...you seem like a fair enough person, but I would challenge your claim that

"...it is a disservice to tailor cinema not to evoke political or social thoughts just so nobody takes offense."

That sounds unduly benign, don't you think? What Medved et al. are concerned about is NOT the evocation of "political or social thoughts" -- that's a straw man. They're against the relentless "evocation" of one particular strain of thought that Hollywood exposes us to ad nauseam.

This is a weird thing I've been running into with people on Avatar. I can separate its visual appeal from its poisonous social/environmental commentary, just like Medved does in the title.

Why are so many people too emotionally attached to Avatar...

Anybody claiming their rail or other transit system "works" needs to find out (1) how much it costs to build, maintain, and rebuild; and (2) what transit share that mode captures.

The guy who thinks rail "works" in LA: at least one other commenter has noted the price of LA rail. I will note that all of LA rail captures 0.5% (1/2 of 1 percent) of LA's transit. For all the money Portland has spent, its rail captures 2.3% of transit share. Seattle's is shaping up to be the bleakest anywhere. Even NYC and its vaunted subways etc. carry 7.4% -- to my knowledge that's the best case in the US.

If you opened a lemonade stand that competed with other lemonade stands and yours lost $1 on every cup sold (and only sold, say, 1% as...