Friends of the Sasquatch

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Some Guy With a Website will return in January. Have a great holiday season and a happy new year!

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The annual Christmas card will go up in a few hours, so this will be the last post for the year. I'm taking the rest of 2009 off to spend with friends and family.

This has been one of the most interesting years of my life. A lot of bad things have happened, and a lot of great things have as well, one in particular. I know I've spent the year ragging on the lapses in the Obama agenda, but honestly a lot of policies this year, particularly related to the job market, have been my salvation in this troubling time. The support of a surprising number of new friends has been a big help this year too.

It seems rushed and pointless but like I say every year, and mean every day, your readership is something of great value to me. I don't really make money or pad a portfolio with this cartoon, and I'm not being quoted on any TV shows or blogs- the only purpose it really serves is entertaining you guys and after ten years of it I'm amazed it's still able to.

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THIS IS A MASSIVELY SPOILER-FILLED POST. DEAL.

So this review on AICN sort of matches the bulk of my thoughts on Avatar. I wasn't planning on seeing it because Jesus, it's Fern Gully in space. But I got a chance to see in in IMAX 3-D and well, that is what really sells the movie here. Much like how you would pay forty bucks to watch a musical on Broadway, Avatar is something you should pay the sixteen bucks for to watch with 3-D glasses on an enormous screen.

Which is good, because as a movie itself the thing is goddamn ridiculous.

Here's the conundrum: I very much enjoyed this movie, despite not being surprised by a single minute of it. Literally every single plot point and story arc was predictable, in many cases being irritating because they were the cliche plot points of these types of movies that always bother me. Of course the aliens are going to defeat the invading humans who of course suddenly become a faceless army of evil the moment it becomes necessary for them to be. Of course the hero will fall in love with the women from the tribe who is of course the chief's daugher which of course causes a love triangle which of course heats up in the third act when the hero's betrayal of her trust is revealed. It's two and a half hours of this.

It's not even that the plot is bad; it's just vacant. The star of the movie is the special effects, which I will again repeat are phenominal. I don't understand how anyone will enjoy this movie simply renting it on NetFlix and watching it at home. As a narritive, it's a bad movie. But you know how at fancier movie theaters in the 90's they had those virtual-reality rides where for ten bucks you could pretend you were on a roller coaster for five minutes? With IMAX, for sixteen bucks you are on an alien world for nearly three hours. There is no argument of value here.

That said, I find it funny that the "political" argument people are going to make from this movie is how the message hammered into your head- and even someone as liberal as me giggled at how blatantly James Cameron suddenly pushed the "message!" button in the third act- is about the evils of destroying a native people and not respecting the earth and the environment, etc. The reason I find it funny is because as a progressive, the yet-again Great White Savior element is what I find infuriating. Avatar follows the same pattern of The Matrix, Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai, Dune, and soforth by making it a story about how a white guy is thrust into a society of "undeveloped" ethnic/alien people and in record time not only integrates into their culture, but is in fact their messiah. The third act of these movies- where the white guy hero transcends from a legitimate, engaging message of "hey, ignorant douchebag, spend some time with people different from you and you might learn something about them" into "oh, hey, I just retrieved the Golden MacGuffin from the Mountain of Impossible that your entire ancestry failed to do, thus proving I'm actually your god. Oh shit, is it lunchtime already?" is just aggravating. Basically, this movie goes to shit right after two blue aliens start fucking, which... well, that explains a lot, doesn't it?

Anyway, yeah- this is an experience the way a Broadway musical or a live concert is an experience. There's a reason you should pay good money for it, and there's a reason it's not as fun watching at home. See it if you can see it in IMAX. Failing that, don't see it at all, because you've seen the story eight times already, just without robots.

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I understand the "rational" argument that we have to accept this current healh care bill because it's the only one we'll get. It's probably true that killing the bill now means no new bill until at the very least after the 2010 elections.

What I don't really get right now, though, is this sudden idealism from the left that something magical and better is now going to happen either from Congress or after the signing. There are some saying that we should accept the Senate bill because the House will of course make an improved version in conference. There are others suggesting that we just pass this one and then can later on offer the public option through a 51-vote-only reconciliation process. I think these are great ideas and I'd love for all that to happen. What I don't get is what makes anyone think it actually might.

The failures of this bill process are all linked to the failure of leadership from Democrats. They caved on everything. Obama has been open, repeatedly, that he cares only about signing a bill, any bill. Right now senators are working with Ben Nelson to "compromise" on language that, I don't know, I guess only slightly restricts womens' legal right to control their own bodies. And keep in mind, of course, that all of this came on the heels of the bill being neutered right out of the gate because it was deemed more important to make a bill not cost more than an arbitrary number than making it as effective as possible... now the argument is that these same people will vote en masse for more expenditures?

I'm not going to pretend I know anywhere near as much about health care as Ezra Klein, but I don't understand the point of his "we can fix it later" argument. When is "later?" What is the time frame for another fight to alter a bill that barely passed to begin with? Certainly not before 2010. Probably not before 2012. So if "fixing" this bill will take years to do, why should I be so dismayed that the bad bill be killed to begin with?

I guess what I'm saying is, what exactly has any Democrat done that has made people believe that after all this, the eight months of failing to fight for anything progressives wanted, Democrats are suddenly going to fight? The problem, as the polls have clearly shown, is that Democrats have spent the last year failing utterly at inspiring their base. What is inspiring some of it now seems even less than blind faith- it's more like the textbook definition of insanity.

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That's right, John, what you really need to do is keep bitching at progressives for not accepting weak and watered-down policy and calling them idiots for wanting a better and more progressive alternative.

It worked so well for President Hillary Clinton's campaign.

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The article is a ridiculous piece of journalistic fellatio, but it's not Sarah Palin.

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Apparently I'm in this book, which I found out just now in the form of the publisher sending me a copy in the mail. Had I known earler I most certainly would have told you all to check it out.

Am I truly among the best editorial cartoons of 2010? Who knows. I'm certainly not among the most paid.

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It's not often you watch a writer for a major newspaper hand another writer for the same paper his own ass in such a spectacular and undisputed fashion, but it's both beautiful and ugly at the same time.

I'd love to see some links to what Chuck Lane wrote in 2002 about the start of the Iraq war, because I'm pretty sure he didn't throw any multi-column tantrums about how "uncivil" the entire Republican Party was being in claiming that people against the war "supported the terrorists."

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Latest comic - click here!

And so we end the 2009 Some Guy With a Website season with this charming reflection on the generosity our president has bestowed upon liberals for the holidays. By that I mean we don't even get lumps of coal, because we could actually burn those to heat our homes after the power company cut off the utilities.

2009 has been a long year of the president accomplishing none of the major promises he made to the progressive left that got him into the White House, doing virtually no work to try and get it accomplished, and getting people like me yelled at for "not giving him enough time; he's only been in office ___ days," the blank being whatever day it happens to be. Oh, and then he got a Nobel Peace Prize for being much sadder about the secret prisons we run in Afghanistan than the previous guy did. God Bless Us, Everyone!

As noted, this is the final "normal" strip for 2009. Long-time readers know you get a little special something next week, and then I take a break until the new year. And speaking of special somethings, please note that you should still consider purchasing some fine Some Guy With a Website merchandise for the holiday season. Please note though that as of now you'll need to chip in a few extra bucks for pre-Christmas delivery. It's still worth it. Oh god please give me money it's so cold in this apartment, and I want to have nice shoes when I go to meet Jesus.