"BIRDMAN" - FILM

The complete title of the movie is Birdman; The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.  Right there you have a smile - at least I did.  I watched the movie twice and laughed out loud during a number of scenes both times, more so in the second viewing, but the humor is dark, indeed.  My responses ran the gamut, from, "What's going on?" (my initial reaction), to laughter, to suspense, to sadness, and back more than once to all of the above, till the final, "What's going on?"

Michael Keaton is brilliant as Riggan Thomson, aka Birdman, an aging film superhero, who, of course, can fly, and who is trying to change the direction of  his career by bringing to the stage a short story by Raymond Carver in which he also plays a starring role. Emma Stone is terrific in the role of Riggan's daughter, Sam, who is just out of rehab.  Stone is a commanding presence each time she appears on the screen.  The scenes with Sam and Michael Shiner (Edward Norton), an actor who is brought into the play in a leading role at the eleventh hour, are especially funny, tender, and poignant.  Jake (Zach Galifianakis), Riggan's long-suffering good friend and lawyer, is very fine in his supporting role.

As for the play within a movie, from the scenes that appear the film, the drama is not the least believable, nor is it recognizable as based on a Carver story, but, nevertheless, it serves to advance the dark, chaotic hilarity of the story. 

Since I watched the film twice, you've probably guessed that I think it worth viewing, and I very much do.  Though I highly recommend the movie, because of the blackness of its satire, Birdman is probably not for everyone.

DAVID VITTER DECLINES...

Senator David Vitter, candidate for governor of Louisiana, refuses to debate the other candidates in the race.  He refuses to answer questions from the survey by United Way.  Why is he afraid?  We know who Vitter is against from the vicious TV ads his supporters run against his fellow Republicans in the campaign, but why does he refuse to accept the challenge to stand up with the other candidates and debate policies?  Why no response to the United Way survey?  If John Bel Edwards (D) and Vitter are in the runoff after the primary, Vitter supporters will run vicious ads against Edwards.  We know who Vitter's against, but what does he stand for?  Vitter is in the fray, not above it, and his refusal to engage and answer questions smacks of arrogance and a lack of transparency.  Haven't we had enough here in Louisiana?

Survey results from United Way.
  

H/T to Bob Mann at Something Like the Truth.

POPE FRANCIS AND JOHN BOEHNER

Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

Was John Boehner's conscience pricked by Pope Francis' words "common good" and "common needs"?  Also, his role as leader of an unruly House was exposed for what it is: nearly, but not quite, useless.  I think it's possible that the pope's visit inspired Boehner to announce his retirement at this moment, rather than at some time in not-so-distant future.  Also, he may have had enough of trying to reign in far right extremists who care nothing about doing their jobs of actually governing the country.  Besides, he'll no doubt move on to a better paying lobbying job that is far less stressful.

Whoever replaces Boehner as speaker will have to deal with the same Democratic president and the same filibuster rule in the Senate in attempts to pass legislation.  Though I am no admirer of Boehner, to his credit, he kept the barbarians behind the gate to avert several disasters.  Since Boehner's position as speaker is no longer at risk, the likelihood of a government shutdown may be lessened.

"ARTHUR & GEORGE" - MINISERIES

Arthur and Woodie

One reason I enjoyed the miniseries Arthur and George more than dramas based on Arthur Conan Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, is because I have no strong, preconceived image of Sir Arthur (Martin Clunes), as I do about Holmes.  The series, based on a 2005 novel by Julian Barnes with the same title, recounts, with sometimes more and sometimes less accuracy, the true story of a case Doyle took on to prove the innocence of George Edjali.  Edalji, an Anglo-Indian solicitor, had been tried and, as the mystery writer believed, unjustly convicted of a series of crimes, because of racism. 

The script, which takes artistic liberty with both the book and Edalji's true story, is well written and well performed by the actors.  As is usually the case, the narrative in the series takes great liberties with both Barnes' book and the true story of Edalji and seems to have been filmed entirely in semi-darkess or in darkness.

The plot includes a number of twists and turns, and I had to watch one of the episodes over again, because I got lost in the weeds and confused about which characters did what.  Since I hardly ever do in mystery stories, I was a bit puffed up because I suspected the identity of one of the villains fairly early in the series.  There was something about the character - perhaps he seemed too innocent.

Throughout the series, I wondered if Alfred Wood, or Woodie (Charles Edwards), was Doyle's servant or his friend.  After reading reviews, I learned that Woodie was his friend/secretary, i. e., his Watson, and quite an obliging friend he is.  The chemistry between the actors, Clunes and Edwards, contributes greatly to the overall quality of the series. 

OOPS! LOUISIANA'S "BALANCED BUDGET" IS UNBALANCED

I am shocked, just shocked.

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration is quietly notifying legislative leaders that Louisiana closed the books on the last budget year with a deficit, but the administration isn’t saying publicly how deep the problem is.

The announcement of the deficit’s size is expected in mid-October, when details are due to the Legislature’s joint budget committee.

State Treasurer John Kennedy estimates the gap exceeds $100 million.
....

Although Kennedy is the state treasurer, the Republican said he can’t get a firm number from the administration. He said his office has done its own calculations to determine the shortfall is “well over” $100 million.

Jindal claims to have balanced the budget every year he's been in office, but I can't remember a year when the Jindal maladministration has not announced mid-year cuts, except his first year in office when former governor Kathleen Blanco left a surplus of at least $800 million.  This year's so-called balanced budget is a patched together, smoke-and-mirrors farce enabled by complicit members of the Louisiana Legislature that fooled no one.  The governor, along with a majority of the legislators, pledge allegiance to Grover Norquist, rather than adhere to their oaths of office to perform their duties to "support the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution and laws of this state" and produce a balanced budget.

What is going on when the state treasurer has difficulty getting the numbers from the Jindal maladministration?  And where is the governor?  Out of state campaigning in his futile attempt to seize the nomination as candidate for president of the GOP.   

CRESCENT MOON AND HAIKU

By propping my elbows on Tom's boat to shoot the moon a few nights ago, I finally was successful in capturing a photo of a crescent moon that actually looks like a crescent and not like a blob of light. Yesterday, I tried to upload the photo without success, until I cracked the Google code. A haiku from the past to celebrate my success:

Thin-sliced moon rises
Moving slenderly upward
Higher and higher

"THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING"

Last week, I watched and enjoyed The Theory of Everything, which I thought was a biopic about Stephen Hawking. About halfway through the film, I thought to myself, "This is more the story of Jane Hawking than Stephen." Well, duh... You see, I did not know the movie was based on Jane's book, Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen Hawking. Even as Stephen faced enormously difficult challenges that would have defeated all but the strongest and most determined among us, Jane's life was no bed of roses.

Eddie Redmayne was superb as Hawkings. The physical and psychological efforts required to do justice to the role must have been daunting, indeed. Felicity Jones as Jane holds up her end quite well, too. Elaine (Maxine Peake) is wonderful as Stephen's nurse, hired to help with his care and relieve some of the burden for Jane. She is an overbearing, take-no-prisoners type, and her relationship with Stephen eventually takes its toll on family relationships. Jane and Stephen subsequently divorce, and Elaine becomes his second wife.

The film includes quite a bit of wit and humor, and I highly recommend it. One of the funniest scenes in the movie takes place when Elaine arranges for a technological wiz to provide Stephen with a computerized voice after he undergoes surgery to insert a permanent tracheotomy tube and loses the ability to speak.

Technician: "There we go. Welcome to the future."
Stephen Hawking: [via computer] "My name is Stephen Hawking."
Jane: "It's American."
Technician: "Is that a problem?"

Enjoy.

54 YEARS

Tom and I celebrated 54 years of married life this past Sunday by forgetting the anniversary. I was reminded at the end of the church service, when the custom is to pray for people in the congregation who have birthdays and anniversaries and where they keep better records. We were planning to have lunch at the antiques show in town, so we made the lunch our celebration. We are incredibly fortunate to both be around for the celebration of the 54th year, both in reasonably good health for our ages, and still in our house where we've lived for 32 years.

"Grant, O God, in your compassion, that Tom and June, having taken each other in marriage, and affirming again the covenant which they have made, may grow in forgiveness, loyalty, and love; and come at last to the eternal joys which you have promised through Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen," (The Book of Occasional Services • 2003)

The ceremony was small and simple.  My greatly missed sister Gayle and my brother-in-law Frank sent us off on our two day honeymoon with a lovely, small celebration.

Here we are about to roll out in our "Just Married" decorated car on our way to St Augustine, Florida, for a one-night stay, and then to New Orleans briefly, before we moved to Mobile, Alabama, to our jobs at the Mobile Public Library.

The 1953 Chevrolet hardtop convertible broke down and died after we reached New Orleans, and we bought a new 1961 Ford Falcon with a trade-in and no money down, with only the verification of our employment as assurance.

THE NOTHING-THERE HILARY CLINTON EMAIL "SCANDAL"

Will we now see the end of the coverage of Hillary Clinton's email "scandal" in which there is no there there? Don't count on it. This is Whitewater all over again. Remember the hearings in the House are supposed to be about Benghazi. I guess Republicans won't be satisfied until they find the deleted email in which Clinton personally ordered the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

Jayne O'Donnell at USA Today:

The Justice Department said in a court filing this week that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete personal emails from her personal server.
 ....

"There is no question that former Secretary Clinton had authority to delete personal emails without agency supervision — she appropriately could have done so even if she were working on a government server," the Justice Department's civil division attorneys wrote.

Lest you think I am so wedded to Clinton's candidacy that I can't form an unbiased opinion, please know that my favorite candidate is Bernie Sanders, but I will surely vote for Clinton, if she is the nominee. It seems pretty clear to me that Clinton as "uppity" woman plays into the coverage of her of campaign.

The so-called liberal media, especially the New York Times, appears to have a grudge against Clinton for reasons I can't fathom. Negative, biased coverage has been the rule from the beginning of her candidacy, and I find it despicable. The NYT, in particular, should issue a public apology to Hillary Clinton for the inaccuracies in their stories and for continuing to pound away at the email "scandal". Let's not forget it was "The Newspaper of Record" that gave us Judith Miller and her lying sources about WMD in the runup to the Iraq War. The newspaper's decline began a long time ago.

UPDATE: The story about Clinton's exoneration by the Justice Department finally appeared in the NYT yesterday, but I don't see an apology to Clinton. I note the newspaper included in the article Bryan Pagliano's statement that he would take the Fifth if the House committee subpoenaed him, although that news had been reported in the paper earlier on Sept. 3. Why? To imply that there was still something sinister going on with the emails? Oddly enough, the Times was not in any great hurry to report on the statements by the Justice Dept.

BOBBY JINDAL V. DONALD TRUMP

Feisty Bobby Jindal decided to take on Donald Trump in a frontal assault in a speech at the National Press Club. In a desperate attempt to get attention, Jindal attacked the No. 1 candidate in the GOP line-up. Jindal and his strategist, Timmy Teepel, observing that no one is paying attention and that Jindal remains in low single digits in the polls, may have thought by attacking Trump, a bit of Trump magic may fall his way. Bobby says:

The Donald Trump Act is great, and the idea of Donald Trump is great -- BUT the reality of Donald Trump is absurd, he's a non-serious carnival act.

Of course, some might say the same about Jindal's reach for the presidency.

Also, Jindal and crew hope the attack on Trump may serve as a distraction from the reality that holes are already appearing in the flim-flam budget passed by the Louisiana Legislature and signed by Jindal. The plan was that the budget, which both the legislature and Jindal knew was flim-flammery, would implode as Jindal's term as governor ended, leaving the mess for the next governor and legislature to clean up, but the governor and his advisers miscalculated, and the holes in the budget showed up too soon.  As Melinda Deslatte says:

As lawmakers patched their way through this year's budget, many of them talked as if they had drawn up a six-month plan, fully expecting Louisiana's next governor to come in with a broader blueprint for fixing the state's financial mess.

They may have been too generous. This budget may not even hold for six months.

One modest cut's already been required, other gaps have emerged and nose-diving oil prices could upend everything.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/business/article32640099.html#storylink=cpy

Oops!  We are to believe President Jindal will make America a great country again, when we have the example of his ruination of the State of Louisiana during his two terms as governor.