This movie includes one of the cruelest acts by an “officer and gentleman” you will ever see. Ask Ursula Andress why.

The Lady Barbara has questions about the NASCAR controversy:

“I await your comment on this weekend’s NASCAR incident. It seems cruel (and ridiculous) to me, all the online speculation about its being an intentional killing — or at best, something easily preventable by Stewart — but I know nothing about the men involved and almost nothing about racing. I’m eager to hear your insights.”

My wife can attest that I’ve been feeling obligated because I took a cheap shot at NASCAR in this post.

My opinion about the current controversy. It’s all nonsense. There are a lot of professions and callings that require borderline sociopaths. Which is not to say criminals. These are people with less empathy, less fear, more aggression, and less foresight of consequences. It’s a bigger club than most people realize. Most of them are not criminals. Fighter pilots, NFL quarterbacks, successful political leaders, race car drivers, scientists, explorers, and, to be honest, many artists and writers. It’s not narcissism per se. It’s the drive to win in competition. Which means there are losers. And those for whom the human consequences matter less than the objective achieved. Think Winston Churchill. Think Isaac Newton. Think MacArthur. Think Robert E. Lee. Think Shackleton of the Antarctic. Think, for all his rhetoric to the contrary, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Think Richard Dawson. Think Picasso (all those exploited women) and even Leonardo (all those stolen dissected corpses).

These are people who hover right on the line between good and evil. Despite their small numbers, equivalent to the 1.6 percent who are homosexual and eternally cool, these are the people who accomplish most of the great outcomes, for good and ill. They live on an edge few people ever get close to.

Which explains part of the media dudgeon. By definition reporters watch while other people do. They can’t stand the idea that there in flyover country are fearless competitors who want to win more than anything and are willing to sail very close to the wind to do it. Not at cocktail parties but on the high seas of life, in reality.

The other part is explained by progressive cultural bias. NASCAR is everything they hate: southern, loud, fossil fuel intensive, macho, white, popular, beloved by the military, hard drinking fans, proof against propaganda, endowed with long history, heavy metal in music and in fact, and attractive to big breasted bimbos who don’t know they should be NYT reporters.

Perfect storm. So somebody died. Never mind that he stepped out aggressively into the line of traffic on a dirt track with the intent of registering his own anger. He’s a victim now.

Because the owners of all cultural truth know that everyone is a victim. Even a hothead accidentally killed by a hothead.

The inside betting is that Stewart wanted to spray him with dirt from the dirt track for his reckless advance onto the track — and miscalculated.

I dunno. I’m a motorhead by birth. Responsibilities on both sides. I push you, you push me. Miscalculations aren’t crimes. They’re consequences for sure. But not crimes. Why women continue to love bad boys more than New Yorker writers.

Does that help, Barbara?

No? Let’s see if I can add to the picture with another sense. I have never seen a NASCAR race in person, but NASCAR has an even lower class cousin, drag racing. I have been to a national drag race competition in Englishtown, New Jersey. Friend of mine insisted. I remember lots. Arnie “the Farmer” Beswick. Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, and “The Hawaiian.” Rails, funny cars, double A fuel dragsters, the people in the stands who couldn’t afford NASCAR tickets or much of anything but gas for their clapped out ’68 GTO…

But what I remember most of all is the SOUND!!! Zero to earsplitting, soulsplitting, forget ZZ Top forever, inside out wail of internal combustion divinity in a split second.

NASCAR fans talk to me about sound. They explain that they can hear more than they can see at tracks like Dover. I nod knowingly. Because they don’t know shit. My sources tell me that compared to the NHRAs, NASCAR is the merest whisper. Which doesn’t sound good for Tony Stewart.

Then again, I’ve never owned a Volvo. So what would I know about appropriate sound? And what it does to the human mind?