Ronald Reagan, The Socialist

From my cousin Mark who consistently maintains a conservative approach to private life and progressive liberal view in politics: "You know the law that requires hospital emergency rooms to treat patients whether they have insurance or not? That was a piece of Reagan legislation passed in 1986. Reagancare, you might call it. From Wikipedia: The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a U.S. Act of Congress passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). It requires hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. There are no reimbursement provisions. (My emphasis!) Participating hospitals may only transfer or discharge patients needing emergency treatment under their own informed consent, after stabilization, or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment. Imagine, Ronald Reagan making private hospitals do something whether they liked it or not! What a Kenyan socialist!"

All N.B.A. Team Posted

So here it is... the all N.B.A. team selected by the most unqualified man to do so. Well, I exaggerate a little. I can select a helluva good NBA team in video games.

But all kidding aside here are my picks. If after scanning over them you would be interested as to how I selected them then be sure to read through the bottom portion. Go MY TEAM!

My Eleven:

Ray Allen
Shane Battier
Michael Bibby
Kevin Durant
Tim Duncan
Manu Ginobili
Grant Hill
Kirk Hinrich
Steve Nash
Rajon Rondo
Amar'e Stoudemire
(on waiver: Pau Gasol - hey, it's a blog!)

Starting Five
PG - Steve Nash
SG - Ray Allen
SF - Kevin Durant
PF - Grant Hill
C - Tim Duncan

Power Five
PG - Kirk Hinrich
SG - Manu Ginobili
SF - Grant Hill
PF - Shane Battier
C - Amar'e Stoudamire

Speed Five
PG - Rajon Rondo
SG - Michael Bibby
SF - Ray Allen
PF - Kevin Durant
C - Pau Gasol (waivers baby!)

End Game Five
PG -Steve Nash
SG - Michael Bibby
SF - Kevin Durant
PF - Tim Duncan
C - Pau Gasol (he's so new his name is misspelled on the jersey)

Explanation:

So the critical mass in any team is chemistry. I've watched these players over the years and yes some of them even longer than a decade. That's why specifically I bring up team chemistry because in each of them I've seen undeniable professionalism. Of course you can't have a squad of mercenaries like the Miami Heat but you can mix together a "get-it-done" mentality, probably best personified in Shane Battier, and a true love for the game, for instance a guy like Grant Hill.

So there's that point. Plus I'd like to say that their individual styles, in theory, compliment each other quite well. Imagine Nash feeding around the perimeter to Tim Duncan's pick-n-roll. Or a high screen feed and clear out for Durant with Ray Allen as an outlet. That's just the starters, don't even let me go to the bench.

The weakness is of course the age. But add up the minutes from these guys and it's clear their not slackers. Also, it can be a knock that up until we secured Pau Gasol on waivers (?) that there wasn't a true center. Tim Duncan has never been a true center, not in the sense of height or rebounding ability where actually he's amazing. But not a true center in the sense that it somehow has never translated to the teams play selection. He plays like a more fundamentally sound Charles Barkley that's been hanging around Kareem Abdul Jabbar all weekend. Get it to him in the low post and he's looking to pass. Get it into the high-post and he's looking to put it on the floor and get around someone. In the paint, he's never been intimidating like Barkley but he's butter smooth like Kareem.

Anyway, I could go off on a tangent about these picks. Oh wait, I already have.

Republican Ownership

This post is follow-up to my cousin, Mark Mocarski, who recently emailed an opinion that was critical of Republican ownership of national debt issues. I posted on this blog the email I'm referring to under the heading, "George Bush, not Social Security, Destroyed the Budget." Please consider this post a secondary thought to my cousin's original idea. Mark's idea was more original and more insightful but vanity made me post both. So here's my email that was sent out in response:

"The sentiment of the previous email is like a present with a bow, given now to anyone who believes listening to Republican rhetoric is the path to a secure national recovery. If you decide to do nothing with the ideas stated in the previous email, then please at least decide to stop making us all suffer the consequences. Move to Idaho or Kentucky, open a business selling guns and continue worshiping Ronald Reagan.

It's just time, in my opinion, the G.O.P. start saying something else, anything else, at least off the current message and hopefully something sensible. Instead, I believe what we'll have is more Republican petty, aimless, blame-throwing where the intent is to grind all progressive policy to a halt. "If we can't have it, no-one will" seems like a party victory and mantra all rolled into one.

Recently, I watched the performance John McCain (reminder: your nominee for 2008 presidency) gave on CBS Sunday Morning, the show with Bob Schieffer. Man, what a real song and dance routine McCain delivered when asked about the future, as he saw it, of the United States and wherever Egypt ends up. McCain twisted and turned every response, every sentence, every breath, every thought, into some sort of Democratic-Sponsored Apocalypse the nation was riding towards. Of course, and I'm paraphrasing but a lot less than you can believe, that the only Americans who truly understood and have supported the Freedom-Loving Egyptian protesters were the Un-Wavering Freedom Supporters of the Republican party. Can anyone one person use this type of message without clown make-up? McCain made it sound like he was out there just yesterday with a rally cry and tear gas in his lungs.

It was as useless a time as any for John McCain to hit the political stump. Perhaps just as sad was to see that McCain relies probably now more than ever on re-hashed speeches from some 2008 back-catalog of greatest hits. When Johnny didn't have a clear opinion about a Schieffer question he simply reached into the grab-bag of "I wanted to say this back then" comments that never were in the right context. I'll admit that McCain, pre-presidential run McCain was an enjoyable no bullshit in-fighter that made Congressional hearings dramatic and appealing to watch on C-Span. However, nowadays McCain appears determined to mimic a broken record, skipping and stuck on one mean-spirited note about a battle he never actually won and a governmental body that now outpaces his comprehension. Egypt caught everyone off-guard but that doesn't mean you spin the shock into schlock purposes for your party.

Why is Donald Rumsfeld still trying to sell us (in book form) that his gut reaction was sufficient cause for the impulsive invasion of Iraq? Why won't George Bush come out and defend his gut reaction to the train-wreck he so brazenly pushed tens of thousands of our military in front of? Why don't I hear Republicans admitting to the mistakes their guts shat out, especially the sloppy leadership choices regarding stabilization of this country after 9/11? You owe us eight years and all the necks of Goldman Sachs. Dodging the questions only means we'll fill in our own answers. Look at it this way, all we really have is the pointless "Mission Accomplished," and more years then I like to remember of flags at half-staff.

America, this is your Grand Old Party. Swallow your medicine and do it for America."

George W Bush, not Social Security, Destroyed the Budget

A recent email from my cousin, and godfather, the infamous Mark Mocarski:

"Ten years ago, the U.S. Government had a budget surplus.

Then the Supreme Court elected George W. Bush President of the United States.

That's when all fiscal hell broke loose.

First Bush instituted a gigantic tax cut. To pay for this, we had to borrow a trillion dollars from the Communist Chinese.

Of course, the jobs that this tax cut was supposed to create never materialized. Those jobs should have added tax-paying citizens to the nation's payroll. Instead, it helped fuel a massive bubble in the housing market and a huge increase in speculative investing overseas.

Then Bush started two wars, one Iraq and another in Afghanistan, without ever raising the necessary funds to fight these wars. This is the first time in our nation's history--going all the way back to the Revolutionary War--that taxes were not increased to finance a war.

At the same time, Bush created the second largest Federal government agency after the Defense Department--Homeland Security.

I find it odd that in our current debate about the Federal deficit, I hear very little about how exactly we got here. Yes, entitlement programs are an issue--particularly Medicare and Medicaid. And the interest on the debt is a big issue--especially given that we had to borrow even more money from the Communist Chinese when we refused to overturn the Bush tax cuts.

But let's get this straight--it's George W. Bush and his borrow-and-spend Republicans who drove the country into receivership. And now it's the Republicans who are threatening to destroy every government social program to make up for their incompetent and, yes, IMMORAL stewardship of our nations' treasury.

We don't have to raise the Social Security retirement age to fix the budget mess. We need to stop voting for Republicans."

Remakes Are the New Original

Part One - Introduction

Since it's birth cinema has used other art forms that by in large were incorporated to serve the film's needs. Whether it was the Director of Photography adopting a painter's use of light or a screenplay adapted from a published novel, filmmakers poach like crows feeding on recent road-kill.

Obviously this doesn't qualify filmmakers as un-authentic lot since through translation art must change permanently, adopting new characteristics of the hand that guides. No-one accuses for instance Hitchcock of plagiarism if "North By North-West" was adapted from a short story. I've read Stephen King's "The Shining," and I'm quite sure Stanley Kubrick's film based on said book should be considered separate works.

Yet there are times when I'm at a loss for words as things become mashed-up in such a manner that it becomes difficult to find any inspiration in the work. Such as the example of a string of re-makes coming out of Hollywood poaching from the now classic era of American horror movies (1935 - 1965). Coming soon to a post-house for final edit are the following films "Creature From the Black Lagoon," "The Wolfman," not to mention the on-going "Twilight" series that has re-discovered the Count Dracula. Tod Browning is rolling in his grave but he and Lon Chaney Jr. deserve somehow a more appropriate tribute than another run through the product cycle.

Which brings me to the part where I begin to sound like a crotchity old man complaining that my ice cubes aren't cold enough: where the hell are the new barn-burning, ice-pick to your third eye, ideas? What new un-discovered Freudian psycho-sexual foilible have I overlooked and will undoubtedly cause me great suffering mid-way through Act 2? Where is the zeitgeist that gets everyone spooked and into a theater? I'll be happy to buy my ticket onto the roller-coaster, just so long as I don't have to endure another hack job delivered by Burbank and it's awful progeny. Also, why are so many of these "new" horror films are produced / directed by the soggy brained offspring of their well-connected parents? That seems to speak volumes right there.

For Part Two of this rant, which I'll post soon, focuses on a few of the films already mentioned, plus some new-er ones that are filling this category like an hourglass spilling away. Approaching these topics with a strong lean towards critical analysis should help illuminate the expanding works of history from the reductive junk set for the garbage heap. I might step on some toes and hope that can be forgiven. In fact, I hope to step on toes come to think of it, since that would mean there are a few brains at least on the low-end of the dimmer switch.

But at least their turned on.