Whooping Llama

The most memorable part of a movie is usually the big climactic scene towards the end. You know, where Jimmy Stewart’s neighbors pay off his debt to the old wheelchair-bound curmudgeon, or where Bogie gives his “if you don’t get on that plane” speech, or when the Nazis get their faces melted off because they opened the Ark of the Covenant. Well, if you go to see Jamie Foxx’s newest film The Kingdom (which also stars hometown girl Jennifer Garner), you’re going to witness one of the memorable events in the movie right after the trailers end.

Never before have I witnessed opening credits this stirring. For those of us who skipped the lectures on modern Middle Eastern history, these credits teach you everything you need to know about Saudi Arabia’s past in just under four minutes (at least, everything you need to know as far as the movie’s narrative is concerned). If there are awards for such things, I nominate the opening credits from The Kingdom for “best timeline in the history of the world.”

Then we get to the movie itself. Here’s the plot synopsis: an extremist Muslim organization (think mini-Al-Qaeda run by a wanna-be Bin Laden) detonates a couple bombs inside a Saudi housing compound largely inhabited by Westerners. FBI special agent Ronald Fluery (played by Foxx) assembles a crack team of investigators to find the murderous cell leader and stop him before more attacks occur. The catch: the U.S. State Department doesn’t want the FBI investigating the bombings for fear of damaging their delicate relations with the Saudi Royal Family…and the Saudi’s aren’t too keen either.

Pretty standard stuff, I have to admit. Still, The Kingdom isn’t one of those shoot-‘em-up-kill-all-the-bad-guys-ooh-rah movies. Although the film takes a wholly understandable “terrorism is bad” stance, the writer and director made sure to show the humanity of both sides of the conflict. The screenplay doesn’t allow the viewer to sympathize completely with the film’s terrorists, but at least these men are shown as real people with families and belief systems instead of cardboard cut-outs who are as dispensable as Dixie Cups at a frat party.

These sympathies climax at the end of the film, when a rather disturbing parallel is revealed (I won’t give it away; it’s the cornerstone of the movie’s message). The resulting product is one that will engender a sense of patriotism, only to dash it all in the next scene. For all its blood, gore, and explosions, The Kingdom is an action movie with a heart. radiating an emotional complexity not often found in the genre. It’s as schizophrenic as Middle Eastern politics, and probably won’t be named the feel-good movie of the year, but it’ll definitely make you think.

And in this day and time, that’s certainly not a bad thing, is it?

My latest article for the Boone Standard. Should be out next week.

MADISON—There’s a picture that hangs on the back wall of Dr. Ron Stollings’ office, a panoramic of the State Senate, with all the representatives at their desks. He sits a couple rows back, beaming at the camera, like a kid having his picture taken for the yearbook. Stollings, who was elected to represent Boone County in 2006, is clearly proud of his new job. Having practiced medicine in Madison for over twenty years now, he knows his constituency, and being in the Senate allows him to serve not only his patients, but all of Boone County.

Dr. Stollings has been in private practice at the Madison Medical Group and on staff at Boone Memorial Hospital since 1985. Inspired by the loss of his mother to cancer and a high-school Latin teacher (who, upon hearing he wanted to become a teacher, told him “Aww phooey, you ought to be a doctor!”), Stollings decided to go into medicine his sophomore year at Scott High. He graduated from Marshall University School of Medicine in 1982.

The senator, who says he’s “always wanted to be a good citizen and be active in the community”, got his feet wet (politically-speaking) through

appointments to the Higher Education Policy Education Commission and the University System Board of Trustees. When Lloyd Jackson announced he wasn’t going to seek reelection in the last senatorial race, Stollings seized the opportunity.

So what is the good doctor’s diagnosis for Boone? Well, Stollings thinks the county could do much better if its economy underwent some changes. “We’re totally dependent on coal, and thank God we’ve got the most of it, but our economy’s not diversified enough.”

Stollings says Boone needs more developable land before any major diversification can take place, however. His solution? Get the land after mining companies have already flattened it out. “It costs money to pile dirt and rock back up, and we need flat land. Why can’t we just leave it relatively flat in areas that are close to roads? You could develop it, it could be out of the flood plane and you could use it for recreation” Stollings pointed out. “We don’t need grazing land, we need something more important than grazing land.”

Health care is also an issue understandably close to Dr. Stollings’ heart. “Southern West Virginia has pretty scary health statistics. We’re overweight, we use tobacco a lot, we have lots of strokes and heart attacks. I think the people of Boone County need to have a place where they can exercise year-round.” He says Boone County needs a space where older citizens could exercise in water. “It’s hard to tell some older person ‘Go walk’ because they say it hurts when they walk, but if you put them in a pool then they can exercise without killing their joints.” The closest such facility as of right now is the South Charleston YMCA.

Watching Stollings on a “normal” day at the office, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could balance these two worlds—the political and the medical. He’s already a difficult man to catch even in the legislative off-season. After a week or so of phone tag, the Boone Standard was finally able to sit down with the physician at his practice in Madison—but not until he had seen all his patients and finished a public service announcement for WCHS’s MDTV.

His schedule gets even more hectic during the first couple months of the year, when Dr. Stollings makes a daily commute to Charleston to represent Boone County in the West Virginia State Senate (that is, after he’s made his morning rounds at Boone Memorial Hospital). He even sees patients while the Senate’s in its 60-day session, though not nearly as many. Stollings admits it’s not always easy. “It’s a real balancing act to do both.” He says. “I’m indebted to my partners [at the Madison Medical Group] for allowing me to be a Senator.” The balancing act seems to be working well so far, and if Dr. Stollings has his way, the rest of Boone County will soon be similarly balanced.

This is an article I just finished for the Boone Standard.

MADISON—In this age of celebrity scandal, troop surges, and failed immigration bills, it is truly refreshing to find someone who speaks plainly and honestly about their beliefs. It is even more refreshing when that person happens to be a politician.

Larry Barker was first elected to represent Boone County in the House of Delegates in 2004, but he says a run for the State Legislature wasn’t always in his plans. Barker had wanted to get on the County Commission but dropped out of the race at the last minute to give friend and fellow Democrat Mickey Brown a shot. “With two of us taking away from an incumbent, I thought we might divide the vote. When I decided not to [run], we started talking about other possibilities.”

Barker talked with his boss, County Clerk Gary Williams, about trying to unseat then-incumbent Ernie Coon. “Gary and I had gone and lobbied at the capitol on several occasions. We had gone to the Secretary of State and the senators and house members, especially regarding elections laws and so forth. I told him, I’ll just run for the office. If I were there, we’d at least have a vote over there and we’d have a voice.” Williams’ gave him his blessing, and Barker threw his hat in the ring.

As a Delegate and Chief Deputy Clerk at the county clerk’s office (where he has worked for 26 years), Larry Barker knows the problems facing Boone County quite well. Like many other policymakers, he’s concerned about the number of jobs here in the Mountain State, particularly when it comes to coal mining. “You have two times as many jobs when you do underground mining as when you do strip mining. We say we’re creating jobs, but we’re taking away jobs.”

Barker’s also concerned about coal companies that are “tearing southern West Virginia apart.” “You don’t want to be painted as an environmental wacko, but at the same time we’re not seeing that much good land being developed.”

His brand of everyman environmentalism is not widely found in state politics, where some elected officials prefer not to challenge the state’s economic bread-and-butter, coal production. Barker, however, is pretty outspoken about the shortcomings of state government when it comes to keeping the mining companies in check. “Very little is being done to protect the environment. We’re trying our best to help businesses get established, get in here, and lower some taxes, which are good things, but the companies need to be responsible once we get them there.”

Barker has introduced a couple of bills that would have helped to remedy some environmental issues, including legislation requiring companies to replant hardwood trees native to the hills of West Virginia on their reclaimed lands (like maple, walnut, and beech) instead of more resilient species like locust or pine. Another resolution he sponsored would have sent researchers to investigate sludge ponds created during the strip mining process. “[The coal companies] say they’re perfectly safe, and I think they probably are as safe as [the coal companies] can make them, but we’re talking about an earthen dam. Now, if you were a terrorist or we had an earthquake, somebody’s going to be sorry we didn’t drag this harder.” Both bills died in committee.

Despite these setbacks, Barker remains resolute. The 61-year-old speaks of his job with the vigor of a man half his age, and says he’s determined to fully represent his constituency, even if that means going against his personal opinions. “There have been a couple votes I’ve cast and thought ‘If it was just me and I didn’t have to worry about what anybody else thought or believed, I might have voted differently.’ It’s not always what I personally think about something. I’ve tried to vote what I’ve thought, given all the facts, you’d vote for.”