(no subject)

What's interesting, to me, is that the media we have now will never die.  Every year there are a few more pieces of art that are 'classics'.  And we'll always have those to watch/read/listen to/experience.

I have a season of West Wing, one of Six Feet Under, the complete Reginald Perrin, all of This Life and a whole host of other tv waiting to be watched.  Once the whole backlog of TV is available to us on a demand basis, there's almost no need to make any more.

There's no musical genre that someone somewhere isn't churning more out of.  Once something's been created it never dies.  Once you find your taste tribe(s) you'll never run out of recommendations.

Every year more and more art is produced that's a rehash of a previous style, less and less is produced that's in any way original.  Is this because we've explored most of the phase space of human experience?  Has everything from monobloc simplicity to stories so postmodern they seem to be pure static now been attempted?  Is all that's left finetuning?

Or will some other genre pop up next week that makes everyone wonder how we ever lived without it?

Something to look forward to, I guess.

Ack!

I just watched the trailer for Kevin Smith's "Jersey Girl".

I feel fairly totally repulsed by the sheer quantity of cliched schmaltz I've just had forced down my neck.  And that was in 2 minutes.  God knows what the whole film would be like.

Unless I hear some pretty fucking impressive things about this one, I think I'll be sitting it out.

(no subject)

For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia.

  The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as well as by senior women in the Iraqi government.

The council's decisions must be approved by L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said that once U.S. officials turn over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make sharia the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

  Zakia Ismael Hakki, a female retired judge and outspoken opponent of the new order, said Thursday that since 1959, civil family law had been developed and amended under a series of secular governments to give women a "half-share in society" and an opportunity to advance as individuals, no matter what their religion.

"This new law will send Iraqi families back to the Middle Ages," Hakki said. "It will allow men to have four or five or six wives. It will take away children from their mothers. It will allow anyone who calls himself a cleric to open an Islamic court in his house and decide about who can marry and divorce and have rights. We have to stop it."

More here

(no subject)

Van Helsing.  Trailer.  Here.

Hugh Jackman takes on Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman.  I'm hoping it will kick ass.

(Right click and tell it to save.  Then say Ooooooooooh)

Abortion

I say that I'm pro-choice, but the truth is that I'm actually anti-abortion. Rather, I'm pro-making sure that women have the resources and education available so that there's no need for abortions save those performed for medical reasons. The best way to stop abortions is to stop the need for abortions -- not with abstinence education that tells girls they're naughty for getting knocked up but doesn't tell them how to prevent it, but with realistic sex education and more resources for young women who find themselves pregnant and unable to afford prenatal care and postnatal expenses of raising a child

Which pretty much sums up how I feel.

Stolen from the ever-vigilant Lady Sysiphus.