Movie Reviews: The Mule

The Mule
directed by Clint Eastwood

Although the plot seems improbable this movie was based on the real life exploits of an elderly man who became one of the Sinaloa Cartel's most productive drug mules. Earl Stone (Clint Eastwood) is a dashing award winning Illinois horticulturist and Korean War vert who has spent long amounts of time away from his family because of work. Earl can't seem to ever put family first. He can't even show up on time to the big events like weddings or funerals. As you might imagine Earl is divorced from his wife Mary (Dianne Wiest) and estranged from his daughter Iris (Allison Eastwood, Clint Eastwood's real life daughter). 

Iris dislikes her father so much, not least because he didn't show up to give her away at her wedding, that she won't even talk to him. In fact she often refuses to be in the same room as Earl, given a choice. The only family member that still seems to like Earl is his granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga).  Her mother and grandmother snark that's only because Ginny doesn't know Earl that well. Showing up at Ginny's bridal brunch, Earl ignores the hateful looks from his ex and his daughter and tries to have a good time. He can't really have a good time though because his horticulture business is kaput. 

He doesn't have the capital or resources to compete with internet delivery of flowers. Earl doesn't even have the cash to replace his ancient broke down truck. Earl complains briefly about his financial situation and boasts about his long record of spotless driving to a man who is friendly with one of the bridesmaids. This man gives Earl a card with a number to call.

Range Rover Evoque Commercial: Stolen Music???

I am not a musician or an entertainment lawyer so I can't say with absolute authority that the song "I found a place in my heart" from the new Range Rover Evoque commercial was stolen from the song "Every Beat of My Heart" as originally written by Greek-American musician and honorary Black man Johnny Otis and later covered by James Brown and most memorably, in my opinion, by Gladys Knight and the Pips. I can't say with 100% certitude that some one sat down, listened to someone else's music, stole the melody and rhythm and verbal phrases and tics and altered the lyrics just enough to avoid lawsuits from all but the richest or most protective of estates.

I can say that if there were ever a lawsuit by the Otis estate (or by whoever owns the rights to the song) against the person who claims to have written this song the defendant probably wouldn't want me on the jury. At all. Because all I would be asking the judge is can we convict the thief now. Or to put it another way, I despise plagiarists. But maybe I'm all wet. Listen to both songs below and share your thoughts.

The Principal is a N******!

In the classic Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles, a black man is appointed to be sheriff of a Western town. The new sheriff initially doesn't know that the state's corrupt attorney general and governor only appointed him in the hopes of making the townspeople lynch him, drive him off, or simply leave, thus allowing the corrupt public officials to buy up their land cheap and make a financial killing when the new railroad is built. 

The racist townspeople are shocked and unhappy to see that the new man in charge is a black man. Later a townswoman privately tells the sheriff that although she's impressed with the great job he's done please don't tell anyone she said that because after all she certainly doesn't want to be known as a n***** -lover.

I was reminded of that movie when I read about the controversy surrounding new Principal Zeke Ohan of Hancock Middle and High School in Michigan's UP (Upper Peninsula). Mr. Ohan is Black. The town and the UP are overwhelmingly white. Often times some whites don't think anyone is racist unless they're wearing Nazi flag underwear and screaming racial slurs at the top of their voice anytime they see a Black person. And even then there will be quite a few people who say that the person doing that is misunderstood or just having a bad day.

I think racism is more nuanced than that. I have met many whites who have no major problem with Black people, provided they are in a superior work position to the Black person. When a Black person, especially a Black man, makes more money than they do, is in a higher position than they are or has the ability and the drive to tell them what to do and make them do it, a different side of their personality emerges. I think that's what happened at Hancock. 

Hancock — Zeke Ohan wasted little time after becoming a high school principal in the Upper Peninsula in 2017. He carried out a plethora of changes that already are bearing fruit. Enrollment and test scores at Hancock middle and high schools are up. More graduates are going to college. Students and parents like the hard-charging administrator.

Waverly Woodson: D-Day Hero

My maternal grandfather was a WW2 Veteran. Unfortunately by the time I was old enough to be interested in such things I didn't see him that often. He was gone way too soon as far I was concerned. I can still get stories about him from other relatives but it's not really the same as getting it direct from the source.

I don't know if my grandfather was ever in combat. I do remember the seemingly HUGE rifle that he brought home. Memory is important. And it's because of the importance of memory that Joann Woodson, the 90 year-old widow of WW2 D-Day hero Waverly Woodson, is fighting to ensure that her late husband receives all the praise and commendations that he should have received during his life, including the Medal of Honor.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS/AP) – For years, a widow has been fighting for recognition of her late husband's heroism during D-Day. Waverly Woodson Jr. was one of an estimated one million African Americans who served in World War II, including 2,000 who were at Normandy. All served in segregated units and their contributions are often overlooked. Joann Woodson, 90, wants everyone to know the sacrifice her husband made when he stormed Omaha Beach 75 years ago as a medic.

"He said that the men were just dropping, just dropping so fast. Some of them were so wounded, there was nothing that you could do but just give them a few little last rites," Woodson said.

Boy Notices Stinky Feet on Airplane

The beautiful thing about children is that they have no filter. They have no concept of the idea of lying or pretending not to notice something because doing otherwise might hurt someone's feelings. If you smell bad, look funny or are just someone out of the child's limited range of experience a child is probably going to tell you so. I don't know if this really happened just as it seems or if the father put up the kid to this. Either way it was amusing to me. I don't think people should be taking their shoes off in the airplane, smelly soles or not.

(STORYFUL) - A 4-year-old boy is getting some attention for calling out a woman and her plane etiquette. Darryl Small and his son, Rodney, were on their way home to Houston from Disney World when the boy realized the person sitting behind him put her bare foot up on the side of his chair.

Pay Your Tab Principal Comeau !

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should always pay your bar tab, promptly, in full and without complaints. Because otherwise, things could get ugly. But given many of the other scandals that have emerged from Catholic schools this one seems pretty mild.The only damage done is the self-inflicted harm to the former principal's reputation.

A Louisiana Catholic elementary school principal resigned after being arrested outside a Washington D.C. strip club while on a field trip with students.

Michael Comeau, 47, was charged with being intoxicated and is alleged to have stiffed the club on his tab.

This is the second time Comeau, principal of Holy Family School in Port Allen, Louisiana, has resigned from a school under a cloud.

Comeau was also a part-time police officer in a small Baton Rogue police department. He resigned by text Saturday.

According to reports obtained by local media, police responded to Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club at 2:20 Friday morning May 31, and found the Catholic elementary school principal intoxicated and blocking a roadway outside the strip club. He allegedly refused to pay his tab. There were reports that Comeau had a service dog with him. Comeau was on a field trip with seventh and eighth graders visiting the nation’s capital.

“The incident occurred when the students on the trip were in their hotel rooms for the evening under the supervision of other chaperones,” said a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge, according to local media.

Book Reviews: The Border

The Border
by Don Winslow

In The Border Winslow concludes the story that he started in The Power of the Dog and The Cartel and which he also referenced in The Force and Savages. As with those previous stories there are a number of ultra realistic depictions of extreme depraved violence. 

So if you can't handle those pictures rattling around your head this isn't the book for you. I have seen interviews where the author has  addressed concerns (his own and those of others) that by telling what he sees as a true to life story he's also engaging in violence porn. That could be.

As with certain scenes in George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons, Winslow has created some vivid violence sequences that occasionally caused me to put the book down and reflect on the world's evil. And I have a pretty high tolerance for that sort of stuff.

Nevertheless there is very little that Winslow has imagined in this book that hasn't occurred in real life. In fact he adapts a few real life incidents. There are devils and demons who walk this planet and live long, happy and remunerative, albeit utterly malevolent, lives. It is an open sociological and historical question as to why with a few notable exceptions  American organized crime groups did not routinely liquidate the families of any disobedient employees, clients or victims and avoided murdering police officers, judges, politicians and other high profile "civilians" who got on the local Mob boss's last nerves. 

Organized crime in Mexico and Guatemala has no such compunctions. Does the difference have something to do with the violence of the pre-Colombian Mayan and Aztec societies? Is it caused by the even more extreme violence of the Spanish conquests? Is it caused by the repeated US interventions? I can't answer those questions.

Though some Latin American countries are more violent than the United States, they might be equal in terms of corruption. South of the border the corruption might be more direct and in your face. American corruption could be more difficult to eliminate because much of it is legal.