Inflation, the Regressive Tax

"Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."

Milton Friedman

Let us assume the economy has 100 dollars.  There are 10 people in the economy, each with $10.  The government levies a 20% tax.  Now, everyone has $8 and the government has $20.  Simple.

Let us suppose the government would like to spend more than $20.  The majority of the ten people in the economy don't want to pay more taxes.  Efforts to raise taxes are voted down.  What to do?

"I have an idea!" the Federal Reserve declares exuberantly.  "Let's increase the money supply."

"Won't that just reduce the value of money?"

"Yes, but government will have the money.  If we print an additional $20, we will have $40 to spend.  By the time the people realize that the money supply has expanded, we'll already have spent it."

In this simplified scenario, the citizens held 80% of the money while the government held 20%.  After the government printed another $20, the citizens now only had 67% of the money while the government had 33%.  Effectively, government has implemented a new tax rate of 33%.

Of course, the government is going to spend its newly minted money by giving it to citizens for goods, services, or entitlements.  When the inflation works out of the system, the division of the $120 economy will $12 per citizen, which will then be taxed by 20% ($2.40).  The new balance will be $9.60 per person and $24 for government.

"Gee, it was fun spending all that money," Senator Spendthrift declares.

"Quantitative easing?" The Federal Reserve suggests.

Another $30 are printed, giving the government $54 to spend.  And on and on it goes.

The thing about inflation is that it hits lower income people harder than higher income people.  If you own stocks or property, they appreciate in value.  A stock that was worth a dollar before government poured that $20 into the economy will now be worth $1.20.  After the second inflow of cash, it is worth $1.50.  This is also true of real estate.  That $100,000 home will require more devalued dollars to buy it.  Skyrocketing home prices are great for homeowners, not so great for would-be home buyers.  It is particularly bad for renters.

Bad governments love inflation.  Inflation is a tax that the populace can't avoid.  Inflation happens when the money supply grows faster than the economy.  The Fed knows what it is doing.  This is intentional.

Don't Say Gay Law

Today, Governor DeSantis signed HB 1557: Parental Rights in Education into law.  Amazingly, it is not a very long bill, only 7 pages.  Mostly, it says parents have a right to know what schools are teaching their kids, schools cannot conceal what they are teaching kids, and - most controversial of all - no sex education for kids from kindergarten to third grade.  That this bill has caused such a furor is a sad statement of our culture.  When I was in school, sex education class didn't occur until my sophomore year in high school.  Back in those days, they combined it with driver's ed.  Now, people are upset that schools are limited from teaching sex ed to kids 8 and under?  I say "limited" because the law specifies age-appropriate; who decides what is age appropriate?

Let's take a look at some of the specifics.  The law amends existing law regarding student welfare, which apparently is addressed in Subsection 8 of section 1001.42.  Let's look at the additions.

1. Parents must be informed regarding any welfare issue and all records must be made available to the parent.

2. School districts may not adopt policies that prohibit school personnel from notifying parents, unless such notice will result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect.  Yeah, who decides what will result?

3. Classroom instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kinder through third grade or in a manner that isn't age appropriate.  Again, who decides what is appropriate?

4. Schools must adhere to guidelines established by Department of Education.  I suppose this is who determines my questions on points 2 & 3.

5. Parents must be notified at beginning of school year what health services are offered and be given the option of opting out.

6. Before administering a well-being questionnaire to a student, the parent's permission must be obtained.

7. If parents voice a concern, the school has 7 days to determine a process to resolve it.  Or maybe a month.  Or, if still a problem, a special magistrate in good standing with 5 years' experience can be brought in to...  blah blah blah... legalese stuff.

Why are some people so desperate to talk to kids 8 and under about sexuality and gender identity?  Kids at these ages are extremely impressionable.  When I was that age, my father drank Coke.  Based on nothing but that, I formed the idea that when I became a dad, I'd have to drink Coke.  Stupid, but there it is.  My drink of choice was Mountain Dew, but I knew it would change when I was a dad.  It wasn't until I was 18 or 19 that I realized that was stupid.  Imagine if I had been actively taught that there were 81 genders.

Teach the kids to read, write, and count.  Sex ed has no place in elementary schools.  I would have included 4th and 5th grade too.

A Gotcha Question

Much is being made of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's inability to define 'woman' when asked by Senator Blackburn.  It has become a punchline across conservative media.  However, in the judge's defense, it is her job to interpret the laws that legislatures pass.  In Oregon, one man has been recognized by the state as 'genderless.'  The story of 'man gives birth' has been a staple for at least a decade, always a case of a trans-man.  Sadly, many laws have been passed that have allowed men to become women and women to become men.  That's legislation.  To quote Justice Scalia:

'This Court holds only the judicial power—the power to pronounce the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the prerogative to repair laws that do not work out in practice, just as the people lack the ability to throw us out of office if they dislike the solutions we concoct. We must always remember, therefore, that ‘[o]ur task is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.’

Though we all know what a woman is when we consider biology, the question is much murkier when we are concerned with how the law defines a woman.  Unfortunately, the two definitions are not the same.  The fact that the two definitions have diverged is why terms such as birthing person, pregnant people, bleeder, chestfeeding, cervix-haver, and so forth are frequently used when trying to specify women in the older sense of the word.  The word woman is no longer exclusive to adult human females.  The blame for this lies with legislators and it is their job to fix it.

Women's History Month 2022

Kurt Schlichter has fired a broadside against the Woke mob on Twitter:

"In just one week, women have informed us that 1) men are the best at women's sports because they simply work harder, 2) that they don't know what women are, and 3) that men need to keep their wives in check.  What a time to be alive."

Point 1: Lia Thomas is the best women's swimmer in college.

Point 2.  Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson can't define a woman.  She's not a biologist.

Point 3.  Judge Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached for the actions of his wife in the wake of the 2020 election.

Additionally, Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine has been named by USA Today as one of the women of the year.  The Babylon Bee was banned from Twitter for offering a similar award.

This Women's History Month will certainly rate as one of the best ever.

"I DID THAT!"

I drove down to the local Circle K to fill the tank and, much to my surprise, found a sticker on the pump:

Though I had read reports of these stickers in other states over the last few months, this is the first I have seen one.  From the look of the pump, at least two previous ones had been placed and removed.  Happily, the displayed price was paid by the person before me.  I got away for just under $40.

Fletch and the Widow Bradley

Irwin Maurice "Fletch" Fletcher is at a high-end hotel with a wallet filled with $25,000 in thousand dollar bills.  He found the wallet and decided to return it to the rightful owner.  The wallet had no ID but did have a key for the hotel and the name James St. E. Crandall.  Though he called the room and explained that he had the money, Mr. Crandall never arrived to receive the money.  Fletch, using an alias, informed the hotel manager and sought a home address so he could return the money.  The manager was quite amazed, but could provide no information.  "We will inform the police, Mr. Armistad."  Fletch agreed that was the thing to do and left.  While trying to track down Mr. Crandall, his editor called to say he was fired.

"What did I do?"

Fletch had submitted a financial story - he normally worked sports, but the financial reporter has a broken back - in which he quoted a man who had been dead for a year.  Fletch was absolutely certain that the memos he had reviewed with the company treasurer were initialed by the dead man in the last few weeks.  Something wasn't right and he intended to find out what.  Even so, he was still fired.  Worse yet, the treasurer had suddenly flown to Mexico on an extended vacation.  So begins an investigation into the death of Thomas Bradley.

Despite having $25,000 in his pocket, Fletch romances Moxie Mooney on a shoestring budget.  Moxie, daughter of the acclaimed actor Freddy Mooney, is Fletch's on-again off-again love interest.  As Fletch is unemployed, she wants him to take up acting in her latest play, In Love.  It has nude scenes, but her current lead actor has thick thighs and no charm.  Fletch declines.

While seeking to understand why he was deceived by the company treasurer, Fletch interviews the Widow Bradley, the Bradleys' adult children, neighbors, other employees, Bradley's sister in New York, and more besides.  In many of these conversations, Fletch offers an alias and a bogus profession; he is a rather good actor.

Many of the exchanges are quite comical or just bizarre.  He's entirely unflappable and usually has a quirky reply to questions.  He often disarms those he is interviewing by offering information in an outrageous way.

I suspect I read this book before as I figured out the solution long before Fletch suspected.  Then again, the solution is ho-hum in our modern world, but would have been astonishing when the novel was written (1981).  A friend had read all the Fletch novels and passed several to me back in the 1980s.

A good read, but not as good as either Fletch or Confess, Fletch.  Fun and quick book.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

It is afternoon in New York City when four men get aboard a subway train, each boarding at a different stop.  Once all are onboard, they highjack the train.  They stop in the middle of a tunnel and create havoc through the entire subway system.  The leader of the group is Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), and he demands a million dollars in 1 hour.  Lt. Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau) of the Transit Police handles the communication, requesting more time to secure the money.  The mayor, various police officials, and subway personnel are entangled in the crisis.  Mr. Blue denies any extensions and says he will begin shooting hostages, one every minute the money is late.  Of course, everyone is utterly baffled by the plan.  How can they escape from the subway tunnels once the money is paid?  Though most think the criminals are just stupid, Garber sees that they have been very smart so far.  Clearly, they must have a plan.  Can he figure it out before they escape?

Robert Shaw is his usual excellent self.  He is one cool customer, a man not at all stressed by a high stress situation.  Herctor Elizondo plays Mr. Grey, a trigger-happy goon with a mafia background.  Martin Balsam is Mr. Green, a former subway employee who knows how to operate the train and understands the procedures of the subway system.  Lastly, Earl Hindman is Mr. Brown.  It is a small part, but it was funny to see the Home Improvement neighbor, Wilson, as a machine-gun toting thug.  Matthau is good, but he doesn't have the hard edge of Shaw.  There were times that he was comedic.  One of the other transit officers was played by Jerry Stiller, who plays this straight.  I'm so used to him as George Costanza's father that I didn't recognize him for a while.  Doris Roberts has a brief scene-stealing appearance as the mayor's wife and the person who really made the decision to pay the ransom.

Fast-paced and entertaining.  Good popcorn fun.

Dossier Refuted, Laptop Confirmed

Before Trump was inaugurated, the Steele Dossier was published with many accusations that claimed Trump colluded with Russia to get elected.  He was a puppet of Putin.  Of course, of the last 4 presidents, it was only during Trump's term that Putin didn't invade another country.  Odd that he missed that obvious opportunity.  Of course, it was eventually discovered that Christopher Steele - a British Spy - had gleaned all his information from Russians at the behest of the Clinton Campaign.  None of the supposed kompramat was ever produced.  The Mueller Report offered a variety of 'obstruction of justice' accusations against the president that were so pathetic that the Congress couldn't muster an impeachment for them.  However, the Russian Collusion story lasted the entirety of Trump's term and the walls were forever closing in.  The media could not get enough of it.  In the end, it was a nothingburger.

In the days before the 2020 election, big news appeared in the New York Post: Hunter Biden's laptop showed that he had used his father's connections as Vice-President to secure jobs and financial deals with various foreign companies.  He received $3.5 million from a Russian oligarch, a $50K/month position with Burisma in Ukraine, and a multimillion dollar deal with China.  Then there were the pictures of Hunter with a crackpipe.  In response to this breaking news, NYP was banned from Twitter.  Media outlets across the board announced that it was Russian Disinformation.  During one of the presidential debates, Joe Biden declared that it had been debunked.  Now, 17 months later, the New York Times has admitted that the laptop was Hunter Biden's.  Emails found on it have been confirmed and have been useful in a tax investigation.

The media had the Steele Dossier prior to the 2016 election but could confirm none of it.  No one published it.  However, when James Comey mentioned it to President Trump, now it was valid news.  Buzzfeed rushed to publish and the feeding frenzy began.  By that precedent, one would think a similar attitude would apply to a laptop that had far better provenance than the dossier.  Nope.  The media had a demonstrated animosity toward Trump and a story that might torpedo Biden would lead to a second Trump term.  Better to bury the story until Biden could be elected.

Never Sniff a Gift Fish

Here is a collection of comic tales of the outdoorsman.  Idaho native Patrick F. McManus offers a variety of accounts of his misadventures as a child, an adolescent, an adult, and a father.  There is a recurring cast of characters with unlikely names: Retch Sweeny, Rancid Crabtree, Crazy Eddie, and Fenton Quagmire among them.  Each tale offers the sagely advice of an experienced woodsman, hunter, fisherman, horseman, and so forth.  However, it quickly becomes clear that the narrator is far from skilled and much of the tale demonstrates his incompetence, cluelessness, or both.  Often, he sets up a scene with a predictable outcome and then subverts expectations.  On a date, he invites a girl to the back seat of the car and then asks if she's okay back there.  He explains how his fishing buddy lost a watch in a river and then, when cutting open a fish years later, found a bottle cap.  The stories are randomly sorted so that in one he tells of his efforts to ride a cow when he was 8 or so, and the next will have him tell of his 40 years of fishing with temporary measures that have been in place for most of that time.  The stories are brief and funny.  There is no overarching plot, just a collection of short tales of an outdoorsman.

This was loaned to me by a co-worker.  It would not be my normal fare, but it was enjoyable.  However, not so entertaining that I'll seek out his other books.

The Star of the West

In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican elected to the Presidency.  The party had only been formed in 1854 on account of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Comprise and thus led to Bleeding Kansas as both anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces flooded into the state in order that 'Popular Sovereignty' would choose their side when statehood came.  Many in the South viewed the party as an abolitionist party and, as such, the election of Lincoln signaled that a corner had been turned on the fight over slavery.  His election was viewed as a hostile act.

On December 20, South Carolina seceded from the United States.

On December 26, Major Robert Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie and transferred those troops and some guns to Fort Sumter.

On January 3, 1861, Delaware rejected a vote on secession.

On January 4, a civilian steamship, The Star of the West, was dispatched with supplies for Fort Sumter.  At the time of its departure, South Carolina remained the only state to secede.  Buchanan specifically chose a civilian ship in order to minimize tensions.

On January 9, The Star of the West was fired upon as it navigated into the harbor.  Neither the Star of the West nor Fort Sumter returned fire on the Morris Island battery.  The Star of the West suffered minor damage and retreated without delivering supplies.  In the wake of the incident, Major Anderson wrote to Governor Pickens, noting that South Carolina had not declared war on the United States before firing on a US ship.  This incident is often viewed as the first shooting in the Civil War though it did not trigger war.  Also on this day, Mississippi seceded from the Union.

On January 31, a letter from Governor Pickens of South Carolina arrived in Washington.  In it, he demanded that President Buchanan surrender Fort Sumter.  He refused.  However, by this time, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had also seceded.

On March 4, Lincoln is inaugurated.  By this time, Texas had also seceded.  Seven states had seceded before the reason for their secession had even entered office.

On April 12, Confederate batteries commenced a 34 hour bombardment on Fort Sumter.  This is the widely accepted date for the start of the Civil War.

On April 13, the Union forces surrendered Fort Sumter.

Considering the timeline, who started the war?  It seems obvious to me.  A friend declares that the entry of the Star of the West into Charleston Harbor was the beginning of the War of Northern Aggression.  From this, I don't see it.

Intellectuals and Society

In this 2010 book, Thomas Sowell defines intellectuals and the intelligentsia, then discusses their impact on society.  To him, an intellectual is a person whose output is ideas.  Whereas an engineer might build a bridge, an intellectual will produce ideas.  The intelligentsia are followers of the intellectuals and provide a path for dissemination of the ideas the intellectuals produce.  For most of history, intellectuals had little impact on society.  Firstly, society was usually illiterate, so the ideas mostly stayed in the cloistered realm of the intellectuals.  Starting in the 18th century, those ideas began to seep into the general populace and get adopted.  The problem with ideas is that they have no effective feedback loop for the intellectuals who propose them.  Karl Marx paid no price for his disastrous ideas.  Indeed, his ideas are still in circulation despite an uninterrupted series of failures whenever a country tries to implement them.

All too often, intellectuals who are expert in one field offer commentary on fields where they do not have expertise.  Many intellectuals were in favor of World War I, especially since President Wilson, former dean of Princeton, was an intellectual himself.  However, after the war, such pro-war ideas were extremely unpopular.  Soon, the intellectuals were proposing unilateral disarmament and painting war as the enemy.  France and England paid the price for implementing such policies when Hitler started World War II.  They were unprepared and spent several years suffering defeats before the tide finally turned.  Had they used the older idea of 'If you desire peace, prepare for war,' things would have been much different.  Another example he offers was when a police commissioner warned that a given ruling would cause crime to increase.  At the time, crime had been on a steady path down, with murders at half what they had been 30 years before.  The judges implemented their policy preference and, ten years later, the murder rate had doubled.

Dealing in ideas, intellectuals have rhetorical skills far beyond those of your average person.  Often, an intellectual can carry the argument simply because of such rhetorical skills even if the proposed idea was counterproductive.  A skilled debater can often win either side of an argument.  A person who has spent years gaining experience in a field and has more practical knowledge on a subject may not have the ability to verbalize that.  On those occasions when someone might provide a good counterargument, the modern intellectual all too often resorts to "verbal virtuosity."  The counterargument need not be answered because the person voicing it is sexist, racist, etc.

Intellectuals tend to be in academia and are generally in certain fields.  Colleges of engineering, medicine, business, economics, and sports tend not to have as many intellectuals.  Many of these people are as highly educated, but there are feedback loops.  Bad ideas in medicine lead to sickness and death.  Bad ideas in engineering have collapsing buildings and bridges.  Bad ideas in political science can be blamed on the politician who implemented it rather than the professor who proposed it.  Intellectuals are more often on the left than the right.

An excellent book and highly recommended.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

In March of 1953, Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko) is performing Mozart in Moscow when the hall director receives a call; it is Stalin!  Stalin requests that the director return the call in 17 minutes.  He does so and Stalin requests a recording of the concert, which had not been recorded.  In a panic, the director locks the doors and prevents anyone from leaving.  They will play it again and record it.  This proves to be a comedy of errors as much of the audience escaped, the conductor is incapacitated, and soldiers are standing impatiently awaiting a record to deliver to Stalin.  No sooner has Stalin received the record than he keels over from a stroke.  The following morning, he is discovered on the floor in a pool of urine; he is not dead.  The Council of Ministers must assemble and decide what to do.  Beria (Simon Russell Beale) is the first on scene and he raids Stalin's desk and safe, secreting useful documents and burning troublesome ones.  He has grand plans now that Stalin is dying.  Once all the members arrive, they mill around the unconscious Stalin and discuss options.

A very dark comedy where executions are a punchline, paranoia is entirely justified, and betrayal is the route to success.  Though Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) is the next in line to rule, Beria intends that he be little more than a puppet for his own rise to power.  Khruschev (Steve Buscemi) knows where things are headed and starts plotting against Beria.  While Beria thinks his control over Malenkov combined with his knowledge of the skeletons in everyone's closet will trump anything the others can do, Khrushchev wins over ministers one by one.  Throughout the plotting and espionage, they must plan the funeral of Stalin.  Adrian McLoughlin gets a surprising amount of screentime as a corpse.  About halfway through the movie, Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) arrives and proceeds to steal every scene.  The number of medals on his uniform is ludicrous and yet, to my amazement, is fewer than the actual Zhukov sported.  The reality was too unbelievable!

Though quite entertaining, it plays very loose with the facts.  Beria wasn't executed until 9 months after Stalin's death, not the very next day as the movie paints.  The ministers, especially Malenkov, weren't as buffoonish as portrayed.  In fact, no sooner had the movie ended than I was looking up all the historical figures to see how close it kept to the facts.  A lot of the parts are true, but they have been shuffled around to make for a more exciting movie.  What really surprised me, especially seeing how common executions had been, was that all the survivors lived long lives, even after being forced out of government.

Molotov, who was on a list to be executed and was only spared on account of Stalin's death, lived to be 96 years old, dying in 1986.  Khruschev was forced out by Brezhnev in 1964 but lived a quiet life until he died in 1971 at 77.  Malenkov lived to the ripe old age of 87.  Marshall Zhukov died at 78.  Clearly, the death of Stalin and Beria led to longer lives among the elite.  Of particular surprise, Svetlana, Stalin's daughter, defected to the United States in 1967 and died in Wisconsin in 2011.  How did I not know that?

Great popcorn fun but not to be confused with actual history.  Highly recommended.

Being the Ricardos (2021)

It is 1953 and the hugely successful I Love Lucy program suffers twin blows: an article reports that Desi (Javier Bardem) is unfaithful to Lucy and Walter Winchell accuses Lucy (Nicole Kidman) of being a communist.  Can the show survive?  The movie is told over the period of a production week and is generously sprinkled with flashbacks.  The flashbacks are chronological, starting with Lucy and Desi meeting on the set of Too Many Girls in 1940.  Their hectic schedules mean that they are seldom together.  Lucy parlays her successful radio program, My Favorite Husband, into a television show that co-stars her real-life husband and thus aligns their schedules.

Not only must the cast and crew contend with a potential show-ending disaster regarding Lucy's communist past, they must also determine what to do with Lucy's pregnancy.  Philip Morris, the show's sponsor, is adamantly oppose to a pregnant Lucy on the show.  Lucy and Desi want to have it as part of the show!  Of course, there is also the running problem that William "Bill" Frawley (JK Simmons) and Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) detest one another though they play Fred and Ethel Mertz.  Bill proves to be a confidant for both Desi and Lucy, a man not afraid to speak his mind.  The writing staff are prominently featured and are the putative narrators of this tale.  Madelyn Pugh (Linda Lavin), Bob Carroll (Ronny Cox), and Jess Oppenheimer (John Rubinstein) are interviewees at some unspecified later date to detail the events of that hellish week.  As such, they feature prominently and provide a firsthand look behind the scene in producing a hit show.

Far from historically accurate, this is a mash-up of the time that samples some of the best of Lucy and provides a very entertaining tale.  Kidman makes for an excellent Lucy.  Some of the best bits were when she would visualize a gag in her head, running through how it might look on the show and the audience reaction.  Bardem has everything except the looks to play Desi.  He does a surprisingly good job of singing and mimicking Arnaz.  Arianda is Vivian Vance.  Of all the principal cast, she most looks like the character she plays.  She does a terrific job of bringing her to life though she seems to have the smallest part of the main four.  Simmons is outstanding as Frawley.  He shines with that 'I don't give a damn' attitude that old men often develop.

Of particular note, communism is a bad thing and all the characters agree on this.  Bill is virulently anti-communist, as is Desi.  Lucy only flirted with communism on account of her grandfather.  The sponsors might abandon the show if it is shown that Lucy is a red.  This is not painted as an unjust facet of the Red Scare, but an honest assessment by the characters.  After lionizing a communist scriptwriter in Trumbo (2015), it is a nice change of pace to see communism viewed negatively in a Hollywood production.

Overall, an excellent movie and quite fun.  Recommended.

Young Winston (1972)

The story opens with Winston Churchill (Simon Ward) in India during a punitive raid against the Mohmand.  Though attached as a war correspondent, he is shown participating in battle.  From here, the movie jumps to his youth, showing the 7 year-old Winston on his way to Harrow, a prestigious school for boys.  He proves to be a disappointment to his father, Lord Randolph Churchill (Robert Shaw).  In fact, his scholarly talents are questionable to the point that a career in law or politics seems unlikely.  Randolph suggests a career in the military.  Though Winston attends Sandhurst and becomes a cavalry officer, his father is again disappointed that he failed to qualify for the infantry.  Much of the first half of the movie concerns Lord Randolph's political rise and fall.  He had risked all on a threatened resignation to get his way.  The gambit failed and his resignation was accepted.  Sadly, his father died before Winston had any notable accomplishment to make his father proud.  After India, Winston served in Sudan where he participated in the last cavalry charge by British troops.  He sought election to parliament on his return but lost.  Back to his old job of war correspondent, this time in South Africa during the Boer War.  This time, he was captured by the Boers and held as a prisoner of war.  However, he escaped, winning great fame in the process and finally securing a seat in parliament.  No sooner did he arrive in parliament than he took up the very topic that had led to his father's political fall; he called for a cut in the military budget.

The movie is packed with stars, many of whom get only a scene or two.  Anne Bancroft has the largest role besides Ward, playing his mother from his youth until his taking up his father's lost cause in parliament.  Ian Holm appears as editor George Buckle, John Mills as General Kitchener, Jane Seymour in the non-speaking role of Pamela Plowden, Edward Woodward as Captain Haldane, and Anthony Hopkins as Lloyd George.  Though I failed to spot him, Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George) appeared as a Boer Sentry.

Directed by Richard Attenborough, the movie is based on an autobiography by Churchill about his youth: My Early Life.  It was interesting to see how much he idolized his father while at the same time admitting that he only had a handful of long conversations with him.  He had a distant, disapproving father who ruined his career on what the adult Winston recognized as a suicidal ploy.  He also likely died from syphilis.  I was reminded of how Barack Obama had a hero complex for his father, despite having been abandoned as a toddler and only meeting him a few times.  Much of his rise can be attributed to his mother's various contacts in British society.  Of note, she was an America.  Gee, that reminds me of Downton Abbey, where Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) is American.  Was it a common practice for English lords to marry American heiresses?

It is a very different picture of Churchill, seeing him as a lithe young officer and man of action rather than a portly, bald man with a cigar and a glass of alcohol.  His desperation to make something of himself before he is 25 is funny, especially for a man who lived to 90.  That both he and his father sought to limit military spending is surprising.  The disarmament notion goes back farther than I realized.

Both entertaining and educational.  Recommended.

The Madness of King George (1994)

In 1788, King George III (Nigel Hawthorne) is going about his kingly duties and bemoaning the loss of the colonies.  Prime Minister Pitt (Julian Wadham) reminds him that they are independent now.  Other than his dismay at the loss of America, the king seems fine.  Then he wakes up at 4 AM and commences to rant and rave, dash about in his bed clothes with various servants chasing, and even attempts to ravish the beautiful Lady Pembroke (Amanda Donahoe) despite the presence of his wife, Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren).  Efforts are made to hide the odd behavior of the king, but the Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett) engineers a public appearance where the king's madness is exposed.  While doctors - mostly in the pocket of the prince - endeavor to restore the king's sanity, Mr. Fox (Jim Carter) proposes a bill of regency that will grant all the powers of the monarchy to the prince.  As the days drag into weeks, the votes accumulate to pass the proposed regency bill.  Requiring a specialist, Francis Willis (Ian Holm) was summoned from Lincolnshire to treat the king.  Can Willis restore the king before he is usurped by his power-hungry son?

I had originally seen this while I was taking English History at the University of Iowa.  Though we were covering the Restoration (1660) at the time, the professor could not help but comment on the film.  He thought it was mostly good though he questioned the emphasis on George III's obsession about the loss of America shown in the film.  He particularly liked the joke about Piss the Younger and Piss the Elder, which didn't click with me at the time.  Pitt the Elder was prime minister from 1766 to 1768, while his son, Pitt the Younger, was PM from 1783-1801 and again from 1804-1806.

The most glaring error that I saw was the representation of the United States on the globe in the King's office.  It showed the US in possession of the Louisiana Purchase (1804) and with the Oregon Treaty boundary settled on the 49th parallel (1846).  This is a very specific window, as the US would acquire the southwest from Mexico two years later.

Though usually cast as a villain on this side of the Atlantic, George is quite likable here.  I wonder how accurate Hawthorne's portrayal is.  Did the king really say, "what what" as a tick?  Though he recovered from this bout of madness, he had a recurrence in 1810 that resulted in The Regency Act of 1811.  George III died in 1820.

Outstanding film that has both drama and comedy.  Better still, it provides fairly accurate history of the period though it does compress a few things for the sake of the narrative.  Highly recommended.

The Space Powers

As of now, only three countries are capable of putting astronauts in space: USA, Russia, and China.  For the last 20 years, the USA and Russia have been more or less allies in space, jointly maintaining the International Space Station (ISS) and providing rides for astronauts of other countries to that station.  Fron the retirement of the Space Shuttle (2011) until the introduction of the SpaceX Crew Dragon (2020), Russia launched all crews to the station.  China is the newcomer in space and has made impressive progress.  While the ISS is nearing retirement (perhaps sooner than expected considering current politics), China has begun assembling a competing space station.

That brings us to Ukraine.  Is it in the best interest of the United States to drive Russia toward an alliance with China?  With both an economy and a population that is ten times the size of Russia's, China is the greater challenge in the future.  Space dominance will be very important sooner than we realize.  If two of the three space powers align against the 3rd, that could be decisive.  This is especially so when one looks at the lack of alternatives the US currently has: SpaceX or Bust.

As noted in an earlier blog, NATO has been pressing Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.  The US has trained Ukrainians and provided weapons.  This constant encroachment signaled that the Cold War was still being fought and NATO was stealing marches on the Russians by annexing more and more of the former Warsaw Pact, ever diminishing the sphere of influence of the once great power.  If the roles were reversed and the Warsaw Pact was training Mexican troops, providing them with arms, and calling for Mexico to join the Pact, it is a certainty that the US would invade and give Mexico a smackdown; we've done it more than once already.

We have pursued a foreign policy that is not in our interests.  Though a nation should have the option of choosing its allies, that doesn't always work in a multipolar world.  Hong Kong would surely have preferred to remain in the British Empire and Cuba wanted to be a Soviet satellite.  Each was denied.  Though we may argue that Ukraine should have the right to join NATO, the result is conflict that could escalate to World War III.  That is certainly not in anyone's interest.

It should be noted that World War II was triggered when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland.  Britain and France declared war to free Poland.  At the conclusion of the war, Russia retained the whole of Poland.  Everyone was war weary and abandoned Poland - and most of Eastern Europe - to a half century of tyranny.  Yes, it was absolutely unfair to those nations, but the alternative was considered worse.  Is defending Ukraine worth the costs?  We didn't intervene to this degree when Russia invaded Chechnya.  We didn't do much when Russia carved out a chunk of Georgia.  We didn't risk war when Russia claimed Crimea.  Why now?

If we could abandon Ukraine in order to keep Russia out of an alliance with China, would that be a good trade?  Would it be appeasement or realpolitik?  I tend toward the later position.

Field of Honor (1986)

Sergeant "Sire" De Koning (Everett McGill) is a soldier in the Dutch Army during the Korean War.  He is a profane man, constantly drinking, smoking, and whoring.  When his unit is moved to the front lines, Sire arranges a party for a soldier leaving for home in 2 weeks.  Sire provides a couple of Korean women (mother and daughter) for sex (young son hands out condoms) and plenty of alcohol.  Unfortunately, a Chinese offensive breaks up the party and sends survivors into a mad retreat.  The sergeant is left for dead on the field of battle.  When he awakens, he finds himself mostly alone, the other survivors mortally wounded and begging for death.  Here follows his efforts to avoid detection by wandering Chinese soldiers while also protecting the Korean girl and her younger brother who he exposed to the dangers of the front lines.

Though set during the Korean War, this is a character study of De Koning.  When the Chinese overwhelmed his position, he cried out, "Every man for himself!"  Clearly, not the team player one would prefer.  However, when he finds himself in dire straits behind enemy lines, he goes to the aid of others and seeks to make amends to Sun Yi and Kim.

Overall, weak.  It is hard to like Sire.  He goes from thoroughly dislikeable to mostly unlikeable.  As this is a Canon production, they spared every expense.  The overwhelming Chinese attack was maybe 40 soldiers, which was about twice the size of the Dutch unit.  A column of Chinese reinforcements was 2 trucks of men.  When the Americans retake the position, there are 3 tanks and a column of men.  

Skip.

White Lightning (1973)

Bobby "Gator" McKlusky (Burt Reynolds) is in prison for running moonshine, AKA white lightning, when he is told that his brother has been murdered.  The killer is the sheriff of Bogan County, J. C. Connors (Ned Beatty).  Instantly determined to avenge his brother, he fails in an escape attempt.  Desperate, he agrees to help the Feds make a case against Sheriff Connors.  Provided a souped-up 1971 Ford Galaxie, he wrangles a job with the local moonshiners in Bogan County.  However, Sheriff Connors connections in Washington warn him that someone has been sent to expose his corruption.  Can Gator get the goods on the sheriff before the sheriff lays hands on him?

This reminded me a lot of Smokey and the Bandit, only taken seriously.  Burt can be charming and a smart aleck, but he's as often serious and moody.  His interactions with the ladies call to mind the Bandit.  Ned Beatty is surprisingly intimidating for a short, pudgy fellow who seems outwardly genial.  Matt Clark, who I recognized immediately but couldn't name a single film in which I saw him, plays Dude, a harried mechanic and Gator's first contact for infiltrating the moonshine ring.  Diane Ladd plays Dude's wife and, to my surprise, Diane's daughter, a very young Laura Dern, plays her on-screen daughter.

The big draw of the movie is the wild driving, complete with hairpin turns, fender-crunching collisions, racing in front of a train, driving blindly through a cornfield, and crazy car jumps that clearly inspired the Dukes of Hazzard.

Generally entertaining but nothing special.  Worth a look for a Burt Reynolds fan.

The Gas Price

In the early 1990s, I started recording when I bought gas on road trips.  Around 2000, that habit expanded to every time I filled the tank.  Thus, I have a long record of gas prices on hand.  Obviously, it only represents the price where I happened to be, not the average price across the nation.  Still, it is a useful metric to see how the price ebbs and flows.  Here is a graph that represents my Honda Civic, purchased in December of 2010.

The prices was on the high side for much of Obama's presidency, but it fell during his last two years in office.  Trump saw a rise for a couple years before a dip in his last year.  Biden has mostly seen an increase in gas prices.  Based on my chart, who oversaw the lowest gas price?

I paid $3.90 just this week and expect I will pay more in the weeks to come.  This chart may give an overall figure, but it isn't entirely fair.  The gas price in Obama's last couple of years could be presumed to carry-on.  Let's break it down by year.

Obama's last two years were better than most of Trump's years.  On the other hand, Trump did achieve energy independence by his final year and it shows.  Trump was a proponent of American energy production, approving pipelines, cheerleading fracking and drilling, and hyping domestic sources.  The US became an energy exporter for the first time in my lifetime during the Trump Administration.  As such, it is not surprising that he had the lowest average cost per gallon during his tenure.  Of course, 78 cents a gallon isn't a lot, is it?  What was my average cost per tank of gas?

Biden has repeatedly announced his hostility toward fossil fuels and, as one of his first acts as president, he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.  Yes, the Ukraine mess is responsible for some of the recent rise in gas prices, but, as the 2021 average price shows, it had increased dramatically (47%) in 2021, before Putin invaded.

Clearly, the policies in place from 2015 through 2020 provided the best prices for gas.  Let's return to those policies.

DARVO

I had never heard the term DARVO, but find it insightful.  It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.  In this article, DARVO is discussed as it relates to Lia Thomas breaking women's college records.  Lia is a trans-athlete who retains male genitalia.  Nonetheless, she shares a locker room with women who are vilified if they object to this situation.  They are the intolerant bigots while Lia is the victim of their narrowmindedness.  Thus, we have Denied the reality that Lia retains her biological maleness, Attacked those who object to a biological male competing with biological females, and Reversed the roles of Offender and Victim.  Lia is the victim and the entirety of Ivy League female swimmers are the offenders.

If Lia wants to be a woman, great.  Go for it.  However, it is rather suspicious that a college swimmer who did not win while male chose to transition to female and then won regularly and broke records.

Fighting Caravans (1931)

Clint Belmet (Gary Cooper) is a scout on the frontier during the Civil War. He is something of a hellion and the sheriff of Independence, Missouri plans to put him in jail for a month. His mentors, Bill Jackson and Jim Bridger, spin a yarn about how he was just married and it would be wrong to jail him now that he is reforming his wild ways. They trick Felice (Lili Damita), a French woman bound for Sacramento, to pose as his new wife. The sheriff relents and Clint escapes Independence with Bill, Jim, and Felice. No sooner has the caravan left for California than Clint and Felice breakup when the trick played on her is exposed. Throughout the long journey, Clint and Felice are repeatedly drawn together and then split. Bill and Jim engineer most of the breakups, fearing that they might lose their young apprentice to a domestic life. Added to the stresses of the trail, it is clear that a combined band of Kiowa and Comanche are trailing the caravan and will certainly attack at some point. This is especially threatening because most of the US Cavalry stationed in the West has been recalled for service in the Civil War.

Adapted from a Zane Grey novel, the story is by the numbers and rather predictable. Ernest Torrence is a standout as Bill Jackson, the grizzled scout with a gift for gab. Tully Marshall as Jim Bridger fades into the background, though he has the more stereotypical mountain man appearance. There is a famous Jim Bridger who was a mountain man and scout, but he was in military service during the Civil War. The best thing about the movie are the scenes of the caravan crossing vast prairies, snowy mountains, and wide rivers. The setting is far more impressive than the story.

Good popcorn fun.

Turnabout is Fair Play

In 1962, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba.  This was viewed as grounds for risking World War III, a nuclear Armagedon.  If not for Vasily Arkhipov, the submarine B-59 would have launched a nuclear strike on October 27, 1962.  It was the Cold War and tensions were high.  Of course, Cuba was an independent country.  What business did we have in denying them missiles, especially considering US involvement in the Bay of Pigs disaster the previous year?

Beginning in 1979, the United States and Russia fought a proxy war in Nicaragua.  The US supported the Contras while the Soviets supported the Sandinistas.  The US Monroe Doctrine had essentially declared the Western Hemisphere to be the domain of the US, foreign powers not welcome.

In 1983, the US invaded Grenada.  It had been communist-friendly since a 1979 bloodless coup, trading with Cuba and the USSR.  However, when a coup by hardline Marxists murdered the milquetoast Prime Minister, the US sent in the Marines. 

Let us consider the current situation in that light.  During the Cold War, the NATO states were on one side and the Warsaw Pact on the other.  When the Soviet Union crumbled, many Warsaw Pact countries sought membership in NATO.  In much the same way that the US considered Cuba to be encroaching, Russia has reason to view such NATO expansion as an encroachment.  How far have we encroached?  Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Croatia, and Hungary were all in the Soviet Bloc but are now members of NATO.  That's a lot of encroachment that Russia has tolerated.  Of course, most of these countries had only been 'acquired' during World War II.  Sure, it stings, but it's not like they had been part of Russia for centuries.

In 1991, Ukraine became independent for the first time in centuries.  It had long been swapped among empires: Ottoman, Polish, Russian, Soviet Union.  It had been part of Russia/USSR since the 17th century and still has a large Russian minority (17%).  It is closer to Russia than Cuba is to the United States.  If Russia had something similar to the Monroe Doctrine, offering NATO membership would be a clear violation.  NATO is a military organization created to oppose Soviet expansion, but now it has been expanding toward Russia for 30 years.  Now it proposes to annex a region that has been in the Russian Empire for centuries.

It is argued that World War II was caused by the mismanagement of the peace in the wake of World War I.  The Treaty of Versailles was as much about assigning blame to Germany as to providing for peace.  How likely is it that the current conflict in Ukraine is a direct result of the mishandling of the peace in the aftermath of the Cold War?