It's Either Barack Obama Or We're All In Trouble

As you can see from the title of this entry, I am endorsing Barack Obama for President of the United States. But I am only doing so because the Democratic primary voters were stupid enough to fail to elevate John Edwards, the only real candidate for reform, change and justice. The Republican candidates are of course out of the question. Considering that Hillary is so despised on the right that dead Confederates are likely to rise from their graves just to vote against her, she's clearly a bad choice. That leaves Obama. Having read his policy proscriptions he at least seems like the best choice, but anyone who claims Joe Lieberman as "[his] political mentor" is worthy of suspicion. So I'm making this endorsement with my fingers crossed in the audacious hope that the man isn't just full of shit.

It Appears That Soylent Green Time Has Arrived At Last

On the way into work just recently I listened to NPR's "Forum" with Michael Krasny. That day's topic was retirement age relative to longevity. Two of the three guest "experts" were members of conservative think tanks. The other was a professional demographer.

Their collective hypothesis? Since Americans are living longer they should not retire at 65, but continue working as long as they are "vital" and "thriving." It reminded me of an anti-Social Security propaganda piece published last year at National Review Online. The apparatchik who wrote it described the Senior Olympics, in which very old men and women threw javelins, ran the mile in five minutes, competed in gymnastics and generally demonstrated that they were genealogical freaks. But not according to the apparatchik. No, this guy rhetorically asked "If senior citizens can perform at this level physically, why should they be allowed to retire?" Of course left out of this risible bit of rubbish is the fact that most seniors can barely function at any level, let alone throw javelins or run races. Now this kind of nonsense has gone mainstream, or at least what passes for it in our benighted age.

My maternal grandmother is quite perky for an 85-year-old. She drives her own car, does her own shopping, takes lunch with friends from church, and is generally quite active - for an 85-year-old. If some bureaucrat were to "assess" her capabilities and order her benefits taken away because she should supposedly be working, she'd be dead in a month. The only kind of work my grandmother knows how to do is seamstressing, and that requires standing up for hours at a time while performing very precise maneuvers with one's fingers. It is stressful and exhausting, and no person of 85 could possibly do it, at least not full-time under the onus of having to earn their living.

Aside from the obvious canard that those who are living longer are, ipso-facto, capable of working full time, there is the problem of age discrimination, which is bad and getting worse. Several years ago, when my dad was trying to get temp work in warehouses, time and again he would impress with his resume and work experience in shipping/receiving, inventory control and stock-keeping. The people at the temp agency would excitedly call this or that warehouse and send him off for a full time position. But as soon as he would arrive the (invariably much younger) supervisor would take one look at him and say, "I don't need you. Go home." And you'd better believe that this applies in the white collar world as much if not more than it does in that of the blue collar.

The only professions where age is valued are those you'd expect: Law, medicine, accounting, financial services and, most especially, banking. Then there are the craft fields related to entertainment, such as film and play directing, cinematography and videography, editing, production design and so forth. That's about it. So where are all the other retirees supposed to find work?

Nowhere, hence the title of this blog.

Why I'm Not Posting

For those of you who care, I now spend most of my time working with video. I have a YouTube account:

http://www.youtube.com/robtran

As well as accounts on Blip.tv, Revver and LiveVideo. I may write something here now and again, but it's unlikely.

The American Film Institute's List of 100 Greatest American Movies: They Speak With a Forked Tongue

This past week the American Film Institute released yet another list of the "Top 100 American Movies of All Time." The films selected spanned from 1915 to 1996. This one, as with the list released in 1998, caused me to gnash my teeth in frustration. The biggest problems were the omissions and the ordering, but worse still was ghettoizing the list to only those films produced - key word there - in and/or by America. Surely the AFI can be a bit more ambitious, or are its jury members worried that a list including foreign films would crowd out many American "greats"? I think the latter is the main concern. I will restrict myself to the list at hand, such as it is.

If a movie is to be labelled "one of the greatest", it had better have all of the following qualities: Great, even ground-breaking performances; superb visual artistry, even if that artistry is spare; an original plot with memorable dialogue; technical achievements that influenced later films; long-term resonance with the viewing public; long-term (or eventual) acclaim from the serious critical community. An excellent score doesn't hurt either, especially if it is a musical. So how many of the films on the list include all these qualities? Shockingly few. For brevity's sake I shall pare the list down to those that do in a list of my own, to wit and in no particular order:

1. Citizen Kane

2. Casablanca

3. The Godfather

4. Lawrence of Arabia

5. The Wizard of Oz

6. On the Waterfront

7. Singin' in the Rain

8. Psycho

9. Raging Bull

10. Dr. Strangelove

11. Apocalypse Now

10. Midnight Cowboy

11. The Best Years of Our Lives

12. The Birth of a Nation

13. A Streetcar Named Desire

14. A Clockwork Orange

15. Taxi Driver

16. Jaws

17. From Here to Eternity

18. The Third Man

19. An American In Paris

20. City Lights

21. The Wild Bunch

22. Platoon

23. Duck Soup

24. Pulp Fiction

25. Unforgiven

Obviously the AFI jurors and I don't see eye-to-eye. Remember the list of qualifications above. "Greatness" is not in the same category of aesthetic juddgement as "good" or "people's favorite" or even "influential." For example, I didn't include Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Fantasia because while innovative and historic, they are also brimming with corn and are essentially gimmicks ("a feature-length cartoon!"). That's not to diminish Disney's achievements, but among the greatest of all time? Sorry, no. That goes double for "issue" movies like To Kill a Mockingbird and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?. There were some films - like West Side Story - that were painful for me to leave off because they are personal favorites. Conversely there were films, like The Birth of a Nation, that I was loathe to include, but had to for the sake of honesty. Another example of this was Pulp Fiction, a movie I enjoyed though it is a bit too clever, yet nevertheless I was forced to give credit where credit is due - it is one of the most innovative films ever made, and it includes arresting visuals and great performances. The dialogue is brilliant and of course its influence has been enormous, if too often risible.

Irksome was the sight of box office champions of dubious quality like Gone With the Wind, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and E.T. This is especially true with Butch Cassidy.., now considered to be one of the worst movies ever to be a box office smash. Gone With the Wind is only a bit better, whereas E.T. holds up fairly well 25 years later. But now on to what I find most infuriating about the list: The numerous errors of omission and comission, and what ended up in the top ten.

That more of Stanley Kubrick's work, especially Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket, is not included is a testament, I think, to the contempt in which he is still held by too many people who should know better. Ben Hur, but not Spartacus? As much as I admire Gore Vidal's uncredited screenplay work there is simply no comparison; indeed, Ben Hur does not belong on the list at all (but I get ahead of myself). Where is Once Upon a Time In America? Where is Nashville, or McCabe and Mrs. Miller? How about Twelve Angry Men? Why King Kong but not Jason and the Argonauts? But these are only the omissions. Much of what was put on the list is far more insulting to my understanding of cinema, not to mention my intelligence.

While I concede that it's a cultural fad to lionize The Searchers despite the evidence of the movie itself, what were the jurors thinking putting Dances With Wolves on the list? Other insults to good taste include, first and foremost, The Sound of Music, along with Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Yankee Doodle Dandy (included, apparently, because of the way footage of the title number has been branded onto people's minds through repitition), The Jazz Singer (ditto, but because it was the first "talkie", to which I say a resounding "So WHAT?? Have you SEEN that turd??"), and Rebel Without a Cause (a decent genre film that somehow wandered onto the list from...well, who knows?). There are no other genuinely bad movies on the list. But too many mediocre-to-good films. It's embarassing to me, as an American, to see Star Wars included. I loved that film when I was a wide-eyed thirteen-year-old boy, but it just doesn't hold up - marginal acting, horrendous script and a fairly lousy visual sense given its ground-breaking effects (the likely reason it's on the list at all). Griffith's The Birth of a Nation belongs there only because Intolerance was left off. It's racist themes and lionization of both the Confederacy and, God help us, the KKK mark it as an execrable piece of trash, whatever its innovations and inventions.

Only slightly less infuriating is the top ten. Not including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange renders the top ten simply not credible. Yes, yes...by all means include Citizen Kane, and The Godfather. But here's an idea: Apocalypse Now anyone? For its flaws it is a stunning masterpiece, a revolutionary contribution to the art of cinema with some of the most arresting images and performances ever committed to celluloid. Lawrence of Arabia (though, aside from Sam Spiegel, more a product of Britain than the U.S.) and Singin' In the Rain most definitely. But the inclusion of Schindler's List is absurd, and the appearance of The Graduate is patent nonsense. One can quibble about On the Waterfront and The Wizard of Oz, as good arguments can be made for both their inclusion in the top ten and their exclusion. Now with the bottom ten of the top twenty there can be no argument in my view; the majority of the films don't belong there. I've already made the case against Star Wars. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest includes one great performance, and that's Jack Nicholson's. The rest are good to serviceable. It's A Wonderful Life is a well-crafted bit of studio pap that has, through TV reruns, secured a kind of traditional place in our national culture, but it in no way belongs in the top twenty. That brings me to Some Like It Hot, the glorification of which has always escaped me. Not only is this movie not fit for the top twenty, it's not fit to be seen on late night TV. And that's not just a matter of opinion. It's a demonstrably dumb movie with a dumb premise and dumb performances. Sunset Boulevard should be honored, but not so highly. It's a bit too precious by half. Psycho belongs where it is, though I'd place it as 20th. All About Eve is great but not this great. The African Queen is in color; not much else besides Bogie's performance recommends it. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a tough call. It was one of those films that was difficult for me to exclude from the AFI list in toto. I'm a great admirer of David Lean, believing him to be in the pantheon of the half-dozen or so greatest directors in cinematic history. But no, ultimately its melodramatic story and poor dialogue keep it from greatness.

These lists should not exist. The many words I've expended on this one may belie that sentiment, but it's one to which I hold. While there are indeed great and greater films, it is fruitless to do other than identify the very greatest, great and good without resorting to numbers and ranks. In only this way can we do justice to artistic achievement.

The Cadaverous Cunt From Columbia

I have resisted the temptation to write about Anne Coulter for over a year. It just seemed so obvious, even after she indirectly referred to John Edwards as a "faggot." Lots of other folks, especially James Wolcott over at Vanity Fair, were doing such a splendid job I thought "Why bother?" But after watching her pee on the national carpet yet again, I find that I really have no choice. To remain silent is to acquiesce.

This time her target is Barack Obama. Her claim is that a Newsweek poll showing him leading all Republican candidates "helps al-Qaeda." Deliberately, mind you. Her interlocutor was the ever more credulous Geraldo Rivera. When he asked her to clarify, she stated that these polls had to be "push polls" designed to discredit Republicans, and that anything that discredited Republicans, ipso-facto, helped al-Qaeda which, in turn, was prima facie evidence that Newsweek - and possibly Obama - was in cahoots with our enemies.

Anne Coulter is a professor - cough!! - at Columbia University. I assume she has tenure, because I cannot imagine an untenured professor getting away with being such a deliberate national disgrace and keeping their job. While I don't believe in censorship, I do believe that some jobs - broadcasting not among them - require such gravitas as to force those who hold them to also hold their tongues. Not only does Coulter not hold her tongue, she gives it free reign to say whatever comes churning out her roiling id. This is not Chomsky critiquing American foreign policy. No, this is the rhetorical equivalent of spraying obscene grafitti on the Lincoln Memorial.

I say enough is enough. She can be an obnoxious partisan, or she can be a professor beholden to all of the trusts that position implies, but she can't be both. Columbia needs to make a decision, and the sooner the better.

Once More Unto the Breech-Loader

I have thought a lot about what happened at Virginia Tech, and I'm amazed that it doesn't intrigue or at least shock anyone that we refer to these "massacres" in an almost blase fashion. When those two ten-year-olds in England murdered that toddler near the tube station the English lost their collective mind. The boys had to be protected 24/7 from people who didn't even know the victim's family, let alone the victim. Yet here Timothy McVeigh got a few "boos" at the station house and that was it, with over a hundred dead. That's a bit of a nasty contrast.

After years of studying - and watching - the changes that have occurred in this country since 1968, I have a very strong theory about how we arrived where we are. There were three tragedies in '68 that sent this country and its culture careening down this atomized, amoral and violent path: the assassinations of MLK and RFK, and the election of Richard Nixon. It was also at that time that corporations began using then-rising inflation to strong-arm unions into give-backs. The old urban coalitions of blue collar blacks and ethnic whites, and Jews and blacks, were slowly destroyed through a combination of the Republican's "Southern Strategy" and Nixon's Machiavellian implementation of Affirmative Action in the most racially divisive way possible. At the same time, Reagan introduced a new social callousness wrapped in a velvet package by emptying the mental institutions of California, promising "community care" that never materialized, thus dumping thousands of mentally ill onto the streets. Nixon's monetary policies encouraged banks and corporations to start down the path to mergers and acquisitions, a wholly destructive but highly profitable new way of doing business.

Then came Reagan as President, and then Bush I, and all of the above was accelerated dramatically. It was during the Reagan Era that a group who had once rightly considered themselves to be economically indestructible - white, middle-class, male professionals - found themselves laid off by the thousands, then the tens of thousands and finally between '87 and '94 the hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile, de-unionization kept apace with de-industrialization. Blue collar folks were told to go back to school and learn a new skill or trade. Those who could did so, thousands of them becoming computer and software engineers. The passage of NAFTA and GATT assured that within 15 years of starting these new careers they would be laid off to make way for someone in India or China, or someone brought to the United States from those countries and others.

We first began to see workplace and office massacres in the 80s. The first one of note, committed by James Huberty at the McDonalds in San Ysidro, California, was clearly the work of a madman. But others were not. In fact, the vast majority have not been the work of madmen. Charles Whitman is considered the "grandfather" of spree killings but he had a tumor pressing right up against the portions of his brain that regulated agression and inhibition. No, this phenomenon springs directly from men and women humiliated and degraded by a new economic order that views them as disposable no matter their efforts or loyalty. And so in the early 90s such people, understanding the new order thus established and what it meant for the future, began applying frantic pressure on their children to succeed. They filled their children's lives with meaningless structure and hammered them to get the best grades, and excel at sports and extracurriculars. In effect, instead of protecting the childhoods of their children they, in a panic, unleashed upon them the monstrous system they themselves now had to endure in the workplace.

And so as the 90s wore on some children, like some adults, decided to pick up guns and defend themselves. There was one massacre after another, mostly small. Then Columbine happened, and the country finally took notice in the form of harsher security, profiling "weird" kids and generally making life even more miserable for students nationwide.

It will take a dramatic change in our socio-cultural and - most especially - socio-economic systems for this trend to be reversed. It might even take a full-blown violent revolution, though God I hope not. But if nothing changes, we can expect more of the same. Perhaps even worse.

William Paley and Leslie Moonves: A Comparison-Contrast

Two years ago the movie "Good Night and Good Luck" received a great deal of attention. It dramatized Edward R. Murrow's televised confrontation with Senator Joseph McCarthy, an incident that some historians believe was a cultural turning point in the defeat of McCarthyism, if not McCarthy himself. What the movie only limns is the enormous risk taken by William Paley, then President of CBS. Immediately after the broadcast there were many in America who were calling for Murrow's job, if not his head. Paley held firm in his support. But of course, that was "good" speech.

Today Leslie Moonves was faced with a similar challenge. Threatened by Al Sharpton with boycotts and protests, and seeing some sponsors duck and cover, Moonves could have stood by the principle that however abhorrent Don Imus's comments may have been, he had the right to make them in the context of an entertainment show on the radio. But he did not. He folded like the cheapest of cheap suits. The irony that he is the current President of CBS and therefore an heir of Paley is almost staggering in its implications. Moreover, Moonves failed the test implicit in the First Amendment, that if we believe in freedom of speech it is precisely that speech we most despise that should be defended with the greatest ardor. But hey, Moonves had investors to please, right?

If Moonves has any shame at all, he'll remove every mirror in his home and office.

Boycott CBS and Viacom Over Don Imus's Termination

UPDATE

Over the past two weeks it has come to my attention that, not having listened to Don Imus since 1995, I was unaware of the depths of his racism, mysoginy and homophobia. It is one thing to be offensive and politically incorrect to make a point (i.e., Lenny Bruce), it is quite another to engage in such speech for the sheer cruelty and meanness of it. Therefore, and with due consideration, I have decided that I will not proceed with any boycott of CBS or Viacom. --RA

My God, I never thought I would enter the public sphere to defend the likes of Don Imus. But there it is. I've had it, and I will not equivocate. The termination of Don Imus from his extremely popular radio program because of speech found "offensive" by certain individuals was nothing more or less than a McCarthyesque witch hunt. Unlike Michael Richards, whose career in entertainment ended because the community of entertainers decided collectively and quietly that he should go, Imus's career in national, commercial radio has been ended as the result of direct actions taken by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both of whom are hypocrites given their anti-semitic remarks in the past. Their direct intervention is all the more hypocritical given that their comments were made ad hominem, whereas Imus's remarks were made in the context of an entertainment program.

This is what must be done. CBS, and its corporate owner, Viacom, must be shown in no uncertain terms that this kind of corporate censorship will no longer be tolerated. They must both be boycotted, and Leslie Moonves - the head of CBS - must be alerted to the fact that his job is not to act as a Cultural Commissar but CEO of a major entertainment corporation, said corporation being in the business of giving the public what it wants. And 3.5 million of them daily wanted Imus.

I do not have access to all the information I need to post right at this moment, but please bookmark this page and return to it over the next several days. I will post the requisite e-mails, web site URLs and other information necessary to get this started. Although not a fan of Imus, I would like to reach out to his fans as a fellow American who finds his censoring abhorrent to our national values. Again, as a progressive-leftist I find it hard to believe that I am doing this, but it must be done. And it will be done.