According to Slate, the libertarian dreams of seasteading seem to be fading. Peter Thiel, apparently, seems less enthusiastic these days.
I kind of wish it would work, so that a few score of the most dangerous libertarians (Kochs, Thiel, Stark*, etc) - those who either deny climate change or think you just watch the world burn and then work out if you can science your way out of the extremes - could be set adrift in the Pacific Ocean and lose all influence in the rest of the world.
* Oh wait, he's taken care of.
Thursday, May 02, 2019
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Not exactly the law and order country
India seems to have a very real problem with mob justice. It sounds like a rather lawless and dangerous place (if not for visitors, then at least for residents!) Some examples from today's perusal of the Times of India:
Some peculiar artwork decision with this sad story, too:
Bear in the mind the undue influence that WhatsApp has for spreading false rumour there too, and the number of deaths it has caused, I'm adding it to my list of "no hurry to visit" countries.
Some peculiar artwork decision with this sad story, too:
Bear in the mind the undue influence that WhatsApp has for spreading false rumour there too, and the number of deaths it has caused, I'm adding it to my list of "no hurry to visit" countries.
Negative interest
Aren't conservatives going on and on about the Folau matter to a ridiculous degree? Yeah, sure: climate change is a crock of no interest but the really important thing is whether a rugby player will get booted or not.
My interest level in this is already in negative territory. I could only be less interested if it were a racing horse up for a Code of Conduct hearing for tweeting offensive stuff about jockeys.
My interest level in this is already in negative territory. I could only be less interested if it were a racing horse up for a Code of Conduct hearing for tweeting offensive stuff about jockeys.
Product endorsement - curry chips
Maybe it's because I usually only buy them when especially hungry due to missing out on lunch, but I find that the "curry night Korma" flavoured chips by Tyrells are especially delicious:
This easily remains my preferred chip brand. Not oily (Smiths are the worst at that) and flavours that are not too overpowering.
This easily remains my preferred chip brand. Not oily (Smiths are the worst at that) and flavours that are not too overpowering.
Libertarians clinging to climate change denial
I see that the annual "We Hate Tax" conference, run by some libertarian mob together with some other/associated "we hate tax!" group, has the following guests (with my added commentary in brackets):
Local speakers including former Finance Minister Nick Minchin [well known climate change denying politician], Tom Switzer from the Centre for Independent Studies [dunno], John Roskam [runs Rinehart funded pro-actively climate change denying IPA] ..., LNP Senator Amanda Stoker [can't find direct climate position - but seems to love coal] , climate blogger Jo Nova [most prominent solo climate change denying blogger of Australia, also a goldbug with a husband very suspicious about the great banking families of Europe - nudge, nudge, wink, wink], and Professor Sinclair Davidson [runs persistently climate change denying Catallaxy, almost certainly a "I don't deny, I'm just not convinced" disingenuous type - he won't actually tell us anymore if he personally believes that AGW is real and worth addressing] and Dr Chris Berg from RMIT University [the more affable face of IPA who also stays silent on climate change, and deserves derision for giving moral support to deniers even if he isn't one himself].This reminds me: in 2014, I gave rare praise to Helen Dale for at least having stated this in 2013:
5. Libertarians in particular need to drop their widespread refusal to accept the reality of climate change. It makes us look like wingnuts and diverts attention from the larger number of greenies who spew pseudoscience on a daily basis.Sorry Helen: they're not listening to you. (And anyway, your willingness to work for denier - or "I'm not convinced" twit - Leyonhjelm shows you didn't really treat it as an important issue yourself.)
What Emperors do in retirement
It's hard not to be impressed with the apparent gentleness and humility of the retiring Japanese emperor and empress:
The imperial couple will move to a temporary residence in Tokyo before settling at Togu Palace in the Akasaka Estate, currently home to the incoming emperor — Crown Prince Naruhito — and his family, once renovation work is completed.
Togu Palace will be renamed Sento Imperial Palace, which translates as “the place where the retired imperial couple live.”
Their temporary residence is the Takanawa Imperial Residence in Minato Ward, formerly home to Prince and Princess Takamatsu which has been empty since the princess — aunt of Emperor Akihito — died in 2004.
The couple has fond memories of their final home, the place they brought up their children when the emperor was crown prince.
The emperor will hand off all public duties to the new emperor immediately. The couple will pray for the country and its people after they move, and spend more time with friends, listening to music and reading, according to Imperial Household Agency officials.
A keen marine biologist, the retired emperor will periodically visit the Imperial Palace to continue his research on gobies, they said.
“I am looking forward to being able to take my time to read every book that I have yet to read,” Empress Michiko said in a statement to the press last October.
Trump and oversight
An article at New Repbulic argues that Trump is ironically building the case for impeachment by being so obstructionist about Congressional oversight. It ends as follows:
In the aggregate, however, the White House’s obstinacy suggests a deeper problem. Presidents are supposed to accept the principle that Congress can act as a meaningful check on their power. Trump does not. His resistance to scrutiny isn’t limited to Congress, of course. The president habitually complains that mainstream news outlets don’t show him the deference he thinks he deserves. “In the ‘old days’ if you were president and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism,” he fumed on Twitter earlier this week. Trump’s hunger for a fawning press was already bad; his authoritarian craving for the same treatment from Congress is worse.
It’s possible that this all-or-nothing approach could eventually backfire on Trump in court. It was already hard to argue that his resistance sprung from a good-faith attempt to preserve the executive branch’s powers. If anything, his categorical public refusal to cooperate with Congress only makes explicit what was already implicit. Then again, the Supreme Court still might not care. Even when faced with clear evidence of the Trump administration’s bad faith, the court’s conservative justices have chosen to pretend that nothing is amiss.
There’s a certain irony to the timing of these all-out efforts to block congressional oversight. Democrats have spent the past two years arguing that Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and disinterest in the rule of law would endanger American democracy. The president doesn’t seem interested in disputing the Democrats’ portrayal of him beyond soundbites like “No obstruction!” If anything, he seems almost eager to prove them right.
David Brooks and the mountains
I've never read David Brooks much, but he seems a very gentle character for a quasi-conservative (he's fallen out with most of his former buddies over Trump - so that's a good sign.)
I saw him recently on PBS Newshour talking about his increasing interest in matters spiritual, and his book on the matter, and it sounded somewhat interesting.
This review of the book at the New Yorker gives me a lot more biographical information on him, and the book, and he is indeed an interesting guy.
I would say his current position seems to be one you could classify as close to Unitarian Universalism - someone who is interested in seeing if there be some sort of common agreement between everyone, whether of a religious faith or not, as to the sort of principles that are involved in living a good and moral life.
I saw him recently on PBS Newshour talking about his increasing interest in matters spiritual, and his book on the matter, and it sounded somewhat interesting.
This review of the book at the New Yorker gives me a lot more biographical information on him, and the book, and he is indeed an interesting guy.
I would say his current position seems to be one you could classify as close to Unitarian Universalism - someone who is interested in seeing if there be some sort of common agreement between everyone, whether of a religious faith or not, as to the sort of principles that are involved in living a good and moral life.
Psychiatry's problems, noted again
I posted about another review of this book last month, but this review from Nature contains other highlights of the failures of psychiatry that I hadn't thought about for a long time:
Something new I hadn't known: it took this long to identify syphilis as eventually caused dementia?:
I also did not realise that psychoanalytic approaches had the sort of revival related here, even though of course I knew the 70's were the heyday of - gee, who was the guy who seemed to blame most psychosis on families and pressure they put their kids under?*:
* RD Laing. Haven't thought about him for a long time, too.
In January 1973, Science published an article called ‘On being sane in insane places’. The author, psychologist David Rosenhan, described how he and seven other healthy people had reported themselves to a dozen psychiatric hospitals, claiming to hear voices uttering odd words such as ‘thud’ or ‘hollow’ — a symptom never reported in the clinical literature. Each person was diagnosed with either schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis, and admitted; once inside, they stopped the performance. They were released after an average of 19 days with diagnoses of ‘schizophrenia in remission’ (D. L. Rosenhan Science 179, 250–258; 1973).
One research and teaching hospital, hearing about the study, declared that its own staff could never be so deceived. It challenged Rosenhan to send it pseudopatients. He agreed, but never did. Nonetheless, the hospital claimed to have identified 41 of them.
Psychiatric hospitals, it seemed, could recognize neither healthy people nor those with mental illnesses. Rosenhan’s study exemplifies much of what went wrong in twentieth-century psychiatry, as biologists, psychoanalysts and sociologists struggled for supremacy. Science historian Anne Harrington takes us through the painful history of that struggle in the enthralling Mind Fixers, which focuses particularly on the United States.
Something new I hadn't known: it took this long to identify syphilis as eventually caused dementia?:
Certain discoveries, such as the findings in 1897 and 1913 confirming that syphilis causes late-onset psychosis, bolstered biologists’ view that mental disorders were brain-based.
I also did not realise that psychoanalytic approaches had the sort of revival related here, even though of course I knew the 70's were the heyday of - gee, who was the guy who seemed to blame most psychosis on families and pressure they put their kids under?*:
As Harrington relates, the horrors of two world wars generated hundreds of thousands of cases of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder, indicating a clear role for environmental triggers for some mental illnesses. By the 1970s, the Nazi eugenics atrocities had led most US psychoanalysts to disdain biological approaches even more vehemently, but their reasoning caused its own distress. They extended Freud’s view that mental disorders were rooted in early sexual fantasies to encompass all causes of early childhood anxieties. The idea that families, particularly mothers, were to blame for unexplained mental conditions such as psychoses became mainstream. By the 1950s, psychoanalysts dominated US psychiatry teaching.
Around this time, notes Harrington, social scientists emerged as the third influential force, aligning with psychoanalysts on the purported role of ‘toxic’ families in causing psychiatric disease. Yet within a decade, US psychiatrists experienced a backlash — both from patients’ families, fed up with being vilified, and from the professional ranks. What’s more, a 1962 study showed that two psychiatrists disagreed on the diagnosis of the same person 70% of the time (A. T. Beck Am. J. Psychiatry 119, 210–216; 1962).
* RD Laing. Haven't thought about him for a long time, too.
Dumb, populist, flakey perpetual politician who never achieves anything can't understand why she attracts dumb, populist, flakey wannabe politicians
My heart breaks for Pauline Hanson, who's decided to take on the mantle of martyr instead of looking in the mirror to understand why she attracts self-serving idiots to her party. Like attracts like, Pauline...
Update: Re-reading this, I think it uses harsher rhetoric than usual, but I did give her some praise yesterday, so it all balances in the end.
Update: Re-reading this, I think it uses harsher rhetoric than usual, but I did give her some praise yesterday, so it all balances in the end.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Yeah, thanks, Netflix
Seems fairly likely that what some people feared would happen with the release of teen suicide story "13 Reasons Why" did:
The Netflix show "13 Reasons Why" was associated with a 28.9% increase in suicide rates among U.S. youth ages 10-17 in the month (April 2017) following the shows release, after accounting for ongoing trends in suicide rates, according to a study published today in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The findings highlight the necessity of using best practices when portraying suicide in popular entertainment and in the media. The study was conducted by researchers at several universities, hospitals, and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health. NIMH also funded the study.I have to say, though, that I would have expected it would be a show watched by more girls than guys, so the increase in male teen suicide is a surprise. I hope they looked for any other possible media event that might have been related.
The number of deaths by suicide recorded in April 2017 was greater than the number seen in any single month during the five-year period examined by the researchers. When researchers analyzed the data by sex, they found the increase in the suicide rate was primarily driven by significant increases in suicide in young males. While suicide rates for females increased after the show's release, the increase was not statistically significant.
"The results of this study should raise awareness that young people are particularly vulnerable to the media," said study author Lisa Horowitz, Ph.D., M.P.H., a clinical scientist in the NIMH Intramural Research Program. "All disciplines, including the media, need to take good care to be constructive and thoughtful about topics that intersect with public health crises."
Pauline does the right thing
Gawd, what's coming over me? When I heard Pauline Hanson's comments on her horrible* candidate Steve Dickson's resignation for the video of him carrying on like an absolute yobbo at a strip club, I thought she put it very well. The Guardian reports it as follows:
I offer, probably for the one and only time in my life, congratulations to her for not mincing words and saying that expects men (whether politicians or not) to behave better towards women.
* I had previously noted in two posts his appalling smarmy hypocrisy when dealing with the NRA and the Christian element in their ranks.
Speaking at an early morning media conference, an angry Hanson said the footage “cannot be ignored or condoned” and she had accepted Dickson’s offer to resign. She said she would not tolerate her children behaving that way towards women, and would not condone her candidate’s “dealing with women in this fashion” either.It was actually better than that - she referenced being the mother of 3 boys, and that she would find their similar behaviour unacceptable.
“Steve’s language and behaviour was unacceptable and does not meet my expectations nor the greater public’s expectation of a person who is standing for public office,” the One Nation party leader said.
“Steve Dickson yesterday offered his resignation from all positions within the party, which I have accepted.”
I offer, probably for the one and only time in my life, congratulations to her for not mincing words and saying that expects men (whether politicians or not) to behave better towards women.
* I had previously noted in two posts his appalling smarmy hypocrisy when dealing with the NRA and the Christian element in their ranks.
Poets and depression
As I don't care for poetry, I didn't know much about the late Les Murray, but heard on the radio this morning that he had suffered from depression for a long time as a younger man. Which made me think: are my less-than-positive feelings about this art form because it seems to be the preferred artistic outlet of angsty teens and (later) adults with depression?
I don't know that I have really thought about this much before, but I see that the matter has been studied, particularly in relation to female poets. From the Wikipedia entry on "The Sylvia Plath effect":
I see at Quora someone asks:
Do poets get depression or do depressed people write poetry?
Anyway, Tim, you seem a jolly enough fellow whose poetry is not a downer. But has anyone done a study on how much published poetry could be categorised as "cheerful" as opposed to "deals with a depressing subject" or at best "melancholic"?
I don't know that I have really thought about this much before, but I see that the matter has been studied, particularly in relation to female poets. From the Wikipedia entry on "The Sylvia Plath effect":
The Sylvia Plath effect is the phenomenon that poets are more susceptible to mental illness than other creative writers. The term was coined in 2001 by psychologist James C. Kaufman. This early finding has been dubbed "the Sylvia Plath effect", and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed...
In one study, 1,629 writers were analyzed for signs of mental illness. Female poets were found to be significantly more likely to experience mental illness than female fiction writers or male writers of any type. Another study extended the analysis to 520 eminent women (poets, fiction writers, non-fiction writers, visual artists, politicians, and actresses), and again found the poets to be significantly more likely to experience mental illness.[1]
In another study performed by the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, female writers were found to be more likely to suffer not only from mood disorders, but also from panic attacks, general anxiety, drug abuse, and eating disorders. The rates of multiple mental disorders were also higher among these writers. Although it was not explored in depth, abuse during childhood (physical or sexual) also loomed as a possible contributor to psychological issues in adulthood. The cumulative psychopathology scores of subjects, their reported exposure to abuse during childhood, mental difficulties in their mothers, and the combined creativity scores of their parents represented significant predictors of their illnesses. The high rates of certain emotional disorders in female writers suggested a direct relationship between creativity and psychopathology, but the relationships were not clear-cut. As the results of the predictive analysis indicated, familial and environmental factors also appeared to play a role.[5]
I see at Quora someone asks:
Do poets get depression or do depressed people write poetry?
Anyway, Tim, you seem a jolly enough fellow whose poetry is not a downer. But has anyone done a study on how much published poetry could be categorised as "cheerful" as opposed to "deals with a depressing subject" or at best "melancholic"?
Drug problem in Bangladesh
A detailed article here from the BBC about a large drug problem in Bangladesh with something called Yaba:
Hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh have become hooked on yaba - a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine sold as cheap red or pink pills. The official response has been harsh, with hundreds of people killed in alleged incidents of "crossfire"....As usual, the story behind how certain types of drugs get a hold in different countries and societies is often interesting, and a bit surprising.
"In the early stages of using yaba it has a lot of positive effects. Everything is enhanced with yaba," says Dr Ashique Selim, a consultant psychiatrist specialising in addiction.
"You become more sociable… You enjoy music, cigarettes and sex more. In Bangladesh there's a very unhealthy association between yaba and sex - you're awake longer, you've got more energy, you feel more confident. If you stop using yaba, there are no withdrawal symptoms, it's not like alcohol or heroin. But it's the effects of yaba that are really addictive. It's a very, very dangerous drug."
Yaba first appeared in Bangladesh in 2002 and its use, and abuse, has steadily risen since then. Manufactured illicitly in industrial quantities in Myanmar, it is smuggled into Bangladesh in the far south-east of the country, where the border partly follows the River Naf.
It was across this river that hundreds of thousands of desperate Rohingya refugees fled into Bangladesh in 2017, to escape from the Burmese military. Now nearly a million destitute refugees live in makeshift camps in the region and dealers have succeeded in turning some of them into mules - often women, who smuggle packages of pills inside their vaginas.
Experts believe the dealers see an unmissable business opportunity. At a time of rapid growth - Bangladesh has one of the world's fastest growing economies - traffickers are dumping huge quantities of yaba, and selling it cheaply to create a captive market. Anecdotally, it seems its use is becoming more prevalent among go-getters riding the economic boom.
Am I a bad person...
...for being somewhat amused that it seems quite a lot of people, after having devoted so many hours for so many years to Game of Thrones, found that (what I gather was) the climatic battle of the entire series was so poorly lit that they often couldn't tell what was going on?
Or perhaps I should instead feel a little sorry for them, but happy for myself that I was didn't suffer the same fate.
Update: I have noticed comments about the too fast editing too - something that drives me nuts, but many people these days have become acclimatised to. I can safely predict I would have hated this episode. I mean, even though it seems this BBC reviewer overall thought it was good, he freely admits to a lot of negatives:
Unpopular opinion No 2: the climatic battle in Avengers: Endgame was a little too reminiscent of that in Reader Player One.
Unpopular opinion No 3: Dr Strange is the most important Marvel Universe character, and deserves at least two more movies. (Although it seems I often do not care much for the follow up movie for a Marvel movie that I liked.)
Or perhaps I should instead feel a little sorry for them, but happy for myself that I was didn't suffer the same fate.
Update: I have noticed comments about the too fast editing too - something that drives me nuts, but many people these days have become acclimatised to. I can safely predict I would have hated this episode. I mean, even though it seems this BBC reviewer overall thought it was good, he freely admits to a lot of negatives:
The direction and cutting makes events frenzied, scrappy and yes, due to the lack of lighting, difficult to follow – a clever visual articulation of how this fight would really feel. This is an admirable artistic choice in theory, but after a while it starts to translate as tiresome, incomprehensible noise. In interviews leading up to the episode, Sapochnik cited The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’ Battle of Helm’s Deep as his main inspiration. But The Battle of Winterfell never quite achieves the elegance or clarity of Peter Jackson’s sequence – nor matches its remarkable balance of character and action. This is not to say that The Battle of Winterfell is bad. It is not. But based on first viewing, it is perhaps not impressive enough to live up to its own hype.Update 2: continuing to sound like a Redditor, I will assert my unpopular opinion that the only decent cinematic fantasy character based battles that took place on a field were those in the first two Narnia movies. They were well directed, not overly choppy editting, and were thrilling without obvious blood letting. (Marvel also does it without blood, but the editing often leaves a lot to be desired.)
Unpopular opinion No 2: the climatic battle in Avengers: Endgame was a little too reminiscent of that in Reader Player One.
Unpopular opinion No 3: Dr Strange is the most important Marvel Universe character, and deserves at least two more movies. (Although it seems I often do not care much for the follow up movie for a Marvel movie that I liked.)
Monday, April 29, 2019
Some sordid history
Today I learned that Tolkien's eldest son became a Catholic priest who was accused of sexually molesting boys in at least the 1950's. Said son died in 2003, but claimed in 1994 that he had been sexually assaulted by more than one of Dad's Oxford academic friends, who would sometimes sleep over in the son's bed. Given that they probably all stank of pipe tobacco (but then again, I bet the whole house did), this was likely an unpleasant experience for a child even without the sexual assault.
Poor old CS Lewis gets a mention as one of Tolkien's friends, but I think he was likely too busy having an affair with his deceased mate's mother (and later, his wife to be) to be interested in molesting boys. I sure hope so, anyway.
Poor old CS Lewis gets a mention as one of Tolkien's friends, but I think he was likely too busy having an affair with his deceased mate's mother (and later, his wife to be) to be interested in molesting boys. I sure hope so, anyway.
Australian politics
Here's my current gut feeling:
* I have read on Twitter some analysis showing that today's Newspoll showing TPP at 51/49 in favour of Labor (but with a worrying small swing towards the Coalition) is a specific result of a change in how they were handling Clive Palmer's dumbass support. In other words, if they had left him grouped with "other", it would still have been 52/48. Sounds plausible to me.
* Perceived campaign performance is such a fickle thing, isn't it? It's so much a question of "the vibe" over content, and looking positive and cheerful is simply enough to sway some, regardless of being an inch deep on actual policy. This is why I think both Morrison (groan) and Palmer (rending of shirt sound at the goldfish like memory of the Australian - especially Queensland - electorate) have had better than expected campaigns, and Shorten has been the victim of some momentary crankiness that has to be avoided at all costs in the next two weeks.
* I don't think the Labor TV ads have been very good either. Isn't the public a bit skeptical of statements about how much money has been taken from health, and schools, etc, unless it has happened really recently and had an obvious, direct effect on services? I don't think the advertising agency they are using is doing a great job.
* I think everyone expects that seat by seat plays are going to be unusually important this time, and not in favour of the Coalition, what with so many Liberals having jumped ship before the election. I therefore remain relatively confident of a substantial enough majority government for Labor.
* It's good to see One Nation support down, and if history is any guide, any Senate wins by Palmer will just mean we have more independents soon enough, and they didn't work out too bad last time. But is he attracting a nuttier group of candidates this time around? I mean, the advertising about the Chinese airstrip in WA indicates that he is, so perhaps we'll end up with nutty independents of the ex-One Nation kind. I just hope he gets none up.
* I have read on Twitter some analysis showing that today's Newspoll showing TPP at 51/49 in favour of Labor (but with a worrying small swing towards the Coalition) is a specific result of a change in how they were handling Clive Palmer's dumbass support. In other words, if they had left him grouped with "other", it would still have been 52/48. Sounds plausible to me.
* Perceived campaign performance is such a fickle thing, isn't it? It's so much a question of "the vibe" over content, and looking positive and cheerful is simply enough to sway some, regardless of being an inch deep on actual policy. This is why I think both Morrison (groan) and Palmer (rending of shirt sound at the goldfish like memory of the Australian - especially Queensland - electorate) have had better than expected campaigns, and Shorten has been the victim of some momentary crankiness that has to be avoided at all costs in the next two weeks.
* I don't think the Labor TV ads have been very good either. Isn't the public a bit skeptical of statements about how much money has been taken from health, and schools, etc, unless it has happened really recently and had an obvious, direct effect on services? I don't think the advertising agency they are using is doing a great job.
* I think everyone expects that seat by seat plays are going to be unusually important this time, and not in favour of the Coalition, what with so many Liberals having jumped ship before the election. I therefore remain relatively confident of a substantial enough majority government for Labor.
* It's good to see One Nation support down, and if history is any guide, any Senate wins by Palmer will just mean we have more independents soon enough, and they didn't work out too bad last time. But is he attracting a nuttier group of candidates this time around? I mean, the advertising about the Chinese airstrip in WA indicates that he is, so perhaps we'll end up with nutty independents of the ex-One Nation kind. I just hope he gets none up.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Time for the Endgame (review)
It was...OK-ish.
I don't think it deserves a lot of analysis, really. Remembering that I wasn't invested in Avengers or Ironman movies anyway, it was perhaps a bit of a fluke that I liked Infinity War, which set me up as keen to see its resolution.
I was somewhat underwhelmed. While it does have humour, I seem to recall finding Infinity War funnier. It took a while to build up momentum, and to be honest, to my mind, it was a lazy sort of script generally speaking. For example, there are at least two key plot points (I won't say them here - it's a bit spoiler-ish too early after its release) which just happen, without any real foreshadowing or explanation as to how they could just fall in place as they do. And (while my son disagrees), I think the whole explanation of the way this movie's version of time travel works is quite confusingly done: I didn't expect it to be plausible, but I just wanted it to have some clearer exposition than it got.
I suppose fan boys (and girls) might argue that it's a really complicated and intricate script, the way it ties certain things together from past movies. I suppose I can see that - I assumed it was revisiting the past movies accurately in a somewhat Back to the Future 2 sort of way. But given my lack of familiarity with the past movies, any pleasure in that went over my head. (I have read one or two reviewers saying that it works as a stand alone movie, and I think that's a silly suggestion.)
Oh dear, I am doing more analysis than I said I would, but I'll just note that I actually thought at least one more role would be retired than what we got. It needed more in the way of good guy deaths.
I hope things pick up in the next Marvel outing - although I don't think the trailer for the next Spiderman movie looks all that enticing. We shall see...
Update: I make the point in comments that there is at least one Youtube video up noting some inconsistencies in this movie compared to previous ones. (Although it also points out some foreshadowing from them too.)
I just wanted to note something else, too: in my comments on Infinity War, I noted that Thanos's Malthusian justification for killing half of all life struck me as possibly appealing to the nutty Right that thinks all environmentalism is semi-religious, inaccurate panic mongering that actually hates humanity (the kind of people who think you can ignore climate change because Hitler was a vegetarian greenie, dontcha know?)
In this movie, I had the feeling that the vibe was swinging a bit too obviously in the politically correct direction, with the role of the female good guys played up pretty explicitly: not as extraordinarily blatantly as in the last Star Wars movie, but still with a distinctly "this is Disney, we respect and encourage female empowerment" vibe.
Sure, most of the heroic characters remain male, but the effort to increase the female importance seemed a touch too obvious to me.
Guess I'm hard to please, hey?
Update 2: hey, Jason. I feel somewhat vindicated in my complaint about the time travel explanation being poorly handled when I read this guy's very lengthy piece trying to justify how what a lot of people have started to argue is a lack of internal consistency is not really a "plot hole" at all. I kind of can't be bothered following the argument as to whether he is or isn't right: the simple length he has to go to make the argument I think justifies my take.
I don't think it deserves a lot of analysis, really. Remembering that I wasn't invested in Avengers or Ironman movies anyway, it was perhaps a bit of a fluke that I liked Infinity War, which set me up as keen to see its resolution.
I was somewhat underwhelmed. While it does have humour, I seem to recall finding Infinity War funnier. It took a while to build up momentum, and to be honest, to my mind, it was a lazy sort of script generally speaking. For example, there are at least two key plot points (I won't say them here - it's a bit spoiler-ish too early after its release) which just happen, without any real foreshadowing or explanation as to how they could just fall in place as they do. And (while my son disagrees), I think the whole explanation of the way this movie's version of time travel works is quite confusingly done: I didn't expect it to be plausible, but I just wanted it to have some clearer exposition than it got.
I suppose fan boys (and girls) might argue that it's a really complicated and intricate script, the way it ties certain things together from past movies. I suppose I can see that - I assumed it was revisiting the past movies accurately in a somewhat Back to the Future 2 sort of way. But given my lack of familiarity with the past movies, any pleasure in that went over my head. (I have read one or two reviewers saying that it works as a stand alone movie, and I think that's a silly suggestion.)
Oh dear, I am doing more analysis than I said I would, but I'll just note that I actually thought at least one more role would be retired than what we got. It needed more in the way of good guy deaths.
I hope things pick up in the next Marvel outing - although I don't think the trailer for the next Spiderman movie looks all that enticing. We shall see...
Update: I make the point in comments that there is at least one Youtube video up noting some inconsistencies in this movie compared to previous ones. (Although it also points out some foreshadowing from them too.)
I just wanted to note something else, too: in my comments on Infinity War, I noted that Thanos's Malthusian justification for killing half of all life struck me as possibly appealing to the nutty Right that thinks all environmentalism is semi-religious, inaccurate panic mongering that actually hates humanity (the kind of people who think you can ignore climate change because Hitler was a vegetarian greenie, dontcha know?)
In this movie, I had the feeling that the vibe was swinging a bit too obviously in the politically correct direction, with the role of the female good guys played up pretty explicitly: not as extraordinarily blatantly as in the last Star Wars movie, but still with a distinctly "this is Disney, we respect and encourage female empowerment" vibe.
Sure, most of the heroic characters remain male, but the effort to increase the female importance seemed a touch too obvious to me.
Guess I'm hard to please, hey?
Update 2: hey, Jason. I feel somewhat vindicated in my complaint about the time travel explanation being poorly handled when I read this guy's very lengthy piece trying to justify how what a lot of people have started to argue is a lack of internal consistency is not really a "plot hole" at all. I kind of can't be bothered following the argument as to whether he is or isn't right: the simple length he has to go to make the argument I think justifies my take.
Friday, April 26, 2019
An attack of humourlessness at The Atlantic
Red warning lights should be flashing whenever you read someone who says "but late night comedy shows just aren't funny anymore", especially when we know that shows like Stephen Colbert's have been rating very well.
I say this after looking at a piece by one Andrew Ferguson at The Atlantic, the headline of which suggested it was going to make a very plausible argument that America is too deeply politically divided under Trump for the White House Correspondents Dinner to continue as a form of political roast. (I would agree with that.)
But instead, the argument is really a broad whinge that he does not find any humour in late night television comedy anymore. He even references in passing Conan O'Brien, who is not intensely political, has always done some very funny, often somewhat absurdist, material and who appears happier and revived in a new half hour format. His complaint seems to be that the humour is not much in traditional "joke" punch line format anymore - it's more a case of stating the facts as they are and the audience finding it hilarious.
This seems a ridiculously tin-earred complaint to me. Presumably, he longs for the day of the relatively non-political humour and joke structure of Bob Hope and Jimmy Carson. The latter, in particular, always struck me as bland and not particularly funny. If I recall correctly, even in his heyday some found his sidekick lame: today, at least the sidekick is usually with their own talent (often the bandleader, or someone like Andy Richter who has a genuine comedy gift). By contrast, I remember an old sarcastic complaint that Ed McMahon's only talent other than forced sounding guffaws was doing dog food advertisements.
Ferguson's take was, of course, taken up enthusiastically by Hot Air because it lets them say "see, it's not just us conservatives, our complaint for the last 5 years must be right!"
But honestly, no one in their right mind can deny that Trump is the most absurdly non-Presidential acting President we have ever seen, who lies and bullshits continually and has a barely functioning administration with extreme turnover and leaks against the boss. Even without the Mueller investigation, he is the biggest and easiest target for political humour that has ever existed.
Trump is intrinsically absurd - that might be the explanation as to why humour about him does not need much construction as a old time-y "joke". But I'm even skeptical of his take on that - I still think if you watch enough, there is a joke structure to their delivery that Ferguson just can't really see anymore.
I doubt that Ferguson is a conservative politically, but generally speaking, provided you aren't a conservative fretting about having lost the culture wars, the late night show humour about Trump has often been hilarious.
Whatever the explanation, there is something definitely "off" with Ferguson's sense of humour - and I expect most readers of The Atlantic will be saying the same.
I say this after looking at a piece by one Andrew Ferguson at The Atlantic, the headline of which suggested it was going to make a very plausible argument that America is too deeply politically divided under Trump for the White House Correspondents Dinner to continue as a form of political roast. (I would agree with that.)
But instead, the argument is really a broad whinge that he does not find any humour in late night television comedy anymore. He even references in passing Conan O'Brien, who is not intensely political, has always done some very funny, often somewhat absurdist, material and who appears happier and revived in a new half hour format. His complaint seems to be that the humour is not much in traditional "joke" punch line format anymore - it's more a case of stating the facts as they are and the audience finding it hilarious.
This seems a ridiculously tin-earred complaint to me. Presumably, he longs for the day of the relatively non-political humour and joke structure of Bob Hope and Jimmy Carson. The latter, in particular, always struck me as bland and not particularly funny. If I recall correctly, even in his heyday some found his sidekick lame: today, at least the sidekick is usually with their own talent (often the bandleader, or someone like Andy Richter who has a genuine comedy gift). By contrast, I remember an old sarcastic complaint that Ed McMahon's only talent other than forced sounding guffaws was doing dog food advertisements.
Ferguson's take was, of course, taken up enthusiastically by Hot Air because it lets them say "see, it's not just us conservatives, our complaint for the last 5 years must be right!"
But honestly, no one in their right mind can deny that Trump is the most absurdly non-Presidential acting President we have ever seen, who lies and bullshits continually and has a barely functioning administration with extreme turnover and leaks against the boss. Even without the Mueller investigation, he is the biggest and easiest target for political humour that has ever existed.
Trump is intrinsically absurd - that might be the explanation as to why humour about him does not need much construction as a old time-y "joke". But I'm even skeptical of his take on that - I still think if you watch enough, there is a joke structure to their delivery that Ferguson just can't really see anymore.
I doubt that Ferguson is a conservative politically, but generally speaking, provided you aren't a conservative fretting about having lost the culture wars, the late night show humour about Trump has often been hilarious.
Whatever the explanation, there is something definitely "off" with Ferguson's sense of humour - and I expect most readers of The Atlantic will be saying the same.
UFOs back again?
In a report which seems to take too unskeptically the comments of someone from the dubious "To the Stars Academy", the Washington Post nonetheless reports on the Navy setting up a more detailed scheme for its pilots to report UFOs (my bold):
Is it a case that the Navy is concerned about unidentified aircraft only, and this report conflates that with UFO's?
A recent uptick in sightings of unidentified flying objects — or as the military calls them, “unexplained aerial phenomena” — prompted the Navy to draft formal procedures for pilots to document encounters, a corrective measure that former officials say is long overdue.As first reported by POLITICO, these intrusions have been happening on a regular basis since 2014. Recently, unidentified aircraft have entered military-designated airspace as often as multiple times per month, Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for office of the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, told The Washington Post on Wednesday.Citing safety and security concerns, Gradisher vowed to “investigate each and every report.”
I'm not sure of the source of that claim of recent numbers of unidentified aircraft - but I also note that if something seems to be moving just like an aircraft, it probably is one.He said, “We want to get to the bottom of this. We need to determine who’s doing it, where it’s coming from and what their intent is. We need to try to find ways to prevent it from happening again.”
Is it a case that the Navy is concerned about unidentified aircraft only, and this report conflates that with UFO's?
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