Hooray for Hamas. No, really. Kind of.

I know as a pro-Israel Jew I'm supposed to be dismayed at Hamas' victory in the recent Palestianian elections, but I can't help but feel hopeful about it. Now, unlike before the elections, the necessary conditions for a peace agreement exist. It's a truism in Arab-Israeli politics that no one who makes a career of talking about peace is capable of delivering it. Only a brute with impeccable credentials for hating the enemy will be trusted by his people to make concessions on their behalf. Rabin, Sharon and Arafat were all proof of this. (Barak too, although he was by far the least militant, and consequently lacked the political strength of the others.) Mahmoud Abbas was never going to have the authority to make a peace agreement and make it stick, but Hamas will.

Okay, so Hamas, officially, isn't interested in peace, only the destruction of Israel. Fine -- so was the P.L.O. To stay in power (barring an illegal power grab, which I don't think Israel or the U.S. would tolerate), Hamas is going to have to change its ways to reflect the wishes of the Palestinian people. Are they ready for peace? I'm not sure -- but if they're not, no government is going to push them into it. (I just saw on the New York Times' site that I'm not alone in seeing things this way.)

But the most implausible part was Tom Cruise as a crane operator.

Watched "War of the Worlds" on DVD this weekend. This movie is one long plot hole; call it a plot tunnel. Spielberg really should have updated the "surprise" ending somehow. H.G. Wells' solution was no doubt ingenious 100 years ago, when germ theory was still a novelty, but now it seems hard to imagine an advanced civilization failing to foresee that eventuality. As my wife put it, "I wouldn't even go to India without bringing my own water." Spielberg's twist to the story -- that the tripods have been buried for a million years in preparation for the attack -- actually makes this problem more accute.

But the real problem is with the way the characters' behavior corresponds exactly to the needs of the plot at any given moment. Take the tripods: When they first emerge, they're racing around incinerating everything in sight. That's because this is the part when Ray (Tom Cruise) and his family are running. When we get to the part where they hide, the tripods are suddenly obsessed with examining every nook and cranny of a house rather than demolishing it. And when Ray and his daughter are flushed out, the tripods, instead of zapping people, are taking prisoners and draining their blood. If it's blood they need, though, why'd they atomize so many folks? And why dump a ferry full of juicy humans into the Hudson?

This expediency principle explains why Robbie, Ray's son, is filled with an irrational urge to run towards the tripods. If Robbie were with Ray in hiding, they would have no trouble overpowering Tim Robbins' crazy-eyed basement dweller. It also explains why the crowd waiting for the ferry decides to attack Ray's minivan after apparently allowing dozens of other cars through.

(Personal quibble: Can we retire the hard-hearted, anything-for-a-scoop journalist type already? I know an awful lot of journalists, and on the whole they are at least as compassionate as non-journalists, and maybe more so.)

Perhaps you're saying: What did you expect out of a Tom Cruise-Steven Spielberg blockbuster? In which case, I would say go back and read the reviews. Is it too much to ask that a "sci-fi masterpiece" adhere to some kind of logic?

Two more things to get angry about

A couple of the articles in this week's New Yorker (or last week's, by now, I guess) infuriated me. The first was the books piece by Steven Shapin. Over breakfast Friday, I read about J. Eric Oliver's argument that the obesity epidemic is largely hype, that being fat isn't so bad for you, and that obesity is an imperfect proxy for poor health. Then I got on the bus to work, where there was a man so fat he could only fit in his seat by turning sideways in it and splaying his enormous legs out into the aisle.

Oliver's case is not without its merits, but on the whole it's casuistry. That is, he makes it because it can be made, not because it should be made. As best I can make out, his problem with the term "obesity epidemic" is that it stigmatizes being fat. My question is, the not-necessarily-related phenomenon of anorexia aside, is this such a bad thing? Judging from the way obesity rates continue to climb, the forces propelling our national weight gain are still quite a bit stronger than the stigma. If the feeling of other people looking at you with disgust helps convince that guy on the bus to get off and walk a few blocks, I'm all for it. I'm not arguing that fat people deserve our moral condemnation, just that the apologia can wait for a time when we as a society have figured out how to live among plenty without eating ourselves into early graves.

By the way, as for that part about obesity not being all that bad for you, my wife, who is a doctor, assures me it is bogus.

The other article, by Eric Konigsberg, was even more infuriating in its own way. It's about a gifted child in Nebraska who committed suicide last March at age 14. After the boy, Brandenn, scored extremely high on an IQ test at age 4, his parents, Martin and Patti, decided to homeschool him and segregate him from other kids. By the time you finish the article, it's impossible to avoid concluding that Martin and Patti contributed to Brandenn's death by failing to notice his depression, and by forcing him to lead an isolated life that few children could enjoy.

What's so irritating is that Martin and Patti have considered this conclusion and dismissed it, absolving themselves of any blame. Patti takes the lead in this self-exoneration; when Martin wonders out loud whether he'd made mistakes, Patti assures him, "We did everything right." Konigsberg captures exactly what kind of person Patti is with a single detail: She writes mystery novels, but has them self-published because "I don't want an editor telling me how to change what I write. I don't follow all the conventions of mystery writing."

But Patti's not even the most deplorable person in this narrative. That would be Linda Silverman, the psychologist who measured Brandenn's IQ at 178, declaring him one of the implausibly large number of super-geniuses she has identified over the years. Silverman is the ultimate enabler, encouraging Martin and Patti to homeschool Brandenn, and assuing them, after his death, that he was an angel in human form who killed himself to fulfill his divine mission of organ donation. Silverman, even more than Patti, is a testament to the power of narcissistic delusion.

I'm not saying Martin and Patti should have to live with a crushing burden of guilt on top of their grief. But if they showed just a little bit of humility and critical self-awareness, I would be a lot less inclined to blame them for something that just might truly have been nobody's fault.

A highly selective survey of 2005's best albums

I always look forward to The Onion AV Club's year-end best albums feature, and usually end up buying a bunch of CDs based on its recommendations. I'm too lazy to compile a top-ten list myself, but here are my thoughts on some albums that made AV gang's lists:

The Go! Team, "Thunder, Lightning, Strike"
Bright Eyes, "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning"

Probably my favorite albums of the year. The first was an unexpected delight. Listening to it for the first time on the bus on the way to work, I repeatedly caught myself wearing a stupid grin. "Wide Awake" turned me onto Bright Eyes.

Broken Social Scene, Eponymous
Four Tet, "Everything Ecstatic"
Kanye West, "Late Registration"

All disappointing follow-ups by artists whose last albums I loved. At least the first two got the middling reviews they deserved. The critics who said "Late Registration" is better than its predecessor are guilty of wishful thinking, although I was grateful for the relative lack of moronic skits.

Sigur Ros, "Takk..."
The Decemberists, "Picaresque"
Kings of Leon, "Aha Shake Heartbreak"

These albums, on the other hand, delivered on the promise of their predecessors, and arguably improved on them. All worth buying, if you don't have them.

Calexico with Iron & Wine, "In the Reins"
Of Montreal, "The Sunlandic Twins"
The Mars Volta, "Frances the Mute"

Three great albums that didn't get a lot of ink this year. "Frances" didn't even make the Onion's feature, in fact. I assume it got overlooked because of its unfashionable progginess, but the third song is probably the awesomest rock song of the year. I'm guessing the Mars Volta programmed the disc the way they did specifically so people would have to listen to it as an album rather than as discreet songs, but in a nation of iPod users the tactic backfired. Also, "Frances" dropped early in the year, in January or February -- never a good tactic for making it onto year-end lists.

Common, "Be"
My Morning Jacket, "Z"

Two pleasant, middle-of-the-road albums that critics mysteriously worshipped. I ran out and bought both, only to find them each worth three stars (out of five).

Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine"

The album I'll probably have to go buy on the strength of its reviews, "Be" and "Z" notwithstanding.

Did I miss a memo?

The one that said fans must put their loyalty to Brett Favre above their loyalty to the Packers? (To those of you who don't give a shit about the Packers -- Workest, I'm thinking of you -- my apologies for yet another post on the topic.) Because I completely understand Ted Thompson's unwillingness to sacrifice any real chance of a Super Bowl this decade for a tiny one of getting Favre another ring next season.

I hate to nearly repeat myself, but Favre's defenders are starting to remind me of Bush apologists: trust him, he's doing what he has to do, he's giving everything he has, etc. Now, Favre has certainly earned a little more patience than our no-account president, but still, the price of being a leader is you get graded on results, not effort, and you don't get to pass the buck. One of the most unattractive things I've seen this season is Favre blaming his wide receivers for interceptions. Not that they couldn't have saved a few, but if Favre is looking to call people out on their mistakes, he ought to start with his own. And yet I don't remember him ever sounding particularly repentent. It's always the same thing: I was just trying to make something happen. Sue me.

You know what, though? Even if I were grading on effort, I wouldn't give Favre an A this season, or even a B-plus. The thing people kept saying about him this year is that he has nothing left to prove, and that's exactly how he played much of the time. Go out, heave it downfield, watch it get picked off, shrug, pout, return to sideline. Not that he wouldn't like to win, mind you, just that so much of it comes down to chance anyway; why pretend otherwise? Mr. Fantastic is a wicked man with a heart of tar, but he has a point: Even if there's no possibility you'll get benched, you should play as though there is.