Month: January 2014

Saturday Night at the Movies




A nest of intrigue: Flight of the Storks

By Dennis Hartley

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Roger Corman’s The Raven aside, I can’t name too many mystery thrillers with an ornithological twist (no, The Maltese Falcon doesn’t count, because as Sidney Greenstreet once pointed out, “It’s fake! It’s a phony!”). So how do you feel about storks? I’m a little ambivalent about them myself; haven’t given them much thought. I do appreciate that they deliver the babies, but between you, me, and the fencepost…I have long harbored a suspicion that it might be some kind of an urban myth.

Nonetheless, storks do figure somewhat prominently in a new thriller called (wait for it) Flight of the Storks. The 2012 French made-for-television film, directed by Jan Koun and co-adapted by Jean-Christophe (from his own 1994 novel) and Denis McGrath, is currently wending around the U.S. as a 3-hour theatrical presentation (SIFF is bringing it to Seattle January 31 for a one-week run). A bit tough to pigeonhole (sorry!), it is best described as a whacked-out cross between Winged Migration and The Boys from Brazil.

Harry Treadaway stars as Jonathan, a young English researcher working as an assistant to a self-styled amateur ornithologist named Max (Danny Keogh) who is conducting a study on the migratory habits of storks who fly from Switzerland to Africa and back. It seems that the number of returnees has been dwindling; Max wants to literally follow the storks along their route and see if he can figure out why. Unfortunately, he’ll never get a chance to solve that mystery, because within the opening five minutes of the film, Jonathan discovers Max’s partially devoured body atop a stork’s nest at his home. Jonathan decides to carry on with Max’s planned journey solo, after reluctantly promising to keep an oddly creepy Swiss detective (Clemens Schick) apprised of his location at all times.

Jonathan’s itinerary seems to follow the migratory habits of 007, as opposed to the storks. One day he’s partying in a nightclub in Bulgaria, a few days later he’s traipsing around Istanbul, next thing we know he’s bedding down with a hot Israeli babe on a kibbutz. Then, it’s off to the Congo. Oh, and along the way, he’s shadowed by assorted shady characters trying to kill him, usually not long after he discovers yet another one of Max’s associates has turned up dead (who knew bird-watching was such an exciting vocation?).

I don’t want to give too much away, so let’s just say that the closer Jonathan gets to the Congo (where he lived as a child with his late parents, who were both doctors) the more he begins to ponder some previously dormant, now niggling mysteries regarding his own past. I can say no more (no, he wasn’t delivered by a stork). While the plot feels gratuitously byzantine at times, I was hooked until the end by the central mystery…which I suppose makes it a successful genre entry. Treadaway gives a compelling performance, which helps hold your interest (along with the lovely photography and exotic locales). It was an unexpected treat to see the always entertaining Rutger Hauer pop up toward the end (where the hell has he been?). I do have to a bone to pick regarding the lack of subtitles, which I found mildly irritating. The dialog is predominately in English, but there are several exchanges (in several different languages) that I felt were lengthy enough to warrant them. That aside…you could do worse with three hours of your time.

…and one more thing…

Seattle readers might want to take note that SIFF is presenting their 2014 Women in Cinema mini-festival, January 22 through the 26, celebrating notable new works by women filmmakers. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to preview any of this year’s selections, but several look intriguing. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me is a documentary from director Chiemi Karasawa profiling the legendary Broadway performer, still going strong at age 87. The always interesting Melissa Leo stars in Enid Zentelis’ Bottled Up, a drama about the “heart-wrenching struggle of loving an addict.” From writer-director Shana Betz, the 1970s period piece Free Ride stars Anna Paquin as a single mother caught up in the Florida drug trade (possible shades of Weeds). From Kenya, Judy Kibinge’s Something Necessary promises to be “an uplifting parable about atonement”, set during the violent wake of that country’s 2007 elections. For more information about these films, the additional selections, and tickets, check out SIFF’s Women in Cinema page.

Saturday Night at the Movies review archives

The evolution

by digby

From reflexive anger and petulance to reluctant agreement and acceptance:

When the first of Mr. Snowden’s revelations came out last year, Mr. Obama seemed surprised at the public reaction.

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here,” he said last June.

By Friday, he had come to agree that Americans had every reason to be skeptical. “Given the unique power of the state,” Mr. Obama said, “it is not enough for leaders to say ‘trust us, we won’t abuse the data we collect,’ for history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends on the law to constrain those in power.”

What changed between then and now? Is it possible that as Peter Baker suggested in his earlier reporting that the president really didn’t know? And if he really didn’t know, what does that say about these programs? (I’d say it’s very disturbing.)

On the other hand, that evolution seems to be one that a whole lot of people have undergone during that period whether they could have been expected to know about it or not. The reflexive hostility to the revelations has given way to a more thoughtful assessment of the implications on the part of a lot of people. Even the Village press, which was among the most vociferous critics of the revelations, have come around to the notion that this was something the people had a right to know.

It’s a good lesson for me. I need to remember that people receive information like this in different ways. I recall that after 9/11 I was surprised and confused by friends of mine who seemed to be in a state of panic and reacted with calls for vengeance. They thought I was shockingly complacent. Over time we have come back to the same place, seeing the event and subsequent threat in similar ways but I see now that much of how we reacted at the time had to do with temperament and judgement about how to respond — and also our relative trust in institutions and leadership generally.

I don’t know that the president has evolved all that much, in truth. There’s no way of knowing. And he is constrained by various bureaucratic pressures and responsibilities that make it difficult for him to take a singular view of this situation. But it’s important that he articulated that viewpoint yesterday, however briefly, even if his policies and proposals don’t fully respond to the issue. There are a lot of people out there who needed to hear it.

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“Cleaning up the problem”

by digby

Because we’re good and they’re evil:

In April 1977, Patt Derian, a onetime civil rights activist whom President Jimmy Carter had recently appointed assistant secretary of state for human rights, met with the US ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill. A memo recording that conversation has been unearthed by Martin Edwin Andersen, who in 1987 first reported that Kissinger had told the Argentine generals to proceed with their terror campaign against leftists (whom the junta routinely referred to as “terrorists”). The memo notes that Hill told Derian about a meeting Kissinger held with Argentine Foreign Minister Cesar Augusto Guzzetti the previous June. What the two men discussed was revealed in 2004 when the National Security Archive obtained and released the secret memorandum of conversation for that get-together. Guzzetti, according to that document, told Kissinger, “our main problem in Argentina is terrorism.” Kissinger replied, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures.” In other words, go ahead with your killing crusade against the leftists.

The new document shows that Kissinger was even more explicit in encouraging the Argentine junta. The memo recounts Hill describing the Kissinger-Guzzetti discussion this way:

The Argentines were very worried that Kissinger would lecture to them on human rights. Guzzetti and Kissinger had a very long breakfast but the Secretary did not raise the subject. Finally Guzzetti did. Kissinger asked how long will it take you (the Argentines) to clean up the problem. Guzzetti replied that it would be done by the end of the year. Kissinger approved.

In other words, Ambassador Hill explained, Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light.

That’s a damning statement: a US ambassador saying a secretary of state had egged on a repressive regime that was engaged in a killing spree.

Henry Kissinger has spent the last 40 years being welcomed into the most exalted corridors of power on earth, by members of both political parties.

Remember when everyone used to talk about America’s great “moral authority”?

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Friendly reminder about oaths

by digby

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That’s it. It’s all about the Constitution.

h/t to GG

Identifying with the plutocrats won’t help you

by digby

Krugman looks at the prevalent view among the elites that the poor are lazy sods with moral failings that account for their lack of millions. Then he looks at the other side of the coin:

There is also a counterpart on the upside of the income distribution: an obvious desire to believe that rising incomes at the top are kind of the obverse of the alleged social problems at the bottom. According to this view, the affluent are affluent because they have done the right things: they’ve gotten college educations, they’ve gotten and stayed married, avoiding illegitimate births, they have a good work ethic, etc.. And implied in all this is that wealth is the reward for virtue, which makes it hard to argue for redistribution.

The trouble with this picture is that it might work for people with incomes of $200,000 or $300,000 a year; it doesn’t work for the one percent, or the 0.1 percent. Yet the bulk of the rise in top income shares is in fact at the very top. Here’s the CBO:

What’s a sociologizer to do? Well, what you see, over and over, is that they find ways to avoid talking about the one percent. They talk about the top quintile, or at most the top 5 percent; this lets them discuss rising incomes at the top as if we were talking about two married lawyers or doctors, not the CEOs and private equity managers who are actually driving the numbers. And this in turn lets them keep the focus on comfortable topics like family structure, and away from uncomfortable topics like runaway finance and the corruption of our politics by great wealth.

He goes on to make the point that the 99% vs the 1% Occupy slogan was brilliant in this regard (although he would say that the real problem is more like the .001%.) I agree. The key was to understand that Americans don’t resent people who do well. Or even people who do really well. The problem isn’t the upper middle class or even the “normal” wealthy. It’s these gilded age monsters at the very top who are scarfing up more and more of the wealth at the expense of all the rest of us.

Paradoxically, I think the poor and middle class may understand this instinctively while it’s the upper middles who may need the educating. I’m sure they are loathe to be lumped in with the crude, undisciplined proles, but to these ultra-wealthy plutocrats, that’s exactly what they are.

Update: Someone more astute than I pointed out that this post was a reaction to David Brooks’ latest whine about class warfare.

Tweet ‘o the day

by digby

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Even Christie’s most famous bipartisan moment is tainted

by digby

Ok, now things are getting really interesting:

Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with msnbc.

The mayor, Dawn Zimmer, hasn’t approved the project, but she did request $127 million in hurricane relief for her city of Hoboken – 80% of which was underwater after Sandy hit in October 2012. What she got was $142,000 to defray the cost of a single back-up generator plus an additional $200,000 in recovery grants.

In an exclusive interview, Zimmer broke her silence and named Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, Christie’s community affairs commissioner, as the two officials who delivered messages on behalf of a governor she had long supported.

“It’s not fair for the governor to hold Sandy funds hostage for the city of Hoboken” because he wants support for one private developer, she said Saturday on UP w/ Steve Kornacki.

Constable and Christie – through spokespersons – deny Zimmer’s claims.

“Mayor Zimmer has been effusive in her public praise of the Governor’s Office and the assistance we’ve provided in terms of economic development and Sandy aid,” Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak wrote in a statement. “What or who is driving her only now to say such outlandishly false things is anyone’s guess.”

That scoop is from Steve Kornacki who happens to be something of an expert on New Jersey politics.

This strikes me as a bigger deal than the traffic snarl. Hurricane Sandy is Christie’s bipartisan boy scout badge, the big story that made him a national figure. If it turns out he was actually using it for nefarious purposes I think it permanently damages his image.

The political culture of Chris Christie’s administration is obviously very corrupt. Maybe it’s time people took a closer look at his time in the US Attorney’s office.

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Here’s where to get the money

by David Atkins

The most common objection to the notion of guaranteed income and work programs as a solution to mass under- and unemployment is, of course, that the country supposedly cannot afford it. We’re already in debt, insist the naysayers. We can’t afford another entitlement, they say.

The usual progressive response is to point to record income and wealth inequality, as well as record corporate profits and stock prices, noting that the country isn’t actually broke. It’s just that all the wealth has been concentrated in a very few hands that didn’t really earn their exorbitant share of the pie. That’s the right answer, but the specifics of what to do are often left vague. Bill Quigley at BillMoyers.com has some detailed answers to the question:

State and local subsidies to corporations: An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest, at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states, but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over $1 billion each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.

2. Direct federal subsidies to corporations: The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations cost taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.

3. Federal tax breaks for corporations: The tax code gives corporations special tax breaks that have reduced what is supposed to be a 35-percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

4. Federal tax breaks for wealthy hedge fund managers: Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only a 15-percent rate while the people they earned the money for usually pay a 35-percent rate. This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary. The National Priorities Project estimates this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually, and 68 percent of those who receive this special tax break earn more than $462,500 per year (the top 1 percent of earners).

5. Subsidies to the fast food industry: Research by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley documents that taxpayers pay about $243 billion each year in indirect subsidies to the fast food industry because they pay wages so low that taxpayers must put up $243 billion to pay for public benefits for their workers.

6. Mortgage deduction: The home mortgage deduction, which costs taxpayers $70 billion per year, is a huge subsidy to the real estate, banking and construction industries. The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that 77 percent of the benefit goes to homeowners with incomes over $100,000 per year.

7. The billions above do not even count the government bailout of Wall Street, while all parties have done their utmost to tell the public that they did not need it, that they paid it back or that it was a great investment. The Atlantic Monthly estimates that $7.6 trillion was made available by the Federal Reserve to banks, financial firms and investors. The Cato Institute estimates (using government figures) the final costs at $32 to $68 billion, not including the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which alone cost more than $180 billion.

8. Each major piece of legislation contains new welfare for the rich and corporations. The Boston Globe analyzed the emergency tax legislation passed by Congress in early 2013 and found it contained 43 business and energy tax breaks, together worth $67 billion.

9. Huge corporations that engage in criminal or other wrongful activities protect their leaders from being prosecuted by paying huge fees or fines to the government. You and I would be prosecuted. These corporations protect their bosses by paying off the government. For example, Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase, which made a preliminary $13-billion mortgage settlement with the US government, is allowed to write off a majority of the deal as tax deductible, saving the corporation $4 billion.

10. There are thousands of smaller special breaks for corporations and businesses out there. There is a special subsidy for corporate jets, which cost taxpayers $3 billion a year. The tax deduction for second homes costs $8 billion a year. Fifty billionaires received taxpayer-funded farm subsidies in the past 20 years.

Some of these will be politically easier than others. While I written often in the past that incentivizing housing price growth as a middle class savings vehicle is madness, I don’t think the mortgage deduction will go away any time soon. But most of the rest of these giveaways to corporate America are deeply unpopular and could realistically be scrapped given enough demographic change and political will in the next decade.

We’ll have to take on these challenges if we want to keep the country afloat.

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QOTD: a stoned out hippie peacenik

by digby

“I think the president is absolutely right to oppose Congress in enacting any additional sanctions right now. As hard it is for everybody to deal with, we may actually be seeing success in the policy. They are at the table — I think the sanctions policy pursued by these presidents has worked. I think to add sanctions right now really would run a very high risk of blowing it all up.”

Barbara Lee? Katrina Vendenheuval? Yoko Ono?

Nope: former defense secretary Robert Gates.

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Rand’s little white slip

by digby

In what he apparently thought was a defense of civil liberties (or something) Rand Paul made one of his famous stupid statements today:

“The danger to majority rule – to him sort of thinking, well, the majority voted for me, now I’m the majority, I can do whatever I want, and that there are no rules that restrain me – that’s what gave us Jim Crow,” Paul said. “That’s what gave us the internment of the Japanese – that the majority said you don’t have individual rights, and individual rights don’t come from your creator, and they’re not guaranteed by the Constitution. It’s just whatever the majority wants.”

Jamelle Bouie explains what Paul so crudely forgets (or never thought of):

Paul might have a point with Japanese internment, which was authorized by executive order. But the reference to Jim Crow—which he’s made before—is just nonsense. The thing about Jim Crow, after all, is that it’s emergence was profoundly undemocratic and distinctly anti-majoritarian. Throughout the South, pluralities of the electorate—and in the case of Mississippi and Louisiana, outright majorities—were disenfranchised through violence and terrorism. Republican lawmakers (black and white) were driven from office, black voters were barred from the polls (or sometimes, just murdered), and paramilitary groups suppressed black political life.

What do you mean “majority” white man?

But I think Paul’s even more confused about Jim Crow than that. Listen to his original comments explaining why he wouldn’t have voted for the Civil Rights Act:

You’ll notice that he says he believes the government had the right to outlaw discrimination in publicly owned institutions, but that it had no right to interfere in the freedom of privately owned businesses if they choose to discriminate. Apparently, he doesn’t realize that Jim Crow laws mandated that private businesses discriminate:

From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through “Jim Crow” laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated. Here is a sampling of laws from various states.

Here are just a few examples from one state, Alabama:

Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed.

Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation
company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races.

Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs.

Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards.

Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities.

So, he evidently believes that Jim Crow was a good example of the perils of majority rule despite the fact that the majority didn’t include black people — which was the whole point. And he also doesn’t understand that ending Jim Crow wasn’t just about requiring racists to treat black people equally it was also about rolling back hundreds of laws that required businesses to discriminate, even if they didn’t want to.

Let’s just say that Rand Paul really should stop talking about Jim Crow. His little white slip ends up showing every single time.

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