It’s a Wonderful Life

No, this isn’t a post on movies (although I actually prefer that subject matter).  The point I’d like to make is that all the inspirational goodness of Jimmy Steward’s character, and even the goodness of Savings and Loan institutions at that time, as presented in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, is gone forever and will never come back.  The movie and its storyline are simply history, a glimpse of what actually may have been the good ol’ days, at least through the eyes of film maker Frank Capra.

Savings and Loan Companies began as an alternative to what had been insurance companies lending money for home purchases.  In most cases these companies wrote a short-term mortgage with a balloon payment when the term ran out.  In some cases they collected interest only, which kept the borrower in continuous debt. Such mortgages usually ended in foreclosure.  S and Ls, on the other hand, were generally mutually owned by both depositors and borrowers who all had a voice in how the business was run.

 S and L’s, or thrifts as they are sometimes called, were originally community based lending institutions, serving, for the most part, local home buyers, and were highly regulated under law.  They were stable, respected, trusted, and did more for home-ownership than any other commercial business.  They were profit-making, of course, but regulatory controls did not leave them room for mindless greed at the expense of their depositors and their borrowers.  In fact they were inclined to work with those borrowers, actually helping them through hard times (my parents have told me of their own experience with a thrift that had done business with my mother’s family through a couple of generations).  The controls on interest made them anything but a “money market” investment, thus eliminating any temptations for greed.

That, of course, is now history.  How we got from there to here is the real story.  As for history, I’ll try to sum up an applicable part of it (with a little help from Questia, Wikipedia and few other research sources):

In 1929 there was a major depression.  There was a run on banks, meaning people trying to withdraw their money.  Because it was lent out or otherwise invested, frequently where it should not have been invested, not in the vault, banks could not meet the demand.  They were wiped out.  And the stock market crashed…briefly speaking.

In 1933 the Glass Steagall Act was passed by Congress in an attempt to further avoid what had happened in 1929.  It essentially barred commercial banks from making securities-side investments, or any investments—or affiliations—that commercial banks should not be involved in.  The Glass Steagall Act also put into practice what was called Regulation Q.  Regulation Q limited the amount of interest banks could pay, including most specifically not allowing interest to be paid on checking accounts.  Given the Act was a response to the Great Depression, it is reasonable to assume these measures were intended to prevent another such disastrous financial event by regulating what had led to abuses.

In 1956 the Bank Holding Company Act barred banks from interstate acquisition and expansion, depending upon state laws.  In other words, banks only operated in their home state and could not gobble up other banks all over the country and thus become one big nation-wide bank with too much power and control (some of that was commentary).

In1980 the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act was the beginning of getting rid of the Glass Steagall Act.  One of its first moves was to allow what were called Negotiable Order of Withdrawal accounts (NOW accounts), which allowed banks to create an interest-bearing savings account against which checks could be drawn, thus defeating Regulation Q mentioned above.  It was the beginning of the end of deposit-interest controls, which would eventually affect S and Ls as well.

A couple of years later in 1982 the Garn-St Germain Act created "money market deposit accounts."  For the most part it simply deregulated the Savings and Loan industry.  Garn was a Republican and St Germain a Democrat; it was passed during the Reagan administration, and as a Senator from Arizona, following in Goldwater’s footsteps, McCain voted for that particular deregulation.  It was a bi-partisan doing, however.  Also that year federal regulations allowed banking across state lines. (I remember at the time a friend thought it was great he could access his bank in other states.  I mentioned there was a good reason why that was not allowed before, and soon enough he’d see why.  One problem, as I see it, is that these deregulations seemed like an improvement or convenience for most people.)  What came next was a vivid example of deregulation.

On August 10, 1987, Ronald Reagan stated, “I am today signing H.R. 27, the Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987, which recapitalizes the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) and makes a number of other changes in the Federal regulation of banking. From the outset, our guiding principle in working with the Congress on this bill has been to avoid a taxpayer bailout…for an industry that has the wherewithal to help itself. The Congress is clearly on notice that industry resources are to be relied upon to finance the FSLIC operations, now and in the future.”  The FSLIC is to S and Ls what the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is to bank deposits, insuring accounts up to $100,000.

In the mid-eighties deregulation seemed to move quickly, doing away with all the safeguards put in place after the Great Depression of 1929.  Major banks are allowed to own discount brokerage subsidies and establish holding companies; there is an end of deposit-interest-rate controls; companies like Sears charter non-bank banks; regional interstate compacts are upheld by the Supreme Court which later also okays discount brokerage subsidies of national banks. Between FDR’s term and Reagan’s term there were only 262 bank failures—that from 1945 to 1981.  Between 1983 and 1987, because of deregulation, there were 481 bank failures.  From 1986 to 1995, savings and loans went from 3,234 in number to 1,645 in the United States.

In 1989 the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act was signed into law.  Conceived as a cure for the S and L crisis, it precipitated the demise of S and Ls as they once existed.

1. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) were abolished.
2. The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), a bureau of the Treasury Department, was created to charter, regulate, examine, and supervise savings institutions.
3. The Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) was created as an independent agency to oversee the 12 federal home loan banks (also called district banks).
4. The Savings Association Insurance Fund (SAIF) replaced the FSLIC as an ongoing insurance fund for thrift institutions (like the FDIC, the FSLIC was a permanent corporation that insured savings and loan accounts up to $100,000). SAIF is administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
5. The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was established to dispose of failed thrift institutions taken over by regulators after January 1, 1989. The RTC will make insured deposits at those institutions available to their customers.
6. FIRREA gives both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae additional responsibility to support mortgages for low- and moderate-income families.

The Control of History

George Orwell, although mostly known for his fiction, was one of the most prolific of English-speaking reporters of and commentator on history in the making.  And he did live in "interesting times."  So many of his personal observations and personal experiences of his times have been so well documented, voluminously, that he cannot be ignored in any discussion of history and who controls history.  He was not a prophet, but he was incredibly aware of where the present was leading that it is almost mystic…but it is not.  It is the product of pure cognitive prediction based on awareness of his present world…and, I'm sure, his own knowledge of history, a quality sorely lacking nowadays.

Every once in a while you hear someone say, "Well, 1984 is long past, and it didn't happen.  Don't worry about it."  That is usually in response to an Orwell quotation (or just the term "Big Brother"), and is offered as a rather mindless attempt at saying, "You're talking about a prediction that didn't come to pass…kind of like some present-day prophet, with a cult following, who predicts the end of the world on such and such a date that didn't happen."  First of all (other than a literal-minded person dealing with a complex dramatization), the speaker implies that the person quoting Orwell is some sort of "cultist," one of those many words with a vague, if not totally undefined meaning, and used in the most derogatory manner in what has become the blossom of what he saw as a budding corruption of language, written in 1946, today referred to as "post Modern" speech.  (Although he'd probably call it "Postmodernspeak.")  Anyone making such an assertion has no understanding of what Orwell was warning us about.  It was, first of all, a fictional story of a negative Utopia, a world under control, but under control by all the wrong devices for all the wrong reasons.  Nineteen Eighty-four was, more than any prediction, a warning about the importance and indispensable need for true and accurate history.  Its main focus was not prediction; it was history.

One line from the novel sums it all up best:  "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."  In Orwell's novel 1984 that particular control was the purview of the Ministry of Truth.  Today it is more like Fox News, CNN or the President's Press Secretary.

Not that long ago, back during the Bush administration, Ari Fleischer told the entire Washington Press Corp, in reference to comments by comedian and satirical commentator Bill Maher, "There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."  It met with so much public outrage with all its free-speech implications, that the statement itself has been removed from the official record?  Although it can still be found online (which may be our salvation as long as we protect it from censorship), that means, officially, he never said it.  That is how history went down right in front of our eyes; we saw history purged by the powers-that-be.

That’s just an example.  The real object of this article is the much-overlooked significance behind "Executive Order 13233."  It really is not a big item with the general public, and I'm sure the government, with its increased tendency toward secrecy, hopes it stays that way.  But I'm going to point it out anyway, because it is exactly what Orwell meant when he said, "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

To quote Wikipedia, “The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 . . . changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents must manage their records.” What was its purpose?  To keep the American public informed of its own history.  It was a reasonable law, giving full protection to national security, but was essentially nothing more than legislation to safeguard our right and the right of future generations to know our own history.

The follow is from the American Library Association web site, in association with the The Freedom to Read Foundation:

"Ongoing List of Historical Works That Would Have Been Affected by Executive Order 13233

"A new executive order issued by President George W. Bush restricts access to the records of former presidents. The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association (ALA) and The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) urge librarians to alert their patrons and the public about this effort to close the public record.

"Librarians should do this by creating an exhibit of significant historical works that would not have been published or written had the order been in effect, and by providing their patrons with a list of these works."

The list of works is a link to about fifty books, some best sellers, on the lives and times of American Presidents.  It is an impressive list of valuable information, no threat to national security, but would not be allowed under George W. Bush's Executive Order Number 13233, which, in itself, is an assault on and overriding of a law passed by Congress. 

Simply put…he should have had no right.  It is a violation of the balance of powers.  If the Executive Branch can ignore the Legislative Branch or Judicial Branch, we will have a dictatorship.  Simply put, he had slammed the lid of secrecy shut on the American's public's right to know its own history.

On January 21, 2009 Barack Obama revoked President Bush’s executive Order 13233. That is temporary reassurance, but is no guarantee it will last through future presidencies. We know these executive orders can be both created and revoked by presidents, which is putting too much power and trust in a single branch of the government—in my opinion.

It is also interesting to note this quote from Wikipedia: “Since its passage, presidents have used various methods to avoid complying with the Act [The Presidential Records Act], including holding meetings away from the White House and ’using non-government email accounts with lobbyists.’"^[

Why?

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."   From George Orwell's novel 1984, written in 1948.

Significant links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Records_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12667

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13233

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13489

On the Movies

The following is a rambling introduction to what I intend to be a series of commentaries on movies, not critiques or reviews in the usual sense, just my impression of movies in general as I simply recall various movies and what they meant to me.  Movies are, of course, first and foremost, entertainment, but sometimes there's a lot more to them…if you look for it.  I just like to talk about movies.  Mostly I sometimes read a lot into the "message"(a concept, which, in the business, is apt to get denied existence) or just how it all relates to reality, something most people blow off without much thought.  If your first impression is "Who cares?" that's fine with me.  Forget about it.  Read something else.

I'd probably never make a very good movie critic because, first of all, I evaluate a movie on the grounds on which it is billed.  For instance, if you go to see a Ken Russell film or a John Carpenter film, you should expect to see a Ken Russell or John Carpenter film and not compare either's work to any other director or how Carpenter handled the whole vampire thing as it relates to the original Bram Stoker novel of Dracula or any other vampire treatment.  If you go see a low-budget teenage slasher film, don't hold it up to Silence of the Lambs, asking why that teenage girl wasn't as cool as Jodi Foster, or why, unlike Jodi Foster, she had to flash her boobs, then complain that is was just another low-budget teenage slasher film.  What the hell did you expect?  If it's rated "R for nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, and for some graphic language and violence," guess what you'll get.  If it's rated NC-17, which replaced an X rating in 1990, it means it may be a serious movie but with explicit sex, but not to be confused with a triple X.  The "XXX" is not a Movie Board Association of America rating--or "certificate"--but is, in fact, adult entertainment industry advertising, meaning it promises to be wall-to-wall hardcore porn, hopefully without a plot or any attempt at acting, which is why the MBAA dropped the official X rating.

Likewise, if you go to a movie from the "factory" of Roger Corman named Sex Starved Virgins from Outer Space (or whatever…I made that up…I think), with a "nudity/adult content" warning, don't complain about gratuitous nudity and sex with scenes from another planet taking place in Bronson Park, just up the hill from Hollywood.  Why else would you watch it…assuming a real movie critic would have some knowledge of Corman to start with? But, to finish my opening thought, I do enjoy Roger Corman (who's a producer, not a director), sometimes, but I have no illusions about what I will see relative to the title.  In other words, I wouldn't watch it if I weren't in the mood for sex-starved virgins from Bronson Park giving their all to gratuitous soft-core sex and nudity.  I might even see someone I know, like my doctor's receptionist (which has actually happened in days gone by, and whose office had been just down the hill from Bronson Park, before he retired).  Or, at least, might recognize the name of an old friend or associate in the technical credits.

In addition to Russell and Carpenter, there's Woody Allen.  That is to say there are some filmmakers who are simply in a class of their own.  Even some critics (the more intelligent) realize that.  They won't compare Woody Allen, for instance, to anyone but Woody Allen.  But even that too, I think is going too far.  Woody Allen and a few rare others not only aren’t competing with someone else--they aren't even competing with themselves.  I doubt Allen says, "Damn, now I have to do a movie that's better than my last one."  More likely, if not obviously, he's doing whatever moves him at the time.  I have my own preferences, even when it comes to Woody Allen, but I cannot say I was disappointed, for whatever reason, because anyone who sees his movies should know whatever he did was just a product of his mood at the time, not an attempt to win another Oscar, which he graciously accepts…even if they have to FedEx them to him.  It's his own line in his own movie, delivered by himself, where he expresses annoyance with those fans who say, "I liked his earlier, funnier films," or words to that effect.  That's from Stardust Memories, a story about a movie maker much like himself.  It's on my personal list of favorites, probably because it says a lot about the business of film making, such as his ending being replaced with someone's rewrite of life after death, or what they called "Jazz Heaven" (used hereafter as synonymous with makeshift Hollywood happy endings) at the end being so incredibly true of what happens to a director's cut (and writers, except in committee, don't count at all) after "test audiences" in the Midwest…or even in LA's own Valley where you can't tell one street corner or one apartment building from another, and all white people look alike.

The director's cut of Blade Runner, (starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young, also supplying love interest) even though it is longer, also drops the "Jazz Heaven" type ending you'll see in the theatrical release.  It totally drops the happily-ever-after implication of their flight out over a glorious wilderness, which makes you wonder why they weren't there in the first place.  Of course the happily-ever-after is limited to the given lifespan of the replicant, a lady android, programmed to live about four years (but she's young for an android, although manufactured as a consenting adult as a human), which is cool because that's probably the optimum before they'd get divorced anyway if they were both real people.  The director's cut, however, leaves it hanging, the only reassurance of a possible happily-ever-after based on a clue some audiences might miss (there are no details without significances in a good script), in the form of a little paper figure, an origami, made by a cop and watcher, played by Edward James Olmos. He keeps an eye on the blade runner, making sure he does his job as ordered, and is presumably the only one who knows he didn't kill the one remaining replicant because he fell in love with her (not to be confused with Dennis Hopper in River's Edge where he says to his blow-up doll, "Look, I'm not psycho. I know she's a doll. Right, Elly?"). But, probably being a romantic at heart, he remains silent, which is pretty much his nature anyway, thus allowing them about four years of bliss if the relationship actually lasts that long and if the blade runner can learn to hunt cottontails and quail instead of replicants.  But, the point is, unlike the theatrical release, you have to figure that out, then hope they make it out of town to that glorious wilderness, which is otherwise only mentioned in passing, and doesn't even say "glorious."  At any rate, the theatrical release of Blade Runner is a great example of what I mean by the "Jazz Heaven" ending as opposed to what the director had in mind.

Blade Runner also stars Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah (who seems to have a knack for playing enhanced human types--mermaids, giantesses, etc.), which is another love interest of sorts, although they are both androids so they don't make a big thing out of it.  They also give the movie a real touch of class.  Rutger Hauer, I have to admit, is extraordinary (as usual), supplying what is the poetry in dialogue.  I say "in dialogue" because there is poetry in virtually ever aspect of all production values, including Olmos' acting, which is always poetic, even when he doesn't have a lot to say.  That's the sort of thing that tends to get cut--the poetry--or at least abridged, from otherwise terrific directors' cuts…before they get tested in the Midwest or the Valley, or, for what are strictly commercial reasons, meaning it is going to play to the lowest possible common denominator, thus selling the most tickets.  But mostly it is basic censorship, as in the pre-rated, director's cut of In the Cut. 

Regarding that movie--In the Cut--you'd be surprised what can happen in twenty seconds before it gets to the MBAA ratings board…not to mention Meg Ryan totally naked and totally uninhibited, and having a good time in slut-type fashion, which is a lot of film, not a matter of seconds.  So, I presume, Meg Ryan totally naked for extended periods of time, minus a twenty second very explicit blowjob (which Meg Ryan only witnesses), is the only difference between an R rating and an NC-17, meaning the difference between the theatrical release, as opposed to the director's cut, or before it is rated (actually "certified," so not to be confused with critic "ratings"). I guess the lost twenty-second blowjob was probably worth the sacrifice for an R rating…even though all the people who would have objected to an explicit blowjob are apt to object just as much to Meg Ryan being a totally naked slut anyway.  Actually, more explicit than anything, is the dialogue itself…which I think is great and ought to get used more as erotica in movie making. 

Personally, I still see no reason to not accept an NC-17 rating when those who would be offended by a total of fifty extra seconds cut for an R rating are going to be offended anyway.  It might be surprising to some people, though, just where censorship might come from.  As the late George Carlin once pointed out (in reference to TV and radio, at least, expressing his contempt for the FCC, which was his patriotic duty), we're talking about selling a product.  It isn't the audience they are afraid of offending; it's the sponsors.  Along that way of viewing it, when I edited "underground" newspapers in the early seventies, it was not unusual for distributors (these are guys who stuff news racks) to try to control content.  I have no doubt that movie distributors do have concerns about how a movie will play in the Midwest…or the Valley, for that matter.  Sometimes it's the country itself, frequently based on prevailing religions or politics--like Canadian censorship seems to think it is liberal because it gives great consideration to the "feminist critique," a postmodern term, which in practice, as regards naked ladies, is actually rather Victorian, if not Medieval. 

For the record, the running time of In the Cut in the USA 119 minutes.  In France, it is 120.  In Canada, which is really going prudish in its liberal sort of way, it runs 113 minutes.  The DVD version in the US is the uncut, uncensored, unrated director's version (and some people wonder why some DVD sales outdo theatrical releases, or, in growing numbers, bypass the theatre altogether and go directly to DVD).

The movie is based on a novel, written by a woman, Susanna Moore.  It's actually a pretty good plot, but, having read other commentaries, disputably good.  Not having read the book, I can only assume it was strong on characterization.  Plots, in and of themselves, as one well-established scholar of drama insists, number thirty-six in all.  Therefore plots are a dime a dozen with altogether about thirty cents worth.  Characters, in and of themselves, are really what it's all about.  The whole study of drama, even movie making, is based on Poetics by Aristotle, placing plot first, then characterization, then spectacle and the chorus.  (Aristotle also insisted, being an expert on all things, that men had more teeth than women, even though he never counted them.)  The chorus, incidentally, is still there; take Woody Allen, for instance: it can be a touch of Schubert in Crimes and Misdemeanors, or the whole Greek thing, as in Mighty Aphrodite; but we have never abandoned the chorus, even handing out Oscars for best song and best theme music, not to mention that long list of songs in the closing credits.  (I once heard someone say, “Whatever happened to Randy Newman?” I had to ask, “Don’t you ever go to the movies?”)  I would personally put characterization first, even before plot.  Movies, at least nowadays, tend to put spectacle first…as in car chases and things blowing up.  Of course, one might argue, Meg Ryan running around naked is also spectacle.  But I still say it is all about the characters…which it took a lot of balls (in this case, gender not specific) to create and portray.  

Granted, without Meg Ryan running around naked and being more than the woman she usually portrays, she herself has said, not really the dumb ingénue, it would be pretty much just another murder mystery with a pretty good storyline, but not with the dramatic intensity the director, Jane Campion, has given it.  (Campion, by the way, got two nominations for The Piano, one for directing and one for best original screen play, that latter winning an Oscar.  Of the eight nominations awarded that movie, seven of them went to women…another movie it took a lot of balls to do--again, gender not specific.)  What most of these non-professional critics (like myself) don't take into consideration is that it is more about character than plot (unlike myself).  I tend to do that with my writing too, so, even though I'm not a professional critic, I am a produced playwright, and do feel entitled to support that aspect of it as strictly drama, playing to the darker side of human nature, which, necessarily, is more about character than plot.  Even the good guys would be scum by most people's standards--most people being those same people who make up test audiences for the theatrical releases, viewed first in the Midwest and the Valley.  What's more, they'd be the same scum in any story line. Of course, the protagonists of Greek playwrights, Shakespeare, not to mention opera, are frequently not exactly really nice people.  Oedipus, for instance, killed his father and slept with his mother, which by contemporary family values is generally frowned upon…although he did feel guilty about it afterwards, which, along with finding Jesus, is apt to get the worst of them a parole at least.

The Piano, incidentally, would have made a powerful tragedy…but American audiences do not accept tragedy, which has, what I consider, a terribly tragic irony to it.  Specifically, she could have drowned with the piano, and it could have ended there; but, we all know for certain, it would not have made it past those test audiences in the Midwest or the Valley.  I get my understanding of tragedy, at least in part, from George Orwell, an essay written in 1947 and published posthumously in 1951.  It is Orwell's critique of Tolstoy's critique of Shakespeare's King Lear, entitled Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool.  Made brief, it reads as such: "It is doubtful whether the sense of tragedy is compatible with belief in God: at any rate, it is not compatible with disbelief in human dignity and with the kind of 'moral demand' which feels cheated when virtue fails to triumph. A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him."  I printed it out and stuck the quote up on the wall beside my computer, just below a jpeg printout of a shot in glorious color of a ten-point-four megaton surface blast in the Pacific. 

Therein lies the irony of our all-American distaste for tragedy.  We pay for tragedy daily with our tax dollars and have for decades, maybe a couple of centuries; we vote for it; we're proud of it; we could, and we know it, maybe abstractly but not too literally, triumph over the whole of human virtue (quoting Orwell) in about twenty minutes with the push of a button using forces far less noble than the whole of humankind it would destroy…but God forbid Hollywood give us a tragic ending.  It simply wouldn't play in the Midwest or the Valley, and that means a failed box office, perhaps the greater tragedy, all things considered, where the dramatically and cinematically melancholy wrapped-up-finale of life as human on planet earth must give way to Jazz Heaven, not to preserve the demands of art, but to preserve the bottom line, still billing itself as art.  But, having said that (forgetting, along with everyone else the greater picture, the lost reality of a very real manmade multitrillion dollar doomsday machine, created and in place, the trigger (probably a keyboard code and handprint scan) in an attaché case, affectionately termed "The Football,” never out of reach of whomever we happen to elect President, regardless of their wits and/or predisposition, I have to admit I like a happy ending too, and wouldn't change The Piano.

The preceding paragraph was all about aesthetics, not politics…really.  The most basic definition of aesthetics (a word that frequently gets a blank stare) is a sense of beauty. In art, as I see it, it is the part of a creation, created by the artist, which comes before the creation itself. It connects, or not, depending upon a sense of beauty that exits already, or not, in the audience, which should be, but seldom is, each individual viewer's consideration. I also believe an individual's sense of beauty (which just might be incredibly ugly to someone else), whether he knows the word "aesthetics" or not, is what motivates his purpose and intention in life. In other words, the aesthetic being presented either connects or not; and if so, it will add motivation to said purpose and intentions. Thus art can have a great influence on individuals and especially groups. But we tend to see only groups, not individuals, thus we have polls, test audiences, and majority rules, which is about the same as calling a mob "democracy." And, ironically, that mob that rejects dramatic tragedy if retailed to them as fiction, also buys it wholesale in reality. What that means is that death, destruction, torture, war, and generally beating down our fellow humans and blowing up their creations are a glorious aesthetic and righteous spectacle, easily sold, not only by politicians, but by movie producers as well.  It only has to be made glorious and righteous. Then it is an aesthetic, put into a creation, by the creator, before the creation itself is accomplished. Of course, that creation may be a destruction, which is not the paradox it seems to be.

I not only got cable TV originally (now devoted primarily to movie channels) so I could personally watch the first Gulf War (and I'm far from alone in that respect), but, just the other night, I watched, back to back, from my treasured DVD collection, parts One, Two, and Three of First Blood (otherwise known as Rambo) and loved every minute of it…especially the blowing-up part.  Why is that, I have to ask myself?  I don't know.  Maybe it's because it all seems so glorious and righteous.  Or maybe I, like the rest of bored Americans, have grown weary with the same old pursuit of happiness stuff…like treasured DVD collections and movie channels.

I did warn you up front that it would be a "rambling" introduction.