A Post on Palin - Hopefully the Last.

It is with great anger and indignation that I read the media's coverage of Sarah Palin's endorsement of Donald Trump.  I ask a simple question:  why on Earth do we continue to care about what this woman has to say?

What has she done in the past eight years?  

Yes, she was nominated Vice President and became the face of the Tea Party "Revolution".  Okay, great.  But then she abandoned her post as the Governor of Alaska, eschewing service to her State and her Country for punditry and reality TV.  She's not a leader or even really a doer, but instead has leveraged people's real concern for our country into the only thing she really seems to care about:  herself.  

We used to elect professionals, statesmen, and politicians to office.  Now a good chunk of the nation seems to think that one reality TV star,  one self serving demagogue crowned by another self serving demagogue, is some how qualified and has earned the right to lead our nation simply because he "tells it like it is", even when in fact he doesn't.

Well, enough.  Palin's star is still on the wane, and hopefully this will be the last time she tries to play king maker for our kind of antsy, sort of unsure of itself, not really very Happy Republic.  I have to actually go to work,  which is something hopefully that Ms. Palin, if she arcs back her memories far enough, remembers kinda sorta having to do.

Two Books - "The Quiet American" and "Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death"

Happy New Year everyone!  I read a couple of books over the holiday and, in keeping with current tradition, offer a few quick thoughts on each.

First, The Quiet American by Graham Greene.

I must say, I made the initial mistake of thinking that Graham Greene himself was an American, and was rather proud of myself for picking an American author for once. Then, as a I started reading, I looked him up on Wikipedia and found out that yes, Graham Greene is indeed British.  Surprise surprise.  

So, the book.  You have Thomas Fowler, a wordly and middle aged British journalist covering the French-Indochina war in Vietnam.  You have his Vietnamese live in lover, Phuong.  And then you have this young starry eyed idealist named Pyle, who arrives on a mission for the department of agriculture or something but is clearly involved with the CIA.  He's read many books on what is necessary in the East to combat communism, and has been charged - or at least has the latitude -  to raise a "Third Force" against the communists which are slowly wearing the French down.

Pyle falls in love with Phuong, and he rather brazenly and with great arrogance and yet somehow great kindness tells Fowler this, and proceeds to basically steal her away from him, though mostly through machinations with her family rather than any real appeal to her own feeling.  He offers her a better life, an American life, rather than accept her own her own terms.  I'm not sure Fowler really accepts Phuong on her own terms either, but she seems delightful and she helps feed his opium habit and I guess that is enough for him.

Pyle's secret activities start resulting in bombings in which innocent people are killed, and Fowler sees an opportunity to get rid of Pyle -- he goes in cahoots with some people that want to assassinate Fowler and basically sets him up for it.  Phuong goes back to Fowler as if nothing had ever happened.  

And there is more to it, a few war scenes with the French and some other conversations that are interesting, but you get the gist of the story.  I like to think that Pyle and Fowler are emblematic of the nations that they are from.  Here's Pyle, the British person, as weary of war and colonialism as the British Empire was in the 1950's which, exhausted after World War II, vanished with some rapidity.  And then there is Pyle, the American, who has a quiet arrogance in thinking his way is the best way, who has read a lot of books but really has no idea what he is doing, no idea what he has just walked in to.  

Sounds familiar.  There is an arrogance about us as Americans (though its not so quiet now) where we automatically assume that our way of life is the best.  It would seem to be.  We are the richest, most powerful nation in the world.  But then we assume everything automatically wants the same thing, and are flabbergasted when it turns out that maybe they don't, that they have a different set of values that lead to different ways of life. This is a lesson somehow we never seem to learn.  We cannot remake the entire world in our own image, for good or ill.

But it was a good book, a sad and sometimes beautiful book. But a heavy book, something that requires a lighter follow-up.

Enter Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death the first book in the Grantchester series.  The television adaptation is sometimes on Masterpiece Theatre but is something I have never watched.  I saw it in the Library and thought "why not"?

It turned out to be a good find.  

Sidney Chambers is a young British vicar who has a parish outside Cambridge in the early 1950's.  Crime seems to find him, and he becomes this sort of part time detective through a desire to see justice served and/or because after some initial reluctance the local police realize he has a knack for going places and observing things that they can't.  This book is organized into six small cases, ranging from murder to a missing wedding ring to an art crime that goes very, very dark rather quickly.  Meanwhile Chambers pines away for Amanda Kendell who, why perhaps interested in the vicar romantically, can't see herself marrying a priest.    She does, however, buy him a dog, Dickens, a giant black lab whom he grudgingly adopts as a companion.

I thought it was delightful.  Aside from the art crime section (where Amanda Kendall gets kidnapped by the perpetrator and is nearly (though not) raped) it is a very light read, smooth and silky as a Boddington's Pub Ale, full of interesting characters.  And the author does a really good job of capturing the mood in Great Britain at the time.  The war was over, and it was won, but it colors everything and the deaths and suffering have hardened people some - and Church attendence is down, perhaps as people have difficulty dealing with the suffering the War wrought.  But food rationing is finally ending and perhaps better days lie ahead....

Anyways, its a series I'll certainly continue, hopefully, to enjoy. 

My Thoughts on The Force Awakes - WITH SPOILERS

Before you start reading this you should know something:  this discussion of the new Star Wars movie contains spoilers, some of them of the mega spoiler variety.  It is intended for people who have either seen the movie or will never, ever, see the movie because movies or the Star Wars franchise itself is odious to them. 

Yes, you may find it hard to believe, but there are few people out there who really hate Star Wars.  Not many, I’ll grant, not many.  Most people prefer Star Trek or at least kind of ambivalent about Star Wars, but I know one man who went to see Episode IV in 1977 and walked out of the theatre after 10 minutes, and he will still contend with you that Star Wars ruined American cinema.  Ruined it. 

I won’t bore you with a summary of the plot, because I am now assuming that if you have gotten this far you have already seen the film or you simply don’t care.  But here are my thoughts, in the form of a short catechism:

Overall, what did you think?  It was extremely enjoyable and quite good.  And it was fun!  I think the CNN reviewer said that this feels more like an Indiana Jones movie than a past George Lucas film, and I’d have to agree with him (or her).  There are more quips and one-liners intended to draw a laugh, and from me they got a smile.  I thought overall the dialogue was good, and I thought the actors all did really quite well within the limits set for them.  The John Williams score tied it all together.   Felt like getting back together with an old friend, who has been gone for a long time and has come back at long last.

Oh, and Stormtroopers are people again, reversing what I thought was one of the most damnable things about Episodes I-III.  The First Order seems to have settled on armies of indoctrinated soldiers, perhaps a mix of volunteers and people pressed into service.  They do seem to shoot a little better. 

Was it the greatest movie in the world?  No. 

Was it great in proportion to its marketing?  I don’t think so, no. 

An “overwhelming experience”, as the initial reviews suggested?  Nah.  But it put a smile on my face, and that ain’t easy to do.  I enjoyed it.  It gets a solid A in my book, though it doesn’t quite make it to an A+ level (which is really hard to do – I don’t like movies very much).  Go and see it.

What surprised you the most?  I was actually surprised at how central the role of the old characters was.  I thought that we’d kind of see them, they’d say “hey kids, how’s it going?” and they would kind of slip away.  A passing of the torch to a new generation.  Not so.  Han Solo had a huge role in this film.  Princess Leia less so, but she still figured in an important way.  And Luke?  We don’t see him till the end when Rey has found him and is holding his lightsaber out to him (I TOLD YOU THERE WOULD BE SPOILERS!!!!) and it’s clear that he will figure greatly in any future film.  He has to. 

Luke Skywalker really fucked things up, didn’t he?  Seems so.   It’s a shame Episodes I-III were so lousy, for if they had been better they may have seen wider release and maybe he’d know that bad things happen when Jedi Knights fall in love.  The movie doesn’t really say so, but I THINK that Rey is his daughter, and for that to happen he had to have fallen in love or at least, as my wife so charmingly says, “boinked” somebody.  Clearly she was British, because Rey has a beautiful accent. 

Oh Luke….I know it’s so hard to keep the old wibbly wobbly in the Hackensack when the gin and bubble is all apples and bears, but for the good of the galaxy couldn’t you have taken the bishop up to Exeter on the 5:11?  For the good of the galaxy.  Now look what you have done. 

Captain Phasma?

One real disappointment out of two for the movie.  The galaxy is a more diverse place, and that is definitely for the better.  Women are now allowed to pilot X-wing fighter craft and, apparently, be the commander of the First Order’s Stormtroopers.  But we never see her face, never hear her story, and she is the one who, at gun point, lowers the shields that allow the resistance fighters to attack “The Weapon”, which is just a very, very large Death Star that has actually been built into a Planet.  The First Order is a fanatical regime, they feel kind of like Nazis, and I imagine that any one that fanatical would rather have died then live with the shame of both being captured and lowering the shields.  It’s the one part of the movie where I was like “Come on!”  Equally inexplicably Finn and company don’t kill her after she has lowered the shields.  A friend called Captain Phasma a wasted character, and I’d have to agree with her. 

She at least LOOKS important.  Look!  The Stormtroopers have formed Square!

Disappointment the Second?

I don’t honestly think much of Kylo Ren – yet.  We live in age of television and film where there are no real heroes and no real villains, everyone has shades of light and dark.  That may be realistic, but it’s disappointing here in a world where giant furry things converse effortlessly with Droids.  I like my villains to be pure evil.  Best villain ever?  Jason Isaacs portrayal of Colonel Tavington in “The Patriot”, which is on the 5^th watching a really horrible film but Colonel Tavington is an equally horrible person, down to his core, and he is played ever so well by Isaacs.  Only thing that makes the movie still worth watching.

Kylo Ren is just a kid.  How he has he been given so much power by this Lord Snook person who looks kind of like Voldemort with a nose (and, for my money, Kylo Ren with the mask off sort of looks like a young professor Snape) I do not know.   He is not master of his own emotions, his anger explodes in violent outbursts, and he is an extremely conflicted young person.  All you maybe need to get him on the side of good is a couple sessions of good therapy and maybe a 20ml dose of anti-depressants.  The Weapon is on a cold and dark planet – maybe he has Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly abbreviated as SAD).  Maybe a move to a nicer planet would bring about positive change.  I read some reviews that thought his mercurial character could be exploited in interesting ways in the future; I on the other hand would rather him get his shit together and be the villain I want him to be.

And granted – Darth Vader of Episodes IV-VI also showed conflict, but these were little pinpricks of light against darkness.  Love eventually overcame hate in the man’s stoic heart, and it was a Romantic triumph of the spirit over the power of darkness.  By contrast, it’s hard to say what is going to come out of the angst-ridden soup of Kylo-Ren’s soul.   Could be anything, and in some ways I think that makes his own conflict less meaningful, at least as a movie character.  It certainly would make any victory of good will less impressive.

Final Thoughts?

Love BB-8.  Wouldn’t mind seeing the last of C-3P0.  Looking forward to the next installment.