In Which Slublog and Gib Research Huckabee So I Don’t Have To

Filed under:Politics,Priorities — posted by Anwyn on November 28, 2007 @ 2:37 pm

I didn’t mention Huckabee in my earlier endorsement of Fred Thompson even though, much to many people’s surprise, he appears to be surging. I’m reluctant to consider him a first-tier candidate and so did not mention him in my rundown of the rest of the Big Four. My primary reason for discounting him early on was his nanny-state approach with things like the ridiculous national smoking ban. But if you’re thinking Huckabee, take a good hard look at Slublog’s detailed assessment and Gib’s layout of a troubling incident, and then tell me why it’s a good idea to vote for somebody who may sound more fervent on abortion and other moral issues than Thompson but who, even if elected, will have no more real power to affect those issues than the mechanisms Thompson has already outlined–while at the same time he’s a big spender who, because of his evangelical appeal, will have a lot more trouble beating Hillary. I disagree with Slublog in that I don’t think it’s a Big Government menace to end what should clearly be a crime (abortion) at the federal level, but I do think the first step down that road will only be taken through federalism and returning the power to the states until the voices denouncing the crime become loud and numerous enough that it can become a federal issue. Mike Huckabee talks a good game about short-circuiting that process, but I agree with Thompson’s calculation that federal action at this stage is an unrealistic pipe dream and a bad political risk.

And lest we forget, Huckabee consistently called multitudes of Republican voters racist for wanting an end to illegal immigration because (paraphrased from an earlier debate), “I’ve seen it, I’ve talked to people.” As I’ve said before, I ain’t his Huckaberry and I hope these polls are wrong in showing how many of my fellow Christians are becoming so.

This Kind of Thing Gives the Rest of the Adults Who Like Harry Potter a Bad Name, See?

Filed under:Not Cool — posted by Anwyn @ 2:23 pm

Can I take even some cold comfort from the fact that the guy narrating the video has the grace to seem a little embarrassed?

Why don’t the brainiacs at MIT or someplace at least make a snitch that flies? That would be a game. People could try to catch it with lacrosse sticks while the opposing team remote-controls it. But no, just these lamers on their stupid broomsticks.

Rachel Lucas should pick this up and cuss at them far better than I can do. Morons.

Enchanted

Filed under:Movies,Reviews — posted by Anwyn @ 12:52 pm

**SPOILERS** for Enchanted below.

When I heard of the premise of Enchanted, in which a Disney cartoon princess becomes transmuted into real-life New York City, I thought it would be dumb. Then I saw a preview and could not stop laughing. The movie lived up to the trailers’ promise–funny and as good a romantic comedy as any I’ve seen in a long while. Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey are fantastic as the leads, walking a very difficult line between unbelievable (as in what guy could ever accept a woman coming from nowhere and acting like Disney’s Snow White into his NYC apartment?) and totally credible (and if he did, how could he help falling in love with her?). The movie is deft in accomplishing this–we are willing to forgive logistics non-sequiturs like the villain suddenly appearing as a hot-dog vender or a restaurant waiter attempting to poison Adams’s Giselle merely because that’s how it’s done in the classic cartoons, but give an appreciative nod to Dempsey’s Robert taking the precaution of having his daughter come to his room to sleep for the night because he’s letting a total stranger stay on his couch. A highly realistic thread is Robert’s struggle between his feelings for Giselle and his resistance to their fairy-tale quality and his engagement to a woman he doesn’t love so much, out of his sense of realism and a lurking fear that he must do this for the sake of his daughter’s motherless state–Dempsey conveys all this on his face and in his eyes, finally put to very good use after a few years of dogging hapless Meredith Grey on television. And it is notable that he does not step up to give Giselle The Kiss of True Love, even at the point of her possible death, until released from his former promise by the grating but ultimately goodwilled fiancee. This Austen-esque sense of duty and honor is compelling and, like many other touches, brings a lovely gravity to the movie’s light-hearted hilarity.

When I saw James Marsden as the cartoon Prince Edward, I had a fleeting thought of “I’ve see him before” and flashed a little on Ally McBeal, but still didn’t truly put it together until I saw the credits–he was so convincing and so far out of the last role I’d seen him in, as Cyclops in X-Men, that it was startling. Susan Sarandon gives a suitably evil performance as evil stepmother/wicked queen/poison-apple hag, and Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz put their long-honed Disney songwriting skills to wickedly funny use, as in Giselle’s housecleaning song that calls all available New York animals and gamely rallies after discovering they’re all “vermin.” And a cameo by The Little Mermaid herself, Jodi Benson, wraps it all up into a nice self-parodying package that manages at the same time to give out a big dose of warm-hearted joy.

Woven of two levels–obvious enough that any little girl who’s ever watched a Disney movie will understand the humor but grown-up enough for adults to enjoy the romance and ridiculous situations–this movie is very well done on a premise that could have proved far more difficult.

In the Cannon’s Mouth

Filed under:Cool,History,It's My Life,Photoblogging — posted by Anwyn @ 12:17 pm

A little vacation photoblogging. A casemate with cannon at Fort Sumter:

The same cannon (I think) from inside the fort:

And an empty casemate looking out to the ocean:



image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace