California and Chappaquiddick

Just back from my week-long foray behind enemy lines in the formerly Great State of California. Managed to get in and out before the enemy knew I was there.

While there, the "news" came out that California had climbed back to its number five position on the world GDP scale. The West Coast Progs were celebrating having put the UK in the rear-view mirror as some sort of vindication for years of progressive misrule in that once Great State of California. We have an economy bigger than the UK's! Nonsense, of course. First of all they're picking on the once Great United Kingdom, a victim of even more decades of progressive misrule and rot than even California. That's akin to the Mexicans celebrating defeating the French on Cinco de Mayo--a low bar to clear. I told one proggy acquaintance, who argued that this proved that the once Great State of California could go it alone, to try the numbers without the Federal spending in that once Great State, and try it with sufficient revenue raised just in California to pay for all those great things in that once Great State, e.g., essentially free and unlimited schooling and medical care for millions of illegal aliens, whacky environmental policies, etc. The numbers don't add up, at least not positively.

Anyhow, on to something more "pleasant." By that, of course, I mean thanking Australia, once again.

I have previously thanked the Aussies for Sir John Monash, Errol Flynn, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Taylor, John Howard, Tony Abbott, the redesigned Chevy Camaro, and Banjo Paterson, now I must thank that Great Country for Jason Clarke. While in that once Great State of California, I sneaked off to a nearly empty movie theater to watch "Chappaquiddick." If you don't know because you've recently arrived on earth from the moon, and the moon plays an important though uncredited role in "Chappaquiddick," this is the sorry tale of how Senator Ted Kennedy got away in 1969 with killing a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne--another in a long line of women who ran afoul of the Kennedy crime family.

Jason Clarke was born and raised in Australia, but he was destined to play Ted Kennedy. In more innocent times, I would have said he deserves the Oscar for his performance, but given the cesspool that the Academy has revealed itself to be, nobody short of a pedophile or serial rapist should want that body's recognition and praise. Let's just say that Clarke nails it. He is Ted Kennedy. Not only does he have the physical appearance, mannerisms, and the Boston accent down, he manages the empty look of a man out of his depth and living a life he has not chosen. He puts on a stand-out performance as this very shallow, callow man who could not escape the shadows of his elder bothers, the fear for his horrific father, and the ever-present gang of family advisors and fix-it men, and who kinda, sorta "wanted" to be President but didn't really know why except that it was expected of him.

The film relies on straight-up story telling. Nothing fancy or convoluted. It leaves some aspects vague, e.g., whether Kennedy was having an affair with Kopechne. The scenes when Kennedy's Oldsmobile flips off the bridge, and into the water prove harrowing, to say the least. The film rightly notes that contrary to most press reporting of the time, Kopechne did not drown: she suffocated, probably living at least twenty minutes after the accident thanks to an air pocket in the rear of the car. Her death was excruciating, and had Kennedy or his advisers promptly reported the accident, possibly avoidable. The film does an admirable job of laying out the empty, soulless world of the Kennedy clan, and how it destroys lives. A terrific film, and an indictment of the sort of politics we all had hoped lay in the past, but . . .

OK, back to the Russian collusion nonsense. . .