The Fictional Party Flip

Democrats are always eager to explain away the past dark periods of their party by explaining how the parties flipped.  Post Civil War, blacks supported the Party of Lincoln, the Republican Party.  Democrats may have been forced to surrender slavery, but they imposed Jim Crow as soon as Reconstruction ended.  This continued for decades, especially since the Republicans held dominance in the government from 1861 until 1913.  In 1913, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated president and reintroduced segregation in federal workplaces.  He was an apologist for the South and screened Birth of a Nation at the White House.  However, when FDR was elected in 1932, he retained segregation.  In 1948, Harry Truman desegrated the military.  In 1954, during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Court overturned the policy of 'separate but equal.'  Eisenhower set about enforcing this with the National Guard and pushing both the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts.

By the time JFK arrived in office, the writing was on the wall for segregation.  It was doomed and any Democrat with sense was going to abandon it.  Where Republicans had argued to just treat blacks like everyone else, Democrats embraced a strategy of one-upmanship.  Not only would they pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act (with strong bipartisan support), but they would also implement affirmative action.  Though a noble goal, it assumed employers were guilty of discrimination if the pool of employees did not match local demographics.  So, the Democrats went from discriminating against blacks to now discriminating in their favor.  Low grade reparations?  Though Republicans continued with the same old policy of just treat everyone the same, that now meant repealing quotas.  That's anti-black!  Sigh.

The Democrats have spent decades claiming that Republicans are holding blacks back and yet, most blacks live in cities that have been governed by Democrats for all those decades.  For instance, Detroit hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1962.  Whose fault is the decline of that city?  What about St. Louis?  Last Republican mayor left in 1949.  Philadelphia?  Last Republican mayor left in 1952.  The modern Democrats are the same as the old Democrats, they have just changed their tactics.  The Democrats have trapped blacks in a new kind of plantation - harvesting their votes during election season by blaming the Republicans for their misery.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2015)

Gilbert Norrell (Eddie Marsan), who claims to be a practical magician (i.e. can cast spells) has been buying every book on magic throughout England.  Theoretical magicians (i.e. those who don't cast spells but merely study the history of English magic) have complained.  Moreover, they accuse Norrell of being a charlatan.  Mr. Norrell offers to perform practical magic.  However, he demands that the Learned Society of York Magicians disband should he be successful; if he fails, he will renounce his claims of being a practical magician.  After Norrell's magnificent display of magic and the York Society's disbandment, Norrell goes to London where he hopes to revive English magic.  His first noteworthy feat is to resurrect the recently deceased Lady Pole.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Strange (Bertie Carvel) finds himself gifted with two spells by a crackpot named Vinculus.  As a lark, he attempts to cast one of the spells and it works!  He is one of the two magicians foretold by Vinculus' crazy prophecy.  He soon joins Mr. Norrell in London, where he becomes an apprentice magician.

But all is not well with English magic.  Norrell was always wary of fairies but dared call upon one (Marc Warren) to revive Lady Pole.  Norrell has kept silent about his indiscretion, but the fairy is now free to roam England and create mischief.  Bit by bit, the fairy enchants various people and carries them away to the land of fairy, Lost Hope.  Can Norrell and Strange summon the Raven King to oppose the fairy or are they doomed to die from some fairy curse?

This 7-epsiode epic does a surprisingly good job of adapting the book.  In fact, it improves upon the book in many ways.  Firstly, it is not necessary to constantly refer to the fairy as 'the man with thistle-down hair.'  He is never named in the series and that is not a problem at all.  There is only one time when he is described as the man with thistle-down hair and that comes as something of an insult from Lady Pole.  Nice.  Many of the minor characters are completely absent.  Excellent.

Eddie Marsan is terrific as Norrell.  Bertie Carvel makes an outstanding Jonathan Strange.  Marc Warren is perfect as the fairy.  The lesser characters are also wonderfully cast and play their parts well.  This is a great production.  Like the novel, it ends with the potential of a sequel, though that has yet to happen.  Of course, Clarke didn't write a sequel.  Not yet, anyway.

If you liked the book, you'll enjoy this.  Highly recommended.

Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987)

Nick Randall (Rutger Hauer) is a former top espionage operative who has become a bounty hunter based in Los Angeles.  For those who watched the 1950s TV show of the same name, Nick Randall is a descendent of Josh Randall (Steve McQueen).  Randall is living well, having a huge building for his office, and a comfortable boat for his home.  He has a girlfriend, Terry (Mel Harris), who might be wife material.  A couple more big jobs and he could invest in a life at sea on his boat.  Yes, life is looking up until his old life intrudes.

Malak Al Rahim (Gene Simmons) is a terrorist who Randall failed to kill during his espionage days.  Malak has arrived in Los Angeles and begun a bombing campaign.  He has also sought to assassinate his former adversary.  Philmore Walker (Robert Guillaume), a former associate when Randall was a spy, hires Randall to hunt down Malak.  Randall agrees as long as he is allowed to work solo.  Director Lipton (Jerry Hardin) views Randall as bait to draw Malak out of hiding; if Randall is killed in the process, Lipton would view that as a bonus.

A standard 80's action flick that hits the normal beats.  There are explosions, gun battles, car chases, and fist fights.  The story is run-of-the-mill, the acting is adequate, and the action is average.  Even so, it is fun to watch.

Street People (1976)

Salvatore Francesco is a mafia boss in San Francisco.  He is tired of being a boss and had tried to retire from the life several years earlier.  His nephew, Ulysses (Roger Moore), takes care of all the legal and financial aspects of Sal's businesses.  Sal paid for Ulysses to go to college and served as a father figure when he was growing up.  To demonstrate that he isn't all bad, Salvatore anonymously paid to have a Sicilian crucifix imported to the United States for his church.  However, someone used his gesture of goodwill to smuggle millions of dollars' worth of heroin inside the crucifix.  Furious, Father Francis, the local priest, confronted Salvatore and excommunicated him!

Sal put his nephew on the case to find out who was responsible.  Ulysses called in his racecar driver friend, Charlie (Stacy Keach), and the pair commenced the investigation.  While Ulysses flew to Sicily to find the link on that end, Charlie went hunting for rumors of the heroin in San Francisco.  With Ulysses' list of names from Sicily and Charlie's gumshoe work, the pair are soon on the track of the three goons.  But who do they work for?

The movie has a few flashbacks to 1930s Sicily where we see a young Salvatore thrilled to be an uncle and how he brags to Francis (the same Francis who would later excommunicate him) about that.  There are also scenes of Ulysses as a toddler and Ulysses' English father.

Stacy Keach steals most scenes that he is in.  His demolition derby of a test drive with the chief goon's car is great fun.  He's a happy-go-lucky thrillseeker and lots of fun.  By contrast, Moore is charming but uninspired.  The role is not well-written and his kinship to Salvatore not well-established.  The audience is told they are close but it does not seem that way in their interactions.

The plot is a mess.  There is a good story to be had here, but the execution is poor.  Though the truck chase was entertaining, there was no explanation for it.  How did the sniper know to be on the roof?  How was it that two trucks were ready to intervene if the sniper was followed during his escape?  There are a lot of people taking part in this cover-up.  Gee, who did those truck drivers work for?  Maybe we could follow that lead?  Yes, it isn't meant to make lot of sense, but it was exciting as it progressed.

Mediocre.

Wild Swing in Participation

As everyone knows by now, Donald Trump has won the election and thus will be the second president to serve non-consecutive terms.  Grover Cleveland served as both the 22nd and 24th President.  That's interesting, but what I find more interesting is the vote totals in the last several elections:

These are the vote totals for Democrat and Republican candidates over the last 5 elections.  As this doesn't consider 3rd parties, it is just ballpark but useful.  Here it is as a chart:

2008 was a banner year, the biggest turnout ever in which President Obama won nearly 70 million votes but his reelection in 2012 saw a drop off in participation of roughly 2.5 million voters.

2016 exceeded 2008 in total voters (Trump and Hillary drove a surprising number of voters to the 3rd parties) but the two parties only received about 2 million more votes than in 2012.

2020 blew the doors off all previous elections, seeing nearly 27 million more voters than 2016!

As of this writing, 2024 has seen a stunning drop of 16 million voters.  Where did they go?  Is this a matter of apathy, tougher voting requirements, or something else?  A ballot arriving in the mailbox while everyone was quarantined by COVID offered a distraction whereas today voting was just a hassle?  This will be a topic for the history books in the not-too-distant future.

But Georgia is not called for Trump?

 

Reporting percentage is greater than in Virginia but still no call.  Interesting.

Strange that Virginia is already called for Harris