It looks obvious

I have an habit of watching TV series in a very long delay. I don’t like the waiting period between episode and I don’t have patient to see if the TV show worth my time. I started watching the Sopranos when it was already in its fourth season - I picked the DVD’s from netflix and enjoy an uninterrupted watching. I did the same thing with Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire slayer, and recently with the best TV I ever saw - The Wire.

I assume that most people know already what the show is about, so I’ll not get into the details. I’ll just say that the series using the police investigation story as a tool to portray the decay of American urban structure and social fabric. The story is being told with rare qualities which provide real intellectual stimulation and emotional reactions. One of the main themes of the story is the inherent inefficiency of organizations to solve real problems - set with the wrong incentives, driven with agenda that has very little positive effect on real problems institutions are busy with self preservation, satisfying foreign interests and focusing on meaningless measurable goals. And although the series isn’t advocating for Libertarianism, it has - as the New Yorker Magazine identified, a Libertarian obvious streak:

Simon makes it clear that the show’s ambitions were grand. “ ‘The Wire’ is dissent,” he says. “It is perhaps the only storytelling on television that overtly suggests that our political and economic and social constructs are no longer viable, that our leadership has failed us relentlessly, and that no, we are not going to be all right.” He also likes to say that “The Wire” is a story about the “decline of the American empire.” Simon’s belief in the show is a formidable thing, and it leads him into some ostentatious comparisons that he sometimes laughs at himself for and sometimes does not. Recently, he spoke at Loyola College, in Baltimore; he described the show in lofty terms that left many of the students in the audience puzzled—at least, those who had come hoping to hear how they might get a job in Hollywood. In creating “The Wire,” Simon said, he and his colleagues had “ripped off the Greeks: Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. Not funny boy—not Aristophanes. We’ve basically taken the idea of Greek tragedy and applied it to the modern city-state.” He went on, “What we were trying to do was take the notion of Greek tragedy, of fated and doomed people, and instead of these Olympian gods, indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no reason—instead of those guys whipping it on Oedipus or Achilles, it’s the postmodern institutions . . . those are the indifferent gods.”

[...]

Over the next several days, the writers poked holes in each other’s ideas and, like Greek gods, mapped out the fates of the characters. Most of the trajectories were grim, but one troubled character, they decided, would pull himself together and enjoy what George Pelecanos calls one of the show’s “inglorious redemptions—not Rocky knocking the Russian out in the ninth round but somebody getting through to the other side.” Simon often says that “The Wire” refuses to indulge in the “life-affirming” messages that are woven into the fabric of network TV. Still, he seemed glad to incorporate this small victory into an otherwise rigorously unsentimental picture. “We don’t have a lot of victories,” Simon told his colleagues. “As cynically as the rest of this stuff is ending, it will validate the one place we put any of our sincerity, which is individual action.” It’s hard to classify Simon politically, but anytime you start thinking of him as some sort of bleeding-heart socialist you’re brought up short by his unremitting skepticism about institutions.

If, for some reason, you didn’t watch The Wire yet - I highly recommend doing so it is really worth the time.

I decided to dedicate my lunch break today to Ron Paul’s book signing which was around the corner from where I’m working. I thought that the half hour lunch break will be sufficient and that I can grab something to eat later. How little did I knew.

As soon as I stepped into the store one of the worker announced that the Book - The Revolution: A Manifesto - is already sold out. I didn’t care much because I bought it from Amazon a while ago, but many people had to travel to other stores (One told me he had to go uptown to get it). The line of people waiting from the book signing was long, and although I was standing in the middle of it and although it moved pretty fast, it took me more than an hour and a half to get to the actual signing.

I will have to work an additional hour today, but I was impress with the large, and diverse, crowd that came in the middle of working day for this event. People from all ages and professions came to meet the Ron Paul and to express their gratitude for his efforts and to encourage him to continue fighting for the ideals of liberty.

I’m reading the book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror , and it is a fascinating reading. The writer, Michael Scheuer, served as the chief of the Bin Laden issue station and is an expert on issues of radical islam, Al-Aqeda and Bin Laden. His point of view, the one that when repeated by certain politicians is considered crazy, is very simple: Radical islam react to America’s actions, not to its values. The book provides interesting analysis how the US imperial policies are being used by Bin Laden to increase the popular support for his cause, and how these policies prolonging the “War on Terror”.

When I’ll finish reading the book I’ll try to write a longer review and some personal thoughts, But don’t wait you should read it your self.

It seems only appropriate that after discussing the Libertarians ideas in the Harry Potter series I’ll find a very interesting essay discussing the motives of freedom and liberty in The Lord of the Ring trilogy. What makes it even more interesting is the comparison with Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged :

The Lord of the Rings shows not only the great danger associated with all attempts to defeat evil power by power, but it also teaches that collectives do not really exist, that every one of us is the hero of his own individual story, and that law and order can easily exist without the state. Despite its egoistic message, Atlas Shrugged is full of imperatives to act, to fight, to bring salvation. Rand’s characters suffer not only because the state reaches into their wallets, but because the society rejected their rational, "enlightened" vision of what is good and right.

Tolkien, on the other hand, disliked such imperatives. He hated the outlook that if something can be done, it has to be done, and once even admitted that the greatest deeds of mind and spirit are born in abnegation. That is most likely the reason his characters do not look for great challenges, nor wish to change the world, and instead live quietly, fulfilling Voltaire’s dictum Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

Go and read the whole thing, it is worth your time.

If anyone suspected that my addiction to the Harry Potter books is because I like children books, or that the dark story of wizard has its own magic - that works on old people too, she was wrong. Apparently my affection for the Harry Potter story is because of the Libertarian message of healthy suspicious about the government, self reliance and individualism. My intellectual integrity is safe, again… 

I guess one can find any message one desire in a series of 7 children books, so why not this one:

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Libertarianism, Humor

I just finish reading "Good as Gold" by Joseph Heller . Many years ago I found the book Catch-22, which I read many times. I tried other books of Joseph Heller, such as Picture This and God Knows, but it wasn’t as good as the first book. As in Catch 22, Heller use his special style with language and dark humor. He use his sharp humor to examine the middle age crisis, NY Jewish experience, The role of families and, how can we not - the American Government  - the results are not always complimenting but also very forgiving.

I loved reading it, and I hope you will too.

Tags: Joseph Heller Catch 22 Good as Gold Books