Unsightly Mental Blemishes

This Labor Day sees a bug.

Those seem to have come out well.

Finally, Nick feels the Cockroach of Doom in his underpants. Why he let his wife adopt such a creature has puzzled film historians for generations. It also produced a film of film historians searching for a Cockroach of Doom to add to their collections, and the terrible Fate they each met – and often dated – but that’s another story for another time.

And I’m not going to tell it.

The Thin Man (1934) is a member of the private detective genre, a category in which success often depends on the strength of characterization. Think of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade: at least half of the charm of the stories of which they are a part is the detectives themselves, their toughness, their reaction to temptations, their outlook on life.

The attraction of The Thin Man and its sequels is, in part, the chemistry of the characters. This is true not only of Nick and Nora Charles, the former a retired private detective, the latter Nick’s rich wife and the reason he’s retired, but also of Nick and Nora’s relationship with Nick’s nabs. The affection the nabs have for Nick and Nora is both unexpected and brings a bit of charm and comic relief to the story.

And the story? A former client of Nick’s, successful inventor and curmudgeon Clyde Wynant, has disappeared. His daughter, beau in her wake, can’t find him to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, and attempts to enlist Nick to find Clyde. But Nick is retired, more interested in wife and dog, Asta, than his former client, and refuses. Several times.

But Nora is intrigued. She’s never seen her husband in action, and pushes him to investigate. Nick reluctantly does so, trading barbed pleasantries with … Asta. But the dog is more than a conversational foil, as we discover when he finds a body.

But it’s not Wynant’s, even if it’s buried in his basement. Was Wynant a killer of the worst sort, as he’s a genius? In a classic big windup, all the suspects at the dinner table, waited upon by Nick’s nabs, Nick announces the name of the victim and of the killer … by letting the killer name themselves.

Add in a jealous ex-wife and a nerdy, self-important son, and don’t forget the ex-wife’s paramour, and there are suspects simply pouring out of the windows of the hotel. Which one will Nick and Nora pick while trading puns, cocktails, and kid toys with each other?

Tune in and find out. If you like old-fashioned murder mystery movies in which characters aren’t too deeply explored, and silly head-splitting crap doesn’t occur, The Thin Man may be for you.

In beautiful condition, too, and many more, besides.

This one, from NewScientist, is a bit distressing, as it implies so much:

Crocodiles can sense how distressed human babies are from their cries

The tagline is of no help in quieting one’s nerves:

Predatory reptiles move quickly and aggressively towards the sound of babies crying and can tell if they are in genuine distress and so potentially vulnerable

The implication that primate babies have been a frequent snack is a bit frightening, especially if you are one who believes we’ve badly damaged nature in our efforts to achieve and maintain safety.

This AL-Monitor report on microbial resistance to drugs developing in Iraq is unsettling:

[Microbial resistance] has reached alarming highs around the world in recent years as simple infections become harder and harder to treat. Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections killed 1.27 million people in 2019, according to a study by The Lancet medical journal — more than HIV-AIDS or malaria. Experts say antimicrobial resistance (which refers not only to resistant bacteria but also to viruses, fungi and parasites) could kill up to 10 million people a year by 2050.

Iraq already stands out as one of the places hardest hit by this developing crisis, particularly the city of Mosul where worrisome rates of antibiotic resistance were recorded by international medical nongovernmental organizations that intervened there in the wake of the war against the Islamic State (IS). In 2019, a staggering 40% of patients admitted to a post-operative care facility run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Mosul carried multidrug-resistant infections, according to MSF.

Five years later, this silent health crisis is still sweeping unchecked through the city’s private and public hospitals. “There’s a real danger,” Ahmad told Al-Monitor. “But when you look at the official response, it doesn’t feel like we are in a crisis. Iraq is behind on tackling this issue.” …

[Prescribing antibiotics for any disease is] a habit that remains deeply rooted in the [Iraqi] health care system, several doctors and medical nurses in Mosul acknowledged. “Here, most doctors prescribe antibiotics for any simple disease. They don’t follow a scientific protocol or a gradual approach with syrups and pills; they don’t send samples to the lab to see which antibiotics are needed. Many prescribe injectable antibiotics right away,” Omar Mudhafar, the head of an awareness-raising unit at the Mosul General Hospital, told Al-Monitor.

Are the monsters coming to get us?

So, in the metaphorical forest we can see that mishandling powerful drugs has similar consequences to mishandling powerful weapons.

But out of the forest, I was struck by the parallels between this and the American political situation. Just as American political groups have come to resist compromise, so does humanity refuse, quite understandably, to give up friends and family to the attack of microbes, such as those which causes smallpox, TB, and many other illnesses that we have learned to mitigate, cure, and even expunge.

The cost may be ever greater plagues.

I realize this parallel is all a bit horrific, but I think it’s worthwhile for those of a political bent to meditate on their enmity to compromise, and to consider how important their arrogance – because that’s the poison at the root of the tree of comity – is to their ego, and to perhaps consider tamping that down a bit.

Governor DeSantis (R-GA) has been working hard to be the GOP Presidential nominee and de facto leader of the GOP, but I’m liking the chances of Governor Kemp (R-GA), who has chosen not to go head-to-head with the former President this time around, at least not yet. I’m guessing Kemp will run in 2028, once he’s finished disposing of the former President by letting him dangle from a yard-arm.

During a remarkable press conference, Gov. Brian Kemp quashed the idea of a special legislative session pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies to oust Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she charged them with a vast conspiracy to reverse his 2020 defeat.

And the governor on Thursday also dismissed talk of backing efforts to reprimand Willis, either through legislative hearings that seek to slash state funding to her office or a newly empowered panel that can sanction wayward prosecutors or remove them from office.

The second-term Republican said he hasn’t “seen any evidence” that Willis has violated her oath of office, even though he voiced concerns about whether she was motivated by politics to pursue the 41-count indictment.

“The bottom line is that in the state of Georgia as long as I’m governor, we’re going to follow the law and the Constitution, regardless of who it helps and harms politically,” Kemp said. “Over the last few years, some inside and outside of this building may have forgotten that. But I can assure you that I have not.” [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

While his refusal to come to Trump’s aid is putatively motivated by legal considerations, Trump’s disgust with Kemp and his refusal to find, illegal as it would be, just 11,000 more votes for Trump back in November of 2020 is well-known, and no doubt Kemp did not like the idea that he should risk his legal neck for Trump’s gain.

This move is, I think, an attempt to appeal to independents by showcasing Kemp’s respect for the law, while telling the MAGA base that supports Trump that he has no choice in the matter. Governor DeSantis (R-FL), Trump’s biggest rival, has not yet really done much to gain the support of independents, instead choosing to attempt to fracture the Trump MAGA base, with little perceptible progress.

I think Kemp’s approach is more plausible that DeSantis’. In fact, while Kemp has thrown a lot of doubt on the idea of running for the 2024 nomination, from what I’ve read he hasn’t shut that door completely. If Trump plunges in the polls due to criminal conviction, or revelations concerning his alleged riches, we may see Kemp take the big step.

Of course, Kemp does have weaknesses. Both Georgia Senators are Democrats, and no doubt Kemp will be saddled with the blame of not coming up with better candidates, although GOP protocol would have hardly permitted promoting relative unknowns over the two sitting Republican Senators, Loeffler and Perdue. And the loss of Atlanta to Democratic forces will also be a point of contention.

But these are not terminal conditions for Kemp. Keep an eye on him. His ethics are unlikely to be so stiff as to hinder a run. After all, he did not recuse himself from his Secretary of State position during his first run for the governor of Georgia against Stacey Abrams, which he indisputably should have.

Is he smarter than the other GOP governors? This is where the power lies for the GOP Presidential runs, not in the Senate and certainly not in the House.

Time will tell.

Defenestraphobia:

[General] Surovikin’s defenses may also have an issue in that they are Surovikin’s defenses. No one else may have a strong incentive to prove the ousted general’s preparations are effective, or to be somehow seen as the protégé of a guy currently suffering from severe defenestraphobia (and yes, that’s the real name for a fear of windows). [“Ukraine Update: As the ‘ Surovikin Line’ starts to crumble, the general who made it is still missing,” Mark Sumner, Daily Kos]

Well, maybe it’s real. It’s only showing up on specialized web sites.

Last year’s cleome appears to have successfully reseeded.

The local cosmos isn’t helping.

SUPERMOON WILL WORSEN IDALIA’S STORM SURGE: This week’s supermoon is making matters worse for Florida’s Gulf Coast by enhancing tides, which is expected to worsen Hurricane Idalia’s storm surge. “Surge and tide work together to produce the ultimate flooding that might occur in a hurricane,” Jamie Rhome of the National Hurricane Center told CNN. The effect, called a “perigean spring tide,” will be near its maximum for all of 2023 just as the hurricane makes landfall. [Spaceweather.com]

Like Ryan Hall says, it’s time – or past time – to evacuate if you live near Tampa Bay.

Vivek Ramaswamy is a GOP Presidential nomination hopeful and … not a politician. He’s wealthy entrepreneur with degrees in biology and law. His disregard for the law is, therefore, shocking in this answer to a question put to him on Meet the Press:

“What I would have said is: This is a moment for a true national consensus where there’s two elements of what’s required for a functioning democracy in America,” he said. “One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power. When those things come into conflict, that’s an opportunity for heroism.”

Ramaswamy said if he had been in Pence’s position, he would have pushed “reforms” through Congress before he certified the election.

“Here’s what I would have said: ‘We need single-day voting on Election Day, we need paper ballots, and we need government- issued ID matching the voter file.’ And if we achieve that, then we have achieved victory and we should not have any further complaint about election integrity. I would have driven it through the Senate,” he said.

“In my capacity as president of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform, then on that condition certified the election results, served it up to the president — President Trump — then to sign that into law. And on January 7th, declared the re-election campaign pursuant to a free and fair election,” he said. “I think that was a missed opportunity.”

But it does feel like something that a fixer, rather than a politician, would say, especially one unfamiliar with the political landscape. I’ve done similar things in a technical landscape, plunging in and having to be rebuffed because my fixes would have blown way things up, and I wasn’t informed enough to see that. His answers assumes the VP has legal powers that are not actually available, both in the Senate and while counting the electoral vote; and it assumes illegalities occurred during the election that have not been proven in a court of law, despite vigorous pursuit by Trump lawyers.

Indeed, developments in the investigation of the former President suggests the opposite.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Ramaswamy seems to be one of those who rush in without much thought. He doesn’t think about the Senate leaders who’d protest his meddling, the specification of the VP’s roles, and, most importanly, the why of how things are.

It’s great to be all fast and loose as an entrepreneur. Politics in a democracy are a different matter. And Ramaswamy doesn’t seem to quite understand that.

Liz:

My most successful bit of invented language is an acronym: the LIZ, which stands for low information zone. It’s a word I specifically invented to help convey a concept to the UFO community.

Let me first give you a dictionary definition:

LIZ or “low information zone” refers to the distance or set of circumstances at which UFOs are recorded when the resulting eyewitness account, image, or video contains insufficient information to identify them, even as non-human craft.

… I’d recognized the truth behind the old joke about UFOs and cameras, which goes something like “Look, a UFO, let me get my worst quality camera.”

The joke illustrates a sad reality in UFOlogy: UFO photos, like Bigfoot photos, are invariably blurry. This blurriness has remained remarkably invariant over the decades, despite the vast increase in the quality of casual cameras and the even larger increase in the number of cameras that people carry around with them regularly. [“Inventing Skeptical Language,” Mick West, Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2023, paywall)]

Think of this as a PSA.

When all you have is crap evidence, all you got is a crap phenomenon. Not dispositively so, but generally the way to bet.

This is from the WaPo newsletter The Week In Ideas, and is a summary of a particular opinion piece:

Doomed humanity could certainly use the skills — and the resilience to cope with life and death — that kids learn in [4-H] clubs.

Please, please, please, learn the meaning of doom. It’s a terminator, in word and in deed, implying imminence, for we all will meet death, or so the common wisdom goes, but those who are doomed cannot be helped, and, soon, will not be able to use it.

Damn, that one is always escaping the corral!

One might say that the title The Thief Of Baghdad (1940) covers a multitude of tales, but that’s a question for another, errr, tale. In this story, the King of Baghdad, unconscious of the scheming of his grand vizier, Jaffar, and exploring his city undercover, befriends a thief, Abu. When the Princess arrives unannounced, Jaffar’s scheming comes to fruition, and he deposes and blinds the King, now known as Ahmad, and turns Abu into a dog. This permits him to pursue the Princess, who has attracted his lust.

But Ahmad and Abu, despite deportation and an existential storm, are not out of the game just yet. Abu recovers his human form, and Ahmad his sight, but are separated. Abu discovers the well-traveled genie of the bottle, and tricks him into granting wishes. Soon, he finds himself stealing the Jewel of an all-seeing god, which lets him find Ahmad. And from here, things get really fantastic, and just a touch silly. Insert deus ex machina warning here.

But there’s a lot to recommend this movie. The special effects are surprisingly good, the story, while not as tight as it could be, is still interesting, and the acting is more than adequate.

If you’re in the mood for an old, good movie, The Thief of Baghdad is not a bad place to start. I won’t recommend it for all, but if it’s what you’re looking for, you’ll enjoy it.

Andrew Parasiliti of AL-Monitor (paywall in the future?) sees President Biden as making slow but steady progress in repairing the damage caused by former President Trump’s blundering about:

The Biden administration’s approach to Iran reflects a hard-headed realism necessary for the managed-not-solved nature of the Iranian challenge.

And it may be working.

Five Americans unjustly detained in Iran are expected to be released within weeks. There are reports that Iran is keeping its uranium enrichment below 60%, a red line for weaponization, and Iran has so far refrained from providing ballistic missiles to Russia. An understanding, if not an “agreement,” seems to be taking shape, in which Iran would adhere to constraints on its nuclear program under IAEA supervision, while setting new mechanisms for de-escalation. The United States did not oppose a China-brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iranian-Saudi relations are “on the right track” during a visit to Riyadh this week where he met his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

This is all fragile and uncertain, and some may claim that it is cold comfort given Iran’s record. But let’s remember that President Joe Biden inherited a crisis with Iran in January 2021. His predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, upending a hard-earned international consensus about Iran’s nuclear program. In return for sanctions relief, Iran had kept its uranium enrichment program in check, under tight international constraints. After May 2018, Iran blew by JCPOA restrictions on enrichment, threatening a nuclear breakout, and the window for a potential bomb shrank from years to months.

The JCPOA may not be recoverable, but the Iranian government, minus a few hard liners, is well aware that going head to head with even Israel, much less the United States, over the nuclear weapons issue is a tasteless bit of madness, and therefore they, too, have a reason to cooperate, quietly as it may be, with the United States.

As ever, for us tyros at Middle East politics, the magnitude of the screaming of hard liners in both countries is a measure for the actual importance and potential of any agreements. Every time Senator Cotton (R-AL) shrieks about appeasing Iran, or ransoming hostages, you more or less can be sure that Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are making substantial progress in reducing the damage of the Trump Administration.

Which is sort of like The non-existent can affect us all. But even out on … Neptune?

A new paper in the research journal Icarus offers dramatic proof that solar activity can affect planetary weather. The big surprise: The planet is Neptune, 2.5 billion miles from the sun. Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a period of 28 years show bright clouds forming in sync with the 11-year solar cycle: [omitted]

The connection between Neptune and solar activity is surprising to planetary scientists because Neptune is our solar system’s farthest major planet. It receives only 0.1% of the sunlight we get on Earth. Yet Neptune’s cloudy weather seems to be driven by solar activity, and not the planet’s four seasons, which each last approximately 40 years. [Spaceweather.com]

Just imagine a supernova in the local neighborhood – we’d get a dose of radiation and a couple of hurricanes just as an insult.

Steve Benen puts one of the recently evolved attributes of the GOP on display:

But if the Florida Republican has grappled with this aspect of the issue, he has hidden his concerns well. DeSantis has a vision that entails deploying troops into Mexico, executing drug smugglers, and possibly even using drone strikes on Mexican soil.

In case this isn’t obvious, Mexico is a U.S. ally, a U.S. neighbor and our biggest trading partner.

It would also apparently become a military target in a prospective DeSantis administration.

As bizarre as this might sound, the governor’s over-the-top rhetoric has become surprisingly normal in contemporary GOP politics. In March, for example, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said the Trump administration made “a mistake” by not launching military strikes in Mexico. A month later, Politico published a report that said: “A growing number of prominent Republicans are rallying around the idea that to solve the fentanyl crisis, America must bomb it away.”

Well, yes. When a party discards respect for competency and mastery of nuance in favor of extremism, this should be no surprise. Comer, Gaetz, Greene, and so many have others have learned well the lessons taught to them by the GOP base, that base preferring easy-to-understand extremism, or to put it another way, positions that are “pure” and untainted by compromise.

Their intellectual laziness runs them into a ditch every thirty feet they drive, and their arrogance leads them to deny that they’re in the ditch. And so we’re left with simpleton proposals like DeSantis, and I’m left wonder if his alma mater, Yale Law School, should really be shut down for letting this guy besmirch their legacy.

Swale:

noun Chiefly Northeastern U.S.

1. a low place in a tract of land, usually moister and often having ranker vegetation than the adjacent higher land.
2. a valleylike intersection of two slopes in a piece of land. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Sewage crisis: The truth about British rivers and how to clean them up,” Michael Marshall, NewScientist (12 August 2023, paywall):

Alternatively, we can harness nature. Buildings with green roofs naturally absorb some rainwater. Many new housing estates in the UK now have a swale: a wide, shallow ditch that captures rainwater. A swale enables this water to slowly drain away, rather than flowing quickly over paved surfaces straight into the nearest sewer or river.

Swales are just one example of a sustainable drainage system. “We can also implement ‘rain gardens’ in urban areas,” says Campos. These are planted areas of ground that collect runoff. For example, in many British towns and cities, roundabouts that were once made solely of concrete have been turned into miniature gardens. There are plenty of other hard, paved areas that can be planted and this would lead to leafier cities as well as helping to control the flow of water.

We’ve been thinking about installing rainwater barrels, but our predominant droughts have been a discouragement.

Is wind-propelled cargo ships a thing of the future? Some think so, such as Cristina Aleixendri of bound4blue:

‘When we started, we were seen as crazy engineers for wanting to bring sails back to ships,’ she said. ‘But when we speak to shipowners today, they tell us we’ll go back to wind and it will never be abandoned.’

It’s easy to understand why. The shipping industry accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and is trying to move away from heavy fuel oil, which is highly polluting.

‘Wind-propulsion technology will become a standard,’ said Aleixendri. ‘It started as a dream of mine. Now, I see it less as a dream and more of a reality.’

Not only has Barcelona-based bound4blue attracted growing interest from shipping firms in its wind-assisted propulsion system but Aleixendri has achieved significant personal recognition for her efforts. [Horizon]

Just how likely is this to progress? How far have they to go?

As of September 2022, only 21 large commercial ships globally were equipped with the ability to harness wind energy, according to the International Windship Association. Though predicted to more than double to as many as 50 vessels this year, that’s still a drop in the ocean compared with the global fleet. …

‘It’s a massive market because there are more than 60 000 ships sailing worldwide that could benefit from such solutions,’ she said. ‘This is very nascent.’

We’ll see.

One of Rainbow’s better efforts.

Senator Tuberville (R-AL), who has placed a blanket hold on all military promotions, continues to defend this activity in order to force the DoD to conform to his wishes when it comes to abortion. It’s worth taking a look at his ill-thought out defense of his crippling of America’s defense that he issued over the weekend, according to AL.com:

“I don’t care if we promote anybody to be honest. We got 44 four-star generals right now. We only had seven during WWII, so I think we’re a little overloaded to begin with,” Tuberville said.

In these three sentences there are a wealth of errors.

1. The most general issue is the deceptive, and under-discussed, plea to common-sense. In this case, WWII was a monster of a landmark in military history, therefore there’s an unspoken assumption that, since we won, we must have done nearly everything right. So you point at how things were done then. But wars don’t work that way. Often, it’s the side that made the fewest errors that wins.
2. Working off that theme, perhaps seven 4-star general was far too few during WW II.
3. How do our military responsibilities compare to those before & during WWII? Yeah, most of the populace were Isolationists in the 1930s, right up until Dec 7th, 1941, when the Japanese kicked us in the teeth. Nowadays, we cover the Western Hemisphere and parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, Pole to Pole. Of course we have more generals.
4. On the same theme, our military was greatly diminished by demobbing from WWI and from the Great Depression.
5. Nor was the military expected to engage in nation-building, an experimental & difficult field in which we’ve mostly failed.
6. Nor did the military have access to the advanced capabilities of today, which require equally advanced logistics. A general officer just to cover logistics is almost certainly not enough.
7. Are general officers defined now as the same as WWII?
8. Has the hierarchy structure which they’ve surmounted the same as WWII?

There’s little point in continuing, of course. The point is that the situation is far more complex today than it was in 1941, and I think the point is indisputable; Tuberville’s casual references to a war he doesn’t understand and a military he’s never served in, and probably never studied, are deceitful.

In normal times, there’d be a national expectation that Alabama would be beginning to have a discussion as to whether Tuberville is truly an adequate Senator, or if he’s just a clown who has failed to take his responsibilities seriously. As an independent voter, I can only say that he appears to be a grand-standing former coach and dubious financial advisor, who ascended to this role via the back-slapping, I’m a football coach ain’t I great approach – not by being an outstanding individual with relevant chops.

But these aren’t normal times.

Colo[u]rable:

seeming to be true, or able to be believed:

• The squatters had no colourable claim to occupy the land.
• I have no doubt their argument is colourable, or else they wouldn’t have won. [Cambridge Dictionary]

I’d always wondered about that word. Noted in “Why Trump’s Georgia case likely can’t be removed to federal court,” Jennifer Rubin, WaPo:

“We’ll be using eenie-meenie-minie-moe to decide who will be sacrificed to the movie gods! You guys just stop volunteering, eh?!” Barbie was worried as the population of Kens in Barbieland had dropped by a third in the last month.

Recent smash hit movie Barbie (2023), a fantasy romp concerning the legendary American toy of the same name, has as its primary theme the problem of rigid societal roles, and how they can dictate unhappy lives for those who must live in them. The Barbie Doll was created in 1959, and, as my Arts Editor assures me, originally reinforced the traditional American role models for men and women, which, for young & inexperienced readers, made men the aggressive bread-winners, and women the stay at home, take care of the kids role. Not only was the latter very limiting for those not suited to it, it condemned women to a life of brutal poverty should their husband die prematurely or be otherwise inadequate. Not being a Barbie enthusiast, I shan’t pursue further assertions.

But in this movie, Barbie in her many modes fills the leadership roles of her fantasy world, leaving to the many Kens … nothing. And with nothing comes a diminutive social position. The leading Ken is thus unhappy and incomplete, especially since the lead Barbie has no romantic interest in him. While it’s dangerous, in general, to speculate on what attracts people to people, regardless of gender, especially as role fulfillment expectations change with the passing and creation of generations, I think it’s fair to say in this case that Barbie is unlikely to be attracted to any Ken because of the lack of accomplishment.

And the rules of this society, as defined in the Barbieland Constitution, ensure all the Ken’s will permanently suffer from a lack of accomplishment, even if they can’t quite focus on what’s going on here.

But, as the storytellers make clear, and just as American women have pushed for more than a century for a more equal access to leadership and other roles outside of the home, confining anyone to a role – or lack thereof – that is not compatible with temperament and beliefs is not a stable situation. When Ken is finally exposed to a society in which men have a dominant position – Hello, Mattel Corp! – he will do just about anything to convert Barbieland’s Constitution to favor men, rather than women.

Nevermind there’s a lack of genitalia to confirm anyone’s role here.

And then the war begins.

Make no mistake, there’s a lot of predictable storytelling, and some audience members will be sensitive to that. Yet, Groundhog Day’s (1993) predictability has, so far as I can tell, never damaged its long-term popularity. I quite like Groundhog Day myself. In a sense, predictable storytelling is a necessity, as utterly unpredictable characters, while possibly charming, do not represent real people, and thus inhibit the teaching facet of good storytelling, so don’t let that stop you.

I find the glossing over of Barbieland’s antecedents quite a bit more disturbing, but perhaps that’s just a problem with me. And lead Ken can be awfully annoying, but he’s on the bottom of the social totem pole and has no viable path to collecting social capital. It’s not surprising that he’s flexing and singing as an unusual, but ineffectual, way up the social ladder.

The setup is a trifle long, but once the movie gets rolling it does an OK job. I sure wish they’d elaborated on “the box,” but maybe that was just an unfortunate throwaway.

Some political types have hated this movie. But I doubt you will. Go. Eat popcorn. Relax. If you take your kids, they’ll be bored, but not shocked or ruined.

I had a day off.

Yeah, the garden is out of control.