'Rango' Aims at 'Spiritual but Not Religious' Audience -- Which Is Sizable
"Rango" is a new movie that aims for an interesting demographic. Whatever its other charms, it's distinctly anti-religion but pro-spirituality. Which is likely to resonate pretty well with many viewers -- while of course irritating others. [SPOILER ALERT: I've not going to give up much that I've not seen in the various reviews. But if you're the type who doesn't want anything tipped off, please go see the movie before reading further. I'll wait.] The film is as good as most of the reviews describe it. In an era of too many needless sequels and "kid-friendly" movies that aim dumb, "Rango" is ...
Putting Terrestrial Politics in Context: What If Right and Left Evolved From Comet Critters?
Every so often, a news story comes along that puts our concerns about American politics – heck, terrestrial politics -- in different context altogether. Here's one: NASA scientist says some comets may hold critters. Well, not cat-plays-piano critters. More like what Antony van Leeuwenhoek called "animalcules" -- a kind of bacteria. Richard B. Hoover is an expert on "extremophiles," life that thrives on earth in conditions too hot, cold, high or deep for most things. But he's also been interested for a while in the possibility that life on this planet may have been seeded billions of ...
How Could Nir Rosen Not Have Known his Lara Logan Tweets Crossed the Line?
I'd never heard of Nir Rosen until Tuesday, when he became the author of the most reviled Tweets on the planet. Shortly after CBS sent out a news release explaining that correspondent Lara Logan "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" from a crowd of Egyptians following the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Rosen started posting Tweets. (I'm cleaning up the language of his quotes here, by the way, but making no other changes.) "Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson. Where was her buddy McCrystal." "Yes yes its wrong what happened to her. Of course. I don't ...
Tiananmen Square or Tahrir Square: Why Some Protests End in Bloodshed, Others in Regime Change
Consider the stories of two squares: Tiananmen Square, 1989. After seven weeks of demonstrations, the Chinese authorities had had enough. The army moved in and cleared the square and the surrounding area of protesters. According to eyewitnesses, the soldiers fired into groups of unarmed people, killing hundreds and maybe thousands. The merciless violence ended the protests. The regime endured. Shift to recent history and Cairo's Tahrir Square. As you surely know, 18 days of mostly nonviolent protests eventually moved though the entire country and brought down the regime of 30-year leader ...
The Fall of Mubarak, the Sacrifice of Tunisia's Mohamed Bouazizi, and a Turtle Named Mack
Who knows what will happen in Egypt now that Hosni Mubarak is gone? Who knows what will happen in Tunisia, with the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali? Or in the other countries of that region, where the stirrings of democracy seem to be popping up in the most unexpected places? The best any of us can have is the hope expressed by Martin Luther King Jr. decades ago (and alluded to Friday by President Obama): "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." But my first thought watching the crowds swell and cheer in Egypt was of a much more humble figure from ...
Revolution in Egypt: What Is Beyond Tahrir Square?
Watching the scene over the past few days in Egypt's Tahrir Square, I've been struck by two things: The first was how astonishingly civil the anti-government protesters were -- when they weren't being attacked by the pro-government forces. At least in the English-language interviews and in the signs they held up in English, they managed to convey anger without insult. I've not been able to watch nonstop, but I've seen coverage by the American networks, BBC and al-Jazeera English. And when pressed for their opinions about Mubarak, protester after protester took care to say that Mubarak had ...
The State of Our Union's Political Civility: Many Are Hungry for More
Does "the American people" want President Obama to make a case for political civility in his State of the Union address? Of course not. Despite the too-common political rhetoric, "American people" is a plural, not a singular, noun. There's no point of even slight controversy about which all 300 million of us stand as one. And even if I restate the question with the proper plural-noun grammar – "Do the American people...?" – I am not going to pretend that there's an unarguable answer for a majority. But there is some evidence that a lot of us would not mind another nod from ...
Doritos, Pepsi Max and Religion: An Unholy Mix in Super Bowl Ad Contest
The NFL playoffs are still underway. But I can already tell you that neither Michael Vick nor any quarterback named Manning will play in Super Bowl XLV. And neither will a particular chips-and-soda ad. The veteran quarterbacks got beat by better teams. The ad, however, was sacked by a rookie mistake: A misreading by the writer about the acceptable use of religion and humor. The ad was actually an entry to a contest run by Doritos and Pepsi Max. The challenge: Make an ad, post it to the contest site, and let people watch and vote for their favorites. The winner gets aired during the Super ...
Tucson Shooting: A Call for 'National Political Civility Month'
Maybe the biggest frustration for most people after an inexplicable event like the Arizona massacre is finding something to do other than condemn and mourn. I have an idea. I've always considered Black History Month to be unfortunate, in a way. Given how inextricably the history of blacks is entwined with the history of America and the world, what's the point of a separate month? As if we needed, say, an "Agricultural History Month." Is it possible to understand American history without understanding the history of American farming? And yet, I get it. There's a reason to focus attention on ...
The Arizona Massacre Was Insane -- Our Reaction Should Be Measured
Every infection is not an epidemic. And an act of crazed violence should not necessarily be treated as if it required a retooling of American society. We will learn more about the terrible events in Arizona that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 11 others wounded and Arizona's Chief U.S. District Judge John M. Roll and five others dead. But it's not too soon to roll out candidates for blame. For instance: 1) The Second Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court that have made guns so easy to own. 2) Sarah Palin's online poster of members of Congress she targeted for political attack and ...
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