what you know bout stephen jay gould?

First things first: the Voice of Bahrain weighs in on my husband and his boys. Heroes, all.
Second. Happy birthday today to your favorite scientist’s favorite example of Punctuated Equilibria, Nick Sylvester. Also happy birthday to Pete L’Official, who shares a birthday with Nick.
Thirdly, after some confusion with Mr. “George Clooney is my esse”, I would like to clarify my stance on Syriana. First, it’s an excellent film, depicts and unravels labyrinthine networks of middle east oil interests, international corpo greed-hounds, cultural misconceptions, Islamic jihad, and PEOPLE RUNNING THE FUCKING WORLD with no loyalties anywhere but to self and dollar. I haven’t seen such a stark depiction/critique of a sitting government’s (“fictional”) inner workings since my top film of all time, Repentance, snuck out from behind the Iron Curtain mid-glasnost. (P.S. Fuck a dictatorship!! And that “god is not dead” noise too.)
But it’s totally the Kidman clause: just cause George Spliffington Clooney grows a beard, pads the panza and takes a role that appears to expand his range within his “serious” facet does not mean his acting is so exceptional–he’s solid, convincing, yes, but I was no more moved by his performance than, say, the performances by Nas and T-Boz in Belly (to borrow an example from a film i watched today–nas and t-boz are pretty terrific in belly, actually, and they’re not even actors by profession, que tal.)
I also think selecting any one person as a focal point of SYRIANA diverges from its necessarily convoluted plot, adapted by director Stephen Gaghan from Robert Baer‘s account of Lebanon / Tehran dealings when he was in the CIA. (Read fascinating linked interview; quote: “I think what we’re all talking about is, we all regret the end of the Cold War. In the Cold War, things were predictable, and you could have worked these things out.”)
Shit is all over the place. My mind is scattered like ticker tape on Black Monday. The market is closed.