“At these heights, comparisons make no sense,” said Brodsky (not quoted verbatim).

For me, black and white movies are lamed, I am not drawn into that world enough, afterwards it seems that all the action took place at night. Hence, only color…

Yi Yi (Taiwanese film about growing up), Cinema Paradiso, Heat (the heist movie with LA colors at dusk as one of the stars), Man of Marble (Wajda movie about Communist propaganda), Silent Revolution (German students protest against Hungary 1956) Hamlet by Kenneth Branagh, some of these may have been overlooked and deserve the attention of my fellow isteve commentators. But a best movie? No such thing exists. Like “most beautiful woman,” or “most impressive mountain”…

The really anger-provoking thing here is the behaviour of William and Kate. Throw the old lady to the wolves, next day listen to a black harangue them about imperialism, keep a dignified silence, pretending or being too stupid to realize that there is a war on, against the UK and against England. Useless average people, their only skill is wearing expensive clothes. Both Harry and William reflect poorly on Charles.

$865 per store per day at 1,900 stores, hard to believe.

“The reason for this long track record of futility is that American conservatism has always been dominated by bourgeois objectivism. Unlike Randian objectivism, bourgeois objectivism is the assumption that the world runs by a set of immutable laws and that the point of politics is to adapt to those laws. Discovering the right answer is the point of all political activity as once the answer is clear, everything falls into place.”

https://www.takimag.com/article/a-history-of-failure/

The nice bourgeois does not account for evil, a minor oversight…

Sorry, two superficial American stylists and pornographers, interesting for adolescents. Roth’s books seem mostly a symptom of mental illness. Portnoy… And Updike skates smoothly on the surface of things, prosperous and glib. The only recent American authors who have engaged deeply and bravely with this country’s reality have been Wolfe and Bellow. Please review Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), it has NY in a racial breakdown, and a prototypical Elon Musk trying to get to the moon… it could have been written yesterday.

Another factor–driving while skunked… legalized weed and what else are you gonna do when home-trapped anyway. Among my accidental acquaintances, the boredom seems to have led to a massive increase in smoking it.

Polish newspapers are reporting after Le Figaro that the beheader was refused asylum in Poland 2007. Partly because of this, he was also refused asylum initially in France, but the decision was overturned on appeal. The next step would be to put the traitorous judges themselves on trial…

https://www.outono.net/elentir/2020/10/18/bravo-for-poland-denied-asylum-to-islamist-who-has-beheaded-a-teacher-in-france/

The quarantine order is a dead letter, at least if you arrive by car. I know this from someone who came from South Carolina last week, with SC plates, then went to Vermont, came back to NY, went away again up north, came back. Car parked on the street the entire time when here. No one will give a proverbial —-.

There is no war on drugs. Just as there was no war on the corona flu. In contrast with Asia. Control the borders, execute the drug dealers–that would be a start. China, Japan, Singapore, Korea… these countries don’t have much of a drug problem. But for the 85 IQ, poor impulse control crowd, maybe drugs are the only thing they have? Controlled euthanasia. Especially in an atomized society with an amoral culture. Again, not like NE Asia. When you watch a movie like Uncut Gems, a slogan comes to mind, “This is your culture on drugs.”

“Buweiser” is the adjective of “Budweis,” the German name for Ceske Budejovice. It is thus at least a misnomer to brew a Budweiser in St. Louis. In the same way, Pilsner comes from Plzen. The acceptable compromise worked out by the courts, at least in Europe, is to let the Americans have Bud and Pils. Place names as trademarks are a settled issue in Europe and Asia, champagne must come from the eponymous region of France, same with Kobe beef. Where you come from is who / what you are; this should not be objectionable to conservatives.

In other news, Trump tweets a clip of a fat old white guy shouting “white power” while driving a golf cart.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8467959/Trump-posts-video-supporter-yelling-white-power-claims-stopped-statue-vandalism.html

Maybe this makes sense to him in some 1980’s NY irony / snark kind of way, but for the rest of us, it seems as demented as anything Biden might tweet or say. A parody of an argument, with a whiff of ancien regime or Romanov cluelessness. Trump is too old school citizenist or too coward to make any sort of HBD argument. Fine. But “white power” as an old fat guy? The “white power” part allows everyone to paint Trump as a racist; the old white guy part of this clip encourages the blacks and the young to punch up.

Trump really is worse than useless; he energizes the opposition while doing nothing for us, indeed discouraging our side. Mr Sailer, perhaps it’s time to pin a thread at the top of the page: Somebody Else 2020. Would it have to be Pence? Could the convention still nominate someone else? And if Pence takes over, who goes into the VP slot?

The degree to which Russia indeed is a Western country is up for debate. Stalin did perhaps decisive damage to the genetic fitness and cultural continuity of the land. And to all the WW II amateur historians, let’s remember that Stalin was Hitler’s loyal ally until 1941, and refused to the end to believe that Russia would be attacked, leading to catastrophic early losses. Stalin bled out Russia more than Hitler did; as in America, the real enemy has been internal…

The cathedral is ok if a bit too pomo. The Germans have been doing very interesting stuff with their reconstructions, which continue to this day. Of course there are projects in the East, where at many sites grass grew for 70 years. But even in Frankfurt work is being done, Brutalist buildings from the 1950’s to the 1970’s are being torn down and replaced with earlier, pre-war architecture. Imagine tearing down the Boston City Hall and reconstructing what had been there before!

Some examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom-R%C3%B6mer_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Palace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumarkt_(Dresden)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Potsdam

Berlin is very spread out with multiple urban centers, and is difficult to appreciate.

In Warsaw, the major rebuilding project of recent years was this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jab%C5%82onowski_Palace

Ironically, the problem of historical preservation (interesting cellars were discovered and the preservation office vetoed the plan of building an underground car park) temporarily derailed this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Palace

It is really hard to imagine for Americans how closely identity is bound up with location in Europe. Howard Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere is the book for this…

Wikipedia is convenient, but the inexhaustible source for architecture and development news is http://www.skyscrapercity.com. Many of the local forums there are in the local languages, though.

Camp of the Saints is “not available” on amazon, even in the kindle edition. The cheapest used copy there (or on abebooks, which is owned by amazon) is close to a hundred dollars. Same story with The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal As Ethnic Cleansing, the cheapest copy is $160. This is how we lose and lose.

In China, as well as in Hong Kong and Korea, the vast majority lives in housing estates, which consist of several high rises sharing common facilities such as a pool, parking podium, shopping mall… (Japan is different because of historically earlier urbanization, diffuse land ownership and lack of strong eminent domain law due to American occupation-era laws after 1945, also earthquakes made high rises uneconomical until recently.) These always have human-staffed, controlled entry at some point, whether for the entire complex or the individual buildings. In our complex in Hong Kong (on the island, middle class), we had: six x 25 story towers, three means of entry into the complex (one car, two pedestrian), key card controlled at night, open in the daytime except for cars. Doorman at every building, would open the door for you if he recognized you. Cameras everywhere. And it felt normal and fine. Except for the thought that, in an instant, all the residents can be locked down with minimal effort.

OK, thanks for this! We’re in New Jersey, and I thought we could be getting pulled over based on our license plates.

And this?

https://visitidaho.org/covid-19-travel-alert/

While we understand and appreciate the desire to travel and enjoy Idaho’s great outdoors, leisure travel to or within Idaho is restricted at this time. On March 25, 2020, Governor Little issued a 21-day stay-home order and signed an extreme emergency declaration. On April 15, 2020, Governor Little extended the stay-home order through April 30, 2020. Per the Stay-Home Order, individuals arriving in Idaho from another state or country are required to self-quarantine for 14 days. If an individual will be present in Idaho for fewer than 14 days, that individual must self-quarantine for the duration of their visit. Idahoans may leave their residences only for essential services, activities, governmental functions, or to operate essential businesses.

Very instructive observation, because almost all subways systems in NE Asia have platform screen doors. There is no wind, no pressure of the incoming train…

The state parks in NJ are not closed, did a four hour hike in the Surprise Lake area today.

Is this photo for real? (I cannot see the reflection of the smoke…)

Is there any presumption that, being private space, the Mall of America is responsible for basic safety? Particularly when the perp had been banned before? Look forward to seeing this explored in a lawsuit brought on by the boy’s parents.

Mr. Sailer, will you comment about amazon banning The Culture of Critique? The recent post about the “fun, obnoxious arguments” in the House in 2020 was very amusing, but this new turn of the screw makes one wince.

Mr. Sailer, you should try to see Cold War, it can be downloaded easily. The mere love story gains seriousness from the main characters’ dilema–they don’t care for life abroad, even in Paris, and they can’t live in Stalinist Poland. Neither music nor drink can replace a home. It’s a serious and tragic movie, but much better than the one-dimensionally tragic Ida.

What is it that Britain did that was “good for Poland”? It has been Britain’s historical policy to prevent a hegemon from arising to control the European landmass (Spain, France, Germany), so that Britain’s defense treaty with Poland follows in a long historical tradition of Britain’s self-interest (as does withdrawal from the EU).

Now for the historical facts. Together with France, Britain declared war on Germany, following treaty protocols that these nations signed, after Germany invaded Poland. These declarations of war were followed by… nothing, as the Germans had expected and hoped for. Most of the German military was engaged in Poland, and on the later testimony of Hitler’s generals, if the UK and France had launched a punitive attack on Germany from the west–as would follow from a declaration of war–the Germans would have had to fold. The war would have been done with in 1940.

The obsessive preoccupation of Paul Johnson in Modern Times with Britain’s treaty guarantees to Poland, deleterious to the UK in his view, is sadly provincial. The final result for Britan was the same, treaties with Poland or not.

It is regrettable that, despite whatever it is the UK “did for Poland,” that 20 per cent of Poland’s population was destroyed, while it is “the blitz”, a trivial episode in the war, that is a part of the Western European cultural consciousness. Makes one regret that America intervened to save Britain’s bacon (in the way that Britain did not do so to save Poland’s). If not for America, Thatcher would have grown up speaking German, nicht war?

I know all about post WW I trauma, Chamberlain, etc., but it’s disgusting to see attempts to make that into a virtue. And if someone wishes that Hitler’s Germany had won the war, perhaps in some arrangement with Britain (Hitler did have hopes for that), let’s have that argument straight out.

Another black and white movie came out this year, and the topic is more appropriate–Poland in the 1950s.

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/european-film-awards-handed-out-live-and-updating-1203090651/

“Cold War,” Pawel Pawlikowski’s black-and-white romance set in the 1950s, scooped the prizes for best film, director and screenplay at the 31st edition of the European Film Awards on Saturday.

“Cold War” star Joanna Kulig also won the award for best actress. Marcello Fonte, the star of Matteo Garrone’s “Dogman,” won for best actor.

Rice in Asia is for children. In the Chinese families I know in Hong Kong, none of the adults touch it.