Avuncular American

Slam Ram Extraordinaire - The Wrestler

Somewhere back in the late Eighties and early Nineties, around the time of Saddam Hussein's transformation from "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to plain old bad guy, the "professional wrestling" world liked to use guys dressed up as Arabs as foils for the all-American good guys like "Hulk Hogan" and "Sergeant Slaughter."  After Desert Storm and Saddam's blustering about "the mother of all battles," how could an obvious loser like mustachioed "General Adnan" possibly beat the guy swathed in the Stars and Stripes?

In Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, the arch baddie is "The Ayatollah," presumably an Iranian, but in the world of CZW (Combat Zone Wrestling - "ultraviolent professional wrestling") these geopolitical niceties are for sissies.  And Randy "The Ram" Robinson is the peroxide-tressed American Hero ("USA! USA!" chant the fans) who will fight that momma of all career battles.

Therein any resemblance to Rocky ends.

As readers of these pages know, I don't normally comment on Hollywood films, figuring that there are more than enough people in the blogosphere who will beat me to it.  My cinematic territory is usually South of the Med and east of the Oder-Neisse, places where I can milk maximum socio-political content from the oodles of international films that screen in Brussels.

And socio-political content there is a-plenty in The Wrestler, which, despite its title, isn't "only" a wrestling film.  Plus I think that Mickey Rourke - whose work I really never knew before this film - probably deserves the Oscar for Best Actor after his amazingly nuanced (yes) performance in the title role.  Fellow Brussels blogger/editor/writer James Drew, in his annual "Picturenose" Oscar picks, has Frank Langella getting the statue for his role as a jowly president, but maybe James hasn't seen Mickey Rourke (Update: he has!).  That said, I myself have yet to see Frost/Nixon, not to speak of Slumdog Millionaire and a bunch of other contenders.

Rourke has been making the rounds of European TV and print journalists in conjunction with The Wrestler's release this month, and the trailer has created a certain anticipation for what many see as the performance of a lifetime.  Again, not knowing Rourke's previous work, I can't speak to his evolution, but it's clear that his personal story of failure and (possible) redemption is compelling.  But there's no doubt in my mind that his performance is truly worthy of his Golden Globe, his Bafta, and beyond.

Now back to my socio-political stuff.  Well, there is that Ayatollah, and it's a nice little touch to give "The Ram" an Iranian-American doctor.  But mostly it's about the great insight into the underside of America (apologies to the state of New Jersey, but the location shots bring back memories of Atlantic City in the winter rain and other childhood nightmares).  Brooklynite Marisa Tomei does a very credible "New Joysie" accent, and is perfect in her role as a single mom who befriends "The Ram."

You'll learn more about "pharmacists" in the locker room, the economics of trailer park leases (no cash, no key), and strip club etiquette (not a brothel, at least not technically) than many a learned tome can provide.  And in the America of 2009, with the ranks of the desperate increasing with every house repossession, how many will be forced to earn their bread in ways unheard of since Depression-era dance marathons?

Frankly, I had not seen a wrestling match since the early Nineties, when my father used to tape WWF "Summer Slam" extravaganzas for his grandchildren, starved of American "culture" by their parents' worldwide wandering in places bereft of TV.  It was good, clean (?) fun, with the bad guy (a favorite whipping boy was "I.R.S.," who used to appear in the ring with suit, tie, and briefcase before he got trounced by some patriotic tax refusenik) always clearly identifiable.

Now we know that you can't always spot the bad guy by what he wears, and that good guys can have, as they say, "issues."

WPA: Stimulation From Hard Work

Try as I might, I cannot find which Republican was interviewed on BBC World Service Radio the other day and who had the gall to complain about President Barack Obama scaring people.  It may have been Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, who has been speaking out of late, but I can't find the proper quote.  What I heard was a Republican praising Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself" line.

(Book cover from Adam Cohen's study of Roosevelt's first 100 days).

What some of Obama's critics do not want to admit is that Roosevelt took office four years into the Depression, after his Republican predecessor made things much worse after the 1929 Crash.  President Obama, inheriting George W. Bush's flailing attempts to deal with the series of financial crises of 2008, is trying to ward off a depression.  But I will admit that Obama does hope much better than fear - that's why he was elected.

Frankly, I don't know if the stimulus plan contains the necessary medicine.  If it's money for money's sake in the hope that enough of it sloshing around the economy will boost things, my impression is that it won't solve the problem alone.

I'd like to see more of what Mary Lynne Vellinga, writing in McClatchy, shows as the achievement of the "alphabet soup" of Depression-era programs (WPA, CCC) that actually put people to work and built things.  Roads, dams, parks, bridges - infrastructure that has served generations and is still standing.  Jim Boyd in TPM Cafe covers similar ground.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, all George W. Bush demanded of Americans was to go to the mall and spend money.  His legacy of profligacy will be with us for generations to come, so let's do something different this time.  Digging out (literally) from this existential threat to the capitalist system as we've known it will require a bit more than "spend, baby, spend."

Crisis: In the Beginning, There Were Homes

Bankruptcy should always be a last resort in our legal system.  If someone does not pay his or her debts the rest of society ends up paying them.

President George W. Bush, 20 April 2005, signing the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act

The worldwide financial, economic, political crisis - "la Crise" as it's know in these parts - had its origin you know where: in the United States.  George W. Bush's ignominious departure from the scene makes it more difficult for foreigners to assign blame - the White House being under new management and not responsible for the mess - but foreign leaders know that the crime scene is squarely on U.S. soil.

I say this because even the charmed Barack Obama, who starts his Presidency with an immense reserve of international good will, gets reminded with regularity that American solutions cannot include American protectionism.  Obama has taken notice.

Domestically, cognitive dissonance among Republican politicians - the malady where those most responsible for creating the mess try to transfer blame onto the new Democratic President - runs rampant.  Presidential post-partisanship doesn't yet show any signs of paying off.

Perhaps tomorrow (we're told that the Treasury Secretary's unveiling has been postponed) we'll learn more about the one item missing so far from all the bailouts: help for homeowners (how about former homeowners?), or should I say mortgage payers (or non-payers?).

Paul Reyes ("Bleak Houses: Digging Through the Ruins of the Mortgage Crisis") wrote about it in the October 2008 Harper's.  No other eyewitness account gets quite as close to the desperation as Reyes', but last weekend in the New York Times, Damien Cave gave us an update from the same mortgage ground zero "In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures."  He quotes Randy Burns, a local store owner:

“Until there’s jobs and foreclosures stop,” he said, “nothing’s going to change.

Jobs are presumably a large part of the fiscal stimulus bill having such trouble with those righteous Republicans, who don't see the connection between spending and jobs.  But foreclosures, repossessions, evictions, homelessness... What's being done about that?

George Packer in The New Yorker has a short video report from the same area.

As Damien Cave puts it: "Welcome to the American dream in high reverse."  Housing, sorry, homes - that's what used to set things apart in the United States, including for people new to its shores.  Sure, they might have been thrown up in days, made out of wood and gotten thrown around in tornadoes and hurricanes, but they were home.  And they made life decent for people who were trying to make the most of limited incomes.

But the same selfish attitude apparent in Bush's "Bankruptcy Abuse" act - making it harder for people at the low end of the scale - drove Republican responses to the emerging Sub prime Crisis in the latter Bush years.  Here's my question: what would it have taken, early on, to solve the mortgage crisis? A trillion dollars, at most?  Scary figure, but today Bloomberg puts the figure for government commitments (Treasury Department, FDIC, Federal Reserve) at "$9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages."

Back in the old Sub prime days, it was mostly just people at the bottom end of the scale who were getting thrown out of their homes.  Now, as The Economist put it last week, it's "Move over, subprime: Decay is spreading to the upper floors of America's mortgage market."

So, my question: when will the trillions in commitments, guarantees, pledges, TARPs and TALFs make their way down to those who are most in need?  We know that nasty fund managers have been spreading bonus money to their favorites from bailout bucks, but how many families have been kept in their homes thanks to one of these programs?  Anyone?

Mr. Geithner, we await your presentation.  Meanwhile, maybe the US Government should partner with Habitat for Humanity to get some of Paul Reyes' Bleak Houses habitable again.

O' Horten

No Irish man or woman in my circle is an O' Horten.  But my circle doesn't include the Arctic Circle, which is the domain of this particular O' Horten.  Odd (a perfectly normal name for a Norwegian) Horten is a train driver for NSB, the national Norwegian rail line, which appears to have some pretty spectacular scenery on offer for both drivers and passengers.

In this spare, droll, quirky film (Bent Hamer doesn't make them any other way), there's not a whole lot of this scenery on offer, save for some snowy stock footage of trains seen from the air, and locomotives wending through Norway's hundreds of tunnels.  The action, such as it is, mostly takes place in urban settings and interiors; Horten himself lives along the railroad tracks.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a film for trainspotters, though I'd say that nostalgic Märklin HO-gauge enthusiasts will enjoy a scene where Horten's fellow train drivers play a sort of audio Trivial Train Pursuit with reel-to-reel recordings of classic train sounds.   Veteran Norwegian actor Bård Owe, apparently the scion of an acting family, plays Horten to phlegmatic perfection.

No, despite the train theme, O'Horten is more concerned with human interaction, the vagaries of meetings that occur in places familiar and not.  Odd Horten, facing retirement after decades of loyal, though possibly uneventful, service, starts to see the possibilities.  His routine, no longer tied to intercity schedules, opens up to worlds previously unknown - often on his very doorstep.

But you won't strain your eyes reading dense subtitles; the dialogue is true-to-character - spartan.  Since large portions of the film take place in the wee hours of the morning, there isn't a whole lot of scope for talky encounters.

Warning: if you discount the presence of one 6 year-old boy, the average age of the people with speaking parts is closer to 65.  But this isn't an "old folks" film either.  It's just that Bent Hamer appears fascinated with the life of Norwegian "codger bachelors," as the New York Times' Elvis Mitchell said of his 2003 film "Kitchen Stories."

I have yet to see "Kitchen Stories."  But I did see Bent Hamer's English-language "Factotum" a couple of years ago and liked it a lot.  Check the Norwegian Film Institute's (NFI) page on the director, and his long list of international awards.  Norwegian group Kaada provides the fitting soundtrack.

Though here in Belgium they wisely kept Hamer's original title, the French distributor appears to have slapped on the title, "Nouvelle vie de Monsieur Horten," almost guaranteeing apathetic yawns among the uninitiated.  But those who appreciate their humor understated will find plenty to smile at in this gem.

Horten, Norway is "the place to be," says the town's website visithorten.com.  But if you can only get to the cinema - O'Horten is set to be released in the UK and the US later this spring - this film is the way to get a little picture of lives on the working class fringe of this very wealthy country.

O'Horten-Horton, Loftus-Lofthus - there's been a certain influence of the Vikings on the Irish, and vice versa.  Like "Waking Ned Devine," the Irish hit from a decade ago, "old" can be very, very good.  This film is a treat, and confirms my belief - not that I needed to - in "small," low-budget films.

Be sure to stay for the closing credits - especially Bent Hamer's dedication.

American Health: Harry and Louise, Tom and...?

In the aftermath of the Tom Daschle debacle this week, there was one piece of very good news for those who are appalled by the American health care situation: President Obama's signing of the S-CHIP bill extending health care to children from low-income families.  The feel-good effect for politicians lasted perhaps one day, when bickering over the stalled stimulus bill inspired a righteous President to unleash his wrath, like Moses smiting the sinners.

At least the effect for the now-insured children will be lasting.  I agree with the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) that the U.S. needs a single-payer program, like other developed countries.  But at least S-CHIP is a chink in the edifice of opposition to what is a sensible, cost-effective solution.  There is no reason that the United States should pay way more than any other country and get sub-standard health care in return.

Now that Daschle is out of the picture, the speculation is on who might fill his shoes as Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee.  John Nichols at The Nation, no fan of Daschle, reminds us that former Governor Howard Dean is a doctor, and has some considerable political attributes as well, like his organizational abilities.  Nichols also mentions Congressman Jim McDermott, another doctor (psychiatrist, actually) who has a great resume that includes military and Foreign Service experience.

The main thing is getting a man or woman at HHS who can communicate the crying need for a fix to America's health care situation.  Where elderly people, despite Medicare, must impoverish themselves in exchange for a modicum of care.  And where countless billions are spent, needlessly, prolonging the suffering of those in the last weeks of life.

But beware of the backlash.  "Harry and Louise," the media mercenaries who helped sink Hillary and Bill Clinton's attempt to fix American health care in the early '90s, are still around.  So if not Tom, then Jim or Howard or whoever gets the HHS portfolio will have to deal with the big big bucks which oppose a health care insurance plan that makes sense.  Because making sense for America does not translate to making money for the insurance lobby.

30 Roman Candles: Iran 1979 - 2009

Just to save you from having to Google "Roman candle," here is Webster's definition: firework consisting of a tube that sends out a shower of sparks and a succession of balls of fire...

Rather a fitting metaphor for a 30th Islamic Revolution anniversary launch of its Omid satellite, no?

1979: the end of the reign of the Shah, who blew out no more birthday candles in his homeland.

It was the year where U.S. support of the Shah led to the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran.  The start of 30 years of mutual recrimination, leading to fraught interaction with political Islam, from Algeria to Afghanistan.

1979 was my first year in the US Foreign Service.  One of my classmates in a consular training course became one of the hostages in Tehran, and later I studied Arabic with people who had been spirited out of Iran by a courageous Canadian Embassy.

The Financial Times has put together a nice interactive timeline of 30 years of Iranian-American relations, and the Middle East Institute has gathered 53 experts and academics to comment on the Revolution at 30.

Okay, so what's next?  Stanford's Abbas Milani, writing in the Boston Review ("Common Cause: Real Help for Iranian Democrats"), thinks that

Citizen diplomacy and solidarity must become a pillar of a new American policy in Iran. Regular civic contacts—inviting Iranian artists, musicians, filmmakers, scholars, and human rights activists to the United States—would be the natural first step. Sports exchanges, for which there are some precedents, and visits by tourists and business groups to Iran and the United States, can help create an atmosphere of mutual trust, a necessary prelude to the success of both citizen and state support for democracy in Iran.

We might have an early manifestation of such "citizen diplomacy" this very week.  Blogger Charles J. Brown in "Undiplomatic" spotted a State Department press release about the visit of

a delegation of 12 Americans, including eight female athletes, coaches, and managers representing USA Badminton, to Tehran, Iran, from February 3-9th.

Rather intriguing, I'd say, especially given all the speculation about "change" coming to US-Iranian relations, after the Bush Administration opened the door in its final days to allowing the US-based American Iranian Council (AIC) to establish an office in Tehran.

Admittedly, badminton teams and an AIC office do not a new policy make.  But amidst Israeli saber rattling, Iranian missile launching, and assorted predictions of war, these are hopeful little signs.

Watch for an Obama Administration decision on the establishment of an American diplomatic or consular office, which Bush considered and then put off for the new President's in box.

Update:  Bad news on the "soft power" front: News flash from the BBC: "The British Council says it has suspended all operations in Tehran after staff members were intimidated by the Iranian authorities. The council, which promotes cultural and educational ties, says pressure has been growing over its activities."   The orders came from the office of Iran's President, and there are indications that Iran's ultra-conservatives were increasingly worried about the effectiveness of the British Council's work.

As Abbas Milani says of efforts to engage with Iran, nothing is easy: "Only the wisdom and humanity of concerned and informed citizens, combined with a new prudence in American policy, can navigate the treacherous waters ahead."

Update II: Abbas Milani was so right.  As I was writing this post, the Iranians turned down the badminton team's visa application: " "The issuing of visa (sic) is a time-consuming procedure," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.  As The Hegemonist said in his comment: "I can't believe the news that the Iranians botched the badminton and launched a satellite during Obama's first two weeks in office. It's beginning to look like they want to stay on America's bad side."  To paraphrase the Iranian spokesman, "The normalization of relation is a time-consuming procedure."  Decades-long.

(Photo of Iranian flag - MediationChannel.com)

Candles, Candlemas, and Saint Blaise

If on Candlemas day it be shower and rain
Winter's gone and will not come again.

English traditional proverb

The above is from Wilson's Almanac, which appears to be a zany Australian's way of pulling together minutiae about every feast, commemoration, or anniversary on any given day.  There's a whole lot more there on Candlemas and Ground Hog Day.

Last year on February 2nd I wrote a post on the same subject, and the links are probably still good.

In Brussels on this Candlemas Day (known as Chandeleur in French-speaking countries), it be snow and cold, so I'm not sure what that means for winter.  But we did have the traditional crepes, so I'm not complaining.

My "clip art" file on this computer's Word suite only has a drawing of a Kinara for candles, but that's close enough.  I had to look up Kinara on Wikipedia - now I know.

Since we're on matters of religion and the calendar, you might want to know that tomorrow 3 February is Saint Blaise Day.  As a little Catholic in the States attending parochial school, the nuns were always sure to have our throats blessed to prevent choking from fish bones.  As good little Catholics, we were certain to ingest fish every Friday, since eating meat was forbidden.

Happy Candlemas, and be sure to chew your fish well if you haven't gotten Saint Blaise's blessing with candles crossed on your throat.  And don't light the candles.

Can Europe Emulate the U.S. "Tech President?"

The Washington-based Center for American Progress (CAP) and Stockholm's Prime PR teamed up to present their report (photo) on "The First Tech President" in Brussels last Thursday.  It gathered a good mix of Brussels' growing community of European Union types: communication consultants, bloggers, journalists, and of course EU Commission and other functionaries.  On his return to the States, CAP Senior VP Andrew Sherry mentioned it in his own blog, (r)evolution.

The question at hand: can we do this too?  "This" being President Barack Obama's spectacular harnessing of support (monetary to be sure, but equally important, the creation of a vibrant network of people) through innovative use of new technologies.  Europe's national political parties, and their equivalent groups in the European Parliament, are studying the Obama case for clues on this vital new democratization tool.

Howard Dean may have been the First Tech Candidate, but Barack Obama probably does deserve the title of First Tech President (check out the Personal Democracy Forum for their excellent techPresident site).  As Europe does not yet have its own president, it's up to the only popularly-elected European officials - Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) - to take notes from the Obama book.

Vice President of the European Commission, former Swedish minister Margot Wallström, addressed the group and put her finger on a key difference between US and European political campaigns:

First: money. This is the key to success in any US election campaign, whether Presidential or Congressional. Congress men and women wanting to be re-elected have to spend a great deal of time traveling the length and breadth of the country to attend fund-raising events.

Presidential candidates tend to get large slices of their campaign funds from major donors, especially from big business and wealthy individuals. President Bush, for example, was famously supported by the oil industry. And of course they want something in return.

What's interesting about Barack Obama in this respect is that he raised most of his finance not from a few big donations but from millions of small ones, via the Internet. This makes him much more independent, which I think is an excellent thing for America – and the world!

Fortunately for European democracy, success in our elections has a lot less to do with the wealth of the candidates. But on both sides of the Atlantic, success greatly depends on how you come across on TV and in the press.

Wallström's EU portfolio includes Communication, and her stress is on the non-tech side of the word: emulate Obama for his engagement with the citizenry.  Serious Europhiles always point out the struggle to communicate the message and meaning of the European Union to their publics, and as Wallström herself says, guaranteeing a half century of peace and prosperity on a continent that previously knew war and privation is the essential EU "message."  But it is not as sound-bitey as "Change" or "Yes We Can."

I for one would not wish the "permanent campaign" aspect of American politics on Europe.  As it stands, the typical EU Parliament campaign kicks off a mere 5 weeks before election day.  Compare that to the US, where Presidential campaigning starts almost two years before elections, and where, just to get re-elected to a two-year seat in the House of Representatives, members of Congress have to raise tens of thousands of dollars per week during each term for their campaign expenses.  Where's the time for legislating?

So we don't want Europe to emulate gargantuan American campaign spending, where the 2008 elections probably cost in excess of $5 billion.  We can argue over whether this is a "value for money" proposition, and I am no one to complain about the way these elections turned out.  But just like the American health care system situation that results in mucho SiCKO citizens at the world's highest cost, I am not convinced that the US needs to outspend the world, and take two years to do what others do in five weeks, in the electoral realm.

I'm a participant in, in my own little blogging way, Obama's techification - and democratization - of politics.  But I'll give the last word to Ms. Wallström:

Whether online or face to face, whether in the old media or the new, both in the EU and the US, what democracy needs is a real conversation, in plain language, between the people and the politicians. A conversation that shapes policy. Politics from the bottom up rather than top down.

That's the kind of democracy I believe in. And so does Barack Obama.

Amen.