Lily Salter's Blog, page 968

George Pataki: “The problem with the GOP is we question science everyone accepts,” like vaccines and climate change

In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.

Continue Reading...

My trigger-warning disaster: “9 1/2 Weeks,” “The Wire” and how coddled young radicals got discomfort all wrong

About a year ago I was asked to teach a class about the evolution of the representation of sex throughout American Cinema. I started with the silent film (The Cheat) and ended with Spike Jonze's disembodied sex in Her. Along the way, I showed a number of sexually graphic films that caused a great deal of controversy.

At the time I was teaching the course, I was also figuring out a life outside of academia. I had been a wandering postdoc for a long time and was tired. A friend of mine had recently been violently sexually assaulted. I was a witness. The trauma she suffered, from the assault and the long, drawn-out trial of her assailants, led me to volunteer at my local rape crisis center. Working directly with folks who have experienced trauma, I entered the course believing in trigger warnings and gave them throughout the class, even though it seemed as though the title of the course was a trigger warning in and of itself. Regardless, I gave them for almost every film I showed. I even gave them for films that really shouldn't have needed them (i.e., Psycho).

Midway through the semester, because of my work in sexual assault prevention, I was asked to fill in for the Director of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention Services at the university. The Director had to take a short leave so I was there to fill in temporarily. In accepting the position, I took on a dual role. First, I was an activist against sexual violence, supporting survivors on campus, but I was also an educator who believed that learning is about shaking up one’s world and worldview. I didn't realize that occupying both rolls at once would be impossible; failure was inevitable.

The first  "uh-oh" moment came when was when I taught Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Rock Hudson plays the role of a womanizer (the irony of all this, of course, is that he was closeted). When he gets women into his home there are a series of "booby traps" meant for getting it on (who says that anymore? me). One seemed like a literal trap--the door locks itself shut. I suggested that this might be a predatory act. The class was suddenly divided--there were the ones who vehemently believed that Hudson's character was a rapist, and those who vehemently argued that he was not. This divide would get deeper and uglier throughout the semester, with me caught irrevocably in the middle. 

Next, I assigned a reading by Linda Williams, a chapter from her book, Screening Sex. It looked in intimate detail at the first blaxploitation film ever made-- Melvin Van Peebles', Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song (SSBAS). The chapter outlined (with pictures), the plot of the movie and all the sexual acts that were in the film. Williams’ argument is that Blaxploitation and SSBAS arose from a reclamation of masculinity by black men who were historically emasculated and castrated (think of the killing of Emmett Till).

I assumed everyone had done the reading. I showed one of the scenes that Williams' writes about in detail. Before I screened it, I gave a warning, indicating that it was one of the disturbing scenes to which Williams refers. The scene shows a young Sweetback (played by the director’s son Melvin Van Peebles) having sex with a 30-year old woman. She finds him irresistible and thus starts the hyper-sexual evolution of Sweetback--every woman on earth wants to fuck him, including a whole bunch of white women. This, of course, is statutory rape.  When the lights went on and the scene was over, two students left the room in tears. I was perplexed. I started to ask questions about Williams' reading, how it felt to read about and then watch the scene, what questions of race and masculinity it provoked. Crickets man, crickets. Clearly no one had done the reading.

Later that day, I had a white female student come to my office hours crying. Between picking up tissues and blowing her nose she said, "I'm doing a minor in African American Studies. How could your first images of black people be that horrible?" I told her that I understood her concerns. I went on to explain how the class was a historical look at sex on screen and as the reading for the class articulated, it was one of the first film's to show black people having sex and was important to film history. She still didn't get it. She said I had to show some positive images, otherwise it was unfair, that the other students weren't African American Studies minors so they didn't understand race politics as she did. I told her that I would bring a positive image to the next class to address her concerns. Finally, she smiled.

That night I went home and thought about it, hard. Isn't confronting difficult issues what learning is about? My classes were about race, gender, and sexuality. These are inherently uncomfortable topics that force students to think critically about their privilege and their place in the hierarchy of this world.

It's not fun to talk about inequality. It's not fun to talk about slavery. It's not fun to talk about the complexity of sexual desire. It's terribly, terribly, uncomfortable. But it was my job as their teacher to navigate through this discomfort. I felt like I handled the class poorly. I had cow-towed too much, so I went to class the next day prepared to break this shit down.

I also thought about a positive image of black sexuality and sex. I decided to show a clip from The Wire that shows Omar in bed with his boyfriend just after having sex, a tender moment where they kiss. Omar's character, a black, gay dude who steals from drug dealers, is a revolutionary representation of black masculinity that stands in stark contrast to SSBAS.  I was excited to show it. I mean, it’s The Wire: who doesn't want to talk about The Wire?

I began class by talking briefly about learning through discomfort. The students were silent. I turned to them for questions about moments of feeling uncomfortable and how we could read these as productive. The student who came to my office raised her hand and asked, "Are we gonna talk about SSBAS."

“Yes,” I said, “but I want us to talk about any of the films that made people uncomfortable. Let’s discuss the discomfort." Her face fell. She started crying and ran out of the room. Her friend followed her. Right after she left I showed the scene with Omar. Later that day, she came to my office again, sobbing.

For the rest of the semester, I gave trigger warnings before every scene I screened. Every. Single. One. This wasn't enough. A student came to me and asked that I start sending emails before class outlining exactly which disturbing scenes I would be showing so that I wouldn't “out” survivors if they had to walk out of class when hearing what I was about to show. This took all the free form and off the cuff ability to teach. It stifled the teaching process. There would never be a moment for me to educate them by confronting them with the unknown, by helping them become aware of their own biases by making them feel uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, I did it. Each night I sent a meticulous email detailing which scene I was showing, where in the film the scene was, and what the content of the scene included. My role as a sexual assault prevention services specialist and survivor advocate eclipsed my role as a professor as I tried to accommodate students over and over again.

The next film to piss them all off was 9 1/2 Weeks. The film is about a S&M relationship between a character played by Micky Rourke and one played by Kim Basinger.  At first Basinger's character is drawn to Rourke and they begin an S&M style consensual relationship. As the film goes on, Rourke becomes abusive and the sex becomes non-consensual, but the beauty of the film is that Basinger is eventually able to let go and take something from the relationship--a heightened sense of her sexuality and desires. There's an infamous scene with Rourke feeding Basinger a number of food items while she's blindfolded. It’s basically a series of soft core money shots. It is a consensual scene. When conversation began in class, a white male student started talking about the scene as one of consent. Four hands shot up. One said, “no—it is clearly not consensual.” Other students concurred. They argued that if someone is in an abusive relationship, they can never consent to sex because they are being manipulated.

This triggered me. I was furious.

Sexual assault survivor support is about empowerment. The model says, "hey! It’s not for you to tell the survivor what happened to them; that's their story, they know, don't fucking label it." What these students were essentially doing was stripping every person in an abusive relationship of all their agency. They were telling every survivor that they were raped, even when the survivor may have wanted to have sex with their abuser. They were claiming god like knowledge of every sexual encounter. And they were only 20. If that. Their frontal lobes haven't even fully developed. 

I was done with it. I was drained. I was anxious. I was tired. I was fed up.  But I didn't want to be. I had been teaching for ten years with passion.

I went to get advise from a colleague in the department. He listened and said that during that time of the semester, students tended to get testy. He thought it was seasonal. I asked him if he ever had such a hard time with his students and he said, "No, I am an old white dude, I really think that as a young woman of color they probably just aren't afraid of you, they see you as a peer." For the record, I'm not that young but he may have been right. And here's the irony, all of the students who were upset were the feminists, the activists, and there they were, treating a woman of color professor like she wasn't an authority while treating old white dudes like they are.

There has been a lot written about triggering and trigger warnings, discussions about how triggers are often not explicit references to one’s traumatic experiences. Smells, tastes, different objects, they can all be triggering. Think of Proust's madeleine and the surge of memories about his mother. Memory, emotional trauma, grief and healing are complicated and unique to an individual’s experience. Blanket trigger warnings treat them as impersonal predictable entities. The current movement of calling for trigger warnings prioritizes the shielding of students from the traumatic, whereas, ironically, so many other therapeutic models focus on talking through and confronting trauma as a mode of healing.

Recent work by Greg Lukainoff and Jonathan Haidt looks in depth at this phenomenon, the call for safe spaces and trigger warnings. Their tone could be read as condescending to people who are survivors of trauma, but I do think they raise a number of important points.  Similarly, the work of Laura Kipnis on trigger warnings is crucial and illuminating, but in an unfortunate and sometimes typical academic fashion, it can be snobbish and dismissive (Jack Halberstam is also in this camp). Here lies the problem. Taking a tone like that just pisses students off even more. I'm not saying that if we said these things nicely, students would suddenly get it; they won't. I am living proof of that. I’m just pointing out the fact that putting on an academic face of elite speak isn't helping either. Maybe pointing out the horrifying political stance these students are making would be more effective.

When a Duke Student refuses to read a book because it has lesbian sex in it and students who are liberal, who are activists, also refuse to read and watch things because they see it as triggering, we see the collusion of the right and left wing. When I get an evaluation from this course that says, "as a white male heterosexual I felt unsafe in this course," and another that reads, "as a survivor this course was traumatizing," we are at a moment that needs some radical re-thinking. Do students of a radical nature think that if they are seeing eye to eye with the most extreme conservative element of the population that they are doing something right? Fighting for something positive? Participating in something different?

I don't have the answers. Hell, I gave up on the whole thing. This was the last straw for me. I didn’t know the answers but I knew this was a crisis. Colleges are the new helicopter parents, places where the quest for emotional safety and psychic healing leads not to learning, but regression.

I don't know about trigger warnings outside classes that deal with race, gender and sexuality, but I do know that if you promote trigger warnings in subjects that are supposed to make people feel uncomfortable, you're basically promoting a culture of extreme privilege, cause I'm pretty sure that the trans women who are being murdered weekly, the black men who are victims of police brutality daily, and the neighborhoods in America that are plagued by everyday violence, aren’t given any trigger warnings. Let’s be honest: life is a trigger.

Continue Reading...

The real story of “Our Brand Is Crisis” is how we screwed up Bolivia: Behind the bland Sandra Bullock movie lies another strange-but-true tale of botched American meddling

In case the true story behind the baffling and approximately well-intentioned Sandra Bullock star vehicle “Our Brand Is Crisis” makes any difference, here it is: Way back in the innocent days of 2002 (I’m kidding about “innocent”), the high-powered political consulting firm Greenberg Carville Shrum parachuted into Bolivia to take up the cause of a struggling presidential candidate named Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, universally known as “Goni.” Rachel Boynton, a documentary director whose work focuses on ideology, politics and power (her most recent movie, “Big Men,” is about the global workings of the oil industry), came along and made an extraordinary film about that campaign, whose title was drawn from a telling phrase coined by one of the GCS consultants. That is now the title of the Bullock movie directed by indie-film veteran David Gordon Green and written by Peter Straughan (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”), which is also set during a Bolivian presidential campaign and stars Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Scoot McNairy, Ann Dowd and Zoe Kazan as Bullock’s rivals or colleagues in the Machiavellian business of reinventing candidates and reshaping public opinion. What makes this fictionalized “Our Brand Is Crisis” worth noticing – to the extent it is, which isn’t much – is that the filmmakers probably believe they are delivering roughly the same message as Boynton’s documentary did, but in fact the most important aspects of this striking story has been scrubbed away or laundered into Hollywood-style pseudo-psychological neutrality. This movie offers us the tale of the fall and redemption of an unscrupulous white lady -- who we know cannot really be unscrupulous since she’s Sandra Bullock. Although I hasten to add that even by the standards of Bullock’s implacable, steel-jawed underacting this is a dull performance. Around the edges of this story about Bullock’s character, an especially ruthless consultant known as Calamity Jane, there are a few intriguing hints of other stories about the international financial system, the power of fear in politics and the American understanding of what democracy means when applied to other people in other countries. “Our Brand Is Crisis” is being released by Warner Bros., but was largely funded by Participant Media, which produces what it calls “socially relevant films and documentaries.” In other words, in this case the right-wingers are correct: “Liberal Hollywood” is in full effect. Yet you really have to read between the lines and dig into the subtext of Straughan’s screenplay to perceive the issues that drove Boynton’s film. What the hell was James Carville and Stan Greenberg’s consulting firm – with its close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party leadership class – doing in one of South America’s smallest and poorest nations? Who was really paying for their work with Goni, an unpopular former president who had spent much of his life in the United States and spoke Spanish so poorly that Bolivian opponents derided him as “El Gringo”? I get it -- Green and Straughan and Participant were trying to make a Sandra Bullock movie that Warner Bros. can put onto thousands of theater screens. So those questions remain in the dim and dusty background, behind the quasi-hilarious dirty tricks, the long nights of booze, the almost-condescending interactions with indigenous Bolivians and the rivalrous relationship – tinged with both tragedy and Eros – between Jane and Thornton’s Mephistophelean (and distinctly Carville-like) Pat Candy. Yes, this is a movie where a diabolical character is given the surname Candy, and what can you really say? All this makes for mid-grade entertainment value, at best. And in the real Bolivian election of ’02, there was no rivalry between warring American spin doctors working for different candidates, because Goni was the only candidate who got that kind of help, in clear preference to his populist opponents on both the right and left. For people who want the vastly more interesting real history of America’s misbegotten meddling in Bolivia – just one chapter, of course, in a much larger global story – Boynton’s film is out there, and so is what happened later. Goni was in effect the candidate of the “Washington consensus,” the guy who would bring a small, fractious and deeply divided country into the established international economic order. As president in the mid-‘90s, he had pursued a controversial two-level strategy, extending constitutional rights and policy reforms aimed at Bolivia’s large indigenous population while also embarking on a widespread campaign of privatization that sold off state-owned industries and natural resources to foreign capital. As it happens – and I’m sure all this is coincidental – Bolivia contains immense natural gas reserves, the second-largest in South America after Venezuela, whose national resources had been rendered largely off limits to outside investors by the rise of socialist president Hugo Chávez. Carville’s troops were dispatched to La Paz in ’02 to consolidate the great victory of “liberalism” and “democracy” – as they and their sponsors and benefactors understand those things – and to resist the rising tide of Latin American leftism represented in Bolivia by the indigenous political leader Evo Morales, Goni’s leading opponent. Exactly who decided that a widely disliked candidate in such a small country merited such attention, alongside such star GCS clients as Tony Blair, the Israeli Labor Party and the Canadian Liberal Party? That remains a question shrouded in mystery, but we could probably come up with some decent guesses. Who paid for it? Well, that would be you and me – both before and after. Carville and Greenberg won that election for Goni, after shifting the entire theme of his campaign to the “crisis” mantra, but maybe they should have vetted their candidate a little better. Goni’s second term as president barely lasted a year, after his plans to allow an international consortium to build a pipeline and ship Bolivian natural gas to North America at dirt-cheap prices sparked a massive popular uprising. Facing a general strike and a series of confrontations between soldiers and protesters that left at least 67 civilians dead, Goni imposed martial law in October 2003, and the U.S. State Department issued a statement offering its full support. Have they learned nothing? That was almost certainly the final straw. Goni fled the country five days later, and now lives in exile in the U.S., which has refused to extradite him to Bolivia to face trial for extrajudicial killings and other crimes against humanity. Since 2006, Bolivia has been governed by Evo Morales, the indigenous leader whose protest movement led to Goni’s downfall. As one of his first moves as president, Morales unilaterally reversed the terms of Bolivia’s natural gas contracts with foreign corporations: Instead of the investors getting 82 percent of the profits and the Bolivian state getting 18 percent, it was suddenly the other way around. The corporations whined and complained, but ultimately decided that 18 percent was a lot better than nothing. Morales’ government has dramatically reduced poverty and inequality, and presided over one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, right through the crash of 2008. Maybe Carville and the Clintonocracy were empowering democracy after all, even if it wasn’t quite the variety they intended.In case the true story behind the baffling and approximately well-intentioned Sandra Bullock star vehicle “Our Brand Is Crisis” makes any difference, here it is: Way back in the innocent days of 2002 (I’m kidding about “innocent”), the high-powered political consulting firm Greenberg Carville Shrum parachuted into Bolivia to take up the cause of a struggling presidential candidate named Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, universally known as “Goni.” Rachel Boynton, a documentary director whose work focuses on ideology, politics and power (her most recent movie, “Big Men,” is about the global workings of the oil industry), came along and made an extraordinary film about that campaign, whose title was drawn from a telling phrase coined by one of the GCS consultants. That is now the title of the Bullock movie directed by indie-film veteran David Gordon Green and written by Peter Straughan (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”), which is also set during a Bolivian presidential campaign and stars Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Scoot McNairy, Ann Dowd and Zoe Kazan as Bullock’s rivals or colleagues in the Machiavellian business of reinventing candidates and reshaping public opinion. What makes this fictionalized “Our Brand Is Crisis” worth noticing – to the extent it is, which isn’t much – is that the filmmakers probably believe they are delivering roughly the same message as Boynton’s documentary did, but in fact the most important aspects of this striking story has been scrubbed away or laundered into Hollywood-style pseudo-psychological neutrality. This movie offers us the tale of the fall and redemption of an unscrupulous white lady -- who we know cannot really be unscrupulous since she’s Sandra Bullock. Although I hasten to add that even by the standards of Bullock’s implacable, steel-jawed underacting this is a dull performance. Around the edges of this story about Bullock’s character, an especially ruthless consultant known as Calamity Jane, there are a few intriguing hints of other stories about the international financial system, the power of fear in politics and the American understanding of what democracy means when applied to other people in other countries. “Our Brand Is Crisis” is being released by Warner Bros., but was largely funded by Participant Media, which produces what it calls “socially relevant films and documentaries.” In other words, in this case the right-wingers are correct: “Liberal Hollywood” is in full effect. Yet you really have to read between the lines and dig into the subtext of Straughan’s screenplay to perceive the issues that drove Boynton’s film. What the hell was James Carville and Stan Greenberg’s consulting firm – with its close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party leadership class – doing in one of South America’s smallest and poorest nations? Who was really paying for their work with Goni, an unpopular former president who had spent much of his life in the United States and spoke Spanish so poorly that Bolivian opponents derided him as “El Gringo”? I get it -- Green and Straughan and Participant were trying to make a Sandra Bullock movie that Warner Bros. can put onto thousands of theater screens. So those questions remain in the dim and dusty background, behind the quasi-hilarious dirty tricks, the long nights of booze, the almost-condescending interactions with indigenous Bolivians and the rivalrous relationship – tinged with both tragedy and Eros – between Jane and Thornton’s Mephistophelean (and distinctly Carville-like) Pat Candy. Yes, this is a movie where a diabolical character is given the surname Candy, and what can you really say? All this makes for mid-grade entertainment value, at best. And in the real Bolivian election of ’02, there was no rivalry between warring American spin doctors working for different candidates, because Goni was the only candidate who got that kind of help, in clear preference to his populist opponents on both the right and left. For people who want the vastly more interesting real history of America’s misbegotten meddling in Bolivia – just one chapter, of course, in a much larger global story – Boynton’s film is out there, and so is what happened later. Goni was in effect the candidate of the “Washington consensus,” the guy who would bring a small, fractious and deeply divided country into the established international economic order. As president in the mid-‘90s, he had pursued a controversial two-level strategy, extending constitutional rights and policy reforms aimed at Bolivia’s large indigenous population while also embarking on a widespread campaign of privatization that sold off state-owned industries and natural resources to foreign capital. As it happens – and I’m sure all this is coincidental – Bolivia contains immense natural gas reserves, the second-largest in South America after Venezuela, whose national resources had been rendered largely off limits to outside investors by the rise of socialist president Hugo Chávez. Carville’s troops were dispatched to La Paz in ’02 to consolidate the great victory of “liberalism” and “democracy” – as they and their sponsors and benefactors understand those things – and to resist the rising tide of Latin American leftism represented in Bolivia by the indigenous political leader Evo Morales, Goni’s leading opponent. Exactly who decided that a widely disliked candidate in such a small country merited such attention, alongside such star GCS clients as Tony Blair, the Israeli Labor Party and the Canadian Liberal Party? That remains a question shrouded in mystery, but we could probably come up with some decent guesses. Who paid for it? Well, that would be you and me – both before and after. Carville and Greenberg won that election for Goni, after shifting the entire theme of his campaign to the “crisis” mantra, but maybe they should have vetted their candidate a little better. Goni’s second term as president barely lasted a year, after his plans to allow an international consortium to build a pipeline and ship Bolivian natural gas to North America at dirt-cheap prices sparked a massive popular uprising. Facing a general strike and a series of confrontations between soldiers and protesters that left at least 67 civilians dead, Goni imposed martial law in October 2003, and the U.S. State Department issued a statement offering its full support. Have they learned nothing? That was almost certainly the final straw. Goni fled the country five days later, and now lives in exile in the U.S., which has refused to extradite him to Bolivia to face trial for extrajudicial killings and other crimes against humanity. Since 2006, Bolivia has been governed by Evo Morales, the indigenous leader whose protest movement led to Goni’s downfall. As one of his first moves as president, Morales unilaterally reversed the terms of Bolivia’s natural gas contracts with foreign corporations: Instead of the investors getting 82 percent of the profits and the Bolivian state getting 18 percent, it was suddenly the other way around. The corporations whined and complained, but ultimately decided that 18 percent was a lot better than nothing. Morales’ government has dramatically reduced poverty and inequality, and presided over one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, right through the crash of 2008. Maybe Carville and the Clintonocracy were empowering democracy after all, even if it wasn’t quite the variety they intended.

Continue Reading...

Lindsey Graham cracks wise on climate change: “I’m not a scientist — and I’ve got the grades to prove it”

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was asked whether -- given the fact that he believes climate change is real and man-made -- he is in the wrong party's debate, and Graham replied as he has been all week, i.e. more like a comedian than a politician. "I'm not a scientist," he answered, "and I've got the grades to prove it." He explained that he's been to many places in the world which are very cold, and that "ninety percent of [the scientists he's met there] have told him that greenhouse gasses are real, and I just want a solution." His commonsense statements drew boos from the carefully vetted audience, but they quickly turned to cheers as he switched gears and began speaking about immigration and national defense -- because even though the focus of this debate is ostensibly the economy, all of the potential nominees have taken every opportunity provided to speak about other issues, almost as if they're afraid of boring their base. "I'm tired of losing!" he continued. "Look at the candidates on the other side! The leading one thought she and her husband were flat-broke after they were in the White House for eight years. The other guy went to the Soviet Union for his honeymoon and I don't think he ever came back," he added, repeating the joke he'd cracked on "Morning Joe" Monday. Watch the debate live via CNBC.South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was asked whether -- given the fact that he believes climate change is real and man-made -- he is in the wrong party's debate, and Graham replied as he has been all week, i.e. more like a comedian than a politician. "I'm not a scientist," he answered, "and I've got the grades to prove it." He explained that he's been to many places in the world which are very cold, and that "ninety percent of [the scientists he's met there] have told him that greenhouse gasses are real, and I just want a solution." His commonsense statements drew boos from the carefully vetted audience, but they quickly turned to cheers as he switched gears and began speaking about immigration and national defense -- because even though the focus of this debate is ostensibly the economy, all of the potential nominees have taken every opportunity provided to speak about other issues, almost as if they're afraid of boring their base. "I'm tired of losing!" he continued. "Look at the candidates on the other side! The leading one thought she and her husband were flat-broke after they were in the White House for eight years. The other guy went to the Soviet Union for his honeymoon and I don't think he ever came back," he added, repeating the joke he'd cracked on "Morning Joe" Monday. Watch the debate live via CNBC.South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was asked whether -- given the fact that he believes climate change is real and man-made -- he is in the wrong party's debate, and Graham replied as he has been all week, i.e. more like a comedian than a politician. "I'm not a scientist," he answered, "and I've got the grades to prove it." He explained that he's been to many places in the world which are very cold, and that "ninety percent of [the scientists he's met there] have told him that greenhouse gasses are real, and I just want a solution." His commonsense statements drew boos from the carefully vetted audience, but they quickly turned to cheers as he switched gears and began speaking about immigration and national defense -- because even though the focus of this debate is ostensibly the economy, all of the potential nominees have taken every opportunity provided to speak about other issues, almost as if they're afraid of boring their base. "I'm tired of losing!" he continued. "Look at the candidates on the other side! The leading one thought she and her husband were flat-broke after they were in the White House for eight years. The other guy went to the Soviet Union for his honeymoon and I don't think he ever came back," he added, repeating the joke he'd cracked on "Morning Joe" Monday. Watch the debate live via CNBC.

Continue Reading...

How the f*** did we get here?! Why Trump & Carson have demolished all comers—and why you should keep an eye on Rubio & Cruz

One of the more entertaining aspects of this political season so far has been watching the political professionals cycle through the ups and downs of the Republican presidential field. They have been completely flummoxed by the Trump and Carson phenomena, as the two quirky outsiders knock down one establishment heartthrob after another. As we await the third debate tonight, let's briefly recap where we've been and the state of play at this moment. Nobody was too surprised to see Texas Governor Rick Perry take the fall; he had been badly damaged by his terrible debate performance in 2012. (A cautionary tale for all those on stage tonight  no doubt.) But Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dropping out was a shocker to virtually everyone in the political profession despite the fact that he was clearly overrated and a bit of a dolt. And there was the time when everyone thought Senator Rand Paul had a real shot, leading his army of libertarian millennial Republicans demanding an end to all government regulation and imperial ambition? Unfortunately, his soldiers seem to have deserted. Today he is reduced to threatening to filibuster bills that really can't be filibustered in a desperate bid for attention. The list goes on: Carly Fiorina briefly soared after describing bloody mayhem in dramatic detail in the last debate, but as much as Republicans love that sort of thing, for some reason her popularity didn't last. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was the designated rude-bro until Trump trumped him. Kooky Ohio Governor John Kasich decided to demonstrate his craziness by calling all the other candidates (and by implication their supporters) crazy. And Iowans obviously figure that previous winners Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum failed to make the most of their opportunities so the two are getting no love this time. And Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki? Never mind. But nobody has stunned the establishment more than Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, whom all the smart money assumed would be the man to beat. Why they all thought this remains something of a mystery, since his father and brother both left office with damning disapproval ratings and a country mired in deep recession, but there you are. Poor Jeb is now cutting staff and wistfully telling voters that he's got lots of cooler things to do than deal with nutballs like Donald Trump. He's fading like an old black-and-white polaroid while the ever more vivid and colorful "outsiders" continue to dominate the spotlight. I have written here for months that Marco Rubio makes the most sense on paper. Considering the very real demographic challenges in the GOP, if one were to conjure up a candidate to face the older white candidates being offered up on the Democratic side one, could hardly come up with a more perfect counterpoint than he. Many people have attested to his talent as a speaker and a retail politician, the big money boys love him, and he's from Florida to boot. So far he has not lived up to that reputation; and he's teetering dangerously toward Scott Walker territory, with these lame excuses for failing to turn up for work at the U.S. Senate, and his less than compelling campaign appearances. Still, there's been a tiny Rubio boomlet over the past few weeks and some ripples in the polls that suggest he's still a top potential establishment candidate. And then there's the dark horse, Senator Ted Cruz. I have been tracking his campaign here for some time as well and have been impressed with how methodically and strategically he's gone about it. Yesterday, Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post took note as well. He pointed out that Cruz announced before everyone else and that he made his announcement at Liberty University, showing his social conservative credentials up front and proudly. (It was an effective announcement, too, although at the time the pundits dismissed him as a joke, which, considering what has since unfolded with Trump and Carson, was actually a joke on them.) Cillizza also points out that Cruz has handled Trump very deftly, placing himself as the natural heir to those supporters when he flames out. He's collected more money than anyone but Bush ($64 million!) and he hasn't been blowing through it like a teenager at Hot Topic, as Walker did. And then there's this, which I think is more important than people realize:

[Cruz's] message is pitch-perfect. No one, not even Trump, in the GOP field can deliver the Washington-is-broken-and-they-don't even-get-it message better than Cruz. Trump's problem is that he veers WAY off message every few minutes. Cruz is much more disciplined, finding ways to bring virtually any question he is asked back to how terrible the "Washington Cartel" is. Cruz has one other thing that Trump lacks: A track record of sticking it to the party establishment ...[And] as the field starts to shrink, Cruz's skills as a nationally recognized debate champ will shine through -- and get more positive attention.

Cruz is the guy who has the message that the Trump and Carson followers want to hear, but he can deliver it in a polished, professional manner. The establishment hates him as much as he hates them, but whatever you think of his policies and his tactics, he's a serious politician and they may have no choice but to accept him. If he does win the nomination, He's more likely to be Barry Goldwater rather than Ronald Reagan, but you just never know. Either way he's formidable. So as we all play the debate drinking game tonight, taxing our poor livers every time the candidates robotically decry "political correctness" and promise to repeal Obamacare, we might want to keep an eye on Rubio and Cruz. If the GOP has any savvy (or any luck) they should want these two candidates to end up being the insider vs the outsider down the stretch. As Al Hunt from Bloomberg observed, these two are both 44 year old sons of Cuban immigrants who beat an establishment Republican. And they both have some very wealthy donors bankrolling their campaigns. But they have very different styles, with Cruz being the hard-charging doctrinaire conservative and Rubio being more of a standard conciliator. Hunt describes the exceptionally accomplished Cruz as smarter and Rubio as smoother which seems right. But those are not the only differences:

Both hew a hard conservative line on most domestic issues, though Cruz is a bit more to the right. The Floridian favors a sharp cut in income taxes, especially for upper incomes, and Cruz talks favorably of a flat tax, without providing specifics. They don’t have many differences on social issues, though Cruz has shown a greater willingness to shut down the government to get his way on issues such as defunding Planned Parenthood. In any showdown, the Texas senator would make a big deal of immigration, specifically Rubio's key role in Senate passage of a reform measure that would have offered a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers. That is anathema to rank-and-file conservative voters. Rubio has now changed his position. On national security, the roles would be reversed, with Rubio taking the harder line. He has embraced Dick Cheney's interventionist posture and has taken on advisers such as Eric Edelman, a Cheney protégé, and the neoconservative favorite Elliott Abrams. Rubio has left open the possibility of sending more U.S. forces to combat the so-called Islamic State.

If those two were the last candidates standing it would make for a very interesting race -- two youthful, conservative Latino Senators representing the outsider and insider strains in the GOP. Considering the primary race so far, the better bet at the moment would seem to be Cruz. His strategy is more sophisticated and he better reflects the anti-establishment zeitgeist in the party. But he is a very hardcore Tea Party conservative and has little ability to appeal to moderates or independents. Rubio is a much more congenial politician who could conceivably draw a broader segment of the electorate -- if the GOP base ever sobers up enough to care about that. Tonight's debate is likely going to be a slugfest between Tump, Carson and Bush with the rest trying desperately to make some kind of an impression. But I would keep my eyes on the Senators from Texas and Florida. In the unlikely event that Republican voters realize that they actually have to nominate something other than a sideshow act, these are the two freshest acts in the game. Their politics and policies may be appallingly out of step with the majority of the country but the juxtaposition with the older Sanders and Clinton on the other side could be a powerful symbolic image. And after what Trump and Carson and the rest of the clown car have done these last few months, the Republican image needs all the help it can get.

Continue Reading...

“Vacationing Brian Williams credited with bringing down the runaway Army Blimp”: A big, goofy #blimp went rogue, and Twitter went wild

As the hunt for a rogue JLENS blimp over Pennsylvania played out, — CNN reports the runaway aircraft just landed in Montour County, PA — those with still-standing power lines took to Twitter to pluck the low-hanging fruit: [embedtweet id="659463666266472448"] [embedtweet id="659431932246142977"] [embedtweet id="659438059549802497"] [embedtweet id="659440265728532480"] [embedtweet id="659456093060538368"] [embedtweet id="659451808725737472"] https://twitter.com/SimonMaloy/status... https://twitter.com/petersagal/status... https://twitter.com/Matthops82/status... Even Sen. McCain couldn't resist: [embedtweet id="659441969840660480"] The blimp now has a fake Twitter account -- Not to be confused with its real Twitter account, that I can't imagine anyone followed before this afternoon.As the hunt for a rogue JLENS blimp over Pennsylvania played out, — CNN reports the runaway aircraft just landed in Montour County, PA — those with still-standing power lines took to Twitter to pluck the low-hanging fruit: [embedtweet id="659463666266472448"] [embedtweet id="659431932246142977"] [embedtweet id="659438059549802497"] [embedtweet id="659440265728532480"] [embedtweet id="659456093060538368"] [embedtweet id="659451808725737472"] https://twitter.com/SimonMaloy/status... https://twitter.com/petersagal/status... https://twitter.com/Matthops82/status... Even Sen. McCain couldn't resist: [embedtweet id="659441969840660480"] The blimp now has a fake Twitter account -- Not to be confused with its real Twitter account, that I can't imagine anyone followed before this afternoon.

Continue Reading...

Rogue state: For 24th year, U.S. defies 99 percent of world, voting against ending Cuba embargo

The entire world opposes the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba. Well, except for the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday on a resolution calling on Washington to end its blockade of Cuba. 191 of 193 countries voted for the resolution -- 99 percent of the member states. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. and its allies were the only nations to vote against the measure. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. has utterly defied the will of the entire international community. A U.N. photo of the General Assembly meeting illustrates just how ludicrously disproportionate the vote was: [caption id="attachment_14188789" align="aligncenter" width="619"] (Credit: U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)[/caption] The 191 green lights are the 99 percent of the world who voted for the resolution. The mere two red lights are the one percent who opposed it. This is what a true rogue state looks like. And this is not the beginning -- far from it. In both the 2013 and 2014 votes on the resolution, which were identical, 188 (97 percent) of U.N. member states voted to end the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. and Israel were the only ones to oppose it. The Washington-allied Pacific island nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. An embargo of sugar, oil, and weapons was first imposed on Cuba by President Eisenhower in 1960. In 1962, two years later, the Kennedy administration expanded the blockade to impede virtually all imports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has called for an end to the embargo, while Washington has adamantly insisted that it must continue to blockade the small socialist island state. 55 years later, the U.S. has finally moved toward rapprochement with Cuba. The U.N. reported that the General Assembly "welcomed the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba," in what is a truly historical development. But, with its vote at the U.N., the U.S. -- true to its imperial nature -- continues to convey that it will only act on its own terms, not on those of the international community. The Cuban embargo is by no means the only issue on which the U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world, nor is it a coincidence that Israel has continuously voted with it. In July, the U.S. was, yet again, the only country in the world to directly oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes it committed in its 2014 war on Gaza. At the 29th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Washington alone voted against "ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in" the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). One year before, the U.S. was, once more, the only country on the UNHRC to oppose "ensuring respect for international law in the OPT." Moreover, in 2012, the U.S. led eight allies, including Israel and Canada, in a vote against non-member observer status for Palestine at the U.N., which was supported by 138 countries. American exceptionalism may be a deranged lie, a dangerous myth, and a sick joke, but the U.S. government sure believes it. The Obama administration has often tried to differentiate itself from the Bush administration by appealing to rhetoric concerning international law. Yet votes like these prove such statements to be hollow. Behind the veneer of Obama's emphasis on international rules and norms is the cold logic of empire: The U.S., as the global economic and military hegemon, will do what it wants, when it wants. By blatantly spitting in the face of the international community for the 24th time, America only continues to reinforce its global reputation as a rogue state.The entire world opposes the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba. Well, except for the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday on a resolution calling on Washington to end its blockade of Cuba. 191 of 193 countries voted for the resolution -- 99 percent of the member states. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. and its allies were the only nations to vote against the measure. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. has utterly defied the will of the entire international community. A U.N. photo of the General Assembly meeting illustrates just how ludicrously disproportionate the vote was: [caption id="attachment_14188789" align="aligncenter" width="619"] (Credit: U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)[/caption] The 191 green lights are the 99 percent of the world who voted for the resolution. The mere two red lights are the one percent who opposed it. This is what a true rogue state looks like. And this is not the beginning -- far from it. In both the 2013 and 2014 votes on the resolution, which were identical, 188 (97 percent) of U.N. member states voted to end the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. and Israel were the only ones to oppose it. The Washington-allied Pacific island nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. An embargo of sugar, oil, and weapons was first imposed on Cuba by President Eisenhower in 1960. In 1962, two years later, the Kennedy administration expanded the blockade to impede virtually all imports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has called for an end to the embargo, while Washington has adamantly insisted that it must continue to blockade the small socialist island state. 55 years later, the U.S. has finally moved toward rapprochement with Cuba. The U.N. reported that the General Assembly "welcomed the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba," in what is a truly historical development. But, with its vote at the U.N., the U.S. -- true to its imperial nature -- continues to convey that it will only act on its own terms, not on those of the international community. The Cuban embargo is by no means the only issue on which the U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world, nor is it a coincidence that Israel has continuously voted with it. In July, the U.S. was, yet again, the only country in the world to directly oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes it committed in its 2014 war on Gaza. At the 29th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Washington alone voted against "ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in" the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). One year before, the U.S. was, once more, the only country on the UNHRC to oppose "ensuring respect for international law in the OPT." Moreover, in 2012, the U.S. led eight allies, including Israel and Canada, in a vote against non-member observer status for Palestine at the U.N., which was supported by 138 countries. American exceptionalism may be a deranged lie, a dangerous myth, and a sick joke, but the U.S. government sure believes it. The Obama administration has often tried to differentiate itself from the Bush administration by appealing to rhetoric concerning international law. Yet votes like these prove such statements to be hollow. Behind the veneer of Obama's emphasis on international rules and norms is the cold logic of empire: The U.S., as the global economic and military hegemon, will do what it wants, when it wants. By blatantly spitting in the face of the international community for the 24th time, America only continues to reinforce its global reputation as a rogue state.The entire world opposes the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba. Well, except for the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday on a resolution calling on Washington to end its blockade of Cuba. 191 of 193 countries voted for the resolution -- 99 percent of the member states. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. and its allies were the only nations to vote against the measure. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. has utterly defied the will of the entire international community. A U.N. photo of the General Assembly meeting illustrates just how ludicrously disproportionate the vote was: [caption id="attachment_14188789" align="aligncenter" width="619"] (Credit: U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)[/caption] The 191 green lights are the 99 percent of the world who voted for the resolution. The mere two red lights are the one percent who opposed it. This is what a true rogue state looks like. And this is not the beginning -- far from it. In both the 2013 and 2014 votes on the resolution, which were identical, 188 (97 percent) of U.N. member states voted to end the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. and Israel were the only ones to oppose it. The Washington-allied Pacific island nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. An embargo of sugar, oil, and weapons was first imposed on Cuba by President Eisenhower in 1960. In 1962, two years later, the Kennedy administration expanded the blockade to impede virtually all imports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has called for an end to the embargo, while Washington has adamantly insisted that it must continue to blockade the small socialist island state. 55 years later, the U.S. has finally moved toward rapprochement with Cuba. The U.N. reported that the General Assembly "welcomed the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba," in what is a truly historical development. But, with its vote at the U.N., the U.S. -- true to its imperial nature -- continues to convey that it will only act on its own terms, not on those of the international community. The Cuban embargo is by no means the only issue on which the U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world, nor is it a coincidence that Israel has continuously voted with it. In July, the U.S. was, yet again, the only country in the world to directly oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes it committed in its 2014 war on Gaza. At the 29th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Washington alone voted against "ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in" the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). One year before, the U.S. was, once more, the only country on the UNHRC to oppose "ensuring respect for international law in the OPT." Moreover, in 2012, the U.S. led eight allies, including Israel and Canada, in a vote against non-member observer status for Palestine at the U.N., which was supported by 138 countries. American exceptionalism may be a deranged lie, a dangerous myth, and a sick joke, but the U.S. government sure believes it. The Obama administration has often tried to differentiate itself from the Bush administration by appealing to rhetoric concerning international law. Yet votes like these prove such statements to be hollow. Behind the veneer of Obama's emphasis on international rules and norms is the cold logic of empire: The U.S., as the global economic and military hegemon, will do what it wants, when it wants. By blatantly spitting in the face of the international community for the 24th time, America only continues to reinforce its global reputation as a rogue state.The entire world opposes the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba. Well, except for the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday on a resolution calling on Washington to end its blockade of Cuba. 191 of 193 countries voted for the resolution -- 99 percent of the member states. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. and its allies were the only nations to vote against the measure. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. has utterly defied the will of the entire international community. A U.N. photo of the General Assembly meeting illustrates just how ludicrously disproportionate the vote was: [caption id="attachment_14188789" align="aligncenter" width="619"] (Credit: U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)[/caption] The 191 green lights are the 99 percent of the world who voted for the resolution. The mere two red lights are the one percent who opposed it. This is what a true rogue state looks like. And this is not the beginning -- far from it. In both the 2013 and 2014 votes on the resolution, which were identical, 188 (97 percent) of U.N. member states voted to end the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. and Israel were the only ones to oppose it. The Washington-allied Pacific island nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. An embargo of sugar, oil, and weapons was first imposed on Cuba by President Eisenhower in 1960. In 1962, two years later, the Kennedy administration expanded the blockade to impede virtually all imports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has called for an end to the embargo, while Washington has adamantly insisted that it must continue to blockade the small socialist island state. 55 years later, the U.S. has finally moved toward rapprochement with Cuba. The U.N. reported that the General Assembly "welcomed the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba," in what is a truly historical development. But, with its vote at the U.N., the U.S. -- true to its imperial nature -- continues to convey that it will only act on its own terms, not on those of the international community. The Cuban embargo is by no means the only issue on which the U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world, nor is it a coincidence that Israel has continuously voted with it. In July, the U.S. was, yet again, the only country in the world to directly oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes it committed in its 2014 war on Gaza. At the 29th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Washington alone voted against "ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in" the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). One year before, the U.S. was, once more, the only country on the UNHRC to oppose "ensuring respect for international law in the OPT." Moreover, in 2012, the U.S. led eight allies, including Israel and Canada, in a vote against non-member observer status for Palestine at the U.N., which was supported by 138 countries. American exceptionalism may be a deranged lie, a dangerous myth, and a sick joke, but the U.S. government sure believes it. The Obama administration has often tried to differentiate itself from the Bush administration by appealing to rhetoric concerning international law. Yet votes like these prove such statements to be hollow. Behind the veneer of Obama's emphasis on international rules and norms is the cold logic of empire: The U.S., as the global economic and military hegemon, will do what it wants, when it wants. By blatantly spitting in the face of the international community for the 24th time, America only continues to reinforce its global reputation as a rogue state.The entire world opposes the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba. Well, except for the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday on a resolution calling on Washington to end its blockade of Cuba. 191 of 193 countries voted for the resolution -- 99 percent of the member states. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. and its allies were the only nations to vote against the measure. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. has utterly defied the will of the entire international community. A U.N. photo of the General Assembly meeting illustrates just how ludicrously disproportionate the vote was: [caption id="attachment_14188789" align="aligncenter" width="619"] (Credit: U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)[/caption] The 191 green lights are the 99 percent of the world who voted for the resolution. The mere two red lights are the one percent who opposed it. This is what a true rogue state looks like. And this is not the beginning -- far from it. In both the 2013 and 2014 votes on the resolution, which were identical, 188 (97 percent) of U.N. member states voted to end the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. and Israel were the only ones to oppose it. The Washington-allied Pacific island nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. An embargo of sugar, oil, and weapons was first imposed on Cuba by President Eisenhower in 1960. In 1962, two years later, the Kennedy administration expanded the blockade to impede virtually all imports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has called for an end to the embargo, while Washington has adamantly insisted that it must continue to blockade the small socialist island state. 55 years later, the U.S. has finally moved toward rapprochement with Cuba. The U.N. reported that the General Assembly "welcomed the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba," in what is a truly historical development. But, with its vote at the U.N., the U.S. -- true to its imperial nature -- continues to convey that it will only act on its own terms, not on those of the international community. The Cuban embargo is by no means the only issue on which the U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world, nor is it a coincidence that Israel has continuously voted with it. In July, the U.S. was, yet again, the only country in the world to directly oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes it committed in its 2014 war on Gaza. At the 29th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Washington alone voted against "ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in" the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). One year before, the U.S. was, once more, the only country on the UNHRC to oppose "ensuring respect for international law in the OPT." Moreover, in 2012, the U.S. led eight allies, including Israel and Canada, in a vote against non-member observer status for Palestine at the U.N., which was supported by 138 countries. American exceptionalism may be a deranged lie, a dangerous myth, and a sick joke, but the U.S. government sure believes it. The Obama administration has often tried to differentiate itself from the Bush administration by appealing to rhetoric concerning international law. Yet votes like these prove such statements to be hollow. Behind the veneer of Obama's emphasis on international rules and norms is the cold logic of empire: The U.S., as the global economic and military hegemon, will do what it wants, when it wants. By blatantly spitting in the face of the international community for the 24th time, America only continues to reinforce its global reputation as a rogue state.The entire world opposes the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba. Well, except for the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday on a resolution calling on Washington to end its blockade of Cuba. 191 of 193 countries voted for the resolution -- 99 percent of the member states. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. and its allies were the only nations to vote against the measure. For the 24th year in a row, the U.S. has utterly defied the will of the entire international community. A U.N. photo of the General Assembly meeting illustrates just how ludicrously disproportionate the vote was: [caption id="attachment_14188789" align="aligncenter" width="619"] (Credit: U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)[/caption] The 191 green lights are the 99 percent of the world who voted for the resolution. The mere two red lights are the one percent who opposed it. This is what a true rogue state looks like. And this is not the beginning -- far from it. In both the 2013 and 2014 votes on the resolution, which were identical, 188 (97 percent) of U.N. member states voted to end the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. and Israel were the only ones to oppose it. The Washington-allied Pacific island nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. An embargo of sugar, oil, and weapons was first imposed on Cuba by President Eisenhower in 1960. In 1962, two years later, the Kennedy administration expanded the blockade to impede virtually all imports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has called for an end to the embargo, while Washington has adamantly insisted that it must continue to blockade the small socialist island state. 55 years later, the U.S. has finally moved toward rapprochement with Cuba. The U.N. reported that the General Assembly "welcomed the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba," in what is a truly historical development. But, with its vote at the U.N., the U.S. -- true to its imperial nature -- continues to convey that it will only act on its own terms, not on those of the international community. The Cuban embargo is by no means the only issue on which the U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world, nor is it a coincidence that Israel has continuously voted with it. In July, the U.S. was, yet again, the only country in the world to directly oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes it committed in its 2014 war on Gaza. At the 29th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Washington alone voted against "ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in" the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). One year before, the U.S. was, once more, the only country on the UNHRC to oppose "ensuring respect for international law in the OPT." Moreover, in 2012, the U.S. led eight allies, including Israel and Canada, in a vote against non-member observer status for Palestine at the U.N., which was supported by 138 countries. American exceptionalism may be a deranged lie, a dangerous myth, and a sick joke, but the U.S. government sure believes it. The Obama administration has often tried to differentiate itself from the Bush administration by appealing to rhetoric concerning international law. Yet votes like these prove such statements to be hollow. Behind the veneer of Obama's emphasis on international rules and norms is the cold logic of empire: The U.S., as the global economic and military hegemon, will do what it wants, when it wants. By blatantly spitting in the face of the international community for the 24th time, America only continues to reinforce its global reputation as a rogue state.

Continue Reading...

Carol Queen is a fan of Amy Schumer’s “frisky” feminism: She’s “standing up here with a level of swagger that people expect from a fellow when he’s out on the town”

Carol Queen is a Ph.D-wielding sexologist and, since 1990, an employee at Good Vibrations, the San Francisco sex shop. A longtime educator, anthology editor, and author (her books include “Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture”), she’s also a kind of evangelist for pleasure and tolerance. Queen has just released, with Shar Rednour, “The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone,” which is both a how-to book about positions, dating, and erotica, as well as an argument for a healthy and tolerant sexual culture. Salon spoke to Queen from San Francisco; the interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Let’s start with your new “The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex For Everyone.” There’ve been sex guides since the “Joy of Sex” books in the ‘70s. How is your book different from what’s come before? What does yours pay attention to that we haven’t gotten in similar books? To start out, we really tried to live up to the [subtitle] and make it as comprehensive as we could: In a lot of past books, there were readers who felt left out: That was certainly true of “The Joy of Sex.” And we wanted to make this relevant to people of pretty much any gender identity, sexual orientation, sex style, set of sexual interests, time of life… And that’s something we hope we’ve done better than anybody so far. It goes into sex toys, I think, more deeply than other books have done. And what I hope I’ve brought to it that’s really different is a focus on identity, real diversity. Like, no two people are identical sexually: We use the phrase “blizzard of sexy snowflakes,” which makes some people go, Oh God! But some people will not have been exposed to this idea, that there is no normal male or normal female sexuality, who think that generally that all the equipment works the same on everybody, whether they have a penis or a clitoris and a vulva. That’s not true! And we really wanted to emphasize that everyone has a responsibility – and a privilege, an exciting one -- to figure out their own operating manual. And this is a book that hopefully will help as people delve into their experience to figure out what they most want. Early in the book you talk about a term a lot of people think they understand but may not: Sex-positive. What does it mean, what does it not mean? A colleague at Good Vibrations, Andy Duran, and I were doing a training for our staff the other day, and he made a differentiation: “Sex-positive” versus “positive about sex.” So what people mainly think these days when they hear the phrase “sex-positive” is “Whee! I love sex! Sex is great!” How could I possibly ever think that’s a bad thing? But I’ve heard the phrase used as, “If you were really sex-positive you’d open our relationship.” Or, “If you were really sex-positive you’d do anal.” That is about as far from the actual definition as you could get. The real way sex-positive is useful to us is as a social critique. What kind of culture and sexuality would we have to create for everyone to feel good about their sexual options? To get the information they need to be optimal sexual creatures, whoever they are? To get the knowledge they need to find appropriate partners for themselves – because if everyone’s a little different sexually, you can’t just match comparables up and assume they’ll be compatible. And the sexual health issue is huge – that takes us into issues of sexual justice. You want to live your life, you little snowflake, without discrimination, bias and hatred – what kind of society makes that possible, not just for the people we tend to see as sex symbols – a Kardashian – but everybody else. Old people, people who haven’t had sex yet, asexuals… Where do we put everyone on this spectrum and respect that kind of diversity? How has the coverage of sexuality in the media – newspapers, magazines, television news – and in pop culture changed in the quarter century since you started working at Good Vibrations? The sheer volume of discourse, especially mainstream media-driven and pop culture, is a little stunning, even to me. Once in a while I get growly when someone is [prudish] and I think of my grandmother when we told her that someone had landed on the moon. They must be kind of overwhelmed; there are days when I’m overwhelmed. I didn’t even say the word Internet, but that’s a significant part of the equation, as far as driving access to all kinds of other media, but also making access to explicit information… I mean porn, actually. Yeah there was a time when picking up something like “The Joy of Sex” or Playboy was like uncovering this secret knowledge. Sex was so far from the surface of the culture. Yeah! It’s probably pretty hard for people to grasp that. And Playboy announcing they were going to go no-nude. Wow! Somebody thinks the battle is won now, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. Whatever the battle is. Also, especially when we step into the question of the Internet, the support networks are extraordinary. But not all the information is correct. Not all of it is free of trolls or attitudes. But there are ways for people to find like-mindeds in a way that didn’t exist back in the day. And I think that’s changed all kinds of sexual communities. I think the Internet played a role in marriage equality. People act like we just started to plan on this a few years ago. But when I came out, it was 1974, and we were already talking about it. So this was a 40- or 50-year civil rights issue. So all of this is great. And the degree to which people can anoint themselves sexperts is great… But the real problem is that if you think you understand sexuality because you understand your own, you miss the whole snowflake business I started the book with. That’s the thing I worry the most about. I’m of the generation of anti-censorship people who believes that a rising tide of discourse evens all that stuff out. So I’m not super worried. But I think people believe we have achieved something we haven’t achieved yet. What do you make of the new wave of female comedians – Amy Schumer, for instance? How does this mark a change from a decade or two or three ago? I think there is a space made when there is some sex-positive discourse, some frisky, positive-about-sex discourse, and some feminism. Most feminism these days is dosed with sex positivity. When you put that stuff together, you get some women who will bob to the top with something both cheeky and thoughtful to say. There’s been this argument about feminists all along, that we just want to be like men. Actually, we want to be able to do whatever men can do as part of their patrimony, without anyone telling us, “You’re a girl, you can’t do that.” We’ve got some representation of that in this generation of women comics. Can you give us an example of what you mean? Well, this isn’t a perfect example. But the whole Amy Schumer standing up and going, “Yeah, I’m f*ckable…” That level of not “I’ve made myself so sexy that men cannot resist me” but “I’m standing up here with a level of swagger that people expect from a fellow when he’s out on the town.” I think back to the fierce women comics of the ‘60s, when I was tuning in and paying attention. They could have most of that. But they couldn’t have the sexuality very openly and it always had to be a little self-deprecating. You could see Phyllis Diller kind of doing that. But it would have had a whole slab of irony on that top that I don’t think Schumer’s bringing. I think Schumer’s saying what she’s saying. [Until recently], the culture wasn’t ready for it to happen.Carol Queen is a Ph.D-wielding sexologist and, since 1990, an employee at Good Vibrations, the San Francisco sex shop. A longtime educator, anthology editor, and author (her books include “Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture”), she’s also a kind of evangelist for pleasure and tolerance. Queen has just released, with Shar Rednour, “The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone,” which is both a how-to book about positions, dating, and erotica, as well as an argument for a healthy and tolerant sexual culture. Salon spoke to Queen from San Francisco; the interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Let’s start with your new “The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex For Everyone.” There’ve been sex guides since the “Joy of Sex” books in the ‘70s. How is your book different from what’s come before? What does yours pay attention to that we haven’t gotten in similar books? To start out, we really tried to live up to the [subtitle] and make it as comprehensive as we could: In a lot of past books, there were readers who felt left out: That was certainly true of “The Joy of Sex.” And we wanted to make this relevant to people of pretty much any gender identity, sexual orientation, sex style, set of sexual interests, time of life… And that’s something we hope we’ve done better than anybody so far. It goes into sex toys, I think, more deeply than other books have done. And what I hope I’ve brought to it that’s really different is a focus on identity, real diversity. Like, no two people are identical sexually: We use the phrase “blizzard of sexy snowflakes,” which makes some people go, Oh God! But some people will not have been exposed to this idea, that there is no normal male or normal female sexuality, who think that generally that all the equipment works the same on everybody, whether they have a penis or a clitoris and a vulva. That’s not true! And we really wanted to emphasize that everyone has a responsibility – and a privilege, an exciting one -- to figure out their own operating manual. And this is a book that hopefully will help as people delve into their experience to figure out what they most want. Early in the book you talk about a term a lot of people think they understand but may not: Sex-positive. What does it mean, what does it not mean? A colleague at Good Vibrations, Andy Duran, and I were doing a training for our staff the other day, and he made a differentiation: “Sex-positive” versus “positive about sex.” So what people mainly think these days when they hear the phrase “sex-positive” is “Whee! I love sex! Sex is great!” How could I possibly ever think that’s a bad thing? But I’ve heard the phrase used as, “If you were really sex-positive you’d open our relationship.” Or, “If you were really sex-positive you’d do anal.” That is about as far from the actual definition as you could get. The real way sex-positive is useful to us is as a social critique. What kind of culture and sexuality would we have to create for everyone to feel good about their sexual options? To get the information they need to be optimal sexual creatures, whoever they are? To get the knowledge they need to find appropriate partners for themselves – because if everyone’s a little different sexually, you can’t just match comparables up and assume they’ll be compatible. And the sexual health issue is huge – that takes us into issues of sexual justice. You want to live your life, you little snowflake, without discrimination, bias and hatred – what kind of society makes that possible, not just for the people we tend to see as sex symbols – a Kardashian – but everybody else. Old people, people who haven’t had sex yet, asexuals… Where do we put everyone on this spectrum and respect that kind of diversity? How has the coverage of sexuality in the media – newspapers, magazines, television news – and in pop culture changed in the quarter century since you started working at Good Vibrations? The sheer volume of discourse, especially mainstream media-driven and pop culture, is a little stunning, even to me. Once in a while I get growly when someone is [prudish] and I think of my grandmother when we told her that someone had landed on the moon. They must be kind of overwhelmed; there are days when I’m overwhelmed. I didn’t even say the word Internet, but that’s a significant part of the equation, as far as driving access to all kinds of other media, but also making access to explicit information… I mean porn, actually. Yeah there was a time when picking up something like “The Joy of Sex” or Playboy was like uncovering this secret knowledge. Sex was so far from the surface of the culture. Yeah! It’s probably pretty hard for people to grasp that. And Playboy announcing they were going to go no-nude. Wow! Somebody thinks the battle is won now, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. Whatever the battle is. Also, especially when we step into the question of the Internet, the support networks are extraordinary. But not all the information is correct. Not all of it is free of trolls or attitudes. But there are ways for people to find like-mindeds in a way that didn’t exist back in the day. And I think that’s changed all kinds of sexual communities. I think the Internet played a role in marriage equality. People act like we just started to plan on this a few years ago. But when I came out, it was 1974, and we were already talking about it. So this was a 40- or 50-year civil rights issue. So all of this is great. And the degree to which people can anoint themselves sexperts is great… But the real problem is that if you think you understand sexuality because you understand your own, you miss the whole snowflake business I started the book with. That’s the thing I worry the most about. I’m of the generation of anti-censorship people who believes that a rising tide of discourse evens all that stuff out. So I’m not super worried. But I think people believe we have achieved something we haven’t achieved yet. What do you make of the new wave of female comedians – Amy Schumer, for instance? How does this mark a change from a decade or two or three ago? I think there is a space made when there is some sex-positive discourse, some frisky, positive-about-sex discourse, and some feminism. Most feminism these days is dosed with sex positivity. When you put that stuff together, you get some women who will bob to the top with something both cheeky and thoughtful to say. There’s been this argument about feminists all along, that we just want to be like men. Actually, we want to be able to do whatever men can do as part of their patrimony, without anyone telling us, “You’re a girl, you can’t do that.” We’ve got some representation of that in this generation of women comics. Can you give us an example of what you mean? Well, this isn’t a perfect example. But the whole Amy Schumer standing up and going, “Yeah, I’m f*ckable…” That level of not “I’ve made myself so sexy that men cannot resist me” but “I’m standing up here with a level of swagger that people expect from a fellow when he’s out on the town.” I think back to the fierce women comics of the ‘60s, when I was tuning in and paying attention. They could have most of that. But they couldn’t have the sexuality very openly and it always had to be a little self-deprecating. You could see Phyllis Diller kind of doing that. But it would have had a whole slab of irony on that top that I don’t think Schumer’s bringing. I think Schumer’s saying what she’s saying. [Until recently], the culture wasn’t ready for it to happen.Carol Queen is a Ph.D-wielding sexologist and, since 1990, an employee at Good Vibrations, the San Francisco sex shop. A longtime educator, anthology editor, and author (her books include “Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture”), she’s also a kind of evangelist for pleasure and tolerance. Queen has just released, with Shar Rednour, “The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone,” which is both a how-to book about positions, dating, and erotica, as well as an argument for a healthy and tolerant sexual culture. Salon spoke to Queen from San Francisco; the interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Let’s start with your new “The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex For Everyone.” There’ve been sex guides since the “Joy of Sex” books in the ‘70s. How is your book different from what’s come before? What does yours pay attention to that we haven’t gotten in similar books? To start out, we really tried to live up to the [subtitle] and make it as comprehensive as we could: In a lot of past books, there were readers who felt left out: That was certainly true of “The Joy of Sex.” And we wanted to make this relevant to people of pretty much any gender identity, sexual orientation, sex style, set of sexual interests, time of life… And that’s something we hope we’ve done better than anybody so far. It goes into sex toys, I think, more deeply than other books have done. And what I hope I’ve brought to it that’s really different is a focus on identity, real diversity. Like, no two people are identical sexually: We use the phrase “blizzard of sexy snowflakes,” which makes some people go, Oh God! But some people will not have been exposed to this idea, that there is no normal male or normal female sexuality, who think that generally that all the equipment works the same on everybody, whether they have a penis or a clitoris and a vulva. That’s not true! And we really wanted to emphasize that everyone has a responsibility – and a privilege, an exciting one -- to figure out their own operating manual. And this is a book that hopefully will help as people delve into their experience to figure out what they most want. Early in the book you talk about a term a lot of people think they understand but may not: Sex-positive. What does it mean, what does it not mean? A colleague at Good Vibrations, Andy Duran, and I were doing a training for our staff the other day, and he made a differentiation: “Sex-positive” versus “positive about sex.” So what people mainly think these days when they hear the phrase “sex-positive” is “Whee! I love sex! Sex is great!” How could I possibly ever think that’s a bad thing? But I’ve heard the phrase used as, “If you were really sex-positive you’d open our relationship.” Or, “If you were really sex-positive you’d do anal.” That is about as far from the actual definition as you could get. The real way sex-positive is useful to us is as a social critique. What kind of culture and sexuality would we have to create for everyone to feel good about their sexual options? To get the information they need to be optimal sexual creatures, whoever they are? To get the knowledge they need to find appropriate partners for themselves – because if everyone’s a little different sexually, you can’t just match comparables up and assume they’ll be compatible. And the sexual health issue is huge – that takes us into issues of sexual justice. You want to live your life, you little snowflake, without discrimination, bias and hatred – what kind of society makes that possible, not just for the people we tend to see as sex symbols – a Kardashian – but everybody else. Old people, people who haven’t had sex yet, asexuals… Where do we put everyone on this spectrum and respect that kind of diversity? How has the coverage of sexuality in the media – newspapers, magazines, television news – and in pop culture changed in the quarter century since you started working at Good Vibrations? The sheer volume of discourse, especially mainstream media-driven and pop culture, is a little stunning, even to me. Once in a while I get growly when someone is [prudish] and I think of my grandmother when we told her that someone had landed on the moon. They must be kind of overwhelmed; there are days when I’m overwhelmed. I didn’t even say the word Internet, but that’s a significant part of the equation, as far as driving access to all kinds of other media, but also making access to explicit information… I mean porn, actually. Yeah there was a time when picking up something like “The Joy of Sex” or Playboy was like uncovering this secret knowledge. Sex was so far from the surface of the culture. Yeah! It’s probably pretty hard for people to grasp that. And Playboy announcing they were going to go no-nude. Wow! Somebody thinks the battle is won now, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. Whatever the battle is. Also, especially when we step into the question of the Internet, the support networks are extraordinary. But not all the information is correct. Not all of it is free of trolls or attitudes. But there are ways for people to find like-mindeds in a way that didn’t exist back in the day. And I think that’s changed all kinds of sexual communities. I think the Internet played a role in marriage equality. People act like we just started to plan on this a few years ago. But when I came out, it was 1974, and we were already talking about it. So this was a 40- or 50-year civil rights issue. So all of this is great. And the degree to which people can anoint themselves sexperts is great… But the real problem is that if you think you understand sexuality because you understand your own, you miss the whole snowflake business I started the book with. That’s the thing I worry the most about. I’m of the generation of anti-censorship people who believes that a rising tide of discourse evens all that stuff out. So I’m not super worried. But I think people believe we have achieved something we haven’t achieved yet. What do you make of the new wave of female comedians – Amy Schumer, for instance? How does this mark a change from a decade or two or three ago? I think there is a space made when there is some sex-positive discourse, some frisky, positive-about-sex discourse, and some feminism. Most feminism these days is dosed with sex positivity. When you put that stuff together, you get some women who will bob to the top with something both cheeky and thoughtful to say. There’s been this argument about feminists all along, that we just want to be like men. Actually, we want to be able to do whatever men can do as part of their patrimony, without anyone telling us, “You’re a girl, you can’t do that.” We’ve got some representation of that in this generation of women comics. Can you give us an example of what you mean? Well, this isn’t a perfect example. But the whole Amy Schumer standing up and going, “Yeah, I’m f*ckable…” That level of not “I’ve made myself so sexy that men cannot resist me” but “I’m standing up here with a level of swagger that people expect from a fellow when he’s out on the town.” I think back to the fierce women comics of the ‘60s, when I was tuning in and paying attention. They could have most of that. But they couldn’t have the sexuality very openly and it always had to be a little self-deprecating. You could see Phyllis Diller kind of doing that. But it would have had a whole slab of irony on that top that I don’t think Schumer’s bringing. I think Schumer’s saying what she’s saying. [Until recently], the culture wasn’t ready for it to happen.

Continue Reading...

Ivan Reitman on directing the original “Ghostbusters” and why fans will be “very, very happy” with the female-centric reboot

In the early 1980s, Ivan Reitman was an ambitious young man in Hollywood, from Slovakia by way of Canada, whose career as a producer and director of low-budget grindhouse movies had taken a dramatic turn after he made a film called “Animal House.” That history-shaping frat-house comedy (which Reitman produced and John Landis directed) didn’t cost much more than Reitman’s usual productions – the previous year, he had made a softcore horror film called “Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia.” But its enormous success made John Belushi into a comedy superstar and introduced the anarchic, subversive National Lampoon/”Saturday Night Live” mode of comedy to mass audiences for the first time. But “Animal House” was only the opening act for the strange and fantastical movie that Reitman began creating with Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis during the summer of 1983. Aykroyd had proposed an off-kilter blend of horror and comedy about a team of guys, something like paramedics or firefighters, whose job was to contain and defeat ghosts. Reitman proposed setting the story in present-day Manhattan, and making it a self-aware parable about entrepreneurship, marketing and the business world. If you don’t know what movie I’m talking about, or understand how much its level of crazy invention revolutionized the method, manner and tone of Hollywood comedy (if only for a while, and maybe not enough) – indeed, if Ray Parker Jr.’s irritating but irresistible theme song is not coursing through your brain right now – then you’re in urgent need of a remedial course in 1980s studies. “Ghostbusters” is back, if indeed it can ever be said to have gone away. But can the Zeitgeist-shifting hilarity and craziness of that film actually be replicated? Reitman is serving as a producer of writer-director Paul Feig’s forthcoming and somewhat controversial female-centric “Ghostbusters” reboot starring Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. When I get him on the phone in his Los Angeles production office, he assures me that any lingering uncertainty or resentment among the original franchise’s fanbase (he does not use the words “sexism” or “misogyny”) will disappear when they actually see Feig’s movie. In his introduction to a spectacular new coffee-table book of archival photos and production material from the original series, “Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History,” Reitman answers the question everyone asks him first (so I didn’t have to). Yes, Reitman insists, he actually did have an inkling on the set of the 1984 film that he and Aykroyd and Ramis and Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson were creating something unusual and distinctive. When he first saw the quartet “fully outfitted in ghostbusters gear, walking casually down Madison Avenue” for the first shot of the movie, there was something “iconic” about the image, he writes. “It sent a shiver up my spine, and I instantly felt that something special was about to happen.” A self-serving memory? Maybe; I wouldn’t know. But when you’re the freakin’ director of “Ghostbusters,” a movie whose bizarre blend of absurdism, social satire and scares has been endlessly imitated but never recaptured, I think you get to brag on yourself a little. Ivan, Is it still fun for you to talk about the movie after all this time? It’s actually more fun now. The fact that it has survived more than 30 years is always amazing to me. Not just that it survived but that it also seems to be loved. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing, and I feel lucky. Seeing all the amazing archival material that’s in this book -- I mean, I wasn’t involved in making this movie at all, and it made me feel intensely nostalgic. You guys were so young! And it looked like you were having such an amazing time. What were your emotions, looking through that stuff? Yeah, I mean, I remember how it felt at the time, and what I love about the book is that it really captures it. By talking to all the department heads and getting all this historical material – which, frankly, I didn’t even know existed — I just thought they did an amazing job. And it’s a real fitting tribute to the film. For anyone who loves movies, learning about how you guys did the effects for that film – which of course were all in-camera or in the physical world – and how different that is from the way movies are made today is such a fascinating education. Yeah. I mean, when I got into discussions with Paul Feig [director and co-writer of the new “Ghostbusters”] about doing another one, I really recommended that he try and do a lot of things in-camera and do things live on stage and live on locations, because it really makes a difference to the performances. I mean, we’re talking about comedy performances, not dramatic performances. He was really taken with that, and he’s done a lot of it in the shooting. I mean, there’s this wonderful advantage now that there has been this extraordinary advance in digital technology. We can do things now that we couldn’t imagine doing before. Right, of course. But digital technology can also be a double-edged sword, don’t you think? Sure, but I think the combination should be very exciting. And also the opportunity to do the movie in 3-D. I think to do ghosts in 3-D – that’s really a cool thing. Yeah, that wasn’t a realistic possibility when you were making the original film. Is that something you think you would have wanted to do? Yeah, I mean, I was always interested in 3-D. I’d actually done a terrible movie in 3-D. I produced it and directed it a few years before “Ghostbusters.” It’s called “Spacehunter.” I saw that! Molly Ringwald is in that. [Laughter.] Yeah. “Spacehunter: In the Forbidden Zone,” or “Something something in the Forbidden Zone.” [The actual subtitle is “Adventures in the Forbidden Zone,” and Reitman is not the official director or producer of record.] We had to have two cameras. We just shot it in what is now called “native” 3-D, and it was hell. And there were no screens that you could show it in. That was not really a practical idea in 1981. Just as a lover of movies and a guy who’s been doing this a long time, do you feel that 3-D has earned its stripes at this point, or has there have been enough good 3-D movies to make up for the bad ones? Oh, sure. I mean, particularly the animated films. You know, particularly the ones from Pixar. They’re just spectacular. I mean, the screen image is still a little dark but they’re finally getting to solving all that. Now that we’re talking about switching over to 4K projection, that’s going to help 3-D more than anything else. With more light coming back off the screen, it makes the contrast that much better. You’re right that in the last couple of years I don’t have that feeling anymore that every scene in a 3-D movie was shot at 6:30 in the evening. That’s right. It was murky. I mean, I get it, it’s pretty tiring. But you know, it’s like everything else. Progress takes a few years. In fact, most movies should not be made in 3-D. It really does enhance certain films, and I think it will enhance “Ghostbusters.” I’m sure everybody wants to ask you about this. There are some people in the fan base who appear to be irate about the way the new “Ghostbusters” has been cast. Frankly, I don’t think very many people are irate about the cast. There had been some blowback in some sense that maybe there wasn’t enough homage to the original film. That said, the guys who see this film? They’re going to be very, very happy. Look, I produced this movie. I’m one of the inventors of “Ghostbusters” along with my colleagues Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and Bill [Murray]. And you know, all of them took part in this one except for poor Harold [Ramis, who died in 2014]. I think everyone’s going to be happy. I think Paul Feig has done a great job and, you know, the new cast is in much the same position as the original cast was at the point in their respective lives. These women are extraordinarily funny and they’ve worked very, very well together. The film is very funny and very emotional, and has a lot to do with the original film. Well, that’s a fascinating point -- the performers in the new film are at a similar point in their careers to where Murray and Aykroyd were in the early ‘80s. You know, I also just saw you in that new documentary about National Lampoon. Did you? [Laughs.] I haven’t seen that yet. I’ve been told I’m in it, but I haven’t actually watched it. Well, it makes the point, with both “Animal House” and “Ghostbusters,” that this style of comedy came out of the National Lampoon worldview to a large extent. Well, when I talk about “Animal House” -- because I produced it -- I always start by referring to it as a new comedy language, really the comedy language of the Baby Boom generation. Which, at that point in their lives, we were in our 20s. So it had a different kind of energy than the comedy movies that were being made in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It seemed to be mark a turning point. Certainly movies like “M.A.S.H.” had a taste of it, but “Animal House” was really the first, 100 percent, top-to-bottom approach to it. And certainly, a lot of those things came from the Lampoon. But the Lampoon was really borrowing from other places as well, like Second City, where most of those performers got started. It’s an evolution of all of that. “Saturday Night Live” played into all that and, really, my first half-dozen movies all spoke that language. That’s so interesting. We always talk about the big-name directors who broke into Hollywood in in the ‘70s: Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese, Brian DePalma, all those guys, as representing a new generation. What you guys were doing – you and Aykroyd and Ramis and these other guys -- was the same thing in comedy, in a different register. Do you buy that? Yeah, absolutely. I always complain that comedy was never looked at as seriously, as hard as it is to make. It never got the respect it deserves. You know, people pay lip service to how difficult it is and how easy it is to fail. And frankly, it’s much more easy to fail in comedy than it is in drama. And so, I think now people are starting to look at it. They’re starting to miss the energy of those movies from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. I don’t want to oversell this angle, but part of this was about the energy of the counterculture of the ‘60s crossing into mainstream culture, right? Well, the ‘60s is really the Baby Boomer generation turning 18. They’re all young adults, they’re all smoking dope – I should say, we were all smoking dope! -- and it was this enormous culture shift that happened in this country, and then in most of the Western world through those ten years. So, yeah, the ripple effect was huge. And I imagine you had the clear sense on the set of the original film that the energy was much different from that of other Hollywood films at the time. I was working with an extremely gifted group of actors/writers, and they were real writers. Not just the original three guys, but also people like Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis and Annie Potts, they all just had great writing abilities. So it’s not that we were just improv-ing our asses off. We were constructing it very carefully. And I guess it was my job to make sure that the construction was appropriate, whatever new things we were adding. And it was coming not just from the actors and writers. It was coming from the production designer, it was coming from the composer, it was coming from the costume designer. It’s not that they were pitching lines. But in their choices they were creating this very unique world that had never been seen before, and that’s what’s wonderful about the book. I think you get a sense of how that got put together and the collaborative nature of this film. And everybody sort of got into it like it was a very serious movie, and it is. It took an enormous amount of originality, at a level I had never really seen before. When I was looking through the pictures I was so struck by what a distinctive visual world “Ghostbusters” is. It’s so weird and so funny, those are the dominant notes. But the movie also verges on being really scary at times. I imagine you were consciously trying to keep that in the mix. You know, I really believe that it had to be a scary film. I mean, it was about ghosts, and that’s part of what makes it delightful. And you know, we scare the audience very early in the film, and it just establishes the chops of the movie -- you know, that whole librarian scene! From the very first screening, even before we had real effects in it, what would always happen is when the librarian transforms into that scary thing, the audience screamed -- and then they laughed. Then we’d go boom, boom – to the opening and the “Ghostbusters” title. And really, the film grabbed everybody. I always believe in achieving confidence with the audience. With the audience is confident that the filmmaker knows what he’s doing, they tend to laugh more. And you have to earn that confidence very early on: “Oh, the tone is right. I like these people. This is not cheap. It’s all sort of working.” And I worked very hard to do that in all my films, and earn the respect and confidence of the audience. Absolutely. I’ve been reviewing films for more than 20 years and what I always say to people is that within the first five minutes, I have a feeling whether this person can drive that bus. Whether that’s Ivan Reitman or Orson Welles or, I don’t know, Wes Craven. You want to feel that this person is in command of the instrument, whatever the instrument is. It’s about establishing the tone of that particular genre. And it’s the reason that comedies are so hard to make is that it’s so easy to go off the track with a film. You get too silly or try too hard, or just, you know, the way that people are talking is not right. And you’re done. It’s very hard to win them back when they get that feeling. In terms of what we see on the screen in your “Ghostbusters,” how would you say the balance worked out between what had been scripted in advance and what the guys kind of came up with on the set? Because those are some gifted improv performers. Well, I never did a percentage. First of all, it’s all scripted, because these guys were all the writers. So even when we were improv-ing, we always thought about it as writing the last wrap, or the next-to-last wrap, while we were shooting. And sometimes it happened while we were shooting, and then it was my job to sort of pull and keep the focus, not just editorially, but even the subsequent shooting: “You know that new line? Please hold on to it -- it’s great,” or “Let’s junk all that extra stuff -- I don’t think we need that” or “It’s out of character.” I instituted something that now comedy directors are doing a lot. I used to call it the “free one.” I would do a very strict take which was exactly as written, or with a couple new lines that we sort of came up with between takes, and then I’d say, “OK, I got what I need.” It was sort of a way of getting everyone to relax, and let’s just go for the free one, where anybody could do what they wanted. And because these guys had worked in Second City – see, they weren’t stand-up comedians, they were sketch comedians. One of the things that sketch comedians have to do is learn how to listen. Because the art of great acting is about being honest in what you’re doing and listening to what everyone else is doing and reacting honestly to it. And so whatever came to them that somebody else pitched or improvised, that character would respond to it. So it was very usable, almost all the time. And it was very easy to direct and use again. It was just great fun. You create a vocabulary for directing that’s really different than directing drama. Well, one thing that the enduring popularity of this movie, the love that people have for it, testifies to is the fact that so many comedies don’t get that balance right. And for whatever reason you guys did. I guess. It could be “The Wizard of Oz” factor, you know. It’s just the strangeness of it and the uniqueness of it, the way that “Wizard of Oz” was not quite like anything else that anybody had ever seen. The difference was that “The Wizard of Oz” wasn’t that beloved when it first came out; it evolved over the decades. We were fortunate enough to capture the imagination of the audience from the start.In the early 1980s, Ivan Reitman was an ambitious young man in Hollywood, from Slovakia by way of Canada, whose career as a producer and director of low-budget grindhouse movies had taken a dramatic turn after he made a film called “Animal House.” That history-shaping frat-house comedy (which Reitman produced and John Landis directed) didn’t cost much more than Reitman’s usual productions – the previous year, he had made a softcore horror film called “Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia.” But its enormous success made John Belushi into a comedy superstar and introduced the anarchic, subversive National Lampoon/”Saturday Night Live” mode of comedy to mass audiences for the first time. But “Animal House” was only the opening act for the strange and fantastical movie that Reitman began creating with Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis during the summer of 1983. Aykroyd had proposed an off-kilter blend of horror and comedy about a team of guys, something like paramedics or firefighters, whose job was to contain and defeat ghosts. Reitman proposed setting the story in present-day Manhattan, and making it a self-aware parable about entrepreneurship, marketing and the business world. If you don’t know what movie I’m talking about, or understand how much its level of crazy invention revolutionized the method, manner and tone of Hollywood comedy (if only for a while, and maybe not enough) – indeed, if Ray Parker Jr.’s irritating but irresistible theme song is not coursing through your brain right now – then you’re in urgent need of a remedial course in 1980s studies. “Ghostbusters” is back, if indeed it can ever be said to have gone away. But can the Zeitgeist-shifting hilarity and craziness of that film actually be replicated? Reitman is serving as a producer of writer-director Paul Feig’s forthcoming and somewhat controversial female-centric “Ghostbusters” reboot starring Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. When I get him on the phone in his Los Angeles production office, he assures me that any lingering uncertainty or resentment among the original franchise’s fanbase (he does not use the words “sexism” or “misogyny”) will disappear when they actually see Feig’s movie. In his introduction to a spectacular new coffee-table book of archival photos and production material from the original series, “Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History,” Reitman answers the question everyone asks him first (so I didn’t have to). Yes, Reitman insists, he actually did have an inkling on the set of the 1984 film that he and Aykroyd and Ramis and Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson were creating something unusual and distinctive. When he first saw the quartet “fully outfitted in ghostbusters gear, walking casually down Madison Avenue” for the first shot of the movie, there was something “iconic” about the image, he writes. “It sent a shiver up my spine, and I instantly felt that something special was about to happen.” A self-serving memory? Maybe; I wouldn’t know. But when you’re the freakin’ director of “Ghostbusters,” a movie whose bizarre blend of absurdism, social satire and scares has been endlessly imitated but never recaptured, I think you get to brag on yourself a little. Ivan, Is it still fun for you to talk about the movie after all this time? It’s actually more fun now. The fact that it has survived more than 30 years is always amazing to me. Not just that it survived but that it also seems to be loved. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing, and I feel lucky. Seeing all the amazing archival material that’s in this book -- I mean, I wasn’t involved in making this movie at all, and it made me feel intensely nostalgic. You guys were so young! And it looked like you were having such an amazing time. What were your emotions, looking through that stuff? Yeah, I mean, I remember how it felt at the time, and what I love about the book is that it really captures it. By talking to all the department heads and getting all this historical material – which, frankly, I didn’t even know existed — I just thought they did an amazing job. And it’s a real fitting tribute to the film. For anyone who loves movies, learning about how you guys did the effects for that film – which of course were all in-camera or in the physical world – and how different that is from the way movies are made today is such a fascinating education. Yeah. I mean, when I got into discussions with Paul Feig [director and co-writer of the new “Ghostbusters”] about doing another one, I really recommended that he try and do a lot of things in-camera and do things live on stage and live on locations, because it really makes a difference to the performances. I mean, we’re talking about comedy performances, not dramatic performances. He was really taken with that, and he’s done a lot of it in the shooting. I mean, there’s this wonderful advantage now that there has been this extraordinary advance in digital technology. We can do things now that we couldn’t imagine doing before. Right, of course. But digital technology can also be a double-edged sword, don’t you think? Sure, but I think the combination should be very exciting. And also the opportunity to do the movie in 3-D. I think to do ghosts in 3-D – that’s really a cool thing. Yeah, that wasn’t a realistic possibility when you were making the original film. Is that something you think you would have wanted to do? Yeah, I mean, I was always interested in 3-D. I’d actually done a terrible movie in 3-D. I produced it and directed it a few years before “Ghostbusters.” It’s called “Spacehunter.” I saw that! Molly Ringwald is in that. [Laughter.] Yeah. “Spacehunter: In the Forbidden Zone,” or “Something something in the Forbidden Zone.” [The actual subtitle is “Adventures in the Forbidden Zone,” and Reitman is not the official director or producer of record.] We had to have two cameras. We just shot it in what is now called “native” 3-D, and it was hell. And there were no screens that you could show it in. That was not really a practical idea in 1981. Just as a lover of movies and a guy who’s been doing this a long time, do you feel that 3-D has earned its stripes at this point, or has there have been enough good 3-D movies to make up for the bad ones? Oh, sure. I mean, particularly the animated films. You know, particularly the ones from Pixar. They’re just spectacular. I mean, the screen image is still a little dark but they’re finally getting to solving all that. Now that we’re talking about switching over to 4K projection, that’s going to help 3-D more than anything else. With more light coming back off the screen, it makes the contrast that much better. You’re right that in the last couple of years I don’t have that feeling anymore that every scene in a 3-D movie was shot at 6:30 in the evening. That’s right. It was murky. I mean, I get it, it’s pretty tiring. But you know, it’s like everything else. Progress takes a few years. In fact, most movies should not be made in 3-D. It really does enhance certain films, and I think it will enhance “Ghostbusters.” I’m sure everybody wants to ask you about this. There are some people in the fan base who appear to be irate about the way the new “Ghostbusters” has been cast. Frankly, I don’t think very many people are irate about the cast. There had been some blowback in some sense that maybe there wasn’t enough homage to the original film. That said, the guys who see this film? They’re going to be very, very happy. Look, I produced this movie. I’m one of the inventors of “Ghostbusters” along with my colleagues Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and Bill [Murray]. And you know, all of them took part in this one except for poor Harold [Ramis, who died in 2014]. I think everyone’s going to be happy. I think Paul Feig has done a great job and, you know, the new cast is in much the same position as the original cast was at the point in their respective lives. These women are extraordinarily funny and they’ve worked very, very well together. The film is very funny and very emotional, and has a lot to do with the original film. Well, that’s a fascinating point -- the performers in the new film are at a similar point in their careers to where Murray and Aykroyd were in the early ‘80s. You know, I also just saw you in that new documentary about National Lampoon. Did you? [Laughs.] I haven’t seen that yet. I’ve been told I’m in it, but I haven’t actually watched it. Well, it makes the point, with both “Animal House” and “Ghostbusters,” that this style of comedy came out of the National Lampoon worldview to a large extent. Well, when I talk about “Animal House” -- because I produced it -- I always start by referring to it as a new comedy language, really the comedy language of the Baby Boom generation. Which, at that point in their lives, we were in our 20s. So it had a different kind of energy than the comedy movies that were being made in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It seemed to be mark a turning point. Certainly movies like “M.A.S.H.” had a taste of it, but “Animal House” was really the first, 100 percent, top-to-bottom approach to it. And certainly, a lot of those things came from the Lampoon. But the Lampoon was really borrowing from other places as well, like Second City, where most of those performers got started. It’s an evolution of all of that. “Saturday Night Live” played into all that and, really, my first half-dozen movies all spoke that language. That’s so interesting. We always talk about the big-name directors who broke into Hollywood in in the ‘70s: Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese, Brian DePalma, all those guys, as representing a new generation. What you guys were doing – you and Aykroyd and Ramis and these other guys -- was the same thing in comedy, in a different register. Do you buy that? Yeah, absolutely. I always complain that comedy was never looked at as seriously, as hard as it is to make. It never got the respect it deserves. You know, people pay lip service to how difficult it is and how easy it is to fail. And frankly, it’s much more easy to fail in comedy than it is in drama. And so, I think now people are starting to look at it. They’re starting to miss the energy of those movies from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. I don’t want to oversell this angle, but part of this was about the energy of the counterculture of the ‘60s crossing into mainstream culture, right? Well, the ‘60s is really the Baby Boomer generation turning 18. They’re all young adults, they’re all smoking dope – I should say, we were all smoking dope! -- and it was this enormous culture shift that happened in this country, and then in most of the Western world through those ten years. So, yeah, the ripple effect was huge. And I imagine you had the clear sense on the set of the original film that the energy was much different from that of other Hollywood films at the time. I was working with an extremely gifted group of actors/writers, and they were real writers. Not just the original three guys, but also people like Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis and Annie Potts, they all just had great writing abilities. So it’s not that we were just improv-ing our asses off. We were constructing it very carefully. And I guess it was my job to make sure that the construction was appropriate, whatever new things we were adding. And it was coming not just from the actors and writers. It was coming from the production designer, it was coming from the composer, it was coming from the costume designer. It’s not that they were pitching lines. But in their choices they were creating this very unique world that had never been seen before, and that’s what’s wonderful about the book. I think you get a sense of how that got put together and the collaborative nature of this film. And everybody sort of got into it like it was a very serious movie, and it is. It took an enormous amount of originality, at a level I had never really seen before. When I was looking through the pictures I was so struck by what a distinctive visual world “Ghostbusters” is. It’s so weird and so funny, those are the dominant notes. But the movie also verges on being really scary at times. I imagine you were consciously trying to keep that in the mix. You know, I really believe that it had to be a scary film. I mean, it was about ghosts, and that’s part of what makes it delightful. And you know, we scare the audience very early in the film, and it just establishes the chops of the movie -- you know, that whole librarian scene! From the very first screening, even before we had real effects in it, what would always happen is when the librarian transforms into that scary thing, the audience screamed -- and then they laughed. Then we’d go boom, boom – to the opening and the “Ghostbusters” title. And really, the film grabbed everybody. I always believe in achieving confidence with the audience. With the audience is confident that the filmmaker knows what he’s doing, they tend to laugh more. And you have to earn that confidence very early on: “Oh, the tone is right. I like these people. This is not cheap. It’s all sort of working.” And I worked very hard to do that in all my films, and earn the respect and confidence of the audience. Absolutely. I’ve been reviewing films for more than 20 years and what I always say to people is that within the first five minutes, I have a feeling whether this person can drive that bus. Whether that’s Ivan Reitman or Orson Welles or, I don’t know, Wes Craven. You want to feel that this person is in command of the instrument, whatever the instrument is. It’s about establishing the tone of that particular genre. And it’s the reason that comedies are so hard to make is that it’s so easy to go off the track with a film. You get too silly or try too hard, or just, you know, the way that people are talking is not right. And you’re done. It’s very hard to win them back when they get that feeling. In terms of what we see on the screen in your “Ghostbusters,” how would you say the balance worked out between what had been scripted in advance and what the guys kind of came up with on the set? Because those are some gifted improv performers. Well, I never did a percentage. First of all, it’s all scripted, because these guys were all the writers. So even when we were improv-ing, we always thought about it as writing the last wrap, or the next-to-last wrap, while we were shooting. And sometimes it happened while we were shooting, and then it was my job to sort of pull and keep the focus, not just editorially, but even the subsequent shooting: “You know that new line? Please hold on to it -- it’s great,” or “Let’s junk all that extra stuff -- I don’t think we need that” or “It’s out of character.” I instituted something that now comedy directors are doing a lot. I used to call it the “free one.” I would do a very strict take which was exactly as written, or with a couple new lines that we sort of came up with between takes, and then I’d say, “OK, I got what I need.” It was sort of a way of getting everyone to relax, and let’s just go for the free one, where anybody could do what they wanted. And because these guys had worked in Second City – see, they weren’t stand-up comedians, they were sketch comedians. One of the things that sketch comedians have to do is learn how to listen. Because the art of great acting is about being honest in what you’re doing and listening to what everyone else is doing and reacting honestly to it. And so whatever came to them that somebody else pitched or improvised, that character would respond to it. So it was very usable, almost all the time. And it was very easy to direct and use again. It was just great fun. You create a vocabulary for directing that’s really different than directing drama. Well, one thing that the enduring popularity of this movie, the love that people have for it, testifies to is the fact that so many comedies don’t get that balance right. And for whatever reason you guys did. I guess. It could be “The Wizard of Oz” factor, you know. It’s just the strangeness of it and the uniqueness of it, the way that “Wizard of Oz” was not quite like anything else that anybody had ever seen. The difference was that “The Wizard of Oz” wasn’t that beloved when it first came out; it evolved over the decades. We were fortunate enough to capture the imagination of the audience from the start.

Continue Reading...

9 interesting facts about sex in the animal kingdom

Sex in the animal kingdom can get pretty wild, as you can imagine. Here are 9 bizarre facts about how animals get down. 1. Don’t get mad, get off. No animal better demonstrates the peacekeeping powers of sex better than the bonobo. As Susan Block writes in her book, The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace Through Pleasure, “The most revolutionary way bonobos use sex is for conflict resolution.” Sex is an integral part of bonobo politics. Doing the dirty helps provide stress relief, eases tensions and can even be employed for something as simple as snagging a banana. As Block notes, such exchanges might go a little something like, “I’ll trade you a banana for a blowjob.” Often, it’s the female who initiates such transactions. In human society “prostitution” is often framed as a dirty word. But in the bonobo universe, it’s somewhat central to everyday life. Block writes, “Among almost all other species, it’s always the male who does the paying, in the form of providing food in exchange for sex. Among bonobos, it’s very often the lady who picks up the check.” 2. The more the merrier. When hibernation season ends, the red-sided garter snake celebrates by having a massive orgy. Sounds reasonable. These “mating balls” take the form of hundreds of male snakes wrapping themselves around a single female, all in the name of having some procreative fun. But things can get out of hand quickly. One study found that a total of 301 snakes died of suffocation while partaking in one such ritual. Each year, thousands of snake aficionados travel to the Narcisse Snake Dens of Manitoba, Canada for some mating ball tourism. Manitoba is home to the largest congregation of red-sided garter snakes in the world. 3. Kink is cool. During mating season, male porcupines will sniff up and down a female’s body as some kind of aphrodisiacal foreplay. When he’s done, he’ll get up on his hind legs, grab his fully erect penis with a free paw, and unleash a stream of urine onto his mate, “soaking her from head to foot.” Giraffes too, are known to get down with pee. To determine a female’s fertility, a male giraffe will actually taste her urine. If he detects estrus, he’s good to go. Male hippos actually attract their mates by pooping. We’ll leave it at that. 4. Courtship is not dead. Prairie chickens perform an elaborate mating dance. During the performance, the males will raise their tail feathers, stomp the ground, inflate the air sacs along their throats and unleash a distinctive echo to serenade the females. Peacocks play a similar game, using their long tails to attract females in a fanning courtship ritual known as the peacock mating dance. Experts believe females pick their mates based on size, color and feather quality. “Peacocking” has even been adopted as a slang term used to describe men who put on ostentatious displays to get some female attention. You know the type. 5. Bi-curious much? Studies suggest as much as 75 percent of bonobo sex is non-reproductive, and that “nearly all bonobos are bisexual.” Paul Vasey, professor of animal behavior at the University of Lethbridge told National Geographic, “They’re engaging in the behavior because it’s gratifying sexually, or it’s sexually pleasurable… They just like it.” But the bonobos are hardly alone in their quest for same-sex companionship. Male dolphin calves are known to form temporary sexual partnerships. Scientists credit these relationships for helping form lifelong bonds. Elephants have been documented mounting each other, even “kissing” whereby one male inserts his trunk into the other elephant’s mouth. The list of animals who form homosexual bonds goes on and on. Of course, some may be in it for the show. An article put together by AskMensuggests “female gorillas engage in bisexual acts in order to stimulate alpha males into breeding.” That description bears striking resemblance to a lot of amateur porn flicks out there. 6. All about oral. Oral sex is great foreplay. Fact. So why assume humans are the only mammals privy to that knowledge? Researchers have recently discovered that male Indian flying foxes (also known as the greater Indian fruit bat) will perform oral sex on females to make sex last longer. The researchers also came to the unsurprising conclusion that this kind of foreplay helps arouse and lubricate the females. Sound familiar? Though, the scientists also offered one less obvious note. In addition to aiding in arousal, male bats may perform oral sex on females in order to clean off competitors’ sperm. Other animals have more orgasmic goals in mind. Goats, kangaroos, walruses and hyenas have all been observed engaging in auto-fellatio. 7. Ladies, have at it. Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London, toldNational Geographic that it’s only since the 1980s, with the advent of genetic testing, that scientists started to hone in on how promiscuous the females of many species actually are. The article states, “Only since the late '80s have experts considered the possibility that females are promiscuous because it's beneficial to them. Before then, female promiscuity was generally regarded as unnatural.” More and more scientific data has pointed to the fact that, in many species, females don’t just mate with one male, they take on several lovers to better their chances of producing more and healthier offspring. 8. If you don’t want his sperm, don’t take it. Birth control is a wonderful thing, and minimizing the consequences of unexpected or unwanted sexual contact is important. That’s something most humans are clear on. Fortunately, a CVS is usually just a stone’s throw away. Animals, of course, aren’t afforded such luxuries. Cut to the female Meller duck of Madagascar. Their vaginal canals are lined with a series of pockets and spirals. Scientists argue that the elaborate female duck anatomy is designed to trap and expel unwanted sperm, working as a defense against aggressive males. Patricia Brennan, a behavioral ecologist, told the New York Times, “Once they choose a male, they’re making the best possible choice, and that’s the male they want siring their offspring. They don’t want the guy flying in from who knows where. It makes sense that they would develop a defense.” 9. Get it in while you can. Nothing lasts forever, and nature can be cruel. Few things better exemplify that than the lifespan of the brown antechinus. These mouse-like marsupials can mate for an impressive 14 hours at a time, and even break down their muscles to give them more energy in the process. But when their “frenzied mating season” comes to an end, the males die off, usually before the young are even born. This process is known in scientific circles as “suicidal reproduction,” or “semelparity.” Sex in the animal kingdom can get pretty wild, as you can imagine. Here are 9 bizarre facts about how animals get down. 1. Don’t get mad, get off. No animal better demonstrates the peacekeeping powers of sex better than the bonobo. As Susan Block writes in her book, The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace Through Pleasure, “The most revolutionary way bonobos use sex is for conflict resolution.” Sex is an integral part of bonobo politics. Doing the dirty helps provide stress relief, eases tensions and can even be employed for something as simple as snagging a banana. As Block notes, such exchanges might go a little something like, “I’ll trade you a banana for a blowjob.” Often, it’s the female who initiates such transactions. In human society “prostitution” is often framed as a dirty word. But in the bonobo universe, it’s somewhat central to everyday life. Block writes, “Among almost all other species, it’s always the male who does the paying, in the form of providing food in exchange for sex. Among bonobos, it’s very often the lady who picks up the check.” 2. The more the merrier. When hibernation season ends, the red-sided garter snake celebrates by having a massive orgy. Sounds reasonable. These “mating balls” take the form of hundreds of male snakes wrapping themselves around a single female, all in the name of having some procreative fun. But things can get out of hand quickly. One study found that a total of 301 snakes died of suffocation while partaking in one such ritual. Each year, thousands of snake aficionados travel to the Narcisse Snake Dens of Manitoba, Canada for some mating ball tourism. Manitoba is home to the largest congregation of red-sided garter snakes in the world. 3. Kink is cool. During mating season, male porcupines will sniff up and down a female’s body as some kind of aphrodisiacal foreplay. When he’s done, he’ll get up on his hind legs, grab his fully erect penis with a free paw, and unleash a stream of urine onto his mate, “soaking her from head to foot.” Giraffes too, are known to get down with pee. To determine a female’s fertility, a male giraffe will actually taste her urine. If he detects estrus, he’s good to go. Male hippos actually attract their mates by pooping. We’ll leave it at that. 4. Courtship is not dead. Prairie chickens perform an elaborate mating dance. During the performance, the males will raise their tail feathers, stomp the ground, inflate the air sacs along their throats and unleash a distinctive echo to serenade the females. Peacocks play a similar game, using their long tails to attract females in a fanning courtship ritual known as the peacock mating dance. Experts believe females pick their mates based on size, color and feather quality. “Peacocking” has even been adopted as a slang term used to describe men who put on ostentatious displays to get some female attention. You know the type. 5. Bi-curious much? Studies suggest as much as 75 percent of bonobo sex is non-reproductive, and that “nearly all bonobos are bisexual.” Paul Vasey, professor of animal behavior at the University of Lethbridge told National Geographic, “They’re engaging in the behavior because it’s gratifying sexually, or it’s sexually pleasurable… They just like it.” But the bonobos are hardly alone in their quest for same-sex companionship. Male dolphin calves are known to form temporary sexual partnerships. Scientists credit these relationships for helping form lifelong bonds. Elephants have been documented mounting each other, even “kissing” whereby one male inserts his trunk into the other elephant’s mouth. The list of animals who form homosexual bonds goes on and on. Of course, some may be in it for the show. An article put together by AskMensuggests “female gorillas engage in bisexual acts in order to stimulate alpha males into breeding.” That description bears striking resemblance to a lot of amateur porn flicks out there. 6. All about oral. Oral sex is great foreplay. Fact. So why assume humans are the only mammals privy to that knowledge? Researchers have recently discovered that male Indian flying foxes (also known as the greater Indian fruit bat) will perform oral sex on females to make sex last longer. The researchers also came to the unsurprising conclusion that this kind of foreplay helps arouse and lubricate the females. Sound familiar? Though, the scientists also offered one less obvious note. In addition to aiding in arousal, male bats may perform oral sex on females in order to clean off competitors’ sperm. Other animals have more orgasmic goals in mind. Goats, kangaroos, walruses and hyenas have all been observed engaging in auto-fellatio. 7. Ladies, have at it. Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London, toldNational Geographic that it’s only since the 1980s, with the advent of genetic testing, that scientists started to hone in on how promiscuous the females of many species actually are. The article states, “Only since the late '80s have experts considered the possibility that females are promiscuous because it's beneficial to them. Before then, female promiscuity was generally regarded as unnatural.” More and more scientific data has pointed to the fact that, in many species, females don’t just mate with one male, they take on several lovers to better their chances of producing more and healthier offspring. 8. If you don’t want his sperm, don’t take it. Birth control is a wonderful thing, and minimizing the consequences of unexpected or unwanted sexual contact is important. That’s something most humans are clear on. Fortunately, a CVS is usually just a stone’s throw away. Animals, of course, aren’t afforded such luxuries. Cut to the female Meller duck of Madagascar. Their vaginal canals are lined with a series of pockets and spirals. Scientists argue that the elaborate female duck anatomy is designed to trap and expel unwanted sperm, working as a defense against aggressive males. Patricia Brennan, a behavioral ecologist, told the New York Times, “Once they choose a male, they’re making the best possible choice, and that’s the male they want siring their offspring. They don’t want the guy flying in from who knows where. It makes sense that they would develop a defense.” 9. Get it in while you can. Nothing lasts forever, and nature can be cruel. Few things better exemplify that than the lifespan of the brown antechinus. These mouse-like marsupials can mate for an impressive 14 hours at a time, and even break down their muscles to give them more energy in the process. But when their “frenzied mating season” comes to an end, the males die off, usually before the young are even born. This process is known in scientific circles as “suicidal reproduction,” or “semelparity.”

Continue Reading...