1. So some have asked: Where’s your incisive commentary on holiday movies?
2. Well, I saw LES MIZ: It’s an edifying tale of how personal transformation through faith and charity is real and how transformation through political revolution is a bloody illusion.
3. As a Tocquevillian, I should like that, right? BUT: The music is both overwrought and banal, the actors try so hard but finally seem ridiculous (their characters are the most stickish of stick figures), and no person is transformed THAT MUCH in this world (see Flannery O’Connor). I don’t have it in me to be as cruel about this filmic failure as the critic of THE NEW YORKER. I’m glad I saw it but I can’t say I enjoyed it. It is also VERY LONG. (Someone could also add that it does violence to the actual vision of Victor Hugo–that was singular in being so upbeat about both religious and revolutionary hope.)
4. I also saw the mom-and-son buddy movie featuring Grogen and Streisand. It isn’t very funny, unless you think seeing an old woman eating a huge steak on a restaurant dare is funny. (It was funny when the John Candy character did it in a vacation movie years ago.)
5. Conservatives–beginning our friend Ross Douthat–are starting to both the sing the praises and feel the pain of our SPEAKER. Ross, I’m sure you saw, called him a HERO. Well, I wouldn’t give him a Medal of Honor. But there’s no denying he’s doing the best he can and his life stinks. He’s the guy who has to stomp on unrealistic or unmandated Republican hope in an effort to keep the country going.
6. In honor of our undaunted Speaker, let me give you two more ways in which the Democrats didn’t win the showdown at the cliff: 99% of the Bush tax cuts are now permanent, including the family-friendly features we Porchers keep forgetting to be grateful for. AND by allowing the payroll tax to rise, he’s made all sorts of ordinary Americans ticked off at our president. They didn’t think THEIR taxes would go up–just those of bosses like Romney. A regular guy barely making ends meet is really pinched by the difference in his paycheck.
7. Boehner’s Machiavellian cleverness in allowing the little guy–and especially the little self-employed guy–to feel some–but not too much–pain was a fine way to remind the president that he really can’t get away with a tax increase that actually hits most of the voters.
8. Maybe because my testosterone level is sharply dropping as I get near Medicare, I’ve almost lost interest in TV sports. I did see the showdown last night between two pillars of American excellence: Catholic immigrants and Southern Stoics.
9. Let’s face it: The Southerners seemed more brave (those so-called FIGHTING IRISH were constantly flinching and so missing tackles) and more intelligent. They really had a superb PLAN for the game that exploited the other team’s weaknesses.
January 8th, 2013 | 10:15 am
I have no ESPN, and yes, it was a communist conspiracy to stop me from seeing the game. Regardless, we are ND, come Rebels or high water.
And, the Mrs. and I are going to see Les Miserable so I can learn how to build barricades.
I’m looking forward to the Speaker’s efforts at thwarting the Chairman in the near future.
January 8th, 2013 | 10:47 am
[...] 1. So some have asked: Where’s your incisive commentary on holiday movies? 2. Well, I saw LES MIZ: It’s an edifying tale of how personal transformation through faith and Source: Postmodern Conservative [...]
January 8th, 2013 | 10:57 am
As much as I love the Fighting Irish, you’re right that they were absolutely outmatched. I was also struck by how disciplined and “Stoic” Alabama was for most of the game, clearly reflecting how their training by Coach Saban: almost no penalties and no showboating when individuals score. At this point, the Stoic Southerner teams are dominating college football; some of the most interesting games were played between Alabama, LSU, Georgia, and the new addition (or throwback to the Southwestern Conference as far as Arkansas is concerned) Texas A&M.
If you play Alabama’s game of lining up and seeing who is stronger, you’re gonna lose. It’s the teams that have a few really speedy guys that have a shot usually (LSU, Johnny football at A&M). The game I would love to see next year would feature the speedy, flashy West Coast dudes from Oregon versus a Stoic Southern team
January 8th, 2013 | 11:19 am
CJ, So it’s not just with home-state chauvinism that I assert that Georgia–coming, as it did, within a tipped pass on beating Alabama–deserves to be ranked no. 2 in the nation. I really like your riff on the Tide’s display of Stoic discpline. I wish I had said that.
January 8th, 2013 | 11:30 am
Let’s face it: the only TV sports worth watching right now are Major League baseball and NCAA basketball. The NFL is parodic, NCAA football’s charm diminished by the goofy postseason, NHL is irrelevant, and MLS is boring.
January 8th, 2013 | 11:37 am
The problem with NCAA basketball is that all the great players turn pro too quickly. So there’s not even the illusion that the sport has anything to do with the college/university. Nonetheless, under the best coaches the teams are sometimes really teams. Watch a regular-season NBA game with the sound off (as I did once in a bar) sometime. Very little organized sport there.
January 8th, 2013 | 11:43 am
1. Baseball on TV is unendurable. It’s a radio sport, 100%.
2. NCAA football is great because there are actually coaches who think outside of the box. Somehow the NFL destroys all innovation and interestingness.
3. I don’t understand why the bowls destroyed New Year’s Day as the home of all the games that matter, though. That was the ultimate TV sporting day, but that’s all gone now.
4. It’s a pity Pete Carroll’s great USC teams never got to play an elite SEC team for all the marbles. Maybe Meyer can turn Ohio State into a competitor. It looks pretty bleak for the rest of the country otherwise…
January 8th, 2013 | 11:56 am
The SOUTH, with its usual superior personal insight, has little interest in pro sports generally. ATLANTA never loved the BRAVES during their glory years with all that great managing and brilliant, highly disciplined pitchers (beginning, of course, with the incompable Maddux) as much as it should have. The FALCONS are overachieving (although, in typical Atlanta fashion, fading as the playoffs near) and there’s polite applause. Although I don’t watch either much, there is arguably nothing on sports TV more interesting than SEC football and (at least the old) ACC baketball.
January 8th, 2013 | 12:02 pm
“there is arguably nothing on sports TV more interesting than SEC football”
Nah. Games between the likes of Alabama-LSU are too often absolutely dreadful to watch. Florida used to be fun to see under both The Old Ball Coach and Meyer, but was unbearable this year. A&M is a joy (although it’s not from the SOUTH, but from TEXAS) now, although they’ve usually been simply awful to watch.
January 8th, 2013 | 1:04 pm
Alabama-Georgia=great game. Florida-Georgia=also a great game. Alabama-Aggies= really great game. Didn’t see any others this year. In general, I agree that TV sports are now pretty dreadful to watch. Although I rarely do watch them, major golf tournaments on a really tough course can be fun.
January 8th, 2013 | 4:23 pm
I agree with CJ wolfe, but would have to point out that this result leaves one team undefeated.
While the East is much improved over last year the strength in the SEC still seems to me to be in the West. So between two 2 loss teams Georgia and Texas A&M I give the coin flip to Texas A&M(no Heisman curse(yet) for Johnny Football) If I was associated press and thus unconstrained by legal barriers, I would vote OSU in 2nd. Since I am not partisan to the SEC but still admit they are the strongest conference, I did take quite a bit of pleasure in seeing Florida destroyed by Louisville. I think my midwestern sense of History(think Tressel) finally caught up to the Mad Hatter. Incredibly tricky to pass on first down against Clemson. but passing on second down and 2 (when you need to run down the clock?) a bit too fancy… but they will never expect a pass on third down! Oops… and then Clemson drives down the field and makes a field goal with no time for the 1 point win. LSU also made dubious time management calls to blow a lead against Alabama. LSU v. Florida was just sloppy. Also Georgia and SC from SEC east both tailed big ten teams at halftime. In the case of Georgia behind to Nebraska. But Nebraska and Michigan were from the weakside of the Big ten (OSU and Penn State both ineligible on the other side, and Wisconsin destroying Nebraska in the championship.) At the end of the day certainly SEC wins…
#3 @ Brian is all about money. Spread it out get more attentive viewers and thus higher ad revenue. I agree with Lawler that to some extent you can’t really watch that much football (unless you are a true historian of the game like Saban). Now anyone can watch a football game for the love of it, but Saban I think wants to know if the entertainment is “true”. All coaches break down game film, but Saban isn’t a consumer, he is a producer. A disciplined win machine, so he is probably highly troubled by the play of his second team in allowing any Notre Dame points at all. The foundational elements of Saban’s Roll Tide religion seem to leave a smaller place for “grace”, “faith” or “charity” than the Lou Holtz football sermon. To the victors go the Auburn spoils and miss Alabama.
Boehner is an old school ohio negotiator, I am sure he will be alright. He might have a PLAN, but I don’t have to cheer for it. That is the business of the center-left and center-right.
Albeit for what it is worth, I am pretty sure that in america the transformation thru political revolution that you claim is a bloody illusion is simply a new boss or football coach who brings new systems of nudging personal transformation. Boehner, Saban, Obama, Lou Holtz or the Mad Hatter, it is all the same game. -Roll Tide.
January 8th, 2013 | 5:03 pm
If it were to push the thematic unity of this post to the max, I would of course have called Boehner Master of the House.
January 8th, 2013 | 5:39 pm
Well, Notre Dame does graduate 99% of its team and Alabama………well, a lot of their players play in the NFL and do very well, indeed!
I do remember when Coach Holtz told the ND authorities to either lower their academic standards to compete with the SEC and others or start scheduling the Grove City, Hillsdale, etc. They fired him of course (or did he quit?).
What’s ruining college football is lust for lucre, and perhaps in one way or another, it always did.
January 8th, 2013 | 5:42 pm
Bob, That sounds like one of the whines Southerners used to use to explain why they lost that war between the states or civil war or whatever. Of course football trumps education in Alabama. Courage trumps mere utility.
January 8th, 2013 | 6:34 pm
Perhaps you’re right, Peter. I am hide bound to ND seeing as the ‘Fighting Irish” was the last organized football I played. In the spirit of full disclosure the ‘figthin’ Irish’ was St. Aloysius grade school in Lou Holtz’s hometown of East Liverpool, Ohio.
Given that, I am surprised that one of America’s leading academics tilts, at least a bit, toward a form of collegiate football that many describe as the ‘NFL’s farm system.’
I suppose modernity makes pragmatists outta all of us?
January 8th, 2013 | 7:03 pm
In defense of Alabama football, where do you think it’s more likely a student athlete at Alabama will cultivate, even lern about, virtue and what makes us human? The gridiron, or theclassroom?
January 8th, 2013 | 7:34 pm
Tom, good point what with ‘the playing fields of Eton’ and all. And, given the condition of higher edumacation in the United States it’s conceivable that there’s very little ‘virtue’ being cultivated in those environs, with the exception of the academics who write and comment for these pages.
And, if the terrific and talented athletes of the Univ. of Alabama football team learn of virtue on the gridiron, imagine what our less talented athletes at ND are learning in the classroom and chapels of that august facility.
January 8th, 2013 | 8:14 pm
There’s a commedian in my hometown who poked fun at all this. In a dead-on impersonation of Coach Lou Holtz (lisp and all), he called into a local radio station and said:
“You know, the University of Notre Dame is known for its high rate of graduation… the University of Alabama is known for its high rate of obesity!”
In all seriousness I think there are great football programs all over the country, but the SEC has really turned it up a notch in the past 5 years. You can say what you want about academic standards versus talent in attracing players, but that’s not the most important variables.
The most important variables in recruiting are the COACH (and a coach’s success) that attracts talent, and geography. Alabama before Saban was very much beatable, and I’m pretty sure that Auburn under Gus Malzahn is going to be very good. Some schools are well geographically posititioned to attract top talent (Floridas, Californias, Michigan, and especially Texas); the fact that those places are losing big time to SEC schools is what’s amazing here (Did you SEE South Carolina’s Clowney sack against Michigan?!). Notre Dame is a wierd case that attracts talent from all over the country because of its Catholic legacy, but even that isn’t always enough. Coach Kelly helped, but the one other thng that Notre Dame needed but didn’t have this year was a really speedy player on offense- there was no Rocket Ismail. There was a great Mormon linebacker on the team, but no great Muslim reciever
January 8th, 2013 | 8:34 pm
“#3 @ Brian is all about money. Spread it out get more attentive viewers and thus higher ad revenue.”
But has this actually happened? I haven’t watched one of the bowls between New Year’s Day and the championship since they spread them out (well-except the ones that had Boise State, I guess), and my impression is that ratings are in the toilet for those games. I would always watch the Sugar/Orange Bowls when they capped off New Year’s Day, but no more. Going to ESPN and losing the still-not-insignificant number of folks who don’t have cable has surely cost eyeballs as well…
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