The benefits of a plantation trade school Help! We need a national policeman

There is enough criminal work in Washington that a national political cop could spend months locking up people who are a threat to society. He should visit with House Speaker Kevin Mc Carthy (D-CA), who in his desperation to keep his job, keeps coming up with schemes to satisfy the thirst of his crazy Freedom Caucus. McCarthy should employ a criminal defense lawyer in his offices to keep him from being arrested.

Next stop is at the office of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Al). To date, Tuberville has held up over 200 military appointments and promotions, because of his objection to abortion policies. His latest hold is on the position of commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. At no time in the history of the nation have the Marines been without a leader, which jeopardizes national security. Tuberville is a football legend in Alabama, but he disgraces the Senate with his conduct.

The last two candidates for serious scrutiny are U.S. Reps. George Santos (R-NY) and Marjorie Taylor

Greene (R-GA). It is a disgrace that Santos has not been removed from office and he continues to collect a paycheck at taxpayer expense. His latest contribution to the House agenda is his announced support for the impeachment of President Biden.

Congresswoman Greene has succeeded in becoming one of the bestknown Republican members due to her daily pronouncements. Her latest contribution to the reputation of the House is her display of a naked photo of Hunter Biden at a congressional hearing. To the shock of no one, her leadership didn’t criticize her conduct and they never will as she is the closest adviser to House Speaker Kevin Mc Carthy.

Sadly, there is no national cop to help restore sanity and safety to our nation. We are stuck with a whole houseful of lawbreakers, zealots, misfits, bigots and similar type creatures holding public office around the country and there is no one to step in and blow the whistle. Superman was a mythical figure and so is my national cop.

Have you seem “Barbie?” Oops, I mean “Oppenheimer.” Oops, I mean “Barbieheimer” yet? If not, you will.

Not only will these two films win most of the Oscars this year. Since opening only two weeks ago “Barbie” has grossed over $190 million in box office receipts and “Oppenheimer” has grossed over $100 million in the same period. And this comes at a time when theaters have been empty for the last three years.

So what makes these two movies so captivating to the American mind? And why have these two diametrically opposite films been spliced together and marketed as a double feature? One film is covered in pink and orange and blonde tones with a plastic doll as the main character, while the other film is about death, guilt and darkness.

Let us take a moment to deconstruct these strangest of bedfellows.

“Barbie” was co-written and directed by Greta Gerwig and stars the blonde and ever smiling Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as the haplessly neutered Ken doll. The doll itself was invented by Ruth Handler, who was co-founder of Mattel Toys and saw a similar doll while on vacation in Germany and was inspired to bring this kind of doll to America in

1959. To give you an idea how popular this Barbie still is, in 2020 the gross earnings of Barbie and her accessories was over $1.3 billion.

From the very beginning of the film you know you’re in for a treat with a scene modeled after Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, “Space Odyssey: 2001.” In the Kubrick film you see apes on an African savannah 25,000 years ago. They are mysteriously visited by a tall monolith which enables the apes to learn that the large bones of dead animals can be used very effectively as weapons of destruction.

In the “Barbie” movie, Gerwig converts this into a scene of little girls playing peacefully with little baby dolls. They are visited by a giant monolithic Barbie which allows the little girls to revolt against this maternal role and take to smashing the little baby dolls and all other symbols of domestic tranquility. If there is such a thing as heaven and if Simone de Beauvoir is there, I can picture her smiling down at this scene with pride and satisfaction.

The “Barbie” film grapples with de Beauvoir’s basic existential question of being vs. becoming. In the “The Second Sex,” she carefully traced the 10,000-year history of mistreatment, marginalization and objectification endured by women. Girls are to learn to be pretty, to be nice, to be good, to be sexy, and to be sweet. And the film “Barbie” does a pretty good job of addressing this problematic issue. Now on the other hand, we have this film “Oppenheimer,” which addresses the male obsession with power, aggression, destruction and death. “Oppenheimer” was directed by Christopher Nolan and focuses on the Manhattan Project, which was run by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in order to create an atomic bomb to be used on Japan to end World War II. With massive governmental support and the creation of a secret lab in Los Alamos, N.M., Oppenheimer gathered the best quantum physicists from Berkeley, Princeton and MIT to

Earth Matters

Irecently drove to Washington, D.C., and back for work, and spent time thinking about what I was doing and if it was defensible. I was making an approximately 500-mile round trip alone during some of the hottest weather this country has ever experienced. It’s accepted that the current weather is a consequence of climate change and here I was spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

We can debate the value of individual decisions on combating climate change. Maybe my drive wasn’t a big deal, but maybe it was. I believe our individual choices matter, if only because they raise our awareness of bigger decisions about implementing large-scale solutions. They could also influence who we vote for.

Recently New York City announced its plan to institute congestion pricing. This is a significant large-scale policy to address pollution and climate change by changing individuals’ behavior. But is it going to be effective?

Congestion pricing, or Central Business District Tolling Alternative as it is officially known, is a tolling program for vehicles entering New

York City’s central business district, i.e., the area below 60th Street. This is a toll added on top of existing bridge and tunnel tolls to enter New York City. The purpose of the plan is to reduce traffic congestion and its resulting pollution to improve air quality and address climate change, and to generate revenue to improve the New York City subway and bus system.

On June 23 the Federal Highway Administration issued a finding of no significant impact on the human or natural environment due to the congestion pricing plan. The determination is based on the final environmental assessment and accompanying mitigation measures.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is suing the Highway Administration on the basis that it failed to do a proper environmental review of the congestion pricing plan, which he contends will cause environmental harm. His argument is based on the finding in the environmental documents that there will be an increase in miles traveled by vehicles within New Jersey as a result of people trying to avoid the new tolls. This increase in vehicle mileage will be concentrated at certain times of day get the job done.

The film shows how Oppenheimer slowly became aware of the power of his invention and also became aware that the government was in charge of this project not him. The conflict, pressure and guilt he experienced led to a near psychotic break, all of which was expertly shown by Nolan in this film. The end of the film produced one of many memorable lines as Einstein whispered into the ear of Oppenheimer that no man can possibly be ready to deal with the consequences of his achievements. My friend Bob Lipsyte of the New York Times always would remark “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Now to the question of how are these two seemingly opposing films have been wedded together. What part of the America’s collective unconscious gave birth to this odd twinship called “Barbenheimer” ?

Perhaps it relates to the polarization that characterizes America today. Red states vs. blue states. Democrats vs. Republicans. No dialogue, no middle ground. America in extremis. It’s all or nothing, black or white and no in between ground. If your’e a girl. you must be 5-foot-9, slender, sexy, young, curvaceous, an adventurer, blonde, sweet, and non-threatening. And the men don’t get off any easier. You not only have to be powerful but also a genius, work at Princeton, be connected to secret agencies in the government and show off your power by making an atomic bomb that kills an overabundance of people. And the tragic irony is that you get crucified when you succeed.

Oppenheimer was scapegoated as an atonement for America’s guilt over the dropping of the bomb. Walter Davis’ book “Deracination” explores American guilt in this regard, and I’m sure Christopher Nolan used Davis as a consultant.

Another line in “Oppenheimer“ was “Amateurs seek the sun.The powerful stay in the shadows.” The film showed that the puppet master was government and it lurks in the shadows. In “Barbie” the puppet master was and remains the toy company Mattel, which as I said makes a fast billion dollars a year merchandising Barbie.

Go see these two movies. One is about the power of feminine beauty and the other is about the power of masculine aggression. Freud was right all along when he said there are only two basic instincts that drive mankind: the life instinct and the death instinct.

Oppenheimer said, “I am become Death the destroyer of worlds” Barbie could respond in kind by saying, “I am become Life…the maker of worlds.”