A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
HappyInternationalWomen'sDay! For this year's celebration, I'm returning to the themes of 2018 and 2019, women running for high office. Unlike 2019, when a record six women were running for President, only two have announced their candidacies so far, Marianne Williamson challenging Joe Biden and Nikki Haley challenging Donald Trump (and probably Ron DeSantis, who is almost certainly running but hasn't announced his candidacy yet). Both face steep uphill battles in their quests to earn their parties' nominations. Follow over the jump as I cover both of them.
The Jewish Festival of Purim and the Indian Festival of Holi have an amazing connection!
As I first wrote eight years ago, "I don't celebrate Purim anywhere else but on this blog, but I'm all in favor of fun holidays and this one certainly qualifies." So does Holi. Happy Purim and happy Holi! Now stay tuned for International Women's Day.
John Oliver discusses Ron DeSantis, his track record as the governor of Florida, the pitfalls of comparing him to Donald Trump, and the supposed dangers of “woke math.”
Stay tuned for a combined celebration of Purim, which begins at sundown tonight, and Holi, which is Wednesday, but I'm celebrating it early because of International Women's Day.
That's part one of the Sunday entertainment feature. Stay tuned for the highlights of last night's "Saturday Night Live" episode, which will serve as part two.
The hosts of Fox & Friends (Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Bowen Yang) discuss the news that Fox News is being sued for lying to viewers about the 2020 election.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like the House Ethics Committee opening an investigation into George Santos.
I think The Former Guy attacking Ron DeSantis over Social Security and Medicare is an example of a stuck clock (and is TFG ever a stuck clock!) being right twice a day. Other than that, I'll let the following meme express my opinion of the spat.
Weekend Update had more about Scott Adams and Dilbert, which I'll get to over the jump.
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Martha Mitchell, wife of John Mitchell, Attorney General of the US under President Richard Nixon, was not afraid to speak ‘truth to power’. She was so influential that President Nixon would go on to say that without her, there would have been no Watergate scandal.
Despite her important role, Mitchell has, in the years since Watergate, become a forgotten figure. Co-producer of The Martha Mitchell Effect, Judith Mizrachy states that this is a result of a successful gaslighting campaign against her. The film aims to give Mitchell the credit she is due.
How Do You Measure A Year?
Jay Rosenblatt started filming conversations with his daughter, Ella, when she was just two years old. He continued to do so every year on her birthday until she turned 18. In How Do You Measure A Year? we see those conversations evolve as Ella goes from being a ‘toddler to [a] young woman’.
How Do You Measure a Year? represents Jay’s desire to learn and help Ella grow up, to empower her, and, as Jay says, help her to be herself.
Stranger at the Gate
A US Marine returns home from active service filled with hatred towards Muslims. He builds a bomb, intending to blow up his local mosque. But then, he meets the Muslims who worship there. They treat him with kindness and love. And that’s after they discover what he intended to do.
For director Joshua Seftel, Stranger at the Gate comes out of his wider The Secret Life of Muslims project, which is his attempt to counter the hatred Muslims received after 9/11. Stranger is an extraordinary story of friendship, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Joshua notes how divided people have become today but also how we can ‘build impossible bridges between each other’ so that strangers may become friends.
While I don't write about my children much here, I do have two daughters and a son, so I think I would appreciate "How Do You Measure a Year?" It's just a shame that it's not available to stream at home. Speaking of which, it's a common theme among archival documentaries like "Summer of Soul," "Good Night Oppy," and "Fire of Love" that they got their starts while filmmakers were staying at home during the pandemic.
My reaction to how the congregants on the Muncie mosque treated the ex-Marine who wanted to kill them in "Stranger at the Gate" is to quote my favorite Bible verse, Romans 12:20, itself a quote of Proverbs 25:21 and 25:22: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.” The movie shows it can work.
Now for the handicapping. Based on the number of awards and nominations, "Haulout" has the most with seven wins and seven nominations, followed by "How Do You Measure a Year?" with two wins and seven nominations, "Stranger at the Gate" with two wins and three nominations, "The Elephant Whisperers" with four nominations, and The Martha Mitchell Effect with three nominations. Based on that criterion, "Haulout" should be favored, but nearly all of those honors are from European film festivals, which do not have the same electorate at the Academy Awards. As I repeat in nearly all my awards show coverage, electorates matter. The same is true of "How Do You Measure a Year." That written, I think it would be favored if distribution were equal, as this is Jay Rosenblatt's second Oscar nomination, so the Academy voters know him. Those who went to the theaters to watch his documentary may vote for it. What will work against his winning is that Netflix has been spending money on its nominees, "The Elephant Whisperers" and "The Martha Mitchell Effect." I know; I've been seeing Netflix's promoted tweets about the two films. Also, both "Haulout" and "Stranger at the Gate" are on YouTube, and so are easily watched at home. The lack of a distributor may hurt "How Do You Measure a Year?"
That's part one of the Sunday entertainment feature. Stay tuned for the highlights of last night's "Saturday Night Live" episode, which will serve as part two.
Erik's video shows that the company had likely had issues even before the crisis hit, just like Chuck E. Cheese and GNC. As I wrote in April, the pandemic is just accelerating existing retail trends. Companies that were already in trouble are the ones to succumb first.
It looks like Tuesday Morning never got out of trouble. That doesn't mean that it didn't have fans and that the closed stores won't be missed. Watch Tuesday Morning closing 16 Colorado stores from KUSA News9 to see a couple of news anchors mourn for their local stores closing.
Home goods store Tuesday Morning plans to close 265 stores as part of a bankruptcy filing, including 16 locations in Colorado.
The sixteen Tuesday Morning stores include locations in Denver, Colorado Springs, Littleton, Castle Rock, Fort Collins, Longmont, Wheat Ridge, Johnstown, Sheridan, Grand Junction, Silverthorne, Parker, Northglenn, and Pueblo.
Dallas-based Tuesday Morning filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday. The 265 closures are more than half of Tuesday Morning's stores.
According to Business Insider, the closures target the company's least profitable stores while it attempts to reorganize itself.
Tuesday Morning also filed for bankruptcy in 2020, when its store count went from 700 to its current 487.
Tuesday Morning posted to its website the 16 stores it plans to close in Colorado saying "everything on sale."
The Dallas-based home decor retailer is set to close stores in "low-traffic regions."
This won't be the end of the company, as it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and plans on keeping more than half of its current stores, but I'm with Erik; its days may be numbered.
Stay tuned for the highlights of tonight's "Saturday Night Live" episode, which may or may not be the Sunday entertainment feature. I could post a second entry tomorrow, just as I did today.
The George Gershwin classic, "Rhapsody in Blue" performed by the Madison Scouts five different times over 35 years. Who did it best?
I'd say 1975's corps marched it best, while 1985's corps played it best. I have a special fondness for 1975, as that was the year I was introduced to drum corps and the Madison Scouts won DCI that year.
Other corps have played "Rhapsody in Blue" but they'll have to wait for another compilation. Maybe next year.
Recap of the 20 marching bands from the 134th Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade on Monday, January 2, 2023.
Last year, I wrote "Here's to the Russian invasion of Ukraine not spiraling out of control to prevent next year's parade from happening." Well, we made it another year. Here's to being able to celebrate New Year's Day and Marching Music Day again in 2024.
What unravels when a tribal couple decides to foster an orphaned baby elephant? Watch how the arrival of the gentle giant Raghu, transforms the lives of his foster parents forever.
This is the second documentary from India about wild animals, the other being "All That Breathes." Indian media have made a big deal of the two films' Oscar nominations, along with that of "RRR," and created graphics like this. India cares what the U.S. movie industry thinks of its films and is thrilled to receive recognition.
The trailer for "Haulout" by Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev.
About the film: A man is waiting in his hut in the desolate expanse of the Russian Arctic. He is holding out in order to observe a natural event that occurs here, every year. But ocean warming is taking its toll.
A lone scientist on the coast of the Siberian Arctic finds that warming seas have taken a toll on the walrus migration, as documented in a film by Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev. "Haulout" is nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2023 Academy Awards.
I'm a biologist, so I knew that "haulout" referred to pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses) and figured that walruses were the most likely animals based on the location. I'm glad to see I was right. I'm also pleased to have pursued this subject, as I've found two more documentaries I can recommend to my environmental science students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Follow over the jump for the Factual America video about "All That Breathes" I promised as a bonus.
As oil prices skyrocketed, companies such as ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies and BP more than doubled their profits in 2022 from the year-earlier period. That result spurred a backlash, though, with President Joe Biden calling the profits “a windfall of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.” He also criticized Big Oil for investing too little in domestic production. But industry officials countered, saying they found Biden’s message to be a paradox. On the one hand he was advocating for a move toward a society of lower carbon emissions while on the other hand he wanted oil companies to increase production.
Now to be a good environmentalist and recycle one of my reactions to last month's post.
In addition to being callous, the advocates of "too much money chasing too few goods" usually aren't as vocal about making more goods, which leads directly to supply shocks, the second explanation for inflation. I've written about supply shocks to explain the causes and effects of the chipshortage, baby formula shortage, and gasprices. That works very well as an explanation for why specific goods increase in price, but other than energy prices, which affect the prices of everything else, it doesn't work as a general explanation.
High oil prices are a major way that energy costs propagate through the economy, so they do have a general effect on inflation. The reasons for the supply shock and the oil companies' reactions to it also illustrate some of my other points.
I'm an environmentalist who thinks over-consumption is a problem, but deliberately increasing suffering to destroy demand is not the way I want to do this. I'd prefer greater efficiency to reduce waste and a more educated populace who will choose to consume more responsibly and sustainably. Inflation while keeping people employed might actually help that goal.
That leads to asking how accurate the price signal really is, especially if companies are not just passing their increased costs on to their customers, but increasing profits as well instead of increasing supply.
Companies investing in their factories or other facilities and hiring more employees and paying them better would also help with increasing supply of goods and services, as well as induce more people to join the labor force...Instead, they are engaging in massive markups, i.e., profiteering, and sending the increased profits to their investors and executives. This is normal capitalist behavior, but that doesn't mean it's desirable.
The oil companies were doing exactly this last year. Their defenses are that their profits are driven by oil prices, which traders set, not the companies, and that they are just making up for low profits and outright losses during 2020, when Oil fell below $0.00 for the first time ever. Also, CNBC showed that oil production is increasing, so the oil companies are doing what President Biden has asked for, although U.S. oil production hasn't recovered to pre-pandemic levels yet. At least Biden did what he could to increase oil supply by releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. Here's to oil prices falling enough that the federal government doesn't lose money when it replenishes the reserve.
The last point I want to recycle is that Democrats are returning to a favorite target by calling for windfall profit taxes and increased production at the same time.
PBS is showing both sides trying to score political points, Democrats against big corporations and Republicans against environmental regulation. It's no surprise that I'm on the Democrats' side on this. However, if CNBC is correct about gasoline and diesel retailers being reluctant about lowering prices at the pump so that they can recoup losses incurred on the way up, then gas station owners are to blame for the continued high cost of fuel. That would mean beating up on local small businesses. I don't think that would play well for either party's politicians, who would rather be seen as defending the public against big business or "big government."
Republican politicians didn't show up in CNBC's video, but the American Petroleum Institute (API), which made a cameo in "An Inconvenient Truth," did a good job of expressing their position. Maybe that's because the API is feeding the GOP their talking points. Despite what Ron DeSantishas doneto Disney, this is one way the Republicans are still the business-friendly party.
Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that election lies were knowingly endorsed by hosts including Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo. Elsewhere, Florida’s governor released an exceptionally stupid book, and the feds finally caught up with a costumed Jan 6 insurrectionist.
I'm being a good environmentalist by recycling what I first wrote in 2011, "America is quite clear about its screwed up priorities. My experience has convinced me that the surest way to get Americans to act is to mess with their entertainment." I'm also recycling what I wrote yesterday: "Telling the Fox News audience a truth they didn't want to hear messed with their entertainment, they reacted to get it back, and Fox gave it back to them." That turned out to be "good business" in the short term, but the lawsuit shows that might not have been such a smart decision in the longer term.
Stephen gave Ron DeSantis's book exactly the respect it deserved — none. I think his response to DeSantis calling Florida a "beachhead of sanity" "where woke ideology goes to die" is right on: "Florida is a madhouse of doubtful sanity where everyone goes to die." Well, everyone except those who retire to Arizona. As I wrote last year, "Colbert calling Arizona 'America's backup Florida' isn't far off. There are lots of snowbirds and retirees there, just like Florida."
