I watched Garden State last night. I heard a lot of lackluster reviews, so I wasn't expecting much, and maybe that's why I was pleasantly surprised. It did have a pretty cheesy ending, and it certainly is nega-uplifting. But I liked it. I liked most of it (yeah, the ending is really cheesy). It was stylistically appealing, and of course, the music's hot, and it was full of unexpected moments and twists. I thought it was kind of awesome. Mostly, until the really cheesy end.

Of course, it didn't do much for my already morose mood. But I thought it was definitely worth seeing, and many people told me it wasn't really. And that's a bonus.

Reaffirmed: I don't like Natalie Portman so much.

Every now and then I'll read something that reminds me that there are still some ass backwards parts of the world. Like this story.

What, are people still trepanning to release the evil spirits, too? It's strange to think about how mental illness has been dealt with through history. Maybe someday people will look back and feel just as appalled at our just-keep-drugging-them methods...

Wow. Talk about revisionist historicism:

Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended
the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened
relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved
Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does
anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable.
He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary
that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could
stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a
peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace.
And he succeeded.

It gets better. He eventually accuses Woodward and Felt of genocide. And of course, he brings up Clinton, the neo-cons biggest bogeyman.

I don't understand how people can have such wholly different understandings of history and politics and basic events. And such wholly different ideas about what constitutes a decent human being.

What did Nixon do? He was a politician who lied, in order to further solidify and concentrate his own power, who did everything in his power to make the work of the White House opaque. He was a paranoid megalomaniac who broke the law to further his own power-hunger. Peacemaker my ass.

Deep Throat and Genocide (The American Spectator)