All posts by Steve Stern

12 Years a Slave

Current Affairs, Film

Plantation-2

We saw 12 Years a Slave the other night, finally. I have been avoiding it for a month and a half. I am not so sure that I actually did see it, I know I was in the theater but I may have been too guarded to really let all the movie in. I probably would be useful to see it again. Nevertheless, what did come across was the utter helplessness and almost utter hopelessness of Solomon Northup – stunningly played by Chiwetel Ejiofor – once he was shipped south; the utter helplessness and hopelessness of being a slave in 1841, in the United States. Moreover, the word slave doesn’t approach the horror of the reality; to be owned by another human being, as Frederick Douglas said, for twelve years a thing…classed with mules and horses.

The movie makes it clear that the South – and, in many ways, most of the United States – was a slave society. It wasn’t just that a couple of people owned slaves and, if the slave could escape them, they would be free; everything revolved around slavery (Northup’s father was owned by a white man in Rhode Island). The Constitution was written to protect slavery. As James McPherson points out During forty-nine of the seventy-two years from 1789 to 1861, the presidents of the United States were Southerners–all of them slaveholders. The only presidents to be reelected were slaveholders. Two-thirds of the Speakers of the House, chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee, and presidents pro tem of the Senate were Southerners. At all times before 1861, a majority of Supreme Court justices were Southerners.

As I thought about the movie the next day, several things bothered me and I began to wonder if the book was real. I have since read that they were not in the book but added to the movie for reasons I don’t understand, taking them out does make the book believable. Frederick Douglas believed it, as did Harriet Beecher Stowe, so who am I to doubt?

What also comes across in the movie is that the slave system was a means of social organization and control that extended way past the plantation. And the plantations! In our national mythology, they are peopled by Thomas Jeffersons and Vivien Leighs along with some happy dark people. In 12 Years a Slave, the closest we get to Jefferson is Mr. Ford – played by Benedict Cumberbatch – and, actually, he is pretty close. Like Jefferson, Ford spouts pieties while worrying how much his slaves are costing him or making for him. For Vivien Leigh we get Mistress Ford who confronts the problem of a Eliza, a black woman, having her children stolen from her, with, Some food and some rest, your children will soon be forgotten. When the Eliza doesn’t stop crying after a couple of days, the problem is solved by selling her.

Think about that for a second, these are human beings who are bought and sold. Ford bought Eliza without her kids because he couldn’t afford the whole package, so, What the hell, just buy the mother. He payed a $1,000 for Solomon – who even has his name taken away – and when Solomon becomes a problem, he is sold because Ford doesn’t want to incur the loss.

Nevertheless, the women are both the biggest heavys – and the biggest victims – in 12 Years a Slave. At first look, it seems like the brutal and insane slave breaker, Mr. Epps, is the worst human being in the movie – a movie filled with despicable human beings – but he is nowhere near as bad as his wife. Her cruelty out of jealousy because her husband is serial rapeing Patsy seems to have no gain except satisfaction in seeing somebody suffer.

Even before I saw this movie, even before I saw Django Unchained, I started having the feeling that a good part of America is ready to face our racist Past and, by extrapolation, our racist present. Not all of it, not everybody, not even everybody I know. I don’t think that makes us post racial as a country. I do think that makes us increasingly able to talk about race and talk about it more objectively.

Obama is part of it, no doubt, but so is the fact that  this NFL season started with nine African-American quarterbacks (in the 80’s or 90’s they would have been diverted to play receiver or cornerback). Lewis Hamilton and Oprah are part of it, but so is Django and Morpheus. Each time we see people of color exell, it moves the public expectation just a little bit. Much of the right expected Obama to lose to Romney because of their expectations – Romney is white and smart and successful and all Obama ever did was go up against an old man – they also thought Congress could outplay him. I think that those are mistakes that are less likely to be made in the future.

One hundred fifty years after the Civil War, forty five years after Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood proudly on the winner’s platform in Mexico City, it is about time.

Car porn

Cars, Film

McLaren P1

In Germany, somewhere in the Eifel Mountains, in a dense forest, is the hardest – to drive – race track ever built, the Nordschleife. When it was used as a Formula 1 track, Jackie Stewart called it The green hell. It is 16+ miles long and has 179 turns, many of them blind. It was the place where Nicky Lauda crashed in 1976 and the FIA quit using it as a racetrack the same year. But it is still there and open to the public so somebody can pay about $40 to drive a lap. Somebody who knows what they are doing, with a very good car, can drive it in around eight to nine minutes. The golden grail for a street-legal car is under seven minutes and only two, street legal production – using the term very loosely –  cars have done that.

One of them is the McLaren P1 – shown above – and they are so proud of it that they made a video to brag. It is 3 minutes and 54 seconds long and is done in, the ever popular, NFL style of deep voice over and classical music. It is pornography, pure and simple, and it is pretty good. If you have eight minutes to kill, you might want to watch it. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/icy-cool-mclaren-goes-right-breaking-records-sub-seven-minute-lap-nurburgring/ But if you only have five minutes to kill, save it for Climb Dance.

By all accounts. the McLaren is a superb car, what people are now calling Supercars. But, between 1982 and 1986, there were a group of Rally cars that were really Supercars. They were called the Super B’s because they were in FIA Group B.  Group B were rally cars designed to run on anything from dirt roads to highways, they had few restrictions on technology or design, but the company had to build atleast 200 similar cars. That meant that the company would be a manufacturer of regular cars and that meant the Super B’s were built to look like regular cars.

One of the simplest and cheapest was the 1984 Renault R5 Turbo2 and I was lucky enough to own one. It looked like a Renault Le Car, on heavy anabolic steroids, with the engine mounted where the La Car had a back seat. It had big, gumball tires, and a turbocharged 1300cc, 180HP engine. It was very fast, faster to 100mph than a Lamborgini of the day. On a crummy back road, it was unbeatable and I think it was the most fun car I have ever owned. It was also whimsical; I had a turbocharged Audi sedan at the same time and the Audi had a boost gauge that was measured in pounds per square inch – psi –  the R5’s was just a round dial with an asterix at 3 o’clock.

1984_Renault_R5_Turbo_2

But the gold standard of the Super B’s was the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 E2. Its successor was the Peugeot 405 T16 and Peugeot took it hill climbing at 14,114 foot high Pikes Peak where it broke the record. Like McLaren, they also made a porno (without the classical music or deep voice). The McLaren is newer than the Peugeot and probably better in every way but the porno Peugeot made is way better than the movie McLaren made. It is called Climb Dance and it won several awards. The driver, Ari Vatanen, is one of the greatest rally drivers of all time and he is on the ragged edge the whole time. It you like driving, if you like cars, if you just like movies, give this a look.

The Grand Canyon on November 29, 2013

Photography, Travel, Uncategorized

Grand Caanyon clouds

Michele told me that the Grand Canyon was her favorite place, over a Scotch at the old Stars, the night we first met. I guess we had technically met weeks before, but this was the first social conversation we had. I don’t remember if it was before or after I told her I was would be going down the Colorado in a couple of months. It was my second trip into the Canyon and, it turned out, it was her third trip. For both of us, it was our first time down the bottom half.

I thought I had seen the Canyon in all her moods,

Grand Canyon-0080

Grand Canyon-

Grand Canyon-0062

Grand Canyon-0078but I have never seen it like it was on November 29th (click through for more pictures). It must have been spectacular, but only if you had been there before and knew the clouds were 7,000 above the river. When I showed it to Michele, all she said was Wow!

Nelson Mandela is dead, the world is a poorer place

Uncategorized

Castro and Mandela

 

I cannot think of another individual of my lifetime who was as great an human being as Nelson Mandela. He was imprisoned for 27 years, the first eighteen in a cell without a bed or a toilet, and he came out speaking for peace. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.1

It is easy to think that Mandela was on our side, but I don’t think he was, we – eventually -were on his side. The world didn’t change him, he changed the world and the world is better for it.

1. From a speech he gave when he got out of prison, the same quote is also from a speech he made at his trial.

Catching Fire, Catwoman, Elysium, and Unionizing Wallmart

Americana, Film, Politics

catching-fire-capitol-couture Laura Atkins, Michele and I saw Hunger Games: Catching Fire over the weekend. It was very good, just as the reviewers said it would be. I didn’t expect much from the first Hunger Games movie and was shocked when it turned out to be so engrossing. With better reviews, I expected the second movie to be good – and it was – but it didn’t carry the surprise of the first movie. It was good but I wasn’t knocked out. Part of the problem is that I had seen Gravity in between the two Hunger Games movies and part of the problem is that it is hard to have a great second movie of a trilogy, just look at The Empire Strikes Back (OK, that was probably overkill and The Dark Knight was probably the best of Nolan’s trilogy).

However, Jennifer Lawrence is great, even if it is in a sort of Ree – from Winter’s Bone – way and carries the movie. In both her scene with President Snow, and when she finds out that she will have to go back into the area, she projects fear and utter hopelessness better than anybody I can remember. Now, after watching her on The Daily Show, I am looking forward to see her do a comedy.

Another part of my problem with Catching Fire is that the basic premise of the reaping and the Hunger Games really doesn’t make sense as anything but, as David Denby says, a fever-dream allegory of the adolescent social experience. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to cast the movie in the same mold as 1984 and Brave New World. Those books were meant as cautionary tales on where the world was headed. I keep wanting to see this movie as a comment on the country’s direction towards decreasing equality and I kept getting hung-up on Why did President Snow do that, it will just piss people off and make them even more likely to revolt. But maybe that is just the movie being unperceptive, Walmart doesn’t seem to understand that what it is doing is just pissing people off and making them more likely to strike.

Even so, while I am willing to admit the inequality is not what Catching Fire the movie is about, the inequality in Panem does set the tone for the movie. The movie takes the point of view that the future will be bringing less, not more, equality. So does  The Dark Knight Rises. It is all about the disparity between the rich and poor in Gotham City. It is pretty explicit when  Commissioner Gordon references A Tale of Two Cities in Bruce Wayne’s eulogy with It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known…Selina Kyle is even more explicit when she says There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us. 

And Elysium drops any nuance. Earth is a giant slum and the 1% live in orbit (with universal, instant, healthcare, seemingly, the same healthcare that the rich have in Panem). All three movies paint a bleak future. I think that they are really projecting the bleak present onto the future because most people do not realize the reality of the present. inequality-page25_actualdistribwithlegend-1Back in the late 50’s when the country was much more equitable than now, my first real job was a summer job as a Union Laborer working on – what we then called – Bayshore Freeway. It was easy to become a laborer and get into the Laborer’s Union. It was considered an undesirable job because it was a hard and dirty job but it was a Union job and a big percentage of my fellow workers were supporting themselves and a family because it paid pretty well. Even so, it was looked down upon by my friends who had more prestigious summer jobs inside. I always thought that was a little strange because I was making more money than they were.

After the Army and after I graduated from college, I went back to work in the construction business. Because the Laborers were making high, Union, wages, everybody up the foodchain was making, correspondingly, high wages. Occasionally I would talk to friends who worked for banks and had much more impressive jobs than I did. I was a basically a field guy and spent much of my time with guys who worked with their tools, in the dirt, while my banker friends worked in an office and  wore nice suits. I was always surprised at how little they were paid, I was always surprised that they got their suits at JCPenney.

I remember dating an executive who worked for I. Magnin – she was a big deal and had been hired away from Neiman Marcus – and I was shocked that she couldn’t afford a car. A couple of times, I joked that they should start a Union and they laughed, telling me that they were above that, Unions were for the masses, they were Bankers or Management.

Now the Unions are being driven out of the private sector workplace. Wherever possible, Union workers are being replaced by nonunion people and there are lots of ways to do it. When Standard Oil moved their data processing from San Francisco to the suburbs in the San Ramon Valley, I was working for Shapell in the area. I wondered, out loud to everybody I knew, why they would do that. A leasing agent for Bishop Ranch explained it to me, In San Francisco, the data processing is done by, largely, minority workers who are Unionized. In San Ramon, the work is done by wives of low level executives. They are all Republicans and don’t want to be in Unions so Standard Oil can pay them less. According to the New Yorker, In 2005, Alaska Airlines fired nearly five hundred union baggage handlers in Seattle and replaced them with contractors. The old workers earned about thirteen dollars an hour; the new ones made around nine.

Unions are being driven out of the construction industry partially because Mexicans are getting their jobs. Unions are being driven out of the car manufacturing industry as manufacturers move south to non-Union states or overseas. Unions are being driven out of everything.

Because of that, everybody, except the very few, is making less money.

For awhile that was hidden because, as manufacturing went non-Union, or moved to China, stuff got cheaper. So a guy wanting a Skillsaw paid less for it than he would have twenty years ago. But now, so many people are paid so little that, as the New York Times reported, Walmart and Target both trimmed their yearly forecasts recently, citing economic factors like slow wage growth. That is another way of saying , workers aren’t getting paid enough to even buy the cheap stuff they sell at Walmart and Target. Too many Americans now work low-paying jobs like working at Walmart. The workers can no longer afford to buy enough to stimulate the economy. People can not live on the $7.75 an hour minimum wage, they can not support a family on the $8.00 an hour Walmart pays.