Monday, March 18, 2024

The proposed ban against TikTok seems rather strange

It's weirdly authoritarian.  Govern me harder Daddy.  I'm not getting this one.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Random Thoughts On Last Tango In Paris (1972)

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.  Widely seen as a landmark in the history of sexual explicitness in cinema.  So where was the explicit sex I must have missed it?  Even the uncut version is not overly graphic.  Many people if the movie is mentioned automatically think of butter.  That's a childish mind.  Some of the scenes that come to my mind is the character of Paul played of course by Marlon Brando talking to his dead wife alone in the room as she's being prepared for burial.  To my mind this is some of the best acting in the history of cinema.  Also the classic ending where Jeanne played by Maria Schneider shoots him.   The ending is so open-ended it called for a sequel but there never was one.  She's rehearsing her lines for when the police will interview her later (he was a lunatic, I never knew him, he tried to rape me) but so many people had already seen them together at the dance hall but the movie simply ends with the sultry music coming on.  My takeaway - she was okay with having a kind of strange even perverse relationship with him.  She kept going back to him in the apartment even though she was engaged to another man yet when Paul wanted a normal loving relationship with her she basically kept saying it's over and killed him.  A cinematic and much discussed enigma.  Although not by any stretch an exemplary character he's been through the mill after his wife's gruesome suicide and this is his fate.  A movie with many layers to it it's worth a watch or a few.  The actress appeared nude in many of the scenes while Brando kept his clothes on except for one brief scene early on where they didn't show much.  Much vulgar language throughout.  So that's my take the movie is worth diving into.

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Maybe Twitter will ban itself

The msm narrative - President Trump had it as a specific strategic goal to foment a Capitol Hill riot even though absolutely no positive benefits would accrue to him and it only delayed the actual vote counting by a few hours.  I'm not sure they actually properly de-covidized the place btw. Now I don't personally subscribe to this narrative but at best it's highly debatable and yet the media is treating it as an established scientific fact like the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. This is one reason I don't like the msm. It's subjective opining masquerading as objective journalism. 

It must be kind of frustrating to not be able to comment here of late. Pent up political vitriol/commentary and all that having to find another outlet but if you're down with the Twitter TOS I figured I'd have a TOS too. Am reviewing it on a daily basis.

Thursday, January 07, 2021

Life becoming more like a graphic novel

Some people are questioning whether it's all real. It has become a guilty pleasure of mine of late to browse conspiracy subs. So people are asking why did the Capitol police let all those protesters into the Capitol building? Were they really members of Antifa trying to make Trump look bad with the help of an overly compliant media? BTW a few people scaling a wall is not an attempted coup. That usually involves a large scale use of the military. Is this actually serious journalistic commentary? 

I'm at a creative crossroads of where to take this blog. I don't want to turn it into a grim covid blog and push the same relentless fear narrative as the msm. As things stand now it's endlessly polarizing with little search for common ground. Some time to think, to ponder and to browse. 

The weirdness of 2020 has somehow spilled over into 2021. We all need a rest.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

The geriatric presidency

If I were Kamala Harris I'd be boning up on foreign policy right now just on the off chance.  It's like when your father dies and he knew about the plumbing but you don't.  Natural causes is like a 50/50 right now.  Rudy Giuliani is pretty much a national joke.  It's like the old shrink tests - Giuliani/Running hair dye.   Even Rush Limbaugh is getting impatient.

The transition seems well underway now.  It is what it is.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

There's no legal requirement you have to congratulate the other guy

Trump may give his concession speech a year from now or never.  As long as he leaves the building January 20th.

When are the second stimulus checks coming?

Friday, November 06, 2020

How do the dead vote?

If the dead leaned Republican Trump wouldn't be making an issue of this.

There's normal math and then there's weird math.  Most agreed about the normal math.  The President's lead would shrink in several states once the mail-ins started to be counted.  The strange math led to Trump eventually having razor thin leads in those same states with Biden eventually having the sliver in his favor.  What are the odds of so many of these slivers?  The normal math said a majority of the absentee ballots would favor Biden.  Again most including myself accepted this.  The strange math would have it though that a vast majority of absentee voters voted for Biden.  Odds?  Now you could make the case that Democratic voters took the pandemic more seriously and so went this route but there still has to be quite a few elderly Republican shut-ins out there too.  Lastly Georgia a historically red state seemed to flip overnight.  Were Georgian Republican voters so repulsed by the package of Trump's personality they threw political practicality overboard?  Not likely.

For me it's a case of the weird math and the strange algebra says to check it out.