The Force is Female

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Sure.



I mean, why not?



And who am I to disagree?

I am chill with "the force" being "female" and whatnot—whatever it's supposed to mean.



But... Must it also mean that it has to be dumb and boring?

I don't know...

Is it me, or does it look like cosplayers and fans do Star Wars better than Disney?











If you ask me, it would seem that, at the very least, they certainly have more fun.


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Imagine a world designed by Kafka, Stalin, Orwell, Huxley, Sartre and the Marx Brothers...

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—or the DNC?

Thus did—and did not (I kid the DNC!)—begin the back cover of the 1987 second edition of Paranoia RPG rulebook.

We live in interesting times, and it is an interesting and most fitting time indeed for the release of the first game console official adaptation of the classic dystopian science-fiction tabletop role-playing game first published in 1984 by West End Games





As I said: I kid the DNC.

But then again, "If the shoe fits...," as the saying goes...

May I pour the gentleman another drink?

Why, yes, sir, the 80's have been called the "great decade." This is not for me to say—I'll take the gentleman's word for it.



As for the 90's, well, according to some records, such as the History Channel, I have heard the decade referred to as the "good decade."



But this was then.

And this...

Well, this is "now," sir.

What a difference four decades make.  Thirty-nine little years...

What gave?

I am not sure, sir.

Innocence lost?

There are those who say, it was a slow process and that it had all begun already in those "great" and "good" decades, of which the gentleman speaks, and that people just didn't know better.

Then again, there are those who say that it all began after Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000).

Others say it all happened in a flash after September 11, 2001. Because after 911, "everything  changed."

As I said, sir, I wouldn't know. Whilst I might have been acquainted with the eras of which the gentleman speaks, and many of those memorable personalities of the times, I might even have met in person, I do not judge, sir—why, I would never presume. I only pour the drinks and refill people's glasses when they want a new drink—or even, at times, when, they may think they don't want a new drink, but are really desperately in need of a new drink. How would I know? Why, sir, I just know. It is my job to know about such things. Those are the things I know about. I make no pretense of sociopolitical knowledge, sir.

But I get it...



I have heard the argument before, and the gentleman will correct me if I am remembering this inaccurately, that "there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know," and then "there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. "

But seriously, now...

Let me ask you:

Would you buy a used car from this man?

Rep. Adam Schiff, I mean.



A visitor of the Wulfshead, a social theorist if I recall correctly, once pointed out to me that, beyond former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's February 12, 2002 infamous three categories statement, there is a fourth category, which the secretary omitted in his newsbriefing, "the unknown known," sir, that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know. History has shown—collective History, with a big H, sir, not just US history—that the main dangers to nations, and truly, the species at large, lie in the "unknown knowns—in the visitor's words: "the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values."

But, as I said, sir, this was then...

This is now:



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Awake in the Night Land

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It's the same thing every year...

I ate all the candies—and we are still three days away from Halloween (observed)!

I just can't help myself. What can I say? That's what happens when one is awake in the Night Land.

I'll just have to get some more candies before Thursday evening, I suppose. There's no way around it.

All the same, I'll just be posting that sign in the front yard, just in case I don't get to it in time.



Does anyone still give away shiny pennies on Halloween anymore?

Nickels and dimes?

Half dollar coins?

Perhaps this one would do in a pinch:



Or, maybe, that one:



No. Wait...



Not THIS ONE:


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What if Woody Allen had directed Watchmen?

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It never gets old.



How other directors might have filmed the comics classic.

Like many, I absolutely loved the ground-breaking comic book series and graphic novel! And, well, though it's no secret that Moore wanted nothing to do with the movie adaptation, I thought that Zack Snider's 2009 movie was not all that bad.

Alan Moore also made it pretty clear that he did not want anything to do with the 2019 Damon Lindelof's HBO TV series, either.



I don't know.

I have yet to see the HBO TV series—I don't have HBO 😐

But I am sure it must be very good... My next door neighbour ❤️ it...



And, at the time of this post, the fist episode in the series has garnered a whooping critic rating of 98% on the Tomatometer.





Is it wrong that, somehow, I haven't mustered any of the critics beseeming enthusiasm over Lindelof's Watchmen alternate history or any interest in any of the nonsensical (commercially?) generated wannabe political brouhaha that is surrounding the series?



Should I check my privileges?



Meanwhile, on this side of the multiverse, in a not so alternate history near you:


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No; but seriously, now...

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One's got to love the extent of the convoluted contortions the MSM and their social media affiliates will go to, to explain away what Joker is all about. The truth of the matter is they don't know what to make of it.

Case in point:



I quote:



"An alienated directionless minority," huh?!



Next, they'll be calling them "basket of deplorables."

Very obviously, Sam Adams has been struggling with this movie, as this is the second piece he laboriously writes about it. And, well, the strain of the cognitive dissonance is showing.

Deep down, I think the critics know that we know that they know that we know that they know better than that.

Do you really need a "key to understanding" the mass riots in Joker?  Do you really feel one is needed?

Try the 1992 Los Angeles riots.



Remember Rodney King?



Or what about the Yellow Vests?



No wonder police forces, all over the world, including (and maybe especially) in the USA, are being militarized. Though, there has not been much rioting on this side of the Atlantic since Rodney King.

The only people marching, nowadays, are the duly establishment-sanctified demonstrators of the bourgeoisie with a pussy-hat on their head.



I guess, the joke is on them.

But sometimes critics forget to lie, and Michael Moore perhaps said it best:





Which is maybe a long-winded way of saying what, some 50 years ago, JFK said perhaps even better:



I agree with Michael Moore: Joker is a masterpiece. And, imho, most certainly the most grownup DC (and Marvel) universe film, ever. The movie delivers everything that the much extolled Dark Knight was aiming for but quite never achieved.

Truth is, sometimes people grow tired of putting on a happy face...



It is a wonder, actually, considering what most people endure through life on a daily basis, that most of humanity has not become quite mad already—as perhaps it already has.

But never mind what Michael Moore thinks (regardless of how relevant it may or may not happen to be), never mind JFK. One doesn't need a "key" to understand Todd Phillips's film. Joker is a movie one ought to see for oneself and come out of it with one's own personal feelings about it. This is how art works. And this movie is definitely Art.

As Eugene Ionesco once put it:

"People regard politics as the only entertainment that permit us to live. In reality, one dies of politics. Politics are dead. The ideologies and philosophers are dead from which politics pretend to have originated. (...) As a reservoir of the collective unconscious, as a spontaneous or calculated expression inspired by the universal community, as prophetic language, art reveals man to himself.

If politics often lie, art cannot lie. The artist cannot lie because his creations are imaginary and imagination unmasks human significance."

But that is something that no politically correct minded reviewer looking for "keys" or some reductionists talking points will understand, because, by definition, such perspectives are politically minded, which is the reason why either political correctness or political propaganda, inevitably, has always been and will always be at the antipodes of the spontaneity and sincerity of art.
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Which One Doesn't Belong?

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This is Which One Doesn't Belong?, a website dedicated to providing thought-provoking puzzles for children and grown ups alike. There are no answers provided as there are many different, correct ways of choosing which one doesn't belong.



Birds of a feather...



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The poetry of F. G. Sanford

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Damn, here is what is rather bluntly put and straight to the point, wouldn't you say, Count?





It doesn't have any of the whimsical allusive poetic tongue of a F. G. Sanford, but it does carry some wallop.

- Are you familiar with F. G. Sanford, Count?

- . . .

- Well, neither I am.

He's one commenter whose entry I just so happened to stumble upon while reading some of the comments about The Pseudo Debate Over Jeffrey Epstein’s Suicide, which has been all the vogue of late in the presstitude and amongst the servile mass media stenographers, who, quite unconvincingly, pass themselves off as the fourth estate nowadays.

Details that shock still emerge. Intelligence assets converge. There are hints of foul play that just won’t go away, And conspiracy theories resurge! Just ignore all Jack Ruby’s connections. Those stories are merely deflections. Tricky Dick payed him well, when he threatened to tell, Jack claimed he got cancer injections! They needed a secret backwater. A place to hide Joe Stalin’s daughter. The family estate of Ruth Paine worked out great, But that link didn’t seem to hold water! Allen Dulles had many a tryst. Another Paine topped off his list. But don’t dig too deep in a Nietzschean leap, Such theories are rightly dismissed! Don’t bother connecting the dots. You’ll have yourself tied up in knots. The string that you’d need would be quite long indeed, The guilty are covered with spots! The evidence gets a sequester. They’ve got pictures of every molester. That safe that they cracked in New York was just packed, Now it’s classified where it will fester! The case will not likely be solved. That’s because of the big-shots involved. Fools will x-ray the ground for what’s already found, The cement truck diversion resolved. They’ll never release any files. They are classified pending denials. Dershowitz is relieved and Prince Andrew reprieved, Cash payouts will stifle the trials! Folks won’t look at what’s right in their faces. It works just the same in all cases. Ghislaine like Ruth Pain will get legerdemain, All the good stuff will stay in safe places! They covered up Epstein for years. Never mind all the tragic young tears. So now in a pinch, you think they might flinch, And endanger those stellar careers? The Iran-Contra fixer is clever. He’s certain to pull every lever. All the classified dirt is a cinch to subvert, They’ll just keep it a secret forever! It’s been fifty six years since the coup. But the truth never seems to pull through. With each turn of the screw, magic bullets accrue, And Americans can’t find a clue! — F. G. Sanford August 20, 2019

Truly inspired, if you ask me. Poetry and critical thinking combined!

But then again poetry and critical thinking, perhaps, have become somewhat out-of-style in this era of nitwittery.

Subtlety is lost on some people.
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In Nomine

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So, as I said, D bursts in the room, as I am sipping my morning coffee.

"Do you know what day, this is?" she asks brightly.

"It's the Lord's Day," I answer good-narudlely in kind of a sort of tongue-in-cheek way.

"Funny you should say that," she responds, triumphantly. "Today is Chris Hemsworth's birthday!"



I don't know.

I think I was set up.













Happy birthday, Chris!

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