Little Dieter Needs to Fly

Why was this nearly sixty year old German-born American man living in a mountaintop house perched like an eagle's nest outside of San Francisco? Why did he hoard supplies enough to survive on for months, if not years? Why did he have large model airplanes inside and outside his self-designed hearth and home? And what about that aquarium tank? Why the emphasis on large bay windows and paintings of opened doors? Finally, what made someone like him yearn to fly?

With a little of his own narration added for transition, Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) essentially lets Dieter Dengler tells his own story. Of his boyhood in Nazi Germany. Of the moments he witnessed an Anglo-American air attack destroy his village -- the moment he knew he'd become a pilot. Of hunger and deprivation living with his mother (his father killed in the war). Of emigrating to the USA and making his way, eventually, to join the US Navy and fly a carrier-based Douglas Skyraider to attack North Vietnam/Laos from the Tonkin Gulf in 1966. To getting shot down and captured -- a year before John McCain. To surviving a POW camp in Laos and escaping to freedom (subject of another Herzog project, the fictionalized Rescue Dawn, 2007).

We are told that after surviving WWII and the US-Vietnam War, Dengler survived more crashes.

After Vietnam, Dieter served as a test pilot and flew commercial jets for TWA, married three times. And after all of it including the documentary's release on German TV, Dieter Dengler died in 2001 at the age of sixty-two (he was born a year after John McCain).

The final scene is breathtaking -- roving over an air park filled with hundreds of apparently mothballed aircraft, a wide open space like some vast outdoor museum, a graveyard for planes and helicopters. An addendum to the DVD includes footage of Dengler's burial at Arlington with full military honors.



Today's Rune: Wholeness. Good speech by Hillary Clinton today.

That Petrol Emotion

$150 a barrel by Independence Day, eh? Today oil hit $138.54, so it's not such a great leap upward to hit that black magic number. How are things changing in your neck of the woods? I've noticed a differential at some gas stations between credit and cash for the first time in many years. My Shell card has a higher credit line, even though I never asked for it.

There are noticeably fewer large vehicles on the road in Metro Detroit, and automakers are furiously shifting gears to smaller more energy efficient models. I'm amazed, though, how many lazy people still burn up fuel at fast food drive-throughs. That'll change -- no question.


Looking for a job? Plenty of new jobs for guardians of energy, border guards and in riot control, military, mercenary and private contracting. Ah, the humanity of it all . . . . .


Spent just under $52 tanking up the other day -- the most ever in my life. One can feel the pinch. Good luck out there, road warriors!

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Detroit Night on BBC Four

Detroit Night, BBC Four Friday 7 March 2008

9pm, What's Going On: The Life And Death Of Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye had ground-breaking albums which revolutionised American Soul. Yet his personal life was marred by failed relationships, drug addiction and an abusive father. Featuring interviews with him and those who knew him.

10pm, Motor City's Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges

Documentary of the city in the 60s and 70s. The story of those who escaped their factory birthright to create revolutionary music in a blue-collar city without pity. Looking at how, during the 1960s, the blue collar Midwestern city of Detroit became home to a musical revolution that captured the sound of a nation in upheaval. Duration: 60 minutes. [Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 7 pm, Free admission, MOCAD/Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 4454 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48201].

11pm, John Lee Hooker and Friends

John Lee Hooker performs with various friends live at the Sweetwater Club, Mill Valley, California. Artists include Rye Cooder, John Hammond, Bonnie Rait and Johnnie Johnson.

12.35am, Iggy Pop and the Stooges at Glastonbury

Iggy Pop's 2007 performance at Glastonbury, when the fans stormed the stage.

1.35am, Motor City's Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges (Repeated).

2.35am, Originals: George Clinton

Godfather of funk George Clinton talks to filmmaker Don Letts about Parliament, Funkadelic and his collaborations with Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg.

Yesterday's Rune: Disruption. Today's Rune: Movement.

Bo Diddley - You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover

Cheers Red Wings!

The Good Fight

Latest Esquire (June 2008) has a thoughtful essay by Charles P. Pierce, "The Cynic and Senator Obama" (pages 107-115) placing the 2008 election in historical context. Here's a brief sample:

The war powers of the Congress had been deeded wholesale to the executive long before Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and a passel of think-tank cowboys found within them the right of a fecklessly incompetent president to make war unilaterally on anyone, anywhere, forever. The war in Iraq is the powerful bastard child of the Iran-Contra scandal, which went unpunished.

The ownership of the people over their politics -- and therefore, over their government -- had been placed in quitclaim long before the towers fell, and the president told the people to be just afraid enough to let him take them to war and just afraid enough to reelect him, but not to be so afraid that they stayed out of the malls . . . (p. 110)

First of all, anyone these days who even contemplates Iran-Contra let alone invokes it to gird an argument has got to be applauded. Secondly, the overall essay takes Barack Obama quite seriously, if cautiously. Given Obama's imminent status as Democratic challenger for the presidency, this is a timely piece worth thinking about.


As of about now, most of the pre-Fort Sumter secessionist and ride 'em cowboy states lean McCain/modern Republican and most of the Upper South and old Union states lean Obama/modern Democratic or are in play. Today's Democrats need a net gain of one major state from 2004 to win in November.

Yesterday's Rune: Warrior. Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Bo Diddley, RIP

Big TNT Show! Bo Diddley (aka Ellas Otha Bates, 1928-2008).

Cognitive Dissonance is Alive and Well

Going through books deciding what needs to go and what might stay, I came across a fun one from my days at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Psychology of Religion class): Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (1956).

The most important thing about When Prophecy Fails, besides acknowledging a lot of eccentric beliefs and faiths in the world, is noting the gap between specific prophecies and statements and empirical reality that often results in cognitive dissonance -- rather than believe an original idea is wrong, false, not true even in light of new counter-revelations, followers recalibrate behind a new faith statement that weirdly reaaserts the old one.

In modern terms, after existence of threatening Weapons of Mass Destruction were "proven" to be in Iraq (thereby giving the primary stated rationale for the US-Coalition of the Willing invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003) but then, upon closer inspection, found not to be there, what happened? Furthermore, on the supposed connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein that never materialized, what happened? Why do so many people, particularly of the FoxNation variety, still insist on their essential correctness even in the face of facts? "Oh, there were WMD, but they were hidden or taken out of country." "Oh, there was a connection, but all evidence has been erased." Yeah, all evidence in an alternate universe, perhaps.

Cognitive dissonance -- an interesting series of thought processes. As for me, I prefer cognitive dissidence, using my mind to dissent against what I perceive as sheer lunacy and idiocy. However, I'm also happy to shift my thinking in light of new evidence. An example from this year: I first supported Hillary Clinton but, after observing the long primary campaign, have come to the conclusion that Barack Obama is a better, stronger Democratic candidate, partly because of the skillful way he's handled his campaign and partly because of outrageous statements and actions made by Hillary and Bill Clinton.

In a nutshell, there comes a point where people become fanatics, impossible to reach through rational discourse. Unless they calm down a little, these are people to be wary of.

Today's Rune: Partnership.