Dana Blankenhorn

Consolation Prize

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 27 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Let's see what's at the cinema:

• After Earth  – A father-and-son find they can only rely on one another after everyone else has been forced to abandon it.
• Man of Steel – Superman turns out to be a farm boy who must choose to fight for Europe against his own people.
• This Is The End – Rich Hollywood stars, and Hollywood, get the apocalypse they deserve. (right)
• World War Z – Only one man can save us from the zombie apocalypse.
• White House Down – A black President and his White House must be saved by a white tourist.
• The Lone Ranger – This time, Tonto tells the tale. And the white guy is still the good guy.
• Red2  – The CIA saves the world from nuclear disaster. 

 

Notice what all these films have in common? They're generally about rugged individuals saving a complex civilization through the use of their rude simplicity. When liberals appear, they're the butt of the joke.

They are all, fundamentally, conservative.

Last Word on Jobs

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of another executive who passed at the absolute peak of his wealth and fame, as Steve Jobs did. This is the best I could come up with -- Irving Thalberg.

Of course even in that case Thalberg had been aced-out of his role as sole head of production five years before his death. (He had suffered a heart attack at age 33 and died of pneumonia in 1937.)  So maybe even that's not a true analog.

But it's true that the studio closed the day of his funeral, just as Apple stores did yesterday in celebration of Jobs. Both Thalberg and Jobs were cultural icons, people who transformed the consumer world (as opposed to the Watsons of IBM, who worked with businesses).

If y'all can come up with a better analog, let me know. Elvis was fading when he passed at ae 42, and Lennon's star was 10 years dimmed when he died at age 40. John F. Kennedy comes to mind, but he was shot -- he didn't die of cancer, age 44.

It's a puzzlement.

The Market is Bigger than the Law

To hear Florian Mueller tell it  Google is doomed.

In addition to its other legal troubles involving Android, it may have grossly violated the General Public License (GPL), taking copyrighted work willy-nilly from open source and turning it into the semi-proprietary Dalvik.

Well, since it's St. Patrick's Day, we'll quote a little Finian's Rainbow.  Things are desperate, but not serious.

After Dinner

While all the news shows were covering the Inaugural Balls this evening, Turner Movie Classics (known at my home as the Dead Movie Channel) re-ran a classic from 1967, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

It's a movie that has lived many lives. It won Spencer Tracy his 9th (and last) Oscar nomination -- he died shortly after filming ended. It then killed Sidney Poitier's career as a Big Star, as black folks who had moved from King to Malcolm X decided he was just an "Uncle Tom."

Nothing could have been further from the truth, but the character he played, a brilliant black doctor with honors as long as your arm, was very much in keeping with what critics call the Magic Negro, an incredibly gifted, infinitely patient, almost godlike black figure who is nevertheless not the center of the story, but a means by which some white character finds their own soul.

There are many examples in contemporary cinema. The caddy in "Bagger Vance." Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," or as God himself in "Bruce Almighty." Queen Latifah in Steve Martin's "Bringing Down the House." (In fact Poitier's characterization is more nuanced. He is, in fact, conflicted about his own choice, and how others will react. It's Katharine Ross' Joanna who is truly unruffled.)

The problem, in other words, was that Sidney Poitier's character was not at the center of the story, but that Spencer Tracy's was. Of course that's the way with drama -- it's the one who changes whom we focus on.

Leadership

The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is calm in the center of the storm.

• We see it in athletics, where the pitcher or the quarterback or the point guard is able to somehow control their emotions, stay in the moment, slow down the game and deliver the victory.
• We see it in business, where a trader or CEO keeps his head while markets are falling and scoops up assets at a fraction of their "real" price.
• We love to see it in Las Vegas. It's what the great gamblers have. It allows them to bluff and take pots when they have nothing, because they separate themselves from the emotions of the moment and take advantage of others' normal weakness.
• We see it on the stage, in the movies. We see it in religion. The greats all have it. That ability to be still, to hold a mirror to the audience and let themselves be the hero the viewer wants them to be.

We're seeing it in politics this week, in the person of Barack Obama.

It is an extraordinary talent.

Doctor Alford Explains It All

As important as Gilbert Cuthbertson's belief in "Myth, Value, and Power" were to my time at Rice, I suspect Dr. John Alford's latest research may be to that of my son.

Dr. Alford, working with other researchers, had 46 people who claimed staunch political leanings subjected to scary stimuli -- pictures, sounds, etc.

The conservatives were much more easily scared than the liberals.

Now by conservative and liberal we're not talking about the ephemeral definitions these words have in current American discourse? What would Goldwater say about bailing out the big banks? (I think Ron Paul knows.)

What we're talking about is an attitude, a social conservatism that aims first at protecting existing institutions and structures, and only later (if at all) about anything else. And this is the thread which ties the Bush family's politics, and that of the last 40 years together. It's an absolute determination to protect entrenched interests, based mainly on tactics of fear.

Black Camelot

It is almost certain that, in the next few years, Broadway will mount a re-staging of the Broadway musical Camelot, probably with an all-black cast.

This will happen regardless of the election results. If Obama wins, it's an echo of the Kennedy era. If he loses it's in keeping with the play's actual plot, which is that Camelot is destroyed.

How do I know? This is how Broadway rolls. They reprise musicals 50 years after their opening. Kiss Me Kate re-opened in 1999, The Pajama Game in 2005. Camelot, which first opened in 1960, is due.

That's sort of forgotten these days because, in its first run, Julie Andrews took it over. It was all about the singing. She was a marvelous singer. But at that time, she wasn't a great actress. She wasn't ready to play the villain.

That's what Guenevere is, the villain. And that's what she will be when the play is re-staged.

Why an all-black cast? Because, frankly, there are more really talented black folks ready to grab these parts right now than white ones. (Brian Stokes Mitchell doesn't count. He's played both Coalhouse Walker, a black man in Ragtime, as well as The Man of La Mancha and the lead in that Kiss Me Kate I mentioned earlier. If you want to re-do Flower Drum Song I'm sure he'd be great.)

Rather than concern ourselves with the details of the re-staging (what might be added, or dropped, what might the costumes look like, or the staging) it's far more fun to play that great Hollywood Game -- I wanted, I'd take, I got.

As in I wanted Laurence Olivier, I'd take Dick Van Dyke, I got Dom DeLuise. Only to make this game even more sporting, let's play it this way. Who plays the role on Broadway, who gets it in the Hollywood motion picture, and who goes about touring it in the sticks?

McCain-Bloomberg?

It's hard not to feel bad for ol' John McCain, the way you feel bad for the Valkyries at the end of Gotterdammerung, or Ike Clanton at the end of Tombstone.

He's struggled all his life to get to this spot and finds himself a no-hoper, a joke, a punchline. Not Rocky, but one of those one-or-two-round palookas the champ thought Rocky was before the fight happened.

It's not all his fault. Had McCain been his party's nominee in 2000 he might have won. But he also would have been the prisoner of all those dark forces which swirled around Bush, and no more likely to have avoided his mistakes. Besides, he asked for it. He was taking a birthday cake from Bushie when New Orleans was drowning, and he was smiling.

So I should be kicking myself for suggesting this, but there may be a way for ol' John McCain to make this thing closer than it has any right to be.

Housing Bailout, Dollar Bubble

Here's how it's all going down. (Picture from Rev2.org.)

The Federal Reserve prints enough money so that banks can write-off the Big Shitpile and acquire the liquidity they need to make new mortgage loans.

That's what is in fact happening. The Fed has opened its lending facilities to investment banks as well as commercial banks, and is taking whatever junk these guys have for collateral. That's a nice CDO based on Las Vegas sub-prime mortgages you have there, I'll loan you 100 cents on the dollar for it.

It's possible that J.P. Morgan is telling the truth, and the loans being passed to the Fed's hands in the Bear Stearns deal aren't the worst of the worst. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The IMF estimates there's $1 trillion of dodgy paper about, most of it American (although some is British, which is why the Pound is under $2 while the Euro climbs to near $1.60.)

The consumer aim in all this? To keep nominal home values at a level such that millions more home loans won't go underwater. That is, say your $300,000 home should really be worth $150,000 in a real market, as it should. The Fed pumps enough new dollars into the system that it's still worth near $300,000, and you feel pretty good. Trouble is the $300,000 is really worth what $150,000 was worth before the bailout started. The market has done its job but you don't notice until you do the math.

The Manchurian Presidency

The Manchurian Candidate is about a Communist plot to install a dupe, played by James Gregory (left in the photo at right), as President. He claims to be fiercely anti-communist, but he's really controlled by the communists through his wife, played by Angela Lansbury. (Sorry if I spoiled it. Watch it for Frank Sinatra next time -- one of his best roles.)

Ever since the movie returned to vogue politicians have been warning that their opponents are secretly working for the other side. The claim is made this cycle about Barack Obama. That is, Barack Hussein Obama.

Of course, this deliberately misses the plot. The James Gregory candidate is a perfect conservative, a neo-McCarthyite. In 2008 parlance, he's McCain.

But what if the Manchurian Candidate has already been elected? What if, in fact, he's been in office for over 7 years?