The Shadow Commander

In this week’s The New Yorker magazine, Dexter Filkins wrote a rather astonishing story about a character by the name of Qassem Suleimani. Also this week, Ted Cruz engaged in performance art on the floor of the Senate. He performed 20+ hours of public speaking, quickly dubbed a ‘fauxlibuster’ on Twitter.

What do these two guys have in common? How are they different? Let’s discuss…

First off, who is this guy Suleimani? Iranian…Republican Guard…veteran of the Iran/Iraq war…apparently from Dexter’s piece, the controller of most all things middle east, at least in the Shia world these days. Responsible for helping bring Al Qaeda into Iraq after things started going badly for Americans there (you know: 15 minutes after the fall of Baghdad and the removal of the Saddam statue). Responsible for bringing Hezbollah into the Syrian conflict. Hard liner. Obviously the action arm of the mouthpiece of the Iranian revolution, Ahmadinejad.

And this guy Cruz? Ivy League law graduate, Hispanic roots, Senator from Texas and Tea Party darling of the moment..an identified troll.

How are they alike? In some ways, they are both terrorists. Both use ‘it’s my way or else you’re evil’ rhetoric. Both seem to strike fear in the hearts of their colleagues.

How are they different?

Ted is all about becoming the New Newt, making outrageous statements that are extensively covered by the media, and generally trying to be the center of the Tealiban universe. Qassem prefers to maintain a low profile…in fact, you must admit until I wrote this you’d never even heard of the guy, right?

So why am I writing this piece?

Because I believe both of them will be pawns in a major chess game that could well change the arc of current events.

What is happening in Syria is the tip of the iceberg atop a boiling cauldron of change throughout the middle east. What is happening on the floor of the Senate with the “Ted Talk” is the tip of the ice cube atop a big gulp of liquid nitroglycerine. I would argue that, metaphorically speaking, the GOP and Iran are about to pass each other on the road to transformation. Let me explain.

Why all of a sudden did Dexter write about this guy? Did someone put him up to it? Are the conciliatory overtures currently coming from Iran a direct challenge to Suleimani’s influence and power? Sure has all the appearances of a power struggle to me.

Ted is a one man 24 hour news cycle. Insightful articles have been written about him and his aims by Molly Ball of The Atlantic and Alex Pareene of Salon. Reading both articles, one could come to the conclusion that Ted and Rand Paul are currently in a power struggle to be “The Big Dunker” of the Tea Party. The Republican Party is struggling to figure out who it wants to put up in the next election cycle. Two ‘safe’ candidates have failed to capture those GOP hearts and minds. Is it time for a bomb-thrower to make it to the top? Ted and Rand are striving to see who can be the more outrageous and alienate the most GOP mainstreamers to earn the title of “The Biggest Loser”. In doing so, both hard-liners expect to take over as the party favorite in the 2016 Presidential election.

Conversely, Iran is struggling to figure out how to transition from the bomb-thrower Ahmadinejad to an establishment candidate. They apparently figured out that the isolationist, bombastic and scary point man got them sanctions and threats of attack from stronger neighbors, both Muslim and Jewish, even if the U.S. turned out to be a paper tiger. So maybe they see the same handwriting on the wall I described in my previous piece. It’s better to compromise in order to survive. The Tea Party thinks in order to survive, it must never compromise. Interesting, eh?

I’ll finish my piece with a last, big thought:

Words Really Do Matter.

Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels knew that well, and ensured that the putative Fuehrer continually offended the elites, and used anti-Semitic rabidity to appeal to the baser instincts of his following. In 1990’s Russia, a guy named Vladimir Zhirinovsky behaved the same way, until it was determined that his father was Jewish. Cruz has taken a page right out of Goebbel’s and Lenin’s playbook. He accuses his opponents of allegedly doing what he is in fact doing; of believing what he himself espouses.

Here’s a verbatim comment on John Cassidy’s piece about Ted in the same on-line edition of the The New Yorker as Dexter’s. The author’s name is Carlian Schwartz. Note: the ACA is the Affordable Care Act, affectionately (or otherwise) known as Obamacare.

I was offended by some of Ted Cruz’s comparisons of the ACA to the Nazis–as was Senator McCain, who, unlike me, didn’t lose his family in the Holocaust.

Mr. Cruz should have tried “Dancing With the Stars” instead of showing what a discredit to the Senate, to Princeton, and to Harvard Law School he is with his mouth.

Who is this woman, you ask? This is the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant to Latin America. She was a socialist guerrilla, arrested and imprisoned by a military dictatorship. After she was released, she went to school and became an economist. Who is this woman?

She is the sitting President of the up-and-coming country of Brazil.

Why am I speaking about Dilma Vana Rousseff today?

Because she has cancelled her yearly trip to the United States.

Why did she cancel her trip?

Because of Little Eddie’s revelations about the NSA spying on her and others in the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobas.

Why is the NSA spying on Brazil and Petrobas?

Apparently, because they say it’s necessary.

We can go through the back and forth relative to this, and I’m sure Brazilians aren’t the only one whose emails are being examined by ‘gran hermano’ (Big Brother in espanol). In Portuguese, older brother is irmao mas velho with a tilde over the first a…I know, TMI.

Here’s the point: who the devil do we think we are? I seriously doubt Congress had the depth and extent of spying in mind when they approved the much-abused Patriot Act back in 2001. It was passed as a knee-jerk reaction to the attacks on the World Trade Center Buildings, in an attempt to prevent another. If the attack was a once in a millenium success, which I maintain it was, then we have given away our reputation as a world leader and gotten nothing but grief in return. And this time I cannot blame the hapless Republicans for this coup d’etat. The current administration has allowed – nay encouraged – the NSA to run roughshod over the rest of the world, civilized and otherwise. Maybe not overtly, but by being distracted by the nonsense being shoveled out in D.C. and not exercising real executive authority to rein in snooping.

But the interesting part of all this is: how has the NSA reacted to these damning revelations? Are they chagrined? Chastened? Concerned about the long term implications of other world leaders refusing to meet with the President? Nope. They are plugging the holes that gave Little Eddie access in the first place. They are not addressing the morality of their actions; they are trying to ensure we don’t know about what they intend to do next time.

But I have the solution (of course…) What is wanted here is the Point of View gun, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Oh, if only it could be held by an intelligent woman, and aimed at the collective set of ignorami that make choices about who to target for eavesdropping. What would be the result?

Boom!
(These would be the next set of words spoken by these dolts, in unison):

We have hidden behind non-existent threats to security to satisfy our need to control the uncontrollable. We must stop thinking like neanderthal cavemen and start realizing our broad-based data collection hurts more than it helps.

Pretty good, huh? Recall you don’t get more than a couple sentences from a guy hit by the POV gun, so you gotta hit him more than a few times to get a whole paragraph.

Boom!

We will admit to the world the depth and extent of our spying, and apologize to everyone we targeted unnecessarily, like Brazil, everyone in the EU and the penguins in Antarctica. We will discontinue this unnecessary monitoring and send flowers and a free pass to Disney World to Edward Snowden.

Wow, this is cool – one more, just for fun?

Boom!

Drones are bad and we’ll stop using them to blow up American citizens.

If only such a weapon of mass construction actually existed…

Swimming in the community pool yesterday with Erik and Emily the mermaid, I got to thinking about the cast of characters in the current Syria ‘crisis’. The more I thought about it, hanging on the edge in the deep end of the pool, the more confused I got. So Monday mid-morning, I went to the Internet to get something of a score card, or a ‘who’s who’ in the area to try to sort this out. This is a summary of what I concluded:

Alawites run Syria. Alawites are an off-shoot sect of Shia Islam;
Syria is aligned with Iran;
Iran is Shia-dominated;
Iraq is now dominated by Shia;
Lebanon is Shia;
Hezbollah runs Lebanon;
Iraq, Hezbollah and Iran are aligned to help Syria;
Saudi Arabia is Sunni;
Pakistan is predominantly Sunni;
The Taliban are Sunni;
The Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni;
Chechens are Sunni;
Chechens are, have been and will continue to be a real problem for Russia;
Egypt just threw out the Muslim Brotherhood, and is currently supported by Saudi Arabia…likely because of inroads Shia are making in the Egyptian Parliament;
Pakistan is nuclear;
Syria harshly put down a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in Hama, Syria in the 80’s;
Israel is not any kind of Muslim;
Israel is nuclear;
Israel reacts strongly to perceived threats.

So given all those facts, here’s some likely realities for the near term:

Congress will reject the call to strike Syria with some form of attack;
That rejection will send a strong message to the Saudis, the Taliban, & Pakistan that the U.S. is no longer going to be manipulated into fighting their battles for them; so just as Tom Cole, Congressman from Oklahoma said this morning on NPR,

Syria represents a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia

Al Qaeda is Sunni;
Al Qaeda is the real strength in the forces fighting Assad.
Al Qaeda is behind the continuing civil strife in Iraq with daily car bombs aimed at Shia neighborhoods;
Hezbollah has left Lebanon to its own devices while it goes to Syria trying to defend the nearly last bastion of Shia dominance;

So When (not if) Assad falls, then
Iraq falls; and then
Lebanon falls.

So that leaves Iran as the only Shia stronghold left.

In the not-too-distant future, Iran will possess the capability to build a nuclear weapon. If they don’t have it now, they’re going to buy it from North Korea.

The entire region will have become a nesting ground for Al Qaeda with the exception of Iran and Israel;

Iran has been weakened by years of sanctions, which were heavily promoted by the U.S.;
Iran’s only option left is the nuclear option to threaten its Sunni neighbors (recall the uprising in 2009 hastily put down by the Republican Guard in Iran);
Threatening their immediate neighbors anywhere close by with the nuclear option spells massive destruction for all of them, including Iran; and thus I come to my baffling conclusion:

Iran, Israel, Russia and the U.S. now have a common enemy in the resurgent Al Qaeda and should band together to find some reasonable solutions to the immediate problems in Syria

Having come to that conclusion just before lunch, I return from Fajita Salad at Ay Jalisco to find the headlines from the New York Times:

Kerry Floats a Deal on Arms, and Russia and Syria Seize It

Maybe Russia has begun to figure all this out. It would appear that we haven’t. Or have we? My really cynical side says that Obama, being the clever man he is, has figured this out. Further, he realizes – like me – there really isn’t a bloody thing the U.S. can do about it. So why not make hay at home while the sun still shines? Obama is playing a three-steps-ahead game of chess while the Republicans are playing Candyland. He thought he was luring the Republicans into the trap of voting against this ‘Brer Rabbit’ punch. But Kerry’s goofball response and Russia’s jumping on the suggestion changes the equation considerably.

So will this change the inevitable outcome? Nope…the inevitable will occur when it occurs. The impact on the U.S.? A spike in oil prices because of instability in the middle east that affects 10% of our imports – imports that could be made up elsewhere, but the price will still be higher. The impact on Israel? Good question, but over the longer term, it’s likely that Israel will be fighting for its life when Al Qaeda emerges victorious in the region and can turn its attention to getting rid of the ‘infidels’. When this occurs, and Israel is surrounded by the resurgent Al Qaeda fighting machine, who will be held to blame? Why the U.S., of course. And who will everyone recall that wouldn’t approve a simple request to fire a few cruise missiles at Syria? Obama will be long out of office by then, and the new Republican President Jeb Bush will have to sort all this out.

Post-script: Charlie Rose snuck into Damascus apparently on Friday and had a live interview with Bashar Al-Assad on Saturday. That’s why Al Hunt from Bloomberg had to substitute for Charlie on Friday night with talking heads Jackie Calmes (I think Al was calling her Jackie Collins), Mark Halperin and David Ignatius of the hair implants. What a coup! That man is nothing if not amazing…

Post-post-script: Watched the interview. Assad believes everyone in Syria loves him and the terrorist rebels were responsible for the chemical attack. Guess he and the Paulster have a lot in common in their thinking…Dangerous place to be right now, Randy boy…

Click on the Blue Words, Cry Havoc. Then hit the return button and come back for the rest of the story.
Cry Havoc

Those words, now referred to as “cliche” by Wikipedia, are from Act 3 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In that play, Shakespeare is referring to the ‘dogs of war’ as Mark Antony’s troops, battling Brutus and Cassius to avenge the death of Caesar.

My, my – do we not see a similar tragedy playing out on the steps of the Capital building in Washington, D.C. over the issue of how to deal with Assad and Syria?

So for those of you who have been in a coma for the past ten days or so, let’s recap:

On August 21st, nearly 1500 men, women & children were hit with Sarin gas by the government of Bashar al Assad. The regime launched the attack on a suburb of Damascus in the early hours, killing mostly individuals in basements trying to avoid falling victim to ordinary shelling.

In a speech on August 20, 2012, President Obama said this:

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized…that would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

That would change my equation – it’s difficult to say exactly what that means. But over most of last week, there was an assumption that it means the use of retaliatory strikes on military targets in Syria by cruise missiles launched from American ships in the Mediterranean Sea. So let’s take a peek at a map of the middle east area and see what that looks like:

Obviously it wouldn’t be hard to access Syria for those ships. Obviously there would be fallout, political, economic and possibly physical, on the adjoining country of Lebanon, and potentially on Israel. The facts are by now fairly indisputable except to those apologists for the regime, primarily Russia and Republibertarian candidate Rand Paul. At a time when we should be having honest and factual debate, Rand suggests that the rebels bombed themselves in order to pin the blame on Assad. Guess it’s possible…but extremely unlikely … and tres gauche being verbalized by a sitting Senator in the United States Congress.

The Republicans won’t be back in town until next week, and they’re in no hurry to get dragged into this mess. Most are all over the map in response to the call for retaliation. But the reality is: by the time they debate it and vote, the impact will be lost and the misery will drag on in that unholy circle of hell called Damascus. Launching a few cruise missiles to blow up a few buildings that will likely kill a few – or many – civilians is a mistake. Nothing will change on the ground in the battle between Assad and his opposition. Nothing will change until one or the other emerges victorious, with the other side annihilated – along with lots more innocent civilians. But let’s take a step back away from this situation, and return to Julius Caesar.

In the play, Shakespeare explains to late 16th century Londoners how Julius Caesar, a decent and honorable man and leader of his country, was brought down politically and ultimately lethally by some jealous conspirators. The result was retaliation from the other side in the form of Marc Antony, his trusted army general, and Octavian, Caesar’s son. The retaliation was successful, leading to the deaths of the conspirators. But in the play he wrote 7 years later, Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare informs the masses about how the Antony/Octavian partnership fell apart, leading to just about everybody’s demise – except maybe the snake. By the way, if you aren’t interested in wading through the challenges inherent in Shakespeare, you can watch the old HBO series Rome to see how this tragedy took place. You can catch it on HBO-GO, and watch it on your Ipad.

And so, gentle readers, we take instruction from history and good theater. Here it is: from chaos comes only more chaos and misery, and in the end everybody dies and the empire falls.

The political football du jure is bombing Syria. Congress will return next week and likely vote down any retaliatory strike, amidst braying commentary and despicable posturing. As such, this means we will do as much for the Syrian people as we did for the Jews in Germany between 1933 and 1941. Thousands if not tens of thousands more Syrian citizens will be killed by their own government in the coming weeks and months. The opposition is radicalized, but frankly so is the rest of the middle east, in case you haven’t noticed. Egypt, Yemen, Libya – every country in which the “Arab Spring” took place has either returned to dictatorship or is now run by warlords. Saudi Arabia has been radical since its formation, but we don’t talk about that. But what about Turkey? Lebanon? Israel? Jordan? I find it difficult to believe that they will remain unscathed by this brouhaha. All this chaos will just produce more chaos, and the loss of life for innocent civilians. How does it end? More than likely with the implosion of nearly all the countries in the middle east, including Israel.

Sometimes I feel like the child version of the Woody Allen character, Alvy Singer, in Annie Hall. Recall the flashback scene when his mother takes him to the doctor because he’s depressed. Little Alvy says he’s depressed because the universe is expanding, and that means someday it will break apart and that will be the end of everything. His mother’s response? “What has the universe got to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!”

In my case, whatever happens in Syria, there is very little, if anything, I can do about it, other than to be like the soothsayer in Julius Caesar, whose famous line is: “Beware the Ides of March”. I say beware the implosion of countries that have unstable next door neighbors with nuclear weapons. Those nukes could end up in some very angry people’s hands, and then the universe will be expanding in Vero Beach, and most everywhere else in the U.S. of A. I know, there I go again: I just need to just get over it, right?

P.S. The .wav file at the beginning is from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, voiced by the wonderful Christopher Plummer. Just tidying up details…

It’s the summer of 1977. I am a full year away from graduating from college, poor as a churchmouse, but excited about the fact that I just might finish college and get a real job making real money. Movies are shown on the lawn at the student union. First Carrie, then Network. Finally, Annie Hall. Annie’d come out the previous April, to so-so reviews in still-provincial Gainesville. But I talked my friends into going to see it, because we’d seen Take the Money and Run and really liked it.

Annie Hall was hilarious, and sad and poignant and complex. My friends hated it. I loved it.

So here we are 36 years later. I’m flipping through the channels, desperately seeking some distraction from boring late-night television (I am a chronic insomniac, so I have to be totally exhausted to get to sleep and STAY asleep). I happen on some obscure channel like Current TV before it became Al Jazeera and there’s a conversation going on between Ed Norton and Elvis Mitchell.

Now those two names together just sound funny. If you’re old, you think of Ed Norton as Ralph Kramdon’s buddy and neighbor. Elvis…well, is Elvis.

But no, Ed Norton is a fabulous young writer/actor/director and Elvis Mitchell was the movie critic for the NY Times for a while. Ed Norton is incredibly talented, having saved Salma Hayak from excess and sloth (good combo, eh?) in editing and finishing one of my favorite movies, Frida, about the Mexican artist Frida Calho. Elvis Mitchell has the longest dreadlocks I’ve ever seen, and is a really lousy interviewer…but I digress.

Here’s where I’m going with this. In the course of their conversation, Ed mentions a book to Elvis, When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins
by Ralph Rosenblum. I downloaded the book on my Kindle, and was astonished at what I read. A couple of my favorite movies were likely saved by the editing of this guy, Rosenblum. A Thousand Clowns sort of started the movie look that led to Butch Cassidy-type insert of sepia-toned photos and old video to liven things up. Ralph invented that. He made The Producers for a totally insane Mel Brooks (no big surprise there). But he saved the best for nearly the last chapter in the book: how Ralph and his editing transformed Woody Allen’s neurotic ramblings into Annie Hall.

Ralph explains that the rough cut of Annie Hall was “an untitled and chaotic collection of bits and pieces that seemed to defy continuity, bewilder its creators, and…held the least promise for popular success.” Doesn’t sound very encouraging, does it? Woody wanted to call it Anhedonia, meaning the inability to experience pleasure. The first cut of the movie wasn’t much about the character Diane portrayed; it was all Woody all the time. It was two hours and twenty minutes long. It was supposed to take place in Woody’s mind. Picture spending that amount of time running around a small, Jewish man’s brain. Too much…

The story Ralph tells in this book is filled with outtakes from the movie that are really, pretty funny … but apparently didn’t work in the final cut. Marshall Brickman, Woody’s frequent collaborator, said “…all that stuff that Woody and I had written was cerebral, surreal, highly intellectual, overliterate, overeducated, self-conscious commentary.” Oh, let me have some more, please!

So Ralph goes on to tell the story of how he, Marshall, Woody and Ralph’s assistant went on to edit the film into what eventually became the final version of Annie Hall. I think these lines sum up what happened: “…the quality was all there in the first cut. Anyone reading the unabridged shooting script would be overwhelmed by the authors’ comic genius. The special job in editing this picture was to find the plot amid all the brilliant skits.”

I have made small videos in the past – a couple of them are on this site. I can assure you that my amateur efforts are just that – but from the heart. However, the process of making 4 to 8 minute videos often took multiple hours to finish. This taught me a lot about how hard it is to make a story work on a screen. Editing is tricky, and sometimes you have to just jump in and hope for the best. Sometimes inspiration hits in the middle, and you completely change what you were trying to say. Other times you think what you made is fabulous, only to have people turn to you and ask, what were you thinking? So, Ralph Rosenblum, wherever you are (Ralph died in 1995 at the young age of 69), bless you. Your talents made Annie Hall a pleasure to watch. I hope you’re still working that movieola in heaven.

Read this and then come back and let’s talk about it.

Pete Rose Should Enter the Hall of Fame with Ichiro Suzuki

Be sure to check out the comments as well – a really good discussion. It seems pretty clear from the comments that Pete, nicknamed Charlie Hustle in his day, and his story represent a serious transgression of ethics and likely the law. But it appears that the whole story was never fully told re: his gambling on baseball. And yes, comparing his ‘sin’ to that of taking drugs may be a case of two wrongs don’t make a right, or a bigger sin cancels out a smaller sin. What he did was wrong, and like Lance Armstrong, he didn’t admit to it until he was forced to. But was there more? Did he, in fact, influence the games on which he bet, and in exchange for a lifetime ban, that part was not disclosed? This was alluded to by a commenter. With the press today and the pressure on MLB because of the incredible sums of money involved, such a deal might not be possible. The details would be leaked and the 24 hour news cycle – not to mention baseball talk radio – would go crazy. I kind of liked the reader’s suggestion: since it was a lifetime ban, induct him posthumously. To do otherwise is to buy into the big sin/little sin unfortunate rationale that always gets us in trouble.

But I have to say I put this piece here because I really enjoy and am impressed with Frank Deford’s prose. What do you think?

So let’s talk about it!

For the past 5 years, I think we – the U.S., the world – have been going through a phase shift. For so many years, things pretty much stayed the same. We grew up, got married, raised a family, went to work for one firm for 30 years, retired, moved to Florida, complained about everything, drove slowly and then died. Simple; straightforward. Everybody understood the rules, and pretty much stuck to them.

Then things started to change. The change was gradual and subtle, so nobody really noticed, until some time between 2007 and 2008 when everybody sort of woke up to the fact that there was a new reality with major upheavals for themselves and their families.

What is the new reality?

People as workers are disposable and should be treated badly by their employers.
People as consumers of goods and services should be manipulated and tricked into buying what corporations are selling.
People as voters should be manipulated and tricked into buying what politicians are espousing.
People as citizens cannot be trusted, and so must be spied on and watched lest they commit some dastardly act – or think about doing so.

What do all these elements of the new reality have in common? It’s this: we have stopped being a community of people that respect, watch out for and take care of each other. Instead, we have become an angry, worried, cynical, bifurcated tribe of individuals, hanging on to the most tenuous connections of family, friends and institutions through the lens of social networking.

Is this a new observation? Hardly. Paddy Chayevsky captured this alienation well in his screenplay for that insightful film Network, which was released in 1976. But Paddy’s character’s rants were pretty much restricted to the media, and viewers thought it was a send up and exaggeration of the way television reacted to ratings. But I would argue the change started to occur in roughly this same time frame, 1976.

Most economists track the flattening out of middle income wages to the mid 70’s. Social changes were occurring in a big way at that time: civil rights, women’s so-called liberation, reproductive rights and the two-working parent family. Some would argue these social changes caused the new reality. Some would argue the reverse: that the new reality caused families to have fewer children and encouraged women to further their education and then to enter the workplace. Kind of a ‘chicken & egg’ argument. But here’s my theory … get ready.. here it is:

The new reality is a normal result of the life arc of the baby boomer generation.

If my theory is correct, then this is a phase shift that, by definition, will be temporary. Started about now, baby boomers world-wide will begin to retire. In 2020, the last of the boomers will turn 65 and ostensibly will retire. There were insufficient Gen X’ers born subsequent to the boomer generation to fill the void. So the result will be … drum roll…soothsayer pic…

Starting in the latter part of this decade,

People as workers will be accorded new found respect and will be actively sought out by competing firms. It will become a ‘seller’s market’ if you will of skills and willingness to work.
People as consumers of goods and services will be treated with respect for their intelligence and ability to discern the truth about products & services.
People as voters will have all the information they need about issues and policy positions, so as to make the best possible choices for their governance.
People as citizens will be accorded significant rights to privacy and independent thought, with these rights supported and upheld by all three branches of government.

How’s that for a vision of nirvana? But reality is: it’s all in the numbers. That old saw ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ applies to large quantities of people available to work, buy, vote and live. When the numbers begin to decrease, the value of the individual will reach a new ascendency. You just wait & see. I’m not too old to see that day come.

Here’s the text of an e-mail I sent to the NY Times, ref: an Op-Ed piece entitled “Why Pay Off the Debt” by a retired math professor. Check it out and then we’ll talk. BTW: the NY Times Editor, likely a twenty something savant with the attention span of a newt declined to publish it. Can you blame him? (She does go on..and on..)

If things in the economy were as simple as Professor Charlap described, then the answer would be obvious, and his statement “I cannot find a period when too much debt hurt us” would lead to the conclusion that it makes no sense to pay off the debt. But the U.S. economy is complex and dynamic, with a variety of cause-and-effect relationships simultaneously occuring. But saying that does not dismiss the need to answer the question, which unfortunately will require some rephrasing and examples of what has occurred with other countries.

The debt is a result of more dollars going out than coming in. The impact of that is not felt in a given year, or a decade or even over a lifetime. And I agree with the professor: the U.S. economy is not the same as a family’s economy. The government manages money either loosely or tightly to influence the economy to avoid the pitfalls of inflation and deflation. For the bulk of our current life experience, we have experienced inflation and not deflation – by a factor of 30 to 1. There have only been two years – 1955 and 2009 – when inflation has been negative, i.e. when we experienced deflation. But before that? From 1921 to 1933, we experienced deflation 8 out of 13 years. And what was the debt in those two periods? From 1955 to the present the debt grew by a factor of 58. From 1921 to 1933 there was a 6% reduction in the national debt. So a facile conclusion would be that to pay down the debt is bad for the economy, resulting in negative growth, and therefore we should not even try to reduce it.

But there’s another example: Japan. From 1993 to last year, Japan’s debt increased from 80% of GDP to 230% of GDP. Over that same period, it experienced deflation in 11 of the 20 years, with 1.1% the highest level of inflation for the period. So if you look at that data, you’d say increasing debt causes deflation, and therefore we should try to reduce and pay it off. But we know that isn’t true: common sense says it isn’t.

So what’s the real issue? It’s growth, accurately and consistently measured. Debt as a function of that growth determines whether you’re in trouble or not. If there’s growth, debt can be managed. If there isn’t growth, the cost to service debt becomes increasingly more difficult, and usually leads to drastic action (ref: the Euro mess at the moment). At the same time the debt has been increasing, so has the population of the U.S. So has the GDP in every year from 1950 until 2009. The reality is, there’s both a numerator (debt) and a denominator (GDP). If both are increasing, it’s OK. if both are decreasing in proportion to each other, maybe you’re OK. But if the numerator is increasing and the denominator is decreasing – for whatever reason – you’re in big trouble. So the answer to the question “Why Pay Off the Debt?” is found in the reality of global competition and demographics. When our growth declines because of either factor, it will be too late and we will have to face years of hardship and/or renege on our debt and become just another third world country. Fortunately for us, China is our only real global competitor, and they are facing a bigger challenge than we are in the next few years with their debt to GDP ratios (whatever they may be – they likely manipulate the numbers). And demographics? Hello, immigrants! You will be our salvation when baby boomers begin to retire in droves. Keep that growth machine going, and paying off the debt will be a non-issue.

So now that you’ve read that, here’s the thing: a large portion of the world is messing with those two numbers. For example: China keeps increasing the numerator at the same time the denominator is decreasing. Per the above, that’s really bad, right? Well, they have lots of money stashed, so they can keep doing this for a long, long time and hope things in Europe get better so they can start exporting stuff again. OK, what’s Europe doing?

Europe is decreasing the numerator at the same time the denominator is decreasing. That’s the ‘maybe you’re all right’ example above. But are they? It’s all in the proportions. The denominator is decreasing at a faster rate than the numerator. That’s bad for Europe, and bad for China since they aren’t buying that stuff.

What about Japan? Japan is increasing the numerator in an attempt to increase the denominator, after having spent the past twenty years seeing their denominator decrease slowly while the numerator is increasing. So how does increasing the numerator faster help? A lot of folk are mystified by that. But it seems to be working: they may actually have sufficient growth to break out of their doldrums. But they’d better hurry: demographics is sneaking up on them.

So what about the third world, the so-called BRICs? Brazil, Russia, India, China. We’ve already talked about China, which isn’t really a BRIC. Russia relies totally on energy exports, which will be in jeopardy when our natural gas exports cause them to lower their prices – not right away, but eventually. Brazil is experiencing stagflation and social unrest. What’s stagflation? Growth is declining while prices are increasing. Deadly combo, eh? Finally, India is still struggling to feed its ever burgeoning population while continuing to try to compete in the global marketplace for jobs…I’d bet they’ll emerge a winner eventually.

And that leaves just the US of A. Economically, we’re the healthiest economy in the world. Our political situation is tenuous at best, but destined to work itself out when the Republicans can’t agree on what day of the week it is, much less how to govern any segment of our country. What must we do to continue to survive and thrive? Three things: reduce the cost of education, housing and health care. First, reduce the cost of education. The MOOCs will see to that. MOOCs are massive open online courses, and they will revolutionize education in this country. Second, reduce the cost of housing: that’s a technology and political question, but the incipient and long-awaited housing boom is upon us. And finally third: reduce the cost of healthcare. Obamacare is on the way – albeit slowly. Preliminary results out of New York show every indication that the cost of health care will be reduced. And all of this under the noses of Republicans who think the answer is to get the government completely out of loan guarantees for housing, increase the interest rate for student loans and repeal Obamacare. Oh, okay…great model, eh?

So the next time you see a Republican, be nice to him or her: it’s tough being an endangered species doomed to self-destruct through the desire to cling to an outdated and risky model.

The Way Way Back Movie

(That thing in blue just about this line is a link to a movie website: click on it, and then hit the return button to come back here. Do I have to tell you how to do everything? Sigh)

Yesterday afternoon we were looking for something to do, so Erik suggested we go to the movies. Not an unusual suggestion for a quiet Sunday afternoon, but I had a sense of foreboding going to the Majestic movie link on the Ipad. In the middle of July, all that’s out there are – yes, you know – movies designed to please a 13 year old boy. Shoot-em-up space movies. Animated films with pictures for 8 year olds but occasional dialogue for the adults forced to sit there for 2 hours to keep the kid quiet and away from porn on the computer. And the inevitable ‘scary movie’ genre with loud music and a cheesy, bloody plot line. But then there was this other pic that I’d seen a review for in The Atlantic: The Way Way Back. Said it was the best movie of the summer. Well, being the best movie of the summer generally puts one in the category of being The Cream of the Crap (imho)…

So OK, we went. And the movie was adoreable…it had a happy ending (which Erik insists on) and it wasn’t cheesy at all. In fact, the two writers-turned-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash were in the film and were wonderful character actors. Apparently these two guys wrote the screenplay for The Descendants (a movie I loathed, by the way) but at least it got them noticed and apparently a little money so they could make a really good film: this one.

The plot line is a familiar one: two divorced parents, each with a kid, journey to the beach together to “try out being a family”. The girl is a typical teenage surly hottie and the boy is pale, awkward and miserable. You kinda know where it goes from here, so I won’t bother with the plot line. Instead, I’ll comment on the characters and actors that made it charming.

Let’s start with Sam Rockwell. You don’t know the name, but you know the actor. First, he was a psycopathic sadist in The Green Mile. The guy that just knew he was the extra doomed to die in Galaxy Quest. Finally, he was Zaphod Beeblebrox in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (a fabulous film recommended by my daughters and one I could watch a hundred times and never get tired of). So now do you remember him? Alas, the fate of the actor who does a great job in anything he’s in, but nobody remembers his name.

So poor Sam goes from being The President of the Galaxy to playing Owen, the owner of a broken down water slide amusement park called Water Wizz. Owen is a terminally adolescent 30 something year old man-child in a tank top, baggy shorts/swim trunks, sporting a funky haircut that’s clearly self-administered. Get the image? But inside this gnarly character beats the heart of a guy who truly understands what it means to be a 14 old boy who’s lost his way. He takes Duncan, the 14 year old boy who’s lost his way, under his wing in a most gentle, hip and sensitive way. Owen delivers the fastest, funniest dialogue in the movie – so fast that I told Robin she and I would go see it so 1) she can see it; and 2) so I can hear the dialogue again because it’s so well done. This character’s performance alone is worth the 8 bucks to get in to see the movie.

You might see yourself at a different age in the film; or see others you know and love (Allison Janney) (or don’t) (Amanda Peet) in the neighbor characters who are in perpetual states of alcohol-induced anesthesia to forget life as it is instead of what it should have been or they’d hope it would develop into. But somehow they exceed your expectations and avoid becoming caricatures. Toni Collette has some great moments with looks and mostly-hidden grimaces as Duncan’s Mom who wants the best for him but also thinks she should have a life after divorce. The role is vaguely reminiscent of her Fiona Brewer in About a Boy, but without the suicide thing. Steve Carrell does a good dick character, more hardened than his Office guy but still complex enough for us to think his Trent isn’t beyond redemption.

And the little guy who plays Duncan – Liam James – is really 17 and an experienced actor. Nonethelss, he’s quite believable in this role, as Duncan is a nice foil for the crazies that surround him. You just know he’s going to turn out OK, in spite of everybody else’s efforts to make him miserable. The one scene that felt phony was when Duncan is supposed to break up a gathering of kids watching a couple of break dancers. It was just too sweet to be real…OK, so nobody is gonna write the perfect screenplay, are they? It’s a small criticism of an otherwise perfect jewel of a film.

So go see the movie. And if you don’t like it, then there’s clearly something not right widcha.

So The Newsroom second season began last week. The dialogue was so fast and so confusing in the first episode, I didn’t finish watching the whole hour. Hoping for an improvement in week 2, I tuned in last night at the beginning of the 2nd half. Why midway? I hadn’t finished watching Masterpiece Mystery yet, and The Newsroom is always available from On Demand…always thinking & planning…

Most noteworthy about last night’s episode was the plot line wherein Sloan, the fastest talker, is upset about…wait for it … drone strikes. Imagine such a thing…she informs Mac that an American has been targeted and killed by a drone strike. Mac brings it to Will and they have a mini discussion session – echoing comments that result from every editorial on the topic, and in fact rehashing the same discussion that took place in our very own family room when the Daniels’ clan came to call. The two sides: lack of due process trumps all versus when you go to Yemen and advocate jihad against the U.S., you get what you deserve. No mention yet of the 16 year old son…does that come in a few episodes, or is a little angst enough on the topic, since there is a love quintangle to deal with (Don & Maggie, Maggie & Jim, Jim and Maggie’s roommate what’s her name, Maggie and the roommate (no – not that way..oh, never mind) Don and Sloan…geez, you need a scorecard)…

So I guess you can tell from my tone that the second season of The Newsroom is less than fulfilling at this point in its juncture…too many drinks thrown into faces and laps, too often leading characters (Will) having instantaneous catherses, and frankly just caricatures of reality that aren’t working for me any more.

OK, so what of it? Hey, this is just the intro to the main topic denoted in the Heading: I Need a Hero (Not).

Remember that bouncy Bonnie Tyler song, adoreably used in Footloose as two suitors square off playing chicken on farm vehicles? Of course you do…OK, if you’re too young or too old or … whatever, here’s the refrain…you’ll say “Oh, yeah!” after you read this part, silly…

I Need a Hero
I’m holding out for a hero
‘Til the morning light.
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight..

Think Kevin Bacon…got it now?

OK, but here’s the thing: we don’t need a hero.. Nope … plenty of those … in fact 30 of them brought onto the field at last week’s MLB All Star game in New York City…thank goodness Erik declined my invitation..it was embarrassing to watch them trotted out as part of a propaganda moment (Erik’s description, not mine…but he’s spot on). So the last thing we need is another hero.

What we need is a villain. Someone straight out of central casting that looks like Hitler, acts like Stalin and kills white people.

Why, you may ask? Well, I shall tell you why.

First, some background. In the history of America between the Civil War and now, we have gotten involved in major conflagrations only when a character as described above emerges to behave really badly. I’m not taking about little wars like the Spanish American War or the Mexican war, but the real deal: World War I and World War II. Even Korea and Vietnam don’t count because of the scope and scale.

In WWI, we had Kaiser Bill with his pointed helmet and bushy mustache, trampling those folk in Belgium and causing mayhem in France. In WWII, of course we had Adolph to hiss and boo at in movie theaters. Villains responsible for the death of millions of white people.

Now for the past 12 years we have been engaged in a “war on terror”. As you’ve likely heard countless times before, terror is a tactic, not an enemy. So therein lies the problem! We don’t have a face – a character upon whom to heap our vituperation. For a while we had OBL, but he was too quiet for too long, and in the end our satisfaction with killing him was too short-lived and unsatisfactory.

So why do we need this character? I’ll tell you why. We are currently engaged in the equivalent of gang warfare. We are the Jets and those other guys are the Sharks…we are defending Tony and Riff, dontcha see? But drone warfare is so lily-livered…so cold and sanitary, that we never get enough. The ‘death by pecks’ revenge never quite measures up to the scale of 9/11’s double whammy, so on and on it goes.

If we had a real bad dude to fight, to prove our ‘street creds’, maybe we’d get it out of our system once and for all and go back to watching The Biggest Loser and The Bachelorette. We’d escalate this thing to a scale that will prove once and for all that we are the toughest gang on the street.

Oh, but there’s the bridge in “I Need a Hero” that is somewhat more revelatory…here it is:

“Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I could swear that there’s someone somewhere watching me
Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach like a fire in my blood”

I could swear there’s someone somewhere watching me. That’s not just a feeling..that’s the reality we’ve known for years, the reality that Little Eddie Snowden thought was a huge revelation. So in the process of looking for the archvillain Bernardo and only finding little Chinos, we watch and we collect data and we expand the drone “war on terror” to the war on narco trafficking and the war between the Turks and the PKK over freedom for Kurdistan. This is no way to be the toughest gang on the street. This is a recipe for self annihilation. Maybe that’s what OBL had in mind all along, and why I believe the continued use of drones will be the end of us all.

Blame The Newsroom for bringing this all back home. But I’ll likely watch next week, hoping it gets better. We’ll see.