Hollywood’s rush to the defense of Roman Polanski has left us awash in idiocy. What can one say about Whoopi Goldberg’s assertion that it wasn’t “rape-rape” other than what Joan Smith said? And how about that call to make the film industry immune from arrest at its film festivals?Debra Winger is outraged that the Zurich festival has been “unfairly exploited.”
Even the French — even the readers at Huffington Post — are shaking their heads over the knee-jerk defense of a child molester. Roger Simon notes:
And yet those people are defending a man who drugged and sodomized a thirteen-year old!
In the name of what? His art? One creepy character on the Huffington Post even went so far as to say Polanski had suffered enough because he didn’t get to work in Hollywood. How dumb can you get – multi-million dollar productions such as Polanski directed for years are financed internationally and distributed world wide. The only “suffering” Polanski had to endure in all this is he had to live in Paris instead of Beverly Hills. Quelle tragédie.
Niles Gardiner has the early review on Obama’s speech to the U.N.
Was this though Obama’s most naïve speech ever? It is a very strong candidate, but I think there is intense competition for that accolade. The president’s speeches in Cairo, Strasbourg and Prague would all vie for that title. Still, his address today will go down in history as one of the weakest major addresses by a US president on foreign policy in a generation, by a leader who seems embarrassed, even ashamed, by the power and greatness of his own country.
Germany is always a welcome diversion. My second home of Weimar has a pleasant urban environment, parks, good train transportation, and bratwurst and beer always readily available. The artistic offerings are many and often quite good. When they are bad, they are really bad. But there are certain things that compel one to live in Texas.
Whoopi Goldberg says there are boneheads in all organizations, and we didn’t dismantle the banks or Congress.So why can’t we leave ACORN alone and let them work out their minor problems with child prostitution and sex slavery?Keep giving them money.Everybody on The View agrees.And the loudest applause came when they noted that there were boneheads in the Catholic Church and we haven’t dismantled it.
Yes, there are boneheads in every organization, but The View can claim the distinction of having nothing but.
Apparently our commitments to Poland (see yesterday’s post) and the Czech Republic will be discarded while Obama hits the reset button with Russia.What America gets out of this is . . . well, Obama looks like a good guy to the pantywaist left.Nile Gardiner has this:
I blogged a couple of weeks ago that the Obama administration was about to abandon its plans for Third Site missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. I wrote then that “if enacted, this would represent a huge turnaround in American strategic thinking on a global missile defence system, and a massive betrayal of two key US allies in eastern and central Europe. Such a move would significantly weaken America’s ability to combat the growing threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program, and would hand a major propaganda victory to the Russians.”
And others are saying that Neville Chamberlain was a “far-sighted hero” by comparison.
Update:
So let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies. The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven. (Applause.) If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed. (Applause.)
“Americans have always cared only about their interests, and all other [countries] have been used for their purposes. This is another example,” Mr Walesa told TVN24. “[Poles] need to review our view of America, we must first of all take care of our business,” he added.
Remember, it’s all about restoring our global standing.
Read Stuart Koehl’s article on the Battle of Britain. Today marks the anniversary of the turning point:
September 15 did not mark the largest air battle in the extended campaign called “The Battle of Britain”; neither was it the bloodiest (historian Alfred Price aptly described August 18th “The Hardest Day” in his eponymous book, on which the Germans lost 69 aircraft and the British a staggering 68), nor was it the last (German daylight raids continued well into November, including a belated appearance by the hopelessly outclassed Italian air force). But September 15 did mark the irrevocable “tipping point”, the day on which the German high command admitted to itself that air superiority could not be achieved in 1940, and therefore the planned German invasion of Britain, Operation Sealion, would not happen that year.
But the article is more about Poland than Britain. Koehl writes about the critical role played by Polish pilots in the RAF. They were seasoned as compared with the novice British pilots, and accounted for much of the RAF’s success. That dedication by the Poles was hardly reciprocated when Poland was left at war’s end to the Soviets.
The most remarkable thing about these men–and their brothers in RAF Bomber Command, and those who fought with the Free Polish Army under General Anders in Italy–was their fidelity to the cause for which they were fighting, which did not waver, even after it became apparent that the Allies had sold out the Polish cause, putting that sad country under the control of the Soviet Union. Knowing they could not go home again, they continued to fight, as the ancient Polish battle cry puts it “for your freedom and ours”.
Poland has been a most reliable ally, but the U.S. now seems intent on snubbing the Poles and discounting its substantial contributions to the security of Western Europe and the Middle East
–in order to “reset” its relations with Russia, a country that consistently works against U.S. interests around the world, supports governments antithetical to the United States (Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Iran and Syria), violates human rights on a massive scale, uses its control of European oil and natural gas supplies as an economic weapon, invades and partially annexes the territory of a neighboring state, and which seems intent upon subjugating all of its neighbors in a simulacrum of (if not the Soviet Union) the old Tsarist empire.
And that’s how the new administration expects America to re-earn the respect of the global community.
Professor Carol offers her thoughts on the ever-popular Carmina Burana in a podcast entitled “A Modern Medieval Mega-Hit.”
Carl Orff selected vivid poems from a Medieval manuscript and super-charged them with color and energy to create the mega-hit “Carmina Burana” in 1937.An innovative music educator and proponent of Eurhythmics, Orff poured his understanding of natural melody and rhythm into this theatrical work, a spectacle for ear and eye.
The 60s are alive and well in Germany.What was billed as a light show on the Marktplatz in Weimar this past weekend came with mountains of technical equipment and molehills of creativity.
When it started at 9 p.m., I couldn’t help thinking how it reminded me of our student composition recitals as an undergraduate.It comprised a grand effort to do everything that could be done.It spared no pretense.
The show began with alphorns on top of the control booth played by people in white sheets and chef hats, performers in windows all around the platz, a center stage with shadow dancing behind white drapes, search lights scanning the area, red lights in a few rooms of the Rathaus, a Männerchor on the Rathaus balcony.A children’s chorus entered purposefully in a long line and headed for the stage by the control booth, taking three steps forward, two steps backward, dip, repeat.People dressed in metallic costumes posed as statues on ladders, moved the ladders and posed again.Neptune stood waist deep in the fountain. A jazz ensemble played from a cage like the go-go girls in the 60s.Technical glitches, electronic sound effects, painted faces, narrations, and balloons abounded.The searchlights searched for the balloons.Amateur dancers, clowns, people of dubious gender, acrobats, and brass bands took turns attempting to add energy to the lethargic pace.The children’s chorus sang African songs with clapping routines.The shadow dancing was replaced by a trampoline.When 10 o’clock rolled around it seemed to be hitting a climax and I thought maybe the end of the hour would cause an arbitrary cessation, like John Cage would have done, and put us all out of our misery. But no, it continued on with the rap episode, the band playing Russian music, Japanese robotic dancers above the Thuringian restaurant (which a friend assured me symbolized Hiroshima), the bass player in the jazz band climbing around the outside of his cage, the Männerchor crossing the square to switch places with the children’s chorus, narrated breathing in and out exercises (altogether now, “atmet ein; atmet aus”), the sax player breathing in and out, more balloons and a rope trick. Finally the children’s chorus reentered the square on bicycles, and I thought surely this is the finale. But no, we needed to have a bad brass band (on par with a 1A middle school band in rural Texas) march on stage, more clowns, and the emcee trying to whip up the crowd with chants of “Bauhaus is coming.” The crowd muttered.The children’s chorus and the band marched leisurely out of the square. There was hope.But then the clown fire department had to come in and take the emcee away (an event that might have brought cheers an hour earlier). And then a new emcee had to take the stage and spend ten minutes reading off the list of credits. He brought his buddy on stage for some hugs. A single roman candle went off, and at 11 o’clock the crowd offered tepid applause and drifted away.It was so much like a 60s “happening,” so unbelievably self-indulgent, so pointless, I finally understood why smoking dope was important in the 60s.We could not endure the artistic nonsense without it.
The Docket passes on an interesting opinion out of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.The U.S. Attorney sought to dismiss charges against Andrew Sullivan for possession of marijuana, citing only the “interests of justice” in support.The magistrate judge was not satisfied with that explanation and was frustrated in his efforts to find out why the U.S. Attorney would decline to prosecute Sullivan while routinely prosecuting others for the same offense.
It seems that Sullivan, a citizen of the U.K., is applying for a different immigration status, and a conviction might complicate that effort.
At the hearing, [Judge] Collings observed that Sullivan would still have to state on his application that he had been charged with a crime, and he asked both the prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney, Robert Delahunt Jr. (cousin of U. S. Rep. William D. Delahunt), for more information about why paying the $125 would have “any additional adverse effect.”
No politics at play here.
The bottom line is this: The judge can’t force the U.S. Attorney to prosecute Sullivan and can’t require the prosecutor to give a good reason for declining to prosecute.But the judge can publish an opinion and shine a light on the unequal treatment and apparent political favoritism. And that’s just what he did.
Defending Western Culture and traditions through a rational discussion of the arts (emphasis on durable music) with unavoidable references to politics, religion, law, ranching, and the quest for a good martini.
Professor Carol now offers a complete self-study course covering 300 years of music.
This romp through music history (and many other historical topics) combines 13 hours of DVD video with a 3-disc listening set from Naxos and a 236-page course book.
From the birth of opera to the Leipzig coffeehouses frequented by Bach and Schumann, from the Orthodox cathedrals of Moscow to Tin Pan Alley, from scientific discoveries to bloody revolutions, spooky dramas and shoe styles, Carol chronicles it all with her unique commentary.
What can one say about Whoopi Goldberg’s assertion that it wasn’t “rape-rape” other than what Joan Smith said? And how about that call to make the film industry immune from arrest at its film festivals? Debra Winger is outraged that the Zurich festival has been “unfairly exploited.”
Professor Carol offers her thoughts on the ever-popular Carmina Burana in a 
