overplayed them so much that I couldn’t listen to another word. And the list of artists would be much longer if I sat down and gave it some serious thought.

Short playlists drive people away from radio stations. It’s driven me from KBCO more times than I care to remember. I keep coming back because, as much as I enjoy listening to KQMT “The Mountain”, I don’t want to listen to the older stuff all the time. I want the mix of music that KBCO is supposed to offer, and that it used to offer. I remember when I could listen to KBCO for a week without hearing the same song more than twice. I remember times when KBCO would actually play small and/or local artists mixed in with the big names. Artists like Chris and Maggie, Leftover Salmon, Del Amitri, Better than Ezra, and Ottmar Liebert use to be staples of the airwaves at one point. It was almost as if all the CDs had been bought back and offered up as a burnt offering to the gods of corporate radio. If they were good enough for KBCO once, they should still be good enough now.

Which begs the question, if I have the KBCO Studio C CDs with the songs from the above mentioned artists, why don’t I hear them played during the supposedly inclusive “A-Z” program. I know KBCO has these songs – some of them I hear on Sunday Mornings in Studio C. And yet they aren’t played. Which means that KBCO is picking and choosing what they play during the program, rather than playing their entire library. Last year they didn’t play Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, perhaps out of deference to a Thanksgiving Day tradition, but I imagine that the song is still part of KBCO’s music library. If we’re not gong to hear Alice’s Restaurant because it’s a tradition for another day, the least KBCO could do is mention why and then move on. Don’t just leave a hole where listeners know that a song is missing.

It’s jarring to know that there’s a music title that I heard only two to three years ago that’s missing from “A-Z”. Do radio stations purge their libraries that quickly? I realize that CDs take up space, but if that’s the problem, maybe radio stations should transfer music to high fidelity MP3 format instead. Even at 160 kbps, a CD would hold something like 8 hours of music. This would compress the music library, if kept on CDs, by more than 7x, and it could be improved dramatically by putting the music on hard drives. The music from a few years ago is still good music, and a station like KBCO, which bills itself as “world class rock from yesterday and today,” really ought to remember music that’s only a few years old at least as well as it remembers music from 15 years ago. So why do they purge their library so quickly?

Well, I think it’s because KBCO, like so many other radio stations across the country, is owned by a large corporation. Specifically, it’s owned by Clear Channel Communications. And these days, large corporations of all stripes are driven by the bottom line of short-term profits. So few corporations realize that long-term profits are driven by customer satisfaction and the relationships between supplier and customer, not on cost cutting or quarterly sales growth. It’s not that cost cutting or sales growth aren’t important, but they’re not as important as making sure your customers want to pay for your product, and in the case of Clear Channel and KBCO, the product is the music.

But Clear Channel apparently views a large music library as too expensive to maintain. A great way to cut costs is to only have the newest music in the library. That way the station doesn’t outgrow its facility, doesn’t require new technology to upgrade the station to MP3 format, and doesn’t cause hypocrisy headaches because of the RIAA vs. MP3 technology debates. And so the music libraries stay small and restricted to the most recent music with only few and specific exceptions. Maybe I’m being cynical, but maybe the fact that Clear Channel and other corporations like it, plus RIAA, have what is effectively a lock on what we listen to. At least, they do until we realize there’s better stuff out there, available in MP3 format via Internet radio. And if the FCC has its way, big corporations will cannibalize their own Internet children rather than nourish them as they once were.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a solution for corporate radio stations besides the corporations realizing that their customers will leave if they aren’t provided with what they want to listen to. I just don’t see that happening any time soon, and this will be the ultimate downfall of formerly great (and now merely pretty good) stations like KBCO.

Friday, January 10, 2003

My Review of The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers

NOTE: If you haven’t seen the movie yourself, you might have certain points of the movie spoiled for you in this review. Consider this fair warning.

I was lucky enough to see The Two Towers at noon on opening day, but after sitting in the theatre from 10AM to nearly 4PM, I wasn’t up to deciding how much I liked it. I knew that I enjoyed myself, and thought some of the stuff was quite cool, but did I like it better than the Fellowship of the Ring? Did I feel there were any serious problems with what the director, Peter Jackson, did? Maybe. Thankfully I had an opportunity to see it again a couple of weeks later, and I now feel confident that I can fairly offer up my review of The Two Towers.

First, I enjoyed The Two Towers quite a bit more than I did The Fellowship of the Ring. It was faster paced, and with all the setup that was required of the first movie out of the way, it was able to dive straight into the guts of the story. In addition, The Two Towers covers quite a bit less territory than The Fellowship of the Ring does, so it is able to maintain it’s pace and go into greater detail on the various stories than the Fellowship could. Specifically, The Fellowship of the Ring covers the entire first novel plus the first chapter of the second, while The Two Towers ends with the defense of Helm’s Deep (Chapters 2-5, Book III) with respect to Aragorn, Gimly, Legolas, Gandalf, Merry, and Pippen, and ends prior to climbing the stairs of Ciruth Ungol (Chapters 1-7, Book IV), leaving about 150 pages (in my copy) and a total of 7 chapters uncovered. This is a great deal of content that isn’t covered, and it makes me wonder how Peter Jackson will handle the dual-climax of The Return of the King novel, but I digress.

Rather than start what I think was totally cool, I’ll begin with what I thought was nearly unforgivable. There are essentially two major changes which were made in the movie which should not have been made – the final defense of Helm’s Deep and the personality of Faramir. In the novels, Helm’s Deep is saved by Gandalf returning with a massive herd of trees under the control of ents as well as several thousand men. When King Theoden, Aragorn, and the Riders charge out of the Deep, they and the newly arrived men drive the orcs into the trees, and the angry forest kills the surviving orcs. In the movie, however, the ents attack Isengard, but are not needed for the defense of Helm’s Deep. Peter Jackson purged one of the coolest parts of the novel and with it removed what was ultimately responsible for the defeat of the orcs – the angry forest and the ents.

The personality of Faramir also takes quite a beating from Peter Jackson. In the novels, Faramir mentions that he “would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway” in reference to the ring, and when Sam accidentally reveals the ring, Faramir truly does not attempt to take it. Instead, he gives food, guard, shelter, and guidance to Frodo and Sam in their quest. In other words, Faramir is the good, noble, and true man that Boromir was, but without Boromir’s weakness of will, and Faramir is able to resist the temptation of the ring. In the movie, however, Faramir is portrayed as being weak like his brother, and he attempts to take the ring through Osgoliath and to Minis Tirith, the castle of Gondor. This never even happened in the novels, and is such a great change from the book, and the spirit of the character of Faramir, that I have a very difficult time forgiving Peter Jackson of this change.

A few other minor complaints include Treebeard mentioning that Gandalf will know if Merry and Pippin are orcs, rather than the two hobbits convincing Treebeard to let them live until the Entmoot was convened. The Entmoot itself was tweaked a little, especially since it was at the Entmoot that the ents decided it was time to go to war against Saruman, not when Treebeard saw what the white wizard had done to the forest around Isengard as seen in the film. Gandalf fighting orcs with his staff when he, Eomer, and the banished Riders of Rohan save Helm’s Deep was a little wrong too. I also never got the impression that Gandalf had actually died in Moria, but rather had come so close to it during his battle with the Balrog that he was effectively reborn in Lothlorien as he was healed by the elves. And I also felt that the spell that King Theoden was under was never a literal one, but rather he had given over his faculties to Grima Wormtongue rather than having been played the puppet by Saruman directly.

But even with all of these problems, the movie was still absolutely excellent. Gollum took center stage nearly every time he was on screen, and the scenes where Gollum is arguing with Smeagol are some of the best in the film. The technical expertise of weaving him seamlessly into the scenes with the live actors was beyond almost anything else I’ve seen. And the voice acting for Gollum was amazing, which is no small praise coming from an animation fanatic like myself.

Aragorn, acting in his ranger persona, was truly heroic has he tracked the Uruk-Hai who had captured Merry and Pippin. And the way he was able to read the signs in the grass leading from the battle site into Fangorn Forest was amazing, even for a movie – it was done so well I could nearly see the signs myself. I must also say that the battle scenes around Helm’s Deep were great. The arrival of the elves to assist Theoden in the defense of Helm’s Deep, while nowhere in The Two Towers novel that I can find, was still totally cool. Watching Legolas snowboard down the stairs of the Deeping Wall while firing arrows should make him the envy of snowboarders and archers everywhere. And Gimli, standing above two ladders and killing orcs as they ascended to the top, all the while counting as he slew, provided some much needed and welcom comic relief. As did Gimli’s “Toss me, but don’t tell the elf” comment to Aragorn as the two of them drove the orcs back long enough for the gate to the Deep to be reinforced.

The coolest part of the film, in my opinion, was probably the ents making war on Isengard. Watching their feet and hands taking root in the rock walls and the dam before they pulled the stones away was excellent. Watching these tall, walking trees destroying the machines and creations of Saruman was like watching an unstoppable army which feared only fire, at least until the Isen flooded Isengard, drowned the few defenders remaining, and turned the tower of Orthanc into an island.

I’ll admit that this movie is largely filler between the opening and climax, and I admit that I am the kind of guy who loves the fantasy genre and action films. But I found the action necessary to sustain me through the nearly 3 hour long movie, and not once did I threaten to fall asleep, unlike my most recent viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring. And while the jumping between Aragorn’s group, Merry and Pippen, and Frodo and Sam was occasionally a little jarring and disorienting, it also kept me engrossed in the film.

All in all, I thought the movie was great, and I’m very much looking forward to next December, when the final installment arrives.

Thursday, January 09, 2003

The Two Thoughts

I have a problem.  The problem is individuals who feel justified commenting about movies without seeing them, understanding them, or in the case of The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers, even reading the original books that the movies are based upon.  I admit that this is a MAJOR pet peeve of mine, and has been ever since the resident troll on alt.bgcrisis claimed he could justify hating and denigrating a movie based on third-hand hearsay and one viewing of a 30-second TV trailer.  Unfortunately, this peeve of mine has been triggered by Steve Rosen, the Denver Post’s movie reviewer as well as several letters to the editor of the Denver Post.

Either Steve Rosen has never read The Lord of the Rings novels, or he fails to understand or appreciate the fantasy genre.  In his December 18, 2002 review, Mr. Rosen complains that the ride of King Theoden, and the defenders of Helm’s Deep into the mass of orcs at the final defense of Helm’s Deep is totally unrealistic, and he implies that this scene totally destroys our ability to suspend disbelief.  Perhaps it destroys Mr. Rosen’s ability to suspend disbelief, but it is totally in line with the heroic and epic nature of the entire Lord of the Rings saga.  Heros and heroines who stand (or ride in this case) with good and righteousness on their side are always portrayed as larger than life, able to defeat far greater foes than they should be able to.  This is a staple of fantasy and literature, and is illustrated in movies ranging from The Lord of the Rings to La Femme Nikita.  We can be certain that, had Gandalf not arrived immediately with Eomer and the rest of the Riders of Rohan, we would have seen the ultimate result of this charge – the death of Aragorn, King Theoden, and all of those within Helm’s Deep.  But the entire idea of honorably facing defeat with a grand gesture of defiance is part and parcel of fantasy, something which Mr. Rosen has either forgotten or doesn’t understand.

Mr. Rosen also views the resurrection and transformation of Gandalf the Grey into Gandalf the White as a horrible cop-out and yearns for Gandalf’s personal sacrifice in the Mines of Moria to have been more permanent.  Based off this statement, I can only conclude that Mr. Rosen has either forgotten the novels or has never read them.  It is simply not possible for large portions of The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King to exist without Gandalf.  Gandalf’s fall in Moria and subsequent recovery are integral parts of The Lord of the Rings, and simply changing such a vital component to the story would have destroyed the movies.  And yet it seems that Mr. Rosen would have preferred this outcome.

I understand that a movie should stand on its own, even in a series where the audience is all but required to have seen the prior movies in order to understand the plot of the movie they’re currently watching.  And I realize that movie reviewers must review and rate the movies they watch regardless of whether they have read any background material for the film.  But Mr. Rosen has apparently misunderstood the genre to the extent that the grand heroic and epic nature of the protagonists is being trod upon by his review.  I find this totally unacceptable, even as there are aspects of his review with which I agree (his thoughts on Gollum and the lack of flow of the three stories are right on).  Unfortunately, this tends to be a habit among newspaper movie reviewers, the vast majority of whom seem to give fantasy and science fiction movies the short end of the stick.

To be fair, there are movie watchers who have similar problems.  On January 2, 2003, the Denver Post ran a column by Diane Carmen which triggered several angry responses that were printed on January 6.  These letters attempted to mock a woman who apparently doesn’t like or doesn’t understand The Lord of the Rings saga, yet the letters themselves showed a remarkable lack of understanding about The Lord of the Rings.

One letter commented that the moral clarity of the characters is why people like the series, pointing out that the actions of politicians, corporate leaders, and liberal activists show that the movie is “much more of a picture of what modern life is lacking.” This letter has a point, I suppose, in that those who are truly good are truly good, and there is no doubt that there is a moral clarity in the movies and novels that real life is lacking.  Yet the characters aren’t quite as clear-cut as they first appear.  Frodo is constantly tempted by the power of the ring, very nearly gets captured a couple of times, and he is ultimately corrupted by the ring in The Return of the King.  This seems to me to be of a parable for the ability of power to corrupt even the best among us.  Sam is constantly saving Frodo, proving himself in many ways to be the better of the two hobbits, and yet he yearns to wring Gollum’s neck.  Boromir’s heart was true and good, yet he lacked the will to resist the power of the ring and his actions split the Fellowship.  Eowyn longs to have been born a man so she may ride into battle with her brother and kinsmen and away from the courtly duties her gender implies in Rohan.  These character’s actions may be clear because we watch them from outside the world they inhabit, but within their world, they are as conflicted and complex as the actions and motivations of ourselves living in our world where nothing is black and white.

Another letter commented that The Lord of the Rings is a conservative tale, and to some extent, the letter writer is correct.  The entire Lord of the Rings epic can be viewed is a parable of Christianity, where the humble and weak are ultimately greater than all the swords of good and evil combined. But I find the writer’s application of conservative, anti-feminist ideas to Eowyn and Arwen to be just plain wrong.  The writer says ‘The key women…do not complain about failing to get their respective wishes.  They state their wishes reasonably, but when they are rejected, they quietly and nobly accept their fates.  Sure can’t enlist them for the women-in-private-golf-clubs movement!” Now, I’ll admit that this is how it appears in the second movie, and if the writer has never read the books, I can see how he can believe this.  However, both Arwen and Eowyn are actually very feminist – Eowyn ultimately cuts her hair and dresses as a man in order to do battle with Sauron’s forces, and she nearly dies in the process of defeating the king of the Nazgul.  Arwen also refuses to follow her father’s order to go into the West and chooses love for Aragorn over love for her father, Elrond.  If anything, with respect to women, the Lord of the Rings novels are absolutely feminist, since all of the main female characters are strong willed, free thinking women who ultimately choose their own paths over the paths others would have chosen for them.

I admit that the books are not for everyone, and I know many people who can watch both movies but can’t get past page 20 of The Fellowship of the Ring.  This does not excuse these people from making blanket statements about part two of a continuous three-part movie epic in order make it fit their own personal agendas.  Nor does it excuse people from not understanding or accepting the epic heroic nature of the quintessential fantasy story as being a vital component to the movies.  Wait until the story is completely told before jamming it’s square peg into the round hole of personal beliefs.  Doing anything less is unfair to a great story and is ultimately the same as denigrating a movie based on hearsay and a single viewing of a 30-second TV trailer.