I Stand Corrected

No sooner do I predict the Iran War to be an inescapable quagmire that will drag on than a peace deal is announced.  What are the details of this deal?  From what has been revealed so far, Iran will immediately open the Strait of Hormuz and the United States will end its blockade of Iranian ports.  Iran further agrees not to pursue nuclear weapons, which includes and agreed upon verification regime.  On paper, that sounds great.  Not to be a wet blanket, but this is just a temporary deal, like maybe until the end of Trump's Presidency.  Much as Obama's deal didn't survive Trump, Trump's deal won't survive the next Democrat, unless it is formalized in a treaty that the Senate approves.  Of course, there is also Iran, which is likewise going to test US resolve after a few months of 'peace.'  Remember, the Vietnam War ended with a South Vietnam and a North Vietnam, but two years after the peace, the north swept away the south and the US embassy was embarrassingly evacuated by helicopter.  There was no will in the US to save South Vietnam.

Though not optimistic about the longevity of this deal, it does give President Trump a win and wraps up the Iran War well-before the midterms.  Now the news can go back to complaining about the economy, ICE, and the Epstein Files.

Gandahar (1987)

On the bizarre world of Gandahar, automatons are sweeping the landscape and petrifying people.  They collect the statues and carry them away through a mysterious dimensional gate.  Ambisextra (Glenn Close), the leader of the Council of Women and mother of Sylvain (John Shea), dispatched her son to investigate the strange metal men.  During this odyssey, he met Airelle (Jennifer Grey), whom he rescued.  Then he encountered the deformed, a race of men who all have different deformities and often special powers; one of them spoke of a prophecy that would be fulfilled in a thousand years.  They show him the dimensional gate.  He sailed on the ocean and found what appeared to be a massive brain; this was Metamorphis (Christopher Plummer).  Like the deformed, Metamorphis claimed to be the result of Gandaharian scientists who unleashed powers they did not understand.  The brain freely told Sylvain that he would not be susceptible to the poison that Sylvain carried for a thousand years.  So, he put Sylvain into stasis.

A thousand years later, Sylvain awoke in a desolate Gandahar, but soon met one of the deformed.  Metamorphis was now decrepit and dying.  To stave off death, it had generated a gateway to the past through which it was importing Gandaharians to feed upon.  Sylvain administered the poison and fled with as many Gandaharians as he could back through the time portal, to his own time.  And the world is saved.  Huh?

The world of Gandahar doesn't make much sense.  Why does Ambisextra have wings on her head?  And what is with that name?  In a world where scientists are making giant brains and messing with DNA to create the deformed, why does Sylvain find himself traveling by pterodactyl?  The deformed are dressed like cavemen.  They do live in caves, but again, this world has scientists.  The time travel stuff works, but feels unnecessary.  So, the brain doesn't start attacking Sylvain's era for a thousand years, so Sylvain has to travel to the future to stop a threat attacking today.  Right.  So, for the rest of Sylvain's life, he could travel back out to sea and have conversations with Metamorphis.  The more interesting question is why weren't there Gandaharians for Metamorphis to devour in the future?  Not a question that was asked.

This is only the 3rd French animated film I have watched and it fits nicely into the weirdness.  Fantastic Planet (1973) was much stranger though it has a similar aesthetic.

Mediocre.  Skip.

A 'Short' War

The current war with Iran started on the last day of February.  After an intense bombing campaign of six weeks, the war entered a ceasefire, which was supposed to last one week and give Iran time to negotiate an end of the hostilities on terms acceptable to the United States.  Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz.  The US responded by also blockading the Strait of Hormuz.  Now, two months later, the ceasefire is still active, though it is interrupted by potshots in both directions.  President Trump has insisted that talks are ongoing and a deal is close.  Iran is mum on the subject.

Trump was hoping for a short war, a quick smackdown that brought Iran to heel and ended its quest for a nuclear bomb.  Not so long ago, George W Bush wanted a short war with Afghanistan, a quick smackdown that resulted in the extraction of Osama bin Laden and his brethren.  That didn't go so well.  The problem is that the opponent is not a rational actor.  A rational leader would act to preserve the nation.  The Mullah's are religious fanatics who believe that death will lead them to paradise while compromise with the infidel will lead them to hell.  Moreover, they know that Trump has a time limit.  This is a country that has slaughtered tens of thousands of its citizens and hardly care if the US would kill an equal number or more.  Just like Afghanistan, they only have to wait until the US loses will and retreats.  Without an army on the ground, the only option is to flatten the infrastructure.  Of course, that will hurt civilians, which is why it hasn't already been done.

What to do?  First, no ceasefires unless the other side requests it.  Furthermore, the time limit must be respected.  Either we do a deal in a week or the bombing resumes.  During the Mexican-American War, the United States repeatedly granted ceasefires after winning a big victory.  The result: Santa Anna spent the time rebuilding his army and fortifying his position to fight again.  What does one suppose Iran is doing at the moment?  Certainly not engaging in peace talks that will bear fruit.  No, this is just a delay.

Next, you can't bomb them into peace.  In the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were willing to suffer massive casualties and knew, in the end, the US would tire of killing them before it could achieve victory; they were right.  Iran is likewise willing to suffer casualties.  They cannot be bombed into submission.  Try a different tact.

Regime change is required.  As mentioned, the mullahs are religious fanatics who are going to be very difficult to bring to peace talks.  Iran's next-door neighbor is Afghanistan, where the Taliban beat the United States by waiting 20 years.  You think Iran didn't learn a lesson from that?  And there was regime change in Afghanistan.  Can the Shah's son be installed in Iran?  Probably not.  Can a civil war be triggered?  Maybe.  During World War II, the US dropped single-shot pistols on France to arm the resistance.  Reportedly, efforts to arm Iranian resistance by way of the Kurds failed; the Kurds kept the guns for themselves.  Drop some care packages with grenades and pistols, weapons that would be superfluous to the IRGC but a godsend for rebellious Iranians.

It is time to capture and fortify Kharg Island.  Reportedly a major hub for Iranian oil exports, it would make a fine US base, our Guantanamo in the Persian Gulf.  The island would immediately become a bargaining chip if negotiations happen.  Additionally, an island can be defended by the navy, which can easily prevent Iranian troops from landing and retaking it.  Between capturing this oil depot and blockading oil shipments in general, Iran will starve for money.  However, Iran has foreign benefactors who will likely channel enough money to keep the country afloat until America surrenders.

Okay, last idea: the bust the place up strategy.  Years ago, during one of President Bush's nation building fiascos, R Emmett Tyrell suggested this tactic.  Since you can't build a nation, tear down the offending one.  He likened it to a barroom brawl where all the tables are busted the mirror over the bar shattered, the bottles broken, and so forth.  Afterwards, those who caused the destruction depart and the bar owner is left to clean up the mess.  It could be a long time before the bar reopens for business.  It might even go under.  Some call this the Bomb 'em to the Stone Age technique.  However, this one will result in huge waves of refugees and, knowing Europe, they will accept them all and hasten the formation of Eurostan.

Unless Trump has some aces up his sleeve, this looks like a stalemate.  Sure, on the one hand, the Iranian nuclear threat has been crippled and continued vigilance will keep it that way.  On the other, the US is once again stuck in an ongoing Middle East conflict with no clear path to exit.

Spider-Noir

It was 1933 in New York City and PI Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) was hired to find a man.  The man, Addison, proved to have a superpower: he could burst into flames.  Strangely enough, more such super-powered individuals surfaced in NYC.  These 'monsters' were soon in the employ of Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), the crime lord of New York.  In response to the growing crime, newsman Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris) called for the return of the Spider.  The Spider had been a superhero in the city, but he vanished five years ago.  Reluctantly, the Spider (Nicolas Cage) returned.

The Spider has allies.  Of course, Robbie has long known that Ben Reilly was the Spider and also why he stopped being the Spider.  Ben has a secretary, Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez), who bemoans the dearth of clients and frequently threatens to quit.  However, she is a loyal friend and performs a lot of the legwork for Ben.  Then there is Frankie (Cary Christopher), a street urchin with sticky fingers.  Ben can count on the kid to watch his back, keep an eye on people, and do odd jobs.

Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), a lounge singer at Silvermane's bar, is the femme fatale.  Everyone has eyes for her.  Flint Marko (Jack Huston), one of Silvermane's enforcers and also a super-powered villain, is deeply in love with her and jealous of a growing connection she has with Ben.  Of course, she is Silvermane's kept woman, though there never appears to be anything physical between them.

The 8-episode Amazon series explores how Ben got his powers and why he stopped using them, his clashes with Silvermane, Silvermane's goons and super-powered thugs, his relationship with his allies, and his attraction to Cat.  The setting is well-realized, giving the look and feel of a movie from the era.  There is illicit drinking, Hoovervilles, down on their luck veterans of the Great War, and even a movie clip of James Cagney.  Cage is often manic, showing that Ben isn't comfortable in his skin.  His assumed characters are a bit hammy, not really carrying off the Mid-Atlantic accent and frantic speaking pace one associates with Depression Era movies.  Also, Cage is too old for the role.  He was great as the animated version of Spider-Noir, but the live action is more demanding and he's obviously 20 years older than he should be.  I was reminded of Marlowe, another noir film that cast actors too old for their roles.

The inevitable defeat of Silvermane was disappointing.  Gleeson makes for a good villain and has plenty of presence to show he is the alpha in the room.  Indeed, his final scene undercut everything that preceded it.  That's all it took?  Really?  Maybe there was a message in that; villains are never as hard to overcome as you might imagine.

In Casablanca, The Third Man, Chinatown, and the like, our hero doesn't get the girl.  No, she leaves with another man, abandons him, or dies.  Such is the case here.  However, their final meeting is unusual; it subverted expectations, but was also unnecessary.  In any case, Li Jun Li fills out her sleek dresses nicely and strikes the femme fatale poses well.

Great popcorn fun and recommended.

The Entirely Predictable LA Vote Count

After the primary election for mayor in Los Angeles, Spencer Pratt held a strong position in 2nd place.  Should that hold, he would face incumbent Mayor Bass in the general election.  Of course, only 63% of the ballots had been counted.  Here were the preliminary results:

Today, June 7, with 83% of the ballots counted, Nithya Raman has overtaken Pratt and is now the likely challenger in the general election. Here is where it stands:

That 20% batch of votes skewed alarmingly toward Raman.  Between the two charts, the three candidates accumulated an additional 205,437 votes.  How did each candidate do within this recent batch?

That's quite a swing.  Raman had been running at 64% of the votes that Mayor Bass was receiving.  However, over these last 200,000 votes, she has outpaced Bass by 9%.  How peculiar.

That Pratt's portion of the mail-in ballots dropped to 20% was unsurprising, but that the division between the two Democrats would shift so drastically is curious.  What would it look like if the split between Bass and Raman had continued?  Leaving Pratt with his 42K new votes and just splitting the remaining 163K between Bass and Raman by the same split as the first chart, we get the following:

Raman would have closed the gap by 22K, but not have surpassed Pratt.  She would still be in third place.  It would have been something like this:

When one considers how California outlawed voter ID (Senate Bill 1174) in 2024, let's say I am not confident in the results of this count.  That, in the wake of the Palisades Fire, the citizens of Los Angeles think that it is best to stay the course is hard to swallow.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

Joseph Stalin

Oh, Now I Understand

Any regular reader of this blog will realize that I have read a great deal about the Mexican-American War.  One thing that has repeatedly puzzled me was the treatment of Nicholas Trist, the man who negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.  Here was a man who had been a personal secretary for Thomas Jefferson, a private secretary for Andrew Jackson, and the number two man at the State Department.  Nonetheless, President Polk excoriated the man.  Why?  Trist comes across as such a reasonable fellow and yet so many figures of the time hated him.  What gives?

Recently, I started reading some primary documents, notably the correspondence between General Winfield Scott and Nicholas Trist.  When Trist arrived in Vera Cruz, General Scott was already in Jalapa in the wake of his victory at Cerro Gordo, so Trist was forced to correspond with general until he could tag along with a supply train to the Mexican interior.  It is hard to describe just how full of himself Trist is when reading his letters.  In one particular letter, his average sentence was 57 words long.  The average sentence.  The longest proved to be 224 words.  One sentence.  Here it is:

Now, sir, in reply to this, all I have to do is to deliver to you— as I hereby do in writing—(and this for the second time, unless my first letter was far more enigmatical than I believe it could seem to any honest men, who, upon their conscience and honor, should be called to respond to the questions, whether you had or had not, in this instance, been guilty of a wanton contempt of orders; and whether this offence had or had not been aggravated by the character of the pretenses under which the contempt was indulged in, and the contumacy sought to be covered up)—I have, I say, sir, to deliver you this message from your commander-in-chief, the President to of the United States, to wit: “When the communication, bearing the seal of the Department of State, and addressed ‘to his excellency the minister of foreign relations of the Mexican republic,’ shall be placed in the hands of the general-in-chief of the United States army in Mexico, it is the will, order, and command of the President of the United States, that the said communication shall forthwith be transmitted to its destination under flag of truce; which flag of truce is to proceed from the head-quarters of the army, and is to be a flag of truce from the general-in-chief.  

This one sentence is more than a fifth of the entire letter.  The tone is consistent throughout.  Trist berates General Scott like one might a willful child.  This is the sort of letter that could convince the recipient to challenge the writer to a duel.  After reading the letter, I had a strong dislike for Trist.  Trist's correspondence with Secretary of State James Buchanan contains similarly overlong sentences, though not the insults.  Ah, now I see.

A Force of One (1979)

In a coastal California city, a pair of vice cops were found dead.  The injuries are such that the police concluded that an expert martial artist killed them.  As such, Detective Mandy Rust (Jennifer O'Neill) went to a local dojo to interview Matt Logan (Chuck Norris), the current Karate champion who happens to live in the community and was training to defend his title in an upcoming competition.  Furthermore, the chief wanted the vice cops to take martial arts training, which Matt provided.  Soon, more vice cops were found dead as the drug problems worsen.  Even Matt was attacked by a masked martial artist, but he was able to defend himself until the assailant fled.

Chuck Norris essentially played himself.  Matt Logan is a Karate champion who runs a martial arts studio.  Interestingly, one of the trainers at the dojo is Anderson, who is played by Chuck's real-life brother, Aaron Norris.  Matt has an adoptive son, Charlie (Eric Laneuville).  Notably, his real-life son, Mike Norris, had a cameo as a pizza delivery kid on a skateboard. The dojo secretary, Harriett (Lisa James), clearly wants to date Matt, but he and Detective Rust are seeing a lot of each other, not all of it professional.

Jennifer O'Neill was a strange choice for the lead.  She had cut her hair quite short for a previous movie and it is basically a buzz cut here.  She doesn't give the vibe of a hardened cop.  Nonetheless, she got top billing.

There is plenty of martial arts action.  The villain's muscle, Sparks (Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, a Karate champion), trounced the 4 vice cops, ambushed Matt, later fought Matt in the championship match during the competition, and had a epic showdown with Matt in the finale.  Indeed, he did more onscreen fighting than Norris.

Though there is a lot of promise in the story, the script is mediocre.  The story drags along and the characters don't develop.  The romance between Matt and Mandy gradually goes nowhere.  There is an effort to explore both the martial arts competition and the drug world, blending the two into a single narrative; does not work well.

Just okay.