It is a simple plaque for the 16 children gunned down that day in March 1996, set on a small, stone column outside the primary school that continues to educate this town’s young. Built on a slope between trees and overgrown shrubs, it is easy to miss.
But the impact of the loss the memorial reflects endures, nearly 20 years after a 43-year-old man with four handguns stormed the schoolhouse gym in a three-minute shooting spree that seared abhorrence for gun violence into Britain’s national psyche.
The following year, the public outcry over the killings, distant though it was from the halls of power, spurred political action: The British government banned the private ownership of automatic weapons and handguns on Britain’s mainland.
Guess what happened? Did the country fall into a Lord of the Flies society where only the “bad guys” had guns and they turned the law abiding public into sitting ducks? Is Scotland today a land of total anarchy where the “bad guys” are holding the “good guys” hostage, raping and pillaging at will because nobody can defend themselves?
Uhm, no:
In Scotland, a nation of 5.3 million people, the weapon of choice for criminals, by far, is the knife. Guns remain tools for farmers and hunters.
“You never see people with guns in this country,” said Sir Stephen House, who stepped down last month as chief constable of the Scottish police. “If you do, you’re in a rural area and it’s a bloke out shooting rabbits.”
Of the roughly 55 homicides in the country in the last 12 months, “one or two of those” were by shooting, Mr. House said.
How do those people stand living under such tyranny?
Obviously, terrorism can be carried out by means other than guns. Tim McVeigh is a good example of how that can be done. The Boston Bombers used pressure cooker bombs. (They also killed a cop with a handgun and had a dramatic shoot-out with law enforcement.) Suicide vests can kill large numbers of people. Some would-be jihadi stabbed some people in London yesterday.
But easy access to guns sure does make it easier for them. In the San Bernardino attacks, the homemade pipe bombs didn’t go off. But the semi-automatic killing machines worked like a charm.
And yeah, there’s also the hum-drum oh-so-boring-everyday-gun violence that kills around 30,000 people per year in homicides, suicides and accidents, many of the victims being children. But we consider that an act of nature like a tornado or an earthquake — nothing to be done.
Watching the news shows this morning I was struck by the bland reaction among the moderators, hosts and interviewers to the truly outrageous stuff the likes of Donald Trump and the GOP lessers were saying. I don’t know how you can just sit there and let a politician threaten the American families of accused terrorists and not confront him about it but that’s exactly what they did.
Jay Rosen notes that they all seem very confused by the intense political polarization and wonder what in the world can be done about it.
Rosen tells them they have to bear some responsibility for what’s happened:
Every time you had to “leave it there” after ideologies clashed mindlessly, fruitlessly. Every dubious truth claim you had to let pass because challenging it might interrupt the flow or make you sound too partisan. Every time you defaulted to “will it work?” when the bigger question was “is it so?” Every dutiful effort you made to “get the other side” without asking if the number of sides was really two. Every time you asked each other “what’s the politics of this?” so you could escape the tedium and complexity of public problem-solving. Every time you smiled weakly to say, “depends on who you ask” before launching into a description of public actors who dwell in separate worlds of fact. Every time you described political polarization as symmetrical when it isn’t. Every time you denied that being in the middle was a position so you didn’t have to ask if it was a defensible one. Every time you excluded yourselves from a faltering political class. Every pox you put on both houses because it felt good to float above it all. Every eye you rolled at the humorless scolds who rage at the White House Correspondents dinner. Every time you jeered at the popularity of “partisan media” without reminding yourself “…there goes our audience.” Every time you laughed at the Daily Show’s treatment of you with no companion sense of dread. (They’re on to us.) Every time you said “the truth is probably somewhere in the middle” when you really had no clue. Every time you pointed with pride to the criticism you were getting from both sides, assuming it meant you were doing something right when you might have been doing everything wrong. Every operative you turned into an expert. Every unprincipled winner you admired for their savvy. Every time you thought it was not up to you to judge when it was on you — especially on you — to assess, weigh and, yes, judge.
All of it, every moment like that had the effect of implicating you in this mess.
This is becoming a very serious problem because by acting as if Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are speaking as mainstream politicians — mainstream Americans with mainstream views — and failing to challenge them on specific points, make them explain themselves and square their comments with commonly understood norms and rules, it ends up changing those norms and rules.
Marco Rubio is very concerned that the government is abusing its surveillance powers. He said on CNN this morning:
The former Senator Ted Kennedy once said he was on a no-fly list. O mean, there are — I — we — there are journalists on the no-fly list. There are others involved in the no-fly list that wind up there. These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism and they wind up on the no-fly list. There is no due process and no way to get your name removed from it in a timely basis. And now they’re having their Second Amendment rights being impeded upon.
If these were perfect lists it would be one thing. But there are 700,000 Americans on some list or another who would all be captured under this Amendment that the Democrats offered. And that’s the problem. The vast — there aren’t 700,000 terrorists operating openly on watch lists. They include vast numbers of Americans who have names similar to someone we’re looking for. Sometimes you’re on that list because the FBI wants to talk to you about someone you know, not because you’re a suspect. And again, now your Second Amendment right is being impeded with.
Do we have a heretofore silent civil libertarian on our hands? It sure sounds like it.
Actually, no… He has no problem impeding people’s right to travel or their right to due process in any other circumstances. In fact, he’d pretty much like to give the government power to do anything it thinks it “needs”. Except “impede” someone’s Second Amendment rights:
Because too many in Washington have failed to grasp the nature of this enemy, we have less access to intelligence information now than we did just days ago. In the wake of Wednesday’s attack on innocent Americans doing nothing more than going about their daily lives, we must act swiftly to reverse the limitations imposed on these critical intelligence programs. Radical jihadists are trying to kill as many Americans as they can. Our law enforcement and intelligence professionals need access to this information. Failing to give them the tools they need to keep Americans safe is dangerous and irresponsible.
Spying on innocent people, stopping them from travelling, these are all necessary to keep us safe. But there can be no impediment to buying semi-automatic weapons and as much ammunition as you want under any circumstances ever.
Because freedom. And security.
I keep thinking this kind of incoherence is going to catch up with them but I’m no longer sure. In fact, I am only surprised at this point that Trump hasn’t suggested simply not allowing Muslims to buy guns. You know his gun-toting followers think that would be perfectly fine. They’re “the enemy” right? And it would tie his rivals up in knots.
More than half of the House Democrats who voted to restrict the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the U.S. appear to be having second thoughts.
At least 26 of the 47 Democrats who supported the measure have signed on to a letter urging House Speaker Paul Ryan not to include it in a must-pass omnibus spending bill likely to be voted on in the coming days, according to groups helping arrange the missive.
The lawmakers assert that the U.S. has an obligation to help people seeking refuge from violence and persecution. They also reject measures being floated that would defund the U.S. refugee resettlement program, arguing that “funds available for the vetting and placement of refugees should be increased to ensure a thorough and expeditious process.”
“We should all agree that inserting wholesale changes to refugee admission policies into a year-end spending bill—where they cannot be properly debated or amended—is not the appropriate way to consider these issues,” the letter states.
The lawmakers, however, don’t say in the letter if they are willing to vote against the omnibus spending bill if the refugee legislation ultimately winds up in it.
At least 84 Democrats total had signed the letter as of Friday evening, with more expected by Sunday night. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) who voted for the initial House bill, is helping spearhead the drive for signatures. Others who voted for the House bill but signed the letter include Reps. Steve Israel of New York and Ron Kind of Wisconsin.
“The initial House vote was simply a knee-jerk reaction in response to the Paris terror attacks,” said Yasmine Taeb, a lobbyist with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group that helped organize the letter. “We are a nation of immigrants and it is simply unacceptable for our elected officials to turn their backs on innocent women, men, and children fleeing violence and persecution.”
The bill, whose lead sponsor was GOP Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, was rushed through the House just days after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris amid still-unverified reports that one attacker may have posed as a Syrian migrant. All of the attackers identified so far have been European nationals.
Proponents insist the bill, which imposes additional security requirements for the U.S. refugee resettlement program, is aimed at protecting Americans from terrorists posing as refugees. Democrats who supported the bill were worried about a political backlash if they appeared to look weak on national security, but have since faced liberal-led fury for appearing to abandon refugees.
I’ll be surprised if this will hold up under the conservative hysteria after San bernardino, but it’s good to see some of them having second thoughts. That was one ugly moment. Unfortunately, it will likely not be the last one.
Here he is on Face the Nation this morning reiterating his views:
It would be nice if John Dickerson corrected him once in a while but hey, I guess his job is to give Trump a platform for his psychopathic lies so that’s fine.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is defending his public remarks about Muslims in America, saying he is advocating common-sense positions rather than playing on people’s fears.
“I’m not playing on fears. I don’t want to play on fears. I understand the whole world,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday. “I have Muslim friends who are great people. And by the way, they tell me, ‘there’s a big problem.’ I’m not playing on fears. I’m playing on common sense.”
Earlier this week, Trump said in a Fox News interview that the U.S. should “take out” the families of terrorists. He has also said he wouldn’t rule out the idea of requiring American Muslims to register in a database.
He said Sunday that “there can be profiling” of Muslims but stopped short of calling for a Muslim-only database.
“You have people that have to be tracked. If they’re Muslims, they’re Muslims. But you have people that have to be tracked,” he said. He added that he wants “real vigilance,” and said, “whether it’s mosques or whatever.”
“If you have people coming out of mosques with hatred and with death in their eyes and on their minds, we’re going to have to do something,” Trump said.
He lamented the fact that some neighbors of San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook reportedly did not report suspicious activity at his home because they worried they would be profiling.
“If they thought there was something wrong with that group and they saw what was happening, and they didn’t want to call the police because they didn’t want to be profiling, I think that’s pretty bad,” he said. “Everybody wants to be politically correct, and that’s part of the problem that we have with our country.”
He also said that the “tremendous problem with radical Islamic terrorism” won’t be solved until President Obama “gets the hell out” of office.
“I would go after a lot of people and find out whether or not they knew. I’d be able to find out. Cause I don’t believe the sister,” he replied.
He also said he would “certainly go after the wives” of terrorists and said he would “be very tough on families, because the families know what’s happening.”
As an example, he said that the 9/11 attackers “put their families on airplanes a couple of days before, sent them back to Saudi Arabia for the most part. Those wives knew exactly what was going to happen. And those wives went home to watch their husbands knock down the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going… Those wives knew exactly what was happening.”
His other proposals to fight terror attacks include allowing more people to carry gunsand changing the way the government and media label those who plan terrorist attacks.
“You fight it with intelligence. You fight it by beating them at their own game. You fight it by not saying “mastermind.” Like you did, like other people did. I see the word ‘mastermind,’…I call them the guy with the dirty hat. The guy with the dirty, filthy hat,” Trump said. “These people are animals. These people are not masterminds. They’re not even smart people. I bet you they have very low IQs.”
Additionally, he said, the U.S. needs to get better at countering internet propaganda by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“The press is making them into something, they’re making them into Robin Hood. And young people and other people are following,” he said. “We came up with the Internet, but they’re using it better than we do.”
One thing Trump did not say he definitely supported: to ban people on the no-fly list from purchasing firearms. A Democratic bill to enact that plan failed in a Senate votethe day after the San Bernardino shooting.
“I’d certainly take a look at it. I would. I’m very strong into the whole thing with Second Amendment — but if you can’t fly, and if you’ve got some really bad — I would certainly look at that very hard,” Trump said.
He also said that “people could look at” those who are amassing a large collection of ammunition, but “we can’t do anything to hurt the Second Amendment. People need their weapons to protect themselves, and you see that now more than ever.”
Here’s Jake Tapper this morning:
The family of the couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino claims they had not idea what the terrorists were plotting. Donald Trump says he doesn’t buy it and he has called for more monitoring:
Trump: We have to start looking at families now we have to look at them very tough. I think his mother knew what was going on. She went into the apartment. Any body that went into that apartment knew what was going on. We’d better get a little tough and a little smart or we’re in trouble.
Here’s what he said about this last week:
“I would knock the hell out of them [the Isis militants],” he told viewers on the right-wing talk show, presented by Elizabeth Hasslebeck, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmaede.
President Barack Obama “doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Mr Trump claimed, before adding he would do his “best” to defeat the militants.
“But we’re fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families,” he claimed.
“They, they care about their lives. Don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.”
And this:
Do you think the wives and the families knew exactly what was going to happen with September 11th?” Mr. Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Host Bill O’Reilly said he didn’t know, and Mr. Trump said: “Well I do, and I think they did.”
“We have to be much more vigilant, and we have to be much tougher,” Mr. Trump said. “We can’t allow this to happen: They take the wives, they put ‘em on planes, they send ‘em home. ‘Let’s go home and let’s watch Daddy tonight on television knock down the World Trade Center’ — there has to be retribution. And if there’s not going to be retribution, you’re never going to stop terrorism.”
Mr. Trump said on “Fox and Friends” this week that while he would do his best to avoid civilian casualties in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group, “you have to take out” terrorists’ families.
He told Mr. O’Reilly that “take out” means that “you have to wipe out their homes where they came from.”
“You have to absolutely wipe ‘em out,” he said. “It’s the only way you’re going to stop terrorism. You have all these cells all over the place.”
Asked if he would kill the family members of terrorists, Mr. Trump said: “I don’t want to be so bold.”
“I want to tell you they would suffer,” he said. “They know what was going on. If you look at what happened with these terrorists, they put their wives on the planes — those wives knew exactly what was happening, the children, everybody knew.”
Asked how he knows that, Mr. Trump said: “Because I know. Because that’s the way life is. Because I’m a realist. That’s the way life works. The wives knew what the husbands were going to do.”
Everyone on TV this morning was acting as if this was just another anodyne comment, like “I’m going to cut corporate tax rates” or “we need to assemble a coalition.”
This psychopath is the front runner for the Republican Party. At what point will the press stop acting like what he’s saying is business as usual?
Serial killers and mass murderers behind bars at San Quentin State Prison are yuge Donald Trump supporters. I know it. I know people, okay? They are. Believe me. Anybody who doesn’t get that is stupid.
Digby yesterday wrote at length about Donald Trump’s fascistic rhetoric, about his promise to “take out” the families of Daesh militants, about his expressed disdain for a multitude of Others, about the Times finding that Trump labeled opponents “stupid” at least 30 times in the last week (“weak” is another Trump favorite), about his threat to use waterboarding and worse to make America great again. It is chilling to see crowds cheer for this. Or for Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s Friday boast, “I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.” Emulating Trump, Falwell is “not backing down” from eliminationist remarks that on their face targeted a religion held by over 1.5 billion people.
The Washington Post editorial board this morning calls out Trump for his “near-constant use of cheap stereotypes and insults” in his appearances:
Mr. Trump is corrosive to the U.S. political debate in at least two ways. One is his basic contempt for facts. Mr. Trump simply made up his recent claim that he watched “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11, later justifying it by claiming some of his supporters remember similar events. Mr. Trump’s approach to truth — it is whatever I want it to be — uniquely threatens the notion that people of different identities and experiences can nevertheless conduct a civil dialogue based on the universal language of observable fact. Without this rudimentary principle, the American experiment in multi-ethnic, religiously diverse democracy is doomed.
Second, if it weren’t already clear, his comments this week underscore that Mr. Trump sees people as caricatures and stereotypes to be poked at and exploited rather than as individuals with dignity. This not only insults people, reducing them to simple manifestations of gender, creed or ethnicity. It also undermines the very premise of American freedom: that individuals’ inherent worth entitles them to unalienable rights that no president can or should abridge — especially “leaders” who, like Mr. Trump, inflame some Americans’ suspicions and prejudices against minority groups for political gain.
That is, Trump is antithetical to the very idea of America. Except to fans he addresses on a fourth-grade level.
People should stop calling Trump a fascist, Max Ehrenfreund suggested at Wonkblog this week. There is a difference. Rather, he is fascistic, as David Neiwert wrote at Crooks and Liars. Trump does not have a coherent enough ideology to be a fascist:
Trump’s only real ideology is the Worship of the Donald, and he will do and say anything that appeals to the lowest common denominator of the American body politic in order to attract their support – the nation’s id, the near-feral segment that breathes and lives on fear and paranoia and hatred.
Trump’s boasting about his strength and manly prowess in damned-near everything proves Mencken’s old adage, “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.” And his opponents?
“All of ’em are weak, they’re just weak,” Trump said Tuesday of his fellow candidates. “I think they’re weak, generally, you want to know the truth. But I won’t say that, because I don’t want to get myself, I don’t want to have any controversies. So I refuse to say that they’re weak generally, OK? Some of them are fine people. But they are weak.”
“People want strength,” Donald Trump told reporters the other day, boasting that his poll numbers go up after every tragedy:
“We’re going to be so vigilant. We’re going to be so careful. We’re going to be so tough and so mean and so nasty,” he said. He returned to the same theme later in the rally, telling attendees how the American people ought to respond to threats in the world: “We’ve got to be vigilant. We’ve got to be smart. We’ve got to be tough.”
Strong. Tough. Mean. Nasty. Celebrating those lofty, family-values virtues are perhaps why Johnny Cash’s 1969 performance at San Quentin was such a hit with convicts. It bears repeating:
If you want a perfect encapsulation of the conservative world view, you need look no further than “A Boy Named Sue,” a song made famous by Johnny Cash and (ironically) written by the late Shel Silverstein, a writer of children’s books.
“Son, this world is rough, and if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough…
It’s the name that helped to make you strong”
Not a good father. Not a good husband. Not a good citizen. But strong. It’s all that matters.
That’s why blustering manhood and guns and codpieces play so well on the right. It is also why weakness is both a cardinal sin and the ultimate RW insult. Weakness evokes the same makes-my-skin-crawl response the Nazi Shliemann had in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “the thought of this — (spitting it out) — Jewish ritual.”
Now to watch the Sunday talk shows for the ever-telephonic Donald Trump, the strong man who phones it in.
Since it’s now post Black Friday, pre-Cyber Monday, Tuesday Afternoon and Wednesday Morning 3am,I thought I’d toss out gift ideas, with my picks for the best Blu-ray reissues of 2015. But first, a gentle reminder. Any time of year you click a link from this weekly feature as a portal to purchase any Amazonitem, you help your favorite starving bloggers get a nickel or two in the creel. Most titles are released concurrent with an SD edition, so if you don’t have a Blu-ray player, don’t despair. In alphabetical order:
The Beatles 1+(1 CD + 2 Blu-ray edition)-Your degree of enthusiasm for this 3-disc CD/Blu-ray combo set from Capitol depends on what kind of Beatle fan you are. If you are a casual fan, it might be a bit too extravagant; but for completists, it’s a treasure trove. Admittedly, the CD holds no surprises, as it is a straight up reissue of the eponymous 2000 27-track collection of the Beatles’ #1 hits. While the CD tracks are “newly” remixed, I can discern little difference from the belated catalog-wide remix/remasters that were done a few years ago. It’s the Blu-rays that make it worthwhile. One disc contains the official music videos of the CD cuts, and the 2nd disc features alternate versions of 7 of the #1 hits, plus B-sides and deeper album cuts. This disc is a combination of live performance clips, original promotional films and a few more “official” post Beatle era video workups. Audio and image quality are outstanding on both Blu-rays. Totally gear!
Dont Look Back– This 1965 documentary (arguably the “granddaddy” of what we now routinely refer to as “rockumentaries”) is a textbook example of the right filmmaker (D.A. Pennebaker) hooking up with the right artist (Bob Dylan) at the right place (London) at the right time (1965) to capture a zeitgeist (“The Sixties”) in a bottle. Pennebaker takes a “fly on the wall” cinema verite approach to his subject, as a mercurial Dylan (and entourage) turn the tables on the British Invasion with an ecstatically received series of sold-out London performances. While there is a generous helping of concert footage, the most fascinating events occur between shows; at press conferences, in dressing rooms and hotel suites. I’ll confess I’ve never been a huge Dylan fan, but there’s something special, palpably electric about his (for wont of a better term) “aura” in this film that is compelling beyond description. Criterion’s Blu-ray is choked with extras, including additional short films by Pennebaker and an illuminating Patti Smith interview.
Breaker Morant – Few films have more succinctly conveyed the madness of war than Bruce Bereford’s moving 1980 drama. Based on a true story, it recounts the courts martial (i.e., scapegoating) of three Australian officers (Edward Woodard, Bryan Brown and Lewis Fitz-gerald) by their British higher-ups during the Boer War (the three were accused of shooting enemy prisoners, even though they did so under orders from superior officers). They are hastily assigned a military lawyer (a fellow Australian) with no previous experience in criminal defense (Jack Thompson, in a star-making performance), who surprises even himself with his passion and resourcefulness in the face of such stacked odds. Very similar in theme and tone to Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. Tightly directed, intelligently written (by Beresford, Jonathan Hardy and David Stevens, adapting Kenneth G. Ross’ play) and marvelously acted, it’s a perfect film in every way. Criterion’s Blu-ray sports a sharp transfer and extras that lend deeper historical context.
Day Of Anger – Just when I thought I had seen all the noteworthy spaghetti westerns…this obscurity came a hootin’ and a hollerin’ into my saloon recently (even self-proclaimed cineastes like myself miss a few). I’m not sure what was distracting me when this film came out in 1967 (aside from being 11 years old) but it’s quite the buried treasure, from director Tonio Valerii. Genre icon Lee Van Cleef stars as a cold-blooded gunfighter (what else?) who becomes a mentor to a street cleaner (Giuliano Gemma) Then what happens is, well, the best I can do for you is: Charly meets Shane. This is one blown western, baby! But it’s much smarter than you expect it to be. If you dig Leone, you’ll love it. Arrow Video’s Blu-ray features restored prints of both the Italian and (shorter) International versions. Extras include a 2008 interview with Valerii, and new interviews with his biographer Roberto Curti, as well as Day of Anger screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi.
The Killers – (1946 and 1964 versions)-Criterion has given the HD bump to their already fabulous “twofer” package presentation of Robert Siodmak’s classic 1946 B&W film noir and the pulpy color 1964 remake by Don Siegel. Both films are adaptations from the Ernest Hemingway short story about a pair of hitmen and the enigmatic man they are stalking. Hemingway’s minimalist narrative lends a fair leeway of creative license to the respective filmmakers, and each runs with it in his own fashion. To noir purists, of course Siodmak’s original is the preferred version, with a young and impossibly handsome Burt Lancaster as the hitmen’s target/classic noir sap and the equally charismatic Ava Gardner as the femme fatale of the piece. Still, the 1964 version has its merits; Lee Marvin and Clu Gallagher are the epitome of 60s “cool” as the nihilistic killers, and it’s a hoot watching Ronald Reagan (quite convincingly) play a vile and vicious heavy in a film that came out the very same year he made his (politically) star-making speech at the 1964 Republican Convention (I’m thinking that there’s a Trump analogy in there somewhere).
Miracle Mile -“Someone” (in this case, Kino Lorber) finally has seen fit to release a properly formatted HD edition of this 1988 sleeper (previously available only as MGM’s dismal “pan and scan” DVD). Depending on your worldview, this is either an “end of the world” film for romantics, or the perfect date movie for fatalists. Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham give winning performances as a musician and a waitress who Meet Cute at L.A.’s La Brea Tar Pits museum. But before they can hook up for their first date, Edwards stumbles onto a reliable tip that L.A. is about to get hosed…in a major way. The resulting “countdown” scenario is a genuine, edge-of-your seat nail-biter. In fact, this modestly budgeted 90-minute thriller offers more heart-pounding excitement (and more believable characters) than any bloated Hollywood disaster epic from the likes of a Michael Bay or a Roland Emmerich. Writer-director Steve De Jarnatt stopped doing feature films after this one (his only other credit is the guilty pleasure sci-fi adventure Cherry 2000 which also made its Blu-ray debut this year courtesy of Kino Lorber). Extras include a commentary track by film critic Walter Chaw, along with the director.
Mulholland Dr– David Lynch’s nightmarish, yet mordantly droll twist on the Hollywood dream makes TheDay of the Locust seem like an upbeat romp. Naomi Watts stars as a fresh-faced ingénue with high hopes who blows into Hollywood from Somewhere in Middle America to (wait for it) become a star. Those plans get, shall we say, put on hold…once she crosses paths with a voluptuous and mysterious amnesiac (Laura Harring). What ensues is the usual Lynch mindfuck, and if you buy the ticket, you better be ready to take the ride, because this one of his more fun ones (or as close as one gets to having “fun” watching a Lynch film). This one grew on me; by the third (or was it fourth?) time I’d seen it I decided that it’s one of the iconoclastic director’s finest efforts. Criterion’s sparkling transfer brings new depth to the light and shadow of Peter Deming’s cinematography. Extras include new interviews with Deming, Lynch, Watts and Harring.
Their films can be unsettling…but not for the reasons you might assume. There’s no inherent violence, nor are they trying to “scare” you. Their films are more like pieces of dreams, or perhaps a screen capture of that elusive nanosecond of Jungian twilight that exists between nodding off and disconcertingly jerking awake a moment later.
Get it? Got it? Good! So if you’re looking for something completely different, I’m heartily recommending Zeitgeist Film’s new Blu-ray collection, which is a substantial upgrade from their 2007 DVD set, Phantom Museums, in both sound/image quality, and in content (the new version contains three additional short films that the brothers have made since then, plus an eight minute profile by director Christopher Nolan called Quay).
2015 Blu-rays previously reviewed and also recommended:
Jeb Bush was trying to summon that very example in response to a voter question here on Tuesday about the proposal by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Democratic candidate for president, to provide free tuition at public colleges and universities.
“This is a great question, I’m glad you brought it up,” Mr. Bush began. “Because this notion that earned success in life, that the government can just take care of us, if we keep taking steps down that path, we’re in danger. And it’s insidious, because you don’t see it until it’s over. That’s the problem with this.”
Then, Mr. Bush went for the frog metaphor. And that’s where the problem for him began.
“It’s like the crabs in the, you know, whatever —the crabs in the boiling water,” Mr. Bush tried.
“Frogs,” an audience member shouted out, helpfully.
“The frogs,” Mr. Bush continued. “You think it’s warm, and it feels pretty good and then it feels like you’re in a whirlpool—you know, a Jacuzzi or something.”
He concluded with a morbid twist: “And then you’re dead. That’s how this works.”
As the fractious debate over American gun laws continues, two people in California are preparing to launch the country’s first all-gun home shopping television channel.
Created by Doug Bornstein and Valerie Castle—both of whom previously worked for home shopping networks—the new channel, named GunTV, is scheduled to launch on January 20, during the gun industry’s annual multi-day SHOT Show in Las Vegas. It will go live via national satellite and cable TV providers and eventually air 24 hours a day.
[…]
GunTV, also known as GTV Live Shopping, will broadcast gun-related programming and sell firearms, ammunition and accessories. “The ease and convenience of purchasing firearms will be as simple as consumers calling a toll-free number and placing their order,” GunTV says in a promotional video. The channel will also air safety, training and instructional content every hour, according to its website, as well as commercials from manufacturers.
Here’s how the purchasing process works: The channel will electronically deliver orders to Sports South, one of the largest distributors of sporting goods in the U.S. The distributor will then ship the firearms to a local gun store, where a viewer can pick it up, according to The Desert Sun, a newspaper in Palm Springs, California. To comply with gun regulations, customers likely will have to pass background checks before the federally licensed dealers sell them firearms. Federal law requires background checks at licensed dealers, so consumers can purchase guns without checks online and at firearm shows.
Sports South, which is based in Louisiana, will provide GunTV customers with access to more than 475 product lines and outdoor sporting goods.
The United States has an average of 89 firearms for every 100 residents, according to a promotional video from GunTV.
Initially, the channel will air six hours of daily programming, mostly shopping, starting at 1 a.m., seven nights a week. The founders hope to expand it to a 24/7 lineup during 2016, The Desert Sun reported.
Erich Pratt, director of communications for the Virginia-based Gun Owners of America, says he hadn’t heard about GunTV until he was contacted by Newsweek. But, he says the channel could eventually become the “Amazon of guns and accessories.”
“Because firearms are an item that are greatly treasured,” he says, “I do think that once people find out about it, there would be an interest.”
Especially those who like killing. They’re always interested.
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