Five Before Chaos

Atrios has a good commentary on the annoying people on our side… sounds like half the people I know.

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Well, not really. One of the few conservatives I really like, Charity, over at She’s Right, has been spending some time here. If she lets me, I’ll post her piece over here when it’s done.

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If you’re not a console video gamer, don’t bother checking out this link. I’m serious.

Nintendo is the Democratic Party and Sony is the GOP

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UPDATE: Part of this is bogus - after you read it, read my correction here.

Although I’m never truly surprised at the idiotic things coming from the religious right, every now and then I hear one that makes me wonder if we are living in any kind of rational existence anymore:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”

How is this allowed to happen? Something is really wrong with this country when we have to dumb down just about everything as to not offend some small-minded people with the facts. Not to mention it’s against the law:

Park officials have defended the decision to approve the sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View, claiming that park bookstores are like libraries, where the broadest range of views are displayed. In fact, however, both law and park policies make it clear that the park bookstores are more like schoolrooms rather than libraries. As such, materials are only to reflect the highest quality science and are supposed to closely support approved interpretive themes. Moreover, unlike a library the approval process is very selective. Records released to PEER show that during 2003, Grand Canyon officials rejected 22 books and other products for bookstore placement while approving only one new sale item — the creationist book.

Ironically, in 2005, two years after the Grand Canyon creationist controversy erupted, NPS approved a new directive on “Interpretation and Education (Director’s Order #6) which reinforces the posture that materials on the “history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism [and] Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes.”

“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan,” Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book.

Jeeez, two more years of this. I don’t know if the country can take it.

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Ok, today it’s ‘The Big Gundown’ (1966), from the third Sergio of Italo-Westerns… Sergio Sollima. This is another one I had to get on eBay, because it’s not available in the U.S. As with many of these movies, often they are edited beyond belief when they make it to the U.S. I watched the ‘Franco Cleef’ restoration version. Apparently, Cleef took six different versions of this film, to edit it into a (mostly) English version that matches the Italian version, which is ten minutes longer. More on that in a minute.

This movie stars two of the biggest names in the genre - the hawk-eyed Lee Van Cleef (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Sabata, Death Rides a Horse and many others), and Tomas Milian (Companeros, Four of the Apocalypse, Django Kill! and many others).

Although not a ‘Zapata Western’, it takes place around the time of the Mexican Revolution. Van Cleef is lawman/bounty hunter Jonathan Corbett, a quick shot who is hired by a wealthy capitalist named Brokston (Walter Barnes) to hunt down a Mexican peasant named Cuchillo (played by Milian) who has allegedly raped and murdered a 12 year old girl. Corbett pursues Chuchillo catching him and losing him several times over the course of the film, as he slowly starts to realize that something is not right. It turns out Cuchillo witnessed the said crime, committed by someone else that Brokston is covering up for. There’s a great knife vs. gun showdown at the end.

There was some great stuff in this film, and some not-so-great. The great - Van Cleef, of course. The man has some serious screen presence, regardless of the film’s quality, and he has made his share of bad ones. He’s definitely at the top of his game in this one. Tomas Milian, who usually has a knack for over-the-top overacting, plays it good as Cuchillo, much more subdued than usual. Even as the antagonist, he is very likeable, and the interplay between him and Van Cleef makes for a good screen partnership. The cinematography in this film is what makes it worth watching, whether it be the great camera angles, or the amazing landscapes. There are many who worked on this film that were also involved in the great Leone projects: Carlo Simi, Sergio Donati, Alberto Grimaldi, and of course, Ennio Morricone, who provides a fantastic score for the film.

The not-so-good: the script. The writing and dialogue is often simplistic to the point of ridiculous. It’s what kept this from being in the non-Leone top tier of the genre for me. Other than that, it’s definitely a visually striking film, to say the least.

Now, more about this ‘Franco Cleef’ restoration. As stated on the DVD, when this was released in the U.S., the editors did a horrible job, not only cutting out over 10 minutes, but by not bothering to even record English dialogue for the film in some parts, leaving out whole sentences (while you’d still see them talking on screen). What Cleef did was, using 6 different versions availble to him, put together an English version, and where there was missing dialogue, he either reconstructed it using other sounds from the film (quite flawlessly), or put back in the original Italian dialogue with English subtitles. Unfortunately, it makes it a bit strange to watch, especialy towards the beginning, when you’ll have a conversation going on where it switches back and forth between Italian and English several times. It does it less over the course of the film, but it was still a bit odd. Unfortunately, there was no English subtitle track if you just wanted to watch the all-Italian version. Cleef also replaced a lot of the music with versions from CD, so the music sounds fantastic. He did some serious cleaning up of the sound and the picture. The colors are quite vibrant, too, which makes the breathtaking scenery that much better to watch.

So, aside from the dialogue, not a bad one for the genre. I’ll be reviewing Sollima’s ‘Face to Face’ next.

Trailer:

If you like this, please click below and visit my spaghetti western site, where you’ll find more reviews and other great stuff.

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Dr. Gerry Lower ties together the most unholy alliance of capitalism and Christianity in his ‘Letters to a Christian Friend’:

In dealing with the monument to unfairness and inequality that America has become under religious capitalism, we have the option of painting a more beautiful and meaningful world view than Abraham was able to paint in the absence of human knowledge. We also have the option of painting a black view of Abraham’s religions. Both approaches are solid because religion and capitalism do survive and thrive on both ignorance and fear. There would be no other way to get people to believe in so much unadulterated Roman rot.

Worst of all (and horribly anti-Christian) is the fact that the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Romanism and Islamism, make people afraid to think for themselves, to the point of not being very human at all, oftentimes to the point of being remarkably inhuman. One wonders why these people can’t see this in themselves … but that blindness to reality is their reward for believing in what amounts to a self-proclaimed infallibility and righteousness.

He makes some very good points, namely that the time of hoping for some more compassionate, equitable form of capitalism is long past:

Unfortunately, a return to a more fair version of capitalism is simply not going to happen at this late stage in the evolutionary program. The values of religion and capitalism are the root causes of most of our problems in the western world. Our only hope is that the Abrahamic religions (as justification for despotism) will self-terminate as scheduled in their prophetic end of times. Americans uniformly guarantee that this will happen - the result of religion’s infallibility and wealth’s self-righteousness.

The lack of interest in postmodern natural philosophy is related to a number of factors. Firstly, the scientific community in the west has never been so ill-educated, most scientists knowing nothing of natural philosophy and the world view which birthed American democracy. Secondly, postmodern natural philosophy’s embrace of conceptual and cultural evolution and the fact that the end of times for religion can be plotted right out on log graph paper frightens the living hell out of people.

I still believe, that in the near future at least, we will eventually have some sort of capitalist/socialist hybrid, like in Scandinavia. But we seem to be one of the most materialistic, shallow nations on earth, so I’m probably wrong.

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Brent Budowsky, who can write some pretty good stuff, seems to be drinking the Kool-Aid of delirious optimism:

1. Democrats should aspire to build a new era in American history of
patriotic reform and national renewal similar to the eras of FDR and JFK. By electing a Democratic President and Democratic Congress in 2008 we can inaugurate the next New Deal and New Frontier and we should think in large, idealistic terms.

2. 2007 will see the coming together of this growing alliance between Democratic leaders, national grassroots, the progressive blogs and progressive radio which will all flourish and support each other more than pundits predict. News and communications power will be further shifted from MSM to independent news sites.

This new alliance will empower voters, lift the party, widen the debate and attract political support and investment capital. The sites mentioned include Arianna and Huffington, Caro Kay and makethemaccountable, Mark Karlin and Buzzflash, Rob Kall and OpEd News and Bob Parry and consortiumnews among others.

3. The Democratic Party will regain its historic leadership on natonal security by expanding on its major gains in 2006 with Senators, Members of Congress, and candidates with military service addressing issues important to our troops, vets and mlitary communities.

What planet is Budowsky living on? Does he think this ‘new progressive era’ will be ushered in by a group that doesn’t even have the balls to call for impeachment, or more importantly, cutting off funding for the war, as Kucinich has suggested? Yes, from time to time I wonder if the pendulum has swung as far as it has to the right and we’re on the verge of some Third Progressive Era. Then I roll over and go back to sleep.

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Good James Brown memory over at Alicublog, from a drummer’s perspective.

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Gerald Ford was the first president I can remember. We had this special Time magazine about the presidents, and I remember him being the last one. It’s funny how the media is spinning his legacy, as if letting shithead Dick Nixon off of the hook for Watergate, in the name of ‘healing’ was somehow a good thing. That said, I also hear a lot about Ford being the last Repub prez that wasn’t evil.

What gives Ford a pass from me, however, is that great blaxploitation flick he made where he teams up with Billy Preston to rescue a kidnapped George Harrison. I think it was called ‘Wild Ford Mustang’ or something, originally intended to be a sequel to Isaac Hayes’ ‘Truck Turner’, but Hayes pulled out at the last minute because of Scientology obligations:

On the other hand, the sequel, after the blaxploitation craze had run its course, was not nearly as good, as Ford tried his hand in the ‘Not-So-Mod Squad’, where his character teams up for a most unholy alliance:

President Gerald R. Ford, center, with Chief of Staff Donald H. Rumsfeld, left, and Rumsfeld’s assistant, Dick Cheney,
on April 28, 1975. (By David Hume Kennerly — Ford Library Via Associated Press)

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The baby Jesus killed James Brown… think he’ll be mellow now? Nah….

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