Mitch Wagner's Blog

The "Simpsons"/"Airport 79" connection

So I'm watching The Concorde ... Airport '79 for its 70s kitsch value. It was the last of a series of 70s disaster movies set on airplanes, with a cast that just screams of the 70s: Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner, Sylvia Kristel, George Kennedy, Eddie Albert, Charo, John Davidson, Cicely Tyson, Jimmie "Dy-no-mite!" Waler, Avery Schreiber, and Sybil Danning.

Also, two names that would become famous later:

One of them was Ed Begley Jr.

The other was a tiny role -- near the beginning of the movie, we see a fake TV newscast setting up the incidents of the movie and some of the major characters. The voice of the TV reporter doing a voice-over report is maddeningly familiar. So I jotted down the character's name, and hit the IMDB.

It's this guy: Harry Shearer, better known on The Simpsons as Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Smithers, and Rev. Lovejoy. He's doing his Kent Brockman voice.

And how was your weekend?

Does technology change human nature?

Scalzi says human nature doesn't really change over time.

He notes that young people today think they are unique, shaped by technology. But all generations have this in common, he says:

A communal myth of generational exceptionalism: the belief (or at least a strong suspicion) that one’s social and technological accouterments, and how one uses them, signal a wholesale break from previous generations, and that one’s generation is therefore quite obviously unique and special.

But if there’s any benefit to getting older, it’s realizing just what absolute crap this sort of thinking actually is. Technology changes, social trends change, hairstyles change, but people – the actual human animals inside all that technology, sociology and tonsorial grooming — are the same as they have been for thousands of years. Grab a time machine, go back to ancient Egypt, and swap an infant there with an infant from today, and in twenty years you’ll likely find two people perfectly well integrated into their cultures because there is no difference in the human animal between now and then. Even within generations (which are an artificial construct in themselves, but never mind that now) there’s enough variation to drive you a little batty: The same generation that gave us the hippies went for Nixon in 1972, and that same generation gave us both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Go figure.

I think human nature does change over time, even as some elements remain common. And, while it's extreme for people in their 20s to claim they are uniquely changed by technology, it's also extreme to claim that nothing ever changes.

To name two examples:

As an American Jew, my life would be very different if I lived at any other time. I'm fortunate enough to live in a culture where anti-Semitism is virtually nonexistent, that's a recent development. My father had to put up with a certain amount of it, but I've only had to endure a trivial amount of anti-Semitism.

Likewise, in my career I'm a journalist and blogger, writing about the Internet on the Internet. I'm a workaholic, my career is a huge part of my identity. My job didn't exist when I graduated college -- I couldn't even have explained it to my college self.

9 thoughts about the election

Watching Obama's victory speech, Julie and I were independently struck by the thought that we were seeing a historical speech, on the level of "nothing to fear but fear itself" or "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Wish we were doing something more memorable than sitting on the couch watching TV -- what will we tell our nieces and nephew?

Obama reminds me so much of Kennedy. As the first post-Vietnam president, he represents, like Kennedy, the passing of the torch to a new generation. Like Kennedy, he is handsome and charismatic and young man. Like Kennedy, he has a pretty and elegant wife, and attractive pre-teen children. Kennedy, like Obama, came from an ethnic group that until recently had suffered great prejudice. Here's hoping racism in 40 years looks as quaint and odd as anti-Catholic bigotry does today.

I was very afraid tonight, around the time of Obama's victory speech, that, like Kennedy, he won't live long into his administration. But now I'm just enjoying the moment.

Conservative bloggers are being very gracious about the whole thing. I'm relieved about that; I feared a Constitutional crisis regardless of who won the election.

As I write this, the race on Proposition 8 is tight, but most observers seem to be saying Proposition 8 is winning. Still, the forces of tolerance can claim a moral victory here; Prop 8 supporters had to call in big bucks from out of state and they still just squeaked by. They had to base their campaign on flagrant lies -- because they have no other argument other than lies.

Still, gays and lesbians who want to marry would rather not have a moral victory. They'd rather have a victory.

Expect court cases on whether gay marriages that occurred prior to Prop 8 are still legal. Hope so, a couple of friends got married.

Voters elected Obama, but not necessarily his policies. They liked his steady demeanor, his obvious competence, and charismatic speaking style, but I don't think they necessarily agree with his positions on taxation, the economy, and foreign policy. I think it's going to be great to have strong debate on these issues. I've heard Obama referred to as a politician who transcends the categories of conservative and liberal. I've never really felt comfortable with either label. I call myself "very liberal" because I'm less uncomfortable with that label than any other, but I'm not really happy with it.

For the first time in years, I'm proud to be an American again. I don't remember when I stopped being proud. It may have been the time the Abu Ghraib incident became public. But I think it was a year later, when we bungled the Katrina relief. For the past several years, since Katrina, I've been walking around thinking of America as a country that used to be a great nation, but now practiced torture and couldn't even mount an effective relief effort from a natural disaster. But tonight I'm once again proud to be an American.

Dialogue from "Heroes" that totally didn't work

Noah Bennett: "Dear, why don't you stay here with our daughter while I run off with the hot blonde in the tank top."

Mrs. Bennett: "OK!"

I think when Claire and Ellie get in the hair-pulling fight, that's when the show officially jumped the shark. It was 9 minutes in the last episode. I paused it to check.

Seriously: We've finally caught up with the show, which we started watching on DVD in the spring. I know people said the second season was terrible, but we loved it. People said the section in medieval Japan was the worst; we thought that was the best.

This season ... well, the show isn't what it was, but we love the ridiculous, over-the-top energy of it. Sylar changes from good to evil and back again more frequently than they take commercial breaks.

Why even conservatives should vote for Obama

In a nutshell: Because he's a better candidate.

Here's something I've been wondering about recently: Why is it that libertarians have flocked to the Republican party over the past 30 years or so? Are they simply being snowed by rhetoric? Because, in fact, the Republicans are no more the party of small government than the Democrats are. Since Ronald Reagan, the GOP has been the party of expanding government spending and bringing Fundamentalist Christian values to government, especially regarding sex and abortion.

I would love to see a real libertarian party in the U.S. Not the current lot calling themselves the Libertarian Party -- they're a bunch of eccentrics who get their political philosophy from Ayn Rand and Gene Roddenberry. They want to take over the state of Vermont, and outlaw public parks. America doesn't need those guys, except to be the target of fake news reporting on The Daily Show. America needs a real libertarian party, a group that sincerely espouses minimal, pay-as-you-go government, and letting people make their own choices and solve their own problems.

I'd be tempted to join that party, even though I'm a liberal. Because the past eight years have been a demonstration of what happens when you put a bunch of amateurs in charge of government.

Come Tuesday, we don't have a small-government candidate to vote for in the Presidential election. Instead, what we have is two Big Government parties. One of them is the party of Fundamentalist Christianity, reckless spending, and careless warmaking.

On the one hand, we have McCain/Palin. Really, they're both running for President, because McCain is a 72-year-old cancer survivor who won't release his medical records. There's a good chance he won't live to blow out his birthday candles in 2012. I'm actually sad about that, because I really do like him, but that's the way to bet.

McCain has voted for Bush 90+ percent of the time. Worse than that: He's thrown away his maverick status and become a big-government, Christian Fundamentalist conservative in order to get elected. He was pro-choice, now he's anti-abortion. He said the Religious Right was a scourge on America, now he's embracing them. He opposed Bush's tax cuts, now he supports them. He opposed torture, but didn't vote against torture in the Senate.

President McCain would, quite simply, serve Bush's third term. He'd continue expanding government, eroding civil rights, getting into reckless wars, and expanding the federal deficit in a spend-and-borrow financial strategy that we're paying for now as the stock market plummets.

President Palin would be all that and more. She combines Obama's lack of experience with complete ignorance of what the federal government does. She doesn't know what the vice-president's job is. She doesn't understand the First Amendment. She doesn't know what the vice president does. She calls Obama a socialist, and yet she bragged that Alaska's natural resources are collectively owned. This is because she does not know what socialism is. Like Bush, as president she is likely to be seduced by bad advisors and get America into trouble.

A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for four more years of Bush/Cheney. If you think the Iraq war was a good idea, well-executed, if you think we've followed a sound economic policy and if you think we're better off today than we were 8 years ago -- or even no worse off -- then vote for McCain/Palin. They're more of the same. Dick Cheney certainly thinks so.

Meanwhile, Obama has got a lot going for him. He was right about the Iraq war -- while everybody else was rushing to support it, he foresaw in 2004 that it would be a long-drawn out moneypit. He's got good policies on health insurance, energy, and the Wall Street bailout.

And, perhaps most important of all, during his 21 months campaigning for president, he's demonstrated a remarkable cool head, leadership, and management skill. He's a black man with an Arab name and a father who was raised a Muslim, and he's a front-runner for President of the United States in the here and now. That's a remarkable accomplishment.

Certainly, there are legitimate questions about Obama's policies and record. And one of the great disappointments about the Republican party -- the Party of Great Disappointment -- is that the party has either failed to raise those objections at all, or drowned the objections out in stupid rumors and name-calling. Obama voted "present" far too often, rather than taking a stand. His tax proposal is unclear -- does it really represent a net tax cut, or would his other policies result in a net tax gain? Would he really be writing checks to people who don't currently pay any taxes, and is that a good idea?

But the Republicans don't focus on those things. Instead, they rant hysterically, trying to turn flimsy connections to Tony Rezko and William Ayers into blood-brotherhood, or claiming that he's a secret Muslim, or questioning his citizenship, or any of a few dozen other wacky rumors that have surfaced about Obama.

One of the craziest rumors about Obama: That he is a socialist. If he is a socialist, then so is every president for the last century, because they've all advocated progressive taxation. That includes Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Maybe it is time to re-think progressive taxation -- but screeching about "socialism" is no way to have that discussion if you want to be taken seriously.

Indeed, my jaw simply drops in amazement when I hear McCain supporters criticize Obama and the Democrats for fiscal irresponsibility. It's like being scolded by Bill Clinton about sexual promiscuity. The Republicans have spent and spent and spent for the past eight years, like rich kids with credit-card bills that get paid by Daddy. Obama's a big spender, too, but at least he wants to pay as we go.

The Volokh Conspiracy's David Post, a self-described "pragmatic libertarian," writes about why he's voting for Obama.

I’m not a big fan of the state, I believe that power inevitably corrupts, that individuals, when left to their own devices, are capable of remarkable feats of self-organization and problem-solving, and that the freedoms of speech, conscience, and association are, by far, our most precious ones and need to be zealously protected from the folks with the monopoly on coercive force. I haven’t voted for a Democratic candidate for President since 1980 (and I came to regret that one pretty soon thereafter). My personal list of great Presidents is a short one: Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan.

Post goes on to cite the litany of problems America faces, and notes that we could slide into second-rate nationhood pretty easily right now.

We need a truly great president right now – and for me, a great president isn’t one who magically solves all our problems, but one who inspires us to solve our problems. No president can get us out of the mess we have made unless he or she can inspire us to do great things, and there is at least some real chance that Obama has it in him; that’s no guarantee that he’ll be a great president, but given the alternative ... that’s plenty good enough for me. I think he grasps the significance of the moment, and I think he understands that ideology is not policy and policy is not ideology. His gift for oratory, far from being the sideshow that some of his detractors claim, is in fact central to the prospects and the possibilities of an Obama presidency. The Great Ones – Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan – have had one thing (and maybe only one thing) in common: the ability to stir us to great deeds with their words.

Post has more to say. It's not too long, and worth reading.

If you're really a conservative, vote for Obama. Then kick the Fundamentists out of the Republican Party. Then hold Obama's feet to the fire on spending and government regulation. America needs a strong political movement that espouses true conservatism. We've never had one. It's about time.

Vote no on Proposition 8, motherfucker

Voters here in California are being asked to vote on a ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage. A "yes" on Proposition 8 means that thousands of people who are now legally married in California are going to be forced to have their marriages dissolved. The people promoting this ballot initiative say they're defending marriage. I looked up "Orwellian" in the dictionary and their picture was there.

There are plenty of reasons to vote "no" on 8 and say "yes" to gay marriage. Here in the 21st Century, rational people know that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. It's a little twist of brain wiring, nothing more. Most people prefer to have sex with people of the other gender, but some prefer their own gender. Actually, as a percentage of the population, homosexuals are a relatively small group. It's not really a big deal. They don't hurt anyone.

There are many arguments for gay marriage. Many of them are the same arguments for straight marriage. Adults should have a right to marry whoever they want to marry, without restrictions on the basis of religion, ethnicity, race, or gender. Married people look after each other, and are less likely to become a burden on society. Married people are more likely to own property, they're more active in the community, and (statistically speaking) they make better parents to children.

Also, married people are less likely to fool around than single people are, which is a big deal to some of the same people who are (paradoxically) trying to deny marriage rights to a small minority of Californians.

Opponents of gay marriage have only have one argument, and it's not even a very good one: God doesn't like it.

That's a religious argument, and in this country, we don't pass laws because God told us to do it. That's how things operate in Iran, but not here. Here in America, we pass laws because they're good for society. The people advocating those laws may be inspired by God, but before the law is passed, they need to convince the rest of us that the law is good for society. And the Yes on 8 folks aren't doing that.

Here's why some other people think you should vote No on 8.

Anil Dash:

[J]ust forty one years ago, my marriage may well have been illegal. As a proud and unrepentant lifelong advocate and practitioner of miscegenation, my lifestyle would have been outlawed in many states, and not recognized as legitimate even in some territories where it wasn't explicitly legal.

It is now a historical inevitability that our country will legalize marriage for all couples. Though the fight is particularly polarized right now, and we will naturally face serious setbacks on the way to civil rights for all, I believe the time is close. As we saw in the fight against interracial marriages, the forces against progress are most extreme and invested right when they realize that history is against them.

Gina Trapani, who recently married her longtime partner, Terra:

We’re not asking that you change your mind about what marriage is, or that you allow for same-sex marriage in your church. This is an issue of CIVIL marriage, and civil rights, not religion. If Terra’s injured, I should be able to visit her in the hospital. If one of us goes to court, our communications should be protected by spousal privilege, and we shouldn’t have to testify against one another. If we wind up in a nursing home, we should have the right to stay together. If one of us dies, the other should have inheritance rights. Don’t ask how much I paid out-of-pocket for health insurance when I was freelancing because her employer at the time only offered coverage to married couples. If you agree that we should have the same rights as any heterosexual married couple, now’s the time to make a difference.

Gina also has a good write-up on the 1,049 federal rights that are dependent on marital status. These include hospital visitation rights:

Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions. Same sex couples can be denied the right to visit a sick or injured partner in the hospital.

Terra and I are registered as domestic partners in New York City, which means we could visit one another in a hospital within the five boroughs. However, if we took a car trip across the bridge to New Jersey and got into an accident, we're screwed.

Also, spousal privilege, which should be well-known to fans of Law & Order:

Spousal privilege, granted to married couples, is the right of a person to refuse to testify against their spouse in the court of law.

That means if Terra was sued, I could be called on to testify against her. And every email, phonecall, letter, IM and conversation between us would not be protected by spousal privilege, and could be entered into evidence.

Also, workplace family leave, pensions, the right to live together in a nursing home, the right to roll over a deceased spouse's retirement savings without paying a tax penalty, exemption from estate taxes, and more.

This is what gay marriage looks like:

Finally, this video points out that the ban on gay marriage is just another example of wrongful discrimination, like Japanese interment camps, bans on white people marrying blacks and Latinos, and even bans on Armenians owning property in the Central Valley of California.

The video is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, who regrettably talks in a regular radio-announcer voice. It's a good video, but it would be even better if he used his get-those-motherfucking-snakes-off-my-motherfucking-plane voice.