Michael Crowly has a rollicking good piece on Michael Crichton today in The New Republic (not sure whether it's behind a sub wall). It starts like this ...
She took a sip of red wine, then set the glass down on the bedside table. Unceremoniously, she pulled her top over her head and dropped her skirt. She was wearing nothing beneath.
Still in her high heels, she walked toward him. ... She was so passionate she seemed almost angry, and her beauty, the physical perfection of her dark body, intimidated him, but not for long.
--State of Fear by Michael Crichton
It may be hard to fathom that someone capable of writing the above passage is also capable of discovering the hidden truth about global warming that has eluded the world's leading scientists.
... and just gets better.
It goes badly wrong, of course, in failing to cite my review of Crichton's book, but otherwise it perfectly captures the anti-elitism that has, ironically, vaulted both Crichton and Bush into the elite.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:45 pm
09 Mar 2006
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Bart Anderson Posted 3:20 pm
09 Mar 2006
I think you mean the faux anti-elitism, don't you?
I disagree with Crichton, of course, and I'm sad that he seems to have gone off the deep end. Nevertheless, he's an interesting, intelligent guy, and he's a master at popular suspense fiction. I admired his ability to write best-selling science fiction, at a time when most sf novels netted only a few thousand dollars. If only we could write compelling popular fiction about peak oil and climate change -- that would be one way to jumpstart public concern.
An interview with the Times pointed out that Critchton lost his liberalism partly because of a traumatic robbery in his home: One [trauma] was in 2002 having a gun held to his head by burglars, who tied up Taylor, his daughter, then aged 13. "They told me not to move and I figured it was best not to argue," he says. It convinced him we must be tougher on bad guys, be they cat burglars or Saddam Hussein.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1422283,00.html
There but for fortune...
The Crichton article unfortunately is behind a subscriber-only wall. Thanks to you folks at Grist for not putting up any stinkin' subscriber-only walls!
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caniscandida Posted 12:40 am
10 Mar 2006
I also agree that the New Republic's gated-community-like on-line presence is pretty deplorable.
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