All posts by Steve Stern

Well, this is embarassing

Americana

Pussy Riot in jail

On February 21, 2012, as part of a protest movement against the re-election of Vladimir Putin, five women from a female singing/performance group known as Pussy Riot, walked up on to the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. There they began to jump around, punching the air, and singing Holy Shit. On September 19th or 20th, about 30 members of Greenpeace tried to climb onto a Gazprom oil platform in the Arctic in  to protest. Both Pussy Riot and the Greenpeace group were arrested. Pussy Riot was tried and three of their members were jailed for seven years, the Greenpeace group is awaiting trial.

In 1997, Alice Johnson was convicted of drug conspiracy and money laundering along with 10 other people. The other 10 people turned state’s witness and got off.  She was a single mother who had never been charged with a crime before and was given a life sentence plus 25 years.

A black, first-time, nonviolent, drug offender, Michael Wilson, was sentenced to life without parole in 1994. Non violent. A life sentence for his first offence!

And the list goes on and on. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. We have 716 prisoners per 100,000 people. Russia has 484 per 100,000. Cuba is a nasty police state that we don’t even want to talk to, they have 510 incarcerated people per 100,000.

A couple of days ago, the Russian Duma voted – 446-0 – hummm? I wonder if Putin is going to sign it – to pass an amnesty bill that will drop their rate. It mainly concerns first-time offenders, minors and women with small children like Alice  Johnson and Michael Wilson. It also freed the Greenpeace protesters and two of the Pussy Rioters.

Meanwhile, Obama has pardoned fewer people than any other president in modern history, according to ProPublica. He has pardoned less than two dozen people. The year before last, Obama’s only pardon was the Thanksgiving turkey (Although he did pardon President Bush the year before that). Reagan, the Law and Order Guy, pardoned 406 people including New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for making illegal contributions to Nixon. Jimmy Carter pardoned 566 including some Vietnam war draft dodgers. Clinton pardoned 459 people including the only white defendant involved in the Michael Wilson case.

There are alot of things that Obama is doing that I find very troubling, our increasing use of drones, the high rate of whistle blower prosecution, and there are lots of things that I find admirable like talking to Iran, but Obama’s refusal to issue pardons is inexplicable and embarrassing.

 

 

I love these pictures

Current Affairs

Jang Song-thaek

I want to start by saying that I apologize for the picture being so small, a picture this good should be larger – the size of the screen in the Apple Superbowl Ad – but, I guess, North Korean cameras max out at about two mega-pixels. This is a picture of a Jang Song-thaek being dragged to his death, so maybe saying I love this picture, is unseemly, still…I love the identically dressed guys receding all the way back to the horizon, I love the North Korean military hats and the generals with all the ribbons, I love that nobody seems to be moving a muscle. It is like a scene from 1984 or the Apple Ad.

And the picture so fits the crimes, among other things Mr. Jang, who is a despicable human scum Jang and who was worse than a dog, engaged in  acts such as dreaming different dreams and half-heartedly clapping. He also  perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him. It does seem vaguely similar to three strikes and you’re out, only thrice-cursed acts of treachery and you are really out.

Nebraska with a little Winter’s Bone

Film

We saw Nebraska Saturday night. All the reviewers like it – love it – and it is on alot of Academy Awards short lists, so it is embarrassing to say that I didn’t particularly like it. Don’t get me wrong. it had its charms, It was endearing, as Michele, who liked it alot, said, I just didn’t particularly like it.

One reviewer said that It was pitch perfect and realistic, it seems you are there with these people, watching their lives unfold before you as it happens, and I think that was part of the problem for me. I felt like we were watching these people… not with empathy, but in a voyeuristic way. Everything was just so bleak, but bleak in a way that seemed – in the movie – so hopelessly unredeemable. I once dated a young woman who lived in a “view” apartment on Alta Street, on Telegraph Hill. If you went out on the balcony and stood on your tip-toes, you could just see the view down Alta to the Bay. I felt the same way about this movie, there was redemption and hope, but I had to stand on my tip-toes to see it.

I also felt like a voyeur while watching Winter’s Bone which, again, got rave reviews and for which Jennifer Lawrence got an Oscar (I know, they said it was Silver Linings Playbook, but it was really because they neglected to give her one for Winter’s Bone). Gail Cousins posted a short cartoon on facebook which purported to show the the Power of Empathy Versus Sympathy and Make You a Better Person. In Nebraska – and Winter’s Bone – I could never connect enough to get past sympathy (maybe compassion, but not all the way to empathy). In both movies, the people seemed more like characterchures than flesh and blood characters.

It didn’t help that Nebraska was shot in black and white like a Diane Arbus photograph. The movie is in black and white partially because it makes the place seem even worse; one of the characters says, Apart from drinking there is absolutely nothing to do here and it has never seemed more believable. It was also shot to look very cold. It is probably late fall and the movie opens with a roadside sign flashing 28º. The bleak cold and the black and white also say that This is an Art movie.

In many ways, Nebraska seems to be like David Lynch’s Straight Story with Richard Farnsworth playing the old man on a weird road trip – through Iowa and Wisconsin – rather than Bruce Dern, but Straight Story is about the old man and Nebraska is really about the son, played by Will Forte. Forte – who I have probably seen in twenty movies but don’t remember him from any particular one – is excellent. All the actors are excellent – Mary Louise Wilson Stacy Keach, Bob Odenkirk – and are actors that have been around for years, playing background roles. In a former time, they were called character actors as opposed to leading role actors; they are people who have been – unnoticed – in dozens of movies and they shine here.

Director, producer and screenwriter Alexander Payne was born in Omaha, Nebraska and I can’t help but think that Nebraska is a somewhat snarky comment on the state and its natives. On the other hand Miss Nebraska Teen USA 2013, Jasmine Fuelberth, who was invited to the premiere in Norfolk was thrilled, saying I feel so blessed to have attended the Nebraska movie premiere last night! It was a wonderful night filled with amazing and talented people as well as great memories made! 🙂 God is so good, and I will forever be thankful for this opportunity! 

There will always be an England department

Uncategorized

Swan upping   According to the guardian , The Queen of England owns all the UK’s mute swans. The way that is written, I am not sure if she just owns the swans that are mute or if the swans are mute and she owns them all. If this worries you, it might help to know that she only exercises her right of possession around Windsor.

Still, the swans have to be kept track of – counted and weighed – and somebody has to do it. That job falls to the Royal Warden of the Swans, biologist Christopher Perrins, and the Marker of the Swans, David Barber. The counting is called Swan Upping, and As they row past Windsor Castle, the swan uppers salute “Her Majesty the Queen, Seigneur of the Swans” in a time-honoured ceremony.

It is nice to know that the Old Ways still live.