A far-right political party
Samuel has good and bad days. On Monday, we again tried to use cloth diapers on him. He cried every waking minute, except when held. Today he cheerfully spent hours playing with his toes. I was able to wash the dishes that had been stacking up since the weekend.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I viewed a couple of Oscar nominees that I missed when I was younger.
Elizabeth wasn’t great.
The Pianist, which I saw yesterday, was much better. It concludes with forty-five minutes of shattering quietness. As in Shine – another movie of music and Holocaust survival – a sort of love, or at least fellow-feeling, blesses the protagonist.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I also saw Elizabethtown for the first time in over a decade. I realized I’d overlooked that Claire, the Kirsten Dunst character, is, in fact, a spirit sent to coax the protagonist into choosing to live, like the angel Clarence of It’s a Wonderful Life. (I’m not the first to notice this: this guy already has. Not that I agree with him about all the particulars.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
A northern-hemisphere-style, far-right party has formed in Ecuador. According to El Universo,
This is an odd development for Ecuador. I suppose one could explain it as an extreme reaction to the “pink” government of the last dozen years, though it strikes me as yet another foreign import totally out of step with the broader national culture (not unlike the extreme free-market emphasis of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where many of the pelucones and would-be pelucones study).
It’s odd, yes, but there’ve been similar and more alarming developments in, e.g., Brazil.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I viewed a couple of Oscar nominees that I missed when I was younger.
Elizabeth wasn’t great.
The Pianist, which I saw yesterday, was much better. It concludes with forty-five minutes of shattering quietness. As in Shine – another movie of music and Holocaust survival – a sort of love, or at least fellow-feeling, blesses the protagonist.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I also saw Elizabethtown for the first time in over a decade. I realized I’d overlooked that Claire, the Kirsten Dunst character, is, in fact, a spirit sent to coax the protagonist into choosing to live, like the angel Clarence of It’s a Wonderful Life. (I’m not the first to notice this: this guy already has. Not that I agree with him about all the particulars.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
A northern-hemisphere-style, far-right party has formed in Ecuador. According to El Universo,
Más que por los postulados que defienden, se apasionan por lo que rechazan. Reivindican los valores cristianos, la familia, la vida, la corrección moral, el libre mercado, el porte de armas, la propiedad privada y la hispanidad. Y, con la misma o mayor vehemencia, rechazan cualquier atisbo de izquierda, feminismo, ambientalismo o, lo que llaman, “internacionalismo infantil”, refiriéndose a los Organismos de derechos humanos de la ONU o la OEA.Which I translate:
They are stirred less by the principles they accept than by what they reject. They affirm Christian values, the family, the sanctity of life, moral fine-tuning, the free market, arms-bearing, private property, and Hispanism. And, with equal or greater vehemence, they reject any hint of the left, of feminism, of environmentalism, or of what they call “infantile internationalism,” referring to such human rights organizations as the United Nations or the Organization of American States.Their flag is like those of Alabama and Florida in showing a red saltire on a white background. Specifically, it shows the Cross of Burgundy, a Hispanic symbol (Hispanic in the narrow sense of European Spain).
This is an odd development for Ecuador. I suppose one could explain it as an extreme reaction to the “pink” government of the last dozen years, though it strikes me as yet another foreign import totally out of step with the broader national culture (not unlike the extreme free-market emphasis of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where many of the pelucones and would-be pelucones study).
It’s odd, yes, but there’ve been similar and more alarming developments in, e.g., Brazil.