Dispatches from Vilnius

It seems that Glenn Beck believes in zero population growth, judging by his recent comments on vaccinations, at least in the United States where the population is expected to grow by 70 million in the next 15 years.  Worldwide, the population is expected to grow by 1.5 billion by 2030, which some have dubbed the " perfect storm " due to the unsustainable nature of such a population. Glenn, however, takes it one step further.  He thinks "anti-vaxxers" are being persecuted , just like Galileo was centuries ago, by state governments that mandate vaccinations for measles, polio and other communicable diseases before entering school.  After the recent outbreak of measles in California, linked to Disneyland, it seems that these mandates are warranted, but dear Glenn feels vaccinations should be voluntary. The problem here is that many parents refuse to vaccinate their kids on religious grounds, and some states allow this.  They feel a belief in God is all the p...

With all the excitement over the game, Obama's Super Bowl interview has been lost in the media shuffle.  Huff Post is one of the few outlets to report on it, giving a 30-second sound bite to his plea to parents to vaccinate their kids.   Even Katy Perry's moment in the Super Bowl spotlight has been forgotten, except for a bit of improv by one of her sharks that went viral after the game because he was so badly out of step with the routine. "Deflategate" has also been forgotten after what many sports pundits are calling the worst play call in Super Bowl history when the Seahawks elected to pass rather than run on a very short second and goal that would have given them the victory.  This after the amazing catch by Jermaine Kearse, recalling the 2007 Super Bowl when New England had lost in a similar fashion. However, all the media attention around the under-inflated balls in the AFC championship game probably helped boost television ratings through the...

It seems like these days, Beyonce can't get a break.  First, Governor Huck tees off on her for being a bad influence on kids, and now Steve Kroft is telling his luscious gal pal not to dress like Beyonce.  What gives? It's not like she was part of the Super Bowl festivities or any other high profile event recently.  It just seems that her name rolls effortlessly off some persons tongues and has become synonymous with shame. Beyonce has been known to wear skin-tight outfits and teeny weeny bikinis, but then what contemporary female pop start doesn't flaunt her body these days?  You don't hear Huck attacking Britney Spears or Shakira .  Judging by Steve's "sexts," which went public, he seemed to enjoy his mistress's racy selfies. One comes to expect this misplaced moral outrage from Huck, but what's with Steve Kroft, a self-professed "liberal."  Surely, he wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with Beyonce, who can dress quite ni...

Another Super Bowl Sunday is upon us, and Commissioner Roger Goodell took time out from his busy schedule to address the state of the NFL.  You would think the biggest concern was Marshawn Lynch given Goodell's comments.  A big part of the league is public relations and the NFL insists that its players make themselves available to reporters, presumably for the sake of the fans.  Most players relish being in the spotlight, but some don't.  Marshawn doesn't want anything to do with the press and given the way they treated him all year, it is easy to understand why. Sports reporters objected that Lynch was not fully participating in the Super Bowl media days this past week, but what seemed to upset Roger the most was Marshawn promoting his own line of apparel, Beast Mode, at these functions.  This is a big no-no.  Marshawn was forced to shelf his gold cleats in the NFC championship game because they didn't comply with League colors.  He risked be...

Why is gay marriage OK, but polygamy isn't? I was curious why Lindsey Graham would ask such a seemingly stupid question during Loretta Lynch's confirmation hearings.  There had to be some ulterior motive behind the question.   Last year, a federal judge ruled Utah's law against polygamy " unconstitutional ," essentially decriminalizing polygamy in the state, which had outlawed polygamy to gain statehood.  So whether, Loretta likes it or not, she may have to deal with the issue if the Senate confirms her nomination as US Attorney General. The Mormon church struck down polygamy in the late 19th century, but various branches still practice the tradition, including the Brown family that parlayed its "experience" into a reality show on TLC.  The same network that gave the world Jon & Kate, which ended in bitter acrimony.  Seems things aren't all peaches and cream with the "Sister Wives" either, judging from this admission by a...

Master of Ceremonies Steve King I fully expected to see Tea Partiers with bread bags on their feet at this rally, after all the attention Joni Ernst got for her SOTU rebuttal.  She was found mingling among the GOP presidential wannabes appealing to the Iowa electorate, dubbed the Freedom Summit , but it was Crazy Sarah Palin who stole the show with her meandering speech that even had many conservative pundits confused as to what she was trying to say.  She should have just broken into a refrain of  "Bread Bags on My Feet." It is shaping into a very crowded field for 2016.  The religious conservative faction of the Republican Party desperately wants one of its own representing them.  Right now you would have to think Mike ❤ Huckabee is the front runner among this group, but after his sausage speech it is anyone's ball game.  The two Ricks, Dr. Ben, Cruz Missile Ted, and Crazy Sarah will all be vying for their affections. Probably the biggest s...

Joni "Get Your Bread Bags On" Ernst Someone go buy Joni Ernst a pair of new shoes, preferably ones that won't lose their luster in the rain, so she won't need a pair of bread bags  to put over them.  Turns out the Ernst family wasn't quite as poor as Joni made them out to be, as her extended family received close to a half million dollars in farm subsidies .  Much of these subsidies came after her heart-tugging childhood years on an Iowa farm, but if true it means that Reagan's America wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  Joni is only 44, not 84, which she sounded like in this pre-recorded speech.  Joni was just one of several Teabaggers to tank in their Post-State-of-the-Union speeches, making it tough for Jon Stewart to decide who to award his annual " Implody " to. The Republicans have yet to get this SOTU retort right, but in all fairness the Democrats haven't been very good at it in the past either.  It seems it is better to jus...

The Stamp Collector You would probably never know it but Wes Anderson is from Houston, Texas.  It was at UT Austin that he met Owen Wilson and the two teamed up to create Bottle Rocket , which die-hard Anderson fans still regard as his best movie.  Almost 20 years later, Wes is in the running for Best Director and his film, Grand Hotel Budapest is up for Best Film. It seems that he has finally reached that rarified air of Hollywood, yet he released the film back in March so that it would be available for the spring film festivals, not Oscar consideration.  But, then came an unexpected Golden Globe win for best comedy film, as well as numerous awards for best screenplay, and this film became the talk of Tinseltown.  His films have been nominated for Academy awards before, largely for his scripts which are the cornerstone of his productions.  You don't see much great writing today in Hollywood.  Films tend to rely largely on actors' performance...

It seems that  American Sniper  is now a cultural phenomenon , hitting a huge target audience much like Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ .  Only this time Hollywood gets to rake in the cash as this is a Warner Bros' production not an independent project like Passion was.  Hollywood would have nothing to to do with Mel's "passion play." Matt Taibbi  tees off  on American Sniper , which the Rolling Stone resident movie critic, Peter Travers,  did not .  Seems Pete bought into all the hokum, whereas Matt sees the film as a "well-lit fairy tale with the nutritional value of a fortune cookie."  Matt goes onto note how such films deflect attention from the real story behind these wars, noting how the plethora of Vietnam War movies in the 80s focused on the hardships of returning soldiers rather than the mess we left behind in Vietnam, much less the motivations that led to the war.  Here we are 30 years later doing the same thing once...

It seems the Republicans aren't the only ones reacting to President Obama's annual State of the Union Address.  Russian officials took exception to it as well.  Obama did mention the impact sanctions were having against Russia, as well as note how the Republican naysayers felt Putin had gotten the upper hand on him diplomatically.  However, the bulk of the speech was about American domestic policy, not foreign policy. The President offered some very tempting proposals, notably covering the first two years of community college, echoing the GI Bill from 1944.  With so many Americans forced to make readjustments, he felt that the nation should follow in the steps of Tennessee and Chicago in covering initial academic costs.  He used Rebekah and Ben Erler of Minneapolis as his prototypical family forced to rethink their situation in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, comparing America to "a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, ...

Mike Huckabee seems to believe there are two worlds -- Bubbleville and Bubbaville.  As you might imagine, the real people live in Bubbaville, while those out of touch with reality live in "Bubbles" like New York and Washington and Los Angeles.  Jon Stewart was surprisingly patient with the Reverend Huck until it came to the matter of Beyonce. For someone who says that Beyonce is not his  biggest concern , he sure spends a lot of time talking about her.  Jon noted the hypocrisy in calling out the pop diva when Huck likes to hobnob with the Nuge, who isn't exactly the most wholesome of celebrities. But, Huck wasn't going to be deterred.  In his mind, Beyonce represents a far more pernicious influence since she is so popular among impressionable teenage girls, notably the Obama daughters. Huckabee, like other conservative pundits, has been actively criticizing the Obamas' parenting skills as of late, believing that they are failing their children...

The "TurtleBrag" Economic Theory After six long years of sitting on the sidelines and claiming that Obama has been taking the economy to hell in a hand basket, the Republicans are now trying to claim that their stunning takeover of Congress in November was all it took to reverse the numbers.  This bold gambit initiated by the new Senate majority leader is falling flat but don't expect the GOP to let it go.  Now that they "are in charge" you can expect a whole lot of undeserved credit being meted out to themselves. The conservative narrative remains that Obama is a failure.  Rep. Andy Harris claims that the President doesn't understand the economy with his latest proposal to soak the rich, finding a friendly audience at Fox.  Meanwhile, the the Republican House, with 20 or more Democrats in tow, passed a bill to ease banking restrictions, exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.  It may clear the new Senate by the thinnest of margins...

It has really been amazing watching the backlash to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.  It brings to mind Carly Simon's classic song from the 70s, You're so vain .  You would think the shooting took place at the Harvard Lampoon Building, given the strange sense of intimacy American television pundits have with the incident.  I don't think it is because they have any special sense of camaraderie with the French.  After all, the French didn't stand behind us when we went to war in Iraq, supposedly to rid the world permanently of such acts of violence. Here we are 12 years later and we've come no closer to ridding the world of petty despots, much less terrorist cells in our midst.  If anything, the danger is now much more diffuse and harder to contain than it ever was before, given the number of homegrown jihadis who the news media has covered, such as Jihad Jane , apprehended in 2009 and finally sentenced to 10 years in prison for joining al Qaeda. This is nothi...

Everyone Loves Clint Clint and Frankie Valli on the set of Jersey Boys We can only hope that American Sniper isn't Clint's final statement.  One of the problems with doing a biopic on a figure that is a right wing icon is that you have to keep pretty much to the story.  There wasn't much room, nor does it appear much attempt, to place Chris Kyle within a larger context.  He remains an "American hero."  Clint seems perfectly fine with that. Just the same, Clint is being lauded for his efforts with a Director's Guild nomination, and an Oscar nomination for the movie.  Everyone loves Clint.  Pauline Kael is no longer around to call his motivations into question, although Amy Nicholson makes a game effort in her review for The Village Voice . We seem to need Clint almost as much as we need these war movies.  He has become an American icon himself, as witnessed in 2012 when he was called on to give a speech at the Republican National Convent...

It will probably take much longer to sort out the motives of the gunmen who brutally assaulted Charlie Hebdo than it has to hunt them down.  Of course, some news agencies haven't wasted any time coming up with motives and issuing a call to arms as fear spread quickly of similar attacks in the United States. Not like the US has been immune to such attacks.  The Boston Marathon bombing was eerily similar, even if the loss of life was substantially less.  It created an even greater panic with the city essentially shut down for a week, as police combed everywhere in the greater metropolitan region for the Tsarnaev brothers, gunning down one and eventually finding the other holed up in a boat in the backyard of someone's house. By contrast, the manhunt for the Kouachi brothers was much faster and efficient.  French police just didn't factor in another pair of extremists wreaking havoc in the city, holding up a kosher market that led to a bloody shootout, which ...

Melodrama in B flat Every once in awhile the old cowboy could lay his hat down and play a more sensitive role or indulge in a personal project like Bird , the story of Charlie Parker.  Eastwood has a genuine passion for jazz music.  His son Kyle is an accomplished jazz bassist, leading his own band.  Kyle has even helped score some of his father's movies, including Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby , and was featured in the "Stork Club Band" in J. Edgar . Clint plays piano himself, and did the segment " Piano Blues " for Martin Scorsese's PBS documentary on The Blues .  He had previously produced a documentary on Thelonious Monk, built around the great pianist's signature song, Straight No Chaser .  Unfortunately, Clint wasn't as successful with Bird , choosing to indulge in Charlie Parker's slow decay as a result of his heroin addiction, morosely played by Forest Whitaker. The venerable actor came into adulthood after World War I...