Caligula and the Decadent Society

Greetings, gentle readers.
Well, today I feel like speculating wildly and irresponsibly in an almost slanderous manner about thoroughly debauched and sexually depraved things.  But first, the songs that accompanied my shower this morning.

Shower Sing-a-longs

• I'm Gonna Lock My Heart, by Billie Holiday
• Midnight Special, performed by Van Morrison
• UFOs, Big Rigs, & BBQ, by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper
• Time Machine, by Grand Funk Railroad
• Special Brew, by Bad Manners
• Kung-Fu, by Ash
• The Philosophers' Song, by Monty Python
• Kashmir, by Led Zeppelin

Not About Lust, But Power

Let's consider the Roman Emperor Caligula.  You may even want to refer to Bob Guccione's 1979 Penthouse production in so doing.  After all, that film was packed to the gunwales with Oscar-winning legends and royally-imbued titles, so it must have some legitimacy.  In any event, the story of Caligula involves a very small-minded person being elevated to a position of supreme, all-corrupting power.  Like some sort of schoolyard bully, the feeble-brained individual constantly seeks to assert and demonstrate power through the degradation and humiliation of others, particularly in sadistic and sexual ways.
The story of Caligula came to mind when I saw the newly-appointed American ambassador to Canada.  You can see the train wreck of her introduction to Canadian Governor-General Julie Payette HERE.  The contrast between astronaut-engineer Payette and air-headed bimbo Kelly Knight Craft is so stark that it beggars the imagination to create a metaphor.
One is forced to ask - what is a silicone-bosomed trophy wife of a billionaire political donor doing in the same room as role-model-for-people-everywhere Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada?  What is a celebrated astronaut doing talking to someone who respects "both sides" of climate science?  What are the two sides of climate science?  The right one and the wrong one?  There are facts and evidence, and then there aren't, I suppose.
In any event, there seems to be a confluence of trends here.  First of all, Trump does not nominate, hire, or elevate women to a significant number of high-power or high-profile positions. The exact analysis of female representation in the administration can be found HERE.  Second, the women that are appointed or nominated tend to either have connections to political donors (e.g., Betsy DeVos, Linda McMahon) or be younger and more physically attractive than Melania Trump (e.g., Hope Hicks, Julia Hahn).  Third, the women tend to be so ignorant as to cause a societal recalibration of blissfulness.
So what we've got is an insecure bully who queues up the big money donors - the billionaires to whom the Republican National Committee bends the knee and grovels - and he takes their prize, middle-aged blonde women, to assign and delegate as he wishes.  What better way to declare mastery of the party and control over the Executive Branch of Congress than by personally bullying every individual power-broker in the Capitol?  One's imagination may roam to the film version of Caligula, where the Emperor marches into a wedding and declares his omnipotence by taking the new bride and raping her on the kitchen table in front of the cuckolded groom.
I haven't suggested that there would be any "pussy-grabbing" or other such direct, physical impropriety involved in an impotent power figure striving desperately to create the illusion of complete control, but I wouldn't abjectly rule it out of the realm of possibilities.  Particularly since my imagination isn't great enough to encompass and understand how such a sexual dynamic of dominance could be extended into the bizarre fantasies of a narcissist demanding incestuous pleasure from his own daughter in a twisted form of self-love.

"I like it when she calls me Daddy."

Greek Mythology and Mick Jagger

Meanwhile, in the world of stuff that isn't bone-chillingly awful, I've come to the realization that a lot of Rolling Stones tracks have rhythms and cadences that lend themselves to lyrics containing Hellenic mythological references.  For example, I found myself singing along to "Honky Tony Women" the other day.  The lyrics ended up sounding something like this...

I met him in a bar room scene down in Corinth,
He tried to eat some apples on the side
I told him, this ain't the Hesperides
He took my cue and tried to make me blind
He's a he-e-e-e-ca-ton-CHI-re!
Give me, give me, give me the hundred hand blues.

I seem to recall singing similarly-themed lyrics to "Brown Sugar" but it's late and I can't be arsed to remember them now.
And in so saying, I must needs bid adieu.  Exhaustion creeps upon me like rosy-fingered dawn.  I'll try to remember to toss down a few notes about the films that I've watched recently in an attempt to spoil them for as many people as possible, particularly those that judge a film's quality by the size of its box office revenues.
Until then, good night England, and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Latissimus Sore-say

Greetings, gentle readers.
Well, I'm suffering unduly again, both from some sort of latissimus dorsi aggravation and the pestering to increase my opiate dosage from the people who have to live with my gasps and groans on a day-to-day basis.  I'm genuinely concerned about addiction, so I'm hoping that grunting through the unhappiness in the short term will lead to a most positive state of affairs in the long term.
Just to get it out of the way, here is my song list from my last shower.  Whether there is any relevance between the minutiae of this stochastic agglutination of informational data and the current state of anything in general or particular is up to any individual's create ability to infer and create connections to form patterns.

Musical Medley

• Deliwe, by Johnny Clegg and Juluka
• Fun Fun Fun, by the Beach Boys
• Happy Nation, by Ace of Base
• Get a Job/Stand Down Margaret, by the English Beat
• Take Five, by the Dave Brubeck Quartet

Idle Ramblings

Also of note recently is the Trump Administration's fumbling with the release of the JFK assassination files.  Here are the important bits.

• JFK was killed in November, 1963.
• The Warren Commission says he was killed by a lone gunman in 1964.
• A congressional probe in 1979 confirmed the Warren Commission's findings.
• Oliver Stone releases "JFK" in 1991; the film advances several conspiracy theories.
• The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 sets October 26, 2017 as the legally binding date at which point all of the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. files must be made publicly available.
• On 23rd October 2017, President Trump announces that he will be releasing the JFK files, implying that it is his personal directive, and that he should receive all responsibility and recognition.
• On 26th October 2017, President Trump announces the release of 2,891 documents, but, because of a loophole in the 1992 law, admits that approximately 400 documents will be withheld for a period not exceeding six months while the contents are redacted (i.e., certain names, dates, places are going to be blotted out.)

JFK was assassinated 54 years ago.  I'm relatively certain that any experienced spymaster or military specialist that was operating at the time is now defunct in one way or another.  The risks to national security at this point must be considered trivial, or else one must consider the possibility that the agencies involved are so thoroughly incompetent that a 54 year-old reveal of one piece of information will make their entire kingdom crumble.
In any event, the president's boisterous blustering once again makes the cynics wonder - where is the real news item, since this sort of idiotic bumbling on the world stage is invariably tied to the de-emphasis of something very politically distasteful.
And so we wait for the other shoe to drop and crush something dignified and authentic.
Thanks very much for wading through my rambling and turgid text.
Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Doubled Digits

Greetings, gentle readers.
Before I launch into another inflammatory rant about society, culture, technology, and aesthetics, I'll quickly rattle off the assorted musical tracks that serenaded me during my last shower.  My iPod Nano always manages to throw a few head-scratching juxtapositions into every playlist.

Sudsy Songs

• Kentucky Moon, by the Kinks
• The Machine in the Ghost, by Apollo 440
• How, by Lisa Loeb
• Beware My Love, by Matthew Sweet
• Once Upon a Time in the West (Live), by Dire Straits

Thank You For Your Service

Hollywood has just released a new film, entitled "Thank You For Your Service," starring Miles Teller and another host of forgettable B-list celebs.  It just seems suspicious that a film with this exact title should be released a year after another film titled "Thank You for Your Service" was released.  The 2016 film was openly critical of the failure of the United States military to address mental issues facing servicemen and women, and placed that failure within the context of the cavalcade of aimless and worthless conflicts into which these people are thrown.
Call it idle conjecture if you will, but releasing a 2017 film with exactly the same title, but with a positive spin on the United States military-industrial complex sounds an awful lot like a public relations manoeuvre.
The relationship between the entertainment industry and the U.S. military is not dissimilar to the relationship between the entertainment industry and sexual impropriety or paedophilia - it's all-pervasive.  As this article asserts, very few films are released without being screened by members of the CIA or NSA:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/operation-tinseltown-how-the-cia-manipulates-hollywood/491138/
It also seems oddly coincidental that, as the USAF starts to re-draft retired pilots for lack of experienced personnel, there seem to be an awful lot of pro-military, propagandist releases.
In fact, the amendments to the presidential executive order seem to be worded in just such a way that ALL retired servicepeople are eligible for drafting. 
https://www.salon.com/2017/10/20/trump-signs-executive-order-to-draft-retired-pilots-back-into-military-service/
Just as America starts to run low on the number of (straight, cisgendered) people willing to become cannon-fodder in meaningless conflicts, television shows like "Valor", "SEAL Team", and "The Brave" suddenly crop up.  Too few people to send on "patrol" in Afghanistan?  Make some sexy military soap operas to make being hung out to dry in a field of hostiles every day palatable, even desirable.  It wouldn't surprise me to learn that

• the advertising airtime for these TV shows is peppered with 30-second recruitment spots
• the productions are subsidized by the military, including free leases of equipment and footage
• all scripts and releases are vetted by military personnel.

Bottom line:  America is run by the military-industrial complex, and they are running out of worker-drones to fly the actual drones.  They need more simple-minded non-college graduates to reproduce and then die in the field.  Caring for the wounded and disabled is just a drain on resources.  Body bags from Niger are more convenient than amputees from Kirkuk.  And you can't draft people with critical thinking skills like Pat Tillman.  You have to kill those shit-disturbers yourself.  Ask Steven Elliott.  So make education prohibitively expensive and restrict birth control so that we can get back to the good old system of keeping the poor people breeding and fighting wars on behalf of the interests of the privileged financial elite.
And I think that's enough venting of spleen and ichor on my part.
Thank you very much for your attention, ladies and gentlemen and until next time, it's goodnight England and the colonies,\
—mARKUS

Dorsal Cartography

Greetings, gentle readers.
I just thought to cast a few of my thoughts about the recent public explosion of emotion surrounding sexual harassment in the workplace, and Harvey Weinstein and his Hollywood empire in particular.  I've got a few pointed remarks and a few bits of cowardice to toss into the cauldron of open discussion in the agora of ideas, but I'll do my most recent songlist first, to see if there are any cognitive patterns that can be gleaned from these titles and/or artists, in this order, at this time.  In other words, I am forcing you, the reader, to wade through some self-indulgent intellectual exercise before I start stirring up some bits in the pot of global controversy.

Words of Nano Wisdom

• China Cat Sunflower, by the Grateful Dead
• Dr. Evil Edit, by the Alan Parsons Project
• Kevin Carter, by the Manic Street Preachers
• John the Revelator, written by Son House, performed by Taj Mahal, Sam Moore, and Cab Blues
• Brazil is Full of Love, by DJ Earworm, featuring Death Cab for Cutie
• Thinking Up, Looking Down, by the Lightning Seeds
• Sea of Joy, by Blind Faith

And now, the Dynamite

This week's "revelations" about Harvey Weinstein and his sexual predations upon young starlets in Hollywood ought not to surprise anyone.  The term "casting couch" has been around ever since the early days of the industry, and it is not without its foundations in historical fact.  The title of Hollywood producer has been a prized position for many a lecherous soul, and many people with cash reserves to equal their libidinous appetites have leapt wholeheartedly into the industry.  Howard Hughes didn't decide to bankroll Jane Russell feature films because of some sort of philanthropic bent, and Roman Polanski may be thoroughly altruistic, but you wouldn't know it from looking at his rap sheet.
These are not just rumours.  Actors and actresses have been shrieking about this for years.  In the most obvious case, we have Corey Haim and Corey Feldman - the former is deceased, the latter features prominently in "An Open Secret."  (URL:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfWFjWnuCQE) Both, but more particularly Haim, since he's still alive, have alleged sexual harassment, abuse, and rape.  Maybe they were ignored because they are males, and who cares if they get molested, they're the privileged gender, right?
But lets dial back to the 1980s, when Carrie Fisher (post Princess-Leia) wrote in "Postcards from the Edge" in 1987 and "Surrender the Pink" in 1990 about the casting couch culture.  In fact, the very phrase "surrender the pink" is something Fisher said that she experienced firsthand from a producer.  She didn't say, but it may well have been Weinstein.  No-one cared about what Fisher said thirty years ago.  Why start now?
So we know that Hollywood is fraught with manipulative sexual predators.  We also know, from the success of the #MeToo campaign, that a tremendous amount of workplace environments, and indeed, other social environments are rife with sexually exploitative individuals.  What is the significance of the timing of this outpouring of solidarity of the victimized?  Is it because someone finally harpooned one of the white whales?  Weinstein has been caught, so now it is safe for not only his victims, but for ALL victims of such harassment to come forth, share their experiences, build a figurative campfire around which to sing "Kumbaya," and enjoy the warm communal snuggle of a more enlightened world.
But...
No one built a worldwide social media movement when Bill Cosby was formulated and fixed upon a pin of public scrutiny for his indiscretions with women and quaaludes.  That was sexual harassment and assault upon women with decreased ability to give consent.  He's an entertainment figure.  Why is his case different from Weinstein's?
What if the big difference here is guilt?  What if the people who now claim past victimhood of the Hollywood casting couch culture feel compelled to condemn it now because they rode its mechanisms to fame and are now ashamed of themselves and their own behaviour?  Over the past two decades, we have seen the extent to which people will go in order to gain any measure of fame.  People have virtually prostituted themselves in an effort to get tabloid headlines, TMZ airtime, reality TV productions, fashion lines, and fragrances because a celebrity-driven culture craves famous people, even if they aren't particularly talented, skilled, or humane.  How many women agreed to watch Harvey wank into a potted plant in exchange for a role in a Ben Affleck film, only to feel miserable afterwards when the film stank and their performance was panned critically?
What if the real motivator behind the hashtag isn't the sexual manipulation, but the assumed guilt (whether right or wrong) that acquiescence means complicity in the entire system?  We all know that the casting couch exists.  How many feel awful that they willingly laid themselves on that altar for the sake of personal gain?
The fact that the hashtag snowballed indicates that there are a lot of predators in positions of authority.  This is also something that should not be particularly surprising, considering the number of authority figures people allow in their lives, from their schools to their churches to their jobs to their families.  That there is now a movement for victims to declare their solidarity in victimhood is laudable from both a psychological and sociological perspective, but does it do anything to solve the problem?
To mispronounce the words for humourous Taylor Swift effect, predators gonna predate.  As long as those authority figures have meaningful authority, they know that they have a solid shot at getting away with all manner of awful things.  A cleric who can control the gates to the afterlife or to parental acceptance and love can sway and manipulate any number of naïve acolytes into abusive scenarios.  The big shot producer who can control the gates to fortune and fame can almost certainly make an aspiring artist make a choice involving the amount that he or she is prepared to sacrifice for success.  Essentially, any situation where a person in power can make the statement "This will be our little secret" stick is one that exposes an individual without influence to abuse.
So, victims of sexual harassment worldwide, I'm glad that you can stand out loud and proud.  But as long as people are willing to leak sex-tapes of themselves on the internet, construct elaborate sham marriages, sell videotapes of the birth of their children, and other demeaning activities for fifteen minutes of fame, you can be damn sure that they will do all manner of distasteful things for the person holding the chequebook, contract, keys, or whatever is the lever of control.  As long as they have the hashtag #MeToo to act as an avenue of forgiveness and contrition, everything's just fine.
And that's quite enough out of me for one session.
Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Bobby Fischer and Footie

Greetings, gentle readers.

Oh , but there are enterprises of great pitch and moment afoot and yet verily shall I dodge them and spend an entire blog post rambling about things of no great importance.  I'll list my ablution song list at the close of this missal, for first, there is the introduction of my still-being developed party game.

Who doesn't respect Bobby Fischer for his wonderful and elegant chess-playing?  No-one worthy of mention, certainly.  The game of football is the most popular in the world by a ridiculously considerable margin, with the World Cup Finals watched by billions worldwide every four years.
So why not integrate the two interests?  Let me introduce you to the Fischer-Footie shooter game.

The Footie-Fischer Drinking Game

Pieces begin on the KR1 square and travel up the file to KR8, then across the rank to KB8 before descending that file through KB1, then KN1 through KN8 and so forth.  In American notation, this means starting on a1 and moving in a serpentine fashion through the files to h1.

Each player takes a turn and moves his or her piece the number of squares accordingly when an action occurs.

Watch a game of footie and drink when the following actions occur.

·         Throw - in = 1 space

·         Free kick = 1 space

·         Drop Ball = ALL players move one space.

·         Yellow Cards:

o   Professional Foul = 2 spaces

o   Deliberate Handball = 3 spaces

o   Delay of Game = 3 spaces

o   Over-celebration = 4 spaces

o   Kicking the ball away = 4 spaces

·         Red Card = 3 spaces

·         Goal = ALL players move one space.

·         Penalty Kick = 3 spaces

·         Corner kick = 1 space

·         Offside = 1 space

·         Handled pass-back by goalie = 1 space

·         Flash of unique skill = 3 spaces

·         Camera shot of celebrity or former player = 2 space

·         Shot of manager = 2 spaces

·         Injury stay in game (no stretcher) = 1 space

·         Injury stay in game (stretcher) = 2 space

·         Injury taken out of game = 3 spaces

·         Substitutions

o   Current player = 1^st digit of player’s jersey number coming off pitch

o   Next player: = 2^nd digit of player’s jersey subbing on

·         Goal Kicks:

o   Within goaltender’s half = 1 space

o   Across the halfway line = 2 spaces

·         Goal disallowed = 3 spaces

·         Interceptions (including tackles) = 1 space

·         Failed Goal Attempts:

o   Hits Post = 2 spaces

o   Hits Crossbar = 3 spaces

o   Cleared off the line by defender = 4 spaces

·         Fight = 3 spaces

Board

There are two types of board that we have – one that has different pieces that are specifically labelled and half-sized, and one that has generically-designated, full-size glasses to represent white and black.  We have cross-pollinated them so we are using all of the full-size pieces from the second board to act as pawns for the half-size capital pieces from the first board.

From the above illustration, you can see that all of the pawns are full-sized and designated black and white.  All of the capital pieces are filled with colour-coded fluids, as shown below.

Pieces

The collaboration of the prices to drinks can be done using any configuration, depending on the supplies at hand. 
As examples, we suggest these two possible configurations.

Zoroastrian:

All white figures, pawns included, are filled with a white fluid, such as a cream liqueur.  All black pieces are filled with a dark liquid, such as Jägermeister.

Pawns and Capitals:

White pawns are filled with a white liquid, black pawns are filled with a dark liquid, and capital pieces are filled with matching fluids.  This configuration has been shown above.

Potential Board Setups:

All players decide on a chess board setup as determined by a number from zero-nine, or from 1-10.  This can be done with a ten-sided die (decahedron), a calculator with a random number generator, a digital stopwatch with a millisecond feature (use the last digit), or any other machine that comes to hand.  When the digit is determined, configure the chessboard as appropriate.

Zero:

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

Seven:

Eight:

Nine:

And that's enough hard work from me for one go.  Time for the musical roundup from the last washing up.

Musical Shower Roster

In order, here are the randomized songs from my last experience with my iPod Nano.

• All Hell for a Basement, by Big Sugar
• Little China Girl, by David Bowie
• South Yorkshire Mass Murderer, by the Manic Street Preachers
• Don't Stop Believing, by Journey
• The Monster Mash, by Bobby Pickett
• Rotterdam, by the Beautiful South
• St. Stephen, by the Grateful Dead
• Darling Pretty, by Mark Knopfler

And that should just about do it for me.  I shall return anon with all sorts of inflammatory things to say about sexual harassment, the militarization of mainstream films, and the American fetishization of firearms.

Until then, goodnight England and the colonies.

—mARKUS

The Continued Giving of Thanks

Greetings, gentle readers.
I am taking time away from staring at my television screen, where the first six Star Wars films have been showing in an endless loop for the entire weekend on a certain cable channel.  If I couldn't reproduce the scripts for those films from memory already, I'm certain that I've added some reinforcement, particularly from the first three episodes.  I was never very strong with those, since they weren't chronologically realized at a point where they would etch themselves indelibly on my childhood and psyche.
But first, the playlist from my last encounter with the random function on my iPod Nano.  Interestingly enough, I think that a track has repeated from an earlier play series - "(What's the Story) Morning Glory" by Oasis has popped up improbably twice in a week - a bit of a triumph, considering some ridiculous number of tracks - close to 2,000 if my estimations are correct.  Also interesting to note that a solo Beatle track is adjacent to a Beatle track proper.  Another improbable occurrence.

Soapy Songlist

• Licks Off of Records, by Martin Mull
• Waiting for the Sun, by The Doors
• I Feel Fine, by The Beatles
• The World Tonight, by Paul McCartney
• (What's the Story) Morning Glory, by Oasis
• It's All Over Now, by Big Sugar
• What's My Name?, by DJ Earworm

Turtledove

Having just finished reading Harry Turtledove's "Supervolcano," I thought that I may as well throw in my tuppence about his writing, his works in general, and the reason why I continue to read the stuff  that he belts out there.
First off, I almost feel guilty reading Turtledove's books because it almost seems like literary masturbation.  I instantly understand (grok) every single one of his references and allusions, as well as his multiple quips, malapropisms, malaphors, and spoonerisms.  I've made them all myself, numerous times.  I can almost skip over them in the text, because I can feel their context being woven before I get to them.  A quick example would be his descriptions of snowbanks being "taller than a tall man."  Who doesn't think of Sappho's fragments when they hear that turn of phrase?  Other , less classically-oriented examples include phrases such as "no bout adoubt it" and burning bridges when one comes to them.  As another example that leads to my next point, Turtledove depicts a character in "The Videssos Cycle" using a very realpolitik diplomatic manoeuvre to drive opponents against one another with the intent of annihilating both, and at the risk of destroying the people and lands around them.  He rather deftly mentions that a person doing so would make a desert and call it peace.  The same adage, borrowed from Tacitus, pops up in his other works as well.  I do not criticize for recycling, since it gives a greater sense of narrative continuity.
Back in 1992, Turtledove published "The Guns of the South," an entertaining alternate history of the American Civil War, but one which never seemed to me to have as much validity as the remainder of his works.  Re-reading it now, the inauthenticity seems more pronounced.  In the book, Turtledove really soft-sells the Confederacy, and works the myth of "kindly old General Lee" - the Virginia gentleman who didn't like slavery, but took up arms against the Union to... erm... defend his plantation and his honour, or some such twaddle.  After Lee's death in 1870, Frederick Douglass wrote that “We can scarcely take up a newspaper . . . that is not filled with nauseating flatteries” of the old general.
To get to my point about narrative continuity, Turtledove seems to have realized that his historical analysis was slightly misplaced.  Lee was not some sort of "live and let live" - "all men are equal in the eyes of God" sort of folksy hero, but a bigoted racist that saw racism as an institutional form of subjugation and reformation necessary to prepare unworthy savage souls for heaven, if they were subservient enough in this life.
As any good author should, Turtledove did not renovate or negate his earlier work.  Instead, using a later book, he has an academic character in a lecture situation present the factual historical evidence to demonstrate the crucial element of slavery within the secession movement. This acts metatextually to distance himself as an author from the "Lost Cause" revisionist historians intent on lionizing the Confederate States as defenders of constitutional freedom and dignity.
In addition to sharing turns of phrase and a desire for narrative integrity, he and I apparently share a great deal of pop culture knowledge.  Every nod towards Douglas Adams or Monty Python is warmly appreciated, and his musical preferences would seem to align with mine.  His references to the lyrics of Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, and Creedence Clearwater Revival are met with measured approval.
So, I'm a bit jealous because he put all of my thoughts and mannerisms down on paper and published them before I did. I might even go so far as to say that character interactions in the Supervolcano trilogy seem to follow the patterns described in my 2004 blog article HERE.  All of the romantic relationships between men and women follow the pattern of extroverted, charismatic, and physical specimens being awful romantic choices for women and men, with terrible repercussions.  Stoic and socially recalcitrant figures lead to happier and more successful relationships.  In other words, characters suffer whenever they choose sexy and charming, but reap rewards when they form attachments with the less spontaneous and glamourous.  I suspect that Harry and I may have some college experiences in common.
Speaking of which, Turtledove's references to Canada are entirely welcome.  He's gone so far as to describe the Bay building in downtown Edmonton, which I found refreshing.  I haven't read his entire catalogue of titles, but I would not be surprised to see him mention the Jubilee Auditorium of the same city, which is adorned with an adage from Suetonius' Life of Augustus: "He found a city built of brick – left it built of marble."
So what are my criticisms of Harry Turtledove?  Aside from the fact that I'm reading what appears to be my own thoughts, I reckon that he has a couple of problems in terms of his execution.  Romantically, his attachment to the principle of monogamous fidelity leads to some predictability.  Perhaps more pointedly, he occasionally drifts into editorialism.  He doesn't do this a lot, but in certain cases like Balsamon the Patriarch in the Videssos Cycle, or Jim Farrell in the Supervolcano Trilogy, he tells the reader what judgment the reader ought to form.  Rather than just depicting the character's speech and actions, Turtledove will explicitly say that the character is witty or clever or entertaining or delightful.  That tends to stick in the craw of an active reader.  Being told to like a character is a profoundly different experience than independently developing a fondness for that character.
In any event, I've rabbitted on for far too long and should probably go take some medication and kip on the chesterfield whilst watching more Star Wars for a bit.  If I've forgotten an aspect of Harry Turtledove's trade and techniques that bears relevance, I'm sure that I'll fill another blog post with it.
Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

The Start of a New Season

Greetings, gentle readers.
Oh the world is filled with many perplexing and mystifying things.  The most shocking thing to strike the people of North America this week was not the tear-filled recovery of dozens of primary schoolchildren recovered from the ruins of an earthquake-ravaged school in Mexico City, nor the spiralling death count from the overly-moistened and battered island of Puerto Rico.  Surprisingly, it was also not some criminally inane thing burbled out by the American White House's equivalent of Ralph Wiggum.

Instead, it was some jackhole in Las Vegas who stockpiled 23 automatic assault rifles on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, Casino, and Resort and sprayed a crowd of people half a kilometre away, murdering 59 of them and wounding more than 400 more.
Mass shootings have become commonplace in the U.S., but this one seemed to really take the biscuit.  The shooter was an elderly, retired, rich white male with no criminal history.  He's not a terrorist with a political, religious, or socio-economic agenda.  He was a tired, lonely guy who nursed a ball of unhappiness, rejection, fear, and anger for years.  When he finally grew sick of it all, he decided that he would take as many people with him into the abyss as he could, and he used the easiest and most efficient means to do so at his disposal.
It's actually quite easy to understand.  All of his human relationships were superficial and conditional.  People in Vegas loved him because he splashed money around, but every night he was never valued for himself.  His mother was getting blasted by a chorus line of tropical hurricanes from the Caribbean, and his brother played the part of the dutiful and loyal son in taking care of her.  Voting for Donald Trump hadn't fixed the country the way he wanted it to; in fact, things had gotten worse.  After a while, you could see how the ugly duckling got tired of waiting for swanhood and decided to drain the pond.
The question of whether he should have been able to construct an enormous arsenal of lethal assault weapons so that he could maximize the size of his flare-out is another one.  The vast majority (almost two-thirds) of gun fatalities in the United States are suicides.  There are arguments to be made that the number of overall suicides would be reduced if the expeditious means of self-removal due to firearms was made less accessible.  The propaganda wars of statistics can be seen HERE.
In any event, when someone wants to shuffle themselves off this mortal coil, one could at least reasonably be expected to do it quietly, and without disturbing the neighbours. 
The bottom line here is that making large-scale, long-distance homicide readily available and convenient under the pretense of recreational entitlement or an antiquated constitutional amendment is probably a bad idea.

Ablution Blues

Without further ado, since I'd like to get to bed at some point, here is the playlist from my last showertime scrubbing.

• Broken Arrow, by Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson
• Jake, by Lisa Loeb
• Comfortably Numb, by Pink Floyd
• Be Good to Yourself, by Journey
• What's the Story Morning Glory, by Oasis
• Centerfield, by John Fogarty

Cam Newton's Sexy Presser

As a final note, I leave you with Cam Newton and his burbling comments to sports journalist Jourdan Rodrigue HERE.  Some have called them sexist and misogynist.  In this instance, I shall defer to the wisdom of my friend Kevin Huenison, who is often heard to say that it is better to avoid assuming malice where ignorance will suffice. 
In short, Newton isn't so much a misogynist as a giggling idiot who is as amused by the workings of his nose goblins as he is by the mysterious intricacies of human anatomy.  Give the man another spliff and let him fiddle about with his belly button until he soaks his sleeveless undershirt with warm drool.  Ms. Rodrigue could probably have provided the limited intellect of Mr. Newton with all manner of entertainment by correctly pronouncing any word not found on a McDonald's Happy Menu.

Epilogue

Well, here's hoping that following this Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend, which coincides with an international World Cup Qualifying break, will be followed by some of my usual inane prattling about items of sports, rather than items of political analysis.  Thank you very much for your attention, ladies and gentlemen.
Until next time, goodnight England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

October Again

Greetings, gentle readers.
Wanted to jot some notes down based on some television viewing activities I performed this past weeks that seem to beg for some observations.

The Orville

Christopher Hitchens often to referred to the Bible as a great source of mythology and metaphors.  There are a number of iconic representations of facets of human experience that have permeated and informed much of the language of western literature.  The dove of peace, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego - all the usual tropes.  The one that interested me this week, however is the concept of the Ark; the one built by Noah, not the one that melts the faces off horrible Nazis.
As the environment of our biosphere deteriorates, and more extraterrestrial space missions are planned and built, the concept of evacuating a civilization, popping it wholesale onto some sort of enormous vessel, and transplanting it to a new locale has become more relevant.  Douglas Adams had a tremendous bit of fun with the Golgofrinchan Ark Fleet, of which only the 'B' Ark was found.
In the most recent episode of "The Orville," Seth McFarlane's live-action science fiction television series, the Ark trope is revisited, but this time in a thinly-veiled attack on Middle-Eastern Abrahamic religions.  A society has pulled up sticks and launched themselves into space, only to find that after a number of generations, they have established a theocratic government that refuses to acknowledge their situation, preferring to maintain social order through 'founding' archived documentation.
The ship is out of control, will crash into a star, and the crew of The Orville need to effect repairs in order to save this civilization.  Unfortunately, they don't just teleport to the Ark's bridge - they try to engage the brainwashed population that have only begun to question why their world has started to malfunction. 
The bottom line here is not the transparent "excommunicate Galileo" scenario, where backwoods bumpkins confront difficult concepts like gravity and celestial motion.  Nope.  In a weird left-hand turn, the issue here is misogyny.  The female head of security for the Orville is shot point-blank with a space shotgun and left for dead by the aforementioned bumpkins before the female executive officer is apprehended and brought before the head zealot inquisitor to be beaten, tortured, and drugged.  One suspects that rape would also be on the menu were it not for the content constraints of prime-time network television.
The big dynamic on display is power.  A group of men in a position of power intentionally use ignorance, superstition, demagoguery, religious fervour, and authoritarian trappings (uniforms, flags, symbols, rituals) to subjugate and control the population.  Ordinary SF stuff, since it's just an extrapolation of many current political systems.
The thing that McFarlane hits here is slightly different.  The big challenge to authority comes from women.  Women hold decision-making positions on The Orville, but for them to exercise those powers in bumpkinville would upset the order imposed by the theocratic system.  Women are treated as second-class citizens, useful only insofar as their procreative and culinary abilities allow.
And thus we find the brutal bloody, over-the-top abuse of women, notably the XO played by Adrianne Palicki.
By the end of the episode, the ship is repaired, disaster is averted, and the sunroof is opened, restoring a day/night cycle that the bumpkins could never quite piece together was absent previously.  The two conclusion that we are led to draw are:

• an enlightened society is a plural one that welcomes contributions from all of its members
• any ideology that requires restriction of information has inherent and elementary vulnerabilities

A more simplistic analysis would state that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all share their fear and hatred of women, and the sooner we shed these idiotic trappings based on revelatory scripture (perfect and unalterable words of God, as written by some goat-herder), the sooner we can get on with developing our true potential as a species.

Lucifer

During an advertising break, I listened to this gibberish, advocating viewership of the series "Lucifer": "You say that you're evil, but I know who you really are."
I nearly painted my bookshelf with beetroot when I heard that gibberish.  How many battered women in shelters are asked why they didn't leave their abuser sooner?  How many abusive relationships have been extended far beyond the point where the damage has affected children, relatives, and friends?  Incidentally, domestic abuse involves physical and psychological damage inflicted by men on women, women on men, parents on children or step-children, younger family members on elders. And what is the common factor whenever the abused is confronted?  Please nod if you've ever heard these before:

• "You don't know him the way I do."
• "You don't understand the situation.  It's just the way she is."
• "He's really not that way at all, if you get to know him."
• "But I love her.  She isn't always like this."
• "That's not who he really is.  Deep inside."

These rationalizations are heartbreaking to hear from people with broken bones, terrified children, shattered homes, and financial ruin.  Then, to hear a woman speak with Lucifer himself - the avatar of the lord of lies, author of pain, and corruptor of innocence, virtue, and youth - as not really evil is just rationalization on a colossally insane level.
Stockholm syndrome doesn't even begin to touch the level of self-delusion involved here.  I touched on similar themes 13 years ago HERE.
The bottom line is that reinforcing these self-destructive delusions is not helping anyone.  As someone who observes no evidence for a god or a devil, it is interesting to note the number of people (particularly women) who want to find the latter and presumably convert him into some sort of tame puppy. 
Bottom line:  if you want to take the abuse, have at it.  Just make sure that it's consensual, there is no collateral damage to anyone else, and that you fully understand the power and control dynamics at work.

America Ferrara

I watched a late night chat show featuring America Ferrara as a guest star.  I have nothing against the young lady.  She's energetic and ambitious, and she will do very well as a producer in the coming years.  She was asked about the success of her most recent televised sit-com series and she replied with something like the following:

"I wanted a show... because all of the shows on TV now are about who can be the best CIA agent, or who can be the best cop, or the best FBI agent..."

Is it just me, or did she just name three genres or type of television programs that feature FIREARMS?  She didn't mention the best ER doctor, or the best politician, the best forensic pathologist, or the best psychological therapist.  She babbled out the first things in her head — that all coincidentally involve shooting people.
For a country like the United States that blows $600 billion per year on "defence," it seems obvious that American culture should celebrate weaponry, arms, ammunition, and armaments.  People can celebrate the jobs created by manufacturing bombs and missiles that murder thousands of Iraqi, Afghani, Yemeni, Pakistani, and Syrian men, women, and children all the live long day.  Those jobs are great.
That enormous defence budget also can't help the 3.4 million citizens in Puerto Rico who were recently struck by hurricanes Irma and Maria.  The sick go without medicine, the young go without food, and everyone goes without power or communications.  Eight hundred thousand Puerto Ricans in New York City alone are unable to reach loved ones to find if they are alive, dead, or dying.  At last count, 6000 containers filled with emergency supplies, medicine, food, and water are docked on the island, but cannot release their cargo because of the Jones Act.  I refer to my earlier post that government expenditures are best used to maintain the welfare and well-being of the citizens of the body politic.  If the citizens of Puerto Rico are left to die, the military budget must be held to task.  If all of the citizens of Montana were to be starved and left to die of exposure and thirst, someone might raise an objection.  This is a United States property with triple the population of citizens.  But they're mostly brown folk, so I suppose that makes it permissible.
If America Ferrara doesn't see the link between her identification of militarism and federal government spending, and the deaths of all those in Puerto Rico for lack of government spending, then I find her situation dissatisfying and distressing.  She'll still be a great producer.  I just hope that she keeps her perspective.

Music

Right.  That's my venting for a while.  Like a good lapsed Catholic, I bottle things up and become miserable twitch by twitch until I unleash things like a horde of sideways-sprinting, tongue splashing Looney-Toones hounds.  Now that I've given voice to some of my grumpiness with cynical analysis, I can move on the the tracks played by my iPod during my last shower.

• Fingers and Thumbs, by the Lightning Seeds
• Mad World, by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews, written by Roland Orzabal.
• The Original Hockey Night in Canada Theme, written by Dolores Claman.
• I Shot the Sheriff, by Bob Marley and the Wailing Wailers.
• There's No Way Out Of Here, by David Gilmour
• Destroyer, by The Kinks
• Everybody Needs Somebody, by The Blues Brothers Band.

And that's it for me until my next ablutions.  It's been as hard for me to write as it has been for you to read.
Goodnight England and the Colonies,
Cheers,
—mARKUS