Several people have emailed to ask if I would be live-blogging the Academy Awards. No way. It’s not nearly interesting enough for that. And what if I fall asleep? I have no incentive to stay awake. I don’t have any money in a pool this year.
But I am interested to see if anyone mentions the killing of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, an event which apparently is instigating an increased exodus by the Dutch from their own country. Will Van Gogh appear in the annual montage of those film figures who left us during the past year? Color me surprised, but impressed, if he does.
UPDATE: The real mystery, according to CNN, is whether anybody will watch. Will “awards fatigue” prevail? [Hey, I thought you weren't going to blog the Oscars.-ed. I'm not. I'm saving my story of how Joan Rivers fired me for my book.]
AND: Pieter Dorsman notes that he and others were ahead of the NYT (see above) on the fleeing Dutchmen. No doubt they were.
Richard Dreyfus long ago said that the nomination process is all that matters. The final Oscar selections are political. Thatís enough for me. I will soon go to sleep. Matt Drudge will most likely post the results by the time I reawaken.
Well, Roger, c’mon, when she said, “Can we talk?”, you weren’t supposed to say, “Oh, please don’t…”
On a semi-Oscars related note, Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday this morning described Hotel Rwanda as a “semi-rightwing film…”
The case of the fleeing Dutchmen makes me sad. I can’t help but wonder where their self-respect is. Abandon your country for some peace and quiet? You got it into that mess and instead of fixing it, you chicken out and flee? I don’t feel much if any respect for those leaving. If all the Dutch leave then what? Where does it end? I want to smack them upside the head and tell them to act like men.
richard:
Well Juan is full of it anyway. Apparently he and Charles Krauthammer both thought Bush was supposed to go to fist city with Putin.
lindenen:
There are a lot of Americans whose ancestors came to this country because they were Europeans wanting an escape from Europe. It is a tradition.
Yeah, but this is different from fleeing poverty or oppressive government. This is “my country is going to hell in a bandbasket. Stupid decisions I’ve supported are a key part of why it’s going to hell and, instead of sticking it out and fixing the problems because I actually love my country, I’m going to bail.” Those Europeans who fled looking for something better in earlier times were actually brave and going into something that was essentially unknown. They weren’t middle class or upper middle class who knew they weren’t taking a big chance and would be eminently employable in well-paying jobs. These people strike me as being chickenshit.
“There are a lot of Americans whose ancestors came to this country because they were Europeans wanting an escape from Europe.”
And some of us happen to be the first generation offspring of folks who fled Holland during WWII! My father is long dead but there’s no way he could have remotely imagined what is happening to his beloved homeland. I mean NO WAY! And why should the US be difficult for Dutch emigres to get into? That is insane. Who is controlling this insane immigration policy anyway? How is it even remotely possible that the US is filling up with the kind of folks who frequent Saudi-funded mosques while its difficult for the Dutch to get in here?
Actually – it strikes me that there is one major cause for the impotence of the Dutch and other Europeans to impact what is going on in their countries right now – and that is political correctness. Evidently its better to be dead or to flee – than to be rude. Is that what civilization leads to? Death by politeness? How crazy is that? Thank God for rude Americans is all I can say. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if one of our most ridiculed national traits turned out to hold the key to our salvation? Gotta hand it to those “ugly Americans”! LOL!
For an up to date article on what has happened In Holland and elsewhere in old Europe check
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1488514_1,00.html
For those interested in first hand observations Sered’s POV provides some insight. His posts on Ayan Hirsi, Lubbers and the idiot Dutch judge who made a public declaration that he would not give much weight to evidence developed by the Dutch terrorist police may shed some light on why emigration makes sense to some.