Panglossian Notes

The absurdity of the Israel and US game, in clear focus.

US welcomes easing of restrictions in West Bank

The US administration said on Thursday that it appreciates the steps Israel has taken to ease the day-to-day lives of Palestinians in the West Bank.

Yitzhak Benhorin
Ynetnews.com

So, so nice for the Obama regime to appreciate something that doesn't directly effect it.

Yet, the nonsense headline and following article is meant to portray a marginal change in brutish behaviour as another mystical sacrifice by a long suffering group.

No doubt many kilos will be extracted from the Palestinians in the future for Israel's wink at civilized behaviour, supported by whatever regime is in control of the USA at the time.

In the new expanded era of hilarious hypocrisy, it is good to know that some are appreciative of empty gestures, right?

Technorati Tags: Blindness, Bullshit, Nation Building, Shmucks

Hey they come in 3s ya know!

Celebrity deaths that is, or so they say.

So why pick Jeff Goldblum as the third man so-to-speak?

The hair girl is gone; followed closely by the weird nose guy; but what body part or extremity is  Goldblum to represent?

Since we are in dreamland, imagination is in control so I spectacled "ears" - because ..., remember the elephant, The Tall Guy gad do I have to explain everything ... .

Ah, too many questions on a hot muggy morning, better to just enjoy the moment, enhanced more if you've only 140 characters to express yourself.

Anyway Australian TV paid tribute to the imagined dead but still warm Jeff:

Note Jiam Ghomeshi in the clip.

Is it a premonition?

Of course it is!

Technorati Tags: Superstition, Weird

Borat △'s Character

Bruno, a.k.a. Borat, sort of, takes Berlin in knit 'naked' suit

Updating: A View from the other side

I expected, at the time I posted it on June 7th, that this might happen to the copies of Max Blumenthal's video clip residing on YouTube. The clip gives a little taste of some attitudes in Israel towards Palestinians. 

Maybe I should be a fortune teller or better a financial analyst as the future did unfolded as I expected.

Here's the clip again at Vimeo:

Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem -- The Censored Video from Max Blumenthal on Vimeo.

Movie remakes, what with this, eh - Pelham 1-2-3

and more to the point what's with Ed Koch's review in The Atlantic.

My knee-jerk assumption about movie remakes is that the creative part of the brains in the industry have atrophied or, the crew in the biz, couldn't shut off their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex's and were far too organized. Thus, instead of something new, a remake is born.

So, when I started to see the trailers on the tube for a new version of  The Taking of Pelham One Two Three my hippocampus kicked in and I found myself, besides remembering Mr. Blue, Green, Grey & Brown, and, of course, Lt. Garber, wondering about the neurological conditions in the industry.

Luckily, TVOs SNAM had in May aired a segment called Society Taken Hostage so I didn't have to dig too far back into my long-term memory to remember the first version.

I liked the original, at its time of release, as a good thriller - i.e. D. B. Cooper in the subway sort of - but found I enjoyed watching it again on SNAM for completely other reasons. This time it was like opening a time capsule and finding trinkets you hadn't seen or touched since being a kid. It had the look and feel of the NYC I remember from the mid-60's and in the minor roles the types of characters, found almost anywhere in an urban setting, in the "old days".

Unlike Ed's review, which really does to my mind demonstrate he's one of the old fashion no nonsense guys out of the original movie, A.O. Scott's review in the Times tempts me to go and see the new version and compare, in my mind at least, the big contrasts between then and now.

"“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” Tony Scott’s canny, energetic updating of the 1974 mass transit thriller, takes account of how much the character — to say nothing of the characters — of New York has changed since that almost mythic decade of decline and default. Like the original film, adapted from John Godey’s novel, this version, with a script by Brian Helgeland, deals with the brazen, borderline-insane hijacking of a local train on the Lexington Avenue line, but the subway system itself serves as an index of how the city and action-movie technology have evolved over the years.

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
A.O. Scott
NY Times
June 12, 2009

Technorati Tags: Remembering?

Finding Relevance in the modern WH's faux regal role

It seems Michelle Obama has found her clause for the coming 1312 days (as of this writing).

Good to keep busy in the pseudo-regal role, I guess.

Me I think the most successful first lady was Eleanor Roosevelt who had a real effect both as a resident of the WH and as a pre & post resident.

I'm thinking back over the last 8 First Ladies remembering their causes and who they may have pissed off:

8 - flowers/ beautification - pissed off advertisers and strip mall enthusiasts;

7 - volunteerism - pissed off the unemployed and day labour exchanges;

6 - pill popping - pissed off strong willed individuals and number 4 in this count-back of First Ladies;

5 - mental health - pissed off no one I know of except maybe Jimmy's cabinet members when she sat in on their meetings with the POTUS;

4 - recreational drug use - pissed off some Canadians especially British Columbians and Tommy Chong;

3 - dog books - pissed off cat lovers and professional writers groups;

2 - health care & brave wives - pissed off Bob Dole (he has indicated his ED problems stemmed from a hernia caused by lifting the document summarizing the First Lady's proposals for health care reform) and philanderers;

1 - reading - pissed off the Motion Picture Association of America and twitter.

A note: Eleanor would, I think, if she was living and actively pursuing the same interests and causes she had during her life, have pissed off pretty well most modern day Americans. The place has changed over the last 50 years, sadly, some might think.

___________________________

8- Lady Bird; 7 - Pat Nixon; 6 - Betty Ford; 5 - Roslyn Carter; 4 - Nancy Reagan; 3 - Barbara Bush; 2 - Hilary Clinton; and 1 - Laura Bush.

UPDATED: The Iranian election - sticking my head out of the cave to read just one more note

From Pulse a note referencing two articles on Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality.

I like these lines from Muhammad Idrees Ahmad's introduction to the 2 articles:

"If there were to be a recount, or even a re-election,  I am pretty convinced Ahmadinejad would win again. Just because his base doesn’t speak English or twitter is not reason enough for me to accept their disenfranchisement.

m.idrees
Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality
Pulse
June 16, 2009

A note, by Nate Silver the former sports statistician, questioning the survey noted here Ahmadinejad is who Iranians want.

And Joshua Kucera at True/Slant is doing some wondering.

Time to sit on the side lines or better hibernate?

Again, this morning, I've checked around in the ether for some real information on the Iranian election situation and none.

Lots and lots of opinion, speculation and anecdotal pieces. In the latter category, notably Robert Fisk and Roger Cohen competing over who can write the most colourful and heart rending prose about crowds and individuals in that crowd.

Some great pictures of a large mass gathering, I wondered not about 1979 as serious people in the media like to, but March 2005 and the dueling crowd phenomenon in Beirut (first crowd - second crowd). We'll see, I guess.

And the occasional stray piece of information (?) amongst the hyperventilating: i.e. Ahmadinejad is who Iranians want and Ahmadinejad is in Moscow this morning - do you think he is seeking asylum or as most major US media outlets indicate just being defiant (?).

Lots of Western politicians of any stripe were telling those in charge in Iran what they "must" do, with the occasional "should" being slipped in to indicate they weren't trying to influence affairs in another country and their words of wisdom were conditional - such a treat, eh, from the endless imperatives under, say, the Bush regime.

I was a bit confused by the Obama and Brown statements but I'm being picky again by, foolishly, envisioning free speech holding pens and walled off G-20 and G-8 meetings.

I think I'll hibernate for just a little while, though it is an interesting moment in many ways, so déjà vu, you know, it's just that I don't know with what other situation?

A bit of plus ça change, plus c'est parei re: healthcare

Harper's noted that during Obama's speech to the AMA today he mentioned an article the magazine had published in 1960 titled The Politics of Medicine.

He didn't mention an earlier article published in 1951 titled Letter to a Family Doctor nor the latest article by Luke Mitchell in the February issue titled Sick in the head: Why America won't get the health-care system it needs.

At the time public healthcare was first introduced here in Canada, in Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas, the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons & AMA joined forces to undermine the initiative.

They lost. Eventually all provinces provided hospital and physicians services as a public good - i.e. we won. During the battle in Saskatchewan the idea of government paying for healthcare wasn't always referred to as socialized medicine. At that time it also carried, as noted in a Letter to a Family Doctor, the moniker Political Medicine. (Pamphlet -click  for large view - courtesy the Saskatchewan Archives)

p

The view from someone who may actually know something about Iran, its politics and the Election?

Spiegel interviews Flynt Leverett on the Iranian election:

"SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scored an overwhelming victory in the Iranian presidential elections held on Friday. Are you surprised?

AP

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at a press conference in Tehran on Sunday.

Leverett: No. I would have been surprised if he had lost. The Western media overstated the surge of his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi over the last couple of weeks. They missed almost entirely how Ahmadinejad was perceived to have won the television debate, for instance. There was an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking on the part of American and Western policymakers. Unfortunately, that had a strong impact on the media coverage over the past few

'Extraordinary Amount of Wishful Thinking' by US
Spiegel
June 15, 2009