We’s a gwine ter have a wing ding hyar, an RL peeps is a comin’. Summ a youse wot mebbe mought wanna come, youse is inviteried. Puh-leeze to email me and ah’ll hep yez ter the haps, gatesters. Dig?
Allons Enfants
OK, so I missed Canada Day.
The Rights of Man, by Thomas Paine.
Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution
… It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen and on which they have been founded.
They may be all comprehended under three heads.
First, Superstition.
Secondly, Power.
Thirdly, The common interest of society and the common rights of man.
The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the third of reason.
When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up the back-stairs in European courts, the world was completely under the government of superstition. The oracles were consulted, and whatever they were made to say became the law; and this sort of government lasted as long as this sort of superstition lasted.
After these a race of conquerors arose, whose government, like that of William the Conqueror, was founded in power, and the sword assumed the name of a sceptre. Governments thus established last as long as the power to support them lasts; but that they might avail themselves of every engine in their favor, they united fraud to force, and set up an idol which they called Divine Right, and which, in imitation of the Pope, who affects to be spiritual and temporal, and in contradiction to the Founder of the Christian religion, twisted itself afterwards into an idol of another shape, called Church and State. The key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury became quartered on one another, and the wondering cheated multitude worshipped the invention.
When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.
We have now to review the governments which arise out of society, in contradistinction to those which arose out of superstition and conquest.
It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of Freedom to say that Government is a compact between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with.
The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
… And the Dame, Too.
A wave of film noir is due on DVD shortly, hurrah!
From the Wikipedia link above:
Film noir tends to feature characters trapped in a situation (often a situation not of their making) and making choices out of desperation. Frequent themes are murder, betrayal, and infidelity. Films noirs tend to include dramatic shadows and stark contrast (a technique called low-key lighting).
Ahh, that’s the stuff. Wikipedia crosslinks to a title list. Noirfilm is a sort of noir-lovers’ co-op. Classic Noir digs a bit deeper than the box sets below. The site encourages browsers to pull a fast one, and check out a random film.
TCM (and Warner) is releasing a beautifully-designed box set soon, with “Murder, My Sweet,” “The Set-Up,” “Out of the Past,” “Gun Crazy,” and “The Asphalt Jungle.“
Universal is also releasing a set, with “This Gun For Hire,” “Criss Cross,” “Black Angel,” and “The Big Clock.”
(“The Big Clock” was a prominent influence on the Coen’s “Hudsucker Proxy,” for what it’s worth.)
Questar will be springing “D.O.A,” “Detour,” “The Stranger,” “Scarlet Street,” and “Killer Bait,” as well as a sixth disc of features which includes a raft of trailers.
Missing from these box sets is the terrific “Double Indemnity,” starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson.