My new puppy has kennel cough...so I stayed up with her in our casita (read garage converted into studio) so my wife and other dog could sleep undisturbed through the night... The point is: my resulting insomnia led to an all-night-into-early-morning sojurn through old movies on TCM...pre-war comedies, wartime musicals...all great stuff...leading to this morning's showing of the Preston Sturges film CHRISTMAS IN JULY...made in 1940, when this country was still struggling to remove itself from the Great Depression...
In one of the opening scenes, Dick Powell (playing a guy with big dreams but a dead-end, low paying accountancy job) is daydreaming at his desk, and his supervisor (played by wonderful character actor Harry Hayden) calls him into his office. Hayden's character gives Powell a pep talk. The gist of it is that Powell has to think of himself as a success, or he never will be one. The gem of this speech is as follows (with apologies to Sturges, who says it a little differently and a lot better):
"No system can succeed if only one-half of 1% of the parts are a success, while the rest of the parts are failures! All parts must be successful for the system to succeed!"
I sat there dumbstruck.
Here, coming off the screen in a film made 72 years ago, reflective of a time where economic struggle and the fear which accompanies it were spread across all classes in this country, was a razor-sharp and cogent message for our time.
If ever there was a message for the Democrats and Progressives to adopt in this fight against the Right-Wing, class-warfare mongers who want to see more wealth distributed to the wealthiest while the rest of us are left to scramble for the crumbs, this is it!
Please, Lord, let somebody on the DNC have been watching TNC this morning, and take this message to President Obama, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and all the other warriors in this battle, and let their speechwriters and ad campaign managers get the soundbite of Harry Hayden's speech from this film, and play that 10-15 seconds over and over and over again on every station in this country.
Then, it would turn out that the title CHRISTMAS IN JULY would be particularly meaningful, if it turned out that Preston Sturges' words gave a great gift to the Progressive cause in the defeat of the Republicans in the upcoming election.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
At the risk of pissing of the NRA...
Twelve dead, 52 wounded... Anyone who has ever handled a weapon, let alone been faced by someone shooting at them, knows the kind of massive firepower required to accomplish this kind of damage in a matter of less than three minutes... That's what some psychotic, worthless coward did to a movie audience in Aurora, CO at midnight tonight...and then--as one would expect from a coward--didn't even have the balls to shoot it out with arresting officers. Just surrendered meekly...so now we have to feed and house this little weasel bastard for the next God-knows-how-many years, while his defense will probably be paid for by the National Rifle Association...
When the hell are we going to stop pussyfooting around the goddamned NRA (No Rational Association) and stop defending the "constitutional right" to own assault weapons? Screw the "Second Amendment"! It has nothing whatsoever to do with the right to go to a sleazebag death merchant at a "gun show", or a "sporting goods' shop, and purchase an AR-15 with a 100-round magazine and all the necessary hardware to modify it to full automatic, and to go online and purchase body armor which should be reserved to SWAT officers!! The purchase of the items should be, if not totally illegal, red flags to all law enforcement agencies (including Homeland Security) and put the purchaser on a close-watch list.
I am so damned sick and tired of the American Public--even more so of American politicians--rolling over and playing dead, like possums, in the face of hate and death mongers like the NRA, and Ted Nugent, and all the other right-wing-facist-motherf**kers who are puking their vitriol all over Fox, and their badly-written blogs, and everywhere else they can get access. Take their frigging assault rifles, shove them up their butts and pull the trigger, and see if they still defend your right to bear arms.
In the interim, stay home-- Malls, theatres, parks...any place of public assembly...are the hunting grounds for all the psychofreaks with their AR-15s, Uzis, AK-47s and whatever other "arms" they can "bear" as part of their "constitutional right" under the Second Amendment. Just don't expect them to fulfill the true meaning of that amendment: the right to be part of a militia, in defense of their country. That would require actual balls, something that all of them seem to lack.
When the hell are we going to stop pussyfooting around the goddamned NRA (No Rational Association) and stop defending the "constitutional right" to own assault weapons? Screw the "Second Amendment"! It has nothing whatsoever to do with the right to go to a sleazebag death merchant at a "gun show", or a "sporting goods' shop, and purchase an AR-15 with a 100-round magazine and all the necessary hardware to modify it to full automatic, and to go online and purchase body armor which should be reserved to SWAT officers!! The purchase of the items should be, if not totally illegal, red flags to all law enforcement agencies (including Homeland Security) and put the purchaser on a close-watch list.
I am so damned sick and tired of the American Public--even more so of American politicians--rolling over and playing dead, like possums, in the face of hate and death mongers like the NRA, and Ted Nugent, and all the other right-wing-facist-motherf**kers who are puking their vitriol all over Fox, and their badly-written blogs, and everywhere else they can get access. Take their frigging assault rifles, shove them up their butts and pull the trigger, and see if they still defend your right to bear arms.
In the interim, stay home-- Malls, theatres, parks...any place of public assembly...are the hunting grounds for all the psychofreaks with their AR-15s, Uzis, AK-47s and whatever other "arms" they can "bear" as part of their "constitutional right" under the Second Amendment. Just don't expect them to fulfill the true meaning of that amendment: the right to be part of a militia, in defense of their country. That would require actual balls, something that all of them seem to lack.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Aaron, we have missed you...
Just viewed, courtesy of a friend's post (thank you Betsy Scholl) the opening of the new
Aaron Sorkin show NEWSROOM....
I don't get HBO, so can't view the show as it airs, but seeing this piece makes me want to call
DIRECT TV and change my subscription. This is writing at its best, with ensemble acting
to match. Not since WEST WING have I seen this kind of quality--which makes me believe
that the public, in its predictable reality-tv-soaked stupor, will reject both the message and the
messenger and the show will be canceled after one season.
I wish I wasn't such a pessimist... more than that I wish I could have a shot at being part of
this ensemble, even in the smallest of roles. It would be an honor to work with these people
--and that, at this point in my life, might just be enough to change my attitude and outlook on life.
Slim shot, but who knows?
At all events, kudos to all involved in this groundbreaking show.
Aaron Sorkin show NEWSROOM....
I don't get HBO, so can't view the show as it airs, but seeing this piece makes me want to call
DIRECT TV and change my subscription. This is writing at its best, with ensemble acting
to match. Not since WEST WING have I seen this kind of quality--which makes me believe
that the public, in its predictable reality-tv-soaked stupor, will reject both the message and the
messenger and the show will be canceled after one season.
I wish I wasn't such a pessimist... more than that I wish I could have a shot at being part of
this ensemble, even in the smallest of roles. It would be an honor to work with these people
--and that, at this point in my life, might just be enough to change my attitude and outlook on life.
Slim shot, but who knows?
At all events, kudos to all involved in this groundbreaking show.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Remembering...?...
It's another Memorial Day... A few parades (fewer each year) attended by a dwindling group of
survivors, men and women who served in this country's military sojurns across the globe and across the decades...a salute to their nobility and sacrifice, and to those who were left on the battlefields...
My wife Lisa called her Uncle Al in Albuquerque to thank him for his service...he was a colonel in WWII and Korea in the Army Air Corps and, like my father, survived those conflicts to return to a grateful America rife with parades and waving flags and cheering crowds. She thanked him for his sacrifice for our nation, and remembered her adoptive dad who served in the Pacific on board naval ships during Iwo Jima and Saipan, and mentioned me for my service during Viet Nam. Uncle Al was deeply touched, and then fell very silent. When he was finally able to speak again, he said "nobody thanks us anymore...they don't seem to care anymore..."
Lisa came to me and said she was shocked and troubled by this lack of gratitude. I, however, was
only too aware of this trend. I returned to a nation which spit on me and my comrades in airports,
and looked upon us (especially post-My Lai) as "baby-killers." But then, in the 80's (almost two decades after my service), they staged a massive celebration for us with a parade down Wall Street (we were--mostly--still young enough then to make the route on foot) and crowds and streamers and marching bands. It was gratifying, if late in coming.
There was one great difference between then and now: namely, the demographics of those serving in the military. Viet Nam was the end of the draft and, hence, the end of the era of the citizen soldier. Men of every walk of life and every strata of economic class served together in that, and preceding, conflict. This is no longer the case.
Today, our army, navy and air forces are peopled by "volunteers", a pseudonym for people who--due to their lack of access to economic or educational opportunity--are facing such limited options that they have no choice but to enter the military. Once there, they are further enslaved by a system which does not--as it did in my day--release them from their service obligation after 2, 4 or 6 years of active duty, but rather keeps them in a loop of continuous service in the "reserves"...sending them back into war zone peril for second, third, fourth and fifth tours.
Unless and until the draft is reinstated, and the burden of sending their progeny into
harm's way is shared equally by all American families--regardless of their economic status--there will never be enough people saying "thank you" on Memorial Day. Defending this nation will be "someone else's job" and, like the maintenance crew which cleans your office bathrooms, will go mainly ignored.
God bless us all, and rest well all those who did not return.
survivors, men and women who served in this country's military sojurns across the globe and across the decades...a salute to their nobility and sacrifice, and to those who were left on the battlefields...
My wife Lisa called her Uncle Al in Albuquerque to thank him for his service...he was a colonel in WWII and Korea in the Army Air Corps and, like my father, survived those conflicts to return to a grateful America rife with parades and waving flags and cheering crowds. She thanked him for his sacrifice for our nation, and remembered her adoptive dad who served in the Pacific on board naval ships during Iwo Jima and Saipan, and mentioned me for my service during Viet Nam. Uncle Al was deeply touched, and then fell very silent. When he was finally able to speak again, he said "nobody thanks us anymore...they don't seem to care anymore..."
Lisa came to me and said she was shocked and troubled by this lack of gratitude. I, however, was
only too aware of this trend. I returned to a nation which spit on me and my comrades in airports,
and looked upon us (especially post-My Lai) as "baby-killers." But then, in the 80's (almost two decades after my service), they staged a massive celebration for us with a parade down Wall Street (we were--mostly--still young enough then to make the route on foot) and crowds and streamers and marching bands. It was gratifying, if late in coming.
There was one great difference between then and now: namely, the demographics of those serving in the military. Viet Nam was the end of the draft and, hence, the end of the era of the citizen soldier. Men of every walk of life and every strata of economic class served together in that, and preceding, conflict. This is no longer the case.
Today, our army, navy and air forces are peopled by "volunteers", a pseudonym for people who--due to their lack of access to economic or educational opportunity--are facing such limited options that they have no choice but to enter the military. Once there, they are further enslaved by a system which does not--as it did in my day--release them from their service obligation after 2, 4 or 6 years of active duty, but rather keeps them in a loop of continuous service in the "reserves"...sending them back into war zone peril for second, third, fourth and fifth tours.
Unless and until the draft is reinstated, and the burden of sending their progeny into
harm's way is shared equally by all American families--regardless of their economic status--there will never be enough people saying "thank you" on Memorial Day. Defending this nation will be "someone else's job" and, like the maintenance crew which cleans your office bathrooms, will go mainly ignored.
God bless us all, and rest well all those who did not return.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Give you a break?....
Where would you like it, Mr. Speaker? Your arm, leg? Your head? Your ass (where I would find your head)?
You accuse House Democrats of politicizing the "war on women", when you and your I-was-a-car-salesman-but-now-I'm-a-Congressman Tea Party morons are clearly and openly and proudly waging that war, right out in the open, and on C-Span to boot????
By all means, you Red State Jackoffs, let's cut more money from cancer and STD screenings for women and poor people of both genders, then lets sit back and watch as the uninsured overrun the already flooded ERs for their medical treatment, and lets watch healthcare costs really skyrocket. Great idea.
I know I'm just another (mostly ignored) voice screaming in the forest, but if there is a woman who
sincerely thinks the Republican Party holds anything but disdain for women, the poor, and yes--
the future of this nation, I wish she would respond to this writing and enlighten me. I am at a loss to see it.
It's bad enough that the poor have had to bear the burden of manning our military in this era of
global deployment, and re-deployment, and re-re-deployment. The sin of poor women
disproportionately mourning the deaths of their sons and daughters lost in this nation's military
follies is bad enough; to ask them to bear this pain while dying of ovarian cancer or
heart disease--maladies made treatable by early detection--is a sin of cardinal proportion.
"May you all rot in hell" is the phrase that comes to mind...but I fear that such karmic justice just
may not be in the cards for the evildoers. In the meantime, they want our poor men and women to
rot here on earth, from corrosive disease.
Oh, if only what went around did, indeed, come around...
You accuse House Democrats of politicizing the "war on women", when you and your I-was-a-car-salesman-but-now-I'm-a-Congressman Tea Party morons are clearly and openly and proudly waging that war, right out in the open, and on C-Span to boot????
By all means, you Red State Jackoffs, let's cut more money from cancer and STD screenings for women and poor people of both genders, then lets sit back and watch as the uninsured overrun the already flooded ERs for their medical treatment, and lets watch healthcare costs really skyrocket. Great idea.
I know I'm just another (mostly ignored) voice screaming in the forest, but if there is a woman who
sincerely thinks the Republican Party holds anything but disdain for women, the poor, and yes--
the future of this nation, I wish she would respond to this writing and enlighten me. I am at a loss to see it.
It's bad enough that the poor have had to bear the burden of manning our military in this era of
global deployment, and re-deployment, and re-re-deployment. The sin of poor women
disproportionately mourning the deaths of their sons and daughters lost in this nation's military
follies is bad enough; to ask them to bear this pain while dying of ovarian cancer or
heart disease--maladies made treatable by early detection--is a sin of cardinal proportion.
"May you all rot in hell" is the phrase that comes to mind...but I fear that such karmic justice just
may not be in the cards for the evildoers. In the meantime, they want our poor men and women to
rot here on earth, from corrosive disease.
Oh, if only what went around did, indeed, come around...
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Slim pickins...
Ted Nugent...that draft-dodging, lousy-guitar-playing, lying (yeah, right..."Journey to the Center of the Mind isn't about drugs!!!"), punk-ass, pussy-faced. drooling idiot is the latest dog-of-war to be
unleashed in the Conservative War of Words against Liberals in general, and President Obama
in particular.
Not that this is the first time he has spewed diarrhea from that stupid slot above that ridiculous
pubic patch he calls a beard, but this time he has delivered a "call to arms" to the plaid-shirt-clad
army of neo-Nazi morons he calls his fans.
"Obama, Hillary Clinton are criminals...ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off..."
This, from a sleazeball scumbag who, when called before the draft board, wore his clothes for over
a month and showed up at the board smelling of feces and urine(how appropriate) so that he would
not get drafted. Criminal?? Nugent, if you ever saw a battlefield you would piss your pants;
but, then again, you would be comfortable with that attire...
If your adoring tribe of Neanderthal, "America-for-the-Americans," gun-toting sycophants
really took your character and past into consideration, they just might tell you to ride
your machine-gun into oblivion, after shoving it up your ass and pulling the trigger.
PS--why is it that every NRA-pin wearing "gun-lover" I have met here in California never
served a frigging day in uniform in their lives?
Ah, screw it...
unleashed in the Conservative War of Words against Liberals in general, and President Obama
in particular.
Not that this is the first time he has spewed diarrhea from that stupid slot above that ridiculous
pubic patch he calls a beard, but this time he has delivered a "call to arms" to the plaid-shirt-clad
army of neo-Nazi morons he calls his fans.
"Obama, Hillary Clinton are criminals...ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off..."
This, from a sleazeball scumbag who, when called before the draft board, wore his clothes for over
a month and showed up at the board smelling of feces and urine(how appropriate) so that he would
not get drafted. Criminal?? Nugent, if you ever saw a battlefield you would piss your pants;
but, then again, you would be comfortable with that attire...
If your adoring tribe of Neanderthal, "America-for-the-Americans," gun-toting sycophants
really took your character and past into consideration, they just might tell you to ride
your machine-gun into oblivion, after shoving it up your ass and pulling the trigger.
PS--why is it that every NRA-pin wearing "gun-lover" I have met here in California never
served a frigging day in uniform in their lives?
Ah, screw it...
Friday, April 13, 2012
To bake, or not to bake...
Unless you've been living under a very large, soundproofed rock, you have been subjected to the barrage of commentary on Ms. Rosen's quick-tounged quip about Mitt Romney's wife not being the ideal person to ask about women in the workforce and their economic/social struggles...
MY GOD! ARE THE REPUBLICANS THIS DESPERATE FOR SOMETHING TO GRIPE ABOUT??
After all the apologies by Rosen and the White House (for a comment which, after all the smoke
clears, is accurate and hardly insulting) the RNC and their cronies continue to bleat and beat their
breasts about how all stay-at-home moms have been insulted by the Democrats...
Which is, of course, pure bullshit...
My mother, along with obviously millions of others (look at the divorce rate in this country and figure it out for yourself) had no choice but to hold down a full-time job and raise a family... Luckily, the household contained an extended family, 4 generations, which helped in the raising of the children....but they all had full-time jobs, too. There are military wives who "stay home" when their husbands are out on a 3rd and 4th tour in war zones, and these women "stay home" (often working at paying jobs simultaneously) not by choice but from necessity. There are countless numbers of single-parent households in the same situation. It has given rise to a lucrative and ever-growing industry in this country--daycare centers, preschools, etc.--which further deplete the parent's resources in the effort to raise their children...
For Romney to need his wife to act as an interpreter of women and their mystical needs is baffling. For him to chose a wife who has lived a life of privilege and luxury for that task is even more perplexing.
For this to be turned into some kind of rallying call to all those Red State women who hold bake sales, make scrap books, and generally live the stay-at-home-soccer-mom life to march in unison behind the Republican Party is the true insult here. Those women have access to their bank balances, and they know how hard they are struggling to put Walmart clothes on the backs of their kids and how many coupons they have to clip to feed their families....
Enough of this crap...from both sides... In fairness (even though the preponderance of asshole statements have come from the Right--Rush Limbaugh included), my Progressive friends are making too much of Foster Frieze's comment about "bulletproof teleprompters" for Obama...
I heard the comment, and it had nothing to do with assassination of the President. It was about the Republicans now focusing their "guns" at Obama and not at each other now that the candidate is chosen...
So let's stick it back in our pants...or where the sun will never shine...and get back to the issues...
MY GOD! ARE THE REPUBLICANS THIS DESPERATE FOR SOMETHING TO GRIPE ABOUT??
After all the apologies by Rosen and the White House (for a comment which, after all the smoke
clears, is accurate and hardly insulting) the RNC and their cronies continue to bleat and beat their
breasts about how all stay-at-home moms have been insulted by the Democrats...
Which is, of course, pure bullshit...
My mother, along with obviously millions of others (look at the divorce rate in this country and figure it out for yourself) had no choice but to hold down a full-time job and raise a family... Luckily, the household contained an extended family, 4 generations, which helped in the raising of the children....but they all had full-time jobs, too. There are military wives who "stay home" when their husbands are out on a 3rd and 4th tour in war zones, and these women "stay home" (often working at paying jobs simultaneously) not by choice but from necessity. There are countless numbers of single-parent households in the same situation. It has given rise to a lucrative and ever-growing industry in this country--daycare centers, preschools, etc.--which further deplete the parent's resources in the effort to raise their children...
For Romney to need his wife to act as an interpreter of women and their mystical needs is baffling. For him to chose a wife who has lived a life of privilege and luxury for that task is even more perplexing.
For this to be turned into some kind of rallying call to all those Red State women who hold bake sales, make scrap books, and generally live the stay-at-home-soccer-mom life to march in unison behind the Republican Party is the true insult here. Those women have access to their bank balances, and they know how hard they are struggling to put Walmart clothes on the backs of their kids and how many coupons they have to clip to feed their families....
Enough of this crap...from both sides... In fairness (even though the preponderance of asshole statements have come from the Right--Rush Limbaugh included), my Progressive friends are making too much of Foster Frieze's comment about "bulletproof teleprompters" for Obama...
I heard the comment, and it had nothing to do with assassination of the President. It was about the Republicans now focusing their "guns" at Obama and not at each other now that the candidate is chosen...
So let's stick it back in our pants...or where the sun will never shine...and get back to the issues...
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