I just got back from seeing The Dark Knight, and it is eons better than any previous Batman movie, or, for that matter, any Superman or other movie made of a comic book character. In fact, The Dark Knight is as far away from comic book tropes and exaggerations as The Grapes of Wrath is to a nursery rhyme.
Heath Ledger as The Joker was stunning and unforgettable - more like Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys than Jack Nicholson's Joker in a previous Batman movie, and Nicholson was pretty good. A fitting last bow for Ledger indeed, and all the more tragedy that he won't be with us for more.
But Ledger's was not the only brilliant performance. Gary Oldman is truly in a class of his own in acting, playing radically different characters in different movies with the same ease and also unforgettable perfection. This time Oldman was James Gordon - and Gordon and the audience never had it so good.
Aaron Eckhart as the "White Knight" Harvey Dent was powerful, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Batman's and Harvey's love was perfect, and you can never miss with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Lost's Richard (Nestor Carbonell) plays the Mayor, and our real Senator Patrick Leahy even puts in a nice cameo.
Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne was fine - but I wouldn't put him ahead of George Clooney and Val Kilmer's performances of the role.
But the story was so powerful, the supporting acting so extraordinary, that Bale really shined, too. I'm rarely surprised in a movie - I did guess one minor bad guy sitting in the driver's seat - but the complex story of The Dark Knight was packed not only with punches but real twists and surprises.
Most of all, despite its advertised "darkness," the movie had hope and soul. When you see it, I think you'll agree that the real heroes were the people of Gotham, and in a soft-spoken, understated, but memorable and heart warming way. Gotham - that mixture of New York and Chicago, the quintessential American city, shown bright in The Dark Knight this hot afternoon.
Another YouTube gem - Paul McCartney singing George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" at the Concert for George held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on November 29, 2002 one year after George's death...
My favorite line was always "daylight is good at arriving at the right time" ... not only good things, but bad things, don't last forever...
But there's a lot good in this song, and McCartney's performance. Look at the look McCartney gives Harrison's son, Dhani, at close to the end of the performance, followed by the look McCartney gives Eric Clapton.
All things must pass ... but perhaps not if they've been put up on the eternal golden playlist of YouTube....
Well, I've glowingly blogged and podcast about my Prius a few times in the past two years, but I was reminded again today just why I can't say enough good things about it.
I was sitting in my Prius at an intersection in Westchester County, NY. A big truck got stuck trying to make a turn. I missed about 4 lights before the truck was able to move again. For most of that time, my Prius wasn't costing me a cent of gas, because the internal combustion engine ("ICE") had automatically shut off, and the electrical engine had taken over.
Now, sure, I could have turned any car off, easily. But how many times have you ever really done that, sitting at a light for a long minute? Never, is my answer.
And when you drive in the city, you're stopping at lights, and sometimes stuck at them, almost as often as you blink. And every time that happens, you save a little gas money - that you otherwise would have spent, for literally moving nowhere.
I heard today that Toyota is shutting down an SUV plant in the US, and opening up a Prius production plant. Way to go...
A Response fo Andrew Sullivan: Obama Family Interview was an Illuminating Bit of History
Category: News and Politics
I'm really surprised about the flack Obama has been catching about the recent interview of him and his family - Michelle, and daughters Malia (age 10) and Sasha (age 7) - by Maria Menounos on Access Hollywood.
I found the interview heartwarming and delightful. It was a pleasure to see a family joking, quipping, even complaining about Obama leaving his suitcase on the floor. Maybe I'm not objective, but this reminded me of my wife and our kids, when they were younger, and seemed refreshingly normal in a candidate for President.
So why the uproar?
Anderson Cooper, on CNN, was the first I saw expressing some displeasure, griping a few nights ago that the questions Ms. Menounos asked were softballs. Cooper expected, what, hard-hitting questions of children? Menounos conducted an excellent interview. As Dan Abrams (still my favorite on MSNBC) observed the other night, Cooper was just jealous.
And what's vexing Andrew Sullivan? In his Daily Dish yesterday, Sullivan says he was "was gob-smacked by the Obamas' decision to include their children in a soft-focus TV interview," and ties this to concerns about Obama's positions on FISA, the Second Amendment, Iraq, and deciding to give his acceptance speech in a huge outdoor stadium!
Talk about a laundry list. Much as I like seeing the word "gob-smacked," what on Earth is Sullivan talking about? Obama didn't change his position on Iraq or the Second Amendment, he did on FISA - I don't see that as such a problem, but even if I did - what does that have to do with having your family interviewed and wanting to accept your nomination in an outdoor stadium? Sullivan says it's all "hubris" for Obama - but, frankly, the hubris here looks more like Sullivan's.
Obama himself has said he regretted the family interview - but, I've got to say, that's one thing that I do disagree with Obama about. I predict Maria Menounos' interview of the Obama family will go down as an illuminating piece of history of a Presidential family to be.
Because, the fact is, we really don't have any others. Wouldn't you love to see one of JFK and his family right before he was elected? Of course, the timing wasn't quite right, Caroline was not even three, but you know what I mean.
But good for the Obamas and Access Hollywood and Maria Menounos for making this happen
Secret Service Owes America an Explanation for Violation of First Amendment
Category: News and Politics
You've all likely read about this, and/or seen the video below:
A 60-year old librarian in Denver was carrying a sign with the message, McCain=Bush, as she waited to attend a McCain town hall meeting at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (a public venue). Some guy in a beige jacket asks her to remove the sign. She refuses. An onlooker asks him why she's been asked to remove the sign. The beige jacket responds that he was "asked" to do this, "by representatives of the Secret Service." Soon after, a Denver policeman starts talking, and informs the librarian that she has two choices: keep the sign, and be issued a ticket for "trespass," or get rid of the sign, in which case she can continue to stand in line to attend the McCain town hall event. Carol Kreck, the brave librarian, takes the ticket. She's escorted off the public premises, and tells the camera that she's been told that, if she returns, she'll be arrested.
This is one of the most outrageous violations of the First Amendment I've seen in a long time. Not a case of allegedly indecent broadcasting, in which there is at least a confused (and unconstitutional) Federal Communications Act to back it up. Not a shield law issue, which, although profound in its threat to the First Amendment, is not a direct assault upon it.
No, this is about as straight-up an attack on the First Amendment as you can get - an attack on exactly what Jefferson and our Founding Fathers were protecting in the very First Amendment to our Constitution: the right of every citizen to express her or his political views, unobstructed by the government.
What's to be done?
1. The Secret Service owes America an explanation. If they indeed put the beige jacket and the Denver police up to harassing and preventing Ms. Kreck from exercising her First Amendment rights, then those in the Secret Service who did this should be fired and brought up on criminal charges.
2. If the beige jacket was lying, and was not told to do this by the Secret Service, then he should be brought up on harassment and other criminal charges.
3. The Denver police in either case were pathetic. If the Secret Service ordered them to harass Ms. Kreck, they should have refused to follow the order, and should be reprimanded for such ignorance of the First Amendment. If the Secret Service gave no such order, and they harassed Ms. Kreck on the basis of what the beige suit told them, then they should be fired.
Hey, I just saw Vantage Point on DVD. The critics didn't much like it, but, once again, I didn't much agree with them.
In fact, I thought Vantage Point was pretty good. Kept me guessing with good twists and lots of action. A refreshingly different kind of assassination movie - especially in tune with the complexities of our age, in which the bad guys are far from dummies.
Two points I did have a little trouble with -
1. William Hurt played both the President and his double. Now, I can understand the people in Spain, in the crowd, not knowing the difference. But the event was televised on GNN - a CNN equivalent - with close-ups to boot. How would the double, however much he looked and sounded like the President, have fooled the American people and everyone in the news business? (This flaw could have been dealt with by setting up the news coverage as unable, for whatever tech or security reason, to deliver close-ups of the President with decent sound.)
2. I guessed Matthew Fox (Agent Taylor) was the bad guy as soon as he told Dennis Quaid (Agent Barnes) that he, Fox, would check something out. Now, I think making Fox the bad guy was an ingenious move, given that we know him best as Jack Shephard on Lost, who is good, through and through. But something in that scene between Fox and Quaid gave it away, at least to me.
Nonetheless, if was a fine movie. With an especially good part played by Forest Whitaker, who never disappoints. (Also good to see Richard T. Jones - Agent Ellison from The Sarah Connor Chronicles - playing Agent Holden in Vantage Point.)
PS: My wife had trouble with an additional point in the movie: Why did the terrorists want to take the President alive? Didn't bother me, though. I thought that, with these more intelligent than usual terrorists, we're supposed to assume that they understand that holding a US President hostage gives you a better hand to play than killing the President.
Pete Seeger on July 4th: The Truest American Hero
Category: News and Politics
My wife and I saw "Pete Seeger: The Power of Song" last night. Part of PBS's superb American Masters series, "The Power of Song" may well win an Emmy this year, and it would be eminently deserved. One of the best portraits of a singer - someone far more than a singer - I've ever seen.
Pete Seeger is 89, and has been a major player for good and peace throughout most of the 20th, and now the 21st, century. He had some number one records with the Weavers in the 1950s, was blacklisted in the McCarthy era, worked tirelessly for civil rights, and inspired the cleanup of the Hudson River in the 1990s - our kids actually helped a little with that when they were in summer camp. But what stands out most about Pete Seeger is his voice with banjo singing out against war.
My wife and I were inspired by him many times in the 1960s, when we were first dating, especially when we were marching in Washington in October, 1969 to stop that decade's unconstitutional, immoral war, and Pete Seeger, singing out John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," across the street from the White House, shouted "Are ya listenin' Nixon?" And, it took a few painful years, but eventually Nixon had to, because the American people roused by heroes like Pete Seeger gave Nixon no choice.
Yes, Pete Seeger was and is a hero - the best kind of hero in an illegal, disgraceful war - the kind of hero of who does what he can to bring that war to an end. Far more of a hero than a fighter pilot who drops death on innocent people.
Pete Seeger of course was scorned by the retrograde forces in America throughout his career. The Smothers Brothers courageously put him on their TV show after Seeger had been banned for 17 years. Johnny Cash did, too, and one of the best parts of "The Power of Song" was a clip of Cash standing up for Seeger in an interview on Cash's show. Johnny Cash was a great man, more than just a singer, too. Bill Clinton as President finally gave Pete Seeger the official admiration he deserved, honoring him at the Kennedy Center in 1994.
We should all stand up for Pete Seeger today - happy Fourth of July, Pete Seeger, you're the truest and best kind of American, and our country and the world owes you a lot.
Barack Obama has received considerable criticism for changing his positions on public financing (will now not use it in his campaign), and on FISA (supports the bill passed by the House). A few disappointed supporters have said he's therefore no different from John McCain, who changed his position on Bush's tax cuts (McCain now supports them), etc.
I think this misses the point, which is: what counts most is not whether a candidate changes positions, but whether the change is for the better or the worse. Let's look at the candidates and the issues:
Obama on public financing: I frankly never liked public financing of Presidential campaigns in the first place. Designed to prevent wealthy donors from dominating an election, public financing laws also get in the way of all Americans contributing to campaigns. Further, in the Bush/Kerry election of 2004, loopholes allowed millions of dollars to be spent on ads that swiftboated Kerry. And, worst of all, public financing gives the government too much power. It is illogical and dangerous to democracy to have the government that is up for election also determine who gets public financing for the election, and how much.
This year, Obama would have received $84.5 million from the US Treasury for his campaign, would have been unable to accept any private contributions, and would have been prohibited from spending more than the $84.5 million. Given that Obama took in $95 million in private contributions in just March and April, and more than 90% of his donations were under $100 (according to Obama's communications director, as reported in The New York Times), Obama's acceptance of public financing would not only have made no financial sense, but would have been a slap in the face of democracy. His opting out - even though he had previously said he wanted to work with public financing - was the right thing to do.
Obama on FISA: The Bush's administration's wiretaps after September 2001 were a direct violation of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) provisions that a special court has to approve or warrant the wiretaps (Bush's wiretaps were not approved by the FISA court). The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is intended, in part, to make sure that does not happen again. A sticking point is what to do about telecom companies - AT&T, Verizon, etc - which permitted the illegal wiretaps. Many Republicans want to give them immunity from invasion of privacy suits. Many Democrats do not.
Back in February, Obama said he would not support a FISA Amendment Act which did not hold the telecom companies accountable. Last week, Obama said he would support the FISA Amendments Act which passed in the House, even though that Act does provide immunity for the telecom companies.
Here is why Obama's change of position makes sense: 1. We need a strong statement from Congress that FISA must be respected from now on. Delaying or defeating the FISA Amendments Act would work against that. 2. According to Keith Olbermann quoting John Dean on Countdown the other night, the immunity in the Act pertains only to civil suits - the telecom companies could still be held liable for criminal proceedings (as would the Bush administration).
McCain on Bush tax cuts: As just one example of the kinds of changes in position McCain has been offering, consider that he correctly denounced Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy, and now endorses Bush's taxes. I can see nothing positive or useful in McCain's reversal of positions - unless we agree with Bush that the ultra-rich were paying too high a tax.
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In sum, then: Not all modifications of positions are equal. In the case of Obama's change of positions on public financing, and on FISA, they make sense. We might reasonably have wanted Obama to have come to these positions sooner, but by far the more important point is that he has the right, or best possible position, now. If this is in part a result of being attuned to the political climate, that's not necessarily bad - part of being a successful public servant is being flexible, and attuned to changing circumstances.
In the case of McCain, no circumstances regarding Bush's tax cuts have changed - it was wrong to punish the less wealthy then, and it's wrong now.
Arianna Huffington: Mass Media are "Stenographers to Power"
Category: News and Politics
Excellent 20-minute interview of Arianna Huffington by Mark Molaro on his Internet Alcove show. (I consider Mark Molaro the Charlie Rose of the Internet.)
The Huffington Post is one of the primary heralds of new new media journalism and commentary, and this interview provides an important audio-visual document by its Editor-in-Chief. The interview is of course available on YouTube, which is part of this revolution, too.
My favorite line in the interview (one of many): the mainstream media, in ineffectively covering the build-up to the Iraq War (its failure to report that there were no weapons of mass destruction), became, in Huffington's words, "stenographers to power".
Mars Soil Hospitable to Asparagus - Can Humans Be Far Behind?
Category: Travel and Places
"It is the type of soil you would probably have in your back yard, you know, alkaline. You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well" - this from Sam Kounaves, lead scientist investigating the soil on Mars, via the Phoenix that landed there on May 25, after a 10-month journey from Earth.
Kounaves added that he was "flabbergasted" about the finding.
It's thrilling news indeed, even if you don't care for asparagus. Because even if there was no life on Mars in the past - and this finding certainly makes it more likely that there was - a soil hospitable to life is a big step towards the terraforming of Mars, or making it hospitable for current human life.
The Martian atmosphere is still too thin, the water picture not yet clear (ice was found on the surface), but the soil beneath our feet on Mars is an excellent foundation indeed for extending our world on Earth to our neighbor to the "north" in the solar system.
Hey, I just saw Vantage Point on DVD. The critics didn't much like it, but, once again, I didn't much agree with them.