Fiction

• Ursula K. LeGuin

• Octavia Butler

• Margaret Atwood

• Tui T. Sutherland (J Fic)

• Suzanne Collins (YA)

• Lois Lowry (YA)

Non-Fiction

• Naomi Klein

• Margaret Atwood (Massey Lecture)

• Angela Y. Davis

• Tanya Talaga

• bell hooks

• Robin Wall Kimmerer

According to Jake Horton & Nick Beake at BBC from 15 October:

• Israel - Hamas (not over as Israel repeatedly violates ceasefire and Palestinians continue to struggle for basic human needs, fend off settler attacks, and heal from de facto genocide while billionaires’ mouths water over waterfront property)

“Hamas and other factions inside Gaza are rejecting the U.S.-backed U.N. plan to place Gaza under the control of a U.S.-led board and an international stabilization force.” (Democracy Now, 20 November)

• Israel - Iran (12 days, ceasefire)

“There is no agreement on a permanent peace or on how to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme going forward,” argues Mr O’Hanlon. (BBC)

“So what we have is more of a de facto ceasefire than an end to war, but I’d give him some credit, as the weakening of Iran by Israel - with US help - has been strategically significant.” (BBC)

• India - Pakistan (4 days, ceasefire, not him)

“The talks regarding cessation of military action were held directly between India and Pakistan under the existing channels established between both militaries,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said. (BBC)

• Rwanda - DR Congo (1994 to present, not over)

“There’s still fighting between Congo and Rwanda - so that ceasefire has never really held,” says Margaret MacMillan (BBC)

• Thailand - Cambodia (less than a week, ceasefire)

On 7 August, Thailand and Cambodia reached an agreement aimed at reducing tensions along their shared border. (BBC)

• Armenia - Azerbaijan (nearly 40 years, actually them)

“The leaders of both countries said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in securing a peace deal, announced at the White House on 8 August.” (BBC)

• Egypt - Ethiopia (what war?)

There was no “war” here for the president to end, but there have long been tensions over a dam on the River Nile… No formal deal has been reached between Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve their differences. (BBC)

• Serbia - Kosovo (again, what?)

“Serbia and Kosovo haven’t been fighting or firing at each other, so it’s not a war to end,” Prof MacMillan told us. (BBC)

Sounds like Beirut all over again.

I was in a Canadian school zone today and thought that the posted speed, 40 km/h, should simply be referred to as “fast.” It’s 1.6× the speed of a four-munute mile and 10× walking speed. It’s fast.

Stroads would be fast-and-a-half.

Intercity highways, ie. “back roads,” would be double-fast.

Expressways, 2.5 fast. Triple-fast and beyond is certainly too fast.

The point is: anything that is fast is doable on a bike. Faster than that should be on rails or have a professional, full-time operator — not anyone who can pass an eye exam, and hold a No.2 pencil or click a mouse 40 times.

Fast is fast enough. If you need to go fast, go alone. If you need to go far, or faster than fast, go together.

Off the top of my head:

• Pan’s Labyrinth (CGI augments excellent practical effects)

• Ghostbusters (1984)

• The Cell (CGI augments excellent set and costume design).

• The Abyss (1989)

• Interstellar (had to check if this was CGI).

With research: Speed and The Edge of Tomorrow are fun. Also, I am annoyed at myself that I forgot Aronofsky’s the Fountain — a beautiful, painful film.

Practical scenes with mentioning:

• That one scene in Chinatown, “they lose their noses!”

• That one scene in Boogie Nights, “I’m a big bright shining star.”

• That last arrow in Throne of Blood

Two out of these three are movies I keep coming back to.

Welp, guess I can’t avoid the Thing for much longer. Unless, of course, I can.

I’m not much for horror. But, it’s also sci-fi. I’m torn.

On a scale of 0 to Event Horizon and Alien (1979), I assume the Thing is beyond even these.

Makes you wonder whether the calculations serve anyone other than the top 0.1%.

Their portfolios bring up the average for the US because some swinging dicks decided that a (temporarily) decisive strategic advantage in faster calculators makes the graph look “good.”

Meanwhile, people are hungry, getting furloughed, evicted, bombed, arrested, bound, gagged, and shot in America. Democratic institutions, the fundamental raison d’être for the American experiment, are undermined, bulldozed, disregarded, or blown up.

That’s fine, they say. That’s who and what they VOTED for. That’s the mandate, they say.

Horseshit, I say.

DS9 does so much right. It is certainly on point in its treatment of moral gray.

Sci-fi all the way.

Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009) shows the fall of an empire (loosely, America) at the hands of their AI creations. I guess Rome or Britain could also sit in for America. This show aired while Bush the lesser was taking Afghanistan and Iraq apart piece by piece.

The Expanse (2015-2022) is the worthy heir to the throne of casting harsh light on the oligarchs and hegemons. Belters could be any people put upon by this corrupt system: migrant workers, Indigenous people, refugees, the unhoused, the descendants of the enslaved — anyone who was expected to bootstrap success.

Both are good shows. The Expanse is proving to be somewhat more resilient to the passage of time.

Psilocybin sparkle.

Now I’m confused. I thought it was 50% grey. Wikipedia has a lot more middle greys.

Another easy answer would be Six Feet Under. This show has the most beautiful finale.

The most expensive thing ever built and maintained is the International Space Station. At $160B over its lifetime, the ISS is a model for the excessively wealthy.

True, it is not primed for self-sustaining flight, and the quarters are very cramped, but a space-faring über-rich individual has to have a Plan B in case they’re not on the same continent as one of their “end of days” bunkers. Those start at $1 million and can run upwards of $300 million.

About the same time as the first private space station comes into service, we will also find that the rocket and tandem-independent space shuttle will also be feasible. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Joseph Gedeon at the Guardian reports that Matthew Dowd was fired from MSNBC for stating:

“Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions, … You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”

Richard Luscombe at the Guardian reports:

Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team.

Whoa, no way. THAT’S why he’s the Count? I thought it was a royalty/ bloodline thing.

In general, vampires existed to me as a commentary on colonialism, class, and the advantages to longevity. Vampires as “blood suckers of the poor”, to quote Popa Wu, who was quoting Louis Farrakhan.

I didn’t know the ‘stop and count objects’ element.

Question, though, as I think this through: would that not extend as an antisemitic trope?

(A half hour of reading later.)

TIL there is an antisemitic history to vampires.

“As rendered by Bram Stoker, the literary depiction of Count Dracula is deeply antisemitic, with roots in the long-standing blood libel against Jews and the antisemitic archetype of the wealth-hoarding degenerate.” [2]

“Today, the vampire remains one of cinema’s most popular horror villains, and the connections to prejudice are largely forgotten, or erased. They still lurk around the edges of the genre though, as generations of creators have either furtively invited them in or tried to put a stake through their heart.” [1]

“The symbolic link between Jews and blood through a history of blood libel and the depiction of Jews as alien and parasitic are seen the main themes that allowed the merging of the two image.” [3]

[1] Bloodsuckers: Vampires, Antisemitism And Nosferatu At 100

[2] The Antisemitic History of Vampires

[3] How Vampires Became Jewish

[4] Blood Libel: The Anti-Semitic Roots of Vampirism

As you can see, I almost left him out. I don’t think of him as an actor. More, a plug-and-play action man for Christopher MacQuarrie screenplays.

Since 2001: Space Odyessy is above…

Im tempted to go with some Jackie Chan (?!) or Jet Li (Hero) or Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) or Donnie Yen (Ip Man) film — the one that’s closest to my heart is Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Do not watch the trailer. It’s garbage. The film is beautiful.

There are a few outstanding moments in film as well that are practical effects that just force my memory:

As mentioned: 2001, and the Fall.

The last arrow in Throne of Blood. Several scenes in The Cell (dir: Tarsem, who also did the Fall) I’ll also highlight Hero.

e: And all the crazy shit Tom Cruise does in Mission: Impossible. Those are some fun movies.

The first time my cousins from FL visited Canada, it was July. They were surprised there was no snow. So, we took them over to the rec centre and they saw a small pile of snow out back. They were thrilled.

It was dumped out of a Zamboni.

As a small child: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

As a teen: Lightning by Dean R. Koontz

As a high-schooler: Island by Aldous Huxley

Billionaires win. They are winning in this world — imagine the world as an arena…

They first reach out to those primed to defect. The ones who think they are defending their own interests because, one day after much bootstrapping, they’ll be rich too. That’s 10% of the non-billionaire population and a large group of the young, able-bodied, entitled predominantly male population.

Another 10% opt to not fight. They’ll wait and see who comes out on top or opt for pacifism — supporting those who fight without fighting themselves.

The next 20% are those who want a compromise — not having the foresight to admit they’ll be screwed in the end by the shrewd and wily billionaire class.

That still leaves 4.8 billion people.

Well, another 10% of the planet is malnourished, living in extreme poverty, or are infirm and unable to fight. Take another 10% who lack the capacity to fight effectively, are children, or are exceedingly advanced in age.

We’re down to 3.2 billion people.

Of those who remain, each billionaire will need to kill 1 000 000 people in order to win the day. This is achieved by a combination of attacks — nuclear, chemical, biological, conventional, and systemic. Supply lines are cut early, communication lines are jammed, and every possible similarity that could bind 3.2 billion people together is spun into a wedge to divide them. The billionaires are unified behind their purchasing power. Each victorious serves as a message to the remaining people of the fresh horrors to come.

After five or six days, there are 2700 remaining billionaires, who somehow got richer and only 1 billion fighters. Demoralized, decimated, defeated, the non-billionaires give in.

The one strategy that would — nay, could — turn the tables is to upend the tables. Make money worthless. In some minds, this is the Purge. This is the antithesis.

Instead, as a thesis: truly valuing life and living things, the fragile interdependence of ecology within an economic, social, and anthropological order would negate any power that the death-driven cult of profiteering offers. I’m not talking about sitting in a circle and singing kumbaya into eternity. I am talking about doing the work of eternity — stewardship for a planet we understand (not just its commodities) and community for all participants (not just the economically viable). We can learn from one another and grow with one another without exploiting or reinforcing one another’s weaknesses.

Takers like to quote Adam Smith, Sun Tzu, or the 48 Laws of Power. The battles we do not fight will feed us. The fields we do not raze will house us. The oceans we do not destroy will connect us. The planet we treat like a home instead of a hole in the ground will support us.