Atlas Shrugged, The Movie Part One

Currently, there is a movie out of which most folks are unaware, Atlas Shrugged, The Movie Part One. One has to look real hard online, in the papers and in town theatres for any mention of it.

After some furious digging around, I found it in a jerkwater theatre on the outskirts of Denver a couple of weeks ago. You see, it's as if the powers of Hollywood and its conspiring distributors, did not want this movie to see the dark of a theatre and the light of the media. They would have been happier if it never survived the cutting room floor. Why? Because the liberal biased moviemakers don't like the movie's message of capitalism is good, making money is our right and the unbridled powers of government makes those two noble goals counter-intuitive, difficult and in some cases damn near impossible. They fear that the content of the movie may make people think differently, that is, differently from Hollywood's version of reality. That's the threat to H'wood. Hollywood infers making money is only right if you do it under their script, direction, production and distribution. Sounds like the "Department of Cultural Enforcement" at work here.

As you know, the movie is based on Ayn Rand's timeless masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. Written in 1957, Atlas Shrugged is a 1000 page fictional tome brilliantly written with a complex message that an over-reaching and intrusive government in and of itself will destroy the ambition of the individual. Government versus the individual. The taker versus the maker. A classic battle. Rand posits, rather exhaustively, to the reader, whose side are you on? It's worth the self-examination.

The book and movie heroine, Dagney Taggert, and the quintessential disaffected capitalist/oilman, Ellis Wyatt, both pictured above, are the protagonists in this drama. Dagney and Ellis along with Hank Reardon, the other "disgusting capitalist", subscribes to the philosophy that, "I will gamble with my own mind. I won't let anybody else do it...and the most depraved man is a man without a purpose."

While the governmental fictional antagonists, The Departments of "Equalization of Opportunity", "State Science Institute", "Ministry of Welfare", "Moral Conditioning", "Unification Board", "Public Stability", "Economic Planning and National Resources", promotes the notion that, "All thought is theft. If we do away with private fortunes, we'll have a fairer distribution of wealth. If we do away with the genius, we'll have a fairer distribution of ideas." Thus, initiating a governmental fiat, "the government needs wider powers" to help the people.

After watching the movie, I thought as I always do about books made into movies...the book was better. Seriously, how do you make a movie from such an epochal novel? A movie morphed from a classic book by nature is silly and a cheap imposter of true genius.

Would I recommend the movie? Not really. It won't be up for any Oscars. So, save your money and go buy the book at a paperback discount at Costco (yes, they carry it now). Set aside a week in some cultural wasteland without distraction and read it. It will take quiet thoughtful time. It will do one of three things for sure: inflame you, change you or confirm you.

Who is John Galt?

Manny and Freddie, Batman and Robin

Is there a more successful tandem or partnership in sports than reigning World Welterweight Champion, the pride of Sarangani Province Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, and his trainer, Freddie Roach? I don't think so. Manny is Batman to Freddie's Robin...but not exactly. Sometimes, I wonder who is driving the batmobile. Who cares. Both are capable. A sure sign of a good team.

In his career, Manny has won in eight different weight classes. Flyweight to Light Middleweight. 108 pounds to 154 pounds. Manny has fought all comers in 8 weight classes. In 58 fights, his record is 53-3-2. Really astounding. Arguably, Manny is the best pound for pound boxer in the history of boxing. And Freddie has been at his side, as trainer during his professional ascendancy. You may know about Manny. But, who is this Freddie Roach character?

Freddie, 51, was a professional boxer, a lightweight, from a boxing Massachusetts family. He had a respectable record and actually fought for the world championship in the 1980's. He lost. His biggest payday was $7500. After his career ended, Freddie worked as busboy and waiter in Las Vegas. On the side and on the cheap (free), he worked as an aid to Hall of Fame trainer, Eddie Futch. He learned his craft from Eddie and he too, Freddie, became a professional trainer.

From his years as a boxer, Freddie contracted Parkinson's disease while in his 40's. Parkinson's is a crippling disorder of the brain that leads to tremors and difficulty in walking and moving. Nonetheless, Freddie arrives at his gym, Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California, everyday to train the best fighters in the world. The stallion of his current stable is 8 time world champion Manny Pacquiao.

The medical experts say that Freddie's Parkinson's condition has stabilized for the time being. Why? They feel because of Freddie's intense physical work with Manny and the other boxers that has actually slowed the progress of the disease. And these are no pansy workouts. Freddie gets into the ring with pads and mitts and runs his pugilists through a battery of boxing drills. You must see it to believe it. With the shakes and all, Freddie takes some of Manny's best shots albeit protected by a chest pad. Talk about courage and guts. No wimps allowed in that gym.

This past Saturday, Manny and Freddie were on boxing's world stage again against challenger, "Sugar" Shane Mosley for the WBO World Welterweight Championship from a packed MGM Grand arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Manny did his thing in the ring while Freddie did his thing outside the ring. Both magic. And the result? Another win for the team. Manny kept the World Championship belt and received $20million purse for the 12 round fight.

After a rather dull workmanlike fight, the hapless Jim Gray asked a smiling but weary Manny in an interview, "you weren't sharp tonight." Manny responded, "my legs were tight but I fight to make the people happy." I don't know about the people being happy but I do know one person is really happy, and that is, Freddie Roach. He's not waiting tables and busing dishes anymore in Vegas. Some of that $20mil purse is rightfully his and Manny knows it.

Right now, Manny and Freddie own Vegas and the boxing world. And it couldn't happen to a better duo.

As for Floyd Mayweather, Jr., you don't belong in the same sentence with....the above.

Seve, The Master of the Green

This past Saturday, the world of golf sadly lost one of it's lions, Severiano Ballesteros, 56, from Spain, the father of modern European golf and the winner of 5 Major Golf Championships. Seve died stubbornly after two plus years of hell battling a malignant brain tumor. A terrible ending for someone so gifted, so charismatic, so courageous, so handsome, so young....so everything. Not only a multiple winner on the professional worldwide golf circuit, Seve, more importantly, was a tv room winner of 100 million plus hearts around planet golf. He lived a modest 54 years but his memory will endure forever for those people who recognized and respected his competitive genius and skill in such a tough game, golf.

Many of you know of Seve's exploits on the golf courses of the world as a professional golfer. St. Andrews. Augusta. Royal Lytham and St. Annes. Ryder Cup. He beat the best in the world on golf's grandest stages and moments. Nicklaus, Watson, Crenshaw, Langer, Kite, Price, Floyd, Irwin all bobbed in his wake. However in awe his professional opponents were of his game, we his adoring public and seriously-flawed Walter Mitty wannabee good golfers, stood in greater awe. Why? Because his game was so human, so flawed yet divine.

We connected on a visceral level with Seve. We all had something in common with Seve. We hit it sideways off the tee, like Seve. Totally human. But that's where the similarity ended. While we stayed in trouble after the second and sometimes third shots, Seve miraculously extricated himself from trouble the first time. He showed us how to do it. Get out of trouble and save par and maybe birdie. Recovery was possible. Seve did it. He gave us hope to make the shot. He made golf fun and thrilling even in the darkest of times.

Revered columnist of the LA Times, Jim Murray, wrote of Seve, "Seve Ballesteros goes after a golf course the way a lion goes after a zebra." But I get the sense that Seve did not reserve this style only to golf but to everyday life. As Red said in the movie Shawshank Redemption, "get busy living or get busy dying." Seve lived fully until he was not able.

Seve made the European Golf Tour relevant in the same way Arnold Palmer made the PGA Tour relevant to the fan. They had an authentic human embrace for the fans and for the game and in turn we had it for them.

Seve, your pain is over now, golf and your fans will miss you but we will never forget you. Thank you for the memories.

May God welcome you warmly in the prized foursome above.

Que descanse en paz.

Ole! Ole!! Ole!!!

"Because it's there."

In 1926, English mountaineer, George Mallory, was asked by the British press, "why do you climb Mount Everest?" George uttered the three most famous words in the mountaineering world, "because it's there." What's there? The top of the world.

Bordered by Tibet, Nepal and China, Mount Everest, known by the local Sherpa population as Chomolangma "Goddess Mother of Snows" is the world's highest point above sea level at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters). To put those numbers into perspective, that is 5 and a half miles high, 21 Empire State Buildings stacked upon one another and an elevation slightly below passenger jet air traffic.

Everest is stunningly beautiful from base camp at 17,000. It's the next 12,000 feet of climbing to the summit that is cruelly hazardous that will either kill you, maim you for life or grant you a stay of execution. It is a frozen, icy, mercurial, windy, treacherous and painful environment. Above 28,000 feet, the climber enters the "death zone." Oxygen is 2/3 thinner than at sea level. Hypoxia takes over the body. Your brain malfunctions and brain cells die. And one misstep on an ice edge or an abrupt weather change will quickly imprint you as another expired figure on the mountain landscape forever...frozen in time.

Such is the story of George Mallory in his attempt to be the first man to ascend Mount Everest in May of 1926. Mallory along with his companion Sandy Irvine died that May on their attempt of Everest. 73 years later, Mallory's preserved and frozen corpse was found by fellow mountaineers below the summit in 1999. Did he summit? That is debatable. Some say yes while others say no. 27 years later, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, ascended the summit in May of 1953 as the first men on "top of the world." They returned to earth with Kodak pictures as proof of their success. Mallory's camera was never recovered.

When the month of May rolls around, a fairly benign time to climb Everest before the summer monsoon season begins, I always think of those intrepid some would say foolhardy folks who attempt to replicate Hillary and Norgay's achievement and avoid Mallory's fate on Everest. At this very moment, there are scores of teams at base camp awaiting their window of opportunity to summit. Vicariously, I follow their fascinating blog dispatches of their expeditions on-line. Each year about 150 mountaineers, who pay $50,000 each for the priviledge, ascend Everest. Of those, 5 will die on average. In 1996, Everest claimed 15 climbers in the deadliest season on record. Most of those who die, die early ladder crossing the bottomless ice canyons of the Khumba Ice Falls.

I, like the British media asking of Mallory in 1926, too ask why in 2011? Why do this? Is this desire and act of personal adventure the height of selfishness? What about those you left behind? Isn't the risk too great versus the reward? See, since I ask those questions, I will never be moved to summit Everest. I don't have "IT". But when I have the chance, I do want to see Everest from base camp and marvel at its might and then maybe I'll understand somewhat Mallory's pithy riposte of why, "because it's there."

A Different Draft Day Strategy

Finally, today is the day of the annual National Football League's Draft Day from Radio City Music Hall in New York City. For some football fanatics, this day is more exciting than the Super Bowl. Why? It affords hope to all 32 teams that their future fortunes will be better by what they do today. If not, it will also spell doom for those who chose the wrong players and send the fans to the turnstiles or the remotes.

There are alot of different strategies employed by the General Managers and their staff on how to stock their roster with stallions and not donkeys. If you have been following this nonstop media love fest on the draft since the Super Bowl, I'll spare you what you already know. What you don't know is what my strategy would be if I were in command of one of those draft day war rooms. Are you ready for some The Write Way football draft day strategy? Here you go.

First Round.
Bonafide Star. Draft the best athlete on the board category. Has to be at least a three year starter and superb performer in a major college conference with an excellent coach. Identify the position(s) on your roster in need and get the best athlete for that position. Intelligence, speed, size, love of the game, versatility, and leadership qualities have to be in the highest range. Avoid problem children. Avoid overfed, spoiled, inconsistent, injury-prone and dumb players regardless of their individual accomplishments on the field (ie., Cam Newton). My pick, if available: Patrick Peterson, LSU.

Second Round.
Quarterback. This is a quarterback dominated league without a brilliant starter, smart back up and an above-average third stringer you will lose. Each year draft a quarterback in the second-fourth rounds. This is a violent league and qbs are endangered species. One must stock this position with big game experienced, able-bodied and mentally prepared athletes. Plus an abundance of talent in this position may help with trades down the road. My QB Pick: Greg McElroy, Alabama.

Third Round.
Defensive Lineman. A collegiate lineman player who is from island descent in the archipelago in the South Pacific, ie, Samoa, Tonga, etc.. These players are immovable objects on the line. With a redwood tree core and I-beam legs, they clog up running lanes like grease in the kitchen drain or open them like Draino. They stop runners and defenders period. Strength? Stephen Paea, lineman from Oregon State in this year's draft, bench pressed 225LBS 49 times at the combine. My Island Pick: Sione Fua, OT, Stanford.

Fourth to Six Rounds.
Small School Star. Search Division II talent and select a player from one of the perennial small school powerhouses in the Midwest. In 2008, Indianapolis Colts selected Pierre Garcon, wide receiver, from Mount Union in the sixth round. By 2010, Garcon was the Colts starting wide receiver and scored 6TDs with 67 receptions. My pick: Cecil Shorts, III, WR, Mt. Union.

Who to Avoid.
Any player who was coached by the feckless Rich Rodriguez. Some of Rich's players of the past who flamed out royally and tragically in the NFL: Pacman Jones and Chris Henry.

Who to Pick Regardless of Immediate Need After the First Round.
Greg McElroy. See above. Greg scored a 43 correct out of 50 questions on the NFL administered Wonderlich intelligence test that measures an athlete's aptitude and problem solving. The NFL average is 20. Literate level is 10. Only two players in the history of the NFL have scored perfect Wonderlich scores: Pat McInally and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Both educated at Harvard. Conversely, Vince Young scored a 16 and this year's phenom, Cam Newton, scored 21. McElroy not only has the intelligence but reads defenses well and throws accurately with a 70% completion rate. He may not possess the arm of the 1st rounders nor the feet but this kid is a winner in every way. Played for the best coach in the USA, Nick Saban at Alabama, in the best conference, SEC, and under the most pressure every week. He led the Crimson Tide to a National Championship in 2009. He is a 10 year wise investment for any team as an able back-up or starter. And none of the experts, Mel,Todd or Mike are talking about this kid. Unbelievable.

Well , that's it from my perch. Let the picks begin.

Enjoy the show tonite. Especially the antics of those crazy Jets fans in the house.

Postscript: How weird will this draft be with the NFL lock-out and the jockeying going on in the courts as a backdrop of such an wonderful evening? As Rodney King would say, "why can't we all just get along?"

The Risen Lord

Every Easter morning I recall this beautiful painting by Fra Angelico in the Convent of San Marco in Florence. The first time I saw this was in 1976 as I was traveling through Europe as a young man seeing the world. I was stunned by its beauty, brilliant colors, agelessness and its message in such a simple humble setting.

This exquisite painting on the wall of a monastic cell depicts The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Women at the Tomb. The grieving women including, his mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene, looking puzzled at the empty tomb. They ache for some explanation of what happened to Jesus from the Lord's angel. The angel trys to console the women with the words, "Don't be afraid! I know you are looking for Jesus who was nailed to a cross. He isn't here. God has raised him to life, just as Jesus said he would." Matthew 28:5-6.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrate the Risen Lord who died for us so that we may have eternal life. As revealed in this beautiful painting above, Jesus is not only watching over His mother and the other women but He watches endlessly and cares deeply about all humanity. And how fortunate we are to be in His love.

Happy Easter.

President Ryan

President Paul Ryan. Has a nice ring doesn't it? Will it happen in 2012? Probably not, sad to report. Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wi., doesn't want it. He knows his national presence and expertise is better served trying to tame the spiraling out of control budget fiasco. That is, if the "other side of the aisle" cares to listen seriously and without malice aforethought. However, if they remain tone deaf to his message, Ryan may feel compelled to enter the race if for no other reason than to amplify his argument for immediate budget responsibility.

Ryan deals with the facts. His opponents deal in slick acting, empty claptrap and demagoguery. Congressman Ryan is a realist and an economic wonk whiz kid. On the other hand, President Obama is an uninformed and disassociated elitist playing games with the future of the United States of America. And for what reason would Obama do this? For votes and power in a nutshell at the expense of America's well being. Ryan projects hope. Obama spews hopelessness.

But, in the remotest chance that Ryan runs in 2012, can you imagine a Ryan v. Obama sober debate on the subject of the most pressing issue of our country, the national debt? It would be worth a pay-per-view on HBO to witness that meeting. To give it a prime time feel, the debate would be moderated by HBO's very own Jim Lampley and judged by Howard Lederman. Think of the number of body blows and power punches Ryan could land on an imperious Obama. KO after the fourth interrogatory. Ryan hoisted on the shoulders of Speaker Boehner. Obama, though knocked out, blames his defeat on George Bush and Dick Cheney as he is toweled off by Reverend Wright.

Seriously, in a civilized debate on the issue of the debt there is not a man in Washington comparable to understanding and articulating the budget mess like Congressman Paul Ryan. Studying the debt problem and solving it is Ryan's life's work. His kids and our kids are depending on his work to be fruitful. Sure, it's not perfect, yet, but his plan is a plan worthy of debate.

Obama seems annoyed by Ryan and the budget issue because he hasn't studied it, doesn't understand it, can't control it or his party and doesn't own it like Ryan. He'd rather make smoozing house calls with the billionaire campaign donors at Facebook and Google in the soviet coastal enclave of San Francisco. But in a debate setting on this issue, Obama sans teleprompter, Paul Krugman and his enraptured army of toadies, would be exposed for what he truly is, a voluble barker espousing bromides and generalities flashing that always-ready camera smile and cocksure gait.

Continuing on with the theme of a HBO event, maybe the proceeds from such an outstanding televised show could go towards the paying off some of the $14TRILLIONplus national debt. Now that would be a truly positive bipartisan effort. But that will never happen. President Obama doesn't like to lose, particularly in front of the on-air red light. It wouldn't be prudent for him and he knows it.