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Bruce Dern’s default countenance is that of a dour man. In “Nebraska,” he plays the part of an exceedingly dour man – one who is also bitter, withdrawn, resigned, stubborn, taciturn, partially demented, alcoholic and very difficult. The plot of the movie hinges on Woody Grant’s determination to get to Lincoln, Nebraska in order to cash in on a Publisher’s Weekly type flyer promising that he could be a winner of one million dollars – the last opportunity in his collapsed life to regain some pride in himself and some measure of autonomy. Though we can believe that this character might set his clouded mind to undertake this fool’s journey from Montana to Nebraska, it’s harder to believe that his younger son, David, would decide to drive him there. There has been virtually no relationship between Woody and his sons throughout their lives and we discover, as David does, that before he was born, his father was involved with another woman and contemplating divorce from his wife. Yet, despite a serious accident and other difficulties that his father gets into en route, David is determined to keep going in order to satisfy the old man’s demands.

Along the way, we meet a gallery of caricatures: the shrewish wife whose foul mouth and self-referential take on life color all her perceptions; the loutish, layabout cousins who greedily steal the flyer before discarding it as worthless; the rest of Woody’s stonefaced brothers representing the endpoint of pioneer grit; the menacing former partner who tries to extort the promise of a cash settlement once Woody collects his million – all these are cardboard stick figures who exist for cheap comic relief or for generic observations of human nature. There are also the neighbors who wish Woody well and they briefly represent the decency that still exists in a changing America.

The son with the heart of gold and the patience of a saint remains unexplored; we never understand why this nice looking young man was living with such a homely woman for several years. Though it’s easy to figure out what his fear of marriage is about, it doesn’t explain why he couldn’t find someone more equally matched to his attractiveness quotient. “Nebraska” is really about the journey of this son from his vague insecurity and lack of purpose to his re-discovery of some good old-fashioned virtues – defending yourself and your kinfolk, understanding the satisfaction one gains by restoring the dignity of a father who had become an empty shell. David’s driving his father to Lincoln is an altruistic deed for which no public or private acclaim will be given; his mother and brother are opposed to the idea and see the clear solution as putting the old man in a nursing home. To make up for his father’s disappointment at not winning a million dollars, David decides to trade in his car and buy his father the truck he desperately wanted, even though he’s not allowed to drive. The Rocky moment at the end does temporarily restore Woody’s self-esteem and that moment for both of them was worth all of David’s travails.

It’s doubtful that this trip will change Woody’s life in any real way. He will have a truck to look at and a new compressor but he will continue to be a near-catatonic man who stopped caring about his own life and relationships early on and kept hardening his inwardness along with his arteries. It’s David who has the possibility of change and whatever hope exists in the movie by the end is directed towards him. He has summoned the courage to punch the extortionist in the face, he has discovered his capacity for compassion and humanity which inform his moral center, he has performed a noble act for which no thanks were given, save his own realization that he delivered grace to a man who had none.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/20/epic-fail-un-climate-talks-fall-apart-as-132-countries-storm-out/#ixzz2lIDugCEQ Poor countries pulled out of the United Nations climate talks during a fight over transferring wealth from richer countries to fight global warming. The G77 and China bloc led 132 poor countries in a walk out during talks about “loss and damage” compensation for the consequences of global warming that countries cannot adapt to, […]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/moroccan-parliament-moves-to-outlaw-contacts-with-israelis/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=938d91f233-2013_11_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-938d91f233-53476821 THE USUAL SUSPECTS IN CASABLANCA ARE THE MOSLEMS….RSK Even private dealings would be punishable by imprisonment; local NGO calls bill ‘inhuman’ and ‘influenced by Nazi tendencies’   A large majority of Moroccan lawmakers has proposed legislation that would outlaw any contacts with Israelis. If it is passed, even private or indirect dealings with the […]

At a special event Wednesday, Nobel Prize winner Professor Yisrael Aumann told students at Bar Ilan University that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was “making many mistakes” in his policies towards the Palestinian Authority, Iran, and in dealing with foreign pressure to withdraw from areas of Judea and Samaria.

Aumann was speaking at the University’s Student Union sponsored by Project Yuvalim, a new initiative meant to broaden the discussion of Zionist issues on campuses throughout Israel. Headed by activist Yigal Brand, the Project is sponsored by Zionist Council of Israel, a part of the World Zionist Organization.

“Concessions and ‘gestures’ do not bring peace,” Aumann said. We need to understand that if we do not have a right to Hevron, Gush Etzion, or Ariel, we do not have a right to Tel Aviv,” Aumann said.

“We are all ‘Palestinians’,” he said, referring to the fact that until relatively recently, the term “Palestinian” referred not to a particular nation, but to those living in the geographical area that was termed by world powers as “Palestine”.

“Before we try to convince our enemies that the land belongs to us, we must convinced ourselves that this land is holy for us as well. I do not say that as a right-wing supporter of full settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel,” the Nobel laureate said, but from a purely geopolitical point of view.

“The only chance for peace is not to choose the path of concessions – that only leads to war,” Aumann said. “If we were playing soccer, we would look at the best teams in the world in order to learn the best strategies.” In the same way, he said, Israel should look at the powers that managed to keep the peace the longest – with the ancient Romans the most relevant example. “Look at the Roman Empire,” he said. “They managed to keep the peace for 238 years, by preparing for and being ready to fight in wars.”

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/nov/21/november-22-1963-and-why-we-wept/ November 18, 2013 — The news refused to sink in. Perhaps Walter Cronkite got it wrong. For many of us it came as a rumor. We heard that President John F. Kennedy had been “seriously wounded” and because we refused believe, we were advised to find the nearest TV. The bistros along Bleecker Street […]

Hans Joachim Morgenthau was one of the leading twentieth-century figures in the study of international politics. He got this one right.

“In an essay published in January 1962, Hans Morgenthau, an eminent political scientist, faulted Kennedy for approaching issues of foreign policy, such as the proposed invasion of Cuba or the crisis over Berlin, as a politician. That is, when faced with a choice between two incompatible alternatives, he tended to opt for a half-measure, seek a middle ground or temporize by claiming to need more information (or fresh ideas). A statesman, Morgenthau said, “must cross the Rubicon or refrain from crossing it, but he cannot have it both ways. . . . There is no riskless middle ground.” The statesman, he added, must act in spite of his “ineluctable ignorance” of the consequences.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304373104579108182048878474?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Book Review: ‘Camelot’s Court,’ by Robert Dallek By Robert K. Landers

Recently, in the wake of another diplomatic disaster for the Obama regime, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “We are not blind and I don’t think we’re stupid.” He and the President may not think they’re stupid, but the leaders of nations around the world most certainly do.

In a recent Wall Street Journal commentary by Brett Stephens, titled the “Axis of Fantasy vs. Axis of Reality”, he cited the French rejection of the negotiations with the Iranians, saying “the French also understand that the sole reason Iran has a nuclear program is to build a nuclear weapon…This now puts the French at the head of a de facto Axis of Reality, the other prominent members of which are Saudi Arabia and Israel. In this Axis, strategy is not a game of World of Witchcraft conducted via avatars in a virtual reality.”

Stephens said of Kerry’s remark on Meet the Press, “When you’ve reached the ‘don’t call me stupid’ stage of diplomacy, it means the rest of the world has your number.”

The Secretary of State carries out the President’s foreign policies, but when both are ideologically blind to reality and both harbor a deep disdain for an American history of global leadership since the end of World War Two, they are going to initiate and stumble around in ways that convince other nations to seek leadership elsewhere or to pursue they own interests without looking to the U.S. for support.

John Kerry has one of the worst records imaginable to be our Secretary of State. I have always regarded him as a moron with strong anti-American beliefs. I shudder to think he was the Democratic Party’s candidate for President in 2004, losing to George W. Bush who thankfully had previously defeated Al Gore. Two worse candidates for the presidency are hard to imagine.

Kerry first came to my attention and that of most Americans when he testified on April 22, 1971 before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, claiming that American veterans of the Vietnam War had committed war crimes that were “not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels.” Kerry had, at that point, become a spokesman and organizer for the group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Towards that end, he was working closely with people, many of whom could only be described as revolutionary Communists.

President Obama says he can “fix” the millions of canceled health insurance plans with an administrative change. He’s claiming more executive power – power for himself – than the Constitution allows, and is playing fast and loose with the truth.

The culprit behind the cancellations is not an administrative regulation, as he claims. It’s Section 2702 of the Affordable Care Act. It says all plans sold in the individual market or small-group market on Jan. 1, 2014, or later must include the Essential Benefits Package.

This means 10 categories of health coverage the Washington “experts” deem essential, such as maternity care even if you’re 50 years old. Plans are being canceled because they don’t have all 10.

Only Congress can dispense with the deadline. Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to do that.(Insurers and insurance commissioners in several states have said the “fix” is too late to retool by Jan. 1.) Nevertheless, the House bill is a legal attempt to stop the mass cancellations.

Amazingly, our arrogant president says he will veto that bill if it reaches his desk because it would allow insurers to sell the noncompliant policies to new customers as well as old. The real reason is that Obama wants to rule by edict.

This particular edict could put taxpayers on the hook for a hefty amount. The American Academy of Actuaries warned that the fix is likely to cause healthy people to stick with their old plans, leaving the sickest in the new exchanges. That will clobber exchange insurers.

The “racist concept” of a Jewish national state is an “impediment to peace,” Philip Farah of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Palestine (PCAP) judged during the panel “Myths about the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and Impediments to Peace.” Farah spoke at the November 8-9 (with Sunday worship following on November 10), 2013, Waging Peace in Palestine & Israel conference. Farah’s anger towards Israel was typical among the event’s self-professed Christians who consistently undermined the Jewish state’s legitimacy in numerous ways.

The conference sponsor was the Alliance of Baptists (AB), founded in 1987 as a “prophetic voice in Baptist life” among “people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, theological beliefs, and ministry practices.” “[C]ombining progressive inquiry” and “prophetic action,” these diverse individuals are “married, divorced, single, committed and somewhere in between.” AB’s partner congregation in Washington, DC, Calvary Baptist Church, was the conference host.

AB in the conference’s program described the event as an “effort to be faithful to our Statement of support to Palestinian Christians.” Reprinted in the program, The Alliance of Baptists Respond to the Kairos Palestine Document is also available at the AB website. In this statement AB affirmed the December 15, 2009, declaration Kairos Palestine-A Moment of Truth: A Word of Faith, Hope, and Love from the Heart of Palestinian Suffering as representing the “most prevalent views of Palestinian Christians living in the occupied territories.”

Read online, A Moment of Truth set the conference’s troubling tone. The declaration invokes a “Palestinian people who have faced…clear apartheid for more than six decades,” namely since Israel’s very founding in 1948, and not since any post-1967 Six Day War occupation. The declaration describes Israel solely as an attempt by the “West…to make amends for what Jews had endured in the countries of Europe…on our account and in our land.” Yet half of Israel’s present Jewish population is of Middle Eastern/North African (Mizrahim) origin, many of them descended from Jews expelled by Arab countries in the years before and after Israel’s 1948 establishment. Such charges call into question A Moment of Truth’s subsequent attribution of hostility with Israel to its post-1967occupied territories, namely that “if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity.”

The well-worn notion that much of the public has been fed is that Senator Ted Cruz, along with Mike Lee and many Republican House members, caused the government shutdown which was, itself, a disaster. While far from true, the real battle is whether Republicans will learn the proper lessons and how they will move from here, together or in internal disarray, toward their own private sector reform or submit to a pre-planned Democrat drive toward a single payer system.

While extremist radicals such as Sean Penn called for Cruz to be “institutionalized,” the prominent attack on Cruz, primarily by “reasonable” Republicans such as John McCain and Peter King, has been that he chose the wrong “strategy” in his attempt, first to defund Obamacare and later, to cause a delay in its individual mandate and elimination of Congress’ own exemption. It was argued that even if Cruz had convinced enough Senators to vote with him, President Obama would have exercised his veto. Further, no matter how it occurred, any government shutdown would be blamed on Republicans. Instead, they insist, Obamacare would have imploded on its own.

It is certainly true Republicans have taken a beating in the polls. The real cause, however, was the constant bantering of messages by Democrats and their key ally, the media. For months before the shutdown, the media essentially installed critical notions in the minds of the public such as “Republicans will be blamed,” “Obama will not budge,” “a shutdown will result in a national, if not international crisis,” and so on. We tend to think we are sophisticated evaluators of incoming information but, for the most part, our minds find it difficult to fend off that which is constantly barraging them. And once those ideas were force fed to the public, the public tended to feed them right back in the form of polls which, in turn, caused further amplification of the notion.

Accordingly, rarely was the more accurate proposition that Obama and the Democrats were responsible for the shutdown because they refused to negotiate with Cruz and House Republicans given much airtime. Similarly, if Cruz had been successful in converting enough Senators, Obama would have had a difficult time standing alone with his veto trying to do what he does best- blame others. The game would have been very different if the Senate had gone against Obama. And even if the Senate did not fully fall in line with Cruz, many borderline seats would then be better poised for Republican rebounds in the 2014 elections. The only thing that ultimately made Cruz’s actions “bad strategy” is that the “reasonable” Progressive Republicans chose not to join.