I did something very odd today: I drove to the city and watched the Academy Awards on the Big Screen. The Kelso Theater and Pub brightened up the silver screen with all the stars of the "firmament."

Maybe it was illusion, the illusion of seeing the big spectacle in a theater, not on a small TV screen, that has me judge the 79th Anniversary Academy Awards as one of the most professional I've witnessed yet. Or maybe it's simply that Ellen DeGeneris is the perfect host. Hostess.

I saw so few of the nominated films that it was hardly worth bothering, in its way. Oh, well. This is part of our culture, and to not watch the Oscars is to blind oneself to an integral part of the world's aesthetic life.

Like everybody else, I was pleased by the "international" and "diverse" flavor of this batch of nominees. Unlike everybody else, I'm getting tired of being preached at about global warming.

Leo and Al and Melissa all reiterated this theme, on stage. With some good jokes, I admit, but . . .

Here's my complaint: This "moral issue, not political" rap is ready-made for sanctimonious Hollywooders. And it's simply not true. If climate change is truly a worldwide problem (and I suspect it is) then it must be a political issue, too.

The "moral issue, not political" slogan is a way to sugar-coat the issue for people who can't think. And since most people can't think, when it comes to science or politics (or religion, or even art, for that matter), this kind of sloganeering seems necessary.

And yet it's the wrong way for environmental prophets of doom to convince skeptics of their doomsaying. At least, it certainly turns me off. (But then, I'm not normal, so maybe this whole rant of mine is pointless.)

The right way might be to not trot out patent nonsense (which is very hard for people in Hollywood, or politics . . . and that includes Al Gore), not make too much of current trends, always pretending that the shape of every curve is always even, or increasing. Admit when they are wrong. Confront the obvious truth, like "sure, environmentalists have been wrong about the ice caps before (Ehrlich saying that increased pollution would cause global cooling and therefore an increase in ice at the poles, causing the Arctic cap to SINK and THEREFORE the oceans to rise!), but telling us why THIS scenario they NOW tout is RIGHT.

Tough to do. I guess that's why they stick with the simplest of models and the simplest of mottos. Anything more, and people might think too much. Brains would explode.

And the planet would heat up even more, with all the emissions from exploding brains.

Oh, well. At least Jerry Seinfeld made sense about morality at the movies. In theaters, the theaters sell us junk food at horrendous markup, and we leave the trash on the floor. That's the deal.

Yes, Jerry, that is the deal.

And when we view the Oscars, we get preached at with absurd messages in exchange for seeing a few of our favorite moviemakers get honored, and a few of our favorite actresses parade on stage in stunning (and, most importantly, revealing) dresses.

That's the deal.

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