Posted by
Dave on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:55:09 AM
Time for another collection of
observations on the passing scene…
Not that this is a new phenomenon
or news to anyone reading, but hypocrisy is certainly the order of the day in
politics today. Former House Speaker
(and likely eventual presidential candidate) Newt Gingrich revealed that while
prosecuting the impeachment of President Clinton, he was himself engaged in an
extramarital affair. Now, yes, I know
the articles of impeachment themselves dealt not with Clinton’s marital
infidelity but rather legal issues that sprang from it: perjury, obstruction of justice, etc.;
however, Gingrich was on TV talking about “family values” and criticizing
Clinton’s lack thereof while giving the finger to those values himself. Not exactly a profile in integrity.
Not unsurprisingly, hypocrisy is
not monopolized by either party. Sen.
Barack Obama has recently called for tighter fuel standards for American
vehicles and taken American companies to task for not producing more fuel
efficient vehicles such as hybrids. One
would then assume that Sen. Obama practices what he preaches and buys fuel
efficient vehicles himself. One would be
wrong in so doing: Obama’s car is a gas
guzzling Chrysler.
And so it goes. Politicians seem to have one set of rules for
what we should be allowed to do, and
another set of rules for themselves. I
believe that is an important thing to keep in mind when they promise taxing
only the rich, “fixing” health care, or “solving” global warming.
Speaking of Sen. Obama, in
speeches he has basically advocated military intervention to stop the genocidal
carnage resulting from the civil war in Sudan.
However, he is simultaneously advocating an immediate pullout of troops
from Iraq, itself in the midst of a civil war which would almost certainly turn
even more violent upon our departure. If
the situation in Iraq were to further devolve into outright genocide, a
distinct possibility, would he then advocate sending the military back in to
end the genocide?
The movie Hannibal Rising is coming out on DVD this week. Almost universally panned by the critics, the
movie is the classic case of the sequel that should never have happened. Great sequels (and they are few and far
between) are the product of unfinished business in the storyline, unfinished
character arcs, or a fresh new approach to the same material. Think The
Godfather Part 2: first of all, the
book on which the original move was made was simply too long to include in a
single movie. But even independent of
the book, Part 2 built on the story, telling the backstory of Don Corleone and
showing the character arc of Michael. It
was a story that was still there to be told, and it was masterful. Then think of The Godfather Part 3 (which, to his credit, Coppola didn’t want to
franchise with The Godfather name and instead wanted to call it The Death of Michael Corleone). Part 3 was completely unnecessary: it had no fresh perspective or vision, and it
gave us nothing to complete our picture of Michael Corleone.
While I’ve not seen the movie, I
have read the book, and Hannibal Rising
promises to have more Godfather 3 in
it than Godfather 2. Seeing how Hannibal Lecter became one of the
greatest villains of all time is anti-climactic almost by definition – part of
the fun of Lecter was imagining how such a person could come to exist; the book
adds nothing.
Fellow fans of 80s music would
have loved the Morrissey concert last night.
Held at the intimate Verizon Wireless Theatre in downtown Houston, the
concert demonstrated how the leader of an 80s cult band (the Smiths) has
managed to maintain relevance two decades hence. The only sign of aging was a bit of grey in
Morrissey’s famous pompadour, and his voice was in top shape. The highlight of the night was hearing my
favorite Smiths song, “How Soon Is Now?”, which had a great, prolonged
intro. Other highlights of the 90-minute
show included “Irish Blood, English Heart”, “You Have Killed Me”, “Panic”, and “You’re
Gonna Need Someone on Your Side”. Always
a plus, the crowd was on his side,
singing along with nearly every lyric; one girl even kept trying to get in
position to pull up her shirt, apparently not realizing that he’d probably
rather see my bare chest than
hers. Overall, a great show and highly
recommended!
Not highly recommended: The Black Dahlia (which is disappointing
because I love film noir as a genre,
but this one is just not mediocre) and Sublime
(which is disappointing because I love those screw-with-your-mind psychological
thriller/horror movies). In the case of The Black Dahlia, I thought the story
was good, and the cinematography looked great; however, the acting is lacking
and the plot twists get a little twisted up too much. I think if a couple of actors were switched
out and someone like, say, Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Prestige)
were directing, it could have been a great movie. However, I don’t think Marlon Brando, Robert
De Niro, and Alfred Hitchcock could’ve saved Sublime. Actually, that’s
not true, but it was severely lacking and never was able to build on its Vanilla Sky-esque weirdness. The bright spots in this movie were the
soundtrack (ethereal songs by someone named Bird York) and the nude scene with
the hot nurse. **1/2 for The Black Dahlia, *1/2 for Sublime.
I’m
still waiting for the extreme rhetoric to end and factual, open, honest debate
to begin concerning immigration reform.
Some people can’t seem to understand that when one is calling for
increased legal immigration, that’s
not supporting illegal immigration;
nor is it advocating “open borders” or some sort of nefarious, secretive “North
American Union”. It is telling to me
that the most business-focused, free market publications, e.g. The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, are in favor of boosting
immigration levels to make them more commensurate with market labor
demands. Also interesting to me is that
the same arguments being forwarded against increased immigration now were being
used nearly word-for-word over a hundred years ago to decry the influx of Irish
and Italian immigrants. That “Wall
Street” supports increased immigration is used in many cases as a pejorative –
that same brand of us-versus-them, zero-sum fearmongering used by the left to
advance anti-market policies has its usefulness on the right as well at
times. It is wrong in both cases. “Wall Street”, i.e., the business community
and ultimately the economy, doesn’t fare well with drains on the social welfare
system or labor inefficiencies, even if the result is “cheap labor”. The market looks at the totality of the
economy in a forward-thinking way, and increases in immigration to the United
States is a net positive for the economy.
I’m yet to hear a candidate running
for president for either party to really put forth any new ideas. No candidate has been bold or daring. For all his shortcomings, at least Candidate
W was willing to stake out some pretty bold positions – remember, he was open
and honest during both campaigns about private retirement accounts for Social
Security (a great idea fumbled away by his incompetence), large tax cuts (a
great idea that will unfortunately “time out” over the next few years), and
education reform (a bad idea with which we are unfortunately stuck). So far all we’ve heard are the usual
platitudes about taxing the rich, ending the war, universal health care, “war
on terror”, and “I’m more conservative than he is”. There’s definitely no premium on
intellectualism in this campaign thus far.
I’m also yet to hear a candidate
talking about the true purpose of government:
protecting individual liberty. OK,
there is one, Congressman Ron Paul,
but sitting House members don’t get elected President, and let’s face it, while
much of what he says is true he isn’t “ready for prime time” in his
communication of it. I hope he stays in
the race because we need somebody beating the drum for truly limited
government.