Guest Post by MOTUS:
Oh dear! Raj gave Dewey a new toy: something that let’s him make new flatsimile ® movies in his spare time.
Dewey plans to use it to help us Win The Future, ahead of the next election cycle. I’m not completely sold yet - but that’s probably just me. I have a teensy, tiny tendency towards negativity.
Butt I guess it won’t hurt anything. He’s still practicing, so consider this a prototype.
WTF: Episode 1, Winning the Future with Energy Efficiency
Travel day, so I’m passing on this compendium of Ann Coulter’s best quotes from 2010 from Right Wing News via Vanderleun for your consideration and entertainment. It helps if you’ve been desensitized to Annie’s lack of sensitivity. It helps even more if you’ve internalized it.
teasers:
In 2005, Vice President Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. He also shot a lawyer in the face, which I think should count for something.
Whenever you see a liberal choking up over our precious constitutional rights, you can be sure we're talking about the rights of Muslims at ground zero, "God Hates F@gs" funeral protesters, strippers, The New York Times publishing classified documents, pornographers, child molesters, murderers, traitors, saboteurs, terrorists, flag-burners (but not Quran-burners!) or women living on National Endowment of the Arts grants by stuffing yams into their orifices on stage.
I think we should look at other countries' laws, then adopt the good ones and pass on the bad ones. For example, let's skip clitorectomies, arranged marriages, dropping walls on homosexuals, honor killings and the rest of the gorgeous tapestry of multiculturalism. Instead, how about we adopt foreign concepts such as disallowing frivolous lawsuits, having loser-pays tort laws, and requiring that both parents be in the U.S. legally and at least one parent be a citizen, for a child born here to get automatic citizenship?
Like Hollywood actresses, lawyers need to believe they're noble and courageous to help them forget that they are corporate drones doing soul-destroying work, which mostly consists of making photocopies.
And there’s 30 more over on Right Wing News! And American Digest is always fun too. Consider them your calorie free, post Super Bowl party guilty pleasures.
Family issues - some good, some not, none involving the Super Bowl - require my attention, so, please read Clarice's: The Incredible Lightness of Obama on American Thinker. It is an excellent summary of the Week in Cairo, as well as a reflection on the god-complex causing the Obama administration to ignore judicial rulings they don’t like.
This week saw a showdown between the man whose most significant achievement before 2008 was that he very nearly got the asbestos removed from the Altgeld Gardens tenements in Chicago and the third-longest-ruling head of Egypt since the Pharaoh Ramses, whose reign lasted 67 years. The Egyptian, an 82-year-old with terminal cancer, easily bested the community organizer, the man elected by people who quite clearly confused the last presidential election with an American idol contest. While many who elected the American president probably do not yet realize it, it is lucky for them that he lost the showdown, for had he not, the results would have created worldwide havoc and devastation…
And in an effort to avoid constitutional havoc and devastation, Judge Vincent last week ruled Obamacare unconstitutional based on the Democrats’ either intentional (they wouldn’t dare throw the whole law out!) or unintentional (sloppy, careless) drafting.
Meanwhile, the White House signaled that it intended to ignore the clear language of Judge Vinson's opinion and proceed with implementing ObamaCare. As of Friday afternoon, the government had not filed a motion to stay Judge Vinson's order nor an appeal of his order, and at least two states have telegraphed that they think that ObamaCare is dead in its tracks. Both Wisconsin's and Florida's attorneys general have instructed state agencies to cease work to implement it.
It is the hallmark of the administration thus far: ignore what you don’t like and just deem your wishes to be the law of the land.
The man who in 2009 in Cairo said, "So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed on one nation by any other" was now dictating to Mubarak the kind of government Egypt should have and when it should have it. Mubarak noted only the obvious: that if he stepped down immediately, the situation would devolve into chaos.
Indeed, as things rolled out early last week, what ignoramus could’nt see the reality of chaos theory setting in?
The rulers of Egypt have a stake in its continued existence which supersedes Obama's adolescent moral preening.
Ah yes, our adolescent, moral preening Won:
We have not yet seen a detailed Obama position paper on who should fill what cabinet slots in Egypt or how its constitution might be rewritten, but the man who showed such contempt for our Constitution and laws -- from the appointment of czars and czarinas to the refusal to acknowledge the import of Judge Vinson's ruling -- was surely contending both his right to rule the U.S. and that that right includes the right to rule Egypt.
Excellent commentary.
It’s not easy for Americans to understand the culture and psyche of Islamic Middle Easterners. Especially if you rely on mainstream media sources such as the New York Times.
Indeed, there are allegations that certain quarters of the American Left even helped foment this revolution:
For all the lack of clarity on where the Obama administration stands, one thing is becoming more and more clear: Signs are beginning to point more toward the likelihood that President Obama’s State Department, unions, as well as Left-leaning media corporations are more directly involved in helping to ignite the Mid-East turmoil than they are publicly admitting.
If it is indeed the case that the Obama administration, with help by private-sector companies and the union movement has led an “internet revolution” in the middle east and toppled two governments within a month, the longer-term ramifications for U.S. relations with other allies such as Saudi Arabia and certain other Arab monarchies, could prove to have much more far-reaching consequences.
At a minimum the AFL-CIO looks to be using this as an opportunist vehicle for global expansion of their brand:
While the General Tunisian Workers’ Union (UGTT) was initially involved in helping to set up a transitional government, its leadership has since pulled out due to a popular uprising from the rank-and-file workers. Nevertheless, the AFL-CIO announced on its blog that:
The global union movement is reaffirming its strong support for the General Tunisian Workers’ Union (UGTT) and the Tunisian people in their courageous struggle for equality, social justice, political freedom and democracy.
[snip]
In a statement, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which includes the AFL-CIO, said it welcomes the fall of the dictatorship in Tunisia and fully supports UGTT ’s call for an end to corruption and nepotism and a genuine transition toward a true democracy.
So as the left implicitly or explicitly supports revolution in the Islamic world, I wonder if they realize exactly what they are throwing their support behind? Could it be that they actually don’t realize how medieval these cultures are and intend to remain? Or are they putting their money on the “secular democratic movement? If so, they may wish to rethink their position on the malevolence of hedge funds, because I would suggest they hedge their bet against the Muslim Brotherhood. Big time.
Might the left not know that this religious culture continues the barbaric practice of female mutilation in one of it’s largest countries? Perhaps they haven’t ever heard that 90% of Egyptian women ( that’s about 41 million currently) have been genitally mutilated, aka female circumcision, because it is believed to be the will of the Prophet:
The most authoritative Egyptian Muslim scholars continue to recommend genital mutilation. Writing on the web site IslamOnline, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi - the president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars - explains:
The most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet's hadiths - even though such hadiths are not confirmed to be authentic. It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife: "Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands."
Because surely the Left wouldn’t support such barbarism based on the medical/sexual advice of a “prophet” born nearly 2000 years ago? Saying that Islamic cultures dwell in the dark ages is not hyperbole.
Perhaps I just missed the hue and cry from the American left over this? Oh, I know they have condemned it and all. But do they find this as reprehensible as Bush’s civil right violations? Has NOW made it a cause célèbre? No.
The American Left, as exemplified in the “newspaper of record,” obfuscates issues that cause cognitive dissonance. For example, which side of the current Egyptian equation will prove to be more “progressive” in regards to female rights. From a report in the Asia Times:
That is not a Muslim view (the practice is rare in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan), but an Egyptian Muslim view. In the most fundamental matters, President and Mrs Mubarak are incomparably more enlightened than the Egyptian public. Three-quarters of acts of genital mutilation in Egypt are executed by physicians.
What does that say about the character of the country's middle class? Only one news dispatch among the tens of thousands occasioned by the uprising mentions the subject(female mutilation); the New York Times, with its inimitable capacity to obscure content, wrote on January 27, "To the extent that Mr. Mubarak has been willing to tolerate reforms, the cable said, it has been in areas not related to public security or stability.
For example, he has given his wife latitude to campaign for women's rights and against practices like female genital mutilation and child labor, which are sanctioned by some conservative Islamic groups." The authors, Mark Landler and Andrew Lehren, do not mention that 90% or more of Egyptian women have been so mutilated. What does a country have to do to shock the New York Times? Eat babies boiled?
Although the real point of Spengler’s article in the Asian Times is to explain that the Mid-East uprisings are due, as usual, to economics, he covers much more sensitive cultural ground than the NYT’s politically correct reporting. By all means, if you are interested in the economic reality behind this tinderbox, read the entire article. It covers the waterfront.
I was wrong. It wasn't the financial crisis that undermined dysfunctional Arab states, but Asian prosperity. The Arab poor have been priced out of world markets. There is no solution to Egypt's problems within the horizon of popular expectations. Whether the regime survives or a new one replaces it, the outcome will be a disaster of, well, biblical proportions.
David Horowitz also has a fine article discussing the political implications of the upheaval. His conclusion is that if El Baradei forms a coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood, as reported, Egypt will become another Islamic fascist state.
No reason for concern there. If you like brutal, repressive regimes who have vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and form a Muslim world-wide caliph ruled by Sharia law – this is your team.
h/t Larwyn
UPDATES: OTHER MUST READS ON TOPIC
Bernanke and Ethanol Sink Egypt Larry Kudlow
Obama and Muslim Brotherhood Agree: Mubarak Must Begin to Transition Power Now Jim Hoft
Hello, Friends of Dewey. This is MOTUS, your cub-entertainment reporter with a wrap up from the Sundance 2011 Film Festival. I would have loved to have filed many, many more movie reviews but as it turned out, my day job got in the way. And, as usual at Sundance, so many little movies, so little time.
Because I’m covering a week’s worth of movies, er…a… films, all at once I thought it might be helpful if I categorized them for you. You may recall I covered the Media Navel Gazing Category last week with reviews of Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times and Miss Representation. So I’ll just jump in with my next category:
Category: Dysfunctional Families (Lifetime Achievement Category)
My Idiot brother:
Well intentioned but ne’er do well brother Ned (Paul Rudd) just got out of jail and is passed between his 3 sisters as he tries to find some visible means of support. Oddly funny. Mainstream comedy funny, but you won’t need your hernia belt. Proves again that there’s comedy gold in everyone else’s dysfunctional family.
Another Happy Day:
My Idiot Brother didn’t stand a chance for claiming the “dysfunctional family” prize against this film that falls into both the “ black comedy” and “intergenerational wedding weekend angst” genres.
Here’s the setup (I’d do this quickly except it’s complicated): Lynn’s son, who was raised by Lynn’s abusive ex-husband and his second snotty wife, is getting married at Lynn’s parents lovely estate. Lynn and the 3 children she did raise attend. Her teenage son is a drug abuser with serious emotional issues, her youngest son has Asperger’s syndrome and her college age daughter is a cutter - who suffers from not insignificant, unresolved issues with her father. Lynn’s own mother treats her as a bit of a loser while still warmly embracing her slug of an ex, and pretending that all is normal in this tangle of fragmented emotional wrecks. Oh, and there are two sisters in attendance as well whose roles in Lynn’s life fluctuate between critical and unhelpful.
More of a painful journey to the next exit ramp than the typical family- drama-to-catharsis. Don’t watch this on days you’re feeling emotionally fragile, unless wallowing in others misery makes you feel better. A very dark comedy floating amidst a turbulent sea of emotional flotsam. Reinforces the old saying: “Family - Can’t live with them, but sure as hell can live without them.”
Category: Totally Alternate Life Styles
Pariah- which I previously reviewed definitely falls in this category: black lesbian coming of age flick . Who can’t relate?
Becoming Chaz: owns this category. It’s a documentary about Cher’s daughter, Chastity’s, surgical and hormonal transformation to a man named Chaz. It ain’t pretty and neither is Chaz. If you’re curious about these things, there must be better medical information online. But I guess it turned out OK from Chastity/Chaz’s viewpoint. No word from Cher, who was last seen attempting to turn back time.
Codependent Lesbian Space Aliens Seek Same: Finally! A fun alien-lesbian film set in Manhattan! How long have you been waiting for that?
Three aliens from Planet Zot are sent to earth to have their hearts broken which will somehow neutralize their sex hormones which allows them to return home, no longer posing a threat to the planet’s ozone. (Do I detect a covert message directed at gas-guzzling SUV drivers who use up more than their share of carbon credits?) This plot could never work if the Zot’s were heterosexuals. Metaphors, stereotypes and sheer nonsense earns CLSASS the Sundance 2011 “camp” award, along with honorable mention in the “Yes You Can Make This Crap Up, But Drugs Help” category.
Category: Anti-Religious Agitprop
Several contenders, as always, but here are the leaders:
Martha Marcy May Marlene: a cult-escape drama. The main theme is an exploration of the depravity that results when individuals surrender their innate sense of morality to a “supposed” greater good. Kind of like what happened with the Obamabots.
Weird. Creepy, chilling. Skip it. But it is the debut of Elizabeth Owens, the Owens boys little sister. She appears to have inherited her fair share of the family DNA.
Redstate: And here we have the most hyped of all the Sundance movies this year. It’s a religious horror movie, because that’s what Hollywood thinks of religion. It’s all about a group of gay bashing fundamentalist torturers. If you still want to know more, you probably shouldn’t be reading my blog. The short review: Yuck, yuck, yuck – and I don’t mean as in funny.
Michael Parks, Red State’s evil deranged fundamentalist preacher man, above; Kevin Smith writer, director, auteur, preacher man below.
Kevin Smith,the director, used the premiere as a publicity stunt to auction off the distribution rights to himself for $20. (The premiere was also boycotted by the Westboro Baptist Church who, in turn, were counter-boycotted by Kevin Smith and fans. Hard to know which side of that sludge pond to stand on.)
He than used his bid platform to spout off about everything wrong with the movie business today. While he raised some valid points, it seemed to boil down to the fact that he, as artistic director, did not get a big enough piece of the pie. So who can fault him for that? Let’s move on to the next perennial Sundance film category:
Category: Anti-Capitalism
Margin Call: This story tracks one fictional investment firm’s 24 hour crisis in late 2008 as they realize their mortgage backed security arm is about to go belly-up, dragging the firm behind. They have to decide who to screw: their investors or the firms owners and employees (because with capitalism it’s always a zero-sum game,, at least here at Sundance where the artists care nothing about capital). The movie was written and directed by J.C.Chandor, a film maker by training, but whose father worked at an investment house so, as he said, he “had insider information.” Almost as good as staying at a Holiday Inn Express.
He has enough knowledge to be dangerous, but not enough to make the evil machinations of wall street understandable to the average viewer. Way too many financial jingoisms for the man on the street to wade through. Not to worry though, they will still grasp the general gist of the heist. You just won’t enjoy it much.
Chandor did assemble an incredible cast: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci (someone had connections) and managed to make a whole movie for just $2 million. Lionsgate and Roadside Productions, who bought the distribution rights jointly, will probably have to spend ten times that to entice people to come to a theatre to see it.
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold: Here we have the Sundance return of Martin Spurlock of Super Size Me fame. The man who has proved that he would do anything for commercial success has produced a film about the world of product placement, marketing and advertisement in the film business. This time his shtick is that his film has been financed exclusively by product placement, marketing and advertising.
The doc follows Spurlock as he negotiates terms with the companies for their product placements in his movie, including non-disparagement clauses which must have been written a little loose. Like Super Size Me, it’s an amusing trip of trivial content, mostly because it’s fun to watch Spurlock bite the hand that feeds him – but you didn’t see that coming, did you?
Category: We’re killing the Earth! Send Help!
If a Tree Falls:A Story of the Earth Liberation Front: If I remind you that ELF is a eco-terrorist group that ruins stuff and burns things down that don’t belong to them,you would probably know that they were the bad guys, right? Not so fast.
This is a blatantly sympathetic documentary about a group that burned down two vacant U.S. Forest Service ranger stations, an Oregon timber plant, an Oregon tree farm, a horse slaughtering plant, an SUV dealership, a $12 million Vail, Colo., ski lodge, and quite a bit of the University of Washington’s property. While the documentary pretends to “critically” examine the future of the environmental movement, it’s real points is to question whether this group, ELF, was unjustly classified as "domestic terrorists" under “Bush-era legislation.” Because after all, they were simply trying to instill “social justice” as they saw fit, and they never “targeted individuals” or injured anyone.
And aren’t they damn lucky they didn’t?
Oh, and in case you think this is harmless drivel by and for like minded individuals, you may wish to consider this:
Winner of the Documentary Editing Award at Sundance, "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" is slated for broadcast later this year on PBS' POV series and will remain an evergreen title in educational settings as well.
Your tax dollars at work, people.
The Last Mountain: If I tell you that Robert Kennedy is one of the main spokesmen in this documentary, would you guess that it ends up with a fevered pitch for windmill energy? Of course you would.
But about the documentary itself: another one that claims to try real hard to be fair and balanced but apparently doesn’t know how to. Let’s stipulate from the offset that Mountain Top Removal (MTR) coal mining isn’t pretty. But this is yet another documentary made by people who want to live with all the comforts of modern society without having anyone, anywhere along the line, pay the necessary price for the creation of those products and services. To call them hypocrites is to imply they are intelligent enough and moral enough to realize their value conflict. Tough call.
This doc presents the usual bleeding heart reasons for not allowing this type of mining: “contaminated air, soil, and water; coal dust, cancer clusters and toxic sludge are all by-products of this widespread energy source.” So to be clear, although this is ostensibly about MTR coal mining, it is clearly about the mining and use of coal in all forms. Unfortunately, our economy runs largely on coal fired electric plants today because the Robert F. Kennedy do-gooders of yesteryear shut down the development of nuclear generation in this country – still the singularly cleanest and, yes, safest form of energy production in existence.
And until such time as we can replace coal energy with natural gas and/or nuclear, there are many people in West Virginia who would prefer to have themselves and their family members mining coal on top of the earth rather than below. But I digress. Watch for this one on PBS too.
(Oh, and by the way, coal companies are required to remediate the land when the coal is gone, creating flat land that’s good for building things on. It’s not perfect, but in time it isn’t ugly either.)
There are many other categories that show up year to year such as Crazy Music and the Musicians that Make it, Criminal Injustice in the Criminal Justice system, Politics (of course) and Stupid Teenagers, and this year’s Sundance collection included entries in all of the above and much much more. I didn’t even get around to telling you about the Troll Hunters, a breakout film from Norway:
but I’ve already wasted enough of our time. So until next year, this is MOTUS, your cub entertainment reporter signing off.
Back to you, Dewey.
PS Just in case you still haven’t had enough and missed my other reviews: Cedar Rapids and Project Nim.
