Alan Farrell is one of the few people I know anymore who actually knows a lot of Latin and Greek as well. "Beati pauperes spiritu." This is from this movie review. It applies neatly in the context of the piece but even more so to the race of Wal-Mart managers now running the US Government. Hmm. Maybe this all comes together somehow.
Pat Lang
BG Alan Farrell.
Now that's a review, well done Farrell!
Posted by: taters | 19 April 2006 at 06:53 PM
I enjoyed the review and the movie. But REALLY enjoyed the "walmart" line Pat. You hit the nail on the head with that one! Sadly.
Posted by: jonst | 23 April 2006 at 06:10 AM
One more thought…speaking of the Wal-Mart line. I was watching a CBS DOD ‘reporter’ responding to a question regarding the alleged lack of armor on our vehicles in Iraq. Now I don’t know the enough about the particulars of this issue to say anything helpful one way or another on it. However, his response, which he obviously thought was perfectly acceptable, was: “well, it takes a long time to put added armor on what are essentially Jeeps. 3 years might seem like a long time but not…. [for a job like this]”. None of the subsequent callers, that I heard, thought this explanation was curious. Or ironic. Or, indeed, worthy of any further comment as far as I could tell.
PL, yesterday I went to my favorite bagel shop in South Portland. I had to ride by the exact same spot where this nation once built, and launched, Liberty Ships round the clock. This is what we have allowed ourselves to come to. We casually offer, and evidently, accept, excuses why we can’t refit 20K ‘jeeps’. A nation of “Wal-Mart mangers” indeed. [on an entirely different note…its interesting to me how my MSFT spell-check corrects my spelling of Wal-Mart, but not word “google”. When I write that latter word the spell check tells me I have misspelled a word}
Posted by: jonst | 23 April 2006 at 06:57 AM
jonst
South Pohtland... I must have mentioned that I went to high school in Sanfuhd (Sanford) and wuhked on a lobstah boat out of Kennebunkpoht when I was a kid. pat.
Posted by: W. Patrick Lang | 23 April 2006 at 07:13 AM
Pl,
Oh yes, you mentioned it to me. Its all still as pretty as ever. And lobstering still as tough a job as it was back then PL. I salute you! If you ever get up here, and you have the time, I'd love to buy you a drink. There is a waterfront place right where they use to build, and launch, the ships. By the way..do you recall Ft. Williams? With the lighthouse? I live a block away from the park.
Posted by: jonst | 23 April 2006 at 08:53 AM
I thought of Maine as the last resort; it turned out to be the best.
It is changing. Thanks to colonization by people like me, generational turnover, and mass communications, it is becoming more and more difficult to hear the accents that sound almost like rural English. There is an ethic associated with those accents.
It is also a virtual laboratory for observing the fallout [blowback?] of national policy from the welfare state to the real estate follies. The landscape can recover; it always has. I hope societies are as resilient.
Posted by: RJJ | 24 April 2006 at 11:18 AM
last resort = (literal sense) refuge - cowardice in the face of late twentieth century prospects.
Posted by: RJJ | 24 April 2006 at 11:46 AM