Willard's 911 call - Dirty Harry's on the Case

There was a Clint Eastwood movie marathon on the tube a few years back. I decided to see what Clint Eastwood was about; I had never seen any of his films - I don't seek out violence in films. But I felt I owed the revered Clint Eastwood and the character in Dirty Harry series of films a viewing. If I recall certain details accurately, Eastwood's Dirty Harry whacks (blows away, kills) a gang of black guys who are robing a bank. These multiple killings take place on police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan's way to work, in the opening scene. Years later a friend persuaded me to watch actor-director Clint Eastwood's Detroit (automobile) film, Gran Torino. I watched a little bit of it. I found it to involve another Eastwood character waving a gun or rifle at people, and certainly not worth my time. After his Motor City debut, Clint Eastwood got a fat bit from Chrysler to do a Superbowl ad.
  Clint Eastwood rarely has much to say in his films - it's gun-waving, mumble-city. Why the Republican National Committee thought it could get a coherent sentence or paragraph out of Eastwood interrogating a chair confounds me.
  It's always been about guns, gunboat 'diplomacy', and killing. The GOP and Dirty Harry (aka Clint Eastwood) were having a grand old time last evening. Here's what Robert Mitchum had to say about such matters (see Wikipedia "Dirty Harry" entry):

There are movies I won't do for any amount. I turned down Patton and I turned down Dirty Harry. Movies that piss on the world. If I've got $5 in my pocket, I don't need to make money that fucking way, daddy.

   But when it comes to America's greedy, tax-evading, pompous, insiders; making money by any means available is all right - it's reckoned as civic achievement. No doubt there's something utterly absurd about this.
   Here's the YouTube link to the babbling Mr. Eastwood's interview with the chair - did the RNC and Eastwood really wish to invoke Samuel Beckett?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiHNVYRTKP8 

  

Pannonica de Koenigswarter - Jazz Baroness

A friend directed my attention to a wonderful DVD - The Jazz Baroness (2009) - written and directed by Hannah Rothschild, the great niece of Baroness Pannonica ("Nica") de Koenigswarter. The Baroness was a great friend of Thelonious Monk and his wife Nellie. She also befriended many other jazz musicians. Hannah Rothschild has also written a biography of her aunt, Nica de Koenigswarter.

  The DVD is informative and very touching. It is an essay on the meaning of friendship. Its additional features include interesting interviews with T. S. Monk, Jr., Sonny Rollins, Benny Golson, and quite a few other jazz greats. The interviews with Monk, Jr., Rollins, and Golson are special.
   The Guardian newspaper has reviews of Hannah Rothschild's film and biography. The Guardian links are below. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/22/hannah-rothschild-nica-jazz-thelonious-monk-interview?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/22/jazz

Fooling People - Double Unconsciousness

A member of the Bertrand Russell Society brought my attention to a very interesting and important article from The Atlantic Monthly. "What's it about?" Dig into it and find out what some of us already knew.

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/ 

I know people planning to vote for Willard!

Oh snap! I get FaceBook messages from people with whom I was in school - circa 1959. I hadn't keep up with these folks - escapees from Highland Park, Michigan - over the years. But FaceBook and such-like brings desperate characters together, in a manner of speaking. When I look at my email in the afternoon each day, I see Facebook or email messages propagated by FaceBook proclaiming rightwing allegiances.

  The other day I read a piece about voting habits - I don't recall its cyber-location. Anyway, it was proclaimed therein that a person's right- or left-wingness is usually fixed quite early in life. Rightwing parents yield rightwing offspring.

  In my own case, since my parents didn't set a political agenda for me, I didn't have one of my own. Except in this sense. I was always against the prevailing dogma of the moment. For example, when I was in high school (during the period of "Red Scare", "I led Three Lives" and bomb shelters), I thought that our country's fear of communism looked a lot like communism. Over the years I came to realize that Americans (given the state of our collective 'wisdom') invariably believed themselves to be faced with the following exclusive 'choice': Think or Guns. Note: this isn't even a choice between Guns or Butter!, as we were taught in Econ. 101. Ever since Korea we have 'chosen' guns. Today as a consequence of this gun-boat policy we've run out of butter.

  In addition to the "Red Scare" we've been treated to the Black Scare, the Vietnam Scare, the Arab Scare, the WMD Scare, the Abortion Scare, the Medicare Scare, the Social Security Scare, . . . . Do you follow me here? So I've been against Scar(e)ism, of which Racism is huge part. Because of Scar(e)ism, we're scared - perhaps we've always been scared (it seems like it). We ought to be scared of the Reverse Robin-hood Effect. Statistically I'm quite sure it can be shown that our 'public servants' in Washington, D. C. and elsewhere have been so bent by 'fair-market' interests to be beyond any curative orthopaedic procedures (i.e., backbone correctives). We all know this. This we know better than anything else that we know having to do with politics. The promises are always the same - end big government, lower taxes, create jobs, a pig in a poke, something in every pot, dummies, suckers. 

  Getting back to people I know who plan to vote for Willard and St. Paul. Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan strike me as chaps who have been given things - stuff that daddy left behind and Social Security Survivor Benefits, in their respective cases -  and thereafter 'survived' by means of insider contacts and insider information. There are those who bend and those who bend those who shall be bent. Take your pick among the bent and the benders - it doesn't matter. So maybe voting for Willard and St. Paul is just an heredity thing. But then my stance against everything Willard and St. Paul ostensively stand for is just an heredity thing too - based on my heritage let's say? 

  I don't think so.  Oh rats!

  

  

President's and Bird's Days - August 27 - 29, 2012

Wake up from your "dogmatic slumbers" and from the creepy, greedy, seedy presidential race and celebrate the birthdays of The President, Lester Willis Young (b. August 27, 1909 and Bird, Charles Parker, Jr. (b. August 29, 1920). Tune in to WKCR via the internet:

http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/wkcr/

Creepy & Creepy - Willards

Most of us remember slogans such as Creeping Socialism, The Red (Communist) Menace, &c. Ancient Rome was governed by propaganda - lies, more lies. half truths, slander, bigotry, hatred, selfishness. . . . Rome had its roads though. Our 'Willard' (movie character) lookalike Rep. Paul Ryan it appears has had only one job in his adult life. His job has been solely this: getting reelected to the United States Congress. Rep. Ryan's family business is, and has been for many years, road construction - in short, government contracts. Rep. Ryan's slogans are akin to Karl Kraus's quip about doctors - "Your money and your life." Rep. Ryan's deadly slogan is a bit more complicated; it's creepy but not creeping. Rep. Ryan's New Greedy Deal is this: 

Privatize everything [Medicare and Social Security] except defense and roads!

[But defense and roads are already privatized!] 

Privatize everything, then! 

[What about jobs?] 

Jobs? Oh, that's Willard's, I mean Gov. Mitt Romney's department. He's going to be the president. And he's had experience in the job-creation department - "He only hired the best and the brightest when he headed up Bain Capital."

[Now we know what Gov. Willard Mitt Romney did at Bain Capital - personnel stuff.] 

[What happened with the rest, the less than the best and brightest?] 

That's a long (unfinished) story. 

[We've all heard the jobs propaganda: tax-cuts first, privatize next, (thereby) further enrichment of the rich, (thereby) creating jobs.] 

[When will these jobs be created?]   

Oh? They (jobs) will be created when wages come back into line. 

[Into line with what? Rather, in line with where?] 

In the mean time Vouchers For All. 

[All except Congress that is; it has, and makes, its own plans.]

Bullshit gets a very bad name at the hands of our swash-budgeting Rep. Paul Ryan and his businessman associate and frontman, Gov. Willard Mitt Romney.

[Oh rats!] 

See Tobias Barrington Wolff: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-barrington-wolff/the-virtue-of-selfishness_b_1774931.html

   

Leader of the Pack

I just finished watching a bit of the movie Willard on TV. The the actor in this film who portrays the principal character looks a bit like Rep. Paul Ryan, Gov. Willard Mitt Romney's prospective VP choice. See my previous blog-post. After watching Willard (not Mitt) and his trained rats on TV, I turned to Robert Paul Wolff's blog The Philosopher's Stone http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/ and his post entitled "Randy Ryan". I include below the last paragraph of Prof. Wolff's 14 August piece:

Paul Ryan is a Roman Catholic whose family made a good deal of money over half a century off of government contracts for building the interstate highway system.  To this day it feeds at the federal trough, getting defense-related dollars.  In every way conceivable, Ryan the man is totally in violation of the Objectivist ethical theories pushed by Rand.  It has become a central tenet of the consensus gentium in recent decades that American conservatives are deep thinkers who, in their think tanks, come up with new ideas to replace the tired habits of liberal pols.  Paul Ryan, we are told, is the intellectual leader of the Republican Party.  I think we should pause just a bit before embracing our very own Smerdyakov.

Prof. Wolff's piece is very instructive about Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan.

Ayn Rand All Over Again - Dummies

Relaxing at my uncle's Westport, Conn. 'crib' in the summer of 1961, I read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. I was 20 years old. I can't say that I was impressed in any way with Rand's book from either a stylistic or 'philosophical' point view or by its message. Rand's atheism was congenial to me, however. Messrs. Alan Greenspan - clueless former Federal Reserve chairman and Paul Ryan - clueless Republican House member fron Wisconsin are Ayn Rand enthusiasts - rugged individualists and entitled anti-entitlement puppets of the wickedly rich. Creepy Gov. Mitt Romney recently chose Mr. Ryan to be his presidential running mate.* Rep. Ryan is reckoned to be an intellectual by some of the GOP faithful. Newt Gingrich is so reckoned too. Standards for candidates and intellectuals seem to be quite low. Where would our Mitt fit in here? Let's term him an intellectual, since the standards are what they appear to be - quite low.

  Way back in the day, the less than bright males of the aristocracy were slated to become members of the clergy, so as not to mess with the family fortune. Later in the day, these less than bright males, who were not bright enough to become clergymen, became bankers. 

  I can't understand how anyone with a brain could find our two Randians or our former governor to be distinguished in any admiration-provoking ways - being free, white and twenty-one doesn't count a good-making characteristic here. Greenspan didn't see the economic depression coming. He also held the same budget-crunching solutions to the country's economic problems as Mr. Ryan - dismantle Medicare and Social Security, whilst enriching the military-industrial complex (among other complexes). What about Gov. Romney?

  Creepy Willard Mitt Romney reminds me of Rex Ryan, the coach of the New York Jets football team. Rex, we are told, is the son of a very good football coach - Buddy Ryan. Rex puts his foot (among other feet) in his mouth quite often. And he's not exactly a winning football coach. But he looks like a football coach, talks like  one, etc. It's rather like the title of coach has been given to him. He strikes me as someone who functions best after business hours and out of sight.

   Willard Mitt Romney is the son of a well known business and political figure, former Michigan Governor and American Motors chairman, George Romney. Willard suffers from foot-in-mouth mishaps. He ran a venture capital firm, Bain Capital (that's "Bain" not bane, but it may come to that). But I'm not exactly in the know about what he did there - except leaving the firm (whilst continuing to be paid) to save ("save" in some sense or other) a Winter Olympics from financial troubles, i.e., hustling tax-shelter opportunities for the silent minority, in other words the rich. Willard's tax returns would be fun to examine - tax-shelter-city, yea. Perhaps Willard hasn't been tithing to his church as he should have done, buying his way into the upper reaches of the heavenly hierarchy on the cheap - lower taxes and lower tithes, yea.
   I'm thinking now of Mabel Mercer's version of "Isn't He Adorable"; "Send In The Clowns" will do as well I reckon. "Here he comes. Woe is me...." Willard Mitt Romney in his jeans; getting down with the people in front of an aircraft carrier .... "Here we go again!" as TV's Earl might say to his brother Randy. Dummies! Oh snap!

*I got the creepy bit from Robert Paul Wolff.  http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/     

Fab Two, Fabulous '60s - Detroit, 10 August 1965

Gore Vidal - R.I.P.

Gore Vidal died the other day. He was 86 years old when he passed away. He was, along with I. F. Stone, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Chris Hedges, one of our most Socratic figures. During the fabulous 1960s, Izzy Stone and Gore Vidal were my television personalities. Noam Chomsky's 1968 essay, The Responsibility of Intellectuals affected me greatly when I read it in the Wayne State University library. It was also around this time that I read, and was affected in other ways by Chomsky's ground-breaking work in generative grammar, his Syntactic Structures.

  I came to know of Gore Vidal through his appearances on Dick Cavet's reality television show and through his essays in the New York Review of Books. I admired his style and his politics. Vidal's interviews were always instructive, and thereby interesting.
  In the February 2010 issue of Vanity [Un]Fair, the journalist Christopher Hitchens spit out a trashy bit of non-reportage and non-sense on Gore Vidal. I took offense at Hitchens' trashy bits. And I sent Hitchens a few thoughts of my own - quoting myself (a delightful feeling) we have:

It appears to this reader that your Vanity Fair article establishes that Mr. Vidal and his views have become strange (outrageous). But "strange" in what sense? I direct your attention to Gregory Vlastos' Socrates, page 1 where, regarding Socrates' "strangeness", Vlastos cites Alcibiates' speech about Socrates in the Symposium:

"Such is his strangeness that you will search and search among those living now and among men of the past, and never come close to what he is himself and to the things he says." (221D)

Mr. Hitchens, you have not come close to revealing . . . Mr. Vidal's 'strangeness'. When you attempt to see Mr. Vidal and to understand his strangeness and his irony, you see someone else. Who could it be? [Obviously, Hitchens only saw himself.]

There are too few Socratic ironists among us these days - Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges remain. When we think about the Summer Olympics and the presidential race between President Obama and Governor Romney, some of us will be listening to Gore Vidal's running commentary. He's still with us, but just barely.