Blogcritics Author: Thomas M. Sipos

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

A Fair Tax for Progressives and Conservatives

Thomas M. Sipos — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:10:24 EDT

The income tax has four negatives: (1) We are forced to pay money to the government; (2) filing the tax forms invades our privacy, forcing us to reveal how much money we have, how we got it, how we spent it; (3) it's a hassle to keep records, then hire accountants or attorneys to make sure we filed correctly "under penalty of perjury"; and (4) the exemptions and deductions discriminate against gays, singles, childless couples, and others based on spending and lifestyle choices.Conservatives and progressives both insist that taxes are necessary. (Conservatives are supposedly anti-tax, but how else would they pay for their global, decades-long "war on terror?") But let's suppose they're right. Wouldn't it be better if the feds could collect that money without invading our privacy or fostering discrimination (issues that progressives supposedly care about), and without hassling people with burdensome record-keeping and form filing?If you agree, the answer is to replace all federal taxes with a national sales tax (aka the Fair Tax, not be confused with the Flat Tax, which is merely a variation on the income tax). This one national sales tax could replace federal income, payroll, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes.How high must a national sales tax be to replace all those? FairTax.org estimates 23 percent (on top of state and local sales taxes). That sounds like a lot of extra money to pay at the store each time you shop. But the average person now pays 33 percent of his or her income to taxes (Tax Freedom Day came on April 30 in 2007, according to TaxFoundation.org). A 23 percent sales tax isn't much to abolish all federal taxes. It still leaves you 10 percent for state and local taxes.Consider the benefits: * No invasion of privacy. No record-keeping or filing with the IRS. No audits. * No tax attorneys or accountants to hire. More money for you. * Transparency. You'll see what you and everyone else pays. That's bad for those who want higher taxes - hidden taxes are easier to raise - but good for those who value an informed democracy over smoke-filled, backroom deals. * No discrimination. Straight singles and gays complain that marriage currently brings tax benefits denied to them. Childless couples complain that tax laws favor couples with children. A Fair Tax won't end the culture war, but it'll lower the volume. * Isn't a sales tax unfair to the poor? No. The plan proposed by FairTax.org provides a "monthly rebate (prebate) for every registered household to cover the consumption tax spent on necessities up to the federal poverty level." * Won't you lose your deductions? Yes, but so will everyone else. I realize that your deductions are justified, whereas everyone else's are "special interest loopholes," but you've got to give a little to get a lot. * Won't tax attorneys and accountants lose their jobs? Some. If that's your concern, let's make the tax code even more burdensome. * Won't IRS agents go hungry? Never. They'll be redeployed to policing the new sales tax. Since there are fewer retail stores than individual taxpayers, the ratio of agents to tax filers would improve. * Less cheating. Not only will there be more IRS agents per tax filer, but there will be fewer taxpayers overall. Ever get mad because others were cheating, while you were too scared, and it just wasn't fair? Under a Fair Tax, your neighbors can't "beat the system" and leave you to pick up Uncle Sam's tab. Feel better? * Won't this burden stores with additional record-keeping? Not much. Most stores already keep records for state and local sales taxes, plus various corporate and business taxes, some of which will be eliminated. * Won't lobbyists lose their jobs? Yes. Corporations will no longer hire six-figure lobbyists to bribe Washington politicians to create tax "incentives" (i.e., loopholes). It's very sad. * Won't this mean fewer contributions to politicians? Yes. If they're unable to create tax loopholes, fewer people will want to bribe them. Very, very sad. * Wouldn't eliminating all those filing requirements make it harder for the government to monitor terrorists, drug lords, and other Bad People? Yes, but in a free society, it's supposed to be hard for the government. That's why we have the Bill of Rights and search warrant requirements. I realize Red Chinese cops have it easier.Most of these points are my own. I plucked some stats from FairTax.org, but I don't speak for them, nor they for me. What's important is that you speak to everyone, from talk radio hosts to your elected representatives, and explain the benefits of the Fair Tax to them.

Thomas M. Sipos is the author of the anti-Communist satire, Vampire Nation and Manhattan Sharks. Some of his essays on horror film aesthetics appear in his horror collection, Halloween Candy. He founded the Tabloid Witch Awards horror film contest and festival. He is Vice Chair of the Los Angeles County Libertarian Party.

Can't Afford a House? Pay for Someone Else's!

Thomas M. Sipos — Wed, 9 May 2007 20:06:55 EDT

If home prices are too high for your budget, don't feel bad. You can still enjoy the vicarious thrill of paying for a stranger's house, thanks to pending state legislation.Maybe you've wanted to buy a house for many years now, but you've seen prices skyrocket. Especially in California. You might have gotten a zero-down, subprime mortgage, but mortgages must be repaid. And although you're on a tight budget, you're a responsible person. You don't want to buy property only to default on the loan, much less declare bankruptcy. You're an ant, not a grasshopper. You work hard and save for tomorrow. You don't borrow money you can't repay.Instead, you've waited for prices to come down. Everyone said they would. All that easy mortgage money was driving up home prices to artificial levels. The houses weren't worth all that. Bad loans were distorting the market. A market correction was inevitable. It's not like current homeowners have any right to complain when reality hits.And reality has hit. On April 2, 2007, the Associated Press reported: "More than two dozen subprime lenders have shut down in recent months and others are scrambling to stay in business as a spike in defaults caused by borrowers unable to make payments has rocked the mortgage industry. Now, as lenders tighten credit standards, the housing market will likely see further declines in price and output, senior economist David Shulman wrote in the quarterly [UCLA] Anderson Report."Did he say "further declines in price"? That means houses will become more affordable--good news for responsible lower and middle income people who don't borrow more than they can repay. Nice to see the market works for them too.Here's more good news. Alex Spillius reports in the London Telegraph (April 6, 2007): "The mortgage crisis in America has deepened so much that family homes can now be bought for less than �15,200--the price of a new car. A four-bedroom home near the original Motown recording studio in Detroit recently sold for �3,700 ($7,000), less than most used cars. A boarded-up bungalow fetched �685, and a three-bedroom house listed for �276,000 attracted just �69,000. ... Up to 1.5 million Americans could lose their homes in the next two years, while repossessions rose by 42 per cent in 2006."In other words, up to 1.5 million homes will suddenly become available to new home-buyers at sharply reduced prices. Since when is affordable housing a bad thing?Of course, there are losers. Among them are irresponsible mortgage lenders who threw money at irresponsible home buyers. Wealthy homeowners not in default will also see their artificially inflated home prices fall to true market levels. (Easy come, easy go.) But the winners will be the responsible lower- and middle-income people who've waited patiently for the free market to provide affordable housing.Yet just as the ants are about to reap the rewards of their patience and thrift, state governments are stepping in to bail out the grasshoppers--with the ants' tax money--and keep home prices artificially high. Gilbert Le Gras reports for Reuters (March 27, 2007): "A growing number of state housing agencies are developing or considering issuing bonds to assist subprime mortgage holders to refinance their obligations at fixed rates." That is, they will issue taxpayer-subsidized loans to people already proven to be a bad risk. Le Gras cites Ohio, Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia as states that already have or are developing mortgage refinancing programs. Colorado, Washington, Wisconsin and California are considering such programs.The political pressure comes from homeowners at risk of default and from those in no such danger but who would like to keep their home prices artificially high. Helping the first group is welfare for the irresponsible. Helping the second is welfare for the rich, because market interventions to keep home prices high benefit those who "have" houses at the expense of those who "have-not" houses.Think about it. The free market was all set to make houses more affordable for greater numbers of responsible lower and middle income people. Instead, government will distort the market to keep prices artificially high for the rich and irresponsible.So if you can't afford a house, don't blame the free market.

The Principle of Power Envy

Thomas M. Sipos — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:18:08 EDT

Conservatives and progressives (as former liberals now like to be called) suffer from power envy. They will say or do anything, even subvert their own principles, to attain power.Consider Arnold Schwarzenegger. He promised to halt California's big-spending. He did give it an honest try. Propositions 74 to 77 would have crippled California's big-government lobbies. Progressives panicked, spouting their usual hyperboles about the end of civilization. After Arnold's propositions lost, he switched sides, endorsing 2006's budget-buster bonds to fund a progressive wish list. But did progressives praise him for flip-flopping over to their side? No, that's no way to win elections. Instead, the folks at Air America radio attacked Arnold for the "hypocrisy" of his reckless spending. (Talk about pots calling a kettle black!) Of course, Air America broadcasters have long condemned Bush for his big-spending, without crediting him for an extravagant prescription drug plan - surely a bigger step toward socialized medicine than anything Clinton ever achieved.Clearly, progressives aren't upset with Republicans' reckless spending. Rather, they're furious that they aren't the ones doing it. Power envy indeed.Progressives are no better on privacy and civil liberties. They slam Bush for using 9/11 to push the Patriot Act, but few progressives attacked Clinton for using Oklahoma City to push the 1995 Omnibus Counterterrorism Act (easily as bad as the Patriot Act, see: http://www.skepticism.org/politics/terrorism/ter_AEDPA.shtml). Nor did progressives protest the FBI's profiling of NRA members (see: http://www.2ampd.net/Articles/Horn/Political%20Profiling.htm). Few progressives care about the rights of mostly white, middle-aged gun owners. And shame on the many conservative bloggers and talk radio hosts for not defending Arabs and Muslims' civil rights. Yet even progressives demonize Arabs for political advantage. One Air America broadcaster appealed to racism when attacking Bush for his Dubai ports deal. She'd said the United Arab Emirates "injected" (her word) several 9/11 hijackers into America. That's like saying Africa "injected" OJ into America. The hijackers were individual criminals, not government agents. Their nationality is irrelevant. Similarly, University of Texas professor Robert Jensen criticized Michael Moore's "progressive" Fahrenheit 911 for using racist imagery for political gain (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen07052004.html). I've also heard Air America broadcasters demonizing Saudi Arabians, a necessary corollary to condemning Bush's "Saudi ties."I don't think Ann Coulter is homophobic, but I do think she calculatingly woos homophobes in order to sell books and get face time on TV to feed her narcissism (her only real principle). I also don't think most progressives are racist, but I think some do drop anti-Arab remarks, hoping to entice undecided voters and "serve the greater good" of electing Democrats. ("See, you can trust us with power. We bash Arabs too. Just not the ones that Republicans bash." Similar to: "I support the war, just not how Republicans are fighting it.")That the Iraq War was based on lies and ulterior motives is comprehensively documented. (See the 1,300 page, two volume Neoconned and Neoconned Again, 2005, IHS Press). Opposing the war is moral and patriotic. Yet I sense that many progressives are less opposed to the war than opposing Republicans benefiting from it. Progressives were mostly mute during Clinton's wars.Some years previous (I think on a Sunday morning), I heard an Air America broadcaster favorably compare Clinton's Balkan War to Bush's Iraq War: "At least Clinton was smart enough to bring in allies." Okay, but does that amount to a progressive argument? Progressives are supposed to favor peace and civilian safety, not smarter warriors. And why do I suspect that, had Clinton fought alone, and Bush brought in NATO, that same broadcaster would have said: "At least Clinton had the guts to go it alone. Bush is like a playground bully who's afraid to fight without his whole gang behind him."Progressives don't so much oppose war-making and reckless spending, as they envy the power to do so. They aren't so much upset at Bush and Giuliani appropriating 9/11 and its attendant political capital as the fact that they didn't appropriate it for themselves. Call it 9/11 envy. Progressives are like Ann Coulter, whose main gripe with the 9/11 widows may well be that she isn't one of them.Both Republicans and Democrats support imperialism, socialism, and unconstitutional civil rights violations. Their only dispute is over who gets to wield the power.

Realistic Rent Control - With Vouchers

Thomas M. Sipos — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 07:14:53 EST

Landlords and tenants in the U.S. could both benefit by replacing rent control with "rent vouchers."Of course, tenant advocates would argue that because housing is a need, landlords should be forced to provide housing at an "affordable price." But food is a greater need, yet society doesn't force grocers or restaurants to subsidize the poor with "food price control." Instead, we have food stamps the poor may apply to their food purchases. We should likewise abolish rent control and give vouchers to the needy, which they could then apply to their rent. Landlords, needy tenants, and prospective tenants would all benefit, and the system would be both fairer and freer.Mobility for tenants. Under rent control, many tenants are stuck in apartments they'd like to leave, if only they could find a comparably priced apartment elsewhere. But rent vouchers (like school vouchers) would be portable. Tenants could apply them to the building of their choice, just as food stamps can be spent in any grocery store.More affordable housing. New and prospective tenants are hurt by rent control. Current tenants in rent-controlled apartments won't vacate. Developers are less likely to build affordable housing; they prefer to invest in condos and luxury apartments, wary of building units that might later be "confiscated" in a hostile political climate. Abolishing rent control would free up old units for new tenants, and rent vouchers would help them afford it. It would also encourage developers to build new, moderately priced units, and landlords to maintain their current buildings.Less fraud. Tenants cling to rent-controlled units they no longer use as a primary residence, often illegally subletting them. Landlords bear the unfair burden of hiring private investigators to prove fraud. Innocent tenants see this as harassment. Housing vouchers would eliminate the incentive for tenant fraud and landlord harassment, which means...Less court congestion. Courts won't have to deal with nearly so much landlord/tenant litigation. That means quicker court dates for other cases.Fair to landlords. Grocers aren't expected to bear the sole burden of feeding the poor. Rather than legislating food prices, everyone pays taxes for food stamps. Likewise, it's only fair that society share the burden of housing its poor through rent vouchers, rather than punishing landlords for supplying a need.Targets needy tenants. Rent control is a moral farce, partly because there's no means testing. Some tenants are wealthier than their landlords; in such cases, the poor are subsidizing the rich. A rare instance? Maybe, maybe not. In any event, rent vouchers (like food stamps) can be means tested, so that only needy tenants receive them.Although rent vouchers surpass rent control in promoting economic efficiency, freedom of movement, and justice, there will be opponents. Many people benefit from the inefficiencies and injustices of rent control. Lawyers and private investigators profit from litigation. Politicians benefit from landlord/tenant conflict. There are no political battles between grocers and food stamp consumers; both are satisfied with food stamps. Where's the political opportunity in that?Wealthy tenants are another hurdle. Why surrender rent control if you won't qualify for vouchers? And while prospective tenants would benefit from rent vouchers, prospective tenants are harder to organize politically than current tenants. Taxpayers will also balk. Why share the burden of housing the poor, when you can shift the entire burden to landlords? (Feel good about your "progressive" vote for rent control -- without having to pay for it!)Eliminating affordable housing?Opponents will also argue (many, ingeniously) that vouchers are an attempt to eliminate affordable housing; that first, we replace rent control with vouchers, then we eliminate vouchers. Not so. Rent control exists because tenants outnumber landlords in the voting booth. That won't change. There's no reason to imagine that rent vouchers will be endangered any more than food stamps.Needy tenants will gain mobility through vouchers, prospective tenants will see an increase in affordable apartments being built, current buildings will be better maintained, and landlords will be treated more fairly. This last argument alone will infuriate class warriors, some of whom would rather punish needy and prospective tenants than have any benefits accrue to landlords (despite the irony that some landlords are poorer than their tenants).Even so, rent vouchers make greater economic sense than rent control. And they promote greater fairness and freedom.

Fight Hate by Ending "Hate Crime" Laws

Thomas M. Sipos — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:48:00 EST

Racial hatred was once a serious problem in America, manifested in lynchings and government-enforced segregation. But the pendulum to "combat hate" has now swung into a Kafkaesque Orwellian Zone. Our laws encourage shakedown artists and charlatans, while exacerbating rather than mitigating problems in race relations.Consider comedian Michael "Kramer" Richards, who shouted the N-word to black hecklers in his audience. Attorney Gloria Allred now represents two hecklers and is threatening to sue Richards for "assaulting" her clients with "verbal missiles." She clames that Richards's remarks were "not free speech, but hate speech." Then there's firefighter Tennie Pierce, awarded $2.7 million by the Los Angeles City Council because Pierce claimed he was "racially harassed" when colleagues tricked him into eating dog food. It later emerged that Pierce himself often engaged in insensitive firehouse antics, taunting a bound firefighter whose clothes was scrawled with: "Oy Vey, I'm Gay!" While the City Council reconsiders its settlement offer, Pierce's attorney is threatening to sue for a larger amount from a "downtown jury" (code for "black jury") unless the city meets her extortion demands.Extortion is the right word. Hate crimes can either include legal speech that is illegal due to its context (usually the workplace, though Allred claims that the comedy club made her clients a "captive audience") or an illegal act, such as assault, that's punished more severely because it was motivated by hatred toward certain protected groups (i.e., killing your boss because you hate her is not a "hate crime"). Perhaps because hate crime laws are passed to appease activists, they attract two kinds of extortionists: those seeking money and those with an agenda. Jesse Jackson has made a career out of extorting money by crying "racism" (see Ken Timmerman's Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson). So has Al Sharpton, who in 1998 was found guilty of libel by a New York court for his role in the Tawana Brawley hate crime hoax. Ironically, publicist Howard Rubenstein has advised Richards to seek forgiveness from Jackson and Sharpton for his comedy club meltdown.Hate crime laws encourage political grandstanding. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called GOP congressional candidate Tan D. Nguyen's letter to 14,000 Latino voters (in which he wrote: "if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time") a "hate crime."Hate crime laws encourage false reports. Last October, police arrested University of New Hampshire student Breanne Coventry Snell for falsely reporting that she'd suffered an anti-Semitic attack after leaving the Hillel Jewish center. Universities seem to incubate hate crime hoaxes. A few years earlier, Leah Miller, a black student at San Francisco State, wrote racial epithets on her own door because she wanted "to be a part of something," and Claremont McKenna College professor Kerri Dunn spray-painted her own car with racial and anti-Semitic epithets before reporting it as a hate crime.Hate crime laws are unevenly enforced, further fueling racial tensions. Three Long Beach women (ages 19 to 21) were beaten last Halloween by 20 to 40 black youths while hurling racial epithets. Had a white gang beaten three black women, it might have made national TV news, with the D.A. immediately announcing hate crime charges. But when police arrested several youths for the attack, hate crime allegations were not included in the district attorney's filing. "Outrage over the lack of hate crime charges was swift," reported the Long Beach Press Telegram. Hate crime charges were eventually filed, but residents were further outraged when City Councilwoman Rae Gabelich tried to limit advance notice of a public hearing on the assaults. "I was trying to keep it out of the press," she admitted. This double standard plays into the hands of racists. According to LBReport.com, the Press-Telegram article was emailed across the nation and linked by white supremacist groups.Defenders of hate crime laws claim that our legal system has long considered the criminal's mental state when determining guilt or punishment, but these people confuse intent (Did you intend for the crime to occur?) with motive (Why did you intend for the crime to occur?). Premeditated murder is punished more severely than accidental homicide, but we've never cared why you premeditated a murder (greed or hatred). Motive is useful as evidence, but was never itself punished. Let's return to tradition and fight hate - by abolishing hate crime laws.

A Taxpayer's Nightmare: Needless Bondage

Thomas M. Sipos — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:20:30 EDT

Let me debunk two myths underlying every bond measure on this November's ballot—two big myths that make it ever less affordable for you and your children to live in California. Myth One: Bonds are freebies. You get something without paying for it. Someone else pays.Fact: A bond is a loan. When California "sells" a bond, it's actually borrowing money from the bondholder. Then the money is repaid—with interest. With your taxes. So you not only pay for the bond after all, you get to pay extra.But why worry about tomorrow? Well, that's the attitude voters had when they passed bond measures 10 and 20 years ago—for which you're still paying today. California suffers from a debt crisis and crumbling infrastructure partially because much of today's high tax revenue is used to pay off old bonds, leaving less money for today's expenses. Want to do something "for the children?" Then don't pass a new bond. Otherwise you'll either cripple them with even higher future taxes or drive them (and your grandkids) out of California when they grow up.Myth Two: If a bond doesn't pass, our schools, highways, hospitals, and libraries will go unfunded.Fact: The money's already there to pay for these things.Think about it. Ever notice that it's the popular items that appear on bond measures? You never see bonds for overpaid supervisors, diversity consultants, and teddy bear giveaways. Yet California wastes money on such nonsense—money it can easily shift to schools, highways, hospitals, and libraries. But the politicians don't want to.It's an old trick. The politicos collect X amount of tax money. Some of X goes to popular items. Some is wasted. But there's never enough money for everything. What to do? The politicians and bureaucrats don't want to cut the waste, and they know you won't approve bonds for waste. So they instead cut back on the popular stuff, then whine that there "just isn't enough money" to fund them. Not unless you pass a bond measure.They lie. State and local government is rolling in money. Just read the report from Citizens Against Government Waste & The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Foundation. Then read the report from the California Taxpayers Association. These reports itemize billions of tax dollars in fraud and waste. Consider some choice items:In 2004 the city of San Jose contributed $815,000 to subsidize the Champ Car World Series--a $3 million private auto race. In 2004 the Los Angeles Community College District announced plans to spend $240,000 a year to the MWW Group public relations firm for an "image-boosting" campaign. This in addition to the $340,000 it spends every year on its six in-house PR staffers. In 2005 the High Desert School District approved a $1.2 million compensation package for Victorville's elementary school superintendent, Ralph Baker. This package included a $250,000 first-year salary with $10,000 annual raises, plus a $200,000 bonus, plus benefit packages for him and his wife. In 2005 the State Auditor reported that some school districts don't reassign students into regular classrooms once they become fluent in English, because they want to keep state subsidies for their English Learners Programs. "The total funding for the three largest English learner programs in California is estimated to be $605 million in 2003-2004." In 2004 the city of Livermore spent $40,000 on a ceramic mural outside a library—a mural that had 11 misspelled names, including Van Gogh, Einstein, Shakespeare, and Michelangelo. The city council then approved an extra $6,000 to return the artist, Maria Alquilar, from Miami to make the corrections. In 2003 San Juan Capistrano spent $275,000 on archway etchings, metal cutouts of swallows, and other decorations for a freeway wall. Council Member David Swerdlin said the artwork "breaks up the monotony" for motorists. In 2000 the DMV spent $125,000 on a promotional teddy bear giveaway.Yes, I know it's only $10,000 here and $100,000 there, but I've barely grazed the surface. Check those websites. The fraud and waste add up to billions.Don't let politicians and their activist and government union shills scam you. Vote down every bond. Then demand that they cut the waste from the budget and instead fund our schools, highways, hospitals, and libraries—minus the fraud and abuse—with the huge amounts of tax money we've already forked over.

Book Review: Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth by Kim Paffenroth

Thomas M. Sipos — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 03:05:32 EDT

It's happening again. Seems an author is enlisting friends and family in a campaign to boost his Amazon presence. But before I get into that, let's examine the book in question. Academic film books suffer from two common pitfalls. First, there's the intentionally unreadable prose. The bigger the word, the more convoluted the sentence, the better. Academics will say "methodology" when they mean "method." They'll "post" everything. Post-feminist, post-industrial, post-modern. (Are we in a "post" era or after its close? Is "post" even used consistently?) The second pitfall is that academia's law of "publish or perish" encourages a slavish, Soviet-like parroting of PC politics. Books are written not to elucidate, but to impress tenure committees. Even New York's left-alternative Village Voice admitted (in a 2005 article) that in today's university film departments, scholars are pressured to ignore aesthetics in favor of political and social issues.Although Kim Paffenroth teaches at Iona College's Religious Studies Department (judging from his Acknowledgments page) and his Gospel of the Living Dead is published by Baylor University Press, Paffenroth's prose is lucid and reader-friendly, mercifully avoiding academia's pretentious vapidity. But not its politics. Gospel of the Living Dead is less a study of zombie films than an exercise in political showboating. His book reads as though calculated to impress a tenure committee. (Paffenroth informs me in an email that he already has tenure. Nevertheless, that's how his book reads.)Not that there's anything wrong with discussing the politics of George Romero's zombie films. It's a valid and potentially interesting topic. But frequently Paffenroth's own grandstanding overwhelms his film analyses. He forgets that his book is about Romero's zombies and not about Paffenroth's own views on Hurricane Katrina (a recurrent reference). Paffenroth often comes across as a drunken boor at a party who insists on telling you everything that's wrong with Bush (or Clinton, or Mideast politics, or whatever one's current bugaboo is). I expect any tenure committee would enjoy this gratuitous swipe: "It is also a telling anecdote as to the religious meaning implicit in [zombie] films that Dawn of the Dead (2004) was the first movie to edge Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) -- another low budget movie with plenty of gore and no big stars -- out of the number one place in box office sales."Gratuitous, because this segue into The Passion is irrelevant to zombie films. And can we put one urban legend to rest? The Passion of the Christ is not all that gory. To those who only view romantic comedies, maybe, but not to any experienced gorehound. Most of The Passion's gore was in the scourge scene, some eight or nine minutes total (and even then interrupted by flashbacks). Far more sickening scenes may be found in many a gore film, such as Make Them Die Slowly and the authentically misogynistic Don't Go in the House, not to mention such contemporary torture films as Saw and Hostel.Were I to see Paffenroth approaching at a party, I'd turn and run. This is a man made for talk radio. Partisan and relentless. Paffenroth denounces "scapegoating," but although scapegoating come from all sides of the political spectrum, he predictably targets only one side (in his case, the Right): Anyone who watches zombie movies must be prepared for a strong indictment of life in modern America. It is not just because of the dismemberments, decapitations, and disembowelments that these films are not 'feel good' movies, but because of their stinging critique of our society. It is this pointed critique that lifts them above the ranks of other horror movies. But it is a critique that is not wholly unbelievable or misguided. Anyone who says that racism, sexism, materialism, consumerism, and a misguided kind of individualism do not afflict our current American society to a large extent is not being totally honest and accurate. It is, moreover, a critique that could be characterized as broadly Christian, but which many modern American Christians may now find uncomfortable or unfamiliar. Many of us have been rather lax of late in offering critiques of American society, and have more often been enlisted to cheer for our wars and our 'values,' while perhaps scapegoating a few people, such as homosexuals or doctors who perform abortions or teachers who teach about evolution, as both un-American or un-Christian. But if it is a more fundamental and important description of Christian beliefs to say that Christians believe all people are equal regardless of their race and gender - and that for the only way for people to be happy is by loving God in community with other human beings, and not by selfishly loving and accumulating material possessions on their own - then the moralizing of zombie movies should not strike us as threatening at all, but as a most welcome corrective, even if presented in unfamiliar and frequently grotesque images. It's a short book. Discounting endnotes, it's only 136 pages. An Introduction, a Conclusion, and five chapters devoted to George Romero's five zombie films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Dawn of the Dead (2004), and Land of the Dead (2005). Each chapter has a synopsis and analysis. The analyses are PC litanies of how racism, sexism, homophobia, Christianity, guns, etc., are portrayed in each film. It gets tiresome. Naturally, Paffenroth embraces identity politics. He judges characters not by their actions but by their gender. Consider his analysis of Dawn of the Dead (1978): [The men] either laughably indulge in shopping for stereotypically feminine items, like gourmet food, or effeminately primp before a mirror. In other scenes, they go the other extreme of rabidly indulging in male fantasies, driving and shooting in the video arcade, or feverishly shopping for the most hyper-masculine items, namely the enormous guns and bullets they load up on in the gun shop, a scene accompanied by faux African music and the screeches of jungle animals, as the men seem to descend into a kind of mad, pagan worship of 'the cult of the gun.'... The men seem able to indulge both their feminine and masculine sides, but much to the detriment and parody of either. Unlike the men, except for the one brief scene of cosmetic stupor from which she shakes herself loose, Fran seems unmoved by any of this, skating slowly, gracefully, and sadly on the mall's ice rink. She remains, to the end, the voice of reason, restraint, and introspection in the group, a powerful symbol of how wrong and hypocritical men are when they demean women as vain, shallow, spendthrift 'shopaholics,' a stereotype and accusation more fittingly directed back at themselves. Well, not really. Since society has fallen and money has no value, the men aren't "spendthrifts." As for the "cult of the gun," it's what protects them from zombies and the biker gang (who might have raped Fran but for the guns). But more tellingly, in good PC Orwellian fashion, Paffenroth reverses himself a couple of paragraphs later: "[A]fter Fran has thoroughly berated [the men] for their callous treatment of her, Peter readily agrees with her that henceforth she is to have a say in their plans, and is always to carry a gun from now on." Paffenroth then approvingly cites R. Wood in a footnote: "[Fran] progressively assumes a genuine autonomy, asserting herself against the men, insisting on possession of a gun, demanding to learn to pilot a machine."Through his "analysis," Paffenroth mocks men for worshiping a "cult of the gun," but celebrates gun-totting women. And when he earlier berates Americans for embracing a "misguided kind of individualism" and "myth of the lone wolf," I presume he means men, because apparently women are not misguided in asserting "genuine autonomy."Occasionally, Paffenroth does discuss zombies absent politics. And gets it wrong. He writes: "Part of the appeal of zombie movies also lies in their undeniable humor... no good zombie movie takes itself, or us, too seriously. A pretentious zombie movie is an oxymoron."Excuse me, but has Paffenroth ever heard of Lucio Fulci? Fulci's seminal Zombie (aka Zombie 2), with its legendary eye-gouging scene, is unrelentingly grim and nihilistic, from its ponderous music, to its brutal imagery, to its despairing ending. Zombie packs a raw, visceral punch without a trace of humor. Both Dawn of the Dead and Zombie blew me away when I was a teenager. But when I saw Dawn of the Dead again some twenty years later, I found it tepid and dull. By contrast, I've remained ever-impressed with Zombie. Zombie may have been inspired by Dawn of the Dead (but perhaps not, according to its DVD's Special Features interviews), but in any event, Zombie is by far the better film.Paffenroth concludes his book by writing "[Z]ombie movies have kept their edge and relevance for nearly forty years, outliving the Cold War, Soviet communism, 'free love,' the reactionary regimes of Reagan and Thatcher..." That's the second university press horror film book I've read this year that pointlessly refers to the "reactionary" Reagan and Thatcher administrations. Has this become obligatory now? Academia's answer to Hitchcock's film cameos? Such statements illustrate the hermetically sealed bubble that is academia. Paffenroth calls Reagan and Thatcher "reactionary" casually, as though it's a given. As something that "everyone knows" to be true. And I suppose in the Ivory Tower, it is. The Ivory Tower's isolation is further illustrated in the fallout to my earlier, somewhat similar review on Amazon.com. Paffenroth's book was released this September. I posted its first Amazon review last Thursday night. Friday morning I received a cordial email from Paffenroth saying he'd found my review interesting. By Friday evening there were two new 5-star reviews (from people who'd never reviewed on Amazon before). The 5-star reviews had 6 and 7 "helpful" votes. My review had 18 "unhelpful" votes. (Those votes have since increased.) Quite a sudden flurry of activity, considering the book's Amazon page had been barren for nearly the whole month the book was out. Seems I'd struck a nerve and the author enlisted friends, family, and colleagues in a campaign.Most telling was a comment posted to my review which stated, "I have a feeling I know who Thomas M. Sipos's current bugaboo is." Really? Based on what? On my distaste for the racism/sexism of PC identity politics? Yet despite this poster's "feeling," I suspect that she'd be surprised to learn that I actively opposed Bush's Iraq war from the start -- before the war, when it mattered -- and have continued in antiwar activism, both inside and outside the Libertarian Party. It may surprise her to learn that although I'm sick of the PC Left's incessant bashing of "white Christian heterosexual males," I've also vocally criticized the rising racism against Arabs and Muslims that I've seen on the Right. It would surprise her because she seems to know everything about me based on one review. She reminds me of the time I was accused online of being a fundamentalist Christian (I'm not) because I said that I did not believe in global warming (I don't). For too many people of the PC Identity Politics Left (like people on the PC Neocon Right), politics is a package deal. And so while the PC politics permeating Paffenroth's academic film analyses are not unique (anything but), they help illustrate why so many anti-Bush conservatives, libertarians, and moderates still cannot bring themselves to support Democrats. If progressives wonder why they keep losing elections despite six years of Bush's lies, corruption, and incompetence, it's not because the elections are stolen (they're not), but because so many Democrats still cling to the PC biases and superstitions reflected in this book.

DVD Review: Blood Relations

Thomas M. Sipos — Sat, 5 Aug 2006 18:47:10 EDT

The video box says "horror," but Blood Relations is more of a mildly erotic noir thriller, at least for the film's first two-thirds. Marie (Lydie Denier) is the Eurotrash femme fatale, engaged to Thomas (Kevin Hicks), a young heir eager to inherit his grandfather's fortune. Granddad (everyone's favorite Martian, Ray Walston) is already dying, so all Thomas and Marie need do is kill Thomas's dad (Jan Rubes) to ensure Thomas is the sole heir.Thomas brings Marie home to meet the family: just dad and granddad. All three generations of men take a liking to Marie, who resembles Thomas's dead mother (Rubes's dead wife, Walston's dead daughter). Things get kinky. Granddad asks Marie to call him "father." Then he asks her to strip naked and kiss him. So she does. Hey, he's worth a fortune, right?Blood Relations threads noir terrain, so there's the requisite shyster lawyer to draft the will, his faithless wife (girlfriend?), and a creepy servant. No one is to be trusted, everyone plots against everyone else, forming shifting alliances over who might inherit the dying granddad's estate. There are faked deaths, lies and betrayals, and a dead cat. Dad romances both his lawyer's wife and Marie, bedding one and telling the other that his son "is not a real man" and will inherit nothing.Blood Relations's milieu resembles that of The Shining and Curtains. All three films feature small casts wandering within vast snowbound mansions. Yet while The Shining and Curtains are enhanced by their stark wintry milieu, Blood Relations is diminished. Shorn of padding and distractions, the former two films reveal compelling stories, gripping emotional subtexts, and strong casts; Blood Relations is left with nothing but a banal hackneyed script, performed by competent but unspectacular actors.Despite its lavish mansion set (the only location aside from a few hospital rooms), Blood Relations feels surprisingly cheap. Just a handful of characters wandering spacious halls. It doesn't feel spooky or claustrophobic (as does The Haunting). It only feels empty and low-budget and... cheap. Only one servant in sight.It's not until the film's final third that the suspense/noir elements are discarded for horror. I don't want to spoil too many surprises. Just know that dad is a brain surgeon. In a horror film, that means he likes to transplant brains, whether the subject is willing or not. And serendipitously for horror fans, brain surgery is often best conducted while the subject is conscious.Blood Relations isn't the first, nor last, film to feature consciously aware brain torture. Bloodsucking Freaks (1977) and Hannibal both come to mind. Happily, despite its tepid noir elements, when Blood Relations (finally) shifts into horror, it manages some disturbing and effective scenes. Not many, but they're there. Also some artily shot "dream" sequences.The ending confuses. I'm not sure where all the brains went. One was cooked, one was transplanted, but what of the rest?If you enjoy hackneyed low-budget noir, perhaps you won't mind waiting to get to the gory horror. Poor Marie. All that noir buildup, then the rules change. For while femme fatales often triumph in noir, horror is a mad scientists' genre.

Libertarians for Lieberman?

Thomas M. Sipos — Sat, 5 Aug 2006 04:00:57 EDT

Apparently, some Libertarians believe the key to electoral success is to go dumpster diving in the Demopublican trash heap.As Democrats appear on the verge of ditching Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Mr. Eric Rittberg urges the Connecticut Libertarian Party to endorse this Senator who can't deliver his own party.Below is the unedited notice from Mr. Rittberg, as sent over the Libertarians for Peace Yahoo Group, which in turn copied it from the Jewish Libertarians Yahoo Group. (I'm assuming Mr. Ritteburg identifies himself as part Jewish in order to explain his presence on the latter group): Original Message -------- Subject: [JewishLibertarians] Libertarians for Lieberman Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:39:13 -0000 From: Eric Dondero Rittberg Reply-To: JewishLibertarians@yahoogroups.com To: JewishLibertarians@yahoogroups.comAnyone else interested in assisting with Joe Lieberman's campaign for US Senate as an Independent?Any chance of the Libertarian Party of CT endorsing his effort?I support Joe, because he is a fierce opponent of Islamo-Fascism. He's one of the ONLY decent Democrats in the Nation.Call me on my cell at 979-799-7077 if you're interested in helping out with Libertarians for Lieberman.Eric Dondero Rittberg (the Rittberg half is Jewish).Now, in my opinion, there is nothing libertarian about Lieberman. His economic policies are socialist. His foreign policy is interventionist. And his social policies are the kind of social engineers advocated by social conservatives.What's more, Lieberman probably wouldn't want to run on the Libertarian Party ticket, as it likely has too much baggage and issues for his taste. Lieberman would sooner run as an independent.It's sad and pathetic to see Libertarians trying to recruit non-libertarians who don't even want Libertarian support.

DVD Review: Invasion of the Flesh Hunters

Thomas M. Sipos — Wed, 2 Aug 2006 13:13:44 EDT

The Italian cannibal film can be divided into two categories: zombies (Zombie, Night of the Zombies - the latter not to be confused with the Nazi zombie film of the same title), and non-zombies (Make Them Die Slowly, Grim Reaper). Invasion of the Flesh Hunters features non-zombie cannibals - mortals compelled to eat human flesh by a virus that's contracted when one is bitten by an infected cannibal. Much like spreading lycanthropy, vampirism, or the murderous nymphomania in Cronenberg's They Came From Within (aka Shivers, Frissons, The Parasite Murders).Invasion of the Flesh Hunters opens in Vietnam with the prolific John Saxon leading an assault on the enemy (NVA or VC, I'm not sure). A cheesy battle scene with extras running about aimlessly, flinging their guns while dying theatrically amidst fiery explosions. One enemy woman is set aflame in her cleanly pressed pajamas. All enemy pajamas look cleanly pressed and many things are set aflame, but mostly leaves. I don't think grenades can set tropical leaves aflame, but they seem to here, although there's also a flamethrower. Some of Saxon's troops carry M-16s, but Saxon holds what looks like an Israeli Uzi. The Vietnamese jungle looks like a Temperate Zone forest, and there's even a cave. The battle culminates when Saxon discovers two American POWs trapped in a pit - eating an enemy woman.Saxon wakes up, nightmare over. It's been many years since the war ended. So why his persistent hunger for human flesh? Saxon's nightmare turns real when one of the POWs in his dream (and his former subordinate) phones with a request that they meet. Seems some vets contracted a cannibal virus in 'Nam, they're beginning to devour civilians, and soon the body count mounts.The simple storyline follows Saxon's struggle to resist succumbing to his disease while aiding his infected comrades, all amidst the spreading rampage of flesh-hungry vets and civilians. Plot holes abound. Why does the cannibal nurse unstrap the cannibal vets rather than eat them in their state of helplessness? They're not zombies, after all; their flesh is still fresh albeit infected. And as in so many zombie films, one wonders why the cannibals only appear nibbled upon - why weren't they consumed more thoroughly when previously attacked? Nor is it ever clear where Saxon intends to lead his men, or why they're traversing the sewers. They certainly never get anywhere.The film ends with a familiar scene. The veteran calmly dons his old but pristine uniform before a mirror. His chest covered with medals. Finally, he polishes and loads his gun, preparing either for suicide or carnage.Invasion of the Flesh Hunters is another horror film about the men ruined by Nam, returning home to inflict their pathologies on the civilians who sent them abroad, then discarded them. In Spaghetti Nightmares, director Margheriti expresses his own personal distaste for screen violence, and explains, "My initial intention was to make a film which carried a sociological, anti-war message. I wasn't aiming at making a 'splatter' at all, but, in the end the producers, who wanted to copy the popular trend launched by Romero's Dawn of the Dead, had the last word."Margheriti works an old but reliable metaphor. The first explicit entry in this Vietnam horror subgenre, and a superior film, was 1972's Deathdream (aka, The Night Walk, Dead of Night, The Night Andy Came Home, The Veteran). Romero's Night of the Living Dead has also been interpreted as such, but its message was implicit. And in Jacob's Ladder the vets alone suffered the war's aftereffects, they themselves inflicting no harm on the civilian population.It's always curious to see foreigners portray Americans in foreign films. The 1982 Italian futurist film, 1990: Bronx Warriors, is laughably entertaining for its incongruous juxtapositions, featuring white South Bronx gangstas mouthing lengthy Euro-existentialist speeches. Likewise, while Invasion of the Flesh Hunters is set in the US (it was filmed in Georgia and Italy), its biker gang dresses like trendy Euro-trash.This being a European film, there is an illicit affair subplot and some trashy but bland music. John Saxon performs well, as do the supporting cannibals and shapely actresses. The jungle battle was cheesy, but the crazed-vet-in-a-stripmall-shootout (shades of Dawn of the Dead) and cannibal feasts should please gorehounds.A respectable entry in Italy's cannibal cinema oeuvre.