Lemon Tree: a bitter sweet film

Lemon Tree is another foreign languages film which is well worth the cinema trip.

According to Eran Riklis, the Israeli director,

Lemon Tree is a simple story about people who find themselves fighting over matters that could have been resolved quite easily if they would just listen to each other.

...this is really a film about solitude as it is reflected in the lives of two women ...

Hiam Abbass plays Salma Zidane, a Palestinian woman who fights to keep her lemon grove from destruction by Israeli security because it is next to the Defence Minister's house. Her performance is even stronger than her role in The Visitor. Rona Lipaz gives an equally sensitive performance as the Minister's alienated wife Mira Navon. Both neighbours have children in the United States, one at Georgetown University and the other is a kitchen-hand planning to study IT. Not hard to guess which is which.

The film has its male villains, represented by the politician Israel Navon (Doron Tovory) and the local Palestinian power-broker Abu Camal (Makram Khoury). However, there are several sensitive male charactisations: the lawyer Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman), Salma's surrogate uncle and fellow lemon cultivator (Tarik Copty) and the Israeli guard Quickie (Danny Leshman).

The film is about the things that unite as well as those which have created walls, both literal and figurative, in the Middle East. Make sure you see Lemon Tree if you possibly can.


More film reviews at Cinema Takes

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CNN's Post Debate Polling

By way of an apology to CNN commentators after my post yesterday.

Their polling seems to confirm their rating of the candidates in the second presidential debate based on first impressions.

Fifty-four percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey conducted after the debate ended said that Obama did the best job in the debate, with 30 percent saying Sen. John McCain performed better.

According to the poll, 64 percent had a favorable opinion of Obama after the debate, up 4 points from before the event. Fifty-one percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of McCain after the debate, unchanged from before its start.

A majority said Obama seemed to be the stronger leader during the debate, 54 percent to 43 percent, and by a more than 2-to-1 ratio -- 65 percent to 28 percent -- viewers thought Obama was more likable during the debate.
Obama picks up second debate win, poll says

My view is still that it was a lot closer than these figures suggest.

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Presidential debate soft-shoe shuffle

Thanks to Voices without Votes, fresh perspectives on the second presidential debate from Jotman in Bangkok:

"Obama is matching McCain on toughness, it's a strategy not to give McCain an advantage on this score"
Why Obama won the town hall debate

"I thought McCain's physical performance was shaky. He walked around as if lost, seemed hesitant to call Obama by name, otherwise acting as if he was afraid to get close to Obama."
Obama's overhead projector

My take from Melbourne Bayside is that it was not a conclusive victory either way. John McCain repeated his narrative of 25 years of fighting his Republican allies in the Congress. However, there was little sense of any great achievements in that struggle. He may have been right on the Iraq surge but, as Obama pointed out, he was very wrong on the war.

It is also a bad time to be arguing that government cannot and should not do much about issues such as the economy.

Barack Obama seemed tentative at times. He obviously prefers to work through issues in detail rather than trying to rebut accusations with ten second catchphrases.

Any similarity between this event and a town hall meeting in the U.S. or anywhere else is purely in the imaginations of the media. It was more like Dancing with the Stars.

The U.S. liberal media such as CNN scored it a win to Obama but they are no great judges of the American voters.

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Homer Simpson's Secret Ballot

Homer Simpson tries to vote for Obama

I thought Homer would be a Palin kind of guy.

Voices without Votes are looking for overseas reactions to this clip from an episode which is supposed to screen in the States on 2 November.

Please leave your comment below.

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The pit-bull is off the leash!

A post for Voices without Votes:

Sarah Palin continues to infuriate and trouble progressive bloggers in Australia. The Vice Presidential debate and her weekend attack on Barack Obama over William Ayers has brought swift responses.

more...

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All Economic History is Fiction

ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint seems to draw on the right-wing think tanks for many of its guests. Jennifer Marohasy, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, well known climate change denier, is a regular on ABC radio.

So it was time to call in the big guns last week to defend capitalism and free markets against the pro-regulation push. The segment on Counterpoint last week was Free Markets and Regulation. Their guest experts on matters economic and financial were John Roskam, the executive director of the Institute for Public Affairs and Dr Stephen Kirchner, research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.

The discipline of economics is a difficult arena at the best of times. Often derided as the scientists of hindsight, economists seem to specialise in convincing us why last year’s wrong prediction was the correct one at the time. A political-economy paradox perhaps. Counterpoint’s two terriers should have stuck to theory. Instead they ventured into the murky waters of economic history.

First, John Roskam shared his critical analysis:

I hope it's not a failure of capitalism quite yet, Michael but, as Stephen was indicating, what we saw in the 1980s was the Clinton administration in the US encouraging banks to lend to people on low incomes…

Perhaps it is the fault of the Clinton administration. Unfortunately for John, Bill's government lasted from January 1993 till January 2001. Perhaps the blame really belongs to Ronald Reagan or George Bush Senior’s terms in office during the 1980’s. Unlikely though, since they were conservatives.

Next, Stephen had a go at things historical:

There's a precedent for this in terms of the Resolution Trust Corporation which was set up to buy up the assets of the savings and loan industry that got into trouble in the early 1990s…

Wrong again! The RTC was set up in 1989 as a result of the S & L crises of the 1980’s. Reagan can cop that one. A bit closer than John but not quite there.

If we are going to learn from economic history, let’s at least get the facts straight. Economists love to use graphs. A timeline might prove more useful at times.

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U.S Election: States in play

Another useful link for those following the U.S. election numbers:

The New York Times Electoral Map has the latest State polling for the Presidential candidates. It includes:

* recent polling with source
* previous election results
* current government data
* no. of electoral college votes

There are also State Profiles.

The predominance of red on the map at present shows that McCain enjoys the support of more acres than voters.

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Americans more popular than their country

The Pew Research Center has conducted a survey of attitudes to the U.S. by foreigners. The answer seems to be : they don't hate Americans just their government.According to Pew:

The American people continue to be viewed more positively than their country, with majorities in 14 of 23 countries having a favorable opinion of Americans, including at least 70% of those surveyed by Pew in South Korea, Lebanon, Poland and Britain. By comparison, only eight countries have a favorable opinion of the United States.
14 of 23 - American People Are More Popular Than the U.S.

46% of Australians surveyed have a positive view of the U.S. with two thirds positive about Americans.

The 35% favorable opinion for the U.S. of the 23 countries polled, is probably higher than George W. Bush's own rating at home.

For bloggers' views about the U.S from around the world, please visit Voices without Votes.

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ABC: God's Next Army?

If you missed Sunday's Compass program God's Next Army on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), it was a low point for our national broadcaster. It was an uncritical look at Patrick Henry College near Washington D.C. which uses the bible to prepare home-schooled youths for leadership in conservative America. They have been George W. Bush's and the Republican Party's campaign fodder. Many have worked as White House interns or as volunteers with right-wing lobbyists. The student body appeared to have no black or Hispanic students and only one of Asian background.

Geraldine Doogue introduced the program as topical though it was made in 2005-6. It is so old that they were boasting about working for Karl Rove. It is a promotional video at best, propaganda at its worst. It contained no analysis and could not be described as investigative in any sense. Its tone was highly supportive at the end.

This was a shocker! Is the ABC's budget so low that it has to buy such low quality stuff or was it free?

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Politics in Perspective

We've been in South Australia for a couple of weeks mostly away from mobile phone, TV and internet access. Didn't see the AFL Grand Final, the first presidential debate, the VP debate or the look on George W. Bush's face when the House of Representatives knocked back his bailout bill.

This was made up for by visiting the breathtaking Arkarooola Wilderness Sanctuary (photos are from their website) and Wilpena Pound. Fearing and loathing on Wall Street shrink into proper perspective when you are standing at Sillers Outlook.

Lots to catch up on. Please watch this place.

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