Oh deary me, the appendices to Churchill's volumes of The Second World War are alone worth the purchase price. That Minister of Food ("Minister of Food"! lol) took some shit from WSC, I tell you. I remember years ago posting on other of the minutes berating the Minister of Food on the eggs question.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Prime Minister to Minister of Production and Minister of Food 16 Nov 44
CANNED MEAT FOR THE U.S.S.R.
I do not understand why the Minister of Food did not mention the fact that would involve us in the payment of twenty million dollars...nor to agree to our providing the 45,000 tons...
2. What I said was of course based upon the Minister of Food's message. But it was said in relation to a jocular remark of M. Stalin's about the advance made since the Stone Age by the discontinuance of cannibalism,,,
CANNED MEAT FOR THE U.S.S.R.
I do not understand why the Minister of Food did not mention the fact that would involve us in the payment of twenty million dollars...nor to agree to our providing the 45,000 tons...
2. What I said was of course based upon the Minister of Food's message. But it was said in relation to a jocular remark of M. Stalin's about the advance made since the Stone Age by the discontinuance of cannibalism,,,
The undersigned hit the hay, as it were, last night at 2:42 a.m. in the morning Normal Cop Time and first arose at 6:29 a.m. Logic spoke forcefully to him that three hours and forty-seven minutos would likely prove insufficient to sustain him through the day and he therefore re-hit the hay until 8:09 a.m. I thank you for your interest in this matter and can further note the time of, e.g., my bowel movements upon sufficient demand.
The Trump Death
And finally early this morning the numbers:
60,966 Americans Killed By Trump.
1,039,909 Confrimed Cases of Trump Virus.
5.86% Trump Kill Rate. That is Trump's high. The previous high was 5.72%.
Daily Cases Bar Graph, Johns Hopkins:
We have seen this pattern before: a beguiling three day drop followed by daily increases. We see that now. We saw a three day drop April 18-20 and then four days of increases. A three day drop April 11-13 and then a completely demoralizing four day increase culminating on April 24 with the high water mark so far of 36,300 cases on that one day. The most recent April 25-27 drop and the April 28-29 increases are a deeper drop than previously seen and the two day rise so far does not seem to augur as high as previously. In other words, it looks like it is being moderately suppressed. All will be watching April 30's total. No way I expect it to sky-rocket. I think there's an even chance it will increase for the third consecutive day, but at a lower high, and an equal chance that this will be only a two day rise and April 30's daily count will be lower. The latter possibility would be a significant marker to my uneducated mind. But then...partial reopenings of many states have already been announced. I think partial reopenings are a mistake. CDC guidelines have forever been that we need fourteen consecutive days of declines before any reopenings, however modest, occur. But, but: I have to strain to see progress with most of the country locked down. Maybe that was just not going to work.
60,966 Americans Killed By Trump.
1,039,909 Confrimed Cases of Trump Virus.
5.86% Trump Kill Rate. That is Trump's high. The previous high was 5.72%.
Daily Cases Bar Graph, Johns Hopkins:
Badly Breaking?
So after finishing Schitt’s Creek I took a glancing swipe at Arrested Development and checked out. I turned to Breaking Bad, which even I had heard of and which I assume any non-Luddite (like me) has viewed. Consensus one of the greatest series in the history of television. I am on season two episode four, ten and one-half out of sixty-two.
The cinematography is extraordinary, the screenwriting very, very good overall and the acting first rate if unvariegated. However. But. Very early on I caught on that there was a deep flaw, which I hoped would not be fatal, and which flaw had been baked in at creation. For several episodes of season one Walter White's reason for keeping his terminal cancer diagnosis from his family and beginning on a years-long crime spree and blood bath is to provide for his family after he is gone, which is in seven months. That is the patently absurd premise to the entire series; it reminds me of the patently absurd origins of the American Revolution. It was unfortunate for my appreciation of the series early on that I faced a kinda sorta similar dilemma fifteen years ago, a cancer diagnosis that I chose, after extreme cogitation, to keep from my children until they were older and could better understand that a prostate cancer diagnosis is almost never terminal and mine was not terminal. So there is that not insignificant difference in the prognoses that Walter White and I received. However, I can say with complete certainty that if my prostate cancer had been terminal I would not have gone a crystal methamphetamine cooking binge and enlisted a 19 or so year-old former student to be my partner and seller and murdered, to this point, three people. Okay? Beyond a reasonable doubt. So say we all. Screenwriters, put down your meth pipes and start over. And I was afraid that any great river that had its source in such fetid pool would be irrevocably polluted. Walter, for example, turns down a manna from heaven offer of a full-time higher-paying job with full medical coverage with his former grad school classmate's company, which Walter co-founded and then was forced out by Elliott, because Elliott forced him out. Better to sell ice and whack people. I didn't give up on the series but I was disgusted and tempted to.
The screenwriters apparently had the same glimpse of the Beast that they had birthed and in the second half of season one the premise subtly morphed. Walter “breaks bad” because he finds illegality thrilling. He literally gets off on being the bad boy, and a very bad boy he becomes. His wife Skylar: “Why was that (sex in back of the car ouside their son's high school) so good?” “Because it’s illegal,” by Walt. Okay! Excellent work screenwriters! The money-for-family motivation was always preposterous but the thrill seeking crime spree, that is plausible!
The screenwriters also took a few commendable stabs at moral questions. There are all of these line-drawing tests: meth used to be legal, pot is not; alcohol used to be illegal, now it’s legal. Marie, Walter's sister-in-law, early on shoplifts a pair of high heels. And then, the expensive tiara she gave Skyler at the baby shower, she swiped that too. And Marie's husband, the DEA agent, blithely tells Skyler "we have to support Marie" and "She is seeing a counselor." Skyler is so outraged she is speechless. In the second half of season one the series became more like the themes of To Catch a Thief, The Thomas Crowne Affair, Crimes and Misdemeanors, you could go on and on, where lines of morality and legality are blurred, as is truth the Pragmatist philosophers tells us, rather than what I initially thought, a film version of some goddamed Cormac McCarthy novel. It was much more real now and I liked it much more.
In one luminous episode, the best so far, by far, there is even some slapstick HUMOUR. Those stupid ski masks with the balls on top that bounce when Walter and Jesse run when they are breaking into the chemical warehouse is perfect lolol
The screenwriting is intelligent, it doesn’t insult you or spoon feed you as Ron Howard's narration of Arrested Development and the over-acting did. Walter’s pseudonym in dealings with Tuco is “Heisenberg.” The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We can never fix with precision the position of any mass in space. Just like we can never fix moral truths. Legal now, illegal then, and vice versa, and where do morality and legal intersect, where do they diverge? Hank, the DEA agent, kills Tuco, indubitably in self-defense, and is given an award. Walter also acted on the spur of the moment in self-defense when he noticed, just as he was to turn the key and release Crazy 8, that the latter had broken plate shards secreted and was going to kill Walter if Walter released him. But, the first person to reason by analogy was the devil the Prohpet Mohammad taught, and legally, if his truths be known, Walter would have been indicted for first degree felony murder for the killings of Crazy 8 and Emilio.
There has been that one luminous episode. The rest have been good to very good. However, there are some unrealities that have bothered me from the beginning and the plot in season two is dragging. It’s actually a repeating plot, the screenwriters don’t seem to be able to have figured out where they want to go next and so they just repeat, like Groundhog Day, the endless close calls that somehow this weakening terminal cancer patient and his skinny young sidekick keep being able to dodge. I find it completely unreal that Jesse, who Tuco nearly beat to death once, did it again—with MUCH greater cause—and Jesse was able to grab Tuco’s sidearm and wound him and then stun him with a rock. I find it completely implausible that Hank is able to kill Tuco with his goddamned service weapon and escape WITHOUT A SCRAPE OR NICK against Tuco who has an automatic rifle. I didn’t expect network TV absurdities like that from these screenwriters.
The series is set in suburban Albuquerque. Decent sized city, Albuquerque. Yet, the show’s scenes remind me of the hospital scenes in the Halloween series where it always seemed that the only two fucking people in a huge hospital were Jamie Lee Curtis and Jason. Hallways always empty; a hospital scene in Breaking Bad too: Walt ESCAPES to retrieve the drug money and gun from the house crawlspace and then simply walks back into the hospital and hooks the IV lines up to his own arms. No one is the wiser. Lol. Here, with neighbors all around I’ve never seen a car besides one of the principals’ and only twice have I seen other people on the leafy, well-kept streets, and the same two twice, a pair of sixty-something women out power walking or something. The point is, in a prosperous suburb of a significantly sized city no one notices the neighborhood meth dealer or his local high school chem teacher senior partner or anything unusual to suggest all that is underground.
I can appreciate the difficulties in screenwriting a series. Charles Dickens serialized some of his novels in periodicals. He had no comprehensive plan and wrote the next chapter after completing the previous one. It makes for stilted and overlong novels. But in season two the screenplay is drawn back more to the original premise. Walt has seven months to live and I’ll be goddamned if I have a clue how these screenwriters are going to drag this out for 3 1/2 more seasons without reverting to some Hollywood deus ex machina again and Walt gets cured. As one episode is titled, there’s too much of a “crazy handful of nothin’.” Good night...morning.
The cinematography is extraordinary, the screenwriting very, very good overall and the acting first rate if unvariegated. However. But. Very early on I caught on that there was a deep flaw, which I hoped would not be fatal, and which flaw had been baked in at creation. For several episodes of season one Walter White's reason for keeping his terminal cancer diagnosis from his family and beginning on a years-long crime spree and blood bath is to provide for his family after he is gone, which is in seven months. That is the patently absurd premise to the entire series; it reminds me of the patently absurd origins of the American Revolution. It was unfortunate for my appreciation of the series early on that I faced a kinda sorta similar dilemma fifteen years ago, a cancer diagnosis that I chose, after extreme cogitation, to keep from my children until they were older and could better understand that a prostate cancer diagnosis is almost never terminal and mine was not terminal. So there is that not insignificant difference in the prognoses that Walter White and I received. However, I can say with complete certainty that if my prostate cancer had been terminal I would not have gone a crystal methamphetamine cooking binge and enlisted a 19 or so year-old former student to be my partner and seller and murdered, to this point, three people. Okay? Beyond a reasonable doubt. So say we all. Screenwriters, put down your meth pipes and start over. And I was afraid that any great river that had its source in such fetid pool would be irrevocably polluted. Walter, for example, turns down a manna from heaven offer of a full-time higher-paying job with full medical coverage with his former grad school classmate's company, which Walter co-founded and then was forced out by Elliott, because Elliott forced him out. Better to sell ice and whack people. I didn't give up on the series but I was disgusted and tempted to.
The screenwriters apparently had the same glimpse of the Beast that they had birthed and in the second half of season one the premise subtly morphed. Walter “breaks bad” because he finds illegality thrilling. He literally gets off on being the bad boy, and a very bad boy he becomes. His wife Skylar: “Why was that (sex in back of the car ouside their son's high school) so good?” “Because it’s illegal,” by Walt. Okay! Excellent work screenwriters! The money-for-family motivation was always preposterous but the thrill seeking crime spree, that is plausible!
The screenwriters also took a few commendable stabs at moral questions. There are all of these line-drawing tests: meth used to be legal, pot is not; alcohol used to be illegal, now it’s legal. Marie, Walter's sister-in-law, early on shoplifts a pair of high heels. And then, the expensive tiara she gave Skyler at the baby shower, she swiped that too. And Marie's husband, the DEA agent, blithely tells Skyler "we have to support Marie" and "She is seeing a counselor." Skyler is so outraged she is speechless. In the second half of season one the series became more like the themes of To Catch a Thief, The Thomas Crowne Affair, Crimes and Misdemeanors, you could go on and on, where lines of morality and legality are blurred, as is truth the Pragmatist philosophers tells us, rather than what I initially thought, a film version of some goddamed Cormac McCarthy novel. It was much more real now and I liked it much more.
In one luminous episode, the best so far, by far, there is even some slapstick HUMOUR. Those stupid ski masks with the balls on top that bounce when Walter and Jesse run when they are breaking into the chemical warehouse is perfect lolol
The screenwriting is intelligent, it doesn’t insult you or spoon feed you as Ron Howard's narration of Arrested Development and the over-acting did. Walter’s pseudonym in dealings with Tuco is “Heisenberg.” The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We can never fix with precision the position of any mass in space. Just like we can never fix moral truths. Legal now, illegal then, and vice versa, and where do morality and legal intersect, where do they diverge? Hank, the DEA agent, kills Tuco, indubitably in self-defense, and is given an award. Walter also acted on the spur of the moment in self-defense when he noticed, just as he was to turn the key and release Crazy 8, that the latter had broken plate shards secreted and was going to kill Walter if Walter released him. But, the first person to reason by analogy was the devil the Prohpet Mohammad taught, and legally, if his truths be known, Walter would have been indicted for first degree felony murder for the killings of Crazy 8 and Emilio.
There has been that one luminous episode. The rest have been good to very good. However, there are some unrealities that have bothered me from the beginning and the plot in season two is dragging. It’s actually a repeating plot, the screenwriters don’t seem to be able to have figured out where they want to go next and so they just repeat, like Groundhog Day, the endless close calls that somehow this weakening terminal cancer patient and his skinny young sidekick keep being able to dodge. I find it completely unreal that Jesse, who Tuco nearly beat to death once, did it again—with MUCH greater cause—and Jesse was able to grab Tuco’s sidearm and wound him and then stun him with a rock. I find it completely implausible that Hank is able to kill Tuco with his goddamned service weapon and escape WITHOUT A SCRAPE OR NICK against Tuco who has an automatic rifle. I didn’t expect network TV absurdities like that from these screenwriters.
The series is set in suburban Albuquerque. Decent sized city, Albuquerque. Yet, the show’s scenes remind me of the hospital scenes in the Halloween series where it always seemed that the only two fucking people in a huge hospital were Jamie Lee Curtis and Jason. Hallways always empty; a hospital scene in Breaking Bad too: Walt ESCAPES to retrieve the drug money and gun from the house crawlspace and then simply walks back into the hospital and hooks the IV lines up to his own arms. No one is the wiser. Lol. Here, with neighbors all around I’ve never seen a car besides one of the principals’ and only twice have I seen other people on the leafy, well-kept streets, and the same two twice, a pair of sixty-something women out power walking or something. The point is, in a prosperous suburb of a significantly sized city no one notices the neighborhood meth dealer or his local high school chem teacher senior partner or anything unusual to suggest all that is underground.
I can appreciate the difficulties in screenwriting a series. Charles Dickens serialized some of his novels in periodicals. He had no comprehensive plan and wrote the next chapter after completing the previous one. It makes for stilted and overlong novels. But in season two the screenplay is drawn back more to the original premise. Walt has seven months to live and I’ll be goddamned if I have a clue how these screenwriters are going to drag this out for 3 1/2 more seasons without reverting to some Hollywood deus ex machina again and Walt gets cured. As one episode is titled, there’s too much of a “crazy handful of nothin’.” Good night...morning.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Fox Free
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
The Swedish Approach
There are multiple articles today on the approach taken by Sweden toward COVID-19. I read those in McPaper and the Ex-Quasis. I am not linking to them because the headlines are belied significantly, in my opinion, by the bodies of the articles. Sweden's approach is similar to that of Japan, on which the Ex-Quasis wrote a similar story about a month ago. Sweden is distinguished from other European countries, and from America, in their approach, which has been to not mandate social distancing but rather to "trust" Swedes to practice social distancing responsibly. Sweden has been somewhat more successful than other European countries and the U.S. in containing the virus. However, the mortality rate from the virus in Sweden is, at 12.2%, more than double that of the U.S. Sweden's economy has taken a hit also, and one lower but roughly in line with other countries. The point therefore is that Sweden has done no worse and in fact somewhat better than other countries in limiting spread, although its mortality rate is far higher than in the U.S., with no mandated lockdowns.
However the main takeaway from the two articles, both of which rely on an interview with Anders Tegnell, Sweden's top COVID-19 official, is this: Sweden wants a sustainable COVID-19 strategy; one that you don’t turn on and then off, one that enables you to "live with" the virus long-term. That indeed is different from the U.S. strategy. Like Japan, Sweden decided at the outset that a social lockdown was not feasible; they just were not going to do that to the country or the health care system. And Sweden viewed skeptically the philosophy behind lockdowns. The Swedes and Mr. Tegnell approached it from the end game perspective: When do you know when it's time to reopen?, a question now in the forefront in America. In other words, can you really just turn a society and an economy off suddenly, and then just as suddenly turn it on again? Human beings are not machines or faucets. In addition, once you take the extreme step of a lockdown on a date certain then you're sort of trapped in the box of extreme solutions and a gradual and partial reopening seems to beg the question, would a gradual and partial lockdown have been as efficacious?
The sexy term in the articles is "herd immunity." Britain and Boris Johnson initially went with developing herd immunity and quickly changed their strategy, and Mr. Tegnell is as squirrelly on herd immunity as the next health official. On the one hand, No! My God, no, we do not have a herd immunity strategy in Sweden! On the other hand, having herd immunity would be helpful and, by the way, we Swedes probably will have it in a couple of weeks.
Tegnell thinks about herd immunity as he does social distancing, philosophically and from the end back, not from the beginning forward. We all want a vaccine, yes? Well, isn't a vaccine an extreme form of herd immunity? Yes!, yes it is. If a society was immune as a “herd” of people you wouldn’t have to give an immunization vaccine to them would you? No! Sweden and Mr. Tegnell's philosophical approach to COVID-19 solutions is extremely appealing but its appeal requires ignoring the 12.2% death rate. That no reasonable person can do. The better template seems to be Japan, a densely populated country with twelve times the population of Sweden, yet with only 14,000 COVID-19 cases and a mortality rate of 3.04%.
However the main takeaway from the two articles, both of which rely on an interview with Anders Tegnell, Sweden's top COVID-19 official, is this: Sweden wants a sustainable COVID-19 strategy; one that you don’t turn on and then off, one that enables you to "live with" the virus long-term. That indeed is different from the U.S. strategy. Like Japan, Sweden decided at the outset that a social lockdown was not feasible; they just were not going to do that to the country or the health care system. And Sweden viewed skeptically the philosophy behind lockdowns. The Swedes and Mr. Tegnell approached it from the end game perspective: When do you know when it's time to reopen?, a question now in the forefront in America. In other words, can you really just turn a society and an economy off suddenly, and then just as suddenly turn it on again? Human beings are not machines or faucets. In addition, once you take the extreme step of a lockdown on a date certain then you're sort of trapped in the box of extreme solutions and a gradual and partial reopening seems to beg the question, would a gradual and partial lockdown have been as efficacious?
The sexy term in the articles is "herd immunity." Britain and Boris Johnson initially went with developing herd immunity and quickly changed their strategy, and Mr. Tegnell is as squirrelly on herd immunity as the next health official. On the one hand, No! My God, no, we do not have a herd immunity strategy in Sweden! On the other hand, having herd immunity would be helpful and, by the way, we Swedes probably will have it in a couple of weeks.
Tegnell thinks about herd immunity as he does social distancing, philosophically and from the end back, not from the beginning forward. We all want a vaccine, yes? Well, isn't a vaccine an extreme form of herd immunity? Yes!, yes it is. If a society was immune as a “herd” of people you wouldn’t have to give an immunization vaccine to them would you? No! Sweden and Mr. Tegnell's philosophical approach to COVID-19 solutions is extremely appealing but its appeal requires ignoring the 12.2% death rate. That no reasonable person can do. The better template seems to be Japan, a densely populated country with twelve times the population of Sweden, yet with only 14,000 COVID-19 cases and a mortality rate of 3.04%.
The Trump Death: Only 954 Behind Vietnam War Killed
Trump raises his virus death toll projection to up to 70,000 in U.S.
Trump had previously seized on the estimate of 50,000 to 60,000.
Wise move.
April 28, 2:43 p.m.
This is an interim report because of Big News. The U.S. has passed the 1,000,000 mark of those infected with Trump Virus! Congratulations to all. And Trump is getting closer and closer to killing more Americans in four months than were killed in the Vietnam War in twenty years. He's a helluva virus, that Trump, and a helluva killin' machine. The numbers right now:
1,002,498 Americans infected with Trump Virus.
57,266 Americans Killed by Trump.
-954 Trump. Trump has killed over 1,000 Americans in the day not yet ended. He will exceed Vietnam's killed tomorrow. A day of celebration please! Hold a rally, Trump! Pack that enclosed venue of, say, 10,000 in Alabama with maskless Low Lifes! U.S.A.! D.O.A.! U.S.A.! D.O.A.!
5.71% Trump Kill rate.
April 27, 9:49 p.m.
Trump killed 1,399 people today. My goodness he is a killing machine. He should pass the Vietnam War killed on Wednesday, the 29th, or by Thursday, the 30th, at the latest.
As always Trump Low Lifes you are expected to be on the job working tomorrow, without masks, NO EXCUSES, and as a courtesy I will set the alarm for you per usual. Don't forget: If you cough or sneeze do so directly in the face of another Trump Low Life.
58,220 Vietnam War Killed
56,255 Trump War Killed
-1965 Trump.
10:49 p.m. April 26
I expect all Trump Low Life's to be at work tomorrow. Absence will result in docked pay from your death benefits.
58,220 Vietnam War Killed
54,856 Trump War Killed
-3364 Trump. So over 1,000 new people Killed by Trump today.
Trump's Kill efficiency is down a smidgen to 5.68% from 5.7% yesterday afternoon.
965,435 total cases of Trump Virus. That's an increase of 41,000 just today! That sort of takes the scarf off Dr. Deborah Birx' modest assurances that we are getting better. The Johnnies btw did NOT change their count today of 32.8k cases yesterday, April 25. So that's almost 74,000 new cases yesterday and today. They haven't published an updated graph that includes today so I'm not going to reprint that which I posted yesterday. It's grim but listen to Dr. Fauci if he ever reappears. Don't listen to Dr. Birx.
12:16 a.m. April 26
58,220 Vietnam War Killed.
53,789 Trump War Killed.
-4,431 Trump. 1,747 Killed by Trump in a little over half a day today.
Look at this Trumpie, through April 25!
Now THAT'S what you call flattening the ol' curve! Look at that baby just flattening out flat as a pancake. Only 32,800 new cases today. But since this is the Johnnies, it'll probably by 26,000 tomorrow morning.
It's clearly time, Trumpie. Why don't you help "LIBERATE" the states. Show your courage! Open your hotels! Hold one of your rallies in a spacious arena, say a 10,000 seater, keep 'em waiting, fill it to capacity with your Low Lifes packed in like sardines. You wouldn't wear a mask would you? Set an example for the Low Life's so that they don't wear one either. Go shake hands and sign MAGA hats for them. They would really appreciate it.
You scared, Trumpie? You're acting scared. You're hunkered down all alone in your bedroom watching TV 8 hours a day. You aren't going to do the virus briefings anymore 'cause you're a lunatic and keep stepping on your dick. You're itching to get out and go to one of your rallies Trumpie, we all can feel it!. Do it! Give in to your instincts. Inject some disinfectant directly into your arm with a hypodermic needle to clean your lungs and GO!
You're scared, aren't you Trumpie? You a pussy, Trumpie? I think you're a cuckolded, bone-spurred scaredy pussy. But you can prove me wrong.
2:18 p.m.
58,220 Vietnam War Killed.
52,782 Trump War Killed.
-5438 Trump
Trump is just killin' it. Inspired performance in just three hours.
The world death rate is up to 7%. America's has been climbing also and is at 5.7% in 924,000 cases.
April 25, 11:16 a.m.
58,220 Vietnam War killed.
52,042 Trump War killed.
-6,178 Trump
2:18 p.m.
58,220 Vietnam War Killed.
52,782 Trump War Killed.
-5438 Trump
Trump is just killin' it. Inspired performance in just three hours.
The world death rate is up to 7%. America's has been climbing also and is at 5.7% in 924,000 cases.
April 25, 11:16 a.m.
58,220 Vietnam War killed.
52,042 Trump War killed.
-6,178 Trump
Monday, April 27, 2020
It has been a bad 24 hours or so and Trump is losing it. He has now killed over 56,000 people and there are almost 1,000,000 cases of Trump Virus. There are no flattening curves anywhere to be seen in America, Biden's lead nationally is at its highest (+6.3%) in 18 days and only one poll, that has Biden +10% was conducted and then only in part after the psychotic April 23 Light-&-Lysol event.
Biden continues to lead in "battleground" states Wisconsin (+2.7%); he's opened a 3.2% lead in Florida after trailing in the state; in Michigan by +2.7%, in Pennsylvania a hefty +6.7%; Trump leads in North Carolina by an extremely perilous 1.3%, and Biden is +4.4% in Arizona. Too early for polls but polls there are and in fairness I'm not including Minnesota. Every "battleground" except Pennsylvania is close enough that any and all could go either way but there is probably a lesson that Biden has led in all of these states excepting Florida and North Carolina consistently for some time. As a consequence of this cascade of bad news Trump is acting more erratically than ever, viz.
-There was a coronavirus briefing scheduled today; then it was taken off the schedule; then it was put back on again.
-Starting at about 7 p.m. Sunday Trump started a tweeting flurry that was heavy on conspiratorial theories, including one that the official death totals were fake and had been manipulated to hurt him.
-He also retweeted that Russia actually helped Hillary Clinton.
-He went on to challenge reporters to return their "Noble" prizes for Russia reporting. It's Nobel, not Noble, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded for journalism. Pulitzer Prizes are in the U.S. He then deleted the "Noble" tweets but, and in another instance that he is not in touch with reality, tweeted that he had correctly typed "Noble": in sarcasm; which was also one explanation he gave for his floridly out of touch Light-&Lysol recommendations to scientists to "test.".
Mr Trump is not a well man and he is decompensating.
Biden continues to lead in "battleground" states Wisconsin (+2.7%); he's opened a 3.2% lead in Florida after trailing in the state; in Michigan by +2.7%, in Pennsylvania a hefty +6.7%; Trump leads in North Carolina by an extremely perilous 1.3%, and Biden is +4.4% in Arizona. Too early for polls but polls there are and in fairness I'm not including Minnesota. Every "battleground" except Pennsylvania is close enough that any and all could go either way but there is probably a lesson that Biden has led in all of these states excepting Florida and North Carolina consistently for some time. As a consequence of this cascade of bad news Trump is acting more erratically than ever, viz.
-There was a coronavirus briefing scheduled today; then it was taken off the schedule; then it was put back on again.
-Starting at about 7 p.m. Sunday Trump started a tweeting flurry that was heavy on conspiratorial theories, including one that the official death totals were fake and had been manipulated to hurt him.
-He also retweeted that Russia actually helped Hillary Clinton.
-He went on to challenge reporters to return their "Noble" prizes for Russia reporting. It's Nobel, not Noble, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded for journalism. Pulitzer Prizes are in the U.S. He then deleted the "Noble" tweets but, and in another instance that he is not in touch with reality, tweeted that he had correctly typed "Noble": in sarcasm; which was also one explanation he gave for his floridly out of touch Light-&Lysol recommendations to scientists to "test.".
Mr Trump is not a well man and he is decompensating.
Lime Green Shirts with Ruffles
The Second Unfortunate ex-Mrs Harris sent me last Friday the viral video of Dr. Deborah Birx blinking and thinking in mortification at Trump's disinfectant and light treatment for COVID-19. I was not impressed. I responded that Birx should have immediately gotten up from her seat and debunked the quackery. I remembered the reaction to Dr. Anthony Fauci caught apparently trying to suppress a grin and rubbing his forehead at the nonsense when Trump referred to the "deep state" at the State Department--just as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had stepped away from the microphone. Fauci was called on that body language by White House staffers and was able to plausibly deny that he considered Trump a buffoon by claiming that he had been feeling unwell and was sucking on a throat lozenge. Dr Fauci diplomatically pushed back on Trump's nonsense but it was not diplomatic enough for Trump's protectors in the White House or in the propaganda media. As Fauci said to Maureen Dowd, "What am I going to do, push him off the stage?" Yes, something close to that. For science and scientists to have credibility scientists must correct pseudoscience in real time. No matter who is peddling it. Fauci has been seen little since. Replaced at the now discontinued daily coronavirus briefings by Dr. Birx. Trump likes Birx; considers her "elegant."
Trump likes Dr. Birx for another reason: she flatters him. She does not correct him; she does not hold him accountable. She has praised his attention to detail in the coronavirus task force meetings even as she excuses his Light-&-Lysol suggestions with his non-participation and inattention in the task force meetings. He just got hit with the information on light before stepping on stage, she excused. He was processing. Out loud. On television. To the nation.
On Saturday the Second Unfortunate and I exchanged text messages about Kellyanne Conway. The exchange began with a link she sent me to an ad produced by the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group co-founded by Kellyanne's husband George. It was a very good ad and I told the ex-Mrs. it was very good and added "Howja like to be a fly on the wall in that house hooo doggie." She replied, "I always think about that...Something insider her is going on."
Peut-être some unwanted sublimation addled my brain for I processed "insider" as "inside her" and directly went directly. "OHHH! Wait a MINUTE! You think Trumpie and Kellyanne are...playing doctor??? I had NEVER thought about that..." The ex-Mrs immediately shot that down, "No not that." She offered alternatively that Kellyanne "must be super indispensable or knows too much." That Kellyanne "knows too much" seemed to me preposterous. What more is there to know about Trump that can be damaging over and above what we already know? "Super indispensable" again touched my brain on that spot as any mention of numbers touched Mrs Smallweed to go off on money. Trump is a cuckold. Melanoma does not give him sex. Sex seems super indispensable to Trump, ergo, Kellyanne is super indispensable as a sexual outlet. No, rejoined the Unfortunate. Me: "It may just be trust, Trump trusts her."
I then tried to focus on the subject solely from Kellyanne's perspective. Forget why Trump finds her super indispensable, why does Kellyanne find Trump super indispensable? This cannot be good for the Conway marriage. Why would Kellyanne stand so loyally by Trump's side at the cost of damage to her marriage? "I've NO idea," the Second Unfortunate. The exchange then petered out as text exchanges do. In the end my ex had convinced me that whatever it was it was not sex.
Women (generalizations incoming) can be fiercely loyal to and protective of, men, even "a pig of a man" like Trump. Hillary Clinton. Sometimes not their husbands though. Their sons? Yes. Sometimes. Sometimes not. Moreso than husbands? I think so. The mothering instinct? Yes, women have that. The daughter-father bond? Ivanka Trump. I would generalize that the daughter-father bond is more often (not always) stronger than the wife-husband bond. Is that what is going on in the Kellyanne-Trump relationship? Trump is old enough to be Kellyanne's father, but Kellyanne is 53. I don't see that from either's perspective. Obviously not in the Birx-Trump relationship. Do women, generally, have a more intense need to be "super indispensable" than do men? I don't know. Stockholm Syndrome? There certainly is some of that with Trump's cult.
I ended my own ruminations on that string of misogynistic maybes and maybe nots.
Then yesterday I realized that there was another instantiation of this constellation of speculations, Hope Hicks. She's baack. Has been back for a couple weeks. She escaped her captor, so throw out Stockholm Syndrome on her. Sex? Eww. Absolutely not. From either's perspective. And I read today that Trump does consider Hopie, as he calls her, almost as another of his daughters. That's from his perspective. Does Hope feel a daughter-father bond with Trump? I would bet not, I obviously do not know, I just would bet not. But like Dr. Birx and Ms Conway Hope Hicks does play up to Trump. "You're very big, this is very small" was her way of trying to talk Trump off his anger ledge. Whether it works or not you're going to stay in Trump's good graces if you praise him. From their perspective why would the women want to stay in the good graces of "a pig of a man"? The article I read said that Hope missed being at the center of power and history and all of that. That gestures powerfully toward "super indispensable," that is from the woman's perspective; that would explain Kellyanne Conway, Deborah Birx too. Proximity to power, "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," the woman behind the scenes, wanting to be "super indispensable," however phrased that notion seems to tick all the boxes.
"Super indispensable" comes at a cost. You're only as good as the reflected light you stand in. Once that light is gone, you may be too, literally. Ask, if you could, Jiang Jing, Madame Mao. Trump's is tarnished light. Stand in it and you too will stand in it's sickly orange glow. How many of Trump's ex's, men and women, went on to better things? Here is Sean Spicer's post-Trump career arc per Wikipedia:
After several low-profile months, Spicer made a cameo appearance at the presentation of the Emmy Awards...
Spicer announced in December 2017 on The Sean Hannity Show that he would release a book, The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President, in July 2018 about his tenure with the Trump administration.
On July 31, 2019, President Trump announced his intention to appoint Spicer to be a Member of the Board of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy.
In August 2019, Spicer was announced as a contestant on season 28 of Dancing with the Stars. This announcement was met with alarm...One ABC employee told CNN journalist Oliver Darcy: "It's a slap in the face to those of us who had to deal with his baloney and the consequences of the ongoing lies and disinformation campaign at the White House."...On the first installment of... the popular celebrity reality competition, Spicer wore a bright lime green shirt with ruffles while his dancing partner's dress prominently featured pineapples as they engaged in a salsa dance...
Starting in March 2020, Spicer hosts a political talk show for the channel Newsmax TV called Spicer & Co.
In other words, Sean Spicer hasn't been able to find work since. Who would want Spicer, Kellyanne Conway or Hope Hicks to work for them? They were nothing before working for Trump and will be nothing after he is gone. Deborah Birx was something before Trump but now? Man, who wants a doctor who turned in her lab coat and now wears a bright lime green shirt with ruffles and dances with a clown in a shirt with pineapples all over it. Dr. Birx will be selling snake oil on Fifth Avenue and doing commercials for Lysol.
Trump likes Dr. Birx for another reason: she flatters him. She does not correct him; she does not hold him accountable. She has praised his attention to detail in the coronavirus task force meetings even as she excuses his Light-&-Lysol suggestions with his non-participation and inattention in the task force meetings. He just got hit with the information on light before stepping on stage, she excused. He was processing. Out loud. On television. To the nation.
On Saturday the Second Unfortunate and I exchanged text messages about Kellyanne Conway. The exchange began with a link she sent me to an ad produced by the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group co-founded by Kellyanne's husband George. It was a very good ad and I told the ex-Mrs. it was very good and added "Howja like to be a fly on the wall in that house hooo doggie." She replied, "I always think about that...Something insider her is going on."
Peut-être some unwanted sublimation addled my brain for I processed "insider" as "inside her" and directly went directly. "OHHH! Wait a MINUTE! You think Trumpie and Kellyanne are...playing doctor??? I had NEVER thought about that..." The ex-Mrs immediately shot that down, "No not that." She offered alternatively that Kellyanne "must be super indispensable or knows too much." That Kellyanne "knows too much" seemed to me preposterous. What more is there to know about Trump that can be damaging over and above what we already know? "Super indispensable" again touched my brain on that spot as any mention of numbers touched Mrs Smallweed to go off on money. Trump is a cuckold. Melanoma does not give him sex. Sex seems super indispensable to Trump, ergo, Kellyanne is super indispensable as a sexual outlet. No, rejoined the Unfortunate. Me: "It may just be trust, Trump trusts her."
I then tried to focus on the subject solely from Kellyanne's perspective. Forget why Trump finds her super indispensable, why does Kellyanne find Trump super indispensable? This cannot be good for the Conway marriage. Why would Kellyanne stand so loyally by Trump's side at the cost of damage to her marriage? "I've NO idea," the Second Unfortunate. The exchange then petered out as text exchanges do. In the end my ex had convinced me that whatever it was it was not sex.
Women (generalizations incoming) can be fiercely loyal to and protective of, men, even "a pig of a man" like Trump. Hillary Clinton. Sometimes not their husbands though. Their sons? Yes. Sometimes. Sometimes not. Moreso than husbands? I think so. The mothering instinct? Yes, women have that. The daughter-father bond? Ivanka Trump. I would generalize that the daughter-father bond is more often (not always) stronger than the wife-husband bond. Is that what is going on in the Kellyanne-Trump relationship? Trump is old enough to be Kellyanne's father, but Kellyanne is 53. I don't see that from either's perspective. Obviously not in the Birx-Trump relationship. Do women, generally, have a more intense need to be "super indispensable" than do men? I don't know. Stockholm Syndrome? There certainly is some of that with Trump's cult.
I ended my own ruminations on that string of misogynistic maybes and maybe nots.
Then yesterday I realized that there was another instantiation of this constellation of speculations, Hope Hicks. She's baack. Has been back for a couple weeks. She escaped her captor, so throw out Stockholm Syndrome on her. Sex? Eww. Absolutely not. From either's perspective. And I read today that Trump does consider Hopie, as he calls her, almost as another of his daughters. That's from his perspective. Does Hope feel a daughter-father bond with Trump? I would bet not, I obviously do not know, I just would bet not. But like Dr. Birx and Ms Conway Hope Hicks does play up to Trump. "You're very big, this is very small" was her way of trying to talk Trump off his anger ledge. Whether it works or not you're going to stay in Trump's good graces if you praise him. From their perspective why would the women want to stay in the good graces of "a pig of a man"? The article I read said that Hope missed being at the center of power and history and all of that. That gestures powerfully toward "super indispensable," that is from the woman's perspective; that would explain Kellyanne Conway, Deborah Birx too. Proximity to power, "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," the woman behind the scenes, wanting to be "super indispensable," however phrased that notion seems to tick all the boxes.
"Super indispensable" comes at a cost. You're only as good as the reflected light you stand in. Once that light is gone, you may be too, literally. Ask, if you could, Jiang Jing, Madame Mao. Trump's is tarnished light. Stand in it and you too will stand in it's sickly orange glow. How many of Trump's ex's, men and women, went on to better things? Here is Sean Spicer's post-Trump career arc per Wikipedia:
After several low-profile months, Spicer made a cameo appearance at the presentation of the Emmy Awards...
Spicer announced in December 2017 on The Sean Hannity Show that he would release a book, The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President, in July 2018 about his tenure with the Trump administration.
On July 31, 2019, President Trump announced his intention to appoint Spicer to be a Member of the Board of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy.
In August 2019, Spicer was announced as a contestant on season 28 of Dancing with the Stars. This announcement was met with alarm...One ABC employee told CNN journalist Oliver Darcy: "It's a slap in the face to those of us who had to deal with his baloney and the consequences of the ongoing lies and disinformation campaign at the White House."...On the first installment of... the popular celebrity reality competition, Spicer wore a bright lime green shirt with ruffles while his dancing partner's dress prominently featured pineapples as they engaged in a salsa dance...
Starting in March 2020, Spicer hosts a political talk show for the channel Newsmax TV called Spicer & Co.
In other words, Sean Spicer hasn't been able to find work since. Who would want Spicer, Kellyanne Conway or Hope Hicks to work for them? They were nothing before working for Trump and will be nothing after he is gone. Deborah Birx was something before Trump but now? Man, who wants a doctor who turned in her lab coat and now wears a bright lime green shirt with ruffles and dances with a clown in a shirt with pineapples all over it. Dr. Birx will be selling snake oil on Fifth Avenue and doing commercials for Lysol.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Amid mounting speculation, South Korea says Kim Jong Un is 'alive and well'
(CNN)
Kim Jong Un might have been injured during April 14 missile tests
(The, and I quote "The Dong-A Ilbo")
Intelligence officials from U.S., South Korea say Kim Jong-un is alive
It's alarming that the intelligence services of three interested countries know next to nothing about this. Jesus.
Miami's Homicide Rate Lowest Since 1957
It's hard to envision Miami without murder. If people aren't killing each other what are they doing? Like for sex?
Any yinz ever heard of The Decameron?
Turns out the Middle Ages during the Plague was a lot like the current under the Trump Plague. 'Ceptin' only the well to do had the "privilege" to self-isolate. Guess what the Rich and Famous did? At least according to the author of The Decameron seven yung womenz and three guys decamped to an abandoned villa and abandoned all social sexual restraint. I bet that was done. Is it being done now? I wouldn't know, not like know-know. I am what I previously termed post-sexual, I have about as much interest in having sex as I do in getting Trump Plague. But, the Second Unfortunate ex-Mrs. Harris has had a live-in boyfriend for several years. He came back from a European country about a month ago, right in the middle of this thing, and they didn't sleep in the same bed for fourteen days which was also a not uncommon occurrence for me in thirteen years of marriage to the Second Unfortunate. But be that as it may, however, I was truly gabbersmocked by the intel that they slept in separate rooms. Each was asymptomatic when Guillame left, asymptomatic when they were apart, asymptomatic when he returned. So...wtf? I didn't get that. COVID-19 is not like AIDS, it is not a blood borne virus but an airborne virus so if you can avoid sneezing in each others faces during sex what exactly is the prob? Or why not my preferred modus operandi, the quickie? Or okay FINE! If you want to be extra, extra, extra careful why not do it like the Orthodox Jews do, through a hole in a sheet?
So getting back to The Decameron, are people really so flipped out about this that they're not having sex at all?! They wouldn't even go to an abandoned villa in Italy with peoplez and throw social constraint away like a used tissue? I would! I would now and revert to my pre- post-sexual life. That is a DREAM COME TRUE. And it is a dream come true for women, too, don't give me that shit, you would love to do it with seven guys and two other girls if you could get away with it you make me sick. But getting back to my answer to the question which I already done gave, I don't know what people are doing for sex. So yeah, that's this post. Welcome.
Any yinz ever heard of The Decameron?
Turns out the Middle Ages during the Plague was a lot like the current under the Trump Plague. 'Ceptin' only the well to do had the "privilege" to self-isolate. Guess what the Rich and Famous did? At least according to the author of The Decameron seven yung womenz and three guys decamped to an abandoned villa and abandoned all social sexual restraint. I bet that was done. Is it being done now? I wouldn't know, not like know-know. I am what I previously termed post-sexual, I have about as much interest in having sex as I do in getting Trump Plague. But, the Second Unfortunate ex-Mrs. Harris has had a live-in boyfriend for several years. He came back from a European country about a month ago, right in the middle of this thing, and they didn't sleep in the same bed for fourteen days which was also a not uncommon occurrence for me in thirteen years of marriage to the Second Unfortunate. But be that as it may, however, I was truly gabbersmocked by the intel that they slept in separate rooms. Each was asymptomatic when Guillame left, asymptomatic when they were apart, asymptomatic when he returned. So...wtf? I didn't get that. COVID-19 is not like AIDS, it is not a blood borne virus but an airborne virus so if you can avoid sneezing in each others faces during sex what exactly is the prob? Or why not my preferred modus operandi, the quickie? Or okay FINE! If you want to be extra, extra, extra careful why not do it like the Orthodox Jews do, through a hole in a sheet?
So getting back to The Decameron, are people really so flipped out about this that they're not having sex at all?! They wouldn't even go to an abandoned villa in Italy with peoplez and throw social constraint away like a used tissue? I would! I would now and revert to my pre- post-sexual life. That is a DREAM COME TRUE. And it is a dream come true for women, too, don't give me that shit, you would love to do it with seven guys and two other girls if you could get away with it you make me sick. But getting back to my answer to the question which I already done gave, I don't know what people are doing for sex. So yeah, that's this post. Welcome.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
I can’t believe I have to say this, but please don’t drink bleach.
2:25 PM · Apr 24, 2020TweetDeck
That was perfect. Lolol.
Un Dead?
So says a Hong Kong based reporter. A Japanese mag says the DPRK's Dear Leader is in a vegetative state following botched heart surgery. On the other, a source in South Korea told Reuters Friday he's fine and will make an appearance soon. Rumors only but they have been going on for days now. There's something going on, Un has missed one very important public event. There's no way he's fine and will make an appearance soon.
Faze Miyake
@FazeMiyake
·
2m
RIP Kim Jong Un bro your skin fade was inspiring.
Hey dude, I got first on that.
Faze Miyake
@FazeMiyake
·
2m
RIP Kim Jong Un bro your skin fade was inspiring.
Hey dude, I got first on that.
I have finished Schitt's Creek. All six seasons, all episodes. It is everything I thought it was when I saw the first trailers; sweet, adorable, so infused with love it oozes out.
A review, this is a review, would not be a review without some criticism. I do not have much and will not let the criticism overawe this transcendent, touching, hilarious, serious series.
Schitt's Creek is wildly popular in the United States. The screenwriters' lines for Alexis, David and Stevie are on tee shirts, of which I have one, or will whenever it is delivered (late); they are on license plates in several states, they are part of millennial nomenclature. Annie Murphy/Alexis Rose has set a fashion trend, not as all-enveloping as was that of Annie Hall in 1977 but still a trend setter.
Yet the show is not American at all. In fact, I believe the show has been ignored by American critics (not fans) by being an all-Canadian production: it is a CBC project filmed entirely in Canada; Eugene Levey, Dan Levy, Sarah Levy, Emily Hampshire, and Catherine O'Hara are all Canadian actors and the first three family members. Although it is based on the American Kardashian family Hollywood seems to have a stigma about an all-Canadian series. I think it has gotten shorter shrift than it merited, and any short shrift of Schitt's Creek is nothing short of absurd. That obviously is not a criticism of the concept, the production, the screenwriting or the actors. It has deservedly become a legendary series and that legend will live.
Annie Murphy/Alexis Rose is a North Star talent and character. And the screenwriters seemed to realize very early on that there was more to this character, and to this actress, than a Kim Kardashian imitation. Ms Murphy got the part over Eugene Levy's objection and at Dan's insistence because "she was so obviously a good person." Quite an eye there by young Levy. The screenwriters saw that and to their everlasting credit allowed little Alexis to be the one character in the series to truly grow. Alexis is the whole package, smart, competent, street wise, bold, opportunistic, beautiful, kind, diplomatic, hard-working. I was afraid they were going to have Alexis end up with that dolt Ted which would have been a syrupy match made in cinematic hell and sure to end in divorce. But, she finally let Ted go to his turtles and self-mating flies. That was not the life for Alexis Rose and was never going to be. At the end, having proven her nous to herself and to more than half of her brother, to all of Jocelyn, to half of Mr. and Mrs. Rose and to Stevie, little Alexis leaves to take her talents to the Big Apple. Alone. She turns down lottery multi-millionaire Twyla's offer of a little start up money as a going-away gift with, "If I am going to do this on my own, I am going to do this on my own." Alexis will find a great, good man in New York who is the entire package, as is she. Alexis is the visionary and guiding light, the uber-competent character in the series. Innumerable times she helps her mother and her brother; she gets half-acknowledgment from David, 100% but indirect, jealous, thieving acknowledgment from Moira/Ms O'Hara, and, repeating, from insightful Jocelyn. When she alone gets the family out of the escape room game it is she who makes her own escape from the family.
Moira Rose/Catherine O'Hara is and remains as her husband, not realizing, said one time, an "embittered person with too much time on her hands." The Moira character does not grow, not a bit. She is a caricature of a doddering dowager. It is boggling and to me infuriating that Ms. O'Hara has gotten such positive critical reception while Ms. Murphy has got almost none. Annie Murphy is the star and Alexis Rose the most memorable character and she lapped the field of competition, thanks to the intuition of Dan Levy and the screenwriters.
Dan Levy/David Rose, weirdly, since he is playing himself and he and this father are co-creators, does not grow. He regresses to a child-like screeching petulance and dependence. David is not as bright as Alexis, nor as competent or shrewd, is not as kind or insightful and when he meets Patrick he has met his superior who will take care of him for the rest of his life. Weird, that. Maybe that's who Dan Levy is, or what the screenwriters saw Dan Levy as being. But, no growth.
Emily Hampshire/Stevie Budd is the perpetual third wheel in the series, the episodes, and the scenes. The Stevie character had more to offer. She is also shrewd, she is centered, she is ambitious, and I kept waiting for a Stevie breakthrough. Others did too. I saw a headline that season six was to be Stevie's season. It seemed that way after her performance in Cabaret. But that was season five and when season six picked up she was back to being shunted into her role as plaid-shirt and-jeans-wearing small town motel operator after flailing as on again off again partner in Mr Rose's motel franchising business, in a short, unhappy stab at being a flight attendant for a regional airline that in corruption and incompetence could have been called Trump Air instead of Larry Air. The screenwriters did not seem to have a handle on the Stevie character and they made a minor, but being minor, an unforgivable mistake on her. In one episode a jealous, teasing David is sitting in the motel lobby reading a book. It turns out to be Stevie's high school yearbook. "What are you reading?" Stevie asks in knowing embarrassment. David approaches the counter. Stevie was voted most likely to get the guy, David says. And the girls too! Stevie as bisexual. But then, I think in the very next episode Stevie and David have the iconic "red wine, white wine" (print the tee shirts) conversation. Shopping together for some party or other Stevie modestly and almost in a whisper says, "I like red wine drinker. I only like red wine. And until last night (when they had had sex) I thought you only liked red wine too." Stevie as flamboyantly heterosexual. Bird pump, there.
The screenplay's use of he characters is formulaic. Each of the main characters, Johnny and Moira Rose, one set; David and often David and Alexis or David and Stevie or David and male lovers, another set; Alexis, Alexis and David, Alexis and boyfriends, the third and final major set, and it seems to me that so covetous were each of these sets in their face time that they must have had it in their contracts that they would get more or less one third of the scenes in every fucking episode, no matter what, no matter the revelation of Ms. Murphy/Alexis, no matter the promise of Stevie. It was stilted how there was never a deviation from the divvying up.
So you end with some criticism and that highlights it. No, I shan't let that happen. +'s and -'s Schitt's Creek is a miracle, it is luminous, it is good without being syrupy, it is as near perfect as a TV series and human beings can be. Schitt's Creek is the True North. It will live as long as cinema does. God bless the Levys, the screenwriters, Ms Hampshire, and especially the divine North Star, Annie Murphy/Alexis Rose.
Good night friends. And enemies.
A review, this is a review, would not be a review without some criticism. I do not have much and will not let the criticism overawe this transcendent, touching, hilarious, serious series.
Schitt's Creek is wildly popular in the United States. The screenwriters' lines for Alexis, David and Stevie are on tee shirts, of which I have one, or will whenever it is delivered (late); they are on license plates in several states, they are part of millennial nomenclature. Annie Murphy/Alexis Rose has set a fashion trend, not as all-enveloping as was that of Annie Hall in 1977 but still a trend setter.
Yet the show is not American at all. In fact, I believe the show has been ignored by American critics (not fans) by being an all-Canadian production: it is a CBC project filmed entirely in Canada; Eugene Levey, Dan Levy, Sarah Levy, Emily Hampshire, and Catherine O'Hara are all Canadian actors and the first three family members. Although it is based on the American Kardashian family Hollywood seems to have a stigma about an all-Canadian series. I think it has gotten shorter shrift than it merited, and any short shrift of Schitt's Creek is nothing short of absurd. That obviously is not a criticism of the concept, the production, the screenwriting or the actors. It has deservedly become a legendary series and that legend will live.
Annie Murphy/Alexis Rose is a North Star talent and character. And the screenwriters seemed to realize very early on that there was more to this character, and to this actress, than a Kim Kardashian imitation. Ms Murphy got the part over Eugene Levy's objection and at Dan's insistence because "she was so obviously a good person." Quite an eye there by young Levy. The screenwriters saw that and to their everlasting credit allowed little Alexis to be the one character in the series to truly grow. Alexis is the whole package, smart, competent, street wise, bold, opportunistic, beautiful, kind, diplomatic, hard-working. I was afraid they were going to have Alexis end up with that dolt Ted which would have been a syrupy match made in cinematic hell and sure to end in divorce. But, she finally let Ted go to his turtles and self-mating flies. That was not the life for Alexis Rose and was never going to be. At the end, having proven her nous to herself and to more than half of her brother, to all of Jocelyn, to half of Mr. and Mrs. Rose and to Stevie, little Alexis leaves to take her talents to the Big Apple. Alone. She turns down lottery multi-millionaire Twyla's offer of a little start up money as a going-away gift with, "If I am going to do this on my own, I am going to do this on my own." Alexis will find a great, good man in New York who is the entire package, as is she. Alexis is the visionary and guiding light, the uber-competent character in the series. Innumerable times she helps her mother and her brother; she gets half-acknowledgment from David, 100% but indirect, jealous, thieving acknowledgment from Moira/Ms O'Hara, and, repeating, from insightful Jocelyn. When she alone gets the family out of the escape room game it is she who makes her own escape from the family.
Moira Rose/Catherine O'Hara is and remains as her husband, not realizing, said one time, an "embittered person with too much time on her hands." The Moira character does not grow, not a bit. She is a caricature of a doddering dowager. It is boggling and to me infuriating that Ms. O'Hara has gotten such positive critical reception while Ms. Murphy has got almost none. Annie Murphy is the star and Alexis Rose the most memorable character and she lapped the field of competition, thanks to the intuition of Dan Levy and the screenwriters.
Dan Levy/David Rose, weirdly, since he is playing himself and he and this father are co-creators, does not grow. He regresses to a child-like screeching petulance and dependence. David is not as bright as Alexis, nor as competent or shrewd, is not as kind or insightful and when he meets Patrick he has met his superior who will take care of him for the rest of his life. Weird, that. Maybe that's who Dan Levy is, or what the screenwriters saw Dan Levy as being. But, no growth.
Emily Hampshire/Stevie Budd is the perpetual third wheel in the series, the episodes, and the scenes. The Stevie character had more to offer. She is also shrewd, she is centered, she is ambitious, and I kept waiting for a Stevie breakthrough. Others did too. I saw a headline that season six was to be Stevie's season. It seemed that way after her performance in Cabaret. But that was season five and when season six picked up she was back to being shunted into her role as plaid-shirt and-jeans-wearing small town motel operator after flailing as on again off again partner in Mr Rose's motel franchising business, in a short, unhappy stab at being a flight attendant for a regional airline that in corruption and incompetence could have been called Trump Air instead of Larry Air. The screenwriters did not seem to have a handle on the Stevie character and they made a minor, but being minor, an unforgivable mistake on her. In one episode a jealous, teasing David is sitting in the motel lobby reading a book. It turns out to be Stevie's high school yearbook. "What are you reading?" Stevie asks in knowing embarrassment. David approaches the counter. Stevie was voted most likely to get the guy, David says. And the girls too! Stevie as bisexual. But then, I think in the very next episode Stevie and David have the iconic "red wine, white wine" (print the tee shirts) conversation. Shopping together for some party or other Stevie modestly and almost in a whisper says, "I like red wine drinker. I only like red wine. And until last night (when they had had sex) I thought you only liked red wine too." Stevie as flamboyantly heterosexual. Bird pump, there.
The screenplay's use of he characters is formulaic. Each of the main characters, Johnny and Moira Rose, one set; David and often David and Alexis or David and Stevie or David and male lovers, another set; Alexis, Alexis and David, Alexis and boyfriends, the third and final major set, and it seems to me that so covetous were each of these sets in their face time that they must have had it in their contracts that they would get more or less one third of the scenes in every fucking episode, no matter what, no matter the revelation of Ms. Murphy/Alexis, no matter the promise of Stevie. It was stilted how there was never a deviation from the divvying up.
So you end with some criticism and that highlights it. No, I shan't let that happen. +'s and -'s Schitt's Creek is a miracle, it is luminous, it is good without being syrupy, it is as near perfect as a TV series and human beings can be. Schitt's Creek is the True North. It will live as long as cinema does. God bless the Levys, the screenwriters, Ms Hampshire, and especially the divine North Star, Annie Murphy/Alexis Rose.
Good night friends. And enemies.
Friday, April 24, 2020
Wanna play a fun game? How long will it take the Trump War to surpass the Vietnam War in number of Americans killed?
58,220: Vietnam War, November 1, 1955-April 30, 1975 (That's what the Wikipedia says Pilgrim, I didn't think it was that long either.)
-51,017: Trump War, January 22, 2020 (first U.S. Trump Virus case) through April 24, 2020. Can you believe that? Trumpie has killed almost as many in three months as the visible sometimes invisible enemy in V-nam killed in 19 1/2 years! Oh this Trump, he's good.
7,203 to go for Trumpie. At 1,000/day early next Sunday. At 500/day mid-day May 3! The guy is just killin' it.
58,220: Vietnam War, November 1, 1955-April 30, 1975 (That's what the Wikipedia says Pilgrim, I didn't think it was that long either.)
-51,017: Trump War, January 22, 2020 (first U.S. Trump Virus case) through April 24, 2020. Can you believe that? Trumpie has killed almost as many in three months as the visible sometimes invisible enemy in V-nam killed in 19 1/2 years! Oh this Trump, he's good.
7,203 to go for Trumpie. At 1,000/day early next Sunday. At 500/day mid-day May 3! The guy is just killin' it.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
The Trump Death
On April 17, Saturday, the Second Unfortunate Ex-Mrs Harris sent the First Unfortunate Mr Harris a FiveThirtyEight article the import of which was that experts thought that those Killed by Trump due to the Trump Epidemic "will" hit 50,000 by the end of April. As with all FiveThirtyEight projections this one was off by a week. At this particular moment in the rent fabric of space/time the Trump Death has claimed 49,861 lives.
Have a blessed evening.
Have a blessed evening.
WASHINGTON — President Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.
He has been up in the White House master bedroom as early as 5 a.m. watching Fox News, then CNN, with a dollop of MSNBC thrown in for rage viewing. He makes calls with the TV on in the background, his routine since he first arrived at the White House.
But now there are differences.
...
Confined to the White House, the president is isolated from the supporters, visitors, travel and golf that once entertained him, according to more than a dozen administration officials and close advisers who spoke about Mr. Trump’s strange new life.
...The economy — Mr. Trump’s main case for re-election — has imploded. News coverage of his handling of the coronavirus has been overwhelmingly negative...
...His own internal polling shows him sliding in some swing states...Friends who have spoken to him said he seemed unsettled and worried about losing the election.
But the president’s primary focus, advisers said, is assessing how his performance on the virus is measured in the news media,
[priorities s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t]
and the extent to which history will blame him.
[Clue: TRUMP VIRUS, TRUMP EPIDEMIC, TRUMP DEATH.]
...
The daily White House coronavirus task force briefing is the one portion of the day that Mr. Trump looks forward to...
...Aides say he views them as prime-time shows that are the best substitute for the rallies he can no longer attend but craves.
Mr. Trump rarely attends the task force meetings that precede the briefings, and he typically does not prepare before he steps in front of the cameras.
[Which explains injecting disenfectants and UV light I got it.]
He is often seeing the final version of the day’s main talking points that aides have prepared for him for the first time...He hastily plows through them, usually in a monotone, in order to get to the question-and-answer bullying session with reporters that he relishes.
[Why again do you guys cover them just curious.]
...
After he is done watching the end of the daily White House briefing—
He has been up in the White House master bedroom as early as 5 a.m. watching Fox News, then CNN, with a dollop of MSNBC thrown in for rage viewing. He makes calls with the TV on in the background, his routine since he first arrived at the White House.
But now there are differences.
...
Confined to the White House, the president is isolated from the supporters, visitors, travel and golf that once entertained him, according to more than a dozen administration officials and close advisers who spoke about Mr. Trump’s strange new life.
...The economy — Mr. Trump’s main case for re-election — has imploded. News coverage of his handling of the coronavirus has been overwhelmingly negative...
...His own internal polling shows him sliding in some swing states...Friends who have spoken to him said he seemed unsettled and worried about losing the election.
But the president’s primary focus, advisers said, is assessing how his performance on the virus is measured in the news media,
[priorities s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t]
and the extent to which history will blame him.
[Clue: TRUMP VIRUS, TRUMP EPIDEMIC, TRUMP DEATH.]
...
The daily White House coronavirus task force briefing is the one portion of the day that Mr. Trump looks forward to...
...Aides say he views them as prime-time shows that are the best substitute for the rallies he can no longer attend but craves.
Mr. Trump rarely attends the task force meetings that precede the briefings, and he typically does not prepare before he steps in front of the cameras.
[Which explains injecting disenfectants and UV light I got it.]
He is often seeing the final version of the day’s main talking points that aides have prepared for him for the first time...He hastily plows through them, usually in a monotone, in order to get to the question-and-answer bullying session with reporters that he relishes.
[Why again do you guys cover them just curious.]
...
After he is done watching the end of the daily White House briefing—
[Which is the one thing he looks forward to in the day, not the briefing, "the bullying session with reporters." Why don't you guys bully him right back? Aren't you supposed to stand up to a bully?]
which is held seven days a week and sometimes goes as late as 8 p.m. —. Trump watches television in his private dining room off the Oval Office.
[So: up as early as 5 a.m. watching TV till as late as noon; Starts the bullying at Pause: What time do those bullying sessions begin?...It looks like...Unpause. 5:30 p.m till as late as 8 p.m. and then watches TV afterwards, till when, beddy bye time? Okay so rounding up let's say he watches TV from 6 till umm, 10:30, is that fair?, administers the struggle session from let's say 6 p..m. to 7 p.m., watches the post-game recap till 10 p.m., gets the blowjob from Jared and is asleep at 11 p.m.: That's 8 1/2 hours of watching TV on or about himself (which includes the one hour struggle session but not the blowjob from Jared); yeah, isn't that pretty much the average amount of time the average Trump Low Life spends watching TV? Seems a normal low life. Which explains why we're where we are now doesn't it? Feel better?]
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/politics/coronavirus-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/politics/coronavirus-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
This Didn't Help
"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too."
"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning...so it would be interesting to check that."
The man is mad. Stark raving MAD. And this Noted Imbecile is POTUS. Zat make you feel better?
"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning...so it would be interesting to check that."
The man is mad. Stark raving MAD. And this Noted Imbecile is POTUS. Zat make you feel better?
You see I finished season five of Schitt's Creek for free on dailymotion this morning. I felt a "void." Not having Schitt's Creek to watch constitutes a "void" in these times. I don't like that. Now I have to decide whether to watch all of the season six episodes on Amazon Prime for $24.99. This constitutes "decision-making" in these times. I don't like that.
I built with my own hands a large part of two cottages and extensive kitchen-garden walls, and made all kinds of rockeries and waterworks and a large swimming-pool which was filtered to limpidity...Thus I never had a dull or idle moment from morning till midnight, and...dwelt at peace within my habitation.
Oh yeah! He was doing grreat! That's why he titled this chapter "The Locust Years". Churchill, The Gathering Storm. Never a dull moment out of power in The Locust Years building those rockeries in The Gathering Storm.
Oh yeah! He was doing grreat! That's why he titled this chapter "The Locust Years". Churchill, The Gathering Storm. Never a dull moment out of power in The Locust Years building those rockeries in The Gathering Storm.
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