The Overlook

Bosch and new partner Ignacio "Iggy" Ferras are summoned to a homicide at midnight.  Dr. Stanley Kent has been found dead next to his car at an overlook of the city.  Harry has hardly begun to examine the scene when Rachel Walling of the FBI arrives.  When Kent's name was posted, the FBI was informed.  It turns out that Kent had access to cesium, a highly radioactive metal that is used in cancer treatments.  If such fell into the wrong hands, it could be used for a dirty bomb.  Harry and Rachel drive to the Kent residence to check on Mrs. Kent.  They find her naked and bound in the bedroom.  She explains how two hooded men had barged into the house and demanded access to her email.  The detectives soon found a picture of Mrs. Kent bound on the bed had been sent to Dr. Kent with a demand that cesium be provided at the overlook.  At that point, the FBI plans to exclude the LAPD.  The homicide is now secondary.  Harry pulls every string he can to stay on the case.  If he can solve the homicide, he should find the cesium.  While the FBI pursue Islamic terrorists, Bosch suspects that's a distraction.

An unusually short novel for Connelly, it is nonetheless very good.  It moves at a lightning clip and shows Bosch as the master detective.  It's not that he's Sherlock Holmes with the deductions but that he is a stickler for every detail.  Highly recommended.

Echo Park

13 years ago, Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar had worked on a high-profile case.  Marie Gesto had vanished and is presumed dead.  At the time, they were unable to solve it.  However, Harry never forgot and routinely checked the file out of archives and worked it.  It just so happened that he had it checked out when the district attorney needed it.  The recently arrested Raynard Waits, AKA the Echo Park Bagman, was willing to clear multiple homicides to avoid the death penalty; Gesto was one.  Before he hands over the file, Bosch maneuvers his way into the process.  Harry and his current partner, Kiz Rider, question Raynard Waits.  Bosch thinks the guy is lying.  The DA decides to test Waits.  If he can lead them to the body of Marie Gesto, that would clinch it.  The following day, Bosch, Rider, the DA, Waits' lawyer, Detective Olivas, a deputy sheriff with a shotgun, a camera man, and a forensic investigator drive out to a remote canyon with Raynard Waits in tow.  Wearing cuffs, Waits guides them unerring to a body.  On the way back, Waits was uncuffed so he could ascend a steep slope.  He used the opportunity to snatch a gun, kill two, and seriously wound Kiz.  Waits is on the loose.  Now Harry must find Waits' secret lair before he can kill again.

This book, combined with City of Bones, was the first to be adapted for the Amazon TV series.  Waits is one of the better villains in the series.  Highly recommended.

Uncle Tom

Here is a movie that explores right-leaning blacks in America.  Many of them have been called an Uncle Tom or worse for not siding with the Democratic Party.  These are their stories.  What struck me most was when it was noted that they all knew who Jay-Z was (a self-admitted drug dealer) but not Thomas Sowell, a Harvard graduate and noted cultural commentator.  The media highlights left-leaning blacks but attacks right-leaning ones.  When Kanye met with Trump, he was said to be off his meds.  Candace Owens has been linked to white supremacy despite being black.  The theme is that blacks who don't toe the liberal line will be ostracized and attacked by those who do.  Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Larry Elder have spent decades countering the idea that blacks can't advance because of racism in America.  The most successful blacks in America today are Nigerians.  Why?  Because they haven't been told since birth that racism in America will never let them succeed.  It is not by chance that black Americans are marinated in the racist America myth.  Those who embrace the myth will vote Democrat and those who don't will be called Uncle Toms and race traitors.  Not an accident.  Herman Cain, an extremely successful business man and one-time presidential nominee, talks about his life and rise to success.  He says that hard work pays.  Ben Carson, a famous brain surgeon and also a presidential nominee, has been regularly mocked by late night comics.  If you are black and on the left, it is racist to mock you.  If you are black and on the right, you are fair game.

This is an excellent film that shines a light on the other side of this conversation, a side that is mostly hidden.  See this movie!

The Dirty Harry Series

Dirty Harry (1971): The movie opens with a faceless sniper killing a woman swimming in a rooftop pool.  Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) gets the case.  The killer, who calls himself Scorpio, left a note in which he demands a ransom to stop his killing spree.  Using clues in the note and a helicopter sighting, Harry and his new partner, Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni), sit in wait to ambush the assassin.  Though they spot him, he escapes.  Scorpio kidnaps a teenaged girl and buries her; give him the ransom or she suffocates.  The mayor is eager to just pay the ransom and Harry is picked to deliver it.  He runs around the city to satisfy Scorpio that he isn't being followed.  Disarmed and isolated, it looks like Harry is about to become the latest victim but then Chico arrives.  Though Scorpio (Andrew Robinson) escapes again, he's wounded and Harry tracks him to his lair, where he 'extracts' the location of the missing girl.  Thanks to his excessive force, Scorpio is released from custody.  The movie has the clear message that courts are too lenient on offenders while ignoring their victims.  Paul Newman turned down the part as too right-wing for him.  Of particular note, Harry uses a .44 magnum revolver.  This is his signature gun and helps define the character.  Great film and highly recommended.

Magnum Force (1973): Carmine Ricca has just left court, escaping a murder conviction on a technicality.  He's hardly left downtown San Francisco than he is pulled over by a motorcycle cop.  The cop kills everyone in the car and rides off.  Harry stops by the crime scene with his partner, Early Smith (Felton Perry), but it's not his case.  Lt. Briggs (Hal Holbrook) admonishes him about abandoning his stakeout.  Further killings by a motorcycle cop lead Harry to believe his old pal, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), might be the killer.  Charlie is recently divorced and his ex-wife says he's suicidal.  But then Charlie is found dead.  While at the range one night, Harry meets four rookie cops who are surprisingly good shots.  Davis (David Soul) is the leader and best shot.  It is soon clear that the four rookies are operating as a death squad, killing criminals who escape justice.  They try to recruit Harry but he declines.  Where the last movie decried the justice system, this one defends it as the best we have.  Harry is no vigilante and doesn't approve of them.  Thanks to his role in this movie, David Soul was soon after cast in Starsky and Hutch.  Robert Urich, who appeared as one of the rookies, went on to Vegas.  This is probably the best Dirty Harry movie.

The Enforcer (1976): Two men in a gas company truck are lured to a remote cabin by a hot blonde.  They have hardly arrived before Bobby Maxwell (DeVeren Bookwalter) kills them.  He and his small band call themselves the People's Revolutionary Strike Force (PRSF).  Meanwhile, Harry and DiGeorgio (John Mitchum) respond to a hostage situation at a botched robbery.  Harry drives his car into the building and shoots the robbers.  This does not endear him to Captain McKay.  He is reassigned to personnel.  One of the applicants for promotion to inspector is Kate Moore (Tyne Daly).  Harry is horrified that she has never made an arrest and views her as unqualified.  The PRSF use the gas truck to bluff their way into a weapons depot where they start loading M-16s, explosives, and even LAW rockets into the truck.  Thanks to the heist, Harry is back in homicide and has a new partner, Inspector Kate Moore!  The PRSF use their hardware to kidnap the mayor and then demand a ransom.  Harry and Kate track them to Alcatraz and rescue the mayor while killing all the members of the PRSF.  It is now standard that Harry's partner is toast.  Chico was shot in the first movie and decided to leave the force.  Early was killed by a bomb.  Moore follows the pattern, not surviving the film.  Of note, her appearance here led to her role in Cagney and Lacey.   There are stand-ins for the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army, echoing events of the era.  Thanks to the death of DiGeorgio, John Mitchum marked his 3rd and final appearance in the series.  Overall, this one is a bit weak on account of the finale.  Why are just Harry and Kate headed to Alcatraz?  Mostly good and definitely recommended.

Sudden Impact (1983): A couple are making out on a remote overlook of San Francisco Bay.  Suddenly, the woman shoots the man, once in the crotch and once in the head.  Ten years earlier, Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke) and her sister were raped in San Paulo; she is now out for vengeance. Callahan is assigned the investigation and learns the dead man hails from San Paulo.  Thanks to multiple high-profile shootouts and destroyed police vehicles, Harry is banished to San Paulo.  The local police chief (Pat Hingle) gives him a cold reception.  Their relationship grows more strained when a local man is found dead, one bullet to his crotch and one to his head.  It is soon clear to the rapists that Jennifer has returned to make them pay.  Despite that, she takes out a couple more of them.  By then, Harry has figured out that she is the murderer.  However, the last of the rapists has turned the tables and now Jennifer must run for her life on the very beach where she was raped.  A very different Dirty Harry film, this is Jennifer's story.  To give Harry some action, he is pursued by mafia assassins and released criminals.  He also gets a new gun: a .44 AutoMag.  And he has a dog named Meathead.  Harry seems a bit of a caricature of himself with the tacked on action scenes, some of which unfold awkwardly.  Bad guys stand around while Harry monologues and then he somehow gets the drop on them.  This marks the last appearance of Sondra Locke with Clint Eastwood.  She had been a regular in his films since the Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).  This also marked the 4th and final appearance of Albert Popwell.  Popwell played a different character in each movie, dying in two of them.  The best thing about this installment was the catch phrase: Make my day!

The Dead Pool (1988): Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey) has died of an overdose on the film set of Hotel Satan, Peter Swan's (Liam Neeson) latest horror film.  Harry and his new partner, Al Quan (Evan Kim), are called upon to check for foul play.  While there, Callahan has a run-in with Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson), a news reporter who soon becomes Harry's love interest.  Though Swan was not initially a suspect in Johnny Squares' death, the revelation of a dead pool in which Swan had selected Squares puts him in the crosshairs.  Harry also happens to be on Swan's list.  As more victims on Swan's list die, it looks like he might be rigging the pool.  However, he is cleared and the focus turns to a scorned fan.  Discovering that his plot to frame Swan has failed, the fan pencils Samantha Walker onto the list and lures her to an exclusive interview.  Will Harry arrive in time to save the day?  The weakest of the series, this is just an excuse to get Harry back in action.  As with the last film, he's marked for death by some random crime lord and must gun down countless goons that have nothing to do with the central storyline.  Also echoing Sudden Impact, a band of criminals who have already killed a restaurant patron stand motionless while Harry delivers a monologue before gunning them down.  Of note, Guns N' Roses band members have cameos and the song "Welcome to the Jungle" is part of the sound track.

Impeachment Folly

Rand Paul (R - KY) raised a point of order in the Senate: he stated that it was unconstitutional to have an impeachment trial against a private citizen.  The vote was 55 to 45 against him.  However, in order to convict, it is necessary to have two thirds (67) of the senators vote to convict.  It has just been demonstrated that acquittal (34) is a forgone conclusion.  Furthermore, Chief Justice Roberts has declined to preside.  With conviction impossible, this becomes a pointless waste of time.

Alan Dershowitz, who agrees that it is unconstitutional, says Trump should ignore the proceedings.  It is invalid and doesn't deserve any recognition.  But what if Trump attends?  The Democrats and the media, who have so effectively silenced him by banning him from social media, will be handing him a national stage.  Confident in acquittal, why not take the opportunity to rant about whatever he wants.

One thing an impeachment trial is certain not to be is unifying.  Trump and the Republicans did not pursue Hillary after the 2016 election despite the 'lock her up' chants.  The Democrats would be best served by ignoring Trump rather than bringing him back as a punching bag.  Right now, if he complains, it will look petty and sore loser.  If the Democrats drag him to a trial, the optics change.

Misunderstanding Impeachment

Impeach: transitive verb

1 : to charge with a crime or misdemeanor.  specifically: to charge (a public official) before a competent tribunal with misconduct in office.

It is all well and good that Trump was impeached while he was president but to have a trial now that he is a private citizen is a tremendously bad idea.  The primary point of impeachment is to remove an official from office.  Trump is already out of office.  If the precedent is set that Congress may impeach & try former officials, what's to stop them from impeaching Mike Pence or George W Bush?  At this point, criminal courts are the appropriate venue.

Consider: the point of impeachment and Senate trial is to have a means whereby the Legislative branch can remove the Executive.  The executive is the chief law enforcement officer and is unlikely to prosecute himself.  Once out of office, the new executive could prosecute.  That is where we are.  To have a Democratic House impeach and a Democratic Senate try a former Republican president is hardly going to be a 'fair' trial.  The goal is to disqualify Trump from future office.  Hmm.

Last year, during Trump's first impeachment, it was said that he was trying to undermine a future rival for the presidency by twisting the arm of Ukraine.  It was an abuse of power.  On that very basis, how is this effort to disqualify a political opponent not also an abuse of power?  Again, if the evidence warrants charges, have a trial in a regular court with a jury and make the case.  That that route is not being pursued is telling.  This is about politics, not the rule of law.

Doc Savage: The Desert Demons

Doc Savage (1933) is an early superhero, predating Superman (1938) and Batman (1939).  Like Batman, he has no superpowers but he has honed his body to perfection and is a super genius as well.  He has all sorts of gizmos and special vehicles.  He is a brilliant detective and never kills if he can avoid it.  Yes, he is Batman without the costume.  Where Batman only has Robin, Doc Savage has the Fab Five, a team of geniuses in various fields: There's Monk the industrial chemist, Ham the lawyer, Renny the construction engineer, Long Tom the electrical engineer, and Johnny the archeologist/geologist.  If that's not enough, his cousin Patricia Savage has a habit of joining adventures despite Doc's protests.

Some years ago, I saw the movie Doc Savage: Man of Bronze with Ron Ely in the lead.  It was a campy mess.  To call it mediocre would probably be overrating it.  However, I've had Doc Savage novels appear in my Amazon suggestions ever since.  Okay, what the heck.  Let's see if the book is better.  So, I got the Kindle edition of The Desert Demons.

Our story opens in the California deserts near Palm Springs.  A camera crew films a rain dance during a drought.  Suddenly, a red cloud descends from the sky and devours the camera crew and their truck.  Only a white powder remains.  Further attacks hit Hollywood and Doc Savage arrives in Los Angeles in his custom speed plane.  Already, some of the Fab Five are investigating but Doc takes over.  Then follows an endless stream of failed chases and poorly written banter.  Monk and Ham do most of the talking to the various suspects while Doc is either absent or merely looks on with knowing eyes.  There are so many characters and an alarming amount of dialogue, all of it written in vernacular.  You could probably cut out 10% of the pages if the arguments and petty jibes between Monk and Ham were excised.  The book was more often tedious than exciting.  The plot is ludicrous, the characters are one-dimensional, and the idea that no one but Doc and his team are investigating something that has killed scores of people in Hollywood is beyond belief.  Avoid this book at all costs!

It was not until I had finished the novel that I discovered it was written in 2011 by a modern author, not a reprint of one of Lester Dent's original stories from the 1930s.  How accurately was Dent's style copied?  If it was very accurate, I'm amazed Doc Savage was a major pulp figure.

Abusive Relationships

I saw this posted on Instapundit today: 15 Signs of an abusive relationship.  Let's check them out!

1. Stop you from seeing friends and family.  Yes, state and local government have been putting a lot of effort into this one.

2. Won't let you go out without permission.  This one has been worse in some places.  California sent police to arrest a man who was surfing at a deserted beach.

3. Tell you what to wear.  Yes, masks are the new government-mandated fashion accessory.

4. Monitor you phone or emails.  Well, this one is an old one as we learned thanks to Edward Snowden.  That abuse is old hat.

5. Control the finances or won't let you work.  Ha!  That unemployment rate sure did skyrocket.  In some states, the refusal to allow businesses to open persists.  Some states are more abusive than others.

6. Control what you read, watch and say.  As with the infamous rendition regarding terrorists, the government has outsourced this one to the 'private' sector.  First it was Alex Jones, then Milo Yiannopoulos, and now the sitting president.  Even competitors to the government sanctioned monopolies have been banned (i.e. Parler).  Say the wrong thing and you get canceled.  YouTube channels with the wrong views have been removed.  

7. Monitor everything you do.  If you have a cell phone, the government or their 'private' lieutenants know where you are and probably what you are doing.

8. Punish you for breaking the rules, but the rules keep changing.  All last year, it was fine to riot and government crackdowns were stomping on 'mostly peaceful protests.'  Now riots are sedition and government crackdowns mandatory.

9. Tell you it is for your own good, and that they know better.  The government is locking us up for our own safety.  Really, we're too irresponsible to make an informed decision.

10. Don't allow you to question it.  You know, the recent election seemed a little fishy.  When Hillary complained about Russian interference, we had a 2 year investigation.  How about...  Hello?  Huh, the line went dead.  Huh, I just got banned from Twitter.  That's odd.

11. Tell you you're crazy and no one agrees with you.  Yeah, if you don't agree with the mainstream narrative, you're some sort of loon.  See, there is only one way of seeing things and alternate viewpoints are just a sign of insanity.

12. Call you names or shame you for being stupid or selfish.  Yes, the fun arguments where one person says a country needs borders and the other person says 'racist!'  Hey, the US government should consider the interests of American citizens before foreign citizens.  'Fascist!'  Good times.

13. Gaslight you, challenge your memory of events, make you doubt yourself.  Just look at how many people believe things that didn't happen.  Drink bleach?  Never happened.  Nazis are fine people?  Never happened.  Russian collusion?  Never happened.  Nonetheless, half the population believes them.

14. Dismiss your opinions.  If only it was merely dismissing.  Banning is the current tactic.  There are calls to blacklist people with the wrong opinions.

15. Play the victim.  If things go wrong, it's all your fault.  I've talked about this one before.  If the government shuts down when a Republican is president and Democrats control Congress, it is the president's fault.  However, if a Democrat is president and the Republicans control Congress, then it would be the Congress's fault.  And the Democrats are always victim of Republican partisanship.  At least, that's how the press reliably reports it.

Stop the abuse!

No Speech for You!

The President of the United States has been banned from Twitter. Wow! Twitter says they banned him to prevent "further incitement to violence." Whoa! Well, I better check out these tweets.

The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!

- @realDonaldTrump

Hmm. That doesn't look like a call to violence. Looks like standard 'on to the next election' pap. The next tweet must be the damning one.

To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.

- @realDonaldTrump

Failure to attend the inauguration is grounds for banning? Failure to attend is a call to violence?

Back in June, when Minneapolis was being razed to the ground, Kamala Harris had a much less ambiguous tweet:

If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota

- @KamalaHarris

That is clear support for rioters. Kamala Harris was not banned. Hmm. Double standard?

Utopia (2013)

After I watched the Amazon series Utopia, I discovered that it was a remake of a British show.  Dare I watched the original?  Yes, I dare.

The story opens at a comic book store.  There is a clerk and a few customers.  In walks a pair of men, one of whom bashes a customer over the head with a lead pipe.  The other, Arby, asks the clerk who bought the Utopia comic.  Once all the patrons and clerk are dead, the two men depart.  Meanwhile, Benjen gets on his chat group to announce he has purchased Utopia.  They plan a meetup.  However, before he leaves, Arby and friend show up to murder him.  Simultaneously Graham - one of his chat buddies - steals the comic during the murder.  Now Graham is on the run while the rest of the chat group - Ian, Becky, and Wilson - try to figure out what has happened.

Unlike the American version, the original Utopia comic mentions nothing about Jessica Hyde.  There is more nuance in the British version despite having a shorter runtime.  That was strange.  Rather than a scientist who discovered a flu, Michael is a midlevel bureaucrat in the health ministry.  The character of Samantha doesn't even exist here, which is just as well.  Characters that were rather shallow in the American version are better fleshed out.  Also, they aren't some monolithic group.  Becky is hiding something, Wilson is ambivalent about whether they are on the right side, and the identity of Mr. Rabbit is a lot harder to determine.  Jessica Hyde looks less like a homeless person but has a dead-inside quality that suits the character.

Whereas the end of the Amazon version has several twists that are not explained, the British version explains all the twists and queues the audience for the next series.  Yeah, that's much better.  Definitely watch the British version and skip Amazon's pale remake.