Most people would not think about this movie as one that shows rich people as good, but it is. The rich person in question is Danny DeVito’s character of Larry “The Liquidator” Garfield. This movie was made at the beginning of the 90’s near the end of the major round of liquidations and hostile takeovers in public display.
The story follows Garfield as he attempts to take over and liquidate a failing wire cable company. The company, headed by the heir to the original founder of the company is played by Gregory Peck. But unlike Peck’s other roles, Andrew Jorgenson is not the competent character we have come to expect from Peck’s performances. No in this case, he is the CEO of New England Wire and Cable, a company that can’t make a profit to save its life (quite literally) and he refuses to admit that it a losing business, preferring to throw good money after bad to keep the family business going. That can sometimes be an admirable position when it’s your own money that you’re throwing away…but New England Wire and Cable is a publically traded company and answerable to stockholders…worse it’s so poorly managed that while the company and all it’s holdings are worth almost $26 dollars a share if liquidated, it’s only trading at $10. This is usually either the sign of a startup that hasn’t taken off yet…or a company that is failing. $10 for $26 is a good buy for a company that could turn a profit…but for a company losing money it is a sign that you should liquidate and put the funds in a place that can produce.
So let’s talk about Larry the Liquidator. As the tag line for the movie describes him “Arrogant. Greedy. Self-centered. Ruthless. You gotta love the guy.” I might add crude and vulgar. But the movie, very strangely for a Hollywood film, make Garfiled a somewhat likeable character. Lawrence Garfield is shown to not be vicious or intentionally cruel as the media would love to depict liquidators, it is rather the game itself he is interested in. He has no desire to hurt the employees, liquidation the kind he is proposing would almost certainly come with a severance package, and he thought it was a good thing the company’s pension fund was fully funded. He even agrees to sell the company back to the employees when they have a plan that will actually work. His problem was that the business was failing and would continue to fail…those workers were going to lose their jobs one way or another whether he liquidated the company or not…he was concerned that everyone else didn’t lose out too (mainly himself, yes, but as Adam Smith showed we all benefit from self interest). He loves the game of corporate warfare, and is out to provide his clients, his investors the best return on their money.
Now some might point to his crude and almost misogynist habits as a reason to help him…but such people would not be watching the movie. All of this behavior is in reference to Penelope Ann Miller’s character Kate Sullivan. They would be missing that all of the highly sexualized conversation was actually akin to chess moves, tactics designed to put each other off balance…that and Sullivan gives as good as she gets. As Lawrence points out, “We’re the same… We care more about the game than the players.”
Lawrence also does have standards. When offered “greenmail” (basically buying him out at above market rate to make him go away), Sullivan points out to him: “Why so uptight. It’s not illegal.” To which Lawrence responds “It’s immoral—a distinction that has no relevance for lawyers. But it matters to me.” And then describes what is wrong with greenmail.
“Everybody walks out happy. I get paid off. Jorgy keeps his company. The employees keep their yobs [sic]. The lawyer gets a big fat fee. Everybody walks out. Yumping Yiminny [sic]. Except for the stock holders. Their stock falls out of bed they don’t know what hit’em”
“Now your Albert Schweitzer?”
“Not Albert Schweitzer. Robin Hood. I take from the rich. And give to the middle class… Well, the upper middle class.”
As vicious as he can be, he will not hurt the people whom the company is supposed to be concerned with (yes, I think people forget, it’s the stock holder not the employee who should be the first concern because companies that care about stock holders grow and prosper and hire more people…companies that screw the stock holder tend to go the way of the Dodo and pink slip everyone in time.)
Further, something almost unheard of in this day and age, Larry actually treats people like adults. He doesn’t lie or bullshit them (except with Sullivan, but again it’s a game with them that they both implicitly understand the rules of). Nowhere is this seen better than near the end when he tell stock holders why they should let him liquidate the company. And never I have seen such a perfect description of what economists call creative destruction:
Amen. And amen. And amen. You have to forgive me. I’m not familiar with the local custom. Where I come from, you always say “Amen” after you hear a prayer. Because that’s what you just heard – a prayer. Where I come from, that particular prayer is called “The Prayer for the Dead.” You just heard The Prayer for the Dead, my fellow stockholders, and you didn’t say, “Amen.” This company is dead. I didn’t kill it. Don’t blame me. It was dead when I got here. It’s too late for prayers. For even if the prayers were answered, and a miracle occurred, and the yen did this, and the dollar did that, and the infrastructure did the other thing, we would still be dead. You know why? Fiber optics. New technologies. Obsolescence. We’re dead alright. We’re just not broke. And you know the surest way to go broke? Keep getting an increasing share of a shrinking market. Down the tubes. Slow but sure. You know, at one time there must’ve been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I’ll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company? You invested in a business and this business is dead. Let’s have the intelligence, let’s have the decency to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future. “Ah, but we can’t,” goes the prayer. “We can’t because we have responsibility, a responsibility to our employees, to our community. What will happen to them?” I got two words for that: Who cares? Care about them? Why? They didn’t care about you. They sucked you dry. You have no responsibility to them. For the last ten years this company bled your money. Did this community ever say, “We know times are tough. We’ll lower taxes, reduce water and sewer.” Check it out: You’re paying twice what you did ten years ago. And our devoted employees, who have taken no increases for the past three years, are still making twice what they made ten years ago; and our stock – one-sixth what it was ten years ago. Who cares? I’ll tell you. Me. I’m not your best friend. I’m your only friend. I don’t make anything? I’m making you money. And lest we forget, that’s the only reason any of you became stockholders in the first place. You want to make money! You don’t care if they manufacture wire and cable, fried chicken, or grow tangerines! You want to make money! I’m the only friend you’ve got. I’m making you money. Take the money. Invest it somewhere else. Maybe, maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll be used productively. And if it is, you’ll create new jobs and provide a service for the economy and, God forbid, even make a few bucks for yourselves. And if anybody asks, tell ‘em ya gave at the plant. And by the way, it pleases me that I am called “Larry the Liquidator.” You know why, fellow stockholders? Because at my funeral, you’ll leave with a smile on your face and a few bucks in your pocket. Now that’s a funeral worth having!
So, yeah, while Larry Garfield isn’t perfect, he is shown to be more of a human being than any liberal stereotype would like you to think of the people who liquidate companies.
I love money. I love money more than the things it can buy. Does that surprise you? Money. It don’t care whether I’m good or not, it don’t care whether I snore or not, it don’t care which God I pray to. There are only three things in this world with that kind of unconditional acceptance. Dogs. Doughnuts. And money. Only money is better. You know why? Because it don’t make you fat and it don’t poop all over the living room floor. There’s only one thing I like better. OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
*Yes I know I haven’t come back to this series in a long time…the post election depression made me give up on it when I should have finished it, and I’m just now coming back.
Capitalism is the only system that has been shown to raise people out of poverty. It is the only system that benefits the rich, the middle class, and the poor. It is the only system that can bring a nation out of destitution. It is the only system that works long term. It is the only system compatible with human nature. It is the only system of economics that is ethical. It is the only system of economics that is sustainable because only capitalism creates and encourages the innovation and imagination needs to deal with the constant slew of problems that life brings.
You can either be in favor of Capitalism or you can be an idiot who knows nothing about economics, history, psychology, philosophy, ethics, human nature, politics, reason, logic or facts.
Let me say again…You can either be in favor of Capitalism or you can be an idiot who knows nothing about economics, history, psychology, philosophy, ethics, human nature, politics, reason, logic or facts. That is all.
I need to get it off my chest how horrifically, unbearably, atrocious the reboot of Star Trek was. I’m not being hyperbolic, if you tracked down every single copy on DVD, Blueray, the original film and any other form it may exist in and launched them into the sun, the world would be a better place.
It’s bulky, clunky, disproportionate. It’s just ugly.
However, before I go into why I loathe this reboot, let me state a few things. First, as far as I can tell the general rule seems to be that anyone who grew up first with the Original Series of Star Trek rightfully hates this abomination of a film—whereas the culturally bereft among you who grew up first on The Next Generation (or god help us Voyager or Enterprise) seem to be okay with mockery of all things Star Trek.* Second let me say that I’m sure that even if I hadn’t seen all the Original Series before The Next Generation came out; by the time I was 6 I’m sure I had seen most of the Original Series (and all the movies that had come out by that point). I’m a Trekkie. Always have been, always will be. My early teens were a bit more obsessive about the show than I am now (I have been to one convention 20 years ago, and I have no intention of ever going back, unless I have a booth selling copies of Destiny’s Knights and other fiction novels).
So that’s where my biases come from.
However that does not mean I was meant to hate it. I could have easily loved the new version. I liked the Tim Burton Batmans but I acknowledge that Nolan’s vision was vastly superior, and Daniel Craig’s more serious Bond is a major improvement. If the Star Trek reboot had been better, or even on par with the original, I probably would have liked it…but it wasn’t. This film was inferior on every level. And not just because it was from the writers who brought you such horrifically bad movies as The Island, The Legend of Zorro, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen…not to mention having been writers for Hercules and Xena (depending on when you grew up you might have some fond memories of the campiness of those shows, the writers of this movie didn’t write the episodes you have fond memories of).
Are they all trying to look evil or is just bad acting?
So three-quarters of the film is spent drilling holes into planets (let’s just ignore why a mining ship has more firepower than the entire Star Fleet). A lot of time is wasted drilling holes. Why? So they can drop this plot device called red matter that creates a black hole wherever it is dropped. So why not just drop the red matter on the surface? A blackhole will still suck the entire planet in whether it’s on the surface or in the core of the planet. And in general this is a major problem throughout the whole movie. Star Trek has always skirted the laws of physics, but it has done it in such a way you usually don’t notice until the second or third viewing. Usually the story of a Star Trek episode or movie (I’m not counting anything from Voyager) was good enough that you could suspend your disbelief enough to not notice the glaring errors in science. Here you couldn’t do it. Not in their crappy understanding of black holes, or theoretical time travel (yeah going through a black hole doesn’t send you through time it only crushes you…this isn’t an advance theoretical physics concept, this is high school physics), or even throwing out your own rules of how transporters work (yeah let’s beam them onto a ship with shields up going at warp speed…why?…because our crappy writers put us in this situation with no way to get us out beyond that little bit of insanity). One of Star Trek’s long standing virtues was that it tried (tried didn’t always succeed, but it tried) to have a loose understanding of science…but not with this crappy reboot.
Do you see this woman? The character’s name is Christine Chapel. If Spock is meant to end up with anyone it’s her. Might as well write Moneypenny out of Bond or Lois Lane out of Superman.
Oh and then there was the fact that every character is different. EVERY CHARACTER (except Bones for some reason, way to go Karl Urban for actually doing some study of the character). And what had changed? Some captain no one ever heard of died and so did Kirk’s dad. Yes I understand Kirk’s dad, played by Chris Hemsworth, is Thor, god of thunder…but even that strains belief that he would change how everyone turned out. Let’s run down some of the differences. Chris Pike has gone from a man who considered leaving Star Fleet and selling Orion Slave Girls to a sage like father figure who is a couple of magical powers short of Obi Wan and Gandalf. Spock suddenly became hyper emotional, illegally marooning cadets, assaulting people on the bridge, kissing Uhura (WTF?)…so everything that people loved about Spock, the cold logic, the wry sarcasm, the only hints of emotion…all gone. Uhura developed a personality. Chekhov developed some useful skills. Scotty turned into a comedian…with an ugly Ewok as a sidekick. Wow, even if you believe in the butterfly effect, it’s a little hard to believe that Kirk’s dad had that much of an effect on the universe. (Let’s also realize that this reduces all life to nothing more than a B.F. Skinner ideal of all there is is the conditioning of our environment, hell there isn’t even a genetic component to your personality, only the environment…and don’t even get me started at how this implies there is no soul, only a malleable thing conditioned by circumstance…thematically it comes off a tad cold and meaningless when compared to, well, any other incarnation of Star Trek. Of course really you’d have to have a theme before we use the word thematically, something this movie lacked).
I feel a battalion of tribbles could take these two down.
Oh and let’s talk about Jim Kirk. The rebel without a cause, purpose, plan, brain, or clue. And the punchline of numerous jokes throughout the film. Part of what made the Original Series so good (beside the writing) was that the character of James Kirk (despite questionable acting at times) was, on the whole, an admirable figure. Like the character of Horatio Hornblower whom Roddenberry used as a model, was a strict and disciplined commander, whom despite his appearance of bravado only cared for his ship and his crew. This little punk was all ego. And how the hell do you go from cadet about to be court-martialed one minute and, like a week later, promoted to Captain. I’d follow him, how about you? Quite frankly when I first heard Benedict Cumberbatch in the new trailer say he was better than this Kirk in everyway I rolled my eyes and said, ‘well, yeah, it’s not a high bar to reach.’ Nothing about this character makes him admirable, nothing. You can like Shatner’s acting or not, but you have to admit when the script and directing were good Kirk was an admirable, likable, virtuous character. This cocky little punk just needs to be punched in the face, often. (Oh, by the way, Chris Pine will also be playing Jack Ryan later this year…yeah thanks for ruining another of my favorite characters.)
“I am better than you…in every way” No shit, Sherlock. Janeway and her bunch of losers were better in every way compared to this lot.
And then, of course, is the relationship these films had to their source material. Nicholas Meyer (writer of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country…otherwise known as the good ones) said one of the first things he did when given the job of writing and directing Star Trek II was he sat down and he watched all the episodes of the original show. Doing this he not only discovered the heart of the show was the friendship of Kirk, Spock and McCoy (utterly nowhere in this movie). Was the original series inconsistent in quality and have some really bad moments? Yeah. If a Trekkie can’t admit that “Spock’s Brain” may have been the dumbest episode in the history of science fiction, they’re not looking at things rationally. But the original series also had some of the best moments in science fiction history as well. And what made the good movies good was that they respected and took from the best of the series, paying little homages to the source material all over the place. Meanwhile I’m not convinced anyone associated with this film has seen anything beyond Futurama’s parody of Star Trek. Nothing. There is no connection to the original beyond a couple dead red shirts and Pike ending up in a wheel chair.
And before I end this let me talk about the preposterous villain for a second. So we have Nero, a Romulan commander. But not the cool, cold, calculating Romulan Commanders we have come to love…no he’s in charge of a mining vessel. But don’t worry his mining ship has more firepower than the entire Star Fleet…I knew the Romulans were a paranoid bunch…but really? So his genius plan is to wait 25 years for vengeance, and apparently this guy, whose command skills were only good enough not to get him assigned to a garbage ship is able to keep his entire crew also hellbent on his personal madness for 25 year and nobody mutinies. You believe that don’t you?
There is so much more that pisses me off about this movie, from horrible directing, bad acting, truly lazy writing, production values that think you should be blinded by light in every scene…I could go on. It’s not really that I’m upset that they tried to reboot Star Trek, I’m upset they did such a poor job at it. Just ask yourself this, if you took away the name Star Trek and changed all the character names…would you call this a great film…or would you compare it to other such sci-fi jokes as Wing Commander or whatever original movie is on SyFy this week?
*I’ve never actually met someone whose first exposure to Star Trek was Deep Space Nine, so I have no way describe their feelings toward the reboot
So I realized that my meditations have recently been focusing on more practical day to day applications. These are important, and these are often neglected a little when we’re focused on more spiritual meditations…but I realized I was going a little too much to the other side. And we should strive for balance in all aspects of our life.
So let’s start with a more traditional meditation. Clearing your mind.
Try to find some place dark, with few as few sounds as possible(although maybe a little soft classical or New Age type music if it helps you). Sitting in the Lotus Position (or as close as you can get) with your arms out stretched, hands open and the thumb and first finger touching, eye closed, start by focusing only on one thing. I would generally focus on the mantra “OM”, you can repeat it mentally or actually chant it as you go. Be sure to take slow deep breaths. Fill up your lungs and breath from the diaphragm, and through the nose, hold the breath in your lungs for a moment, breath out slowly through your mouth, and then hold for a moment before breathing in. Try to slow down your breath as much as possible again (ideally you would like to work up to only 2 breaths per minute, but this will likely not be possible if you haven’t been doing this for a while).
Again as you chant focus only on the chant “OM” and nothing else. Random thoughts will intrude, and you’ll think about them for a while, but don’t worry. When you recognize your mind has wandered just focus on “OM” again. Don’t chide yourself or worry about the fact that your mind wandered, it’s okay, just go back to “OM”. The more you do this the longer you will be able to hold the thought. The goal here is to clear your mind of all extraneous thoughts and focus on only one thing.
Ideally you should try to be able to do this for 20 minutes at a time. It may take some time be build up to this. But the more you do this the longer you’ll be able to focus on a single thought. The longer you can focus on a single thought the more you’ll find yourself connected to higher realms, you’ll find your thinking clearer, your energy higher, your happiness in general raised.
And if you can here’s a variation you can try if you can spare may be a few five minute spot throughout the day. Instead of the simple chant of OM you can focus on each chakra with it’s own mantra. Start the morning with a quick mediation on your root chakra work your way up throughout the day ending with an evening meditation on your crown chakra.
So it’s May 1st the pagan holiday of Beltane. If you celebrate, hope you have a wonderful day.
But more people know this day as May Day. The international day of Communism and Socialism. Over 100 Million dead!
Let’s take at the death toll of government that brought us gulags, killing fields, the resurgence of crucifixion (yes, the Chinese crucified Tibetan monks and dissidents). Forced labor, controlled famines, repression…the death toll is, according the obscenely well researched book The Black Book of Communism: Crime, Terror, and Repression edited by Stepane Courtois puts the number of all Communist/Marxist (where religion is always persecuted and outlawed) at about 100 million dead. Now you could say it’s unfair that I just use the number the book lists and not say some Marxist tripe historian who probably put the number under 10 million…well I deal in reality and the fact that some historians have called the 100 Million estimate “too conservative,” I think I’m safe with sticking with that number. But please go on, tell me that Communists have not killed millions.
So please remember if you see someone celebrating today for political reasons remember they are celebrating murder. Don’t worry about them though, karma catches up with everyone (sometimes not in this life, but it always comes through). But feel free to remind them they are reveling in death and torture.
Not sure why, but I’m seeing an upsurge in the frequency of people becoming more hostile about their religion being right and everyone else being wrong (and even for the people who aren’t making a big deal out of it, there is a certain ‘my religion is better than your religion’ arrogance in lots of groups, and it just feels like its getting worse). And I’m not just talking about the psycho-fringe here (or I’m really underestimating the size of said “fringe”). I always find this a puzzling concept. Sure there are a few really insane beliefs out there–mostly the ones that dictate ‘my way or else I’ll kill you!’–but for the most part, most religions all have the same core values and differ only in forms, names, and rituals. And quibbling over these relatively minor issues is pointless. First off most of these people who want to scream for their own religion and no others seem politically motivated (I’ve seen all sides engage in this religious idiocy) given that it only alienates people away from your political causes. Further, reason doesn’t hold this up? I mean, do you seriously believe that God, a being of supposed infinite love, compassion, understanding and wisdom, cares about what ritual you use to get closer to him, rather than if you actually get closer to him or not?
The Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet…it seemed like a place both remote and spiritual enough to serve as the starting place for the soul.
So does this mean that all religions are worthless? That there is just God and his children and it doesn’t matter what you believe…not exactly. Now, with that knowledge of near death experiences and reincarnation studies, it seems to be that the majority of religions are correct, that life is a series of rebirths, a progression of lessons and stages of learning all leading to Enlightenment…but that still doesn’t invalidate the idea that you should follow the religion you feel called to. If the soul is on a journey toward Enlightenment, let’s think of it as a journey. For the sake of metaphor let’s say all souls start out standing in the Potala Palace in Lhasa. High in the Himalayas, disconnected from the rest of the world. And you know you have to get somewhere (Enlightenment) you have had it roughly described to you, but you don’t quite know where you are going or exactly how to get there.
How you get there would be comparable to the mode of transportation you take. Some ways like Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, New Age belief and modern Paganism might be equivalent to walking, taking a bike, a boat, a car or a plane*, other religions maybe more like trying a unicycle with a flat tire, spinning in a circle believing you will magically teleport, digging through the center of the earth using a rusty spoon or launching yourself into orbit using high explosives and hoping you land in the right place. ** While in the minority there are religions that are all but useless in all cases…however most religions are more dependent on where you are in your journey. In this example if one religion is equivalent to riding in a car and you’ve hit the Pacific Ocean, it may have gotten you to this point but you need a different mode of transportation (a different belief system) to advance on the next stage of your journey.
Devil’s Bridge, Sedona, Arizona
Now for the sake of argument in this travel metaphor let’s say that Enlightenment exists at the Devil’s Bridge in Northern Arizona (chosen for the fact that it is beautiful, and the irony was just too good to pass up).
Now to get from our stating place in Tibet and ending place in Arizona there is no way a single mode of transportation is going to cut it the whole way. You are at best going to have to walk part of the way, either take a boat or plane part of the way, and probably have to travel in some other forms of transportation for part of the journey.
If only the journey of the soul was this short a distance.
Let’s add to the fact that you’re not always sure where you’re headed. Granted as long as you’re moving you may be getting closer, or at least have a better chance to learn where the right place is as opposed to the stupidity of staying still, but that still doesn’t always mean you’re moving in the right direction (as some religions that could be used to progress can be misused to put you further away from God…Westboro come to mind).
You could use this metaphor for a lot of things, and show it flawed in numerous other ways. I just want to show that even on a journey you may use different modes of transportation, as different religions may serve different souls on their journey to Enlightenment.
And my overall point here is that reason tells you God is too perfect a being to care what name you call him by or what rituals you go through to honor him, it’s silly to think that one religion is the right one and all others are false. Yes there are some blindingly stupid beliefs out there, and there may be beliefs that are wrong for you in your life (take a car when you’re on the ocean) but just because your religious beliefs work for you don’t assume they would work for everyone. The most you can do is ask if you find that your beliefs are leading you to God (if they are, bully for you) and if someone else’s beliefs could never in any way, shape, or form lead a person to God (a religion that calls for stoning people in the 21st century for instance) and oppose those vile beliefs will all your heart and soul.
So even if you aren’t decrying that your religion is better than all others, it might also be best to not always believe that (I know some will think I’m only critiquing Christians here, but really this my religion is better than your religion arrogance can be found in almost every religion)…your beliefs may be exactly what you personally need in your journey right now, but don’t believe that your beliefs will work for everyone at every time.
you can never have too many random pictures of Sedona
*Try not to match those up, the religions are in more or less chronological order and the modes of transportation are more or less random.
** I may or may not have had Scientology, Atheism, Keynesianism (it denies basic reality so much and requires so much be taken on faith it’s pretty much a cult) come to mind here…oh and I can’t think what religion I had in mind when I mentioned strapping high explosives to yourself…certainly not a religion of peace. Not everyone following those beliefs is stuck at a stand still, it’s just highly, highly unlikely they’re going to be making a major push forward in that life. And this is the balance to an acceptance of other beliefs, admitting that there are some really dumb beliefs out there.
So this is a little late for the bi weekly meditation. I needed a break. I blogged nearly daily for two years hoping in some small part to take down the tyrant. But absolute stupidity and a fair amount of cheating conspired to make the immediate payoff of my efforts pay off. I am still not back to my peak energy levels, but it was very needed.
So among others things I took a week off and did nothing. Nothing. Yeah I put out a few small blogs, but overall I just slept and sat around. I’m usually not one for doing nothing…I’m not the physically most active but usually I’m writing or reading or doing something. But for a week I pretty much did nothing. There may have been some Nintendo involved (and can usually go years without playing video games).
Now probably most people aren’t the workaholic that I am. So maybe the a whole week of down time isn’t called for…although the Bible actually called for people to take every seventh year off (it’s impractical now, I can’t see how it could have been done pre Industrial Revolution at all, maybe one day capitalism will have created enough innovation we can actually try it)…still the fact is that we should all take a rest, not necessarily meditate, not read, not exercise, but just have fun without thinking of anything else. These other things have a valuable purpose, but every so often you need to not to anything to let your brain and your body just catch up and process everything.
So while I am not encouraging laziness this week. Maybe when you have a moment ask yourself if you need just a few minutes maybe even an hour of rest. Take a nap. Play a game. Just don’t feel like you have to constantly do something. (Obviously if you’re very used to doing nothing, you may want to do the opposite).
So there appears to be some brouhaha over the newest trailer for Man of Steel. I have seen complaints about this on no less than 3 different political web sites, which seems a bit much for a trailer, but since they want to make a federal case over it, it should be pointed out that their case is baseless. Namely the problem seems to be with the following lines:
Lois Lane: What’s the “S” stand for?
Superman: It’s not an “S.” On my world it means “hope.”
Lois Lane: Here it’s an “S.” How about Super…
Now the first complaint is that this is changing the story, where it has always stood for Superman. This is a silly claim, especially for a comic book movie, which is based on comic books that have been restarted so many times with so many variations D.C. comics actually had to come up with a storyline about multiple universes just to keep all the versions straight (still didn’t help). When you’re translating a story from one medium to another it’s pure insanity to think everything can remain the same. Further, yes you might be justifiably angry at those changes…but only if those changes make the story worse. The new Star Trek stripped all the good out of the original series and created a cheap sci-fi film that would never have gone anywhere without banking on the greatness of the original…so there bitching about the changes is justified. Conversely, Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy took the Batman story from a more simplistic action/detective comic and created one of the deepest most meaningful films ever made. Those changes made the story better, and so whining about purity of the original story is just bunk. Rewriting stories is a part of literature dating back to when Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides rewrote the works of Homer for stage, nobody in their right mind claims they ruined the stories. Now it may be that whatever changes Nolan and Snyder have made to the Superman myth in this film may make it better or worse, we’ll have to see, but change is not necessarily good or bad on its own.
The other reason this is silly (and keep in mind I’ve never read a Superman comic in my life, and even I could find this out easily) is that in terms of the meaning of the “S” they haven’t really changed anything. In the original film starring Christopher Reeve, the symbol stood for the House of El, the Kryptonian family that Superman is a part of. But what about the “Hope” thing? Apparently some on the Right are having knee-jerk reactions to the word and thinking that this is intended to be a reference to Obama. It’s not. This actually is taken directly from the 2004 comic Superman: Birthright written by Mark Waid (Obama had only come onto the national scene at the 2004 Democratic convention in July, the comic came out in September which means it was probably written well before July). I will shortly come back to why using Waid’s work as a basis for this movie is a very, very good thing.
Finally there are of course the constant complaints still going on about the line from the last movie “Find out if he still stands for Truth, Justice, all that stuff” and how the writers shoved away the phrase “the American Way” and the worry that this will still continue in this film (this of course ignores that the line came from Perry White, the most cynical character in the Superman universe who probably would find the phrase silly).
After this trailer I especially find this fear also fairly unwarranted.
Why?
Well what is the American Way?
Contrary to what many believe, it has nothing to do with land, or resources, or economic success, or military prowess, or scientific achievement. America is America because of our ideals. The ideals of liberty, of meritocracy, that anyone can achieve by their own will. Or as I have stated before:
The American way isn’t a habit, or a land, or a race, or even the citizens of this particular country, it is an ideal that believes the best in humanity can always rise above the worst in humanity, that the individual left to their own devices will rise to the pinnacle of achievement and not sink to the depth of depravity.
And just in this trailer alone, we see that way, that ideal.
We see it in Jor-El’s statement
What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended? What if a child aspired to something greater?
Are you going to tell me a line about how a single individual can rise above the shackles of whatever society throws on them, and achieve because of their own will and merit isn’t at the very heart of America?
Or perhaps Jonathan Kent’s:
I have to believe that you were sent here for a reason. And even if it takes the rest of your life, you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is.
The belief that life has a purpose. It has been seen in philosophy since Aristotle, but it has never been realized until America. And this quest to find meaning is a personal one, “you owe it to yourself,” not one laden down with obligations to family, or clan, or religion, or state, or culture, or history or whatever other un-American claptrap other nations have followed.
Or perhaps we should go to first trailer, with another line from Jor-El
You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. But in time they will join you in the sun—In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.
Shining city on the hill anyone? The beacon of hope and light that America is supposed to be.
Oh I said “beacon of hope” which brings us back to the symbol and them taking that point from Mark Waid. This is important that they are drawing form Waid’s version. Why? I would direct you to an essay written by Waid in the book Superheroes and Philosophy entitled “The Real Truth About Superman and the Rest of Us, Too.” (It’s an excellent essay which you may want to read.)
The essay covers the thought process Waid went through when the head of D.C. asked him a simple question: “Why does Superman do what he does? Why doesn’t absolute power absolutely corrupt in his case?” He quickly found the stock answer of, because he’s Superman, to be unsatisfying to the employer who was hiring him to revitalize the franchise.
What follows is an argument that references two of my favorite philosophical beliefs.
The first is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Waid starts from the premise that even though an alien, he has the same needs in the same order as any human. Physical needs then Safety needs then Emotional Needs then Achievement needs then finally the need for Self Actualization. (You’ll find that the American beliefs in liberty and capitalism parallel this order of needs quite well). Now for Superman, the first two, physical and safety need, aren’t an issue at all. So that leaves emotional, achievement and self actualization needs. Now he might gain some emotional connections by just being mild mannered Clark Kent, but certainly not achievement or self actualization. Which then comes to a question of how much does he need to achieve…and this is where Waid turns to another idea, a quote in fact (which I’m hoping against hope will make it into the movie):
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” [Italics on the last part added]
It is the realization that Superman is who he is because to do anything less would not lead to his Happiness, and that a central theme of the story has always been that we should all strive to the edge our abilities, as Kal-El does, not just to help others achieve their goals (You will help them accomplish wonders) but to also achieve our own Happiness (you owe it to yourself).
So this is why I’m happy they are pulling from Waid, with the concept of Superman being a symbol of hope, the city on the Hill, because it places the whole story in a very strong and correct footing of spiritual values and Aristotelian virtue based ethics.
Now while Waid, or Marianne Williamson who first wrote this in her book A Return to Love: Reflections on A Course in Miracles, don’t make the connection, it is only through the American Way of personal liberty and personal achievement that we achieve the heights of shining our brightest. So I feel the need to again point out, that the American Way is being championed in this movie already, whether they say the words or not.
Now, no one has seen this film yet, so it could either suck or make the Dark Knight Rises look like an F film student’s half-hearted attempt…or anything in between. I am merely pointing out that the complaints based only on this trailer are completely unfounded. This movie appears to appeal to the best in this story, the core ideals that have let it rise above whatever flaws have plagued the various incarnations over the years.
So I just finished reading Life Before Life—Children’s Memories of Previous Lives by Jim B. Tucker, M.D. Yes it’s a book about reincarnation. But unlike a lot of books about reincarnation that will look at one case of past life regression…or another case of someone having spontaneous memories and working through each case this is a summary of a collection of cases. 2,500 cases covering decades worth of research. All of them involving children under the age of six, you know before you could theoretically prompt a child to say things. These cases are being reviewed by the University of Virginia, Division of Personality studies.*
Let’s review some of the main points.
All the children are under the age of six.
All children recall having been someone in a previous life.
About a fifth of cases the child has a birth mark or structural defect where the person they claim to have been received a major wound (e.g., a child is born with a birth mark where a shunt had been in their previous life or a child who had memories of being a cop who had died when a bullet destroyed his aorta, being born with a bad aorta that had to replaced). 225 of these solved cases that involve birthmarks and other physical markers are covered apparently in great detail in a 2,000+ page, 2 volume study entitled “Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects”.
There’s a lot of specific evidence I’m not going over because I actually think you should read the book. But trust me there is evidence.
Particular cases are reviewed, their flaws and strengths are laid out and the author goes through other possibilities of explanation which are reviewed. Tucker spends a great deal of time on the only other remotely possible answer for these children knowing what they could not, that being fraud on the part of the parents. But given that numerous cases for the U.S. where subjects don’t believe in reincarnation, it seems odd that they would try to fake a case of reincarnation. Further even fraud leaves too many unanswered questions…reincarnation does not.
The book is an excellent summary of the scientific findings of this group at the University of Virginia** and so while much of the scientific and statistical evidence isn’t presented, it does lay out a sound scientific case for reincarnation. It deals with the challenges skeptics would bring up and addresses them, then tears them down.
I would highly recommend anyone interested in reincarnation, or looking for scientific proof to back up their faith, read this book.
Some of the more interesting highlights from the book include:
Apparently you are more likely to remember a past life if that life ended only a year or two before your rebirth, there are relatively few memories of distant past lives among these children.
Gender Identify Disorder may, at least in many cases, be related to a soul switching from one gender to another between the two lives and the confusion from change.
The after life, at times, may be as chaotic as this life.
Not everyone remembers heaven, but some do, and you are less likely to remember it if your death in your previous life was particularly violent or sudden.
If you meditate you are more likely to remember heaven in your next incarnation.
There are cases of children remembering their last incarnation being a fetus that was aborted or miscarried.
…
All that said this book raises some questions that I have and if anyone has any information on this I would love to know. After reading this book it appears that cases where children are remembering their past lives are becoming more common, or at least it appears that way to me. I’ll admit that it may simply be that this is only being studied recently, whereas in the past it was not. However there are cases in the past of people remembering their past lives, Gen. George S. Patton for instance, but these seem to be very rare in the past, where the 2,500 cases collected by the University of Virginia (and you know if they can find 2,500 there have to be ten times that many they didn’t find) don’t make it common, but it certainly does not seem to be uncommon. This makes me wonder if the memories are becoming more and more common. Since, quite frankly, none of the children in this book come off as enlightened beings (nor any of their previous incarnations) these memories do not seem to be caused by the individual soul’s level of spiritual enlightenment, my question is does this maybe indicate a greater awakening in the collective soul of humanity? Certainly this is not going to be answered anytime soon, but it’s something to think about.
Also, the birthmark and other biological signs described in the book are suggested to be related not to karma but more to the mind’s ability to affect the body (the book references the ability to make a hypnotized person believe they are being burned to the point that their skin blisters or the fact that signs of the stigmata are now believed to be caused by psychological not miraculous factors). Now if the mind, and specifically it’s attachment to certain memorable events (usually what killed you would have a more powerful impact on you, or at least you would think), and we also take into account the issue of some souls not being able to fully adjust to their new gender in the form of Gender Identity Disorder…I have to ask in lesser cases could a soul attached to their previous gender affect the DNA of their new body, thus being the spiritual cause of the genetic factor in homosexuality? And I bring this up because I have also seen this suggested in the book The Messengers and the issues of Gender Identity Disorder reminded me of it.
*The book was published in 2005. And deals primarily with 1,100 cases that had been entered into a computer system for statistical analysis. I can only assume that both the computer database and the total number of cases has increased since the book was published.
** For my conservative readers, it is funded by private endowment, not by tax-payers (although I assume the same researchers are paid by tax payer funds for any teaching they do at the University) so don’t even begin to question if money should be paid for this.
Usually I would say this is a good thing. Homeschooling can be one of the most rewarding forms of education around (so long as the parents are involved and also willing to put in the time and effort needed). For instance I always recommend The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer for anyone considering homeschooling… it is a reasoned, balanced, and in depth curriculum for homeschooling that stresses critical thinking and reading primary sources.
And at first glance the program Ron Paul is pushing seems to be that…what with things like:
It should be an academically rigorous curriculum that is tied to primary source documents — not textbooks. Textbooks are screened by committees. They dumb down the material.
If your child completes the entire curriculum — which runs from K through 12 — here is what he or she should be able to do, again quoting.
Speak in public and speak confidently
Write effectively
But then you see things like:
“It should provide a thorough understanding of Austrian school economics.”
And I think as a Chicago school monetarist, isn’t that just as bad as Keynesian indoctrination…maybe teach them Keynesian, Chicago, and Austrian principles and trust that reason will work…(and then I remember that if we’re trusting reason, that would lead them to the Chicago school, and those Austrians can’t have any of that).
But it gets worse….
It should teach the Biblical principle of self-government and personal responsibility, which is also the foundation of the free market economy.
Ummm… am I the only one that remembers the self-government things can more be traced to Athens, and Aristotle, and the Enlightenment? Certainly many of the ethics of the Bible lead to the ethics or capitalist democratic-republics…but the Bible wasn’t enough for republican limited government—there were other parts involved.
I’m going to give you a few seconds to re-read that. Several times. Because I’m sure you’re thinking he can’t actually be advocating a complete theocracy that will destroy all opposing religions. But yes, yes he is. This guy wants a Christian Caliphate to wipe out all the non-Christians. This guy makes Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum’s rhetoric look stable (I’m not sure if Ricky is stable, I suspect he may be in favor of this, but at least he has the good sense not to say it aloud). Gary North is the psycho-Christian that the entire left thinks all Republicans are. This is the Taliban of Christianity.
And this is the guy Ron Paul wants to create a home schooling system for the next generation.
Take a moment to think about this. If the Paulbots had had their way, Gary North might have been Secretary of Education. Even though Ron Paul never stood a serious chance, that he even came as close as he did, that should scare the shit out of you.
Now what is more frightening is when you consider how many Paulbots there are who follow the word of their master blindly (I mean they overlooked the racism and the anti-Semitism). We have enough issues in this nation trying to fight the left without also having to fight blindly following groups of libertarian-theocrats (yes I know, those terms should be opposed to each other just on the face of it, but let’s be honest here, in real life, people are a mass of contradiction). Think of it Paulbots, but now they’re also motivated by religious fervor—if this gets any traction, it is possible it could be more insane than Westboro.
I’m not saying everything this man is going to put out is wrong, nor should homeschooling not be considered if you have the time and resources…but I don’t think anyone should blindly follow whatever program Ron Paul and Gary North put out.
See full article here.
