According to the Wall Street Journal. On the plus side, computers prices have decreased by 89%.
As the Consumerist put it, “Good news for those of you who like electronics, and bad news for those of you who want to go to college to learn more about them.”
Obama replaces U.S. global AIDS office coordinator
Apparently due to objections over his qualified support for abstinence-only education. Given that the Bush administration’s global AIDS program was one of its few unambiguous successes, it’s far from clear that this is a good thing.
Fortunately for uncool people, strangers on the internet are here to tell you how to be cool.
In all fairness, it’s a neat idea. Unfortunately, all of the generated songs sound the same, i.e., absolute rubbish. Does Microsoft really think that people want a program that homogenizes all of their musical ideas into an unlikeable hybrid of polka and elevator music?
Incidentally, the ad provides solid examples of almost everything wrong with Microsoft advertising. The best line: “Microsoft, huh? So it’s pretty easy to use?”
I saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time in 2007, at age 22. It’s a little unusual to go that long without seeing this movie, though it does put me in pretty good company. In a way, I’m glad I waited, for watching a classic so late in life has its advantages. Like all classics, it’s easy to watch It’s a Wonderful Life carelessly, and so miss out on a lot of the nuances. Watching the movie for the first time as an adult allowed me to pick up on some of the moral nuances I probably would have missed as a child. It’s a Wonderful Life is easily interpreted as a Manichean morality play between the saintly George Bailey and the wicked Mr. Potter, but I found that this didn’t sit well with me. In fact, the more I thought about George Bailey, the more it seemed that a second look at his character was in order.
George Bailey comes across as a man who has made selfless choices throughout his life at the cost of his own disappointment, and is nearly driven to suicide when it appears that he’ll end up in prison for his troubles. His disappointments come at the worst time for him, so they resonate well with the audiences. Similarly, we are meant to feel the same dismay as George when he encounters “Potterville.” (1) But is it really as easy to sympathize with George as it might seem?
The problem is that George Bailey doesn’t come across as selfless so much as hideously passive. Oh, I don’t mean his deer-in-the-headlights look when confronted with the board of directors looking to him for guidance; that’s understandable. What’s harder for me to understand is why George runs the bank indefinitely rather than see it through the transition period and search for someone qualified to run it. Is George Bailey really the only man on earth who could run the bank? This may seem like nitpicking, but remember that the bank is essentially the only thing that keeps George in New Bedford. In one sense, George has no one to blame but himself for his failure to live out his dream of seeing the world. Being handed the responsibility for the family business is a hard stroke of luck, but it doesn’t have to ruin your life unless you let it. George knows his heart isn’t in the business, so why pretend that it is?
The only explanation I can find that is consistent with what we are shown is that George doesn’t know any other way to handle disappointment. Whenever George is faced with disappointment, he reacts with shock, brief resentment, and then unmitigated selflessness. It seems to me that George isn’t so much putting the well being of others above his own desires as pretending his own desires don’t exist. Rather than try to be content with the decisions he has made, George silently chooses to resent the life he has chosen for himself. We see the results of this decision when he blows up at his family, his neighbors, and life in general.
Fortunately for Mary and the kids, George Bailey isn’t quite saved by a deus ex machina, but he gets the next best thing: an angel comes down from heaven to stop George from feeling sorry for himself. It takes a bit of work, for not even the garishness of Potterville can upset him. Next time you watch the movie, see what George is most worried about. Is it the fact that his hometown has been turned into diet Vegas and his neighborhood into a slum? No, he’s upset that nobody seems to recognize him. Charming.
Then there are the little things. Potterville-Mary is a feminist’s nightmare, a timid mouse of a creature who is implied to have become a failed person–a spinster librarian, the horror!–without George Bailey to marry. Leaving aside the unintentional insult to librarians, this character arc makes no sense. In the movie’s “real” world, the New Bedford world, Mary Bailey is by far the most dynamic person in the Bailey family. She is the one who always finds a solution to George’s crises, self-imposed or not. She’s even the one who works to keep George out of prison while he’s out getting drunk and wrecking his car.(2) In short, everything we see about Mary Bailey contradicts the film’s assertion that she would have had a miserable life if George had never been born. But why stop here? Imagine, for a moment, what George’s life would have been like had Mary never been born. How many times has she pulled his bacon out of the fire?
On a more amusing note, George Bailey’s lending practices look a little less praiseworthy from the other side of the subprime mortgage crisis. Portfolio.com recently wrote an article pointing out uncomfortable similarities between George Bailey’s bank and the banks that torpedoed the current economy. The article is more tongue-in-cheek than a serious criticism of George, but it’s still worth thinking about.
Finally, in George’s defense, I’m not sure he’s wrong when he calls Uncle Billy a “silly, stupid old fool” while in the middle of his breakdown. Adjusted for inflation, $8000 works out to roughly $84,000 in modern dollars. What would you call a person who lost eighty-four large on the day your bank was being inspected? After all his time working for the bank, did it not occur to Uncle Billy that newspaper might be good for wrapping fish, but it sucks for carrying cash? Of course, George shares some of the blame for trusting Uncle Billy instead of an armored car, but it’s clear Uncle Billy was carrying the idiot ball this time. Carelessly handing your bank’s financial future to a mortal enemy is about as dumb as you can get.
By now you might be wondering where I’m going with this. Do I think It’s a Wonderful Life is a bad movie? I go back and forth on this, but I’m going to say no. I think the problem isn’t with the movie but with the way we often view George Bailey. He’s regarded as a modern day Job, a good man placed in a hard situation, but I don’t think we’re meant to view him this way. I think the movie as written is a rebuke to a resentful man who has largely ignored the blessings given to him. There may even be a Christian subtext to George Bailey’s redemption: perhaps we are seeing, for the first time in George’s life, his turn towards genuine faith instead of simulated virtue?
So fear not, It’s a Wonderful Life fans. There’s a positive message . Don’t be like pre-Clarence George Bailey, a whitewashed tomb of a man. Be honest, content, and thankful, and make decisions you can live with. And last but not least, don’t trust $84,000 to a guy who treats money like fish.
(1) Though not everyone is obliging; see Salon’s “All hail Pottersville!” or the New York Times article below for different takes on a Bailey-less world.
(2) Or not: a recent New York Times editorial (login required) pointed out that restitution might make a jury more lenient, but it won’t get you fully off the hook of an embezzlement charge. But hey, at least George will be sitting in a holding cell on Christmas Day in New Bedford instead of Potterville.
