Once upon a time, in the beginning, I was a big fan of The Sopranos. Then, in the second season, the strain of maintaining those high standards got to David Chase and he got lazy and began leaning more heavily on violence. I barely made it through to the end of the second season. Once Dr. Melfi got raped in the third season, that was it. I stopped watching. The great drama of Tony and his crew and the fabulous acting were not enough to outweigh the orgies of blood and cruelty for its own sake.
All that was by way of introduction to these interesting comments from Howard Gordon, and executive producer of 24, which has come under a lot of criticism recently for portraying way too much torture on the show:
The decision to cut back on torture is driven by creativity, not criticism, according to Gordon. In its sixth season, 24 has become so torture-heavy that it borders on cliche, he says.
“What was once an extraordinary or exceptional moment is starting to feel a little trite. The idea of physical coercion or torture is no longer a novelty or surprise.
“It’s not something that we, as writers, want to use as a crutch. We’d like to find other ways for Jack to get information out of suspects,” says Gordon.
Calling MacGyver.***
———-
*** This is not an endorsement of torture. It is a shout-out to young men who were raised in more innocent, and perhaps more thought-provoking, times.
This will be a new feature: items I have no time to write about in detail
1) Brent Scowcroft and the paternalistic fantasies he presented as “realism” on This Week with George Stephanopoulos
[no transcript available; I tuned in when B.S. was just saying that Israel/Palestine was the key to solving all our problems.
Stephanopoulos said (to the best of my recollection): Do you mean to say that if only we bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians, the Sunnis and the Shia in Iraq will stop killing each other?
B.S.: Yes.
G.S.: How?
B.S.: Well, it will make everyone in the Middle East feel better, because they have had a grievance since 1948. Blahblahblah
G.S. moves on to the next question...but at least he asked it --ed.]
2) the NYT’s Caryn James’s interesting reviews leaning toward dissections of the celebrity industry (here and here)…until she veers into celeb-hero-worship of Brad Pitt (here)
With “Babel” and “The Departed” (which he produced through his company, Plan B), it will be hard to outdo 2006, though. If his stardom helped get attention for “Babel,” that alone would have meant a lot. To get such a heartfelt, down-to-earth performance from someone who spends so much time on Planet Celebrity is more than anyone could have hoped for.
3) the HuffPo’s Cent Uygur takes at utterly face value The Times (London)’s report that Israel intends to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran [!] and Uygur suggests that the appropriate response is for the United States to take military action against its ally Israel [!!];
for elaboration on this subject, see Daniel Freedman’s blogging of the sensational story yesterday and his blogging of Israel’s stone-faced denial today;
see here for perspective and context
see here for speculation about Israel’s deterrence capability
4) Peter Wood explains a lot in a story about the left and the “New Anger”
As far as I can tell, the partisan writings of 1800 never venture into the logic of, “Listen to me because I am really, really angry,” or, “The extremity of my anger proves the righteousness of my cause,” or, “Behold my disdain! It is a thing of wonder.” Those are some of the ways to tell the difference between the traditional forms of political anger and New Anger in its political manifestations. New Anger is about flaunting one’s anger as a kind of credential. It is a way of asserting one’s authenticity and, according to its own cultural logic, moving from authenticity to authority. Its essential message is, “I am to be believed and reckoned with because I am angry.” …
[Yes, quite. See, for example the rising popularity of the intellectually incoherent but incontestably angry "hero" Keith Olbermann. --ed.]
Libertarian sarcasm, however, only now and then dips all the way into the well of New Anger. That’s because the libertarian is caged in his self-image as someone who is moved by enlightened self-interest and rational thought. His anger, he mistakenly thinks, is just a good tool for getting his point across. By contrast, New Anger in its pure form is its own point. The Newly Angry are moved by a sense that they are most authentic, most transcendently themselves, when they are unleashing their anger. New Anger is the narcissistic self in high dudgeon.
[See also Matthew Yglesias's ridiculous put-down and smear of the Euston Manifesto, of which I am a supporter]
The article comes to me via Martin Peretz, who’s [sic] status as a cosignatory of the Manifesto proudly demonstrates what a hollow farce it is to present the document as some kind of left position.
[[I'm sure the principled anti-totalitarians Paul Berman and Michael Walzer, among other distinguished leftist signatories of the Manifesto, will be delighted to learn that young Ygleasis thinks they are not left enough. --ed.]]
(addendum: here’s a special bonus from a supremely ignorant but slavishily loyal commenter at Yglesias’s blog –ed.):
My one complaint about this post, and the subsequent comments, is that they serve the purpose of the authors. They pay attention to a document [the Euston Manifesto] that, as best as I can tell, was hashed out in a dorm rec room by pretentious stoners who understand roughly as much about international relations as my dog. He’s a very bright dog, but still.
Posted by: LaFollette Progressive on January 5, 2007 12:13 PM
