About that Libyan War

Imperialism's most dangerous aspect is its seductive nature. This can be just as sexy to self-identified progressives or liberals as it is to unabashed conservatives and reactionaries. The only difference lies in the arguments made. Progressives are likely to be unmoved by open claims of racial, religious or national superiority, greedy interest in someone else's natural resources or simple conquest for the sheer pleasure of violence and dominance. These days, those sorts of honest justifications don't work on many people to the left of Max Boot or Niall Ferguson. 


But there is a different set of casus belli that turns progressives into bloodthirsty killers. Those who would get progressives to support a war or at least mute their opposition to it know exactly which buttons to push. Reasons that turn progressive Poodles into rabid Rottweilers are such claims as "Unfortunately we must intervene in those people's countries and protect them from themselves" or "We're helping set them on the right path for their own good" or "We're protecting women from their sexist patriarchal countrymen" or best of all "We're preventing genocide by invading this country".


Now that Colonel Qaddafi is no longer in control of Libya it might be a good time to take a quick look at some arguments for intervening in Libya that were made by the President, his advisers and supporters. Many of these premises have been shown to be wrong. A few were nonsensical from the start.


Qaddafi will commit genocide
This was particularly laughable as Qaddafi had not committed genocide in any of the cities that he had recaptured. His threats were delivered to those people who were in open revolt. When shooting starts, kind words stop. I can't think of anyone who is going to offer milk and cookies to people trying to overthrow you.


This is not a war so the War Powers Act doesn't apply

I am the law!!

We've discussed this before but Obama's weak and deliberately contemptuous dismissal of the War Powers Act and the constitutional limits of the Presidency is another nail in the coffin of the doctrine of separation of powers. The fact the Congress lacked the guts to defund the war leaves me with nothing but cold contempt for the people that voted to fund this war. Some day the worm will turn and there will be a conservative Republican president that decides on his/her own that it would be great fun to bomb some brown "savages", who lack even rudimentary air defenses and can't defend themselves. When that day comes and it surely will I don't want to hear a mumbling word from any so-called liberals if they supported Obama's illegal war.  Not. One. Word.


Qaddafi's soldiers are taking Viagra to commit rape

It's not clear whether UN Ambassador Susan Rice pulled this yarn from some old lurid Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventure tales or if it was misinformation sourced from some Libyan rebels. In any event it was untrue, which raises the question of why such a highly placed official would repeat it. Obviously that's a rhetorical question. Much like the bs story about Saddam Hussein's troops removing incubators and leaving babies to die or Colin Powell's endorsement of fake intelligence before the Iraq war or Condoleeza Rice's invoking of mushroom clouds to justify the Iraq War, people who want war have no qualms about lying to stir up support for their position. After all if crazed Arabs toked up on Viagra are running around raping women, surely we must do something. Right? Where is El Borak when you need him?


The UN resolution allows regime change
The UN resolution was for a no-fly zone to protect civilians. It had nothing to say about removing Qaddafi via force. That was something which was done by the US and NATO. And this raises another question. Why the hell does NATO still exist? The Warsaw Pact doesn't. NATO looks more and more like just a updated version of neo-colonial policing.


Qaddafi's a dictator who kills his own people
Yes. And? So are half the heads of state in Africa and the Mideast, Central Asia and some places in Eastern Europe. Many of these people are good US friends. In fact the US even outsourced torture to Syria. Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar are all close allies of the US. But if you happen to be a native of any of those countries who seeks political change-say like seeking free elections- well you just might come up missing. You might have the police open fire on you, imprison you for life, rape you, threaten to rape your family, or if you're REALLY lucky just get cracked upside the head/beaten or tortured for a few hours. But while you're watching someone carefully crank a car battery attached to your genitalia at least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that your country's head of state is a close American ally.

Don't worry. I'm on Team USA!

So if a West Bank Palestinian man is protesting occupation and apartheid and is shot by an Israeli soldier who is helping oversee said occupation and apartheid that's ok. But if that man's cousin is shot protesting for democracy in Syria it's a human rights violation.  It's just fine if Hosni Mubarak oversees a reign of repression and brutality because as Vice-President Biden said , "I would not refer to him as a dictator". At this point to make it easier for us all perhaps the Administration could give us a list of people who aren't dictators. Or they could just give up a list of countries that do what the hell they're told to do by the US. I think that might be the same list.


The Republicans don't want to give Obama credit

This is a particularly perniciously putrid pile of partisan poop. Two people who really should know better, Rev. Al Sharpton and Professor Melissa Harris-Perry both fell (leapt?) into this shortly after the announced imminent fall of Tripoli. Whether it was Sharpton braying about those evil Republicans not giving the President credit for his wisdom or Harris-Perry making a disingenuous and completely ahistorical segue between MLK's fight for freedom in the US and the Obama led "fight for freedom" in Libya, some people in this country are so caught up in partisanship that they lose heed of the very ideas that attracted them to one group or another. The ideas no longer matter-just the group and its victories. In this point of view the numbers of Libyans killed by US drones, cruise missiles and bombs are not important. The unconstitutionality of the war is a minor detail. And they are frankly bored with the still rising $896 million cost for the war. 


No, all that matters to these folks is either finding a way to either bash the President for the war or eagerly defend him. The Libyan war is just like a college football game. Such people seem blissfully unconcerned with the fact that people die in war. Sadly many of these partisan hacks have lost sight of the fact that for the true anti-war activists, it doesn't really matter if it is a Democrat or Republican dropping bombs in Pakistan, firing drone missiles in Yemen or murdering Iranian scientists. Much like LBJ and the media/civil rights establishment's reaction to MLK opposing the war in Vietnam, they appear to be shocked, shocked(!), that some people actually take their moral codes seriously and do not change them based on which team's frontman is currently sitting in the White House. Thus they can only process opposition to war as "trying to bring down the President". 


This isn't about oil
Yeah right. If you actually believe that I have to wonder if you're allowed to feed and clean yourself each morning.  The scramble for access to Libya's oil wealth begins. Some relevant quotes from this article are 

Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with. Some experts say that given a free hand, oil companies could find considerably more oil in Libya than they were able to locate under the restrictions placed by the Qaddafi government.

“We don’t have a problem with Western countries like Italians, French and U.K. companies,” Abdeljalil Mayouf, a spokesman for the Libyan rebel oil company Agoco, was quoted by Reuters as saying. “But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil.”
Russia, China and Brazil did not back strong sanctions on the Qaddafi regime, and they generally supported a negotiated end to the uprising. All three countries have large oil companies that are seeking deals in Africa.

And to buttress this "cut China out of the oil deals" case and show China's perfidy a Canadian newspaper has "found" documents which show that Qaddafi was committing the cardinal sin of trying to protect himself by buying weapons from China. How dastardly!!!

We have a responsibility to protect
Closely related to "stopping genocide" and "he's a bad guy" arguments this argument appeals to the heartstrings of progressives and says fine even if this isn't strictly legal via a UN resolution or the US Constitution we can not sit back and let this violence occur.  It's always 1939 in this worldview. 

Balderdash. If that were really the case then the next time a Palestinian woman like Jawaher Abu Rahma is killed at a protest or an American woman like Emily Henochowicz loses an eye after being shot in the face I will look to the US/UN to protect peaceful protesters in Israel. Ok, ok, maybe that's too much to ask, Israel being a "special case" and all. Hmm. How about just protecting Black people in Libya?

But Gaddafi loyalists were also targets of apparent extrajudicial killings. Those deaths have cast a dark shadow over Libya’s newfound freedom and call into question whether the rebels will break with Gaddafi’s blood-soaked style of governance or merely mimic it.
“In Tripoli, we are seeing the same pattern in recent days that we saw earlier in the east,” said Diana Eltahawy, Libya researcher for Amnesty International. She described a record of abuse, torture and the extrajudicial killing of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters that has followed the rebels from east to west as they have taken over the country.
The worst treatment of Gaddafi loyalists appeared to be reserved for anyone with black skin, whether they hailed from southern Libya or from other African countries. Darker-skinned prisoners were not getting the same level of medical care in a hospital in rebel-held Zawiyah as lighter-skinned Arab Libyans, Eltahawy said.
Rebels say Gaddafi employed gunmen from sub-Saharan Africa to shore up his army against his own people, and those fighters have elicited intense enmity from Libyans. But many of the detainees in Zawiyah told Amnesty International they were merely migrant workers  “taken at gunpoint from their homes, workplaces and the street on account of their skin color,” Eltahawy said.

ALSO

As rebel leaders pleaded with their fighters to avoid taking revenge against “brother Libyans,” many rebels were turning their wrath against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, imprisoning hundreds for the crime of fighting as “mercenaries” for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi without any evidence except the color of their skin.
Many witnesses have said that when Colonel Qaddafi first lost control of Tripoli in the earliest days of the revolt, experienced units of dark-skinned fighters apparently from other African countries arrived in the city to help subdue it again. Since Western journalists began arriving in the city a few days later, however, they have found no evidence of such foreign mercenaries.
Still, in a country with a long history of racist violence, it has become an article of faith among supporters of the Libyan rebels that African mercenaries pervaded the loyalists’ ranks. And since Colonel Qaddafi’s fall from power, the hunting down of people suspected of being mercenaries has become a major preoccupation.
Human rights advocates say the rebels’ scapegoating of blacks here follows a similar campaign that ultimately included lynchings after rebels took control of the eastern city of Benghazi more than six months ago.
The detentions reflect “a deep-seated racism and anti-African sentiment in Libyan society,” said Peter Bouckaert, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who visited several jails. “It is very clear to us that most of those detained were not soldiers and have never held a gun in their life.”
In a dimly lighted concrete hangar housing about 300 glassy-eyed, dark-skinned captives in one neighborhood, several said they were as young as 16. In a reopened police station nearby, rebels were holding Mohamed Amidu Suleiman, a 62-year-old migrant from Niger, on allegations of witchcraft. To back up the charges, they produced a long loop of beads they said they had found in his possession.
“People are afraid of the dark-skinned people, so they are all suspect,” Mr. Benrasali said, noting that residents had also rounded up dark-skinned migrants in Misurata after the rebels took control. He said he had advised the Tripoli officials to set up a system to release any migrants who could find Libyans to vouch for them.
He was held in a segregated cell with about 20 other prisoners, all African migrants but one. 
Outside a former Qaddafi intelligence building, rebels held two dark-skinned captives at knifepoint, bound together at the feet with arms tied behind their backs, lying in a pile of garbage, covered with flies. Their captors said they had been found in a taxi with ammunition and money. The terrified prisoners, 22-year-olds from Mali, initially said they had no involvement in the Qaddafi militias and then, as a captor held a knife near their heads, they began supplying the story of forced induction into the Qaddafi forces that they appeared to think was wanted.

So no fears, Black people!!! As soon as you can find a white person to vouch that you're a good abd and not a witch you'll be free to go. 2011 Libya, 1937 Mississippi, it's all good right?Ambassador Rice, President Obama you might want to avoid Libya for a while. We certainly don't want any misunderstandings. Cause they might not end as well as did Professor Gates' incident.

Many blog readers know that I am a huge A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) fan. A crystal clear series theme which bears repeating here is that war is an evil thing. It is so evil that it should be avoided whenever possible. Because when war is unleashed no one knows where things will end up. We do know that the people who pay the heaviest price for war are often the people who had nothing to do with starting it. The ONLY justification for war is self-defense. 

Thoughts? Comments? Rebuttals? Had you heard about the plight of Blacks in Libya?

Movie Reviews-Straw Dogs (1971), Hebrew Hammer, Cash

Straw Dogs(1971)

This Peckinpah film is violent, tense and grim. It attracted vitriol from feminists and liberals. Some thought it was a paean to essentialist masculinity while others decried what they saw as rape apologetics.  I was moved to write about this film because there is a remake coming out. I don't know if I will see that. I would bet anything that the lead actress role has been rewritten drastically to conform to more modern sensibilities while the lead male character will have to stretch to reach Dustin Hoffman's work here. If you do decide to see the remake please check out the original. This discussion will (unavoidably) have some major spoilers. 
David (Dustin Hoffman) is an American math professor married to Amy (Susan George). The young couple have had some issues and in order to reboot their relationship (and also it is implied flee from the socio-political unrest in the US) the duo move to Amy's native English village.


While Amy was evidently attracted enough by David's intellect and success to marry him she's just not currently attracted to him on a gut level. He doesn't make her motor run. David is losing her respect. It's not just one thing and it's not something she can coherently verbalize. And the hyper-rational, pacifistic, sarcastic and coldly polite David wouldn't know what to do if she did. A master of Game, David is not. He wants to work on his equations, not Amy's emotions or other more physical attributes. The couple's mutual irritations grow. 


David is out of place. He comes across as standoffish, incompetent,  (he can't drive a stick-shift) arrogant and condescending. This attitude is returned tenfold. The non-physical David has casually hired some local roust-a-bouts to do home repair. One worker is Amy's old boyfriend Charlie (Del Henney), who is much more traditionally masculine (and larger) than the diminutive Hoffman. Charlie wants Amy back. And Amy is somewhat ambivalent about this. She is a tease who wears provocative clothing and flirts with other men in front of David to make him jealous. The passive-aggressive Amy even disrobes and walks in front of open windows, knowing that the workers, including her former flame will get a nice look.

The Thrill is gone. It's gone away for good.

The tensions between the men and David ratchet up. The workers make not so hidden and increasingly hostile jokes at his expense, which David either pretends not to get or ignores. Someone kills Amy's cat and hangs it in the couple's bedroom, something which scares and infuriates Amy but barely seems to get a rise out of David. She berates her husband and questions his masculinity, wanting him to confront the men. David says he'll talk about it with them when they go hunting. In a Potemkin Show of camaraderie the local yobs have invited David on a hunting trip. However while the clueless David is being led around the backwoods and to his hosts' great amusement ultimately abandoned, Charlie hightails it back to the couple's home where Amy invites him in.
This is the film's most controversial aspect. Charlie initially forces himself on Amy but it's arguable afterwards that this WASN'T a rape. This could have been sex between two frustrated people that like a certain amount of danger and aggression in their partners. It may be similar to Rhett carrying Scarlett up the stairs despite objections. It is ambiguously shot as Amy seems to respond positively towards Charlie at one point. The director said people were missing the point but are you going to believe the director or your lying eyes? However what happens next IS rape as Charlie's buddy has followed, seen what went on and decides at gunpoint he wants in. Charlie assists. Hard to watch, this scene doesn't last long. I can't imagine that this would be shot like this today with ANY sort of initial uncertainty.
For whatever reason , George does not tell her husband what happened when he returns (loss of respect again?) and he never does find out. After these events George does not speak as much and dresses more conservatively.  But events occur which bring David's long dormant violence bubbling up.

This is where I live. This is me. I will not allow violence against this house

While driving home one night from a church social, where Amy has a reaction after seeing her rapists, the couple accidentally hit another man-the mentally slow Henry Niles (David Warner) who just killed a young town girl. David is unaware of Niles' previous actions and takes him home. David calls the local pub to seek assistance for the injured Niles. Unfortunately the local pub is where the murdered girl's father and the local thugs are (including Amy's rapists) and now that they know where Niles is they set off in a drunken rage to demand that David turn him over. But this David will not allow. He finally puts his foot down and massive violence ensues. 
The director also claimed that David was the film's villain. This is a disturbing film but shows the risks that many seventies films took. We can make a very strong argument that David has become exactly what he was trying to avoid becoming. This is not simplistically portrayed as a "good thing". We can be happy that David is standing up for himself at long last but this could have been prevented by different decisions earlier. And since he does not know of his wife's violation or his guest's crime, the violence in him comes from a different place entirely. This film is not for everyone but it did feature some of Hoffman's best work.


The Hebrew Hammer

This film, much like Undercover Brother is a comedic send up of 70's blaxploitation movies. It features Melvin Van Peebles (catch the reference to Sweetback in the video), Mario Van Peebles and stars Adam Goldberg as Mordechai Jefferson Carver aka The Hebrew Hammer, a Jewish private investigator, former IDF member and all around bada$$  who is so militant, so uncompromising that even other hardcore Jewish defense organizations think he's a little bit off and generally refuse to work with him.


That's just fine by The Hammer who prefers to work alone anyway. He tools around Brooklyn in his seventies pimpmobile looking like a combination of Superfly and Bugsy Siegel, telling kids to "stay Jewish". But as it turns out there are some events going on that even the Hammer can't handle by himself. While the previous Santa Claus pursued a live and let live policy of tolerance towards all other religious winter celebrations, he has been murdered and replaced by his decidedly intolerant son Damien (Andy Dick in a particularly over the top role) who intends to wipe out all other non-Christian or non-white celebrations in winter, starting with Hannukah. 


The Hammer has been alerted to this nefarious plan by the Jewish Justice League, which is presided over by Chief Bloominbergensteinanthal (Peter Coyote) The Chief doesn't like Hammer (Hammer was kicked out of the JJL) and the feeling is mutual. But he knows that Hammer is the only one who might be able to save the day.  The Chief sends his daughter Esther (Judy Greer) to watch over Hammer. Her feelings for Hammer are a bit more...complex.

Hammer checks in with his best friend, Mohammed Ali Paula Abdul Rahim (Mario Van Peebles), head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front (KLF) and together they must team up to defeat the evil Santa's plans. In one of the film's funniest scenes , featuring a cameo by Melvin Van Peebles, Hammer asks for Manischewitz in a skinhead bar.


Although the humor is uneven at times, I liked this film. Like any other satiric film genre it features some jokes at an in-group's expense that would probably be considered quite offensive if made by an outsider. Whether the film is joking about the guilt tripping abilities of Jewish mothers, the preponderance of Holocaust movies in Hollywood, or a clock that lets people know when Macy's is having a 50% off sale, this film plays fast and loose with stereotypes(WASPS, blacks, Jews,etc), but it's all in good fun.

Ca$h

This movie was filmed entirely in Chicago. It's a low key thriller starring Sean Bean in a double role(The Kubic Brothers), Chris Hemsworth (Sam) and Victoria Profeta (Leslie).

One of the Kubic brothers has just been arrested and charged with a bank robbery. However before he's arrested by the cops he throws the suitcase containing the cash over the bridge and manipulates the police into shooting his accomplice. No evidence, no conviction is his plan.

In the meantime he is visited by his hypercalm twin brother who may have bankrolled the heist and wants to find the money. All the imprisoned brother has to go on is the make/model of the car he threw the money on. Armed only with that information ,somewhat implausibly Pyke Kubic starts to track down the people who "stole" the money.
  

Sam Phelan and his wife Leslie were living paycheck to paycheck so when an unexpected $600,000 comes into their life they go on a spending spree, pay off their house and get new cars.

All this happens in the first 20 minutes. The rest of the story concerns the psychological interactions between the Phelans and the incredibly single minded and intimidating Kubic when he discovers where they live. In some respects it's a lower budget "No Country for Old Men" but Kubic's brand of fear is not as over the top as Chigurh's. The film also has some interesting points to make about women's attraction to strength, men's rivalries with each other and what people are willing to do to save themselves. Ok movie but nothing special. 

Music Reviews-Elmore James, Billy Joel, Rigoletto, and more

Elmore James
Slide guitar is one of the best known techniques in blues. Playing slide is one method of permitting the guitarist to temporarily turn the guitar into a fretless instrument and more easily reach those microtones, the notes between the notes that are not normally recognized in Western music but are essential in many non-Western musics, especially much African music. As blues is African-American music it is unsurprising that slide guitar became (somewhat stereotypically in present day) a blues guitar hallmark. BB King, who does not play slide, came up with his distinctive trilling technique by initially trying to imitate the slide sound of his cousin, Booker White.

There were and are many great slide players as well as guitarists who occasionally made use of a slide but were just as talented without one. Some of them I may mention in the future-Hound Dog Taylor, JB Hutto, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Booker White, Ben  Harper, Duane Allman, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Blind Willie Johnson, and several others. But one who stood apart was Elmore James. He was also a singer of some renown who had a distinctively masculine voice that sounded like a lovesick bull braying. You can hear both pain and pride in his voice and he's real about both of those feelings. Along with Muddy Waters, Elmore James virtually defined post-war slide technique.



Where Muddy's slide sound was trebly, whiny and always perched just on the edge of distortion, Elmore's sound was thick, full and bassy. And he dove into levels of amplified distortion meltdown that would not be attempted again until Hendrix, Clapton and the Young Brothers (AC/DC) took up playing. If you want to hear CRUNCH listen to Elmore James. From a technical standpoint this is really amazing considering that James very very rarely played a traditional electric guitar. He usually played an acoustic guitar that he had personally modified with his pickups. This was played through either some no-name cheap amp or a homemade amp. (James was a technical ace who had worked in a radio repair shop) Eventually James was able to replicate his slide sound even without using a slide.

Although many of his licks can now be considered simplistic virtually all of them remain exciting. James' band, The Broomdusters, were just as loud and as avant-garde as he was. It is quite easy to hear echoes of many of the above mentioned guitarists in his music as James was quite influential. Muddy's sound was quite urban. James travelled back to Mississippi quite frequently and his music reflected that. He was playing "blues-rock" before it had a name. If you like loud blues, rock-n-roll, and music that is designed to put your moneymaker in motion, if you want to know what a 1959 African-American house party or fish fry sounded like this might be for you. James had a chronic heart condition and passed away in 1963 but his music will live on forever.

Something Inside of Me   It Hurts Me Too  Done Somebody Wrong   Anna Lee
The Sun is Shining   I can't stop loving you   Bleeding Heart


Billy Joel

Billy Joel is a pop-rock pianist and songwriter from Long Island, NY. Somewhat unfortunately for him initially he came on the scene when critical taste had veered away from openness and honesty in music to irony, cynicism and decadence. Although some of Joel's music can be extremely cynical (having your brother-in-law and lawyers rip you off for millions can do that to a man) he also wrote many McCartney-esque pop tunes. These didn't endear him to critics who considered them "sappy" or akin to musical Hallmark cards. It didn't help that Joel played piano, not guitar, at a time when guitar had become the definitive RAWK instrument. And Joel's penchant for ripping up critical reviews on stage- well that sent the critics to the mattresses and the 1977 Village Voice war was on.

Unlike fellow piano superstar Elton John, Joel did not usually engage in a lot of flash and circus during his live shows (I don't think he was ever seen in heels or makeup either LOL) and generally relied on a pleasant, if somewhat nasally tenor voice and great songwriting. Joel was influenced much more by old school rock-n-roll, Brill Building pop, Broadway show tunes, doo-wop, light jazz, ragtime, classical, older R&B/soul and jump blues than by hardcore blues or hard rock, each of which were safer influences (critically speaking) to have during the early seventies.

Although the critics had doubts, Joel persevered and like others before him must have cried all the way to the bank (He is the third best selling solo artist of all time in the U.S.). We each may have only a few years to REALLY make our mark on the world and for Joel that period was the early seventies to the mid eighties. He created some really really good music during this era. Joel has suffered (still suffers?) from depression. He once tried to commit suicide and more than a few of his songs hint at the loneliness and darkness in life. (Piano Man anyone???) But although many of his classic tunes mention the darkness they aren't consumed by it. There's joy in his music. A lot of it. I can't pick a favorite song of his but Vienna comes close. It's a song Joel wrote after visiting his father.

It is the mark of a really good songwriter that they are able to take a quite particular point of view or set of experiences (in Joel's case a Jewish kid who was a teen boxer/delinquent growing up in Hicksville, Long Island) and make it universal without losing an ounce of specificity. I've only been to New York once yet I feel like I know it intimately just from Joel's songs. Joel's lyrics tell stories. His music often sounds like soundtracks to movies that haven't been made or maybe even to your life. I have little in common with Joel but he is a favorite. His music is quite fun to sing along to in the car or at parties. And everyone knows a Brenda or Eddie or has been a Brenda or Eddie.

Joel's muse has evidently left him -no one has an endless well of creativity or energy-and he has stopped writing new pop music. He still tours regularly playing from a huge songbook of hits and hidden gems.
Ain't No Crime        Captain Jack  Piano Man
Vienna                              Roberta   She's always a woman to me
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant  Streetlife Serenader
Moving Out(Anthony's Song)           Big Shot   Billy The Kid


Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera by Verdi. It is a favorite of mine and is one of the better known of his operas. The story is classic and illuminates the meaning of the grim proverb "If you seek revenge, dig two graves". The Duke is a notorious player. He seduces women all over the duchy, married or not, young or old. He brags about this while the lesser nobles seethe. They can't touch the Duke. But they mean to take vengeance on the Duke's jester, Rigoletto, who even more so than his boss, mocks the cuckolded husbands, infuriated brothers or angry fathers. Rigoletto often picks out the women to be seduced and counsels the Duke to have this or that man executed, rather than risk the revenge of a dishonored individual. One such man curses Rigoletto-something which Rigoletto ignores at first but remembers later. Having heard a rumor that Rigoletto himself has a mistress the nobles intend to kidnap her and present her to the Duke.

Rigoletto has no mistress but he does have a young innocent daughter, Gilda, who for obvious reasons, he keeps hidden away. Both the Duke and the nobles discover Gilda. In an increasingly tragic series of mixups, Rigoletto is tricked by the nobles into kidnapping his own daughter and delivering her to the Duke. By the time he discovers the ruse it's too late. The Duke has "done the job" on Gilda and she's in love with him. Plotting revenge Rigoletto arranges the services of an assassin to remove the Duke from the planet but the lovestruck Gilda disguises herself as a man and is stabbed by the assassin (who has been convinced by his sister-also in love with the Duke-to spare the Duke's life, but murder the first man he sees). Rigoletto arrives to pay the assassin and remove the body (tied in a bag) of who he thinks is the Duke. Just about to throw the sack into the river, Rigoletto hears the Duke once again singing his signature tune about the capriciousness of women "La Donna e mobile" and in horror opens the sack to see his dying daughter, who even then still loves the Duke.

There are a lot of different versions of Rigoletto obviously but for my money the best feature Luciano Pavarotti as the Duke. There's a good chance that even if you aren't a big classical music fan you've heard portions of this opera.

La Donna e mobile   Questo o Quello  Three Tenors do La Donna e mobile   Bella Figlia Dell'Amore


Susana Baca

Susana Baca is an Afro-Peruvian singer and musicologist. I have a few of her cd's. The best way I have of describing her voice is probably languid and rich. Although their sounds are not similar much like Billie Holiday, Baca is quite skilled at singing behind the beat and occasionally turning the time around. Beside Holiday the other singers I am reminded of when listening to Baca are Edith Piaf, Astrud Gilberto and Dinah Washington (on her more reflective songs).

Baca sings primarily in Spanish so obviously I don't understand the lyrics for the most part but good music is good music. Although you can definitely hear the family connection to African performed or inspired music across the diaspora, Baca's music is NOT salsa, calypso, merengue or anything like that. It's very distinctive and sounds to my untrained ears like a mix of jazz, flamenco, bossa-nova and fado with a little soul mixed in for flavor. Before I started listening to her I was only vaguely aware that there were any Black people in Peru.

Ms. Baca recently was recently appointed as Peru's Minister of Culture and has released a CD, Afrodisapora, which explores the various musical links between the disparate African descended communities in the New World. You can read her interview here. I am happy to see someone of her age start to get more exposure and recognition.

Maria Landa   Toro Mata   De Los Amores  Live in Prague Valentin


Eugene McDaniels

Eugene McDaniels just passed away on July 29. He was a somewhat underrated songwriter and guitarist. Like many of the musicians I like McDaniels matured musically before genres had hardened into distinct categories whose adherents did not speak to each other. He sang like a jazz man, bent notes on his guitar like a bluesman, started some of the first "rap" songs-listen to Silent Majority, wrote love songs and produced records for R&B/soul singers, and performed guitar freakouts like the craziest rock star. He also had a noticeable folk influence (check out Susan Jane)
McDaniels was probably best known for his songwriting for Roberta Flack (Feel Like Making Love) and Les McCann/Eddie Harris (Silent Majority, Compared to What). Flack also covered his Reverend Lee.

If you can find them his socially conscious albums Headless heroes of the apocalypse and Outlaw, are definitely worth listening to. At the time when Headless heroes of the apocalypse was released evidently the content was considered so controversial that Spiro Agnew allegedly called up Atlantic records to see "what the hell was going on". And the album was not released. The album was definitely political in nature but McDaniels saw politics as just part of what impacted people's lives. I think his song The Parasite is one of the definitive protest songs about the experience of Native American peoples.

I have to say this-McDaniels was far more of a bluesman than anyone from England or the US who was just aping the culture or sound of someone else. While poseurs were singing about hard times on Mississippi chain gangs while touring in private jets McDaniels was writing and singing honestly about the world as he saw it in his time. While he was influenced by those who came before him he doesn't sound like anyone except himself-which really ought to be any artist's goal. That said, ironically much of his music has been raided by rappers looking for samples. But McDaniels said he was quite happy to provide the next generation assistance. So it goes.

Susan Jane  Silent Majority (with Eddie Harris)  Outlaw (contains some profanities)  The Parasite
2010 Interview  The Lord is Back

Michigan Cuts Welfare: 11,000 Families Lose Benefits!

Michigan Republicans to welfare recipients: 

Elections have consequences. That is something that people who won the last election like to smugly say to people who lost the last election. This is nowhere more true than in Michigan since the recent election of Republican Governor Rick Snyder, former chairman/coo/president of Gateway, who with the assistance of a Republican majority in the legislature, has instituted some sweeping changes.
The latest change is that there will be an end to cash assistance welfare for families who have received more than four years of help. This starts October 1-just as school is starting up and winter is coming.

Lansing— The state Legislature on Wednesday passed a 48-month lifetime limit on welfare benefits expected to cast more than 11,000 families off the welfare rolls on Oct. 1 — including more than 29,700 children, according to state officials.The cumulative time limit will save $77.4 million in the budget year that starts Oct. 1, but Democrats and child advocates said they fear it will cause a humanitarian crisis as social agencies are flooded with families who can't pay for rent, utilities or other essentials.

Gov. Rick Snyder, who proposed the cap as part of his 2012 budget, is expected to sign the bill into law.

Judy Putnam, spokeswoman for the Michigan League for Human Services, said: "The impact is going to come … when families lose a key source of income and may not be able to pay the rent just as the school year is getting started and kids are settling into classrooms."She added that many nonprofits and charities also have been slammed by the recession.

Wayne County will be most affected, with 6,560 families losing the cash assistance. Genesee County will see 1,533 families come off the rolls, with 600 in Muskegon, 385 in Oakland and 371 in Saginaw.

Statewide, 11,188 adults and 29,707 children will lose their benefits in just over five weeks. By September 2012, there will be 13,789 families to drop off the rolls, said Sheryl Thompson, acting deputy director of field operations for the Department of Human Services.

Thompson was not able to give a breakdown of adults and children by county, but she said the average family includes one adult and two children. DHS Director Maura Corrigan announced earlier this month that the agency would no longer grant extensions to clients who have exceeded the five-year federal limit on cash assistance. Thompson said most of the families who will lose their benefits Oct. 1 have been on the rolls five years or longer.

Republicans said Michigan no longer can afford to allow families to stay on the assistance plan for four years or more. Rep. Kenneth Horn, R-Frankenmuth, noted that food stamps, Medicaid and child care payments will continue for those kicked off cash assistance. "This should be a strong statement for Michigan residents that (cash assistance) should not be a lifestyle," Horn told members of the House before Wednesday's vote. The measure passed largely along party lines in both chambers. Link to Detroit News Article

Now I was prepared to be exceedingly wroth but upon reading the article and doing some more research I learned that the current federal lifetime limit on welfare cash assistance is just five years. States are allowed to exempt up to 20% of their case load for hardship reasons, which Michigan announced it would no longer do. So perhaps moving from five years to four years is no big deal? Perhaps.

However Snyder and his merry band of right-wingers also just recently overhauled the Michigan budget and tax structure. I don't intend to dive down into the nuts and bolts right now but the big picture is that pensions are now taxable, the limit for state unemployment payments was reduced, the Earned Income Tax Credit was cut, business taxes were cut and aid to schools was cut. The only problem is that in the real world where states have to balance their budget, cutting taxes leads to less revenue coming in and that has to be made up somehow. How fortunate then for the Republicans that the amount of money they expect to save from the welfare cuts happens to be the exact amount of the probable budget shortfall from the tax cuts.

What an INCREDIBLE coincidence!!!!!! 

Poverty, Schmoverty! Look at the big picture people!!!

Although it's not national news the way something would be if it were happening in California or New York, the ugly truth is that Michigan has a very serious problem with child poverty. It's risen 64% over the past decade. 

That's right 64%!!! That's a lot of children living in homes with impoverished parents-a lot of people working low pay dead end jobs or unable to find jobs.

More than 36 percent of all Michigan children younger than age 18 were living in a household in 2009 where no parent had full-time, year-round employment, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count Data Book released today. That compares with 31 percent of children nationally. The report also found that 12 percent or 281,000 children in Michigan had at least one unemployed parent in 2010 compared with 11 percent nationally. And 5 percent of Michigan kids were affected by foreclosures since 2007, compared with 4 percent nationally.
“This report shows with startling clarity how deeply the recession has affected families across Michigan,’’ said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of the Kids Count in Michigan project at the Michigan League for Human Services. “Unemployment and foreclosures are adult issues but ones that dramatically affect kids, too. These economic stressors place children at much higher risk of worsening health and education outcomes.”
Some 23 percent of Michigan children lived in poverty last year -- with poverty calculated as two adults and two children living on $21,756 or less, up 64 percent since 2000.

With the news that the Federal COBRA subsidy is ending I guess now would be a particularly bad time to be unemployed in Michigan. The other thing to consider is not only will these welfare cuts hurt some undeserving people but that increasing the labor supply at a time when there is already 9% unemployment is not going to have a particularly good impact on wages. Of course that's if you're an employee. If you're an employer this is good news because your leverage over your current (low-skill) workers just got a little tighter. Don't like your job? Shut up and grin or I'll replace you with a welfare recipient. There is an effort to recall Snyder (it was started well before this latest news) but it doesn't look like it will go anywhere.


Of course to be fair there IS another side to this issue. I don't have much sympathy for it BUT at one point we didn't have federal cash assistance for impoverished people.  A four year lifetime limit is pretty long. If you can't afford kids don't have them. You have no right to other people's money. Some people need a kick in the butt to get them moving. Quit hiding behind your kids and get your tuckus to work. We heard the same doom and gloom predictions when Clinton made changes during the nineties so quit your squawking and get a job.


I have to admit I know some people to whom I would have no problem preaching that last paragraph. But are they the majority of welfare recipients? I don't think so. Not at all.


QUESTIONS:
What's your take?
Is a 4 year lifetime welfare limit too stringent?
Should this wait until there is lower unemployment?
Should this be phased in over a few years?
Is this the morally right thing to do?

Movie Reviews-Rise of the Footsoldier, Salt,Downfall and more

Rise of the Footsoldier

Rise of the Footsoldier, directed by Julian Gilbey, is a pretty gritty British gangster film that centers on the two decade evolution (devolution?) of soccer hooligan Carlton Leach and his buddies from mindless rioters into even more mindless gangsters, extortionists and drug dealers. It has more than few similarities to Goodfellas. The film is based on a true story, the Rettendon Range Murders, which also featured in another good British crime film, Essex Boys. Carlton Leach tells the story in voiceover and freezeframe, which gives it even more of a Goodfellas style. However if anything this film is even more pointed in its depiction of violence and brutality, which is unrelenting throughout. 


The only people scarier than Carlton and his friends are the Turkish Mafia, which is shown to be capable of depravities beyond your normal English thug. There are no sympathetic figures in the movie. Carlton is depicted as less violent than two of his best friends, which is not surprising as I believe the movie was based in part on Carlton's book and input. The most violent and chaotic of Carlton's friends is Pat, who is similar to Goodfellas' Tommy. Don't tell Pat what sort of pizza his girlfriend can or can't have delivered. I enjoyed the film. It was very dark, both in the actual shooting of the picture and the theme.

Salt

This film starred Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Andre Braugher has a brief cameo.

Originally this was to feature Tom Cruise in the lead role but he declined and the movie was rewritten for Jolie. If there's one actress who can make you believe that she has the capacity to fight men and occasionally win it's the statuesque Jolie. I think Jolie is better suited for this than Cruise would have been. I have trouble believing Cruise could win a fight with the paperboy.

Jolie is a deep cover CIA agent (Evelyn Salt) who is interrogating a Russian defector who suddenly states that Jolie is actually a deep cover Russian mole planning an assassination. Jolie refuses to be interrogated in turn and escapes. Mayhem ensues. Schreiber is Jolie's CIA supervisor, who doesn't want to believe she's gone bad. Ejiofor is a counterintelligence officer who does everything by the book even as he starts to notice some anomalies.

The movie is fun but mindless. The director realizes this and attempts to make up for it by plenty of closeups of Jolies' lush lips or pencil skirted legs. Jolie's character even uses her panties to escape lockdown. While this is... interesting,  =) I'm not sure it really balances out a script that has some very obvious logic holes and some misdirection that doesn't quite work. And although one fight scene might be believable it's a bit much to watch Evelyn Salt constantly duke it out toe to toe with men 50 lbs heavier and 6 inches taller.  In its defense though the movie is anything but ponderous and moves pretty quickly. It's just under 90 minutes. In general though I couldn't really care about any of the characters. They didn't quite come across as real.

Downfall

This is a drama about Hitler's last days in the bunker in Spring of 1945 as the Russians close in from all sides.
It is in German of course with English subtitles. Usually I'm not a fan of subtitles but I can't imagine this particular film being shown any other way. German is a fascinating, if harsh sounding language to me and it does have a majestic tone to it. In some circles this film is probably best known for the many youtube parodies that it engendered of Hitler's final classic rant when he discovered that there really was no relief army coming but it should be seen on its own merits.


Bruno Ganz stars as Hitler. The resemblance is disconcerting. It's even more impressive how well the actor captured Hitler's frothing rages, his sudden switches to kindness to women or children, his paranoia and deep hatreds, his physical deterioration from drug abuse, stress and Parkinson's and his manipulative hold on the minds of millions even as the country came apart.
This film is told largely from the POV of Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), Hitler's final secretary who was personally picked by Hitler just before everything fell apart. Junge is quite happy to get this assignment. 


Although in some respects movies like this could be accused of humanizing a monster the fact remains that Hitler was human. Humans contain the highest angels and the meanest devils within. The other thing which is factual is that up until the very end many Berliners fought the Russians from door to door, not so much to protect Hitler, who had by then made his contempt for the "weak German race" quite explicit, but to protect their lives and their women. It's not often discussed and is only obliquely mentioned in the film but a significant portion of the Russian Army committed atrocities against German civilians-primarily the rape of women-once they crossed into Germany. Such incidents were seized on by Nazi propagandists.

The paragon of Nazi propagandists was of course Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes) who along with his wife Magda (Corrina Harfouch) remained a fanatically devoted Hitler follower. Near the very end shortly before their mutual suicide, Magda commits an act that even her husband can not bring himself to do. The costs of true belief are shown in very ugly detail but they are costs which some Nazis are quite willing to pay. Because the film focuses so much on the leadership it is easy to forget that a nation of millions was paying the price for that leadership. There are some other questions raised around this which may be beyond this review but one of them is, in modern warfare is it moral for civilians to pay the price? Should we mourn for the dead of Dresden or Hiroshima or do we shrug and say they got what was coming to them?


Most of the film takes place in the bunker , which gives it a suitably cramped and desperate feel. But on the occasions that the film ventures outside things are even worse as we watch the unending procession of wounded soldiers, frantic doctors, thieves, SS fanatics, murdered civilians, and children or women pressed into combat. Ultimately this is a tremendously sad film because we see what an evil thing war is.  I really do think Americans would be much less jingoistic if war were more than a video game to so many people. Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler) is depicted as a simple-minded seductive individual who never thinks to challenge her husband (they married right before committing suicide) except when she is begging for a relative's life. This is a really really good film.

Faster

This movie's lead is The Rock, or as he now prefers to be known, Dwayne Johnson. Faster also stars Billy Bob Thornton, Carla Gugino, Maggie Grace, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Mike Epps, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and one very nice 1970 Chevelle SS. It is directed by George Tillman, Jr.

It is a revenge flick starring Johnson as the protagonist out on a rampage to deliver some serious hurting to people who wronged him. It's a welcome switch from the kiddy genre to which Johnson was temporarily exiled.

However the movie makes some very very critical mistakes of motivation, pacing and story. Simply put, a revenge motivation is meaningless unless you understand who the hero lost, why the loss is so devastating and you root for the hero to get his own back no matter what. This film has trouble doing that. Also Johnson's character lacks humanity-he has no girl-isn't the hero always supposed to get the girl?? And the film spends WAY too much time on supporting characters at the expense of Johnson's storyline. It feels like the film was hedging its bets. It switches up at the end and almost feels like two different screenwriters were fighting it out.
I don't want to accuse Thornton of just phoning it in but he does look kinda bored here.
The film does have a Revolvers are just Better theme and One Cool Car Those were fun but that was about the extent of it.

How to make an Oscar Winning Movie.
This is not a review I wrote but it is a send-up of what many award winning movies tend to look like these days and I thought it was funny. Hopefully you do too but as always YMMV.