Book Reviews-Mob Killer, The Store, The Devil You Know, Lion's Blood

Mob Killer

by Anthony DeStefano

Charles Carneglia, who is imprisoned for life, was a killer for the Gambino Crime Family, most specifically the Gotti faction. He was directly involved in at least five murders committed under the Family aegis. He was well known throughout the NY underworld for his "enhanced interrogation" skills and for making bodies disappear.

Although I'm not sure it was the author's intent, he simultaneously strips off any glamour from the criminal lifestyle and almost makes you feel sorry for Carneglia, who despite spending his entire adult life toiling away in the NY underworld, never progresses financially. He lacks wealth and respect. No yachts, fat bankrolls, long cigars or harem of busty blondes for Carneglia. 

A delusion persists among some Mob enthusiasts as well as some deluded Mafia members and associates that the Mafia is somehow different than the so-called "street" gangs –more majestic in its goals, possessed of a sort of Dark Side of the Force grandeur that we reluctantly recognize even as we condemn it.

Bullhockey.

If Carneglia resembled any fictional gangster it wasn't Michael Corleone so much as it was O-Dog. The hot-headed Carneglia committed three murders during unauthorized street brawls or armed robberies. When he wasn't murdering people or disposing of bodies for other gangsters, the subliterate Carneglia was usually drunk. He would boast about killings or crimes he had committed. He was routinely watched and monitored by worried Family associates, who had standing orders to make sure the crazed thug didn't get into a fight and kill someone important, talk too much, or implicate anyone higher up in the Family hierarchy. 

This book destroys the myth that the Mob doesn't kill police officers or other law enforcement officials. Carneglia murdered Albert Gelb, a NY court officer, who saw Carneglia carrying guns and attempted to arrest him. 

Carneglia could not earn or save money. Outside of occasional involvement in drug rackets and extortion of adult video stores/dance clubs he didn't make much money for himself or others. He was despised and yet feared by other Family members wary of his quick temper and skill with a knife. 

Carneglia gradually fell out of favor with Family leaders, who gave him less work over the years. His financial desperation led him to riskier crimes (such as armored car robbery) and involved him with numerous people who could (and ultimately did) testify to his involvement in various acts of mayhem. This book shows that being a criminal is stupid.  Many criminals described were killed or locked away for decades. If you are bound and determined to be a criminal, try to commit illegal acts by yourself or with only one other person. Committing murder in front of witnesses is bound to come back on you and not in a good way. And keep your mouth shut. When five different people sit in court and tell how the jury they saw you kill someone or that you told them how you killed people, you really only have yourself to blame.

Carneglia was no Mafia mastermind. He was just a murderous guy with a bad temper. Mob Killer also examined the life of John Gotti Jr. who triumphantly used a defense (I quit the Mafia) that Carneglia was unable to utilize successfully. There is a question that the book elides but is worth discussing. Many people who testified against Carneglia and received light sentences and/or placement in the Witness Protection Program were either wealthier criminals than he was or more disturbingly had murdered just as many or more people. It doesn't seem right that a killer who looks weird or lacks money (Carneglia was guilty on both counts) gets the book thrown at him while a wealthier or better looking thug (John Gotti Jr.?) manages to elude justice. But that's the world we live in. So it goes.

  

The Store

By Bentley Little

Like fellow horror authors Stephen King and Richard Laymon, Bentley Little is able to find and depict horror in everyday events. He also throws in some satirical jabs at some American ideals or institutions.

The Store attacks the growing ubiquity of the box store (Target or ESPECIALLY Wal-Mart) as an evil thing sucking the life out of local commerce. That is often how those stores are described by local competitors, union or environmental activists and municipal officials. 

In this book Little asks you to imagine that all those things are true, not just in a financial or moral sense but in a literal supernatural sense. Bill Davis is a local Arizona manager who signs on to join The Store as a good career move. Davis and his wife are social climbing materialists. And he's raising his daughters to be the same way.  Davis finds that The Store's leadership has rather extreme and even immoral ideas about getting low prices, how to defeat the competition and what an employee's loyalty to The Store requires.

The more he learns about The Store, the more Davis feels trapped. He tries and fails to quit and then also tries and fails to prevent his teenage daughters from working at The Store. Davis discovers that corruption pays well but the cost is more than he or his family can afford. Bill Davis is not a typical hero and makes plenty of mistakes. Even after some of the more serious ones though Bill is still in there plugging away, trying to find a solution to the mess he's in. 

Note, somewhat unlike King but definitely like Laymon, Little has a penchant for using kinky sex as a method of shocking and disturbing the reader. If this bothers you (he's nowhere near as explicit as Laymon though) be forewarned. If you don't like Wal-Mart, aren't overly fond of yuppies and like to see just how far someone can push a theme this could be the book for you.

The Devil You Know

By Mike Carey 

Recently there has been an explosion of horror/fantasy/mystery novels set in the UK, primarily in London. Neil Gaiman is probably the most successful author to work this genre but there are several others who do so. Mike Carey is a prime example. The Devil You Know was his debut novel and was a worthwhile entry into this field. 

This book asks us to imagine that in our world’s very near future things like zombies, ghosts, werewolves and demons either suddenly become real or are discovered to have been real all along. After a few religious controversies about the end of the world and so forth and so on, most people settle down to accept these things as real, somewhat normal and just part of life in the new millennium. 

One group of people who have known all along that there are things that go bump in the night are the real psychics and mediums in the world. Felix Castor is such a man. He’s been able to perceive things from the Other Side since he was a boy. As a man he makes a living as an exorcist. He uses music (like Tolkien’s writings, in this story songs have power) to place spirits at rest or eject more maleficent spirits from people they’re possessing. 

But there have been a few problems with his work of late. Castor tried to exorcise the devil Asmodeus from his friend Rafi and found that instead of ejecting the devilish presence he actually bound it with Rafi permanently. And Asmodeus, although trapped in human form and locked away in an insane asylum has some very unpleasant plans for Earth in general and Castor in particular. Depressed by his failure, Castor intends to get out of the exorcism business for good right after he solves a simple case of a museum haunting. 

Obviously this “simple case” turns out to be anything but and Castor ends up fighting for his life and soul from various baddies (werewolves, succubi, gangsters, etc.) who would like to take one or both of them from him. This was a fun book, probably a little longer than it needed to be. It’s very descriptive of London and surrounding areas and can make the reader feel as if he or she is right there. This book has a sizable amount of sardonic British humor. It combines the detective novel, light fantasy, adventure and a touch of horror for a solid read.

Lion’s Blood

By Steven Barnes

(Disclosure-Barnes is a huge influence on my writing style and world view. I used to post on his blog quite a bit and listen to his podcasts frequently.)

You should read this book. That’s probably the most succinct and honest thing I can say about this book. Barnes has written a LOT, on his own, with his wife, the author Tananarive Due, and with the authors Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven among others. Lion’s Blood is probably the best Barnes’ story I’ve read and that’s saying something. It ties together a number of themes and interests that are seen in many of Barnes’ other works-including but not limited to why and how our world came to be, martial arts, love between men and women, and the ultimate shared humanity (for good or bad) among all cultures.

Barnes shows his skills by using the most unlikely of story settings to display these themes. For you see Lion’s Blood is a story about slavery in the New World. It is an incredibly brutal story about slavery in the New World-one complete with all the horrors that institution entailed-the ripping apart of families, the rape of women, the breaking of human beings into little more than farm animals, the stripping away of pride, language, culture and religion and the replacement of those things with false mental images designed to produce abasement, racial self-hatred, and depression for centuries after the initial enslavement.

The twist however is that Lion’s Blood is an alternate history novel. In this timeline, Socrates did not accept his death sentence but fled to Egypt. Later Egypt and Carthage defeat Rome. Bilal becomes more important in Islam. These and other events have the impact of slowing down European development and speeding up the development of Egypt, Ethiopia and West Africa.

As a result one April morning in 1863, Aidan O’Dere, an eleven year old Irish boy has his village raided by Viking slave traders, The Vikings are armed with guns, and swiftly and easily kill the male warriors who try to defend the village, as the Irish only have spears and halberds. One of the men killed is Aidan’s father, who dies before his eyes. The Vikings sell their Irish captives to African slavers. Aidan, his mother, sister and several other Irish are transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the nation we know as America but in this timeline is known as Bilalistan and is divided among various feuding African nations, as well as the Aztecs, Chinese, Vikings, and First Nations. 

Aidan is sold to a powerful African noble, Wakil Abu Ali. Ali, despite having a reputation of being marginally kinder to his slaves than most owners, finds white inferiority self-evident and very much believes in and accepts the institution of slavery. Wakil Abu Ali has a son, Kai, who is about Aidan’s age. The two will become rivals, and enemies and perhaps friends-to the extent that a slave can be a friend with someone who owns him. But Aidan has no intention of remaining a slave. War is in the air. Aidan swears to find his missing sister or die trying. It will take a seven nation army to stop him. And Kai has his own moral, physical and spiritual challenges to deal with... 

Again, I can’t think of anything else to say here than please read this book. It is imo the best book Barnes has ever written and by far the best of those reviewed here today. Check it out.

Racial Profiling on Airplanes-Detroit Incident

It's never a good thing to be accused of or questioned about something that you had nothing to do with. When the people doing the accusing or questioning have the full might of the US Federal Government behind them, it's even worse. And it's really bad when the primary reason for the accusation or questioning is not something that you did, it's how you look. I've been through some minor instances of this a few times but never anything like what recently happened to Shoshana Hebshi, a Toledo woman of Jewish-Arabic heritage.

On September 11, 2011, there was an incident at Detroit Metro Airport that made national news. Reportedly a few dark-complected men were allegedly "acting suspiciously" during a Denver to Detroit Frontier Airlines flight.  The story was that they were in the bathroom together or one was in the bathroom for too long. F-16 fighter jets were scrambled and escorted the airliner to its suburban Detroit destination.

Law enforcement personnel and bomb squad specialists surrounded the plane. Armed police stormed the plane yelling at everyone to put their heads down and their hands on the seats in front of them.

(AP) -- An Ohio woman who was one of three people taken off an airplane at Detroit's airport and questioned on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks says she was shocked when armed officers stopped at her row and ordered her off.

Shoshana Hebshi, 35, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday that she believes she was targeted because of her Middle Eastern appearance. Hebshi, who describes herself as half-Arabic, half-Jewish with a dark complexion, said she endured nearly four hours in police custody that included being forced off an airplane in handcuffs, strip-searched and interrogated.

NEWS LINK

Please read Shoshana's detailed blow-by-blow account of what happened here. It's moving stuff.

Things like this make me very angry because in my humble opinion it shows that America has succumbed to its fears. We're losing the sense that the police/government should have limits on their actions. We have implemented a sort of deliberate overreaction which is more about flaunting the power of the state over the individual than it is about stopping any terrorist attack.

I hope that the legal experts who read and/or author this blog will chime in but to this simple guy from Detroit, it seems that something has gone drastically wrong with this society when the mere whisper of suspicion can cause F-16 FIGHTER JETS to scramble, an armed team to enter a plane and an American citizen to be detained for four hours without arrest or warrant, handcuffed and STRIP-SEARCHED.

I do not think that the so-called War on Terror and the US Constitution are compatible. I am worried that if forced to choose, too many of my fellow citizens and their elected representatives will choose (have chosen?) the War on Terror. This means increasing numbers of "exceptions" to the Bill of Rights, increased militarization of the Police and politicization of the Armed Forces as their roles and duties merge, and of course ongoing "intelligence" gathering on American citizens-what websites you read, who you give political support to, what books you buy, where you travel, who your friends are, who you talk to and so on. And why would you oppose any of this? You don't want the terrorists to win do you? Do you?

For what's it worth neither Shoshana Hebshi nor the South Asian men were charged with any crime and nothing of danger was found on the plane. Evidently the dudes weren't in the bathroom at the same time either. No new members were inducted into the "mile high club" (same sex division)

QUESTIONS
1) Did anyone do anything wrong here or are these just the times we live in?
2) Would Hebshi have been within her rights to refuse to answer any questions w/o an attorney present? What would you have done?
3) If you see a group of South Asian/Middle Eastern people sitting together on an airplane do you get nervous ?(Don't answer if you're Juan Williams-got your response already)
4) Should Hebshi sue? If so whom?

Movie Reviews- Red State, Let's Do it Again, Cherish and more

Red State                 

I had virtually given up on Kevin Smith as a director. I thought his muse had left him. On a lark I decided to watch his movie Red State on VOD. It was described as a horror movie.
It wasn't a horror movie.
But it is Smith's best film since Clerks or Chasing Amy. Smith has matured as a director and writer. I'm not saying this movie is Oscar material but it does have an Oscar winning performer (Melissa Leo) in it. The story's strength surprised me. And at just under 90 minutes there's no flab here.

It is Smith's vision of what would happen if Rev. Fred Phelps, he of the "God hates homosexuals" and "I'm glad your son is dead" fame, had decided to "start using the Second Amendment and not just the First" as one of the film's characters puts it.

Three desperately horny high school boys (are there any other kind?) are surfing the net to find free sex. They come across a local solicitation from an older woman who agrees to simultaneously service all three boys. Excited, the trio pile into one of their parent's cars and burn rubber to the agreed destination....

Upon arriving they are less than impressed with the attitude, age and demeanor of the woman, Sarah (Melissa Leo), but decide to proceed anyway. However Sarah has different plans. The boys drink drugged beer and find themselves tied up in the basement of genially deranged preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), Sarah's father, who sends his followers (mostly children, in-laws or older grandkids) out into the world to kidnap or entice homosexuals and fornicators for "God's punishment". And "God's punishment" is more painful and permanent than just forcible Bible reading. I like Parks' work here. Leo's role is large enough that it's not just a supporting role.

This film could have gone down The Texas Chainsaw Massacre road. Smartly it doesn't do that. The Coopers and friends are not cartoon villains. Some are seemingly rational or even nice people whose profoundly different worldview may only become apparent after a longer conversation. Some are too young to know any better. The film pivots neatly to introduce melancholy ATF agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman-when did he get so old??) who is summoned by the sheriff to handle the situation. Keenan's supervisors are very wary of another media frenzy ala Waco or Ruby Ridge and give Keenan orders which will cause him and the audience to question just who the good guys are here.

I like Smith's writing here. Most of his trademark sarcasm, gratuitous profanity and proud cynicism is muted. Smith has some interesting questions to raise about religious fundamentalism AND the incredible (excessive?) legal and physical power of the Federal government. There is a romantic element to this last which works as entertainment value but may disturb viewers afterwards. Often no matter how wrong someone may be we have a reflexive sympathy for the underdog. Smith cannily exploits this tendency. Bottom line, your arms are too short to box with God OR the Federal government. Thomas Jefferson had some things to say about this which may be the subject of a future post.  In terms of looks and sound, this film does have a few overly talky scenes-it is after all a Kevin Smith film, but that is the only obvious link between this film and the rest of his work.  And even those scenes work as Parks gets most of them.

If I didn't know better I would have said Smith was brought in to produce, not direct the film because the camera work and the acting are so very very different than what one would normally associate with a Kevin Smith film. There are a few Rob Zombie and even Tarantino flourishes but ultimately this is a very sincere, painfully earnest film. It makes an unsuccessful shout out to No Country for Old Men that is too derivative and doesn't fit but that aside it was a pretty good movie. Kevin Pollak, Stephen Root, Michael Angarano and Kerry Bishe also star.
****Some current and former members of the Westboro Baptist Church were invited to a screening of this film. You can read their thoughts about it here.

Let's Do It Again

Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier starred in a trio of  seventies comedic movies together, Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again and A Piece of The Action. These were pretty enjoyable films in which the director (Poitier) had just as much fun demolishing the squeaky clean image of Cosby and especially Poitier, as he did in putting together zany story lines and parodying then current movies-check out Belafonte's Godfather impression in Uptown Saturday Night. Anyway I expect that most readers have seen Let's Do It Again. I think it is the funniest of that film triad. 
Let's Do it Again examines the adventures of two working class rogues, Billy Foster (Bill Cosby) and Clyde Williams (Sidney Poitier) who, learning that their Masonic-like local lodge is in danger of being foreclosed upon, take it upon themselves to hypnotize a boxing contender to believe he can win a match against the champ. They then bet everything on the contender.


This contender, Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker) is laughably out of shape, undersized and scared. No one thinks he will win against 40th Street Black. When he does win and Foster and Williams clean up financially they come to the attention of two feuding crime organizations, one led by the defiantly old school Kansas City Mack (John Amos-seems like he should have had more leading man roles) and the other overseen by the quite modern and supercool Biggie Smalls (Calvin Lockhart). Foster and Williams, along with their wives (Denise Nicholas and Lee Chamberlin) have to bluff, bribe and scam their way out of this jam, while trying not to get caught in a shooting war between these two groups, who as mentioned, really don't like each other.

This film's dialogue is pretty funny, such as when Kansas City Mack , fuming about Smalls' inroads into his territory muses that maybe he should get "some college educated (insert slur)" like Smalls, or when Foster and his wife, playfully flirting after the first successful hustle talk about the fact that Mr. Foster will need to bring a big hammer to bust the block of Mrs. Foster. The film's primary hilarity though comes from the simple ridiculousness of seeing Poitier and Cosby attempt to come off like gangsters, circa 1975. They were laughing at themselves as much as the audience was I'm sure. This is one seventies film that has aged pretty well. Again, John Amos almost stole the show here. Jayne Kennedy had a quite impressive cameo.
LET'S DO IT AGAIN TRAILER


Cherish

In a very weird warped sort of way this is a romantic comedy. Cherish stars Robin Tunney, Nora Dunn, Tim Blake Nelson and Jason Priestly. A young San Francisco computer animator, Zoe (Robin Tunney) is a bit of a social loser and 80's music geek who is bullied by her coolly stylish boss (Liz Phair). Zoe rarely goes out on dates and when she does men tend not to ask for a second one. After crashing a work party Zoe is carjacked by a stalker who runs over a police officer, killing him.

No one believes the inebriated Zoe when she rants about the mysterious stalker. She is forced into house arrest while she waits for trial-at which she is expected to be convicted and sent away for quite some time. Arriving to set up this detention is the pensive and shy Daly (Tim Blake Nelson), who is about as socially inept as Zoe. But he does take his job seriously and sets up the electronic tether on Zoe's ankle.

Now confined to her apartment the scatterbrained Zoe must try to figure out who the real killer was. She also learns some interesting things about life in her area and her neighbors, one of whom Max (Ricardo Gil), a wheelchair bound man, becomes a good friend.
But as her trial date approaches a newly determined and focused Zoe finds that as she attempts to do detective work she's flirting and possibly falling in love with the decidedly unglamorous Daly. And the feeling might be mutual.

This was a good movie. The director (Finn Taylor) did not initially intend to focus so much on the romance between Daly and Zoe. He found that Tunney and Nelson had such good chemistry together that he altered the storyline to focus more on them. Thus there are some abrupt thematic shifts from time to time that don't really work but all in all I liked this film. The goggle eyed Tunney does a great job as Zoe, a woman who talks to cover up her own fear of being alone while Nelson's character hides his own fears under silence. Obviously the soundtrack is chock full of eighties (and some seventies) pop music. 
CHERISH TRAILER 

Dead Snow

This is a Norwegian zombie horror movie. Dead Snow is subtitled for American audiences. It has a fair amount of influence from Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson in that it deftly combines moments of horror with sardonic humor. It is very violent and scary in some spots. So if you liked Dead Alive or Evil Dead you may enjoy this film. If zombie movies bore you or you can't stand the sight of blood you can just skip this one.

Some Norwegian medical students/youth travel to a remote cabin to relax, ski, get laid, drink and generally carouse. However as it turns out this cabin was also the HQ of a lost Waffen SS battalion that evidently refused to surrender in the waning days of WW2. Bound to the area via sorcery (how is not really explained and isn't that important for these type of films) these Nazi zombies can generally only be awakened via a really dumb act (which I won't reveal) but suffice it to say that of course these students do the really dumb act.

The zombies awake and violence commences. Again this film has a lot of humor and in-joke references to other movies. Some references have become so common that they're tropes now. Whether it's two heroes surrounded by bad guys, who in a last stand of hopeless defiance tell them to "BRING IT!!!" or it's a couple so intent on carnal actions that neither notices danger until it's too late or the comedic heroic doofus who arrives to save the day but inadvertently makes things far worse, the viewer will recognize a lot of common tropes and writing techniques. What makes the film worthwhile, at least for the horror fan, is inventive special effects, great outdoors locations, and an bent sense of humor about the absurdity of the situation. One minute you're drinking beer and having fun; the next you're trying to use a chainsaw like a Viking battleaxe..

DEAD SNOW TRAILER

Serenity

Nobody panic. I have a plan.

This movie, written and directed by Joss Whedon, was based on his cancelled tv show Firefly. It features most of the same actors. It is set in our universe many years in the future. This movie was slightly ahead of its time in having well defined female characters and actually even having black people, though some critics still accused it of falling into cliches.

A young teen girl River Tam (Summer Glau) is trapped in some sort of psy-ops government facility. She is being mind tortured. She is broken out by her super-protective older brother Simon Tam (Sean Maher) a two-fisted and deceptively mild looking doctor who tends to go berserk if anyone insults or tries to harm little sis. He's been searching for her for years and doesn't intend to lose her now.  Simon has arranged passage for his sister and himself aboard the spaceship Serenity.

Serenity is captained by the somewhat moral and highly individualistic Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), called Mal by all. Mal is a disillusioned veteran of a recent civil war in which the plucky freedom loving individualists got the s*** stomped out of them by the current ruling statist totalitarians, The Alliance. Now the Han Soloish Mal and his crew of veterans, misfits and mercenaries eke out a living as smugglers-although since Mal still has some morals, it's implied they aren't THAT good at it. Making up his crew are his fellow veteran and loyal second-in-command Zoe (Gina Torres), her husband the nervous  ship pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), the sweet and desperately horny ship mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and the brutish and ambitious gun-obsessed mercenary Jayne (Adam Baldwin). The sociopathic Jayne is the sort of man who when asked why he didn't sell out his boss will only grunt "The money wasn't good enough". When the worried boss asks him what happens when the money IS good enough Jayne casually responds, "Well that will be an interesting day, won't it?"  



No more running. I aim to misbehave

None of these people are happy to travel with Simon and especially River-who is to say the least somewhat unsettling. They are less pleased when they find out that The Alliance, spearheaded by the mysterious Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is looking for River. As far as he is concerned she is government property and he wants her back. The Operative is a totally pragmatic man. He feels that River is key to building a better world, one without sin, one in which there is no place for such as him. And if that means he needs to kill or torture a number of people-especially Mal's friends- to bring that world about, he's perfectly fine with that. The story gets very interesting when Mal and his crew discover the hard way that the waifish River possesses some rather unusual and deadly skills. The Alliance did something to her...

Do you know what your sin is?

The movie has some obvious Star Wars antecedents but the villains are not as cut and dry. The Operative is affably evil but his intentions may be good. Even the most brutish villains of the story, The Reavers, a race of subhuman creatures who live to rape, kill and eat people (and not necessarily in that order) could invoke pity as much as hate and fear. It's a fun movie and likely has film's all time most definitive scene of a woman kicking butt and taking names. It's sci-fi but really it's just a Western transposed into a sci-fi genre. Entertaining stuff-especially on a Saturday afternoon.

SERENITY TRAILER

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.