Author Archives: michaelulinedwards

ANNOYED

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ELIHU ROOT – Philip C. Jessup, Dodd Meade, 1938

This biography (two volumes; 1050 pages) should not have been published. Elihu Root was an eminent New York City lawyer, an excellent Secretary of War, a fabulous Secretary of State (under Theodore Roosevelt) and a Senator from New York.

The writer did not know how to write this story; the organization is sloppy. When Root was appointed Secretary of War (President McKinley), the author spends ten (10) pages on the appointment and wraps up with paragraphs about people who did not want Root to accept the appointment. Note there is no background or telling of the affect on Root: What was the effect on his law practice? Just get up and go and leave clients to their own devices? What was the effect on his family – what did they think? What was the effect on local government government matters he was working on when Root went to Washington? None of these questions are explained.

For his personal life and his law business [which Root loved, liked or had grown tired of], the book provides insignificant background: By example a local matter describes competing transit companies in New York City, but did does not explain the transit market, competitive forces and the personalities being affected by the sage lawyer.

There is more to writing a biography than stringing together quotes from letters, some of which cover a page and a few go a few pages. This biography puts Root in the middle of a crisis or a situation, and based upon that placement of Root the reader is supposed to understand the crisis or the situation. When the Spanish left Cuba (1898), there was no sanitation, an illiterate population (96 percent), no institutions, no education, no law enforcement and no economy. There was the church. Note as Secretary of War Root was in charge of Cuba reconstruction because the U.S. Army was the agency capable of performing. According to this biographer the Cuba situation, circumstances and crisis were handled by exchanges of letters, actions and decisions made by Root, Theodore Roosevelt in Washington D.C. and Leonard Wood in Cuba.

I don’t know what the U.S. Army was doing in Cuba or why. In lieu of reading more about those Washington D.C. actions for 100 pages, I stopped reading at page 320. The remainder of the biography would get no better.

two pages.

WORDS, AND THERE ARE WORDS

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Blood, anyone? If Americans are lucky, they will observe DONALD bleed, losing his political life based upon common decency. Has it ever been appropriate to say, infer, suggest that DONALD did? NO.

Any loud-mouth politician of the nineteenth century would never refer to women of his day in this way. Twentieth century politicians avoided it. Twenty-first century politicians – there were clowns from the Republican Party a guy from Missouri who became an expert on pregnancy after rape, and an Indiana senate candidate stepping in a similar pit during the same election: Both lost. Now there is DONALD who purports to support women’s issues and health but likes to criticize women for their overall wavering emotional state, as though they are vampire slaves submissive to male overseers and masters. DONALD has read too many undead fantasy stories and seen too many movies with overly made-up actors.

That slice of culture does not allow DONALD to cast aside civil and social norms and rules of propriety that Americans have followed and accepted for centuries. DONALD’s locker room giggles, boardroom chuckles and men’s club guffaws are exceptions, but every male in those settings recognizes and knows the rules. Outside limited settings society’s rules and norms must be always observed.

DONALD’s debate was predicated by DONALD saying he was not a debater. This debate was a joint press-conference, not a debate. Yet, DONALD told the world, I am not preparing, I’ve never debated, I don’t need to prepare because I’m Donald, I’m as dumb as dirt, I am unprepared. Apparently, DONALD has never had a press conference. Unprepared is not the sort of person to become President.

Because he was unprepared for a joint-press conference, DONALD claims the questions were unexpected and unfair. Actually DONALD was too lazy to study, and to agitated to sit down and to self-assured to rehearse responses. DONALD had campaign support which he did not use. The message that he was not a debater was all right, but the message has became and is now DONALD WAS UNPREPARED.

So how did DONALD respond? The only way DONALD knew. Produce locker room giggles, boardroom chuckles and men’s club guffaws, all in a nation wide social setting. Where are society’s rules and norms? They should never come from DONALD whom no one should ever want as President.

Everyone in America has changed language used to describe one another. The last big outburst was in the early 1970s when language flowed freely, especially in the media. Words and terms American grew up with are justly and properly disused and locked away. The result comes not from political correctness. It comes from common decency, politeness and civility.

[Political correctness may be demonstrated by a list of words which should not be used to describe Hilary Clinton. It came from her campaign in the Spring of 2015. Polarizing was one such word. I don’t know what happened to that list, but any child of the Sixties knows what polarizing means, and that Hilary fits the definition.]

An inability to control’s one’s use of language and using those terms in speech or in emotional outbursts reveals a lack of intellectual rigor, an unceasing spontaneity of a mind spiraling out of control and a terminal ego. These are the physical and mental revelations of DONALD who should not be rewarded with any more attention from any American.

COSMOPOLITEAN ADULTERY

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Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution

This it not a book to read all at once. Of the first 75 pages there are passages of brilliance, but discussing the nits, grits and specificities of Russian politics before World War One and during that war, Trotsky is vague, general and cliched. They are revolutionary cliches:

“The semi-annulment of serfdom and the introduction of universal military service had modernized the army only as far it is had the country – that is, it introduced into the army all the contradictions proper to a nature which still had its bourgeois revolution to accomplish.”(p. 17)

That sentence, so full of promise, is meaningless. It is followed by general omissions found in many armies – from the officer’s corp to supply to training. It should be observed the Soviet armies were as ill-equipped and misled at the beginning of World War Two as the Tsar’s armies in World War One. Trotsky’s gross generalization lacks any foundation in history, except it states the obvious: Armies are usually under supplied whether the country has had a bourgeois revolution or not.

This cliche is mean to tell readers, familiar with Trotsky, exactly what Trotsky means, but apparently no one else. Those understanding readers will accept his historical fallacies because Trotsky can always say, “I was in a real revolution.”

Such cliches aside, Trotsky has used words and derived terms which should go into the language today. Cosmopolitan Adultery referred to pre-World War One royalty and nobility, their relations and activities, not always undercover. TODAY, there are numerous individuals in entertainment, elsewhere and wherever in America and around the world to whom this term may be applied. Use it!

Meanwhile, I’ll read further in this history, but not all at once.

FRIENDS WITH MONEY

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Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack and Jennifer Aniston

I just saw this buddy picture, chick-flick from 2006. Everyone lives in Santa Monica, California. There is no sense of the community. None of the women do yoga. Everyone is married but Anniston, but I have no sense of anyone being married except in the most blasé way. Each marriage is like it came from a book. DAY 1. Here’s what you do. Day 2: Here’s what you do again.

Everyone wants Anniston to get a boyfriend. Scott Caen shows up, and the way he pleads for a second date (because there is nothing going on between them) suggests he need this movie role to advance his movie career. Incidentally, Caen is the most interesting character, McDormand much less so.

Anniston cleans houses for a living. She is so senseless that she takes puppy-dog Caen along to watch her work, and sometime later he helps her clean. They enter the house of an unemployed bachelor; nobody is a home. Caen says, “Let’s f%*!”  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Aniston whines as she wonders what to clean first. If Scott Caen devotes all this time to Aniston,  maybe he’ll get the girl. A friend asks her, “How’s the sex?” “It’s fine.” The viewer should never know it because the togetherness time for most of the movie the two are detached. Perhaps Caen and Aniston have coodies.

Conversations and concerns of all the characters never go beyond what anyone talked about in Junior High School. The viewer goes through a teenage morass as characters talk significant complaints and activities. Is the husband of McDormand gay? He meets a man who is married and strikes up a friendship anew. Sounds suspiciously gay, but the film doesn’t show much that friendship and whether the men are straight, gay, bi or trans. Perhaps the basis of the friendship is that both men consider the other gay. Scott Caen has sex (in the bed of another house-to-clean client) with Aniston. That evening Caen dates another woman. Heartbreak. An adult situation. No confrontation but Caen is a bad, mean man. (At least he has done something to get out of this movie!) Keener and hubby are writers, the most improbable writing team. They disagree, not about writing but something juvenile: Her ass is getting big; he has bad breath. They separate, an adult decision based upon insults. This movie is proof that Catherine Keener should never go west of Broadway, New York City to pursue her movie career.

Aniston finds a slovenly guy, who reveals he is rich. He doesn’t like to tell people he is wealthy because he has issues. Aniston admits she has issues. However all issues will be happily resolved because he has the money she will spend to redecorate his house.

CAMPUS WARS – Kenneth J. Heineman

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This excellent history tells of students protests, anti-war activities and divisive politics from 1963-1972 at four large public universities: Michigan State, Kent State, State University of New York at Buffalo and Penn State. The story of each institution during the Sixties is told effectively and efficiently. The book could be longer; it could be much longer. The stories at those Universities become mingled with references to events at other universities as issues become national. (Kent State killings. What was said to the family of Allison Krause after her death was as deplorable then as it is today.)

The author, Heineman, dismisses the image that anti-war protests and riots in Berkeley and on the East Coast were the most significant demonstrations against the Vietnam War. The big-named University palaces were safeguarded against the very violent tendencies and emotions at Mid-West universities, the cauldron for anti-war protests. Heineman points out further that Kent State had and resolved an issue of Free Speech in 1963 in discussions with an enlightened university administration which had read the Constitution. That was a year before Berkeley’s Free Speech movement confronted an entrenched, implacable adminstration. Heineman points out also that Kent State held the first Vietnam war symposium (teach-in) in 1964, again a year before one was held in Berkeley.

Heineman notes efforts of the FBI to get a handle on the anti-war, draft resisting protests. There was no informer, no grand conspirator and no agent provocateur leading students at the Universities onto violent paths. Instead, law enforcement would supply drugs and next arrest the possessor with drug possession. Law enforcement would interfere with banking and would make sure telephone bills were paid on time: Late: no telephone service. Late in the Sixties and early Seventies, the FBI purportedly put agents in the field posing as students. And who knew: Bill Ayers was treated carefully because his family was very wealthy.

THE COMING WAR WITH JAPAN

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George Friedman and Meredith LeBard

This book came into my possession in late April at a bag sale at a library book sale. So it cost a dime or perhaps eight cents. It was new and unread. It has a naval ship on the cover that looks of World War Two vintage. I was overjoyed. A book written in the 1930s about the American War with Japan. In a red banner across the top of the cover read in white letters: The #1 Bestseller in Japan. Wow, I was truly amazed at my luck. A book about World War Two written before that war and read by both sides.

NOPE. The book was published in 1993. The Coming War between Japan and the United States will have to wait, forever. What can be said about the hackers, George Friedman and Meredith LeBard. Like Richard Nixon, they’re selling used cars. Would you buy a used War from these tricks? Don’t bother buying a used book. On Amazon there are a few hundred at a penny a piece. These authors are emblematic of the 1990s – speculative, fantasy laced makers of drug ridden nightmares, and liars: “I did not have sex with that woman…” If Monica is coming back because she needs to be paid again, bringing back The Coming War is justified.

Note the book’s comments on the back:

Tight logic, superb research, clear writing. Friedman& LeBard don’t bask in the warmth this side of the cold war; they look ahead to the chilling possibilities that can follow [including Martian invasions and galactic explosions]. Lt. General Anthony Lukeman,, Executive Director, Marine Corp Association.

“…demonstrates with surprising thoroughness why their interests with diverge more and more…the underlying analysis of why Japan and America will change from their current partnership to more and more open rivalry may well seem prescient [for people who are maxed out on drugs]. James Fallows, The New York Review of Books.

“Friedman & LeBard make a persuasive case for the startling proposition that the U.S. and Japan are on a collision course leading to war within a generation. In an exegesis all the more chilling for its understated scholarship and wide angle perspectives, they predict an honest to goodness shootout…A thoughtful and thought-provoking what-if audit of the price of domination.” Kirkus Reviews. As always Kirkus says the most and says nothing. Kirkus Reviews uses big words – exegesis. What is a “what-if” audit. What-if the Yellowstone volcano erupted? Kirkus would be toast.

While President Bush prepares his series of high-flown speeches on the new world order…his advisers are reading a more down to earth analysis on the chances for world peace…The Coming War With Japan…” Peter Stothard, The Times of London. I know that President Bush was more low-down with the Japanese. Didn’t he toss his cookies into the lap of the Japanese President?

“…one of the most thorough and systematic analyses in recent years of the diverging interests of these two Pacific Basic superpowers. Peter Wiley, San Francisco Chronicle. This may be the most intelligent sentence the Chronicle has ever printed.

In one impressively researched section, they detail the ways in which the air, sea and land forces of Japan have been shrewdly and carefully built up, exploiting ambiguities in the country’s anti-war constitution. Christopher Hitchens, Newsday. Let’s hope Christopher Hitchens is correct.

There is a new book with the ominous title, The Coming War with Japan. It’s thesis is that Japan and the United States are victims today of the same historical forces that were at work in the 1930s and that another military clash is unavoidable. Lee Iaccoca, Chairman Chrysler Corporation, Los Angeles Times. In his imperious position at Chrysler, Iaccoca ignorantly misunderstands that totalitarian Japan of the 1930s differs greatly from the democracy there in 1990, and flourishing today.

Note the appalling quality of criticism. In this country criticism – this is wrong, that is correct – is not the point of the blurbs of any book. Instead the American public is delivered highfaluting, overstuffed phrases from names who likely have not read the book. Non-fiction criticism should be direct. It is not. It suffers from the same inept, poorly read, ignorance that is frequently found in the books themselves. Write a review, attach your name. Then, the next sloppy book by that set of reviewers will be favorably reviewed.

WRECKED

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NO RESCUE FOR THIS FILM. Adrian Brody. When this actor has good material to act in, he is excellent.

HOWEVER, Wrecked starts with Adrian in a car wreck in a forest. He does not leave the car for 30 minutes. There are two dead people in the car.

Adrian does not leave the vicinity of the car for 45 minutes (in an 83 minute movie). There are no scenes with other actors, just glimpses. He does not crawl uphill to the road, presumably where the car came from. He does nothing (except put a splint on his injured leg). He goes downhill to a stream, purported is befriended by a dog, has hallucinations which don’t appear much different from the rest of the forest film. At minute 75 he crawls to the road where he finds a dead person.

Supposedly Adrian has amnesia. Next comes a mountain lion which is satisfied by dragging the road kill (dead person) into the bushes. (Minute 80) The sunset looks nice (minute 81). Adrian is rescued by a passing motorist (minute 82). Perhaps that is a hallucination. The movie ends at minute 83.

AT MIDDLETON

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One reviewer said it briefly, “Wonderful movie not to be missed.” It is more complicated, but this movie about the past catching up with two adults is a must-see. Neither adult knows one another, but each has taken a child (son, daughter) to an entrance orientation at a liberal arts college. This movie is a romance.

The adults/parents (Andy and Vera) slowly get together and have their own college tour/orientation. Along the way, they steal bicycles to ride around, are chased by the cops, venture where they shouldn’t and end up in a drama class: Hints about their lives leave crumbs until they are required to act the roles of husband and wife in the class. Vera is unhappy and alone, in her live with her real husband. He is uncontented but resolved to plough through life with no satisfaction. As part of the role playing, he asked Vera (as he might ask his own wife), “When did you stop loving me?”

That line and sentiment may seem incredibly disjointed, but in this screenplay it works. Vera makes inferences about mistakes she made in her past: Misimpressions, bad advice, taking the wrong road, regrets and sulking and how to handle life’s miseries.

An overall point of this story presents a problem of time for the writer. When young couples fall in love, the whole experience seems automatic. When older, love is hardly automatic. Those systems seem or are forgotten. This scriptwriter knows this, and works on solutions to make the story go.

It seems that Andy and Vera should fall in love, tell the kids, and divorce their spouses. NO – too Hollywood. It is suggested they will see one another but that remains appropriately unclear. The issues of the day’s orientation for the kids work out more directly. Their parents meet other students and get shit-faced. The son and daughter must must drive each parent home (in opposite directions). It was a memorable day. The son asks Andy which way should I drive: “Take the long way.”

THE FALL – First Episode

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Northern Ireland BBC Production, Gillian Anderson

When I bought this worthwhile production, the clerk looked at the cover and said, “Scully.” I never got into the X-Files so I have never associated Anderson with that program. Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, and has made Great Britain her home.

In The Fall Anderson plays an experienced police investigator from somewhere who goes to Belfast, Northern Ireland to solve a string of murders. Everything appears authentic and quite British.

However, there are two scenes where Anderson is eating food. The first is a hamburger that looks like it came fresh from the stockyards of Chicago: Hey, I guess it’s easier to take the girl out of America rather than take America out of the girl, right Scully?

In the second scene Anderson eats a salad, the sort of condiment one finds in Beverly Hills, the Palisades, Melrose, Frisco and now in Belfast. British filmmakers are inventive. I didn’t see the full plate, so it may be a meat salad and the protein is haggis.

The remaining episodes of Part One of The Fall are engaging, but somewhat elongated. Season Two of five more episodes, not available in the United States, have been shot. To see the end one can either buy Season Two, $55.00 on Amazon for a Region 2 DVD, or preferably wait until it’s on cable, the internet or the DVDs cost $15.00.

RIDICULOUS

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DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLY

This is a BBC sequel to PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, except none of the actors appearing in the first production are in Death Comes. Those actors know that bad sequels should never be made.

There’s a murder at Pemberly and the bad buy of the series, Wickum, is guilty. The Duke is put in the awkward position of defending him. Events that transpire show that Wickum should be hanged, although not for this murder. His wife, Lydia (Lizzy’s sister), is a fitter looking woman with a sharper voice and more intelligence. In the end she adopts a very modern view of gossip, scandal and adultery.

The three-hour show ends with Lydia and Wickem going to America. Undoubtedly there will be further BBC productions: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, or HOW GONE WITH THE WIND SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN. In PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AMONG THE INDIANS Wickem is killed. Lydia becomes a hostage.

The point of all these BBC productions is any cliche will do.