When Merely Rude Is An Improvement

When I learned it was Representative Joe Wilson, (R- S.C.) who screamed, “you lie!”, during President Obama’s speech on healthcare reform Wednesday night (9/9/09), I thought it was an example of the enlightened voters of the state of South Carolina having elected a guy with Tourette's Syndrome. I gather my assumption was incorrect, but this is still a vast improvement in the behavior of South Carolinians from the House.

It was Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina who beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the Senate. So, in terms of the behavior of South Carolina Congressmen, it is a nice upgrade to have one who is merely ignorant and rude.

Maybe South Carolina politicians are less violent these days but its politicians are still as nutty as ever. Remember the Palmetto State is led by Governor Mark Sanford whose dalliance with an Argentinean journalist brightened an otherwise imprurient summer. As I write this, Governor Sanford is still in office. The allegation that he used state funds in one way or another to further his relationship hasn’t cost this avowed “Christian” his job yet, although his wife and children have moved out.

It should also be remembered also that it was South Carolina Attorney General James L. Petigru who observed on the state’s vote for secession, “South Carolina is too small to be a Republic and too large to be an insane asylum.”

If Lincoln made a mistake, aside from going to Ford’s Theatre, it may be that he didn’t just let South Carolina walk away.

In another 150 years South Carolina politicians may behave well enough to be allowed out in public...but I'm not counting on it and if Congressman Wilson comes to work with a cane or crutches I hope someone will have the foresight to keep a close eye on him.

Spoiler Alert - In the Bedroom

One of the most disappointing movies I’ve ever seen is a film called “In the Bedroom.” I was looking forward to seeing it for a number of reasons; the plot was intriguing, it had two of my favorite actors – Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek- and it had a Thomas Newman score. It didn’t hurt that it was set in Maine either.

Wilkinson and Spacek are Matt and Ruth Fowler and their college age-son (Nick Stahl) is dating a somewhat older woman (Marisa Tomei) who has two children and a jealous ex-husband (William Mapother). The movie takes its time, but doesn’t waste ours, showing us the characters and how they relate with one another. As we get to know them we can almost see what’s coming, the ex-husband kills the son. The legal system is headed to an unsatisfactory end. It’s is unlikely the prosecutor can get a murder conviction and will likely accept a lesser pleading, probably manslaughter. While all that is being worked out the ex-husband, the killer is out on bail.

Matt and Ruth see him regularly in their small town. We watch as they go through what one reviewer described as the paralyzing impotence of grief. It’s tough to watch but thoroughly engrossing film-making. The acting is superb. So what makes it so disappointing? The ending. What seems to produce resolution for the story, Matt kills his son’s murderer, doesn’t work for the characters or the movie. To me it was a cheat on the rest of the movie and particularly annoying because the rest of the film is so good. But the ending just didn’t fit with the characters. They were real and the film didn’t have a real ending, it had a movie ending. No disrespect to the Governor of California but it had an Arnold Schwarzenegger ending.

Okay, but the movie came out in 2001 so why bring it up now? Because I was reading Dick Cavett’s blog in the New York Times on line and he wrote this…

“Dominick Dunne…was a great talk show guest. When he launched quietly into one of his murder tales, you could hear a pin strike the floor.

Maybe his most amazing accomplishment was living with the knowledge that the man who murdered his daughter served less than four years in prison, then lived in the same town (L.A.) as Dominick. ‘How can you manage not to be consumed with rage and fantasies of revenge?’ I asked him once, and he said, ‘You can’t.’ We agreed that killing him would be poor revenge, relieving him of all life’s problems. My suggestion — letting him out in the desert with a bullet through both knees — failed to shock him. “That pales beside my fantasies,” he said.”

Sad as it is, that ending makes more sense than the movie’s ending did.