Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Another Movie Favorite


Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)
Earlier this evening I decided to watch this film because it starred two of my favorite actors, James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. I knew nothing about the film, such as its story line, other than the fact that I liked its two lead actors.
The film Cry, the Beloved Country is based on the novel of the same name, written by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons. The protagonist is Stephen Kumalo, a black Anglican priest from a rural Natal town, who is searching for his son Absalom in the city of Johannesburg.
Two motion-picture adaptations of the book have been made, the first in 1951 and the second in 1995. I viewed the 1995 film adaptation. From reading the plot summary of the book as contained on the Wikipedia website, some minor plot changes were made in the 1995 film adaptation, but nonetheless, the spirit of the novel is conveyed.
I highly recommend this film, and on a scale of 1 to 10, I rate it a 9. I am now anxious to see the 1951 film adaptation, which also stars another of my favorite actors, Sidney Poitier.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

by Gerard Baker


And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?” In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world. He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world. And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.
From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares. From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace. As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.
And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over. The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it. And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length. But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him. And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not. On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One. And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Monday, July 14, 2008

HOW ABOUT A "SERVICE TO AMERICA ACT"?

I am wondering why the Congress and the President do not encourage the youth of this nation to get more involved? And I am wondering why this country continues to allow the majority of it's all voluntary service people to come from the low income levels of our society? With that in mind, I propose that the Congress and the President should pass a "Service To America Act", that requires all of our nation's young people to serve two and a half years in service to the country. The act would require all young people to enter into service at some point between the ages of 18 and 25. This would allow them the flexibility to first enroll in college for some or all of the first four years. Then, when they decide to fulfill their service to America requirements, they could chose not only to go into one of the branches of the military for the minimum 2.5 years, or longer if they choose to re-enlist at the end of the 2.5 years, but they could also have the option of serving in such programs as VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America), the Peace Corps, as well as several other options, including perhaps The National Guard, or maybe working at the many ports helping to inspect the cargo coming into this country, and so on.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

ORGANIZATION OF GRAIN EXPORTING COUNTRIES

We are only too familiar with OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Well, I propose that the United States should take the lead in forming the Organization of Grain Exporting Countries. OGEC would be a consortium of the major food grain exporting countries, like the United States and Canada, that would set the world market price for a bushel of grain, like wheat, corn, barley, etc. Such a consortium could set the per bushel grain market price at a rate equivalent to the per barrel price of petroleum. Now I realize that such a plan to inflate the market value of food grains could have a disastrous effect upon those nations that depend upon grain imports to feed their citizens, particularly the poorest nations of the world. But OGEC member nations like the United States could use some of the tremendous profits realized from grain sales to increase the amount of foreign aid to those poorest and neediest of nations to offset their outlays to feed their people. In the meantime, those OPEC nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Emirates) whose wealth and prosperity comes from their inflated oil prices would get a taste of their own medicine!

The "JoeAmerican" You Tube Video

Have you seen it? More than 1.2 million people have! And you too can view this You Tube video at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPch2k63uj4

The ideas put forth in this video are brilliant. I encourage each and everyone of you reading this blog to watch it!

MORE ON SOCIAL SECURITY

Instead of having a cap on the amount of income that is subject to the FICA tax, the cap should be on the percentage of each taxpayer's income that is subject to the FICA tax. So that if, for example, the cap were to be 66% of a taxpayer's annual income that is subject to the FICA tax, middle and low income folks would realize a tax break; upper income folks would be paying more FICA taxes which would offset the taxes realized from the middle and low income brackets. In fact, there would be so much more money going into the fund that I shouldn't be surprised if the cap could be just 50% of annual income, and perhaps even less!