The Confederate Yankee has an interesting post on Murths's latest:
Ex-Marine John Murtha has taken the extraordinary step of accusing U.S. Marines of war crimes before a joint NCIS/Multi-National Forces investigation has been completed of an incident that occurred on November 19, 2005.
On that date, a U.S. Marine convoy in Haditha, Iraq was hit by an IED, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas and wounding two others. After the explosion, the Marines stormed nearby building and killed 15 people inside, three of them children.
read it all.
What is happening to people? Have they completely forgotten how to conduct themselves in public discourse? These men in uniform have been accused of premeditated murder by a member of the US Congress who says he is a supporter of our troops. He did not even bother to let the courts decide the issue.
Remember the soldiers? The young men and women in harm's way in lovely places like Iraq and Afghanistan....it seems that many on the right have even forgotten them and the war they fight. But so far at least they have not accused them of being war criminals.
It is as if there is no sense of how to behave anymore. Anything goes, there are no natural or unnatural barriers to free speech. If you feel the need to say it...just blow off and the consequences are of no importance.
Well, stay home disgruntled Republicans and let people like this take over the government.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
A Moral Stain
George Washington once said that while he believed it was inevitable that the white settlers would rule the continent, he also felt it was important we not leave a moral stain on the country in the process.
The Anchoress who is becoming one of my favorite bloggers posted the following:
On a small handful of right-wing blogs, I’m seeing links to this story in the AP, about a terrible rape/murder and the sentencing of the perp.
I could understand if the blogs discussing this terrible crime were pointing out the usual -ie that the press had buried the perp’s citizenship status at the end of the story. At a time when citizenship is front-and-center in the news, it is not unreasonable to expect to see such information closer to the lede.
But what I am seeing from several bloggers, is something more along the lines of (I’m paraphrasing), “these are the sorts of animals George W. Bush and his cultists and want to let stay in our country!” What I am seeing is nothing less than rank demagoguery meant to foment hate and fear and to keep others in a a whipped up state of frenzy. It is needlessly provocative and could end up encouraging some tragic behavior.
No, I’m sorry. Pointing to a horrible story, or two, or ten, as a means of illustrating the “rightness” of your hardline on the issue of illegal immigration does not work. Are these far-rightwing bloggers asserting that American citizens don’t get coked up on drugs and don’t commit heinous crimes? Do I have to run down the names of “legal,” natural-born citizens who have committed unspeakable atrocities?
What is next, lynch mobs? Men in white sheets protecting American womanhood?
When I was a small child my grandmother told me a story of Oklahoma, long ago.
Two Indians had a local saddler make them a saddle for a new horse. The day they went to pick the saddle up the man was not home and after taking payment for the saddle his wife pulled a gun on them and told them to leave. One of the men killed her with a knife. They were panic stricken and so they tried to dispose of the body by feeding her to the pigs. They failed.
Once the Indians were apprehended by the Law some locals, who were part of a vigilante group associated with the KKK, grabbed the accused men and demanded their particular form of justice. Right now.
My greatgrandfather Finnis refused to have anything to do with it, in fact he tried to help the Indians by sending word to the US Marshal. Too late. The Indians were tied to wagon wheels and doused with coal oil and sit on fire. Their bodies were strung up. Finnis had his barn burned down, with his best cow in it. He packed up the wife and kids and left the area and moved to Texas for three years until he thought it would be safe to go back.
These men were not monsters. They did not have two heads. They did not rob banks. They were regular people who were afflicted by the disease of hatred.
I hope I never see that kind of hatred in this country but when I read things like the above and when I look at the comment section of a blog and read a post saying that if we just go down to the border and kill everyone crossing, just kill them all...the problem will be solved...I think of what Washington said.
Moral Stain. And I feel something like shame.
The Anchoress who is becoming one of my favorite bloggers posted the following:
On a small handful of right-wing blogs, I’m seeing links to this story in the AP, about a terrible rape/murder and the sentencing of the perp.
I could understand if the blogs discussing this terrible crime were pointing out the usual -ie that the press had buried the perp’s citizenship status at the end of the story. At a time when citizenship is front-and-center in the news, it is not unreasonable to expect to see such information closer to the lede.
But what I am seeing from several bloggers, is something more along the lines of (I’m paraphrasing), “these are the sorts of animals George W. Bush and his cultists and want to let stay in our country!” What I am seeing is nothing less than rank demagoguery meant to foment hate and fear and to keep others in a a whipped up state of frenzy. It is needlessly provocative and could end up encouraging some tragic behavior.
No, I’m sorry. Pointing to a horrible story, or two, or ten, as a means of illustrating the “rightness” of your hardline on the issue of illegal immigration does not work. Are these far-rightwing bloggers asserting that American citizens don’t get coked up on drugs and don’t commit heinous crimes? Do I have to run down the names of “legal,” natural-born citizens who have committed unspeakable atrocities?
What is next, lynch mobs? Men in white sheets protecting American womanhood?
When I was a small child my grandmother told me a story of Oklahoma, long ago.
Two Indians had a local saddler make them a saddle for a new horse. The day they went to pick the saddle up the man was not home and after taking payment for the saddle his wife pulled a gun on them and told them to leave. One of the men killed her with a knife. They were panic stricken and so they tried to dispose of the body by feeding her to the pigs. They failed.
Once the Indians were apprehended by the Law some locals, who were part of a vigilante group associated with the KKK, grabbed the accused men and demanded their particular form of justice. Right now.
My greatgrandfather Finnis refused to have anything to do with it, in fact he tried to help the Indians by sending word to the US Marshal. Too late. The Indians were tied to wagon wheels and doused with coal oil and sit on fire. Their bodies were strung up. Finnis had his barn burned down, with his best cow in it. He packed up the wife and kids and left the area and moved to Texas for three years until he thought it would be safe to go back.
These men were not monsters. They did not have two heads. They did not rob banks. They were regular people who were afflicted by the disease of hatred.
I hope I never see that kind of hatred in this country but when I read things like the above and when I look at the comment section of a blog and read a post saying that if we just go down to the border and kill everyone crossing, just kill them all...the problem will be solved...I think of what Washington said.
Moral Stain. And I feel something like shame.
Scoundrel's End
The University of Colorado committee charged with investigating the seven serious charges of academic fraud against Ward Churchill has returend its verdict: guilty on every count. "Four of the five members of the investigative panel said ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill should be suspended without pay, though one said he should be fired."
This white man who found the burden of his whiteness so great in the PC era he had to become a fake Indian decided that once you've faked your identity you might as well fake your academic research too. "A [Rocky Mountain] News investigation in June found that while Churchill has maintained for decades that he is part Cherokee and Creek, there is no evidence of any Indian ancestry in his family tree." This America-hater who famously called the terrorist victims "little Eichmanns" who deserved their horrific deaths has been pulling down nearly $100k from the taxpayers of Colorado—without even having the benefit of a doctorate. Nice work if you can get it, but it looks like he won't be getting it much longer. His wife is already resigning, and even the Democrats are now calling for his blood. "Research misconduct is considered one of the most serious offenses a faculty member can commit. And the investigative committee concluded that Churchill had consistently committed it."
It's hard to get a scam this good going most of the time, so don't expect him to roll over gently any time soon. My prediction: a golden parachute of several million courtesy of the taxpayers of Colorado. Don't let the door hit you on the way out Wardie.
Update: I don't want to exaggerate the facts here. They're damning enough on their own. Reader Rich says that he was found guilty of only six of the charges. But my source here seems to indicate that he's guilty on all seven, at least to some degree.
Head in the clouds
The tower there in the background is, by Knucklehead's Scientific Wildass Guess (KSWAG), 184 ft. tall. I found some documentation that it is "approx. 185 ft. high" so I think I did OK.The blob thing at the top center is an osprey nest. Best I can KSWAG that it is roughly 6-7 ft in diameter but is far from a perfect circle.
I don't have the photographic equipment to allow y'all to get a good look at what's going on in and around that nest but as of this AM I'm pretty sure an ospring or whatever they're called (a fish eaglet?) has hatched and is quite hungry. Shortly before I took this one of the nesting pair was sitting there on the edge of the nest and for a brief moment I was able to see something smaller moving around and poking up above the edge. I got binoculars on it and am nearly certain but not quite positive yet. I know you'll stay tuned with 'bated breath. The timing would be about right. Roughly 5 weeks to hatch an egg and they've been back from their winter condo roughly that long, maybe a week longer.
The osprey don't seem to think very highly of turkey buzzards (the blobs at the top of the light pole to the right). Those lights, BTW, are at least 18 in. diameter each. Turkey buzzards are just flat out ugly but they fly pretty. Whenever the turkey buzzards are milling around the osprey stay close to home (at least as far as I can tell). If a group of the buzzards get to circling around too close to the nest the osprey pair will get up above them and keep a wary circle going. I take it they can get higher and dive faster and everyone involved know that. CW on these buzzards is that they are not strong enough of talon to hunt or beak to eat fresh kills. I suspect the osprey don't cotton to the CW when it comes to the ospring. How much strength of talon and beak can it require to snarf up a fish eaglet?
This little blob of trees is far more interesting, at least to me, than it might seem. To the right of it is open sky. For some reason way beyond my pay grade to understand, that little patch of sky is right in the osprey flight path for returning from water. Almost every day I get at least a quick glimplse; always returning, never going.The buzzards will sometimes circle off in the distance beyond those trees. There's a small park over there a few hundred meters so they probably get a dead critter or two from time to time over there. But more interestingly, toward the center of this blob of tree branches, just left of the squiggley one there, is the stump of a larger, vertical section of tree. These are oaks, that particular one is a red oak. On that "stump", each morning sometime around 10ish or so, what I'm nearly convinced is an American Kestrel alights for a few seconds. Three of the past four days I've spotted it. The flightly little so and so won't hang around long enough for me to get the glasses on him for more than a very brief moment so I'm still not certain. The coloring doesn't seem to cut it but the wings would be very different (longer) if it were anything else it could reasonably be.
Riding the Number 88 Bus.
A long time ago, during my freshman and sophomore years in college, I didn’t have a car. And for a good part of that time, I lived at home. So going home I would ride the bus. Number 88 began its route someplace in West LA and then wound around the east and north sides of the campus, picking up the few ostracized car-less students like me and the Hispanic maids and others who even then worked in the mansions of Brentwood. After that, it headed for the San Diego Freeway, lugging its way north up the hill and down the other side, where it exited and turned east on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.
Having grown up speaking Spanish and English at home, I had decided to take a Latin American history class. It was taught by some renowned Ivy League white guy Latin Americanist whose presence had attracted a sprinkling of Che wannabes and similar types. Pretty predictable in retrospect. Completely new to me then. Brown people good. White people bad. Brown people downtrodden. White people racist. Brown people authentic, spontaneous. White people soul-dead, industrialized. Well, I had never heard any of this before.
I left class with my books and walked to the bus stop. Once on the 88, I settled into a seat on the left hand side. At the next stop, three Hispanics got on the bus, two men and one woman who probably worked in one of the estates in the hills. The men sat across the aisle, and the young woman sat next to me. They chatted among themselves and I read my book as we wound our way over the hill and into the Valley.
At the corner of Ventura and Van Nuys, there used to be an open air newsstand. It always attracted people who thumbed through the magazines waiting for the bus. The bus turned left at Van Nuys and braked at the stop. It filled with people. As it pulled away, we could hear the sounds of a person running to catch the bus. The driver looked in his mirror and slowed to a crawl. Up the steps came an Orthodox Jew, conservatively dressed, yarmulke on his head. He plunked himself down across from the two Hispanic guys, red faced and winded.
Mirelo. Con su gorrito parece obispo. Look at him. With his little hat he looks like a bishop.
Cuanta plata tendra bajo de su cama. I wonder how much money he has under the bed.
Then they started in on the rest of the bus, including me, secure in their belief that they were among Martians unable to understand their language.
As I got to my transfer stop, I decided the opportunity was just too good to pass up. I reached for the cord above the window, stood up, looked my Hispanic seatmate in the eye, smiled and said con permiso. Her pupils turned into saucers as she quickly looked away and whispered Santo Dios. Holy God.
It was one of those times in young adulthood where in ten minutes you grow up a little bit. All of the sudden. Getting off the Number 88, I wasn’t quite the same kid as I had been when getting on. I thought of my ride on the Number 88 as I read this statement of school policy. With baubles like this one:
Racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.
and this little treasure:
Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.
Future time orientation. I started this post about an hour ago, with plain text, and am just now getting around to the HTML tags, with the expectation of publishing it in a few minutes. Guilty as charged. I guess I should have abandoned the effort in favor of some spontaneous tribal dancing.
But if the dancing involved painting myself in a bright Braveheart blue, to honor my Dad’s side of the family, would my dancing still be as acceptable as if I did a Mayan dance?
PC may soon die anyway. But on the other hand, like the Marxism from which it came, it may exhibit the same wondrous tenacity and successfully continue to stifle certain words when uttered by certain people. So it may be that those of us of mixed ancestry, in telling our life stories, have an obligation. We may have a special little role in hastening the death of PC, in helping to place it with all the other social science crackpottery that we smile at or are still repelled by - the Lysenkoist geneticists, the 19th Century phrenologists with their calipers, the Nordic racial hygienists, the Mexican racial fantasists - into the dustbin of history, where they belong.
Having grown up speaking Spanish and English at home, I had decided to take a Latin American history class. It was taught by some renowned Ivy League white guy Latin Americanist whose presence had attracted a sprinkling of Che wannabes and similar types. Pretty predictable in retrospect. Completely new to me then. Brown people good. White people bad. Brown people downtrodden. White people racist. Brown people authentic, spontaneous. White people soul-dead, industrialized. Well, I had never heard any of this before.
I left class with my books and walked to the bus stop. Once on the 88, I settled into a seat on the left hand side. At the next stop, three Hispanics got on the bus, two men and one woman who probably worked in one of the estates in the hills. The men sat across the aisle, and the young woman sat next to me. They chatted among themselves and I read my book as we wound our way over the hill and into the Valley.
At the corner of Ventura and Van Nuys, there used to be an open air newsstand. It always attracted people who thumbed through the magazines waiting for the bus. The bus turned left at Van Nuys and braked at the stop. It filled with people. As it pulled away, we could hear the sounds of a person running to catch the bus. The driver looked in his mirror and slowed to a crawl. Up the steps came an Orthodox Jew, conservatively dressed, yarmulke on his head. He plunked himself down across from the two Hispanic guys, red faced and winded.
Mirelo. Con su gorrito parece obispo. Look at him. With his little hat he looks like a bishop.
Cuanta plata tendra bajo de su cama. I wonder how much money he has under the bed.
Then they started in on the rest of the bus, including me, secure in their belief that they were among Martians unable to understand their language.
As I got to my transfer stop, I decided the opportunity was just too good to pass up. I reached for the cord above the window, stood up, looked my Hispanic seatmate in the eye, smiled and said con permiso. Her pupils turned into saucers as she quickly looked away and whispered Santo Dios. Holy God.
It was one of those times in young adulthood where in ten minutes you grow up a little bit. All of the sudden. Getting off the Number 88, I wasn’t quite the same kid as I had been when getting on. I thought of my ride on the Number 88 as I read this statement of school policy. With baubles like this one:
Racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.
and this little treasure:
Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.
Future time orientation. I started this post about an hour ago, with plain text, and am just now getting around to the HTML tags, with the expectation of publishing it in a few minutes. Guilty as charged. I guess I should have abandoned the effort in favor of some spontaneous tribal dancing.
But if the dancing involved painting myself in a bright Braveheart blue, to honor my Dad’s side of the family, would my dancing still be as acceptable as if I did a Mayan dance?
PC may soon die anyway. But on the other hand, like the Marxism from which it came, it may exhibit the same wondrous tenacity and successfully continue to stifle certain words when uttered by certain people. So it may be that those of us of mixed ancestry, in telling our life stories, have an obligation. We may have a special little role in hastening the death of PC, in helping to place it with all the other social science crackpottery that we smile at or are still repelled by - the Lysenkoist geneticists, the 19th Century phrenologists with their calipers, the Nordic racial hygienists, the Mexican racial fantasists - into the dustbin of history, where they belong.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Today ...
The Anchoress makes sense ...
Judith Miller reminds us of the bullets we've dodged....
And on the 40th Anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, the Conservative Maoists begin the purge.
In 1992, conservatives put their hands in theor pockets because Bush(41) wasn't conservative enough -- and we got Clinton.
In 1996, Pat Buchanan gave a speech -- and a perjurious, philandering con-man got re-elected ... in the face of impeachment, Chinese connections, fraud convictions, and rape allegations a lot more credible than the ones in Durham, NC.
I just have to ask all of you people - on every side - who have decided that immigration is one man’s burden, and that every good thing President Bush has done is to be negated because he hasn’t snapped his fingers and done what YOU think is the solution to the immigration problem…what did Clinton do about immigration, what did Bush 41 do? What did St. Reagan do? What did Carter do? What has any president, congressperson or senator done about immigration for the last 30 years, except kick the issue down the road for someone else to deal with? ....
I wonder who all those principled conservatives are going to vote for in ‘08. We did this “he’s not conservative enough for me, I’ll vote principles or stay home” thing once before, in 1992, didn’t we? How’d that work out for you?
Judith Miller reminds us of the bullets we've dodged....
Col. Gadhafi's hip, 34-year-old son, Saif-al-Islam, told me in Vienna--where he earned an M.B.A. and lives when he's not carrying out tasks for his father, or studying for a doctorate in political philosophy at the London School of Economics--that his father changed course because he had to. "Overnight we found ourselves in a different world," said Saif, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks. "So Libya had to redesign its policies to cope with these new realities."
And on the 40th Anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, the Conservative Maoists begin the purge.
In 1992, conservatives put their hands in theor pockets because Bush(41) wasn't conservative enough -- and we got Clinton.
In 1996, Pat Buchanan gave a speech -- and a perjurious, philandering con-man got re-elected ... in the face of impeachment, Chinese connections, fraud convictions, and rape allegations a lot more credible than the ones in Durham, NC.
Kind of makes you wonder who the base really is
I know who thinks they are the base, but at the Corner there was mention of a CNN poll which stated 79% of the people who saw the President's speech on immigration were favorable to the speech and the support for Bush's immigration plan went from 42% to 67%.
Maybe some folks just think they are the base.
Maybe some folks just think they are the base.
Was my Cabbie Right?
When my Mom, a legal immigrant, first came to this country from El Salvador as a young girl in 1943, she entered through New Orleans. On the street, she saw two drinking fountains, one marked White and the other Colored. She was Caucasian, but she automatically stepped up to the Colored water fountain and took a drink. “I thought, they must mean me” she used to say.
Dad was a big blond Scots-Irish Michigander, a P-38 crew chief in WW2, whose hearing got a bit shaky from the sound of one too many Allison V-12s out on the flight line. After the GI Bill, he worked in the Southern California aerospace industry for 30 years. A child of the Depression, Dad was a flag-waving patriotic Democrat. I remember the Scoop Jackson button on his lapel.
So we grew up speaking Spanish and English. Thanksgiving turkey and pinatas. Summer vacations in Yosemite and El Salvador. All in a multicultural LA, before we knew what “multicultural” meant.
It was good preparation for a life in the broader world, where I spent several decades in all the hot and miserable places that haven’t produced a patentable invention in a hundred years, all the places that were recovering from the bomb blasts and the civil wars. All the places where labor at $1 a day makes more sense than investing in technology. All the places weighed down by the past. Maybe, in a hundred years, it might change. All the places where a sixteen year old in camouflage pants and a Chicago Bulls t-shirt is waving a Kalashnikov and wants to see your passport. Where the cop standing by the metal detector decides he wants to keep your Cross pen for letting you on the British Airways flight home. Once in Skopje I was in a car with an engineer, a Dutch consultant, and a government functionary, who was driving. We passed a mosque. The Dutch guy, in an attempt to make conversation, mentioned that “we have many Muslims in Holland”. At which point the driver turned and looked over her shoulder and said “Well, why don’t you just shoot them?” And mostly, all the places where you gaze into the deep tragedy of bicultural societies riven by suspicion, by language, by economic disparity, by fear of the other. Yes, we get along. But we aren’t like them. Not at all.
So twenty years of that means that I could easily live in a future Aztlan, should the nutball fantasies of the Hispanic supremacists ever come true. And I could live in the much more likely peaceful yet bifurcated world of two American cultures, not hostile, yet also not interacting or melding into one, always acting as blocs, defined as blocs by the lefty academics and their media, and thus imprisoned by their histories, with the rage of that imprisonment serving as the reliable engines of their respective political machines. Engines with seemingly inexhaustable fuel supplies.
I could do it.
It is just that upon my return from these places, I was always supremely grateful to be home. Home in a country without a tenuous and shrill sense of its own nationhood in a world of powers beyond its control, where I didn’t automatically fear people who wore uniforms, and where I wouldn’t have to bribe the building inspector or the traffic cop, where I didn’t have to listen to racialist definitions of one’s heritage. Somos la raza de bronce they say, We are the bronze race, in their pseudo-Aztec murals and little civic monuments and parade slogans that take their design cues from the world of Mussolini. Will all these things continue to be imported to America, too? Last year, my cab driver in Chihuahua seemed to think so. “Mexico is so screwed up. It has been screwed up for five hundred years and always will be." "And now” he laughed “we are going to make your country just as screwed up, too.” Was my cabbie right? I don’t know - since along with the Latin fatalism, his statement is also an acknowledgment of the need to preserve an America that he has yet to visit but one that he obviously admires. But assume for the moment that my cabbie was right. If toward the end of my life the sleepwalking Americans whose leaders are bent on transforming my nation into just a day labor agency with a flag on top allow my cabbie’s predictions to come true, I know I am equipped to deal with all those things that may come my way. At the very least, once at the nursing home, I’ll be able to flirt with the Honduran girls in their own language and get an extra pillow or another serving of lime jello cubes with the fake whipped cream on top.
So in moments of resignation, I’ve decided that my heritage and background will serve me well and make it easy - no matter how it turns out - for me to live in Aztlan.
Could you live in Aztlan, too?
Dad was a big blond Scots-Irish Michigander, a P-38 crew chief in WW2, whose hearing got a bit shaky from the sound of one too many Allison V-12s out on the flight line. After the GI Bill, he worked in the Southern California aerospace industry for 30 years. A child of the Depression, Dad was a flag-waving patriotic Democrat. I remember the Scoop Jackson button on his lapel.
So we grew up speaking Spanish and English. Thanksgiving turkey and pinatas. Summer vacations in Yosemite and El Salvador. All in a multicultural LA, before we knew what “multicultural” meant.
It was good preparation for a life in the broader world, where I spent several decades in all the hot and miserable places that haven’t produced a patentable invention in a hundred years, all the places that were recovering from the bomb blasts and the civil wars. All the places where labor at $1 a day makes more sense than investing in technology. All the places weighed down by the past. Maybe, in a hundred years, it might change. All the places where a sixteen year old in camouflage pants and a Chicago Bulls t-shirt is waving a Kalashnikov and wants to see your passport. Where the cop standing by the metal detector decides he wants to keep your Cross pen for letting you on the British Airways flight home. Once in Skopje I was in a car with an engineer, a Dutch consultant, and a government functionary, who was driving. We passed a mosque. The Dutch guy, in an attempt to make conversation, mentioned that “we have many Muslims in Holland”. At which point the driver turned and looked over her shoulder and said “Well, why don’t you just shoot them?” And mostly, all the places where you gaze into the deep tragedy of bicultural societies riven by suspicion, by language, by economic disparity, by fear of the other. Yes, we get along. But we aren’t like them. Not at all.
So twenty years of that means that I could easily live in a future Aztlan, should the nutball fantasies of the Hispanic supremacists ever come true. And I could live in the much more likely peaceful yet bifurcated world of two American cultures, not hostile, yet also not interacting or melding into one, always acting as blocs, defined as blocs by the lefty academics and their media, and thus imprisoned by their histories, with the rage of that imprisonment serving as the reliable engines of their respective political machines. Engines with seemingly inexhaustable fuel supplies.
I could do it.
It is just that upon my return from these places, I was always supremely grateful to be home. Home in a country without a tenuous and shrill sense of its own nationhood in a world of powers beyond its control, where I didn’t automatically fear people who wore uniforms, and where I wouldn’t have to bribe the building inspector or the traffic cop, where I didn’t have to listen to racialist definitions of one’s heritage. Somos la raza de bronce they say, We are the bronze race, in their pseudo-Aztec murals and little civic monuments and parade slogans that take their design cues from the world of Mussolini. Will all these things continue to be imported to America, too? Last year, my cab driver in Chihuahua seemed to think so. “Mexico is so screwed up. It has been screwed up for five hundred years and always will be." "And now” he laughed “we are going to make your country just as screwed up, too.” Was my cabbie right? I don’t know - since along with the Latin fatalism, his statement is also an acknowledgment of the need to preserve an America that he has yet to visit but one that he obviously admires. But assume for the moment that my cabbie was right. If toward the end of my life the sleepwalking Americans whose leaders are bent on transforming my nation into just a day labor agency with a flag on top allow my cabbie’s predictions to come true, I know I am equipped to deal with all those things that may come my way. At the very least, once at the nursing home, I’ll be able to flirt with the Honduran girls in their own language and get an extra pillow or another serving of lime jello cubes with the fake whipped cream on top.
So in moments of resignation, I’ve decided that my heritage and background will serve me well and make it easy - no matter how it turns out - for me to live in Aztlan.
Could you live in Aztlan, too?
Just some reminders...
Back in January of 2004, the President put forth some suggestions that, IMHO, were targetted at trying to generate a civil discussion about immigration reform. It was attacked by both left and right and now, more than 2 years later, we find ourselves in the same place with much the same reaction, only moreso. While I certainly wouldn't give him an "A" for Effort in trying to get "moderates" on board I do give the rest of us an "F" for Fatheads for not engaging in a civilized discussion about how to deal with the illegal aliens problems. As Terrye suggested in a comment on another post, we're not likely to move this ball forward given the continued shrillness of the all or nothing nutbars.
AJStrata (ht: the Anchoress) provides his list of reasons he is thankful for George W. Bush's presidency. I agree with him on pretty much every point he makes (I encourage all and sundry to read the whole thing) but would like to add to his list with a few items of my own:
Thank you, Mr. President, for attempting to get this nation of knuckleheads to at least begin to talk about (I can't hold you responsible for our childish incivility when it comes to these topics):
Thank you, Mr. President, for what your administration has accomplished in transforming our military into a somewhat lighter and more responsive force. I know the Next Big Enemy people are powerful and would prefer we ignore the small enemies and prepare for the Coming Battle With China but I think that one is a couple decades out and we need to deal with the fascists, Islamic and otherwise, in the meantime.
Thank you, Mr. President, for not letting the UN & France dictate United States action.
Thank you, Mr. President, for assembling the Coalition of the Willing under which the US is fighting alongside the largest percentage of non-US boots on the ground since WWII. It was nice of your dad to get so many countries to pitch in funds for Gulf War I but I particularly admire having other countries put up actual people.
Thank you, Mr. President, for enhancing relations with India and beginning the process of increased military cooperation with Japan. And also for putting the North Korean madman back in the closet where he belongs. Thanks for taking Libya out of the terrorism game and for shutting down Khan's Islamobomb ring. It would have been nice if we could have seen a few people lined up an shot or hanged but I'll take the results as they stand to this point.
I'm sure I could think of a few more things I'd like to thank you for, Mr. President, but I'll end on this little last but not least note: Thank you, Mr. President, for remaining civil and dignified while lunacy and pettiness are all around - that, in particular, has been a big help to me. I will, however, forgive you if you succumb to the urge to do a sudden smackdown of the sophomoric twits.
AJStrata (ht: the Anchoress) provides his list of reasons he is thankful for George W. Bush's presidency. I agree with him on pretty much every point he makes (I encourage all and sundry to read the whole thing) but would like to add to his list with a few items of my own:
Thank you, Mr. President, for attempting to get this nation of knuckleheads to at least begin to talk about (I can't hold you responsible for our childish incivility when it comes to these topics):
- immigration reform
- social security reform
Thank you, Mr. President, for what your administration has accomplished in transforming our military into a somewhat lighter and more responsive force. I know the Next Big Enemy people are powerful and would prefer we ignore the small enemies and prepare for the Coming Battle With China but I think that one is a couple decades out and we need to deal with the fascists, Islamic and otherwise, in the meantime.
Thank you, Mr. President, for not letting the UN & France dictate United States action.
Thank you, Mr. President, for assembling the Coalition of the Willing under which the US is fighting alongside the largest percentage of non-US boots on the ground since WWII. It was nice of your dad to get so many countries to pitch in funds for Gulf War I but I particularly admire having other countries put up actual people.
Thank you, Mr. President, for enhancing relations with India and beginning the process of increased military cooperation with Japan. And also for putting the North Korean madman back in the closet where he belongs. Thanks for taking Libya out of the terrorism game and for shutting down Khan's Islamobomb ring. It would have been nice if we could have seen a few people lined up an shot or hanged but I'll take the results as they stand to this point.
I'm sure I could think of a few more things I'd like to thank you for, Mr. President, but I'll end on this little last but not least note: Thank you, Mr. President, for remaining civil and dignified while lunacy and pettiness are all around - that, in particular, has been a big help to me. I will, however, forgive you if you succumb to the urge to do a sudden smackdown of the sophomoric twits.
Divorce!
Lorie Byrd has left polipundit. I never read the blog, never even heard of it except in Terrye's comments, but dropped by to see what all the talk was about. Anyway, read and weep, especially the comments. Tell you what, if that sort of stuff shows up here it will be my personal duty to get out the pooper scooper and send it off to keep markg8 company.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Who are these people?
The Anchoress had some timely remarks about Bush's immigration speech tonight and she posted the following:
Harold Hutchinson is ripe for a fight and so is Rob at Say Anything. They’re angry about this deplorable piece in World Net Daily and well they should be. It reads in part:
If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.
How do you like that? Is that what you want speaking for you? Sadly, I’ve read similar sentiments on conservative forums all day. That’s where this unhinged, over-emotional rage-train is headed, folks. If this is representative of the current conservative fever-swamp, then I guess I will have to say pardon me, I guess I’m not a conservative, after all, and take one step leftward.
The Republicans do not need to worry about what the Democrats are doing, they need to worry about these people. I am with the Anchoress here, this kind of talk is unacceptable.
UPDATE:
The Anchoress has some more advice in a new post and bloggers, expecially conservatives need to listen to this lady:
The thing is, and I’m being serious, here…that sort of ongoing harangue, completely devoid of respect, of a willingness to take half-a-loaf and call it a win…that’s the stuff that could in the end WEAKEN the influence of the blogs. Stomp your feet and find any solution but yours to be insufficient, and eventually you look like a crank, and people stop paying attention.
Imagine being President of the US, dealing with the world as it is, right now, and having to hear that every pissant little writer with a blog is demanding THIS sort of action or THAT sort of solution and threatening to…I don’t know, hold the breath or lead his or her “loyal readers” into open revolt. Imagine being president and having to hear from an advisor that one-issue people, with one-issue perspectives are demanding a perfect (and probably undoable) action on their one-issue, or they’ll toss you overboard, because the other thousand things you got right no longer matter. That they’ll commit electoral suicide rather than accept a compromise.
Imagine hearing that and then looking at your map of the world, your intelligence reports, your CIA imploding with rogue agents, your troops all-but-forgotten by most Americans, your roaring economy being yawned at, your most effective tools to keep the nation secure being leaked and rendered ineffective, your congressional majority utterly lacking in cojones, the media moving toward mendacity, etc, etc, etc.
Imagine thinking of all of that, and then having to worry about the roar coming from the blogosphere - not from a writer having a one-time temper-tantrum and venting (I’ve certainly been known to do that, as have most of us) but by bloggers who have determined that they are not mere commenters and information gatherers/relators, but in-the-game movers and shakers, more tuned-in to the realities of any problem than the President could ever be, more morally upright, more patriotic, more extensively knowledgable, more…well, more caring, dammit! And more loyal to America, too! Just ask their readers!
If I were president, I’d stop caring what everyone was saying, too, after a while, and just try to do the best I could by my own lights, and hope things work out the best for the whole nation. Not just for the foot-stompers.
Undoubtedly, I will be denounced by more conservatives and a few bloggers for daring to suggest it, but I am a blogger, so I know whereof I speak: the seductive tones of the echo chambers and the Amen Chorus can skewer perspective and (if one is not cautious) overinflate the ego. We are all susceptible to it; to deny that is to be fully in the ego’s grip.
Pay attention people. I know I just took several blogs off my bookmarks and I doubt if I am alone on this.
Harold Hutchinson is ripe for a fight and so is Rob at Say Anything. They’re angry about this deplorable piece in World Net Daily and well they should be. It reads in part:
If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.
How do you like that? Is that what you want speaking for you? Sadly, I’ve read similar sentiments on conservative forums all day. That’s where this unhinged, over-emotional rage-train is headed, folks. If this is representative of the current conservative fever-swamp, then I guess I will have to say pardon me, I guess I’m not a conservative, after all, and take one step leftward.
The Republicans do not need to worry about what the Democrats are doing, they need to worry about these people. I am with the Anchoress here, this kind of talk is unacceptable.
UPDATE:
The Anchoress has some more advice in a new post and bloggers, expecially conservatives need to listen to this lady:
The thing is, and I’m being serious, here…that sort of ongoing harangue, completely devoid of respect, of a willingness to take half-a-loaf and call it a win…that’s the stuff that could in the end WEAKEN the influence of the blogs. Stomp your feet and find any solution but yours to be insufficient, and eventually you look like a crank, and people stop paying attention.
Imagine being President of the US, dealing with the world as it is, right now, and having to hear that every pissant little writer with a blog is demanding THIS sort of action or THAT sort of solution and threatening to…I don’t know, hold the breath or lead his or her “loyal readers” into open revolt. Imagine being president and having to hear from an advisor that one-issue people, with one-issue perspectives are demanding a perfect (and probably undoable) action on their one-issue, or they’ll toss you overboard, because the other thousand things you got right no longer matter. That they’ll commit electoral suicide rather than accept a compromise.
Imagine hearing that and then looking at your map of the world, your intelligence reports, your CIA imploding with rogue agents, your troops all-but-forgotten by most Americans, your roaring economy being yawned at, your most effective tools to keep the nation secure being leaked and rendered ineffective, your congressional majority utterly lacking in cojones, the media moving toward mendacity, etc, etc, etc.
Imagine thinking of all of that, and then having to worry about the roar coming from the blogosphere - not from a writer having a one-time temper-tantrum and venting (I’ve certainly been known to do that, as have most of us) but by bloggers who have determined that they are not mere commenters and information gatherers/relators, but in-the-game movers and shakers, more tuned-in to the realities of any problem than the President could ever be, more morally upright, more patriotic, more extensively knowledgable, more…well, more caring, dammit! And more loyal to America, too! Just ask their readers!
If I were president, I’d stop caring what everyone was saying, too, after a while, and just try to do the best I could by my own lights, and hope things work out the best for the whole nation. Not just for the foot-stompers.
Undoubtedly, I will be denounced by more conservatives and a few bloggers for daring to suggest it, but I am a blogger, so I know whereof I speak: the seductive tones of the echo chambers and the Amen Chorus can skewer perspective and (if one is not cautious) overinflate the ego. We are all susceptible to it; to deny that is to be fully in the ego’s grip.
Pay attention people. I know I just took several blogs off my bookmarks and I doubt if I am alone on this.
Saxon Math for Malkin?
So, over at Michelle Malkin's I see this:
Update:
Here's a rant I can get behind.
And it continues. Umm umm, You go girl.
Update II
John Hinderaker opines:
Geez, Bush isn't a great guy for rallying the troops, but one would think that all these conservatives could manage a bit more individual responsibility. The best criticism that I have seen so far is Hugh Hewitt remarking that Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers hadn't gotten the message. I didn't hear the interview, but if what Hugh says is true it illustrates one of Bush's defects: inability to get his people in line from top to bottom and firing those who can't manage the job. The guy is not ruthless enough in plying the lash and getting folks on message.
Terrye says in the comments:
Update III
Know what I really want to say to all whiners and moaner? I want to say Listen up, kids, don't make me come back there.
**scroll for updates...100 million new immigrants over the next 20 years???...Sen. Sessions' analysis of Senate sellout: up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants will be cleared to immigrate into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population of the United States.***Excuse me. The current population of Mexico is about 106 million, that of Canada about 32 million. Where are those 217 million folks going to come from? Does Malkin think Mexico is going to let 10 million foreigners a year pass through from South America? This stuff is b*llsh*t, Malkin needs to get a brain.
Update:
Here's a rant I can get behind.
You want fatigue? Try being a military dependent. Most of the people I know are going on their third tour and some are sweating out a fourth, and when they are home the guys I know are putting in sixteen to eighteen hours-sorry Michelle Malkin they don't even now about "The Invasion" they've got other stuff on their plate. But that isn't the tiring part.
It's internet bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and the rest of the bloggers in her pyramid of power structure deciding that the poop in her shorts-which changes color weekly must be addressed immediately!!!
....
Ya and all Wretchard has for us is a whisper-how brave. Meanwhile the intellectual beard for all this Victor Davis Hanson can't remember what he's been lecturing Liberals about for years now-PRIORITIES. Not when it comes to his cause bete noire-Mexifornia-suddenly he is silent on what the worst case scenario is-and it ain't flippin' Mexicans coming over here to work with the criminal intent of trying to make a better future for themselves
....
And it continues. Umm umm, You go girl.
Update II
John Hinderaker opines:
President Bush is being destroyed by vicious people who hate him. So far, he hasn't seemed to notice. Apparently, he doesn't think he needs any allies. He certainly didn't win any with tonight's speech.Does this man have any sense of irony? OK, John, take your toys and go home, what else would a good ally do?
Geez, Bush isn't a great guy for rallying the troops, but one would think that all these conservatives could manage a bit more individual responsibility. The best criticism that I have seen so far is Hugh Hewitt remarking that Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers hadn't gotten the message. I didn't hear the interview, but if what Hugh says is true it illustrates one of Bush's defects: inability to get his people in line from top to bottom and firing those who can't manage the job. The guy is not ruthless enough in plying the lash and getting folks on message.
Terrye says in the comments:
I listened to Bush's speech and he said that the fence will be a combination of barriers and technology. Hugh has maintained that nothing short of 2,000 miles of physical fence will do and I am not sure that he understands how long that would take. It could be that the person he talked to just did not understand what he was getting at.OK, I should probably keep my mouth shut about things I haven't heard/seen. It could be that Myers' main fault was not knowing what Hugh was looking for.
Update III
Know what I really want to say to all whiners and moaner? I want to say Listen up, kids, don't make me come back there.
Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal is also under attack
In the previous post on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chuck says we need to start a list of worthy European refugees to be welcomed in America. Add Paul Belien, a critic of Hirsi Ali, to it; he is a writer I have always considered an honest speaker of truths to the multicultural and anti-national lies of the leftist elites who are running Europe into the ground, and banning the speech of some who speak against them. Belien reports:
Following last Thursday’s Antwerp massacre the Belgian authorities have announced zero tolerance for racism. Belgian journalists, lawyers and politicians (including Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt), say that I am responsible for creating the atmosphere of hatred that led to the massacre. Some people even demand that I be prosecuted.What was this massacre? Again, in Belien's words:
Belgian television and the Brussels papers say that the Antwerp shoot-out is the result of my writings. Regular readers of The Brussels Journal know my view well enough: I have repeatedly defended the view that Muslim immigrants are not to blame for Europe's predicament. The latter is entirely of our own making. Europeans have foolishly replaced God by the State as the one on whom they rely to take care of all their needs from cradle to grave. The religious vacuum has led to a demographic vacuum, because those who lose faith in God lose faith in the future as well. A civilization that has created a religious and a demographic vacuum is bound to perish.
The lights are turning out for Europe. If America follows Europe’s example Christendom is lost.
Yesterday Hans Van Themsche, an 18 year old high-school student who had just been expelled from boarding school for smoking in the dormitories, went berserk and set out on a bloody rampage in Antwerp. In the morning he shaved his head down to the neck. He put on combat boots and a black leather outfit and went to a store of sporting and hunting gear to buy a rifle. Dressed as a “Goth” he walked through town and shot at three people who crossed his path: a veiled Turkish woman, a two year old Flemish toddler on a tricycle and her black nanny, killing the latter two and seriously wounding the first.See also here and here.
A policeman was able to neutralise the student by shooting him in the stomach. He is currently in hospital, recovering from the wound. According to the authorities he said he was a skinhead on a suicide mission who wanted to kill foreigners and intended the last bullet for himself. In a farewell note, which he left at his school, he mentioned “heaven, which does not exist” and wrote that his three brothers would feel better once he was gone. Luc Deprez, the schoolmaster, said that Hans Van Themsche, who turned 18 last February, was an intelligent and courteous boy. According to the judicial authorities, who questioned his parents, there are no indications that the murderer was raised “in a racist or violent environment.”
The murderer’s aunt, Frieda Van Themsche, confirmed that the boy has been raised in a family where he and his brothers were even forbidden to play with toy guns. Frieda Van Themsche, however, is a member of parliament for the Vlaams Belang party. This party, which is Antwerp’s and also Belgium’s largest single political party, aims for the independence of Flanders, is opposed to Muslim immigration and does not believe in a multicultural society.
Following Hans Van Themsche’s killing spree, however, his aunt is guilty by association, and so is the entire party. The Belgian government has strongly condemned the shootings, describing them as an extreme form of racism. Guilty, too, is this website because the writer of this article happens to be married to another VB member of parliament. Today a far-left organisation, the Progress Lawyers Network (PLN), attacked The Brussels Journal in a press release, and demanded that “Paul Belien be prosecuted for his recent publications.” Tomorrow the Belgian media will parrot the message. I am a prolific and outspoken writer, which in Belgium is not tolerated from a Conservative.
[...]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali to work at AEI
Ayaan Hirsi Ali to move to US. Just a heads up. Let's make a list of desirable European refugees for the coming decade. I'll start by proposing open borders for the French Jews.
This all reminds me a bit of the 1930's. Will the American think tanks play the same role as the University in Exile?
This all reminds me a bit of the 1930's. Will the American think tanks play the same role as the University in Exile?
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Remember the war?
I don't mean the one with Mexico.
Iraq the Model has news of some interesting developments in Iraq:
Politicians here were saying last week that a government would emerge within no more than a few days and I was hoping they were right this time but obviously they are going to request some more time…as usual.
A few issues are complicating the talks; Fadheela Party announced their boycott to the negotiations of allocating cabinet posts; meanwhile Salih al-Mutlaq's Dialogue Front is most likely to stay out of the formation as well. Of course this is in addition to the already existing points of difference regarding some major posts.
These two blocs comprise 26 seats in the parliament, that's roughly 10% of the legislative body of Iraq, that's why such boycotting would undermine the image of the government that bigger blocs want to be viewed as a unity government.
So there are two options before the bigger blocs; one is to ignore the boycotting blocs which may damage the image of the government before the public and also may not be seen as an acceptable option by one or more of the bigger blocs. The other is to try to persuade the Fadheela and Dialogue to end the boycott and come back to the negotiation table to figure out a compromise but this will certainly consume additional time which is exactly what we don't have much of.
He also has a post concerning weapons smuggled into Iraq from Iran. Shocking.
Iraq the Model has news of some interesting developments in Iraq:
Politicians here were saying last week that a government would emerge within no more than a few days and I was hoping they were right this time but obviously they are going to request some more time…as usual.
A few issues are complicating the talks; Fadheela Party announced their boycott to the negotiations of allocating cabinet posts; meanwhile Salih al-Mutlaq's Dialogue Front is most likely to stay out of the formation as well. Of course this is in addition to the already existing points of difference regarding some major posts.
These two blocs comprise 26 seats in the parliament, that's roughly 10% of the legislative body of Iraq, that's why such boycotting would undermine the image of the government that bigger blocs want to be viewed as a unity government.
So there are two options before the bigger blocs; one is to ignore the boycotting blocs which may damage the image of the government before the public and also may not be seen as an acceptable option by one or more of the bigger blocs. The other is to try to persuade the Fadheela and Dialogue to end the boycott and come back to the negotiation table to figure out a compromise but this will certainly consume additional time which is exactly what we don't have much of.
He also has a post concerning weapons smuggled into Iraq from Iran. Shocking.
And we all know how concerned about the environment the Chinese are.
Gateway has an interesting story about the Chinese drilling for oil off the Florida Keys.
On Thursday, Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) gave Senate speech explaining the current MiNOrity "No Zones" for drilling and exploration:
We are experiencing higher gasoline, oil, and natural gas prices today because of decades of restricted development of new sources of petroleum.
From ANWR to off-shore development such as Lease Area 181 in the Gulf of Mexico, we have identified oil and natural gas reserves that can be developed and used responsibly. Yet time and time again efforts to increase supply, and reduce prices, are blocked. For instance, ten years ago President Clinton vetoed development in ANWR.
For decades, the minority party has blocked one effort after another to responsibly develop the energy resources our country possesses, transforming vast areas of opportunity into "The No Zone."
Because of current U.S. policy, U.S. companies are prohibited from developing oil fields that lie in Cuban waters and come within 50 miles of Florida.
However, Cuba is exploring and potentially developing these oil fields, estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to possess more oil than the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and Cuba is partnering with China and other countries, such as Spain, France, and Canada.
Honest to God, just what did the environmentalist think would happen? We do not control the world, there are plenty of countries out there who could care less about the dolphins and the whales and the ice shelf.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Saturday Movie Review: The Passenger
Posted by Alistair.
-----------------------------------------
The Passenger (aka Professione: reporter, 1975), which came out on DVD two weeks ago after being re-released in theaters in late 2005, is a rare find in the movie world. It's a critically-praised film made by a famed director, with universally known and incredibly talented actors—all of whom are performing at or near the peaks of their respective careers—and yet it is and has been virtually unheard of. It's natural to ask with a movie like this why that is. Is there good reason we've never heard of it? Thankfully The Passenger is a lost gem, not a discarded one.
This isn't initially obvious. From the first shot of a sand-swept street in Africa, as Jack Nicholson is slowly brought into visibility and then, even more slowly, into the foreground, it is clear that this film requires a good amount of patience. The cinematic problems seem to multiply from there. Director Michelangelo Antonioni often seems as preoccupied with the movie's scenery as with its plot. There are less than thirty minutes of dialogue in the entire movie. And there is a constant sense of having missed some crucial detail as to who anybody on the screen is, or what drives them. But what initially appear to be drawbacks soon unfold into the film's very strengths. Antonioni focuses on imagery precisely because he knows the imagery that matters, and given the abundance of lush locations he's provided us—from the barren, harshly beautiful deserts of Africa to the dusty, colorful streets and rooftops of Western Europe—there's hardly a moment where something beautiful doesn't pass before our eyes (including the film's leads, the mischievous-as-ever Nicholson, and the sultry French belle Maria Schneider). Although the dialogue may be minimal to a fault, nearly every line holds a gentle touch of the poetic. What is at first shocking is then wholly satisfying when we realize that the ambiguity within the characters is not a flaw, but the very point.
Because of Antonioni's idiosyncratic technique and commitment to building slowly, you may be well into the film's second act before you realize you are watching a continental thriller, replete with guns, chases, politics, and a love interest; sort of an art-film rendition of The Bourne Supremacy. Nicholson plays a reporter writing a piece on civil unrest in Africa. Bored with his job and feeling trapped, Nicholson takes the only out he can, switching identities with the only other American in town after inadvertently discovering that man's corpse. Upon rifling through the man's belongings, Nicholson learns that the man was a gunrunner affiliated with a radical militia having backers in Europe. He then stumbles head first into the other man's life, but finds himself trapped and forced to enlist the help of a French tourist, Schneider (who may or may not work for the militia), in order to escape from both the police and his increasingly suspicious wife.
Upon hearing of her husband's death, the reporter's wife (played by Jenny Runacre) is told that her husband was "An excellent reporter—a very detached man, but a brilliant observer". And it is through eyes like these that the world of The Passenger is shown to us. We catch the film's characters, walking down labyrinthine European streets from afar, indistinguished figures among several others. The camera will often follow a particular scene only to be thwarted by a closed door, a dead end, a place we are not allowed to intrude. Several of the film's most poignant moments are glimpsed from the outside, through a window or some other obscuring object.
For all its similarities to bestselling spy novels, this movie is of an entirely different character. The moment at which Nicholson decides to do away with his old self is practically an aside, as are all of the daring chase scenes, the near captures, and the wife's insistence that something about her husband's death does not add up. We don't see the seduction that occurs between Schneider and Nicholson, or the love that somehow develops, only the effects of these causes. We are treated rather to the existential views of pointlessness (borrowed heavily from Camus and from Godard's masterpiece Breathless), expressed by Nicholson and Schneider in their more tender moments together, and the warmly terrifying notion that anything we experience in life does not really matter, at least not more than anything else. After all, life is nothing but a series of events that we cannot control; quite the contrary: they control us. And we're all of us just passengers along for the ride.
-----------------------------------------
The Passenger (aka Professione: reporter, 1975), which came out on DVD two weeks ago after being re-released in theaters in late 2005, is a rare find in the movie world. It's a critically-praised film made by a famed director, with universally known and incredibly talented actors—all of whom are performing at or near the peaks of their respective careers—and yet it is and has been virtually unheard of. It's natural to ask with a movie like this why that is. Is there good reason we've never heard of it? Thankfully The Passenger is a lost gem, not a discarded one.
This isn't initially obvious. From the first shot of a sand-swept street in Africa, as Jack Nicholson is slowly brought into visibility and then, even more slowly, into the foreground, it is clear that this film requires a good amount of patience. The cinematic problems seem to multiply from there. Director Michelangelo Antonioni often seems as preoccupied with the movie's scenery as with its plot. There are less than thirty minutes of dialogue in the entire movie. And there is a constant sense of having missed some crucial detail as to who anybody on the screen is, or what drives them. But what initially appear to be drawbacks soon unfold into the film's very strengths. Antonioni focuses on imagery precisely because he knows the imagery that matters, and given the abundance of lush locations he's provided us—from the barren, harshly beautiful deserts of Africa to the dusty, colorful streets and rooftops of Western Europe—there's hardly a moment where something beautiful doesn't pass before our eyes (including the film's leads, the mischievous-as-ever Nicholson, and the sultry French belle Maria Schneider). Although the dialogue may be minimal to a fault, nearly every line holds a gentle touch of the poetic. What is at first shocking is then wholly satisfying when we realize that the ambiguity within the characters is not a flaw, but the very point.
Because of Antonioni's idiosyncratic technique and commitment to building slowly, you may be well into the film's second act before you realize you are watching a continental thriller, replete with guns, chases, politics, and a love interest; sort of an art-film rendition of The Bourne Supremacy. Nicholson plays a reporter writing a piece on civil unrest in Africa. Bored with his job and feeling trapped, Nicholson takes the only out he can, switching identities with the only other American in town after inadvertently discovering that man's corpse. Upon rifling through the man's belongings, Nicholson learns that the man was a gunrunner affiliated with a radical militia having backers in Europe. He then stumbles head first into the other man's life, but finds himself trapped and forced to enlist the help of a French tourist, Schneider (who may or may not work for the militia), in order to escape from both the police and his increasingly suspicious wife.
Upon hearing of her husband's death, the reporter's wife (played by Jenny Runacre) is told that her husband was "An excellent reporter—a very detached man, but a brilliant observer". And it is through eyes like these that the world of The Passenger is shown to us. We catch the film's characters, walking down labyrinthine European streets from afar, indistinguished figures among several others. The camera will often follow a particular scene only to be thwarted by a closed door, a dead end, a place we are not allowed to intrude. Several of the film's most poignant moments are glimpsed from the outside, through a window or some other obscuring object.
For all its similarities to bestselling spy novels, this movie is of an entirely different character. The moment at which Nicholson decides to do away with his old self is practically an aside, as are all of the daring chase scenes, the near captures, and the wife's insistence that something about her husband's death does not add up. We don't see the seduction that occurs between Schneider and Nicholson, or the love that somehow develops, only the effects of these causes. We are treated rather to the existential views of pointlessness (borrowed heavily from Camus and from Godard's masterpiece Breathless), expressed by Nicholson and Schneider in their more tender moments together, and the warmly terrifying notion that anything we experience in life does not really matter, at least not more than anything else. After all, life is nothing but a series of events that we cannot control; quite the contrary: they control us. And we're all of us just passengers along for the ride.
What the hell is wrong with a virtual fence?
Via Hugh Hewitt :
The president needs to announce that the Guard will indeed be deployed in support of the Customs and Border personnel, but that the key to lasting border security is the dramatic expansion of border fencing in keeping with the House bill.
He should urge that the Senate adopt the House language in this regard (along with any other language necessary to assure that the construction of the 700 miles of fencing not be subject to any other law that might inhibit the quick start and completion of the projects.)
He must avoid the word "virtual," as in "virtual fencing." The White House isn't surrounded by a "virtual fence," and voters have no faith in "virtual fences" except as supplemts to the real thing.
If the president comes out early and hard in favor of expanding the fences along the border which have already worked so successfully in urban areas, he will have met the American public where it is with what it demands.
The above remarks are in reference to the speech Bush will be making Monday evening about immigration.
I have to ask, what is wrong with a virtual fence? I blame TV, everything looks too easy. People seem to think that Bush can just wave a magic wand and voila! a thousand miles of fence appear. It is as if people have lost an understanding of what it takes to actually do things. Remember Katrina and how long it took to move a couple of hundred thousand people out of New Orleans when they wanted to leave? Do people have any idea of the actual task involved in terms of logistics and labor and time and effort to do something like this? It would seem to me that if we did not have some kind of virtual fence up for at least awhile it would be no big deal for millions of people to slip into the country while we are building a fence.
It is also true that about a third of the undocumented workers in the country came here legally and then did not leave. This will not effect them. As far as security is concerned I don't think any of the September 11 hijackers were border crossers..so what makes people believe the next terrorists will be?
Hugh Hewitt may say that the White House has more than a virtual fence, but the White House is also protected by a lot more than a pretty iron fence too. In fact they use technology as well as the fence. What is the point in having all this fancy technology, if we do not use it?
The president needs to announce that the Guard will indeed be deployed in support of the Customs and Border personnel, but that the key to lasting border security is the dramatic expansion of border fencing in keeping with the House bill.
He should urge that the Senate adopt the House language in this regard (along with any other language necessary to assure that the construction of the 700 miles of fencing not be subject to any other law that might inhibit the quick start and completion of the projects.)
He must avoid the word "virtual," as in "virtual fencing." The White House isn't surrounded by a "virtual fence," and voters have no faith in "virtual fences" except as supplemts to the real thing.
If the president comes out early and hard in favor of expanding the fences along the border which have already worked so successfully in urban areas, he will have met the American public where it is with what it demands.
The above remarks are in reference to the speech Bush will be making Monday evening about immigration.
I have to ask, what is wrong with a virtual fence? I blame TV, everything looks too easy. People seem to think that Bush can just wave a magic wand and voila! a thousand miles of fence appear. It is as if people have lost an understanding of what it takes to actually do things. Remember Katrina and how long it took to move a couple of hundred thousand people out of New Orleans when they wanted to leave? Do people have any idea of the actual task involved in terms of logistics and labor and time and effort to do something like this? It would seem to me that if we did not have some kind of virtual fence up for at least awhile it would be no big deal for millions of people to slip into the country while we are building a fence.
It is also true that about a third of the undocumented workers in the country came here legally and then did not leave. This will not effect them. As far as security is concerned I don't think any of the September 11 hijackers were border crossers..so what makes people believe the next terrorists will be?
Hugh Hewitt may say that the White House has more than a virtual fence, but the White House is also protected by a lot more than a pretty iron fence too. In fact they use technology as well as the fence. What is the point in having all this fancy technology, if we do not use it?
Looks like McKinney has some competition
Via Gateway :
Larry Darby concedes his views are radical, but he said they should help him win wide support among Alabama voters as he tries to "reawaken white racial awareness" with his campaign against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson...
...Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, Darby said he believes no more than 140,000 Jewish people died in Europe during World War II, and most of them succumbed to typhus.
Yep, Cynthia better watch out. It looks like she might have some competition in the loony Democrat contest.
Larry Darby concedes his views are radical, but he said they should help him win wide support among Alabama voters as he tries to "reawaken white racial awareness" with his campaign against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson...
...Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, Darby said he believes no more than 140,000 Jewish people died in Europe during World War II, and most of them succumbed to typhus.
Yep, Cynthia better watch out. It looks like she might have some competition in the loony Democrat contest.
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