OH, HELL *YES.* AND HELL NO, SNYDER, FOR YOUR SILK SPECTRE.
Obama has appointed Samantha Power to the post of Senior Director of Multi-lateral Affairs at the National Security Council.
YES.
I have about ten thousand words I could type about this (and I may elect to do that next week), but it is sufficient to say that Power wrote one of the most rigorous analyses of American foreign policy and the failure of modern governments to prevent or abate genocide ever published. War criminals best beware, because Samantha Power is likely going to do everything in her power to get the U.N. to come after you. Power is a researcher at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, she's won a Pulitzer prize for non-fiction for her writing on genocide and war crimes, she used to write for The Economist, and she's smart, committed, and has the analytical background that makes me conclude that she just might be able to effect some positive and sustained change in the way the U.S. does business overseas when it comes to human rights atrocities. When we're not, you know, actually the country committing them.
Power is a fierce critic of the catastrophic failure of America to act with any discernible impact in any case of genocide in the 20th century, and she generally advocates a more interventionist policy when massive atrocities threaten to become a reality. So fuck yes, I say. Here's hoping that if another Rwanda starts to happen, the U.S. military will be out in full force - as in, an actual invasion to prevent atrocities from occurring - and screw allowing fear any given country's domestic opinion of the United States catalyze a critical lapse in momentum. Do, don't tell.
It'll be interesting, after monstergate, to see how well she works with Hillary. But given that they're both likely well enough invested in doing their respective jobs well, I don't think that's going to be much of an issue anymore.
This is the one of the smartest appointments that Obama could possibly make. It signals such a radical departure from the Bush administration's approach to either outright ignoring, propping up, or coddling via benign neglect the agents of genocide that the symbolism of her appointment is almost as important as the work that she'll actually be doing.
(Also, quite randomly, I just realized that Samantha Power was born on September 21st, which is also my birthday along with that of H.G. Wells and Bill Murray. Huh.)
In entertainment news, the A-Team is getting a feature film? With Ridley and Tony Scott producing?
...
...
I'm not sure that the eightiestastic larger-than-life quality of the A-Team will translate well to the 21st century.
Hi-res Watchmen pictures from the cover story in Total Film magazine.
One thing REALLY leapt out at me, of course, as it's painfully obvious:
The male characters get blurbs about their dominant personality traits, abilities, and structural function in the story. Laurie? Laurie gets reduced to being an "Object of affection for more than one of the Watchmen."
All right, granted, Total Film obviously knows fuck all about Watchmen if they are calling the characters in the story "Watchmen," but this is the kind of offhand and blithely oblivious sexism that makes fangirls cry.
Good lord, but this is cracky. It's the trailer for Takeshi Miike's Yatterman, and as someone noted on ohnotheydidnt, it's like Roland Emmerich merged with a Japanese game show:
...WOW. You know, if I wore a kinky catwoman mask in my alter ego guise, I'd TOTALLY do what they do here, which is to wear it ALL THE TIME, even in the bathtub and during sex.
BSG's Ron Moore to reimagine The Thing. This just makes my head spin. Want to bet that Moore's Thing becomes a restrained yet tense narrative of the vicissitudes of Scandinavian politics in the twenties with disturbing parallels to current American policy in the seventies pointed out over and over again? You know, my head's spinning the same way that your head spun when you first read that Darren Aronofsky is directing a remake of Robo Cop? Now don't fret, people, for Aronofsky hath assured us that his Robocop will 'respect the fans.'
This last is SO fun: Popular Mechanics succumbs to Lost frenzy, has a physicist temporize about the time travel and physics of Lost. Photons! Exotic matter! Worm holes! Ah, it makes my heart sing.
EDIT: This cat? THIS cat is clearly reading the Green Lantern books:
And these kitties?
These kitties have just become aware of the futility of existence.
YES.
I have about ten thousand words I could type about this (and I may elect to do that next week), but it is sufficient to say that Power wrote one of the most rigorous analyses of American foreign policy and the failure of modern governments to prevent or abate genocide ever published. War criminals best beware, because Samantha Power is likely going to do everything in her power to get the U.N. to come after you. Power is a researcher at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, she's won a Pulitzer prize for non-fiction for her writing on genocide and war crimes, she used to write for The Economist, and she's smart, committed, and has the analytical background that makes me conclude that she just might be able to effect some positive and sustained change in the way the U.S. does business overseas when it comes to human rights atrocities. When we're not, you know, actually the country committing them.
Power is a fierce critic of the catastrophic failure of America to act with any discernible impact in any case of genocide in the 20th century, and she generally advocates a more interventionist policy when massive atrocities threaten to become a reality. So fuck yes, I say. Here's hoping that if another Rwanda starts to happen, the U.S. military will be out in full force - as in, an actual invasion to prevent atrocities from occurring - and screw allowing fear any given country's domestic opinion of the United States catalyze a critical lapse in momentum. Do, don't tell.
It'll be interesting, after monstergate, to see how well she works with Hillary. But given that they're both likely well enough invested in doing their respective jobs well, I don't think that's going to be much of an issue anymore.
This is the one of the smartest appointments that Obama could possibly make. It signals such a radical departure from the Bush administration's approach to either outright ignoring, propping up, or coddling via benign neglect the agents of genocide that the symbolism of her appointment is almost as important as the work that she'll actually be doing.
(Also, quite randomly, I just realized that Samantha Power was born on September 21st, which is also my birthday along with that of H.G. Wells and Bill Murray. Huh.)
In entertainment news, the A-Team is getting a feature film? With Ridley and Tony Scott producing?
...
...
I'm not sure that the eightiestastic larger-than-life quality of the A-Team will translate well to the 21st century.
Hi-res Watchmen pictures from the cover story in Total Film magazine.
One thing REALLY leapt out at me, of course, as it's painfully obvious:
The male characters get blurbs about their dominant personality traits, abilities, and structural function in the story. Laurie? Laurie gets reduced to being an "Object of affection for more than one of the Watchmen."
All right, granted, Total Film obviously knows fuck all about Watchmen if they are calling the characters in the story "Watchmen," but this is the kind of offhand and blithely oblivious sexism that makes fangirls cry.
Good lord, but this is cracky. It's the trailer for Takeshi Miike's Yatterman, and as someone noted on ohnotheydidnt, it's like Roland Emmerich merged with a Japanese game show:
...WOW. You know, if I wore a kinky catwoman mask in my alter ego guise, I'd TOTALLY do what they do here, which is to wear it ALL THE TIME, even in the bathtub and during sex.
BSG's Ron Moore to reimagine The Thing. This just makes my head spin. Want to bet that Moore's Thing becomes a restrained yet tense narrative of the vicissitudes of Scandinavian politics in the twenties with disturbing parallels to current American policy in the seventies pointed out over and over again? You know, my head's spinning the same way that your head spun when you first read that Darren Aronofsky is directing a remake of Robo Cop? Now don't fret, people, for Aronofsky hath assured us that his Robocop will 'respect the fans.'
This last is SO fun: Popular Mechanics succumbs to Lost frenzy, has a physicist temporize about the time travel and physics of Lost. Photons! Exotic matter! Worm holes! Ah, it makes my heart sing.
EDIT: This cat? THIS cat is clearly reading the Green Lantern books:
And these kitties?
These kitties have just become aware of the futility of existence.