Betty Draper (January Jones) begins to face the reality of her father Gene’s stroke and his onset of dementia or failing memory. She is under no illusions that she does not need Don (Jon Hamm) and calls him at his hotel to join her on a visit to Gene’s house. Betty is growing more aware of her circumstances and who she really is. She demonstrates that in her communication of new limits and boundaries to Don.
The recap below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 10: "The Inheritance." If you haven't seen Episode 10 check out the Mad Men Schedule to see when we're airing encore presentations or download it on iTunes.
Betty and Don quickly arrive at Gene Hofstadt’s (Ryan Cutrona) house where he tellingly confuses Betty for her similar-looking dead mother – Ruth (the pretty woman in the portrait). Betty tells her brother William (Eric Ladin) to “stop counting other people’s money”; it is evident that familial vultures are circling. The family awkwardly confronts Gene’s decline.
Betty recognizes the situation and she asserts herself with Don. We hear her new-found voice tell him to “stop it…nobody is watching.” We see her send Don away from their home with his suitcase: “Nothing’s changed. We were just pretending” and not really making love at her father Gene’s. Yet in Betty’s heart, she knows she relies on Don for personal and parental support. The decision to divorce is heavier than the property. Betty admits, “Sometimes I think I’ll float away if Don isn’t holding me down.”
The later encounter with run-away Glen Bishop (Marten Holden Weiner) reinforces the precarious status and doubled responsibilities of a divorced parent carrying for children. Glen is acting out and displaying anger (“I hate you”) because his mother Helen Bishop (Darby Stanchfield) cannot properly care for him or be attentive enough to meet Glen’s growing psychological needs as an early adolescent.
Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) resists the notion of adopting a child with Trudy. His mother even threatens disinheritance. The irony is that the father’s inheritance is empty because the father spent all the money – “spent it with stranger.”
Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) gets bumped from the California convention trip by Don Draper. He joins girlfriend Sheila (Donielle Artese) along with Negro (in those days) Freedom Riders on a bus to Mississippi. That makes him a “fellow traveler” in the anti-Communist lexicon on the day. They ride down to low and dark regions -- the “scary” zone – with high purpose to register voters. They travel into the Sixties without knowledge or experience of where America is headed. Meanwhile Don and Pete Campbell fly off to the golden Pacific on the musical sounds of the satellite “Telstar.”
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Mad Men’s Six-Month Leave
MANHATTAN, New York October 1, 2008 >> mad men virtuality ©ML Duby
“Stop dining on the drama of other people’s lives like teenage girls.”
– Don Draper
On the other hand, now that we’re here, we might as well enjoy the Mad Men crew indulging their usual barrel of drink. We’ll sample a few hor'dourves and chat before the main course. Unfortunately, one of our regulars – Freddy – over-imbibes to the point of literally pissing himself. Let’s be clear about the Mad Men equation of consequences...after the disclaimer, of course.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 9: "Six Month Leave." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray) is sent on a one-way out, “six-month leave of absence from which he won’t return” (Roger Sterling – John Slattery) because the “man is a train wreck” (Duck Philips – Mark Moses) and “disgusting” embarrassment according to Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser). The scenario is that Freddy is so totally tanked and still drinking right before the Samsonite luggage client meeting. The unprofessionalism and potentially erratic, unpredictable presentation seems less important that the social stain of wet trousers.
The Six-Month Leave episode is really about who and what we hold onto. Against the real-time world backdrop of Marilyn Monroe’s death, we view our characters reacting to the news, revealing (or not) their feelings about the event, and resolving to move forward toward a “fresh start” as it was put by Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Draper in the elevator on the way up: “Can’t say I’m surprised.” Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) astutely comments, “We’re lucky Playtex didn't go for that Jackie/Marilyn campaign." The secretarial pool is universally weepy with mourning. Roger Sterling sneers that Miss Monroe was a movie star that threw it all away as Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) pines, “This world destroyed her.”
As for Freddy’s plight, he’s dead in the world of Sterling Cooper. Despite his skill set, shared war stories and the loyalty of creative team, Freddy is finished, kaput, sayonara, adios, bye-bye and finito. Roger insists the firm “has to let him go.”
One of Roger Sterling’s violated cardinal sins is lust of the variety that all so frequently allies with disloyalty. Roger ensures the jettison of Freddy is “all being done the right way.” Apparently, 25 years of marriage with Mona does not weigh up as equal to his attraction to the 19-year old secretary Jane Siegel (Payton List). Roger commits a double cop-out, first with a fake name – secretary "Margaret" – to Mona and then, with a twisted-version replay of Don’s suggestion that “it’s your life, you have to move forward.” Roger's business is clear justification without acceptance of responsibilities for his actions and the underlying intentions.
Conflict between Don and Roger is foreshadowed with Roger’s reminder to Don that “you don’t have a contract” with Sterling Cooper. Roger adds, “Your loyalty is starting to become a liability.” At the close, Don ignores Roger’s effort to “explain” his misuse of Don’s bar comment, requests Jane to be off his desk and closes his office door in Roger’s face.
Marilyn Monroe sang “I’m Through With Love” in “Some Like It Hot.”
(1931) Matt Malneck; Songwriters: Gus Kahn, Fud Livingston, Matt Malneck
I'm through with love I'll never fall again
Said adieu to love Don't ever call again
For I must love you or no one
And so I'm through with love
I've locked my heart I'll keep my feelings there
I've stocked my heart in an icy Frigidaire
And I mean to care for no one
Because I'm through with love
Why did you lead me to think you could care?
You didn't need me for you had your share
of slaves around you to hound you and swear
their deep devotion and emotion to you
Goodbye to spring and all it meant to me
It can never bring the things that used to be
For I must have you or no one
And so I'm through with love
I'm through with love
That's why I'm through with love
“Stop dining on the drama of other people’s lives like teenage girls.”
– Don Draper
On the other hand, now that we’re here, we might as well enjoy the Mad Men crew indulging their usual barrel of drink. We’ll sample a few hor'dourves and chat before the main course. Unfortunately, one of our regulars – Freddy – over-imbibes to the point of literally pissing himself. Let’s be clear about the Mad Men equation of consequences...after the disclaimer, of course.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 9: "Six Month Leave." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray) is sent on a one-way out, “six-month leave of absence from which he won’t return” (Roger Sterling – John Slattery) because the “man is a train wreck” (Duck Philips – Mark Moses) and “disgusting” embarrassment according to Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser). The scenario is that Freddy is so totally tanked and still drinking right before the Samsonite luggage client meeting. The unprofessionalism and potentially erratic, unpredictable presentation seems less important that the social stain of wet trousers.
The Six-Month Leave episode is really about who and what we hold onto. Against the real-time world backdrop of Marilyn Monroe’s death, we view our characters reacting to the news, revealing (or not) their feelings about the event, and resolving to move forward toward a “fresh start” as it was put by Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Draper in the elevator on the way up: “Can’t say I’m surprised.” Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) astutely comments, “We’re lucky Playtex didn't go for that Jackie/Marilyn campaign." The secretarial pool is universally weepy with mourning. Roger Sterling sneers that Miss Monroe was a movie star that threw it all away as Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) pines, “This world destroyed her.”
As for Freddy’s plight, he’s dead in the world of Sterling Cooper. Despite his skill set, shared war stories and the loyalty of creative team, Freddy is finished, kaput, sayonara, adios, bye-bye and finito. Roger insists the firm “has to let him go.”
One of Roger Sterling’s violated cardinal sins is lust of the variety that all so frequently allies with disloyalty. Roger ensures the jettison of Freddy is “all being done the right way.” Apparently, 25 years of marriage with Mona does not weigh up as equal to his attraction to the 19-year old secretary Jane Siegel (Payton List). Roger commits a double cop-out, first with a fake name – secretary "Margaret" – to Mona and then, with a twisted-version replay of Don’s suggestion that “it’s your life, you have to move forward.” Roger's business is clear justification without acceptance of responsibilities for his actions and the underlying intentions.
Conflict between Don and Roger is foreshadowed with Roger’s reminder to Don that “you don’t have a contract” with Sterling Cooper. Roger adds, “Your loyalty is starting to become a liability.” At the close, Don ignores Roger’s effort to “explain” his misuse of Don’s bar comment, requests Jane to be off his desk and closes his office door in Roger’s face.
Marilyn Monroe sang “I’m Through With Love” in “Some Like It Hot.”
(1931) Matt Malneck; Songwriters: Gus Kahn, Fud Livingston, Matt Malneck
I'm through with love I'll never fall again
Said adieu to love Don't ever call again
For I must love you or no one
And so I'm through with love
I've locked my heart I'll keep my feelings there
I've stocked my heart in an icy Frigidaire
And I mean to care for no one
Because I'm through with love
Why did you lead me to think you could care?
You didn't need me for you had your share
of slaves around you to hound you and swear
their deep devotion and emotion to you
Goodbye to spring and all it meant to me
It can never bring the things that used to be
For I must have you or no one
And so I'm through with love
I'm through with love
That's why I'm through with love
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A Mad Men Night to Remember
MANHATTAN, New York September 15, 2008 >> mad men virtuality ©ML Duby
Revelations abound of what is known but concealed in fears. Certain truths are openly expressed on the Mad Men episode ‘A Night to Remember.’ Don, Betty, Peggy and Joan must answer their impulse to openly put the truth on the table and examine what they recognize. Self scrutiny is almost always forced on us in real life (as opposed to TV dramatic series) as well. Confessions and truth await our characters but, even at the episode’s conclusion, we do not know whether or how each will answer going forward.
The recap below contains plot spoilers about Episode 8: "A Night to Remember." If you haven't seen episode 8, check out the Mad Men Schedule to see when we're airing encore presentations or download it on iTunes.
There are numerous instances of someone convincing another to perform as they need or want. The “other” is recruited by the manipulator. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) uses a dinner party prepared by Betty Draper (January Jones) to create an impression for a client. Betty expressed outrage at being embarrassed at the dinner party about Don knowing the beer she would buy but the underlying boil of anger is from knowing that Don has been cheating on her with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw). Betty really needs space and sincerely does not want to see him. His façade has been cracked and Betty does not like what she sees about Don’s interior and also despises herself for what it shows her to be – perfect hostess, perfect wife, perfect fool to Don’s infidelity. The other affairs weigh as well on the scale of her outrage and need to separate.
Don remains in denial and cannot speak the truth to his wife. That’s the bottom line. He has reinvented himself so many times and in the present ‘Mad Men’ circumstance, he “does not want to lose all this,” i.e., Betty and the kids. There were many mirrors in the most recent episodes; now the slice of events concludes with him alone in the Sterling Cooper office kitchen nursing a Heineken.
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss ["shout out to Atlantic Theater Company"]) learns from Father Gill (Colin Hanks) that he knows about her child born out of wedlock. The hoo-hoo about the CYO dance committee is a brilliant dramatic device to carry the essential message of Peggy needing to accept some overdue spiritual truths about her process. Peggy openly admonishes Father Gill that his job is to tell the committee to trust her with her promotional ideas and execution.
When he picks up the final materials at her office, Father Gill reverses that into a message communicated as a leading question to Peggy: “Do you have something you need to talk about? I notice you don’t take communion.” Peggy naturally doesn’t want to talk about it as there are painful truths in her psych even deeper than the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Father Gill asks, “Why are you pushing everyone away? Do you feel you don’t deserve His love?” Peggy ignores him directly and formally puts his promo materials in a box. Peggy commiserating and pondering in the bathtub at the close is a classic visual of character reflecting their impending fate.
By the way, I totally caught hell when I refused communion as a protest against the hypocrisy of the Vietnam War. Parents and authority functionaries lamented and went ballistic but… Nobody asked me anything! (When is it reality reflecting art and when is it the reverse?)
As for the highly sympathetic Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), she contains and hides her disappointment at losing the broadcast operations script reader position. We all see how clueless the Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) character is as he smims around his fishbowl life. This woman represents so many millions who were about to burn their bras, drop acid and get downright feminista on some deserving asshole “good-ole-boys”! Excuse me, but 46 years on, we still have significant portions of this society resistant to women deserving Equal Pay for Equal Work. There is an extremely well constructed pathos in the scene of Joan promptly and subserviently sashaying to get her doctor his glass of water.
On Madison Avenue of 1962, you can’t just “whack” somebody like they do on The Sopranos. Yet death and pain come in a thousand cuts. The cracks in the glass ceiling and walls are hammered a thousand times. The reality of sexism’s deeper psychological costs on woman’s physical and mental health is being dramatically revealed as well as ever done on television. We end the episode with a looming and foreboding sense of the knowing and the unknown mixed in a mist of dread and doubt. They just don’t write Medieval Morality Plays like that anymore –except for the brain trust at Mad Men, of course. //
Revelations abound of what is known but concealed in fears. Certain truths are openly expressed on the Mad Men episode ‘A Night to Remember.’ Don, Betty, Peggy and Joan must answer their impulse to openly put the truth on the table and examine what they recognize. Self scrutiny is almost always forced on us in real life (as opposed to TV dramatic series) as well. Confessions and truth await our characters but, even at the episode’s conclusion, we do not know whether or how each will answer going forward.
The recap below contains plot spoilers about Episode 8: "A Night to Remember." If you haven't seen episode 8, check out the Mad Men Schedule to see when we're airing encore presentations or download it on iTunes.
There are numerous instances of someone convincing another to perform as they need or want. The “other” is recruited by the manipulator. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) uses a dinner party prepared by Betty Draper (January Jones) to create an impression for a client. Betty expressed outrage at being embarrassed at the dinner party about Don knowing the beer she would buy but the underlying boil of anger is from knowing that Don has been cheating on her with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw). Betty really needs space and sincerely does not want to see him. His façade has been cracked and Betty does not like what she sees about Don’s interior and also despises herself for what it shows her to be – perfect hostess, perfect wife, perfect fool to Don’s infidelity. The other affairs weigh as well on the scale of her outrage and need to separate.
Don remains in denial and cannot speak the truth to his wife. That’s the bottom line. He has reinvented himself so many times and in the present ‘Mad Men’ circumstance, he “does not want to lose all this,” i.e., Betty and the kids. There were many mirrors in the most recent episodes; now the slice of events concludes with him alone in the Sterling Cooper office kitchen nursing a Heineken.
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss ["shout out to Atlantic Theater Company"]) learns from Father Gill (Colin Hanks) that he knows about her child born out of wedlock. The hoo-hoo about the CYO dance committee is a brilliant dramatic device to carry the essential message of Peggy needing to accept some overdue spiritual truths about her process. Peggy openly admonishes Father Gill that his job is to tell the committee to trust her with her promotional ideas and execution.
When he picks up the final materials at her office, Father Gill reverses that into a message communicated as a leading question to Peggy: “Do you have something you need to talk about? I notice you don’t take communion.” Peggy naturally doesn’t want to talk about it as there are painful truths in her psych even deeper than the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Father Gill asks, “Why are you pushing everyone away? Do you feel you don’t deserve His love?” Peggy ignores him directly and formally puts his promo materials in a box. Peggy commiserating and pondering in the bathtub at the close is a classic visual of character reflecting their impending fate.
By the way, I totally caught hell when I refused communion as a protest against the hypocrisy of the Vietnam War. Parents and authority functionaries lamented and went ballistic but… Nobody asked me anything! (When is it reality reflecting art and when is it the reverse?)
As for the highly sympathetic Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), she contains and hides her disappointment at losing the broadcast operations script reader position. We all see how clueless the Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) character is as he smims around his fishbowl life. This woman represents so many millions who were about to burn their bras, drop acid and get downright feminista on some deserving asshole “good-ole-boys”! Excuse me, but 46 years on, we still have significant portions of this society resistant to women deserving Equal Pay for Equal Work. There is an extremely well constructed pathos in the scene of Joan promptly and subserviently sashaying to get her doctor his glass of water.
On Madison Avenue of 1962, you can’t just “whack” somebody like they do on The Sopranos. Yet death and pain come in a thousand cuts. The cracks in the glass ceiling and walls are hammered a thousand times. The reality of sexism’s deeper psychological costs on woman’s physical and mental health is being dramatically revealed as well as ever done on television. We end the episode with a looming and foreboding sense of the knowing and the unknown mixed in a mist of dread and doubt. They just don’t write Medieval Morality Plays like that anymore –except for the brain trust at Mad Men, of course. //
Thursday, September 11, 2008
FIVE EARTHQUAKES
NEW YORK, New York (September 11, 2008)
Five earthquakes (measuring 6.0 and higher magnitude on the Richter scale) occurred in sequence "yesterday" depending on your relativity to the time zone line.
The Southern Iran event on the fragile northern edge of the Arabian Plate was apparently first.
The larger Oriental "slippages" were large, loud and deep: first at the southern "node" of the Philippine Plate near a convergence point of three small sub-plates and followed minutes later at the Hokkaido southern tip of the North American Plate. There was also a large Chilean event and a fifth in the Central Atlantic Ridge (time unknown to me at this post).
Five large earthquakes in such a tight sequence are rare. Global seismologists are quite active discerning what tectonic vibratory and deep frequency factors are at work.
For the superstitiously nervous, tsunami alerts have been canceled, so sing along at the beach with "Fun, fun, fun 'til tsunami took my T-Bird away" or Carole King's "I Felt the Earth Move." Don't forget to meditate. //
Five earthquakes (measuring 6.0 and higher magnitude on the Richter scale) occurred in sequence "yesterday" depending on your relativity to the time zone line.
The Southern Iran event on the fragile northern edge of the Arabian Plate was apparently first.
The larger Oriental "slippages" were large, loud and deep: first at the southern "node" of the Philippine Plate near a convergence point of three small sub-plates and followed minutes later at the Hokkaido southern tip of the North American Plate. There was also a large Chilean event and a fifth in the Central Atlantic Ridge (time unknown to me at this post).
Five large earthquakes in such a tight sequence are rare. Global seismologists are quite active discerning what tectonic vibratory and deep frequency factors are at work.
For the superstitiously nervous, tsunami alerts have been canceled, so sing along at the beach with "Fun, fun, fun 'til tsunami took my T-Bird away" or Carole King's "I Felt the Earth Move." Don't forget to meditate. //
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
‘The Gold Violin’ Plays Mad Men
MANHATTAN, New York (September 8, 2008) >> mad men virtuality
‘The Gold Violin’ is a story authored by Sterling Cooper staffer Ken Cosgrove (within the episode of the same name) that was inspired by a painting and “was perfect in every way except it couldn't make music." Like the Taoist peeling of an onion's skin, we explore new layers on ‘Mad Men.’ Certain individuals, especially Don Draper, begin to learn deeper relational and hierarchical truths they might prefer not to know. Moral consequences – past and future – are revealed in a mosaic of exterior/interior tensions laid out in layers of both subtle contained strokes and loud colors of emotion.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 7: ‘The Gold Violin.’ If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
There is a delicious mixture of senses and revelations in ‘The Gold Violin’ episode. Our characters act out vignettes inside a larger collage of immense emotional and dimensional depth "like looking into something very deep - like you could fall in.” The ‘Mad Men’ series reveals itself once more to be a contemporary version of the Medieval Morality Play. Simply put, “morality plays have a protagonist who represents either humanity as a whole, i.e., Everyman, or an entire social class (e.g., Don Draper). Antagonists and supporting characters are not individuals per se, but rather personifications of abstract virtues or vices.” (Source: Wikipedia)
The new Coupe de Ville Cadillac announces the arrival of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) as a made man. In addition, Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse) reveals to him that it’s “time for the horse to catch the carrot.” Cooper piles up the frosting on the cake: “You’re going to be wearing a tuxedo a lot more. You’ve been invited to see how things work.” Don is climbing into a new stratum of what Vance Packard defines in “The Status Seekers” (1959) as the Upper Middle Class.
Don’s status points include the new Caddie, the senior executive and partner rank at Sterling Cooper, the picture book family of college-educated Betty and the kids, the house in the suburbs, etc. Name your own points: ______.
The irony is that Don (wearing a tux) is soon confronted by Jimmy Barrett’s (Patrick Fischler) angry accusation that he has been sexing it up with his wife Bobbie. Jimmy drags Betty Draper (January Jones) into the fray forcing her to see what’s going on, “Oh come on. Look at them.” Jimmy doubles down and calls out Don to his face, “You know what I like about you? Nothing. And what did you get? Bobbie. Lots of people had that. I go home at night and I laugh at you. You don't screw another man's wife. You’re garbage. And you know it.” Jimmy closes, “It’s been a gas.”
Betty Draper transitions from being thrilled at the new Cadillac (“gorgeous -- like a jet”). She strokes Don’s ego: “You work so hard, you deserve it." She enjoys life as their whole family shares a sunny picnic together. At the Stork Club, Jimmy forces her to see Don and Bobbie as mutual spousal cheaters until it makes Betty sick in the fresh car (with an assist from too much champagne).
Salvatore Romano’s (Bryan Batt) marital relationship with his wife Kitty (Sarah Drew) is the simplest version of everything’s perfect but it won’t play music. Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) seems to be putting himself into a situation in which sexual seduction (with flattery) by Sal might naturally flow going forward.
Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) discovers that her presumed authority as office manager has been quickly trumped by Jane Seigel’s (Payton List) attractiveness. Roger Sterling (John Slattery) weighs in as the arbiter and master of the realm to Joan’s chagrin. Sleazy business awaits. As we expect events to further unfold for that troika… each of us run has permission for our imaginations to run wild and ragged.
Two pieces of art (the painting and the metaphoric violin) provided the anchors for this episode in which we see and hear dimensional depth of the characters emerge. More specifically, depth is intentionally referenced twice. First, Smitty (Patrick Cavanaugh) remarks on the 60-page Students for Democratic Society screed – it’s a generational thing so you have to be into it to get it. Second, the abstract expressionism of the Rothco painting creates a visual illusion that makes you look into it. An additional reinforcement is that the Sterling Cooper staffers have to sneak into the sanctum of Cooper’s office to see this hidden art object.
It is worth noting for regular readers that the ‘Mad Men Virtuality’ essays are primarily focused on the psychological dynamics and dramatic tensions and resolutions rather than the “look” or culture referencing of the show. As Bertran Cooper cautions, "Don't concern yourself with aesthetics. You'll get a headache.” c2008 by M.L.Duby ///
‘The Gold Violin’ is a story authored by Sterling Cooper staffer Ken Cosgrove (within the episode of the same name) that was inspired by a painting and “was perfect in every way except it couldn't make music." Like the Taoist peeling of an onion's skin, we explore new layers on ‘Mad Men.’ Certain individuals, especially Don Draper, begin to learn deeper relational and hierarchical truths they might prefer not to know. Moral consequences – past and future – are revealed in a mosaic of exterior/interior tensions laid out in layers of both subtle contained strokes and loud colors of emotion.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 7: ‘The Gold Violin.’ If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
There is a delicious mixture of senses and revelations in ‘The Gold Violin’ episode. Our characters act out vignettes inside a larger collage of immense emotional and dimensional depth "like looking into something very deep - like you could fall in.” The ‘Mad Men’ series reveals itself once more to be a contemporary version of the Medieval Morality Play. Simply put, “morality plays have a protagonist who represents either humanity as a whole, i.e., Everyman, or an entire social class (e.g., Don Draper). Antagonists and supporting characters are not individuals per se, but rather personifications of abstract virtues or vices.” (Source: Wikipedia)
The new Coupe de Ville Cadillac announces the arrival of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) as a made man. In addition, Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse) reveals to him that it’s “time for the horse to catch the carrot.” Cooper piles up the frosting on the cake: “You’re going to be wearing a tuxedo a lot more. You’ve been invited to see how things work.” Don is climbing into a new stratum of what Vance Packard defines in “The Status Seekers” (1959) as the Upper Middle Class.
Don’s status points include the new Caddie, the senior executive and partner rank at Sterling Cooper, the picture book family of college-educated Betty and the kids, the house in the suburbs, etc. Name your own points: ______.
The irony is that Don (wearing a tux) is soon confronted by Jimmy Barrett’s (Patrick Fischler) angry accusation that he has been sexing it up with his wife Bobbie. Jimmy drags Betty Draper (January Jones) into the fray forcing her to see what’s going on, “Oh come on. Look at them.” Jimmy doubles down and calls out Don to his face, “You know what I like about you? Nothing. And what did you get? Bobbie. Lots of people had that. I go home at night and I laugh at you. You don't screw another man's wife. You’re garbage. And you know it.” Jimmy closes, “It’s been a gas.”
Betty Draper transitions from being thrilled at the new Cadillac (“gorgeous -- like a jet”). She strokes Don’s ego: “You work so hard, you deserve it." She enjoys life as their whole family shares a sunny picnic together. At the Stork Club, Jimmy forces her to see Don and Bobbie as mutual spousal cheaters until it makes Betty sick in the fresh car (with an assist from too much champagne).
Salvatore Romano’s (Bryan Batt) marital relationship with his wife Kitty (Sarah Drew) is the simplest version of everything’s perfect but it won’t play music. Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) seems to be putting himself into a situation in which sexual seduction (with flattery) by Sal might naturally flow going forward.
Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) discovers that her presumed authority as office manager has been quickly trumped by Jane Seigel’s (Payton List) attractiveness. Roger Sterling (John Slattery) weighs in as the arbiter and master of the realm to Joan’s chagrin. Sleazy business awaits. As we expect events to further unfold for that troika… each of us run has permission for our imaginations to run wild and ragged.
Two pieces of art (the painting and the metaphoric violin) provided the anchors for this episode in which we see and hear dimensional depth of the characters emerge. More specifically, depth is intentionally referenced twice. First, Smitty (Patrick Cavanaugh) remarks on the 60-page Students for Democratic Society screed – it’s a generational thing so you have to be into it to get it. Second, the abstract expressionism of the Rothco painting creates a visual illusion that makes you look into it. An additional reinforcement is that the Sterling Cooper staffers have to sneak into the sanctum of Cooper’s office to see this hidden art object.
It is worth noting for regular readers that the ‘Mad Men Virtuality’ essays are primarily focused on the psychological dynamics and dramatic tensions and resolutions rather than the “look” or culture referencing of the show. As Bertran Cooper cautions, "Don't concern yourself with aesthetics. You'll get a headache.” c2008 by M.L.Duby ///
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
'Maidenform' Reveals Mad Men Double Standards
MANHATTAN, New York (September 1, 2008) >> mad men virtuality >>
"Nothing fits both sides of a woman better than Playtex." Mad Men's 'Maidenform' episode is a view into the substrata of the prevailing social rules of the early-60's sexual double standard. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) maneuvers between the compartments of the complicated world he has chosen to create for himself. The pressures of reality on his walls of separation are mounting.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 6: "Maidenform." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Women dressed like code for men in 1962: Shoes, stockings, skirts, dress straps, bras, accessories, etc. Clothes reveal how "men want to see them" according to Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss). Women's fashion of the era featured appropriate outfits for every occasion. Yves Saint Laurent had yet to score the knock-out blows against the established order with pant suits, safari wear and revamped color motifs.
Before the shakeup of the Sixties, privileged white males (like our Mad Men boys club) flaunted and exploited their positions of presumed authority over all women due to their gender. That perspective demanded uniforms of domestic, office and provocative attire from women. Men objectified and divided women into functional roles and sexual types (e.g., good girl versus bad girl). The Sterling Cooper self-ordained review committee typed the photo shoot bra models into two roles. As Don put it to the Playtex clients: "Two sides of one woman - Jackie (Kennedy) by day or Marilyn (Monroe) by night."
Peggy Olson did not fit at all and was laughed at as a Gertrude Stein or Irene Dunn (who won numerous Oscar awards for her acting). As Peggy put it, "Women expect to be as "men want to see them." When she is not included in activities related to her own account, she joins the after-hours mens' party dresses as the Devil in a Blue Dress to go to the strip club.
In the mind set of the time, it's acceptable to ogle swimsuit models at the golf club fashion show with families and kids but not OK for wife Betty Draper (January Jones) to wear a sexy bikini beach outfit in the privacy of her own kitchen. Don is merely reflecting the social onto his personal in ways that he increasingly cannot control. Don lives between his functions as a successful advertising executive and the difficulties of dealing with the psychological issues and processes of his marriage partner and children.
On a side note, an approaching series plot arc is foreshadowed as Duck Philips undergoes a series of self doubts. First, Duck cannot connect with his divorced family. Then, Duck must admit, "You have an 'I told you so; I hurt the company'," to Don about the American Airlines account fiasco. Finally, Duck confronts the urge to drink and releases the last link to his family - his dog Chauncy - onto the streets to fend for himself.
Mirrors Mirror
The thematic focus on the double standard is reinforced in the Maidenform episode by both the cinematic tools of mirrors and the reflection of the downside effect on our characters -- how they respond to one another and who they become. (That evidence will be explored in more detail as the season and accompanying commentary continues.)
The mirrored images are as obvious as Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) gazing at himself with smugness after his couch romp with the brassiere model. The day/night photo for the Jackie-by-day/Marilyn-by-night Sterling Cooper campaign pitch is visually representing a deeper level for our gazing or gawking at the social sexual double standard.
Don Draper and Bobbi Barrett (Melinda McGraw) watch themselves in the mirror in a stimulating and intoxicating turn-on. Then, Don suddenly senses and understands that Bobbie derives pleasure from him being her behavioral counter-party in a twisted pool of murky yin-yang S&M. Don Draper asks Bobbi as he is tying her wrists: "Does it make you feel better to think that I'm like you?"
Don also has two very different and awkward images of himself in his daughter Sally's eyes. First, she beams at him when he stands as one of the veterans at the country club. Then she comes into the bathroom to sit and watch her daddy shave in front of the mirror. The admiring look repeats the sequence and Sally's comment that "I'm not going to talk; I don't want you to hurt yourself," echoes and ricochets Bobbi's remarks in her bedroom. Don becomes very uncomfortable and sends Sally out. Don sits on the toilet seat reflected in yet another mirror at the close -- Narcissus incarnate darkly gazing into the lake of experiential realization. ///
c2008 by M.L.Duby // 'Maidenform' - Season 2, Episode 6 //
"Nothing fits both sides of a woman better than Playtex." Mad Men's 'Maidenform' episode is a view into the substrata of the prevailing social rules of the early-60's sexual double standard. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) maneuvers between the compartments of the complicated world he has chosen to create for himself. The pressures of reality on his walls of separation are mounting.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 6: "Maidenform." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Women dressed like code for men in 1962: Shoes, stockings, skirts, dress straps, bras, accessories, etc. Clothes reveal how "men want to see them" according to Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss). Women's fashion of the era featured appropriate outfits for every occasion. Yves Saint Laurent had yet to score the knock-out blows against the established order with pant suits, safari wear and revamped color motifs.
Before the shakeup of the Sixties, privileged white males (like our Mad Men boys club) flaunted and exploited their positions of presumed authority over all women due to their gender. That perspective demanded uniforms of domestic, office and provocative attire from women. Men objectified and divided women into functional roles and sexual types (e.g., good girl versus bad girl). The Sterling Cooper self-ordained review committee typed the photo shoot bra models into two roles. As Don put it to the Playtex clients: "Two sides of one woman - Jackie (Kennedy) by day or Marilyn (Monroe) by night."
Peggy Olson did not fit at all and was laughed at as a Gertrude Stein or Irene Dunn (who won numerous Oscar awards for her acting). As Peggy put it, "Women expect to be as "men want to see them." When she is not included in activities related to her own account, she joins the after-hours mens' party dresses as the Devil in a Blue Dress to go to the strip club.
In the mind set of the time, it's acceptable to ogle swimsuit models at the golf club fashion show with families and kids but not OK for wife Betty Draper (January Jones) to wear a sexy bikini beach outfit in the privacy of her own kitchen. Don is merely reflecting the social onto his personal in ways that he increasingly cannot control. Don lives between his functions as a successful advertising executive and the difficulties of dealing with the psychological issues and processes of his marriage partner and children.
On a side note, an approaching series plot arc is foreshadowed as Duck Philips undergoes a series of self doubts. First, Duck cannot connect with his divorced family. Then, Duck must admit, "You have an 'I told you so; I hurt the company'," to Don about the American Airlines account fiasco. Finally, Duck confronts the urge to drink and releases the last link to his family - his dog Chauncy - onto the streets to fend for himself.
Mirrors Mirror
The thematic focus on the double standard is reinforced in the Maidenform episode by both the cinematic tools of mirrors and the reflection of the downside effect on our characters -- how they respond to one another and who they become. (That evidence will be explored in more detail as the season and accompanying commentary continues.)
The mirrored images are as obvious as Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) gazing at himself with smugness after his couch romp with the brassiere model. The day/night photo for the Jackie-by-day/Marilyn-by-night Sterling Cooper campaign pitch is visually representing a deeper level for our gazing or gawking at the social sexual double standard.
Don Draper and Bobbi Barrett (Melinda McGraw) watch themselves in the mirror in a stimulating and intoxicating turn-on. Then, Don suddenly senses and understands that Bobbie derives pleasure from him being her behavioral counter-party in a twisted pool of murky yin-yang S&M. Don Draper asks Bobbi as he is tying her wrists: "Does it make you feel better to think that I'm like you?"
Don also has two very different and awkward images of himself in his daughter Sally's eyes. First, she beams at him when he stands as one of the veterans at the country club. Then she comes into the bathroom to sit and watch her daddy shave in front of the mirror. The admiring look repeats the sequence and Sally's comment that "I'm not going to talk; I don't want you to hurt yourself," echoes and ricochets Bobbi's remarks in her bedroom. Don becomes very uncomfortable and sends Sally out. Don sits on the toilet seat reflected in yet another mirror at the close -- Narcissus incarnate darkly gazing into the lake of experiential realization. ///
c2008 by M.L.Duby // 'Maidenform' - Season 2, Episode 6 //
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Mooseburger Hockey Mom Sarah Palin
CHINATOWN, New York (August 30, 2008) politix>>
Ideologically, the pick made sense. Politically, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) is a very risky dice roll that reflects expediently on McCain's judgment and temperment. Half-baked Alaskan "Troopergate" rings of 'Reno 911' with county commissioner drive-by shooting thrown in! Does anyone else hear "Fargo" meets female "Bob Roberts"?
Intellectually, the McCain-Palin pair are a continuation of G-Bush's IDD (Intentional Dumb Down) Syndrome. Expect a billion dollars of 527 ads explaining that stoopid is smart and scientific is threatening. Empiricists risk bonfires, etc.
My physical gut reaction is linked to an image of Gov. Palin image with the "AK-44 training rifle" in furs on a snow mobile confronting the Russians on tundra en route to the raptures. "Alaskan Alamo" scenario...the Triumph of Social Darwinism.
Spiritually...the evangelical right is not my territory...detached tolerance and understanding seems the upright posture.
Emotionally, there's an immense unease to imagine that VP designate Palin can conceivably be the one that picks up the phone at 3 AM. Palin vs. Putin ?! This is NOT a Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon...call your relatives in the swing states and plead sanity.
Never too late to learn...what is this raspberry catsup to garnish my grilled mooseburger about? ///
Ideologically, the pick made sense. Politically, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) is a very risky dice roll that reflects expediently on McCain's judgment and temperment. Half-baked Alaskan "Troopergate" rings of 'Reno 911' with county commissioner drive-by shooting thrown in! Does anyone else hear "Fargo" meets female "Bob Roberts"?
Intellectually, the McCain-Palin pair are a continuation of G-Bush's IDD (Intentional Dumb Down) Syndrome. Expect a billion dollars of 527 ads explaining that stoopid is smart and scientific is threatening. Empiricists risk bonfires, etc.
My physical gut reaction is linked to an image of Gov. Palin image with the "AK-44 training rifle" in furs on a snow mobile confronting the Russians on tundra en route to the raptures. "Alaskan Alamo" scenario...the Triumph of Social Darwinism.
Spiritually...the evangelical right is not my territory...detached tolerance and understanding seems the upright posture.
Emotionally, there's an immense unease to imagine that VP designate Palin can conceivably be the one that picks up the phone at 3 AM. Palin vs. Putin ?! This is NOT a Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon...call your relatives in the swing states and plead sanity.
Never too late to learn...what is this raspberry catsup to garnish my grilled mooseburger about? ///
Monday, August 25, 2008
'Mad Men' Detachment on 'The New Girl'
'The New Girl’ - Season 2, Episode 5
MANHATTAN, New York (August 25, 2008) >> virtuality
'Mad Men' demonstrates how characters are effected by their decisions based on the willingness to let go of or forget about relational and/or psychological attachments. A foundation point of the entire series is that Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has become the Creative Director of Sterling Cooper due to his previous detachment from his real identity, his original wife and son, and his brother. The first season's crystal moment of truth about the man who will remake himself as Lieutenant Donald Draper is the poignancy of the son who sees his father leaving on the train.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 5: "The New Girl." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes. MARATHON ALERT: This Sunday, August 31, at 5 P.M. (EST), the first five episodes will be shown in order before the regular cablecast; check your local listings.
In ‘The New Girl’ episode, Don barely hesitates to leave work to meet Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) at Sardi’s. They liquor up and drive out to Stoneybrook, Long Island for sex on the beach. Don drives under the influence of both alcohol and the sensation of having his ear sucked with serious sensuality resulting in an automobile accident. Peggy Olson is forced to intervene and to bail out Don – literally. (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you still insist on holding to the belief that drinking and driving is ultra cool or even sane, please review the James Dean safe highway driving trailer as well as the soon-thereafter crash photos of his mangled Porsche!)
Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) has been dragged in as the rescuer and also has to provide Bobbie a safe haven at her apartment to sober up and to give her injured blackened eye a little time to cool down. Bobbie, we see repeatedly, asks a lot of questions to size up people; she queries Peggy about her possible romantic attachment to Don. Bobbie repays Peggy in her own way with tactical tips on how to achieve a corner office at Sterling Cooper. Bobbie insists Peggy has to “be a woman” and has to get don to treat her as an equal.
After her baby was born, Peggy disappeared from work and was in St. Mary’s hospital with "psycho-neurotic disorder" (possibly post-partum depression). In the flashback, Don came to her urging that she “get out of here and move forward.” In other words, detach as if “it never happened.” Don reveals himself in telling Peggy, “It will shock you how much it never happened.”
Meanwhile, Paul Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and his wife Trudy (Alison Brie) have gone to the doctor for fertility evaluation. Turns out that Pete is ripe with “viability” while Trudy is informed the problem is hers. Pete seems ready to let go of the notion of fatherhood in exchange for less encumbered travel time and movie nights. Trudy, on the other hand, expresses suffering from her attachment to her perceived expectation of motherhood, “What is this all for? I really do want a baby.” Pete is unsympathetic and insensitive, “Work this through or keep it to yourself.”
At the office Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) has a new diamond ring visibly announcing to the staff her new status (and upcoming attachment) as fiancee to a doctor. Roger Sterling offers congratulations to her but also expresses regrets as Joan was “the only reason I came in to work.” Joan wields new authority and enforces dress code mores on the new girl secretary, i.e., Jane Siegel (Payton List), for showing a distracting amount of cleavage.
Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler) compliments Don as a 'real cool cat' for his detachment from Jimmy’s bad behavior with the Schillings and then helping him escape a contract clause to do the 'Grin and Barrett' television pilot.
After the accident, Don arrived home very late from waiting to be bailed out for his driving while intoxicated to find Betty (January Jones) angry as well as deeply concerned. Mrs. Draper is attached to the notion that Don would call her since she is his wife unaware that he has been with Bobbie Barrett. Don makes the excuse that the high blood pressure pills and alcohol together possibly contributed to the impaired driving. In the end, Betty Draper states her real fear and attachment: “What would we do without you (Don)?” Betty informs Don that he will have to get used to meatloaf without salt (a contributor to high blood pressure) "because we love him." ///
MANHATTAN, New York (August 25, 2008) >> virtuality
'Mad Men' demonstrates how characters are effected by their decisions based on the willingness to let go of or forget about relational and/or psychological attachments. A foundation point of the entire series is that Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has become the Creative Director of Sterling Cooper due to his previous detachment from his real identity, his original wife and son, and his brother. The first season's crystal moment of truth about the man who will remake himself as Lieutenant Donald Draper is the poignancy of the son who sees his father leaving on the train.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 5: "The New Girl." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes. MARATHON ALERT: This Sunday, August 31, at 5 P.M. (EST), the first five episodes will be shown in order before the regular cablecast; check your local listings.
In ‘The New Girl’ episode, Don barely hesitates to leave work to meet Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) at Sardi’s. They liquor up and drive out to Stoneybrook, Long Island for sex on the beach. Don drives under the influence of both alcohol and the sensation of having his ear sucked with serious sensuality resulting in an automobile accident. Peggy Olson is forced to intervene and to bail out Don – literally. (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you still insist on holding to the belief that drinking and driving is ultra cool or even sane, please review the James Dean safe highway driving trailer as well as the soon-thereafter crash photos of his mangled Porsche!)
Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) has been dragged in as the rescuer and also has to provide Bobbie a safe haven at her apartment to sober up and to give her injured blackened eye a little time to cool down. Bobbie, we see repeatedly, asks a lot of questions to size up people; she queries Peggy about her possible romantic attachment to Don. Bobbie repays Peggy in her own way with tactical tips on how to achieve a corner office at Sterling Cooper. Bobbie insists Peggy has to “be a woman” and has to get don to treat her as an equal.
After her baby was born, Peggy disappeared from work and was in St. Mary’s hospital with "psycho-neurotic disorder" (possibly post-partum depression). In the flashback, Don came to her urging that she “get out of here and move forward.” In other words, detach as if “it never happened.” Don reveals himself in telling Peggy, “It will shock you how much it never happened.”
Meanwhile, Paul Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and his wife Trudy (Alison Brie) have gone to the doctor for fertility evaluation. Turns out that Pete is ripe with “viability” while Trudy is informed the problem is hers. Pete seems ready to let go of the notion of fatherhood in exchange for less encumbered travel time and movie nights. Trudy, on the other hand, expresses suffering from her attachment to her perceived expectation of motherhood, “What is this all for? I really do want a baby.” Pete is unsympathetic and insensitive, “Work this through or keep it to yourself.”
At the office Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) has a new diamond ring visibly announcing to the staff her new status (and upcoming attachment) as fiancee to a doctor. Roger Sterling offers congratulations to her but also expresses regrets as Joan was “the only reason I came in to work.” Joan wields new authority and enforces dress code mores on the new girl secretary, i.e., Jane Siegel (Payton List), for showing a distracting amount of cleavage.
Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler) compliments Don as a 'real cool cat' for his detachment from Jimmy’s bad behavior with the Schillings and then helping him escape a contract clause to do the 'Grin and Barrett' television pilot.
After the accident, Don arrived home very late from waiting to be bailed out for his driving while intoxicated to find Betty (January Jones) angry as well as deeply concerned. Mrs. Draper is attached to the notion that Don would call her since she is his wife unaware that he has been with Bobbie Barrett. Don makes the excuse that the high blood pressure pills and alcohol together possibly contributed to the impaired driving. In the end, Betty Draper states her real fear and attachment: “What would we do without you (Don)?” Betty informs Don that he will have to get used to meatloaf without salt (a contributor to high blood pressure) "because we love him." ///
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Writedowns Due - econo lines
CHINATOWN, New York (August 24, 2008)
econo lines commentary to The Economist
Fannie, Freddie and Lehman ensure August is anything but quiet
8/24/08
Still bleeding - american finance
Aug 21st 2008 The Economist Newspaper
No excuses: "They didn't see it coming." The professionals at Fannie, Freddie and Lehman were blinded by greed. Simple as the math of further system-wide losses due.
Writedowns are currently about $300 billion USD with projected losses at over a trillion. The amount of shakedown still due is pretty simple math and pretty ugly scenario.
Back in first quarter 2006, my hair was on fire with the view that Q3 2007 was piling up to about a trillion in ARM's needing re-fi. OK: September 2007 was the peak for that and the market peak was October 2007. Do not believe anyone "in the business" that says nobody saw it coming. At 2006 Q1, Nouriel Roubini (yeah, yeah, always the pessimist) and Stephan Roach at JP Morgan Asia were publishing that view...with clear stark apprehension.It was simple math.
I illustrated the impending circumstance as a wet sand castle at the beach...it is going to dry out and one of the corners is going to fall. Day and hour is as uncertain as a breeze at the beach. It's not a clock, it's a process. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Lehman played on the thin ice with egos like heavy armor. //
econo lines commentary to The Economist
Fannie, Freddie and Lehman ensure August is anything but quiet
8/24/08
Still bleeding - american finance
Aug 21st 2008 The Economist Newspaper
No excuses: "They didn't see it coming." The professionals at Fannie, Freddie and Lehman were blinded by greed. Simple as the math of further system-wide losses due.
Writedowns are currently about $300 billion USD with projected losses at over a trillion. The amount of shakedown still due is pretty simple math and pretty ugly scenario.
Back in first quarter 2006, my hair was on fire with the view that Q3 2007 was piling up to about a trillion in ARM's needing re-fi. OK: September 2007 was the peak for that and the market peak was October 2007. Do not believe anyone "in the business" that says nobody saw it coming. At 2006 Q1, Nouriel Roubini (yeah, yeah, always the pessimist) and Stephan Roach at JP Morgan Asia were publishing that view...with clear stark apprehension.It was simple math.
I illustrated the impending circumstance as a wet sand castle at the beach...it is going to dry out and one of the corners is going to fall. Day and hour is as uncertain as a breeze at the beach. It's not a clock, it's a process. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Lehman played on the thin ice with egos like heavy armor. //
Street to Street ... Bloc to Bloc!
Bullhorn, clipboard & table - ACTIVATE !
Action list for street tablers:
Dust off bullhorn;
Bundle voter registration forms;
Select brochures & petitions;
Rubber band the pens & markers;
Polish clipboard;
Strap table onto the dog wagon
& drag it to in front of the big grocery store.
HIT THE STREETS!
Street to street ... bloc to bloc!
We have a saying in New York city politics:
"If you're not prepared to streat fight, don't step off the curb."
CHINATOWN, New York (August 24, 2008) politix ///
Action list for street tablers:
Dust off bullhorn;
Bundle voter registration forms;
Select brochures & petitions;
Rubber band the pens & markers;
Polish clipboard;
Strap table onto the dog wagon
& drag it to in front of the big grocery store.
HIT THE STREETS!
Street to street ... bloc to bloc!
We have a saying in New York city politics:
"If you're not prepared to streat fight, don't step off the curb."
CHINATOWN, New York (August 24, 2008) politix ///
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Biden Buzz
CHINATOWN, New York (August 23, 2008) >> politix
The decision to select Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) is no surprise. The timing and suspense were admirably handled by the effective campaign team over at the Obamavilla. Great choice given the middle working class roots of Irish Catholic "six-pack" Joe. Scion Evan Bayh is so (just too) so-so and Tim Kaine (on his Charley Rose coming out interview) demonstrated that he was not ready for the hot lights.
Senator Biden is Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and really knows the terrain. Former Chair of the Judiciary Comittee as well...
Biden, by the way, ranks 99th of 100 Senators in terms of wealth. If $300,000 in lobbyist money since 1997 is the worst the Republicans can dredge up, that is very good news. My primary concern was his son's hedge fund lawsuit... Everybody got something and I'm pretty sure Caroline Kennedy personally made some calls to vet that item. Biden's natural constituencies among foreign policy wogs, older folks and trade union types are helpful. Expect a non-stop tape loop on "economic anxieties." Perfect by me.
The MCM (Multinational Corporate Media) has weighed in with its usual gunk. Nothing brightens my Saturdays more than hearing William Kristol sound off with his regrets the standard of the Roman Empire doesn't fit on the White House lawn. Almost all of the McCain spokespersons were women. The Romney surrogate was as reassuring as a fresh probe of the Keating Five. Karl Rove insists Biden will be a liability because he "tends to exaggerate," "puts his foot in his mouth too often," and his tri-partite Iraqi proposal would have split that country into three pieces. What did you expect from Rove? Fox is NOT NEWS and somewhat emotionally childish in their approach.
Snarky notes follow for those who are so politically addicted they have tracked all links down to Google Search page 216. Biden reclaims his Scranton, Pennsylvania roots... Biden is 65 and has been in the U.S. Senate since he was 29... OK, Time for Change in Washington. I do like the way he is going to constanntly reference "Bush-McCain."
Biden will stay on the populist message without hitting the third rail of "bitter" class warfare. I have news in case you've been hibernating in a deep salt mine: New York City's economic flooring is collapsing and the entire state Michigan is already drowning in the Lakes. Tax deductions for corporate off-shoring HAS TO END. Say it as often as possible, please.
Note the new GOP talking face is Ms. Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer identified as a McCain Campaign Advisor. During the 1990s, she was an apparatchik “executive vice president for policy” on behalf of coal company Koch Industries through their front group, the Citizens for a Sound Economy. This is John Birch country and hints toward the GOP's dark cloud future. (Is that coal soot or methane from cattle lots?) Either way, it smells of trouble.
I don't need to tell Barack Obama to turn that bad dog loose. One reminder for my buddy Joe: Refresh the voters on the old Harry Truman line: "Don't vote for me - vote for yourselves!" Give 'em hell! ///
The decision to select Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) is no surprise. The timing and suspense were admirably handled by the effective campaign team over at the Obamavilla. Great choice given the middle working class roots of Irish Catholic "six-pack" Joe. Scion Evan Bayh is so (just too) so-so and Tim Kaine (on his Charley Rose coming out interview) demonstrated that he was not ready for the hot lights.
Senator Biden is Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and really knows the terrain. Former Chair of the Judiciary Comittee as well...
Biden, by the way, ranks 99th of 100 Senators in terms of wealth. If $300,000 in lobbyist money since 1997 is the worst the Republicans can dredge up, that is very good news. My primary concern was his son's hedge fund lawsuit... Everybody got something and I'm pretty sure Caroline Kennedy personally made some calls to vet that item. Biden's natural constituencies among foreign policy wogs, older folks and trade union types are helpful. Expect a non-stop tape loop on "economic anxieties." Perfect by me.
The MCM (Multinational Corporate Media) has weighed in with its usual gunk. Nothing brightens my Saturdays more than hearing William Kristol sound off with his regrets the standard of the Roman Empire doesn't fit on the White House lawn. Almost all of the McCain spokespersons were women. The Romney surrogate was as reassuring as a fresh probe of the Keating Five. Karl Rove insists Biden will be a liability because he "tends to exaggerate," "puts his foot in his mouth too often," and his tri-partite Iraqi proposal would have split that country into three pieces. What did you expect from Rove? Fox is NOT NEWS and somewhat emotionally childish in their approach.
Snarky notes follow for those who are so politically addicted they have tracked all links down to Google Search page 216. Biden reclaims his Scranton, Pennsylvania roots... Biden is 65 and has been in the U.S. Senate since he was 29... OK, Time for Change in Washington. I do like the way he is going to constanntly reference "Bush-McCain."
Biden will stay on the populist message without hitting the third rail of "bitter" class warfare. I have news in case you've been hibernating in a deep salt mine: New York City's economic flooring is collapsing and the entire state Michigan is already drowning in the Lakes. Tax deductions for corporate off-shoring HAS TO END. Say it as often as possible, please.
Note the new GOP talking face is Ms. Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer identified as a McCain Campaign Advisor. During the 1990s, she was an apparatchik “executive vice president for policy” on behalf of coal company Koch Industries through their front group, the Citizens for a Sound Economy. This is John Birch country and hints toward the GOP's dark cloud future. (Is that coal soot or methane from cattle lots?) Either way, it smells of trouble.
I don't need to tell Barack Obama to turn that bad dog loose. One reminder for my buddy Joe: Refresh the voters on the old Harry Truman line: "Don't vote for me - vote for yourselves!" Give 'em hell! ///
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Quick Draw McCain's Gang versus Honest Able
CHINATOWN, New York (August 20, 2008) politix
When a political party's convention stars are crony-meister Rudy Giuliani, Dick ("Halli-burden") Cheney, Roman Senator Joe LIEberman ("I, Likudius"), and The Terminator...
Who could possibly doubt the raptures are to follow the reception?!
Seriously, they call it "diversity."
Richard Clarke (former National Security Council counter-terrorism adviser) recently reminded that presumptive nominee John ("Quick-Draw") McCain pushed for war in Iraq before even President George Bush made up his mind (oxymoron there): "I'm sure he [McCain] loves his country. It's just that loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."
Q:: Who called Giuliani on his Orwellian-speak "noun-verb and 9-11" IDD ("intentional dumb-down") act?
A:: Senator Joe ("six-pack") Biden... Union man, I reckon. Showing up to support that yankee Honest Able...that skinny smart guy from South Side Chicago.
I'm betting against Giuliani who will neither stop pretending he's ill nor admit that he simply lacks depth and reason. Cronyism, Corruption & Incompetence! Giuliani and George Bush's FEEMA were total bluster and no muster in NYC after WTC attacks.
Who do you want in office when the next Katrina hits? They were so bad, they had to change the spelling to FEEMA: "Forget Everything Except My Ass." ///
When a political party's convention stars are crony-meister Rudy Giuliani, Dick ("Halli-burden") Cheney, Roman Senator Joe LIEberman ("I, Likudius"), and The Terminator...
Who could possibly doubt the raptures are to follow the reception?!
Seriously, they call it "diversity."
Richard Clarke (former National Security Council counter-terrorism adviser) recently reminded that presumptive nominee John ("Quick-Draw") McCain pushed for war in Iraq before even President George Bush made up his mind (oxymoron there): "I'm sure he [McCain] loves his country. It's just that loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."
Q:: Who called Giuliani on his Orwellian-speak "noun-verb and 9-11" IDD ("intentional dumb-down") act?
A:: Senator Joe ("six-pack") Biden... Union man, I reckon. Showing up to support that yankee Honest Able...that skinny smart guy from South Side Chicago.
I'm betting against Giuliani who will neither stop pretending he's ill nor admit that he simply lacks depth and reason. Cronyism, Corruption & Incompetence! Giuliani and George Bush's FEEMA were total bluster and no muster in NYC after WTC attacks.
Who do you want in office when the next Katrina hits? They were so bad, they had to change the spelling to FEEMA: "Forget Everything Except My Ass." ///
Biden on Pakistan
CHINATOWN, New York (August 20, 2008) Politix
Last November, Joe Biden predicted that the South Carolina primary would pick the next president. He also directly answered the question: "What the hell do we do about Pakistan?" Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) replied.
"The single most significant thing that we could do to change the international environment according to most scholars is literally to empower women in countries where they're not empowered at all," he said after dealing with the latest round in the Biden-Giuliani street fight. And then, there was Pakistan -- which, unbeknownst to either of us non-Blackberry-wearing fellows, was at that very moment going down the kind of spiral that Biden had warned, in a debate four days earlier, was more frightening than Iran's furtive nuclear program. I asked him, on the heels of Karen Hughes's second departure from the Bush administration, how we worry about Pakistan as a threat while bringing up our 15% favorability rating among its people.
"You've got to have a Pakistani policy and not a Musharraf policy. This administration has a General Musharraf policy. So what you have to do is -- there's a vast majority, a significant middle of the population of Pakistan, [that] is democratic and middle-class. But what's happening is, absent free elections, you're forcing them underground, radicalizing them, and you're giving great sway to that portion of the population that's already radicalized," he said, and argued that aid to education with an eye toward economic development is more conducive to long term goals in the country."
Biden's response was to the question by Off-the-Bus's Shelby Highsmith (HuffPo Off-the-Bus) who reported it directly ("Biden: SC Will Pick the Next President" posted November 6, 2007). My commentary at the time follows.
Commentary reply to BIDEN in HuffPo nov6-07
Regarding Pakistan, Senator Biden must surely have dreaded the day that Musharraf's "emergency" came to fruition. With Islamists now controlling the Swat Valley and expanding areas in North-East Pakistan, the stakes cannot be higher. Biden knew very well the likelihood of such tension.
Biden, Edwards and Dodd are the Democratic candidates that show the most capacity to think beyond the present into the near-future difficulties that confront our next president. They recognize the interconnectedness of Iraq-Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Kashmir. Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan will certainly be the next fronts if Afghanistan goes badly. The Taliban resurgence is remarkable for its resilience but also for the Bush administration's failure of focus.
The Iraq War has damaged America's moral reputation, decreased our national security, and increased terrorism worldwide. That's pretty well acknowledged but Senator Biden goes deeper.
To his credit, Biden's proposal to federate Iraq into tripartite administrations is not dissimilar to Turkey's Ottoman solution (pre-WWI). As Senator Biden is aware, the British held onto Iraq for the oil and especially Kirkuk. My oppositon to the invasion was grounded in knowing that without a post-conflict solution for Kirkuk and Mosul that Sunni-Shia conflict of the worst sort was inevitable.
"We must dedicate this nation to the policy of the 'good neighbor' - the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
That must be balanced with realistic hard choices on the part of the next American administration. ///
Last November, Joe Biden predicted that the South Carolina primary would pick the next president. He also directly answered the question: "What the hell do we do about Pakistan?" Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) replied.
"The single most significant thing that we could do to change the international environment according to most scholars is literally to empower women in countries where they're not empowered at all," he said after dealing with the latest round in the Biden-Giuliani street fight. And then, there was Pakistan -- which, unbeknownst to either of us non-Blackberry-wearing fellows, was at that very moment going down the kind of spiral that Biden had warned, in a debate four days earlier, was more frightening than Iran's furtive nuclear program. I asked him, on the heels of Karen Hughes's second departure from the Bush administration, how we worry about Pakistan as a threat while bringing up our 15% favorability rating among its people.
"You've got to have a Pakistani policy and not a Musharraf policy. This administration has a General Musharraf policy. So what you have to do is -- there's a vast majority, a significant middle of the population of Pakistan, [that] is democratic and middle-class. But what's happening is, absent free elections, you're forcing them underground, radicalizing them, and you're giving great sway to that portion of the population that's already radicalized," he said, and argued that aid to education with an eye toward economic development is more conducive to long term goals in the country."
Biden's response was to the question by Off-the-Bus's Shelby Highsmith (HuffPo Off-the-Bus) who reported it directly ("Biden: SC Will Pick the Next President" posted November 6, 2007). My commentary at the time follows.
Commentary reply to BIDEN in HuffPo nov6-07
Regarding Pakistan, Senator Biden must surely have dreaded the day that Musharraf's "emergency" came to fruition. With Islamists now controlling the Swat Valley and expanding areas in North-East Pakistan, the stakes cannot be higher. Biden knew very well the likelihood of such tension.
Biden, Edwards and Dodd are the Democratic candidates that show the most capacity to think beyond the present into the near-future difficulties that confront our next president. They recognize the interconnectedness of Iraq-Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Kashmir. Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan will certainly be the next fronts if Afghanistan goes badly. The Taliban resurgence is remarkable for its resilience but also for the Bush administration's failure of focus.
The Iraq War has damaged America's moral reputation, decreased our national security, and increased terrorism worldwide. That's pretty well acknowledged but Senator Biden goes deeper.
To his credit, Biden's proposal to federate Iraq into tripartite administrations is not dissimilar to Turkey's Ottoman solution (pre-WWI). As Senator Biden is aware, the British held onto Iraq for the oil and especially Kirkuk. My oppositon to the invasion was grounded in knowing that without a post-conflict solution for Kirkuk and Mosul that Sunni-Shia conflict of the worst sort was inevitable.
"We must dedicate this nation to the policy of the 'good neighbor' - the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
That must be balanced with realistic hard choices on the part of the next American administration. ///
Monday, August 18, 2008
'Three Sundays' Teach Mad Men Right & Wrong
MANHATTAN, New York (August 18, 2008)
"When the flesh meets the cross…Seduced by evil desires…" Admonitions and warnings of a sermon open the episode of ‘Three Sundays.’ How do we learn right and wrong? We can hear the encouragement to behave properly and the threat of punishment for immoral actions but we learn by empathetical observation of those in positions of standing. Witnessing actions of our parents and societal role models teach us what will be rewarded and what will be negatively reinforced or punished. At the extreme, the Catholic church of Peggy offers heaven and warns of hell.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 4: "Three Sundays." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
The Drapers engage in a domestic drama regarding how to control and discipline their son Bobby. He is full of “shenanigans, ...being wild in the house, ...lying in (Betty's) face” and ignoring warnings to be careful. Betty wants Don to deliver Bobby a spanking to teach him. Betty snarls the point, "First the washing machine and now the hi-fi... How else is he going to learn the difference between right and wrong?"
It is interesting to note that Betty has started to neglect the understood motherly function of feeding her kids (at 7:30 PM) and her husband when he returns from work. Betty at the end learns from Don: "My father beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." Their couple violence escalates to shoves and threats to bodily harm (as in "put you through that window").
Daughter Sally is about eight years old and precociously knows enough to ask Paul about sex when she visits the office. “Do you kiss her? Do you ride on top of her?” Discussions with Joan about breast size and expectations of her own image of what she will be when she grows up are Sally's way of being sophisticated and “hip” (not yet a verbal meme for eight-year-olds in 1962). As we know, the tweeners and younger girls of today are bombarded with provocative and suggestive images and sounds. Some will not be so fortunate as to be carried home in the arms of their fathers after their first experiment with drinking whiskey until they pass out. It is worth noting for concerned parents that about 20% of children (even as young as six) are interested in sex, know the basics and fantasize about its adult implications (from the perspective and dream worlds of children, of course).
On the other hand, Roger Sterling has learned that he can get anything he wants if he is willing to pay the price of the ticket or “invoice” as he puts it. Vicky the prostitute has agreed to Roger’s price point in exchange for Roger getting whatever he wants in sexual acts. They depart from the hotel room to Lutece with Roger volunteering to school her in the finer points of red wine (and perhaps how to be his perfect mistress).
Father Gill learns from sister Anita Olson during confession that Peggy has “seduced a married man.” Anita judges her and hates her for her sin of the out-of-wedlock child. What's more, Anita feels that Peggy “acts like nothing has happened.”
Peggy's story resonates for us all. My own personal footnote is that I was conceived out of wedlock in murky circumstances during an evening of a summer baseball tournament. The act of conception was in a car with alcohol involved. This was an era when abortion was out of the question. Our nuclear family had a “wild-man” electron from before day one. “Growing up with the teenagers” was literal, figurative and painful. My familial (not the biological) father suffered and withdrew from me at a very early age.
Father Gill commits an act of tender kindness when he gives Peggy the blue Easter egg “for the little one.” May we all learn compassionate wisdom. ///
"When the flesh meets the cross…Seduced by evil desires…" Admonitions and warnings of a sermon open the episode of ‘Three Sundays.’ How do we learn right and wrong? We can hear the encouragement to behave properly and the threat of punishment for immoral actions but we learn by empathetical observation of those in positions of standing. Witnessing actions of our parents and societal role models teach us what will be rewarded and what will be negatively reinforced or punished. At the extreme, the Catholic church of Peggy offers heaven and warns of hell.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 4: "Three Sundays." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
The Drapers engage in a domestic drama regarding how to control and discipline their son Bobby. He is full of “shenanigans, ...being wild in the house, ...lying in (Betty's) face” and ignoring warnings to be careful. Betty wants Don to deliver Bobby a spanking to teach him. Betty snarls the point, "First the washing machine and now the hi-fi... How else is he going to learn the difference between right and wrong?"
It is interesting to note that Betty has started to neglect the understood motherly function of feeding her kids (at 7:30 PM) and her husband when he returns from work. Betty at the end learns from Don: "My father beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." Their couple violence escalates to shoves and threats to bodily harm (as in "put you through that window").
Daughter Sally is about eight years old and precociously knows enough to ask Paul about sex when she visits the office. “Do you kiss her? Do you ride on top of her?” Discussions with Joan about breast size and expectations of her own image of what she will be when she grows up are Sally's way of being sophisticated and “hip” (not yet a verbal meme for eight-year-olds in 1962). As we know, the tweeners and younger girls of today are bombarded with provocative and suggestive images and sounds. Some will not be so fortunate as to be carried home in the arms of their fathers after their first experiment with drinking whiskey until they pass out. It is worth noting for concerned parents that about 20% of children (even as young as six) are interested in sex, know the basics and fantasize about its adult implications (from the perspective and dream worlds of children, of course).
On the other hand, Roger Sterling has learned that he can get anything he wants if he is willing to pay the price of the ticket or “invoice” as he puts it. Vicky the prostitute has agreed to Roger’s price point in exchange for Roger getting whatever he wants in sexual acts. They depart from the hotel room to Lutece with Roger volunteering to school her in the finer points of red wine (and perhaps how to be his perfect mistress).
Father Gill learns from sister Anita Olson during confession that Peggy has “seduced a married man.” Anita judges her and hates her for her sin of the out-of-wedlock child. What's more, Anita feels that Peggy “acts like nothing has happened.”
Peggy's story resonates for us all. My own personal footnote is that I was conceived out of wedlock in murky circumstances during an evening of a summer baseball tournament. The act of conception was in a car with alcohol involved. This was an era when abortion was out of the question. Our nuclear family had a “wild-man” electron from before day one. “Growing up with the teenagers” was literal, figurative and painful. My familial (not the biological) father suffered and withdrew from me at a very early age.
Father Gill commits an act of tender kindness when he gives Peggy the blue Easter egg “for the little one.” May we all learn compassionate wisdom. ///
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Sudan Attacks in North Darfur
CHINATOWN, New York (August 14, 2008) >> CENTCOMM: At The Front
The Sudan government is waging a fresh campaign to clear North Darfur of rebels. The May 10 assault on Khartoum was from Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) camps located in that region near the border convergence of North Darfur, Chad and Libya. Oil exploration activities have also begun in that area. A satellite view of the terrain shows a vast area of desert that could be a clip of Mars – endless rippled reddish-tan sand hills.
At least seven were killed in Tuesday's most recent attacks by Sudan in North Darfur. Purportedly between 100-270 vehicles and 500 mounted janjaweed on camels and horses were involved in the operational assaults. All the water has to be transported...hence the truck convoys and low numbers of attack troops riding in “technicals” and on camels and horses. The location of the attack was identified as a soda ash plant apparently occupied by Darfurian rebels. Exact location (according to Abdel-Wahid al-Nour, the chairman of the Sudan Liberation Movement) was proximate to the soda ash deposits of Jebel Atron. The area is south of the great Wadi Atron geo-physical feature (like a giant desert washed-out area or a river with no water). This is also – not coincidentally – in an oil development and exploration field identified as Block A12.
The Sudanese government fails to acknowledge that seismic activity is underway. However, Block A12 is operated by a “consortium led by the privately held Saudi Arabian oil company al-Qahtani” (BBC/Khartoum). Al-Qahtani & Sons is enormous in oil field services: and construction contracting; the company has a division specializing in anti-corrosive pipes. The region is one that Chinese companies are seeking to explore and Chinese workers have recently been moved there to look for oil in the remote area.
"Preparations are ongoing to launch a small campaign of 1,000 kilometers of seismic" works at Block 12A in Northern Darfur, Sudan's country manager at Ansan Wikfs, a partner of Sudan-owned Sudapet, Denis Rey told the Dow Jones at or around July 9. Company officials confirmed at that time that “state-linked Chinese oil services companies are in talks to help Sudan exploit its crude reserves in its troubled Darfur region with the Sudanese army providing security,”
The Darfur region of conflict now sprawls over four countries: Sudan, Chad, northern Central African Republic (CAR) and now cross-border retreats of rebels into Libya. At the core, the central factors of the overlapping conflicts are depleting water and developing oil.
The Sudanese offensive to clear Darfurian rebels out of north along Chad border is also a convenient place to park Sudan's anti-Chadian proxies. At the corner with the Libyan border are mountains to the west from there along northern Chadian border with Libya.
Sudanese Army and Chadian insurrectionists outweigh the Chad Army and Darfurian rebels many times. So Khartoum's strategy may be to lean on the Chad government and wait until they wear down or to diplomatically achieve what they want from Chad without a fight.
The Sudanese embassy in N'Djamena is set to re-open next week. A rapprochement with the Chad government of Idriss Deby (presently ranked as the world's most corrupt) includes side agreements for restoration of bilateral relations and cessation of negative media campaigns by the two governments. Libyan leader. Muammar Ghaddafi is also sponsoring a tripartite summit that the two presidents of Sudan and Chad have agreed to attend.
This regional campaign to clear the northern flank is in the context of the larger overall conflict over Darfur. In 2003, Darfurian rebels attacked Sudanese positions as push back on Arab herders displacing black African villagers in the massive region of Darfur (meaning "land of the Fur" tribe). Most are familiar with the Sudanese response of ferocious janjaweed irregulars engaging in brutal ethnic cleansing. According to the United Nations, over 300,000 have been killed and two million have been displaced with a substantial proportion of those falling into refugee status. ///
The Sudan government is waging a fresh campaign to clear North Darfur of rebels. The May 10 assault on Khartoum was from Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) camps located in that region near the border convergence of North Darfur, Chad and Libya. Oil exploration activities have also begun in that area. A satellite view of the terrain shows a vast area of desert that could be a clip of Mars – endless rippled reddish-tan sand hills.
At least seven were killed in Tuesday's most recent attacks by Sudan in North Darfur. Purportedly between 100-270 vehicles and 500 mounted janjaweed on camels and horses were involved in the operational assaults. All the water has to be transported...hence the truck convoys and low numbers of attack troops riding in “technicals” and on camels and horses. The location of the attack was identified as a soda ash plant apparently occupied by Darfurian rebels. Exact location (according to Abdel-Wahid al-Nour, the chairman of the Sudan Liberation Movement) was proximate to the soda ash deposits of Jebel Atron. The area is south of the great Wadi Atron geo-physical feature (like a giant desert washed-out area or a river with no water). This is also – not coincidentally – in an oil development and exploration field identified as Block A12.
The Sudanese government fails to acknowledge that seismic activity is underway. However, Block A12 is operated by a “consortium led by the privately held Saudi Arabian oil company al-Qahtani” (BBC/Khartoum). Al-Qahtani & Sons is enormous in oil field services: and construction contracting; the company has a division specializing in anti-corrosive pipes. The region is one that Chinese companies are seeking to explore and Chinese workers have recently been moved there to look for oil in the remote area.
"Preparations are ongoing to launch a small campaign of 1,000 kilometers of seismic" works at Block 12A in Northern Darfur, Sudan's country manager at Ansan Wikfs, a partner of Sudan-owned Sudapet, Denis Rey told the Dow Jones at or around July 9. Company officials confirmed at that time that “state-linked Chinese oil services companies are in talks to help Sudan exploit its crude reserves in its troubled Darfur region with the Sudanese army providing security,”
The Darfur region of conflict now sprawls over four countries: Sudan, Chad, northern Central African Republic (CAR) and now cross-border retreats of rebels into Libya. At the core, the central factors of the overlapping conflicts are depleting water and developing oil.
The Sudanese offensive to clear Darfurian rebels out of north along Chad border is also a convenient place to park Sudan's anti-Chadian proxies. At the corner with the Libyan border are mountains to the west from there along northern Chadian border with Libya.
Sudanese Army and Chadian insurrectionists outweigh the Chad Army and Darfurian rebels many times. So Khartoum's strategy may be to lean on the Chad government and wait until they wear down or to diplomatically achieve what they want from Chad without a fight.
The Sudanese embassy in N'Djamena is set to re-open next week. A rapprochement with the Chad government of Idriss Deby (presently ranked as the world's most corrupt) includes side agreements for restoration of bilateral relations and cessation of negative media campaigns by the two governments. Libyan leader. Muammar Ghaddafi is also sponsoring a tripartite summit that the two presidents of Sudan and Chad have agreed to attend.
This regional campaign to clear the northern flank is in the context of the larger overall conflict over Darfur. In 2003, Darfurian rebels attacked Sudanese positions as push back on Arab herders displacing black African villagers in the massive region of Darfur (meaning "land of the Fur" tribe). Most are familiar with the Sudanese response of ferocious janjaweed irregulars engaging in brutal ethnic cleansing. According to the United Nations, over 300,000 have been killed and two million have been displaced with a substantial proportion of those falling into refugee status. ///
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Manage Expectations on Mad Men's "The Benefactor"
What do we expect? What would Don Draper do? How do the characters “manage people’s expectations”? How are others able to use and manipulate us because we "expect" them to behave a certain way? The level of social contracts contains a framework within which we expect people to act and respond. The characters who trump that level with their willful expedience to take the game beyond the boundary triumph as the winners. They act on their needs and how to attain them beyond societal norms.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 3: "The Benefactor." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
"The Benefactor" (episode #16) of Mad Men involves five couples: Drapers, Barretts, Schillings, Harry and his pregnant wife Jennifer, Arthur and his girlfriend Tara. Each of those couples demonstrates surface of expectations (e.g., contractual fidelity) and how those expectations really play out under the table and/or below the belt.
For example, the couple of comic Jimmy Barrett and his manager/maybe-wife/(sister-in-the-old-days) Bobbie have very low expectations around "fidelity." It's all business and survival. In the open, Jimmy goes beyond politeness and totally insults the obese Mrs. Schilling as a semblance of the Hindenburg. He ceases to stop and dumps on with “buffalo” and “whale” comparisons. Getting drunk on a contracted promotional shoot doesn’t faze him as wrong or inappropriate. People expect it. Later in the episode, Bobbie tells Don on the phone that Jimmy is auditioning at the Copa nightclub – controlled by the Mob in those days. That’s hard ball rules.
Bobbie thinks (expects) she can intimidate Don Draper as if he plays by the understood rules of propriety in business dealings. She will discover that Don plays hard ball better than she does. Bobbie expects a payoff for her behavior but doesn't get one. The turning moment is the command-performance sex in the front seat of Don’s car during the hailstorm. He protests, “I don't want to do this.” She retorts, “(IT) doesn't feel that way.” In the powder room at Lutece, Don manipulates Bobbie's expectations of his need/affection/lust for her. Don threatens to ruin Jimmy if she does not prompt him for the apology to Mrs. Schilling.
The insulted Schillings deserve but barely expect an apology from the likes of Jimmy Barrett. Mrs. Schilling “knows that’s what (Jimmy does) but she doesn’t have the stomach for it.”
Harry's wife Jennifer expects him to ask for a raise. She also has expectations that they somehow “deserve” the money because they need it for the coming baby. Oh my, how times have changed.
Arthur, the handsome rider, expects to be treated as “the rooster” at the stable but discovers that Betty turns down his advances. Immediately revealed are imbalances of money (she's got it) and dimorphism (he is much larger than she is). Arthur's relationship with Tara seems to be social climbing, expedient and unequally balanced.
Betty Draper defends her fidelity and performs as Don's “better half.” She understands the game and asks Don if the business dinner at Lutece will be an occasion for her to “talk” (i.e., participate in the conversation) or one in which she is expected to be silent. When the evening ends with Betty cuddling cozy next to Don in the car, she expects him to recognize that they “make a great team.” ///
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 3: "The Benefactor." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
"The Benefactor" (episode #16) of Mad Men involves five couples: Drapers, Barretts, Schillings, Harry and his pregnant wife Jennifer, Arthur and his girlfriend Tara. Each of those couples demonstrates surface of expectations (e.g., contractual fidelity) and how those expectations really play out under the table and/or below the belt.
For example, the couple of comic Jimmy Barrett and his manager/maybe-wife/(sister-in-the-old-days) Bobbie have very low expectations around "fidelity." It's all business and survival. In the open, Jimmy goes beyond politeness and totally insults the obese Mrs. Schilling as a semblance of the Hindenburg. He ceases to stop and dumps on with “buffalo” and “whale” comparisons. Getting drunk on a contracted promotional shoot doesn’t faze him as wrong or inappropriate. People expect it. Later in the episode, Bobbie tells Don on the phone that Jimmy is auditioning at the Copa nightclub – controlled by the Mob in those days. That’s hard ball rules.
Bobbie thinks (expects) she can intimidate Don Draper as if he plays by the understood rules of propriety in business dealings. She will discover that Don plays hard ball better than she does. Bobbie expects a payoff for her behavior but doesn't get one. The turning moment is the command-performance sex in the front seat of Don’s car during the hailstorm. He protests, “I don't want to do this.” She retorts, “(IT) doesn't feel that way.” In the powder room at Lutece, Don manipulates Bobbie's expectations of his need/affection/lust for her. Don threatens to ruin Jimmy if she does not prompt him for the apology to Mrs. Schilling.
The insulted Schillings deserve but barely expect an apology from the likes of Jimmy Barrett. Mrs. Schilling “knows that’s what (Jimmy does) but she doesn’t have the stomach for it.”
Harry's wife Jennifer expects him to ask for a raise. She also has expectations that they somehow “deserve” the money because they need it for the coming baby. Oh my, how times have changed.
Arthur, the handsome rider, expects to be treated as “the rooster” at the stable but discovers that Betty turns down his advances. Immediately revealed are imbalances of money (she's got it) and dimorphism (he is much larger than she is). Arthur's relationship with Tara seems to be social climbing, expedient and unequally balanced.
Betty Draper defends her fidelity and performs as Don's “better half.” She understands the game and asks Don if the business dinner at Lutece will be an occasion for her to “talk” (i.e., participate in the conversation) or one in which she is expected to be silent. When the evening ends with Betty cuddling cozy next to Don in the car, she expects him to recognize that they “make a great team.” ///
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Mother Bear Russia Attacks
CHINATOWN, New York (August 10, 2008)
If one sees South Ossetia as a bear cub of Mother Bear Russia, one may want to turn one's eyes away from the fate of the small creature (say a racoon, i.e., Republic of Georgia) that threatened such a much larger beast. Out on the icy surface of geopolitical reality, the "frozen conflict" is heatedly engaged.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has set in motion actions that may prove very dangerous for us all. The question is the degree to which the Russians are willing to withstand international pressure while taking territory. Russia as the "Gazprom Inc." petrostate covets control of the pipeline from Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea energy fields.
The military weight advantage of Russia over Georgia is overwhelming: 650,00 versus 30,000 personnel; 200 versus 13,000 tanks and APC's; combat aircraft 1200 versus handful; 7500 artillery pieces versus roughly a hundred. (Source: Jane's Assessments) At this posting, Russian naval operations are encircling the Black Sea side while tank-lead Russian occupation forces are pouring south into the area around Gori, Georgia and down through Abkhazia.
The warnings were clear. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin especially, warned repeatedly of "serious consequences" if South Ossetia was "provocative." Putin was explicitly clear that "Russia will not and can not accept a NATO presence in Georgia." Kosovo's separation from Serbia in February was one more factor leading to this unfortunate turn of international events. The Russians substantially upped the volume of the growl since April. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has specifically and repeatedly threatened that Georgian efforts to join NATO “will lead to renewed bloodshed.”
Strategic considerations in the Caucasus Mountains have lead Russia to military action for over 200 years. The 1989-1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union led to serious fighting then followed by 19 years of "unsettled conflict" as it has been characterized. It is notable that linguistically, the Ossetians are of Persian rather than Caucasus lineage. Culturally, their history is connected to the north. Local tensions include competition for scarce water and fuel between the 80%-majority Ossetians (many of whom now possess Russian passports) and the Georgians.
Russian-Georgian Timeline
13th Century - Ossetians pushed south into the Caucusus by the Mongols
1783 - Georgia accepts protectorate status under Catherine the Great
1801 - Russia annexes Georgia
Dec. 1879 - Josef Stalin born in Gori, Georgia
1914-1918 - World War One
1918-1920's - Russian Revolution and aftermath; flu pandemic
1930's - Bloody purges under Georgian Communist Party chief Beria
1941-1945 - World War Two
1948-1985 - The Cold War between the Warsaw Pact and NATO/U.S.A.
1989-1991 - Collapse of the Soviet Union
1990-1991 - South Ossetians fight for separation from Georgia
1991 - Georgia declares independence from Russia. Shevardnadze became president
1992-1994 - Abkhazia fights for separation from Georgia and Russian re-unification
2003 - Shevardnadze overthrown
2004 - The Rose Revolution elects Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgian President
Summer 2004 - Georgian troops re-enter South Ossetia to restore "territorial integrity" and order against banditry
Winter 2006 - Russia imposes food embargoes, cuts transportation and energy
Summer 2006 - Georgia sends troops back into Abkhazia
2006 - South Ossetian referendum votes for full independence
February 2008 - Kosovo independence recognized. Russian Duma votes to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia
April 2008 - Georgia's Saakashvili demands reversal and supplies mobilization
May-July 2008 - Violence, bellicosity, military over-flights and insults escalate on all sides
August 2008 - Georgians surround and attack Ossetian city of Tskhinvali; Russians invade; state of war is decreed and mobilization expanded; 2000 troops flown back to Georgia from Iraq by Americans
Russia has made itself clear. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: "War has started." Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: “We will do anything not to allow Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.” The West is calling for ceasefires. ///
If one sees South Ossetia as a bear cub of Mother Bear Russia, one may want to turn one's eyes away from the fate of the small creature (say a racoon, i.e., Republic of Georgia) that threatened such a much larger beast. Out on the icy surface of geopolitical reality, the "frozen conflict" is heatedly engaged.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has set in motion actions that may prove very dangerous for us all. The question is the degree to which the Russians are willing to withstand international pressure while taking territory. Russia as the "Gazprom Inc." petrostate covets control of the pipeline from Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea energy fields.
The military weight advantage of Russia over Georgia is overwhelming: 650,00 versus 30,000 personnel; 200 versus 13,000 tanks and APC's; combat aircraft 1200 versus handful; 7500 artillery pieces versus roughly a hundred. (Source: Jane's Assessments) At this posting, Russian naval operations are encircling the Black Sea side while tank-lead Russian occupation forces are pouring south into the area around Gori, Georgia and down through Abkhazia.
The warnings were clear. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin especially, warned repeatedly of "serious consequences" if South Ossetia was "provocative." Putin was explicitly clear that "Russia will not and can not accept a NATO presence in Georgia." Kosovo's separation from Serbia in February was one more factor leading to this unfortunate turn of international events. The Russians substantially upped the volume of the growl since April. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has specifically and repeatedly threatened that Georgian efforts to join NATO “will lead to renewed bloodshed.”
Strategic considerations in the Caucasus Mountains have lead Russia to military action for over 200 years. The 1989-1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union led to serious fighting then followed by 19 years of "unsettled conflict" as it has been characterized. It is notable that linguistically, the Ossetians are of Persian rather than Caucasus lineage. Culturally, their history is connected to the north. Local tensions include competition for scarce water and fuel between the 80%-majority Ossetians (many of whom now possess Russian passports) and the Georgians.
Russian-Georgian Timeline
13th Century - Ossetians pushed south into the Caucusus by the Mongols
1783 - Georgia accepts protectorate status under Catherine the Great
1801 - Russia annexes Georgia
Dec. 1879 - Josef Stalin born in Gori, Georgia
1914-1918 - World War One
1918-1920's - Russian Revolution and aftermath; flu pandemic
1930's - Bloody purges under Georgian Communist Party chief Beria
1941-1945 - World War Two
1948-1985 - The Cold War between the Warsaw Pact and NATO/U.S.A.
1989-1991 - Collapse of the Soviet Union
1990-1991 - South Ossetians fight for separation from Georgia
1991 - Georgia declares independence from Russia. Shevardnadze became president
1992-1994 - Abkhazia fights for separation from Georgia and Russian re-unification
2003 - Shevardnadze overthrown
2004 - The Rose Revolution elects Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgian President
Summer 2004 - Georgian troops re-enter South Ossetia to restore "territorial integrity" and order against banditry
Winter 2006 - Russia imposes food embargoes, cuts transportation and energy
Summer 2006 - Georgia sends troops back into Abkhazia
2006 - South Ossetian referendum votes for full independence
February 2008 - Kosovo independence recognized. Russian Duma votes to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia
April 2008 - Georgia's Saakashvili demands reversal and supplies mobilization
May-July 2008 - Violence, bellicosity, military over-flights and insults escalate on all sides
August 2008 - Georgians surround and attack Ossetian city of Tskhinvali; Russians invade; state of war is decreed and mobilization expanded; 2000 troops flown back to Georgia from Iraq by Americans
Russia has made itself clear. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: "War has started." Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: “We will do anything not to allow Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.” The West is calling for ceasefires. ///
Saturday, August 9, 2008
HEARD ZONE
CHINATOWN, New York (8/08/08)
HEARD ZONE alludes to the moment of uncertainty when a migratory herd must cross a river. The “mascot” of the fresh water mosasaur is the visual reminder that those who jump first and attempt to cross are likely to discover hungry hidden predators. Today's Nile crocodile awaiting a herd of zebras that must cross the river would be the same metaphor. The site is organized into primary sections of POLITIX, VIRTUALITY, WORLD, ECONO LINES, and CENTCOMM: AT THE FRONT.
POLITIX = political fix for recreational weekenders to hard-cure self medicators. I will be attempting to aim the shining Kleig lights of 21st Century progressivism into the darkly shadowed world of the American demographic forest. Realistically, there are 300 million people on the ground in The States... and we are not all above average. In a reality-based frame, we will traverse the districts of discourse from America's unresolved tribal conflicts to villainous Corporados stealing the church collection plates!!!
VIRTUALITY = the etheric realms of organized electrons that attempt to inform, persuade and assure us as witnesses to our history of transition into an unknown somewhere. Television section opens with “MadMen Reflections in an Antique Mirror.” My focus on that series will be its dramatic presentation rather than its interior decorating aspects. The Internet sub-section will be mobbing up and netting live prey. Humans are swimming in their own Tao, Maya and/or Karma of perceptible immersion. Musica = that which is absolutely necessary and "Unforgettable.” At this juncture, the world of Print Media has as much chance for survival as our first zebra to hit the water. Psycho-demography = population dynamics and interrelational analysis; I will be sounding off to synaptic snap, the crackle of self-remembering and Pop Psyc.
WORLD = All and Everything on the "Occasion." 6.7 billion humans are each clamoring for their share of life and potential in a Malthusian environment of demand pressure and supply squeeze. The tangible and physical realms of our planet's struggle to survive will be reported.
ECONO LINES = analysis and commentary on macroeconometric trends and happenings too large to ignore. Previously, “Sub Prime BBQ” and “Dance of Debt” (on the unbalanced coupling of the U.S.A. and China trade and debt relationship) were series that will be re-introduced in this new configuration. I was pounding my shoe on the table in the first quarter of 2006 and farther back into 2005 attempting to draw attention to the obvious that the bulge of re-financing Adjustable Rate Mortgages in Q3-2007 was over a trillion dollars. The re-fis pressure would be the economic tsunami to hit our beach-front security. My effort will be to interpret macro financial numbers into naturalistic allegories. and references to the worlds of physics and energetics.
CENTCOMM: AT THE FRONT will cover the territory of the corresponding American military command. Big trouble looms from the camel corps of the North African Maghreb to the operational disposition of the Khyber Pass. ///
HEARD ZONE alludes to the moment of uncertainty when a migratory herd must cross a river. The “mascot” of the fresh water mosasaur is the visual reminder that those who jump first and attempt to cross are likely to discover hungry hidden predators. Today's Nile crocodile awaiting a herd of zebras that must cross the river would be the same metaphor. The site is organized into primary sections of POLITIX, VIRTUALITY, WORLD, ECONO LINES, and CENTCOMM: AT THE FRONT.
POLITIX = political fix for recreational weekenders to hard-cure self medicators. I will be attempting to aim the shining Kleig lights of 21st Century progressivism into the darkly shadowed world of the American demographic forest. Realistically, there are 300 million people on the ground in The States... and we are not all above average. In a reality-based frame, we will traverse the districts of discourse from America's unresolved tribal conflicts to villainous Corporados stealing the church collection plates!!!
VIRTUALITY = the etheric realms of organized electrons that attempt to inform, persuade and assure us as witnesses to our history of transition into an unknown somewhere. Television section opens with “MadMen Reflections in an Antique Mirror.” My focus on that series will be its dramatic presentation rather than its interior decorating aspects. The Internet sub-section will be mobbing up and netting live prey. Humans are swimming in their own Tao, Maya and/or Karma of perceptible immersion. Musica = that which is absolutely necessary and "Unforgettable.” At this juncture, the world of Print Media has as much chance for survival as our first zebra to hit the water. Psycho-demography = population dynamics and interrelational analysis; I will be sounding off to synaptic snap, the crackle of self-remembering and Pop Psyc.
WORLD = All and Everything on the "Occasion." 6.7 billion humans are each clamoring for their share of life and potential in a Malthusian environment of demand pressure and supply squeeze. The tangible and physical realms of our planet's struggle to survive will be reported.
ECONO LINES = analysis and commentary on macroeconometric trends and happenings too large to ignore. Previously, “Sub Prime BBQ” and “Dance of Debt” (on the unbalanced coupling of the U.S.A. and China trade and debt relationship) were series that will be re-introduced in this new configuration. I was pounding my shoe on the table in the first quarter of 2006 and farther back into 2005 attempting to draw attention to the obvious that the bulge of re-financing Adjustable Rate Mortgages in Q3-2007 was over a trillion dollars. The re-fis pressure would be the economic tsunami to hit our beach-front security. My effort will be to interpret macro financial numbers into naturalistic allegories. and references to the worlds of physics and energetics.
CENTCOMM: AT THE FRONT will cover the territory of the corresponding American military command. Big trouble looms from the camel corps of the North African Maghreb to the operational disposition of the Khyber Pass. ///
Dear John (Edwards),
MANHATTAN, New York (8/08/08)
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
Until, in our own despair,
Against our will, comes wisdom,
Through the awful grace of God."
-- Aeschylus
Vanity got you...the house, the hair, the hedge fund, the hottie.Why oh why were you attracted to this woman? Bars are not good places to meet campaign workers.
The Rielle Hunter videos were terrible. Maybe the hotel flickers were better. Couldn't you see that? To my eye (even on first viewing way back when), you were "lit up" on the airplane (probably Fred Baron's). Sordid and sorry.
I sympathetically see the "son of a mill worker" but am now distracted by the $400 haircut that you just couldn't live without. I empathetically respect the private life separate from the public role but you repeatedly misled everyone including the Democratic Party (DP). The DP fortunately acted on higher wisdom than my own or we would be facing a presumptive nominee with a political death sentence.
Is it the giddiness of the ascent? Is it the "golden touch" of great fortune and fate? Is there a lesson to be learned by us all as we witness your suffering with this tragic error?
Times have changed since Grover Cleveland and you have self-destructed an opportunity to deeply and substantively contribute to the well-being of your country. You've gone from Teddy Rosevelt to Grover Cleveland in historical association...yikes!
Having written and posted about a thousand articles and commentaries on behalf of your candidacy, I will be pondering and reflecting...going forward.
Blessings and peace on your family as you miss the convention you worked so hard to achieve. So sad and my heart still goes out to you. ///
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
Until, in our own despair,
Against our will, comes wisdom,
Through the awful grace of God."
-- Aeschylus
Vanity got you...the house, the hair, the hedge fund, the hottie.Why oh why were you attracted to this woman? Bars are not good places to meet campaign workers.
The Rielle Hunter videos were terrible. Maybe the hotel flickers were better. Couldn't you see that? To my eye (even on first viewing way back when), you were "lit up" on the airplane (probably Fred Baron's). Sordid and sorry.
I sympathetically see the "son of a mill worker" but am now distracted by the $400 haircut that you just couldn't live without. I empathetically respect the private life separate from the public role but you repeatedly misled everyone including the Democratic Party (DP). The DP fortunately acted on higher wisdom than my own or we would be facing a presumptive nominee with a political death sentence.
Is it the giddiness of the ascent? Is it the "golden touch" of great fortune and fate? Is there a lesson to be learned by us all as we witness your suffering with this tragic error?
Times have changed since Grover Cleveland and you have self-destructed an opportunity to deeply and substantively contribute to the well-being of your country. You've gone from Teddy Rosevelt to Grover Cleveland in historical association...yikes!
Having written and posted about a thousand articles and commentaries on behalf of your candidacy, I will be pondering and reflecting...going forward.
Blessings and peace on your family as you miss the convention you worked so hard to achieve. So sad and my heart still goes out to you. ///
Friday, August 8, 2008
Chinese Olympics Total Solar Eclipse
CHINATOWN, New York (8/08/08)
From the perspective of Chinese divination, the prophetic portent (augury) of the August 1, 2008 total solar eclipse is ominous. The associated forebodings include:
-- Change of dynasty or fall of the regime
-- Death of emperor (or Chairman of the CCP, we might presume)
-- Initiation or turning point of war
-- Natural disaster, e.g., major earthquake or volcano
-- Eruption of social chaos
Before one dismisses the astronomical event as unable to affect earthly events, consider the following: Total solar eclipses occur due to specific alignment of the Earth, Moon and Sun. That alignment will surely have a gravitational and electro-magnetic effect on the planetary energy fields and tectonic plates. The Chinese Imperial Library was maintained for two millennia; the Sichuan earthquake of July would qualify as a significant entry.
Please note some curious synchronistics. Pope John Paul II was born on and buried on the day of solar eclipses; he had been prophetically referred to as the “solar Pope.” Russian author and lion of anti-Communism Alexander Solzhenitsyn died immediately after the recent eclipse. He wrote a fascinating in-depth section in "August 1914" on the ecliptic influence and effect on military strategies of nation states that he saw as greater (or meta) spiritual beings. Mother Russia and Dragon China are "nations" of the solar energy and eclipses. The Solzhenitsyn passage states they initiate military operations synchronous with solar eclipses. It might be concluded that the Russian-Georgian conflict could dramatically escalate based on this "ecliptic influence." He writes that (alternatively) the historical and mystical Persians and Jews were influenced by lunar eclipses. (Note that one is due on August 16.)
There is recent scholarship of the classics that dates the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War to Ithaca at the time of a solar eclipse in 1178 B.C.E. In our end-of-era moment, we would be wise to consider the lessons learned and “signs given” since ancient times. In recent memory, the solar eclipse of August 6, 1990 coincided with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The 1991 Gulf War coalition response was launched on January 17, the day after another solar eclipse.
Generally a total solar eclipse crosses any portion of the Earth’s surface about once in 350 years or twice in an "age of civilization cycle" (see Rodney Collins's "Theory of Celestial Influences"). For those individuals troubled and seeking immediate spiritual guidance, Chogyam Trungpa's "Cutting through Spiritual Materialism" is a worthy reference point for this junction.
Before you conclude that you have wasted your time and attention speculating on invisible influences, recall that the Aztec calendar predicted the arrival of Cortez on their beach to the very day...on the occasion of an eclipse! ///
From the perspective of Chinese divination, the prophetic portent (augury) of the August 1, 2008 total solar eclipse is ominous. The associated forebodings include:
-- Change of dynasty or fall of the regime
-- Death of emperor (or Chairman of the CCP, we might presume)
-- Initiation or turning point of war
-- Natural disaster, e.g., major earthquake or volcano
-- Eruption of social chaos
Before one dismisses the astronomical event as unable to affect earthly events, consider the following: Total solar eclipses occur due to specific alignment of the Earth, Moon and Sun. That alignment will surely have a gravitational and electro-magnetic effect on the planetary energy fields and tectonic plates. The Chinese Imperial Library was maintained for two millennia; the Sichuan earthquake of July would qualify as a significant entry.
Please note some curious synchronistics. Pope John Paul II was born on and buried on the day of solar eclipses; he had been prophetically referred to as the “solar Pope.” Russian author and lion of anti-Communism Alexander Solzhenitsyn died immediately after the recent eclipse. He wrote a fascinating in-depth section in "August 1914" on the ecliptic influence and effect on military strategies of nation states that he saw as greater (or meta) spiritual beings. Mother Russia and Dragon China are "nations" of the solar energy and eclipses. The Solzhenitsyn passage states they initiate military operations synchronous with solar eclipses. It might be concluded that the Russian-Georgian conflict could dramatically escalate based on this "ecliptic influence." He writes that (alternatively) the historical and mystical Persians and Jews were influenced by lunar eclipses. (Note that one is due on August 16.)
There is recent scholarship of the classics that dates the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War to Ithaca at the time of a solar eclipse in 1178 B.C.E. In our end-of-era moment, we would be wise to consider the lessons learned and “signs given” since ancient times. In recent memory, the solar eclipse of August 6, 1990 coincided with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The 1991 Gulf War coalition response was launched on January 17, the day after another solar eclipse.
Generally a total solar eclipse crosses any portion of the Earth’s surface about once in 350 years or twice in an "age of civilization cycle" (see Rodney Collins's "Theory of Celestial Influences"). For those individuals troubled and seeking immediate spiritual guidance, Chogyam Trungpa's "Cutting through Spiritual Materialism" is a worthy reference point for this junction.
Before you conclude that you have wasted your time and attention speculating on invisible influences, recall that the Aztec calendar predicted the arrival of Cortez on their beach to the very day...on the occasion of an eclipse! ///
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