Peter Krupa

Cuba’s auto mechanics are legendary for their prowess in keeping the island’s aging fleet of ’50s Chevys and POS Ladas limping along on next to nothing. One can only imagine the island’s computer scientists have a similar reputation, judging from the rudimentary search engine they’ve pieced together for the dozen or so people on the island who have access to a computer and want to use that computer to find a specific piece of Cuban propaganda.

Sorry, it doesn’t search the internet, it searches the Cuban internet, which, like Cuban grocery stores, libraries, and ration books, is very meager indeed. For example, the “image” search doesn’t actually turn up “images,” perhaps because actual images would cause users to quickly exhaust their monthly ration of bandwidth.

Better to use that bandwidth on another important feature of the search engine that allows you to search the text of Fidel’s speeches. The Revolution is totally blasting into the 21st century with that one. Now I’m waiting for Google to release Google Tyrant, which allows you to search quickly through the millions of words uttered by last century’s windy despots.

Fortunately, the search engine is only “beta,” which means the Revolution will be improving it, like, never. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It reminds me of the island’s much-lauded literacy program, which taught everyone to read, then took away all the books. Search away, comrades! You’ll never find anything.

I’m not really sure why Marie Antoinette was made, artistically speaking. It’s a completely pointless movie, a sort of fashion porn meets nu-wave in, um, France? One has to admire the slyness of Sofia Coppola, as she’s hit on a sweet-spot strategy for “artists” these days. That is, first, have a famous pedigree; then, make a work of art so vague (yet bizarre!) that while the critics fall all over themselves arguing about what it “means” in terms of class struggle/leisure culture/sexual roles, you can stand back and smile mysteriously.

In a broader sense, I believe Marie Antoinette marks the twilight of a certain variety of hipsterdom, much like the Suez Crisis signaled the end of European world domination. Fifteen years from now, people are going to view Marie Antoinette as a pop-culture artifact; a moving portrait of celluloid pink cotton candy fashion porn hipness, from a time when someone thought it would be edgy to cast Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI.

The gist of the story is that an Austrian princess overflowing with heartfelt emotive expression (as Austrian royalty was wont to do in the 18th century) is yanked from the warm bosom of her people and thrust into a world of cold, French formalism where everyone has a British accent, except our heroine, who sounds like she was raised in Cleveland.

Pink, fluffy shenanigans ensue, there are some parties and whatnot, candies and pastries are consumed, then a bit more shenanigans, and, just when it is arriving at the good part where everyone more or less deservedly gets their heads whacked off, the damn movie ends.

What is Sophia Coppola trying to say? Who cares. Let me try on those mink-lined pumps, and can you please pass the truffles? But seriously, if I had to make a wild, ridiculous, speculative observation, it is interesting that all three of Coppola’s full-length films are about girls who lounge around waiting for things to happen - and that in the last two, nothing ever does.

Biography of the daughter growing up in the shadow of her wealthy, famous director father? Once again, who cares. What I do know is that if Mel Gibson had made Marie Antoinette, it would have been in fucking French. And we would have seen those heads get whacked off.

Fox is producing it’s own “conservative” version of the Daily Show, “conservative” apparently meaning they don’t tell “jokes.” Watching a sample of the show on YouTube, I found myself wondering if it was perhaps of a parody of what a Fox News parody would look like. What’s with that laugh track? Now I’m all confused.

It’s pretty clear by now that the Bush administration is trying to pick a fight with Iran. It’s been building up to it for at least the last six months, and the sabre-rattling has reached an all-time high with the President of the United States standing up before the world and accusing Iran of killing American soldiers with sophisticated and deadly new weapons.

Except that the weapons (EFPs, or Explosively Formed Projectiles) are not particularly new. Neither are the ones being waved around at super-double-secret-probationary press conferences particularly sophisticated: You can make a rough one with a ball-peen hammer, a copper disc, a section of pipe, and a lump of explosives. (Nice picture of the result here.) Also, it’s odd that a majority of the U.S. troops killed with EFPs were most likely killed in Sunni attacks.

Considering all that, it’s a good thing our leader is fearless and confident. “I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D.’s that have harmed our troops,” Bush told the press conference.

Now wait, that’s funny, because if a military was providing sophisticated “I.E.D.’s,” first of all, they wouldn’t be “I,” and second of all, wouldn’t they look something like the devices that have been developed by professional armies?

Because really, if the White House is saying that someone in Iran is shipping pipe segments and copper disks of a certain size into Iraq, that doesn’t seem to warrant a special press conference and unsourced accusations of the Iranian government’s involvement.

Unless, you know, someone wants to pick a fight with Iran.

(My humblest gratitude and props to DefenseTech.org)

Reason magazine takes on that Unity08 business, ripping it a brand new, libertarian asshole with one simple point:

Even if we could assume that the overall result of 2006’s election was an accurate reflection of most voters’ overall wishes rather than an emergent pattern above and beyond their control, that result—GOP executive, Democratic congress—is the best guarantee we could have of “partisan gridlock.” And those, such as Unity 08, who link big money corruption with partisanship should note that it was only partisanship—a Democratic desire to differentiate themselves from their sleazy colleagues across the aisle—that led to the recent anti-lobbyist action we’ve seen. Partisanship is the one thing that makes the bastards go against their larger interests as politicians. 

This is what we need: More partisanship, and lots of it. Because seriously, can you imagine a US government run entirely by a single group of politicians? Oh yeah, we just had that for the last six years, and it invaded a foreign country and increased government spending more than at any other time in US history.

Healthy democracy needs opposing factions and a lawmaking process that is somewhat adversarial. I guess in that sense, discussing bi-partisanship is a good thing, because it’s just another idea to check and balance the debate. But God help us if Unity08 gets what it says it wants.

Two months ago, Chavez was reelected by an enormous margin as president of Venezuela. It was because, people said, the poor liked him. But wait! What’s this? All those Cuban doctors serving in Venezuela’s poor neighborhoods have suddenly gone home?

Deputy Venezuelan Health Minister Carlos Alvarado, who is in charge of the program, would neither confirm nor deny that 6,800 Cuban medical personnel had in fact been withdrawn but said, ‘’We still have 15,000.'’ He declined to clarify the number.

The decline in the Barrio Adentro clinics is so evident that both the Venezuelan Medical Federation — which always opposed the presence of Cuban doctors — and leading Venezuelan doctors involved with the program have spoken of their concern.

Douglas León Natera, president of the Medical Federation, recently said that 45 per cent of clinics were not fully operational. And Adolfo Delgado, who chairs a pro-government association of primary health-care specialists, said there were, “many clinics abandoned . . . a situation which affects the population.'’

Oh my goodness! You mean that maybe Chavez was using handouts to the poor to buy their loyalty, but now that he has the power of decree he doesn’t mind ignoring them? Can you believe it? The social programs that were just an elaborate propaganda campaign!

Darn. And here we were thinking he might turn out to be the next Castro.

Oh. Wait.

Reading about Venezuela is like watching a ship slowly fill with water and tip up on end. As I’ve heard Cuban refugees say, we know how this movie ends. The intellectual left still manages to stand around and stroke their chins about it, trying to come up with a creative analysis that shows the ship isn’t sinking, rather Chavez is standing it on end to pour all the water out.

They’ll be doing this for the foreseeable future - noting the aesthetics of the sinking ship, and how great it is that passengers of the sinking ship can read - for the principle reason that they are not on said sinking ship.

Anyway, the latest bit of news is that, thanks to government price controls and high inflation, Venezuela is experiencing a shortage of meat and sugar. It’s obvious what will happen next: blame the black market, blame scalpers, pull out the solidarity card, rant that the poor don’t need sirloin steak anyway, increase price controls, wreck things a little more, and, finally, pull out the ration cards.

We’ve seen how this movie ends. Viva the whatever.

If you see one movie this month, it should be Pan’s Labryinth. I don’t really have much else to add to that. Maybe you could prepare yourself by reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, or learning Spanish, but February’s a short month so you’d have to pick one or the other.

And anyway, it’s not really possible to prepare yourself to watch Pan’s Labryinth. I could tell you the whole plot right now and it wouldn’t matter. It occurs to me to write something about emotional textures, chalk doorways, and the darkness of fairytales.

But never mind. Just go see Pan’s Labyrinth.

Did I miss something? Or is CNN just taking that “don’t speak bad about the dead” thing much too seriously? The occasion is the death of Anna Nicole Smith. I’m not really sure who that is, except that I think she posed for some naked pictures, then got fat, then had a reality show, then got thin, then married some ancient rich guy, then the rich guy died, then there was some legal stuff, then… more naked pictures? I’m just not sure.

Now she’s dead, and I figure, well, another blond with huge tits has passed away. Need we mourn? Nay, for there are more, and more better ones.

But other people had apparently taken to vicarious living through Ms. Nicole Smith. And they’d taken it to a frightening level. Sharon Smith of Talladega, Alabama, was “deeply saddened” by Ms. Nicole Smith’s demise. Allen Pursley of Washington, D.C., commented that, “Her passing is very sad and unfortunate and there will always be a unique void that will be empty since she is gone.”

You’ve heard of the Jesus void. There is also apparently an Anna Nicole Smith void. Deby Marks of Grafton, West Virginia muses, “What will I remember? Her sadness, her innocence, her beauty.” Meanwhile, Trace C. of Sacramento, California, noted poignantly that, “She was a gifted soul that wasn’t meant for this world.”

So seriously, did I miss something? Or is this just America being as shallow and maudlin as it knows how?

I kind of like those “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials, so I clicked on through to the Mac Web site to watch the rest of them. Too bad you need QuickTime 7 to view the ads. It really is a cult, isn’t it?