One of my favorite songs is Bruce Cockburn’s Nicaragua. In particular, I like the refrain, “In the flash of this moment / You’re the best of what we are.” I think about that a lot when I see people doing great or noble work. And I think about this most in relation to scientists. Here is a TED talk of one such endeavor: decoding the original text that was used to print a prayer book. The talk is by William Noel, Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum.

I once had this dream about these kids who had formed a kind of cult where they set themselves on fire to prove how cool they were. The dream had a profound effect on me, resulting in years of writing and research. It ended in what I call a “theatrical essay” called Burned. Much of that time, I was obsessed with Thich Quang Duc: the first Buddhist monk to self-immolate in protest over the South Vietnamese government headed by Ngo Dinh Diem.

This came up because I spend a couple of hours this afternoon watching Seven Psychopaths. The ending of the film tells a fictional story of Thich Quang Duc’s thinking while preparing for his ritual suicide. And it bugged me for a number of reasons. They didn’t seem to be interested in getting it right. Worst of all was this repeated refrain, “This will not help our cause.” (That’s rough; I didn’t write it down.) Finally, he responds, “It might.” The truth is that Thich Quang Duc’s act had a profound effect on events. Diem was gone less than 5 months later as a direct result.[1]

In a sense, I was glad that the story included Thich Quang Duc. He is a great man and he deserves to be remembered. Here is David Halberstam’s report at the time:

But this was included in a film that played very loose with people torturing others with fire—and other things that were hard to take like sawing a live man’s head off with a hacksaw. So the tribute to Thich Quang Duc was less compelling than it could have been.

By saying this, I don’t mean to say the film is bad. It is actually quite good. And funny. I laughed a lot. And parts of the movie were kind of deep. For example, Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell) is a clear psychopath, but all of his acts of violence are done out of his love of his friends. (I could have done without the Taxi Driver gag.) And after all the dark comedy throughout the film, the Thich Quang Duc ending was touching.

Afterword

Seven Psychopaths has a very grainy look. Watching it, I thought it had been filmed on Super-16. This appears not to be the case, because I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere. But it didn’t look processed—just bad. If anyone knows anything, let me know.

[1] There were many other problems. Some were minor: his corpse did not fall over like they showed. Others were profound: the idea that Thich Quang Duc’s suicide was an act of vengeance—and even worse: vengeance against America. Yes, I’m making too much out of this.

[2] Halberstam is wrong about this. Humans have a lot of water in them and so tend to burn poorly. However, drenched in gasoline, human beings burn surprisingly quickly.

I honor the service that individuals make to the collective. However, when Veterans Day rolls around, I have a hard time thinking of service. Instead, I think about sacrifice—even more: useless sacrifice. Almost without exception (and even those exceptions are muddled), wars are nothing but turf battles where weak men die for the sake of powerful men’s interests. When I think of war, I don’t think of heroic men in a life-and-death struggle; I think of two ant colonies destroying themselves because it is in their DNA.

Thus, I think of Veterans Day as a somber occasion. It is a time to remember those victims who have been harmed by our pathological sociology. The normal kinds of Veterans Day celebrations of hubristic nationalism are part of the problem and only lead to more victims.

On this day it seems natural to salute all those who have been harmed by our war making. It doesn’t matter to me whether they did so voluntarily or not. The truth is that I don’t think anyone really does this voluntarily. (Of course, I don’t believe in free will either.)

In honor of all these people, I offer you a poem by Wilfred Owen—himself a victim of war: World War I. He was killed just one week before the end of that war. And as you see in the poem, he understood the nature of war. (For the record, “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori” means, “It is sweet and right to die for your country.” It is from one of Horace’s Odes, which are often lovely but from time to time nationalistic and horrible.)

Afterword

Without life, there is no chance for justice.

This morning, Paul Krugman has an article, Squirming Hawks, about a Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report fear trolling over the upcoming fiscal cliff. The problem with people like this is that for years they’ve been claiming that the federal debt burden is going to destroy our economy, but suddenly when concrete policy comes up that will greatly slash the budget deficit, they aren’t for it. Why could that be?

Krugman has a good idea: they only want to balance the budget in such a way that it hurts the poor and enriches the wealthy. This is not an overstatement; I’ve been complaining about this for a while. In general, the fiscal austerity crowd are made up of people on the right. Calling for a balanced budget isn’t about budgetary matters at all: it is just about using budgetary fear to make the changes the right always wants. This is basically Naomi Klein’s shock treatment theory: use a disaster for political gain.

The CRFB report is revealing.

Where have I heard that before? I know: Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan! Note the contradiction here. They want to “generate new revenue,” but the best thing would be to reduced that new revenue by lowering tax rates. Krugman speculates that by “low-priority spending” they mean, “Spending on the poor.” Of course they do!

Let me discuss this idea of lowering the marginal tax rates but broadening the base. By “base broadening” they mean closing loopholes. An obvious question comes to mind: if you are going to lower tax rates but offset this with fewer deductions, why do it at all? The answer given is that the current tax code creates distortions. This is undoubtedly true. But by far the biggest distortion is the earned income tax rate and the capital gains income tax rate. And these people have no interest in getting rid of that distortion. I think this is a bait and switch. If they can get lower marginal tax rates passed, it will be relatively easy to put deductions back into the tax code later. But it will be very hard to raise tax rates later as we see with the big deal it has been to raise the top rate from 35% to 39.6%.

My biggest complaint with conservatives is that they are dishonest. And this takes place at every level. What most people focus on are the arguments. When they claim that Job Creators must have their taxes slashed so they will look kindly on the peons and hire them, we know this is wrong. But it could be they are just deluding themselves. Unfortunately, the problem is much worse than this. We see this quite clearly in this idea that we must balance the budget by doing things that will not balance the budget. This is just madness and in a sane world, the mainstream media would say so. But instead it is all he said/she said coverage.

Some people claim the sky is blue while others claim it is paisley. It’s just a matter of opinion; who can say?!

Frankenweenie made it to the cheap theater last week so I went to see it. I didn’t know anything about it except for the poster, which led me to believe that it was an animated Frankenstein with a cute dog. I’m not sure what it says about me that I thought that was a great idea for a movie. I was a little concerned when I got inside the theater and it was filled with children. I thought back to when I saw Babe at the theater and the children acted pretty much the same as they did in the Bride of the Monster premiere in another Tim Burton film, Ed Wood. But there was nothing to worry about.

Frankenweenie is the best big budget film I’ve seen in years. In fact, I’ve started behaving the way I did when I first saw Ed Wood: I’ve started dragging friends to see it. I have a hard time believing that anyone wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy it. Yet strangely, it doesn’t have a 100% rating on MetaCritic. Then again, what do those idiot film ombudsmen know?

The film tells the story of young Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant young scientists who makes movies featuring his only real friend: his dog, Sparky. In return for allowing him to enter the science fair, Victor is forced by his father to play baseball. Victor manages to hit a home run, but Sparky chases after the ball and is killed by a car. Following a demonstration of the effects of electricity on a dead frog by his science teacher Mr. Rzykruski, Victor decides to dig up his dog and bring it back to life.

Spoiler: it works!

Extra spoiler: the movie has a happy ending, unlike Frankenstein.

Everything about the film is first rate. But the two things that really make it work are the animation design and the story. Unless you’ve been living under a rock that doesn’t allow you to get out much, you must be familiar with Tim Burton’s visual style. Frankenweenie is very much in keeping with another fine film, Nightmare Before Christmas. I think it works really well, but I can imagine there are those who have no taste and thus won’t like it.

The story moves along at an extremely brisk pace. It never gets bogged down. Twice in the film they seem to have cut connecting scenes. They jolted me, but I think the film is better to just get on with it. After all, its not like the whole Frankenstein formula is all that believable.

What I most liked about Frankenweenie was its many references to the great tradition of horror films. These are not limited to Frankenstein, although there are more than enough of those including the finale at the windmill. There is also the science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski who sounds an awful lot like Bela Lugosi but looks like Vincent Price. And at one point, Victor’s parents are watching one of the Christopher Lee Dracula movies.

But I realize that all of this is what my friend Kristen would call “movie fuck” stuff. Not everyone likes this. But if you don’t get all the movie nerd references, it won’t matter. The film is above all charming. I will certainly buy it when it comes out on DVD.

Update (10 November 2012 9:58 pm)

I just found this great article in the Examiner, Classic Horror References Bring ‘Frankenweenie’ to Life. It notes a number of things that I didn’t pick up in the film:

Tom Scocca over at Slate created the graph below in an article, Eighty-Eight Percent of Romney Voters Were White. It is a shocking collection of data. Of course, it goes along with my argument that the minority issue the Republicans have is much bigger than toning down the rhetoric.

Another interesting thing to note is how ridiculous is the idea that Obama didn’t get a mandate. If Romney didn’t win, you could say it depended upon a single segment of the electorate. But you just can’t say that about Obama. Those claiming that Obama doesn’t have a mandate are racists. Just saying.

The following graph comes from Up With Chris Hayes of data from the AFL-CIO. Part of this is just that America is a racist country. But another big part of this is the result of Republican efforts to stop Democratic leaning voters. It is disgusting.

Over the years, I have seen the leaders of many regions call for separating themselves from the mother country. But this is always rich regions wanting to take their money and run. For a while Scotland wanted to leave the United Kingdom because they liked all their oil money, thank you very much. True to form, America does everything assbackwards.

Hardin County Texas Republican Party treasurer Peter Morrison is floating the idea that he doesn’t want to live in a democracy. Okay, he doesn’t put it like that. Instead, he claims that since he didn’t manage to force half the country to have to put up with his chosen candidate, he shouldn’t have to put up with theirs. The logic doesn’t really work, but so what? He’s a Texan!

Morrison is calling for an “amicable divorce.” How amicable? As amicable as any husband who refers to his wife as a maggot. I swear I’m not making that up.

What I find most interesting is that these calls for secession always come from the south or Alaska: areas that get a lot more from the federal government than they pay in. To be fair, Morrison’s home state of Texas gives a lot more than it gives. For every dollar of taxes, it gets 85 cents back. But it is part of a broader southern move. Back in 2010, Tennessee Representative Zach Wamp was calling for secession over Obamacare.

The issue of how much money a state gets back for the taxes it pays in is not real, of course. The truth is that the biggest determinant of this difference is the age of the population. Older citizens get Social Security and Medicare. These are very expensive programs that are paid for exclusively by younger citizens. The issue instead is that people in “red” states tend to think of themselves as autonomous: they send all this money to the feds and receive nothing for it. This just isn’t true. (A better case can be made for states like Delaware and New Jersey that get less than half the money back that they pay in.)

A lot of liberals would like to see the south secede. But the truth is, it would be a very bad thing. I’m not talking about the conservatives. I’m more than willing to let them experience the truth of their situation. The problem is that there are a lot of liberals who live in these states. It is wrong for us to abandon them to the likes of Rick Perry.

What’s really funny about Morrison’s little article is what it shows about the Tea Party mentality. They’ve convinced themselves of their talking points. Obama isn’t just a politician who differs with them on the issues: he is a man dedicated to destroying the United States. To quote John Dickinson (in 1776 anyway), “If you have grievances, and I’m sure you have, our present system must provide a gentler means of redressing them short of revolution!”

Of course, I’m not really sure what Morrison and his ilk are on about. I suspect that they are a good deal closer to the President’s policies than I am. But even granting that these people have real rather than imagined grievances, how can secession be the answer? Liberals have lived through decades during which presidents—Republican and Democrat—have pushed our nation ever to the right. Yet liberals do not call for secession.

Update (12 November 2012 4:57 pm)

David Atkins over at Hullabaloo presents us with the following table that indicates that Texas does a little better by the Fed than the data I have. It changes from year to year, but this table is really interesting:

You have to forgive her, I think. After all, she is married to Alan Greenspan. But Andrea Mitchell is getting the vapors over General David Petraeus. Rachel Maddow asked if she was sure that the affair was the real reason he resigned from the CIA. She was! David Petraeus?! Why he’s an American hero! Anyway, a man like him? Young women must be throwing themselves at him all the time. But the man cannot tell a lie and he doesn’t even chop down cherry trees.

And the la-hand of the Freeeeee!
And the hoooome, of thhhhhe, braaaave!

And the crowd goes wild! What a sad day for the United States. Another American hero brought down. And after those meanies at Move On called him “David Betray Us”![1] This is unthinkable!

My take on it is a little different. First, I think Move On was correct: like any military man of that level, Patraeus was a political hack who was about as familiar with the truth as I am with moon exploration. Second, David Petraeus is a powerful and famous man. Of course he’s gonna get a little young tail. Ms. Broadwell is a hottie. I think Petraeus is showing a lot of taste. She’s not so young that the relationship is creepy, and she’s a writer and that means she’s smart. If Paula Broadwell needs a shoulder to cry on, I’m available. Just saying.

Most important, from a broader perspective, this whole thing doesn’t make sense. I don’t buy that Petraeus is such an honorable man that this caused him to step down. Instead, I figure he thinks that if he steps down, the controversy will be over next week. And he’s probably right. This also sets him up to publish a tell-all memoir in the next two years that will get him a 7-figure advance.

Meanwhile, this little scandal will do nothing but improve Broadwell’s reputation. I mean, she’s the woman who bagged the American hero. I’m sure Andrea Mitchell is so jealous that… Oh my! She’s got the vapors.

[1] Here it is. Click on it if you can’t quite read it.

Update (9 November 2012 8:12 pm)

Here is the clip from The Rachel Maddow Show: