A THOUGHTFUL CRITIQUE OF "DJANGO UNCHAINED"

DJANGO UNCHAINED ANSWERS THE RACE QUESTION THAT RECENT FILM “LINCOLN” LEFT DANGLING…

 

An excerpt from my review of Django:

 

"As recent film release, “Django Unchanined” opened up before me I experienced all of the trusted hallmarks of an epic Tarentino film: a 1970’s aesthetic, realness and depth of field; a hyper graphic depiction of death and dismemberment; an ironic humorous digression to humanize the villains; a nitty-gritty 1970’s stlye in your face language; morbidity served up as undeniable humor; the distinctly rich, soulful flavor of blacksploitation a la carte; astute attention to detail and an iron-clad plot with surprises galore… But what I did not expect was an eloquently developed proof that the assumptions of racial superiority used to justify slavery and racism are utterly bankrupt.  As such Django did the job that its contemporary film, “Lincoln” did not complete!  This begs an argument regarding what exactly is the role of an historical drama?  Is it acceptable to merely present a dramatisation of the facts as they are, typically, only loosely known or conjectured or does the director have a larger role to interpret the facts while telling a story and bring it full circle to the present?  Most importantly is Django an historic drama at all?  I will let the viewer answer this question but I will interject that unlike Lincoln, the character Django and his story are not historically verifiable.  In my opinion the genre in which I would comfortably place Django is that of an Historical Fiction."

 

READ THE FULL REIVIEW AT: 

http://thestoriesofblackmen.blogspot.com/2012/12/django-unchained-answers-race-question.html

EDITORIAL: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEAPONS AND VIOLENCE...

MOURNERS AT RECENT MASS SHOOTING IN CONNECTICUT

 

No matter what side of the argument you are on there is one fact that those who oppose and defend gun control laws must surely agree upon; every weapon in existence has the potential to wield violence…

UNDER THE NAZI REGIME OVER 11 MILLION INNOCENT PEOPLE WERE MURDERED

 In Connecticut the death toll rose again when an unexpected assassin murdered his parents then took his anger to a local school murdering innocent children and adults.  This incident touched me personally because I was a teacher and come from a family of educators.  When I was a teacher I narrowly escaped being shot by a student who had stolen a gun from home or elsewhere and bought it to school perhaps with the intent of shooting me or one of my colleagues... Fortunately, one of the kids came to me and told me of the incident and I was able to notify the school police in time for the child to be apprehended before any violence occurred.  Unfortunately these innocent people were not able to be forewarned and they, like me were totally unprepared for the possibility of such an encounter.  It is sad but we must be prepared to be able to meet violence with some form of resistance... But what choices do we have?  In our search for peacefulness we do not wish to become the very thing we fear... Our august president, Mr. Obama, was deeply moved by the incident as any man of conscience would be.  In such times our troubled country looks to our president for guidance and hope...  In such times our president is the voice of reason...  He and his congress are the focal point of our biggest question: "How Do We  Prevent This Tragedy From Happening Again?"  Given time and thought I do not doubt that Obama will have a viable solution but will Americans take time to listen or will they allow themselves to be distracted by the many other cares and trifles of the day?

President Obama mourns the deaths of innocent students and teachers at a Connecticut School

 

It is a beautiful but I daresay naïvely, civilized fantasy to assume that people will be capable of the utmost discretion and maturity while they are in possession of firearms.  Those who lived through the first 50 years of the Cold War know very well the potential of weapons, and who says that the Cold War has officially ended; rather it appears to have morphed into a dangerous game of hide and seek.  Though an entirely separate story, the arms game is more than a fantasy played out during a couple hours of a 007 Flick, it is a haunting threat to the existence of civilisation as we know it!

THE COLD WAR CONTINUES IT'S THREAT OF MASS DESTRUCTION...

 

In many respects advocates of gun control have gone way too far in their zeal to rid the earth of violence… for it is not only due to guns, (their primary focus), that Americas homicidal rampage has raged to unprecedented heights.  Furthermore, it is unfair to say that every person who owns firearms is a potential homicidal maniac. 

GUN CONTROL COULD LEAVE INNOCENTS AT THE MERCY OF UNSCRUPULOUS CRIMINALS?

 

It is also unrealistic to assume every gun owner intends only to use it for recreational hunting; the last time I was in the Brooklyn I didn’t see any game animals, large or small walking up and down Atlantic Avenue! Notwithstanding, the licensing process for firearms is a covenant our local governments make with individuals binding them to lawful and humane and responsible use of their weapons, we must honor and respect an individual’s rights under the law.  It seems that the problem is not with gun control in terms of limiting an individual’s right to possess firearms rather it is the responsible use, and management of firearms that deserves the most attention.  Gun control advocates should not try to take guns from Americans nor deny them the right of possession.  What gun control advocates should focus on is education and development of policy that would implement more responsible husbandry, for instance:

1.       Require firearms to be stored in locked tamper-proof safes and firearms of semi-automatic and automatic status to be dismantled with key elements stored in separate safes with separate codes.

2.       To have GPS technology embedded in semi-automatic and automatic weapons.

3.       To exempt historic firearms from being locked in safes but limiting access to ordnance.

4.       Registering ammunition and sales so that shells, casings, etc. can be more easily tracked to the original purchaser.

5.       Regulating sales of arms and ordnance for tracking.

6.       As part of arms regulation, developing a detailed psychological dossier on every registered owner of firearms including their family, roommates, etc., as a mandatory exercise on an annual basis and each time they re-locate.  All weapons and ordnance should be registered to a permanent address.  Each time an owner of firearms moves they would be required to re-register both firearms and ordnance. 

7.       A virtual database of firearms retailers and owners should be publicly accessible to taxpayers.

8.       Schools, employers and other institutions must do a better job of documenting the potential for mass violence.  People should not be profiled but if there is any reasonable cause to suspect a person might be prone to commit a crime using firearms, some law official should investigate.  This is a common practise with child abuse, it does not mar a parent’s record but it does set up a precedent for historical analysis.

 INNOCENT CHILDREN WERE VICTIMS OF CRIMINAL EXPERIMENTS DURING UNDER THE NAZIS... UNPRECEDENTED CONTROL OF INNOCENTS WAS ACHIEVED THROUGH THEIR  FEAR OF GUNS...

 

We live in a time with an unprecedented ability to gather and store data but if such data is simply left sitting in a database it is ultimately of no use.  An interactive database that has the ability to link chain incidents such as with a school could have the ability to predict problems early on.  We need to look more into developing such interactive programs in order to be more proactive about gun related crimes.  If you have seen the film, “Minority Report” you know that the whole idea of “Pre-Crime” borders on sheer fantasy but it does hold promise for those criminals that exhibit distinct patterns of violence.  

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAS KILLED BY AN ASSASSINS BULLET

 

 

Whether such technology can predict seemingly random crimes such as the one that occurred in Connecticut recently is uncertain.  Random crimes are anomalies that truly require more intensive means of examination in order to anticipate and prevent.  But we run the risk of profiling innocent people which is equally unacceptable as our need to gain early insight in the potential for violence of any kind.

VICTIMS OF THE ST. VALENTINES DAY MASSACRE

 

Whether you believe in gun control as a means of preventing violence or not one must agree i there are other factors having nothing to do with gun control that lead to acts of mass violence using firearms.  In most cases the problem appears to be one of mental health.  Whether a criminal who is mentally ill chooses to express their violence using a baseball bat, chemical weapons, firearms, bombs, knives or a bow and arrow is purely a factor of their choice. 

MISSILES FROM THE EARLY COLD WAR ERA...

 

We live in a time when crimes involving weapons with the potential of mass destruction are very real.  It could be intuited that people who create computer viruses are potential mass murderers because they seek to hurt people in groups rather than focusing on a one time singular target. 

SANDINISTA GUNMEN

 

Our paranoia might lead to the kind of profiling that violates the civil rights of individuals who intend no harm whatever, so we must be careful moving forward.  Banning guns is clearly not the solution to crime it is a poorly thought out reaction that would appear to be meaningful only to someone who has not really devoted much thought to the problem at all. 

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS KILLED BY THE ASSASSIN JOHN WILKES BOOTH

 

When a homicide has occurred film crews interview victims and by standers who deliver commentary based on emotion.  We cannot take the emotion out of a homicide and we should not attempt to remove it… What we should do is gather ourselves when we have had a chance to process the horror of the crime so that we can develop successful strategies to help identify problems in their formative stages and to make it difficult for criminals bent on violence to elude detection while they carry out a premeditated crime. 


There is definitely a direct relationship between weapons and violence.  Human history has documented the reality that weapons are used to render humans docile through fear at the threat of moral injury.  Weapons used in this manner have the ability to paralyze even the strongest of men without one shot being fired.  This is the technique common to tyrants, criminals and psychopaths. 

INNOCENT MEN MURDERED BECAUSE OF THIER RACE...

History shows us examples of how fear has been manipulated to murder and oppress billions of human beings.  Guns and the treat of mortal violence was used to achieve the ends of the American Slave Trade from the 17th Century through the 19th Century; Hitler used guns to murder over 11  million Jews and other innocents during the 20th Century;  Uganda has employed a series of genocidal enterprises including innocent homosexuals from the 20th Century to the present... the Klu klux Klan has used guns  to murder and oppress Black American men and women for two centuries... Wnenever anger, fear and ignorance find tehmselves in the same place there is little doubt that some form of violence will ensue...



RELIGION IS OFTEN INVOKED TO JUSTIFY VIOLENCE AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS...

The stream of gun inspired violence has broadened and has bought the country to its knees in grief... But it is not the guns who have loaded aimed and fired themselves at whatever fear they chose to kill away, it was a man!  Men are the key, the bridge between guns and violence, the solution lay within us...

NAMELESS VICTIMS OF NAZI VIOLENCE FOUND IN AN UNCOVERED MASS GRAVE AFTER THE ALLIES LIBERATED EUROPE...

 

FIN

Written by David Vollin

Administrator: For The Brothas Virtual, Intellectual, Cultural Salon

Follow FTB at: www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com 

 

RETAIL/WHOLESALE

 

WILL TECHNOLOGY CHANGE US?

Humans may finally be bridging the technical lag between the internet revolution and mid twenty-first century culture; this might account for the huge disparities such as unemployment and it might start a trend toward a decrease in human population or manifest in other ways as yet unforeseen.  One thing is certain, technology has revolutionized civilization in the past and will continue to change the way human beings live in the present and near future. 

Whilst watching the manic speed of traffic early one morning before daylight I realized how very different we were from our ancestors who lived before the invention of the automobile.  Considering the average rate of transportation outside of a train was probably 5-25 mph, since most people were on foot most of the time unless they had a horse or lived in a major urban area like Manhattan, Boston, Paris or London things necessarily moved quite slowly.  Then as now most people lived outside of the city but what has dramatically changed man is the automobile, it has allowed what was once rural, subtopic or suburban regions to thrive like a city while maintaining a higher residential to commercial density than a city.  Fewer people can get to more places quicker reducing the need to employ more people at specialized localized tasks.

The internet has done globally what the automobile has done locally, allowing commerce to instantaneously shrink the market and therefore the workforce required to maintain it.  Computer databases with smart features enable vast quantities of clerical personnel to be eliminated from payrolls.  We are getting closer to the development of computer management systems that manage themselves… I know an amazing colleague who prides herself in memorizing every file she encounters.  Doubtless these unique skills were nearly flawless 20 years ago but as the years accumulate, unlike computer software; her memory begins to fail… We seem to be pressing the issue in this science fiction morality play with its epic man versus machine theme as if it were inevitability…

Eager to rid my mind of this Keynesian Supply/Demand theory that hovers relentlessly above my better reasoning I nonetheless find a startling attraction to the way in which it appears to parallel human cultural evolution.  I cannot help but wonder if, as we move to more automated, computer driven processes the need for human reproduction will drive a distinct drop in human population on a global scale but starting in the most developed, technologically advanced regions of the globe.  Up to the present human population has continued to expand as if we are all preparing to populate rural farms that would require a vastness of hands…  As the cost of commodities such as food and housing continue to skyrocket around the globe humans will find it prohibitive to add more mouths to an already inadequate budget for survival, or will they?

Over the past 20 years as American corporations have outsourced services to Asian countries technology has been developed that could soon replace the outsourced jobs.  For example, interactive customer service programs we have glimpsed in the form of voice command features on our smart phones, smart cars, smart households, etc., would eliminate the need for foreign outsourced customer service agents since the computer program would work virtually free.  While I personally feel that it unethical to replace humans with machines in most instances my weariness will undoubtedly be overlooked by huge profit driven corporations looking to make a firm foundation in the first quarter of the twenty-first century world economy. 

More efficient fuel sources, Faster vehicles, and a host of now theoretical physics possibilities might one day hurtle the 21^st century forward by many millennia literally overnight.  I like to think that human beings will set a precedent and begin to closely analyze the effects of our rapidly morphing technology on human culture, heretofore we have let the rocket speed urgency of modernity distract us from paying homage to this all important variable.  We cannot any longer ignore it!  Progress does represent a price to humanity and at the outset the goal of modernity was to free mankind from the machine not to transform him into it!

FIN

Written by David Vollin

Administrator: FOR THE BROTHAS VIRTUAL, CULTURAL INTELLECTUAL SALON

Follow it at: www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com  

RENTING VS BUYING: THE STRUGGLE OF A WORKING MAN RE-EVALUATING THE AMERICAN DREAM...

 

 

A few years ago I was seriously trying to buy a condominium in Washington, D.C. but the more I examined the lamentable crop diminutive condominiums the more hesitant I got.  I quickly identified the hustle, realtors and property owners created  grandiose real estate descriptions borrowed from palatial mansions in the suburbs like , “Spacious two bedroom, two bath, with powder room, huge kitchen and entertainment, hard wood floors close to metro and downtown amenities.” The only thing they failed to include was the fact that all these lovely features had been crammed into roughly 500 to 800 square feet which means you had to fry chicken sitting on the sofa while you entertained and you could rest your foot but not the rest of your body in the 5 ft. x 10 ft. “Luxurious master bedroom suite”.  But the biggest deal killer for me was the lack of closet space in spite of the fact that most units had walk in closets larger than the bedroom and living room.   I cannot tell you that after touring a few of these disappointing urban shacks not only did I feel that my intelligence was being insulted but I realized I could get more than twice as much bang for my buck in the suburbs… Being a dyed-in-the-wool city boy of course carried great weight with me which is why although I’ve fallen in love with many rentals, condominiums and houses in the suburbs I am still living in a rather large rental efficiency downtown in the heart of the city... 

 

I thought about all the people who got stuck with mortgages from $800,000, $1.5 million and up.  All of those properties were now worth less than half of what they sold for and their owners had the misfortune of watching while neighboring properties sold for a fraction of what they paid the bank!  So I after bidding on a couple of grossly overpriced properties I pulled out completely to do some serious soul searching.  A conservative man by nature I started to question everything…

 

1.       Was I serious about attempting to buy something so expensive it would take me 30 years to pay for it? 

 

2.       Was I seriously going to purchase property for which I’d have to keep a roommate or four housemates in order to pay my mortgage?

 

3.       In the grand scheme of things was the elusive dream of property ownership worth the financial risks or was it simply cheaper and less of a risk to let some other sucker take on the mortgage and financial responsibilities of property ownership?  While renting I was both financially independent and I had the option of packing up and leaving at any time with no responsibilities past the satisfaction of my outstanding bills; up until now I had been willing to pay more than most people paid for their mortgage in order to enjoy this financial freedom…  Was I really going to give up this advantage?

 

 

Why in the world would anyone want to purchase something that would take 30 years to pay off knowing they would still owe property taxes annually?  In 30 years I’d be either close to dead or too old to be able to manage maintenance of a property.  When I sat in landlord tenant court one day and watched while an elderly couple in their late eighties got evicted from their home which they purchased when they were a young couple I realized that the real estate and banking scam of “The Great American Dream” was not going to add me to their list of junkies! After all, we were talking about nothing more than bricks and mortar or sticks and nails.  To the layman this connection might not be as obvious but to the architectural and engineering professional such as me a building was just a stack of bricks and mortar, sticks and nails, nothing more, and certainly not worth so much that it  would take me 30 years to buy. 

 

Taking on roommates or investing in rental property was the second option that appeared to make purchasing property rather than renting property seem more viable to me.  But for me the investment in a rental property that had two separate units was way too expensive, it would still take me 30 or more years to pay off the mortgage with renters.  I had rented rooms from some of my friends at various times to help them with their mortgages but I was a person who enjoyed privacy and that is precisely what neither of us had under those conditions.  Having visited friends who were doing the sharehouse thing, two in a one bedroom three in a two bedroom I was firmly opposed to what amounted to dormitory life.  Even when I was in college I had a private room or apartment off campus so why would I move backwards in my living situation to add the annoyance of multiple personalities add clutter, add noise, add company, missing groceries, etc. and you have a recipe for something I did not have any palate for. 

 

There just didn’t seem to be any way I could avoid becoming a sucker with a mortgage! I was so determined not to fall into that trap! And let me assure you it is indeed a financial trap!  After all I am a free spirit, a loner, I need my independence and privacy and I don’t want to be tied down to anything that could potentially take me for a ride.  I wanted to be the one getting the deal not the bank and realtor getting fat off bonus and interest for a commodity that was overpriced from the very beginning!  I struggled and struggled until I decided I was not going to become another victim of the banking system.  I thought about getting a group of investors together but that would only increase the rate at which the property got paid off and not eliminate the unjustified cost and the profit would be lost after being split in multiple direction.  You have to do the math on that one to find out at what point you will actually experience a profit on your investment… if its 30 years from now then you’ve been suckered because trust me, the lender and real estate brokers are going to experience profits starting right now!

 

The next battery of questions started to haunt me as I second guessed my decision to remain a renter.  I like to call these affectionately, “The Economic What-If’s of Real Estate Investment”!

1.       What if something catastrophic happened and I was stuck with that mortgage and no way to pay it? 

2.       What if I lose my tenants?

3.       Finally… What if I just continue to rent and let some other sucker mange the mortgage and taxes while I preserve the ability to come or go as I please at least until this market really stabilizes?

 

In this time of uncertain job security and in a market that has been slow to create new job opportunities for the unemployed one must consider the untimely event of the loss of a job or the possibility that an injury or health condition will make it impossible to work and earn sufficient salary to pay ones mortgage.  In the past when mortgages were relatively low and reasonable this might not be such an issue but when one is facing a mortgage ranging from nearly $2,000 a month for just a 1 bedroom apartment condominium the picture gets a lot more real!  Paying that kind of money for a box stacked atop a heap of other boxes with no lawn, no roof, no privacy… all I can say to that is, “O Hell No!”

 

Most landlords will tell you that the problem is typically not finding a tenant, its finding a good tenant who pays on time.  But even a good tenant who pays on time is not a promised thing, tenants come and tenants go!  When looking at rental properties one must bear in mind that the value of a rental is only so good as your ability to keep them rented.  Having one vacant unit for one or more months can completely unravel ones finances when they are predicated upon the receipt of that rent to balance the equation.  Every time, every month you experience a missing tenant vacancy you have to pull the rent out of your own pocket… For an experienced, established landlord owning multiple properties this should be no issue but for someone just getting started with little or no overflow cash in reserves this is a serious issue.  Of course this is a risk every landlord takes so if one is going to gamble then one must embrace the possibility of loss… I’m not a gambler by nature unless I have already worked out all the angles… the unknown and unpredictable element of the vacant tenant variable or the nonpaying tenant variable is definitely food for thought but in my book a virtual deal killer for a small time investor such a I would be… but in this case not merely an investor, a big sucker with a red bulls-eye pained on my derriere…

 

So for now I went with option number three… let some other sucker deal with the mortgage whilst I enjoy the leisurely life of being a renter… For now at least it suits me well.   I am still not happy with the way local real estate has settled down from the zany mortgage pregnancies of 2004-2006 and I believe they should come down another $100,000 to $150,000 if not more to better reflect the stagnation of personal income, unemployment and the rise in the price of virtually every other commodity in this country… Something if not everything has got to give and better real estate and retail prices than the entire American economy?

 

Being a frugal and cautious man I am still entertaining those and other debates concerning the price point of retail commodities including real estate.   But the greatest concern I have had throughout the entire real estate market crash has been for that demon we call the credit rating system!  Was I on crack in 2005-2006 or did the credit rating system utterly, fundamentally and catastrophically fail?  Since I certainly was not on crack I have to ask myself if the rest of the country all the way up to the oval office was smoking some strange and hallucinogenic intoxicant!  Without a doubt the real estate and banking industry was reeling high on crack while playing a dangerous game with the American Economy.  They created an artificial housing shortage and therefore an artificial demand in order to raise the price of rents and mortgages on a global level.  But when the bottom fell out with the result that properties once valued in the millions could now be only worth a fraction of their former worth I could honestly say to my friends and colleagues, “I predicted this economic downturn,” and they all had to bow their heads admitting I was right!  I am not proud of being the stormcrow of economic failure but the signs were obvious!  The path that banks in league with the real estate industry were taking was not sustainable!  It was not normal!  Anyone with half a wit could see that something catastrophic was going to happen when properties were being flipped over and over again and each time gaining many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in estimated value merely because some hardwood floors, travertine tile or stainless steel ovens were installed… the whole fiasco was absolutely insane to me at the time and yes, now I am that annoying man who is smiling and saying, “I told you so!”

 

So what happened? When people make huge mistakes like the real estate and banking industry did they usually get severely punished and regulated by the government.  But nothing happened… everyone was walking around like zombies in boom-ville U.S.A. thinking soon real estate prices would magically resume their former levels of outrage and absurdity!  Some of them are yet holding their breath… most of them are losing their properties to foreclosure.  The banks, are getting paid and their collusion with Wall Street has as yet gone completely unpunished.  In such a climate there is no small  wonder that a growing number of people who no longer have faith in the credit rating system and the entire idea of a long term mortgage are opting not to own property but to let some other sucker take on the task.  We all know the credit rating system failed to predict what its abstract system of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo pretended to predict, the ability of a lender to pay his debt, but now that all seems to have been lost to history… forgotten… as if Will Smith had held a nebulizer before the faces of America and pushed the button!

 

So the American people did not rise up demanding that the credit rating system used by banks to pimp and enslave them be abolished?  They sat by while huge monopolies were not only bailed out of financial ruin but glutted themselves with new victims of aggrandizement?  Nobody balked and nobody cared… they just wanted things to somehow go back to the way they were.  But not me, I wanted things to go back to the way the way they were fair, which in my estimate had not been since very late in the 1970’s.  I thought to myself, every era has something to which its people are enslaved!  Cars, Houses, Fine Dining (and drinking), Travel and of course, Rent are all things which have enslaved us in the past and present. 

 

So I had to ask myself, why, in a time when the country’s economy is doing its very worse since the great depression is credit rating still even in existence, who in this terrible economy actually has good credit and why?  Didn’t he banks get enough wealth selling criminally overpriced properties to people they knew couldn’t afford them and then sell them back again to new suckers after the original owners had foreclosed?  Didn’t those owners, the first suckers, have to pass a credit check?  If the credit check failed to predict the crisis that was to ensue what good was it in the first place?  The answer is that it was then and is now a great scam, a shameful and deceptive practise designed to profit on those who have been deemed bad credit risks.  Surely everyone who was sold a house they could not afford was a bad credit risk but nonetheless cleared by the credit rating business to own property.  Because I had to answer myself with a clear “Yes” all I could do to calm my spirit was to let out a great, disappointed sigh… I thought to myself… smart kid, you held out!

 

But what a hell of a whirlwind this country has been in since the beginning of the real estate boom and collapse… I’m no longer tempted to invest in properties that would ultimately, inexorably suck money out of my pockets and less tempted to invest in rental properties that hold the promise of a monthly paycheck I must ultimately pay back to the lender.  I’ve abandoned the Single Family Dwelling scheme, I mean dream and the rental property dream because any way you slice it I’d still have to own it, manage it, become enslaved to it!  For now I am still playing out the battle of renting vs Buying in my head, content to rent and let some sucker manage the mortgage for me hoping when I do decide to take the plunge I won’t be just to become another sucker who has given in to the hype, giving up his freedom to be a renter rather than a buyer…

 

FIN

 

David Vollin

Administrator

www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com