Best of Xmas '09: Roku Netflix Player

This Christmas, Santa brought me the Roku Digital Video Player. In short, it hooks up to the TV and streams Netflix movies from the internet. Since setting it up in January, here's a list of movies I've seen (with my brief comments). My recommendations are noted with an asterisk.

Ned Kelly (2003): Not as good as I was hoping, but some of Orlando Bloom's better work.
*Cashback (2006): Surprisingly good indie romance about an insomniac art student who stops time in order to draw shoppers at his night job. Lots of nudity, for those who go for that sort of thing.
*Bill (2007): Great work from Aaron Eckhart, playing a depressed guy having a mid-life crisis and his turnaround. This might have struck a more personal chord with me, but solid showing all around.
*Persepolis (2007): Animation biography of an Iranian girl who lives through the revolution, the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, and her coming-of-age in Vienna. Great look at Iranian life during the period, and an easy way to digest the political turmoil.
*Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988): A Perin childhood classic that gets better every time you watch it. Best line from the film: Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) to a couple of 9 year olds, "Hey kid, thanks for the cigarettes!"
The Paper Chase (1973): The seminal law school movie, I had to watch innumerable clips from this during the first week (probably because all of my profs are Harvard Law alums). What's weird is that the protagonist looks eerily like my father in the 70s.
The Brothers Solomon (2007): Let me put it this way - it's painfully obvious that Will Arnett wrote this.
The Natural (1984): Robert Redford's baseball opus of farm-bred talent, big-business corruption of the sport, and redemptive tragedy.
*Dan in Real Life (2007): GREAT romantic comedy about a widower columnist who falls in love with his brother (played by Dane Cook) 's new girlfriend.
The Illusionist (2006): Visually stunning, realistically lacking. Although I now see what Justin Timberlake sees in Jessica Biel.
Smart People (2008): This one was surprisingly good, giving me a chuckle over memories of academic ego contests with my college roommate Jeff.
Ali G Indahouse (2002): Sacha Baron Cohen's first movie based on his sketch characters, this proved a very interesting view of how he satirizes the levels of English society.
Hoosiers (1986): Touted as 'the best sports film ever made', I was sorely dissapointed. Another movie touting the superiority of humble farm origins, I laughed at the structure of the climax, in which the small-towners (all white) faced the state powerhouse Central South Bend (all black) for the title.
*My Fellow Americans (1996): One of the greatest political comedies of all time, this movie lists amongst my favorites. Two former presidents (the Republican is from Ohio) from different parties join up to expose corruption in the White House.
*Dnevnoy Dozor (Day Watch) (2006): Stunning sequel to 'Nochnoi Dozor' (Night Watch), this series is described as Russia's answer to The Matrix. Of course, when this was written, the brothers Wachowski hadn't ruined the series with the third movie. I recommend
Revolver (2005): Easily Guy Ritchie's most ambitious plot, this one aspires to be a psychological drama which ends up being clumsily executed. Parts are good, but overall too much.
*Broken Flowers (2005): I liked this one a lot. Bill Murray, through Lost in Translation, The Life Aquatic, this, and his brief stint in The Darjeeling Limited, has become a reliable weather-vane for good films. This bit has similarly limited appeal, but within that bit, fantastic. This movie sees Murray recieve a mysterious and anonymous letter from an old flame telling him he has a 19 year-old son, which leads him to track down the 5 potential mothers and visit them to find out who sent the letter and to meet his child.
Half Nelson (2006): This movie recieved acclaim, but largely for heralding Ryan Gosling's arrival as a dramatic actor. Far better than this was his role in Lars and the Real Girl a year later, which I would highly recommend.
*Bananas (1971): Woody Allen is hit-or-miss with me, which is a higher score than he gets from most. This is one of my favorites (doesn't hurt that it's a political satire).
**Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008): The only documentary on this list is also the only one to earn two asterisks. Ben Stein does an amazing job at examining why the theory of Intelligent Design has been excluded from scientific pursuit by the powers that be. If anyone was unaware that Scientism was a religious doctrine of its own, this film is tremendously persuasive.
This is England (2006): Set in post-Falklands 1983, this movie chronicles a young boy's entrance into the world of Skinheads. Being a student of fascism myself, this piece does a good job at portraying the course of entrance into ethno-nationalist fringe groups.
War, Inc. (2008): Intended to portray the growth of Private Military Companies and the relationship now enjoyed between the US government and contractors like Halliburton (and to a lesser extent, the old and venerable suppliers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, SAIC, and Northrop Grumman), this movie was so over-the-top, I couldn't watch the whole thing. While I agree that perhaps the relationship between state and commercial enterprise has gotten too comfy when it comes to war-making, we have not yet seen the full return of the Condottieri.
Carbon Copy (1981): Denzel Washington's first movie, this social commentary on race is overtly simple, but considering its time, probably pretty daring. I was surprised at how charming Denzel was even at his start - reminding me very much of a certain Fresh Prince.
Color Me Kubrick: A True...ish Story (2005): I like John Malkovich, and Kubrick interests me, so this one was a surefire pick to end up on my Instant Netflix queue. The story draws heavily from a real person who impersonated Stanley Kubrick to enjoy society and prey on naive gay men. Better acting than the film is compelling, and Malkovich is at his weirdest (which is good).
The Viking Sagas (1995): This movie easily could have been made in the 80s, alongside Rambo, Predator, Commando, Rocky, and Conan the Barbarian, and would have made Ralf Moeller a star, had he been born a decade sooner. What is cool is how much of the story was drawn from actual Icelandic sagas (Njall's Saga is a good place for beginners to start, if interested as I was). And there's nudity, which never hurts.
Corpse Bride (2005): Tim Burton is also hit-or-miss with me. I loved his take on Sweeney Todd, and The Nightmare before Christmas is a classic, but this was just ho-hum. Probably a better entree for Kids into Burton's world.
*Paris, Je T'aime (2006): This series of vignettes (one for 20 neighborhoods of paris) is pure gold, largely due to the 5-minute limit placed on the directors, assures their best and tightest direction. Steve Buscemi's part for the Coen brothers, is particularly good.
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989): Woody Allen's first stab at Dostoyevsky (his second, Match Point, is more successful, but less true to Crime and Punishment), this one helps if you're a fan of Russian Lit, and also a life-time manhattanite.
Soldier (1998): My favorite Kurt Russell movie, this sees a futuristic batch of super soldiers replaced (as "obsolete") only to demonstrate that experience counts for more than potential. Better than Viking Sagas, but chalked up to my weakness for macho action films just the same.
Matchstick Men (2003): I love movies about confidence men - it provides for fantastic story-driven plotlines when done right (Snatch, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels). Nicholas Cage does a compelling job here as an OCD con man who finds out he has a 14-year old daughter.
The King Maker (2005): Portuguese mercenary, Indochinese kingdom, this film appealed to the historian side of me. Sadly, the dialogue was terrible, the fight scenes campy, and the plot holes many. Not the worst action film I've seen, but the worst on this list.
*Happy Gilmore (1996): I debated not giving this one an asterisk only because Happy wears a Boston Bruins sweater through much of the film, and I loathe all Boston sports teams. But I loathe the Bruins the least (that's right, you Crimson bitches), and he does get his ass kicked by Bob Barker.
**Seven Years in Tibet (1997): Alright, so I lied. This, too, deserves a second asterisk. A visually stunning feature which tells of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer's journey through Tibet, giving a harrowing chronicle of China's invasion and takeover. If you weren't a liberal 'Free Tibet' hippie before, this film will remind even the most hardened conservatives that an independent Tibet is ardent anti-communism.
*Conversations With Other Women (2005): This was very cleverly made, shot in split-screen, and an acting tour de force from Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham-Carter, who are alone for most of the film. Highly recommended.
Ratatouille (2007): As mocking as I am of the French, and detestful of vermin, this film's meritocratic message does have appeal. I might have to watch this again, however, when a certain someone comes to visit in February.

The funny bit of this is that I watched the first 18 or so during the first weekend I had the Roku box. With 150 movies queued, I've got a ways to go. But as Netflix also offers television, my most recent foray has been a little-known British series from my favorite Python, Terry Jones:

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004): This series takes a look at Medieval archetypes and the common misconceptions that modern society holds. Often raunchy (but tempered, as made for public broadcast) in its evidence, the series proved (at least to your author) that we are indeed in a Neo-Medieval period. Scientism abounds, sexual propriety is limited, and authority is far from concentrated in the hands of state. It turns out the Medieval people (at least in England) were litigious, libidinous, propagandic, hypocritical, and incessantly commercial, and suggests that it was the 'Renaissance' and Victorian times that were so oppressive to women and the working classes, and regressive when it came to learning. This is worth buying for keeps. Bravo, Mr. Jones.

Fans of Medieval history, and Chaucer in particular, should read Mr. Jones' book, Chaucer's Knight: The Portrayal of a Medieval Mercenary.

Now, Instant Netflix requires purchase of their 2-dvd unlimited plan, and I've recieved two so far. Only fair to include those:

The Darjeeling Limited (2007): I like Wes Anderson's films. Not Bottle Rocket, of course, but the good ones: Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), and this. What's brilliant about his work is that he uses an eye for overwhelmingly eccentric detail to portray particular points in life. In Rushmore, it was a two-part perspective on opportunity, from the eyes of an ambitious high schooler and a successful businessman not particularly taken with his own sons. The Royal Tenenbaums looked at divorce and an estranged family. The Life Aquatic with mid-life crises, and the confrontation of having lost the vigor and principled drive of youth. This film examines mourning, and uses each of its characters to portray differing reactions to the death of the family patriarch. One son attempts suicide, another flees the country, and a third struggles with his own pending fatherhood, who get together for a journey through India to find their mother, a recent entrant to a convent in the Himalayas. Perhaps my own personal experiences help Anderson's work speak to me (having divorced parents, having transferred to an elite university, finding early professional satisfaction, and losing my grandfather last year), but there is certainly far more to his movies that dysfunctional families.

The Last King of Scotland (2006): Forest Whitaker definitely earned the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the psychopathic dictator Idi Amin. Good movie, highlighting the perils of naive liberal optimism, the textured realities of diplomatic relations, and the horrible dictators that have checkered Africa's history.

Next on the list: Mongol (2007)

COTR: LUSCUS' 8 CONFLICTS TO WATCH IN 2009

LUSCUS' 8 CONFLICTS TO WATCH IN 2009

Apologies for the delay, but I thought it would be a good idea to offer a few of my predictions for foreign affairs in 2009. They range from the hugely beneficial to the barely relevant to our daily lives, and pose a very diverse range of challenges to our new President and the world order.

The Predictions

1. Syria comes in from the cold. This has been bandied about for several years now, with America reaching out in 2005 to offer a 'Gaddafi' deal in the hopes that Syria will cease funding of Hezbollah and Hamas, refrain from interfering with Lebanon, and make peace with Israel in exchange for economic aid and access to the global market. Great Britain made a renewed push in November and December of 2008, with hopes that a Golan Heights deal would be the irresistible lure to a reportedly curious President Al-Asad.

This is part one of a three-step path to peace in the Levant. Syria and Iran have kept the Palestinian fire stoked with increasingly powerful weaponry for use against Israel. If Syrian support ends and some arrangement can be worked out with Iran, the table is set for a real solution to the Israel/Palestine question. Luscus is most in favor of a hybrid state (surprisingly similar to that presented by Pres. Gaddafi recently at a teleconference at Georgetown University, his published 'white book', and in an op-ed for the NYT).

2. Pakistan comes dangerously close to another military coup. Going against conventional wisdom, military intervention in Pakistani politics has generally been a net positive. While I will not dismiss the gross violations of human rights that have occurred in 1958, 1977, and 1999, the military has been a main secular force in promoting stability and limiting corruption. Aside from jailing the Chief Justice of their supreme court, Iftikhan Chaudry, Luscus has been a fan of Musharraf. With the current presidency of "Mr. 10%" Asif Zardari and the rise of the Paksitan Muslim League, several circumstances could arise in which the military might feel necessary to intervene: breakdown in US-Pakistan relations, political and military failures in the North-west Frontier Province and/or Federally-Administered Tribal Areas, or economic collapse. The latter has been stemmed by a $7.6b loan from the IMF, but in this economic climate, who knows if that is enough?

3. Civil war in Sudan. The 2005 peace agreement allows for a popular vote on secession to occur in 2011, but a combination of pressure for action on Darfur, spillover from the Congolese conflict or northern Uganda, and the issue of the mysterious arms shipment hijacked by Somali pirates from Kenya in September 2008 could lead to preemptive action by Khartoum. However, as President al-Bashir is already under indictment for war crimes, he may be hesitant to engage in further military action. But on the other hand he might feel that he has nothing to lose.

4. Military coup in Philippines. It seems that every year sees a new plot to overthrow President Macapagal Arroyo and the government of the Philippines. With rumors of US Special Forces being taught Tagalog (don't ask), this may be signal of preparation for a larger conflict.

5. Violence in the Crimea possible talk of secession, or Russian irredentism. With both the Russian and Ukrainian navies based in Sevastopol, this ethnic-Russian conclave of Ukraine might see movement to rejoin Russia (the Crimea was added to Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev should the political situation in Ukraine continue to deteriorate, or if Russo-Ukrainian tensions escalate due to the ongoing dispute over gas transfer and payments.

6. Resurgence of violence in Congo. This is perhaps the easiest prediction, what with three major conflicts inside or along DR Congo's borders.

First, that the winding-down of the Ugandan conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army (caused by the death of General Joseph Kony's spiritual inspiration, Alice, and breakdown of ceasefire talks between the government and Kony's son) does not occur, and fighting breaks out and spreads on both sides of the border. Second, the pursuit into DR Congo of Hutu militias by the Rwandan government, accused of complicity in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis. In 1996, the Hutu groups, fleeing from confrontation at the end of the Rwandan conflict, ran rampant through then Zaire, sending it into civil war and causing the transfer of power from Pres. Mobutu to Pres. Laurent Kabila (father of current president Joseph) and the re-naming of the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lastly, this could be a pure collapse of government authority within the borders due to pressure from groups which have become entrenched and seeking greater permanence within the political structure.

7. Potential collapse of Mexican state. This is unlikely to occur in totality, but any increase in power held by the Sinaloa and Gulf drug cartels could threaten the government's legitimacy and definitely threaten state control of at least two of its northern provinces. President Calderon being a strong ally of the United States, as well as the proximity to our southern border and Mexico's rising preeminence in the flow of drugs to the US, expect increased American support.

8. Great Britain bankrupt. Considerable attention was paid during the collapse of Iceland's economy and government, what with the country's banking sectors making up a far larger share of its GDP than sustainable by its central bank. Other finance-intense economies have definitely taken notice. While this isn't 100% likely, the role played by 'the City' in the United Kingdom's economy is congruent to the situation in Iceland, albeit on a larger scale. Should the economic situation worsen, it remains to be seen how far the UK can remain solvent. Without a strong American manufacturing industry to fall back on (as has been the case in past crises), the increasing talk of joining the Euro should be taken as a sign of desperation. But on that point at least, the mood is not very different elsewhere.

Conclusion

I will insist that the best approach to our foreign policy is what I describe as 'Wilsonian Realism' that is, a realism moderated by an understanding that international consensus and international norms are wildly beneficial to our national security and to international stability at large. Its main aims are to provide for political stability through the promotion of international forae (formal or ad hoc), and a gradual focus of all countries towards good governance and responsible leadership, no matter the country's political form. Alternately, a Metternichian liberalism could be an apt description, of a slow and deliberate concert of powers-approach to promoting security, stability, and steady economic growth. Governor Richardson enumerated a similar policy in his Foreign Affairs article as a presidential candidate.

On a financial level, a new New Deal is foolish as a single package, as is now favored by the Democratic majority. A quick stimulus, combined with both the Judicial restructuring of mortgage rates to prevent foreclosures and a slow, gradual, ad hoc investment in our interstate commerce infrastructure (read: not simple handouts for individual states). As is a 'Bretton Woods II', as the global economy is too complex to be managed via a gold standard, or any alternative non-national reserve currency. Toward that end, greater transparency in accounting practices combined with a tightening of the screws on tax-havens and the abuse of FDI for market manipulation should put us on a more even keel.

This by no means is an exhaustive list - merely one that has compiled some of the major areas I have been following. Insight into the immediate futures of India and North Korea - perhaps the two elephants missing from the list - would be too complex, requiring a diplomatic sequence of Rube Goldberg proportions.

COTR: THE MANTLE OF PEACE

THE MANTLE OF PEACE

As the most recent episode of the recurring Gaza conflict escalates, the world is in an uproar against Israel and the civilian casualty rate. For the latter, this is rightly so. There is also an increasing fury with America's silence, and president-elect Obama's in particular. What the world can't remember, is that Obama now receives the same intelligence briefing as President Bush, something that can be vaguely summarized as such:

Hamas has 20,000-25,000 armed troops in Gaza, and an established tactic of firing rockets from schools, hospitals, and highly-concentrated civilian areas so that any targeted response results in a high civilian casualty count.

There is a good chance that Syria will come in from the cold in 2009. This has been a quiet rumor that is slowly getting louder. A peace agreement between Israel and Syria that would see the Golan Heights return to Damascus' control in exchange for the cessation of funding/arming Hamas militants would be the biggest step towards peace since the 1973 peace between Israel and Egypt.

Former Iranian President Khatami's political clout is growing, at the expense of current president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. The president serves at the whim of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. If you don't remember, in 2003 President Khatami unilaterally offered to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program and reach an influence sharing agreement with the United States. This was declined, likely at the behest of Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. With oil prices remaining well below OPEC's desired $80 per barrel, Ahmedinejad will be unable to afford his generous demagogic grant/welfare programs. With any luck, he will be replaced.

This is not to excuse Israel for its sloppy execution of this engagement, costing far too many civilian lives than is reasonable or morally acceptable in pursuit of its goal. At minimum, they should take strides to provide for the medical treatment of women and children wounded in Gaza, perhaps by building a civilian hospital outside of the border. For president-elect Obama, a recommitment to a greater peace should be loud and unequivocal.

The biggest danger at present is that Israel fails to deliver the 'knockout blow' to Hamas, and a further radicalization of the group and territory escalates the conflict. President Bush's legacy was further tarnished by this happening against Hezbollah. Failure to achieve a strategic checkmate on Israel's part would make Obama's silence damning.

But there is hope. If Israel devastates Hamas' military capacity, trades the Golan Heights for peace with Syria, and oil prices change the political winds in Iran, then-president Obama could reap the windfall of success that eluded his two predecessors.

COTR: LUSCUS' TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

LUSCUS' TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

1. Don't neglect the economic and defense conservatives. One-legged stools have a pretty long history of being toppled.

2. Don't fall for demagoguery. Substance has a distinct style of its own

3. There are 50 American states and over 300 million Americans. Don't be self-selective. They're all "real." Successful and lasting political groups build the biggest tent.

4. Bush is hated for his opacity, partisanship, and hypocrisy. This hatred blinds many to any and all of his actions. Transparency, cooperation, and honesty never corrupt or obscure good policies and good decisions.

5. Be pragmatic. Pragmatists get further and make fewer enemies along the way. That being said, bad policies are far worse than having no policy at all.

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6. Short-term greed is bad. Long-term greed is good.

7. Sticking your head in the sand may bring temporary relief, but sooner or later whatever it is catches up.
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8. Corruption is a cancer that must be destroyed without hesitation and no matter the short-term cost.
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9. A free-market doesn't mean an unfettered one, only one that is transparent and efficient. We should try it out sometime.

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10. Don't ever listen to Karl Rove again. Ever. He had his chance.

COTR: "ESSE ET PERCIPI" or "AFTER THE RED PILL: HOW DEEP THE RABBIT HOLE GOES"

"ESSE ET PERCIPI" or "AFTER THE RED PILL: HOW DEEP THE RABBIT HOLE GOES"

That we have reached an economic crisis is agreed upon by all parties. Our financial system is sick; of this, there is no doubt. What is in dispute is the remedy. However, before the reader ambles forth in lyrical conjecture, we must first settle the facts. There are plentiful articles that offer condemnation of events yet to occur, without any consideration for diagnosis of the situation at hand, let alone divining its true cause. This is not one of them.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Benjamin Bernanke, have presented a joint appeal to Congress to approve a $700 billon dollar budget with which to purchase large swaths of mortgage-backed securities of questionable value. But "questionable" does not mean that they are of zero value; this is not a case of throwing good money after bad. Those mortgage-backed securities were not insured by, but the insurance for the credit-default swaps, and formed the foundation for the securitized assets which (to use yesterday's figures) now amount to some $50 trillion. What the treasury seeks to do is to replace the questionable anchor in the chain with one of hard currency. This would limit the value of the "questionable assets" to $700 billion at most. With more stable securitized assets, banks will no longer need to hoard funds, credit would begin to flow again, and we have limited the losses to $700 billion, and only in a doomsday scenario where every single item purchased defaults to zero. This is unlikely. For a great analysis of this, see the Chris Matthews interview of Jim Cramer and Steven Pearlstein here.

Who, then, are the villains? It is easy to lump together "banks", "wall-street executives", and "speculators" into this role, but then we have done little more than create Hitler's Jew. Is it a crime to get rich? Is it criminal to accept multi-million dollar parachute clauses as terms for accepting a job? No, it is not. It is criminal, however, to present the false value of assets. This is called fraud. The reason the value of the anchors in the chain of collateralized-debt are questionable isn't because of speculation, excessive regulation, or excessive de-regulation: it's because 1) mortgage issuers were criminally negligent in processing mortgage applications, and 2) the function of the ratings agencies had been corrupted by collusion between its analysts and the issuers of the structured debt products. Lehmen Brothers, notorious for creating the most Byzantine products, has already faced the executioner. But this is a rare case of the punishment fitting the crime.

Capitalism and free-markets only work under the assumption of rational behavior. When markets act irrationally, as is the current case, the system allocates capital efficiently in neither the long term nor the short term, and fails in its raison d'tre. The whole system is founded on there being objective standards of measuring value. This standard has been called into question. Secretary Paulson's $700 billion dollar outlay would replace the questionable foundations with cold hard cash. But that won't mean a return to business as usual. Banks will have to unravel themselves from serious amounts of exposure, take moderate (but fair) losses, and restructure their entire risk-analysis models. This Christmas will be assuredly be dour for Manhattan's shops.

We now turn to the question of power, and whether this is an unholy expansion of government which will persist ad aeternum. This is putting the cart before the horse. It is highly doubtful that this or any Congress would hand over a blank check without conditions to the Secretary of the Treasury. There should indeed be conditions, but limited to these:

1. Time the office will exist for 9 months (three quarters), after which it will be terminated unless re-authorized by congress on a quarterly basis.
2. Scope the office to be established will exist solely for the purchase and eventual sale of distressed securities at the foundation of structured debt.
3. Statute of limitations the office to be established in the treasury is only to purchase securities issued on or before September 25th, 2008. This precludes the incentive for banks to continue issuing bad products.
4. Transparency - All efforts, purchases, or actions in the course of purchase must be recorded
5. Oversight actions will be monitored by a select group of appointed wise men (John McCain has suggested Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, and Mitt Romney for roles in this, and I can't think of anyone more qualified)

The purchases should be made on one condition: full disclosure on the part of the seller. Any violation of this would be felonious. Attempts to impose salary restrictions or additional regulations on the sellers will only scare them away, and render this entire venture pointless.

This outlay is fundamentally necessary for America. We have the opportunity to eliminate over $49 trillion dollars of exposed risk, and hundreds of trillions in unknown and collateral risk in one fell swoop. While it would be nice for everyone to learn valuable lessons from this whole mess, the cost is unacceptable. If we fail to pass this outlay, or if congress attaches more strings than the above prescribed and causes it to fail, you will see not only banks fall, but the elimination of a nation's worth of pension and $401K plans (a boon for those of you who are comfortable with Social Security being the sole provider for all your needs in old-age), any and all health insurance companies (which would force national coverage by the government), the elimination of all savings over $100,000. The FDIC would be overwhelmed, and likely default, meaning that savings might not even then be safe. Without the prospect of future payments, the US would not only lose its credit rating, but bankrupt. The American dollar would fall to levels familiar only to Zimbabweans. It is hard to imagine this being an environment where civil society could survive, let alone flourish.

But this does not have to be so. We can shore up financial markets, re-establish the flow of credit, set a price floor for the housing markets, and begin to purge our system of the toxins that now threaten to kill their host. This is not a band-aid effort on the part of Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke, nor is it the time to teach anyone a moral lesson. I urge you to call your representatives and demand that they support this endeavor.

COTR: A SHOE AND A TABLE TO BANG IT ON

A SHOE AND A TABLE TO BANG IT ON


"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War." These words, uttered today by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, are but simple truth. Russia is not afraid of a new cold war, and is posturing so that the blame falls on the West if (or, more likely, when) this becomes reality.

Strategically, it is well placed. A new Cold War will not look like the old one, but rather become a deeper, richer creature. With Russia reaping energy windfalls, successfully splitting up European countries in negotiating with them (see Germany and Poland), no working or real cyberterrorism treaties, and the United States Army overcommitted in its current operational theaters (let alone strategic posturing with China), the old bear is in a pretty good spot. Economic and Information warfare will be the new theaters, and International society will start to really strain under the weight of outdated World War II-era organizations.

The biggest disagreement (all of this being proxy battles over the main question) is whether a state's sovereignty is absolute, or limited. US entry into Yugoslavia broke the existing norms which preserved a state's boundaries as absolute, enforcing a settlement on what had been a sovereign entity. Single-handedly bringing Kosovo into the international community set a dangerous precedent, one which Russia is intent upon rubbing in the West's noses. Russia's main interests are whether it can merge with Belarus to form a new state, and whether Chechnya or Ossetia/Abkhazia provides the rule of secession. China's interests align with Russia's here, with Tibet and Taiwan being the most obvious examples, but the Uighur provinces in the northwest equally valid (not to mention providing an interesting Muslim complication).

Europe is the big player here. Whether it votes to continue expansion and (more importantly) consolidation of power into a federal structure not unlike the United States Constitutional model will shore up the major players. If the EU succeeds, look for more unified negotiations with Russia (but also concessions, due to energy needs). If it fails, look to Russia continuing to meddle in European affairs, further poisoning the European experiment.

America, on the other hand, is fundamentally unprepared for this new Cold War. Unable to match Russia's proxy brinkmanship with a legitimate military threat (boots on the ground - nuclear war between great powers is still unlikely), it will lose face and prestige throughout the world. Economically, the US is very fragile, and losing opportunities to build and strengthen economic and diplomatic relationships with countries all too willing to work with Russia or China (and for fewer political concessions). America does not have the power to protect its allies from internet attacks, or itself from the disruption of its satellites.

This will not necessarily lead to World War III, but much as Athens saw its allies move under the protection of Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, there will be a restructuring of the world order. Where goes Europe, so goes the world.

Movie Review: Children of Men

Children of Men

Clive Owen, Sir Michael Caine, Julianne Moore

****1/2


Futuristic thriller set in a dystopian United Kingdom where mankind has lost the ability to reproduce. The absence of children and inability to procreate has shattered society at every level: destroying families, civil society, and all states - save, of course, the now-totalitarian Britain. Clive Owen is solicited, and then forced by a riveting turn of events, into shepherding the planet's first pregnant woman in eighteen years to safety.

All science fiction serves as a shallow criticism of contemporary society, and Children of Men is no exception. A brilliant microscopic story set against the backdrop of many current societal ills - including the disintegration of the family, tragedy's psychological effect on the masses, the limitations of government response to terrorism, and the resurgence of ethno-centric nationalism - the movie encourages the audience to percieve everything with skeptical optimism, and to adopt the fortitude only hope can provide.

Owen and Caine - arguably the two most talented actors in cinema today - dominate the viewer's attention with emotional nuance, demonstrating with two electrifying performances that the acting craft is not dead.