Semper Fi

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler:

War is just a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

On the other hand:

Messengers

Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merrit -- Belgium, 1958.

Hara

It goes to show. If you cut yourself off enough from the narcissistic depredations of our current century, occasionally you'll lose touch with the glories of past centuries.

Setsuko Hara died in September 2015. I learned of her death four months later. She was 95 and passed never having been seen again by the world outside the Shinto temple she retired to in 1963. Hara was the great female star of Japanese movies through the 40s, 50s, and early-60s; but when her mentor (she was his muse) Yasujiro Ozu died in December '63, Hara disappeared into the mists of incomparable moments forever untouched by age, earthly corruption, or movie marketeering.

For Ozu, she was everything female (aside from sex): sorrow, gentleness, longing, heartbreak, the disappointments of the world. She was also great for Kinoshita and Naruse and Kurosawa, who all saw her more as a flesh-and-blood postwar Japanese woman, someone who ate, felt bitterness, could be petty and deceptive, and actually kissed. Of all the major directors from Japan's golden age, only Mizoguchi never used her. Hara would have melted under his fire.

Her greatest film and perhaps the greatest film from the golden age not directed by Mizoguchi.

Joy

A brilliant, heartbreaking documentary celebrating John Coltrane, celebrating life.

Happy 2023 to All the True Hearts

The Enemy?

No, the USA is the enemy of the world. And compared to this, Ukraine is mere toilet buildup.

2023

End of the Vampires.