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Inside Out 2
My children grew up with Pixar and they carry with them the natural love we have for the things we cherished when young. But it’s not as if taking my daughters to Pixar movies was some kind of penance. Between 1999 when my first daughter was born and 2010, Pixar produced one of the greatest…
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Rebranding Atheism
A recent essay by Benjamin Cain on Medium got me thinking about something that, to be honest, I don’t spend much time on – religion. Cain’s essay is a convincing takedown of John Vervaeke’s nontheism as a real alternative to atheism. Vervaeke claims that atheists and theist share a common conception of the sacred — a conception…
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Finally, the Election We Deserve
For most of my adult life I, like most Americans, have found myself, as the minute hand nears the top of that great four-year election clock, wondering why we can’t do better. Compared to what the nation seemed capable of, the two politicians chosen for the top job have ranged from wildly disappointing to laughably…
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Too Old (or Too Comfortable) for Romantic Love
About two months ago I picked up J.M. Coetzee’s The Pole — a compact story of late life romantic love. I enjoyed it so much I immediately went on to Waiting for the Barbarians and then Disgrace. You know you’ve enjoyed a story when, after finishing, you immediately find another by the same author. But that second book can be…
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Godzilla Minus One
I’m not a Godzilla fan though I’ll admit to a soft-spot for Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla. So I came to GMO with mixed expectations. The reviews were sterling. The franchise not so much. And when all was said and done and Tokyo was saved, I leaned toward the reviews. The best parts of Godzilla Minus…
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Bob Marley: One Love
When it comes to Bob Marley, I’m of that typical class of loose fan who know next to nothing about someone except their most famous work. From that perspective, One Love will both reward and frustrate you. Kingsley Ben-Adir (impossibly handsome and showing none of the real-world mileage of Marley) is damn good: charismatic, funny,…
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Remembering Lives: Blueberry Bushes and Guava Pastries
We tend to memorialize two kinds of lives: big public lives and the lives that are closest to us. Both make perfect sense. Most big lives matter a little bit to a lot of people. The people we know matter a lot, but only to us. No one would think it wrong to memorialize the…
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The Blue Angels
Can a documentary that is exactly what you expected ever be good? The Blue Angels is here to answer that question – at least if you love spectacular flying and wildly gung-ho fliers. All that’s missing is the Top Gun Anthem and Take My Breath Away. But hey, you do get “The Blue Angel Creed”…
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Damn It! Politeness is a Virtue
Nobody seems to give a damn about politeness. Until, that is, they are treated rudely, ignored, made to feel ignorant or displaced, or pushed aside in a queue. Then, suddenly, we see all too clearly how much we appreciate polite society. Those moments do not translate into the world of ideas, where “polite society” is a…
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American Fiction
It would be hard to imagine a more convincing send-up of modern leftist attitudes on race than American Fiction. Every moment of the plot that focuses on My Pafology (or Fuck as it comes to be called) is laugh out loud funny and spot on. Cutting without being cruel and only occasionally a bit broad,…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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