Weekend Extravaganza

I spent a chunk of the weekend listening to actors speaking in heavy British accents (and of course, I will finish the weekend with the newest episode of Downton Abbey) in two terrific films: Mr. Turner and The Imitation Game.  If you can, see them both and it is even better to see them over the same weekend like I did, to contrast them.

Their similarities vastly outweighed their differences.  The subject matter of both are men of genius, whose genius enables them to do their work, and yet sets them far out of the mainstream.  Mr. Turner is about the eccentric 19th century painter JMW Turner.  The Imitation Game's subject is Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who led a team that cracked the Nazi enigma code and changed the course of the war.

Both films were very well acted and in each case, a principal character was teamed with a woman that loved him, and he did not or could not love her back with the same completeness and intensity.  Tim Spall did a masterful job of playing Turner and Dorothy Atkinson played his loyal housekeeper that loved him deeply.  In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch played Alan Turing and Kiera Knightly played the woman who loved him. Without spoiling the plot, Turing is a much more sympathetic character who is able to display empathy (and actually works at it) despite his eccentricities. Turner, while able to see the world differently than most, can inexplicable turn completely cold to people (like his own daughters) that would ordinarily matter most.  Turing, on the other hand, is able to attach very intensely, which becomes his undoing.

I am fascinated by people of true genius, those who are separate and apart from us and can see the world in different ways.   I have been fortunate to meet a few during my lifetime.  They are eccentric, unusual, and sometimes difficult.  Often, they have a difficult time managing relationships and their day-to-day affairs but you can often detect an intellectual vibrancy when they walk into a room.

Both of these films do a great job of capturing very different types of genius.  But one could not help but note the similarities between them.

2014 Year End Review

2014 was the year of the polar vortex, ISIS, Ebola, planes in Asia vanishing, do-it-yourself immigration reform, plunging oil prices,  a roaring stock market and an economy that finally seemed to get its legs back after a six year swoon.  As I do every year, I will write a year end review of a year that started in the deep freeze (both weather wise and economically speaking) and ended up quite nicely.

Photograph of the Year.
This year, I decided to add a new category, limiting it to photos I actually take myself with my own camera or cell phone.  I loved this one that I took one morning on the way to work because it captured the headaches caused by the severe winter.   It was an interesting photo because it was taken in the morning and so it is not likely that alcohol was involved in this little mishap.  No one was hurt and I couldn't help but smirk a little as I imagined the conversation that would inevitably take place with her husband later in the day as she explained exactly how this happened.

Book of the Year (Fiction)
I am going to run against the crowd on this one.  Many "Best of" lists picked All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the story of the intersecting lives of a young German soldier and a blind French girl during the closing days of WWII.  It certainly was worthy of its accolades, but my pick for the most enjoyable read of 2014 was The Unwitting by Ellen Feldman.   Set during the Cold War, it explores the separate lives we lead and secrets we keep even from our spouses.  The most overhyped and disappointing book of the year was The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell which I thought to be hard to follow, dull, and just plain weird.

Book of the Year (Nonfiction)
I may be criticized for picking a "chick book" but I liked This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett.  The title is a bit misleading because it is only partially about her marriage (and her failed one), but in large part a her memoir of her writing career and her struggles and the indignities she suffered with dignity:

And I kept on doing the impossible.  I moved home and became a waitress at a T.G.I. Friday's, where I received a special pin for being the first person at that particular branch of the restaurant to receive a perfect score on her waitress exam.  I was told I would be a shift leader in no time.  I was required to wear a funny hat.  I served fajitas to people I had gone to high school with, and I smiled. 
I did not die.

Ms.  Patchett throughout was mostly able to look at her own predilections and idiosyncrasies and accept them at a level most of us struggle with.

The other nonfiction work I liked was The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison.  This is a collection of essays written by a medical actor that assists students in their diagnosis in medical school.  It explores how we are able to (or should) feel another person's pain and asks interesting questions around that and the limits to it.

Film of the Year
You can wholly discount my choice in this category since my filmgoing this year was grossly inadequate, but I liked Wild.  But as a devotee of Thoreau, I have an affinity for films or books in which people turn to nature and a basic survivalist lifestyle to gather themselves after the civilized world has overwhelmed them.  Conversely, I thought Interstellar was highly overrated, implausible, overintellectualized.....and way too long.   It badly needed the editing crew to go after it with shears.

Band of the Year
This category was the hardest to pick.  While I thought the film industry gave us slim pickings, the music business gave us a number of fresh new sounds and I don't remember a year with more good music to choose from.   The Black Keys, the Arctic Monkeys, Florence + the Machine, Arcade Fire, and Hozier all came out with some great innovative sounds.

But the group that I liked the most this year was Fitz and the Tantrums.  Their album More Than Just a Dream is one of the best albums I've heard in several years.  Out of My League and The Walker are great songs and the style borrows some from the 60's, 70's and 80's.  And the best song on the album is Moneygrabber (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3WRXYYBwRA&list=RDO3WRXYYBwRA#t=0).  It is hard to listen to that song and not hear the echo of the snappy beat of the old Jackson 5, especially if you listen to the background singers.

Concert of the Year
I didn't go to a lot of concerts this year, and missed quite a few that I would have liked, but I got at least two checked off my bucket list---Moody Blues and Earth, Wind & Fire.   But the one that I enjoyed the most was Jackson Browne.   Like the Bob Seger concert I attended last year, I found that Jackson Browne hasn't slipped at all since I first saw him in 1977,   He performed for nearly three hours and while he played some of his newer stuff, his versions of Running on Empty, The Pretender, and Doctor My Eyes resonated as much or more we me as those tunes did then.

Biggest Myth Buster of the Year
Fracking.   Predictions about peak oil, like Paul Ehrlich's predictions of the 70's that the planet would experience mass starvation because of overpopulation, the Chicken Little prognosticators have whiffed again with their predictions, vastly underestimating the power of markets and innovation to improve human existence.   While certainly the slowdown in demand for China accounted for some of the price slide, the advent of fracking and vertical drilling has had real impact on both making the US less energy dependent and the huge drop in energy prices.  Of course, these are developments that occurred without a Big Government department organized around them.  

All in all, 2014 was a good year for literature, a weak year for films, and a great year for music.  And it is a year I learned to be a little grateful for the positives---a strengthening economy and a fall in oil prices.  Moreover, I learned to be grateful for the things that DIDN'T happen.  Again, there was no terrorist attack on US soil.  There was no Ebola outbreak.   And despite the polar vortex, hell did not freeze over, although there were days it felt like it might.

Here's to a healthy, happy, prosperous 2015.

A Coherent Foreign Policy

Now that the Obama administration has, without precondition, opened diplomatic relationships with the brutal Castro dictatorship in Cuba, wouldn't the next logical step be to do the same with the DPRK?

Within days of the warm hug extended to Raul and Fidel, UN Ambassador Samantha Power called North Korea a "living nightmare," that it holds 120,000 people prisoners.  The Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights at the UN stated that North Korea is "a totalitarian system that is  brutally enforced denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association." 

totalitarian system that is characterized by brutally enforced denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association."

Hmmmmmm.  Maybe I'm missing something.   Can't much the same be said for Cuba?  It still holds 57,000 political prisoners, and denies all of the same rights, yet the United States is ready to roll out the red carpet, welcome the Castro boys to the family of nations and extend trade credits.

Maybe I just don't understand the nuances of modern diplomacy.  Is it just a matter of degree?  Is it a Western hemisphere thing?  An immigration policy thing?  An Asian thing?  A nuclear weapons thing?

It sure isn't a liberty thing.  I see no discernible difference between these two regimes on that score.  
If we follow the Obama logic for its unilateral movement on Cuba, then we should be opening up an embassy in Pyongyang  and loosening up trade restrictions because surely our policy toward North Korea "wasn't working."  This is the 3rd generation of North Korean dictators retaining their brutal grip on the north end of the Korean peninsula and nothing has changed, except North Korea now has nuclear weapons and it is still threatening, still proliferating, still brutalizing its own people.

I wish somebody would explain this all to me.

The Beat Goes On

I confess that I have never quite seen a foreign policy grand strategy like this one.   In keeping with our posture of turn our backs on our friends and offer unilateral concessions to our foes, the Obama administration once again, without consulting Congress, grants the Cuban tyranny legitimacy by re-establishing diplomatic relations.

This follows the "reset" button with Russia in which we threw our allies Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus by suddenly scrapping missile defense in Europe and then promising Medvdev "flexibility" after the elections.    After those warming gestures, we were treated to Russian tanks in the Crimea.  

Then we loosened up sanctions against Iran, hoping that gesture would show that we are acting in good faith and that showing them warmth would coax them into giving up their nuclear program.  Of course, the Iranians pocketed the concession, and now the NEW deadline is July 1, 2015.  Don't hold your breath, fellas.

Yet, we continue to harangue Israel on the settlements and have even considered sanctions against them.  No such remonstrations against Cuba for its human rights violations.  Hmmmm.

Now, without any concessions on elections, a free press, or human rights or any of the things we at least used to care about, the Obama administration is restoring diplomatic relations, reasoning that "what we have been doing for 50 years wasn't working."  It actually did work.  Cuba was isolated and largely contained.  With the mortality tables telling us that the Cuban government is about to transition the octogenarian Castro brothers out of office, the Obama administration shrewdly deemed it a wise policy to open up the economic floodgates to ensure that the pesky island stays in Communist hands for another 50 years.  Indeed, less than 24 hours after Obama's announcement, Raul was affirming his country's commitment to Communism.

But, I've been accused of taking an unduly harsh view of Team Obama's acumen with respect to foreign policy matters.   So let's look at the bright side and the possible benefits of this new relationship with Cuba.  In particular, I thought of a few reasons why Obama and some others might welcome this development.

• Having gotten the hang of ruling by fiat, Obama might want some ideas on how to keep a regime going for 50 years.
• Cuba does have universal health care, so he might be eager to learn how they got their website to work.
• Jerry Reinsdorf will no longer have to pay money under the table to get quality ballplayers on his roster.
• Another nice, warm place to golf.
• Ideas for best practices for state owned enterprises.
• Maybe another Mariel boatlift to dovetail with the administrations's immigration policies.
• And, of course, the cigars.

It is a sad reflection that on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this administration's policies have gone a long way toward rescuing expansionist Russia and Communism  out of the dustbin of history.

Ferguson

"What we see in Ferguson is not restricted to Ferguson."
Eric Holder

What did we see in Ferguson, exactly?   A multi-racial grand jury decided that we saw a police officer following his training and appropriately defending himself against a 6'4", 300 lb violent criminal that happened to be black.

Who is responsible for the death of Michael Brown?  Michael Brown and no one else.

And what we see in Ferguson is more people acting violently because they don't like facing that reality.  Personal responsibility is a bitch.

Unlike the Trayvon Martin case where Zimmerman was not a professional and had an opportunity to avoid a confrontation, this case is unambiguous.   Brown was going for Officer Darren Wilson's service revolver, leaving him very few options other than the use of deadly force.  The liberal press continues to use the word "unarmed" to described Mr. Brown, but the stark fact is that Mr. Brown was ONLY unarmed because officer Wilson got to his revolver before Mr. Brown did.

The liberals and the looters WANT a different narrative.   They want the story to read that an overzealous redneck, racist, trigger happy cop gunned down a poor, innocent unarmed African American.  Unfortunately, no matter how they attempted to distort the facts, they don't fit that narrative.   And because they are desperately trying to tell a different story, they do a great disservice to the black community and the rule of law in Ferguson and elsewhere.  

No matter what race you are, the easiest way to avoid getting shot by a cop is to cooperate and, for God's sake, don't assault an officer.  It's that simple.  Secondly, burning cars and looting are bad responses to outcomes we don't like.  Michael Brown apparently committed several crimes.  It was a sad and unfortunate consequence that he paid for those crimes with his life.  But none of the prosecutor, the grand jury or Officer Wilson are responsible for his death, nor is the vestiges of racism.  Mr. Brown ultimately made bad choices and the responsibility rests with him.

I agree with Mr. Holder that what we see in Ferguson is not limited to Ferguson.   It is an attempt to deflect responsibility for bad outcomes away from the person that is ultimately responsible for those outcomes.

Protection Please

Several weeks ago, I questioned why the government permitted Ebola victims to be flown back to the U.S. for treatment.  The safest way to deal with a virus is to keep it out.  Period.  Organisms are hard to control and mutate and scientists have been warning of a for some time.  Pandemics are to biological systems what crashes are to economic systems. They happen.

But the Obama administration blithely ignored those risks and not only brought victims here, refused to impose a travel ban on flights from Africa that are known "hot zones."  Of course, the predictable happened (even though Obama asserted that it would be unlikely).  Ebola got here.  People made mistakes.  And now we have had our first transmissions of Ebola in the U.S.

Tom Frieden, head of the CDC gave us cold comfort when he cavalierly asserted that, "we can control Ebola."  I feel so much better now.

Job 1 for the government is to protect its citizens from harm.   The problem now is that government has gotten so big and so preoccupied with all the other things that it has undertaken, that it cannot perform its primary function.   And, under Obama, we have seen repeated failures to protect and those failures are disturbingly frequent.  In the past couple of years, we have seen Benghazi, the rise of ISIS, the failure of the Secret Service to protect the White House, and now, a micro-organism.

The rank incompetence of government now is breathtaking.  And those in charge simply blame shift.  ISIS has been blamed on Bush.  Susan Rice blamed Benghazi on some two bit filmmaker.   Lois Lerner blamed the IRS targeting of conservatives on a "rogue office" (and now asserts that holding her accountable is due to anti-Semitism).   Eric Holder blamed Fast and Furious on low level functionaries (and similarly asserted that criticism of his administration was due to racism).  The Obama administration follows a predictable pattern.  In today's New York Times, Obama is reportedly angry over the response to Ebola.  First, they blame shift.  Then they get angry.

Contagions, like nuclear weapons, often do not allow for a large margin of error.  This government has now shown that it cannot adequately protect its leader or its embassies.  How can we expect it to protect the rest of us?  Obama admitted that he underestimated ISIS.  Is he now similarly underestimating Ebola?

Obama now is contemplating appointing and "Ebola czar."  If he appoints Kathleen Sebelius, I think I may head to the North Woods with a survival pack for awhile.

Are You Serious?

Just weeks after it was revealed that the Centers for Disease Control may have lost control of vials of smallpox, anthrax and bird flu and shut down a laboratory because of it, the CDC and the State Department are facilitating the transport of two Ebola infected citizens back to the US for treatment.

What could possibly go wrong?