Clipping blog |
- Clearing the Browser Tabs – Lay Off the Royals Tuesday Edition
- Why I Won’t See “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” But Why You Probably Should
- On Content Theft and the Big Dogs
| Clearing the Browser Tabs – Lay Off the Royals Tuesday Edition Posted: 19 Apr 2011 03:10 AM PDT I happened across a story in my RSS reader that made me a bit annoyed. A British historian and television personality named Starkey felt it would be a fine idea to say that Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton have “not a trace of high romance or grand Mills & Boon passion” in their relationship. I honestly don’t know why he felt at liberty to opine on a relationship about which he can only know what they allow him to see, but I wish he hadn’t made it. I am not particular fan of the British Royal family, but I find England’s honest affection for them rather charming. I wish only the best for the Prince and his soon-to-be-bride and I’d just as soon people like Starkey kept their criticisms to themselves. The pressure on the young couple must be tremendous and they don’t need amateur relationship experts carping at them from the cheap seats. Uninformed criticism can not be useful to them and will only put more of a strain on a stressful situation. Good relationships are hard enough to maintain without the relentless spotlight of an entire nation’s commentariat beating down on it. Starkey would be well advised to reflect on the damage people like him did to the marriage of William’s parents and speak only about what he knows, if at all. And now, links!
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| Why I Won’t See “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” But Why You Probably Should Posted: 18 Apr 2011 12:12 PM PDT
But I also want a story with a decently-paced plot, engaging characters, and a conclusion I can see without the aid of the Hubble Space Telescope. I got none of those things from Atlas Shrugged. What I did get was a paperback book so large that if would have made foot-deep crater in the sidewalk if I dropped it from a five-story building. So when I learned that a movie was on the way that promised to be very faithful to the text of the book, well, my excitement did not exactly abound. I did get a sneak-peek at the movie trailer thanks to a screening by FreedomWorks at this year’s CPAC, but I admit I didn’t even watch all of that. It bored me. A man can only see so much footage of trains and peeky-peeks of a fedora-wearing, shadow-enshrouded John Galt before I started to wonder when the food would arrive. As for the question, “Who is John Galt?”, I can safely say my answer has long been, “I don’t care.” Clearly, however, I am in the minority among my conservative friends. I’ve read several reviews of Atlas Shrugged: Part I written by folks on the right since its release on Friday and I can safely say you can file most of them in one of two categories. Note here that I’m not going to generally include MSM movie reviewers, who would be inclined to crush the movie simply because of the source material (see Roger Ebert for an example of that closed-minded sort of “review”). I’m just talking about folks who are at least neutral toward Rand and her politics. The first type of review is fairly glowing and generally focuses on the principles of the book instead of the quality of the movie or storytelling itself (see reviews by Jenny Erikson, Tabitha Hale,and Brian Calle). These reviews remind me of the many, many friends I’ve had over the years who have implored me to read the book, but never once told me I’d enjoy it because it told a good story, had engaging and well-developed characters, or an entertaining plot. They wanted me to read it because, well, I simply had to. They liked what Rand had to say for free markets and against heavy-handed government and that made the book entirely wonderful in their eyes and were overjoyed simply to see her work given respectful treatment on the big screen. You can see this in the audience ratings at Rotten Tomatoes. The second type of review is not very glowing at all and deals with the movie as a movie (see reviews by Ladd Ehlinger via Stacy McCain, Kurt Loder, and two more excerpted here). This is the kind of review I would write if I actually went to see the movie, which I likely wouldn’t because I honestly have no desire to spend several hours and over ten bucks on something I already know I’m not going to like. After all, if I couldn’t get through the book, I’m certainly not going to make it through a movie that faithfully follows the book in nearly every detail. That doesn’t mean Atlas Shrugged is a bad book, but that, obviously, the filmmakers didn’t make a particularly good movie out of it. Some of that is not their fault. Rand wasn’t exactly writing to entertain, she was writing to get across a philosophical point and, short of changing and/or removing large parts of the book, there’s no way they could turn that into an engaging movie for people who watch movies for entertainment. Had the filmmakers done that, you would have heard bloody cries of vengeance from hundreds of thousands of Rand fans across the country and we really would have needed the help of a witness relocation program. With all that said, if you are a fan of Rand’s work or you think you might become one, then Atlas Shrugged: Part I is definitely for you. If you’re not familiar with Rand’s classic, you could do far worse than to get a 100-minute introduction with some pretty fair (if not widely-known) actors made by people who honestly love the source material and want to give it to you as straight as possible. And if, after you’ve seen the movie, you spend a little time wondering who John Galt is and why you should care, well, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. Just don’t ask me. I honestly don’t know.
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| On Content Theft and the Big Dogs Posted: 18 Apr 2011 10:35 AM PDT
The Daily Caller ran an article today on one of the worst offenders, at least to my reckoning, Glenn Beck. They got a number of bloggers and videographers on the record to name specific instances of how Beck and his staff took their videos and posts and used them in his shows without proper credit. Though the author didn’t contact me, I’ve had a post stolen by Beck as well. The only attribution I got was a context-free link on his web page, which Beck’s staff felt was appropriate. That was more than I expected, actually — I’d heard plenty of stories from other bloggers about Beck — and I was sure to thank him for the little credit he did give me. What else was there to do? Beck is a big media guy, which means he pretty much gets to do what he wants. Out here in the world of new media, the first law is the Law of the Jungle, and, as Jeff Dunetz notes with several personal examples, my experience was far from unique. I have spent months preaching about good linking behavior to pretty much anyone who’ll listen on the right. I know others have as well. However, the conservative new media world is still one where the big dogs, (and there are a few notable exceptions — Rush Limbaugh, for one), get all the bones and the rest of us fight for the scraps. I don’t imagine that’ll change until the big dogs decide they want to do things differently, but why should they? They’re getting what they want and there’s no pressure on them to do anything differently. UPDATE: Well-done variations on the theme by Alfonzo Rachel. UPDATE 2: Stacy adds some worthwhile thoughts. All I would add is that I think it most likely that Glenn Beck is not directly responsible for the various transgressions laid upon him. Yet he is. The radio and television show have his name on them. The shows are his. He is the “face”. If he can’t hire responsible staffers, that’s on him as well. UPDATE 3: The Lonely Conservative has her own story, but goes in a different direction than I have.
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Okay, you got me. I admit it. I’ve never actually finished Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged. I tried, three times in fact, and each time I got about a quarter of the way through the approximately eleventy-bazillion page novel and stopped from sheer exhaustion. It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to Rand’s message; I am. I want small government. I don’t want Washington to reduce us to a nation of trains chugging to and fro and mystery men making all the productive people of the country disappear like they all entered the Free Market Witness Relocation Program.
In my nearly seven years as a conservative political blogger, I’ve learned a lot things. One of them is that my content is going to get stolen by journalists, columnists, radio hosts, and television pundits. The sad truth of the conservative blogosphere is that, unless you’re one of the truly big bloggers, you can expect to see your work passed off in newspapers, on the radio, and on television as the work of someone else.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Sundries Shack To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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