TLL: Rick Santorum, the Oscars, and Anthony Shadid

I normally try to get the Tuesday Link Love up early, but the work on the novel was going especially well today between clients, so here we are, a bit late. Around the horn from the week that was, as always, touching on things that made me want to throw my laptop through the window cultural and entertainment newsmakers, some fun happenings, as well as few items you might have missed.

I suppose a Presidential election isn't normally this embarassing considered entertainment news, but in following the GOP "leadership" leadership race, I am continually banging my head at the utter stupidity somewhat surprised by the statements uttered by the candidates and their sycophants supporters. For example, we have Rick Santorum, who somehow as emerged as a challenger to Mitt Romney and is the darling of the Christian Right. Sigh. This is a man who believes contraception is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” He also believes that women shouldn't be allowed to serve in the front lines of the army because "they'll get all emotional." Did I mention that back in 2008 he gave a speech lionizing the past greatness of America while charging that mainline Protestant churches are a Satan-sponsored “shambles” that are “gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.” And so while normally I'd be ranting about this, Santorum's great white misogynist patriarchal views are so unintelligent and stupefying, there's really not a lot to say for anyone with an IQ over 40 and who thinks equality is a pretty damn good idea.

Over at Salon, they think that Santorum's candidacy is a good thing. Like many others, they're tired of Conservatives treating women like dirt seemingly male-oriented policies. One woman, a lifelong Republican had this to say:

I was raised in a conservative, Republican, military family. I support personal freedom and personal responsibility. I support the military. I support a balanced budget. I support individual rights and the constitution. I support small government. But I find myself increasingly separated from the Republican Party, and this is why:


I cannot align myself with a party that repeatedly acts to restrict the rights of women, to deny women protection from abuse and violence, and to trample the rights of women to make their own medical decisions. I cannot support a party where individual rights and freedoms are only protected for people with a penis (so long as they are not gay). (MORE)

And a final note on Santorum, who this week received support from Franklin Graham, son of the famous preacher Billy Graham. Apparently Franklin isn't sure if Obama's a Christian. Of Santorum, he has no doubt, "because of the way he lives his life." Newt Gingrich, one of the most miserable f***ing humans on the planet, a man who cheated on his wife repeatedly and then divorced her when she was diagnosed with MS, and fellow GOP contender, gets Franklin's support as well. The whole issue regarding a person's faith and that somehow it legitmizes them to run for president is insane questionable, but to have someone who identifies himself as a bad teacher of religion designate who is a Christian and who isn't, and then to do so based on race and politics, is pretty gross.

Oscar Week!

This is my favourite awards show, despite its bloated-ness. For whatever reason, the others don't do for me. Maybe because I can only get behind one bloated awards show a year. Over at Grantland, they provide helpful hints for starting a whisper campaign against other nominees. My favourite? A possible reason why Terrence Malick's Tree of Life shouldn't win Best Picture. "I kept saying, 'Where did the dinosaurs go?' That's the movie I want to see, where Brad Pitt raises a pack of velociraptors in his backyard. Make that movie, that's a Best Picture." Also at Grantland, they wonder if Michael Fassbender's, err, big year was "torpedoed" by excessive focus on his large member something other than his acting. Very funny.

Over at Indie Wire, they offer their predictions. There are some more predictions at About. Who do you think will win? Which ones did you like? I can't comment because I haven't seen enough of the nominees. Not yet, at least. I'm usually about 18 months behind on these, unless Lord of the Rings is up for something, in which case I predict that Lord of the Rings will take home the gold. I do know one movie that won't be nominated next year. At least, not according to this scathing review. (The "worst Marvel movie ever made.")

More Jeremy Lin?

Tired of this story yet? I'm not. Not after watching a thoroughly entertaining Knicks-Mavericks game Sunday afternoon. Lin has appeared on back to back Sports Illustrated covers, and though his story has exposed some of the racism still alive and well in the world, it's still the best narrative going, and the best I've seen in a while. And hell, Tebow was a GREAT story.


And finally...


Normally, I don't include obituaries here on Link Love, but the world lost a giant this past week.
As some of you may or may not know, Anthony Shadid, the 2-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the New York Times, passed away this week from an acute asthma attack at the age of 43. A fearless and courageous reporter (and a wonderful writer), he was briefly taken hostage in Eastern Libya in 2011, there to report the uprising against dictator Col. Muammar Ghaddafi. Shadid was lionized by the journalistic community, and for good reason. Here's part of a piece he wrote in August 2010, reporting from Iraq. (Click the link to read the whole article.)

BAGHDAD — In a pastel-colored room at the Baghdad morgue known simply as the Missing, where faces of the thousands of unidentified dead of this war are projected onto four screens, Hamid Jassem came on a Sunday searching for answers. In a blue plastic chair, he sat under harsh fluorescent lights and a clock that read 8:58 and 44 seconds, no longer keeping time. With deference and patience, he stared at the screen, each corpse bearing four digits and the word “majhoul,” or unknown:

No. 5060 passed, with a bullet to the right temple; 5061, with a bruised and bloated face; 5062 bore a tattoo that read, “Mother, where is happiness?” The eyes of 5071 were open, as if remembering what had happened to him.

“Go back,” Hamid asked the projectionist. No. 5061 returned to the screen. “That’s him,” he said, nodding grimly.

His mother followed him into the room, her weathered face framed in a black veil. “Show me my son!” she cried.

Behind her, Hamid pleaded silently. He waved his hands at the projectionist, begging him to spare her. In vain, he shook his head and mouthed the word “no.”

“Don’t tell me he’s dead,” she shouted at the room. “It’s not him! It’s not him!”

No. 5061 returned to the screen.

She lurched forward, shaking her head in denial. Her eyes stared hard. And in seconds, her son’s 33 years of life seemed to pass before her eyes.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she finally sobbed, falling back in her chair.

Reflexively, her hands slapped her face. They clawed, until her nails drew blood. “If I had only known from the first day!” she cried.

The horror of this war is its numbers, frozen in the portraits at the morgue: an infant’s eyes sealed shut and a woman’s hair combed in blood and ash. “Files tossed on the shelves,” a policeman called the dead, and that very anonymity lends itself to the war’s name here — al-ahdath, or the events.

On the charts that the American military provides, those numbers are seen as success, from nearly 4,000 dead in one month in 2006 to the few hundred today. The Interior Ministry offers its own toll of war — 72,124 since 2003, a number too precise to be true. At the morgue, more than 20,000 of the dead, which even sober estimates suggest total 100,000 or more, are still unidentified.

This number had a name, though. (MORE)


He will be missed.

-Steve

P.S. Don't be afraid to leave favourite links or comment if you're so inclined. You can also drop me a line. Cheers, everyone.

TLL: The Grammy Awards, Jeremy Lin, Tim Thomas, and Women’s Rights

My buddy, Mark, has been helping me modulate the tone of my opinions for a while now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This week, however, I tried to take his advice. The crossed out words indicate what I really think writers refer to as "First Draft". At least this way you know that I'm having fun playing with the cross out tool being careful in understanding and taking responsibility for my opinions. Onto the Links…


THE GRAMMY'S

So I promised myself that this year I'd watch the Grammy's, my least favourite of the bloated awards shows that dominate the TV/ cultural landscape during this portion of the calendar. Apparently I lied. (To myself, which isn't so bad, right?) Instead, I found myself watching a nondescript Memphis – Utah NBA game featuring the ugliest uniforms I've ever seen. According to my twitter feed, Adele kicked everyone's ass, and Chris Brown, the jerk who beat up Rihanna when they were a couple, performed twice. Did I miss anything? Oh, and I did catch Taylor Swift, one of my favourites, who was very good. That's not a surprise. (And for people who insist that she can't sing. Um, neither can Bob Dylan, if you're going to judge voice that way. Fortunately, not all of us need some mythical tonal purity and a chance to cash in on someone else's success to appreciate good music (and storytelling) when we hear it. The whole vocal shitstorm with Taylor Swift strikes me as sexist, especially since she's noticeably better than she used to be. She doesn't have to be Mariah (or even Jennifer Hudson) to be great. Here's what MTV thought about the night's winners and losers. (Though I disagree on the Chris Brown "winner" label.)

TIM THOMAS

Elsewhere, Tim Thomas, Stanley Cup winning goaltender for the Boston Bruins, was in the news again for his latest Facebook post. Apparently, he wants everyone to know that he "stands with the Catholics in the fight for Religious Freedom." He's referring, of course, to the latest wedge issue for Republicans debate over Obama's healthcare program, in which all institutions providing health care were required to cover contraceptives. The Catholic Church (by which, I mean the papacy and bishops) don't believe in women's rights or rational thinking the use of birth control, so they officially objected, forcing Obama to compromise. There are a few issues here, but Thomas, who refused to go to the Whitehouse with his team a couple of weeks ago, and then claimed it wasn't political, is acting like a douchebag missing the point. Jim Braude thinks he's a coward, which is right on the money probably going too far. At least, that's what most people with an IQ above eighty Joe Haggerty thinks.

CATHOLICS AND CONTRACEPTIVES

As for the Catholics themselves, I truly don't get it. I was raised in a devout Catholic home, was an altar boy for five years, and still love the way that so many Catholic churches involve themselves in helping the poor and providing for those in need. Even my parents don't agree with the Catholic breeding program position on birth control. In a recent poll, 98% of Catholic women have used birth control at some point and 58% of Catholics disagree with their church's position. Some commentators feel that Obama handled this in a clumsy manner. I don't think so, and neither does John Ray, a professor of Political Science in Montana. I think he gets it right when he calls it a misinterpretation of the First Amendment and an important issue for women's rights.

For all the good the Catholic Church does in the world, and they do A LOT of good, as an institution they treat women like breeders have never considered women equal to men. (TEASER: Later this week in the Scrolls post, we'll look at why that is so, and the one woman in history who understood that Roman tendency better than any other. Her name? Cleopatra.) Not that they're the only institution that thinks the purpose of women involves breeding procreation. As Dr. David Jeremiah, popular evangelical teacher, he's certainly not smart enough to be a real doctor… idiot, notes in his new book, procreation is one of the important reasons people should marry. Love is part of the equation, but only part. God put us here to breed until we overpopulate the earth and kill every other living thing be fruitful and multiply. Which is also why we should not allow gays to marry, he says, because they can't procreate. Aside from the fact his argument is hateful and completely ignorant illogical nonsense, I can't understand why so many people seem attracted to this drivel. We're smarter than this, right folks? Like, we didn't stop reading when the calendar moved past 1958, right? Sigh.

JEREMY LIN

The best story of the week, for me, is the Jeremy Lin story. If you haven't heard about LInsanity yet, you will. Jeremy Lin is the point guard for the New York Knicks. Well, he's been the point guard for the past five games, during which time he's averaged 25 points a game and about 8 assists. Not a big deal normally, except that those are the first five starts in the NBA for Lin, he has a degree from Harvard (The US presidency has had more presidents from Harvard (5) then the NBA (4)), he's been sent to the D (evelopment) League four times, was released by three other NBA teams, and as of two weeks ago was sleeping on his brother's couch in New York about to be released. And did I mention the Knicks have won five games in a row in what seemed to be a lost season with their two best players sidelined. He also happens to be a devout Christian (which hasn't come into play yet, but it will) and of Taiwanese- Chinese descent, which happens to be the NBA's biggest market outside the US. Yes, the NBA headquarters have been quivering with delight for two weeks.

Sam Amick looks at how Lin got to New York. But even before he became a pro, he was tearing it up at Harvard and causing all kinds of angst, at least for Jay Caspian King. On Friday, Lin dropped 38 points on the Lakers, proving he's no fluke, according to Chris Mannix. And then Jay Caspian King took another crack at the Lin saga this past week. This is a great story, and watching the kid play the last two games, I'd agree that he's no fluke. He has a Steve Nash quality to his game, but he's more Sam Cassell, more a scorer. That will be the thing to watch, by the way. How he shoots the ball. If he continues to hit his jumper, he'll be fine.

AMERICAN IDOL AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CRITICISM

Oh, and from the archives this week, I found this old article by Owen Gleibermen commenting specifically on American Idol's shitty fluff weak judging last year and how it affected the early cut of Pia Toscano on the show. Thematically, however, he tackles why criticism and critics are necessary, how good critics help us see things in a new light. And also, it makes me feel better about all the criticism I dish out every Tuesday. And yes, I watch American Idol. I wasn't sure what it'd be like after Simon left, and they had some problems last year, but my wife and I still enjoy it. There are so many commercials now, however, we probably wouldn't watch it without a PVR.

Feel free to post your own favourite links from the week, folks. Or let me have it if you think I'm out to lunch. Otherwise, enjoy.

Steve

Top 10 Postponed

I normally have the weekly Top 10 done by, well, yesterday, but it's been one of those weeks, so my apologies. I'll have the list up this coming weekend. It was originally supposed to be just a *fun* and easy thing, but I'm too anal for that, apparently. The last one was 2600 words?!

I do have a few more rants links this time prepped up for Tuesday Link Love. So far we have stuff about Tim Thomas (again), Jeremy Lin, the Gay Marriage debate, and a few words on Whitney Houston, one of the greats. And I'll be back tomorrow for Monday Encouragement, of course.

Hope you had a good weekend everyone.

I'll leave you with this. And yeah, she was awesome.