Archibald Gillespie, USMC

In Dream West, Marine Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie arrived at John C. Fremont's camp in Oregon to relay verbal orders from the president.  Moments later, he was killed in an Indian attack.  This is a rewrite of history.

Gillespie was born in New York in 1812 and joined the Marines in 1832.  In October 1845, President Polk provided him with secret messages for Commodore Sloat of the Pacific Squadron, US Consul Thomas O. Larkin (based in Monterrey, California), and John C. Fremont.  He sailed to Vera Cruz, arriving on December 10th.  His efforts to cross the country were hindered by the latest uprising.  However, he crossed the country and arrived in Mazatlán.  In late February, he was picked up by an American ship on the west coast of Mexico and made his way to Monterrey, California.  Having delivered his messages to both Sloat and Larkin, he then went in search of Fremont.

Fremont had been ejected from California by General Castro and was near Kamath Lake in Oregon, which is where Gillespie found him.  No sooner had Gillespie arrived with his secret message than Fremont marched back into California.  Little did they know, the war had begun with the Thornton Affair almost 2 weeks earlier.  The Bear Flag Revolt took place on June 14th and Commodore Robert "Fighting Bob" Stockton raised the US flag on July 18.  Los Angeles surrendered on August 13th, thus concluding the initial conquest of California.

Captain Gillespie was named military commandant of the southern district.  He had 48 men to hold Los Angeles.  This might have been fine if he had not imposed martial law.  The locals soon rose in rebellion.  The American forces were soon under siege at Fort Moore Hill.  By the end of September, Gillespie surrendered and marched to the coast, leaving Los Angeles to the Californios.  An initial effort to retake the city with the help of the US Navy failed.  The Navy transported Gillespie and his men to San Diego.

In early December, news arrived that General Kearny was nearby.  Stockton sent a detachment under Gillespie to escort him the rest of the way to San Diego.  Gillespie arrived with 40 men and a field gun.  After his long march, Kearny was itching for a fight.  He had traveled from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to California without a shot fired.  So it was that the weary Dragoons charged to battle against fresh Californio lancers who knew the terrain much better and whose lances were not rendered useless by the rain.  The Californios recognized Gillespie from his tyrannical rule in Los Angeles and targeted him.  He was lanced in the chest, puncturing a lung.

Despite the disastrous battle, the column arrived in San Diego on December 12th.  Despite his injuries, Gillespie was well-enough to ride north the following month.  He was again wounded during the battle to retake Los Angeles.  On January 10, 1847, Gillespie was called upon to raise the US Flag, the very one he had hauled down in September.

Gillespie remained with the Marines until 1854.  He died in San Francisco in 1873.

Though most of this falls outside the story that Dream West tells, Gillespie should not have been killed off.  Though Fremont's party was attacked by Indians and also 'got even' with them soon after, Gillespie was not one of the fatalities.  Gillespie should have been yet another cameo, like Jim Bridger or Tom Fitzpatrick.

Stephen Watts Kearny

In Dream West (1986), Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny is cast as the villain.  In the first episode of the miniseries, an animus is established between Kearny and Fremont.  Fremont requested a cannon for his expedition, which Kearny reluctantly provided.  In conversation, Kearny asked what year Fremont graduated West Point.  Fremont did not attend West Point.  Kearny clearly looks down on him for this failing.  That is peculiar since Kearny was not a West Point graduate either.  In fact, though both had attended college, neither managed to complete their degrees.  In the second episode, Kearny and Fremont clash about who is in charge in California.  In the final episode, Kearny is a witness at Fremont's court martial, a court martial instigated by Kearny.  His final appearance in the series is to plead for forgiveness from Jessie Benton Fremont before he died from Yellow Fever.  Kearny deserved better.

Stephen Watts Kearny was born in 1794.  He dropped out of Columbia to join the Army when the War of 1812 began.  He was captured at the Battle of Queenstown.  His bravery at that battle earned him the rank of Captain.  After the war, Kearny stayed with the army and was posted on the frontier.

In 1819, he was part of the Yellowstone Expedition.  The expedition failed spectacularly, getting bogged down in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  The following year, he was part of another expedition, this one exploring and mapping the territory between Council Bluffs and Fort Snelling (Minneapolis, MN).

In 1825, Major Kearny was part of General Atkinson's Rocky Mountain Expedition.  Nearly 500 troops traveled from Fort Atkinson (Omaha, NE) up the Missouri River, replicating Lewis and Clark's travels.

The following year, he supervised the building of Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, where none other than William Clark lived.  Kearny courted and married William Clark's step-daughter, Mary Radford.

In 1833, Lt. Colonel Kearny was made second in command of the newly formed 1st Dragoon Regiment, based in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  In 1836, he rose to Colonel and became the commander of the 1st Dragoons.

With all this western experience, it is unsurprising that Brigadier General Kearny was made commander of the Army of the West when the Mexican-American War was declared.  His westward march was surprisingly uneventful.  He captured Santa Fe, New Mexico without firing a shot.  He then set out for California, unaware that Commodore Stockton and Lt. Col. Fremont had already captured it.  He learned of those events when he met Kit Carson on the road.  Based on Carson's reports, Kearny sent two-thirds of his men back to Santa Fe and continued to California.  By the time he arrived, the state was in rebellion.

The Battle of San Pasqual

Having learned of a band of Californios in the area, Kearny decided to attack.  However, his men were poorly mounted; they had just suffered a trek across the southwestern deserts.  The rain made the gunpowder damp and surprise had been lost.  The Dragoons charged in a ragged line.  By contrast, the Californios had excellent horses and were armed with lances.  The Dragoons were no match and only the presence of a cannon saved them.

Kearny thus arrived in San Diego with a pitiful and beaten force.  Compared to Fremont's California Battalion and Stockton's sailors and marines, Kearny was all bark and no bite.  He conceded command to Stockton and joined in the retaking of Los Angeles.  When Stockton sailed away and Commodore Shubrick took over the Pacific fleet, Kearny made his move for command.  The Mormon Battalion and New York volunteers arrived to give him the biggest army in California.  He had been sent to take California and he outranked Fremont.  Fremont continued to balk and earned himself a court martial.

Fremont's court martial lasted 3 months, concluding in February 1848.  Afterwards, Kearny was sent to Mexico as military governor of Vera Cruz and then Mexico City.  He contracted Yellow Fever and was sent home.  He died in St. Louis in October, 1848.

Fremont put Kearny in an impossible situation.  Should he have just endured insubordination?  Certainly not.  In the best of times, Kearny was known to be difficult.  He was a harsh man who made few friends.  This is not the sort of soldier to forgive and forget.  On the other hand, Fremont was a national hero.  President Polk attempted to split the difference by nixing the punishment while affirming the verdict.

Hyphenated Americans

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.

"This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.

"But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as anyone else." "The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.

"The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American."

Theodore Roosevelt

Address to the Knights of Columbus

New York City- October 12th, 1915

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

Naturalization Oath of Allegiance

How many Americans who are foreign born actually meant it when they took the oath of citizenship?  When you see 'Americans' protesting while flying foreign flags, it gives one pause.  How many committed perjury when they took the oath?

Sam Harris on Triggernometry

Sam Harris appeared on the Triggernometry podcast and covered several topics.  Of note, his previous appearance (which I have not seen) figured prominently.  I am sure some of the comments went over my head for lack of that context.  The main topics were Trump, the irresponsible right, COVID, and Islam's incompatibility with the West.

To say that Harris is opposed to Trump is to massively understate his position.  Wow, is he opposed to Trump.  With the sole exception of getting hostages released by Hamas - for which Harris thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump is all bad.  However, when challenged on some topics, he could not provide the alternative.  The one that stood out for me was the immigration issue.  Harris is strongly opposed to how ICE is apprehended people from the streets, separating families, and so forth.  Yes, he agreed that the Biden Administration fumbled it badly and that was a large part of why Trump won.  Even so, the border could be handled much better.  The hosts noted that it had not.  One might not agree with precisely how Trump is handling illegal immigration and the border, but at least he is handling illegal immigration and the border.  Harris was still unhappy.  He views Trump as vastly more corrupt than Biden and brushed Hunter's laptop away as an irrelevancy.  Sure, it was handled poorly by social media, but he still views it as a nothingburger compared to Trump.  He stated that Trump is enriching himself with cryptocurrency and using tariff negotiations to enrich his family.  It is odd that this was the first I heard these accusations; why is that?

Harris views the right as more dangerous regarding violence and terrorism.  Yes, he admitted that incidents of mass looting are almost always a leftwing phenomenon, but still views the right as more violent.  In fact, a helpful graphic (from CSIS) was presented that showed rightwing terrorism has vastly outpaced leftwing terrorism since 1994, this year being a rare exception.  Hmm.  That looks like it needs more context.  Charlie Kirk, who was clearly killed by a leftist, figured prominently in this discussion.  He conceded that it was not good to label opponents as fascists and Nazis.

Harris was a COVID apologist.  Everything that was done wrong during COVID was just honest mistakes in addressing a new crisis.  He thinks that Joe Rogan misinformed the populace on this, convincing them the vaccine was bad.  Though he held that it was mostly honest mistakes, the outcome is that we are less prepared for the next pandemic.  The implication is that loss of trust in the institutions is more an issue of misinformation from the likes of Joe Rogan rather than the bad policy decisions of the institutions themselves.

Finally, the discussion found its way to Israel and October 7.  He was dumbfounded that Israel, which was clearly attacked, had lost the PR war.  Of all people for Hamas to kill, they had attacked the peaceniks who were inclined to side with them.  Even so, Israel was quickly the bad guy.  Harris is no fan of religion and particularly not Islam.  Where Christianity and Judaism have nixed some passages over the centuries - slavery, animal sacrifice, etc., Islam has not.  He views it as 14th century Christians who would still proselytize by the sword.  So, it just needs a reformation?  He would rather do away with religion.  As it stands, Islam is incompatible with Western societies.  On that, I agree.

Overall, it was an interesting discussion.  His strongly contrasting views on Trump vs. Biden convinced me that he is a TDS sufferer.  So eager to forgive the corruption of the last administration and strident in his denunciation of the current one.  It was too much.  I would think Trump killed his dog.

Edge of the World (2021)

In 1839, James Brooke (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) arrived in Borneo aboard his schooner, the Royalist.  His cousin, Arthur (Dominic Monaghan), his nephew, Charlie, and his interpreter, Subu, accompany him ashore.  They are soon captured by headhunters who deliver them to Prince Badruddin and Pengiran Makhota.  Brooke claims to be an explorer, but neither Badruddin nor Makhota believe that.  Is he a spy for the British, scouting Borneo as a potential colony?  In short order, Brooke has formed a close relationship with Badruddin and a contentious one with Makhota.  The land is troubled by a rebellion and plagued with pirates.  Makhota suggests that the guns on the Royalist would be useful in fighting them.  Brooke agreed.  In payment, the Sultan named Brooke as the Rajah of Sarawak.  Makhota is furious and becomes Brooke's enemy.

The movie plays at a snail's pace.  Narration of his inner thoughts are used to bridge scenes.  He comes across as a man full of doubts, exactly the type of person who would never have dared to sail to the edge of the world.  Where his thoughts betray doubts, his actions often indicate certainty.  He demands an end to headhunting and slavery.  He has open clashes with Makhota even when he is the weaker party.  Meyers spends an alarming amount of the movie in bed, either entwined with his love interest, tangled in his sheets with a fever, or just sleeping.  The battles are non-existent.  The defeat of the rebels proved to be Kabuki theater.  While his nephew suggested using the guns on the Royalist to blast the pirates, Brooke had a better idea; he painted himself black and approached the pirate camp with a machete.  After the battle, he has yet another mental breakdown.

My first awareness of James Brooke was when I read the Flashman series.  He was quite the man of action and impressed Flashman.  In this version, the cowardly Flashman would find a kindred spirit.

Mediocre.  Skip.

Cross of Iron (1977)

It is 1943 in Russia near the Black Sea.  Corporal Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) leads a platoon of soldiers on a patrol through Russian held territory.  He returns to the lines to find that Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell) is the new commander.  Stransky voluntarily transferred from a cushy assignment in France in order to win an Iron Cross on the front lines.  Stransky has already learned that Steiner is a living legend among the men and highly valued by the regimental commander, Colonel Brandt (James Mason).  Steiner has won the Iron Cross.  During a particularly difficult battle, Steiner is wounded and sent far behind the lines for recovery.  When he returns, he is asked by Brandt about the battle and whether Stransky deserved the Iron Cross for his part in it.  Stransky had never left his bunker.  When the army retreats, Stransky abandoned Steiner and his men to be overrun, hoping they would be killed.  Can Steiner dodge Russian soldiers and find the German Army?  Will he have his revenge?

As often is the case with a Sam Peckinpah film, the blood is plentiful.  The battle scenes dominate, a mixture of explosions, airborne bodies, bullet riddled soldiers, and collapsing buildings.  More time is spent on nameless soldiers being killed and blown up than is spent developing the characters.  When Lt. Meyer was killed, I only vaguely knew who he was, though it becomes noteworthy later.  To help differentiate them, several of his men have some distinctive characteristic: half an ear, severely scared face, impressive mustache, youthful grin.  Don't recall the names.

The conclusion wasn't.  The German lines are falling and the various characters are engaged in battle, but their fates are unknown.  They probably all died, except for Steiner; he returns in a sequel.

Just okay.

Dream West (Part 3)

It is 1847.  General Kearny arrests Lt. Col. John C Fremont with plans of court martialing him for mutiny, among other things.  The trial takes place in Washington, where Senator Thomas Hart Benton sits behind his son-in-law; the long break between Benton and his daughter Jessie is at an end.  Fremont is found guilty and ordered dishonorably discharged.  He counts on a Presidential Pardon, which comes but does not absolve him entirely.  He resigns the army and sets out on his 4th expedition.

Kit Carson was unavailable, so Fremont hired Bill Williams (Anthony Zerbe) as guide.  The expedition is a disaster as the men are stranded in the snows of the Rocky Mountains.  Several die of starvation.  When Fremont finally gets to California and reunites with Jessie, he is a rich man.  There is gold on the ranch he purchased.  With this, he financed yet another expedition, his 5th and final one, mapping a path through the Rockies for a railroad.

In 1856, Fremont is the first Republican nominee for the presidency.  Abraham Lincoln (F Murray Abraham) is among the delegates who nominate him.  He loses by a large margin.

1858.  Thomas Hart Benton is on his death bed.  Jessie visits.  Her father agreed that she was right about Fremont all those years ago.  She chose a very fine man.

In 1861, the Civil War has begun and President Lincoln named Fremont to command the Western Department, with a particular interest in preventing Missouri from joining the Confederacy.  In St. Louis, Fremont immediately confronted the rebel sympathizers in the city.  Time to stop treating them with kid gloves.  He went so far as to post a proclamation freeing slaves from rebels.  Lincoln viewed this as a huge overstep on Fremont's part and sent General Hunter (James Cromwell) to replace him.

It 1887, Fremont and his wife live a modest life on Staten Island.  All their wealth was lost on bad investments in the railroads.  They depend upon Jessie's writing to support them.  In a final train journey back to California, they encounter a man and his son.  The man gushes about Fremont and his book enabling his parents to travel west and thus provide him the prosperous life he now has.

The final chapter is a hodgepodge.  Where the first two episodes had a smooth flow with the rise of Fremont (episode 1 covered 4 years or so) and Fremont at War (episode 2 covers 4 years or so), this one covers the rest of his life (40 years). That's a lot of time to cover and it feels rushed.  The disaster of the 4th expedition is fully explored, even dragging at times.  The 5th expedition, which sees the return of Kit Carson, felt rushed by comparison.  The presidential campaign started with Fremont's nomination at the Republican Convention and ended almost the next scene with his defeat.  Next thing you know, it's the Civil War.  None of Fremont's battles are filmed; it is all camp and HQ.  This chapter feels more like a history lecture than an engaging story.

Though I like F Murray Abraham, he is badly cast as Abraham Lincoln.  He is in so much makeup that he almost looks to be wearing an Abe Lincoln mask.  The look is unconvincing to the extent of being distracting.  He lacks the towering stature of Lincoln.  His conversation with Jessie where she chides him for withdrawing Fremont's emancipation proclamation made Lincoln look small.

Overall, the miniseries is good.  It is too lenient on Fremont, but it is telling the story from his point of view.  My reading of the man shows him to be brash and arrogant.  He had a high opinion of himself and was not prone to humility.  Chamberlain's Fremont does not come across as a man who grew up in South Carolina.

Recommended.

Dream West (Part 2)

John Charles Fremont (Richard Chamberlain) finished his expedition by testing a raft on the river.  Loading all the gear and valuable data into inflatable boat, the explores raft back toward civilization.  Unfortunately, they were not ready for the rapids.  Much of the equipment is lost but the records are recovered. Back home, it is now time to write the report, but Fremont finds he has not talent for it.  Jessie (Alice Krige) gladly takes over.  She has a talent for making the report readable.  When the book is published, it proves to be a great success.  During a celebratory dinner, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft suggested that Fremont should travel to California on his next expedition and be ready for war between the United States and Mexico.  However, no written orders were provided.

With Kit Carson (Rip Torn) at his side, Fremont set out on his 3rd Expedition.  Once in California, his wanderings drew the ire of General Castro.  Fremont was ordered out of the state.  While in Oregon, a Marine Lieutenant, Archibald Gillespie (Johnathan Frakes), arrived.  Fremont needed to get back to California, but there are still no written orders.  Soon, Fremont is nudging American settlers to overthrow the California Government, infuriating John Sutter (Jerry Orbach).  The Bear Flag Republic is born.  Only weeks later, the US Navy raised the US flag over California.  Eager to report the success to Washington, Fremont sent Kit east with dispatches.  On the way, Kit encountered General Stephen Watts Kearny (G D Spradlin) heading toward California with his column of US Dragoons.  Kearny roped Kit into leading the column back to California.  When Kearny arrived in California, he immediately clashed with Fremont.  Fremont declined to follow Kearny's orders; after all, Commodore Robert Stockton was in charge of California.

In Washington, Jessie sought help for her husband.  Bancroft denied any orders for Fremont to topple California.  When she met with President Polk (Noble Willingham), he was equally adamant that no such orders were conveyed.  Unsurprisingly, Kearny placed Fremont under arrest for mutiny and marched him east for an eventual court martial.

This episode gets several things wrong.  Firstly, Lt. Gillespie is killed during an Indian attack.  This came as a real shock when I watched it, as I thought it was going to be fun to have Commander William Riker of Star Trek play second fiddle again.  Nope, he's barely arrived when he is killed.  In truth, Gillespie was second in command of the California Battalion during the conquest.  He survived the war.  Polk is portrayed more like Andrew Jackson.  Polk was quite mild, letting folks convince themselves that he agreed with them by being pleasant.  Here, he denounced Jessie for implying that he sent Fremont to conquer California.  The initial conquest of California saw almost no fighting whereas this has a montage of battles as Fremont leads his men from town to town, guns blazing and cannon firing.  Senator Benton (Fritz Weaver) is still avoiding his daughter more than 5 years after her marriage.  In fact, the ostracism was quite brief, but it is ongoing throughout this chapter.

As with the previous episode, there are numerous historical figures beyond those already mentioned who get cameos: Tom Fitzpatrick, General Jose Castro, Ezekial Merritt, and Sagundai.  For a TV production, it is quite immersive of the period.

Recommended.

Dream West (Part 1)

It is 1839.  John Charles Fremont (Richard Chamberlain) is exploring the land between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.  He is second in command of the expedition.  While exploring, he comes upon a dead family who got lost in the wilderness; a faulty map is among their belongings.  Fremont commits himself to publishing accurate maps to Oregon.

Back in Washington, Fremont is introduced to Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a strong proponent for westward exploration and expansion.  However, Fremont is more interested in the senator's daughter, Jessie (Alice Krige).  Romance soon follows but Senator Benton does not approve.  Fremont and Jessie marry behind his back, creating a split between father and daughter.

In 1842, Fremont sets out on his first expedition.  Unable to hire Jim Bridger or another well-known guide, he hires Christopher 'Kit' Carson (Rip Torn).  Carson proves to be an outstanding guide and a lifelong friend.  While mapping the Oregon Trail, they happen upon Jim Bridger (Ben Johnson).  Bridger says to go back or take a different route; the local tribe is up in arms.  Fremont will not be dissuaded and rides directly into the Indian camp.

The first episode of a miniseries from 1986, it is headed by Mr. Miniseries himself.  It does an excellent job of painting the era and showing the life of Fremont.  Many historical figures appear, some with little more than a brief cameo (Senator John Crittenden, Jim Bridger, Provost) and others get bigger roles (Maria Crittenden, Stephen Watts Kearny, Edward 'Ned' Kern, Karl Preuss, Joseph 'Papa Joe' Nicollet).  Where many such adaptations use fictional characters around the core of historic ones, this production followed the history.  David Nevin, who wrote the novel, has good attention to detail in his historical stories.

The series combines the first (1842) and second (1843) expeditions into one.  Likewise, the break between Jessie and her father was mended in short order (before Fremont left for his first expedition) while it lasts until the final episode of the miniseries.

This open episode leaves one eager to see the next chapter.  Recommended.

Hasan Piker, Communist Apologist

Triggernometry hosted Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who does political commentary.  Piker began his career by working for his uncle, Cenk Uigur of the Young Turks, before establishing himself as a political commentator on a gaming platform.  Piker is a self-described leftist.  During his discussion with Konstantin and Francis, he touched on several topics, but his affinity for communism was the standout.  Though Konstantin is from the first communist state, Russia, Piker offered the old refrain: that's not true communism.  Wow.  When asked where socialism/communism has been done right, he pointed to China.  Sure, it isn't perfect but look at the growth rate.  By contrast, the parties that aren't slipping toward socialism and/or communism are defined as nascent fascist parties.  He repeatedly described the Reform Party in the UK as a proto-fascist party, which provoked responses to the contrary from both hosts.

What is fascist?  Piker offered the definition of "palingenetic ultranationalism."  That's a mouthful.  Looking this up, it has five components:

• Palingenesis: Myth upon which national rebirth will rest
• Ultranationalism: Extreme nationalism with xenophobic tendencies
• Rejection of Liberal Modernity: The status quo sucks and has to go
• Totalitarian/Authoritarian: Led by single leader or party that suppresses pluralism
• Goal of the "New Man": Transformation of citizens by purging weakness or decadence

Unsurprisingly, he described the current Republican Party in the same way.  Both hosts confronted him on the use of fascism as a label for opponents.  The rise of another Hitler would demand that citizens take up arms and kill fascists before things get out of hand.  Calling someone Hitler is a permission slip for some crackpot to shoot him.

During the discussion, Piker often dodged questions by switching topics.  He dodged the issues with Islam in the UK; he is a Muslim.  In response to calling Nigel Farage a nascent fascist, he was asked if Keir Starmer could then be described as a nascent communist.  That got only a laugh.  So, right-leaning parties are likely to become fascists (in the long term) but left-leaning parties are just fine and no problem at all.  Of course, Piker has already declared his desire for a move toward Chinese-flavored communism.  Hmm.  The hosts pointed out that political critics in China, Russia, and even the UK are often locked up, while such is not the case in the US.  He argued the point by bringing up Eugene Debbs.  Really?  Debbs was locked up over 100 years ago!  That's the most recent example you have?  And it was Wilson - a Democrat - who jailed him.

It felt like Francis and Konstantin went easy on him.  It is somewhat alarming that this guy has a huge following and is an influencer.

Blue Origin joins the Race

The long anticipated New Glenn rocket has launched, sending the ESCAPADE on its way to Mars.  The New Glenn has a capacity of nearly 50 tons to orbit, which is double what the SpaceX Falcon 9 can deliver.  Not only did New Glenn deliver its payload to orbit, it successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, just like Falcon 9.  Yes, a new competitor has joined the space race.

Congratulations!

Nickel for your Thoughts

The penny has come to an end.  The US will no longer produce the cent because it costs much more than it is worth.  To mint a penny costs nearly 4 cents.  Clearly, this is just throwing money away.  However, this will make some expressions inexplicable to future generations.

• Penny for your thoughts
• My two cents
• Bad penny
• Pretty penny
• Penny pincher
• A red cent
• A penny saved is a penny earned

Rounding to the nearest nickel for change will be an interesting change.  Will that become a penalty for paying cash; always round UP to the nearest nickel?

The Rise of Nick Fuentes

Not so many years ago, a person who espoused white nationalism and antisemitism would have been exiled from society.  However, Nick Fuentes is on the rise.  I first encountered him a few years ago and found him to be annoying and misguided.  There is something about his manner that is fingernails on chalkboard.  Even if he was quoting Thomas Sowell, chapter and verse, I would not like him.  Sadly, he isn't a fan of Sowell.  No, instead he is the antithesis of the woke agenda.  LGBT?  Bad.  Blacks?  Dangerous.  Jews?  Disloyal to the US.  His show is called America First.  How did such a dislikable blowhard gain 5 million followers and get to the point where Tucker Carlson interviewed him?  How?

Fuentes has incubated in the multiculturalist nightmare that was launched before he was born.  Whites are bad.  If whites move out of a neighborhood, it's white flight.  Bad!  If they move in, it's gentrification.  Bad!  If whites move to the third world, it's colonization.  However, now that the third world is overrunning white countries, that just payback and just desserts.  Whites engaged in the slave trade, as if no other people had ever considered the idea.  It is the original sin of which they can never be absolved.  The antiwhite drumbeat has gone on so long that many whites have embraced their 'guilt' and are actively participating in the destruction of their countries and cultures.  During the Black Lives Matter era, it was viewed as racist to say "It's okay to be white."

I have read the occasional article or watched the rare YouTube video that said the constant hammering against whites while promoting other races would inevitably lead to white nationalism.  You can't say that Black Pride or Hispanic Pride is good and commendable on the one hand but that also say that White Pride is racist.  That double standard can only hold for so long.

That brings us to Nick Fuentes.  Young white men, who have never lived in the fictional white supremacist America, are fed up with being vilified.  Unfortunately, they have chosen to follow the likes of Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes.

This was a preventable tragedy.

250 Years Old

The Marine Corps was founded on this day in 1775, less than a month after the Continental Navy.  Yes, the Marine Corps predates the United States.  It was the Continental Marines in those early days.  Two months after their founding, the Marines made their first amphibious landing in the Bahamas.  Since then, the Marines have often been the first in the fight for America's war and military actions.

Happy Birthday and Semper Fi, Marines!

The Rise and Fall of the Whigs

Upon the re-election of President Andrew Jackson in 1832, Henry Clay set about coalescing the many parties that opposed King Andrew.  Thus, the Whig Party was born in 1833.  By 1836, the Whigs nominated several candidates to oppose Jackson's VP and selected successor, Martin Van Buren.  They went down to defeat.  However, the Whigs held a third of the Senate and 40% of the House.  The party was growing.  In the midterms of 1838, the party increased its representation in both houses of Congress.  The Panic of 1837 earned the president an unwanted nickname: Martin Van Ruin.  1840 would be the year for the Whigs.

William Henry Harrison had been one of the four Whig candidates in 1836, winning the most votes and most states among them.  Despite his age (67), he was nominated as the sole candidate for 1840.  "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was the slogan that won the presidency.  Better yet, the Whigs took control of the Senate (29 out of 52 seats) and the House (142 out of 242 seats).  Senator Henry Clay prepared a slate of legislation that would reverse Jacksonian policies and finally put his ambitious American System in the driver's seat.  However, President Harrison wasn't as pliant as Clay hoped.  Nonetheless, Harrison was a Whig who would push Whig policies.  There was nothing to stop the abrupt change in direction of the country.

President Harrison died.

After only one month in office, Harrison hadn't done anything yet.  Vice President Tyler, who had retreated to his plantation in Virginia after the inauguration (who needs a useless VP milling in Washington), was called to the capitol.  While Henry Clay was considering who could replace Harrison as president, Tyler took the oath of office.  The Constitution didn't say what happened if a president died in office and wouldn't until 1967.  Worse, Tyler insisted that he was now president and there would be no majority vote in the cabinet to determine what action he could take.  Worse still, Tyler suddenly resumed his Democrat views; he had broken with the party in the wake of the Nullification Crisis but now decided he was more Democrat than Whig.  He vetoed bill after bill from Congress, preventing the implementation of the Whig agenda.  The great victory of 1840 dissolved.

Though the Whigs would win the presidency again in 1848, they never again held the majority in both houses.  The death of President Harrison was also the death of the Whigs as a majority party.  The Whigs remained an opposition party until the mid 1850s, when it was absorbed by the newly-formed Republican Party.

No Welfare for Foreigners

Inexplicably, illegal immigrants are receiving SNAP benefits.  Of course, they are also receiving other benefits, but this is the topic of the day on account of the shutdown.  Why are they receiving ANY benefits?  Not only did you cross the border illegally, but now you are a drain on our economy rather than a contributor to it.  We are poorer as a country because such people are here.  Deport!  At the very least, no benefits.  I am not a fan of government-provided welfare in the first place, but if we are going to have it, only US citizens should qualify to receive them.  All others, go back to your home country and be non-productive there.

Jackson: A Novel

It is 1828.  After 9-years of living in France, Harvard graduate David Chase returned to the United States upon his father's death.  He was left nothing.  Near penniless, he sought employment; he was a writer.  As luck would have it, William Short was looking for someone to write the definitive biography of Andrew Jackson.  Chase accepted the commission.

While the presidential campaign of 1828 is played like a chess game between Andrew Jackson and President John Quincy Adams, Chase interacts with a wide variety of historical figures from the era.  In the background, the biography of Andrew Jackson is told as chapters of Chase's book.  The New Orleans campaign dominates the biography and is the source of Jackson's fame.

The book uses point-of-view characters - some real, some fictional - to tell its story.

- Andrew Jackson is central character but has a limited role as a POV character.  Painted as a man of iron will, volcanic anger, bristling gray hair, and a stick thin bean pole, Jackson is not the illiterate backwoodsman that many thought.

- John Coffee has been Jackson's friend and ally for forty years.  A bear of a man who serves as Jackson's right hand, he plays a large role in protecting Jackson from scandal and managing the campaign with Alexander Hamilton's son, James.

- John Quincy Adams is a disciplined man of great intellect and talent, but a complete lack of charisma.  His son, Charles Francis Adams, serves as his secretary and his wife, Louisa, is unhappy.  Adams comes across as hapless, though entirely laudable.

Fictional POV characters:

- David Chase is a fictional character who crisscrosses the country to research his Jackson biography.  Though American by birth, he feels like an outsider thanks to his many years in France.  Washington City is a backwater compared to Paris and Nashville even more so.  Nonetheless, he finds himself admiring Jackson with each new chapter he writes.

- Mr. Hogwood, an Englishman, proved to be the first writer that William Short had employed.  Though dismissed in favor of Chase, Hogwood provided his research so far to Chase and made introductions to his contacts in Washington City.  Many of the early chapters of Jackson's life are written by Hogwood.

- Emma Colden is Hogwood's beautiful daughter and the object of Chase's desire.  An aspiring writer herself, she frequently complains that women are not allowed such freedoms.  When she is the POV, it is usually when there is an interview with noteworthy women such as Louisa Adams or Fanny Wright.

The book paints an excellent picture of America in 1828, from Boston, to Washington City, to Nashville, to New Orleans.  Historical figures such as John Randolph, Sam Houston, John Eaton, Nicholas Trist, George Ticknor, Sarah Hale, Frances Milton Trollope, and many more have something to say about the campaign, America, women's rights, slavery, Jackson, Jefferson, and other subjects.  Here is a dynamic country where technology is racing and possibilities are limitless.

Outstanding book and highly recommended.

UK on the Brink

David Betz, a professor of war studies at King's College, was a guest on Triggernometry.  He was clearly uncomfortable to be there and not a polished speaker.  His message is one that he is reluctant to deliver: the United Kingdom is on the brink of civil war.  What?  As one who has studied such things throughout his academic career, he sees all the signs of civil war.  The cratering of faith in the institutions of government.  The people no longer believe that the government can solve problems through the normal processes.  The troubles have grown worse despite multiple votes to address them.  He notably brought up Brexit, which was supposed to address the uncontrolled migration.  It arguably got worse in the wake of Brexit.  Then there is the admitted failure of multiculturalism.  This itself has created a crack in the country.  Where those who have grown up in the UK have a natural affinity and loyalty to the existing norms, the immigrants do not.  That several members of parliament - of foreign descent - voted to build an airport in Pakistan was a demonstration of factionalism.  These members were interested not in doing that which would benefit the UK as a whole, but their faction. Where the hosts were optimistic that Nigel Farage might reverse course, Betz was much less so.  He views Farage as a pressure release valve that may lower the heat for a time but not actually fix anything, essentially a Brexit 2.0.  The kindling for a fire has stacked up over 20 to 30 years and, sooner or later, there will be a spark that ignites it.  Rather than Royalist Cavaliers vs. Parliamentarian Roundheads, this conflict is between the 'We Want Out Country Back' faction and the 'Shut the F--- Up!' faction. Betz proposes that the civil war will begin - if it hasn't already - when an anonymous native group targets a judge, influencer, or such.

Betz noted that the cities were in one camp while rural areas in the other.  Cities are notably weak, as they depend on the produce of the rural areas to survive.  Disruption of power, gas, and food will cause the cities to explode in civil strife and the police will be powerless to quell it.

Dark days ahead.

McBain (1991)

Vietnam, 1975

A squad of men receive word that the war is over and they are to pull out.  They climb aboard a Huey and fly over the jungle.  However, they spot some POWs being marched along and decide to engage.  Among the POWs is Robert McBain (Christopher Walken).  He offers eternal gratitude to the leader of the squad, Roberto Santos, offering to repay the debt.  Half of a $100 bill is given as a token of this debt.

Columbia, 1990

Santos is a revolutionary who fights El Presidente and his narco-terrorist enablers.  He has planned to assault the presidential palace and overthrow the government.  Instead, he surrenders to save innocent lives and is executed on live TV.

Christina Santos (Maria Conchita Alonso) travels to NYC to locate McBain.  She gives him the other half of the hundred-dollar bill.  McBain swings into action, assembling the very men who rescued him with Santos.  One of them, Frank Bruce (Michael Ironside) has become immensely wealthy as an arms dealer.  They travel to Columbia and restart the revolution.

Though it has an interesting plot, the execution is mediocre to weak.  The characters have all the emotion of a potato.  Walken is bland and boring.  The script gives the characters nothing to do.  The battles are ludicrous.  Everyone loves to stand exposed while they shoot, only to be utterly amazed when they prove to be easy targets.  Of course, the principle cast doesn't have to worry about that.  Christina stands up from cover and no bullets hit her.  Ditto for McBain.  Sigh.

Hard pass.

American Made (2017)

Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) is a TWA pilot with a penchant for mischief.  When introduced, he intentionally nosedives an airliner and then explains it away as turbulence.  He is caught smuggling Cuban cigars for extra cash.  Such antics bring him to the attention of Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) as a potential resource.  Soon, Barry is flying recon missions over Central America and Columbia.  However, the CIA isn't paying well and he finds a new income source by transporting drugs into the US.  At risk of being arrested - but given warning by Schafer, Barry flees to Mena, Arkansas, a sleepy town with an airport that miraculously becomes Barry's property.  His business expands and Barry brings in more pilots.  Now he is running guns to the Contras in Nicaragua and drugs for the Columbians, or maybe vice versa.  Eventually, the crimes catch up to Barry and Schafer abandons him to law enforcement.

Based on the true story of Barry Seal (1939-1986), the movie has cameos by noteworthy characters.  Pablo Escobar is one of the Columbian drug lords from the Medellin Cartel, George W Bush sits sheepishly next to Barry at the White House while announcing that he too is a pilot, Ronald & Nancy Reagan have their 'Just Say No' to drugs TV appearance, and the Governor of Arkansas (Bill Clinton) instructs law enforcement to cut Barry loose despite mountains of evidence.

How much of this is true and how much is exaggeration and make believe?  Barry comes across as reckless and not too bright, but somehow is wildly successful.  Is it all down to his connections with the CIA?  Barry thought he was a CIA operative, but he was clearly just a pawn.  How did he not see that?  Was he willfully blind to it on account of all the money?

This was an unusual role for Tom Cruise.  Typically, he plays intense characters who, at some point, is going to deliver a line with a sharpness of a knife's edge or glare so hard that he could break a brick.  Barry doesn't have edges or hard surfaces.  Also, Barry never does the mad sprint, a staple of Tom Cruise movies.  He once fled on a bike, which was clumsy and comic.  He's a go with the flow sort of guy.  His frequent haplessness makes one wonder how he thrives in such a cutthroat industry.

For a movie that views itself as an action comedy film, the comedy is not the laugh out loud kind and the action is mostly stunt flying.  When Barry sees action, he is usually the victim of it.  Overall, it is just okay.

The Peace Deal

It is a day for celebration.  The current war between Israel and the Palestinians has come to a conclusion, just as it has so many times before.  Where those who engineered the peace paint a rosy picture of the future, it is all too likely that this is just a lull in the eternal struggle.  Hamas shall lie low for a few years as it recruits more fodder and assembles a new arsenal, same as always.  This is only an extended ceasefire; to think otherwise is to have no knowledge of the region's history.

Then again, the peace between Israel and Egypt has held for nearly a half century.  The Abraham Accords have normalized relations between Israel and several Muslim Arab countries.  The peace process may not be the chimera it has long appeared to be.  It has taken decades, but progress toward regional peace is undeniable.  Would the various peace agreements have been successful without American arm-twisting?

Peace is good strategy for the time being.  Islam is conquering the West through unfettered migration.  Muslims are openly declaring their intent to overwhelm countries where they have immigrated, assuring them that Sharia Law is on the horizon.  The West is too soft to believe it, even as more and more districts of capital cities become Muslim majority.  The West celebrates the 'peace' in a distant land while strife takes root in the home country.

Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942)

In the Senate, Henry Clay argues in favor of funding the military academy at West Point while others, notably John Randolph of Roanoke, argued against.  Though the bill was passed, Major Samuel Carter was placed in command of West Point with the task of getting all the cadets to resign, thus defeating the academy by other means.  Among the first batch of cadets were Joe Dawson of Kentucky (George Montgomery) and Howard Shelton of New York (John Sutton).  Carolyn Bainbridge (Maureen O'Hara) was both Shelton's fiancée and an important lobbyist in favor of West Point.  She followed Shelton to West Point to be near him and offer assistance to the cadets.  The cadets must overcome the regular soldiers who dislike them, the machinations of Major Carter, and often each other.  Will the US Military Academy survive?

The story is campy nonsense, an ahistorical mess that doesn't know when it happens, where it happens, or who was involved.  Thomas Jefferson established West Point shortly after becoming president in 1801.  However, the battle in which this inaugural cohort of cadets fights took place in 1811.  Interesting tinkering with the timeline.  Of course, Henry Clay served several stints in the Senate, the first being from 1806 to 1807 then again from 1810 to 1811.  On the other hand, John Randolph of Roanoke spent his career almost entirely in the House of Representatives.  He spent two years in the Senate from 1825 to 1827.  However, he did have a habit of bringing his dog into the house chambers, which was a nice touch in the movie.

The battle against Tecumseh is complete fiction.  During the campaign, General William Henry Harrison marched his army north from Vincennes and established Fort Harrison at what is now Terre Haute, IN.  After some training of his troops, he marched north to the battle that made him famous: Tippecanoe.  His forces battled Tecumseh's brother, Tenskwata.  Tecumseh was somewhere in the South, recruiting more tribes to the eventual fight against the Americans that came in the War of 1812.  This telling has the Ten Gentlemen left at Fort Harrison when Harrison marched north.  No sooner is Harrison gone than Tecumseh moves against the fort.  Can our cadets use their hard-earned military knowledge to save the day?  Of course they can.  They can use the fictional account of the Battle of Tours (732 AD) to defeat Tecumseh.

George Montgomery lays on the Southern charm, a poor country boy from Kentucky with homespun grammar and a can-do attitude.  John Sutton plays the cultured New Yorker with deep pockets and a haughty disposition.  Each have opportunities to shine, though George is clearly the more likeable of the two.  Maureen O'Hara outshines the rest of the cast.  Of course, she is the object of everyone's affection and the keystone of a love triangle.  Who will win her heart: the Kentuckian or the New Yorker?

Mediocre.  Skip.

October 7th

It has been two years since the attack that started the current war between Israel and Hamas.  Except for that first assault by Hamas, it has been a one-sided war.  Hamas never stood a chance, and they knew it.  As usual, there have been constant calls for ceasefires and ending of the war.  That is not how wars end.  In World War II, the US required surrender from the Axis powers.  Germany didn't get to sue for peace after D-Day.  No, they had the choice of surrender or continued warfare.  The same was true with Japan.  Either surrender or the bombing will continue.  Hamas has refused to surrender.  Nor have the Palestinian people overthrown their bellicose leaders.  You do not get to start a war then cry timeout when it goes badly for you.  Ergo, the war continues.

Clearly, Hamas will not surrender, thus the war can only end when Hamas is no more.  Is that even possible?  It is quite a strategy that Hamas has and may yet succeed in letting them rebuild for the next attack on Israel.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)

Harry Street (Gregory Peck) lies in a cot on the savannah beneath Kilimanjaro and ponders his life.  He finds now a good time to ponder as he is dying.  His wife, Helen (Susan Hayward), is upset by his dire prediction and fretful that it might be true.  Ignorant or uncaring of his wife's feelings, he blathers on about his impending death from gangrene before nodding off.  His mind travels back to his youth and the first girl whose heart he broke.  His drive to be a successful writer meant that he had to experience as much as he could.  He would be a wanderer.  In Paris, Cynthia Green (Ava Gardner) caught his fancy.  She was the love of his life, if only he had realized that sooner.  In fact, he met Helen on account of she looked like Cynthia.  So much left to write and so little time.

Harry is thoroughly unlikeable.  He is a worthless cad, a man blind to all that is in front of him.  He is so eager to absorb experiences about which he can write but learns nothing from his extensive experience with women.  Of course, the women aren't much better.  Cynthia is too afraid to tell him she's pregnant but brave enough to tumble down a staircase to miscarry.  Countess Liz (Hildegard Knef) is noxious, showing that Harry has terrible taste in women.  Or, more likely, he is willing to endure wealthy women.  Indeed, Helen is rich.  Has Harry parlayed his moderate fame as an author into several gigs as the kept man of affluent women?

The role did not suit Gregory Peck.  Harry is a lowlife, while Peck has the stature of an upstanding citizen of high morals.  Despite having been a heavy drinker in life, he offers unconvincing evidence of it in acting.  Serious and stern were Peck's bread and butter in acting.  Foolishness and high spirits are unconvincing.  Really, he comes across as a mediocre actor here.  There is something to be said for typecasting.  I was reminded of Arabesque, another film where he did not fit the role.

Skip.

Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

The Meg is back, and he has brought his little friends!  It has been five years since Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) fought the Meg.  In the intervening years, he married Suyin, Suyin died, and he is now the single father of teenaged Meiying (Sophia Cai).  He has also taken up the fight against oceanic polluters, performing wildly dangerous feats to provide proof to the authorities.  With his good guy character firmly established, the story can begin.   There is a captive Meg in a grand enclosure.  To make things more interesting, it has birthed several more Megs.  Yeah, it's fine, because they are training them.

Of course, going to the trench where the Meg was found is routine these days.  However, on this particular trip, the submariners discovered a secret mining operation!  Secret!  Sure.  The miners are not at all happy about this and set about killing Jonas' submariners.  Inevitably, the minisubs are rendered useless and the reduced number of submariners must walk to the mine.  So, they had suits that would withstand this pressure?  Okay, fine.  They manage to infiltrate the mine but are trapped. To save the day, Jonas swims from an airlock to another airlock.  No suit!  He's just that tough.  Sigh.

When the surviving submariners return to the surface, they must face armed mercenaries as they race toward the mainland.  Once there, the meg's little friends - doglike dinosaurs who prove quite good at running on land despite millennia spent deep beneath the ocean - charge through a beach resort, killing whomever they catch.  Sigh.

Once again, Jonas is called upon to kill the Meg.  No, make that three Megs.  No problem.  He has 4 explosive-tipped hastily-made javelins that he can fling at a Meg while he races around the bay on a Jetski.

The Meg was fun.  This is garbage.  Clearly, Li Bingbing (Suyin) read the script and asked that her character be killed off.  Statham should have gone the same route.  Hard pass.

Penny Dreadful (Season 1)

Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) is a famous explorer.  However, his trekking into deepest darkest Africa has been put on hold while he seeks his daughter, Mina Harker.  Mina has been abducted by something foul and supernatural.  As such, Murray has assembled a team of specialists to face the threat.  Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) has a way of knowing things, a sensitivity to the spiritual.  Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnet) is an American marksman who happened to be on tour in England when Miss Ives recruited him.  He has a dark and mysterious past, but proves to be a stalwart ally.  Sembene (Danny Sapani) looks to be an African tribesman with deadly knife skills who serves as Murray's butler.  There must be a story here, but it is not revealed.  Finally, requiring a doctor to examine the corpse of a vampire (?!), Murray recruits Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway).  Can this band of heroes find and rescue Murray's daughter?

Of course, there are other figures in London.  Frankenstein's creature (Rory Kinnear) demands a mate that will be like him.  Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) has taken an interest in Miss Ives, Ethan, and even Ethan's lover, Brona (Billie Piper).  There are many subplots to allow development of every character.

Here is what The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen could have been.  Penny Dreadful creates an excellent blend of dark horror with calls to Dracula, Frankenstein, and Doran Gray.  Entertaining and engaging.  Highly recommended.

End of Watch (2012)

Los Angeles Police Officers Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Pena) were in hot pursuit.  Suddenly, the car they are chasing crashed into a fence.  The suspects jumped out and opened fire.  Taylor and Zavala shoot back, killing the suspects.  Back at the police station, Taylor filmed himself while getting ready for the day.  He was taking classes for law but chose filmmaking as an elective.  As such, he has a camcorder with him most of the time.  The two officers have only just returned to duty; it is SOP for officers involved in a shooting to be taken out of rotation while the incident is reviewed.  It is clear that Taylor and Zavala are the hotshots of the department.  The story follows them, much of it viewed from Taylor's camcorder or the bodycams on the officers.

This is like a long episode of Adam 12 with a lot more gunfire and profanity.  Beyond the comradery of the two cops, the story follows their relationships as well.  Taylor and his new girlfriend, Janet (Anna Kendrick), get the most attention.  There are also the ongoing clashes with a brutal and violent drug cartel that has expanded into L.A.  The movie is at sometimes light and fun but also has extremely dark and violent moments.

Good popcorn fun.  Recommended.

Another Shutdown

In his first term, President Trump presided over two shutdowns.  One lasted for 3 days and the other for a record-breaking 35 days.  Here is yet another opportunity to determine which agencies are really needed and which can be disbanded.  Do we really need the Department of Education.  It was only created in 1979 and education outcomes were better before its creation than since.  It has already undergone some trimming, but elimination would save more money.  What about the Department of Housing and Urban Development?  Another relatively new agency (1965), it doesn't appear to have improved that which it was created to oversee.  If the agency hasn't found a way to prevent urban decay and homelessness despite billions in funding and 6 decades of experience, maybe it isn't possible.  Oh, but how much worse would it be without HUD?  Let's find out.  Department of Labor should be abolished.  Another money pit that generates regulations that discourage job creation.  Department of Transportation is yet another government expansion from the 1960s.  What does it do?  They show up after a train derailment or a plane crash and grandstand.  As if the companies wouldn't endeavor to prevent such incidents themselves; derailments and plane crashes are terrible for profits.  Oh, but it makes it appear the government is doing something.  We'll regulate against derailments and crashes.

The US has a $37 trillion national debt and thinks it doesn't need to cut anything.  Even with the government 'shutdown,' the debt is still growing.  It is time to look at the successes of Argentina's pruning of its bloated government and the benefits that have followed.

Django (1966)

A lone man trekked through a muddy landscape, dragging a coffin behind him.  Though he carried a saddle, he had no horse.  Eventually, he stumbled upon several Mexicans whipping a woman.  Why?  No sooner had he spotted the horrific scene than the Mexicans were gunned down by five red-scarved men.  Were they to be her rescuers?  Maria (Loredana Nusciak) was a prostitute who had been a favorite of Major Jackson until she fled to the Mexicans.  Jackson hated Mexicans, killing them whenever he could.  Jackson's men - who all wore the red scarf - had been sent to execute Maria.  Before the men could burn Maria on a cross, Django (Frank Nero) finally revealed himself.  Jackson's men offered to put him in the coffin he dragged.  He gunned them all down.

The small town located near the Mexican border was almost completely abandoned.  Only Nathan's Saloon and Brothel was still active.  Everyone recognized Maria and suggested she leave immediately.  The same advice was given to Django.  He declined.  He was out for vengeance and would not leave until he had it.

Though entertaining, the story is ludicrous.  Django is a veteran of the Civil War, having fought for the North.  Unsurprisingly, Major Jackson fought for the South.  It is implied that Major Jackson killed Django's finance while Django was away.  Why else is he so obsessed with Jackson?  In any case, it is probably the late 1860s or so.  In his coffin, Django has a belt-fed machinegun.  Yeah, that didn't exist yet.  Worse, the belt with bullets hangs out of both sides of the gun and never feeds.  It appears to have unlimited ammo.  The gun is pure nonsense.  The setting must be in western New Mexico because the Mexican-American border isn't the Rio Grande, but Django mentions Pecos as a place to buy another machinegun.  The streets of town are always muddy, but it never rains.  Also, the mud is always fresh.  When Django leaves in the morning with his coffin and boots, the mud on both is still wet.

The movie is just a variation of A Fistful of Dollars (1964), which itself was a Western retelling of Yojimbo (1961).  Considering the number of Django-titled films, I expected more from this.  What made this so popular?  It was viewed as extremely violent for its time and is rated as one of the best Spaghetti Westerns not directed by Sergio Leone.  As an odd sidenote, Django was named after Django Reinhardt, a jazz guitarist who had a crippled hand; by the end of the movie, Django has two mutilated hands.  Strange.

Just okay.

Superman (2025)

On a frozen landscape, Superman (David Corenswet) plummeted from the sky and crashed into the hard-packed snow.  He was bloody and beaten, having suffered his first defeat in battle.  He summoned Krypto, his dog, with a whistle.  The dog dragged him to the Fortress of Solitude.  Oddly, the fortress was inhabited by numbered robots - Four (Alan Tyduk) is the lead robot - who immediately tended to Superman's wounds.  Though far from fully healed, he left to resume his battle with the Hammer of Boravia.  The Hammer offered only a skirmish before withdrawing.  Recently, Superman had prevented a war between Boravia and Jarhanpur, thus the payback by the Hammer.  Superman's independent tinkering in foreign policy didn't please the Pentagon either and provided an excuse for Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) to move against Superman.  As the government knew they could not contain Superman, it outsourced the task to Luthorcorp.

This is a very different Superman movie than usual.  The immediate appearance of Krypto the superdog was a first.  The Justice League - here tentatively called the Justice Gang - is up and running.  In fact, it predates Superman, who has only been on scene as a hero for 3 years.  The Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) is the leader of the gang, which also has Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi).  The staff at the Daily Planet is larger than expected (i.e., lots of characters with speaking roles) and included Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Cat Grant, Steven Lombard, and at least one other guy.  Lois already knows that Clark and Superman are the same person; they are currently dating.  Lex also has an extensive band of minions, most of them are human and computer jockeys.  However, there is also girlfriend Eve Teschmacher, and a couple of supervillains: Ultraman & the Engineer.  Then there are the add-on characters like Metamorpho, Jonathan & Martha Kent, Malik Ali the random citizen and Superman supporter, and President Vasil Ghurkos of Boravia.  So many characters.

DC has done this before.  Marvel has such a huge headstart in the cinematic universes that DC keeps trying to make a phase 2 or phase 3 movie when they haven't made the foundational movies.  Worse, it doesn't link with the existing movies.  Where are the crossover characters from Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and so on?  There is a cameo of Peacemaker (John Cena), but that's all I noticed.

How does Metropolis still exist?  During this film, the city is attacked by the Hammer of Boravia, suffers an attack from a Kaiju (think Godzilla), sees some giant jellyfish battling the Justice Gang, is ground zero for Superman's fight against Ultraman and the Engineer, and finally gets ripped in half by an expanding tear in the fabric of space.  No chance I would live here.

Considering the level of destruction, the portrayal of Superman saving people, dogs, and even squirrels was goofy.  Nonetheless, I like that David Corenswet is a return to the generally well-adjusted and cheerful Boy Scout rather than the grim and depressed Henry Cavill.

Too busy.  Too much background noise.  However, it was fun to watch.

Return of the War Department

President Trump has signed an executive order renaming the Defense Department to the War Department.  For most of American history, it was the War Department.  In 1949, it was changed to the Defense Department, presumably to be less hostile sounding.  Of course, since the change, the US has generally lost wars.  Defense is a passive term.  You stand behind your castle wall and hold off the attackers.  That's defense.  By renaming the department, we linguistically dumped half of the mission: offense.  Is it mere coincidence that we've lost wars ever since?  Probably.

Pete Hegseth becomes the first Secretary of War since Kenneth Royall in 1947.  Three presidents have served as the War Secretary - James Monroe, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft.  Let's see how things go with a War Department for a few decades and hope things improve.

Road House (2024)

Frankie (Jessica Williams) arrives at an arena where two men are having a bare knuckles brawl, a poor man's UFC fight.  She needs a fighter.  In walks Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal).  The victor of the previous fight throws in the towel rather than fight Dalton.  Clearly, he is the man to hire.  He declines.  Instead, he ponders suicide by parking on a railroad track.  He opts against that too.  Dalton arrived in the Florida Keys to accept Frankie's offer.  He moved into a crocodile-haunted boat at the dock and cleaned out the riffraff from the bar.  However, the riffraff proved to be tenacious and increased despite Dalton's success.  Eventually, Knox (Conor McGregor) arrived to force Frankie to sell the Road House.

Dalton is a pleasant fellow and shows concern for those he is about to pummel.  Before trouncing a band of ruffians, he made sure there was a hospital nearby.  In fact, he drove them to the hospital.  Violence is a last resort.  He has a lot of experience with violence.  He is a former UFC Champion.  Gyllenhaal is good in the role.

Conor McGregor goes over the top in every scene.  Knox doesn't use brakes; he crashes to come to a stop.  He crashed a sports car into motorcycles, another car into a tree, and a truck into the Road House.  Does he have a driver's license?  Doubtful.  He has crazy eyes and an overexaggerated swagger when he walks.  He dialed it up to 11 whenever he was on screen.  For a minion, he caused his employer more trouble than he was worth.

The movie has its moments.  It also has a lot of plot holes.  Why would a UFC fighter know how to build a remote-activated bomb?  Does Charlie give every random guy who gets off the bus a copy of her book about Fred the Tree?  Why didn't Frankie mention that there were offers to buy the Road House?  The reason she needs a serious bouncer is kept secret from the bouncer.  What kind of idiot demands to be shaved with a straight razor on a boat on choppy water?  That was a terrible introduction for the villain, painting him as a blowhard dork.  He never recovers.

Just okay.

UK in Collapse

A Scottish girl - only 14 years-old - has gone viral by displaying a knife and an axe to a migrant.  Of course, she was arrested soon after.  The question becomes, why was a migrant following a teenaged girl and her 12-year-old sister?  And filming them with his phone?  Why would a teenage girl carry weapons at all?  Rapes in Scotland have tripled in the last 20 years, from 924 in 2002 to 2,897 in 2024.  Stories of grooming gangs have been mostly ignored by the government lest the open borders policy suffer from the bad publicity.  The UK has failed to protect its girls and this particular girl has taken her defense upon herself.  Tragic.

Coincident with this incident, the English have started a campaign of flying the St. George Cross throughout England.  While flying Ukraine flags and Palestinian flags was supported and protected by the government, the English flag has been taken down or painted over.  It is a sign of bigotry and intolerance.  Really?  The English can't fly the English flag in England?  Here is an obvious case of the government attempting to dissolve the people and import another.  London, the capitol city, is majority foreign.  England has been conquered by a hostile power, and the English are only now catching onto the fact.

Flag Burning

President Trump has signed an executive order directing the DOJ to prosecute flag burners.  Interesting.  As it happens, I remember when the Supreme Court declared flag burning to be an exercise in free speech and generally accepted the ruling.  However, there has been something of a double standard on this topic.  Burn the US flag and most people yawn.  Burn a Koran and government officials come out of the woodwork and vociferously denounce such sacrilege.  Leave tire tracks on a rainbow crosswalk and outraged voices denounce the offender.  Yes, a Florida man (of course) did a burnout on an LGBTQ crosswalk and found himself charged with crimes.  No free speech here?  Should flag burning get equal treatment to tire tracks on a painted street?

Even with the court being more conservative than it was in 1989 when the flag burning ruling was handed down, it isn't going to side with Trump.  He knows that.  However, as a matter of public relations, do you want to be the guy who is upset by protesters burning the American flag or indifferent to it?  Yeah, even when the court overrules him, he wins.

Looking at the practical side, it is generally illegal to start fires in public.  In response to Trump's EO, a protester lit an American flag on fire in Lafayette Park near the White House.  Shortly after, he was arrested.  Was it for flag burning?  Not exactly.  That he started a fire in the park was illegal; it didn't matter that it was a flag.  Enforcing laws against starting fires in public spaces - where such laws exist - could be a route to jailing flag burners.  It's like how the government got Al Capone for tax evasion.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Kate was at Heathrow with plans to fly to Norway.  The man in front of her at the ticket counter proved to be a massively built though apparently dull-witted fellow and not owning a credit card to book his flight.  Growing increasingly frustrated, Kate offered to buy his ticket.  Then it turned out he didn't have a passport.  No sooner had she abandoned her trip to Norway than Heathrow exploded!

Dirk Gently slept through the urgent ringing of his phone.  Eventually, the repeated phone calls ended and he was able to slip back into a pleasant sleep.  When he finally awoke, he realized that he was late for an appointment with a paying client!  That explained the phone ringing!  How to explain his lateness and still get paid?  He made his way to the client's home and was troubled to see so many police cars parked out front.  His client was inexplicably dead in a basement locked from the inside.  Suicide?  Unlikely.  His decapitated head was sitting on the record player.  The situation was clearly impossible, which was just the sort of mystery Dirk liked.  If only he had a paying client.

Odin, the All Father of the Norse Gods, has retired to a mental hospital where his linen sheets are changed frequently and he lives in comfort.  Annoyingly, Thor had demanded a challenge in Valhalla, which was going to interrupt Odin's joyous retirement.  Yes, it turns out that the gods still exist though they have not adapted to the modern world.  Most of them are tramps wandering the streets.  In fact, until very recently, Odin had been one such tramp, but he sold off the power of the gods for a clean bed and fresh linens.

Dirk proves to be a hapless oaf, a man who puts immense effort into avoiding small tasks until they became insurmountable.  The most obvious example of this was his fear of opening his refrigerator for discovering what might have become of the contents.  It hadn't been opened in months and his cleaning lady had likewise avoided opening the refrigerator.  Funny?  Not really.  He was so determined not to open it that he bought a new refrigerator and had the old one hauled away, unopened.  In the course of the day, he managed to get his nose broken, his hand clawed by an eagle, twist an ankle jumping out of a window, rip his coat, crash his car twice, and get run over by a motorbike.  Is this an effort at slapstick?  Dirk was quirky and mysterious in the last book, here he is mostly an idiot who literally crashes into the solution to his questions.

Thor is a lot of fun.  He is full of godly fury and has an epic temper-tantrum to clear his mind.  He's usually gruff and laconic, but his interactions with Kate are fun.  His punishment of having to count all the stones on the beaches of Wales was rather funny, especially when he refused to say how many.  "Count them yourself!"

As for the mystery, it really isn't explained.  Like in the last book, Dirk's great solution - if there was such - takes place off screen.  What happened to get Odin back to his linens and Thor on his way to Norway?  The end is very abrupt and unsatisfying.

Skip.

Gerrymander

Based on the 2024 election results, there are 21 blue states and 29 red states.  The blue states account for 206 seats in the House of Representatives.  The red states account for 229.  Of course, there are Republican Congressmen from blue states and Democratic Congressmen from red states.  How does that break down?

Now let's talk gerrymandering.  The idea is rather than let the voters pick their representative, the representative picks the voters.  This allows for safe seats or splitting strongholds of the other party into bite-size chunks that can be overwhelmed and digested by the ruling party.  Depending on how the districts are drawn, the dominant party can greatly weaken the opposition.  Let's look at some examples.

Illinois (blue) has 17 congressional districts.  In 2024, the state votes 43% for Trump and 54% for Harris.  How many Republican congressmen are there from Illinois?  Three.  That is 17% representation.

Texas (red) has 38 districts.  In 2024, the state went to Trump by 56% to 42% vote.  How many Democrat congressmen from Texas?  Thirteen.  That is 34%.

California (blue) has 52 districts and broke heavily for Harris: 58% to 38%.  Republicans hold 9 of the 52 seats, or 17%.

Many states are difficult to gerrymander.  Several only have 1 congressman (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming).  The smaller states - 4 congressional districts or less - are mostly unremarkable.  That eliminates 21 states from the list, leaving 14 blue states and 15 red states.  Here is the new breakdown:

First thing to note is that there were no Republicans in the smaller blue states, but there were 5 Democrats in the smaller red states.  Interesting.  In a red state, representation is 71% Republican vs. 29% Democrat.  In a blue state, it is 73% Democrat to 27% Republican.  Not a big difference.

Harris carried blue states by an average of 55% to 43%.  Trump carried red states by an average of 58% to 41%.  Trump performed better in blue states than Harris in red states and yet, the House was on a razor's edge.  

The blue states have done a far better job of gerrymandering than the red states.  If the Republicans adopt the same strategy, they will gain seats.  Having already gerrymandered the blue states, there is little the Democrats can do to counter it, other than complain.  That 34% representation in Texas might soon drop to the level of an Illinois or California.

In the near future, perhaps an unbiased AI can draw districts that don't create ludicrous zigzag patterns that weave through various counties and cities to generate a safe seat for the dominant party.  For the time being, a party would be foolish not to gerrymander.

Jim Lovell

Jim Lovell had been one of the New Nine astronauts in 1962, which included John Young, Ed White, Pete Conrad, Frank Borman, and Neil Armstrong.  Lovell's first flight in space had been with Frank Borman on Gemini 7 in December 1965.  In 1966, he went back to space on Gemini 12 with Buzz Aldrin; this was Aldrin's first trip to space.  In 1968, he joined Frank Borman and William Anders on Apollo 8 for the first flight to the moon.  The famous picture of Earthrise was taken on this mission.

Though slated to command Apollo 14, his crew was bumped forward to Apollo 13 on account of Alan Shepard's perceived unreadiness for the mission; Shepard's last mission was 9 years earlier.  Lovell was one of only 5 astronauts who had been on 3 missions at the time; he had spent 3 weeks in space so far and would be the first to make a 4th trip.  A walk on the moon would be a perfect capstone to a stellar career.  Instead, it proved to be the successful failure that saw NASA overcome an array of challenges to bring the astronauts home safely.

Lovell was portrayed by Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 (1995) and Tim Daly in HBO's From the Earth to the Moon (1998).  Both the movie and the series are highly recommended.

RIP

Twixt (2011)

Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), a horror author noted for witch stories, arrived in a small town for a book signing.  The decline of his career was demonstrated by the venue: a hardware store that happened to double as a bookstore.  He only signed one book.  Sherrif Bobby LaGrange (Bruce Dern) is a fan, as well as an aspiring writer.  He had an idea for a book titled The Vampire Executions.  Hall politely declined to be a co-author.  However, when the sheriff offered a chance to visit the morgue and the victim of a murder, Hall consented.  The corpse of a young woman with a stake through her heart laid on a gurney.  Maybe she was a vampire, the sheriff suggested.  Hall also learned that Edgar Allen Poe once stayed in the town.  He eagerly visited the ruins of the old hotel and saw the plaque.

Edgar Allen Poe slept here

Duly impressed, he checked in for the night at the local motel and fell into a restless sleep.  The ruined hotel, the murdered girl, and talk of vampires intermingled in a dark dream.  Here, he met Virginia (Elle Fanning) - the murdered girl? - and visited the hotel - which was open for business - and had dark history of a dozen murdered children.  In the morning, he investigated the dream only to find many truths in it.  As such, he agreed to co-author a book with the sheriff and made multiple trips into dreamland to further investigate the various crimes with the help of Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin).

For an 80-minute film, it has far too many characters, too many plot threads, and too scattershot a storyline.  Coppola was trying some experimental filmmaking and it clearly doesn't work.  Virginia proves to be a stand-in for Hall's tragically killed daughter, for Poe's dead wife, and for the child who escaped the previously mentioned murder of a dozen children only to be buried alive like in a Cask of Amontillado. The ending is entirely unsatisfying.  Is Flamingo (Alden Ehrenreich) actually a vampire or just some Goth poser?  Does the devil live in the 7-faced clocktower?  Is the sheriff the serial killer that he is supposedly pursuing?  Let the audience decide.  The important thing is that Hall has a mental breakdown about the death of his daughter, thus 'dealing' with the tragedy.

Joanne Whaley - who was Kilmer's ex-wife IRL - plays his shrewish wife here.  Yikes!  How much of these interactions are acting vs. re-enactments?

Skip this one.

One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)

Sometime in the 1920s, Lord Edward Southmere (Derek Nimmo) had gone to great efforts to smuggle a microfilm containing Lotus X out of China, wearing ludicrous disguises and resorting to dangerous routes.  When back in England, he allowed his guard to drop only to find himself hotly pursued by members of the Chinese embassy.  He avoided capture long enough to hide Lotus X at the Natural History Museum.  While at the museum, he had a chance encounter with his one-time nanny, Hettie (Helen Hayes).  So it was that Hettie took up the task of recovering the Lotus X before Hnup Wan (Peter Ustinov) could.  While Hettie and her band of nannies sought to find the microfilm in the dinosaur skeleton, the Chinese opted to steal the entire skeleton.  Would the Chinese recover Lotus X or was that secret to be revealed to the English?

The movie is a goofball Disney comedy that pits hapless Chinese agents against a platoon of British nannies.  Of course, craziness ensues.  The highlight of the film is the dinosaur skeleton on a lorry being driven through the foggy streets of London as the Chinese give chase.  A British big game hunter (Jon Pertwee) sees the dinosaur and instantly joins the chase to bag the biggest game of his life.

The movie has not aged well.  The Chinese are played by British actors with cringeworthy makeup.  Bernard Bresslaw, who was six feet seven inches tall, is embarrassing as Fan Choy.  Clive Revill also has a terrible makeup job as Quon.  Peter Ustinov may have parlayed this role into Charlie Chan some years later.

I saw this in the theater as a kid and remember being disappointed how the hero - Lord Edward - kept getting sidelined.  Heck, he was hardly in the movie after the first 5 or 10 minutes.  Nonetheless, I had warm feelings about it until recently rewatching it.  It does have a surprising number of unexpected stars.  Joss Ackland plays a Texan visiting England.  Roy Kinnear is the baffled police superintendent who must respond to reports of a dinosaur traipsing through London.

Skip.