New Post went up on. my Substack today

 Just saying. You can find it here.

It's Sunday, but ...

 It is Sunday Rant Day, but I don't really feel like getting all hot and bothered. The Great Orange Oz is frantically lashing out, lying, and being a genuine racist. But it is all a little sad right now. Sure he might win, but everyone knows he is just flailing. 

Instead of a rant,  here is a picture I took last spring of California poppies in the wild.

Megalopolis... Hummm

So I went and saw Megalopolis yesterday. I went alone as Ed had no desire to see it. I don't even think I invited him as I went to see what I wanted to be: a fever dream of images, analogies, and a love story. I saw One from the Heart, another Francis Ford Coppola written, produced, and directed as an act of love from Coppola. 

What I got from Megalopolis was an overwhelmingly beautiful movie, obvious but toothless analogies, and great actors wasted. I also got not one, not two, but 5 or 6 different movies and themes trying to pull out of the mud. It was like Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead smushed over a simplistic commentary on the current US political and social fabric via Shakespeare. Fascinating and grotesque. There might be too many images here, so feel free to skip this post if it takes a while to load images (Montanta :-)

Let me set the scene in the shortest possible way. An architect (Adam Driver) blows up a block of public housing to build a vast portion of New Rome (New York in all but name) to rebuilt with "megalonium." Which is someone a semi-alive metal that can be used as a building material, dress material, and facial reconstruction material - all rolled into a goldish material that acts like a kaleidoscope on screen.

The architect is supported by the local Roman Leader, opposed by the Mayor of New York, hated by the Leader's heir, and loved by the Mayor's daughter. More confusing than entrancing - very reminescent of vintage Shakespeare without the warmth.

Below is a random order of images and what I was impressed (or not) with.

The first image of the New Rome Mayor as his daughter first opens the office door. When she looks back at the scene it is resolved back to normal without the sand of skewed desk.

The Architect and Mayor's Daughter dancing above the city as he stops time.

Aubrey Plaza, who first is a TV anchor, then the architect's lover, then the wife of the Roman Leader. She is in her own little movie - one assumes Copolla gave almost no direction, and so she decided to be an exaggerated bitter and sexual Megan Kelly.

The Architect with his T-Square and Megalonium (which rotates and grows in this shot).

One of the most beautiful sets, this clockwork on the top of the Architect's offices is gorgeous.

This was an interesting use of the widescreen. A triptych image with Shia LaBouef as the future want-to-be leader inciting the public to disrupt order and elections. 

And odd thing about the Triptych use. Frances Ford Copolla once restored the triptych film Napoleon, which was a one-time used widescreen film shoot with 3 different cameras, for which his father had written a new film score. See bottom picture

Shia LaBouef in drag (he wore this for a long time) to piss off his uncle, but an obvious analogy to Trump and how his personal life does not reflect his public persona.

Jon Voight as the Roman Leader - who FFC want to present as confused Joe Biden figure, but we all know Voight just can't act anymore.

Napoleon: 1927 silent film by Able Vance, restored, and with Frances Ford Copolla's Dad's new score. 

Note: Tinted in the Original

Often used in widescreen as well

One last comment on the acting:

Shia LaBouef - your schtick is not good

Aubry Plaza - your schtick is wonderful - if hammy

Jon Voight - that is not acting, that is too much secondall

Adam Driver - We don't need to see his face quite that close. However, you do a good job in carrying your part of the movie.

Giancarol Espostio seems to have channeled Oliva Pope's dad from Scandal. Less homage than lack of creativity

Laurence Fishburn - FFC made you alternate between Morphius in the Matrix and the Narrator in nearly all Shakespeare shows. You did a fine job.

Nathalie Emmanuel - (Mayor's Daughter) You were one of the only one to come out of this well

Dustin Hoffman - still miss the old days when you worked sober

Grace VanderWaal - Sorry you had to sub for Kristen Dunst

Jason Schwartzman and Talila Shire   - you were forgettable. Lucky for you two.

Goodbye Maggie Smith

 Maggie Smith has passed. 

I loved her. By the time she was older, she was a favorite character in Downton Abbey and Harry Potter series. And she was good.

But she will always be Miss Jean Brodie to me. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was the first time I saw her. I saw it on TV in a rerun after I was older (it came out in 1969). Her warmth and sexuality mesmerized me.  And then as her self-assurance was torn down in the later parts of the movie, she broke my heart. It was shocking to a kid that had only seen uplifting endings by that time.

My other favorite roles of hers were often comedic character parts where you could not take your eyes off her. My favs:

"Bowers" with Bette Davis in Death on the Nile. "Daphne Castle" in Evil Under The Sun. And "Dora Charleston" with David Niven and a Wire-Haired Terrier in Murder by Death (she and David Niven played a parody of Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man series).

I watch reruns of these movies a lot, so she will be here for a long time for me.

2025 and Weather Forecasting

Hurricane Helene - First Reports in Florida

For those who may not know, the Republican think tank Heritage Foundation has created a playbook for Presidential implementation called Project 2025. It is designed to give Donald Trump a blueprint for action at the very beginning of his second term. The semi-fascists would like to hit the ground running with a plan that includes the hopes and dreams of many conservatives. The document refers to Trump 311 times. It was written with input from 31 of Trump's former staff and advisers. So, it is an actual blueprint plan with ideas on actions to take without both with and without Congressional approval

It is crazy in many areas, but weather forecasting is one area where Project 2025 has"a plan." An idiotic plan, but a plan nonetheless. It helps with one of their favorite bug-a-boos, climate change. This is, of course, a step up from the "concept of the plan", but in this case, the concept stage is where it should have been killed.

First, let's look at what is happening in the South right now. Hurricane Helene is spreading destruction from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas to the upper Ohio River Valley. It strengthened much faster than previous storms because of the warming of the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. It changed from a Tropical Storm to a "once in a generation" category 4 Hurricane in less than 3 days. 

Luckily, the United States has an excellent weather projection system through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The United States is constantly improving this system.

You probably can see where this is going.

Yes, Project 2025 plans to dismantle the NOAA. This is seen by many of the writers of Project 2025 because the writers believe in privatization. They assume Trump in 2025 can break NOAA up and leave weather forecasting to the private sector. Sure, this means no more free weather reports on your phone OR on local and national TV. No public projections of the pathes of Hurricanes, storms, low and high-pressure impacts, threatening heat, and more - but it is assumed private companies can provide all this - at a cost.

Why do they plan to do this? First and foremost they don't believe in Climate Change. NOAA includes climate change in their reports. For example, NOAA explained that the rise in temperature of the ocean is exasperating storms. The fact that NOAA suggested one of the causes for this increase is man-made climate change is a reason for them to close this department. Of course, the fact that they will profit from private projections is just a plus for them.

And they resent being called out on this.

According to Project 2025, we don't need this kind of information from the government.

I don't think they fully understand the impact of runaway capitalism on a public good. Or maybe they just don't care about the regular American people.

For a full report on Project 2025 - select here.

For an overview of the practical effects on America - see Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist or Bleak House.

Photography Winners: Birds

 

This is the winner for 

I recently saw a collection of Bird Photography winners of 2024. They are cool. The entire list can be found here:

BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY WINNERS

Here are some of my favorites (I left out the penguins because I show them a lot).

Okay fine! If you insist.

Possible?!?

 Hum, this headline frightens me. What the hell are people thinking.

A wider war is possible? POSSIBLE.

Kids - 

There were 1,390 dead from the Oct 7th Hamas Attack on Israel

There have been over 40,000 Palestinian dead in the GAZA strip.

There have been a further 479 Palestinians dead in the West Bank.

There have been 500 killed and thousands of innocents injured in Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Israel has carried out killings in Iran and Houthi controlled Yeman.

The war is already f**king wide to those killed.  And there is this from the NY Times.

Let's not pretend this is not a war. We are long pasted "teaching a lesson" and onto killing civilians just to make a point.

The Living Desert

 The Living Desert is a zoo/botanical garden in Palm Desert—not that far from us. When Barbara and Gareth visited, we took them to the Living Desert. We had all been before and remembered the open areas, the area for indigenous cats: bobcats, mountain lions, and others.

Soon after, we visited The Living Desert, it was designated as a breeding zoo for wild cats, and other desert cats were brought in to be bred and re-released into the wild.

Even though I read about it, I did not think it would be much different. But it was. It was wary different.

The focus of The Living Desert now focuses on desert ecosystems around the world.  They have made unique discrete areas in the zoo for the desert animals of Africa, Australia, and the United States. It was different and very well done.

We were so amazed as the Rhinos that were active and feeding that we did not get any pictures of them, but they were VERY cool.

One of Ed's favorites. They remind him of Ashford.

The African painted dog. It is a massive success story.

The trail through 1000 Palms Oasis

 It is interesting how much more we hike and do things than we did when we had out in Palm Springs before. I guess having only weekends made us more concerned with sun and pool, but now we have a lot of time.

We took a hike out to the 29 Palms Oasis on Sunday. The oasis pops up where the San Andreas fault has moved. There are underground rivers near the mountains, but when the fault shifts, the water is forced to the ground for a while, and then these oases grow.

This was a fun little walk.

I think this palm is interesting.
It almost fell over, and then lifted up, but the fronds hang at an angle.

These are California Fan Palms. They are not so prominent in landscape use.

The berries of the California Fan Palms are not dates, but they are edible. Here is what the net says.

The sweet fruit pulp of the fan palm is edible. The fruit was eaten raw, cooked, or ground into flour for cakes by Native Americans. The Cahuilla and related tribes used the leaves to make sandals, roof thatch, and baskets. The woody petioles were used to make cooking utensils.

Ten Thousand Missing People Remembered on "International Day of the Disappeared"

(Allowable Sunday Rant - see header)

On August 30th, it was "International Day of the Disappeared". It is not particularly important in the United States. If an American disappears in conflict, we all know it ASAP. And, the USA fights very hard to resolve a situation like this when it arises. I am thankful for that.

But in the former Yugoslavia, over 10,000 people are still missing from the wars in the region, over 20 years ago. Quoting from Balkan Insight:

An exhibition with the names of persons still missing from the country was displayed at the Square of Bosnia and Herzegovina in front of the state parliament and state-level ministries in Sarajevo. According to the Bosnian Missing Persons Institute, the search for 7,616 missing persons is still ongoing, with the most recent mass grave found in the village of Dobro Polje, near Kalinovik.

This demonstration is in front of the Bosnian National Legislature (like our Capital). As someone who has been there multiple times, it is soul-crushing.

In case you THINK you do not understand, those of you old enough remember this:

Yeah - this is terrorism

(Allowable Sunday Rant - see header)

 We were all impressed when the pagers blew up in the hands of "the bad guys" in Lebanon. It was a feat of daring and brilliance. And we (okay I) might not have ever given it much thought, except perhaps as a new tool on the "war on terror."

But then the walkie-talkies blew up. Many at the funerals of people killed by the pagers - like Jews, Muslims strive to bury their dead within 24 hours - so "whoever" did this knew they were going to kill people at funerals.

Ladies and Germs, this process IS terrorism, no two ways about it. Let's define terrorism, again, to remind people. Read this definition, and think about it:

Was it justified? No.

Sure, you can explain it away by saying that only terrorists carry the pagers / or walkie-talkies. But they didn't just kill Hezbollah; they killed and maimed civilians, kids, and ordinary Lebanese. It is intended to maim Hezbollah members AND to intimidate the ordinary folk of Lebanon. That is the fucking DEF-I-NI-TION of terrorism. 

Was it a War Crime? Probably. I quote here:

Several international treaties and protocols to which Israel is a signatory could render these actions by a state such as Israel illegal under international humanitarian law, scholars say.

One particular focus is Article 7(2) of the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which was added to an international law focused on the use of conventional weapons in 1996. Both Israel and Lebanon have agreed to it.

It prohibits the use of booby traps, which Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, defines as "objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use."

This would probably be something easy to ignore, but everyone in the USA is a bit of a collaborator here. We give Israel $3,000,000,000.00 ($3 Billion) in military aid. So, we supplied the money for Israel to kill civilians as a War Crime. Remember, Israel is NOT at war with Lebanon. It killed at least 37 civilians and injured over 1,000 others in a country that is not at war with Israel. 

It can be justified; hell, I can easily justify it. But we haven't even thought about the effects on people just trying to live their lives. We simply ignore it and honor Netanyahu with a visit and speech to the US Congress.

And another $3,000,000,000.00 dollars.

Cognitive Dissonance

(Allowable Sunday Rant - see header)

 Welcome to the ass end of 2024. The two images below break my brain. I am NOT trying to be funny or moral or holier-than-thou here. I know my brain is different, not defective, but different. I have a problem holding these two images in my head. Then are shown with the partial image on the same page to show you how I see the world. On the site, they are in this order, and it breaks my mind.

I am called to note:

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological state of discomfort that occurs when a person's beliefs, attitudes, or values are contradictory or inconsistent with their actions. It can also be described as the internal conflict that arises when a person has conflicting knowledge elements and attempts to align them. 

Ouch

The Village Idiot

 I do love The Lincoln Project videos.

This is one of those things, I don't know how I would react

 

The Perfect Couple

 The Perfect Couple is a mystery on Netflix. It starts with Nichole Kidman, who appears to hoovering up all the bitchy, too-tightly pulled - emotionally and physically mother roles.

Aside from that - she would be perfect for the role of my stepmother, particularly when cleaning the house. (My stepmother, not Nichole's roles. Nichole's roles always have a maid - more time for her to be the bitch from hell.)

Anywho, I really enjoyed this mini-series. I read a lot of detective stories and enjoy trying to find out who did it, but this series explored the interplay of people and secrets; it never helped me solve the mystery.

So I did not particularly like the ending. Even the giant title wave created by the megalodon made no sense. (I kid - no spoilers here).

The Amazing Voyage(r)

 Voyager 1 is a success story far past what the designers could have ever hoped for. This little engine that could is way out past Pluto, even out of the Sun's Heliosphere - so past where the Sun has any effect.

But that isn't the most amazing thing. The most amazing thing is that it has been updated and fixes itself repeatedly. The mission has been called dead, along with its twin Voyager 2, many times over the years. But Voyager 1 has been toiling away since 1977. 

And NASA delivers software updates remotely. That is much more impressive than you might think. There was no IBM, MSDOS, mouse, or interface you could see. The amount of space that was necessary for the most basic computer built 10 years later would have taken up to 1800 sq feet in 1977. The very first Apple II was delivered (which was the first Apple) which came with game paddles for PONG.

So, think of this: that type of computer has been in the empty, frozen space between worlds and even objects for 48 years, and it was just remotely updated again.

That means someone has to reprogram in a language that was built on punch cards and that no one knows anymore. And how much memory does it have to work with:

Voyager 1's computers have 69.63 kilobytes of memory, which is roughly enough to store a standard internet JPEG file. This is about 3 million times less memory than a mobile phone.

Amazing!

Off we go into the great white yonder...

 Barbara and Gareth were here last weekend, and we went to the Palm Springs Air Museum. It was a kick. Most of the images are from when we climbed into a Warhawk. It was very cool and fun, and it was nice to see them both.

A P51 Mustang ready to give a ride. Yes, you can take a ride in several old planes. I thought it would be fun. But not $1500 of fun.

Special hanger for this bad boy.