The Gandhi Principle

Tim Carmody is correct:

I feel like we need a corollary to the Ad Hitlerem/Godwin’s Law fallacy. I’m going to call it “the Gandhi principle.” Just like trotting out the Hitler analogy for everything you disagree with shuts down a conversation by overkill, so do comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Jesus, and other secular and not-so-secular activist saints.




Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist

Ricky Gervais:

My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.




Fuck You

Speaking of the P100, Cee-Lo’s Fuck You comes in at #26, and the accompanying blurb is a nice summary of the state of the music business:

How an instant classic works in 2010: a YouTube lyric video gets posted on 4,500 blogs and racks up two million clicks in its first five days online. William Shatner sings it, 50 Cent remixes it, Cee-Lo himself performs it on every talk show known to man. The official music video is viewed online 29 million times. It gets nominated for four Grammys, including Record and Song of the Year. Everybody and their mom gets it stuck in their heads for months, but nobody minds, because it’s one of the most joyful break-up anthems in history, a song so bulletproof, even Gwyneth Paltrow couldn’t completely ruin it on “Glee”. And yet, so far, it isn’t a blockbuster sales-wise, with both the song and its accompanying album barely cracking the top 10 for only a week. But as long as the Internet exists, “Fuck You” will live on, long after anybody remembers what an Xbox or an Atari is.

Also, true story: there was a 10 year old girls birthday party over the back fence this afternoon. The boombox was pumping out Top 40 hits, and the girls gleefully sang along. Then Cee-Lo came on:

I see you driving ‘round town

With the girl that I love

And I’m like

At this point I’m bursting with anticipation that the gaggle of girls will swear their little hearts out…

Forget you

Damn radio edits.




Cinematic literacy

Tim Carmody lists 33 films to watch to make you instantly more of a buff:

Also, I knew I didn’t want to pick the best movies ever made, or my favorites, or even the most important. Again, that pressure, it’ll cripple you. I wanted to pick a smattering of films that if you watched any given, sufficiently large subset of them, you’d know a lot more about movies than when you started.