<$BlogRSDURL$>

Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, April 28, 2006

Passing on Movie Night.... 

...it wasn’t a tradition so much, lacking that sense of time that leds gravity to such things. It was just something the boy and I would do, back in the pre-teen days when dad was still cool, hanging together watching the Weather Channel on my bedroom TV as we were getting dressed for work and school, supposedly - as we would explain to the kid’s mother between her shouts of breakfast being ready - catching up on what the weather was going to be for the next few days in our neck of the woods up here on the northwest corner of the map. But then there was that one day where I was running a bit late and the kid was already sitting in a pile of his school clothes on the bed when I emerged from the bathroom. I turned on the TV, and the veiw that came up was of some hi-rise building fire in some city being shown on one of the cable news channels that I had been watching the night before. It looked dramatic enough, so we agreed to linger for a minute so I could figure out in which city this little drama was occuring. The boy’s mother came into the room to spur us - especially the boy - to a greater sense of urgency toward getting dressed, and we pointed out that we were watching this interesting skyscraper fire that the TV voices were saying had been caused by the crash of some small plane. She glanced at the screen while reciting a well-practiced line about our various societal responsibilities that were far more pressing than some fire on the other side of the continent, but she saw the jet swooping into the screen from the right side of the screen at the same time we did, and the evil bloom of fire and smoke that billowed out from behind the burning building just a couple of seconds after that jet disappeared behind it caused her to stop in mid-observation. We collectively stared at each other, trying to absorb this “what the hell” moment as it became apparent that we were looking at the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. We finally stirred ourselves to carry on our assigned responsibilities, but as I hung on every word coming out of my radios on the way to and at work it became apparent that something big and bad was going on, and conjurred feelings in me that I hadn’t felt sinced that snowy Idaho November day in the third grade when it was announced over the school intercom that President Kennedy had been shot...

Now, 4 ½ years after that bleak and stressful morning, we have “United 93". It opens this weekend to a degree of reluctant - almost regretful - critical acclaim probably unheard of in the history of the movie business. Studios, directors, producers, and actors would give away their exclusive beach homes for the number of rating stars and rave reviews this movie is garnering - maybe throwing the Ferrari and the gardener in as a bonus - but there is an almost overpowering sense of despair, loss, and raw emotion about the reviews and other reports of the movie that make me say “yeah, well....sorry....not today; thanks anyway”. I will probably never see this movie, in the same way that I will probably never see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”. I have an imagination that can most charitably be characterized as extremely active, along with a well-defined sense of tragedy. Maybe it’s because of having lost both my parents well before the age of 50 (in fact, I was 19 when my mother died) or having lost several friends to small plane crashes, car wrecks, and logging accidents over time. But for whatever the reason, I don’t need to see an actor displaying the brutal treatment that Jesus suffered on the path to dying for the forgiveness of my sins; I can imagine it easily. I can also easily imagine the sense of fear and desperation - that overwhelming, hopeless understanding of a need to do something in an effort to survive - that must have powered the passengers on United flight 93. The life I have chosen to live has ushered me out to The Edge on a couple of occasions, out where the decision space is narrowed down to “do it now” and “forget about it”, and the Good News is that if you pick right you can still feel the pain...

I am happy for the people behind this movie for the powerful piece of art that they have created, and if this brings some sense of peace or closure to the families of those who died so tragically but heroically on United flight 93, I can also find comfort in that. But the last thing I need is a movie - a vehicle that I have always seen as a method of escape and release - that essentially claws away at old scar tissue. Thanks, anyway...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:24 PM 0 comments

Thursday, April 27, 2006

So Ya Wanna Fix FEMA, Eh? 

...oh, Lord in Heaven, though it pains me beyond measure to find myself agreeing - even tangentially - with anybody from the Bush Administration, the fact remains that the idea of blowing up the Federal Emergency Management Agency and creating some other agency with some other name is just simply silly. Names don't matter; jurisdiction and understanding the mission are what matters. If this bipartisan gang of Senators wants to fix the problem, the solution is simple. Keep the name FEMA, move it out of Homeland Security so it can function independently, and then dispatch a long sleek federal Chevy Suburban with those dark smoked side windows and three or four burly federal agents to track down James Lee Witt with the mission of bringing him back to headquarters to straighten things out...

This isn't fair to Witt, and I understand that, if for no other reason that he already did this once and turned FEMA into an actual functioning disaster response agency. But, what the hell, somebody is going to have to fix the rest of the country once we are finally rid of Gee Dub and the Bush Monkeys, too, so maybe Witt can just be the first unwilling volunteer in that particular rebuilding effort. It's not about new agency names, however; this particular fix is all about simply going back to those long-forgotten days before Gee Dub and his gang showed up when things actually worked...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:12 PM 0 comments

Blogger Is So Bad...Why?? 

...for reasons that I couldn't explain, even at gunpoint, Ruminate This has decided to go on holiday again, and I can't post any new entries...and I don't know why. It feels like we've seen this movie before - this is, after all, part of the reason I started this blog to begin with - but for now this is going to be where all the action is...

...or at least it will be as soon as this vicious head cold I'm fighting right now runs it's course...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:03 PM 0 comments

WHAAAA??? 

…Senator Arlen Specter was talking today about his suggestion to cut National Security Agency funding if he didn’t start getting some straight answers about NSA’s eavesdropping program, when he said this:
“It is true that we have no assurance that the president would follow any statute that we enact…” Sen. Arlen Specter
…do these people even listen to themselves? Does the good Senator, in agreeing with Democrats about the potential uselessness of trying to gin up bills calling for more oversight of intelligence actions like the NSA eavesdropping program, even understand that he has just made a case statement for impeachment of the President of the United States? This shouldn’t even be hard; both the Constitution and the oath of office make it pretty clear that there should be every assurance that the president would follow any statute enacted by Congress, unless he chooses to veto it…

There aren’t any finer points or delicate nuances to try to focus on here. We aren’t talking about some teenage punk who keeps blowing curfew on Saturday night. This is the President of the United States, leader of one of the three supposedly co-equal branches of government, and a person who can bring us great harm either directly or indirectly if allowed to run wild and unchecked. I don’t know that I have enough tinfoil to deal with this one…
Posted by: Jack K. / 2:13 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

You Are Only As Safe As The Idiots In Charge Will Allow 

...we have known for a long time that all of the Bushco chatter about fighting terrorism was lip service. Since Sept. 12, 2001, wise and concerned voices have been calling for attention to the security of our nation's ports. Those calls have generally fallen on deaf ears, because the various agenda's of this administration have so completely tangled with the actual security interests of the country. The wild blow-up over the Dubai Ports World issue was in large part a product of the clear observation that Gee Dub and his gang really hadn't taken the whole issue of port security seriously. Displaying another benchmark of just exactly unserious this administration has been about port security, today - four and a half years after the terrorist attacks that launched our War on Terra - the Bush Monkeys have announced that port workers will undergo background checks...

Yes, I know: why wouldn't any person with intellectual capacity more powerful than that of an earthworm have figured this one out some time ago? The answer is obvious: Beats Me!! One of the most chilling TV movies I've ever seen, mostly because it was shot on video tape and therefore looked live, was a rebroadcast of a 1983 production called Special Bulletin that I stumbled across one house-bound afternoon. For some reason, I found it incredibly gripping, and the images lodged somewhere in my brain down deep below the Corpus Callosum, waiting to be dredged up after 9/11 on those dark nights when realities and possibilities merged in wild combat. The fundamental problem was that these strange imaginings weren't really all that difficult to imagine even in the light of day, and similar imaginings were available for people who never even say that particular show. The Bush administration, though, seemed to have a bizarre blind spot to the threat - or perhaps such a single-minded focus on conquering Iraq to fulfill whatever strange inexplicable neo-con dreams that gripped it's policy mavens - that meaningful security measures at America's ports seemed beyond it's grasp...

Who knows what finally happened. Maybe Chertoff accidently got a copy of "Special Bulletin" on one of his trips to Blockbuster to rent "Key Largo" to brush up on his hurricane preparedness skills (in other news, all FEMA personel will be issued snub-nosed .38's to deal with the inevitable influx of gangsters into post-hurricane areas). Whatever the case, the folks at Bushco have finally decided to make it almost as difficult to get into an American port as they made it last year for residents of far northeastern Washington state to drive to the nearby grocery stores across the border in Canada to buy groceries. For whatever reason, the Bush Monkeys took time out from scapegoating innocent employees in an effort to plug CIA leaks that revealed outrageous behavior by this administration in order to actually make a meager, limp first step toward actually trying to protect Americans. In a world where it has been harder for the last four and a half years to get into my own headquarters office - where I'm dealing with people who know me - than it has been to get onto a dock anywhere in the country, you can only shake your head at this latest lame attempt by Bushco to try to have it's actions catch up to it's rhetoric....
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:03 PM 0 comments

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Small-Town Turmoil Goes Big Time 

...turmoil has stalked the Central Linn school district for a couple of years now. The small district, located in the central Willamette Valley, has seen reprimands handed down to teachers and administrators for various reasons (some truly bizarre, I'm sure you will agree) and the rise of a group called "Caring Citizens for Kids and Community", which seems to have a series of gripes with the way things are being done and an interest in seeking an active role in changing things. The group was apparently successful in assisting the disappearance of the past District Superintendent, but the seemingly successful search for a new Superintendent has now ignited another firestorm all of its very own...

This is the sort of thing that brings you into the Big Time. When virtually all of the teachers in a small school oppose the hiring of a specific individual, when many of them - including the High School Principle - make it clear that they are going to seek other employment opportunities the minute the new guy sets foot in the state, that's the time when the rest of the state, if not the region, begins to sit up and take notice. School Administrators come and go on a regular basis and, while these things may earn a few column inches in the local paper, you would have more luck trying to get the average citizen to name his or her State Senator than you would the name of the local School Superintendent. There's no sense in even trying to understand what's going on here, because there are likely all sorts of issues swirling under the surface that you are never going to read about in any news story. It is instructive, however, for any trapped urban denizen hungering for the sweet simplicity of a small town life: the joy of small town living is constructed of a brittle alloy that can break easily and be viciously difficult to repair. Every small-town conflict has two sides, and it is sometimes difficult to keep from being forced to pick one. There can be a certain comforting grace to the quiet anonymity afforded by a larger community...
Posted by: Jack K. / 4:10 PM 0 comments

My Time As A Responsible Citizen 

...clearly, I can never watch a TV courtroom drama ever again. I've seen the real deal, and it's ruined the whole thing for me. Suffice it to say that I and my eleven cohorts spent a great deal of time in the jury room between bits of testimony (court clerks would occasionally stick their heads in to tell us we would be back in the jury box in "just a few moments" or "a little bit", which was true in a geological timeframe, but not necessarily in any human context of the understanding of time. Somewhere in the depths of the second afternoon, we were informed that a settlement had been reached, a plea agreed to, and we were free to go. No appointment of a foreman, no "12 Angry Men" action with hours of tense acrimonious deliberation as one mind after another was turned to the truth (I would, of course, humbly but with stunning and ruthless effectiveness be staffing the Paul Newman role)....just "Thanks for your time and have a good day.". Oh, well, I've done my part for democracy...

...and I'm excused from jury duty for the next two years...
Posted by: Jack K. / 3:50 PM 0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?