Just a Gwai Lo

Damian Thompson: “The American Right used to dismiss Moore's material as unfunny agitprop, unworthy of attention. That is not quite fair. Bowling for Columbine is a brilliantly constructed documentary; it's hard not to cheer when Moore embarrasses the K-Mart chain into banning the sale of live ammunition to teenagers. The books are dismal by comparison, but even they evince the odd chuckle.”

Oh good, somebody that agrees with me that Moore is a great filmmaker but a terrible writer. The point of the article, though, is that Moore is helping President Bush's election chances rather than hurting them, because the former's shrillness is giving the latter's supporters—and critics of Moore—ammunition. It's an effective way to counter criticism: "Your criticizing me only helps me. So it's in your interest to stop."

With plans only to get a little sun, make a trip to the library once it opens, and attack my "to organize later" piles (plural!) of paperwork with renewed vigour, another edition of Sunday links for your consideration.

• George F. Will: “But many of the practices that reduce the friction of life are 'only' customs. And when the cake of custom crumbles -- it is much easier to break than to bake that cake -- it is replaced either by yet more laws codifying behavior that should be regulated by good manners or by a permanent increase in society's level of ongoing aggression.”
• oh, that's a relief: it turns out silliness runs in the family.
• Don Park: are we bought or are we leased?
• Journalism 101, which is nominally about writing good news stories, is also good "advice" for blog posts. (Although, there needs to be a better word for "entry" and "post".)
• Christopher Hitchens on Edward Said regarding the so-called looting of cultural riches in Baghdad:
  

  We can be empirically sure of four things: that by design the museums and libraries of Baghdad survived the earlier precision bombardment without a scratch or a splinter; that much of the looting and desecration occurred before coalition forces had complete control of the city; that no looting was committed by U.S. soldiers; and that the substantial reconstitution of the museum's collection has been undertaken by the occupation authorities, and their allies among Iraqi dissidents, with considerable care and scruple. This leaves only two arguable questions: How much more swiftly might the coalition troops have moved to protect the galleries and shelves? And how are we to divide the responsibility for desecration and theft between Iraqi officials and Iraqi mobs? The depravity of both is, to be sure, partly to be blamed on the Saddam regime; would it be too "Orientalist" to go any further?

• Jeff: “It's sad that we live in a world where plumber hata's get the last word. Where is the plumbing blognoscenti when they're slandered like this?”
• Do Not Move to Canada. Aww, c'mon, I like Americans!
• Verlyn Klinkenborg: “"there's plenty of Walter Mitty in most of us, though we don't necessarily like to have another man tell us so. Those daydreams amuse us, worry us, plague us. Sometimes they inspire us. To live at all is also to imagine living differently.”
• Scoble: "Helping users isn't easy." Damn straight. Especially over the phone or IM.
• an excellent defense of Bowling for Columbine, a film I have yet to see.
• Derrick: “"Higher education in this province is fast becoming a luxury available only to the rich, rather than the right that it is.”
• Don Park: “Constant avalanche of spams have de-sensitized me to the point where I no longer care if I delete legitimate e-mails.” I've read, and may be inclined to find the links to such a little later, two arguments relating to this: that we may need to go to a system like IM, where only trusted friends can send us email, and that the problem of spam is crying for a market economy solution, namely that we pay for each email we send.

David Edelstein says that Bowling for Columbine transcends Michael Moore's thuggery.

I only bothered reading the second part, because I'd like to see Michael Moore's film (even though I disagree with him if not politically, then for the shrillness of his beliefs). His latest rant (and it's just that, a rant) about how this movie is the best work he's done and that it will light a flame under the powers that be (prediction: no it won't). Awfully silly of him to ask his fans (who are going to see the movie anyway) to bring their family members and friends and as many people as possible so that the movie gets a good opening before it hits nationwide. So does he now believe that the way to get ahead in the movie biz is to play by its rules? I thought he was against playing by the rules.

Anyway, Edelstein points out that Moore might be on to something about why the violent crime rate is higher in the United States than in other countries, notably “Canada [which] has as many guns per capita"”. The culture of achievement where the losers are the losers forever, and that the only way out is by killing those who have kept them down.

The film, when I see it, will probably be preaching to the choir (I already favour gun control), but I like Moore as a filmmaker. There's more urgency in them than in his writings. Roger & Me, which rightfully made him famous, and TV Nation, the TV show, are what I'll always remember him for.