citizen jane

2011-02-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

No Sympathy for Diplomats and Oil Workers Trapped in Tripoli

Go ahead and call me insensitive. I’m finding it difficult to muster much sympathy for the droves of frantic foreigners fleeing Libya.

Mubarak isn’t exactly Ray Romano, but let's face it, everyone knew Moammar Ghadafi was a homicidal maniac who could come unhinged at any moment. So what were all those Westerners doing there?

I wager that most were there to make money and didn’t much care about Ghadafi’s politics. They care now.

They may as well say to the Libyan people: Yes, I’d like to cash in on your resources, but I’m not one of you and I should not be subjected to the vagaries of dictatorship. At the first sign of trouble, I expect my government to charter a plane or a ferry to get me (but not you) out of harm’s way. Even though I write the checks that keep him in power, the Crazy Colonel is your problem, not mine.

I’ve heard about enough about the poor frightened foreigners, waiting at the Tripoli airport for two days without food. BBC Radio 5 was focused more on the earthquake in New Zealand when I was listening today. The only mention of the turmoil in Libya was a report on the efficacy of the Foreign Ministry’s efforts to evacuate British citizens.

These economic migrants are not the story. They are a parasite on the people of their host countries, sucking out as much as they can during their short stints in country while looking with blind eyes at the physical and mental brutality these regimes inflict on their people. The violence and repression in Libya didn’t start last week.

Of course, there are Westerners of Libyan decent, aid workers and others who I don’t include in this criticism. But the diplomats, I cannot exempt. There was only one motive for the West’s decision to reestablish ties with the Tyrant of Tripoli. And it’s a familiar one.

There’s a reason why working in in places like Libya can be so lucrative. It’s called hazard pay, and this is the hazard.

tags: Libya, Ghadafi, Middle East, Diplomacy, Oil, Tripoli, Qaddafi

2009-10-09T02:17:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama Wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

2009-06-26T00:08:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson - 1958-2009

Citizen Jane joins with the rest of the world in mourning the loss of a legend. May he rest, finally, in peace.

tags: Michael Jackson

2008-08-29T04:30:00.001-07:00

The Audacity of Dreaming

CJ is not one to get all verklempt over political rhetoric. So, I’m more than a little grateful that, after so many weeks of pundits harping on the fact that Barack Obama would be accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior’s “I have a Dream” speech, the candidate himself chose not to dwell on the obvious significance.

But history cannot be denied. Even John McCain saw fit to take time away from impugning Mr. Obama’s patriotism to acknowledge the momentousness of the moment. Out of exceeding attention to fairness, I must state here that Mr. McCain argues that he is not questioning his opponent’s patriotism, but rather his judgment, when he says Mr. Obama would choose military defeat in Iraq in order to advance his political career. But as many have pointed out, if patriotism is love of country, it’s difficult to comprehend how a patriotic person could root for their own country’s defeat in battle.

"Too often the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed,” the Arizona senator said in a television spot released as Mr. Obama accepted the mantel of his party. "I wanted to stop and say, Congratulations. How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day. Tomorrow, we'll be back at it. But tonight, Senator, job well done.”

To me there is a slight note of condescension here. My doubts about his sincerity aside-- Mr. McCain has yet to explain to my satisfaction, his reasons for opposing the creation of the MLK holiday-- these are words from a man who not long ago denied Mr. Obama had ever accomplished anything at all. Whether he means it or not, it’s clear Mr. McCain’s advisors saw a need to be on record saying something positive. Maybe it was for the voters who claim to detest acrimonious politics. Or perhaps it was just for the history books.

As for Mr. Obama, his sole reference to the MLK anniversary came near the end of his remarks when he spoke of an “American spirit” that strives for improvement.

“It is that American spirit,” he said, “that American promise, that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.”

“It is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.”

Mr. Obama’s words bring to mind another great dreamer in American history. This being the 40th anniversary, Robert F. Kennedy’s ill-fated presidential campaign has cast a shadow over this historic year. Many linkages have been drawn between the two candidates’ youth, their oratory skills and their capacity to inspire.

BHO’s praise of the “American spirit” strikes me as the 2008 rendition of the dream so famously ascribed to RFK in the eulogy delivered by his brother.

“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

MLK dreamt things that had not yet come to pass. Black leaders of yesterday—including those who bravely marched with Dr. King—did not ask why not. They had good reason to believe they knew the answer. Today America has a leader who, unburdened by the memories of Selma or Memphis, 1963 or 1968, envisaged something never seen and dared to ask why not.

It’s an improbable story, as Barack Obama likes to say. John McCain calls it presumptuous. Some say it was serendipity in year when the new black was, well, black. To some it’s just a fairy tail.

Me, I’m putting my cynicism on the shelf for now. I’m calling it a dream come true.

tags: 2008 Election, Geraldine Ferraro, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrats, Election, Bill Clinton, DNC, Politics, History, Race, Republicans, MLK, RFK, I Have a Dream

2008-03-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

Ferraro is Right -- and 'Ridiculous'

Democratic trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro has become the latest casualty in the Democratic Party's civil war of recrimination. Ferraro is giving up her role on the finance committee of Hillary Clinton's presidential election campaign over controversial remarks she made about Ms. Clinton's rival. The former congresswoman drew outrage for saying that Barack Obama owes his successes in the Democratic primaries to his status as a black man.

Ms. Ferraro told a California newspaper last week, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

The Obama campaign repudiated the remarks. But Ms. Ferraro isn’t backing down. “Every time that campaign is upset about something, they call it racist,” she said on Tuesday. “I will not be discriminated against because I’m white. If they think they’re going to shut up Geraldine Ferraro with that kind of stuff, they don’t know me.” While Ms. Ferraro continues to stand by the remarks, she says she is stepping down to take pressure off Ms. Clinton.

In fact, the Obama campaign did not call Ms. Ferraro’s remarks racist. Mr. Obama did use an "r" word to describe them, but that word was "ridiculous."

"I think that her comments were ... ridiculous," he said at a Chicago campaign event. "I think they were wrong-headed. I think they are not borne out by our history or by the facts." Mr. Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was most vociferous in calling for Ms. Ferraro’s head.

In their fervor to prevent the candidate being defined exclusively by his race, the Obama people, at times, turn to histrionics. The Clintonistas do do a bit of race baiting. But the Obamaphiles overreact.

Let’s face it; Ms. Ferraro is right. Mr. Obama would not be in the position he is in, frontrunner in the Democratic nomination process, were it not for his race and gender. Oh, and every other demographic and socio-economic category to which he belongs. Oh, and every accomplishment, skill and biological footnote he has accumulated.

Ms. Ferraro’s remarks are not so much racist as they are pointless and, frankly, daft. Mr. Obama’s supporters are attracted to his candidacy because of who the candidate is, and this is irrevocably tied to his race and gender. (For the sake of simplicity, let’s set aside the fact that he is as much white as he is black.) If Mr. Obama had not been an African-American raised in a multiethnic, international family, he would not have had the life experiences, and developed the perspective, that make him into the inspirational figure so many people consider him to be.

This is true for all the presidential candidates. If John McCain had not been a white man, he would have had a much tougher time getting elected to Congress from the state of Arizona in 1982. If he had not been a man, it’s unlikely he would have found himself in the situation that led to his being taken prisoner of war in Vietnam. And that experience has contributed to a personal narrative that has served him well in politics.

If Hillary Clinton were not a white woman, it's doubtful she would have married Bill Clinton. She therefore might have missed out on serving the eight years as first lady that she now touts as preparatory experience for the Oval Office. If she were not a woman, she would not have had the life experiences that equipped her to deliver such a salient message at the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing.

Black voters overwhelmingly go for Mr. Obama. This seems to unsettle some people, but it shouldn’t. Mr. Obama inspires many blacks in much the same way Ms. Clinton inspires women. They know what he has likely overcome to get where he is.

Ms. Ferraro made history herself as the first female vice presidential candidate from a major political party. She acknowledges that her gender helped secure her spot on the ticket. Given this, I can only wonder what exactly was the point she was trying to make last week. Each of us owes our present position to the totality of our experiences, which, of course, is tinged by our race and gender. So what? It’s a wash.

tags: 2008 Primaries, Geraldine Ferraro, Barack Obama, Democrats, Election, Hillary Clinton, Gender, Politics, Race

2008-02-19T21:15:00.001-08:00

A King Without a Throne

One has to wonder what goes on in the psyche of someone like Bill Clinton when he’s standing nose-to-nose with a man in Ohio, speaking intently and wagging his finger within millimeters of the man’s face.

Ohio voter Robert Holeman contends Mr. Clinton actually made physical contact during the confrontation. “I think he even hit me in the face with his hand,” he said. “He did give me a little pop.”

The video is inconclusive. If Mr. Clinton did strike Mr. Holeman, it was very likely an accident. These things happen, especially when you’re standing nose-to-nose with a complete stranger shaking your finger in his face during a heated exchange.

And what did Mr. Holeman do to deserve this treatment? He expressed an opinion that differed from the one held by Mr. Clinton.

The Barack Obama supporter says he went to hear the former president speak in support of his wife’s candidacy with the intent to offer his view that Hillary Clinton should give up her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and endorse Mr. Obama. Mr. Clinton didn’t like that. “The president became very angry. He was very irate,” Mr. Holeman said. “It’s like the bully in the yard.”

Understandably, Mr. Clinton feels strongly about this election. But his behavior on the campaign trail suggests a pompous inability (or unwillingness) to accept that not everyone agrees with his assessment of the candidates or the issues. At another rally, Mr. Clinton angrily shouted at a protester who disrupted his speech to denounce abortion. After a lifetime in politics, Mr. Clinton should understand that hecklers are part of the deal. By now he should have learned a more graceful response.

Mr. Clinton is an unyoung man who keeps a grueling schedule. Perhaps he can be excused for falling asleep while seated in a prominent position on stage at a Martin Luther King Day event last month. This was embarrassing but laughable. One might equally overlook his subtle race baiting after the South Carolina primary. He’s an old hand in heavyweight politics and he plays to win. But his treatment of Mr. Holeman and the anti-abortion protester suggests a disconcerting intolerance for dissent.

It calls to mind King Juan Carlos’ outburst at the Ibero-American summit in November. The Spanish monarch responded to a tirade by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez by ejaculating -- in front of the gathered world leaders and the international press corps -- “Why don’t you shut up!” It was a decidedly undiplomatic response to what he considered the irritant of Mr. Chávez’s opinion (his harsh criticism of former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar). And it allowed Mr. Chávez to claim, rather convincingly, a residual imperialistic attitude on the part of the former colonial power.

The Spanish King and the former U.S. president have every right to disagree with the Mr. Chavezes and the Mr. Holemans of the world. Unfortunately they seem unable to acknowledge the equivalent right of Mr. Chávez and Mr. Holeman to voice their differing positions.

For Mr. Clinton, who’s been credited with resuscitating the Democratic Party, the dissent from within the party seems particularly difficult to stomach. And given the fabled love affair between Mr. Clinton and the black community, the fact that black Democrats are increasingly defecting to the Obama camp must be especially stinging. Mr. Clinton seems to think that black Democrats like Mr. Holeman should remain eternally grateful for the crumbs his administration threw their way and should therefore pledge their undying loyalty to the House of Clinton.

Things aren’t going his way.

Mr. Clinton’s response to the Democrats’ deviation from his script has shed some unflattering light on what kind of man he truly is. This new image of Mr. Clinton --going toe-to-toe with the unknown dissenter, finger wagging, eyes bulging, lips flapping, surrounded by a gaggle of camera-wielding onlookers -- has been illuminating. Hubris is a word that’s become almost synonymous with the Bush Administration’s follies, but Republicans don’t have a monopoly here.

See video of the confrontation here

President Clinton's MLK Day nap

King Juan Carlos vs President Chávez

tags: 2008 Primaries, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrats, Election, Hillary Clinton, Hubris, Hugo Chavez, King Juan Carlos, Politics, Robert Holeman

2006-11-26T00:13:00.000-08:00

Ti(red) Excuse for Corporate Philanthropy

How much would it cost Apple to hire celebrities of the caliber of Oprah Winfrey and Bono to endorse its products in a commercial?

The question came to mind as I watched Bono talking to Michael Holmes about his latest philanthropic venture on CNN International. Fresh off announcing Product Red on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Bono was gushing about all the companies that had become “red” and holding up samples of their products. CNNI devoted two entire segments to the interview.

Companies like Gap, Armani, Converse and Apple are producing (red) branded merchandize and promising to donate a portion of the proceeds for each (red) product sold to the UN-backed Global Fund to purchase antiretroviral drugs for AIDS patients in Africa. Motorola even has an exclusive wireless partnership deal with the project. For every (red) handset sold, Motorola donates an undisclosed sum to the Global Fund.

Product Red has an excellent pitchman. Unlike some other stars who use their charitable activities to promote their celebrity, Bono seems genuinely interested in the issues he champions. I personally like Bono. For a rock star he seems a decent fellow, despite being afflicted with the dreadful single-name virus. Part of me wanted to be as excited about the project as he appeared to be. But something about the idea didn’t sit well with me.

I don’t doubt that Bono really cares about getting antiretroviral medicine to people who need it. But I have little hope that the newly “red” companies are motivated by altruism. But then, that’s stated clearly in red and white in the Product Red Manifesto.

“(Red) is not a charity,” the document says, “It is simply a business model.”

An unscientific survey proves it is a very profitable business model. Not long after Bono’s announcement on Oprah, my sister tells me, she went to Gap in search of their Product Red tee-shirt. They were sold out. She inquired about when the next shipment was due to arrive in store and returned on that day. She shelled out $28 for a short-sleeved, red cotton tee-shirt with “inspi(red)” printed across the front.

My sister likes to shop. But she insists she wouldn’t ordinarily spend that kind of money on a Gap tee-shirt. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she shopped at Gap before the (red) tee-shirt expedition.

When I relayed the story to my other sister, she told me that she herself had her eye on another Bono-linked tee-shirt. This one sports the word “one” in reference to U2’s hit song with a humanitarian message. The One Campaign combats AIDS and promotes trade in Africa.

With the holiday season upon us, conscientious Santas like my sisters are lining up to buy (red) gifts for their loved ones happy in the knowledge that they will be giving two gifts at once. Of the $200 dollars shoppers will hand over for a shiny (red) ipod, Apple donates ten bucks to the Fund.

It is ten dollars well invested.

I go back to my original question. What would a company like Apple pay for such effusive praise from the likes of Bono? The U2 frontman and fair trade campaigner was actually displaying the products on Oprah, CNN and in countless other media events. On top of the incomparable advertisement, being seen to support a worthy cause builds immeasurable goodwill for the company that extends beyond the (red) products to the entire Apple brand, all for a paltry 5 percent of the ipod’s retail price.

Still, you could argue that it’s better than companies that do nothing to redress the AIDS crisis. But is it really? Basically, the "red" companies are telling us that they know people are dying of AIDS because they lack the drugs they need to fight the disease, that they have the money to buy the drugs and that they won’t take action unless we first buy their overpriced products. The money for the drugs is coming from the consumers, and the companies are racking up sales while polishing their reputations.

Enter the calls for a boycott. Groups like Sh(red) are attacking Product Red for embracing the capitalist paradigm that leads to such inequity in the first place. Critics accuse affiliated companies of exploiting the AIDS pandemic to make a buck. They have a point. And if the goal is to raise as much money as possible to fight AIDS, I can’t see the benefit of exclusive deals like the one Motorola enjoys.

Whether they are (red), blue or black, people will continue to buy ipods. If a person wants to spend $200 on a personal music system, I’d just as soon have them buy the blood-colored one and hope that some of the money finds its way to where it’s needed. For those who are really interested in fighting AIDS and improving the world, I’d advise they bypass the middleman. Buy a (recycled) ipod from craigslist and donate the savings directly to the Global Fund or a charity of their choosing.

Bono and Oprah are blessed with wealth and cursed with conscience. They’ve made the mistake of becoming informed to a point where anyone with an ounce of empathy would be uncomfortable with his or her teeming bank account. I don’t begrudge them whatever they need to do to sleep easier at night knowing how other people live. Unfortunately, this project probably does more to boost American Express and Armani's share prices than to boost hopes of abating the ravages of AIDS in Africa.

get more information:

tags: Product Red, The One Campaign, Global Fund, Charity, AIDS, HIV, Bono, Africa, Sh(red), corporate philanthropy

2006-11-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

U.S. Voters Slower Than Brits, But Finally Arrive at Same Conclusion

On a cool day under fair skies, droves of voters resolved to send a clear message that they disapproved of their leader’s policies on Iraq. Though the head of government was not in jeopardy of losing his position, the rank and file of his party would be purged from the legislature, making it impossible for the party, accustomed to power, to carry on ignoring the concerns of the electorate.

I was in London when Tony Blair’s Labour Party suffered a bloody nose in the UK parliamentary elections of May 2005. But of course this scenario just as well describes how things played out on Election Day here in New York and across the United States. Only in New York the sky was gray and threatening rain.

Partly on the strength of his approval ratings, Mr. Blair forged ahead in Iraq, scorning the cautionary advice of some members of his own party and the vocal dissent of the majority of the British public. Voters felt left out of the decision-making process and determined to voice their ire. Yet they weren’t inspired by the opposition Tories, the conservative party that offered no opposition to Mr. Blair’s Iraq policy. Deserving or not, the Tories benefited from the anti-Labour backlash. So did smaller parties who offered stiffer resistance on Iraq but didn’t stand a chance of amassing a majority. The Liberal Democrats picked up seats as did the newly-formed Respect Party coalition, led by the polemical George Galloway, an ex-Labour member whose only platform issue seemed to be his abhorrence for the Iraq War.

In Britain the parliamentary elections determine who heads the government. Voters elect their districts’ Members of Parliament, and the leader of the party in the majority becomes (or remains) Prime Minister. Although many Brits would have cheered Mr. Blair’s eviction from Downing Street, the Tory leader, Michael Howard, was an even more dismal prospect. And he supported the war. Voters decided to leave Labour in power but teach Mr. Blair a lesson.

When the dust settled, Mr. Blair retained his office but with a much reduced majority. It did more than just give the Prime Minister an education in humility. It also put an end to the days when Mr. Blair could count on his party’s massive majority to push legislation through parliament virtually uncontested. He would now have to worry over the support of individual Labour MPs and even lobby support from other parties. In other words, he’d have to seek backing, almost ask permission, before acting. Call it checks and balances.

In the beginning, Americans were generally more supportive of the War than the British who largely opposed the policy of preemptive strike even before the first bursts of “Shock and Awe.” Perhaps that’s why it’s taken longer for Americans to serve up their punishment. Timing and the differences in the two countries’ political systems could have something to do with it as well.

American voters first had an opportunity to pass judgment on Mr. Bush’s presidency in the 2004 elections. But this was only a year and a half into the war, and many still held out hope for a positive outcome. September 11 was fresher in the mind, and the public wanted to believe that the war in Iraq was making them safer somehow. The specter of weapons of mass destruction remained. And alas, the Democrats didn’t offer an attractive alternative either in policy or politicians. John Kerry failed to articulate a clear vision. Nor did he inspire strong passions. Voters require at least one of the two.

After his 2004 victory, President Bush declared that he had earned political capital in that election, adding that he intended to spend it. After the inconclusive election that put him in the Oval Office in the first place, he felt vindicated to have been elected again, with a majority of the vote this time. He indulged in a little swagger.

Mr. Bush likes to divide people into two camps, those “with” him and those “against.” At some point, it seems he decided that the people who are with him are the only people who matter. Like Mr. Blair, he began to take power for granted.

Two years later Americans have made it clear that they’ve had enough, and they’ve taken it out on Republican candidates for national and state offices. As with Mr. Blair in the UK election, being affiliated with President Bush was a liability at the ballot box. Try as they may to distance themselves from their party’s leader, Republicans were voted out largely for their GOP membership.

President Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” took back the White House for the Republicans in 2000 just as Prime Minister Blair’s “New Labour” brought his party in from the wilderness in 1997. But in politics, you are only as popular as the last election says you are. Because of Iraq, both men will finish out their terms as lame ducks, with many in their parties anxiously awaiting their departures.

Republicans would do well now to heed the Labour Party’s present troubles. Even after the parliamentary elections, Labour remained the strongest party in Britain. The Tories were seen as the butt of all jokes and deemed completely unelectable in the foreseeable future. A year after the vote, it is Labour that is in disarray, and the Conservatives are tipped to take power in the next general election. But Labour has until 2009 or 2010 to try to erase the memories of their mistakes. The Republicans have just two short years.

tags: 2006 election, Congress, George W. Bush, Republicans, Democrats, Tony Blair, Labour, Tories, politics,Iraq War

2006-10-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

But what about your court, and all this pageantry?

Because I have friends in high places (the Writers’ Guild of America), I managed to snag an invitation to a private screening of Sofia Coppola’s new movie “Marie Antoinette.” The “Lost in Translation” director’s punk-rock take on the life of France’s last queen features Kirsten Dunst in the title role and miles of sumptuous fabric. It is visually decadent but otherwise unremarkable.

The film follows the young royal from her seemingly idyllic life as a daughter of Austria’s Hapsburg dynasty through a long bumpy journey to France where she is introduced to her intended, the future French King Louis XVI and to the uncomfortably regimented life of the French court at Versailles.

To mitigate her imprisonment and her husband’s sexual indifference to her, Marie Antoinette indulges in fanciful frocks, perpetual partying and lots and lots of dessert. Meanwhile the French masses are quietly starving. It is only when a peasant mob threatens to storm Versailles that the Queen is roused from her self-imposed intellectual exile.

The movie ends as the King and Queen are being taken away from Versailles to be imprisoned while the Revolutionaries debate their fate and that of the French Monarchy. It ends just as Marie Antoinette is about to become a historically significant and, in truth, interesting character.

The question-and-answer session with the actors that followed the screening left more of an impression than the movie itself.

The moderator was a film critic from “US Weekly” magazine. She introduced the Q & A by announcing how thrilled she was to have been asked to host, since she absolutely loved the movie.

There was a pause before the diminutive Dunst came bounding down the side alley announcing that “Jason [Schwartzman, her costar and Coppola’s cousin] is in the bathroom.”

They decided to start without him, which seemed like the right thing to do until it became apparent that neither Ms. Dunst nor the moderator had charisma enough to carry the event on their own. After a few awkward exchanges, Ms. Dunst admited defeat. “Where’s Jason?” she pleaded, “I’ve never done this without him.”

Thankfully it wasn't long before Mr. Schwartzman appeared, professing his embarrassment at having been caught in the men’s room. From that point, he took the reigns and at least made an attempt to be both clever and funny, though not often successfully.

Mr. Schwartzman explained that Ms. Coppola decided to cut the movie off where she did because she did not want to tell the Marie Antoinette story that everyone would recognize. She wanted to tell the tale of a young girl thrown into a situation for which she was not prepared. Early on, the director had planned to take the story all the way to its gory conclusion. But she decided that the film would have been too long unless she left out much of the meat from the Queen’s earlier years.

Fair enough, but to me the film, as it is, is too long. Two hours is more than I want to spend watching a young girl oscillate between manic shopping and gambling and anguish over her husband’s failure to plant his royal seed.

The moderator sprinkled her questions with compliments and every other audience member who stood up to ask a question began by declaring that they loved the film. I was struck by this because, while it may have been mildly entertaining, I didn’t see anything to love in this film except, maybe, the soundtrack.

The second time an audience member remarked on Ms. Dunst’s strong performance, I began to wonder whether I was the only one who found her a little disappointing. I’ve always thought of Kirsten Dunst as a fine actor, but in this movie, I felt she sometimes sounded like a person reciting memorized lines rather than speaking with conviction. To be fair, a lot was asked of her since she is in almost every frame of the movie. And her wordless emotional scenes were convincing.

Near the end an audience member asked Ms. Dunst if she saw any parallels between her character’s experience and her own real life. Ms. Dunst answered that, like in Hollywood, there was a lot of gossip at Versailles, but that is where the similarities end.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be Queen,” she said.

Always a polite audience member, I had to stifle a laugh at this point. Putting aside the fact that, as an actor, to imagine what it was like to be Queen was precisely what she was charged with doing, I couldn’t accept that Ms. Dunst didn’t see any further similarities between her character and herself.

At that moment, her and Mr. Schwartzman’s “handlers,” standing off to one side, were signaling to the moderator that it was time to wrap things up. I’ve seen pictures in magazines of Ms. Dunst draped in gowns and jewels that cost more than most people’s annual salaries; I certainly could point out a few more similarities.

Though we espouse equality, we humans love to place other mere mortals above ourselves. Since we’ve dethroned almost all the world’s monarchs, we have only our celebrities to worship now.

That’s why Ms. Dunst is paid obscene amounts to do a job that most people would do just for the fun of it. The hoi polloi are taxed ten bucks a movie to support her lifestyle. We are told that it is because she possesses a unique talent, like a noble birth, and so deserves to be where we should never aspire to reach. She herself is told this, and she believes it because an audience full of journalists, courtesans by another name, pretends to love a completely forgettable film just to flatter her.

Coppola seems to want to tell us that it wasn’t Marie Antoinette’s fault that France went bankrupt; she was a regular girl, too wrapped up in her own problems to notice the difficulties her countrymen faced. When she did get wind of it, she was really quite saddened and even refrained from buying new diamonds. And she most definitely did not say, “Let them eat cake!” when told that the peasants had no bread.

This interpretation misses the point that if the Queen was ignorant, it was because she chose to be so. Had she cared to know how the peasants lived, she could have seen it. Certainly when she was imprisoned, and her life depended on it, she developed a keen interest in politics. Before then, she chose to stay isolated and insulated in all the comforts of Versailles. That alone was an offense.

The Q & A wrapped up and about half a dozen audience members hurried to the front seeking brushes with fame. Later, as they waited for me to come out of the restroom, my friends watched Ms. Dunst and crew walk past on their way out of the theater. The Chanel handbag she so casually carried could have paid someone’s rent or bought groceries for a family of four for a month.

Coppola film asks us to forgive the poor Queen in the same manner as we’re told that we should pity celebrities because they have to sign autographs and have their pictures taken everywhere they go. I, for one, have little sympathy for either.

tags: Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Celebrities, French Revolution, film

2006-10-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Happy 300 Millionth, America. The More the Merrier?

A digital “clock” on the Census Bureau’s web site ticks up one number every 11 seconds. The nine-figure number represents the agency’s best guess at the number of people currently living in the United States. Taking into account that a child is born about every 7 seconds and someone dies every 13 seconds, and weighing other factors such as immigration and emigration, the government estimates the U.S. population currently stands at 299,988,650. Smarter people than me, or least people who have more time on their hands, have calculated that the number will reach 300 million early Tuesday morning Eastern Time.

Three hundred million is a nice, round number, though completely meaningless. The estimate is based on data from the 2000 census, and the census is accurate only to a point. Assuming that the experts aren’t way off base, the 300 millionth American may have been born last month, or he or she may cross the Rio Grande two weeks from now. It doesn’t really matter if the actual U.S. population is 290 million, 320 million or somewhere in between. The point is it’s a heck of a lot of people… and growing.

The U.S. population is growing faster than other industrialized nations. With birth rates hovering right around replacement levels (meaning the birth rate is about equal to the death rate), and tight immigration controls, most Western European countries’ populations are holding steady.

Right about here is where some American pundits launch into the familiar tirade against immigration.

Immigration accounts for 40 percent of U.S. population growth. The other 60 percent is attributed to children born in the country, and many of these are born to immigrant parents. In effect, immigration accounts for pretty much all of U.S. population growth.

I won't bother commenting on the common, and xenophobic, complaints about altering the nation’s cultural identity. But I can appreciate the concerns of those who fear the ecological consequences of all this growth. More people equal more pollution. And as more economic migrants move to the cities, more families will seek the space and quiet of suburbia. More wild places will be tamed into tidy subdivisions and paved over with cul-de-sacs. In other words, more of nature will be given over to suburban sprawl.

I take a world view on this. Whether in the United States, in their countries of origin or elsewhere, people will be a tax on the environment. To argue for keeping them out of the United States on environmental grounds, is to argue that one patch of Earth is more sacred than another.

The government isn’t going to halt immigration any time soon. That’s because the economic benefits of this influx of human capital are clear. Germany and Japan face the threat that their populations could soon begin to decline, and the economic implications are dire. As their people age and retire, there will be too few working-age Germans and Japanese to support the pensioners. Meanwhile, the US economy continues to grow on the backs of immigrants, who are almost entirely of a working age.

The United States population is well over half that of all of the members of the European Union combined. But it is a dwarf beside China and India at 1.3 billion and 1.1 billion respectively. Even with an accelerating growth rate – the population is expected to reach 400 million in just 37 years – it will take quite some time for the United States to catch up to these two demographic goliaths. But there is one key area in which the United States beats China, India and the rest of the world: consumption.

The average American consumes 30 times as much energy each day as the average Indian, 13 times as much as the average Chinese and more than twice as much as the average Japanese. The United States consumes more oil, more electricity, more water, more paper and more metals than any other country.

A second ticker on the Census Bureau’s website tallies the population of the entire world. Currently it's just over 6.5 billion. With a little basic arithmetic, we can determine that Americans make up less than five percent of the world’s population. Basically one-twentieth of the world’s people consume a massive chuck of its resources, by some estimates 40 percent.

And that’s not all. Americans consume 60 percent of the world’s illegal drugs. They drink more coffee and eat more ice cream (and everything else) than any other nation. Americans take more dietary supplements than ever before. They produce nearly three-quarters of the planet’s toxic waste.

Besides the several cars in their driveways and rows of designer shoes in their closets, Americans have little to show for all their consumerism. The number of self-help tomes on bookstore shelves provides anecdotal evidence, but there is a growing stack scientific data confirming that happiness cannot be bought.

For more than two decades, the University of Michigan has been asking people all over the world how happy they are, on a scale of one to five. Happiologists consider Michigan’s “World Values Survey” to be the most reliable scientific narrative of global gladness.

I’m sure you’ve surmised that the United States does not top Michigan’s list of happiest countries. In 2002 the university released only the top five countries. The United States is nowhere on that short list. Given ten guesses, I doubt many people would guess that the country whose citizens described themselves as happiest is, in fact, Nigeria.

The CIA World Factbook reports Nigeria’s per capita GDP was $1400 in 2005, compared to a U.S. per capita GDP of $41,800. That means that for each person, Nigeria’s economy produced one-thirtieth the wealth created by the US economy. Sixty percent of Nigerians live below the official poverty level. Many Nigerians can’t afford multiple pairs of shoes, let alone Jimmy Choos. Yet Nigerians are happier than Americans.

Mexico ranks second on the happiest countries list, followed by Venezuela, El Salvador and Puerto Rico.

By just asking people whether they are happy, you run the risk of getting results skewed by individuals’ immediate moods and their cultural ideas about admitting or denying one’s happiness. So the survey goes a step further and asks each participant to think about his or her life as a whole and report his or her general satisfaction with it. Here Nigeria drops down to 19, but the United States is only four spots ahead of it at 15. At the top of the list are Puerto Rico, Mexico, Denmark, Colombia and Ireland.

All of the shopping on Madison Avenue and Rodeo Drive doesn’t appear able to raise America’s happiness quotient. Perhaps the answer is to reshape immigration policy to admit more people from the happiest countries.

That brings us back to the people who complain that there isn’t enough room in America for the next 100 million. To the extent that an increasing population puts a strain on resources, immigration may indeed be a serious problem, particularly if the new arrivals succeed in fully assimilating into American culture. That is, if they grow into AC-dependant, SUV-driving, mall-trolling, burger-chomping, big-gulping, garbage-producing couch potatoes.

sources:
Census Bureau population clock
World Values Survey
CIA Factbook on Nigeria
CIA Factbook on the United States
necessaryprose.com
thehappinessshow.com
biopsychiatry.com

tags: 300 Million, U.S. Population, environment, pollutionn, immigration, happiness