Monday, March 31, 2008
Quality Matters?
Here's my question of the week:
Why do porn rental stores still exist?
I mean, I understand why record stores and regular DVD rental places still exist in the digital high-speed age. Arguments can be made one way or the other about quality of formats. Some like the sense of physical ownership. Others like all the extras - the liner notes, the special features and what not - that you get with the physical copy.
But for the life of me I can't see how any of that would translate into porn. I mean, is there some porn connoisseur out there sniffing "Oh yes I tried some of those Internet downloads, but the quality was so poor that it just ruined the whole experience for me. And those pay-per-views - well, all I can say is that they're fine if you're happy with boring cookie-cutter mainstream offerings, but some of us have higher standards."
Special features? The director's commentary, perhaps? Correct me if I'm wrong but, if a person is in the mood for such business, patience and critical assessment are probably going to be in pretty short supply.
Maybe it's the French/Spanish translation features: "Ah! Ah! Bueno! Con mas fuerza!" Yeah, I can see where those subtleties would be lost if you didn't hear them in your own language.
If anyone else has any theories, I'd love to hear them.
posted by Mentok @ 9:40 a.m.,
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
At last, the perfect irony!
Long time readers will recall some of the vigorous debates and disputes we've had in this space and elsewhere about the nature and meaning of irony.
The concept of irony is famous for starting fights amongst those who care about language. Mrs. Mentok and I are both language professionals, so our children know that it's best to leave the room and hide all sharp objects when the topic of irony comes up at the kitchen table.
Now, at last, my work has given me a perfect example of classical irony as I see it. I'm working on a plain-language rendering of a big pile of bureaucratic documents. Here is an actual excerpt of the kind of thing with which I have to contend:
"Companies that apply best practices in process management give top priority to cross-functional value creation. The process driven enterprise has managers who communicate process information in a standardized set of terms understandable to all employees."
Oedipus could not have said it better himself!
posted by Mentok @ 6:14 p.m.,
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
.....Go Away, Come Again Another Day!
It snowed today.
The great (departed) Canadian writer Mordecai Richler once said March is the worst month to be Canadian, because that is the month when we realize that winter has gone on way too long.
I am, indeed, very very tired of snow.
It is said that the Inuit have over 100 names for snow. But this, as it turns out, is a myth.
In 1911, anthropologist Frank Boas observed that the Inuit have four words for snow. Over the course of the intervening century, the number simply became exaggerated until, in 1984, a New York Times editorial asserted that the number was 100, thereby making it a "fact".
Four words! Cripes, English has way more words for snow than that.
But not enough, for my liking. I wish the myth about Inuit words was true, because there just aren't enough English terms to fully capture the experiences of those of us who live in cold climates.
Of course, there is "powder", the term for the particular type of soft, fluffy, not-too-sticky snow that is perfect for skiing.
But there are no words for soft, wet, stickly snow that comes in big flakes or sharp, hard, very cold snow that comes in small flakes with razor-like edges or the very small, knife-like snow that comes down during blizzards.
There are no words for that quality of snow on the ground when it's very hard, crunchy and unfriendly or, conversely, for that softer consistency of snow on the ground that's perfect for snowballs and snow forts.
There is a colloquial word for the combination of snow, ice and dirt that builds up under the tire wells of your car. That's called "snard". But there are no equivalent words for very hard, compressed snow that builds up on driveways and sidewalks and that comes off in big chunks when you shovel it.
There really should be words for these. We should hold a national contest to come up with them and then announce the winners in March. It would give us something to look forward to.
posted by Mentok @ 12:39 p.m.,
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Don't Dilly Dalai
I haven't always been a big fan of the Dalai Lama, but I'm getting to be more and more of a fan every day.
I used to have a couple of beefs with the guy. First, there's that $20 he owes me (jk).
I have never much cared for Tibetan Buddhism's very literal approach to reincarnation and it's other superstitious aspects. Buddhism is supposed to be the anti-religion, the religion that avoids superstitious notions, yet throughout Asia and especially in Tibet it has gotten bogged down by all sorts of kooky local customs.
However, I recently read an interview with the Dalai Lama in which he subtly, diplomatically acknowledges this. Apparently, whenever he describes the various signs and portents that surrounded his alleged "rebirth", he always attributes them to other people e.g. "People say this happened" or "It is said that this occurred", rather than stating them as facts. In this way he keeps faith both with Tibetan culture and authentic Buddhist philosophy.
In the past, I've also been uneasy about the whole "Free Tibet" business. Buddhism is supposed to be about non-attachment, so it always struck me as unseemly for monks to get involved in nationalist movements.
But again the Dalai Lama has shown that he knows this. Despite the claims of the Chinese (or even, for that matter, Tibet's Western supporters), the Dalai Lama isn't calling for Tibetan independence, only for more political, religious and civil liberties within China.
I have been especially impressed by the Dalai Lama's response to the pro-Tibetan riots in China. He isn't calling for the world to come to the aid of freedom fighters or anything like that. He's called for an inquiry into the causes of the violence and has opened himself up to investigation as well, to prove that he had no role in provoking the riots. His consistency to the Buddhist faith is above reproach and truly inspiring.
Today's announcement, that the Dalai Lama has threatened to step down unless the rioting stops, is an act that can only be called Gandhi-like.
The impatience of the rioters is obviously understandable. But what neither they nor the Chinese see is that it is precisely at this moment that the Dalai Lama's ethical tactics - his good karma - will have the greatest effect.
So here's to the Dalai Lama, a great man of peace and well-deserving recipient of the Nobel Prize.
posted by Mentok @ 9:38 a.m.,
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Friday, March 14, 2008
We Need A New "-Ism"
The other day, I heard someone talking about the need to re-energize the "cause of socialism".
I was quite surprised to hear this, since I didn't think socialism per se was a cause anymore.
In saying that, I'm not attacking leftist views. More social spending, making the rich pay more of their share, more sustainable environmental policies, etc. etc. Yeah, those of course are all still very valid components of the public debate. The particular policy prescriptions that arise from those debates are either good or bad depending on the context.
But Socialism, with a big capital "s"? State ownership and management of the economy and what-not? Geezuz, how many times does the human race need to be bashed over the head? Didn't we just come through a whole century of socialist societies crashing and burning, not once, not twice, but over and over and over again?
This is not to say that capitalism is perfect. Obviously, it has many many failings as well. But it's a bit like Winston Churchill's assessment of democracy. He used to say "democracy is the worst system of government in the world, except for all the others."
To me, there is one overwhelming flaw in the entire concept of socialism: it relies on humans to run things. This has been universally demonstrated to be a bad idea. Humans have a very hard time coming to proper conclusions about relatively simple things, like not eating or drinking things that are bad for them. The notion that they could be relied upon to manage an entire economy, down to the tiniest details, is doubleplus ridiculous.
Perhaps if we had somewhere on the planet a minority population of angels, titans, elves or Vulcans, then maybe socialism would work. But this pack of glorified chimps to which we belong has consistently demonstrated that they are unable to make correct choices unless they are tricked, bribed or threatened into doing so.
And that's assuming that someone actually knows what the "correct choices" are. Again, until the Vulcans land, if we have to rely on our fellow Great Apes to figure things out for us, we will most certainly be stuck in a perpetual cycle of stupidity and short-sightedness, only occasionally interrupted by good ideas, which are probably just fluke luck. To paraphrase an old cliche, a million humans at a million typewriters will eventually write the greatest novel ever written.
But there I go sounding way too cynical again. In truth, I'm not so misanthropic. Far from it. I think it's cool and fun that a flawed and rather silly species like ours has achieved as much as we have.
However, I think much of what the human race has achieved has happened because we've followed the path of least resistance, the path that most conforms with primal feelings like fear and hunger. Sun Tzu's Art of War describes one of the qualities of an effective army as being like a rock at the top of a hill; it just naturally goes in the direction you want it to go. An effective economy should be the same way, which is why socialism will always, always be doomed: socialism tries to push the rock up the hill.
That's why capitalism, for all of its flaws, has been so successful. The whole Gordon Gekko "Greed is good" notion has some validity.
Ultimately, though, we will have to figure out some other way to do things. Capitalists will never feed the hungry, cure the sick or clean the environment on their own initiative, because it is not their function to do so. Their function is to create material wealth and leave to the random chance of the free market to figure out how it's used.
In my experience, a thing's greatest strength usually also turns out to be its greatest weakness. It seems to me that capitalism has a rather obvious fatal flaw: everyone is greedy. Everyone resents the rich, wants to steal their shit and longs to pull them down. When an alpha male chimpanzee has too many girl friends, the other blue-balled males eventually get fed up and bash the dirty old bugger's head in with a rock. Sooner or later, like it or not, that is the fate of capitalists, and all the economic theories and spin-doctory in the world cannot protect them from this fundamental aspect of ape nature. (c.f. Conrad Black, har har.)
So, if capitalism eventually falls (could take centuries) and socialism is a wash-out, what will the economy of the future look like? What will the next "-ism" be?
I'm sure I'm not nearly smart enough to figure that out. Hell, I can't even balance my cheque-book without Mrs. Mentok's help. Maybe no human will ever be smart enough to figure such things out completely.
But I do have an inkling, a half-baked notion. It's not sexy or cool, in fact it's quite the opposite of sexy and cool:
Pension funds.
Think about it. Already, pension funds and other sorts of retirement investments represent some of the largest pools of capital in the world. Just the other day, the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund successfully bought out Bell Canada for $51 billion. If and when the economies of China and India hit Western standards, just try to imagine the enormity of the pension funds set aside for those massive populations.
These funds will always gravitate to the blue-chip side of the investment spectrum: the power companies, the phone companies, the established mining interests. There will still be plenty of get-rich-quick opportunities (and risks) in other, smaller aspects of the economy, but the fundamentals of the economy will be owned by, well, the People.
So, long and short, if we get to a point where the Market is still free and open but the economy is largely owned by all of us through our pensions and such, won't we have effectively fallen ass-backwards into a sort of socialism, without all that messy shootin'-people revolution business? Isn't ass-backwards always the way the human race advances?
I'm sorry, I'm sure I've deflated your expectations. I'm sure you thought I was going in a whole different direction with this. My view, like it or not, is that the universe is unfolding as it should and that interfering with it through grand schemes (like the Cause of Socialism) will likely screw it up.
But that's just my opinion. If you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them.
posted by Mentok @ 11:55 a.m.,
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008
It's a Sin!
Yesterday, the Vatican released it's revised list of sins. Apparently, this is something they do regularly.
Last year's updates included things like road rage, alcohol abuse and, if you can believe it, rudeness. (This from a religion whose main guy was always going on wine runs for his buddies and who seemed to be constantly snarking off at his mom and almost anyone else in authority.)
This year's list includes genetic engineering, pollution and drug abuse. OK, I get why they need an update to capture those first two, but I'm surprised they are so late to the party with that last one. Does this mean that drug abuse was not previously a sin? Or was it always a sin but only recognized as such now? If the latter, does that mean that punishment for the sin will be meted out retroactively?
That's a thorny question. Not the drug abuse part, which I of course agree with completely. For the record, Buddha was all over this 2,500 years ago with clear instructions against abuse of not only alcohol but intoxicants and "poisons" of all sorts.
No, the troubling part is the prospect that the Vatican can just make up new sins and then enforce them retroactively. If they can do that, then Christians can never be on solid ground with anything they do. Next year, they could declare chocolate a sin and then old aach-eee-double hockey sticks would get a giant population boom.
Doesn't seem quite fair. It would never hold up in a secular court. Is there an appeal process? Who picks these sins? Was there a public consultation process? Was there an impact study done?
What I'm most curious about is whether there's any process to petition for new sins. I've got a whole list of people I'd be happy to send to hell, as soon as "crowding my frickin' parking spot", "scheduling meetings too early in the morning" or "failing to invite me to your big fancy Christmas party for the third goddamn year in a row" get recognized as official sins.
Even if there isn't a petition process, I think the Vatican is missing out on a huge opportunity for public engagement. They should take a cue from Hollywood and do some build up to the Sin List, like the Academy does with the Oscars: "Work-place back-stabbing is favoured to top the Sin List this year, after it got the nod as a sin from the Islamic Council and several Protestant denominations, but watch out for dark horse 'publishing underwear ads', considered the favourite among the more conservative Italian priests."
What do you think? Are there any as-yet unrecognized sins you'd like to see added?
Labels: "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer"
posted by Mentok @ 10:20 a.m.,
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Saturday, March 08, 2008
I, Elmer
It all started a couple months ago. Late at night, in the deep frozen heart of the prairie summer, Mrs. Mentok and I heard a bone-chilling sound: little feet scampering up the walls. Within a few days, we could also hear sounds coming from the attic.
We had gone to war against mice in our basement last summer and won. We now knew all the tricks for preventing and extracting rodents from the basement. But the attic? That was a whole new ball game.
We took a trip to the local hardware store and loaded up on glue traps, which we had found was the #1 most effective method in the basement. We crawled up into the attic and distributed as many glue traps as we could. Then we waited.
When we went back to check on the traps, something quite odd had happened. They had been moved, some of them quite far, in the direction of an apparent nesting area. But it looked as though whatever had stepped in them had managed to shake them off. That couldn't have been easy, because while checking I got one on my own hand. Even with brisk shaking, it didn't come off. While flailing about trying to get it off, I managed to get another on my knee. I reached down to take that one off, but forgot I was using the hand that already had a glue trap on it, so I succeeded only in getting the two traps stuck together. I finally yanked them off but managed to hit my head very hard on the rafters while doing so.
Anyway, that's when we knew were dealing with something larger than a mouse.
A few days later, we saw footprints in the snow on our roof that confirmed the awful truth: we had squirrels.
Well, one squirrel anyway. I've seen him:
He's much larger, redder and meaner looking in real life.
I've dubbed him Rasputin. I don't know why. He's just seems somehow Russian and very evil.
Not to mention cocky. Once, I got within a few feet of the little bastard, just outside my reach. He just stared back at me. When I move forward to try to whack him with a stick, he nimbly moved back a few feet, just far enough for me to lose my footing and fall into a snowbank.
Another time, he perched up in a tree branch within sight of me. I grabbed a garbage can lid and hurled it at him. I was pleased but, sadly, unprepared for the fact that the lid achieved a boomerang effect, just like in Captain America comics.
Another trip to the hardware store. This time, I brought back this nasty looking device, designed to snare rats, squirrels and (incongruously) minks. I carefully set the trap in the backyard, certain that so much steel was certain to yield results.
The next morning, the trap was gone. Just vanished.
I wouldn't be half as determined if Rasputin was a reasonably good house guest, but that's not the case. Night after night, he disturbs our sleep as he rolls in at all hours to settle in for the night. Every morning, he freaks us out at breakfast when he does his daily nesting ritual, which is so noisy that it sounds like he's going to break through the kitchen ceiling. Sometimes I pound on the ceiling in an effort to scare him away. I swear sometimes it sounds like he's pounding back.
This morning, the boys and I took our dog out for a walk. Our beloved canine is a schnoodle, half poodle, half Schnauzer. He has always displayed excellent natural hunting-dog traits. As we approached the back yard, I spied Rasputin, with his back to us, sitting on the picnic table munching on a morsel of garbage.
"Ha ha ha," I said to the boys. "Be very, very quiet."
I let the dog go. He knew exactly what to do. He's always had fantastic leaping abilities and within two or three bounds he was within range of the despicable varmit.
SNAP!
We found out where the trap had gone. Fortunately, it's jaws weren't strong enough to do any real harm to a canine.
And so the battle continues. Wish me luck.
Labels: Be vewy, vewy quiet
posted by Mentok @ 1:49 p.m.,
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Thursday, March 06, 2008
Devil's Advocate: Bill C-10
With apologies to my foreign readers, there's a couple things I wanted to get off my chest about the Bill C-10 controversy.
For those near and far who haven't been following it, the Tory federal government in Canada has brought in a bill to give the Heritage Minister discretion to refuse federal arts funding to film projects that involve excessive violence or sex.
So now of course the left is in full dudgeon screaming "censorship" this and "Christian right" that.
Well, enough already, I say.
For starters, before anyone suggests otherwise, I still consider myself a progressive conservative (even though we no longer capitalize those letters on the federal level). I don't like the Christian right any more than anyone else does and I usually look askance at any legislation that involves the government intruding on morality issues.
But this is different, and here's why:
1. It's Not Censorship, Dammit - since when did not giving someone a grant mean the same as censorship? If my kid applied for a government scholarship and didn't get it, could I justifiably claim "the government banned my kid from college!" There's a huge difference between banning something and not actively supporting it. But, of course, Canadian artists have grown so out of touch with the Canadian public and so completely dependent on the public teat that, apparently, they aren't capable of making that distinction.
2. On the Sex Side, Nothing Much Has Changed - arts funding legislation already contains clauses stating funding cannot go to pornography. So, already there is somebody somewhere sitting in an office making judgment calls about how much sex is too much to get a government grant. Now, instead of that person being a bureaucrat, it's an elected representative of the people responsible for the prudent spending of tax dollars. Sorry, I just don't see why that's such a bad thing. Besides, the power will obviously never be used in an active way (the minister isn't going to take the time to review all films applying for funding) but only if and when there's some public outcry.
3. On the Violence Side, Good Riddance - Since Trudeau first introduced significant grant and tax incentive funding for films, producers of slasher horror movies have shamelessly exploited the system. These movies belong in the same cultural waste-bin as porn and should be judged the same way, yet thanks to the Liberals' no-strings-attached funding policies, Canadian taxpayers have forked over millions to help produce Prom Night and other such glorious tributes to Canadian culture.
4. Give the Dog a Bone - hysterical types have claimed Bill C-10 is proof that the Tory party has been "taken over by the Christian right". Considering that there are as many gay Tory ministers as there are fundamentalist Christian Tory ministers, I really kinda doubt that. But the Tory party, like all moderate, broad-based brokerage parties, has to appeal to its various factions from time to time. The Christian right in Canada has lost every battle, internal and external, on big issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. If once in a blue moon they succeed in getting public funding pulled from a movie with a lot of screwing in it, well, that's not such a big give if you ask me.
5. Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword - it's quite laughable that the members of Canada's inbred artistic community (why look, there's Gordon Pinsent in another movie) are now trying to portray themselves as these poor innocent independent-minded waifs who don't know nuthin' 'bout all this politics stuff. They are outrageously, shamelessly partisan, always have been. Roughly half the people in this country have right-of-centre outlooks, yet you would never know this by watching the CBC aka the Trudeau Documentary Channel. It is, of course, their right to trash the Tories all they like, but can they then really expect the Tories to smile about it? "Excuse me sir, could you please give me a billion dollars so I can continue to tell people what an asshole you are?" Yeah, there's a smooth sales pitch.
6. A Bit of Self-Censorship Might Be Good For 'Em - the big hew and cry on the left is that C-10 will cause artists to self-censor the kinds of projects they submit for funding. Well, maybe it's about time. Those grants were put in place to try to build a thriving film industry in Canada, like the film industries in, say, Britain or France. Instead, the grants have ended up funding the lifestyles of a bunch of hippies and champagne socialists who crank out a zillion and one movies about lesbians, feminism, drug addicts and other such heart warming subjects. All this talk about "it's the duty of the artist to challenge the public" is nonsense, because no one outside of an inbred little cluster of people actually watches these films. This legislation will only last a few years, because sooner or later the Liberals will get back in and overturn it. So a few years of the Canadian film community maybe thinking about making films Canadians might actually watch - that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
In conclusion, for the benefit of any of you out there who might have doubted whether I am really a conservative, permit me to say: Goddammit, why don't you get off the public teat and go out and get yourselves some real jobs, you frickin' deadbeat hippies!
posted by Mentok @ 1:25 p.m.,
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