Cook's Parade of Inequaility

The the September 2006 issue of The Atlantic (yes, I get my magazines from the library) there is a piece by Atlantic editor Clive Cook about Jan Pen's 1971 book Income Distribution. As the exciting title may suggest, it is about the disproportionate distribution of wealth in Britain, or really applicable to any Western country.

Imagine an hour long parade were every participant's height is proportional to their height. If we were to begin with the lowest income first we would find people upside-down in debt and then microscopic. This would continue with dwarf sized people for most of the festivities. Only towards the end would you find average height individuals only to be followed at the last microseconds by giants of unimaginable proportions. So why the disparity?

The claim is made that after the second World War, income rose disproportionately as income went up, favoring the wealthy. Over thirty years median income rose just 11 percent while top income rose 617 percent. Labor's share of income is not trending up or down. What has changed is how much of their share goes to the top income brackets. This can be explained, apparently, through productivity.

Productivity is the single most important indicator of prosperity. So high earners are taking home the labor's share of productivity, and thus wages. America has a much more dispersed productivity, unknown why to me, which means that hairdressers and mechanics share in their prosperity more so than in other countries.

Interesting piece, and not the most interesting even in the whole issue.

The Second Circle

I look for narrative in movies. What is it about the camera angles, or the dialog, or the progression of the story that adds to the narrative? I want to understand how the authors uses his tools, whether they be a camera and actors, or words to construct a narrative. I think that is why I didn't care of the movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, it lacked a sufficient narrative. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't see the first two in the trilogy, but I thought the story progressed little and felt that a high-pace substituted for a plot.

I just finished the movie The Second Circle (1990) by Aleksandr Sokurov. Yes, I to discuss movies here. The story takes place after the death of a man's father to cancer and his subsequent preparations of his funeral. There are many questions this brings up.

Why does the movie rely on so many long shots? I feel that the scenes convey more despair when they linger on long, quiet shots of the squarer that he and his father endured. What kind of relationship did the father and son have? That is probably the plot of the story. The son struggles through the entire story to bury his father. He cannot bear to cremate the man nor bear the site of his lifeless body. A shot of the son opening his father's eyes does not convey a sense of joy or relief. There is mostly silence in the movie, and we a left to hear the sounds of the son walking in his poor shack, fighting with others over his father's remains.

What was the fighting with the undertaker about when preparing his father's body for his coffin? I noticed that the son was very delicate and caring about his father as he gave him the shoes off his own feet. The undertaker was overly abusive to the son; verbally and physically. Why wash the father's body in the snow? That was another long shot; a man washing a dead man's body in the cold snow. It gave a chilling effect to see that the man had to soap or water, and that they had to restore to flushing the dead remains with snow.

I didn't see much direct contact between the son and father. While his father's remains were being prepared, he looked away. Was it disbelief? Did he open his father's eyes to make sure he was really gone? The constant snow, the lack of any other family and dark colors allowed for a sustained belief of isolation and darkness. The long shots of the body told the father was not going to awake ever again. His death is as perminent was the long winters; of his poverty.

Scheuer's Imperial Hubris

The book I have just started is Michael Scheuer's Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War On Terror. I've seen Dr. Scheuer speak about his area of expertise, Bin Laden, for a while now. I choose to pick up his book because I believe he has credibility on this issue and speaks sincerity to his experience.

Dr. Scheuer argues that we must view the threat from bin Laden and Islamists through there eyes. He contends that Muslims see high ranking American citizens who speak critically of Islam as speaking for America. America's policies to install pro-Western democracies that favor Christianity usually does so at the cost of partitioning a Muslim country. He argues that in an attempt to limit funding of terrorists and teaching anti-Western sentiments, America is interfering with core Islamic beliefs to give to charity and teach without interference.

America's support for oppressive regimes is another reason for animosity. US policy supports Hindu India, Catholic Filipinos, Orthadox Christians in Russia, ex-communist Uzbeks, Chinese communists, and apostate (a person who forsakes his religion) al-Sauds. Apostate states would include Kuwait, UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. For other Muslim countries, the United States and the United Nations often imposes economic and military sanctions like condemning Pakistan for building a nuclear weapon while condoning Israel and India for the same offense. Western oil companies designs on Middle East oil is another point of suspicion.

Now with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the occupation of Muslim lands is the most poignant abomination. This is seen as no surprise since the partitioning of east Timor and the backing of Israel on controversial territory.