Fahrenheit 9/11

According to an AP review of “Fahrenheit 9/11”, the movie “will reinforce whatever opinions people had when they walked into the theater — about President Bush, its subject, and Moore.” I went to see it tonight at the Midtown Cinema with no fully formed thoughts about its subject — general dislike for both Bush & Moore aside — and left feeling much the same way.

I’d never seen a Michael Moore film before and mostly thought of him as arrogant and obnoxious. Admittedly, I’d done what I could to avoid hearing and reading about him because I knew I disagreed with his agenda, but from what I had picked up, my gut took over and I instinctively hated him. My image of him shifted slightly as a result of “Fahrenheit,” but is not much more favorable than it was. He’s a master propangandist with a talent for pushing buttons and moving audiences, but I don’t feel any more educated than I did at the beginning of the evening.

Let me say right now that I want Bush out of office. I am extremely disappointed in him and his administration and am terrified at the prospect of four more years of the same.

On the other hand, I am not convinced of the conspiracy theories I hear from all corners of the political arena, and “Fahrenheit” did nothing to bring me any closer to a conclusion. While it succeeded in raising quite a few “what ifs?”, it did nothing to fill in the holes. And because Moore’s agenda is so blatant it’s impossible to believe him without seeing all of the documents he referenced and probably more — just as Bush’s agenda is so blatant that it’s impossible to believe him.

I was also skeptical about Moore’s portrayal of Bush. In one sequence Bush was a bumbling idiot, then a pawn of his father and his cohorts, then a scheming and greedy businessman masterfully engineering an elaborate plot. It’s possible that he really is all three but I find it more likely that he’s being represented this way so that any anti-Bushite watching the movie will an image with which they can identify.

Most of the movie, in fact, appealed to base emotions rather than reason, just as it condemned the administration for resorting to fear to control the population. Images of young soldiers talking about their fears and the violent music they listened to while bombing Baghdad were interesting and moving but would remain the same in any military conflict and are not the product of an unjust war. Lila Lipscomb’s loss is heartbreaking, but the images of her visiting the White House were cloying and over the top.

This is a great campaign piece for the Democratic party, or, really, for anyone who opposes Bush. It will help them feel righteous about their beliefs and perhaps even persuade some who are still on the fence about the fall election. But it doesn’t deserve the genre title ‘documentary’, even if Moore is correct in all of his assertions.

Completely unrelated to the movie itself, it was heartening to see so many people flocking to the Midtown. I tried to go yesterday evening but even arriving before tickets went on sale wasn’t early enough to make it in. We arrived at the theater around 6:20 tonight, for a 7:00 showing, and judged that the crowd out front was even larger than yesterday’s, so came back at 8:15 for a 9:30 showing. The Midtown doesn’t sell tickets in advance because they “don’t have a computer”, so there was no way to know whether or not we were going to make it in then either, until a theater employee with a manual counter came through the line asking everyone how many tickets they were planning to purchase. When he reached the end of the line he said, “As long as no one’s lying to me, we have 93 people.” There were 138 seats, all of which were full by the time the movie started.

The Midtown is the only theater in the area playing “Fahrenheit”, but it’s exciting to see that there are that many people interested enough to stand in line for over an hour and sit in uncomfortable seats watching a tiny screen. The audience was diverse, both racially and chronologically, though skewed toward young and white. I didn’t know there were that many young people in the area, let alone that many young people who cared enough to see a movie like “Fahrenheit.” I hope it encourages them to continue thinking.

I can always change my name

I spent this weekend in western Massachusetts, visiting friends I made at Hampshire College. I left Hampshire after one year and haven’t seen anyone from there in four years, but half a dozen or so of the people I met during that time have remained close to my heart, even as we fell out of touch. Most of the friends I remember graduated within the last year or so and have scattered to different areas but Jared and Justin are still living in western Mass, for now. When Jared called a few weeks ago to invite me to come see them before Justin moves to Boston, I was thrilled to be able to do so. The time I was there was very brief, but I had time to sample some good local beer, hear some cool music, and have a great conversation with the two of them covering life since Hampshire, plans for the future, and political beliefs.

As we said goodbye on Sunday afternoon Jared said, “I’m glad you’re the same Julia I remember.” I didn’t know what to say because I feel like I’ve grown immensely in the last four years, but at the same time I recognized the truth in what he was saying. He and Justin have grown and matured, but they too are still fundamentally unchanged. We were young and idealistic in our first year of college and we are young and idealistic now. We are all, however, more informed than we were then, as well as more contemplative and articulate.

I wonder, though, if ten years from now will find us equally unchanged but growing. The story of growing up often seems to be one of abandonment of ideals in favor of jobs, families, houses, and cars. I see many of my peers, chronological and otherwise, struggling to find a balance, with varying degrees of success.

Some ideals seem to be inherently more compatible with the “real world.” Jared spoke a little bit about thinking that he will never have the money for many of the things he wants to do unless he compromises his ideals. Aside from my feelings about the malleability of our world and a belief that it can be possible to make a decent living without that kind of compromise (unless of those ideals is that money is evil), I wonder if eventually he, like so many of my parents’ generation (sidenote: one of the things I most admire about my parents is that they have always tried to live to their highest truths, and, I think, done well at it) will re-evaluate their priorities in favor of family, comfort, and stability. And I wonder if we make those decisions we are fundamentally changed. I arrived home in the midst of all this wondering and awoke this morning to an email from Kevin about the Enneagram.

I have seen books about the Enneagram in the Self-Help and (pseudo-)Spiritual sections of bookstores and have always dismissed it as hand-wavy crap without knowing anything about it. I have, however, always been interested in personality typing, including the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (I’m an INTP), so I followed the link in the email and took their free test. It told me that I am a Type 5, which, after reading the descriptions, is where I would have put myself. That intrigued me enough to keep reading.

While some of the philosophy behind it still does seem a little hand-wavy to me, other aspects rang true. There’s a lot I don’t know about it, having just visited their website this morning for the first time, but one thing that struch me was the way in which it analyzed motivation, rather than just behavioral personality. For example, the “Key Motivation” for my type is knowledge. Other types might list beauty, joy, generosity, or truth. The site also includes the following discussion of personality:

The personality has the function of closing us down so that we can feel more defended against a threatening and uncertain world. At one time in our lives, in childhood, this response was adaptive and necessary. We had to identify with whatever qualities we found in ourselves in order to defend ourselves more efficiently and to find our place in the world.

But if we were able to stop identifying with our personality right now, who would we be? What would guide our actions? Who or what would be speaking in us? If, all of a sudden, the “autopilot” that directs many of our actions is no longer in charge, how would we be able to live?


This idea of personality as almost a contrivance of the ego is one that’s always held truth for me, but I’ve also always felt that there was still something fundamental that wasn’t contrived. While Myers-Briggs is an interesting personality inventory, it doesn’t concern itself with the more fundamental things that the Enneagram does. I don’t plan to run out and buy any of their books, but pseudo-spiritualist bullshit or not, what I’ve read so far fits fairly cleanly with other beliefs that I already have, adding a dimension to my ideas about psychology and spirituality.

Get ’em Hooked

Microsoft to emerging markets: We’ve got a deal for you

This strikes me as a “The first one’s free” strategy, but a good example of how capitalism can have some synergistic results. And blah blah, it’s not capitalism because it’s a deal with a foreign government, but Microsoft’s motivations are purely capitalistic. But that doesn’t mean it won’t help both Microsoft and the consumers in the long run.

Mostly, I like the idea of the citizens all these developing countries getting computers for dirt cheap. Up to this point, the evolution from an agricultural society has, in most cases, been slow and painful. While most of the countries mentioned in the article have their share of sweatshops, etc., I’m hopeful that proliferation of information and access to that information will allow them to evolve more quickly. Even if it costs us a few jobs.

Reagan

A Time for Choosing

“You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.”
-Ronald Reagan
October 27, 1964

It’s a great speech, and so relevant today. I just wish one of the current candidates offered any significant amount of individual freedom. Reagan may not have been ideal, but the ideals he talks about in this speech are.

Dancing for twenty years

This weekend we celebrated The Circle School’s 20th Anniversary. We had a big potluck on Friday, and then yesterday was the big event, with an Open House, guest speakers flown in from Massachusetts, a fabulous talent show, and a spectacular dinner for 150 current and past students and their families, as well as friends of the school. I chaired the committee responsible for the weekend, and planning of the celebration has consumed my life for the last few weeks, which is why I haven’t updated recently. It went better than I had ever dreamed it could, but the best part, for me, was dancing under the tent after the public had left and we could relax.

I am grateful for The Circle School’s existence in a way that I cannot ever hope to express. It is an inextricable part of me, of my family, of everything I will ever be. But one of the things that I wanted during my high school years was just to be a normal teenager, as do, I think, many long time TCS students. We *want* all that stupid adolescent drama and the crushes and the falling in love and the school dances celebrating that adolescence. Especially, we want to celebrate the end of all that stupid glorious shit with the very specific event known as PROM.

In planning this event, Johanna kept talking about dancing after dinner and I scoffed and said it would never happen, that TCS people just don’t dance, that we would never get that prom we had always hoped for, even tried to have during my final year at TCS, but never did. I mean, how do you have that kind of event at a school where not only are all ages treated equally, but also where the the lines between students, staff, and parents are often blurred? How do you have that event when some years there is, as there was in my final year, only one graduate? It’s something we’ve all wrestled with, and we’ve never come up with an answer.

I graduated from The Circle School six years ago, though it feels like only a few months since I left. I guess there are parts of me that never let go of that desire for a prom, even though I have left the rest of adolscence long behind. While we were dancing our hearts out last night, Johanna turned to me and said simply, “The prom we never had.” And it was. It was our celebration, the end of The Circle School’s adolescence, in true TCS fashion, with students, staff, and parents all joyfully bouncing to amazingly fun music.

Of course it was even sweeter because of the success of the other events of the day, because it was the first time in weeks that I felt truly able to relax, and because the people who stayed until the end are the ones who have been, and always will be, my family. Of all the things The Circle School has given me, the community is what I cherish most.

But a couple hours of dancing in the pouring rain until my feet hurt so much I can barely walk is pretty good too.

Liberal media?

CNN.com – Gallup poll shows tight race for presidency – May 6, 2004

This article talks about more of what we already know, but what’s interesting to me is the side-by-side pictures of Kerry and Bush at the top.

I know CNN is supposedly pretty liberal, but Kerry looks like a droopy cartoon dog while Bush looks like a War President. Kerry doesn’t always look that silly, and they could have used any stock photo they wanted. Why this one?

Thank god we’re not superficial enough to let a candidate’s looks influence how we vote…

PA in the Middle East

The Daily Star – Opinion Articles – Hearing Iraq’s echo in Pennsylvania election politics

Many thanks to Kristin Dailey for letting me know about this article, an interesting look at PA’s importance in the upcoming presidential election from a Middle Eastern perspective.

As I told her, I was startled to see that Bush received more votes in the Pennsylvania primary than all the Democratic candidates combined. I would have guessed that fewer Republicans would bother voting in a closed primary with only one Republican presidential candidate, resulting in a higher Dem:GOP ratio than we’ll see in the fall. But perhaps Specter/Toomey battle brought Republicans out, or maybe the Democratic voters didn’t come out because Kerry already had the nomination.

What startled me even more was that this article makes it sound like the most conservative Republicans voted for Specter not because they agree with him on the issues, but simply because Bush told them to.

Scary.