Language, Image, Film Technique, Message, And OS's Sense Of Disquiet: The New Rick Perry Ad

Here's the new ad:



It's really quite something, not the least for the amount of money and time necessarily burned to create it. This isn't Darryl-Bob living in his momma's basement with all his worldly goods tied up in his Mac gear. It takes a real studio that can edit and flow together all those images (from all those sources) and sounds (from all those sources), including a clever piece of scoring. It takes a real film-maker to put this together. There aren't that many good ones out there (lotsa wannabees, to be sure), and they don't come cheap. It takes a good deal of expensive time to create this, a lot of thought and planning. Video runs at 30 frames per-second, and can be edited within frames. Not one half-frame of this piece was not thought through carefully, and this probably is the twentieth rendition of the piece--the one released to the public.

It's obvious the famous LBJ campaign ad that so effectively hung the prospect of nuclear war around the neck of Goldwater was studied closely.

This piece intended to scare the living daylights out of the viewer, and OS must say, it does the job--in the second half, where the 'reveal' of Rick Perry as the solution to our national ills takes place. The words he speaks are lifted almost verbatim from Reagan; if you must crib from someone, the Gipper is a good place to visit. He speaks in a Texas accent, in a voice just a few tones deeper (bass-baritone vs. tenor) than George W. Bush, that same direct style and blunt use of short phrases of English. (That was chilling by itself, as we found out in early 2005 that Dubyah didn't really believe in most of what he was saying in 2004. It was really a downhill journey from there.)

In short, the whole thing is what we who work with copyrights call a 'derivative work', like Alan Sherman's comic lyrical treatments of classical tunes, or Wierd Al Yankovic's send-ups of pop tunes. It is work that draws its life by its references to other, earlier, creations. Nothing inherently immoral about it, happens all the time, but there is the moral hazard implicit that both creator and listener forget to remember the sources, and then we're off to the races in a fog of uncertainty. There are people of my generation who hear the famous 'Dance of the Hours' (by Ponchielli) and begin singing 'Hello, Muddah/ Hello, Fadduh/ Here I am in Camp Granada...', thinking Alan Sherman wrote the entire piece.

So, OS is left with the question after the ad: Is Rick Perry as incapable of original thought as the present occupant of the White House? Does he operate in images or language as he goes about his daily rounds? Can he clearly articulate in PlainEnglish what he thinks, and intends, and communicate that?

Or are we supposed to embrace Governor Perry as a Messianic hero coming to ride to our rescue?

Just like so many embraced the present occupant of the White House...remember 2008, anyone?

We need grownups who can do math, manage people, mentally operate and communicate in PlainEnglish, not images and emotion. Someone who can make rational decisions, and stand up to a world replete with mass murderers in charge of nations.

That's why this video scares the bejeezuz out of OS, and why Herman Cain continues to hold OS's interest.

A Drunken Sailor Protests His Shoddy Treatment

HT Doug Ross:

A brief letter to the editor in Wyoming earlier this year:

I object and take exception to everybody saying that Obama and Congress are spending money like a drunken sailor. As a former drunken sailor, I quit when I ran out of money.

Bruce L Hargraves,
USN Retired

Number 438 (Daniel Hannan) Gives Voice To What The EU Refuses To Hear--'You're About To Find Out'

Need to create a football cheer here, ya'll:

Gimme a big 4! FOOOUR!

Gimme a big 3! THREEEEE!

Gimme a big 8! EEEEIIIIIGGGHHHHT!

Wha'duz'THAT spell?

TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH!




Go, Dan! Go, Dan! Go, Dan!

Remembering The Brave Boys Of 15 September, 1940, Who Saved Western Civilization

OS posted a full essay a year ago in honor of the day, and he's gratified to see it still attracting a steady stream of readers.

We need people of that mettle and spirit now, because the danger is at least as great. In 1940, Hitler's bombers could be spotted, attacked, downed, and chased away.

Those who seek to destroy the culture now sit in our seats of power.

Heaven aid and protect us all, on both sides of the pond.

Daniel Hannan: The EU As Homer Simpson

If we could just amend the Constitution to allow us to lease DanHan for eight years...

His analogy of Homer to the GreatAndGood of Europe is priceless. It applies to the GreatAndGood on this side of the pond as well.

Enjoy--only about a minute long.

Tin Cup McAvoy As Mythic Figure And Object Lesson

OS saw another re-run of Tin Cup last night. The movie holds up under repeated viewings, because it is so well-written, and is such a true parable about life itself.

It made OS review his post from Spring of 2010, discussing the misadventures of Roy McAvoy, who demands a 3-wood for an obvious 7-iron shot, and the chaos that follows. Funny, painful, painful, funny. The stuff that causes sleepless nights, and nightmares even when sleep descends.

So, here we are, in the Fall of 2011. No one pulled his 7-iron out of the bag, and chaos looms. OS gets the feeling that TheGreatAndGood are simultaneously working to keep a cheerful public face going, while paddling madly to both keep things from coming unwound and searching for ways to ensure the taxpayers of the world bear the costs of the debacle. It's getting tougher to do with each passing week. If the public listens to them at all, they assume the GreatAndGood are lying.

Because they are.

Think 7-iron, ya'll. 'Cuz the GreatAndGood are incapable of that behavior.

You Know You're In Deep Trouble When....(Results of NY 09 By-Election)

when...the New York City district that gave us Geraldine Ferraro and Anthony TheWeiner votes 54-46 to elect a moderately conservative GOP candidate.

The district, artfully gerrymandered for perpetual Democrat control, includes portions of both Brooklyn and Queens. In Brooklyn , it wasn't even close, 67/33, although there were many fewer votes at stake there. In Queens, Bob Turner lost by 51/48, (1472 vote margin as of this morning), but to even come that close on what has been a Democrat planation since 1923 was historic. All those Queens voters helped put him over the top. They gotta be passing the antacids around the morning staff meetings in the White House, and in MizNancy and MissahHarry's offices over on Capitol Hill. That's a lot of New York votes gone in 2012, and the GOP and Conservative Parties of New York now smell blood in the water. Who knows, maybe they retire a bunch of the machine Democrats all at once next year.

Turner is a native of the district, has lived there his entire life, a successful businessman, who has created significant wealth and a lot of jobs in his years. Just the kind of guy Obama and company love to hate. He's no Tea Party person, no wild-eyed guy wearing a George Washington costume at a rally. He's a sober adult, unlike the previous occupant of that district's seat.

Congrats to Mr. Turner, and to the folks in NY 09. As OS repeats, we need sober grownups who can do math and speak plain English in the years ahead. It's not going to be easy, even with the grownups in charge.

A view from Tim Stanley, across the pond. You know you're deep in ka-ka when a normally small event like this pops up on the world's radar.

In Normal Times, A Democrat President Would Be Campaigning In NY 09 Today...

...but these are not normal times.

Anthony TheWeiner was a stalwart warrior of the Left, and of all things Obama. His (polite cough) very public downfall would not normally deter a President like Obama from sending in his operatives, and making a last-minute public appearance on behalf of the Democrat standing for election.

It's like...well...they're pretending this by-election isn't taking place today. And Welprin, the Democrat candidate, is pretending Obama doesn't exist. Like the last thing he'd want is a visit from The Beloved Leader on the eve of the election. Not normal times.

Obama was in Ohio, getting a crowd of high-school students and teachers to chant 'Pass this bill! Pass this bill!' Only MSNBC, all-Obama-all-the-time, even bothered to carry the event live. CNN was discussing fashion trends. This morning, his staff was blustering 'It's all or nothing!', and by the afternoon the view was, 'Well, if they want to pass it piecemeal, he'll sign the portions they send his way.'

Not normal times, not at all. NY 09 may well fall into GOP hands tonight. OS will be interested to see if the White House even makes mention of the occurrence in the morning.

James Kwak On Why Social Security Is Not A Ponzi Scheme

Kwak is a bright man, and this is (on the whole) a reasoned discussion.

OS lost his temper in the comments. Ignore that bit, at least the temper part.

Worth reading and considering, especially with the rise of the Rick Perry phenomenon.

Listening To The Names, Ten Years Later

OS hardly knows where to begin. How to put in words this scene, hearing the names of the murdered intoned by the survivors, many of them young teenaged children who lost parents while in infancy? How to describe the tears of the family members touching the names of their loved ones engraved around the fountain, taking pencil rubbings of those names--something tangible to take home with them, a tiny piece of what had been stolen from them by vicious evil people half a world away? How to describe the pain and pride in the voices of those who read the names, adding their own memorials?

Well, of course, words fail-at least any words this poor schlub could compose.

But, blessedly, that Moment of Grace arrived, that moment of clarity when the heavens opened, and comforting insight arrived.

Just after Mayor Bloomberg spoke, Yo-Yo Ma played a movement from one of the Bach Cello Suites. Time stood still, as he both played and listened in that strange state of transport that sometimes occurs when the performer himself seems to disappear. It was just Bach, a tiny moment of the music of the spheres, picking up where words fall to impotent silence.

And the insight arrived: The dead-end religion and cultures that produced the monsters that committed these murders are incapable of producing a Bach, or a Yo-Yo Ma, or a cello. They can't create anything resembling a culture worth preserving, and they are actively about the job of destroying what little they do have. Even the archeology that preserves what we know of their history is an invention of the West. They can burn the world down around them, but they can't create anything. They don't look forward, because they can't. They can only refight wars of centuries ago, and bathe the world in blood.

So, here we are, ten years later. As Bonhoeffer noted in Christmas 1942, ten years is a long time:

As time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable, the thought of any lost time troubles us when we look back. Time lost is time in which we have failed to live a full human life, gain experience, learn, create, enjoy and suffer...These last years have certainly not been like that Our losses have been great and immeasurable, but time has not been lost.

The names continue to be read. The music continues to play, Bach on the cello and violin, guitar, Amazing Grace on the flute (talk about something Islam can never produce!), James Taylor singing 'You Can Close Your Eyes', Paul Simon singing 'Sound of Silence', string quartets, and memorials continue to be read at a beautiful memorial, raised from the ashes of unspeakably evil acts. The West can do this. Islam can't, because it won't, because it can't, because it won't.

It is a blessing that the SEALs did send Osama bin Laden to his reward, in the manner they did, that the Navy had the privilege of firing the shots that dispatched him. Justice served provides comfort to the bereaved, and puts the world on notice that we can are patient, and people like him will never escape.

So, what now?

If we'll step back and look, we see the world of Islam burning itself down, from Algeria to Pakistan and beyond. It's tempting to say, 'Good. Serves 'em right, let 'em burn.', but there's a bigger thought to express in that direction: You are free to burn yourselves down, we won't stand in your way. When you've had enough, you may with to consider the twin gifts of the West, those being Christianity and the Enlightenment. In the meantime, the only part of the world you get to burn down is yours. Look us up when you've had enough.

OS has a personal list of ThingsToDo in honor of this tenth anniversary, some of which he has began to undertake.

He's playing golf with his friends, and will do a lot more of that, because he wants to build friendships for the next decades.

He's making sure his kids knows he's outrageously proud of them. Because he is.

He's making sure the Sainted Mrs. OS knows she's loved and honored. Because she is the very best person he has ever known.

He's going to continue to encourage young women to pursue their educations and lives, because Islam hates and degrades women, and Christ loves and dignifies them.

He's going to create in his own voice, because it's the one God gave him.

And, today, especially in honor of the day, he's going to do two specific things:

1. He's going to play music, especially the music of Bach, because the fundamentalist monsters of Islam hate music.

2. He's preparing pork roast for dinner, because he knows that would piss off Osama Bin Laden.

God bless us every one, and God bless and preserve the United States of America.