Saved comments from August 2017

[neonvincent]

Comments to Vox explains the gerrymandering cases before the Supreme Court on Booman Tribune.

Voice in the Wilderness: There is no such thing as "non-partisan" politics. It's usually a cover for the weaker party. Better to have panels consisting of equal numbers from each party and if they deadlock on two maps - ballot initiative- let the voters decide.

Me: The ballot initiative would be a new step to me. If the panel doesn't agree, it usually goes to the courts.

Voice in the Wilderness: That would be good too. I think that in some states it is handled by a coin flip. I do not favor the coin flip.

Voice in the Wilderness: That district looks more like a snake than a salamander!

Me: The original Gerrymander looked more like a dragon.


Comments to Lots of politics in nonfiction television at the 2017 Television Critics Association Awards at Booman Tribune.

Arthur Gilroy: I personally think that so-called "comedy" and "non-fiction" shows about political criminality are allowed to exist...heavily promoted, even...by the corporate-owned, intelligence-infiltrated, centrist mass media because they diminish that criminality's importance in the minds of the people. They minimize it and turn it into inftotainment.

If those programs got real...real on a Lenny Bruce level, on a William Burroughs level, on a Jonathan Swift level or even a Hunter S. Thompson level...they would be shot down so fast you wouldn't even be able to remember their names three months later.

AG

P.S. They are also heavy money-makers.

The United State(s) of Whoredom

Let's see these middle class "alternative" shows take up that approach and survive.

Not a chance.

Too true.

Me: I think you have the order of importance reversed. They survive because they make money. Only because they do so are they in a position to influence people. What's odd is that the critics prefer the comedy and satire shows over the actual news.

As for the programs not being real on even a Hunter S. Thompson level, John Oliver and Samantha Bee might disagree. Bill Maher, who isn't among this slate of nominees, but is nominated for an Emmy, certainly would. Besides, the Smothers Brothers got that real 50 year ago, and people still talk about them.

Arthur Gilroy: P.P.S. Money honors no borders.

Me: I see you like to repeat yourself.

AG: Only when people do not pay attention to what I have to say.

Me: At least now you know that someone was.

Don Durito: Reminds me of a lyric from King Crimson's song Indisciple:

I repeat myself when under stress. I repeat myself when under stress. I repeat myself when under stress. I repeat myself when under stress. I repeat...

And a video - because this sounds so good whether in the studio or live.

Me: Also, "it remains consistent, it remains consistent, it remains consistent, it remains consistent."

Don Durito: Samantha Bee is crushing it! (none / 1)
My spouse has been a huge fan of Samantha Bee's show and got me hooked. Especially in these times, gallows humor does well. Her time on The Daily Show during John Stewart's tenure was well spent.

Me: I really have to watch her on TV, not just YouTube, where I'm subscribed to her channel. Unfortunately, her show was not voted the best this year. From the press release: "A&E’s investigative true-life series LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH received the award for Outstanding Achievement In Reality Programming; and ESPN’s provocative five-part documentary event O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA nabbed Outstanding Achievement In News and Information." May she have better luck at the Emmy Awards, where "Full Frontal" has 3 Emmy nominations and "Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner" has 4.


My comment on August 2017 Book Club:

I've read people quoting John Muir and Aldo Leopold in response to the first law, so I'll follow suit by quoting Barry Commoner, whose first law states "Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all." That looks a lot like your first law. I don't know if the rest of Commoner's laws -- "Everything must go somewhere," "Nature knows best," and "there is no free lunch" -- match up to the other six laws in your book or if they are simply elaborations on your first law. In any event, I teach my students all of Commoner's laws and ask them for which ones apply when they analyze any situation or example. Now I'm thinking of teaching your first law as a restatement of Commoner's. That's one case where science and magic seem to agree, which ties into your comment last week that "magic follows the laws of nature; it is not supernatural."

Greer: Vince, Commoner’s laws are a very solid statement of ecological reality. I don’t use them in the book because I’m trying to point in a slightly different direction than he was, but they’re wholly valid, and I’m delighted to hear that you’re still teaching them.


My comment on The Big Lie Indeed.

Ah, yes, Dinesh D'Souza, who had the dishonor of not only being an ex-con, but of producing "Hillary's America," which outstunk "Batman v Superman" for Worst Picture of 2016. He also won the Razzie Awards for Worst Actor and Worst Director for playing himself, which says something about what an awful person he is and how much of that comes accross on screen. Not only is he not original by merely intensifying what Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg wrote, which is itself not original to Goldberg (I used to be a Republican and considered myself a conservative before 2000, so I recall people on the right asserting that Fascism was an outgrowth of Socialism in the 1990s), but he has really terrible timing to have this book come out when there are actual Nazis marching in American streets as part of a "Unite the Right" rally and praising Donald Trump. That won't stop the target audience from buying the book; they want to believe its thesis despite the evidence not supporting it. Sigh.


My comment(s) on The Worlds That Never Were

"SF authors George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois a few years back edited a pair of anthologies, Old Mars and Old Venus, full of original stories set in the imaginary solar system of the classic science fiction era."

Larry Niven did something similar in "Rainbow Mars" (a tongue-in-cheek response to Kim Stanley Robinson's Red, Green, and Blue Mars books) in which a time traveler named Svetz noted that, whenever he traveled before 1960, he could observe from Earth the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and other early science fiction authors, but trips in time later than that showed the Mars we know today. So, he uses the time machine to go back to the Mars of pulp science fiction. Of course, when Svetz went back in time on Earth, he'd find unicorns, rocs, and werewolves, as he was traveling to fictional pasts, not real ones. Niven is cheating; he's quite deliberately writing fantasy for a science fiction audience, so he gets to have his cake and eat it, too.

Speaking of Robinson, "Aurora" may be referenced in the film "Passengers," which is also about a sublight colonization ship, this one with hibernation technology. Jennifer Lawrence's character was named Aurora. That might have been a coincidence. It was probably the worst big-budget science fiction movie of last year, although the best is a matter of some dispute; "Arrival" won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, while "Rogue One" won the Saturn Award. Yes, interstellar travel still sells in the theater. Literary science fiction may be another matter.

As for the origins of science fiction, I have read that Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is sometimes, if not often, cited as the first science fiction novel. Along with "The Last Man," which she also penned, that means that science fiction's closest literary relative is horror, at least of the non-gothic, supernatural variety. However, there are earlier literary works involving predicting the future and traveling to other bodies in the Solar System, which might be considered fantastic progenitors to actual science fiction.

@corydalidae wrote "nobody is going to mistake a story about elves for a probable future" and @Oilman2 observed "Terry Broks (sic) comes to mind as a chief formulator." Both remarks share something in common, the Shannara Chronicles. It may not be immediately clear in the books, but in the opening credits and scenes of the TV series, it's explicit that the stories are set in a post-nuclear-war future where the elves, dwarves, and trolls evolved from humans in a radioactive environment and where ruins of our current civilization dot the landscape. There's even a group of humans trying to recover the pre-war technology and saying it promises them a glorious future among the stars. They even show one of the "Star Trek" movies that they recovered from the wreckage to convince themselves and others of it. That ends up going literally nowhere, which shouldn't surprise any readers here.

Greer: Vince, I’ve been mulling over a story that will offer an explanation for why people saw canals on Mars before 1950 or so, and not afterwards. Heh heh heh… As for Terry Brooks, yes, I remember that — the only thing of his I ever read was The Sword of Shannara, and it included some references to that gimmick. Ralph Bakshi’s animated movie Wizards had a similar framing story, for what it’s worth.


My comments on Trump Waddles Towards the Thresher Blades

"As the humble Sgt Schultz would often say 'I know nothing! Nothing'"

Hahahaha! Too true!

Speaking of 1960s TV comedies, BooMan's repurposing of Driftglass's "waddling into the thresher blades," which was originally meant for David "Bobo" Brooks, reminds me that my wife said that Trump's announcement that he was running for President reminded her of Penguin running for Mayor of Gotham City. Ever since, I've called Trump "The Penguin" on my personal blog. She's not the only one who thought so. Here's a video parody using the same theme from 1992's "Batman Returns."

Watch on YouTube

I could go on and on with images and videos, but then this comment would look too much like one of AG's.
...
He thinks the people in Congress are his employees that he can order around. He doesn't realize they are the Board of Directors that can fire him.