Movie Reviews-Lincoln, The Campaign

Lincoln
directed by Steven Spielberg

Some people believe that Abraham Lincoln was the country's greatest President because he successfully kept the country intact during the bloodiest war the US experienced. Lincoln not only defeated the traitors but started the legal machinery to reduce and/or eliminate formal statutory support for white supremacy. However, though he opposed slavery, as Lincoln took pains to make clear throughout his life he wasn't necessarily overly fond of either abolitionists or black people and would have been content to keep the Southern states and slavery in the Union. It was the Southern states' intransigence, paranoia, arrogance and fatal inability to count that resulted in the Civil War, the effects of which still ripple throughout American society today. At some points Lincoln thought that "colonization", by which he meant the removal of Blacks from America and their placement in Africa, was the best solution to the race problem.

Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln, isn't quite a hagiography but it's pretty doggone close. Often films like this can be problematic, especially if the subject is still living or has well known faults. With Abraham Lincoln neither of these things is true so Spielberg is free to paint Lincoln in broad heroic colors. He is much aided in this by the title role actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, who really ought to receive an Oscar right now. Day-Lewis becomes Lincoln. He is Lincoln. I think he will be Lincoln for anyone who sees this film. Method acting. It works. Like much of Spielberg's popular work , Lincoln has a gauzy, upbeat, optimistic message.

America is a can-do place. Anyone standing in the way of freedom and doing what's right is just a temporary and probably misguided obstacle. Such people should be more pitied than hated. The film's music soundtrack, by John Williams, suitably tears at the heartstrings or makes one want to pump their fist in the air where appropriate. This is of course manipulative, but all the same it's good film making if you know what you're doing and obviously that's the case with Spielberg. 

Lincoln has a lot of exposition. Be aware that this is a LONG film. It is 2.5 hrs. Very little of this is battle scenes, with the exception of the intro which shows Black US troops engaged in a desperate struggle with Confederates who had recently massacred other black troops. As a black soldier later explains to the President "We decided we weren't taking any prisoners that day". Black soldiers are also displayed prominently throughout the film. This is historically accurate but has been so rare in Civil War movies that one wonders if Spielberg wasn't taking a subtle shot at the still common myth that white men alone fought and died for Black people's freedom. No there were a lot of Black men fighting, something that infuriated the Confederates, as their entire casus belli was that blacks were an inferior cowardly race that couldn't fight and were only suited for slavery. The Confederacy generally refused to take black soldiers prisoner or treat them as POW's instead of escaped slaves, something that hindered prisoner exchanges, increased brutality toward POW's and lengthened the war.

The struggles in the movie Lincoln are not primarily on the battlefield but within Lincoln's family, his cabinet and the House of Representatives.

As Lincoln explains, the Emancipation Proclamation could be legally justified as a war act but it might not necessarily pass legal muster post-war, especially in slave owning Union border states. No, what Lincoln wanted was the Thirteenth Amendment, to outlaw slavery for once and for all. In this he is fiercely opposed by the Congressional Democrats, who coalesce around Ohio Representative George Pendleton (Peter McRobbie). Lincoln's own cabinet is lukewarm to the idea. It appears the amendment lacks the votes needed to pass. As Lincoln's Secretary of State and close friend William Seward (David Strathairn) reminds him there are plenty of Northern whites who dislike slavery but don't want free blacks living in their state. Other white leaders like NY Congressman Wood (Lee Pace) fear that any sort of anti-slavery legislation is just a Trojan Horse that will cause mandatory black voters, black representatives, black educators and most disgusting of all, black intermarriage with whites. In Wood's view to tolerate is to require.

Wood spends a great deal of time baiting Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) who as a "radical Republican" really does believe in what was called "social equality" between black and white. Other Lincoln advisers want him to go slow on the whole anti-slavery thing as there are back door negotiations for Southern surrender with Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens (Jackie Earle Haley).

Mrs. Mary Lincoln (Sally Field) combines a fierce sharp tongued public loyalty to her husband with emotional volatility and vicious grief derived guilt tripping behind closed doors. She is determined to prevent their oldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from enlisting in the Army. And as she calmly explains to her husband she had better get what she wants or he'll have no peace. So as you can see the President has many issues to resolve. Lincoln deals with this stress by listening to everyone and then telling a story or joke from his frontier days. This provides some of the film's comic relief. Many of Lincoln's jokes are slightly offensive or simply not funny. People get bored with his stories. As legislative debate is mundane Spielberg tries to spice this up with cutaways to the attempts to "influence" legislators by the 1865 equivalent of lobbyists, who then as now, are professionally and personally offended by a man who won't stay bought.

There's no drama in the outcome since, as you know we DO have a Thirteenth Amendment. The drama is in the process. Spielberg takes some liberties with history but it's a movie not a documentary. Watching people as they might have been in 1865 I am of course quite happy that I didn't live then. This is not only for the obvious but also for less apparent items or behavior that we take for granted, like refrigeration, anti-perspirant, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, sterile dentistry, medical treatment that goes beyond amputation, and less visible body hair (on BOTH genders).

Lincoln makes a play at straddling the line between approving principled and unyielding opposition to evil (as embodied by Thaddeus Stevens) and pragmatic actions to get most of what you want when faced with real world difficulties and opposition (as embodied by Abraham Lincoln). Unsurprisingly the film comes down on the side of pragmatism. There have been few men who never compromised at some point, especially in a democratic system. But I would also point out that often, societal changes are brought about by men who generally eschewed compromise. Your views may vary on this. Should a representative reflect the views of his constituents or lead them as his conscience requires? This tension between purism and pragmatism will never go away. Without pragmatism, purists can fall into a cold white light or empty black hole that makes no allowances for human frailties or needs. So purism can be rejected. But without purists pushing and kicking them, pragmatic politicians become undistinguished grey men who have no other beliefs other than the pursuit of money and re-election. They do things like vote present on the great issues of the day so that they don't jeopardize future presidential bids, say they voted for the war before they voted against it or claim in public that they want every American's vote while privately dismissing 47% of voters as lazy leeches.

Lincoln did a great job of capturing the flowery and precise high language of the day as well as some of the earthier slang. Thaddeus Stevens certainly knew how to insult a man. Other actors/actresses in this film include John Hawkes, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Gloria Reuben, Lukas Haas, David Oyelowo, Tim Blake Nelson, Julie White, Wayne Duvall and many many more. This was the best movie, or at least the best acting I've seen in a while. Day-Lewis knocks the ball out of the park but Tommy Lee Jones shows that Day-Lewis wasn't the only heavyweight actor in the film. As mentioned, Lincoln has only a few scenes of violence. It's PG-13 not R. There are some long views of battlefields after a skirmish has been concluded and some visits to a blood spattered field hospital. 
TRAILER



The Campaign
directed by Jay Roach

I thought this comedy film was very funny but it is not a subtle satire like Election. It's really more slapstick. In fact it's probably best understood as a collection of skits, most of which hit but a few of which miss. So if you don't occasionally mind something that wears its silliness on its sleeve and doesn't try to hide it, you will probably enjoy this movie. It's quite predictable but sometimes knowing where you're going doesn't matter as long as you enjoy the ride. 

Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is a rather dim North Carolina Democratic congressman. He's running for election unopposed though as many of his constituents are either just as dim as he or simply turned off from the political process. Although Brady talks in broad generalities of Jesus, football and America he's really forgotten why he entered politics in the first place. The only thing he cares about now are the side benefits of political office, such as adulation from flunkies and intimate one on one meetings with dedicated supportive female voters. 

This last causes a problem for Cam as possibly drunk he left a remarkably detailed message on what he thought was his girlfriend's home phone detailing his erotic plans for her, some of which are still illegal in the state. But Cam dialed the wrong number and actually left his sexual fantasies and instructions on the voicemail of a born again Christian couple while they were eating dinner with their children. The voicemail goes viral.

Although Brady has always played ball with corporate interests, two prominent and rather unethical businessmen, the Motch Brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Ackroyd) think that it might be time to hedge their bets. They decide to run a candidate on the Republican ticket against Brady. They choose the naive, pudgy and somewhat less than masculine Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) who is the town tourism director. Marty is the son of a  Motch Brothers' employee. Marty is a source of continual disappointment to his hard driving father Raymond Huggins (Brian Cox), a unreconstructed bigot who satisfies his longings for the bygone days of segregation by having his Asian-American housekeeper speak as if she walked in from an Amos-N-Andy casting call circa 1946. YMMV as to whether this is funny. I didn't think so.

Cam quickly patches things up with his icily attractive blonde hypocritical wife, Rose (Katherine LaNasa) who doesn't care what Cam does as long as he wins and moves on to higher office. Cam can't really take Marty's challenge seriously. Cam thinks Marty will fade into irrelevance once Cam shares some pictures of the rather fey Marty working out at the women's gym Curves and doing some other things which don't fit into a virile image. But Marty has some unseen strengths that he derives mostly from his sweet, supportive and overweight wife Mitzi (Sarah Baker) and somewhat less so from the ruthless Motch approved Sith Knight campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott). Marty finds that nice guy or not, he wants to win and after a few reservations, starts to get just as negative as Cam. Cam turns to his good old boy campaign manager Mitch Wilson (Jason Sudeikis) for more ammo and the fight descends to new depths.

You can probably tell where this all ends up but as I wrote, it's the journey which is funny. I enjoyed this movie but then again I like slapstick. If you like slapstick you will probably like this as well.

TRAILER

Gender Quotas for US Elected Offices?

There will be 20 women in the US Senate in 2013. This is a record. But if you're anxious to smash the patriarchy and make everything "equal" this isn't anywhere near good enough. Thus some people wonder if the time hasn't come to dust off Title IX. Instead of applying it to college or high school sports or ridiculously threatening to expand its jurisdiction to the scientific classroom, some think the US should have political gender quotas for elected seats. Some people would want women to be guaranteed at least 30% representation in elected bodies while others demand 50% representation in the US Senate.  Each state would have to have one man and one woman as its Senator. 

It is a source of constant amusement to me that Harrison Bergeron, a dystopic satire by a left-leaning writer, has instead become a virtual guidebook for some earnest current left-wingers (and a bete noire for right-wingers) who really are obsessed with trying to enforce equality of results no matter what. 

You don't have to be a fervent racist or chauvinist to understand that people aren't the same and have different interests. Looking at the state of the world today I wouldn't argue that men are better at leadership but they definitely seem to be more interested in leadership. Should we pretend that the gender that is literally awash in testosterone and aggression and gets certain (ahem) benefits from the other gender for seeking, holding and expressing status and power would not then on average show greater interest in obtaining formal leadership positions? Every single American man who's been elected to office in the past ninety two years has had to appeal to women voters. What we see is what the electorate, men and women, want. Maybe the electorate is wrong, bigoted, behind the times, etc. Maybe. But ultimately power resides in the people.

It may well be a feminist truism that men and women are roughly identical and interchangeable and thus any societal differences are solely an example of invidious discrimination. But just believing something doesn't make it so. We still have a legal and constitutional system that would, I hope, make it difficult for gender quotas to be used. I don't think that such quotas could be reconciled with equal protection concerns or the right to freedom of association. How can we tell voters that their choice will be limited by gender? 

And enforcement would be unpleasant if not impossible. Let's say that a insurgent political movement led by a honest, hardworking charismatic man arises and defeats the moribund ineffective Democratic (woman) Senator. But as the state's Republican Senator, who's not up for re-election this year is a man, that would mean that the state would then be sending two men to the Senate. No good. All those votes for the new guy were thus meaningless. Are we going to tell the rising star that sorry, he can't serve in the US Senate because he has an outie instead of an innie? Does that sound remotely American?

Bad policy arises from bad ideas. There are two bad ideas here. The first is that you can only or best be politically represented by someone who shares your immutable physical traits. If everyone felt that way then we'd not have the President we have nor would a decent politician like Steve Cohen ever have served. What matters is not so much what you look like but what you do. 

The second bad idea is that men and women are interchangeable and ought to be doing the exact same things in the same proportion. That's never been and never will be the case in human society. Men and women are of equal value but they are rather obviously not identical. And women can be just as mean, greedy, short-sighted, ignorant and bigoted as men. There is certainly no guarantee that having more women making or executing law will produce better results. Would you enjoy a President Palin? Michele Bachmann as head of HHS? Is it better for South Carolina pro-choice women that right wing pro-life Nikki Haley is governor instead of a right wing pro-life man? There is no law preventing interested women from running for office.
There is no law preventing political parties and interest groups from encouraging women candidates, donating to women candidates or even leaning on male potential candidates to sit an election out because the party wants more women to run. 
There is no law preventing current women (or men) elected officials from identifying and mentoring potential women candidates. 

Right now, if you've got the guts, intelligence and the heart to do it you can run for political office. There should not be a federal law preventing you from doing so because of your gender. Period. Gender quotas are the political equivalent of giving everyone in a sports event a trophy. It's a silly idea and debases the challenge. This idea also shows a nasty hostility to the voter's choice.

I believe in equality of opportunity. I don't believe in legally requiring equality of results. I think our system can occasionally get away with a small thumb on the scale where there is historical or ongoing discrimination. But quotas go way beyond that. There is a tension between freedom and equality just as there is between freedom and safety. The US body politic has mostly tended towards freedom. Our constitution is set up that way. However there are some powerful currents that tend toward equality and safety at the expense of freedom. 

The voters must be able to choose the best woman or man for a particular job without being prevented from doing so by a particular interest group that decides it doesn't like current gender (or any other kind of) political demographics. Black people are roughly 13% of the population and have no Senate seats. Jewish people are about 3% of the population and have eleven Senate seats. Hispanic people are about 15% of the population and have three Senate seats. Left-handed redheaded bisexual agnostics are 2% of the population and on and on and on. If you go down the path of political quotas, pack a lunch because it's gonna be a long haul.

Questions

1) Do you think there will ever be proportional gender representation in Congress and the Senate?

2) Do quotas have any place in American politics? Do you think they're legal?

3) Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron?

Book Reviews-The Book of Cthulhu, Inside HBO's Game of Thrones, Hard Feelings, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack

The Book of Cthulhu
edited by Ross E. Lockhart

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was one of the greatest fantastic fiction authors of all time. Although he was influenced very much by Poe, Dunsany and Machen among others he created his own mostly original mythos, much of which was set in his beloved New England and drew equally as much on his nightmares and dreams as previous authors and American myths. Lovecraft never made the big time during his life and died in an impoverished state from stomach cancer. He was mildly popular as a pulp writer but that barely paid his bills. As Lovecraft was also an intense nativist and racist for most of his life, his financial situation was especially galling to him. He thought a man of his origins and intelligence deserved better from life. He would no doubt be amused then to learn that in the years since his death his writings, stories, musings and letters have created an ever growing genre of fiction and long list of admirers. When Stephen King writes "H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale" that means something.

Ross Lockhart is an author and editor of Night Shade books who evidently discovered H.P. Lovecraft the same way I did, thru a since discontinued and now collectible 1980 edition of Dungeons and Dragons Deities and Demigods. This edition (which in good condition sells for $139-$200) contains game versions of various H.P. Lovecraft created monsters, aliens and deities. It evidently piqued Lockhart's interest to seek out H.P. Lovecraft derived or created fiction just as it did mine and who knows how many other countless people.


This anthology contains twenty seven short stories that are in set in for lack of a better word the Cthulhu Mythos. Cthulhu was probably Lovecraft's best known creation. He was an alien being of godlike powers and malign intent who was trapped beneath the ocean in a dead city. Fun fact: Cthulhu also happens to have been the inspiration for the god worshipped by George R.R. Martin's Iron Islanders. When the stars are right Cthulhu will awake from the dead and rule the earth. But even his dreams are dangerous to humans. And Cthulhu is not the only entity that wants to get back on the earth or into this dimension. There are other creatures of greater power who are either hostile or indifferent to humanity in the same way you are indifferent to most of your skin flora.

Some of the standout stories contained include "The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins"  by Molly Tanzer in which a feckless wizard tries to steal his cousin's wife only to wind up in worse trouble than he could have imagined when her children are born; "A Colder War" by Charles Stross, in which the great powers of the world compete to harness not just nuclear weapons, but the far greater destructive capacity of the Great Old Ones; "Bad Sushi" by Cherie Priest, where a Japanese War veteran and sushi chef extraordinaire, discovers something is definitely wrong with the new sushi supplier; "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" by Charles R. Saunders in which an 1930's African-American finds some links between voudun and even older magic; "The Crawling Sky" by Joe R. Lansdale where a Reverend who hunts things that should not be has to battle hostile small town sheriffs and bad meat to get a fix on his latest target. These were all good reads. Many of the stories are set in small towns or the country.
I heartily recommend this book. If you are already a Lovecraft fan you will be amazed and amused to see how different writers use his influence. If you never heard of Lovecraft the stories very much stand on their own. This book could be your gateway drug to Lovecraft's works. Most of the stories are very realistic in their way.


Inside HBO's Game of Thrones
by Bryan Cogman

I received this as a gift from someone whom I had earlier convinced to read George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Paying it forward works sometimes, what do you know. This is a lavishly bound padded hardcover book that clocks in at just under 200 glossy pages. It's not quite coffee table sized but it is nonetheless something that would excite interest on your coffee table.

It is just what it sounds like and then some. It features a preface by Martin himself who details his own work in Hollywood and his skepticism about the plausibility of turning his series into a televised series. He thought it was impossible, in no small part because he deliberately wrote A Game of Thrones and its sequels to be masterworks of prose, creations that had to be read, not watched to be fully appreciated and enjoyed. Then Martin met David Benioff and Dan Weiss and found they were convinced they could bring his literary creation to visual life at HBO. Martin thought them mad but they persisted and the rest you know. Benioff and Weiss provide the foreword-a short interview.

The book is divided into five sections (The Wall, Winterfell, King's Landing, Westeros, Essos) In each section the various actors, directors, writers, producers and other personnel give their impression of the part they helped create, how they understood Martin's work or Benioff's and Weiss' subcreation and if their part is over, what they learned or if they are still around what they expect for the future. Don't worry there are no spoilers contained within. This book goes over both HBO seasons. There is judicious background from the books provided to answer any questions you might have had if you have only watched the show.  There are oodles of set photos, insider stories, jokes, prank scripts that were never used, storyboards, etc.  A favorite seems to be writing a character's (fake) death in a particularly humiliating or ridiculous manner and then giving the script to the actor/actress to get their reaction. One thing which I never thought of but which could make sense is that Jack Gleeson, who plays King Joffrey, says that Joffrey's only role models are Robert and Cersei, who are each bad parents and quite morally challenged. Some of Joffrey's behavior is that of a brat who needs a stern but loving father figure. Maybe. I really enjoyed all the behind the scenes discussion concerning the Battle of Blackwater. Good stuff.


Hard Feelings
by Jason Starr

Often I'm not a fan of first person narratives because nothing ever happens unless the narrator is there to tell you about it and you never get to see what anyone else thinks. But for this book, first person is not only the best way to tell the story it's difficult to imagine any other choice the author could have made. This is a incredible and yet simple piece of writing that is concise without being abrupt. Much like the movie The Man Who Wasn't There, the protagonist in Hard Feelings makes some choices that seem rational if you look at each choice separately but taken together the decisions put him in a bad spot. I guess you could call this neo-noir writing. There are also some pretty funny elements in the story. It has a lot of cynical black humor.

Richie Segal is a mid thirties computer infrastructure New York salesman. He's not having the best life. He jumped ship to a new job for a greater base salary and more responsibility but it looks like that was a bad decision. He hasn't made a sale since he arrived. His peers are starting to make fun of him. His bosses are calling him into office for pep talks and later thinly disguised threats to shape up or ship out. To make matters worse, his attractive wife Paula is not only making more money than Richie in her financial services job, but their marriage and sex life is starting to suffer. Richie's wondering if Paula is getting her biscuits rolled somewhere else. The company's top salesman, Steve Ferguson, has been assigned to "mentor" Richie. Richie doesn't like Steve at all. Richie is fearful that this is just the last step before termination. He's probably right about that. When people start talking about "action plans" and checking what time someone arrives to and leaves from work, the person they're discussing is on thin ice. At a previous job I knew one guy that used to roll in around 9:30~10:00 when regular start time was 6:30~8:30. He was sadly surprised when the business team agitated to get him fired and the IT boss finally acceded to their wishes. But I digress..

A lot of Richie's anxiety, sexual dysfunction and work problems stem from flashbacks of his abuse, physical and sexual, at the hands of a childhood bully, Michael Rudnick. In a strange coincidence Richie bumps into Michael on the street. Richie takes steps to erase those bad memories. It seems as if things are looking up for old Richie. He may yet be the Alpha Male he always thought he could be. Of course it wouldn't be much of a story if that were the case. This is really intense claustrophobic story that you will zoom through. It's just over 200 pages but you can finish it in a couple of hours. Starr is an entertaining writer who really knows how to draw the reader into his world. I can't overemphasize how well paced this book was. There are times when you will be screaming at Richie not to do something but of course he goes ahead and does it anyway.


Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack
by M.E. Kerr

Did you ever see the ABC Afterschool Special that was based on this book? If not then you missed a treat. The book is aimed at young adults but can certainly be understood and enjoyed by people at any stage of life. It was written in the early seventies. Cynicism hadn't become required or passe at that time so some of the irony and cynicism on display in the book actually feels fresh. If I remember correctly it was actually a shout out to Kurt Vonnegut by a character in this book that made me pull down a Vonnegut book from my parents' library and start reading. Maybe. That was a long time ago.

Anyway the book has a lot to say about parental-child relationships, family ties, addiction, first loves, toxic behavior and how people ask for help when they don't know how. It does all this in less than 200 pages so there's no bloat here and very few wasted words.

Tucker Woolf is a fifteen year old who has to give his cat away because his father, who has lost his job as a professional fundraiser, has suddenly gained an allergy to cats. He gives the cat away to one Susan "Dinky" Hocker, a fat girl a year younger than Tucker. Dinky likes to eat and as a result Tucker's cat starts to get as fat as Dinky. Tucker still visits the cat as often as he can and one day decides to go give Dinky a piece of his mind about overfeeding his cat and for that matter herself. But Dinky's parents have a new houseguest, one Natalia Line, Dinky's cousin, a girl of exquisite beauty, who once tried to kill herself. Tucker is smitten and starts finding excuses to go visit Natalia. Tucker's parents, especially his mother, a magazine columnist, find this incredibly amusing.

Dinky's parents are socially liberal professional do-gooders who are always railing about social responsibility to drug addicts, the impoverished, the minorities, etc but are either indifferent to or downright cruel to their daughter. Dinky gets a "friend" of her own, the fiercely intelligent and extremely overweight P. John, who also has an extremely liberal father who also is more interested in the masses of people than he is in his own son. Out of teen rebellion and a cry for help P. John takes up quite reactionary views. As Dinky can't get the attention and love she needs from her parents she takes some steps that can't be undone. I really liked this book. It brought back some good memories. If you are a New Yorker, the city is lovingly described.

Israel Attack on Gaza: Same Story Different Day in Palestine

BBC correspondent Jihad Misharawi holds his son's body

There are some elements which are wholly predictable in the world. Israeli-Palestinian violence is one of those things. Israel recently assassinated the military head of Hamas, Ahmed Jabari, in the Gaza Strip. This of course led to a coordinated violent response from Hamas which in turn caused an even more violent response from Israel. There has been the normal kabuki dance in which Israeli political leaders say that they won't tolerate acts of violence from Palestinians and reserve the right to defend themselves. And US political leaders have condemned violence from Hamas, and also strongly defended Israel's right to defend itself, while insulting Hamas as cowardly. It is totally predictable that the US mainstream media has wholly accepted the Israeli point of view about the latest violence, which is that Israel was peaceably minding its own business when out of nowhere a bunch of anti-semitic religious nutball Third World savages started to shoot rockets into Israel. And anyone who doesn't conform to that pov will be attacked as anti-semitic or biased. 

Well I have no plans to join any mainstream media or think tanks anytime in the near future. So I can write what I like. And you can call me what you like. As I have written before I think the only fair and possible long term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an unitary state with equal rights for all and special rights for none. That's not perfect, as South Africa is discovering, but given the circumstances I think it's a baseline. That that solution is becoming less and less likely is a tragedy not only for Palestinians but for Israelis and ultimately Americans who are currently wedded to a bipartisan foreign policy that supports the most right-wing elements of Israeli politics no matter what.

Israel, as its leaders and US partisans emphasize, does have the right to defend itself. If I lived in Texas and Mexicans were constantly lobbying rockets over the border I would expect the US military to show them a little love. But, and you will never ever ever see this concept expressed in any mainstream media or government statement, Palestinians also have the right to defend themselves. If I lived in Mexico and US aircraft were constantly bombarding me I would hope that the Mexican military, no matter how understaffed, inept and outgunned, would try to fight back.
So let's just not freeze frame the last week and look at what Hamas does. You have to look at the past months and even years. There was an informal truce between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt. I'm going to bet that you may not have heard about these events, which are the proximate cause for the latest violence.

On November 4, Israeli soldiers killed an unarmed, possibly mentally ill man who was allegedly walking too close to their buffer zone. On November 8, during another Israeli incursion in the Gaza strip, Israeli soldiers killed a 13 year boy playing soccer near his home. The following day there were rockets fired into Israel. There was another Israeli incursion which resulted in the deaths of Palestinian women and children and the path of escalation was set. One final attempt at a truce was set. Jabari actually received a peace proposal but evidently it was simply a ruse to lure him out into the open. Hamas can not win a military confrontation with Israel. Israel knows this. And despite the bluster about "opening the gates of hell" (Does that sound better in Arabic? Who talks like that???)  Hamas knows it too which explains its attempts to hold to a truce. Of course when you put people in a position where they have literally nothing to lose they will lash out. Gaza is a blockaded hellhole of 1.5-1.6 million impoverished refugees. Noam Chomsky recently visited and described it as an open air prison. This isn't surprising given that a survey showed that a majority of Israelis want preferences for Jews over Arabs in jobs, and would not be in favor of letting West Bank Arabs vote if Israel formally annexed the West Bank.

So why would Israel ignore a truce and then assassinate an opposition's leader, knowing that this would likely lead to an escalation? I think there are a couple of reasons. 
There are upcoming Israeli elections in January 2013. Certainly Netanyahu wants to ensure his party can form a government and outflank any more right-wing parties (or ministers).The other reason is that, as pointed out by the Tehran bureau chief for the NYT , this new violence will greatly complicate any attempt by the US and Iran to reach some consensus on Iran's nuclear program as neither the US nor Iran will want to make deals or even be talking to each other while their proxies are killing and dying. Could a deal with Iran have been possible? Maybe, maybe not. But this report of deals and concessions with Iran certainly would have irritated and worried some of the more right-wing elements in the Israeli body politic. And with the US under President Obama having turned to a kill list and enthusiastically supported the illegal tactic of extrajudicial assassinations there is no way that the US President could do anything other than support the Israeli Prime Minister, even if Israeli actions run counter to US interests. There is a piece by dissident US journalist and civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald that is a must read.

Mira Scharf and family

The latest round of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel have revealed a disturbing (from an Israeli POV) capacity and one that though still militarily pathetic have killed Israeli citizens, including a pregnant woman. So what's the answer? The only short term solution is for the UN security council to force Israel and Hamas to stand down. Beyond that there would need to be UN armed observers in the West Bank and Gaza. But since the UN security council will never act to condemn or restrain Israel I expect that the region will suffer continued. It is ironic that while Israel is bombing people who in the US mindset, do not have the right to defend themselves, Syria is bombing people, who despite having turned to violence in an attempt to overthrow a dictator, have every right to defend themselves. The Syrian rebels have committed some ugly massacres and human rights violations but they (unlike Hamas) happen to be fighting against someone that the US and its European allies don't like. They are thus eligible to receive US support under the table . They've received French recognition and may soon receive open French and US direct arms shipments.
The moral of this story is choose your enemies wisely.

Questions

1) How would you fix this latest mideast crisis?

2) Is there a long term solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict?

3) Should the US stop supporting one side?

Music Reviews-Ike Turner, Desmond Dekker

Ike Turner
When people see the words "Ike Turner" many immediately think of scenes like this. That was part of who Ike Turner was, though I would be wary of taking any fictionalized version of events as 100% historical documentation, but unfortunately it was also part of who a lot of celebrities were, including the secular saint himself  John Lennon. I try not to excuse or explain evil. However if you're living in the US you're living on land that is soaked in the blood of Indians. You're currently enjoying rights of free speech and assembly promulgated by men who owned slaves. Many of those men would be shocked and dismayed that in modern society blacks were Senators or Presidents or that women were voting. What I mean to say is that like it or not sometimes evil and good are all mixed up together. Sometimes good people make crap art and evil people make masterful art. If you happen not to like Turner's work on purely musical grounds then I understand. If you reject his work for his abuse of women, that is also your right and I won't try to convince you otherwise. I would just say you should then be willing to reject music by Muddy Waters, James Brown, George Jones, Lynyrd Sknyrd, Dr. Dre, Glen Campbell, Jackson Browne, Black Sabbath, Stan Getz, Motley Crue, Phil Spector, The Allman Brothers, Yanni, Sly Stone, Tracy Lawrence, and many others on the very same grounds.

Before Ike Turner met Annie Mae Bullock he was already a famous guitarist, songwriter, arranger, bandleader, producer, A&R man, promoter, etc who worked with such legendary names as Robert Nighthawk, BB King, Elmore James, and Little Milton. As an 11 year old Ike Turner had piano lessons from famed blues musician Pinetop Perkins. As much as people like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, etc Turner created rock-n-roll. He told stories of Elvis coming to see him play. Little Richard and BB King cited Turner as influences. Turner was originally a pianist and brought a very individualistic style to the guitar. He worked as a session pianist for early Howling Wolf and BB King releases. Turner also showed up as a session guitarist for some Otis Rush work. Left to his own devices Turner didn't really sound like very many other guitarists, though he was not averse to occasionally shamelessly copying other more popular guitarists. Anything for a buck.

Ike was a bandleader, not primarily a singer. Most of his best early work has other people doing the singing. You can always tell when Ike sang though because of a quite distinctive bass-baritone voice. You know how some men have a deeper voice in the early morning? Ike basically sounded like that all day, every day. Listen to his background vocals on Up in Heah.

Ike Turner switched to guitar permanently when having fired a guitarist and found a really good pianist (Bonnie Turner), he figured it would be easier and cheaper to play the guitar himself than to hire and train another musician. One of Ike's distinctive traits on the guitar was savage use of the whammy (vibrato) bar to bend notes a quarter step or more beyond the initial note. Occasionally this caused issues with tuning but it is one way you always know that it's him. He often said that he had no idea how to use the bar and figured that rough use was how to do it. I guess randomness and accidents are some times good things in art. His solos are full of cascades of bent notes and whammy bar harmonics.

Ike Turner was there at the beginning of electric rock-n-roll. As mentioned he could honestly claim to have started it. He maintained a fierce sense of swing that was present in whatever music he played, blues, country, soul, R&B, funk, hard rock, etc. From his start to his end most of the music that he wrote always was danceable. He wrote, played piano on and produced what was arguably the first rock-n-roll record, Rocket 88, and was one of the earliest proponents of amp distortion. He told different stories about this over the years. In some of the stories this tone was a pure accident caused by a car accident and damaged amp tubes, in others the tone was deliberate. In any event when Turner played guitar, he had a beautiful glassy tone, especially when he would play a slow blues. Check out his sound on I smell trouble or his demented country picking on Steel Guitar Rag. And the solo on No Coming Back anticipated heavy metal dissonance by two decades. I like his early work with vocalists like Billy Gayles and Billy Emerson. The songs below are a very small portion of his recorded output that spanned over 50 years. Post 1970 or so he really lost his way and started copying more of the current funk and rock trends. He did some nice covers, especially of Sly Stone's music but the adventurousness was gone. Fun fact, the song A Fool in Love was something Ike had originally written for a male vocalist but when he discovered that Tina could temporarily sing in the lower range, kept the recording and the rest is history...

Just One More Time(w/Billy Gayles) If Loving is Believing and No teasing around(w/Billy The Kid Emerson)  Up in Heah(w/Tina Turner)  You're Driving Me Insane
My heart belongs to you (duet w/Bonnie Turner)  Cubano Jump  Steel Guitar Rag

I smell trouble (w/Tina Turner) Rocket 88 (w/ Jackie Brenston)  Black Coffee(w/Tina Turner)   Baby Get it On (w/Tina Turner)  Baby Makes Me Feel Good(w/Tina Turner)
Philadelphia Freedom(w/Tina Turner)  Proud Mary (live w/Tina Turner)
No Coming Back(w/Billy Gayles)  Don't Believe Nothing(w/Tina Turner)  A Fool In Love (w/Tina Turner)

Desmond Dekker

Demond Dekker was a Jamaican singer and songwriter whose career included the similar musics of ska, rocksteady, reggae and even some things that hinted at American blues and soul. Similar to some Black American protest singers much of his best music was concerned with oppression, violence, poverty and an indomitable will to survive. He can probably be credited for launching the rude boy look in Europe, especially England. Unfortunately for Dekker his career was derailed by the death of his top producer and Svengali, Leslie Kong. As a result Dekker was somewhat eclipsed by the other reggae superstar of the seventies, Bob Marley. I had heard the song 007 (Shanty Town) growing up but sad to say I did not really become a devoted fan until by happenstance I heard the song Israelites at the end of the film Drugstore Cowboy, and was hooked (pun intended).

Even if he had never written anything else, Israelites is such an intense insistent song that it demands that Dekker's talent be recognized. The lyrics are sometimes a little hard to understand if you're not familiar with Jamaican accents but heck you can say the same thing about British rock. I can't sing the high pitched lyrics but I can kill it on the low pitched chorus. Oh, oh,,,the Israelites...

I really enjoy listening to music like reggae, ska, etc that messes around with the beat and moves the pulse someplace different than where an American would normally expect to hear it. The ironic thing of course is that reggae and ska are very much related to American blues and R&B and vice versa. New Orleans was a place that was in many ways a meeting point and melting pot for several different music genres across the diaspora. I defy anyone to listen to King of Ska and not start to dance. If you don't there must be something wrong with your tailfeather. Get it checked out ASAP!!! You wouldn't have a tailfeather if you weren't meant to shake it.

Israelites 007 (Shanty Town) You Can Get It if You Really Want  King of Ska
Big Headed(dub mix) Honour Your Father and Mother  Hippopotamus

Post-Election White Rage

Now that the election is over and it is settled who will be President for the next four years a little bit of disappointment from supporters of the losing candidate is only to be expected. That's normal. I am old enough to remember how bitterly let down some people were when Reagan beat Carter and four years later turned Mondale into his personal well lubricated hand puppet. And the Bush smiting of Dukakis also left many people in my circles of family and friends wishing that things were otherwise. But if you're a mature adult sooner or later you learn that things don't always go your way. If you happen to grow up as a minority in America you learn that lesson a bit more quickly and thoroughly than seems right, as you are seemingly always outnumbered and always outgunned. Your political or aesthetic choices or styles are usually not what is popular in the cultural or political marketplace.  If you happen to raise this issue with the majority, say expressing concern about the relative dearth of black faces on mainstream magazine covers the usual response is something along the lines of majority rules, so shut up and deal. And in our society that is a honest and valid statement.

But life goes on. So people didn't agree with your position this time. That doesn't mean that life is over and you fall into a pit of despair and depression. It's only politics after all. It's not life and death, right? You move on with your life and maybe work harder to bring people around to your point of view next time. I mean it's nothing to start bawling over or hang your head down in despair is it? I have voted for plenty of presidential candidates that did not win and more than a few that had virtually no chance of winning. That's life. You make your decision and work to get people to agree with you and hope that many people can see the obvious sagacity of your choice and convince others likewise. If they won't or can't then yes in private you might occasionally wonder at their IQ levels but you would never say that in public because not only is it an ugly and nasty thing to say about people but fundamentally it's untrue. There are simply too many people who are intelligent decent honest people who see the world differently than you do to say that anyone who doesn't see things just like you do is an evil wicked person who for amusement shoots puppies in their spare time. Not to say that there aren't people like that but they probably don't neatly line up with your political opposition.

One of the things that is really interesting to me is how some leading Romney supporters have forgotten this truism and gone off the deep end in not only rejecting the outcome of the election but vacillate between soul numbing depression and white-hot rage at the voters who helped re-elect the President. If you remember just a few weeks back there were more than a few conservatives, fueled by speculation from sites as Drudge, Breitbart and a few others I won't mention, who were not only convinced that Romney was going to win but that Black Obama supporters, no doubt fueled by crack cocaine, rage and resentment would riot in the streets and have to be dealt with by police and/or the National Guard. Evidently some conservatives were eagerly looking forward to this. Well as it turned out not only did Obama win but the twitter tough guy calling for violent revolution and taking it to the streets and shutting this muyerfuyer down was none other than the very successful and very white billionaire real estate tycoon Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump, who as far as I know has never had to sleep on the streets, been locked up for years for a crime he didn't commit, been fired because of the color of his skin, wondered where his next meal was coming from, been abused by police or prosecutors, figure out which member of his outlaw organization was a police informant, make a choice between housing and medical coverage, or have any of a multitude of unpleasant experiences that tend to produce REAL revolutionaries, nevertheless saw fit to demand marches on Washington, suddenly decided the Electoral College was a disaster for democracy and said we should have a revolution. Right. Okay Donald. Meet us at the barricades but let us know which color Bentley you're driving so we'll know it's you. We certainly wouldn't want to throw rocks at our brother revolutionary. Power to the People!!!!

Meanwhile musician and racist nitwit Ted Nugent couldn't wait to let everyone know that as far as he was concerned the people that helped elect Barack Obama were all a bunch of "pimps, whores and welfare brats". As far as Teddy is concerned if you voted for Obama you are probably a subhuman varmint or soulless. There's not a huge amount of room for difference of opinion in Nugent's world I guess. Not much nuance. But at least you know where he's coming from. I don't think you can make a lot of mistakes about that. Not to be outdone conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly spewed forth that Obama's victory meant that the days of traditional America were over, that the white establishment was now a minority and that the reason Obama won was that people (hispanics and blacks) wanted free stuff and Obama was going to give it to them. Glenn Beck wept that sometimes God sucks. That's amazing, Beck's chosen candidate loses a few  times and Beck comes to the belief that God sucks. Hmm. And yet there are other people who have been through a few centuries of slavery, colonialism and discrimination who still seem to have a fierce and unbroken belief in and love of God. Perhaps Beck should check with them to see how they did it because it looks like his faith is a bit weak. 

Finally the gelatinous king of demagoguery himself, one Mr. Rush Limbaugh, went on air to claim that Obama won because we now live in a country of children and that therefore the adults (Romney) could not compete with Santa Claus. There's more but I think you get the idea. Oftentimes (white) conservatives criticize Blacks for identity politics. I think it is fair as we've discussed in the past to point out that some black intellectuals and even voters give Obama a pass on things they may not have let slide with other Presidents. The flip side of this though is that whites, and in these examples, white men, are not immune to identity politics any more than any other human beings are. This idea that whites are the norm and everyone else is practicing unfair identity politics needs to go. Whites were just fine with election results as long as white men won but insult voters and want revolution now that a black man won? I am shocked....

It bothers Trump so much that Obama is going to be President for another four years that he's calling for revolution? What is that about if not race? All the insults sneering at Obama voters as welfare recipients or children or subhuman are about nothing but race.  The truly ironic thing is that if white conservatives had been able to put away all the constant sneers about "welfare" and "affirmative action" and "man-child" and "monkey" and "wookie" and "ghetto crackhead" and "Kenyan" and "Muslim" and "birth certificates" they might have been able to make good arguments against some of President Obama's policies. But asking some of them to stop doing that is like asking a dog to stop licking itself. It's just what they do. And O'Reilly's comments are honest if wrong. Whites are not a minority and, depending on how "white" is redefined in America, may never be a minority. White is a somewhat nebulous description that expanded to include Irish, Italians, Jews, Arabs, and other previously "non-white" ethnic groups. Somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of Hispanics also identify as white. But what IS true is that the current Republican party can't win a Presidential election with 59% of the white vote. The numbers aren't there any more. It is no longer a given that whatever a majority of whites want is what the nation wants. The nation has expanded. I think, qualms about illegal immigration aside, that this is mostly a good thing.

After all Republicans should remember, everything that happens is God's will. Just relax and enjoy it. There's nothing you can do anyway. Just ask Mourdock and Akin. Don't worry, be happy. Snicker...

Thoughts?