Finn is only fleeing his own mortality; that guy getting shot in front of him triggered his impulse for self-preservation, not his empathy.

The Wilhelm scream was kicking around in my brainpan for years since I spent my childhood watching Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies, but one of the hellish things about the VHS era was trying to draw people's attention to a single, brief element. In college it was kind of a delight to find out that there was a name…

Would a good old fashioned lightning bolt do? I'm just imagining the poor bus driver who has to hose white supremacist off his grille.

I realize that you're not defending white supremacy, but I'm also not advocating for random violence. I'm talking about a careful consideration of what should be tolerated in a community and what lengths community members should go to in order to protect their community from an ideology that is (not "gets interpreted…

Honestly, I think that video of the white supremacist getting punched (and the reaction to it) could imply the opposite - he's being given a platform to espouse his beliefs, he blithely shrugs off several people shouting to him, but when the physical assault arrives he's unable to shrug it off or continue talking. …

This example implies that there is any moral comparison to be made between Islam and white supremacy. I realize that's not the point you're making, but any defense of white supremacy (however measured) necessarily implies that white supremacy is defensible. That's the awkward position that reasonable people are…

There's an important distinction in that white supremacy isn't just harmful if taken to its logical extreme - it's actively harmful in the most superficial form, too. Suggesting that it deserves the respect afforded to ideologies that are potentially constructive is an act of deliberate moral equivocation. Civility…

If we were talking about a different ideological group or a different kind of physical assault, I'd agree with you. However, white supremacy is a deliberately antisocial viewpoint that is necessarily destructive to democratic values. Does the government have the right to jail someone for it? No. Should white…

See, I disagree with the first part of the sentiment - there's a wide, wide line between letting a person know that they aren't welcome in your community* (for example, by punching them on sight) and murder. Nobody deserves to be murdered.

It's a fallacy to say that all opinions are morally equivalent and worthy of morally equivalent treatment. The law and the Constitution generally take that view, which is a good thing - the government shouldn't have the power to make decisions about appropriate vs inappropriate speech.

Are there also DVDs that force you to sit through a black screen and a droning "rewind" sound before they'll play? Because that might be the next frontier of nostalgia.

Yeah, the Nazis brought industrial efficiency to mass murder, but just telling people "go ahead and kill all those Jews you've been quietly resenting - you won't get in trouble" was horrifically effective.

It sounds like he's going to be providing some serious "oversight" to the director given that he's the writer/star/executive producer. Directing a blockbuster is different than the smaller-scale projects Affleck has done before, and my guess is that he needs someone to handle on-set logistics.

When I was at the Holocaust Museum recently, it was a little startling to see that Italian Jews actually had a relatively high survival rate. Not comparable to Denmark but higher than France, IIRC.

If by "hip" you mean "drunk on cheap red wine she bought by the jug," you're 100% correct.

Starring Sarah Chalke and John Cleese.

Yeah, something about the headline "industry lifers outraged by the way their industry works" just screams "aren't these Millennials whiny and dumb?"

Get back to your bunk.

On the next Sick Sad World?

"I grew up in a house full of women!"