Read this guy’s article. He obviously doesn’t like the President but he says the data shows that President Trump will win in November.
When those biased against you say you’re gonna win then chances are you’re gonna win. QED.
Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items
Doctors Are Starting to Say, Enough is Enough
I saw this on the Conservative Treehouse. These doctors in California are tired of making believe. We now know what the COVID-19 virus does. They go over the statistics and they say there is no longer any reason to shelter in place. This should be required viewing for everyone who is scared.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfLVxx_lBLU&feature=youtu.be
So YouTube censored the link above so here is a different site that still has it.
https://banned.video/watch?id=5ea4994ea881fd00808e95ad
ZMan Chronicles Grocery Shopping in the Time of the Plague
He may be a bad thinker but he sure does know how to make fun of the Cloud People and their nonsense. It certainly gave me a much-needed chuckle.
Lectures in Quantum History for the Advanced Undergraduate – Volume I – First Contact – Part 2
Professor Gordrow arranged his thoughts and began his lecture again. “Now before I was interrupted, I was touching on the general topic of First Contact and I mentioned the classic Earth example. But to provide the background for that remarkable event I will remind you neophytes of the underlying mathematics. As anyone who has the intelligence to understand it knows Gordrow’s First Theorem of Quantum Chrono-Cosmo-Moiro-Dynamics states that when the probability of historical change uniformly approaches zero in a volume of space that continues to increase toward infinity then the quantum time-space probability reversal will be centered on the asymptotic fault line. This theory in fact was proven following the First Contact we are considering. At that time Earth was at the periphery of a rapidly expanding galactic civilization that had spread from the galactic core over the course of a billion years and was now so rapidly expanding that the odds of any possible combination of events halting its engulfment of the entire Milky Way galaxy was essentially zero. What a perfect test of the theory! Now if you inspect the terms in the denominator of the third term you’ll see …”
“But Professor Gordrow!” exclaimed Dorson Tendandren. Gordrow radiated annoyance and shot back, “Why are you interrupting me now you idiot?” Dorson continued, “Professor none of this is clear to me. How could such a regression occur? What possible sequence of events could reverse such an unstoppable force and in such a short time? It seems inconceivable. Can you show us the historical record?” Gordrow was disgusted and his aura reflected it. “Show you? What is this kindergarten? Would you like me to sing you a lullaby too? Would you like me to count from one to a googolplex just to prove that there are numbers in between? Wasting my time in this way is a sin against intelligence and a victory for entropy and just one more fatal step toward the heat death of the universe. Neophyte Tendandren, I intend to see that you suffer exquisitely during my final exam. I will recommend to the professional board that your truest vocational assignment would be as gravitational ballast.”
Professor Gordrow summoned his composure for a moment and continued. “For the intellectually challenged who are very temporarily among us I will now play the historical record of the singularity event. Those with normal intelligence are free to take a nap. Dolts, attend!”
Need A Laugh?
In the classic movie “The Caine Mutiny” the petty tyrant Captain Queeg assigns the deceptive title of morale officer to one of his unfortunate junior officers. His responsibility in this position was to ruthlessly enforce the dress code down to the buttoning of shirts and the length of hair on the enlisted men. Whereas this was a mockery of the concept of morale I believe that a morale officer is exactly what the country needs right now. And to a large extent that is what President Trump has been attempting to do with his COVID-19 press conferences. He’s trying to provide helpful information and an optimistic assessment of the progress we’re making in the dreary business of navigating through the pandemic swamp. But we need more than that. Trapped in our homes and deprived of even the opportunity to work we need some distractions. We need some entertainment.
In a happier time, even just a short generation ago we could turn on the television and we would find on every network at least one show that was funny enough to distract us. Back in the early 1990s you could watch Home Improvement with Tim Allen as a tv dad with his wife and three boys stumbling through the foibles of American family life with gentle humor and a very muted take on the battle of the sexes and the revolt of the young against their parents. Later on, you could still laugh at the misanthropic but relatively harmless antics of Seinfeld and his neurotic associates. Even during the 2000s you could see a show like King of Queens where the humor was more like a pitched battle between the husband and wife and the dysfunctionality of the older generation was on full display with Jerry Stiller’s portrayal of Arthur Spooner more resembling a mental patient than a normal adult. But it was funny and the characters somewhat resembled real people.
That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. The loss of any originality on network television seems to have killed off the sitcom. The stupidity of the writing and the restrictions on the plot dictated by political correctness have rendered these shows unwatchable. Maybe the better writers have moved over to cable stations like HBO and Netflix but the darkness of most of what passes for comedy on cable is pretty extreme.
And that is where we are. As a society we are surrounded by joyless dysfunctional productions that are supposed to be entertainment. The action shows aren’t good but they’re just supposed to tell a simple story of good versus evil. That’s easy enough to do. Comedy is harder. It takes intelligence and an actual sense of humor. Those two things are mostly absent now. But that’s what we need. A good laugh.
Luckily, there is a lot of old comedy available. And there is probably something there for all tastes. Everything from the tame antics of the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello and the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s, to the early modern comedy of George Carlin, Mel Brooks and Rodney Dangerfield, to the outrageous Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, right up to the current rants of Dave Chappelle. Of course, the definition of funny varies enormously depending on the audience. It’s probably safe to say that generational tastes will divide the audience into several camps. But what is undeniable is that the modern entertainment industry has destroyed comedy.
But we still need a laugh. So, go looking for something that is funny and put it on and have a good laugh. You need it and the rest of us do too.
What I would recommend is do a search online for what movies, tv shows and comedy recordings are considered the funniest for the time periods when your concept of comedy was formed and see if you agree with the opinion. Look at general lists of comedies for these time periods and make a list of your own favorites. Then rent or buy or stream a few of these comedies together in your own film festival. Make sure you have your favorite popcorn or other snacks and enjoy. Maybe tell a friend or two and have a virtual movie festival in separate homes. You can make a deal to swap favorites and compare notes after the fact.
Just to show that my heart is in the right place I’ll throw a few out. Now mind you, I’ll start off by saying my tastes are peculiar. But there they are. I’ll go with two W. C. Fields movies, “It’s a Gift” and “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.” I always enjoy his henpecked husband routine and the melodramatic actress who plays his wife in both these movies is perfect. I love telling Camera Girl that she treats me just as badly as Field’s wife in the movies.
Add in the first installment of the “Thin Man” series. And finish off the early movies with the Marx Brother’s “A Night at the Opera.” For the later decades we could take a couple of Bill Murray movies, say “Ghostbusters” and “Groundhog Day.” Maybe add a Jim Carrey movie, say the “Mask.” And finish off with a cartoon that’s mostly a comedy like “The Incredibles.” For a classic tv series I’d go with Jackie Gleason’s, “The Honeymooners.”
If you have any picks you’d like to volunteer leave them in the comments and share the wealth.
Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 1 – Amok Time
The first episode of the second season is notable for a couple of reasons. It’s the first appearance of Ensign Chekov. He is a young man with a really bad Russian accent and a Beatles haircut which differed from the rest of the crew with a more military cut. The other distinction is that this episode features the first details of Vulcan. Mr. Spock is going through a Vulcan physiological syndrome that requires him to return to Vulcan to perform an ancient mating ritual or else die from the suppression of the metabolic process involved. The visible manifestations of this syndrome include clear irritability and tremors in his hands. When the always annoying Nurse Chapel brings him a bowl of Vulcan soup Spock scream at her and throws the bowl out of his cabin into the corridor. When the video screen on the desk in his cabin interrupts him he smashes it flat with his bare hand.
Kirk has been ordered to proceed in all haste to a diplomatic occasion on another planet but in order to save Spock from dying he disobeys his orders and brings Spock to Vulcan. When they arrive Kirk and McCoy agree to act as Spock’s entourage during the ceremony. There we meet the prospective bride, T’Pring. She’s decently good looking. We also meet the leader of Spock’s tribe, T’Pau. She on the other hand is an old battle axe. Now we find out that a Vulcan marriage has the potential to involve a battle to the death for the bride’s hand. And that’s what T’Pring demands. And as is her right she selects the challenger. But instead of selecting her real choice, a doofus named Stonn, she picks Kirk. Kirk is afraid that if he refuses that Stonn will kill the weakened Spock in the combat. So, he agrees to battle Spock, unaware, at first, that it is to the death. The first round involves a weapon that has a large semicircular razor on one side of a pole with a cudgel on the other side. Spock immediately slices through Kirk’s shirt and chest with it and Kirk barely manages to avoid death. In the next round the weapon is a combination bolo and garroting band. Before they get going McCoy gets permission to inject Kirk with a medicine that will allow Kirk to breath better in the low air pressure on Vulcan.
This time the contest does not go well and Spock chokes Kirk to death. McCoy returns to the ship with Kirk’s body. Spock questions T’Pring as to her motive in choosing Kirk. She explains that she was unwilling to be the wife of an absentee legendary husband and so she reasoned that if Kirk won, he would not want her and if Spock won, he would also reject her for her betrayal. Spock commends her on her logic and warns Stonn that winning T’Pring might not be as good a deal as he currently thinks it to be.
The payoff for the show comes as Spock takes his leave of T’Pau. They flash their Vulcan gang sign with the space between the third and fourth digits and Spock gives her the “live long and prosper” line. She repeats it to him but his comeback is, “I shall do neither, for I have killed my captain and my friend.” Upon meeting Dr. McCoy, Spock informs him that he intends to hand over his command to Scotty but behind Spock a visibly living James Kirk replies, “Don’t you think you better check with me first?” Spock in surprise and then delight breaks into a broad smile and grabs Kirk by the arms and exclaims “Captain! Jim!” McCoy explains that what he injected into Kirk was a drug that would temporarily simulate death. When McCoy questions Spock about his apparent emotional outburst on seeing Kirk alive Spock goes into a song and dance about how it was merely logical relief to see that he had not killed Kirk. McCoy says it is all very logical but as Kirk and Spock are leaving, he says in a loud voice, “in a pig’s eye.”
And as the final straightening out of the plot we hear that Starfleet Command retroactively agrees to a request from T’Pau to allow the Enterprise to stop over at Vulcan. Apparently, she is indeed a very heavy hitter in the galaxy. So, Kirk is off the hook.
Interestingly this episode was written by Theodore Sturgeon who was a very talented but erratic science fiction writer at the time. As a tv show it has a lot going for it. We get to watch Kirk and Spock dance around the uncomfortable dynamic of their friendship and Spock’s discomfort with addressing his Human/Vulcan emotional baggage. I especially enjoyed Spock screaming at Nurse Chapel. I’ve always despised the character and the chance to see her abused by Spock whom she obviously pines for was vey funny. What can I say, I’m a monster.
There is also an enormous amount of hokey ritual on Vulcan with gongs, bells on some kind of shaking rack that looks really stupid. There are funny weapons. T’Pau is carried around on a litter by two attendants. They’ve got all the funny words they use for the various parts of the ritual. There are the silly names T’Pring and T’Pau. It’s so much fun. And the friendship between Kirk and Spock is actually well done. When Spock answers T’Pau about his bleak future it hits just the right chord. The scene where Spock realizes that Kirk isn’t dead works to great effect with Kirk’s line coming off as very comical and effective. I give this episode a 9.
As for Shatner mockery points, what more could you ask for. There is the sliced shirt, the rolling around and the minor tumbling moves. Plus, Kirk gets to be strangled and play dead. It’s great. This is a 9 // 7.
A Letter to Three Wives – An OCF Classic Movie Review
IMDb lists this 1949 film as a romance drama. Today we’d call such a film a “chick flick.” The director,Joseph Mankiewicz was also responsible for “All About Eve,” which was another movie that centered around women. Mankiewicz received Oscars for both of them so it seems this type of movie was his specialty.
The plot revolves around three married couples, the Bishops, the Phipps and the Hollingsways. They live in a suburb of New York City and the three wives Deborah, Rita and Lora Mae, respectively, all have an uneasy relationship with a fourth woman, Addie Ross who has always been admired by their husbands for her beauty, intelligence and taste. As the story opens it’s the morning of the first big country club dance in town and the wives are in various stages of annoyance with their husbands.
Deborah is angry at Brad because he’s going on a business trip and doesn’t even know if he’ll return in time for the dance. In addition, he has selected an evening gown for his wife for the dance that she has discovered is identical to a dress Addie Ross recently wore. Rita is angry with George because he is dismissive of her job as a radio script writer whereas she resents that he works as a low paying teacher at the high school. She is also surprised to see him leaving that morning in a suit, something he never does. And Lora Mae is dismissive of her husband Porter strictly on general grounds. Their relationship is a continuous stream of digs and jibes by both of them.
The wives are engaged that day as chaperones for the grammar school annual outing at the lake. But right before the boat leaves the dock a letter arrives for the three women addressed from Addie Ross. In it she ironically says goodbye to them as her three dearest friends. She’s leaving town forever but as a memento of her life with them she says that she’s running away with one of their husbands.
The bulk of the movie is the reminiscences of the three women on their history together as wives, friends and rivals for Addie Ross. Brad and Deborah Bishop are played by Jeffrey Lynn and Jeanne Crain. Brad is the rich, handsome aristocrat of the story. Deborah is a farm girl that Brad met in the Navy in WW II. She has always been intimidated by the more sophisticated background of his friends and their shared experiences as longtime residents of the town. Honestly, I find these two characters the least interesting of the six. Kirk Douglas and Ann Sothern are George and Rita Phipps. They are the intelligent couple. He’s a school teacher and a wit. She’s a hard-working career mother trying to push George into a more ambitious and better paying career. Paul Douglas and Linda Darnell are Porter and Lora Mae Hollingsway. Based on their way of speaking and information you learn from the story they are both from “the wrong side of the tracks.” In fact, in a comical scene from her past we see that Lora Mae’s mother’s apartment was practically on top of the elevated train tracks adjoining it. Porter is a very wealthy retailer with a chain of appliance stores and a mansion. And when Porter and Lora Mae meet, she is his employee and he is a cynical divorced man on the make. She is a painfully beautiful young woman to his gruff 35-year-old cynic and she skillfully uses her charms to negotiate a marriage. And after he can no longer resist her, he grudgingly agrees to marry her but in terms so unflattering and unromantic that their married life is guaranteed to be a vicious cycle of hurt feelings. Porter and Lora Mae are the most interesting part of the movie. Paul Douglas’s characterization of Porter as the gruff regular guy and Linda Darnell’s Lora Mae as the wise-cracking shrew are very amusing. And Linda Darnell is a remarkably beautiful young woman in this film. A small supporting part in this movie is played by Thelma Ritter as a friend of Lora Mae’s mother and housekeeper to the Phipps. Ritter is always the most interesting character on screen in any scene she is in and this movie is no exception.
The movie has a surprise ending at the country club dance when we find out that love can be found in unexpected places.
One of the things I find interesting about this movie is the “types” that the various characters represent. Brad Bishop and apparently Addie Ross are the “to the manor born” aristocrats of the town. They both have money and refined taste. George and Rita Phipps are the educated middle class. They are the product of the egalitarian World War II generation who believe in the virtues of enlightened modernism. Porter and Lora Mae are from the working class and for both of them buying into refinement of the upper class is one of their highest motivations. Porter is constantly talking about Addie’s “class” and disparaging Lora Mae for her lack of class. And when she goes to Porter’s house for the first time Lora Mae tells Porter that she wants to be a lady so she can have a big house with a piano with a photo of her in the silver frame just like Porter has of Addie Ross. Deborah Bishop is the farm girl who is completely intimidated by Brad and Addie’s sophistication. Instead of aspiring to become like them she just fatalistically assumes that someday brad will cast her aside for her social superior, Addie.
Although Brad is obviously friendly with the Phipps and not noticeably a snob his character is very sparsely sketched in. And likewise, Deborah’s inferiority complex makes her a very one-dimensional character. The Phipps are a more fully drawn pair of characters and their husband/wife dynamic is also more believable and therefore enjoyable. I especially like how Kirk Douglas describes his low status and not very well-paying job as making him a comic figure and almost unmanly. George is the modern man, comfortable with his wife as a bread winner. When she complains that he bought cheaper whiskey because he can’t afford scotch, she hints that she can afford to buy it instead. To this George replies, “I forget sometimes that I’m merely the titular head of the household.” But even Rita is insecure of George’s relationship with Addie. When Rita forgets George’s birthday Addie sends him a present of a rare symphony recording that has a romantic inscription that inspires Rita’s jealousy.
But the most fully drawn characters are Porter and Lora Mae. He is the self-made man who worked his up to success. He is proud of his success and desires to be measured by his material possessions and by the “class” that he tries to surround himself with. Addie Ross is his ideal of an aristocrat who wouldn’t covet his wealth and would add the class that he was born without. He was formerly married to a gold digger and he assumes because Lora Mae forced him to marry her that she is looking for the same kind of “pay day” where she can divorce him for all she can get.
Lora Mae is a woman born poor but blessed with the gift of great beauty. She likes Porter but she refuses to enter into an intimate relationship with him without the promise of marriage. She knows this will torture him but she tells him openly that is her price. When he finally grudgingly agrees, he tells her that she is making a “good deal” without any illusions of love. The bitterness this statement elicits from her is the poison that haunts their every married day with each of them sniping at the other about their shortcomings. Here is an almost Shakespearian scenario where misunderstanding blinds love on both sides.
The movie is quite enjoyable and is an excellent date movie for married couples since the war between men and women is on full display and is resolved very agreeably. I highly recommend this film.
Shakespeare in Film – Part 10 – Richard III – Olivier’s 1955 Version
This is not one of my favorite plays. Part of that is my allegiance to the House of Lancaster. Henry IV and Henry V seemed like my kind of guys so I was sorry to see the House of York pry back the crown from their side in Henry VI Parts I, II & III. But more than that, it’s the spectacle of a monster like Richard crushing the people around him, his family in fact, without any compunction or even much difficulty. His brothers Edward and George are oblivious to his treachery even as it is being accomplished. His other enemies are more aware but equally powerless to save themselves from his malice. He moves from outrage to outrage upping the ante at each stage. Finally, he assigns a merciless assassin to smother his nine and twelve-year-old nephews with their own pillow to ensure that they never have the chance to revenge themselves on Richard for his usurpation of their father’s crown. And then there’s the matter of Lady Anne. She is the widow of the Lancaster heir to the throne, Henry VI’s son Edward. And it was Richard who killed Edward. Having Anne agree to wed Richard is the final outrage that just makes the play a bridge too far for me. I mean, come on! Richard is a hunchbacked, withered armed, monster. Anne spits in his face and calls him a fiend and then willingly marries him. This is a tough play to understand.
Anyway, Olivier plays Richard to the hilt. He is actually comical at certain points in his jocular, two-faced portrayal of the monster. Olivier has surrounded himself with an all-star cast of Shakespearean professionals. Cedric Hardwicke is his brother King Edward IV, John Gielgud is his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Ralph Richardson is Duke of Buckingham and Claire Bloom is Lady Anne. The acting is good. It’s just that I can’t stomach the plot. To see evil just dance along while well meaning people are led to the slaughter irks me. The ending should be consolation enough. Richard gets his comeuppance and pays the price. But the play rubs me the wrong way. It’s the way that good seems to be powerless to resist evil. It’s almost as if it gives up without a fight. Oh well.
So, as you can tell I don’t love this play but I recognize that it’s really about me and my way of looking at the world. I acknowledge that this is a well-acted version of the play and the production is full of nice touches. The chanting monks, the cinematography of the battle scene, the excellent set design, the skill of the cast. Olivier’s elocution and mastery of the part demands it be seen. He gives us a consummate and thoroughgoing villain. All of it recommends this play to the Shakespeare devotee. So, I do recommend this version. It is well done and deserves high praise.
But I’d rather watch Hamlet. I’d rather watch Henry V. Richard III rankles me no little bit.
33% of Those Tested in Chelsea MA Had COVID-19 Antibodies in Their Blood
Mass General Hospital performed random COVID-19 antibody testing in a suburban neighborhood of Boston (Chelsea, MA) and found that 1/3 of those tested were positive. Performing my patented back of the envelope calculations on statistics available from Massachusetts I find the following:
Massachusetts has a population of about seven million people. 1,404 Massachusetts residents have died from COVID-19 infection. Assuming that 33.3% of the state has been infected by the virus then the death rate from COVID-19 in Massachusetts is 0.06%. And that actually is in the range of deaths you’d expect from the normal flu.
Alright, let’s check the assumptions. Is Chelsea representative of Massachusetts as a whole? Probably not. It’s more densely populated than most parts of the state. So let’s do the calc again for Chelsea:
Chelsea has a population of about 40,000. people. 39 Chelsea residents have died from COVID-19 infection. Assuming that 33.3% of Chelsea has been infected by the virus then the death rate from COVID-19 in Chelsea is 0.29%. Now that is higher than the death rate for the normal flu, let’s say five times higher. But that’s a lot less scary than the extinction event they’ve making this thing out to be.
So, here is where we are. For most people who will “catch” the COVID-19 virus they will never know they had it. They’ll think their allergies or a cold gave them some symptoms for a day or two. For something like three people out of a thousand, mostly the elderly or the chronically ill, this virus will be a life or death struggle. If society wants to spare those people from risk they’ll need to be isolated. For everyone else we need to go on with our lives and get back to work so our taxes can pay for taking care of the vulnerable.
Opening Up America
I watched the press conference that previewed the President’s program to restart America. I must say it sounds a lot like my own take on how it should be done. The President allowed his three doctors to walk us through the medical criteria that would be used to determine when a particular state had reached the health thresholds needed to progress to the first, second and third stages of the process. One useful visual aid were three graphics that showed the United States over the last couple of months of the crisis with the states colored by the severity of the pandemic in each state. What was apparent was that most of the country is only lightly affected by the COVID-19 disease. And that in certain areas like the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana the caseloads and the infection rates are so low that it will be safe to proceed directly to the first stage of the reopening process. And the doctors used all the comforting scientific jargon about gating the progress and sentinel surveillance site testing to avoid a resurgence caused by asymptomatic cases mixed in with the unaffected.
And it was good to hear the President reassure the people in the hardest hit areas like New York and New Jersey that their states will be allowed to maintain the heightened shutdown they currently need but at the same time allow people in relatively unaffected areas to follow safe but much less restrictive protocols that will allow them to go back to work and normalize their lives again. The President stressed that the elderly and the infirm will be the focus of quarantine efforts going forward because these are the populations where ninety percent of the deaths are occurring.
And finally, I heard the President reiterating the need to provide relief to the small businesses and their employees who are the primary victims of the business shutdown that we currently have. He stressed that the end game is to get back to a point where a restaurant or a sports stadium will be able to serve its clientele as it was designed to, not half full or almost empty. Infrastructure projects were also mentioned and that is to the good too because those types of projects have a follow-on effect for the rest of the economy in the areas where they are located.
So, from all ways of looking at this announcement, it was a winning performance. It was scientific, authoritative and quantitative. It was practical, flexible and not some kind of one size fits all approach. It provided very good news for a large area of the country that is either moderately or minimally impacted by the virus, that things will be getting back to normal very soon. But it deprived the gloom and doomers in the northeast from accusing the President of ordering them into danger. That means the Governors in those areas will be responsible for making the difficult decision of when they will start transitioning their states back to much needed productivity. And they probably wish they could use the President as a scapegoat because the economies in those areas are being decimated and waiting for the crisis to be completely over before loosening the quarantine is probably impossible. So, the resurgences that are bound to occur during the loosening of quarantine are bound to be highlighted by the media. Well, let them work that out for themselves.
A very good press conference all in all and a good day for the country in its journey back to normalcy.