Spotlight

Thomas McCarthy in "The Wire"

Keeping the line between fiction and non fiction clean is hard to do in the 21st century of electronic reality. 

When Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood, he claimed he had developed a new genre, the non fiction novel, using the "techniques" of the novelist in reporting a real story. Of course, he did nothing of the sort; he simply interjected himself into the story of the murder of the Clutter family in their Kansas farmhouse.  He did not, as far as I know, actually change or fictionalize what happened, nor even construct imaginary scenes. He simply spent enough time with the murderers to get their side of the story in a way which allowed for more details to emerge than one ordinarily gets from murderers. 

Emerging from this came two astonishing films: "Capote" and "Infamous," both realized oddly at almost the same time, decades after Capote wrote his book. Both are well worth seeing. 

In "The Wire," David Simon and Ed Burns fictionalized true stories and circumstances as they knew those stories through long years of seeing these events  unfold, for Simon as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun and for Burns as a street cop and detective.  Watching "The Wire," you knew the characters were fictional, but you also knew they were real, amalgams of real people Simon and Burns had known, their language, the rhythms of speech, the humor, the settings all conveyed a truth which non fiction can never approach, when you are trying to get details right rather than the stuff which you know has to be happening underneath, which is what fiction can reach. Movies which depict real events and real people cannot go to motivation the way non fiction can.  Capote, in the end, could never really understand the murderers he got to know, because he never knew them the way Simon and Burns did.

Arguably the most detestable character in all five seasons of "The Wire" was not a drug dealer or a street thug or even one of the derelict mothers, but a white reporter for The Sun, who was detestable because he chose to be morally bankrupt, where most of the other stained souls drifting through "The Wire" were reacting to the very poor hand they had been dealt. The character of the reporter was played so well by Thomas McCarthy, just looking at him, at his naked ambition and his cowardice and his emptiness, you came to loathe him.

Oddly enough, it is Thomas McCarthy who wrote and directed "Spotlight."  Maybe not so oddly. Maybe he learned something from David Simon and all the folks, the refugees from The Sun who populated the cast of the 5th season.

"Spotlight" is extraordinary in its verisimilitude. You quickly stop thinking of the actors on screen as anything but the actual reporters. It's so much more gripping than "All the President's Men" with Redford and Hoffman.  In that Watergate film, the editor presiding over the mission is Ben Bradlee. In "Spotlight" it's the editor's son, Ben Bradlee, Jr., but the real conflict belongs to the editor who runs the Spotlight project, who has missed the signs of the infection 20 years earlier and now has to face his own culpability. 

The most extraordinary  moment in this extraordinary film comes at the front door of a priest's home, when Sacha Pfeiffer interviews a priest who admits he abused young boys, but he explains earnestly, trying to make her understand, it wasn't so bad because he found no pleasure in it and it wasn't rape and he should know the difference, because he had been raped himself, presumably by a priest, when he was young, so he is not so terrible and in fact, should be pitied, not condemned. 

Shacha Pfeiffer

I've heard Sacha Pfeiffer interviewed about that moment and she said that was the epiphany for her, when she understood just how sick these priests, and there were 249 of them in Boston, really were. 

Of course, "Spotlight" is not "The Wire."  In "Spotlight" you never actually see the priests--apart from that one at the front door, and apart from Cardinal Law, who protected them.  You never understand what made them so depraved. In "The Wire" you see life from the point of view of the street thugs, the murderers, the drug lords and the hoppers and their actions make perfect sense.  "Spotlight" does not attempt to explain what made the priests the way they are, other than by clinical testimony about the prevalence of their disease, the "what" of the disorder, not the "why."

The art of the Spotlight movie makers allowed making something engrossing out of  the sheer drudgery of compiling evidence, getting lists of victims, documenting and confirming their stories, identifying the hundreds of priests who fondled, engaged in fellatio, preyed on young boys from poor, damaged homes.

They also managed to get across the points that:  1. The rule for celibacy was the necessary if not sufficient condition for this phenomenon. By mandating priests be celibate, the church in Rome virtually created a magnet for men who had significant pathologies connected to their own sexuality.  And, of course, the attitude of the church toward sexuality-- that it is God's intent that sex be for procreation, not for pleasure--has cemented the mold which churns out perversity.  2. Throughout the United States and worldwide, priests either simply find willing adult women (about 50% do this) or prey on children, mainly boys (about 6% do this.) They choose boys, not always  because they are homosexuals, but because boys are less likely to talk. 

It is a wrenching, exhilarating film, full of anger and pathos. But it is more than Best Picture. It is an important social document, an important truth, about the Church, the relationship of the church to the legal system, the role of a free press and the virtues of a motivated group of reporters. It is a document about how dogma and practice can debase an institution which purports to embody the Holy Spirit. If ever there were an argument that it is hubris for any human being or any work of human beings to be the vessel for the Word of God, this is it. People are simply too human, too weak to be the container for the Word of God.

One of the most affecting scenes occurs when one of the reporters in the Spotlight organization (and they were all raised Catholic, if not currently practicing) says he had stopped going to church, but when he was a child, he actually liked going to church and somewhere in the back of his mind, he always thought he just might return to the church.  But now, seeing what the church has become, this lapsed Catholic really has lost his faith, and it makes him sad. 

Of course, there is the statement that the church is composed of fallible human beings but nothing they do on earth can change the sanctity of the faith.  As a priest tells his congregation: "There are facts in this internet age, but does that threaten my job security? No, not really. Because there are facts and there is faith."

Of course, the irony of this film is the facts as they are revealed destroys faith, at least faith in the church, if not in the Holy Spirit.

Spotlight Crew/Cast

One of the nicest touches is the arrival of a new publisher, who is not from Boston, not Catholic--Jewish in fact.  His arrival is set up, not just in this film but in all the films about the news business from "Newsroom" to "The Wire" in which the guys at the top are always sleazy and concerned about the bottom line and not threatening the relationships which protect profit. 
This new guy holds his cards close to his vest, but when it comes right down to it, he insists on not just getting the priests but exposing the system which protects them, on going after the head of the snake. He is the outsider who comes to town to clean up a mess which were fetid and allowed to fester because everyone in town looked the other way.

 And it is this man, who saw immediately the connections,  who ultimately tells the Spotlight editor who missed the story for 20 years, "We are all of us, most of the time, stumbling around in the dark. But eventually, something shines a light on the truth and you guys did some very fine work here."

Hillary Wins in the Deep South: Is that a Problem?

Must be I'm behind in my reading of Politico, Salon and Reddit Progressive, but am I the only one to notice that while Hillary piles up delegates to the nominating convention by winning in South Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, Bernie keeps winning in places like Kansas.?

What I am asking is: Is this not a problem for Democrats in November? 

There is no way Hillary Clinton will win any of the Southern states she has won in the primaries this  November. What she has proven is she has great loyalty from oppressed, ignored and politically powerless and politically irrelevant Blacks in the deep South. It's nice she has the loyalty of the disenfranchised, but they cannot put her in the White House, not this election, not while the Electoral College winner take all system is in place. It was put in place for this very reason, after all, to be sure this nation does not have too much democracy and elites in power locally can manipulate the outcome of elections to their pleasing.

You will say, well, Bernie has no more chance of winning Kansas than Hillary has of winning South Carolina, but somehow the fact he has appeal in places like Kansas suggests his appeal is broader than hers. You know the group she appeals to, and it's less than 12% of the population, at least in the South, where she is currently winning.  But Bernie is appealing to some other groups, presumably white, rural and who knows who they are?

I don't know what that means. As we say in New Hampshire. I'm just saying.

Finding Courage by Remembering the Past

"Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”

--Beryl Markham, West With The Night


"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
--H.L. Menchen

Whenever my friends and neighbors express trepidation about current conflicts, about the demagoguery of a Ted Cruz who tells us as President he will begin every day by praying to God, who wants to carpet bomb unspecified parts of the Middle East just to show somebody over there they should fear the United States, that we can make the sands glow, or Donald Trump, who says, some days, he wants to round up 11 million illegal immigrants and forbid Muslims from visiting the United States, I simply take a deep breath and say, "This, too, shall pass."

Those words, of course, from Lincoln, were spoken in the midst of a real tempest, when the fate of our nation was actually in doubt, when traitors from Louisiana through Mississippi and Alabama, to Tennessee and Georgia really were trying to drive a blade through the heart of this nation.  What Americans faced in those years, less than three lifetimes ago, was the prospect that this continent would be divided between at least two states, one slave and one free and with that likely more divisions, as the West Coast, the Southwest and the mountain states territories were brought on line. The American continent would look like Europe and likely with the same result: recurrent if not eternal war between nations continuously invading and violating each others borders.

Those were perilous times.

We don't have to look back to the 19th century to see nasty, perilous, distasteful times: In the middle part of the 20th century, with the Fascist hosts vanquished, and America reinvigorated by the return of the flower of its youth, now back and going to college, re-entering the work force, starting families, building futures, life should have been sweet, and it often was. But there were storms brewing, squalls disturbing the sunny days, as Joseph McCarthy led a trumped up hysteria into a full fledged witch hunt, thus confirming H.L. Menchen's observation that democracy is susceptible to con men cum politicians who seize power by whipping up fears we are facing great peril, when in fact, times are good.

Looking back through youtube, you only have to type in "Joseph McCarthy" to see a demagogue who makes even Ted Cruz look like a boy scout.  In his heyday, McCarthy cost hundreds, perhaps thousands their jobs, destroyed promising careers and exposed the cowardice of executives in industries from journalism to entertainment to academic to the professions, especially law.  It was a mini reign of terror. 

Somehow, during the Army-McCarthy hearings a mild mannered lawyer named Welch finally snapped and asked, "At long last, Sir, have you no sense of decency?"

Looking at the video now, it's hard for me to understand how or why this exchange unmasked the monster for the American public, but I am told it worked. 

Compared to the threats of these past national traumas, the spectacle of Republican party Family Feud episodes seems pretty tame. 

The nation will survive. 

One thing which Mr. Trump has demonstrated:  He can bring out people to the polls who have previously stayed home, who have heretofore shown no interest in politics.  For years, the fact that less than 65% of Americans exercise their franchise has been decried as evidence of dysfunction in the American body politic. What we can now see is what a good thing it has been to have only 65% of eligible voters actually showing up and pull levers on election day. 

Just look at the knuckleheads who are showing up now, mostly voting for Mr. Trump. Until Mr. Trump, the knuckleheads didn't read newspapers and they still don't but at least before the Donald, the knuckleheads weren't likely to express their ignorance by voting.

Trump: Telling It Like It Is, The GOP and the NY Times

Pogo

When he was in his 80's my father no longer went to the gym. He sat home in his leather chair and spread out the New York Times and the Washington Post before him and he read the papers.  "This," he said, "Is a fine life."  

I thought there was more to life, but he was never into hiking or fishing or baseball. And this morning, reading my on line copy of the New York Times, I could appreciate what he was talking about.  Some days reading someone who speaks the truth, who distills it is just such a pleasure, a high really. There's some connection there. It's lovely.

Today Paul Krugman and Timothy Egan each commented on last night's Republican brawl with great clarity.

If she were in Flint drinking water, we'd remember lead fondly

Krugman:
"The truth is that that party died a long time ago, that these days it's voodoo economics and neocon fantasies all the way down...[Trump] promises to make America white again--surely everyone knows that's the real slogan, right?--while simultaneously promising to protect Social Security and Medicare, and hinting at (though not actually promising) higher taxes on the rich...As I see it, then, we should actually welcome Mr. Trump's ascent. Yes, he's a con man, but he is also effectively acting as a whistle-blower on other people's cons. That is, believe it or not, a step forward in these weird, troubled times."

Making America Great Again

I knew, somehow, on some level, I wanted Trump to be the nominee; now I can understand why.  He's just so much better than Cruz, whose fondest fantasy seems to be inaugurating a new Inquisition and Rubio, who promises a huge military build up while balancing the budget, lowering taxes without cutting benefits all while standing on his head.

As for Timothy Egan, in a wonderfully titled piece called, "The Beast is Us," he reminds us:

Republican voters remember happier times

"He is saying how the people really feel...They're saying it now. So more than a third of Trump supporters in South Carolina wish the South had won the Civil War, and 70 percent think the Confederate flag should be flying over the state capital. And 32 percent  believe internment of Japanese-American citizens was a good thing--something that the sainted Ronald Reagan apologized for...'Voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage,' said David Duke, the former Klansman...With media complicity, Trump has unleashed the beast that has long resided not far from the American hearth, from those who started a Civil War to preserve the right to enslave a fellow human to the Know-Nothing mobs who burned Irish-Catholic churches out of fear of immigrants. When high school kids waved a picture of Trump while shouting, 'Build a wall' at students from a heavily Hispanic school during a basketball game in Indiana last week, they were exhaling Trump's sulfurous vapors. They know exactly what he stands for."

Build A Wall! White kids chant in Indiana 2016

White girl in Alabama circa 1962. Spiritual forbear for Indiana

Oh, we got trouble in River City and that's spelled with "T"...

Actually, while I agree this is the meaning of Trump in the eyes of his supporters, I am not so sure Trump actually believes all this. I suspect he just says stuff to see what gets a rise out of his customers, and tries, like the huckster he is, to play to the response he gets, but he would drop it all tomorrow and advocate for admitting a million refugees from Syria and Afghanistan and opening the border with Mexico if he thought that would make the sale. He has the moral center of a hungry salesman--anything to close the deal. 

Making the Perfect the Enemy of the Good

Proud to Call Him a Democrat

Whenever you are inclined to a little dalliance in masochism just pop onto the website/blog Reddit Progressive. There you will experience the reality of the folks Democrats have got to court, but who will never actually get beyond the world of "It's all about me." There you will find comments that Hillary Clinton is a Republican, that she has no conscience, that she is the anti-Christ, or at best the anti-Bernie and on Election Day, we should all sit home in righteous indignation and hope her campaign crashes and burns and she is immolated in Hell fire, because, Heaven knows, she deserves it. 

Still Miss Him

These folks make Donald Trump look understated--he simply claims she's a "disaster" and the worst Secretary of State ever, but he has not, to my knowledge impugned her soul.

During my college days, I marched in peace marches and hung out with Hippies and assorted radicals who thought the United States of America the Great Satan before the Iranian ayatollahs came up with that name. In those days, given the American inclination to napalming Vietnamese villages, killing babies, bludgeoning demonstrators, shooting up radicals and setting attack dogs on Civil Rights demonstrators, not to mention fracturing their skulls or simply murdering Freedom Riders, the idea of the United States as a less than benign nation was understandable.

She'd look good in a black robe on the Supreme Court

But, even in those days, there were some scary, freaky, stupid people who you knew would ultimately cut their hair, buy a new suit and wind up selling automobiles or becoming real estate agents or bankers and they'd forget all about their Hippie Days because they were just in it for the fun.

The modern day descendants of those air head Hippie, Yippie types are now blogging on Progressive Reddit.  

The things they say!

I'd rather have to deal with these folks than deal with the folks who show up to Trump rallies, carrying the battle flag of Dixie, or grabbing microphones to shout "Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya!"   Embracing the warm kiss from David Duke, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan may give the Donald an uncomfortable moment; at least the Grand Dragon is Mr. Trump's problem, not ours.

But, good grief, it is disheartening when you see who is flocking to your colors sometimes. 

You Don't Have to Love her, Just Vote for Her

Hillary Sweeps the South, Sort Of

So, what am I missing here?  Hillary has a lot of "super delegates"  something I still do not understand, but it sounds as if the Democratic party doesn't trust voters so they add delegates to put a thumb on the scale, sort of like the Iranian elections where candidates are pre screened before the voting begins.

And Hillary wins the South:  Arkansas, South Carolina, Alabama, Texas,  which does not mean she actually wins the South; she wins the pathetically small number of  Democratic voters in the South, who are the Blacks, who are other minorities, but she loses the actual South, which is mostly white, uneducated yahoos .  

So when the voting happens in November none of the Super Tuesday states (except Massachusetts) have a snowball's chance in Hell of winding up in her column. 

On the other hand, the Democrats might just win Colorado, Vermont and New Hampshire in November, which are all states which like Bernie better.

So, if you are nominating someone you hope will win where you have to win, why are you going for Hillary?   

I know, I'm just an unsophisticated rube from New Hampshire, but explain this to me.

The Flowers Has Rise: Springtime for Trump Mania

Trees are budding up in Hampton, New Hampshire and it's only March 1st. 

Our office is making plans for St. Patrick's Day.

The sun is shining.
The grass is rise.
I wonder where the birdies is.

And Trump is in the air.

Al Franken was on NPR talking about Donald Trump this morning. Trump really brings out the best in Franken.

Trump also brings out the best in John Oliver.

Check out Oliver through this link.  The thing about Oliver is he takes all the time he needs to tease out the essence of whomever he is lacinating. Jon Stewart was punchy and rambunctious, but Oliver takes his time, going over each nuance, digging into what makes someone like Trump just so absurd. He is really something different on the public airways, or at least on the HBO airways. This is a 25 minute rant, but it comes down to Oliver's piquant observation that January 14, 2017, the day Donald Trump is sworn in as our 45th President will be the day time travelers of the future come back to prevent.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpO_RTSNmQ




I haven't seen Jon Stewart or Noah or Tina Fey launch yet, but Trump is one of those forces who stimulate pullulation; he is a "Springtime for Trump" sort of fellow. As Oliver says, at one point: It's not that he means to lie; he just doesn't care about the truth.

Just hearing him bloviate  makes the birdies sing in my head. 

The attack puppets are stirring in their boxes.

The possibilities are everywhere.

And that's what Spring is, isn't it?

Possibility. 
New Life!