Blog
Welcome to my blog, which is intended as an informal forum for my thoughts, subject to corrections and updates, on a variety of topics and with links to other points of interest.
October 27, 2008
Politics and Places
Denouncing Sen. Obama as “anti-American,” Sen. Biden as a “windbag,” Sen. McCain as a “moron,” and Gov. Palin as an “opportunist,” my former boss, Leonard Peikoff, briefly comments on the presidential election—he is abstaining—in his October 20th podcast. Dr. Peikoff, who warned of the rise of radical Islam—he diagnosed the threat of religion in America—decades ago, is usually right, thus I am willing to reconsider my lean towards Obama based on his objection alone.
Along those lines, Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes offers evidence of Sen. Obama’s troubling links to radical Islam in a recent article. I would be astonished if this apparently thoroughly vetted candidate has real, philosophical ties to Islamism—but then I was shocked, if not entirely surprised, at the 9/11/01 act of war.
Thanks to a recommendation from my Linkedin connection (and Facebook friend) Anu, I visited the modernist architect John Lautner exhibit, Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner, at the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood just before it closed and it was fabulous. I have a new, deeper appreciation for Lautner, who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright. Blueprints, short films and partial models—full-scale versions would have been better—were informative as an introduction to his inspiring work, which generally integrates man and nature.
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Back to topOctober 6, 2008
Bush Bails Out Subprime Automakers
Here’s an excellent comment about one part of the nation’s current financial crisis, which is being exacerbated by government intervention in the economy:
Bush Bails Out Subprime Automakers
Washington, D.C.—President Bush just signed into law what the Wall Street Journal describes as “a low-interest loan package to aid U.S. auto makers.”
“Have we learned nothing from the subprime mortgage fiasco?” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “We are embroiled in a credit crisis, rooted in government policies that promoted and backed reckless, low-interest loans to subprime home buyers—loans that could eventually cost Americans trillions of dollars in bailouts and losses. And now, when lenders on the private market understandably won’t lend $25 billion to car companies that often shed billions by the quarter, the government is making reckless, low-interest loans to these subprime automakers?
“Obviously, our government has learned nothing from the crisis. But it has taught industry a terrible lesson: you fail, you get a bailout.”
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Mr. Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on business issues.
Mr. Epstein’s op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Canada’s National Post, and the Washington Times. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Epstein has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.
For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.
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Back to topSeptember 29, 2008
Notes on National Socialism, Screen Shots
As the nation continues its march toward national socialism, with President Bush and virtually everyone in Congress insisting financial collapse is imminent if their schemes aren’t immediately enacted—a total lie—writer Ed Cline provides an excellent commentary on the subject at the Rule of Reason blog. America is moving faster toward totalitarianism and, especially now, silence implies consent. Can a whole nation be held morally accountable for the actions of its government? Absolutely. Read The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America by Leonard Peikoff and see Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg and make up your own mind.
I did not have high hopes for Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which I suspected would not be among the studio’s best doggie pictures (Disney’s Eight Below is the finest dog movie in recent years). Talking dogs and computer generated vermin dominate this piece of fluff, which manages to incorporate multiculturalism in the worst turn of events and is stolen by Andy Garcia voicing the only character—a German Shepherd named Delgado—to earn an emotional investment. Though not as insipid as The Game Plan, this is not Disney’s proudest work.
On the other hand, The Lucky Ones (currently in limited engagement), a comedy that makes you think about Americans being sacrificed in Iraq from the writer and director of the outstanding The Illusionist, is without question one of the year’s best pictures.
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Back to top
September 26, 2008
Screen Shots
Disturbia’s D.J. Caruso, Shia LaBeouf and Steven Spielberg re-unite for an anti-tech rehash in DreamWorks’ Eagle Eye…
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Back to topSeptember 25, 2008
Pop Shots
If you think Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette is something of a grand slam (I do) and her follow-up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, at least a third base hit, then don’t miss her latest effort, Flavors of Entanglement. Underneath her familiar stream of consciousness style and the Yoda-like syntax lies a talented pop songwriter. This 11-song collection of electronic pop rock definitely includes some noise, but nothing that’s a complete blank-out and several tunes are among her best yet. Anyone taming the beast of codependency—or emerging from a breakup—will relate to her simple anthem “Not as We” and “Moratorium” taps the same self-aware spirit of independence. Songs on the lilting Flavors of Entanglement, a phrase from “Moratorium,” generally rock and roll, neither blasting nor sleepwalking. Expect some mildly induced distortion on various tracks, usually worth the insights young Miss Morissette makes in melody. There’s a light, clean slate sensibility like that of a California newcomer throughout the recording—“Giggling Again for No Reason” comes to mind—and the best song, the rising, thoughtfully written “In Praise of the Vulnerable Man,” with perfect phrasing and arrangements, sweetens everything embittered about her previous work. A fine piece of enlightened pop music.
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Back to topSeptember 23, 2008
Screen Shots
Producer and director Spike Lee gets religion in his overlong, overacted, overwrought Miracle at St. Anna, which mixes mysticism with Nazi apologia and puts it to an oppressive soundtrack. If this Disney movie is supposed to dramatize that the United States’ Army’s all-black 92nd Division Buffalo Soldiers of World War 2 were militarily proficient, it fails miserably. Led by Staff Sergeant Stamps as a lone voice of reason (Derek Luke in the war saga’s best performance), a band of soldiers find themselves stuck with a boy in an enemy village, where they make misjudgment after misjudgment—only to be saved by someone on the side of white supremacists. Musically and theatrically shouting over itself, Miracle at St. Anna, drawing a distinction between the SS and rank and file Nazi soldiers and officers, suggests that Nazis spared children, recited poetry and worried about the Geneva convention. The two hour, 40-minute Miracle also depicts black soldiers who are more concerned with getting laid and going to church than they are with staying alive, accomplishing their goal and finding a way back home. That a lone American Negro soldier is the recipient of a Nazi pardon puts this movie with Munich in granting moral equivalency to evil.
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Back to topSeptember 22, 2008
Screen Shots
Three new law and order movies revolve around trios with two men and a woman. In the thriller Lakeview Terrace, racist cop Samuel L. Jackson takes on an interracial couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) in a California suburb while Renee Zellweger taunts lawmen Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in the Western Appaloosa and Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Carla Gugino play three cops in Righteous Kill. All three are better than I thought they’d be. I’ve also added several recent articles about classic Disney pictures to Movies.
Elsewhere, I am enjoying making new business contacts and friends and finding old friends—and summer camp counselors—on the networking site Facebook. Speaking of technology, I’m planning to switch to a new blogging platform, and I’m thinking about producing a podcast. Meanwhile, stay tuned for Pop Shots.
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Back to topSeptember 17, 2008
Why I Am Leaning Toward Obama for President
Four years ago, I endorsed liberal Democratic Sen. John Kerry for President primarily as a rejection of Republican President George W. Bush’s re-election, which I regarded as an advancement toward totalitarianism. I am inclined to do the same with regard to this year’s presidential election—I have researched, met, and interviewed Sen. John McCain and I have studied Sen. Barack Obama (see earlier blog entries) and read his Dreams from My Father (book review to come)—for the same reason.
Last time, three intellectuals I respect—each of whom I have studied under—also favored John Kerry. This time, of the three—Craig Biddle, John Lewis, and Leonard Peikoff—only Objective Standard Publisher Craig Biddle has taken a public position, rejecting McCain and Obama because they are both altruists. In his essay “McBama Vs. America,” he asserts that the two major candidates are essentially the same and thus are equally bad.
I disagree. Certainly, it is true that both Sens. McCain and Obama accept altruism as the moral ideal—at home and abroad. But that has been the case with every major presidential candidate in recent memory. Sen. McCain is worse.
On the right to an abortion—an important test of one’s orientation to individual rights—McCain, who opposes a woman’s right to abortion (Obama favors the woman’s right), is worse. On this issue alone, Ayn Rand rejected the candidacy of McCain’s mentor, Ronald Reagan (though she did not endorse his opponent, President Carter). On economic issues, McCain, an avowed enemy of free market capitalism who falsely claims to defend the philosophy, is worse because he’s a fraud. On freedom of speech, which is essential to man’s rights in a free society, McCain is worse because he explicitly opposes freedom of speech. From so-called campaign finance reform to violating Microsoft’s rights, McCain is a consistent—and, alarmingly, successful—opponent of the right to speech, profit, property, and the press, his latest thinly veiled target for extinction, though he deftly used the easily manipulated media to abet his insidious rise to Republican power.
A few exceptions—his opposition to some government programs, deployment of the Marine Corps to Lebanon, and his famous quote that the U.S. would have “no mercy” on the 9/11/01 attackers—are contradicted by his actions; he supports the Bush administration’s gigantic expansion of the welfare state and he favors U.S. military presence in Iraq, which he famously declared may last one hundred years.
Whether he’s adopting a child from Mother Teresa or proposing government intervention in the economy, John McCain’s driving philosophy—moral duty to the state—is clear and he will impose this duty on every American. By his own admission, he will strive to ban abortion, criminalize capitalism, and he has all but admitted he may bring back the draft (Obama promotes socialism and does so openly, opposes the draft and, as discussed, favors the right to an abortion).
As McCain confirmed in my 1999 interview, the freedom of speech is under particular threat from a McCain administration. This potential danger is reaffirmed by his choice of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a conservative Christian who sought to ban books while she was mayor of a village in Alaska. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin asked the local librarian shortly following her election if the librarian would be willing to ban books and, when the librarian refused, Palin had the woman fired, reinstating her only after a public outcry. Palin also placed a gag order on the town’s department heads, forbidding them from talking to the press. Palin had successfully urged the town to elect her as the first Christian mayor by running on issues such as her opposition to abortion. Palin’s defeated opponent, admitting he is not a churchgoer, told the New York Times that, upon losing an election partly because he didn’t attend church: “I thought: ‘what’s happening here?’” That’s what many Americans may be wondering within weeks of a McCain/Palin administration.
The state of the union is at a low point. Both Obama—an avowed proponent of wealth redistribution—and McCain oppose individual rights. But they are not equally bad in my estimation and only one candidate will win. While Obama, who talks about man as his brother’s keeper, will advance government control of the economy, he will do so only because the Republicans have made it possible after years of misrepresenting Christian socialism as capitalism. In other words, anti-capitalist Republicans made Obama possible, practically inevitable. And Obama demonstrates better judgment, from changing his mind about drilling for oil, which he now partly supports, and nuclear power (same) to selecting a running mate—liberal Sen. Joe Biden, who actively opposed conservative Judge Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court—who is eminently more qualified to be president than his opponent.
When Leonard Peikoff endorsed Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush in 1992, the idea was that it is better to elect an anti-capitalist Democrat than a Republican who claims to defend—and instead acts to destroy—capitalism. Democrats, went the logic, will rightly be blamed for the failure of government intervention. I agree with this view and I would add that there is a new urgency in what I regard as the most important issue of our time: the mass destruction of the United States of America.
Obama’s candidacy is predicated on an end to the so-called war in Iraq and Obama is the only major candidate, unlike Clintons and Bushes and McCain, to endorse attacking an Islamic country (Pakistan). An Obama presidency will be judged chiefly on whether he pulls troops out of Iraq, ending what is an historically disastrous blunder with an incalculably enormous cost—in lives and dollars—to this nation. Obama has pledged to stop the mindless militarism in Iraq. McCain, who championed a surge of U.S. troops, which accomplished nothing, will expand it.
No issue in this election is more important than Iraq. America’s foreign entanglement in Iraq is inextricably linked to the ominously rising power of the religious state and, to paraphrase Leonard Peikoff, we can survive socialism—we may not survive religious totalitarianism. I think that the more religious the president, the more likely he will be to turn the other cheek to the enemy in the face of danger and I think Obama, like Franklin Roosevelt (who led the nation against Japan after they attacked us) and Harry Truman (who dropped two atomic bombs when necessary), may be a liberal Democrat capable of crushing the enemy. McCain, like Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George Bush—each of whom repeatedly appeased Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors—is more likely to forgive the enemy and lay down our weapons.
I am also not fully convinced that Obama, who speaks about his wife and his daughters and routinely refers to his personal values, is a complete altruist. He appears to have a functional ego, making speeches as if he has something important to say and as if saying it matters. There’s none of that McCain humility, or the tinny voice and petulant manner, and Obama’s perceived arrogance is part of what his religious opponents, with their contempt for anything intellectual, detest.
If a man’s background is relevant to his character, and I think it is, Obama’s biography is authentically American, specific to a 20th century, college-bred altruist pursuing his values. McCain’s manner is that of a presumably well-bred, badly behaving brat getting caught—and tortured—by the enemy, renouncing his country at gunpoint and spending the rest of his career making everyone else do what he believes he failed to do: “serve a cause greater than self-interest.” Their backgrounds reflect the choice we face this Election Day: more of the same socialism—branded as socialism, for a change—or a major advancement toward religious totalitarianism. Given that unfortunate choice, and barring any credible reports to the contrary, Barack Obama and Joe Biden—because they are not John McCain and Sarah Palin—get my vote.
Related Links
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Back to topSeptember 7, 2008
Visual Arts
Scott Holleran © 2008
The Walt Disney studio recently paid tribute to the late animation artist Ollie Johnston in a spectacular memorial celebration at Disney’s El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood last month. Host Leonard Maltin introduced and interviewed a parade of Disney executives, artists and intellectuals, chronicling and showcasing Ollie Johnston’s illustrious career in dozens of images and clips from his work for Bambi, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and Peter Pan.
Scott Holleran © 2008
Scott Holleran © 2008
I walked away with a sense that Ollie Johnston understood the unique challenge of creating animation for motion pictures. “The key to these characters is making them think,” he said, instructing another rising animator to draw what’s on the character’s mind. When shown work on Disney’s forthcoming fairy tale adaptation, Rapunzel, Ollie simply asked: “What is she thinking?”
The event was exhaustive, with Incredibles director Brad Bird and Cars co-writer and co-director (and Disney executive) John Lasseter at times talking more about themselves than about Ollie, though both men also evoked the Walt Disney ethos with key insights on Lady and the Tramp and the legacy of classic Disney movies, respectively. John Musker, co-director of The Little Mermaid, noted that Ollie’s drawing flowed effortlessly. As Musker put it, “the pencil kissed the paper.”
Scott Holleran © 2008
Of course, proper recognition for the fountainhead of Ollie Johnston’s incomparable animation, which has left us with decades of memorable characters and moments, Walt Disney, came from Ollie Johnston himself. Before he died, Ollie recalled that Walt wanted “people to create at the top of [his or her] ability.” In Ollie Johnston, Walt Disney—by all accounts during this remembrance—certainly achieved the goal. As for Ollie, he once described himself as lucky. Thinking it over, he added: “Because I’ve been honest.”
Another visual artist recently brought his work to my attention. I do not know the artist, Bosch Fawstin, but I read his first comic book, Table for One, and I think his black and white drawings show talent. Fawstin’s story, about a writer who waits tables in a corrupt uptown restaurant, tends to meander but the plot picks up and I think it’s a strong debut. His next work is titled The Infidel.
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Back to topSeptember 4, 2008
Sarah Palin's Speech
Stepping into the spotlight with a shrill, rancorous, occasionally snide speech, the governor poised to become the nation’s first female vice-president, Sarah Palin, reinforced my view that the boastfully anti-intellectual Republican Party is hostile to individual rights. Wearing her lack of credentials as a badge of honor—and condemning anyone’s right to question her fitness to become president if necessary—Gov. Palin took the Grand Old Party to a new low in last night’s acceptance speech. The staunch religionist, benefiting from the lowest expectations, displayed her serious opposition to abortion rights, compared herself to a dog (with lipstick), and substituted the spectacle of a family psychodrama for a coherent political philosophy. Using a mentally retarded infant (past proper bedtime) as a stage prop—the party of so-called family values can be counted on to attempt an annihilation of the values needed for a healthy family—the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee literally looked into the camera and pleaded that she will turn the White House into a place for the mentally deficient. It was practically the only specific policy position she addressed—short of a ban on abortion, free speech, and teaching the theory of evolution—and she ought to be taken at her word.
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Back to topSeptember 1, 2008
Republican National Guilt Show, Thoughts on Caylee
The Republicans aren’t so much postponing their “serving a cause greater than self-interest” convention in Minnesota as they are recasting the nightmarish affair as a charity drive, laying on (unearned) guilt trip after guilt trip about a category 1 hurricane hundreds of miles away that has nothing to do with nominating a presidential ticket. They are blatantly grandstanding, using the Republican-controlled government, i.e., federal and state officials, to promote a political agenda—isn’t that illegal?—and proving they are the more consistent party of altruism, in case expansion of Medicare, aid to Africa and Christian missions of sacrifice in Iraq and elsewhere left any doubt. What a farce.
Hardly noticed this week was the news (reported on cable news networks) that the apparently missing Orlando, Florida, toddler named Caylee, whose mother refuses to cooperate with police, was an unwanted pregnancy. The mother—who appears to have murdered her child—wanted to put the child up for adoption; the maternal grandmother reportedly intervened, insisting that the mother birth and raise Caylee.
To me, this is another result of the anti-abortion philosophy being insidiously but widely accepted by the American people. Abortions are barely taught in medical school and fewer doctors perform the procedure than ever—try finding a clinic where abortions are performed—and the act has been thoroughly stigmatized by the religionists, who have all but eradicated any trace of acceptable abortion in the United States. What seems to have happened to Caylee is what happens when people accept the anti-abortion creed that a woman is a birthing vessel, not a being of volitional consciousness, on earth to procreate. If she’s guilty, she should be severely punished, but the mother clearly should never have been encouraged, let alone pressured, to bear and raise children; she should have been counseled to choose—including abortion—what to do with the unwanted pregnancy for herself. I suspect the maternal grandmother knows—and is responsible for—much more than is presently known, and I wonder if Caylee’s mother knew first hand what it means to be unwanted.
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Back to topAugust 30, 2008
Sen. McCain Chooses Gov. Palin
Any remaining doubts about whether Arizona Senator John McCain would be like a national demotion from the disastrous Bush presidency are wiped out by his choice of running mate. The name of his selection for Vice-President is Sarah Palin. She became governor of Alaska in December 2006.
Like McCain, Gov. Palin is a Christian conservative, which means she holds that life begins at conception and, therefore, she would ban abortion. Because, as Ayn Rand pointed out, anyone who rejects a woman’s right to choose abortion inherently rejects an individual’s right to life, her and his opposition to the right to an abortion is sufficient reason to reject the McCain/Palin ticket.
But this woman does not appear to be marginally qualified to be president of the United States of America. Besides elected terms in local politics—she was mayor of a town with 6,715 people—Palin is possibly the least qualified major candidate for the vice-presidency in recent history; it is simply impossible to take her seriously as a potential commander in chief.
Gov. Palin is on the ticket to appeal to McCain’s target demographic: religionists—including feminists (feminism—the belief that a person should be judged solely based on sexual characteristics—is a sort of religion). Aiming for the Hillary feminists and religionists, both snarling types as we have seen, McCain apparently believes that enough true believers will put him in the White House.
He may be right. But that John McCain, who is 72, seriously proposes that Sarah Palin is prepared to lead a nation at war is disgraceful—even for a conservative. Though his countless attempts to violate individual rights ought to make it clear to any rational voter that he is unfit to lead, the selection of Palin—one of many dreadful choices throughout his military and political careers—proves that his judgment is irrational.
The McCain presidency will be dedicated to one idea: moral duty to the state, the theme of his presidential campaign, and that means anything from a return to the draft of young Americans for long, bloody, selfless and aimless militarism to new attacks on individual rights. Gov. Palin reinforces McCain’s missionary zeal to enact militarism and moralism.
A vote for Barack Obama—the only candidate talking about Abraham Lincoln, a great president who led the nation to unity during wartime—could cause the Republican Party to re-connect to its roots in favor of rights. There is evidence of this development. For the first time since 1980, when George Herbert Walker Bush suddenly abandoned his pro-choice position on abortion to accept the party’s nomination as vice-presidential candidate (running with anti-abortion Ronald Reagan), a pro-choice candidate (former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge) was under serious consideration for the veep slot. This is a direct result of the Obama candidacy.
Today, in a televised speech postponing the Republican National Convention in Minnesota due to a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, John McCain unveiled what could become a national motto if his play for femi-religionists draws the faithful to elect him president: “pray for the best, prepare for the worst.”
The antidote is: Vote for Obama/Biden.
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Back to topAugust 24, 2008
Scott Holleran © 2008
Sen. Obama Picks Sen. Biden
Delaware Senator Joe Biden is presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s designated vice-presidential nominee and I think he’s a solid choice for Obama. The 65-year old liberal meets key criteria for aiding an Obama victory over conservative Christian Republican John McCain, which would be an electoral rejection of religionist domination of the GOP.
Widely viewed as independent, Sen. Biden, who, like Obama, never moved to the nation’s capital, lays claim to Obama’s anti-Washington campaign theme. Like Obama, the single dad’s personal biography is possible only in America. Besides appealing to labor and blue collar Catholic types that eluded Obama in his race against Clinton, his credentials—except for a plagiarized speech decades ago—are good.
Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the contentious, and, in retrospect, pivotal, Supreme Court nomination hearings for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and the rejected conservative Judge Robert Bork. My recollection of those hearings is that Biden was a consistent voice of reason, with a tendency to speechify, who, at least to some extent, used individual rights as the standard for measuring a nominee’s qualifications. Biden, who ran for president against Obama earlier in this campaign, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Scott Holleran © 2008
Obama’s Springfield, Illinois, announcement was patriotic, evoking our 16th president, Honest Abe Lincoln, and decorated by a huge American flag. Obama entered to an idealistic U2 song, introducing Biden as an equal valued for his independence—explicitly rejecting the notion of a “yes man”—and enthusiasm for Obama’s choice drowns the clatter of bitter Hillary feminists carping about catharsis and trying to derail Obama’s election.
Biden’s words were sharp, naming honesty as a top Obama administration virtue and praising the liberal Obama for his judgment, intelligence and courage and assuring the nation that Obama has both a strong mind and “steel in his spine.” His best moment—and hinting at the case for Obama’s candidacy—is Biden’s description of the race as a contest between “a wise leader” and “a good soldier”.
This is a reference to the fact that McCain will continue, even expand, the Bush administration’s deployment of the United States military in untenable situations (I think McCain will also resurrect the draft) while Obama—whose candidacy is founded on the idea that the selfless Iraq engagement must end—will stop it.
Obama and Biden, joined by their wives, exited the Springfield stage to Bruce Springsteen’s stirring and triumphant song about the nation’s recovery following the worst attack in American history (“The Rising”). The event was a pure political production, though it represents the clear, unavoidable choice facing each American voter in this presidential election: reject the status quo or bow to more of the same.
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Back to topAugust 22, 2008
Pop Shots
Judging by her new album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, Scarlett Johansson sings as well as she acts, which is to say, she is awful. Of course, she chose to record a collection of Tom Waits tunes, so one could not expect much from that flat material. The result—and she’s reportedly planning a second album—is some of the worst wailers ever recorded.
The Cab’s Whisper War offers tame power pop with nice, bass-laden hooks that tend to overpower thin rock vocals. This production could have been crisper. Country crooner Allison Moorer’s Mockingbird is decent, though several recordings are mediocre. The title cut and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” fare better and the solemn “Where is My Love” is easily the highlight here.
Home Before Dark by Neil Diamond continues the singer’s acoustic approach, which I like as much as his melodramatic stuff. Favorites include “Another Day (That Time Forgot)” featuring Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks), “Slow it Down,” and “Act Like a Man”. Diamond’s best effort—“If I Don’t See You Again”—shows his maturity and it is rewarding to listen to an artist in rock who lets himself grow older with honest dignity.
The original recordings on Nothing But the Best by Frank Sinatra are happily remastered and, while I was skeptical of yet another Sinatra release, this one is an excellent compilation for the non-diehard fan. Packaged in electric blue with exceptionally written and compiled liner notes that provide an appreciative recording history, the compact disc also includes rare photographs. These 22 tunes include the previously unreleased “Body and Soul”.
Music Archives: http://www.scottholleran.com/music/
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Back to topAugust 21, 2008
Movie Review: Death Race
With a title that captures the experience of driving in Los Angeles, a campy remake starring Jason Statham, featuring Joan Allen and Ian McShane, isn’t as awful as it sounds…
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Back to topAugust 19, 2008
Book Note, 'Kit Kittredge' and Donna Summer's Crayons
I’m reading Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston from the Lost Classics Book Company. The collection of short, historical anecdotes was originally published in 1895. So far, it’s filled with snippets about productive, persistent and heroic early Americans who forged a new nation: William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and various pioneers and entrepreneurs. Good stuff.
Speaking of books, I forgot to include a summer movie version in my earlier roundup. The recent adaptation of the literary character made into a doll, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, featuring Abigail Breslin (from the hilariously dry Little Miss Sunshine) and Chris O’Donnell (a turnaround from his kinky role in the outstanding Kinsey) is a pleasant little picture—a Depression-era slice of life offering family-safe entertainment.
The American Girl doll and book stores were introduced to me by a Hollywood screenwriter whose college-bound daughter had been a patron of the series, which apparently was created by a schoolteacher. What an amazing experience. Each top quality doll is created as an individual with her own historically themed storybook with unique characteristics and accessories, of course. The kids that play with the dolls are subsequently inspired to read the books and, often, the children become interested in the American Girl dolls after reading the books.
At the press screening I attended with a friend and her young daughter—who brought along her Kit Kittredge doll—several girls were accompanied by their dolls, too, and the American Girl-friendly audience was thoroughly engaged by the father-daughter themed picture, which depicts a relatively realistic and benevolent view of childhood. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl also stars Joan Cusack as a cackling boarder and Julia Ormond as the girl’s mother.
The year’s most exciting pop album is Donna Summer’s Crayons, which includes the former disco diva’s varietal takes on reggae, electronic pop and a hypnotically romantic melody, “Sand on My Feet.” The CD is dedicated to Summer’s husband and it features the single, “Stamp Your Feet,” which she performed earlier this year on American Idol. Crayons is an excellent piece of work and you’ll never think of Donna Summer—whose concert I’m attending this weekend—as only a disco diva again. Top tracks: the smooth, sensual “Drivin Down Brazil,” which makes you want to light some candles, the raunchy Tina Turner-esque “Slide Over Backwards,” and the rock-n-roll number “Fame (the Game)” which mocks going Hollywood. Also worth a listen: “Science of Love” and “Be Myself Again”. These songs ought to get a hearing in the nightclubs.
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Back to topAugust 15, 2008
Communist Chinese Olympics, Clone Wars, Blog Note
I am not watching the communist Chinese-sponsored summer Olympics in Beijing. I think the Olympics as a credible athletic competition are a fraud. Generally, I think they have been since they were held in Nazi Germany in 1936 and Soviet Russia in 1980. An honest, peaceful, and friendly sports event sponsored by a totalitarian regime is a contradiction.
People being forced out of their property by the state to make way for Olympics sponsors—the beating of a British reporter and numerous examples of suppressed free speech—cheating in womens’ gymnastics and sadistic practices on Chinese athletes—these actions ought to be condemned, not sanctioned. Corruption and atrocities in Beijing are likely much worse than has been reported and there’s no freedom of the press or free speech in communist China. I think it is disgraceful to support an event sponsored by a slave state—regardless whether the condition of slavery is improving (and I’m not convinced it is; a slave allowed to drink Coca-Cola is still enslaved).
Opening today at the movies is George Lucas’ animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars—and I’ve posted a review and added past articles about Star Wars. Those interested in my movie writings should continue to check (or designate a Favorite or Bookmark) http://www.scottholleran.com/movies/ for updates.
Since I left Box Office Mojo last month, I’ve heard from many readers and I must say you’re a creative and accomplished lot and I appreciate your interest and encouragement. I am currently working on achieving several goals and considering a range of opportunities. In the meantime, I’m blogging and posting new and previously unarchived material from to time.
Look for new content about music, movies, politics and travel. I’m also planning to cover Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, scheduled in the near future for a deluxe DVD edition. I’ve enrolled in Amazon Associates, so if you choose to click on Amazon.com’s merchandise link and buy something I’ve covered, I make a small amount of money (thanks in advance for your purchases through the site.) Another goal: give this blog a name.
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Back to topAugust 7, 2008
Health Care Interviews for L.A. Times
The Los Angeles Times has made two of my 1998 interviews available online for free. The first, an interview with a Los Angeles hospital president following a major scandal at the medical center, is dated—this was before the government changed Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)—though I think it holds up; we discuss managed care and whether health care is a right. Another interview was conducted with a local nurses’ union president.
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Back to topAugust 4, 2008
Movies & More
Disney’s Swing Vote is mediocre, though it has an upside. As a politically-themed comedy, the Kevin Costner vehicle tries too hard, oversimplifies and dodges important questions—such as which candidate gets the Costner character’s vote. The upside in this splotchy, overly sentimental picture—which rates a TV or DVD viewing—is the cast.
Mr. Costner—who shines in the sardonic The Upside of Anger and the heroic The Guardian—fits the bill. But the girl who plays his daughter, Madeline Carroll, steals the spotlight, carrying the movie, which pitches the traditional line that helping others is the point of political involvement through Mr. Costner’s apathetic single dad. It is always good to see the underused Kelsey Grammer as the President and Mare Winningham—who caught my eye with a powerful lead role in ABC’s TV movie Freedom decades ago—as the girl’s mother. Also appearing: Stanley Tucci, Nathan Lane, and beautiful Paula Patton. Each does their best with a mixed script.
Thoughts on other summer movies: Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E left me unimpressed. Though it had nice moments, a bleak undertone dominates the movie and WALL-E strikes me as another departure, like Enchanted, from Disney’s brand of depicting a knowable, benevolent world. I also did not care for Wanted, an assault on the senses. Mid-range movies with positive aspects: the occasionally witty Kung Fu Panda, which was fun to see with friends, and the bizarre French murder mystery, Tell No One.
Surprisingly, I was moved by most of the interesting Hancock, which I think deserves more credit for Will Smith’s multi-dimensional performance than his role in the disgusting I Am Legend. Mr. Smith’s transformation from hardened alcoholic to hero is quite good. I enjoyed Hancock. For top quality entertainment, catch Mamma Mia! (again, if you’ve already seen it).
I extend Get Well wishes to a great American actor, Morgan Freeman, who, as this goes to print, is apparently in serious condition after a car crash, according to CNN. The forementioned and recuperating Kelsey Grammer, whose work has given me countless hours of laughter and joy, is hopefully also on the mend. Get well wishes also go to actor Shia LaBeouf, who was injured in a car crash in which he was cited for drunken driving, and to actress Christina Applegate, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. They’re both young, hard-working artists who have what it takes to overcome.
I’m hearing from readers about my decision to leave Box Office Mojo and, while I am unable to respond to everyone, I read every letter. I must say I am grateful to have readers of your caliber. Thank you.
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Back to topJuly 26, 2008
Lady Still Sings the Blues
Diana Ross: Lady Supreme was on the bill last night at the Hollywood Bowl. After taking the subway to the Bowl, I walked into a near sold-out audience. The Los Angeles Philharmonic opened with Richard Rodgers’ ballet number “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” from the 1936 Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Broadway show, On Your Toes, and with a strong rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Harlem.”
Afterwards, Diana took the stage with her rock-tinged statement of self-assertion, “I’m Coming Out.” With the extensive backlog, favorite songs were sure to be left out of the routine. Among missing personal favorite tunes: “Endless Love,” “Chain Reaction” and the New Wave-flavored Darryl Hall-composed “Swept Away”. Miss Ross was in fine form, looking splendid in sequins and a yellow dress and performing a nicely paced 90-minute concert with minor vocal cracks.
The medley of Motown hits with the Supremes was a highlight—the band was excellent, especially on the boppy “You Can’t Hurry Love”—and she sang tunes from her movies Mahogany and Lady Sings the Blues. Though “Upside Down” was weak on electric guitar, it rocked the crowd and a smooth, flawless performance of “It’s My House” more than compensated. What a blast (and thanks again to Cynthia for pouring the wine). Cheers, Diana; your house is still built for love.
Diana Ross Official Web Site: http://www.dianaross.com/
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Back to topJuly 24, 2008
Movies
The Dark Knight—the sequel to Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins—competently dramatizes nihilism while the ABBA melody-based Mamma Mia! offers a brilliantly youthful depiction of romance.
Read my reviews here:
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Back to topJuly 23, 2008
Objectivist Conference 2008
Sorry about the delay in posting here. After an exciting several years at Box Office Mojo (BOM)—including our recent sponsorship of the Newport Beach Film Festival and my hosting Red River starring John Wayne—I have decided to move on. I wish the BOM bunch well in the future. This summer, I have been enjoying the Objectivist Conference (OCON) in Newport Beach, visiting Disneyland and the beaches of Malibu and working on other projects.
OCON 2008 was fabulous. The Ayn Rand Institute’s Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate delivered a lecture series on cultural change, which was very rewarding. In a related development, the opening of the new Ayn Rand Center (ARC) in Washington, D.C. was also announced.
OCON highlights included two optional courses—a comprehensive three-lecture class by Clemson’s Eric Daniels on the history of free speech in America and Virginia Tech Professor Shoshana Milgram’s extremely informative four-lecture course on Ayn Rand’s admiration for It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. That’s one of my favorite novels and I gained new insights. During the class, I also learned about Ayn Rand’s appreciation for her lawyers and I enjoyed several such sidebars. Her note to Ann Watkins comes to mind.
Leonard Peikoff’s Question and Answer was a real treat—as others have observed, he’s in top form—and, while I was unable to attend every lecture, I enjoyed the general sessions. Archivist Jeff Britting showed me the impressive Ayn Rand Archives and the conference staff was thoroughly professional (thanks to Dave and Bryan). I missed having an opportunity to enroll in a course by Craig Biddle, whose Science of Selfishness class at Telluride last year was excellent, and finding the Independence Day luncheon was not easy (Arwen Morton’s patriotic vocal performances were outstanding) but, as usual, OCON was worth every dollar.
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Matt Petit / ©A.M.P.A.S.
February 24th, 2008
Tonight's Academy Awards®
The gentle rain at this time is fitting for tonight’s Oscars®, which feature a slate of bleak, dreary movies. I’m scheduled as a guest for the Mark Isler Show on KABC 790 AM to discuss the movies and awards with other panelists—I’m on at 9 p.m. Pacific time for a few hours—having watched the telecast until then. The Best Picture nominations are as forgettable as last year's Best Pic winner (The Departed). My 2007 retrospective column will be published on Box Office Mojo soon.
Oscar's Best Picture nominations include the anti-moneymaking creed There Will Be Blood, which ends in the campiest meltdown since Mommie Dearest, the terribly self-important No Country for Old Men, which posits that nothing really matters, the inscrutable Michael Clayton and the bloated British soap opera, Atonement. Then, there's the overrated hit Juno. I think Juno might pull off a win since it’s conservative—no abortion for the pregnant girl, of course—and safe and popular, though No Country for Old Men dominates among the intellectuals. Atonement is the closest to the sort of classic epic Hollywood used to favor for Best Picture.
Juno
The title's pregnant teenager starts droning about her mundane life in a monotone that never lets up and it's obvious an artificially happy ending is pre-conceived. In the dreary nine-month meantime, deficient parents miraculously dispense sage advice and everyone speaks in clipped, cynical semi-sentences, like characters from Closer, Thank You for Smoking or The West Wing. Gnarly Juno eventually behaves like a decent person in an unrealistic and unremarkable transformation that is treated as if it's earned, only it isn't. Unless you get a kick out of watching a crude, nihilistic adolescent girl act like a crude, nihilistic adolescent boy, Juno is also not exactly a comedy.
No Country for Old Men
Javier Bardem's stone-faced performance as a hit man in No Country for Old Men is similar to that other nihilistically iconic picture, Pulp Fiction, in which the hit man is its moral center—a blank slate meant to convey the notion that nothing matters, evil is omnipotent and we are doomed. On its own terms, it works. The movie is totally absurd, with Texas deputies saying things like, "that's very linear, sheriff." No Country for Old Men is calculated, economical and as deep as an episode of the Seventies crime drama Cannon and it is definitely less linear.
There Will Be Blood
Like No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood trails off in conclusion. Instead of geriatric Tommy Lee Jones babbling in a downward spiral, Blood gives us Daniel Day-Lewis, focused as ever and quite effective, though talking Texan with an accent from another universe and playing up the histrionics at his highest pitch since he screamed "I'll never leave you!" in The Last of the Mohicans. The bizarre, anti-capitalist Blood, based on an Upton Sinclair novel, might have worked better had it eased up on demonizing the Day-Lewis oil baron and actually dramatized drilling for oil, an exciting, fascinating prospect that's barely shown. When it is—when something goes wrong, of course—it rocks the house. With an air raid soundtrack that recalls the Forbidden Zone music of the original Planet of the Apes and the temple siren of The Time Machine, There Will Be Blood purports to show how money (in exchange for oil) corrupts man and turns him into a monster. But it's fueled by the Day-Lewis performance, not by the script.
Michael Clayton
A ponderous, mildly interesting character drama that doesn’t amount to much. In this generic, anti-business conspiracy story, an attachment with the title character is never formed. George Clooney's Michael Clayton ends up doing what any third-grader with a decent upbringing would do without hesitation.
Atonement
The uneven but interesting Atonement is slow-moving and overdone. Aided by a visual flourish and an intellectual hook late in the process, it nearly compensates for the flaws. Actress Romola Garai as Briony keeps the laborious showcase from nodding off. The rest of the cast is as neatly arranged as the opening shot's marching toy animals. A mother with migraines—a leering brother—a frizzy-haired cousin named Lola—a friendly stranger—a pair of pudgy twins—and the story’s two passionate lovers—and each are affected by an act of profound (and implausible) injustice. Atonement's immersion in war dramatizes that man's life is finite, not automatic; it can be made—and it can be wiped out. Like a Shakespearean drama, the point is that a single act—a tragic flaw—can cause real, permanent damage. Not much new there, even with a last-minute switch in perspective that makes a subtle and thoughtful point about the role of art. The salient notion that life is not eternal—and love is not all you need—comes through intact and it's especially relevant in a world at war. But getting there is not entirely earned and it’s a real slog.
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communist Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, left, with communist Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev
February 20th, 2008
Cuban Dictator Steps Down
The Western hemisphere’s lone communist state, Cuba, announced this week that its ailing dictator, Fidel Castro, would step down. His brother, Raul, will reportedly take over the island nation.
Communist Castro ruled Cuba for 49 years—so much for Karl Marx’s withering away of the state—banning individual rights and torturing countless Cubans ever since. Today, even the Internet is banned in Cuba, a poor, struggling economy which depends on lurid European and Russian sex tourists that prey upon its starving young people, some natural resources, and money sent from relatives in the United States.
What happens now will be interesting. The Bush administration will probably squander this opportunity to advance U.S. interests, too. Castro, by himself, has never been what’s wrong with Cuba—a point lost on Cuban expatriates in Florida, who have demonized him for 50 years. Castro is merely another totalitarian thug and he can be replaced by another totalitarian thug. What's wrong with Cuba is its philosophy: communism.
In his final years, Castro formed alliances with an axis of evil, to use President Bush’s phrase, (the President did no more to counteract this axis than he did to stop the other famously proclaimed axis): Venezuela, China, and Iran. Castro is known for cutting secret deals with states that are hostile to the United States—remember the Cuban nuclear missile threat posed by the Soviet Union—and, with communist China controlling the Panama Canal and Venezuela’s close proximity, the Caribbean could become a geopolitical hot zone. Look for these anti-U.S. states—which are allies in oil and arms—to assert power in this Western state before Cuba’s dictatorship withers away.
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Back to topFebruary 17th, 2008
Guest Appearances on KABC's "Mark Isler Show"
I’ll be doing Mark Isler’s talk radio program on KABC 790 AM tomorrow night in Los Angeles and he’s asked me to come on to talk about the movies in a post-Oscars show next Sunday (Feb. 24). I’m booked on both shows from 11 p.m. to Midnight, though tomorrow night I might go on a bit earlier.
Mark is a rare voice in today’s talk radio: professional, kind, and intelligent. We did the same thing last year and I know I thoroughly enjoyed it. His listeners don’t miss a thing.
I first met Mark, an educator and businessman who’s been active in Republican politics for years, while I was writing newspaper articles and he was hosting a local television program. He’d have me on his panel discussion show to talk about issues or whatever I was covering and it was always a forum for thought-provoking ideas.
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Back to topFebruary 13th, 2008
Writers’ Strike Update
News broke this weekend that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike in Hollywood may be ended before members approve a final contract. According to the WGA, members will consider the three-year tentative contract during a ratification process before a final vote.
This puts the cart before the horse. Why end the strike, which began on Nov. 5, 2007, before the writers approve an agreement?
Hollywood’s establishment, especially the entertainment press, has tried to lay a guilt trip on the union since the strike was initiated. This argument was based on altruism—the idea that writers should put self-interest aside for the sake of those who have been adversely affected. There has been particular disdain for striking writers over whether the Academy Awards would be upstaged by the contract dispute, as if awards, not the creation of motion pictures, are what moves Hollywood.
The union’s demands, such as compensation for content used through new technology, are based on legitimate points (the studios never really made a case to the public) so ending the strike now blunts the union’s contractual gains. The WGA consistently put the writers’ position at the forefront of the debate and they succeeded in getting most of their demands met. But ending the strike without a member-approved contract deprives the writers of having the last word.
Disney Theme Park Changes
WGA President Patric Verrone’s statement acknowledged the efforts of Disney’s CEO, Robert Iger, who helped to broker the deal. Negotiating skills aside, Mr. Iger’s doing an excellent job running the Walt Disney Company these days, with a string of movie, cable and home video hits adding up to double digit returns on investments.
Last quarter, Disney’s theme park business spiked an impressive 11 percent in spite of the economic downturn and the New York Times published a major article on upcoming theme park changes at Disney’s California Adventure (DCA) in Anaheim, California. The piece focuses on a new attraction called Toy Story Mania, currently under construction, which sounds like a giant video game.
The name of the attraction alone is a turnoff to those who prefer Disneyland’s classic immersion in storytelling to manic, whim-worshipping perceptual assaults designed for the short attention span but read the article for a good sense of what Disney has in store.
Through the grapevine, I have heard that, while DCA changes will incorporate an attraction based on the brilliant 1989 animated classic, The Little Mermaid, DCA will not build the thematically superior version featured in computer simulation on last year’s Platinum DVD edition. That’s not a good sign.
Implementation of DCA’s proposed changes, which generally sound like an improvement, is a crucial test for Mr. Iger. If he’s as respectful of the Disney creative philosophy—that works be built around a high caliber story—as I think he is, he’ll rebuild the maligned park, Little Mermaid attraction included, in the bold spirit with which the studio’s founder built the original theme park, Disneyland.
Judging by his sharp, sober and optimistic interview on CNBC last week, Mr. Iger has all of what it takes.
Clinton vs. MSNBC
CNBC’s sister network, MSNBC—Microsoft’s joint venture with NBC News—punished political reporter David Shuster, for pointing out that the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign is using an adult Clinton relative to get nominated—he used a slang term—prompting an outraged response from the Clinton camp. What a crock.
That MSNBC suspended Shuster, who is a total professional, is the real outrage. How can anyone take seriously a campaign that employs another prominent relative—the former president who is the candidate’s spouse—who openly discussed his underwear on national television and despicably played the race card a few weeks ago? Informative Shuster, who already apologized for his choice of words, is an important part of TV’s best political coverage. He should be reinstated without delay.
Roy Scheider Dies
Roy Scheider has died. He was 75. Though known for his cop roles in The French Connectionand Jaws, he was underestimated for top performances in Robert Benton’s thriller Still of the Night, in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz and in the 1973 New York City action picture The Seven-Ups. Sad-eyed Scheider was a strong, reliable screen presence during five decades of motion pictures and he’ll be missed.
Related Links
- Writers Guild of America (West)
- ‘Will Disney Keep Us Amused?’
- ‘Clinton Blasts NBC Over Chelsea Comment’
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Back to topFebruary 6th, 2008
2008 Presidential Candidates
Mike Huckabee
The former Arkansas governor and Christian preacher remains relevant because religionists dominate the Republican Party. Huckabee swept the South on Super Tuesday, sneaking a dubious win in West Virginia by colluding with fellow religionist—make no mistake—Arizona Sen. John McCain and Huckabee’s is the true voice of the Grand Old Party (GOP). In the weeks ahead, he stands to gain, not lose, power. The religionist-driven Huckaboom has yet to fully reverberate.
Mitt Romney
The former Massachusetts governor is the most Reaganesque in terms of personality but his pragmatism—he enacted socialized medicine as governor—foils his credibility as the antidote to front-runner Sen. John McCain. There’s no sense that Romney stands for anything but folksy traditionalism (all three GOP candidates traffic in this hucksterism). Though Romney actually won seven states on Super Tuesday, including Colorado and Minnesota, his delegate tally is relatively low and it’s best for him to withdraw. Let Huckabee be the option to McCain; this will push McCain to be true to his religious roots and clarify a badly needed general election choice between the Democratic presidential nominee and another religious Republican who favors keeping our troops engaged in an endless mission of self-sacrifice.
John McCain
The Vietnam War veteran and Arizona senator is absolutely 100 percent a religionist. He opposes individual rights—he fathered the McCain-Feingold restrictions on free speech and he favors regulating video games and the Internet—and he’s against capitalism and McCain supports the Bush administration’s disastrous foreign policy. By my estimate, conservatives such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh who have denounced McCain amount to a personality conflict that merely reflects a philosophical sameness between the religious right and the religious left. Indeed, Coulter reportedly says she will vote for Clinton over McCain. I interviewed Sen. McCain in San Francisco during the 2000 presidential campaign (I plan to post a longer transcript than was published in newspapers during the campaign) and there is no doubt that Sen. McCain is a real conservative.
Hillary Clinton
Like her husband, she will do anything to win an election. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is a pragmatist whose ideas are the same as the Republicans, differing only in degree, and her religious positions—banning divorce for couples with children, regulating video games and the Internet—should continue to attract religious voters. If Clinton doesn’t put a lock on the nomination before this summer, watch for her to manipulate the super-delegates at the party’s convention. She’s a ruthless candidate. I’m not convinced that her election will result in legislative gridlock, which would be good.
Barack Obama
I hold that Sen. Barack Obama is the choice for those opposed to the Bush administration’s military intervention in Iraq. The Democrat’s candidacy transcends usual political divisions; he’s promoted and perceived as the candidate that rejects the status quo and I think the perception may be warranted. Since he announced his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, Obama has opposed Iraq policy and made it a defining issue of his candidacy. An Obama general election victory will be a mandate to change America’s foreign policy first and foremost and a repudiation of the Bush/Clinton political philosophy, a mongrel mixture of Judeo-Christian pragmatic socialism. Obama won an impressive 13 states (a win in New Mexico, where he currently leads, would make it 14) on Super Tuesday. According to MSNBC, he has a slight lead in the delegate count. A McCain vs. Obama contest could present a clear philosophical choice to American voters. It’s a choice between more of the same religious socialism at home and abroad and an immediate change in U.S. foreign policy—a pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, which will be the public’s barometer for measuring an Obama presidency’s success. At worst, an Obama victory stops Republicans from implementing new schemes for self-sacrifice and, at best, it does that and effectively guts the Republican Party.
Related Links
2008 Presidential Candidate Web Sites
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Back to topJanuary 31st, 2008
Primary Notes
Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s primary victory in South Carolina may prove to have been the turning point if he survives New York Senator Hillary Clinton’s conniving campaign to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination—no sure thing given the upcoming monster primary day, Feb. 5, in which 22 mostly Clinton-friendly states hold elections.
Whether Obama stays competitive, South Carolina is where, amid Deep South race-baiting (the Clinton camp despicably raised his race as an issue by insinuation), Obama’s call to depart from the politics of the past, i.e., to end 20 years of Bush and Clinton, decisively met with broad support. South Carolina’s response to the Clintons’ attempts to belittle an Obama win in advance: a bigger margin of victory for Obama than had been anticipated. The 27-point gap was a stunning rebuke of the Clintons.
Hillary Clinton is a Christian socialist; she is indistinguishable from the current Christian president. She represents status quo traditionalism—things as they are—particularly with regard to foreign policy. Like her husband, who refused to defend America against Islamic fundamentalists, and President Bush, whose foreign policy since the worst attack in U.S. history ceased to resemble a military defense of the nation long ago, Hillary Clinton is an altruist.
Her Iraq plan, like the Bush doctrine, emphasizes stabilization of, not U.S. troop withdrawal from, Iraq—where Bush chose to send American troops, thousands of whom have been sacrificed—for the purpose of helping others, not defending U.S. interests. Securing Iraq, as she puts it, not America’s self-interest, comes first. As she states on her Web site: “What I try to do every day is figure out how to help somebody. And that’s what I will do as president.”
Sen. Obama also favors helping Iraqis—he proposes an aid package and leaves room for troop deployment relative to Al Qaeda strikes in Iraq—but his approach is predicated, at least by implication, on some degree of the nation’s self-interest. As he told an Iowa audience in September 2007: “[I oppose a]n occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences. The full accounting of those costs and consequences will only be known to history . . . our direction must be out of Iraq.”
While it's still early in the campaign season and there’s more to learn about Sen. Obama’s views, his victory speech in South Carolina—enunciating the nation’s e pluribus unum motto: “out of many, one”—generally affirms his status as the only major candidate to take the strongest position on the most important single issue in this election: pulling our troops out of Iraq.
As far as rights are concerned, specifically freedom of speech, Sen. Obama also appears to be better than Sen. Clinton, an observation I made a year ago in my column for Box Office Mojo. Republican candidates are not a serious option for those who favor individual rights; they all either support the Bush administration’s self-sacrificing military intervention in Iraq or advocate some form of religious statism.
Heath Ledger Dies
How sad and shocking that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan home. I first noticed him eight years ago in a movie starring Mel Gibson as a barbaric American called The Patriot; it was a long, brutal picture improved by Ledger’s turn as an idealistic American revolutionary.
His abilities are more prominently on display in two outstanding performances in 2005; as a repressed, rural homosexual in Ang Lee’s aching Brokeback Mountain and as the playful Venetian lover in Lasse Hallstrom’s delightful Casanova. Ledger is brooding and mysterious as Ennis Del Mar in the former, awakening when it is too late, a broken man in the final frames. He is bright and spirited as the title character in the latter, his eyes dancing throughout the jaunty affair, in the end sailing into a lifetime of joy.
Looking back at Ledger’s television footage, he rarely seemed at ease. Practically every clip shows him fidgeting, tapping or touching his face and an overhead shot shows Ledger walking the red carpet with his then-lover, actress Michelle Williams, with whom he had a daughter, pausing to pose for photographs—and, a second later, nervously rubbing his hand up and down his leg, as if the attention is more than he wants to bear.
The handsome Australian—balancing the pressures of being an immigrant, a single father, and a leading Hollywood actor—struck me as a sensitive soul struggling to find his way in a troubled world.
At age 28, he evidently stumbled into a life filled with medication and the company of a masseuse whose first inclination, upon finding his lifeless body, was to call one of the Olsen twins—reportedly, four times—before calling an ambulance. What happened when the ambulance arrived in front of his apartment building is an indelibly sickening sign of our times: a cacophony of cellular phone cameras flashing while Heath Ledger’s body was being removed.
He had tremendous potential and it is tragic to have lost him. Those who missed him in Brokeback Mountain or Casanova or his other movies should see and make their own judgment; I’ll venture that Heath Ledger would have liked his work to speak for itself.
Related Links
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Back to topKenny Loggins
Here's my review of the singer and musician's 2003 concert at L.A.'s Greek Theatre. . . .
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