I BEEN TO THE FLICKERS

Here's those movie reviews I been savin' up.
[Those watched while trapped in an airborne pressurized passenger-tube, mostly Air Canada, will hereinafter be designated as “SOAP” -- Snakes on a Plane.]

Borat ** Talledega Nights ** The Lake House ** The Last Kiss ** Apocalypto ** The Break-Up ** Devil Wears Prada ** Click ** Casino Royale ** The Queen ** The Illusionist ** The Da Vinci Code

Here we go:

BORAT

Oh, the tragedy of Jew-on-Jew violence!

Well, not really. But a number of prominent Jewish conservative pundits did not appreciate Sacha Baron Cohen’s bizarre pseudo-documentary BORAT, and they came out slugging— most notably, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post. I love Charlie on just about every subject, and he does hit some homers on this one. Money quotes:

With anti-Semitism reemerging in Europe and rampant in the Islamic world; with Iran acquiring the ultimate weapon of genocide and proclaiming its intention to wipe out the world's largest Jewish community (Israel); with America and, in particular, its Christian evangelicals the only remaining Gentile constituency anywhere willing to defend that besieged Jewish outpost -- is the American heartland really the locus of anti-Semitism? Is this the one place to go to find it?...

Baron Cohen could easily have found what he seeks closer to home. He is, after all, from Europe, where synagogues are torched and cemeteries desecrated in a revival of anti-Semitism -- not "indifference" to but active -- unseen since the Holocaust. Where a Jew is singled out for torture and death by French-African thugs…

Yet, amid this gathering darkness, an alarming number of liberal Jews are seized with the notion that the real threat lurks deep in the hearts of American Protestants, most specifically Southern evangelicals.

Krauthammer was joined by the chorus of David Brooks (New York Times), and David Frum and Jonah Goldberg (National Review)

Brooks nailed some truths straight on the head in his editorial on the "Heyday of Snobbery":

The genius of Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance is his sycophantic reverence for his audience, his refusal to challenge the sacred cows of the educated bourgeoisie. During the movie, Borat ridicules Pentecostals, gun owners, car dealers, hicks, humorless feminists, the Southern gentry, Southern frat boys, and rodeo cowboys. A safer list it is impossible to imagine.

Cohen understands that when you are telling socially insecure audiences they are superior to their fellow citizens there is no need to be subtle. He also understands that any hint of actually questioning the cultural suppositions of his ticket-buyers — say by ridiculing the pretensions of somebody at a Starbucks or a Whole Foods Market — would fatally mar the self-congratulatory aura of the enterprise.

David Frum quotes, in amazement (considering the source) George Saunders of The New Yorker

Jonah Goldberg chimed in, acknowledging that he found the film funny despite its fallacious flaws and fundamental meanness.

Other (non-Jewish) commentators weighed in with their doubts and denigrations, folks as diverse as Christopher Hitchens at Slate (biff! pow!) and Father Richard John Neuhaus at First Things

Frankly I think Brooks, Krauthammer, and Saunders score touchés on just about everything, but I still couldn’t hold their points against the film because I was laughing too hard. (This constitutes a public confession of my appetite for low-grade, poop-based comedy of cruelty.)

The critics are absolutely right that there is nothing daring about Borat—Baron Cohen picks easy targets, who eventually get around to fulfilling some particle of people’s worst expectations of them, based on the political left’s acceptable prejudice against conservative/Bible-belt Americans, and their confident belief that if you scratch anyone in that demographic you’ll find a racist, theocratic homophobe lingering just beneath the surface.

However, it’s worth remembering that Sacha Baron Cohen didn’t force anyone to go on camera and play a few rounds of one of America’s new favourite sports: rank exhibitionism. He didn’t force them to say or do anything that turned out to look embarrassing. He lied to them about what he was up to, but he did nothing to make them be other than who they are. Complaints that Borat’s journey selected the south rather than the north, conservatives rather than liberals, fundamentalists & Pentecostals rather than boring old Catholics, boorish college hose-heads rather than National Merit Scholars, are all accurate-- but irrelevant. Baron Cohen can make whatever movie he wants—he doesn’t have to be “fair” or make the movie we wish he’d made.

If some conservative wants to go out and “BORAT” Planned Parenthood, the Moveon.org/Daily Kos/Democratic Underground circle, or the inhabitants of Martha’s Vineyard, he or she is free to do so. That would be daring, and it would be hilarious and satisfying.

And I’m guessing that the basic myopia and humorlessness of smug liberals would guarantee that (a) they could still be unwittingly BORAT-ed by somebody clever, who came across as breathtakingly earnest, and (b) they wouldn’t display a fraction of the forbearance and acceptance toward the interloper that Borat’s conservative hosts did towards him. Rather, I suspect things would go sour very quickly when a conservative Borat began to challenge the comfort levels of his liberal victims, and it would all end with a lot of screaming and threats and lawyers.

My [Canadian] husband’s first response to seeing Borat was to say that Mr. Baron Cohen just proved that Americans are some of the friendliest, most hospitable people on earth. Borat offers his hosts a steady stream of embarrassment and discomfort, ranging from mere social awkwardness to blatant personal insults (like the poor “church lady” at dinner whom he humiliates by saying she’s not attractive), and yet they keep making allowances and trying to smoothe things over. Mostly Borat is permitted a gracious exit whether he deserves it or not, and only once does he drive people past their limit of tolerance. (This remains true in the deleted scenes available on YouTube.) In his sole venture into liberal territory, it’s the feminists who turn on him faster than anyone, and give us a glimpse of how that other movie would look if someone were to make it.

Part of me wishes that Baron Cohen had made two or three of these films before releasing any of them, so he could try his luck with different premises and different types of people—thereby extracting more laughs for his audience before exhausting the device. Unfortunately Borat has slobber-kissed his last unsuspecting victim, having proved, via various promotional appearances for the film, that the device is already past its shelf-life. The element of surprise was everything.

Anyhow, Borat is vulgar, mean-spirited, one-sided, probably socially corrupting, and pants-wettingly funny. One Jewish conservative who agrees is long-time film critic Michael Medved, who expended just one of his “movie minutes” on the film, calling it “simultaneously hilarious and cringe-inducing,” but gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars. His message to the nay-sayers, in a nutshell: “Take a chill-pill.” And kick back and laugh.


TALLADEGA NIGHTS

I tried watching a Will Ferrell movie once—Anchorman had the enthusiastic endorsement of my eldest son, so I really tried. But in less than half an hour I bailed out from sheer boredom. However, I had a feeling Talledega Nights was going to sit better with me, and indeed it did.

Stupid, vulgar, totally bananas, but lots of laughs, and a hilarious turn by our friend Sacha Baron Cohen as the Fwench guy. Upon seeing it, one couldn’t help but wonder what had possessed people to remake a Peter Sellers/Pink Panther movie with Steve Martin instead of this guy—Baron Cohen would have been a classic Clouseau. Ferrell’s adventure in grace-before-dinner has to be one of the funniest bits I’ve ever seen. One of the truly great wastes of time Hollywood ever produced.


THE LAKE HOUSE (SOAP)

Love Sandra Bullock—can’t help it. Or, more to the point, I like her—even when she plays unlikable people (28 Days) you end up liking her. The premise of The Lake House is pretty tortured, the kind of thing you wouldn’t expect Hollywood to proffer any time after about 1960, but I was willing to go along with it.

Unfortunately, I’m very seldom willing to go along with Keanu Reeves. He made a good cardboard villain in Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, and a cardboard hero in the Matrices, but cardboard only gets you so far. He was ridiculous, the moreso being opposite Bullock, in the Speeds, but at least you had a flying bus to enjoy. Here at the Lake there’s just him—bleah. Bullock is touching, and likable, but the film is pretty thin. While it’s refreshing to see anything out of Hollywood which recommends the virtue of waiting patiently without hot sex, possibly for years, there’s still not much to it. Glad I didn’t pay 13 bucks for a ticket.


THE LAST KISS (SOAP)

Zach Braff is my male Sandra Bullock—I can’t begin to explain it, but I just find both of them completely likable. Braff’s first film (a sort-of autobiographical piece which he wrote and directed—whoa! Gonads!) was Garden State, not a bad virgin venture, but a bit too lead-footed on the melodrama-pedal, with some scenery-chewing acting by the young auteur.

The Last Kiss was a step up, better-written (though the ending was a little abrupt and weird—Braff claims to have written it—it’s not to brag of, buddy), with good chemistry between Zach and the chick (Jacinda Barrett), and good character actors in other roles. Except that O.C. chick (Rachel Bilson) as the tempting tart — e-e-e-ew. Braff’s Michael completely deserves to have Barrett’s Jenna go all medieval on him (Peter Abelard-style)—and you’re even more p.o.’d at him for cheating on her with such a vacuous little sleaze like Kim/Summer/Rachel. Blech.

Once the news broke of the “Depends” angle on the Lisa Nowak story—the lady Astro-nutter who made a hell-bent homicidal cross-country dash wearing diapers to, er, eliminate the need for potty stops— I couldn’t help but recall my thoughts in a similar vein as Zach Braff camped out on his porch for three days awaiting reconciliation with the Last Kiss girl-friend: was I the only one wondering why we were being asked to accept the half-century-old film convention in which people never pee for days on end? No detectable diapers on Braff—did he desert his post to head for the garden? Did the gay couple next door give him squatter’s rights? (But leave him to freeze in the rain?) Just curious. Made the ending even weirder.

Still, I like watching the Braff-man doing just about anything. So far. He could always make a Cronenberg film and screw that up real fast.


We got clipped (oh!) by APOCALYPTO

Maybe, for some weird reason, critics were trying to make peace with Mel Giblets when the meme began to spread that, whatever one may think of his personal quirks (including his drunken tirades), in Apocalypto he had made a really great film—one of the bloodiest ever made but nevertheless exciting to watch and brilliantly crafted.

‘Scuse me?

As an artwork, Gibson has surpassed himself with the art direction and editing of Apocalypto, but plot-wise it all goes flat. The build-up to the catastrophe can get simply tedious. The expository effort to establish the painted and pierced jungle community as “just folks” has a certain silliness to it—not that it’s entirely unbelievable, but it's overly earnest and tries too hard. (And takes too long.) Then the hero’s great escape never really departs from a monotone—there is one crisis with one principal threat to it, and it unrolls in a straight line. The concomitant threat to Jaguar Paw’s wife is also tinged with silliness.

In between those sequences, however, lies a portrait of the Mayan court, informed by both imagination and the grab-bag of archaeological fact and theory that constitutes our knowledge of this vanished society. You’d have to bring a bit of knowledge of the background to your viewing of the film in order to understand some of what you’re seeing— for example, the slaves in the lime pits making mortar for their Mayan lords’ out-of-control building program. And if you’ve read anything about Mayan sacrificial rituals you’ll know that, while the film’s rendition of them is pretty disgusting, it could justifiably have been a whole lot worse.

Gross-out qualities aside, Gibson’s portrait of the colour and lavish costume details of the court and priesthood, and of the architectural configurations, which so perfectly realizes all the images that have come down to us from Mayan carving and paintings, is nothing short of breathtaking. The faces of most of the cast, especially in profile, make it clear that even if something called the Mayan civilization has disappeared [historical note: that happened long before the first Spanish foot hit the beach, Mel—spare me!], the Mayan people themselves have endured to this day.

This feat of historical re-creation we enjoyed no end. But our larger assessment of the film in general was: it's a DUD. D.O.A. The plot was skinny, the complications not so complicated, the whole bag just not all that exciting. It was very environmentally friendly, though: Gibson was recycling his favourite visual and character motifs all the way along.

Actually, I suspect it was the film’s portrayal of a devastated environment in a society of bloodthirsty religious fanatics that got the tinsel-town commentators on side with Mel.

Gibson’s own attempt to draw parallels to “fear-mongering” by the Bush administration is comically off-the-beam. It’s not “fear-mongering” when, like Jaguar Paw’s forest friends, you’ve got something to be genuinely afraid of— for instance, people who’ll cut your head off to appease their god. We live in a world where a substantial population of armed aggressors is still doing exactly that.

Faced as we are with a literally identical threat, to try and draw some strained symbolic parallel between Mayan savagery and American military adventurism or political dominance, is just…well…stupid. The only valid parallel here might be between American soldiers in a foreign land surrounded by practitioners of tribal violence and the hapless captives lined up atop the pyramid. Except our soldiers' hands are tied not by their enemies so much as by their own government.

Back to the movies: Gibson’s little hat-tip to Apocalypse Now when Jaguar Paw steps out of the mud-hole was amusing. And as for the gore—while I’m not an afficianado of blood & guts films, I could think of several mainstream films with far queasier images: Saving Private Ryan, Last of the Mohicans, Glory, and Catch-22 come to mind. Even Braveheart pulled its punches compared to these four, most especially in the scene of Wallace’s execution, which was a totally pansy version of that particularly English blood-sport. Gibson, for all his reputation as a gore-monger, really only pulled the stops out in Passion of the Christ (and he had more than a millennium of equally graphic story-telling and art history as precedent for that).

Sorry. Apocalypto is a bit of a snooze.


THE BREAK-UP (SOAP)

A-A-A-A-G-G-G-G-H-H-H-H!!!!!!!

Trapped on a plane with limited time, the only thing that kept me watching this film was morbid curiosity. In pointless fascination, I just had to know whether at any time during this film would I meet a single character who wasn’t completely dislikeable, if not downright repulsive, and whether it would ever succeed in presenting me a single reason why I should care what happened to any of them. Didn’t happen.

I suspect that many in the audience for this film recognized people they knew— people who are unremittingly selfish, shallow, and basically bestial. How grateful I am that I can’t think of a single close friend or passing acquaintance whose life parallels these wretched wastes-of-space in any material way. They are the stuff of legend to me, and let’s keep it that way.

Moving on.


THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (SOAP)

My sister has three grown daughters, and they are sometimes the only conduit I have for recommendations regarding “chick-flicks.” They all loved this one. There’s some great acting in it—Meryl Streep is at her best, which frankly doesn’t happen all that much, and Stanley Tucci does a great turn.

But, sorry, guess I’m just an old crank who spends too much time worrying about car-bombs— once again, this is one of those films where I just don’t care what happens to anybody. They are absorbed and obsessed with a world outside of reality, the business of which is of no importance whatsoever. If they suffer, it’s for nothing worth suffering about (except maybe losing one’s family, which Streep’s character does with precious little thought—depressing, but robbed of tragedy because it is impossible to sympathize with her).

Every so often I spend a few minutes watching the televised coverage of fashion shows --(part of the “news” content on a lot of Air Canada flights, now I think of it, which are screened in front of you whether you want to see them or not)-- debuting some whacked-out (and miserably-dressed) designer’s new “collection” sported by a procession of sour-faced anorexics. At these times I am reminded (as if I need to be) how detestably trivial the whole business is. Would just as soon not have watched the film—another case of morbid fascination waiting to see if I could be made to care. Didn’t happen.


CLICK (SOAP)

God bless Adam Sandler. He’s perfectly capable of good acting, and it surfaces from time to time, as he keeps offering up his quirky takes on genuine “family values.” Click involves some over-the-top scenery chewing, but I thought it was a charming story and I’m glad he keeps doing them. One could wish for a little less of the vulgarity and profanity which puts the film out of reach of the General rating, but he is who he is.

This one wasn’t as good as Spanglish, in which Sandler had top-notch material to work with—excellent performances in painfully believable roles in a serious and morally grounded script—and kept his own loopiness completely under control. Click is more in the mold of Happy Gilmore, another wonderful, screwy little gift in which the sense of right and wrong is clear and simple and self-evident. Very few of the Saturday Night Live alumni have successfully graduated to a steady film career. Sandler will never win an Oscar (hardly a measure of quality) but has created a niche for his sketch-comedy talents in a kind of Disney-with-F-words genre that is nevertheless something of a public service. And fun to boot.


CASINO ROYALE

WHO KILLED JAMES BOND?
Fun film, exciting visuals—but some angst-ridden 90’s guy was impersonating Bond. The mask slips when he doesn’t care how they make his martini.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

Female object of passion was a skinny wet noodle with all the attraction power of a plastic fridge magnet.

Bond ran like a well-trained 100-metre sprinter (bed-scene revealed he has mammoth calves). Desperately needed a tailor. Judi Dench could have eaten him for lunch any day of the week. Ball-busting torture scene was sad—less graphic than I had expected (must’ve been a male reviewer who shrieked about it)— but the day Bond cries under duress, we’ve lost our image of him. This is old-fashioned fantasy, remember? Can we be allowed to hang on to it a little longer, please? It can’t work if we start letting the world we live in intrude too far—when the filmmakers resort to that, they’ve admitted the limits to their imagination.


THE QUEEN (SOAP)

We watched the version which had been “formatted” for the airlines, that is, some idiot at headquarters had bleeped out the word “God” every single time it occurred. The excuse was that this was a newbie who thought he/she was just excising profanities. I’m skeptical—I bet it was an attempt to keep the airways a religion-free zone. However, it was ludicrous. Actual film footage from Princess Diana’s funeral saw her seething brother, Earl Spencer, encouraging the crowd to “thank [bleep] for His mercies.”

Interesting film. Everybody’s speech habits and facial expressions were excellent impersonations, and the Queen (Helen Mirren), Prince Philip (James Cromwell), and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) managed to create characters as well as imitations. Some of this “behind the curtains” speculation was quite believable, some not so much. Entertaining yarn, though.

Doesn’t change my basic opinion that because the British monarchy has long since [i.e. prior to the current Queen’s accession] evolved into an institution of HEREDITARY reign without rule, any British monarch’s principal function is to produce decent and responsible HEIRS to the throne— people of character and dedication to family and public service, REAL service, not lip service. In this the present Queen has failed miserably, with her self-indulgent, squishy, profligate, unproductive, maritally-challenged, low-church low-brow brood.

There was much about Diana to be disapproved of, but considering she got thrown to the lions at the age of nineteen by everyone including her own family, it is not surprising that she developed a set of survival strategies that were less than admirable. However, she may have made one contribution to the survival and perhaps improvement of the British monarchy that few other members of it have ever come close to: she loved her children, and let them know it— she made them mix with regular people from their toddlerhood , she let them do ordinary things, she made them wait in line to be served. So far both of them, especially Charles’s son (can there be any doubt that Harry is someone else’s? Please.), have nascent signs of some sense of how to serve in return. Jury’s still out on the two. Too bad Diana didn’t love them quite enough to wear a seat-belt. She could be raising hell to this day.

Bottom line on the film's subject: could there be anything more horrible than having your mere life be your whole career, living in a mandated fish-bowl, and then having fiction-writers create a public pageant of speculation about what came to pass in your presumed sanctuaries of privacy, all while you are still living and carrying out your life/career? Nightmare. It's a wonder any of them are remotely sane.


THE ILLUSIONIST (SOAP)


Fun. I’d pay 13 bucks for it.










THE DA VINCI CODE (SOAP)

Oh, God, I’m too tired to tackle this one today. Maybe some other time. Bottom line: it was the movie that the book deserved. Sucked. Tee-hee.





Spot the fake(s) in this picture.

IT'S AL-I-I-I-I-VE !

Yes, Winefred is still wading around in her well, but has been swamped, I tell you, SWAMPED with things to do. Got the usual two weeks' notice that I'm teaching again, and have been madly revamping the Whirlwind History of Christian Art for Impressionable Seminarians, as well as wrestling a new lap-top into the ground. Will be away again doing family (GRANDMA!!!) stuff for the next ten days or so.

But, like I had nothing else on my plate, I spent all of yesterday composing and faxing and emailing letters to various senators (Republican) about their unspeakable wimpiness as they now desert the President even as he finally has retrieved his gonads from storage and has decided it might be time to do what the American military is perfectly capable of doing when given permission: squishing the Iraq-based terrorists like a bug. The worst part of the this face(ass)-saving move on the part of senators as eminent as John Warner (what the hell got into him?), is that they know with absolute certainty that any fight we walk away from in Iraq will simply move elsewhere and will have to be fought there.

My first task of the day was to make the Hugh Hewitt Pledge (addressed to the election-funding National Republican Senatorial Committee) about dropping like a hot rock any Republican signer of an anti-"surge" resolution, and then forwarding my notice to the appropriate authorities, like Senator Ensign and Senator McConnell. (sign the pledge here -- over 16,000 signatures so far.)

I then faxed extended letters to John Warner as well as Senators Norm Coleman (Minnesota) and Gordon Smith (Oregon-- my homey) who are basically decent folks now wobbling towards faint-heartedness. Took me the whole damn day but it was worth it. Might do some phone-calling too if I get time.

The bottom line on this mess is that the man about to set the potential victory in motion, General David Petraeus, told the elected representatives in no uncertain terms that formal resolutions of disapproval regarding the troop increase and military offensive give encouragement to the enemy and undermine the morale of the troops. In other words, YOU CANNOT SUPPORT THESE RESOLUTIONS AND CLAIM TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS-- to do so is to LIE. And a bunch of supposedly conscientious law-makers are poised to do just that.

Get on the phone, write a letter, and STOP THEM. (Hewitt will tell you where and how.)

Here's some of mine:

No one should be blind to the dangers of this strategy—including the danger of being held responsible if it should fall short. We cannot be certain of victory, but we can be absolutely certain of the consequences of allowing Iraq to collapse into chaos, in a sectarian war which has been fuelled from the outset by foreign terrorists.

As a military mom I have EVERYTHING to lose by supporting an escalation in violence. But I have difficulty convincing myself that the loss of life and liberty and security being suffered by the Iraqi people is of lesser importance than my own. And I am also enough of a realist to know that if we throw those people to the wolves now, the wolves will eventually devour our children-- including my Marine's brand new baby son-- here at home, and it will be sooner rather than later.

here at last we find ourselves on the brink of the escalation of both troop levels and aggression which should have been in play back in early 2004. The American political situation since that time has radically altered, to be sure. But one thing that has not altered one iota is the ability of the American military to beat this enemy, soundly and for the long-term. Given the freedom and resources to do so, this military can pick up where it left off in mid-2003, roll forward, and never look back. That’s a very big ingredient in victory: the “never look back” part. As you well know, Washington D.C. has been full of people willing to waste our time, and the lives and well-being of our military and the Iraqi people, in a seemingly endless and unconscionable appetite for looking back.

But they do not look back far enough—back to the times past when American people rose to the challenge of history and were willing to sacrifice everything to hold off two disparate enemies threatening us on two fronts, only one of whom had even nibbled at the edges of our shores. My two sons and their cousin who have chosen to serve their country are preceded by my father and five uncles, regular guys with other plans, who volunteered for World War II and served in the Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and OSS. My nephew’s father served in Vietnam, and his father before him was a decorated WWII pilot who received the Croix de Guerre (himself the descendant of a veteran of the American Revolution).

This family-- my family-- are ordinary American citizens who, like most of their countrymen for over 200 years, have had the stomach for a fight, for the survival of themselves and others-- without counting the cost, and without knowing for certain (as no human being ever can) whether they would succeed in doing what they knew must be done.

The American military adventure in Iraq is, without a doubt, a wounded ship, demasted perhaps, but it is by no means sinking. We all know the metaphor about the way the rats desert such a ship. I want very much to believe that you are not one of these. It is one thing to be reluctant, skeptical, even frightened about the uncertainties of this change in strategy. But it is quite another to put your doubts in the form of a public rebuke.

There are those who would categorize Republicans who reject the surge as “disloyal” to this President, but that is a misnomer. President Bush’s failures of leadership, sadly, do not inspire the sort of loyalty he himself is said to value highly. He, and you, and all Americans have higher loyalties: to our military men and women, to the Iraqi people (who DID welcome their liberation), and to all people around the world who are the potential victims of the terrorist plague.

I could not be more proud of my family members who have voluntarily taken up the burden of protecting their fellow man, at the cost of their own safety, convenience, and possibly their lives. I have a new grandson whose father will miss his first birthday and Christmas when he is deployed... I can only pray that he will never have to experience what it is to grow up without a father at all. On the other hand, if we do not take up this fight where we find it, it will most certainly find us, and it could be the mother at the shopping mall whose life is taken away, not the father in uniform...

It is my sincere hope that you will not be joining in the chorus of those wishing to distance themselves from the worst-case scenario of this new offensive. Or, more accurately, the immediate worst-case scenario—for it is hard to imagine a worse case than the one we will all be in if we do not deal the terrorist forces, and all their supporting connections, as lethal a blow as we can in this present theater of war. I beg you, Senator [whoever] , to reconsider attaching your name to any resolution the primary effect of which will be to offer encouragement to the enemies of freedom and discouragement to those we delegate to fight them.

SO THERE. Call, write, kick butt. These people work for you.

See you next week.

HAIL THE NEWBORN LIL' KINGIE!


WE RETURN FROM
CUIDAD DE SAN DIEGO...


where we celebrated the
Nativity of El Nino [the Wee Grandson]











BLOGGING RESUMES

which necessarily means coming to grips with this scramblized world we live in...


BLEC-C-H-H-H
Think I'd rather do movie reviews.

Watch this space for an excursion into HIGH CULTURE:

Borat.

Talledega Nights.

The Devil Wears Prada. Click. The Break-Up. The Illusionist. The Matador. The Lake House.

(Is there a theme developing here? Yes-- the majority of selections were found among the film fare offered on Air Canada flights this past fall.)

The Sentinel. Prairie Home Companion. Over the Hedge. Casino Royale.

And yes, at last, The Da Vinci Freakin' Code.

Reviews will be brief, blunt, and totally subjective. I'm a grandma-- it's my right.

SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT













NOW ISS ZE TIME ON "SCHPROCKETS" VEN VE DANCE

Dearly beloved, today our Savior is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness…Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life…Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh…

Christian, remember your dignity

Christmas sermon of Pope St. Leo the Great, ca. 450 A.D.

PRESIDENT GERALD FORD, R.I.P.

Slips of the tongue, slips on the stairs-- still, the Eagle Scout has landed –- Gerald R. Ford, the only ex-President with abundant grace and dignity, has passed.

He pulled off an impossible job, and then inexplicably blew a much easier one, that of getting elected to succeed himself. But that hasn’t mattered for a very long time. Requiem in pacis.


PEACE ON EARTH TO MEN OF GOOD WILL


[Now if we could just figure out who they are….]




It was a little disingenuous of me to re-post my recipe (below) for “Recovering the Merry in Christmas” when in fact I have been about as distant from “merry” as one could be—I guess it was a case of nowhere to go but up.

It has been a cruel autumn in many respects, with enough bad news to last for years. For me, the rank exhaustion from personal family circumstances (a sudden cancer death, and then cranking up the smiles which our bride deserved for a wedding two weeks later) collided with near-despair over the circumstances of the world in general and the deteriorating situation in the theatre of war, which for me and mine are all of a piece with “personal family circumstances”: a son in the Marines, a nephew in the Navy. I had hit bottom, and Advent was shaping up to be all about grief.

October brought one particular piece of bad news I could have done without— in fact, had purposely done without, since I had been curious about it for some time and could have sought answers earlier if I’d had the spine. But I chose not to. And when this one slice of news finally turned up, it took on a symbolism of the wider state of world affairs.

I have written more than a few times about the organization called Spirit of America a privately-supported organization that has been finding ways to assist the U.S. military in changing—improving—the lives of ordinary Iraqis, people who want what everybody wants: schools, homes, work, peace and quiet. The extraordinary work of this handful of private individuals, supported by thousands of generous donors, has gone virtually unnoticed by the major organs of communication in American life.

The President and the White House have been made aware of their work—“aware” in the way that a horse in the paddock is aware of the flies he is periodically compelled to attend to with his tail: a momentary flurry of recognition, with about a four-second retention rate on the meaning of the experience. The name of this organization, and scores of others like it, should have been on the minds and the lips of every American for the past three years—a way to genuinely support both the troops and the Iraqi people, whether you support the war effort or not. That relatively few people know of it is a sin.

Since I first heard of Spirit of America in 2004 I have donated to more than a dozen widely varying projects [mentioned here, scroll down to the bottom], the latest being warm winter clothes and blankets for the Iraqi locals. But the project that has stayed most on my mind is the very first one I heard about and supported: the purchase of television production equipment, and of industrial sewing machines, destined for the people of Ar Ramadi.

The TV equipment was to help residents make their own programming for the numerous local stations which were still functional but had no material to broadcast other than Al Jazeera, a network they did not wish to be the solitary voice on the airwaves. The sewing machines were the basis of several women’s centers which provided job training and income from the sewing, as well as training on computers. These centers were the brain-child of Marine Lt. General James Mattis (who led the 2003 advance into Baghdad), and the first assignment for the new television crews was to film the ceremonies which celebrated the opening of the women’s centers [watch here on You-Tube].

Many months passed between the time of my initial donations, when the name “Ramadi” lodged itself in my head, and the time when Ramadi began to crop up on every newscast due to its status as a hub of increasing terrorist activity. The more reports I heard, the more I began to wonder how Spirit of America’s Ramadi projects— fragile first steps toward normalcy and self-improvement— could possibly survive what was happening there.

They didn’t. I had known it in my heart, but hadn’t wanted to know any further.

The message came through in this past October that the women’s sewing center was no more—blown to smithereens by “insurgents.” Fortunately the deed was done at night when it was empty, and no one was killed or injured. Nevertheless, it is a potent symbol of the objectives of the terrorist presence in Iraq to this day: to unravel every effort of the Iraqi people to take charge of their own future, to learn what it feels like to achieve some degree of self-determination unfettered by a totalitarian oligarchy. This act was a case of Muslims (fanatics) wreaking destruction on Muslims, to no conceivable purpose.

I have often tried to picture that sewing machine I thought of as “mine”, over there in a dusty cement-block room, whirring along at the hands of lean, dark-eyed woman in a head-scarf, as she chattered to her neighbours and dreamed of getting her family back on its feet by the fruits of her own labours. “My” machine is now a heap of burnt and twisted metal, belts and gears blown apart, like the seamstress’s dreams.

* * * * *

Come November we slouched towards a grim crossroads. In the run-up to the American mid-term election, the Republicans seemed more out of touch with their electorate than one could have thought possible, and more desperate to say whatever it took to find favor with The Other Party’s electorate—‘splain this, please?!

The talk was of compromise and diplomacy (to be conducted with the uncompromising and diplomatically-challenged “Death to the American Dogs!” crowd), and the off-loading of Iraq onto Iraqis, who were referenced as co-dependent slackers in need of weaning off the American teat (a grotesque insult to a people we have failed to protect after entering their house unbidden and tossing the place).

Most ominous of all, it appeared that those in power were actually considering taking the Baker-Hamilton Committee of Public Safety seriously. God help us, every one.

To no great surprise, the tongue-tied leadership of the American governing party— an administration which once stood upon the ashes of attack and dared to reverse years of escapism in the face of an epic global threat, but then gradually succumbed to a complete loss of nerve— suddenly lost control to an elected opposition which has for six years dedicated itself primarily to obstruction and defamation of both the administration and the military in the field. A tidal wave of retreat and defeat (and of the lobotomized notion that our need to combat the terrorist threat will end when the last of our troops “re-deploy”) seemed poised to wash over the seat of government, ridden by an incoming Democratic majority, “hanging ten” on their longboards as they coast toward the shore, oblivious to the wreckage below the surface.

After all, they could safely expect that ad-hoc Council of Elders, the Iraq Sur[vey]render Group, to produce recommendations to haul ass home ASAP, giving the new majorities all the rationale required for a late-term abortion of the infant Iraqi democracy. What other possible outcome could there be at the hands of James (F*#k the Jews—they didn’t vote for us anyway) Baker?

(Baker’s law firm, long on the payroll of the Saudi princes, is representing them in a legal battle against the 9-11 families who are suing the Saudis for their role in facilitating the hijackers and the brand of Islamist fanaticism that inspired them to mass murder. Chew on THAT.)

November brought one early Christmas present: the news that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was suddenly unemployed. [Well, not really so early if, like me, you had that item on your Christmas wish-list in November of 2003.] Yet this quickest post-election development was also the clearest sign of funk and panic in the Oval Office. It was a welcome change [Dear Sweet God, YES!], but nevertheless a bizarro, blindsiding move that pointed to some kind of Presidential freak-out. But freaked out about what? It is long past time to get freaked out about the lack of progress against Al Qaeda-In-Iraq. Instead it smelled of freak-out about that uniquely presidential disease, “legacy syndrome.”

So at the confluence of election shocks and Presidential queeziness, all the pieces seemed to be falling into place—the place where Iraq would lie in pieces, millions of them, just where they fell.

I have known since August, by the way, that my son would not be going to Iraq. This news naturally brought relief, but did not allow for joy.

Contrary to what many, if not most, on the political left might think, being part of the family of the United States Marine Corps affords one a particular insight into the experience of being part of the “family of man”. (Stop hooting out there— I’m serious.)

The family of man, in every moment of its history, has made war within itself. It’s easy to lose sight of that when you live in the north/western hemisphere, which has enjoyed centuries of relative peace, security, and (so we thought) impregnability to foreign incursions, especially within the contiguous 48 American states.

People often talk about “American exceptionalism” in reference to the enduring success of its system of government, based on a brilliantly-crafted constitution, and the individual freedom and opportunity it provides, despite its many flaws, on a scale unequalled anywhere, ever. I don’t think any of that is an exaggeration, but America is really at its most exceptional in regards to its history of relative freedom from war at or within its borders, having seen only one devastating internal conflict, and a few limited actions with its near neighbours north and south—a record enviable in all other quarters of the world, and a consequence as much of luck as of virtue.

(Canada, in its 140-year history, has been an even more peaceable land-mass, but did fight two world wars on the basis of its being a limb of the British body politic—all attempts to re-write Canadian history notwithstanding, a trip to Normandy teaches the truth that Canada was attacked, and fought back, for King and Empire.)

Bottom line: war is more the rule than the exception in human history. We (humanity) seem unable to rid ourselves of pockets of territorial or ideological aggression on anything more than a temporary basis. We use logic and law and natural justice to try and establish standards of local and global public order—and we are idiots if we think we will ever be free of the need to use official, recognizable guardians and enforcers of those standards to protect the citizenry from violators.

We aspire to make possible a level of comfort and prosperity for all people that will unfortunately have the inevitable effect of giving them a reason to have doors, and to lock them. Tragic to say, it is not even the material fruits of prosperity that we must lock away and protect from the aggressively self-indulgent, but rather the person himself or herself, increasingly perceived as a “thing” to be taken and used, according to the dictates of fleeting appetites. This is the way of a fallen world. Vigilance is not optional.

That being the case, when we decide as a society to constitute a force of designated guardians, we are NEVER free to be cavalier about the decision to put them in the field, whether they be school crossing guards or firefighters or men in 70-ton tanks and missile-bearing jets and helicopters. They must know their mission, be fit for it, and be equipped and empowered to carry it out. More importantly, those who send them into the field must be clear on what the mission is and why it must be undertaken.

You don’t send a blindman or a drunk to be a crossing guard, place him two blocks west of where the kids cross the street, and tell him not to leave the sidewalk. You don’t sit back and let the wildfires consume the canyon communities for fear of putting the firefighters in danger. You don’t send a man armed with missiles to hide in a bunker and fire at anything that moves, or to hunt for mines with his own feet.

And no matter how vigilant you are, in preparing your guardians and choosing their mission— in aspiring to serve the interests of long-term justice and order— there will forever be moral failures, technical disaster, treachery, stupidity, misjudgment, error, and accident. [The statistical breakdown of military deaths for the past 25 years tells this story in spades-- "peacetime" under previous presidents was as dangerous as war under Bush, and the suicide rate peaked under Clinton in 1995.]

There will also be spectacular valor, the overwhelming majority of it unnoticed and unrecorded. In the best case scenario, there will be evidence aplenty as to why St. Thomas Aquinas treats the issue of Just War under matters related to the virtue of Charity. Still, you don’t set yourself up to be responsible for THIS [warning: graphic photo alert] unless you are deadly serious, committed, and have exhausted all counter-arguments.

These are matters now under consideration, at a time when the most powerful nation (no, not "empire" by any rational definition) in human history contemplates its next move in a war effort that hasn’t really moved at all in about two years. The peace effort, heinously ignored by the world press, has in fact moved quite well in a good 80% or more of the territory of Iraq. But the war effort in the remaining territory has stalled out, while the Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism campaign has accelerated dramatically-- even as the most powerful military on the planet has appeared powerless against it.

As I say, I had known since August that my son was not destined to become desert IED bait-- so as far as we knew, nobody was going to owe him any personal explanation as to what it was all for. But over time I had grown more and more sickened at the thought that the Commander-in-Chief appeared ready to say to history (in a truly Clintonesque formulation), “Well, we tried. We tried really hard.”

It’s one thing to say it to history. But how do you say it to these people?

















And, more to the point, how do you say it to Steve Schultz? (here too)
To my nephew’s Naval Academy classmate, Andrew Kinard?
To the family of Jason Dunham?

Hey folks—you’re legless, your skull’s in puzzle-pieces, your kid lies in Arlington— YOU want America to finish what you KNOW can be done, and leave Iraq a functioning democracy, for which an intact self was a worthwhile sacrifice. But the politicians-- do they want what you want, and know what you know? A-a-a-n-n-n-h-h-h, not so much.

Sacrificing limbs and grey matter, well, that’s one thing— but sacrifice your Washington sinecure? Your freebies? All that attention, the waving, the photo-ops, the incessant sucking-up from lesser mortals? Well, we tried that Iraq thing, but it just wasn’t worth the sweat. Let President Hillary deal with it—she can do ANYTHING. One cold stare, and she'll have the Jihadists running for cover. (On the other hand, they might opt for gang-rape because she’s not wearing a veil— they’re so unpredictable that way. Or on the other hand…. no, wait-- they cut that other hand off.)

I quoted my good buddy Shakespeare from his Henry V, in last January’s turn-of-the-year post on matters military, in a way that even then seemed starry-eyed:

And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here

But it still holds true, or could if political will dared to match military will.

Yet in the interim, a different passage has kept echoing in the recesses of the fevered mind, the one where a good Welsh soldier named “Williams” argues with the cloaked and anonymous King Henry, as he wanders among his troops, about the division of responsibilities between soldier and sovereign.

He muses on the notion of whether the soldier can know if the king’s cause be "just and honourable", but he is sure enough of one thing:

… the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.
… Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it…

King Henry argues, correctly, that, "Every subject's duty is the king's, but every subject's soul is his own." I still have no quarrel with the principal aim (unfortunately left unstated) of the invasion of Iraq, which was to establish a democratic foothold in the Muslim world, for the example and betterment of the other, largely failing, Islamist societies in the region. And I think it is fair to say that no one "purposed" the deaths of any soldier or civilian when the invasion was undertaken.

But there must be a quarrel with ANY invasion launched half-heartedly, stymied by timidity, stalled by indecision and internecine factionalism—and one has to wonder, indeed, how the advocates of a cowardly run for the exits cannot know that one day “all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place”— and what for? So a president, a legislator, a network mouthpiece could say, “We tried— but, you know, it was just too much trouble. We didn’t have to fight it, we didn’t have to give up our butter or our meat or our power consumption, or our kids. But it made us look bad. And everybody was yelling at us and calling us names. So we quit.”

Speaking of heads chopped off, the too-little-too-late exit of Rumsfeld has prompted unexpected responses among rank and file military. Check out the best of the mil-blogs, like Blackfive, Mudville Gazette, or the Indepundit -- I swear I don’t get it, but vast numbers of them really liked the guy. ( here too)
Maybe they were swayed by his notorious plain-spokenness (which over time reveals itself to be a rather effective tool of obfuscation when it suits him). I just don’t know. But all over the mil-blogs are praises and accolades by the heap.

This is especially odd after the release of the clearly self-leaked, ass-covering final “snowflake” memo from the Secretary, listing suggested course-changes for the war, some allegedly “new” ideas, in an effort to distance himself (future) from himself (of the past three years).

No sale, as far as I’m concerned. And I felt compelled to leave a few snowflakes of my own on various tribute sites, like this one to Lt. Smash at Indepundit.

I'm willing to accept that you folks know something I don't, but as far as I'm concerned this Secretary of Defense has failed to guide the most powerful, well-trained, fully equipped, and intelligent military force in human history in the taking and holding of a handful of key areas within one medium-sized country where the invading force WAS originally welcomed as liberators. When his favored course of action was over-ruled by the Commander-in-Chief, it was his duty to throw all his energy and talent into the successful pursuit of the chosen strategy, and it is patently obvious that this was not done.

Most disheartening was to hear that Mr. Rumsfeld's "worst day" was the revelation of the Abu Ghraib mess. Sorry-- wrong answer. If his worst day wasn't the one where we learned what had been done to Privates Menchaca and Tucker (an atrocity that was allowed to pass almost unnoticed) then he has spent way too much time fretting about the New York Times, and not enough figuring out how to eradicate the jihadist plague.

His final flurry of snowflakes could have been drawn from the work of any number of serious pro-war journlists and military experts TWO OR THREE YEARS AGO. It is regrettable that he has been demonized so excessively by the extreme left, but this fact should not blind the rest of us to his faults and failures. We have been spinning the tires on this under-armored humvee for nearly three years now. Hail and farewell, but, alas, too late.

So, Mr. Rumsfeld—Abu Ghraib your worst day? Are you serious?

WRONG. WRONG ANSWER.

Legs and arms and heads chopped off—not in battle, but methodically, as Tucker and Menchaca lay sprawled on a cement walk, while self-appointed soldiers of God hollered “Allahu Akhbar” and luxuriated in the streams and pools of blood. The mutilated corpses were later found by a roadside, severed heads lying on top, the whole “package” booby-trapped to blow their horrified comrades to shreds as they went to retrieve the remains. (Fortunately they were too careful for that.)

If that wasn’t Donald Rumsfeld’s worst day as Secretary of Defense, his entire tour of duty has been indefensible. Period.

And what could be more galling at the moment of his departure than to glean from the memo his persistent lack of commitment to the occupation strategy which was in place— confirming to my satisfaction all suspicions that he was trying to fight this war on the cheap, in support of his precious theories about small light forces using big futuristic techno-toys.

Good riddance to him. He doesn’t get it, and never did.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to Armageddon. Once the Baker-Hamilton Commission revealed itself to be an over-hyped gas-leak, popping out clichés and vagaries like a Pez-dispenser on auto-pilot— and then the new Secretary of Defense, John Gates, proved he could be a force to be reckoned with, without pissing everybody off-- suddenly tongues were loosed and it was permissible once again to contemplate victory.

Is it “inappropriate”, not to mention ghoulish, bellicose, hypocritical, and perverse to celebrate the Nativity while welcoming the signs that we may be entering a decisive “surge” of war? To welcome, and pray to, the Prince of Peace as we gear up, at last, for an all-out attack on the “bad guys”? (that’s an actual slice of military terminology, by the way)



For the past three years American and coalition forces in Iraq have been in a war of attrition against terrorists who hide behind women and children, and who do not hesitate to bomb, store weaponry in, and snipe from the minarets of mosques. I think it’s time we took our cue from the Prince of Peace who picked up a whip-cord and drove the bastards out [Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 2] so the ordinary folk could come in and re-claim their rightful place.


YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN

First John Kerry (the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Senator who by the way served in Vietnam, apparently as a self-admitted war criminal?) muffs his lines and stuffs it to the troops [hat-tip: Hot Air]— you know, that bunch of losers who ended up in Iraq because they couldn’t keep their grades up or get a better job.

Then New York Congressman Charles Rangel (mercurial, verbally-challenged but nevertheless decorated Korean War veteran) stuffs it to these same losers [Hot Air again] even more directly and purposefully, and I quote:

If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career, or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq… If there's anyone who believes these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No bright young individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment.

And as if that’s not enough, no less than MATT FREAKING DAMON [Hat-tip: Hugh Hewitt] has let it be known that he doesn’t’ think it’s fair that

...it seems like we have a fighting class in our country. That's comprised of people who have to go for either financial reasons or-- I don't think that that is fair.

It’s so unfair he just can’t even talk about it! He gets all tongue-tied and borders on being COMPLETELY INARTICULATE! It’s just that unfair.

Matt thinks President Bush’s two daughters belong in combat.

And if you're gonna send people to war ... then that needs to be shared by everybody, you know, and if the president has daughters who are of age then maybe they should go too.

But should they be free to make that decision themselves, like every other person who has ever put their toe into a military boot since 1973? Or should they be “sent” because of public pressure from voices of authority like Matt Freaking Damon? And should Matt Damon be free to decide whether he should serve in the war? Or should he be sent, drafted, like Elvis? Or should the public put so much pressure on him that he should enlist himself, like so many REAL STARS from Hollywood’s “Golden Age” did? People like Jimmy Stewart, Tyrone Power, Lee Marvin, Clark Gable, and many others, whom the admittedly talented Damon couldn’t hold a candle to on the screen, much less in the arena of public service.

The military is a profession that runs on acronyms. Here’s one for these guys: STFU.

These days, what with global communication and all, it doesn’t take long before this kind of stuff comes back to haunt you anyway. Check out the recent visit to Iraq by the desperate-for-a-comeback Senator Kerry. Guess it’s lonely at the top when you’re the new kid in the lunchroom:


Here’s the pathetic story from a soldier in the field (Hat-tip: Scott Hennen at AreaVoices, via the guys at Powerline). Money quote:

This is a true story.....Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops.

Further stories of how far Green zone personnel went to avoid encountering the Senator are here from Ben of Mesopotamia (via Instpaundit). His money quote:

Rumor has it that somebody gave his [Kerry’s] helicopter flights the designation "Weasel 61."

Apropos of all this, may I remind the reader that I’m the proud mom of a Magna Cum Laude graduate of St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, with a major in history and a specialist certificate in Classics, who on his graduation day was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps. And about a week ago I found out that another son, soon to graduate with an A-minus average from Providence College in Rhode Island, with Political Science major and a Theology minor, will be applying to the United States Navy Officer Candidate School.

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me my own kids were so poor and so dumb?

Here's a prayer for these men of good will (sing it, David-- #91 on the harpist's Top 150 chart):

…He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
For he will give his angels charge of you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.