C.S. Lewis has always sucked. Sorry.

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian on Disney's new Narnia film. Excerpt:

Philip Pullman - he of the marvellously secular trilogy His Dark Materials - has called Narnia "one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read".

Why? Because here in Narnia is the perfect Republican, muscular Christianity for America - that warped, distorted neo-fascist strain that thinks might is proof of right. I once heard the famous preacher Norman Vincent Peale in New York expound a sermon that reassured his wealthy congregation that they were made rich by God because they deserved it. The godly will reap earthly reward because God is on the side of the strong. This appears to be CS Lewis's view, too. In the battle at the end of the film, visually a great epic treat, the child crusaders are crowned kings and queens for no particular reason. Intellectually, the poor do not inherit Lewis's earth.

While we're at it, I'm going to take this opportunity to mention, once again, that I consider Finding Nemo to be one of the worst films in recent memory, just because it's fun to mention it at barely appropriate times.

The need for grammar education.

A headline from the AP reads "U.S. Lifts Import Ban on Japanese Beef". This headline is incorrect, and should read "Japan lifts import ban on U.S. beef." The article's text makes it very clear that we're the ones with questionable beef. I wonder what might be implied by this headline's role reversal...

Fissure => Ocean

From the AP story:

Researchers from Britain, France, Italy and the U.S. have been observing the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert and estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean, said Dereje Ayalew, who leads the team of 18 scientists studying the phenomenon.

The more complete report is here, with some good photos: