[Note to Readers: This was meant to be a short response to Trump's comment at the UN this morning about destroying North Korea. But as I read the whole speech, (which you can read here) I realized that there was a lot more to it than just that comment. Though that comment certainly stands out. Analyzing the whole talk is worthwhile. My initial reaction is:
There are a lot of worthwhile aspirational ideals
There are lots of contradictions between those ideals in some places and what he says in other places.
There is nothing particularly thoughtful or detailed.
There are some parts that might be revealing of how Trump thinks about the world (though I suspect he tends to 'feel' rather than 'think')
When I tried to find some factual reference for the consequences of the US attacking North Korea, I found a long New Yorker article dated yesterday by Evan Osnos who was in North Korea in August. The article itself offers a lot of context for North Korea's behavior, for our (mis)interpretations or them and theirs of us.
So I'm going to stick to the comment on destroying North Korea in this post, recommend the New Yorker article to readers, and maybe be able to review the speech and the article in separate posts.]
Post starts here:
Trump doesn't exactly say he's ready to kill 25.3 million people. I doubt he has any idea of the population of North Korea or has visualized what his threat would mean. Here's what he actually said:
"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about; that’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do."
There are SO MANY different angles one could (and should) address this. I'm just going to look at the implications of "totally destroying North Korea."
"The Obama Administration studied the potential costs and benefits of a preventive war intended to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Its conclusion, according to Rice, in the Times, was that it would be “lunacy,” resulting in “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualties.” North Korea likely would retaliate with an attack on Seoul. The North has positioned thousands of artillery cannons and rocket launchers in range of the South Korean capital, which has a population of ten million, and other densely populated areas. (Despite domestic pressure to avoid confrontation, South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, has accepted the installation of an American missile-defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or thaad.)
Some two hundred thousand Americans live in South Korea. (Forty thousand U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, which would also be vulnerable.) A 2012 study of the risks of a North Korean attack on Seoul, by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, estimates that sixty-five thousand civilians would die on the first day, and tens of thousands more in the days that followed. If Kim used his stockpiles of sarin gas and biological weapons, the toll would reach the millions. U.S. and South Korean forces could eventually overwhelm the North Korean military, but, by any measure, the conflict would yield one of the worst mass killings in the modern age."
Were Trump to really attempt to 'totally destroy North Korea' he would find himself moved high onto the top ten list of the world's mass murderers - along with Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.
There are many ways one can look at this statement.
Is it just bluster?
What kind of language is appropriate in the UN?
How will the UN members react?
How will North Korea react?
Does Trump's behavior give license to others to act badly?
All of these could be discussed seriously.
Are there times when bluster is appropriate and inappropriate. One could argue that Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump might have a lot of similarities and thus can understand each other's bluster. But that's open to a lot of debate.
One could argue that the UN is overly stuffy and people say what's polite and never confront serious issues and thus some bluster is needed to shake the place up. I think that might be true on some issues, but frank talk does not equal bluster.
Maybe, as the rest of the paragraph suggests, this 'totally destroy' language is simply to provoke the UN to do its job of ensuring peace.
I would note that Kim Jong Un might rather like the nickname "Rocket Man." From the New Yorker article:
"On an embankment near a major intersection, workers in gray coveralls were installing an enormous red sign that praised the 'immortal achievements of the esteemed Supreme Leader, comrade Kim Jong Un, who built the nuclear state of Juche, the leader in rocket power!'”
Go read the New Yorker article, it's got much more meat than I can add here.
I'm busy with granddaughter duties and I have a project that's going to consume me for the next several weeks that I can't blog about until it's over. I'll try to put up some posts. But mostly, I'm afraid, they will be brief. But worth a look, I hope. Here are a couple of things others have written that are worth checking out.
"Why are they so afraid? Why would they keep Liu Xiaobo in his cell until his cancer was so advanced that he was near death — and then keep him from traveling abroad, where he might yet have gotten care?"
"Perhaps most perilously, the Communist Party rules over a population that no longer believes in communism. The regime’s only remaining justification is that it delivers economic growth. Yet, as the economy becomes more complex, growth becomes more and more dependent on people being free to think, read, challenge and compete. The regime is caught in this paradox — and afraid."
The article says they tell the story of China's economic development that has lifted tens of millions of people from poverty.
"The story, it’s important to note, is partly true: The regime has, in the past quarter-century, presided over steady economic growth that has brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class. On its scale, it is a unique achievement in human history. But their story is also, in many respects, false. Far from being selfless patriots, the ruling elite has grown fat off the state. They do not want Chinese people reading about their overseas bank accounts or their children attending elite foreign prep schools and universities."
From the Alaska Dispatch News, Charles Wohlforth follows up on his earlier coverage of the lawsuit by two Anchorage police officers against the department for discrimination. Why all power - even those we want to trust - must always be questioned and not given the benefit of the doubt. Alaskans particularly should pay attention, but it's relevant to all.
"In his decision, Pfiffner wrote, 'The citizens of Anchorage could well conclude, that (the municipality) and its lawyers were more interested in winning the lawsuit than protecting the citizens of Anchorage from sexual assault and illegal drug dealing by members of the Alaska National Guard.' 'The 'hide the ball' litigation tactics that (the municipality) employed in this case rarely work. The consequences of such action are usually not good if the dirty tricks are discovered. Richard Nixon learned that lesson the hard way in an incident known as Watergate,' he continued. '(The municipality) has learned the same lesson in this case. Part of the lesson for (the municipality) will be an enhanced attorney's fees award to the plaintiffs,' the judge wrote. . .
He likened the litigation to World War I trench warfare, with scorched-earth tactics designed to make the other side give up."
Here's a quiz for the Fourth of July. I've double checked some of these, but not all, so if any of these answers is important, you better check some more sources. Have a safe, fun holiday. And be politically active so we can celebrate many more Independence Days
1. Fireworks originated in (A)--------- some (B)------- years ago.
A. 1. Japan 2. China 3. Egypt 4. Greece
B. 1. 700 2. 1000 3. 2000 4. 3000
2. Firecrackers originated in (A)________ some (B) ________ years ago.
A. 1. Japan 2. China 3. Egypt 4. Greece
B. 1. 700 2. 1000 3. 2000 4. 3000
3, Which European nation was the first to develop elaborate fireworks displays?
1. Germany 2. Italy 3. France 4. England
4. The first fireworks display in North American colonies took place in
1. 1608 in Jamestown 2. 1623 in Plymouth 3. 1727 in Boston 4. 1776 in Philadelphia
5. What's the minimal insurance needed for a fireworks display in Alaska?
1. Half a million dollars 2. $1 million 3. $5 million 4. $10 million
6. To get red, fireworks makers mix ____________ salts.
1. Strontium 2. Calcium 3. Sodium 4. Barium
7. Total annual fireworks industry revenue was (A) _________ of which (B) _________ was from consumers (not displays).
(A) 1. $100 million 2. $350 million 3. $725 million 4. $1 billion
(B) 1. $30 million 2. $70 million 3. $200 million 4. $ 725 million
8. Number of annual US injuries per 100 pounds of fireworks used was (A)______ and number of deaths was (B)_____. (This appears to be for 2015, but I'm not sure.)
(A) 1. .5 2. 3.5 3. 7.5 4. 10
(B) 1. 1 2. 4 3. 22 5. 63
9. How do you get the biggest bang for your fireworks bucks?
1. buy in May 2. concentrate on reds 3. don't buy the finale 4. go to local display
10. How hot are three sparklers together?
1. three times hotter than boiling water 2. as hot as charcoal to cook a steak 3. same as a blowtorch 4. 1240˚F
"A Chinese monk named Li Tian, who lived near the city of Liu Yang in Hunan Province, is credited with the invention of firecrackers about 1,000 years ago." (From Fireworks University)
"The first European people to make headway in the art of pyrotechny proper appear to have been the Italians. In the book of Artillery by Diego Ufano, written in 1610, he reports that while only very simple fireworks were made in his time in Spain and Flanders, consisting merely of wooden frameworks supporting pots of fire wrapped round with cloth dipped in pitch, more than fifty years earlier magnificent spectacles could be seen in Italy. Vanochio, an Italian, in a work on artillery, dated 1572, attributes to the Florentines and Viennese the honor of being the first to make fireworks on erections of wood, decorated with statues and pictures raised to a great height, some in Florence being seventy-two feet high. He adds that these were illuminated so that they might be seen from a distance, and that the statues threw fire from their mouths and eyes." (From Gizmodo)
"Captain John Smith, governor of the New England colonies, records in his The Generall Historic of Virginia, New-England that on the evening of July 24, 1608, "... we fired a few rockets, which flying in the ayre so terrified the poore Salvages [the Indians], that they supposed nothing unpossible we attempted; and desired to assist us." These firework rockets were brought from England, but beginning in the eighteenth century a native pyrotechnic industry took hold in the new country." (From Gizmodo)
Required. Minimum $1,000,000 for personal injury and death, minimum $500,000 for property damages. (From Fireworks.com)
Annual consumer fireworks revenue $725,000,000. Total annual fireworks industry revenue (combined display and consumer) $1,060,000,000 (From Statistic Brain)
Number of injuries per 100 lbs of Fireworks used3.5 Number of deaths in the US annually due to fireworks4 (From Statistic Brain)
"The tighter the firework is packed, the bigger the boom and higher the burst." (This comes from a post from Penny Pinching Mom that has five points on how to get the best bang for your fireworks bucks.
"A sparkler burns at a temperature over 15 times the boiling point of water. Three sparklers burning together generate the same heat as a blowtorch. When your sparkler goes out, put it in a bucket of water." (From the fireworks firm)
[These are my quick reactions to things I saw in the Alaska Dispatch News, paper edition, today. Links are to what I could get online. The ADN takes national stories from other papers, so the links get to them instead of ADN and may have different headlines. And even the ADN articles online may have different headlines than the paper edition.] 1. CBO: 22 million would join uninsured My Take: The Republican brand has been anti-Obama for so long that they have forgotten what they are for. Their key symbol of Obama has been the ACA or what they dubbed Obamacare. And Trump, who wasn't particularly involved in Republican politics before his campaign, piggybacked on the Fox News generated hate of Obamacare among his 'base' and made 'repeal and replace' one of his key campaign goals.
So now Majority Leader McConnell is willing to wreak havoc for tens of millions of Americans who will be edged out of health care access, just so he can say, "We got rid of Obamacare." It would be fascinating to know what psychic demons are driving McConnell's sick mission.
This is all symbolism, with potentially deadly consequences for many Americans.
Basically the court said the 90 day ban on people coming from six Muslim nations and the 120 day suspension on the nation's refugee program, could happen, but with limits. Trump claims victory, travel advocates say the decision will impact only a few.
"The court said the ban could not be imposed on anyone who had 'a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.'”
Immigrant advocates say such a bonafide relationship means people with relatives in the US, who have been accepted into universities or been offered jobs, or asked to give a speech. Most applicants meet these standards, the advocates say, so the ban will affect few people.
But I'm looking at the issues of dates and security. This ban was imposed right after Trump took office, in late January. A CNN report from Jan 29 says:
Trump barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for at least the next 90 days by executive order, which a senior White House official said later Friday is likely just a first step toward establishing a broader ban.
"Trump also stopped the admission of all refugees to the United States for four months. During that time, Trump's secretary of state will review the application and screening process for refugees to be admitted to the US."
So they've had plenty of time - more than the 90 and 120 days - to expand the ban and review the refugee process. They should be ready now. If not, it will be nearly another 120 days before the court hears the case. So it will be moot. Except probably what they wanted won't be allowed.
Trump said in February, "nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated." Of course we all knew, and we all know now that if Trump doesn't know something, he believes 'nobody knows' it. Middle East peace isn't as easy as he thought either.
He also had no idea of the high level of vetting that already existed for refugees to get into the United States. And he still has no idea of the suffering and hardships and fear refugees experience trying to get out of danger and into a permanent home, and how his polices just makes things worse for them. And our Republican controlled congress. . . well see the first headline above. The bans were just symbols for his base and his own ego.
"For the Celebration of Life, attendees are invited to wear loud Hawaiian shirts, awful camouflaged shorts and/or mismatched prints in honor of Rick's truly horrendous fashion sense."
An obituary that starts out like this suggests that the good things it says about Rick Koch are probably true. He died too young (age 60 in a motorcycle accident), but it sounds like he was a good man who loved people and helping out.
When I read this title, it hit me: everyone is talking about a fiscal problem. Alaska has no fiscal problem, we have an ideology problem - the Senate majority is so stuck on the evils of an income tax that they can't see the forest for the trees. As this opinion piece spells out, the compromise our legislature just made, pretty much drained the Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR).
A $13 billion CBR could have generated $650 million a year – year after year after year. At the end of the coming fiscal year, according to press reports, only $2 billion will be left.
I was going to use a poker metaphor for this, but a reddit discussion suggested the terms I was going to use - call and raise - are problematic.
A fellow Alaskan blogger posted a youtube video the other day of John Oliver calling out a West Virginia coal king Bob Murray on a number of issues. I thought it was brilliant the way he has mastered a technique of using humor and visuals (in the Jon Steward model) to take complex issues and explain them simply, without losing the complexity. In this case it involved
Trump's hypocrisy about promising and claiming new coal jobs
Murray's hypocrisy over his concern about coal miner safety
The first amendment
In the piece, Oliver tells us that HBO got a cease and desist order telling them to not air the segment and that Murray has sued other media, including the New York Times over something they wrote. It all sounds very Trumpish (It will be interesting how that word will eventually be defined when it enters the Oxford dictionary).
HBO and Time Warner have deep pockets, but it is troubling when the very rich use libel and defamation law suit threats to shut down media that criticize them.
I've been threatened twice over posts here. One post about the Alaska International Film Festival which has nothing to do with Alaska except the pictures on its website and a post office forwarding service with an Alaska address earned me a threatening letter from their attorney. The other got me an email that threatened a law suit.
The first was a bit scary as I had to consider the costs of potential lawsuits as a price of blogging. While I was adamant about not taking down the post, I did have some difficult days calculating what standing by my post might cost me. I was lucky to have access to a great attorney who ended the threat with one letter, but others who were threatened by them pulled their posts. These threats are a real danger to free speech. Gawker was put out of business by a lawsuit.
Murray seems a lot like Trump in that he can't handle any criticism. John Oliver does come on very strong, but I'm confident - especially since he knew a lawsuit was likely - that he can document all his claims.
Let's see how far this lawsuit gets. In this case, the defendants have the resources to fight. In fact, John Oliver says in the segment that he knows such a suit is coming. My concern is for smaller media, including individual bloggers, who can be much more easily shut down by the threat of a lawsuit.
NOTE: I've been listening and reading the news lately with an eye to the percent of articles/segments that focus on conflict. It's clear that conflict is the bread and butter of news. Even NPR calls their news articles 'stories.' At last April's Alaska Press Club conference here, NPR reporter Kirk Siegler talked about how to create a good story and he identified tension as the second factor after a strong character.
But the constant focus on conflict (or tension) leads to a distorted perception of the degree of conflict in human life compared to the cooperation. News shows will report the car accidents each day, but not the millions of drivers who used their turn indicators, slowed down to let someone in their lane, and did all the other cooperative activities necessary for freeway drivers to negotiate their way to their destinations. We all hear daily things like "Two people were shot to death today in a robbery." But how many times have you heard a newscaster say, "6170 people died today of heart attacks."
Just as stories of murders far outnumber stories of other kinds of deaths, stories of conflict hugely outweigh stories of cooperation. And in both cases people's perceptions are grossly distorted so they think of terrorists as a far bigger threat than they really are compared to other causes of death, and to think that conflict is far more common than cooperation.
So when I post a story like this one that does focus on conflict, I ask myself what are the reasons that this story is worth posting. Here's what I think is important in this story:
Oliver's skill in presenting the facts of a complex story in a way that retains the complexity yet is compelling to viewers. He doesn't dumb it down, he raises the level of his viewers. It's a model to study and emulate, though without the insults.
The danger to free speech from very wealthy people who don't like to be criticized. This threat of lawsuits is very real - particularly for smaller scale journalists than those at HBO. It's a consequence of the great divide between the very rich - for whom $10 million is pocket change - and the rest of us.
These two posts are based on Carol Anderson's Black [White] Rage. [ It's a scary book that every American should read. I've only gotten through Chapter 1, which has critical stuff to post that is relevant today. How a biased Supreme Court can make decisions that condemn millions of Americans to a second class life. Should Trump appoint any more judges to the Supreme Court, we could see the same sort of thing happen again now. It's ugly.
Part 1 set up the context of the post-civil war South, with Andrew Johnson essentially pardoning many if not most of the old Southern leaders and plantation owners and how they essentially set up a new system of slavery by restricting black options for working, owning property, bargaining with their employers, even quitting. Vagrancy laws meant any black without a job could be arrested. Then he'd be auctioned off to people needing workers. And there was no justice available for blacks.
In this, I'll offer up some of the Supreme Court decisions that Anderson discusses that made it possible to deny blacks citizenship, the vote, or really anything at all.
"It held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves",[2][3] whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court,[4][5] and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved man of "the negro African race"[6] who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the court denied Scott's request. The decision was only the second time that the Supreme Court had ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.[7]"
Anderson also quotes Taney:
"the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1856, wherein Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had stated explicitly that black people have 'no rights which the white man is bound to respect.'"(p. 18)
While Dred Scott is pretty universally seen as the worst Supreme Court decision ever, it played a key role, even in the post-civil war era, of signaling to Southerners that they could do what they wanted.
But the Emancipation Proclamation was supposed to have freed the slaves, but after the war,
"Johnson did everything in his power to stop constitutional recognition of black people's citizenship and voting rights, including convincing most of the southern states not to ratify the Fourteenth Amerndend and launching a breathtaking and ultimately disastrous political campaign to unseat Radical Republicans in Congress. Nevertheless, despite Johnson's wild fulminations about the 'Africanization' of the South and the tyranny of 'negro domination,' the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, followed by the Fifteenth on February 3, 1870. Congress had just created a legal structure to begin to atone for America's 'original sin.'
"The U.S. Supreme Court, however, stepped in and succeeded where Johnson failed."(pp. 31-32)
Anderson quotes Frederick Douglas:
"by the time the justices had finished, 'in most of the Southern States, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are virtually nullified. The rights which they were intended to guarantee are denied and held in contempt. The citizenship granted in the fourteenth amendment is practically a mockery; and the right to vote . . . is literally stamped out in face of government.'" (p. 32)
How did the Court do this? Anderson says that while claiming a strict constitutionalist posture (you know, related, if not exactly, what Scalia claimed and Gorsuch allegedly practices) they picked parts of the constitution to use to say that the federal government was trampling on states' rights.
"The court declared that the Reconstruction amendments had illegally placed the full scope of civil rights, which had once been the domain of the states, under federal authority. That usurpation of power was unconstitutional because it put state governments under Washington's control, disrupting the distribution of power in the federal system, and radically altered the framework of American government." (p. 32)
Anderson points out, that while states' rights were critical when dealing with black civil rights,
"this same court threw tradition and strict reading out the window in the Santa Clara decision. California had changed its taxation laws to no longer allow corporations to deduct debt from the amount owed to the state or municipalities. The change applied only to businesses; people, under the new law, were not affected. The Southern Pacific Railroad refused to pay its new tax bill, arguing that its rights under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated. In hearing the case, the court became innovative and creative as it transformed corporations into 'people' who could not have their Fourteenth Amendment rights trampled on by local communities. So, while businesses were shielded, black Americans were most emphatically not."(pp. 32-33)
Then Anderson goes through a slew of cases that kept white Southerners immune from charges they violated the constitutional rights of blacks, including the right to life.
1873 - The Slaughterhouse Cases - Anderson says this began a retreat from rights-based society. New Orleans not only restricted butcher shops to a certain part of town (because of the health hazards of 'blood, entrails, and inevitable disease'), but also required them to have city authorized licenses. The butchers sued on the grounds their due process rights (cannot take life, liberty, or property without a fair hearing) under the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated.
"The justices ruled that that was impossible because the amendment covered only federal citizenship rights, such as habeas corpus and the right to peaceful assembly. Everything else came under the domain of the states. As a result, 'citizens still had to seek protection for most of their civil rights from state governments and state courts.'" (p. 33) (emphasis added)
1874 - Minor v. Happersett -
"Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite wrote, 'The Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone,' because the vote 'was not coexistent with citizenship.'" (p. 33)
1875 - United States v. Reese
"In Lexington, Kentucky, a black man, William Garner, had tried to vote. The registrars, Hiram Reese and Matthew Foushee, refused to hand Garner a ballot because he had not paid a poll tax. Yet, the black man had an affidavit that the tax collector had refused to accept his payment. With one wing of local government demanding proof of payment and the other flat out refusing to accept the funds, Garner knew his right to vote had been violated. The U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, disagreed. . .
In quick succession, the court had undermined citizenship, due process, and the right to vote. Next was the basic right to life."(pp.33-34)
1876 - United States v. Cruikshank
"Southern Democrats, angered that African Americans had voted in a Republican government in Colfax, Louisiana, threatened to overturn the results of the recent election and install a white supremacist regime. Blacks were determined to defend their citizenship rights and occupied the symbol of democracy in Colfax, the courthouse, to ensure that the duly elected representatives, most of whom were white, could take office. That act of democratic courage resulted in an unprecedented bloodbath, even for Reconstruction. Depending on the casualty estimate, between 105 and 280 African Americans were slaughtered. Their killers were then charged with violating the Enforcement Act of 1870, which Congress had passed to stop the Klan's terrorism.
Chief Justice Waite . . . ruled that the Enforcement Act violated states' rights. Moreover, the only recourse the federal government could take was the Fourteenth Amendment, but, he continued, that did not cover vigilantes or private acts of terror, but rather covered only those acts of violence carried out by the states. The ruling not only let mass murderers go free; it effectively removed the ability of the federal government to rein in anti-black domestic terrorism moving forward." (p. 34)
She adds that Supreme Court justice Joseph Bradley was tired of blacks continually trying to use the courts.
"He barked that 'there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.' Like Andrew Johnson, Bradley saw equal treatment for black people as favoritism." (p. 35)
1877 - Hall v. DeCuir
"The justices ruled that a state could not prohibit racial segregation." (p. 35)
1880 - Strauder v. West Virginia, Exparte Virginia, and Virginia v. Rives
". . .in a series of decisions . . . the U.S. Supreme Court provided clear guidelines to the states on how to systematically and constitutionally exclude African Americans from juries in favor of white jurors."(p. 35)
1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson
"Homer Plessy, a black man who looked white, thought his challenge to a Louisiana law that forced him to ride in the Jim Crow railcar instead of the one designated for whites would put an end to this legal descent into black subjugation. He was wrong. The justices, in an 8-1 decision, dismissed the claims that Plessy's Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law were violated. Justice Henry Brown unequivocally stated, "If one race be inferior to the other socially, the constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane." "And when Plessy argued that segregation violated the thirteenth Amendment's ban against 'badges of servitude,' the Supreme Court shot down that argument as well, noting: "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument . . . to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.'" (p.35) (emphasis added)
1899 Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
"that even ignored Plessy's separate but equal doctrine by declaring that financial exigency made it perfectly acceptable to shut down black schools while continuing to operate educational facilities for white children." (p. 36)
1898 Williams v. Mississippi
"the justices approve the use of the poll tax, which requires citizens to pay a fee - under a set of very arcane, complicated rules - to vote. Although the discriminatory intent of the requirement was well known prior to the justices' ruling, the highest court in the land sanctioned this formidable barrier to the ballot box. In fact, Justice Joseph McKenna quoted extensively from the Mississippi Supreme Court's candid admission that the state convention, 'restrained by the federal Constitution from discriminating against the negor race,' opted instead to find a method that 'discriminates against its [African Americans'] characteristics' - namely poverty, illiteracy, and more poverty." (p. 36)
Anderson notes the impact of this decision.
"As late as 1942, for instance, only 3 percent of the voting-age population cast a ballot in seven poll tax states." (p. 36)
1903 Giles v. Harris
"Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that 'the federal courts had no power, either constitutional or practical, to remedy a statewide wrong, even if perpetrated by the state or its agents." (p. 37)
Did you catch that? Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the most celebrated Supreme Court justices ever.
Two things seem most important here to me:
Slavery didn't end after the civl war. In fact for many blacks things were worse. Slave owners had no incentive to destroy their 'property.' But after slaves were freed, Southerners could kill at will pretty much. And these conditions continued until the 1960s. So African Americans haven't come close to recovering from the personal traumas and the financial theft of their labor. Rather than blaming blacks for their own poverty, white Americans need to acknowledge the long history of oppression, cruelty, and murders of African Americans, some aspects of which continue to this day.
A court blinded by its own prejudices and ideology can do untold harm to Americans, including overturning the laws of Congress. A scary thought with Trump and Pence picking candidates for the supreme court.
Another book club member asked me if I've read White Rage yet. I told him only Chapter 1, but it was really grim. He said, it gets much worse.
"When the police knocked the door down they found a mountain of mail in the hall andHenry Summers was inside, dead.He had been dead for three years, undiscovered, because all of his bills were paid by direct debit."
The journalist goes on to tell the story of who this man had been.
I didn't know him or even of him until this afternoon when I heard this interview on PRI with Teju Cole, who did know him. This is a man I would have liked to have known. And I'm hoping to start an acquaintanceship through his books, and through the videos that have been left behind.
The PRI interview begins like this:
"You may never have heard of John Berger.
But the English writer and artist, who died this week at 90, changed how countless art students thought about art and maybe even the world.
His 1972 television series and book ''Ways of Seeing" was designed to upend traditional, and what he termed elitist, ways of evaluating art work.
But Berger wasn’t just an art critic. He was also a novelist.
His book, “G,”, a non-linear account of a man travelling around Europe before World War One, won the Booker Prize."
[I tried to embed the audio here, but I couldn't make it work.]
It's a beautiful interview worth listening to. It got me to look the man up and try to find out more about him. He took on the conventional reverence for art as culture. He also moved to rural France where he lived for 40 years or so. Most important to me is that he saw the world and how we see the world differently from the way most people do. Here's the first episode of that 1972 television show mentioned above.
Below is from a much later interview (I'm not sure exactly when - the posting date on Youtube isn't necessarily the date of the interview). The whole interview is available too. In it he talks about tenderness, defining it in different ways - "a refusal to judge"
In the PRI interview about Cole relates Berger's characterization of the dead as really being merely in hiding who are around us.
“Part of the storytelling is about memory,” Cole explains, “but part of it is about how the dead have not gone away. … [They] are always with us, actually supporting us.”
From a blogger's point of view, today is the easiest of the festival - there are only two choices. From the Sched website:
Both films are "Features in Competition." Both are at the Bear Tooth.
Feature means it's a fictional story 55 - 140 minutes. In Competition means they have been chosen by the programmers who selected the films that would be at the festival as one of the best and to be eligible for a prize in the festival. One of the programmers told me that ALL of the Features in Competition this year are very good films. I would agree on that for the three I've seen.
Features are full length fictional films. Films in competition are those chosen by the original screeners to be eligible for awards.
a list of the super shorts in competition
list of the programs where they appear and when
description of each super short in competition in alphabetical order
I'd note that while these are the screeners picks, screeners don't always agree, so some would have chosen other super shorts as the best. I often disagree with the screeners, but this is a good start.
"In January 1914, a horrific murder shocked the city of Budapest. Elza Mágnás, a famous courtesan, was strangled and her body thrown into the icy waters of the Danube. The film which is based on a true story chronicles the last four days of Elza’s life through the eyes of a naive maid, portraying Elza’s complex relationship with her housekeeper, her sugar daddy and her young lover. (HFM)"
Director Szász's The Ambassador To Bern won the best feature at the 2014 AIFF. It was an excellent film and I'm sure this one will be a contender this year. I did a Skype interview with Szász then and part of it was about this film. I'll try to edit it to focus on Demimonde. But it's in sections with transcript so it is easy to find.
Here's what he said two years ago:
"Q: What's the new film about?
The assassination of a famous courtesan….Years ago that shook up the entire city of Budapest, everybody was talking about it because the courtesan was very famous, everyone knew about her and they were shocked because someone famous was getting murdered.
Q: Was that before or after the Arch Duke got shot?
It’s before. It takes place in January, so it’s maybe a couple of months before the assassination [of the Arch Duke]. It’s a style piece. It’s the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. So it’s very difficult to recreate the era, because we have to start from scratch, the costumes, the props, set, everything. And we have so little money again, but I just couldn’t refuse this chance because the script is again something I love very much. I was warned, do you remember the first time you had to shoot in 17 days with so little money, you suffered and you were frustrated, and you want to do it again? I said, yes, because it’s a good script and we have now, nineteen days so it’s two more days, - piece of cake - probably it's a bit longer, the story. so it’s very difficult to shoot again, but hopefully next time we’ll have the backing of the film fund and we’ll have maybe three or four times the time and money, because it’s normal that Hungarian films are being shot in 35, 40, maybe 45 days and we had less than 20 both times."
"Peter Latang (Jesse Wakeman) left working class Warwick, Rhode Island to reinvent himself as a slick, Wall Street mover and shaker. Fifteen years later, when he's forced to return home to bury his Grandmother he loses his wallet on the trip. Stranded, the only person he can think of to help him out is his next door neighbor and former childhood friend Donald Treebeck (Kris Avedisian). Donald hasn't changed a bit, and what starts as a simple favor turns into a long van ride into their past."
And interesting point from the director's notes from the same link:
"For me specifically it had a lot to do with the guilt of how I treated people in high school and the guilt I carried with me. Jesse and Kyle (co-writers) come from the same really small town in Northern California and brought elements of their experience going home. All the Rhode Island elements, the people the neighborhoods, were very specific to my experience growing up there in the 80's."
"Anne (Dylan Gelula, from Netflix’s “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) is a mildly quirky 17-year-old who lives with her single mom (Pamela Adlon) and exercises her arty side as photographer for the school yearbook. It’s in the latter capacity that she encounters softball-playing senior star athlete Sasha (Brianna Hildebrand), and is instantly smitten. "
"Sinopsis: Tati y Pedro llevan una vida rutinaria hasta que él amanece convertido psicológicamente en un niño. Buscando la cura Tati lleva a Pedro a donde él vivió su infancia, allí Pedro se reencuentra con su familia y a ninguno reconoce, en cambio juega y es feliz como cuando realmente era niño. Después de que su madre lo ve en una de sus crisis decide revelar un secreto, esto hace que Tati lleve a Pedro a seguir las huellas de su padre. Encontrarlo para que haga catarsis es la última esperanza."
Bear with me on this one. This some interesting background that will add depth to your understanding of the movie. I couldn't find a good English description for this film, so I started with the German synopsis from the film's website:
"Eine Krise zieht ihre Kreise um den Planet Ottakring: Disko, der letzte Pate stirbt, Frau Jahn, Kredithai vor Ort, übernimmt die Macht. In dieser Situation gerät die Wirtschaft des Bezirks ins Strudeln. Sammy ein junger und nicht sehr überzeugter Kleinganove, aber Erbe Diskos, ist gezwungen zu handeln. Valerie – Wirtschaftsstudentin aus Deutschland – gerät im Zuge ihrer Masterarbeit ins Zentrum des Geschehens. Gemeinsam mit Sammy und seinen Freunden bilden sie eine Allianz gegen die heimtückische Vorgangsweise von Frau Jahn und finden dabei ein Wirtschaftssystem, von dem eigentlich alle profitieren können. Wären da nicht auch noch Gefühle mit im Spiel. David gegen Goliath in Wiens 16. Bezirk!"
Here's my translation with some help from internet dictionaries. I was still a little uncertain, but checked with an Austrian friend, who confirmed I'd gotten the gist and then I was able to tweak it into more idiomatic English.
"A crisis erupts in the Viennese neighborhood of Ottakring. Disko, the last godfather, dies. Mrs. Jahn, a local loan shark, takes power. The economy of this district then goes to hell. A younger, and not very eager minor hoodlum, Sammy, Disko's heir, is forced to act. Valerie - a business student from Germany [it's an Austrian film] - while working on her masters thesis, finds herself in the center of the action. She builds an alliance with Sammy and his friend against the malicious approach of Mrs. Jahn and through this finds an economic system in which all can profit. If only there weren't feelings coming into play. David and Goliath in Vienna's 16th district."
Poking around with my sketchy German that is certainly no match for Viennese dialect, I did discover that the movie's ideas go back to an experiment in the 1930s in a place called Wörgl where they had a "money-experiment" to deal with the desperate economic situation. This comes from a post about the film when it was shown in Wörgl.
I did also find something on this in English at Lietaer.com:
"One of the best-known applications of the stamp scrip idea was applied in the small town of Wörgl in Austria in 1932 and 1933. When Michael Unterguggenberger (1884-1936) was elected mayor of Wörgl, the city had 500 jobless people and another 1,000 in the immediate vicinity. Furthermore, 200 families were absolutely penniless. The mayor-with-the-long-name (as Professor Irving Fisher from Yale would call him) was familiar with Silvio Gesell‘s work and decided to put it to the test.
He had a long list of projects he wanted to accomplish (re-paving the streets, making the water distribution system available for the entire town, planting trees along the streets and other needed repairs.) Many people were willing and able to do all of those things, but he had only 40,000 Austrian schillings in the bank, a pittance compared to what needed to be done.
Instead of spending the 40,000 schillings on starting the first of his long list of projects, he decided to put the money on deposit with a local savings bank as a guarantee for issuing Wörgl’s own 40,000 schilling’s worth of stamp scrip. He then used the stamp scrip to pay for his first project. Because a stamp needed to be applied each month (at 1% of face value), everybody who was paid with the stamp scrip made sure he or she was spending it quickly, automatically providing work for others. When people had run out of ideas of what to spend their stamp scrip on, they even decided to pay their taxes, early."
The post goes on to say it was so successful that other Austrian towns wanted to copy it and the Central Bank clamped down. They were sued, but the Austrian Supreme Court backed the bank and these schemes became criminal.
From the first post above, the writer also says that director Michi Riebl says that the Ottakring district no longer has the gangsterism in this form.
There's something here for everyone. Youth in Oregon is the directorial debut for Avatar actor (Dr.Norm Spelling), Joel David Moore. It takes place in Oregon with acting greats like Frank Langella and Billy Crudup. There's Married... with Children's Christina Applegate and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'sMary Kay Price.
"When 82-year-old curmudgeon RAYMOND Ingersol tells his family that he has made arrangements to be euthanized in Oregon, his daughter KATE is determined to stop him. But when another family emergency arises, Kate’s husband BRIAN finds himself with the unlucky task of driving his father-in-law from New York to Oregon AND convincing the crotchety old man that he doesn’t want to die. The problem: Brian hates Raymond. And with Raymond’s wino wife ESTELLE tagging along for the journey, it’s just in-laws and the open road for the next 3000 miles."
Variety reviews don't pull punches. But they aren't looking for film-festival flicks, as the last line of this quote suggests:
"Rarely has euthanasia seemed more desirable than it’s made to appear in “Youth in Oregon,” a torturous saga about a man dying of an incurable heart condition who sets out on a cross-country journey to Oregon, where killing oneself is legal. Maudlin and mannered, this contrived indie squanders another fine late-career performance from Frank Langella, dousing its treatment of the subject in affectations until it’s snuffed out any trace of genuine life. While it fits comfortably into the fragmented-family drama subgenre prized each year at the Tribeca Film Festival, its groan-worthiness is apt to get it buried at the box office."
But here's from a more sympathetic reviewer. Mary Kay Place on her character from The Mary Sue answering the question, "Did you feel their marriage had gone through a change before the film started that altered their dynamic?"
Mary Kay Place: I did, and I think that’s when she became a heavy drinker. Because he was withdrawing and becoming angrier and more isolated. And that was infuriating to her, because I image them being a solid couple and had been true partners. And that partnership started dissolving as he became more isolated and cranky. Well, I think he’s always been cranky, but now he’s become crankier than ever. And it’s been difficult on my character, because she felt as if she’d lost her partner before he died. He had already slipped away.
There's a note on this YouTube video - "This video is unlisted. Be considerate and think twice before sharing." - but this seems an appropriate place for it and I can't find any easy links where I could ask for permission. I can't find a website or FB page for this film.
Let me get this up so I can start on the Documentaries in Competition. I don't usually get more than a few of these up each year as a preview. Let's see how far I can get. I'll also try to add the times and locations for each of the film showings. This one went pretty easily until I got to Planet Ottakring which took a while. This looks like a solid group of films and there's still a bunch more other Features, many of which I'm sure are going to be well worth watching.
Super Shorts are under ten minutes. Films in competition are those chosen by the original screeners to be eligible for awards. Super Shorts are shown in programs so they can be hard to find in the program. Below is
a list of the super shorts in competition
list of the programs where they appear and when
description of each super short in competition in alphabetical order
I'd note that while these are the screeners picks, screeners don't always agree, so some would have chosen other super shorts as the best. I often disagree with the screeners, but this is a good start.
Super Shorts in Competition
Director
Country
Length
20 Matches
Mark Tapio Kines
USA
10 min
Death$ in a $mall Town
Mark Jones
USA
7 min
How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps
Benjamin Berman
USA
7 min
A Magician
Max Blustin
UK
3 min
On Time
Xavier Neal-Burgin
USA
8 min
A Reasonable Request
Andrew Laurich
USA
9 min
Program (right)
Film (below)
HARD KNOCKS Saturday - 1st
Dec 3, 2016
11:30am -1 pm -
AK Exper Small Thursday -2nd
Dec. 8 5:30-7:30pm AK EX Large
MARTINI MATINEE Friday. Dec 9
2-4 PM
BEAR TOOTH
LOVE AND PAIN Wed. 1st Dec. 7
5:30-7 pm
BEAR TOOTH Sat 2nd
Dec. 10
5:45-7:15pm AK Ex Small
GLOBAL VILLAGE
Sunday, DEC. 13
1PM-2:45PM
AK Exper Large
20 Matches
√ √
Death$ in a $mall Town
√
How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps
√ √
A Magician
√
On Time
√ √
A Reasonable Request
√
As you can see, three of these films are only showing once, so you're going to have to work hard to see them. In the past they've occasionally shown super shorts before features, so maybe they'll do that, though A Reasonable Request will need to be with a mature audience feature. Fortunately you can see the whole film below.
202020202020202020202020202020202020202020202020
20 Matches
Mark Tapio Kines
USA
0:10:00
"A young woman (Nina Rausch) sits alone in a pitch black room and lights twenty matches, one at a time.
Her face illuminated only by the flame from each match, the woman tells the story of a Viennese serial killer who kidnapped and murdered twenty immigrant women – one per year."
“'How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps' is a short film is based on a true story from my life: I went through a bad breakup, then hit the gym as a way to get over the heartbreak - and ended up losing 90 lbs in the process. Then I did what anyone else in this glorious age of the Internet we live in would do:
I wrote a blog post about it.
Published on my small personal Tumblr as just a cathartic way to somehow make sense of my heartbreak and what I had gone through, The Little Blog Post That Could surprisingly went massively viral and struck a chord around the world with millions of people: It turns out (unfortunately) that there are a lot of people out there who have gotten their hearts broken, and almost all of those people turned to the gym to get over it. I wasn’t alone.
One of those people who had gotten their heart broken and stumbled across the “4 Easy Steps” blog post was director Ben Berman, who contacted me through a friend. He said “let’s make a film!”. So we did. "
It continues, including how the actor suggested that he actually lose weight during the filming.
There's also an SNL connection.
Here's the whole movie. It's got over 4 million hits already on Youtube. Who needs film festivals anymore? If a film was in every festival in the US, it wouldn't get 4 million viewers.
"'On Time' is a short form adaption of the feature length script 'Rough Around the Edges' written by Xavier and Tiara Marshall. The script made it to the first round of the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab. We can't wait to see this story unfold into a feature length film."
NOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOT
A Reasonable Request
Andrew Laurich
USA
0:09:00
If you let your child watch this, you might have some explaining to do. I'd suggest you watch this on your own first. Below is the whole movie.
"In competition" means these films were selected by the screeners to be eligible for awards at the festival. "Features" are 'stories' that are 55 to 140 minutes. "Shorts" are stories that are 10-55 minutes. Super shorts are stories under 10 minutes. 'Stories' are fictional and distinguished from documentaries. This looks like a particularly strong group this year. Danny DeVito is in one, Ed Asner in another, Valerie Harper in yet another. Bruce Springsteen played a role in getting one to screen (because of issues over music rights.)
Here's the list and below is a bit more about each.
Shorts in Competition
Director
Country
Length
Curmudgeons
Jake DeVito
USA
17 min
Gorilla
Tibo Pinsard
France
14 min
Il Campione (The Champion )
Boming Jiang
Italy
12 min
Like A Butterfly
Eitan Pitigliani
United States
28 min
My Mom and the Girl
Susie Singer Carter
United States
20 min
Thunder Road
Jim Cummings
USA
13 min
Since shorts are short, they are grouped into programs. These are the programs that the films are in and when those programs show: Hard Knocks, Love and Pain, and Global Village. The Martini Matinee is a regular AIFF event and takes a few shorts from different programs. Also, there are some super shorts mixed in some of the programs.
This chart is my attempt to help you find which program each of the shorts in competition is in and when you can see them. I'd note that those shorts not in competition can also be really good. I often find films at the festival that are not in competition that I think should have been. But seeing the ones in competition is a good bet. And the others are mixed into the programs.
Program (right)
Film (below)
HARD KNOCKS Saturday - 1st
Dec 3, 2016
11:30am -1 pm -
AK Exper Small Thursday -2nd
Dec. 8 5:30-7:30pm AK EX Large
MARTINI MATINEE Friday. Dec 9
2-4 PM
BEAR TOOTH
LOVE AND PAIN Wed. 1st Dec. 7
5:30-7 pm
BEAR TOOTH Sat 2nd
Dec. 10
5:45-7:15pm AK Ex Small
GLOBAL VILLAGE
Sunday, DEC. 13
1PM-2:45PM
AK Exper Large
Curmudgeons
Jake DeVito
USA
0:17:00
✓
Danny DeVito is actually listed as the director and an actor in the film. Jake is one of the producers and one of several other DeVito's in the credits.
"THE INSPIRATION. I love apes. Not you? I love real monkeys, but also "fake" apes, like the old King Kong, those played by actors in the original The Planet of the Apes, or the wonderfully created apes by makeup master artist Rick Baker for Greystoke, with Christopher Lambert and Ian Holm. All these films and these movie apes have profoundly marked my viewer's imagination, the universe they live in, the dangerous and fascinating jungle, but mainly because it talks to my "inner ape". We do not think enough about our "inner ape". Do we ?"
Il Campione (The Champion )
Boming Jiang
Italy
0:12:00
✓
I'm having trouble finding much about this film, so I'll just leave you with the trailer for now.
"About a man who dreams he's a butterfly and he becomes so involved in this dream that he no longer knows if he's a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or if he's a butterfly dreaming he's a man."
"the reason why I became a director, which is the need to capture the essence of life and of what life could be and then put it on screen, through a special medium: the film. What is great about films is that you make them together with other people, in my case with wonderful and special individuals that helped me take the idea I first had to the final stage. The story of the film came from a series of personal experiences that I have had over time, that I then jotted down in words together with the screenwriter Alessandro Regaldo. There were so many things that inspired me while I was writing the story."
------------------------------------------------------------------ My Mom and the Girl
Susie Singer Carter
USA
0:20:00
"MY MOM AND THE GIRL is a true story based on an odd encounter my East Coast mother, who suffers with Alzheimer's, shared one evening on the streets of East L.A. The story takes off after dinner with family & friends takes a dark turn and my mother is led to a proverbial crossroads where 3 very disparate, desperate women are unpredictably pulled back into the light. It's a funny, poignant and surprisingly rich story where apparent disabilities can be seen as gifts."
"As Cummings tells it, the film very unexpectedly got into Sundance, where it then won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film. Of course, this brought some heat to the short and Cummings, which meant attention was also paid to a major question from the film: If he’d secured the rights to Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” which plays during a pivotal scene. After paying $7,000 for the rights to the song so it could travel the festival circuit, Cummings was faced with a $40,000 to 50,000 licensing fee to put his short online. This prompted Cummings to take his case to Springsteen in the form of an open letter he posted on the internet."
*When I first starting blogging the film festival, films that were available online were not eligible for most festivals and there was some concern when I would find the whole film somewhere. But online video has gone from the dark ages to the present in just a few years. If a film is good, you should want to see it several times, and on the big screen as well as on your computer.
