No Impact, Man

No Impact Man (2008)
directed by Laura Gabbert & Justin Schein

I thought I was going to be lightly amused by this film that documents a writer's self-aggrandizing attempt to reduce his footprint on the earth.   Instead I found myself furious at the self-righteous sham that Colin Beavan engaged in.  No Impact Man should be called No Impact Scam, because the real trick is the commodification of a concept and the packaging of that for the profit of Colin Beavan.    Nice trick, No Impact Man.   Even the name No Impact Man is like a supervillain taunt.  I imagine him wearing some sort of skintight hemp outfit with a big zero on it and cackling while stroking his no-impact goattee and counting up the cash that this scam has brought in for him.   I'm sure all of this has "raised awareness" of something for somebody at some point, but let's call it what it is: a writer's scam to avoid having to get a real job as a minimum wage slave.  

Forming his Legion of Doom, No Impact Man declares an arbitrary set of rules that define his attempt to have no environmental impact.   I would have thought that shutting down the laptop and not blogging would have been high on the list of things that make an environmental impact, but hey, No Impact Man has to be seen making no impact otherwise how would people know that he is a supervillain.

And what would a supervillain be without sidekicks.  No Impact Man's sidekicks are Business Week Wife and Innocent Child and of course the ever present but never mentioned No Impact Dog.
Probably the most egregious omission in this film is the very high impact dog that No Impact Man keeps in Manhattan.   It's the size of a small horse.   And in the deleted scenes it looks like there might be a second dog in the household, too.  And yet there is never a mention of the dog in the film.   I haven't read his book, so I don't know if he mentions the dog in there.   But in the film this horselike hound is a glaring indicator of the conspiracy of silence that people like No Impact Man engage in when it comes to the arbitrary rules of "green" that they attempt to enforce.   While we see Colin and Michelle argue about having a second child there is never a question that maybe keeping a horse-sized dog in Manhattan is as irresponsible and selfish as keeping a donkey would be, and far less useful and clean to boot.

In fact, if No Impact Man managed to impact zoning and regulations so that people in New York could keep small pack animals it might go a long way towards creating the kind of environmentally friendly world that he claims to want.   A donkey would do all the things that their bicycles would do and it would also be a nice pet and could take the place of the otherwise useless carnivore they are keeping captive.   And yeah, I am curious if they put their dog on a vegetarian diet like themselves or if they granted the dog a big impact waiver to eat meat.   The fact that nobody ever questions the matter of the dog in the film is indicative of the kind of hucksterism that this project represents.

Another key moment is when a company lends No Impact Man a solar cell to power his laptop when he shuts down the power to his apartment.   Must be nice.   Must be grand to live a life where people just give you things.   Wow, I could try to lower my impact if people just gave me things.  I'd ride a donkey all thirty miles to my job every day if someone wanted to give me a donkey and some fodder.   But nobody's making a movie about me so I have to pay for gas and drive to work instead of hooking up my laptop to my free solar power so I can blog about how I walked up some stairs to feed some meat to my dog while I eat local Manhattan lettuce for lunch.

Initially I thought that No Impact Woman would be the villain here, what with her addiction to shopping and her job shilling for the man at Business Week.   But a few minutes watching No Impact Man's controlling personality and sullen lack of humor and I can see why I'd want to throw myself into my work and maybe get my happiness through shopping or a child because No Impact Man is a jerk.  And for better and for worse he's a jerk with an ideology and a plan which makes him both interesting and more of a jerk than your average plain vanilla jerk.   I suppose that explains some of the attraction she might have for him.   Still, he comes off as a big enough jerk that you kind of want her to go ahead and fill the house with expensive handbags.

I guess this whole project would be less ridiculous if No Impact Man was living in a suburb with even the smallest sliver of land associated with it.   I'd like to see how he feels about bike lanes if he or his wife had to bike thirty miles to work and thirty miles back.    (A donkey cart would be much better for this.  If anyone has one they'd like to donate to me, I'll take it.)   It's really quaint to keep a litter box full of mulch.  Keeping a pile in the yard is actually hard work, buddy.   One of the most telling images in the film for me was when No Impact Man decided to visit a farm and there he is standing in a field and scribbling stuff down in a notebook like Nancy Drew so that he can "learn about where food comes from."  Here's the answer:  your food comes from people who actually sweat and work so that you can sit in your apartment tossing meat chunks to your dog and scribble a blog entry on your free solar powered laptop, you worthless remora.  Oh, I stand corrected, a remora actually performs a function in return for its symbiotic existence.  

A lot of my vehemence (and I seem to be harboring a lot of it) has to do with the faux innocent naivete of No Impact Man's project.  "Oh, I didn't know that it was so hard to walk up all these stairs."  "Oh, I did't realize that keeping food in a clay pot wouldn't actually refrigerate it.   How stupid do you have to be to attempt to replicate a means of keeping things cool that is used in Nigeria?   I'm sorry, maybe I'm just ignorant of the advanced refrigeration techniques of the Yoruba, but frankly I don't think so.  I suspect that some bigger fraud sold No Impact Man a bill of goods about how keeping a pot in a second pot with some wet sand in between would make for a cheap refrigerator and because No Impact Man is equal parts huckster and rube, he went for it.    Maybe he's just lucky nobody tried to sell him on the idea of putting a layer of dog poop mixed with straw all around his house as insulation like they do in Zampoochia.

Seeing the piles of people jump on the bandwagon and follow No Impact Man's project is seriously disheartening.   Look, he's riding a bicycle on the Today Show!  But if watching No Impact Man peddle his story to the media is annoying, watching him peddle his bill of goods to college students is cringe-worthy.   It's insidiuous, not because being aware of your environmental impact is bad, but because thinking that you can live your life like No Impact Man and thus save the planet is bullshit plain and simple.   Do we live in a wasteful society?  You bet we do.   And do stunts like this have any long term impact?  Well, my answer is no.   And if your only response is that things like this experiment "raise awareness" then I can only say that raising awareness doesn't actually lead to long term changes. If it did, then there would be no pets allowed in Manhattan and they'd replace the motor vehicles with more organic donkey carts.   But they're never going to do that, are they?

I never thought I'd say this, but the real hero of this movie is an old long-haired paunchy hippy.   Mayer Vishner is the only person in the course of the film to question No Impact Man's premise and challenge the fact that what he does in this stunt cannot make up for the lifestyle that he and his wife encourage.

MAYER:  At the risk of being too personal, but, you know, it's not, it's just the facts. Michelle writes for Business Week.   


COLIN:  Yes. 


MAYER:  Millions of trees are cut down on a regular basis in order to promote the thoroughly fallacious propaganda that American corporate capitalism is good for the people, good for you and me. You know, now, if it's your contention that she makes up for it, that evens out because she doesn't take the elevator in your 5th Avenue co-op, I have to say you're either dishonest or delusional.

I think it was awesome that this moment was kept in the film by the filmmakers.   And while you might dismiss Mayer Vishner as a lefty, he's at least on the mark about the kind of "I recycled so I can keep working for the company that's making all of planned obsolescent products that can't be recyled" feel good activity that No Impact Man engages in.   No Impact Man's real superpower seems to be his power to quietly dodge the old hippie's thorny question and never address it.   And like the issue of the No Impact Horse Sized Dog, it's easy to bury the question because nobody wants to touch the issue of the working woman (even if she's working at a place that depends on the very system that her husband claims is destroying the world) just like nobody dares to question the notion of keeping a horse sized dog on 5th Avenue because dogs are cute and friendly.

And that's what's so damned galling about things like No Impact Man.  They give us a veneer of effort to hide our structural excess.   And to see people who have plenty of time on their hands preaching nonsense when so many of the rest of us have to work so hard just to keep from drowning is just plain evil.   Every day when I'm driving home from work and sometimes when I'm driving to work there are people like No Impact Man biking along in leisurely fashion and I think to myself "it must be nice to not have to be at work in five minutes so that I can just ride a bicycle and slow down the cars driven by poor schmucks who can't afford to cycle around in the country that has enriched the very jerks like No Impact Man who now tell me that I should do more to consume less of the things that made him rich."
I think in long sentences when I drive.  

So, No Impact Man made me fume in a way that I'm sure was horrible for the environment.   So I'm just going to go back to my compost heap and do my part to make the world slightly less artificial without making a blog to glorify myself while doing it.  

Documentis Personae
Colin Beavan, a somewhat naive jerk who decides to try an experiment
Michelle Conlin, the spouse of said naive jerk.  Writer for Business Week.  
Mayer Vishner, the hero of this movie

Original Music by Bobby Johnston

Extra Features
1. A Letter From Beth
Beth offers the No Impacts access to her books and periodicals. That's so nice of her.
2. Beachwalk & Talk
I really want to know if that second horse sized dog belongs to No Impact Man.
3. Bike Rant
This scene highlights the worst tyranny in the country, that of the homeowners' association, or in this case the co-op bozos who think a bicycle on the street outside of their building would be an eyesore.
4. Bobby Johnston, Composer
This may have been the most entertaining highlight of this experience for me.  I really liked the composer's methodology and the music is really light and fun.  
5. Building Super
Another hero.   This guy has to carry the weight of other people's attempts to have no impact or high impact or whatever.
6. Extended Mayer Rant
I was disappointed that the "extended" rant didn't include the key portion of the rant that was in the actual film.  
7. Freegans
I've always wondered about the incidence of parasites in food acquired through dumpster diving.
And I will continue to wonder because this scene doesn't answer that question.
8. How To Make A Pot In A Pot
The question isn't "how?" but rather "why?"  Nigerian style refrigeration?   Yeah.
9. How To Make Vinegar
Slightly useful if you don't already know how to make vinegar.
10.  Pregnancy Reveal Alternative
Not nearly as suspenseful as the way we find out in the final cut.
11.  No Impact Date
I think I'm going to call up someone tomorrow and ask her out on a No Impact Date.  
12. Scrabble
I can't believe they cut out this fascinating scene of people playing scrabble and talking about the environment.
13.  Sundance Q&A
Nobody asked and nobody answered any of the questions I wanted answered.
14. The Future of Bees
Maybe if there weren't so many itinerant hives and people were better about keeping local hives instead of trucking them in and taking them away we wouldn't have to worry about the colony collapses.  Also a reduced dependence on pesticides.  Oh, why do I bother suggesting things like this.  Just recycle some cups and take the stairs with that bag of meat for your horse-sized dog in Manhattan.    
15. Transportation Alternatives
And once again, nobody mentions donkey carts.   Because nobody wants to have to deal with the dirty reality of what it would take to make things better.  Clean air means smellier streets.  

Oscilloscope Releases
1. Gunnin' For that #1 Spot
Another documentary about people who look at basketball as their great chance.  Cheery.
2. Flow
Water and who controls it.  
3. Dear Zachary
There's only so much personal tragedy documentary I can handle.  I know this is a good story, but still.
4. Wendy and Lucy
Has Michelle Williams made a genuinely happy film lately?  The only way this one could seem less chipper would be if she were looking at basketball as her only hope out of a hopeless life.
5.  Frontrunners
People running for president of their high school class.   I'm sure these little sociopaths are fascinating.
6. Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie
If this movie actually does break out of the confining genre expectations of a Bigfoot Movie I'll be genuinely surprised.
7. Treeless Mountain
A depressing Korean film.   Just what I wanted for Christmas.   I'm sure it's also heartwarming in some way.
8.  Scott Walker 30th Century Man
Looks like it would make a good double feature with The Devil and Daniel Johnston.
9. The Garden
This is kind of the opposite of No Impact Man.   It also highlights why genuine attempts at doing something naturally constructive with urban land is more difficult than the window dressing that No Impact encourages.
10. Burma VJ
Now would be an interesting time to revisit this doc about Burmese protests.
11. Unmistaken Child
Another Tibetan lama story.  
12. No Impact Man
The trailer looks more playful than the actual people or the story is.

Win Ben Stein's Trojan Horse

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)
Directed by Nathan Frankowski
Screenplay by Kevin Miller & Ben Stein

Expelled is possibly the worst Holocaust documentary I've ever seen.   First of all, it seems to conflate the tragedy of the Shoah with the erection of the Berlin Wall.   And then the filmmakers conflate all of this with the issues of evolution, eugenics, and contemporary academic freedom which are only tenuously related to the Holocaust.  

It's a shame that this film keeps mixing things up so badly, because Ben Stein's reaction to the Holocaust is genuinely moving.   You can sense his emotional connection.   Mostly you can sense this because of the way he sits at Dachau holding his head in his hands.  Ben Stein obviously feels the pain of the Holocaust deeply and while he does seem to get it confused with the Berlin Wall and the scourge of Soviet Communism I can tell that the Holocaust means a lot to him because everytime he disagrees with something or someone he compares it to the Holocaust (and sometimes to the Berlin Wall, but like I said, he seems to get confused sometimes.)

According to Expelled Charles Darwin was Hitler's intellectual forefather and people believing in Darwin's theory of evolution caused the Holocaust--and also the Berlin Wall.   Also, according to this film, people who believe in evolution are firing people from their jobs for not agreeing with them, which is sort of like putting up a Berlin Wall of ideas and then rounding up the ideas you disagree with and murdering them in some sort of metaphorical Holocaust.   And just because it's a metaphor doesn't mean that it can't be real, so Ben Stein goes to concentration camps and the Berlin Wall to show us that ideas can become real and that people who believe in evolution won't rest until they've put everyone else behind a wall and then murdered them.    It's really hard to disagree with this logic.   And I won't disagree with it, because Ben Stein is right and there really was a Berlin Wall and a Holocaust so he must be right about everything else too.    That means the people shown in this film are obviously being persecuted by the academic Evolution establishment.

Ben Stein is absolutely right about how academic institutions are against freedom of ideas.
I have a chemist friend who has been trying for years to get grants to publish his work on the transformation of base metals into gold but who is instead forced by the academic establishment to teach a form of chemistry he does not believe in just to keep his job.    This isn't the free marketplace of ideas he imagined when he escaped across the Berlin Wall carrying his Holocaust survivor father on his back.  There's something to be said for giving people the absolute freedom to say and do what they want in an academic setting.   Call me Laocoon, but I just can't shake the feeling that Ben Stein and his Trojan Horse gang don't actually want intellectual freedom and that there are plenty of ideas they'd like to shut down if they could.   That doesn't excuse the people who won't let my friend teach alchemy to his students, but it does make me awfully suspicious about the motivations of the "victims of persecution" that Ben Stein quickly equates with the victims of Hitler and Stalin.  
I just get a feeling that Ben Stein's friends are planning a party that I'm not going to be invited to.
I guess that's sort of the way people who weren't Nazis or Communists must have felt when confronted with the rise of said groups.  (See, Ben Stein.  I can equate what you're doing to what the Nazis and Communists were doing.   You've made it so easy.  All I have to do is stroke my chin gravely and close my eyes and suddenly it looks like I'm thinking of you as a threat as serious as Hitler or Stalin.   And maybe you and your Trojan Horse are that kind of threat to me.)

So why did I even bother to see this film?  Because I was curious.  Because I've actually seen how petty academics use their small power to enforce literary discipline on those who might question their way of seeing and talking about things.   And when academics can be this vicious in the relatively innocuous fields of literature and fine arts you can imagine the political stakes when we're talking about disciplines like science, politics, law and history.   So I was prepared to see someone go after the way that academics control the way we are allowed to speak about topics and the way the academy can use the badge of institutions to decide who is or isn't a credible speaker.   The tricky thing here is that if Ben Stein had gone after the literary enforcers he could have shot fish in a barrel when it comes to making people look silly for shutting other opinions down for arbitrary reasons.   But with science we know there's a lot more going on.   My other reason for watching this film is that I'm not an atheist, and I've found the radical atheism of the self-proclaimed defenders of science to be (to put it mildly) off-putting.
I was hoping that Ben Stein would have a go at them without resorting to the things which he (of course) resorted to.   But then, I should have expected that because Ben Stein has a Trojan Horse of the Apocalypse and it's about more than just Intelligent Design or finding a room to acknowledge God in science, it's about gaining ground for the religion of the rich and the ignorant to displace not only the secular creeds of academia but in so doing to also displace the religion of the oppressed and the religion of those who believe in a God that is not dependent on remaining ignorant of the natural world.   I suspect the people in Ben Stein's Trojan Horse are carrying a large number of corollary opinions that might even shock Ben Stein if he thought he'd have to live long enough to see his friends take dominion and make them come to pass.    But Ben Stein doesn't care, because he's made a strategic alliance and he's sticking to it.  

I think what bothers me most about this film is that technically speaking I believe in the notion of "intelligent design" insofar as I believe in one God (indivisible) who created the universe and who cannot be quantified or contained by our meagre senses and imagination.    So I should be on the side of people arguing against people like Richard Dawkins who insist on the absolute belief that God doesn't exist.
But something about this film just sticks in my craw and so I feel like Laocoon staring at the Trojan Horse wondering what's hidden on the inside of it that makes me mistrust it.   I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about this whole project makes me feel like a little queasy, like these people are secretly plotting to put up a new Berlin Wall and then commit a Holocaust-like genocide.
I suspect a bait and switch here and that I'm not actually welcome in the ID camp because the intelligent design in question is much more specific than they want to let on and Ben Stein won't spoil their game by admitting it.  Because Ben Stein has a whole herd of Trojan Horses and multiple agendas at play.
It would be facile to say that Ben Stein is unleashing something he may not be able to control.   And maybe Ben Stein has come to some sort of arrangement wherein he won't find the world he's created all that uncomfortable.  But for me, I look at the people at the Discovery Institute and I have to wonder if my belief in God would in fact be welcome there or if I would be first on their list of people to be sent to the work camp.  (Oh, did I just equate the supporters of Intelligent Design with Hitler and Stalin?  Who do I think I am?  Ben Stein?)

Of course, this is all part of the theological problem I have with both the extremist atheists and their ID opponents all of whom seem to insist on the need to "prove" the existence of God.
Everybody seems to be missing the point about what God is.   If you believe in a limited God that can be proven then you don't really understand the concept.    God is not an atom.   There is no molecule of God any more than there is a molecule of Love or Goodness or Evil or Hate in this world.   Mr. Dawkins is incorrect in his insistence that this disproves the existence of such things.   But Ben Stein is equally wrong in hitching his wagon to people who are bent on trying to prove that there are such atomic proofs of inanimate concepts.    I believe that God exists.  Unlike other concepts which I believe only exist because of our belief, I believe God exists with or without our belief.   Some might say that the existence of a universe and existence is sufficient proof that a prime mover had to create these things.   I say that God would exist even if there was no universe and even if there was no "existence" as we know it.
Any God that can be proven to exist in a finite way is a paltry idea compared to this perception of God.
God isn't a particle and can't be proven or disproven by us.   God is everywhere and nowhere.   You don't need to come up with a numerological code or a cipher to prove that God exists and the existence of a fossil from millions of years ago does not disprove God.   It only disproves those beliefs of man that have nothing to do with God.  
And maybe that's my real problem with Ben Stein and his Trojan Horse friends:  they believe in a small weak God who they can trot out when they want something and when they need an excuse to put their dirty hands on me to rule me with their tyranny.   The want to believe in a God that needs them.  I believe in a God that I need.

I guess if I wanted to think about important things then this film was a great launching point for arguments and discussions about things I care about deeply.   But as a piece of propaganda, I hope Ben Stein chokes on this film someday and I hope his Trojan horsemen suffocate in their wooden decoy.  

Documentis Personae
Ben Stein -- former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
Dr. Richard Von Sternberg -- with a name like that you'd think this guy would be the villain of a film about the Berlin Wall and the Holocaust.  Von Sternberg is secretly planning on acquiring a nuclear device which he will most likely detonate in order to precipitate the apocalypse....just kidding.  (Seriously, you litigious bastard, I was just kidding.  If you even try to sue me for this little bit of satire I'll make you eat your own feces, you lousy kraut.)
Dr. Caroline Crocker -- an immunopharmacologist adjunct professor whose contract with George Mason U. wasn't renewed because she may have said that Jesus intelligently designed brownies in her home-ec class.  Just kidding.  Actually, Sweet Caroline is a rogue CIA vampire hunter who is trying to stop the evil Dr. Von Sternberg from acquiring a weapon of mass destruction.
Dr. Michael Egnor -- a neurosurgeon who doesn't like evolution.

Dr. Robert J. Marks II -- Firstborn son of the Holy Roman Emperor Robert J. Marks I who first came up with the plan to detonate a nuclear device with the hope of precipitating the apocalypse.   Just kidding.

Actually, Professor Marks II is a cybernetic drone who consumes old people's medicine as fuel.   

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez -- A Cuban astronomer (which is something like a real astronomer only pressed together and grilled)

Dr. Paul Nelson -- grandson of Byron Christopher Nelson and a believer that the Earth is younger than we think and thus not old enough to drink.   

Dr. William Albert Dembski -- A mathematician whose name is perilously close to Dumbski which is perilously close to being Eastern European and thus he must be a secret communist.    

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer -- A major dude in the Discovery Institute.
Dr. Jonathan Wells -- a biologist who was inspired by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church to go out and take on Darwinism.
Dr. David Berlinski -- claims that he lives in the oldest building in Paris, really likes to lean back in chairs
Dr. Walter Bradley -- Engineering prof.
Dr. Uta George -- Director of the Hadamar Memorial  (Hadamar was the site of mass sterilization and killing of "undesirables" by the Nazis.)   

Dr. Peter Atkins, British chemist and atheist
Dr. Hector Avalos -- author of Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East
Dr. Richard Dawkins -- scientist, atheist, brewer
Dr. Eugenie Scott -- scientist, chief lightning rod for intelligent designees
Dr. Michael Shermer -- founder of The Skeptics Society, if you think you can be sure of that
Mark Souder -- former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana.  Resigned in 2010 after admitting to an affair with one of his part-time staffers.
Pamela Winnick -- a writer
Dr. Daniel Dennett -- another atheist
Dr. P.Z. Myers -- one more atheist

School Janitor, a school janitor....John Deonarine
Sara, a student....Lili Asvar (Viva Laughlin, Hannah Montana, Dexter, Greek, Women's Murder Club, Worst Week, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Love Hurts, An American Carol)
Student....Toi Rose aka Antonio Christina
Multiple animation voices....Adam Behr

Original Music by Andy Hunter

Cinematography by Nathan Frankowski & Ben Huddleston

Previews

An American Carol 

A comedy about a Michael Moore-like character who is visited by several ghosts and also there will probably be some fart jokes in this film.  Was David Zucker ever funny?

Special Features
1. Fossil Hunter by John B. Olson -- An illustrated ad for a novel.  
"Fossil hunter is a delightful romantic thriller.  A female Indiana Jones off on a scientific treasure hunt..." -- Philip E. Johnson
Ugh.   I wonder if this Lara Croft ripoff at least has the decency to also believe in moral virtues or is that too much consistency to ask of people?
I'm fairly sure that even my curiosity will not prevail upon me to read this book, but hey at least I got to see the pretty drawings of the fossil hunter lady.  

2. An Important Message From Ben Stein:  Academic Freedom Petition 
Is one Trojan Horse not enough for Ben Stein?  Nope.  Here's a little Trojan Pony for you kids.  
This is the sort of thing that sounds like something I should get behind.  I want academic freedom.  I want to be able to write papers about phrenology and to criticize Derrida and Habermas without being pilloried by some jerks with tenure.   But the Academic Freedom Petition is a little like the Keep America Clean Act.  It sounds nice until you get to the second line where they slip in the part about the people they want to clean out of America.   That's the Academic Freedom Petition in a nutshell.  It's a good idea if all you know about it is the title.   It sounds downright patriotic.   But it's about as patriotic as the various actions of the government that allow for tossing people into our Cuban dungeons based on secret evidence that nobody has to show to anybody else.  

3.  Expelled: The Book 
David Berlinksi, who really likes to lean back in chairs and who lives in Parisian luxury has written the companion book to this film.   It features an attractive female archaeologist who fights off vampire trolls in the search for true science and faith.    Also, it has some pictures of Ben Stein holding his head in his hands and pretending to be sad about something.  

4. Practical Applications
The Design Hypothesis and Medical Research 
I think this is technically speaking a deleted scene, but since admitting that any scene from this film was deleted in editing would be tantamounting to saying that the director's creation was imperfect it's not called a deleted scene.    Oh, and I know I'm only half-joking about this being the reason it's not called a deleted scene.   At any rate, I don't know why this gem about medical science benefitting from the idea of a design (and thus a designer) was left out of the film.   It is of great comfort to me to think of HMOs in the future using this great science as their guide to

5.  Expelled Theatrical Trailer
If only Ben Stein had run this documentary like an actual classroom instead of like the kind of propaganda film created by the Nazis and Communists who he claims to hate but whose style of information he really seems to have internalized.   If this had been set up as an actual classroom discussion and had been left up to a certain degree of genuine improvised questioning and answering the end result would have been something along the lines of the academic freedom that Ben Stein is asking us to sign up for.   But Ben Stein doesn't want academic freedom.  He just wants to make sure that his ideas can shut up other people's ideas.  

6.  Bonus Music Tracks by Andy Hunter
"Stars"
This song is certainly not making the case for intelligent design of music.  
This is the worst piece of music I have intentionally sat through in a long time.
"Technicolour"
I stand corrected.   THIS is the worst piece of music I've sat through in a long time.   I used to believe in music until I heard this song.  Now I realize that music is just a haphazard collection of sounds clobbered together and given a name.
"Out Of Control"
I believe in God, but I don't believe in Andy Hunter.   Why did you make this music Andy Hunter?  Why?   I guess this is better than crappy metal, but not by much.   Is this Ben Stein's way of punishing the people who watch this DVD?