Genghis's blog

Roland Burris, we hardly knew ye

Genghis — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:38:06 +0000

There's nothing wrong with Roland Burris and there's nothing wrong with the appointment

Since Burris is out of the picture, Genghis would like to remind still-Governor Milorad "Rod" R. Blagojevich, (pronounced #$%!*$) of the $10 that Genghis sent him on Dec. 18th and the promises that the still-Governor made to Genghis at that time. As an American citizen over the age of 30, Genghis is eminently qualified to be Senator and as the 14th Jewish Senator would help to address the underrepresentation of Jews in the in Senate. Moreover, Genghis will not wilt like an unrefrigerated tomato in the face of Senatorial resistance. Like the still-Governor, Genghis doesn't give a damn about the nation or the Democratic Party. Genghis only wants four rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan, a house in the country with an extra floor inserted underneath it, and a few Scottish and Caribbean golf trips. Plus golf lessons because Genghis admits that he doesn't know how to golf. Genghis LOL's at the right-wing smear campaign accusing him of failing to represent Illinois. Genghis visited Chicago in September, and "he totally gets Illinois," according to Genghis. Genghis also promises to buy a house in a fancy Chicago suburb once he cashes in on his office.

Genghis thanks the still-Governor and promises to use the might of his Senate seat to ensure that such a great, selfless, eloquent man will never be penalized for absurd allegations. Genghis promises to ensure that the still-Governor will never be penalized either.

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For more adulation of the Senator-who-could-have-been, see Orlando's posts, Rest in Peace, Roland Burris, and Roland Burris and the Sad, Sad State of Illinois Politics.

Film Review: The Wrestler - Hulk Hogan in Shades of Blue

Genghis — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:52:40 +0000

In American cinematic tradition, The Aging Warrior, usually played by Sylvester Stallone, returns to the arena for one last heroic battle against The Arrogant Challenger, defying expectations and muscular degeneration to prove that he's The World Champion For Eternity. The Wrestler, a moving, melancholy character study about a fictional pro-wrestler of a certain age, is not one of those films. There is no epic battle between Aging Warrior and Arrogant Challenger. There is no Arrogant Challenger, period. The young wrestlers in the film are just struggling to make it. They exhibit affection and respect for their legendary predecessor. The only battles in the movie are psychological, and the characters chiefly grapple with themselves. The physical wrestling, by contrast, is just showbiz. There are no extended training montages scored by glam rock battle hymns. Other than Springsteen's plaintive The Wrestler, which plays as the credits roll and haunts you out the door, the only music you'll hear emerges from car radios and arena speakers, giving the 80's metal and rock a tinny sound that underscores the old wrestler's faded glory.

There is also a long theatrical tradition of The Senile Has-Been who pitifully indulges himself in the delusion that he is World Champion For Eternity while the Arrogant Challenger cunningly usurps his throne. Examples include King Lear, Death of a Salesman, Glengarry Glen Ross, and the 2008 presidential election. The Wrestler is not one of those either. Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke) knows full well that his career has neared the end and that there will be no return to the glory of his youth. These days, he lucidly endures daily humiliations with grim patience: locked out of his trailer home for failure to pay rent, taunted by the manager at his day job as a supermarket stocker, filled full of staples in a particularly sadistic but crowd-pleasing wrestling act. He finds solace in the respect he still receives from fellow wrestlers and devoted fans as he painfully climbs the ropes each weekend to deliver theatrical body slams. Evenings, Ram visits a chintzy suburban strip club for lap dances from a cynical stripper known to him by her stage-name, Cassidy, who firmly dismisses his amorous invitations.

The film pivots from sad to wrenching when Ram suffers a heart attack, bringing an abrupt end to his faltering career. Lonely and poor, he takes a degrading deli job at the supermarket and reaches out to Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) and his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) for affection. The second half of the film portrays Ram's struggle to interact with these two ambivalent women and deal with his yearning for the attention and adoration on which he had thrived as a performer.

With his blond mane and good-guy stage persona, Randy the Ram mimics Hulk Hogan, who wrestled as recently as 2007 at age 53. Like Hogan, the Ram had famously defeated the forces of Iranian villainy at Madison Square Garden in the 80's, the Iron Sheik being replaced with the fictional Ayatollah. Mickey Rourke has obviously devoted himself to the part. At 56, he must have undergone extensive training (and perhaps medication) to put on the impressive muscular bulk he carried. His studied performance seduces the audience with a beautiful portrayal of a sweet, broken man, who in contrast to his fierce stage persona and exploding pectorals exhibits affection and generosity towards Cassidy, his daughter, his fans, and his fellow wrestlers alike. But the audience's empathy comes at a price. The film frequently alludes to Ram's past as a self-centered, emotionally distant party-animal, but despite one scene of old time pro-wrestling debauchery, it's difficult to imagine such behavior from Rourke's tender wrestler. As a result, Rourke's rendering is less complex and less real than it might have been.

Marisa Tomei is excellent as usual, as a determined, self-protective older stripper and mother, though like Rourke, she displays too much sugar and too little salt. Cassidy is supposed to have buried her emotions within a thick defensive shell, but the shell cracks too quickly and easily for that to be convincing. At 44 and frequently naked, Tomei also looks fantastic.

Evan Rachel Wood is easily the weakest of the three as the angry, insecure daughter. With only a few scenes to fill out her character, it's a difficult role. Wood shifts rapidly from curses to embraces to tears and fails to make the character work.

But responsibility for the acting flaws should certainly be shared with director Darren Aronofsky. From Ram's slouch as he drags his suitcase around town to the dull lighting and tawdry sets, Aronofsky's wrestler is an object of pathos, not tragedy. As such, his tragic flaws seem as if they were pasted on by an eager screenwriter. These flaws should either have been removed from the script or else honored in the direction.

Except for this weakness, the directing was careful, subtle, and effective. If you excuse the half-baked tragedy and melodramatic aspects, you will be rewarded with a beautiful, uncommon film that traces the universal sadness of old age and lost purpose embodied in the muscular bulk of a uniquely American folk hero, and you will emerge from the theater emotionally exhausted but cathartically sated.

Helpful links:

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Genghis — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:39:17 +0000

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Genghis — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:08:07 +0000

It's that time of year again. Resolution time. We're all supposed to come up with some great goals for 2009. But worthwhile goals aren't easy to come by. Sure, you could promise to quit smoking or abusing pigeons or getting naked in public or whatever boring resolution you make every year and violate three days later, but you've been there and done that. At dagblog, we're committed to helping our readers experience fulfilling and innovative New Year's resolutions. That's why we've developed our patent-pending New Year's Resolution Generator™. Just fill in the easy-to-fill-in form, press the button, and voila--instant resolution gratification.

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Chanukkah For Goyim - The True Story of Chanukkah + Bonus Pronunciation Tips

Genghis — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:07:44 +0000

Gather round, children, and I will tell you the story of Chanukkah (which I brazenly lifted from the internet).

Long ago in the land of Judea there was a Syrian king, Antiochus. The king ordered the Jewish people to reject their God, their religion, their customs and their beliefs and to worship the Greek gods. There were some who did as they were told, but many refused. One who refused was Judah Maccabee.

Judah and his four brothers formed an army and chose as their name the word "Maccabee", which means hammer. After three years of fighting, the Maccabees were finally successful in driving the Syrians out of Israel and reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem. The Maccabees wanted to clean the building and to remove the hated Greek symbols and statues. On the 25th day of the month of Kislev, the job was finished and the temple was rededicated.

When Judah and his followers finished cleaning the temple, they wanted to light the eternal light, known as the N'er Tamid, which is present in every Jewish house of worship. Once lit, the oil lamp should never be extinguished.

Only a tiny jug of oil was found with only enough for a single day. The oil lamp was filled and lit. Then a miracle occurred as the tiny amount of oil stayed lit not for one day, but for eight days.

Gather round, adults, and I will tell you what really happened (as best we know)...

In 334 B.C.E., Alexander the Great conquered Judea along with rest of the Middle East. His reign was notable for religious tolerance, though he imported Hellenistic practices to the lands he conquered and offered tax breaks to grecophones. After Alexander died without an obvious successor, his generals squabbled over the empire and ultimately broke it into three parts. One of the generals, Seleucus, won control of the westernmost part, which stretched from Turkey to India and became known as the Seleucid Empire.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the eighth ruler of the empire. He initially continued Alexander's practices of religious tolerance and Hellenist influence, which many Judeans embraced enthusiastically. From the first Book of Maccabees:

At that time there were some evil-doers in Israel who tried to win popularity for a policy of integration with the surrounding nations. It was because the Jews had kept themselves aloof for so long, they claimed, that so many hardships had befallen them. They acquired a following and applied to Antiochus, who authorized them to introduce the Greek way of life. They built a Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem and even had themselves uncircumcised.

The conflict between grecophiles and traditionalists was suffused with political intrigue. When the High Priest died in 175 B.C.E, his pro-Greek son Jason bribed Antiochus to be made High Priest in place of his anti-Greek brother, Onias. Then Menelaus, another grecophile who wasn't even a member of the High-priestly family, bribed Antiochus to replace Jason. When Antiochus left to invade Egypt, Jason took advantage of the opportunity to forcibly win back his position. Upon returning from the semi-successful Egyptian campaign, Antiochus interpreted Jason's move as an insurrection. That's when he outlawed Jewish religious practices and slaughtered those who resisted.

According to the Book of Maccabees, Mattathias, the leader of a conservative priestly clan known as the Hasmoneans, refused to make an offering to Greek gods as commanded by a Greek official. When another Judean attempted to make an offering on his behalf, Mattathias killed him, along with the Greek official, and fled with his five sons to the mountains. His son, Judah, adopted the nom de guerre of Judah Maccabee and launched a holy war against Antiochus, employing guerrilla tactics to defeat the larger Greek-Syrian army. After winning Judean independence, the Hasmonians established a religious dynasty which survived until the Romans interceded and placed Herod on the throne.

As for the miracle of the oil, the first Book of the Maccabees doesn't even mention it.

Some Chanukkah trivia for you:

Chanukkah is often spelled with a C because we lack a letter for the Hebrew sound. Imagine that you've just eaten a moldy peach and exclaim, "Yechhhh!" That's the sound. It's part of what makes Hebrew such a beautiful language.
There are apparently 16 ways to spell Chanukkah as proven by the internet.
The menorah holds 9 candles. The top candle is called the shamush, which means "servant." You're supposed to place the candles into the menorah from right to left, then light the shamush with a match and use the shamush to light the other candles from left to right.
The traditional Chanukkah food is the latke, a delicious, fat-sizzled potato pancake usually eaten with applesauce.
Jewish parents traditionally tell the story of Chanukkah to their children each year. My grandfather was an artist and illustrated a booklet that my parents put together. He drew the "Greek" idol a large man horns, which led me to have some misconceptions.
While there is a tradition of giving money (gelt in Yiddish) on Chanukkah, the gift-giving has been appropriated from the goyim. The gelt tradition survives in the form of coin-shaped chocolates.
Dreydel is gambling game. You ante your gelt into the pot and then spin to see who wins it. The dreydel has four sides and your winning is determined by which side lands face-up. The gimmel side gets you the whole pot, hei gets you half, nun gets you nothing, and shin requires you match the pot. I once played strip-dreydel with a shiksa girlfriend. Best dreydel match ever.
Contrary to popular belief, we do not sacrifice Christian babies during Chanukkah. We do that on Passover.

George Bush on the mortgage crisis: "How did we get here?"

Genghis — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:38:03 +0000

It was Sept. 18. Lehman Brothers had just gone belly-up, overwhelmed by toxic mortgages. Bank of America had swallowed Merrill Lynch in a hastily arranged sale. Two days earlier, Mr. Bush had agreed to pump $85 billion into the failing insurance giant American International Group. The president listened as Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, laid out the latest terrifying news: The credit markets, gripped by panic, had frozen overnight, and banks were refusing to lend money. Then his Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., told him that to stave off disaster, he would have to sign off on the biggest government bailout in history. Mr. Bush, according to several people in the room, paused for a single, stunned moment to take it all in. “How,” he wondered aloud, “did we get here?”

In the article from today's NYT, the reporters argue that Bush's commitment to 1) expanding home ownership and 2) deregulating markets led his administration to adopt policies that directly encouraged the real estate bubble and subsequent crash. While report acknowledges that Bush now takes the crisis very seriously and is taking aggressive action, it cites evidence that the administration ignored the warning signs for much too long.

Some highlights:

As recently as February, Bush was still calling the economic deterioration "a rough patch."
Al Hubbard, former chief economics adviser: "There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems. Had we, we would have attacked them."
John W. Snow, former Treasury Secretary: "The Bush administration took a lot of pride that homeownership had reached historic highs, but what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost."
Bush foresaw the danger posed by Fannie and Freddie and pressured Congress to toughen regulation of them but refused to compromise on a proposal by Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) which the former Treasury Secretary backed.
To fulfill his vision of an "ownership society" Bush proposed affordable housing tax incentives, insisted that Fannie and Freddie meet ambitious new low-income lending goals, persuaded Congress to spend $200M per year to help first-time buyers, and pushed, unsuccessfully, to allow first-time buyers to qualify for federally insured mortgages with no money down.
The administration fought attempts by states to crack down on predatory lending and won a Supreme Court ruling asserting that states had no authority over national banks. Roy Cooper, North Carolina's attorney general, said, "They took 50 sheriffs off the beat at a time when lending was becoming the Wild West."
Feb. 2003: Armando Falcon Jr., a Clinton appointee who ran the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, produced a report which warned that Fannie and Freddie could default on debt, setting off "contagious illiquidity in the market," and raised red flags about the companies' use of derivatives. The White House cites that report as evidence that it foresaw the crisis and tried to avert it in a talking points memo entitled, G.S.E.'s -- We Told You So. But the day Falcon released the report, the administration tried to fire him and replace him with Mark C. Brickell, a leader in the derivatives industry that Mr. Falcon's report had flagged. The administration reconsidered that decision later in the year.
In 2004, mortgage bankers and brokers donated $847K to Bush's re-election campaign, triple their contributions in 2000.
Falcon left in 2005 and was eventually replaced by James B. Lockhart, a friend of Mr. Bush from their days at Andover, and a former deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration who had once run a software company. On Lockhart's watch, Freddie and Fannie took on even more risk and bought over $400 billion in subprime and other alternative mortgages.
Spring 2007: Mr. Paulson declared that "the housing market is at or near the bottom," with the problem "largely contained."
Fall 2007: Rahm Emanuel warned the White House it was not doing enough. He said he told Joshua B. Bolten, Mr. Bush's chief of staff, and Mr. Paulson that the credit crisis would get "deep and serious" and that the only answer was big, internationally coordinated government intervention. Instead, Mr. Bush developed Hope Now, a voluntary public-private partnership to help struggling homeowners refinance loans and worked with Congress to pass a stimulus package that sent taxpayers $150 billion in tax rebates.
March 2008: Mr. Lockhart’s office planned to lift restraints on Fannie and Freddie's huge portfolios. Mr. Paulson told Mr. Bush the companies would shore themselves up later by raising more capital. "Can they?" Mr. Bush asked. "We're hoping so," the Treasury secretary replied. That turned out to be incorrect.
July 2008: Lockhart declared that Fannie and Freddie were well managed and "worsts were not coming to worst." Jason Thomas, an economic analyst for President Bush, sent out e-mails accusing Lockhart of "pimping for the stock prices of the undercapitalized firms he regulates." Soon afterward, the companies' stocks lost half their value in a single day.

As for Bush himself, he declined to be interviewed and says that he's too focused on the present to do much looking back. "It turns out, this isn't one of the presidencies where you ride off into the sunset, you know, kind of waving goodbye."

I'm afraid not, Mr. Bush. Rather, it's one of the presidencies where you sneak off in the dark of night. But that's OK. In the words of the great Dr. Seuss:

The time has come. The time is now. Just go. Go. GO! I don't care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. George W. Bush, will you please go now!

Sledgehammer Politics in South Korea

Genghis — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:02:20 +0000

Ah Democracy...freely elected legislators dutifully fulfilling the will of the people by blockading themselves in a locked room while the honorable opposition attempts to dutifully fulfill the will of the rest of the people by breaking down the door with a sledgehammer and other sundry power tools. Full video after the jump.

The ruling Grand National Party resorted to the locked room approach in order to pass a free trade agreement with the U.S.in peace and quiet. To make sure that they had sufficient peace and quiet, they also blockaded the entrance to the room with office furniture. For good measure, the GNP-affiliated committee chairman invoked his right to use force in order to keep measure.

As opposition lawmakers breached the doors with sledgehammer and possibly a chainsaw, security guards enforced the chairman's right to use force with fire extinguishers. Fire retardant is perhaps not the most effective means of defense, but as they were under siege, the guards had to make do with the weapons at hand. Don't they use staplers in South Korea?

The determined opposition overwhelmed the fire-extinguisher-armed defenders with a fire hose but were thwarted by the strategically placed office furniture, which held them at bay until the GNP succeeded in signing the agreement. Note to opposition: next time bring siege engines.

Casualties included cuts and bruises, some seriously f-ed up office furniture, and all sense of decorum.

Full story from the AP

And here's the video. I recommend watching to the end to see the aftermath...

Pictures from the L.A. Times...

Vote for dagblog

Genghis — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:40:56 +0000

Dear dagreaders, we love ya. Thanks for reading and writing in and being cool people (which I know is a particular challenge for you Canadians).

It's tough to make a name a for yourself in the blogosphere, but the good word is getting out, and our audience is growing. In a fit of wild (yet completely unbiased) enthusiasm, I recently nominated dagblog for the blogger's choice awards. You may have noticed the badge in the right panel. If you can spare us a little love, I hope that you'll see fit to vote for us for 2009 by clicking the badge or this here link. We're nominated for politics, humor, and stuff. I think that you get 3 votes. It does require you to enter an email, but they won't spam you.

If you're feeling especially magnanimous, you can rate us and add us to your favorites at blogcatalog.com. You can also follow us on Facebook's NetworkBlogs.

Thanks so much for your help. Dag.

PS Personally, I've been stupidly busy this month, so I haven't been writing in much, but I promise to pick it up in the new year.

What would have happened if the shoe had hit?

Genghis — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:51:33 +0000

And here's the inevitable Bush-Austin Powers mashup:

PS Apologies to Orlando for the "you fight like a woman" bit. Seems to be a continuing subtext to these shoe throwing episodes. From a previous thread:

They kicked [the shoe thrower] and beat him until “he was crying like a woman,” said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party, which is led by Mr. Maliki.

Real men aren't afraid to throw shoes.

Juxtaposition

Genghis — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:12:25 +0000

Before	After