Childhood Mortality (and some other stuff)

 I am beginning to think Trump really enjoys hurting children, from the forced family separation of the first administration to the withholding of food aid during the current one. The main thing in common between the two is that most of the children impacted are not white, but Trump is not a racist, at least if you listen to the Republicans. There is also a measles outbreak this year, which has caused at least one death, but lack of vaccination has been an ongoing issue, as it seems people like their kids dead, perhaps because they don't act up that way.

On another note, I think Europe is at least working in the right direction for Ukraine, but one thing they need to remember is that Trump is no more trustworthy than Putin. He really would prefer for the US to be aligned with Putin, so his team can engage in a bit of self-dealing just like Putin's collection of oligarchs. Europe needs to appreciate that under Trump the United States is not a reliable ally. Trump's ego is too fragile, and his administration is about chaos and destroying long-standing expectations. Europe needs to work with Ukraine and come up with a proposal that works for them, knowing Russia won't live up to their side of it. If it becomes a peace-keeping force, then by all means make sure the United States doesn't have authority over it, because who know what mischief Trump will ask of them.

On a side note, because of Musk's over-bearing influence on Trump's administration, I do thing all of his companies should be banned from being granted any new contracts and any extensions on current contracts, since then taxpayers would be sure he didn't benefit from his time as a Ginormous Ego.

Humiliator in Chief

 While many people seemed to expect that the President of Ukraine would be happy with the public extortion of minerals that Trump was pushing for him to sign. I am not sure if this agreement was for future aid or something else, but any sort of peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia should, at minimum, have Ukraine and Russia both at the negotiating table. The current farce taking place between the United States and Russia regarding Ukraine, is really more of the United States giving Putin whatever it is that Russia wants, or at least as much as Trump thinks he can pass off on the world stage. Trump won't really be happy until the United States is viewed as a client state of Putin and Russia. Trump and Vance are unhappy that Zelenskyy didn't get on his knees and polish their shoes, thus showing proper appreciation for the ritual humiliation that Trump loves to serve. Maybe my history is a bit messed up, but normally reparations are sought from the aggressor rather than the attacked. Be that as it may, Trump making an ass of himself is nothing new, and it will likely continue on the world stage for the 3.5+ years left of his term, since everyone knows the Republicans in Congress really just want to collect a paycheck without doing much in the way of legislation.

Cockalorum Trump and his lickspittle Musk

 I had actually been looking for an insult using cockle, and found a lovely Merriam-Webster page on older insults, and found a new one, cockalorum, and a favorite that I haven't seen in a while, lickspittle. The last month or so I have been wondering about appropriate names for the Decorative Presidency of Donald Trump, by which I mean he is the President, but he has basically off-loaded all the work to Elon Musk. Off-loading the decisions also means off-loading a percentage of bad press, though I honestly think all that is happening is that Musk is tarnishing whatever good name he may have had.  Not every government department is overstaffed, and his blindness, or should I say rather, willful ignorance that such a thing could be possible is obvious.

The fact that DOGE (Department of Ginormous Egos) can't even properly record what they are doing makes all the havoc that much more unnecessary. It really is too bad the whole thing is about making headlines rather than making good government. Blaming an endless need for clicks on is too easy, but it is certainly one way to look at it. Trump and Musk both live and breath social media, so they want a lot of chatter about them, so much so, that it seems Musk is taking offense when people correct lies proffered.

One thing for myself at least is that while I will likely comment on things periodically, it isn't something I want to do constantly, as it is too tedious with negativity. I have yet to hear either of them say something that offers hope and good will to the entirety of people living in this country.

Long time, no chatter

 Wow... should I be impressed or depressed that is has been almost 4 years since my last post - probably depressed, but I don't want to go on any meds, so I will just say it has been a bit.

Anyway, I think the current US President has done an excellent job in showing how to sell access to the office. Elon and Jeff and so many others gave a fabulous amount of cash, which will somehow make it into the families private coffers, so we know that as long a the "voters" don't complain too loudly, an executive order or three that benefits their businesses can be created.

I really don't have much more to add, except that for some reason at work, rather than something innocuous like Bloomberg, it has been Fox News, and I have to say those opinion people really need to remember they are entertainment and not news.  Some of my colleague don't seem to appreciate me laughing  at them, but seriously, from what I can read, since we don't play it with sound (thank goodness), the opinion hosts must truly decide on a topic for the day and then every show hammers it, over and over again, ad nauseam. Any angle Laura might have had has been pretty much blunted since everyone else slices and dices the same story, often with the same perspective... yawn!

Today's big news is that even with a Senate majority, those poor elephants needed a Vance vote to get the highly questionable defense secretary nominee confirmed into office. Really... you have the majority and your nominee is so lousy you can't get him into office without a tie breaker.  Oh well, as with many recent Republican Presidents, he didn't win the majority of votes cast (something like 49.8% of the votes cast) so he hardly has any sort of mandate, so trouble with the legislative branch is to be expected.

#Trump, #Stupid, #Republican, #FoxNews

Streaming Services

 For starters I should mention that I don't believe I have ever subscribed to cable tv, though I had some roommates who have had it already when I moved in.  Because of this, I don't think I am one of those people they are talking about when they mention the whole unbundling of cable and whatnot. I also have to wonder if the metrics that Wall Street seeks actually feed into the metrics of any given service.  For example, I have had, and cancelled, Netflix.  I cancelled it not because it was bad, but rather because it was too unwieldy to find anything on. I don't normally want to binge a season of anything, at most I will watch 2-3 episodes of a half-hour show in a row, before deciding to switch to something else, then come back a week or two later and watch another few episodes. Wall Street only cares that I subscribe, and I don't know if Netflix actually processed my viewing habits, because I may not have been their ideal customer.  Anyway, aside from Netflix, I also just cancelled Paramount+ and Showtime, which I had as a bundle, and that was because I wasn't watching enough.  So far, even though all the news services decry the lack of content, I have enjoyed Apple TV+, which I am not cancelling, even when my free time expires (a new season of Snoopy just dropped, and Ted Lasso will be back soon as well). The Disney+ bundle with Hulu and ESPN is also something I pay for, and I think I spend more time in the Hulu part of the bundle, but don't see any reason to change things there.  Finally, I use BritBox, as I enjoy all sorts of content there, even the lit up holiday train.

Overall, it is kind of funny, my neighbor told me his cable package was $270 or something stupid, and he has Netflix on top of that, even counting my internet bill on a monthly basis, I don't pay half that, and I have more than enough on TV to keep my attention. I know those businesses need to figure out how to keep people subscribing, but I also think they need to remember not every subscriber wants the exact same thing from their streaming services, while variety is nice, it is also nice to have something small with a limited selection that someone may have actually cared about when they chose the shows, rather than just doing a hope and prayer that it would hit some algorithmic section of the audience enough to keep it from being cancelled after one season.

Australia, finally free from Facebook

 While I am not in Australia, I love the fact that Mr. Zuckerberg has gotten himself into a snit and decided the best result was to no longer allow Australians the ability to link and share local news. With no need to visit Facebook for news stories, they no longer have to wonder if what they see on Facebook is news or QAnon fodder. Now they have the luxury of knowing everything aside from vacation pictures and family trip updates will be either advertising or stories pretending to be news, but not necessarily true.

While I still use Instagram, basically for photo sharing, I do not miss Facebook.  I do not miss someone illegally harvesting data and the response basically being, "Oops, they shouldn't do that because it is against the terms of service." Anyone can pretty much do anything they want with a Facebook property as long as it does not hurt Zuckerberg's bottom line, he pretty much won't care. The Right might complain about social media censoring them, but I see most social media as being right-wing friendly, because the right-wing drives page views and page views drive revenues.

While purportedly only 4% of the linked stories on Facebook, if I read those articles correctly, it doesn't really show how much time is spent on that 4% compared to the other 96%. If the various social media companies really want to keep your eyes tied to their websites so that you will see the advertising they dish up, rather than the advertising dished up by a story's original publisher, by refusing to allow local news links, Facebook has also pushed out users from the info silos those users have also created for themselves, and now they will need to actually view the website of their local newspaper or tv news. 

I dropped the Facebook echo chamber, and given time, those in Australia will find something outside of Facebook for their news source. The worst thing about aggregators like Facebook is that they dumb down the internet for its users.  Now that Facebook doesn't have news in Australia, Australians are going to need to relearn how to surf the internet, since just logging into Facebook will no longer bring joy.

Last Summer (2013 film)

Sometimes I think I am acquiring films faster than I can watch them, so I figure that maybe I could share some of my thoughts on them.  

First up is Last Summer, which is a lovely bit of gay themed cinema from 2013, directed by Mark Theideman. The plot, such as it is, is very thin, but as a meditation on young love and that summer between high school and college, when you both want to spend all your time with your partner, don't want to think about leaving, but know at some point one of you will be going to college. Movies tend to move at their own pace, and this was not a quick paced movie, though I think the languorous speed was as much to echo the Arkansas summer when this was taking place, as well as that thought amongst those of a certain age, that you have all the time in the world.

I would recommend it if you are willing to devote the time and not expecting an action flick or a melodrama. The actors do a good job, and they look like they could be teenagers, which is always a nice change. 

I was going to add more, but it began to sound a bit pretentious, and that really was not my purpose. Enjoy the movie if you are looking to see something a bit on the gay-themed art house side of things.

Ignoring Oaths and Obligations (and Amazon prices)

For the most part, I have to say the year has been a disappointment, but "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai! Across the 8th Dimension" is still pleasantly as bizarre as ever.

While I doubt Ms Collins or Ms Murkowski will do anything to budge #MoscowMitch into, at minimum, giving the appearance of a fair impeachment trial, it is nice that they are willing to pretend to care about impartiality, and maybe they mean it, but both tend to kiss the ring of Trump more than not, so I think it is just noise.  You can argue whether or not there was an impartial investigation, but during the public aspects of it, the Republicans were just complaining about the whole thing, rather than asking questions that might have provided some sort of defense to Trump. It seems they want a reality show and don't want to face the reality that it appears that Trump has involved or attempted to involve foreign governments in US national elections.

While I don't intend to harp on the subject, please beware of Amazon pricing.  Twilight Time Movies has issued a Blu-ray of an earlier cut than is on most public domain prints of "Beat the Devil."  While I appreciate that there was a handy dandy website that gave me that information (It came from the bottom shelf!), the proprietor of the website has a linking deal with Amazon, the movie in question was listed as $42 or so on Amazon and $20 or so at Twilight Time Movies.  True, it was on sale at the latter, but the normal price was only $30, so someone did some major mark-up, and that third party vendor was using Amazon, giving the appearance that Amazon is jacking up prices. I was going to leave a note for him there, but I figure he already knows what I am talking about.  In general though, Amazon is comparable to other movies sites for DVD/Blu-ray, though they aren't always willing to get them, as I do recall ordering directly from Criterion when Amazon advised me they were unable to get the disc, with my guess at the time being that they could not get the disc at a price favorable to them.

The Good News

While I am sure I do not agree with all the former editor's beliefs, I will give him kudos for standing up for what he believes, especially when others are so willing to ignore Christ's teachings while claiming to follow them. The biggest bit of hypocrisy they spout is how it is only illegal immigrants they dislike, but legal ones are fine--as if the Holy Family would have waited for the proper paperwork to legally flee once they learned Herod had issued an extermination order for those under two years old.  As the two thousand year history of the church has revealed over and over again, nit-picking is fun, and even though Jesus encouraged his followers to Love Thy Neighbor, those same followers will continue to find reasons to ignore that particular teaching.

I do hope in the future that those who speak for the religious, speak for following the teaching of their religion in practice, rather than the "do as I say, not as I do" sort of thing that seems to be going on now.  I am not sure which part of Christ's work Trump is doing, but with many evangelicals Trump walks on water, just like Jesus did.  We all know Trump loves his prostitutes, just like Jesus did, with the exception being that Trump pays for their services rather than absolving their sins. Hush many after the fact is exactly the same as paying for their services, the only difference is the fee isn't negotiated prior to the act.

Amazon and other stuff

It is always odd when you see things on Amazon that don't make sense, like an adult romance novel being listed as a children's book, but I couldn't understand what happened in the case above, as it looks like the UP Faith & Family trial version is priced like that to inspire you to subscribe, even though it is cheaper to rent than the other version.  I doubt there is anything different about the movie, it does make one wonder just how connected the various parts of Amazon are.  Regarding the movie, it is a guilty pleasure of mine, as it is a feel good movie, and while there are some religious overtones, it isn't quite as onerously preachy as others.

In other news, the impeachment is proceeding, though I have to honestly wish the republicans would actually take it seriously and present something concrete that mitigates or contradicts what looks like an abuse of power, but so far they have done nothing to argue a defense, preferring instead to attempt to turn the proceedings into a reality show circus that Trump will appreciate, though not too much if it gets good ratings.