Barely Legal

For a long time, I resisted it.

The subject was simply too BIG to contain mere politics.

But now?

Nine-Eleven is old enough to VOTE.

And it *NEEDS* to!!

The beastly, wretched, contemptible current occupant of the People's House actually DARED to invite the fucking TALIBAN to Camp David for a meeting.

This barbarous, benighted, toxic assemblage of *ostensible* humans, was invited by the so-called president of the United-Fucking-STATES to attend a sit-down in a space traditionally reserved for heads of state, and legitimate representatives of the human species, in civil assemblage.

This.

Is.

ENTIRELY.

Unacceptable.

On that chilly Tuesday morning, 18 years ago, civilization was dealt a grievous blow by its OPPOSITE: Malign, retrograde, nihilistic representatives the most savage, feral manifestations of what our type of naked ape could possibly embody.

I would not endorse the treatment for a rabid **RAT** that I would enthusiastically support for these fucking murderous savages.

And yet, there was Donald t’Rump, in the full FLOWER of his clueless arrogance, the absolute tone-deaf APOTHEOSIS of his witless, arrogant, self-absorbed idiocy...

LEGITIMIZING these bipedal tumors with an invitation to the space where Statesman and  Peacemakers had sat down to discuss the matters of human civilization.

Many, MANY have been the examples of how he has COMPREHENSIVELY disqualified himself as a leader, as a citizen, as a gods-damned *MAMMAL*.

*NONE* has *EVER* surpassed the craven stupidity of this plan.

And --color me ALTOGETHER unsurprised-- those cowardly, dark-hearted, theocratic miscreants used a car bomb to slaughter more innocents, before their unwiped arses ever difiled a seat at the table with the Founders’ heir.

Again.

And, as a result, the FOOL elected to cancel the meeting he should NEVER have scheduled in the first place... 

And dismissed his National Security Advisor --flawed as he might be, but FAR too principled to serve in this pustule’s ‘administration’-- for daring to contradict him on this matter that any PARAMECIUM would have seen as perfectly OBVIOUS.

**ENOUGH!!**

There are people who, in the course of my life, have given me many reasons to love them.

I am fortunate in this.

However, some of them STILL manage to support that steaming pile of putrescent vulture-shit. 

SOMEHOW, they have managed to insulate themselves against the information that would lead them to the incontrovertible, *OBJECTIVE* conclusion that Donald-fucking-t’Rump is the WORST thing that has EVER happened to this Nation. 

And I include the Civil War in that.

 Many are the reasons that I love these people. 

But I will NEVER again entirely trust their judgment.

This Nation means far too much to me. 

The harm that was done to it on 9-11-2001 was far too devastating to EVER trust people who could be so misguided in their beliefs about what is good for this Republic that I love.

9/11 is 18 years old.

I trust that it will guide the people of this Grand Experiment to make a much, MUCH better choice, next year.

A slow, excruciating, humiliating, natural death to Donald-Fucking-t’Rump, for defiling what I revere, for dishonoring the memory of the fallen, for all-but-ENSURING that our worst days are yet to come.

And SHAME on the FOOLS who support him.

Suite: 15

Almost didn't post this year. (Still counts if I haven't slept, yah?)

This was the first time since That Tuesday that I've actually been in New York on 9/11. Went up alone this weekend to help out my mom, in my childhood home.

As I drove back to my present home tonight, on the Belt Parkway, I could see --for the first time with my own eyes-- those twin pillars of light, tracing their starward trajectories opposite those described by the Towers whose memories they evanescently embody each year.

Zero-Seven hushed from the speakers. Late-night traffic was sparse. The Moon serenely choreographed its silvery swarms on the estuary.

I was Sad.

Still am.

This has been a year replete with Losses: Bowie, Rickman, Wilder, Schandling, Marshall, Vigoda, Finkel, Baker, Formerly-Formerly-Known-As, etc., etc.

And other Losses, FAR more personal. Losses of the kind that BAMPF the marrow from your bones, suck the mitochondria out of each and every cell, leave you gasping for joy like a COPD sufferer on Everest's summit. One of them I associate inextricably with New York (I fear seriously for my equilibrium and my breath, when next I set foot in Lincoln Center...or in pretty much any Irish pub...).

So, awash in the howling winds of all those vortices (and yet VERY consciously Mindful of one I've thus far been spared [Kenahorah-Poo-Poo-Poo]), revisiting That Other One seemed a bit much.


So, I almost didn't post.

It was the lights, done me in.

Photons, fired from the very site of such ruin were striking mine own retinae at just under vacuum-C, in real-time. 

Whatthefrak was I supposed to do with that??

As I've said before, I watched those Towers go up. From my sixth to my thirty-fifth years, they lived....and then they died.

And they were anything but alone.

Alas, it made me think of the status of the zeitgeist that lurched its charnel-fanged maw to our throats on That Day.

And that did nothing for the Sadness.

The three --variously-quixotic-- contenders for the Oval Orifice do not inspire.

One, whose tenure as SecState offered up a dreary litany of squandered opportunities (Green Revolution, Al-Maliki's Electile Dysfunction, Ukraine incursions, Arab Spring, "'Reset' Buttons" [Staples irregulars?]...), and a prickly, imperious tone that frosted every interface. It was dismal to a degree that rivals even that of her sodden successor at Foggy Bottom.

And another: notoriously mercurial, viciously thin-skinned, exuberantly-unburdened by any discernible capacity for critical, strategic thought...nor much in the way of raw material for such thought.

And, of course, the Upstart: affable, experienced, idealistic, congruent (at times to the point of unprecedented --and very refreshing-- self-deprecation)....but possessing his party's characteristic Achilles...well...LEG of a breathtakingly naïve conception of geopolitical realities.


So....Yah. Not sanguine.

Neither volatile bellicosity, reptilian manipulation, nor ostrich imitations stand even a Truth's chance on social media of bending the orbit of such Malevolent Clarity by so much as an arc-millisecond.

"Spectacle" attacks like the one having its Quinzeañera today seem to have fallen out of vogue (cf. Yiddish utterance, above), having been succeeded by Lone (/Known) Wolf, and platoon-level soft-target wetwork.

Decisively draining the political, ideological, and economic feeder streams of such "democratized" mayhem would require a multifarious deployment of subtle, nimble, attuned, toothy (with baked-in face-saving compromises), FOCUSED foreign policy, a global Counterinsurgency approach whose likelihood of arising from the daily briefings of any of these Misfit Toys' tenures on Pennsylvania Avenue is....well...


Let's just say that, amid everything else, I was aware of being rather ignominiously discomfited at the fact that I was in New York today.




And that Pisses Me OFF.




Troofer-Dipshit Half-Wit Mental Gymnastics aside, it's plain to any reasonably-informed, rational thinker from the pic below that the Towers' structural support system was exceptionally well-conceived...save for a low-probability but devastatingly exploitable vulnerability.

Alas that the same might be said for the security of the Republic and of its citizenry.




Damned lights.

"The Martian" Review

Okay, I'll admit it: I've never watched a single episode of MacGyver. I'm almost afraid to do it at this point, considering how deeply woven into my code the ethic of the show has become.  I'm worried that the 80s cheese will taint that Mojo of Inventive Improvisation that so guides my approach to the problems that can so pretzel up my days.

Indeed, there have been times when, in the process of tackling one of those problems, I have arrived at a "MacGyvered" solution, using available materials (Madame 'Cyte frequently...errm...laments the heaps of bric-a-brac that I keep around, expressly for its utility as a pool of raw materials for such projects...till the moment when they allow me to construct --like a Master Builder in Lego World-- a Fix)...only to find a purpose-specific tool for the job...and experience actual disappointment over that, and the sudden obsolescence of my jury-rigged solution.

If that Moment rings any kind of bell in you, then you are just the sort of person who will groove HARD on "The Martian."

The novel --the first by engineer Andy Weir--  had sat in my Kindle queue for a couple of years, after it had been recommended to me by someone who'd read and enjoyed (and written a lovely review of) my novella, Night Music. She'd said that it bore strong affinities to my book, in its scrupulous attention to technical detail, its inventive use of technology, and its celebration of the human mind as a problem-solving engine. Naturally, I was intrigued (and more than a little flattered/honored to have communicated so successfully that she so clearly Got what I was going for). 

Finally read it over the Summer (before I found out that it had been optioned as a film, let alone  that it was nearing completion....with Ridley-Freakin'-SCOTT at the helm!)....and immediately re-read it as soon as I was finished (and I almost never do that). I was even MORE flattered/honored at the comparison!

As for the film....Yay. Just Yay.

As I say, this is not a movie that will speak with too loud a voice to those with not even a whisper of tech-geek in their souls. It is very faithful to the book, though with some notable exceptions which are all in service of making it work better as a film (successfully. The "Iron Man" beat comes most vividly to mind).  It moves at a deliberate pace. It explains many things (usually via the protagonist, Mark Watney's video log).  It sets up problems, establishes the stakes, and walks us through the solutions (and setbacks. OY! Such setbacks!).

The situation is that Watney --played superbly by Matt Damon-- finds himself left alone on Mars after his fellow crew members on an exploration mission need to abort very early, due to a terrible storm that jeopardizes the crew's ability to leave safely (gotta give a Mulligan here; the actual atmosphere on Mars is so thin that even a hurricane-speed wind would exert little more dynamic force than a stiff breeze at Earth-level atmospheric pressures. But whaddya gonna do; gotta tell a story here). While trudging to the MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle) to evacuate to orbit, Watney is struck by a fragment of the high gain antenna and hurled into the Martian night, very plausibly killed in the process.

But, it turns out, he is not dead....but will be if anything breaks down, and when the food supply runs out.

So, as the trailers say, he's gotta "Science the shit outa this!"

And Science he does!  It is a JOY to watch him attack problems, inventorying his assets and liabilities (rather bigger column, that one), apply scientific principles in solving them, fail to be defeated by the odds and the obstacles, and maintain a wry, profane sense of humor about the whole affair (wait for the whole "Space Pirate" thing..).

All Hail Duct Tape. 'Nuff said.

One of the characteristics of Scott's films that most stands out is his eye for breathtaking visual design. This film is no exception.  The surface of Mars is rendered with heart-stoppingly stark, majestic beauty. Being something of a Mars Geek, I was impressed at how precisely the color palate of the 4th rock from the Sun is reproduced. "You Are There" doesn't begin to cover this! The space scenes are stunning, conveying the brain-melting vastness of the distances in every direction, while also preserving the paradoxically claustrophobic quality of hurtling through that Vastness in a succession of pressurized tin cans.

Probably set in the early 2030s, the technology is marvelously realistically designed. Things are functional and plausible, treated in the matter-of-fact way that tech is treated by real people (when was the last time that you described your computer as a "silicon-CPU information processing node?"). It was the little things: the big outboard thermal radiator vanes on the aft end of the mothership, Hermes, glowed orange while the ion engines were active (and those low-but-constant-thrust engines glowed a realistic arc-blue-white, with no dramatic flares like you'd see with chemical rockets). Also, things fell on the Martian surface at rates and on trajectories that accurately depicted what it would look like at .38-gee. Most folks wouldn't notice these things consciously, but the dividends in verisimilitude pay off quite nicely in the hind brain.

All of this visual and technological wizardry, however, would fall flat without recognizable people in its midst.  The character work in this film is highly effective in its deft, understated clarity. These characters come across as real individuals, into whose lives we have dropped at a critical time. Jessica Chastain's Cmdr. Lewis is someone who takes her job very seriously. She is wracked by leaving Watney behind, even as she clearly knows it was the only responsible choice. The conflict of these realities is at times heartbreakingly manifest in her performance.

The unfolding relationship between Kate Mara's Johannson and  Sebastian Stan's Beck comes across in a series of sweet, almost-imperceptible little beats. Michael Peña's Martinez is a good-hearted, wise-cracking natural counterpart to Damon's Watney.  The Earth-bound cast plays out the politics and practicalities of this extraordinary situation with a recognizable Truthfulness that makes no one the Villain (even Jeff Daniels' NASA Director has defensible motivations for choices that might otherwise have been turned into a stock "Gutless Bureaucrat" cartoon in a lesser script). Honorable mention goes to Donald Glover's Rich Purnelle, the brilliant, quirky, socially inept astrodynamics savant; his description of his rescue plan during the "Project Elrond" meeting (One does not simply walk to Mars...) was high-LARIOUS!

And Damon. Ah, Damon.  He simply LIVES in Mark Watney. It's like how I will never again read LOTR without seeing Viggo as Aragorn. He inhabits that character with such an unforced, real-to-the-marrow way that his voice will sound in my head when I eventually (inevitably) re-re-read The Martian. It's clear (as it actually wasn't in the book) that the wise-cracking persona is a defense against the Dread and Despair that it only very precariously holds at bay. His humanity is a stand-in for our own, speaking to the best aspects of how we might manage any analogously dire situation in which we might find ourselves.

Final note:  Of all the things I love about this film, perhaps the one that lies closest to my heart of hearts is the degree to which it non-preachily extols the virtues of learning and critical thinking as the means by which we can deliver ourselves from the atavistic Fears that lie within us. Lateral, creative thinking, fueled by an intelligent deployment of well-learned lessons about how things work in the 'verse are what allow us to transcend the shadows all around us. The bootstraps by which we can lift ourselves from even the deepest of pits are composed of well-tempered strands of neural fiber, honed by exposure to and flexible recombinations of the DNA of knowledge and logic, informed --but not dominated-- by emotion, intuition, and Love.

"The Martian" not only tells us how we can survive even the most desperate of straits...but why we can and must do so.

14

14 years.

Many decades.

No time at all.

Lost in the blur and the bustle of the day-to-day, eclipsed by the Meantimes --marvelous and morbid-- overwritten by the business of existing, and --every now and then-- Living......It waits.

The defining Moment of our times.

As with all things of comparably enormous import, the interval seems murky, phenomenologically muddled as to perceived duration, because, although it slips farther and farther away in 'objective time' (whateverthefrak that is), it remains present, because it underlies --at varying depths-- everything else.

"Why should it loom so large, when suffering at least as horrid befalls vastly more people on a daily basis, elsewhere in the world?"

Fair question. And one which is typically answered with far too little depth, such that it appears --alas, all-too-often correctly-- to connote an ugly over-undertone of chauvinism ("Because they were MERRRRcuns!").

But obviously that's not it, or I would hardly have brought it up.

That was the day that asymmetric warfare joined --and soundly upstaged-- Great Powers War (hot and Cold) in the annals of geopolitical mayhem. It was the day that a band of highly disciplined, guilefully canny, chillingly Certain individuals successfully exploited the very best aspects of an advanced, evolving civilization, in order to deliver a withering blow upon it --and, in so doing, force a spasmodic realignment of the vectors of power across the whole skin of this Marble-- for the sake of one that's among the least advanced, and pointedly retrograde in its evolution.

It was the day that decisively cemented into the zeitgeist that which had already been true for some time.

Wars no longer had "fronts."

And they never would again.

Warriors could, once upon a time, come "Stateside," and reflect --in safety-- on the horrors of battle, while "civilians" would seek to comfort them, secretly thanking their deity of choice for the fact that they wouldn't have to face such nightmares, themselves.

And now they would.  Now they would have to bare their muffin-tops at the airport if they should be foolhardy enough to wear metallic belt buckles, expose to public scrutiny their threadbare, swampy socks. All because a caustic ideology had sufficient emulsifying force to yoke the divergent hatreds of myriad factions into a perfect storm of deadly intercontinental venom.

On that day.

Yes, a great many people in this world just might be sufficiently aware of those events to look up briefly and say "Yeah? And?" But everyone that any readers of these words would be likely to encounter did experience a Sea Change on that day.

It's the kind of thing that always lives/lurks, to varying degrees in the background.

How far into the background has a distinct bearing on how we approach these Anniversaries.  Many say that we ascribe an outsized value to That Day's events, and in so doing we create the conditions under which the hatreds that burst like a long-neglected pustule are simply allowed to re-fester. They add that we must strive to live in the kind of world in which such things are not allowed the space to happen ("Be the change you want to see in the world").

A laudable sentiment. However, it is one which perilously papers over the fact that, in the absence of evidence that it is broadly shared, serves essentially the same purpose as a "Gun-Free Zone" sign does to an armed psychotic (Target-Rich Environment [without the irony]).

Which brings us to those for whom it is seldom/never very far into the background (like Yours Truly). For people toward that end of the spectrum, the alarm clock didn't come with a snooze button.  The vigilance which was triggered by an understanding of the full scope of those events' antecedents continues to resonate to the frequencies that reveal their continued presence in the world.

And they grow worse.

Thus, the task incumbent on this magnificent, vulnerable Civilization is to harry and scatter the agents of chaos that struck with such malevolently spiteful brilliance on That Day.  We must discredit and Shame those raging revenants' ideology without respite, without recourse to the precious platitudes with which the typically --though not exclusively-- well-meaning apologists for negotiated, multicultural coexistence seek to minimize the existential threat that it still represents.

As is sometimes said, "We may not be at war with them...but They still are with us."  

That bears reflecting on.

And for those who are gearing up to deliver some retort which suggests (or asserts) that the USGOV was responsible for 9/11 (either via missiles/planted explosives, or via deliberate withholding of actionable threats [e.g., for the sake of ginning up a war, on behalf of Big Oil/the Military-Industrial-Complex/whateverthefrak])....I reckon you might as well Unfriend me instead.    Right now.

I'm not having it.

You see, I have no respect for Troofers. That would seem an uncharacteristically un-nuanced position for me to take. I am pleased to report that this would be an accurate statement. I fully acknowledge that it is not altogether immune to exception (what is?)...but it has sufficiently robust heuristic value that I choose to treat it as a functional Fact.

I do not consider 9/11 conspiracists to be serious people.

The willful dereliction of intellectual rigor which is required in order to partake in an Alex Jones version of that reality is of sufficient magnitude as to disqualify an individual's opinion from my consideration. I don't listen to Scientologists, either.  I'd not presume to infringe on their right to express their opinions, obviously.  But life is short.

You see, there are people in this world who are entirely too invested in the belief that, somehow, they are clever or savvy or well-connected enough to be On To It....which all-too frequently leads them to drift more and more Out Of It.

"Theories" like these are the very definition of such Mission Creep.
Hint: The unfolding of any sufficiently complex occurrence, in nature and/or in human affairs will invariably be riddled with anomalies.

And so will our descriptions of them....even when they are accurate.

A scattered smattering of "hmmm"-worthy, apparently paradoxical factoids do not invalidate the central thrust of events, any more than line noise nullifies the music.

There are no altogether Noise-free Signals in any 'verse that we're ever gonna live in.

But "Paranoid is just Reality...on a finer scale."   (/"Strange Days")

Seriously. Just keep it to yourselves.


Regardless, it's been 14 years.  Or 25 seconds. I go back and forth.

INTERSTELLAR: The Stars and Our Selves

Went to see Interstellar last night, in glorious 70mm IMAX (2-D!) format.


Huge. Still digesting...


This film paints on a VAST canvas. It involves some PROFOUND reflections on high astrophysics, consciousness, ethics and Love. Right away, you can see the potential conflict here: How do you tell a story on such a scale, and not lose the humanity that must comprise its narrative core.


Answer: Like this.


The great achievement of Interstellar is that it folds the humanity of its characters (and its characters as avatars of Humanity) into the very quantum foam of its storytelling.

They are one and the same.

There is an intimacy to the thing that resounds in even the most sweeping of establishing shots, the most mind-bending of theoretical constructs. This is accomplished in subtle ways, like the POV, "rocket-cam" nature of most of the spacecraft sequences (this is happening to You, not to Them). There are really very few of the standard distant, 3rd-person-observer tableaux which are so ubiquitous in spaceborne cinematic SF (though the few that do appear are simply breathtaking!).

The objective here is not to point out how puny we are compared to All Of It. It is to establish that, puny as we surely are, we are still the heroes (and villains) of ANY story that involves us. Our hope and dread and resolve and Connection and Love are what propel us into the Big Black (or what SHOULD, so long as we 'do not go gentle into that good night,' so long as we do not succumb to complacency and despair, so long as we preserve and nurture our Explorer's Heart, our Will to survive). We bring the good and evil and valor and cowardice and nobility and cravenness with us, no matter how immense the journey.


"No matter where you go.....there you are."


And, in the end, in the funny things that happen to spacetime when its physics are pushed to their breaking point, we find that the nature of our consciousness, the purity (or putridity) of our intentions and motivations become (or, rather, reveal themselves to have always been) PART of the equation.


The most important part, really.


For the particles that form us still swarm in their entangled dance, indifferent to distance, be it a micron or a mile. Or a million-million light years.

We are, each of us, a world unto ourselves, and yet our trajectories through the N-Dimensional topographies we traverse are perturbed (and --if we are VERY lucky-- defined) by the gravitational forces that bind us to the Other(s) who travel with us.....even if they are separated by blood-freezing distances and durations.

It is LOVE --variously defined-- that sculpts space and makes a tinker-toy of time.

I suppose I could quibble about such unsplit hairs as coriolis forces in spin-simulated gravity if too short a moment-arm is utilized, I could bellyache about the VICIOUS radiation environment around a black hole with a luminous accretion disk, about the orbital dynamics that would have to pertain, in order for certain time-dilation ratios to apply, could grouse about a few overly-chatty scenes and a smattering of instances of strained dialog.....but all of that would miss the point by such a wide margin that the point would not be a naked-eye visible object from such a course.

And that Point is embodied in the gentle Hope that permeates even the darkest moments of despair in this film. It lives in the bitter tears that fall from the eyes of frustrated Love, in the serene but steely resolve that shines from those eyes at the chance to be of Service to that Love....even if the fruits of that Service might never be seen.

For if each of us is a world.....then our world is each of us.

And so long as the Blights that might afflict its soil are allowed to settle, uncontested, on the surfaces of our souls...that world begins to die, and inexorably to bury us in that very soil, while we watch in numb helplessness.

But so long as we rage against the dying of the light, remember who we are and to whom we are bound in Love, then that light may yet coalesce into luminous spherical portals, which resolve into the eyes of those whom we carry with  us.....wherever we go.


And that is a very encouraging thought.

13

Just like last year.

Only worse.  Much worse.

The gods help us all.

12

I've got nothing.

Every year, I steep myself in the memory of That Terrible Day. Every year, I strive to find something Meaningful, heartfelt, and as non-political to say as I can muster.

But I've got nothing.

In truth, 9/11 has barely been on my mind today. Every client's receipt I filled out made me utter a little "huh."  I scrolled down past Facebook posts about Remembrance (most quite lovely and, to a heart which was differently disposed than mine today, quite moving).

I was largely unmoved.

Jimmy Carter was responsible for the foolish appeasement and empowerment of the USSR with his prattle about our "Irrational fear of Communism." He demoralized a nation with his defeatist cardigans, appalling fiscal policies and blather about "malaise." He oversaw the gutting of our military, and of our Intelligence-gathering capabilities (particularly the HUMINT which would have saved so VERY many lives).

And the Soviets invaded Afghanistan ("They lied to me!"). And the Shah of Iran was overthrown by Khomeini's goons. And NOBODY saw either one coming, or could do a blessed thing about it. Good Marines and Delta Force operators died in fire, in the desert outside Teheran, because our helos were ill-equipped to fly in sandy conditions, in order to rescue the hostages who should never have been taken in the first place. In a poorly-conceived scheme to make things difficult for the Soviets, what would become the Taliban was trained, armed, and empowered.

Communism enjoyed a burst of propaganda enthusiasm at the impotence of the Capitalist US, both Sunni and Shiite Islamopaths were emboldened and equipped to take their previously-merely-irksome Jihads into the realm of full-blown Global Asymmetric Insurgency.  And oceans of blood were spilled (are still being spilled!) because that imbecile miscreant was somehow elected to be President of the United States.

And he still won't shut that gangrenous hole in his half-melted, smarmily-grinning/sneering face about the dark fantasies he harbors in that singularity where a heart is generally thought to reside, when he belches forth about Israel and the "Palestinians."


And yet, at this moment, I almost feel nostalgic for the Carter years.

The unmitigated HASH which the 44th occupant of Penna Ave has made of this Nation's foreign policy, the sheer, mind-numbing amateurishness of it simply boggles what little of my mind I can stand to direct toward it (have ya noticed that I've been blogging about movies and tech lately...when at all?).

It all sounds so eerily familiar: An unnecessarily-empowered Russia, under Czar Vlad I, Iran inching toward nuclear arms, Syria gassing its citizens and launching cyber attacks against Western news agencies, China arming up, Eastern European allies left to twist after risking Moscow's wrath by agreeing to host subsequently-"Reset" anti-missile batteries against the aforementioned Iranians, oil prices unnecessarily high (and the aforementioned Islamopaths and Putin Syndicate kleptocrats rolling in the lucre), because gargantuan domestic energy supplies can't be tapped for fear of angering petulant environmentalists, a hard-won victory in Iraq slipping into ignominious defeat due to inexcusable neglect (thus further empowering both Shiite and Sunni Islamopaths)...

Again: Mind. Boggled.

The task of undoing the damage that two terms of an Obama Presidency have already wrought (and threaten to deepen further) will be the work of generations. Indeed, I am none-too sanguine that some of it can ever be undone.


And I think back to the 90s and the wholesale turning-away from geopolitics which the End Of The Cold War made everyone think they had the luxury to enjoy. And I think of how I've felt all day. And I shudder at the horrors which will all-but inevitably sprout from the seeds that have been planted over the last 5 years. And I try to find the words for my dread and anticipatory grief.

But I've got nothing.

Another Bold Go

Returned a while ago from the 11:00 showing of "Star Trek Into Darkness" (really liking the omission of the obligatory colon), with friends, old and new. It is difficult to believe that it's been four years since I reviewed its predecessor.

Clearly, JJ Abrams and his team have been using the time wisely and well!

There have been reviewers (who I am feeling heartily unmotivated to search out, and who, frankly, I do not believe deserve the traffic) who have decried this as a smashing action movie which has nothing to do with The Spirit Of Star Trek.

I can state with unassailable Trekker credentials that, whatever it is they have been smoking should be tested forthwith for all manner of unsavory additives.

This impeccably-paced, visually arresting piece of cinema is positively redolent with all that is finest in Trek. And I'm not just talking about the cornucopia of deft homages (I'll get back to that). It's all here: the Prime Directive, the needs of the many, the emerging triumvirate of Spock (Reason), McCoy (emotion/empathy), and Kirk (Will), the spectre of the Kobayashi Maru, the moral balance between expediency and justice, the triumph of the competent geek....you get the picture.

This. Is. Trek.

End of report.

Yes, the story blazes through set-piece after set-piece...but not in a jagged, fragmented way, and not just for action's sake. The fact that Star Trek may now be painted on a broader, more frenetic canvas does not diminish its fidelity to the franchise one jot. Sheesh!

One of the things that has (to coin a phrase) fascinated me about this new Trek is the way that the alternate time-line allows for the opportunity to explore the Deep Question of what sorts of things will tend to diverge from an altered set of initial conditions (a la Butterfly Effect), and what sorts of things will display a more durable tendency to occur, despite those altered conditions.

Toward the end of the first movie, the characters' personalities --despite wildly different life histories, as a result of Nero's rending of the Trek Prime timeline-- had begin to coalesce into their familiar configurations (with a number of twists). The promise of this has put my fears to rest by receiving a wildly satisfying payoff in this second iteration of the new franchise. Each of the beloved characters is given something Important to do, something which allows us to see how they are both known and new.

Similarly, there are aspects of the Federation which resonate in familiar ways to those who are conversant in the various series and movies from the Trek Prime universe. But the rippling consequences of the changes which spawned this new timeline have had far-ranging consequences whose implications become clear as the film reveals its secrets (a privilege I am resolved to not usurp in this review!). There are resonances with the Trek which we know....but they are just that: resonances. These are not retreads, nor slavish repetitions. Echoes of events which unfolded as we know them from the familiar Trek universe are present (and many more foreshadowed). But they all bear the stamp of the new conditions under which they arise, and so they retain their ability to surprise. And surprise they do!

Naturally, this makes my inner Chaos/Complexity Theory Geek emit all manner of undignified SQUEES!

All that said, this is a very entertaining film! I had the pleasure of seeing a special preview of the first 9 minutes of it, attached to The Hobbit, back in December. Although the Peter Jackson Extravaganza that followed all-but obliterated those 9 minutes, enough of a trace remained that I was TERRIBLY excited to see what would follow. And I was not the least bit disappointed. The blend of genuinely funny humor and jaw-dropping eye and ear candy is very much still in evidence here.

You. Will. NOT. Be. Bored.

Could I predict a few of the plot twists ahead of time? Sure. Did it telegraph these a bit? Yup. But it was neither insultingly obvious nor maddeningly coy about this. Were there sleeper subplots which languished, unrevisited, till the story required them to re-emerge? Sure. But not every story needs to be told in detail, if the telling will derail the overall tale (that's what Deleted Scenes are for!).

Suffice to say that, long before the iconic Alexander Courage theme rang out at the end, I was SOLD on this New Trek's spirit, its reverence for its roots, and its...well...boldness to grow in truly different (but thematically consistent) directions from those roots.

It appears that the Final Frontier encompasses even wider expanses than we'd thought.

And I could not be any more ready to warp out and explore them!

Obama Champion of Gay Rights? Look Again

Bethany Mandel, at Commentary offers some badly-needed thoughts on the meme that a Romney Presidency will constitute a massive step back for LGBT rights in our society. And yet, prior to the POTUS' "historic" endorsement of same-sex marriage equality, he could hardly be counted among the most staunch advocates of that equality...not till his hand was forced by his running-mate, and an election loomed:

As Obama’s actions both before and after his gay marriage flip-flop have shown, his commitment to gay rights appears to be merely one of convenience. Four years ago, it was politically expedient to be against gay marriage, thus President Obama made statements to that effect. In May, after Vice President Biden blurted out his previously unmentioned support of gay marriage, President Obama found it politically necessary to either repudiate his own vice president or change his stance, and chose to do the latter.

I have no doubt that Mr. Obama personally supports marriage rights for same-sex couples. That is not the point, really. The point is what he can be realistically counted on to do about those beliefs. Obama is a Statist (albeit not quite as radical a one as many of his Conservative critics like to shriek); he believes that the proper role of the Federal Government is to wade in and fix and do things. Given that belief, and the very strong advantage he enjoyed in both houses of Congress, prior to 2010, does his all-but absent posture on the issue really inspire that much more confidence than might accrue to a Federalist, who believes in the distribution of power away from the USGOV, even if he does not share the beliefs of gay advocates?

It is a question worth pondering, and a much-needed moderating salve on the perpetually-reopened wounds of this debate, among those who are invested in promulgating decidedly immoderate assertions on the matter.

Al Smith Dinner: 2012

As lively and bracing as this election has surely been, I've been looking forward to the traditional Al Smith dinner like even the most avid Football fan looks forward to the Superbowl commercials. I just love this thing, for reasons which I'm sure the tapioca between my ears at the moment will likely fail epically to articulate as satisfactorily as I managed during the last go-round.

Obama's comic chops continued to earn honest props. It's a thing to behold, the way he plays against his signature oratorical cadences, executing a really masterful Aikido twirl between what he knows to be perceived as vanity, and the humility of joining in with the mocking of it.






But what really, honestly surprised me was how readily Mittens was able to morph into a very decent comedic groove. His self-referential ribbing of the "Richy Rich: The Android Years" vibe was right in the pocket (and a deep one, at that....badum-CHING). His bit toward the end, about competing without disliking, and his praise of the President and his family were both gracious and conspicuously sincere.

Both candidates, in fact, ended on notes of elevated and edifying good-fellowship, even as the roasty bits before made clear that It was still On. That's what these things do: they sit between the crusty bread slices of the debates, like a nice schmear of Nutella.

Worth taking a bite; leaves a badly-needed good aftertaste.