Author: hankkalet

I went to see the new James Bond film last night, “Casino Royale” — a fast-paced action flick of the like we have not had from the Bond franchise for too long.

I am a longtime Bond fan who, sometime midway through the Roger Moore years, thanks to the obsession with gadgets and a softening of bond’s character — he became a bit of a snarky, effete spy whose vicious streak was on the wane. I missed the Dalton years — which was lucky, from what I’m told — and caught most of the Brosnan films on TV. Brosnan somehow brought back some of the Connery edge (that biting will to violence, that bit of sadism that allowed Connery to be more than the dandy that Moore became), but not enough — and the increasingly dopey stories strained credulity even more than the Roger Moore-era.

All that is water under the bridge now. The new Bond rocks. Flat out rocks. This film is stripped of gadetry, relying on brute force and speed. Daniel Craig is the most physical Bond going, full of menace, and the movie is loaded with chase sequences and explosions.

Bond sweats and bleeds; he runs, jumps and fights. There is dust and mud and a vicious torture scene in which a knotted rope is used to do the damage (compare with the cockamamie contraption to which Brosnan was strapped in… in … I can’t remember which film, but that should say a lot by itself).

The film also nods at its predecessors — turning the cliched punchlines into new jokes, giving the audience a glimpse into how Bond’s personality develops. This is an origin story, more psychologically complex than the previous movies, the dark edge, the mistrust, the gleeful sadism — you can sense it coming.

There are flaws — the love sequence that covers a chunk of the back end of the film, while necessary, is too long and could have been tightened — and the plot stretches the limits, though it never crosses the line in the way that the Brosnan movies did or that Moore’s Bond did in “Moonraker.”

Overal, this was one thrilling ride and should re-energize the moribund franchise. It did for me.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

This is an interesting idea from Lawrence Township, one I’d like to see the powers in South Brunswick and Monroe (and every other municipalty) consider.

Councilman Greg Puliti is proposing that Lawrence pay for local political campaigns.

Mr. Puliti said he reviewed several years of Township Council candidate campaign finance reports.

“It boiled down to about $10,000 or $16,000 spent on a Township Council election campaign,” he said. “It averaged out to about $5,000 per candidate.”

Township Council candidates typically spend money on fliers, newspaper advertisements and lawn signs promoting their candidacies, he said. They may also rent space on a billboard.

Mr. Puliti said the municipal budget would include money for the campaigns that could be budgeted in small increments. Allocating $15,000 or $30,000 in an overall municipal budget of $37 million is less than one-half of one percent, he said.

Certainly interesting, though it needs to be fleshed out some. Right now, there does not appear to be any locally run “clean-elections” programs in New Jersey and only a few nationally, but the state is experimenting with a program for the Legislature and it is possible that something could work at the local level.

The basic idea behind clean elections is that candidates would raise seed money — a specific amout of locally generated donations in $5 and $10 increments — to qualify for public funding. Those that qualify would get a set amount of cash to run in exchange for promising to abide by spending limits. Candidates could opt out and spend more, but that would trigger an equalizer clause — extra cash for the candidates who participate.

There are other options, as well, such as the model ordinance drafted by the Citizens’ Campaign, under which towns would provide matching funds and/or in-kind services — Web site or cable TV access, for instance — in exchange for abiding by limits.

The idea is to cleanse the system of private cash, which creates the impression that candidates and elected officials are more concerned about their contributors than their actual voting constituents, and to level the playing field for minority and third-party candidates.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Here is this week’s Dispatches from The Cranbury Press on the township ethics panel.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The votes are in and Jack Murtha is not. Well, he is not the majority leader, though he will head up an important committee overseeing the war.

What is striking about the coverage of this insider battle is how much ink is being invested and how the Beltway press has turned what essentially is a minor news story into a 24-hour yackfest.

The basic theme, as Glenn Greenwald points out in his Unclaimed Territory blog, is that the selection of Steny Hoyer as majority leader over Murtha is a major defeat for Nancy Pelosi and that the Democrats are badly divided. (There are rivalries, but aside from the recent rubber-stamp GOP, there always is.) But as Greenwald says, there is no evidence to suggest this and it seems nothing more than the kind of speculative nonsense that makes watching cable news such a surreal experience.

It is important to remember that the Beltway pundits are not journalist and bear no similarity to the people doing good work, digging up information that is important for the democracy. At best, they should be viewed as Vegas odds-makers who refuse to do any research.

The other issue is the general tenor of attacks on Pelosi, which are similar in their tone and substance to those made against Hillary Clinton — I actually saw the word “catfight” used. This is all about gender and nothing else.

The kind of behavior she is being criticized for is exactly the kind of behavior these same useless talking heads praise in male politicians.

And one last thing: Why is it, as Keith Olbermann said last night, that a knock-down dragout that resulted in the return of a compromised racist to the Senate GOP leadership is being painted as a comeback story, while a battle for the second-in-command slot among Congressional Democrats is the tsunami that will wipe Nancy Pelosi out of office.

As Eric Alterman would say, “what liberal media?”

It is important to remember what the November election was about — Iraq and the eroding middle class — and that elections for leadership positions are about insider influence and favors and that both of these men were badly flawed. The other leadership fights — in particular, the one between Jane Harman (wrong on the war, on eavesdropping and torture) and Alcee Hardee (ethically challenged) — will come down to the same political calculus.

Nancy Pelosi, ultiamtely, will be judged on what the Democrats accomplish under her leadership and these petty leadership fights — analagous, really, to the selection of team captain for a college football team or a fraternity or sorority president — will be long forgotten.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Trolling the blogosphere again and came across The Center of New Jersey Life, by Sharon GR (who also posts to Blanton and Ashton’s). Interesting item on cover songs, so I thought I’d offer a brief list — not exhaustive and definitely not in any particular order:

• R.E.M. doing three Velvet Underground covers — “There She Goes Again,” “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Femme Fatale” and their cover of Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic”
• The Inmates covering “Dirty Water”
• Bob Dylan’s first album
• The Beatles’ versions of “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Long Tall Sally” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzie”
• The Rolling Stones’ “(Just My) Imagination” and “I Wanna Be Your Man”
• Fountains of Wayne, doing, yes, “…Baby One More Time”
• and Cake doing “Perhaps.”

That’s a start, anyway. Anyone care to chime in?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick