In Defense of the Unborn

On a rare occasion, I’ll express a controversial political opinion, in this case, principled objection to abortion.  

Which is even more remarkable as I identify as a libertarian.  But the pro-life libertarian faction, though a minority of that already small clique of self-identified Libertarians, is by no means insubstantial.

To my knowledge I have never impregnated a woman such that she needed an abortion.  My two most substantial romantic & intimate relationships were with women past childbearing age.   Of the other women none of them became pregnant, much less aborted my child.

My position derives not from obedience to the Pope, any bishop or local Catholic priest or church, or anything directly related to the Big Guy Upstairs or his Very Cool Son.  It’s simply a conviction that terminating the life of an unborn child violates the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) and is immoral.

Libertarians cite the NAP, which means principled objection to any initiation of the use of force.   Use of force in self-defense or in retaliation for the initiation of force by another is justified.  Some may argue that an unwanted pregnancy not caused by the negligence or promiscuousness of the mother is itself an aggression and thus a violation of the principle.  But this confuses the aggressor – the father – with the child itself. 

The mother’s fault may vary from negligence all the way to rape victim, i.e. 50% to 0%.   But here’s the thing:  the unborn child is innocent of the circumstances of its conception.  The child is, by nature, 100% innocent, 0% at fault or guilty.  The only thing more unfair than forcing a woman to submit to 9 months of unwanted pregnancy and likewise the pain of childbirth is holding the child itself responsible by killing it.  

Then there’s the issue of harm.  These days, in civilized countries, the risks of pregnancy have been greatly reduced, though not to zero.  There will always be some risk of complications with a pregnancy.  But one person absolutely guaranteed to die as a result of an abortion is the child itself.  Moreover, I have siblings, and many others do.  If pregnancy and/or childbirth was “bad”, we would all be only children as our mothers would refuse to bear more than one child after experiencing the pain and inconvenience of the first pregnancy and birth.   

Another issue is that many couples want to have children but cannot.  That includes not merely gays and lesbians who are unsuitably equipped, but also plenty of straight but infertile couples.  Carrying the baby to term and offering it for adoption by childless couples strikes me as a far more appropriate answer to an unwanted pregnancy than abortion – in addition to being in the baby’s own best interests.  This also addresses the issue of an unwanted baby being raised in an unwanted household, by a single mother, or all sorts of other situations in unwanted pregnancies used to justify abortion instead of making some effort to find a suitable family for the child.  Again, the child itself is unquestionably innocent.

Whether to ban it or not is a more difficult question for me to answer.  Technically I consider it the murder of an innocent child.  “It’s my body,” may assert female pro-choicers, but that’s not completely accurate.  No other part of your body will emerge 9 months later as a human being.  An embryo or fetus is in a unique position as such.  Ideally, abortion should be illegal.  Sadly, women will insist on having them whether they’re legal or not.  But the fact that murder itself still occurs is not reason to allow people to do so legally.  And I can’t help concluding that terminating the life of an unborn child is murder. 

Decide amongst yourselves. 

US Civil War

I’ve already addressed the Russian Civil War (1918-22) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), and from this war, the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863).   But I suppose a blog on the entire war is appropriate.

Background & Beginning.   Up to 1860, the United States was splitting up into two camps.  Northern states were more industrialized (though still highly rural), whereas southern states still relied on slavery to keep their plantations going.  In November 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election.  Since he was known to oppose slavery, the southern states feared he would abolish it (a decision he only made after the war began).  On April 12, 1861, southern forces fired on Fort Sumter outside Charleston, South Carolina, and the war began.

Union States (i.e. states which did not secede, though that includes some slave states): Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, California, plus Missouri, Kentucky and Kansas.  West Virginia was actually formed from the mountainous northwestern counties of Virginia which opted not to secede – or rather, they seceded from Virginia, which itself had seceded from the Union. 

Confederate States (in order of secession): South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.  When Virginia seceded the CSA capital moved to Richmond.   (Fair warning: I’m living in Virginia now, and have been since 1990.)

With the capital there, including the Tredegar Iron Works and generals Lee and Jackson, Virginia is arguably the most important Confederate state.  Route 1 is still called Jefferson Davis Highway (named after the Confederate president) and Richmond is full of Confederate statues.  The city is well aware of its historical significance.

As Rhett Butler reminded the enthusiastic would-be rebel officers in “Gone With The Wind”, the Union states enjoyed higher population, far more railroads, and far more industrial capacity.  The South’s only chance was to knock out the Union quickly, because in a war of attrition the Union would prevail, which both sides recognized.

Sure enough, early in the war, the south enjoyed major victories such as Bull Run (two battles) near Manassas in Virginia, with such capable commanders as Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  The Union’s numerical superiority was mostly squandered by General McClellan, who was mislead by his “intelligence” (?) chief Pinkerton to overestimate CSA forces.  When correctly apprised of CSA forces, as he was at Antietam in Maryland in 1862, McClellan did somewhat better.  In fact, the Union victory at Antietam persuaded the British and French not to intervene on behalf of the Confederacy. 

Vicksburg & (Spa)Gettysburg.  In summer 1863 a pair of major battles turned the tide for the Union.  At Vicksburg, in Mississippi, heretofore unknown Union general Ulysses S. Grant engaged in a brilliant campaign through the impassable swamps of the city to outflank the city and take it – a city previously deemed to be impregnable – it was “inconceivable” that any army could navigate those swamps.  Apparently not.  Capturing Vicksburg gave the Union effective control over the Mississippi River and cut the western Confederate states off from the eastern ones, splitting the country in two. 

At Gettysburg, in south-central Pennsylvania, Meade faced off against Lee in early July, and Pickett’s charge on day three failed to destroy the Union lines.  Defeated, the CSA forces limped back to Virginia, but Meade failed to catch up to them and destroy them. 

Next year, Lincoln put Grant in charge of Union forces (March 1864), and for his part Grant put Sherman in charge of another pincer of Union forces to attack through Tennessee – by way of Chattanooga – and eventually take both Atlanta (September 1864) and Savannah (December 1864). 

The south was able to launch one more attack into Maryland in July 1864 (intended to draw off Union forces from their assault on Richmond), but with Lew “Ben Hur” Wallace’s successful delay at Monocacy outside Frederick, Washington was successfully reinforced and CSA armies under Early were forced to retreat back into Virginia again without achieving any strategic victories.

End.  Sherman captured Atlanta and Savannah in 1864, Grant captured Richmond and Petersburg in early April 1865, so by then it was apparent to Lee that the war could not be won.  The CSA surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia on April 12 – four years to the date of the attack on Fort Sumter.  The war was over, the Union preserved, and slavery abolished throughout the entire country.   (“And there was much rejoicing…”)

Movies.  There have been numerous movies, including “North And South” (a miniseries) and “Birth of a Nation” (1915).  I like “Gettysburg”, and “Gone With The Wind”, though not exclusively about the war itself, certainly qualifies.  I’m not aware of any Civil War sitcoms or animated series – perhaps a lucrative, untapped market.

Books.   Shelby Foote has written a large non-fiction account, and as I’ve noted in prior blogs, there are at least two alternate history series.  The more modest one, written by none other than former Republican congressman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, speculates on what might have happened if the battle of Gettysburg had never occurred.  The more ambitious series, by Harry Turtledove, makes Antietam (err, Camp Hill) a Confederate victory, the British and French intervened to force Lincoln to an armistice, and as a result the CSA won the Civil War and remained a separate country.  The two countries faced off again in 1884 (the Second Mexican War), again in 1914 (WWI), with the US allying with Imperial Germany, and then again in 1941 (WWII), with the US allying with as yet still Imperial Germany (the Nazis never took power).  The CSA by that point is led by a dictator, Jake Featherston, who engages in a major operation to wipe out the south’s black population in concentration camps.  Sounds familiar?   

Uniforms.   Although there were some variations between state units, the basic uniform was a sack coat in dark blue for Union troops and grey for Confederate troops.   Both sides wore kepis (flat top cloth hats).   With Civil War re-enacting a popular hobby (are there Russian and Spanish Civil War re-enactors?) replica uniforms are available online.  At some point I’ll buy a Union kepi….

Weapons.  Muzzle loading black powder rifles were standard on both sides (though repeaters came into use late in the war by Union forces).  These were difficult to use and veteran forces generally had three times the firepower of inexperienced troops, an advantage which only dissipated well after the war as smokeless powder breech-loading rifles became state of the art.  In the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) both the French and Prussians were using breech-loaders, though still using black powder.   As noted in a prior blog, the French invented smokeless powder. 

Both sides used cannons.  Decades before the Wright Brothers, balloons marked the extent of air forces, and the main naval ships were ironclads, though the Union navy’s Monitor marked the introduction of a revolving turret.  The Union navy focused on blockading Confederate ports to prevent trade and supplies arriving, mostly successfully; Wilmington, North Carolina being the final Confederate port to fall to Union naval forces.

Relatives.  Both grandparents on my mother’s side came from Poland through Ellis Island around the turn of the century, but my paternal grandmother’s family came to the US before the Revolution and were in New York at the time of the war.  My uncle said our great-grandfather was in the Brooklyn F.D. at the time and would have been exempt from military service (including the unpopular draft), but other male relatives would have been in Union blue at the time with New York regiments.  Ancestry.com listed several Broughtons from New York in the Union army, though I’m unaware of which if any were my actual relatives.  The odds are high that I have Union veterans in my family, most plausibly great-grand uncles. 

States’ Rats vs. Slavery.  Decades after the war, and more recently, many apologists for the South, plus many non-CSA advocates who should know better but want to appear more intelligent than they actually are, tried to retroactively make states’ rats the main cause of the war.  Of course, this conveniently ignores the Confederates themselves, who consistently maintained in April 1861 and throughout the war that the retention of their “peculiar institution” of slavery was the #1 reason for firing on Fort Sumter and leaving the Union.  Of course, even the assertion of states’ rats begs the question of which particular states’ rats they were defending, the most important being slavery.  Southern states even disputed New York asserting the rat to prohibit southerners bringing their slaves with them to New York, so that argument is disingenuous. 

Confederate Flag.  Although not actually the flag of the Confederacy itself, the battle flag, aka the “Stars & Bars”, nevertheless serves as the de facto CSA flag as far as contemporary enthusiasts – and less sympathetic observers whose ancestors were slaves – are concerned.  I’ve addressed the topic in a prior blog.  I’ve noticed that many, if not all, of those who proudly display the Confederate flag also make the above-noted argument that states’ rats, not slavery, was the reason the south attempted to secede from the Union.  Uh, yeah….

As I noted earlier, while advocates can certainly attempt to assert that their use of the flag is merely an expression of “Southern pride” and not a conscientious advocacy of slavery or opposition to the Thirteenth Amendment – or an assertion of white supremacy – it’s equally legitimate for blacks to resent the flag and consider it a de facto assertion of white supremacy.  For my part, I purchased a 35 state Union flag to assert my own support for the Union cause, on behalf of my New York ancestors who fought for the Union.  One day I hope to identify exactly who they were….

Ritual

The other day I went to the District Court of Prince George’s County and filed a complaint against the man who hit my client’s vehicle.  Having done so I immediately walked down the streets of downtown Upper Marlboro, which itself is really only a few blocks in size total, to the post office, and mailed copies of the complaint to the driver, the registered agent for the company he works for (he was driving a company vehicle on company time, making his employer liable respondeat superior) and the liability adjuster for the insurance company which insures that driver.  I did so by certified mail, return receipt requested.   All of this took the semblance of a ritual.  Complaint in envelope, envelope closed, green return receipt card posted on back, white/green certified mail slip on the front, paid for postage, and stapled everything together to a spare copy of the complaint.  Job done.

A few days later I visited Gold’s Gym at Bailey’s Crossroads.   Another ritual.   Four different ab exercises.  Several different strength exercises, 3 sets of 15 each.  A brief break in the locker room, picking up my iPod and putting away my lifting gloves.  Then 30 minutes on the treadmill, following a more recent routine calculated to maximize cardio efficiency while recognizing that almost 230 lbs aggressively pounding down on 50 year old knees produce more pain than 190 lbs did several years ago when I was younger and my metabolism was more efficient.  Fortunately the locker room scale told me that 2 pounds had left me, an impression that looking in many of the gym’s mirrors seemed to agree with.  Even my waistband said so.  Is there a bottom limit to metabolism, aside from permanent inactivity and decomposition?  I dare say I’ll find out.

With the Nutribullet, I make smoothies.  I prepare them in 20 oz green tea bottles and drink half a bottle each morning.  The main container and 3 bowls: avocado, berries, banana, apple, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, spinach, celery, and kale, reduced to a noxious concoction best consumed quickly and washed down with “Ice”, those flavored water beverages which recently came out (wild berry, black cherry, and similar flavors being my favorites).  Making these is – guess what? – a ritual for me.

Some who enjoy herbal remedies might derive ritual enjoyment from grinding a new supply of buds in a grinder, plastic or metal, followed by fiery consumption thereof in various different receptacles available these days to do so – be they G Pro vaporizers, pipes, or water pipes, often referred to as bongs (except in the very places which actually sell them).   That takes the form of a ritual, albeit one with a different purpose and outcome, for those who do consume these products.

Back when my parents lived at their home in Montgomery Village, I inherited my father’s responsibility to mow the lawn.  I actually enjoyed it, no matter what the weather was like (with the obvious exception that no one mows in the rain or snow).  I targeted different segments in turn, leaving the largest open field for last, which I enjoyed mowing at the perimeter and working my way in concentrically until I reached the center. 

Of course, there’s the most obvious ritual: Sunday mass at a local Catholic church.  As noted earlier, I’ve been visiting the various parishes in Northern Virginia (diocese centered on its cathedral in Arlington) and Maryland (cathedrals in DC and north Baltimore).   Thank God I am alive and healthy enough to attend mass. 

Uncle Temple and the Graveyard

Another Friday, another blog – and another attempt to avoid repeating myself again.  I notice I haven’t reviewed Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, so I’ll give it a shot.  They’re on tour now, co-headlining with Graveyard, with Twin Temple as the opening act.   I saw them last night at the Ram’s Head Live in downtown Baltimore, just a few blocks north of the Harbor.   Here’s the story.

Twin Temple.   Here was a nice surprise.  I’d never heard of this band before, but they may well prove to be more substantial.  Judging by the applause during their set and the amount of curious people indulging in their merchandise desk and having their pictures taken with Alexandra & Zachary, I’d say the odds are good.

Alexandra & Zachary James somehow managed to make a Satanic version of a 50’s doo-wop band, down to Zachary’s clever outfit and Alexandra’s beehive hairdo.   She was certainly eye candy and had the lungs to belt out the numbers.  I start with an inherent bias against opening acts I’ve never heard of, but they were certainly different and their music was well-executed.  They also featured a keyboardist and sax player.  Somewhat of a clever gimmick, but well played.  Mind you, like Ghost BC and KISS, their music is up to standard but is well overshadowed by the visual impact of the live show – for that reason I didn’t bother to buy their CD (or cassette).  But others may find them more compelling than I did.  Check them out. 

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats.   Hereinafter “UAD”. Current lineup:  Kevin “Uncle Acid” Starrs (lead vocals, lead & rhythm guitar); Vaughn Stokes (rhythm & lead guitar); Justin Smith (bass); Jon Rice (drums).  As my Facebook post notes, they have a keyboardist, who was off to the side and looked like he was tuning it during UAD’s set, which led me to wonder if he was doing so for Graveyard, until I recalled that (A) Graveyard don’t have a keyboardist and (B) the keyboards were cleared off the stage for Graveyard’s set. 

Discography:  Volume 1 (2010, recently reissued on CD); Blood Lust (2011); Mind Control (2013); The Night Creeper (2015); and Wastelands (2018).   I’d seen them earlier, in 2015, at the Baltimore Soundstage on the prior tour.  That venue is just a big room with a raised stage along one side, and that time I simply hovered around the back and watched.   This time around I got up to the barrier and watched up close.   Uncle Acid himself subscribes to a recent stage presence trend of “hunch over with your long hair obscuring your entire face and sing into the microphone”, making him effectively faceless for the duration of the set.  The band had a backdrop for visual footage which was fairly psychedelic and impressive.  

Their material is doomy but uptempo, with lots of minor progressions.  Many of the songs sound exactly the same, regardless of which album they originally came off of.   Insofar as doom bands tend to stick close around to Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill in terms of sound, UAD are well within that range, though not oppressively so.  The challenge is differentiating yourself from the Birmingham quartet which started this type of music, and I’d say UAD do this well enough.

Setlist:  I See Through You; Waiting For Blood; Mt. Abraxas; Mind Crawler; Death’s Door; Shockwave City; Crystal Spiders; Dead Eyes of London; Pusherman; I’ll Cut You Down; Blood Runner; 13 Candles; Melody Lane; No Return. 

Graveyard.  I actually could have seen them earlier, as an opening act for Clutch & Mastodon at the Pier Six Pavilion – just a few blocks south – back in May 2015.  I guess I wasn’t motivated enough. This was the second show on the tour, so those of you who may be interested who weren’t already committed to going, here’s your chance.

 

Graveyard dial back the doominess with a more clean sound closer to Garcia & Weir.  It’s easy enough to tolerate and strays off from Sabbath well far enough, but maybe too far.  I’m reminded a bit of Brinsley Schwartz, the “pub rock” band that appears on the Greasy Truckers live album with Man and Hawkwind, kind of like Grateful Dead without any jamming.  After the doomy heaviness and awesome visuals of UAD, Graveyard was downright dull.  They would have been better off going on BEFORE UAD.   Just a suggestion….

Setlist: Walk On; Please Don’t; The Fox; Hisingen Blues; Uncomfortably Numb; Bird of Paradise; Cold Love; Buying Truth (Tack & Forlat); Hard Times Lovin’; An Industry of Murder; It Ain’t Over Yet; Goliath; Magnetic Shunk; Encore: Low (I Wouldn’t Mind); Ain’t Fit To Live Here; The Siren.  

The 90s

With over 600 blog entries by now, I’m starting to get writer’s block more often.   Fortunately I managed to find a topic which I haven’t previously addressed:  the 1990s.  Not 2000-1990 BC, nor any other century.  Got it?  I’ll try to address general issues but inevitably my analysis will be centered on my own life experiences. Let’s begin. 

My Own Life.   Having been born in 1969, I turned 21 in early 1990.   I was starting my final (spring) semester at University of Maryland, College Park, which I’d finish after the first summer session, mid-July.  I spent the last two weeks of July back in Paris for the last time, as my parents moved home permanently around September 1, moving back into the same home we left in January 1979.  My buddy Phil and I tried our best to renovate the house in August for my family’s return, undoing to a limited extent the extensive abuse it suffered from various tenants over that period of time. 

Then in late August I started at George Mason University School of Law, graduating in May 1993.   I passed the July 1993 Maryland bar exam (admitted December 1993 in Annapolis) and the February 1994 Virginia bar exam (admitted in June 1994 in Richmond).  Thus my legal career got started. 

Aside from a brief interlude from March to December 1994 when I was not working for him, I spent October 1992 through May 1998 working for my first legal employer, Jerry Curran.  He was a sole practitioner who had previously worked for O'Melveny & Myers, a big firm in L.A., and the NRA in DC.  It was just the two of us, handling traffic, criminal, and divorce in Northern Virginia.  Jerry didn’t take any personal injury or bankruptcy cases.  Since he wasn’t licensed in Maryland, I was the attorney handling matters in that state.  In May 1998 Jerry got hired by a big divorce firm in Fairfax and I wound up without a job. 

The remainder, from September 1998 through October 2000, was spent doing document processing at a DOJ contractor, CACI.   Thus the majority of the 90s was spent learning how to be an attorney, an experience which was mostly positive.  I’m still on good terms with Jerry, though our paths have long diverged.

Cars.  In spring 1994, now with a surplus of free time and decision to use that time productively to learn something new, I started working on cars, first taking basic courses with Arlington Adult Education and following up with more advanced courses at NOVA Alexandria along with dealer techs.   I went from having zero clue about cars to passing ASE exams and working on my own.

The 90s also ushered in a time when I finally had a non-economy car which I chose myself.  In November 1992 I got my first new car, a 1992 Pontiac Firebird (base model), black on black with t-tops and 5.0L V8.  In June 1995 I replaced that with a 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula “350” with the SLP package (290 HP).  By 1998 that had gone from blue-green metallic, its original color, to black, though I never did reinstall the decals. 

Romance.  I went on several dates during this period, but nothing substantial until October 1999, when I began dating a Brazilian woman, Leila, who I met working at CACI.  I’m still on good terms with her now, though the romantic element of that relationship ended when she moved back to Rio in December 2003.  

The Gulf War.  In August 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  After several months of back and forth with Bush’s dad, George H.W. Bush, then the President, eventually we did something.  In January 1991, around the time the Giants beat the Bills in the first of the four Super Bowls they lost, we liberated Kuwait in a campaign that lasted all of four days.  The Gulf War started our military’s love affair with desert cammo, and our political obsession with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.  “Three Kings” is an intriguing movie depiction of that war. 

Bill Clinton.  Despite the success of the Gulf War, a subsequent recession wiped all out all the political capital GHWB (41) had accumulated and ushered in the first Democratic president since Jimmy Carter:  former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.  And unlike Carter, Clinton won re-election in 1996, beating the Bob Dole-Jack Kemp ticket easily.  Clinton brought his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea, and even did this NAFTA thing.  Clinton had enough charm and humor that it was difficult to dislike him unless you were a hardcore Republican.  Even G. Gordon Liddy, who had a radio show back then, had to admit he supported Clinton’s position on NAFTA.

However, as noted, the GOP didn’t appreciate him and tried to bring him down with Monica-Gate, Paula Jones, Ken Starr, and this business of Vince Foster’s suspicious suicide.  Sadly for them, he served his full term.  He’s still around though somewhat older – possibly wiser.   

“I didn’t inhale”.  By the way – pot brownies have been around for awhile, so it’s possible Bubba got stoned without inhaling.  Speaking of which, California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, leading the nation in this regard and beginning the process by which MJ became far more potent:  4% THC in the early 1990s vs 24% THC for today’s stronger strains.   For those of you who care about these matters.

The Internet.  In 1990 most of us had no clue what the Internet was.  By 1999 most of us did.  There was Prodigy, AOL, and the Web.  At this time it was dialup, so we needed dedicated phone lines – no cable modems or DSL back then.  No Myspace or Facebook either – mostly we were on AOL back then, or for those of us on the Web, Netscape Navigator.  Nor was there streaming, but there was Napster (beginning in 1999), much to Metallica’s dismay. 

Cell Phones.   Same deal here – only snotty Gordon Gekko types had them before 1990, but by 1999 most of us had some kind, though they were flip-open types with cheesy screens and by no means “smart” – and you couldn’t get the Internet on them. 

TV Shows.  I'm neutral about TV, neither being a devoted aficionado nor a snob who refuses to watch, considering it all crap.  I'll watch some and not others as it suits my particular fancy.  Of the shows on during this time, these were my favorites that I watched the most:  

ALF, The Drew Carey Show, Frasier, Friends, Home Improvement, L.A. Law, Married...With Children, Seinfeld, and That 70s Show.  Of these, I'd list Friends, L.A. Law, and Seinfeld as my top shows, which I watched on the most regular basis.  

Movies.  Likewise with movies.  My favorites were Terminator 2, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Heat, The Big Lebowski, The Matrix, and my top favorite of many decades, Saving Private Ryan.

Grunge.  Taking care of the overindulgent metal of the 1980s was grunge, four bands in particular:  Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden, all out of Seattle.

Pearl Jam is still around and is the only band to remain continuously active.  Nirvana released Bleach (1989), Nevermind (1991), and In Utero (1993), but Kurt Cobain died in 1994 – by killing himself.  AIC’s Facelift was released in 1990, its third and final album, self-titled, in 1995, the band stopped in 1996 (though not formally disbanding), mainly due to Layne Staley’s drug use (he died in 2002).   Soundgarden were the oldest of the four, beginning in the mid 1980s, releasing Ultramega OK (1988), Louder Than Love (1989), Badmotorfinger (1991), Superunknown (1994), and Down on the Upside (1996) before disbanding.  Of the four, I didn’t like Nirvana or Pearl Jam enough to see them in concert, but I did see Soundgarden as a headlining band on the Superunknown tour in 1994 and Alice in Chains opening for Clash of the Titans (Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth) in 1990 and for Van Halen in 1991.

As you can see, I remember the 1990s.   How much do you remember?  Hopefully the same, and ideally as fondly as I do.  

Bruce Lee

As mentioned earlier, some time ago I took aikido classes at a school in Burke, up until fall of 1999.  To my knowledge the school has now closed.  I took the classes for several years and worked my way up to first degree black belt.  The tests involved fending off attacks from opponents.   We cross-trained in tae kwon do, but did not have to do all the forms which TKD students are required to do.  I learned punches and a variety of kicks.  Aikido is mainly defensive, turning an opponent’s attack against himself by redirecting the momentum or twisting arms or legs in the wrong direction. 

The most famous martial artist associated with aikido is Steven Seagal, and while watching his films I recognized the various moves we did in class.  By now I’ve seen most of his earlier movies, but I zoned out when he drifted into a personality who was overly mystical and friendly with Putin.  From 1988 (Above the Law) until now (Attrition) he has done 53 movies, with “Above the Law 2” and “Under Siege 3” in development. 

Before Steven Seagal, there was – BRUCE LEE.

I’d seen “Enter the Dragon” a few times before and even had it on DVD.  But up until now I hadn’t bothered to watch his other films.   Cue Robin Leach: “I don’t know WHY.”  Anyhow, after watching “The Last Dragon”, I decided to rectify that oversight and watched these films.

Born November 27, 1940 in San Francisco, but grew up in Hong Kong.  His family brought him back to the US to avoid problems and he went to college in Seattle.  He spoke fluent English and seemed to understand both Chinese culture back in Hong Kong as well as US culture, at least on the West Coast.  He died of a stroke complicated by negative interactions with a drug given to him to cure the condition – neither misadventure nor negligence on his part, nor anything like his son Brandon’s death in the process of making the movie he was working on at the time. 

Jeet Kune Do.  His martial arts style of “no style”.   I’ve never been to a JKD school nor do I know anyone else who has.  I can’t claim enough familiarity with the various styles to offer any coherent analysis of this, so I’ll leave it at that. 

The Green Hornet.   He played the title character’s sidekick, Kato, for one season.   No US studio, either for TV or movie, would give Lee a starring role as the main character. 

The Big Boss.  His first movie, a wholly Chinese (Hong Kong) affair.  The bad guys are Chinese gangsters using an ice factory as a front for a drug smuggling operation.   [NOTE:  some sources equate this with “Fist of Fury”.  They are two completely separate movies.]   Nora Miao, who has more substantial roles in later films, starts off here as a cute ice cream girl. 

Everything starts off ok, until various workers notice that the ice has drugs in it, and “bring this to the boss’ attention”.  Then they disappear.  Their co-workers wonder where they went.  Big boss makes excuses which initially satisfy them but eventually fall short.  Eventually it’s up to Lee’s character to take on a series of bad guys, each more important, until the final showdown with the head bad guy, and of course Lee’s guy wins.  Note: as with all these films, I recognize tae kwon do and judo moves but little or nothing in the way of aikido.

Fist of Fury.  This takes place in Shanghai and the Japanese are bad guys, though outright war doesn’t seem to be going on, so it must be before 1937.  The Head of a martial arts school, who had been old but in good health, mysteriously dies.  The top student, Chen (Lee) suspects foul play, and he’s right:  the Japanese (twirling mustaches diabolically) poisoned Old Man.  Chen sets out to avenge the Old Man’s death.   There’s a Cute Asian Chick (Nora Miao), a burly Russian martial artist, Petrov (Robert Wall), a collaborating Chinese interpreter consistently mistreated by the Japanese (“crawl for us like the Chinese dog you are!”) and disliked by his fellow Chinese, a few geishas (one goes full nude, which is interesting) and of course plenty of martial arts.  The top bad guys are Japanese, and a samurai sword enters the equation.  Naturally, Lee wins. 

Way of the Dragon.  This is the next one, taking place in Rome.  The local Chinese are being bullied and oppressed by the Mob.  BL, visiting from Hong Kong, of course does something about it.  Cute Chick Nora Miao is back, as are many of the other actors, including Robert Wall, again playing a goon, though not as prominent and not Russian.  Ultimately the bad guys send for Colt (Chuck Norris), who faces off against Lee, appropriately enough at the Coliseum itself.  [It turns out that Norris’ appearance in “Game of Death” is actually scenes from this film spliced in to that one, not a new appearance.]  In any case, this Lee vs. Norris battle is what makes this film a must-see for Lee & Norris fans alike, and in that regard make it competitive with “Enter the Dragon”.

Enter the Dragon.  His most famous, with John Saxon and Jim Kelly; Jackie Chan supposedly appears as a nameless opponent he summarily dispatches, but I was unable to recognize him.  He starts off in Hong Kong, of all places, and winds up at a martial arts tournament at a secluded island, run by the bad guy, a Shaolin monk who went the wrong way.  Actually both the Shaolins and an unnamed intelligence agency sent him:  the former to avenge themselves from this man who is corrupting their “faith”, and the latter because they believe he’s been running criminal operations from his island but no one has been able to infiltrate the island to prove it – they lost contact with their prior agent.  Eventually he dispatches the bad guy, whose hand is gone and replaced by various nasty weapons. 

Game of Death.  He started making this before “Enter The Dragon” and picked up again after, but was cut short when his death made it difficult for him to do much more.   So they got a stand-in to replace him, and spliced in footage of him already shot to try to make a coherent whole of the entire thing, with mixed results.  I’d say it works remarkably well given the circumstances but still doesn’t match “Enter the Dragon”.  The highlights are donning the yellow, black striped one piece track suit while taking down various enemy motorcyclists in a warehouse, followed by his successive defeat of various martial arts masters in a tower, going up floor after floor and finally dispatching the Boss Level Man, played by none other than the insanely tall Kareem Abdul Jabbar, aka Roger Murdock. 

Martial Arts & Porn.   I noticed a similarity in the format:  each type of film is oriented towards physical interaction, of clearly different types.  The dialogue is not particularly brilliant, the plot is fairly simple, there are no twists and eventually you wind up with the… physical interaction.  On the other hand, I don’t really see porn as a main “actor” screwing his/her way up a series of partners until finally taking on the big boss one for one gigantic simultaneous orgasm, so the analogy isn’t entirely fair to martial arts films.  

The Heart of Darkness at Noon

Just the other day, inspired by numerous mentions of “#1” in Darkness At Noon, by Arthur Koestler, I printed out and posted on the wall a picture of #1 himself, Josef Stalin.  No one in my office recognized him, so I wrote this off as “today’s unsolicited history lesson”.  A few hours later I finished reading the book itself.  And few weeks earlier I had completed Conrad’s book with a conveniently similar name.

Heart of Darkness (1899), by Joseph Conrad.  Despite having been aware of this short novel ages ago when the Vietnam war movie came out, I only read it recently.  Marlow, the narrator, is charged with delving deep into the jungle on a river boat to retrieve Kurtz, the manager of an ivory station with whom they have lost contact.  As he ventures further down the river he plunges deeper into a dark place and further away from the light of civilization, e.g. London, where he started out and later finished the story – in fact, from where he narrates the story himself to his fictional audience and the reader himself (or herself).

 

Marlow does in fact find Kurtz and takes him back on the steamer.  Sadly, Kurtz dies on the way back, his last words being “the horror, the horror”.  Back in London, Marlow is dissatisfied at how things turned out and gives Kurtz’s fiancé some other story.  The big deal is the contrast between “civilized” London and the heart of the jungle, the heart of darkness, with Marlow unconvinced the contrast is actually as substantial as the civilized world would like to believe. 

Apocalypse Now (1979).  Remarkably, the most substantial movie adaptation of this story is this movie, with which we’re almost all familiar.  The story is transposed from the Congo to Vietnam, Kurtz turns into a Green Beret (US Special Forces) colonel (Marlon Brando) who went nuts and set up his own personal kingdom deep in the jungle.  It’s up to Marlow – er, Willard (Martin Sheen) – to go up the river and take care of the matter, in fact to kill Kurtz, which he does.  Along the way we experience a full scale attack, with Duvall’s “napalm” remark, a USO show featuring hot chicks, a tiger (!), and overall a surrealistic journey away from civilized Saigon and into the primordial jungle.  In essence the movie is faithful to the basic plot.

Having seen the movie multiple times and finally read the book, sadly I’d say reading the book was a waste of time.  It really gives us nothing more than an alternate context for the same story, and the movie was very well done – with all the extra elements which make the movie more interesting but do not compromise the basic plot.  As a practical matter, reading the book itself doesn’t give you much more than you would enjoy than watching the movie.  I did so out of compulsion to seek the source material, which in most cases gives you something more.  Hell, A Scanner Darkly, the book, even had a few things the movie left out, and I find – as noted – reading the book is worthwhile.  But not here. 

By the way, a few items about this movie I’d like to address before I move on.  First, there’s now an extended cut version of the film, “Apocalypse Now REDUX”, which I have on DVD.  It adds more footage.   This footage is mainly two extended scenes.  First, the boat crew, amidst heavy rain, come across the Playboy chopper and its "mates", and trade fuel for some intimate companionship with the girls.  Second, they come across an isolated plantation of French who somehow stayed after the French officially left in 1954.  They are heavily armed (mostly with M1 carbines), and provide an official funeral for Clean (Larry Fishburne).  The head of the plantation talks about Dien Bien Phu, while Willard enjoys opium and nude fun with the owner's widowed sister.     

The second concerns the circumstances in which I first saw it – not in a movie theater (we were in Paris at the time) but actually at the US Embassy in Paris.  What later became the commercial library was earlier (late 70s, early 80s) a huge, empty room.  They showed movies there, including this one.  We all sat down to watch this, and the opening riffs of “The End” played as the chopper flew across the jungle.  Then BIZLKDFLIT!   The film crapped out.  “Technical difficulties, folks” turned into postponement – many angry and frustrated noises.  Sometime later, maybe a week or two, we all sat down again to see it.  Robby Krieger’s guitar droning again, chopper across the jungle, and BIZLKDFLIT! Again.   Now the natives were truly restless.  The projectionist narrowly avoided a spear impaling him.  Fortunately this time around the technical difficulties were overcome and we were able to see the entire film.  “And there was much rejoicing….”

Darkness at Noon (1941).  Although actual names of places or historical figures are omitted, it takes little imagination to figure out:  Old Leader is Lenin, #1 is Stalin, and “the dictatorship” is Nazi Germany.  The main character, Rubashov, is a veteran Bolshevik who served in the Russian Revolution (1917), the Russian Civil War (1918-22), and eventually winds up on the wrong side of the power struggle which put Stalin in power.  The NKVD arrested him and put him in jail.  His neighbor, with whom he communicates by tapping in morse code on the wall, is a Czarist officer. 

Part of the story is flashbacks to Rubashov’s assignments in Belgium, but mostly it concerns his current incarceration and extended interrogation.  First he’s interrogated by Ivanov, an old colleague from the Revolution who is likewise an intellectual type, somewhat cynical, but they are kindred souls whose positions could easily have been reversed had things worked out differently.  Ivanov is replaced by Gletkin, a newer officer in the NKVD who was too young to have fought in the Russian Civil War.  He has no sense of humor, no cynicism, nor any compassion or humanity, and is brutal in his ideology.  Rubashov refers to his type as “Neanderthal”, and with the older Bolsheviks gradually purged, they become the only surviving type of communists in the regime.  They may as well be robots. 

Eventually Rubashov realizes he’s wrong, confesses completely and participates in a “show trial” in which he accepts guilt for his crimes, or at least the crimes for which he knows he’s guilty, which are substantial enough; these are ideological rather than specific acts.   Needless to say he does not survive.   Much of the discussion is of the nature of the dictatorship, particularly the Soviet dictatorship.   

In particular, Ivanov articulates something Ayn Rand later articulated.   She argued that the differences between Nazism and communism were insubstantial, relative to the difference both had with capitalism.  Under the latter, individuals have primacy and the government’s purpose is to protect individual rights.  The collective does NOT have the right to sacrifice individuals to the “common good”, however that might be defined.  But the former do enslave individuals to the collective, and individuals’ rights exist only at the convenience of the state as representative of the people.   If this means not merely individuals perishing one by one in jails, but millions dying of famine or starvation, or from genocide, public policies with obviously horrendous body counts, well, too bad.  The collective triumphs over the individual.  That is the value judgment of the statist regime, be it Nazi or communist, run by Hitler or Stalin. 

Note that Nazi Germany was the sole totalitarian dictatorship which was NOT communist.  The other right wing dictatorships were authoritarian rather than totalitarian; the regime demanded full political cooperation and tolerated no dissent, political dissidents perished in jails and camps run by a secret police force, but beyond that the regime did not seek to control everyone’s lives literally from birth until death.

There is also this business of the conflict between those advocating world revolution vs. those who assert that the Soviet experiment must survive above all else.  Stalin, and those allied with him, decided that the world was not ripe for world revolution and that the Soviet version must fight to survive in a capitalist world intent on destroying it.  Everything must be oriented towards defending Soviet interests – even if it meant betraying former communist allies to the Nazis, and shutting down any and all attempts to begin revolutions overseas.  The USSR could and would deal with the capitalist countries and even Nazi Germany.  Once that decision had been made, any such efforts at world revolution worked at cross purposes to Soviet interests and thus became considered, de facto counter-revolutionary or reactionary.  Rubashov’s “crime” was to belong to the latter category, despite his impeccable credentials as an old school Bolshevik and veteran of both the Revolution and the Civil War.  He refers to old photos of the Bolshevik comrades during the revolution, who are identified with numbers superimposed above their heads, each of whom could identify the others.  He and Ivanov were both that old school style of communists.    

Koestler wrote this based on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and it’s not hard to ascertain why.   As with other countries, Spain was considered by Stalin not yet ripe for proletarian revolution, rather it needed to fully develop capitalism.  This is why the PSUC supported the capitalist-democratic regime of Spain and treated POUM and the anarchists as enemies, almost as much as Franco and his minions.  In any case, anyone remotely interested in communism, labor camps, interrogation, the subtle nuances of world revolution vs. let’s just focus on Russia for now, and old school Bolsheviks vs. the new hipster millennials running the NKVD, may be well advised to enjoy this.  I can say I did.