My Take on LBJ, the Rob Reiner Film now on Netflix

When I saw LBJ show up on Netflix I assumed it to be a new film about our 36th president. After a couple recommendations I decided to watch it. I was surprised to learn at the outset that this was a Rob Reiner film, surprised only because of his recent passing. I then assumed it must have been his last film, but nope. LBJ, starring Woody Harrelson as the gritty Texas senator who became our 36th president, was released in 2016. 

Those familiar with Rob Reiner know that he was a political activist who used his celebrity status to bring attention to equal rights and social issues. In this film, Reiner exercised great restraint and allowed the story to tell the story. Besides being an up close and personal profile of Lyndon Baines Johnson, it's essentially the story of how the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed into law.

Having dabbled with Hollywood screenwriting, I'm always intrigued by how a director chooses to tell a story. I've read numerous books that were translated to celluloid over the course of a lifetime. From Planet of the Apes to The Godfather to No Country for Old Men, many of these have been classics. Others, Like Bonfire of the Vanities and Ironweed, were disasters, despite the A-Team cast and the highly praised novels they inhabited.

As regards LBJ, Reiner knew he had his lead in Woody Harrelson. And the script itself was good, beginning with the choreographed events of that fateful visit to Dallas on November 22, 1963, interspersed with flashbacks highlighting LBJs character and the times he lived in as he rose to power.

The film centers on LBJ's complex role in pushing forward the Civil Rights Act amid personal insecurities, political rivalries (especially with Bobby Kennedy), and the weight of national tragedy. 

Woody Harrelson delivers a standout performance as Lyndon B. Johnson. When the film opened, my thought was, "That's Woody Harrelson acting like LBJ." But as the film played out I was surprised how effectively Harrelson "became" LBJ.

All movie making involves trade-offs and risks. The actors playing John and Bobby Kennedy were "adequate" but how much money do you want to spend to make every actor a replica of the characters they played. The important ones to get right were LBJ and "Lady Bird."

Harrelson captures LBJ's larger-than-life personality: the crude, profane, arm-twisting Texan wheeler-dealer with a mix of ambition, vulnerability, and genuine commitment to civil rights. His portrayal is energetic, entertaining, and often vivid, bringing the "Master of the Senate" to life through barking commands, colorful obscenities, and moments of raw emotion. Jennifer Jason Leigh was solid as Lady Bird Johnson, adding warmth and grounding to the story and providing a foil where Lyndon's insecurities could be shared.

The film made me wonder what other presidents' insecurities might have and to whom they shared them. 

The screenplay keeps things focused on a pivotal few years, beginning with JFK winning the nomination at the Democratic Convention. I'd forgotten that part of the story when I read Theodor White's The Making of a President 1960. What I recall most from White's account was the degree to which the Kennedys were organized and the dirty tricks they play on Humphrey to impede his campaign. 

Johnson wanted that opportunity to head the ticket and had the foresight to see that the Kennedy clan was aiming for dynasty, not just an election. 

The film emphasizes not only Johnson's political maneuvering, but his post-assassination determination to honor Kennedy's legacy by passing civil rights legislation. It's a sympathetic portrait of LBJ, painting him as an under-appreciated pragmatist who rises to the occasion. 

Critics described it as pedestrian or by-the-numbers, with a mixed reception: Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 55% critics score (average around 5.7/10) and a more favorable audience rating, while Metacritic sits at 54/100. For me, it was a refreshing look at a president I've not had the highest regard for due to his aggressive insertion of our nation no the Southeast Asia conflict known as Vietnam, among other things.

Overall, LBJ is a solid, watchable historical drama elevated by Harrelson's committed, entertaining adaptation of the persona. It's not groundbreaking, but it offers an insight into a transformative moment in American politics. We've all read much about the Kennedy assassination from a hundred perspectives, but I can't recall seeing or reading about that day from the perspective of the man whose life was most dramatically impacted by the events of that day.

Tech Tuesday: The Man Who Tried to Hold Infinity

A Cold War Episode That's Never Been Told

Dr. Franklin “Sandy” Reeves believed, above all else, that nothing was perfect. Not the meter in Paris. Not the constants in textbooks. Not even the speed of light — though he would never say that out loud in a room full of physicists.

“Nothing is perfect,” he would mutter, tapping a yellow legal pad. “That’s the first fundamental.”

He worked for MITRE, which meant he worked for the Pentagon without quite admitting it. In 1962, the problem on his desk was simple enough: determine how accurately a fighter-bomber could hit its target using a forward-pointed laser and a corner reflector beyond the objective.

The mathematics were straightforward. The field intensity should vary as r⁻⁴. That’s what the textbooks said. That’s what the instructors had said.

But Sandy had a habit of looking more closely.

After the test run, he slipped a 16-inch reel of streak film into a standard projector — not because it was required, but because curiosity had always been his private religion. He watched the beam flare and fade as the aircraft crossed from far field to near field. 

Then he stopped the projector.

The intensity had doubled.

Leaning close with a magnifying glass, he saw. It doubled far too quickly.

He sat back and pondered. If the mathematics were correct, the film was wrong.

If the film were correct, the math would be incomplete.

He went home that night and began scribbling. What if light carried mass — not convertible mass, not E=mc² in the tidy classroom sense, but a companion mass that had to be accelerated from zero at the antenna? What if the outward flow of energy was not merely radiation, but acceleration?

--Mass times distance equals force.

--Energy equals hν.

--Set Planck’s constant equal to one — the convenient dodge. Let grams, centimeters, and seconds collapse into unity. c = g = s = 1.

He circled it twice. If the variables reduced, then the universe reduced. And if the universe reduced, perhaps the equations could be added — mass side and electromagnetic side — into one structure. Two triplets of differential equations. Add them properly and you reach it: A Theory of Everything. 

He wrote it in the margin once. Then crossed it out.

He wasn’t a crank. He worked with hardware. He built a computer for aircraft — a pulser amplifier circuit using a new planar transistor designed by a brilliant MIT graduate. The fall-time problem vanished. The pulses were clean. Too clean.

Some transistors were so fast that the flip-flops double-triggered and canceled themselves out. A machine that thought so quickly it thought nothing at all.

Sandy laughed when he realized it.

“Too perfect,” he said. “And perfection is impossible.”

The solution was human. Three technicians traveled with every unit. He went with them to the high-altitude test chamber so they wouldn’t balk. He passed the test.

Later, the USSR fielded intercontinental missiles and bombers became relics overnight.

The machine he had built — ounces shaved, circuits refined, technicians trained — became unnecessary and irrelevant.

He didn't rage. As usual, he returned to his notes. "Infinity," he had written, "does not mean forever. It means you can always name a number larger than the last. Energy flows from high to low until equilibrium."

Somewhere in the infinity of space, he believed, every extremum existed: 10⁻¹⁰ grams, 10¹⁰ grams; 10⁻¹⁰ seconds, 10¹⁰ seconds. The universe of universes had always been. Would always be.

Late one evening Sandy closed his notebook and looked out the window at a Maryland sky buzzing faintly with unseen transmissions. If mass and energy were twins, if fields rose and fell faster than predicted, if constants were conveniences — then perhaps the universe was not a finished equation but a balancing act of perpetual motion. Never perfect. Never still. Never ending.

Photos by the author. Galileo Museum, Florence

THIS STORY IS A WORK OF FICTION

When You Gonna Wake Up?

1979 was a dramatic year in Bob-land. Slow Train Coming marked a rather surprising turn in Bob Dylan’s career, kicking off his gospel period. This first of three Gospel inspired and infused albums, Slow Train was produced by Jerry Wexler and featured Mark Knopfler on guitar. The album blends polished blues-rock with overtly Christian themes, earning Dylan a Grammy for “Gotta Serve Somebody” and sparking both acclaim and controversy.

“When You Gonna Wake Up?” is not subtle. It's a jeremiad set to music — urgent, accusatory, and unapologetically moral. (To younger readers: do you know the origin of the word "jeremiad?")

The song functions as a wake-up call to a culture Dylan saw drifting into spiritual and moral confusion. He indicts political ideologies (“Karl Marx has got ya by the throat”), moral compromise (“adulterers in churches”), corrupt institutions, and a society obsessed with wealth and self-gratification. The refrain — “When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?”— echoes the language of Revelation, reinforcing the song’s prophetic tone.

What makes the song powerful is not its policy commentary but its spiritual urgency. Dylan’s target is not merely government or culture; it's human hearts. He challenges listeners to reconsider their assumptions about God, materialism, and moral responsibility. The line “You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires” addresses a lot of people's ideas about God. 

My personal feeling is that even if you're put off by the religious iconography, the repetitious refrain is exceedingly relevant in secular applications as well. Does your life feel stale, like you're drifting? When you gonna wake up? Are you drinking too much, partying too hard, eating too much, wasting too much time doing nothing? Ignoring responsibilities? Too absorbed in your self? When you gonna wake up? When are you going to do something about it?

Critics have sometimes faulted Dylan’s Gospel-era songs for their bluntness. And indeed, this is not the elliptical Dylan of “Visions of Johanna” or the ambiguity-laden "All Along The Watchtower." 

“When You Gonna Wake Up?” is both a fierce cultural critique and a personal challenge — less concerned with pleasing listeners than with shaking them. Whether one agrees with its theology or not, its urgency is unmistakable. 

When You Gonna Wake Up?

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

God don’t make no promises that He don’t keep

You got some big dreams, baby, but in order to dream you gotta still be asleep

Refrain: When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up

When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

Counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts

Karl Marx has got ya by the throat, Henry Kissinger’s got you tied up in knots

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

(EdNote: Here Dylan frames ideology itself as a kind of captivity. “Counterfeit philosophies” suggests systems of thought that promise liberation but ultimately distort reality, something akin to a fog machine. By invoking Karl Marx and Henry Kissinger, Dylan spans the political spectrum—leftist economic theory on one side, realpolitik power politics on the other. In hindsight I've wondered if the word "realpolitik" was invented to distance the name from what it really is: Machiavellianism.) 

You got innocent men in jail, your insane asylums are filled

You got unrighteous doctors dealing drugs that’ll never cure your ills

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

You got men who can’t hold their peace and women who can’t control their tongues

The rich seduce the poor and the old are seduced by the young

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools

You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

Do you ever wonder just what God requires?

You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

You can’t take it with you and you know that it’s too worthless to be sold

They tell you, “Time is money,” as if your life was worth its weight in gold

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

There’s a Man up on a cross and He’s been crucified

Do you have any idea why or for who He died?

Refrain: When you gonna wake up...

Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music

A Conflict of World Views

I'm currently reading Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed, and it packs a punch. Last weekend I mentioned my attraction to contrarians, not for the sake of being contrary, but for the very reasons highlighted in this book. In chapter one Sowell lays out his case:

Different visions, of course, have different assumptions, so it is not uncommon for people who follow different visions to find themselves in opposition to one another across a vast spectrum of unrelated issues, in such disparate fields as law, foreign policy, the environment, racial policy, military defense, education, and many others. To a remarkable extent, however, empirical evidence is neither sought beforehand nor consulted after a policy has been instituted. Facts may be marshalled for a position already taken, but that is very different from systematically testing opposing theories by evidence. Momentous questions are dealt with essentially as conflicts of visions.

The focus here will be on one particular vision—the vision prevailing among the intellectual and political elite of our time. What is important about that vision are not only its particular assumptions and their corollaries, but also the fact that it is a prevailing vision--which means that its assumptions are so much taken for granted by so many people, including so-called "thinking people," that neither those assumptions nor their corollaries are generally confronted with demands for empirical evidence. Indeed, empirical evidence itself may be viewed as suspect, insofar as it is inconsistent with that vision.

For those unfamiliar with Thomas Sowell, he was born in 1930 and raised in Harlem. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and later earned degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago, where he studied under Milton Friedman. An American economist, political thinker, and author, his work spans economics, history, education, race, and social policy. He became a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and wrote more than 40 books, including Basic Economics, A Conflict of Visions, and The Vision of the Anointed. His work emphasizes trade-offs, incentives, and empirical analysis in public policy.

Bottom Line: Reality and Truth are more important than intentions and pipe dreams.

* * *

A little further on Sowell cites examples of various issues in the public square where conflicting visions compete with regard to government policies. 

What all these highly disparate crusades have in common is their moral exaltation of the anointed above others, who are to have their very different views nullified and superseded by the views of the anointed, imposed via the power of government. Despite the great variety of issues in a series of crusading movements among the intelligentsia during the twentieth century, several key elements have been common to most of them:

1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious.

2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe.

3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.

4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes.

How many times have we seen this show through the years. Same script, different issues, same game.  As Dylan put it "When you gonna wake up?"

Sowell’s warning is simple but bracing. When visions replace evidence, intentions replace results, and elites exempt their assumptions from scrutiny, society drifts from reality. Policies must be judged by outcomes, not moral fervor. Truth is not decided by consensus, urgency, or status—but by facts.

Curiosity: Another BIG Word

My most recent Marketing Matters column for Business North highlighted four big words, noteworthy for their depth and broad application. The idea was extracted from weekly meetings with the late Dan Hansen as we plotted and developed what we'd hoped would be an epic Wild West novel. 

It wasn't a long list yet, but it was strong. While reading the history of math in James D. Nickel's Mathematics: Is God Silent? it became apparent that curiosity was a major feature of nearly all advances in math, science and human understanding. Why does an apple fall and not go up? Why does the sun rise in the east and set in the west? Why does the Fibonacci sequence keep repeating itself throughout nature?

Curiosity is one of the great engines of civilization. Long before formal science or organized philosophy, human beings were asking questions: What lies beyond the horizon? Why do the seasons change? What causes illness? How do the stars move across the sky? That restless impulse to know more—to look past the obvious and probe the unknown—has propelled nearly every significant advance in human history.

The earliest explorers were driven not merely by necessity, but by wonder. Seafaring cultures pushed into open water without certainty of what awaited them. Their curiosity expanded maps, connected continents, and reshaped economies. The same impulse animated the thinkers of ancient Greece, who refused to explain the world solely through myth and instead sought rational patterns behind natural phenomena. From those inquiries came philosophy, mathematics, and the foundations of democratic thought.

Curiosity also transformed medicine. Questions about the causes of disease gradually replaced superstition with observation and experiment. The scientific revolution emerged from individuals willing to doubt inherited assumptions and test them against evidence. Curiosity drove men to create telescopes and microscopes to explore the skies above and the incredibly tiny phenomenon invisible to the naked eye. Telescopes, microscopes and later the laboratory were tools born of the desire to see more clearly and understand more deeply.

Technological innovation followed the same pattern. The steam engine, electricity, flight, and digital computing all began with someone asking, “What if?” 

Civilizations stagnate when curiosity is suppressed; they flourish when inquiry is encouraged. Businesses and people likewise.

[EdNote: In light of these things, it's a curious thing that we warn people against being too curious by repeating the maxim, "Curiosity killed the cat." Where are the admonitions to be curious?]

Importantly, curiosity is not mere idle speculation. It requires humility—the recognition that we do not yet know—and courage—the willingness to challenge established ideas. It invites risk, but it also opens possibility.

Dan Hansen's fundamental motivational driver was this insatiable curiosity. If you're feeling a measure of deadness inside, it may be because you've become trapped in your routines. Routine dulls the senses; curiosity sharpens them. It pulls us out of autopilot and into engagement.

Curiosity makes us feel more alive because it awakens us to possibility. When we ask questions, explore new ideas, or notice something unfamiliar, the world expands.  To be curious is to lean forward into life rather than drift through it.

Think about it.