Sir Ian McKellen on the Craft of Acting

I'm not sure why I find this so funny. I have been a particular fan of Sir Ian McKellen ever since he described Sean Astin and Elijah Wood as "resolutely heterosexual" on a Lord of the Rings DVD commentary track. Well, that, and he's a good actor. I would love for Sir Ian to go on Inside the Actor's Studio and give answers like this to every pretentious question James Lipton could come up with.

America to the Rescue!

Here, Jon Stewart nicely sums up the net results of the last thirty years of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Though, honestly, we couldn't just let the Soviets have Afghanistan . . . could we?

Thoughts on Michael Vick

While trying to do work in my office today, I became overly fascinated by Michael Vick's decision to plead guilty to federal dogfighting charges. Having followed this case from the beginning, I have five general thoughts on the subject:

1. Vick is not just a idiot for getting involved in something as stupid as dogfighting, he's a sadistic, twisted idiot for getting involved in something as pointless and cruel as dogfighting.

2. Prison will do him no good. In fact, I predict he will emerge, Mike Tyson-style, crazier than ever. Gene Wojciechowski at ESPN has thought up a better punishment:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=2977604&sportCat=nfl

3. Bobby Petrino made a terrible, terrible mistake leaving the University of Louisville to coach the Falcons. Reason: the franchise QB may never play in the NFL again.

4. Actually, I think Michael Vick will play in the NFL again. Whenever he emerges from prison, some team will be stupid and desperate enough to give him a contract, e.g. the Atlanta Falcons.

5. Like many Americans, I eat meat with gusto, but sometimes I must admit that PETA may have a point. If we are going to be outraged at the needless suffering of dogs, we need to at least be prepared to think about the suffering of all those chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows we consume every year. Well, at least we're not making the cows fight each other . . . unless . . .

Book Plug: 'Under the Banner of Heaven'

I have been increasingly interested in the history of the Mormon Church since I watched the PBS documentary The Mormons this past spring, which provided an actually-fair-and-balanced view of both Mormon history and the LDS Church today. My brother-in-law lent me Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven in June, but I only got around to reading it this past weekend. While Krakauer's book makes for very interesting reading, he dances around explicitly stating his argument, even though it is woven throughout the whole book: The violence, misogyny, blind obedience, and fear of outsiders noticeable in present-day Mormon fundamentalists has its roots in the very foundations of the Mormon faith, as laid down by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Krakauer therefore appears to partly accept the Mormon fundamentalist argument that they are more in agreement with Joseph Smith's revelations than the mainline LDS Church. I am not knowledgeable enough determine whether or not this is true, but Krakauer lays out an at least somewhat convincing case.

In any event, here are some interesting (at least to me) factoids from the book:

1. Joseph Smith had been convicted of fraud and was a well-known huckster in upstate New York before founding the Mormon faith.

2. Yes, magic glasses and gold tablets were involved.

3. The revelation on plural marriage (section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants) was never made public during Joseph Smith's lifetime. Instead, Brigham Young revealed this juicy tidbit to the Mormon flock on their way to Utah.

4. Quotable Quote: "vengeance is mine, and I have taken a little" Brigham Young reportedly said upon seeing the monument erected by federal troops to commemorate the Mountain Meadows massacre, which included a cross inscribed with the epigraph, "vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord." Young ordered the monument destroyed.

5. Non-whites were banned from the Mormon priesthood until 1978.

Krakauer appears to be shocked by Mormonism's often-violent history and exclusionary beliefs, but every major religious tradition on Earth has its bloody episodes and its fundamentalists. The big challenge for the LDS Church now, according to both Krakauer and the PBS documentary, is to become more accepting of homosexuals, feminists, and intellectuals (many of whom have been excommunicated in recent years). The problem, of course, is that a religious movement can only accommodate itself to the culture of a given time so much before it loses the essence of what it was in the beginning. This may be the only thing mainline Mormons and the fundamentalists completely agree upon.

Law and Order: MLE

In the aftermath of fan disappointment in the epilogue of Book 7, JK Rowling revealed in an interview with the Today Show that Harry and Ron went on to become Aurors, while Hermione is currently "pretty high up" in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Essentially, Hermione is the equivalent of a wizarding prosecutor while Ron and Harry are detectives, which is why JK Rowling must, must allow the production of:

Law and Order: Magical Law Enforcement

. . . In the criminal justice system, Dark Arts-based offenses are considered especially heinous, in Great Britain, the dedicated Aurors who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, these are their stories . . .

In the first half hour, Harry and Ron would investigate the magical crime in question.

Adult, wisecracking Ron will be played by Damian Lewis.

The older, more grizzled, but increasingly sexually-confused Harry will be played by, well . . . Daniel Radcliffe.

In the second half-hour, Hermione will prosecute the crime with her fellow assistant DA, Nigel Nibblebottom, played the inimitable Stephen Fry.

Emma Watson and Stephen Fry together could produce that fantastic Jack McCoy plus incongruously good-looking female DA chemistry that is key to making Law and Order work.

Now, if this is not a good idea, I don't know what is.

Thriller-Prison Style!

You know, you've never really watched Michael Jackson's "Thriller" until you've seen it performed by the inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines.

Talk about it at Videocracy

Dual Allegiance-Some Cheesy Sports Videos

On the one hand, I was raised to be a Kentucky fan:




On the other, I went to Tennessee:



Ah, my sporting soul is always pulled in two directions.