Far East Cynic

I took the S.O to see the movie this weekend. I had mixed impressions. I thought it was still a good movie but the first one was better. The first one had more of an edge to it.

Idle observations:

The years 2000-2010 produced, for the most part, no really good music. At least it seemed the creators of the soundtrack could not find any. The best song in the whole movie was at the end-and it was an 80′s song that was featured in the first movie.

Both movies are morality plays. It is important to understand that going in the door. They are designed to teach a lesson-especially in the case of the second movie where the so called masters of the universe f*cked the rest of us over to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. At least in the first movie it was only Bud Fox getting screwed over. ” How  many yachts are enough Gordon?”

I’m always amazed at how people who get wiped out to the tune of a million dollars or more-can still afford uptown Manhattan apartments to live in. How does that work exactly? Me-I lose my job-I’m living  in a run down one bedroom apartment or a used travel trailer in a disreputable trailer park.

Fusion was still never proved to be viable.

The Charlie Sheen cameo appearance in this movie was laughable to say the least. You get f*cked over so hard that you have to spend time in jail and you are civil to the guy who put you there? I don’t think so.

I sure wish I had the money to hang out in the New York clubs the financial guys do. The tuna in those places was MARVELOUS.

Doesn’t any one use birth control any more?

‘Money Never Sleeps’ is like watching two hours straight of CNBC, which is great if that is your channel of choice, but not a triumph for a feature-length film.

In the ‘80s, lighting a cigar with a $100 bill was sexy. In 2010, it’s damn near porn.

Overall? A good enough film-but the original is better. If for nothing else, the first movie left you trying to figure out how Fox made a ton of money at Gekko’s expense. I give it a solid C-nothing extraordinary, which is a damn shame.

I was going through my archives the other day, and I came upon a couple of posts I had written about gay marriage. Judging by the angry comments they both recieved-you would have thought I was caught red-handed molesting puppies or something. When in reality,  all I was voicing was my own personal discomfort with the idea.

Same is basically true with the repeal of DADT.  I don’t personally believe that American society is as enlightened as some would give it credit for and I do not think the transition from the DADT era to the era of full,  open homosexuality,  will be as smooth as some people think. There are going to be some people who are going to get the stuffing beaten out of them. At least at first.

Nonetheless, it is probably time to repeal both prohibitions.

What has changed about my viewpoint in the last two years? Actually, very little. I am still not comfortable with the idea of gay marriage-and for the most part I am still of the opinion that the institituion of marriage as a whole-is a decaying institution of decreasing value. I am still of the mindset that marriage has moved, or has to move,  past the nonsense of one person being the end all, and be all, of human emotional and sexual existence. Maybe once upon a time-marriage in its traditional form made sense. It protected the species in a whole bunch of ways. It still provides an environment for raising children, only the odds of it being a successful way to raise children are diminshing.

I’ll skip my disdain for the idea of monogamy-since that seemed to set off a lot of people for reasons that still elude me. Suffice it to say though,  I have not changed my mind on that particular subject.

However, the difference between then and now is what I would call a resigned acceptance that both changes are going to happen. And if so-perhaps it is better to get it over with so we can stop hearing the whining. And move on to more important things.

With respect to DADT-it is important to note that the attitudes of the young people who are on active duty now, are far different on the subject of gays than they were when I was in their shoes. They are more accepting of the concept than we were-at least in the abstract. Whereas we tended to focus on the actual sex that was implied by the word “gay”-today’s generation focuses more on people. It was why we rose to our feet and applauded in 1993 at the DADT hearings in Norfolk, when Sen. Strom Thurmond looked over his glasses and asked a gay (former) A-6 BN, “If he had ever sought psychiatric help for his problem.”

That would not happen today and that is the difference.

Mind you, in retrospect, I think the DADT compromise was necessary in 1993. There was just too much change, coming too fast,  to the military. It was bad enough that women were being allowed to enter combat units-but to then throw in this particular change was just too much to absorb or deal with. As it was,  the Navy did not deal with the other change very well-and it still doesn’t. Witness the existence of the Diversity bullies.

But on the whole society is changing and will continue to change-although I do think that change is occuring slower than gay rights advocates wish to admit. When you have a significant minority of citizens frothing at the mouth over a liberal, black President-are they really ready to have Jim and George move in next door? Or have two guys kissing on the pier at the end of the cruise?

I’m not sure-but I think we will just have to find out.

The transition, when it occurs,  will not be pretty. Gay partners will find themselves excluded pretty much from spousal support groups-all rhetoric to the contrary. The Knives Wives club can be pretty brutal at times.( Although those wives might dress better in the presence of someone who actually knows something about good clothing sense).  And I do worry about how the demographics will be tracked-will there now be “GLBT” stamps on service records and their promotion statistics tracked as other minorities are? Will their be quotas set for the requisite numbers of gay CO’s and other such nonsense?  Regrettably, I think there will.

But I am now firmly convinced that this train has left the station and is picking up steam. The courts are already tearing DADT at the seams-Congress had an opportunity to take the issue up, but they failed to. But Congress is kidding itself if they think the issue is going away or can be postponed. Even if the Republicans win control-they won’t be able to dodge it, much as they would like to.

So as I said-it is with a heavy sigh, and a sad, resigned acceptance-that I say, “Just get it over with.”

Savannah has tasked me with answering the meme of 8. Eight questions about blogging. I can never resist a challenge so here are my answers. Your mileage may very-but this is mine:

1. Why did you start blogging?
I began this blog out of a sense of frustration responding to a huge personal disappointment in my life; created by nothing but sheer stupidity on the part of other people……..on the part of the “big bad establishment”. My disgust with their simplistic trying to slot people into molds, set me off on the path of blogging to begin with.

As time passed, however, my ideas for blogging-and the topics I wanted to talk about changed over time as my interests changed. While I was still in Asia and living in the promised land-I wanted to split evenly my discussion of the sheer joy of being an expat overseas with my commentaries on American politics and its continuing descent into ignorance. And of course I wanted to comment (repeatedly) on the sheer folly of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. After returning to the US-the “fun factor” had dropped dramatically, so I began to turn my attention more and more to politics-this being the one place I could have my way and explain the way things should be versus they way they are. Two years back in the land of fat people have ruined me on the good things about American politics, I remain extremely troubled about the direction that politics-especially GOP politics is heading. ( Over a cliff). To stop though is to cave into the critics-the ones who decry my viewpoints. So I continue writing-its the best way to push back.

One of the most interesting and surprising things is -as time passed-how hard it became for me to blog with passion about Navy things anymore. I still care passionately about the Navy-but its a part of my life that is passed and I just can’t get as spun up as I used to on active duty.

2. If you could travel anywhere in the world, with no restrictions on cost, where would it be, and why?

If I could live anywhere in the world-with out worrying about a job or money, it would be Singapore. For purposes of travel however, I would like to take about three years to go around the world on the following route: USA-Brazil-Argentina-Germany-London-South Africa-India-Bangkok-Hong Kong-Japan-Korea-Taiwan-Singapore. I’d like to stay about 2-3 months in each place.

3. Did you have a teacher in school that had a great influence on your life? If so, what?
I didn’t have just one, I had several. Mrs Bowman who taught AP English-and made us write EVERY week come hell or high water. ( We also had to read one book a week). Miss Kaigler,  who taught junior English. Probably 50% of my professors at The Citadel, who again demanded that writing be done well.  A special note goes out to CPT Pages-who got me through difficult equations Sophomore year.

4. If you could spend the day with a famous person, who would it be, and what would you do?

I agree with Savannah-I’d want to spend some time with  Obama and ask him why he didn’t do some things to kick the “Party of No” in the nuts early on. And ask him why he is allowing the tea party to be making all the noise it is making when their arguments are for the most part easily refuted. I’d also like to be with Eisenhower in 1956 and ask him why he did not stick up for the British and the French in Suez. That one mistake created the pre-conditions that led to the current miserable state of affairs in the Middle East.

5. Toilet paper – over or under?

Doesn’t matter so long as it is there and it unrolls.

6. Name one thing in your life that you would do over if possible.

I know one thing I would not have done-gotten married right out of college-if at all. As for something I have done that I would do over-well there are several. I’d love to be going into my first CO tour (I had four) knowing what I know now-I would have been a better CO and a lot fairer to the people who worked for me.  I also would love to have gone to Asia a hell of a lot earlier-and stayed.

But really the one thing I would do over would have been my senior year and not gotten engaged. I would have also chased a lot more women.

7. Tell us about your pets, if any.

The S.O.’s cat-which is the most un-affectionate cat I have ever had. Every other cat I had was a lot more fun.

8. Do you live in a small town or a large town?
Shopping Mall USA is a small town compared to the exciting cities I have lived in. It has too many churches and not enough fun.

And American parents are a real pain in the ass.

To quote my Canadian counterpart:

There’s a lot that kids can learn from Ms. Perry, such as the utility of having fantastic breasts. That’s pretty powerful and it couldn’t be more appropriate in an age of economic decay. Kids need to know that they’re going to exploit every advantage they have just to avoid being cannibalized when they grow up and life looks like the set of Escape From New York. The sooner they know, the better off they’ll be.

But they won’t be learning any of it because of the cowardice of PBS and the fact that today’s parents are insisting on raising a generation of social retards. And that’s fine for the parents. They might be able to salvage just enough of their decimated 401(k) accounts to avoid the worst of the pending holocaust, but they’re throwing their kids to the literal and figurative wolves.

Wow, I’m starting to sound like one of those Goldline commercials on Glenn Beck’s show, aren’t I?

I guess I just feel strongly about children not learning about the magical powers of great tits. My problem is that I’m just too passionate sometimes.

The Economist’s Lexington makes a provocative case that the Tea Baggers obsession with the Constitution and its framers has become unhealthy:

Accept for argument’s sake that those who argue this way have identified the right problem. The constitution, on its own, does not provide the solution. Indeed, there is something infantile in the belief of the constitution-worshippers that the complex political arguments of today can be settled by simple fidelity to a document written in the 18th century. Michael Klarman of the Harvard Law School has a label for this urge to seek revealed truth in the sacred texts. He calls it “constitutional idolatry”.

The constitution is a thing of wonder, all the more miraculous for having been written when the rest of the world’s peoples were still under the boot of kings and emperors (with the magnificent exception of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, of course). But many of the tea-partiers have invented a strangely ahistorical version of it. For example, they say that the framers’ aim was to check the central government and protect the rights of the states. In fact the constitution of 1787 set out to do the opposite: to bolster the centre and weaken the power the states had briefly enjoyed under the new republic’s Articles of Confederation of 1777.

Americans don’t realize quite how old the Constitution is by world standards. (An advantage of never being invaded or having your government overthrown.) It’s by far the world’s oldest and the only one from the 18th century that’s still in use.

Unfortunately, for the Teabag nation-the founding fathers have to be judged on who they really were-not the myths that have been created about them. And they have to look at the whole Constitution, as amended, a point I have made before. I find it instructive that tea baggers love the Constitution and pronounce that it should be strictly adhered to, except when it comes to issues they disagree with, issues like the 14th Amendment, which suddenly is flawed and out of date.

The GOP’s pledge that is not a pledge-but a rehash of stupid ideas:

One person likes it though:

Flash Gordon is only one of the movies that are on my list of: “Movies I will stop and watch while channel surfing.”

Here are a few more:

Goodfellas ( A must in any many real man’s movie collection).
Absence of Malice ( I like the story).
All three Back to the Future Movies.
The Magnificent Seven ( See Goodfellas).
Just about any of John Wayne’s later movies. ( Hellfighters and Green Berets in particular).
A River Runs Through It
Field of Dreams
About Last Night
Body Heat ( A young Cathleen Turner naked-need I say more).
Wall Street
Gardens of Stone
Last of the Mohicans ( The Daniel Day Lewis version)
Casablanca
Strategic Air Command ( Jimmy Stewart and B-36′s!)
Network
Animal House
Caddyshack
Blues Brothers
Basic Instinct
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Any Dirty Harry movie.
Speaking of Clint Eastwood-Tightrope is on the list too.
Lord’s of Discipline ( a terrible movie, and a smear job on my alma mater, but I can’t stay away from it).
The Paper
FM ( This movie has not been around for a LONG TIME).
Silver Streak

And that’s only a start-no wonder I don’t get anything done. What are your additions to this list?

Flash Gordon was on TV tonight-probably the only really bad movie saved by it’s soundtrack.

As a result of the Queen sound track though-and all the hot babes in 70′s hairdo’s-it’s on my list of “movies I can watch again and again”.

Of course, as most of you know-its best to be about half in the bag before you start watching this movie. If getting stoned were still in the permissible column-that probably wouldn’t hurt either. Since its not-drink up!

On 400,000 dollars a year.

Professor Todd Henderson makes 445,000 dollars a year. That kind of qualifies as pretty affluent by anyones standards. However in the kind of topsy turvy world we live in nowadays-the good Dr. Henderson seems to have trouble getting to end of each and every month.

Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby…. [W]e have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive. If our taxes rise significantly… the (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month. We can cancel our cell phones and some cable channels, as well as take our daughter from her art class at the community art center…

I had to read that last bit twice. A few hundred dollars a month-when your take home pay is probably in the neighborhood of 30,000 dollars a month? I’d say you have some serious priority problems pal.

Consider this breakdown of expenses:

$455,000 a year of income, of which:

• $60,000 in student loan payments
• $40,000 is employer contributions to 401(k) and similar retirement savings vehicles
• $15,000 is employer contributions to health insurance
• $60,000 is untaxed employee contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles
• $25,000 building equity in their house
• $80,000 in state and federal income taxes
• $15,000 in property taxes
• $10,000 for automobiles
• $55,000 in housing costs for a $1M house (three times the average price in the Hyde Park neighborhood
• $60,000 in private school costs for three children
• $35,000 in other living expenses

The median household income in the United States today is $50,000. Half of all households make more than this. Half of all households make less. The big expenses in the Henderson family budget–their $60,000 a year in contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles, their $25,000 a year savings building home equity, their $55,000 for housing, their $60,000 in private school costs, even their $10,000 a year for new cars–are simply out of reach for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Half of all households make less than $50,000 a year–the Hendersons make nine times that.

And yet-he seems to have a cash flow problem.

The issue here is not that he does not have issues-it is that he tries to portray himself as put upon.  And he is not the only one-there have been a rash of articles lately that can only be described as the rage of the rich.

These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t have any sympathy.  If I were making that kind of money-I would be set for life.

I especially hate it when he brands his money put into a 401K as expenses-when in reality they are savings. $125,000 dollars a year to be exact. I save 15% of my salary every month and trust me-its going to take me more than a few years to see my savings grow by 125,000 dollars. This guy sees it in one year, every year.

Something is clearly out of whack when this kind of mismanagement can be defended.

I will be updating the links today. There are a bunch of dead ones over there-and they desperately need updating. Did not have the time to update while I was in Romania.

For the commenters-and this is important-if you do not provide a valid e-mail address with your comment, your comment will be sent directly to the spam bucket. I’ve updated the blog with some things that sniff out invalid IP’s and if I get an idea that the domain name supplied on your e-mail is invalid, off to the spam filter your comment will go.

It has to be this way for a bunch of really good reasons. Please respect that and provide a valid e-mail. No one but me can see it.

The song sucks-but its nice footage of the mighty war Hummer at work.

Commentator AA stopped by to criticize my thought that the Tea Party is really not ready to do anything when and if they win control of Congress. In calling me “pathetic” ( a term I refuse to accept)-he has raised a good point. Why are they not really ready to rule?

It deserves an explanation and one longer than could be fit into a comment box. So here is why I stand by my thoughts. His comment is italics.

First of all, thank you for stopping by and offering your opinion. I do appreciate it. You’ll forgive me if I hold to my own viewpoint though.

I hate the Tea Party because they are Nazis

I never said that-what I said is, based on their tactics which are adopted both from the leftists of the 60′s and the SA of the 30′s-they have the potential to go down the same path. Some reasons: 1) They seek to vilify their opponents. 2) Their obsession with “infiltrators” at their rallies. Freedom to assemble publicly should cut both ways. (E.G. Witness their fascination with Saul Alinsky) and 3) Their willingness to be associated with opportunists and those who are the antithesis’s of what they proclaim to stand for. ( Cue Glenn Beck and Dick Armey).

This is not a new tactic. It has been practiced by the anarchists for years.  However, the muddled Tea Party version of history is more than wrong and fraudulent. It’s offensive. Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all the real victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism. The tens of millions murdered. It trivializes such suffering inexcusably for the Tea Party folks to claim that they are suffering from similar oppression because they might have their taxes raised or be subject to demonic “federal regulation.”

The problems facing the country are huge and hard to solve

They are. And thus they require a better set of solutions than merely saying, “give the fucker a tax cut and tell him to pull himself up by his boot straps.”

The Tea Party can’t solve them because they are so hard.

What solutions have they really offered though? Very few that I can see beyond the idea of repealing health care reform, cutting taxes, and investigating the hell out of anyone who tried to do it another way? Regarding the first two-they offer no reasonable alternatives to accomplish universal or near universal health care coverage in this country, nor do they offer a reasonable way to balance the budget, much less cut the deficit-other than tax cuts that will actually make the deficit worse.  And I did point out that most of their proposed spending cuts are cosmetic in nature. How they propose to fix the Big Four? They have not given any answer on how to do that. Furthermore-if your goal is to retake Congress and start implementing some of these solutions-throwing talented people to the curb in the name of ideological purity seems an odd way to go about it. Its hard to take them seriously when they don’t endorse serious people. ( Cue Christine O’Donnell).

If the Tea Party wins they won’t succeed because the problems are hard and they are stupid.

Again, that’s not what I said-I simply pointed out that the same criticism they level on Obama will apply to them. If they win- they actually have to govern-with an electorate that for the most part (about 64%) does not support their solutions.  ( Check the polls-they may be anti-incumbent but when pressed on actual solutions-what few have been proposed by the Tea Party lose about 2-1). It is one thing to win an election, it is quite another to govern-especially when you don’t control the White House. They can sit on their duffs for two years-but guess who that helps? Not them. Ask Bill Clinton about that. Plus they have yet to heed the advice of their supposed mentor Ronald Reagan-who understood better than most, how to build a broad coalition of support. He wanted one big tent with lots of different viewpoints. The tea party wants a smaller one with absolute conformity.  In ignoring Reagan’s methods-there can be no other conclusion but that they are stupid.  Reagan won- and he picked qualified people.   So far the tea party track record on that score is not good. ( Cue Sarah Palin).

Since the brilliant liberals currently in power can’t solve them – no one can.

Again, no one ever said that. But Democrats are not going away-even if they are in the minority. It is not a crime to be a liberal in this country and like it or not, some of their solutions need to be looked at. As do some of the conservative ones. At least the Administration is  trying on three significant ones: health care, the wars, and financial reform.  Congress has seen a sudden influx of no-compromise conservatives before. In 1994, 73 Republicans stormed into the House, many of them preaching anti-government themes that sound similar to those of today’s Tea Partyers. The Republicans of that year even proclaimed their victory a revolution that promised to change how Washington worked. It didn’t pan out that way.  Same thing will happen here. The government always moves back to the center eventually.

Sarah Palin is stupid – (This is like saying Amen in the church or liberals).

She may not be stupid-but she is dangerous. Furthermore, she cannot hide behind the wall of Fox News forever. And every time she faces honest questioning on any issue, she  is shown to be highly lacking in the basic tenets required to hold high office in the United States.  Here is one recent example-she and Newt Gingrich have bought in to D’Souza’s Forbes article, even though from many sources-both liberal and conservative- it has been discredited as out and out racism and falsehood. Forbes has said it “stands by the story” and that “no facts are in contention,” but D’Souza’s article contains numerous falsehoods and distortions. And they are easily proved. Simply put,  that is not a smart play for her. But not surprising.

I don’t really call your analysis – analysis – merely a statement of the problem and taking the typical liberal line that anyone who disagrees with me is either stupid or a nazi.

No one who is smart could possibly have a legitimate opinion that differs from the Huffington Post/Daily Kos orthodoxy.

Umm….actually no. But assertions have to stand on their own merits. To date you and the Tea Party folks have offered little. What exactly are you “taking the country back from” anyway?  Bush’s foreign policy that Obama extended? A deficit problem that started long before 20 January 2010? The very few laws that have been passed in 18 months?

Plus-I’m not a liberal except when it comes to sex. I make up my own mind on a lot of things. But the current manipulation of the GOP by this group is more than a little troubling. The people driving this train don’t have anyone’s interests at heart but their own.

And that’s just the way it is. Calling me names ( twice) won’t change that.

In this sense, you might think of the Tea Party as the Right’s version of the 1960s New Left. It’s an unorganized and unorganizable community of people coming together to assert their individualism and subvert the established order. But where the New Left was young and looked forward to a new Aquarian age, the Tea Party is old and looks backward to a capitalist-constitutionalist paradise that, needless to say, never existed. The strongest note in its tannic brew is nostalgia. Tea Partiers are constantly talking about “restoring honor,” getting back to America’s roots, and “taking back” their country.

As  I constantly ask people when the subject comes up-taking it back from what?  Damned if I know. But that is what makes this group unique, the  Tea Party is ” fundamentally about venting anger at change it is doesn’t like, not about fixing what’s broken.”

Lex , it seems,  is bothered when the other side takes up the tactics of Tea Party America.

Now the simple truth of it is that neither side helps its case when they resort to Nazi images and other such nonsense. As on of his commenters put it, it is a deeper symptom of the inability of Americans to understand the issues-much less form a rational argument.

But, please, spare me the faux outrage. You and the rest of the herd created this atmosphere, so don’t be surprised when it shows up in other places.

And all the other pro-Teabag readers out there. Actually it’s pretty funny-see if you get the joke about the chicken.

Just because its Friday.

To open with a quote from one of my favorite movies:

Joey Naylor: Why did you tell that reporter all your secrets?
Nick Naylor: You’re too young to understand.
Joey Naylor: Mom says it’s because you have dependency issues and it was all just a matter of time before you threw it all away on some tramp.
Nick Naylor: Well, that’s one theory.

This is why Ines can get the goods on anyone:

Please pause and join me in a moment of silence, out of respect for a really fine ass.

Thank you.

Polly Bailey: Tits? Exactly how are tits relevant?

Bobby Jay Bliss: World class tits on a reporter interviewing a man with access to classified information- are relevant.

Polly Bailey:How about it Nick-are you a tit man?

Nick Naylor: Depends on the tits.

Those will make you tell where Jimmy Hoffa is buried……….

And of course, let us not forget the bathing suit shot:

Sigh…………….