It’s Like Being Shot With Your Own Gun
I have been conspicuously quiet about economic downturn, aka Twenty-first Century Depression, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. Au contraire, I care a great deal. Millions of dollars worth. Yes, a year ago yours truly owned a financial statement stating a net worth in the low seven figures. Not bad, but keep in mind the majority of the balance sheet was in real estate and I’d been plugging away at my chosen career—home design and building for thirty-five years. So in essence, it really wasn’t that much for years of hard work, but then again, unlike the banks, I’m a conservative kinda guy.
On the other hand, one year later my balance sheet is in the negative high six digits and growing. In other words I’m being water boarded in a sea of red ink and being sued by a bank who was involved in this mess to boot.
But this isn’t about me. It’s about the banks and by extension the mortgage companies and by further extension, the investment banks. I think it’s safe to say they got not just you and me, but the whole country in a pickle—a giant dill pickle—and unfortunately not just us. The whole world economy is in the toilet as well, thanks to these fast and lose loaners of our money. That’s right folks, these purveyors of calamity strangled us with our own money. It’s like being shot with our own gun.
Our money? True story, it’s not their money they were recklessly giving away over the last fifteen years or so. Banks have very little of their own money and what they do have is supposed to be kept in reserve for times like these. That’s how banks operate—OPM, other peoples money. Your money, my money. I’ll give you an example. Take a fictitious bank. Some guy, call him Mr. Doe thinks he knows how to run a bank and decides to open one. He gets a federal or a state charter and then solicits investors to back him (buy stock) to raise enough money to meet reserve requirements. Then he rents, buys or builds a building and after hiring employees opens his doors and voila, he’s a bank, wise in the world of finance. We the customers, then make deposits in the form of savings and checking accounts in his bank. The bank takes our money and loans it back to us and other customers in the form of car loans, business loans, credit cards, etc.
The thing is banks are supposed to be a good thing. They’re supposed to take our money and make strong, prudent loans charging a few percentage points more for the loan than they pay their depositors and indeed some banks did and still do operate that way. That two – three percent margin is supposed to cover the bank’s operating costs and what’s left over is profit. That’s the way it’s supposed to work and when it does it’s a good thing helping the community and everyone in it grow and prosper.
So what went wrong? I’m not sure, but one thing is for sure, greed is involved along with excess. Every so often, unless held in check by regulations, greed will raise its ugly head and bite us in the rear end, like the saving and loan crises did in the eighties. If you remember, the savings and loan institutions exclusively made non-conforming, non-government backed home loans. When they were wiped out after a round of pigging out after being de-regulated, banks and other investment groups took up the slack in home loans. As it turned out this was tantamount to letting the fox guard the hen house. Only the hens was our money. Oh, sure our money was insured by the FDIC, but the country and world was not insured against recklessness. In fact it was estimated at the beginning of the year that the financial institution sponsored economic sinkhole cost the citizens of our country eleven trillion in net worth. That’s $36,666 for every man, woman and child.
Isn’t life grand?
The Reluctant Republican
Republican Tricks
Hi everyone, It’s that time of the month again and I’m buried in deadlines and edits so I asked a friend of mine, Bobby Bright, to write a guest blog for me. He’s quite opinionated so if he steps on anyone’s toes, I’m sorry,
Hello all you wonderful people, I’m Bobbi Bright, standing in for Dee. I promised Dee I wouldn’t write about
religion so I’m going to write about the next best thing. The most devious, misleading, intolerant, self serving, organized group in America today—Republicans. No, not the stupid rank and file republicans who voted the worst president in history, George Dubya, into office twice. They’re just dupes, pawns of the nefarious, so called, brains of the party. As Dubya, the titular head of the party, rode off into the sunset in disgrace after eight years of chaos, and self-destruction; who’s should assume the mantel of spokesman for republican party, but that tower of mis-information, the man Al Frankin called ‘that Big Fat Liar,’ Rush Limbaugh. And how about Sarah Palin? Does the word bimbo comes to mind for you too?
Just for the record, I know there are some good, big-hearted people in the republican tent, my friend Dee is one, though he claims to be an independent, having left the party in the nineties for philosophical reasons. I’d like to direct a question to the ordinary republicans, the ones who got swift-boated or scared into voting for George W. Bush. If you make under a hundred thousand dollars a year, wtf are you doing in the ‘me first’ party. Are you crazy? Do you think this party is going to raise you into prosperity?
Enough about republicans in general. This vent is more about ignorant, arrogant people who think they can twist, turn and rework a kernel of truth to their advantage. Republican strategists love to blow a little point up into a big point while ignoring comparable larger points that might lead to them. Health Care is a prime example. How many times have you heard these pretend paradigms of fiscal responsibility harp about the trillion dollar health care program. Folks that’s a trillion dollars of which four hundred billion is accounted for over ten years. That’s sixty billion dollars a year for a program that will help all Americans. 
Not unappreciative Iraqis, not Afghans, but Americans. For those who don’t know, the hard costs of the useless Bush war of choice is almost double the health care cost at one hundred ten billion a year.
That’s what gets my blood boiling. These hypocritical savers of our purse strings are blowing two billion dollars a week in a foreign war that has killed or maimed forty thousand of our youth while bemoaning a two billion dollar cash for clunker program that will help consumers, car dealers, auto manufacturers, the economy, banks, cut oil dependence and toxic emissions. And you want to know something? Estimates show the Bush war will ultimately cost three trillion in ancillary costs. That’s three billion, million folks. I could go on and on, but I keep getting off the point.
Republican leadership seldom does anything on principal. Mostly, they work for advantage. They see people with a different point of view as the enemy and when they think the enemy is vulnerable they strike. To them, the uppity black man from Illinois is the enemy and as worthy a goal as it might be, they see Health care as his Achilles heel—and they’re going for the jugular.
These wild under informed people showing up at August town hall meetings across the country at the urging of right wing blogs and commentators are an example. The misinformation they are disseminating to this hapless group is despicable. Outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care are being purposely spread alongside equally ridiculous claims that Obama is a Muslim, and was really born in Kenya instead of Hawaii.
I’m patiently waiting for the day when a major republican politician stands up and admits that recent Republican policies have been disastrous. Policies that cost the country three trillion dollars on an useless war, brought the country to the edge of ruination by failing to monitor rampant greed, thereby costing the taxpayers two trillion in remedial programs and ultimately cost the taxpayers eleven trillion in lost net worth.
Hmmm. That’s sixteen trillion dollars. Health care reform kinda pales in comparison. Doesn’t it?
SEX IN A PUBLIC PLACE
SEX IN A PUBLIC PLACE
To some the idea of sex in public is anathema. To others it’s an intriguing fantasy or even practice. I’ll admit I sometimes have this fantasy. Have I ever acted this fantasy out? Somewhat, in a car parked in the desert, covered up in the back of a pick up truck in a drive-in movie theater, (remember them?) and finally, on a balcony in the middle of the night.
What do people find so fascinating about having sex in public? It has to be the the chance of being discovered—of being watched. Yes, I believe It’s a form of exhibitionism.
As I started writing this article, I started thinking about all the instances of sex in public I have used in my books. By the Book is rift with them—in a theater, the ocean, the bathroom of a bar (where two barflies catch and watch them), in a night club (where they are caught on closed circuit TV and everyone 
claps for them as they leave red-faced). In addition, examples of sex in public places heat up the pages of Love and Seduction in Las Vegas, Fortune Cookies, Legs, Getting Naked at the Hilton and Forbidden Passion. Forms of sex in public places can also be found in my soon to be released works, The Big Bamboo, Groovin’ ’n Waikiki and April Showers.
I write about it all the time because the fact is, people do it all the time. At work, in restrooms, in parks, in lomos, cabs and on subways (remember Risky Business). Some do it fully dressed, while others take some or all of their clothes off. Some do it in a tent while camping, where they are safe from sight, but everyone can hear them, or the go off in the wilds. Some do it on a beach, or in the water. Then there’s the ultimate sex in public—orgies, where everyone feeds off the sex of others. And in each and every case the participants 
find it exciting. Why? I don’t know. You tell me. Perhaps it’s their way of saying to the world, “Hey look at me, I’m ALIVE!
Have you ever done it? If not, do you think about it, maybe even on a stage with an audience? (I have) Would you do it? Would it be safe or reckless?
Posted by Dee Dawning at 5:54 AM 0 comments
Labels: Fantasies, fantasy, naked, pussy, sex, sex fantasy, sexy, steamy, stud, tattoos, turn-ons, vagina
Hello Obama, Goodbye George
The World Applauds
In four days, the world will witness a historic barrier-shattering event: The inauguration of Barack H. Obama as the forty-fourth president of our once great country.
I say once great country because our country is no longer great. Through the petty self-serving intrigues of the, thank God, outgoing administration, the United States of America has been brought to its knees. Because of the indifference, carelessness, values myopia or fear of the electorate we have twice elected what Miami Herald columnist, Leonard Pitts derisively termed a ‘really awful president.’ The result of this misappropriation of votes has been eight years of controlled governmental chaos.
I truly hope those with the vision of a blind man, who voted for G.W. Bush are injured as much as I have been by the election of this not even mediocre individual. Ironically, G.W. is looking for history to redeem his Presidency, but as Mr. Pitts points out, it ain’t in the cards. Instead, look for the long list of missteps and misdeeds of this administration to grow and grow as the media and history examine this ‘truly awful presidency.’ 
Barack Obama ran for election as a medium of change and what a change it will be. Think about it, Bush and Obama are direct opposites and all the things Bush lacked Obama has. The semi-aristocratic white Bush versus the poor black
Obama, born and raised by a single white mother. Obama is charismatic, eloquent, even tempered, logical, values ability over party hacks, is a born leader, empathizes with the common man and is smart—very, very smart. Maybe the most intelligent president ever.
So America, take heart, we may have been knocked down, but we’re not knocked out. Change is coming. You can sense it, feel it, smell it. On January 20th we will see it. For the first time in eight years, our president will be a leader. And keep you fingers crossed, a savior.
How do I spell change. That’s easy, C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-C-Y.
The McCain-Palin Brownshirt Rallies
The McCain-Palin Brownshirt Rallies
It appears as if the Republican Party is on its way to massive losses in a few weeks, and based on the spectacle of what has now come to constitute a McPain-Palin Bloodlust rally, it justifiably couldn’t happen to a more despicable lot of characters.
Drowning in a sea of flop sweat, McPain and Palin have now resorted to the ugliest kind of campaigning. Their rallies are over-the-top hatefests set to inflame and rabble-rouse. They certainly have the rabble all right, and they certainly are prone to rousing.
Never mind that the only way McCain could ever pull this out was by attracting Independents. Now he simply takes refuge in fanning the hatred amongst the base, making the wildest of charges against Obama and throwing a series of rallies just short of lynching parties.
These malevolent exercises in execration have all the civility of the Brownshirts running amok in Jewish neighborhoods in the 1930s. They have become the stuff of feature stories in national papers.
McPain and Palin have urged the crowd on, and merely smiled and waved as their false charges against Obama have been met with blood-curdling screams of “Kill him!”, “Terrorist!” and “Treason!”.
How long before they start setting Obama afire in effigy?
Some might say it is just the usual rightwing lunatics being the loyal cultists they always have been. That’s the problem. These rallies have become so incendiary, it isn’t hard to imagine one unbalanced lunatic taking it upon himself to eliminate the problem. The problem being Obama.
Just in the past six months we have seen two prime examples of the legacy of rightwing hatred, not to mention talk radio. First we had the cultist who worked himself into such a rage in Tennessee that, in his own words, since he couldn’t get to any “liberals” in positions of power, he decided to simply go to a Unitarian church where a children’s play was in progress, and put his shotgun to use on a few local progressives.
After all, if they had been Republicans, if they had been real Americans, they would have been at a real church, not the Unitarian variety. By the time he was done exercising his First and Second Amendment rights, two innocents were dead and two more wounded. Police found his library consisted of books by Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.
This was followed by the fellow who became so angry at “liberals” that, the price of gas being what it is, he simply drove to the headquarters of the Democratic Party Headquarters in Arkansas and shot the party chairman dead. Never had met him, didn’t know him from Adam. He was a Democrat and that was reason enough to end his life.
Look at some of the faces of rage at these McPain-Palin hatefests and ask yourself who next will be on a mission to deliver justice to “that one” .
Back in the day I remember attending a debate where a Republican mocked the Democratic representative asking him if Michael Dukakis was really the best the Dems could do.
The Democrat debater, paused, a pained look crossed his face, and then he stated, “probably not”. He went on to note that much of the best had been eliminated not by ballot but by Smith & Wesson.
He went on to note that JFK, Medger Evers, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Allard Lowenstein, George Moscone, Harvey Milk and others all may have presented a better effort if they had been allowed to live to give it a try.
When was the last time a NeoCon was murdered for his beliefs. Not just last time, any time? What does that tell you?
What irresponsible and criminal behavior the McPain camp is engaging in right now. It is akin to yelling fire in a crowded venue. It even led lifetime Republican and Bush speechwriter David Frum to note:
“Those who press this…line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for the next president, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting…A big part of Obama’s appeal is his self-command. It’s a genuinely impressive quality. Let’s emulate it. We’ll be needing it.”
And now even Cindy McCain has turned into an insulting hissing piss-bull. Hey Blondie, it’s bad enough that you never leave John-Boy’s side, as if you’re his service dog, or at least his assisted-living attendant, but the last thing the country needs is hearing from the beer baroness constituency.
This is all tied into a larger picture I have discussed here lately. The Republican party’s attempt at dumbing down America. How perfect that they recruited Sarah Palin as part of the effort. The woman who can’t remember the name of one magazine or newspaper she reads.
It is extraordinary that the GOP has spent the past eight years trying to make “elite” a pejorative. Only when the head of your party is dumber than a bag of rocks (Is our children learning?) do you have a vested interest in making stupid-good, smart-bad.
The elite used to signify the best the country has to offer. The Elite Eight in the NCAA basketball tournament. The Navy Seals…elite. The Blue Angels…elite. Advanced learning classes…elite. Magna (inappropriate term) laude…elite.
But the Orwellian newspeak folks that allow the environment to be ravaged under the (no laughing) “Clean Skies Initiative”, are simply up to their tricks as usual.
When your party has been exposed as ideologically bankrupt, criminally incompetent and often immoral, the best you can do is try and put lipstick on the pig.
Just like Chairman Mao’s indoctrination classes. Re-educate the populace to think that learning is an evil, that education is corrosive, that using the full capacity of your mind is intellectualism, a taint to be avoided at all costs. Thinking will just get you into trouble.
That’s why even conservative columnist David Brooks, whom has been in the tank for John-Boy and Sarah since the get-go has seen enough. Said Brooks on Wednesday:
“Sarah Palin represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley…He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I’m afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.”
A “top level Republican party official wrote Jay Carney of Time Magazine last week regarding this trend as it relates to Palin and noted:
“She really is what Bush pretends to be — she ’s a true anti-intellectual. We don’t need to read or even learn because that just fills our heads with confusing ideas and facts and figures. We feel. Bush plays at this anti-elite stuff but he’s Harvard/Yale/Andover, all of that. She is really a celebration of a glorious know-nothingness that is truly dangerous. She’s terrifying and represents a streak of the Republican party that is a permanent minority. It’s not that she is an idiot that bothers me. It’s that she celebrates non-learning and anti-knowledge. She celebrates ignorance. Terrifying.”
Said Joe Klein of Time Magazine:
“But seriously, folks, I’m beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side, the over-the-top, stampede-the-crowd statements by everyone from McCain on down, the vehemence of the crowds that McCain and Palin are drawing with people shouting “Kill him” and “He’s a terrorist” and “Off with his head.”
“Watch the tape of the guy screaming, “He’s a terrorist!” McCain seems to shudder at that, he rolls his eyes… and I thought for a moment he’d admonish the man. But he didn’t. Yes, yes, it’s all he has. True enough: he no longer has his honor. But we are on the edge of some real serious craziness here and it would be nice if McCain did the right thing and told his more bloodthirsty supporters to go home and take a cold shower. But McCain hasn’t done the right thing all year. His campaign is appalling, as the Times editorial board said today–and more, it is a national disgrace.”
Said conservative columnist George Will:
“Time was, the Baltimore Orioles manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, “Are you going to get any better or is this it?“…that is the question about John McCain’s campaign…the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama’s Chicago associations seem surreal — or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, “like being savaged by a dead sheep.”
Said conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan:
“I’ve come to the sad conclusion that McCain’s brand was just that. His real core is about power and ambition, divorced, when necessary, from principle or patriotism. You learn who people really are when they are asked to do the right thing when it might hurt them, not when it helps them anyway. We just learned something that has always been true about McCain. It isn’t pretty.”
It is ironic, but so typical that John McCain, the man who falsely presents himself as Mr. Bipartisan, Mr. Work-Across-The-Aisles will have done such a criminally irresponsible job of dividing the country, inflaming petty hatreds and potentially inciting violence, when President Obama takes over.
As one columnist pondered, “Sometimes, I try to imagine what it will be like for John McCain when this campaign is over, and he realizes how completely he has destroyed his character and his honor. I cannot imagine that it will seem worth it come December.”
As that aforementioned Times editorial noted (and keep in mind they endorsed McCain over all his other rivals):
“Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember. They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia.
(Palin’s) demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.
We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics. He was driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear, orchestrated by some of the same people who are now running his campaign.
In a way, we should not be surprised that Mr. McCain has stooped so low, since the debate showed once again that he has little else to talk about. But surely, Mr. McCain and his team can come up with a better answer to (our) problems than inciting more division, anger and hatred.”
It seems appropriate that McCain addressed a crowd the other day by calling them “my fellow prisoners”. Fact of the matter is, he is still in that bamboo cage. The fact that he has been re-fighting the Vietnam War ever since is proof. He left physically but never arrived home.
We liked to think he hadn’t been broken by his captors. Now we know better.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I think McCain is down to seeds and stems,” – Rick Hertzberg
This Blog was contributed in it’s entirety by FILMEX
Sarah Palin, Debater or…Glib Showperson?
I was glad Sarah Palin didn’t fall flat on her face Thursday night. I was glad for her and glad for all you ‘Joe Six Packs’ out there who find yourself enamored with the lady. Heck, I think she’s kinda neat myself. Let’s get something straight. I don’t dislike Sarah Palin. She’s just not ready for prime time.
I won’t go into the liteny of problems that bother me about Mrs’ Palin. I’ve discussed them previously. Instead I’ll talk about new things that bother me and please keep an open mind.
Sarah is lovely, charismatic, reasonably smart (probably more than McCain or Bush) ambitious, courageous a bit unique and confident. Boy is she confident. There’s a good chance she’s like the untouchable girl you had a crush on in grammar school. But, and here’s the problem, is she ready to be president? As much as we don’t like to think about it, there’s a three in ten chance she would have to finish off McCain’s term. Hopefully she would have time to grow into the job, but there’s no guarantees. Then again maybe the job is over her head. Based on the debate and interviews it was.
Really. honestly, grab another beer and calm down. The fact is Sarah Palin answered fewer questions than she passed on and recited Republican talking points on the ones she did. If you don’t believe me read the transcript. While she was trying to woo the viewing audience with all her folksy colloquialisms, sandwiched between gollys and gee wiz’s as she cocked her head and winked, she really said very little. Think about . If you’re honest, you’ll admit it. Yes, her presentation was adorable. I just don’t see her sitting down with Mahmoud or Vladimir and saying “C’mon Mahmoud, darn we just can’t look back at what the Shah did. What’s a Shah, anyway?” Or. “Gosh Vlad, you’ve been getting a little too feisty for your own good. You do know I used to be the Governor of Alaska and know all about Russia. If you don’t shape up, when we finally get our troops out of Eye-Rack, we’ll have us a game of Russian roulette.”
Okay, if you’re wondering what the point is, here it is. I think you’ll agree that the next President will have a daunting job before him. Maybe more overwhelming than what Roosevelt or Lincoln faced. It may be the most frightening job ever for a President and I sure know I wouldn’t want it. But I do want something and you should too. You should want the smartest person running for President to be elected. It will take a genius to get us out of the mess that Dubya and the Keystone Cops got us into. And the closest candidate is Obama. He is a brilliant man who graduated from Harvard with honors (McCain was third from the bottom in his Annapolis class) and with the selection of Biden he displayed a propensity for pragmatism. Because of that, unlike Bush, I suspect he will surround himself with the best people he can find.
All right. I know some of you can’t bring yourselves to vote for a Black man. Whatever the reason, you must get past this. You can’t punish the country for your hang ups. Besides, he’s white too. He was raised by his lily white grandparents. Isn’t a great way to move into a minority presidency. A man who has his feet in both societies.
America goofed when we elected G.W.Bush, really bad. Like millions of others it cost me dearly. More than I care to discuss.
Let’s not goof again!
Brains or Brawn
Senator Obama got it right. McCain didn’t. Even Governor Palin got it right, for which she will probably spend another week on the leash.
Obama said and both Biden & Palin concurred that if we knew Osama bin Laden, our arch enemy was being sheltered in Pakistan and we knew where, we should go in and get him. Pakistan be damned.
McCain, however says that’s a no-no, Pakistan is a sovereign nation. McCain said don’t go after bin Laden?
Scratching my head, I think, If Osama bin Laden, who is directly responsible for the death of three thousand innocent American citizens and all the NATO & Afghan soldiers in Afghanistan and with Bush’s help, forty some thousand dead and maimed in Iraq and is America’s public enemy number one, is pinpointed in Pakistan where everyone knows he is, why the eff not go get him?
Just who is the real warrior here? Barack Obama? He’s the guy with the brains. Joe Biden? He’s the guy with the experience. Sarah Palin? She’s got moxy. (but not my vote)
Oh, that’s right we have to finish the job Bush started in Eyerack.
The Far Right Just Doesn’t Get It
There’s a saying I occasionally hear that goes something like this: Republicans are great at running campaigns and winning elections, but after they win, they don’t know how to govern.
Taking a hard look over the last eight years only adds to the credibility of the saying. Yes, the Republicans won two hard fought elections, which were followed by what could easily be described as eight years of chaos. 
This Republican led stewardship of the country has led us to the precipice of collapse. The Bush administration has us on the brink of a depression reminiscent of the Republican led depression of 1928.
Has the gross malfeasance of the last eight years given the Far Right pause? Have they discovered contrition? Do they finally understand that the government works better with an intelligent President and legislators? Do they now realize that cronyism instead of qualified appointments can backfire. Is it now apparent to them that the overall health of the country trumps pet issues like gay marriage and right to life? After all what does it gain them to make abortion illegal if they loose their country?
I once read that Osama bin Laden’s plan for America isn’t to destroy us overtly with invasion or attacks. That would be well beyond their abilities. His plan is to destroy us financially from within. Given our current situation I’d say his plan is working with the help of our President and Wall Street.
So the question is, do we dare give the Republicans four more years? Four more years that could actually push us over the cliff.
Hint: If you’re interested in saving this country, elect the most intelligent candidate.
Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Worst Movie Ever
Once again I must set the record straight (no pun intended). Despite the overwhelming abundance of glowing reviews, Kiss of the Spider Woman for me is the all time leading celluloid drag (no pun intended, really). It is literally the movie both my wife and I use to epitomize the the absolute worst, the bottom of the barrel (npi).
Now I’ll admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this movie but there have been very very few movies, after spending spending seven dollars to get in and more in sundries, that I have walked out on but walk out before the end of this loathsome movie, I did.
The Boring Plot
Kiss of the Spider Woman is primarily set in an Argentinian prison cell at some unknown time (probably the sixties). The incarcerated occupants are Luis Molina (William Hurt) an insufferable drag queen and Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia) a firebrand political prisoner who at first is wary of his homosexual cellmate but eventually understands him and finally accepts and befriends him.
At first Molina, who is sometimes seen with makeshift turbans, shawls and other effeminate paraphernalia, merely seeks Valentin’s respect of what he is and his lifestyle, but he is obviously attracted to the virile revolutionary and secretly covets a romantic liaison. Molina weaves his web on Valentin by occasionally entertaining himself and Valentin with his view of old movies, (presented in the movie as flashbacks) one of which is a Nazi propaganda film, which the fanciful queen misinterprets in terms only of romance. These Flashbacks contain Brazilian starlet Sonia Braga who is apparently the namesake of the movie – The Spider Woman.
Credits
Directed by
Hector Babenco
Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Manuel Puig novel
Leonard Schrader
Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
William Hurt …. Luis Molina
Raul Julia …. Valentin Arregui
Sonia Braga …. Leni Lamaison/Marta/Spider Woman
SUMMARY
The word of the day is Boring. What’s that old saying, “like watching grass grow,” this was perhaps the most boring movie I have ever had the mispleasure (is that a word?) to see. Almost all of the acting was dialogue and the dialogue was slow, repetitive, suggestive and full of double entendres, none of which were clever. They exchange ideas of masculinity, of sexuality and politics. The relief from the boredom in the form of the sepia toned flashbacks were confusing, irrelevant and disjointed. Molina’s interpretations of these flashbacks were warped, contrived and self serving.
Yes their are subplots. Molina has been offered freedom in exchange for information from Valentin and Valentin who is slowly being poisoned by his captors is taken out periodically for tortuous interrogations but that still doesn’t save this movie. Overall this movie was a dreadful effort with no redeeming qualities. Final rating, 0 Stars
CONCLUSION
I must confess to a certain amount of ambivalence. Not about the movie itself but whether I should write a review about this abysmal movie in the face of such adoration for this movie by other reviewers and the public in general. It was after all up for several Oscar nominations and William Hurt did walk away with an Oskie for best actor and the acting was indeed good. I have no more idea why so many people loved this movie than why the recent election went the way it did. This is a case of one person’s treasure is another person’s junk or in this case many people’s treasure is one man and wife’s junk and junk it is!
For me it is mind boggling that anyone could like this movie. I know some of you may shrug and think that I’m a homophobe. Well I’m not. One does not have to be a homophobe to not like a movie involving a blatant homosexual any more than you’re a bigot if you didn’t like a movie about blacks or Jews or Whites or whatever. Bad is Bad but if any real homophobes happened to see this movie I’ll bet it reinforced their convoluted view of gays. To them it was probably like waring garlic around a vampire.
Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World
While women can be mistreated by individuals in any society, Islam, at least extreme Islam, sanctifies the systemic abuse of all women.
“A man loves first his son, then his camel, and then his wife”
Arab Proverb
This book, written in 1995 by Jan Goodwin, describes the sometimes gruesome position many women find themselves in just by living in many predominantly Muslim countries. It lays out a theory wherein the rising popularity of militant, extreme, Fundamentalist Islam is the main reason for the deterioration of the rights of Muslim women, as these Islamists increase they’re power base at the expense of women’s rights. Goodwin goes on to say that there is little or no basis in the Koran (the Islamic Holy Book) for the deteriorating position of women in many Muslim countries. The scope of women’s disenfranchisement varies from mild to severe from country to country as Goodwin addresses conditions in the ten countries she visited. It also varies according to the beliefs of branch of Islam to which the woman’s family belongs, Fundamentalist being the most oppressive. She also describes how this creeping tide of militant fundamentalist Islam in a danger to mainstream Islam and moderate Muslims. Though life in moderate or mainstream Muslim societies is very hard on most women it borders on slavery under extreme societies.
“There is no fun in Islam”
Ayatollah Khomeini
In the Peoples Islamic Republic of Iran, Khomeini lowered the marriage age for females from eighteen to thirteen (ya hear that Jerry Lee), but permitted girls as young as nine, even seven in some cases to be married if a physician signs a certificate agreeing to their sexual maturity. (pedophilia heaven). However, to the Ayatollah’s credit, he drew the line at seven, stating that it is forbidden to have sex with girls under seven!
“If a man and woman are alone in one place, the third person present is the devil”
Prophet Mohammad
“Under the law as it stands in Pakistan, women who have been raped can be charged with adultery or fornication. The proof required for zina (sex outside of wedlock including rape) is that there be four Muslim adult males of “good repute” present who can attest to the act of sexual penetration. No male witnesses of good repute, of course, are likely to stand and watch a rape in progress without trying to stop it. And because of this requirement it becomes impossible to punish the rapists. Instead the victim is prosecuted. Her legal complaint of rape is considered a confession of illicit sexual intercourse.”
“The majority of Muslim women find their lives controlled by their closest male relative. They are the daughters whose future marriage partners continue to be determined by their fathers. They are the brides who must be virgins on their wedding nights in a culture where, if they are not, honor killings are common and often carried out by the girls own brothers”
Muslim Irony
Fundamentalists restrict women from working, leaving the house unescorted and unveiled, being clergy, driving, reading the Koran, marrying an infidel, going to school after the sixth grade if at all and more.
The Irony of this treatment is in this Quote: “Such restrictions on women are necessary. They are to protect women’s honor and they are also a symbol of our enormous respect for women”
CONCLUSION
This book and several others like it document the ugly, onerous, abhorrent living conditions perpetrated on many Muslim women by Muslim men in the name of Islam. In fairness, The Author has on numerous occasion stated there is no basis for this treatment in the tenets of Islam. In Islam, especially the fundamentalist version religion is power. The Clergy gain power by elevating their male adherents, as do the adherents, over the females. They also gain power by espousing enmity toward a common enemy as Khomeni did toward the U.S. This is the politics of Theocrats. (The last three sentences are my observations)
As for the book, I highly recommend it. It’s 358 pages is well written, easy to read, compelling and chuck full of insights. The author, Jan Goodwin, did a tremendous amount of research, visiting and living in some ten countries, interviewing hundreds of, sometimes shy and reluctant, women to publish this very comprehensive book. Many of these women gave interviews, even though it endangered them. A couple observations I came away with is that the exception of Saudi Arabia, the holy seat of Islam, the quality of women’s living conditions increased with the wealth of the country or in large countries the area. Also it seemed to me that for the average Muslim male, appearances took precedence over the welfare of his womenfolk.
There are so many other things I would like to bring out, like how many Muslim women are malnourished by getting only leftovers, while doing three times the work of her counterpart but you really need to read the book.
