The Zeitgeist

James Gandolfini: As Important as Brando in the Fermament of Fictional Mafia Bosses

Note: This appeared originally on June 20, 2013 in The Huffington Post.

We now know how The Sopranos really ends -- Tony is taken out by the celestial capo di tutti capi. The series finale was left ambiguous but the boss of bosses up above doesn't go for unresolved endings, so ascending to heaven is New Jersey native James Gandolfini, who at 51 definitely went way before his time.

Gandolfini generally played heavies in film and television not because he was a big guy but because he was a heavyweight actor. The hugeness of his screen presence was most significantly manifested in his eight-year portrayal of Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. The Sopranos created a new paradigm for dramatic television and made HBO must-see TV. Gandolfini's work was recognized by his peers by repeatedly winning the prime-time Emmy award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series along with similar honors from the Screen Actors Guild. He also took home awards from the Golden Globes and the American Film Institute, and was nominated just about every year that he didn't win.

The Sopranos, and Gandolfini's role as Tony, was every bit as important to the oeuvre of American mafia celluloid fiction as were Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael in The Godfather. Aside from that Coppola epic, The Sopranos probably had the most impact on American popular culture as it relates to Italian-American gangsters. Gandolfini was brilliant as Tony Soprano precisely because he seemed to embody and then channel his New Jersey Italian ethnicity thoroughly and completely.

Millions would tune in on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. to learn sage advice on how to run a complex business organization, how to manage recalcitrant personnel, how to fend-off federal regulators (in the form of law enforcement) and how to deal with high levels of stress. It was the quintessential primer on executive management tips for the new millennium. On the home front, Tony faced all the same frustrations and temptations as most middle-aged, upper-middle class men with the caveat that he acted upon the deeply repressed impulses of so many guys living lives of quiet desperation and in so doing served as a vicarious release for male frustration and aggression no less important than that offered by professional football earlier on any given Sunday. That Tony got away with most of it was part of the allure of his character. Gandolfini brought infinite layers of complexity and nuance to a role that is most often either played overly simplistically or for laughs.

Gandolfini's untimely departure is like that of John Lennon or Jim Morrison. There would never be a Beatles reunion after December 1980 or any real performances by The Doors after July 1971 and so The Sopranos can never rise again without the anchoring presence of the Sopranos' paterfamilias.

For those of us born between 1957 and 1963, Gandolfini's tragic early death is a loud knock on our late-40s and early-50-something doors. It is a signal that our lives, no matter how accomplished, are not infinite and our youth fleeting. To Gandolfini's family, friends and colleagues, a big-hearted guy will now leave a gaping hole by his disappearance.

Even in reruns, The Sopranos is one of the best shows on TV. It always seems fresh and vibrant even if you've seen that particular episode a half dozen times. That's partly a testament to James Gandofini who gave a performance for the ages on a par with Brando. Thanks, Mr. Gandofini, for making many a Sunday night so meaningful. We wish you Godspeed and a great seat in heaven's Bada-Bing.

The Zeiteist

With Yankees Impending Invasion of CitiField,

Why is Mr. Met Smiling?

Dismal Days for Mets Fans

Over the course of many years, Esquire magazine ran recurring cover photos of the late former President Richard M. Nixon with the headlined question, “why is this man smiling?” The New York Mets baseball team has the distinction of having put the first mascot ever in major league history on their field, in the person of Mr. Met. Mr. Met has a huge head in the shape of a baseball and Mr. Met is always, perpetually, permanently, smiling. 

Just as with Esquire’s query about Nixon, it begs the same question not only of Mr. Met specifically but of Mets management generally – because going into a seven game series this weekend against the surging 28-18 first place in their division Atlanta Braves (at home) followed by a four-gamer against the first place in the AL-East and cross town rival New York Yankees (also 28-18), there’s not a whole lot for Met fans to be smiling about.

The Mets are at 17 and 27 – which  believe it or not is not the worst record in the National League (that honor goes to the Miami Marlins) but it’s 10.5 games behind the Braves and the flipside of the Yankees’ record in just about every respect – and that includes self respect. It’s hard for Met fans to have self-respect when this weekend’s series was preceded by a three game sweep by the visiting Cincinnati Reds (29-18) who know how to pitch, catch and hit the ball.

In the last two seasons, as hobbled as the Mets were, they at least gave fans some excitement for the first half of the season. In 2011 they hovered around .500. Last year they were several games over .500 for most of the first half before their inevitable collapse. This season the Mets collapsed after the first month. Fans were highly upset that management dealt away Cy Young Award-winning pitcher and fan favorite R.A.Dickey. The year prior they dumped Jose Reyes. Signing David Wright to a long term contract is just not enough. Having one great pitcher in Matt Harvey is also not enough when in a five-man starting rotation four guys can’t be banked on and when you have a bullpen that routinely has the worst ERA in the majors and can be counted on to routinely blow games when the Mets have leads going into the seventh and eighth innings.

Monday through Thursday is baseball “color war” week in New York. The games are also known as the ‘Subway Series.” The Mets face the Yanks for two games at home on Monday and Tuesday and then travel to The Bronx to play the Bombers on their home turf. Unfortunately for Mets fans, their record against the Yanks is a dismal 36-54 with a lot of the pain coming in the last few years. In 2012 the Mets went 1-5.  In 2011, 2-4.  In 2009 also 1-5.  And let’s not forget that 1-4 World Series in 2000. (http://ultimatemets.com/oppteams.php?ThisTeam=19)

Given the depressed state of Mets fans, it is highly likely that the majority of fans in the stands at CitiField will be pro-Yankee. Met fans have been selling their Subway Series tickets in droves online and hordes of Yankee fans have been snapping them up at a discount to revel in the anticipated clobbering and potential humiliation of a Mets team that can barely be called major league.

In a two-team town like New York, playing like Miami, Milwaukee (18-27) or Houston (14-33) is just unacceptable. New Yorkers define themselves (well, a lot of male New Yorkers anyway) by their team allegiances. You’re either a Jet or a Giant, a Net or a Knick, an Islander or a Ranger, a Met or a Yankee. Fans need to know their team are contenders not perennial losers. Met fans have gotten to a point where they’d be thrilled just to have a .500 season, let alone a post season. Yet management allows the Mets to get worse and worse and to fans it appears they don’t seem to care.

A case in point is that of first baseman Ike Davis. In 42 games and 143 at-bats going into Friday, Davis is hitting at .147. There are pitchers with higher batting averages. In fact, Mets ace Matt Harvey is batting .150. Last season Davis couldn’t hit a whiffle ball for the first half before bouncing back just when the team didn’t need his bat in the second half. This year he’s batting even worse if that’s possible. His defensive fielding has been challenged as well. Yet management sticks with him most days in the starting lineup. Why is a guy with a .147 average starting most days in the majors? This is a metaphor for Mets management apparent apathy towards the 2013 season and their fans.

So for the Met faithful, the Subway Series game to be at will be Tuesday when Matt Harvey and his 1.93 ERA and 5-0 record will be on the mound to give the Mets a fighting chance. But for the seven games coming, look for the Mets to only take two of them and look for the rest of the season to careen downhill further from there into misery and irrelevance.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

Scampering over the US-Mexico border fence

Gang of Eight Immigration Bill Will Probably Die in the House;

Some Original Thinking on How to Solve the Problem

The four Democrat and four Republican senators who comprise the so-called “Gang of Eight” have been engaged in a laudable effort to craft a bi-partisan solution to the immigration crisis afflicting this country. Their efforts, which rumor has it will encompass in excess of 1,000 pages of proposed legislation will probably be put before their colleagues and the American people very shortly.

The gist of their proposals have been leaked all over the media) with no end of subsequent hand-wringing from both the left and the right. Democrats are looking for provisions that are perceived to be compassionate and politically popular while Republicans on the whole are looking for ways to somehow entice Hispanics while concurrently slaking the desire of Southern red-state residents for a “Great Wall” type of impenetrable border.

One of the key nubs in the Gang of Eight proposal is that the 11 million or so illegals here now in the U.S. will have to pay a fine for their impertinence in coming here illegally, pay-up all their back taxes and get to the back of the line behind all those who came here legally and are legally awaiting a green card. Oh, they have to pass a background check, learn English, take civics classes, show that they’ve been (illegally) working regularly. This will get them probationary legal status and an eventual path towards citizenship.

The aforementioned provisions for probationary status are so draconian that I’m betting only a minority of illegals will voluntarily submit themselves to this kind of inquisition and arm twisting. Proponents of the bill believe that the peace of mind that would come from knowing you won’t be deported will be incentive enough for most illegals to apply.

Most illegals don’t worry much about being deported, otherwise there wouldn’t be 11 million of them – many of them here for quite a long time now – so long that they already have given birth to a whole new generation of young people whose parents are illegals. Illegals are not just of Spanish decent. There are plenty of Europeans (including Irish, Ukrainians, etc.) hiding here in plain sight who overstayed their tourist or student visas. Ditto folks from the Indian subcontinent and even Africa and China. A lot of illegals fly in to our airports, they don’t all scamper over the Rio Grande. And they wouldn’t be here if there weren’t plenty of jobs for them that most Americans don’t want.

Notwithstanding the bi-partisanship being evidenced in the Senate, any bill will have to get through the GOP-dominated House of Representatives. That’s a tough row to hoe. Senate Republicans have incentive to work with Democrats because they’re in the minority. It’s a different world in the other chamber on Capitol Hill.

My prediction is that the Gang of Eight bill will be dead on arrival or will suffer a slow death if it even manages to get out of the Senate.

What’s needed is some new thinking out of the box. We need a combination of incentives and penalties that will entice the majority of illegals to register while the process benefits society.

The idea of getting illegals to declare years worth of prior income taxes, file those back taxes  (when most were paid off the books) and then pay those taxes is just ludicrous. That they will voluntarily submit to go to the back of the line and wait years for permanent resident status is naïve.

The way to go here is the imposition of a poll tax, or flat franchise fee on all illegals if they wish to remain in the country. Illegals here drain our resources by using our schools, hospitals and other services, America needs to be reimbursed. Republicans want to see a simple solution that’s kind of a punishment and which won’t costs billions of dollars to implement. Democrats want a quick path to residency. Here it is:

Let’s charge all illegals a one-time $50,000 fee to stay in the country and work here. This will raise $400 Billion if eight million of the 11 million illegals take the offer. This fee should be split between the federal government and our schools and hospitals, particularly in areas with heavy immigrant populations. This would be a one-time offer with a cut-off date. Payment of the fee and passing of a background check would get the person not a green card, but a card of a different color entitling them to be guest workers here, assigning them a tax ID number and compelling them to pay all income taxes going forward. They would not be on a path to citizenship (in fact they would be permanently ineligible as a penalty for having come here illegally) but they’d not be deported and can remain here for the rest of their lives. However, if they fail to pay their taxes for two years in a row, they could have their status revoked and be deported. That’s the enforcement anvil. Those not taking the offer will be pressured to leave the country or be deported. Pay to stay and play, or adios.

In this way illegal behavior is not rewarded with citizenship at any point but compassion is served by allowing them to remain as our guests indefinitely and by permitting their children (born here or not) to apply for citizenship. No new cumbersome bureaucracy should be established, rather existing INS and Homeland security workers should implement it in tandem with the IRS.

This should please Democrats on the compassion issue in that no one gets deported and Republicans on the law and order front along with keeping millions of probable Democratic voters off the rolls. It also should please Democrats in the revenue enhancement area while pleasing Republicans by not imposing additional revenue burdens on American citizens. It would also be a boon to the financial services industry (also pleasing the GOP) as financiers could float loans to illegals to pay their $50,000 fine just as they finance college educations. Oh, and also for the Democrats? Eight million or more new taxpayers. Again, revenue enhancement but not on the backs of those here legally and playing by the rules. This kind of proposal just might get some traction in the GOP-lead House.

Vote in the UN in 1947 to partition British-Mandaed Palestine into Jewish and Arab states

Bad Cop, Worse Cop:

The Palestinian Effort to Undermine Israel,

Not Achieve Independence.

Note: This article was written originally in December 2012 but was never published before now, but in light of John Kerry's shuttle diplomacy, it has great relevance today.

On November 29^th 1947 the United Nations voted to terminate the then defunct League of Nations mandate for Palestine which was awarded to the British as a consequence of their conquest of the area from the defeated Ottoman Empire during World War I. The Ottomans were on the wrong side of that conflict, allied with Germany.

What had been the Ottoman Near East was carved into British or French mandates and from there eventually into independent states such as Iraq, Syria, Jordan, etc. None of these nations existed as currently constituted prior to European colonial offices drawing random maps in Paris and London.

In fact, the Palestine mandate encompassed the present territory of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Kingdom of Jordan. In the early 1920s, to assuage Arab nationalist aspirations, Jordan (the “East Bank”) was severed from Palestine and to further appease Arab demands, much of the West Bank, Gaza and some of the Galilee and Negev desert were apportioned by the UN to become another Palestinian Arab state in 1948. That this state failed to come into being was not the fault of Israel.

The Jews of Palestine readily accepted UN Resolution 181 and declared their independence on May 14, 1948. The Palestinian Arab leaders rejected partition, demanding all of Palestine and along with the Arab League, embarked on a war to annihilate the Palestinian Jews and their nascent state. About a half dozen Arab nations attacked Israel but failed to realize their genocidal goal and Israel came into being. The Arabs did retain control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1948 but Jordan annexed the West Bank and the Egyptians did the same to Gaza, snuffing out any notion of an independent Palestinian state. From 1948 thru 1967 the Arab world did nothing to establish an independent Palestinian Arab state in those territories.

The idea behind Resolution 181 was to create a situation in Palestine much akin to that on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola where the two very different nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same space despite their different languages, culture and outlooks. Also in 1947 what was British India was partitioned into Hindu and Muslim states (the current India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). Despite occasional frictions, the two societies manage to coexist side by side.

The difference in Palestine in 1948 and even right through today is that the Arab half of the equation is not interested in coexistence with their Jewish neighbors. No Jews are permitted to reside in any of the Palestinian Arab territories and even Christians are persecuted to such an extent that the Christian population of Bethlehem has been eviscerated.

The Palestinians in their Quixotic quest to conquer all of Palestine employ a “bad cop/worse cop” strategy that goes something like this: In Gaza you have a separate “government” headed by the Iranian sponsored, armed and funded Hamas movement which is sworn to the “armed struggle” and manifests this by lobbing thousands of lethal missiles at Israeli civilians with the intent to kill and terrorize as many of them as possible while at the same time attempting to demoralize its population.

In the West Bank you have the more “moderate” unelected, equally undemocratic Palestinian Authority. They are considered “moderate” because while not forswearing armed struggle, they prefer a diplomatic offensive to ostracize Israel on the world stage along with a concurrent delegitimization campaign designed to isolate Israel and turn her into a pre-Mandela South African regime in the eyes of the international community, thereby whittling away at her economy, support and internal morale.

Proof of this was the speech by PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN on November 29^th, 2012 and the concurrent successfully passed resolution to upgrade the status of the Palestinian delegation at that body. Abbas’ speech came only about a week after a ceasefire in Hamas’ unprovoked war on Israeli civilians. Shamelessly, Abbas casts the Gaza militants as the victims, terms them as “martyrs” and asserts this all happened because of “racist colonial Israeli occupation,” when in fact there are no Israelis whatsoever in Gaza and the Palestinians run their own affairs in the West Bank. Abbas gave a screed that twisted the facts of 1948 to such an extent that even someone proficient in yoga couldn’t contort themselves to that level.

At no point, at no time and at no place has Abbas or any other Palestinian leader spoken clearly and forcefully about the need and desire for peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel as a Jewish state. In no Palestinian media and in no Palestinian school is the message of tolerance and coexistence mentioned. No dissent is allowed in the mantra of a Palestinian state instead of Israel as opposed to alongside of it.

Israelis and Jews everywhere would be ecstatic to see an end to this conflict. Israelis just want to be left alone in peace, like Denmark. All that has to happen is for Palestinian leaders and their people to embrace coexistence, cease militarization and attacks on Israeli civilians and establish genuine democracy in their territories.

These are the reasons why President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and UN Ambassador Rice all condemned and voted against the Palestine resolution of November 29^th. The world does not contribute to peace in the region by encouraging denial of reality, enabling Iranian-sponsored genocidal fantasies and dissuading the Palestinians from face to face negotiations and compromise.