Monthly Archives: January 2019

The Bonkers Adaptability of The Good Place

I was a little late coming to NBC’s unique sit-com The Good Place. I had heard about the show and most of the time it was promoted as from the creator of Brooklyn Nine-Nineor Parks and Recs, but as I had never seen a single episode of either of those shows, I watch very little network television, that promotion had failed to spark my interest. However I kept hearing good things and eventually one night I decided to watch the pilot on Netflix. Damn it, no one had informed me that Drew Goddard, a writer and filmmaking whose work I enjoy was also involved with the show.

Anyway, season one we are introduced to the core characters and a smattering of reoccurring one. The program’s lead is Eleanor Shellstrop a vain, self-centered, damaged woman who awake to discover that due to a mistake she has been slotted to spend the afterlife in ‘the Good Place.’ Along with Eleanor we meet Chidi, a

THE GOOD PLACE — Pictured: “The Good Place” Horizontal Key Art — (Photo by: NBCUniversal)

Senegalese professor of moral philosophy and Eleanor’s soul mate, Tahani Al-Jamil, an international socialite and philanthropist and her soul mate played by Manny Jacinto. In addition to these four human characters there are two addition eternals to the cast, Janet a universal storehouse of knowledge and Michael, played by Ted Danson, the architect of the afterlife neighborhood where the characters will be spending eternity.

Season One focuses on Eleanor and the strange occurrence and eventual explanation for what a woman who had not lived a good life has landed in the Good Place. When the season concludes the final revelations would seem to indicate that the creators had boxed themselves into a situation that had played itself out.

Season Two Focuses on Michael and the gulf between his eternal nature and understanding what it means to be human. Creating an entirely new dynamic for the series while retaining the characters and their essential natures. Again when the season reaches its conclusion a radical transformation of the situation creates an entirely new set-up.

Season Three returns the characters to Earth, no longer in the afterlife, and dives further into the essential questions explored throughout the series, what does it mean to be good? How can a person be good? Deep questions that the shows investigates and interrogates through philosophy and comedy making it the smartest dumb show on television.

Now with the third season wrapped and the program returning to its original roots but from a decidedly new perspective, The Good Place  has reinvented itself once again and yet remained true to its central premise and theme. Not since Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad  have I seen a show that so utterly committed to transformation and yet never lose track of what it is supposed to be about.

If you are not watching The Good Place, catch up with Netflix and discover what you have missed.

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It’s Going to be A very Crowded Field

Well, we’ve started the race for the next Democratic contender for President of the United States and much like the Republican field from 2016 it is going to be a large one. (What’s the collective noun for a grouping of Politicians?)

Much like the 2016 GOP slate this one is looking top collect quite a few lesser known and lower tier politicians, though unlike the Republicans so far we haven’t’ seen any rich non-politicians leap into the fray. If I remember correctly in 2012 the GOP offered a lot more of the ‘rich dude’ running to run sort of candidate and perhaps that was because deposing an incumbent is a difficult thing to do. Of course Trump will be an incumbent, but he will also be a particularly weak one. (Unless there is some dramatic change. Remember Bush the Elder was in the 90s for his approval numbers but an economic downturn doomed his reelection and Bush the Younger had very low number until 9/11 unified the nation and helped his reelection.)

I am placing no bets this early as to who will walk away with the nomination but we are a year and a half out from the election with an incumbent that last time lost the popular contest by 3 million votes and is currently boasting an approval of 39.5 vs. a disapproval of 55.8.

 

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Thoughts on Military Service

As many of you know I served in the U.S.Navy, though I was a poor sailor and for me military life as particularly bad fit. The recent SCOTUS action that removed a number of injunctions concerning Trump’s transgender ban sparked a few thoughts on military service, exclusions placed on military service, and what that could mean.

People who step up and volunteer to serve in armed forces and associated branches of service deserve, in general, deep respect and admiration. Service is dangerous, even in peacetime, accidents with powerful machines and lethal weapons happen and they take lives. On my one Western Pacific (WestPac) cruise I remember two deaths and two instances of gross injury, though that cruise had an unusual amount of bad luck during its duration. The people who serve are putting their life and health on the line for the benefit of our collective society. (Clearly this applies as well to other dangerous public services jobs such as police and firefighting, but my essay is going to remain fixed on military service.)

Who is allowed serve or is forced to serve can illuminate aspects of the culture and its ideology. Universal forced conscription, particularly if it is open ended and not as a brief period used to help generate a large reserve, often indicates that the state views the individual as merely a function for the state and not as a realized human being. Your duty and your value are derived from what you can generate for the state and has no intrinsic value beyond that.

Excluding groups usually falls into one of two categories; either the group is placed on a ‘too valuable’ pedestal, which historically has been the argument for denying women the right to serve, or they are not considered a good standing member of society, that is to say they are not ‘one of us.’

The prior category often in society’s eyes infantilizes its subject, judging them as unfit to make their own life decisions and removing from them the liberty to live as they wish. The second category places people outside of ‘civil society’, judging them as outcasts and unworthy of the respect that inherently comes of volunteer service. Note that in 1934 the Nazis banned Jews from serving in their military, an action that possessed no rationale other then bigotry.

Even as far back as 1979 when I enlisted in the Navy it was clear to me that the ban on homosexuals serves in the US Military was from any rational viewpoint deeply flawed. It was ‘explained’ to us that homosexuals presented a security risk as they made easy targets for blackmail, but the fulcrum of that blackmail was their exclusion from service, creating a vicious circle.

Banning transgender persons, homosexuals, and others along such lines is a statement that those people are not ‘one of us’, that they are not worthy of respect, and that their existence should be minimized in our society. That is a viewpoint I cannot endorse, I cannot stay silent upon, and one I will also criticize to my best ability.

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A Childhood Memory

During this past weekend’s D&D game we got to discussing toys and games of our youth and that sparked a memory in me.

I recall having a toy car that was battery powered and operated via punch cards. The cards, some were pre-programmed and others were blank so you could program the car’s route yourself, fed through the toy directing it around an imaginary track. I also mentioned that I had searched for this device on Google. Not to own one, I’m not that into nostalgia, but rather just so I can see clearly what is only hazy in my memory.

Apparently my Google-Fun has popped a level because Sunday I found it easily on line, including several for sale on various sites.

I present Hasbro’s Amaze-A-Matics.

The information says that this was from year 1969 so I would have been eight. Strange I thought I was younger, but there it is 1969 and the Internet is never wrong. (Well, in this case I do think the Web’s right.)

When I saw the photos and the cards I knew I had found the correct product. I remember the cards more clearly than I remember the car itself. I honestly could not tell you which model I had.

So there you have a bit of toy trivia from the late 1960s, punch card programmable toy cars.

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Movie Review: The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Released in 2016 The Autopsy of Jane Doe  is a small, contained horror film set in the rural mortuary and morgue managed by a father son team played by Brian Cox as Tommy and Emile Hirsch as Austin. Rather then rely on a string of ‘kills’ this film is more of an atmospheric piece with a slow burn towards a supernatural active climax.

The movies opens with a crime scene of a murdered family and partially buried body of an unknown women (Olwen Kelly) discovered in the basement. Fearing the coming morning press the sheriff, played by Michael McElhatton taking a reprieve from his role as the traitorous Lord Bolton on Game of Thrones, pressures Tommy for a Cause of Death on the Jane Doe before morning and Austin dutifully skips a date with his girlfriend to assist. Narrating for both the official record and the audience’s benefit, Tommy lays out the course of the expected autopsy but naturally things do not proceed as planned.

Through the course of the procedure Tommy and Austin are confronted with a number of impossibilities with the state of the corpse slowly pulling their investigation further and further from science into something more supernatural. As reason falls away each man encounters more unexplained events and is draws into terror as the nature of the dead woman is slowly revealed.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe  works as a horror film that takes its time building to its inevitable climax, moving with deliberate a pace from a world we know and understand to one of deep supernatural terror. The final act shares a tone with the original Ju-On: the Grudge. And while it has a more definitive explanation for what is happening and why this movie is quite similar in its narrative thrust on the helplessness of mortal confronted by an evil that is not bound by reason or natural law. For those who like a darker, slower, and more deliberate pace to their horror films, such as last year’s Hereditary  and before that The Witch, then The Autopsy of Jane Doe  just may work for you.

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A Pointless Petulant Pique

The partial government shutdown continues without an end in sight as we endure a pointless petulant presidential pique. Economists are now predicting that if this continues all of the GDP growth for Q1 2019 could be wiped out, a massive loss of wealth for the nation that I think the global economy can ill afford Great Britain also suffers an economic crisis due to an un-negotiated exit from the European Union. With a narcissistic ignorant man-baby driving the crisis in the United States and cadre of elected leaders quaking in terror of an electorate that they raised in a hot house environment of anti-intellectualism, resentment, and victimhood, I don’t see away that we can reasonably hope to avoid the ship of our economy crashing onto these shoals.

In theory it is not up simply the President. Congress could pass the legislation to reopen the government, and if needed override a veto, but that would require that the Republicans face their voters and they still stand behind Trump in numbers that are truly mind bogglingly high.

Yes, the Democrats could also agree to the nearly 6 billion dollars in ‘wall’ funding but that is a mistake on several fronts.

First and I think most importantly, it a concession to blackmail. Trump is NOT engaged in a good faith negotiation. He offers nothing but reopening the government in return for getting the prize he covets. The Democrats had offered funding for the wall, or at least portions of it because 5.7 Billion is going wall off the southern border, in return for some of things that they wanted, DACA protections and the like. Trump even agreed to that but when conservative talking heads riled up the base, he reneged on the agreement and now demand that it’s everything he wants and nothing for the other side. The only proper response to such threat’s is the same as Wellington’s ‘Publish and be damned!’ (The GOP is all in on appeasement when it they themselves being appeased.)

Secondly, the American people are against the Wall. Now, you do not always bend to popular opinion, individual rights are now subject to mob approval, but this is nothing like that sort of case. By standing firm against the wall the House Democrats are representing a majority of the population.

2016 saw a wave election that was principally driven as a check against the president and any normal executive would have, in the face of the new political realities, moderated their position, but Trump, driven by ego without any comparable talent, cannot.

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There is No Post Trump GOP

For the foreseeable future Trump, his style, his ideology, and his values, are the basic form of the Republican Party.

I know that there are those on the right who feel that Trump is some sort of aberration of the political environment. That like some Kaiju from a foreign film he came ashore into the GOP, defeated the party’s defenses, and destroyed its infrastructure. They also cling to the belief that like a rampaging monster in a movie once Trump is expelled, either by being termed out or defeated in the next election, that things will return to what they had been before his sudden and terrible appearance.

To quote a recent film, ‘This is not going to go the way you think.’

As the government shutdown over the wall continues, with every day bringing more stories of deprivation, hardship, and actual danger, Trump’s overall approval numbers slide further into negative territory. A recent NPR/Marist poll shows Trumps; approval vs. Disapproval now stands at an abysmal 53 vs. 39 putting him ‘underwater’ by a whopping 14 points.

When you look below the topline numbers the picture becomes even more clear what is happening.

For Democrats the numbers are 6 vs. 89, but that is hardly surprising.

For Independents he registers an unhealthy 37 vs. 57.

However for Republicans the number are 83 vs. 10 yielding a net positive score of an astounding 73 points. Breaking that group down into soft Republicans, that is people who do not self-identify as strongly aligned with the GOP vs. those who do we get the following results of the soft Republicans it is 76 vs. 16, a 60 point positive spread, and for strong Republicans the number are 90 vs. 5.

Trump is adored by the rank and file members of the GOP. He is not a variation from the norm he is the representation of it. This one fact explains a great deal of the behavior of other elected GOP politicians. With Trump’s net approval among strong Republicans at 85 points and to hold their seats and position all of the pols must first withstand with withering fires of a primary hey will take no action that could inspire Trump’s most dedicated supporters to overthrow than before facing the public a in a general election.

This also means that the best path forward for future GOP politicians is to take Trump’s mantle and wear it as their own. Trump and Trumpism is the future of the Republican Party.

On a deeper level this also indicates that the GOP has become unmoored from any political philosophy. The party that once espoused its dedication to freedom now holds Vladimir Putin in high regard.

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Back in the Saddle Again

I never participate in National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, because the month that it occurs in, November, it just far too busy at my day-job. By November the Medicare application comes flooding in, the overtime starts stacking up, and pretty much my writing goes on a pause. This year was no exception.

Mind you, I am not complaining. I have a good job, with healthy pay and benefits, where I work with a number of very cool people. The overtime from the end of year enrollment period also help me buy extra goodies for myself, 2017’s extra money paid for a new larger and better television, and 2018’s allowed me to replace my desktop computer with a new one.

That said it feels good to get back to fiction writing again.

I’m currently crafting some additional scenes for my WIP a military SF novel. The book was completed but given a few weeks to consider some option I hit upon an idea that I think strengthens the opening 2 acts with giving away the reveal of the final two. Once these scenes are completed and polished I think I know exactly which editor to send to book to.

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Spider Man: Far From Home, thoughts and Reactions

First off this is not a post where I try to find every Easter egg and buried reference in the trailer. My knowledge base is far from deep enough to challenge those who perform that service much more completely than I even could obtain.

Second, I remember when a teaser trailer was really brig, but as withy everything else Hollywood things have gotten larger and louder to try to break through the cacophony that is our modern life.

So, here’s the trailer.

While I really loved the first two Sam Rami Spiderman film, that third one we do not speak of anymore, I adore that the MCU version of the character has remained set as a story centered around Peter Parker high school character. This is the heart of the character and even though they will eventually have to transition away from that setting delaying that inevitable leap is a good call.

This trailer looks really fun: it appears to have the heart, soul, and spirit of the first film and deepens the connections of the larger MCU.

In that connection to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe it is clear that many of not all of the major effects of Infinity War is going to be undone. That is no surprise. The slate of announced films and simply understanding that a major corporation, particularly The House of Mouse, is not going to discard franchises worth billions of dollars of revenue on an artistic achievement. That said the real key to the upcoming Avengers: End Game  is not if they reverse those action but how do they achieve the desired conclusion. If the gimmick is simply use the Time Stone to rewind time, that will be unsatisfactory to me and likely quite a few others. I adore Superman: The Movie  but the turn back time robs the ends of real emotional power. I have faith that the Russo Brothers and their writers are going to give us something better than that.

2019 looks to be packed with films worthy of anticipation.

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No Extensive Posting Today

I have a lot of work to do on my novel in progress and I changed up my work hours at the day-job so today there will be no lengthy essay.

Howevere I have now finally watched Justice League  on HBO and can say this.

One – the film is a mess without a clear theme and comprised of all plot, no story, and amazingly bad CGI for such a massive budget.

Two- I loved Ezra’s Miller’s Flash and felt a lot of Joss Whedon in those scenes.

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