Reader Tips

Reader Tips 63 Comments

Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) edition of SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight’s selection artfully juxtaposes a (lyrically) austere, Old Testament-inspired song with selected scenes from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (also austere) 1964 film The Gospel According To St. Mathew. The combination is not, as one might expect, doubly austere, but rather lyrical and rapturous, and almost transcendent.
Like other neorealist directors Pasolini used non-professional actors almost exclusively, and in The Gospel According to St. Mathew he took this approach a step further: many of the seemingly endless cast aren’t actors at all, amateur or otherwise, and don’t act, or speak, or perform any actions at all; rather, their faces, and the hardship and concerns written on them, as seen in seemingly endless, lingering close-ups, are used to serve the – biblical, in this case – narrative.
Serves tonight’s song too, as it turns out. This one won’t be to everyone’s taste – what is, really? – but I like it, and you never know how long a particular video will be available, so here it is: an interesting visual treatment of Bob Dylan’s When He Returns.
Your Reader Tips are welcome, as always, in the comments.

63 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. To kick this thread off, here’s a quick-loading mp3 of Rex Murphy interviewing Terry Glavin (who was in Afghanistan at the time) on the matter of the detainee “scandal.”
    Excerpts:
    “It’s a disgrace, if you ask me, it’s a complete disgrace that we’re running around playing this sort of ‘gotcha’ journalism in Ottawa while we’ve got all of these soldiers engaged in this epochal struggle here, and treating – by the way – Taliban prisoners with kid gloves.”
    Later…
    “Well, this is the funny thing – and we’ve all struggled with this here – I’ve talked to a number of journalists about this who are with me, and the journalists that are here, and we’re all scratching are heads and wondering what is the story here, exactly? You tell me. What’s news? How is it possible that any editor in his right mind could think that Peter MacKay conceding that we’ve known that some of these drooling brigands that are apprehended by the Afghan national army get their ears boxed a little bit from time to time? That’s the way it was, that isn’t the way it works now, by the way, not since 2007. The process is meticulous, it is squeaky-clean, it is public, it involves corrections Canada, the international Red Cross, the military police, the Afghan security and intelligence group, NATO – all of these detainees, and there’s hardly any, by the way, we rarely turn anyone over to the Afghans any more. By the way, if an insurgent who kills a Canadian soldier gets apprehended on the battlefield, and puts his eye out or something like that, he goes into the same triage system as Canadian soldiers do, and if he’s hurt a little bit more than a Canadian soldier is, he gets priority.
    “All of this is old news. I’m sorry, (but) I mean, I spent fifteen years working for the dailies, and I’ve done a lot of sort of book writing and magazine writing ever since, and I’m not one of these embittered and cynical old journalists, but this is a bunch of reporters embedded at the Darcy McGhee pub in Ottawa trying to make a nuisance of themselves.”
    I highly recommend listening to the whole thing.

  3. This is one smart polite intelligent kid, even if you don’t agree with him. Having to put down your pet at 13 is a rough business. Koodo’s to his Dad for not making it easy by doing it himself. So his Son is raised a Man instead of a wimp. The radio station has kinda made him mascot. Even gave him a blog they where so impressed.
    The Sky Angel Cowboy
    http://www.ksbj.org/eblogs/morningShow/?p=113

  5. Daniel Henninger:
    “In a couple of days, the Senate will give its 60 ayes to the largest expansion of government since the Great Society. The Obama administration is proposing a third round of fiscal stimulus, because the first two worked so well. And Ben Bernanke is, without irony, Time’s Person of the Year.
    “All of which is a reminder that, unlike vampires, there’s no driving a stake through the heart of a bad idea. Karl Marx will always be with us…”

  8. EBD… If an insurgent kills one of our soldiers and is captured I would hope someone would remember the bull$#it that happened because the POS Omar Kadr was saved instead of being left in the field to bleed out like the rat he is. Hopefully someone would toast the POS and avoid all the hassle.

  9. Re Rush Limbaugh in hospital in Hawaii:
    I hope he’s alright (I’ve never seen or heard his show, by the way).
    But I confess my first irreverent thought was, “Maybe he found Obama’s birth certificate” …

  10. I agree, Rob. Sometimes it’s best to shoot, shovel and shut up. We’ve got journalists “embedded at the Darcy McGhee pub in Ottawa”, as Glavin put it, who get a case of the vapors every time a “drooling brigand gets his ears boxed.” In effect, our domestic journalists are tripping over each other in their rush to rushing to protect those who are the enemies of both Canadian soldiers and the Afghan people. The actions of the Taliban towards innocent Afghans are somehow ignored/elided in the interests of turning every single bloody one of them into victims. Our putatively caring/sharing treatment of Kadr in the name of coddled prog self-righteousness has only caused us harm.
    If Kadr had been dealt with as you describe, we wouldn’t be hearing a thing about it, would we?

  11. I’m glad 2009 is finished this time tomorrow.
    I dont know who Terry Glavin is but clearly he knows how to get the point across.

  13. A comment on WUWT:
    Ha hahaha!!
    From a telefone conversation today with polarbear resarchers at Svalbard.
    “The last weeks the bears have moved south towards the ice FREE part of the Island.”
    Well well well!!! They dont know thier own goood! WWF is an embarrasment

  15. The tolerant left.
    Some Rob Scott at G&M says:
    12/30/2009 11:33:45 PM
    “………. most people are too dumb to understand just how dangerous and destructive people like Harper are.”
    “This is what we get when hateful, divisive, small-minded conservatives are given the slightest opportunity to exercise political power.”
    “I have a friend who has lived abroad for most of the last 30 years, mostly in Asia as well as in Africa and parts of the sub continent. Whenever he comes back to Canada for a visit he reads the papers and always says the same thing. Disasters like Harper would not last long in some of the places he has lived. The situation would be corrected. Then my friend points out that assassination as a tool for political change is highly under valued an it is just a matter of time until we see it here in Canada.”
    “When the inevitable happens, let’s remember that it was not the educated, liberal, tolerant, non-secular, humanists that started the troubles.”
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/proroguing-parliament-a-travesty-yet-clever/article1415391/
    Astounding. Perhaps these deranged twits can be prorogued too?

  17. Noel, it’s been fun watching the, er, range of Lawrence Soloman. The author you linked to describes how his encounter with Soloman’s book was a turning point in his views on AGW, and I’ve noticed four or five recent articles, including one in the UK Telegraph, that are specifically about one particular Solomon piece in the NP which describes how one particular activist has successfully controlled the AGW “facts” at Wikipedia: seems some ponytail named William Connolley not only rewrote a staggering 5,428 articles to bring them in line with the AGW-promoting agenda, but removed 500 articles he didn’t like, and barred over 2,000 different Wikipedia contributors because they had the ‘wrong’ view.
    Here’s yet another piece referencing Soloman’s article, this one in the American Spectator.

  19. Sounder: thank you. I’m busy with other stuff and didn’t have time to look for it, but I knew it would be there. Vile people.

  20. Having read that column in the (dead tree) National Post that Soloman wrote regarding the Wikipedia fiasco.. (and many others in his warming series, The Deniers) it is striking to me how much faith in journalism I’ve lost in the past few months. I had a bit, only a bit left in me, most days now it’s impossible to see a difference between AGW and face creams that promise a return to youth… uff.
    http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=c6a32614-f906-4597-993d-f181196a6d71 (The Deniers..)
    I hope Rush is well…

  21. “the educated, liberal, tolerant, non-secular, humanists” are out in full force, all over the web and twitter, wishing Limbaugh a New Year gift, death.

  22. Mark, I – absolutely – hear you, but the other way of looking at it is that Lawrence Solomon and others – Adler, Laurie Goldstein, Rex Murphy – are proof that the proverbial gatekeepers of the truth are increasingly hearing the sound of battering rams being plied by irate members of their own profession.
    IMO the battering-rams were hewn, honed, and hand-crafted by citizen-bloggers like Kate, and Anthony Watts, and Steve McIntyre and others, but that’s just one more reason to appreciate and celebrate the – undoubted – momentum shift.
    There *has* been a shift. It was interesting – seriously – to watch The National in the immediate aftermath of Copenhagen: they’d been plying the end-of-days bullshit narrative for a long time, but when Copenhagen fizzled the CBC quite noticeably gave up the ghost; it was like a “well, we tried” shrug. If they genuinely thought the world was going to end unless dire action was taken, as they had been screaming from the rostrum ad nauseum, they sure got over it commendably quickly.
    Journalists might be front-men in many instances for highly particular, partisan interests, but the other side of that very same coin is that they’re also capable of sniffing the wind in a self-interested way. There may be little reason to have faith in journalism per se, but there’s at least some reason to have faith in the effect that human beings can have on “journalism” in the long run.
    At the very least, there’s merit to supporting reasonable, sane-ist journalists who opine sanely on the whole AGW farce. It’s worth a few dead trees.

  24. … I continue to often purchase my news printed on dead trees 🙂 it’s a ritual I developed while I was a teenager that unlike smoking, I haven’t been able to shake.
    The names you’ve mentioned EBD, are people I as well hold in high regard, and there are many others I’ve read that doubt the cause and effects of this global climatic upheaval we’re experiencing.
    But each day we still see these headlines proclaiming the assumed rise in oceans, of the devastation caused by our (the 1st world nations) inability to come to a world wide carbon limiting or… a payment structure/plan that would placate those peoples needing re-settlement/bailout. The BBC and Globe and Mail come to mind… although I haven’t watched CBC’s The National in eons..
    I’m not trying to disagree with you, I only need to state how my bullshit meter has been abused, that any trust I had is going to take much longer than a few months to salvage.
    As it was I could scarcely comment here at SDA’s at the height of the Climategate fiasco. Anything I could think of to comment would simply and rightfully so, be deleted as vulgar.
    Tonight’s video is a welcome treat. Bob’s not my uncle, but I found the visual gripping. It’s late, zzzzz

  27. Wow! EBD, your links in the comments and in the post that you put up are all excellent. Terry Gavin interview is really worth a listin. Thank-you.
    I will be asking the Good Lord to take very good care of, and to watch over Rush.
    May I take this oppertunity to wish all sdaers a very Happy New Year. Cheers!

  29. “No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds”
    “To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
    In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
    The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.”
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm

  31. I just received notice that Jim Prentice deleted my e-mail wthout reading it. This is what I sent him, the subject was “Cap & Trade”.
    This was the 1st time I have written any elected official. This will probably be the last. It certainly won’t be the last post to a blog however. The blogs seem to be our last bastion of freedom. The CPC are beginning to discust me as much as the MSM.
    Dear Mr Prentice, Federal Environment Minister,
    I am writing to you to voice my displeasure of your plans to draw Canada into a Carbon Cap & Trade Scheme.
    As many scientist have always suspected, CO2 has a miniscule affect on our global climate. It is only in light of Climategate that disenting opinions are now beginning to be heard.
    I will state that the CPC has always been my choice come election time and over the last 10 years I have been a cash contributor to your party. This will stop immediately as I now do not see a difference between your party and the despicable LPC. Their carbon scam was soundly rejected last election. I feel I must do my small part to soundly reject your party if you continue to follow the biggest socialist scam of the century.
    Fortunately the US Congress is coming to their senses and will likely reject any such nonsense. I believe this is what you honestly are waiting for and therefore will not need to implement anyway. All will be forgotten by then and I probably will continue to vote for the CPC as I really don’t have any other option. However in the meantime I can not financially support your party and its stated beliefs.
    Name withheld to prevent flack from whackos!
    Waterloo, Ontario

  32. parliament? what parliament?
    steve-o harpoon shuts down parliament yet again. is this some sort of new CPC tradition?
    3w.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-to-shut-down-parliament/article1414830/
    an entire country to run and he drops the hammer with narrow minded political maneuvering. but he’s the hero of the right wing !!!

  33. surprise curious georgie.
    the less parliament does the cheaper the cost.
    I’d prefer he can it for a year.

  34. Thanks for this, Vit. ‘Very fitting on this last day of the year of our Lord 2009, also known as 2009 C.E. (what is common about the era, of course, is the birth of Jesus Christ).
    Bob Dylan gives a gritty gravitas to the reality of Christ:
    Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow …
    He unreleased His power at an unknown hour that no one knew …
    From today’s readings:
    And the Word became flesh
    and made his dwelling among us,
    and we have seen His glory,
    the glory as of the Father’s only-begotten Son,
    full of grace and truth.
    John 1
    To everyone at SDA, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
    … and a continued MERRY CHRISTMAS (until January 6)!
    been around the block

  35. Thanks ‘EBD’ for the song and the link to ‘Murphy/Glaven’ link.
    To all the ‘SDAers’ have a very Happy and good New Year.

  36. Fouad Ajami, A Cold-Blooded Foreign Policy
    No despot fears the president, and no demonstrator in Tehran expects him to ride to the rescue.
    With year one drawing to a close, the truth of the Obama presidency is laid bare: retrenchment abroad, and redistribution and the intrusive regulatory state at home. This is the genuine calling of Barack Obama, and of the “progressives” holding him to account. The false dichotomy has taken hold—either we care for our own, or we go abroad in search of monsters to destroy or of broken nations to build…

  37. Michael J. Totten, Profile Me If You Must
    I don’t want to be profiled at the airport. It has happened before, and I hate it. Volunteering for more isn’t what I feel like doing right now, but our airport security system is so half-baked and dysfunctional it may as well not even exist, and flying is about to become more miserable anyway. So rather than doubling down on grandma and micromanaging everyone on the plane, we might want to pay as much attention to people as to their luggage, especially military-aged males who make unusual and suspicious-looking travel arrangements. That’s what the Israelis do, and that’s why security agents take me into a room and interrogate me every time I pass through Ben-Gurion International Airport…

  39. and somewhat interesting point brought up in the comments at “Ace of Spades” http://ace.mu.nu/
    … “the same people calling for Rush Limbaugh to die are the same people who ask to control your healthcare”

  41. CTV.ca News Staff
    Hopefully this is the first of many successful suits against the sleaze and filth in government….
    Family settles lawsuit over Caledonia protests
    Date: Thursday Dec. 31, 2009 9:06 AM ET
    The family that sued the OPP and Ontario government over the handling of the aboriginal occupation of a housing development in Caledonia has settled out of court.
    The family filed a $7-million lawsuit, claiming they lived under siege after protesters occupied the Douglas Creek Estates in 2006.
    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091231/caledonia_lawsuit_091231/20091231?hub=Canada

  42. Another smoldering crotch:
    “The man suspected of shooting dead five people in the Finnish city of Espoo, 43-year-old Ibrahim Shkupolli, has killed himself, police said on Thursday.”

  43. Rasmussen polls Obama’s approval index today as minus 18. He’s been in the negative range since July and in the double digits for some time now. Quite the change in ONE year, when he began with a positive index of plus 30.
    I doubt that he’ll move back to the positive range now. Being Obama, he can’t accept these figures as a reality, but, I suspect that he’ll move to yet more delegation of tasks, more ‘investigations’ carried out by others and retreat to private actions…more golf?
    Obama has shown, all his life, that he is unable to get into a real work situation requiring him to think and analyze; his stint as editor of the Harvard Law Review, as community organizer, as senator – were all characterized by his delegating all work to others. He simply ‘appeared’ and ‘performed’.
    His problem now is that, since he’s unable to do anything other than campaign, and since his psychological make-up requires constant adulation – then, how are he and his handlers to deal with this situation?
    I think the operational gap in the Administration will become more obvious, with Obama as puppet salesman and the real ‘brains’ in the BackRoom Gang who run him. How will the public deal with this split?

  44. “and even art and literature*.”
    “*O roving Muse, recall that wonderous year,
    When winter reigned in bleak Britannia’s air;”.
    “the hardened waters”.
    “that brought dire consequences to its peoples.”.
    …-
    “The Little Ice Age in Europe
    Western Europe experienced a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850 that brought dire consequences to its peoples. The colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciation and storms also had a devastating affect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea.”
    http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html
    “*THE GREAT FROST – John Gay (1716)
    from Trivia: Or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London
    O roving Muse, recall that wonderous year,
    When winter reigned in bleak Britannia’s air;
    When hoary Thames, with frosted osiers crowned,
    Was three long moons in icy fetters bound.
    The waterman, forlorn along the shore,
    Pensive reclines upon his useless oar,
    Sees harnessed steeds desert the stony town,
    And wander roads unstable, not their own;
    Wheels o’er the hardened waters smoothly glide,
    And rase with whitenened tracks the slippery tide.
    Here the fat cook piles high the blazing fire,
    And scarce the spit can turn the steer entire.
    Booths sudden hide the Thames, long streets appear,
    And numerous games proclaim the crowded fair.”
    http://londonrelocationservices.com/blog/

  45. “the irony element”;
    “blizzard aside”; “for their “scream-in,” an outlet for their frustration about the failure”.
    “There is always the irony element,” Major said.”.
    …-
    “Snowstorm squelches climate change protest
    A downtown protest of the climate change talks in Copenhagen became a victim of Wednesday’s snowstorm.
    “Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions,” said organizer Clea Major, an international studies student at the University of Utah.
    It didn’t take long for the six friends to pack up a bullhorn and posters they’d planned to use for their “scream-in,” an outlet for their frustration about the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks earlier this month to curb the pollution blamed for climate change.
    Still, they chatted with a few passers-by during the commuter-hour protest near the Gateway, and explained that, blizzard aside, climate change is expected to bring chaos to the global climate, said Major.
    She called Wednesday evening’s effort a success and possibly the first in a series. As for the snow, it’s not entirely new; a protest she attended last year in Washington, D.C., suffered a similar fate.
    “There is always the irony element,” Major said.”
    http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14096723

  47. Check out the racist hate mail Michelle Malkin receives.
    Kettle, black and all that. To them, it does not matter if the ‘enemy’ is a white anglo-saxon male or a petite Asian woman. The entitlement-tolerant-latte-liberal-hyppy crowd knows whats best for the world.
    And they will do anything in order to impose their “policy” of ‘no discrimination whatsoever’. Including discrimination. Including reverse discrimination. Including bigotry.
    I suppose they feel invincible because they know they can count on their friends for back up – the media editors and Hollywood producers and most University Professors and the United Nations.

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