George Lucas and the Kingdom of the Lost Fans

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not only an abomination of the entire film industry, it might be the worst film ever made.

Where to begin. The action sequences were executed with B-movie results - inexcusable for a George Lucas/Steven Spielberg movie that cost $200 million. Shia LaBeouf's outright hilarious jeep-spanning swordfight was a lowlight, as were the lazily executed CGI monkees (who were apparently very anti-Communist). The stellar cast acted as if they wanted the whole thing to just end. Harrison Ford ambles into every scene like he's on drugs - and seeing as he just qualified for Medicaid, may just have been the case. LaBeouf's clueless performance did as much to advance his career as his decision to rob a Chicago Walgreens months after filming (apparently he was looking for acting skills on the budget rack). Even the great Cate Blanchett acts as if she just entered an SNL set with Chris Farley.

And the aliens? There is no surer sign that Lucas just doesn't get it anymore than the news that he reportedly was talked into reducing the role of the aliens in the final film by Spielberg. In fact, the worst ten moments in Crystal Skull were solidly baser than any moment in the entire Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. This is no small thing, given that the latter is a stuttering piece of swashbuckling, action/adventure masturbation. All pleasure and no point.

Compared to Pirates, however, George Lucas' crime is tenfold. He engages in an equally vile session of adventure film self-gratification, and he does it in full view of the legions of fans who carried some expectations into their initial (and in all likelihood, final) viewing of the film. When a movie script generates a buzz, acquires a top director, enlists A-list actors (or any combo of these), people are certainly disappointed when it doesn't work out. The popularly-panned Istar is such a movie. What is worse is when a film is a known series that inherits these expectations and makes the same mistakes.

When the audience entered the theaters to see Star Wars I: Phantom Menace, they were not expecting the movie to be anything but spectacular. I have a hard time believing anyone walked into Gigli expecting it to be a great movie (and I have an equally hard time believing that anyone walked out of the theater shocked that it wasn't). The series history of Star Wars up to that point, however, had suggested that any further movies in the series would meet certain standards: quality actions sequences, reasonable acting and script quality. Does it need to be Casablanca? Of course not. But a movie with a poor script, far-flung logic, and a lack of believability can do little to aid any effort to please - even if that effort is primarily to entertain audiences in an action/adventure genre.

People waited in line for days to see Phantom Menace. Some dressed in full costumes, laser blasters and light sabers to boot. They waited in line because that movie franchise had established standards of excellence that had not been compromised up to that point. They all walked out of that theater with puzzled expressions and some seriously limp light sabers.

Then something happened that revealed a lot about what Lucus (and to a lesser extent, Spielberg) doesn't get. The disgruntled Star Wars fans and critics began posting their views ... and Lucas criticized the American media for using fan opinions from the Internet as a reliable source for their news stories about the film's reception (ignoring, with all the logic of a Jar Jar Binks dialogue meeting, that news articles about a film's reception are about fan/critic reactions). Fan opinions, you see, have little consequence for a man who locked himself away in his Marin County mansion with a pencil and notepad and emerged with the blueprint to eviscerating a franchise.

Contrast this with what Peter Jackson did with his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson actively sought out J.R.R. Tolkien fan groups and involved them in aspects of the movies creation and script. Peter Jackson wisely recruited Alan Lee and John Howe, the artists most responsible for depicting Tolkien's world visually at that time, as production designers, further ensuring that the world the fans had grown up with would be depicted relatively seamlessly on screen. In order for the film to work (and even improve), Jackson reasoned that it would be foolish to disregard the opinions of the very people who had created the desire for the project in the first place.

The fans turned out to be pretty good advisors, as the trilogy went on to win 17 Oscars. This included Best Picture for The Return of the King, an honor thought almost impossible for a Fantasy/Sci-Fi film.

Granted, the Lord of the Rings wasn't created by Peter Jackson, and thus he had people to answer to from the estate of Tolkien, the author of the books the movies are based on. Lucas did not inherit these limits, and it is understandable that as the creator of the story he is less likely to be as pragmatic about control/script decisions. But does that make it any more right?

When a film series takes on an iconic status, it ceases to become an entity that is owned exclusively by the movie studio, screen writers, and producers. The money, yes. But not the spirit of the film. The fans own a large part of Indiana Jones' larger-than-life status because they were the ones who made it larger-than-life. An iconic movie series becomes one because of the audience it draws. No audience, no iconic status. Lucas and Speilberg gave us the clay, but the fans breathed sweet life into the celebrity status of Indiana Jones and Han Solo.

If Lucas had used fan opinion as a reliable source for creating the films, as Peter Jackson had in the Lord of the Rings, he would have had a substantially better movie on his hands. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the opening sequence did nothing but flesh out the story behind certain characteristics (his use of a whip, his fear of snakes) that came to symbolize Indiana Jones in the eyes of the fans. When you introduce entirely new twists that contrast with the fans' notions of the characters/story (such as the introduction of midi-chlorians, organisms that make the use of the force possible, in the Phantom Menace), anger ensues.

There are many reasons one could construe a movie to be a failure. Ishtar lost money. Gigli was a star vehicle for the stars' relationship. Pluto Nash was a comedy that wasn't funny. I submit to you that what George Lucas and Steven Spielberg did with Indiana Jones in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the highest kind of bad movie crime - defamation of a beloved movie series that is also a bad movie. It deserves the death sentence: worst movie ever. Lucas and Spielberg may have earned a lot of money with Crystal Skull, but Indiana Jones lost his strut - and his fans.

Imus, Satire, and Nappy-Headed Hos

On April 11, 2007, Don Imus, who had been hosting talk radio shows for 40 years, was fired from CBS radio for making the following statement: "That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos ... that's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some—woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so ... I don't know."

In his 40 years of ranting and unapologetic observations, his 'nappy-headed' quip was not the first such colorful reference he has ever made. He has openly made fun of virtually every nationality, race and religion during his long career. So what was it about this particular 'nappy-headed' comment? What was it about that comment that drew such attention when other comments that could also be construed as offensive went without fanfare?

Simple: Don Imus ran smack into the new 'wussification' of our world. Don Imus's ship sailed out of the bygone era of open dialogue, pointed satire, and bruising language and had strayed into a world of 24-hour news channels and 'Good Christian' earsdrums. Old Don raised his sail and yanked up his anchor the same way he had for his entire life - the way it had always worked and always seen him through storm after storm - and found that his ship was no longer built for the waters around him.

Don Imus is not a racist. Many black journalists, including the Tribune's Clarence Page, have long been guests and friends on the Don Imus show (although many of them did take him to task for the Rutgers comments). Don Imus is not a sexist. Don Imus saw what the rest of us saw: a Tennessee team of dapper-looking women (some of them black) playing a Rutgers team of more comely-looking women (some of them white). And he made a joke about it.

He isn't paid to provide encouragement to young basketball players. He's a radio talk show host paid to observe the world and render his his opinions and quips - preferably in a blunt style. Don Imus does not literally think that those women are dirty-haired prostitutes. He was simply making fun of them.

Is that a nice thing to do? No.

Is it illegal? Is it someting that warrents his termination?

Absolutely not.

And if those Rutgers girls think that some rude disc jockey's comments are that intolerable (one of them subsequently attempted to sue Imus, even after he personally apologized to them), then I think they're going to have a hard time in this life. The real world is rarely as kind.

I'm not suggesting that we turn our world into a mess of verbal diarrhea, and I'm also not suggesting that there are not plenty of circumstances when verbal restraint should be exercised. But I'd sure hate to live in a world in which people could never say what they were thinking. I'd hate to live in a free society where the media can never feel free to represent the raw, open emotions, thoughts and behavior of the people they are projecting to.

'Wussification' alone is alarming. But a more pointed and witty form of self expression and criticism is also under attack by the media police: satire. The Special Olympics recently requested a boycott of the movie "Tropic Thunder" because they repeatedly use the word 'retard'. New Yorker magazine was taken to task for a cover depiction that satirized conservative political spin doctoring by portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as a radical black Muslims. It didn't seem to matter to these critics that these respective cases were making fun of the very notions they were being attacked for.

While Imus was being rude without a point, satire is often rude with a point. Satire's problem is that, when it is done well, it is sharp-cutting and - sometimes - disturbing. It also tends to be driven by intelligence, creativity, and wittiness. When these concepts collide with senstive ears, misinterpretation ensues. As witnessed above, the common misinterpretation of satire accuses the author of supporting the very notions he is satirizing - Huckleberry Finn and racism, or "The Colbert Report" and opinionated news hosts, to name two more examples.

This must come to end.

Media does not have to be as harsh as life can be. But I hate to see the discrepency between what we see and hear through the media vs. what we see and hear in real life widen. Is T.V. and radio doomed to a future of Rachael Ray, Jay Leno, and Eric and Kathy? Will the comics feature "Nancy" clones at the expense of "The Boondocks"? We can only hope.

Breaking the Breakfast Habit

I'd like to sing an ode to the most overrated meal experience in the world: breakfast.

I virtually never eat breakfast. A nice brunch on the weekend - once a month, maybe - but that's it. And guess what? I don't drag through the morning. I don't run out of gas by 11:30. My body seems to work just fine. It's time to put an end to this pitifully defended morning gorging!

WHY BREAKFAST IS TOTALLY USELESS
For those of you who have a substantial mid-morning meal and then eat a full lunch, I have some bad news for you: you're over-eating. You simply don't need all that food. And don't "yeah, but" me unless you are engaging in some serious physical labor before noon. If you're a manning the tractor on your farm at the break of dawn or lifting heavy machinery at the construction lot at 7:00 am, fine. I'll admit you might need an early protein boost. But if you're wedging your fat ass into a desk chair all morning, you can pass on the lard/carb smorgasbord.

Of course, some of you will still bowl me over with your breakfast indignation. "What about morning glucose energy?" "It raises your metabolism!" "It's helps you concentrate!" This is all a bunch of steaming horseshit. Read on.

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LISTEN TO THE NUTRITIONIST
Let's face it - nutritionists are totally full of shit. They take the latest data on a subject (the human body and how it metabolizes food) that's constantly changing and evolving and attempt to forecast what will happen. This is exactly what weathermen do. Do we take everything they say as gospel? I think not! So why extend blind trust to nutritionists, who probably have a more difficult job? We have as much to learn about the human body and its possibilities as we do the weather.

It follows, then, that nutritionists need to spend more time addressing their findings as theories rather than facts. They seem to feel that the discovery of one aspect of food consumption and its effects on a particular study group creates dietary gospel. It's something that applies to ALL people and metabolisms. Scientists, who are far more mindful of how they label their work, still occasionally call something as widely accepted as evolution a 'theory'. If evolution is still a theory, then so is the low-carb diet.

Nutritionists also seem to steer people away from the more obvious problems in our diets: processed foods. Processed foods wreak havoc with your body and are responsible for most modern dietary problems. Natural foods - including carbs, fats, salts and proteins - are GOOD for you in anything that can be reasonably defended as an adequate portion. Most dietary-conscious people can talk your ear off about the perceived dangers of too many natural carbs, but think nothing of taking home a frozen diet meal. When processed food comes in a low-fat or low-carb package, people seem to conveniently forget that it's STILL processed. Even if nutritionists are partially correct about a particular natural food, they need to stress that that food is still a better option than frozen pizza.

THE FUCKING INUIT
To fully display that mistake of applying diet "rules" to human metabolism, look no further than the Inuit of northern Canada. That's right: the fucking Inuit.

The Inuit diet consisted (and continues to consist) almost entirely of protein and fat. In fact, roughly 75 percent of their daily energy intake comes from fat! Living in a polar environment, they consume no vegetables and grains of any kind. Anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived with Inuit for a year and adapted their diet - and suffered no noticeable adverse health effects.

In contrast, the Mediterranean diet - which had nutritionists creaming their pantalones for years - is full of vegetables and grains and low in fat. So who's right? The human body and its metabolism is never black and white - so take your low-carb diet plan and food pyramid and flush them down the toilet.

THE FUCKING ITALIANS
We gorge on bacon, eggs and sausages for breakfast based on the English breakfast, which is a traditionally substantial meal. Yet the norm in Europe is to have a coffee-related drink with pastry and jams. Italy and France both feature such a breakfast, and it is by far the smallest and least important meal of the day. Even in England, the large breakfast is now mostly reserved for the weekend - akin to having a large brunch on Sunday here in America.

I love it: we spent years ridiculing English food and praising Italy's, yet thought nothing of adopting the traditional English breakfast in its entirety and ignoring the Italians' version. Does that make any sense?

Humans (and other mammals) have been evolving for millions and millions of years. Our bodies can recognize and adjust to virtually every food the natural world throws our way. It is impossible to simplify the human diet based on study groups and random samplings. When we eat and what we eat (as long as its natural) are nowhere near as important as we make them out to be.

So fuck breakfast.

Rock N' Roll in Exile

It's March now and another Grammy award season has come and gone. Despite all the cocktail parties, one-hit wonders and botched riffs, it is a time of year that reminds me of what great rock music really is. My ritual is pretty simple. I sit down in front of the T.V. and immediately turn off the Grammy telecast. I then pop a copy of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street into my stereo and immerse myself into sixty minutes of all things wild, disobedient, bluesy, incoherent, angst-riddled and sleazy.

For me, this rough mix of sound is crucial. Rock n' roll should never be pretty. Rock n' roll is dirty, raucous, vulgar, teeth-gnashing music with a nod to the blues and gospel. On Exile, the Stones laid down a scattered mix of murky riffs and lyrics. Guitars, horns, drums and lyrics occasional pop out of the murk for a riff or two before submerging back into the fray, with Mick Jagger letting loose an occasional muddled howl. Exile is an enduring testament that the power of rock is in the riff and the raucousness, not the catchy hook or pretty lyric.

The songs cover the full spectrum of the Stones' abilities. There's pure Stones' rock ('Rocks Off', 'Tumbling Dice'), country ('Torn and Frayed', 'Sweet Virginia'), gospel (the magnificent 'I Just Want to See His Face', 'Let It Loose') and blues ('Turd on the Run'). The two bluesy covers (Slim Harpo's 'Hip Shake' and Robert Johnson's 'Stop Breakin' Down') show that the Stones were well aware of their genre's pedigree.

This rough sound was born of rough sessions. The Stones had skipped out of England to avoid taxes (thus the "Exile") and settled in the south of France. Recorded initially in Keith Richards' Villa Nellcote home on the French Riviera, the sessions were late starting and drug-drenched. Richards, producer Jimmy Miller, guitarist Mick Taylor, saxman Bobby Keys, and guests Gram Parsons and John Lennon were doing a lot of drugs. Jagger missed half the sessions to be with his pregnant wife Bianca in Paris and Bill Wyman sat out a lot of sessions due to his general dislike for the vibe - he played on as few as nine tracks or as many as fourteen, depending on the source. The basement studio was painfully crude, and it was so hot and humid that guitar strings would occasionally expand and go out of tune. Basically, it was a shitshow.

"The basement was like a labyrinth of concrete and brick cubicles - not really separate rooms, more like stables, stalls," said Richards. "Charlie's round the corner in the second cubicle on the left, Bill's over there in that one, someone else is under the staircase. I could see Charlie's left hand flicking away. I would never rely on headphones; as long as I could see that I knew that we were in time."

According to Richards, Nellcote had served as Gestapo headquarters during WWII, complete with swastika covered floor vents. "I found a box down there with a big swastika on it, full of injection phials," said photographer Dominique Tarle. "They all contained morphine. It was very old, of course, and our first reaction was, 'If Keith had found this box...' So one night we carried it to the end of the garden, and threw it into the sea."

While most tracks were initiated in France, a couple were leftovers from the Let It Bleed sessions ('Sweet Virginia') and others were recorded in full at Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles afterwards ('Loving Cup', 'Torn and Frayed'). While Richards was in charge in France, Jagger took over in L.A. It was there that the rest of the basic tracks were enhanced with piano, background vocals and gospel influences courtesy of Billy Preston and Dr. John.

Exile has aged well not only because it is a sensational rock album, but because it reminds us of what we have lost. And I'm not just talking about the Stones themselves - little more than plugged-in skeletons who make music that can actually be mistaken for a KD Lang tune. What we have lost is the rock n' roll. Just take a look at our contemporary rock scene. It consists mostly of old men who used to rock (Bruce Springsteen, U2, Paul McCartney) or young men who never have (can someone explain the Foo Fighters or Green Day to me?). I'm sorry, but that ain't rock n' roll. Yuppie rock maybe, but certainly not true rock n' roll. This is the era of kid gloves; of palatable art and entertainment that's easy to digest and doesn't ask for any effort from the audience. The good stuff is still there, but you have to dig.

It seems almost impossible to imagine in today's world of Grammy crap-o-la, but there was a time when the most popular artists were also the best. Exile on Main Street, one of the great achievements in rock, reminds us of those days.

Taking a Shine to Lagrein

Remember Brad Pitt in that movie "A River Runs Through It"? Strong, brash, handsome, quick with a joke. His parents loved him to death. He wore a beautiful woman as comfortably as dungarees, could dance like Bojangles and fly fish like Hemingway. Yet despite all his outsized and glorious attributes, he refused to abandon his small Montana valley for the glory of bigger cities and brighter lights.

God I hated that asshole.

Imagine, however, that you could infuse red berries with that same combination of bold attributes and undersized profile and squeeze the living juice out of them! Distill their power and smoothness and bottle it! Then imagine that you could stash it away in your cellar for only you and your local friends to enjoy. I imagine the result would be far more enjoyable (for me), because I imagine it would be something close to Italy's lagrein.

Lagrein [la-GRINE] originated (and remained) in the Alto Adige region along the Italian/Austrian border. Called Südtirol by the German speaking residents, the area fell victim to a tug of war between Austria and Italy during the two world wars, and the region is still decidedly Austrian in feel. German, not Italian, is the common tongue and Lagrein is a very German word.

Why do I pine for lagrein?

1. Lagrein is a rustic and deliciously rich Italian red wine. Long ago lagrein staked out the frigid foothills of the Italian Dolomite mountain range as its home, but it is far more inviting than the climate that produces it. A balanced and complex drink, lagrein is big, rich, and redolent of dark berries on the nose while often adding a smooth, almost chocolaty mouthfeel and long, slightly bitter finish. It's a saga from start to finish. It has rewarded locals with its loyalty though it has occasionally tip-toed out to enrich the winter months of a few far-off wine lovers.

2. Lagrein is truly a small town kid. It is currently planted on roughly 750 acres in and around Bolzano, the local capital (to put that into perspective in Chicago, that's about 1/3 the size of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood). With a few scattered exceptions, that's it. The locals would love to grow more of it, but the problem isn't the sturdiness of the grape. It's the land. In the rugged Alto Adige, if vineyard land isn't hard to find, it's expensive. Martin Foradori Hofstätter, winemaker for Steinraffler vineyards in Tramin and a great lagrein vintner, told the New York Sun that he paid 350,000 euros for 2 1/2 acres of vineyard in 2005. Those numbers look far larger when you consider lagrein's small market and lack of international press.

3. The potential of lagrein is far larger that its acreage. Look no further than the wine's trademark dark fruit and chocolate flavor (it has been called a cross between Pinot Noir and Syrah). Lagrein is actually a harshly tannic and rustic-style grape, and it takes quite a bit of work from the winemaker to tame them. In fact, for years most of lagrein yields were used for rose wines (called lagrein rosato, it is considered Italy's finest pink wine). It has been only recently that lower maceration times and/or oak barrel aging have brought the tannins down to the complimentary level.

4. It's relatively cheap. Quality red lagrein (sometimes called lagrein scuro or lagrein dunkel, though I personally have not encountered such a label yet in Chicago) can be had for $18-$25.

5. They last. Most wines get nasty even a day after being opened. But Lagrein is a classically rustic, "rough around the edges" wine that can absorb a little oxygen beat-down. Every version I tried actually tasted better the day after it was opened. And even the youngest versions benefit greatly from some decanting. You can open the wine on Friday and still enjoy delicious lagrein from that same bottle on Sunday - no problem.

Here's what's available here in Chicago:

La Vis 'Dipinti' Lagrein 2006
Retail: $13 at Fine Wine Brokers (4621 N Lincoln Ave)
Wonderful expression of the grape for a great price. Dark fruit, slightly vegetal nose with intense blackberry and leather once its in the mouth with a little acidity. This one is not shy with the oak and tannin.

Mayr-Nusser Lagrein "Riserva" Alto Adige 2003
$22 at Sam's Wine & Spirits
Superb. A wonderful 'woodsy' nose and full-bodied with blackberry and tobacco. Aged for three years but without oak, so it's a nice 'naked' version of the grape (decant this one!). I would have to think that this wine would age wonderfully.

Alois Lageder Lagrein 2004
$17 at Binny's
*Tasting notes coming soon!

Donati "Vino del Maso" IGT, Dolomiti 2006
$17 at Sam's Wine & Spirits
*Tasting notes coming soon!

The Choice to Ignore

"What are you listening to?"

The question jerked me away from my less-than engrossing work and left me staring at one of my scowling co-workers.

"NPR," I replied. I glanced quickly at the small radio perched on the shelf next to me as if to assure myself of the fact.

"Why?" he asked, his faced scrunched in bewilderment.

The question hung in the air for a moment, buoyed not by curiosity but total puzzlement. As if, instead of quietly listening to a radio program, I had been playing with myself in the corner with a bucket on my head.

My answer did little to satisfy him, and after being treated in the same fashion by two more co-workers I decided to change the station. Muttering to myself as I dialed up some easy-listening shitshow, I was left to ponder why learning something about the world we live in so easily offends sensitive ears. The 'fascist' program I had the audacity to listen to consisted of an interview with an expert and distinguished professor commenting on a controversial aspect of his field of study. At no time did the program suggest that his comments were anything other than his opinion, and the interviewer asked some tough questions. Yet this proved to be too much for the average person.

That 'average person' is getting worse everyday.

Take the current Iraq War, an issue on the minds of virtually every American and of which most have a very strong opinion. A 2006 National Geographic poll found that only 23 percent of college educated people could locate Iraq on a map. Even more Americans think that Iraq was behind 9/11. This lack of knowledge is troubling by itself. When you consider the opening sentence of this paragraph, it's even worse: most Americans have strong opinions about a topic of which they are not even familiar with the basic facts.

The list goes on. A poll conducted in 2007 for Newsweek by Princeton Survey Research Associates International found that 48 percent of people polled do not believe in evolution. A 2006 TIME magazine poll found that children age 15 to 19 spend seven minutes reading on the weekend. My experience as a culinary educator suggests that more Americans can identify a Big Mac than garlic.

Can I just say that I'm sick of ignorance?

Notice that I'm not saying 'stupid' people. There is a big difference. Stupid people may or may not contribute any more ideas to our nation than ignorant people, but they have far less control over the situation. You could send Forest Gump to all the philosophy seminars you want; he's still going to come out staring at his box of chocolates. People don't choose to be stupid any more than they choose to be tall and brunette.

Yet that's precisely the problem with ignorance - it's simply intellectual laziness. People CHOOSE to be ignorant. The co-worker I mentioned earlier is an intelligent, educated man who seems to have two fully functioning ears and some ability to think critically. He is fully capable of listening to an NPR show and digesting the information. He just chose not to. Compounding the problem is the perception that being ignorant is a sound and perfectly acceptable stance. In fact, it is considered odd to be curious about unfamiliar subjects and engage in thought-provoking activities (like reading books or listening to NPR).

Critical thought and intellectual activities are being pushed so far out of the mainstream that they are perceived as odd. Yet there are no prequalifiers for them. You don't have to be Einstein to listen to NPR or read a newspaper. You don't have to be a genius to listen to Mozart or read Moby Dick. Anybody can do it.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the impact of two developments in America that have dramatically hindered the average person's perceived access to thought-provoking activities: George Bush's presidency and the continued influence of religion.

Let's start with Bush. The President, whether we like it or not, still wields a powerful influence over our citizenship. He is a leader by default. While Bush's many personal and policy gaffes are certainly embarrassing, the real damage comes from the example he sets by committing these gaffes as President. Or, as Garry Trudeau stated in 2002: "It never occurs to [Bush] that it might be important for the Leader of the Free World to express himself with clarity and coherence. Bush is plenty smart - and he's technically educated - but because of his natural incuriosity about the wider world, he has fought a crippling, life-long battle with ignorance." These two sentences reflect the essence of our nation's information problem, and the tone is being set by a man entrusted with being our leader.

The second foe to the goal of informed and active citizenship is religion. While I am in no way suggesting that religion is entirely bad, it has far more negative effects than positive ones especially pertaining to this issue. In order to truly believe in any religion, one must wholeheartedly ignore much of the evidence science had accumulated regarding our world and universe. Rigid principles are established, often with no supported evidence from our surroundings. Religion encourages people to never change their minds and to never pursue the knowable aspects of our world. You never have to make a case for what you believe in. Instilling these principles into the minds of children is, without question, the single greatest detriment to the growth and development of young minds...and thus our world.

As with George Bush, religion authorizes ignorance and turns lack of understanding into a virtue.

We are at intellectual war in this country. While we certainly cannot force people to be informed, we can confront the people who champion being uninformed and attempt to alter our way of life at the polls and in our lives. There is nothing more lethal to personal and national progress than ignorant views propelled by blind conviction. Let's start ending them!

Seen Fleetingly, From a Train

BRONISLAW MAJ
translated from Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass

Seen fleetingly, from a train:
a foggy evening, strands of smoke
hanging immobile over fields,
the humid blackness of earth, the sun
almost set - against its fading shield,
far away, two dots: women in dark wraps
coming back from church perhaps
one telling something to another, some common story,
of sinful lives perhaps - her words
distinct and simple but out of them
one could create everything
again. Keep it in memory, forever:
the sun, ploughed earth, women,
love, evening, those few words
good for the beginning, keep it all -
perhaps tomorrow we will be
somewhere else, altogether.