born live love die

Before Rudy, the Islamofacist Fighter, there was Rudy, the Mob Fighter.  Rudy liked to spin an image as a great crime fighter.  Uh, not so much.  As Tom Robbins calls it, the city school bus industry is riddled with mob related corruption, but Rudy couldn’t see it or smell it.

But Giuliani’s watchdogs can’t explain how he skipped over one of the most notorious nests of Mafia corruption, and one that’s a bit nearer and dearer to the public heart than putrescible waste: the city’s huge school-bus industry. Like waste carters and fishmongers, the bus operators include many honest, hard-working entrepreneurs. But there have been an awful lot of wrong numbers as well.

The union local is reported to be controlled by the mob.  How could Rudy miss that?  Read the whole thing.

I try not to get pissy. I know that nobody wants to listen to some old, overbearing, beefy guy ranting about stuff that he can’t change. But I gotta say something about this.

People are searching for avatar fashions?

We are all going to hell.

I am working on three story ideas that are rom-coms. One is about a divorced father who is not snapping out of the post-divorce funk and getting on with life. One is about a divorced father who is not snapping out of his post-divorce funk and getting on with life. The last one is about a post-divorce father who is not snapping out of a post-divorce funk and getting on with life. Yeah, I’m staying close to home in search of story material.

I find that watching sweet movies lifts my mood and helps me work on these story ideas. A few weeks ago, I saw Stardust and loved it. Last night, What a Girl Wants was on the telly and I Tivo’d it, watched part last night and part this morning.

The story is as saccharine as stories can get. Daphne grows up with her single mother in New York City, pining for her father. At 17, she goes to London to see him. Mayhem ensues. Her father is Lord Dashwood, who has resigned his seat in the House of Lords and will stand for Parliament. He is assured of victory and, as leader of his party, is the probable next Prime Minister. Henry Dashwood has a fiance and soon-to-be stepdaughter. Allusions to Sleeping Beauty abound, and Daphne remarks to her rival “My evil stepsister. I’ve read Sleeping Beauty. In the end, I win.” It isn’t like they had to hammer that story point home.

The movie’s imperfections are on noisy display. Title cards tell us what we are supposed to see, e.g., Henley Regatta, but it is clearly for American consumption. I loved the shot of Daphne’s love interest calling her from a call box with the Cutty Sark in the background. Oh, he just happened to be in Greenwich when he called her? It is clear that this movie was shot mostly on sound stages with the odd exterior shot thrown in. Londoners must really roll their eyes at this movie.  But then, movies are artifice after all.

However, the movie has Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth and Kelly Preston. Kelly Preston has never been more luminous. I don’t know how she prepared for her disjointed parts in the movie, but she shines from the inside out. Colin Firth has made a career of playing the stammering stiff bearer of moral rectitude (see Pride and Predjudice), and his rendition is note perfect here. The symphony of moral rectitude is composed mostly of major chords, and Firth uses naturals to add color, ending with a stanza of major sevenths. But Amanda Bynes captures the vibrancy of youth in all of its imperfections. She is the beating heart of this movie, true to herself and the love she seeks. She is not sophisticated, but neither is the heart. She is betrayed, but rises above it. She is resolute, as the heart must be. With her heart on brave display, we know it will be wounded. It is. But we have seen Sleeping Beauty, and we know how the story ends.  This movie works because of the humanness that Ms. Bynes brings to the treacle.

I need movies as sweet as this to recharge my romantic batteries, even if romance isn’t happening for me.

For anyone who stops to think about arguments, it is clear that arguments are won or lost in the axioms. I think that the US should leave Iraq immediately. Here are my axioms:

• Iraq is in a civil war

This should be abundantly clear to anyone who is open and rational. Two years ago, the Bush supporters were trying to debate this point, but I think most of them have given up and now concede that the sectarian violence in Iraq fits the pattern of a civil war.

• Civil wars end one of three ways -

Civil wars can end one of three ways:

1. one side can crush the other completely;
2. the sides try all military options and become war weary and seek a resolution;
3. outside agents, neighbors, broker a cessation of hostilities to keep a war from engulfing them.

The first won’t happen because no one player has the resources to crush the others. The Shia have been doing ethnic cleansing in Baghdad under the unintentional protection of our military for the last few years. Syria and Lebanon are now home to about 1 million refugees, all Sunni. The military power of the Sunni has been degraded, not broken. The Sunni countries that neighbor Iraq will not allow the Sunnis to be driven entirely from Iraq.

A combination of the second and third options will happen in the absence of the US military. The neighboring countries will arm the various factions and warfare will not be more severe than it is now. Right now, the US military is keeping the roads open and it allows for arms to be smuggled easily. Without the roads being open, the free flow of arms would be restricted. The neighboring countries, many of them corrupt kleptocracies of one sort or another, would be forced to deal with the regional issue. Two possible outcomes: Syria gets split from Iran’s influence; the friction caused by these states having to actually be responsible for things rubbing against modern technology and trade may cause real, organic change.

• Governments exist to establish a predictable system, provide stability, etc.

The purpose of government is not to acquire power. Politicians may seek this, but this is not the purpose of government. A government cannot enslave people indefinitely. Saddam’s Sunnis, while a minority, controlled the levers of power in Iraq, but they needed some amount of complicity on the part of Shia to stay in power.

Sectarian leaders in Iraq are currently free to ignore the responsibilities of government. Because the US is providing security and trying to actually provide the essential elements of government, e.g., services, infrastructure, sectarian leaders are free to ignore what one would normally consider the responsibilities of government and focus on the accretion of power.  This is why we should leave immediately.  We tell them that we are leaving and that we will help rebuild the country when they have settled their differences.  The sectarian leaders of Iraq currently have no vested interest in a political settlement and will not attempt one as long as there are gains of power still in play.

The best example in recent years was in the former Yugoslavia.  Serbians attempted ethnic cleansing in Kosovo until the US, against the advice of the European powers, arranged for the Kosavars to be armed.  When they had the ability to fight back, the Serbians backed off and a cessation of hostilities was arranged.  The European powers feared a widening conflict, but the conflict was contained and resolved.
I’ve made my case for withdrawing immediately. Yes, there would be bloodshed, but no more than now, where ethnic cleansing is going on under our unintentionally ignorant noses.

So, I’m dissing Miles and praising Coltrane. Here is Coltrane.

John Coltrane writes in the notes to A LOVE SUPREME:

During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.

At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.

Text of
A LOVE SUPREME
by John Coltrane

(Impulse Record AS-77)

I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee, O Lord.
It all has to do with it.
Thank You God.

Peace. There is none other.
God is. It is so beautiful.
Thank You God.

God is all.
Help us to resolve our fears and weaknesses.
In you all things are possible.
Thank you God.

We know. God made us so.
Keep your eye on God.
God is. He always was. He always will be.

No matter what… it is God.
He is gracious and merciful.
It is most important that I know Thee.

Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, throughts,
fears and emotions–time–all related
all made from one… all made in one.

Blessed be his name.
Thought wavesheat wavesall vibrations
all paths lead to God. Thank you God.

His way… it is so lovely… it is gracious.
It is merciful–Thank you God.
One thought can produce millions of vibrations
and they all go back to God everything does.

Thank you God.
Have no fear… believe… Thank you God.
The universe has many wonders. God is all.

His way… it is so wonderful.
Thoughts–deeds–vibrations,
all go back to God and He cleanses all.

He is gracious and merciful… Thank you God.
Glory to God… God is so alive.
God is.
God loves.

May I be acceptable in Thy sight.

We are all one in His grace.
The fact that we do exist is acknowledgement
of Thee, O Lord.
Thank you God.

God will wash away all our tears
He always has…
He always will.

Seek him everyday. In all ways seek God everyday.
Let us sing all songs to God.
To whom all praise is due… praise God.

No road is an easy one, but they all
go back to God.

With all we share God.
It is all with God.
It is all with Thee.

Obey the Lord.
Blessed is He.

We are all from one thing the will of God
Thank you God.

–I have seen ungodly–
none can be greater–none can compare
Thank you God.

He will remake… He always has and He
always will.
Its true–blessed be His name–Thank you God.

God breathes through us so completely…
so gently we hardly feel it… yet,
it is our everything.

Thank you God.

ELATION–ELEGANCE–EXALTATION–
All from God.

Thank you God. Amen.

I try to separate the art from the artist. By most accounts, Miles was a jerk, but Coltrane was not. By the way, check out the hep cats walking around on the stage, talking.

Jimmie Eat World blew up MTV with “The Middle”.  Here’s a twofer.

Here is the original, shot by D.A. Pennebaker.

Here is Weird Al’s note perfect sendup.

I was driving around listening to this song and it was a good moment.

There is one word that George Will does not use, arrogance, in his blather post, probably because he doesn’t want to remind people of his general demeanor.  He recounts the failure that was the Ford Edsel, with smugness and sarcasm dripping from each paragraph.  Then there is this:

In 1958, with the Edsel already turned to ashes, John Kenneth Galbraith, with bad timing comparable to the launch of the Edsel, published “The Affluent Society.” It asserted that manufacturers, wielding all-powerful advertising, were emancipated from the law of supply and demand because advertisers could manufacture demand for whatever manufacturers wished to supply.

This theory buttressed the liberal project of expanding government in the name of protecting incompetent Americans from victimization and having government supplant the market as the allocator of wealth and opportunity. But all of Ford’s then-mighty marketing prowess could not keep the Edsel from being canceled in 1959. Brooks calculated that it would have been cheaper for Ford to skip the Edsel and give away 110,000 Mercurys.

Today, the United Auto Workers union and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are trying to reverse the slide of the American automobile industry. Fifty Septembers ago, the country was atingle with anticipation of a new product that turned out to be a leading indicator of the slide. As Detroit toils to undo some contractual provisions that have burdened the companies with crippling health-care and pension costs, it should remember the real lesson of 1957: Americans are more discerning and less herdable than their cultured despisers suppose, so what matters most is simple — good products.

This column reads like a parable about the Iraq war.  There was arrogance aplenty, as the neo-cons thought they could manufacture demand for Neo-Con brand of democracy, when what the people in Iraq wanted was clean water, security and a chance to live.