Israeli Settler Violence: Double Standards

Everyone has double standards. It's part of being human, unfortunately. If someone who's not on our team does something dirty we scream in horror and call for penalties. If someone who's on our team does the same action, we chuckle and say hey the guy's a bit aggressive sure, but ultimately he's a good fellow.

Although this might be par for the course it's really not a good thing. It's actually something humans need to strive to eliminate actually, especially when it comes to justice. You may not have heard about this but in the West Bank Israeli settler movement there is a subgroup of settlers who take what they call "price-tag" attacks on Palestinian homes, farms, churches, mosques and well Palestinians themselves. Occasionally these are in response to Palestinian attacks but are more usually done in response to "provocations" like the Israeli closing of a settlement outpost or other political moves. Settlers also seem to enjoy such fun date night activities as random beatings of/shootings at Palestinians, destruction of Palestinian olive groves and farmlands and just general harassment such as calling your mother all sorts of foul names.

Despite the violence of these attacks and the harm they cause the Israeli government has more or less turned a blind eye to the settler movement's violence against Palestinians. Settlers have had government support. Well the problem with double standards is that quite often they come back to bite you in your tuchus. 

Some 50 settlers and right-wing activists entered a key West Bank military base early Tuesday morning and threw rocks, burned tires, and vandalized military vehicles. The settlers were acting in response to a rumor that the IDF would act to evict a West Bank settlement in accordance with an August Supreme Court ruling. In the attack on the Efraim Regional Brigade's base near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, right-wing activists threw stones at region's brigade commander and his deputy after forcefully opening the door to their jeep. The brigade commander was lightly wounded after a stone hit his head.

LINK

No arrests were made. Now it's pretty obvious or should be what would have happened if a wild bunch of Palestinians had invaded an Israeli military base to throw rocks, burn tires and vandalize military equipment. You would have been reading the next day about a bunch of dead Palestinians. Period.
This has embarrassed the IDF to an extent. After all no matter whose side they're on, no army wants people to get the idea that they can just roll up to a military base and pimp-slap soldiers willy-nilly. So they are trying to find a way to deal with settler violence-settler violence directed at the army anyway. They could care less about settler violence directed at Palestinians.

The IDF is holding discussing on ways of handling future cases of settler violence following the raid on the Ephraim Brigade base and the attack on the brigade commander on Tuesday. The army is considering taking a firmer hand against rioters targeting the IDF.

Among the options being explored is the use of crowd dispersal means such as shock or gas grenades, water canons and in cases of mass riots more advanced tools such as odor and noise weapons.

The IDF is also revisiting fire protocols in cases where soldiers' lives may be in danger which involve the hurling of stones or glass bottles. IDF forces refrained from using weapons in previous clashes with Jewish rioters and physically blocked the assailants. Ephraim Brigade deputy commander Lt. Col. Tzur Harpaz did just that on Tuesday when he left his weapon in the jeep before being hit with a stone in his head.

Oops upside your head indeed..

I see this just as chickens coming home to roost. You can not lovingly give a bunch of insane chauvinists guns, tax-exempt donations from the US, turn a blind eye to their violent rhetoric and actions against Palestinians and then be surprised when they decide that the Palestinians aren't the only people that might need to be punched in the face. Settlers across the world have often turned against their own government-whether it be Algeria, South Africa, Kenya or elsewhere. The increasing violence of some settlers and their disdain for political authority was thoroughly predictable. The Israeli political leadership finally decided to state that violent settlers would be subject to administrative detention though Prime Minister Netanyahu still refused to call them terrorists. 

I think that this will just be a road bump. In the short term both sides will do their best to contain their ire at each other and instead take it out on the hapless Palestinians. It's not in either side's interest to raise the level of violence even further. The long term question is that since much of the settler movement believes that God gave them the West Bank and no politician has any right to remove them, is it even possible for any sort of two-state solution to go forward-especially since settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem are still continuing. I say no.

QUESTIONS

1) What should the Israeli government do with the settler movement?

2) Why didn't the IDF soldiers defend themselves against the settler attack?

3) Do you think a two state solution is still possible or desirable?

4) Why is the US allowing tax breaks for settlement donations?

Music Reviews-The LeBron Brothers, Slim Harpo and Roy Buchanan

The Lebron Brothers

African inspired music sounds (and is) different across the diaspora. However there are similarities, occasionally small and hard to hear, that link all of these various musics together and make it apparent that they share a common ancestral heritage, however remote that ancestry might be. From time to time various musicians within one particular New World heritage appropriate traditions more closely associated with a different New World heritage. For example the clave rhythms in much of Bo Diddley's music or James Brown's "The Big Payback" are more common in Afro-Cuban music than African-American music but are ubiquitous throughout almost all West African music, which was the source for African-American AND Afro-Cuban music.


This mixing and matching of rhythms and influences goes the other way as well. A prime example of that would be The LeBron Brothers, a Puerto Rican salsa band that became quite adept at playing boogaloo. In some respects boogaloo was to salsa as rock-and-roll was to blues. Boogaloo combined Black American soul and R&B rhythms with Afro-Rican/Afro-Cuban styles-especially son montuno. The combination irritated some salsa purists but I liked it. And so did plenty of people in NY during the mid sixties and early seventies. 


The LeBron Brothers (Jose, Angel, Pablo,Carlos and Frankie) played their own instruments and sang in English and Spanish. They played salsa, soul and as discussed boogaloo among other styles. It was and is fun music. If you have an opportunity to pick up their 1967 album Psychedelic Goes Latin, I don't think you will be disappointed. It was crossover music before the term had been invented. I don't speak Spanish but just as you don't have to speak Italian or German to enjoy some very good opera I don't think you need to speak Spanish to enjoy some great salsa and boogaloo. Check them out.


Summertime Blues  Descarga Lebron  Apurate  Money Can't Buy Love

Slim Harpo

Slim Harpo was a blues/rock-n-roll singer and harmonica player (thus the name) who became virtually synonymous with "swamp blues". Most of his recorded music had a lot of extra studio reverb and echo added in (or was recorded initially with that). Often either instead of a drummer or in addition to a drummer he would use coke bottles, rolled up newspapers, cardboard boxes, maracas, claves, and anything else that would make a percussive sound. Ironically although Harpo's primary producer, JD Miller, claimed to love blues music and occasionally even used racially mixed bands in the studio, he also supported segregation and produced some very ugly racist Cajun rock-n-roll music. People are complex.


Harpo's vocals were easier for whites to approximate and his songs were usually good-time tunes. So he sold a fair share of records to both black and white audiences. Harpo's songs were covered by many rock-n-roll bands just starting out, including the Rolling Stones, various country bands and the Yardbirds. In my opinion he was only a so-so harmonica player but he was a pretty good songwriter. His music is seemingly simple but the feel is hard to get right, as several lame covers made painfully clear. His music is made for dancing, not listening and always has that shuffle beat going-sometimes up front, sometimes slowed down or more subdued. His music pulses, pushes and pulls like a tranny on a 56' Lincoln Continental.


Even the great Muddy Waters' version of Slim Harpo's I'm a King Bee doesn't quite do the original justice to my ears. Harpo passed away from a heart attack in 1970 but his rhythmically intense dark music lives on. This is just the kind of music you'd be listening to if you were having a sultry down and dirty adulterous affair with a Cajun/Creole queen (king) in New Orleans.

Got Love if You want it   Buzz me Baby   Rainin in My Heart

I'm a King Bee  Shake Your Hips  Baby Scratch My Back

Roy Buchanan

Depression.
Substance Abuse.
Intensity.
The Greatest Guitarist You've Never Heard Of.
Those things come to mind when I think of Roy Buchanan. There is often a predictable, if somewhat depressing tendency in America to overrate the Caucasian practitioners of blues and blues-derived music while the Black performers get ignored. That as you might imagine, irritates me greatly. But there are or in Roy's case were, white artists of INCREDIBLE skill who were shamefully ignored. Roy Buchanan is an example. He was skilled enough to play with anyone, though the notoriously introverted Buchanan once declined an invitation to share a stage with Albert King, claiming he wasn't that good, and turned down a request to join the Rolling Stones.

Buchanan grew up impoverished in Arkansas and California (his parents were sharecroppers) and was soaked in the then current white gospel and country music. His father wasn't religious but his mother occasionally attended racially mixed revival meetings where Buchanan picked up an interest in black gospel. That's Buchanan's version anyway. Buchanan's brother JD claimed that Buchanan didn't show an interest in or affinity for black music until the family moved to California and through one of JD's black friends, Roy started hearing more blues, R&B and rock-n-roll. Wherever he first got turned on to black music Roy showed a lifetime love for it. Roy picked up a few tips from Jimmy Nolen-later to become famous as James Brown's guitarist-and was a professional guitarist by age 16.

Unfortunately Roy's various bands were rarely at the same level he was, especially rhythmically. Playing for small pay on the white version of the chitlin' circuit also made it difficult to keep bands together. When Buchanan had a good backing band he would reveal more talents. Check out his cover of Al Green's I'm a Ram and see if you don't start dancing.

Buchanan was not the first to use pinch harmonics. Ike Turner, BB King and Hubert Sumlin occasionally used these tools. But Buchanan's embrace of pinch harmonics  (those "squealing" sounds you hear when he plays -Home is where I lost her is full of them -was total and complete and a defining characteristic. Buchanan was well versed in country, blues, rock-n-roll, jazz, flamenco and many other styles. In the late seventies he gamely took a stab at fusion and disco. Buchanan could and did replicate pedal steel and violin sounds on his guitar. Buchanan summoned a wide variety of tones that other people would need to use effects pedals to recreate. Buchanan rarely used electronic effects. It was all fingers, amp and attitude. Check out Five String Blues-it sounds like wah-wah pedals and volume pedals are being used...but they're not.

However because of his looks (his crazily intense Charles Manson stare wasn't something that could be easily sold in the pop market), his shyness and refusal to make the compromises necessary to become a bigger star, and his fierce insistence on musicianship above all else (as a hungry teen he once lost an audition when he insisted on tuning a guitar to the correct standard), he never hit the big time. He was a mediocre singer and a passable songwriter. Playing was his strength.

Buchanan's struggles with depression and alcohol/drug abuse limited his career and may tragically have been what cost him his life. After coming home drunk and getting in a "discussion" with his wife, Roy was arrested. The police later claimed that he committed suicide in jail. Incensed, his wife opened the coffin for close family and friends, who reported that Roy had had his head bashed in. Unfortunately his wife did not have the resources to further investigate his death.

"I have been played on the black stations. When I play I don't try to copy any of the black guys. A lot of people say I'm not a purist. Well there's no such thing as a white purist."
-Roy Buchanan in Maryland Musician in 1988.

The Messiah Will Come Again   Home is where I lost her (Billy Price on Vocals)  Fly Night Bird

Sweet Dreams(Live)   Hey Joe  I'm A Ram  Five String Blues   Roy's Bluz  Rescue Me

British woman spews hate

You may have heard about this. Old Guru brought it to our attention. A British woman, one Emma West, evidently lost it on a train and started ranting about the number of non-British people in Great Britain, including but not limited to Polish, Caribbeans and Africans. Basically like Eric Clapton and John Cleese before her, she noticed a change in the British demographic and weighed in against it.

West was arrested and charged with a racially aggravated public order offense. She was denied bail and remains in jail.  If convicted she could face anywhere from six months to two years behind bars.

Now from a US perspective  that sentence may seem outrageous for someone who is ultimately just speaking her mind, racist though it may be. But the UK is a different country with a different idea about which ideas may be publicly spoken. The British National Party, an ugly right-wing explicitly white separatist political party, is making noise of support for her.

The problem I see though is that whether we like it or not, people are not fungible. You can not just move millions of people from one culture to another and expect that people won't notice or occasionally have some issues. Most European countries are effectively tribal homelands of one kind or another. With a few exceptions (The Austro-Hungarian Empire being the most obvious) most European countries did not traditionally have a huge difference between country and ethnicity. To be a UK citizen (exceptions noted) was generally understood to mean you were of predominant Anglo-Celtic heritage. This sort of blood based citizenship was common across Europe (and elsewhere) and was essential to some cultures' embrace of the modern nation-state. The US is different.

With the creation of the European Union and increasing immigration from poorer European nations into richer ones as well as immigration from the Global South into the Global North, the meaning of the European nation state is being challenged and transformed. That may be to the best; it may not be. But West's rejection of it is not just a Western European trait.

• Black South Africans complain of (and riot over) illegal immigration by Black Zimbabweans. 
• The Uighur deeply resent the influx of Han Chinese into their areas.
• Russia isn't overly fond of movement of Central Asians or people from the Caucasus into Russia. 
• Dominicans have a history of trying to prevent Haitians from entering.
• The Libyans aren't crazy about the presence of Sub-Saharan Africans within their country.

In short, everyone on the planet has some in-group and out-group thinking. And I think that there are definite limits to how far this can be either suppressed or reworked.  Globalization may increasingly start to run up against those.

QUESTIONS
1) Is it permissible for citizens of one nation to want to keep their nation's current ethnic/cultural balance as is?

2) Should West have been arrested? What should her sentence be if any?

3) Have you ever run across vulgar public hate like this? If so what was your response?

Shutting Detroit Down

What's happening in Detroit?

You may not have noticed with all the national media attention on the Democrat-Republican fracas over the budget, the deficit, the Obama tax cuts, and payroll tax cut political gamesmanship but by some estimates the city of Detroit is on the verge of going belly up as soon as April of 2012. Detroit has a deficit of roughly $150-200 million and accumulated debt of somewhere around $10 billion. Vendors are already waiting in some cases as long as 18 months to get paid.

This has made some of the usual suspects happy but most people are angry or sad. Under the emergency financial manager law (which was given new teeth under the new Republican Governor's administration) the state has the power to appoint a manager who would have the authority to run the city, void union contracts and privatize services and sell assets. 

This being Southeast Michigan (one of the most segregated areas in the US) the race issue is never far from people's minds. Detroit is between 80% and 85% Black. With a few exceptions most suburbs are the reverse image of that demographic.  Detroit has had black political hegemony since the early seventies or so. Within the city there is INTENSE paranoia about the idea of a white governor appointing someone to run Detroit and even more suspicion about white suburbanites taking over Detroit's "jewels". Honestly, some of this is nonsense but some of it is 100% accurate as Detroit and the surrounding suburbs have battled for decades over the Detroit Water Department, (Suburban municipalities have urged greater suburban control over the Detroit water department-a stance greatly at odds with their otherwise anti-regionalism preferences), the Detroit Zoo, the Arts Institute and Library, mass transit, Detroit's income tax on suburban workers, and many other things.


Bottom line is that Detroiters feel it's their city so they get to vote and if you don't like that, quit your whining and move into the city. Otherwise have a nice long drink of STFU. Suburbanites feel that fine if you don't want our say, stop taking our money. We'll take that deal in a heartbeat.

How did this happen?
The city of Detroit has 48 different unions. They have generally refused to offer any more concessions, claiming that they've given enough. They blame bad outsourcing and private contractor decisions for this crisis. The unions have offered some ideas on solving the problem, which include such things as cutting Blue Cross Blue Shield out of the medical payment process and eliminating private contractors. The city council has seized upon an unpaid $200 million block of aid that the State of Michigan was supposed to pay Detroit as the proximate reason for the crisis. However the State of Michigan cut back aid to several localities as it is also cash poor. The city also would like the State of Michigan to forgive some of its debt and help the city to do a better job of collecting city taxes-from both residents but especially businesses.

If Detroit collected all of its owed income taxes each year, the city would receive an additional $155 million annually that could wipe out the deficit in a few years and avoid massive service reductions and layoffs. At a time when the state is about to begin dissecting the city's troubled finances, about half of Detroiters and non-Detroiters who work in the city fail to pay their city income taxes. But city officials said to aggressively go after the delinquent taxes would be time-consuming and require more employees and sophisticated technology than the city can afford. That's why Mayor Dave Bing is lobbying state lawmakers to enact a law that would require suburban employers of Detroiters to automatically withhold income taxes and electronically deposit the money into a city account.

STORY

The rising costs of health care for retirees and some bad decisions with the pension fund are an additional problem. In my opinion the primary cause for this is that Detroit simply has too many costs for the population that it supports. Things that could be done when Detroit was home to roughly a million people can't be supported when only about 700,000 live there. The property tax base and income tax base no longer exist to support the current payroll and other items. There is just not enough money coming in. People have left for reasons both good and bad. But at the end of the day, they've left.


All the other race-baiting and political posturing aside that's what it comes down to. It's like trying to make a monthly payment on a new Bentley Arnage when your job description has changed from international rock star to Olive Garden busboy. Eventually, the numbers turn against you. No matter how much you may hate it, you will need to accept (grudgingly and temporarily perhaps) your new reality. To paraphrase Moe Greene from The Godfather  "..the City of Detroit ain't even got that kind of muscle no more!!!"










What happens next?

Council members JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenyatta

Well that is indeed the million dollar question. The city council, union leaders and Mayor all came together last Friday to announce that although they had not solved the problem they would solve it and didn't need or want any outside help-period. However this was too late as the State Treasurer announced a 30 day review of the city's finances to determine whether an emergency manager would be appointed. The city is of course free to solve the crisis before then but many think this unlikely. Although it would be more symbolic than not the City Council has so far refused to cut its budget by the amounts it wants other departments or workers to accept.


Detroit faces privatization of lighting, waste management the zoo, the water department, parking, parks, Belle Isle, mass transit, fire, police and other normal city services. This looms in the future, whether it be through an unprecedented bankruptcy or the emergency manager process. In short, Detroit would temporarily cease to exist as an independent political entity. Some analysts feel that emergency manager or not bankruptcy is inevitable.


Others think that the both the emergency manager law and its application (most -not all-of the Michigan cities or institutions where the law has been applied or invoked are majority Black) is unconstitutional and therefore the law should be repealed. There is a petition drive to do just that. US Congressman John Conyers has also asked the Justice Department to review (i.e. block) the law.

Washington — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is reviewing whether the state of Michigan can legally appoint an emergency manager to oversee the Motor City's finances, Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, said late today.Conyers said he spoke to Holder about his request that the government move to block the law."(Holder) said, 'I've got my lawyers working on it right now,' " Conyers said, adding he spoke to the attorney general about 4 p.m. today. "He's trying to find out if my allegations of great constitutional concerns are valid. That's what he's got several hundred lawyers for."The Justice Department confirmed Holder and Conyers spoke — and reiterated that the Justice Department is reviewing the letter.Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter Dec. 1 to Holder asking him to review whether the state's emergency financial manager law is constitutional and to intervene if necessary to block it. "(Holder) told me he got the letter and he's going to act on it."

LINK

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

My take is that even if we believe that this is a dastardly corporate Republican plan to steal and sell off Detroit's assets for their own gain while disenfranchising thousands of black voters to boot, who let things get to this point in the first place?  Whether or not there is an emergency manager appointed is almost irrelevant given the cash flow needs of the city. Detroit leadership is coming in a day late and a dollar short. I mean seriously, folks. You can't say and believe in your heart of hearts that those folks over there hate us and want to control us and then behave in such a manner that shows that despite all of your protestations to the contrary, you can't successfully run your own affairs. This is not a race thing in my opinion though there are elements of that which must be addressed. It's a pure numbers situation. The costs are too high; the revenue is too low. That's been an obvious problem for at least the past 15 years. Now the bill is coming due. This is of immense personal interest as there are people very dear to me who rely on city pensions. Bankruptcy could-probably would-put some or all of those pensions at risk. This goes into uncharted territory as Michigan law places high (but not insurmountable) protections around pension payments-perhaps The Janitor or Old Guru can speak to the legalities.


I'd like to believe that Detroit will find a way out of this but I really don't think it will. Time will tell. Maybe the state should just say," Fine. You the man. Handle it yourself-go bankrupt -just don't come crying to us."


QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the emergency financial manager law is constitutional?
2) Should public sector unions and outsourcing contracts have automatic spending reductions inserted based on the city's financial health?
3) Do you think bankruptcy is inevitable for Detroit?
4) Why hasn't city leadership been able to craft a plan to solve this issue?

Movie Reviews-The Devil's Double, Conan The Barbarian and more

The Devil's Double

I want it all!!!

I wasn't going to watch this movie. But I saw that it was directed by Lee Tamahori-who directed the sadly magnificent Once Were Warriors, and the noirish Mulholland Falls. So I decided to see what he would do with this story. It turned out to be a pretty good film-perhaps even one that could win some awards. This is true despite the fact that although all the people depicted are of non-European Middle Eastern descent, the lead actors/actresses are all of Western European descent. I assume that this was done for commercial considerations as we almost never see the opposite.


The film is based on the true story of a man, Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper), who was unwillingly made a body double for Uday Hussein (Dominic Cooper again), the eldest son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Whereas Saddam Hussein is shown as a cold callous man who mostly leaves citizens alone as long as they bow to his rule, Uday Hussein is depicted as a demented psychotic Freddie Mercury look-alike sybarite who views all of the Iraqi population, but especially the female half, as his personal slaves, who may be used and discarded as he sees fit.


It is is Latif's misfortune to be a war hero and thus come to Uday's attention. As there are many people trying to kill all of the Husseins, they have found it useful to have body doubles to trick people as to their true whereabouts and if need be draw fire. Uday has a serious Oedipus complex going on. He decides if Papa (Phillp Quast) can have a double he wants one too. So he has people make Latif an offer he dare not refuse. Latif does not refuse. 

Occasionally this is easy work as all you have to do is whatever Uday tells you to do, give speeches, laugh at his stupid jokes and learn how to move, look and sound like him. But the good days are rare as Uday is a persistent rapist and bully. He thinks it great fun to debauch the bride of a war hero on her wedding day. He is constantly trolling Baghdad for ever younger girls, who he intends to have. Their willingness or lack thereof is of small import to Uday. Uday is usually in a good mood and flashes a goofy bucktoothed grin even as he commits the worst atrocities. Uday enjoys ordering torture almost as much as he enjoys watching it. Latif finds it harder and harder to keep quiet about this evil, even as he enters the nightlife and is approached by Uday's number one girlfriend, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier) from whom he has been warned away in the most imperious and explicit method possible. 


Latif has been shown the price of disobedience, as Uday makes it clear that Latif's family remains alive as long as Latif remains in Uday's good graces. Saddam does not like his son but he won't allow anyone else to harm him. This was a frightening film as one pondered what it would be like to live in a country run by out and out thugs. Ultimately violence becomes the only currency. And this film has plenty of it.
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Conan the Barbarian

I am a Robert E. Howard fan. Chances were I was going to see this film no matter who starred as Conan. I thought it was a good thing that the actor Jason Momoa,  last seen as Khal Drogo in A Game of Thrones, would star as the famous Cimmerian. Momoa is multiracial while the fictional Conan is most definitely not but I didn't think that would make much difference, and it really didn't. Lines from actual Robert E. Howard stories were used. Momoa, while not a great actor, was able to convey Conan's battle skills, grim wit, and occasional brutal indifference.


So why didn't I like this movie more? It's hard to say. In part it's because the film doesn't really trust its source material enough to follow it. Robert E. Howard was a great story teller but this film is a sort of pastiche of many different Howard stories as well as the scriptwriter's ideas. It's all over the place. The script shoehorns the boy meets girl/boy and girl fight/boy and girl realize they're attracted to each other and do the do/ storyline into the film so ineptly that you can almost call out the changes yourself. I think rather than try to create an original story based on Howard's character, the film might have been better off if it had just fully adapted one of Howard's stories. Just my $0.02.

Anyway the storyline is that thousands of years before the rulers of Acheron created a magical mask which gave the wearer the power to conquer the world. However this mask must have had a warranty issue because the Acheronians were defeated and the mask disassembled. Portions of the mask were spread throughout the world so that no one group could ever try to conquer the world again. But there's always someone trying to iceskate uphill and in this world it's Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) who has been reassembling the mask in order that he might resurrect his wife, a sorceress of dread might, and yes indeed, rule the world. Yawn.


Zym attacks the Cimmerian village where the young Conan (Leo Howard) and his father Corin (Ron Perlman) the village chief and blacksmith reside. Now pre-teen Conan is already a fierce warrior-having singlehandedly slain several Picts (think Iroquois/Comanche) but against the force Zym has brought there is no chance of victory. In short order Zym finds the missing mask piece, massacres the village, kills Conan's Daddy, and leaves Conan for dead.


20 years go by and Conan has become a pirate, but evidently not one that believes in slavery. Right. Anyway his old nemesis Zym STILL hasn't been able to resurrect his sorceress wife and rule the world. And his creepy sorceress daughter Marique (Rose McGowan in an over the top role) may not be too eager to bring back Mama as it is HEAVILY implied that she either wants to or has already replaced her mother in taking care of ALL of Zym's needs. Yeah. Those too. Anyway Zym finally got a response back from the evil mask warranty department. Evidently it's not enough to rebuild the mask to resurrect your wife and rule the world. You must also pour the blood of a pureblood descendant of Acheron onto the mask. So Zym goes back on the road terrorizing people and looking for a pureblood descendant. Marique helps him but she's more into just torturing people for kicks.

Thru a series of convenient accidents Conan picks up Zym's trail. He also finds the last pureblood descendant of Acheron, the topheavy Tamara (Rachel Nichols), who of course has no use for the brutish Conan...at first. Various buttkickings, duels, poisonings and sacrifices ensue. Although Nichols and McGowan are obvious eye candy for men, Momoa shows some things ladies might like. This movie was just ok. I would have been disappointed if I had paid full price to see it in the theater. The film's action scenes are competently shot but nothing special. It has almost a video game feel to it if that makes any sense.


Trailer



Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

There is a classic tradition of horror movies and stories which feature civilized people travelling to the backwoods where they run afoul of their uncouth countrymen: people who are unwashed, uneducated, hyperviolent, scarily cunning, and have familial relationships that are way too close. These stereotypes feature in both low class horror films (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all of its descendants) as well as HP Lovecraft's pulp horror (The Lurking Fear) and may well date back to the legend of Sawney Bean or before. In our time, people who inhabit this filmic stereotype usually come from the rural South and drive pickup trucks.


The "horror" film Tucker and Dale... smartly opens with scenes which make us think this will be another movie about murderous Lynryrd Skynrd fans running amok. A college student group which includes all the normal types (the black guy, the nerd, the jock, the busty blonde, the smart girl and the black girl) is going camping in West Virginia. They run across two "redneck looking" characters in a pickup truck who eye them with malice and ask questions about where they're going. Fearing the worst, the students pile back into their SUV and burn rubber to their campsite where they congratulate themselves on escaping a testy situation and tell each other stories of a massacre that took place nearby 2 decades ago.


But the film takes a left turn from usual expectations. The two "redneck looking" men are Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) who are indeed "rednecks" but meant no harm whatsoever. The men have been friends since childhood and have just purchased a vacation cabin near where the college students are camping. Tucker is the smoother of the two men. The imposing and hirsute Dale is frightened to death of women and is about as dangerous as Paddington Bear. He only came over to try to talk to Allison (Katrina Bowden) because supposed ladies man Tucker told him he needed to get over his fears and enjoy life.


Later the two men are fishing when they notice the shapely Allison about to go skinny dipping. In their haste not to get detected watching her they startle Allison, who falls on rocks and knocks herself out. Dale saves the unconscious Allison from drowning. He and Tucker take her back to their cabin to recover. The students see this and think Allison is being kidnapped. They are sure of this when the solicitous but somewhat dim Dale leaves a message reading "We got your friend!".


This sets off a series of comedic yet bloody misunderstanding and misinterpretations. In the meantime as Allison comes to and talks to the shy but attentive Dale she realizes he might be just the man she's been looking for. This was a funny albeit violent film. Everyone reacts and responds to things from their point of view, which is quite rational. In a non preachy way the film shows the foolishness of allowing life to pass you by AND the silliness of stereotypes. Of course it does that in part by showing a kid fall into a woodchipper so your mileage may vary. I thought the film was a fun, silly way to spend some time.
TRAILER



King Arthur

Every generation puts its own take on the King Arthur legend. Some people are fascinated by Merlin's magic and inhuman origins. Others yearn for the sorcery and female leadership of Arthur's sisters Morgan LeFay and Morgause. Some fans love the doomed romance of Guinevere and Lancelot. And some people immerse themselves in the nasty Freudian undertones of Arthur's conception through rape and his eventual "death" at the hands of his incestuously born son, Mordred.


This film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor) and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), fancies itself a legend retelling in a deliberately gritty and defiantly realistic fashion. There is no Lady of The Lake, quest for the Holy Grail, courtly love between beautiful maidens and honorable knights. There is no magic. There is no tragic love triangle with Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. Lancelot does not accidentally kill one of Gawaine's brothers and set off a war.


Instead Fuqua's film uses what some consider to be the true source material of the Arthurian legend: that of a Celtic/British King or warlord who fought against the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain and won the Battle of Badon Hill.  The film alters some timing and facts but that's okay. I thought it was a decent flick. Of course I am the definition of a slavering fanboy when it comes to these sorts of movies so keep that in mind. Fuqua's film is less pageantry and spectacle and more The Magnificent Seven.


Roman power is waning in Britain. Rome is calling home its remaining troops to fight against barbarian invasions. The local Roman military leader, Artorious Castus (Clive Owen), is both a gentle religious man who follows the teachings of Christian Bishop Pelagius, believing that all men are brothers, and a harsh severe warrior, who is already legendary for his devotion to duty, battle skills and willingness to protect the weak. Arthur leads a brotherhood of knights-actually Russian steppe warriors-who have been sworn to him since childhood. They have battled Rome's enemies across the empire, but primarily in Britain where they have been the first line of defense against the indigenous rebel Picts (Woads). Arthur's mother was a Pict. His father was a Roman officer.


Now Arthur's knights have dwindled to a mere handful and their term of service-really indentured labor- is up. They are eager to return home; Arthur is willing to release them from their vows. But the Roman political leader coerces Arthur and his knights into mounting a rescue mission north of Hadrian's Wall to rescue a Roman family who is important to the Pope. This family is in the path of the Saxon invasion. What Arthur and his knights, boisterous bruiser Bors (Ray Winstone), pensive Tristan (Mads Mikkelson), silent, loyal and deadly Dagonet (Ray Stevenson), 2nd-in-command Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), and underwritten Gawaine (Joel Edgerton) and Galahad (Hugh Dancy) discover there will make all of them but especially Arthur, rethink their reasons for being in Britain. They have to decide who deserves their loyalty-Rome OR each other and the British people.


The Anglo-Saxons, who were initially a raucous bunch of illegal immigrants, have found official response to their presence weak and have launched a full scale invasion of Britain, killing, looting and raping as they tiptoe through the tulips. (Fun fact: The Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions of Briton were so wildly successful that by some measures most of today's indigenous Englishmen are more closely related to Germans, Dutch and Danish than to Welsh or Irish.)

Someday son, this will all be yours.

Just to make sure you know these are the bad guys, the Saxons all look like Hell's Angels or skinheads and mutter nasty ethnocentric slurs about the Britons. In fact their leader Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgard) is so bigoted that he stops a Saxon from raping a British woman, not out of any feminist or humane reasons but because he doesn't want any mixed blood children. Killing is okay; rape is not so good. Cerdic's son, second-in-command, heir and would be usurper Cynric (Til Schweiger) is just as brutal as his Daddy and doesn't share his scruples over rape. Cerdic has been hearing Arthur's name all over Britain and he wants a piece. Badly.


Arthur must decide if he can integrate both halves of himself-the Roman and the Celtic-and stand together with his previous enemies the Picts, led by Merlin (Stephen Dillane) and Guinevere (Keira Knightley) to fight the Saxon invaders.


I really liked the cinematography. Much of it was apparently shot outside and on location. A lot of it is dark but it always looks very very real. The battles are shot almost as if you are there. And it has tons of bada$$ lines, which are always very cool in these type of films. Owen does a great job of portraying a decent and majestic man caught up in the fall of the institutions he's always known. This film is full of action and moves very very quickly. You can feel the cold and smell the grime. Except for the aforementioned underwritten characters, you do care about the knights. King Arthur has some classic "I'm tired of running" and resultant "Last Stand" scenes.

With the possible exception of her upper-class (?) accent, Knightley turns in a passable performance as a deglamorized Guinevere. Often, women's roles in period films are ridiculously altered for modern sensibilities. That's not the case here. Knightley's Guinevere IS a very active participant in battles and a more than competent warrior BUT this is actually quite historically accurate. The Celts did indeed have fierce women warlords, Bouddica, being the most famous, who led resistance against foreign invaders. They also had goddesses of war, e.g. Morrigan, who in some scenes Knightley is channeling.
Trailer

December Book of The Month: Malcolm X-A life of reinvention by Manning Marable

Malcolm X A Life of Reinvention

by Manning Marable

Malcolm X remains a heroic, exalted icon for many people. Simultaneously, in some quarters Malcolm was a controversial, maligned and misunderstood political leader. Allegedly murdered by Nation of Islam members acting on winks and nods from the top of that organization, Malcolm's great life was tragically cut short at just 39 years of age. Manning Marable, a now deceased historian and political scientist always felt that the definitive biography and analysis of Brother Malcolm had yet to be written so he decided to write one himself.

Other Malcolm X experts, most notably Karl Evanzz, called into question some of Marable's scholarship and editorial decisions. Honestly, some conclusions Marable reached about Malcolm's life do not appear to be supported by the evidence. This caused a firestorm of controversy to erupt around the book. Some details about marital troubles didn't necessarily add a whole lot to the discussion. Unfortunately, Marable is no longer around to defend his arguments and choices as he died just as the book was released. He said that Malcolm was a hero of his but heroes deserved honest appraisals.

Still, on balance I think this will increase your understanding of Malcolm and the world he lived in, even as scholars point out that some of this book goes over well traveled territory. Please give it a read and come back to discuss. It's long but moves quickly and like its subject is very engrossing.

Kentucky Fried Ignorance

Unfortunately work has me busier than a one legged man in a butt-kicking contest. And believe me it's a full time operation to make sure I don't end up on the wrong side of that kick. So this will be a noticeably brief post. But I thought this news story was interesting for a number of reasons besides the obvious  "drive by and look at the ignorant goobers"aspect. Although that is fun, admittedly...

TOMAHAWK, Ky (Reuters) - A vote to bar interracial couples from a small church in eastern Kentucky has triggered hand-wringing and embarrassment.
Nine members of Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church backed their former pastor, with six opposed, in Sunday's vote to bar interracial couples from church membership and worship activities. Funerals were excluded.
The vote was taken after most of the 40 people who attended Sunday services had left the church in Pike County, near the border with West Virginia. Many members left to avoid the vote.
Most members of the church "didn't want anything to do with this," said longtime church official Dean Harville, whose daughter and her black fiance had drawn pastor Melvin Thompson's ire.
At services earlier this year, Stella Harville, 24, who is working on her master's degree in optical engineering, sang "I Surrender All" with her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, 29, a Zimbabwe native, according to her father. Chikuni, an employee at Georgetown College in Kentucky, played the piano.
"There didn't appear to be any problem," Dean Harville said on Wednesday. "None whatsoever."
But Harville said Thompson told him the couple would not be allowed to sing at the church again. Thompson resigned in August but would not drop the issue.
Thompson told a local radio outlet, "I do not believe in interracial marriages, and I do not believe this (ban) will give our church a black eye at all."

LINK
Well my initial take is to shake my head at the bigotry that is still around in 2011 but I also believe in free speech and the right to assemble with like minded people. So if some backwoods Appalachian church decides that they don't want interracial couples attending services that doesn't really bother me all that much. People have a right to be prejudiced in this country. You learn that quickly growing up in the Midwest.

What I did find interesting and a bit ironic is that there has recently been a bit of a fuss as to whether President Obama is abandoning white working class voters or if the white working class is all that necessary to Obama's reelection chances. This is often done with a lot of hand wringing and inference that the Democrats have stepped away from white voters and need to get them back.

But stories like this are a reminder that it takes two to tango. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Pastor Thompson did not vote for the current President and would not have approved of his parents' marriage. So with people like this there's not much the President can say other than God Bless You and Have a Nice Day. People like this are a smaller group of Americans but they're not as uncommon as some would believe.

The Pastor may be a bit extreme in his views and more open with his prejudice but IR marriage between Blacks and Whites remains quite rare-about 0.7% of married white women are married to black men and roughly 0.35% of married white men are married to black women. This is not all because of horrible prejudice but it is quite striking that something that remains so rare still excites so much debate and hostility.

The other thing that this story reminded me of is that there was and is a reason why blacks set up their own churches, fraternities, beauty pageants, masonic lodges, hair salons/barbershops, etc. Because there are only so many times that a person can be rejected before they say you know what, forget you, I'm doing my own thing.

QUESTIONS
1) Does the church have the right to discriminate?
2) How common do you think the Pastor's feelings are?
3) Why does interracial anything (dating or marriage) excite such fury in some people?