An Inconvenient Truth

I've been interested in seeing this movie for a while, mostly out of curiousity. What would a 90-minute science slide-show by Al Gore be like?

Turns out it was pretty damn good... which made it also pretty damn depressing. Seeing the man who was almost president made me long for what would have been, or at least what would not have been. There would be no war in Iraq, Americans wouldn't have to say they were Canadian in order to travel abroad -- to name a few. Gore needn't have been the next Lincoln to have had the country better off than it is.

And then it was further depressing because I could see how different Gore is when he's not campaigning (something he's admitted he sucks at). He was less stage-managed in this movie than during his 2000 campaign. He was knowledgable, approachable, even funny (it wasn't a political movie but he still got in two or three humorous jabs at Bush), and, most imporantly, curious. He likes to learn. He has imagination and vision. And it was depressing to think that all of these things can so easily get shoved aside in modern presidential campaigns, where the focus group is everything, and you have to be so careful about what you say because every word that comes out of your mouth will play on a hundred news stations.

After my regrets and my election-pessimism passed, the movie started to get scary. Terrifying. Because if it's even half correct on the effects of global warming (which apparently is agreed upon nearly unanimously by scientists even though the media portrays it as a theory), we're in big trouble.

If I had any problem at all with the movie as I was watching it, it was that I felt it sometimes portrayed Gore as too knowledgable, too borderline omniscient on the subject of global warming. He has been pushing this for over twenty years, but there was never a sense of "I told you so" from him -- that wasn't the issue. The problem I thought I would have was that the movie would end up presenting Gore as The Man To Fix This. And that gave me pause.

Everyone knows that the best way to gain power is by scaring people. It's been demonstrated in fiction, in, for example, V For Vendetta, wherein the regime seeking power secretly creates and unleashes a deadly virus and then runs on the platform of finding a cure. And it's been demonstrated in real life by the Bush Administration working the terror angle till they're blue in the face -- the old "Only we can keep you safe" routine. So I thought, is Al Gore showing this problem and positioning himself as the answer, as our best hope? Because this movie was pretty damn scary. Scarier than anything the Republicans have come up with.

But it didn't stay scary, and that's what separates it. After the pictures showing that there are no more famous "snows of Kilimanjaro," and that Glacier National Park is now more accurately called Lake National Park -- and after the simulations showing what the country would look like if the polar icecaps melted and the oceans rose twenty feet... after all that, it turned out to be inspiring. And it eased my earlier fears of a Gore power-grab. Because, at the end, he asks us to fix this problem. It was the furthest thing possible from Bush's tactic of "Go about your lives as normal while we handle the problem." Gore says the opposite: Do these things, some simple, some difficult, change the way you live, and you can fix the problem. He himself didn't factor into it. It was all about us.

And that's great. Because when was the last time we were asked to do anything? When was the last time we were made to feel like we can? It's as though our leaders are afraid of pissing us off by asking us to get off the couch. We are a great people in America, but we're lazy. We need to be inspired. Not since Kennedy has anyone looked to the stars and given us a seemingly impossible goal and told us to meet it. "America, get yourself in gear. Go, go and get me the Moon."

Gore, though not as eloquent as Kennedy, is giving us a similar goal with An Inconvenient Truth: Go, go and get me the Earth.

www.climatecrisis.net
watch the trailer.

The Ghostwriter

No, not a comic book character... a profession. Would I be a good ghostwriter? I tend to think I would be, especially if it was more on the editing side of things rather than full-on writing from scratch. The ego aspect of having someone else's name on my work wouldn't bother me, I don't think. If my book ever gets published I will almost certainly use a pen name anyway (most likely my first and middle name). God forbid I ever have fans -- who wants random people knowing who you really are? Not me. Of course, they're welcome to a carefully-managed caricature of me that I can present to them at readings and book-signings...

No, I think I'd be a good ghostwriter. I just need to get published a few times on my own to show I've got the chops.

All these yummy flavors

Why does dental floss need to be flavored? Do billy-goats and people with polyphagia choose it over string as the tastier snack?

For that matter, why does every hygiene product known to humanity need to be flavored? Shampoo that smells like mountain sunshine; honeysuckle bodywash; icy blast deodorant; hair stuff that smells like coconut; hand soap smelling of coffee and bananas; eucalyptus shaving cream -- the combination of it all gives the impression that the wearer has tumbled into the perfume kiosk at Macy's. It's a smell cacaphony.

Indecision

I like reading books that blow me away. Indecision, which I got from the library last week, is one of those. I remember when the book came out last year and I grumbled about having been beat to a post-college life-languishing story, and by another Ben, too -- this one a Kunkel. The similarities end with that most basic premise though, and Ben Kunkel deserves all those write-ups he got in the NY Times when his novel came out.

There isn't a plot to speak of (the typical McSweeney's-inspired voice of generation whatever-we-are), but this Ben has a knack for bundling major life commentary into neat little sentences. My favorite so far (and I wish I had the book in front of me so I could quote), was about how Kunkel's main character, Dwight, has for years mistaken all the hustle and bustle of his hometown NYC for actual life movement. In a twist on Hemingway's famous warning, "Don't mistake motion for action," Dwight is cautioned not to mistake the city's commotion for his own.

It's such an easy mistake to make, really. One I've probably been making myself for a while. Boston has surged up around me in the seven years I've lived here. It's so easy to think of new buildings and new stores, new condos and new restaurants as proof that you're actually going somewhere. But I realize that the new building beside the Pru, although it changes the skyline, doesn't really have an effect on me. And a new streetlight doesn't make me a better person, or even a different person.

I don't know what happens to Dwight, whether he'll pull himself together. I'm only half-done with the book. I don't know what happens to me, either, except that I'm going to pack up and go mistake some other city's commotion for my own, for a while.

Google Notebook

Has anyone else discovered this yet? Google has a habit of stealthily releasing beta programs and services, and Notebook is the best one yet (second to Gmail, of course).

In simplest terms, it's a net-based bookmark file. Excellent for people using more than one computer. Often in my browsings at work I'll stumble across an interesting website. How then should I remember the address for when I get home? In the past, it has always meant emailing myself links -- a process that's inefficient, at best. Now, with Google Notebook, I just right-click on anything -- links, pages, pictures -- select "Note this," and it gets popped into a little window via a browser extension. Then I can sign into Notebook at home and have my day's stumblings instantly available. Genius.

Batwoman likes girls

So the new Batwoman is a lesbian.

DC Comics says the character, who was brought in originally in 1956 as Batman's love interest, will be reintroduced as a lesbian as part of an effort to diversify its superhero roster. Kane is open about her sexuality with her friends, but has not come out to her family, executive director Don Didio said.

Cool. (Note to CNN, though: It's Dan Didio, not Don. Get it right or pay the price!)

What gets me is the QuickVote poll on the CNN main page. The question is "Should the sexual preferences of comic strip superheroes remain a secret?" A whopping 61% of voters said "yes."

Um, hello? Are people saying that superheros should be neuter? Should there be no Lois Lane for Superman? No Vicki Vale for Batman? No Steve Trevor for Wonder Woman? Give me a frickin break. No one's suggesting that Batwoman will be shown performing comic book cunnilingus, but I think we can handle some same-sex romance in between her kicking supervillains' butts.

But just when you thought a lesbian Batwoman was as bad as it can get... the new Blue Beetle? He's Latino.

God help us.