What’s far more primary ending is if Santorum lost the state. Michigan is a rust belt state with GOP blue-collar workers. This is suppose to be Santorum’s sweet spot. He’s one of them, grandson of a coal miner; Pennsylvania politics is as pure as coal dust and a proper training ground for winning the hearts and minds of a Michigan voter especially when Romney’s most recent interaction with the auto industry involved him telling them to drop dead. Rick Santorum should have the primary wrap up.

And while Nate Silver has given Santorum a 72% chance of winning the state, his lead has dropped like a stone. From being up by 15%, Santorum is now leading only by 4. What happened? Besides Romney burying him in PAC money, Santorum is an unlikeable hyper-social conservative. Instead of making this race about Romney’s car flub or how Santorum can solve Michigan’s economic woes, Santorum has made the race about Obama’s contraception deal. The result? Santorum is losing Catholics to Romney.

In essence, this is why Santorum is bound to lose the race. It’s not only about Romney’s powerful entrenched stance with money and GOP VIPs (though that might have been enough), it’s Santorum is bad on the issues, bad on campaigning, and bad on organization. The last social conservative candidate is finding out you can’t fight basic political physics when you don’t understand the subject.

The plot or at least the plot that survived the crash is such: Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) because Melville references are great with the kids (What pretentions this did movie have? What heights did it expect to climb, what empires to conquer that it name its protagonist Bartleby?) is a high school conman who just learned he’s been rejected from all the schools applied to has his nerd straight arrow friend Sherman (Jonah Hill)  make a website for a fake school called South Harmon Institute of Technology before you know it, Bartleby has found a building for his fake college gotten Sherman’s crazy uncle and ex-academic Ben Lewis (Lewis Black) to pretend to be the dean, and has a place for his friends in the same predicament to hide for four years. But it turns out anyone who press applied on the website got in so there’s now 300 kids who think they’re going to college at South Harmon! What follows is unwacky hijinks as Bartleby must deal with running a school while running circles around his parents, the Harmon dean who wants to put him out of business, the dude dating the chick Bartleby has his heart set on, and the accreditation board. And boy does it not deliver on the small promise of drama given from this plot outline. It’s the longest episode of “Saved by the Bell” but without the pizzazz.

The movie hits its lazy stride in the very first scene where Bartleby and his jock friend are taking pictures for fake IDs when their nerd straight arrow friend Jonah Hill arrives to tell them that GASP the assistant principal is coming right at that moment! How will they justify the people, the camera equipment, and photo background? Any high school huckster this side of Ferris Bueller should have a zany plan to put into action and Long delivers by… having the group sing off-key and claiming it’s a glee club. Why not a photography club or something that involves the other props in a satisfactory way instead of a reference to the Music Man? It’s like they mixed pages of the rough draft into the regular movie without anyone caring enough to notice.

So little thought went into the script that to hit regular beats of “80s raunchy comedy” that it needs the audience to fill in the missing plot points by osmosis. Knowing we’re suppose to hate the rich frat dude, the movie forgets to set him up as being evil. Long is just mercilessly mocking this guy for apparently being luckier than him with the ladies. Somehow the bully is already chairman of a student committee, a well-established frat member, and dreaming of law school even though he’s a freshman in school for probably a few weeks. He should be president of Ohio by Junior year, before coming Emperor of the Rust Belt by graduation. When Lewis Black appears as the cynical intellectual with some radical ideas that got him thrown out it’s not surprising to find out he is neither an intellectual nor radical. Whose complaints range from “business is corrupt” all the way to “government is corrupt.” He’s the Lenny Bruce of the Ivy League! Such banality wouldn’t play in Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School and even if it did, at least we would have gotten a Dangerfield one-liner.

All of this laziness could be ignored for Hollywood drivel if it wasn’t for the fact that the movie obviously thinks it’s delivering a message from the creative muse to all those special snowflakes out there that educational institutions have been ignoring for being stupid.  At the end of the film, the Ohio accreditation board recognizes SHIT as an institution of higher learning after Bartleby delivers a speech about the creative process. They conveniently forget South Harmon has been a fraud up to that moment. At least in Animal House, we knew the guys were just as full of shit as the establishment. They were fighting on equal absurd terms. When Justin Long gives a sermon about the value of the arts and criticizing higher education, the movie has set-up a straw world where he happens to be right. Somehow every misfit at South Harmon is actually an artistic outsider who just needed to construct their own program to succeed. If this movie is the result of such a program, we could at least take the satisfaction that these kids would have better chance of employment graduating from the University of Phoenix.

To end, unlike this self-satisfy ode to odes to college, on a high note: Jonah Hill shows the talent that took him to better things. Considering half his dialogue is a repeating of “guys, you’re gonna get us into trouble” like a grown up version of Chucky from the Rugrats, the fact the other half he delivers some funny lines and a certain amount of affection to a bunch of friends who spend their time driving him out of his comfort zone is a marvel. Almost enough to carry a episode “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.”

What if some guy dressed up a super hero and tried to fight crime in the real world? If you ask Matthew Vaughn, you get weird pedophilia subtext. However James Gunn delivers in Super (2010) an answer that’s actually related to the question and a complex and even-handed view of religion.

There’s a lot of obvious comments on religion throughout the film. Like the Blues Brothers, Frank is put on a mission from God (Rainn Wilson) after his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) relapses into drug abuse and starts living with her dealer ( the mission is given to him by God who touches his brain after tentacles molested him). Frank’s personal hero is a Bibleman-ripoff played by nerd favorite Nathan Fillion whose messages Frank receives as the word of divine. Yet there’s more going on than the obvious. Frank plays the role of religion in society, the only competent agent keeping people in line by violently beating those who violate the social code.

As a character, Frank is rather simple. He’s honest, direct, quiet and incredibly unhappy to the point he questions the purpose of happiness. Frank’s virtue seems impeccable. For example, when he tries to lie, the listener quickly sees through his subterfuge. Frank simply lacks the ability to be manipulative. The rage, however, hidden behind his exterior leads to roaring rampage of revenge that reestablishes a sense of morality in a community.

Frank’s unremitting morality causes him to go after anyone who doesn’t show decency to his fellow man. Even butting in line deserves a beating. Oddly, this wins the support even by those who suffered collateral damage like the woman in the wheelchair and the underage male prostitute that Franks saves from a john.  Taking action is highly popular since people are sick of those who create hostility in the community. Frank could keep the upper-moral hand if it wasn’t for his self-selected confidant and sidekick, Bolty (Ellen Paige).

Bolty’s relationship with Frank is the same as the one between zealots and religion. She gives Frank’s morality shape and energy. He comes to her to learn about how to be a super-hero and she later saves his life from a couple of goons. However she also uses Franks for her highly immoral purposes. Her drives are violent and nasty, vigilantism is being able to hurt someone without consequences. She targets Frank’s wrath against a dude who might be innocent and then has to be stopped by Frank before she bashes his brains in. When Bolty literally rapes Franks, it underlines what she had done to Frank figuratively up to that point.  It’s amazing there could be a more evil figure in the film, but the person who holds Frank’s wife is the nastiest piece of work.

Jacques (Kevin Bacon) is a modern secular voice. He’s willing to patronize Frank and his old ways when it comes to cooking eggs. But doesn’t think twice when taking his wife. Frank’s earnestness is just a form of naivety. At the end of the film when Jacques tries to show Frank has no way of knowing he’s right, that the universe isn’t as simple as it is in Frank’s philosophy. Frank mercilessly stabs Jacques for his moral relativity, a great way to end disagreement though rather egregious- you wouldn’t do it to a friend or at least I hope you don’t.

Religion, Marx’s opiate of the masses, is not wrong in principle of wanting a moral society. People simply do not like thieves, cheats, and murderers. Yet in practice what is gained a power that could be used for good or evil. Frank’s instincts for what’s right can be muddled in the heat of the moment or when directed by someone he trusts. Super contains both a simple tale of an alienated man who breaks after losing his wife and a multilevel look at what religion does and does not to. Also it’s funny. Probably should have mentioned that one earlier but whatever. Sometimes you just gotta read between the lines.

An hypothetical problem:

“My girlfriend was hit by a car last week and she’s in the hospital. I’m not sure what I should be doing for her. She’s talking and everything but her parents are really worried and won’t tell me what’s wrong. Should I talk to her? What should I do?”

The Pity-Party- “I’m SOOOOO sorry! Have you try drinking tea?” The Pity-Party excretes empathy at twice the lethal dosage and wants to know how bad they feel about it. They know how lonely a person looking for advice on the world wide web can be and want you to know they’re looking out for you even if it’s not in any tangible or helpful way. They’ve tried to cure feline leukemia with hugs and when that failed bought 20 more cats just to try it again. They hope some of their human warmth will help lighten your load but this being the Internet, you probably have three other windows open where middle-schoolers are calling you gay for being bad at video games or for talking to women. Having a complete stranger pretend to be your friend for 45 seconds isn’t probably going to be much comfort.

The Magician- “Invent a time machine. Stop the car from hitting your girlfriend. Problem solved.” The reverse of the Pity-Party is someone who is dead certain there’s ALWAYS a solution to your problem. They’ve seen enough episodes of MacGyver to know an assortment of household appliances can fix even the most intricate problems from relationship woes to the deficit. When presented with a non-technical with no owner manual to fall back on, they’ll start coming up with innovative solutions which show that not only have they never been able to hold a conversation with a waitress, they’ve also learned physics from Harry Potter. They’re so over the edge that their only question when you invite them to a funeral is if you prefer a Christian or Zombie resurrection. How they’ve survived long enough to type these things on to a computer shows they’re not even crazy enough to follow their advice which should be enough of a reason not to follow it.

The Columbo- “I’ve never had a problem with my girlfriend… are you sure she’s at the hospital?” Whenever you ask for anonymous help there’s always one guy who thinks it’s step one in an elaborate plan to steal the crown jewels. They take one look at the situation, quickly assess it to be untrue, and start asking questions assuming they’ll be able to pull the thread from your web of lies to show the world you made up something on the internet. Why they’re certain you’re a liar whose problems with your coffeemaker is actually part of a plot for world domination is never clear. I’ve been accused of lying about how many bookstores were in the town I was living. How I would profit from such a lie, even in an Internet argument where cheap pride is almost always the goal, has never been clear to me. Hopefully it involved air ships. Speaking of which…

The 1-uper- “My girlfriend was killed when she was hit by an airship.” On the internet, there’s always someone who has gone through the exact same circumstances as you who would be glad to tell you how much worse their situation was. No matter how specific your problem of getting your face covered in honey at the Church ice cream social and than stung by bees while making eye contact with your crush whose laughing at your predicament, there’s always someone who had that happen with wasps. Even though 1-upers have existed since the time that there were two cavemen comparing how many sides their wheels had there’s still no proper defensive technique to handle the situation. Or at least no adequate solution since dueling has fallen out of favor.

The Savior- “ YES! Talk to her!” The Savior is the one brave soul willing to tell you to do the hard thing you already knew you’re suppose to do. In an ocean of madness, you can count on a solitary voice to point out the painfully obvious. Your problem is probably harder to solve in execution of the solution than in actually finding the solution. Unfortunately their precise logic, expertise in the field, and plentiful evidence for the correct solution still means you’ll actually have to do something. Maybe you’re just better off talking to the Pity-Party again.

To set the scene, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is snooping around on Lex Luthor’s (Kevin Spacey) yacht, I think in-universe Lois Lane has won the Pulitzer five times merely for snooping around the correct Luthor vehicle, and stumbles upon Luthor’s secret wig room (This is why Lex Luthor is actually the greatest comic book villain of all time not that anyone has developed Luthor’s baldness into a fullblown pathos before this moment. Think how emotional a scene of Lex crying while trying to comb his bald head, continuing even after he started beeding. That’s a scene that wins you an Oscar or the comic book version of Oscars) And it’s shot, edited, and acted the same way you would if Lois Lane stumbled upon Lex Luthor’s secret murder room where instead of toupees, there are different mutilated corpses. In the most imaginative use of the camera in the whole film (thanks Bryan Singer), we get scare cuts to each wig at odd angles intercut with images Katie Holmes terrified face. They’re WIGS lady! You’ve seen one everyday on the who-is-he-trying-to-fool head of Perry White. To completely underline how insane this scene is what happens directly after. Lane is trying to escape the yacht before… the wigs eat her I guess and runs into Lex in a bathrobe brushing his teeth. Nothing could better state how stupid Lane’s near existential dread of wigs can be than how harmless their owner is, it could only have been better if Lex called the police (Lane is trespassing on his property). But instead he kidnaps her because that’s just what he does and we enter the bland third act. A brief shining moment though, just a twinkle in Kevin Spacey’s eye, it looked like the movie was going to make the most stirring statement against toupees ever put on film. And I’ll always regret what could have been and celebrate what we got.

So Google’s slow fall into the moral abyss is once again prodded and measured by the media it’s nice to look back to where they went wrong. Well, besides becoming a corporation in the first place the quickest route to pure evil. If you are really want principled, ethical decisions, the most useful thing is to design a system that can make ethical decisions or if you rather focus on the word “principled,” you list out your principles. “Don’t be evil” says a lot about the corporate culture of Google and not really anything good. Oh sure, they’re footloose and fancy-free, casual clothes and a nice cafeteria but they’re really not sure to do with their responsibility as the most important website on Earth. Google could be good, hell they can still be good. They should list their ethics, their principles on what they think about privacy, freedom of information, the internet, etc. But that was never the game. Google needs the efforts and talents of a work force who would be uncomfortable with a regular company so Google claims to be the irregular company. In practice, Google isn’t any different from any giant corporate concern when it comes to ethics- get around anything that will mess with the bottom line. There is no reason for it to fool anyone as long as you focus on their movements, not their sandals.

Newt is the hero to conservative autodidacts. His bloviating on history is the same sort of thing your uncle Bob might bring up during an awkward discussion of politics. The fact Newt’s nonsense is rarely related to the issue at hand is if anything, makes him more attracted- what uncle Bob says rarely makes sense either. Having an intelligent person stare blankly at you and ask, “what?” is the goal. Obfuscation for Newt and uncle Bob is not a sign of poor communication between equals but that you’re so much smarter than the liberal brains that they can’t follow the beautiful logic pouring out of your mouth. Of course, whatever psychic joy Bob gains from his superiority is balanced by having everyone hate his guts. And thus the Newt dilemma: how do you become a presidential candidate and then president if no one likes you?

From all appearances Newt thinks he’s about the problems of what we puny humans call “emotions” (that’s a hard “o” after “em” if you have problems saying it, Mr. Speaker). When you have IDEAS that will REVOLUTIONIZE the UNIVERSE with their AWESOMENESS stopping to care what the non-overmen think or feel would accomplish nothing. But the only way to put these IDEAS into practice is to talk enough people into voting for him. Of course Newt thinks he can do this, and of course there’s some rich dude who also believes in that Newt Magic. The problem is with the GOP regulars who are not completely insane. In the age of unregulated Super-PACs has weaken their control of the money (only the crazy have money now) but the regulars can still count votes and they know how to work to make sure everyone else knows. So Newt Gingrich is like Wiley Coyote (both are very bad ideas men) – he ran off the cliff but hasn’t noticed the gravity. Maybe he won’t look down till November.

Aguirre is barely a presence through the film, seen mostly seated through the first half of the film. The only major physical action he does is throw the burning keg overboard, almost certainly to provide an example of his personal courage. For the most part, Aguirre controls events through other people. His only critic the original commander Don Pedro de Ursua is quickly wounded, discredited, and remains quiet through the rest of the film until his execution. After that, Aguirre will is rarely challenged, when the man he makes puppet emperor insists on trying de Ursua, Aguirre accepts it without challenge. He understands the dream he’s selling will do most of his work. Even as the group is slowly killed by Indians and other mysterious causes there’s a sense more of frustration than fear from everyone accept the African slave. Only near the end after a crew member threatens to return down river (then decapitated on Aguirre’s orders) does Aguirre feels the need to give a speech about what he will do to those who turn against him giving the film its title.

The ludicrous pronouncements made by everyone throughout the movie show how little they understand what is going on around them. The conquistadors feel their new empire based around a non-existent city will make them more powerful than they can dream. Their “overthrow” of Phillip II and the puppet emperor creating borders for his kingdom on the fly shows that they’re not only disconnected from nature but from regular civilization. Their time in the New World had made the impossible look possible until the horror of their reality sets in.

The film does not have much of an arc instead it focuses on episodes during the journey. For example, the only horse is pushed into the river for annoying the new Emperor, he swims to the shore. The ship shares a moment of disbelief, viewing the horse’s escape almost as a desertion. Humans in the movie either die or in the case of the girl disappear into the woods. They are not allowed to simply stand on the shore, passively watching the raft go by. Only an animal can escape their journey.

The rejection of reality reaches its apex when the crew refuses to recognize their own deaths. The monk questions the arrow sticking out of his chest and the rain falling on him as he bleeds to death. Aguirre’s idea is so strong for them that reality has become meaningless. Reality in return rejects them. And for that nature will always have the upper hand over humanity. No matter the civilizations, religions, and systems created by man the jungle will always eat it away. The strongest might be the last alive but what would it mean to be Emperor of an empty kingdom?

The first point is insultingly stupid. A kind of elitist bullshit Democrats are mostly falsely accused of. It being made during the administration of a Harvard and Yale grad who would have difficulties being the assistant dogcatcher (Duties: feeding and cleaning animals, making sure the light if off before heading out for the night) just twisted the knife a bit more. We can simply just ignore this part and pretend it never happen.

And the policy wonk bit seemed like a nice piece of garnish but not the main meal. Senators need to be dealmakers and diplomats; they don’t even know what their bill says if they’re certain about the principles in there. When you can have a staff of fulltime policy wonks, garbage is not going to get past without someone noticing. It helps if the Senator has a firm grasp on policy but it shouldn’t be the starting point, much less the only point. Besides, the guy needed to get elected and Al Franken seemed to cause a lot of controversy that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Well, I was wrong. Senator Al Franken has done as well as I could have hoped for a liberal Minnesotan Senator (the most important being: getting elected) and I’m reconsidering if I should have predicted it or if anyone could. The latter seems unnecessary since people did predict it. But was it from evidence? I’m not against other people’s gut instincts even after living through 8 years of Bush II but I really can’t live on someone else’s intuition. I might have underestimated the need for policy wonkiness. I might have underestimated his ability to win votes. I might be even right and Franken just got really lucky to get elected. But somewhere in the election are the limits of intuition and reason, the interparty arguments about candidates, and the proper background for a Senator of the United States of America. For a SNL alumnus, that’s better than It’s Pat but probably not as good as Wayne’s World.

Albert Pujols, one day 1^st round Hall of Famer, has decided to take a larger offer from Anaheim than what he received from St. Louis. This decision sends Pujols to the 9^th circle of Hell where he can socialize with the other famous traitors Judas Iscariot, Marcus Brutus, and Walter O’Malley. As any decent-minded sportswriter would tell you.

Post-Dispatch sports editor Bernie Miklasz’s editorial has all the classic elements of a lover scorned article: a psychic connection player where Bernie can divine what the player is feeling, evidence that the player was always a bad person, he sucked anyway- that one could assumed there’s a standardize form handed among sportswriters when a great player leaves town.

And what has Pujols done to St. Louis besides deliver world titles? He betrayed his duty to St. Louis. Now, when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch fires people en masse, someone that directly affects members of the community by removing their paycheck, the Sports section has no comment. Why would they? It’s not a sports story. Neither is Albert Pujols duty to a larger community. That’s social commentary. And while sportswriters might be experts on sports strategy and getting a good quote from management; in general their area of expertise is not the affairs of man. But hey, at least they got their villain.