America-Everything Earth Addendum 30, vol. 35

America—Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 30, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia froesteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that quite a wide variety of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited here for several thousand years compiling your handy, dandy “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order yours today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped m exotic Earth! Your to Earth.)

You may have noticed that the United States of America looms large in Dr. Aazort’s picture of Earth. I confess to a personal bias, but I don’t think any responsible observer could fail to be impressed by the country that invented modernism, aka “the future.” This Americanized future has been arriving all around Earth since the US was founded nearly 250 years ago – but especially during the last century.

Each country makes it their own, of course, with often-brilliant modifications to suit local tastes. But the animating spirit of modernity on Earth begins and ends with human rights as spelled out in the first ten amendments to the American Constitution of 1787, called the “Bill of Rights.” Basically, America took personal liberties once reserved for the elites and gave them to Everyman, an astonishing, and – for the elites – disgusting development.

The idea that any idiot could choose his own religion or none at all, speak or write whatever he/she pleased; assemble with other idiots to change the laws! And all that was just the First Amendment. The government’s founding document basically went on to tell the government where to get off, to the extent (a matter of continued argument) of guaranteeing firearms for the people should any revolutionary violence be required.

America is too big, its impacts too many to address in a library, let alone one posting. But its energizing notions of personal sovereignty are what most impress visitors from other planets (who can still learn a few things). And locally, human rights have terrific staying power.

The appeal of freedom kept other nations (and America itself) in the modernity game when indispensable components – capitalism, industrialization and rationalization – went into discomforting overdrive. Citizens are naturally alienated by the pitiless friction of “free markets,” the dislocating demands of industry, the upsets suffered when science disputes religion. It’s just too much change, too fast. But the “Made in America” promise of liberty, and the improved quality of life liberty alone makes possible, nearly always prevail over such “Future Shock.”

At present, “Made in America” is mourned in the US itself as a relic. With the arrival of the global economy many all-American companies have essentially become stateless “multinationals,” competing with other, “foreign” multinationals. For several decades they have outsourced jobs and entire industries, sheltered profits from taxes and “lobbied” (a form of purchase) their own legislation. This has created a terrible identity crisis in the nation that for so long seemed to own and even be owned by capitalism.

And yet, while its economy and law need remodeling, the true power of America today may rely less on economic or even military strength than on cultural dominion – most basically the energy of human rights as applauded above. This most valuable of American values reaches beyond money and empire into the hearts of the human species. Arguably, jazz music and blue jeans have subverted more autocracies with less “blowback” than all of America’s military-industrial exploits.

At this stage of Earth’s evolution, some violence and intrigue are still needed (though not nearly so much as actually occurs). But nothing teaches like example. On this front the United States has a padlock on history.

The US represents the fulfillment in the New World of the Old’s greatest cultural achievement, the Renaissance. America’s discovery in 1492 took place smack in the midst of the West’s Renaissance, awakening from the intellectual confinement of established religion. Renaissance thinkers essentially demanded that assertions be subject, not to the irrational declarations of kings and popes, but to a logical scientific method well within the grasp of Everyman.

The Renaissance-Age of Enlightenment-Age of Reason linkage took about 300 years to vegetate, reaching full bloom in the Industrial Revolution. And, at just that moment, about 1750, the American colonies were stirring, with the Northern states slowly overtaking the Mother Country, Great Britain, in building an industrial base. After achieving independence from Britain, Americans wrote their Constitution and set up shop (with companies firmly in the hands of Everyman) becoming the great engine of Industrialism for the entire planet. And just 200 years after that, from the end of World War II until just recently, Americans ran the world.

“The Future” was up for grabs all this time, but the various competitors simply did not grasp the animating spirit. Religious movements posed alternatives. Fascists boasted “a 1000-year Reich” and Communists built their own version. But all failed because, to the extent they were interested in progress at all, they had to resort to autocracy to get it. Today’s Chinese, with their challenging state capitalism, only “progress” by trampling human rights, leaving citizens yearning for their own Bill of Rights. The fatal consensus everywhere and always: without personal freedom there is no personal stake in any future.

Most significant for Americans today: the competition has all looked backward, starting with autocratic rule and despite futuristic sloganeering. “A bright tomorrow” will arrive if we can only “bring back” this or that imaginary Golden Age: before religion was corrupted, before the Treaty of Versailles, before capitalism exploited the workers. America worked from the imaginary, too, but it put the Golden Age where it belongs, in the future.

America developed a talent for anticipating and adapting – even if it did mean discomfort. The smartest saw that change was always uncomfortable – but inevitable. When the time came to follow through on human rights by ending slavery, giving women the vote, etc., they took up the challenge, even at the cost of war. Those who resisted such changes were left trying to stop the clock.

I’m only a tourist (who isn’t?), but I see Americans toying with this heritage at their peril. In the midst of uncertainty aggravated by the current “decline and fall” pressures of globalism, many Americans, too, now want to “go back” to this or that imagined past when “everything was better” – depending on who you were.

But time will not stop, and no tampering with nostalgia will help. Nor does this seem the moment to be chasing anachronistic measures of power and status even as roads go unrepaired and children untaught. This reaction turns “American Exceptionalism” into embarrassing bluster, a Future Shocked denial of just the sort of change this country once originated and then managed so well.

Americans call their country “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” And, despite foibles and missteps, free and brave they remain. But the advancement of any fear-driven agenda obviously contradicts the latter and will eventually debase the former. This could mean decline and fall for an entire planet that still, to a remarkable degree, takes the US for a model.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Very Good: Little Miss Sunshine (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449059/  Don’t let the title scare you off. On the surface this is the story of a barely-functioning Albuquerque family getting to know one another as they road trip the youngest member, seven year-old Olive, to the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant in Redondo Beach, CA. So far, so predictable.

But the story and its characters deliver a most enjoyable movie about finding one’s true center in a world of “correct” choices. Olive (Abigail Breslin), destined to be a great beauty in maybe ten years, is currently barely cute, bespectacled and plump. She only got a slot in the pageant due to a forfeit. She’s adorable and hopeless. Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a loser yearning to sell self-help books and a lecture series on success. Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin – amazing yet again) has been kicked out of his retirement home for using and selling heroin, but he has a hidden knack for Olive’s choreography.

Mom (Toni Collette) is the frazzled center of this centrifugal brood, with her gay brother Frank (Steve Carrell) on the mend from a suicide attempt, and a son from a previous relationship, Dwayne (Paul Dano), a bleak, gothic type embarked upon a vow of silence, his nose buried in Nietzsche. This idiosyncratic brew is well-shaken in an old VW camper with a busted clutch that serves effectively for light slapstick. The story only skirts the edge of predictable at the pageant proper, but even here we get some twists.

“Little Miss Sunshine” marks the directorial debut of husband-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, with the screenplay also a first for writer Michael Arndt. It was nominated for four Oscars in 2006, including Best Picture, and scarfed up over $100 million. Not bad for what began life as an independent production costing only eight million dollars. The result is funny and bright, but grounded, with characters authentically rendered as individuals rather than types. The dysfunctional American family has provided rich territory for some very poor films. This is not one of those.

Very Good: Danny Deckchair (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337960/ In July of 1982, “Lawnchair” Larry Walters flew from San Pedro to LAX in a deckchair hoisted by 42 weather balloons. One year later, a wonderful Australian team under writer/director Jeff Balsmeyer did Larry proud by turning a stunt into an enjoyable comedy/romance.

The Australian Danny (Rhys Ifans) is a workaday sort in suburban Sydney, a cement truck driver whose long-awaited vacation is spoiled by Trudy (Justine Clarke), his unlikeable girlfriend. Danny and his deckchair, powered by flimsy yellow helium balloons, survive a thunderstorm that dumps him in Clarence, an idyllic little town where he crash lands unnoticed. Danny starts building a new identity and a new relationship with Glenda (Miranda Otto) the town meter maid. By the time his old life, including Trudy with her gang of tabloid paparazzi, catches up with him, Danny is transformed.

The Australian POV has just enough “not Hollywood” going for it to avoid some of the sugary pitfalls too common in American productions of stuff from “real life.” This one’s sweet enough as it is.

Internet-Everything Earth Addendum 29, vol. 35

Internet — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 29, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that wide varieties of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited and lived here for several thousand years compiling the indispensible “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order your copy today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

Roughly ten years ago a bizarre new consciousness invaded Earth. Aliens from Outer Space would love to take the credit/blame, but that belongs to a local culprit called “The Internet.”

Every civilization in the System has gone through just this sort of connectivity breakthrough. The successful ventures tie entire planetary societies together in a great forum or agora, creating common experiences, expectations and values. The failures merely magnify existing tomfoolery, turning a new marvel into yet another tool for self-extinction. Though one may have to search for it, there is wisdom on the Net. Simultaneously, a sufficient number of trolls can turn any forum into a brawl.

The Internet or “World Wide Web,” evolved from a highly-specialized, originally classified 1969 American defense department network called “ARPANET.” By 1990, with classified needs met elsewhere, what became “The Web” was opened for commercial use. Early “browsers” appeared that an average personal computer operator could use to send email, shop or just “surf” around the planet.

Meanwhile, computing technology itself accelerated wildly. Eventually mobile phones would far outperform “ARPANET’s original mainframes, and come to outnumber PCs. By 2010 every form of human communications could be accessed from a cell phone from almost any place on Earth. About one third of the planet had Internet access, reaching 80 percent in what are called “developed” nations. Such performance and penetration already reveal impacts too numerous to examine here.

But the central theme is plain: like all self-aware, sentient species, humans are crazy about communications, starting with speech. All “primitives,” historical or pan-galactic, invent complex and serviceable languages. In all cases, speech dramatically changes the way a species thinks.

At the personal level, language moves to the center of awareness and refuses to leave. Life becomes a nonstop self-conversation; a “milling crowd of self-narratives.” (The River That Flows Uphill, W. H. Calvin) Most meditation amounts to a quest just to silence the contraption!

At the social level, the discovery of language by hunter-gatherer societies seems to hasten the leadership and organizational skills needed for agriculture and civilization. With cities comes protection from the wilderness and all but the worst of famines. People get “jobs.” In a tidy feedback loop, all these developments certainly gave humans more to think – and talk – about, further enriching language.

Next, just for record-keeping at first, the city all but-demands writing just to function, then to educate and entertain. As little as 5000 years-old, writing is the high technology of Earth’s ancients. To an entirely non-literate people, writing is a technology so advanced as to be “… indistinguishable from magic.” (Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future, 1962). In addition to providing the scaffolding for civilization, writing, like speech, changed the way humans think. And, like speech, looped back to give them more to think – and write – about.

Poets, composers, philosophers, playwrights, novelists, historians, journalists – all communicated and interpreted experience, re-shaping human consciousness and, critically, introducing the idea of “progress.” It may be odd to consider, but, before the European Renaissance began ca 1453 CE, the Earth was widely seen as God’s perfected work. Any notion that His work might need improvement was heretical. But, of course, irresistible.

Coincidentally (or probably not), in 1455 CE, a mere two years later, the Gutenberg Bible appeared. The printing press began opening brave new worlds to the masses and still reigns supreme as mass media today, albeit barely. Perhaps needless to add – and like speech, cities and writing – books changed the way humans think and gave them still more to think about.

From speech, writing, printing, and theater, and on through the telegraph, radio, audio recording, film and TV, Earthlings have increasingly become creatures of their own media. This is a widely-loved, much-hated development crammed with mind-boggling surprises.

For example, different media might carry the same message. But, to an unappreciated extent, “the medium is the message.” So wrote the brilliant-if-crazy Marshall McCluhan in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. More than book jackets or gift-wrapping, the package in which one’s particular information arrives shapes the perception, not only of the contents, but of the recipient. For a trivial instance, one’s self-esteem is pumped by the little box from Tiffany’s. Not so much by the plastic bag from Target.

By McLuhan’s time, tools like radio, film and television had already been busy remodeling human perception. In the hands of artists these media tools played with the deepest levels of awareness. Earth’s “culture wars” are almost entirely the fault of “poets,” Percival Shelley’s “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Merely substitute “rock stars.”

And, just as the screwdriver is an extension of the hand or clothing an extension of the skin, media is one of the “Extensions of Man,” an extension of his very brain. McLuhan died in 1980. We can only speculate what he might have made of the Internet, with literally all human media technologies combined (if determined, one can probably even send Morse code).

The Net as this non-stop media omnibus stands apart from all other tools. In this role it is becoming the essential tool. Given that the human brain only reached its current physical size two million years ago (coincident with speech?), it should be remembered that this species is still very much a work in progress: “[Man] has never become accustomed to the tragic miracle of consciousness. Perhaps, as has been suggested, his species is not set, has not jelled, but is still in a state of becoming.” (John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez, 1941). From here we ascend to still dizzier heights.

In his controversial 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, author Julian Jaynes speculates: “Suppose you asked a flashlight in a completely dark room to turn itself on and to look around and see if there was any light – the flashlight as it looked around would of course see light everywhere and come to the conclusion that the room was brilliantly lit when in fact it was mostly just the opposite. So with consciousness.”

Typical of Jaynes, there is something of the Zen koan, mind tickle happening here. I’m interested in the flashlight since the well-known observer’s influence on what’s being observed is unquestionably complicated – and often created – by tools. The flashlight “thinks” the room is lit. The atomic particle under study misbehaves because of the study. The protean, ever-shifting Internet is two billion human minds driving by the same rear-view-mirror (an unfortunate handicap when traveling into the future).

Tools themselves, of course, take no moral or progressive stands. That is the job of the same evolving human consciousness that, well before the Net, banished slavery, ruled genocide a crime and at least began liberating women. But there is no reason why this “invader from inner space” can’t further the progress of a rare and privileged species. At least no good reason.  

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Very Good: The Bad Lieutenant (1992 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103759/ Beware. There’s a really bad remake of this gritty Harvey Keitel film currently making the rounds, often with “Port of Call” tacked onto the title. In it, hobbled by a terrible script, the talented but perhaps over-busy Nicholas Cage tries and fails to recapture Keitel’s absorbingly insane performance as directed by Abel Ferrara. “The Bad Lieutenant” is arguably the best work Keitel has ever done. It’s certainly the bravest.

With perfection secured in the 1992 original, why attempt a remake with a poorly-doctored plot, no moral center and most of all, no Harvey Keitel? I know sequels are like bad weather, but watching the Cage version recently only confirmed that this property is fully-owned and operated by Mr. K.

Keitel has no name in the film. He doesn’t deserve one. He’s only “the bad lieutenant” (“BL”), and he’s way worse than bad. He’s rotten, horrible, impossible to sufficiently despise. And yet, horror that he is, he is also Everyman, lost in the cheap power games on offer in the Modern Circus, and losing every one of them.

He stumbles from one depravity to the next, ostensibly looking to recoup his gambling losses. In fact, perhaps from religious guilt or just self-loathing, he seems most interested in pushing his gambling sharks to the limit in a sort of “march of the flagellants.” He’s begging for a bullet, but boasts at one point, “I’m a cop!” He’s untouchable.

None of this is easy to watch. It has been dismissed as tawdry porn. But following Harvey Keitel as he tries to hold it all together while playing his own antagonist is richly rewarding. You first realize there’s a real spiritual center here when BL gives up his first cry of self-pity. He goes on several such whining, whimpering, weeping jags, always alone, revealing the tormented soul at work and play. “Get with the program” he advises a nun who has been brutally raped by two altar boys she knows. Blowing BL’s mind, she’s chosen forgiveness over revenge. Encountering Christianity in the raw like this finally takes him over the edge.

Avoid the execrable Cage remake – and do make sure you get the original 1992 theatrical NC-17 release of the Keitel film. This used to be quite a challenge, given the repugnance with which this movie was greeted. Back when Blockbuster ruled the rental market and refused to rent NC-17, they stipulated a bowdlerized R-rated cut up just for them. Now, ironically, one of the sure places to find the NC-17 version is from Blockbuster online. Netflix also has it, and I was gratified that the Comcast On Demand offering, although tagged “R,” conformed fairly well to the NC-17 version I saw at an actual cinema in 1992, and it measured up OK with the list of cut scenes at http://movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=5700924

Fun: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892769/ So many animated films are crawling from the woodwork – or in this case, attacking from the sky – that anything short of “Toy Story” class can easily get overlooked. I had never heard of this Dreamworks offering before I stumbled across it on cable. It turned out to be a funny and likeable find.

Many of the conventions are familiar enough: a smart nerd teen wants to make it big in a macho culture of dragon-hunting “Vikings” (all with inexplicable Scottish burrs). His Dad is the local king, who, like all his fellow Vikings, is built like a cement truck. His son “Hiccup” (you can’t have everything) would love to join in the swagger and fun, but he’s overly intellectual and physically underwhelming. Still, he begs and pleads for dragon combat training to do his bit for Berk, the little island that the Vikings have occupied for 300 years.

Before this can even get started, a big night attack occurs and Hiccup rolls out his new crossbow-cum-bola thrower. Firing at a passing shadow, he entangles a Night Fury, the best the dragons have to offer. The Night Fury is not only a hot fireball shooter, but so stealthy that no one has ever actually seen one. Hiccup tracks down his stricken prey the next day and the fun begins.

One of the most appealing aspects of “HTTYD” is the restraint shown when it comes to “animal schmaltz,” where movie critters are anthropomorphized to eye-rolling excess. Here the tone is moderated, especially for the Night Fury, “Toothless.” Grateful for the fish Hiccup has given him, Toothless obligingly regurgitates half and won’t quit staring expectantly until Hiccup takes a convincing bite. (Someone has been watching their nature films.) The human characters are likewise well-written and voiced (Hiccup’s mentor “Gobber the Belch,” is done by Craig Ferguson). And the happy ending (what other kind in this genre?) is perfectly acceptable.

This movie is already spawning sequels. Enjoy the original.

Away-Everything Earth Addendum 28, vol. 35

Away — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 28, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that wide varieties of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited and lived here for several thousand years compiling the indispensible “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order your copy today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

New civilizations everywhere start out with lots of “charmingly disastrous” notions. Unlike quaint myths about dragons or toadstools, these ideas have real power in shaping popular attitudes, and they keep going long after their charm wears off and the disasters begin. Topping my list for Earth is the concept of “away,” as in “let’s throw that away.” Where, exactly, is this “away”?

Starting out with small populations and primitive tools, “away” is simply “not here,” a huge place indeed to any awakening species. “Away” has infinite room for trash, just as its related misperception sees endless amounts of fresh water, fresh air, tasty animals and fertile land. Habits of thinking harden around such understandable-but-ludicrous notions of limitless “sinks and sources,” as Earth ecologists now call them.

Suppose you’re an early Earthling. One day you go out to your favorite “sink” to throw away some trash, only to find someone has built a house there. You may even cross paths with your new neighbor on his way to your place with his trash. Several billion neighbors later, you decide you have a big problem.

This same story is repeated right across the stars: agriculture is usually invented first, stabilizing and increasing all-important food sources. Result: more people. Beginning with irrigation, better farming techniques soon introduce new fertilizers and pesticides to grow still more food. Result: still more people. The foundations are quickly laid for a system producing ever more people needing ever more sinks and sources. Yet the planet remains the same size, an obvious fact that tends to remain underappreciated. After all, the place is huge! You still get lost in it.

And the thought of some limit to growth is the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. You’re not that far from the most recent famine and preoccupied with building cities where people can do more than just farm. A new “away” can always be found, typically in “the West.” Actual problems demanding actual “limits,” if such things truly exist, are an eternity away. Further, if and when they do arrive, some new technology will overcome them. Not to worry.

Meanwhile, quite out of sight, the unsustainable nature of this model multiplies. Not only does each new person require his/her own sinks and sources, so does each new technology. Sticking with agriculture, we notice that land must be found and cleared of trees. Long-accumulated topsoil must be turned over for planting. Irrigation ditches must be dug and watered. Harvest waste must be thrown “away.” The results include loss of forest resources, soil exhaustion and erosion, salt build-up from irrigation, landfills overflowing with agricultural waste.

Multiply still further: each advance within a given technology means greater impacts. Industrial Era machines rip open ever-wider swaths. They burn fossil fuels and wear out tires. Potent new fertilizers and pesticides run off into local streams and aquifers, generate poison-resistant pests, and mess with the food itself.

Moving from early technologies to the more recent, impacts grow faster and thicker. Perhaps nothing has hit Earth so hard as the use of electricity over the last 100 years. More usage demands more sources to generate electricity, typically fossil fuels. Burned fossil fuels need a new sink, and on Earth this is the same sky humans use for breathing, fresh water and protection from cosmic radiation. Human animals thus become “sinks” for power plants, rain water grows acidic and the “sky shield” gets both riddled with holes and wrapped in a fuzzy new blanket of carbon dioxide and methane. This same syndrome repeats with each new gizmo, from the automobile to the cell phone. Abruptly, what had been a distant future turns out to have arrived yesterday.

And yet, so old is the habit, Earthlings cling to the paradigm of “infinite planet.” Of course, no human today will admit to such an obviously crazy idea, but by insisting on infinite growth in a finite system, they act on it just the same. Humanity’s cave-dwelling forebears at least had the excuse of their ignorance.

But even that vanished quickly. At the start Earth’s small populations and low technology assured only local blowback. But early warning signs for global effects became almost immediately apparent. All around the Mediterranean Sea, for example, bustling seaports quickly found themselves moving inland. The silting of the once-great harbor of Ephesus is documented as early as 449 BCE, and most ancient seaports suffered the same.

Typically, locals cut down all the trees for building and fuel. The now-loose local soil joined natural silt eroding into the harbor, and, despite heroic dredging, fabled seaports silted closed and began retreating inland. Similarly in early antiquity, islands were denuded of native plant and animal species. It became ever-more-difficult to find exotic beasts to slaughter at the Coliseum. But the dots would not connect until the Industrial Revolution, when population increase and sophistication of tools turned localized impacts into global crises.

The recent loading of Earth’s atmosphere with C02 has produced furious debate over Global Warming. Human cities are literally flooded with evidence, but deniers oppose any actions limiting growth as probably unnecessary, certainly premature, far too costly, and … growth limiting.

Again, the very notion of limits runs counter to the “more” momentum of human history. Accordingly, and not counting the usual suspects of short-term profit or mere discomfort with change, resistance that will seem idiotic to Earth history (if they get any) is to be expected. 

Nevertheless, an increasingly-noisy minority has been sounding alarms. After all, humans have been familiar with “closed systems” since their first submarines over a century ago. They’ve been intimate with the concept of “Spaceship Earth” since the start of their first space programs over 50 years ago. The metaphor is increasingly appreciated.

Earth has entered yet another phase of the Great Divide among species that survive their technologies and those who don’t. Part of the rationale behind the Federated System’s “No Official Contact” policy for worlds still navigating this challenge is the sheer futility (and heartbreak) of watching one promising species after another succumb to its own genius.

The solution, if difficult, is always the same. As Einstein said after the atomic bomb, “everything is different but the way we think.” Only by changing habits of perception does any species get through the maze of new toys forever busy changing everything around them. But Einstein is already greeting card wisdom here. Advice from bug-eyed aliens, as we learned the hard way, is worse than useless. We’re each on our own when it comes to learning how to “do” civilization. (And many of us watch “Star Trek.”)

The management of “away” or any other system that expects to squeeze infinity into a can has determined the success or failure of many an experiment in civilization. Until a people master interstellar travel, an impossible task without first resolving the “limits” problem, one’s home world is all the “away” one gets.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Classic: The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075029/ At a time when the Western was struggling to survive as a genre, Clint Eastwood starred and eventually stepped in as director for what would become a valued classic. Of all his Westerns perhaps only “Wales” approaches 1992’s “Unforgiven.”

Based on a 1972 novel by former Ku Kluxer Asa (Forrest) Clark, the story comes from the bloody Kansas/Missouri front of the American Civil War. By War’s end, Missouri farmer Josey Wales has already witnessed the murder of his wife and kids by pro-Union Kansas “Jayhawkers” or “Redlegs.” A suspicious Josey decides not to surrender his guns with the rest of his irregulars (Missouri “Bushwackers”). He then witnesses them being betrayed and shot. He and “Jamie” (Sam Bottoms) unleash a Gatling Gun on the Redlegs and ride off as outlaws.

With a fat price on his head, Josey is forever confronting bounty hunters in addition to the Redlegs on his trail. And he collects a ragtag following of karmic relatives starting with the marvelous Chief Dan George (“Little Big Man” 1970) and including Sondra Locke (cast at Clint’s behest and launching a long-term on-and-off-screen romance). All of the minor players are great character actors.

The action occurs in episodic encounters that usually end with Josey Wales’ expert pistol work. As one exchange has it: “Whenever I get to likin’ someone, they ain’t around long.” Chief Dan George: “I notice when you get to dislikin’ someone, they ain’t around long, neither.” An exception is made with Comanche Chief Ten Bears (an impressive Will Sampson) who comes to terms with Wales, becoming blood brothers with the usual exchange of slashed hands. (Pet peeve: Actual blood brother rituals involved a rather small cut for obvious reasons. Slashing a knife through the tendon-thick palm of one’s right hand and then gripping hands may make a stirring image, but it’s literally lame. If the cut is deep enough to draw blood, the wound risks crippling any warrior type for a good while, maybe permanently. Historically, a little blood was usually mixed with wine and drunk or just licked off a small forearm cut. I would like to see two guys licking the blood off each other’s forearms. The weird verisimilitude alone would be startling.)

Despite all the violence, Eastwood described “Wales” as an anti-war film. He so enjoyed reversing stereotypes that “Wales” is often referred to as a “revisionist” Western, and in its quiet moments the dialog does offer a gritty ring of truth. The wonderful cinematography is by Bruce Surtees, who worked with Eastwood on “Dirty Harry,” “Joe Kidd,” “High Plains Drifter”and many other films.

Sure. You’ve seen it. But next time you find a nice uncut, no commercials version, hit replay.

Excellent: Stone of Destiny (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037156/  The title suggests some sort of sword-and-sorcery outing, but this is a great little “caper” film, a true story and one loaded with contemporary impact.

“The Stone of Scone” (“Liath Fàil”) is a homely 336 lb block of sandstone on which the ancient kings of Scotland were crowned. It was traditionally kept near Perth at Scone Abbey. But in 1296 the retreating English King Edward I attempted to “de-kingdomize” Scotland by dragging the Stone off to London. He then commissioned an “English Coronation Chair” to be made with a special shelf under the seat for the Stone. Henceforth, any new King or Queen of England automatically inherited the combined mojo both of Edward’s Coronation Chair and the ancient Scottish “Stone of Destiny.” The Chair was kept at Westminster Abbey and only moved for coronations.

There were three exceptions: in 1657 the Chair traveled to Westminster Hall for Oliver Cromwell’s second induction as Lord Protector. During the German bombings of World War II it took refuge at Gloucester Cathedral. And on Christmas Day, 1950, it began a journey (in two pieces) back to Scotland. Four university students active for Scottish independence broke into Westminster Abbey and stole it. The movie “Stone of Destiny” is the touching, suspenseful and often hilarious story of the student heist.

Ian Hamilton (appealingly played by Charlie Cox) was the leader of the gang and author of the book whose rights American actor/writer/director Charles Martin Smith acquired for this film. In 1950 Hamilton is a student and frustrated Scottish nationalist. Nagged by his severe father to get on with something meaningful, Hamilton decides to kidnap the Stone with his drinking pal Bill Craig, (played by Billy “Pippin Took” Boyd). With a few last-minute personnel changes, four students, including Kay Matheson (Kate Mara), Gavin Vernon (Stephen McCole) and Alan Stuart (Ciaron Kelly) drive from Edinburgh to London for the stone-napping.

What follows is a uniquely successful combination of nail-biting suspense and light slapstick as elaborate plans fall through and spur-of-the-moment genius (“crowbar the door!”) finally wins the day. On first yanking the heavy stone from its shelf in the chair, it lands with a bang on the floor – in two pieces. “We’ve broken the Stone of Destiny!” However, the would-be thieves quickly satisfy themselves that the stone must have been broken centuries ago. All the “freshly-broken” edges are in fact rounded with wear.

The Stone is smuggled back into Scotland. The media is exploding with the story. Ian’s stern Dad is weeping with pride. But it’s only a matter of time. So, after having the Stone professionally repaired, the gang hands it over to the Church of Scotland. The students are charged, but never prosecuted. And the Stone goes back to London.

The Stone of Scone was returned officially to Scotland in 1996, with the proviso that it go back to London for coronations. The next coronation will be for Prince Charles or his son William. Of course, given the current momentum for Scottish independence, the English may have trouble getting the Stone back. Unless they steal it. Again.

Utopia-Everything Earth Addendum 27, vol. 35

Utopia — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 27, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that wide varieties of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited and lived here for several thousand years compiling the indispensible “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order your copy today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

Whatever their faults, humans generally aren’t stupid. Even the dullest specimen eventually notices that “life as we know it” can be very unpleasant. The poor certainly have a rough time, yet even the rich find ingenious ways to suffer.

And it all comes wrapped in a universe that does its best to appear indifferent and unfair, with countless cruel tricks to punish the innocent and reward the villain. All Earth’s religions promise escape from this suffering one way or another, often involving death and passage to a rumored afterlife where conditions will be better.

Early humans accepted this like good sheep, but, especially after civilization was invented about 10,000 years ago, troublemakers became numerous and noisy: conditions should be made better now. The quieter types were called reformers. The noisiest were labeled “utopians.” Exactly when do you graduate from reformer to utopian? It’s impossible to mark the exact Jekyll-to-Hyde mutation point, simply because there isn’t one.

On Earth, as elsewhere, progress seems to run in a continuous (if staggering) line that always starts at the same place: the common sense desire to improve one’s situation. Every civilization in the Federated System began with the same wish. And they continue in it. Many FS worlds today, viewed from Earth, would pass for utopias (even if we citizens know better). On Earth itself, though you may not believe it, the divide between rich and poor nations is so vast that the poorest condition in a wealthy state is judged utopian by millions dwelling in poor countries, right down to “streets paved with gold.”

Earth’s early troublemakers asked, if we can build cities and grow food and get animals to work for us, why can’t we get clean water? Similar questions abound today, often using humanity’s recent visit to its moon for leverage. Americans especially, who first made the trip, routinely complain, “If we can go to the Moon, why can’t we …”

In the realm of technological progress, it’s hard to count the advances that moved from “impossible” to “ho-hum” almost overnight. Manned flight and personal computing are examples both of ancient dreams come true and the modern surprise, like TV or traffic that challenges humanity’s basic assumptions. Nuclear weapons and terrorism are examples of ancient nightmares come true, leading Earth to the far more difficult realm of moral progress for any hope of survival. As the great Einstein remarked with the advent of the Bomb, “Everything has changed but the way we think.”

Unfortunately, changing “the way we think” is no overnight proposition. Unlike technological change, which seems to accelerate it, moral progress takes time. Further, moral progress is typically accompanied by upsets ranging from annoying debates to open warfare. Nevertheless, it happens.

Just two hundred years ago any suggestion that Earth’s largest slaveholding economy would soon abolish slavery would have been scorned as wildly utopian. It took a dreadful civil war, one whose outcome still reverberates, but abolition occurred within a single generation.

Such successive, idealistic changes all seem to imply some sort of ideal destination, but what? “Utopia!” Flat-out utopias like Plato’s “Republic,” St. Augustine’s “The City of God,” Samuel Butler’s “Erewhon,” and Aldous Huxley’s “Island” are examples of the utopian urge in a neat bundle, complete, perfect and, thankfully, untried, given some of the crazier details.

Unlike the general utopian impulse, specific utopias via novels, essays, movies, or political manifestos have proved far more useful in the realm of art than on the street. As art they provide stimulating sources for ideas. As blueprints for some cosmic makeover, each utopia that got an actual trial, from tiny Transcendentalist communes to monstrous communist empires, all failed – some horribly. The failures have even spawned a popular sub-genre, the “dystopia.” Dystopias like “1984” show what goes wrong when a society is seduced and held captive by this or that grand plan.

A Prussian General once said that “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Likewise, no utopia survives first contact with the Earth, whose history demonstrates that wearing ideological straitjackets despite a reality veto makes for a “cure worse than the disease.”

British author Chris Coates has written “Utopia Britannica – British Utopian Experiments 1325 – 1945” and comments in his introduction, “the sheer scale of wave after wave of utopian experiments looks less a catalogue of broken dreams & more like a guidebook for the journey to that other place, a better place – the better place that is no-place – utopia.” “Utopia” was first used in English by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book of the same name and indeed comes from the Greek for “no place,” as in “no place could be this good.” More wrote about the place anyway.

He probably did so knowing that impossible dreams are the most valuable. If Earth ever crosses the Self-Extinction Divide, it will be because the persistent utopian urge finally planted enough good ideas to resolve humanity’s technology vs. nature conflict and perhaps even design a global civilization where children don’t perish dreaming of “streets paved with gold.” With the same efforts, even some of nature’s dirty tricks can be eased: diseases cured, earthquakes anticipated, asteroids diverted, etc.

Utopian thinkers here are usually ridiculed as naïve believers in the perfectibility of humans, who so often see themselves as fallen moral cripples for whom “imperfect” is flattery (Aazort 13 – Religion). I find this attitude odd in a species that struggles for perfection in every facet of experience: they strive for the perfect grade point average, the perfect job, the perfect baseball game. If seeking a mate, no human female is looking for “Mr. OK.” Males want a “10,” not a “6.” There must be a few seeking perfect consciousness, even if “perfect” gets redefined along the way.

And, of course, we can look beyond any such purposeful growth. Just factor in blind chance. As noted above, yesterday’s “wildly utopian” idea is again and again made abruptly practical thanks to the unforeseen arrival of some new technological capacity. Serendipitous gifts like penicillin and the internet can, and have, changed worlds.

Once the pattern is set demanding improvement upon improvement over thousands of years, does any generation, on any world, just stop at some point and say, “OK. That’s enough progress. We’ve run out of problems.”? Ridiculous. Unless, of course, they have achieved utopia.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Very Good: Delirious (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412637/ This movie digs into that “plague of celebrity” I referred to recently. “Toby,” played by Michael Pitt, is a kid from Philly sleeping on the subways of New York awaiting his chance to be an actor. He runs into the multi-headed “Les Galantine” who is not a paparazzi but a “licensed professional.” (His fellow paparazzi just roll their eyes.) Toby persuades a reluctant Les to take him on as “assistant,” sleeping in one of Les’s closets in lieu of payment.

Steve Buscemi as Les is at his sleazoid, grease-ball best careening through pathos, vanity, egomania, paranoia, and homicidal envy – while, to his growing fury, his newly-adopted protégé effortlessly floats to the top. Toby’s good looks and friendly manner are irresistible to all. And he manages a frothy romantic connection via “love at first sight” with “K’Harma,” a recently-jilted pop singer, played by Alison Lohman. This relationship is as insubstantial as all the other pursuits here, which sum up to: “I wanna be famous!” (Or, if already famous, “I wanna stay famous!”)

Wonderful jabs are made at the fame machine. As the newly-ascendant Toby waits in his limo for a long-sought reunion with K’Harma simultaneously ensconced in her limo nearby, their respective publicists argue via cell phone over who must get out of which limo first for maximum exposure based on esoteric inside-baseball “fame points,” recent magazine covers, box office receipts, etc.

The relationship between Toby and Les anchors this exploration of what passes for conflict in show biz. Despite operating without a clue, Toby’s inherent sweetness and likeability only aggravate the neuroses of the scheming and often funny Les – whose favorite wisdoms invariably begin, “The first thing is …” After ten or 12 “first-things” this mantra devolves into a nervous tic. Les doesn’t know the first thing from the fifth or 59th. (Les is crushed when his hyper-crotchety parents deride his latest prize, an ambush-photo of a celeb leaving plastic surgery after getting some work done on his penis.)

There’s no neat wrap to this slice of what passes for life on the fringes of fame. Toby and K’Harma eventually do escape their limos for a paparazzi-perfect kiss and a walk into the magic bright lights on the other side of the velvet rope. Les gets a photo-op and a handshake from the ill-treated but sweet-to-the-end Toby, and is left staring longingly at those bright lights. What Joni Mitchell once called “the star-making machinery” grinds on.

Excellent: Trumbo (2008)  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889671/ This is a brilliantly-produced and written documentary about the great American screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Film and history fans will recall Trumbo as one of the most prominent writers blacklisted by Hollywood thanks to the House Un-American Activities Committee. An unapologetic former communist, Trumbo was convicted in 1950 of contempt of Congress and spent 11 months in a federal penitentiary. In the film, Trumbo happily admits guilt, saying that he was indeed in contempt of HUAC and all it stood for.

Once out of prison, Trumbo was forced to use either a pseudonym or “a front” to continue writing (see Woody Allen’s “The Front”). He won a best screenwriter Academy Award for 1953’s “Roman Holiday” using the writer Ian McClellan Hunter as a front. He won again for “The Brave One” in 1957 as “Robert Rich.” During the awards ceremony there was, of course, no such person to pick up the statue. It wasn’t until 1975, the year before Trumbo died, that the Academy at last recognized “Mr. Rich.” Trumbo was able to dispense with a lot of nonsense in 1960 when Kirk Douglas (for “Spartacus”) and Otto Preminger (for “Exodus”) both insisted on giving him proper credits.

Against this backdrop of thought control, persecution and betrayal, director Peter Askin and Trumbo’s son, writer Christopher Trumbo use filmed material of the screenwriter as well as letter readings and characterizations by an all-star cast that includes Nathan Lane, Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Josh Lucas, Paul Giamatti, Peter Hanson, Victor Navasky, Donald Sutherland, Liam Neeson and many others.

Apart from political and historical import, “Trumbo” gives us lots of Trumbo – an irrepressible, eloquent and very funny man (his letter to his son sanctioning masturbation is classic). He was often criticized by his colleagues on the blacklist for saying that those who “named names” for HUAC, stayed at work and out of jail, were nothing but fellow victims of the Red Scare, a hysteria which – despite all the lessons on display in this film and elsewhere – seems regularly to recur depending on the boogie man of the moment.

Fame-Everything Earth Addendum 26, vol. 35

Fame — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 26, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that wide varieties of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited and lived here for several thousand years compiling the indispensible “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order your copy today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

Earth has experienced what qualifies as a “violent media revolution” over just the last century. All aspects of human culture have been affected, but none like the pursuit of fame. Fame, celebrity, renown – all come from publishing one’s accomplishments. It’s only logical that this recent media revolution, producing ever more means of publication, should spur the ancient human desire for the special immortality of fame.

Earthmen played the fame game early, almost simultaneous with their first revolutionary media technology: writing. In the West, epic poems by “Homer” (possibly based on real events from around 1200 BCE) acclaimed the Greeks for conquering Troy and struggling home. Around 800 BCE various fictional accounts of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” moved from highly-improvised oral performance art and into a standard Homeric text.

As oral performances, with music and dramatic flourishes, these stirring tales were reserved for the hearths of nobles who could afford a star-quality recitalist for special occasions. But by 800 BCE, hand-copied manuscripts of Homer’s version appeared in the libraries of the newly-literate. This was still a pretty small audience, but the technology of writing showed great promise, and it flexed its first muscles with what was in many ways humanity’s First Book.

The “Iliad” and “Odyssey” specify the requirements for a noble life – and fame; values that have survived surprisingly intact from the ancient Greeks right down into modern times. Unfortunately, prowess in combat is top of the list, to humanity’s continuing pain. And hierarchy is busy everywhere, declaring what princes owed to kings and kings to princes. The rabble, or “hoi Polloi,” are told to put up and shut up.

But the books also provide useful information about honor, trust, self-sacrifice, the caprice of the gods, the wages of sin, and, occasionally, the value of compassion. And they’re page-turners, boasting extravagant cruelty, one-eyed monsters, wicked gorgeous dames. The irresistible moral of the story: the best out-perform the rest and get to be “heroes,” destined to be remembered and imitated – in a word, “famous.” Societies bred this lesson into children who, as they grew, naturally wanted to be heroes, too. Or at least look like one.

The perfect real-world example is the first, and my favorite. A backwater Macedonian prince of the mid-4th century BCE fancied himself a descendant of Achilles, a Greek hero in the “Iliad.” Later, as king and conqueror, Alexander “the Great” would become the first human to achieve fame in his own lifetime. That he accomplished this while only living to be 32 speaks to the sheer effort he put into it.

In addition to conquering the known world, a bit of a job in itself, Alexander assembled a killer press team to cover the action. No form of ancient media was overlooked. He employed the historian Callisthenes, the sculptor Lysippus, the painter Apelles. He minted his own coins bearing his recognizable face (“Aazort 18 – Artists”). And, as proof of his success, history’s most ambitious empire builders have all sought to have “the Great” appended to their names, too.

Writing continued to work its magic, with the printing press eventually multiplying its impact. But nothing else so dramatically changed media on Earth until just this last century. Nearly 3000 years of library quiet abruptly ended around 100 years ago with a deafening eruption of media technologies: the telegraph, photography, audio recording, motion pictures, radio, television and the internet of just the last decade or two.

This explosion of publication technologies created a tidal wave of self-promotion. It is no wonder that Earth now suffers the worst plague of celebrity it has ever known. Many humans are even known as “famous for being famous,” a concept that makes my brain hurt.

It seems more than coincidental that during this same remarkable 100-year period, the time-honored setting for achieving fame shifted away from the battlefield and into the arts. Quite soon, audiences may well be more interested in Callisthenes than the bandit he was hired to glorify. This is promising for humans. By 1945, when war finally became too devastating to bear, the art hero had already arrived. Today the arts (and, always, athletics) promise the surest, if most crowded, route to fame.

Anyone seeking lasting fame today would be far better advised to make a stirring film or design an especially fabulous evening gown than take up the conquest and looting of neighboring towns. However tedious at times, this can only be seen as a step in the right direction.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Very Good: The Girl in the Café (2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443518/ This enjoyable film comes from the writer who is probably best-known for the “Hugh Grant dramedy-romance.” Richard Curtis wrote the screenplays for “Love, Actually,” “Notting Hill,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” and (a big credit in my book) numerous Black Adder episodes! But, this film is risky and ambitious given the tightrope it attempts to walk.

The wonderful Bill Nighy (the aging rock star in “Love, Actually”) is the epitome of the diffident, self-deprecating British gentleman. As civil servant Lawrence, he’s caught in a café where the only empty chair is across from Gina (Kelly Macdonald). Ever so cautiously the two are caught in a slow motion emotional collision. The aging Lawrence is impatient for all that he hasn’t accomplished, in his love life or his role working for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, where he seems sincerely dedicated to making anti-poverty programs work, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Gina is not such an open book; something of a girl with a past. However, and most un-Englishly (?), she calls ‘em as she sees ‘em. And she likes and admires Lawrence. They share a few meals; some good conversation. Then he impulsively invites her to a fictitious G-8 poverty summit in Iceland where we encounter the almost Capra-esque tightrope walk. Can the English civil servant’s career survive a “calls ‘em as she sees ‘em” kind of girl”? Can a heart worn on the sleeve actually change those cloaked in bureaucratic bean counting? It’s a charming journey to the just barely believable ending.

Very Good: Shadrach (1998) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144604/  This is a genuinely warm film from a short story by William Styron, directed by his daughter Susanna. Sentiment is certainly present; nostalgia too, but they’re restrained. Given its subject matter, the movie never hit a cringe-worthy note.

Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell are Vernon and Trixie Dabney, “white trash” descendants of the once-mighty antebellum Dabney clan of Tidewater, Virginia. We meet them through the voice of our narrator, Martin Sheen and the point-of-view of ten year-old Paul Whitehurst (Scott Terra) the best buddy of the youngest (and stinkiest) Dabney boy, Little Mole (Daniel Treat).

The much-reduced Dabneys are trying to navigate life in 1935 rural Virginia, barely supporting an unwashed mob of children with the trickling aid of Vernon’s moonshine still. One day Shadrach (John Franklin Sawyer) limps into their lives, a 99 year-old former slave who has walked from Alabama to die and lie in “Dabney ground,” specifically the former plantation’s slave cemetery. Shadrach is more a presence than a character, and only manages about ten comprehensible words in the whole film.

Everyone but Vernon is touched to realize Shadrach’s dying wish, despite changes in the law announced by their sympathetic sheriff. Burials on private property are now prohibited, and everything must go according to the books, at a cost of $35. Vernon, who we know will cave eventually, is nonetheless outraged (something he’s great at). That’s a lot of moonshine. The plot simply follows Vernon’s machinations to save the still, outwit the law and score one for the old black man.

What really makes the film is the no-questions-asked approach of the Dabneys as they deal both with Shadrach’s and their own plight. Something approaching unconditional love is working busily throughout. On the drive to the old Dabney plantation, Shadrach’s incontinence blasts even the BO-hardened Dabneys out of the packed car. Trixie gets a bucket and some rags and yet another bottle of beer and cleans the old man, soothing his pride all the while. (Admittedly, while suitably dirty, Andie MacDowell remains remarkably attractive after mothering a brood of kids and swilling beer all day.)

Paul and Edmonia (Monica Bugajski), one of Little Mole’s four older sisters, form a special attachment to each other and the old man. These inter-relationships are the focus here, rather than the obvious social and economic issues engulfing them. There’s no place for any serious explorations of slavery or politics (apart from Vernon’s ritual cursing of FDR). These are the terrors afflicting life, compared to which even death “ain’t much.” Triumph is found in keeping humanity alive right to the grave.

Music-Everything Earth Addendum 25, vol. 35

Music — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 25, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that wide varieties of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited and lived here for several thousand years compiling the indispensible “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order your copy today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” is not available on Earth.)

Human beings are masters of almost all the arts known to the Federated System. But music in particular is a specialty. Modern Earth music is not only globally produced and appreciated, but has just recently become accessible esthetically from culture to culture. In a world as diverse as this one, that’s an achievement.

And, just as at home, Earth music’s appeal works across time as well as space. In the music genre known as “classical,” composers who have been dead for centuries still enjoy large audiences. In modern “Pop” (“popular music”), a wildly-changeable variety just over 100 years-old, sophisticated listeners delight in material created generations before their birth. Further, the planet’s shiny new “internet” has allowed unprecedented physical access to more music than ever.

So what, exactly, is it? This is a forever too-broad question intelligent species have nonetheless argued forever. Music’s emotional, psychological, spiritual, mathematical, philosophic and esthetic facets are blinding in number and complexity. Complicating matters, there are legitimate differences in taste no one can usefully explain or judge. For this little space I’ll just consider Earth music’s impact on Earth.

“In the beginning” Earth music was primarily sacred. From cave dwelling times right through their Renaissance, Earth music was the province of the temple, with performances put on by the local shaman/priest as an entertaining and magical part of his or her religious program. In the West, the earliest classical composers waited on the whims of the Christian church and eventually the nobility. Some even wore little servant suits, and woe unto the musical innovator who played “too many notes” or explored forbidden themes.

But outside the temple, a popular music flourished all this time, typically called “folk music.” There were lullabies for cranky babies, patriotic hymns to the virtues of one’s tribe and its heroes, work songs that synchronized labor gangs, drinking ballads celebrating intoxication – and not a few bawdy love songs. These set the scene for romantic troubadour songs in the 13^th century, openly breaching, however indirectly, the forbidden realm of sex. (As noted in Aazort 15 – Sex, humans are pretty messed up about sex.)

This breach became a flood after 1600 CE when African-American slaves began to mix Western sacred/classical music and instruments with their own, usually West African music and instruments, especially the drum. For American slave holders (and many a pure abolitionist), the bedrock beat of the drum spoke outrageously to human sexuality. Slave music was ignored, lampooned, repressed. But once the slaves got free, so did this all this “jazz.” Earth music was forever transformed. So was Earth.

Earth philosopher Plato said many wise things about music. One rather narrow-minded comment is at least observant: “… the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.” Ouch. Music had occasionally been controversial, but “jazz” would ignite culture wars. African-American “blues” quickly evolved into jazz varieties that young, white scions of former slave holders went nuts over. Many took to composing and performing it themselves – all to the horror of their elders. This established a 100 year-old pattern that’s still underway.

Numberless variations included “Ragtime,” “Dixieland,” “Swing,” “Bebop,” “Pop,” and, most long-lived and varied, “Rock and Roll” (a transparent euphemism for the sex act). Celebrants of rock in its earliest ‘50s period were hauled before government and church elders to be condemned. Staid radio outlets refused to play it. Parents and teachers strongly cautioned the children. Sales skyrocketed. By the end of the 20^th century, “rock” included dozens of subcategories – each with that nasty drum – and it became ever more scandalous. But by now the music had won massive legions of “fans” (“fanatics”) and built an industry of wealthy, powerful and aging interests. Parents who had lost their own virginity to the big beat dutifully complained, but hypocrisy has forever been scorned by the young.

As a creation of the nation’s slaves, jazz was either maximum payback or selfless gift to America. This exclusively American art form rapidly spread around the world, generating tremendous profits and, more critically, unprecedented cultural influence. Further, and incredibly, during the same 100-year period of its development, jazz harmonized with the simultaneous arrival of revolutionary American media technologies. The combination was all-conquering.

First came cheap sheet music. Then the gramophone that played and the radio that broadcast the revolutionary noise. Silent film gave way to “talkies” during what was called “the Jazz Age,” and the “talk” was … jazz. By the turn of the 20^th century, performing, publishing, recording, playback and broadcast technologies had all grown highly-sophisticated and the entire planet pulsed to this insistent anti-authoritarian beat. Dictators and theocrats still hated it and often unleashed their police. But, as we alien invaders like to say, “Resistance is futile.” Jazz merely grew more popular, thriving on the same spirit of innovation that had so often made trouble for the early classical artists.

Even as rock stars picked up big paychecks from giant media conglomerates who all-but-owned governments, the music retained its anti-authoritarian cachet. The medium itself remained the message – starting with that drumbeat and perhaps culminating with the sensuality conjured from electrified guitar, mutant monster descendant of the West African banjo.

Since it could not prohibit, authority occasionally attempted to appropriate the music, as with “Christian” rock and various anti-sex/drugs propaganda. But sincere young Christians went all tickly the moment that coital drumbeat started. Jazz was guilty-as-charged: “the Devil’s music.” And, regardless of what they may say, humans love their Devil.

Today, despite the infernal trappings of celebrity and big money, jazz/pop/rock is Earth’s folk music. It is the official “music of the most folks.” I defy any spacecraft in the vicinity to fly by and hear much else. Be careful with the drumbeat.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Very Good: On Borrowed Time (1939) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031754/ This is an old-fashioned, no-apologies, no-holds-barred heartstring yanker that still works on the modern viewer. Older films often require us to slip into the cultural context of their period in order to keep that “willing suspension of disbelief” safely suspended. Otherwise, dated film conventions can come across as laughable or corny. This movie needs very little such adaptation to work its magic, achieving an entertaining timelessness.

The plot is derived from countless folk tales where death is embodied as a being, somehow confined by a human, and then ultimately released to continue what is demonstrated to be his grim but necessary work. “On Borrowed Time” comes from a 1938 Paul Osborn play, with Death played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke. The great Lionel Barrymore plays his wily opponent Gramps, with the orphaned Pud (Bobs Watson) as the boy at risk.

“Mr. Brink” has already killed off Pud’s parents in a car crash, leaving him in the loving care of Granny Nellie and Gramps. Then Granny goes. Meanwhile, the snarky Aunt Demetria is hovering about, looking to get Pud’s inheritance by having Gramps pronounced unfit.

Her task is made easier by Gramps having been granted a wish, made in haste as the neighborhood kids were stealing his apples. Henceforth, anyone climbing into the apple tree must remain there until Gramps says otherwise. Naturally, Mr. Brink gets caught in the tree, leaving his work undone the world over. Not even a fly can be killed. But only Gramps and Pud can see or hear him.

Several plot twists later, we get a pretty neat ending which I won’t spoil except to say it is unsentimental yet touching, especially for those who hope for an afterlife. This is a feel good film about feel bad stuff, rendered by a sparkling cast on good old black and white film stock. “They” don’t make them like this any more, and – in this case anyway – why bother?  

 Good: The Last King (Charles II: The Power & the Passion)  (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364800/  This is a BBC series picked up for American TV by A&E. Accordingly, it has the lavish “Masterpiece Theater” look throughout, as well as some nice biography of a little-understood ruler often called “The Merry Monarch.” Charles is wonderfully-played by Rufus Sewell to a literate script by Adrian Hodges (HBO’s “Rome”).

Charles II was the son of Charles I, the last English king to claim rule by divine right. After the English Civil War had cost Charles I his head and, following Cromwell’s death, left Britain rudderless, the Brits decided they wanted a King after all – just a modern variety. Charles II agreed to rule under Parliamentary supervision, which he hated. But certainly not enough to refuse the job. This portrait of one of the first constitutional monarchs is interesting in that political dimension alone.

But “Merry” Charles became notorious for his mistresses, and that’s mostly what we get. Happily, he had interesting mistresses, from ex-prostitute/actress Nell Gwynne to French spy Louise de Keroualle. Court intrigues and betrayals play against the backdrop of the return of the Plague in 1665, London’s Great Fire and the conflict with Holland. Domestic conflict revolves around an assertive and Protestant Parliament taming a vigorous, Catholic-tolerant (and, like Henry VIII, heirless) king. There might have been more to explore outside the boudoir in this series.

And maybe there is. Be warned. This is only a “three quarter review” because I fell for the common DVD version available from Netflix, Amazon and so many others, which, at 188 minutes, is a full hour short of the original series. Some nudity was cut, censorship that is always insulting on its own. But there can’t have been an hour’s-worth of nipples and pubic hair. There may well be further interesting history aboard. Why A&E, who is responsible for the butchery, foists it off on an unsuspecting DVD market is hard to fathom. However, at Amazon you can still rent an import from Holland, listed at a 288-minute runtime, usually under the extended title “Charles II: The Power & the Passion.” Note: Unless they have “Region Free” DVD players, North Americans will have to add Region 2 (Europe, Japan, etc.) to their default Region 1 setting (US/Canada) in order to play this DVD (a VHS tape is also available).

Love-Everything Earth Addendum 24, vol. 35

Love — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 24, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that wide varieties of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited and lived here for several thousand years compiling the indispensible “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order your copy today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” is not available on Earth.)

Human love breaks down to three essential varieties: divine, brotherly and romantic. All are vitally important. Each alone forms the basis for 80 percent of their story-telling. Put one in conflict with another and you have the other 20 percent. Earthlings say “love makes the world go ‘round,” and they were saying this long before they even knew the world “went” or was in fact round.

Divine Love: The upper-case “L” in “God is Love” indicates the highest love humans can conceive. The majority of Earth religions agree to this basic characteristic of Deity (or their most important deities). Upper-case Love is omnipotent, not merely rotating planets, but ruling both the fate of sparrows and that of the entire universe. As such, It is naturally incomprehensible. Humans strive to imagine this Unimaginable and try to behave according to what they think they know of it. But, like all of us, they’re stuck with context; trapped by what they actually know, and that, of course, is “mere” human love.

Doing their best to upgrade human love to divine, “God as Love” can only be likened to the love of a parent for a child. It’s not surprising that God is commonly referred to as “Father” and “Mother.” Those who come from loving families find this a comforting and literally “familiar” concept: someone stronger and smarter than you is “up there” (parents usually being stronger, smarter and taller than children) looking out for your best interests. And, like children who marvel that their parents can drive a car and not get hopelessly lost, God, too, moves in mysterious ways. Also like children, humans obey their parents/God and prosper, or disobey and suffer.

But conceiving divine love as a Super Parent has disadvantages. For starters, many humans do not come from loving families and even those who do will confess to having some difficult times. So “Divine Love” is always getting contaminated with the human stuff. But, again like the rest of us, humans are stuck with what they know. “Love” is an abstraction that only philosophers or mystics can penetrate. “Mom” is real for everyone.

Many religions, especially those originating in Earth’s “East,” try their best to avoid anthropomorphizing love in any fashion. A good Zen Buddhist, for example, would never confuse Love (or any other abstract characterization of the divine) with Mom or Dad. Some may even succeed. But most can’t help but remain stuck working from the familiar. In Buddhism, the result can be found in temples, ceremonies and festivals festooned with demi-gods and demons for every occasion, rather like many Christian sects. In this sense, the “East” is much like the “West,” both being overrun by humans.

Brotherly Love: “Agape” or “brotherly love” is far easier to understand. This is a fine old idea that Christians took as the mainstay of their creed. Their “love thy neighbor, love thine enemy” doctrine is the most stunning thing about them, a non-abstract form of love everyone can grasp without resorting to a Super Person. Simply practice “doing unto others” and your contentment, perhaps even your “salvation,” is assured. Unfortunately, such a creed proved a great hindrance when Christians entered politics.

Christianity’s greatest contribution to love is the gift most ignored by Christians. Loving one’s neighbor, let alone one’s enemy is easy to understand but very difficult to practice, especially when it comes to world domination. As a result, mainstream Christians prefer a Super Person God, just like everyone else. A superhero they can understand. But a wimp who turns the other cheek when attacked? The “meek,” far from inheriting the Earth, were the first to go as Christianity evolved from a cult to the Big Time.

Right away there were those who believed in a “single-natured” Christ when “dual natured” was the fashion. These heretics needed burning, not cheek-turning. Etc. When I tell you that Christianity is the main religion for the most powerful nations here, you won’t be surprised that its record on “brotherly love” is poor. Love was (probably wrongly) judged as no way to conquer a planet, and the great chance was abandoned for the time-honored reason: lust for wealth and power.

Nevertheless, simple Christian notions about love still impress the “lustless,” who have the wealth and power thing somewhat under control (often only after suffering a bout of wealth and power). Many subscribers don’t attend a church. They may not even call themselves Christians. But their promotion of Christian values (not “Traditional” or “Family”) makes them easy to identify — and to despise, rather like the original Christian Himself.

Romantic Love: I looked at a tiny slice of the sexual aspect of romantic love in Aazort 15-Sex and 19-Marriage. I’d like to emphasize here the universal obsession with person-to-person romantic love in everyday, out-of-bed human experience. Humans may go for months or years without thinking about God or their fellow man in any meaningful way. But, perhaps driven by the instinctual sexual component, romantic love is all the time and everywhere.

Romantic scenarios are conjured up in nearly all advertising. “Love” is the subject of hosannas (or blues) in all genres of music. Film and television stories ostensibly plotted around the most un-romantic subjects nearly always have a “love interest.” Pair a man and a woman in nearly any project and sympathy is guaranteed until the writer, musician, filmmaker, etc. makes some blunder that breaks the spell. From age ten to perhaps 40 (often older), the pursuit of an ideal mate, however temporary, is all consuming. The euphoria of romance is so amplified in contemporary Earth culture it’s a wonder that school children learn anything else. Good arguments exist to suggest they don’t.

A beloved pop group wrote a song several decades ago called, “All You Need is Love,” essentially invoking divine, brotherly and romantic love to combine and cure the world’s ills. Faith in this maxim fades with increasing age. And it doesn’t wear well in the wealth and power game. But from their prophets ancient and modern no better prescription has arisen.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Excellent: Agora (2009) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186830/ This is the rarest of love stories, exploring the passion for ideas — good and bad. The tale is derived from what’s known of the life of 5th century scholar Hypatia of Alexandria, a radically unusual woman for her time: a philosopher and teacher who counsels all-males leadership — even daring to address the council. And they listen. For a time. Fanaticism is abroad, and fanatics don’t listen.

The film falls into two parts, separated by 20 years. It opens where Hypatia is most at home, teaching a small body of students, some pagan, like herself; some Christian. The Empire has been Christian for almost 200 years, but adherents are only now beginning to flex their muscles in Alexandria with its rational Hellenistic traditions. The coming conflicts are already evident among the students.

Her early pupils include Orestes, her primary confidant and a pagan fated to convert and become Imperial Prefect. There is also Synesius, a Christian who will one day become Bishop. And then we have the clearly fictional Davus, Hypatia’s gifted slave, hopelessly in love with his mistress and doomed to become one of the Christian “enforcers” we find terrorizing the streets 20 years later. Davus provides the character in whom we most vividly see the conflicts of faith vs. reason taking their toll.

Hypatia, beautifully played by Rachel Weisz, is inevitably caught up in the ideological struggles that grow violent as the muscle flexing builds. Her doting father Theon is in charge of what remains of Cleopatra’s great “Mother Library,” burned during Julius Caesar’s occupation of the city. Unhappily, the orphan library is located in the Serapeum, a pagan temple. The Christians, backed by a Christian emperor in Constantinople, have their way with both the poor library and Hypatia. Scenes of Hypatia and her colleagues scrambling among the flames trying to decide which manuscripts to save and which to let burn are heart-rending.

Hypatia’s love of neo-Platonism and the open mind is opposed by the Christians who already have all answers. It is hard not to see them as precursors to the Taliban. History tells us that local politics played a larger role in Hypatia’s fate than ideology, but for the film, and as a principle applicable to all times, a single quote will suffice. Shortly before her death Hypatia confronts her ex-pupil, now-Bishop, “Synesius, you don’t question what you believe, or cannot. I must.”

Good: Flame and Citron (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0920458/  This Dutch movie follows the true exploits of Netherlands resistance figures Bent Faurschou-Hviid (“Flame,” owing to his red hair) and Jorgen Haagen Schmith (“Citron,” for his work at a Danish Citroen factory sabotaging German cars). Their exploits are sufficiently exciting to keep the film going, but the producers delve deeper, examining the bitter confusion at work among many resistance outfits fighting late in the war.

Citron drives. Flame shoots. Simple. But as the war winds down, they begin to wonder about who they’re killing and why. Who is the “real” enemy? This had been straightforward stuff in the early days.

Both fighters report to one Winther, who is supposedly in direct contact with the Allies and Queen Wilhelmina’s government in exile. For years now their targets have been Dutch collaborators, especially overt Dutch Nazis. Suddenly they’re ordered to begin killing Germans, which, of course, upsets the Germans a good deal more than the loss of a few locals. Why bring on the added heat in 1944? Are conservative factions looking forward to the peace merely out to eliminate their communist “brethren”?

All over occupied Europe, the far left was arguably the most active source of resistance. Now that the war is ending, were the Reds going to reap all the glory and political power that might logically follow? Not if they were dead. And, of course, the Reds were thinking the same thing. For their part, the Germans were delighted to set such factions at each other’s throats as they stalled for the next miracle weapon or dreamed about an anti-USSR alliance with the West.

Further, there were always private scores to settle while the chaos of war could still provide cover for grudge fixing. All it took was a little misinformation and the “wrong” car would be riddled with bullets, playing havoc with Flame and Citron’s conscience.

Long used to knowing who’s who, Flame and Citron are now in murky waters. There is definitely a traitor in their midst. Is it the same woman with whom Flame has just fallen in love? All these elements conspire for an absorbing biopic with plenty of action and a gray undercurrent creeping in to muddy once-clear, if always dangerous, waters.

Science-Everything Earth Addendum 23, vol. 35

Science — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 23, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that quite a wide variety of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited here for several thousand years compiling your handy, dandy “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order yours today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

Earth culture is extremely young and, therefore, extremely self-centered — literally. Just 400 years ago Earthlings widely held the “common sense” view that their planet was the center of the Universe. It was as obvious as the Earth was flat: the ground stood still and the heavens moved. (Don’t feel bad, Earth auditors. “Common sense” originally fooled us Artaxians, too.)

Around 1600, Renaissance heretics Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo arrived asking everyone to ignore both the evidence of their own eyes and God’s plan to make his creation the center of all things. Instead, they offered “science.” Established religion was quick to react with all the tools at its command. The Church denied such annoying analyses and persecuted all adherents, starting with Mr. Galileo, nominal “father of the Scientific Method.”

Humanity’s stubborn preference for traditional, uncomplicated and gratifying explanations for things over scientifically verifiable theories has given them continuing problems. These became really disturbing with their Renaissance, which — along with its problems — has never really ended.

For example, to this day, great debates about evolution still flare. Vain Homo sapiens don’t like being related, however distantly, to monkeys — even when the obvious similarities appeal to “common sense.” And, as with the question of the Earth-centered universe, humans drag in God to stamp His seal of disapproval on such “inconvenient truth.”

Nevertheless, after much struggle, the scientific model became the norm. Today, given almost any question, humans now think the “common sense” approach is to look to science for an explanation. But then, just at this moment of triumph, along comes physics, the foundation of all science, making more annoying discoveries, some of which not even their science can explain.

One of the most obnoxious is the Big Bang.

In the Big Bang theory we have our entire universe abruptly springing from a single, infinitesimal particle. This particle appears 13.7 billion years ago and spews forth all the matter — all the galaxies, stars, planets and other stuff — including the bits that make Earthlings and their telescopes. This is as fantastic an answer to “where do we come from?” as any creation story ever told. No one would even consider favoring this over Adam and Eve or an endless stack of turtles perched on an elephant — except for one thing: it’s scientific.

The Big Bang is experimentally proved. Original proponent Georges Lemaître called it his “hypothesis of the primeval atom” in 1927, relying on Albert Einstein’s work in general relativity. Two years later the first physical evidence of an expanding universe, “redshift,” was observed by astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Lingering doubts were removed in 1964 by the now-famous discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. The predominance of light elements and the distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies also support Big Bang, as do observations made in 1989 by NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, in 2003 by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, etc. and on into bad craziness for those unschooled in physics.

Of course, most of the unschooled are long used to just shrugging, “OK. If you say so.” But now even the “schooled” are annoyed. Accepting the Big Bang means accepting the concept of the “singularity”: something quite real that science nevertheless cannot describe. The Big Bang, Black Holes, “wormholes,” etc. are all areas where the laws of physics, supposed to be as universal as 2+2=4, abruptly come up with 5 and 11.

Human science now assures the locals that there are places or conditions where science need not apply. Currently, the most advanced realms of physics tread into what can only be called “metaphysics,” including the good old “mind-matter interface.” It is proved that all matter is energy. Thought is energy. Ergo: all matter is thought! Yes!

No! Earthlings must now wonder whether they might soon live in a world where people are moving mountains around just like their Bible promises and never mind the people who live in the mountains. Is this possible?!

Naturally, my Earth auditors might expect me, an alien from a highly-advanced world where these problems are old hat, to know all the answers. And I do. But I can’t tell you. The stuff is classified. As our Federated Systems embargo wisely recognizes, an adolescent “incipient species” like humanity that has yet to cross the self-extinction divide with the milk of its bullets and bombs is in no way ready for meat.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Very Good: Ride with the Devil (1999) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134154/  During the American Civil War the North and South fought a particularly nasty conflict “out West.” During pre-war political struggles over whether Kansas would be free or slave, the “Jayhawkers” committed atrocities for the abolitionist cause. The “Bushwackers” did the same to keep the world safe for slavery. The “heroes” of this film are in the latter camp. This puts the viewer in a nifty bind, inevitably sympathizing with the Bushwackers while hopefully despising their politics.

Director Ang Lee, working from a novel by Daniel Woodrell, gets his actors, especially the pre-Spider Man Tobey McGuire, to deliver moving performances using very affective period English dialog. The film generally seems to keep faith with what we know about the Civil War on the Western front. Sharp engagements are brutally rendered, interspersed with the dirty tedium between battles. We’re shown the insane raid on Lawrence, KS by the notorious William Quantrill and its disastrous aftermath. We share a filthy winter dugout with our holed-up Bushwackers, bored and frozen stiff. This is proverbial war: endless tedium, merely punctuated by terror.

The plot is satisfying. But the love story and the course of the War function mainly to support the inner workings of the main characters as they confront their peculiar time and fates. Often they’re more pissed off at their neighbors for internecine Border State feuds than they are at the Yankees.

Jake Roedel (McGuire) is viewed with recurring suspicion from his own Southern Bushwacker side for being German American at a time when most German Americans were Union. He’s only fighting because his best friend is fighting. Then his best friend is killed. “Holt,” a freed Black man, is only fighting because his beloved former master George Clyde is fighting. Then Clyde gets killed. Like Roedel, “George Clyde’s Nigger” must then confront his own demons. The murderous Pitt Mackeson (“Tudors” Henry VIII, Jonathan Rhys Myers) is only fighting because he loves killing people.

And finally, that’s it. The pathological appeal of war is laid especially bare in the West, far from the well-uniformed and occasionally even disciplined armies of the East. In this case we’re shown the type of men who couldn’t wait for the war and hot footed it to Bloody Kansas to start killing early for or against slavery. The farmers and townspeople caught in the middle must both chose and die. There must surely be nobility in “the cause,” but the war quickly kills that, making for an excellent war film, as thoughtful as Clint Eastwood’s work in the genre.

I came across two “Flawlesses” recently, neither very substantial, but good material for a “two-fer” review.

Not so good: Flawless (2007) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780516/ Director Michael Radford, Demi Moore and Michael Caine must have been short on rent money to make this molasses-slow jewel heist film. The two leads more or less sleepwalk through an already sleepy plot in which she’s a diamond outfit exec who has hit the glass ceiling in early-‘60s London, and Caine is a janitor with a con.

This one starts out promisingly, with the oppressed exec and janitor planning a spiffy revenge. Then it stalls. Caine, as “Hobbs” sells Moore’s frustrated “Laura Quinn” on a plan to steal just a coffee cup’s worth of gems, enough for both to retire handsomely; not so much as to even be missed. The mechanics of the break-in are fun to watch, and we should be overjoyed when, instead of a cupful, Hobbs utterly cleans out what looks like several tons of stock. But it all takes too long, and we’re left in need of a cinematic pay off.

Pretty good: Flawless (1999) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155711/ This Flawless is from Denmark, starring Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman as misanthropic cop and damaged-but-resilient gay man (characters pretty familiar to both actors). De Niro is an ex-hero already in decline when he suffers a stroke that leaves him stooped and all-but-speechless. He has already established a mutually-hostile relationship with gay neighbor “Busty Rusty,” played by Hoffman, but solitude and desperation makes strange bedfellows even when bed is out of the question.

After professional attention fails to rehabilitate De Niro, Busty Rusty becomes his speech therapist, teaching through singing. De Niro naturally hates it, but, also naturally, thrives while making increasingly important friendships with Rusty and his drag queen pals. When the crisis comes, community rides to the rescue.

Again, insubstantial stuff, and hardly “flawless,” but lots of fun to watch. In 1999 Hoffman was just emerging from TV with Boogie Nights (1997) and The Big Lebowski (1998) as his main film credits.  He and De Niro are great together.

Happiness-Everything Earth Addendum 22, vol. 35

Happiness — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 22, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that quite a wide variety of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited here for several thousand years compiling your handy, dandy “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order yours today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

For humans, a really bad experience is often called “Hell on Earth.” And this doesn’t apply just for religious people who believe in an afterlife with a literal Hell (big mistakes are punished with eternal torment) and a literal Heaven (little mistakes win eternal Happiness). The basic dualistic notions of bad/good; punishment/reward affect religious and secular alike. Everyone is annoyed when great villains die old and comfortable while the virtuous die young and untried. It’s not “fair.”

Of course, most here agree that “fairness” plays no part in the natural scheme of things. It’s well known that hungry lions or cancer cells don’t care about fairness, even when the prescribed offerings are made to one’s God or gods. (These are super parenting entities that many say can be persuaded to take an interest in collective and personal history. See Aazort 13-Religion). The skeptics just shrug and say, “Shit happens.”

This little bumper sticker bromide says something astounding about humanity’s take on happiness. “Shit” is literally fecal matter, but many use the word far more broadly. In this case “shit” means “things” or “events.” IOW: “Life”! And not just for the skeptics.

In fact, the more conventionally religious a human is, the more likely he or she sees the material world, with all its false temptations and random outrage, as bad. Humans tend to both see and feel themselves as fallen creatures, cast into the jaws of lions and cancer cells by an all-loving, all-powerful “Creator.” Stories vary, but humans are thought to have once existed in harmony with Creator. Then they committed some “Original Mistake” about “knowledge” (often understood as the sexual act).

This sin got them “cast out” of a terrific garden and essentially banished to Earth. So “Hell on Earth” is a sort of “double-down” oxymoron. For the believer and the skeptic, Earth already equals Hell except for the dubious “escape clause,” death. Then the believer must expect yet another heaven/hell-type judgment while the skeptic expects oblivion.

In such a high-stress scenario, humans naturally agonize over getting some happiness right now — but they really mean “right after …” as we shall see.

The exact nature of happiness has been debated by ancients and moderns alike with constant disagreement. But, whatever it might be, the “pursuit of happiness” is actually guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, Earth’s most powerful state and the inventor of modernism.

And “pursuit” is key. If you are new to Earth Studies, you may be surprised to learn that each human typically requires certain unique conditions to be met before “happy” happens. Most of you, along with many an Earthly philosopher, consider happiness a choice. The idea of “conditional happiness” may seem terrifying. But how many Artaxians have ever encountered hungry lions or cancer cells?

While most of us may have forgotten, happiness is indeed conditional. Simply let things degenerate to the point of actual physical discomfort, and we’d be as unhappy as any Earthling. Earth’s “pursuit” approach merely reflects the primitive conditions here.

Nevertheless, some humans do choose. A few decide to be happy. Those who have secured the basics: sufficient food, shelter, health and love often count themselves happy. At the same time, Earth is bitterly divided between “haves and have-nots.” The latter are far more numerous and far more likely to be too oppressed by actual physical suffering to follow the philosopher’s “choice” option. This much is at least rational. But what astounds the visitor (among so many other things) are the extraordinary numbers of “haves” who are also miserable.

The truly “comfortable” are, if anything, more attached to self-destructive behavior than the truly poor. They can afford it, for one thing. But their example seems to infect billions of otherwise rational people with a similar “I’ll be happy when …” disorder. Naturally, they die waiting for “when.”

Entire media empires prosper telling stories about the misadventures of the rich and famous — their unhappy pair bonding, substance abuse and suicide. So the average human with food, shelter, health and companionship nevertheless becomes entranced. He or she can’t imagine happiness without a long list of pre-conditions, often including the very wealth and fame that so clearly seems to drive the rich and famous crazy.

Human philosophers have forever been telling Earthlings to count their blessings, live in the moment, happiness right now, etc. Yet so many humans — without a lion or cancer cell within miles — seem to prefer “the pursuit.”

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Guilty Pleasure: True Blood HBO (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844441/  Yes we all must have a few: long-winded, neo-tabloid soft-porn TV series by HBO, SHO, et al. “True Blood” is tops in the genre. A Louisiana town called Bon Temps has a small but diverse population, liberally seasoned with telepaths, shape-shifters, witches and, more commonly, vampires.

Vampires are “out of the coffin” since artificial “Tru Blood” hit the market. Now they’re just an odd new ethnic group striving hard to fit in among skeptical neighbors with many guns. Our heroine Sookie Stackhouse, telepath and Southern Belle, has fallen for the brooding but kindly 173 year-old vampire Bill Compton. He’s ruggedly handsome, if somewhat greenish. Their friends don’t approve, and the plot can start from there. It thickens entertainingly, always coming back to the Lugosi habit being so hard to break for the upwardly-mobile vampires. Here’s a snip from an IMDB synopsis that will give you an idea of the action on any given night in Bon Temps, from Season One, Ep. 12:

“The charming Rene, formerly known as Drew Marshall, is actually a psychopath bigot who kills women who associate with vampires and he ends up chasing Sookie to the local graveyard near Bill’s house. After hearing her screams, Bill risks his life by going out into the sunlight to rescue her, while Sam turns into his dog form to help. While in jail, Jason is approached by a representative of the Fellowship of the Sun, the anti-vampire church, and he gets a new view on life.”

That may have been OK right up to where Sam turned into a dog, and it’s this kind of bizarre development that keeps moving things along to ever-more-insane complications. Aazort’s kind of town.

By Season 2, the anti-vampire church people have captured Sookie and another vampire-dating (but non-telepathic) guy for some cruel death ritual in which Sookie’s own brother built the scaffolding in between balling Mrs. Church Lady whose sadistic husband is sure to suspect. ‘Probably already does. This is profound.

Like nearly all these weeks-long series, “True Blood” is great to ignore while actually being broadcast. Then you get to pick up the DVD a year or two later and wallow in weirdness on your own schedule. It’s already a guilty pleasure. Actually arranging your time week to week to watch in real time might lead to downright shame.

Excellent: The Man Who Would be King (1975) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073341/  Classic films are a great comfort to one’s old age, and at over 4000 local years old, I have a severe case. This thrilling Rudyard Kipling tale defines adolescent male fantasy: there isn’t a shred of sexual romance to be found.

But historic romance has rarely been filmed so well. The macho-wielding John Huston directs Michael Caine and Sean Connery in their prime, playing Peachy and Daniel,  weary noncoms in the British Army who plan to leave Her Majesty’s Service, buy twenty rifles and conquer far off “Kafiristan,” in order to become … kings. Or at least live like them. Their ripping travel adventures along the way are legendary, and when they arrive, they’re briefly seated at the top of the world.

Daniel has braved an arrow wound and amazed the Kafiristaners as invulnerable, possibly a god — and perhaps even descended from the last white man they knew here, Alexander the Great in 328BC. Unfortunately, Daniel takes this bit of myth too literally and their new-won world falls apart, to a brave but eerie end.

Early in the film Peachy and Daniel meet Christopher Plummer as reporter Kipling, the narrator of their tale, on a train. They have stolen and now must return his watch. Kipling’s Masonic emblem engraved on the watch has made P & D contrite over stealing from a fellow Mason. Both NCOs wear their own mason’s “Level and the Square” device around their necks. At a crucial moment winning Kafiristan, Danny’s Masonic emblem is seen by the High Poobah who falls away dumbstruck. Surviving the arrow was one thing. But this … He leads them to Alexander’s fabulous golden treasure, cached under the aegis of a deeply carved ”Level and the Square”! Alexander was a Mason! (Why not?)

And so Danny becomes King. And wrecks everything.

And, earlier, just short of their destination the two soldiers find themselves cut off from their goal by a gaping chasm; doomed to starve and freeze on the near side. They somehow fall to laughing so loud that an avalanche obligingly fills the chasm. They’re saved by their own high spirits.

Kipling had a nice appreciation for such happenstance. It’s just one of several threads our very human heroes get to explore — along with parts of Morocco, standing in for “Nuristan.” Kipling’s “Kafiristan” was mis-called in his time, but is apparently a real place in Northwest Pakistan where the locals believe themselves descended from Alexander.

Government-Everything Earth Addendum 21, vol. 35

Government — Everything Earth (“EE”) Addendum 21, vol. 35
Dr. Aazort’s Advanced Earth Studies Group – Multiversity of Artaxia 

Greetings to Artaxia from exotic Earth! Your esteemed professor continues to masquerade as a human on this wonderful planet where “human” is so loosely defined that quite a wide variety of creatures are passing. Of course, understanding “human” remains my reason for having regularly visited here for several thousand years compiling your handy, dandy “Everything Earth” (“EE”) reference. Remember, these are potential space-faring beings. You don’t want one showing up at your door without ready access to your EE. Order yours today! (NOTE: Owing to the Federated System’s “no official contact” embargo of Earth, “Everything Earth” cannot be shipped to Earth.)

Humans have battled valiantly down the centuries over what form of government is best. But whatever grand design “wins” invariably becomes “oligarchy.” Oligarchy goes back to “caveman” days, when clans were ruled by a warrior chief and his cronies. And to this day, a strong man supported by powerful friends always seems to end up running Earth’s tribes, kingdoms, empires — and even their recent “republics,” where common people are supposed to have the commanding voice.

Over the last two hundred years, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and modern ideas that came with it, Earthlings have been trying to quit the oligarchy habit and make republics work. I have often lived in the United States of America, Earth’s largest and strongest republic. Not coincidentally, the United States, the Industrial Revolution and modern notions of “republic” are all the same age. Early Industrialism’s new money and ideas made the leaders of America impatient to break their colonial ties to the King of Great Britain.

After a bloody revolution, Americans took their cue from antiquity’s democratic experiments and built the first modern republic. “The Founders” wrote a constitution mandating a representative Congress and an executive President — both indirectly elected by the people — plus an independent third branch, the Judiciary, to keep everyone honest. Granting several bugs, the system has worked pretty well.

Of course, unlike those ancient experiments in “pure” democracy, The Founders rejoiced that there were already too many Americans to assemble at any one place and run riot with the government. Besides, they were oligarchs themselves; the landed and mercantile aristocracy of the time. They may have had progressive republican notions, but they were wisely terrified of what they called “mobocracy.”

Humans in large groups are subject to mood swings, hysterias and fads. Public opinion at the very start already had The Founders agreeing to slavery, denial of female suffrage and other antique prejudices. “The People,” in their wisdom, are often wrong and sometimes crazy. Mobocracy was rightly seen as inherently hostile to stable, orderly rule.

The Founders wouldn’t have liked the term, and the American people today hate it, but a republic requires “professional politicians” to represent the mob, hopefully tone it down a bit, and make the dirty rotten compromises that advance the daily business. They can’t be amateurs buzzing off after the madness of the moment.

So The Founders called for regular elections for (what amounted to professional) representatives and an executive leader who were to raise the revenues, protect the country and basically act as “public servants” — pretty much turning the old “king” thing on its head. At least that’s the idea. In fact, it’s now such a popular idea that today even Earth’s most totalitarian states usually call themselves republics.

But Earthlings remain creatures of habit, and oligarchy is like gravity, constantly pulling at the architecture of all government.

In America especially, gravity pulls all the harder because that same Industrial Revolution created a special type of “friend.” All but the wealthiest candidates for office are unable to afford the outrageous marketing expenses of modern election campaigns. Accordingly, they take the money from the rich individuals, businesses and interest groups that Industrialism created. (“No favors expected,” naturally.) The presidents of many republics owe their jobs to these special friends just like the old clan chief.

Only recently has technology appeared to resist this backsliding. Two hundred years ago a gathering of the entire population was technically impossible. But now, modern media, including a “World-Wide Web,” have made the public voice annoyingly loud — and not just on Election Day. New polling techniques make every day Election Day. Leadership now follows poll results like the old Roman emperors followed their astrologer’s charts. One might think that so much active public opinion would offset the influence of the oligarchs. And one might be right, with some grim reservations.

That noisy public voice is forever verging on “mobocracy,” The Founders’ original fear. Media and polling pressures are driving the representative, executive and even judicial branches to distraction. Further, especially during crises like war or a bad economy, this noisy public voice is easily manipulated.

Oligarchic elites are sufficiently smart to know how to warp media output and polling results. Propaganda is everywhere:  lies are planted,  ”expert opinion” is bought, anecdotal stories are passed off as commonplace experience – anything to push the most tender buttons on human emotions and anxieties (“Candidate X:  has he really stopped molesting children?”).

Almost amusingly, citizens are repeatedly persuaded to rally enthusiastically against their own best interests. They will go to war for nothing. They want services but not taxes. If the weather is bad, it must be the fault of the President — who may be from outer space! (He’s not. I would have been informed.)

Today, an electronic gathering of the entire population (minus the millions too busy or bored to care) could actually vote online and make the daily decisions of government. Presto, mobocracy: not only “…inherently hostile to stable, orderly rule,” but, of course, a magnet for the pull of oligarchic gravity. Right now, the balance is amazingly delicate. All politics aside, this is surely one more instance of humanity learning to play nice with its new toys.

Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

As my mentor, Prof. Spode Hardratt said: “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” Since so much human TV is so very bad, I’ve limited myself primarily to movies and their other long forms.

Pretty Good: I Am David (2003 UK) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327919/ Twelve year-old David escapes from a communist prison camp in 1952 Bulgaria with only a compass (courtesy of a helpful communist officer), a bit of soap, a jackknife and a mysterious sealed document that he must take to Denmark. The implication is that all will be revealed.

David is, understandably, skeptical. In fact, he’s almost catatonic with suspicion. Haunting and uncertain memories of his parents’ fate and his own years in Stalinist camps have produced a truly warped kid. With the invaluable help of the still-suspect guard, David makes good his escape. It’s the first of many lessons involving a renewal of trust in an inherently untrustworthy world.

What follows is a combination adventure yarn and coming-of-age tale. The players are all low-key and convincing. The pacing pulls an always-reluctant David to his fate. And we witness what use David makes, incidental and grand, of his four almost mythic totems. 

Following his escape, and further assistance from stowaway-friendly sailors, David is shown dragging himself ashore in Italy. From stop to stop the camp mind drops away, and he does finely finagle his way to Denmark– into the keeping of Sophie (the forever-engaging Joan Plowright). And, eventually, “out of darkness, life blossoms.” It’s an old tale, and this is an enjoyable retelling. 

Excellent: Downfall (2004 Germany “Der Untergang” – subtitles) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/ There have been numberless “Hitler’s Bunker” films over the years, some pretty lame. This one is definitive. Much of “Downfall” is based on The Last Days of the Third Reich (2002) by German historian Joachim Fest [1926-2006], and Until the Final Hour (2002) and Voices from the Bunker (1989) both by Mr. Hitler’s personal private secretary, Mrs. Traudl Junge (1920-2002). Some may recall Junge’s first interviews from in the superb 1974 BBC series “The World at War” narrated by Laurence Olivier. 

Alexandra Maria Lara plays Ms. Junge, a political naïf who just loves being at the center of celebrity, complete with the charms of the avuncular Adolf, played to searing perfection by Bruno Ganz. All the usual suspects come and go playing their various parts, Goering, Himmler, Speer and, of course, the ever-loyal Goebbels. Events unfold with appreciable historic accuracy. The last known still photo and footage of Hitler at the bunker are dramatically rendered, including his feeble presentation of medals to a group of adolescents wearing what look like buckets on their too-small-to-die heads. 

As Hitler and all around him come apart at the seams, only the pathologically irrepressible Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler) struggles to keep a party atmosphere. What’s a little Gotterdammerung? Turn up the music! But they can’t quite drown out the Russian guns singing for the Fuhrer’s birthday. In addition to the drama, there’s a surprising amount of action portraying the impact on civilians of the ground war finally coming home. The city streets keep the film from becoming overly claustrophobic. 

Perhaps one quote from Joseph Goebbels best sums up the astounding lunatic rationales floating so freely around the bunker: “I feel no sympathy. I repeat. I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don’t fool yourself. We didn’t force the German people. They gave us a mandate, and now their little throats are being cut!”

Here, indeed, was an well-manipulated “mobocracy” in full oligarchic flower as a strong man and his cronies waltzed away with the Weimar Republic.