I watched "The Suicide Tourist" and there's absolutely nothing I can say about it until you go watch it.

...

Did you watch it?

Okay, well, if you didn't, a 59-year-old man is diagnosed with a very rapidly progressing case of ALS. At the point where he has only six months of intense suffering left in his life, he travels to Switzerland where he uses the doctor-assisted suicide serves provided by an organization called Dignitas. The entire scheduled suicide is filmed. He sits there with his wife of 37 years and drinks the concoction that will end his life.

I cried, but not because it was sad, even though it was quite sad that this was the best choice left in Craig's life and that his family would miss him. I cried because it was emotionally intense on other levels. There's something wonderful about being able to listen to your favorite music and sit with someone you love and drink apple juice and painlessly end a disease that has already ended your life. I'm sure he was scared, but he was in control, and he was prepared for the decision he had made.

Everyone should be so lucky.

To summarize, a German family with five kids wanted to homeschool, which is illegal in Germany, and decided to seek political asylum in the US, on the grounds that they had a genuine fear of persecution (based on, you know, deliberately breaking the law). The article fails to mention that only the political clout of evangelicals makes this possible.

The Haitians, however, we'll send home.

Quick hits I forgot to add to my earlier post:

Glenn Greenwald wrote a much-maligned article about why the Democratic party is so freakin' ineffective, but I think there's a lot of merit to the idea that some Democrats know they can promise things when they know that other Democrats will make those very things impossible. They probably ask themselves, "Where's the harm in any of it?"

Also, the Brady Campaign (PDF) issued its report card for Obama's first year in office, and concluded that:

In just one year, Barack Obama has signed into law more repeals of federal gun policies than in President George W. Bush's eight years in office. From the repeal of Reagan Era rules keeping loaded guns out of national parks to the repeal of post-9/11 policies to safeguard Amtrak from armed terrorist attacks, President Obama's stance on guns has endangered our communities and threatened our national security.

Barack Obama was elected on a campaign platform of enacting strong new gun laws. Not shying away from the gun issue as a candidate for president, he advocated restricting assault weapons at his Convention acceptance speech. Overcoming political "wisdom" that the NRA could hurt what it called "the most anti-gun ticket ever to run for the White House," Mr. Obama won 11 out of 13 states where the NRA ran attack ads on TV against him. Yet his campaign promises have gone unfulfilled and a year's worth of opportunities to bring sanity to the gun issue have been lost.

Quick hits:

The Olympic Village in Vancouver stocked 100,000 condoms for the games, but that isn't the best part of this story: "The U.S. Curling Association has its own official condom: 'Hurry Hard,' named for a phrase curlers cry to encourage faster ice-sweeping."

Disability advocates are catching onto the fact that Sarah Palin (who I continue to hate to a totally unreasonable degree) doesn't actually have their best interests at heart. If she did, her comments on health care reform would be a lot different.

Cenk Uygur says that Rahm is out, reasoning that a WaPo piece by Dana Milbank would never have been written unless Rahm could read the writing on the wall. I hope he (Cenk) is right; as head of the DCCC, Rahm was a curiosity, but inside the WH, he's poison.

This article by Michael Pollan was published three years ago in the NYTimes magazine and continues to maintain great relevance today. Particularly fascinating is the inside story behind why no US government document will ever advise Americans to "eat less."

And for laughs, How Does Homeopathy Work?, a site that contains everything you need to know about homeopathy.

Food I didn't get to take a picture of but want to share anyway:

- "Arepas With Cheese and Corn" from the NYTimes.
- "Lonely Chicago Pie" as inspired by the movie Waitress.

I made risotto for the first time yesterday. I tend to rhapsodize about risotto so it was nice to discover that I'm capable of making it. A variety of vegetables were suggested in the recipe but all I had in the freezer were green peas, and I like green peas, so green peas it was. There were also three onions used, but they cooked down dramatically during the strangely long process of producing risotto.

At the beginning of January, I tried making lasagna for the first time. The bf was so excited that he ran off, got the camera, and took a picture of it. I've made it twice more since then, so I think I can call my lasagna-making abilities a success. The first time I made it, I was so pumped by the triumph that I threw a batch of chocolate chip cookies (also made from scratch, thank you very much) in the oven as well.

As promised, I made my special chili recipe tonight. It's the only recipe I know that is wholly mine. It's spicy and savory and I love it, and it tends to be loved by everyone I serve it to. When I took this picture, it needed to be cooked for another 25 minutes.

On Tuesday I made a delicious four-berry-and-apple pie with an oatmeal crumble crust (which I callously referred to in my Tuesday post as a "mixed fruit pie"). I wanted to take a picture of it but only this intrepid little piece survived to be photographed.

You might remember that back in November there was a lot of hoopla about a coma patient in Belgium who was supposedly communicating for the first time in 20 years, thanks to something even less reliable than voodoo -- "facilitated communication." Anyone familiar with the tang of reality noticed its obvious absence when they watched the video of the "facilitator" typing out complicated explanations of mental states with the patient's hand.

It's less likely that you'll hear about the followup: The story has been completely debunked. I've noticed that a lot of news sources which had the "miracle" as their top story don't seem to be mentioning the reversal of that miracle.

The claim of successful facilitated communication was debunked when some intelligent person thought of doing what should have been done in the first place, which would be keep the facilitator out of the room when the patient is shown an object to identify. Unsurprisingly, a facilitator who didn't see the objects shown to the patient was unable to guide his hand to the correct letters.

This entire incident has been cruel on so many levels. The patient's basic human dignity went right out the window; he became a marionette for unscrupulous hacks. No one should be used that way. And what about the patient's family? Imagine the anguish of thinking that your loved one had been trapped in a frozen body for 20 years, of thinking that your loved one had finally returned, and of learning, four months later, that it was all fake.

Pure evil.

Tonight I baked macaroni and cheese, mixed fruit pie, and lonely Chicago pie (which is still in the oven, so I can't tell you how it came out). Tomorrow is risotto, and I think Thursday will be my trademark chili (apples and cocoa powder are the secret ingredients).

Yum yum yum.

TSA makes 4-year-old walk without leg braces.

Yep, we're all safer now.

My little "we're too paranoid" song just isn't going to get a rest this month, is it?

Unless you've been living in a hole, you know that Southwest Airlines told Kevin Smith he was too fat to be on their plane. Even though this starts like a really good joke -- I mean, dear lord, you're going to try to humiliate Kevin Smith, as if there will be no comedic repercussions for doing that? -- it isn't funny at all. Kate Harding, who I normally don't appreciate (no, not because I'm fat-phobic; I just don't like her tastes much), wrote a very good piece on exactly what Kevin Smith's incident exposes about "flying while fat."

To me, the airlines' policy can be explained thusly: Flying is a crappy experience. Planes are loud and overbooked and smelly. One very visual way that airlines can cultivate the notion that they care about your comfort (they don't, btw) is by asking large individuals to fuck off. Fat people are a good scapegoat for the overall discomfort of flying.

Let me tell you, fat people are an absolute joy to sit next to compared to some of the schmucks I've met on the many flights I've taken in my life. The bf and I flew out to Denver about a year ago and had to sit in front of an old German couple that punched our headrests and swore at us when we tried to recline our seats, even though the seat backs weren't at all what was making the German couple uncomfortable. After half an hour of that, I gladly would have sat under Kevin Smith.

Or how about the time I was sitting across from a couple who was making amateur porn during the flight? The guy had a video camera and the woman went to the bathroom and came back wearing only a trench coat. They were very subtle about it but it's hard to focus on your peanuts after something like that.

Then there were the many times I sat near children whose parents couldn't control them. Not crying babies, you understand; that can't be helped. But your six-year-old who is throwing animal crackers at the back of my head? You're an adult and you can make him stop that.

Other bloggers have made this same point (ie, "fat people are better than...") by citing those who are easily airsick as the people they'd rather have "just be fat," but as someone who has occasionally been very airsick, this irks me. You think it's a treat for me to be airsick? At least I wasn't swearing at you in German.

So let's not pick on people's bodies, okay? Whether they are fat or easily made queasy, let's just not do it. Let's pick on the violent swearers, pornographers, and irresponsible parents. Then you can talk to me about vomiting and talk to Kevin Smith about being fat.

And for the record, I have never been made uncomfortable by sitting next to a fat person on a plane. I've been uncomfortable by virtue of being on a plane, and a large seatmate has on occasion shared that discomfort with me.

I agree with probably the majority of things written about on Pandagon, but this anti-arty movie/open thread pile of dreck just about raised every hackle I have. Complaints about American Beauty are followed by complaints about Garden State, Revolutionary Road, The Reader...and I'm not saying that these movies aren't artifacts of a corrupt phallocentric society, but that's by far a different complaint than "arty = fake."

For one thing, any list that places Garden State and The Reader in the same category didn't understand either movie. Garden State is a light-hearted* coming-of-age drama/comedy. The Reader is based on a very intelligent book, the subject of which is the fading memory of the Holocaust. The nuances aren't supposed to be emotionally manipulative; they are supposed to convey the actual nuances of the first generation of German adults after the Holocaust.

I didn't love Revolutionary Road, but it perfectly conveyed the desperation it was supposed to. It would be hard to love a movie that ended in a death from self-induced abortion. As for American Beauty, yeah, it should make you uneasy; it conveys the same desperation as Revolutionary Road, just set 40 years later. Middle-class angst makes a good subject for movies because a lot of Americans are middle-class and happen to be battling existential angst. I think American Beauty only becomes pretentious when you want to pretend that you, for some reason, are above all the losers portrayed in it. You may be right now, but we all have the potential to fall.

*Edit, 2/16/10 at 10:44 PM: My friend Phoebe pointed out that most people probably wouldn't characterize Garden State as light-hearted, given that the movie is about life-crippling problems. I guess I just have to characterize it as "light-hearted" when juxtaposed against The Reader. Garden State is life-affirming and full of whimsy, even when dealing with grief and guilt. The Reader could make you want to kill yourself.

I didn't think I'd bother seeing Avatar, but the bf was antsy tonight so we went to the 11:00 PM show (IMAX 3D!) and just now got home.

If you're looking for a reasonably entertaining display of special effects, sure, go see it. I'd like to address some of the other aspects.

- Racist. Racist as all fuck. Let me retell the story in a way that will make you understand why it's racist:

A primitive non-white people with dreadlocks, tribal jewelry, and wide, flat noses have a pressing problem. A privileged white dude enters their society. (How is he privileged? Well, primarily, he can afford to take risks because risks won't cost him anything.) At some point during his three-month stay, he hears the story of the "grandfather's grandfather" who road the biggest, baddest flying dinosaur and united the "tribes" to end "the time of sorrow." Even though all the primitive people know this story, and even though the skeleton of the biggest, baddest dinosaur is still on display, the white dude is the only one clever enough (and privileged enough) to re-purpose the story to fix the pressing problem. White dude saves the day!

This is not just Racist Sensitivity Fail; this is Sci-Fi Creativity Fail. One of the wonderful things about sci-fi is its ability to shed all modern conventions. Take Wash and Zoe in Firefly; that they are a biracial couple is never commented on, never an issue, never a plot device, because within the 'Verse of Firefly, "race" as we know it doesn't exist. It's been justified away by more important loyalties. This is totally unrealistic, and sci-fi is the only genre that can accept and justify something so unrealistic. Sci-fi isn't here.

Even more extreme examples of this can be found in Star Trek (and even in Star Wars). Although Klingons have often been played by Black actors, I don't think there's any way Klingon culture could be mistaken as a commentary on either African or African-American culture. The Black-ness of the actors doesn't mean the Klingons are Black; they can't be Black because they are Klingons. They are honorable and warlike and they eat their food when it is still alive. Their bunks resemble cookie sheets. Klingon culture intentionally bears no resemblance to human culture.

And Star Wars? The primitive forest people of Star Wars are tiny hooded teddy bears! You don't have to be racist, see? You can have teddy bears!

- Sexist. Not sexist as all fuck, you understand, but still sexist as most fuck. I've seen the story between the leading man and woman before: It was in Disney's Pocahontas. The only difference is, in the kid's movie, Pocahontas didn't put out.

I read an interview with James Cameron in which he said that he knew his alien race in Avatar wouldn't be placental mammals but that he wanted the women to have big tits anyway...so unscientific as well as sexist.

And yeah, just for funsies, let's be sure to make the alien race a patriarchal society with arranged marriages, and let's throw in a stereotype or two about women and spirituality and the Mother Goddess.

Sci-Fi Creativity Fail on this count, too. Kara Thrace would bitchslap James Cameron from here to Kobol.

- Not environmentalist. One of the supposedly big redeeming qualities of Avatar was that it was going to be all pro-environment. The problem is, pro-environment doesn't come through when the benefits of the environment are the topic explored by the movie's plot. Not the environment for its own sake; the benefits. Totally a consumerist model. Hell, everyone would be a deep ecologist if it meant their own flying dragon.

If you squint, you may be able to read some Gaia theory between the lines. It's not at all apparent in the text.

- Not antiwar. What schmuck thought this was an antiwar movie? This is all about the benefits of war! White guy arrives and says, "Fight back, fight back!" So they do and all is well.

- Unoriginal. Less important than the politics of the movie is the fact that this story is just another reinterpretation of the hero of a thousand faces. There is not a single plot twist in the movie that you can't see coming for at least 20 minutes beforehand.

- Overdone. James Cameron is so, so, so intent to make you realize that the evil human miners are evil evil evil that he doesn't attempt to cloak their thirst for blood at all. Instead of coming up with euphemisms that would demonstrate how insidious racism really is, he's got all the evil evil evil human characters making fun of trees and calling the good guys "savages." Senator Thurmond was more delicate than that. I'm not really one to complain when fiction fails to demonstrate the banality of evil, because I realize that the concept is often besides the point, but if James Cameron was hoping for anyone to take anything beneficial away from this movie, the banality of evil should have been the point. You don't see oil execs represented in the inhumane, money-grubbing miners; you see comically insensitive louts, with no nuance as to what they might represent in the real world.

Another reason you don't want to use torture: a solider might try it on his 4-year-old daughter.

People suck.

I think the universe has decided to taunt me.

First I thought the paranoia caused by the failed (let me repeat, FAILED) Christmas day terrorist attack was extreme. I was annoyed by that. I dislike the overreactions.

Then the Jewish kid gets the plane diverted because he's praying and we have no cultural sensitivity in this country. I thought this was even sillier.

Then my mom's cousin tries to come down to Florida for a visit but they can't board the plane for two hours because there was a battery in the luggage hold (oh noes, the battery of DOOOOM!). This was just stupid. WTF was a battery going to do?

These are getting more and more ridiculous, right? So the universe decided to test my tolerance for absurdity.

This new story takes the cake. A guy is running late so he's sweating profusely when he gets on the plane. He gets upset when he has to sit in a window seat. So the plane returns to the gate, everyone gets off, and the guy is "intensely" questioned by the FBI. Expert agents determine...that the guy is running late and didn't want to sit in a window seat. Two hours later, everyone is re-screened and allowed to board the plane.

I can only conclude that Western civilization is doomed.

We face death every time we get in a car -- death that is a lot more real and immediate than loose batteries, sweaty guys, and tefillin. You also court death when you eat beef or go outside in a thunder storm. Why all the obsession with random events on planes?