Dirty Dancing

I'm sitting watching Dirty Dancing for about the 100th time in my life. I loved this movie when I first saw it in like second grade for the music, dancing, and romance. I think I always, on some level wanted a man like Johnny Castle to sweep me off my feet.

Now though, that I watch the movie as an adult I am drawn and facinated by the socioeconomic plot of the movie. The things I never saw as a kid, or if I saw them never fully understood them.

1. Robbie Gould giving Baby a copy of "The Fountainhead" so she would understand that some people matter and some people don't. Hillarious!!! I don't think that this is exactly Ayn Rand's thinking but it is close enough.

2. The first impression of Baby that the poorer servent class are all fornicating animals. She is initally scared of the people dancing that she encounters dirty dancing. It isn't until she is sexually aroused by Johnny that she accepts that behavior in others.

3. "Its not for anything illegal is it?" When I first saw Dirty Dancing I didn't really know or understand that abortion was so recently illegal and what the woman's movement was really about. Thank you Jane Roe.

4. I have read that Dirty Dancing is based on a true story but I alway had problems believing that anyone as sheltered as Baby actually existed. We are to believe that she is progressive, well-read, activist type whose dream it was to join the Peace Corps and yet, she didn't know when she was 18 that there are people in this world that didn't live her lifestyle or that there are abitous climbers and money grubbing swindlers. This never made allot of sense to me. But as I get older I realize that people like Baby are all around us. They choose not to see the problems of this world because they are comfortable in their own lives. And even if they see the problems they never believed they could be so close. Not everyone is Robbie Gould but most people have their heads in the sand and are happy to keep them there. These people may even see the problems of the world but never can comprehend how their failure to act prevents real change.

PS... I still love the dancing, music, and romance... NOBODY PUTS BABY IN A CORNER!!!

Toto and I may be heading to Kansas...

If Robert Zoellick ever comes to Kansas I may have a free shot at him. After all I honestly and sincerely believe that the policies of the World Bank, which he directs, are directly responsible for for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people every year. And that should be enough to justify my killing of him.

Well at least that is the argument that Scott Roeder is making to justify his cold blooded murder of George Tiller. George Tiller was a Kansas doctor who performed legal abortions. Scott Roeder is a man who admitted buying a gun, practicing shooting, stalking the doctor and shooting him while he was in Church. But he honestly believed that murder was the right thing to do.

Now I am pro-choice but however you feel about abortion... murder is murder. I'm waiting to see how this turns. Mr. Zoellick have you ever been to Kansas?

Phony

If there is one fictional character that I feel in tune with it is Holden Caulfeild. I love how he openly and brashly rejects the concept that financial success is equivalent with happiness. I will never understand why he is called a cynic he is so optimistic about the human condition. He can't always articulate why but he knows deep in his heart that people can be better then their materialistic dreams. I guess the people that call Holden a cynic are the nonfiction phonies. RIP J.D. Salinger.

RIP Howard Zinn

Today, in my humble opinion, we lost one of the finest American minds of our time, Howard Zinn. Mr. Zinn was most well known for his book "People's History of the United States" but he also lived a life of activism and honesty. What made Zinn's book and academic work so special was his perspective. He wrote and spoke about history, politics, and economics from the prospective of the disenfranchised. He looked at the discovery of America through the eyes of the Native Americans, manifest destiny through the eyes of the Mexican indigenous people of the Southwest, the Southern agrarian economies through the eyes of the slaves and the Vietnam war through the eyes of the people fighting for their own independence. In a world where this point of view is often ignored or written off as unimportant Howard Zinn was a voice of all of us. He was a true progressive, not compromising his values to support popular characters. He will be missed.

Would a Republican by any other name still smell so bad?

I just read the funniest article in the NY Times about Arlen Specter. As a native PA'er I have always disliked Specter. He has always been bad on labor and disrespectful to women and women's issues. Last year when he pulled a Leiberman and became a Dem my feelings didn't change.

Now anyone who reads this and knows me knows I am not a Republican or remotely conservitive. However, I do honestly believe having cowardly democrat majority is really no better than having conservative leaders. The problem with all politicians, Republicans, Democrats, or so called independents is the system. I don't think you can be an honorable person in politics any more.

For your enjoyment... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27penn.html?hp

Corporations are not People

Today our "non-partisan" Supreme Court decided that the McCain-Feigold law that prevents corporations from directly donating money to political candidates. The Court through away 100 years of judicial precedents as well as ignoring its own procedural rules that go back to the times of the founders to put more power into the hands of the big corporations that control our government.

1. Corporations are not people. The are legal entities that have grown out of control and will continue to grow out of control until we demand that they are controlled. People, not legal entities have freedom of speech.

2. Scalia: practice what you preach... our founding fathers (except for maybe Hamilton) were firmly against a government controlled by business interests. You are so quick to point to founding father's intent when looking at individual liberties... why do you ignore founders intent when looking at the role that corporate America plays in politics.

3. Honestly... I'm not even sure why I'm so upset about this. All that this law really changes is procedural rules that corporations do not have to funnel money through PACs now. Still it is a slap in the face.

4. Dirty politics are about to get even dirtier.

5. This is the official end of any hope that a truly progressive branch of the democratic party could emerge. Not that I had much hope before today.