State of the Mountain

by Shawn K. Inlow

I worry too much.  Or do I?

To say that one worries too much implies that maybe there's nothing to worry about.  I care a lot.  I love a lot.  I laugh a lot.  And I worry a lot.  How's that sound?

The Artist, I was telling someone in church this weekend, feels the weight of the world more keenly than most.  Do you ever feel that tidal wave of melancholy?  All the beauty and sadness of this life just wailing on you?  It is, if you are well balanced, a wave that knocks you topsy-turvy and then, when it ebbs, it has by contrast the effect of making all the good things even brighter.

It is, my friend Julie would say, the Libra in me; constantly out of balance and constantly seeking it.

I am opening to you today, dear reader, a larger window on things that has been brought on by my recent thinking on politics, expressly the president's recent state of the union address.  Everybody and their brother had a "response" to the Obama speech.  And they generally all missed the boat.  This is my response:  The State of the Mountain Address.

The Mountain abides.  As my old friend Lao Tzu might say, those things that are not born do not die.  The life on or about The Mountain, though, is in constant turmoil.  Constant change.  We, dear reader, are the little things clinging to life.  The Mountain owns you.  You don't own it.  You may think you do, but one day you return to it.  Your waking life, though, is one of precarity.  Mr. Obama was talking about the ten-thousand things, all of which are reflections, I think, of two basic things:  Economic Problems and Moral Problems.  The two, on a real level, are the same thing.

The sickness lies in an economic paradigm that prizes profit over sustainability.  Profit even over common decency.  Continual growth and increasingly complex energy throughput and waste over simplicity and health.  This world of human affairs is sick.  It is out of balance.  We need to strike a balance.

Continual growth is impossible.  The Mountain is, after all, finite.  There is only so much coal you can dig and so much natural gas you can frack.  Meanwhile the waste heap grows higher and higher, poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink.  More energy.  More power.  More things.  More pollution.

There are too many people for everyone to live like Americans without us toppling off the Malthusian cliff.  Thus Americans, rich and in the driver's seat of the best of warplanes, can and should lead the world.  But how?  We must decide if we're going to be heroes or villains (the moral question) in the equation.

The words are scary:  Communism, Socialism, Terrorism.  Show me a new "ism" and I'll show you a new war.  The words are scary because you've been propagandized to have negative feelings about these when all they are is ideas.  Capitalism and Imperialism have probably caused more death and destruction in the world.  Communism, Socialism and Capitalism, after all, are just methods of accounting; ways of counting what we have and determining who gets most of it.

We need to think about Idealism.  Altruism.  We need to think about ways that we can share our wealth in ways that improve the world around us.  For instance, I would, with all my money, figure out a way to start an electric cooperative and build a solar or wind farm to help supply my town's needs and use the overage to do the same for other towns.  I could still make some money for my trouble, but is there a need to make a killing?  How much do I need to live well?

We need to shift from a purely capitalist system which demands unsustainable growth to one that includes slow growth or possibly zero growth models for the common good rather than the individual massing of wealth. 

Capitalism has done very well, thank you, at creating wealth.  Since the founding of the USA and through the industrial revolution, the capitalist paradigm magnificently lifted the masses to a quality life.  This wealth has been built on a seemingly endless supply of natural resources.  But the wars are now raging for possession of those dwindling resources that are left.  All over Africa and the Middle East the last fateful gold rush is on in the selfish death spiral that is capitalist, imperialist perpetual growth.

There are big businesses rushing to establish electrical grids in tribal regions of Africa not to enlighten the people but to gain access to their resources.  Soon a tribal person in Africa won't be able to see the stars at night for all the blinding light.  The people will begin to have abnormal rhythms as their days become longer and more "productive."  Then they will get sick and seek medicine.   Can we not just leave them in peace?

I think Cargill and Monsanto and other giant agri-businesses have already changed our DNA with their genetically modified foods and they spend millions of dollars to prevent you, the consumer, from knowing what Faustian bargains they've made to engineer food.  These kinds of companies are destroying farms, destroying soil, and poisoning habitat.  The fossil fuel industry, though it has been hugely beneficial, needs to be grandfathered out because with global warming we're now paying the piper.  And don't get me started on the bankers.

NAFTA unleashed a tidal wave of cheap corn on Mexico and drove whole generations of farmers from their fields, where their labor no longer turned a profit, to the cities, where there was nothing for them, and then, finally, to cross in wave upon wave across the American border to find some way to survive.  This is how an economic decision has caused, not only an immoral disruption of a way of life, but the shattered families of illegal immigration as well.

NAFTA was touted as being great for everyone but it turns out it was a shitty deal for almost everyone.  NAFTA, the North-American Free Trade Agreement, 20 years since it was instituted has been hellish on decent American jobs but very, very nice for corporate profit margins.

And now President Obama wants "fast track" authority to execute another, far worse, "free" trade deal in the Pacific Rim, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.  We are waging global economic capitalist warfare, a destructive brand of economics that will negatively affect much of the population, be a bonanza for corporate ledgers and simply stab the working man in the heart and wreak havoc on the world's climate.

Unless.  Go and read the Dr. Seuss book "The Lorax."  Unless.

We must pull back on the reigns of the runaway engine that is unbridled capitalism.  Capitalism, I heard someone say, must serve democracy rather than impede it.  And given the price of a congressman nowadays and the ways in which corruption and bribery have become the rules of the road, the United States is in no position to lead.

Men like Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch spread disinformation and sew the seeds of scientific illiteracy.  Men like Charles and David Koch are seeking to buy out the government to free themselves to continue their wanton exploitation and ruination of the environment.  There are so many corporate interests lobbying Washington that it is clear that capitalism is hurting democracy.  The government no longer serves the voters.  The government serves the wealthy.  For the love of God, the only people claiming responsibility today are terrorists.

The world's answers cannot be had without American action.  And the villains in this game have have tipped the balance in their greedy self interest.  In fact, they may well have broken the scales entirely, making the societal choices that are needed impossible to come by via common governance.

Time is short and America is unable to move.  Its emperors are fat and lolling on beds padded by legal bribery.  The lock on the doors of power must be broken and the scurrilous bastards who have put us here must be confronted.  They must change or be removed.  Otherwise, these greedy fools will take us all down with them.

State of the Union Rebuff

Congress at SOTU:  Answers?  They Don't Even Know the Questions.

by Shawn K. Inlow

So I'm watching the President give his state of the union address.  I wasn't going to watch it, but, there I was and it was on and so I watched it.  The funny thing is that immediately after you watch a speech like that, commentators come on and begin to explain to you what you just saw.  That's well enough, I guess, while you're waiting for the republicans to come on and explain to you what you just saw.

In the Obama years, the republican response has been a bit of an adventure.  This has been a great deal of fun for non-republicans.  I mean, you had Bobby Jindal the one year and then you had the water break moment last year of Marco Rubio.  They had Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels a couple years ago and rather than continue in politics after that he took the cushy job of being president (of Purdue University).  And then there was the rising star that was Virginia's "Governor Ultrasound" (Virginia, apparently, is NOT for lovers anymore.) Bob McDonnell, who the feds were good enough to allow to leave office before they indicted him on corruption charges.

I love this stuff because A) the republicans keep trotting out whatever short list of people of color they can find in hopes of looking like anything but what they are (a party full of rich, old white guys) and B) you're taking someone your party ostensibly has high hopes for and your tossing him out there to follow perhaps the greatest natural orator in presidential history.

Used to Pick Apples

Well the other night, they sent out this nice church lady from Washington state.  She was pretty and nice and had absolutely nothing of substance to say.  And, of course, she had the worst case of cotton mouth on record since I woke up from that woods kegger back in 1978.  God lover her, she kept dry gulping in the middle of every sentence but you just know she wasn't gonna pull a Rubio and dive for the water bottle.  

Though she wasn't a person of color, she was that Stepford Wife of the republican party.  She was a woman and, unless you haven't heard, the republicans are waging a "war on women."  So they trot out Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers to prove how pro-woman they are.

Then the republican rebuttal machine doubled down by rolling out Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen because she's a Cuban Woman.  And she talked in SPANISH.  Republicans love women, you see, and sometimes they let them talk. 

And then it got weirder.  In recent years, it just hasn't been good enough just getting a republican out there to fall on their face after the president hits another clean winner.  Nope.  Not good enough.  Lately, we've been treated to the endless pleasure of the "Tea-Party Response."  Because, you know, it's important we let Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers have THEIR say too.  And boy-howdy do THEY know how to pick 'em!  Michelle Bachman a couple years ago.  (Superstar!!!) and Herman Cain, who culled passages of his presidential stump speech from one of the Pokemon theme songs (no joke).  At least Herman Cain was entertaining.

Senator Mike Lee (Rhymes with "Tea") of Utah took to the interwebs and talked about how the tea-party marched from Boston to Philadelphia over the space of 14 years a couple hundred years ago and wrote the Constitution.  To be fair to Lee,  though, he's probably the only one, President Obama included, who managed to touch the actual third rail of the truth about what's really eating Gilbert Grape.

Needs to Read Steinbeck

"This inequality crisis presents itself in three principal forms," said Lee.  "Immobility among the poor, who are trapped in poverty by big-government programs.  Insecurity in the middle class, where families are struggling just to get by and can't seem to get ahead.  And cronyist privilege at the top, where political and economic insiders twist the immense power of the federal government to profit at the expense of everyone else."

Lee, in The Mountain's view, is wrong about the first of his three assertions.  Anti-poverty programs like food stamps and public assistance don't trap people from rising up the economic ladder:  They prevent people from plummeting down through the cracks and becoming destitute.  The rich should consider these programs as insurance.  Take them away and watch the crime rate soar as more and more people get more and more desperate.  There ARE no jobs out there and taking away someone's SSI or welfare check is not going to create them.  Some of these people need to put down "Atlas Shrugged" and pick up a copy of "The Grapes of Wrath."

But Lee rings true in his second and third assertions.  It IS hard to get ahead anymore and the power structure at the top is there there like a vampire to suck the marrow out of the dry husk of the American dream.  Lee, though, wants you to distrust the government but trust the big money.  The Mountain says you have to dismantle the mechanisms that allow big money to OWN the government.

Ayn Rand

And then came Rand Paul, the half-sensible / half-baked-potato who, let's face it, can't carry his daddy's jock, who trots out on social media to give a rebuttal to the rebuttal to the rebuttal to the state of the union speech.  

Dumb ass starts out invoking the petrified Ghost of Reagan before segueing into a glorification of the story of the virulent anti-gay far right darling, Star Parker.  The upshot:  More money for rich people is good.

Christ, Almighty.  If these chumps can take a whack at it so can I.  The Mountain will post its first-ever (and hopefully last-ever) state of the union address tomorrow.  The Mountain senses a need for clarity.  People are running around shouting arguments at each other that do not address the real problems.  The Mountain is not a candidate and so has nothing to lose or gain.  Maybe you, dear reader, will begin to think about what the serious questions are instead of the superficial political ones being posited by those with ulterior motives.

Video Vault: French Cancan

French Cancan

1956 - Jean Renoir

NR - 105 minutes

Vault Rating: 6

CAST:

Jean Gabin - Henri Danglard

Francoise Arnoul - Nini

Maria Felix - Lola

Anna Amendola - Esther Georges

Jean-Roger Caussimon - Baron Walter

Netflix Summary:  Nineteenth century Paris comes vibrantly alive in director Jean Renoir's exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge.  Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women - an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned  cancan star.  This celebration of life, art and the City of Light includes a rare cameo by Edith Piaf.

Well.  The Netflix summary above should be blushing.  While the film and its auteur are considered among the cinema greats, the "exhilarating" film, to me, only managed to climb into the range of pleasantly affecting.  So why bother?  Read on.

Perhaps I was asking too much of myself.  For example, this was a musical comedy.  Not something Vault generally prizes to begin with.  But in French with subtitles I found it difficult to enjoy the humor while absorbing the actors while they gave their pleasantly affecting performances.

One of the few times subtitles have affected my enjoyment of a film.  Part of this difficulty also arises from some of the film's strengths.   The sets were interesting to look at and my eye was constantly wandering to one pleasantly affecting detail or another which Renoir cleverly litters about his frames.  So.  Grain of salt.

And the way of the film takes a while to fall into.  It's a bit of a slapstick almost quasi-musical-comedy, so getting into the vibe (in French) takes some patience.   I'm sure, at the time in France, this picture was the shizzle.  That it holds its own nearly six decades hence is a testament to its quality.

More interesting is that this is a film less about the famed Paris nightclub and more about those who made it tick.  This film studies its show-people in a way that is very realistic.  Very straightforward. Vault is not much for show-people films either.  But the two principles, Danglard and Nini, have two story arcs that are surprisingly unsentimental.

Danglard is the man behind the Moulin Rouge and, as a finder of talent, and a weaver of dreams, as a lover of women and a showman, he draws beautiful people into his sphere and uses them to create.  They play in his world.

And this struck me as honest.  Having a good deal of experience in theater and having performed, written and directed plays for decades, I could identify strongly with Danglard in the film's climactic sequence.  Nothing gets him off like the audience's joy and approval.

Nini's character arc is also strong and honest, tracing a path from ingenue to showgirl in a way that most musical comedies can't grasp.

The rest of the film is about various trysts and relationships that hit and miss.  Couples don't just wind up together to give us the obligatory happily ever after.  In fact, the speed with which its subjects fall in and out of love is almost cartoonishly reminiscent of, say, a Shakespeare farce.  Like the cancan, it is a weird dance to pull off gracefully.

And legit cancan, pulled off recklessly with a cheeky amount of fishnets and bloomers, high kicks and flying splits (Oooh!  Doesn't that HURT???), certainly can can bring a smile to your face.  Keep those hemlines high, girls!

In all, the film is worth your while.  As I reflect back over "French Cancan," I'm thinking a second look would find me notching my Vault Rating a tad higher.

by Shawn Inlow

Osceola Mills, Pa.

"And If It Was A Secret Vote..."

Peter King (R) of New York says 150 house republicans would vote for a clean CR "If it was a secret vote."

Voice of the Mountain

by Shawn K. Inlow

The Mountain doesn't often agree with U.S. Representative Peter King (R) of New York.  But in recent comments, King has reiterated something that you, dear reader, need to appreciate.

In the October 6 New York Times article, Boehner Hews to Hard Line in Demanding Concessions from Obama, Rep. King said this:

“I’m positive that a clean C.R. would pass ... If it went on the floor tomorrow, I could see anywhere from 50 to 75 Republicans voting for it,” he added. “And if it were a secret ballot, 150.” 

Let's think about this for a moment, shall we?  King is saying that 50 to 70 republicans are brave enough to openly support a "clean" continuing resolution to end the government shutdown.  "Clean" meaning a resolution that didn't come with any Tea Party demands about defunding the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as "Obamacare."

With 200 democrats ready to vote for a clean CR, the vote would pass with only 18 republicans standing up for common sense.  Yet Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio says those votes don't exist and will not bring such a vote to the floor.

But here's the good stuff, and it's the thing The Mountain has been pointing to for the last two days:  King continues to say that 150 republicans would vote for a clean CR to fund the government "If it were a secret ballot."

Snorting Koch: Douche-Bags Trying to Purchase Government

King is admitting the obvious.  House republicans, including John Boehner, are afraid of these guys: Charles and David Koch.  The Super Koch Bros.  The billionaire funders of all things Tea-Party and the emissaries of the downfall of respectable conservatism.

Any republican caught off the Tea Party farm can expect a wholly owned Koch Bros subsidiary with unlimited funding in his next primary.  This IS happening.  This is not your dad's republican party anymore.

What we are dealing with here, and what we've been talking about this week... I promise tomorrow we're going to talk about something else... is that Charles and David Koch are literally overthrowing the government with unlimited money.  And the fight that has to happen is inside the republican party.  Either the Kochs win or the dying breed of republican moderates who used to be able to WIN elections without rigging them will out.  Someone needs to grow some balls and have that fight.

So let's go ball-hunting by looking at the U.S. House of Representatives from the area around The Mountain.

I saw Glenn Thompson from Pennsylvania's 5th district on CSPAN this morning.  Maybe Glenn would show some balls.  But looking at his campaign funding over at Open Secrets.org one quickly notes that Glenn lives in the fossil fuel sector and lookie there, Koch Industries is among his top ten donors.

Glenn got up on the floor of the House this morning and spewed some shit about being a good scout and leaving the world better for those who come later.  Then he read two letters, one from Jefferson County and one from DuBois about the evils of Obamacare.

Super.

I was looking at Bill Shuster's page and see that the leaf doesn't fall too far from the tree.  He's setting himself up nicely as the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and he's raking in contributions from the transportation sector.  He's got it too good and I don't think we're gonna see Congressman Shuster pick a fight with the Super Koch Bros.

You just can't get good help these days.

I wonder if Mr. Thompson or Mr. Shuster would vote in secret for a clean continuing resolution to fund the government.  What would their position be if they knew the Koch Bros wouldn't find out?  I wonder if they'd care about the damage to my savings and pension as the market tanks because of the Koch Bros greedy aims.  I wonder, is Pennsylvania's republican delegation a pack of men or cowards?

I'm betting on cowards.  Or henchmen.  Each and every one of them.

Blame the Republicans (But Mostly the Koch Bros)

The Men Behind the Curtain: Charles and David Koch

Voice of the Mountain 

by Shawn K. Inlow

The Mountain wants you to look at the two men pictured above.  You should know them.  They are Charles and David Koch, two billionaire brothers who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps by inheriting their companies from their dad and who are, according to reportage this weekend, almost entirely behind the republican funding and planning for a government shutdown and possible default.

Blame the republicans.  When the market goes tits-up and my pension goes flat and my savings disappear... Blame the republicans and their billionaire paymasters.  It's all right there in black and attributed white.

First, you need to read THIS EYE OPENING PIECE from the weekend New York Times.  It features republicans, in their own words, gunning for this manufactured crisis for months and finally getting what they want.  Read that and then come back and we'll talk, okay?

The Mountain posted yesterday in an uncharacteristic rant where I smelled the rat that is modern republicanism and heard the insipid whack-job Tea Partyism.  I smelled the reek of oil billionaires, but I just couldn't see them until that NYT story pulled back the curtain.  Now there can be no doubt as to who is to blame for the latest crazy republican political gambit.

These people are so desperate to deny President Obama his signature legislative accomplishment (and millions of Americans a shot for once at affordable health insurance) that they would do anything - hurt anyone - spend hundreds of millions of dollars "educating" the public and coercing republican congressmen and running Tea-Party Crazies against that odd, beloved endangered species, the "moderate republican."

There was a day where I could walk a mile with a republican, but those days are coming to an end, largely because the republican party has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.  Let's call it what it is, because it is the most compelling case for what is wrong with government:  Pure Corruption.  Vulgar capitalist takeover of the democracy all dressed up in red-white-and-blue bunting.

Freedom indeed.  This is about owning the government.  And the two men pictured above are the worms at the heart of the apple.  They need to be hunted down and tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.  Charles and David Koch:  Public Enemies #1.  Can we get a CIA deck of cards with that pair of aces on the front? 

Man.  The Mountain is feeling all militant.  I gotta go take a sedative.  But seriously, someone oughtta go to one of their big parties and get 'em with a cream pie.

What's worse is that The Mountain feels like we all are being used as dupes here.  The issue isn't really the debt.  Obamacare is just a foil for something bigger.  These are just foils so that you and I, decent people, set against each other's throats.

Sneetches: Stars Upon Thars

McBean: "You can't teach a Sneetch!"

It is the Dr. Seuss story of "The Sneetches" and the Koch Bros are Sylvester McMonkey McBean, who emerges at the end of the day with all the money while leaving his bewildered victims changed forever. 


Dr. Seuss had this covered.  And in his loveable way he drew us this picture.

No, there is something much bigger going on and that is the corporate ownership, or freedom from the democracy.

Freedom to do as the Koch Bros please.

Freedom for the Koch Bros to keep all the money.

Freedom for the Koch Bros to do anything they want because they are powerful enough to do it.

This is not about you and me except by the way the vitriolic argument frees the Koch Bros.  THEY are the shit stirrers.  We are just the stick they use to stir the pot.

And I'm not down with this old canard I hear from my friends:  "A pox on both democratic and republican houses!"

Bullshit.  I'm calling bullshit.  Because generally speaking the democrats, even with their problems which I and regular walking around republicans can point to with fervor, want to be helpful.   The republicans want to destroy, deny, negate.  And if republicans won't say it themselves (which many do in the NY Times article above) I do not believe for a moment that the Koch Bros could be that coy.

To my conservative friends.  You have to know that the Koch Bros are sewing the seeds of your discontent.  And by destabilizing that which we've come to depend upon, by corrupting the America we grew up in with their ferocious capitalism, our lives become more precarious.

I'm worried about my savings.  I'm worried about the savages of Wall Street and the wolves of Big Money being left to run wild on my state pension plan.

Listen.  The debt is an issue.  Health care and foreign policy and everything else are legitimate issues that affect our lives.  They do.  But what is going on here, The Mountain feels down to its foothills, is something much bigger.  Much darker.  I invite you to pull back the curtain.

I leave the last word with a good man.  A good journalist.  Have a listen.

Politicians At Play with MY Savings

5 Miles High Over Central Pennsylvania

Voice of the Mountain

by Shawn K. Inlow

Politics.  You know, life was going along just fine and I'd managed to turn off the teevee and noted a markedly happier mood came over my spirit.  I actually quit watching the news for - maybe a month - and had relied solely on what I'd overheard or what managed to seep in.  

But there is a new crisis in our nation's capital and the echo and rumor and hearsay got my attention enough to think about this here government shutdown and what it all means... and what it's going to mean.

What it's going to mean is that my life savings is in jeopardy.  I don't know about you, but here's why The Mountain is awake today.  Politicians are now screwing with MY savings.  Probably yours too.

To explain.  Over the years, I did the responsible thing by saving as much money as I could for as long as I could.  One of the first rules of wealth is that you put back a portion of your income.  While I am not wealthy, I have enough to get by on.  I was able to retire early - at the age of 49 - in part because I'd saved a decent portion of my earnings and invested it in a very conservative market index fund.

I remember the last time that Congress - no, let's put the blame where it strongly belongs, shall we? - Republicans and particularly those of the Idiot Tea Party variety whose breathtaking combination of stupidity and selfish ambition can ruin anything -  I remember the last time they decided they would not raise the debt ceiling.  This is something that never had been controversial before.  The debt ceiling under Reagan, for instance, was raised 11 times.  

The result was that the market - you know, that market where I have put my life's savings - jittered like a teenager at a sock hop until the American debt rating was reduced... COSTING US BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.  In effect, the idiot republicans (and I don't see many right now that don't qualify) raised the American mortgage rate.  And the market did it's dance and I lost a pile of dough.

Nice going, jerks.  That's MY money you're dicking with.  We have already SEEN the result of this kind of (lack of) governing.  So why, why, why are there douche-bags like Ted Cruz, republican senator from WHERE?  TEXAS! of course, who get to run riot on issues that matter.

What we're dealing with now is a government shutdown, which is one thing, but what's coming right up is the debt ceiling again.  These idiot republicans are going to crash this car again and it's going to cost me my savings.  Maybe all of it this time.

You know, I'd heard a couple days ago that there were reports of gun-shots on capital hill.  And you wanna know what my reaction was?  I was surprised by it myself because it was a vile thought.  Seriously, the first thing that popped into my mind was, "Serves 'em right."  And you wonder why they have to have their political conventions behind heavily guarded barricades.

I found myself thinking about all these mass-shootings and thinking the real tragedy was that, at least, if you're gonna go off the edge, why kill innocent victims?  Why not go after the cause of the disease.  Why not go after Lloyd Blankfein?  A Koch Brother?  Rupert Murdoch or any of his pack of dogs?  Jamie Dimon?  How about a Walton?  There are any number of Grey Men who are doing harm the world over and we haven't even started on Big Oil executives yet.

See, these crazy bastards don't think about the people they are hurting.  They are thinking about themselves.  Which places most republicans (Sorry, can't capitalize it any more.) in the same boat.

Listen.  I really never thought I'd be in this space telling republicans not to screw with the market.  But here I am.  There are LOTS of things wrong with the markets.  The biggest criminals on Earth live on Wall Street and nothing's being done about it.  But it is the only game in town where it comes to savings that work well enough to get by on.  And believe you me, there are fat cats on Wall Street who lust after those federal, state and local pension plans right now and they want to rape them just the way the did the housing market in the last economic collapse, so our savings are at risk to begin with.

About Debt

So you and I and the taxi driver, by virtue of our savings, our pension plans, etcetera, OWN the U.S. debt that these Tea Party Idiots keep blathering on about.  IN FACT, the largest holder of American debt is ... Wait for it... Americans.  You can read and learn about that simple fact HERE.

China is the largest single foreign owner of U.S. debt, but I - we - Americans - have put more money on the barrel head betting on the full faith and credit of the United States of America than the Chinese have by a long shot.

So why, why, WHY have the idiot republicans set themselves so desperately at wrecking our bets?  I have to think it's because they're stupid because any other way of explaining it would be deeply shady at best or nefarious at worst.  I'd rather be dealing with the stupid than the evil.  You can remediate stupid, but Evil...

If it turns out we're dealing with the evil?  Then I have no qualms about setting all those broke homeowners whose savings have been pissed away in this political fight loose on these assholes.  Then they can finally meet Jesus in the twisted 2nd Amendment Polish firing squad of their own making.

The Mountain does not espouse violence.  But I have the feeling that these fools, given a choice between a sensible solution and doing harm to prove a point, are incapable of doing right by us.  Rob me of my pension and savings that I worked all my life for and you will have a wildcat - maybe thousands of wildcats - on your hands.

Then you pricks won't be able to pass gun control legislation fast enough.

Video Vault: Samsara & Sugar Man

Voice of the Mountain

by Shawn K. Inlow

Here on The Mountain, we've got this imperative to see every film in the world which matters.  Today's Video Vault installment has ten features that range from things you really need to see to curios and oddities, from action to animation, from true stories to partly true stories, to ghost stories, from sci-fi to James Bond and one film that defies classification.

Let's start there.

Samsara

2011 /Ron Fricke

PG-13 / 102 minutes

"Samsara" is unlike any film I've seen, taking the viewer on a global journey of image and sound as if you are an alien who has landed on Earth and begun to look around.  The sights are strange and beautiful, disturbing and eloquent.  And all presented without a single word of dialogue.

I will wager that some will turn away.  Audiences need - they have been trained to need - a narrative; someone telling them the story.  "Samsara" simply shows you things and lets your imagination provide the narrative.

At first, I thought, "These are beautiful images, but this is going to be a long movie."  But after about ten minutes I found myself engrossed.  I was providing my own subtext to the film, bringing my own wonder, incredulity and meaning to the stunning displays of this world's beauty.

The word, "samsara," exists in the Buddhist culture: "Coming into existence as a mortal creature."  And in the Hindu culture: " the endless series of births, deaths, and rebirths to which all beings are subject."  But you don't need those definitions in order to set your mind adrift in this tsunami of image.  The film acts like a poem that jars emotional responses from you.

I found myself in turns mumbling things like, "Where is that?" or a quizzical laugh, "huh!" or gasping in surprise or even shock.  It is a film for film lovers.  Please try to see this film.  I watched it by myself and found it rather meditative.  I began to watch the film again with my wife and she got pulled in.  Just don't expect to be handed your entertainment, expect to participate in it.


Searching for Sugar Man
2012 - Malik Bendjelloul 
PG-13 / 86 minutes


"Searching for Sugar Man" is the story of an obscure record, "Cold Fact," and how the mysterious artist behind it, known only as "Rodriguez," vanished.

It is a story of how his music, never noticed in America and long forgotten since it's monumental flop in 1970, somehow caught on elsewhere and became the soundtrack to white kids' opposition to apartheid in South Africa.

It is the story of how fans of the record decided to find out what happened to the artist rumored to have died by his own hand in concert.  It is also the story of the redemptive power of music and a bit of a meditation on what constitutes failure and success.

The story begins with record store owner Stephen "Sugar" Segerman who begins to wonder about the record that helped shape his life growing up in South Africa and why nothing was known about its maker.  With only the gritty, urban lyrics of protest to go on, he brings the viewer along on his journey of discovery.

Segerman paints for the viewer how the music traveled and was shared clandestinely, how it was eventually banned and, thus, grew in importance and then, years later, how he traced the music to its American roots.

And what a cool musical soundtrack it is.  The songs have a Dylanesque lyrical vibe matched with a kind of studio production that is dated enough that it resonates today.  Songs like "I Wonder," "Inner City Blues" and "Sugar Man," happily, are all available for you on iTunes today.  Check the movie and I bet you wind up with the record yourself.  

Kwaidan
1965 - Masaki Kobayashi
NR / 182 minutes

Here is a curio that Mountain Junior discovered because of his fascination with 19th century horror stories.  The book, "Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things," was published in 1904 by Lafcadio Hearn and recounts 17 spooktacular stories from the Asian culture. 

The film, which won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1965, uses four of the best tales:  "Black Hair," about a poor samurai who divorces his true love in order to marry for money; "The Woman in the Snow," about a wood-cutter whose life is spared by an icy spirit; "Hoichi the Earless," about a blind musician who sings for the dead and "In a Cup of Tea," about a man haunted by a vision in a tea-cup.

The film is a bit stagey looking, but the color and set design are very good.   The stories, being drawn from another culture, offer something new for an American audience running thin on horror ideas.


Wreck-It Ralph
2012 - Rich Moore
PG / 108 minutes

The animated film that should have won the Oscar this year in a weak year for feature length animation, "Wreck-It Ralph" takes place inside certain video games within an old-school video arcade.  (God, I miss old school video arcades.) 

The set-up is pretty standard stuff.  Ralph is a ham-fisted "bad guy" who wrecks things in his game only to have the hero, "Fix-It Felix," come on to save the day.  Ralph wishes he could win just once, but that's impossible in his game.

Ralph runs away from his game to find a chance at glory in another game, leading to the complications that could threaten the entire arcade.  Neatly, the film goes from relying on a pixilated 80's type nostalgia which begins to wear thin to a better than average payoff.

Brave
2012 - Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell
PG / 93 minutes

The animated film that did win the Oscar this year is okay if you like the standard Disney princess who's fed up with her lot in life.  This one takes place in Scotland, so there's a lot of quarrelsome Scots in kilts.  There's a witch and a wish and a curse that needs undone, but it's pretty standard fare. 

Now, the LOOK of the film is just eye-popping.  There was so much detail (There's an awesomely done horse in this pic but with nowhere near the humor of the horse from "Tangled.") that the animated movie almost looked too real sometimes...  Which is an achievement, but an achievement that had me stepping back from the world of the story to look at the pretty details.  It did not feel right to me.

When you get animation that is too "good" you have to stop and appreciate the old Disney films or the films of Studio Ghibli.  Still, the movie's decent for the kids.

Argo
2012 - Ben Affleck
R / 120 minutes

Based on the strange but true story of a U.S. / Canadian plan to get six American diplomats out of Tehran during the Iranian uprising in 1980, this triple-Oscar-winner is an engrossing action picture.  Best Picture?  Not on my watch, but it is a fine film nonetheless.  

The film gained Oscar steam, I surmise, because it made Hollywood look so good.  The plot was that a CIA "Moses" would go into Tehran under a Canadian passport and come out - right through the airport and right under the noses of the Iranian authorities - with the Americans who would pose as his production crew for "Argo," a fictitious sci-fi movie.

In order for it to work, the CIA actually had to secretly enlist Hollywood's aid to actually launch the production of the film.  They had to have a script and a cast.  They had to begin production design and they had to create buzz about the movie in industry publications.  The production company had to have offices that could receive calls all so the cover story would hold up under a foreign government's scrutiny.

It was a hair-brained idea, for sure.  That they actually pulled it off is just ridiculous.  I would rather point you in the direction of smaller films that escaped your notice, but sometimes - and today's a good example - half my basket is full of A-Titles that really are worth your while.


Skyfall
2012 - Sam Mendes
PG-13 / 143 minutes

I got ready for the latest (possibly best) of the James Bond films by going back to the beginning, with 1962's "Dr. No."  While this film is a modern day bang-up job of an action picture, today's bond girls cannot compare to Ursula Andress as Honey Rider.  Neither can today's iteration match the camp of some of the early efforts.  But "Skyfall" does inject new life into the Bond cannon and I recommend it especially if you are not a fan of Bond films.

The film opens with a breathless chase where Bond is trying to stop the theft of information that would expose MI6 agents world-wide.  But the aging Bond (Daniel Craig) fails and operatives around the world are imperiled while the agency comes under attack at home. 

A mysterious villain (Silva, played by Javier Bardem) has got the agency on the run and only Bond, working in the shadows, can rectify the situation.  To me, it is the best Bond film to date.


Promethius
2012 - Ridley Scott
R / 124 minutes

A team of archaeologists discover a clue to the origins of human life on Earth, leading to an expedition into deep space where the big questions are supposed to get answered.

The crew of the Promethius encounters the race of giants who may have begun life on Earth but they also encounter an "Alien" life form on that distant moon that could destroy both races.

An exciting and well done prequel to the Alien trilogy that director Ridley Scott began in 1979, it bodes well for at least one more quality sci-fi adventure to come.


Hubris: Selling the Iraq War
2013 - TV Documentary
44 minutes

Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, it has been of particular interest to The Mountain that the neo-conservative progenitors of said deception have been blathering all over the teevee touting their "War of Liberation."

Rachel Maddow hosts this important TV-doc to set the record straight.  The war introduced the idea of "pre-emtive war," a horrible Bush II doctrine that has now been exposed as a thin cover for war-mongers.  Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Condi and Dubya can go on the talk shows all they want, but "Hubris" - based on the book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn - reminds that these villains lied our country into war.

From the whole weapons of mass destruction to the shocking and deceitful "mushroom cloud" comment to the sorry pimping of Colin Powell on the world stage at the U.N., "Hubris" reminds us that animals like Dick Cheney never leave power.  People like that always stay around, always scheming, always looking for profit at the levers of power.
 
Their kind are the worst kind of criminals in our world.  "Hubris" reminds us to beware when dealing with that kind of concentrated evil.  You can watch the whole documentary right here.

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HOUSEKEEPING:  In my next post I'll be featuring a story on a brilliant young artist who lives here on the mountain named Joshua Wilson.  He's got a new website up and will be putting some pieces on display at a gallery over in DuBois, Pa. soon.  We'll have all those details coming right up.

FUNDRAISER: Over here in Philipsburg, I want to let you all know we're holding a Wisecrackers Comedy Club at the Philipsburg VFW on Front Street on Friday, April 19 and you can contact the mountain in person if you'd like to buy tickets in advance.  We aim to sell the thing out to support our local soccer community here.  The show will feature two full sets by two great comedians and a dance will follow.

Now, I've tried to get a number of my good friends, "Serious Jones" and "Brand New Wings," to play the dance which follows, but they've got conflicts.  So, in case I can't find a band, I'll be DJing the thing.  You should know that I'll probably be setting up a blue-tooth system where I'll be picking music right out of the cell-phones in your pocket (if you've got your stuff set to share) but I've also got a mammoth collection of music.  ALSO also, you should know that I have long been associated with very good original theater productions and I'll be lighting this dance floor like nobody's business with my personal lighting equipment.  I just hope the VFW has heavy enough breakers to handle the light I'll be throwing.  We shall see. 

In any case, have a look at the benefit flyer and please come out to see us on April 19.  The tickets are by advance sale only, so follow the directions on the flyer, okay?  Thanks.

Shawn Inlow
Osceola Mills, Pa.