Quote of the Day

Zbigniew Brzezinski, in a column on how to withdraw from Iraq:

The case for terminating the war is based on its prohibitive and tangible costs, while the case for "staying the course" draws heavily on shadowy fears of the unknown and relies on worst-case scenarios.

Of course this divide mirrors the divide between war supporters and opponents before the war: concrete, factually-based concerns about the consequences of invasion vs. breathless hysteria about the capabilities of Hussein; skepticism about the benefits of war vs. visions of an infinite supply of magical ponies. That's why we're the reality-based community.

Hat tip: Kevin Drum.

Random Flickr-Blogging: img_1515

Random Flickr-blogging explained.

Click on the images to see this week's entries, from:

Generik, at The Generik Brand

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Anthony Cartouche, at Yazoo Street Scandal

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Ben Varkentine, at Dictionopolis in Digitopolis

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shiltone, at The King's Stilts

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Kathy, at Birmingham Blues

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nashtbrutusandshort at Categorical Aperitif

Monday Movie Review: Godspell

Godspell (1973) 3/10
Jesus (Victor Garber) comes to New York with big clown feet and paints the faces of his followers. Then he dies.

I'm trying to decide if Godspell is the worst movie I've ever seen. Maybe not. But it's a contender. Yet, it's the kind of bad movie I'm fascinating by, as I attempt to understand the choices that the filmmakers made. In other words, what were they thinking?

Now, I'd heard that Godspell was a bad movie, but when I know the score of a musical, I like to see it, because I like to see the songs in context, and this leads me to seeing some real turkeys. Like A Chorus Line. And less than halfway through Godspell, I realized there is no context. All these songs that I know so well, that I'd wondered about—where in the story of Jesus do they fit?—don't fit anywhere. They're just sung by a traveling troupe of Jesus clowns.

The movie opens with a bunch of ordinary New Yorkers doing ordinary, frustrating things. Getting stuck in traffic, serving coffee at a lunch counter, using the public library. Then John the Baptist calls them to come and worship the Lord. As they gather in Central Park, their ordinary clothes are transformed into hippie clothes. Okay, I can get behind that. Certainly the idea that Jesus was a hippie of sorts in his own era is not unheard of, and was popular in 1973. Rejecting the material and all that.

Then the group finds a junkyard, and there they find the makings of clown costumes (apparently this is where the circus dumps its stuff when it leaves town). They dress up, act goofy, and Jesus paints everyone's faces with cute little clown stuff.

The whole time this is going on, it's very shticky, very over-acted, with lots of big gestures and wide-eyed facial expressions. I'm thinking, I guess they're making a case for innocence and childlike openness to the wonder of God. The problem I'm having is that they're not really distinguishing between childlike innocence and actual brain damage. Some of these people are acting innocence so broadly that I fear they will wander out in traffic. Maybe they're suffused with the joy of the Presence, but they seem more like they're off their meds.

But hey, innocence. Gentleness. Love. I'm still suspending disbelief mightily. And then Jesus delivers his first message. And it's about the importance obeying every letter of the law. Well, thud. That's definitely not about love and innocence.

The entire movie takes place all over New York City, in locations empty except for the Jesus clowns, as diverse as Lincoln Center, Ward's Island, and the top of the World Trade Center (still under construction at the time). The group walks from spot to spot, acting out parables. The parables don't relate to the locations, nor do they flow one to another. Each is entirely separate, as if each was a part of a different performance. No flow, no plot (not even, y'know, Jesus's life), no sense of who the characters are. Meanwhile, who they are is a group of the shtickiest overacters ever born. Each parable is acted out with "funny" voices; often more than one per character, AND broad movements, AND silly props, AND mime. It's like it's their last day at Clown School, and they have to use everything they've learned. Everything. Over and over.

There were some charming moments; the All for the Best number was wonderfully done, and Jesus in the Garden in his moment of doubt is quite touching, although by that point in the film I was too impatient to appreciate it. But everything is so broad that the enjoyable moments get buried.

And yes, the music is excellent. In my own mind, I am judging the movie entirely separate from music, since the music pre-dates it. And maybe that isn't fair, since some movie musicals certainly do butcher original scores. The vocal performances are outstanding, although it's hard to pay attention to Lynne Thigpen's magnificent rendition of "Bless the Lord" while she is wearing a funny hat and face paint and a choker made of giant beads in rainbow colors and ruffled sleeves and a polka-dot vest and lavender tights and funny shoes.

I'm going to listen to the soundtrack and try to forget I saw this.

(Prepare Ye the Way of the Cross-Post)

Fossil Falls

Sunday Sierrablogging

Strange Fruitcake

Shorter David Broder: "President Bush is the Republican Jeremiah Wright."

Kern River Preserve

2,894 acres, home to California's largest lowland riparian forest. More here.

Rhyolite

Gold was discovered in the area by Shorty Harris and E.L. Cross on August 4, 1904....By 1907, the town had electricity with an estimated population of 3,500 to 10,000. The Panic of 1907 is believed to have adversely affected the town's economy. Production began to slow down by 1908 and the mine and mill were closed in 1911....The lights and power were turned off in 1916. By 1919, the post office had closed and the town was abandoned.
--Wikipedia

And God Won't Take the Time to Sort Your Ashes from Mine

A note to the more unhinged partisans of one candidate or another (yes, I'm talking to you and you and you): if President McCain starts a nuclear conflagration that incinerates us all, it isn't going to matter who supported whom in the primaries.

Now grow the fuck up and start mending fences, before I get cranky.

Also: what Dean says.

Olancha

OLANCHA, 85.6 m. (3,649 alt., 75 pop.), is named for the Olancha tribe which formerly inhabited the region. In the background (R) is OLANCHA PEAK (12,135 alt.).
--The WPA Guide to California, 1939

Friday Random Ten

Standells - Why Pick on Me?
Nocturnes - Midnight Run
Ennio Morricone - Man With a Harmonica
84 Rooms - I Should Stay at Home
Mekons - Country
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
Art of Noise - Close to the Edit
Gang of 4 - Anthrax
Shonen Knife - Expo 90
Dead Moon - It's Okay

I've been thinking about trying to do a CD swap here; I've got a theme all cooked up, and it could be kind of fun. Would anyone be interested?

Titus Canyon

Named for Edward Morris Titus, a 29-year-old would-be prospector who got lost and died there in 1905.

When Sucking Fails, They Blow

Novakula breaks out a new GOP meme this morning in his Washington Post column. Recognizing the failure of the great Republican attack of 2005 on Social Security -- in which Bush and his party, ostensibly concerned about the ability of the system to meet its future obligations, tried to divert payroll taxes toward their Wall Street benefactors in the form of "'personal' accounts" that would miraculously produce fishes and loaves -- Novak calls for St. McCain to cut -- CUT! -- the 6.2% payroll levy.

Where would the revenues necessary to fund Social Security -- revenues that the Republicans have been warning us since long before 2005 were falling dangerously short of obligations -- come from? Here's Novak's back-of-the-envelope accounting:

Even Republican advocates of cutting the payroll tax talk about offsetting it with reduced future benefits. That's a bargain young workers would buy in a minute, and current Social Security recipients would be assured that their pensions would not be reduced one penny. Nevertheless, Democrats would feast on any Republican hint of slashing payments.

The perceived need to offset losses in payroll tax revenue stems from a belief that the Social Security trust fund must be replenished. The truth is that there is no such fund, and the heavy payroll tax revenue resulting from the Greenspan Commission's 1983 "reform" not only provides enough money for Social Security but funds other programs, as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. The problem isn't a shortfall, it's a surplus. So cut away, St. McCain. And tell the kids and the grandkids to call Ditech, like we did. There's your fiscal responsibility for you. Suckers...

Evan Stranger Things Have Happened

Moral giant and itty-bitty little NRO contributor Ramesh Ponnuru, who last we saw standing guard in a David Brooks column over "the seedbed of human capital," is all worked up over Bill Clinton's penis. Again. Or, still.

Today it's whorebag Chelsea who's got Ponnuru's goat, as he explains on his liebral Washington Post drive-by blog, "Right Matters" [sic]:

At a campaign event for her mother at Butler University, Chelsea Clinton was reportedly asked by student Evan Strange whether her mother's credibility had suffered during the Lewinsky scandal. Her response: "Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business."

[...]

Chelsea Clinton was asking the students to support a presidential candidate. One of them wanted to know whether her conduct in a scandal that led to a presidential impeachment had reduced people's confidence in her as a truth-teller. How can that possibly be none of the public's business? Chelsea Clinton is confusing what's private and what's public. In that respect she takes after her father.

What do you think?

Early comments at the blog were running about 10-0 against the Clintons' privates.

Kern River Gorge

Highway 178 east of Bakersfield.

Widow Mine

L 2 m. to RYAN (2,500 alt.), a model company town while the Pacific Coast Borax Co. operated mines here from 1914 to 1928. Sightseeing trains (fare $1) run to borax mines, 7 miles distant.
--The WPA Guide to California, 1939

4,000 Soldiers Come Home In Body Bags Because of Monica Lewinsky

One thing that's been proven by the recent kerfuffle manufactured by the wingnuts concerning The Right Reverend Wright is that the truth doesn't matter in terms of what's acceptable and what's controversial.

Here's an example of something that could be said that could be proven true beyond the shadow of a doubt:

When Republicans are elected, people die.

And by that I mean more people than would have to, or more people than if Democrats are elected -- either way. From foreign policy to automobile safety, global warming, the EPA, the FDA, gun control, and the tobacco industry, more lives are lost when Republicans are in charge. There just isn't any way around it. But you can't say something like that, for obvious reasons.

If enough people are unwilling to give the truth a high priority, or are even a little bit curious about what is true and what is false, then it doesn't do much good to point the truth out. I'm not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg here, but -- and this will not be a revelation to anyone here -- it's a tried-and-true tactic from the right wing to take advantage of people's apathy towards truth to distort it routinely; it's about the end, not the means, obviously.

My own line about holding politicians from either party equally accountable for their actions (especially where the impeachment of presidents is involved) is, "Nobody came home in a body bag because of Monica Lewinsky". And that's the truth. (If your reaction is "What about Bosnia?", you're not paying attention.)

But maybe I was wrong; yesterday Chris Matthews asserted this on MSNBC's "Morning Joe":

"4,000 people are dead now because of decisions made by politicians like the Clintons."

I suspect he'll get away with saying this. Somehow, although you can't blame Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression, you can blame Hillary Clinton for Iraq. Is it me, or have we taken one more step on this long march towards establishing that the moon is made of green cheese, two plus two equals five, up is down, black is white, and the sun rises in the West?

He's Alright, He's Alright, He's Alright...

Over at The Corner, Larry Kudlow appears to have confused McCain with cocaine, he loves him so much:

Right now the stock market is heading higher in part because of aggressive Fed actions to pinpoint discount loans and backstop the financial system. This, of course, is mitigating the sub-prime problem. But don’t discount McCain’s role in this, too. His clear emergence as the frontrunner, with an ever-widening lead over Hill-Bama, is also boosting stocks. Why? For the simple reason that tax burdens will not be raised on investors if McCain becomes president. Nor will free trade be cut off.

From my perch, we don’t look far from the point where John McCain establishes a commanding lead in the run-up to November. Incidentally, the stock market bottom was back on January 22. This was right about the time the Arizonan started to surge.

Think of it.

Yeah, man, think of it. McCain is, like, sooo excellent! He surged to the front on a shitty market and now that he's the frontrunner the market's surging on him. And who can deny that he'll surge on this surging market, and vice versa? John McCain, like capitalism itself, is an unstoppable force. From the former Chief Economist at Bear Stearns' lips to your ears -- you can take that to the bank.

I can haz trivia?

Yes you can!

Roy Says It all

From Alicublog, with a knife, in the library:


CLAWING THEIR WAYS THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL. Oh Jesus. Some guy at Pajamas Media:

“I charge the the white man.” This incendiary speech, opening the film Malcolm X and culminating with a burning American flag resolving into the letter, encapsulates the anger and fear surrounding Barack Obama’s association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright...

Obama is unlikely to become president unless he can explain Malcolm X ...

I predicted they'd get on Obama for Richard Pryor, but this is almost as ridiculous. So I'll up the ante, and predict that they will next demand Obama answer for Fat Albert, whose self-destructive abuse of carbohydrates for years set a negative example that has done so much to hold black people down.

I can see it now: The Ole Perfesser quotes a citizen journalist who says Obama was observed laughing at a Fat Albert episode. (It'll turn out that it was "Roots," and he was weeping, but there'll be no retraction.) Perfesser notes that Obama himself is quite thin; isn't this, he asks, some sort of a double standard? Then he'll quote some guy who calls Obama an "obesity pimp."

Everyone will go "heh" except the conservative spokesman of the moment, who will gleefully shake the bars of his cage and rasp, "Ah kin calls 'em niggers agin?"

Well, as I also said before, I was only in this thing for the riots anyway.

Bishop

Bishop was named for Bishop Creek, which in turn was named for Samuel A. Bishop, a Fort Tejon stockman, who drove the first herd of cattle into Owens Valley in 1861. He built two rough pine cabins on his St. Francis Ranch that were besieged by Paiutes during the Indian uprisings of the 1860's, and several times thereafter until Fort Independence was established in 1862.
--The WPA Guide to California, 1939

Operation Republican Freedom

Shorter David Brooks: "A strategic quagmire, deep tribal hatreds, stubborn political exploitation against nearly impossible odds -- this Democratic primary is the story of the season."

Art Imitates Life, and Even Not Art Does

Mr. Aimai and I have eclectically bad taste in movies. We're so sick we have been watching a movie a night. First, Shaolin Temple something or other with horrendously bad subtitles, a Shaw Brother's Classic. Then the latest Die Hard movie. And last night The Americanization of Emily, Paddy Chayefsky's anti war classic. Got up this morning to read this, over at Kos, about the "families of the fallen"

Most of the families of the fallen that he meets with have one request of the President, which is: Do not let my loved one's sacrifice be in vain...

Q Aren't there also families of the bereaved who ask him to stop the war?

MS. PERINO: There have been, but the vast majority have all asked him not to allow that sacrifice to be in vain. But certainly there are some.

The Americanization of Emily takes the "good war" the "great war" and makes the protagonist a coward--a coward on principle. Charlie is a "dog robber" whose job it is to keep the Navy Brass rolling in good food, liquor and women while they wait for D-day. Meanwhile his commanding officers are obsessed not with the war between countries but the war between services. Charlie's admiral has a nervous break down and simultaneously decides that they can win the war for the Navy by filming "the first dead man" on Omaha beach and making sure its a Navy Man. He's sure he can sell this propaganda piece to the President and the people and get the Navy the primacy it craves after the war. In the event, Charlie ends up being that "first man" on the beach, driven up by his best friend firing a gun at him as he tries to run away. I won't spoil the end by telling you what happens after. Its stagy and filled with set pieces, but against the backdrop of the continued insistence that we must continue *this war* for the sake of those who have alreadly died in it, it rings out like a Temple Gong calling us to action:


From a review of The Americanization of Emily:

When Charlie notices some photographs on the mantel, Emily explains that she has lost her father, brother and husband to the war. He responds by saying, "I’m not sentimental about war. I see nothing noble in widows."

Emily warns him that her mother is a bit mad and has taken to referring to her fallen husband and son as though they were still alive. He does his best to charm Mrs. Barham (Joyce Grenfell), and then initially attempts to impart his views on war in a facetious manner:

War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he’s capable of … it’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war: it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It’s not war that’s unnatural to us – it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.

She is completely oblivious to his irony:

That was exalting, Commander … after every war, you know, we always find out how unnecessary it was. And after this one, I’m sure all the generals will dash off and write books about the blunders made by other generals, and statesmen will publish their secret diaries, and it’ll show beyond any shadow of a doubt that war could easily have been avoided in the first place. And the rest of us, of course, will be left with the job of bandaging the wounded and [burying] the dead.

His mockery unsuccessful, Charlie makes his point as clear as possible in one of the most pointed, devastating anti-war monologues ever heard in film:

Charlie: I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a Hell it is. And it’s always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades … we shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows’ weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio – an everyday soldier’s death, no special heroism involved. They buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud.

Mrs. Barham: You’re very hard on your mother. It seems a harmless enough pretense to me.

Charlie: No, Mrs. Barham. No, you see, now my other brother can’t wait to reach enlistment age. That’ll be in September. May be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She’s under constant sedation and terrified she may wake up one morning and find her last son has run off to be brave.

Charlie’s compelling speech is so stunning, so jarring, that Mrs. Barham snaps out of her delusional denial and admits aloud, for the first time, that her husband and son are dead.

Don't You Miss It...Don't You Miss It...Some of You People Just About Missed It

Lots of stuff going on today. Here's what you might have missed if you were too lazy to scroll down:

• Ahab snarks on Derbyshire


• Shiltone collects the Random Flickr-Blogging


• Kathy is relieved that Fred Thompson still has a job


• Aimai defends Clinton's outreach to Wise Old Men


• I have still more Death Valley pictures


• Aimai prescribes a course of compassionate liberalism photo ops for Obama


• Deborah reviews Marie Antoinette


• Ahab on McCain's 'credibility'

Feel free to use the comments for blogwhoring, as literally¹ thousands have before you.



¹'Literally' meaning 'everything that follows is wild exaggeration'.

The Incredible Credible McCain

Everybody who reads us will read this post over at Kevin Drum's place, but it's too important not to have a copy of over here too. I give you Conventional Wisdom on John McCain:

...Let's recap. Foreign policy cred lets him get away with wild howlers on foreign policy. Fiscal integrity cred lets him get away with outlandishly irresponsible economic plans. Anti-lobbyist cred lets him get away with pandering to lobbyists. Campaign finance reform cred lets him get away with gaming the campaign finance system. Straight talking cred lets him get away with brutally slandering Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican primary. Maverick uprightness cred allows him to get away with begging for endorsements from extremist religious leaders like John Hagee. "Man of conviction" cred allows him to get away with transparent flip-flopping so egregious it would make any other politician a laughingstock. Anti-torture cred allows him to get away with supporting torture as long as only the CIA does it.

Remind me again: where does all this cred come from? And what window do Democrats go to to get the same treatment the press gives McCain?

Monday Movie Review: Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette (2006) 9/10
At the age of 14, a member of the Austrian royal family (Kirsten Dunst) is sent to France to marry (the future) Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman). There her name is styled Marie Antoinette and she struggles with loneliness and a sexless marriage, while under great pressure to produce an heir. Written and drected by Sofia Coppola.

Shortly after I finished watching Marie Antoinette, I realized how very much it resembled Coppola's previous picture, Lost in Translation. Both involved lonely, privileged young women in foreign lands and with inattentive husbands. Both women mask their loneliness with partying and gaiety. That Coppola chooses to direct her attention to sad, disaffected women trying to find themselves amidst noise and clamour speaks of her as a director. It's also working to create some very effective films.

The film is not concerned with perfect period recreation. 1980s dance music is used to create an atmosphere of fun and intensity, brighter-than-period colors are used to express Marie's youth and playfulness. Nonetheless, the story sticks pretty close to history, albeit with its sympathies squarely with Marie.

It's wonderful. The movie stays committed to being a character study, and yet Marie Antoinette's character is revealed amidst noise and color and costume and pageantry. It's got all the visual wealth that a movie can provide, and its imagery is very mischievous, having fun with the shoes, the bedchamber, the hairstyles, and all of that.

Dunst is wonderful, and deserves accolades for this role. She is a stranger in a strange land, lost and confused in all the pomp of Versailles. But she is blue-blooded and grew up in a court, so she cannot simply act confused. It's a delicate balance, as is aging from 14 to 38 (or so) with little makeup. Her face is on-screen almost all the time, and she remains captivating.

The movie becomes a bit confusing at the end, if you don't know the particulars of how the final days of Louis & Marie played out, the script is not terribly interested in telling you. At that point, the movie really runs out of steam; it feels like Coppola is less interested in this part. That probably sounds like a bigger flaw than it is, it's more of a quibble, really.

Marie Antoinette doesn't glamorize royalty, but it doesn't exactly deglamorize it either. There's definitely some lovely pageantry and cool clothes. There's also the simple reality of being a young girl sent away from home forever, and having even your beloved dog taken away from you (she is allowed "to have as many French dogs as you like" but can bring nothing of Austria with her, she is told as she weeps helplessly). It finds a truth in the humanity of whoever ends up in any overwhelming situation, and sees her with great sympathy.

I thought it was a hell of an achievement. Frankly, the descriptions I'd read sounded kitsch, or coy, but this was a very honest film, just done in an unusual way.

(Let them eat cross-post)

Obama's "Compassionate Liberalism" photo ops

Now that Obama has opened up America's vast, gaping, race wounds with his vicious Philidelphia speech I think we can all see that there is a throbbing, wounded, heart beating in every instapunk and derbyshire. I'm calling for an all out war on the poverty of spirit. Leftists and liberals must renew their outreach to those whom PC has left bloodied and inarticulate, unable to use the "n" word even in private conversation. But what would that outreach look like? How can a fatally tanned Obama ever hope to reassure the vast right wing middle of the roader that he isn't going to force them all to listen to rap music or applaud Michael Jordan?

Chuckling and the Left Coaster have both separately hit on what must be Obama's new strategy: Compassionate Liberalism. The Left Coaster observed a few days ago that Obama needs to be photographed with world leaders (hugging and kissing optional) to counter McCain's recent old guy in a suit tour of world leader photo ops. This will show that Obama is not just a man for the people, he's a man for the elite. More important than his ability to inspire ordinary Americans is his ability to look normal (and not have baggy pants or walk with a hip hop swagger) with the great and good.

Chuckling today, quoting the Washington Post, observed that what Obama needs to do is, essentially, tigerwoodize himself:

This is why I say, play up Obama's white heritage as much as possible. He needs to start posing with his mother's family a lot more, not the United Nations crew of brothers and cousins he's normally seen running with. Staffers need to start snapping as many pictures as possible of him putting mayonnaise on his sandwiches and shaking hands straight up and down (no more low-fives that evolve into a shake with that pat on the back). He should also be banned from speaking at any kind of Baptist church (not just the United Church of Christ) and should just stick to churches that only use a pipe organ and where folks sing their songs solemnly and straight from a hymnal.

People in the know may remember that the distinguishing feature, in fact the only feature, of Bush's compassionate conservativism was an endless series of images of Bush hugging black people on the White House's "compassionate conservativsm" page. Bush kissed a lot of black babies to explain to us, visually, that he'd never (for example) let an entire city drown and abandon its populace just because it was majority poor and black. Good times. My gentle suggestion is that Obama start doing the same thing. He might want to denounce himself a few times, or at the very least he can be filmed cursing Michelle and the girls. If he can be photographed with those little plaid pants and tasselled shoes, I think we are home free.

Dante's View

The main side road continues R. from the junction to DANTE'S VIEW (light effects best in morning), 13.9 m. (5,220 alt.), overlooking Death Valley from the summit of the Black Mountains. The two extremes of altitude in the 48 States are visible from this point. More than a mile below is Badwater (-279.6 alt.), and westward over the Panamints in the snowy Sierra Nevada is Mt. Whitney (14,495 alt.). Snow-capped Telescope Peak just opposite in the Panamints towers more than two miles above Death Valley and a mile above this spot. White salt areas in the valley are sharply outlined against the gravel slopes. Mesquite thickets make green patches at Mesquite and Bennett Wells (L) and Furnace Creek Ranch (R). The steep, rugged mountain walls that baffled the Death Valley party of 1849 stretch north and south, and the Avawatz and Owlshead Mountains block the valley southward. Eastward, beyond the twisted slopes of the Black Mountains, are the barren desert ranges of southern Nevada.
--The WPA Guide to California, 1939

Its Called Kabuki because its Stylized, Not Because Its Art

Atrios complains today that Hillary Clinton, like everyone in Washington, continually makes gestures towards the "grand old men" when looking for a way to fix the very problems the grand old men have caused. I don't disagree. I'm on record calling for everyone who recently published a mea not-so-culpa on the Iraq war to be taken out and shot *just so we never have to see their names in print again* other than in a snarky obit. But in complaining about Hillary calling for an old fart council on economics composed of Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan Atrios is mistaking shadow boxing for the real thing. A public call for something is a signal *to the public* not the actual thing in itself. And the public doesn't know anything about economics--barely knows (if it knows) who the F*&^^ Alan Greenspan *is.* Atrios and the other economists and econ mavens are still pissed off at Greenspan for giving the green light to the rapists and looters known as ARM mortgate sellers. And they are right to do so. But I guarantee you that no one who took out an ARM looked to Greenspan's moronic comments to legitimize their choice. They didn't know what he'd said and clearly wouldn't have grasped it if they had. All that the names "greenspan" and "rubin" mean to the public is "some old guys with experience." Converseley, choosing (wisely) some young or old turks who actually knew what they were doing economically and had the people's interest at heart instead of being corporate cronies? Would signal nothing to the public since they wouldn't have even the dimmest hope of name recognition (Unless you could tack "nobel prize winning" blah blah after their name and we see how far that got Stiglitz). Hillary's comment is *positioning* to call attention to *The problem* that bush et al and mccain et al are pretending doesn't exist. Saying you'll put greenspan on the theoretical, hypothetical, never to be constituted working group is like saying you'll have a stuffed margaret thatcher sitting at the end of the table. It just makes bush et al look weak and meanspirited when they refuse to constitute such a working group.

aimai

It's Good To Know He's Not In a Bread Line

Fred Thompson, erstwhile savior of the Republican party, has officially returned to the acting profession. Despite his demonstrated inability to act interested in being President in real life, I'm sure he'll be quite successful.

Good luck, Fred! Maybe someone will hire you to play a candidate.

Random Flickr-Blogging: img_4070

Random Flickr-blogging explained.

Click on the images to see this week's entries, from:

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SAP at thoughts from an empty head

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Anthony Cartouche at Yazoo Street Scandal

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Ben Varkentine at Dictionopolis in Digitopolis

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Generik at The Generik Brand

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shiltone at The King's Stilts

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dday at d-day

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catharine at Povertybarn

Party Time

Shorter John Derbyshire: "Racism been very, very good to me."

Resurrection Zone

Oldies but goodies ruled K-Lo's contributions to The Corner this slow news, Easter weekend. Among them we had an entry in the Google holiday icon-watch category:

Nothing Special About Today [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Like, Memorial Day, Easter appears to be a holiday Google doesn't do — although it managed to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and the first day of spring (even if they skipped Jonah and my birthdays!) this past week.

Because isn't that "l" just crying out to be martyred upon? And I count at least six potential caves in the other five letters.

We also had another "good news from Iraq"-style feature wherein K-Lo quoted this passage from the LA Times:

War-ravaged Iraq city 'alive again'

Fallouja has been rebuilt since the 2004 battles. Stores again are doing a brisk business, and the population is nearly back up to 300,000.

Do you think K-Lo realizes that it's a mostly-different 300,000 people -- the original folk now being mostly 'still dead'?*

And finally we had a premium entry in that classic category of K-Lo, the incredibly wrong-headed political nomination:

Empire State of Dunces [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

People are seriously wondering if David Patterson will wind up resigning.

I'm tempted to want Rudy to head to Albany. Anybody know what he's up to?

03/22 09:28 AM

I don't believe anything I could possibly write here would do justice to the memory of either John Kennedy Toole or Ignatius J. Reilly. So I'm not even going to try. Instead I'll simply bow down to the repetitive awesomeness that is K Lo.

* At least 4,000 US troops are also now 'still dead.'

Manzanar

The town of Manzanar—the Spanish word for “apple orchard”—developed as an agricultural settlement beginning in 1910. Farmers grew apples, pears, peaches, potatoes, and alfalfa on several thousand acres surrounding the town.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began acquiring water rights in the valley in 1905 and completed the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. Land buyouts continued in the 1920s, and by 1929 Los Angeles owned all of Manzanar’s land and water rights. Within five years, the town was abandoned. In the 1930s local residents pinned their economic hopes on tourism. With the onset of World War II tourism diminished.

In 1942 the U.S. Army leased 6,200 acres at Manzanar from Los Angeles to establish a center to hold Japanese Americans during World War II.
--NPS website for Manzanar