THE CORPORATION / *** (Not rated) (Ebert review/alert)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | July 16, 2004 | Roger Ebert

[RightWingAtheist]

This would be just the usual sad polemic from the once-great movie critic were it not for his illuminating comments on stem-cells. I support stem-cell research, but I acknowledge that there are ethical questions which need to be discussed, and am puzzled as to why the same people who deny that such questions exist are always huffing and puffing against GM foods. Now I know-for the left, ethical questions it all come down to whether or not the research is funded by the government or by private organizations.

[REAGANBELONGS TO THE AGES]

Someone married Ebert? I wonder what his boyfriend thinks about that.

[Who dat?]

Someone married Ebert?

Yep. If I recall correctly it was one of the “actresses” that was involved in his failed film making (writing – whatever it was) career long ago.

It’s pretty funny – how someone can be involved with a movie that consists almost entirely of extremely top-heavy females – and make it *un-watchable,* is quite an accomplishment.

I saw a small portion of his movie review show on Sunday. Whatever his medical problem is, it’s getting worse. Either that or they’ve got him on medication or something that’s messing him up worse.

[jim macomber]

Regarding Ebert's question about how much money the unions have stolen compared to corporations like Enron, if you include in the definition of stealing the tens of millions of dollars every year they throw at politicians their members don't support, I'd say they're in the same ballpark. At least.

(BTW, has there been any studies done of a correlation between body mass and slavish devotion to one-sided documentaries? Just wondering.)

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Regarding Ebert's question about how much money the unions have stolen compared to corporations like Enron, if you include in the definition of stealing the tens of millions of dollars every year they throw at politicians their members don't support, I'd say they're in the same ballpark. At least.

And when corporations steal, they (and their principals) can be prosecuted.

[RightWingAtheist]

And corporations don't beat the daylights out of people they disagree with the way unions do.

[jim macomber]

"And when corporations steal, they (and their principals) can be prosecuted"

True. Well, the unions CAN be prosecuted. They just aren't.

Brings to mind the teacher's unions in RI. Maybe elsewhere, too. Way back when, the teachers, by law, couldn't unionize. So a compromise was reached - they could form a union, but it would be illegal for them to strike. Illegal. Period.
Every three years, they go out on strike en masse - and the heavily Democrat state with it's almost exclusively Democrat judges sometimes - sometimes - pays lip service to the law (go figure!) and postures about contempt and even imposes daily fines. All of which are remitted after the strike is settled.
They actually go through this charade every three years. And seem to actually think nobody notices.
That's perhaps the most insulting part of all.

[Digger]

Instead of Agent Orange let's substitute DDT. Now millions are dying worldwide because GOVERNMENT abolished its use.

[woofie]

Hate corporations? buy stock

[beckett]

Having more or less avoided the corporate world by living in my little movie critic corner...

You haven't avoided the corporate world, bozo! You are a DIRCECT beneficiary of that world and of all the legal protections it enjoys. Your prosperity and fame WOULDN'T EXIST without the entreprenurial and technological advances bestowed upon you by corporations.

Is there anything more blockheaded than a leftist discussing economics? I don't think so. Ebert apparently doesn't know that the Sun-Times and every TV network he appears upon is a corporation.

[combat_boots]

And the Ubergeeks at Microsoft have patented the human body.

[Alas Babylon!]

Nor all the movies he gives us his opinion on are made, financed and distributed by corprations.

[NYCVirago]

was at a health ranch last week, where the idea is to clear your mind for serene thoughts. At dinner one night, a woman at the table referred to Arizona as a "right to work state."

I would bet that he was at Canyon Ranch, perhaps the priciest of these "health ranches." And he's claiming to speak for the working man. What a joke.

[beckett]

There is so much willful stupidity in this column that I think Ebert may have opened himself up to a few lawsuits.

Oprah Winfrey learned that it is not wise to incite panic about the meat industry. Roger Ebert may be about to learn a similar lesson.

But in addition to that consider the pure ignorance of his economics. He just refuses to recogonize the essential role competition plays in keeping an economy dynamic, growing and prosperous. That's a typical leftist position, and Ebert is nothing if not a typical leftist, right down to the fact that as a kid he was undoubtedly holed up in his room by himself watching movies and daydreaming while other kids his age were learning about team effort and competitive spirit on the playground. Leftism is the pursuit of daydreamers.

Competition can be ugly, exasperating and painful, but it's also the core element of the human drive to improve not only ourselves but the whole world around us, too. Without it we'd still be living in grass huts on the African savannah eating berries and hiding from predators.

Ebert and his fellow daydreamers think we can simply discard this element of human nature without harm, that the values of the "union" (i.e., fear of and resistance to change, antagonism towards profit and investment, competition, feather-bedding, no-work biases, diminished productivity) can sustain the economy. Nevermind that every economy so constituted has failed miserably over the last one hundred years. Nevermind that our own fantastic prosperity over the past twenty-five years springs directly from Ronald Reagan's successful breaking of the unions. For simpleminded Ebert, unions are good and corporations are bad.

Ebert also has his facts wrong when he claims to "have been waiting for opponents of stem cell research to attack the private ownership and patenting of actual living organisms, but [he] waits in vain." There has been a great deal of discussion about this with many pro-life groups opposing such patents. Ebert makes this kind of error frequently when he writes on politics. He's a dilletante, dabbling in areas where he has no expertise but affecting great expertise just the same. He's an excellent example of the kind of misguided notions that populate the minds of those who live their lives in the world of make-believe.

[RightWingAtheist]

A lot of people believe that Ebert married the actress who played "Junkyard Sal" in "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens", which he pseudnomously wrote, but that isn't ture. Ebert is married to a lawyer named Chaz Hammersmith; June Mack, the actress who played Junkyard Sal, is deceased, and if I remember correctly, it was murder.

[beckett]

Ebert married late in life, somewhere around six years ago.

Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz, 2001

[REAGANBELONGS TO THE AGES]

Nice beard.

[irishlass007]

Roger was at Rancho La Puerta, because he was rude to me also. But I gave him the irish eyeball and he shut up.

Very rude man. Nice wife.

I blogged about my encounter.

http://www.theirishlass.blogspot.com/2004_07_03_theirishlass_archive.html#108884194944287339

the irish lass

[irishlass007]

rancho la puerta.

http://www.theirishlass.blogspot.com/2004_07_03_theirishlass_archive.html#108884194944287339

the irish lass

[NYCVirago]

Good job, and welcome to Free Republic. You got under Ebert's skin enough to make it into a column -- he's probably not used to anybody disagreeing with him!