HAPPY 46TH BIRTHDAY, MY DARLING SON!

Clearly there’s a lot going on in the world. What will happen next to Cecilia – currently bleeding to death on the floor in Olga’s room? That occupies a fair amount of my thinking. However, I’ve found time to concern myself with three other, important topics. I’ll write about each of them per day so as not to overwhelm you with information.

Let’s start with the what’s happening in Ukraine. I wrote about this a few months ago, but then with everything else going on in the world (Gaza and Israel, baseball, fictional impending nuclear world war), the topic fell off everyone’s radar screen, including mine. Then the Russians upped the ante by giving Opie a new slingshot to play with. Sure enough, the next day, he shot and killed a bird, leaving the babies in the nest to fend for themselves. Just wait ’til Andy finds out?

But apparently not. Opie learned a lesson from his mistake, but that’s not what is likely to happen with these dopey Opies. They are basically thugs and ne’er- do-wells. Rootin’ Putin has manipulated the entire situation to his benefit, and is now remaining silent on the topic. No life lesson for these dopey Opies. But to make matters worse, all the countries in Europe – including the Dutch whose citizens made up a preponderance of the passengers – are caught by the short ones with their economies dependent on Russia’s energy shipments. So they remain silent too. Remind you of another time in history? Fear and Loathing in Donetsk…and we are in no position to take a stand without Europe. Where’s Winston Churchill when you need him?

Since I like to make assessments and predictions, this is what I think will arise out of this debacle. There will be the usual speeches at the UN, a little bit of protest from Europe and Malaysia (bet their insurance rates will go up, eh?) and no action will be taken except by the U.S., and that will only be rap-on-the-knuckles sanctions that take decades to have any effect. So Rootie Tootie Pootie will have his way in the short term. Airlines will obviously avoid this area for the duration. And Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine and Chocolateer Extraordinaire, will be caught squarely in the middle between Russia and Germany, the only two countries that can make a difference in this situation. Is it a coincidence that Angela Merkel came from East Germany and is 61 years old, a product of the Eastern bloc? I think not, gentle readers. Germany and Russia had an unholy alliance until Germany invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa back in June, 1941. There now exists an unholy alliance between western Europe and Russia, as a function of their mutual economic dependence. Just like FDR, we have to watch and wait for another 9/11-scale incident aimed directly at American interests, vis-a-vis Pearl Harbor, linked to Russian adventurism. That will be a sad and scary day, but one that is most likely inevitable. Putin, like Hitler before him, has played the long game. His plan is to clear the chess board of all eastern and then western Europe. In the interim, he’s aligning himself with Asia – first China with a multi-billion dollar energy deal, and next comes Japan and Korea. Then he’ll come after Great Britain and the US, the Queen and King on the chess board of world geography. In his dreams, you say? Watch, wait, and take notes.

One thing I’ve learned in old age is that whoever dreamed up the phrase It’s the economy, stupid for the ’92 Clinton presidential campaign didn’t realize the profundity of that phrase. Economics have been the true cause of every major clash of geographies, throughout history. History, as it’s taught in school – at any level – never really helps us understand that reality. An eye opener for me came from a book, A Nation of Deadbeats by Scott Reynolds Nelson. He explains every conflict in which America has become involved from the post-Revolutionary late 1700’s through the lead-up to World War II. I recommend you buy, borrow or download it as a precursor to understanding the current situation involving all the above. Then we’ll talk some more. And yes, there will be a test, so plan accordingly…ha ha.

So brother John called today, correcting one of my Spanish expressions, and also telling me he was confused about the numbering of the chapters. He thought there were only two written, because of the lack of titles. So I can put in titles in case anyone else is confused. Or I can tell everyone via this post that the chapters and subchapters are numbered as follows:

Part 1

1.1
1.2
1.3
etc

Part 2

2.1
2.2
2.3
etc

Get the idea? Please, somebody – advise if I should add titles, or if brother John is the only confused one. Thanks!

This past weekend, Emily, Poppy and I went to the movies to see Edge of Tomorrow. It was released on Friday, and we went to see it on Saturday. “The theater must have been mobbed” you said? Uh, no..not exactly. I’d say there were 15 people in the entire theater, you know theater #6 – the big one? The one where you can access the row from either side because it holds so many people? Go figure…

I’d read a review of the film in The Atlantic that was most complimentary. Had it not been for that, I assure you I’d never have recommended we go see it. But the well-written review made the plot of the film sound interesting, and since Emily was spending the weekend, hey – why not? Of course, we went to the 1:30 showing, being cheapskates as showings before 4 PM cost 1/3 less than the evening price. So we went. And ya know what? We all thought the movie was great.

By now I’m certain you’re aware of the plot. Cruise is a soldier that, thanks to his foolish mouthing-off to a General, gets himself sent to the front lines of a war between earthlings and aliens. Sounds ridiculous, yes? On the face of it, yes, but the plot really was well-thought out. The acting was quite good, even from Cruise who worked really hard as the poor guy killed so many times he should look like swiss cheese. Emily Blunt did a complete body transformation for this film, and it was gratifying to see her taking charge and making Tom her do-bitch. Never have a problem with that, eh?

Yes, the CGI was, at times, a little blurry, but the pace and novelty of the story more than made up for a few moments of ‘what the heck just happened’ because of fuzzy special effects. The crux of the plot is that these aliens from another galaxy, maybe? Uh, these aliens come to earth to take over, and have the capacity to anticipate how earthlings will respond to their every action. Emily Blunt’s character Rita (lovely Rita, meter maid?…ah hem..) is dubbed the Angel of Verdun because yes, a woman, defeats the aliens at that hallowed ground in Belgium. But despite the accolades coming her way, smart Rita, with the help of some Aussie scientist who I swear was the original manager replaced by Jimmy ‘The Tonight Show’ Fallon in Almost Famous…um with his help figures out that the aliens let us win that to fool us into believing an all-out assault just like D-Day could defeat them. Hah! When Tom dies a few times, he’s clever enough to figure out there’s something amiss here (hey, quicker than Bill Murray was…) and thinks he’d better go looking for this Rita Angel of Verdun person to ask her why this keeps happening to him, since she appears to be the only person to succeed thus far against the wicked alien species. He and Rita form a team and by gosh and by golly, the world is saved, no thanks to the general who in a previous film played Winston Churchill and just got a little fatter since then. Imagine…

So with that confusing stream-of-consciousness description, I suggest you go check it out at the 1:30 showing. Worth $6. Hey, you’d pay that for a pay per view, yes?

P.S. I checked and yes, the actor named Noah Taylor was in fact the dumped manager of ‘Stillwell’ in Almost Famous. I can spot em, eh?
Oops! It’s not ‘Stillwell’, the band’s name was Stillwater. Stillwell was the fat kid whose mom played for the Rockford Peaches in A League of Their Own

I have the improvised plot twist figured out and will finish Chapter 2 tomorrow. In the interim, I’ve been thinking about the firing of Jill Abramson, who was the Executive Editor of the New York Times until last week. The media has been full of stories accusing the management of the Times of sexism in her dismissal. There’s also been a fair number of male apologists explaining why Arthur Sulzberger had to do what he did because of her ‘style’.

A woman in a position of authority is in a no-win dilemma. If she doesn’t get results, she is too soft, and will be let go. If she gets great results, but hurts some feelings along the way, her style is called into question and she has to go in order to restore the morale of those whose feelings she hurt. The guy taking her place, Dean Baquet, is an African-American man. Apparently he’s very popular with the staff at the NY Times. Will that popularity be enough for him to keep his job when the paper continues relentlessly to bleed red ink over its failure to keep up with digital competition? Not likely. Then it will be the opposite argument: Dean had to go because he just couldn’t get the results needed for The Times to stay financially healthy. More likely than not, he’ll be replaced by a younger, white male.

Back in the early days – the 70’s and 80’s – women were recruited just for the numbers. That’s the honest truth. And if she could survive the misery of the workplace where she was perceived as less qualified on the basis of her gender, subjected to harassment, both physical and emotional, then her reward in promotion was just to endure a more subtle form of sexism. Racism works in a very similar way. Did you ever hear any other president being chided for being aloof and detached, other than Barack Obama? Do results really matter, given the gauntlet blacks and women have to run? That is the question.

But here’s the real deal in a nutshell: the entire world is still controlled by white men. White men make up the rules and women and minorities have to try to figure out where the lines are in terms of behavior. It’s an impossible task, because there’s no instruction manual. It’s like the Greek myth of Sisyphus, doomed to roll a rock up a hill until just before the summit, where it perpetually rolls back down to the bottom. Read the background story of this myth, and it personifies what it means to be a woman in the world of business controlled by white men with their fear and loathing (yes, I said fear and loathing) of women. Check out this cartoon: I believe it says it all.

So what’s the answer? Two radical ideas. First: take a page from Ghandi’s methods to rid India of the Raj. Boycott the process. If all the women in business quit, can you imagine the impact? Even if for a day a month, an organized, focused, sit-down strike would at least get their attention. Second and no less radical idea: emulate the women in Aristophanes’ comedic play Lysistrata. Greek women on both sides of the Peloponnesian War agree to withhold sex from their men until the Sparten and Athenian men agree to a peaceful settlement. Young and old women work together to deprive the men of both sex and money from the treasury to buy material needed to carry on with their aggression. Of course, since it’s a comedy the strategy works and peace is restored.

In order to implement either radical solution, women have to band together. Sisterhood will only prevail when women see it in their best interest to cooperate toward a solution, rather than competing with each other for the scraps handed to them by white men. Will this ever happen? One can only hope. But since this has been the situation since 411 B.C., it won’t be easy to accomplish. Give it some thought, ladies – then, stand up and be counted!

Well, it’s happened already. I began to think about Chapter 2, and did a google search regarding visas to Cuba. Wouldn’t you know it? The only thing you need is an exit visa from the U.S.. Getting into Cuba is a simple matter of filling out a card and putting down your passport number. So that means I have to deviate from my outline already…drat.

But isn’t that the way life works, and doesn’t that illustrate the point of my story? Just about the time you think you have it figured out, living goes and throws you a curve and you have to improvise. So improvise I will…I have to get Cecilia to Cuba in search of something regarding her grandfather’s identity. It’s a key point of the plot. There’s no way I can suspend reality and just make something up – not in my nature. But I will go take and shower and think this through, and find a way to get over this tiny little sticking point!

Expect Chapter 2 shortly. Note that the illustrations give a nod to anime. Anime helped Emily help me develop my story. See? No coincidences…

The Prologue is written. Mouse over the Writing tab, then Matryoshka, and Prologue to the right.

Sorry I haven’t posted for two months. I’ve been working on what I call my “opus”, a grand-scaled novel about Miami, Cuba, nuclear war, water shortages exacerbated by hydraulic fracking and virtual reality. How’s that for a combination of topics, all in one book? If interested, the outline can be found under the Writing tab. It’s called Matryoshka, and the beginning of that post explains what that means. Donna Tartt, who wrote “The Goldfinch”, was my inspiration in beginning this novel. She showed that a great story can be told, even if it takes 10 years and 778 pages. Thank you Donna.

Since this is the last episode of the show, I thought it might be fun to live blog it.  There’s no possibility of a cliffhanger, as the producers say the next episode of the show will be completely different with different actors.  It is clear the “truth will out” in this episode, showing the seamy, decadent element of rural south Louisiana.  It’s 10 til, so we”ll get prepared to watch and tap.

McConaughey has has been on a roll for a while, now winning the Oscar for playing that incredibly thin fellow in Dallas Buyer’s Club. He’s still skinny in this show, and about as weird as you can get without getting Baker Acted.. So now the finale is starting with the familiar intro by the wonderful Handsome Family.

Intro with lawnmower man and he’s got somebody tied to a pallet. He’s adopted a weird English accent, after watching a snippet of a Cary Grant movie, and throwing pot lids at curs. Old woman and lawnmower man having weird dialogue. She appears to be some kind of grotesque love interest. So far stranger than normal. Long shot, then back to the boat and the sheriff being forced to reveal all (a leftover from the end of last week’s episode). He hollers watching the evil video that freaked out the Woody character Marty Hart. Family connection being alluded to. It’s chain of command seems to be the watchword. Oh dear, lawnmower man is painting at a school with little girls..that’s not good. Rust is threatening sheriff Steve trying to shake something more out of him. Oops- small interruption with Emily calling. Back to the show. Hart going back to crime scene photos. Shows Rust a house with a fresh paint job. Connecting to painters? Now some old history dialogue…guy stuff..blah blah..get on with it!

Old lady in nursing home id’s lawnmower man. The boys Look at tax records where the owner listed the expense so now they have evildoer’s name. Investigating cop hectoring Hart…hart says they’re working on the case and he says the investigator needs to help them…bad idea..not sure he’s trustworthy. Apparently they’re going to lawnmower man’s house. More blah blah.. Drive up to the house with the freaky old woman in the foreground. No signal on cell..Rust says “this place”?? Creepy..asks to use the phone Hart she’s yelling at the dog. Hart’s in the house Rust follows the dog who’s dead on the ground. confronts lawnmower man who runs away, house is a hoarder’s dream. Hart goes upstairs finds old woman in corner. Back to Rust chasing lawnmower man. Person on the pallet is a dude with long hair. Rust still chasing lawnmower man. Sees all the symbols from the case. Long shot showing the vine covered buildings. Looks like a maze of buildings. Can hear lawnmower man. Quite an elaborate set.. lots of twisty vines and old brick.. Oh, my, lawnmower man has Rust impaled and he’s bleeding profusely. Now he’s got Hart down. Rust shoots lawnmower man in the head. Rust pulling knife out of stomach..not good..investigators show up like the cavalry. Hart hollers for them..next scene Hart in hospital. Fifteen minutes to go and blaming all murders on lawnmower man. Family comes to see Hart..starts to cry..lawnmower man is a Childress. Calling him a serial killer. Lots of bodies..both Marty and Rust are alive.. Rust is mad because he saw lawnmower man in ’95. Rust knows there’s more bad guys. Long shot around the area showing the house,cropland, water. Back to the original scene of the murder. Hart and Cohle outside hospital. Marty gives him cigarettes. Smoking on hospital grounds. Cohle talks. About death and his daughter and father waiting for him on the other side. All he had to do is let go. And he did. He disappeared but he says he could still feel her love there. Crying for that lost love. Then he says he woke up. Hart consoling him about watching the stars. This is going to leave a lot of loose ends. Light versus dark. Dark has a lot more territory. Cohle agrees. Or does he? I’ll have to look again. Says he needs to not spend another night in the hospital and they leave. End of story..

All that energy connecting loose ends wasted. Very pedestrian ending. The Atlantic folks will howl.

Post Script: The Atlantic folk did howl, but not excessively. Here’s a link to their musings:

The Atlantic media critics discuss the ending

They point out a few things I missed, but all in all I think I got the gist of it. Marty goes from a cockeyed optimist to saying there’s more dark than light. Cohle had to die and return to know there is an afterlife where those you love are waiting to greet you. The Atlantic folks called this show a bromance…well, sorry, I don’t think so. It’s more about what the team that put this together had in mind with the opening: men struggling to do good to redeem their own failures and selfish indulgences. That resonates with me. Glad to have followed it: glad it didn’t have a totally cheesy ending.

Oh, my how quickly things change around here.  From a happy, smiling Vlad the Impaler (aka Putin) at the Sochi Olympics to the Yellow King* in just a few short weeks.  How did that happen, fer cryin’ out loud?  Well, frankly my dears, it really all started a long while ago.

*The Yellow King is a reference to the prime evil-doer on True Detective, set to wrap up Sunday night.

For the majority of what would consider Ukraine’s modern history, it has been an acknowledged part of Russia.  It became an independent country in 1991 with the breakup of the old Soviet Union.  Since then it’s been anything but calm, economically and politically.  The so-called Orange Revolution in 2005 started to destabilize the country, with two opposing groups fighting for control.  The west side, formerly a part of Poland, is mostly Catholic and speaks Ukrainian.  The east is populated by Russian-speaking transplants from mother Russia.  How’d they get there?  In WW II, Stalin was convinced that the Tatars that were living in the east part of Ukraine had collaborated with the Nazis.  So when he retook the land, he forcibly removed the Tatars, giving their land and belongings to Russians.  Not a recipe for stability, eh?

So recent troubles started when Ukraine applied for associate membership in the European Union.  Kissinger blames the EU for starting the troubles by “taking a dilatory approach” to Ukraine’s application.  The EU put two conditions on membership:  free the opposition party members from jail, and implement austerity measures.  These two conditions made the duly elected president Viktor Yanukovich decide to see if he could get a better deal elsewhere.  Enter Vlad the Impaler with a sweet deal of money and subsidized natural gas.  Score!  Hold it Viktor, not so fast.  Before you could say Jack Robinson, protestors were demanding his resignation, he fled the country, but not before having his troops shoot about a hundred of those protestors, mainly from the west.  Ouch.  So Putin, putting on the happy face at the Olympics, waits until after the closing ceremony, and then sends in troops to the eastern portion of the country.  Clearly a violation of international law.  But in typical Putin fashion, he advances, then stops and waits to see what the reaction will be.  Then he advances a bit more.  But so far there’s been nothing other than rhetoric and threats in response to his provocative action.

The Clash Say It BestMoving on from Cosmology to the Meaning of Life (indicating you have to read the Post below in order for this post to flow nicely…scan down, please.)  That’s Meaning with a capital M and Life with a capital L.  The big notion… what’s it really all about, Alfie?  Well, there are a couple of different notions on that.  Let’s discuss them.

First: picking up where Michio Kaku left off: if we’re well on our way to becoming a Type I civilization from the anarchy of Type 0, and if we make it past the annihilative fates that may have befallen others in the galaxy and universe, then we’re likely to meet some other folks along the way.  Other folks from galaxies far, far away … you know, the scrolling screen Star Wars thing.  He says in a couple hundred years.  If that occurs, then Stephen Hawking will likely have gotten it wrong.  And we won’t have followed the path recommended by Rust Cohle from True Detective.  Come again?  Oh, let’s go further into those two notions.

First Hawking, which I alluded to in the last post.  Stephen’s contributions  have been extraordinary to cosmology, but some of his ideas about what it means to be human are, well, frankly, a bit depressing.  Think The Matrix and you’ve got a pretty good idea of his notion of what it means to be human.

In fact, they use an illustration in his Grand Design series showing a bunch of brains in jars connected to some kinds of overarching infrastructure – sort of  like the babies in The Matrix.  That scene still gives me the creeps.  Anyway, he believes we are mere players in a giant computer’s game, and that the individual’s life is meaningless because it’s merely the perception of life.  The Creationists just go crazy bad-mouthing poor Stevie for his notions.  But is he sort of on the right track?

Next we turn to the immortal words of the character Rust Cohle in the new HBO series True Detective.  If you haven’t seen it, you should, if for no other reason than to watch the interaction (or the lack thereof) between the two leads Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (have you noticed how weird Matthew’s gotten of late, with his appearance and his roles?)  So here is Rust’s idea of the meaning of life, from Episode 1, “The Long Bright Dark”:

“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.  We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law.  We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody.  Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

Think Rust is channeling Hawking?  I’d say.  So which will it be: stick around and become a Type I civilization, harnessing the energy of the planet, not just coal, oil or solar, and see what the next installment of life has to offer?  Or do as Rust says, stop reproducing and go the way of all those other civilizations that didn’t make it.  Is that really our choice to make? Or is it all just a random jumble of programmed actions, and when the giant computer’s chips overheat or the programmer gets tired of playing and switches off the machine, will we miss out on seeing what else is out there?  I guess you’ll have to decide for yourself.

But I mentioned in the last post having gone back to the original short story Arthur C. Clarke wrote that became 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Recall the scene in the film with the apes touching the monolith shortly before one giant ape clubs another to death, and then the scene immediately switches to the moon ship and The Blue Danube (that’s Johann Strauss music ya know…).  What Clarke and Kubrick were alluding to rather cleverly was the notion of the monolith starting “us” on the path to evolution from apes to space travelers, with violence and death a hazard to be dealt with along the way.  And what is the monolith?  The creationists would say God.  Michio says Clarke’s story intended the monolith to be a Von Neumann probe, sent to the moon to signal to a Type III civilization that a Type II civilization had arrived, and to come check it out.  The film continues on, with what I had always assumed was the notion of the circle of life.  Recall that ending image?  Instead, maybe Kubrick was depicting a Type II civilization member, developing outside a human mother, since humans stopped evolving and therefore became extinct like the Dodo? Recall a Type II civilization derives its energy from the stars, as their planet’s energy is presumably depleted or endangered.

Michio has something interesting to say about evolution in that same chapter I referenced in yesterday’s post.  This is a bit long, but I think it’s worth reading.

“Evolution tends to accelerate when there are isolated pockets of individuals and harsh environmental conditions.  Within a small colony or tribe, small genetic differences due to inbreeding are gradually magnified, creating genetic ‘drift’ within the same species.”  “Today, breeding populations are usually in the millions.  In general, the larger the breeding population, the slower the rate of evolution.  Because a Type I civilization will no longer have isolated breeding populations, there will be a gradual mixing of peoples which will terminate their evolution as a species.”

 So the end of the evolutionary line for humans will be when we become a Type I civilization.  That’s what Rust recommends for us but for completely different reasons.  When we become a Type I civilization, the need to evolve as individuals will cease, but what comes next?  Michio suggests that the population of the earth will top out at 12 billion in the 22nd century.  That’s about when he suggests we’ll make the leap to the Type I civilization.  Will we make it that far?  And is that all just part of that cosmic computer game’s programming?  It does kind of feel like Luigi the Mario Brother would have made it through the initial hazards, only to go on to the next series of more difficult jumps.   So maybe Hawking and Morpheus are really onto something!  Think about it…