Last week I introduced my father to the feature film version of The Bourne Identity. He really liked it, so I showed him The Bourne Supremacy and finally tonight The Bourne Ultimatum. As cheesy Hollywood superhero action films, they are fine. In fact, The Bourne Supremacy is actually kind of good. I particularly like the ending of it when Bourne confronts the Neski daughter (played by the fine young Russian actress Oksana Akinshina). Typically, just about every scene from the film is on YouTube, except this one.

The Bourne Ultimatum kind of sucks. In the first two films, Jason Bourne was already pretty hard to accept as a character outside of a bat suit, but I could suspend my disbelief for the greater good of mindless movie fun. But the action is totally comic book in this last one. What’s more, the plot was not well scripted. Many things are not explained. Nicky just disappears halfway through the film without anything like a resolution. And perhaps most of all, it seems that the CIA is the most corrupt organization in the history of the world. (Which may be true, but it gets tiring in these films.)

Thematically, The Bourne Ultimatum was interesting when you look at the history of the first film. The Bourne Identity was finished in the middle of 2001. Then 911 happened and the producers freaked out. Don’t believe what you hear about Hollywood being liberal and all that. Sure, they’re social liberals. But when it comes to war, you can count on the Hollywood elites to be among the biggest cheerleaders. The concern with The Bourne Identity was that now, in this “new” terrorist world, what America might need above all else is a good assassin like Jason Bourne.

So they shot another ending where Abbott meets with Bourne right before he is reunited with Marie. Abbott gives him the recruiting speech, just so we Americans can know if need be, Jason Bourne will be around to murder our problems. But they tried out the film and they found—Quelle surprise!—that no one left the film thinking, “But we need Jason Bourne out killing everybody!” Instead, everyone thought that assassination was bad and that it was real nice that Jason Bourne was able to put that behind him and reunite with his love.

Jump ahead 5 years. People have noticed that we don’t actually live in a “new” terrorist world. All the new governmental powers designed to keep us safe have—Quelle surprise!—mostly been used against us. And so The Bourne Ultimatum makes the bold thematic statement that the surveillance state is bad. Of course, back in 1998, Enemy of the State made this case far better in no less a Hollywood “blow shit up” way.[1]

As film franchises go, Bourne is about as good as you can hope for. It is certainly true that 3 was closer in quality to 1 than was the case for The Godfather. Of course, the starting place wasn’t as high.

[1] Interestingly, Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter of all the Bourne films (and writer-director of the very good Michael Clayton) was supposedly an uncredited written on Enemy of the State.

Since I’ve been moderating my blogs, I’ve noticed a lot of the same things over and over. The main thing I’ve noticed is that whoever the people who are writing these things are, they don’t write English very well. But some of them are clever. The first time you get them, they make you wonder.

One of them alerted me to the fact that my site was not loading properly in Internet Explorer. It went on to explain that this browser was the most popular and I really should do something about it. Such things can make me wonder, but I knew there was no such problem with the site. Perhaps the best such gambit is this:

Needless to say, I was pleased that this particular spambot would come again again. If this comment had been written in something approaching standard English, I would no doubt have been driven into a fit of copy editing. But clauses like “inform the truth then again” kind of ruin the illusion.

I try to find this all amusing. But its hard because I hate it that these fucktards are wasting so much of my time again again.

Yesterday, Brad Plumer over at WonkBlog wrote an article called Today in European Stereotypes, which contained some really interesting data from a couple of different sources. Plumer chose to provide the data in stages in order to present it as a mystery story. And he was very effective. I for one clicked below the fold.

But I would rather just come right out and show, I don’t know, the hypocrisy of the Europeans—in particular the Germans, or as I like to call them, the Krauts. (In this time of racial sensitivity, it is nice to know you can still hate the Germans. I’ll be all for easing up on them the moment they stop being assholes.) Most of the nations of Europe believe that Germans are the hardest working people. Most of the nations of Europe believe that the Greeks are the least hardworking people.

But here is a list of the countries and how many hours they work on average in parentheses:

1. Greece (2109)
2. Poland (1939)
3. Italy (1778)
4. Portugal (1714)
5. Ireland (1664)
6. Spain (1663)
7. UK (1647)
8. Germany (1419)
9. Netherlands (1377)

There were no data for France. Also note how many hours Italians work, because they are generally considered almost as lazy as the Greeks.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking: just because they work a lot of hours doesn’t mean they are productive. Certainly Plumer brings this up. And even he doesn’t seem quite aware of what his data indicate. The issue isn’t about productivity. Productivity is more an issue of management: if you mechanize a production line, productivity goes up. Relatively small increases are due to workers moving faster. This is the bottom line: Greek workers put in almost 50% more hours than Germans. Italians put in 25% more.

There are little doubt many reasons why people work more hours in southern Europe. But these numbers ought to put to rest this idea that Germany is not in crisis because they are virtuous and southern Europe is in crisis because they are not virtuous. No one is more aware of Greece’s screwed up political system than the Greeks. But it is the Greek worker and not the Greek politician who is harmed by the austerity that Germany is imposing on Greece and much of the rest of Europe.

Everyone would be a whole lot happier if the Germans would pull their heads out of their asses.

Quick Thought One

John Avildsen is a great director. I’m glad that Karate Kid was a success, but it kind of sucks when you consider that Avildsen directed Joe and Rocky. The great thing about him is that he has a vision. He fails more than he succeeds, but he always[1] succeeds his own way. And that’s what makes him great.

Quick Thought Two

I just saw a bit of Karate Kid (2010). It seemed good enough. But what struck me was that it is set in China. This allowed the film to completely skip the most important thematic element of the film: the military mindset in America. It looked like the remake degenerated into “the old ways are better than the new.” And that just isn’t that interesting. It sure isn’t what Americans need telling. More than ever we need the original.[2]

[1] Okay: not always. I’ve seen Rocky V too.

[2] I would complain about the horrible performance of Jaden Smith, but Ralph Macchio wasn’t much better.

I hadn’t planned to read Paul Krugman’s new book End This Depression Now! I read his blog every day and I’ve read all of his books for lay audiences, so I didn’t think there would be much to offer in this book. But I couldn’t help myself. The book is a quick read; Krugman writes in a breezy style that is uncommon for a political book. But more important, the book does a great job of tying up all of his various policy beliefs into a single narrative that is extremely insightful.

The book is broken down in three parts: the history of how we got to where we are now, what (and who) is stopping us from doing anything, and what we should be doing. It is much more edifying than, say, the very good documentary Inside Job. But I’m not sure it is worth the cover price of $24.95 (although it is only $15.26 in hardcover or $9.48 in electronic form on Amazon).

It is not surprising that I totally accept Krugman’s argument. I’ve been reading him so long that I don’t know where his opinions end and mine begin. I’ve come to believe that as long as we are living in this conservative dark age, we will always agree. It is only when the economy is doing well that I will begin to see him as a moderate. That is one of the aggravating things about our nation at this time. Krugman is in no way a radical or even particularly liberal. It is only that our society has gotten so out of kilter that he appears so.

Nonetheless, he see the world clearly. He discusses cuts to the stimulus by $100 billion to get the necessary Republican votes to pass it.

I think a lot of us had thought the same thing. For one, Jonathan Chait discussed how Olympia Snowe bargained with her vote:

What this all means is that Republicans don’t particularly believe in anything. Even the supposed moderate or reasonable ones only do what they think of as politically expedient. And this is all the more the reason that liberals need a political part that does stand for something. As I’ve noted before, we don’t need to win elections; we need to move the whole field back to the left—back to where Krugman is in the center.

Until then, it is kind of useless to think too much of Krugman’s plan to fix what ails us. But it is a little heartening to know the solution is as easy as Krugman says.

In the poem Eloisa to Abelard, Alexander Pope wrote:

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

I know this, not because I’m big into 18th century poetry. I know it because it is quoted in one of my favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It is an interesting literary allusion. The poem tells the story of young Eloisa and her teacher Abelard. They fall in love and secretly marry. But when her family find out, they castrate Abelard. They spend the rest of the poem trying to get over the fact that they are completely screwed. As the quote above indicates, it is about acceptance and memory, or lack there of. In a general sense, the film is about these issues. But the story of a young woman falling in love with a wise older man is in both the film and the poem. And in both cases, it does not go well. Of course, Abelard does much worse than Howard Mierzwiak.

This evening, I watched the film again. It has been a while. It is such a delight. But I saw the film in a different way than I have previously. This time, the story of Mary and Howard was much more important. It demonstrated that forgetfulness deprives ourselves of the ability to learn and grow. Without it, we will continue to make the same mistake over and over. This might work for Eloisa and Abelard, because their problems are imposed from without, but the rest of us are dealing with mostly self-inflicted problems.

It is only with the Mary and Howard story that the ending can be seen as anything other than a tragedy. Because Mary offers them the ability to see where their previous relationship ended, they can (hopefully) learn and grow into a better relationship this time.

The graph on the left shows the median family income over the last 35 years. What you notice is that incomes have not increased much over this time period: roughly $5,000 or 10%. That is far far far less than the per capita increase in income over that same time. The reason for this is that almost all of the gains have gone to the top—the very top mostly.

Let me suggest something: we should raise the top income tax bracket. When Reagan came into office, that bracket was 70%. It was lowered because of “trickle down” economics—the idea that if the rich did better then everyone else would too. That hasn’t happened. It turns out—Quelle surprise!—that lowering the taxes of the wealthy just makes the wealthy even more so and doesn’t do a damn thing for anyone else.

Before Reagan, the the top tax bracket hadn’t been less than 70% since 1936. What’s more, since 1917 it had only been much below 70% during the years just before and after the start of the Great Depression. So clearly, as a country, we seem to think that 70% is about right for the top tax bracket.[1]

Given that lowering the top tax bracket from 70% to 35% has at best done nothing good for the country as a whole, I think we should return to the old tax bracket. All we have to gain is a larger degree of economic equality.

[1] Contrary to what a lot of people think, this does not mean that people with a lot of income pay that amount. This is a marginal tax rate. They only paid this on the income they made above what is now over a half million dollars.

I’ve written before about Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church and their campaign (and website) “God Hates Fags!” Well, some clever person has noticed that they have it all wrong. It isn’t fags; it’s figs. Click on the image to buy the shirt. Or don’t. I have no stake in it.

Mark 11 (New American Standard Bible):

¹² On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. ¹³ Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴ He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening.