State of Virginia Textbook

In honor of the first post of this blog, I'd like to look at the State of Virginia and their textbook issue. What is this issue? Well, they hired a writer to write a 4th grade textbook. Then they had a committee of three teachers vet the textbook-so far, so good, right? And then someone actually read it. And in it is a sentence which says that thousands of slaves fought (and died) for the South during the American Civil War and that two companies of slaves fought under General Stonewall Jackson. There is so much wrong with this that I frankly don't know where to start. Is it actually thinking that this could be true? That slaves would love their lives enough that they would fight for the side that kept them chained and beaten like animals? Or is the pure lack of scholarship in this? The real Civil War historians politely said that this is "outside the mainstream of scholarly thought about the Civil War", instead of just coming out and saying it's wrong. And where did the esteemed author get this information? From the Internet, of course. Where she did not remember one of the cardinal rules of doing research on the Internet-and that is KNOW YOUR SOURCES. Seriously, if you don't realize that you got this info from a web site sponsored by the Sons of the Confederacy, then you are an idiot. And what does Virginia say? "Just don't teach that paragraph". I think they absolutely should teach it-and use it as a way of teaching children that you can't always believe what you read, especially on the Internet.
By the way, no slaves fought for the South. There was a huge debate within the Confederacy itself over whether to arm the slaves or not-and the leaders believed that if they armed the slaves, the slaves would:
A) Use the weapons on them or
B) Make a dash for Union side as use the weapons on them during the actual battles.

Considering how many ex-slaves made a break for the Union side, their concerns were quite valid. And if you want a real Civil War historian, go read James McPherson-he's the real thing.

Secretariat

Okay, I had a huge crush on the big red horse when I was a child. Who didn't? The horse didn't care about Watergate, inflation, gas prices or Vietnam. The horse just wanted to race-and he was beautiful. I remember well watching the races and cheering him on-we all did. So I was really looking forward to seeing this movie and I came away a little disappointed. When it stuck to the horse-racing world (and indeed, the races themselves), it was quite good. John Malkovich hammed it up (and didn't even try for a French-Canadian accent, so it was all the more baffling when he spit out phrases in French), Diane Lane..well, she looked good. The problem is that the real Penny Chenery Tweedy is far more of a character than this bland movie depiction of one. Did she have a hard time? Yes-being hit with a tax bill of 6.5 million when your Father dies is no picnic. But her horse had won the Derby the year before (poor Riva Ridge, ignored in this movie to make it look like Penny was more of an underdog than she really was). And she has a tremendous sense of humor-just look at anything on YouTube where she's talking about Secretariat-Diane can't match that sense of humor and presence. And as for the horse..well, they had five horse playing him at different stages of his life and I'll say this:they all looked good but not one of them really matched in terms of sheer presence and intelligence. You only had to see Secretariat on TV to know this horse was unlike any other. And what was the religious/Bible reading? You have to quote from the Bible to tell people about horses? A quote from the Bible and singing of a gospel hymn while he's tearing for home the Belmont? What is that? That he was a gift from God? Hmmm. And just to let the film makers know, Penny may have lived happily ever after, but she divorced her unsupportive husband-I don't know how the Christian Right who are trying to claim this movie would feel about that-or her, for that matter. But trust me, when they stick to the horse, it's all good.

The Social Network

I saw The Social Network a week ago and I've been thinking about it since I saw it. How true is it? I know part of is true becaue Eduardo Saverin got a huge payout from Facebook AND was ordered not to discuss it. Sean Parker of Napster had a big article in Vanity Fair a month or two ago but he didn't really discuss Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook, it was much more about him and the way he's "changed the world three or four times". And of Zuckerberg himself? Well, Facebook has put out a disclaimer or two but the man himself hasn't said much and you can't really blame him-he'd only end up sounding defensive. The movie though, is pretty good. Entertaining? Yes, and well-written as well. And while I've never liked Jesse Eisenberg, he does a great job in the movie of playing a semi-social misfit who created a website (with a little help) and became a billionaire. Andrew Garfield (the new Spiderman) was also very good as Zuckerberg's best friend who ends up getting screwed by him. And Justin Timberlake is maybe not-great as Sean parker, but he has so much charisma (which the part really needed) that it carries him through the rough spots.
What I really liked about this movie was it's sense of nuance. And by that I mean no one good or evil-and everyone has a different perspective. Did Zuckerberg steal the idea from the Winklevoss twins? Yes, but as Larry Sumners says in the movie "Go create something else". Perhaps only Zuckerberg could have taken their idea and ran with it as far as he has. Does that make him bad or creative? And Eduardo got screwed-does that make him a fall guy or just someone who was not paying attention and who though his best friend would never do something like that to him? It's your call. My only real issue with this movie is that the women in it are either models/whores/interns or crazy people. There are two in this movie who are not like that: Rooney Mara who spends the first ten minutes of the movie being insulted by Zuckerberg and Rashida Jones who tells Zuckerberg at the end that he's not a bad person. The rest are "hot girl in club" or Sorority girl" or "hot intern" or crazy girlfriend". Is that really the best they could do? It was a little disappointing that that was it, but it was still a great movie-and I'd like to give a shout-out to the special effects team because I don't know how they did it-having one guy play the Winklevoss twins and digitally inserting his facial expressions onto the body-double. That was very impressive.
And I can see why Rooney Mara got the part in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo though-and if this had been a different sort of movie, she would have kicked Zuckerberg's butt.