No More Wacos?

 Detailed and Fascinating: No More Wacos 

After watching the TV mini-series Waco streaming on Netflix, I came across this early entry on that horrible assault and siege and fiery assault leading to the death of four federal officers and close to a hundred civilians. 

Kopel and Blackman do an admirable job of being at once thorough, fair, and critical of all parties involved in this senseless tragedy. A key takeaway is how federal over-reach and hubris made an event that was logically unnecessary possible, indeed, nearly fated to occur.

They give some rather granular policy suggestions throughout the book, but what is most interesting is how utterly preventable these deaths were.

 

Uncanny Resemblance: John Gill or Joe Biden?

 I post, you decide (true identities posted at bottom of page).

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

. 
It's the darnedest thing. I had recently watched one of the most implausible (the list is long) episodes from the gold standard of Trekdom, the original TV series, “Patterns of Force” (S2 E21). 

For those in the know, John Gill is a Federation cultural observer who watches in dismay as the Ekosian people fall into anarchy and disorder. Solution? Bear with me: he helps them pattern their society on National Socialism. (This is a strong and irrefutable argument against our academics making political decisions!)

Surely Gill figured once they were united toward some higher purpose, the Ekosians need not fall into the racialism of the Nazis. Well, Hell is paved with good intentions or so the saying goes.

In any event, Gill is pushed out of power and becomes a drugged figurehead and a really mean Nazi (Melakon) takes charge. Fortunately for the planets Ekos and Zeon (yep!), Kirk and friends arrive in the nick of time to solve the Nazi excesses and the unfolding extermination of Zeons. 

Which brings us back to our two leaders. As you've surely surmised, Exhibit A is our very own President Biden who to my knowledge has never donned a swastika; Exhibit is David Brian as John Gill/The Fuehrer. 

It would however require a toxicology report to know who was/is more drugged. 

KIRK: Is there anything you do?

MCCOY: I can give him a general stimulant, but it would be risky.

KIRK: Take the risk. ... 

ISAK: There's no reaction. Whatever you gave him isn't working.

KIRK: Bones, increase the dosage.

It's good to know that pharmacology has become much more of a science since the 1960s.  

Virtual is Minimal

Screenocracy?

If nothing else, a couple of months of teaching via Zoom has highlighted the importance of real, human relationships.

This year at Bishop Machebeuf High School has been a learning experience for me in so many ways. The classical track is rigorous for students but no joke for teachers, either. I found myself reading more than I ever had had to do as a teacher, but doing less traditional "planning" than I would normally do. On balance, I'll take reading difficult texts deeply over the tiresome task of trying to find clever ways to keep the youngsters busy.

Something I've loved about the program at Machebeuf is its insistence that the students can and should do the difficult work of reading, annotating, speaking, listening and thinking required when grappling with Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Virgil, and a cast of dozens more. It's counter-intuitive perhaps to say that the more difficult we make things on students, the more they will thrive but that was in essence the proposal. I should add this necessary qualification: we teachers can and must accompany the students along their academic and spiritual journey.

That accompaniment made it at once exhausting and possible (for student and teacher alike). To say that the virus-we-don't-speak-of put a strain on the work is an understatement. It did but it was not victorious!

The Moviegoer: An Unauthorized Ending

Last summer during an educational seminar one of the many books we read was Walker Percy's The Moviegoer. This one has always struck me as more Kierkegaard than Christ, and so it was again. That is not necessarily a criticism, but I find Percy most interesting when the Christological concerns are at the forefront.

Our final night of the week-long seminar included a live reading/interpretation of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in its entirety - a task made easier by good company and hearty beverages. A was the tree and read stage directions aloud. 

Prior to that magnificent performance, however, I composed an anniversary card from Binx Bolling to his - who can say? - bride-to-be and bride-future, Kate Cutrer. I did it because I thought Binx was worthy of the girl and she him:

"Easter Monday"

Years ago we were underway.

I thought it was impossible to say.

You needed me by your side.

I took you - gladly - as my bride.

The years have spun and spun

With inexpressible wonder and travail.

You and Him by my side.

Certain now that we shall arrive.

Saying Yes to Beauty everyday.

Yes it is meet and just

And possible to say. 

An Open Letter to Weird Al: Safety Dance Parody

Dear Mr. Al,

Please find below a rough draft for your consideration. Topical in the time of COVID, so its half-life might not be long. Surely if you did not already dominate the realm of satirical music and were I not an essential person of sorts, I would dust off my trusty recorder and the finish the job myself.

Please feel to do with it what you will, you curly-haired genius.

Respectfully, etc.

+++ Safety Dance - a parody

You can mask if you want to.
You can leave your friend's behind.
Cuz your friends don't mask,
And since they don't mask, 
Well, they're subhuman slime.

You can hide where you want to.
A place to cower and whine.
But the question to ask someday:
Was sanitizing worth your time?

You can mask! Mask! 

We can't go where we want to!
Everything's closed as am I.
Can't get no cheese or meat
But Amazon trucks rule the street,
And Bezos wants you to buy.

You can panic if you want to.
America's going down hill
And China's the real power,
But, hell, there's still beer to swill.

We say: you will mask. You must mask.
Everyone's under control.
Stay indoors till I say so.
We gonna bankrupt all you trolls.

You will mask! Mask! 
Everyone wash your hands!
You will mask!
We can't risk the chance.
Yes, safety mask.  +++

Good Times for Bad Poetry

ODE TO AMAZON

Amazon Shopper and Shippers, 

Fill me with essential Bliss. 

Everything from aprons to zippers! 

Nevermore Bargains shall I miss. 

Should my debit card run dry, 

Me canst still buy, buy, buy. 

Lo! In this time deemed Pestilential, 

I was deemed Nonessential. 

Yet from high Heaven 

Doth a Bailout come. 

Judge me not brethren 

Nor dare call me, Bum.

Jay Gatsby in the Big City

I found that "Life in the Big City" by Cracker complements nicely Chapter IV of The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald shows the reader two contradictory sides of Jay Gatsby: the hero and the hoodlum; the (faux) blue-blood and the (menacing) thug. This song by Cracker brings out wincingly the temptations and dangers of wealth and power.

I. Song: Cracker, “Life in the Big City” (Berkeley to Bakersfield, 2014).

Life in the big city. Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city…

I've got billions, I've got minions,Dance for me, politicians!I've got jet planes, my own doctors,Secret bank accounts in Switzerland.I've got Russians in the corner Taking care of my worst problems.I've got women, yeah. Dominatrix, But see you in the churchyard Sunday.

Life in the big city, let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty.

I've got mansions in the Hamptons,I've got a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan,I've got tax breaks in San Francisco,For the link back into the Mayor's pack.I've got think tanks and academics Telling you what's good for me is good for you

I feel better when we get dirty.

See you in the church on Sunday.

That's life in the big city, girl; what did you expect?That's life in the big city, girl; ain't no Boy Scouts here.That's life in the (that's life in the) big city girl (big city girl),It ain't prettyThat's life in the (that's life in the) big city girl (big city girl),Ah come on come on come on come onCome on come on come on come on

Life in the big city, let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.

Songwriters: Michael Urbano / David Lowery / Johnny Hickman / Davey Faragher. Life in the Big City lyrics © Sony Music Publishing.

II. Some Questions to Consider.

1. What similarities do you see between Jay Gatsby and the character described in the song?

2. How are the lifestyles between the singer and Gatsby different?

3. How does the song illustrate the singer’s internal contradictions?

4. How do these contradictions compare with Jay Gatsby in Chapter 4?

The USA in "Us"?

Envy, Resentment - Oh, My!

Intended or not, Jordan Peele's Us (2019) subtly rejects the politics of envy by highlighting the fact that the socially and economically aggrieved may know what's owed them but may very well lack the capacity to build anything. 

The film begins with an affluent African American family heading on vacation to some locale near Santa Cruz, CA. Despite the mother's early childhood trauma, the family appears to be the very picture of the American Dream: wealth, status and a couple of relatively normal kids. Alas, all is not well in Paradise. It turns out that each member of the family has his very own doppelganger dressed in red coveralls and armed with shiny, soon to be glistening, scissors. 

The paired families consist of Adelaide-Red (mom), Gabe-Abraham (dad), Zora-Umbrae (sister), and Jason-Pluto (brother). After letting themselves in (against the will of the Wilsons), Red laboriously and laconically lectures everyone about how (1) each is tethered or connected to the other, (2) life is really bad downstairs in the underworld, and (3) some human though certainly not humane power has made each sunshine suburbanite paired  to a downcast, demented demoniac. 

The good news is that the Fabian Four are "Americans"; the bad news is that momma bear has been hearing God's voice (this usually does not end well in a horror movie) and the voice tells her that happiness and freedom can be obtained only by slicing and dicing their betters (Red calls this "untethering" but the less morally obtuse might just term it "murder"). To go from bad to worse, it turns out these folks who self-identify as Americans have no desire to pull themselves up by their sandal straps but to prosper by displacing-by-death the very decent and upright people who made America great.

I'm reminded here of some of the words found in the title track of Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell (1980; twenty years young this year): 

Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil.

The Devil is never a maker.

The less that you give, you're a taker. 

Like the Devil, these dread doppelgangen build nothing, life lifelessly and are propelled by rage's resentment. Not an attractive group.

Cheers, I owe you!

Are the gated communities of America's rich, prosperous and famous made possible because of the suffering and degradation of a permanent underclass? Did Gabe attend Howard University on the back of Amblin' Abe? Did Zora's neglect of cross country running and love of electronics make Umbrae the fleet-footed loonie she became? 

Peele does not provide answers but his film illustrates nicely is that without a positive proposal for living life, one can easily fall into comparing one's life with that of others and grasping for the Good at the expense of another. In biblical language this is called covetousness, and it leads only to resentment, envy and pain. And perhaps a raw rabbit or two. 

Rant on Rant: "If You Send Your Kid to a Private School, You Are a Bad Person" by Allison Benedikt (29 August 2013)

"Trust Me"

Years ago the late Pope John Paul II cautioned about a "culture of death" and here’s its latest iteration: child sacrifice. In her manifesto "If You Send Your Kid to a Private School, You are a Bad Person," Allison Benedikt doesn't call for the physical death of children but for their intellectual and moral degradation. Her thesis? Regretabbly, some public schools fail to educate the young, but we simply must send "our" kids there, so that [through some magical process] these schools will eventually improve.


Oh, my. Here’s a species of logic that only a hard-core national socialist or Stalinist could truly love. 

Do wickedness now in the certainty that a bright shining utopia will arrive tomorrow. 

The absurdity of Ms. Benedikt's thesis becomes clear if one applies her logic to the physical needs of children: Go to an incompetent doctor as this will eventually improve healthcare for all. When public education fails to educate, parents are acting responsibly in sending their kids elsewhere -- to a place where they will be properly educated. 

This ought to be a viable option for all parents but sadly it is largely available for people of Benedikt's stature. One loves to see a form of solidarity in action but not at the expense of kids. White, brown, or black - a mind is still a terrible thing to waste. 

Teaching and the Loss of Self

Who are you?

Kierkegaard writes somewhere of the modern mode of despair in which the individual does not realize his despair. Summer time sometimes seems like that to me. 

For years now during the summer break I've had the same experience. I don't know what to do with myself and fall into a state of funk.  I attempt to see seek to create certain structures, habits and routines which will give me a sense of purpose.

When I am in the midst of teaching during the academic year the idea of "too much time available" sounds like wonderful impossibility. Yet there is a kind of bottoming out that happens as the "hyperdrive" shuts down and suddenly one is free-floating in a void of sorts. Vertigo. 

The little I've read about Peter Sellers life suggest that. He had the same experience as an actor as a person. Or should I say persona versus person?  When he was in character, when he was in a role, he was "a self" but not himself. When he was not pretending to be someone else (as all actors do), he was disgusted with himself.

Acting Versus Self-Knowledge

In the film Patton we encounter a bit of dialogue where the general is approached by his aide after haranguing his staff. He tells the general that sometimes, they don't know when he's joking or serious. Patton replies that it's not important that they know, but that he know the difference.

AIDE: General, I don't think they know when you're acting and when you're serious.

PATTON: it's not important but they know it's only important that I know.

There is a bit of the actor in every teacher. The classroom is a kind of stage.

Some actors and some teachers are surely saints. Why not us?

Of Star Trek and Secular Scots: STNG, S7E14

No, Not That Secular Scot!

When it first aired in the 1990s, I watched the Next Generation infrequently. Robert Bork had recently been denied a chair on the U.S. Supreme Court and I recall being amused by a large Rubik's Cube flying through space decimating human diversity: Borg = Bork? It is a puzzle I never attempted to solve. I was content to admire the fact that the franchise had at last found a Captain who could act; it was never necessary that I attach myself to this new, heretical generation.

The root of the word heresy means to choose and the nefarious forces (not, note bene, Force) behind STNG chose to further stretch Gene Roddenberry's gauzy Unitarianism into utter materialism. In the Next Generation one finds all problems solvable by human techne and the power of positive thinking. The universe is filled with interesting and complex puzzles but devoid of substantive meaning.

"Sub Rosa" (S7E14) ambitiously seeks to destroy two mysteries in one squeamish episode: God and ghosts. I can imagine no drearier world than Scotland writ large (unless it were New York Planet), but STNG has a writer for that. Thus we move from the cold of the Scottish Highlands to a place with just a wee more warmth: a burial plot. 

The Best Plot in the Episode

We are on this grim planet because Dr. Crusher's grandmother has died and since the Borg threat is in abeyance. the Enterprise can make a visit. At graveside these words are intoned: 

And so now we commit her body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In sure and certain hope that her memory will be kept alive within us all. 

Whether or not there was a hue and cry by Anglicans worldwide for this act of liturgical theft and redaction, I know not. Given the general trend toward theological drivel in the West, it may well have been viewed as "prophetic"! In any case, what is clear is that the "faith" expressed in those words are light years away from these from the Book of Common Prayer: 

In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend our sister N. and commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord lift up his countenance upon her and give her peace. Amen. 

One is reminded here of Nietzsche: God is dead, and we have killed Him. Or perhaps in the futuristic vision, God died through our smugness. 

Seriously?

It gets worse. It was not enough to snuff out God but ghosts too must be annihilated. It turns out that Granny had a thousands of year young lover named Ronin. After she passes on into our memories, up pops an apparently supers-sexy spirit who plays doctor with the doctor. Well, rubes like us would conjecture, "Ghost!" but it turns out Ronin is a run of the mill rare life form. I think Beverly whacks him with a phaser but somehow he's disposed of.

This episode is terrible on many levels but it accurately portrays the series' metaphysical anemia: strange new worlds that dazzle the eyes but chill the soul; a universe that is a kind of Mega-Las Vegas - bright shiny objects, emptied of significance.

Rejected by First Things but not by mine blog!

Unselfed Thoughts

Google my thoughts to make them pure.
Of originality I can't be sure.

Deliverance through thine algorithms,
Dividing into greater schisms.

My thoughts methinks were once mine own,
Now reduced to data – source unknown.

Some Big Ideas for Little People

Downsizing

Scanning the reviews on IMdB one notices a wide-range of opinions from 1/10 to 10/10, which can be a sign that a film has - at least - potential. This is a film with potential but is definitely not for everyone. 

I had expected a more dystopian angle: the noble goal of saving the resources of the planet by reducing everyone down to roughly six inches tall is certainly a recipe for the powers that be to oppress by compression on a global scale. The political abuses are an important part of the story in the character of Ngoc Lan Tran (Hung Chau) who is shrunken against her will by the communists in Vietnam but the abuses are not a major part of the story.

The scenario is this: in the future scientists discover a way to reduce any organic matter to a fraction of its original size. The benefits for economizing on existing resources are terrific: one could make a saltine cracker last for months. The economics are also tantalizing. For Paul (Matt Damon) and Audrey (Kristen Wiig) they can get a dream home and comfortably retire at a small-person paradise called "Leisureland," just by selling their existing home. It sounds too good to be true, and when Paul opts to proceed with the shrinky-dink procedure, Audrey backs out without Paul's knowledge -- leaving him stuck without a spouse and stuck with a penurious divorce.

Paul finds himself working at a call center for Land's End and near the end of his rope in Leisureland without a whole lot of leisure. When things don't work out with a single mum, Paul reluctantly accepts an invitation from his playboy neighbor Dusan (Christoph Waltz) to let his hair down. This leads Paul to a night of excess and later meeting the aforementioned Ngoc Lan Tran who escaped Vietnam via a TV box but lost her foot. Paul finds himself commandeered by Tran who is a lady who will not take No for an answer: Paul is shanghaied to help Tran's dying room-mate and repair Tran's prosthesis which he breaks and finds himself working for her to pay off the debt. 

Dusan looks with pity at Paul's decline in fortunes and suggests Paul join him in a smuggling operation to the original tiny guy colony in Scandinavia. Tran insists that she join him. The northern Europeans have science on their side and have become convinced that THE END has come for planet Earth. They scurry down a rabbit hole and Paul is tempted to join them. However his affection for Tran overcomes his instinct for self-preservation. 

Dusan notes that the Swedes have been hollering about a global catastrophe for years and well, so far, so good! Paul returns with Tran and he spends his days helping the poor in Leisureland's ghetto. 

While the film is unsure which direction it wants to take (satire, social criticism, comedy, drama...), it ends on a very interesting note: the secular northern Europeans are sharply contrasted with the religiously inclined poor living in the shadows of prosperity. Paul's decision to stay with the poor despite the uncertainty suggests a subtle but powerful critique of the view that technology, science and consumerism can save us. In the words of Tran: See, Paul? Jesus smile for me. Indeed He does.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=downsizing

Finding "Equilibrium"

Equilibrium, Dir. Kurt Wimmer, 2002

Not a Matrix knock-off

Despite the obvious marketing pitch, this film shares almost nothing in common with The Matrix. That doesn't make for a deeply original film regarding source material, but it is still original in the way it plays with the dystopian genre and pay homage to many classics in the literary canon.

All totalitarian systems promise to eliminate a serious problem, whether it be the oppression unleashed by the greedy capitalists in Marxism or the elevation of Nation or People in fascism. The lesson of history is that these "solutions" always and everywhere bring their own brutalizing consequences. 

The new world order that emerges from the ashes of World War III is Libria. The leader of this Calm New World is named "Father" whose politburo is the Tetragrammaton Council. For Jews and Christians the Tetragrammaton -- YHWH -- is the four letters in Hebrew that denote the divine name, but this unheavenly Father seeks humanity's abasement, not their good. 

Society's new configuration is justified by appeal to solving the root causes of war: hate, envy, rage. The method is found in Prozium, a drug which gives everyone a kind of creepy affect of total calm. Neither happy nor sad, merely robotic. Naturally, the elimination of negative emotions lead to the suppression of the good ones such as love and empathy or for an appreciation of beauty. 

Emotions thus become identified as the great defect (some would say our Sin) but better living through chemistry takes away all the bad. Also taken away is a rationale for living. This bit of dialogue captures well the Faustian bargain:

Mary (Emily Watson): Let me ask you something. [Grabs his hand] Why are you alive?
John Preston (Christian Bale): [Breaks free] I'm alive... I live... to safeguard the continuity of this great society. To serve Libria.
Mary: It's circular. You exist to continue your existence. What's the point?
John Preston: What's the point of your existence?
Mary: To feel. 'Cause you've never done it, you can never know it. But it's as vital as breath. And without it, without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock... ticking.

Mary (Emily Watson) surnamed O'Brien in what can only be a nod to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four) may have a rather impoverished view of life's horizon's but compared to the cold logic of Libria's powers-that-be, her desire grasps for the infinite.

The Grammaton Cleric John Preston will soon be aiding the "sense-offenders" who deliberately stay off their meds to enjoy things such as literature, poetry and art. He is not the only one of the enforcers of the status quo who begins to question. His partner Partridge (Sean Bean) has been off his meds for some time but raises John's suspicions early on in the film when he snags a collection of Yeats' poems and implies that perhaps their work is not as blameless as it seems.

Being a good (that is, fully-medicated) Cleric enables John Preston to kill his partner without blinking. But accidentally skipping a dose of Prozium gives him the opportunity to feel the sheer awfulness of that act and recall his previous blithe acceptance of his wife's arrest and execution for similar "sense-crimes." His lapse from his meds opens up a new world and he begins questioning the system he serves.

Besides the aforementioned Orwell classic, there is also a bit of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 inasmuch as the preferred method of destruction for books, art and music is a flamethrower. The "Mona Lisa" is consigned to the flames without a flicker of regret.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is only slightly present but in an important premise of the film: drugs can form the very foundation of order in society (in BNW Soma serves to flatten the occasional hiccup that the genetically predetermined people experience in their suppressed but still-human consciousness; in Equilibrium drugs are THE solution, not eugenics).

Like good B-movies of old, the good guys win and the evil system is taken down. They may not live happily ever after but they'll face their future in a human way.

Best dialogue: "It is not the message; it is our obedience to it..."

Worth watching and serves as an invitation to deeper and more compelling works by Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury and others.

Total Recall, Total Dud

Dudley Done Wrong

Total Recall 2070. Directed by Art Monterastelli, performances by Michael Easton, Karl Pruner, and      Cynthia Preston, Alliance Atlantis, 1999

Stylized and cribbed from Blade Runner down to the Asian style among the denizens of an unnamed city, a synth-pop knock-off of Vangelis and a purposeless "Gaff" (James Edward Olmos) clone, Total Recall 2070 also steals the basic plot of a most excellent movie. This is not that movie.

In this movie, self-aware androids want more time to -- have memories -- and thus snatch a Rekall Corp. scientist but are thwarted by our hero, David "I Kid You Not" Hume (Michael Easton) who must have been a stunt double for David Duchovny at some point in his career. The androids are sneaky and end up grabbing the Mars-bound scientist in order to hold onto their precious yet fake memories and feelings.

Meanwhile a youngster who is a mind-reader (this is the future and radiation does great things in the future) and most excellent video game player is kidnapped from two distraught foreigners with the surname of Bimboo or Sordoo or Sodoor or somesuch. This sad couple mistakenly thought they went for a nice trip to the Galapagos Islands but really had a mind-job done on them by Rekall (or someone pretending to be a Rekall rep) and had their kid snatched along with any memory of even ever having a kid. What a nasty corporation!

No new ground is covered in the pilot but there are no less than three zingers that will give viewers a chuckle and/or a deep sigh:

1. After our protagonist, good cop, Officer Hume loses his partner in a gun-battle with androids, he gets a new partner with the personality of Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek the Next Generation but has no clue that this cop is - gasp! - an android. I'm a complete space cadet and it was clear to me from the first scene with Mr. Roboto and his "Caesar" haircut that this was a tin man. Remember, Hume's whole professional life revolves around paying attention to what's going on.

2. Much ado is made of the lethality of a 12mm pistol that Officer Hume has snatched from the scene of his partner's murder, but when he deploys the weapon he is (a) unable to hit the back side of a barn with it, and (b) when he randomly does hit his target, the victim dies no more surely or not than the bodies that seem to fall everywhere from ray guns in the hands of most everyone. 

3. Hume's highly principled and loyal wife, Olivia, is often on the verge of getting really, really mad with David but she always falls back and melts in his arms, and supports all of his crazy antics in the end such as going to Mars with his robotic Lurch-like partner.

This one was bad. Unfortunately is was not bad enough to be bad like Sharknado. I give it two out of five velotaxis.