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Papers, Please
When I was a kid, the copy of The Hunt For Red October we recorded off the TV was one of my favorite movies. My dad was a submariner, and while he had served on missile boats instead of fast attack ones like the American sub Dallas, he was able to give the perspective of someone who’d actually been there and done that in his commentary on the movie. (E.g., when Dallas evades a live torpedo by surfacing so quickly it breaches halfway out of the water, his comment was, “If you didn’t have an emergency before you did that, you do now, because if you don’t have enough air to repressurize the ballast tanks you’re going to be sinking as fast as you surfaced.”)
In the middle of the movie, there’s a quiet scene where the defecting Russian captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) and his first officer Vasily Borodin (Sam Neil) are discussing what life will be like in America.
“I would like to live in Montana. Will they let me do that?”
“I would think they’d let you live wherever you wanted.”
“In that case, I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman, and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck … or possibly even a recreational vehicle. And I will drive state to state. Do they let you do that?”
“I suppose.”
“No papers?”
“No papers. State to state.”
The first time I saw the movie, at around ten or eleven, my parents patiently explained that in the Soviet Union, we would have had to get the state’s permission to visit our grandparents or cousins who lived out of state. That being in America meant we didn’t have to have things like travel papers, and freedoms like that were why Marko and Vasily and the other officers were willing to risk their lives to come to America.
Yesterday, I got my travel papers that allow me to leave my house to go to work.
To Law Enforcement & Emergency Services Personnel:
The bearer of this letter is employed by [company name] of North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia in an essential capacity – providing transportation and logistics services to maintain and inspect infrastructure for hospitals, medical center campuses, public buildings and the like. Both President Trump’s National Emergency Orders and state and
local stay at home orders exempt essential service businesses.This letter verifies the essential nature of the bearer’s duties and is not intended in any way to encroach upon the authority and laws of state and local governmental authorities. This designation is only meant to address travel to and from work assignments. If you need to verify the bearer’s employment and that he/she is currently on assignment with [company name], please contact our office …
Near the end of the movie, Vasily Borodin is shot by a KGB officer trying to stop the defection. As he lies dying, he confesses “I would have liked to have seen Montana” — his idealized land of freedom, where no one could demand proof of permission to go where you pleased.
I would like to be in Vasily’s Montana.
Published in Policing
That’s the finest scene in Red October IMO. Terrific acting by two pros–Connery’s facial expressions are great.
I have a stack of dead-tree Washington Posts in the back of my vehicle–originally destined for recycling– in case I’m asked for “papers.”
I’m still going in to work every day so I was really worried at first about the lock-down here in NYC.
I had a host of cover stories ready — and since I’m biking home every day, I figured I’d just swap out my usual backpack for an insulated food bag and try flying under the radar as an “essential” food delivery person.
But I needn’t have worried. Aside from panhandlers, no one’s accosted me and asked for anything and there’s a surprising amount of foot and car traffic out there for a city that’s allegedly “locked down.”
To be clear, it’s still a freakishly low amount of both, by normal NY standards — but more than I’d expected, in any case, so I’m blending in okay, so far.
Here (in Brazos County, TX) the police have made it clear that they are not going to stop anybody randomly and make them prove they are on an authorized excursion. But it just has the feeling of an oppressive and non-American environment. This time of year I would normally be driving randomly around the Hill Country west of Austin to find photographs of blue bonnets blanketing hillsides and fields. Not this year.
Either one?
And it’s two actors who don’t normally get recognized for being terrific actors, given their propensity to get cast in action and adventure films.
Though my favorite example of great acting in an unexpected place is this scene:
You don’t have to be a great actor to give a rousing speech using the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V. You have to be an incredible actor to sell a rousing speech that ends with “are we going to kick the villain’s butt, or do I eat this egg sandwich?”
Not quite. In parts of the country it didn’t stop until 1947, two years after the war ended. The government doesn’t like to give up power.
That’s why the two trillion dollar deal is dangerous.
Overlooking grooming gangs while in hot pursuit of a serial anti-LGBT tweeter.
That nonsense has got to be killing the real cops over there.
Wonderful!
I mean that.
I wonder if I’m the only one who still thinks of The Hunt for Red October as that new movie they made recently based on a book that the USNI published not so long ago. God, I’m getting old.
Well, she’s just doing her job – keeping your head the normal size. Sure looks awesome to the rest of us though.
Great scene, from a movie I haven’t seen. But William H. Macy is always good. Occasionally astonishingly good. Fargo and Magnolia come to mind. Who else can make you feel so . . . uneasy.
It’s a deconstruction of the superhero genre, but like “Galaxy Quest” does for Star Trek, there’s an underlying love of the genre that makes it genuinely funny instead of mean spirited. Like the speech says, they aren’t “real superheroes”; they’re a middle aged dad with a wife and kids who sneaks out at night to hit people with a shovel, a guy who throws forks, a guy with anger management problems, a woman who implanted her father’s skull in a bowling ball to use to avenge his death, a guy with super farts, an invisible boy who can only turn invisible if no one looks at him, a mad scientist who only builds non lethal weapons, and they’re led by a guy whose idea of wisdom includes things like “When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you can hammer your foes with a balanced attack.”
Oh, and you’ve got Bill Macy, Frank Azaria, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofolo, Paul Rubens, Ricky Jay, Greg Kinnear, Tom Waits … oh, and Geoffrey Rush as the evil villain Dr. Casanova Frankenstein.
I think therefore we should prepare to be particularly vociferous when the immediate crisis is over about forcing the government back. I think we may even have an opportunity to force government back farther than it was before the crisis.
My primary comfort is the sheer impracticality of policing the many roads that cross state lines.
I took a recreational / exercise bicycle ride at 5:30 this morning (Weatherford, Texas, west of Fort Worth). Encountered exactly one person, and five deer.
You should have come to the Montana Ricochet Meetup a couple years ago, Amy. By the way, no matter how many times I’ve seen your new screen name, I have to look at it twice because I think it says Longcat Shirker.
I think the Constitution still holds some sway, so it shouldn’t happen any time soon.
Lost my work wife when I retired . . .
I used to be a member of the USNI. At the time, they announced that Clancy’s book HFRO made the most profit for their publishing unit than any other book. After his initial success, Clancy moved to a regular publisher so he could make a huge profit . . .
If she was doing her job, it wouldn’t have swollen in the first place. Hehe . . .
His scene selling the unwanted undercoating is why I hate buying cars . . .
It worked out for both of them.
I dunno, I find his schtick is pretty much the same in every role. He stretches his acting chops a little bit on Shameless, but not that much.
Did any of the deer cough on you?
I’m afraid what’s happening now is a power grab not intended to end.
No. they all turned tail and headed in the other direction. And none of them seemed interested in getting closer than about ten feet.
A friend of mine, who I saw today as I drove through his church’s drive through breakfast burrito (they were tasty), told me he was working to get the interior of a house painted so the family could move back in. Someone called the police, who arrived and told them they had to shut down.
This is all nonsense.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rhode-island-police-troops-stopping-incoming-new-yorkers-force-quarantine-n1171106