2012: SERIOUS Disaster Porn

I ended up getting 4 free passes for "2012" from a local radio station, so we went on Saturday night.

My impression:

1. The sequence of Los Angeles breaking up and sliding into the Ocean will end up with the "Ben-Hur" chariot race as one of those scenes you'll repeat over and over again. If for nothing else, but the sheer joy of watching Los Angeles get what it has SO richly deserved over the years. My only regret: no images of Barbara Streisand's Malibu mansion breaking up and sinking. . . .

2. Leave your brain at home. Trust me, any IQ over room temperature will find the plot holes large enough to sail the entire Sixth Fleet through. A few examples:

(1) For starters, there is some shift in physics, that suddenly neutrinos are a LOT more interactive with matter (but only in the Earth's Core), AND there are a lot more of them.

Of course, if you continue the logic, lots more neutrinos would require lots more solar activity. Which would be fairly obvious, as we're talking enough to cause a change in color and class of the Sun. . . and fry us all quite obviously, before the crust would even BEGIN to soften. . .

(2) ALL of the governments of the world are keeping the secret, with no leaks that aren't sealed by a crack team of assassins BEFORE they leak. I guess nobody thought of the possibility of suddenly blurting it out during a SCHEDULED media appearance. . .

(3) Tsunamis with hundreds, even THOUSANDS of feet of waves in mid-ocean. Uh, Tsunamis are a foot or three in mid-ocean, it's the SHALLOWS where they get massive and destructive. . .

(3A) Tsunamis large enough to carry an Aircraft Carrier ALL the way from the open Ocean to Washington DC. . .and yet stable enough to leave ALL the aircraft on the flight deck until JUST before the carrier and the Tsunami flatten the White House. . .

(3B) Tsunamis large enough to SWAMP THE HIMALAYAS. Sorry, but you generally need a dinosaur killer for a wave THAT high, and they tend to be a LOT hotter. . .

Those, and more, are enough to sustain a special-effects extravaganza for the first 90 or so minutes. But this monstrosity clocks in at nearly 2 1/2 hours. . .

You see, despite Surviving the Sinking of LA, the Cratering of Las Vegas, and somehow finding an AN-224 at McCarran in Vegas. . . we still have to see a human story of our plucky survivors. For another Hour

Our survivor heroes: Failed SF writers and Limo Driver John Cusack. His ex-wife, devoted daughter, and jaded son. His ex-wife's nerdy Plastic Surgeon Boyfriend. The Russian Plutocrat that Cusack drives for, his two fat sons, his trophy concubine, her yappie dog, and the Plutocrat's steely-jawed Blonde Pilot (who, from first appearance, has "REDSHIRT" written all over him). Who meet a Buddhist Monk, his aged parents, and his brother who is working on the Ark project, apparently because he can read and write. . .

They make it to the UNDERGROUND MOUNTAIN CAVERNS where the Arks are being built. It seems that the brother of the Monk has a Cunning Plan. Which was a bummer: I was expecting John Cusack to stand in front of one of the Arks, with a boom-box playing a Peter Gabriel song until they left him in. . . .

Which leads us to the Plot Holes in the SECOND half of the flick. Seems one of the Arks was damaged by the ceiling caving in on top of it. HELLO ? You're building ships to survive the end of the world, and you built them in UNDERGROUND CAVERNS ????? Which had to be EXCAVATED AND BUILT OUT, FIRST ??? Now, barring the convenient demise of a bald megalomaniac with a Nehru Jacket and a cat, giving you access to an underground base, why would you do that.

For that matter, why are ALL the Arks being built in one spot ? Would not several locations be more survivable ? I'm sure we could have built one out in, say, Area 51, where nobody would have seen. . .

And then, there were the Arks themselves. Have the builders forgotten the first rule of Naval Architecture: WATER-TIGHT-COMPARTMENTS ??

To top it off, the biggest stinker of them all: the interlock between a DOOR and MANUEVERING ENGINES. Let me get this straight: unless all doors are fully shut, the ENGINE WILL NOT TURN ON ????

OK, it was fun to watch. Just remember, leave your brain outside the theater. . .

Essay: LCROSS, Water on the Moon, and Conservative Politics

This afternoon, driving home from a job interview, I switched on a talk radio station here in DC, as they have great traffic and weather coverage. It was Hannity's show, but he was out, and some generic guest host was on. This guy was wondering what the big deal was, about finding water on the Moon with the LCROSS satellite and the so-called "bombing of the moon". He was laughing it up, and when an engineer called in from Huntingdon Beach, California to explain, the chimp on the radio was asking about who would stock the Costco on the Moon with Triscuits.

And it got me thinking. Better yet, it lead me to what I think is some basic insight as to exactly what's wrong with America today, and perhaps even how to fix it.
In short form, it's this: America NEEDS a Frontier. And when we stopped having one, things started to go wrong.

Think about it: from the founding of the Colonies, until, really, sometime in the early 20th Century, we had the West. The Wide Open Spaces, where a man could farm, or mine, or build to his heart's content. We got interrupted by the World War, both parts 1 and 2, and by the 1950s, the only genuine frontier we had left, was Alaska.

For a while, it looked like we were going to open up a whole NEW frontier in the 1960s and early 70s: Space. But then, somehow, we lost the nerve. The Apollo Project got shortened. The Shuttle/Station got dropped to just the Shuttle, and it was no longer 100% re-usable. Heck, the original idea for the External Tank was to take it into orbit and park it, so it could later be used as part of a Space Station, and William Proxmire killed even that.

So, by the end of the 1970s, The High Frontier was only in the eyes of a relatively small handful of dreamers. I know, I was one of them. I was even a national-level officer of a college spinoff of the L-5 Society, that I forgot the name of. But nobody cared anymore. I suggested Lagrange Habitats and Power Satellites, and people looked at me like I was from Mars.

In the meantime, I was coming of age as a young Conservative. And we were excited by a strong voice, from the West. It was 1980, and Ronald Reagan was running for President, with a muscular, optimistic, and positive conservatism that is sorely missing today. We were helping to make Morning in America again. . . . we won the election, Conservatism was marching forward, and the Shuttle was climbing into the skies. . .

Then we lost the Challenger, and what little spark was left in the Space Program, was smothered in the effort to make it zero-risk in the future. The Reagan Administration drew to a close, and George Bush was just not the man, and not the conservative, that Ronald Reagan was. Bush segued into Clinton, and Government grew, and Space shrank as a priority. Political correctness grew, and suddenly, being Conservative was automatically bad in the "mainstream" view. The Frontier no longer really exists outside of the Discovery Channel, and THAT is primarily entertainment.

So what am I getting at here ? My insight for today is this: The American Experiment, the Conservative Movement, and the Frontier are intertwined: all three depend on the the other two to grow and thrive. When one goes away, the other falter.

Consider where the truly great conservative leaders of the last 50 years have come from: Barry Goldwater came from Arizona, in the days when it was still partially wild, and not the retirement mecca it is today. Ronald Reagan came into his prime in California, when it was still growing and a land of opportunity, not the groaning welfare state it has become. And the one potentially great conservative leader-to-be we have today, Sarah Palin, coincidentally comes from the single frontier we have left, the wilds of Alaska. I'm convinced this is for a reason.

Think about it: Living on the frontier, REQUIRES self-reliance, industry, personal discipline, and skill. And the willing help of others who ALSO want to better their situation. That, pretty much, is practical Conservatism in its' most basic form: it literally is the mother's milk of the frontier. Success by some on the frontier helps persuade the fence-sitters in turn to try their hand at the Frontier. The dynamism of the movement, combined with the new resources discovered and employed by those who settle the Frontier, provide much of the growth in the economy. This even shows up, to a lesser degree, both in the regular economy today, and the so-called red/blue divide (which is really more of the City Folk vs the Country Folk). Look where the growth is concentrated: in small business in the economy, and in the "red state" areas far more than the urban "blue" areas. And there's the flip side: so much of the misery in our society, and much of its' ills, are concentrated in the cities.

A frontier also gives an outlet to the more entrepreneurial and/or aggressive members of society, where they can grow and strive and build without being restrained by the "older and wiser" heads of the established elites. Think about it, even in terms of technology, the entrepreneurs tend to be out west: Silicon Valley is the most obvious example. And where were so many of the original astronauts recruited from: Test Pilots. The cockiest, most aggressive, try-anything pilots there were (well, at least if you believe Tom Wolfe. . . ). And, coincidentally, our first explorers of the High Frontier. . .

It all seems, at least to me, to point to the conclusion that if you want a prosperous America, and a dynamic Conservative Movement. . . you need a Frontier.

Which brings us back to where I came in: that radio host. Even when it was explained why the finding of water on the Moon was important, the host just didn't see WHY the Moon is important. That worries me: if a supposedly major conservative cannot see the value of the Moon as a New Frontier. . . maybe we HAVE gone too far, and are doomed to follow the path of Europe, into homogenized mediocrity. If so, then today is a sad day.

But, instead, I see a different vision. It CAN be Morning in America again. The Sun CAN rise over a peaceful, prosperous, conservative nation. It just needs a Frontier to set into. And all we have to do, is to look UP, instead of looking West, at the end of the day. . . .