Heartache With Hard Work

Fred Kaplan (who I normally think is right on the money on pretty much everything) says a number of clearly wrong things in this Slate article on the best movies about international relations. He’s referencing a couple of lists put together by Stephen Walt and Daniel Drezner on that subject. The column takes issue with a number of their choices.

He begins by noting:

A couple of his selections are no-brainers: Dr. Strangelove, the ultimate satire of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War mentality; and Casablanca, the ultimate romance (though far from the best movie) about occupation and resistance.

Agreed on Dr. Strangelove, obviously, but what’s with the faint praise for Casablanca? It’s about as close to perfect as a movie can get. Frankly, any 10 minutes of Casablanca would compare favorably to just about any other movie you might find.

The next puzzling comment:

Then comes Wag the Dog. OK, the mendacity of the Bush years has made this film a retrospective classic, though it’s more about domestic politics than international affairs.

If Wag the Dog, which argues for an intense co-constitutive relationship between domestic politics and the foreign policy of nations is not about international affairs then anyone who is not a realist probably doesn’t get to show up to the IR party.

Kaplan continues:

The most jaw-dropping pick of all, though, is Independence Day, which “makes my list,” Walt writes, “because it is balance-of-power theory in action: an external threat (giant alien spaceships) gets the world to join forces against the common foe.” Here’s the thing. Walt is a classic International Realist, the author of such gravitas-beaming books as The Origins of Alliances, Taming American Power, and Revolution and War. Yet this is his view of “balance-of-power theory in action”—the one-worlder’s wet-dream cliché about how all the nations join forces to beat back monsters from outer space?

Once again, I feel like this is a relatively simplistic treatment of the genre. The reason why realists dismiss the notion of international cooperation is the assumption that states will be unwilling to bind themselves together for the sake of the greater good, and instead will pursue their own power-driven interests.

While the movie doesn’t do much to further this point, it does offer an example of what it would take to jump-start such cooperation. Not the ephermeral global interests that us liberal internationalists tend to value (human rights, the environment, etc.) but only the imminent threat of planetary extinction.

And my final complaint:

Walt’s list spurred Dan Drezner to devise his own, and Drezner’s is even stranger. He agrees with Walt on Dr. Strangelove and Casablanca, but his No. 1 pick is The Lion in Winter, which he says is “about the strengths and limits of rational choice in international politics.” Um, OK: a strange choice, especially for the top of the list, but there’s a daring quality about it.

The Lion in Winter is an absolutely brilliant film, not least because it captures just how intensely personal these supposedly grand questions of state behavior and interest really are. The idea that the foreign policy of England is not only influenced by, but appears to be almost entirely connected to the inter-relations of one twisted family is fascinating. And over the course of a two-hour movie it manages to offer an example of virtually every kind of behavior a game theorist has ever attempted to imagine.

One other film that was overlooked by all of these folks: The Transformers Movie (the good, cartoon one from the 80s, not the recent trainwreck). Seriously. Intergalactic civil war, a rampaging hegemon eating planets for breakfast, pseudo-religious belief that a small insurgent group can somehow win the war. It’s Star Wars minus Mark Hamil, with Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle, and Orson Welles instead.

It’s particularly fun if you imagine Ultra Magnus as Neville Chamberlin and Hot Rod as Churchill. And Grimlock is clearly Dwight Eisenhower.

Even more, there’s the Pearl Harbor-esque attack on the Autobots’ home base (designed to kill off a bunch of the previous year’s line of toys so they could invent new charactes to foist on kids like me. And it worked!).

While I’m talking about this movie, a related question:

The death of Optimus Prime. One of the saddest things you’ve ever seen or the single saddest thing you’ve ever seen?

I seem to have gotten off track. So here’s my favorite song from the Transformers soundtrack. Cheers.

Dare – Stan Bush

Dollhouse – Briar Rose

I know this episode was supposed to be big and exciting and special. But honestly, I thought it was only so-so. It sort of embodies many of the things that initially made me skeptical about the show, and some of the worries I’ve had even after I decided that they knew what they were doing.

Namely, it was a bunch of stuff happening that didn’t make sense and had no rhyme or reason that the audience could determine. Why does Alpha want into the Dollhouse? Who is he? Why is the Dollhouse security so mediocre that they don’t notice Ballard tailing them? Or that he was wandering around for an extended period of time inside the Dollhouse? You have access to the finest technology in the world and you can’t get a working security system? Why did Alpha kill that guy and take him to Tucson? How exactly was he supposed to know that Ballard was coming to find him at that exact moment? What did Ballard contribute to the whole operation anyway – was he just a distraction? Because frankly Alpha is pretty impressive and I have a feeling would be able to have gotten ahold of Echo previously if he had wanted.

In addition to the ‘what is the motivation for these actions’ questions, there was another issue that I just can’t get over. WTF was the point of the endless fight scene interspersed with random dialogue? In what world does it make sense for Boyd to keep yammering at this guy? At every point up til now he’s demonstrated a no-nonsense attitude. Now, in the middle of a bunch of dolls he’s going to start yammering with an intruder?

I guess I can imagine that there’s some grand plan they have going on with Ballard. But at the point that he’s broken in, presumably it’s time to use the element of surprise to knock him out or incapacitate him.

It’s actually a problem I always had with Buffy. It never made sense to have these loooong fight scenes when they made it abundantly clear that kicking a vampire never did any damage. You have a stake. Use it. But for that show it was a lot easier to just ignore that particular silliness because they clearly weren’t ever that interested in creating a perfect sense of versimilitude. If we can accept people getting killed by vampires all the time and no one ever noticing, we can accept that people banter while they fight. It’s panache, not a plot hole.

Dollhouse, though, despite its fantastical elements, clearly wants to generate a sense of realism. Which was totally shattered by this episode, when I spent most of the time wanting to yell at basically every character “why are you doing what you are doing?!?!?!“

Other complaints: Eliza Dushku playing yet another Faith-clone. The Briar Rose theme was heavy-handed and irritating. Ballard is making less and less sense as a character. If they want to portray him as obsessive about Caroline/Echo, that’s fine, but they really need to drop some hints at some point to explain WHY he’s so crazy.

So those were the negatives.

Positives: Alan Tudyk was GREAT as Alpha. I like the idea of giving someone a “best possible future” as their own counselor. Amy Acker was fantastic as a terrified Dr. Saunders. Enver Gjokaj was great in a very limited role as the mind of Dominic – it felt real. I’m still anticipating that the whole Alpha situation may turn out to include exciting revelations. One thought: it’s been revealed that Topher occasionally imprints…basically himself…one dolls. Given the way Alpha was acting, is there any doubt that he was one such subject at a prior time?

Yeah, actually most of the best parts of this episode were the Alpha lines. But that alone does not make a good episode.

At this point, there’s a very real chance they’ve only got one episode left and it’s already a bit late for answering at least SOME of the big questions, rather than adding new layers of complexity.

UPDATE: Nice reviews from Hazel and Maia which I mostly agree with.

Another City, Another Sorry – The Answering Machine

I just can’t say no to a track like this. Fast, furious, big messy guitar lines, and lines that are in such a hurry to get out onto the dancefloor that they stumble over themselves. The Answering Machine come from Manchester, and they play the sort of music that deserves to be heard in every packed London club this year.

Think of the first time you heard The Futureheads, give them a bit more swagger and some slightly bigger hooks. Then set it free and enjoy.

Another City, Another Sorry comes out later this month, and from what I’ve heard so far it’s going to be awesome.

Breathless – Miranda Lee Richards

Sometimes you just want to feel safe. You want a friendly smile, a warm blanket, a voice that breathes like a summer breeze, and a guitar that says “you know, it’s all going to be alright.”

Miranda Lee Richards offers precisely that on her new record Light of X. In the wrong mood, or with a jaded attitude, you might call it overproduced. Or you might wonder about the desire to smooth away every possible rough edge. But if you give up on your cynicism, you just might remember that everyone needs a little comfort now and then, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Anyone who won’t admit to liking, at least on occasion, a sleepy ballad with a heart of gold probably isn’t worth your time.

To be sure, you have to be in the right mood. And there’s no doubt that this record is best when she’s emulating her folk heroes (Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Mazzy Star) and worst when it drifts into Sixpence None the Richer territory. Fortunately, the former is quite a bit more common than the latter. “Breathless” is my favorite, but “Savorin’ Your Smile,” “Olive Tree,” and “Hideaway” are also quite good. And even the less memorable tracks have little bits to make you smile: a great pedal steel riff here, a little blues shuffle there.

Dollhouse – Haunted

This episode was in some ways a step back. It’s a mystery-of-the-week much like the first few episodes. And while it does a little bit to push the larger arc, it’s really more about characterization than anything else. So to some extent it was a disappointment, particularly after some very strong episodes in the past few weeks.

That said, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with an episode that doesn’t directly push the arc. All arc all the time can very quickly get to be too much. It’s a very rare show that can survive such a pace without veering wildly off track or completely losing a sense of pace (season three of Babylon-5 perhaps being the only real example of true success). And as far as it goes, there was some good stuff here to expand on the characters we’re slowly getting to know.

The haphazardness of the opening episodes was frustrating because we had no reason to care about the people involved. Now that things have taken some shape, it’s interesting to see how a mystery-of-the-week plot can reveal new things about the characters and the situation. I like the peeks into Adele’s past. I really enjoyed seeing Boyd struggling with his new role (in a place he appears to increasingly feel skeptical about).

Still…I can’t help but regret episodes like this. The reason: I’m pretty convinced this show is going to get canceled. And while I’d love to see the slower-paced stuff if I felt confident they’d get a couple years to tell the story, if that’s not going to be the case, I’d really like to get more into the heart of the thing.

Some random thoughts on the episode:

* * *

I have a friend (the one who got me into Joss in the first place) who has speculated that Eliza Dushku is the Rob Lowe of Dollhouse. And further has wondered whether they realize that this is the case.

In case the reference isn’t clear, Rob Lowe was supposed to be the “star” of The West Wing in the initial plans. But it quickly became clear that the show was good because of the ensemble – and had little or nothing to do with Lowe in particular. I feel like the same thing is true here. Episodes which lean too heavily on Dushku can only be so good.

Her acting abilities are growing on me a little bit. I felt like her portrayal in this episode had more going for it than some of her other ones. But still, she simply isn’t good enough to carry the idea of the show on her back. It seems like they all (including Dushku herself) understand how good the “secondary” folks are – and aren’t going to get all possessive about her “star” status. At least, I hope so.

* * *

Topher. I think he is, by far, the most divisive thing about this show. There are people who love him. There are people who think he is horrible. And there are people who are simply bored by him. I’m torn.

But this episode may have been the turning point for me. I haven’t been convinced that there was a lot of depth in his character. He seems to be more of a caricature than a real person. But the more I think about it, the more I think there’s actually a lot going on with him – it’s just well-disguised. Now, I realize that I’m treading into the fanboy world of the “Joss is a genius and if you don’t understand it, it’s because you don’t get what he’s doing” defense. But hear me out.

I think Topher is Joss himself. Not in a clear, literal sense. But Topher is a representation of the things that Joss – and all of us who are like him – fear about ourselves. Smart, maybe too smart, clever but awkward, with a deep sense of discomfort at a world that sometimes feels far too easy and other times feel absolutely impossible. The massive geek who never found a friend to be equally geeky with.

I think it’s telling that we’re seeing more and more of the staff of the Dollhouse making use of the dolls to fill their own needs. I think it’s even more telling that what Topher needs more than anything is basically a carbon-copy of himself.

There’s something sweet about this episode. But there’s also something deeply troubling. It suggests that people like Topher aren’t just misunderstood outcasts. Instead, they really don’t fit. They can seem lovable and goofy in their moments, but ultimately they inhabit a very different universe from ‘normal’ folks. And it might be the case that there simply is no easy way across that divide.

I think I said in reviewing an earlier episode that Topher is a darker variation on Xander. I think that’s becoming more and more clear. He’s the comic relief in the same sort of way. He’s the character most likely to sound like a Joss-character (full of quips and quick comebacks). And yet, he’s deeply disturbed. And it’s not clear that there’s a way out.

We’re not meant to think of him as a bad guy, and yet…he may be more scary than the cynical and manipulative people in charge of the dollhouse. I appreciate that idea. Combine that with the good work they’re doing in revealing the ‘good guy’ of Ballard to be perhaps more deeply disturbed and dangerous than of the the ‘bad guys’ and you’ve got at least the possibility of some interesting layers. Speaking of which…

* * *

Ballard and Mellie. I think we can put for rest once and for all the idea that Ballard is the White Knight, full of charm and good intentions, coming to the rescue of the pure and innocent.

He is one seriously messed up dude right now. He’s clearly fixated on Echo/Caroline, is continuing the charade with Mellie, and is discovering some deep dark pits in his soul that are entirely to be expected in people who fancy themselves Noble Heroes, but which he never expected to have to actually face.

Sure, you can put some blame on the people manipulating him, but he’s a willing participant at this point – and he knows it, too.

* * *

I found the actual main plot to be mildly suspenseful, but honestly I can’t really bring myself to remember many of the details.

* * *

Finally, I’d like to write something about whether the attitude they have toward selfhood – that it exists in purely material terms, and that it can be captured and deposited in a computer databank ready for immediate retrieval at any point. But…I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

I may wait until the show is over before I really make up my mind. To some extent it depends on how much they’re committed to exploring it. One the one hand, it could be a Star Trek style pseudo-science that exists solely to enable the show to exist. If so, then it’s lame but probably not worth wasting a lot of time on. We just have to suspend our disbelief and try not to ask too many questions that are going to be impossible to answer. On the other hand, they may actually be trying to do something with this. In which case, I’m going to want to see where they take things before speculating too much.

All that I’ll say now is that there is a LOT that they could do if they want. And I don’t mean the hackneyed stuff that’s been done a million times about ‘where the soul is.’ I mean deeper questions about who we’re referencing when we think about subjects, about concepts of rights and responsibilities. About the significance of embodiment to consciousness and identity. About the possibility that the dollhouse is deeply troublesome not just because it enslaves ‘real’ people – but also because it enslaves countless other people that it literally creates, uses for a few days, and then disembodies and stores in a dark room somewhere.

If consciousness is just the way that we account for the the capacity to see ourselves as beings, then what makes a ‘constructed’ personality any less of a ‘person’ than one that develops ‘naturally’?

That’s a question that I hope Alpha is going to force us to start asking.

* * *

Source Tags and Codes – And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

(see my post a week or so ago for other stuff from them)

I don’t know what in this world is trying to save me
But I can feel its hand and it’s guiding me in sign
From lives I’ve tried to lead
To the one that I received
Each painted sign along the road
Will melt away in source tags and in code

Sink or Float – Aberdeen

I’ve read some GOP operatives claiming that there’s no principle in the decision – i.e. that Specter is a pure opportunist. Well, sure. But do you really want to be on the national news talking about how your brand is so toxic that long-term members of the party are fleeing like rats from a sinking ship?

I realize that what they’re trying to say is that Specter was facing the real risk of losing a primary. And that’s fine. But no one in the world thinks that Toomey would have anything but a looooong shot in the general, which means the message here is: “our party is so fractured and incoherent that we were ready to bump off a moderately popular Senator just to make a point about taxes.”

There is inevitably going to be a tension between holding together a party under a tent of specific ideas – fighting for those principles even when the going gets tough – and recognizing the pragmatic need to hold power before you can exercise it. There’s no perfect answer. But it’s hard to see what the Republicans are doing these days as even in the same ballpark as a good balance.

What’s more, I know people don’t often come out and make it crystal clear that they’re doing things out of political fear, but all of the castigation on this seems a little strange. Would people prefer that elected officials be strictly ideological and pay no attention to what the people they represent might want? The entire idea of turning the netroots into a political force is that it can change the political dynamics, force people to pay attention to their issues.

There’s an idealized world where the best ideas win purely on their own merit. And then there’s the actual world in which politics takes place, where appealing to interests of political actors is a necessary element of the game. If you are angry at Evan Bayh for not signing onto the Obama agenda, and you mobilize voting blocs against him, that’s not really any different than what’s happening with Specter. It’s all about producing a political environment where people can either choose to get on board or face political irrelevancy.

Specter was in a uniquely precarious position – thus the party switch. But it’s a difference of degree rather than kind, I think.

(Photo by Rodney White / Des Moines Register / via AP)

Gay couples are getting married in Iowa and the world isn’t ending. Unless you want to argue that the new flu outbreak is God’s way of punishing the world for allowing judicial review in Iowa…

Also, support for gay marriage nationwide is up NINE POINTS in the last month. I mean, clearly there’s going to be some regression to the mean, but things are looking pretty good.

Elsewhere, New Hampshire has passed a marriage equality bill, and all that’s left is for the governor to sign it. Here’s hoping that Lynch does the right thing. It would go into effect on January 1, 2010.

What If You Don’t Fly – Superdrag

So I wrote a month and a half ago that Arlen Specter might be switching parties, and mused that it could turn out to be a pretty good deal for the Democrats. Well, here we are. And as far as I can tell, he didn’t even extract any major concessions in terms of sweet deals for it, either.

In the end, I’m not sure it’ll make that much difference. He’ll probably be a relatively reliable Democratic vote, and it might marginally increase the odds on health care. And even if that’s the only effect, I think it’s probably worth it. Health care is tremendously important and I really do think that the next six months is the best chance we’re going to get for a LONG time. So even if the Specter switch only increases the odds by a little bit, that’s still a pretty huge deal.

But there’s other smaller things too, like all the tiny filibusters the Republicans try to run, on stuff that doesn’t make the front page. With Specter and Franken, we’ll actually be at 60 and it will significantly decrease the chance for them to obstruct the tiny stuff. And once you add up a bunch of little things, and give them less ability to gain power through obstruction, I think the result will be an easier path to the entire Democratic agenda.

Add in the fact that Specter is probably going to end up being a relatively middle-of-the-road Dem, and I’m more than willing to take the hit of losing out on a potentially more liberal Democratic challenger. Bird in the hand, two in the bush and all that.

publius also makes an insightful comment on the broader issue here: “Today’s flip further vindicates Clinton’s decision to fight it out to the bitter end in last year’s primary. Looking back, nothing but positives came out of that contest. As I’ve explained before, the primary had an “anti-Tasmanian Devil” effect – rather than chaos, it left stronger party organization and big increases of registered voters in its wake. And it’s that structural shift that doomed Specter. He couldn’t afford to lose hundreds of thousands of moderate PA Republicans.”

I wasn’t happy about it at the time. I thought she hung on too long when it was obvious that she couldn’t win. I never went over the ledge into anti-Hillaryville or anything, but I definitely wasn’t happy about it.

But in retrospect, I was completely wrong. I’m glad she stuck around. I’m glad she let every state have a meaningful primary. I’m glad every state got organized. I’m glad Obama had to beat an actual bona fide candidate in order to win the primary – compared to her, McCain was a patsy. I’m glad that she didn’t feel obliged to back away simply because some people on the internet were angry.

(I feel obliged to point out that Superdrag actually has a new album called Industry Giants. I can’t say it really did much for me, but man I still love Regretfully Yours)

My home state takes a step in the right direction by reducing the degree to which they disenfranchise felons. Good for them!

That said, there’s still a number of hurdles left. They have to finish probation, for one thing. And frankly, I don’t think it’s legitimate to remove the right to vote in any circumstance. There’s a couple of reasons for that position.

First, if the values of this country are supposed to mean anything then voting should be an absolute guaranteed right. If you want to punish criminals, there’s plenty (too many) of other avenues available. There’s no evidence that limitations on voting serve any kind of deterrent effect, nor is there any evidence that allowing felons the same right to express their political preferences will produce “criminal-friendly” laws or any such nonsense. For one thing, felons will always make up a marginal portion of the population. If the 5% of felons are able to tip a policy into the majority then it clearly has a lot of non-criminal element support. For another, there’s no reason to think that felons are some sort of other species. Most people in prison know full well that their actions were bad. Their individual action doesn’t necessarily translate into political preference.

The second reason is race. Because our criminal justice system is built on a foundation of racism and systemic exclusion, it’s not surprising that a massively disproportionate number of non-voting felons are minorities. The real solution is to fix the criminal justice system, but in the absence of that, at the very least we can prevent the spillover effects of racism from multiplying themselves.

Finally, voting should be thought of as a right, but even more than that, it should be treated as a civic responsibility. After all, it’s pretty obvious that voting doesn’t really make sense if it’s treated as purely a matter of an individual exercising their preference. Virtually nothing is decided by one vote and everyone knows it. The reason why people vote, then, has a lot to do with the very accurate perception that you owe it to everyone else to be involved.

Democracy falls apart if apathy overrides that sense of responsibility. All of which means that it’s particularly insane to take away peoples’ right to vote as if it were a punishment. It’s not just the criminal being punished – it’s every person in the society.

Every citizen who is expected to adhere to laws, and to pay taxes to fund the government who enforces those laws, deserves a say in what laws should exist. To deny voting rights based on commission of a crime is tantamount to declaring that those who fail to support the government may be stripped of their ability to change it. That’s not just wrong, it’s in direct opposition to everything we’re supposed to believe.

Streetlights – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

The Drive-By Truckers has always been one of those bands that I casually liked but never thought too much about. “The Day John Henry Died” is a truly fantastic song, and The Dirty South is a pretty solid record. And while I never spent a ton of time listening to them, whenever I did hear a song I always enjoyed it.

I saw them last fall on their tour with The Hold Steady. And while it was a decent show something felt really missing. That something was Jason Isbell, erstwhile Trucker and now solo artist. Turns out he’s responsible for almost every song of theirs I really liked. The funny thing is, I saw Isbell right after he left the Truckers when he was opening for Son Volt a couple years ago and was pretty unimpressed.

Turns out it had a lot more to do with the specific songs he was playing at the time. I was also quite disappointed in his debut solo record. On Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit, his follow-up, all the stuff I loved from his previous work shines through.

It’s full of character sketches, lyrics that manage to capture in one line what many artists fail to communicate over a lifetime, and a bluesy roots sound that merges seamlessly with good old fashioned bar-band. In the fine tradition of many predecessors, it’s the sort of record that sounds off the cuff, natural, loose. And, most surprisingly of all, Isbell even gets his croon on here and there, revealing a voice with a lot more range and diversity than you might expect.

“Cigarettes and Wine” is a great boozy singalong – the sort that suggests a night that ends asleep on the floor. Fortunately, “However Long” lifts you back up off the floor, gives you a good shake, and sends you out into the world with a pat on the back and a word of quiet encouragement. And “Streetlights” is as fine a song as you’re likely to hear in this genre: moody, disquieting, beautiful, and sad beyond words. Even the bits I don’t particularly like often pay off. I could do without the dissonant build-up in “Sunstroke” for example, but even I can’t help but admit that the re-emergence from the chaos is an excellent moment.

Hopefully this record sets the stage for more efforts along these lines. When he’s on, Isbell tells stories through music about as well as anyone around these days. And after a bit of a misstep last time around, this record represents a fine return to form.