Going to See Philip Seymour Hoffman

Movie Reviews these days are often frustrating.  They seldom seem to lay out the plot in a way that helps us decide if this film is for us, and they never dare to challenge the greatness of established Hollywood figures, even when they turn out work that is beneath them.

So I'm happy report an exception (I hope! Ask me when I've seen the flick....).  The Boston Globe's Ty Burr has written a thoughtful analysis of Philip Seymour Hoffman's "last leading role before his death", in the John Le Carre intelligence thriller, "A Most Wanted Man".

According to Ty Burr, "With “A Most Wanted Man,” we’re not in the real world, exactly. We’re in John le Carré-land, a landscape of fictional espionage that’s still much closer to the compromises, betrayals, and gray moral areas of realpolitik than most movies and books dare give us. There’s a lot to sort out — who’s on which side, what anyone’s endgame is — which is why a film like “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” can baffle audiences used to movies that do all the thinking for them.

"“A Most Wanted Man,” directed steadily and subtly by photographer Anton Corbijn from le Carré’s 2008 novel, is a little easier to parse. Partly that’s because it puts so much faith in its central character, Gunther Bachmann, an intelligence lifer exhausted from fighting the bureaucrats while holding on to a spark of honor."

Here's the link to the trailer for the Movie:

I know what I'm doing this evening!

A Friday Quickie

I recently ran into a couple of those strange folks - religious fanatics of a sort - liberal Democrats (or, as I usually call them, "Dimmocrats").

These people are as sweet and kind Americans as you could hope to meet - well-educated, generous and thoughtful.  But when it comes to matters of electoral politics, they are as willfully blind as any Jihadist.  They told me that Ralph Nader, a true, uncorrupted American hero who has saved thousands of American lives and been vilified and ostracized for his trouble, is to blame for Al Gore losing the Presidency to "Dubya", a POTUS so potty that even Republicans are ashamed to mention his name.  This as they simultaneously agree that Gore fought a pathetic electoral campaign, and failed to fight for his rights when the Supreme Court stole them from him.

These same people also think that it's a miracle, or at least a wonder of the age, that a Black man was elected President. That, people, is Racism. We shouldn't give a cuss what color of skin our leader has; rather, we should be looking, in the words of the great Martin Luther King, at the content of his character.

And Barry Obama has been showing the content of his character loud and clear recently - giving the usual Washington nod of impunity to the racist, fascist regime in Israel, which is currently attacking schools, hospitals, and even the United Nations. Latest score that I've heard:  30 dead Israelis, mainly soldiers, and over 600 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

I guess there's a price to pay for the Israeli "right to self-defense"....

Let Sleeping Blogs... Tell The Truth?

Greetings all, and happy July!

I'm finally back up to normal(ish) speed, and ready to do a spot o' bloggin'!

And it's amazing what I find when I get back - although I haven't posted anything since I pointed you to Senator Elizabeth Warren and economist Thomas Piketty at the end of May, we're still being read - by 13 people today and 26 people on Sunday!  Thanks, folks!

The latest crime by our corrupt "Supreme Court", is the Hobby Lobby case - here's what Tom Tomorrow thinks:

I had made a resolution to try to focus on material that pertains to my own pet subject - "The War On The 60s", rather than placing before you the kind of glorious tit-bits (no pun intended) that I think you would enjoy.  And today I find, by the random wisdom of Google's "next blog" facility, a highly entertaining Blog by the name of "Eric's Thoughts"

Eric covers a lot of the same kind of ground that has so delightfully distracted us in the past - although he doesn't post very often, either!  So I may leave him to supply with the general stuff from now on - famous last words!

Eric's Blog led me to this other Debunker-of-BS - a cool Blog called "Ape, not Monkey".  "Ape, not Monkey" has an amazing graphic - more like a chart - of the waste and lunacy of the TSA Security process. (I can't figure out how to make it legible here, but if you the follow this link and scroll down, it's the fourth item).

Another snippet about the TSA - you'll be pleased to know that for a fee of about $200, you can have yourself background-checked and receive a piece of paper that allows you to skip the whole nonsensical, "show-us-your-smelly-socks", "we'll take that nail-clipper, sir" Airport procedure. Now don't you think those astonishingly-brilliant, infinitely-funded, ruthless hordes of terrorists in all the "Al Quaeda-linked" boogey-organizations who spend every waking minute trying to find a Freedom the NSA have not already taken away from us, might be paying attention to that?  

Gawd 'Elp Us!

More soon, folks - be well!

God must have cured me

Speaking of God, and divine intervention generally, I've just discovered that I never posted this, which I wrote in March to explain my Blog-silence....

"Sorry, folks and faithful readers, I am still sick with the mystery infection that started before Christmas, and which in my innocence I called flu.  I'm getting stronger day by day, and hope to be back to my usual energy-level.... some time.

"In the meantime, here's a lil something for your delight - "

As it turned out, I didn't return to the land of the almost-living until April, and didn't get back to full energy-levels until the end of April.  The Doctors never did figure out what was wrong; best guess was "a bacterial infection in the blood".  The blood was chosen because they couldn't find any other location.

So God must have cured me.

The antidote to Hillary Clinton?

One of the few bright (and honest) lights in the US Senate, and one of the most exciting economic thinkers of the moment:  Senator Elizabeth Warren and economist Thomas Piketty—author of the bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century—are sitting down for an intimate conversation about the roots of and solutions to economic inequality—and you can grab a front row seat!

Share this special invitation with everyone you know—this is a conversation we should all be a part of.

You can RSVP (to encourage them) here - and you can also post a question for the speakers to ponder and discuss.

I asked them this:  "One of the principal levers used by crony capitalism and its managed media to manipulate the public, is a regularly-stoked climate of Fear (as explored by sociologist Barry Glassner in “The Culture of Fear”, among others). This encourages people to be short-sighted and selfish in their political choices. What can be done to move the electorate towards more unselfish, co-operative attitudes to vital policy questions such as climate, energy, population and taxes?"

Once it was Margaritaville, but now....

Pretty funny Stoner video here, folks

(Yes, it's now Marijuanaville.)

The Obscenely Rich Get.... Richer

Earlier, in The Finest Healthcare Rip-Off System in The World, we saw how Health Management Associates' CEO Gary D. Newsome, no doubt with plenty of help from colleagues, "earned" $22,000,000 over 3 years (a mere $20,000 every day...), for organizing a naked conspiracy to rip off the Medicaid system (i.e. the Taxpayers).

Here's the Link.

If you look up this criminal's Profile, you find this:  "The company specializes in taking low-occupancy rural and suburban hospitals and transforming them into profitable, growth engines. In July, 2013, Newsome retired to head up a Mormon mission in South America", saying "My family and my faith have always been the most important parts of my life...."
"The announcement comes as two federal agencies, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, are conducting separate investigations into HMA's billing and accounting practices."

..........................................................
I know you're delighted with Gary Newsome's well-earned success, so you'll be even more thrilled to hear that our old baby-faced chum Jamie Dimon has just been awarded a well-deserved (and of course massive) raise.

Senator Elizabeth Warren tells that story:

"JPMorgan Chase recently reached yet another settlement with the U.S. government -- a $13 billion deal with the Department of Justice for peddling deceptive mortgages. 

The banking giant broke the law, recklessly gambled with our economy, and had to pay a record government settlement. Guess what happened next? You guessed right: JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon just got a 74% raise yesterday.

The New York Times speculates that Dimon got the raise because of his "active role" in negotiating government settlements last year. And as Dimon put it himself, it could have been a lot worse if JPMorgan had been forced to go all the way to a trial instead of just settling.

So here's my question: If JPMorgan is so happy with their settlements that they are rewarding their CEO with a big raise, do you really think the federal bank regulators were tough enough?

There are a lot of steps we can take to push the regulators to do their jobs and hold financial institutions fully accountable when they break the law, and I think a good starting place would be by enacting the Truth in Settlements Act.

This is the bill I recently introduced with Senator Coburn that would require accessible, detailed disclosures about settlement agreements so the public can hold regulators accountable -- no more hiding out behind closed doors and keeping the details secret.

Tell yourfriends on Facebook and Twitter about the Truth in SettlementsAct.

When I question federal regulators in Banking Committee hearings, they insist that they don't need to take big banks to trial when they break the law. They stand by their claim that settlement agreements are tough enough.

But if a settlement is so weak that Wall Street is celebrating with pay raises, it's not a good deal for the American people.

This week Jamie Dimon admitted that the big banks don't want to go to trial, so now there's no doubt: If the regulators were willing to go all the way to a trial, even once in a while, they would have a lot more leverage in the settlement negotiations. And maybe they could get better deals on behalf of consumers and taxpayers.

This is simple: Bankers on Wall Street need to be held accountable when they break the law, and regulators in Washington need to be held accountable when they enforce the law.

Tell your friends on Facebook and Twitterabout the Truth in Settlements Act. It's time for real transparencyand accountability.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth."

The Finest Healthcare Rip-Off System in The World

Go to hospital with a cut knee or a mild temperature, and see how many days they will admit you for - if you have Medicare or Medicaid!

Take a look, oh brothers and sisters:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/business/hospital-chain-said-to-scheme-to-inflate-bills.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

The Corporation in question, Health Management Associates, a for-profit hospital chain based in Naples, Fla., is trying to dump the blame on upstanding citizen and devout Christian (has he heard Pope Francis lately?), former CEO Gary D. Newsome -

"Mr. Newsome joined H.M.A. in September 2008 from a high-ranking post at Community Health. He left H.M.A. last summer to head a religious mission in Uruguay. His compensation in the three years before his departure totaled $22 million."

Ain't Dis Da Truth?