I was up until midnight fighting with my desktop at home and it still is not working properly.

Too tired, too cranky to blog.

See everyone tomorrow.

So that time mof the year is at hand. When two squads of big burly men with fight for the skin of a dead pip.

To all who enjoy that sport, I wish you tghe best most exciting game possible.

Me?

I’m off to Universal Studios, Hollywood to explore their new attractions and work out plotting issues.

Because I had to stay home Tuesday to over the installation of our fiber optic ISP I has the rare chance to go see a late film at the theaters on Monday night. Hidden Figures is a historical drama about the early days of the space program when we strapped men to rockets and launched them into space with the figure worked out with pencil and paper.

Figures that it turns out were worked by a group talented, dedicated, and unsung of African-American women. Told through the point of view of three women, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson, the movie is a rocket ride of emotions.

Set in the early 1960s the film I think strikes exactly the right tone in capturing the racial injustice of the era. There aren’t characters hurling crude and insulting insults using verboten words, but rather the film captured the daily indignities the are principally unquestioned by most of the white characters. The grace, intelligence, and perseverance shown by the three women are levels of maturity I doubt I will ever achieve.

As a writer there are plenty of things that can be learned from the screenplay. One lesson I think is that simple human dignity is a high enough stake for your drama. It would have been easy to further fictionalize the story by maker some of the secondary character more militant, a militancy that would not be without cause, but the truth is this story had all the drama it needs.

One of the principal emotions that swept through me as I watched was anger. Of course it’s is no great thing to be anger at the racism and injustice, at the betrayal of the nation’s ideals, but I also became enraged over the waste then and today.

A nation is only as great as its people. To waste human potential is to throw away a nation’s most valuable resource. The human capital it what drives innovation, growth, and invention. Not simply in the areas of science and technology, but in the arts, in ethics, in government. To make our nation stronger, richer, wiser, and better we need people who can do that. I weep thinking about the geniuses we shall never utilize because a foolish shortsightedness.

Is Hidden Figures Oscar™ bait? After last year’s diversity controversy I don’t doubt that in part this film was approved and produced to answer those charges, and it has all the hallmarks of a movie made for the award season, but that takes nothing away from the power of the story, the talent of the filmmkaers, the emotional heft of the performances, and the importance of the themes.

THere’s been a slow down in my blogging this week. I ha d acouple of medical appointments, nothing serious but time consuming, that ate up some time and then yesterday my laptop decided to die.

I’m taking it in today, fingers crosses I can get away with just a new HD or such…

The day got away from me, so here is a track from the Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. It’s oddly suitable to current events. – The Spirit of Man.

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What is intolerable will not be tolerated. This is the truth of our age and of all ages. I wish I could say I was surprised by recent events, both the shooting of citizens by the police and the shooting of police officers, but I am not surprised. Shocked, horrified, roiled with grief yes, but not surprised.

I will not drag out all the arguments and evidence but it is clear to me that we have a system issue with police forces acting with lethal impunity. Racial Bias is a major factor in that – if you do not think that is true I doubt that there are any arguments or data I could deploy to persuade you. Prosecutorial deference is a major factor, the occupation mentality of metropolitan police forces is a major factor, the crime waves from the 1960s through the 1990s are major factors, police forces becoming a major source of income for cities is a factor, how much or how little you assign to each of those and other factors is more likely to speak more to your bias than to objective reality. (And yes, that apples to me as well.)

Political finger points and point scoring will not make any of this better only worse. The root cause, police conduct, must be addressed and all the factors appraised as objectively as possible.

Nothing excuses last night’s terrorism, and that is the applicable term just as it was with Oklahoma City and 9/11. Nothing excuses the police forces in unjustified killings. We must move beyond seeking excuses and seeking solutions which are not the same thing at all.

I am not going to get into the politics of the atrocity. Not because this is not the time, but because there are many many others acting as excellent advocates for their positions and my voice is unneeded.

These thoughts of mine are of no particular importance but they are mine.

First, I dislike the use of the word ‘tragedy.’ Tragedy often suggests something passive, earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, and diseases are tragic. This vile evil event was an atrocity. Atrocities are always active, there is an agency to them happen. A cowardly, evil man made this happen.

The details of the cowards life are still coming to light and often early details are erroneous, but the picture painted is a complex one. Yes, he was Islamic, though apparently not very devout. He claimed allegiance to ISIS during the event, but also a number of people reports he had been to the club often and was often rejected. He was born in the US and raised here, but at least his father seems much more of the old country.

There is enough here for nearly everyone to shove him and his actions into a predefined bucket. One that will no doubt fit a preconceived narrative and not challenge that person’s already held notions. The truth as it seems to me is far more complex and simple answers are likely to be wrong.

I think here in the United States we are experiencing a cultural pathology and I have no idea how to cure it.

This morning my sweetie-wife and I went out and saw Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and the film is lacking. Some mild spoilers follow.

It looks like the decision was made over at Warner Brothers that the DC cinematic Universe had to catch up right away with the gains made by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Where Marvel used 5 films to build up to their big team picture. The Avengers, WB is trying to take a shortcut and get there with only two films for the build up. (Despite the subtitle Dawn of Justice, the forming of the Justice League is not part of the movie.)

This movie follows on directly from the events in Man of Steel and using new angles and footage to place Bruce Wayne aka Batman in the chaos of the metropolis fight at the conclusion of that film. Due to Superman’s massive abilities and the carnage caused by the Kryptonian fights Batman has gone utterly paranoid, quoting Ex-VP Dick Cheeney that even a 1 percent chance of danger from Superman requires his elimination.

The overall and crippling flaw in this film is the script and its lack of any coherent plot. There really is no story here at all, and characters act wildly at odds with their established natures. Batman, though a gifted fighter and technologically capable person is, at heart, a detective. He follows clues and figures crap out, but not in in this film. This Batman is led by the nose, makes flagrant assumptions, and engages in mindless cruelty.

Superman has been DC’s boy scout to Marvels’ Captain America and as such that make him a double hard character to write. He possesses near limitless power and is utterly good. The writers here solve this problem by simply throwing out his character. Superman man is sullen and broody, hardly sparing a thought other than for himself and how terrible is his burden.

The plot – such as it is – turns on incomprehensible events. For example after a number of armed baddies or killed in a far away land, by bullets, shot to death, Superman is suspected of their murders, Really? Not scorched to a crisp or crushed into itty bitty diamonds, but simply shot and we’re expected to think that lots of people are going to buy that Superman did that? Including the world’s greatest detective? Give me a break.

The best of part the film is Gal Gadot as Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman. She doesn’t have a lot to do, but what she does is nice, the actor is very good, and her story isn’t messed up, but perhaps that is a function of little screentime. Maybe if they tried to write more for her they would muck it up.

I can not recommend the move on any level. There are tons of action scenes, lots and lots of action, that makes no sense and have no emotional
meaning because of the lack of a story.

It boils down to – who cares?

In addition to learning patience as I wait for word on my manuscript’s fate at the publishers, I have also embarked on a mission to lose weight.

I am not doing anything wild, erratic, or even especially interesting. Just counting the calories, walking three miles a day, and logging it all. (Myfitness pal on my iPhone is really making this work for me.)

Here is my weight logged every two days for the last five months. I am about half way to my goal so all in all I don’t feel too bad.