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August 31, 2007
Obscure Movies for Labor Day Weekend
Labor Day Weekend. Some people grill. Not me. No way. Too labor intensive. Some people get in their cars and drive. I'd rather bang my head against the wall for an hour. I hate driving. There are folks who bop on over to their relatives to enjoy a congenial family circle.
Sigh.
No family in Los Angeles.
Offspring #2 and #3 are back East. Everyone is back East — or in Israel.
“It's just you and me,” I say to the love of my life.
So, what to do over the long Labor Day Weekend?
Oh, I know, shopping. Sales. Insane crowds. Sharp elbows.
Forget it. I hate shopping. I buy everything mail order. Clothing via L.L. Bean and Land's End. Karen is hooked on Loehmann's.
I know, let's kick back, watch some movies.
So, I've rummaged through my library and chosen my list of movies to watch over the Long Labor Day Weekend.
But look, I'm not going to tell you to watch Casablanca, or Citizen Kane. You know about the usual suspects already. I'm here to urge you to take a look at a few little-known gems that are now on DVD, movies that you probably missed, but absolutely must see because they are just amazing, better than anything playing in the theaters right now.
There's no theme here, just a bunch of movies that I really love and want to share with you. So, grab your favorite blankie—Karen gave me a cowboy blanket a few years ago that I chew when watching movies—curl up on your couch and hit the PLAY button.
In no particular order.
1. Last Train from Gun Hill 1959, starring Kirk Douglas born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, and Anthony Quinn. This is a classic revenge western.
The storytelling is lean, taut and raw. Kirk Douglas' Indian wife is raped and murdered by Anthony Quinn's son. Douglas and Quinn used to be best friends. Douglas is now a lawman. Quinn, a powerful rancher.
Not a shot or line of dialog is wasted. The suspense builds as Douglas nabs his man and tries to board the 9:00 train from Gun Hill. Carolyn Jones (converted to Judaism when she married producer Aaron Spelling—hey, I couldn't resist.) has a great supporting role as Quinn's bitter mistress who, against her own self-interest, aids the badly out-gunned Douglas. The performance by Kirk Douglas has the power of Greek tragedy. A neglected classic.
2. The Lady Eve 1941, Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck star in this, one of the greatest screwball comedies ever made. Preston Sturges wrote, produced and directed this masterpiece.
Fonda, a rich kid, has been up the Amazon, studying snakes for a few years. Stanwyck, a con-artist, takes one look at Fonda and says: “I need him like the axe needs the turkey.” Sturges wrote this script in Reno while awaiting his third divorce. Hmmm.
Stanwyck is, naturally, after Fonda's fortune. Fonda is bumbling, clueless. There's a classic scene where Stanwyck has maneuvered Fonda into her stateroom on board an ocean liner. She gets him down on his knees, slyly has him change her "slippers." Fonda, who has not seen a woman in years, is positively melting. This might be the sexiest scene in the history of the movies, yet there is no nudity, no kisses are exchanged — and it is hilarious. I have seen this movie a dozen times and it is always fresh, bursting with energy.
3. Fixed Bayonets! 1951, The Korean war has never been a favorite for Hollywood storytellers. But writer slash director Samuel Fuller, family name originally Rabinovitch, isn't much interested in the politics of North and South Korea. As always, Fuller concentrates on the human emotions of his central characters. Richard Baseheart plays a corporal who watches in terror as every officer above him in the chain of command is killed. Baseheart does not want to lead. He can't even squeeze the trigger to kill an enemy soldier. Look, the sets are cheap, production values are crap, but this is a fine film because Fuller understands combat—he fought with The Big Red One in World War Two—and he cares about the ordinary GI.
The story is simple: a platoon is fighting a rear-guard action against an entire North Korean regiment. It's a suicide mission. There's a brilliant scene where the members of the platoon stand and watch the American army retreating along a muddy road. The GI's left behind know that they are as good as dead. The retreating GI's can barely look at the men who are being left behind. The music echoes eerily. Not a word of dialog is spoken. Here is war stripped to its most elemental form.
By the way, see if you can spot James Dean here in his first movie role, with three words of dialog.
4. Duck, You Sucker 1972, Rod Steiger and James Coburn star in Sergio Leone's neglected masterpiece. Coburn plays an I.R.A. dynamite expert who has come to Mexico to continue his, er, activities, on behalf of the revolution. Steiger is a filthy bandit with no interest in politics. Naturally, these two very different characters join forces.
This film was not quite a Spaghetti Western, and the title, well, it sounds just dopey, but believe me, this is not to be missed. There's a sequence where the camera does a simple pan as Mexican soldiers slaughter innocent people trapped in a series of ditches; the camera just casually sweeps along, no cuts, no close-ups, just one long take, and the brutality is just overwhelming. Leone was operatic in the best sense of the word and this might be his greatest film.
5. Strange Cargo 1940, Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. This is one of Crawford's greatest performances. Director Frank Borzage carefully guides her performance and does not let her fall back on her old and reliable mannerisms. She's stripped of all glamor, movie star make-up, and no stunning wardrobe in which to flounce around. Here, she's a hard-hearted "saloon girl" who undergoes a spiritual rebirth during an escape with a gang of convicts from Devil's Island. Gable plays against type as a hard-edged, dangerous convict; the chemistry between Gable and Crawford is just off the charts. This is a powerful film, and a great pairing of two huge stars. We will not see their kind ever again. Guaranteed.
6. Point Blank, 1967. This might be the toughest most relentless revenge-driven movie ever made. Lee Marvin strides through abstract urban landscapes, killing one criminal after another, trying to collect a debt of $93,000. He's been betrayed by everyone, including his wife. This film redefines the modern crime thriller. It's in a whole other category and Marvin is at the top of his game. Director John Boorman is confident of every camera placement. The dialog is crisp and clipped. The screenplay was written by Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse & Rafe Newhouse. I've heard from several sources that Marvin had a great deal of input into the final script. Use of sound is masterful, brilliant. The movie's final sequence in the abandoned Alcatraz Prison Island is haunting; and in retrospect I now understand that this film was the last great film noir to come out of Hollywood. This is definitely a guy's film. It's violent and yet strangely poetic. There are moments of great tenderness as Marvin expresses an almost boyish love for his double-dealing wife. Point Blank is the odyssey of a tender man transformed into a violent juggernaut by betrayal and disappointment. Lee Marvin's performance is riveting, probably the most disciplined of his career, as he becomes an avenging angel in pursuit of money—and his lost humanity.
7. When the Last Sword is Drawn 2002. What, you thought I was going to recommend a bunch of films and not plug a Japanese Samurai flick?
That'll be the day.
This is an epic movie about a Samurai who fights for money. Yup, you heard me right, money. It's the end of the Edo period in Kyoto and Kanichiro Yoshimura, born Menachem Yosselovich—no, I'm just messing with you— just wants to make enough money to support his family. His quarrelsome fellow Samurai view him as dishonorable, a money-grubbing mercenary.
The flashback structure of this movies is beautiful and multi-layered. I don't want to give too much away except to tell you that it's an elegy for a good man and a master warrior as seen through the eyes of his most fierce opponent.
Oh, and the sword-play is breath-taking. I chewed my blankie to shreds. It badly needs mending.
The screenplay by the remarkable Takehiro Nakajima is a structural masterpiece, and should be studied by all screenwriters and aspiring screenwriters.
This movies understands honor, loyalty, and the abiding love between a man, a woman and their children — the unit that keeps the earth on its axis. By the end of this film my face was wet with tears.
I invite all my readers to chime in with their Labor Day Weekend movie picks.
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:16 AM | Comments (34)
August 30, 2007
The anti-Israeli "Hollywood" Blacklist
They use all the familiar grievances: the occupation of Palestinian lands, the oppression of the Palestinian people, blah, blah blah. But look, the Egyptians don't give a crap about the so-called Palestinians, never have. They have them locked up in Gaza—I'm talking air-tight—and the only thing that gets into Gaza from the Egyptian border are Kalachnikovs, Qassam Rockets, and other implements of destruction — courtesy of The Muslim Brotherhood, who bribe the Egyptian border guards, or threaten to kill their families if they don't cooperate.
No, Egypt hated Israel long before there was any so-called occupation.
Flashback: 1948, the U.N. declares a partition plan for separate Jewish and Arab states. Helloo, the Palestinian state they are always claiming they want; well they had it, and they threw it away.
Stunning, huh?
“The Arabs,” as Abba Eben once said, “never miss a chance to miss a chance.”
Back to our exciting narrative: Egypt, the most prestigious Arab power in the region, with the largest army, rejects the international partition plan, and along with four other Arab armies, including a so-called Palestinian Brigade, invades the newly-born State of Israel, promising to “drive the Jews into the sea.”
No, not for a nice, refreshing swim.
Egyptian broadcasters in Cairo urge Arabs in Israel to flee and return after the Jews are slaughtered—to collect the spoils of war. Those Jooz are just swimming in money. It says so in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; favorite bed time reading in the Arab world.
The Arabs lose the war, and gee, what do you know, the Egyptians don't want to take responsibility for the fleeing Arabs, an inconvenient, angry mob massing on their borders. What happened to the promised spoils of war?
Awkward.
Egyptian solution: shove their beloved Arab bretheren into Gaza, lock them up, throw away the key, blame the Zionist dogs.
Let's not forget Anwar Sadat: the Egyptian President bravely flies to Jerusalem and signs a peace treaty with Israel. Soon afterward, he is assassinated by The Muslim Brotherhood, who publicly and proudly explain that they eliminated Sadat as a traitor for making peace with the Zionist entity. Anwar Sadat's passing is deeply mourned in Israel—not in the Arab world.
So let's dispense with this nonsense about occupation.
The hatred and desire to eliminate the State of Israel and remove the 3,000 year old Jewish presence in Israel is ancient, rooted in Islamic religious doctrine and Pan Arabic national hatred.
How is it, the Egyptians, and every other Arab/Muslim nation ask themselves, that Israel, barely 60 years old, the size of a postage stamp, is a military giant, an economic juggernaut, and we in the Arab world can't even produce flush toilets?
Makes for some deeply shameful feelings, and a culture that simply refuses to take responsibility for its own failures.
The Arab/Muslim world is dysfunctional, it tells itself, because, um, the Zionists, the Americans, and the Christians have conspired to make it so.
And so on.
It is deeply telling that in the case that follows below, the hostility in Egypt is from the left, not from the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, the left wingers in Egypt, so called secular and western-influenced, agree with the Jihadists on one crucial issue: Israel is a virus that cannot be tolerated.
Sound familiar? Yes, indeed, the left in Egypt mirror the left in America and Europe in their Jew-hatred cleverly disguised as "mere anti-Zionism."
Anywhoo.
Let's turn to the leftie Egyptian's and their outrage at one of their own for, get this, having the chutzpah to appear in a movie with an Israeli/Jew.
The horror! The horror!
The chairman of Egypt's Actors' Union said Thursday that the group planned to investigate one of the country's brightest young movie stars for appearing in an upcoming miniseries with an Israeli actor.
To read the rest of the story, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Kishke
Also: For a great summation of the status of The Disputed Territories I strongly urge you to read this at that mighty blog Bookworm Room.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:16 AM | Comments (15)
Public Spotlight on Terrorism
Steve Emerson is, at last, on-line, with his Investigative Project on Terrorism.
This is an excellent resource about world-wide jihad from New York to Jerusalem and it's free. We strongly urge all our Seraphic Friends to bookmark this site. If you want to understand the existential battle being waged against the West by the Muslim radicals, this is the place to go.
Emerson is one of our finest counter-terrorism experts. The fifth columnists in America fear and loathe him—a sure sign that Mr. Emerson is doing his job. He is never quoted in the New York Times, another sign that Emerson is an expert in his field. When Mr. Emerson appears as a guest on TV, Jihadist apologists are, invariably, made to look foolish under his cool and relentless barrage of facts. They end up accusing Mr. Emerson of being anti-Islamic.
What a shock.
On the fine Counterterrorism Blog, Jeffrey Breinholt writes:
Sometimes without us knowing it, legal standards change suddenly. It happened today, when the Investigative Project on Terrorism launched its public (and free!) website. I was fortunate enough to receive an advance demonstration of it last week, and came away stunned. Information that has been questioned, sometimes through accusations about the motives of the messengers, is now available to everyone. Anyone with access to the Internet can now see and hear audio and video recordings of Islamic American leaders making statements that have frequently been denied. The truth can sometimes be inconvenient. I predict that, in some future judicial proceeding, August 29, 2007 will be recognized as the moment when those legally charged with the responsibility of “due diligence” and knowing the details of the Islamic threat to our institutions — journalists, academics, bankers, and government officials — will no longer be able to claim plausible deniability. Steve Emerson and his staff, led by Michael Fechter, have performed an amazing public service.
The website is an absolute boom for those of us involved in public commentary and education about counterterrorism. Now, we can finally get beyond debates over whether someone actually said or wrote something to the more interesting question of the implications. I expect the debates to get sharper, and the analysis more refined, since there will no longer be disagreements over basic facts. Hopefully, this will be on immediate display on the Counterterrorism Blog. I encourage all of our readers to get acquainted with this remarkable new tool.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Yonoson Fisgus, M.D.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:43 AM | Comments (12)
August 29, 2007
Flight 93 Memorial: Jihad in Disguise
Someone you love is, G-d forbid, murdered. Years later a memorial for your beloved is designed, and oh my gosh—the memorial glorifies guess who?
The murderer.
Does this scenario sound too grotesque to be real?
Well, obviously you have not been paying attention to the Flight 93 Memorial designed by Paul Murdoch of Los Angeles.
The Flight 93 Memorial murders those good people over and over and over again.
I know nothing about Mr. Murdoch except what I glean from his design and it is this: he has no compassion for the victims, nor for the relatives, loved ones and friends of the victims; he enables jihad by appeasement and surrender to the symbols of our Arab/Muslim enemies. His design spits on the graves of the dead, and celebrates the murderers.
Murdoch's design is a disgrace; he should be fired and his design relegated to the ash heap of history along with Soviet Socialist realism. It is on the exact same level.
The mighty Michelle Malkin has a complete wrap-up: Seeing is believing.
Here's another story that will just break your heart about a father of a victim who is fighting this wretched design.
Write the National Park Service, which must approve the final design here.
Call the Superintendent of the Flight 93 National Memorial at (814) 443-4557. Or fax (814) 443-2180.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:29 AM | Comments (20)
August 28, 2007
Counterinsurgency in Hollywood
LTC John Nagl is a fine guest on the Jon Stewart Show. Nagl was one of the co-authors of the new "U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual."
LTC Nagl is solid, really funny and deeply human. He sums up the manual like this: “Be professional, be polite, be prepared to kill.”
Perfect.
You can view the Nagl interview here.
You can order the US Army/Marine Corps Field Counterinsurgency Manual here. Essential reading.
Or you can download the entire manual here.
This high-profile appearance is no fluke. General Petraeus is fighting back against the Iraqi defeatists with his own PR machine. Petraeus, more than any other fighting general, understands the importance of propaganda. Let's hope that we will see many more appearances by Nagl and other fine soldiers who speak so eloquently for our country and our troops.
I'd also like to recommend LTC Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malay and Vietnam. This is a deeply relevant text for those of us who understand that we have entered a new period of warfare: Fourth Generation Warfare.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:45 PM | Comments (3)
August 27, 2007
The Protocols of Christiane Amanpour
I'm pretty sure that I'm suffering Post Traumatic Syndrome from watching the entire six hours of Christiane Amanpour's G-d's Warriors, and then blogging about the propaganda piece.
Here's my coverage:
Watching Al Jazeera, Part I
Watching Al Jazeera, Part II
Watching Al Jazeera, Part III
Honestly, calling this, um—thing—journalism would be like calling Julius Streicher a nuanced editor. The work of a fanatic leftist secularist, this CNN special is drenched in moral relativism. Amanpour's distortions of the existential battle being waged by the Arab/Muslim world against Israel and Judaism is appalling. Her propaganda delivers a universe of ammunition to murderous jihadists and venemous Jew-haters everywhere. Amanpour has in the past displayed a keen hostility to the State of Israel, but in this six hour special her distortions and lies are in full bloom—and quite frankly they verge on Jew-hatred.
At one point Amanpour flatly states that Orthodox Jewish women are subservient to their husbands.
Karen and Looked at each other and just burst into laughter.
How many times have I called up an Orthodox friend and had this conversation:
Me: Hey, wanna shoot some hoops?
Friend: Let me ask my wife.
A minute later he returns:
Friend: Sorry, Rachel wants me to fold laundry.
Me: Are you a man or a mouse?
Friend: Let me ask Rachel.
Anywhoo.
Karen and I laughed at Amanpour's truly stupid statement, but this kind of lie/distortion/canard/whatever is no laughing matter. It libels an entire religion.
Is Amanpour ignorant or a liar?
If she's ignorant, she should be fired. Not for this singular untruth, but for the entire enterprise which leaks lies and distortions at every frame.
If she's a liar, well, she should be fired for consciously producing jihadist-enabling propaganda, consciously propagating Jew-hatred.
Phyllis Chesler has a fine round-up on the Protocols of Christiane Amanpour.
The point-by-point refutation by CAMERA is superb.
As Amanpour destroys language and meaning through a Stalinist style manipulation of words, images and history, we at Seraphic Secret attempt to maintain integrity by scaling the heights of language, seeking out obscure words we will most certainly never use in conversation or in the workplace, but words which, we sincerely hope, keep our minds sharp and make us ever more sensitive to the uses and abuses of language.
So: you know the drill, pick up your #2 pencil, open your notebook and compose an eloquent and coherent sentence using the following three words:
iatronudia
n. a woman's pretending to be ill in order to disrobe in front of a doctor
swedge
v. to leave without paying one's bill
unnun
v. to strip a nun of her position or character
Extra credit if the sentence refers to: The Protocols of Christiane Amanpour.
Hat Tip: Futility Closet
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:40 PM | Comments (19)
August 24, 2007
Watching Al Jazeera, Part III
SCENE ONE:
I'm staring at a bottle of Vodka. I really, really get. it The whole get loaded, get ripped, get drunk and just let world drift by thing. I'm figuring that's the only way I can get through Part III of G-d's Warriors: Christianity.
But there's a little problem.
I don't drink.
Ever.
I get migraines. I even get migraines when I get a whiff of strong perfume.
I'm such a wuss.
Oh, well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
SCENE TWO:
So, I trudge upstairs to our master bedroom, and say, actually plead with Karen: “You gonna watch with me?”
Karen pins me with a look: “Robert, don't watch if it upsets you so much.”
My wife, in case you haven't noticed, is the reasonable sidekick in this buddy movie in which we're featured.
“But I gotta watch, I have to blog about it. I have a responsibility to my readers.”
Karen sighs. I've got her. The word responsibility is like a bullet to her heart. She can no more resist responsibility than I can resist a Kurosawa movie.
SCENE THREE:
Al Jazeera lady, AKA Christiane Amanpour, has undergone a metamorphosis. She's now Godless Secular Warrior Lady — but still looks like a well-developed fullback and might be a great addition to the Jets line-up.
Tonight she's going after Christians. The only thing missing is The Coliseum, howling Romans, hungry lions, you get the picture.
Reverend Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia is Godless Secular Warrior Lady's first stop. Quick shots of — prepare yourselves for some shocking images: separate male and female dormitories.
Karen goes: “Can you believe it?”
I add: “The horror, the horror.”
Godless Secular Warrior Lady darkly intones: "Separate male, female dormitories. Separate washrooms and showers for men and women.”
I'm this close to banging my head against the wall. Are co-ed dorms and bathrooms this woman's yardstick for normal? Listen, the only place in the world where men and women share bathrooms and showers is on the set of a hard-core porn film. Plus Harvard and Yale.
And she's calling these Christians, what, fundamentalists, warriors?
Godless Secular Warrior Lady is so steeped in her Orwellian state of mind that she doesn't recognize that she's a secular humanist fanatic.
Helloooo! There is a difference between a fanatic and a fundamentalist.
The students at Liberty University are pious Christians, clean cut kids who do not drink, take drugs, watch porn, indulge in premarital sex.
“Hey, let's send Offspring #3 there,” I suggest.
Karen sighs tolerantly but with affection — I so hope.
Godless Secular Warrior Lady tours the Liberty University Law School. They've got a room set up that's an exact replica of the Supreme Court. The plan is to train a generation of Christian lawyers to restore religious values into the American sphere. Obviously, abortion is an issue high on the list. Godless Secular Warrior Lady is not happy. She's gone from being mildly amused by these whacky Christians to being kind, y'know, threatened. The alarmist tone of her voice has risen about five decibel points.
It's perfectly okay for liberals to legislate their beliefs into law, but for the religious, well, suddenly it becomes sinister, she even uses the word "stealth" at some point.
Big music sting, natch. You can do whatever you want in post-production. You can make Heidi look like Ilse: She Wolf of the S.S.
SCENE FOUR:
Hit the Pause button. I DVR'd the show. Karen brews tea.
I check my e-mail. Here's a friendly note from, I think, Saudi Arabia. It's so nice to have far-flung pen-pals. It's, y'know, multi-cultural.
You are a bigot, an antiMuslim anti Arab Zionist dog. You're (sic) blog about the CNN speciale (sic) proves that Jews like you are the probleme (sic) and the show exposed the Zionists for the true terrrorists (sic) against the peaseful (sic) Palistiinians (sic) people. You will burn in hell you and all the Zionist dogs.
Hmm, maybe I should forward this elegant missive to Christiane Amanpour AKA Al Jazeera Lady, AKA Godless Secular Warrior Lady.
Nah, she'll probably just frame and proudly hang it in her office.
SCENE FIVE:
The American and Israeli Flags are waving. Hebrew folk songs are blasting from speakers. Thousands upon thousands of Christians are celebrating their support of Israel. Pastor John Hagee has this wonderful theatrical quaver in his voice — he's a great speaker — and I'm thinking: most Conservative and Reform synagogues in America don't support Israel with such fervor. I mean, Pastor Hagee is a fierce Zionist. He supports the settlements in Judea and Samaria all the way. Walk into the typical Conservative and Reform synagogue and it's like:
"We have to compromise, we have to trade land for peace, yadda, yadda."
The same old appeasement policies that lead to dead Jews, intellectually corrupt policies that have turned Gaza into a forward base for Hizbullah, Al Qaeda, and of course Hamas.
On the grounds of his Texas Church, Pastor Hagee has built a replica of The Kotel, The Western Wall. Godless Secular Warrior Lady gives herself away and calls it, The Wailing Wall. Nobody calls it that anymore. I mean nobody. Well, actually the Jew-hating Arabs do. We don't wail, lady. We daven, pray, we sing, we dance, and we often stand there with guns slung over our shoulders to fight off the Arabs who would kill us where we stand.
It's little slips of the tongue that say so much.
Karen says: “We've got to go there.”
I happen to love Texas, and we have cousins who just moved there, so why the heck not? I really need a vacation.
Pastor Hagee, we're a-comin'.
SCENE SIX:
Oh no, Jimmy Carter again. She just keeps pulling this Jew-hater out. But now I realize that this disgraceful ex-President doesn't just hate Jews, he hates Christians too.
Unless he's the Christian in charge.
Godless Secular Warrior Lady has given herself away by holding up Jimmy Carter as the Christian par-excellence. He comes across as a self-righteous prig — he always has, and his track-record as a one-term President is, to say the least, disastrous.
SCENE SEVEN:
Abortion. Well, it had to come up. It's the hot-button issue. Roe v. Wade. Naturally, Godless Secular Warrior Lady features old footage of abortion clinics that have been bombed, body bags of physicians who have been murdered.
Bad stuff. Wrong. And just plain evil.
But here's the thing, these crimes are not the norm, and all good Christians and Jews condemn this violence.
The Christians interviewed calmly and intelligently explain that they will work through the system to overthrow Roe v. Wade. They, oddly enough, find it unacceptable that a million lives are snuffed out in the womb every year in America.
Godless Secular Warrior Lady, I assume, thinks it's cool.
There's a telling moment when a lovely grassroots Republican activist explains: “I used to be pro-choice, and then I got pregnant and I realized, there's a baby inside me, and I changed, I realized it was wrong.”
SCENE EIGHT:
My Powerbook beeps. a buddy IM's me.
Buddy: Did u watch?
Me: DVR'd, watching now.
Buddy: The abortion stuff, really tears me up.
Me: I know.
Buddy: Crying.
Me: Offering kleenex.
Buddy: Thanx.
My buddy signs off.
My buddy was adopted. My buddy has always been grateful that his parents adopted him, that his unmarried mother chose not abort him, took him to term and put him up for adoption. My buddy cannot understand why more women don't choose this option. For every child in America who is put up for adoption, regardless of race, color or disability, there is a family who desperately wants to adopt that baby.
I am sad.
SCENE NINE:
Confession: I'm running out of energy. Godless Secular Warrior Lady has this oh-so-superior smirk on her face as she interviews Christian after Christian and the only time it comes off is when she's talking with hard-core leftie Pastor Greg Boyd, or, sigh, the wretched Karen Armstrong, yup, we get to hear from her again. I wish she'd get herself to a nunnery.
SCENE TEN:
Ron Luce runs Battle Cry, a Christian organization which affords teenagers the opportunity to reclaim the radical culture. Guess where he chooses to go on a mission with his flock?
Planet San Francisco.
Oy-vey.
With that practiced smirk, Godless Secular Warrior Lady (I'm so tired of typing those four words) listens as Luce explains the dress code and rules for the kids who voluntarily enroll in his organization — which actually sound very Yeshivish: modest clothing for the women so as not to distract the men, no liquor, drugs, internet porn, and no premarital sex.
GSWL—there, I've shortened it—screws up her face and cries: “Ron, that's just like The Taliban!”
Memo to GSWL: The Taliban were a Muslim Sunni terrorist gang who, among other atrocities:
1. Ordered all women in Afghanistan to wear the Burqua.
2. Made it illegal for women to work.
3. Made it illegal for women to receive any education.
4. Made it illegal for women to leave home unless accompanied by a male.
5. Regularly stoned women to death on the suspicion of adultery.
6. Made kite-flying a crime.
7. Dynamited the 1,700 year old Buddhist Bamiya statues out of existence
I have a question for CNN. Are you really paying this ignoramus, this bigot, as your Chief International Correspondent? Because if you are I'd like to apply for the job. I know ten times more about, well, everything than she does.
Including fashion.
I gotta say this: those pointy white boots GSWL is wearing in every shot are so I'm-part-of-Tony Soprano's-crew, and the obligatory hey-I'm- a-foreign-correspondent safari suit? it ruthlessly bulges where it absolutely shouldn't—lady, pick yourself up and head on over to What Not to Wear. You are an official mess.
SCENE ELEVEN:
Home schooling. I dunno. Does GSWL find this sinister, wrong? By this time, I'm so punch drunk from the moral confusion projected by the three nights and six hours I've put into this dreck I feel like checking myself into The Magic Mountain.
The family are pious, middle class, Dad works as a landscaper. Mom takes care of the five kids and both parents home school the kids. The course of study: math, geography, reading, writing and oh yeah, Latin. Not too shabby. The parents don't want to send their kids to public schools because they want to protect them from dopey secular ideas.
The same reason Karen and I send our children to Yeshiva.
And as one very wise pastor pointed out earlier: “The schools in America are not public, they are secular.”
GSWL had no comeback.
One of the home schooled children is interviewed by GSWL. She wants to know what the child wants out of life. The little boy, maybe 7 years old, is eloquent beyond his tender years: I want to be a treasure for my Lord.
FADE TO BLACK
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Important Links covering the Amanpour series:
Camera, Mystical Paths, Debbie Schlussel, Atlas Shrugs, Dhimmi Watch, Boker tov, Boulder, Sharon Cobb, The Atheist Jew, Cheat-Seeking Missiles, Yid with Lid, Phyllis Chesler, My Right Word and Elder of Ziyon.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:09 AM | Comments (54)
August 23, 2007
Watching Al Jazeera, Part II
I'm actually hopeful for the first few minutes as Al Jazeera lady summarizes the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of it's founders Sayyid Qutb, his pathological hatred for America, his eventual imprisonment and execution in Egypt by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
But I'm beginning to notice something weird about this segment, Al Jazerra Lady is not saying G-d's Muslim Warriors a heck of a lot. Remember last night, G-d's Jewish Warriors was intoned so many times I was like getting dizzy, and math disability aside, I just lost count of how many times Al Jazeera Lady intoned those three words.
But here, where you'd kind of expect the mantra — there's a vast and gaping silence. There's no sinister slow-mo, no Exorcist-style musical stings, none of the oh-so-clever post-production tricks that were used so effectively last night to libel a specific segment of the Jewish people: Jews who wish to live in Judea and Samaria.
Imagine that.
To call this episode chaotic would be kind.
And kind is the operative word.
There's this priceless segment where Al Jazeera lady drops in on the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.
“Oh, it's so small,” she cries.
“Yes, but from here we will control the world,” says the Cairo leader of the Brotherhood.
Al Jazerra lady giggles girlishly — for a fullback; she thinks the old terrorist is sooooo adorable. Meanwhile, he's playing her like a harp, assuring her that the Brotherhood, whose mission is to bring Sharia everywhere, will do it democratically.
Al Jazeera lady nods, uh-huh. Sounds reasonable.
Karen goes: “Is she really so dense?”
Al Jazeera lady interview some "Middle East expert," an academic I've seen a few times, I call him: But Man. The first time I saw him was after 9-11. He said something like: This is horrible, BUT the Muslim world does have legitimate grievances.
In other words, he's an apologist for jihad.
So, naturally But Man assures Jihad lady that the Muslim Brotherhood are non-violent and part of the political process.
Yeah, like Hamas and Hizbullah.
There's an endless segment featuring a young Muslim woman in Florida who covers her hair with the hijab; endless shots of cooking, shopping, trading adoring looks with her husband, and, naturally the obligatory lecture about how jihad is really an inner struggle.
Uh-huh.
Jihad lady fawns over Muslim girl and her husband and never, ever calls them G-d's Muslim warriors.
Imagine that.
Al Jazzera lady hops on over to her hometown: Tehran. She informs us that the 1979 take-over of the American Embassy, the hostage crisis was a "first in diplomacy."
Al Jazeera lady has some really strange ideas about diplomacy.
Things get really strange in Persia. Big shock, huh?
Al Jazeera lady gets all soft and sentimental as she narrates the eight year Iran-Iraq War. Her voice kind of swells when she tells of the Persian Shia children sent by their loving parents and the kindly Ayatollah as minesweepers.
Children.
Minesweepers.
Hundreds of thousands children sacrificed. But, mind you, the Shah was really the bad guy. I guess The Shah didn't kill enough children. Didn't label the people he killed martyrs.
Martyr lady doesn't find this kind of, oh, I dunno, barbaric, cruel; she doesn't even bring up, gasp, international law. Which she whipped out on Israel last night faster than Annie Oakley.
Apparently, martyrdom is, um, cool.
Martyr lady watches Shia beat themselves raw with steel chains. She watches a bloody passion play. She listens to mothers describe their pride in the martyrdom of giving up several son as minesweepers.
I keep wondering how sane people describe Islam as the religion of peace. All I see is lots and lots of blood. And the love of violent death.
But, hey, that's just me.
She hops on over to "The Hold Land." G-d forbid she should say Israel. I'm waiting for a journalistic expose of Hamas, Fatah, Hizbullah. Their illegal fund-raising activities in America. She can't avoid it.
I'm such a moron.
Al Jazeera lady focuses on a homicide shooter. And he did it, according to his proud family, because a little Arab girl—accidentally shot my the mean Israelis—died in his arms.
Yeah, you see before he turned all terrorist and nasty, he wanted to be, get this, an artist.
Papa holds up a sample of his "art."
I kid you not, the art is rudimentary stick figures drawn by a four year old — maybe. Terrorist boy was an artist like I'm a theoretical mathematician.
The point of the segment: the terrorist act was really Israel's fault.
Which is a lot like cutting off a man's leg and then blaming him for limping.
By this time in the show, my head is pounding. I need some medication.
Probably Demerol.
Does Al Jazeera lady refer to this Arab killer of Jews as G-d Muslim Warrior?
No she does not.
Oh man, Karen Armstrong again. The whacky and bitter ex-nun going on about how user-friendly Islam is for women. You see, Islam does not treat women like "meat."
Intercut: stunning models in a fashion show.
I am soooo happy. The women are gorgeous. Great clothing. Great hair. Stiletto heels with stiletto attitudes to match. And after being forced to look at dour—and really, I gotta say it—angry, glowering and just plain unpleasant Muslim women dressed in potato sacks for close to two hours, thank G-d for fashionable, elegant and proudly lovely western women.
I'm waiting for Al Jazeera lady, who's supposed to be like this major feminist, to do a hard-hitting segment on honor killings. An everyday thing in the Arab/Muslim world.
Jihad apologist Karen Armstrong has just provided the perfect opening with her Orwellian nonsense about Islam being so user-friendly for women. But guess what?
Nothing. Nada. Zero. Black hole for honor killings.
You know what country does not tolerate honor killings in the Middle East?
Israel.
Now that's what I call Islamaphobia.
Regarding Armstrong, a Seraphic Friend, an author with a keen knowledge of both the history of religion and current events put it this way: “She’s an ex-nun. Was married to Christ. She needs another fantasy lover. Muhammed is much more macho. And since he’s a fantasy, can do no wrong. So macho Muhammed has replaced Jesus as her fantasy husband.”
Brilliant.
By this time, my head is exploding. I actually think my eyeballs are bleeding.
The end of the show is priceless. Christiane Amanpour solemnly intones: “I hope that we have provided a bridge to Islam.”
Oh, and I thought this was supposed to be about G-d's Muslim Warriors.
Silly me.
Karen says: “What do you want to watch?”
“I need something special, something really elevating.”
Karen flips channels.
“Stop!” I cry.
We watch for a few minutes. Oh man, I cannot believe that Audrina is attracted to that liceball on the motorcycle. He's such a loser. He actually burped in Lauren's face. The beast. I'd like to take him out with a .50 caliber round from a Barrett sniper rifle. He makes me that angry. And Heidi, is she actually going to marry that doofus Spencer? How dare he paint that awful graffiti as soon as her back is turned. Don't do it Heidi, baby. I can find a better shidduch for you. Really I'm so worried about the girls in The Hills.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:03 AM | Comments (44)
August 22, 2007
Watching Al Jazeera, Part I
So Karen and I sit down, flip channels, and what do you know, suddenly Al Jazeera pops up.
“Since when do we get Al Jazeera?” I ask.
“We don't,” Karen assures me.
Oh man, gotta call the cable company and make sure we're not paying for this Jew-hatred.
There's all this slow mo footage overlaid with sinister musical stings of grim looking Jooz carrying M16's; this is intercut with Bedouin children herding sheep, looking all innocent and peaceful.
And the narrator/host/entertainer, a woman with shoulders like a fullback, and an absolutely tragic mullet style hair-do from the 80's, keeps talking about "G-d's Jewish warriors," and she repeats these three words—I'm counting, mind you—and by the time she hits number 57, I give up.
I now know what it's like to get brainwashed in some North Korean reeducation gulag.
Anyway, this Al Jazeera lady with the hoo-ha Oxford accent—big shock—states:
”The second intifada was an attempt by the Palestinians to shake off the Israeli occupation.”
Really?
Well, what else can you expect from Al Jazeera.
Actually, the second intifada was Arafat's answer to the Camp David Accords. His way of saying no to all negotiations after Barak offered the terrorist leader 96% of everything, including dividing Jerusalem.
The whole two hours of this Al Jazeera program is such typical, and poisonous Arab propaganda that Karen and I are kind of fascinated. This huge lady with the really bad hair interviews guess who as experts on Israel?
Jimmy Carter. Karen Armstrong. John Mearsheimer. There's the obligatory angry loser from Peace Now — dude, clean your office, it looks like cat litter. And a couple of Israeli lefties who are so far gone they might as well be living in Damascus.
Gee-willikers, Al Jazeera lady forgot to interview Hizbullah/Iranian-proxy strongman Hassan Nasrallah; his views on Israel are pretty much the same as the usual suspects above. He's always ranting about the evils of the Israeli occupation. And he vehemently denies that he's a Jew-hater. Like Carter, Armstrong and Mearsheimer he insists that he's merely anti-Zionist.Yup, Nasrallah gets positively indignant when he's accused of being an anti-Semite. Sheesh, can't anyone criticize and bomb Israel without being accused of being a Jew-hater?
There's this long segment on the — horror musical sting here — Israel lobby. Obligatory shots of well-dressed, um Jews, tables of food, which I suppose is proof of evil, people chatting and looking, y'know, conspiratorial.
I'm waiting for Al Jazeera lady to start quoting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, because that's really what this segment is all about, but I suppose she's too cool for that. This is after all Al Jazeera. They are , allegedly, civilized.
Then fullback lady pulls out the big guns: Actual Jewish terrorists. She comes up with Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amir, and a group who rigged explosives to the car of an Arab Mayor they suspected of aiding terrorists and who planned on blowing up an Arab girl's school, Disgusting and wrong, but they were caught and arrested, by Jewish cops, thank G-d.
That's it for Jewish terror.
Personally, I think the Jewish people have shown remarkable restraint in the face of a genocidal enemy.
Al Jazeera lady gets all indignant about American Christians who support Israel. They're warriors because... I have no idea; they sing and dance and pray.
I always thought that warriors are people who, y'know, pick up weapons and fight.
Let's face it, Al Jazeera lady is playing the old Soviet game of manipulating and ultimately destroying language: slavery is freedom, the bottom is the top, evil is good.
Karen and I are smiling. Wow, these good Christians show more love of Israel than many Jews. G-d bless them. Al Jazeera just did a big favor, probably increased membership in that Florida Church by 20%.
Then there's segment called: "The Power Couple."
“Hey isn't that your cousin Shani?” I say to Karen.
“Yup, sure is.”
Al Jazeera lady grimly reports on Assemblyman Dov Hikind and his wife Shani, who raise money for a united Jerusalem.
Al Jazeera lady darkly spits out: “All. Completely. Legal.”
Horrifying.
Al Jazeera lady points out that some of these Jewish warriors are wearing, prepare yourselves: diamonds.
I'm in a state of shock, feel like melting into a puddle.
The chutzpah of Jewish women wearing diamonds.
Every Al Jazeera viewer knows that women should be wearing, y'know, burkahs!
Al Jazeera lady pines for the past when Jews were forbidden to live in Jerusalem; when the Western Wall was the city garbage dump; when synagogues were horse stables; when headstones from Jewish cemeteries were used by the Jordanians to pave streets; when Jordanian soldiers sat on the walls of the Old City, shot and murdered Jews.
Ah, the good ol' days.
Basically, the whole two hours is a hit piece on Jews who wish to live in Judea and Samaria. Al Jazeera lady blames, well, everything on the Jooz. She never points out that after the Jewish surrender of Gaza, Hamas proclaimed victory and promised that "all of Israel would be liberated."
I guess that's sort of an inconvenient truth.
Here's a larger truth: what happens when Arab/Muslims proclaim parts of London, Paris, Brooklyn, under Sharia and the presence of Jews an intolerable provocation?
There are already 22 Arab countries that are Judenrein.
Why does the world find this perfectly acceptable, perfectly natural?
Why does the world keep drawing new lines in the sand where the presence of Jews is unacceptable?
Just asking.
“Hey,” says Karen, “this isn't Al Jazeera, this is CNN.”
“Well, I know that, I've just been using this as a literary device to make a point.”
Christiane Amanpour's work is guilty of moral equivalence. She's a disgraceful journalist. And I guarantee this: tonight 's segment will be an apology for Muslim jihadists.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:41 AM | Comments (35)
August 21, 2007
The Screenwriter's Secret Weapon
“What's the best book on screenwriting?”
This question comes my way about ten times a month.
I have several responses:
1. There are none.
2. There are five pretty good books.
3. There is one good book.
4. Write a few screenplays before you read any books.
5. There is one "best" book — but it's not about screenwriting.
Here's the problem: the one book that everyone uses, Screenplay by Syd Field, has indoctrinated a whole generation of writers and executives into a cult of Syd Field drones. It's actually a good book and his ideas are solid.
But, if you follow the Syd Field method rigidly, as so many do, you end up writing by-the-numbers and the script you produce is, well, bloodless and boring. Which is why so many movies are just plain, well, blah.
At some point, the screenwriter has to let loose and write with his subconscious. He must write with both barrels blazing.
However, in order to do this—write with your subconscious—you have to understand structure, you have to understand classical drama so as not to get lost in the complex forest of your own script; and for this there is no better guide than The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri.
Originally published in 1942, Egri actually discusses theater, he never mentions movies, but his analysis of dramatic construction is so solid that his principles apply to screenplays.
His ideas are classical, timeless.
Egri analyzes the construction of a hero; he delves into why people act the way they do. He shows why the author must start with a basic premise. Egri hammers home the importance of developing the central conflict on the basis of the behavior of your main character — this notion is central, but too often falls by the wayside.
There are two modern American films that strike me as being almost perfect realizations of Egri's dramatic principles: Chinatown, written by Robert Towne, though the tragic ending was written by director Roman Polonski, and The Godfather, written by Mario Puzo, and Francis Ford Coppola.
These are highly personal choices, but in terms of structure, environment, character, dialog, visual language, conflict, plot, antagonists, orchestration of action, rising action, crisis, climax, and resolution — these two films are nearly perfect.
Every really smart screeenwriter I know has read and reread Egri's book. It's our secret weapon.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:02 PM | Comments (12)
EU Lights UP Gaza
Relief was on the way Tuesday for Gazans who had sweltered in dark, airless homes and choked on generator smoke during five days of power outages after European donors announced they would resume desperately needed aid.
The European Union had suspended payments for fuel that powers major Gaza electricity generators on Sunday, suspecting the Strip's Hamas rulers were pocketing electricity revenues. On Tuesday, it announced that fuel shipments to the power plant would resume the following day.
To read the rest of the article, please click here
Okay, that didn't take very long. Yesterday, Seraphic Secret correctly predicted that the EU would quickly reverse their decision, and true to form they have done just that. Now, Hamas can return to stealing money that's supposed to be used for electricity and funnel it into terrorist activities. And let's not forget those private bank accounts in the Cayman Islands so beloved by the Fatah and Hamas leadership.
Stunning turn of events.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2007
EU Cuts Lights to Gaza
Gaza Strip - Hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents were forced to make do without electricity Monday as the coastal strip's power supply became the latest victim of feuding between Gaza's Hamas rulers and their Fatah rivals.
European donors stopped paying key electricity aid over the weekend, concerned that Hamas is siphoning off revenues. As Fatah and Hamas traded charges of corruption, at least half of Gaza's 1.4 million people were plunged into darkness.
To read the entire article, please click here.
A few observations:
1. I'm shocked, just shocked that Hamas, a terrorist gang are also, get this, corrupt.
2. Where is the money going? To buy arms to kill Jews in Israel and Americans in Iraq. And let's not forget Lebanon. Hamas are anxious to destabilize the Beirut government and help Hizbullah sieze power. You can also be sure that money is also flowing into Judea and Samaria in preparation for an eventual Hamas blood-bath with Fatah.
3. Hamas, like Fatah, don't give a damn about the ordinary so-called Palestinian people. They care about killing Jews, destroying the State of Israel. They view the ordinary Arab as nothing more than a prop in a series of battles designed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
4. If the EU are refusing to turn money over to Hamas, you can bet your bottom dollar that Hama's corruption is, um, epic. I mean we're talking about the EU; these are people who think that Jew-killing is a legitimate multi-cultural activity.
5. Imagine if it was Israel who turned out the out the lights in Gaza; Steven Erlanger would be writing a long, outraged front page story for the New York Times. Instead, we have a vast silence from America and Europe.
6. I wonder why.
7. Personally, I'd love it if someone would accuse the EU of Islamophobia. That would just crack me up.
8. Time for the Greenies in America to open up shop in Gaza, teach 'em the virtues of solar power. Sit-com pitch: Larry David's soon to be ex, jets — private, naturally — to Gaza and teaches the natives how to get along without electricity. Low carbon footprints and all that. As TV Guide says: “Hilarity ensues.”
9. The rockets will continue bombing Israel. You know why? Because the workshops the terrorists maintain have their own generators. No, they do not share them with ordinary families who need to eat. Are you kidding?
10. I guarantee Hamas will make all sorts of solemn pledges to some dopey Norwegian EU rep. He'll go: "Ja, Ja." and the lights in Gaza will get switched back on. Hamas will laugh because it's so darned easy pulling the wool over the eyes of the gullible kaffirs.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:10 PM | Comments (5)
The Peace Racket
Seraphic Secret has long maintained that some of the biggest criminals on the planet are pacifists, those murderous peaceniks who self-righteously proclaim that all violence is wrong. Inevitably, these people end up enabling some of the worst dictators on the earth, and often these moral paragons end up enabling genocide.
G-d forbid they should pick up a gun and blow away the genociders. Truth is, they are morally so confused they have no notion of right from wrong, or killer from victim. No wonder they just stand and watch as women and children are butchered. They have been paralyzed by their fashionable notions of moral equivalence.
Witness the U.N. and the various NGO's refusal to act in the killing fields of Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet. No, the U.N. and the NGO's prefer to beat up on Israel. Much more fun, and besides those endless petrodollars are funding who knows how many generous salaries and, ahem, "study groups."
Peace Studies, always on the left, love to attack freedom loving democracies, while cozying up to tortureres and murderers, and their latest buddies, Islamic terrorists. The Peace Studies gang used to call themselves Communists and Socialists, and then for a quick blip, Deconstructionists. But that was a bit dry, and besides, the lit-crit people claimed that territory and were ready to fight for it. So: always up for a new label, the peaceniks refashioned themselves as Peace Studies. Kumbaya anyone? Back with Beatniks. What could be wrong with peace? But make no mistake about it, the ideology is still the same murderous leftist, anti-American, anti-Israel/Jewish poison.
If you want peace, prepare for war.” Thus counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Sun Tzu offered essentially the same advice, and it’s to him that Vegetius’s line is attributed at the beginning of a film that I saw recently at Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center. Yet the film cites this ancient wisdom only to reject it. After serving up a perverse potted history of the cold war, the thrust of which is that the peace movement brought down the Berlin Wall, the movie ends with words that turn Vegetius’s insight on its head: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.”
This purports to be wise counsel, a motto for the millennium. In reality, it’s wishful thinking that doesn’t follow logically from the history of the cold war, or of any war. For the cold war’s real lesson is the same one that Sun Tzu and Vegetius taught: conflict happens; power matters. It’s better to be strong than to be weak; you’re safer if others know that you’re ready to stand up for yourself than if you’re proudly outspoken about your defenselessness or your unwillingness to fight. There’s nothing mysterious about this truth. Yet it’s denied not only by the Peace Center film but also by the fast-growing, troubling movement that the center symbolizes and promotes.
Call it the Peace Racket.
To read Bruce Bawer's entire article, and you really should, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:37 PM | Comments (2)
Studying War
Military history teaches us about honor, sacrifice, and the inevitability of conflict.
Try explaining to a college student that Tet was an American military victory. You’ll provoke not a counterargument—let alone an assent—but a blank stare: Who or what was Tet? Doing interviews about the recent hit movie 300, I encountered similar bewilderment from listeners and hosts. Not only did most of them not know who the 300 were or what Thermopylae was; they seemed clueless about the Persian Wars altogether.
It’s no surprise that civilian Americans tend to lack a basic understanding of military matters. Even when I was a graduate student, 30-some years ago, military history—understood broadly as the investigation of why one side wins and another loses a war, and encompassing reflections on magisterial or foolish generalship, technological stagnation or breakthrough, and the roles of discipline, bravery, national will, and culture in determining a conflict’s outcome and its consequences—had already become unfashionable on campus. Today, universities are even less receptive to the subject.
This state of affairs is profoundly troubling, for democratic citizenship requires knowledge of war—and now, in the age of weapons of mass annihilation, more than ever.
To read this entire article by Victor Davis Hanson, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:14 AM | Comments (5)
August 19, 2007
The Bumper Sticker Mind
Here's the latest in deeply progressive political thought.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend Yehudit, Kesher
And let's all wish Yehudit and Kesher a happy five year anniversary. Yehudit's blog is one of the oldest Jewish blogs on planet earth and one of the very finest. Yehudit's work is always thorough and incredibly articulate. The Jewish world is a richer and better place due to Yehudit's important work.
Read about Seraphic Secret's kesher, connection, with Yehudit: The Kesher with Kesher.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:07 PM | Comments (6)
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere, Plus Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Sunday Morning. I am not working on my latest script. I am, instead, watching one of the great Hollywood movie stars as she cracks wise: “I thought we might run up a few curtains and make a batch of fudge while we were planning on what to wear to the country club dance Saturday night.”
Red Dust, made over 70 years ago, just takes my breath away. And so does its lead actress.
She was known as The Blond Bombshell. If you look at the studio portraits by George Hurrell you assume she was just another heavy-lidded, sexy star. But Jean Harlow's true talent was as a comedienne.
Friends described her as casual and fun loving with no pretense whatsoever. She held the unofficial dice record at Agua Caliente Casino in Mexico, with thirty-four straight passes.
Harlow's humorous attitude comes across best in Dinner at Eight. She delivers her lines with machine-gun precision, her natural wit punctuating the spaces between her sentences.
Bombshell is a wonderful meditation on the price a Hollywood starlet pays for fame and fortune. Harlow plays, well, herself, a sexy movie star who wants to stop being a sexy movie star and be a "lady." It's a wonderful screwball comedy and Harlow shines.
Harlow made six pictures with Clark Gable, the best is Red Dust, where she plays a fast-talking floozie. But here's the thing about Harlow as a floozie: she doesn't really take herself seriously, not like the oh-so-dreary and humorless Greta Garbo — who just puts me to sleep. Garbo might be the least sensuous star in the history of the movies. No, Harlow teases and vamps, but she's doing it with a wink, as if to say: "Listen, this is a dirty job—manipulating men—but hey, somebody's gotta do it so it might as well be me."
Clark Gable (left) and Jean Harlow (right) in Red Dust
As always with Hollywood stars, her life looked glamorous and sun-kissed. But sadly, Harlow's personal life was miserable. Tragedy was the norm for this vivacious fun-loving young woman, who, more than anything, yearned for simple domesticity.
Harlow was a huge star for ten years. And then she died tragically in 1937 at age 26.
Harlow in “Reckless” 1935
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
My Powerbook beckons.
Oh, look what's just been published. Soccer Dad has done it again. How does that man find the time? Really, the Jewish people should give Soccer Dad a medal, or at least send him some pizza. He just works so hard for Am Yisroel.
Anywhoo!
It's here folks.
Haveil Havalim #130, The Jean Harlow Edition.
We'd like to thank Soccer Dad for including our article The Jew Hating Crunchy Granola Gang, in this fine round-up.
Here are some fine Jean Harlow links:
Jean Harlow: The Platinum Page
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:45 AM | Comments (4)
August 17, 2007
Tibet: The Victims You Never Hear About
We are always hearing about the poor oppressed Palestinians. Lefties can't rush to their aid fast enough, and boy are they quick to condemn, ahem, Is-ra-eli a-ggression, while conveniently ignoring Arab on Arab slaughter. The Palis have cleverly positioned themselves as victims par excellence. In truth, they are victims of their own political thuggery.
And let's face it, those men and women who go about shilling for the so-called Palestinians—feeling all self-righteous and heroic—risk nothing from the Israelis. (Rachel Corrie's death was an accident) What they do risk is getting kidnapped and tortured by one of several Palestinian terror groups, made to convert to the religion of peace, and maybe even married off to the man or woman of their dreams. Mazal Tov!
Approximately 1.2 million Tibetan Buddhists have been murdered by the Chinese Communists. Untold numbers of Tibetans have been condemned and lost in Chinese gulags. Thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries have been destroyed by the Chinese. Click here for details.
Here's a Seraphic Secret: You never hear about the Tibetans for one simple reason: they are non-violent. They do not go about murdering innocent men, women and children. They do not revel in their victimhood. And of course their enemies are not Jews so of course, the oh-so-compassionate left completely ignore them. As does the U.N. and other NGO's. Much more fun to consort with genuine Jew-haters and terrorists. And besides, those checkered Arab kaffiyas are killer fashion items.
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:52 PM | Comments (4)
Soccer Terror Match
The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to glorify terrorists and to present them as role models for children.
In a school in Tulkarem (West Bank) this week, a soccer tournament was named after Ziyad Da’as. Da’as planned the attack in which a gunman opened fire with an M-16 rifle at a Bat Mitzvah in Hadera in January 2002, killing six and wounding 30. He was also behind the kidnapping and murder of two Israelis in Tulkarem in 2001. Da’as, a Fatah-Tanzim city commander, was killed by Israel in August 2002.
Significantly, the article indicated that the tournament took place in a Palestinian school and that the school administration was thanked "for providing the means for its success." Some Western governments have recently renewed funding of the Palestinian Authority, including its educational infrastructures, based on the assumption that schools are involved in positive education.
It should also be noted that in reporting the story, the PA daily glorified the terrorist as “one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance." The daily Al Hayat Al Jadida is owned by the Palestinian Authority, and is therefore indirectly funded by Western money.
The following is an excerpt from the article:
Headline: "The team named after the Shahids (Martyrs) of the Southern Quarter wins the tournament cup named after the Shahid Ziyad Da’as.
This tournament…commemorates one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance, whom the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood…
The committee that organized the tournament thanked the administration of the school... for hosting the tournament in the school yard and for providing the means for its success...
At the end of the tournament, the viewers indicated that the tournament was in a level to suitably commemorate the brave Shahid (Martyr), the mercy of Allah be upon him, Ziyad Da’as, and that an annual tournament should take place on the anniversary of his death."
[Al Hayat Al Jadida, August 15, 2007]
Original Article from the Palestinian Media Watch
A few observations:
1. This tournament was sponsored by Fatah, not Hamas. Fatah are considered, ahem, moderate, and the present Israeli government and America are propping up this gang. Remember Seraphic Secret's simple equation: Fatah is Hamas. Hamas is Fatah.
2. The Israeli "occupation" is kind of, y'know, dopey. What kind of occupation allows the occupied to behave in such a barbaric manner? The Israeli occupation is, let's face it, merely a police action to protect Jews who wish to, y'know, continue breathing.
3. Will we read this story in the New York Times? Will Steven Erlanger or Isabel Kershner write an outraged piece about the murderous ethics of the so-called Palestinian people?
4. No, they will not.
5. Will the oh-so-sensitive left, the lovers of the U.N and the NGO's protest this horrendous crime against memory, language, and decency?
6. If you answer yes, you are a moron.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
The United Nations of Criminals
I know that this speech in the UN has been posted before, but I feel compelled to post it again. There are those of you who might not have seen it. And for those of you who have seen it, well, it's time to view it again, to see someone saying out loud what we all know: that some of the most vile criminals on earth work under the banner of the U.N.
Click here to see the U.N. speech that the U.N. does not want you to see.
I 've said it before and I'll say it again: the U.N. is an organization that has institutionalized Jew-hatred, a bureaucracy that has enabled genocide, a bloated gang of paper pushers who do nothing but perpetuate a culture of corruption.
The best that could be done with that building on Turtle Bay would be to burn it down, salt the earth and then build a Synagogue and Yeshiva on the newly consecrated space.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, War Chick
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:57 AM | Comments (23)
August 16, 2007
Arab Propaganda + Mainstream Media = Slander American Troops
How ignorant are the editors and journalists in the mainstream media?
How gullible?
How anxious are they to believe the poison from Arab propagandists?
There are no words.
Cruise on over to Solomon, and have a look.
This is what happens when people who know nothing — I mean nothing about firearms — work in the dinosaur media.
You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:55 PM | Comments (2)
Yale Slays Arab, ahem, Charity
Last week we noted that Cambridge University Press buckled to Saudi pressure and agreed to withdraw Alms for Charity a book that reveals Saudi financial ties to terrorist organizations.
It is vital for Westerners to understand the overall strategy and specific tactics of the jihadists in their war against the west. They cleverly use our democratic laws to quash all free information and discussion of their barbarism. For the Saudis, this is the bedrock of their state craft: to spread Wahaabism, the official state religion to every corner of the earth — and this means supporting terrorist organizations outside of Saudi Arabia, and yet paying lip-service as America's ally.
The Saudis play this game well. They donate millions of dollars to American campuses to endow Middle Eastern Studies Departments — this is nothing more than Jew hating academia enshrined. Here, professors spend massive amounts of time apologizing for Arab/Muslim terror, and, naturally, bashing Israel. It's the KKK with Arabic vocabulary. Naturally, the Saudis have bought and paid for former President Jimmy Carter, and they have a universe of lobbyists working D.C. and the oil companies.
The Saudi lobbyists, in honeyed tones, insist that we in the West must understand Saudi culture. That we must recognize them as a valuable ally against terror. They note that change will come slowly to the kingdom. This is code for: never. They urge us to be, y'know, multi-cultural.
But no one in the West finds it odd that there is no multi-cultural reciprocity on the Saudi end, no American Studies department in Saudi Universities. No one in America finds it strange that the Saudis, who insist on cultural sensitivity, are perhaps the most depraved culture on the face of the earth.
Jews are officially barred from entering the kingdom.
Christians workers are forbidden to hold religious services.
Women are forbidden to drive cars.
The simple truth is, and I touched on this yesterday, that we once again have entered the realm of the rational and non-rational actor. Liberals in the west believe that all we have to do is engage the non-rational actors in enlightened dialog and eventually the non-rational actor will come around to our way of thinking.
The non-rational actors, the Saudis, are wise to this Western way of thinking. But they believe that rational western thought is decadent and evil. They wish to annihilate it. And they are using our universities and our chattering classes as a prime weapon.
This truth is so awful that liberals cannot face it, hence they rear back and take refuge in furious denial. They blame President Bush for, well, everything. They claim that if only Israel will make more concessions all will be right in the Middle East. Liberals wail about so-called global warming.
Of course, it all comes down to recognizing evil, and in this simple endeavor liberals have a terrible track record. They failed miserably in the face of Communism, and they are failing once again in the face of jihad.
But here's a news flash: Jihadism is far more dangerous than Communism. Very few Communists believed in Communism. In the Soviet Union, those in the Politburo were merely cheap opportunists. But jihadism has millions of fanatical adherents. Islam is and always has been an imperial religion and no amount of enlightened dialog will slow its ascent, nor halt its bloody march on the west.
In any case, here's some good news. Yale University Press has stood up to these Arab tyrants, in this case, KinderUSA, a nonprofit group that says it raises money for Palestinian children and families.
Uh-huh.
Let's be clear. Muslim "charities" overwhelmingly raise money to:
1. Support jihad.
2. Kill Jews and Christians.
3. Support the families of homicide bombers.
4. Support madrassas, that teach jihad.
5. Create as many widows and orphans as possible in the free world.
Yale University Press on Wednesday announced that a libel suit against it and one of its authors has been dropped, without any changes being made in the book or any payments to the plaintiffs. The book in question is about Hamas and comes just weeks after Cambridge University Press settled a libel case against it over a book about Islamic terrorism by promising to destroy remaining copies of the book.
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Dr. Carol
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2007
PBS Shills for Hamas
Last night, PBS aired a particularly disturbing propaganda film, Gaza Hospital. It's fairly typical leftist cinema that cleverly disguises its central message behind a barrage of confusing images; images that are presented with no true context, but leave the viewer with one central message: Hamas are diligently working to serve their people and it's the "other guys" who are causing all the problems.
We hear about the Dagmoush clan "fighting" (hello, it's called torturing, murdering) the Hasanin clan. PBS never reveals that the battles are over turf, protection money, drugs, liquor, prostitution, guns, and kidnapping loot. We see the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the offices of Hamas, and the overwhelming impression is that Hamas is a benevolent Jeffersonian political group who are being oppressed by the mean Israelis and Americans. Naturally, Fatah are now the bad guys. Forget that for the past 40 years the left have been kissing Fatah's boots.
Does PBS mention that the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel?
No, it does not.
Does PBS mention that parts of the Hamas charter are based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
No they do not.
I wonder why?
There is a requisite moment of, ahem, evenhanded reporting, where the narrator tells us that Hamas has some "difficult questions to confront," but this is token, and the Hamas spokesman skates past this check list—kidnapping Corporal Shalit, sending missiles into Israel—with laughable ease. The off-screen interviewer does not press his points. Not the way he would grill, oh let's say President Bush, or VP Dick Cheney.
Naturally, this propaganda never touches on Hamas TV where cute Arab children promise to kill Jews, and become martyrs. No, this "documentary" focuses on an adorable Arab boy who, get this, helps support his family by selling tea in the besieged Gaza hospital.
So touching.
They never show him watching TV, drinking up images of Jew-killing and future martyrdom.
Leni Riefenstahl is smiling from her grave. Her work, celebrating the genocidal Nazi regime, is coarse and obvious compared with this PBS propaganda, a slick piece of terror-enabling filmmaking that makes it easier for the chattering classes to blame Israel/Jews for all the backward Arab/Muslim world's ills.
Of course, PBS have an agenda.
It is a an arch Liberal agenda.
They believe that Hamas should be treated as any other legitimate political entity. Like most arch Liberals, they fiercely believe that rational enlightenment will ultimately free the backward Arab/Muslim world from the shackles of fanaticism. Liberals believe that it is their duty as enlightened secular actors to bring these fanatics into the rational political process — and eventually their religious, national fanaticism will be tempered.
The mistake these liberals make is central. The fanatic Arab/Muslim world is making war on rational enlightment. The mission of Hamas and all jihad groups is to annihilate the rational political process. And they will use the rational political process and the secular liberals who believe in it, to destroy it.
This PBS documentary advances the cause of the fanatics.
For the true facts about Gaza, here's a fine article from The Israel Project.
Just two years ago, Israel evacuated all 9,000 Israelis living in Gaza and four northern West Bank communities in an effort to pave the way for peace and a future Palestinian state. During the disengagement, Israel uprooted entire communities including schools, businesses, places of worship and the only Jewish cemetery there.
The only Israeli still in the Gaza Strip today is Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped while patrolling the Israeli side of the Gaza border June 25, 2006. He was forcibly taken by the Iran-backed terrorist groups Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's violent militant wing; the Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC); and The Army of Islam.
In return for this painful sacrifice, which Israel carried out Aug. 15, 2005, Gaza has been converted into a launching pad for rockets. Since the withdrawal, more than 1,500 Qassam rockets have been fired into Israel's southern Negev region. The attacks have killed six civilians and injured hundreds more and hit areas where Gaza evacuees were relocated.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:09 AM | Comments (17)
August 14, 2007
Hamas Thanks the Israeli Left for Help in Killing Jews
How many lives have left-wing statements cost Israel? In a damning condemnation of the Israeli left, a new book about the battles known as the Oslo War quotes Hamas leaders saying that the behavior of Israel's left-wing encourages them to continue their terrorist attacks.
The book, The Seventh War, by journalists Avi Yisacharov of Voice of Israel Radio and Amos Harel of Haaretz, is based on comprehensive investigations and interviews with Hamas terrorist leaders in Gaza and Israeli prisons.
Yisacharov told Channel 1 Television yesterday that Hamas leaders had told him clearly: "It was the Israeli left and your peace camp that ultimately encouraged us to continue with our suicide attacks."
Yisacharov said he was told as follows:
"We tried, through our attacks, to create fragmentation and dissention within Israeli society, and the left-wing's reaction was proof that this was indeed the right approach. When we heard about the 'Pilots' Letter' [written and publicized last year by 27 Israel Air Force pilots who refused to take part in bombing missions against terrorist leaders in Arab towns], and the elite soldiers who refused to serve [in Judea, Samaria and Gaza], it strengthened those in our camp who promoted the idea of suicide bombers...
"The disengagement from Gaza is proof of our victory. The fact is that Sharon is willing to withdraw unconditionally, and is essentially raising a white flag and retreating. Only by force can we teach the other side what to do."
Original article in Arutz Sheva.
The Seventh War has not yet been translated into English.
Look for the Israeli left to initiate a campaign of character assassination aimed at the authors of the book. Look for the Israeli left to question the veracity of the interviews. They will say things like: “Since when do we believe what Hamas has to say?” Look for the Israeli left to claim that the interviews are actually a clever disinformation campaign designed to create further fractures in Israeli society. Look for the Israeli left to do what they always do: agitate for even further appeasement to the Arabs. Look for the Israeli left to do anything but face up to realty.
Remember, being on the left means never having to say you're sorry.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:41 AM | Comments (8)
The Jew Hating Crunchy Granola Gang
University of Maryland student Mia Lazarus recently went to buy some chips and juice at the Maryland Food Collective. The clerk at this grocery and sandwich shop in the student union read her t-shirt’s “Baltimore Zionist District” and “I Stand for Israel” slogans and then declared, “Your shirt offends me. I won’t ring you up.”
Another coop cashier eventually sold Lazarus her chips and juice. But more instructive than Lazarus’s ability to finally buy her groceries has been the aftermath. After an hours-long, “teary” meeting between Lazarus, her friends, and the collective, the coop agreed that it would serve any customer who wasn’t physically or verbally abusive, but that workers offended by a customer’s politics could arrange for another clerk to serve a patron.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Dr. Carol
A few observations:
1. Any serious threat to freedom of thought and freedom of speech comes from the left in America, not from the right.
2. Virulent Jew-hatred and anti-Zionism has found a comfortable home on our campuses, and it emanates from the left. It is always the left who shuts down speakers who represent pro-Israel, and pro-American speakers. Now the left has made common cause with radical Muslim student organizations. Speakers whose mission it is to support Israel and America and expose the jihadist threat are regularly threatened with physical violence, viciously intimidated.
3. Jew-hatred, under the guise of anti-Zionism, has found eager, and honey-tongued spokesmen among Professors in the groves of academia. They call themselves deconstructionists. Do not be fooled. This is just another label for Marxist/Lenninist. Another label for Jew-hater.
4. Gutless university administrators do nothing to stand up to leftists tyrants and Muslim demagogues. Many are former 60's radicals and have fond memories of the good ol' days. The fact that they are Jews and acting as kapos seems to make little impression. I have Christian friends who have a deeper connection to Judaism.
5. The problem is getting worse as Universities appease these leftist and Muslim thugs. Appeasement invites aggression. Soon, entire universities will become, like the 22 backward Arab/Muslim countries, Judenrein.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:50 AM | Comments (9)
August 13, 2007
Contempt
“My favorite thing in your blog is the How I Married Karen series.”
"Oh, thanks so much.“
“Which is why I'd like to ask your advice about my girlfriend.”
Karen and I are attending a wedding and a Young Man has just introduced himself to me, tells me how much he enjoys Seraphic Secret.
“I'm not a therapist, you know. Far from it. I'm just a dumb Hollywood screenwriter.”
“Yes, but you and Karen, your story is just so wonderful, maybe you can offer some ideas.”
Oh dear. What choice do I have?
Suffice to say that the Young Man's girlfriend is very beautiful.
Suffice to say that the Young Man is smitten.
Suffice to say he is on one end of the political spectrum and she is on the other.
Suffice to say he is more religious than she.
Suffice to say the relationship is built on the dopey notion that opposites attract.
Suffice to say that they had a huge fight.
Suffice to say that cruel words were exchanged.
But here's what really captures my attention.
The Young Man says, “I told her I have contempt for her, for her ideas.”
“How did she respond?”
“She told me she never wants to speak to me again.”
I hold out my hands as if checking for rain.
“The thing is, I miss her, I want to try again,” he pleads.
Karen once told me that most any marriage can be saved except where contempt is felt and expressed between husband and wife. Contempt is an emotion that cannot be overcome.
“So, any ideas on what I can do, Mr. Avrech?”
“Yes. I know exactly what you should do.”
“Great.”
“Do you have a garage?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Perfect. Go into your garage, build a time machine, travel back in time and take back every terrible thing that you and your girlfriend have ever said to each other. And while you're at it, rebuild your entire personalities so that both of you hold the same values. Because as far as I can tell you're obsessed with her essential hotness.”
“You're saying we're wrong for each other.”
"I'm saying, not every relationship can be saved.”
The Young Man watches the chosson, the bridegroom, a blur of motion, a chaos of joy.
The Young Man looks sad. But in an instant he brightens.
“Where's Karen, I'd love to meet Karen face to face. I wish I could find a woman like Karen.”
“We're sitting at Table #21. Drop by, say hello. She just got a new haircut, looks like Louise Brooks.”
“Who's Louise Brooks?”
“Silent film actress. I'll blog about her some day.”
Politely, the Young Man thanks me, and walks off.
He does not introduce himself to Karen. But I have a feeling that he is watching our table from a safe distance.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:52 AM | Comments (25)
August 12, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #129 Plus Myrna Loy
Taking a break from my script.
Who better to spend time with than the great Myrna Loy. This firecracker of an actress starred in some of Hollywood's greatest screwball comedies. The Thin Man series, are classics.
But here's a secret, Myrna Loy always said that her very favorite film was Test Pilot. She co-stars with Clark Cable and Spencer Tracy.
And oh my, this film is a gem. The boy meets girl stuff between Loy and Gable just goes right through me. I'm sitting on the couch watching, Karen's working on a psych report and every once in a while the dialog is so brilliant I just gasp, really loudly, and Karen murmurs: “Good, stuff, huh?”
I shake my head, humbled.
And Loy's outfits — as my wardrobe design people would say: “To die for.” No cleavage. No cheap peeks. In those days stars were taught how to wear well tailored pieces.
I cannot think of a contemporary actress who projects the wit, elegance, sensuality, strength, intelligence and vulnerability of Myrna Loy. In truth, with all the feminist ideology out there, and with all the ahem, progressive strides made by women in Hollywood, women had far better roles in the 30's and 40's.
You must see Test Pilot.
I also strongly recommend another Myrna Loy, Clark Gable pairing, Too Hot to Handle.
And do catch Libeled Lady, with Myrna Loy, Gene Harlow, William Powell, and Spencer Tracy. This is a fine but little known screwball comedy.
Anywhoo.
This brings us to Haveil Havelim #129 The Once and Future Edition, lovingly collected and posted by my buddy (yes, we met in person, shared slices of pizza) Jack of Random Thoughts.
But it's the minhag, the tradition, for Seraphic Secret to rename Haveil Havalim in honor of a great Hollywood icon. And in the process, pass on some useless Hollywood lore and maybe get one or two Seraphic Friends to watch a really wonderful obscure movie. G-d knows, most of the stuff we're producing is barely worth a glance.
And so: Haveil Havelim #129 The Myrna Loy Edition
We'd like to thank Jack for including two of our posts: Jihad in Brooklyn, and Hollywood Appeasement, Hollywood anti-Semitism in this edition.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:11 PM | Comments (14)
August 10, 2007
Words About Screenwriting
I'm exhausted. For the past two weeks I've been working day and night on the last stretch of a screenplay — and it is killing me. My main character, a female counter-terrorist agent says things like: “I will have justice and I do not care how many I have to kill to get it.”
And I wonder: where the heck did that come from?
Here's the thing: At a certain point, in a really good script, you must let a character do what the character wants to do. And then you have to go back, and reimpose order on the chaos that this character has strewn about like Atilla the Hun. But out of this chaos, if you're good, and if your character is really unique, there will be gold.
I'm hollowed out. I've been writing I don't know how many hours a day. I've been distant and abrupt with Karen. Horrible. I get up in the middle of the night, sit on the couch in the master bedroom and go over every scene in the script, analyze it from every possible angle. In the morning, I tear the script apart and restructure major sequences over and over again. I've done twenty-five drafts to arrive at what I term my first draft.
I have dispensed with almost all up-front exposition. Yup, the oh-so-necessary, and what I call: Moshe-the-Explainer points have been sprinkled throughout the script with an eyedropper: elegant, subtle, organic. I'm sooo happy. Exposition is the Hizbullah of cinema. It should be exterminated.
I've arrived at the point in my screenwriting career where I insist that each line of dialog must mean something. No word is wasted. Nothing serves as filler. I won't allow myself to get lazy and use words as bridges to get from one scene to the next. Each line must move the story forward and ring with golden tones.
The masters of this screenwriting form were the screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's. His Girl Friday, Ball of Fire, My Favorite Wife, The Lady Eve, The Major and The Minor, The Awful Truth. Not a word nor gesture wasted. Too many in Hollywood are ignorant of these giants of the craft. It's just plain sad.
My main character is named Delia McCoy. I agonize over the names of my characters. Don't ask. Tie myself into knots. Dig into telephone books, my favorites are from Texas and Tennessee.
As a young girl, Delia was made to take a unique personal vow in the belief that such a vow would make her a more effective warrior. But she discovers that this pledge is cutting off a core emotional channel.
Thus the main conflict: duty and personal life. Nothing original here, but there are no original stories, only new ways of telling old stories.
In Delia McCoy, I have a tiger by the tail. I know this because I was at a wedding last night and right in the middle of the chuppah my mind wandered far away — and I rewrote a scene in my head. This character will not let me rest. Not for a moment. She is insistent on a corporeal existence. I know Delia McCoy as well as I know almost anyone.
Which is kind of scary.
Anywhoo.
Here are three words I'll never use in a script or in real life.
So: sharpen your Number Two pencils, open your notebooks and compose a clever and coherent sentence using all three words.
xenodocheionology
n. love of hotels
hieromachy
a fight or quarrel between priests
shunamitism
n. rejuvenation of an old man by a young woman
Hat Tip: Futility Closet
Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:01 AM | Comments (14)
August 09, 2007
Hollywood Appeasement, Hollywood anti-Semitism
Gee willikers, what a shock. Hollywood has caved in to a Muslim pressure group.
This is how it works.
A script is leaked, usually by some spineless liberal in the lower eschelons of the Hollywood food chain. A Muslim jihadist front-group sends their thugs-in-suits to Hollywood. The strong-arms get all uppity and self-righteous and use phrases like "multi-cultural," and "we're all the same", and pepper the friendly conversation with the always effective "Islamaphobia." Hollywood liberals cower at the very thought.
But the Hollywood players in the room know what's really going on. They all remember Theo Van Gogh. Everyone is aware of the Muslim cartoon riots. They have all seen France burning at the hands of, ahem, French youth. And the Weinstein brothers have had a nice long conversation with their insurance carrier; they are all too aware of how easy it is to sabotage a film set. The director wants to direct his picture; he's not anxious to return to development hell. And of course, everyone wants the massive payday that comes on principal day of photography.
So: the revisions to the script are hastily made, secretly shipped to the Muslim pressure group for their seal of approval — you won't cut off our heads, right? All concerned blather on about how much better is the script. And like all limousine liberals, convince themselves that they have made the world a better place. Cue: Kumbaya.
Uh-huh.
But: to maintain the edge in the script the writer, director, and producers save all the material that degrades either Jews or Christians. After all, Jews and Christians don't go around slitting throats, rioting in the streets, setting hundreds of vehicles on fire.
Hence Hollywood feels free to slander Judaism and Christianity.
Thus appeasement marches on.
And Hollywood produces, no doubt, another bomb.
Let's hear from the mighty Debbie Schlussel.
To update an old Mark Twain (and Benjamin Disraeli) quote, there are lies, damned lies, and Hollywood scripts.
Sometimes the lies are not what is in the script, but what is removed under pressure from whining, politically correct interest groups. These days, those groups are primarily Muslim and Middle Eastern.
Honor Killing Scene Deleted From "ICE, The Movie" a/k/a "Crossing Over" Muslim groups have successfully gotten scenes—accurately depicting them as terrorists and murderers—removed from scripts or changed to another, more acceptable nationality. Brilliant blogger Sultan Knish drew my attention to the latest such cave-in: "Crossing Over," starring Harrison Ford and Sean Penn and produced by the Weinstein Brothers. I've been writing extensively about this movie and have a copy of the original script.
Muslim Iranians were upset that a scene portrays them committing an honor killing. Late last week, they succeeded in getting it removed from the film. No worries, though, about the anti-Semitic scenes in the movie. Those remain. The Weinsteins and Writer/Director Wayne Kramer are Jewish, and we can't expect them to cave on those the way they did for the "more worthy" Muslims. It's politically correct to attack Jews, not so—these days in Hollywood—to attack those who attacked us before and on 9/11 and repeatedly try to again.
To read Debbie Schlussel's entire article, and the deleted scenes from the script, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Jeremayakova
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:25 AM | Comments (5)
August 08, 2007
Jihad in Brooklyn
The first New York Charter School for Arab girls is selling T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Intifada - New York."
The principle of the school, Dhabah Almontaser, said "I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society ... and shaking off oppression."
A chance for girls to shake off oppression that comes from being part of New York City society? How about the oppression of women that is rife in the Arab world? Women are more "liberated" in New York City than they are in Riyadh:
I do not think the proponents of charter schools had this sort of activism and education in mind. These are not the type of school uniforms contemplated by some advocates of charter schools-particularly when the principal is implicitly putting pressure on children to buy these shirts-which financially benefit an activist organization with which she shares office space.
The New York Jewish community is not amused:
Sale of the T-shirts, which prompted a critical news story in the New York Post on Monday, was condemned by New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn.
In a letter to the New York schools chancellor, Joel Klein, Hikind said it is "outrageous" that Almontaser would "support and hail" the T-shirts.
"It is grossly insensitive," Hikind said. "I have had personal friends killed in the recent intifada. What is Ms. Almontaser thinking? If this is her mindset, a radicalized vision of Islam, she poses a danger to New York City students and she should be removed immediately. She has disqualified herself from being a principal in any New York City school."
What's next? T-Shirts with Arafat's picture on them?
A few observations:
1. Soon, Muslims will declare parts of Brooklyn to be under Sharia. Further, they will insist that Jews have no right to settle in Muslim land.
2. Liberals will want to negotiate with these Muslims and consider these demands to be quite reasonable. After all, this is their religion, their culture. Thus, sections of Brooklyn will become Judenrein, under threat of horrific violence.
3. As more and more Muslim charter schools sprout in the New York area, an aggressive movement will swell to strike the teaching of the Holocaust from all public schools.
4. Liberals will also consider this to be a reasonable demand and they will suggest that so-called "Palestinian oppression" be taught to balance out the Shoah.
5. Muslim prayer footbaths will soon be introduced into NY public schools. This will be agitated for by the ACLU. Their argument will be, no doubt, the footbaths are not religious, but for everyone in order to avoid athlete's foot.
6. Liberals will go along with this because it's a reasonable request, and because liberals are appeasers/cowards and terrified of actually confronting a bunch of Muslim fanatics.
7. The sight of burning synagogues in Brooklyn will become, yawn, an everyday sight. Nothing to get excited about. Just another day in the Muslim calendar.
Original story from American Thinker.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin
Update: The principle of the madrassa/school has resigned. H/T. Seraphic Friend, Dr. Carol.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:29 PM | Comments (6)
Muslim Refugees From Sudan to Israel
News that Israel is a free and safe democratic country that respects human rights is spreading quickly amongst Muslim Sudanese refugees from Darfur who are fleeing genocide. Hundreds, who are looking for asylum and a better life, have crossed the Southern Border into Israel. In this video we hear from one of the 12 mothers about their escape to Israel through Egypt and how well they and their children were treated by the Israel army when they entered Israel illegally. Visit them in their safe houses provide by the Israeli Government.Click here for the wonderful video of Muslim refugees who have fled Sudan and then Egypt and finally found a safe haven in Israel.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:01 PM | Comments (5)
Presbyterian Church USA Strikes Again
Some days I wake up, scan the news and wonder what am I going to write about? The world is just brimming with Muslim terrorism, pick a corner of the globe, Muslim genocide, Darfur, and those who apologize for these atrocities — oh gosh, just scratch a liberal.
Maybe I'll list my favorite war movies of all times, take the easy way out. H/T to John at Op For for asking me to weigh in on this crucial matter in his comments section.
Okay, here's a partial list: The Seven Samurai, Zulu, The Winter War, Come and See, The Light Horsemen, Lawrence of Arabia, Band of Brothers, Patton, The Red and the White.
Or: tell you how the the script I'm just about to finish has just about scooped out my guts — I mean really, after 20 years of doing this gig you would think screenwriting would come a bit easier for yours truly, but noooo, your not-so-humble scribe finds that each script is a deeper, more mysterious universe.
I thought maybe I'd write about the terrible expulsion of Jews in Hevron by other Jews that had us on the verge of tears last night. But, oh my gosh, I have a feeling others will cover this infamous chapter in Jewish history far better than I can.
I thought I might write about the fine Ner Yisroel boys who are staying in our home right now, one of whom is about to be married and he's sleeping in Ariel's ZT'L bed, but the poignancy, the bittersweet feelings have yet to hit home.
And so to the rescue this morning rides Seraphic Friend David Paulin who has uncovered what can only be termed a lunatic group of "Christians" who, in the past have, naturally, made alliances with Arab terrorists against Israel, and are now determined to make war on, get this, the Big Mac, for, ahem, theological reasons. In truth, they are a gang of Jew-hating, American-bashing, crypto Communists — with sheepskins and self righteous lingo.
The intellectual elite of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have in recent years joined ranks with the radical left. Its members vilify Israel, apologize for Islamic terrorists, and cheer on the Palestinian cause. Now, these Presbyterians have another villain: the Big Mac.
America’s most famous hamburger is emblematic of the dark underbelly of globalization, according to David Hadley Jensen, an associate professor of something called “constructive theology” at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. On top of that, McDonald’s and its iconic burger are even at odds with Christian values, Jensen contends.
The professor’s scathing critique is the subject of a recent essay, “The Big Mac and the Lord’s Table: A Theological Interpretation of Globalization.” It’s among several anti-globalization essays in the recent edition of “Insights,” a semiannual faculty journal published by Austin Seminary. Situated on idyllic grounds near the University of Texas campus, the seminary is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), which is no stranger to controversy. In 2004, it initiated steps to divest from companies operating in Israel, an action that ultimately failed.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:58 AM | Comments (13)
August 07, 2007
Zachor, Remember
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Billy "Pup" Cochrane Vintage Knives
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:56