Big Brother and Petite Brothers

I am amazed that so many people think that mainly the NSA is spying on them. How many foreign governments are also spying on us, I wonder. The technology exists and the temptation exists and the money is always there for that kind of things.
Of course, it is not Big Brother that is the most annoyuing, it is all the businesses that buy information about you and put you in a category to target. We don't want the government to spy on us, but every bank or business or geek is welcome to spy on us. Does it make sense?
Based on my age, I get every week a proposition to get buried lavishly, to buy a handy wheelchair and take care of my deafness and my life insurance. I am not targetted for the things I like: new dresses, antiques, books, elegant shoes, pralines, good wines, cheese and expensive perfume. Petite Brother is persistent, but stupid.
If I google "Russian stove" because I don't understand the description of a huge stove  in a book, I receive propositions to buy a Russian stove for a whole week. Nobody in their right mind would buy a big stove in Savannah, Georgia: it is too hot out here. How the ads moguls have the guts to say that "targetting works" is beyond me. I look once at a site like Overstock, and they "target" my Google page for several weeks. It makes me smile. I am an avid reader, I look at hundreds of things I am curious about, every week. I don't want them.

We have a tradition of being afraid of Big Brother, and it is enhanced by the fact that the Press will naturally report more on Federal excesses than on local excesses: it gives them more audience.
But frankly, who is most annoying? Who writes 100 pages instructions for a building permit? Who imposes the color of your house? Who decides that your grass should be no more than 7 inchers high? Who prevents you to grow vegetables in your frontyard? Who decides what you should recycle or not? Who sells lottery tickets to pay for education? We do know, isn't it,  that the lottery is a secret tax on the poor? It is all done by all the Petite Brothers around you,

Culture has us fighting Big Brother, but it is the Petite Brothers all over America who pull the carpet under your feet.

Should the Government have Secrets?

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It is very naive to think that governments should have no secrets. Here is an example: You negotiate the exchange of one of several American soldiers who are prisoner in a foreign country, and of course you want them back. The foreign country says: "OK, we will give this one back to you on the condition that you never say in public that we tortured him." It is horrible and unpleasant, but what are you going to do? Publish this in the media? What about not only this prisoner, but the other ones?

It is not an unrealistic example. One time, when Franco was still dictator of Spain, the Spanish government promised not to execute a political prisoner on the condition that his lawyers did not publicize the fact that he had been tortured. The lawyers were indignant because it is a disgusting deal and they went to the Press. The prisoner was garroted. What good did that do? It is easy to defend your principles with the life of somebody else.

The best example we know of secret deals happened during the Cuban crisis in 1962. We escaped narrowly a third world war thanks to a deal between the USA and the USSR about the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey. If you think that you could have done better, go into politics or work for the State Department: don't blow what your Government does by publishing it to have your name on Facebook. 

If you dislike what your Government does, vote for the other guy next time. Half of the country does not like what the Government does, then it is the turn of the other half to be unhappy about it. We call this democracy, we have no need for traitors.

What the USA did wrong during the Cold War was very public and accepted by everybody at the time, such as favoring fascists over democrats as foreign allies. Maybe we should protest the crimes we know before we protest the conspiracy we don't.

A Prayer to Geeks

image from  lendinggeek.com/

There is that new concept among you, Geeks, to anticipate what I want. As a result, Word changes my presentation without warning, and even if I disable all the "autocorrect" functions, you sneak in and try to do things better for me. Excel has become totally unreliable, it was such a sweet easy program, what have you done?

And Google tells me what I think all day long, finishing my sentences and telling me what I am searching for.

Most people think that the big government is stealing our freedom, it is not true, it is the Big Geeks.

When I was in my 50s, my Mom was still telling me "Don't forget your scarf!" and now in my 70s, I am surrounded by an army of young Geeks who tell me what I think. Let me breathe.

Please, dear Geeks, let me get a little bit of freedom. Freedom takes some time but it is precious to me,  and I am less stupid than you think.

The Charms of Old Age

Conductor Lorin Maazel  when I first saw him in 1960. He is now 82 (from bayreuther-festspiele.de)

There are many advantages in getting old: having more time, getting to see grown up kids and grands, having more freedom, getting a pension....
One advantage we often forget is that old people have witnessed important events There is value in that, if not always pleasure, because many events are unpleasant. I remember reading in the newspaper about the assassination of Gandhi: I had just learned to  read. From meeting victims of the Holocaust to seeing the towers fall, I have heard and seen plenty of evil.
But I also get pleasant memories, of people who met historical figures, and there is plenty of that too, because we live so much longer than in the past. So many of my "memories" go way back to 1900.

One of my grandfathers had seen Buffalo Bill.That was in France, probably in 1905.  My grandfather mimicked the whole show when I was a little girl, and he got just as excited as he had been 40 or 50 years before. Over the course of my life, I of course accumulated live memories of  many actors, singers, musicians who got very old or have now passed away and I wish I had been out more, because now these are very precious memories of pleasure to me.

I once knew an old man who was a little boy when Beatrix Potter was still writing the adventures of Peter Rabbit. He said she did not like children very much... She was a widow without children, and a business women at a time when they were rare, so I am not surprised that she was not very patient.

Of course in 1970, when I joined a science laboratory, there were still in France  scientists who had been students of Marie Curie, and even more who had been students of her daughter and her husband, Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie.  One of my bosses had known the scientist Langevin, who was rumored in 1910 to have an affair with Marie Curie. He used to call him "poor Langevin," because his wife was, according to him, a harpy and a virago.
My neighbor in Chateaufort near Paris had seen Einstein and Richard Feynman many times, when she got married to a mathematician and lived in Princeton.  She filled me with her memories, not of equations, but of sweet small stories.
One of the favorite professors of my daughter had once helped Einstein change a tire. He said that for a whole week, he had felt brighter than Einstein himself.

Hypocrisy is tiresome

 Image from: http://www.thedogrescuers.com/statistics--facts.html

If nobody was using any contraceptive method, all women, Christian or not,  would have 14 children. So all these scenes and posturing against contraception, that is pure political garbage.
Thanks to the same guys, we already have one  million abused and neglected children in this country every year that God made: to pressure people who do not want children to have kids (you will love them when they are born) is not working. Worse: it is criminal. Some people are not meant to have children (like some people are not meant to have dogs and cats). We may not like it, but it is a fact. It is also their right. 

Smart gifts for older parents

Image from http://drawingclassesnewcastle.com.au/category/latest-news/

Amongst all the many gifts I get from my daughter and her hubby that I appreciate most are these precious not-overly-expensive and very smart yearly gifts. These are things I really appreciate, even if I would not have thought of buying them for myself, so here is my top list.

1. A cell phone for emergencies ($10.00/month). I hate the thing, but if I get lost or if I get stranded with my old car, it is obviously very practical to be able to call. It gives me a great sense of security.

2. A AAA membership card ($ 66.00). I got an old car (it is a car, by the way, that they gave me), so about once a year, I get stranded and the card becomes a great gift: it makes it so easy to know what to do, plus they care about your security, which is good to know. The card has also discount advantages.

3. A teeth cleaning gift card (about $60.00 to 100.00). Bad teeth can create arterial lesions and give old people heart disease, so it is a good incentive and a very smart gift!

4. Dog and cat food. It is expensive on a small budget: sometimes it costs more to feed them than to feed yourself, so a gift for them is really appreciated!

5. A Walmart gift card.

6. A movie gift card.  Suppose your parents don't go to the movies, but they won't want to lose the gift: it will do them good.

The Harlot of Babylon

Image from Wikipedia

Governor Perry has invited his evangelical friends from Texas, Kansas and Yonder to an evangelical day of prayer that we badly need.
As it happens, the evangelical view is there to divide, not to unite Americans. They call Oprah "the Harlot of Babylon" and from what I read in the New York Mag the statue of Liberty is "demonic "
We suffer through this under the magic subtitle "freedom of expression."
Well, the good side of insults is that they are flexible. If I was inclined to pick on this, I would choose Jerry Springer as the Harlot of Babylon: to each its own; the sex of the harlot has not been determined.
And we can reverse this too, we could call Governor Perry "demonic" and the Statue of Liberty would become the Harlot of Babylon. It is more poetic this way.
 I cannot remember that any candidate prayed in public for political gain when I was young. When I was young, prayer was different.

Did you know Churchill was a Saint?

Image from the dailymail.co.uk and a paper from Beth Hale, 15th June 2010

I confess, I confess, I smiled when I found a site called WinstonChurchill.org this morning, very intent at proving that Winston did not smoke, did not drink, did not stutter, and that his father did not die from syphillis. I bet that next, they are going to prove that Churchill did not try to eliminate the civilian population of Mannheim. The members of that venerable institution are sure much younger than me, because it is not at all how I remember Churchill. 

We all admired Churchill. I got my first glass of champagne the day our street became "avenue Winston Churchill": my father decided that we had to celebrate. But we had no need of changing his image, we liked our heroes with flaws.
It is all about image nowadays, which is probably why the famous cigar was airbrushed from the picture in front of the Winston Churchill's Britain At War Experience  museum in London. Well, go ahead! I have seen already poor Presidents Kennedy and Reagan sanctified, do it with Winston too!
There is no flesh left on our heroes, that is why American children are not interested in history.
I never smoked, but this makes me feel like going out and buying a cigar. Romeo y Julieta was Churchill's favorite.

Snorting bath salts?

How come so many people have a hard time getting high? I get high reading a good book or watching a raccoon. In fact I am feeling high most of the day. One must be pretty desperately bored with life to snort bath salts. I just read an article about this in the New York Times.
And so many people seem to have no sense of self-preservation: I would not take an aspirin without looking up "aspirin side effects" on google. I trust doctors, yes, but I still double check any medication they prescribe to me. Nobody cares as much about your life as you do, and there is a risk with any medication. So, bath salts? Stuff you buy on the street from people who know nothing of chemistry? How one can trust a dealer just passes my comprehension.
But then, I am just an old woman. A happy old woman.

Just a touch of racism

GA has passed tough immigration laws, with this argument: we have 10 percent unemployment here, let us get rid of the illegal Hispanics and give the work to Americans. As a result, farmers in GA have a tough time finding enough workers this season, there are still 11,000 jobs openings to work in the field.
Unrepentent Governor Nathan Deal now tries to give the jobs to probationers, and it does not seem to work either.
As a result our three local TVs here in Savannah report this with comments like: "Americans do not want to work in the sun for 12 dollars an hour." Of course they say "Americans", but they think "Blacks."
It is a ridiculous statement. It is not that people "do not want to" work in the fields, it is that they do not know how. Work in the field is intensive: you cannot take a bus to go home, you got to stick around the farm to start early, when the temperature has not risen yet. Migrant seasonal workers are used to it, they pack and leave their home for the season. Georgians of any race have lost this capacity: they want a job, but they also want to be at home at night. For Pete's sake, it is not just a "job", it is a different lifestyle. A policy like this can only be successful if you spend a lot of money educating people and encouraging them to become seasonal migrants, and nobody knows if it would work. And I do not think that probationers are especially "lazy", I think that months in jail are not physically and mentally preparing you very well for hard work in the fields.

All this lack of workers means less money for the farmers, loss of foodstuff, more cost for the consumers. Our governor has not thought things through. I am sure he will say that it is the fault of president Obama, his usual scapegoat.
We need immigrants or we don't: it should not be a matter of political ideology, but a matter of good sense. If our farmers need seasonal workers, why don't we give seasonal work permits to the people who can do the work?

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NOTE: Local stats say that about 8% of the white labor force in GA is unemployed compared to 14% of the black labor force. Black labor force is about one third of the total GA labor force (27%). Ga has 150,000 people on probation, about 2 times more blacks than whites.We got in addition 50 to 60,000 inmates, ruining the state finances, a testimony to the quality of our school system.

4th of July: Disabled Veterans

I had a chance, not for the first time, to hear actor Gary Sinise talk about his dedication to disabled veterans. If you did not have a chance yet, have a look at his Foundation.

Most actors, if they have an audience and a camera go into performing mode. There is nothing wrong with that: it is what they DO. But I am moved by the fact that Sinise does not do it:  when he talks about the cause, he is himself: he talks like a man, not like an actor with a cause.
It is real nice.

Laughable biography

I found this ridiculous site www.nndb.com where you can find a who is who of the history of the world.
All authors are defined in  terms like this:
Marcel Proust
Born: 10-Jul-1871
Birthplace: Auteuil, France
Died: 18-Nov-1922
Location of death: Paris, France
Cause of death: Pneumonia
Remains: Buried, Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Paris, France
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Gay
Occupation: Author
Nationality: France
Executive summary: In Search of Lost Time

So Proust was white and gay? 
What kind of donkey conceived these biographies? You can verify the sexual orientation of Voltaire and Diderot and Jean-Paul Sartre  (all described as white and straight). Aristotle was a white straight guy (you wish) and his student Alexander the great a white bisexual. There is no indication of a sexual orientation for the saints, I wonder why. I verified Augustine (you know, the saint who was such an inspiring sinner?) No mention of his sexual orientation. HA! 
Alexandre Dumas was "multiracial" (indeed his grandmother was a slave) and his son was "white". On and On: it is the pattern.
The whole setting is offensive and profoundly disgusting to me.

Health care: another point of view

DRINKING BACCHUS - 1623 - GUIDO RENI
GEMÄLDEGALERIE, DRESDEN 

from www.baroque.us/ 

One person out of ten in the USA suffers from addiction to alcohol or some kind of illicit drug abuse. Alcoholics die in general twenty years before their time (it is what scientists call “premature death”). This evaluation of addiction does not even take into account the smokers: over 400,000 people die every year from a cause related to tobacco. Another look at this is to say that half of the heavy smokers are dead by age 60.

What does that costs to society? Smoking deaths in the USA: about 92 to 137 billions/year, alcohol related deaths about 176 billions, other drugs 115 billions. 

Gee! That would be about 400 billions or half of the federal health care budget saved per year if. Only IF is difficult to imagine and harder to achieve. 

So half of what we pay covers one person out of ten. 

The loss of self-preservation

One thing I knew for sure: my young 30ish-years-old neighbor had a self-esteem problem. I kept buying him a small gift every month (like a nice T-shirt or a pair of black socks): I thought it would help. In time. 

About a month ago, my  neighbor came once more to borrow some gas (I usually let him get the gallon I keep for mowing). He looked high and had pin-head pupils, which made me mad, so I thought it was time for me to stop pretending I did not know he was on drugs. I said:
"It seems to me you are very close to the bottom. You ruined your parents, you lost your job, you lost your girlfriend, you lost the custody of your kids, you lost most of your teeth, I bet you don't have a sex life anymore. How low can you go? The bottom is next. Maybe you should think about rehab."
He was shocked that I was so direct, then he mumbled: "Maybe you are right." and he was gone.
As of last week, he is in jail for attempting to build a meth lab. There is at least ten years of prison for that in Georgia, and a 200,000 dollars fine.
I never thought he was a seller: I thought he was too disorganized, too hazy for it. I am certainly happy the Narcs caught him: I would not want to blow up because the guy next door is not a chemist: I would not trust him to boil water. In a less selfish way, the idea that he would push other young people like him into that free fall where self-preservation does not matter is repulsive. So, it is good thing he got caught.
I am also very sorry.  Free fall is a terrible thing to watch. And how on earth do you stop it?

Hacking my old computer?

My internet provider, comcast.net has gracefully offered me the use of a new computer protection. I figured they must have a reason, so I just installed it.
In 2 hours, I have been attacked 4 times. I got curious and ran the IP numbers (admire what a 70 years old woman can do, and do not laugh.)
These attacks came from China.
I 'm flattered; here I am peacefully minding my own business and writing novels on my old computer that nobody will read. If you are curious, however, the links to my novels are HERE.
What on earth do these Chinese want? Do they expect to fall by accident on some dark military secrets or to rob a bank or what?
One thing I am pretty sure of: they do not want to spend time on my computer.
If they only knew.
By the way, there is a marvelous early novel on hacking you would enjoy if you like the subject: the technology has changed, but humans remain the same, and I loved that book: The Cuckoo's egg.

Enough is enough

Edouard Manet La blonde aux seins nus, musée d'Orsay, Paris, France ©photo musée d'Orsay / rmn

I understand that a young man with boiling hormones would want to send nude pictures of himself on the Internet. It is dangerous and stupid, but if the young man is, say, less than 25 years old, I can see where it comes from.
But a Middle-aged - Married - Representative?
It is sick.
We can elect better people than that.

A new way to play "guess who?"

You have to invite 8 actors (4 males, 4 females) for dinner, dead or alive. Here are the rules:
Two have to be very elegant of mind and looks Are you going to pair Audrey Hepburn and Ben Affleck? Would that work? Who would you pair Helen Mirren with? It does not have to be man and woman: you can pair Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan if it is your fantasy.
One has to be of the wired type  (no names, your choice). You won't have any trouble picking just one! But you cannot have two in your whole list.
One is very funny Cosby? Jim Carrey? Robin Williams? Tina Fey?
Two are known for charity causes Lots and lots of names fit here! Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Michael J. Fox, Pitt, Clooney, Paul Newman, Jacky Chan ... and on the female side Alicia Keys, El. Taylor, Penelope Cruz, Helen Hunt, Madonna, Mia Farrow ....
One is under 25 years old : honor the youth! Do some research!
One is a method actor It does not have to be Brando, you can pick Ed Norton, Meryl Streep, ....
One is a character actor well known on TV
Two are not married at present
One is blonde.
Happy mix! The final rule is that when you get them together, you think that there is a good chance it will be a successful evening.

You got to explain this to me: what toxic assets?

I have been listening to talks about toxic assets for three years and I still don't get it. Please help!
I always thought that the idea of bundles (you link a lot of good houses with one or two risky-toxic ones) was very good: it is the way to go because it limits the risk.  Also, we all know that the price of houses can level or fall because it happens every time that an average house costs more than two median salaries can afford. I know that: it was a big problem when I was still in Paris in the 80s. So of course bankers take that into account.
I have been in school long enough to know that you can estimate how much risk you can take, and banks do that every day, so what happened? I read that the banks did not care because they insured their risk.
Fair enough.
Now it is the insurance's business to estimate risk. How are they going to make money on your life if they don't know when your prostate is likely to lose its ... its spongicity? They got tables, they push a button, and they know how much of a risk you are. Estimating the risk is what they do for a living, right? And they are widely used to the theory of bundles: they bundle the risk of a hurricane in coastal zones with the risk of tornadoes inland. It is their profession to estimate the risk and to bundle it to their advantage. It is all about statistics, whether you buy, or sell, or if you are a a banker and in the end, even more so if you are an insurer.
So, if you would stop throwing to my face words like greed and toxic assets, which look like they explain the crisis but don't, and tell me what really happened,  I would be grateful: I don't get it. There are always toxic assets, being in life insurance or in housing or in car insurance. That is what estimating risk is about. I am under the disquieting impression that we are treated like a bunch of idiots. It is simple: I want to know who cheated.

Great movies you might have missed

Everybody knows about Gone with the wind, Chariots of fire or  Lawrence of Arabia... but I think you might enjoy some less remembered oldies.
Here are some of my favorites.
Moulin Rouge  1952. A chance to see Jose Ferrer, one of the best actors of his generation, and Zsa Zsa Gabor in all her glory. The movie presents the tragic life and the art of Toulouse-Lautrec. It is a tour de force of acting: Ferrer had to walk on his knees to appear to have short legs. It has beautiful colors, the can-can, and Lautrec's life is not trivialized. A perfect movie.

The man who never was 1956 This film is about operation Mincemeat and is based on a real story of WW2. The British wanted to deter the attention of the Germans from Sicily. They decided to use a corpse transporting letters that would indicate the invasion will take place in Greece. The movie is fascinating: how does one find a suitable corpse? All corpses, says one of the spies, belong to somebody. Then they have to find a place where the corpse will be found by German spies. They also have to invent for the corpse a suitable life: this goes from what kind of shirts he wears, to his bank account, to his girlfriend. The subject makes the movie very unusual, so does the personality of Clifton Webb, a delightful British actor, who plays the main role. An actor who died too young, Stephen Boyd, plays the spy for the Germans who is verifying the tale of the man who never was. He has a smile that will chill your bones.

North to Alaska 1960 It is comedy with John Wayne who has Stewart Granger as a partner, and I think it has the most beautiful fist fight in the history of the movies.- just like the most beautiful car chase remains to this day in  The French Connection. You cannot beat the rhythm of that bar fight. It is also a very entertaining oldie.

Miracle Worker 1962 an Arthur Penn film with Anne Bancroft. What else do you want? As I remember it, it is black and white, and it is an aesthetic choice that enhances the movie.  It tells the story of Helen Keller as a child. There was a time when deaf and blind children were not educated: nobody knew how. They were kept hidden and treated like animals. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind child who learned to communicate, she became a symbol of hope for several generations (she was still alive when I was a child, and I remember that the Louvre museum allowed her to touch the sculptures). The movie is no way edifying, it is just very beautiful.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg  1964 It is French film, and were we impressed with the young Catherine Deneuve! This a very original musical, on a music by Michel Legrand. Every dialog is sung, which makes the movie special, but so do the colors. The story is about bitter-sweet  love.  It is really unique, you got to see that, even with English subtitles. One of the most romantic movies you can see, with a French twist.

Avanti! 1964 One of the best Billy Wilder. One of the best Jack Lemon. One of the best comedy ever made.  The action takes place in Italy; it allows Wilder to contrast the American efficiency and the laid-back attitude of Italians: he is mocking both, efficiently, but with affection.The British Marilyn of the time, Juliet Mills is wonderfully funny.

Sleuth 1972 and  Sleuth 2007. A thriller with just two people for the duration of the movie.  This is the first time that I see a remake as good as the original. In the first play, an aging Laurence Olivier is opposed to a young Michael Caine. Olivier plays a rich novelist who attracts his wife's lover to his castle and plans to kill him. The play was on Broadway for a long time, it was written by Anthony  Shaffer. The first movie (unhappily on VHS only) shows the novelist playing games and trapping his victim with brilliance. The decor is unforgettable, with mechanical toys everywhere. In the second film (2007 on DVD), Michael Caine plays the injured husband, Jude Law plays the younger guy. The director is Kenneth Branagh, the story is the same, but on a adaptation by Harold Pinter. Pinter tweaks the story here and there, so even if you remember the first movie quite well, you cannot guess how the second ends, and you are on edge, because the characters are slightly different. The decors are here super minimalists. For a movie amateur, it is a real treat to compare the two Caine. Every kid who dreams to become an actor should analyze this. Two perfects films, three perfect actors.

The day of the jackal 1973 Fantastic thriller. This is the story of an attack of the life of General De Gaulle when he was President of France. Many attempts on his life were made, mainly because he gave independence to Algeria which a lot of French people considered to be French territory. The movie is based on the beautiful book by Frederick Forsyth. There are several extraordinary ideas in the movie. First the casting: all great actors, even in small roles. The lead role, the hit-man, looks anything but: he looks sweet as pie. Edward Fox plays the hit-man and the contrast between his appearance and his ruthlessness is one of the major breathtaking points of the film. The editing is excellent, the rhythm perfect, the images beautiful (Ah! Paris in the 70s!). The police does not know who the hit-man is or where he is: can they catch him in time?

Last tango in Paris 1973 Certainly the best Marlon Brando. Beautifully filmed. It is both erotic and disturbing. No fun, but you won't forget it. Nobody does, even people who hate it.

White nights 1985 combines an excellent thriller with an outstanding dancing film.  This unlikely combination is made successful by the hard work of director Taylor Hackford. It is the story of a Russian dancer who has escaped the Communist regime; he is held prisoner in Russia again and plans to escape. He tries to enroll the help of a pro-communist American who hoped to escape racism  and the Vietnam war by fleeing voluntarily into Russia. Every dance in the movie has a reason, political or psychological, so it does not eat the action. There is, through dance, an evolution of the feelings of the two protagonists, the classic Russian dancer (Baryshnikov) and the American tap dancer (Gregory Hines). One of the best movies I have seen. And two of the best dancers you will ever see.

The name of the rose 1986 The movie is so, so much better than the book. Sean Connery as an investigating priest in the middle ages is very convincing. The director, Jean-Jaques Annaud, filmed in an ancient monastery with props so close to the real thing that they are used as educative tools in museums nowadays. The faces are also as "medieval" as one can imagine. There is a lot of human darkness here, but this is as close to real middle ages decor, atmosphere and beliefs as you are going to be. If you are interested in medievalism, this is the real thing: don't miss it.

Educating Rita 1983 with Julie Walters and Michael Caine. Julie Walters plays a hairdresser who wants to go to college and have an education. It is a very difficult role, because she has to appear ignorant at the start of the film without being caricatural or offensive. Caine plays an alcoholic professor who has lost his drive. What makes of it a good movie is that they do not fall in love with each other. What makes of it a great movie is that despite everything, the professor still enjoys the progress of the student. This is played wonderfully and it is entertaining to watch.

Secondhand lions 1983 One of my favorite movies, between a comedy and a fairy tale. It is all about Texas, a gentle family film with great actors: Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, the wonderful Kyra Sedwick and the young Haley Joel Osment. As great a family film as was A Christmas story.

Midnight run 1988 A splendid comedy with Charles Grodin in his best role and Robert de Niro ... adorable. I thought it was as good as Some like it hot.

61* 2001 One of the best movies of the decade. This is a profound baseball movie about two questions: 1. Can you compete and still be friends? 2. Why is it that some people are charismatic and others are not seen as they really are?
Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane play Maris and Mantle in decors and with a style reconstructed in excruciating details. A little wonder.

The greatest political mystery

No, it is not whether Sarah Palin will run, though a lot of journalists try to get us excited about it, like they tried with good ol' Trump who made them all look ridiculous, especially Anderson Cooper. Cooper said he was keeping Trump honest. And who is keeping Cooper honest, Donld Trump?
Trump got millions of dollars of free publicity out of his stunt, and it is just what he wanted: it does not matter to him what we think of him.
The greatest mystery to me is this. How come the same politicians, left and right, who appear so obnoxious, even odious on the floor,  appear to be competent, able and responsible in their respective committees?
Just spend 2 hours on C-Span and you will see that it is true. They are good people, left and right, in committees, and then they go posturing and insulting our intelligence in their general assembly.
What is going on?