Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Ok, well, just "truth and justice" then if it'll bring in more bean overseas... (Dropping "American way" from the Man of Steel's motto wounded my traditionalist soul...)

I can't write movie reviews, I'm terrible at it. But after sitting in an IMAX theater for 2 1/2 hours watching Superman, I just have to say a word or two. Not a review -- or even a commentary -- just a series of observations.

I would have hated this movie if I didn't like it so damned much. My expectations were low going in so keeping me awake for 2 1/2 hours made it a genuine hit.

What I liked:

• Kevin Spacey is brilliant as Lex Luthor.


• The new Superman (Brandon Routh) pulled it off. I never liked Christopher Reeve, God rest him, there was just something "about" the man that weirded me out.


• The action was great


• The cinematography was fantastic (Made for IMAX)


• Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is hot - unlike that crazy Canadian wench who played her in the Reeve movies

What I hated:

• Clark Kent wasn't geeky enough. They turned him into a GQ metrosexual bordering on Euro-fag. Instead of the heavy black glasses, he wore trendy smallish frames. A friend -- an expert in communications with the Ph.D. to prove it -- said that was intentional. There's cash in it for Hollywood if they turn Routh into a gay pin-up boy.


• The last half hour. No spoliers, but it was totally Oprahfied. (Like the rest of this country) Same expert friend said that was designed to appeal to female audiences. The Man of Steel is strong as hell but, at the same time, he's oh so very "sensitive".


• I could live to be 100 and I'll never understand how they can't recognize Clark Kent in tights sans glasses. If one of my co-workers took off his glasses and donned some red panties, I think I'd recognize him.


• For the first time in my life, Superman is younger than I am. (That one hurt)

In general:

The movie is heavy on Christian symbolism (No spoilers):

• Clark Kent's mom (Eva Marie Saint -- who I thought was long dead until she showed up in the movie looking, well, long dead) cradling him a la the Virgin Mary in the Pieta.


• Superman falling back to earth in cruciform pose.


• Talk of the world's "needing a Savior".


• "I hear everything" says Superman, as he stands in low earth orbit listening to the cries (prayers?) of a suffering humanity.


• The empty hospital bed. The ubermensch is resurrected.

Cut off the last half hour and I'd give it:

In it's current form, I can only muster 2 1/2.
__________

Here's a real, honest to Superman, review that sums it up very well.

Iran: The Next War

James Bamford's MUST READ at Rolling Stone. Here's the intro:

Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran.

Long, detailed, excellent work. Typical of Bamford.

Ireland takes a shot at Israel

This morning I was searching for info on the amazing discovery of a 9th Century Psalter in an Irish field (found it) and stumbled upon some suprisingly strong comments by the Irish Government relative to the war in Lebanon.

I guess Kofi isn't alone in suggesting that the Israeli attack on the UN post was something less than accidental:

He [Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern] said events during the conflict would lead one to believe that there was targeting of some of these areas or at least some reckless activity by the Israeli forces.

[snip]

Earlier the Taoiseach [Prime Minister], Bertie Ahern, said he was appalled by the UN deaths and condemned the continuing use by Israel of reckless and disproportionate force.

You won't hear that on Fox News...
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UPDATE: The BBC reports: UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.

His Own Private Idaho

Folks in Idaho like the president. And that's a good thing because it's one of only four states where the Emperor currently enjoys a plurality of support. [The others being: Texas +1%), Wyoming (+3%), and Utah, which loves him best at (+18%)!]

The other 46 states give a collective thumbs down to the "Commander-in-Chief" (with varying degrees of intensity) but my next door neighbor, Rhode Island, gets the prize for giving His Honor his worst overall approval rating at an abysmal 23/75%!

My guess is that there won't be any suprise presidential visits to the Newport Jazz Festival this year...

Your papers, please

The Joementum's in the shitter...

Yesterday, President Clinton came to Connecticut to stump -- it would appear, reluctantly -- for Uncle Joe.

The choice of Waterbury for a venue would seem significant. It was in that Democrat-ridden city on November 6, 1960, that more than 40,000 people waited on the Green until 3 AM for (candidate) John F. Kennedy to make a brief campaign stop on his way back to Boston. Stunned by the size of the early morning crowd, Kennedy said:

My debt to Connecticut is great, and I come here in the last 48 hours of this campaign to the greatest rally that we have had in this entire campaign, right here in this city.

[snip]

Anyway, New England has not had a Democratic President since Franklin Pierce, 104 years ago, and I think it is about time! [Applause]

[snip]

I promised the mayor that I would have you all in bed by three. [Response from the audience.] I want to just say, and I mean it: No.1, this is the biggest crowd we have had in a city of this size in the United States; No.2, it is not 12 o'clock, it is 3 o'clock in the morning. [Applause.] And I must say every day I keep reading the Vice President [Nixon] says the tide is suddenly going in his direction. [Response from the audience.] Well, I think the tide is rising in Connecticut that is just going to wash him all the way out. [Applause.]

Alas, Big Dog Clinton couldn't conjure up any of that Kennedy magic for Joe Lieberman. It's amazing that the senator -- his party's nominee for the Vice Presidency in 2000 -- and, previously, an enormously popular Connecticut politician in his own right has fallen so far...so fast. The primary challenge from Ned Lamont has really taken it out of him. He looks exhausted and he's aged well beyond his years.

Times change... Insurmountable popularity one day; kicked to the curb the next. And the times have certainly changed for the country and the Democratic party since JFK made his famous campaign stop in Waterbury. In 1960, if you wanted to attend the Kennedy rally you put on your woolens, poured some coffee in a thermos and froze your arse off on the Green until 3:00 AM.

If you wanted to go to the Clinton event yesterday, you had to submit your Social Security number to rally organizers and hope you passed the background check.

God, I miss America...
______________

Look Who's Talking - George Bush or Joe Lieberman?

"Tamely resigned"

After reading a synopsis of the latest attempt by the GOP Congress to fortify the unchecked power of the executive branch (via Independent Country), I was reminded of a quote I once read on the subject of liberty.

It took some doing, but I finally found the quote in an old American History textbook:

We have always looked upon men as a set of beings naturally free: - And it is a truth, which the history of the ages and the common experience of mankind have fully confirmed, that a people can never be divested of those individual rights and liberties which are necessary to their happiness, to the well-being of communities or to a well regulated state, but by their own negligence, imprudence, timidity or rashness. They are seldom lost, but when foolishly forfeited or tamely resigned.

Jonas Clarke
Pastor of Lexington Church
On the Eve of the American Revolution

Two things in this quote stand out: (1) Our ancestors understood the danger of liberty denied (or resigned) and (2) Men of the 18th Century knew how to write!

They were about to bring arms against the mightiest empire on earth in defense of their liberties and we tremble in the presence of a traffic cop...

Sadly, the men and women of Rev. Clarke's generation probably would have preferred life under General Gage to life under Generalissimo Bush. (Gage, at least, ordered the British Regulars to respect private property rights. The Magna Carta not being a "living document" at that particular time.)

If you have plans to visit Imperial Washington for vacation this summer, cancel them. (It's a dump) Instead, fly your family to Boston and drive the 16 miles, or so, to the hallowed ground of Lexington Common.

If, after that experience, you still believe that one man can be trusted with your rights and that liberty should be surrendered for "security" then, I dunno, move to Canada or something...

Living in a Black & White World

I envy people who can see the world and its myriad crises in black and white. No shades of gray for them; just a rigid manichæism that banishes all doubt.

They exist on both ends of the political spectrum and nothing illuminates their poltical philosophy better than the Israeli-Arab conflict.

The hardcore Left villifies Israel and the extreme neo-right get out their pom-poms and lead the cheers whenever Israel "gets tough" with terrorists. (Or Arab civilians and critical infrastructure, for that matter.) The latter position is, of course, the one held by the Bush administration.

As Boston University Anthropology and International Relations professor, Augustus Norton, offers:

I've been studying American foreign policy in the Middle East for 34 years and I can't recall any U.S. president who has subordinated American interests to Israeli interests like this one. The administration is being naïve about how this is going to reverberate elsewhere, in places like Iraq. Israel is primarily targeting Shiite Muslims and that's going to fuel the sectarianism that is feeding the civil war in Iraq. We have other concerns we should be looking out for—but George Bush apparently feels that American interests and Israeli interests coincide, so we have a no-show foreign policy.

I'm sickened by the devastation in Lebanon (I have a soft-spot for the Lebanese. Probably the most generous and hospitable people I have ever encountered.) But at the same time, how can one not be moved by the sight of Israeli women and children running for their lives as (unguided) rockets slam into their homes? Certainly, any nation would -- and has the absolute right -- to defend its citizens in such circumstances.

Putting aside for the moment that Hezbollah was formed in reaction to an earlier Israeli invasion of Lebanon and that the Arab world can't seem to get out of its own way, any thoughtful, critical analysis would find angels and devils on both sides of the blue line.

I know that the "Good & Evil" pundits dismiss any such analysis as "moral equivalence" but, well, to hell with them. The world is a complicated place and human actions and motivations are infinitely more complex that Sean Hannity would have you believe.

This bothers me:



As much as this does:



Both people have been brutalized (as in the sense of , 'to be made brutal') by a multi-generational conflict that shows no signs of stopping. By their current actions, the Israelis will create more terrorists than they destroy. And the Arabs will never "push Israel into the sea."

Until the Palestinian question is solved, Arabs will continue live in crushing, humiliating, misery and the Israelis will live under the constant threat of terrorism.

It's at times like these that I wish we had a president...

____________________
A few ways to help:

Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services has committed to helping people in Lebanon, Gaza, and Israelis in Northern Israel displaced by Hezbollah attacks.

International Orthodox Christian Charities

Ditto the above

American Friends of Magen David Adom (Israeli Red Cross affiliate) Providing services to Israeli Jews, Arabs, and Druze. Also see British friends and Australian friends

The Lebanese Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society

Provide humaitarian assistance to all people irrespective of creed or nationality.

Pro war Christians fascinate me

I know that Evangelicals subscribe to a rather peculiar Christology, but their ability to (mis)use the Gospel to justify -- and even to celebrate -- war, without enduring even the slightest pang of conscience, leaves me at a loss for words.

Let's face it, even Christians with a highly developed Theology of war (See Catholic Encyclopedia entry here) have to sense an uneasy contradiction between "justified violence" and the message of the Prince of Peace.

For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. [Ezekiel 18:4]

War, and violence in general, may have to be tolerated but watching good "Christians" celebrate hostilities -- even to the point of regarding innocent human suffering as nothing more than "collateral damage" (see the danger in "religious people" adopting statist/party terminology?) -- and even viewing it as something to be amused by -- then it's all gone terribly wrong.

Pat Robertson, please call your office...

I'm neither a pacifist nor, for that matter, am I a very good Christian but stumbling upon these things on right wing blogs, sets alarm bells off in my inky black soul:

“Lord, please hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.”

Think Jesus is going to hear that one? I don't know, but prayers like the one above, that seem to equate soldiers en masse with (potential) Holy Martyrs make me wonder if it's the Soul of Islam or the Soul of Christianity that's at greater risk these day

The Apotheosis of George Washington W. Bush

Look high up into the dome of the US Capitol and you'll see Constantine Brumidi's (in)famous fresco, "The Apotheosis of George Washington".

Disturbing from a republican (small "r") perspective, Brumidi depicted the Father of Our Country in beatific glory with the triumphs of American arts and sciences (as well as a few pagan deities) as his eternal companions.

It's all very nice but it -- like the god-awful building that houses it -- is a bit too imperial for my tastes. (It grieves my Libertarian soul...)

Enter General Washington's 42nd successor...

Putting aside the very real possibility that George W. Bush has absolutely no idea who the first president was, he's not exactly immune to the royal pretensions that were thrust upon General Washington long after his death. (We all know that Washington refused the crown; let alone the halo). But George W. Bush suffers from no such republican angst. (again, notice the small "r" there) He hasn't been offered the crown (yet) but thanks to a boot licking Afghan rug maker, he's got his halo.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Apotheosis of George W. Bush:



There's Jesus showering blessings upon his High Priest, George W. Bush, while the angels look on in absolute rapture. Here's the scoop:

[...US Army reservist and Pulaski County State's Attorney, Grayson]Gile's mission - one he chose to embrace - involves a very special rug handcrafted by an Afghan man anxious to show his gratitude to President George W. Bush for this country's efforts to bring democracy to Afghanistan.

The colorful and beautifully crafted rug was hand-knotted by an elderly Hazara man from Kabul. The Hazaras, believed to be descendants of Ghengis Khan, were one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities in the Middle Eastern country prior to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance's war with the Taliban.

[snip]

Gile was astonished when he saw the hand-knotted rug, a portrait of Bush, filled with Christian and Catholic symbolism. Filling the center of the rug is an incredible likeness of Bush, dressed in religious vestments, standing at a podium decorated with the official seal of the country and flanked by two waving American flags.

Directly above Bush is Jesus with a sacred heart and stigmata carefully knotted into the rug's pattern. The rug also shows cherubs and, apparently in an homage to both Bush and a fallen Northern Alliance leader, two lions.

Giles hasn't gotten the rug to Bush yet but he's working GOP leaders to get him into the White House.

So does this thing get met with the embarrassment and revulsion it deserves or is it proudly displayed in the State Dining Room?

Sadly, my money's on the latter possibility...

No More Kings!

If Americans know anything at all about history (or grammar, or math) then credit TV.

Every Saturday morning -- interspersed among our animated favorites -- ABC would run three minute Schoolhouse Rock cartoons which have to be the most successful educational experiment in American history. (They definitely had it all over the public schools!)

When I was in high school, we had to write the preamble to the Constitution on a history exam. Before we could even put pen to paper the teacher shouted, "and you can't sing it!!" (Most people will get that reference.)

Here's an old fav that made an entire generation of Americans hate those tyrannical old Brits!