Dear Lon,
Since I have read 4 of the essays in those two FIRST THINGS you sent me a while back, I’d be happy to read more if you care to send them. Also, a while back I mentioned Phillip Jenkins to you, the scholar from Penn State who has become the chief spokesman for the demographics of the Christian Church—where the Faith is leaving from and where it is going to and what is likely to take its place in Europe. I went on to buy two of Jenkins books, The Next Generation: the Coming of Global Christianity and The Lost History of Christianity, or how the thousand year reign of the religion in the Middle East came to an end. That is the topic in another great book that I read 2 years ago, From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple, which, some time or other you ought to read, for it tracks where Christianity was so strong at first, and so dominant, only to be gradually pushed out of the region by Islam, although it still hangs on here and there, but the great majority of the Christians have gone elsewhere.
Clearly, the glory days of the Faith in that region, the region of its birth, is over with, just as the same eclipsing of the Faith is likely to happen in Europe by mid-century as Muslim immigrants are reproducing at a rate that will overwhelm the ‘native’ population of white Europeans. Muslim workers went there after WW II to help build a new Europe so devastated by the war. The Natives thought they would go back home after a while, but they stayed and that phenomena is going to have unexpected consequences. R.J. Neuhaus himself mentions Muslim immigration in his essay on “Secularizations,” stating that some observers already “depict Europe as a dying continent; dying culturally, spiritually, and, perhaps most decisively, demographically.” Like many others I am familiar with, he thinks Europeans may have reached the ‘point of no return,” and that their numbers will stay well below the Muslim’s “replacement level.” Islamic demographic dominance is like a boulder rolling down hill. It is not a question of IF, but of WHEN. Ponder what that might mean for the civilization of Old Europe, the famous buildings, great Art, churches, and other unique things and places created through the Christian centuries, not to mention the Greek and Roman civilization that went before Christian Culture. But by mid-century the Vatican will have been moved from Rome to some place in Africa, where the church, both Fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic, are flourishing and growing at a fast pace. The new home base for Christianity will be in the Southern Hemisphere; because that is the direction the faith is traveling right now. Europe is a secular state but that won’t last much longer.
Another essay that I responded to was “While Europe Slept,” by some professor from the University of Chicago. It covered things I have thought about too, over the years, especially after I left the church. Two questions hang in the air considering a post-Christian world. First, I was certain I could but I wondered about others being able to live peacefully and constructively sans an institutional support system and its moral and ethical guidelines. Is multiculturalism a substitute principle for guidance? The professor doesn’t think so and neither do I. He also argues that without the Church and what it provides, anarchy and nihilism would be the results—because then all things would be permitted. . I am not persuaded by this argument, but then, I am no measure against the ordinary citizen. They may need to have all the rules and regulations spelled out very clearly. Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Camus, and others, all felt we were headed toward nihilism if God was dead, as Nietzsche had written, or if his church dissolved under secular and material pressures. Personally I think we have innate equilibrium that would serve us well if people could tap into it, but that would take a certain amount of inner work and modern man would rather take and pill and watch American Idol.
Secondly, if we are no longer rooted in Christian Culture does that mean we have no access to transcendence? Again, I can answer in the affirmative; it is possible because it is built into out make-up, our psyche. But at the same time I realize modern individualism may not be able to sustain a purely secular world with a total absence of a religious principle and a spiritual aspiration. Left to his own devices the professor says the will to power will override everything else. The universe of human interactions would tend to be self-serving, wolfish, and selfish, where might makes right, and the extreme form of that is indeed nihilism.
So what do you think Lon?
Saturday morning. I got a call from Brodek this morning, a bad connection so I probably missed if he called you too or not. But he fell out of his golf cart playing at Meadowbrook and broke his shoulder and as a consequence he’ll be out of commission probably till next year sometime. They don’t plan to operate.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Julia
Aug. 26, 2009 (Journal Notes)
Sue and I watched a gripping, nerve-wracking drama last night about a crazy, off-the-wall alcoholic woman who drank every night and slept with any man who’ll buy her drinks. The name of the movie is “Julia,” and stars Tilda Swinton who won an Academy Award a couple of years ago for her performance in “Michael Clayton.” Julia meets a Mexican American woman at an AA meeting who tries to persuade her to help her kidnap her 8 year old son who has been living with his rich grandfather who happens to be a gangster. She dismisses the idea as absurd, sheer foolishness dreamt up by a desperate woman anxious to get her son back. The woman offers her half of the ransom money they could obtain from the rich old man. But as Julia thinks about what the money could do for her, she begins to reconsider; it could help her get off this merry-go-round to nowhere. So she decides to do it, but to do it without the mother. She tries to talk an old lover into going in with her, but he refuses, seeing it as a crazy idea. But she goes ahead on her own; she kidnaps the boy, kills his caretaker by running over his body with her car, the first of two murders she commits in pursuit of the ransom money. But the next hour or so of the movie is so full of ups and downs you get dizzy watching her flail her away through one crisis after another.
A sub-plot to the kidnapping caper is her relationship with the boy. At first he is just an object she needs to manipulate with little thought about his comfort or feelings; it is also perfectly obvious she knows absolutely nothing about kids. But gradually she realizes he is a human being and so she begins to soften up toward him, as he does toward her, as he realizes she is the only ally he has in the mess they are both in. Eventually, they become quite close, even cuddly and affectionate. This development is handled quite nicely; what happens between the two of them is the only real positive in a story otherwise full of negatives. In effect, she becomes his mother, at least until they unite with his real mother in Mexico.
The worse crisis that occurs toward the end of the film is the boy is kidnapped by a couple of young Mexican lads in Tijuana. She kills a Taxi Driver acting as their messenger. She meant to only scare the guy but the gun went off as she was waving it at him. She finally wrestles the cash from the grandfather, a cool $2,000,000. She plans to keep half of it, but she runs into a snag. The boys want all of it, otherwise no boy. So it becomes her Sophie’s Choice: What’s more important, the money or the safety of the boy? She opts for the boy. The Mexican lad with the money drives off beside himself with joy, with $2,000,000 in the back seat. Somehow, given the cutthroat world he lives in, one doubts it will be in his possession very long. In any event, free at last the boy gives Julia a big hug; he is so happy to be reunited with her. A last moment of regret flashes across her face, but then she looks down at the boy and says, “Let’s go find a mother.”
I like “Julia,” not only because Tilda Swinton is an accomplished and nuanced actress, but also because I liked the process she went through to let the money go in order to save the boy and therefore save her own soul; it was a byproduct of the choice, its truth and consequence. That decision, to love the boy rather than sell him as piece of meat in the black market, allowed her to also love herself, which upped her self-esteem. She had none of at the beginning of the story.
Sue and I watched a gripping, nerve-wracking drama last night about a crazy, off-the-wall alcoholic woman who drank every night and slept with any man who’ll buy her drinks. The name of the movie is “Julia,” and stars Tilda Swinton who won an Academy Award a couple of years ago for her performance in “Michael Clayton.” Julia meets a Mexican American woman at an AA meeting who tries to persuade her to help her kidnap her 8 year old son who has been living with his rich grandfather who happens to be a gangster. She dismisses the idea as absurd, sheer foolishness dreamt up by a desperate woman anxious to get her son back. The woman offers her half of the ransom money they could obtain from the rich old man. But as Julia thinks about what the money could do for her, she begins to reconsider; it could help her get off this merry-go-round to nowhere. So she decides to do it, but to do it without the mother. She tries to talk an old lover into going in with her, but he refuses, seeing it as a crazy idea. But she goes ahead on her own; she kidnaps the boy, kills his caretaker by running over his body with her car, the first of two murders she commits in pursuit of the ransom money. But the next hour or so of the movie is so full of ups and downs you get dizzy watching her flail her away through one crisis after another.
A sub-plot to the kidnapping caper is her relationship with the boy. At first he is just an object she needs to manipulate with little thought about his comfort or feelings; it is also perfectly obvious she knows absolutely nothing about kids. But gradually she realizes he is a human being and so she begins to soften up toward him, as he does toward her, as he realizes she is the only ally he has in the mess they are both in. Eventually, they become quite close, even cuddly and affectionate. This development is handled quite nicely; what happens between the two of them is the only real positive in a story otherwise full of negatives. In effect, she becomes his mother, at least until they unite with his real mother in Mexico.
The worse crisis that occurs toward the end of the film is the boy is kidnapped by a couple of young Mexican lads in Tijuana. She kills a Taxi Driver acting as their messenger. She meant to only scare the guy but the gun went off as she was waving it at him. She finally wrestles the cash from the grandfather, a cool $2,000,000. She plans to keep half of it, but she runs into a snag. The boys want all of it, otherwise no boy. So it becomes her Sophie’s Choice: What’s more important, the money or the safety of the boy? She opts for the boy. The Mexican lad with the money drives off beside himself with joy, with $2,000,000 in the back seat. Somehow, given the cutthroat world he lives in, one doubts it will be in his possession very long. In any event, free at last the boy gives Julia a big hug; he is so happy to be reunited with her. A last moment of regret flashes across her face, but then she looks down at the boy and says, “Let’s go find a mother.”
I like “Julia,” not only because Tilda Swinton is an accomplished and nuanced actress, but also because I liked the process she went through to let the money go in order to save the boy and therefore save her own soul; it was a byproduct of the choice, its truth and consequence. That decision, to love the boy rather than sell him as piece of meat in the black market, allowed her to also love herself, which upped her self-esteem. She had none of at the beginning of the story.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
More Funny Games
8/19/09 (Journal Notes)
After I did my 30 laps in the pool at LA Fitness I walked across the street to Blockbuster’s to pick up “Sunshine Cleaning” only to find it’s not available to next week. So instead I picked up four films more or less at random, at least two of them straight-to-video type films. The one I decided to see first was something called “Surveillance,” a film directed by David Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer, starring Bill Pullman and the lovely Julia Ormand. David Lynch was also listed as Executive Producer. Right from the opening sequence, of a grisly murder, you could see the influence of father on daughter. The scene was dark, obscure, and unexplained. Altogether it was a strange and violent film: If I counted correctly there were 14 murders. Those are Tarantino totals. Bloody mayhem. It was extreme, ghoulish, and bizarre, like the director wanted to rub your face in it, with there also being an underlying absurdity to the killings, almost as if they were recreational, like in the recent film, “Funny Games,” directed by Michael Haneke. There are references made to two black-clothed killers wearing bag masks in the opening sequence and in a few flashbacks but we don’t find out who they are till the last quarter of the picture. Their Identity is something of a surprising twist.
The story starts out with two FBI agents, Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) and Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormand) arriving at a police station in the middle of god-forsaken country out West somewhere. There is the usual conflict between the local police, who are atypical and sometimes outside the law themselves, and the FBI, who want to interrogate everyone, including some officers, about the death of one cop and several other people on a nearby highway. The agents act with decorum and take over, with Elizabeth grilling with sensitivity an 8 year old girl, one of two survivors of the highway killings. But the agents knew what happened because they were there; it turns out they are the psychotic killers in disguise. The only person who figured that out early was the little girl, who whispers in Hallaway’s ear, “I know who you are.” That kicks off the bloody last section of the film. Elizabeth goes off with two officers to investigate the murders we saw at the beginning of the film, the killing of the real agents, but one of the cops finds some photographs in the back seat that show erotic scenes between Sam and Liz, which forces her hand and she kills them both. Meanwhile back at the station Sam has revealed his true identity and starts killing cops, leaving only the other survivor, a pretty blond cokehead. Lynch is saving her for the finale. When Liz comes back to the station their passion for each other is revealed; they are literally MAD for each other. Liz takes off her belt, gives it to her lover, climbs on the blonde’s lap, and starts to kiss and fondle her, while Sam puts the belt around her neck and slowly tightens it, killing the blond woman while Liz continues to passionately kiss her. That really gets the couple off, and shortly afterward they drive off, their dirty work completed. They see the little girl off in a field. Sam says to his mate, “Because she guessed who we were, I am going to let her live.” Liz smiles and says, “That is so romantic.”
I once saw on film one of David Lynch’s paintings, which had rotten meat on it that was filled with maggots crawling around the surface of the painting. Looking at this movie was comparable to looking at that painting. If there is a category below low-life, the characters in this movie inhabit that category, and that includes the scummy cops.
The erotized murder of the blonde was the next shocking and uncomfortable killing on screen that I have ever seen. Number one in my estimation remains the opening sequence in Sam Peckinpaugh’s “Osterman Weekend,” where another blond woman is assailed by two bad men moments after making love to John Hurt who had just jumped out of bed into the shower. Suddenly these two men break in, hold her down while one of them takes a long hypodermic needle and injects something lethal into her brain by going up her nose with a long needle. She’s dead in seconds. That scene still rattles my cage and disturbs my sleep. It’s not only the method of killing but the abruptness of the scene and how it was accomplished in less than a minute that is so creepy and disconcerning.
After I did my 30 laps in the pool at LA Fitness I walked across the street to Blockbuster’s to pick up “Sunshine Cleaning” only to find it’s not available to next week. So instead I picked up four films more or less at random, at least two of them straight-to-video type films. The one I decided to see first was something called “Surveillance,” a film directed by David Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer, starring Bill Pullman and the lovely Julia Ormand. David Lynch was also listed as Executive Producer. Right from the opening sequence, of a grisly murder, you could see the influence of father on daughter. The scene was dark, obscure, and unexplained. Altogether it was a strange and violent film: If I counted correctly there were 14 murders. Those are Tarantino totals. Bloody mayhem. It was extreme, ghoulish, and bizarre, like the director wanted to rub your face in it, with there also being an underlying absurdity to the killings, almost as if they were recreational, like in the recent film, “Funny Games,” directed by Michael Haneke. There are references made to two black-clothed killers wearing bag masks in the opening sequence and in a few flashbacks but we don’t find out who they are till the last quarter of the picture. Their Identity is something of a surprising twist.
The story starts out with two FBI agents, Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) and Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormand) arriving at a police station in the middle of god-forsaken country out West somewhere. There is the usual conflict between the local police, who are atypical and sometimes outside the law themselves, and the FBI, who want to interrogate everyone, including some officers, about the death of one cop and several other people on a nearby highway. The agents act with decorum and take over, with Elizabeth grilling with sensitivity an 8 year old girl, one of two survivors of the highway killings. But the agents knew what happened because they were there; it turns out they are the psychotic killers in disguise. The only person who figured that out early was the little girl, who whispers in Hallaway’s ear, “I know who you are.” That kicks off the bloody last section of the film. Elizabeth goes off with two officers to investigate the murders we saw at the beginning of the film, the killing of the real agents, but one of the cops finds some photographs in the back seat that show erotic scenes between Sam and Liz, which forces her hand and she kills them both. Meanwhile back at the station Sam has revealed his true identity and starts killing cops, leaving only the other survivor, a pretty blond cokehead. Lynch is saving her for the finale. When Liz comes back to the station their passion for each other is revealed; they are literally MAD for each other. Liz takes off her belt, gives it to her lover, climbs on the blonde’s lap, and starts to kiss and fondle her, while Sam puts the belt around her neck and slowly tightens it, killing the blond woman while Liz continues to passionately kiss her. That really gets the couple off, and shortly afterward they drive off, their dirty work completed. They see the little girl off in a field. Sam says to his mate, “Because she guessed who we were, I am going to let her live.” Liz smiles and says, “That is so romantic.”
I once saw on film one of David Lynch’s paintings, which had rotten meat on it that was filled with maggots crawling around the surface of the painting. Looking at this movie was comparable to looking at that painting. If there is a category below low-life, the characters in this movie inhabit that category, and that includes the scummy cops.
The erotized murder of the blonde was the next shocking and uncomfortable killing on screen that I have ever seen. Number one in my estimation remains the opening sequence in Sam Peckinpaugh’s “Osterman Weekend,” where another blond woman is assailed by two bad men moments after making love to John Hurt who had just jumped out of bed into the shower. Suddenly these two men break in, hold her down while one of them takes a long hypodermic needle and injects something lethal into her brain by going up her nose with a long needle. She’s dead in seconds. That scene still rattles my cage and disturbs my sleep. It’s not only the method of killing but the abruptness of the scene and how it was accomplished in less than a minute that is so creepy and disconcerning.
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Outrage
Aug. 23, 2009 (Journal Notes)
I saw “The Outrage” last night, Martin Ritt’s take on Kurosawa’s film “Rashomon.” I had seen it before but it had been many years since I last saw it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I thought it was a great script, and I thought Edward G. Robinson did a marvelous job as the cynical con-man. Before writing about it I thought I’d look it up to get some basic info, but to my surprise I couldn’t find a thing about it in Martin & Porter for 2007, none of Pauline Kael’s books mention it, and neither does David Thomson in his listing of a thousand films. I wondered why it was ignored; skipped over when it is obviously a solid film, even more if you ask me. It was listed with the 500 best Westerns.
The story is set up so well, with the three men in the train station, which is decrepit, while a heavy rain pours down, creating a gloomy ambience for the three men who have gathered there. There is the delusion preacher (William Shatner), the absolutist who believes truth should be one and unassailable; the old prospector (Howard de Silva), who hides his version of “the truth” to the last; and the con-man (Edgar G. Robinson) who is there to prick the balloons of idealism floated by the other two. While sitting in foul weather the con-man persuades them to tell the story of the trial held the day before, which is still fast on their minds—actually, more like an acid eating into their guts. At first it’s just away to past the time till the train arrives, but as the tale unfolds it becomes the perfect foil for the con-man to deliver his merciless and insightful attack on this foolish, dishonest, and pathetic humanity who wouldn’t recognize truth if they sat on it.
The story is told in flashback from four perspectives. The prospector had found a dead man with a knife buried in his chest and reported it to the sheriff who arrests Jose Carrasco (Paul Newman) who was found asleep under a tree near the sight of the murder. Carrasco is a notorious bandit well-known in the Arizona territory, and the locals would love to pin the killing on him just to rid the territory of him. We hear Carrasco’s story first at his trial for the murder of the gentleman; and it’s full of his egotism and bravado, as he touts his own mastery of fighting, having killed the man in a duel of honor, and his power over women as the genteel lady he snares, along with her husband, falls for his sexual charisma. He had stopped them on the trail and then kidnapped the pair; the man, a Southern gentleman (Lawrence Harvey), he ties to a tree and rapes the woman, who to some extent enjoys the experience. When she tells her story there’s no question she enjoyed the encounter with Carrasco and her husband treats her with contempt, as he was witness to their embraces and love-making, later accusing her of inviting the rape. Angered by his view and snobbery she kills him with his knife. The husband has a story too, which he told to an old Indian who found him still alive but dying. He claimed he had killed himself over the humiliation by accidently falling on his knife while fighting with Carrasco. As each of these different versions are unraveled the con-man delivers biting discourses on the folly of human nature, and Robinson gives these speeches with plenty of brio and black humor, taking no guff from the other two who are too tender-minded as far as he is concerned.
But there is a 4th version and that belongs to the prospector who claims to have witnessed the whole charade. His telling is broad and comical, a kind of absurdist summing up of the event. It leaves everyone involved without much dignity and looking quite foolish, with the gentleman this time killing himself quite deliberately. We also learn why the fancy murder knife wasn’t found. Some old reviews treat the 4th version as definitive but it’s hardly that; it just one more telling by someone with a stake in the telling.
One thing I didn’t like was the finding of the baby in a room at the train station; it is no more that foil to encourage the prospector and especially the preacher back to rejoin the society they had temporarily been disillusioned with due to this rape and murder. It was an improbable event at best.
The movie cleverly argues truth is subjective and shaped by the storyteller’s investment in a situation; they will always color things in their own favor. Carrasco make himself out to be commanding in the situation with the Southern pair; in her version her sexuality made him jump through some her hoops. He also said the gentleman was a good fighter but he was better. But the prospector said the so-called duel between them was a farce, as both were scared to death and acted cowardly.
Newman was enjoyable as a Mexican bandit, although a bit too broad and too comical throughout, although that did not bother me very much, as clearly he and Robinson had the job of being comic relief to the tale of murder and rape. To see the movie these days, it would have to be through Netflix.
I saw “The Outrage” last night, Martin Ritt’s take on Kurosawa’s film “Rashomon.” I had seen it before but it had been many years since I last saw it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I thought it was a great script, and I thought Edward G. Robinson did a marvelous job as the cynical con-man. Before writing about it I thought I’d look it up to get some basic info, but to my surprise I couldn’t find a thing about it in Martin & Porter for 2007, none of Pauline Kael’s books mention it, and neither does David Thomson in his listing of a thousand films. I wondered why it was ignored; skipped over when it is obviously a solid film, even more if you ask me. It was listed with the 500 best Westerns.
The story is set up so well, with the three men in the train station, which is decrepit, while a heavy rain pours down, creating a gloomy ambience for the three men who have gathered there. There is the delusion preacher (William Shatner), the absolutist who believes truth should be one and unassailable; the old prospector (Howard de Silva), who hides his version of “the truth” to the last; and the con-man (Edgar G. Robinson) who is there to prick the balloons of idealism floated by the other two. While sitting in foul weather the con-man persuades them to tell the story of the trial held the day before, which is still fast on their minds—actually, more like an acid eating into their guts. At first it’s just away to past the time till the train arrives, but as the tale unfolds it becomes the perfect foil for the con-man to deliver his merciless and insightful attack on this foolish, dishonest, and pathetic humanity who wouldn’t recognize truth if they sat on it.
The story is told in flashback from four perspectives. The prospector had found a dead man with a knife buried in his chest and reported it to the sheriff who arrests Jose Carrasco (Paul Newman) who was found asleep under a tree near the sight of the murder. Carrasco is a notorious bandit well-known in the Arizona territory, and the locals would love to pin the killing on him just to rid the territory of him. We hear Carrasco’s story first at his trial for the murder of the gentleman; and it’s full of his egotism and bravado, as he touts his own mastery of fighting, having killed the man in a duel of honor, and his power over women as the genteel lady he snares, along with her husband, falls for his sexual charisma. He had stopped them on the trail and then kidnapped the pair; the man, a Southern gentleman (Lawrence Harvey), he ties to a tree and rapes the woman, who to some extent enjoys the experience. When she tells her story there’s no question she enjoyed the encounter with Carrasco and her husband treats her with contempt, as he was witness to their embraces and love-making, later accusing her of inviting the rape. Angered by his view and snobbery she kills him with his knife. The husband has a story too, which he told to an old Indian who found him still alive but dying. He claimed he had killed himself over the humiliation by accidently falling on his knife while fighting with Carrasco. As each of these different versions are unraveled the con-man delivers biting discourses on the folly of human nature, and Robinson gives these speeches with plenty of brio and black humor, taking no guff from the other two who are too tender-minded as far as he is concerned.
But there is a 4th version and that belongs to the prospector who claims to have witnessed the whole charade. His telling is broad and comical, a kind of absurdist summing up of the event. It leaves everyone involved without much dignity and looking quite foolish, with the gentleman this time killing himself quite deliberately. We also learn why the fancy murder knife wasn’t found. Some old reviews treat the 4th version as definitive but it’s hardly that; it just one more telling by someone with a stake in the telling.
One thing I didn’t like was the finding of the baby in a room at the train station; it is no more that foil to encourage the prospector and especially the preacher back to rejoin the society they had temporarily been disillusioned with due to this rape and murder. It was an improbable event at best.
The movie cleverly argues truth is subjective and shaped by the storyteller’s investment in a situation; they will always color things in their own favor. Carrasco make himself out to be commanding in the situation with the Southern pair; in her version her sexuality made him jump through some her hoops. He also said the gentleman was a good fighter but he was better. But the prospector said the so-called duel between them was a farce, as both were scared to death and acted cowardly.
Newman was enjoyable as a Mexican bandit, although a bit too broad and too comical throughout, although that did not bother me very much, as clearly he and Robinson had the job of being comic relief to the tale of murder and rape. To see the movie these days, it would have to be through Netflix.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Bill Clinton to the Rescue
Bill Clinton to the Rescue
Like many other Americans, I watched the joyous homecoming of Laura Ling and Euna Lee and the discreet behavior of President Bill Clinton who finally got used wisely. Clinton stayed in the background and never uttered a public word at the scene at the Burbank airport. I choked up when little Hana, Lee’s four year old daughter, leaped into her mother’s arms and hung on her as if she intended to never let go again. It was a gotcha moment for me. A few tears dripped from my eyes.
Obviously, the only way to get those women back was with the appropriate bait, with Bill Clinton, who is widely admired throughout the world, including in Kim Jong-il’s court. Kim has coveted getting Bill Clinton to his country ever since he was president. There was good reason for a meeting to happen on both sides. But first many things, official matters, had to worked out; American officials had to get all their ducks in a row, a private plane had to be secured for the flight, and the deal had to be done before the plane took off. That took a while, probably a few weeks. A wealthy benefactor, Stephen Bing, a friend of Bill Clinton’s, offered his plane and even went so far as to pay the $200,000 it would take to go back and forth to Asia, and for incidentals, like the catering for the folks who went with Clinton, like John Podesta. Friends like that can grease just about any wheel.
The posed pictures of the two men look similar to Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, but stiffer, with frozen non-smiles on their faces. Clinton looked like a healthy giant next to the frail-looking diminutive dictator, who supposedly has been in ill-health. But the informal shots of Kim were quite different; he appeared more animated and in one photograph his eyes were bright with admiration for the man sitting across the table from him. There was no doubt in his mind that he could deal with Bill Clinton where he could not with the Bush crowd. This president had been sensitive enough to send Kim a letter of condolence when his father died. Small things like that can add up to something later on. It added to the aura and appeal of the American statesman.
Afterwards I read the column of Mo Dowd in the TIMES. Her rendition of the freeing of the two journalists was annoying as hell, having little to do with them. She treated them as small fry. She brushed aside the human aspect of their story and focused on it as a contest between Bill and Hillary. It was a chance for Bill to outshine Hillary who had left the same day for a lousy ten day trip to Africa, nothing of any prestige. Score one for Billy Boy in his endless combat with his ambitious, competitive wife who boxes in the same ring. What kind of crap is that? Dowd also contended that the experience of Bill was part of a “revenge plot” by Kim. He was upset over Hillary’s comment about the North Koreans acting like “misbehaving children.” Dowd called it “giving the limelight to Daddy punishing Mommy.” Why should Hillary be put off by her husband doing a good thing on Humanitarian grounds? Why must motives always have to be sinister, half-unconscious subplots? This was a simple case of Bill Clinton being the right man for the job and he did it, with a minimum of egotism. End of story.
The tactic of mob disruption at Democratic town meetings on the Health Care Bill is not new; it goes back to that Shout-Down ordered by James Baker at the recount in Florida in 2000, which stopped a recount, which had time pressures, from proceeding with 10,000 votes. The other night on Rachel Maddow’s show she identified the nine members leading the charge that day, a so-called grass root uprising. Not quite. All nine were identified by name and all were political operatives, and she detailed who they worked for in the G.O.P. In addition, after Bush was declared the winner, all found lucrative positions in the Republican Administration for being good soldiers. Then as now, the Republicans would have us believe that these current ‘Mob Rules” events that are silencing debate and democracy are “just folks letting Obama know” his plan for “socialized medicine” is not going to pass muster. Of course the older “folks” don’t want Medicare touched. Once again it is political pros that are being paid by Health Industry corporations or the Republican Party to disrupt the proceedings. It is organized money doing dirty tricks. Rachel also describes several of the groups behind these disruptive tactics. They transport people to sites of meetings and hand out “talking points.” They manufacture protest, while insisting they aren’t that at all. I don’t think they will get away with this time. However, if it intensifies violence could break out.
Like many other Americans, I watched the joyous homecoming of Laura Ling and Euna Lee and the discreet behavior of President Bill Clinton who finally got used wisely. Clinton stayed in the background and never uttered a public word at the scene at the Burbank airport. I choked up when little Hana, Lee’s four year old daughter, leaped into her mother’s arms and hung on her as if she intended to never let go again. It was a gotcha moment for me. A few tears dripped from my eyes.
Obviously, the only way to get those women back was with the appropriate bait, with Bill Clinton, who is widely admired throughout the world, including in Kim Jong-il’s court. Kim has coveted getting Bill Clinton to his country ever since he was president. There was good reason for a meeting to happen on both sides. But first many things, official matters, had to worked out; American officials had to get all their ducks in a row, a private plane had to be secured for the flight, and the deal had to be done before the plane took off. That took a while, probably a few weeks. A wealthy benefactor, Stephen Bing, a friend of Bill Clinton’s, offered his plane and even went so far as to pay the $200,000 it would take to go back and forth to Asia, and for incidentals, like the catering for the folks who went with Clinton, like John Podesta. Friends like that can grease just about any wheel.
The posed pictures of the two men look similar to Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, but stiffer, with frozen non-smiles on their faces. Clinton looked like a healthy giant next to the frail-looking diminutive dictator, who supposedly has been in ill-health. But the informal shots of Kim were quite different; he appeared more animated and in one photograph his eyes were bright with admiration for the man sitting across the table from him. There was no doubt in his mind that he could deal with Bill Clinton where he could not with the Bush crowd. This president had been sensitive enough to send Kim a letter of condolence when his father died. Small things like that can add up to something later on. It added to the aura and appeal of the American statesman.
Afterwards I read the column of Mo Dowd in the TIMES. Her rendition of the freeing of the two journalists was annoying as hell, having little to do with them. She treated them as small fry. She brushed aside the human aspect of their story and focused on it as a contest between Bill and Hillary. It was a chance for Bill to outshine Hillary who had left the same day for a lousy ten day trip to Africa, nothing of any prestige. Score one for Billy Boy in his endless combat with his ambitious, competitive wife who boxes in the same ring. What kind of crap is that? Dowd also contended that the experience of Bill was part of a “revenge plot” by Kim. He was upset over Hillary’s comment about the North Koreans acting like “misbehaving children.” Dowd called it “giving the limelight to Daddy punishing Mommy.” Why should Hillary be put off by her husband doing a good thing on Humanitarian grounds? Why must motives always have to be sinister, half-unconscious subplots? This was a simple case of Bill Clinton being the right man for the job and he did it, with a minimum of egotism. End of story.
The tactic of mob disruption at Democratic town meetings on the Health Care Bill is not new; it goes back to that Shout-Down ordered by James Baker at the recount in Florida in 2000, which stopped a recount, which had time pressures, from proceeding with 10,000 votes. The other night on Rachel Maddow’s show she identified the nine members leading the charge that day, a so-called grass root uprising. Not quite. All nine were identified by name and all were political operatives, and she detailed who they worked for in the G.O.P. In addition, after Bush was declared the winner, all found lucrative positions in the Republican Administration for being good soldiers. Then as now, the Republicans would have us believe that these current ‘Mob Rules” events that are silencing debate and democracy are “just folks letting Obama know” his plan for “socialized medicine” is not going to pass muster. Of course the older “folks” don’t want Medicare touched. Once again it is political pros that are being paid by Health Industry corporations or the Republican Party to disrupt the proceedings. It is organized money doing dirty tricks. Rachel also describes several of the groups behind these disruptive tactics. They transport people to sites of meetings and hand out “talking points.” They manufacture protest, while insisting they aren’t that at all. I don’t think they will get away with this time. However, if it intensifies violence could break out.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Muslim Immigration in Europe
A fellow I went to college with 50 years ago recently reconnected with me via Facebook.com and ever since (since July 1) we have been engaged in a month long email and phone exchange covering the lost decades between us in incredible detail. We have also spent some time speculating about the future, hardly one more pessimistic than the other. For example, I am reading Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West by Chris Caldwell, a right-of-center journalist who has marshaled an impressive array of facts and statistics that strongly suggest that Islam will ultimately be dominant in Europe without firing a shot or using a suicide bomber. At the same time my old grad school chum saw a video on youtube.com that dealt with the same material. He sent it to me and I was as impressed, as the facts presented were hard, if not impossible, to refute. It concerns the coming demise of Europe as we and History have known it.
In brief, the Muslims will take over Europe by the sheer force of the many more babies they are having compared with the ‘native’ population. The last two generations of Europeans have paid heed to the idea of overpopulation; it was seen as virtuous to have fewer children than before World War ll. The Muslims, however, ignored the warnings about the population explosion, reproducing at a much higher rate (8.6 per family) than people in the West (in Europe most countries are at 1.9 down to 1.3 per family.) Demographers argue that a culture in order to sustain itself must reproduce at a rate of 2.11 kids per family. In 1945 1000,000 immigrants came to Europe to help the rebuilding of a devastated land. The thought was the workers would return to their homeland after a while, but instead a large portion of them decided to stay as the wages, opportunities, and the social welfare system was so much better than Morocco and the Middle East. This step by step ‘invasion’ of Europe is described in considerable detail by Caldwell in his well-researched book. The name of the video is Muslim Demographics. I recommend both to anyone interested in the possible consequences of thoughtless immigration. They constitute 90% of the immigrants now. By 2050 it is estimated that there will be 102,000,000 Muslims in Europe. They are gaining a foothold and they don’t assimilate, being an entity outside the EU, living in self-sustaining enclaves, preserving their culture, religion, morality, and ethnicity. German statisticians say it is too late to reverse the birth rate in Germany, and France isn’t far behind. Europe will be overwhelmed in a few decades.
These thoughts and fact-laden predictions have led me to entertain a few fantasies about the future in Europe. Just consider these possibilities: the Eiffel Tower will become where the faithful are called to prayer; Paris will be shorn of alcohol, jazz clubs, and French movies; Oktoberfest will be nothing but a memory; the Vatican will have been moved to Timbuktu and the Pope will be black and hail from Africa; Chartres,, Wells Cathedral, and St. Peter’s will be retrofitted as mosques, just like St. Sophia’s was in the 16th Century; images of the Christian trinity, Jesus, and other leading figures will be desecrated, painted over, or buried in the basements of museums; and one hesitates to guess how many great works of Western Art will bite the dust, like those Giant Buddhist sculptures did in Afghanistan several years ago that were pulverized by dynamite by the Taliban who took no regard to preserve the icons of another culture and religion. Caldwell mentions that the city of Amsterdam represents a storehouse of the art and culture of the Netherlands. Then he quotes Ayann Hirsi Ali who became a Dutch citizen and Member of Parliament. “If the citizens of Amsterdam, 60% of whom will soon be of non-Western origins, are not part of that, all of this will decay and be destroyed. When the municipality has to vote on whether funds go to preserving art or build a mosque, they may ask, ‘Why should I pay for a stupid painting.’” One trembles with fear and loathing at these possibilities.
A similar phenomenon is happening south of the equator; if it is a countervailing development I can’t say, but it could be under the right circumstances. And that is the migration of Christianity to the southern hemisphere, as it has run out of juice and clout in Northern climes. It has been dying on the vine since the close of Second World War, with eroding attendance at Sunday Mass being the main indicator of a fading religion. It has virtually disappeared from the land of its origins. It is very strong in Africa already, and growing by leaps and bounds, both the Catholic Church and Protestant sects. It is spreading in Asia too. For details of this development read the books of scholar Philip Jenkins. These new Christians could rival the Muslims in Europe in reproductive fury and numbers and they might even entertain ideas of a “crusade” to reclaim Rome and the rest of captive Europe. But problems loom: many Africans and Asians live in Shanty towns and vast slums; there is not the wealth and wherewithal that would be necessary to take back what has been lost. As in its origin, the faith of Jesus is designed for the poor.
There is no point in bemoaning these epochal transformations that are in process. It is like trying to hold back a giant boulder that is rolling down hill. And yet we must think about it. But those of us who won’t be around can merely shrug our shoulders and take our meds. And I realize Islam is a complex subject and issue, a religion with many faces and sects, and that I have simplified it to profile some facts. Plus who knows what unknown forces might change the thrust of events and change the path of the crashing rock of destiny. Or as my old college mate put it, “Perhaps Gawd will intervene.”
In brief, the Muslims will take over Europe by the sheer force of the many more babies they are having compared with the ‘native’ population. The last two generations of Europeans have paid heed to the idea of overpopulation; it was seen as virtuous to have fewer children than before World War ll. The Muslims, however, ignored the warnings about the population explosion, reproducing at a much higher rate (8.6 per family) than people in the West (in Europe most countries are at 1.9 down to 1.3 per family.) Demographers argue that a culture in order to sustain itself must reproduce at a rate of 2.11 kids per family. In 1945 1000,000 immigrants came to Europe to help the rebuilding of a devastated land. The thought was the workers would return to their homeland after a while, but instead a large portion of them decided to stay as the wages, opportunities, and the social welfare system was so much better than Morocco and the Middle East. This step by step ‘invasion’ of Europe is described in considerable detail by Caldwell in his well-researched book. The name of the video is Muslim Demographics. I recommend both to anyone interested in the possible consequences of thoughtless immigration. They constitute 90% of the immigrants now. By 2050 it is estimated that there will be 102,000,000 Muslims in Europe. They are gaining a foothold and they don’t assimilate, being an entity outside the EU, living in self-sustaining enclaves, preserving their culture, religion, morality, and ethnicity. German statisticians say it is too late to reverse the birth rate in Germany, and France isn’t far behind. Europe will be overwhelmed in a few decades.
These thoughts and fact-laden predictions have led me to entertain a few fantasies about the future in Europe. Just consider these possibilities: the Eiffel Tower will become where the faithful are called to prayer; Paris will be shorn of alcohol, jazz clubs, and French movies; Oktoberfest will be nothing but a memory; the Vatican will have been moved to Timbuktu and the Pope will be black and hail from Africa; Chartres,, Wells Cathedral, and St. Peter’s will be retrofitted as mosques, just like St. Sophia’s was in the 16th Century; images of the Christian trinity, Jesus, and other leading figures will be desecrated, painted over, or buried in the basements of museums; and one hesitates to guess how many great works of Western Art will bite the dust, like those Giant Buddhist sculptures did in Afghanistan several years ago that were pulverized by dynamite by the Taliban who took no regard to preserve the icons of another culture and religion. Caldwell mentions that the city of Amsterdam represents a storehouse of the art and culture of the Netherlands. Then he quotes Ayann Hirsi Ali who became a Dutch citizen and Member of Parliament. “If the citizens of Amsterdam, 60% of whom will soon be of non-Western origins, are not part of that, all of this will decay and be destroyed. When the municipality has to vote on whether funds go to preserving art or build a mosque, they may ask, ‘Why should I pay for a stupid painting.’” One trembles with fear and loathing at these possibilities.
A similar phenomenon is happening south of the equator; if it is a countervailing development I can’t say, but it could be under the right circumstances. And that is the migration of Christianity to the southern hemisphere, as it has run out of juice and clout in Northern climes. It has been dying on the vine since the close of Second World War, with eroding attendance at Sunday Mass being the main indicator of a fading religion. It has virtually disappeared from the land of its origins. It is very strong in Africa already, and growing by leaps and bounds, both the Catholic Church and Protestant sects. It is spreading in Asia too. For details of this development read the books of scholar Philip Jenkins. These new Christians could rival the Muslims in Europe in reproductive fury and numbers and they might even entertain ideas of a “crusade” to reclaim Rome and the rest of captive Europe. But problems loom: many Africans and Asians live in Shanty towns and vast slums; there is not the wealth and wherewithal that would be necessary to take back what has been lost. As in its origin, the faith of Jesus is designed for the poor.
There is no point in bemoaning these epochal transformations that are in process. It is like trying to hold back a giant boulder that is rolling down hill. And yet we must think about it. But those of us who won’t be around can merely shrug our shoulders and take our meds. And I realize Islam is a complex subject and issue, a religion with many faces and sects, and that I have simplified it to profile some facts. Plus who knows what unknown forces might change the thrust of events and change the path of the crashing rock of destiny. Or as my old college mate put it, “Perhaps Gawd will intervene.”
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