Wednesday, April 28, 2010

WASTING TIME?

A lot of smart people like President Obama. I do too. But I differ with them when they imply that we can afford to sit back and let the White House figure out how to solve the nation’s and the world’s problems by themselves.

Instead, I spend an inordinate of time commenting to blog posts. A haunting feeling that I’m wasting my time, which could be better spent doing concrete immediate tasks, is not enough to deter me. I suspect that I’m addicted to blogging. Recently, I’ve been commenting on what the White House and we the people must do together to make a better world.

The most recent issue of my discussions has been the decline of America.

If I may be permitted an intuitive take on this, I'd say that America has been on a trajectory of decline in influence and confidence since the Vietnam war, with a great worsening of that trend since Reagan. While most liberals view the Clinton presidency as a good time in America, I don’t. To me, he merely expanded the corporatist trend Reagan started, and expanded it to the rest of the world.

The breakdown of the Iron Curtain only seemed to make things worse, since it strengthened the role of corporatism and expanded it to the former USSR as well. At the same time, the correlated aspect of abuse and destruction of Earth's environmental capital mushroomed. That FELT bad. So-called freedom was only freedom to exploit poor countries and the environment, while spreading a tyrannical system of unsustainable development on an ever wider scale (read, China, the Amazon, India, etc.).

Earth's environmental capital is said to be in excess of a trillion dollars, did we have to pay for it instead of get it for free. The people who are conserving this capital best are Earth's aborigines and other self-sufficient third world peoples (who don't use or over use fossil fuels or need IMF loans). While we can't and need not return to the aboriginal state ourselves, we can learn from these societies and renew our charter to foster their kind of self-sufficiency (obviating the need to fight wars over oil, or be everywhere at all times). What I'm talking about is radical change. Will we rise to the occasion? I certainly don't know. My job is to tell it like I see it, and let the chips fall where they may.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

MOVIES AND DREAMS

A (STRANGE) DREAM

Early this morning I dreamt that I, Kris (my recently deceased mother-in-law), and perhaps some family members whom I couldn't distinguish, were breaking into a joint to steal money. The door was locked, and Kirk Douglas stepped \in to prove that he wasn't too old to break a lock (something he used to do and still had the knack for). The door handle was one you swing down, like the doors between subway cars, and Kirk had to somehow calibrate the timing of his actions so that with a single, forceful downswoop the door opened. Thereafter, the only person I recall is Kris. For some reason, I had to xerox a form (which I didn't think was important) as part of the money acquisition, and I made two copies, one without the title paragraph on top, and one with it, But since the latter was crooked, with type too close to the edges, I gave Kris the other one. As she, however, wanted that title paragraph, I switched forms with her. More than that I can't remember.

NOTE: Kris was honest to a fault. Stealing money was the least likely thing she could ever do.

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, 1941

Director: George, Stevens; starring Humphrey Bogart, with supporting roles by Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and other fine performers.

Bogey is trying to escape a false murder rap. In the process, he gets entangled with a bunch of American Nazis and a girl who helps him at first. With delicious tough-guy dialog tinged with subtle undertones of rye humor, he foils the bad guys. In addition to that, however, are hilarious small roles by his hench men. One guy has his hat on backwards and walks around with an axe over his shoulder. He is a wildly humorous spectacle, and at times the movie feels like a Marx Brothers film.

The movie is beautiful, and had me reflecting on film’s relationship to art. There’s an implicit collaboration between the urban scene of New York, the art of Hopper, and movies like this. Cornices and string courses abound. So do street lights, sidewalks and stoops. Edward Hopper used these props to create fixed, monumental scenes. The movie scenes flash by like liquid. Hopper couldn’t do that. Neither could he as effectively capture the shimmer of reflecting water on the streets.

EASTER PARADE

I've never much liked Easter Parade (1948), with Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Peter Lawford, and Irvin Berlin's music), but I forced myself to watch a little snippet of it yesterday. As luck would have it, this snippet included two of the show's greatest numbers: Steppin' Out with My Baby and A Couple of Swells, which came close to each other.

I was hugely impressed by Steppin' Out, which I consider the best Fred Astaire movie dance routine of all. He's 49, and transitioning to the exclusively balletic phase of his later years. But here he still mixes in tap. Grace is wedded to crispness and precision. His varied partners for this number are unknowns, who, while very good, don't get in the way of Fred's spotlight. Yellow suit, red vest, white shoes...the guy is sharp! I was not that crazy about the slow motion sequence within that act, however.

But A Couple of Swells, with Fred and Judy as hobos, is absolute perfection. They're as unlikely as a couple of sparrows, which they resemble, to be invited to the Vanderbilts for tea, which they claim. But I was so struck by the performance, a vaudeville skit, that I applauded the end just as if I'd witnessed a live performance. I consider it the crowning achievement of cinematic musical comedy. As they "walk" UP the avenue, the flimsy looking Fifth avenue backdrop wobbles slightly, while a floor conveyer belt glides them forward, depending on the narrative..

I'm nostalgic for Fifth Avenue, where my mother once worked. But that's not all.

I enjoy it as pantomime, and I enjoy it as dance. The music, a work of comic genius, alternates between the querulous verses, and the counterpoint, declarative refrain, whose last lines vary to rhyme with those of verse just before it.

We would ride on a trolley car but we haven't got the fare (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue till we're there

We would ride on a bicycle, but we haven't got a bike (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
And to walk up the Avenue's what we like

We would swim up the Avenue but we haven't any lake (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, a walk up the Avenue's what we'll take

Maybe, though, this performance can't be analyzed, and just has to be enjoyed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkAJFk-U9wY&NR=1

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Innovation

Arianna Huffington calls for US innovation http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-imperative-need-for-a_b_519100.html which focuses on the areas of broadband access, green economy and immigration reform. She should have included a larger context to fit them into. For now, I will name that larger context The Global View.

THE GLOBAL VIEW

1) The planet is a seamless orb which does not respect geopolitical boundaries. Emissions generated in the developed world trap the sun's heat inside Earth's atmosphere and warms the entire planet. Dust storms at one end of the globe transmit dust clouds to the other. Ice melts at the poles and sea levels rise thousands of miles away.

2) The seamlessness of Earth's climate is now mirrored by a globalized economy and resulting global interrelationships and interdependencies.

3) Although being challenged from the East, the US is still far and away the dominant world power. It therefore has the responsibility to lead the process of governance that responds to the environmental and socioeconomic interconnectedness of the globe.

The US needs the same kind of make-over that, say, Haiti needs. For instance, we don't have a remotely adequate disaster planning in this country.

Haiti is a good metaphor for the state of the world, which is grossly overcrowded, badly planned, and ill-prepared for disaster. Nowhere is exempt, and even the countries that are better off cannot isolate themselves from disasters in others. The entire world needs an equitable makeover, with the more fortunate pitching in to help the have nots. (It works the other way too.) We need one big push to make over the world toward a minimally improved state of stability and wellbeing, and it needs to be done everywhere and all together.


LOW-END INNOVATION

Innovation doesn't only relate to technology and high-end business. Innovation can apply just as well to the poor and unskilled. Green jobs don't only refer to solar panels and windmills (important though they are). Green also means land uses that foster sustainable lifestyles.


A NETWORK OF TRAILS

One aspect of infrastructure consistent with rethinking America is a network of trails, recommended under the Reagan administration, that ties the country together and encourages pedestrian, bike and animal circulation. (It would be similar in scope to the intercontinental highway system, which was NOT green.) This would almost certainly require Mexican labor, but it would have so many ancillary aspects not strictly tied to labor as to be a bonanza for US jobs as well. The trails network could in part be paired with a network of diversionary canals to lessen the impact of flooding from major rivers throughout the nation. Trees could also be planted along these routes.

This program is consistent with a number off systemically related aspects and affects of governance: economic revitalization, recreation , tourism, animal welfare, national security, disaster planning, environmental improvements, abolishing the war on drugs, legalizing marijuana, reallocation of money from the war on drugs, increasing state coffers through taxes from legal marijuana sales, a Mexican guest-worker program, easing the illegal immigration crisis, etc.

Such a program would go a long way toward making over America, and would provide a good example of the kind of efforts needed everywhere else in the world.