A New Approach to Cold War 2.0

I'm sure Xi, Putin, and Sinwar will be dissuaded to rein in their evil plans by auntie Kamala's charming insistence on having a slice of cake.  

Individual Stocks

Strong article on why to avoid individual stocks, but this detail particularly compelling:

Even among the 30 stocks with the highest cumulative compound returns the results were relatively modest—the median annualized return across the 30 stocks was 13.03%, while the mean was 13.05% and the largest was Altria Group’s 16.29%. How many investors would have guessed that one?

Meaning even if you manage to pick a winner (not as easy as it looks), the annualized returns are not what I'd call spectacular.

Okay...

Now we're getting somewhere with ideas about how to deal with student loans. Rubio proposes a one-time financing fee to be paid over the life of the loan. Loan to be paid back based upon income. Not bad.  

Alien 3

Another note: committing to the suicide of your main character makes for an unsatisfying ending. A character who sacrifices for another, perhaps. But not for some abstract, corrupt world we do not care about.

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Film: Aliens and Alien 3 

Wow is Aliens an enjoyable film. So much wit. Humor. Full of small character moments. Full of life. In contrast, Aliens 3 incredibly dull and seems half-baked. A promising concept - crash landing into a prison environment where the inmates are devoutly religious, but boy the storytelling just doesn't work. They adopted an almost procedural element early on where Charles Dance (later to be Tywin Lannister) is a doctor who pairs with Ripley to try and figure out why strange deaths and events are occurring around the prison. Spoiler alert: it's an Alien. For some reason, each of them withhold quite a bit of information from each other, but they also sleep with each other. I'm watching the film on Hulu and think to myself has Hulu like skipped ahead on accident or done something weird with the cut? I'm honestly not sure. It feels like when you watch an airplane version of a movie. But maybe this is just the movie? I don't know. They have some other good ideas - back to one Alien, Ripley has an Alien inside her, and the prison has no weapons so they need to fight this Alien with primitive tools. But execution, not just ideas, matters. 

The most noticeable thing is how much less charming Ripley herself is in this film compared with the others.

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Film: Alien Romulus 

A movie! A real movie, this is. Patient. Cinematic. Was it shot on film? It certainly looked like it. The downsides of the film: writing and star power. Now let me clear, the acting isn't "bad" but it lacks charisma. Perhaps tied to the writing. There's a noticeable lack of charm in current films - when you go back and consider the original Alien, or even Jaws, the characters are funny, dimensional, human. The characters in Romulus are basically victimized, bummed out, sad monkey, or neurodivergent. But they are diverse of course (which ulimately is meaningless because surprise, surprise mostly they all die). Question: does an Asian audience member care more when an Asian character dies? I wouldn't think so, but what do I know. 

Another problem with films like this - they fall into the same storytelling patterns as the original, so the surprises don't really land as surprises. It becomes more ritual. Like the birthday cake at a party. I guess with my drama, I'd like something more.

Still worth, the cinematic experience in IMax 100%.

Amen

Vanderbilt college president:

The university would not divest from Israel. 

It would not banish provocative speakers. 

It would not issue statements in support or condemnation of Israeli or Palestinian causes. 

Before the hour was up on Monday, he added that Vanderbilt would not tolerate threats, harassment or protests “disrupting the learning environment.”

It's quite easy. Now enforce the rules.  

Ayso-ification of the US

In public, ASYO constantly reiterates "winning doesn't matter" at the young ages. But this is a lie that no one accepts. Even 4-5 year olds start playing for fun any game they want to win. The question they are trying to answer is how not to become overly competitive and focus more on development. But this is a false dichotomy. I believe if people compete and play hard to win, they better accept losing since they tried hard. And feel like they've learned for next time. Saying "winning doesn't matter" encourages what? It encourages nothing. It encourages not playing because it suggests it doesn't matter. 

We see this mentality in our current world. Most people in the US don't see winning in Ukraine or Israel as mattering. This is why we limit how the wars are being fought. We assertlame guardrails on the fight - like bowling with bumpers in the lane. We seem to think it we somehow leverage our "superpower" these wars will eventually just go away and we can return to the way things were in 2012 or something. But that time is over. There is no returning. We should've encouraged Israel to go to war and win quickly. A protracted situation over there is Vietnam-esque. Israel used to know this and fight like this. I don't know what's going on with those folks anymore. 

Putin crossed a red-line and revealed the Europeans won't fight. Which we basically already knew. Scary times. We should know that if Putin isn't stopped it's going to be 100 more years of Russian aggression.

In Hindsight

All the signs were there that at some point a candidate would dance their way to the Presidency.

Why?

We all talk about the JFK-Nixon debate playing on TV vs Radio. Well, we are post-TV. We are in a world of clips. So what plays well on clips? Dancing.

Sorority girls have figured it out.

Dancing with the Stars has it figured out.

Raygun knows, too.

If Kamala wins, it will be known as the election that was decided by dancing. 

Random Notes Reading The Odyssey Graphic Novel

-Odysseus a bit of a man-whore

-Story jumps around episodically and through time quite a bit more than I recalled.

-Outfoxing cyclops was not as "brilliant" as I remember it, but like a little bit clever.

-Filed in the library under non-fiction graphic novels which seems a bit weird

-Reading aloud, I have quite a bit of trouble with the names

Interesting But Similar Dilemmas 

Religious people are happier, but religious societies are poorly governed.

Being thrifty is good for your personal well-being and stability, but bad for the overall economy.

Big heavy SUVs are safer for the drivers in the car, but less safe for the folks outside the car. 

David Milch Wisdom

"Irony ultimately is not an adequate informing principle for long-term conduct. It can get you laid or it can get you through a short conversation, but that's about it."

Random Notes Watching Jaws

-death of first girl seemed unrealistic for a shark attack but it works as a movie set piece

-nice withholding of information - when Sheriff arrives he's only responding to the girl's disappearance, but his deputy finds the body while Sheriff is present in the scene to give the needed emotional trauma to get our story going. a lot of bad scripts will "radio in" this moment instead...

-the psychological coherence of characters and dynamics are not entirely realistic...but work as melodrama. the sheriff slapped in front of the mayor by the 2nd victims mother - a powerful and needed emotional moment for the story. of course, it makes no sense. sheriff wanted to close beaches. mayor refused. but woman blames sheriff and he takes it.

-sheriff's flaw is often reported in screenwriting books as his fear of water, but this is not the case. his flaw is being "new" to the community and wanting to fit in. this is why he takes bad advice early on and listens to others, ie gets himself in trouble. 

-well handled exposition re the shark. show brody reading shark books (where he got them - who knows or cares?). later, he runs through ideas of territoriality, etc with dreyfuss - having already taught himself the theories. a lot of "expo" happens off screen. like they realize it's a shark attack and share this info with brody off screen - we just learn it through him typing up the police report

-a good number of "altman" esque filmmaking with multiple characters talking in the background while some type of action is foregrounded, but not heard completely. keeps the frame "full" and we take in quite a bit of information simultaneously. for instance, we track brody's son enjoying/liking the water while brody gets reports about a missing girl. we sense businessmen in the town worried for their livelihoods while at the same time brody is worried about the shark. 

-now they're out on the boat. a nice detail - they don't plan stay the night - but rather only do so because they got a single barrel in the shark and now feel as though they can track him. 

-in case you missed it, quint delivered the bomb. when i was younger, i thought they helped with the targeting or something but now i realized they literally were the ship that carried the bomb from the us to wherever the planes were parked. funny how one can hold onto a small misconception for decades. 

UPDATE:

-many filmmakers would've made the section of the film on the boat the third act, but in Jaws it's like a whole movie-within-a movie. i've heard it said before Jaws is two movies - a movie about a sheriff trying to keep the town safe and then a movie with 3 guys on a boat. i think that is right. 

-the streaming service flowed right into the option of watching The Meg, which I had never seen before. So to be a good citizen of the cinematic world, I gave the movie a shot. I should mention that I also watched Only Angels Have Wings this week, the old Howard Hawks film. Not a bad trio of films by way of comparison. All deal with characters interacting with physical tasks and vehicles - boats, submersibles, etc in Jaws/The Meg and airplanes in OAHW. Some overlapping themes of duty, dealing with death and grief, etc. But all three movies seems as if they are from entirely different civilizations. The understanding of human nature in Only Angels Have Wings is so far beyond The Meg, you would think some type of alien AI made the film. Maybe it did for all I know. Jaws is legit tho and reflects on an underlying humanity of the characters, but I feel like it ultimately is more of a movie than anything else. Like a human element of the story is subordinate to some other thing entirely - I guess what you might call cinema. It doesn't offend me, yet I somehow feel this is "less" that the moments in OAHW even though from a movie/entertainment perspective Jaws is more impressive. The Meg I turned off and was laughing out loud at the film. Let me say this as kindly as possible - this is movie made by and for retarded people. And when I say retarded, I mean not those with down syndrome, but type of person who was called retarded as an insult on the playground. 

Charlie Munger

"I'm used to things not working perfectly. So why should I expect my society is always marching upwards because it has for a long time? I believe you just adjust to whatever society turns out to be. And you do the best you can and that's all any human being can do and it's all I'm going to do."

Silver Lining

While I keep reading about all these weird things they teach in public school like sex is "assigned at birth," there is one silver lining. Schools are so slow with material, you can easily teach basic mammal biology to a kid long before so they can spot the BS.

John From Cincinnati

Feels like the time to finally watch...  

Is it Cake...

Can only end in one way: Mikey Day cuts himself in half to reveal that in fact, he was cake the entire time.

Gonna Get Ugly

I have this lingering suspicion the economy is going to get ugly, but I can't tell which way to play it. We might have a melt up - a worse version of our present situation where inflation just continues upwards and envelopes start costing $50 a pack and coffee hits $9 a cup. In which case, it's smart to hold stocks and fixed mortgages. On the other hand, we might see a big ole bust in the stock market the result of the chickens coming home to roost on all the government fueled spending from COVID, etc. In which case it would be smart to hold short term bonds and pay down the mortgage with these inflated stock prices. 

Or I could do what I normally do: nothing.

The Biden Economy 

Caitlin Clark can't afford Caitlin Clark.

Also Not Surprising

Impact on savings of sports bettors.

So dumb to legalize sports betting and marijuana. People who like to smoke weed and bet suddenly become libertarians when it comes to these single issues and Dems see "harmless" ways to get more money in the public sector. Example of government exploitation of citizens.

Not Surprising

Given the confusion and dysfunction of Democratic policies during the COVID lockdown, none of this surprises me about our mixed up policies between Ukraine and Israel.

The result of believing in secular fantasies and lacking imagination. 

Thrifty Ice Cream

Took the kids last night. $2.79. Good deal, don't get me wrong. But I remember when it cost $1. Was that 20 years ago? Does it make sense that things from 20 years ago should cost 3x? Maybe? Or is it just ice cream?

UPDATE: VTI is about 5x since early 2000s, so had I invested that $1 in the SP, it would be now about $5 so maybe that Thrifty is a good deal still. 

Envelopes

For the first time in a decade of marriage, I needed to buy envelopes. One, we don't mail much stuff. And two, we had a big box. A box of 100 cost $27 at Office Depot. $27. For envelopes. I suppose if it lasts another decade, it'll be worth it. But still. Seems like a lot.

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Film: Trap

If there's a scale of madness to greatness, Shyamalan tilted mad long ago. In this film, he casts his daughter as an Olivia Rodrigo type pop star who around the midpoint decides to take it upon herself to trap the serial killer who was up until that point, the protagonist of the film.

I was entertained.

Age

An unpleasant aspect of getting older is getting injured doing things that were once routine. 

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Book: Pick-Up by Charles Willeford

One of the most depressing novels I've ever read. Still, wonderful writing. I'd read anything by the author if I had the time.

If This Is True...

And the Biden admin gave up Mossad agents to the Iranians, we should just give over world control to the Chinese. 

Trump - Musk

Listened to a good portion. Trump makes some good points. On foreign policy he's got this whole position that's compelling: Russia would've never invaded Ukraine. And Israel-Hamas wouldn't have gone as far as it has. Counterfactual impossible to prove, but he said something that rings true: Biden's managed to anger both the Palestinians and Israelis - something that's hard to do. Really remarkable -- only there are thinkers out there who predicted that's exactly what would happen. 

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TV: Bad Monkey Pilot

Hard to make Vince Vaughn and John Ortiz boring, but... 

Race

Any discussion of race ends up being full of half-truths and misleading representations. Take for instance Kamala Harris. Is she Black, Indian, or both? Or is she white? She has an ancestor who owned slaves. Quite a large number of black americans probably do. Would this mean paying reparations to themselves? 

Trigger Warnings

Should only be used ironically. 

Vibes

If the Dems plan to run on vibes and Republicans counter with this, Trump wins. 

Are you better off now than you were when I was president?

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TV: House of the Dragon S2

Nearly unforgivable error with this season - no climax. Are you f-ing kidding me? So ready to throw in towel with the show, but it's hard. I'm basically a GoT completist - I think I've read every single book published and seen every episode...

Horrible.

Astrology

Whenever I begin to think screenwriting is a sham or waste of time, remind me to consult this study on astrology. 

A few years ago, I walked into a class where some of my students were in class early discussing astrology...and I caught the tail end of their discussion and they were like "oh...do you ever get a reading?" And I said: "No. Let's start class."

Ah Ha Moment

On kids. 

I had a belief that if they feel better they’ll behave better, and I am now leaning towards if I guide them to behave better they’ll feel better.

Agreed. 

The Biggest Scam In America

Is either social security or student loans. 

I bet the majority of social security payments basically go to rich (millionaire plus) old folks who own homes and who wait until 70 to claim. These are paid by young working folks who can't afford homes and probably have very little assets themselves. Why do liberals never bring up this scam?

OMG

This lady needs to be hired for SNL immediately for her Kamala impressions, but she won't. This level of comic incisiveness is reserved for Republicans only. 

150%

On parenting today:

The vast majority of kids described as “anxious” “has big emotions” and “has meltdowns” (a term I never heard until about 10 years ago) who are referred to my practice simply need parents to be firmer and engage less when their kids tantrum and demand things.

In your home anyway, you will get what you tolerate.

Hilarious

Taleb says "peace without justice is just submission." 

He's so full of shit on this topic. Ask all the dissidents from the Islamic Republic about justice. Or the victims of the Chinese Communists. Or the people of Ukraine and Georgia. Nope. Only Israel is held to a standard. His allies on the Gaza issue are three regimes who only ask for submission from opponents: Iran, China, and Russia. Fraud.

Peak Irony

Trans activist complains about Hamas supporters hijacking their pride events.

Pot meet kettle.

Republicans

Some interesting takes on the "vibes" shift. If I were the Republicans, I would frame the election around the concept of builders vs. bureaucrats. Who do you want as President? The public school principal and DA? People who regulate or people who build? While Walz and Harris sit at desks and wait for incoming calls, we are the ones who go out into the world and do what it takes to build hotels, write books, and make money. So you pick - the CEOs or the school principals. 

Anyhow, that's what I would do.  

Masks

Is the thing we spend the majority of our energy on really just producing various masks, protecting us from acknowledging how fragile we and the world actually are?

I think what really freaks us out is when we get a glimpse of those fragilities.

Logging

TV Show: Sugar S1

Watched the entire thing over a few nights. Enjoyed it quite a bit. If I image pitching the idea anytime over the past 10 years, I could predict a response of howling laughter. And yet, the show is pretty good. Not great. 

 

Olympic Boxers

My prior statements on the matter stand even though there's been a lot more info released.

Olympic Boxer

So now I guess the debate is whether the Algerian boxer is a man or a woman? Anyone have suggestions about figuring this out? I propose the old fashioned test: was the Algerian born with a dick or a vagina? I'm open to other suggestions if they are more simple or clear. But if they end up being more complicated, I say lets stick with the original.

Batshit Crazy

Olympic female boxer surrenders after 46 seconds - she isn't gonna fight a man.  

Where are all the feminists now? So-called western feminists are not feminists and have never been feminists. They are careerists. The only issues they actually care about are those that help them achieve career success. That's it. They care about "equal pay" and freedom to abort pregnancies when they are inconvenient.

Their silence about women in the Muslim world for the past 25 years is the entire story. Now, the silence comes closer to home on how transgenders impact women in sport. 

Everyone sees you on zooms twirling your hair and cheering for Kamala and doing Tik Tok videos from your office while your supposed "sister" is being beaten up in the ring by a man. Under rules you support.

UPDATE: And that's my nice take. The more delusional folks are persuaded by all the female-centered action movies where little skinny girls beat the shit out of grown men. Or re-edited soccer advertisements suggesting women could play just like men. Folks...that's propaganda you fell for. These are fools who shouldn't be allowed in positions of any type of power.

Logging

Film: Deadpool and Wolverine

Will Ryan Reynolds cause the decline of Western civilization or is he merely the worst movie star of his generation? I can't decide. 

The movie's insufferable. I'm foolish to do so, but I can't help but make a connection with the nihilism in this "entertainment" and the chaos in the world brought on by our fecklessness as a world power.

A few points:

1) For all the insane gratuitous violence none of it matters because all the characters can regenerate themselves. Who cares about any of the fights when no one can actually be injured? I feel this bears some resemblance to how Americans view the wars in Gaza and Ukraine - that the very real violence is somehow just a stage before regeneration of those societies.

2) Deadpool very badly wants to be part of a "team" and to serve a cause greater than himself. The only problem: Marvel Studios can't come up with a cause! The cause is to prevent some squiggly lines on a screen from not going blank. They call this timelines. So apparently, Deadpool is preventing his timeline from being erased. This has about as much emotional impact as erasing a line on a piece of paper to the audience. Thankfully for Marvel, the audience for this film doesn't care. They just care about the gay sex jokes. I get it. I'm old and frumpy. But later on in the film, we're supposed to get even more worried about the bad girl erasing "all the timelines." So a lot more squiggly lines. Oh no! So Marvel here is either cultivating or aping young Americans desire for accomplishment and heroism. Audiences want to be heroes by serving a cause greater than themselves - but see - the cause no longer matters. The cause can be squiggly lines. Or Palestine. Or fill-in-the-blank.

The world of Deadpool is this: disgusting levels of violence but no one actually dies or even get hurt, flirtation with no actual sex or love, and not a single genuine human interaction. Its a long insult comedy routine disguised as a movie. Give me Andrew Dice Clay any day.