For someone who really likes movies, I find a surprising number of them really boring. What’s more, I can tell you when I find them boring: after one hour. In over half the movies I watch, I look at my watch at some point because I’m bored and I’m wondering when whatever “entertainment” I’m watching will be over. In almost all cases it is within five minutes of one hour. I take this to mean that most films should only be about an hour because they only have an hour’s worth of creativity (or less—much less).

Sometimes, I will look at my watch earlier—say, after a half-hour. But nothing could prepare me for the experience I had yesterday when I went to see Thor with my brother. After only three minutes (2% of the film!) I looked at my watch. Three minutes and I was already willing to leave the theater.

The film had the problems you would expect, but what really bugged me was the character of Loki. I know nothing of Thor, but I knew immediately that Loki was the bad guy. Why? Because he was the skinny, thoughtful guy. Heroes aren’t thoughtful! Heroes just rush in, knowing that everything will work out because the skinny, thoughtful screenwriters have deemed it so.

Still, there was something weird about this film: the actors. It had some really good actors and I am most definitely not referring to Natalie Portman. It had Anthony Hopkins (okay, he’s been in a lot of dreck) and Stellan Skarsgård. Even relative newcomer Tom Hiddleston was good. I don’t even have anything particularly bad to say about Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth. (I could, however, go on and on about how much I hated Natalie Portman in this film.) How was it, I thought, that this movie that in just about every other way was terrible had good actors and good acting from pretty much all of the cast?

And then I got my answer, right after Thor went to sulk that he would never again see Jane Foster (Portman)—at least until the sequel.

Oh my God! What in the hell is the greatest Shakespearean actor of all time directing this stupid film? Does he owe back taxes? Is someone blackmailing him? I just don’t get it. But don’t let what I’ve said about the actors cause you to give this movie a chance. It is dreck, dreck, dreck. But it does show that Branagh is not just a great actor: he is a great director of actors. (He is not, as far as I can tell however, a great director generally. Maybe I’ll write more about that later—but probably not.)

Regardless, this film should have been titled, Thor: God of Boredom.

In Sam Harris’ excellent The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values,[1] he puts forth an excellent experiment called The Asian Disease Problem. Here is how Harris presents the problem:

The reason this is interesting is because there is no difference between the options. In each case, Program A saves 200 people and kills 400 people, and Program B has a one-third chance of saving everyone and a two-thirds chance of killing everyone. To me it is easy. I am the most unlucky person alive. So if I have a two-thirds chance of killing everyone, I’m going to kill everyone. Therefore, I feel confident that regardless of how the problem was put to me (which it wasn’t—I was given both, just as you just were), I would go for the sure thing: save 200 lives. But what about other people? Would they really change their answers based upon how the question was asked?

I decided to find out, even though countless graduate students have done this to death. I asked 14 of my friends (it’s hard to believe I have that many, I know). The results I got were not as stark as I had expected, based upon what Harris wrote, but they were pretty much in accordance with what my intuition indicated.

When the first question was asked, four people picked Program A and two picked Program B. That makes sense: you are telling people they can save 200 people and you don’t even mention the 400 who will necessarily die. When the second question was asked, four people picked Program A and four picked Program B: an even split.

I don’t have much to add to this. According to Harris, what this shows is that people overvalue certainty. So, the certainty of saving 200 lives is really compelling. Just the same, the certainty of losing 400 lives is really repugnant. Thus, when we are asked, “Do you want to save 200 people, and by the way, 400 others will die,” we jump on that option. But when we are asked, “Do you want to kill 400 people, and by the way, 200 others will live,” we figure, “Well, maybe I’ll try my luck at saving them all, even though the odds aren’t that good.

The brain in a funny thing.

[1] I will be writing more about this just as soon as I can find my many pages of notes. You see, I just moved and things are even more out of control than usual. Plus, I am working on the pilot of the first Frankly Curious Media TV show called, The Post, Post Modern Comedy Hour. Just in case you were wondering: it’s a half-hour long. Oh! And here’s the theme song:

It’s the post, post modern comedy hour
You mega-dose of curiosity power
Out goes illusion! Out goes myth!
In comes compassion, knowledge, and bliss
It’s the post, post modern comedy hour!

(Video soon to come!)

Franklin Graham is an Idiot

This is interesting. The only reason that his father wasn’t such an embarrassment was that his father didn’t talk so much. What evil men—both.

Late Breaking News from Mark

¹⁷ Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”
¹⁸ So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
¹⁹ “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.'”
²⁰ And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.”
²¹ Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”
²² But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
²³ Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”
²⁴ And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!
²⁵ “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern first meet Hamlet in his eponymous play, he says with great delight, “My excellent good friends! How dost thou, / Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, / how do ye both?” Apart from the opening line (My excellent good friends!) this does not strike me as wonderful poetry, but I am no Shakespearean scholar. Nevertheless, I can certainly tell that this is rubbish compared to the opening of Richard III, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York; / And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house / In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.” [1] It is even rubbish compared to other parts of Hamlet—soon after these lines, he writes some of his most beautiful verse, “What a piece of work is a man! / How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, / in form and moving how express and admirable, / in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like / a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! / And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man / delights not me.” But the point is not that the lines that Hamlet greets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with are bad. The point is that there is no hint of irony.[2] Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are childhood friends, and while Hamlet may not, at that moment, delight in “man,” he most clearly does delight in seeing his old friends.

As we all know, the King gives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a sealed royal document to give to the King of England when they go there with Hamlet. Hamlet, however, in a typically ridiculous Shakespearean plot twist, escapes from the trip by bribing some pirates, but not before stealing the document and replacing it with a facsimle. He had found out that the letter said that the King of England should kill Hamlet. In response, Hamlet wrote a letter telling the King of England to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He explains this to Horatio in Act 5, Scene 2: “An earnest conjuration from the king, / As England was his faithful tributary, / As love between them like the palm might flourish, / As peace should still her wheaten garland wear / And stand a comma ‘tween their amities, / many such-like ‘As’es of great charge, / That, on the view and knowing of these contents, / Without debatement further, more or less, / He should the bearers put to sudden death, / Not shriving-time allow’d.”

If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern knew what the letter said (or even had some idea), Hamlet might be forgiving for acting as he did. But we know that these two men were completely honest. First, there is no indication in the play that they knew the letter to the King of England commanded him to kill Hamlet. Second, if they had know, they certainly wouldn’t have delivered the letter to the King after Hamlet ran away. So Hamlet had absolutely no cause for killing his “Excellent good friends!” Instead, he could have simply destroyed the letter or replaced it with one that requested something benign. But he instead choose to have his friends killed—successfully we learn at the end of Act 5, Scene 2 when the English Ambassador arrives to announces, “The sight is dismal; / And our affairs from England come too late: / The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, / To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, / That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead: / Where should we have our thanks?”

Thus, I say: Hamlet was not a hero; Hamlet was not an anti-hero; Hamlet was an asshole.[3]

[1] Kenneth Branagh (and I mean this literally) is the best Shakespearean actor who ever existed. Shakespeare does not deserve him. Listen to him perform this speech in the “video” below:

[2] In Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film, Hamlet’s reading of these lines is not so clear. Branagh speaks them with some suspicion. However, his suspicion seems to dissipate after Gildenstern admits, “My lord, we were sent for.” This reading by Reece Dinsdale as Gildenstern is the best I have seen, and it dispels any indication that Rosencrantz and Gildenstern mean any ill to Hamlet. It is Hamlet who mistreats them (and pretty much everyone else in the play, Ophelia most cruelly).

[3] Note also that when Hamlet traps the king using the players, they are forced to flee the castle for fear of their very lives. It is reasonable to assume that they were not paid for their performance either. Here is another example of Hamlet using innocents without a thought to the consequences on them.

I was at the bank yesterday, and Juan, who has remembered my name from the day I met him (although it took him two days of reminding that he must call me “Frank” and not “Mr. Moraes”) asked me, “Do you have any plans for Easter?”

“Is it this Sunday?” I asked like the stupidest man alive given that the bank was overflowing with jelly beans and colored eggs. He gave me the kind smile of a gentle soul who is used to dealing with complete idiots.

Later the same day, I was back at the bank and Juan was gone, but another teller was there and the moment I entered, he called out to me, “Hi Frank!” It speaks ill of me that I don’t remember the name of this teller—especially after this “Norm” moment. I have an interesting relationship with him, because when he first started working at the bank, he didn’t seem to like me, and there is nothing I dislike more than people who dislike me. In retrospect, I think it was just that he was new and insecure and probably thought that being too friendly would get him in trouble. Now I find him one of the most pleasant young people I know.

There are two female tellers who I have similarly good relationships with. Again, I don’t remember their names because I’m a bad person. Also, there is an assistant manager sort of person who I got on wonderfully with, but who has left. Just yesterday, I met her replacement and she seems very nice. And then there is the bank manager himself, who doesn’t seem to know me, but who is nice enough to answer questions that have nothing to do with his job, like, “What ever happened to the $500 and $1000 bills? Why don’t they have them any more?”

This is all a very sad story: nowhere on earth am I made to feel more welcome than at my local US Bank branch. Of course, this does not mean I am most at ease there. I am most in my element at the Northwest Branch of the Sonoma County Library. If I died, I would want my ashes spread there. But only Susan (yes, I learned her name) at my local branch gives me the Norm treatment, by saying, “Hello Frank”—like a good public intellectual, however, she isn’t alluding to Cheers, but Educating Rita. (The allusion may be more fitting than she realizes!) And I will point out that as much as I like the other librarians, it is because of Susan that I give roughly $50 per year to Friends of the Library. (Actually, $1000 per year would be much closer to what I get from the library, but I figure I am doing okay and if my finances ever get more stable, I will give more.)

So the two places I have a true sense of community is at my bank and my library (and with my family, but that is something entirely different). It does seem sad, and yet, I know my bank tellers and librarians don’t have to be as sociable as they are with me. They seem to be genuinely interested in me and the other people they serve. It is as though we are all looking for our own Ballykissangel: a place where we have a place, and a place where we are (for good or bad) individuals. And though we will probably never find a Ballykissangel in the real world, we create it in a virtual sense with a smile, a wave, and the occasional, “Hello Frank!”

Paul Krugman writes, “There Are No TV Series About Heroic Economists… But there was a so-bad-it-was-good movie about a villainous, murderous chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.” He then provides the trailer for The Internecine Project. “So-bad-it-was-good”? Well, you know how much I hate that kind of talk so felt I had to slap back, but I’m not sure if the blog took my comment, so here it is:

McBama

Paul Krugman makes an excellent point on his blog today:

I know it’s an excellent point, because I’ve been making the same point for some time—particularly about healthcare. Note that “Obamacare” is exactly what John McCain campaigned on. Had he become president, I’m sure that we would have got the same plan. The only difference would have been that conservatives would have embraced it. It would not have been a major battle to get it passed. And the reason is clear: authoritarians (thank you John Dean) don’t stand for anything but standing in line: “for us and against them”—regardless of what “they” stand for.

How Do I Like Obama Now?

The last week I feel pretty damned good about him.

Grammar and Politics

One thing that I really hated about Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush was that they both spoke very poorly. On the other hand, I really like that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are well-spoken. It matters to me that the president of the United States be able speak more or less correct English. It is bad when our school children see that the most powerful man in the world doesn’t even speak as well a local newscaster—a very low bar indeed. I don’t believe that any president in my lifetime has been stupid; I think that speaking poorly is a way for a president to say, “I’m not one of those elitist intellectuals.” And this is why I think we see this almost exclusively among Republican politicians. The Republican Party is an anti-intellectual party because it is so important for them to equate elitism with intelligence and knowledge rather than money and power—the attributes that truly make a person part of the elite. Thus, it came as no surprise to me when Donald Trump answered a question about why he illegally called his business school a university with, “We didn’t know there was any rules.” I don’t think that Trump is unaware that the correct construction is, “We didn’t know there were any rules.” Instead, I think it was a dog-whistle sentence. Without saying it, it told the intellectual-hating Republican Party base, “See! I’m not smart! I’m just like you!”

Happy Birthday!

One year since the spill and there is still plenty of oil floating in and around the gulf. And estimates are that there will be for the next ten years. Meanwhile, BP, Transocean, and Haliburton all had record profits the first quarter of this year. And Congress has not passed a single piece of legislation concerning deep-water oil drilling.

My Taxes Are Too High!

I just wrote a check to the IRS for just under $2000 for my 2010 income taxes. This seems like a lot, when you consider that I only made about $20,000 last year. And that’s just the income taxes; I’m not talking about state and local taxes or payroll taxes or sales taxes (9.25% where I live). The great David Cay Johnston has written a wonderful article for Willamette Week called 9 Things the Rich Don’t Want You to Know About Taxes. You really should read it, but here is the list:

1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.

This is one of the most galling lies that I hear coming out of Faux News. It just isn’t true and no one can really think that it is. Does Gretchen Carlson really think that when a poor person buys a bottle of Windex at Safeway, the clerk doesn’t charge sales tax? Of course not. But then, I don’t need to remind any reasonable person that the people of Faux News are evil, stupid, dishonest or all of the above.

2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.

If you make over $106,800 per year, you stop paying social security tax. By the way, getting rid of this limit is my preferred way to fix Social Security—even though there is really very little financial problem with the program anyway.

3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.

The median worker pays 23.4% of his income in taxes; the top 400 earners pay (Wait for it!) 18.7%. That’s 25% less than we working slobs.

4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.

How can this be? Well, suppose you own a baseball team. You will only pay income tax on it if you sell it. So you don’t sell it. You borrow money against it (at ridiculously low interest rates) and thus you don’t have to pay any taxes. Just do this until you die.

5. And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.

In the last 30 years, the median income in the US has stagnated. But the mean income has skyrocketed!

6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same—less taxes.

One word: loopholes.

7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.

You’ve got to read what Johnston has to say about this. Basically, low corporate tax rates increases unemployment. This may sound impossible, but it’s true.

8. Republicans like taxes too.

Say it ain’t so! But it’s true. It is just that they like to tax the poor.

9. Other countries do it better.

This is an excellent section where he points out that countries like Germany tax at a much higher level, but it is fairer and people actually get something for their taxes. Personally, I don’t like the fact that %20 of my tax dollars go to fighting wars I don’t believe in. It is also interesting that I am always hearing people complain that we give so much money to other countries in aid. We don’t. We give less than 3% of our budget in international aid, and most of that is prid pro quo. Almost all of our “aid” is in the form of bombs. Personally, I’d rather be alive and forsake that 20% “aid.”

But if you are too lazy to read the article, watch this clip of Chris Hayes hosting the Rachel Maddow show. It’s lots of fun.