Station Agent, TheStarring: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Cannavale
This is a quirky little movie from 2003 that I always meant to see, but just now yesterday got around to viewing.
This is a very quiet movie, about (mainly) three broken people – Dinklage, a dwarf; Clarkson, who lost a son; and Cannavale, who is destined to spend the rest of his life driving his ill father’s food truck. Somehow, they – and some other miscellaneous oddball characters – bond.
Again – this is a very quiet film, where dialog is used only to help the viewer read between the lines. The dialog and actions seemed very real.
Took me awhile to get to this, but it was worth the wait.
Shortly after the disastrous tornadoes that just leveled Joplin, MO, and other areas, there was an immediate call for federal dollars to help the displaced, injured, traumatized individuals and companies that had been affected.
You know, like the US always does in response to horrific natural (and un-natural, like the Gulf oil spill) disasters.
This time, there was a twist: Congressional GOP leaders said they wouldn’t pay out any monies without identifying offsets.
In other words, the government won’t help you rebuild your home/life unless we can find something to cut – probably something like NPR funding – to offset the cost of putting you back on your feet.
Call it the new “American Way.”
Now, while I’m against all the crazy deficit talk in DC these days, I agree that this is a new world. We probably need to look at the books and identify some outdated spending we can cut (oil company subsidies, anyone??).
But don’t hold those who lost everything hostage to extend your ideological position. That’s just not cricket…
So, it’s encouraging to see a prominent Republican – Haley Barbour (R-MS) – come out against this new way of doing business. Speaking with reporters at a DC conference, Barbour said:
“I think disaster relief is not predictable,” Barbour said. “Emergencies caused by tornadoes, hurricanes are not predictable. Even if Congress — which as far as I know they never have — set aside a pot of money as some have proposed, and said, ‘Okay, this is money we’re going to use to pay for disaster relief’ — if they were to do that and we had a gigantic disaster that cost much more than that, surely Congress would come back and appropriate the extra money. And if they didn’t have a place to offset it, they should still go in and do it.”
Well, duh.
Now, Barbour is governor of a state – Mississippi – that has had its share of disasters, from hurricanes to oil spills, so he has a vested interest in protecting his state. One of the main Republicans putting this new way of looking at disaster relief forward is Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). Virginia doesn’t get hit with a lot of natural disasters.
But it’s good to see a heavy-hitter like Barbour sticking up for disaster victims the way the US has always responded to natural disasters: By doing what government can do best – sending manpower, machinery and money to the affected areas.
If a tornado had wiped out a Joplin-sized town in Virginia, I wonder if Cantor would still be on board with his new-found fiscal austerity?
Update, June 6, 2011: One Republican candidate for president, Herman Cain, sides with Barbour – and against Cantor:
“It’s one thing to say we’re not going to approve raising the debt limit unless we find a dollar for dollar offset in cuts. [That’s] fine,” Cain said. “But when it comes to, ‘We need to help people get their lives back on track after a natural disaster,’ the statement isn’t ‘if we find the money.’ We will find the money.”
— Talkingpointsmemo.com