Category: AAA-Very Very Best

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The Cost of Death

From the Washington Post, June 11, 2009

In the final two years of a patient’s life, for example, they found that Medicare spent an average of $46,412 per beneficiary nationwide, with the typical patient spending 19.6 days in the hospital, including 5.1 in the intensive-care unit. Green Bay patients cost $33,334 with 14.1 days in the hospital and just 2.1 days in the ICU, while in Miami and Los Angeles, the average cost of care exceeded $71,000, and total hospitalization was about 28 days with 12 in the ICU.

Some differences can be explained by big-city prices, acknowledged Elliott Fisher, principal investigator for the Dartmouth Atlas Project, “but the differences that are really important are due to the differences in utilization rates.”

Much of the evidence suggests that the more doctors, more drugs, more tests and more therapies given to patients, the worse they fare — and the unhappier they become, said Donald Berwick, president of the independent research group Institute of Quality Improvement.

The kicker here is that there is evidence that the more treatment a patient receives late in life, the less happy he or she is.

I believe it. Anyone who has spent time in a hospital or nursing home can’t help but believe it.

Billions of dollars of health care spending in the United States is guided by a very simple and pernicious logic: don’t you love your mother? (Or father, or grandparent, or…). And if you love your mother, don’t you want to do everything possible to extend her life? Everything? Even if the odds of the treatment actually extending her life or improving her quality of life are not very good?

I’m sure some elderly people simply want to live for as long as they possibly can even if it bankrupts their families, but I don’t believe most of them want that. I think most people in their 70’s and 80’s accept that life comes to an end eventually and probably hope, more fervently than for anything else, to die in peace, close to friends and family, and without unbearable pain. They don’t want to spend their last weeks or months strapped to a bed with tubes going in and out of every orifice, nauseous, drugged out. And they don’t want pallid substitutes for pain killers because the pharmaceutical industry has succeeded in establishing a monopoly over drugs.

The average American works hard all of his life, buys a house, builds up his assets, sends his children to college, saves something for retirement, spoils the grand kids, and then, just when he thinks he’s survived the economic snake-pit of American capitalism, the health care system sinks its fangs into him and sucks him dry. If you want to leave something for your grandchildren, you need to drive your car off a bridge before you become incapacitated.

Perhaps one of the most depressing facts of American life is that the medical-industrial complex has managed to convince many Americans– and almost all talk radio hosts– that the cruelest, least fair, and least efficient health-care system in the Western World is actually the best. They stand there bankrupted and ruined, dropped by their insurance companies, buried under piles of arcane incomprehensible forms, denied critical treatments because their insurance companies simply refuse to pay out… and they look at us Canadians and go, “Oh my god! You have to wait three weeks for an MRI?”

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The Third Man: How do you know a thing like that Afterwards?

It’s 1948. Postwar Vienna is suffering shortages of everything, including medicine. It is administered by a cooperative security force comprised of British, French, American, and Russian soldiers. In a unique arrangement, a representative of each country takes part in each routine patrol, even if they can’t speak each others’ language.

The city is in ruins. The people, demoralized, desperate.

Holly Martins is an American writer of pulp westerns. He gets a message from an old school chum, Harry Lime, to come visit him in Vienna. Sounds like an adventure– old times! But he arrives just ten minutes after Lime’s body has been carted away to be buried, after a car accident. Instead of a happy reunion, he attends a somber funeral, along with a very small number of Lime’s friends. And a young woman, Anna, who walks away quickly when the service is over.

Martins is clearly already infatuated with her and later catches up with her at the theatre where she performs in sad, dispirited, period comedies. Perhaps the most depressing moment of the film– the actresses, in sumptuous costumes, smiling and cavorting on stage, in some pathetic effort to recapture something magical from a hopelessly distant past– and the audience half-heartedly laughing.

After the play, she offers him a cup of tea, but it is clear that she is in no mood for sentimental reminiscences.

MARTINS
You were in love with him, weren’t you?
ANNA
I don’t know. How can you know a
thing like that afterwards? I don’t
know anything any more.

Well, damn right it’s written by Graham Greene. Martin’s line is freighted with a misguided nostalgia for Lime (we come to understand, even if Martins doesn’t, that Lime used him) and Anna’s line is freighted with bitter disillusionment.

Holly is one of the earliest incarnations of George W. Bush, blundering into complex situations which he can’t remotely understand but determined, nonetheless, to do something about them, and, in the process, causing mayhem and suffering to all those around him. He’s the ugly American, the bumbling fool who thinks his native wit will triumph over sophistication and cunning.

This is not a coincidence.  It is a known theme of Graham Greene’s: how the naïve but well-meaning Americans sew disaster around the world.

Anna wants nothing to do with him. She just wants time to go by. She’s filled with fatalism, resignation, and emotional fatigue.

You begin to understand how war saps away hope and passion. And you begin to understand the complex, disturbing attraction of Lime. And it is a wonderful tribute to Greene that he resists the temptation to imbue Anna with some kind of special nobility: it is clear she doesn’t care about the victims of Lime’s black market activities– she only wants him back. Because he was the only thing in her bleak life that made her laugh.

You don’t even get to anesthetize yourself with this illusory “true love”– she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how you would even know something like that “afterwards”

[spoiler] Then there is the astonishing last scene. The camera stands distant, at the end of a long laneway leading away from the cemetery. Martins, the fool, prevails upon Major Calloway to let him off. Calloway, reluctantly, stops the jeep and lets him out. He stands there waiting for Anna to catch up to him. The camera watches impassively as Anna slowly approaches Martins… then walks right past him as if he doesn’t even exist.

Martins doesn’t move.

We fully understand that he is being forced into a tremendously painful realization, and all he can do is stand there and watch her walk away.

Graham Greene, who was no stranger to Hollywood movies, thought the original ending of “The Third Man” was too bleak for most audiences and wanted to change it….

Well, no– it wasn’t the “original” ending: [spoiler] in the novella he wrote as a first draft, he actually had Anna walk off, after Lime’s funeral, with Martins. [end of spoiler] It was director Carol Reed and–shockingly– the producer, David O. Selznick– yes, the American Hollywood producer– who insisted there should be no compromise, because it was “right”, artistically, because it was inevitable, because the romantic ending would have been completely contrary to the spirit of the story.

It is very hard to imagine otherwise. It was an uncharacteristically cheesy idea of Greene’s, and a brilliant realization by Reed and Selznick. And I am convinced it is one of the main reasons “The Third Man” is regarded so highly more than fifty years after it was made. The romantic ending might have provided a moment of transient gratification– but it would have trivialized the rest of the film.

Considering all the indignities Hollywood has rendered upon good stories over the years, that is amazing.

I can’t stand it when a movie like “The Reader” comes along acting as if it was something like “The Third Man”. Watch the two one after the other: what’s different? The world. But mainly the writing. The difference is that there is not a single moment in “The Reader” that is even a shadow of the “how do you know a thing like that afterwards” or the cuckoo clock, or “Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. ”

If someone were to do a remake of “The Third Man”– a terrible idea, of course– you could do worse than…

Holly Martins: Steve Carell
Harry Lime: Phillip Seymour Hoffman — without a doubt.
Anna: Taryn Manning, or maybe Amy Adams, if she ever decides to take on a challenging role, instead of those lightweight confections she’s been indulging in lately.

Or how about Kelly MacDonald? I don’t know. Yes– absolutely Kelly MacDonald, with Franke Potente as a close second.

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Hard Boyled

Over 30 million people have now been duped into watching the video of the frumpy middle-aged woman who can sing. Everyone is astonished. Who would have thought a frumpy middle-aged woman could sing?!

Who would have thought anyone would be surprised that a frumpy middle-aged woman can sing?

Either the average person is far more dull-witted than ever previously imagined, or we are all fooling ourselves. You’re at a talent show. You watch various attractive young people march across the stage, with varying levels of talent. Then you see a frumpy middle-aged woman. You think– obviously she has no talent.  Right.

In fact, any reasonably astute person would have likely thought, she’s certainly not here for her looks. Obviously, she must be able to sing.

Now, this is a program which introduces emerging talents and then processes them like hamburgers through the obscene rituals of fashion makeovers, stylists, image consultants, deportment experts, etc., with the goal of rendering them into mental frumps– celebrities. Why the real frumpy woman? To convince the viewers that they are not like those shallow, crass people who only appreciate art if it is packaged in sexy, youthful flesh. No no no– I don’t judge people by their appearance– only by their abilities.

And after Susan Boyle has had her meaningless moment on the stage, these same people will go back to choosing the singer with the biggest bosom, and only watching movies that star sexy young Hollywood starlets. Except for Meryl Streep movies– because she is the Susan Boyle of Hollywood films: the exception that proves we are decent, intelligent people after all. We like serious actors. My enjoyment of their films is a badge of culture and good taste. I’m glad you know that. Besides, Meryl Streep may be flat-chested but she is sort of pretty. She’s prettier than Mrs. Doubtfire.

Now, it has occurred to me that my enjoyment of obscure films by Japanese directors like Ozu might be taken for the same thing. I’ve had that reaction before: you can’t seriously like “Late Spring”– it’s excruciatingly slow moving and, it’s black and white. Or, more likely, “I watched that film you were so hot about– I couldn’t believe how boring it was!”

It’s probably true. Though I must admit, it’s not that much fun at work to casually mention, at lunch, that I watched an obscure Japanese film last night.

You just do that to make us think you’re smarter than we are.

Yeah, that’s what you get.

What I liked about my college experience is that it was one of the few times in my life when most of the people I hung out with respected elite artistry, drama, and music.

Nowadays, the elite is there to be mocked, even by the elite.

The Inevitable “Make-Over”

The latest: Susan Boyle has undergone a modest “make-over”, using a local hair stylist instead of a fancy one from the big city. The idea is to make it more digestible for the average viewer to maintain the illusion that they appreciate her for her voice and don’t care at all about the fact that she looks like a real person.

The Un-Boyle

Diana Krall seems like a perfectly fine lady. She looks very nice. She gets a lot of airplay on the CBC.

She is the opposite of Susan Boyle. Diana Krall looks absolutely ravishing– if your taste runs to big-boned blonde Visigoths– but, truthfully, is a rather average singer.

Norah Jones is in the same category: really, a mediocre singer with a pleasant voice, and, most importantly, a pretty body.

Just think– if you could combine Susan Boyle’s voice with Diana Krall’s looks, you would have the perfect entertainer. Right? Wrong. Nobody really cares about the voice part. Diana Krall has the only advantage that matters already in hand.

And actually, Susan Boyle’s singing talents really are quite over-rated as well.

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Genuine Heroes: Brooksley Born

Even after reading a lot of articles on the current economic crisis, it is difficult to get a grasp on just what, specifically, brought about the chain of events that have led to our current upheaval. The question is, who is responsible, and why.

Well, we know of someone who was not responsible. I’ll bet you’ve never heard of her. Her name is Brooksley Born. During the Clinton administration, she was in charge of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She objected to these new derivatives and credit swaps and other nefarious instruments of economic bamboozlement.  But she was overruled and marginalized by Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin, who were entranced and delighted with the possibilities raised by deregulation of the securities markets. (Rubin was later a director and counselor to Citibank, until January this year, when he went to work for Obama).

They saw lots of Enrons (then considered miraculously profitable) splashing money around making all their friends rich. Well, to be generous, they probably would like you to believe they thought any red-blooded American investor could get rich by investing in a company like Enron.  All you needed was lots and lots of disposable money.  Sure, anyone.

Today, everybody knows about Kenneth Lay and AIG and Eliot Spitzer and Britney Spears and even Susan Boyle, and nobody knows the name Brooksley Born. So here is my modest little tribute to a great woman:

Brooksley, you were right.

And she was not the only one who was right but didn’t receive nearly enough credit for it.

You were wise when everyone around embraced foolishness. Someone should name a large federal building for you. And remove the name “Greenspan”.

The world of high finance and banking seems to have been mainly a giant Ponzi scheme and those who were in on the backroom deals profited immensely and, so far, with near impunity.

No one will ever know exactly how complicit Rubin and Greenspan and the others were, but we do know that neither of them left their federal appointments to go work for Habitat for Humanity.

Do Americans finally get what’s going on? While they were all excited about this incredibly expensive military adventure in Iraq that would cost nearly a trillion dollars– to prevent America’s interests from being harmed by nefarious Islamic foes– American’s interests were harmed by the same fat cats that sponsored Bush in the first place, the ones who got all the tax cuts, the ones who urged you to keep America safe by voting for a strong military.

They are counting on your ignorance, your indifference, your confusion. They are counting on you believing that our economic systems is fundamentally sound and fundamentally serves your interests in spit of what appears to be looting on an unimaginable scale, of your pensions, your insurance, your mortgages.

What Actually Happened and Why it Should Not Have

Do you get what actually happened? This is what I understand went down: banks and other financial institutions conspired to set up these huge funds– derivatives– which consisted of bundled mortgages and loans amounting to trillions of dollars. They resold these packages to investors and then, to eliminate any risk, set up entities to back the loans called “credit swaps”. The credit swaps guaranteed repayment of the loans if the borrowers defaulted, essentially giving investors all the benefits of risk — high payments– with none of the actual risks. These credit swaps were fraudulently presented as some kind of magical black box which could never fail to produce bunnies, when, in fact, they were never responsibly vetted by any authority. It was the duty of the government to vet these instruments– it failed.

These funds spread like wildfire throughout the financial industry until nobody even knew who was really holding what. When the mortgage bubble burst and housing prices began falling catastrophically in the U.S., buyers started defaulting on their loans in massive numbers, bleeding the magical system dry, and sucking up all of the liquidity in the entire financial system.

That’s my understanding as far as it goes.

The most frightening thing about the bail-out is the number of people, like Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson, who were involved in the original sin who are now involved in the massive attempted “redemption” of the world economy.

Can the same people who steered us into the ice berg rescue the passengers from the life boats?

Much as I would like to lay this at Bush’s feet, it is clear that the era of deregulation began under Clinton and that Bush merely carried on in the same general spirit.

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Two Submarines Bumping Into Each Other: Excuse Me Excusez-Moi

“It is MOD policy not to comment on submarine operational matters, but we can confirm that the U.K.’s deterrent capability has remained unaffected at all times and that there has been no compromise to nuclear safety,” a ministry spokesman said. NY Times (Feb 15, 2009)

So two subs, one British, one French, collided in the mid-Atlantic, and we are supposed to be relieved that U.K.’s “deterrent capability” remained unaffected. Which of course makes you wonder, who exactly is an imminent threat to the U.K.? Who is threatening to launch their nuclear missiles (that is what a “deterrent” is for) at London and Liverpool? Why is Britain spending so much money to keep these floating doomsday devices out there?

But the most interesting thing is this. Think about it: these two subs are absolutely loaded with the most sophisticated, powerful technologies available to mankind. We have spared no expense to provide them with every tool imaginable to ensure that they can reliably murder millions of their people if someone dares to murder millions of our people. Their crews have been trained by our most experienced, wisest, and ingenious scientists and leaders.

And they couldn’t keep from running into each other on the open seas.

And they are supposed to have “fail-safe” systems in place to keep the bombs from going off by mistake. But all their resources couldn’t keep them from running into each other.

The subs look very solemn. They are huge and weighty and black. They are coated with materials to hide them from sonar. They are powered by nuclear reactors. They can go under the arctic ice. The men on them wear uniforms on land and salute each other reverently when passing. For all the costumes and show, they are like little tin soldiers marching back and forth, back and forth, under the delusion that they keep the sun shining and the stars from falling with their little ministrations.

Obama’s Helicopters

Apparently, Obama has inherited some kind of project to replace the aging presidential helicopters, those old Sikorskys, with something new and more powerful. How powerful? About $11.2 Billion powerful.

The program was initiated by the Bush Administration after 9/11, and it should symbolize to all of us everything that is wrong and stupid about government today. Firstly, $11.2 Billion dollars is too much to protect anybody, even Obama. Yes, I am a fan of Obama, but that doesn’t mean I believe he is some kind of divinity who is so valuable and so important that we must spend an infinite amount of money to keep him safe. In fact, there is only one word for the idea of spending $11.2 billion on presidential helicopters: obscene. It is obscene in every respect, in the idiotic belief that technology can make us invulnerable, in the deeply offensive idea that the President is so phenomenally amazing and important and irreplaceable that we cannot countenance the slightest hint of a threat to his continued existence, in the way government functionaries behave as if they live on some magical planet with infinite money to spend on toys and gizmos and uniforms and parades.

The truth is that if Obama died tomorrow, the sky would not fall, the economy would not falter worse than it already has (while the previous administration was all safe and sound) and life would go on much the same as it has before.

As far as I am concerned, Obama should take public transit. Better yet: one secret service agent should drive him to the airport in a Prius. Another one should follow behind on a moped, in case anything happens.

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Wings of Desire: the Best Film You Will Never See

There is a German film by Wim Wenders called “Wings of Desire”. The title is a bit of a salacious interpretation of the German “Der Himmel Uber Berlin”, which is more like “Heaven Over Berlin”, of course.

It’s about two angels who observe people going about their humble little lives. The two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, can “hear” people’s thoughts.  One of their favorite places in the library (an incredibly beautiful building in this film) where people think (aloud, to them) about regrettable actions, disappointments, loss.  It is suggested that their awareness of these thoughts provides some kind of comfort to people.

One of them, Damiel, after watching some people who have a real passion for things, like acrobatics, or smoking, or coffee, decides that he wants to become human. Cassiel warns him that he will have to give up his immortality. Damiel  believes it might be worth the sacrifice.  He wants to know what it is like to be constrained by time, to have to relish every moment as if it might be your last, because it could be your last.

I ran across this film in a motel in Orangeville one night long ago.  My wife had gone to sleep and I was channel surfing.  I hit this black and white movie and here is what I saw:  Peter Falk on an airplane sketching some of the passengers with a pencil and pad.  The “angels” high over Berlin.  Peter Falk acting in some film.  Peter Falk playing Peter Falk acting in a film.  Peter Falk buying a coffee as one of the angels comes closer to watch.  Peter Falk saying, in a line that just blew my mind, “I can’t see you but I know you’re there.”

Explain the contrivance of this film to me?  It made no sense, but it was beautiful.  Of course I continued to watch and it has become one of my favorite films of all time.

It is one of the most sublimely beautiful films I have ever seen.  It altered my perception of drinking coffee for months afterwards.

There was, of course, a terrible, terrible American remake called “City of Angels” set in Los Angeles and starring Meg Ryan as– ready for it?– a brain surgeon. Nicolas Cage is the angel who wants to love her.

For mass American audiences, most of the poetry has been removed in favor of cheap, mawkish emoting, contrivance, and antiseptic middle-class moral ambiguity: we wish to be titillated with suggestive possibilities without ever being mortally offended by the idea that someone might actually act on those feelings. The kind of stunted emotional state that produces beauty pageants for tykes, mischievous nuns, professional wrestling, by the kind of people who get hysterical when it is revealed that Michael Phelps smoked pot.

Why is anyone even concerned, in the slightest, about the fact that Michael Phelps was photographed smoking marijuana? Marijuana is no more or less harmful or truly immoral than most alcoholic beverages or fast foods or high performance automobiles or skate-boarding.

What if someone had posted a picture of him eating a Big Mac instead?

What if Meg Ryan had taken a sublimely beautiful German film and turned it into a trite, shallow, grasping little Hollywood contrivance? What if there was a photograph of Meg Ryan doing just that? Shouldn’t she be banned from all Hollywood movies for fifty years for that crime?

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Wandering

If you are convinced that you have enemies in the world and that they hate you and that they are coming after you, you will eventually convince the world to hate you and come after you. And indeed, you will have enemies in the world. They will hate you for your paranoia and your defensiveness and the way you always lock your doors and the way you constantly plan revenge for some outrage that has yet to happen. Christ said, turn the other cheek. No wonder they crucified him. He didn’t even do them the comfort of striking back at them. He offered them the quintessential liberality of: they don’t know what they’re doing. I say kiss the other cheek, because that covers just about everyone: they don’t know what they are doing.

We claim that our virtue is offended by some action by some inadequate human being out there, somewhere, but the real offense is that we thought anyone should take our virtues seriously or that anyone would think that we actually believe in them for their own sake. Nothing is more external to the soul than virtue, for it is precisely the only thing protecting your soul from the uncomfortable insinuation of others’ mortalities. We would rather die than have them kill us. We would rather kill than have anybody think we were killers.

If it is a conceit to pretend to be smarter than anyone else, it is an even bigger conceit to believe that intelligence is something to be ashamed of. Who do we prefer to kill: those who refuse to bow to our insights, or those who confront us with undeniable evidence of our inadequacies?

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The Inauguration and the Fake String Quartet

I just read that the lovely little quartet that performed “Air and Simple Gifts” at Barack Obama’s inauguration faked it. You watched the lovely musicians, elegant, focused, rising to the occasion– you thought. But the music you heard came from a recording that had been made a few days earlier. They finger-synched. They had ear-pieces so they could hear the recording, and then they put on a performance, but the performance was not musical: it was acting.

I am always amazed at the rationales given for cheating. The Chinese said that the little singer was not pretty enough to dance and the Olympics were too important to allow ugliness into the stadium. The people in charge of the inauguration said it was too cold to play, and too important an event to take a chance something going wrong, and allow any musical ugliness’s into the mall.

Even Pavarotti, at a performance in Italy a few years ago, cheated because he had a cold and didn’t want to disappoint his fans. Never mind the people who were disappointed to find out that even Pavarotti is a fake.

I hope most people immediately see through these lies. When we watch a brilliant musician perform, we are impressed precisely because it is difficult to do, and because of the dynamic connection between performer and audience responding to each other in the moment. So someone who successfully performs, live, deserves our respect. Others only want you to believe that they performed live. They want the same applause and respect. They bow and bow and bow– what’s the matter with you? What do you mean “cheating”? I just didn’t want to disappoint my fans.  I say, fuck you.

If it wasn’t fakery of the highest order, why were they trying to make it look like they were performing live? Why not just stand there and bow?

And why on earth, if they were so concerned about the cold, didn’t they just perform live in the White House — in the Oval Office– and then broadcast it to the huge screens on the mall? At a moment of crisis and change, demanding the highest level of inspiration for the American people, Obama’s people cheated. They pretended they could do something they didn’t believe they could really do.

They put on a show loaded with symbolism meaning nothing.

Well, I refuse to give in to this bullshit that someone it is reasonable and good and fair to cheat in public performances.  It is absolutely possible to perform live or to simply do something else if you don’t want to be honest.

[2022-05-09: they did for music what Obama did for progressive politics — faked it.]

The faked musical performance music wasn’t the only thing about the inauguration I didn’t like. The rows of guards dressed in grey overcoats lining the streets called to mind nothing so much as a police state. Rick Warren was boring. Obama’s speech was disappointing– merely “very good” instead of great. The poet played it entirely, decisively, antiseptically safe.

Diane Feinstein was good. She looked like she was having fun up there. I have never liked patriotic hymns of any sort, so Aretha Franklin’s song didn’t move me. The only other part of the inauguration I really liked was the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lawry, who at least put on a little funk and passion and sounded cheerfully unceremonious.

More Fakes: 2011-04

Did you like the tap-dancing in “Riverdance”? The sound was faked. The producers triumphantly chortled: nobody cares.

Turns out that Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) is also a fake, according to “60 Minutes”. The stories he tells in his books and repeats in person, about getting lost on K2, and being kidnapped by the Taliban. False.

Bitter Dobsonites

If you check the James Dobson website, you’ll find that there are at least a few patriotic bible-believing Americans who are so bitter and self-serving that they are unwilling to acknowledge, even on inauguration day, the historic importance of America’s first black president.

Dobson’s proxies, instead, attacked Obama for employing several Clinton-era appointees.

Why on earth choose John Williams, most famous for the theme of “Star Wars”, to compose a piece for this historic inauguration? In his favor, he is American, living, and successful. But were the best parts of the composition the pieces he lifted from Aaron Copland? I would have preferred Tom Waits myself, but that’s just me.

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Suburbia

I just read an article by Judith Warner in the New York Times that noted how often movies depict the lifestyle of 1950’s suburbia as a hellhole of emotional privation and spiritual desiccation. There are a long list of movies that fit the bill, from “The Hours” and “Far From Heaven” to “Edward Scissorhands” and “Revolutionary Road”, of course. How about “Hairspray”? Andy Warhol’s “Bad”?

She didn’t think it was quite fair. I’m not sure if she actually admired those mythical moms who spent their days cooking and cleaning and plucking their eyebrows and showing up at school “perfectly coiffed” to pick up their children– maybe she should– but she seems to think it’s unfair that we castigate a lifestyle that provided stability, security, and happiness to most people. The movies never tire of ridiculing suburbanites, whether they’re manicuring their hedges or swathing the house with Christmas lights.

The audiences for these films live in suburbs, where they manicure their hedges and put up Christmas lights. And go to movies that ridicule them.

Having acknowledged a measure of hypocrisy in the near-universal (among liberal intellectuals) condemnation of 50’s conformity and materialism, I’m not sure this (Warner’s diatribe) isn’t just another case of the a writer acting as if she had just discovered something that the writers she criticizes had always known and took for granted: that there was indeed a trade-off, and that the material comforts of suburbia are… just what they are: material comforts. Warner acts as if an entire generation has forgotten about how nice it is to have a warm, clean home and meals. Artists, don’t you know, sacrifice these things for the purity of their “art”. But of course, we are only ever shown the successful artist, for whom, we conclude, the sacrifice was worth it. How would it look if, instead, the movies showed us the dismal, depressing lives of the vast majority of wood-be artists, living in poverty and deprivation, for nothing more than the, assumed, personal satisfaction of creating great art?

And she’s right about the note of hypocrisy among the swaths of young, urban professionals who choose to live in the suburbs for the material comforts while entertaining quiet delusions about soulfulness and authenticity being smothered by the spirit of conformity.

Why You Want a War

Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Hermann Goring

Why You Don’t Want a War

“The drive-through, which accounts for 60 percent of the chain’s business in the United States, was reconfigured to become more efficient.” NYTimes (January 10, 2008)

I didn’t know McDonald’s does 60% of their business through idling carbon emitters. We have a problem. McDonald’s chief executive (Jim Skinner, who looks like a McDonald’s customer) eats at McDonald’s every day.

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Those Whacky Lovable Lawyers!

“Lawyers are often asked to offer their views on complicated questions with significant real-world consequences, and the idea that offering the wrong answer could implicate an attorney in criminal wrongdoing is a frightening prospect to many in the profession. It is not surprising, therefore, that lawyers are reluctant to condemn fellow lawyers on the basis of the advice that they give.” Washington Post, December 17, 2008

Wow. Those lawyers! And I’m sure I’ll hear some more complaining about how lawyers are unfairly targeted for vilification and abuse…. but maybe the lawyers should get together and disbar Mr. Woo, a Bush Administration flunky, and Jack Goldsmith, a law professor (!) responsible for the muck- worthy insidiousness above.

Mr. Goldsmith asserts here that lawyers that advise government officials to do something illegal shouldn’t be held accountable because otherwise, in the future, they will hesitate to offer good advice to the government, like, “hey, why don’t you torture them”, or “arrest and detain them without evidence or due process”.

The discussion relates to the question of whether Bush Administration lawyers and other officials should ever be investigated for authorizing acts of torture. Hell, no, says Mr. Goldsmith. It will have a chilling effect on the ability of lawyers to encourage breaking the law in the future.

Normally at this point I would think of some kind of analogy to try to make clear how wrong I think it is to torture people. But that would be an insult to the idea that torture itself is about as evil an act as one can imagine. And the fact that you start thinking, “does someone need to explain to the Bush administration why torture is wrong…. do they not understand what torture is? Do they not care that, in the future, they won’t be able to complain about American soldiers being tortured because our enemies will be more than happy to adopt our rationale?

We know what will happen: the torturers will be forgiven because they only obeyed orders. The authorizers will be forgiven because they didn’t actually carry out the torture. Everyone else will be pardoned by Bush.

Will Bush pardon them all? It almost makes we weep to anticipate that Bush will probably pardon them without admitting that any of them did anything wrong. Even a child knows that you can’t be forgiven for something you won’t admit you did. It would not be enough to merely force them to acknowledge committing crimes before they are pardoned for them, but it would be infinitely better than what will happen.

Ford pardoned Nixon in a similar fashion. Nixon, if he had something like integrity, should have refused the pardon. He should have said, “but I didn’t commit any crimes.”

What if Obama chooses, for political reasons, not to prosecute the Bush torturers. But what if Obama changes government policy. If he says we will not torture any more because torture is wrong. Torture is illegal. It is immoral. It is deeply offensive to human dignity and constitutional democracy. Then how can he not allow the Justice Department to investigate allegations that government officials broke the law? That would also be repugnant.

Stay tuned…