Category Archives: Psychiatry

UPDATED: MUNICH (and More)

Film, Hollywood, Pop-Culture, Psychiatry, Terrorism

This is the time of the year when one desperately needs relief from the fare television offers. It’s essential to make a trip or two to Blockbuster during the holiday season for some mindless entertainment—which is a step up from the stomach-turning, sappy, deeply silly Xmas films whose screening began as early as late in November.

As it is, it’s impossible to watch the assorted estrogen-oozing action dramas and crime series inflicted on the TV viewer. The phony heroine lords it over meek meterosexuals with fussy falsettos. Men know their place. Dare-devil women run the show, which makes the show dull, because 90 pounds of botoxic, silicone-plumped flesh in stilettos can’t run very fast (in real life, and I’m a sucker for reality). And you just know that back on terra firma, the 200 pounder she’s cuffing with seeming ease would have flung her as far as the equator, or coshed her to death.

A leading man is invariably a mentalist (I don’t know what that is), a gentle doctor suffering from low-sperm count, or a buffoon (“Burn Notice”).

Did you know that Daniel Wroughton Craig is quite a capable actor? Since I’m not a fan of the film industry, discovering that the latest James Bond is more than a Pierce Brosnan (although not nearly as good looking) or a Timothy Dalton and Roger Moore was a pleasant surprise.

I mention Craig, as we were watching Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas, Barbara Amiel’s first husband.

Munich has a decent script and actors, their main attribute being that they are not American, so the acting is understated, not ego-centered and embarrassing. A bit of that unique Israeli humor is captured occasionally. Munich “shows how a squad of assassins, led by former Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana), track down and murder a list of Black September members thought to be responsible for the eleven Israeli athletes’ murders. The second part of the film, which depicts the Israeli government’s response, has been debated a great deal by film critics and newspaper columnists. Spielberg refers to the film’s second part as “historical fiction,” saying it is inspired by the actual Israeli operations which are now known as Operation Wrath of God.”

Daniel Craig plays Steve, the South African get-away driver. He manages a heavy South African accent the likes I’ve never heard before. At first, I did not recognize him and thought Craig was an obscure actor from the Old Country. From their non-existent acting repertoire, younger American actors exclude accents. (It’s “too much like hard work, besides; doesn’t’ everyone speak English with an American accent?”) An East European dialect in “Law and Order SVU” sounds like the “Direct TV” commercial.

The depiction of the Munich massacre is hard to take for those of us who remember the lack of German security, the free pass that government gave the butchers, and the same peoples’ decision to continue the fun and games in the aftermath of the gruesome murders.

An excellent series also well-worth renting is “In Treatment.” Reading the credits, I saw the words, “Betipul,” which is Hebrew for “In treatment.” It figures that these nuanced portraits of people in therapy were adapted for the small screen from a foreign script. It has nothing of the Oprah, Phil filth—the two charlatans whose worldviews guide interpersonal relationships in the US.

Wikipedia confirms that, “The program’s format, script and opening theme are based on, often being word for word translations of, Hagai Levi’s successful Israeli series BeTipul, which won every possible award for a drama series at the Israeli Academy Awards.” I seldom watch TV becasue I get so bored. “In Treatment” is riveting TV. It’s deep but not labored.

UPDATE (Dec. 18): My thanks to Nora for fleshing out the context of Munich’s release. You can see how far behind I am in my film viewing. As we were watching, I did mutter to my husband about the facts that had been omitted (see above). It’s my understanding, however, that both Spielberg and Jonas are pro-Israel. Jonas most certainly is. And Spielberg is behind an enormous Holocaust project, so he is most sensitive to the arguments for Israel’s founding and survival. The Palestinians were definitely the butchers of the film; Israelis were the bunglers—I did get the impression of a inexpert mission, but then technology was primitive in those days.

To repeat, the Israelis were the sympathetic parties in the plot. Any statement to the contrary in the German press must have been a product of that press’ wish-fulfillment projections. Some of “the other side” came through in the rather smug, second-rate arguments presented during a chance meeting between the Israeli protagonist and a Palestinian terrorist. The Israeli came out on top.

All in all, it’s a decent effort. The horrific replays of the Munich massacre displayed the heroism of some of the Israeli athletes. Perhaps not enough.

UPDATED: ‘MAD’ MEL (What’s Worse?)

Addiction, Celebrity, Conservatism, Hollywood, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, Psychiatry

“The South Park depiction of Mel Gibson bouncing off walls he had freshly ‘coated’ in bodily waste is not far off,” I wrote of Gibson’s previous peccadilloes.

It usually falls to liberals to fend for A-list reprobates. Left to Barbara Walters, Paris Hilton’s porn debut, in which she made narcissistic love to the camera, (i.e. herself) was elevated to a PG-rated tale of innocence betrayed. Conservatives, usually attuned to the coarsening culture, and fierce about defending cops, are airbrushing Mel Gibson in the same way (although, unlike Paris, he doesn’t need makeup).
Mel’s many conservative fans have downplayed his vulgar public conduct. He cussed cops who were being decent to him, threatened to ruin them, Russell Crowed a phone, and generally behaved like a hog high on his own power.

The latest Gibson indiscretion is covered well by Larry Auster (whose take comports with mine in “Mel’s ‘Malady,’ Foxman’s Fetish”. Or perhpas I’m biased because LA just echoes my thoughts (minus the aspect on the medicalization of misbehavior)?

Either way, we both have Gibson pegged. Over to Larry’s “Gibson And Conservatives”:

What a ridiculous culture we live in—and that includes the mainstream conservatives. Mel Gibson in a drunken rant that was surreptitiously recorded said a pile of extremely offensive things to his ex-mistress. But because in the midst of this geyser of verbal abuse, he used the word “nigger” once, his rant is constantly billed—by conservatives—as a “racist rant,” even though the rant overall had nothing to do with race. When it comes to race, meaning, when it comes to blacks, the mainstream conservatives are precious little Victorian ladies, ready to faint dead away at the sound of the “N” word, even when uttered in a private conversation by a man who was obviously drunk.

As for Gibson, I’ve been saying for 15 years, based on his movies, based on his appalling demeanor in TV interviews, that the man was not a conservative but a messy product of our debased contemporary culture, a point I particularly emphasized in VFR’s huge debate about his movie The Passion. Conservatives, especially paleocons, couldn’t see this about Gibson, because his Catholicism and his seven children with one wife designated him automatically as a traditionalist conservative in their minds. They didn’t see the non-conservative qualities and attitudes he was actually expressing in the public realm …

UPDATE (July 14): Even more obscene than the preoccupation with Mel and Oksana’s icky audio is the orgy that will follow the announcement of the impending engagement of the two stupidest people in Alaska. I give the marraige of twiddledumb and twiddledumber, if indeed it gets past this stage, six months. I wish them well, of course.

I agree with Gibson on the following. This Oksana Grigorieva is distinctly dumb. Any woman that looks, naturally, as pretty as she did here, yet goes and modifies herself to look like a slightly improved version of the Octamom, is a devastatingly dumb bimbo.

Updated: Killing Accountability

Government, Islam, Jihad, Military, Propaganda, Psychiatry, Terrorism, The State

More bureaucracy—more salaries for more slackers—and less accountability. This is how the state deals with its ongoing infractions against the people. A commission of inquiry is planned—or in Pentagon Speak, “a broad 45-day review”—instead of tough, immediate action against every cog in the military machine which promoted, pampered and palliated the mass murderer, “Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 in the shootings at the Texas military post on Nov. 5.”

For his part, Attorney General Eric Holder promised to “work with this committee on ways in which we can prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.”

NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling has “uncovered” what was deduced from evidence already in existence a week ago in “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program”:

“Substandard professional performance would get one purged from the private sector. It did nothing to undermine Hasan’s employment status, rank, six-figure income, and secret security clearance in the military.”

Government committees are where accountability goes to die.

Update (Nov. 20): Read the Memorandum for the Credentials Committee written about Hasan, the army’s assassin in training.

Update III: Leading Paleoconservative Hails Her Hero (Warning; It's Not Pretty)

Addiction, Conservatism, Ethics, Free Will Vs. Determinism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Paleoconservatism, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology

Bay Buchanan, who needs no introduction, has selected an heir and a hero. The choice says a lot about how low paleoconservatism has sunk; how traditionalists have adopted a liberal/therapeutic conception of bad character and conduct. If you do bad things, you’re not a rotter lacking in inhibitions and judgment; rather, you are sick, depressed, addicted. If anything, anyone who fails to recognize your heroism for suffering such afflictions–he (or she, in my case) is the real rotter.

This conceptual hangover conservatives share with liberals. Both factions are in the habit of deflecting from what mediates behavior: personality, probity, values, character or lack thereof. If someone goes off the rails, members of both these divisions will refuse to recognize a character flaw; they seldom make the individual the locus of control. More so than in politics, the reasons for the demise of conservatism and its convergence with liberalism ought to be sought in the adoption of this therapeutic conception of behavior—of wrongdoing, morality, and character.

In a tract that could have been written by Oprah Winfrey, Ms. Buchanan dissolves into a puddle of praise and apologetics for a young man who drank habitually, and, in a deluge of liquor “bumped into a black woman, called her a ‘nigger,’ and struck her in the head with an open hand.” Like all good politicians (or actors), Marcus Epstein quickly got religion on AA, “radically changed his life. … swore off drinking and started attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. He started treating the bipolar depression that had gone undiagnosed until that run-in with the law.” (Convenient timing)

Declares Ms. Buchanan: “Marcus Epstein is one of the bravest young people I have ever known.”

Wow! How many youngsters does Ms. Buchanan know? I suggest a visit to one of the country’s VA hospitals. Or to a military cemetery, where, engraved on tombstones Ms. Buchanan may discover a more traditional narrative of heroism.

Character, grit, a bit of a stiffer upper lip in the face of adversity; forget about it! “[A]fter this incident … I came to fully appreciate his finest qualities,” writes Ms. Buchanan. My sentiments exactly.

Ms. Buchanan, there are other traditionalists around with “exceptional minds, and a remarkable talent for writing,” who endured a lifetime of adversity. Some even hail from outside the American cocoon—from lands where real existential issues are confronted daily. Update III (June 16): As un-heroic and boring as it may seem, paleoconservatives such as Brother Buchanan, Peter Brimelow, Robert Stove and Thomas Fleming have never rolled around in the streets soused, swearing and smacking innocents (let alone women) on the head. In fact, whatever the reader may think of their opinions, these men are gentlemen; they embody grace under the tyranny of political correctness. A movement that produces such personalities should not elevate lesser men (or women).

You can tell a movement by its heroes.

As my Afrikaner male friends would say in an expression of disgust, “Sis, man” (Especially with reference to striking a woman.)

Update I: To be clear: My case rests not on the ins-and-outs of the legal spat and its merits, but on the character of the individual, and on the manner in which conservatives have taken to the therapeutic idiom like ducks to water—or like liberals (no need to insult the ducks).

Many of the people I know have held more radical views than Epstein for twice or thrice as long, but have never clashed with the law—not because they revere or even respect it; au contraire, but because of a conservative view of how you conduct yourself. Call it good, old-fashioned discipline.

The idea that you blame your failings on the Other Side or on a substance is … quintessentially liberal.

The left defends its “heroes”; we defend ours. Sadly, we do so based on the same, shared, faulty premise. That’s where we go wrong. The left was always wrong.

Update II: I’m all for forgiveness; but not the instant clemency Christianity offers these days. No sooner has someone offended than he is swept up in a wave of love. I’m not a Christian, so I have no clue as to whether Christian expiation was supposed to be a Federal Express easy ride.

A Jew can’t expect to get to the Pearly Gates if he does bad things. In Judaism, your actions determine your fate on earth and in the hereafter (the first being far more important than the last).

I don’t wish this debate to take on a theological bent; so don’t pursue this except in the narrow sense.

Doing the obligatory stuff to extricate yourself from a legal bind, including going into rehab—this does not count as atonement. Thus, it is wrong for Ms. Buchanan to get huffy over Epstein being dropped from law school, subsequent to the episode, as I understand it. A paleo mother Hen, as she is to Epstein, should accept that adversity will be character-building for her errant protege.