Monthly Archives: August 2020

Fight Your Motivated Reasoning

Motivated Reasoning is the process where, quite subconsciously, a person used their reasoning to arrive a conclusion that conforms to their already held preconceptions and notions avoid the unpleasant dilemma of changing their opinion about a subject.

People utilize their motivated reasoning skill in a variety of settings and problems but it always occurs for subject to which the person has attached a high personal value, usually related to an identity or core personality self-image. A person who thinks of themselves as generous will find all manner of ‘reason’s when faced with evidence of selfishness. A person devoted to a political faction will construct elaborate chains of logic to maintain that their chosen position and party are ‘good’ and not tainted but some misdeed. An artist who has poured deeply person feeling into a work is likely to reject criticism rather than reevaluate their process or technique. All of these actions and example are not evidence of a person being ‘bad’ or dishonest, often the motivated reasoning takes place below the level of awareness, it is a defensive mechanism.

The best way to combat it is to question not that which confronts your world view, or that which attacks your directly, but question those things, evidence, and conclusion that make you feel warm and safe. The lie that is most dangerous is the lie we want to believe. Seek out evidence and arguments contrary to your positions, and not argument that have been filtered through allies presenting the counterargument or you will simply be swayed by their own motivated reasoning. When you reach a conclusion that is alignment with what you already accept as right and proper be merciless on yourself for flaws in your reasoning and logic. This is not easy and it is a never-ending process but you cannot reach truth via self-delusion.

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Is the Mafia a Militia?

A common action among firearm rights supporters is to organize into independent militias invoking the phrasing of the second amendment as a support for their actions. This is often combined with a fairly strict anti-government mentality and a stated readiness to combat the government should it overreach. This bravado has been on display this year with displays pf tyrannical government overreach such as public health measures combating a lethal global pandemic.

The Mafia and organized crime in general whether it be Russian international criminals laundering millions of dollars through real estate or Baltimore youths dealing in street drugs are all armed and anti-government are they too also militias?

The question is ludicrous of course they are not but what divides the ‘militia’ from the ‘gang?’

It is important to remember that when the second amendment refers to a ‘well regulated militia,’ it is speaking of a common and well understand definition. The militia was an irregular force that could be called up and activated at the state’s requirement. The need for individuals to have a right to bear arms was essential as the militias were not funded and supplied by the several or individual states. Each man brought his arms and the commander of the local militia, and these were men of wealth and property, financed the heavier arms such as cannons. It is clear from history and intent that the second amendment is an individual right that supports the militia’s existence.

But any group of people with arms are not a militia.

When a group of people self-organize to enforce the law as they see it, pass judgement on guilt, and met of punishment, they are not a jury they are a mob and are not conducting a trail but a lynching.

As with a jury a militia is an arm of the state. A citizen can arm themselves to prepared to fulfill their duty to the state as a member of the militia but the activation and deployment of the militia is a state matter not one of personal preference or self-aggrandizement.

If you organize, cross state lines, and commit likely crimes you are not a ‘militia’ you are a gang.

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Defeating Trump is Merely the Eye of the Storm

Trump is not the storm that is battering our political shores. Trump is the storm surge, the destructive water crushing and eroding our norms and shattering the dykes of good governance but he is merely a product of the storm, an emergent property of the cyclone and should he be defeated in November, even if it is by margins so large and unquestionable that we are certain of the result on election night, the storm will not have passed but instead will have presented the false calm of its eye.

Without the benefits of aircraft, satellites and radar an approaching hurricane seems at first like a large but normal storm, there is nothing in the growing winds, darkening clouds, and sheets of rain to foretell the monster that is imminent. For decades the growing reactionary racism, rejections of reality, and insular inbred system of information of the Republican party and its supporting organization have been the building storm. Trump is not a sudden lightning strike that shatters the air and then vanishes he is the product of the building winds, the lowering pressure that pulls the sea from its bed to wash away civilization. While the storm surge deals tremendous damage, it is not the most dangerous part of the hurricane that is the eye wall where the winds are the fastest and can rip tress from their roots and houses from their foundations.

When you pass through the eye wall into the storm’s eye the winds vanish, the skies clear, and the calm can lure you to your death. Because when the other side of the eye brings the storm back it does not build slowly as it did before but rather the winds go from calm to full force in moments, now battered weakened and damaged structures from the opposite direction, shattering weaking building with the sudden force.

Trump defeat will be a moment of clam but Trumpism, the vile, racist approach to American governance will not have vanished. The attacks, spurious and hyperbolic on the new administration will, with their resemblance to GOP behavior during the previous Democratic Administrations, seem like a return to normalcy and like the hurricane’s eye we must not be lulled into compliancy or expect that the worst is over. 2022 and 2024 will be end of the eye and the return to the fight for survival and we must be ready for it. The storm surge will have passed but not the storm.

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I Miss the Theatrical Experience

All of my life I have been a fa of movies. My earliest memory is of some Hammer Frankenstein in lurid color at a drive in in North Carolina. I can vividly recall sitting in the Sunrise theater in Ft Pierce Florida watch Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and while in the navy the day before we deployed to the Western Pacific for a six-month cruise, I spent twelve hours in various theaters watching movie after movie. In short going out to a movie is a valuable experience for me and one that I have dearly missed since the pandemic induced shut started in March.

On social media I can see that in some states the theaters are re-opening with enhanced procedures to help fight the spread of COVID-19 but not yet here in California and honestly as much as I miss the experience I’m very hesitant to return to that sort of public exposure without the benefit of a vaccine.

I am not passing judgement on others if they are taking every available precaution but this is not a game and people are dying. I know that with the medication I take for my arthritis avoiding infection is particularly important for me and that’s a major if not the dominate factor in my thinking. But I also interact with others, albeit fewer that I have before this crisis started, and I must do my part in preventing to spread, sparing my community, my friends, and my loved ones.

Despite my 55″ 4K television watching movies at home is not the same experience but for 2020 it will have to suffice.

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Was The Cold War Just Over Tax Rates?

From the post-World War II period through to 1991 the United States of American and its allies engaged in a deadly game of brinksmanship utilizing nuclear bombers, middles, and artillery, with the Soviet Union and its allies for the fate of the world. We were assured that this was a war that pitted democracy, with the First World, the USA and its allies, against the tyranny Second World, the USSR and its allies with humanity’s future balanced on the knife’s edge. The USSR’s collapse ended the conflict and revealed a corrupt, monstrous system if lies, propaganda, and murder.

And the American Republican Party can’t let the war go.

In any two-party system each of the two major parties are a coalition of interests ideally with a few unifying themes or goals and for the second half of the 20th century what unified the GOP was a dedicated stance against the USSR and communism. Bereft of that binding force the GOP floundered for compelling arguments for its election and finally settled on culture war issues that satisfied its religious wing, energized it racist elements, and the business elements provided the control rods required to keep the entire pile from going super-critical and melting down. Beginning in 1994 more and more of those control rods were removed until 2016 provided the final crisis, sent the entire stack critical, and released the rampaging nuclear monstrosity that is Donald J. Trump.

And now we have reached a point where a majority of the GOP finds more than 170,000 pandemic deaths ‘acceptable,’ and in order to retain their minoritarian grip on power our votes are being undermined, the Post Office is sabotaged, and very concept of democracy is under assault. So, what was that Cold War victory for? Was it just to preserve low taxes for the wealthy? Was the entire conflict about biblical literalism?  It must have been because it seems the only charge the GOP knows to deploy is to point at their opponents and with mouths agape like the 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, scream ‘Communist!’ And like that movie it is an idea out of time and out of place with the moment.

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Classic Film Review: Black Sunday

To be clear I am speaking of the 1977 thriller directed by John Frankenheimer and not the 1960 horror movie directed by Mario Bava.

In a decade of growing terrorist attacks and twenty-four years before the terrible events of September 11th, Thomas Harris, whose fame as an author would be cemented with his creation of Hannibal Lector, penned his first novel Black Sunday about an attack on that most American of institutions, The Superbowl.

Robert Shaw plays David Kabakov an elite Israeli agent who when leading an assault on a terrorist cell in Lebanon uncovers a plot to attack the United States early in the year. With nothing more to go on that a glimpse of the face of the woman planning the attack David, his partner Robert, and the FBI face nearly insurmountable challenges in thwarting the murderous plans.

As the plot unwinds and mysteries are resolved David’s awareness grows that he has been part of the growing problem and he begins to doubt the righteousness of his prior actions.

Black Sunday seems today like a movie that simply could not be produced. Central to the terrorists’ plot is using the Goodyear Blimp as part of the attack and it is not a no name knock-off in the film but the actual blimp. It is inconceivable that a major public corporation would allow their most recognized symbol used as part of a plan to murder tens of thousands, and yet there it is. A quick bit of research showed that Frankenheimer had good relations with Goodyear and with a few restrictions, such making it clear that Bruce Dern’s deranged blimp pilot was a contractor and not a Goodyear employee, sweet talked the company into cooperating. The massive crowds of a Superbowl were achieved by again getting some unlikely cooperation, the NFL allowed the production to film at the 1976 Superbowl, which accounts for the bicentennial iconography in the movie, which was intercut with staged scenes of panic and chaos during the movie thrilling conclusion.

All in all, Black Sunday is a well-made, well-acted, and entertaining piece of cinema. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Missing My Shockwaves Podcast

When it came to my podcast listening Fridays used to be horror days. It was the day the new episode of Shockwaves would drop with its multiple hosts discussing the last films that they had watched, the film that they had produced, and interviewing some of the most interesting voices in horror. Then in Jun massive sexual scandal rocked the parent company and Shockwaves vanished from my feed.

I’ve been searching out some sort of suitable replacement but the search has been difficult. There are lots of horror podcast but finding one with the right mix of people with the right base of knowledge feels impossible. Shockwavesintroduced me to several interesting films and while my taste never matched exactly with any of the hosts there was an enough of an overlap that I could find new stuff to watch and even understand them enough to know why we didn’t agree on some.

They will be missed.

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Quick Hits Aug 20, 2020

Just a few quick thoughts and observations for today.

Democratic Convention: Despite being a former poli-sci major and minor political junkie I have not been watching the convention. However, from analysis and coverage from both the right and the left it seems that they’ve found a way to do their messaging in these strange terrible times. They are keeping their aim fixed on the prize, defeating Trump, and are showing a level of unity quite unusual for this party. I understand the frustration from progressive that Republicans have highly placed speaking slots at the convention but this election is unlike any other in our nation’s history and the first problem, removing Trump from office, takes priority over everything else at the moment. More than ever, policy must come after victory.

Agents of SHIELD: The series, with all its ups and down, completed its seventh and final season swinging for the fences and engaging in some seriously epic storylines. Overall, I really enjoyed the series and I have started a re-watch from season one. The hints and rumors of a tie-in with the next phase of the MCU are intriguing and we’ll see where they go.

Writing my Next Novel: I’m almost ready for the prose outline of the new and still untitled novel. I’m currently working on a bullet point outline, just the most critical points for each of the five acts but as I go each act has more bullet points than the previous indicating that the story is taking off on its own. For this murder mystery aboard a generations starship I plan to incorporate some of the story structure ideas advocated my screenplays writer and Chernobylseries creator Craig Mazin.

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Work in Process Nation

It’s a fuzzy line between patriotism and Jingoism but I think that divide lies along the capacity to admit error. A patriot can recognize that their beloved nation is in error, demand that the nation be better, and work to make it better, while the jingoist can only proclaim their nation is best and reject the recognition of any flaw. You might think of a jingoist as a narcissist whose narcissism is projected onto their country and not themselves.

While you are writing a book it is called a work in progress and it continue to be one until the final edits have been approved and the text goes to production. In a way the United States of America is a work in progress that never is submitted for publication and one where the revised text remains in the copy all the way through.

Our text started with some very good ideals that were executed terribly. It’s hard to be for freedom and equality when some are enslaved, some are disenfranchised, and some are nothing more than an occasional count. But with fits and starts and not a few bad chapters we’ve improved the work, gotten closer to the ideal and further from that terrible first drafting. There is more equality but not enough. There is more liberty but not enough. There is more justice, but not enough. The work continues and we are its authors.

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I am not shy about sharing my political views. it goes contrary to advise I have received that as an author trying to move product, convince more people to buy my books, I should avoid politics because I may offend some and lose those sales.

That’s true. It may cost me sales.

But I have a duty to ideals I believe hold to be true and to be derelict in that duty for mere money is something I simply can’t do. I have not always met my duty, my responsibilities, we all sometimes fall short but we have an obligation to try and my voice, however soft it might be, must still be raised for what I think is right and I must take my part in crafting this national work in progress.

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Series Review: Lovecraft Country

Sunday night saw HBO’s premier of the long anticipated series adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country.

I have not read the novel so my impressions of the series and the only ‘aired’ episode so far is driven entirely by the onscreen material.

Episode one centered on Atticus ‘Tic’ Freeman (Jonathan Majors) an army veteran recently discharged following the Korean War’s armistice as he travels home to Chicago because his father has gone missing. Uniting with his Father’s brother George (Courtney B. Vance), who travels researching his guide to safe travels for Black people in Jim Crow America, and childhood friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett), he travels to ‘Lovecraft country’, rural Massachusetts, following clues to his father’s disappearance and hints of an ancestral legacy.

Aside from a vivid dream sequence at the episode’s opening Lovecraft Countytakes its time revealing its cosmic horror nature instead rightly focusing on character, mood, and critically environment creating a believable and frightening world with terrors drawn from history as well as the imagination. Jonathan Majors is well cast as ‘Tic,’ the bookish young man with a love of pulp adventures now grown into a handsome muscular man but with those same doubts and self-image issues waiting just under the surface. Jurnee Smollett’s Letitia while seemingly a woman who appears primarily as a sensualist also possesses depths and intellect that in the first episode promise greater things for her character and Vance’s Uncle George brings a sense of wisdom and hard-earned experience to the trio.

The cinematography fills a night encounter rich saturated colors from blood red flares while daylight excursions have a washed out colorless and joyless oppression to them, reflecting well the dual nature of the story and the show, fantastical weird apparitions existing alongside with banal historical evil. The show’s soundtrack is a mix of period and modern music and that I found a little jarring but other viewers are less likely to have their suspension of disbelief bumped by the choices.

It is nigh on impossible to adequately judge a story by just 10 percent of its content other than to say that the characters and encounters are all laid out in a pleasing, engaging manner and if the entire series maintains this quality, we are in for one frightening ride.

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