Month: September 2010

The Era Of Heroes And Cons

by digby

For some reason I can’t stop listening to this:

And this one too:

Why can’t I stop listening to these songs? Mainly because I need to find a way to channel the … emotion … I felt after reading this post by Edroso on what the right wingers have to say about labor day.Here’s a taste:

Tim Cavanaugh, for example, defended those brave economists who felt that extended unemployment benefits just gave lazy looters an excuse to stay jobless. When former of U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich sarcastically rejoined that “it’s also true that if we got rid of lifeguards and let more swimmers drown, fewer people would venture into the water,” Cavanaugh grabbed a paddle: “Beach patrols are a cheap way for municipalities to claim the right to restrict access to public beaches,” he wrote. “The city takes on liability on behalf of the shoobs, and in exchange the shoobs have to pay to get on the beach.” Cavanaugh failed to explain why anyone, even a shoob, would make such a deal with Big Gummint, rather than hire his or her own private lifeguards. “It’s a nice racket,” Cavanaugh continued, “but you would not see a large increase in drownings if all the lifeguards were sent back to their sandy shacks. You would see some!” (He generously admitted.) “But if saving lives were the only benefit, and maintaining lifeguards were the only cost, nobody would maintain lifeguards.” Indeed, why would anybody go to all that trouble to save other people’s lives? Haven’t they read Ayn Rand? Finally Cavanaugh got to the real reason Gummint shouldn’t extend unemployment benefits: “We’re out of money. So yes, as heartless as it sounds, we should be cutting unemployment even to those fantastically goodhearted people throughout this stout land who are pure as the unsunned snow yet really can’t find a job. It’s not tough love; it’s sad love.”

Just when I start to feel tired, I read puerile bullshit like that and get … emotional.

*The official “21st Century Breakdown” video is great. But it’s not embeddable. You can see it here.

The General Electric Candidate

by digby

Yesterday, I linked to the fabulous “First Reagan Democrat” catch by The Donkey Edge. That post ended by questioning what it was that made old Ronnie change so dramatically from a staunch progressive to a far right conservative.

Today, they answer that question. I think you might be able to guess what that was.

I wrote about this a while back as well.

This comes from a speech by GE Chief Jeff Immelt at the Ronald Reagan centennial celebration, which GE is helping to sponsor:

Our CEO at the time, Ralph Cordiner, told Mr. Reagan: “I am not ever going to censor anything you say. You are speaking for yourself. Say what you believe.”

And so he did, writing and delivering the message that would become known as “The Speech,” his testament of faith in the virtues and abilities of free people and the great country they
had built. In 1964, he gave a famous version of that speech before a national audience on behalf of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, and began one of the most successful American political careers of the 20th century.

GE saw his roving ambassadorship as a way to engage with its workforce. Mr. Reagan saw it as an education.

He had been interested in politics long before that, of course. He was a union leader. But when GE hired him they were grooming him for something much bigger. And he delivered.

Ronnie was basically a hired gun.

Labor Day Here And There

by digby

I was reminded yesterday of the Haymarket Affair of 1886 which, for those who aren’t from Chicago or aren’t students of labor history, probably don’t know precipitated what’s known as May Day — Labor Day — everywhere in the world but here. Being as “exceptional” as we are, we celebrate Labor Day in September, even though the international labor day holiday was conceived to honor martyred anarchists supporting American workers striking for the 8 hour day.

Wikipedia has a good rundown of the story if you’re not familiar with it. Suffice to say that it includes violence and Pinkerton infiltrators and, of course, a gross miscarriage of justice in which innocent people were executed … and later exonerated. It served as inspiration for the global labor struggles and various Marxist revolutions to follow.

American workers were at the forefront of the international labor movement back in the day, inspiring their brothers and sisters all over the world to collectively work for better conditions and wages for the working man and woman. It doesn’t comport with our vision of ourselves as hardy capitalist individualists hacking our way through the wild frontier with nothing more than a pick axe and a dream. But the truth, as usual, is a lot more complicated.

We don’t celebrate our labor history in this country because it’s inconvenient for the plutocrats to acknowledge that the worker’s movements formed it every bit as much as entrepreneurs and robber barons did. It’s telling that average people around the world to this day are familiar with this story — and Americans have no clue.

Update: Probably just as few Americans know about the history of the New Left and the labor movement, but Joan Walsh has it all for you in a fascinating post about a new book on the 70s and an interview with its author.

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I Can’t Believe We’re Losing To These Clowns

by digby

Here’s Tbogg on right wing angst over Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell. Erick Erickson’s so confused he criticized her for accusing Mike Castle of being gay. (As Tbogg notes, “goatfucking child molester” is still on the list of approved civil dialog, however.)

You know, with an economy like this I would always assume this would be a tough election. Midterms always are for the majority and this one in particular was always going to be a bitch. But I don’t think I ever expected anyone to lose to the collection of half educated carnival clowns, throwbacks and morons the Republicans are putting up this time. It’s mind-boggling. In fact, it’s so bad that now even the standard issue fascists are getting a little queasy.

But they might not be able to stop this little train:

The Tea Party Express has announced a six-figure commitment to back O’Donnell. The group announced its first expenditures – more than $46,000 – late Thursday and put the anticipated cost at about $250,000.

“We are launching an aggressive multimedia and multiplatform campaign to help propel Christine O’Donnell to victory, and we’ve only just begun,” said Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express.

The Tea Party Express is funded by Americans For Prosperity. They have plenty of money.

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Smite Him!

by digby

Somehow I think the Founders would find the fact that Americans are being told they shouldn’t criticize them rather alarming.

[Ezra]Klein also made a statement at the end of his attack on the idea of States Rights that is offensive to those who revere our Founding Fathers. Klein made an offensive comment that he is wiser than men who spilled their own blood to form our union.

At about 1:33 into this clip Klein trashes our Founding Fathers.

I think our veneration for the Founders is something that occasionally perplexes me.

This is a truly outrageous statement and is evidence of Progressives distain for our Founding Fathers.

Pass me the smellin’ salt’s Miss Mellie, why I like to faint! “Distain” for our Foundin’ Fathahs?

Somehow I doubt that the Founders expected that Americans two hundred years hence would be worshiping them like Gods and revering their words as if they were handed down by God himself. That, after all, is what defines Kings. And unless I’m mistaking my history, the Founders had some fairly strong opinions on that sort of thing.

But the right sees itself essentially as a patriotic priesthood, assigned by God and the ghosts of the Founders to be the only interpreters of the ancient texts. It is not for us to question, merely to submit.

*And anyway, it was the Black Robed Regiment who really led the revolution:

These patriot-preachers were staunchly patriotic, seriously independent, and steadfastly courageous. They were found in almost all of the various Protestant denominations at the time: Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Anglican, Lutheran, German Reformed, etc. Their Sunday sermons — more than Patrick Henry’s oratory, Sam Adams’ and James Warren’s “Committees of Correspondence,” or Thomas Paine’s “Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots” — inspired, educated, and motivated the colonists to resist the tyranny of the British Crown, and fight for their freedom and independence. Without the Black Regiment, there is absolutely no doubt that we would still be a Crown colony, with no Declaration of Independence, no U.S. Constitution, no Bill of Rights, and little liberty.

It doesn’t sound like this fellow is properly venerating the sacred Founders either.

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What’s A Left Populist Agenda?

by digby

It’s not a sexy as Glenn Beck and his Black Robed Regiment of Christian Reconstructionists (just don’t call them Mullahs …) but this rally scheduled for next month in DC is just a teensy bit more relevant to our current problems. It’s called One America, Working Together.

Here’s the agenda:

Provide immediate relief for those who are currently unemployed

* Extend jobless benefits, COBRA, mortgage assistance, and other initiatives for those currently out of work.
* Target help for populations and communities in the greatest need

Provide immediate action to stimulate job growth and consumer demand

* Provide aid to states and cities – including direct job creation at local levels – especially in education, health care, social services and first-responder workforces
* Increase the ability of small businesses to obtain loans
* Fund infrastructure investment that spurs economic growth and clean energy enterprises

Provide a fair chance for everyone to succeed and advance in the workplace

* Everyone who works in America should have the right to join with their co-workers to have a voice on the job
* Pay all workers wages that allow them to support their families
* Increase and index the minimum wage
* Close all pay gaps
* End all forms of workplace discrimination
* Protect, honor, fully apply, and expand equal opportunity and diverse business inclusion practices
* Make every job a good and safe job
* Provide paid sick days and paid family leave for all workers

Refocus Our Nation’s Fiscal Priorities

* End the foreclosure epidemic and save the homes of America’s families
* Reform bankruptcy laws to protect families and working people
* Prioritize affordable housing for all
* Protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare
* Repair private pension systems
* Complete the promise of health care reform, including the public option
* Provide greater national investment in new jobs, improved infrastructure, and education instead of increased military spending

Improve consumer protections

* Prohibit and punish predatory lending and mortgage scams
* Increase watchdog powers of institutions, including the Consumer Financial Protection Agency
* Avoid taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions deemed “too big to fail”

That’s called liberal populism folks. It’s an agenda that would probably appeal to a whole lot of people if they only knew about it.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to go to the march. But I hope that some of you can make it in my stead. Especially after just reading this:

Sylmar, Calif., as distant geographically from downtown L.A.’s Skid Row as you can get and remain within Los Angeles County, is visually too a sea change from Skid Row’s piss-stained concrete pavement. Hard up against the Angeles National Forest, the rugged ridgeline of the San Gabriel Mountains spreads majestically from east to west along the horizon, and here on a recent summer afternoon a breeze fragrant with citrus cools a crowd of people who sit quietly beneath the shade of churchyard trees. But this is no church picnic. There is no Frisbee being tossed around, no music being played; no one has prepared his or her favorite potato salad to share. They are here to get a box full of donated food from the First Baptist Church food pantry, a situation with which many of them have only recently become familiarized, and an overwhelming sense of apprehension prevails among the crowd, some 200 strong, akin to that among displaced persons in the aftermath of a building fire. They know this is not the normal order of things and fear the future.

A horseman wearing a white straw Stetson trots past astride a palomino and waves lazily, his hat contrasting strongly with his skin, and a scene straight out of Steinbeck is complete. He is brown, a campesino like the wiry, muscled young men in work clothes speaking quietly in Spanish among themselves in the bread line. There are mothers, too, trying to keep their place while controlling kids, a thin man with a military posture in GI desert boots, and a few sullen and obese cholo types sporting shaved heads and the “M13” inked into forearms displaying allegiance to the Mexican Mafia street gang. There’s also a clean-cut man with a pink face, the clean-shaven face of a banker.

Turns out he is a banker. A hedge-funder formerly with Bear Stearns, Matt, 39, lost his last job some two years ago. He is a soft-spoken man who used to buy and sell companies, and today he has no qualms with the bread line. “There’s no stigma attached to this anymore,” explains the Navy vet, who has simply given up on the idea of getting a job anytime soon. “I’m starting my own business. I take consulting work when I can, and I’m jettisoning my house.” (“You can’t be self-employed for this Obama mortgage refinancing, so I’m screwed,” he adds.)

In the meantime, his unemployment checks stopped coming, far short of the 99 weeks that lawmakers babbled about during the recent congressional vote on extending benefits to the long-term unemployed. For the past five months, Matt has been joining his 74-year-old father, Frank, a retired L.A. Unified School District teacher who took an unexpected financial hit, for weekly trips to the church pantry…

“No one complains at the necessity of feeding the horse when he’s not working,” John Steinbeck noted in “The Grapes of Wrath,” describing the madness of starving people amid the agricultural bounty of California during the Great Depression. This time around the people are being fed—for now anyway.

I wonder if that guy’s voting for the Democrats?

You can sign up for information about the march at the link.

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Selling With Torture

by digby

I’ve often observed that taser torture is now used as entertainment. This may be the first time I’ve seen it used to sell something:

Funny, funny stuff. Maybe next time they can have the cop beat his friend over the head with his nightstick. That would be funny too. Or how about if the friend opened the door and the cop just put a bullet between his eyes. What a hoot that would be.

This is really funny too:

A 25-year-old Sultan man died after deputies stunned him with a Taser during an incident early Saturday morning in Gold Bar.

The case is now under investigation by the Snohomish Multiple Agency Response Team. It is the second Taser death this week in the Puget Sound region and the fifth death caused by a violent encounter with police.

The latest drama unfolded at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday when two Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies were sent to the 500 block of 1st Avenue West in the Gold Bar to check out a report of a disturbance.

The 911 dispatch center had received calls about a man, later identified as Adam Colliers, 25, of Sultan, running up and down the street yelling and disturbing residents.

When the deputies arrived they were immediately confronted by Colliers, who charged the deputies and fought with them to the ground, said Sgt. Robert Goetz of the Everett police.

One of the deputies stunned Colliers with his Taser. The man stopped struggling, and then deputies discovered he was not breathing.

[…]

Residents said Colliers was well-known in the neighborhood. He frequently stayed over the weekends at a home in Gold Bar where he cared for a quadruplegic man.

Sharon Williams, the sister of the quadruplegic man, says Colliers had gone to bed but then began acting strangely.

“He started rambling on about different stuff, and it just kind of got worse. Next thing you know, he’s in and out of the house, and he was yelling,” Williams says.

But she and other neighbors wonder why it was necessary for the deputies to use a Taser on Colliers, a small man who weighed only about 120 pounds.

“They’re trained to take people down. Why not that first? The guy didn’t have a weapon,” Williams says.

Hey, they’re using these things on 10 year old kids, epileptics having seizures and bed-ridden grandmothers, so it’s fairly clear that judgment is no longer part of the job description. It’s stun first and ask questions later.

Plus it’s really funny. Especially when they die.

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Quick Hits

by digby

Howie on Jan Brewer. Jayzuz. I once mused that the Republicans put up Sarah Palin to make Junior Bush look good by comparison. If that’s the case, then Palin has Jan Brewer to thank for doing the same thing for her.

Jerry Brown punching hippies. And unions. I guess he’s not worried about turnout.

Pam Geller just plotzed. She just loves that flavor saver.

The Original Reagan Democrat Click it. You’ll be surprised.

No Hen Pecked Men Allowed In The Black Robed Regiment

Happy reading.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Kind of Blu: Best hi-def reissues of 2010 (so far)

By Dennis Hartley

“I don’t like color television. Don’t like that color for nothin’. Saw ‘Bonanza’ at my in-laws (…) The Ponderosa looked fake. Hardly recognized Little Joe.” -from Diner

I fought it. How I fought it. For the first 3 years of its existence, I tried to pretend that the Blu-ray format didn’t exist. Oh, I knew it was there, all right. Teasing me with its crisp 1,080 lines of vertical resolution and beckoning me with the siren call of lossless audio codec. But I refused to be swayed. I didn’t even want to look. Because I knew what would happen. There had been precedents. Previously, I had willfully ignored the “standard” DVD format for a spell, as I loathed the idea of replacing the 3,000 VHS titles in my collection. Although I had successfully battled the onslaught of Beta, and then Laserdisc, I finally caved on that newfangled DVD format, circa 2003. And then, once I had built a substantial library of DVDs, Blu-ray appeared. Little. Blue. Pretty. And pretty goddamned expensive. $30-$40 a pop? Not to mention the players-$600-$1,000. Are you kidding me? Hah! You’ll never see me falling for this latest ruse by the studios to con me into “upgrading” my entire collection, yet again. I’m too smart for…ooh, look! So shiny!!

Well, I think you can guess the rest. Although I have kept mum on this dirty little secret, I will now confess to you, gentle reader, that I have been a “user” since this past December, when I found a Blu-ray player on sale for $129. Some friends did attempt an intervention, but to no avail. Once you’ve had Blu, it’s hard to go back. Prices have dropped to a reasonable level, and an ever-expanding number of deep catalog reissues was the closer for me. Yes, I’m aware that I could rent, but you have to understand the curse of the obsessive-compulsive film collector. Must own. Must lovingly annotate in my special Excel file. Must arrange by genre and subgenre (alphabetized!) on the shelves.

So now that I’ve had time to sift, I thought I would share my picks for the top ten Blu-ray reissues (so far) for 2010, and take a sneak peek at upcoming releases through the end of the year. Most titles have a concurrent standard DVD edition, so if you don’t have a Blu-ray player, don’t despair. As per usual, my list is in alphabetical, not preferential, order…

The African Queen-I think it’s safe to say that this is a bona fide classic. What’s not to love about Bogie (as a coarse, drunken steamboat pilot) and Kate Hepburn (as an uptight missionary), thrown together in the heart of the Congo, fighting the river wild, jungle rot and Germans in a colorful WW I-era adventure-comedy-romance? Sure, it’s a total Hollywood fantasy, but with two charismatic performances, John Huston directing, and outstanding location photography by DP Jack Cardiff, who cares? Huston co-adapted the screenplay with James Agee from the C.M. Forester novel. Paramount has done a nice job with their Blu-ray; it is certainly the best the film has ever looked on the home screen.

Black Narcissus-From a strictly narrative standpoint, The Archers (co-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) arguably made more cohesive films during their illustrious career; but in purely visual terms, few as artfully directed, beautifully composed and gorgeously shot as this 1947 melodrama. As I already have implied, the somewhat silly story (sexual panic amongst British nuns in an isolated Himalayan convent) may not hold up well under closer scrutiny, but the stunning photography by DP Jack Cardiff (there he is again!) and art direction from Alfred Junge (both scored Oscars) was made to order for the hi-def format. Criterion does their usual voodoo with extras, including an interesting commentary track featuring Powell and admirer Martin Scorsese.

Black Orpheus-Marcel Camus directed this mesmerizing 1959 film, a modern spin on a classic Greek myth, fueled by the pulsating rhythms of Rio’s Carnaval and tempered by the gentle sway of Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s gorgeous samba soundtrack. Camus and Jacques Viot adapted the screenplay from the play by Vinicius de Moraes. Handsome tram operator Orfeo (Breno Mello) is engaged to the vivacious Mira (Lourdes de Olivera) but gets hit by the thunderbolt when he meets sweetly innocent Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn). As in most romantic triangles, things are bound to get ugly, especially when Mr. Death (Ademar da Silva) starts lurking about. This is a truly unique film that fully engages the senses (not to mention the fact that Mello and Dawn have got to be the most beautiful screen couple in the history of cinema). Criterion’s Blu-ray is outstanding.

Crumb -So you thought your childhood was fucked up? Meet the Crumb family. Then shake your head in wonder that R. Crumb didn’t grow up to be a serial killer, as opposed to an underground comic icon. Director Terry Zwigoff’s propensity for championing the “outsider” (Ghost World, Bad Santa, Art School Confidential) was firmly established in this 1994 doc. Zwigoff toiled on his portrait of the artist for nearly a decade, and the result of his labor of love is at once hilarious, heartbreaking, outrageous and moving. Although the film looks to have been shot in 16mm, Criterion’s hi-def upgrade pays off most noticeably in the montages of Crumb’s classic Zap Comix panels and vivid artwork. There are some great new extras as well; most notably the 50+ minutes of deleted scenes.

Death Race 2000-At first glance, Paul Bartel’s 1975 cult film about a futuristic gladiatorial cross-country auto race in which drivers score extra points for running down pedestrians is an over-the-top, gross-out black comedy. It could also be viewed as a takeoff on Rollerball, as a broad political satire, or perhaps a wry comment on that great, timeless American tradition of watching televised bloodsport for entertainment. One thing I’ll say about this movie-it’s never boring! David Carradine is a riot as the defending race champ, “Frankenstein”. Also featured in the cast: Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul) and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. This Blu-ray release is part of Shout! Factory’s “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” series, which cherry-picks from the famously “no-budget” producer’s sizable inventory of 70s and 80s exploitation vehicles. It’s debatable whether hi-def “improves” some of these titles, but most of them are great fun.

Escape from New York-Speaking of low-budget guilty pleasures…John Carpenter directed this 1981 entry, an action-thriller set in the dystopian near-future of 1997 (ah, those were the days). N.Y.C. has been converted into a penal colony (long story). Air Force One has been downed by terrorists, but not before the POTUS (Donald Pleasence) bails in his custom-built escape pod, which lands in the center of Manhattan, where he is promptly kidnapped by the “inmates”. The police commissioner (the ever squinty-eyed Lee van Cleef) enlists the help of Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a fellow war vet (special ops, of course) who is now one of America’s most notorious criminals. Plissken begrudgingly agrees to help, in exchange for a full presidential pardon. Imaginative and highly entertaining, despite an obviously limited production expenditure. Carpenter and co-writer Nick Castle even manage to slip in a little political subtext of Nixonian paranoia. Also with Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, and Isaac Hayes (the Duke of N.Y.!). Carpenter also composed that catchy theme song. Although the original cinematography was a bit murky, the Blu-ray transfer is a noticeable upgrade.

Johnny Handsome– Seconds meets Point Blank in this taut, nasty neo-noir from director Walter Hill, which is one of my favorite sleepers of the 1980s. Mickey Rourke stars as the genetically deformed Johnny, a career criminal low-life with a knack for masterminding heists. As he nears the end of a prison stretch, he is offered reconstructive face surgery by an empathetic doctor (Forest Whitaker), who eventually helps him get paroled. Johnny’s first order of business is planning some payback on his former partners, who set him up to take the fall. The trick will be how to do it while under the watchful eye of the cynical police detective (Morgan Freeman) who originally put him away, and knows a recidivist when he sees one. Lance Henriksen and Ellen Barkin are wonderfully over-the-top as a nihilistic couple who make Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers look like Ozzie and Harriet. Screenwriter Ken Friedman adapted from John Godey’s novel. The Blu-ray release should earn this underrated gem new fans.

Paris, Texas -So what is it with European filmmakers and their obsession with the American West? Perhaps it’s all the wide open space, revealing itself to the artistic eye as a blank, limitless canvas. At any rate, director Wim Wenders and DP Robby Muller paint themselves a real purty desert Southwest landscape for this enigmatic, languidly paced “scenes from a marriage” melodrama (written by Sam Shepard and L.M. Kit Carson). With Shepard on board, you know that the protagonist is going to be a troubled, troubled man-and nothing says “rode hard and put up wet” like the careworn tributaries of Harry Dean Stanton’s weather beaten face. In what is arguably his career-best performance, he plays a man who has gone missing for four years after abandoning his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and young son. One day, he suddenly reappears, with a tight-lipped countenance and a thousand yard stare that tells you this guy is on a return trip from where Jesus lost his shoes. Now it’s up to his brother (Dean Stockwell) to help him assemble the jigsaw. Stanton delivers an astounding monologue toward the end of the film that will make your jaw hit the floor and remind you what a real actor does. Criterion’s Blu-ray features a crystalline transfer, and the dynamic audio does Ry Cooder’s mournful slide guitar proud.

Walkabout -Nicholas Roeg’s 1971 culture-clash adventure looks absolutely gorgeous on Blu-ray. As the result of a family tragedy, a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother (played by the director’s son, Lucien) are stranded in the unforgiving Australian outback. After several days of disoriented wanderings, and teetering on the edge of starvation and dehydration, they encounter an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) who is on walkabout. After navigating the inevitably tricky waters of cultural/language barriers for a while, the trio begin to form a unique bond, transforming what initially feels like a harrowing survival tale into an idyll of innocence and self-discovery at its purest and most unselfconscious level. That is, until “Civilization” begins to appear on the horizon once again. There’s a lot going on in this deceptively simple tale, which is why it holds up well to repeat viewings. Criterion’s new upgraded edition is chockablock with extras.

Withnail and I– Writer-director Bruce Robinson charts the demise of England’s “swinging 60s” era via the metaphysical malaise of two impoverished actors slogging through 1969 London with high hopes and low squalor. Richard E. Grant’s turn as the alarmingly pallid, decadently wasted Withnail is the stuff of acting legend, and he is ably supported by the “I” of the title, portrayed by Paul McGann. The two flat mates, desperate for a break from their cramped, heatless apartment, take a road trip to the country, where Withnail’s eccentric uncle (Richard Griffiths, in all his creepy, corpulent magnificence) keeps a cottage. There are so many wonderfully quotable lines, one might as well bracket the entire screenplay with quotation marks. Ralph Brown nearly steals the film as Danny the drug dealer. There are two Blu-Ray versions of this title; a “region-free” Starz UK release (the version I own) and a U.S. release by Image Entertainment. From what I have researched, the UK version has a slight edge on picture and sound. I can attest that the UK Blu-ray image is a vast improvement over Criterion’s original standard DVD release.

…and here are some more noteworthy Blu-rays, due out through the end of the year:

Forbidden Planet, Tommy: the Movie, THX 1138, In Cold Blood, The Player (09/07)

The Twilight Zone Season 1, Breathless, Delicatessen (09/14)

Rock and Rule (09/28)

The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Mad Max (10/05)

The Magician (10/12)

Apocalypse Now, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Psycho, The Seven Samurai (10/19)

Paths of Glory (10/26)

Bridge on the River Kwai (11/02)

Night of the Hunter, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (11/16)

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RIP Paul Conrad

by digby

I have often mentioned that my formative years were indelibly shaped by MAD magazine. It’s true. And because of that I think I was especially tuned in to political cartoons when I started to form my own ideas.

And it was mostly from Paul Conrad, multi-pulitzer prize winner for the LA Times who was one of the best political cartoonists of all time (and that’s saying something.) He died today at 86, surrounded by family, having led a satisfying life as an unabashed liberal and destroyer of Village mythology and Imperial pretensions.
He was an unflinching DFH and proud of it.

Here are a few of his best known cartoons:

My personal favorite from 1999:

So what do you think? Has our political discourse really become terribly uncivil? Or are liberals just unwilling to tell it like it is anymore?

I love this quote:

“No one ever accused me of being objective“

RIP Paul Conrad.

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