(Re)Birth of Venus
Shit overflowing.
Shit overflowing.
"Born Yesterday is pretty fabulous. At least until it sinks in that it's just as applicable today (especially today!) as it was in 1950. In that year, it could have been warning against the House Un-American Activities Committee, which ultimately wrecked lives, but failed. But today, the movie is depressing when you realize that Broderick Crawford's Harry Brock is in charge of the country, the Senate and the judiciary and is sitting in the White House tweeting."
RIP Amara Renas and all the other unknown women and men and children. May you haunt our collective memory forever.
Tragically brilliant.
"It's well worth a challenging read-and-think on everyone's part at this particular moment in the country and society."
"What's our death toll up to in this week's boutique pay lots of money and die fashionably sweepstakes? 19?"
"On every airline flight, a crew member talks to passengers in the exit rows to see whether they can, as Federal Aviation Administration regulations specify, “pass expeditiously through the emergency exit” if needed. Given how passengers have grown in inverse proportion to the spaciousness of airliner seats, anything like “expeditious” evacuation of an entire airliner seems doubtful."
The story is sordid and long, but the details were made clear by Matt Viser's excellent Globe piece. To wit: Lorenzo sold the Donald the Eastern Shuttle for an overvalued $365 million (if DT had created a brand-new shuttle from the ground up with brand-new planes, not old worn-out 727s, estimates were that he could have done it for $300 million.) Of course, the money was all borrowed. It was 1989; Eastern (and Continental) were already almost dead from Lorenzo's sledgehammer and the economy was tanking. Pan Am 103 was bombed, the first Gulf War was about to begin. It was incredibly bad judgement to overpay a bunch of other peoples' money for something that was guaranteed to tank.