Means to an End...

In the spirit of a good bit of mockery, I was directed over to F-W to see the latest discussion on Anne Rice's deteriorating prose.

I was a little...er... bemused to see Rice-- complacent, ignoring fan's reactions to Memnot the Drivel, delusions of grandeur-- compared to one Michael Moore.

Now, I can see that Republicans would be pissed off with Moore. I can see that others would disagree with some of what he says, or object to his shoutiness...but self-congratulating, in the manner of Rice? Achieving little and saying a lot?

Mr. Moore is scheduled to appear at the Liverpool Playhouse on the twelfth of November, and my friend and I are trying to procure tickets. The Playhouse is hardly the Paris Opera; Liverpool is hardly Washington; the audience will likely be composed of people who can (like me) conveniently show up at 1pm on a Thursday afternoon-- and yet, Moore will slog it out. He'll get up on that stage, and educate, and shock, and I don't care that hyperbole will be used, or that he may indeed congratulate himself on what he said afterwards. What will matter is that he will break up some of the apathy; that he shows, when relations between the American and British people are at an all-time low (well, excepting the War of Independence) that somebody cares. That even us Brits, smug in our leafy European elitism, are often blind to what is going on in our own country.

For all his shoutiness, all his moral self-righteousness-- can somebody please explain how that is A Bad Thing?

Discussing politics online is often inflammatory and cannot be solved with a punch to the face like in real life (I jest-- sort of), but I just can't fathom it. Anne Rice is like the antithesis of all that I hold dear in literature and ethics right now; Moore isn't. Ho hum.