Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean Revisited, Revisited, and Revisited, or: Whatever Floats Your Boat

I’m a Johnny Depp fan, but not hugely a Johnny Depp fan, and that’s probably a pretty good barometer for the effect of the latest installment of the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow. This was a flick, like Penelope Cruz, pregnant with possibilities, but we’ll hope Penelope has a more successful delivery. After two hours I was pretty much squirming in my seat, hoping for a stray musket ball to end my impatience.

As a general assessment, this production suffers from a classic case of sequel effects, the dependence in a rather desperate and incoherent way on misguided ideas about what has worked for you before. The result is an array of boring, stereotypical characters, ambiguous discrimination, mediocre action sequences, and unsuccessful drama, with the exception of the striking visual effects (to which 3-D added little noticeable impact, by the way). A summary of the development is unnecessary if you have witnessed any of the previous installments. Think the original less most of the interesting quirks.

Consider some failed possibilities. The King of England is an intriguing character with a comically superficial manner but hints of underlying intelligence and perception that are never realized. What if the King had turned out to have some more profound personal agenda than simply competing with Spain? Likewise, Blackbeard is a bad guy with no redeeming qualities. He starts out in a promising way, with cynical disdain for the minor inconvenience of general mutiny on his ship, but it turns out he isn’t even gloriously or heroically bad. He’s just bad in mean and petty ways. He tortures helpless mermaids to no purpose, not even his own amusement, and rejects the loyalty of his daughter. The mermaids are just what you would expect, monsters disguised as attractive, predatory Caucasian women who must be controlled. In fact, the whole ideology achieves a largely Anglo-European male supremacist effect. The Conquistadores arrive in the end to wreck the Fountain of Youth in the name of religious faith (only God can give youth), but whether that is theology or spirituality represented by the enigmatic character of the evangelist, or a critical comment about imperialism and disregard for the environmental context of culture, depends strictly on perception. It is not a compelling argument either way. It’s more like a how the hell did all these Conquistadores get here anyway question.

Otherwise the content is about equally divided between missed opportunities and pathetic stock gags such as teeter-tottering in competition to get the chalices on Ponce De Leon’s ship, inexplicably balanced on the face of a cliff in the vicinity of the fountain. What if the motif of hanging from provocative pub signs had been extended, more had been made of confusion about Jack’s identity, or the characters had even paused to respond contemptuously when Jack mentions his spectacular destruction of the lighthouse that attracted the dangerous crowd of carnivorous mermaids? What if the crew had included some memorably colorful characters? What if the Jack Sparrow impersonator had turned out to be the Voo Doo woman on a mission instead of the convenient, anglo-fied fantasy Latina with incomprehensible conflicting loyalties? (And I don’t mean her tattooed boobs.)

In that respect, the narrative had a strong sense of superficial rush job without much thought to the connections. In the end, Jack Sparrow, apparently unable to resolve his sexual identity problems and take responsibility for a serious relationship, abandons his pregnant girlfriend on a deserted island again and escapes in a leaky rowboat while Barbossa sails off in command of a new ship, neither of which indicates narrative finality, so don’t feel bad if this episode didn’t seem to measure up. There will be more to come. My sense is that Disney has not nearly abandoned hope of squeezing the last doubloon out of the fat Caribbean galleon, and as my wife says, take consolation from knowing that with a little effort, even a prominent group of creative artists with a proven concept and virtually unlimited funds can build a boat that won’t float. I’m just sorry they had to take me with them. Otherwise, if Johnny Depp and fine cinematic effects glad you enough, you can probably endure the proceedings comfortably, regardless.

Here's Thinking for You,

Iffy

Taking Out Snooki

I agree with Michael Moore that Osama Bin Laden’s exit strategy was an execution as much as anything. What else can you say about shooting an unarmed man in his pajamas? It didn’t appear that he had any idea who was hammering on his door in the middle of the night, never mind that they were dangerous, which inspires a lot of the skeptical diplomatic questions about Pakistan and management of their internal controls, if nothing else. That they have a lot of challenges is no mystery, but at the very least you have to wonder about their ability to insure any kind of secure and consistent administrative strategy and performance.

In spite of the legal implications and ideological hypocrisy, however, I’m not sure taking Bin Laden alive would have been either just or helpful. Pakistan’s shaky grip on political loyalty makes it abundantly clear that there was no way of knowing what exactly the hit squad was going to find. They could conceivably have ended up in a shootout with the entire Pakistani army. The mere need for the kind of excluisve secrecy maintained indicates a precarious lack of confidence in the circumstances. I take it Bin Laden’s arrangements for escape or protection were pretty much unknown. Explosives? Tunnels? A squad of battle-hardened immortals? Or even if he was there at all? Bin Laden alive could have meant missing our one chance to hold him accountable. Do the interests of justice ever exceed the interests of due process, even once in a millenium? How willing was Bin Laden to engage the international legal system? Maybe that’s the real test. How much did international law mean to Osama Bin Laden? I haven’t noticed Al-Quaida appealing to the international court for representation lately.

I also haven’t seen Bin Laden’s birth certificate, but unlike President Obama and Hawaii, I don’t think connections to a de facto U.S. territory like Saudi Arabia makes Bin Laden a U.S. citizen, so no problem there. He would not be entitled to either post bail or run for president. Taking him out may be a technical violation of international law, which is the sticky point, but what if in the course of human events the authority demonstrates unwillingness and inability to enforce the law? This would be comparable to a situation in which Mayor Snooki of Chicago sends out agents from Parks and Recreation to ram a trailer truck into an office building in Texas, killing thousands of school children at a Christian temperance rally. The mayor admits privately to planning the operation and ordering the landscapers to crash the truck, but she escapes into the South Dakota badlands and disappears. The Texas Rangers complain to the federal government. The government responds that they’re working on it.

Hot on Mayor Snooki’s trail, the Texas Rangers turn over critical information to the Feds, only to discover Mayor Snooki has been tipped off and escaped from the Corn Palace in Mitchell where she was known to have been holed up under the protection of local sheep ranchers. Ten years later, the Feds are still working on it when the Rangers find a Facebook page for Mayor Snooki and she turns up in Sioux Falls, working as a contestant on a reality survival show and living at the local Hilton hotel in a witness protection program after ratting on the New Jersey mob.

The Texas Rangers send special forces disguised as a Zydeco band into Sioux falls to take down Snooki in the hotel. During the raid, Snooki’s business manager dies in anguish from a fatally irregular bass beat and the lead guitarist steps on her chihuahua. In the dark hotel room, the Rangers discover a stash of hunting equipment from Snooki’s escape into the wilderness and erroneously conclude they have blundered into a trophy hunt for an endangered species by Mama Bear Palin, where they will be gunned down at the first opportunity, so as a precaution, they execute her on the spot with a portable electric chair.

I realize this is trivializing the entire terrorist issue, which is not funny for a lot of people, and with good reason, but it could happen, and you see the point. Who would complain about the Texas Rangers?

Here's thinking for you,

Iffy

The Gods Must Be Crazy

A colony of carpenter ants turned up in the mulch lining the bottom of the clay pot under the scraggly skeleton of the little tree with yellow flowers that died in the winter. Carpenter ants are the big busy kind, black and transluscent brown, big enough to be scary, but they mind their business pretty much, intense and focused, even in a crisis.

I guess mulch must be sort of perfect for carpenter ants, splintered wood with plenty of spaces, carpenter ant prefab. Apparently the moisture wasn’t a problem for them, maybe even an enhancement, and the whole thing was enclosed by the solid sides of the clay pot, like rock. I wonder if the ant philosophers and ant media bloggers ever remarked about the secure location, design, and planning. To an ant, it must have been structurally secure, solid and dense, with all the necessary conveniences of an ant community comfortably enclosed inside. From all appearances, the community thrived. Hundreds, maybe thousands of big gregarious ants swarming busily thorough passages connecting all kinds of compartments, nurseries, storage, dining, who knows? A retail mall? A convention center? A situation room?

In the end, they needed more than a situation room. The winter was cold. In the spring, the little tree didn’t recover. There was also a big old stump in the yard I wanted to cut up when I got everything squared away in the Spring, but one of the first things was clearing away the dead plants. I turned the pot over and dumped it all out and there was the ant colony in the mulch in what had been the bottom of the pot and the ants swarming in confusion and dismay through what had been the comfortable, routine passages of their lives.

Damn, man. What the hell? This thing was rated good to 90 degree rotation. Who could have predicted a total overturn? It’s a once in a lifetime event. Where the hell’s the queen when you need her?

Ants, however, are remarkably resilient. Ants are not given to extended introspection or organizational paralysis in a crisis. Almost as fast as the pot went over, scouts were looking for a refuge. They returned quickly, apparently with news of the nearby stump. Swarms of workers dragged the precious egg cases from the wreckage of the colony, somewhat hampered by disputes over who exactly would take charge of each project and what route exactly would be followed. Dragging an awkward load as big and heavy as your own body through the tangled roots and stems of thick grass must be an unimaginably challenging task. I watched one stout worker hauling a load resolutely through the tangle, sometimes bracing and virtually flinging the heavy bulb over obstacles, then climbing over and resuming the slow journey. After several minutes of this sporadic progress, a small brown lizard scampered down from the stump and took up a position on a fallen branch with a panoramic view of the proceedings.

When the ant with the egg case finally reached a convenient proximity, the lizard reached down with an attitude for all the world as if to say “Pardon, mate, I’ll just have that,” And removed the cargo from the grasp of its bearer. At first the ant completely paused, as if in consternation and disbelief, but finding no explanation or resolution, made a couple of vague, searching lunges, shrugged in resignation, and scurried back toward the ruined colony. Ants are not given to excessive agony or regrets either. The egg was gone. The work must go on.

By the next morning, the entire population had disappeared into the comforting security of the stump. I reflected on the heroic determination of individuals in the face of disaster, the resourcefulness, the selflessness, the sheer resolute sense of purpose despite the fragile vulnerability of society and the foolishness of confidence. In this simple drama, I recognized the unpredictable effects of fate and profound irony as I somewhat uncomfortably readied my chain saw to cut the stump in pieces.

Here's thinking for you,

Iffy

Who Cares if Osama had a Gun?

I will miss Osama Bin Laden. Probably I should not put it quite that way, but he gave us a comforting sense of united hostility that was taken from us by the end of the cold war. He rescued us from a vague and purposeless moral ambiguity relieved only by the pursuit of wealth. Regardless of what we owe to Osama for the unity of resolute righteousness, however, dancing on the corpse of the enemy is a time-honored tradition and probably one of the more restrained forms of celebrating victory at the expense of the loser. Rejoice, the evil Other has been defeated. Make the most of it.

And, indeed, Osama Bin Laden was evil in his way. He was a violent extremist. Apparently he engineered the most devastating sneak attack on American “interests” in the history of sneak attacks on American interests, ending thousands of inoffensive lives in an ideological bid to wound a powerful opponent, not to mention bringing it home to the national core and seriously impacting cherished illusions about the irresistible effects of our dazzling culture. Before 9/11, nobody who spent significant time in the continental U.S. could conceivably fail to recognize the superior aspects of our way of life. After 9/11, we have to consider the realistic possibility of more cynical resistance.

But what was fair about 9/11? Unrestrained movement has been one of the signal features of freedom as we know it. Turning commercial aircraft into weapons exploited, not just the illusions of our invincible influence, but the generous accessibility of our transportation system. Regardless of age, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, or marital status, anybody can (could) get on a jet in America and fly wherever the hell they so desired without obtrusive interference and authoritative scrutiny. There was nothing special about getting on airliners in America, and hardly anything special about taking them over, but the 9/11 hijackers failed to play by the rules. The rules said you don’t gratuitously destroy the aircraft in a bid to cause as much destruction as possible. The rules said you gave authorities a fair chance to intervene, and that was the last straw with Osama Bin Laden. He didn’t play by the rules.

The religious aspects of the conflict are, as religious aspects always are, unfortunate and unnecessary, but predictable as the organizational trajectory of resistance. Where religion appeals to the disenfranchised as an ideological substitute in the mode of Marx, Althusser, and Nietszche, it attracts resistance looking for a coherent community. The failure of the state to adequately manipulate religion as potential resistance has to do with the approach/avoidance conflict of minimizing discomfort over inequitable distribution of resources by allowing the illusion of religious tolerance or even solidarity. The poor in Saudi Arabia, denied more than nominal participation in the great wealth of the aristocratic rulers, were encouraged to accept religion as a substitute for wealth and even nominal identification with the ruling class. We are all one in Mohammed. Despite the disparities in wealth, rich and poor were united in Islam.

Whether Bin Laden, despite his own wealthy origins, really appreciated the inherent hypocrisies of this unequal distribution, or really only leveraged social justice as resistance to foreign intervention in his own aristocratic projects is also a fair question, but Bin Laden also recognized that both the practical and symbolic sources of unequal distribution are rooted in the effects of economic capitalism. America is not the exclusive representative of economic disparities by any means, but it is the most blatant. In our prodigious propaganda of opportunism, we inevitably emphasize, not the potential for reconciliation, but the potential for differentiation. America is the land of opportunity. By hard work and lack of principles, anyone can be separated from their humble origins to achieve financial well-being. With the right friends between us and the dirty work of accumulating money, sometimes even a fair representation of principles survives, so that we at least have an idea of what it looks like to be honest, generous, and fair, or what it might look like in the right circumstances.

Bin Laden, however, was impatient with the rhetorical and practical demands of pretense and looked for a way to get directly at the core. So, quite appropriately he got on a jet and smashed it into the literal, structural home of the free, brave, and economically opportunistic, a gesture lost on nobody, killing three thousand people who were doing nothing more aggressive and predatory than what the rest of us do every day. And it is, therefore, just as righteously appropriate and necessary that he should die a violent death in the hands of his opponents, just as righteously appropriate as any tragedy of Shakespeare or the Greeks.

Once again, however, Bin Laden, has not totally played by the rules. What exactly went down on the third floor of the now famous urban fortress in Pakistan, like all defining occasions in history, shows no indication of a dramatic conciliation or even consesus. Bin Laden resisted. Bin Laden did not resist. Bin Laden participated in the firefight. Bin Laden had no weapon. Bin Laden used a woman as a shield. A woman threw herself between Bin Laden and the attackers.

That he was shot twice, in the face and the chest seems to be fairly well established. Why he was shot if he was unarmed and cornered is a little more problematic. Would capture have made more sense? The Navy SEALS assigned to the difficult task couldn’t know exactly what to expect. No doubt they had orders to shoot first, and SEALS do what SEALS do. That part of it, however, will be the eternal subject of critical scrutiny and analysis like what you are reading now. The spectacle of Bin Laden's demise could only have been exceeded by the spectacle of his capture, which would have been an even greater risk for the focus of controversy and divisive resistance, but Bin Laden in his final moment knew how to cheat effectively. Nothing could have been finer for the U.S. than to take him down mano a mano with his gun in his hand and a troop of hardened fighters around him. Instead, he was executed, shot down without resistance by a merciless invader. The reality is irrelevant. That’s the scenario bequeathed to us by a savvy opponent. No matter how hard we try, our simple and somewhat impatient desire to be forthright in a situation that can be nothing other than complicated has undone us. We have produced a martyr.

And finally, aside from Bin Laden’s violent fundamentalist extremism and arguable self-interest, there are the inescapable conditions of critical social issues in the Middle East and throughout the world combined with U.S. knee-jerk reactions in Iraq and continual floundering in Afghanistan. Bin Laden killed three thousand people at the World Trade Center. The U.S. killed 75,000 civilians in Iraq. The only way to justify the disparity is to argue like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld that Iraquis are somehow less valuable than day traders, a demeaning reminder that we are at best no better than those we seek to defeat. The elimination of Bin Laden, even the elimination of Al-Quaida as a relevant threat, does not eliminate or even moderate the conditions that produced them in the first place. If we cannot accept the responsibilities of economic equity and self-determination for anyone but ourselves, then some form of Osama Bin Laden will be resurrected, and in the name of American interests, in the name of truth, justice, and the American way, we will fight wars of attrition until in the end, everybody loses.

Cheating in the Eye of the Beholder

One thing became clear in the course of the cheating problem in the business department. This was not a case of writing answers on the back of your hand. The basic issues of fairness were called into question, but in a society where rights of disproportionate possession and accumulation are defined and enforced by law and military intervention, there will always be tension between the desire to join or participate in the community of the elite, and the exclusive expectations of the ruling class. By definition there is nothing mysterious or fundamentally unethical about action taken to pass a class to acquire a degree to get a job of disproportionate economic value.
Adapting the fundamental supply and demand principle of economics, given the opportunity, those with less will take some. Denied suitable opportunities, they may look for those too. The impulse can be defined away as a disturbance to society and a violation of law, but even considering the benefit of an orderly society, it cannot be denied. If education depends on enforcement of “calibration,” as one test security expert so aptly described it, then the result will be a very fine line indeed, so fine that it will be invisible. To designate the use of available information as cheating is simply to emphasize the determination to prevent those who do not have from leveling the field. You outsmarted yourself, so you call the response cheating. And that’s an institutional responsibility, not an individual instructor’s responsibility. It’s a legislative mandate in the interests of economic inequality.
This is not suggesting that there is no such thing as cheating. Cheating is taking more than you need, but that’s another argument altogether. If the students in this case cheated, we made them what they are. If they did not, they are pretty much what the rest of us are, aspirants to economic aristocracy. Maybe we all deserve each other.