Watching and enjoying old movies

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Jerry

In the last few weeks, my wife and I have been watching old movies on a more or less regular basis. I used to watch old movies all the time before I got married in particular when I was working afternoons and evenings for AT&T. In recent years, given how often I was away for work, I rarely watched anything with my wife, in fact when I was away I didn’t watch anything at all other than news and weather.

I did enjoy old movies when I was young but times have changed and what was not so old when I was a child looks very old now. When I first saw movies like Casablanca they were less than 20 years old. Now when one looks at Casablanca, or any old Bogart movie, one is looking at something over 55 years old. Many old movies were filmed in studios with scenes played against a projected background. Most driving scenes were like that many other scenes too, such as the sleighride scene in The Magnificent Ambersons. Today’s technology for that is better (even if not fully convincing). Things we didn’t notice sometimes loom large. In Casablanca, Sam the piano player and singer, is called ‘boy’, as many adult black men were called at the time. When I first saw the movie it didn’t register, now it does and I wince when I hear it. In any event in the past few weeks, we’ve watched a few Bogart movies, a few Bette Davis movies, a more modern movie, Forbidden Planet, and a trifle, Three Coins in the Fountain. I find that I still enjoy the Bogart movies. Film noir was a favorite of mine and it still is. What has changed is that I enjoy the scenery as much as the plot. I love the old cars. I also love the look of old city offices. As a child I spent quite a bit of time in old offices and the desks and furnishings remind me of my own past.

In order to enjoy older movies one has to understand the time period and accept the limitations. Three Coins in the Fountain is a light weight movie about 3 secretaries in Rome who are looking for romance. It was a wide screen CinemaScope release. The photography is the most important part of the movie and contemporary reviews recognized that. It is beautifully filmed. The actors and actresses are all good and the plot has some lovely turns. The scenes in which Dorothy McGuire gets drunk are fun. The family party with Rossano Brazzi and Jean Peters is another. It is no great movie, but it does its job well. It was released in May 1954 and it made a good summer movie for a world in which color movies were not yet the norm. I can imagine that they had a bit of cooperation from the city of Rome. The streets have almost no people (watch an Italian made movie and you will see crowds in Rome). I read some negative modern reviews before I watched it, but when we saw it I can say we both enjoyed it. It is not a great work of art but it wasn’t ever meant to be. Again it does the job and it does it well.

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Learning to live with a new dog

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Jerry
Molly at play

Molly at play

Sierra died on November 28, 2012.  Originally we weren’t going to get another dog until Spring, but Shawnne had been following the Morrison County Humane Society website and became interested in one of the inhabitants.  Molly is a mixed breed, part Boxer and part Labrador.  She was described as intelligent and as a dog that does not get along with other dogs. She was described as 20 months old.   In any event, Shawnne and I visited the humane society, looked at all their dogs, took and plunge and adopted Molly on January 18th. 

There are similarities between Sierra and Molly.   They are similar in size and they are both part Labrador.    They were similar ages when we got them.  There are differences too.  Sierra was always an easy dog.  When she came to us she was fully house-trained and she was probably used to living inside a house.   Molly is much more challenging. I don’t think she spent much time in a house at least not in the last year.

On the evidence of 3 weeks Molly is much stronger than Sierra ever was .   I don’t think she has been walked on a normal leash much.  We bought the kind where the leash is retractable. On the first day we had her she broke it. A few days later she broke the next one. In the case of the second, the leash was more at fault than the dog.  When Molly first saw her face in a mirror she started barking like mad, she thought it was another dog.  It was scary.   I don’t know why she was put up for adoption but it appears she was in captivity for at least a year.   She is basically house trained but she has had her share of accidents.  Over the 3 weeks she has been with us, those accidents have leveled off.

Molly is smarter than Sierra.  She is learning very quickly.   Very soon she learned not to bark at the dog in the mirror. Today when passing another dog while walking her, she barely made a noise.  Perhaps Sierra was  a smart dog who never had to be smart, but Molly shows her intelligence every day.  Just this Friday I noticed she was trying take advantage of Shawnne by jumping on her chair.   I told Shawnne we needed to put a stop to this and it seems that she learned what we meant by Saturday evening.  She wants a clear set of rules, but continually tests those rules.

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Well known sniper and gun advocate killed at gun range

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Jerry

American Sniper Author Killed http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/chris-kyle-american-sniper-author-reported-killed.html?hp .

I am sure many people have heard of the Darwin Awards.  The late Chris Kyle should be nominated for his successful efforts at removing one more stupid person from the gene pool.  Chris Kyle, famous ex Navy Seal and author was killed on a shooting range by a mentally ill veteran.  Here is a quote from the NY Times article.

“Mr. Kyle, author of the best selling book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” was with a struggling former soldier on just such an outing on Saturday, hoping a day at a shooting range would bring some relief, said a friend, Travis Cox”

One wonders what he was thinking. Perhaps he could have learned a lesson from Newtown, CT. There a woman took her mentally ill son to a gun range and made sure he learned all about weapons.  The boy returned the favor by killing her and murdering 25 other people.  Kyle was a vocal opponent of any effort at gun control saying that the founding fathers had the same weapons as the military. I would guess he favored everyone having an rpg at home.   Kyle perhaps forgot the adage that we all reap what we sow.   Well, is this case he was reaped out of existence.

In the US, and elsewhere, most rights come with restrictions.  The preamble to the constitution clearly states that one of its goals was to “… secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.  Clearly liberty is a most basic right, yet we restrict it.  We register mechanical modes of transport at the state level and demand that a user have a license.   Nobody seems upset by that. The laws make practical sense. Automobiles are inherently dangerous.    Not only do we restrict speeds, we demand that users purchase liability insurance.  Yet, few people talk about  how this restricts freedom.  Perhaps because this is because most of this done at the state level. Perhaps this is because it isn’t a right expressly written into the constitution or the amendments.   Not all regulations are state ones, we have seen attempts at federal control. We have national safety regulations. Those certainly restrict freedom, but we have seen anything like the noise we have on gun control.  Over time those restrictions have made automobiles much safer in the US and in countries the follow as similar legal regime.

In the US gun control advocates would like to eliminate access to military style weapon and to high capacity magazines.  They would also like to eliminate loopholes that allow many gun purchases to avoid a background check.  Personally I think all firearms should be registered at the state level and all gun ownership transfers be recorded, much like automobile titles are registered. In MN where I live almost all boats must be registered, yet nobody assumed Minnesota is wishing to confiscate boats.  If I can believe the articles I read, most guns used in crime aren’t stolen. They are either purchased from a private dealer or purchased in a straw purchase (a purchase where the nominal buyer is not going to be the user).  That happened in Webster NY.   We need to make sure gun owners don’t sell or give away their guns to criminals or the mentally ill. 

Would that stop all violent crime, no, but it would be a start to controlling access to weapons by those who mean us harm.

 

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Another hero from my youth down

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Jerry

Last Saturday night, I heard that Stan Musial had died at 92.  I don’t know if young people today, unless you live in St Louis, would even know who he was.  To people my age, at least to the males of the species, he was a hero. Hero is a funny word.  In the classical world it meant people of almost super human strength who did great and wonderful things.   In the West we would be correct if we use it for people who have succeeded on the field of battle.  Audie Murphy would be close to what would qualify as a true hero.  The word has had it value diluted.  We have extended it to cover people who just show up on the battlefield. Not that I would have a problem with that. Given the terror of modern warfare surviving a great battle is a feat. We have also extended the usage to people who are popular figures of some accomplishment (usually athletics).

As a boy there were a number of baseball players who were heroes.  Willy Mays was one, Stan Musial was another.  So was Warren Spahn (I loved pitching so that is why he was there).  I would have considered Ty Cobb to be a hero too.  Tom Seaver of the Mets was probably the last hero added to my personal pantheon.  Compared to the other heros, Stan Musial always had a special place.  He was not just a big name ballplayer, he was  ‘one of us’,  my grandfather was a coal miner in PA, Stan’s father was also a coal miner also in PA.  Stan’s family was Catholic and Polish, so was my mother’s.  (It is hard to today to realize that at one time Catholics were outsiders. So were Polish Americans. That has all changed. We have 5 at least nominal Catholics on the Supreme Court.)  I don’t go to church and I don’t know any Polish immigrants anymore so, some of those things aren’t so important to me.   

Over time I have lost interest in most of my older heroes. As far as Ty Cobb goes, I don’t know when I realized what a scoundrel he was. I assume it was sometime before my mid 30’s. I still admire his skills but think he would have been a better player all around if he was slightly more human.   For the more normal sports heroes (ie: Mays or Seaver), my interest in baseball has diminished and so has my interest in them.  I just don’t follow baseball every day as I once did.  I remember when one of my art teachers John Guderian told me that in  1955 the Brooklyn World Series was the most important thing in the world, but over time he lost interest in baseball.  I never expected it would happen to me, but it did.

I never lost my appreciation of Mr. Musial.   Some years ago I heard a story about him playing his harmonica at retirement homes.  The interested me.  He was a real person not just a public figure.  Looking back at his baseball record. His was very balanced.  He hit exactly the same number of hits away as he did at home.  He was never a hot head, he never was thrown out of a game.  When baseball integrated in 1947, some of the Cardinal acted badly towards Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial was never involved in that.  He wasn’t just a figurehead, he helped operate the businesses he owned.  He is one man who other baseball people respected.  He was devoted to the city that he worked in and lived in, St. Louis, and lived in the area until he died.  I would say that statistics speak for themselves, but that isn’t true. He was even more than those statistics. 

In the last 3 days I have been reading a good number of articles about him and I have been happily recalling the time when baseball was more important in the life of the country and more important in my life.  It is sad to see someone pass on  even at an advanced age.   For us it is time to remember his life and to recall the days of day baseball and some of the more sunny characters of  our childhood.  Nice guys don’t always finish last.

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What kind of gun control can work?

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Jerry

The recent mass murder in Connecticut has moved a lot of people to propose a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines.  If all one wants to do is stop school shootings that is probably a start.  We would also need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.   In Newtown, the guns were owned by one of the victims, who encouraged the shooter, her mentally ill son, to learn how to use these weapons. (No prizes for smart parenting here.)   Perhaps we need to keep guns away from idiotic parents who take mentally ill sons to target ranges. 

In a real sense school shootings are not the real problem. The real problem is gun violence.  The US is a major outlier.    The US has a far higher rate of gun deaths and gun murders than any other wealthy country.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate) The problem is the availability of so many guns.  As far as stopping the misuse of guns at home, this might be impossible with the current gun ideology prevalent in the US.  What is possible is to slowly take the easy availability of guns for common criminals.   In order to reduce gun use by criminals in the US we need to track gun ownership and record all gun transfers.  A good portion of guns that are used in crime are purchased legally, either by the criminal or by a family member.  If the US required gun registration (either at the state level like cars or federal level), it would make it possible to stop many guns that currently go to criminals from being involed in crime. The idea that gun registration is tantamount to confiscation is ridiculous.  Registration like this is unconnected to confiscation. We register cars ownership and sales and nobody thinks we are trying to confiscate cars.  In MN most boats must be registered.  So, why not guns? Currently the gun lobby has blocked any attempt at federal gun registration. 

We should probably have a nationally mandated state registration system, modeled on how we register cars.

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Gun control and why should try to change our dangerous gun culture

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Jerry

After the killings in Newtown, CT, there has been some clamor from the moderates and more liberal parts of the population for the passage of new gun control laws.  Gun advocates such as the NRA have argued that new laws won’t help and that we need to create what amounts to a police state to safeguard children in schools.   There have been weak attempts at gun control at the federal level.  The argument is made that the assualt gun law of 1994 did not help reduce crime or gun violence.  One thing that people disregard is that the passage of the law did not have any effect on the guns already out there.  That is one reason that the earlier assault bans were not obviously instantly effective.   

Maybe the US is just a violent country and no effort can be expected to work. The assault death graph shown here shows how much an outlier the US is compared to other countries with the same level of income.   Maybe it is the presence of guns that caused the level of violence.  There a clear relation between the easy availability of guns and gun violence.  A Guardian chart shows a similar disparity between the US and other similar countries. 

Is there anything that can be done? First of all we need to reduce the level of firepower that can be carried by a gun owner.   There is no justification for high capacity magazines.  There is probably no reason outside of the battlefield for a magazine with more than 10 rounds in it.  Even pros make mistakes when confronting a possible shooter and innocent people get hurt. When there was a gunman by the Empire State Building last December, all the bystanders were his by police gunfire.  When Amadou Diallo was shot by police in  1999, 41 rounds were fired by 4 officers and 19 hit Diallo (and Diallo didn’t have a gun).  You didn’t need 41 bullets to stop one man.  Just imagine how a civilian gun owner would do in a movie theater (bloodbath anyone?), or a teacher in a school who hasn’t shot a gun under a high stress situation.  

The assault gun ban and magazine ban may help stop the specific kind of thing that occurred in Newtown Ct.  In Newtown the guns were legally acquired by one of the victims.   The gun laws might have helped in Webster, if a benighted young woman would have been stopped from buying guns for her neighber.  It is not the obvious solution for the general kind of mayhem that infests some of the poorer parts of our country.   A more general sort of gun control may be necessary.  We need to actually change our violent pro-gun culture.  That will take time.  It can be done.  We have, over a few generations stopped smoking in most public places (when I started at AT&T 27 years ago, the cafeteria was full of smoke at all times).  We have cracked down on drunk driving without eliminating the ability of people to drink either at home our outside.

The 2nd amendment is not holy writ.   The intent of the amendment was to stop the national government from taking control of local militia’s stores of guns and ammunition, as the British had tried to do in the 1770’s.    Even in 1770’s the value of the local militia was overstated.   Even in the 18th century our local militia was pretty useless, they might be good against Indian raiding parties, but hardly against a professional army.    It was the French who defeated the British in North America not a bunch of untrained farmers.   Today I doubt any local militia could defeat a trained group of soldiers, without a lot of firepower.  We are willing to restrict other freedoms if appropriate.  So, we should restrict the 2nd amendment, too.

 

 

 

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Stupid things that our government saves money on

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Jerry

I am a regular user of government statistics.  Often in discussion politics  the simplest way to address any question is to use facts.  For example, there are articles that claim that violence against Muslims is on the increase.  A careful examination of real data shows that it is not (the victims of hate crimes historically are blacks and Jews).  So, I was appalled today to discover that the US was no longer publishing the Statistical Abstract.  The Statististical abstract has been in print since 1878, it is a good source for compiled statistics in numerous categories.  It has been available on line for free for a few year.  In the past I  purchased bound volumes  but I have accessed the data tables directly since they have been available (for free).  The rationale for this cut was that data was available in other sources.  Of course that is true, but for non professional users, it will no longer be easy to get data from a well vetted consistent source.  I assume this is another Republican attempt to privatize the government.  The recent volumes of the statistical abstract have sold for under $45.00 dollars. The new commercial publisher will sell the book for over $150.00. The data tables will no longer be available on line for individual users.

How much will this save: “The agency’s 2012 budget would eliminate the Statistical Compendia Branch, which compiles the Statistical Abstract and other publications (such as the “County and City Data Book”). This would save $2.9 million and cut 24 jobs” .

If I were the suspicious sort, I would see this is part of a stealth effort to keep information away from ordinary citizens, but I am not that suspicious. It is simply a foolish attempt to save money.

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Failed heroes of my youth

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Jerry

For the last few days I have been spending some of my spare time listening to old clips of Jean Shepherd’s  radio show. For anyone who might be reading this, Jean Shepherd is best known today as the author of the stories in the movie, “A Christmas Story”.  For those of us who were fans of Shepherd in the 1960’s, the film just will never work. Jean Shepherd was a master radio story teller. Like most listeners, I had my own vision of what his stories looked like. Darrin McGavin was a fairly good comic actor, but he didn’t fit my view of what ‘the old man’ should look like. Movie retellings can rarely ever match the magic of a well told story.  Sherpherd’s stories are particularly difficult to make into movies because the charm is in how one relates to the characters. The story of Flick sticking his tongue to a frozen pole works because we see ourselves doing the act (or something similar).  Once that image is replaced with a real live child actor we remove ourselves from the story and become spectators. Perhaps a better director would have made the stories come more alive.

Jean Shepherd was someone who kept reusing the same material all his life. So, his radio stories were recycled as short stories, and recycled later as novels.  Finally they were recycled for film. 

Jean Shepherd was a hero to his fans, so it has been a bit sad to listen to interviews from people who knew him to realize what an SOB he was in real life. According to Larry Josephson: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2005/may/13/shepherds-flock/, he actually denied that he had children when he wrote his will. When the NY Times printed his obituary his son, Randall, contacted them and had them make a number of corrections. Basically he was a very insecure man who never accepted that the spotlight would pass him by.

Does any of this change my memories of his wonderful stories? No. But it does shine a little light on the sorry man who was so good in front of a microphone.

All of us have heroes. Over time most of those heroes leave the pedestal.

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Christie skewers the House leadership

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Jerry

When the most recent congress ended, it fail to pass a bill to provide for the hurricane Sandy relief.  Past congresses have acted quickly but this time the storm hit the Northeast and it has taken more than 2 months to act.  Here is a quote from a CNN article about NJ governor Christie’s angry response:

“Christie prosecuted the case by pointing out that hurricane relief had been provided more quickly to others: For victims of Katrina after 10 days and victims of Hurricane Andrew in Florida after 30 days. But residents of the New Jersey and New York coast have been waiting 65 days to date for some relief.

Christie also accurately pointed out that Northeast states such as New Jersey and New York send more to the federal government in taxes than they get back in federal aid, unlike many of the red states represented by conservatives in Congress. The “makers versus takers” narratives fall apart fast when confronted with reality.”

Of course the GOP says this will be first on the agenda for the new congress, but that does not excuse the 65 day wait. The GOP used to be strong in the Northeast and Mid-west, but that GOP has been taken over by oilmen, mining companies and former dixiecrats.

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The decline of the GOP

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Jerry

There has been some talk about the decline in the GOP.  If you are talking only about election results and what it portends for the future, this year can been seen as sign of that decline.   The party is losing in areas in which the US is growing, in particular Hispanics.  It is also weak on women’s issues.   Remember Romney and the 47 percent?  The party is tone deaf as to how it sounds to people.   This  election was a failure for the GOP at the national level, but less so on a local level.   Before the election there was much good discussion on how the polls were trending (in particular the NY Time’s reporting).  By late October is should have been obvious that Obama was going to win the key states.  I was amazed at how surprised GOP operatives were at the results, since reading polls has been a Republican specialty since Nixon’s time.   I am sure Republicans can read the tea leaves and see who they need to attract.

What I am more interested in is a longer term decline in the GOP as a party of principle.  The fiscal cliff shenanigans show that they no longer have the best interests of the country in mind.  News reporters usually wish to split the difference and assume the truth lies equally between the 2 opponents, but in this case the GOP is clearly to blame.

The GOP was always a more unified party than the Democrats.  It was the party of the nation’s center, the midwest (the GOP was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin).  It was the party that national interests as opposed to states rights.   (After all what was the Civil War but a complete attack on the concept of states rights?) It tended to be the party of the smaller towns and cities.  It was party of the native born and not the urban immigrant.  It was also the party of the anti-slavery movement and to some extent after the civil war the party of civil rights.  It supported higher tariffs in the 19th century and a modernized banking system.     In the early 20th century the party became the more progressive of the two parties.   When the progressive movement died out most of the supporters went back to the GOP.  Theodore Roosevelt supported anti-trust laws, business regulation and what must be called the beginning of an environmental movement.  The party was a supporter of efficient and prudent government. If that meant raising taxes, so be it.

The 1960’s changed all that.  When I lived in Memphis in 2008, I was surprised that none of the people I worked with knew that the South used to be solid for the Democrats.  LBJ changed that.  I don’t know if he did this for principal or for votes, but he did propose and pass real civil rights legislation.  After his experience in  1957 , he knew the old Democratic party would be torn apart by this.   The GOP saw this as an opportunity.  There is a strong conservative element in the GOP and it was easy to make the message attractive to the Southern Democrats.  For a number of years the GOP was giving a very mixed message.  Polling as parties do it today was primitive and Nixon tried to be all things to all people.   Over time the GOP learned it could win elections by targetting the minimum amount of votes rather than attract all voters.  Nixon was the one who formed the EPA, Nixon support OSHA and affirmative action.  It was Reagan whose people in a sense rebooted the GOP.  The Eastern establishment was out.  Environmentalism was dead. The GOP became the party of Western extraction interests (mining, oil drilling etc.).  So, it was the party of the lowest cost to business and move one when the resources dry up. 

It took a generation for the GOP activists to drive all the moderates out, so John Chafee died a Republican but his son, Lincoln Chafee is an independent.

What is so different with today’s GOP is that it is willing to risk anything to win.  It doesn’t have any understanding that we must have stable and continuing government.  The willingness to risk the US credit rating is madness.

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