The very public rancor generated by Representative Ilhan Omar has brought to light a vital distinction - is to be anti-Zionist to be anti-Semetic?  Manchester Guardian columnist Peter Beinart, pitching his two-cents worth into the melee, makes the following observations in today;s (3/7/19) edition:  

"The first is that opposing Zionism is antisemitic because it denies to Jews what every other people enjoys: a state of its own. “The idea that all other peoples can seek and defend their right to self-determination but Jews cannot,” declared US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer in 2017, “is antisemitism.”As David Harris, head of the American Jewish Committee, put it last year: “To deny the Jewish people, of all the peoples on earth, the right to self-determination surely is discriminatory.”

All the peoples on earth? The Kurds don’t have their own state. Neither do the Basques, Catalans, Scots, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Lombards, Igbo, Oromo, Uyghurs, Tamils and Québécois, nor dozens of other peoples who have created nationalist movements to seek self-determination but failed to achieve it.
Yet barely anyone suggests that opposing a Kurdish or Catalan state makes you an anti-Kurdish or anti-Catalan bigot. It is widely recognised that states based on ethnic nationalism – states created to represent and protect one particular ethnic group – are not the only legitimate way to ensure public order and individual freedom. Sometimes it is better to foster civic nationalism, a nationalism built around borders rather than heritage: to make Spanish identity more inclusive of Catalans or Iraqi identity more inclusive of Kurds, rather than carving those multiethnic states up.
You’d think Jewish leaders would understand this. You’d think they would understand it because many of the same Jewish leaders who call national self-determination a universal right are quite comfortable denying it to Palestinians."

This is a vital point: Zionism is a political agenda: to be a Jewish Semite (there are other kinds of Semites) and believe in "semitism" is a religious/cultural/social identity. Are there Jews who do not believe in Zionism? Many. They believe in a Jewish state, and the right of it to exist, but not in a lot of the political baggage than can be associated with Zionism, which can include a very anti-Palestinian stance, and often anti-Islamic attitude.

And that's where Ilhan Omar gets caught up: in her staunchly pro-Palestinian stance, she has gotten caught up in the semantics around anti-Zionism and antisemitism. She needs to be clearer that she is opposed to the state of Israel's political agenda, not to it's right to exist. But we in the US have to take into consideration that for perhaps the first time in our country's history we are dealing with on openly Muslim congressperson, and her points of view might diverge from the norm, in presenting an openly pro-Muslim voice. Are there PAC who openly push for Zionist policy in the US? I don't know, but it is hardly a secret that Israel has been the favorite child of US foreign policy for decades, and anyone who dares to criticize this publicly will be taken to task.

So as the Guardian columnist asks, why is it morally offensive to be considered anti-Israel, when being anti-Tibet, anti-Kurdistan, anti-East Turkestan (the proposed Uighur homeland) are not?

Just watched "Free Solo," the documentary following Alex Honnold's successful free solo (along without rope or any gear) of Freerider on the Southwest Face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley - rated at 5.12D. Alone - without a rope. 3,000 feet of climbing in under four hours, a route he rehearsed roped for several years, on and off, especially around 1/2 a dozen key stretches involving dicey moves a thousand or two feet above the deck. Almost too gripping to watch, the film also takes you into his life, the lives of some around him, and you get to know Alex, fellow climber Tommy Caldwell (who did the first free roped ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Cap), Alex's partner Sanni McCandless, Jimmy Chin, the lead lensman of the climb, and others such as climbing legends Peter Croft and Mark Synnott. But the mind boggling thing is that Honnold does, after one initial effort he bails on, a climb that takes roped teams several days, a climb that once Honnold is more than 100 feet up the 3000 foot, thirty pitch climb, if he falls, that's it. Amazing feat, and a gripping film. Plus its amazing to see the mental approach he has, especially as he has to compensate for a bit of a media circus filming the climb.

I used to climb, and 5.12 is the hardest moves I ever climbed - with a rope. And following, not leading, and certainly not 2,000 feet above the ground. To call this amazing is selling it short - quite simply put, the most astonishing athletic feat of our times: perhaps of any time.  I did free solo some peaks in the Sierras, some of which were easy roped routes, but this is just a totally different level of human achievements. He's soloed El Cap and Half Dome: what's next?

I'm not referring to the government shutdown; rather, the Russia-Gate corruption and collusion case. Right around the same time when the fact that Trump had five face-to-face-meetings with Putin that not only were there no others present aside from translators, the translators were instructed to destroy their notes, we get this juicy little tidbit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/world/asia/belarusian-escort-deported-thailand.html

An Belorussian escort claims she has 16 hours of tape about Putin and Trump. So from the high court to jail cells in Thailand, more potential info is coming out about collusion and potential high crimes, the latter of which is seeming more and more like reality, not just possibility.

But what's of note is the persistent presence of escorts and porn stars in the story, from this unfortunate young Belorussian woman who was just trying to make a living, to Stormy Daniels, to the infamous pee-pee tape, to others probably yet to come forward (and then to women who have been harassed, assaulted and blackmailed by Trump). Sleaze coats Trump like a Gore-Tex parka, preventing the clean rain of honesty, morality and ethics from seeping into his lizard-like brain. One of the saddest things is that he has lived his life not just of lies, but through subjugating, harassing and demeaning woman all the time.

Just look how miserable Melania looks all of the time. She also probably wonders how much longer can this go on every single day.

It's not very often that I have had to stop reading a book to cry, or because it is too painful too read more. But Svetlana Alexeyevitch's Secondhand Time is such a work, particularly the passages where her interviewees, almost always women, speak about being raised in orphanages, and the infamous gulag system, particularly the one in Karaganda, not far from where I spent five years living in Astana - Kazakhstan, for those who do not know.

People from our school would go and visit the site, now a museum and site of remembrance, but I never did, or could. I once visited S-17, the infamous prison and torture center in Phnom Phenh, Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge tortured in killed "political" prisoners. Being a political enemy of the state, in Cambodia, just as in the USSR or present-day China, could simply be the fact of your ethnicity, or that you wore glasses, or the size of your nose.  The thing I remember the most about S-17 was not that there were still blood stains on the walls - and scratch marks from the prisoners' fingernails - or that the same wire-frame beds that the prisoners were shackled to for torture were still there. No, those were mere physical testaments: what struck me was the  palpable sense of evil, perhaps the only time in my life I have felt that.

I didn't want to go to Karaganda to feel that: I didn't need to be reminded of that, because I will never forget. The testimonies in Alexeyevitch's work have the same power: the smell of the earth in spring, a pebble, a blade of grass can signify either rebirth, or serve as proof of existence, of survival, of communion with something that it not dead, proof that there is life, proof that not all is suffering.

I suppose that, given the chance, I would go to see one of WWII's many death camps, but it is not something that fills me with anticipation. When I was done with S-17, my guide, a motorcycle driver who waited outside, offered to take me to see the Killing Fields, where the bodies were deposited. I declined, partially out of fear of diluting what I had just seen, and becoming numbed and inured to the idea of death camps as a tourist attraction. After some conversation, I asked him where he was from? He told me, "I'm an orphan. I do knot know who my father, my mother, were. I have no family. I do not know where I am from."

I was shocked to read of the passing of the great Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci yesterday morning. He had seemed to faded into obscurity after a career which had gained him the reputation of one of the great film directors of the 20th century. Only after reading about his failed surgery for a herniated disc, which left him wheelchair - bound, and other health issues, did his seemingly (to me) unexplained disappearance from the world of cinema make sense.

To my thinking, he was one of the great directors of the post-WWII cinema scene, a director who created stories of compelling emotional power, cinematographic precision, color and power, and a director who plunged the depths of the human psyche.  I've watched "Last Tango in Paris" more than any other film, viewing it countless times, fascinated by its brooding majesty, perverse allure, and the great acting by Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. Certainly the film is somewhat tainted by the accounts of an act of sexual abuse performed by Brando on Schneider, with the apparent collusion of Bertolucci. But that, and only that, is the sole taint on Bertolucci's career. Certainly it caused Schneider much mental pain over the years, and has only burnished her performance in the film, out-distancing in my eyes, that of Brando's, for her own open vulnerability and courage in this very raw film, a real turning point in the history of film. Still, the film is a masterpiece, with Vittorio Storraro's magnificent cinematography, Gato Barbrieri's soaring soundtrack, and Bertolucci's merciless portrayal of an affair bound to go nowhere.

And this was just one of his great films that influenced cinema history, at a time when film auteurs were taken seriously and influenced world film in a way that is no longer possible. He made films that mattered: "The Conformist", "1900", "The Spiders Stratagem", "After the Revolution", "The Sheltering Sky", "The Last Emperor", and his follow-up, such as it was, to "Last Tango", "The Dreamers." I think after "Last Tango," "1900" is the film I have watched the most, in part or all, owning the full five hour version. The sweeping scale of this over five-hour Marxist epic on political, cultural and psychological history of Italy from 1900 to post-WWII is a magnificent epic, rich, multi-layered, tormented and spectacular, with an amazing cast: Burt Lancaster, Dominique Sanda, Robert DeNiro, Sterling Hayden, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Stefania Sandrelli, and other Italian actors not as familiar to US viewers, but stars in their own right such as Laura Betti, Romolo Valli, Alida Valli and others. A critique of history, an emotional saga, and the story of class struggle unresolved through the tumultuous events of the first half of the twentieth century.

And that's just two films. "The Conformist" is perhaps Bertolucci's greatest film, his second film lensed by Storraro, adapted from the novel by Alberto Moravia, about a gay man, suppressed into conformity, who sells his soul to the Italian Fascist party, only to have it all unravel with the fall of Mussolini. This is perhaps his most structured yet powerful film, another dark and merciless film like "Last Tango," where there are no heroes, just victims and survivors. And Dominique Sanda, who was offered the role of Jeanne in "Last Tango" but turned it down due to prior commitments, is enigmatic, alluring, as the dopplenganger of the protagonist, Jean-Louis Trintignant's desires, the film a fascinating nightmare of Freudian dimensions and a damning condemnation of Italy's fascist madness - a warning to all of us living through Trumpian America.

And the revisiting of Spring 1968, Paris, sexual liberation, Marxism, the Cinematheque Francais, rock and roll in "The Dreamers," with Eva Green as an updated Maria Schneider. And "The Last Emperor", a Hollywood blockbuster which melded big 80s bio-pics with serious content and political commentary on the Communist Chinese dystopia - no wonder it was the first, and last, Western film granted access to the Forbidden City, the home of the Chinese Emperors, in Beijing. And his script writing for "Once Upon A Time In The West," Sergio Leone's 1969 masterpiece, rated by most film critics as the greatest Western ever.

A monumental talent, a man who remade cinema has passed. Requiescat in pace, signor Bertolucci. Your life has been one that has touched many, as an artist in cinema who has few equals.
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For the Big Orange Turd, visiting California today: only a disaster could compel him to visit the nation's most populous state.  And since Facebook wouldn't let me post this, here's my special greeting to him, courtesy of Jennifer Lawrence....

Writing an online exam for my Humanities class, with Darwin's endless children's TV on in the near background almost led to me writing a question such as follows:

A farmer had a dog; his name was 1) Bongo  2) Bango  3) Bingo  4) Butoh

Of course if I wrote the question like this, at least one student would have complained that, because of the way I wrote the question, he thought I was referring to the name of the alleged farmer, who in the song in question, remains unnamed. I would have pointed out the the antecedent to the pronoun "his" is clearly dog. Of course once I said antecedent, the student probably would have been lost, and the next question would have something to do with extra credit.

That would be the current resident of the White House, and his show of petulance, ignorance and stupidity at the World War I ceremonies over last weekend in Paris and France. His inability to show even a modicum of respect and recognize t the gravity of the moment. His laziness, and unwillingness to travel in the rain to acknowledge thousands of dead Americans who perished so that he, and his Nazi father and all of their miserable relatives, could prosper and sponge off (and rip off) the American public. And for that matter the millions of combatants from all over the world who perished in the name of democracy, a form of government that he is attempting to eradicate. His slimy bro-mance with Putin, winking and nodding at each other, Trump oblivious to the fact that Putin will spill the goods on him whenever the Russian tyrant finds it convenient, when his little pimp has outlived his usefulness.  How did this putrid fart of a human being become president?

And who is stupid enough to vote for him?

Some things take a while: few stories seem to have begged to be turned into films more than the kidnapping of J Paul Getty III, grandson of the wealthiest man in the world (at the time). It has all the key elements: a dramatic plot with the possibility for conflict and twists galore, wealth, decadence, drug use, beautiful people, 60s and 70s hedonism and Eurotrash contrasted with upper-crusty British banking wealth, exotic locales, British country homes, and on and on. Yet it took over thirty years, and now, finally, two excellent productions, different in their own ways but both eminently watchable, have been released this year: All The Money In the World, on the big screen, and Trust, a 10-part series on FX.

All The Money In The World, directed by Ridley Scott, has both the benefit of concision, relatively speaking, and suffers from it as well. The kidnapping of JPG III forms the spine of the drama, while subplots concerning his possible complicity in the crime, the Italian Mafia, his grandfather’s unrepentant stinginess (even when his own flesh and blood is concerned), the dysfunctionality of the Getty brood, JPG III’s mom and her unwavering commitment to freeing her son, and other elements are squeezed into the 90 minutes or so that make up the film. Christopher Plummer plays the tight-fisted patriarch, as a replacement (!) for the Kevin Spacey. Its hard to image casting Spacey over Plummer – he even has something of a resemblance to J Paul Sr., and Plummer’s take on the domineering, callous industrial baron deserved better than a mere Academy Award nomination. Plummer’s long illustrious career gives him a kind of gravitas on screen that can’t be learned, only earned. Michelle Williams is excellent as JPGIII’s mom, divorced from JPGII, but the headscratcher among the actors is Mark Wahlberg as Getty senior’s fixer.

Wahlberg, I find, is one of the most vanilla actors out there. A lot of sound and fury often, signifying well you know what, he just never seems to bring much to the table. Like Tom Cruise and other H-wood actors, he is better known for who he is than what he does. So its curious in flipping through Rotten Tomatoes reviews that one reviewer from the Hindustan Times, Rohan Nahar, gives kudos to Wahlberg while giving a thumbs down to Brendan Frazer in the same role in Trust. Now let me preface this by saying that I chose this critic somewhat randomly. I was flipping through the reviews, saw one that was somewhat negative, so then checked it out. I found it interesting, but also revealed a critic somewhat out of his depth in material that clearly was unfamiliar to him, one of the dangers of our globally connected media community. The ability to access all material globally can lead to a sense of familiarity that might be unfounded.

Back to Brendan Frazer, whose acting is a comedic revelation, with serious moments to leaven the mix. Created as West Texas, Bible-quoting (thankfully not too much) PI hired by Getty to fix his problems, Frazer is a pleasure to watch. Like Carey Grant, Frazer has that rarest of screen qualities: likeability, a quality notably missing from Wahlberg, who always seems to be pressing his acting ability onwards, perhaps as a reminder that he doesn’t have as much to work with. Nahar also pans the excellent Hillary Swank (as Gail Getty, JPGII’s ex-wife) and Donald Sutherland as JPG senior, as well as Frazer. Here’s the quote:

the performances of Sutherland as Getty, Hilary Swank as Paul’s penniless mother and Brendan Fraser as Getty’s fixer, are nothing like their cinematic counterparts’ - Plummer, Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg. They seem to know that they’re in a piece of entertainment. Sutherland is almost moustache-twirlingly cunning, and Fraser speaks in an exaggerated Texan drawl as he breaks the fourth wall…[1]

Perhaps the Hindustan Times critic has never met West Texans: the drawl is not overdone, just as it is not representative of all West Texans. But writing off Sutherland’s performance as a caricature is a gross under-appreciation: Sutherland’s Getty is every bit the equal of Plummer’s, albeit different, a reminder of how great actors can give the same role alternate takes, emotions, and characteristics. While Plummer is icy, aloof and cruel, Sutherland can be somewhat more personable, and sarcastic, but always with a leering cruelty just below the surface. Sutherland’s Getty reminded me, in more ways than one, of another one of his great roles, in one of the great films of the 1970s Bernardo Bertolucci’s Novecento, where Sutherland played the decadent, morally corrupt head foreman (and Fascist) of the Berlinghieri estate, the padrone played by Robert DeNiro (and his father by Burt Lancaster).  Given that the real life JPGIII kept what amounted to a small harem in his English country manor, the jaded and lascivious aspect that Sutherland brings to the role - the harem is not part of Scott's film - is all appropriate, and true to biographical accounts of the old lecher.

The Hindustan Times critic further shows just how far off-base film critics can be. He also derides the Trust subplot, a very considerable part of that shows 10 episodes, which explores the idea that JPGIII staged the kidnapping in order to pay off his drug and partying debts in Italy, funded by (of course) the Mafia. JPGIII did bandy this idea around, so that when the actual crime happened, the Gettys were not sure if it was for real. And this is the main fault with Danny Boyle’s spin on the event: in stretching the show to almost nine hours, the mafia-side of the story takes over, so that the much more interesting story concerning the many generations of Gettys, the drug-fueled 60s scenes in London and Rome which involved JPGII and III, Talitha Pol and others, is overtaken by what eventually becomes the Godfather Part IV. And this godfather is no Vito Corleone in New York, but an obscure and unsuccessful don in Calabria, the Arkansas of Italy.  Perhaps Nahar should stick to more familiar fare.

Both versions are worth watching, not the least for the remarkable acting by two leonine Canadian octogenarians as J Paul III. Entertaining, and both with commentary on how absolute wealth can corrupt absolutely, the story of John Paul Getty III’s kidnapping makes for fascinating, and sometimes remarkable, watching. That two versions of the story were released within months of each other, well that is perhaps even more remarkable.


[1] https://www.hindustantimes.com/tv/trust-review-danny-boyle-s-new-show-is-like-a-slumdog-millionaire-apology/story-5pSWMnnqLFPKTvHxIj5UVL.html