After-Action Report: Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Tetro’

If you’re anything like me, when you see that a filmmaker has put their name in the title of a movie that was not widely released, your “Pretentious Dreck Ahead” alarm probably starts ringing like the government scandal bell in major press outlets this past week.  That said, I wanted a few hours away from that, and as I was looking through my DVDs, this seemed like it might be just the diversion I was looking for.

The movie opens with Benjamin, played by Alden Einreich walking through the streets of Buenos Aries late at night, trying to find the apartment of his older brother, Angelo, played by Vincent Gallo.  When he gets there, he is greeted by Angelo’s girlfriend, Miranda, played by Maribel Verdu, who sets him up on the couch.

As the movie unfolds, we learn that Angelo, who now goes by the name “Tetro”, left New York a decade earlier to go on a writing sabbatical, and never returned, despite promises to his little brother Bennie to do so.  Tetro seems to accept Bennie’s presence, as it will only be five days before the cruise ship Bennie works on will repair its engines, and continue on its way, but he clearly doesn’t want to answer any of Bennie’s questions about the past, about his new life, or much of anything.  He forbids Bennie from telling anyone who their father really is, and makes it clear that family shouldn’t be a topic of discussion with anyone.  He almost grudgingly lets his little brother tag along as he lives the life of a frustrated artist, but won’t even introduce Bennie to his friends as his brother, something that clearly frustrates Bennie.

As the five days pass, Tetro seems to be warming to having Bennie around, and even throws Bennie a party for his 18th birthday, attended by Tetro’s theatre friends.  During this same time, Bennie and Miranda come to know one another, and slowly tease information out of each other about the mysterious Tetro from each other.  As the two exchange information, and Bennie “accidentally” finds his brother’s manuscript, we are treated to flashbacks, set apart from the rest of the film because they are in color, and frame-in-frame, in which we see that their father, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, a world-famous symphonic conductor, alienates his older brother, steals away 20-year-old Angelo’s girlfriend, and remains distant after a car accident in which Angelo was driving takes the life of his mother, and his father’s first wife.  Miranda finally comes to better understand the man she met in an asylum, and has only understood in pieces.

As fate conspires to keep Bennie in Buenos Aries, Miranda makes sure that Bennie can continue to read the manuscript, and is caught by Tetro doing so.  He naturally feels betrayed, and it immediately cools their rekindled friendship.  Bennie compounds this betrayal, believing that he is helping his brother, ratcheting things up to 11, and leading to the climax in which Tetro has to admit a terrible secret to Bennie, who learns that everything he’s ever known is a lie.

I enjoyed ‘Tetro’, but to be honest, I needed some time to come to that conclusion, which is probably why it was never widely released.  And while it isn’t the first film that I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about after watching, unlike Watchmen, or Defiance, I’m not likely to watch it again, because the journey of discovery is the story, and I don’t think it could ever have the same impact now that I know the real secret of the story.  That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worth telling, and I’m glad that Coppola got the chance to tell it beautifully.

On the Newfound Outrage and Disappointment of the Left and the Press

Screw Them.

No.  I mean that.  Seriously.

Screw Them.

They REFUSED to see this America-hating empty suit for what he has ALWAYS been.  He told us who he was in lectures, and interviews.  He told us who he is in presumptive and conceited “memoirs” and autobiographies that were in and of themselves, audacious in the belief that a life marked with so little accomplishment in such a short period was somehow worthy of not one, but two tomes dedicated to his self-important navel gazing and intellectual lily-gilding.

And now when he turns the apparatus of Fedzilla loose upon the very people who abdicated their duty to make sure that the electorate knew about the man asking to be made their leader, we’re supposed to share in their outrage?   They were simply late to a party they never thought they’d be invited to. 

I can be happy that they can finally bring themselves to point out their Emperor’s nakedness, but that doesn’t mean that I should or will forgive them for their complacency when it was *only* people like me being targeted by the apparatus of big government lead by a narcissistic popinjay with tyrannical tendencies… or for their refusal to see a pattern of selective enforcement and arbitrary and capricious application of coercion and intimidation.  Or for their ridiculous and insulting focus on people like me who understand the threat to basic Constitutional liberties posed by a government that makes a concerted effort to blame those who oppose overreach combined with a lack of accountability for its failure to completely fulfill its promises to give until it hurts to some from the earnings of others.  Or for their constant attempts to vilify those whose only “offense” was to oppose a government big enough to give them everything they want, because such a government would be big enough to take all we have.

No.  In the face of all the evidence they needed to see this President, and his agenda, and his administration for what it is, and has always been, they chose him anyway, happy to blame those like me for what ails the nation, because they never believed that they would be fed to the alligator.  Welcome to the country you chose.

*walks off whistling Elvis Costello’s ‘Welcome to the Working Week’*

A “Private” Right To Murder…

…is not compatible with the American Mission Statement set forth in the Declaration of Independence.

The Gosnell trial was telling, not only because it revealed a physician running a charnel house that would have to sterilize with a squad of flamethrowers before it could pass inspection as meat-packing plant, but until Katie Pavelich shamed her colleagues into actually reporting on the story, the indifference to it in the legacy media was just as disgusting. While the verdict found the butcher guilty on three counts of murder in the case of babies delivered alive, then nearly beheaded when he “snipped” their spinal cords, even now the usual suspects have engaged in some serious creativity to avoid referring to these babies as babies, since doing so might spark some viewers/readers to consider the weighty question of why exactly a murder verdict is appropriate for children who were only seconds earlier still inside their mothers and fair game for the good doctor to dispatch with relish.

Gosnell’s clinic was by all accounts unsanitary and extremely filthy. This doesn’t just indicate a disregard for the babies he enjoyed dispatching, but a disregard for his “patients”, who were routinely infected with STDs as a result of unsterilized equipment. On its own, it is a stinging indictment of the laughable mantra “Safe, Rare, and Legal”, but coupled with such horrors as jars filled with babies feet, and baby corpses stuffed in a freezer, the evil on the inside becomes physically manifest.

And yet, much like the Bene Geserit Reverend Mother in Lynch’s DUNE whispering “The Spice Must Flow…”, Klanned Murderhood is out, unrepentantly claiming that Gosnell is the exception, making sure that the real questions never get asked because “The [Taxpayer] Money Must Flow.”

We can’t encourage murder for hire by pretending that it’s ok if we call it part of some greater right of “privacy” and then expect that the evil that it is won’t be manifested by the practitioners. It was easy to convict Gosnell because he used the scissors, but the fact is that we’re all guilty for perpetrating the fiction that the taking of the most innocent lives among us is a legitimate “women’s health” procedure. Two go in and one comes out (sometimes) is NOT a health procedure, no matter what the ghouls with the bloody upturned palms tell us.

How Do You Take Your Crow?

Used With Permission.

Hopefully this blog will not survive long term because history will show you to be a fool. A melodramatic and opportunistic one at that.

But don’t worry, I am no fool. If Obama is reelected I know full well you and yours will find some excuse to impeach him. Hopefully it will end like Clinton with you looking purely political and Obama cementing his place among Presidents who left a valuable legacy.

Cheers.

-Rutherford

Another in the List of Thousands of Reasons Why the Only Response to Calls for more “Gun Control Laws” is “NO.”

Sometimes it’s easy to focus on the fact that government is prohibited from any infringement period (for any citizen who is not in the state’s custody), and forget the more obvious fact that government has already demonstrated that it does not approach the issue in good faith and already violates the law as it applies to its actions with regard to “gun control”.

This piece from Armed and Dangerous offers a refresher on this take…go now, and read it.

At Play In The Mouth of Madness

When some people started pushing back against the Official Gun Control Narrative after Sandy Hook with the seemingly obvious retort that instead of more laws that would be ignored by those determined to do bad things, it might be time to revisit the issue of Crazy People Control instead, I was …unsettled with the idea… in part because I know the history of the Soviet Union, and I know that the political prisoners who weren’t shipped to the gulags were institutionalized in asylums after being diagnosed by the state-run medical system as “mentally ill”. With ObamaCare looming, along with its cadre of experts ready to guide diagnosis and treatment on political and financial considerations first, this should be enough to give anyone who is thinking two or three moves ahead some pause.

But for a while now, something else about the idea has been nagging at me, much like a yippy little dog tugging at my pant leg, and this week, an errant turn of phrase allowed me to see this concern for what it really is. 

As as society, we are no longer sane ourselves.

Sane people do not believe in the existence of a “private” right to murder, as long as it is exercised by a woman against her unborn child (with the assistance of a medical doctor).

Sane people do not ignore or attempt to cover up the astonishing story of one of these “doctors” snipping spines of children who survive abortion attempts, then keeping their feet in jars like trophies.

Sane governments do not foster the belief that such a “right” is for them to grant, and moreover subsidize, while at the same time indignantly defending the practice as a woman’s “right to choose”.

Sane people do not repeatedly elect government officials who spend more than the government takes in, and then spends a great deal of this borrowed money on offering services and benefits to people who have no lawful right to be in this country in the first place, or on foreigners, who make no secret of their contempt of us.

Sane governments do not invite foreigners inside their borders, make them citizens, and give them welfare without a care to the inclinations, intentions, or activities of these “guests”.

Sane governments do not conclude that the way to curtail crime in neighboring countries is to significantly curtail the freedoms of their own citizens, instead of acting to secure a border so porous that it is a threat to the national security of both countries, even when determining not to do so aids and abets an ongoing slow-motion invasion in exchange for the votes and political power the blind eye delivers, because it would be foolish to assume that the same government will benefit from the final result.

Sane people don’t mindlessly echo the mantra that “Something must be done about gun violence”, even “If it only saves one child”, and yet get whipped into an outrage because a private foundation choses to no longer spend money subsidizing the murder of unborn children.

Sane people do not accept the idea that their 15-year-old cannot take an aspirin to school, but can purchase a powerful and dangerous abortifacient over the counter, or be transported by school officials to obtain an abortion without the parents’ knowledge or consent.

Sane people do not chain themselves to trees to stop loggers, or ram whaling ships to prevent whales from being slaughtered, but turn a blind eye to the actions of Kermit Gosnell, and other abortion doctors operating human abbotoirs with little or no oversight by governments charged with licensing and monitoring of medical professionals for the public safety.

Sane people do not stand by quietly or meekly as governments dilute the nature and benefits of citizenship by encouraging or allowing illegal immigration, and then passing laws that allow these same people who do not respect our laws to vote and to serve on juries.

Sane people do not quietly accept the notion that passing bills that have not yet been fully written or that no one could have possibly read is in any way acceptable behavior for those who were elected to represent their interests.

Sane people do not subscribe to the notion that it is in any way, shape, or form, the purview of government to dictate to them what they may eat, portion size, or salt and trans fat content of what they chose to eat, and sane people know that if such intrusions are justified by government’s expanding role in delivering and overseeing their health care, then that is an excellent object lesson in why government has no business in our health care.

Sane people do not immerse themselves in a self-centered and single-minded devotion to the fulfillment of their own desires and self-gratification to the degree that they abandon the dignity inherent in the liberty of accorded by God to the individual, and sane governments would not foster such practices, because sooner or later, they will run out of the material possessions and bounty of others used by governments to create such terrifying and locust-like dependents.

I could go on, citing news story after news story, where the new normal is getting reality backwards, or indulging in a number of ridiculous fictions which we are being forced to go along with, and treated as if we’re the insane ones when we question their gaslighting of us on any number of topics, but the point is, I’m reluctant to rally for Crazy People Control, because I’m no longer certain that our society recognizes insanity any more.   But I am sure that the wrong people would be only too happy to politicize it, and that even if we could implement it correctly, the inmates would outnumber the orderlies…by perhaps as much as three-to-one.  It’s like C.M. Kornbluth’s ‘The Marching Morons’ on steroids, and it rapidly appears that we have two options: Embrace the Madness, or Resist Until We Are Overcome.

Sometimes, Misinformation Is Worse Than No Information

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Some things I have learned to simply accept, if not with good humor, then at least without comment. As an attorney, I often receive (unsolicited) the glossy “brag books” in which a bunch of Seattle and Bellevue attorneys call themselves “Super Lawyers”, or publications like this one, intended to create confidence that if you have the negligence/personal injury/product liability case in which you don’t have confidence to properly handle yourself, referral to their firm would be a great thing for your client.

These things usually clutter up my mailbox, and I confess to rarely giving them a second look, but in this case, I did…for obvious reasons. And I found myself very angry because of it.

For better or worse, members of my tribe are viewed as authorities on the subjects we speak on. It’s one of the reasons I try to make damn sure I know what I’m talking about before I attempt to “speak with authority” on any matter. In the case of this article, I’m not sure if it was a lapse in judgement, someone else wrote the piece, or if the author was just careless, but the assertion that all of the recent mass shootings all involved automatic weapons is false, largely because of existing infringements that make it very difficult, expensive, and time-consuming for law-abiding citizens to obtain automatic weapons.  (As we all know, criminals don’t care.)

It only took me 15 minutes with a search engine to confirm what I already knew: NONE of the named shootings were perpetrated with automatic weapons. All involved semi-automatic weapons, and some also included other firearms, such as a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, and a Remington shotgun. (links to news stories below)

Cafe Racer

Sikh Temple

Tucson

Aurora

Newtown

Forza Coffee… (In fact, the shootings at Forza Coffee were done with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.  The shooter didn’t have even a semi-automatic until he stole one of his victims’ Glock 17, according to this article)

Advocating to restrict, infringe, or eliminate a right is a serious business. This is more serious when that right is Constitutionally protected, as that protection is in the form of a guarantee of a right, because that guarantee is a recognition of the fact that the right exists independent of any action of government. Explained differently, this means that the right is not a privilege, which government may curtail, limit, or eliminate at its pleasure.

Advocating to infringe or restrict that right becomes all the more egregious when the text of the guarantee contains a prohibition on any infringement by government. This offense is compounded when incorrect “facts” are relied upon in the argument that suggests that “something must be done”.

Also conveniently omitted from the piece is the fact that gun control laws would have done little, if anything, to prevent these shootings.  And considering the relatively low number of deaths due to firearms in this country when compared to other causes, the burden for making the case becomes harder, not easier, when you talk about increasing government’s infringement on the right to keep and bear arms.  Frankly, the only way any such discussion should be entertained is through the only process by which such measures can be legitimately obtained: AMENDMENT.  And if such a proposal should be seriously made, I would welcome the discussion about the distinction between rights and privileges, and would no doubt be entertained and annoyed at the inevitable suggestion that man’s rights should be subject to the approval of government, as I, and others like me would labor ceaselessly to ensure that all who are paying attention are brought face-to-face with the stark realization of what such an idea means to the relationship between government and citizens, and the abandonment of the fundamental ideas that are the basis of this nation and its organic law.

If it was a mistake, it should be admitted as such.  If it was deliberate, then it is dishonest, and not worthy of the man who made the statement or the profession the author and I both share.