Ides of March

I just finished watching the movie Even Money, which is essentially a story about gambling addiction and the lengths people will go in order to get what they want.  There are some big names in this movie about small people:  Forest Whittaker, Danny Devito, Kim Basinger, Kelsey Grammar, Ray Liota amongst others.  I struggled a bit with the acting and the notion that there is apparently little history to these people’s gambling problems.  I would suspect that there would be a greater history to the gambling addiction especially in the characters of Forest Whittaker and Kim Basinger and more anger on the parts of their family members that were asked to play a part or politely ignore their gambling.  The longer I think about this movie, the more that I can appreciate, though, the sloppiness and darkness of the characters.  The actors captured that part of addiction well—an addict can no longer carry off the pretense that there is no addiction.  And there is a juvenile hope that just around the corner they will break even and then it will be done, “I’m out”, moving away, gonna start over.  But, no one stops.  And, the icy, dark character of Victor portrays the violence of not only a bookie, but of addiction itself.  Every time someone encountered him, they came away bullied, bloodied or dead. 

One theme that stood out to me after watching his movie was that of community.  So many good movements are in place in our world today for people to experience more community and togetherness—this is a primary need that is lacking for many.  I was in a class a few years ago and the topic of negative “community” came up.  How can negative community be defined?  I think Even Money provides a good description for me—a group of people wherein individual acts of integrity actually serve to disintegrate the community.  The hopes and connection of the people at the end of the movie all hinged on deceit for personal gain–an inside tip on point-shaving will save everyone.  This begins to unravel the moment Clyde Snow (Whittaker) overheard his brother’s coach confronting him about point shaving.  He has now seen the effects of his dark addiction on another–something of care and concern for another has the potential of trumping self-concern.  When the Whittaker character tells his brother to not fix the game, there is both a sigh of relief that he has acted with some sanity and the somber knowledge that he has just signed his death warrant.  With this action and the subsequent outcome of the basketball game, this interdependent community of gamblers violently disintegrates.  And what follows is part fairy tale (Kim Basinger magically finishing her book and potentially getting her marriage back), part Gospel (Whittaker’s character taking a bullet to save his brother’s career and life) and part old West (bodies everywhere).

In my first post on the issue, my thoughts were more focused on the farming end of the issue of agriculture and the movement toward ethanol.  I want to say a few things about the consumer side of things as well.  I was not planning to wait this long between posts, but life got busy in the mean time.  What’s interesting, though, is that the issue of crop choices and crop failures and the effect on food prices has become en even hotter issue since my last post.  Now there are Congressional hearings and a much larger interest in this topic. 

I don’t want to say tons other than this is a complex issue.  I mentioned several of the upsides of this issue in my previous post.  I want to mention some of the complicating factors of the increased planting of corn over other crops (wheat, barley, etc.) and the increased diverting of corn from some markets (feed for livestock, food for humans) into the fuel market.  One is that the use of ethanol as an efficient fuel that can move the U.S. away from our dependence on foreign oil is still very much in its infancy.  Secondly, we are starting to see some major ripple effects from the choices of farmers combined with natural problems (droughts and low harvests).  Check out this video of a friend of mine, Nate, which was featured on the news out here in Seattle back in March.  Here also is a newspaper article articulating some of the same ideas on a little bit broader scale.

We are discovering just how interconnected we are economically as choices made in the area of food production are effecting people across the board.  Also, as a homebrewer and beer lover, I am seeing the effects of these choices in the price of beer.  While some may scoff at a mention of beer in this discussion, I think bringing in quality of life issues becomes important.  The price of malted barley has doubled in the past year, partly due to the planting of more corn for ethanol.  Also, the price of hops has nearly tripled due to the conversion of hops fields to grain and also one of the largest hop crop failures that Northern Europe has seen in a long time.  I bring this into the equation as a personal example of how the price of food items is hitting home.  Any trip to the grocery store recently will yield similar information. 

I am somewhat apprehensive to see how the issue of food costs plays out.  I have read some lately that the price of rice is going to really jump which will hit rice-dependent countries extremely hard.  In fact, it may not even be a factor of price but moreso that there will be no rice to be had.  I may have some more on this as time goes by.