Low Quality H2O
"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put it in a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot and it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
I have always thought of water as being awesome. You can drink it, you can shower with it, you can swim in it, and you can even Chinese Water torture with it. Definitely something innate in human nature that draws us to water, something about water that fascinates people to the core. I think the first chapter of Moby Dick talks about this exact subject, but I'd rather not think about that book right now.
Anyways, some of you who are loyal readers of my page may already be thinking to yourselves, "Here we go again... another one of Dudo509 Blogspot's retarded tributes to some silly topic, like the Sun, Britney Spears, the town of Darien, the White Sox, or salads." Well, you would be wrong.
This time, I would like to take the time and effort to bash water, instead of praise it. The reason? It's Friday night. Actually Saturday morning, around 3 or 4 am, when my sister calls me up from Darien to tell me that the power went out and that our basement is flooded with 3 inches of water. Me, half asleep, tells her that there's nothing we can do about it right now, so go back to sleep and we'll take care of it in the morning.
Of course, now that I'm fully awake, I can't stop thinking about our flooded basement, so about another half hour later, I decide to just drive home and check on the basement myself. On the way back, I noticed that there's not a lot of cars on the highway at 4-5 in the morning, other than FedEx and UPS trucks.
As I drive into Darien, I notice that the entire place is dark. Stoplights and streetlights are completely off, store signs unlit, and my block looks like a scene out of a zombie movie. Then I get to my house and realize that with no electricity, the garage door won't open. Under my breath, I curse the state of Illinois for letting our most talented homegrown Power Engineers slip away to north of our borders. "I bet all of the 'Sconz is up and running right now," I say to myself.
With our storm door locked, I end up having to call and wake up my sister to open the door for me. We go down to the basement, and sure enough, there's at least 3 inches of water there, maybe 4 at this point. I hear a clicking noise in the corner, which was the backup sump pump futilely trying to start. Stupid thing wasn't working, only making stupid noises. Otherwise the basement wouldn't have flooded. Oh well.
So I figure that I better walk through the basement and unplug everything, and make sure to move anything valuable to higher ground. Since I didn't have rubber boots, I ended up getting an old pair of shoes and tying plastic bags around them, something I remember doing back from Camp Edwards in sixth grade. I think I looked pretty weird at that moment, with plastic bags around my ankles, jeans rolled up to the knees and everything. In fact, my sister decided to take some pictures of me to record exactly how stupid I looked.
The good thing was, there wasn't a lot to unplug, and nothing that valuable down there. The bad thing was that the "plastic bags around shoes" idea stopped being effective when I was about halfway to the other side of the basement.
Anyways, we went to sleep, and by the next morning, the power had come back on, and most of the water was pumped out. All was good again, except that the pieces of carpet were still soaked, there was dirty residue covering all the tiled areas, and the whole basement smelled disgusting, kind of like an old fish tank.
So as I alluded to earlier, this weekend's flooded basement experience caused me to become more aware of the uglier side of water. Yes, it is still a great beverage, and yes, I still think oceans are cool, but it is definitely not fun to clean up the mess left by dirty rainwater in one's basement. The worst parts about water I learned this weekend:
- Soaked pieces of carpet that reeked like a mother hugger. Trying to carry them from the basement to the garage to the driveway to the deck without messing up the rest of the house was not easy or fun.
- Soaked cardboard boxes. Like the silly aliens in Signs, water is like kryptonite to cardboard. Not only that, but if you have the corrugated cardboard, you get a nice surprise when you pick it up and all the water trapped inside rushes out. Fortunately, most of our stuff down there was in plastic bins or plastic bags, but there were still plenty of things stored in cardboard boxes to make life miserable during the cleanup process. I might have to write an "Ode to Plastic" sometime.
- Mopping up the dirty water that had collected all the dirt, dead bugs, rust juice, etc. in the basement. Squeezing out the concentrated filth into the bucket and dumping it out was not pleasant.
In the end, I realized that Bruce Lee was right. The worst enemy to deal with in a fight is water. Specifically, old nasty floodwater. Virtually impossible to catch and manage, with an overwhelmingly bad smell to boot. Definitely a battle I would just like to avoid in the future. Anyways, my body is so sore and blistered right now that I'm not sure I could fight a mouse (not my expression, one of my managers likes to say that).
*****
McNown League 2004
The weekend was not entirely without positives, however. The 2004 McNown League draft took place last night and I'm actually feeling pretty happy with the results. Didn't like being in the 4th spot, but a good start was having LaDainian Tomlinson fall to me somehow (Priest, Ahman, and Portis were taken 1-2-3). Starting lineup for my team looks like:
QB - Aaron Brooks
RB - LaDainian Tomlinson
WR - Terrell Owens
Flex - Domanick Davis
Flex - Tiki Barber
Flex - Peerless Price
TE - Boo Williams
K - Jason Elam
D - Ray Lewis
D - Keith Bulluck
D - Rodney Harrison
Not expecting a whole lot out of Owens this year, but I wouldn't mind seeing him prove me wrong by busting out. Also, I like having Aaron Brooks at QB, but maybe that's only because he's never been on my team to frustrate me personally. Other than that, the flex looks a little weak beyond Davis. I'm not that worried though, because I think everyone else's flex is kind of weak too. Just means we'll have to fight it out on the waiver wire is all.
September 9th is only 10 days away. LET THE NFL SEASON BEGIN...
Monday, August 30, 2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004
- I have written about my disdain for weather reports more than once in the past, but I don't care. Weather forecasts are a sham and a waste of time and I'll keep saying it unless they someday improve and make me change my mind. It pisses me off that given all the technology available today, they still can't do any better than the weak sauce they feed us.
I hate the ambiguity of their reports. What's the difference between "partly cloudy" and "partly sunny"? Other than the occasional day when the sky is completely clear or completely covered, isn't every day "partly sunny" or "partly cloudy"? What does "40% chance of rain" mean to me? Should I bring 40% of an umbrella, wash 40% of my car, or shut my windows 40% of the way? I don't need some hyped-up meteorologist telling me that it might rain or it might not rain, or that there's probably going to be some clouds in the sky along with some sunlight. I knew that already.
And even though they never commit to anything, they still get it wrong. For the past few days up through this morning, all I see is rain in their "forecasts". Rain, rain, more rain tonight, thunderstorms the rest of the week. Then I open up the same weather report a couple hours later and what do I see? Big happy sunny icons representing today's conditions. That's great that you can tell me it's sunny right now. I can look out the window and do just as well. Did you really need your fancy Doppler radar to tell you that one? Still, they make sure to cover their butts in case it ends up raining: "Some clouds. A stray thunderstorm is possible." Now, if you can't accurately predict what's going to happen later this same day, how can you expect anyone to believe what's in your 7-day forecasts?
- While getting my hair cut a few days ago, the lady asked me if I was going back to school soon. I said no, I graduated a couple years ago and now I'm working. Her response: "Oh that's great, my daughter graduated last year and she's working now too. So how old are you, like 19, 20...?"
- Olympics are cool, but I think I'm glad they are only once every 4 years. For a lot of these events, I can see why they aren't more popular outside of the Olympics. I'm not just talking about obscure stuff like archery, walking, fencing, trampoline, etc. I'm getting sick of the swimming, gymnastics, track & field too. So much politics and subjectivity to these sports that it just becomes too much to handle. Someone wins a medal and then you have all this bickering about tenths and hundredths of points in scoring, judging bias, illegal "dolphin kicks", doping, all this extra garbage that just turns off fans. Then they wonder why nobody wants to follow their sport more regularly.
- My current guilty pleasure in life is listening to the Jim Rome show when I'm driving home and back for lunch. Not because it's awesome, but because it is so awful that it's entertaining in a train-wreck kind of way. If it's not long uncomfortable pauses ("dead air", if you will), it's Rome harping on one subject for 20 minutes. And not like he's making new points, just saying the same thing over and over, with different phrasing until he's completely beaten the subject to death:
"Team USA loses in beach volleyball to Switzerland, a land-locked country. We lost to a country that has no oceans on any of its borders! They're land-locked! How sad is that, we can't win against the Swiss, who have zero beaches! They're a land-locked country! It's BEACH-volleyball. We invented the sport, we have beaches all over the place. You go to Switzerland, there's no oceans around!
[10 minutes later]
Simply pathetic, losing in beach volleyball to Switzerland. What a JOKE. I can see us losing to them in Alpine skiing, they have that. Not beach volleyball. We oughta be ashamed. Simply UNACCEPTABLE. We invent the sport, now we lose to a land-locked country.
I think what we need is to invent more Olympic events. How about 'shopping at the GAP'? I bet we could win gold in that pretty easily. How about 'eating fast food" and "being lazy'? That's something Americans are definitely good at. I think we should compete to see who has the worst reality shows. Guaranteed gold medal for USA there. I know, let's do Olympic 'shopping at the GAP'! Who's going to beat us in that? I'm sure Lithuania would have no chance. Or maybe 'starting wars', that's something our country is good at too.
[10 more minutes pass]
Since we can't win in the sports that we invented ourselves, that's what we need to do, just invent new ones. Olympic 'shopping at the GAP' - we'll sweep in that event. Not like beach volleyball. Losing at a sport you invented, to a country that has no beaches. Switzerland, a land-locked country. What a JOKE."
But my favorite thing about the Jim Rome show is his loyal followers, "clones" as they are called. They're all part of the "jungle". I don't normally use this phrase, but LOLZ. ROTFLMAO. Basically, they're all guys who call up or email trying to be clever enough to impress their grand master Jim Rome. They try to talk like him, using the same tone of voice and as many of his lame catchphrases. Which reminds me, I remember he used to have on his website a whole dictionary of those phrases. I'm sure it's still there, for anyone who feels like a dose of unintentional comedy I encourage you to look up his site yourself.
The funniest part is, no matter how bad the show is, I can't force myself to change the station. It's just too entertaining.
I hate the ambiguity of their reports. What's the difference between "partly cloudy" and "partly sunny"? Other than the occasional day when the sky is completely clear or completely covered, isn't every day "partly sunny" or "partly cloudy"? What does "40% chance of rain" mean to me? Should I bring 40% of an umbrella, wash 40% of my car, or shut my windows 40% of the way? I don't need some hyped-up meteorologist telling me that it might rain or it might not rain, or that there's probably going to be some clouds in the sky along with some sunlight. I knew that already.
And even though they never commit to anything, they still get it wrong. For the past few days up through this morning, all I see is rain in their "forecasts". Rain, rain, more rain tonight, thunderstorms the rest of the week. Then I open up the same weather report a couple hours later and what do I see? Big happy sunny icons representing today's conditions. That's great that you can tell me it's sunny right now. I can look out the window and do just as well. Did you really need your fancy Doppler radar to tell you that one? Still, they make sure to cover their butts in case it ends up raining: "Some clouds. A stray thunderstorm is possible." Now, if you can't accurately predict what's going to happen later this same day, how can you expect anyone to believe what's in your 7-day forecasts?
- While getting my hair cut a few days ago, the lady asked me if I was going back to school soon. I said no, I graduated a couple years ago and now I'm working. Her response: "Oh that's great, my daughter graduated last year and she's working now too. So how old are you, like 19, 20...?"
- Olympics are cool, but I think I'm glad they are only once every 4 years. For a lot of these events, I can see why they aren't more popular outside of the Olympics. I'm not just talking about obscure stuff like archery, walking, fencing, trampoline, etc. I'm getting sick of the swimming, gymnastics, track & field too. So much politics and subjectivity to these sports that it just becomes too much to handle. Someone wins a medal and then you have all this bickering about tenths and hundredths of points in scoring, judging bias, illegal "dolphin kicks", doping, all this extra garbage that just turns off fans. Then they wonder why nobody wants to follow their sport more regularly.
- My current guilty pleasure in life is listening to the Jim Rome show when I'm driving home and back for lunch. Not because it's awesome, but because it is so awful that it's entertaining in a train-wreck kind of way. If it's not long uncomfortable pauses ("dead air", if you will), it's Rome harping on one subject for 20 minutes. And not like he's making new points, just saying the same thing over and over, with different phrasing until he's completely beaten the subject to death:
"Team USA loses in beach volleyball to Switzerland, a land-locked country. We lost to a country that has no oceans on any of its borders! They're land-locked! How sad is that, we can't win against the Swiss, who have zero beaches! They're a land-locked country! It's BEACH-volleyball. We invented the sport, we have beaches all over the place. You go to Switzerland, there's no oceans around!
[10 minutes later]
Simply pathetic, losing in beach volleyball to Switzerland. What a JOKE. I can see us losing to them in Alpine skiing, they have that. Not beach volleyball. We oughta be ashamed. Simply UNACCEPTABLE. We invent the sport, now we lose to a land-locked country.
I think what we need is to invent more Olympic events. How about 'shopping at the GAP'? I bet we could win gold in that pretty easily. How about 'eating fast food" and "being lazy'? That's something Americans are definitely good at. I think we should compete to see who has the worst reality shows. Guaranteed gold medal for USA there. I know, let's do Olympic 'shopping at the GAP'! Who's going to beat us in that? I'm sure Lithuania would have no chance. Or maybe 'starting wars', that's something our country is good at too.
[10 more minutes pass]
Since we can't win in the sports that we invented ourselves, that's what we need to do, just invent new ones. Olympic 'shopping at the GAP' - we'll sweep in that event. Not like beach volleyball. Losing at a sport you invented, to a country that has no beaches. Switzerland, a land-locked country. What a JOKE."
But my favorite thing about the Jim Rome show is his loyal followers, "clones" as they are called. They're all part of the "jungle". I don't normally use this phrase, but LOLZ. ROTFLMAO. Basically, they're all guys who call up or email trying to be clever enough to impress their grand master Jim Rome. They try to talk like him, using the same tone of voice and as many of his lame catchphrases. Which reminds me, I remember he used to have on his website a whole dictionary of those phrases. I'm sure it's still there, for anyone who feels like a dose of unintentional comedy I encourage you to look up his site yourself.
The funniest part is, no matter how bad the show is, I can't force myself to change the station. It's just too entertaining.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Athens Olympics 2004
Men's Basketball - You never want to root against your own team, but I really think it would be best if these guys got blasted. Not just losing, but getting dominated and shut out of the medals entirely. The thing is, it's not like anyone in this world really thinks that their country's could beat the best the US has to offer in basketball. Clearly, this team is not the best representation of our country's basketball talent. And that is the problem, that we don't take the Olympics seriously enough. Because if we did, none of this would be happening. It will probably take a few more embarrassing losses to shame the NBA and the USOC into figuring out that their system isn't working.
Women's Softball - Outscored their opponents like 50-1 or something like that in these Olympics. That's more like a real Dream Team. Also, the Australia team has a pitcher named Tanya Harding. Funny stuff.
Men's Gymnastics - Great performance by Paul Hamm, unfortunately his gold medal will be disputed. Sucks for the South Korean guy, and I would probably be pissed too. But he's hardly the first athlete to ever be screwed in sports, nor will he be the last. Roy Jones comes to mind, when he got screwed (by none other than the South Koreans in the Seoul Olympics). It ain't right, but that's what happens. I would hope that in the end, it all evens out. Anyways, even if they take away the medal from Paul Hamm, Waukesha can still be proud of having one of the gold-medal-caliber power engineers within its borders.
Women's Marathon - Maybe only me and my sister are big enough losers to be watching people run on a Sunday morning, but it actually turned out to be much more entertaining than I expected. As the broadcast was showing one runner passing another, my sister asked the question: "I don't get it, how come she doesn't just run faster??" Easily the most hilarious thing I have ever heard while watching a marathon on TV.
Trampoline - When I first saw this event, I couldn't believe people could actually get an Olympic medal for bouncing around on a trampoline. (I don't know if that's the official name, but that's basically what it looked like). Must be awesome to do that for a living. "What do you do?" "I train to compete in Olympic Trampoline"
Women's Volleyball - Not liking the short hair, Logan Tom. But you still get plus points for being part-Chinese.
Swimming - Watching all the swimming events on TV made me feel like swimming. Too bad all the Bally's pools are filled with dirty old men. I don't think I have been in a pool in about 10 years, but I used to be a decent swimmer.
Track&Field - Those sprinters are very fast.
Taiwan - 2 medals and counting last time I checked, both in Archery. OH BABY
Men's Basketball - You never want to root against your own team, but I really think it would be best if these guys got blasted. Not just losing, but getting dominated and shut out of the medals entirely. The thing is, it's not like anyone in this world really thinks that their country's could beat the best the US has to offer in basketball. Clearly, this team is not the best representation of our country's basketball talent. And that is the problem, that we don't take the Olympics seriously enough. Because if we did, none of this would be happening. It will probably take a few more embarrassing losses to shame the NBA and the USOC into figuring out that their system isn't working.
Women's Softball - Outscored their opponents like 50-1 or something like that in these Olympics. That's more like a real Dream Team. Also, the Australia team has a pitcher named Tanya Harding. Funny stuff.
Men's Gymnastics - Great performance by Paul Hamm, unfortunately his gold medal will be disputed. Sucks for the South Korean guy, and I would probably be pissed too. But he's hardly the first athlete to ever be screwed in sports, nor will he be the last. Roy Jones comes to mind, when he got screwed (by none other than the South Koreans in the Seoul Olympics). It ain't right, but that's what happens. I would hope that in the end, it all evens out. Anyways, even if they take away the medal from Paul Hamm, Waukesha can still be proud of having one of the gold-medal-caliber power engineers within its borders.
Women's Marathon - Maybe only me and my sister are big enough losers to be watching people run on a Sunday morning, but it actually turned out to be much more entertaining than I expected. As the broadcast was showing one runner passing another, my sister asked the question: "I don't get it, how come she doesn't just run faster??" Easily the most hilarious thing I have ever heard while watching a marathon on TV.
Trampoline - When I first saw this event, I couldn't believe people could actually get an Olympic medal for bouncing around on a trampoline. (I don't know if that's the official name, but that's basically what it looked like). Must be awesome to do that for a living. "What do you do?" "I train to compete in Olympic Trampoline"
Women's Volleyball - Not liking the short hair, Logan Tom. But you still get plus points for being part-Chinese.
Swimming - Watching all the swimming events on TV made me feel like swimming. Too bad all the Bally's pools are filled with dirty old men. I don't think I have been in a pool in about 10 years, but I used to be a decent swimmer.
Track&Field - Those sprinters are very fast.
Taiwan - 2 medals and counting last time I checked, both in Archery. OH BABY
Monday, August 16, 2004
The End
- Of Summer: Now that I'm 2 years out of college, and pretty much everyone I know has graduated too, the only sign that "summer vacation" is coming to an end for me is when the interns here at work leave to go back to school. Technically, there's still a few weeks left of summer, but I'm already regretting that I didn't take advantage of the warm weather and sunny days enough this year. I think I will definitely have to take a vacation to someplace tropical when the Chicago winter arrives.
- Of the A-Rod era: Assuming the trade goes through, a deadline deal struck yesterday in Dudo League sent my precious Alex Rodriguez to Piya's team in exchange for Michael Young and Ben Sheets. After having A-Rod as a keeper for more than 3 years, it was definitely hard to part with him. I think it was about time for me to move on though. You can't argue with his production on the field, but during the past couple seasons I started to dislike him more for some reason. Maybe it was the whole "it's not about the money, but I'm going to Texas" thing, or the "now I'm at a point in my career where winning is the most important thing" when he went to the Yankees. Or maybe I just got spoiled with awesome fantasy players and I got sick of him. Anyways, hopefully Sheets and Young both turn out to be good the rest of this year, as well as in the next few seasons and thus cushion the blow. I don't want to become the "stupidest GM ever" by trading away one of the greatest players in the history of the game for a couple of scrubs that never went anywhere.
More Baseball
- White Sox: Good games this weekend. My favorite moment was Jose Valentin's leadoff single, steal 2nd, move to 3rd on flyout, and score on sac-fly yesterday. Home runs are nice, but that's the kind of thing a winning team needs to do. I like the decision to go to a 4-man rotation too. The one thing that worries me is Shingo, who doesn't look good. I don't necessarily think a closer needs to throw 100 mph, but if you're going to rely on off-speed stuff, you better be able to throw strikes and get ahead in the count. And Shingo hasn't been throwing strikes too consistently in his last few outings.
- Sox announcers: The TV guys have gotten pretty bad this year. First of all, Hawk needs to tone down his Hawk-ness. I don't remember him being like this back in the day, when it was Hawk and Wimpy. All the catchphrases are fine, but not if you use them so much that you sound like a cartoon character. "Stretch!! HE GONE!! Put it on the board... YEEE-SSS!!" And it's ok to root for your team, but not so much that you take it personally every time they lose or something bad happens. As far as DJ goes, he's not terrible, but not good either. Seems like all he does is drop names of players he played with. Seriously, every game, there's at least an inning or two where they don't even talk about what's going on in the field, but spend like 10 minutes trying to list as many names as they can.
On the other hand, the radio guys have been solid for many years and are still very good. I've been listening to John Rooney and Ed Farmer since the first days I was a White Sox fan, and they do a really good job. Nothing spectacular, just reliable broadcasting with a good mix of commentary and friendly banter.
- Cubs: I'm not sure why, but Dusty Baker irritates me. Other than that, I think the Cubs are fine. You would never know it with all the panic among Cubs fans, but the team is still favored to make the playoffs. I was looking at their record, and 9 games over .500 is pretty good considering all the negatives that have happened this season. What a difference a year makes. The expectations have gotten so high that even when the team is successful overall, nobody is enjoying the season.
- Of Summer: Now that I'm 2 years out of college, and pretty much everyone I know has graduated too, the only sign that "summer vacation" is coming to an end for me is when the interns here at work leave to go back to school. Technically, there's still a few weeks left of summer, but I'm already regretting that I didn't take advantage of the warm weather and sunny days enough this year. I think I will definitely have to take a vacation to someplace tropical when the Chicago winter arrives.
- Of the A-Rod era: Assuming the trade goes through, a deadline deal struck yesterday in Dudo League sent my precious Alex Rodriguez to Piya's team in exchange for Michael Young and Ben Sheets. After having A-Rod as a keeper for more than 3 years, it was definitely hard to part with him. I think it was about time for me to move on though. You can't argue with his production on the field, but during the past couple seasons I started to dislike him more for some reason. Maybe it was the whole "it's not about the money, but I'm going to Texas" thing, or the "now I'm at a point in my career where winning is the most important thing" when he went to the Yankees. Or maybe I just got spoiled with awesome fantasy players and I got sick of him. Anyways, hopefully Sheets and Young both turn out to be good the rest of this year, as well as in the next few seasons and thus cushion the blow. I don't want to become the "stupidest GM ever" by trading away one of the greatest players in the history of the game for a couple of scrubs that never went anywhere.
More Baseball
- White Sox: Good games this weekend. My favorite moment was Jose Valentin's leadoff single, steal 2nd, move to 3rd on flyout, and score on sac-fly yesterday. Home runs are nice, but that's the kind of thing a winning team needs to do. I like the decision to go to a 4-man rotation too. The one thing that worries me is Shingo, who doesn't look good. I don't necessarily think a closer needs to throw 100 mph, but if you're going to rely on off-speed stuff, you better be able to throw strikes and get ahead in the count. And Shingo hasn't been throwing strikes too consistently in his last few outings.
- Sox announcers: The TV guys have gotten pretty bad this year. First of all, Hawk needs to tone down his Hawk-ness. I don't remember him being like this back in the day, when it was Hawk and Wimpy. All the catchphrases are fine, but not if you use them so much that you sound like a cartoon character. "Stretch!! HE GONE!! Put it on the board... YEEE-SSS!!" And it's ok to root for your team, but not so much that you take it personally every time they lose or something bad happens. As far as DJ goes, he's not terrible, but not good either. Seems like all he does is drop names of players he played with. Seriously, every game, there's at least an inning or two where they don't even talk about what's going on in the field, but spend like 10 minutes trying to list as many names as they can.
On the other hand, the radio guys have been solid for many years and are still very good. I've been listening to John Rooney and Ed Farmer since the first days I was a White Sox fan, and they do a really good job. Nothing spectacular, just reliable broadcasting with a good mix of commentary and friendly banter.
- Cubs: I'm not sure why, but Dusty Baker irritates me. Other than that, I think the Cubs are fine. You would never know it with all the panic among Cubs fans, but the team is still favored to make the playoffs. I was looking at their record, and 9 games over .500 is pretty good considering all the negatives that have happened this season. What a difference a year makes. The expectations have gotten so high that even when the team is successful overall, nobody is enjoying the season.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Thoughts on Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore
A few days ago, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11. I'm sure as many of you are aware, the movie has been talked about a lot since before it was even released, with much of the discussion being about the bias of the movie and the credibility of its content.
Since there's plenty of articles and stories that cover the details of "what's true and what's not" in the movie, I'm gonna try to avoid repeating all those details here. Instead, I just want to write about my personal feelings and reaction after seeing the movie, and say how I feel about Michael Moore in a more general sense. If anyone is interested to read about the details, I'll try to list some links at the end for people to pursue on their own.
By the way, I don't think anything I'm about to say will "ruin" the movie for anyone, so go ahead and continue reading even if you haven't seen it. It might actually even benefit you whether or not you end up watching the movie.
As a whole, Fahrenheit 9/11 is pretty similar to the other Michael Moore movies I've seen ("Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine"). He doesn't appear as much on screen as in the past, but still narrates throughout the movie. To support his points, he uses a combination of news clips, interviews with his chosen "experts", and of course, his own footage. Pretty standard, really.
As I watched the movie, the main problem I had was trying to figure out exactly what points he was making. A lot of the movie seemed to me like it was more about mudslinging and just trying to make people look bad than anything else. Actually, this was the main issue I had with Bowling for Columbine as well. A lot of information thrown around and discussed, but not much in the way of conclusive arguments.
Still, I think I was able to dig out a few main points regarding the movie:
1. George W. Bush stole the Presidency from Al Gore in the 2000 election.
2. Bush was such a terrible, negligent President during his first months in office, that he should be blamed for the September 11th attacks.
3. The Bush family knows the Bin Laden family well and protected them after 9/11.
4. The Bush family is also heavily influenced by the Saudi royals. This influence was the real reason behind both the campaign in Afghanistan as well as the war on Iraq.
5. The members of Congress who voted for going to war are mostly cowards, who don't have any of their own kids fighting, but are quick to exploit the lower-class in recruiting for military service.
Other than that, like I mentioned, it seemed like the rest of the movie had little purpose, other than making people look bad. For example, one of the intro segments was simply showing President Bush and some of his administration in off-camera scenes. Little or no dialogue, just random clips of them getting their makeup touched up, combing their hair, adjusting their collars, etc. This goes on for at least a few minutes straight, and I guess by showing these scenes, it's supposed to prove to all the viewers that our country's leaders are sloppy or something. Which is useful knowledge to us in what way, I have no clue. It also makes me wonder if Michael Moore has ever seen clips of himself, on camera.
As far as the points he makes in the movie, they would be valuable, if there was more truth or relevant basis to them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the ideas he discusses are either highly exaggerated, twisted, or simply false. Again, there are plenty of articles written elsewhere that describe in detail the ways that Michael Moore misleads or flat out lies to his viewers, so I won't go over all of them here. I do, however, highly encourage people to do their own searching and try to figure out for themselves what's true and what's not.
For me personally, after reading all the stuff I've read about the tricks and lies in Fahrenheit 9/11, I really was very disturbed about the whole thing. There are those who believe that it's important to watch this movie, just to see "both sides", and I had that opinion myself, before this week. But right now, I honestly think that the movie is such trash, actually worse than trash, that we would all be better off if it were never made. And I'm not telling people that they shouldn't see it, but I am saying that even if you do decide to see it, I believe you are highly unlikely to gain anything useful or worthwhile out of it. So be warned.
If you know anything about Michael Moore, you would know that he has an extremely liberal agenda. So liberal, that he considers many of the most liberal Democrats to be too conservative. Moore also does things like accuse the national media of pandering to Bush on the Iraq war in the movie, specifically naming guys like Peter Jennings and Dan Rather. For those of us who don't have selective memories, we may recall that Peter Jennings and many in ABC News were quite outspoken about opposing the war, while Dan Rather did his suck-up piece in his interview with "President" Saddam Hussein. Not that either of those facts make those guys liberal, but to accuse them of pandering to our President is ridiculous by any standard.
To gain even more perspective on Michael Moore, consider that in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Moore's first comments posted on his web site were to the effect that the terrorists should have targeted states which voted for Bush, not the ones that voted against him like NY, DC, or California (since then, he has removed those comments). And with regard to the current situation in Iraq, he actually supports the cause of the extremists who are attacking our soldiers: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy'. The are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."
I'm not listing these things because I neccessarily think it's wrong to have such extremely liberal views. But my point is that when someone who has such extreme beliefs makes a movie about President Bush, it's going to be exactly the one-sided presentation that Fahrenheit 9/11 is. A piece where only shots of civilians getting killed in war are shown, where the only "experts" that are interviewed are those who criticize the Bush administration. Where only the most unflattering images are put next to the President in a "guilt by association" kind of way.
Watching this movie, one would be led to believe that Iraq was such a happy place before the United States barged right in and ruined it all. That Saddam was a peaceful guy who just minded his own business and never wished any harm on Americans. Michael Moore would have you believe that during the war, we only killed civilians, and not enemy fighters. And the way he presented things, you'd think that George W. Bush was the one firing at and killing our soldiers, not the extremist insurgents or Saddam's militia. That only tiny, unknown countries participated in the coalition, as none of the major countries in the coalition like Italy, the UK, or Australia were mentioned.
With this in mind, if you want to get a truly balanced view of our government after watching this movie, you might actually have to watch a movie about Bush that was made by his mother or something, to see the other extreme. It would be a documentary filled with nothing but news clips of Bush at charity functions, interviews with Dick Cheney and Bush Sr. about how good his policies are, and then show plenty of scenes of him hugging his daughters or shaking hands with soldiers, all presented with triumphant music playing in the background. (I'm not saying this is what we all need, I'm saying that something that one-sided would be just as worthless as Fahrenheit 9/11).
And even then, I doubt that old Barbara would use any of the same kinds of shameless tactics that Moore employed. Some of the things Moore does, is comparable to those Conan O'Brien skits where he puts a face of a celebrity on the screen, cuts out the part with the mouth, and has someone else fill in the talking and moving lips. Or, when they do that thing on morning radio shows where they cut sound bites of people talking, and then pretend to interview them, using the sound bites as out of context as possible. Only in this case, it's not obvious as a joke, it's being passed off as the real thing.
So when I call this movie "worse than trash", I'm not really even joking. The movie is so one-sided, and has so little credibility, that it can really do a lot more harm than good to someone watching it. Let's say that someone offers you a drink, with the warning that if you drink it, it will fill your body with so many toxins that you will need to drink 10 cups of water just to flush it all out and get back to normal. Would you do it? Well, I think it's much the same situation with Michael Moore offering us Fahrenheit 9/11. Except, he provides absolutely no warning about the toxins contained within, and he's getting millions of people to pay for it, raking in the cash in the process.
Before I wrap up this discussion, I also want to talk a bit about Michael Moore the person. I once believed that he was a great citizen, out to help his fellow man in whatever way possible. But the more I see of him, and the more I learn about him, the more I start to despise him and what he stands for. When I watched him ambush Charlton Heston at his home in Bowling for Columbine, I was disgusted. There wasn't as much of that in Fahrenheit, but it's just irritating for me to see this guy who feels like the normal rules of common courtesy or human decency don't apply to him, and see how much he gets away with. And since he's the one editing the movie, he gets to make himself look good and make the other side look silly 100% of the time, even though he is always the instigator. Well, I guess the way I look at it is like the old saying goes: "When a dog bites a man, that's not news. When a man bites a dog, that's news." Since he seems to have no sense of self-respect, it's like a win-win situation. If by being a jackass he manages to incite a reaction, then he did his job. If he gets ignored, the other side looks like they're afraid of being held accountable. If they react in a completely civilized manner and make good arguments, all he has to do is edit it out of the movie and no one will be the wiser.
But what really disgusts me the most is how he manipulates and exploits normal people to suit his own needs in making his movies. Such as the way in he paraded around the sobbing, angry mother whose son was killed in Iraq. Does he truly care about the people themselves, about the tragedies and losses they experienced? If so, would he have used a clip of the soldier who lost both his arms, when the soldier himself strongly objected to being in the movie?
The sad thing is that just because a guy like Michael Moore has a camera and the capability to make a movie, we automatically give him credibility as if he were an expert or a trusted news reporter. In reality, he is a man who is concerned most about pushing his agenda on the rest of the country, and is not afraid to use whatever underhanded method he deems neccessary to achieve his objectives. He has not earned anybody's trust, that we should blindly subscribe to everything he has to say. In fact, by the dishonest ways in which he's presented the his material, he has done basically the opposite, such that we should be very careful and extra suspicious of anything he tries to feed us.
I don't think it's going too far for me to recommend that people avoid this movie, because of all the things I just talked about. However, I don't blame anyone out there who wants to see the movie. Just be very aware of the fact that this is far from a real "documentary". It is more of a 2 hour long negative political ad against George W. Bush than anything else. For that matter, I doubt that any real political ad would be able to get away with half the stuff that's in this movie, due to the lack of basis and truth behind the accusations.
In the end, if you really want to see "both sides", there are already plenty of sources available that have much higher credibility and don't distort the facts nearly as much as Michael Moore does. If you don't trust CNN or the NY Times, there's always C-Span, international news organizations, etc. There's really nothing in Fahrenheit 9/11 that is so "exclusive" that you can't find anywhere else, despite what he would like us to believe. Bottom line is, if you think you need Michael Moore in order to find out the whole story, then you are just not trying hard enough.
Furthermore, to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 while knowing that so much of its content is extremely questionable, without making an effort to follow up his claims and research their whole truth, is at best lazy, and what I would consider to be very, very irresponsible. I think it would be so sad for anyone in this country to simply watch this movie and use it as their sole basis to cast their vote. Unfortunately, I think that is exactly what is going to happen with a lot of people. And if you do that, you are effectively empowering Michael Moore to continue his dirty act elsewhere.
I hope anyone who read through this blog found it to be helpful in some way. As I said, I tried to avoid making it a point-by-point rebuttal to the movie, and provide more of a broader perspective, so it could make sense to both people who have and haven't seen the movie. Now, you may or may not agree with everything I said, which is fine. But if nothing else, I hope that reading this blog will at least encourage everyone out there to be more aware of what's going on in this country. And I really believe strongly that one would be better off not watching a movie like Fahrenheit 9/11 at all, than to watch it and accept everything in it without checking on the facts for themselves.
Before I go, I promised earlier to list some links to sites about the movie. Actually, there's a lot of stuff out there, if you just do a search in Google. So I think I will just list one site that stood out to me the most, which I found to be the most complete and done with the most fair approach:
http://davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
It's written by a guy who is a "lifelong Democrat", who, like Moore, voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. He's not a Bush supporter and is critical of many of Bush's actions, but focuses this particular article on the "deceits" of Michael Moore's movie. This article is a good place to start, but I would also read other sources to get a better sense of the whole story.
A few days ago, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11. I'm sure as many of you are aware, the movie has been talked about a lot since before it was even released, with much of the discussion being about the bias of the movie and the credibility of its content.
Since there's plenty of articles and stories that cover the details of "what's true and what's not" in the movie, I'm gonna try to avoid repeating all those details here. Instead, I just want to write about my personal feelings and reaction after seeing the movie, and say how I feel about Michael Moore in a more general sense. If anyone is interested to read about the details, I'll try to list some links at the end for people to pursue on their own.
By the way, I don't think anything I'm about to say will "ruin" the movie for anyone, so go ahead and continue reading even if you haven't seen it. It might actually even benefit you whether or not you end up watching the movie.
As a whole, Fahrenheit 9/11 is pretty similar to the other Michael Moore movies I've seen ("Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine"). He doesn't appear as much on screen as in the past, but still narrates throughout the movie. To support his points, he uses a combination of news clips, interviews with his chosen "experts", and of course, his own footage. Pretty standard, really.
As I watched the movie, the main problem I had was trying to figure out exactly what points he was making. A lot of the movie seemed to me like it was more about mudslinging and just trying to make people look bad than anything else. Actually, this was the main issue I had with Bowling for Columbine as well. A lot of information thrown around and discussed, but not much in the way of conclusive arguments.
Still, I think I was able to dig out a few main points regarding the movie:
1. George W. Bush stole the Presidency from Al Gore in the 2000 election.
2. Bush was such a terrible, negligent President during his first months in office, that he should be blamed for the September 11th attacks.
3. The Bush family knows the Bin Laden family well and protected them after 9/11.
4. The Bush family is also heavily influenced by the Saudi royals. This influence was the real reason behind both the campaign in Afghanistan as well as the war on Iraq.
5. The members of Congress who voted for going to war are mostly cowards, who don't have any of their own kids fighting, but are quick to exploit the lower-class in recruiting for military service.
Other than that, like I mentioned, it seemed like the rest of the movie had little purpose, other than making people look bad. For example, one of the intro segments was simply showing President Bush and some of his administration in off-camera scenes. Little or no dialogue, just random clips of them getting their makeup touched up, combing their hair, adjusting their collars, etc. This goes on for at least a few minutes straight, and I guess by showing these scenes, it's supposed to prove to all the viewers that our country's leaders are sloppy or something. Which is useful knowledge to us in what way, I have no clue. It also makes me wonder if Michael Moore has ever seen clips of himself, on camera.
As far as the points he makes in the movie, they would be valuable, if there was more truth or relevant basis to them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the ideas he discusses are either highly exaggerated, twisted, or simply false. Again, there are plenty of articles written elsewhere that describe in detail the ways that Michael Moore misleads or flat out lies to his viewers, so I won't go over all of them here. I do, however, highly encourage people to do their own searching and try to figure out for themselves what's true and what's not.
For me personally, after reading all the stuff I've read about the tricks and lies in Fahrenheit 9/11, I really was very disturbed about the whole thing. There are those who believe that it's important to watch this movie, just to see "both sides", and I had that opinion myself, before this week. But right now, I honestly think that the movie is such trash, actually worse than trash, that we would all be better off if it were never made. And I'm not telling people that they shouldn't see it, but I am saying that even if you do decide to see it, I believe you are highly unlikely to gain anything useful or worthwhile out of it. So be warned.
If you know anything about Michael Moore, you would know that he has an extremely liberal agenda. So liberal, that he considers many of the most liberal Democrats to be too conservative. Moore also does things like accuse the national media of pandering to Bush on the Iraq war in the movie, specifically naming guys like Peter Jennings and Dan Rather. For those of us who don't have selective memories, we may recall that Peter Jennings and many in ABC News were quite outspoken about opposing the war, while Dan Rather did his suck-up piece in his interview with "President" Saddam Hussein. Not that either of those facts make those guys liberal, but to accuse them of pandering to our President is ridiculous by any standard.
To gain even more perspective on Michael Moore, consider that in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Moore's first comments posted on his web site were to the effect that the terrorists should have targeted states which voted for Bush, not the ones that voted against him like NY, DC, or California (since then, he has removed those comments). And with regard to the current situation in Iraq, he actually supports the cause of the extremists who are attacking our soldiers: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy'. The are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."
I'm not listing these things because I neccessarily think it's wrong to have such extremely liberal views. But my point is that when someone who has such extreme beliefs makes a movie about President Bush, it's going to be exactly the one-sided presentation that Fahrenheit 9/11 is. A piece where only shots of civilians getting killed in war are shown, where the only "experts" that are interviewed are those who criticize the Bush administration. Where only the most unflattering images are put next to the President in a "guilt by association" kind of way.
Watching this movie, one would be led to believe that Iraq was such a happy place before the United States barged right in and ruined it all. That Saddam was a peaceful guy who just minded his own business and never wished any harm on Americans. Michael Moore would have you believe that during the war, we only killed civilians, and not enemy fighters. And the way he presented things, you'd think that George W. Bush was the one firing at and killing our soldiers, not the extremist insurgents or Saddam's militia. That only tiny, unknown countries participated in the coalition, as none of the major countries in the coalition like Italy, the UK, or Australia were mentioned.
With this in mind, if you want to get a truly balanced view of our government after watching this movie, you might actually have to watch a movie about Bush that was made by his mother or something, to see the other extreme. It would be a documentary filled with nothing but news clips of Bush at charity functions, interviews with Dick Cheney and Bush Sr. about how good his policies are, and then show plenty of scenes of him hugging his daughters or shaking hands with soldiers, all presented with triumphant music playing in the background. (I'm not saying this is what we all need, I'm saying that something that one-sided would be just as worthless as Fahrenheit 9/11).
And even then, I doubt that old Barbara would use any of the same kinds of shameless tactics that Moore employed. Some of the things Moore does, is comparable to those Conan O'Brien skits where he puts a face of a celebrity on the screen, cuts out the part with the mouth, and has someone else fill in the talking and moving lips. Or, when they do that thing on morning radio shows where they cut sound bites of people talking, and then pretend to interview them, using the sound bites as out of context as possible. Only in this case, it's not obvious as a joke, it's being passed off as the real thing.
So when I call this movie "worse than trash", I'm not really even joking. The movie is so one-sided, and has so little credibility, that it can really do a lot more harm than good to someone watching it. Let's say that someone offers you a drink, with the warning that if you drink it, it will fill your body with so many toxins that you will need to drink 10 cups of water just to flush it all out and get back to normal. Would you do it? Well, I think it's much the same situation with Michael Moore offering us Fahrenheit 9/11. Except, he provides absolutely no warning about the toxins contained within, and he's getting millions of people to pay for it, raking in the cash in the process.
Before I wrap up this discussion, I also want to talk a bit about Michael Moore the person. I once believed that he was a great citizen, out to help his fellow man in whatever way possible. But the more I see of him, and the more I learn about him, the more I start to despise him and what he stands for. When I watched him ambush Charlton Heston at his home in Bowling for Columbine, I was disgusted. There wasn't as much of that in Fahrenheit, but it's just irritating for me to see this guy who feels like the normal rules of common courtesy or human decency don't apply to him, and see how much he gets away with. And since he's the one editing the movie, he gets to make himself look good and make the other side look silly 100% of the time, even though he is always the instigator. Well, I guess the way I look at it is like the old saying goes: "When a dog bites a man, that's not news. When a man bites a dog, that's news." Since he seems to have no sense of self-respect, it's like a win-win situation. If by being a jackass he manages to incite a reaction, then he did his job. If he gets ignored, the other side looks like they're afraid of being held accountable. If they react in a completely civilized manner and make good arguments, all he has to do is edit it out of the movie and no one will be the wiser.
But what really disgusts me the most is how he manipulates and exploits normal people to suit his own needs in making his movies. Such as the way in he paraded around the sobbing, angry mother whose son was killed in Iraq. Does he truly care about the people themselves, about the tragedies and losses they experienced? If so, would he have used a clip of the soldier who lost both his arms, when the soldier himself strongly objected to being in the movie?
The sad thing is that just because a guy like Michael Moore has a camera and the capability to make a movie, we automatically give him credibility as if he were an expert or a trusted news reporter. In reality, he is a man who is concerned most about pushing his agenda on the rest of the country, and is not afraid to use whatever underhanded method he deems neccessary to achieve his objectives. He has not earned anybody's trust, that we should blindly subscribe to everything he has to say. In fact, by the dishonest ways in which he's presented the his material, he has done basically the opposite, such that we should be very careful and extra suspicious of anything he tries to feed us.
I don't think it's going too far for me to recommend that people avoid this movie, because of all the things I just talked about. However, I don't blame anyone out there who wants to see the movie. Just be very aware of the fact that this is far from a real "documentary". It is more of a 2 hour long negative political ad against George W. Bush than anything else. For that matter, I doubt that any real political ad would be able to get away with half the stuff that's in this movie, due to the lack of basis and truth behind the accusations.
In the end, if you really want to see "both sides", there are already plenty of sources available that have much higher credibility and don't distort the facts nearly as much as Michael Moore does. If you don't trust CNN or the NY Times, there's always C-Span, international news organizations, etc. There's really nothing in Fahrenheit 9/11 that is so "exclusive" that you can't find anywhere else, despite what he would like us to believe. Bottom line is, if you think you need Michael Moore in order to find out the whole story, then you are just not trying hard enough.
Furthermore, to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 while knowing that so much of its content is extremely questionable, without making an effort to follow up his claims and research their whole truth, is at best lazy, and what I would consider to be very, very irresponsible. I think it would be so sad for anyone in this country to simply watch this movie and use it as their sole basis to cast their vote. Unfortunately, I think that is exactly what is going to happen with a lot of people. And if you do that, you are effectively empowering Michael Moore to continue his dirty act elsewhere.
I hope anyone who read through this blog found it to be helpful in some way. As I said, I tried to avoid making it a point-by-point rebuttal to the movie, and provide more of a broader perspective, so it could make sense to both people who have and haven't seen the movie. Now, you may or may not agree with everything I said, which is fine. But if nothing else, I hope that reading this blog will at least encourage everyone out there to be more aware of what's going on in this country. And I really believe strongly that one would be better off not watching a movie like Fahrenheit 9/11 at all, than to watch it and accept everything in it without checking on the facts for themselves.
Before I go, I promised earlier to list some links to sites about the movie. Actually, there's a lot of stuff out there, if you just do a search in Google. So I think I will just list one site that stood out to me the most, which I found to be the most complete and done with the most fair approach:
http://davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
It's written by a guy who is a "lifelong Democrat", who, like Moore, voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. He's not a Bush supporter and is critical of many of Bush's actions, but focuses this particular article on the "deceits" of Michael Moore's movie. This article is a good place to start, but I would also read other sources to get a better sense of the whole story.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)