Popular Culture

Alexander The Fabulous

That’s what it sounds like Oliver Stone should have named his latest cinematic atrocity.

Stone gives himself much credit of “telling the truth” about Alexander’s bisexuality as if it’s some progressive badge of honor, but at the same time he can’t get away from the cruelest, least imaginative stereotyping: His Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. He’s always crying, his voice trembles, his eyes fill with tears.

Actually, he sounds like an early version of Bill Clinton. If he got the lip-biting thing down, he’d be ready to run for “Alexander The President.”

The movie apparently tells us a lot more about Oliver Stone than about Alexander:

The movie lacks any convincing ideas about Alexander. Stone advances but one, the notion that Alexander was an early multiculturalist, who wanted to “unify” the globe. He seems not to recognize this as a standard agitprop of the totalitarian mind-set, always repulsive, but more so here in a movie that glosses over the boy-king’s frequent massacres. Conquerors always want “unity,” Stalin a unity of Russia without kulaks, Hitler a Europe without Jews, Mao a China without deviationists and wreckers. All of these boys loved to wax lyrical about unity while they were breaking human eggs in the millions, and so it was with Alexander, who wanted world unity without Persians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Turks and Indians.

Read the whole thing. It’s Mark Steynian.

Space

A Private Trip Around The Moon?

Jim Oberg says that it’s possible. It’s certainly technically doable, and a cool idea. The big question, I think, is the market at the price that it’s doable for. As they point out, though, it’s certainly within the capability of many governments to do it, if they just want the prestige. I’m not sure that it could be justified scientifically. Unfortunately, the Soyuz capsule is too small to fit someone like this.

[Disclosure: I’ve done some consulting for Constellation Services in the past, and may in the future, but I was previously unaware of this.]

Space

APS Follies

I haven’t (yet) commented on the American Physical Society’s little screed against human exploration, but the membership should be embarrassed over this. Keith Cowing is being threatened with a slander suit (why slander? Why not libel–it was published on his web site?) for criticizing it.

I think that they need to get someone for their public affairs office who knows how to actually deal with the public. Professor Lubell is not as bad as this guy (yet), but he shows promise. And now I suppose he’ll send me a threatening email, too.

Science And Society

More On Stealth Killer Comets

Jay Manifold says we’re still being too complacent. This is one of the stronger arguments for becoming a true space-faring civilization as soon as possible, to my mind.

He also links to this collection of textbook disclaimers, which seems to be pretty popular on blogdex right now:

This textbook suggests that the earth is spherical. The shape of the earth is a controversial topic, and not all people accept the theory. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

General

Triumphalism Part II

Inspired by this post, Scott Ott has the appropriate take.

It’s said that in ancient Rome, when the Emperor was in a parade in his chariot, basking in the cheers of the throngs, he always had a slave standing next to him to whisper in his ear, “Remember sire, thou art but a man.” The blogosphere needs one of those occasionally as well.

With apologies to the Bard:

Why, man, they doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men and women
Walk under their huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves….
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth these our bloggers feed,
That they are grown so great?

Science And Society

A Must-Read On Exploration

…by James Cameron, who is guest-editing a special issue of Wired this month.

As we mourned the Columbia astronauts, they were frequently referred to in media as “explorers.” The real tragedy of that accident is that they were not explorers. They were boldly going where hundreds had gone before. They were researchers working in a lab that happened to be in orbit. Did their research have value? Of course, but only in the sense that all science has value. Was it worth the price they paid? Not by a light-year. Did they die in vain? Only if we don’t learn and take to heart a lesson – not that foam can peel off the external tank and damage the reinforced carbon leading edge of the wing, or even that NASA culture needs to change. But that even after four decades of technical progress, travel to and from space is inherently dangerous, so only go there for a good reason.

In my mind, there is only one reason good enough, and that’s exploration. That means going somewhere, not in circles. But actually going somewhere, like the moon or Mars, is considered too risky and expensive. Those high school touchdowns scored by Neil and Buzz and the others are trophies that have been gathering dust, but we still fantasize that we are the same team we were then. The reality is that we have become risk averse, willing to coast on the momentum of past accomplishments. If we study the problem, build tools and systems, and so on for the next 50 years, we can jolly ourselves along that we are still those clever Americans who put a man on the moon back when was that again?

If the next step is to send humans to Mars, then we must reexamine our culture of averting risk and assigning blame. We don’t need any miracle breakthroughs in technology. The techniques are well understood. Sure, it takes money, but distributed over time it doesn’t require any more than we’re spending now. What is lacking is the will, the mandate, and the sense of purpose.

General

Triumphalism?

Lots of people are claiming that Dan Rather stepping down from his anchor chair next spring is a victory for bloggers. But this isn’t really news–there were rumors of it in September. Admittedly, that was after Memogate broke, but I thought that Rather was going to be retiring in ’05 regardless, and there had been rumors of his impending retirement of at least the anchor chair for years.

If he were to step down now, and the reason stated was because of Memogate, that would be a blogosphere victory, but this just looks like what was planned all along. He continues to do Sixty Minutes. I don’t see that he’s being punished at all. Or am I missing something?

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!