34 Comments

1. Terrye:

Roger:

None of this matters I guess. Rosie O’Donell has pronounced Bush a war criminal and could care less about Saddam’s crimes.

Like they say, being a lefty means you never have to say you are sorry. It helps to be a rich lefty of course.

Apr 30, 2005 - 2:21 pm 2. Buddy Larsen:

I saw that too, Terrye–a blurb on TV promoting something or other–GWB “is a War Criminal”, cut to something about her marriage being an “Act of Civil Disobedience”.

Meantime in Iraq, the first of the newly discovered graves is reported by Fox to contain 1,500 women and children, “about two-thirds children including many teenagers”.

They were lined up along the edges of pre-dug trenches before the AK47s lit up. So they knew exactly what was happening long before the bullets hit ‘em.

What could their crimes have possibly been, at those ages? Being Kurds, was the crime.

They didn’t have much of a chance to commit any other “civil disobedience”, tho they could surely have explained to Rosie what a “war criminal” is.

(sigh)

Apr 30, 2005 - 2:57 pm 3. yama-arashi:

A wise Chinese a few millenia back said all meaningful political reform begins with words. They gotta have an agreed on definition and with that their own authority. They thus become building blocks–I’m paraphrasing of course as I am not an intellectual and can do no better–for civilization and civilizing. Orwell was pretty good on similar themes too. But with every tyrant now called a “President” and “Bush is Hitler” and a “war criminal” meaning those who kill war criminals and all these post-modernist for whom words having meanings equals some kind of oppression, rather than the obvious outcome that it only means they would be proven not to have any clothes on, like that famous king, well, it is enough to make you regret having spent too much time in “higher learning” (sorry about the p.c. quotes) and wish you had been wise enough to have enlisted in the Marines. Semper Fi seems to me a good a word as any, make that, a better word than any word I can think of, to begin your post-pubescent life’s lessons in words and their meaning.

Apr 30, 2005 - 3:16 pm 4. Buddy Larsen:

Yama, I think that’s a two-way street. Relaxing meanings is the road to perdition, but–thank goodness–tightening them back up is a measurable road back the other direction. That “Mr X post downstream, one of Mr. X’s observations is that the sharp political writing (he called it ‘fun’, ‘engaging’, ‘reasoned’–such as that) is coming from the right these days. That’s gotta have something to do with which direction it’s moving on that road to perdition, who is and isn’t trying to show rather than hide.

Writing this makes me suddenly wonder, where’s the other end of that road? Utah, maybe?

Apr 30, 2005 - 3:36 pm 5. yama-arashi:

Buddy,

That Chinese guy several millenia back was dealing with his own post-modernists. The more things change the more they remain the same. Definitely a two-way street. We’ve been on it a few millenia and hopefully got a few more to go. Never-ending? Depends on your definition of ending.

Utah? Well TMJ lives out there, and he was a Marine, staying on my Semper Fi theme, and he thinks and writes better than all the post-modernists I used to know. Shows what a good Midland, Texas education can do for a guy. In Japan I think the the right side of the road, and it does have a ditch we must be very careful not to drive off into, probably begins in Kyoto and goes through Osaka and then turns towards Kyushuu. America? Midland to somewhere in Utah works for me. Though a stretch in Virginia I’m also partial towards. But this being the blogosphere, maybe it is a road post-geography.

Showing and hiding. That is good image. Driving in daylight with the headlights on and driving at night with them off.

Apr 30, 2005 - 3:54 pm 6. Buddy Larsen:

“Utah?” The last word in the Coen Bro’s film “Raising Arizona”, comes out of nowhere at the end, you’d have to see it. Are you a film buff, Yama? It’s an interesting question, whether guys like the Coens translate across cultures. My son, for example, is a nut for Japanese films–even with the subtitles. From the original “Seven Samurai” guy (Kurosawa?) all the way thru to Animai (sp?). He sees all sorts of cultural links to 19th century American west. Maybe that’s why PM Koizumi and Cowboy George Bush get along so well.

Apr 30, 2005 - 4:13 pm 7. charlotte:

Just have to second Yama about TMJUtah. Eight years a Marine and now mapping little parts of the earth with transit, modem and an eye to all contours. He is wonderful to read.

Apr 30, 2005 - 4:28 pm 8. Terrye:

I think the most effective weapon the left has is its ability to render reality subjective, even meaningless.

A war criminal is whatever they say it is. And genocide? Well it depends on what kind of genocide you are talking aobut. Perhaps cultural genocide is just as bad as actually killing people. That means that forcing Elvis Presley on people is just as bad as Darfur.

This rather casual attitude where reality is concerned is what makes it possible to claim the US killed a hundred thousand people in Iraq. What no proof? no bodies? no names or places or dates? We don’t need them they say we have a survey done by one of our own in which it states it is possible that between 8,000 and 192,000 people have died and we are sticking with 100,000 cause we like that number. So, Bush is a war criminal cause we say so.

After awhile I think to myself, screw em.

Apr 30, 2005 - 4:42 pm 9. Lola:

I love samurai movies. Even with all those interesting ways of cutting people up . . .

Apr 30, 2005 - 4:43 pm 10. yama-arashi:

Buddy,

Very high things and very low things have only a little problem, sometimes a very big problem, in crossing cultures I think. As for the middle–I have no interest. The problem is the people in the middle who are translating, interpreting, and doing the other necessary work are usually very mediocre (middle) people, and foul everything up. The people who could do a better job have better things to do. Even so, very high things usually find a way through the mess, though they are very changed and much less what they really are, and very low things, it doesn’t really matter does it now. Pictures of naked…..I’ll stop before getting myself in trouble. All this to say your son should be very skeptical of believing he is getting the full story via subtitles, but he is definitely getting something, and I’d be the last to say it isn’t something worthwhile. But while getting something it is important to always keep in mind that you are probably not getting it all, or even close to it all.

Kurosawa is a good example of someone dealing with high stuff. And I don’t mean “high” in an elitist way. Heaven forbid. But take something like his movie Ran, which is actually his adaptation of King Lear. Someone like Kurosawa naturally gravitates to someone like Shakespeare, having taken seriously Japan’s own traditions, and out comes something great that then in turn influences a whole bunch other folk in the West, though mostly in a trickle down towards the middle way. I like guys like Kurosawa. Because working at a high level they are always by definition working in a number of cultures. And dealing with their betters like Shakespeare and Kabuki as humble students. I’m rambling on and getting nowhere so I’ll stop.

(Bush and Koizumi. America and Japan. The bond. Amongst many things a very, very high thing: baseball )

Apr 30, 2005 - 4:53 pm 11. Paul:

“That means that forcing Elvis Presley on people is just as bad as Darfur.”

What??!! That’s absurd!!

Kenny G. on the other hand….

Apr 30, 2005 - 5:45 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:

Right on, and well-said. The high stuff works from beyond culture…the human spirit…that’s why it’s “high”, ‘course (duh!) But “Ran” didn’t even *need* a sound track…the thing was all on the screen…those cavalry charges with the bannered horseback archers, the reds and yellows…mercy, hard-to-forget images. Baseball, for sure, I remember first learning the Japanese were heavy into it in the late 60s when a Tokyo Little League team won the World Series. Everybody called the game “beis-se-bol” for a few years…kinda rueful you guys got so good so quickly. Maybe it’s trying to keep an eye on the ball with all them earthquakes goin’ on!

(i know, cheap shot, couldn’t resist;-)

Apr 30, 2005 - 5:53 pm 13. charlotte:

Sorry about this less than serious note on high art in the south, but I can’t resist, either:

A friend once told me that, when she talked about the High Museum of Atlanta to her out-of-town friend, the person ended the conversation with a pointed remark about how other towns have collections of high art, too, and that just saying ‘museum’ would sound a lot less gauche–!

Apr 30, 2005 - 6:26 pm 14. Terrye:

Paul:

I had a conversation with a particularly nasty British relativist who actually told me that cultural genocide [that is the big bad US and Israel of course] was even more destructive than the kind where people just die.

I told her I got my definition of genocide from Websters not Stalin, and I thought that the people who had died in the Holocaust or Armenia or Iraq might feel differently, if they were still around to feel that was.

Like trying to have a conversation with a person who did way to much acid in their youth.

Apr 30, 2005 - 6:36 pm 15. Charlie (Colorado):

Yama-san, I’m curious: perhaps my favorite Kurosawa movie is Dodes’ka den — although it’s hard to choose, Throne of Blood and Ran and Seven Samurai are all big competition. But I always end up feeling rather good at the end; I’ve heard other people talk about it as “the most depressing movie ever made”.

How is it seen in Japan?

Apr 30, 2005 - 7:20 pm 16. Paul:

Terrye:

Tell me about it. As a musician in the SF Bay Area I’m a frequent and reluctant witness to the absolute pinnacle of postmodernist insanity. I’ve had my share of confrontations with these loons, too. However I’ve come to realize that you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into in the first place, so as infuriating as it may be to let them prattle on unchallenged it is utterly futile to engage them with mere logic. After all, postmoderism teaches us that reason is inadequate to grasp reality, only feeling and faith can bridge that gap, so rationality is wasted on these morons.

But all that aside, there’s a special place in Hell reserved for Kenny G. I’m sure of it.

Apr 30, 2005 - 8:00 pm 17. yama-arashi:

Charlie-sama,

Haven’t seen it. Was told by someone it “was the most depressing movie ever made” and have thus avoided it ever since. Not that I don’t like being made depressed any more than the next guy, but my things that depress me cupboard is most full and I haven’t seen the need to add a new cup lately. I think I have the right movie. Actually I’m not a big movie person. But Ran and Seven Samurai I have a soft spot for, and have seen them over and over. Same way with books. A few books read over and over and over.

When I’m in an exceedingly good mood I’ll try and watch and see what it does for me.

Apr 30, 2005 - 8:04 pm 18. Charlie (Colorado):

Well, I guess if you’ve heard the same thing, andf avoided it for that reason, that answers my question.

But then I just saw HHGG and really liked it.

Apr 30, 2005 - 8:18 pm 19. yama-arashi:

Charlie,

Not so fast. Just one persons opinion out of more than a hundred million. I haven’t been avoiding it as much as waiting for a compelling reason to watch it. (See statement on being a few books a few movies kind of guy.) Thanks to you Charlie I know have the reason. Get back to you later on the results.

Apr 30, 2005 - 9:27 pm 20. yama-arashi:

know= now (Clear signal it is time to slept) ((Slept=sleep)) (((It is past my futon time)))

Apr 30, 2005 - 9:29 pm 21. Patrick Tyson:

Off-Topic

Most of the Kurosawa films based on Western source material are, in my view, comparatively weak. His best period (genre) films, the Easterns, are Seven Samurai (his masterpiece) and Yojimbo and it’s no surprise that they have provided source material to filmmakers the world over since their release. They’re that good. His great humanist films (Ikiru, Rashomon, Dodes’-kaden and Stray Dog) are as good a group of character studies as any filmmaker has produced.

Yasujiro Ozu is the other master among Japanese directors and I’d recommend almost anything he or Kurosawa directed post-war to anyone who is interested in movies.

My favorite Kurosawa movies are those mentioned above. My favorite Ozu movies include Tokyo Story and all of the ones with seasonal titles—in particular An Autumn Afternoon, his final film.

Apr 30, 2005 - 9:38 pm 22. Buddy Larsen:

Hey, Yama, I get a decade off so easily in my dotage, so I checked, it was 1967 when Japanese baseball-consciousness hit the young-guy-in-the-southern-USA-street.

Kenny G–special place in hell–so, sooo right. Right behind Barry Manilow singing “I Write the Songs That Make the Whole World Sing”. Ahhh…somebody shoot me….

Apr 30, 2005 - 11:53 pm 23. yama-arashi:

Buddy,

1967 you say. My birth year. Can’t say I recall much though. Wouldn’t have minded having been born a bit earlier and hanging out in some Southern street with said young guy.

I’ll try to look up when the Babe and a few others came over here and really started to get things rolling. That must have been a long trip over back then. Though baseball was an instant success over here, and was known about and played quite early on, even pre-Babe Ruth. Now with the Major League boom we got six games most every night for the Japanese league and one or two and sometimes three games televised directly from the Major Leagues every morning. And then all the sports shows covering the games. And the newspapers. I had to retire from work just to keep up. A terrible sacrifice this baseball fan was forced to make.

May 1, 2005 - 12:08 am 24. yama-arashi:

Like to own this playing card. Sad thing about the date. If only the discussions between Japan and the U.S. had been headed by Mr. Ruth and a Japanese counterpart. Couldn’t have fared any worse.

May 1, 2005 - 12:16 am 25. Buddy Larsen:

Charlotte, tell ‘em it’s really the “Hi Museum” and it’s full of really friendly art. But, funny benefactress names, what about Houston’s Hogg Auditorium for the Performing Arts? The Hogg sisters, Ima and Ura, must’ve really loved old dynasty-founder & daddy-with-the-sense-of-humor George Hogg. I always wanted to catch their act, those performing Arts. What a team they must be, seems like they perform everywhere!

May 1, 2005 - 12:17 am 26. Buddy Larsen:

Man, that’s a beautiful card. 1931, yes, Pandora’s Box still had a lid on it…if only the Babe had stuck around maybe that lid could’ve stayed put. As you say, as a diplomat he couldn’t have been anything but an improvement, alas.

May 1, 2005 - 12:27 am 27. richard mcenroe:

Patrick Tyson ó Bad news: Yojimbo was based on Dashiell Hammett’s “Red Harvest” (one of the Continental Op) stories, by Kurosawa’s free admission.

May 1, 2005 - 8:42 am 28. Patrick Tyson:

richard—

It’s also better than that particular Hammett story though that story includes the famous explication of “blood simple” and the great Laudanum chapter.

In other words, I know…hence the first word in the previous post.

Continuing off-topic, I like Miller’s Crossing, but I don’t consider it a classic because I feel the Coen brothers (mentioned further above) went one Hammett story, The Maltese Falcon, too far if you know what I mean.

May 1, 2005 - 9:27 am 29. Patrick Tyson:

That should read “the famous explication of “blood simple” in the great Laudanum chapter.

Play with murder enough and it gets you one of two ways. It makes you sick, or you get to like it.

May 1, 2005 - 9:38 am 30. Patrick Tyson:

Sorry…nothing to concentrate on until the 76ers and Pistons and noticed that the final quotation mark is missing above. Ugh.

“Shouldn’t you be doing your job?”

“Intimidating helpless women is my job.”

“Then go find one, and intimidate her.”

—Joel & Ethan Coen

May 1, 2005 - 9:59 am 31. Buddy Larsen:

“Miller’s Crossing” is almost a challenge–rather than an homage–to the genre. I agree with Patrick…but the ‘look’ is the saving grace. And maybe the bros meant to exaggerate, since the era was over the top. Anyhoo, “Blood Simple”, their first title came from Hammett? Cool.

Both their laters, BTW (”Ladykillers” and “Intolerable Cruelty”), super-rewarded my second viewings.

May 1, 2005 - 2:32 pm 32. AST:

Odd how mass graves came around to the Coen brothers, by way of post-modernism and Kurasawa.

BTW, I live in rural Utah. The line in “Raising Az,” I interpret as referring to our big families.

I just rented “The Big Lebowski” which certainly has post-modernism, nihilism, violence, stupidity and profanity enough to cover all bases. (I couldn’t think of a way to include Japan and mass graves in that sentence.) It certainly does illustrate how far removed from reality America has become.

How does the left deal with the mass graves? Just as it did with 9/11? Blame it on our foreign policy and culture. After all, we created Saddam, before we commited genocide by supporting economic sanctions against his regime (which all boils down to changing the subject). It’s all like arguing the minutiae of Nazi atrocities to the point that you forget the horror of the Holocaust.

We’re still figuring out the dimensions of this Holocaust and something tells me it’s already being denied. The Iraqis will assemble all the evidence, but it will never be enough for the Pomos of West. They’ll just keep raising their figures of how many the Coalition and the Sanctions killed to keep pace.

May 1, 2005 - 3:32 pm 33. AST:

P.S. I was expecting the High Museum to be sponsored by NORML.

May 1, 2005 - 3:33 pm 34. charlotte:

Sometimes our curators act like it, sure enough, AST.

Aren’t (most) European experts balking at helping with the investigations of Iraqi mass graves on grounds that the death penalty might be invoked against Saddam, as a result of their documentation? Apparently, the Yanks and Iraqis don’t understand that executing a sadistic mass murderer who brought woe upon his people is wrong and barbaric.

(I thought Ura was a joke- was she for real??)

May 1, 2005 - 4:50 pm

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