The Newsroom - this clip, from the pilot, you’ve probably seen.

Deep dives into 21st century US History, as it happened in real time. Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) style. Remixed with melodrama about the people within the Newsroom. Sloan Sabbith is my favourite.

Topics include:

• Deepwater Horizon

• SB 1070 (Arizona’s racist detention law)

• the Gabrielle Giffords shooting

• Arab Spring

• Citizens United ruling

• Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident

• the Death of Osama bin Laden

• Glass-Steagall Act (this video threads a few scenes together)

• the Tea Party (described as the American Taliban) - significant because The Tea Party is antecedent to MAGA

• Occupy Wall Street

• The Boston Marathon bombing

• Climate Polycrisis (chef’s kiss)

• Edward Snowden leaks

This is most my contact with others who read what I read and write what I write or think about what I think about. And, I vent here. Sure. I’ll admit it.

The North American town I now live in is decidedly not like me. I work with youth. I parent young children. 21st century parents, and those who marry into my partners social orbit, need to book engagements five months to a year in advance.

So, this is just easier.

Also: Fuck Reddit. Fuck Xitter. Fuck Meta. That’s the venting. I quit, gave up, or got hacked on all of them. Admittedly, I use WhatsApp to appease my extended family, workplace, and some friends. I’d dip back to T9 SMS if I could.

And I use Bluesky to microblog — keeping a timeline of the tragicomic decline and fall of the Western empire. And books.

Looking for the alternate name for the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (the Gate of Grief), sent me looking for other strategic “choke” points.

Aljazeera came through with the first one that was descriptive and visually informative, though they skipped the Strait of Magellan, probably because it’s not a shipping lane for oil. Published this year.

Follow this with Best in Show.

Please watch all of Brad Bird’s writer-credit movies. All are fun. Only Tomorrowland is… odd.

• Genetic-level diagnoses and treatments.

• Inexpensive, rapid genome sequencing.

• Commonplace genetic counselling for more than just pregnancy.

• Laws in place to govern the collection, use, ownership, and patenting of human genes and genetic information.

• Cloned tissues (i.e. blood, skin), organs (i.e. heart, lungs, kidneys) for transplant or repair.

I graduated university the same year the Human Genome Project first published completion. Certainly, that project uncovered more questions than answers.

Also, we’ve done an absolutely garbage job of becoming appropriate stewards of this technology. Primarily, today, it would be used to identify, segregate, subjugate, and eventually kill a portion of the population.

I think there was a POW scene in Magnum P.I. that was a lot for little me. Not sure episode/season.

Honestly, though, coming to the realization at abput 13 that the “General Lee” and the prominent placement for Confederate flags the Dukes of Hazzard represent an American South that promotes white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and segregation — all antithetical to my BIPOC existence.

The cognitive dissonance involved in the song, pre-programming me to lend them the excuse that they’re “just a good ol’ boys…” — yeah, my parents should’ve known better.

The thoughts I had for Daisy Duke would’ve had me lynched, like Emmitt Till, under that flag. Still might.

Seven Seconds by Youssou N’dour and Neneh Cherry (French and English)

• this was my first foray into “world music” in, like Grade 7.

Sadeness by Enigma (Latin and French)

Miserere by Arvo Pärt (Latin)

The Expanse by Clinton Shorter (Old Norse?)

Disappointment by Moon (Russian?)

Also, I lived in Korea when Gangnam Style dropped. It was magical at the outset, but now… well, hyperexposure is a real thing. But, good on Psy for his work.

Ee-ahn’-aw-oh(ng)-oo(ng) for robot to vehicle. And quickly.

I’ve used this so many times. Now I need to employ Wilhoit’s composition as well.

Perhaps both, together.

You make an excellent point.

Perhaps, instead of “celebrating”, the opposite of “[vicious] harassment and [ignorant] hatefulness” is virtuous identification and commitment to learning. Thoughts?

Its centered on the US because they’re harming themselves and everyone else all at once. “Flooding the zone” as it were. What’s there to be done but stand on principle and dominate the narrative.

Inception, followed by a kick.

Thanks for that. And true, Durden was not the best to offer. I meant it to be jarring. I meant it to reach out to the disaffected youth and the millennials and the middle of the road white boys. It is anachronistic. And, you might note, it’s no longer about Douglass in that last sentence. It’s us. We, now, are, and should be, pissed off.

The thing is, black anger has always been regarded a threat. My anger has always been a threat. So, I picked one of my heroes as a picture. One of the first of ‘the other’ to take command of his own photographic image. But the current state of affairs — which has never changed — caused me to co-opt the words that, in some readings (like the one you shared), spurred on the Tea Partiers, the “basket of deplorables”, and the Red Hats. An inversion, or, if you like, a suplex for those words.

It was not the smartest, or most apt move. But, it’s what I chose. And published. And am responsible for.

Thanks for your insight.

Added it to my list of upcoming reads.

That’s an incredible quote. I still need to read more Douglass. Thank you!

Also, nice turn toward the positive there at the end.

Oh, it’s much, much, much less than that.

0.0000416%, 1/24 millionth of the sky.

Here, a .gif on Reddit

It confirmed the cosmic insignificance of Earth, the profound vastness of space and time, and — at the same time — the rarity, beauty, and fragility of life. Human perception, memory, and understanding is tiny. But, it reaches toward infinity.

this portrait of Frederick Douglass—an escaped slave who had become a lauded speaker, writer, and abolitionist agitator—is a striking exception. Northeastern Ohio was a center of abolitionism prior to the Civil War, and Douglass knew that this picture, one of an astonishing number that he commissioned or posed for, would be seen by ardent supporters of his campaign to end slavery. Douglass was an intelligent manager of his public image and likely guided Miller in projecting his intensity and sheer force of character. As a result, this portrait demonstrates that Douglass truly appeared “majestic in his wrath,” as the nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed.

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/145681/frederick-douglass

Im glad you’ve said this. Before I saw The Death of Yugoslavia, I honestly believed that modern warfare was clean, clinical, and restricted to willing combatants. That the Geneva Conventions, various constitutional statements, and human honour and decency were a part of modern wars. At least since Vietnam.

No. I was disabused of that notion by this documentary. Yes, I agree, the BBC shouldn’t have the last word on a war in Eastern Europe. The BBC probably shouldn’t have the last word on anything. However, they did happen to have the first word — to me — on the importance of understanding how modern wars get started, how they progress, and chillingly, why they don’t end. It’s a sad, slow, solemn march into oblivion.

I’m not going to argue the utility of the comment.

I said, didn’t I?, it was a throwaway line — vaguely connected for a 7-minute, TikTok-friendly scene with a cameo by a pretty solid character actor. Anything to keep 10% of readers interested for one more paragraph — this attention economy is the pits.

You seem like a film/media purist. What consumable, catchy, full-length film helps you to make sense of Mr. Toad’s wild ride into authoritarianism?

Not pertinent.

…

…

Yet.

ech@ is right. I threw that reference in there for no good reason.

Yet, that Jesse Plemons scene (spoiler!) is feeling pretty chilling to some. But that’s all. For now. I had Kyle Rittenhouse vibes off of that. Linked article reminds us, he was acquitted.

But for whatever an answer to the question is worth: It’s a solid 6.5/10 movie. I’ve not felt the need for a second viewing. Watching America tear itself apart in real-time is a little more pertinent.