Movie Review: 'A Special Day'

(NO SPOILERS BELOW)

One of the . . . er, hallmarks of this beyond ugly election year is the rampant, in-your-face homophobia of the right wing, with New York senatorial wannabe Carl Paladino currently in the van. Which in a way makes my accidental discovery of A Special Day, a semi-obscure 1977 Italian movie, all the more meaningful.

Paladino, for those of you having trouble keeping up with the nonstop natterings of his ilk, believes that gays are pedophiles by nature, "perverts who target our children and seek to destroy their lives," and in poking the ever-reliable family values banner in voters' faces assumes that gays and lesbians can never be family.

This calumny is ever present in A Special Day (Una giornata particolare in Italian), which tells the story of a housewife, Antoinetta (Sophia Loren) and her neighbor, Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni) on May 8, 1938, the day that Adolph Hitler visits Benito Mussolini in Rome.

Loren's fascist-loving husband, Emanuele (John Vernon) and their six children, as well as practically all of Rome, are attending a rally at the Circus Maximus for the dictators. As Antoinetta settles into her daily grind of dish washing, bed making, cleaning and laundering, the family's macaw escapes his cage and flits across the apartment block to a ledge outside of Gabriele's window.

Antoinetta knocks on Gabriele's door in an effort to retrieve the bird and there ensues a sensitively drawn and exquisitely acted chamber drama in which the loneliness of each is revealed.

A Special Day is highly recommended, if not to be appreciated by the Paladinos that slither among us. (And no, it matters not that Paladino belatedly but only somewhat apologized for his remarks, claiming that he was handed a script and merely read it.)

Cartoon du Jour

Tony Auth/The Philadelphia Inquirer

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

BUTTERFLY
By Luigi Benedetti

Random Musings On A Fall Morning

Perhaps the most pleasant memory of my college years is walking home under brilliantly sunny skies amidst the sights and smells of a glorious autumnal leaf display after the home football team vanquished an opponent before a sellout crowd. Well, it happened again on Saturday.

* * * * *

Actually, there was a difference or two. Back in my undergraduate days Joe Biden was an upperclassman. On Saturday he was the vice president dude sitting in the university president's box on the 50-yard line chatting amiably with another university graduate -- the corpulent Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, who arrives at each home game in a procession of motorcycle escorts and black SUVs with blacked-out windows. Biden's entourage, by comparison, is smaller and much less flashy. Just like the state of Delaware itself.

* * * * *

People who get their knickers in a knot over the so-called nanny state shouldn't object if they or a loved one become deathly ill with, say salmonella poisoning, which seems to happen with some frequency these days. After all, those two heroes of deregulation and deoversight -- Ronald Rayguns and Dubya -- saw to it that federal food inspections be cut back.

* * * * *

Is Philadelphia's regional rail system the only one where there are routine delays on autumn days because of slippery rails due to fallen leaves?

* * * * *

Iggie is the youngest of our four rescue cats, and his Over the Cuckoo's Nest facial expressions, exploding Maine coon cat coat and slightly crossed green eyes mask an innate intelligence that I have seen in few other felines. He also is an extraordinary mouser, patrolling the garage with a ferocity that leaves no rodent unscathed. But even I was surprised when I was sorting through our recycling box the other morning and found among the bottles, cans and cardboard a neatly deposited and thoroughly beheaded field mouse.

* * * * *

You know that national politics have taken a turn for the weird when a Senate candidate begins her first television commercial with the words "I am not a witch."

* * * * *

Our squirrels go into hyperdrive this time of year, laboriously collecting acorns, walnuts and other edibles for burial and then retrieval in the spring. But the feeling persists that their genetic perspicacity aside, some of them are not terribly smart. Like the squirrel I observed at some length yesterday who was trying to dig a nut hole in concrete.

* * * * *

Science has unlocked many mysterious of nature, although not why a former witch aspires for higher office and Chris Christie is allowed to drive a state already on the fiscal skids further into the ditch. Or why leaves in temperate climates turn such brilliant colors some autumns but not other autumns. Part of the answer has to do with chlorophyll production, but scientists pretty much remain baffled about why some autumns hereabouts have brilliant leaf displays and others do not. And that's just fine with me.

IMAGE:
"The Return of the Herd" (1565) by Peter Breugel the Elder

Cartoon du Jour

Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

Joan Sutherland (1926-2010)

MORE HERE.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

FLOWER POWER
By John Painter

You Know That Society Is Doomed . . .

When Big Oil continues to resist spill safety reforms in the wake of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

When it is revealed that Neanderthals were Socialists.

When a kid with bloodshot eyes is suspended from school on suspicion of pot smoking but actually had been crying because his father had died.

When a canal in New York City tests positive for gonorrhea.

When the federal budget deficit is the greatest national security threat.

When Lady Gaga is considered a better politician than Barack Obama.

When for-profit hospitals perform cesarean sections at a higher rate than nonprofit hospitals.

When a rug in the Oval Office gets history wrong.

When a man is cited for growing too many vegetables.

When a Senate candidate calls for reviewing the minimum wage but doesn't even know what it is.

When a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip acts as a "death ray."

When Sarah Palin is compared to George McGovern.

When a man accussed of strangling his wife claims insanity because of a high caffeine intake.

When New York Yankees caps are popular among criminals.

When touching yourself makes you an enemy of freedom.

When 75 adults are involved in a huge, bloody brawl at a three-year-old's birthday party.

When half the bleachers are stolen from a public park. And the other half disappear the next day.

When the Blockbuster chain is bankrupt.

When a stepfather uses a BB gun to motivate teens at a football practice.

When a candidate for the U.S. Senate has a dead wrestler problem.

When it is claimed that the feds have the right of eminent domain on all buildings touched by the dust from the World Trade Center on 9/11.

When an execution is canceled because the use-by date on the lethal injection drugs had expired.

When a state district attorney invites a date to an autopsy.

When a man lying naked on a beach tells police that he's Brad Pitt.

When the economy is so bad that people aren't even buying weapons.

When every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn't currently holding office and isn't named Mitt Romney is a paid contributor for Fox News.

Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here for previous installments of You Know Society Is Doomed.

Cartoon du Jour

Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Daily News

Solomon Burke (1940-2010)

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BICYCLIST
By Joseph Koudelka/Magnum Photos
Hat tip to Woods' Lot

Iran Is The Real Winner Of The Iraq War

A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.

~ GEORGE W. BUSH (February 2003)

It was predestined that the American adventure in Iraq -- which was the wrong war at the wrong time and in the wrong place -- would end badly, and that becomes even more obvious with the last U.S. combat troops gone.

By way of review:

The vice president in effect declared war.

International support, predicated on doctored intelligence, was tepid.

Generals who pleaded for more troops were ignored -- or fired.

Americans were not greeted by Iraqis with flowers.

The war was not over by Christmas 2003.

Attempts at forming a new government at point of gun failed and a long occupation began.

A bloody civil war, propelled in part by a home-grown insurgency, ensued.

A new government eventually was formed but it's leader was and remains a corrupt Shiite thug.

An already unstable region was further roiled as sectarian hatred washed over Iraq's porous borders.

Yet another new government is about to be formed that may confirm minority Sunnis' worst fear -- an alliance between Maliki and Sadr.

Meanwhile, Iran, with its arch enemy Saddam Hussein conveniently removed, insinuated itself into Iraq's political and civic power structure, fed the Shiite militias and consolidated it's role as the dominant regional power.

Long story short, George Bush's words ring even more hollow today than when he uttered them seven and a half years ago.

The war mongering Dick Cheney seems inept at best and possibly criminally culpable at worst.

Saddam Hussein is revered in many Arab countries as a martyr.

And Iran is more powerful than ever.

Photograph by Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Cartoon du Jour

Ted Rall/Universal Press Syndicate

Philippa Foot (1920-2010)

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Beautiful Photograph du Jour

OCTOBER SNOW
By Norbert Maier

Science Sunday: Birds Of A Feather Migrate Together, But Not Hummers

Our hummingbird friends have departed for the winter, which for us marks the beginning of the extraordinary annual avian migration from the northeastern U.S. to warmer climes.

About 1,800 of the world's 10,000 bird species are long-distant migrants. Most use established flyways, typically along mountain ranges or coastlines to take advantage of updrafts, a behavior that is part genetically programmed and part learned.

The birds fly north in the spring to breed and raise their young during longer daylight hours and return in the fall to winter in warmer regions with stable food supplies, but the timing of migration often varies from year to year because of variances in the weather.

Does the fact that our hummers left a little earlier this year than usual foretell an early winter? Probably.

Scientists have ascertained that hummers are very conscious of the changes in daylight and corresponding decline in inspect and flower populations, as well as a chemical change that compels them to migrate.

Our ruby-throated hummers -- the only hummingbird species in the northeastern U.S. -- will gain 25 to 40 percent of their body weight by gorging on insects and nectar before the start their southward migration to Mexico and Central America. And while larger birds tend to migrate in flocks like Canada geese, hummers share the same flyways but are loners. There is a reason for this: They are so small that most predators have difficulty seeing them if they don't flock together.

Hummers also are unusual in that they make frequent stops to feed and do not fly very high off the ground, typically just above treetop level over land and skimming just above the surface over water.

They also fly during the day and rest at night, but large bodies of water do not allow them that luxury so they must keep on going. The Gulf of Mexico is a particular challenge in this regard, but these tiny fluffs of feather find a way to navigate a 450 mile stretch of water, which translates into more than 20 hours of travel time.

Amazing!

Be Afraid, Norway. Be Very Afraid

There is something creepy but faintly charming about the Chinese Communist government's bellicosity when it is affronted.

Take Beijing's official reaction to getting a chopstick in the eye in the form of jailed pro-democracy dissident Liu Ziozobo winning the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize:

"It could harm China-Norway relations."

Be Afraid, Norway. Be Very Afraid.

Cartoon du Jour

Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

Charlie The Smoking Chimp (1958-2010)

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DAWN OF A NEW DAY
(Spain -- 1990)
By Bruno Barbey/Magnum Photos

Driving & Rating The 2011 Chevy Impala: How Far Has General Motors Come?

I have been a relentless critic of General Motors over the years and never got off the fence as to whether its decades of inept leadership and beyond mediocre automobiles should be rewarded with a taxpayer-funded bailout.

But when the opportunity arose the other day to rent a 2011 Chevrolet Impala LT, I bit because it would provide an ideal comparison test: A 340-mile round trip from my weekday crib to the mountain retreat and back again over a route that is a combination of flat-out interstate, secondary roads and S-turn-filled mountainous byways.

The bar for the Impala was going to be high because I had made this trip many times in Audi all-wheel drive station wagons and most recently in an all-wheel Lexus RX300, all well made, nicely furnished, superbly handling and hugely grippy vehicles that nothing except deep snow have slowed over the years.

My Enterprise rental was a silver middle-of-the-line, front wheel-drive Impala with a 3.5-liter V6 under the hood and a mere 2,500 miles on the odometer. In fairness, now matter how improved a $26,000 Detroit sedan flagship might be, it would have a tough time stacking up against Audi and Lexus models costing $15,000 more. But then the Lexus is closing in on 300,000 miles and remains imperturbable, the Audis had anywhere from 150,000 to 275,000 miles and were equally unphased by their age, while the Impala is brand, spanking new.

In any event, how did the Impala compare to those German and Japanese imports, as well as the abominable Chevy sedans that I had rented in the early 2000s when GM first began flirting with bankruptcy?

Here's my breakdown:

STYLING: What constitutes an attractive car is in the eye of the beholder. I found the Impala not unattractive and a big improvement over the Angry Kitchen Appliance look, as one former GM executive termed the company's hideous offerings a few years back. The styling was not plain vanilla, but neither was it distinctive.

BUILD QUALITY: A vast improvement from previous GM offerings. The Impala had a good paint job, was well put together and did not have the squeaks and rattles that I had encountered in previous GM rentals. But the doors closed with a clank and not the thud that the Audis and Lexus doors have, and there was an outrageous amount of road noise that was deafening with the driver's side window cracked.

INTERIOR: Comfortable front seats with somewhat narrow wells, decent rear seats and head room, ample storage space and a decent sound system. Dashboard controls were easy to figure out and use, but the cupholders -- yes, those all-important cupholders -- were too far back, requiring a two- or three-step maneuver to extract a cup of takeout coffee. The trunk was so spacious that it practically swallowed up my mountain bike, which I pedaled back from the Enterprise agency after dropping off the car.

ENGINE: Silky smooth shifts with plenty of torque and acceleration and none of the thrashing characteristics of older V6 models. I did not attempt to calculate a 0-to-60 time, but I am sure that it is more than adequate.

FUEL ECONOMY: GM claims that an Impala with a 3.5 liter V6 delivers 29 miles to the gallon in highway driving, to which I say "bullspit." Enterprise handed over the keys to my Impala with the gas gauge on Really Empty. I filled the 17.5 gallon tank with 87 octane Sunoco for a bit more than $40, but had to purchase another $25 worth to make it home. Dropping $65 for Regular gas for a 340-mile trip is less than economical.

HANDLING: This is where the Impala came off the rails, and badly so. It flounced and bounced on straightaways, wallowed on turns, and threatened to over steer on sharp turns. This required that I keep two hands on the wheel when not trying to drink coffee.

My conclusion is that the Impala performed well overall and in most respects was a vast improvement over its counterparts of six, eight and 10 years ago.

GM has indeed come far, but not far enough. It is hard to imagine owners of comparably sized and priced imports such as the Honda Accord, Nissan Altima and Toyota Corolla embracing the Impala, and GM will have to do better still if it hopes to maintain its feeble market share, let alone re-emerge as a leading automaker.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

The DF&C uses our everyday car, and because she works out of the mountain retreat many miles from my weekday abode, I usually have had to go grocery shopping and run errands on my mountain bike or prevail on friends for a lift.

Until now.

The university with which I am affiliated recently added Zipcar to its employee perks. Zipcar is a for-profit, membership-based car sharing company (the largest in the world, in fact) that enables me to use one of their hybrid-powered rides by the hour ($8) or the day ($66).

Zipcars are in parking lots throughout our sprawling campus and all it takes to access one is to make an easy online reservation.

Cartoon du Jour

Karl Wimer
(2008)

This Is Not Your Grandfather's Volvo

TO SAY THE LEAST.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

In conjunction with an A&E biopic on Enzo Ferrari, CNBC and Ferrari historian Marcel Massini compiled a list of the 15 most beautiful Ferraris of all time.

They chose a 375 Mille Miglia Spider (1953) as the most beautiful while I opt for a 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta (1963) for entirely sentimental reasons: On my first visit to Rome, the owner of the hotel where I stayed drove a gun metal gray edition. I can still hear the exhaust note.

Legal Lollapaloza: Health Insurance, Medical Marijuana & The High Court

I apologize in advance if this post makes your head explode. It nearly did mine, but I was determined to try to make sense of Republican efforts to castrate the individual mandate provision that is at the heart of the health-care reform law.

The individual mandate, for those of you who have spent the past year in a cave or a coma, is a requirement that all individuals who can afford health-care insurance purchase at least a minimally comprehensive policy. If individuals aren't insured, they must purchase insurance or pay a small fine beginning in 2016, although there is widespread agreement that the fine will be unenforceable.

The reason for the mandate is simple: It brings healthy people into the insurance pool, which in theory keeps costs down and ensures that people don't game a system that forbids insurers from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions by waiting until they get sick to get insurance.

The . . . uh, weapon of choice for many Republicans opposed to health-care form in general and the individual mandate in particular is the Commerce Clause, a constitutional provision giving Congress the right to regulate commerce among the states. But where opponents are trying to get traction is, of all things, is the 2005 Supreme Court decision outlawing the sale of medical marijuana in California. That, in fact, is at the heart of a court challenge to the mandate in Virginia.

But the decision -- Gonzalez v. Raich -- is a curiosity, albeit just one of many foisted on the republic by a high court that has tacked hard to the right through bizarro constitutional interpretations, in this case of the Commerce Clause.

The Chief Justice Roberts-led majority declared that Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce gives it the power to ban possession of medical marijuana that never crossed state lines, and health-care reform opponents argue that by that token the courts and Congress have the right to outlaw the individual mandate.

In an earlier era, efforts to use the Commerce Clause, let alone a ruling like Raich, to go after health-care reform probably would have been laughed out of court. But we live in a time when the high court and Congress are slavishly beholden to the interests of Big Business, which makes the passage of Obamacare, even in it is considerably watered-down form, something of a miracle.

As well as leaves it vulnerable to the very special interests and their legal and legislative handmaidens who oppose it.