Are you between the ages of 18-34? Can you name one ”” just one ”” of your home state’s senators?
Congrats! You did better than more than three-fourths of people your age. That’s right ”” 77 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds in the new survey could not name even one US senator in their home state.
I wrote “young people,” but I was being a little bit sarcastic. Eighteen is young. Is thirty-four? No. Somewhere in-between those two ages a person ceases to have any excuse at all for such profound ignorance (not that there’s really all that much excuse at 18 either).
Most of these same people favor Hillary Clinton for president, as well. That is no surprise either. At least they know her name.
More unsurprising results of the poll:
Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said government is “helpful,” compared with just 18 percent who called it “harmful.”
I’d like to see a breakdown of the answers by political party, but the poll doesn’t provide it.
Neo wrote: There is no suggestion that anyone else in the movie is perfect, or near-perfect, or anything of the sort, including Rita!
I disagree, Neo. No one is supposed to be perfect, but IMHO Rita really should be (and I think was intended to be) a much, much more inspiring woman, the ultimate spark that finally frees Phil from his purgatory. Near the end of the film, Phil gives this heartfelt speech about how kind and wonderful and life-changing this woman is.
But instead, all we ever see”“in a rare instance of poor writing”“is a pretty bland, trite, lackluster Rita, and Andi MacDowell doing her wooden, mediocre best.
””””-
So I’m somewhat in agreement with Director Mitch, though I don’t think she’s quite that boring:
She is a bit vapid, hasn’t grown at all during this time, and quite frankly I don’t see why he (or any man quite frankly) would find her interesting at all.
Gary, you and I will have to disagree then, because I really disagree—not so much with your characterization of Rita’s relative blandness, but with your entire premise.
You see, Phil loves Rita. And that’s not because he or she is an enlightened being; he even loves her (or at the very least has a strong attraction to her that is more than the lust he also feels for her) before the spell traps him in a recurring loop of time. He just doesn’t know how to love her—or how to love anyone.
Rita is not the point. Rita is not meant to be “a much, much more inspiring woman, the ultimate spark that finally frees Phil from his purgatory.” That would in fact be the opposite of the movie’s message. Rita does nothing. And you are right, neither Rita nor anyone else but Phil changes in the movie, except within the confines of the one day (and of course at the very end, when Phil finally goes forward into the next day).
Rita is inspiring only because Phil happens to like and then to love her. Rita is nice rather than incredibly witty or fascinating, or spectacularly anything. We are meant to like her (see the “Gosh, you’re an upbeat lady!” scene), and of course she’s also a very pretty woman in a natural fresh-faced way—although not the most gorgeous woman in the world.
But the point is love, not Rita as an object exceptionally worthy of love. For whatever reason, Ria happens to be the person Phil happens to love. So his task is to learn what that word actually means, not just in the romantic sense but in the broadest sense, and not just with Rita as object but with the world as object. That is what gives the movie its profundity, a depth it would lack if Rita was some sort of “ultimate spark” that “frees Phil from his purgatory.” Only Phil can do that, and the process by which it occurs is far more complex and far more complete and far-reaching than Rita herself—however charmingly or attractively or fascinatingly she might have been portrayed—could have ever engendered.
How often, when you see a couple madly in love with each other, do you look at them and wonder “what does he/her see in him/her?” Often, I bet. Very few people are so universally appealing and wonderful that everyone is in love with them. Love is idiosyncratic and particular. Why him? Why her? Who knows, half the time. There are usually more exemplary and fascinating people one could find on earth, but that’s not the point. The point is knowing how to love this particular, flawed, sometimes boring, human being.
We often talk about Obama’s approach to Iran, offering theories that run the gamut from “fool” to “knave” to various combinations of the two.
Here’s an excellent article by Michael Doran in Mosaic that fleshes out the details of a theory of Obama/Iran. It doesn’t take the most extreme stance of all—which would be the “Obama is a secret Muslim Iranian sympathizer who wants America and Israel destroyed” theory—but the piece’s premise is extremely credible and it is well worth taking the time to read in its entirety.
It’s a bit difficult to summarize, but the article makes several points. The first two are that much of Obama’s approach focuses on his deep contempt for Bush and his deep desire to differentiate himself entirely from him (this is something I’ve long thought), as well as Obama’s penchant for secrecy. There’s much more:
During the Bush years, an elaborate myth had developed according to which the mullahs in Tehran had themselves reached out in friendship to Washington, offering a “grand bargain”: a deal on everything from regional security to nuclear weapons. The swaggering Bush, however, had slapped away the outstretched Iranian hand, squandering the opportunity of a lifetime…
Obama based his policy of outreach to Tehran on two key assumptions of the grand-bargain myth: that Tehran and Washington were natural allies, and that Washington itself was the primary cause of the enmity between the two. If only the United States were to adopt a less belligerent posture, so the thinking went, Iran would reciprocate. In his very first television interview from the White House, Obama announced his desire to talk to the Iranians, to see “where there are potential avenues for progress.” Echoing his inaugural address, he said, “[I]f countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”
Unfortunately, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, ignored the president’s invitation…
Because, of course, the entire thing was a myth.
Did Obama actually believe the myth? Your answer to that depends on how you answer that old, old “knave vs. fool” question. But I can practically guarantee you that many of Obama’s liberal advisors and aides believed it and believe it still, and that they are fools—otherwise known as “useful idiots.”
Later developments forced Obama’s hand—for a while:
In 2010, [Obama] signed into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA), which eventually would prove more painful to Iran than any previous measure of its kind.
In later years, whenever Obama would stand accused of being soft on Iran, he would invariably point to CISADA as evidence to the contrary. “[O]ver the course of several years,” he stated in March 2014, “we were able to enforce an unprecedented sanctions regime that so crippled the Iranian economy that they were willing to come to the table.” The “table” in question was the negotiation resulting in the November 2013 agreement, known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), which we shall come to in due course. But masked in the president’s boast was the fact that he had actually opposed CISADA, which was rammed down his throat by a Senate vote of 99 to zero…
Obama’s heart was not in it, to say the least. “For Obama, to force a confrontation with Khamenei would destroy any chance of reaching an accommodation on the nuclear front and put paid to his grand vision of a new Middle East order.”
That grand vision fits in well not only with Obama’s idea of the reasonableness of the mullahs (let’s not forget the influence of Valerie Jarrett, although the article does not mention her), but it fits in even better with Obama’s own towering grandiosity. Obama is the one who can do it, because he’s smarter, more reasonable, craftier, more perceptive, more persuasive, more whatever-is-needed than all his predecessors. This is something he truly believes.
As for Syria, Obama’s Syrian policy (which looked to some like mere confusion) was dictated by his fear of antagonizing Iran and jeopardizing the wonderful transformative agreement that’s just on the horizon. The author also believes that shortly before the 2012 election, Obama assured Teheran (as he did Russia) that in his second term he’d have a lot more freedom and “flexibility.” The course of subsequent negotiations makes for depressing reading, although we pretty much already know the gist of it, which can be summarized as “Obama concedes.”
Obama’s Middle Eastern policy has been so Iran-centric that even lowly bloggers like me have noticed the pattern; it’s nearly impossible to miss. But Doran’s article offers a detailed history and a coherent way of looking at the big picture. That it will make your blood run cold is no surprise; your blood has probably already been running cold for a long time.
You know what day I’m talking about. All together now: Groundhog Day!
Really, what could be more appropriate on Groundhog Day than a repeat of an old essay about the movie, a personal favorite of mine?
In discussions of the film “Groundhog Day” on this blog, I’ve noticed a couple of people questioning why the Bill Murray character would find Andie McDowell’s Rita deserving of all those years of his devotion and energy. For example, “…[W]hat, exactly, made the lovely but, let’s face it, vapid Rita worthy of Phil’s centuries of effort?”
My answer is that he discovered love. Yes, Rita was beautiful, and a good human being with many excellent qualities. But of course she was imperfect, and over the years (centuries? millennia?) Phil no doubt had learned just about all of her flaws. Still, it didn’t matter to him because it wasn’t about Rita, exactly—it was about the fact that, somewhere along the long path of his transformation to wisdom, he finally understood that every person in town, including the ones he couldn’t tolerate at the beginning, was worthy of his attention—and of something one might call “love,” in its broadest sense.
And somewhere along the way to that knowledge, Phil’s efforts in “Groundhog Day” stopped being about getting into Rita’s pants or even getting her to love him, although that certainly took up a larger percentage of his time (and the movie’s length) than some of his other pursuits. But he probably spent at least as much time learning to play the piano (a form of love, too), or to carve ice sculptures, or to become skilled at some of the more mindless and meaningless tricks he mastered, or learning details about the life of almost everyone in town.
Was the old derelict, whose life Phil tried to save over and over and over, “worth it” either? Such questions no longer mattered to him, because the gesture and the effort were worth it, and every life was worth something to him.
Rita, of course, had always been physically attractive to Phil. But as the film (and time) wore on—and on—she became the object not just of eros, but of agape as well. By the end of the movie, I think that Phil had come to appreciate the idea of the theme and variations versus the symphony, which I wrote about here:
And, although walking repeatedly in the same place is very different from traveling around the world and walking in a new place every day, is it really so very much less varied? It depends on the eye and mind of the beholder; the expansive imagination can find variety in small differences, and the stunted one can find boredom in vast changes.
And I submit that love is like that, too. Some people spend a lifetime with one love, one spouse; plumbing the depths of that single human being and what it means to be in an intimate relationship with him/her. Others go from relationship to relationship, never alighting with one person for very long, craving the variety.
It would seem on the face of it that the second type of person has the more exciting time in love. But it ain’t necessarily so. Either of these experiences can be boring or fascinating, depending on what we bring to it: the first experience is a universe in depth, and the second a universe in breadth. But both can contain multitudes.
Towards the end of the film [SPOILER ALERT!!], Phil makes it clear that he has given up the pursuit of Rita entirely, and immersed himself in his love for her instead. Is this what finally frees him to re-enter the flow of time? [The next two clips combined give you a rough version of the movie’s end; I couldn’t find one clip that showed the whole thing]:
[NOTE: For more on the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the film, please see this and this.]
I don’t ordinarily write about football, except for the obligatory open thread for the Superbowl—and I don’t always even do that.
So this may be the lengthiest football thread I’ll ever write.
I’m not a football fan, although I know the basic rules and I watch it on occasion when there’s some special reason. But for the Superbowl last night I had a plan (you might say I had a game plan). Watching the entire thing would be too boring, so I’d watch part of the half-time show and then the second half of the game if it looked interesting. It looked interesting, because the game was tied at the half, but somewhere in the third quarter I just couldn’t go on. The Patriots were looking bad—behind by ten points—as well as lackluster.
Although I had planned to tune in briefly now and then to monitor the score, sometime not long after I had turned off the TV my phone rang. It was an old friend who lives far away and whom I’ve been trying to reach for weeks. She finally had some free time, and so I figured I’d talk to her—a good long talk, about an hour or more. After all, I wasn’t missing a thing; who cared about the crummy old game?
Well, you know how that turned out. I missed the whole thing and had to play catch-up with (a) the Greatest Miracle Catch in History Carrying on the Tradition of Heartbreaking Patriots’ Losses; and then (b) the Worst Play Call in History; and then (c) the Greatest Interception in History; all going to make up (d) the Greatest Superbowl in History.
That’s a whole lotta history going on—and me, gabbing on the phone the whole time, just like a girl (and I throw like a girl, too—one of the most obnoxious Superbowl ads ever, wasn’t it?).
So of course then I had to watch the replays and listen to the commentary and read up on exactly what had happened. And it was the tale of Malcolm Butler, rookie hero, that most grabbed me:
That it was Butler who made Seattle pay is every bit as astounding as the misjudgment to begin with. Super Bowl XLIX was full of players who had been overlooked in the NFL Draft before establishing themselves in the league. But Butler was overlooked even among guys who had been overlooked. Nobody had farther to climb than him. It’s one thing to be undrafted like a Doug Baldwin out of Stanford; more than one team is going to call.
When you’re undrafted out of West Alabama, you might only hear from one.
“[The Patriots] were the only team that have me an opportunity,” Butler said Sunday night, “and I’m so glad they did.”
So is New England. Butler was a long shot to make the team, until he did. He was a long shot to stay active for most of the season, until he passed Alfonzo Dennard on the depth chart. He was a long shot to see action on Sunday night as the Pats’ fifth corner, until Kyle Arrington spent the first 35 minutes of the game getting handled by Chris Matthews.
Pete Carroll’s explanation for his own team’s move seemed weak, to say the least:
[Seahawks’ coach] Carroll’s explanation: He saw the Patriots bring in a formation with eight big guys and three cornerbacks and didn’t think Lynch, who tied for the league lead with 13 touchdowns rushing this season, would be able to bull it in against that defense.
“It’s not a great matchup for us to run the football, so we were going to throw the ball, really to waste a play,” Carroll said. “If we score, we do, if we don’t, we’ll run it in on third or fourth down.”
Butler showed a sharp eye for detail, quick thinking, and quick physical action too:
“I saw Wilson looking over there (towards the receivers),” Butler said. “He kept his head still and just looked over there, so that gave me a clue, and the stacked receivers, I just knew they were going to throw. My instincts, I just went with it, just went with my mind and made the play.”
There’s that explanation. But there’s also the explanation that Butler can’t explain:
“I just had a vision that I was going to make a big play, and it came true,” Butler said afterward. “I’m just blessed. I can’t explain it right now.”
To make the event even more dramatic, just a tad earlier Butler had had a really tough break:
Only moments earlier, things were playing out much differently for Butler. He was in coverage — good coverage — against Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse and appeared to bat the ball down for an incompletion. But as Kearse was falling, the ball bobbled between his legs, and he kept it in the air by batting it twice while tumbling. Kearse made the catch on his back for a 33-yard gain that gave Seattle a first-and-goal at the 5.
Butler went to the sideline.
“My teammates were saying, nine out of 10 times, that ball is incomplete,” he said. “It was devastating.”
A play later, Lynch had bulled the ball to the 1.
And then Butler became the Comeback Kid of all time.
I love stories like that.
[NOTE: Some great footage and photos here that show the plays involved fairly clearly.]
[ADDENDUM: Butler interview:
Hat tip: commenter “CV.”
And here’s another really enjoyable interview:
There’s something exceptionally winning about his personality.
And here’s a good article from last summer about Butler’s road to pro ball. It was written before the Superbowl, of course, but the seeds of what happened last night are there.
In recapping the play immediately after he left the field, he actually thought the ball was on the 3- or 4-yard line. He said he couldn’t explain it, but he just knew what was coming in part because of his résumé.
“I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a rookie, and who wouldn’t try a rookie?” he said. “I was ready.”
“Ready” is an understatement. As one of the comments at the article says, ” Most guys, especially an unheralded rookie, would be down after Kearse’s catch, but Butler’s stays focused on the task at hand and notices a familiar formation because he STUDIED.”]
The movie “American Sniper” opened in Iraq but was pulled out of fear of demonstrations and violence:
But before it was yanked from the theater, one Iraqi man named Gaith Mohammed said that it played to full and enthusiastic crowds. “Some people watching were just concentrating, but others were screaming ”˜Fuck, shoot him! He has an IED, don’t wait for permission!!’” he said of one of the film’s many tense scenes.
“I love watching war movies because especially now they give me the strength to face ISIS,” he continued, saying he did not find anything anti-Arab about the film.
It’s apparently not that hard to see in Iraq, though, on computers.
By the way, I saw the movie in a theater the other evening. Excellent, as I had expected. Clint Eastwood is to be commended, and Bradley Cooper manages to accomplish the rare feat of seeming not to be acting at all. There isn’t a false note in his performance.
The city Department of Education has failed to fire a teacher rated “unsatisfactory” for six consecutive years. Ann Legra, 44, a first-grade teacher at PS 173 in Washington Heights, racked up “six years of failing her students,” the city argued in a 16-day termination hearing…
He imposed only a 45-day suspension without pay. Legra keeps her $84,500-a-year salary, but is now assigned to a pool of 1,400 teachers who serve as substitutes.
Gov. Cuomo last month called the teacher-evaluation system “baloney” after the latest results revealed that fewer than 1 percent of the state’s teachers were rated ineffective…
Actually, I had long assumed that NYC schoolteachers effectively can’t be fired short of conviction of a felony. Maybe not even then, depending on the severity of the offense. Here’s the reason:
Job protections for tenured teachers make it difficult to fire bad apples. The system requires that each charge be proven in a trial with witnesses, documents and arguments. The DOE must show the teacher was given training and chances to improve.
The hearing officers ”” picked jointly by the DOE and the teachers union ”” frequently balk at termination, instead ordering a fine or suspension and requiring the teacher to take courses.
It reminds me of trying to evict a tenant in a very liberal city—the laws tend to be such that it’s almost impossible, no matter how bad the tenants’ behavior. Teachers have become very much like tenants within the school system—tenants with a very powerful tenants’ association.
[NOTE: It’s not new, either, although it’s gotten worse. Even when I was a child, the NYC teachers union was powerful and very to the left.]
I am drawn to melody in songs. That’s one of the many reasons I don’t like rap music. Rhythm is important too, of course, but for me melody (and lyrics) is key.
But there’s a class of rock songs that are great despite the fact that their melodies are somewhat monotonous. I’m not sure why that would be, but I know they exist. I thought about that the other day when I heard this oldie by Annie Lenox; it’s one of the greatest of the great monotonous songs:
Come to think of it, Annie Lenox was basically the queen of the monotonous singers. Case in point:
But Lenox wasn’t the only one:
Lest you think that singing monotonous songs is easy—hey, I can do that!—I think it’s actually very difficult to do it well. You won’t see many of these songs being covered on “American Idol,” for example. There’s no way to show your virtuoso ability. What’s the secret? An idiosyncratic, arresting voice and presence certainly helps.
A song that’s somewhat of a hybrid between monotonous songs and another category I plan to write about some day, crescendo songs, is Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.” Cohen is somewhat unique among singers in having a naturally monotonous voice and yet a great one, although not great in the conventional sense of technique or tone or range. I’ve written about Cohen many times, and my contention is that his musical gift lies in the depth of emotional expression his voice manages to convey without having hardly any range at all, and of course his beautifully poetic lyrics, and excellent backup singers and musicians and arrangements. His melodies are not all monotonous, either, but quite a few are.
Here’s the monotonous/crescendo of “Suzanne,” and the youngish Cohen singing it:
Similarly:
[NOTE: Next installment at some future point: crescendo songs.]
One of the most disturbing things about the Obama administration’s reaction to the prospect of Netanyahu’s addressing Congress isn’t just the discord it reveals between Obama and Israel; that’s old, old news.
For example, as early as May of 2009 I wrote that, although it was hard to tell at that point how Obama was going to treat Israel, “the preponderance of evidence points in the ominous Jimmy Carteresque direction.” I added:
How deep is Obama’s belief that Iran can be reasoned with? How far is he willing to go, how patient is he willing to be, how much is he willing to risk, to find out? And how much time is Netanyahu willing to give Obama before he takes matters into his own hands to stop Iran from acting out on what appears to be an existential threat to Israel’s existence?
That’s still the issue, and it’s more urgent than ever.
As for the personal enmity between the two heads of state, by March of 2010 Obama was already treating Netanyahu with unprecedented rudeness and hostility. In case you’ve forgotten, let me refresh your memory about the magnitude of the insult:
For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.
“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.
Obama is not just a petulant, angry man, he is one who is operating on a juvenile level that degrades the very presidency itself.
But the most bizarre thing about Obama’s hissy fit at the prospect of Netanyahu’s proposed address is his outrage at Netanyahu’s supposed rudeness, and his taking it as a very personal affront. Forget the larger geopolitical aspects; forget the fact that Israel is in an existential crisis (and I don’t mean that in the philosophical sense, I mean it in the sense of its existence being threatened): nobody disses Obama! That’s unforgivable. Obama can mistreat you with impunity (with the help of his compliant press), but if you mistreat him in any way—or merely fail to treat him with sufficient awe and reverence—woe unto you.
The stakes here are actually much higher than Obama’s pride. But to Obama, there are no higher stakes possible in the world.
Andrew J. McCarthy attempts to figure out why Obama is so very reluctant to call the Taliban terrorists. In his opinion, it seems to boil down to this:
Obama wants you to believe that there is just a dizzying array of small, disconnected, strange-sounding, indigenous “insurgent” groups that are not joined by any unifying ideology…You are not to see them as a united front against the West, but instead as animated by strictly parochial political and territorial disputes. The strategy, a disingenuous elevation of semantics over substance, is designed to minimize the global jihadist threat to the West that has intensified on Obama’s watch…
…[Obama] wants you to see them as domestic insurgents because progressives believe insurgents should be negotiated with and brought into a political settlement ”” and to the extent insurgents go overboard in their aggression, progressives believe they should be prosecuted in the civilian justice system, not fought militarily like wartime enemies.
…Obama is operating in a political environment where the public ”” based on longstanding prudential American policy ”” believes we should not negotiate with terrorists…Similarly, the public strongly believes international terrorists are enemies who must be defeated, not defendants who must be indicted. Obama knows he is negotiating with, intends to settle with, and eventually will leave Afghanistan to the tender mercies of, the Taliban. Therefore, the administration is desperate that you not look at the Taliban as terrorists.
In my opinion that’s correct, as far as it goes. I’m not at all sure it goes far enough, though. Obama has been doing this from the very start of his administration. The AP noted that one of his first acts as president was to start phasing out the phrase “war on terror,” so beloved of the Bush administration. Part of Obama’s deepest desire has been to make it clear that he is the un-Bush, and this purification of language is part of it.
In addition, the domestic audience is hardly Obama’s only target. He is signaling something to Muslim nations, too. It strikes me when I read Obama’s statements on the subject, or hear his unfortunate spokespeople squirm and hem and haw around it in obvious discomfort (if they have any conscience at all, which not all of them possess), that if the administration was doing PR for the jihadi they really couldn’t do a better job.
Obama is letting the world know, once again, that the days of America’s resolve to fight this scourge are over—at least, as long as he’s in office. It is part of his long-term policy of harming our friends and reassuring our enemies that America will not be fighting them.
