Gore

I wasn't going to write anything about Gore Vidal, but after some thought....well, what the hell.  why not?

Gore Vidal was one of the more interesting second raters.  I haven't read all his fiction, but I have read the historical novels and Myra Breckinridge.  As Edward Abbey pointed out, it's the democracy of time that decides what is and isn't great writing.  As much as I enjoyed some of Vidal's novels, I don't think any of them stand with the best of his age.  Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Henry Roth, James Jones, and Jack Kerouac all wrote better novels than Gore Vidal.  And as far as his political essays....Let's just say that they had a shelf life.  Of course, I could be wrong about Vidal.  Time will tell.

The Three Rs

In my last post I wrote that Mitt Romney marginalized himself with the choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate.  That he made the election a choice between the vision of Barack Obama and Ryan, rather than between Obama and himself.  I found it telling that when Romney introduced Paul Ryan as his Veep choice, he referred to him as the next President of the United States.  Of course, Mittens walked that back, something  he does quite well.

About twenty five years ago I violated my one romantic rule.  I fell for a woman who didn't share my values.  While a certain compatibility of interests is nice, it's having the same moral compass that's important.  Looking back after all these years, I find it strange to think that the only woman I ever wanted to marry was a conservative Republican.  Trying to understand the way she thought, I read her favorite author, also the favorite author of Paul Ryan.  Hard as it is to believe, I read The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and Anthem by Ayn Rand.   The third R on this years Repug ticket.

While Rand liked to think of her self as a philosopher and intellectual, I have to say, I didn't see it.  Objectivism, the catch all name that she invented to label her creed, was far from an actual philosophy.  Mostly it was a wet dream for sociopaths, with the occasional rape fantasy thrown in for lurid affect.  Far from rejecting authoritarianism and embracing individual freedom, as the Randites suppose, she merely argued for an authoritarianism of the rich and powerful rather than the Soviet model of her native Russia.

I think one of the things that Rand understood, and that Paul Ryan may or may not understand, is that governments and economic systems do not exist in a state of nature; that they are things we create in order to get us to a desired end.  The world that Rand, Ryan, and Romney wish to live in is a harsh and cruel world, where the vast majority of people are ruled by a sociopathic elite of  rich and powerful laissez-faire capitalists, where the sick, the elderly, and the less fortunate are left to fend for themselves.  That's not the world I want to live in.

Paul Ryan, whose father died when he was a teenager, who was supported by government entitlements, joins the long list of those who hate the very system that made their success possible.  Ayn Rand, who signed up for Medicare in the last years of her life, would have been proud.

And worst of all, Ayn Rand wasn't even a very good writer.

The Hail Mary

I'm assuming that the Paul Ryan rumors are not some ill conceived feint on the part of Mitt Romney.  I'm assuming that when I wake up tomorrow, the Wisconsin representative will have been named to the Republican ticket as Mitt Romney's running mate.

A long time ago a vice presidential pick was about balance.  If the top of the ticket was from New England, it was a pretty sure bet that the Presidential nominee would be an unknown quantity in California.  Therefore it made sense to put a westerner in the second slot.  And then along came television.  In our age, the Presidential nominee goes on the talk show circuit, buys ad time, and in the end, not only do we know him, we're sick of the guy.

Now, the choice of a veep is seen as a candidate's first important decision.  John McCain chose Sarah Palin and was viewed as foolish and unreliable for a pick that was so obviously out of her league, and with out the intelligence to grow into the position.

So what does Mitt's choice of Paul Ryan say about him?  What Romney has done is change the whole dynamic of the race.  Starting tomorrow this race will be about the Ryan plan, the cutting of government, getting rid of Medicare as we know it, and eliminating as much of the social safety net as possible.  Mitt Romney has marginalized himself.  He might as well step aside and put Ryan in the top spot on the Republican ticket because know it's about Barack Obama's vision versus Paul Ryan's vision.  Mitt is like the last guy chosen in the NFL draft; Mr. Irrelevant.

Bang Bang, Shoot 'em Up

Let me get this straight.  Jared Lee Loughner strolls into a super market parking lot with his legally acquired arsenal,  opens fire, kills six and wounds thirteen including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  He gets hauled up before Judge Larry Burns who decides he's too bat shit crazy to stand trail.  So Burns orders Loughner to a federal prison hospital to be forcibly medicated.  A couple of years latter, with his schizophrenia under control, he returns to the Burns court, now cured, so that he can plead guilty and avoid a death sentence.

Okay, I admit it.  I'm not a big time lawyer or a distinguished judge.  But shouldn't the issue be whether or not Loughner was nuts when he pulled the trigger rather than now, after two years of forced treatment?  Ah, but we have to worry about the feelings of the victims.  If feelings are what's important, than perhaps we should just take a poll.  Thumbs up, treatment and release when no longer a danger to society.  Hand held on a level plane, then life in prison and hope the guy doesn't get shived in the shower.  Thumbs down, then a quick visit from the needle.  Ah Rome, what we can learn form your barbaric ways.

Once again, I'm making the unpopular point that the insane should be treated rather than imprisoned for their crimes.  I ran across an interesting study from the U.S. Justice Department in 2006.  (From the Bush Justice Dept, not those socialist hippy Obama guys.)  It seems that over half of  the prison population was suffering from some sort of mental illness a way back in '06.   Forty-five percent in the federal system.  Come on guys, wouldn't it be cheaper to treat people with mental illness before they end up in jail?  Goodness, that might require a national health care system.  Can't have that.

Meanwhile back in the cesspool, also Known as Texas justice.  The lone star state has executed a man with the lofty I.Q. of 61.  Didn't the Supreme Court rule that you can't execute the mentally retarded.  Ah shoot.  He weren't no retard, he was fakin' it.  Remind me to avoid Texas if I can ever afford another vacation.

Free Pussy Riot!

Hooliganism! Religious Hatred!. Proving once again that Russia has made some progress, but not enough, from it's Soviet past, Russian prosecutors are asking for three years in prison for members of Russian punk band, Pussy Riot.  So what did the three girls do?  Goodness gracious great balls of fire, they linked the Russian Orthodox Church to Mad Putz Putin, the semi-elected leader of all the Russias.  Specifically they sang and danced their protest tune in Moscow's Orthodox Cathedral.  Okay, maybe in bad taste.  I've read about, but have never seen the band in action, so I don't have an opinion on that.  But come on, a threat to public safety, implied by hooliganism?  And why shouldn't religion be mocked?  Putz Putin is one sensitive autocrat.  The truth of the matter.

And then there is Westboro Baptist, the completely vile quasi-church that seems obsessed with the nonexistent homosexual threat.  I've got this problem.  I think that we give privileges to those we like, or at least tolerate.  What makes something a right is when we extend those privileges to those we despise.  A veteran's benefit bill just signed into law by President Obama, does a lot of good things for our veterans, but also restricts some of the more disgusting activities of Westboro Baptist.  Now the stupid members of this group have been showing up at funerals of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead claiming that it's the judgement of God on America for tolerating homosexuality.  Stupid, stupid, stupid. But, when is it the place of the government to rule on the stupidity of it's citizens?  When is it the place of the government to decide who or what should be protected from offensive speech?  I like it when the opponents of the sick people of Westboro Baptist show up and block their protests.  Protest, counter protest, that's a good way to handle these things.  But the idea of federal prosecutors showing up and stopping people from saying stupid, vile things....well, what if those same prosecutors decide that the occupy movement is stupid?  Those poor, harassed, billionaires shouldn't have to be subjected to offensive speech.  I'm just saying.  If Westboro Baptist can be limited in it's activities, then it moves the line.  Another group will be the fringe, and it's always easy to go after those of the far edges of debate.  Sooner or latter, no opposition, no idea, no movement will be safe.

The Top Ten

Every ten years, Sight & Sound, a British film magazine polls critics and film historians and comes up with a list of the ten best movies of all time. The big news from this decade's poll is that Vertigo has upset perennial winner Citizen Kane to move into the top spot.  Too, Man With a Movie Camera has knocked Potemkin off  the list.

Interesting....Okay, let's start with the obvious point.  Beyond a certain level of quality, we're really dealing with preferences here.  Still, it's fun and I need a break from Mitt Romney, mass shootings, rumors of war, and my own, ongoing financial problems.  So, let's start with the Sight & Sound list.

1. Vertigo (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock
2. Citizen Kane  (1941)  directed by Orson Welles
3.  Tokyo Story  (1953)  directed by Yasujiro Ozu
4.  La Regle du jeu (1939) directed by Jean Renoir, and for those who prefer the English translation, Rules of the Game
5.  Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans  (1927)  directed by F.W. Murnau
6.  2001: A Space Odyssey  (1968)  directed by Stanley Kubrick
7.  The Searchers  (1956)  directed by John Ford
8.  Man With a Movie Camera  (1929)  directed by Dziga Vertov
9.  The Passion of Joan of Arc  (1927)  directed by Carl Theodore Dryer
10.  8 1/2  (1963)  directed by Federico Fellini

And now for my top ten.

1.  Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans
2. The Searchers
3.  Pandora's Box  (1929)  directed by G. W. Pabst
4.  Rules of the Game
5.  2001: A Space Odyssey
6.   Titticut Follies  (1967)  directed by Frederick Wiseman
7.  Red River  (1948)  directed by Howard Hawks
8.  Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler  (1922)  directed by Fritz Lang
9.  Pather Panchali  (1955)  directed by Satyijat Ray
10  Casablanca  (1942)  directed by Michael Curtiz

First of all, I set a rule for myself; Only one movie per director.  If not, Fort Apache and They Were Expendable both directed by John Ford could have made the list.  Also, Nosferatu by Murnau, Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange by Kubrick, Grand Illusion by Renoir, and Metropolis and M by Lang could have all made the list.  Too, these are all about preferences, and mine might be different on another day.  Citizen Kane and Veritgo both belong on a top ten, that is if a top ten had twenty or more entries.  Although, I have to confess, I prefer Hitchcock's Notorious to Vertigo.  And then there are Modern Times, City Lights, and The Circus all by Chaplin.  In Titticut Follies, I had one documentary on the list, but why not Grass or Nanook of the North.  And a few shorts like D.W. Griffith's A Corner In Wheat.  And why doesn't Casablanca make these lists?  Snob factor I suspect, and I'm not exactly snobbish.  And a final confession, with the exception of Tokyo Story, I've seen every movie on the Sight & Sound list and I don't have a problem with any of the films.  They're all great movies and anyone would be foolish not to get the DVD and take a look.

One last thing.  I am a huge movie buff.  I know a lot of other movie buffs.  Most of us are under employed, perpetually broke with too much time on our hands.  A few years ago, some of us decided that we were going to start great movie list blogs.  The idea was that we could go on line and check each others tastes.  To put it mildly, most of us got bored with the chore after awhile and let it slide.  My list is still on line at www.greatmovieslist.blogspot.com  Who knows.  If I start getting visits, I might go back and add some more movies.

Did I Call It?

A few posts ago, I opined that Mitt Romney wasn't trying to hide any illegalities in refusing to release more than two years worth of tax returns.  I thought he was trying to hide the fact that he hadn't paid any taxes at all.  Well, according to Senator Harry Reid, an investor from inside Bain called up his office and told him that Mittens hadn't paid any taxes for a decade.  Now, I admit it.  Without any names, without a verifiable source, it's nothing but rumor.  But, it makes sense.  Reid also said that Romney couldn't be confirmed for a cabinet post because of his refusal to provide tax records for more than two years.