Trudeau Resigns

After nearly 10 years as prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation.  For most of my life, Canada was a land to the north that rarely made news.  It was a great place for generating talent, kind of like the minor leagues for baseball.  So many famous entertainers come from Canada, like Bob and Doug McKenzie.  Take off, hoser.  With the arrival of Trudeau, Canada started being newsworthy, and not in a good way.  Here is a handsome and charming man whose policies are clearly terrible.  Things have gotten demonstrably worse in Canada during his tenure.

The timing of his resignation is interesting.  If Kamala Harris had won the presidency, would Trudeau be on his way out?  Rather than a clearly contentious relationship with Trump in his near future, is he bowing out to let some other member of the Liberal Party get browbeaten by the Orange Overlord?  With a coming election this year that he is unlikely to win, why stick around for the coming turmoil.  Apres moi le deluge.

Though it is almost certainly a joke, the idea of Canada as a 51st state isn't such a bad idea.  Clive Cussler had it happen in one of the Dirk Pitt novels and that was pretty cool; I forget which novel that was, but a treaty where the UK sold Canada to the US for WWII aid was discovered in some sunken hulk.  As far as population and GDP, it is about the same as California.  Huh, Gavin Newsome and Justin Trudeau have that same quality of handsome charmers who sell snake oil policies.

Canada has turned a corner and better days lay ahead.

Strange Duty of VP Presidential Candidates

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris certified the 2024 election in favor of her opponent, Donald Trump.  She is not the first vice president to have that uncomfortable duty.  Al Gore certified the 2000 election - in which he won the popular vote - for George W Bush.  Hubert Humphrey certified Richard Nixon's 1968 victory.  Nixon could sympathize with Humphrey, having been in the same position in 1960, when he certified his defeat against John F Kennedy.  One has to go back a century to find another sitting VP and failed presidential candidate announcing his opponent's victory.  John C Breckinridge was James Buchanan's VP.  He was one of 3 candidates opposing Lincoln and placed 2nd in the electoral college.  In February 1861, he announced that "Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is elected President."  He then joined the Confederacy to oppose Lincoln in a less civilized fashion.

By contrast, only two VPs have had the joyous opportunity to preside over a victory.  VP George Bush certified his victory in the 1988 election.  Prior to him, one has to go back to Martin Van Buren who won the 1836 election as Andrew Jackson's VP.

The remaining two men who jumped directly from VP to presidency did so prior to the 12th Amendment.  As Washington's VP, John Adams was elected in 1796, but his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, won the vice-presidency.  The awkwardness of having the president and VP from rival parties brought about the 12th Amendment so that - generally - each party put up their picks for each office.  Thus, in 1800, Adams and Jefferson had a rematch but selected VP candidates; Aaron Burr for Jefferson and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for Adams.  The Jefferson-Burr ticket won, but both had identical electoral vote totals.  Now Burr argued that he had just as much right to be president as Jefferson.  This triggered a contingent election where the House had to choose, thus denying Jefferson the opportunity to announce his victory.

Stranger in a Strange Land

To explore Mars, humanity gathered a diverse and accomplished group of people - half men and half women - and sent them off.  Earth lost contact with the explorers before anything was learned of Mars.  25 years later, another ship was sent.  This one discovered a survivor of the first mission.  It was a young man named Michael Valentine Smith, who was born the first crew and raised by Martians.  Yes, there are Martians.   Michael then returned to Earth with the second mission and finds he is bewildered by the actions of humanity.  He is soon adopted by Jubal Harshaw, an all-knowing sage who rambles about how the world is and how it should be.  However, it turns out that Martians are vastly more advanced than humans, such that Michael can perform real magic.  When attacked, a pair of men simply vanished.  Nothing can truly threaten Mike unless he allows it.  As he matures, he discovers women.  You see, there are no sexes on Mars.  He is quite delighted by women.  When he explored religion, he decided it was all wrong and established a religion of his own, the Church of All Worlds.  This did not go over well with existing religions and Mike was soon the target of law enforcement and mobs.  Where will it all lead?

The book is long and mostly plodding.  Jubal will talk your ear off.  He is a lawyer and medical doctor, but earns a living by writing stories.  By the end, it felt like Heinlein had inserted himself into the book in the person of Jubal Harshaw.  For a sci-fi book, there isn't much sci-fi.  Sure, Mike can do telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, astral projection, and various other things, but that's nothing new.  There are flying cars, bounce tubes (new-fangled elevators that seem dangerous), space travel (not that it plays any part in the story after getting Mike to Earth), and what sounds like a 3D television.  Ugh.  You think commercials are bad now, the commercials interrupt the action in the future.  "And now back to the mob violence, sponsored by Space Soap."

Though Mike is the main character, he is mostly off screen.  His actions are described by others to the latest recruit or - most often - Jubal.  His new religion is communal living in a 'nest' where orgies and naked swim parties occur.  Yeah, there is a lot of sex, discussion of sex, sexual mores, and so on.  Learning Martian is key to gaining Mike's powers and he works at breakneck speed to generate a Martian dictionary and train his followers in Martian.

Overall, it was mediocre.  Maybe I didn't grok it.  I have liked most Heinlein books I have read, but stopped reading him after Friday.  The heroine was named Friday and she was an artificial person who, unbeknownst to her, was pregnant.  I don't recall much beyond that.  It was no Starship Troopers, Space Cadet, or Have Spacesuit Will Travel.  But there was a similar vibe between that book and Stranger.

Skip.

Catchfire (1990)

Anne Benton (Jodie Foster) suffered a flat tire while driving and doesn't have a spare.  She has hardly left the car when she witnessed a murder.  Spotted as she runs away, multiple goons fire at her, but she narrowly escapes.  Of course, the goons can figure out who she is from her car.  FBI Agent Pauling (Fred Ward) is ecstatic when he identifies the murderer from her description; it's mob boss Leo Carelli (Joe Pesci).  Of course, Anne will need to go into witness protection and her art career will need to end.  Anne runs off.  Soon after, some incompetent hitmen come to her apartment, but she again escapes.  Better yet, she once again skips from the police and Pauling.  Now it is a question of who can find her first.

Lino Avoca (Vincent Price) is the bigger mob boss of the area.  Unimpressed with Carelli's handling of the situation, he sends Milo (Dennis Hopper) to eliminate Anne.  Milo immerses himself in Anne's art, her pictures, her life history.  By the time he locates her, he has fallen for her.  He can't kill her.  Instead, he gives her the choice: life as his possession or death.  She chooses life.  Now for the least convincing love story since Queen Amadala fell for Anakin Skywalker.

The movie is uneven.  There are instances where it seems like a comedy.  When Anne is running from Agent Pauling by dashing through a minigolf course and hiding in a random structure, who should be inside waiting?  Milo.  Seriously?  He was hiding in this minigolf structure?  And then she runs away, successfully avoiding a score of FBI agents as well as Milo.  What in the world was Oscar winner Jodie Foster thinking when she accepted this part?  Much of the dialogue is laughable.  Anne's Stockholm Syndrome (where a kidnap victim falls for the kidnapper) turns on like a light switch.  One moment his forcing her to put on sexy clothes and the next scene they are giggling in bed together.  Yeah, kind of sudden.

Charlie Sheen, who had already done Platoon (1986) and Wall Street (1987), has a tiny role as Bob, Anne's boyfriend.  He performs like this is his first acting gig.  Vincent Price's role is about the same size and he too comes across flat.  John Turturro was about to catch fire after this film.  Here, he is a goofball gunman who wears red shoes without socks.  It looked like he was wearing high heels at one point.  What?  In addition to being the lead actor, Dennis Hopper was also the director.  However, the studio hacked up the film to where he asked to have his name removed, thus Alan Smithee is listed as director.  Perhaps a better movie was left on the cutting room floor, but the parts that remain are bad in and of themselves.  The bad acting doesn't go away if there is more movie, even if the missing parts are better quality.  Hopper wasn't the only one who didn't want credit.  Joe Pesci is uncredited.

Fans of any of these actors should avoid this as it can only hurt your opinion of them.  Bad story, bad acting, just plain bad.  Hard pass.

The Game (1997)

Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a successful banker in San Francisco.  However, he lives alone in a huge mansion and has no family.  His ex-wife called him for his birthday, which he was spending home alone while watching TV.  His younger brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), has been a druggie and general failure.  During a lunch together, Conrad offered Nick a gift; it was a certificate for Consumer Recreation Services (CRS).  Soon after, Nick happens to be in the same building as CRS and decided to check it out.  Enrollment proved to be far more involved than expected, taking several hours.  After a meeting at work, he went home to find a body in the driveway!  No, it was just a clown-faced mannequin.  The game has begun. Though initially intrigued, it soon appears to be a scam, a fight for his life with people out to get his money.

Nick is having a mid-life crisis.  During the opening credits, family movies played that showed Nick as a kid with his clearly distant father.  It is also shown that his father committed suicide.  Of note, his dad was 48 at the time and Nick is celebrating his 48th birthday.  That may explain some of his choices during the game.  Overall, Nick is not likable.  By the end of the film, he still isn't likable.  He was pushed to the very brink and beyond but survived.  Is he a better person for it?  Not that one could tell.

The idea of the movie is great, but the execution is not.  Too often, the events that happen would be extremely hard to stage in a phony way.  Granted, Christine (Deborah Kara Unger) is generally on hand to lead him where the special effects are set, but what about the taxi into the bay?  Oh, we had divers ready.  Really?  And what are the odds that he just happened to jump in the exact spot to land on the airbladder?  A man as rich as Nicholas should have had access to more resources than his company lawyer and his ex-wife.  How does such a man end up hitchhiking if he has access to a phone?

Mediocre.

Post Presidency Statistics

A previous blog discussed the number of former presidents upon whom the current president could call.  With the passing of President Carter, the number of former presidents has gone down from 5 to 4.  Strangely, it will remain 4 after the inauguration as Donald Trump will leave the ex-presidents and Joe Biden will join them.  How long does a post-presidency generally last?  That depends on how you look at it.

The median post-presidency lasts for 8.26 years.  That is, there are as many presidents above that number as below.  22 Presidents had shorter post-presidencies and 22 had longer.

The average post-presidency is 11.32 years.  Having lived as a former president for nearly 44 years, Jimmy Carter pulled that average up.

The mode - which is the most frequent result - for a post-presidency is 0 years.  Yes, 8 presidents died in office and thus never became former presidents.

The post-presidency is getting longer.  Every former president since Nixon has live at least 15 years after leaving office.

President Carter

Only 2 months after his 100th birthday, President Carter has died.  Of all presidents, he had the longest post-presidency by far.  He was an ex-president for 43.9 years.  His nearest competitor, Herbert Hoover, lived to the age of 90, having been ex-president for 31.6 years.  His record cannot be beaten for at least another 20 years.  If Bill Clinton makes it to 98, he could outdo Carter.  George W Bush would have to make it to 106, which seems unlikely.  Next, Barack could surpass Carter in 36 years, at age 99.  Trump and Biden aren't in the running unless something really amazing happens in longevity research.

In many ways, Carter was an unusual president.  As mentioned in a recent blog, he never chose a justice for the Supreme Court.  His predecessors did not burden him with an ongoing military conflict, and he didn't start any during his term.  Yes, Iran and Afghanistan became major issues, but the US didn't go to war.  Carter tried to resolve foreign conflicts with peace talks and boycotts rather than tanks and soldiers.  Commendable, but of questionable effect.  He is one of four presidents to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jimmy Carter was the first president I recall.  When I was in the 4th grade, a TV was rolled into the classroom and we watched the inauguration.  One is not usually politically aware at that age, but it was from that point that I could always answer the question: Who is the president of the United States?

RIP