Supergirl (2026)

Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) is on a planetary pub crawl to celebrate her 23rd birthday when Ruthye (Eve Ridley) entered the bar.  The bar is one of those hives of wretched scum and villainy that abound in space settings and Ruthye is a teenaged girl who clearly does not belong.  Ruthye offers a bounty of a well-made sword for anyone who helps her avenge the murder of her family by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts).  One rather large and thuggish monster that looks like an evil version of a teenaged mutant ninja turtle simply confiscated the sword.  With a resigned sigh, Kara intervened to recover the sword, demonstrating that she was a skilled combatant despite the vast size difference.

Though Ruthye followed Kara back to her starship, Kara declined to help on her quest for revenge.  However, by a miracle of bad luck, Krem appeared, poisoned Krypto - Kara's dog, and stole her starship.  Krypto had three days to live unless Kara could retrieve the antidote from Krem.  Now Kara was committed to finding Krem though she still wasn't keen on the revenge quest.

In order to even begin to chase Krem, Kara had to take public transport.  She waited at a galactic bus stop in the middle of a field until a rocket bus arrived.  Interesting.  Oh, yeah, this planet had a red sun so she didn't have powers.  Sounds awfully reckless.  On the other hand, she was incapable of getting drunk in systems with a yellow sun.  Though she had left Ruthye behind, Ruthye appeared on the space bus!  In fact, Ruthye proves to have a talent of stowing away on ships.  There follows fights with Sklarian Raiders, investigations, interrogations, false friends, rescues of slave girls, and more battles with brigands.

There are multiple flashbacks to detail Kara's past.  Her father, Zor-El, was the brother of Superman's father.  Zor-El had created a shield generator that allowed a city to escape the doomed planet of Krypton.  Kara was born and raised on this floating chunk of Krypton.  However, like Superman, she was sent to Earth.  Superman (David Corenswet) makes several appearances, both in flashback, on facetime calls, and a homecoming scene at the end of the movie.

Based on the graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which itself was a retelling of True Grit, the movie is a hodgepodge of action scenes that are poorly stitched together.  Kara tends to be a slovenly drunk, a woman who seems to be drinking away her sorrows rather than celebrating her birthday.  At one point, she plops onto the toilet while leaving the door open.  Um, okay.  On the other hand, Ruthye is sober and clearheaded but naive beyond belief.  Does this planet have no law enforcement to deal with the likes of Krem?  Does she expect noble behavior among the patrons of the bar?  But for the presence of Kara, Ruthye had walked into her likely enslavement by entering the bar.  Did she not know that?  Does not matter because Kara and Ruthye need to meet somehow.  About halfway through, the pair encountered Lobo (Jason Momoa), a bounty hunter who happened to be tracking one of Krem's associates.  He looks like some space Hells Angel with evil clown makeup.  Yeah, this movie needed a dark edge and this character doesn't really fit.  His inclusion comes off as nothing but fan service.  Krem is a lazy villain.  He's just competent enough to be a nuisance but not competent enough to be a threat.  Whenever he and Kara fight, one or the other pull up short from securing victory.  Kara could have snatched the poison cure in an early encounter, but doesn't.  No, let's have something distract her.  Krem has just poisoned Kara with Kryptonite, but pauses for a monologue.  Sigh.

Kara is not a likable character.  A woman doing a solo pub crawl is a big red flag.  That she would go to a planet with a red sun to do such makes her seem suicidal.  She certainly has cause to be depressed, but is drunkeness the cure?  Much of the time, she looks hungover and unkempt.  Even in the midst of the adventure, she is still somehow always less than 100% on account of this poison, that green sun, or those Kryptonite arrows.  And what is with all the primitive melee weapons?  Why are the villians running around with swords, axes, crossbows, and spiked chains?

Mediocre.  Skip.

Oikophobia

Oikophobia (noun)

1. Ecophobia; fear of a home environment.
2. Dislike of one's own culture or compatriots

This is the going thing.  For some decades now, the West has become oikophobic; there is no civilization worse than Western Civilization.  Indeed, the West has oppressed - and often enslaved - all other civilizations in the world.  Thus, the current reversal of fortune with hostile immigrants flooding into Western countries is an appropriate comeuppance.  Though the West is entirely capable of preventing this destructive influx, enough of the citizens have embraced oikophobia to not only tollerate it, but to encourage it.

In a video on YouTube, Joomi Kim discussed how this was not the first time that this has happened.  In fact, it appears to be a normal feature of powerful civilizations.  She starts off with the Ancient Greeks, who had risen to prominence.  Alexander the Great had conquered vast territory and left Hellenic dominance behind.  However, there arose among the Greeks those who attacked their culture.  She mentioned Diogenes in particular.  By the time the Romans arrived on the scene, the Greeks had already self-sabotaged.  The Romans followed a similar though slower pattern.  France ripped itself apart during the French Revolution, handing global dominance to England.  Modern England appears to hate its history and seeks to erase the English through mass migration.

After World War II, the United States stepped into England's shoes to become the dominant civilization.  The self-hatred soon followed.  US History is more often described as one long crime spree rather than the rise of a great and laudable nation.  Joomi suggests that the US has, since 1976, elected presidents who were either committed oikophobes (Carter & Obama) or sympathetic to oikophobia.  Only Reagan and Trump have been enthusiastic Americanophiles, which may explain their popularity outside the usual Republican demographics.

Excellent, though somewhat depressing, video.  Highly recommended.

My Latest Book

The next installment of Downland Tales.  There are the birthday stories that have been written since the last volume, a series of random character sketches, and a couple of other random stories.  The fifth book that takes place in Downland.

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict 101

The podcast provides some background of the conflict from 4000 years ago until the modern day.  It is broken into 3 parts, each about 45 to 50 minutes in length.  The narrator does an excellent job of being neutral in the conflict.  She announced from the start that it was meant to inform those who know next to nothing of the conflict and is merely a primer.

Part 1: 4,000 years ago to 1917.  Our story begins with Abraham, whose sons are the putative ancestors of the conflicting parties.  Jews trace their ancestry to Isaac while Muslims trace theirs to Ishmael.  The Jews lived in the region that is now Israel for hundreds of years, interrupted by the all too frequent conquest by a more powerful state.  However, the Romans grew tired of Jewish rebellions and deported many Jews from the area; this was the Jewish Diaspora.  Moreover, the Romans renamed the region to Palestine.  Though there were still Jews in the region, they were a minority.  Time passed and the Romans were replaced by the Byzantines who were replaced by a series of Muslim caliphates.  Then the Crusades conquered the area, briefly, before Egyptian Sultanate took over.  In turn, the Ottoman Empire ruled from the 16th century.  Meanwhile, Jews in Europe were suffering pogroms and needed somewhere to go.  In the 19th century, many migrated to Palestine.  During World War I, the British proposed a homeland for the Jews in the Balfour Declaration (1917).  That was not popular among the resident Muslim population.

Part 2: 1917 to 1967.  In the wake of World War I, the Ottoman Empire - which was on the losing side - had its territory divided among the victors.  The British acquired what is now Israel along with the growing tensions between the Jewish and Muslim residents.  There was a lot of unpleasantness between the wars.  Then World War II came.  Jews in Europe sought to escape to Palestine but were largely foiled.  After the war, they flooded in and Britain decided to split the territory in two and bug out.  Immediately, there was war between the Jews and the Muslims.  The Jews fared far better, claiming the majority of the territory.  Many Palestinians who had fled during the conflict demanded the right to return to their homes now that the fighting was ended.  Denied.  Instead, those homes were provided to the incoming flood of Holocaust survivors.  In the 1960s, Egyptian President Nasser threatened to destroy Israel, stating it had no right to exist.  He put troops in the Sinai Peninsula and prepared to attack.

Part 3: 1967 to 2023.  Taking Nasser at his word, the Israeli Airforce attacked Egypt, disabling its airforce and making its ground-based force in the empty desert an easy target.  The Israeli Airforce likewise bombed Jordan and Syria.  This was the Six-Day War and saw Israel capture the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.   Egypt and Syria took another crack at Israel in 1973's Yom Kippur War.  In 1978, President Carter hosted a peace conference between Egypt and Israel which resulted in Egypt recognizing Israel, a first for an Arab country.  At this point, the Palestinians, who had been in the wilderness for 4 decades now, gave up hope of being restored by neighboring co-religionists and took matters into their hands.  The PLO and similar groups emerged to fight by other means: terrorism.  In the 1990s, the Oslo Accords were negotiated but never fully implemented; it was another effort at a two-state solution going back to dividing the region like the British tried during the Mandate period.  Since then, there have been a series of Intafadas (uprisings) as well as Israel trading land for peace (evacuation of Gaza, some of the West Bank).

The podcast was released in August and September of 2023.  On October 7, 2023, the latest and most dramatic Intafada took place.

As mentioned, the narrator sought to be neutral regarding the conflict, offering the reasons each side views their position as superior.  She points out that atrocities have been committed by each side and each has been dispossessed of homes in the area.  She does not delve into the religions, giving each equal merit.  She does not delve into the governmental systems, again offering equal merit.  By ignoring the differing character of the competing peoples, it is easier to stay neutral on who should prevail.

Recommended.

Used Cars (1980)

Rudy "Trust Me" Russo (Kurt Russell) is a used car salesman with dreams of political office.  In order to secure his nomination, he must provide a cash donation; he's $10,000 short.  His boss, Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), offered to give him the money.  Rudy is so grateful that he offers a 50-50 split on all the graft once he's in office.  However, Luke's brother, Roy (Jack Warden), owns a used car dealership across the street and has eyes on securing a monopoly.  If something happened to Luke, he would inherit the lot.  Well, as long as Luke's daughter didn't show up.  Barbara Fuchs (Deborah Harmon) came looking for her father and found herself as the owner of a failing car dealership.  Could she and Rudy keep it solvent long enough to benefit from a new highway exit?

The movie is a series of zany gags and crazy humor.  In order to drum up business, Rudy contacted Freddie (David Lander) and Eddie (Michael McKean) to hijack the local TV signal and air a commercial for the dealership.  That Lenny and Squiggy appear was itself hilarious.  The commercial goes horribly wrong with the female model (Cheryl Rixon) somehow made topless; the lot was packed the following day.  Further such antics saw the pair hijack a presidential address!

Jack Warden makes for a terrific villain as Roy Fuchs.  There is no underhanded tactic that is beneath him, including an effort to put his niece in jail.  Kurt Russell inhabits his role as a sleazy car salesman, only too happy to do whatever it took to sell a car.  Despite his dishonesty, manipulativeness, and general lack of morals, he was somehow likable.  Gerrit Graham was a great wingman to Russell.  His faith in superstitions from rabbit's feet to saltshakers to fear of red cars made him a constant source of laughs.  By contrast, Deborah Harmon is left as the straight man in most of the gags.  To add yet another classic guest appearance, Al Lewis (best known as grandpa from The Munsters) played Judge Harrison.

At the time this was released, it was quite the raunchy comedy.  Today, it feels tame.  Nonetheless, it is a lot of fun.  Recommended.

9/11 + 25

It has been 25 years since planes crashed into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. In the wake of this attack, President Bush declared Islam to be a religion of peace. Nonetheless, we went to war with a couple of Islamic countries: Afghanistan and Iraq.  Moreover, a new department was created to keep the country safe: Homeland Security.  Where the hijackers had come into the country to execute their terrorist attack, such an agency would surely curb future intruders.  Clearly, those who would scream Allahu Akbar must get the hairy eyeball before entering.  As such, the number of Muslims in the United States has been careful monitored so as to rise from 2.5 million to 5.5 million.  Likewise, where there were approximately 1200 mosques in 2000, there are now only 2,800 or thereabouts.  Of course, New York City has been particularly active in preventing future incursions.  Where there were 120 mosques in 2000, there are now only 300.  Additionally, where NYC was in the process of electing a Jewish mayor - Michael Bloomberg - during the 2001 attack, it now has its first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

To look at where things stand, the Muslims are winning.  They have changed tactics - for the moment - and just begun to migrate into the West.  The situation is dire in England, but the West has chosen to just idly watch as the invasion progresses.  Eventually, the numbers will favor the Muslims and, like Lebanon, they will take over and oppress the infidels.

Good Intentions

In Good Intentions, Walter Williams, a noteworthy economics professor, discussed the unintended consequences of those good intentions.  He detailed his own youth, education, and job history compared to what was possible today (early 1980s).  Education had degraded since his time, seeing a dramatic rise in administrators at the cost of resources to the classroom.  Furthermore, efforts to give control of education to parents was foiled by teachers' unions and government.  Where he had a job as a teen for a $1/hour, a modern teen could not be hired for less than $3.35/hour.  That minimum wage, intended to protect the youth from an employer who would take advantage, limited the number of teens who could be hired.  Rather than get job experience - even for a pittance, the teen was instead unemployed.  Then there was the licensing scam.  Many governments required a license to participate in an industry.  He gave the example of driving a cab.  In Philadelphia, it cost $20,000 to get a license and thus be an independent cab driver.  By contrast, Washington D.C. only required $50.  Unsurprisingly, vastly more cabs were available in DC and there were more independent cabbies.  All too often, government efforts to assist the citizenry results in exactly the opposite.

Highly recommended.