My Top Four Favorite Moments from "The Contender"

1) President Jackson Evans use of food as a political weapon throughout the film. President Lyndon Johnson (1963-1968) did the same thing as president, and President Evans is definitely a savvy president in the mold of LBJ. It is nice to see a president modeled after LBJ be portrayed in a positive light in film!

2) Sam Elliott as Chief of Staff Kermit Newman. Sam Elliott nails it in his performance of the brilliant, cunning Chief of Staff. Typically, the Chief of Staffs for U.S. presidents have been brilliant operators and political masterminds like Kermit (Think of H.R. Haldeman for Richard Nixon, James Baker for Ronald Reagan, Erskine Bowles for Bill Clinton, and Andy Card for George W. Bush). It is nice to see White House Chief of Staffs get their just dessert on film!!

3)When President Evans tells Governor Governor Jack Hathaway "You're the future of the Democratic Party...and you always will be." I have heard some political kiss of death lines in my time, and this moment is right down that alley of dark politics! Governor Hathaway's wife is also a piece of work. She personifies the overly ambitious political operators and climbers that you will always find in the sewer of American politics.

4) Any scene with Gary Oldman as Rep. Sheldon Runyon. Shelly Runyon is your typical conservative Republican bastard depicted on film...but he is also one heck of a poker player and a savvy political operator. He reminds me of many of the smart Republicans who ran the Congress in the 1990s after the 1994 Gingrich Revolution. Hollywood needs conservative Republicans to be the bad guys in films, much like the Brothers Grimm needed ogre characters in their tales. In reality, however, my experience from working on Capitol Hill has instructed me that there are good people (and bad people) in Congress in both parties. And one person's political hero is always someone else's political goat (and vice-versa).

One of my least favorite characters in the film is Senator Laine Hanson. I seriously doubt that an avowed atheist would ever be nominated to the vice-presidency nor would be confirmed by the Congress. I find that truly hard to believe. Perhaps I am biased because I am a strong Catholic who teaches at a Jesuit University. But I do think that Hollywood's anti-religion bias came out a little too strong in the plausibility of an atheist being second-in-line for the presidency of the United States.

I Need the Dark Knight

I will be perfectly honest here. I first saw "The Dark Knight" in a sprawling multiplex last summer and I absolutely hated the film. I thought it was too violent, too gory, and too disturbing, especially in terms of the scenes of children being threatened with death. I left the movie theater last August feeling defiled, and I was very disgusted by what I saw. I didn't like "The Dark Knight", and I wanted a refund of my money. And if my name was Dr. Suess instead of Dr. Meiers, I would have sputtered out my cadence like in Green Eggs and Ham, "I didn't like it...not one little bit!"

I didn't like it, that is, until I saw the film the second time on DVD at home.

I don't know what it was that made me change my mind from "I hate 'The Dark Knight'" to "this is a brilliant film". Perhaps I officially made the transition from a "theater man" to a "DVD man" in terms of my preferred medium to watch and enjoy films. Perhaps I was distracted back in August in the theater by whatever petty ailments were afflicting me at the time.

But now I love "The Dark Knight", and each time I watch it I more and more see the parallels between the Batman in the film and war on terror that we fight against our bloodthirsty foes today.

Of course, the film has created controversy due to the parallels that some have seen between Batman (and his war against the terrorist Joker) and President George W. Bush (and his war against the Islamic terrorists).

Bush was the Dark Knight president. He was 100% focused on battling al-Qaeda and the bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists who want to kill us. Much like Batman, Bush became obsessed with battling the terrorists. Just like the Batman, he invented new weapons systems, launched intrusive surveillance and intelligence systems to keep us safe, launched wars of choice to take the fight to the bad guys, and hunted down his foes to the gates of hell and back. He also went overboard in terms of besmirching the image of the United States and alienating 70% of the American people. I do agree with Bush that you have to pick your poison: either fight the Islamic terrorist bastards overseas or you can fight them here in the streets of America. Our enemies will not go away and they aren't going to give up simply because we don't want to fight them. Much like Batman, Bush had his flaws. He was arrogant. He was self-righteous. He was a rich prick who came from a life of leisure and a family of money and power. He found it difficult to relate to the ordinary guy. But much like Batman, Bush had his strengths. He never wavered in taking the fight to the terrorists. He never backed down in Iraq. He pushed the envelope with his surveillance to keep us safe. We never had a repeat of 9/11 on Bush's watch. No Jokers came out to play in the malls, daycares, and restaurants of America after 9/11. Bush deprived the terrorists of their civil rights to operate freely in the U.S. - and thank God for that.

But the price Bush paid for his post 9/11 war on terror was huge. Bush destroyed his popularity over Iraq. Poll-driven presidents would have retreated once their poll ratings plunged to levels not seen since President Nixon and Watergate, but not Bush. Bush left office an unpopular and despised man, unable to appear in person at his own party's convention in 2008 and routinely booed throughout our land. He literally left Washington, D.C. in 2009 much like Batman exits "The Dark Knight": on the run, unpopular, and being chased by the dogs of society. However, I do view Obama as a Harvey Dent figure, the charismatic politician that we can believe in and who can pick up the mantle and continue the fight against al-Qaeda. The fact that Obama has decided to send 17,000 additional U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan is proof enough that he is willing to play the Harvey Dent role during his first term. Let's hope and pray that Obama Dent is successful as he picks up the mantle left by the Dark Knight president.

America has forgot 9/11. We have deluded ourselves that the threat has passed. We think we can go back to the way things were prior to 9/11. But we can't. Not now, not ever. Al-Qaeda won't go away simply because Americans choose not to fight the war on terror. Al-Qaeda won't go away because we won't use the term "war on terror" anymore, or close Guantanamo, or refuse to effectively spy on the terrorists messages overseas and in this country. Terrorism won't go away because we elected Barack Obama and want to have outreach to the Muslim world. The terrorists will hit us hard again. Another 9/11 is absolutely unstoppable now that our Batman President is gone. The only question I have is what the weak, Applebees America will think when we get hit hard in the next 9/11 attack. When they realize that the Joker is back and Batman retired a long time ago. Will they clamor for a new Batman, a new Churchill to guide us in a time of crisis? Or will they sue for peace, and capitulate to the terrorist demands? We live in bleak times, and we face nothing but bleak choices in our future. We had our fill of Batman in the Oval Office, and now we have driven him out of our life for the time being. But the Bat Signal will be back. Someday, in the future, we will clamor for it. Just not now.

A Decade of "Election"

"Election" is one of my favorite political films. It is flawless on so many levels. It absolutely nails it in terms of identifying how human nature is imperfect, how politicians are flawed human beings, and how the ideals of politics are muddied by the messy lives of fallible men and women. What I like about the film is that it isn't a "liberal film" or a "conservative film" but instead probes basic political truths through the simple prism of a high school election in Omaha, Nebraska.

"Election" as a film is a chestnut from a different era. The film came out in 1999 and is now 10 years old. 1999 seems like an eternity ago. Bill Clinton was president. The economy was booming and in danger of overheating. The U.S. government was running huge budget surpluses. A different place. A different time. Before 9/11. Before the bailouts. Before al-Qaeda became our mortal enemy. Before we had to take our shoes off at the airport. But despite all of these changes in our society over the past ten years, I find the message of "Election" even more convincing today. We do tend to flock toward the wealthy alpha-male jocks (Bush, Clinton, Obama) or the overachieving careerists (Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama). We do have a problem with success in this country (characterized in the film by Jim McAllister's jealousy of Tracy Flick's rise to power). We do openly root for the insurgent political underdogs while also trampling their rights and insuring their quick demise from polite society. We do have a problem with discussing issues of class and sex and power openly in this country, so we hide behind distractions and force our peccadilloes into the closet (or into cedar chests where we store our quilts, much like Jim McAllister's illicit porn collection). But most of all, we do place too much hope in our fallible politicians, pinning our hopes and dreams onto mere mortal men and women. And then we inevitably become disappointed when these politicians disappoint or die unexpectedly or don't live up to expectations.

If I had to vote for any of the three candidates (Paul Metzler, Tracy Metzler, Tracy Flick), I would 100% cast a protest ballot in favor of Tracy Metzler. Tracy Metzler is the only candidate who had the brains and the moxy to tell the truth about the absurdities of the political process. As an overtaxed, fed up middle class American, I am in a Tammy Metzler state of mind about the inanities of the political process. As a society, we have had too many Tracy Flicks in office - all with their fancy Ivy League degrees - and look what they have wrought us: an out-of-control federal debt, an economy that screws over the working middle class, out-of-control Wall Street bankers that destroyed our economy, a bankrupt educational system that is good at pumping paychecks to the professional educational racket but doesn't push our students hard enough to strive and succeed. We have also been the recipient of a huge trade deficit, a bankrupt American auto industry, a bankrupt Social Security system, and a country that invests way too little in the things we need for a successful future. If this is the legacy of the Track Flick government in America, I am ready for a little Tammy Metzler government to shake things up. Who knows, perhaps one day we will get the Tammy Metzler government and be able to rid ourselves of a Fairy Tale government once and for all.

Somalis Gone Wild...

I enjoy watching late night television. There is something therapeutic in the glow of late night TV. I could do without the "Girls Gone Wild" television commercials, which purportedly offer low-grade video of college girls on Spring Break exposing themselves in a drunken frenzy (all for the low, low price of $19.95 + shipping and handling). There is something unseemly about the advertisements for "Girls Gone Wild", and I shudder to think about just what type of desperate person would actually buy this crud. "Girls Gone Wild" is the worst of the worst in terms of the soap scum our society produces and throws out to the masses as something to be consumed. To be quite honest, "Girls Gone Wild" gives me the creeps. It brings nothing to the table other than to turn women into sex objects for the highest bidder.

I had a similar feeling of revulsion when I read the following blog post on powerlineblog.com: Click Here. Powerlineblog.com has been following the sad story of Muslim Somali cab drivers in Minneapolis refusing to transport any passengers from the airport who are carrying liquor. The reason for this "boycott" is because the Somalis state that transporting alcohol violates the Islamic law of sharia. Powerlineblog.com does a superb job of debunking the "sharia" claims, and correctly points out that this is just another power play by extremist Muslim groups in the United States (what the Prussian military strategist Clausewitz would label as war by other means).

I view the controversy in Minneapolis the same way I view "Girls Gone Wild": two examples of a broken society in the United States that offers nothing to the common good beyond selfish narcissism and mindless pandering.

Winning the War on Terror

I have just finished reading a blog post on the "Confirm Them" website (www.confirmthem.com) regarding the new book by John Yoo called "War By Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror". It is a fascinating post to read, and it mirrors by own thinking regarding the debate on whether or not to extend "criminal rights" to blood-thirsty terrorists who want me and my family dead by any means necessary. (Full Disclosure: I come from the "old school" on this issue...) The full blog post is located here: Click Here.

The blog post on "Confirm Them" quotes this passage from the Yoo book, which I agree with 100%:

"[Criminal justice] involves the fundamental relationship between the people and its government, and so ought to be regulated by clear, strict rules defining the power given by the principal to its agent. [War], however, involves a foreign enemy who is not part of the American political community, and so should not benefit from the regular peacetime rules that define it."

The "Confirm Them" website was set up by law students fed up with the fact that Democratic Senators in the U.S. Senate have been blocking/obstructing President Bush's judges to the federal district and appellate courts from being confirmed through use (misuse?) of the filibuster. I have always thought that blocking President Bush's judicial selections was a bad idea for the Democrats, because someday in the future there will be a Democratic President and this Democratic President will want to have his/her judicial nominations confirmed to the federal bench. And unfortunately, Senate Republicans are going to look at the disgraceful precedent established by Senate Democrats in the 2001-2008 period in terms of blocking Bush's appointees to the courts, and the Senate Republicans are going to exact their revenge through misuse of the filibuster to block the Democratic nominees. It won't be right for the Senate Republicans to do this, but turnabout is indeed fair play in politics. Democrats will rue the day they have ever unleashed this awful Pandora's Box on our political culture.

The "Confirm Them" website also played a pivotal role in torpedoing President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court in October of 2005. Harrier Miers had no business being confirmed to the Supreme Court. She was an unqualified crony with none of the legal qualifications of a John Roberts or an Antonin Scalia or a Stephen Breyer. "Confirm Them" did a great service to the country by going long and strong against the Harriet Miers nomination, forcing her to withdraw her nomination. "Confirm Them" is one of my favorite blogs because it is an influential blog that is read by White House staffers, and if you know what you are writing about you can have real influence over politics.

I am still waiting, by the way, for Hollywood - or even Bollywood - to make a great movie about the War on Terror. That movie has not yet been made. I think an enterprising screenwriter could make a princely sum concocting just such a movie script. There is so much fertile material to be mined, and there are so many innovative ways to address this topic. But, alas, that movie has not emerged as of the writing of this blog post.

Al Gore Returns

Full Disclosure: I am not an environmentalist, at least not in the traditional understanding of what an environmentalist is supposed to be and act like. Not in the granola-eating, pierced-body, cynical, Pitch-reading, Starbucks-drinking, save-the-whale, Walmart-hating, stinky-body odor, Third-World-loving, Bush-hating, drive-an-old-Volvo-to-the-Greenpeace-rally variety prevalent in the urban cores of most major American cities. I always found those people strange irrelevancies in the sea of American politics...good for a few laughs at the lunch table with my co-workers, but not much more. But I am a conservationist. As a conservative, I believe in conserving the natural resources of the Earth and I find it wasteful that we pollute the Earth with the burning of fossil-fuels to propel our modern lifestyle when we have several cleaner alternatives like solar, nuclear, and wind power. As a cheapass skinflint, I am the type of guy who likes to go around the house and turn off all the lights in order to save money on my electric bill. I didn't engage in this behavior until the Kansas City Power and Light electric bill had my name on it. Now, I find myself monitoring energy usage and what I can do to cut back on expenses in the increasingly insane world of energy prices.

Last night, I had the pleasure to watch "An Inconvenient Truth", the new documentary movie starring former Vice-President Al Gore as...Al Gore. The film is a brilliantly crafted, 100-minute lecture by Al Gore about the issues and problems surrounding the problem of global warming. I went into the film a little cynical. I have never voted for Al Gore for Vice-President or President, and his brand of politics has been anathema to me (the blandishments about creating the Internet, the personal tragedy stories as political theater, the harsh partisanship of the younger Al Gore each served to turn me off severely). To my delight, I thoroughly enjoyed "An Inconvenient Truth" and I sat mesmerized during the entire film, transfixed at this brilliant, witty, and unorthodox public relations campaign by Al Gore to highlight the problem of global warming. I highly recommend this movie to anyone with an interest in politics...even to conservative Republicans like me who are typically skeptical regarding alarmist-Chicken-Little environmental prognostication of doom and gloom.

The movie is basically Al Gore going through his PowerPoint presentation about the dangers and perils of global warming. But don't let that scare you. This is not your father's Al Gore...this is a new and improved Al Gore. He is wiser. He is humble. He is less partisan (although he still manages to throw a partisan punch or two during the film against the current Republican administration). But the facts he presents are rock solid. And the case he makes about global warming is compelling. Al Gore is truly the environmental David speaking truth to power and using his PowerPoint slingshot to hit the Goliath of Global Warming right smack between the eyes. And Al Gore sure can keep an audience's attention! This isn't just some boring PowerPoint of the variety you find in any Corporate America sales pitch. Gore uses cartoon parodies, film clips, evidence, pictures, Mark Twain quotes, personal anecdotes, and compelling testimonials to really capture your attention and hold it for the entire 100 minutes. The documentary constantly cuts away to little sidebars of Al Gore traveling from city to city on his messianic tour to enlighten the world's opinion leaders about the perils of global warming. It is similar to how they made "The Blue Collar Comedy Tour" movie (great film), only instead of redneck fart jokes you get civic activism and an education into the biggest sleeper issue in American politics.

What I most enjoyed was watching Al Gore. The man who served for 8 years as Vice-President and then lost a close and bitterly contested election in 2000 has mellowed over the past 6 years. In 1960, Richard Nixon similarly lost a closely contested presidential election after serving as Vice-President for 8 years in the Eisenhower Administration. Nixon did not run for President in 1964, wisely choosing instead to spend his time traveling to each of the continents of the world and visiting as many foreign countries as possible to become a foreign policy expert and to better prepare himself for a future bid for the presidency. When Nixon ran for president again in 1968, it is not a stretch to say that because he had spent the previous 8 years out of office touring the world, he was by far the best-prepared president the United States has had in terms of foreign policy. And this experience paid off in terms of the opening to China, detente with the Soviet Union, and the ending of the Vietnam War. Similarly, Al Gore is following the Nixon model of investing his time since his 2000 defeat to study and learn all of the nuances about the issue of energy and global warming. Unlike the other candidates who will be running for president in 2008 (Senator John McCain, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John Kerry, Senator John Edwards, et. al.), Al Gore has had time away from the hustle and bustle of politics to reflect on the issue of global warming and has truly made it his moral imperative. Gore has sharpened his thinking on what he would actually do with the office of president in terms of the global warming debate. In my humble view, Al Gore has done exactly what Richard Nixon did in the 1960s: he is making himself a better future president. Will the country elect this new and seasoned and wiser Al Gore? That question is impossible to answer in 2006, and I am not Nostradamus so I really have no clue. All I know is that Gore should be commended for the devotion he has invested in the global warming issue, his efforts through this film to warn the world about the consequences of inaction on this issue, and his efforts to recast the global warming debate from something we don't want to think about to the leading moral issue of our time.

Hey Barbabbabababarrrra, Learrn to Spel!

Barbra Streisand really makes me smile and enjoy life. She is one among many actor activists who take their boutique, left-coast liberalism and think they need to trumpet it from coast-to-coast to turn those evil Republicans out of office in Washington, D.C.

Unfortunately for Barbra, she has a history of misspelled words in her Internet broadsides against Republicans on her website. Instead of admitting she has a problem, she acts like a typical pampered, spoiled, over-paid actress: she blames the problem on a new staff member.

Barbra's rants first made headlines in 2002 before the midterm elections. In an infamous memo to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, Barbra misspelled Gephardt's name along with mangling several other words. You would have thought that she would have learned to use a spell checker at that time.

But this week, Barbra has launched another misspelled rant against the Bush Administration, this time accusing President Bush of having "the arrogance of a 'C' student".

Misspellings from her most recent web posting include:

• Irag
• curruption
• dictatoriship
• crediblity
• Adminstration
• warrented
• desperatly
• preceedings
• ouside
• subpoening
• responsibilty

See if you can catch the four spelling errors in this whopper of a sentence from her most recent post:

"In the 1970’s, during the Nixon Adminstration, serious political curruption arose and the Republican leadership stepped up and took responsibilty by holding hearings and subpoening administration officials."

Okay, I cheated by bolding the misspelled words.

Message to Barbra: Focus more on your film and signing career. Leave politics a rest for a while!

The worst of 2005

Mr. Blackwell, the fashion-bashing guru known for his annual top 10 best and worst dressed lists, released his 46th Annual Worst Dressed List (this one for 2005). Here are the winners (along with my commentary on these de-lovely ladies...):

1. Britney Spears - Ooops, I did it again. What a total loser.
2. Mary-Kate Olsen - Oh Olsen twins, where did ye go wrong? I loved the Olsen twins when they made movies like "It Takes Two". But alas, these baby-faced losers rose too far and got rich way too fast for their own good. Mary-Kate resembles a bag lady on acid these days. Earth to Mary-Kate: If you have $100 million to blow, dress for the stars, not for the soup kitchen line. Also, try to smile once in a while. It won't hurt - I swear!
3. Jessica Simpson - I saw this individual in "The Dukes of Hazzard: The Movie" and I can't tell you which was worse: that ridiculous movie or Jessica Simpson. I accept the fact that dear Jessica isn't that bright. I accept the fact that "The Dukes of Hazzard: The Movie" is a total abomination to the values and tenets of the original "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show. I accept the fact that Jessica Simpson was blessed with a body that won't quit and morals that won't start. I don't accept I didn't return "Dukes of Hazzard" for a total refund from Best Buy...
4. Eva Longoria - I watched the first season of "Desperate Housewives" this past summer, and I have to admit I was mildly amused by it (in the same way I am mildly amused by sitting in a strip club getting a lap dance). Eva has had way more than her allotted 15 minutes. It is time for her to enter Leavenworth Prison (I have a map, if she needs it to get there) and work off her excess minutes by never appearing in public again...
5. Mariah Carey - Didn't she have a singing career at one time or another during the Clinton years???
6. Paris Hilton - There is some conspiracy by al-Qaeda to undermine the United States by promoting the idea of Paris Hilton as a worldwide celebrity. When I think of the worst form of pond scum that can collect on the underside of a latrine, I think of this idiot. Can someone explain to me what the draw is about Paris Hilton??? I lost my Marvel Comics decoder ring to figure that one out.
7. Anna Nicole Smith - I saw the Anna Nicole Smith reality show and I was disappointed. She has totally gone to seed.
8. Shakira - I think Mr. Blackwell is being a little rough on this Columbian tart. In the interest of patching up America's frayed relations with our Latin American friends south of the border, I am going to protest including Shakira on this list. I need Condoleeza Rice to intervene and get Shakira's name off this list in order to improve America's global standing in the image of the world. Condi, if you can pull this one off then I will forgive you for your own fashion faux pas in 2005 and I will forgive you for the screw-ups in Iraq.
9. Lindsay Lohan - Ok, I saw "Herbie Fully Loaded" and I will admit that I liked what I saw in terms of Lindsay Lohan. "Herbie Fully Loaded" was a pleasant, family film reminiscent of the hey-day of the Disney empire of movies in the 1960s and 1970s. I will also admit that I saw "Freaky Friday" with Lyndsay Lohan and I was extremely scared of her co-star, the hermaphrodite Jamie Lee Curtis. Compared to Curtis, Lohan was a dream. So why is it that Lohan throws away that goodwill through her drug-induced, alcohol-abusing ways? She has exceeded the Brat Pack and the Frat Pack in terms of outrageous Hollywood behavior. She makes Corey Haim look like an accomplished actor and makes OJ Simpson look like a responsible citizen in comparison. Can we hope and pray for a Lindsay Lohan-free 2006? Unfortunately, God is cruel and will not grant this wish for us mere mortals. So in the meantime, I am on the lookout for more Lohan bad behavior in 2006!
10. Renée Zellweger - I saw the Bridget Jones movies, and I have to admit that if I was a woman (which I am not) I would have laughed a lot more. Zellweger is the Sally Field of the 2000s - a fledgling mediocrity who somehow manages to make it lists like this.

"Remington Steele" - "Steele" the Best!

I received the first season of "Remington Steele" on DVD for Christmas, and boy did this bring back memories. "Remington Steele" ran from 1982 to 1987 and starred Stephanie Zimbalist as female detective Laura Holt. Unable to get clients on her own, Laura Holt invents a fictitious boss named "Remington Steele" who is always absent from the "Remington Steele Detective Agency". Then, a very young Pierce Brosnan (part crook, part inept scoundrel, part devilishly handsome con man) enters the equation and assumes the identity of Remington Steele. The show is impeccable - fine writing, fine acting, intelligent plot design, and always tasteful.

When I look at what passes for new programming on television today, I shudder. That is why I avoid network programming today and instead pop in the "Remington Steele" DVDs. It is the perfect little time machine that transports me back to the 1980s and back to a young pre-James Bond Pierce Brosnan, a dashing Stephanie Zimbalist, and a whole host of murder mystery plots worthy of Agatha Christie.

The Gift of the Future - and Making Your Life Count

Make Your Life Count!



Life is Difficult

The first three words in Scott Peck’s famous book The Road Less Traveled are “Life is difficult”. And I think there is a lot of truth in this. Life is difficult. It is messy. We do not live in a utopian world governed by utopian rules. We live in a flawed world that is governed by flawed human beings. Sometimes it can be easy to get discouraged when we confront this reality. But we should never allow discouragement about the realities of this earth to govern who we are, what we should do, and how we should live our lives.

C.S. Lewis warned us against writing off the collective wisdom of our previous ancestors. C.W. Lewis labeled this tendency the “snobbery of chronology”. The “snobbery of chronology” encourages us to presume that just because we happen to have lived after our ancestors and can read books about what happened to them, we must also know better than them. This is not the case. In fact, just the opposite is true.

The “Fortunes” of Men

One of the earliest poems in Old English was written in the year 1000 in the Anglo-Saxon language that we now refer to as Englisc. This poem was entitled “The Fortunes of Men” and it showed that the people who lived in the year 1000 at the turn of the last millennium were, in many ways, no different than you or I living in the early years of the second millennium. “The Fortunes of Men” conveys the sense of inner questioning and the stoic spirit of destiny that inspired people in the year 1000 to deal with the realities of life. “The Fortunes of Men” examined the different destinies that a child born in the Year 1000 at the dawn of the first millennium might encounter in the course of their life. It prophesized that ‘hunger will devour one, storm dismast another, one will be spear-slain, one hacked down in battle.” But this poem also celebrated the joys that life can offer…good fortune at dice, a devious mind for chess, and strength in sports.

Which way will your life turn – to happiness or to some living tragedy? Will you have a devious mind for chess? Or will you be slain by a spear? To some extent, you do not have control over everything in life. Accidents happen. You may live to be 100, or you may die tonight in a car accident. Knowing this, we must each strive to make each day on this Earth precious. You must seize the day and make each day count so your life will count.

I do not expect everyone I befriend to be the next Einstein. I do not expect you to win the Pulitzer Prize or become the next Bill Gates or the next Oprah Winfrey. There are some things, however, that I do expect of each person (especially Rockhurst students and graduates!):

- I expect each person to apply their God-given talents to make their immediate world a better place.
- I expect each person to obey the laws of society and to insure that others around them do so as well.
- I expect each person to be hard-working in their chosen line of work.
- I expect everyone in this room to respect the basic dignity of human beings and not turn their back on a neighbor, friend, or family member in need.
- I expect everyone in this room to vote. Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government ever invented – except for all of the other forms of government ever invented. We live in a free society and our obligation as free citizens is to vote in each election and make our voice heard.

The Hidden Talents Within

In 1909, Mark Twain wrote a book entitled Report From Paradise (also known as “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven”). The book is now out of print and not well known, which is a shame because this book is one of the most fascinating books ever written. Report From Paradise examines the paradox of how each of us has hidden extraordinary talents locked within us, but may not have had the time or opportunity or the desire to unlock these special talents that we do have inside of us.

Take a look around you. You could be sitting next to a latent scientific genius who never pursued scientific training, or a latent brilliant military strategist who never joined the army. You could be sitting next to the greatest writer known to the English language or the greatest philosopher since Aristotle or Plato. You yourself may have a genius for music or architecture or political strategy. But that person sitting next to you could be so busy working a 9 to 5 job in order to live and eat indoors that they never had the chance to explore those natural talents. Albert Einstein worked as a clerk in a patent office in Switzerland for 7 years before he became the famous scientist that we know and read about today. Albert Einstein didn’t suddenly wake up after working as a patent clerk and become a brilliant scientist; instead, he was a brilliant scientist who had to work in the patent office in order to make ends meet. And that is so true with so many people that we encounter today.

In his book Report From Paradise, Mark Twain wrote the following passage about this concept from the vantage point of Captain Stormfield as he walked around heaven:

“Shakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from Tennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind a horse-doctor named Sakka, from Afghanistan. That is the heavenly justice of it – they weren’t rewarded according to their deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank. That tailor Billings from Tennessee wrote poetry that Homer and Shakespeare couldn’t begin to come up to; but nobody would print it, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they laughed at it.”

Think about that concept before you laugh at some wild and crazy idea that a friend or family member has. Perhaps no one in our class is a latent Shakespeare or a latent Einstein. It is quite feasible to suggest that no one in our class will ever win the Pulitzer Prize or come up with a cure for all of the major diseases and afflictions. However, in the areas of personal finance, working hard, and making a difference in the society in which you live, there is absolutely no reason why everyone in our class cannot become wealthy over the course of a lifetime of hard work, be the best in their chosen profession, and make a positive influence on those people who are in your life. Let’s examine each of these concepts individually.

Working Hard, Saving, and Becoming Wealthy

In the area of personal finance, there is no reason why everyone in our class can become a millionaire during the course of their lifetime. I am not talking about the easy wealth of playing card games at the casinos or playing the lottery. I am talking about the hard wealth of doing the right thing with the money that you do have. In the book The Millionaire Next Door, the authors studied thousands of people who were millionaires in order to discover the principles that anyone can follow to become wealthy. What they found during the course of their research is interesting.

Being wealthy is not about how much you earn or how many possessions you have. It is about how much money you save, how much you invest, and how wisely you spend the money that you do earn. Money is a lot like closet space – the more you have, the more you want. You must resist the urge to spend every dime you earn on stuff you don’t need. This is really the secret to becoming wealthy. Becoming a millionaire is relatively easy to do. You must:

- Live within your means
- Save early and save what you can
- Invest prudently
- Avoid flashy cars, flashy clothes, and flashy lifestyles.

80% of millionaires in the United States made their own money by working hard, saving, and avoiding expensive luxury items. Most millionaires have never paid more than $400 for a suit or a watch. Most millionaires have never spent more than $20,000 for a car. Most millionaires marry once and live in the same house for many years. They avoid wasting money on luxuries they don’t need. They do invest in education, both for themselves and their children.

These are simple financial concepts that are available to each person in our class. I advise each of you to investigate these principles for yourself, apply them to your life, and slowly and patiently become wealthy.

In addition, you will need to work hard in order to succeed. In his autobiography Grinding it Out, McDonalds founder Ray Kroc talks about the long days he worked to make McDonalds a reality – and he began his quest to build the McDonalds empire at age 53!

Some of you will learn and follow these principles and enter the world of the wealthy. Others may choose not to follow these principles and enter the world of poverty. The choice is up to you. You have the choice and the power to determine which type of “world” you will enter.

Making the World Around You a Better Place

It is important to realize that the pursuit of money does not in itself define success or the “the good life”. In 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy (the brother of President John F. Kennedy) ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. On March 18, 1968, Senator Kennedy gave a speech at the University of Kansas where he made the following statement:

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

There is so much truth in what Senator Kennedy said in this 1968 speech. You need to stop measuring your success in terms of the size of your wallet and the square footage of your house; instead, measure your success in the number of quality relationships you have with others and the number of hobbies you pursue. Don’t worry about getting a BMW or that giant house in the hills. When you die, these things won't matter.

With Kennedy’s words still fresh in our ears, let’s enter an imaginary time machine and go forward 50 years into the future. When you look back on the world of 2005 from the vantage point of 2055, you may see a quaint and primitive world in terms of technology. Or you may long for the world you see around you on this wonderful October evening. The choice is up to you to make the future – your future – count in order to better the world around you. When I was in high school, I had a blunt, plain-spoken teacher who told his students that we could either join the group of people that make messes in the world or the group of people that clean up the messes in the world. Which group will you join?

- Will you save the world from environmental decay? Or will global warming wash you away?
- Will you thrive in a professional world that rewards free enterprise and courage, or will you be ground down in a working world that consumes your time and steals your soul?
- Will you live in a social world that is color-blind, or will you be mired in a world of racism and hatred based on the color of one’s skin?
- Will you live in a political world that prizes civility, achievement, and compromise, or in a world where ideological purity and partisan advantage prevails and makes public service intolerable?
- Will you live in a moral world that recognizes and honors clear standards of right and wrong, or live in a world mired in the swamp of situational ethics and an “anything goes” morality?
- Will you live in a financial world where you are responsible with your wealth and spending decisions, or live in the financial hell of credit card debt?
- Will you live in a world where you can retire peacefully, knowing that you are financially secure? Or will you live in a financial world where you live paycheck to paycheck, have no viable financial future, and be dependent on government entitlement programs that have no viable long-term future?

The choice is up to you in terms of what type of life you want to live and what type of world you want to live in. The poet Henry David Thoreau wrote that most people live a life of quiet desperation. God, I hope that no one in this class lives a life of quiet desperation. What a rotten way to lead your life. But I see quiet desperation all around me, each and every day:

- Parents who do not reach out and build meaningful relationships with their children.
- People trapped in jobs they hate in order to pay for things they do not need.
- People fretting how they are going to pay their bills.
- Kids playing video games and watching TV and letting their brains rot away.
- Adults playing video games and watching TV and letting their brains rot away.
- People driving their metal coffins to work each day, unhappy and broken.

Resist these urges! We live in an awesome, free country that is wealthy and offers a whole host of options for each individual willing to make the effort to reach out. Visit the library. Visit a park. Visit a museum. Go to an opera or play or ballet. Read a good book. Exercise. Take a walk with a friend or with a family member. Make a long distance phone call to that friend or family member who lives far away. Make sure that you are among those who clean up the messes, not making them. De-complicate your life. All of these things can be easily done today. Like the ads for Nike say, “Just Do it”!

Will you seize the day – carpe diem – or will you succumb to living a life of quiet desperation? You can make your life count, and yes you can live forever. Not forever in a physical sense because we are all destined to grow old and die. But you can live forever in terms of being remembered for the good works that you do and the quality of your character. Two quotes from Robert Kennedy help put this point in perspective

1) “This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” (Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, 6 June 1966).
2) “The future is not a gift: it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present.”

Make your life count. The stream of time often doubles on its course but it always makes for itself a new channel.

Other words of wisdom to take with you in the months and years ahead:
1)Make education a life-long passion. As Glen Winterbourne stated, “If you’ve got nothing interesting to say, learn something that is.”
2) Never give up. Winston Churchill, who saved England from Nazi invasion and takeover during World War II, said “I like a man who grins when he fights.”
3) Always strive to be the best. Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits states “I don't want to win unless I know I've done my best, and the only way I know how to do that is to run out front, flat out until I have nothing left.”
4) Be humble and follow the Golden Rule. As James D. Miles states, you can easily judge the character of a person by how they treat those who can do nothing for them.
5) Do not be afraid to dream and think big thoughts. Edgar Cayce wrote that nothing happens that is not first dreamed.

Burn, Paris, Burn

Since October 27th, riots in France by young Muslims have shaken the suburbs north of Paris. More than 8,000 vehicles have been destroyed and over 120 police and firefighters have been injured in 274 towns. Today's Washington Post has an article about the riots in France that includes this telling passage:

On Wednesday, groups of social workers called for an outdoor meeting to appeal for peace. A couple of young men began to harangue the workers. "Go home. You're white. You don't belong here. You have nice jobs. Go back to France," one said. The young men cheered as a stolen car buzzed by, its passengers on their way to torch the kindergarten.

"This confrontation was a shock," said Silviane Becker, a member of the Mirail Social Education Association. "They insult us because the ones they really want to insult are absent."

Members of leftist opposition parties visiting Reynerie on Thursday got a similarly hostile reception. People in the crowd in Reynerie's central square yelled that the parties only show up when there is trouble.

Abou explained the mood: "We want communication, but not just token. We want apologies, and we want to talk about serious problems." He defended the torching of the kindergarten as a symbolic expulsion of France from Reynerie.

The French response to these riots perpetrated by Muslims youths has been pathetic. Confronted with an enduring underclass of a growing Muslim population that either cannot or will not assimilate into broader French society, the French government of Jacques Chirac has been in a state of paralysis that rivals the state of paralysis of the Bush Administration in those fateful days after Katrina hit New Orleans. It seems that the French government would rather buy a tenuous social peace by allowing young Muslim youths to torch cars, destroy kindergartens, and wound policemen than to do what any normal and sane society does with rioters and looters: shoot them, quarantine them, and beat them to a bloody pulp with tear gas and billy clubs. This is the same mentality of appeasement that didn't work against Hitler in the 1930s, didn't work against Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and won't work in France today. France has an alarming and growing Islamic threat within its own borders, and all it can muster is a few lame arrests, a tablespoon of appeasement, and some heavy doses of "looking-the-other-way" while social problems fester.

In many ways, I really don't care what is happening in France. The United States and France parted ways many decades ago in the 1960s in terms of foreign policy objectives (when France withdrew militarily from the NATO alliance), and I cannot in today's world think of France as an ally of the United States anymore.

In my lifetime, the defining moment of French perfidy was the French betrayal of United States Air Force pilots during the 1986 U.S. air raid on Libya. In 1986, France refused the right for our F-111 bombers taking off from airbases in England to cross French airspace to bomb targets important to Libyan terrorist mastermind Muhammar Khaddafy (in response to Khaddafy's terrorism against U.S. military personnel in West Berlin in 1985). Two U.S. servicemen died in April 1986 when a bomb, planted by Libyan agents, exploded in a West Berlin disco. President Reagan launched Operation El Dorado Canyon on April 15, 1986 to retaliate against Libya's rampant international terrorism. U.S. F-111 fighter-bombers took off from RAF Lakenheath and RAF Upper Heyford in England, along with A-6, A-7, and F-18 planes from the aircraft carriers USS America and USS Coral Sea, to strike five targets in Libya. The purpose of the mission was to send a message to the Libyans to reduce their support of international terrorism.

Unfortunately, France denied overflight rights for U.S. warplanes. This refusal forced the UK-based American F-111s to fly around France and travel down the Atlantic Ocean coast and into the Mediterranean Sea, adding an extra 1,300 miles each way that required multiple in-air refueling of the F-111s. 22 American F-111s flew from the United Kingdom to hit Libya; all were forced to fly an additional 2,600 air miles due to France turning its back on the United States in a time of need. Two United States Air Force captains — Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci and Paul F. Laurence — died when their F-111 was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra by the Libyans. Those extra 2,600 air miles foisted on our F-111 pilots by our so-called allies in France sure didn't help matters for USAF Captains Ribas-Dominicci and Lawrence on April 15, 1986.

The back-stabbing French have not been an American ally for quite some time, and I have no love lost for the Frog Republic. Let France continue its futile policies of appeasing rioting Islamic thugs and not assimilating its rapidly growing Muslim population within the broader secular French society. France was destined to be conquered by Nazi Germany in 1940, and now France is destined to be conquered by a future Islamic majority fermenting within its own borders and fed by the generous French welfare state. Instead of fostering policies that lead to a dynamic free market economy that employ and assimilate these youths into society, the French would rather pay them to do nothing through its welfare policies and let them stew in hell-hole ghettos outside of glamorous Paris. No wonder they riot - they have no future in a failed welfare state that has double-digit unemployment and no opportunities to captivate the imaginations and competitive juices that run rampant in youth.

When an Islamic crescent flag is unfurled on the Eiffel Tower, it will be just dessert for a country that has never had - and never will have - the backbone to deal with internal and external threats to its national security and to pressing social and economic problems. My advice for the United States is to steer clear of the mess in France and to resist the urge to bail out the French a third time (WWI = bailout #1, WWII = bailout #2). The United States needs to focus its efforts on supporting its true allies in the world, and forget about countries like France that dial the U.S. "911" when an "oh merde" moment occurs (like Hitler invading France in 1940, or when the French were encircled by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam in 1954) but conveniently forgot their responsiblities as an ally when the tables are turned.

Made in Manhattan

Check out Maureen Dowd's interesting essay entitled "What's a Modern Girl to Do" in today's New York Times Magazine. Maureen Dowd's essay probes the dilemmas confronting feminism in 2005. The most interesting thing I found in the essay was the following excerpt that talked about the role that movies are playing in shaping modern attitudes about feminism:

"In all those Tracy-Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. You still see it onscreen occasionally - the incendiary chemistry of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie playing married assassins aiming for mutually assured orgasms and destruction in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Interestingly, that movie was described as retro because of its salty battle of wits between two peppery lovers. Moviemakers these days are more interested in exploring what Steve Martin, in his novel "Shopgirl," calls the "calm cushion" of romances between unequals. In James Brooks's movie "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, playing a sensitive Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid, just as in "Maid in Manhattan," Ralph Fiennes, playing a sensitive New York pol, falls for the hot Latino maid at his hotel, played by Jennifer Lopez. Sandler's maid, who cleans up for him without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman, in looks and character. His wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm and fears she has lost her identity.In 2003, we had "Girl With a Pearl Earring," in which Colin Firth's Vermeer erotically paints Scarlett Johansson's Dutch maid, and Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," about the attraction of unequals. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson, the sister of the prime minister, falls for his sultry secretary. A novelist played by Colin Firth falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese. Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than of affection."

According to Dowd, the battle of the sexes has reverted from the 1970s highwater mark of feminism to a 1950s-era "Ozzie and Harriet" social structure. Earlier this year, while doing research on the role of women in films, I discovered the 1954 film "A Woman's World" starring Lauren Bacall and Fred MacMurray. "A Woman's World" is about three 1950s-era couples who are competing with one another to prove that they are the right couple to fill the position of a general manager for a prestigous auto manufacturer. The film is extremely witty, and I highly recommend it not only as an excellent film experience but also as a historical look at an era in our past when a man's career was enhanced by the "perfect wife". Watching this film from the perspective of 2005 is like watching a movie about the dinosaurs. Speaking as an American born in the 1970s, I have no experience with the social and marital worlds presented in "A Woman's World". Like an archaeologist uncovering a long forgotten past, I had trouble relating to the film and the bygone era it represents. And no matter what Maureen Dowd writes in her essay, this era is still bygone. We live in a world where 35% of births in the United States are to unmarried women and where the rising cost of living requires parents of any marital status to work outside the home (In the United States in 2005, both parents are employed in 60% of 2-parent families with children).

Thorny work-family-marriage issues confront each person to some degree at some point in life. No one has discovered a silver-bullet solution to these age-old challenges. The key thing is to read, absorb, think (yes, think!) and come to your own conclusions about how you want your life to be structured.

The Smurf Manifesto

As if I didn't have enough to worry about, I now have to worry about communist smurfs. As George McFly said in "Back to the Future": "Lou, give me a milk!"

This is some truly crazy stuff. Unbeknownst to me, there has been a silent war raging on the Internet for years about whether the Smurfs, those lovable blue characters from the 1980s television show, were actually a subtle plot by their Belgian creator to present communism in a kindler, gentler light to younger generations. Don't believe me? Then look here, here, and here.

Where do people find time to dream up this crazy stuff? Granted, Brainy Smurf (below right) does bear a striking resemblance to Leon Trotsky (below left), the communist intellectual hero of the early Soviet Union:



But really, does it have to come to this? I could sit here all day long and dream up the parallels between "The Love Boat" and the Bush White House. But I am not going to go there. OK, maybe I will. Be patient with this analogy, for it has some leaks (no offense, Rove): Bush is Captain Merrill Stubing, Cheney is Doctor Adam Bricker, Karl Rove is Yeoman-Purser Burl 'Gopher' Smith, Colin Powell is Bartender Isaac Washington, Laura Bush is Cruise Director Julie McCoy, and the Bush twins are a combined Vicki Stubing).


In case you are wondering where the genesis for this blog post is, it actually came from Belgium (you know, that country in Europe that is a good NATO ally, got invaded pretty bad in WWI and WWII, and has since given us those famous waffles). Here I was, going about my business in 2005, when I saw this interesting article about how UNICEF is using a cartoon of a Smurf village being bombed to make an anti-war message on Belgian television: Bomb's Away!!! It appears that creator of the Smurfs was Belgian! (commie bastard!) And furthermore, he wore spectacles! (double commie bastard!!) Where is Joe McCarthy when we need him??? Surely, if the good senator were still with us today, he would have a field day with this diabolical plot. And here I thought I only had to worry about the Teletubbies (aren't they trying to turn my kid into a switch-hitter?).

Further research into the use of the Smurfs as political propaganda yielded the raging "Smurf Communism" debate. Perhaps I can carve my own niche in the political analysis world by turning my "Bush Administration - Love Boat" theory into a book. That would give me tenure and a life-time privilege to waste even more tuition and taxpayer money on frivolous pursuits.

The Prom Parade

Last month Kenneth Hoagland, the principal at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, New York, cancelled the annual school prom in order to prevent underage drinking and sex at post-event parties. In his announcement suspending the prom, Hoagland denounced the school prom as "an exaggerated rite of passage that verges on decadence" and stated that the school wanted to support a dance, but not an orgy. Principal Hoagland also denounced the "financial decadence" of parents and students who spend up to $1,000 for dresses, tuxedos, limos, flowers, and all of the other extravagant, extraneous items required for the modern prom. In addition, many thousands more are spent by parents and students alike on the post-prom parties. The post-prom parties have reached a level of degeneracy in terms of sex and booze that would make Howard Stern, the founding father of our reigning gross-out culture, very proud. Peter Brown of the Orlando Sentinel has a great op-ed piece that provides the background to what Principal Hoagland has done in the name of common sense: Read this.

Hollywood has definitely not done anything to help curb the excesses of the prom. If anything, Hollywood's films over the past two decades have created the aura of the modern American prom and have fueled the notion that drunken degeneracy and wanton sexual excess are the mandatory raw materials for any successful prom. There are several cinematic culprits that have fueled the "prom as porno fest" theme in our society, but the most enduring one from a popular culture aspect is "Sixteen Candles" (or is it "Sexteen Candles"?). On the one hand, "Sixteen Candles" is a 1984 teenage coming-of-age film that is a hallmark of the John Hughes 1980s teen-angst era (joined by its cousins "Pretty in Pink" and "The Breakfast Club", et. al.). On the other hand, if "Sixteen Candles" was placed in a police line-up of films that have propagated the prom-as-porno image, it would be immediately arrested, booked, and be read its Miranda Rights for crimes against humanity (and then would join a cell with its jail cell pal, the 1999 film "American Pie").

It is sad that our society has nothing more of value to offer its graduating high school students, who are about to join society as adults, other than conspicuous consumption, drinking as the only way to have fun, and a "just do it" mentality regarding reckless sex. When I look at the challenges facing our nation - our budget and trade deficits, our economic competition and challenges from Asia, a permanent underclass - I see nothing of value in the current culture of conspicuous consumption and irresponsibility exhibited by the modern proms. Speaking as a college educator, these problems cascade up the educational food chain as the high school "porno-prom crowd" morphs into the college drinking crowd on undergraduate campuses (characterized by little academic achievement and an "Animal House" vision of what a successful college experience entails). Speaking as a manager, these problems cascade further upstream in the business world as the college drinking crowd becomes the next generation of unmotivated young slackers at companies. At that point, reality sets in and the slackers grow up. But not before tremendous damage is done.

I wish we had more people of integrity like Principal Hoagland that made necessary but unpopular decisions. Until then, I will sadly wait for "Sixteen Candles II" to further fuel the fires of the modern prom parade.

Rome Rules!

HBO's new series "Rome" is absolutely phenomenal. I have been addicted to it since it first premiered in August. So far, 8 episodes have been shown and the episodes keep getting better and better and better. HBO has been doing a fabulous job with each of their original series (that is why it isn't TV, it's HBO...), and "Rome" will join the legions (sorry, I couldn't resist...) of awesome HBO original shows that exist in the HBO Empire (ok, I did it again). "Rome" has already entered the ranks (alright, last time I do this) of such great shows as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (although the current season sucks compared to the last four seasons), the foul-mouthed "Deadwood" (of course, there are only so many f-bombs one person can take during a 1 hour episode!), "The Sopranos" (did you know that New Jersey leads the nation in ex-mayors in federal prison? True fact!), and "The Larry Sanders Shows" (a true blast from the past!). "Rome" is the type of show that allows me to pay my outrageously-priced monthly cable bill without too much gnashing of my teeth (Although it is ridiculous. Do I really need Oxygen and the NASCAR Channel? No! So why am I forced to pay for these channels in order to get to the promised land of HBO programming?)

If you haven't seen "Rome", check out the official website. It will get you up to speed on the ground covered so far, from Julius Caesar and his army of centurions crossing the Rubicon, to the fall of the Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire, and finally to the fateful union of Caesar and his Egyptian lover Princess Cleopatra. From battlefields to high society, "Rome" has it all.

The Rome of 52 B.C. was characterized by a decadent society consumed by debauchery, a tremendous chasm in wealth between the rich and the poor, a relentless army that invaded foreign lands and forced regime change in the name of keeping the peace, a corrupt and ineffective Senate that had long ago lost the affection of the people it was supposed to represent, and a society was rich militarily and in terms of spiritual possessions but spiritually bankrupt. Hmmmm, we don't see any parallels here, do we? (sarcasm off)

The intersection of film and politics in terms of television doesn't get much better than this. Check out "Rome" - you won't be disappointed. And if you are, then cancel your HBO and instead flip the dial on the boob tube to watch "Growing Up Gotti on A&E or the equally wretched "Being Bobby Brown" on Bravo.

Politicians with Playing Cards

"The Manchurian Candidate" (the 1962 version, not the 2004 re-make) is an extremely disturbing film, and the macabre side of me grows fonder with this Cold War classic each time I view it. It is definately one of those edgy films that doesn't pull any punches, beginning with the mind-bending Ladies Botany Club Meeting in Maoist China in the 1950s and culminating in assassination, suicide, and betrayal. From the perspective of 2005, there are quite a few things in this film that make modern audiences howl (either in laughter and/or horror at the extreme political incorrectnesss):

- There is an extreme anti-Asian bias in the film. Asians are either portrayed as sneaky villians or as stupid "Fu Manchus" (coined by the Sinatra character). American stereotypes of Asians have morphed over the years since "The Manchurian Candidate" came out, from the stupid/sneaky stereotype of the 1960s to the studious/smart stereotype of today. Personally, I have grown sick and tired of Hollywood stereotpying Asians. I can understand when it was done in the 1960s, but it still happens today! Unbelievable.

- The portrayal of the women characters as either evil witches or as dumb bimbos is unbelievable from the vantage point of 2005. Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Iselin) is a truly evil and manipulative character in the film. She is basically Hillary Clinton on acid (my apologies to any strong Democrats rooting for Hillary in 2008...).



- There is a line in the film where the Raymond Shaw character (played by Laurence Harvey) tells his new wife Jocelyn Jordan (played by Leslie Parrish) to "make like a housewife". Try telling this to a modern American woman in 2005, and you have just issued "fighting words" that will get yourself into a doghouse that you will never emerge from anytime soon.

- Frank Sinatra is great in the main role of Captain Bennett Marco. In the film, Frank Sinatra always appears to be kind of dirty and grimy. In real life, Frank Sinatra took four showers a day. I am not making this up...

When the Gobbler Ruled

No blog post worth its salt on life in the 1960s during the Cold War is complete without pointing its dear readers to the delights of The Gobbler Motel & Supper Club. If you are a Gobbler virgin, consider yourself officially deflowered. Prepare to enter a world of heavy shag carpeting, state-of-the-art 8-track tapes, disco bars that spun around cheesy dance floors, big American-made black-and-white television sets, and the pinnacle dining experience in central Wisconsin during the Nixon presidency. Who ever said they didn't know how to party hard in 1969?

My Public Service Announcement of the Day...

This is my public service announcement of the day: Harriet Miers is absolutely the wrong candidate for the job of Supreme Court Justice!

Consider the following story from today's Washington Post:

The top two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday complained about the written responses they received from Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers this week, and warned her to expect tough questions from Republicans and Democrats alike when her confirmation hearing begins Nov. 7.

Barely concealing their irritation during a 35-minute news conference at the Capitol, Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and ranking Democrat Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) called the lobbying on Miers's behalf "chaotic," and said the answers she provided Monday to a lengthy questionnaire were inadequate. "The comments I have heard range from incomplete to insulting," Leahy said.

Conspiracy Mania

I will admit that while I don't necessarily believe in political conspiracies, I love reading about political conspiracies. It takes an imaginative mind to come up with oddball stuff that is supported by the slimmest of available public evidence. I have searched the web far and wide for my favorite political conspiracies, and here they are in abridged format (you can click on each link to go to the "source" material for each conspiracy). So put your phasers on stun, and let's get to it:

1) The Majestic 12 Alien Conspiracy: No list of political conspiracies would be complete without inclusion of that old chestnut about the U.S. government making a secret alliance with aliens in space saucers during the 1940s and 1950s (during the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations). As if Truman and Eisenhower didn't have enough on their hands with the Cold War and the Russians! Now, they were making inter-galactic treaties with advanced races of weirdo gray aliens (some good, some bad). All of this business started in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and the rest is conspiracy history. But in the annals of the Roswell/Alien saga, the Majestic 12 angle is by far the most lucrative payoff in terms of investing your time researching conspiracies. It has all of the best angles: secret alliances, top-secret government organizations, alien autopsies presidential involvement, and secret bases in places like Nevada and Utah. Conspiracies don't get any better than this!

2)I know Area 51 by itself can't compete with the larger conspiracy of Majestic 12: But who hasn't heard about this weird military installation in Groom Lake, Nevada? Any casual observer of "The X-Files" knows that Area 51 is ground zero for the conspiracy movement.

3)The Face on Mars: Back in 1976, when the United States still had a growing and robust space progam, NASA sent probes to Mars to photograph the surface. On July 25, 1976, the Viking I probe photographed an area on Mars that some conspiracy theorists claim is an artificial "city" and "face" on the surface of the Red Planet. The “Face” at Cydonia on Mars is shown supposedly shown in the 1976 medium resolution Viking spacecraft images 70a13 and in the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft strip-image SP1-22003. The conspiracy theorist Richard Hoagland expanded these photos into a full book claiming that the "face" on Mars is part of a long-lost civilization on the Red Planet. The "Face on Mars" theory was the basis of the 2000 film "Mission to Mars", starring Don Cheadle and Gary Sinise.

4)Who Shot JFK?: Alright, enough has been published about the Kennedy assassination to fill the libraries of all the Jesuit university libraries. This is rich conspiracy fodder.

5)The Apollo Moon Landings Were Fake: There is only so much mileage one can milk out of this conspiracy without getting an advanced degree in physics.

The Kansas-Nebraska Acts (Part I)

As I was watching the political comedy "Election" last Tuesday, I began thinking about how badly Hollywood treats states like Kansas and Nebraska. These states comprise the proverbial "fly-over" country that Hollywood treats pretty shabbily in its films.

"Election" is set in Omaha, Nebraska. The Omaha of "Election" is portrayed as kind of a dumpy, plain Jane Midwest town. There may be some truth to this. The problem is that this is how Hollywood portrays states like Nebraska and Kansas (my home state) time after time. At the end of "Election", the two main characters of Tracy Flick (played by Reese Witherspoon) and Jim McAllister (played by Matthew Broderick) flee to big East Coast towns (Washington, D.C. and New York City respectively). Now I have nothing against Washington, D.C. and New York City. I have lived in both towns and have visited both frequently. But Hollywood has gone a little overboard with its treatment of "fly-over" country. As I think back through time, I can't think of a single positive film portrayal of my home state of Kansas, or my home town of Kansas City. Not that there are that many of them to think about. Kansas is usually a forgotten endnote in the catalog of Big Screen films. But when Kansas (or Nebraska, or any other state from "fly-over" country) are portrayed, it is rarely in a positive light. From "The Wizard to Oz" to "Little House on the Prarie" to "Gunsmoke", it is just one long saga of tornadoes, cow manure, and "cowboys & indians". Unfortunately, Kansas and Nebraska are the set of a new political stage - depicting and mocking middle class red-state Americans as being un-enlightened, leading futile lives (a.k.a. the "unexamined life" of Thoreau) and not being as "hip" as our blue state brethen on the two coasts (California, New York City, Seattle, Washington D.C., etc.).

I can think of one recent film that was filmed and set in Kansas City. That was the 1990 film "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" was shot on location in Kansas City. It is a tale about a 1930s upper-class Kansas City couple that lead a morose and sad life amidst the turbulence of the Great Depression. Paul Newman's character is a real piece of work. He rules his household with an iron fist and has driven his wife into oblivion. Joanne Woodward's character is the repressed Kansas City housewife who is trapped in a meaningless existence. What a wonderful depiction of my home town (sarcasm off).

Even more unfair is the depiction of Wichita, Kansas in the 1987 comedy "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" starring Steve Martin and John Candy. The Wichita presented in this film is filled with half-educated cretins who can barely speak English. These rednecks carry rabied dogs in the back of their antique pick-up trucks and are throwbacks to the Civil War era. This contrasts with the more civilized Chicago and New York City depicted at the beginning and end of the film. Once again, Kansas gets stiffed on the Silver Screen.

Last night, I was watching the Alexander Payne movie "Sideways" on HBO. "Sideways" is a clever little film about two friends, one of whom is a week away from being married, who take off for a week of driving through California's wine country in a Saab 9000 while getting in romantic misadventures. I doubt you will find a similar movie made about or set in any "fly-over" state. Instead, you will find more of the same depictions of "fly-over" country in the 2003 horror movie "Wrong Turn". "Wrong Turn" is about a group of crazy young college kids who get lost in the back roads of West Virginia and accidentally run across a tribe of hillbilly cannibals. The cannibalistic hillbillies are grossly disfigured through generations of in-breeding, and they like to eat Blue State tourists. If you thought "Deliverance" was bad in terms of its negative portrayal of the South, wait until you see "Wrong Turn". This is par for the course in terms of Hollywood's double-standard against the Heartland.

I guess low costs of living, low crime rates, and the industrial and agricultural backbone of America (all attributes of my home state and home town) just aren't sexy enough for Hollywood's standards. I guess I am just being a spoil-sport because I don't live in a state deemed "cool" enough by the grand pooh-bahs of Tinseltown to merit a better film portrayal. I am miffed that Gwynneth Paltrow doesn't come visit in Lenexa, Kansas and sip Starbucks while enlightening me with a view from the top. I will have to suffice with living in a town that has no traffic gridlock, miniscule crime, a great environment to raise children, and plentiful jobs. But wait - these are all bad things, according to Hollywood, and need to be mocked in films! Oh well, such is life. They say the best revenge is living well. I will keep Kansas City - and Hollywood can keep "Sideways".

When Political Scientists Ruled...

One of the most fascinating (and grotesque) parts of the 1964 Cold War thriller "Fail Safe" is the scene in the beginning of the film which introduces Professor Groeteschele, played by Walter Matthau. Professor Groeteschele is a world-famous political scientist, although he doesn't resemble any political scientists I know. In fact, he is almost like a James Bond political scientist. At the beginning of "Fail Safe", Professor Groeteschele is holding court at 5:30 a.m. at a dinner party that is in rapt attention of his political science theories. As the party breaks up at the ripe hour of 6:00 a.m., the married Professor Groetschele proceeds to escort a hot single babe home (in his convertible, no less); he then slaps her hard on the face when she makes an unwelcome sexual advance on him. He then rather ingloriously dumps her on the curb and drives off to the Pentagon for an early morning briefing on nuclear deterrence.

Watching this film from the perspective of 2005, I am perplexed as to what the film makers were thinking when they wrote the role of this bizarre political scientist character into the movie. I mean really, are there any political scientists out there who dress in tuxedos each day, drive convertibles, pick up hot chicks at A-list dinner parties, and have cushy gigs at the Pentagon advising presidents and generals on the nuances of nuclear strategy? Every professional political scientist with a Ph.D. that I have met (whether they beckon from the Ivy Leagues/Washington, D.C., big shot political science schools, or the Heartland) has been incredibly uncool, socially inept, and about as socially connected to high society as Gomer Pyle on crystal meth. Perhaps political scientists in the early 1960s lived in a different world, a world that respected their abilities as the high priests of deterrence. Perhaps this alternate, bizarro world provided these political scientists with rarefied perches along the highest and mightiest ridges in the social spectrum. As a political scientist, I have never heard nor seen any political scientist do anything even remotely resembling what Professor Groeteschele did in "Fail Safe". And I have never met a political scientist who drove a convertible (I have met a lot that drove beat-up Dodge Neons, decrepit Nissan Sentras, and ancient Oldsmobiles from the 1980s).

Perhaps Hollywood took too much artistic license when they made this film. If Hollywood remade this movie today, then can hire me as a technical advisor in terms of how any political scientist character is portrayed on the silver screen. My advice would be to cast Nicole Kidman as a world renowned political scientist who drives a BMW Six Series convertible, hangs out at posh dinner parties in the Washington, D.C. area until the wee hours of the morning, picks up a hunk at the party and drives him home (perhaps Brad Pitt would be available to play this role since he and Jen have broken up and Angelina is pretty damn weird), then slaps the hunk across the face when he makes an unwelcome advance (all the while holding court about the perils of mutual assured destruction and nuclear holocaust). Now that would be realistic...

Tracy Flick in Lenexa

This past 4th of July, I attended the annual Lenexa 4th of July parade. My, what sites I saw! I showed up bright and early in Old Town Lenexa. Unfortunately, the politicians were at the front of the parade in their shiny new cars, and they led the parade by riding through the streets of the parade route like Roman Emperors in their chariots. One by one, the brain-dead politicians passed me, waving from their special interest automative perches:

• State Representative Stephanie Sharp (R-KS), a brain-dead representative from the 17th district located in Lenexa. Her large army of volunteers were handing out candy to the little kids on the parade route in a vain attempt to buy the loyalty of any of Sharp's parent constituents who just happened to be in the crowd. Stephanie was elected to the legislature in 2002 at the young age of 27. She is a go-getter who is an expert at looking good in the press photos and issuing brain-dead press releases. Unfortunately, she won re-election in 2004 and will be with us for a long time. Her beauty will fade over time, but the fact that she is brain-dead will not.
  
• State Representative David Huff (R-KS), my state representative and an old fart who does nothing of value in the legislature besides passing what he calls "small bills" into law (like addressing the pressing issues of the day, such as regulating the use of laser pointers in movie theaters). Huff is a retired executive from the Colgate-Palmolive Company. If you look at his photo, you can see a faint resemblance to either Santa Claus or Wilford Brimley. I don't really know what he did at Colgate, but he probably made a lot of money making soap and going to conference calls and playing golf with his clients. Huff didn't see me because he was sitting in the back of a giant Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. Giant "Huff" placards were all over the Town Car. The windows were up, so I couldn't tell if Huff was in there or not. Although I did see a faint resemblance of a do-nothing politician sitting on top a pile of special interest money, so perhaps he was in there after all.
  
• Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning (R-KS), our "law and order" sheriff who keeps us Johnson Countians safe from violent criminals, high school graduation parties run amok, and the ever-present threat of al-Qaeda terrorists. Sheriff Denning didn't look very nice as he drove his convertible Mustang through the parade route with his dumpy, frumpy wife sitting by his side. They both looked foul and they scowled a lot, like they both needed immediate enemas to clear out their systems. They didn't wave, and I kind of wondered how he got elected as sheriff in the first place. Then I started thinking "In 2005, why do we even elect sheriffs anymore? This isn't the Wild West of Dodge City. Can't we just hire a sheriff instead of having them run for office?". But then if they weren't elected, we would never see the sheriff show up at community parades. They might be off catching criminals and deterring crime, which is what they are paid to do (what a novel thought).
  

Finally, the politician's parade concluded with Mayor Mike Boehm, first elected as Lenexa Mayor in January of 2003 and re-elected to a full four-year term in April of 2003. When he isn't busy being Mayor of Lenexa, Mike spends the rest of the work week as a Vice-President at Commerce Bank. Of course, I don't know what the title of "Vice-President" really means if someone works at a bank because let's face it, everyone who works at a bank is called "Vice-President" (other than the tellers, and they do all of the work). The problem with Mike was that he was riding in a convertible Toyota Solara. I did a double-take. Surely, an American politician from a major automobile-production town like Kansas City (and its suburbs) wouldn't be callous enough or politically tone-deaf enough to be riding through a 4th of July parade in a foreign-made car. But, alas, Mike was riding through the parade route in an imported Japanese car.

Several thoughts raced through my mind as I saw Boehm in the Toyota. In the movie "Election", the character Tracy Flick represents the typical ambitious, public-relations-focused candidate that litter the American political scene. During her election campaign to become Student Government President of Carver High School, Tracy baked 480 individualized cupcakes and gave them to the students on election day. Mike Boehm is Lenexa's Tracy Flick. He looks good, he has the perfect overpaid pud job at Commerce Bank, and he has a nice pud position as Mayor of Lenexa. But he has the leadership foresight and political acumen of a wet blanket. He doesn't give us Lenexans cupcakes, however, and I hold this against him. If you are going to be a Tracy Flick cupcake politician, you might as well hand out the cupcakes.

Kansas City is a major auto production hub. We have a Ford production facility and a General Motors production facility. Over the past 30 years, Ford and GM have been losing market share to the Japanese and Korean automakers. Today, the Big 3 domestic producers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) are barely clinging to a majority share of the U.S. auto market. And the effects on the U.S. economy have been catastrophic: the U.S. trade deficit explodes year after year; U.S. autoworkers losing their well-paying jobs (which has a tremendous ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy); and the de-industrialization of the Unted States.

As I saw Mike Boehm pass me in his Toyota, all I could think of was "What a fink. What a traitor. What a loser." Doesn't he have any loyalty to the autoworkers who make their livings in the Kansas City auto plants? Well, he probably doesn't come from a union household so he doesn't "get it" on this issue. He probably doesn't understand that each year as we shovel hundreds of billions of trade-deficit-ridden dollars to Japan for their automobiles that we are just driving the U.S. closer to the cliff of economic bankruptcy and national oblivion. But what does Mike Boehm care? He has his cushy job in his cushy bank and sits on the cushy City Council of Lenexa. He could give a rat's ass about the plight of the U.S. economy or of local area automakers. I was so filled with rage that I yelled out at Mayor Boehm as he stood there in front of me waving in his Toyota Solar (at the top of my lungs): "Why don't you drive an American car?". The crowd of fellow Lenexans around me exploded in spontaneous applause when I uttered those words, and Mike Boehm did a serious double-take at the insolence of this catball from the constituent peanut gallery. Everyone around me starting cat-calling Mayor Boehm with epithets like "that is a great idea, why aren't you driving an American car?" and the like. I could tell that Boehm was embarassed, and yet to be truthful I could care less about him.


Of course, when we elect Tracy Flick-like politicians, this is what we can expect at the 4th of July parades when all of the politicians come see the hoi polloi and try to show how much they truly care about their constituents. In Lenexa, I will continue to monitor the self-serving political advancement of our own Tracy Flicks: the economically traitorous Mike Boehm, the brain-dead and vapid Stephanie Sharp, and the retired old fart David Huff. Who knows, if I wait long enough, maybe they will give me a cupcake!

Where Are You When We Need You, Herman Kahn?

Herman Kahn was one of those oddball thinkers who had jobs during the Cold War (paid for by generous military budgets) to think the unthinkable and to think outside the box. Some good background on Herman Kahn can be be found at this link: Herman Kahn at Tech Central Station.

I wish we had more people in the United States who followed in the footsteps of Herman Kahn and intellectually danced outside the proverbial box by thinking the unthinkable. When I look around the society and political world of the United States, I see very little innovative thinking and a lot of "more of the same" thinking. Instead, we muddle along the same worn path...as our budget and trade deficits explode, as our auto industries go bankrupt and we hand our collective economic future to the Chinese and Japanese, as we do nothing to achieve energy independence, as we do nothing to invest in the next generation of scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, we are not preparing for the challenges of the future. This will force us all to "duck and cover" when the day of reckoning comes.



I see very little leadership in either the Republican or Democratic parties to help us out of our non-thinking predicament. The leadership of both parties is a blow-dried collection of prima donnas and special interest clowns. All they care about is winning the next election and gaining a few more seats in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

I think the resurrection of the United States will occur not from its politicians and its brain-dead politics, but rather from its citizenry. Herman Kahn, had he lived long enough to be with us in 2005, would have been one of those types of citizens. Are there others out there who are willing to think where no one has been before?