Slarti: Hollywood makes movies with the stereotypes they do because that's what people will pay to see. But I see that there's another possibility: that Hollywood makes these kinds of movies out of sheer inertia Though your possibility #2 is IMHO a huge part of what's going on, I've come to think that there's a third factor: Very, very few people have the power to green-light a big-budget movie. I call them the "Green-Light Guys". GLGs *strongly* favor the kind of movies they personally enjoy, and favor the kind of human interactions they feel comfortable with. So the hero is a straight white male -- because the GLGs are SWMs. There aren't many women, those women are all exceptionally beautiful, and their roles are defined by the men around them -- because those are the kind of women they like. They don't think of themselves as racist, because they love Will Smith! and Samuel L. Jackson! and a handful of other black men. But not nearly so many black women, and you'd never know they live in a city that about 1/2 Hispanic. The GLGs have very little imagination, nor do they particularly using what they've got. They want things to be superficially exciting yet basically safe and conservative -- and they *love* J.J. Abrams.

LJ: In fact, Chavez instead of Chekov would be a really good idea. Another possibility I kicked around is to make the equivalent of Chekov be a North Korean. I admit Donald Glover isn't the best choice as Suleiman, you really need someone who looks like the American idea of a "Islamic terrorist". But I couldn't resist having him and Danny Pudi on the bridge together ...

Darcy: I didn't think of those names because they're unfamiliar to me (being of Arabic derivation). I wanted something within the European tradition, like James, but one that a person might not want to use, and so "Jim" would be the use-name. The other set-up I thought about for a long while was Jaime Kirk, a Hispanic male.

Steve Smith: Thanks so much for the link! I can use it to show why I'm not worried that Abrams will mess up Star Wars the way he IMHO did Star Trek. The Star Wars universe is essentially conservative, Star Trek is essentially progressive -- and Abrams is clearly a conservative by temperament.

NOAA says:There is no safe option when caught in a tornado in a car, just slightly less-dangerous ones. If the tornado is visible, far away, and the traffic is light, you may be able to drive out of its path by moving at right angles to the tornado. Seek shelter in a sturdy building, or underground if possible. If you are caught by extreme winds or flying debris, park the car as quickly and safely as possible -- out of the traffic lanes. Stay in the car with the seat belt on. Put your head down below the windows; cover your head with your hands and a blanket, coat, or other cushion if possible. If you can safely get noticeably lower than the level of the roadway,leave your car and lie in that area, covering your head with your hands.

I'm getting ready to go to bed, planning to get up at an extremely early hour to go birding in the rain. May 11th is the World Series of Birding, which takes place in NJ; it's also a date for many birding organizations to hold a "Birdathon" for fund-raising. If I get a chance, I'll put up a post tomorrow saying how things are going, but it's quite possible I'll be too wet. I'm just covering a local "patch", so I don't expect to see more than about 50-60 species.

Hartmut, Lurker: Thank you so much for your info! As you can see, one of the largest (and most hypocritical) issues for the MPAA is "language". e.g.A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context.In practice, this means that movies that faithfully reproduce how many teenagers talk are not considered suitable for teenagers. Does this sort of nonsense also take place in other countries?

Hartmut, Lurker, other non-USans: Do your countries' movie-ratings systems have the paradoxical effect the MPAAs do, of giving rape or dub-con a lower rating than consensual sex? At what degree of explicitness does rape cross over into adults-only territory?

Hi gang! Can anyone -- like, say, cleek -- link me to the original statement of Cleek's Law:Today's conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today, updated daily.

Hartmut: you should be able to DL it directly at bironic's LJ.

the cost of retroactively installing a sprinkler systems is often prohibitive. I think it likely that having and following prudent safety standards at that plant would have been "job-destroying regulation". That is, I have no trouble believing that the plant *could not* be profitable if it was reasonably safe. The question is, where is the point where the risk of death & destruction is worse than losing a few dozen jobs, in Texas?

joel: You see it now because I found it in the spam trap and just got it out. It wasn't even officially "held for moderation".

Women wear them, generally speaking (I don't wear them any more due to foot & back issues) because they make you feel powerful and sexy. 1. They make you *taller*, which is really important when you're almost always shorter than e.g. men. Tall people are looked up to, literally and figuratively, and high heels put you there. 2. They make your legs look (and feel) longer and slimmer. 3. Spike heels in particular look dangerous, knifelike, so walking confidently on them makes you look (and feel) like a person not to be trifled with. There's a reason they're often called "killer" heels, admiringly. 4. Current fashions are almost all designed to go with high heels, so wearing high heels makes your clothes look better, makes your outfits work together better. 5. The posture pushes your bust out and butt back, which makes you look sexier.

Bother. Ugh, my last comment is stuck in the "spam" bucket. Could you get it out? And could you change the Monty Python link to this one: http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode32.htm

Ugh: You should certainly post your post, which I see lurking there in the queue. Edit if you like, don't if you don't.

And *my* observation is that as people get older, we get more like ourselves. My mother, now in her late 80s, is also of the opinion that the reduction in sex hormones and drive with age makes anger/fear (adrenaline) responses more significant, which can tip the emotional balance toward reactionary conservatism and Fox Derangement Syndrome.

Brothers from *Chechnya*?!? Can someone with a clue explain what their beef with the US might be?

I've been up all night. I was supposed to just be working, but I kept taking breaks to read the Boston Globe's twitter stream, which was by far the best news source on the firefight in Boston. One down, at least one to go. Be prudent, dear Bostonians.

Lelala: It's possible that it was cropped from this one, though I'm not sure. bobbyp: Wow, that is a LOT of green. Gorgeous.

joel: Thank you so much for the link to Roadside Geology! I've never heard of the series before, but this is *exactly* what I was looking for -- we kept driving through cuttings and wondering about the exposed rocks. And the New Jersey volume is just about to come out!

But the trip there by car is always very straining*** (first the North German plains then Denmark). ***less because it takes so long but because it is so monotonous Oh Hartmut, that's *adorable*. You have no idea about long and monotonous. Fellow USans, which do you think is worse: going through Kansas the long way? Or going through Nebraska?

Hi guys. Sorry I didn't get back to this earlier, I was on College Road Trip and then recovering from CRT. sapient, your comment calling "you people" " ridiculous, historically blind, and stupid" is an ad hominem attack. Don't do that again or I'll be forced to ban you. In general, I find it fascinating that the whole discussion has gone haring off after issues of World War II and Korea, and those of you who think the US is *not* imperialistic haven't addressed the conflicts I talked about in my actual post: Vietnam and Iraq. Specifically, what the heck *is* that thing, if it's *not* the Imperial Governor's Palace? What *is* an "insurgency", if it's not a rebellion? And for crying out loud, the answer to sapient's question, "which country should succeed the US as the world hegemon?" is obvious. None. As I've said before, The one who wants to rule the world is *The Bad Guy*. We should cast him down and have no one in his place.

If you saw a post appear briefly and then disappear, that was me trying to schedule something to be published later. Typepad apparently decided that it's 5 PM *somewhere*, so I must mean "publish NOW". grar.

Back to what (for me) is the central topic: non-violent heroism in narratives. The most important non-violent fictional hero I can think of off the top of my head is George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. For me, Frodo and Sam in LOTR, the books, are also non-violent heroes, but I don't seem to recall that coming across in the movies.

Calcixeroll, when do you think you're likely to be finished with Debt? I can try to get my half-written post on it, which has been sitting here for months, finished up so we can have a real discussion. It'll be an incentive.