Buffy Anne Summers, aka

Posts Tagged ‘us’

As you know, Mr. President, U.S. policy in Afghanistan is up for grabs. The debate rages around you in Washington about what to do.

The hawks, like John McCain and Joe Lieberman, advocate escalation — tens of thousands more troops. But others advise caution, and argue for a nimbler, counterterrorism approach.

As per usual, the war-mongers are questioning not just the strategy, but the motives and patriotism of those who disagree with them.

What’s the old saying about the man with a hammer thinking everything is a nail? It seems to me that’s how the right-wing and much of the Republican leadership think. Just about everything we’ve touched lately, we’ve smashed with that hammer, and their answer to cope with the increasingly failed result is a bigger, badder hammer — at a time when maybe we can’t even afford it anymore.

What I truly understand about the Afghanistan war could be handwritten on a post-it note, probably with room left over, but — since I occasionally like to delude myself into believing you or a member or your staff read this blog from time to time — I’d nevertheless like to add my puny little voice to those who are saying maybe it’s long past due for a little more nuanced approach: thoughtful, intelligent, and with an understanding that we have, and have always had, other tools at our disposal besides Olaf’s big ol’ hammer.

Please provide that leadership, Mr. President.

Technorati Tags: Abraham, Afghanistan, Benrubi, Joe, John, Lieberman, McCain, Olaf, policy, politics, President, Selfless, States, Triangle, U.S., United, us, war

As director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and producer of the forthcoming Hobbit films, Peter Jackson received something akin to a superhero’s welcome Friday at Comic-Con when he made his debut to introduce his latest (produced) film, District 9, a tale set in South Africa about an alien race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth.

"All this geek power," Jackson said in response to all the excitement. "I wish I could take the amount of energy and bottle it and give it to Hollywood executives to drink."

Neill Blomkamp, the director, said it’s not heavy-handed. Hmm, I like social and political commentary in my scifi entertainment as much as the next guy, but the concept combined with the setting is heavy-handed enough. Let’s all hope it dazzles with some good storytelling. The trailer at least looks interesting.

One place you can read more about it, is right here.

Duration : 0:2:22

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: 2009, comic-con, district-9, entertainment, peter-jackson, Theatrical, Trailer, us