Plains Pops: Pleasant Stuff Edition

While some may say that most of my musings aren't really worth full posts, "Plains Pops" is just a collection of items that I want to draw attention to with little comment. Today, as the title indicates, it's pleasant stuff

First, his answers at the first 2019 Legislative Cracker Barrel prove once again that Representative Ryan Cwach is a damn fine legislator even if he is a rookie. The Yankton Press and Dakotan coverage is here.

Second, local businessman Ben Hanten has started a podcast called The Lanyard. According to the description, Hanten will "be interviewing someone who is building an interesting business or helping to make their community a little more interesting." Today's inaugural discussion was with Sister Maribeth Wenztlaff, the prioress of the Yankton Benedictines.

Finally, this graphic just made me laugh. It came through my timeiine as an @joshbarro retweet of an @tpcarney tweet. I suspect it may be a good metaphor for how Americans of different political persuasions see the world.

Plains Pops: Potpourri Edition #101*

The following are brief points that don't seem to deserve a full post, but the subject seems worthy of mention.

The Constitution Party of South Dakota: They're doing nearly everything wrong. It's not just the dueling factions that can't seem to decide who's in charge or who should run a state convention. The idea that people who have lost statewide elections or legislative races can somehow come together to challenge the Republican monopoly from the right is ludicrous.

I know some CPSD members, if not all, are Bible believing folks but none look like the Old Testament's Gideon. He routed a few thousand with 300; no one is going to rout 200,000 Republicans with 500, no matter how hard one blows on the party favors or how many flashlights with a strobe function one has. Put some folks on county commissions. Win some legislative races. Pass a popular bill or two. Voters will choose the devil they know over the lesser imps and demons they don't.

Finally, history is replete with colorful politicians; the Longs in Louisiana and Wild Bill Langer of North Dakota spring immediately to mind, but most people find conspiracy theorists something less than colorful.

The New Coke new Lance Russell legislative candidacy:  For those using their summer wisely and waiting until after Labor Day to start thinking about politics, Lance Russell won a legislative primary, and resigned his candidacy to run for attorney general at the Republican Convention. He was then  renominated by the District 30 Republicans even though state law makes the second nomination more than a little questionable.

The Democrats need to get a precedent established. They may well face an identical situation in the near future, and the mere fact that Russell was on the ballot, then off the ballot, and then on the ballot would not have established that precedent.  No matter what happens in this situation, precedent is established unless the courts rule that Heather Boche, the voter bringing the suit, lacks standing. Were one a complete cynic who believes that South Dakota's Republican appointed judiciary is less than impartial on political matters, that might be the outcome one would expect.

The spy who loved someone in South Dakota or who worked hard for her money: South Dakota novelists who specialize in the mystery and political thriller genres are probably still recovering from the bacchanalia they organized after the story broke. While the South Dakota literary world has a whole new direction, the South Dakota political world will remain unchanged.

*I really don't know what number it is but if Marvel and DC comics can renumber issues at will, then I can number blog posts however I desire.

Plains Pops: Some Quick Thoughts About The Week Of June 17-24, 2018

So I go to my final Speech and Debate Association National Tournament as a coach, but I don't bring my laptop and all sorts of stuff happens.  Here are some quick hits about news of the past week.

1. People scream at members of Trump's administration while they are dining out and a restaurant refuses to serve Sarah Sanders. Civility matters. Quite frankly, the restaurant should have comped the meal and written Romans 12:20-21 on the bill. The fact that the Christian cake baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple did not take that tack indicates a lack of Bible study or creativity.

I also would have made sure that Stephen Miller, who may or may not be a white supremacist, was able to dine without people yelling at him. I may have had every person of color working at the time spend a few minutes hovering over his table, in an effort to ensure good service of course. 

2. The United States Supreme Court decided in favor of South Dakota in South Dakota v. Wayfair. I don't know what long term effect the decision will have on small Etsy or Ebay sellers. I seriously doubt, however, that the decision is "a win for South Dakota and for Main Street businesses across America." 
                             A quick look at my Amazon and other online orders reveals that most of what I buy isn't available at a local brick and mortar store. No one locally sells Chimes Ginger Chews, Daelman's stroopwafels, Taylor of Old Bond Street shaving cream, fountain pens, Kizer ZipSlip folding knives, LionSteel, folding knives, Anker charging cables, adapters to change a micro USB cable to a USB 3 cable, Koffee Kult coffee, Story Supply notebooks, good quality fat man clothes or the vast majority of products I buy online. 

Further, online retailers seem to offer a larger reduction on MSRP than brick and mortar stores even with sales tax added. In addition, let's assume that "main street businesses" in Sioux Falls carry these items, I'm driving at least 160 miles round trip, a cost that certainly makes Amazon and online businesses much cheaper. Further, travelling to Sioux Falls does not equate to  supporting local businesses. In short, paying online sales tax is not going to change my buying habits.

3. Quite frankly, I am not sure why this Tweet is not grounds for impeachment for anyone who has sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." 

We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018

The Fifth Amendment is clear: "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . . ." The President apparently believes that a charge of being an undocumented person is enough to ensure guilt. Threats to due process anywhere are threats to due process everywhere. They certainly not provide evidence of upholding the oath of office.

By the way, history is replete with examples of the term "these people" expanding. Those at the border today will become another group tomorrow.

4. The United States needs to do better for children. Whether it's the abuses of slavery from the colonial period through the Civil War, the removal of Native American children from their families, the orphan trains of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the separate and unequal treatment during the Jim Crow era, or the separation of families at the border, we have not done enough to care properly for the poorest and neediest children.

Plains Pops: Must Reads

First, this Paul Campos piece which contains the following paragraph:

The irony is that, on the issues that large portions of the Republican and Democratic voting bases have traditionally cared most about, each side is losing. Defeated in the culture war, conservatives are supposed to take solace in lower marginal tax rates for the rich. Meanwhile progressives have won a string of battles over identity politics, while continually losing the fundamental fight for economic justice that, historically speaking, has been at the core of liberal and left-wing political movements in America. (None of this is meant to deny, of course, that cultural conservatives care about economic justice as they envision it, or that many liberals and leftists care passionately about culture war issues.)

Locally, PNR takes a similar tone:

There are differences - real differences - between the parties, but the fact that both are venal and short-sighted blurs that difference.  Whether it's protecting favored businesses from competition (which is what killing this bill does), subsidizing pet projects run by buddies, or directing public funds to private industries, the only real difference is which buddies, which businesses, and which industries get the bennies.

Then there is this John Chait piece with some trenchant commentary about Paul Ryan's defense of his budget:

Meanwhile, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a longer list of the errors, distortions, and omissions in Ryan’s report. Even libertarian economist Tyler Cowen concludes that Ryan’s report presents “only a marginal command of the scholarly literature, and it is a good example of how the conservative movement is still allowing the poverty issue to defeat it and tie it up in knots.”

Ryan is very good at marshaling faux scholarship churned out by ideologues in the service of talking points, and at convincing reporters that he is an actual policy wonk. Unfortunately, he seems to have convinced himself and undertaken the ambitious goal of reconciling his policies with the work of real researchers. That was a bad, bad move.

Finally, in response to Ryan's claims that the Keystone Pipeline is key to solving the crisis in Ukraine, there's this retort:

There’s no question that the one thing that will cower Putin is if Obama decides to pipe some Canadian fossil fuels through Nebraska to Gulf Coast posts. It’s hard to see how his Crimean policy can stand up to that bravery. 

Plains Pops: Items That Warm The Heart On a Cold Night Edition

Representative Hickey's lucid explanation of why South Dakota's death penalty needs to be repealed. A pdf is here.

Adam Smith, the economist conservatives love, thought poetry important.

The role of language is an essential component of Smith’s moral philosophy because it is the fundamental connection between the individual and the community. In his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Smith expounded on the virtue of both poetry and prose, which “provide the capacity for exchange and agreement” in different contexts of human relations. It is in the sections of Adam Smith’s Pluralism on the importance of language that Shaftesbury’s influence on Smith shines through the strongest, particularly with Shaftesbury’s stress on language as a vehicle for unifying “the good and the beautiful.”

On a less serious note, the Minnesota Twins will open Spring Training in about six weeks. Pitchers and catchers report on February 16. Although I'm a bit skeptical, some experts like the Twins off season moves. Hope springs eternal.

Finally, Andrew Sullivan posts this video of Peanuts going Punk.

Plains Pops: Random Musings After A Long Hiatus Edition

1. Things got hectic as debate season travel started; there were a series of textbook adoption committee meetings, and some serial random stupidity occurred. (In each of these cases, I was the victim, not the perpetrator.) I will try to return to some semblance of regular blogging.

2. This weekend, I heard some great debates, but I fear South Dakota may no longer be able to claim to have a strong ag heritage; one young'un told me that eating field corn will kill me.

3. It was good to see young Toby Uecker back judging debate

4. The race for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat continues to be a "You're a RINO; I'm not" urination contest.

Plains Pops: Weird Stats Edition

*Some weird comparisons provide perspective. This one may not really do that. According to Google, South Dakota's 2012 population was 833,354. The 10 biggest football stadiums in the US seat 901,573. That means every man woman and child in South Dakota couldn't fill up these college stadiums'

*Speaking of Google, the search engine celebrated its 15th birthday today. The alleged Patriot Act was signed into law on October 26, 2001. It will be interesting and likely depressing to see what children who have lived their entire lives having their privacy violated will be like as 40 year old adults. Docility and the sharing of too much information will probably be epidemic diseases rather than minor annoyances.

*Unfortunately, the odds that Ron Gardenhire will get his 1,000th win as a Twins manager are smaller than the odds that he will not return as manager next season.

Plains Pops: Another Set Of Random Musings

1. I wonder why one of the few Republican office holders willing to acknowledge my existence in public wouldn't tell me who to vote for in South Dakota Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat. I'd be more than willing to switch from Independent to Republican to vote in that election.

2. After spending the weekend at Speech Communication of South Dakota convention in Aberdeen, I am convinced that implementation of Common Core will decimate speech and debate programs across the state.

3. On a side note, SDDOE took a survey of high schools about maintaining a requirement that each school require students to take a semester of speech or debate in order to graduate. At the convention no one had heard any of the results. It's curious that it should take between 4 to 6 months to tabulate the results of that survey.

4. My final speech convention musing is a simple statement: I am very impressed with the young college professors who attended and presented at the convention. (At my age, they're all young.)

5. I may be more cynical than I should be, but I find it odd that President Obama is speaking to the nation urging an attack on Syria on the eve of a 9/11 anniversary. Surely, that speech could have been delivered last week. If I may play debate judge for a bit, this timing seems like an effort to have pathos dominate over logos and ethos in an irresponsible manner.

6. Situations like Syria remind me why I view myself as politically displaced. I haven't forgotten the hype that took the nation to Iraq. I didn't believe Bush II then. I don't believe that Syria is in our national interest now. I find it odd that there are more than a few Republicans who supported Bush II but won't support Obama merely because Obama's a Democrat. I find it equally disconcerting that more than a few Democrats are supporting Obama in Syria merely because he's a Democrat.

7. I hope to resume a more regular blogging schedule this week.

Plains Pops: Travel Edition

I am traveling to Birmingham, Alabama with one of my debaters who qualified in congressional debate, so posting will be light and erratic. Also, I am trying a new phone ap, so I don't know if the font will match. If necessary I'll try to fix things when I return. It may also take me a day or two to respond to comments

I'll offer a few observations about what I have seen today as we passed through areas south of Kansas City.

First, South Dakota cattle look healthier than most of the cattle we passed.

Second, I'm sure the folk who live in the towns we have driven through love Jesus, but their churches look like warehouses. I'm not sure what I think about warehousing Jesus. (I know He doesn't live in the buildings, but.  . . )

Third, I am travelling with another coach and his students. We need to get the young'uns travelling with us to eat grits in a Waffle House. Their education will be incomplete if we don't.

Plains Pops: Pop Culture Potpourri Edition

1. Justin Bieber has united America. According to PPP polling, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have an unfavorable view of him:

Bieber was the only artist whose unfavorability rating stretched across partisan lines – a majority of Democrats (23-54), Republicans (17-52), and independents (18-56) all
reported negative views of the singer.

2. Susan Cain, author of Quiet, a book that's given solace to many introverts, discusses daily habits and daily writing:

What is a distinctive habit or affectation of yours?I never go a day without dark chocolate.

What do you need to have produced/completed in order to feel that you’ve had a productive writing day?I notice that most writers have quotas of some number of words per day. I envy this approach, because it seems so clean, but it has never worked for me. I often spend an entire day editing, restructuring a narrative, or researching. There are no new words on the paper, but it’s still progress. I think. It might also be a really elaborate way of procrastinating.[emphasis in original] 

3. At last week's Free Comic Day, I picked up the 4 graphic novel compilations of Planetary. It is an excellent comic book series. I've finished the first and second graphic novels and am really sorry that I waited so long to get to it.

4. Speaking of comic books, some political commentators have a little too much geek time on their hands: there's a Green Lantern theory of power. This blogger surmises that Cyclops, Batman, Spawn, The Tick and Rorschach all deserve to have a theory of power named after them.

Plains Pops: Totally Useless Information Edition

Stephen Colbert did a commercial for a Nebraska bank chain:

From the AP:

Frank Bank, who played oafish troublemaker Lumpy on the sitcom "Leave It to Beaver," has died. He was 71.

Beer releases more dopamine than water:

The effect was significant. When the men tasted the beer, their brains released much higher levels of dopamine within minutes, compared to when the same test was conducted on the subjects at other times with both water and Gatorade. They were also asked to rate how much they “craved” a beer at several points during the experiment, and perhaps less surprisingly, their cravings were generally much higher after tasting beer than Gatorade or water.

 It's National Poetry Month and the early part of baseball season. This photo combines both.

Baseball Season: Marianne Moore throwing out the first pitch 1968.

Plains Pops: Stuff From The Weekend You Might Have Missed But Can Catch Up On During Lunch

This Ross Douthat column from the New York Times:

. . . elite universities are about connecting more than learning, that the social world matters far more than the classroom to undergraduates, and that rather than an escalator elevating the best and brightest from every walk of life, the meritocracy as we know it mostly works to perpetuate the existing upper class.

Every elite seeks its own perpetuation, of course, but that project is uniquely difficult in a society that’s formally democratic and egalitarian and colorblind. And it’s even more difficult for an elite that prides itself on its progressive politics, its social conscience, its enlightened distance from hierarchies of blood and birth and breeding.

Also from the Times, this T. M. Luhrmann column:

Yet believers and nonbelievers are not so different from one another, news that is sometimes a surprise to both. When I arrived at one church I had come to study, I thought that I would stick out like a sore thumb. I did not. Instead, I saw my own doubts, anxieties and yearnings reflected in those around me. People were willing to utter sentences — like “I believe in God” — that I was not, but many of those I met spoke openly and comfortably about times of uncertainty, even doubt. Many of my skeptical friends think of themselves as secular, sometimes profoundly so. Yet these secular friends often hover on the edge of faith. They meditate. They keep journals. They go on retreats. They just don’t know what to do with their spiritual yearnings.

The Montana legislature goes nuts, commentary from Montana Cowgirl:

This Derek Thomposon post the economics of baseball--key word, bulk:

The sheer endlessness of baseball games and the baseball season has been offered as a reason for the sport's decline in the last decade. Its languid pace collides with information inflation, Internet attention disorder, tweeting Millennials, that whole shebang. But the economic paradox of baseball is that the breathtaking volume of the sport is also the foundational source of its value to networks.

By the way, The Minnesota Twins are 4-2.

Finally, this Eve Tushnet musing about the Amy Herzog play 4000 Miles:

Neither Leo nor his grandmother Vera are the world’s most lovable characters. Leo uses his dead friend to try to get laid, says that things are “more honest” when he really means “easier,” puts his feet on the couch, and expects his grandma to wait on him. (In fact both Leo and his girlfriend come across as really self-centered in that “spilling other people’s stuff and not cleaning it up” way.) Vera is irascible and prone to calling everybody “stupid.” She’s a (former?) Communist, and there are the usual “old people aren’t what they used to be” jokes, like when Leo tells her that the dress she’s planning to wear to a friend’s funeral is so sheer that you can see her bra: “Of course it is, that’s why I’m wearing this bra! It’s the bra that goes with this dress.” But it’s genuinely affecting to watch these two people with diminishing connections to others attempting to forge a bond with one another.

Don't settle for the cut and pastes, go read the the columns or posts.

Plains Pops: Musicians Who Refused to Play the 2012 Republican National Convention Playlist

From The Washington Examiner:

Not even a million dollars could convince Lady Gaga to perform at last summer's Republican National Convention.

The snub by the pop star is included in a lawsuit filed by a powerful Republican nonprofit fundraising organization, American Action Network, against a vendor whose job was to stage entertainment just outside the doors to the GOP's convention in August.

Documents filed with the lawsuit show that other entertainers also said "no thanks" to appearing at the GOP convention including Dolly Parton and the rapper Pitbull, who Republicans hoped to feature at an event for the Hispanic Leadership Network.

For any Republican readers who attended the 2012 convention, here's what you could have seen and heard.

Plains Pops: Pop Culture And Spelling Edition

Marvel Comics is going on tour in what appears to be a rock concert combined with an updated Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show:

Wednesday, Marvel Entertainment announced a partnership with live-show producer Feld Entertainment (Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, Disney on Ice) to produce a live arena show with all your favorite characters from the Marvel universe.

The program will launch in July 2014 with an 85-city North American tour and promises "character-based stories" and "state of the art special effects, pyrotechnics, aerial displays, and martial arts."

One word: Snollygoster.

Two young'uns from North and South Dakota have a chance to be on ESPN in May for their athletic spelling. Snollygoster is not on the approved list.

Saturday Morning Reads: March 9 Edition

Nathan Johnson delves into the details that South Dakota has 3rd most regressive tax structure in the nation.

According to a recent study by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy (ITEP), South Dakota had the third-most regressive tax system in the United States as of the beginning of 2013. The bottom 20 percent of the state’s earners pay 11.6 percent of their income in taxes. The top 1 percent pay 2.1 percent.

“One could rightly say that the rate on poor people in South Dakota is 552 percent higher than the rate on those in the top 1 percent,” said Reynold Nesiba, an associate professor of economics at Augustana College. “I think most outside of the top 1 percent of the population would agree that this is grossly unfair and by no stretch of the imagination equitable.”

A self-described liberal gun guy is shilling his book. My take-away doesn't fit the general tone of the interview, so read it for yourself. My take-away:

"The people who buy most of the guns are middle-aged white men who have not finished college.. . [because] gun guys derive [self-esteem] from their guns"

The title alone makes it worth the read: The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble

Brew another cup of coffee and enjoy.

Plains Pops: Weird Links Edition

I haven't done one of these in a long time.

There's apparently a secret 13th Amendment. Cue the Sibby music.

The Neanderthals died out because of bunnies.

The Daily Caller doesn't like Ashley Judd's nude scenes but has done nothing to condemn Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting which is generally terrible.

The cannibal cop cries. It's a good think he wasn't playing baseball because there's no crying in baseball.

Finally, on a serious note, who thought it was a good idea to foreclose on American soldiers' homes while the soldiers were deployed?

Plains Pops: A Give Me Something To Belive In Trio

I always feel good when I can use a Poison song as part of post headline.

First, this trailer for The Life of Pi reminds one to believe the unbelievable:

Second, this post from GeekDad  begins with the following paragraph on the search for saviors:

Not to sound like a woe-is-me fatalist, but if the world has ever been in need of saving, it’s now. We’re continuously looking for heroes to step in and fix everything. Some turn to politics and the upcoming election – okay, we won’t be going there – while others are drawn to their religious community – and we’ll be skirting by that issue, while we’re at it. In entertainment, one certainly doesn’t have to look too far to see what has everyone abuzz. The Avengers brought in just shy of infinity million dollars while in theaters; and Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises saw about half of that. Both of these blockbusters were derived, of course, from the rich and overflowing heroics of the Big Two comic book companies. While Marvel and DC Comics are certainly both rife with saviors, they are far from being the sole source material. In Kristopher White’s indie graphic novel The Thirty-Six, we see that our comic heroes don’t have to wear tights, or special armor with Tron-esque piping, for that matter, to be super and save the day.

Most importantly, this series of meditations on The Odyssey from political blogger Rod Dreher powerful illustrate why Homer's poem still resonates.

Plains Pops: Stuff I Liked From Todays NYT Edition

This Joe Nocera editorial hits some important notes about the educational debate:

Teachers — many of them — will continue to resent efforts to use standardized tests to measure their ability to teach. Their leaders — some of them — will denounce the “billionaire hedge fund managers” who are financing many of the reform efforts. Reformers will continue to view teachers’ unions as the greatest roadblock to higher student achievement. How can such a poisonous atmosphere not affect what goes on in the classroom? Alienated labor is never a good thing. “It is not possible to make progress with your students if you are at war with your teachers,” says Marc Tucker.

Tucker, 72, a former senior education official in Washington, is the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which he founded in 1988. Since then he has focused much of his research on comparing public education in the United States with that of places that have far better results than we do — places like Finland, Japan, Shanghai and Ontario, Canada. His essential conclusion is that the best education systems share common traits — almost none of which are embodied in either the current American system or in the reform ideas that have gained sway over the last decade or so. He can sound frustrated when he talks about it.

This David Brooks analysis of Mitt Romney's disdain for the the 47% is also worth reading:

Romney, who criticizes President Obama for dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers. Forty-seven percent of the country, he said, are people “who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey

It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

Finally, this Susan Cain analysis of Obama as an introvert contains an important conclusion:

Culturally, we tend to associate leadership with extroversion and attach less importance to judgment, vision and mettle. We prize leaders who are eager talkers over those who have something to say. In 2004, we praised George W. Bush because we wanted to drink a beer with him. Now we criticize President Obama because he won’t drink one with us. . . .

Would it be better if Mr. Obama palled around with more senators, attended more cocktail parties, cut a schmoozier figure? Sure. P.R. is part of a politician’s job. And as the personality psychologist Brian Little says, we all need to act out of character occasionally, for the sake of work or people we love.

But on the long list of attributes of a successful president — or of any leader — an outgoing persona is low on the list. The charisma of ideas matters more than a leader’s gregarious charms.

Plains Pops: Links About Conflicts Edition

Water wars in West between agriculture and energy producers:

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream vs. Porn Company

In the battle between humans and nature, nature continues to win.

In a struggle against common sense, it's worth noting that "if shopping were like health care, product prices would not be posted, and the price charged would very widely within the same store, depending on the source of payment."


Finally, in a continuing moral conflict: should one continue to watch pro football if players have an increased risk of brain disease.

Plains Pops: Dark Knight Rises Edition

First, many have opined that the film is a commentary on Occupy Wall Street. Given that the film was on location in Pittsburgh on July 30, 2011 and the first Occupy demonstration occurred on September 17, 2011, that connection seems tenuous at best. I suppose it's possible that Christopher Nolan, the film's director has prophetic powers, but it seems more likely that those who find a critique of the Occupy movement are doing a bit of projecting.

It seems more likely that Nolan is asserting that Thomas Hobbes was right:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. . . .

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Second, the film can succinctly described as the French Revolution meets Star Wars meets Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex.

Third, the film misses no opportunity to demonstrate the "appearances deceive" motif. Harvey Dent/Two-Face's Ghost hangs over Gotham. The most interesting example is the film's ironic twist of the "faith of the child" allusion. Bruce Wayne must become childlike to escape the prison, but Miranda Tate, the child who originally made the climb, literally stabs him in the back. She's also the daughter of Ra's al Ghul, one of Batman's most dangerous foes.

Finally, I have a nagging suspicion that this Batman trilogy owes much of its worldview to Norse mythology.