Good "Third Man' Post

We discovered on Facebook today, a link to Edward Copeland on Film, highlighting a great post on the classic film, 'The Third Man', one of this writers' all-time favorites.



Regular Garlic readers will know this, from our periodic use of the tremendous Harry Lime (Orson Welles) riff, in the infamous "ferris wheel" scene, where Lime, who's been on the run, is tracked down by his friend, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), and Lime, colorfully, explains the way-of-the-world to Martins;

Don't be so gloomy...After all, it's not that awful. Remember what the fellow said... In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo - Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?...The cuckoo clock ... So long, Holly.

Copeland features today, a guest post from Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., a writer, and blogger from Thrilling Days of Yesteryear;

“A parrot bit me.”

Sixty years ago on this date, the Grand Prize winner of the 1949 Cannes Film Festival had its American premiere in New York City — and I mention this only because there may be one or two people confused as to why Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) is being commemorated in 2010 as opposed to 2009. Since its introduction to American audiences, the film has become a yardstick by which classic suspense thrillers are measured, telling an engrossing tale of crime and corruption in post-war Vienna as concocted in a novella by author Graham Greene, who also wrote the screenplay for the film.

Go check out “A parrot bit me.”, it's a good read.

Also, take the time to stop by The Reaction, where Copeland has an engaging Healthcare tale.

"We lock and load our ideological ammunition."

Don't be so gloomy...After all, it's not that awful. Remember what the fellow said... In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo - Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?...The cuckoo clock ... So long, Holly.

Harry Lime, to Holly Martin, in the Ferris Wheel scene, from from 'The Third Man'

It would be a nice thought to think of the Right Wing Freak Show churning and churning on their little wheels for the next four-years, watching the country sail by them, as they simmer-and-stew over allowing Stumblin' Bumblin' John McKKKain blow it for them.

For this morning, poking around the great World Wide Web, we stopped by the Queen Freaker, Michelle "Stalkin" Malkin, to check in on the losers.

It seems all the little Flying Monkeys are lost, crestfallen, wandering around aimlessly.

So, Ms. Pro-Internment offered no pats on the head, but rather some bare-your-fangs, tough love;

There is no time to lick wounds, point fingers, and wallow in post-election mud.

I’m getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face “What do we do now, Michelle?” e-mails.

What should they do Michelle? How do they survive the next four years, the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama?

We stay positive and focused.

We keep the faith.

We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them.

We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic.

We gird our loins, to borrow a phrase from our Vice President-elect.

We lock and load our ideological ammunition.

We fight.

Yeah, that's it ...

Keep firing that "ideological ammunition", the same stuff that you, the rest of the Right Wing Freak Show, led by the Bush Grindhouse and Faux News, have been firing, you know, the stuff that has left our country bankrupt, had us invade and occupy another nation, and, oh yeah, allow a major United States city to drown.

But she doesn't just let the little Flying Monkey off with a stern lecture.

Nosireebob!

They have tasks, homework, action items.

First assignment for fiscal conservatives in Washington:

1) Oppose the Democrats’ next stimulus boondoggle.
2) Oppose Obama’s windfall profits tax proposal.
3) Oppose new bailouts for states deep in debt.
4) Oppose new foreclosure prevention measures that will simply provide perverse incentives for borrowers to walk away and delay a needed market correction.
5) No more federal loan guarantees for corporations

Again, that "ideological ammunition", just bog everything down, jam the gears, bring Congress to a standstill as the Republican have done so well, so that nothing gets accomplished.

The Flying Monkeys were attentive, offering the Queen Freaker some of their own suggestions, via the Comment section

Like this one, who, rather than engage in the rebuilding of our country, apparently, wants to raise stupid children;

If this does anything, it really will weed out neo-conservatives from true conservatives.

But I’ve got to tell you…we don’t stand a chance to carry the movement forward if we do not educate our children, friends, neighbors (and others we come in contact with) on these principles that work. Moms and Dads…don’t wait for the schools to provide the education to them…it ain’t gonna happen. There is no more truth taught in the pediatric penitentiaries and houses of brainwashing.

And this one, who has already planned, and mapped out, Obama's Impeachment;

Obama will not be impeached before 2011, when the GOP could conceivably recapture the House, and could not be convicted in the Senate if impeached before 2013, when the GOP might recapture the Senate. And if the GOP captures the Senate in 2012, Obama probably own’t be sworn in for a second term in 2013.

Then there's this fellow, seemingly, wanting to go Vichy and give up names, start filling Queen Freakers Internment Camps;

Also, I don’t know how many of you were watching Fox News coverage of McCain’s speech, but afterward, the journalist assigned to his campaign commented that there were some (maybe many) in the McCain camp that felt that all along McCain thought that, because Obama was black, Obama should win. Essentially, MY FREINDS, we had a rat among us and it the head of our ticket. That would help to explain why he would not attack Obama on ANYTHING. Did you hear that Fox offered McCain the same 30 minute time slot during Obama’s Infomercial FOR FREE and he turned it down!!! If if ever appeared to any of you that McCain didn’t seem to even WANT to win this, you may have been right. We had one party running, not two. McCain’s biggest REACH ACROSS THE EISLE AND THEY’LL LOVE ME.

Let's add something that will really piss them off (or, at least, it will rile up Stalkin' Malkin).

For Inauguration Day, First Lady Michelle Obama should wear a special, Democratic Blue keffiyeh


What's that old saying, for every ying, there's a yang?

The Wall Street Meltdown, now, that hurts ...

The Right Wing Freak Show meltdown .... Priceless!


Bonus Michelle "Stalkin" Malkin Riffs

Capt. Fogg: They burn witches, don't they?

Chris Kelly: Meet John D'oh: Michelle Malkin is Watching You

Logan Murphy: Frost Parents Talk About The Right’s Jihad Against Their Son On Countdown

When A Michelle Malkin Quits The O'Reilly Factor, And No One is Around To Hear it, Does It Make A Sound?

Mirror, Mirror ... She's Still The Sickest! ... But The Bush Grindhouse Is Gaining Ground ... Follow-Up On The Graeme Frost Conflagration

Mirror, Mirror .. If Only Keith Olbermann Offered A "Sickest Person In The World", Sighs Michelle Maudlin, "I Would Surely Be The Sickest"

Cue The Zither Music ... Minced Garlic: New Keith Olbermann Special Comment

The Entire Government Has Failed Us On Iraq

Another Keith Olbermann Special Comment this evening, about shame, and the bi-partisan governing exhibited by our President and Congress over the past day in regard to the Iraq War Spending Bill.

He called it a "betrayal" and, for the Democrats, "their Neville Chamberlain moment"

"That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.

All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.

The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.

Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impunity.

The Garlic thanks to a confluence of events, sees it more like the classic "The Third Man", with George Bush taking on the Harry Lime role (so deliciously portrayed in the film by the great Orson Wells), with a haunting score of zither music.

Last night, taking on the Holly Martins role, the U.S. Congress, with not enough cynicism, and wanting to believe so much in their Bush-as-Harry Lime, capitulated and gave him a toothless Iraq War Spending Bill.


This morning, the stalwart of justice, Monica Goodling, certainly taking on the part of Anna Schmidt, all misty-eyed in love with Harry, took her turn before the House Judiciary Committee, to, alternately defend Lime and his cohorts, and, at the same time throw a few people under the bus - and hope, just as Anna in the movie did, she doesn't get arrested, but will do so, willingly, for her Harry.

Today, The Commander Guy goes to the Coast Guard Academy, to raise the curtain - again - on fear, playing the Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda card - with, at least, two-year old intelligence, only recently declassified for The Decider's usage - telling how Iraq will be used as a launching pad for attacks on the United States - the same Iraq that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda wasn't in when the Bush Grindhouse unleashed their "Shock and Awe" to invade and occupy the country.

Lime, in post WWII Vienna, was trafficking in bad penicillin, along with other unsavory activities, including murder.

Bush-as-Lime, in the post Sept.11th world, is trafficking in bad intelligence, illegal wiretaps, the politicization of the Justice Department, as well as the aforementioned invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation.

Lime, in a famous scene, runs through the Vienna sewer system.

Bush-as-Lime, by his actions, has dragged the United States of America down in the sewer, with his attack on the U.S. Constitution, the suspension of habeas corpus, governing via Signing Statements, and his lying.

Lime, in the movie, doesn't get away with it.

Our Bush-as-Lime, thanks to the Congress, playing the passive Martins, half wanting to stop him, and half, wanting to see him succeed, may just get away with it, keeping us, and our soldiers, in harms way, right up to January 20th, 2009.

But all the Commander Guy could come up with today was to pull out the tired, well-worn, fear mongering speech, nothing even remotely close to the classic riff Harry Lime gives Holly (with a bit of fear mongering of his own - "... I carry a gun...I don't think they'd look for a bullet wound after you'd hit that ground...") at the top of the Riesenrad, the large Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park;

HARRY
Don't be so gloomy...After all,
it's not that awful. Remember what
the fellow said...

- in Italy, for thirty years under
the Borgias, they had warfare,
terror, murder, bloodshed, but they
produced Michaelangelo - Leonardo
Da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In
Switzerland, they had brotherly
love. They had five hundred years
of democracy and peace, and what did
that produce?...The cuckoo clock.
So long, Holly.

Olbermann, for his part in this play, came out swinging.

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

With bullet points, Olbermann blasts the Dems, with punches that likely were felt down in the Beltway, before going on to;

A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.

Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.

You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Olbermann finishes (and I won't ruin it here for you) with a flourish, a heated "we’re not going to take it", while laying down a challenge, to, well, someone, stop the lies, and stop the war.

Links

Read and/or Watch The Video of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment - The Entire Government Has Failed Us On Iraq

Countdown with Keith Olbermann