David, I supposed you're goading me with your SMS about the excellent Oscar "performance" of Michael Moore. Read A.O. Scott's review in The NY Times: "The slippery logic, tendentious grandstanding and outright demagoguery on display in 'Bowling for Columbine' should be enough to give pause to its most ardent partisans, while its disquieting insights into the culture of violence in America should occasion sober reflection from those who would prefer to stop their ears." That review pretty much says it all, but A.O. Scott should have twisted the knife in much deeper. To be sure, there are some excellent moments in that "documentary," both aesthetically and politically, but anybody who praises Moore for being a useful "counterweight" to conservative voices prove themselves more interested in striking an intellectual pose than in presenting anything approximating the truth. Shame on you, Mr. Moore, you sorry excuse for a thinking person.

CORRECTION: I misinterpreted David's SMS, which called Moore's performance "spectactular," a knowing reference to Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, one of my formative texts, in which that word means something close to "hype based on illusion." OK, yes, I agree: Here you have Michael Moore calling his own work "non-fiction" while dissing the work of George Bush as "fiction" when in fact both are mere performances, profoundly disconnected from reality. Words, words, words. Yadda, yadda, yadda.