The Invisible Counterpoint

In fact, you never know when the Columnist is joking, which allows him to get away with quite a lot. He writes patent falsehoods. A young reporter calls him and points them out. The Columnist asks, don’t you get jokes? He says, “Is this how you’re going to start your career?” A Columnist does not expect to be fact-checked. He interprets it as a threat, from a would-be future Columnist. But the Columnist learns that it doesn’t matter. The Columnist’s work is fantasy, an extensive anthropology of fictitious creations, and other serious people are enchanted. For the serious, a good Idea doesn’t need supporting evidence. The Idea is its own justification. The Columnist moves from his magazine of Ideas to his rightful position as official Columnist at the last newspaper. Of course the Columnist knows he didn’t just get this job for his Idea. The Columnist got this job because the last newspaper is liberal, or perceived as liberal, but wants very, very much to also be fair, so one or...

This intra-critical dispute has a little to do with a lot of things, including the symbolic schism over films as different as Terrence Malick's family history of the universe, "The Tree of Life," and the Marvel Comics-derived mutant-superhero opus "X-Men: First Class." It has something to do with the utterly unsurprising fact that most critics have decanted bucketloads of scorn all over summer flicks like "The Hangover Part II" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," and have seen them go on to become massive worldwide hits, demonstrating once again that eggheads who watch 350 movies a year have become specialists or experts, of one variety or another, and don't have much connection to ordinary moviegoers or the reasons why they buy tickets. It has a whole lot to do with the ancient 20th-century feud between advocates of art-house cinema, which is essentially a remnant of what used to be called "high culture,"...

On becoming good boys and girls The movie is about abandonment of a previous God -- the father, the patriarch -- in favor of a return to an older one -- the mother, the matriarch. The patriarch God IS something -- he's the colonel, who singly seems fit enough to take on half the forest. And he was useful, because his focus and force helped us beat back obligations, accounts-owing, and focus on our own lives -- IN our own lives. But while his might remained, that in shadow, well gained. Noticing Her, sensing and fearing her retribution, and feeling all alone, we've decided to abandon our protective pappy and rejoin our Eywa mother. As good boys and girls who are no longer sinning by using dad to abandon home and mother, we feel protected, righteous, and re-invigorated again. Our next move will be to attack those who pollute our together-world with alien thoughts, disturbing intricacies, unacceptable independence. That is, our next move is at least as likely to be against NYT...

The number one rule of American politics: the greatest, most insatiable need of the standard conservative is to turn themselves into oppressed little victims. In The Daily Beast today , Tucker Carlson devotes his entire column to complaining that Obama is "bullying" Fox News, absurdly claiming that the White House and liberals are trying "to use government power to muzzle opinions they don't agree with." Needless to say, Carlson doesn't say a word about the endless -- and far worse -- attacks by the Bush White House on a whole array of media outlets, ones that went far beyond mere criticisms. (Glenn Greenwald, “Tucker Carlson and the right’s perpetual self-victimhood,” Salon, October 23 2009) Towel smothering, to the delight of the perpetrating left. What I hear mostly is talk of the far worse efforts by Bush et al. Obama is the entranced parent calmly smothering a towel over the tantruming child. Salon helps serve particulars on the right up as cry...

Dowd writes, "Let's face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama's sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America." The subtext? Some people are intimidated by a first lady who symbolizes strength, instead of support.In a taxi, Brooks argued to Dowd that "Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements… Washington is sensually avoidant. The wonks here like brains. She should not be known for her physical presence, for one body part." [. . .] Bonnie Fuller, an ex-fashion magazine editor, thinks that Brooks and many of his muscle-a-feared Republican cohorts are resorting to verbal bicep jabs because they have nothing else to...