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Found this story on Digg US Is “More Communist than China”: Jim Rogers - Financials Europe News Story - CNBC.com. Very poignant discussion if brief on the Mortgage crisis.

“This is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. Im not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for this,” Rogers told “Squawk Box Europe.”

I found this article Libertarian socialism Wikipedia [link] fairly engaging from the perspective of self-identification.

I especially enjoyed this line in particular:
‘This is sometimes characterized as a desire to maximize “free creativity” in a society in preference to “free enterprise.”‘

Started reading this entry in conservapedia about Atheism [link]. It sort of boils the blood but at the same time there is something comforting about this contrarian view. Perhaps I’ll write more later but I certainly encourage you to explore.

Review of Cradle Will Rock

It’s been some time since I’ve seen Cradle Will Rock [IMDB link] but surprisingly I’m still finding new things in it. It’s like a strong cup of coffee, well-brewed and with varying textures and flavors. Most of these tinge of politics and the social climate surrounding the great depression so it should be no surprise that it is right up my alley.

The latest little gem comes in the form of a conversation Nelson Rockafeller (played by John Cusak) has towards the end of the film about the new wave of Art that he and Hearst plan to create. A tour of Europe of abstract art so as to control anti-capitalist sentiment. To anyone familiar with the CIA’s connections to Jackson Pollack this should ring quite an alarm bell. As far as the rest of the film it is built upon such gems; Federal Theater’s demise in the midst of communist witch-hunting, Orson Welles’ bombastic attitude, Unionism, the death of Vaudeville, Diego Rivera’s feud over the mural in Rockafeller center.

The framing story is the true story of a musical set to open under the Federal Theater Project. The musical “The Cradle Will Rock� is an overtly political, pro-union satire about struggles in a fictional town called “Steel-town.� The movie draws parallels between what the fictional play is representing and the reality of the film world by creating a fictional steel tycoon who is a friend of Rockafeller and Hearst.

There’s something amazing and alive about the film in that it captures the sentiment of a time where truly contrasting ideas were coming into conflict. As we gear up for this election year I grow more and more weary of two-party politics. The arguments and sentiment are skewed so far right that watching a movie like “Cradle� really makes me long for the past. It’s fascinating to think there was a time only a few generations removed where fascism and socialism were considered viable political paradigms.

There was much pain during these times I’m sure but we see a similar trend today with bank’s closing and a mortgage crisis. What we don’t, however, see is a reciprocal rise in workers standing up for their rights. We don’t see large scale organizing and for the most part the greedy robber-barons — in bed with politicians go largely uncheck as society becomes more and more apathetic.

I’m not saying I’m better than the rest of them. It just is somewhat sad and disappointing that I find more interesting political stories in a movie set 8 decades the past than in today when we truly need charismatic leaders and change.

That said the movie has also wonderful stories about art. Aside from the fascinatingly true story of Diego Rivera’s commission for 30 Rockafeller center which alone would make a pretty fascinating movie we get to see Orson Welles in his prime. Pre-Citizen Kane but at the height of his theater and radio popularity Welles is played with over the top charisma by Angus Macfadyen. It’s a scene with Welles that delivers my favorite dialog in the film and some of my favorite all time of any movie.

In a cab Orson Welles the director of the play has a chat with John Houseman the producer and Marc Blitzstein the writer.

Blitzstein: “I am faithful to the ideals of the party.�

Welles: “I am faithful to the party of ideals.�

Houseman: “You are faithful to the idea of a party!�

Brilliant!

Just saw an interesting episode of the Twilight Zone; The Obsolete Man. Though it’s overtly a commentary on fascism it is all somehow relatable. I see myself in the little librarian played by Burgess Meredith. Not that I’m an avid reader (skipping of course RSS feeds).

There’s something about the way the term “obsolete” is used especially given its modern connotations in relation to technology. The definition used in this episode is more along the lines of someone lacking use value in accordance of the values of the system. I wouldn’t normally call myself “obsolete” but certainly I’ve second guessed how much I serve the system versus how much I reject its standards.

If you’re curious the entire episode is up on youtube. If you have a minute definitely watch the first part of the episode. Fantastic dialogue though somewhat overacted:
Episode 1 [link]
Episode 2 [link]
Episode 3 [link]

Here’s a pretty neat idea. Paint fake obstructions on the road to get people to slow down. [link] I swear there was something like this at UCSC where there was a series of three speed bumps all marked with striped white paint but the third one was just a striped demarkation with no actual “bump”. I still slowed down.

Proving once again that on a rainy day YouTube is your best friend I found this small meme revolving around remixing film footage of Hitler to make it appear that he is singing or dancing along with pop songs. I wont subject you to the sub-meme of Hitler as an emo-kid.. I’ll leave you to find those for yourself.

Videos:
Hitler Plays the Banjo and Sings [link]

Hitler Sings the Darkness [link]

Hitler is the Scatman [link]

Hitler Sings I Saw her Standing There [link]

Hitler Sings ‘The Jeffersons’ Theme [link]

And for good measure: Spongebob als ‘Der Füherer’ [link]

I’ll probably rot in hell for this

What the hell is wrong with people? Clearly these little Paris Hiltons in training have absolutely no remorse for stealing from a little kid and no other excuse than “I like money”. It’s amazing to me that people like this exist. I’m not surprised — I’m very aware of this kind of attitude. I guess its just that I have some stupid belief that people are genuinely good at heart.

Cynicism is starting to really take over me recently.

I’ve been wary in the past about submitting podcasts as blogs because I know its a time investment but I do listen to a lot of them myself and there are episodes every so often that are simply too fantastic not to put out there in the hopes that someone might possibly get inspired by (or be bored enough to listen to), something like this talk on History. [link]

“Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris 1919 and Nixon in China, and warden of St. Antonys College, Oxford, delivers this years Trinity College Larkin-Stuart Lectures.” — from the website

The Cliff-notes version is that Ms. MacMillan sees history as increasingly common in contemporary western society (since the end of the cold war) but she feels troubled at the sort of “faith-based” style with which western leaders seem to use history — in the same way they use religion — to validate their causes.

A really interesting article about gentrification and how to confront it in new and interesting ways: [link] (via BLAST) What strikes me most about the article is this conception of the influx of young, middle-class into the neighborhood as somehow devouring the community in its wake. I live in a highly gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn that has been for at least 5 years. I don’t think that the neighborhood lacks community or culture.

Certainly displacement of low-income residents is an issue but what the article seems to do is set up a false dichotomy between those who bring culture and those who rob it. It begs the question of what the characteristics of a modern neighborhood and community are. Does “culture” — whatever that means — get defined solely by persons of a lower-income level? What is admirable here, however, is the actions of these groups like the SCEG (see the article) who take a pragmatic approach favoring action over debate. Maybe the act itself is what defines the community.

[picture via nytimesbooks.blogspot.com]