Stephen Gyllenhaal is entirely unqualified to write for this blog except that, as a citizen of the US --hell, as a citizen of the planet-- he has as much right to speak his mind as the next person. Some of his negatives are that he lives and works in Hollywood, writes poetry. Positives? Two grown kids, some grey hairs, a grandchild.

Blog Entries by Stephen Gyllenhaal

The Nasty, Real World

6 Comments | Posted December 19, 2009 | 02:28 PM (EST)


This is a despicable Health Bill, a stain on the soul of anyone who has worked on it, who supports it, who believes they have done anything right in birthing it. If there is a hell I would want everyone involved with this bill to end up in it, nonetheless...

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To Gather Up One's Rage

16 Comments | Posted December 16, 2009 | 01:03 PM (EST)


On Monday the important banking CEOs were to attend a Presidential meeting at which it was billed Obama (getting slammed in the polls for his entanglements with Wall Street) would dress them down for their unrepentant behavior since receiving hundreds of billions of taxpayer's cash.

But the biggest CEOs...

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Afghanistan Nightmare: the Only Light in this Dark Tunnel

27 Comments | Posted November 30, 2009 | 11:26 AM (EST)


Frankly, I hate politics, but what does one do when he/she see a President who has turned out to be (as I had begun to fear a few months back) really just like most of the others that came before him.

Were we in some strange, reverse racist place...

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This is It: Michael Jackson's Transcendence

54 Comments | Posted November 19, 2009 | 11:40 AM (EST)


As usual, I felt really confused when looking for a movie to watch this past weekend. I have a lot of thoughts about what's happened to movies in the U.S. -- the consequences of the multi-nationals taking over our industry and sucking it dry like so much else in this...

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Celebration, Cancer, God

2 Comments | Posted November 8, 2009 | 10:27 AM (EST)


Yes! We should celebrate the passing of this Health Care Bill in the House. Yes, this is the way democracy has worked from its start in this country with its Declaration of Independence for white men (not women, not slaves, etc.) -- pretty much a mess at the start, a...

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An Elephant in the Room?

Posted October 29, 2009 | 11:17 AM (EST)


A few weeks back, a number of my friends sent me the same article from the New York Times Magazine, "The Holy Grail of the Unconscious", by Sara Corbett. It was about Carl Jung's long-suppressed Red Book, finally to be published. The article explains how Jung's family kept the...

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Patriotism, Wall Street, You and Me

3 Comments | Posted October 13, 2009 | 02:28 PM (EST)


I have just finished reading a quite amazing piece in Vanity Fair: "Wall Street's Near Death Experience," by Andrew Ross.

An astonishing piece if only half of it's true, and I suspect much more than half is correct. It chronicles in a very personal way what happened with...

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Not Fun Change...

21 Comments | Posted October 8, 2009 | 09:57 AM (EST)


It has struck me (I'm not quite sure why today) that those who are in charge -- from the White House, through the gleaming halls of Congress, around plump Wall Street, in the upper, corner offices of the conglomerates and banks -- all those folks (deep in their hearts) feel...

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Raging Against Ford Motor Company

47 Comments | Posted September 25, 2009 | 12:12 PM (EST)


Okay, I'm over reacting. After all, Ford didn't take any TARP money so it can do whatever it wants, I guess. It can close all the plants it desires in the US and build sparkling new ones in China, as it was proudly announced today. GM and Chrysler have to...

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The Shock and Awe of a Second Financial Meltdown

43 Comments | Posted September 22, 2009 | 09:04 AM (EST)


What happened to trying to unravel last fall's financial meltdown, for that matter what happened to the meltdown altogether? The stock market is back to almost pre-meltdown levels. The bonuses continue to be spread around the boardrooms. The high-end restaurants have filled back up to bursting here in LA and...

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The Beatles, Obama and Real Change...

26 Comments | Posted September 14, 2009 | 09:01 PM (EST)


I was at a young peoples' party the other night (late 20s, early 30s). The Beatles were playing pretty much the whole time -- still fresh, after all these years. It got me thinking about experts, specialists, the elite classes that now pretty much run our country, the "brightest and...

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Wall Street -- Death Profits

4 Comments | Posted September 8, 2009 | 01:06 AM (EST)


On Saturday the New York Times dropped the strangest bombshell. It was the leading article on the front page. Wall Street is back into the bundling business and this time they believe they've got it right. They're buying up billions of dollars worth of the insurance policies of the sick...

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Abortion, Health Care and the Soul

104 Comments | Posted September 5, 2009 | 11:11 AM (EST)


A few days ago a friend of mine agonized over her loved ones from the deep South raging that Obama was a murderer because his health care plan would sanction abortion. She felt an insurmountable gulf between, which seems to have gripped much of the nation as well, a...

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Ted Kennedy and Health Care

81 Comments | Posted August 31, 2009 | 09:39 PM (EST)


I've gotten my wires crossed around the passing of Ted Kennedy and health care, and the dialogue between the parties and in the media hasn't helped me any. I'm going to try to unbundle my thinking here, if I can.

The first question I have to ask myself is do...

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Common Sense: What You Guys Got on Capital Hill, We Want on Main Street!

1 Comments | Posted August 26, 2009 | 04:17 PM (EST)


Common Sense -- if it was good enough for Benjamin Franklin, it's good enough for me. You Senators and Congressmen know damn well what the best health care plan is -- you've got it for yourselves, and for the Supreme Court and for everyone that works at the White House....

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Who Killed JFK's Dream?

Posted August 11, 2009 | 04:23 AM (EST)


I woke up out of a dream this morning, acutely aware that while I can go to any movie theatre and see America deeply involved in a space program, (the last Star Trek by J.J. Abrams, for instance, was great fun) but the real space program is nearly dead on...

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What's Going on with Gas Prices?

Posted July 30, 2009 | 11:14 AM (EST)


Yesterday I passed a gas station and suddenly the price had jumped another dollar. A month ago it had jumped a dollar as well -- to around $2.50/gallon back then, wasn't it? Now it's $3.50 (give or take a dime or a quarter, which when you collect all that, not...

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Free Bernie Madoff Now!

Posted April 22, 2009 | 12:06 PM (EST)


It's just not fair. He's a scapegoat, a distraction on the world's financial stage where the real sleight-of-hand-Ponzi-magic goes on unabated. Two trillion dollars -- give me a break -- you think this is the end of it? It's only the tip of the real looming Ponzi-scheme-iceberg which Bernie only...

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Mr. President, You Must Not Close Gitmo

Posted March 27, 2009 | 03:06 PM (EST)


...because I can't imagine a moment in our history when we've needed it more. I mean Bush and company had some pretty fancy arguments for their use of it, but let's look at some hard realities.

After 9/11 the guys who ended up there haven't done any actual damage to...

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Cause For Great Celebration

Posted January 7, 2008 | 03:14 PM (EST)


In 2007 something huge didn't happen. It will never enter the history books. It will more than likely never even get a footnote.

It was the war between Iran and the U.S.

Up until about a month ago that war looked pretty much certain. So many...

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