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One of the grandest benefits of the enlightenment was the realization that our moral sense must be based on the welfare of living individuals, not on their immortal souls. Honest and passionate folks can strongly disagree regarding spiritual matters, so it's imperative that we not allow such considerations to infringe on the real happiness of real people.
Woot
I believe religion has much inherent good and has born many good fruits.
SU
Great article. Nice synopsis of Card's slow but steady descent into nutjob land. Really a shame.
"There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
"It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
"Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster
Kids in general these days seem more socially retarded...
None of them date. They hang out. They text. They sit in the same car or room and don't say a word...they text. Then, they go home and whack off to internet porn.
I think that's the sad truth about why these kids are retards.
Great article. Nice synopsis of Card's slow but steady descent into nutjob land. Really a shame.
I was interested in the author's speculation that Card had started to haunt conspiracy-type websites, where he apparently picks up a lot of his information. I have a family member that has gotten caught up in that echo chamber of conspiratorial websites and right-wing blogs and who similarly spends his time worrying about encroaching Shari'a Law in the United States (or Godless Liberalism. Apparently they amount to the same thing). There's no doubt in my mind that it has colored his way of seeing the world and other people in really pernicious ways. But to the extent that the danger of pornography is the way it distorts our way of seeing people around us, I've come to believe that that kind of stuff is just as bad as porn and a lot more socially acceptable in certain circles.
I should clarify that I'm not trying to make a politicized point here: I'm a happily inconsistent and frequently confused liberal on lots of issues. But I've learned to avoid lots of websites that I used to frequent because of their non-stop demonization of folks on the right, as if the authors I used to read had never actually bothered to get to know anyone with views different from their own.
^ I agree... Most of my worry is that they were brushing along the narrative a bit too briskly. I didn't feel that relationship between Ender and his family that seemed to be his sole anchor in the book. As others have mentioned, the battle room was paramount in the books for illustrating Ender's genius and growth, but I get the need to move it all along. They could have also made the final battles seem a bit more tiring and rigorous like the book, too. I love that they included the mind game in the movie, though. That was fun stuff.
What truly surprised me was them setting up for the sequels at the end. I would love to follow along with Asa as Ender, but they are extremely different from the first installment.
"I'm anti, can't no government handle a commando / Your man don't want it, Trump's a bitch! I'll make his whole brand go under,"
Harrison Ford's in this? I'm pretty sure this movie will be held in the same esteem as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Bladerunner when it's all said and done.
Part of it is based on academic grounds. Among major conferences, the Pac-10 is the best academically, largely because of Stanford, Cal and UCLA. “Colorado is on a par with Oregon,” he said. “Utah isn’t even in the picture.”
1. They neutered Petra. She exclaims early in the movie that she is more of a man than anyone else in Battle School, then she spends the rest of her time feeling feelings and feeling Ender's Feelings. It's stupid and she is in no way the Petra from the book, who is awesome.
2. Ender's brilliant final strategy was to protect a single ship, ram ahead and get close enough to nuke the entire planet? That's why humanity created the Battle School? To create a commander who knows how to protect a vital asset and use a weapon of mass destruction against the enemy? An adult couldn't do that? The book did it much, much better.
But overall, I enjoyed the adaptation. I'll probably see it again in theaters.
That's an excellent column. I agree with almost everything he said, except for the fallacy that the First Amendment religion clauses prohibit moral legislation (a fallacy which is becoming far too common among gay marriage supporters ... they can do better than that).
Saw it last night. I liked it. Like any decent movie, it added something to the book, but certainly didn't replace it. You miss the psychological struggle that Ender goes through. You miss the exhasuting gauntlet that the Battle School runs Ender through. You miss the back and forth between Mazer and Ender that sets up the surprise ending, making the ending in the movie not so much of a surprise. You miss the family struggles.
But the Battle Room scenes were fun (I just wish there would have been more) and the battles with the Buggers were pretty intense. Both added to what I had envisioned in the book, which is what I hope for out of an adaptation of a book to the screen.
But no way does it replace the book (what movie does, really?). If you've only seen the movie, you've missed the most important ideas of the story.
At least the Big Ten went after a big-time addition in Nebraska; the Pac-10 wanted a game so badly, it added Utah
-Berry Trammel, 12/3/10
Wow. That was a tremendous article. Thanks for posting.
Agreed.
I know I'm late to the game on this, but I don't think I've read an article on grantland that wasn't really really good--both in style and substance.
At least the Big Ten went after a big-time addition in Nebraska; the Pac-10 wanted a game so badly, it added Utah
-Berry Trammel, 12/3/10
Really good article.
Love or hate Bill Simmons, his website puts out great writing in a bunch of topics.
"...you pointy-headed autopsy nerd. Do you think it's possible for you to post without using words like "hilarious," "absurd," "canard," and "truther"? Your bare assertions do not make it so. Maybe your reasoning is too stunted and your vocabulary is too limited to go without these epithets."
"You are an intemperate, unscientific poster who makes light of very serious matters.”
- SeattleUte
I thought the movie was pretty good. There are two things I wish they would have captured better 1) the constantly increasing pressure in battle school and how exhausted he was at the end of both battle school and command school. I understand that it would be hard to do that without turning the movie into the unedited version of The Fellowship of the Ring, but I thought that those two things were the biggest omissions from the book.
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