Conservativa

In this photo, Bob Marshall is at the podium, but the Henrico delegation is waving signs supporting Jim Gilmore.

As promised, coffee, chocolate, and good times at the Jeffersoniad hospitality suite at the RPV Convention, May 30, 2008. In this photo it was late, and the room was beginning to clear. A lot of people dropped by, including Congresswoman Thelma Drake, congressional hopeful Amit Singh, a lot of bloggers, and others.

Thanks to sponsors Rhumb Line and Speaker of the House Bill Howell. Thanks to Jason Kenney and a lot of the Jeffersoniad bloggers who worked to pull the hospitality suite together.

Will you be at the GOP Convention Friday? Then join the Jeffersoniad bloggers, elected officials, and others, at our Hospitality Suite at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., Room B19. This is being kindly sponsored by Rhumb Line and Speaker of the House Bill Howell. We can promise chocolate, coffee, and good company. There is also a high potential for civilized but sharp looks and barbs flying between our two Jeffersoniad camps, Republican and Libertarian. Really, it’s going to be like a big mashup between West Side Story, Pride and Prejudice, and C-SPAN, but with chocolate, and it will be blogged. Don’t miss this one!!!!!

If you are thinking of doing those this fall in order to “punish” the GOP, please read this and consider yourself taken to school, by Rachel Lucas. (Note: plenty-o-bad-language warning, but the piece is worth it. Excerpt:

“Some say that’s fine because if the country’s going to be “ruined”, better that it’s ruined by a Democrat, and somehow magically we’ll come up with a fantastic, “real” conservative in 4 years even though there is no one like that on the horizon and everyone knows it. Like I said, I think that’s a super-crappy plan.”

A group of Iraq war veterans and their friends have begun the process of getting a Virginia “Iraqi Freedom Veteran” license plate made. There must be 350 paid applications for the license plate; then Del. Bill Janis will be sponsoring the legislation. This is what the plate would look like.

To read more,

• Story from WRIC
• Story from Channel 19 in Charlottesville
• IVF Plate effort’s home page (on MySpace)

Rusty McGuire, an Iraq War veteran, is chairman of the group.

Here are some people looking at names etched in the glass at the Virginia War Memorial. I’m glad they have brought their children. We cannot all serve, but we should all remember at what price our freedom was bought.

Here are two articles worth reading: The Name in the Stone, by Gerard Van Der Leun, and Do Flowers Grow on Pork Chop Hill? from the Sippican Cottage blog.

Short version: 2.5 stars out of 5.

Long version: to enjoy this movie, park your brain at the door and enjoy what’s good about it. The premise is complete bosh. The bad things you have heard about the movie are true. But, I couldn’t hate the movie. There were some good things in it, but not what you would expect. The action sequences and CGI effects were with a few exceptions not so good. The human moments in the film were its highlights. I know, I know, you don’t expect that from Lucasfilm. And there were some of those moments that were creaky and didn’t work. But overall that is what to me redeems the movie from 1.5 to 2.5 stars. I don’t want to list my favorites as that would leave spoilers. Some of the acting is good. This too is uneven, though - Indiana Jones has aged believably, but he is set against a villainess who would have to go buy herself some y-coordinates to be two-dimensional.

I should say that I saw the movie with someone else who rated it a 5/5 just for the entertainment quotient, so, there you go.

Now for a long technical maunder on its cinematography. Why on earth would I care about it? Mostly because the cinematographer for this film was Janusz Kaminski, who won a richly-deserved Academy Award for being cinematographer for Schindler’s List. Now that movie was a masterpiece, helped to be that by Kaminski’s work. (Kaminski won another Oscar for Saving Private Ryan). But his work in this Indiana Jones movie was as frustratingly uneven as the rest of the movie. First, in the beginning, in the “desert,” I had heard that you can see arc lights and unmotivated hair lights, and it’s true. That’s bad.

Second, the movie is set in 1957, and it appears to me that Kaminski has chosen film and/or processing or post-processing to duplicate the look of fresh Kodachrome but just washed over with an overly warm-brown (tobacco maybe?) filter. This, plus an admirable attention to prop detail, definitely puts you back at that time… but Kaminski’s effect there is too obvious - it’s just overdone, to me.

Third, I must say, Kaminski does “dark” well - the characters often end up in this or that cave or tomb, and Kaminski manages to put enough light on them to pick them out of the murk. But, I thought, perhaps unkindly, “Let’s not think too hard about the motivation for that light there,” and “This extra lighting will help, when this goes to DVD, as too-dark films tend to go even more black on the small screen.”

High points in the cinematography: the scene at Indy’s home, when he is speaking to the other faculty member. Beautiful light in every shot - very mixed and layered lighting. That’s also true in the coffee shop when Indy talks with Mutt.

So what’s the problem here? I’m glad Kaminski is working and I hope Spielberg paid him a mint. But that kind of photographic talent applied to this movie? Not good. There were some cases in which I was thinking, “This scene is a turkey, but is sure is beautifully lit and photographed…” and even, “I wonder if Kaminski was doing this because he didn’t know any better than to over-do this, or, if he really went all-out on purpose, hoping that his exertions would be the kicker that would subtly help the audience think this scene is better than it is?”

Folks, when the audience is thinking that, it ain’t good.

Kat has put up this week’s Jeffersoniad Journal, and a number of us sound pretty cranky this week… and while you’re there, please sign Kat’s dad’s birthday card.

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore has sent a letter from some of his fellow veterans, endorsing him and highlighting some of his military and intelligence experience:

“He graduated with honors from the Army Intelligence School and Defense Language Institute and he was placed in the 650th Military Intelligence Group stationed in Germany… As a soldier in Western Europe, Jim Gilmore was assigned to a counter-intelligence unit where he worked to help protect and safeguard our bases. He was later awarded the Joint Service Commendation Medal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”

We need that experience in the Senate!

This photo was taken at the 7th Congressional District convention. Photo details: Canon EOS 5D, 200mm, ISO 3200, 1/125 at f/2.8.

Not making a federal case here, just pointing out - Jim Gilmore has in a mailer: “He supports using federal transportation bonds and public/private partnerships to raise the funds needed for transportation projects across the state.” Pat McSweeney, speaking for Bob Marshall, says that this borrowing mentality is a Very Bad Thing. In his speech to the 7th CD convention, said “Now I’m going to say some things about our actions matching our words… …his [Gilmore’s] solution for one of our major problems, the transportation problem, is to borrow more money. Folks, that is precisely the mentality that got us to 10.4 trillion dollars, and it must end.”

Bob Marshall apparently also spoke against borrowing money for transportation at the 2nd District convention. But Marshall’s record as delegate doesn’t seem to indicate that he thinks it’s such a bad thing:

2006, HB 1257 (Co-patron); 2005, HB 2099; 2002, HB 109 - Marshall was Patron: this one looks to me like flat-out borrowing.

There are more such bills. (And what on earth is this one, from 1994, HB 1293 - borrowing money for some Disney project? He was a co-sponsor, with Chichester and Stosch in the Senate, on this one).

I’m not an accountant. I don’t have a thoroughgoing understanding of Virginia’s budget. But those bills look like borrowing money to me. But now all of a sudden borrowing money is the worst thing ever?

Gov. Jim Gilmore had a conference call with 400 or more delegates yesterday. Read about the Gilmore conference call at Bearing Drift.

Also, a note about Warner possibly taking some voters for granted, from the Washington Post. Democrats usually do take “the black vote” for granted… as though it were one thing, that is owed them, because, you know, they’re Democrats and that’s the way things are. Gilmore, on the other hand, makes it clear that he wants to work for and win every vote of every individual voter. He has done that in the past and will be continuing that. In fact, he said in his conference call last night, “I have never tried to run against any group of people. I have always tried to bring people in.” (This was actually in a question involving immigration, but his attitude is admirable).

Photo details: Canon Nikon D40, ISO 800, SB-600 flash, 55mm, 1/100 at f/4.0.

Photo

Sort of. Check out this example of photos from the same Obama event, one showing what you see on TV, and one taken by Mary Katherine Hamm, giving a little perspective…

Attorney General Bob McDonnell addresses a crowd at a Young Professionals for McDonnell event in Richmond, May 13. It was on the back porch and patio of Siné, and the patio area was crowded with young (nearly all under 50 years old) supporters of the AG. Speaker of the House Bill Howell was there. McDonnell seemed gratified by the turnout, thanked everyone several times, and made a point of reminding people how important it is to be working for John McCain now.

Photo of sunset today, taken with point-n-shoot. Blotches in sky are actually on car window.

Congressman Eric Cantor and AG (and candidate for Governor) Bob McDonnell shake hands at the 7th Congressional District Convention. One thing worth noting: Cantor’s name tag, which you can easily see in the original photo, shows that he is a delegate. He could have just breezed in, made a speech, and breezed out again, but he went to the trouble to apply, file, get elected as delegate, show up, and stay for the whole convention.

Photo details: Canon EOS5D, ISO 3200, 200mm, 1/100 at f/3.2.