March 21, 2010
Critical condition
Nothing quite like passing a gargantuan, budget-busting bill designed to raise taxes, cripple industry, discourage doctors from taking on new patients, provide for the hiring of thousands of new IRS agents, and compel Americans to buy a product they may not want, under threat of criminal prosecution.
Truly a terrible day for the Republic.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 15, 2010
Morning glory
The morning sun shines through the kitchen window and catches the edge of a newly-cut tulip.
Three tulips nestle together, the sun rousing them from their evening torpor.
One lone tulip seems to break away from the rest of the bunch, straining as if chasing the morning rays.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 14, 2010
The Pacific
Time magazine recently interviewed Tom Hanks, part of the roll out of his new HBO miniseries, The Pacific, the companion piece to the unequaled retelling of the war in Europe, Band of Brothers. During the interview, Hanks appeared to draw a kind of moral equivalence between the Japanese -- running riot throughout the Far East for much of the 1930s and '40s -- and the American Marines, who fought terrible, blood-soaked battles in an effort to roll back the gore-flecked borders of Hirohito's empire.
Hanks said:
“Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”
Hanks' remarks drew a swift rebuke from historian Victor Davis Hanson:
Hanks thinks he is trying to explain the multifaceted Pacific theater in terms of a war brought on by and fought through racial animosity. That is ludicrous. Consider:
1) In earlier times, we had good relations with Japan (an ally during World War I, that played an important naval role in defeating imperial Germany at sea) and had stayed neutral in its disputes with Russia (Teddy Roosevelt won a 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his intermediary role). The crisis that led to Pearl Harbor was not innately with the Japanese people per se (tens of thousands of whom had emigrated to the United States on word of mouth reports of opportunity for Japanese immigrants), but with Japanese militarism and its creed of Bushido that had hijacked, violently so in many cases, the government and put an entire society on a fascistic footing. We no more wished to annihilate Japanese because of racial hatred than we wished to ally with their Chinese enemies because of racial affinity. In terms of geo-strategy, race was not the real catalyst for war other than its role among Japanese militarists in energizing expansive Japanese militarism.
2) How would Hanks explain the brutal Pacific wars between Japanese and Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, Japanese and Filipinos, and Japanese and Pacific Islanders, in which not hundreds of thousands perished, but many millions? In each of these theaters, the United States was allied with Asians against an Asian Japan, whose racially-hyped “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” aimed at freeing supposedly kindred Asians from European and white imperialism, flopped at its inauguration (primarily because of high-handed Japanese feelings of superiority and entitlement, which, in their emphasis on racial purity, were antithetical to the allied democracies, but quite in tune with kindred Axis power, Nazi Germany.)
[...]
Despite Hanks’ efforts at moral equivalence in making the U.S. and Japan kindred in their hatreds, America was attacked first, and its democratic system was both antithetical to the Japan of 1941, and capable of continual moral evolution in a way impossible under Gen. Tojo and his cadre. It is quite shameful to reduce that fundamental difference into a “they…us” 50/50 polarity. Indeed, the most disturbing phrase of all was Hanks’ suggestion that the Japanese wished to “kill” us, while we in turn wanted to “annihilate” them. Had they developed the bomb or other such weapons of mass destruction (and they had all sorts of plans of creating WMDs), and won the war, I can guarantee Hanks that he would probably not be here today, and that his Los Angeles would look nothing like a prosperous and modern Tokyo.
4) What is remarkable about the aftermath of WWII is the almost sudden postwar alliance between Japan and the U.S., primarily aimed at stopping the Soviets, and then later the communist Chinese. In other words, the United States, despite horrific battles in places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa, harbored little official postwar racial animosity in its foreign policy, helped to foster Japanese democracy, provided aid, and predicated its postwar alliances — in the manner of its prewar alliances — on the basis of ideology, not race. Hanks apparently has confused the furor of combat — in which racial hatred often becomes a multiplier of emotion for the soldier in extremis — with some sort of grand collective national racial policy that led to and guided our conduct.
An innately racist society could not have gone through the nightmare of Okinawa (nearly 50,000 Americans killed, wounded, or missing), and yet a mere few months later have in Tokyo, capital of the vanquished, a rather enlightened proconsul MacArthur, whose deference to Japanese religion, sensibilities, and tradition ensured a peaceful transition to a rather radical new independent and autonomous democratic culture.
As a lifelong student of military history, and a voracious reader of all things WWII-related, I thought that Hanks' previous effort, Band of Brothers, based upon Stephen Ambrose's oral history of the men who parachuted into Normandy and fought their way across Europe, was the finest long-form film I've ever seen about the Second World War.
Hanks, along with Steven Spielberg, stayed true to the source material, didn't tart it up with invented romances or anachronistic 21st Century political correctness. It was an often brutal, compelling work, and the interviews with the actual members of Easy Company were difficult to watch through the unavoidable veil of tears.
So you can imagine my disappointment when it seemed that Hanks had lost his way in the intervening years.
A review in the Wall Street Journal gives me hope, however, that The Pacific, depicting the experiences of Marines like Eugene Sledge, who wrote the seminal work on fighting and surviving the war against the Japanese, With The Old Breed, and Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone, honors these men and provides an unalloyed look at their courage -- and the brutality of the enemy.
HBO's 10-part miniseries "The Pacific" encapsulates the American war against Japan in a series of four battles, as experienced by U.S. Marines, that took place between August 1942 and the middle of June 1945: the famous ones for Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the more obscure but also brutal fight to drive the Japanese off Peleliu island. Even those who know already that the Pacific theater was like no other in the war may be shocked by the harrowing combat re-created here.
Stunning in a different way are the three Marines at the center of the series. In their true stories and, more importantly, their individual responses to the demands of warfare, we find a perfect trinity of action, emotion and intellect. Understated as it is here—we must see for ourselves what these men are, and only with effort, in the most fleeting moments—the nuanced humanity they bring to the screen is crucial. Other characters also leave indelible impressions. Yet without these central three, the series might be little more than a balletic action film with psyche-piercing sights and sound effects.
Sgt. John Basilone (Jon Seda), the machine gunner who won the Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal, is the doer, the man without whom no war would be winnable. Although Basilone was a household name in America during the war, we do not often read his mind in "The Pacific," or need to. Yanked out of action after Guadalcanal to go on a lengthy war-bond promotion tour at home, he buries his frustration in a grim pursuit of female flesh. And yet when true romance arrives—only months before he voluntarily returns to action in the Pacific—the ultimate Marine is the most vulnerable of men.
Mr. Seda, whose face invites us in even as it gives nothing away, deserves most of the credit for clarifying a simple mystery at the heart of braveness; how, stripped to his elemental self, a hero is a kind of innocent. Even so, the power of a scene where we see him without clothes—bursting with health even as he faces death, his skin tattooed and yet looking as unblemished as a baby's—owes much to those who so gracefully filmed it.
Pfc. Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) entered the war later than some, partly because his physician father—who, like many fathers then, had fresh memories of the carnage of World War I—did not want his son to enlist. Sledge's transformation from a clean-living moralist to a battle-scarred realist who needs reminding that he even has a soul can be painful to watch. Precisely because he came to war with a tender, open heart, the price he pays in suffering is a wounded spirit that may never have healed. His story is a reminder that life is not the only thing war can extinguish. Some survive but never regain the capacity to feel unbounded, guiltless joy.
If there is a pair of eyes through which we see most clearly, they belong to Pfc. Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale). He comes to the Pacific already a classic outsider, and although he becomes a crack fighter with close bonds to his comrades, his letters home reveal cynicism and detachment. Some horrors, once seen and participated in, cannot be forgotten, he says. "It is one thing to reconcile these things with God, but another to square it with yourself."
[...]
"The Pacific" spends no time on lectures. Two of the series' most fundamental truths are delivered in single lines. One comes when a taxi-driving vet who served in Europe tells Leckie that the men who fought in the Pacific had the hardest war. Another becomes clear at a sunny behind-the-lines military base where flowers grow and buxom nurses abound—and we are reminded that this picture, familiar even now, is a fake. For most, the Pacific was only blood, mud and lonely, unmitigated fear.
As for the meaning of it all, we have Capt. Andrew Haldane (Scott Gibson) and the words: "I want to believe, I have to believe...every man that's wounded, every man that I lose, that it's all worthwhile because our cause is just." And then there's Bob Leckie's more succinct profession of faith: "I believe in ammunition."
I'm relieved -- and looking forward to seeing The Pacific ... when it arrives on DVD later this year. Until then, I think I'll re-read With the Old Breed, along with William Manchester's, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:39 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
March 07, 2010
You thought you had a bad morning
Check out the people waiting to cross a waterlogged street in Buenos Aires; I hope none of the poor bastards was on the way to a job interview.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Can comic books save lives? You betcha!
This is a fantastic melange of high-tech, low-tech, and comic book ink, the end result being a blood-based diagnostic test that can be produced for the princely sum of one penny. Not only will the device indicate whether or not the patient has HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, or a variety of other diseases, but the intensity of the color can be used to also diagnose the severity of the illness.
The implications for the Third World, where physicians are often few and far between, are profound. Of course, if the West truly cared about the health of the Third World's poorest citizens, the ban on DDT would be lifted, ensuring that malarial mosquitos would once again become rarer than hen's teeth, saving millions of lives.
Setting aside Rachel Carson's death toll (for now), this is fantastically innovative, a medical game changer.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The internet was invented for things like this
Oh, boy, am I going to enjoy the years that it's going to take to work my way through this: Popular Science has posted its entire 137-year archive online, every issue ever published.
It's interesting to see what the future looked like to forward-thinking science enthusiasts more than a hundred years ago, what they thought our world would be like. I also enjoy seeing what was cutting-edge tech during the inter-war years; much strikes me as remarkably modern, or at least recognizably related to our 21st century gadgets.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 28, 2010
It's a dog's life (and a cat's, too)
Pepper relaxes on the couch, looking pretty good for a fellow pushing 16 years.
The dogs often track the morning sun, following the warmth as it shifts across the floor, languidly laying in the pools of light. This morning, however, Bogie seemed to spend more time lurking in the shadows. A close look reveals some dried blood, the aftermath of some too-vigorous roughhousing with Roscoe in the backyard. Not too worry; the damage was superficial.
Bogie strikes me as a dog of mystery in this shot, his eyes hidden in shadow, his thoughts more opaque than usual.
Roscoe enjoys Sunday's sunny weather after Saturday's often-torrential downpours -- and listens intently to the neighbor's dog whining and snuffling behind the fence.
"Hey, Roscoe," I call, "who wants a treat?" That gets his attention, his head whipping around as he focuses intently on The Treat Giver.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Sneaking into Hell
The Holocaust arguably represents the nadir of modern human history -- "arguably" because Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union murdered even more people than the Nazis, albeit in a less industrialized manner. The German pursuit of ever-greater efficiency and technical innovation gave us the concentration camps; factories of death. The German penchant-- or should I say mania? -- for record keeping gave us an irrefutable and detailed history of the slaughter.
There have been countless histories written in the years since the Thousand Year Reich disappeared in a hail of high explosives and steel, but even now new stories emerge from the carnage.
I've read many articles and books about the Holocaust, but must confess that, until I stumbled across this post, I'd never heard of the British prisoner of war who snuck into Auschwitz by trading identities with a Jewish inmate.
Denis Avey, even at the age of 91, cuts a formidable figure. More than 6ft tall, with a severe short back and sides and a piercing glare, he combines the pan-ache of Errol Flynn with the dignity of age. This is the former Desert Rat, who, in 1944, broke into — yes, into — Auschwitz, and he looks exactly as I expected. He removes his monocle for the camera, and one of his pupils slips sideways before realigning. It is a glass eye. I ask him about it. He tells me that in 1944, he cursed an SS officer who was beating a Jew in the camp. He received a blow with a pistol butt and his eye was knocked in.
[...]
“The Stripeys — that’s what we called the Jewish prisoners — were in a terrible state. Within months they were reduced to waifs and then they disappeared. The stench from the crematoria was appalling, civilians from as far away as Katowice were complaining. Everybody knew what was going on. Everybody knew.”
Remarkably, Avey was able to think beyond the war. “I knew in my gut that these swine would eventually be held to account,” he says. “Evidence would be vital. Of course, sneaking into the Jewish camp was a ludicrous idea. It was like breaking into Hell. But that’s the sort of chap I was. Reckless.”
[...]
The operation was planned meticulously. Avey found a Dutch Jew with a similar physique and persuaded him to exchange places for a day. Avey knew that they marched past each other at the same time every week. “The Nazis were rigid, you see,” he says. “To them orders were orders, to be carried out exactly. That was what allowed me to find a way round them.”
Avey shaved his head and blackened his face. At the allocated time, he and the Dutch Jew sneaked into a disused shed. There they swapped uniforms and exchanged places. Avey affected a slouch and a cough, so that his English accent would be disguised should he be required to speak.
“I joined the Stripeys and marched into Monowitz, a predominantly Jewish camp. As we passed beneath the Arbeit Macht Frei [work makes you free] sign, everyone stood up straight and tried to look as healthy as they could. There was an SS officer there, weeding out the weaklings for the gas. Overhead was a gallows, which had a corpse hanging from it, as a deterrent. An orchestra was playing Wagner to accompany our march. It was chilling.”
What a fascinating and courageous man.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 22, 2010
Hummingbird Tales: They're outgrowing the nest
The hummingbird chicks continue to mature at an amazingly fast pace, now so big they can barely fit in their nest. In this shot you can get a good look of the shafts on their wings, the feathers growing out and opening up like downy blossoms. This picture was taken just a couple of days before the ones below.
While the chicks remain still when I approach the nest, they're quite active, shifting their positions, sometimes head to head ....
And sometimes head to tail. It's a little more hazardous when they're arranged like this (at least for the intrepid photographer); at any given moment, either chick might lift its rump and shoot a high-velocity stream of waste out of the nest.
The mother comes in for a landing, breakfast ready. I don't usually care for flash, but I needed it to capture her movements; when shot with available light, she was nothing but a blur. I also like the colors and texture of the feathers on her back.
Her wings appear to be almost coal black and velvet covered, and her tail feathers almost look like a herringbone twill.
Lest you think the mother hummingbird is feeding the chicks nothing but nectar, check her out as she hovers, picking which gnat or mosquito she's about to devour.
Having selected the tastiest looking bug, she swoops in for the kill, beak agape, a pint-sized Great White of the skies.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
February 21, 2010
George Will: 108 seconds of spot-on commentary
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Texas, Christians and bad-ass Hebrews
Jay Nordlinger offers this letter from a reader in his latest post:
Hey Jay,
My parents live in the Texas Hill Country, about ten miles outside of Fredericksburg specifically, and on the road to their place is a house that has three flagpoles out front: flying Old Glory, the Texas flag, and the Israeli flag.Every time I’m in the Hill Country and we drive by that house, I think of a Texan I heard who admiringly described the Israelis as “bad-ass Hebrews.”
God bless Israel and God bless Texas.
This fits nicely with several things I've observed over the years:
- American Jews have an irrational fear of Evangelical Christians.
- American Jews aren't nearly as supportive of Israel as are many Evangelical Christians.
- And there are more reasons to like Texas -- and Texans -- than I can count. I'll add this to the list.
Bad-ass Hebrews. I like that.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The failed promise of America's modern meritocracy?
David Brooks, the New York Times' in-house "conservative" columnist (scare quotes because he strikes me as more of an old-school Democrat than an actual conservative) recently penned an interesting piece examining the seeming failure of America's modern meritocracy to equal -- much less improve upon -- the stellar work done by previous generations of much-less diverse and perhaps less-intensively schooled members of the ruling class, from boardrooms to newsrooms.
Yet here’s the funny thing. As we’ve made our institutions more meritocratic, their public standing has plummeted. We’ve increased the diversity and talent level of people at the top of society, yet trust in elites has never been lower.
It’s not even clear that society is better led. Fifty years ago, the financial world was dominated by well-connected blue bloods who drank at lunch and played golf in the afternoons. Now financial firms recruit from the cream of the Ivy League. In 2007, 47 percent of Harvard grads went into finance or consulting. Yet would we say that banks are performing more ably than they were a half-century ago?
Government used to be staffed by party hacks. Today, it is staffed by people from public policy schools. But does government work better than it did before?
Journalism used to be the preserve of working-class stiffs who filed stories and hit the bars. Now it is the preserve of cultured analysts who file stories and hit the water bottles. Is the media overall more reputable now than it was then?
The promise of the meritocracy has not been fulfilled. The talent level is higher, but the reputation is lower.
I've long said that education -- formal education -- is vastly overrated as an indication of knowledge or ability. Years ago, when I was in the journalism biz, I had two reporters who worked the day beat. One had earned a Masters at the Columbia School of Journalism, the Mecca, Medina and Burning Man of the Change-The-World Journalism Types. The other was a guy who'd graduated high school, having learned the merits of "Who, What, Where, When, Why and How."
Want to guess which one was a tenacious, ace reporter, and which one had a hard time reporting on a cat stuck in a tree?
That high school grad was a great reporter; the Columbia grad, not so much.
Brooks offers some theories for what's gone wrong:
First, the meritocracy is based on an overly narrow definition of talent. Our system rewards those who can amass technical knowledge. But this skill is only marginally related to the skill of being sensitive to context. It is not related at all to skills like empathy. Over the past years, we’ve seen very smart people make mistakes because they didn’t understand the context in which they were operating.
Second, this new system has created new social chasms. In the old days, there were obviously big differences between people whose lives were defined by “The Philadelphia Story” and those who were defined by “The Grapes of Wrath.” But if you ran the largest bank in Murfreesboro, Tenn., you probably lived in Murfreesboro. Now you live in Charlotte or New York City. You might have married a secretary. Now you marry another banker. You would have had similar lifestyle habits as other people in town. Now the lifestyle patterns of the college-educated are very different from the patterns in other classes. Social attitudes are very different, too.
[...]
Fourth, time horizons have shrunk. If you were an old blue blood, you traced your lineage back centuries, and there was a decent chance that you’d hand your company down to members of your clan. That subtly encouraged long-term thinking.
I think Brooks is absolutely correct. He calls it context -- or an inability to grasp the proper context -- but I think his first point is more about the contrast between living in the real world, versus theorizing about it in an academic environment.
I can't find much fault in his next two points, either.
When you look at the amazing progress this nation made in the late 19th century and early 20th, and the generations of scientists, engineers, bricklayers and construction workers who created the industrial colossus that emerged from World War II as the mightiest ever, what they shared was an educational background that concentrated on rote memorization of the works of Dead White Men, strict classroom discipline, competition, and a complete disregard for the feelings and self-esteem (the what?!) of children.
Brooks, who hit the bestseller lists a few years back with his book, Bobos in Paradise , has stumbled upon the truth of our current perilous and parlous state of affairs: Our ruling class has learned much, but knows how to do very little.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
February 17, 2010
Gents, this one's for you
I'm not sure women can truly appreciate how tough this guy is, but this video -- the most wince-inducing five minutes you're likely to see in your lifetime -- is proof of the power of mind over matter.
On a serious note, it illustrates how dangerous it can be for cops to go "hands on" with crooks; an ability to control pain renders less-than-lethal tools and techniques, like shotgun beanbag rounds, Tasers and baton strikes, completely useless.
A man who can take 1,100 pounds of force applied to his pinatas and not even have a blip in his heartrate is a force to be reckoned with.
That hurt just watching!
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
February 15, 2010
Hummingbird Tales: They're growing (and growing)!
The hummingbird chicks continue to grow at an amazing pace, spilling over the edges of their nest. They still look like spiny reptiles, with whispy hairs on their backs and downy tufts beginning to sprout from the shafts of their still-nascent feathers.
The chick in the foreground seems to be the dominant one, crowding his sibling in the nest, spreading his pink, meaty little wings. On the other hand, maybe it's the fellow in the back who's the Alfa, enjoying the warmth as he snuggles deep in the nest, the fellow in the foreground more exposed to the elements.
I hear angry clicking and glance up, spotting the mother hovering overhead, keeping a close eye on me through the trumpet vines.
Satisfied that the chicks are in no immediate danger, she flies off, taking up station in a nearby Ginko Biloba tree.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 12, 2010
Hummingbird Tales: They're growing!
It's been five days since I last posted photos of the hummingbird chicks, and their beaks have begun growing longer and thinner, the bright yellow quickly disappearing as black replaces the bright color from the tip on down. The porcupine-like quills that cover their bodies are thickening, soon to begin the transformation from spines to downy proto-feathers.
The mother hummingbird spends a lot of time buzzing around my head, making sure I don't make any overtly threatening moves, alighting periodically to check on her offspring before flitting off for more food.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 10, 2010
Obama in favorite of bipartisanship, you obstinate bastards
CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller offers his take on Pres. Obama's less-than-heartfelt plea for bipartisanship, "[D]o it my way."
Mr. Obama said he "won't hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party." But he wants his way. He wants his energy policy enacted along with his jobs bill, his financial regulatory reform and his health care plan.
And if the opposition continues to block his objectives, he said he "won't hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that's rooted not in substantive disagreement but in political expedience."
When a sitting president calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender. And if they block his proposals, its "obstinacy" and not political views they hold as strongly as he holds his.
Principled opposition to policies that are fundamentally incompatible with either the GOP's political or economic platform, or those of Conservatives (they're not one and the same) is entirely appropriate. There's nothing wrong with casting "No" votes when the other side's legislation is 180 degrees out of synch with what the other party believes.
The point of our democratic system is to offer the voters a choice. This or that. Liberal or conservative. Capitalist or Socialist. Coke or Pepsi.
What we don't need is a party solidly on the Left and a squishy, disgusting, amorphous, compliant blob in opposition.
Obama is hoping that the nation forgets his message after his inauguration: We won, you lost. Get over it.
I'm rather unimpressed by the new, kinder, gentler message: I come to the GOP, in the spirit of comity and bipartisanship, to ask them, for the good of the nation, to raise the white flag of surrender and give me their votes.
No thanks. Congressional deadlock suits me just fine, thank you very much. Too bad the blizzard can't shut Washington, D.C., down the other 364 days a year.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
There's a special place in hell for this guy
The news has been filled with all sorts of stories about the trials and tribulations of people enduring The Great Blizzard of 2010, AKA Snowmageddon. Amongst the tales are accounts of people turning on each other, Animal Planet rules, survival of the fittest, as it were.
But this is low. Really low.
A Brooklyn woman says a mugger stole a doggie coat right off the back of her mild-mannered terrier.
Donna McPherson says she tied up Lexie, her 10-year-old Westie, outside a Park Slope supermarket "for two minutes'' while she bought milk.She heard a "funny bark.'' When McPherson went outside, she found the little white dog shivering. His green wool coat, with leather trim and belt, were nowhere in sight.
"How could anyone steal a coat off someone's back in the freezing cold?" the 42-year-old investment banker complained to The New York Post. "I was so angry, but in the end I was grateful that it was just the coat and not him."
McPherson said the dog coat was worth $25. She looked all over the neighborhood, hoping to spot the burglar who stole the coat off her pup's back, but couldn't find him.
Stealing a coat from a small dog?
Really?
Too cold for you, sport? Let's fix that, shall we?
There's a special place in hell for this guy.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 08, 2010
Puppy pondering
Roscoe sits in the morning sun, gazing off into the middle distance, thinking deep puppy thoughts.
He glances over at me as if to say, "Seriously, enough with the camera, dude."
Undeterred, I snap away, bemused by the petulant cast of his lower lip -- and unwilling to let good lighting go to waste.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 07, 2010
Hummingbird Tales: They're here!
Lit by the afternoon sun, the mother hummingbird hangs in midair today, waiting for me to move back a bit. She allows me to get quite close to her nest, but when I cross some invisible threshhold she takes wing; I retreat and she returns, angrily flitting about my head, her wings fanning my face as I hold perfectly still, camera at the ready. I can see her reflection in my glasses as she hovers behind my head, the thrumming of her wingbeats growing louder as she moves closer to assess the threat.
Raindrops cover our hummingbird Saturday as she provides shelter from the storm for her two chicks, perched atop last year's newly-renovated and enlarged nest.
The hummingbird returned to the nest after a brief absence, seemingly taking advantage of a brief dry spell between squalls to flit off for a snack.
Suddenly, tiny gaping beaks appear from within the downy depths of the lichen-and-moss-covered nest, seeking a hot lunch.
The chicks hold still as their mother, with a swiftness and deft touch that'd rival the very best carnival sideshow swordswallower, slides her rapier-like beak down their gullets.
It's hard to believe no lasting damage was done to internal organs as she leaned forward, her beak going even deeper as lunch was delivered.
Both chicks were fed in a matter of moments, dropping out of sight as soon as the meal was done, their featherless bodies huddled together for warmth.
With her meal duties done (for the moment), the hummingbird settled down atop her young charges, rustling feathers and squirming as she corked the nest with her body, ready to shelter them from the soon-to-resume rain.
And there they are, looking like little porcupines, covered with hair-like quills that have yet to transform into feathers, stubby yellow beaks soon to grow long and narrow, the black spot on the tips spreading until all traces of color are gone. Eyes closed, their heads are naked, wrinkled and black.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Got (An)Droid? Want apps? Here are this month's recommendations
Gizmodo just posted their monthly list of the best apps for the Droid. Urbanspoon seems likes it's destined for my Droid.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 05, 2010
Wet hummingbird, warm eggs
It's raining again in SoCal, and the hummingbird is doing her part to keep the two eggs dry and warm -- although she doesn't seem particularly happy about it. Or am I just engaging in anthropomorphic projection, and she's actually enjoying sitting in the cold rain? I'm going to go back inside my cozy, dry house, pour myself a piping hot cup of black, bitter coffee, and think on it for a while.
It's good to be a human.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 04, 2010
Nat Henthoff on Obama: "Possibly the most dangerous and destructive president" ever
I used to read The Village Voice -- the Manhattan weekly paper devoted to taking a decidely liberal look at arts, politics and culture -- religiously, and the columnist I enjoyed most was Nat Henthoff, a constitutional scholar, civil libertarian, anti-death penalty advocate and free speech guru, as well as a devoted fan and critic of music, particularly jazz.
The octogenarian, who turns 85 this year, was a friend of Malcolm X, edited Down Beat magazine, was mentored by iconic liberal investigative journalist I.F. "Izzy" Stone, has impeccable credentials and street cred when it comes to his status as a senior statesman of the Left, which makes this interview so striking.
Henthoff is not, to put it mildly, a fan of Pres. Obama.
John W. Whitehead: When Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator in 2005, he introduced a bill to limit the Patriot Act. Now that he is president, he has endorsed the Patriot Act as is. What do you think happened with Obama?
Nat Hentoff: I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had. An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through the way Obama wants, we will have something very much like the British system. If the American people have their health care paid for by the government, depending on their age and their condition, they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer.
In terms of the Patriot Act, and all the other things he has pledged he would do, such as transparency in government, Obama has reneged on his promises. He pledged to end torture, but he has continued the CIA renditions where you kidnap people and send them to another country to be interrogated. Why is Obama doing that if he doesn't want torture anymore? Throughout Obama's career, he promised to limit the state secrets doctrine which the Bush-Cheney administration had abused enormously. The Bush administration would go into court on any kind of a case that they thought might embarrass them and would argue that it was a state secret and the case should not be continued. Obama is doing the same thing, even though he promised not to.
So in answer to your question, I am beginning to think that this guy is a phony. Obama seems to have no firm principles that I can discern that he will adhere to. His only principle is his own aggrandizement. This is a very dangerous mindset for a president to have.
JW: Do you consider Obama to be worse than George W. Bush?
NH: Oh, much worse. Bush essentially came in with very little qualifications for presidency, not only in terms of his background but he lacked a certain amount of curiosity, and he depended entirely too much on people like Rumsfeld, Cheney and others. Bush was led astray and we were led astray. However, I never thought that Bush himself was, in any sense, "evil." I am hesitant to say this about Obama. Obama is a bad man in terms of the Constitution. The irony is that Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He would, most of all, know that what he is doing weakens the Constitution.
In fact, we have never had more invasions of privacy than we have now. The Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency. The NSA has the capacity to keep track of everything we do on the phone and on the internet. Obama has done nothing about that. In fact, he has perpetuated it. He has absolutely no judicial supervision of all of this. So all in all, Obama is a disaster.
The rest of the interview is hardly kinder to Obama -- and remember, this is most assuredly not a critique from the Right. Nat Hentoff has been a principled civil rights advocate and critic of conservatives for more than 50 years.
I'm pretty certain this isn't the reaction Obama expected from liberal lions like Henthoff.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 03, 2010
California GOP nominee lands a devastating punch (on fellow Republican)
I'm not sold on former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina yet, but this ad, knocking Tom Campbell -- a rival for the GOP nomination to try and oust Barbara Boxer from the U.S. Senate -- is brutal. Campbell, who has been trying to establish himself as a fiscal conservative, is going to have a tough time recovering from this devastating attack, which paints him as a tax-and-spend RINO.
There's no denying that there are things about the ad that are just plain weird, like the red-eyed fake sheep (I can't decide if it's a riff on the terminator or demonic possession). And I'm not sure why fiscally conservative Republicans are being depicted as sheep-like, or if the flock is supposed to be representative of other RINOs; it's a muddled metaphor, methinks.
In any event, it's a memorable ad, one that has a number of moments that stay with you, all leaving the viewer with the distinct impression that Tom Campbell is the wrong choice, especially if taxes aren't your bag, Baby.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
IRS getting serious
You know the Feds are serious about reducing the size of the deficit when the IRS starts soliciting bids on an order for shotguns.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 02, 2010
Acting? You just ... pretend
Ian McKellen explains the subtleties of his craft to Ricky Gervais, in "Extras." It's the perfect counterpoint to every interview you've ever seen where some agonizingly earnest actor explains how difficult a particular role is, how exhausting and painful it can be to "become" a character.
It reminds me of the story from the production of "Marathon Man" -- retold in Adventures in the Screen Trade, by Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman ("Marathon Man," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Princess Bride") -- when Dustin Hoffman, Method Actor extraordinaire, was preparing for a scene wherein he had been tortured by the Nazi Szell, portrayed by Laurence Olivier. Hoffman stayed awake for a couple of days, then ran himself ragged to appear suitably exhausted and sweaty.
Olivier, acclaimed as the greatest living actor (and no fan of The Method), looked at him and said, "Dear boy, why don't you just act?"
It's the quintessential comparison of the English technical, building a character from the outside-in approach to acting, versus the naval-gazing intensity of the American Method.
Ian McKellen's explanation of "acting" is brilliant, and not that different from Spencer Tracey's take: Show up on time, know your lines, hit your mark and try not to knock over the scenary.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 28, 2010
The State of the Union: Oy vey!
Did you watch the state of the union address? I started off listening to it on the radio, and Pres. Obama's tone struck me as simultaneously halting, hesitant, and still somehow hectoring and arrogant.
Then I got home and turned on the TV and watched his delivery; if anything, the visuals reinforced the impression I'd had listening in my truck: What a titanic ego. The body language seemed to be that of a man who cannot believe that his students/subjects/servants haven't yet realized his brilliance; that democracy is a drag; and that those opposed to his policies should just shut the hell up.
The raised chin, the finger pointing, the theatrical folding and unfolding of his hands; it was all a bit much, don't you think?
And then, setting aside how he was delivering his TelePromptered speech, there was the actual content.
He was in full-on campaign mode, telling us that it was time to suspend the perpetual campaign. He was promising (again) to have the most open government in the history of the Republic, apparently forgetting about the behind-the-doors deal-making sessions he and his aides had been running. He said it was time to end partisan bickering, forgetting about how he told the GOP: "We won, you lost. Deal with it."
What an ... interesting fellow.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:55 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Planning a trip? Avoid these hotels
Whenever I travel out of town, I like to use the web to see what people think abut the hotels and restaurants (before I make my reservations), and Trip Advisor has been extremely helpful.
Today they posted their list of the Top 10 Dirty Hotels, and it makes for some revolting reading. Now, these are just the most disgusting in the U.S.; make sure to check out the links on the right side of the page to see the worst of the rest of the world.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 24, 2010
The hummingbirds have returned
The hummingbirds are back, a little bit early this year. Actually, they've never left, but having spent the past year sipping and zipping around the backyard, the queen of the hummers renovated last year's nest and promptly laid two tic tac-sized eggs within, then took up station atop them. (Click on image for larger version.)
She appears to have weathered last week's deluge without any apparent ill effect, and is tolerating my approach, allowing me to get about five feet away before she takes off, angrily buzzing about my head -- at which point I back off a little and hold perfectly still, whereupon she returns to the nest, casting a suspicious gaze upon me, just like the one in the top photo. (Click on image for larger version.)
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Like MASH? Think Alan Alda's a nice guy? Think again
Big Hollywood has been hosting a series of articles about The Champ, the Golden Age of Hollywood drama starring Wallace Beery as The Champ, the down-on-his luck boxer, and child actor Jackie Cooper as The Kid.
The most recent installment tells the behind-the-scenes story of Cooper's lifetime in showbusiness, starting with his appearances in the Our Gang shorts, through his time in the military during World War II, to his later years, when he shifted to behind the camera work, except for a few high profile roles, like the Superman films.
Cooper directed a number of episodes of MASH, the TV sitcom adapted from the Robert Altman film, an adaption that Altman reportedly loathed. The series starred Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce and Wayne Rogers as Trapper John, and it was a must-see weekly event in my house when I was growing up. However, I never cared for Alda's take on the character; I thought the books, written under the pen name Richard Hooker by a former MASH unit doctor, were great, and I liked the film quite a lot. But Alda struck me as insufferable, a moralizing pain in the ass.
And, as it turns out, notwithstanding the fact that he became wealthy and successful beyond his wildest dreams by pretending to be a man who cared deeply for the soldiers who fought and died in Korea, when it came to real-life GIs in Vietnam, Alda didn't really care all that much. Actually, he didn't seem to care at all.
According to Cooper's autobiography, quoted in the Big Hollywood article:
Over the decades [Cooper] remained active in the Navy Reserve, which eventually caused a problem on the M*A*S*H set. As Captain William S. Graves relates in Cooper’s book:
I came over to the set because I wanted to make some Christmas tapes [to send to the troops in Vietnam]. . . Some were thirty seconds, some were twenty seconds. . .and they’d say, “It’s Christmas, and we miss all you guys, and you’re doing a good job for your country, and we appreciate what you’re doing, and come home safe and Merry Christmas.”
. . . when I got there, Alan Alda had said he would make no Christmas greetings for the armed forces. So, of course, people sort of followed his lead, and Loretta Swit wouldn’t do it, Gary whatever-his-name wouldn’t do it. . .
Jack had done his best to try to get these guys all to do it because he believed in it, and he was doing it. . . the only people that did it were Wayne Rogers, who was a Navy lieutenant at one point in his life, and McLean Stevenson, who was a Navy pharmacist’s mate during the Korean War. And they did a nice job. But nobody else on that show would do it.
Hollywood types are fond of saying that they're against the war (Vietnam, Iraq, On Terror), but that they support the troops. Yeah, sure they do. It's nice to find out -- even years later -- what a bunch of hypocritical bastards Alda and his costars were, Stevenson and Rogers excepted.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
How to customize your Droid
While I'm quite happy with my Verizon Droid, Apple's iPhone fans still have bragging rights when it comes to their smartphone's "multitouch" feature, the ability to "pinch" the touchscreen to zoom images.
Until now. Apparently the Droid has multitouch capability built in; it's just not turned on. Talented techies can hack their Droids and activate a variety of features, if they're feeling adventurous, and Gizmodo has posted step-by-step directions for those of you brave enough to risk voiding your warranty and turning your smartphone into a very expensive paperweight if you do something wrong.
I'm gonna leave well enough alone and leave the hacking to others.
Posted by Mike Lief at 05:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 21, 2010
Did the GOP get the message?
In the aftermath of Tuesday's political earthquake -- epicenter: Massachusetts -- there's been much talk in the media about whether or not the Democrats have gotten the message. Larry Kudlow asks an even more important question: Have the Republicans?
Are the Republicans listening? Do they really understand why Scott Brown was victorious? If they do, why aren’t members of the Republican leadership loudly campaigning for an end to tax hikes, just like Scott Brown?
The cornucopia of tax hikes currently on the table includes higher levies on capital-gains, top earners, dividends, investment (via the payroll tax), carbon, millionaires, banks, stock transactions, and estates (via the death tax). It’s a long Democratic wish list of anti-growth policies, and Scott Brown’s triumph should signal the end of it. But it won’t happen unless GOP congressional leaders make a big deal about it.
For example, some Blue Dog Democrats want to extend the Bush tax cuts, rather than letting them expire next year. Republican leaders should be making a big deal about this. They need to get it front and center, making expiration a condition to any new legislation.
Remember that Brown ran on a JFK/Ronald Reagan platform of across-the-board tax cuts to promote economic growth. Take a look at what the senator-elect had to say during his victory speech Tuesday night:
This [health care] bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, it will hurt Medicare, it will destroy jobs and run our nation deeper into debt . . . I will work in the Senate to put the government back on the side of people who create jobs and the millions of people who need jobs. And remember, as President John F. Kennedy stated, that starts with across-the-board tax cuts for businesses and families to create jobs, put more money in people’s pockets, and stimulate the economy. It’s that simple.
There you have it. Scott Brown could not have been any clearer. That’s the great thing about his message — its breathtaking clarity. Across-the-board tax cuts and a revival of free-market capitalism on the supply-side.
[...]
And during that campaign, Brown argued that health-care reform is a tax hike and that cap-and-trade is a tax hike. This should become the Republican message, too. It’s about taxes, as well as spending.
A recent Washington Post poll showed that by 58 to 38 percent, voters want smaller government and fewer government services. This, too, should be the Republican congressional message.
... And the brilliance of Scott Brown was to use the JFK tax cuts — an across-the-board reduction in marginal tax rates — to attract Democrats and independents to his message.
An across-the-board tax cut is the fairest pro-growth message of them all. Lower tax rates for everybody. Get out of the box of rich people and class warfare. For the Ted Kennedy Democrats, that box has been a loser for decades. But for timid Republicans always on the defensive, now is the time to break out and adopt the Scott Brown theme.
[...]
While Team Obama is fighting for more government employment, with trillions of dollars of spending, it is time for Republicans to fight for private free-enterprise employment by letting folks keep more of what they earn and by providing new incentives for the extra hour worked and the extra investment dollar put at risk.
What Ludlow mentions in passing is another key component of a Democratic defeat: Cutting spending.
One of the reasons folks like me abandoned the GOP was its seeming inability to stand for anything other than being marginally less corrupt, marginally less wasteful, marginally less free spending than the other guys.
In other words, "Vote Republican: We don't suck as much as the Donks."
It wasn't good enough. Fiscal conservatives want a party that stands for limited government, smaller government, less damn government! And that goes hand in hand with less damn spending.
So, when we see a Republican Party just as addicted to pork-barrel politics, massive government programs, and an ever-expanding government bureaucracy as the Democratic Party, the question becomes, "Is it enough that you suck just a little bit less?"
No, it isn't.
I've referred to the GOP for years as The Stupid Party, and I've seen precious little to indicate that the time has come to retire the title. The ossified GOP leadership has an opportunity to return to the principles, the first principles of Conservative political philosophy: Government that spends least, spends best. Government that taxes least, taxes best.
Government exists to defend its citizens; kill our enemies; catch the crooks; put out the fires; fix the roads. Everything after that is gravy, and probably ought not be financed through the extortionate expropriation of our hard-earned cash.
Government is not designed to give people anything other than opportunity to succeed. The best thing Government can do is get the hell out of the way.
The biggest threat to freedom in any developed nation comes from the Government, comprised of meddlesome do-gooders and power-hungry pols who think they know better than the citizens how they should live.
There is an historic opportunity at hand; why do I suspect the GOP is going to screw it up?
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 20, 2010
Why do I suspect Mary Jo Kopechne is smiling?
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
This is your captain speaking
Flight Level 390 is the blog of an airline captain; he describes it as "America from the flight deck." I'd describe it as essential reading for anyone interested in aviation, or frequent fliers wanting to know what goes on behind the scenes.
From his latest entry:
This is an opportunity to look over the bird. The aircraft cleaners have been here and gone; the flight attendants are en route from another hotel; not yet arrived.
The co-pilot, young and single, is in the terminal trying to get traction with a young and single gate agent and will be until minimum required report time. He burns the candle at both ends, but, admittedly, it is interesting watching him work the young ladies. All things considered, he is a good kid. I've got no complaints.
Earlier, I did a mini pre-flight looking for landing gear safety pins, torn tire tread, and new dents in the fuselage. She looks good for her age. Most of her skin imperfections are pilot caused (a few of mine are here), i.e., hard landings, mostly appearing on her belly. A new airliner will have absolutely smooth skin on the belly; an older one... Not so smooth.
I learned in this very aircraft, and a few of her sisters, how to fly 320s. It was in the days before 319s and 321s came on the scene. I have dropped this old girl on the runway (hard) more than once. So, before I climbed the jetway stairs, I rubbed her belly a little bit and told her once again that I was sorry for mistreating her. She has small engines and first gen nav hardware, but there is something about her... Sort of like walking up to a good, old horse that is looking for that slice of apple behind your back.
[...]
Back in the aircraft, the flight attendants have arrived and are stowing their bags. The lead flight attendant is young and good looking. I chuckle to myself because the co-pilot will be further delayed when he sees her... I might as well start loading the nav computers.
As forecast, the co-pilot arrives at minimum report time, but instead of turning left into the flight deck, stops at the forward galley. He and the young flight attendant are just beginning to flirt, when the senior Sky Babe from the rear galley comes up and shoos him away with, "Hey, she is busy. You need to get up there," pointing at the flight deck door.
I almost spit Starbucks coffee on the instrument panel.
The co-pilot comes into the cockpit with a red face and tail tucked low. I cannot tell if he is angry or just embarrassed.
Feeling sorry for him, I say, "Look, one hundred fifty pax are boarding in five minutes. They are busy back there... You can talk to that girl later. Have you pre-flighted yet?"
"No."
"Now might be a good time."
Life on the Line continues...
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 17, 2010
It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop
I have an almost paralyzing fear of heights, albeit not an irrational phobia, in my opinion. I'm not afraid of falling when I'm in a position of safety -- behind a sturdy barrier or far enough away from the precipice that a stumble won't send me sailing into the void, for instance.
But throwing myself out of a perfectly good airplane, or climbing a mountain with only pitons, ropes and harnesses standing between the structural integrity of my body and a gravity-induced transformation into 175-odd pounds of steak tartare and Smucker's raspberry jam?
Uh, no thanks.
Still, movies like North Face, which details the 1936 record-setting ascent of the never-before conquered north face of the Eiger by two friends, allows me to vicariously experience being an insanely-reckless thrillseeker -- in plus-fours, no less.
The climb is even more impressive when you get a gander at the low-tech gear they used in their assault on the Eiger; no GPS, sat-phones or Gore-Tex for these plucky Germans, just steel, leather, hemp line and wool, danke!
I'll watch this one from the very back of my seat, feet braced against the row in front.
Is anyone else feeling a little woozy?
Posted by Mike Lief at 05:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Red Baron flies again
There hasn't yet been a good film made about the pioneering aviators who fought and died in the skies above the charnel house that was Europe during World War I. Fly Boys was cartoonish, and featured a lame script and undistinguished acting. So the upcoming release of The Red Baron provides another opportunity to (hopefully) get it right.
The trailer features some thrilling aerial sequences, and the actors involved seem quite good. If there's a flaw that's readily apparent, it's that Von Richthofen appears too young; photos of the real man -- and his fellow pilots -- show how quickly the stress of constant combat aged them. I remember studying a couple of snapsots of German ace Oswald Boelcke; it was hard to believe that the young man in the first picture was the same man in the second, a mere year or so later. It's also interesting to note that Boelcke taught the Red Baron to fly.
"Boelcke's Dicta," a series of rules he developed and taught his fellow fliers, were issued to Luftwaffe pilots during World War II, and were adapted and adopted by fliers from many other nations, including former and future enemies, too, continue to be a good starting point for would-be aces.
Boelcke's Dicta 1. Try to secure advantages before attacking.-If possible, try to keep the sun behind you.
2. Always carry through an attack when you have started it.
3. Fire only at close range and only when your opponent is properly in your sights.
4. Always keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.
5. In any form of attack it is essential to assail your opponent from behind.
6. If your opponent dives on you, do not try to evade his onslaught, but fly to meet it.
7. When over the enemy's lines, never forget your own line of retreat.
8. Attack on principle in groups of four or six. When the fight breaks up into a series of single combats, take care that several do not go for one opponent.
Aside from the too-youthful mugs of the stars, there's a level of detail in the trailer, an attention to authenticity to the flying sequences, that is quite exciting to aviation enthusiasists and amateur military historians. It also has the added appeal of showing the war from the perspective of our former enemy; to say that Americans, who know next to nothing about the war that killed an entire generation of Europeans, know even less about pre-Nazi Germany, is understating the ignorance.
Yes, I know it's only a movie, but it just might inspire viewers to do a little reading.
World War I has been woefully underrepresented in modern cinema; Der Rote Baron looks like a promising entry in an all-too-thin catalogue of films about The War to End All Wars.
Update
A little on-line research reveals a series of fairly negative reviews, mainly for a rather episodic and hackneyed story, although the lavish production did garner some praise for the production design and aerial combat sequences. Sounds like it'll make for a decent rental. Too bad.
Posted by Mike Lief at 03:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 14, 2010
Well, I'll be dipped! This looks good!
There's no real point in summarizing the concept of this show; just watch the video. Can it be possible that one of the Friends alumni is going to star in something that isn't total crap?
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 10, 2010
Just what the doctor ordered: Road To Perdition
I spent the weekend on the couch, doing battle with a rhinovirus that decided a sore throat, sneezing fits, runny nose and a fee-vah were just the ticket for the chosen human host.
Thanks a lot, buddy.
I did, however, take advantage of my Vicks-addled stupor, viewing several movies, most of which I'd seen before and liked, and one I'd never seen and liked a lot.
Road to Perdition, starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in his last big-screen appearance, is a somber tale, set in 1931 Illinois. Directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty), it's the tale of an Irish American mob boss (Newman), his no-good son (a pre-Bond Daniel Craig), and the surrogate son and fearsome, tommygun-wielding enforcer (Hanks) whose favored status with the Old Man leads to betrayal, the murder of innocents, and single-minded pursuit of vengeance.
Some critics said the film was too cold, too emotionally distant, as well as dark and smothering, with a glacial pace, but I thought it was compelling from start to finish. The cinematography by Conrad Hall was stupendous, ravishing, rich, dark paneled rooms seemingly lit only by the lamps scattered throughout, faces half-hidden in shadows.
The attention to detail is prodigious; the clothing looks like it came from the pages of Life Magazine, real, lived in, not from a studio's warehouse, and that goes for the sets, too, from hotels -- grand and not -- to the mansion of the boss, to the modest, all-American home of a hitman.
The heart of the story is the relationship between two fathers and their sons: Newman knows that Daniel Craig is a thief and a liar, but cannot bear the thought of doing what must be done to his own flesh and blood; and Hanks, who, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, struggles to save his own son, and keep him from following in his father's bloody footprints.
Adapted from a graphic novel, the film eschews gratuitous violence; most is off screen, and what is seen is not too much, given the nature of the tale.
It strikes me as a very grown-up film, one that makes the most of the totemic screen presence of the end-of-career Newman, whose ice-blue eyes distract from the craggy visage and rough, whiskey-and-cigarettes voice. There doesn't need to be a ton of extraneous dialogue; you can figure the relationships out for yourself, watching Newman and Hanks play a piano duet, the older man clapping an affectionate hand on the younger man's shoulder, as Craig watches his father and his rival from beneath hooded and sullen eyes.
And there's a power to Newman's delivery:
"There are only murderers in this room!
Michael! Open your eyes!
This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee: none of us will see heaven.
It's a powerful movie moment, one that I like almost as much as the one that comes later in the film, when Newman says, "I"m glad it's you."
I'm sorry I waited eight years to see Road to Perdition. If SLAM! BANG! KAPOW! is what you're looking for in a film, give it a pass. But, if you're in the mood for something more elegiac, give it a shot.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:51 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Why are Americans the bad guys?
There's been plenty of support at the box office for James Cameron and his latest blockbuster, Avatar, and in the media, too, with film critics and members of the kultural kommentariat only too happy to slam conservatives for being paranoid, too sensitive, delusional, or all of the above when it comes to the anti-American, anti-military subtext lurking not very far beneath the surface.
So it comes as something of a surprise to read Joe Klein's entry on his Time Magazine blog:
Alone in our nation's capital last night, I decided to keep in touch with the culture by going to see Avatar in 3D. I hadn't read much of the commentary about the movie, but the word of mouth was that it was visually spectacular--and yes, spectacular it was, especially in 3D (which has improved markedly since the last time I put on the glasses, before any of you were born).
But that wasn't the most amazing thing about the movie: the Americans were the bad guys. They were a mercenary army working for corporate villains who wanted to strip-mine a tribe of alien, cerulean nice-guy, enviro-theists. The dialogue was awful; the characterizations were crude ... and I'm sure that conservatives will dismiss this as another excretion of the Hollywood left. But still, it was something for a mainstream -- indeed, a blockbuster -- motion picture to have you rooting for the blue dudes flying about on birds painted like Chinese fans ... and rooting against the humans, none of whom had the requisite Eastern European or Arab villain accents.
The message that big trees are good and bulldozers are evil seems rather timely. The message that God is Green is fascinating stuff to be peddling in the shopping malls of middle America (I particularly liked the moment when the mercenaries chuckled about the fact that the primitives believed in a tree god).
I previously wrote about why I wasn't likely to put money in Cameron's pocket and attend Avatar:
I could look past the idiocy of the story, just to experience what sounds like a fully-realized alien world, but for the fact that Cameron has chosen to make the U.S. Marines the bad guys in his tale. In a week where Muslim terrorists came within a hair's breadth of blowing an American passenger jet out of the sky; where American troops continue to fight against primitive warriors in far off lands; and where Marines are dying in defense of liberty, I'm just not interested in giving money to another Hollywood dimwit who can't find it within himself to make a movie where the men and women in uniform -- our uniform, our Marines -- are the good guys.
Some Cameron defenders point out that the Americans being slaughtered by the noble, blue-skinned aliens aren't Marines, explaining helpfully that they're ex-Marines, mercenaries, and therefore, I guess, even less deserving of our sympathies.
Col. Bryan Salas, USMC, isn't impressed. The director of public affairs at Marine Corps Headquarters writes in Marine Corps Times:
Lost amid the staggering commercial success of “Avatar” and obscured by the punditry of the left and right as they debate James Cameron’s social and historical commentary are the real warriors whose heroism, valor and selfless service has allowed the U.S. to leave a war in Iraq that many in 2006 thought was unwinnable and indeed salvage success from the jaws of calamity.
“Avatar” takes sophomoric shots at our military culture and uses the lore of the Marine Corps and over-the-top stereotyping of Marine warriors to set the context for the screenplay. This does a disservice to our Corps of Marines and the publics’ understanding of their Corps.
The Marine Corps embraces a warrior-scholar mentality and prides itself on understanding host country narratives and sensitivities in complex climes and places. Gen. James Mattis, whose catch-phrase is “no better friend, no worse enemy,” better captures the essence of Marines who helped usher in the Sunni Awakening in Anbar province than the cinemagraphically convenient colonel-turned-mercenary antagonist in “Avatar.”
Let’s view “Avatar” for what it is, a leap in the wizardry of cinema, a digital fantasy and a vehicle for a film-maker to make a statement, but not emblematic of the Marines who honorably fight and fall to win our nation’s real battles today.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 07, 2010
Reality Reality
This is a virtuoso piece of filmmaking, but what makes it so astonishing isn't readily apparent to the viewer. At first blush, it's an interesting meditation on architecture, photography, light and texture, featuring a number of showy examples of shallow depth of field, focus shifting rapidly from the background to the fore and back again.
Here's the thing, 'tho: It's all computer generated. Every last image, if Alex Roman, the auteur who created it, is to be believed. There are a couple of shots that strike me as looking a little CGI-ish, but they are few, eclipsed by the overwhelming number of scenes that look like, well, like Reality Reality, not Virtual Reality.
I'm somewhat suspicious that we're being hoaxed, that Alex Roman is having us on, because I cannot believe that a man with a computer can so convincingly recreate reality.
Stunning.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 06, 2010
WALL*E: Resistance is futile
I am, as usual, way behind the movie-viewing curve. I finally got around to seeing WALL*E, the improbably charming robot-love story from the geniuses at Disney/Pixar, thanks to friends who loaded the Blu-Ray disc into the PS3 and essentially told me to "Siddown an' shaddap!"
The first 30 minutes of WALL*E are brilliant, and practically wordless, remarkably evocative, touching and completely immersive. The animators have produced a photo-realistic world -- a ravaged, abandoned, fantastical-yet-familiar world -- like nothing I'd ever seen before, and populated it with two sentient beings ... joined soon after by a third.
The animators change the look of the film when the story leaves Earth behind, shifting to a day-glo palette and "traditional" computer-animated visual style when the main characters (and the audience) arrive aboard the deep-space transport (and interstellar cruise ship) "Axiom." If the remainder of the film doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first half, it's simply because the bar had been set so high. I would've been perfectly happy to have spent the rest of the story in the company of WALL*E, EVE and a cockroach on a deserted, desiccated and dilapidated planet, but then I'm not even close to normal (as my family will surely confirm).
WALL*E was as good as my friends had promised; if you've not yet seen it, pick up a copy. And if you've already succumbed to its charms, check out the promotional video, above, extolling the features of Buy N Large's latest technical innovation.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:59 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
