A story and an endorsement

Good Lord! I haven't updated this blog in months. Have I been that busy? Well... yes, actually, but that tale can wait. As for right now, I'm waiting on a script to finish running on my computer, so I'll post this little story:

On December 6th, 1985 I was in an auto accident in the UK. I remember the date vividly, as this was the opening night of Guys and Dolls, and I was in one of the lead roles, Nathan Detroit. I was driving a Pontiac T-1000 (basically a Chevette. It was similar to the photo shown here, but with the optional "European styling package" consisting of an air dam and spiffy hubcaps.), and I hit a long patch of black ice on the A43 south of Brackley.

The funny thing about this sort of accident is that you've got time enough to plot the Great American Novel in your head, but you don't have time to react to anything. Your muscles simply don't move as fast as the millions of synapses that all activate in your brain under stress. I hit the brakes, which promptly locked up. There was no ABS on that car. I tried steering onto the verge with no luck, as I'd already lost traction completely. There was no airbag on that car, either. The only thing left to do was brace for impact as I approached the rear of another car and wonder how my wife and parents were going to react to my imminent death, for I was fairly certain I was about to die.

I didn't die, obviously. But both of my legs went through the plastic dashboard, which shattered, ripping large gashes my knees through which you could see the kneecaps. This happened, of course, in slow motion, and it was excruciatingly painful.

As a result of this accident I learned exactly how much better made a Mercedes is than a Pontiac T-1000. The car I impacted wasn't damaged. At all. My car was a total loss, as were the trousers I was wearing. I pushed my car to the side of the road and continued into town on foot. (No. The other driver did not offer me a lift.)

Did I mention this was opening night, and I was playing the lead? Good. Did I mention there was no understudy? Well, there wasn't. So I smeared some petroleum jelly in my wounds, wrapped my knees up in Ace bandages, and called someone to come get me. I was determined to do the show, then go to the hospital. The show started late (not my fault... we were waiting on the pianist), and the curtain went up.

Now, what I'd forgotten in my noble adoption of the maxim "the show must go on" is that there is a moment in the play where Nathan Detroit (that's me) begs for the forgiveness of his fiancee of 14 years, Adelaide (played by Deston Lee). It was completely out of my head until I dropped to my knees to deliver the line "Adelaide! I'm on my knees!". Imagine if you will three-foot long hot skewers pummeled into your knees with a large mallet. Imagine they're inserted lengthwise through your femur, all the way up your thighs (both of them), and that they continue all the way up to your armpits. Imagine all of the fluid displaced by these skewers erupting from your tear ducts in twin geysers of saline. I didn't expect that!

Nevertheless, I dutifully bawled out my line and waited for the reaction. Deston turned toward me, and the look on her face was something not easily forgotten. Though this was not the line, written clearly on her shocked expression was "Oh, you poor man, of COURSE I'll come back to you!" Then she visibly overcame that impulse and continued with her lines, totally appropriate and in character. To this, my internal reaction was, "Wow, she really can act!"

We finished the show, and I went to the hospital, and was told that all the dancing and movement was probably the best thing I could have done to retain my mobility. I didn't tell them the part about dropping to my knees. To this day I've got some rather incredible scars to remind me of the story.

Another reminder comes from the fact that I recently spoke with Deston's husband Bill Lee, who directed this play and who played Inspector Brannigan in some of the performances. As you can read on my drama pages, this was an ambitious production. We started with borrowed facilities, no costumes, no sets, and no budget. That didn't deter Bill in the slightest. The production was done mainly through the force of Bill's will. Not only that, but we took it on the road and performed it to benefit local causes in the Midlands. One of the things I learned in the course of that production is that William Lee can get things done. This is a man who has never looked to someone else to solve his problems. And he has a positive, practical, effective approach to any task he faces. There are real, long term problems that this country is facing right now, and to solve them we need people like Bill to get involved.

That's why I'm glad to hear that Bill is running for the position of US Senator from Illinois in 2014. That sounds like a long way away, but when you're starting from ground floor you need to plan ahead. If you're in Illinois and you're reading this, read Bill's blog, contact him, talk to him, look for his speaking engagements, and support him. You'll be glad you did.

2009 Resolutions

I was going to resolve to not make any resolutions, but then I realized that that's the one resolution that breaks itself. So here they are:

1. Eat only at mealtimes.
2. Clean my basement.
3. Put out a new VIC release
4. Learn Java
5. Listen to my backlog of audio dramas.

Happy New Year!

And here's a gift for the new year. A recipe for Shampagne... much smoother than real champagne, if your tastes run toward Boone's Farm or Mad Dog 20/20.

Shampagne
2 fingers Captain Morgan's spiced rum.
8 oz Welches' sparkling grape juice.

That's it. Enjoy.

Credit for the recipe goes to Dave Wade of Union, SC, who invented it tonight for no explicable reason other than he doesn't like real champagne. I have to admit, it ain't bad.

REVIEW: The Day the Earth Stood Still

This poorly considered remake starring Keanu Reeves should be re-titled "How to Fuck up a Classic". Sorry, but it's true. How bad is it? Well, try this on for size: The reviews are so nearly universally bad that it scores lower than Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on RottenTomatoes.com.


So, we can take it as a non-debatable "given" that TDTESS sucks. The bigger question is why? Well, I think it's pretty damned clear. Nobody involved in the remake had the slightest understanding about what made the original a classic. They didn't understand the plot; they didn't understand the message; they didn't understand the characterization. They completely failed to grasp the slightest concept that made the original memorable.

Let's start with the characters. In the original Michael Rennie's Klaatu was thoroughly human, despite the fact that he was from outer space. He was warm, engaging; he had a sense of humor. We could easily identify with him, and through his eyes we could see ourselves in a new light, with all of our inconsistencies, petty fears, and superstitions exposed. (There are other themes revolving around Klaatu's use of the name "Carpenter", his resurrection, and the saving of humanity, which give the classic enough levels of profound meaning to keep a college philosophy class busy for weeks.) Keanu Reeves' Klaatu could have been played as ably by a cigar-store Indian. He has no depth, no subtlety, no humanity. Reeve tried so hard to be otherworldly that he and his opinions of us lost relevence. Who cares what a frackin' robot thinks?

In the original, Mrs. Benson and her son are simply ordinary people that Klaatu encounters as he's studying humanity. Why is this important? Because Mrs. Benson is not some scientist who is so thoroughly non-representative that even an alien would discount her presense, much less her claims for humanity. She and Bobby are humanity... a mother and child: caring, sensitive, inquisitive people by whom Klaatu can measure our species. How fortunate we are that he meets thm first! What a shame that the remake re-casts her as an "important" -- and therefore irrelevant -- personage.

The original's Professor Barnhardt is not awed or cowed by the presense of Klaatu. He doesn't beg for humanity. He looks Klaatu in the face as a fellow being equal in spirit, if technologically backward. In every case, the new production screws up the characterization. Hell, if I were Klaatu and were faced with this new lot of whiners, I doubt I could find a reason to save them.

And that brings us to the message. In the original, Klaatu's people couldn't give a rat's fart whether or not humanity survives on our own world. But at the time of the original movie nuclear weaponry was new and we held high hopes for our eventual colonization of space. It is the thought that we might take our violence off of this planet that gives Klaatu's people pause. They are acting to forestall a danger to themselves. Klaatu himself is a good person, and is merely delivering the message in an effective way that will get our attention while not violating his own code of non-violence. He is thoroughly genuine. And this is a message that is still appropriate in a world dominated by terrorism and anti-terrorism, nascent nuclear states and rogue nuclear powers... a world which only recently announced a renewed push to establish a base on the Moon and a human foothold on Mars.

By contrast, the new Klaatu is a hypocritical bastard that would calmly commit genocide to save "the planet". News flash to all pseudo-intellectual Al Gore wannabes that made or (God forbid!) like this movie: if we all die off, "the planet" continues. If we screw up the biosphere as much as we possibly can, then life on this ball will continue. This planet has already experienced repeated global ecocide (notably, the Permian Extinction wiped out 90-95% of all life 251 million years ago). Guess what? Life continued. There is no impact upon Klaatu's people, not even a philosophical one, even if we completely and totally screw up. As such, Klaatu's whole mission is pointless in the remake. Why should Klaatu prefer our existing species of Blue Spruce to the plant species that would succeed them when we kill ourselves off? Why should he prefer ANY species to the only intelligent one on the planet? The only possible answers to this do not do the aliens credit.

Take this exchange from the remake: the Secretary of Defense asks Klaatu, "Why have you come to our planet?" Klaatu responds, "YOUR planet?"

Well, YES. Our planet, you bug-f*cker. Who do you think it belongs to? Us, or some gussied up space-monkey who shows up to demand that we live our lives in accordance with his alien design? As you can see, the new Klaatu's motives don't pass the sniff test. He's not authentic. He's not genuine. He's not believable in any fashion. He's not a savior, he's a usurper. (To the Liberals out there: he's George Bush in Iraq.) In the original, Klaatu warns us of the consequenses of our own actions: he's there to give us fair warning. In the remake he "saves" us from a trumped-up "danger" of his own making. That's not salvation! Should a gunman be credited with "saving your life" if he decides not to administer a killing shot after he's wounded you? It's a stupid concept at its very core, yet it's the same stupid concept that Reeves & Co. think script-worthy.

There's more. I could go on about the top-heavy special effects (the original had few because they weren't needed to drive the story). I could point out that dozens of giant spheres and gargantuan robots that noisily and sloppily destroy the world (hypocritically causing great ecological stress) aren't nearly as impressive as one saucer that can do the same job quietly and efficiently. And what's the point of Dr. Wu? I could point out more, but by now you get the point. In trying to be "different", largely due to the academic ineptitude of the filmakers, the remake turns all of the original's themes on their heads. The result isn't a new and fresh update of a classic; it's an anti-classic that deserves its 22 on the Tomatometer.

We see this all the time from Hollywood. For instance, we saw it with Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds. It scores 73% on the Tomatometer, whereas the 1955 version with Gene Barry scores a more respectable 85%, the same as the 1951 version of TDTESS. Neither film is terribly true to the book, but the 1955 version at least has the excuse that the special effects describe weren't really achievable in its day. Tom Cruise doesn't even have that excuse, and his movie scores 12% lower. If you want to see WOTW achieve a better rating? Set it in Victorian England. Follow the damned book. Give us some real Tripods, and sink the bloody Thunder Child with a Heat Ray. Leave the kids and the comic relief at home. Hollywood says it would never work. I say how could you possibly know? In the last hundred years you've never tried it. Sadly, WOTW has been done wrong so many times that even a genuine masterpiece of a film would seem cliched.

All is not lost for The Day the Earth Stood Still, though. The best possible use for this abyssmal, disastrous turkey of a movie is to use it as a launching pad for a kick-ass sequel. Here's a premise: The Day the Stars Trembled. For years, in fear of our lives, we've been bicycling to work and conscientiously composting our banana peels under the watchful eye of the the GORT on each corner. Publicly we're all smiles and say "Yes, massah!" to our alien robot overlords... I mean "protectors". In the meantime there's been a massive underground movement to study, adapt, and improve upon the alien technologies. Now it's been 200 years and it's time to take our planet back. In the course of exposition, all of the eco-plot flaws of the original are exposed, and our heroes, having subdued and captured one of the aliens during the planet-wide melee, puts it to him directly: "What are you REALLY afraid of?" To which the alien answers, "Of all the animal species in all the known Galaxy, human beings are the only ones who bare their fangs when they're happy."

A Class Act

Today we awake with a new President-elect, Barack Obama.

Although I was and am a McCain supporter, I'm almost glad that he lost this election, if for no other reason than to show the Democrats how it's done.

Although there was arguably cause for bitterness, given many thousands of questionable voter registrations by groups such as ACORN, voter intimidation at the polls, etc. McCain chose not to whine and cry about his defeat as did the last two Democrat contenders. He did not drag it through the courts to the detriment of our country as did Gore and Kerry, but conceded with grace and dignity. He truly does put "Country First". John McCain truly is a class act.

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Before I take McCain's advice and get behind the new President, I'd like to make some observations.

First, this election is proof that remnants of racism are alive and well in the United States of America. But the source is unexpected. There is no doubt whatsoever that Obama was elected with unprecedented support from the white community, and no one would argue that these constituents voted for Obama simply because he is black. At least we all hope that didn't happen, and that the issues took precedence. There is also no doubt whatsoever that he was elected by many black voters because he is black, just as some white voters voted against him because he is black. I think that's a shame for two reasons.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Obama is every bit as white as he is black. If there's anyone on Earth who can claim to transcend race -- to claim humanity over race -- it is he, and yet he chose to pass up that opportunity. That's a shame.

Also, As Dr. King said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Those people who voted because of color, either primarily or incidentally, are not yet ready for that day. And that's a shame. But it's not a terrible shame, because the novelty of this event provides some measure of excuse. The next time a candidate runs and mention is made of his race, we should say, "so what?" And we should look back on past candidates like Jesse Jackson and Alan Keyes (a favorite of mine) with 20/20 hindsight and be able to admit that they did not lose "because they were black", but because they weren't very good candidates to start with. And we should look with some satisfaction that voting patterns were not significantly different with regard to this candidate: rural areas generally voted Republican and urbanites generally voted Democrat, just as they always have. That Obama's support cut across demographics brings us one step closer to that dream.

Second, I still have reservations about Obama's judgement. He is, if nothing else, a poor judge of character, and reckless in his associations, whether we're talking about William Ayers, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or the misguided ACORN that has promoted fraud in the name of community activism. Nevertheless, these are reservations based on his associations of other people of questionable character, and it does not necessarily follow that Obama is of questionable character himself. The plain fact is that we know very little of Obama's character because we have never seen him when he is not campaigning. He has no track record, so at this time we have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Third, I have reservations about Obama's promises. His purported "tax cut" is nothing of the kind. It is money given to people who pay no income taxes at all. After the fact, his campaign explained that we're talking about a rebate of payroll taxes. Folks, what this means is that he is dipping into Social Security taxes, plain and simple. And we know that this is fiscally reckless, and if he'd been man enough to own up to it in the campaign. Though he calls it a "tax cut", the only way to make it work without bankrupting Social Security is to replenish the money out of the general fund, and that amounts to EXACTLY what the Republicans alleged... that it's a simple re-distribution of funds. It's pandering. It's a bribe.

But bribes work, in the short term. I saw an interview with an Obama supporter who claimed she was excited by an Obama presidency because, "I won't have to worry about my house payment or my car payment no more." And she's not alone: here's another one who says almost the same thing (this one was saved for posterity on YouTube). These people think they elected Santa Claus. I can imagine no one on this planet who will be more disillusioned and pissed off this time next year. What happens to the love when these voters are scorned?

The sort of promises that lead to these reactions are nothing new. It's called pandering. And it rarely works out in the long term. The last president that offered "a chicken in every pot" was Herbert Hoover. And we know how that worked out. But once again, Obama has no track record, so we are all destined to a future of surprises, whether our expectations are met or not.

In his victory speech, Obama tries to manage these expectations, saying that change may not happen in the first year or the first term. It's a far cry from a campaign in which the mere mention of his candidacy slowed the rising of the oceans and hastened the healing of the planet. Nevertheless, he will have to deliver something, or there will be no second term.

Finally, I have reservations about what will happen in terms of foreign policy. I strongly suspect that Obama will discover what Carter and Clinton did... that talk is cheap, and much of our foreign policy is dictated by the circumstances we find ourselves in. Does anyone really believe that George Bush invited or wanted the attacks of 9/11? That he wants to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan any longer than necessary? If so, they are fools. No president wishes such a thing upon himself or his country. We all agree that we should bring the war to a close... the only disagreement is on how that should be done, and how we should define "necessary." I don't believe that Barack Obama will intentionally screw up our foreign policy, nor do I believe he will be the unmitigated disaster that was Jimmy Carter. He will do his best, and partly this is because he now has to fill the rather large set of shoes he created for himself.

So those are my reservations. To overcome those reservations, and with no supermajority in Congress, Obama will have to "reach across the aisle", and that means that we need to reach back. We don't want failure anymore than he does. Especially given his near total lack of experience, and our experience with similarly naive presidents in the past, this is a case where we need to get behind the President and offer him our full support... and I don't mean "support" in the sense of cheerleading.

Will wonders never cease?

The pundits and talking heads pretty much agree that there was nothing "game changing" about the second Presidential debate. I'm not so sure about that.

If you've been reading this blog, you'll remember that when McCain suspended his campaign, I offered a solution to the banking crisis. What I said was that we should make every possible effort to renegotiate the loans rather than foreclose. These are bad risks, but they're not losses... not yet, anyway, unless we foreclose and take the loss. I mentioned then,

Of course, my plan would never make it to the table because it actually makes sense and it would actually work. Let's see what sort of "second best" solution they come up with.

Well, it looks like something very much like my plan has indeed been offered... by John McCain. It is, in fact, the only memorable thing about the second debate. While Obama was fumbling around with his head in the past trying to assign blame to anything but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (where it properly belongs), McCain has moved past the "blame game" to suggest a solution: that the Federal government should buy these loans to renegotiate them, either to sell them off or hold them until paid.

This idea differs from mine in that the government would buy the loans outright rather than direct lenders to renegotiate them. I happen to like my version better because it places no burden on the taxpayers (who after all are not responsible for this mess); however, it's quite likely that my version will have some negative impact on the economy in the near-term due to the lessened ability of these lenders to make additional loans (for lack of capital). I happen to think that's OK; that other lenders will appear, and that companies you haven't heard of yet, but which are in better shape financially, will step up and fill the gap. Again, that's OK, because those companies currently on top really don't deserve to stay there. Adversity is the mother of opportunity. And if necessity is the mother of invention, opportunity is its father. I do not guess or hope that the financial void will be filled; I know it. It is as inevitable as the change of seasons.

The McCain plan would keep the top players where they are and would put an onus on the taxpayer. This would provide greater short-term stability in the market. And the onus is temporary, as the money will be recouped; probably most of it within ten years. I don't much like the idea of privatizing most of this industry, but it would actually work, and is indeed "second best" to the plan I would prefer. Renegotiating the loans and keeping those homeowners in their houses are the most important aspects of any workable solution. The rest of it is negotiable, and I think this is a good compromise.

I expect to hear a lot of complaints from Libertarians and the far Right as well as from Democrats who are pissed because they didn't think of it first.

Where Obama's money came from

You've probably received an email questioning where Barack Obama got the money for a 'round the world trip while he was in college, for his house, etc. The implication is that there is some sort of conspiracy among nefarious evil-doers to enrich Obama. This post is directed specifically at those people who buy into those implications.

There's no mystery here. Here's a link to the Snopes page listing both the contents of the email and Snopes' analysis: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/money.asp

The short answer is, he took out student loans. Then followed a long, drawn-out process of repaying student loans on professor's and lawyer's salary (not exactly a paltry sum), then huge income from best-selling book to finally pay off those loans.

The only one that's not fully explained so far is the trip in '81, but if you're staying with friends and relatives, even that one is do-able. Nothing nefarious is required.

Imagine that you're a candidate. You have a volunteer organization to raise and collect campaign donations, and these people are hired by yet more volunteers. The plain fact is that you don't even know the people who are working on your behalf. You accept funds on the Internet, by phone, by check.

How are you, personally, supposed to know that any of these donors are who they say they are? The best you can really do is return money if irregularities crop up.

I think it highly unlikely that, even if he knew all these illegal donors personally, Obama would have solicited campaign donations from them. First of all, at this point he doesn't need the money: he has enough donations from legitimate Democrat donors. Second, this sort of connection harms his campaign more than the money helps. If he were a real evil genius he'd have told these people to shut up and lie low. The "fault" of these donations lies with the donors, not the candidate. If you make it the candidate's fault, then you can't defend McCain when similar things happen without his knowledge.

What IS disturbing Obama's relationship with William Ayers, known unrepentant terrorist. Obama can't convincingly pretend that he didn't know about this guy. Obama was a professor. He was a lawyer; well educated, knowledgable and highly interested in political affairs. And yet he's perfectly willing (despite all his claims to exerience) to imply that he was naive and stupid enough to sit in Ayers' kitchen and plan his political career. So depending on whether you choose to believe Obama's story, either his judgment is completely suspect, he's a conspirator, or he actually IS naive and ignorant. Any of these conclusions validates the Republicans' opinion of him. None of these conclusions recommends him for President.

UPDATE (2008-10-09): As it turns out, the link between Obama and Ayers is much stronger than initially thought. Read about it in American Thinker. Better yet, read about it in the Wall Street Journal. Obama's campaign wants to distance themselves from Ayers, stating that "any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost 40 years ago is ridiculous." The problem for Obama is, nobody's trying to do that. They're examining the public record and connecting him with events of which he himself was an active participant. And these events are troubling: personally, I would characterize it as no less than an attempt to subvert the educational system and indoctrinate children. As Stanley Kurtz rightly observes, that is a story "even if Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago."

What's also disturbing is the quality of supporter that Obama attracts. It's understandable that people in the Middle East support him. The guy's name is Arabic, after all, and Libya's Qadafi thinks he's a "good Muslim" on that basis alone. But he's gathering support from terrorists, hostile governments, and a wide lunatic fringe. There's a reason for that. I think it's pretty clear that they know he's naive; they can see with their own eyes from the Ayers connection that he's sympathetic to terrorists (and there's no denying that he's been sympathetic to at least one); and they think he's a pushover. Hostile governments have no reason whatsoever to support a US candidate unless they are convinced in their minds and hearts he is bad for this country. I happen to agree with them... a Barack Obama presidency would be a disaster, and a gift to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

But these are largely questions about other peoples' support of Obama, which he can't fully control. Beyond these connections, what disturbs me the most is the things that he can directly control. The fact is that for all his talk of "change", Obama has few if any votes or actions that support his talk. In the debate and in all his stump speeches he looks back for blame for the economic situation and Iraq (consistently mis-assigning blame). For months he's been running against George Bush, NOT John McCain. He picked a left-wing career Capitol insider as his running mate. He hasn't even made it to the PRESENT, much less looked to the future. His campaign slogans are quite simply untrue. They're not supported at all by his actions.

By contrast McCain looks to solutions. He has been pushing his ideas for years, and only now have the times caught up with him. He chose a running mate with an eye to the future, and he picked her from far outside the Capitol Beltway. He walks his talk.