Monthly Archives: March 2023

The Coming Election ‘Fraud’ No One is Talking About

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An oft repeated observation about Trump and his approach to elections is that he can never lose, he can only win or be cheated.

We saw this in the run up to the 2016 election where he voiced, repeatedly, his willingness to dispute the results if he did not win. Again in 2020 when he launched a coup attempt in part by convincing millions of people that the election had been ‘stolen’ from him. And we are bracing for the coming cries of fraud should he once again be the presidential nominee for the Republican Party.

Among the political talk there is a great deal of chatter and debate concerning Trump’s chances of grabbing that nomination. ‘Is he slipping? Who can beat him and take the base away from him? Is Candidate X the Trump-killer?’

Not once in all the articles I have read or the podcast I have consumed has anyone addressed the most glaring and obvious fact about the GOP primary and Trump.

He can’t lose, he can only be cheated.

Even if some other rabid and foaming at the mount southern governor wins the contests, Trump will concede to reality. That mad narcissist is incapable of admitting any sort of error or defeat. He will take the air, to the social media, and to his rallies with cries that the ‘establishment’ colluding with the ‘deep state’ has stolen the primary election and even if the convention goes against him, he will claim that ‘rigged’ that too.

What happens then?

What happens when he insists he really won the primaries and demands all those spineless, sniveling, cowardly politicians who have bent the knee to this obscene protofascist once again repeat his lies and throw themselves on those electoral grenades?

Would that finally explode the GOP? Shattering it with schisms and internecine warfare? People talk of a GOP civil war now, but I think the debates and appeasements we see now would fade into invisibility compared to this scenario. Elected in solidly gerrymandered districts might survive reject his lies but not the next primary or even possibly recall elections, but candidates in more evenly distributed districts would face losing voters from their base because they didn’t back Trump or losing voters from the middle because they did while still facing the wrath of the base in the next primary.

The GOP is far from done with Trump and he is far from done with them.

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Little To Say This Morning

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The rains have returned to San Diego and with the fluctuations in barometric pressure so have my headaches. Not with the force that would require me to stay at home and endure the stink of painting as the contractors continue to reconstruct our condominium but enough pain that conjuring a subject for an essay seems to be an impossible task. So, once again, here a few bits and bops on my mind without any particular theme or connection.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns for season 2 on June 15, 2023. Yay. I am an old fart and for me when someone mentions Star Trek my mind flies instantly to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I watched most of TNG and very little of the other series offerings, but SNW seems to scratch that ich quite well and I am happy to have it back.

A new short story idea. For the first time in a few years a short story idea has popped into my head. It is mystical supernatural horror. Inspiration struck while I was giving a rewatch to The Last Wave an arthouse horror movie from down under.

I am annoyed that Disney+ has released no behind the scenes/making of documentaries for the Star Wars series Andor. Andor is the best thing to happen to the franchise in The Empire Strike Backand I desperately want that bonus material. I suspect, without evidence, that since the decision has already been made that there will be only two season they are going to hold off on that stuff until the series is finished.

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Those Organians Doors

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Errand of Mercy is the 26th episode of season one of the original series Star Trek, notable for the debut of the Klingon Empire and god-like Organians that prevented a disastrous galactic war.

In the episode Spock and Kirk end up trapped on the seemingly technologically stunted Organia, a critical star system on the Klingon Empire’s expected invasion route. The Klingons arrive and what follows is a series of captures, escape, and acts of sabotage as Kirk and Spock

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do their duty while the Klingons as brutal occupiers seeming slaughter Organians by scores. At every turn the Organians are pacifistic and welcoming, seemingly untroubled but disgusted by the overt acts of violence. Everything resolves when the Organians, revealing themselves to be beings of ‘pure energy’ and unlimited powers, stop the war and force a peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

There is a subtly to this episode that I have admired for some time, and I can’t recall someone drawing attention to it.

Kirk and, along presumably the Klingon characters, have for all their lives known doors that operated automatically at their approach. It is a classic bit of blooper footage watching the actors of Star Trek slam into the set door when a stagehand missed the cue and they remained closed. The faux setting created by the Organians was one of a society which technologically had not yet advance beyond animal power with massive wooden doors bound with iron like some absurd D&D setting. It is revealed that the god-like aliens crafted all this to make it easier for the humans, Vulcans, and Klingons to interact with the Organians, presumably drawing inspiration from their own biases and preconceptions. Including the bias that doors open themselves.

Throughout the episode every ‘primitive’ wooden door swing open or closed without anyone touching it. Kirk, Spock, Kor, and everyone else simply walks towards the doors and they sweep aside for the characters without a single character every commenting or noting the anachronism.

Of course, for the production of the episode there are stagehands watching intently and pulling on ropes operating the set. Everyone is keenly aware of what is happening in these scenes but the characters, in a beautiful and subtle obliviousness, fail to notice because it is how door always work. The strange working of Organian doors is never brought directly to the viewer’s attention. Not cut away shot focusing on the effect is revealed. The magical doors are simply part of the environment left to be noticed if one is not fully engaged with the story as it unfolds.

When you do notice it, and think about it, its beauty is apparent. A tiny little story element without any direct effect on the plot but establishing the ‘reality’ of the characters and their preconceptions of their world.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempts to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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This past Saturday the 25th I had the good fortune to see an advance screening of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves a big budget cinematic adaptation of the tabletop role playing game. As a gamer for more than 40 years I had a keen interest in the film and when a fellow writer popped up with invites to the screening I had to attend.

There have been other attempts to leverage the game into popular media. From 1983 through 1985 saw the production and airing of an animated series Dungeons & Dragons with the three season clearly target for a younger audience. 2000 saw the release of a live-action film Dungeons & Dragons that was poorly received by both critics and audiences. (Though successful enough for two direct to Home Video sequels.) This production, Honor Among Thieves is boasts the most resources and well-known names to adapt the property.

The film, like most sessions of the game, is an ensemble piece, though more focus is given to Edgin (Chris Pine) a man who through tragedy has turned to thievery and Holga, (Michelle Rodriguez) his dangerous barbarian partner in crime. They assemble a team, Simon (Justice

Paramount Studios

Smith) a Sorcerer with self-esteem issues, Doric (Sophie Lillis) a tiefling druid desperate to save her people and wilderness from encroaching ecological devastation, Xenk (Rege-Jean Page) a paladin with ties to Edgin past before Edgin fall from grace. What starts as a heist, with a few side adventures to gather the materials required, transforms into a battle against a vast and evil conspiracy with thousands of live and the future in the hands of the thieves.

Each character has an arc of character development and with the story compressed to a single film none are particularly deep or complex. Honor Among Thieves is not a contemplative examination of the human condition but romp, an exercise in fun with just enough character to allow the actors to invest, engage, and embrace their roles. No third act twist is truly shocking or surprising, but the film isn’t relying on that approach. It expects, with reasonableness, that characters and the actors portrayals with keep the audience emotionally invested and not some amazing reveal to recontextualize the story.

The filmmaking is solid, competent, but not groundbreaking or visually stunning. For the most part, with the except of one shoot, the directors, Jonathan Goldstein a & John Francis Daley, avoid drawing attention to the VFX with ‘impossible’ camera moves and Barry Peterson’s cinematography is perfectly serviceable with decent compositions but never remarkable.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a ‘popcorn movie,’ one meant to provide a short diversion from the grind of reality and give some thrills, laughs, and a touch of real emotion. In the matter the film succeeds. It is fun and worth the hair over two hours spent watching it.

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Streaming Review: Bad Sisters

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Adapted from a Flemish television program Clan, Bad Sisters is an Irish comedic drama centered on the five Garvey Sisters, and their recently deceased under questionable circumstances brother-in-law, John Paul, JP, who had been a controlling, emotionally abusive, and belittling

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husband. The story follows twin linear timelines, one after JP’s sudden death with a private insurance firm suspicious of the circumstances, and the other a few months prior as the other four sisters plot his murder.

JP, played with excellence by Danish actor Claes Bang, manages in every succeeding scene to justify the audience’s sympathy with the Garvey sisters and their desire to murder the man. Even in Episode Eight when, after witnessing the emotional abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and I found some measure of pity for hi, the character managed to destroy that ember of good will with his own selfish and evil actions.

Each of the sisters is a well-drawn and performed character in their own right with their own motivation for their hatred of JP.

The series maintains a careful balance between drama, with JP’s cold, hurtful nature a dagger to anyone with a heart, and the comedy of errors as the sisters, not one with any sort of criminal experience, fumble repeated attempts to rid the world of JP’s baneful existence.

Complicating the situation are the half-brothers Thomas and Matt, inheritors of the small insurance firm responsible for JP’s policy, facing criminal charges and bankruptcy due to their deceased father’s fraud and mismanagement. Their only salvation would be finding the truth to avoid paying on the claim.

Bad Sister is a native Irish production and filled with familiar Irish actors. The program’s cinematography is lush, fully capturing the Emerald Isle’s beauty while never losing focus on the characters and their dilemmas. At the heart of the story is family and the bonds of blood that can drive people to extremes to defend and protect their siblings.

Currently streaming in Apple TV+, Bad Sisters, is enjoyable excursion and a welcome diversion.

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Bits and Bobs

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So here are some quick thoughts on various subjects some with fuller elaboration to come.

Bad Sisters: an Apple TV+ comedy/drama series about the five Garvey sisters and how four of them plot to murder the brother-in-law who is crushing the life out of the fifth. We have one episode to go to finish the first season and I adore it. I marvel at how every scene in which the brother-in-law appears makes me more and more appreciate the sister’s motivation. I suspect that they will stick the landing, but I have been burned by endings before. (Looking at you Game of Thrones and The Rig.)

The Thaw: Polish police procedural following a female detective, recently widowed after the suspected murder of her husband, thrown into a case with political implications and a missing newborn. We are one episode in on this one, but the writing and production values are quite good. Streaming on HBOMax.

The Mandalorian: Season three is airing on Disney+ and while I thoroughly enjoyed the first two seasons this one feels a bit off. It is not bad, but the narrative seems to wander about, and it lacks story momentum. Pedro Pascal continues to be quite good, and the puppeteering is outstanding but after the outstanding drama that was Andor the bar has been raised and the writers of this show will need to step up.

I have run my first role playing game via Zoom and aside from a sore throat that manifested during the game, things went quite well. In some ways this is superior because with my desktop computer and two monitors it is far easier for me to use all the spreadsheets that I have created to manage FGU’s quite elaborate game system.

Our condominium remains in a state of partial disassembly following the water damage from February, and we are still without a functional kitchen or able to entertain friends.

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Bruce Lee, JFK jr., and Trump

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A common statement I hear repeated endlessly on political discussions is how the majority of GOP electeds, not the base mind you, are hoping for a Big Mac, or a Heart Attack, or a stroke to remove Trump from the political field by removing him from life. They suffer twin delusions with this fantasy.

The first is that somehow Trump vanishing from the scene would magically return the Republican Party to its state before that grotesque vainglorious buffoon descended that elevator. This ignores the fact that decades of stoking fear and hate created the condition that allowed Trump to seize the party from its establishment. It also ignores the basic truth of the universe, that time flows in one direction and the past is forever lost to us. The GOP today without Trump will carry forward Trump’s stamp. He has remade the party and while it can be remade again it will never be something from the past.

The second delusion is the idea that Trump’s sudden demise would be accepted as factual by his most fanatical supporters.

In July of 1973 actor, athlete, and producer Bruce Lee died. For many this was simply unbearable and rather than accept the simple fact that everyone dies and sometimes death is visited upon the healthy and fir conspiracy theories sprang up and continue to this day.

In July of 1999 JFK jr., son of the slain president, died when the airplane he was piloting suffered ‘controlled flight into terrain.’ The terrain being the Atlantic Ocean. One of the Q-Anon conspiracies is that he did not die, it was a hoax, and that he would return. The fact that so many very right people are holding out hope for a Democratic persona to returned gives evidence to the unhinged nature of conspiracy theories.

Trump’s death would instantly become a new and probably vast conspiracy theory. It may seem far-fetched and beyond reason to many of us but remember this is the population of people who accept that there is a secret cabal of Democrats feasting on infants in the basement of pizza parlors.

Between the lasting effect of Trump’s years at the head of the GOP and the fanatical followers who would not accept his death the party would find itself tethered to Trump ghost far tighter than they ever had been to Reagan’s.

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World-Building is Revealing

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Whether we are speaking of writing, or gaming, world-building, the process of laying out a fictional environment and how it functions is reveals aspects of the creator’s implicit assumptions about reality.

I noticed this most clearly in Role Playing Games where the world-builder in question is the person who ‘runs’ the game. They established the history, sociology, and politics of their campaign setting and then through the players’ interaction with the world and its peoples reveal their own ideas about how our world really works.

One gamemaster ran campaigns where it was never possible to ‘get ahead’ while obeying the law. For the players to not fall into endless crippling debt, they always resorted to criminality. That person also believed that the world we live in was rigged and that cutthroat selfishness was required to triumph over others.

Another rana Dungeons and Dragons campaign where every evil human had at some point in their backstory had been broken. Evil wasn’t something someone chose but the result of someone ‘snapping.’  This gamemaster sees people as innately good and that evil also has a reason, a cause.

This I think applies to authors as well. There is a well-regarded, award-winning SF author and in every one of the novels they wrote at the heart lies a conspiracy. A cabal of people working in close collaboration for their own benefit and to the harm of the general population. Do I think that this author, whom I have met and is a fine and generous person, believes in whack-a-doodle ideas like ancient aliens, Q-Anon, or that Finland isn’t real? No, but I do suspect that they think that there is coordinated effort where there may simply be convergent goals and methods.

I am sure a careful reading of my own work and games would reveal aspect of myself that I am unaware I had put there. This is an unavoidable effect of world-building. Another author I know works very diligently to not be ‘political’ in their writings and yet their politics are on clear display in the way they craft and utilize their characters. When we create we must draw from ourselves and what we think is real so we cannot but help to have our works reflects some aspect of our true selves.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempts to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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A Return to Role Play Gaming

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Saturday evening saw the return of my Space Opera RPG campaign as the players, and I reconvened on Zoom.

While during the heights of the pandemic many people took their role play games virtual with online tabletops given that Space Opera, a game system that has been out of print for nearly 40 years, has not dedicated online support system, we kept our game, once it restarted following vaccination, in person at my friend’s office. Sadly, my friend had moved away and the had to move to Zoom or simply stop. This weekend, after the prolonged chaos of moving, and missing a player who was unavailable, we resumed exactly where we had left off.

I had concerns about my ability to run a game in a virtual meeting space, but it turned out fine. Granted, the session ended earlier than I had wanted when I developed a sore throat but overall, it was a success.

In the words of Vision and The Scarlet Witch ‘This works.’

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SPEAK OUT OR COLLABORATE IN SILENCE

Many, if not most, people with some understanding of history are at least familiar with the poem by Pastor Neimoller. A confession and an awareness of where his support for the NAZIs and his apathy for the suffering of others had ultimately led. If you are not, here is the text.

 

First They Came by Pastor Martin Neimoller

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

‘They’ are coming. Right now, here in the United States of America, they are coming for the Trans Community and most of you are not Trans, maybe you don’t know anyone who is or who has transitioned, but they are coming for them, and you have the choice of speaking out and standing by and saying nothing because it does not harm you. ‘They’ will make all manner of ‘justifications’ for their actions, invoking the ‘children’ as the noble reasons for their actions but these are lies. They know that they are lies, we know that they are lies. If you stay silent you murder the truth for their lies.

Just as the poem progressed, so will their march of suppress and destroy everything that they do not approve of. You may be number on their list, or number two, or number three, but they will eventually reach you.

Do not wait until it is your pain and torment to see their evil. Open your eyes and see it now. They are counting on your apathy for those quite unlike you, prove them wrong.

Conservatism does not equal fascism, but the modern GOP has surrendered to it fascistic elements. Until that cancer is excised from the body politic and burned back into the shadows no member of that party deserves any position of power. Your vote is your voice, use it or be complicit.

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