Country Strong?

Lughnasa                                        Waxing Harvest Moon

Just watched Country Strong.  I wouldn’t savage it like the critics on Rotten Tomato, but I wouldn’t put it in a list of art house classics either.  I liked the performances of Garret Hedlund and Tim McGraw though I didn’t like Tim McGraw as much as the critics did.  Gwenyth Paltrow gave a gutsy, but melodramatic presentation of the failing country diva.

The fragile country super star burdened the movie with a huge cliche and the drag on the plot kept it close to the ground.

Missable, but also watchable.

 

A Black Harvest

Lughnasa                                                Waxing Harvest Moon

On September 11, 2011 we will have a full Harvest Moon in the sky.

What has been the harvest of the September 11th terrorist attack in New York City?  Is it one we want?  It is the one we have created.

Shock and awe.  The neo-cons Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld’s favorite description for the blitzkrieg-like attack we promised the Iraqi government of Sadam Hussein.  More like a description of our response to 9/11.  We sat back, stunned, shocked by the devastation and awed by the daring of this sudden disruption to our national consciousness.

It inflamed our imaginations, brought us together as a people, a people under attack by a faceless, but brutal enemy.  What to do?  Instead of letting the shock fade and the awe give way to a reality based understanding of what had happened we blundered into the most mistaken metaphor of my lifetime:  A War on Terror.

Wars are fought by armies and air forces and navies.  In wars we blow things up, take people down, topple regimes and conquer nations.  We fight uniformed adversaries with our own uniformed champions, a sort of contemporary knight errantry hired to settle claims between or among rival powers.

Only this wasn’t really a war.  It was a struggle more like an armed criminal investigation.  Their gang, Al Qaeda, against our gang.  Only we chose as our gang the US military instead of, say, the FBI or the CIA.

We know this now, ten years on.  We’re gradually scaling back the ten years war, leaving the field to special forces, blends of military and intelligence operatives, working much like investigative agencies.  OK, really, really well-armed investigative agencies.

In the meanwhile we have followed Paul Kennedy’s prescription in his Decline and Fall of Empires.  We have spread treasure and lives so freely across the Middle East and Central Asia that we have created a weakened economy, one vulnerable to severe shocks like the recent great recession and, possibly, yet a second recession.

Not only have we weakened ourselves economically, we have impoverished once cherished civil rights through such draconian legal measures as the Patriot Act (Orwell, anyone?), extraordinary rendition and the prison at Guantanamo.

We have also created a secret America that continues to expand at an increasing rate, its budgets hidden, its employees unknown and its mandates invisible.

The fruits of this full Harvest moon come from poisoned fields:  people killed and injured, money missing by the pallet load, our own civil rights constricted and a Pentagon of occult agencies both outside and beyond our control.

If we continue to gather in this crop, then, as George W. was fond of saying, the terrorists have won.

 

 

Life Lesson Learned

Lughnasa                                               Waxing Harvest Moon

Looks like Mark was more right.  Not sure yet, because all the data isn’t in, but he understands the culture of English language schools and I don’t.  Life lesson learned here.  The lesson?  20 years of experience beats book learnin’ and casual travel.  Sorta makes sense, doesn’t it?

No matter what happens with the visa, Saudi situation, Mark’s time here will come to a close in the next few weeks.  We leave for our cruise in October and he doesn’t have a job here.  I hope he still ends up in Saudi.  We’ll see.

Mark and I are here by ourselves for the next 5 days.  Kate got on the 7:40 am Northstar this morning, headed for the Hiawatha Line and MSP.   Having the Northstar close by has dramatically changed getting to and from the airport.  Now, we can board a morning commuter train, catch the light rail to the airport and when we get back, we can reverse field and end up within a short drive of our home.  Just like a big city.

Lughnasa                                           Waxing Harvest Moon

Ancientrails had a difference of opinion over payment with its internet host, 1&1.  1&1 took us down for a day as punishment.  Now we like each other again.