Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Steve Benen strains a ligament reaching for a vivid phrase:

Conway has earned a reputation for someone who lies routinely and brazenly, and Donald Trump has broken new ground in the area of presidential dishonesty, to the point that his truth allergy has led to awkward questions about his tenuous relationship with reality.

A variety of other high-profile members of Team Trump – Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, et al – have been caught delivering an embarrassing number of whoppers.

If any group of people on the planet should want to steer clear of even mentioning lie-detector tests, it’s Trump and his senior aides.

Sadly for Steve, lie detector tests, by which I believe they mean polygraphs, have a long history of failing their purpose. While it’s not surprising that the Administration of Ignorance would at least mention them as if they have any utility, it’s too bad Steve is credulous enough to believe they work.

On Lawfare former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency Rick Ledgett discusses the faulty premise behind calls for the US Government agencies to release to the public all knowledge concerning software vulnerabilities:

WannaCry and Petya exploited flaws in software that had either been corrected or superseded, on networks that not been patched or updated, by actors operating illegally.  The idea that these problems will be solved by the U.S. government disclosing any vulnerabilities in its possession is at best naïve and at worst dangerous.  Such disclosure would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament in an area where the U.S. cannot afford to be unarmed.  Computer network exploitation tools are used every day to protect U.S. and allied forces in war zones, to identify threats to Americans overseas, and to isolate and disrupt terrorist plots directed against our homeland and other nations.  It is no exaggeration to say that giving up those capabilities would cost lives.  And this is not an area where American leadership would cause other countries to change what they do.  Neither our allies nor our adversaries would give away the vulnerabilities in their possession, and our doing so would likely cause those allies to seriously question our ability to be trusted with sensitive sources and methods.

A simple but effective observation – sometimes it’s not the knowledge of the attackers which is the most dangerous, but the negligence of the victims that accounts for the losses. However, I think he makes a dangerous moral error in his conclusion:

As for blame, we should place it where it really lies: on the criminals who intentionally and maliciously assembled this destructive ransomware and released it on the world.

This ignores the fact that ransomware is a subcategory of the larger category of malware; malware contains the category of weaponized software (for lack of a better term). The two subcategories share a number of operational techniques, but the purposes of the two are dissimilar. Ransomware is overwhelmingly a criminal activity, although a government could use it to, say, financially disable a corporate entity deemed critical to the functioning of an adversary. But, in general, ransomware is used by criminal elements to extract resources from other entities, ranging from corporations to individuals.

Weaponized software is generally used by a government or country to advance its national interests. As such, that lies under a different, more poorly defined moral order.

Because Mr. Ledgett is discussing operationality rather than morality, his conclusion becomes confused, and results in a faulty implied directive, which is to condemn the opponents who use these techniques.

As Mr. Ledgett should know best of all, governments & countries must advance their national interests, and using the software vulnerabilities of adversaries against them is simply the latest in a millenia long practice of advancing interests. You can’t condemn that unless you want to condemn the entire system of national entities. And the concrete results of this mistake, besides a certain general attitude of unearned victimhood, is the dissipating discussion such as the one he addresses, when everyone should understand that the context includes aggressive nations which will use our mistakes against us.

For those who care, we Fringed yesterday and found the plays Pope Joan and The Memory Box of the Sisters Fox to be memorable. Dick White: Ghost Detective and Playwrights on the Train had their moments. Finally, The Intrepid needs a lot of work.

No doubt a well known tree, given its outré growth pattern. However, my Arts Editor amped up my little smartphone effort by turning the result black & white in two different modes.

And here’s the original color shot. Not nearly as striking.

And, finally, another shot of the tree.

I’ve been giving some thought to acquiring a Canon D6, as my brother-in-law describes it as a good starter camera, but I’m not sure I want to assume a photography hobby, even if it no longer requires darkroom chops.

In an unsigned column entitled “China, China, China,” on 38 North, the writer suggests there’s a lot of silly ideas being proposed for dealing with the North Korean problem:

The suggestions range on a scale of one to ten, with ten qualifying as “magical thinking” down to one, “nice try, but impractical.” Top prizes in the “magical thinking” category go to the neocon duo, John Bolton and Jay Lefkowitz. Appearing on Fox News a few days ago and writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Bolton, who has a long history of magical thinking on a wide range of issues, argues that the only diplomatic solution left is “to convince China that it’s ultimately in their interest to reunite the two Koreas,” adding “the way you eliminate the North Korean nuclear program is to eliminate North Korea.” To be fair, Bolton admits “it’s a hard argument to make,” but then adds that “it’s doable.”

So let me get this straight. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would fly to Beijing and convince Chinese leaders that the United States has their back when it comes to the Korean peninsula. Not only would Washington support an effort—peaceful or by force—to eliminate the North Korean regime, but would also allow China to determine the fate of the peninsula. Whether Tillerson would stop in Seoul and Tokyo before or afterwards to inform our allies that the US had decided to acquiesce to Chinese domination of Northeast Asia would be his call. Doable? Not in this lifetime.

No surprise from Bolton. He may not qualify as an amateur, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard him make sense. He’s always struck me as a provincial nationalist in the skin of a diplomat. In order to be an effective diplomat, you must understand the needs of those you deal with. You can’t just represent your own interests and consider them paramount.

Jay Lefkowitz, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, recommends that the United States abandon its decades-old support for reunification of the Korean peninsula. This would assuage Chinese fears that US influence would spread to its borders if North Korea collapsed because of overwhelming pressure from Beijing. Based on the US pledge, China would abandon its national interest and carry Washington’s water and somehow eliminate the North Korean threat. Furthermore, if the situation devolved into collapse and chaos, China would have a free hand to deal with the turmoil and establish a new client state in the North. I wonder if Lefkowitz could sell ice to Eskimos?

I have not heard of Lefkowitz, but it sounds like more neocon drivel. How they have not been utterly discredited by the travesty of the Iraq War and the ongoing oozing wound in Afghanistan is quite beyond me.

Conclusion:

If [former Ambassador] Steve Bosworth^[1] were here today, he would repeat his admonition about the folly of Washington telling other countries where their national interests lie. He would add that the only way to deal with the North Korean challenge is to recognize reality—that is, understanding what our interests are and what China, North Korea and others view as their own interests—and to try to take them all into account. Having spent 15 years working on the North Korean challenge, Steve would be the first to admit that crafting such a solution through diplomacy will be difficult and maybe impossible. But given the alternatives, it is worth a try.

The alternative is military strikes which would cost many lives on both sides of the war, and quite possibly embitter millions of more people towards the United States and our systems of government and economics. It doesn’t matter what Americans might think in that circumstance; proof is in the pudding is what counts. One of the dangers of our system of government is the accession of provincials to the levers of power. The creation of a corps of experts in the form of the federal bureaucracy is a bulwark against the folly of such people.

How long will it hold against the combined foolishness of both Trump and Kim Jong-un?

Meanwhile, the U.N. has passed a new sanctions resolution. Via CNN:

The UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose wide-ranging sanctions against North Korea on Saturday for its continued intercontinental ballistic missile testing and violations of other UN resolutions. The sanctions resolution targets North Korea’s primary exports, including coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. The sanctions also target other revenue streams, such as banks and joint ventures with foreign companies.

Haley praised the unanimous vote on the resolution, saying that the UN “spoke with one voice.”

“To have China stand with us, along with Japan and (South Korea) and the rest of the international community telling North Korea to do this, it’s pretty impactful,” Haley said. “This was a strong day in the UN, it was a strong day for the United States and it was a strong day for the international community. It was not a good day for North Korea.”

North Korea has been sanctioned before. How will this direct assault on them persuade them to abandon nuclear weapons again? I hope it works – but I don’t expect it to work.

¹I added the link to Bosworth’s Wikipedia biography. HW

Kevin Drum is having trouble with Uber‘s future:

I’ve always been sort of puzzled by the idolization of Uber. The problem it faces is one of the most common in the tech industry: once you’ve spent a ton of money to buy eyeballs (or riders), how do you then leverage that into something profitable? Facebook did it. Twitter (so far) hasn’t. So will Uber be another Facebook or another Twitter? What’s the story they’re telling investors about why they’ll be one vs. the other?

In any case, as near as I can tell they’ve basically admitted that their business model is unsustainable. That’s why they’re betting the company on driverless cars. But if you want to run (or invest in) a driverless car company, would Uber really be your first choice? I’m not sure why. Nor am I sure that Uber can keep those subsidies going long enough to get to the promised land. Driverless cars are coming, but they’re still several years away. It’s all very strange.

Perhaps Kevin should consider the Netflix business model. While I’ve never used or invested in Netflix, I did have the benefit of some insights from The Motley Fool, or more precisely the Gardner brothers, who were (and are) big cheerleaders for Netflix and delineated the Netflix plan to use the Post Office and outside investors to keep the business going while developing the technology, or in some cases waiting for others, that would enable their ultimate goal – replacing the Post Office with Internet-based streaming. It’s a business model that employed bridging, if you will.

So Uber may be trying to bank on that same approach, getting the company into a position to capitalize on cost reduction once riderless driverless cars (Freudian slip, anyone?) are properly developed. But it’s a harrowing row to hoe. Back in November of 2016, the Naked Capitalism blog investigated, and came up negative:

By virtue of steamrolling local taxi operations in cities all over the world, combined with cultivating cheerleaders in the business press and among Silicon Valley libertarians, Uber has managed to create an image of inevitability and invincibility. How much is hype and how much is real?

As transportation industry expert Hubert Horan will demonstrate in his four-part series, Uber has greatly oversold its case. There are no grounds for believing that Uber will ever be profitable, let alone justify its lofty valuation, absent perhaps the widespread implementation of driverless cars. Lambert has started digging into that issue, and his posts on that topic have consistently found that the technology would be vastly more difficult to develop and implement that its boosters acknowledge, would require substantial upgrading in roads, may never be viable in adverse weather conditions (snow and rain) and is least likely to be implemented in cities, which present far more daunting design demands that long-distance transport on highways.

Tellingly, earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank turned down the “opportunity” to sell Uber shares to high-net-worth individuals. The reason? The taxi ride company provided 290 pages of verbiage, but would not provide its net income or even annual revenues.

I’m not sure how much credibility to give to this blog, and I did not read the full entry. But most telling is that last quoted paragraph wherein they report JP Morgan and Deutche Bank declined involvement.

BTW, if you click through to Kevin’s post, you’ll notice he talks about Uber subsidies. I investigated that, and that can be partly put down to the Uber outside investors, whose money provides subsidies to Uber drivers, and partly down to some cities paying Uber to help them with last mile passenger delivery, as noted in this Business Insider report.

It’s a puzzle, it is: What would be a better title for Curse Of The Undead (1959), which tells us absolutely nothing, doesn’t function as a post-coital insight, or even coy word play. But what of the tale, you ask?

This is a hybrid Western-Vampire flick. In the midst of a struggle over ranching land in the old West appears a gunfighter dressed in black, perhaps attracted by the poster advertising for a gunfighter to take revenge for the deaths of the town doctor and his son. His first fight goes well, shooting the gun out of the hand of a man, who later swears he hit the man in black. But he survives, which is more than can be said for others, who start dying with the tell-tale mark at their throat.

The woman who advertised for the killer is persuaded not to follow through, but hires the man in black as a ranch-hand. The gunfighter is, of all things, falling in love with his employer. But as he pursues his love, he runs into the woman’s fiancee, the town preacher. As Dan the Preacher searches for the doctor’s will, he runs across an old Bible dating back to Spanish times, a Bible containing a hand-written story from a Spanish don: how a man’s son killed his brother and, through this evil act, became a vampire, and how to destroy the vampire.

Skipping some plot twists, the preacher and the vampire have it out in a gunfight, but the preacher employs a nice trick to kill the previously immune vampire.

This is one weird collage of good and bad elements. On the good side? Most of the acting is quite good, as the actors take their roles seriously, and these are professionals. The story is organic, by which I mean, given the premises and motivations of the various characters, it follows logical steps. I can believe most of these characters might have existed and done what they did. This is critical for those of us who think the evolutionary theory of story-telling applies.

And that leads to a couple of fascinating scenes, such as the colloquy between the preacher and the vampire concerning the moral virtues of their respective positions. Pursued with vigor and enthusiasm by the characters, and culminating in a fight, I thought it was a highly appropriate and believable praxis of the issues involved – and how such issues, perhaps considered abstract, are actually quite concrete and impact people’s lives.

On the negative side, some of the acting was not up to par. The character of Tim, the son of the slain doctor, really chewed the scenery; we cheered his early termination. The aggressor in the land wars, Buffer, merely lived up to his stereotype, unfortunately; I suspect this was more a problem with the role as written than the acting. But it was a little frustrating every time he appeared in a scene. A dreary predictability.

But more importantly was issues of credibility. At least one death by vampire was credited to death by Colt .45. Really? The marks were clear, with just a little dribble of blood. A Colt .45 to the carotid artery should have left quite a horrific wound. But on this point half of the story pivots.

And the undead, by tradition, cannot stand the sun or hallowed ground, yet our vampire tramps about in the sun and sleeps in a mausoleum. While an artificial mythos can certainly be modified at will by story creators, one must take care not to stretch the meaning of a previously defined term, such as undead, too far, or otherwise the audience gives up in terms of trying to predict the progress of the story, and that is an integral part of experiencing a new story. If there are no rules to an entity’s actions, then you might as well call him God and be bored with him^[1].

I cannot recommend this movie because of the issues I mention, but I do not regret the time spent watching it. It was intriguing at its best.

But a replacement for that title is a humdinger of a conundrum.

Postscript: We watched this via the Svengoolie show, our first experience with such. The entire Svengoolie experience can be dropped into the ocean, so far as my Arts Editor and I are concerned.

¹I see the Wikipedia page claims this is the European tradition of the undead, not that of Dracula. Hmmmf.

Hermeneutics:

Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics which involves the study of principles of interpretation for all forms of communication, nonverbal and verbal. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Huckabee Sanders–Poster Child for Something even Uglier than Racism that Rose from Antebellum South,” Constance Hilliard, The Daily Kos:

It was a worldview built on an invented moral authority. Southern evangelicals had fought the abolitionism of their northern evangelical counterparts by creating a new hermeneutics — Biblical literalism. It proclaimed that anything theologians found in the world of 2,000 years ago as having made its way into the Bible could be declared sacrosanct and God-inspired. Critical thinking skills, even personal observation were disdained for the proclamations of the patriarchal leader. In that context, lies were whatever liberals said, and the truth was the patriarch’s mumblings. White House press secretary, Sarah Huckebee Sanders, thinks of herself as a good Christian because she is faithful to the truths of Donald Trump. If this poison isn’t worse than racism, then it certainly runs a close second.

Happened to notice this Friday night, liked the streaks.

The woes following Wells Fargo’s lust for profits continues as it now admits …

… it forced redundant car insurance on more than 800,000 car-loan borrowers, earning the company $73 million in ill-gotten gains while causing a quarter-million delinquencies and 25,000 wrongful auto repossessions.

That from David Dayen at The New Republic, who goes on to call for the impossible:

We habitually allow giant corporations to harm customers, employees, and the economy with relative impunity. That’s despite the fact that we, the public, give corporations the ability to exist. Every legal corporation must obtain a corporate charter, a written contract detailing the company’s structure and objectives. And the same government that grants charters can take them away, and should, if the corporation repeatedly violates the law.

Though politicians of all stripes claim to support corporate accountability, and those on the left frequently campaign on the issue, calls for a corporate death penalty are extremely rare. But the modern enforcement regime makes a mockery of the law, as governments feign powerlessness against an entity they themselves created by granting it a charter. Simply put, if Wells Fargo keeps using its power as a bank to rip off customers, it shouldn’t be a bank anymore.

David works  hard to justify the call for the death penalty, and ameliorate the consequences, but, unfortunately, there are probably too many unintended consequences for a death penalty decision to be practical, no matter how salutary it might be.

However, David cites the demise of Arthur Andersen as a model for how innocent victims would cope, but I think there’s an important lesson David’s ignoring: Arthur Andersen was terminated because their customers went elsewhere. Based on that observation, the most practical step to my mind is to ask everyone who does business with Wells Fargo to consider these signs of the culture within Wells Fargo and ask if you really want your business entangled with such an apparently toxic culture? It doesn’t matter if you’re commercial or consumer, it’s an important question and one worth pondering in connection with your future.

I know we have a small investment in Wells Fargo and we will be reconsidering it in the light of this latest scandal, based on both measures of return on investment as well as the social responsibility of owning shares in a company which appears to be bent on unethical activities.

Is this a problem you have, dear reader? Let me know what you’re thinking.

The next step up from a motorcycle.

Like many science fiction films, Oblivion (2013) faces the opportunity and the burden to clearly explore some moral question, often with a faux-futuristic facet, with great clarity. Science fiction has this opportunity to a greater extent than some genres because it is not quite as burdened with the trivia of reality; it can draw out the question of interest with perhaps some greater clarity than in other genres.

Consider Blade Runner (1982), which takes on questions of artificial intelligence and how the manufacture of an artificial intelligence – for that is the essence of the rebellious replicants wreaking havoc in the city, even if they have a human ancestor – and deploying them in combat roles with a sharply and shortly defined lifetime ripples through those replicants’ consciousness of themselves as individuals and community – and affects their interactions with their creators.

Or Gattaca (1997) in its study of the ultimate in the ability to shape your offspring, and how that consciousness of this peculiar version of the Greek Fates impacts those who’ve been shaped – and the virtual refuse of humanity, those who came out of the oven without the shaping.

Unfortunately, Oblivion is more interested in the practical problems when faced with an opponent with such power that they, to borrow a phrase from Arthur C. Clarke, appear to be magical. The movie opens with Jack Harper, Tech-49, memory wiped for security reasons, heading out to work on a drone (think something about 20 feet long). The drones, heavily armed, protect great fusion generators powered by the Earth’s oceans, and we learn that Earth, after fighting and winning a war against the invading aliens, are moving to Titan as the Earth was ruined by the war. The energy from Earth’s oceans is transferred to Titan to power those colonies. These installations are under attack by the survivors of the invading force, the scavs. Jack and his partner, Vika, answer to their superiors on the Tet, an orbiting satellite whose crew coordinates the various tech crews responsible for maintaining the installations harvesting the energy.

But Jack is bothered by dreams. When an old spaceship re-enters Earth’s atmosphere in response to a scav-set beacon, he arrives to find the survivors of the crash are human – and are then exterminated by one of his drones. He saves one of the survivors from the drone and returns her to his base, where he and his partner, Vika, revive her. The survivor, Julia, is unwilling to talk until the flight recorder of her craft is recovered – and she’s a character from his dreams.

Jack, against orders, takes Julia to recover her flight recorder, but they are attacked and captured by the scavs.

Who are human.

The great conspiracy is then revealed. Jack is working for the invaders, and is, in fact, himself an artifact of the invaders. He can’t believe it, but is released by the scavs after they reveal a plan – they have a drone, armed with a nuclear weapon. Its target? The Tet satellite, which in reality is the invading aliens. The problem? Jack has the expertise to program the drone. Jack refuses and, in a great bluff move, the scavs release him. He and Julia return to Jack’s base, only to discover Vika has lost faith in Jack. The Tet satellite orders everyone killed, but the drone is destroyed after killing Vika.

Jack and Vika escape but are trailed by more drones (they’re a bit like locusts, but they only eat each other rarely), and when they’re shot down, Jack runs into … Jack. Jack Tech-52, that is. After some fisticuffs, Jack wins, and Jack and Julia end up at the scav hideout, where Jack programs the drone and the humans win.

Well, not really. The humans win, but there’s some fairly meaningless final plot twists that I find too tiresome to rehash.

So the problem here is Jack, for all the questions about his humanity, isn’t really facing any interesting moral questions. The question of where his loyalties lay, and should lay, are never really explored, and they’re not worth exploring. So this is really just another action movie with little bite to it.

Not to suggest it’s a waste of time. Tom Cruise continues to prove to be an adept actor who, while perhaps not quite as flexible as Hanks or Lewis, is certainly worthy of respect. The visuals were good on our TV, and probably magnificent on the big screen. We did occasionally have problems with the wide range of volume used, but our living room is hardly an ideal theater space.

But don’t go into this one expecting to get knocked on your ass by another Blade Runner or Gattaca. It’s fun, but not that wonderful. And if that dangerous word Why rears its ugly head, look out! The plot may come cascading down around your head. I suggest you just lean back in the barcalounger and enjoy the fun.

President Moon of South Korea faces the same problem as his predecessors – what to do with North Korea and its dangerous, ambitious Kim Jong-un. Joel Wit of 38 North believes the way forward is diplomacy, and in this open letter to President Moon gives a quick overview of the past and why he puts his money on talk, not muscle:

Source: Christian Science Monitor

In view of the deteriorating situation as well as this month’s upcoming joint US-ROK military exercises, which are only likely to result in greater tensions on the peninsula, it is absolutely essential that you and your government immediately engage in serious, detailed talks with President Trump and his top advisors to work out a joint strategy and division of labor so we can move forward together. Without such a strategy, we will have no choice but to acquiesce to a North Korea armed with a growing nuclear and missile arsenal and a Korean peninsula plagued by dangerous tensions for many years to come.

Which doesn’t sound half-bad until you remember the tyro American President and his bumbling incompetence in foreign relations. Even that wouldn’t be so bad if he had the balls to own his incompetence and kept out of the way as his chosen experts work the problem, but as well all know, he doesn’t realize just how awful he has been and, in all likelihood, will continue to be, so we can look forward to him shooting his mouth off at a critical moment, damaging the American and Korean position.

Nor has Secretary of State Rex Tillerson been an inspiration, either, but in the absence of alternatives, we have to hope he takes the problem seriously.

And maybe ignores his boss.

Saccade:

Jennifer Groh at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and her team have been using microphones inserted into people’s ears to study how their eardrums change during saccades – the movement that occurs when we shift visual focus from one place to another. You won’t notice it, but our eyes go through several saccades a second to take in our surroundings. [“Your eardrums move in sync with your eyes but we don’t know why,” Aylin Woodward, NewScientist (29 July 2017)]

An interesting article, although I wondered if they had the horse before the cart.

NewScientist (29 July 2017) reports some numbers on how US government investment spurs economic activity:

Between 2007 and 2015, the US spent $14 billion on global health research, according to the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), a group of organisations that promote such efforts, including the Gates Foundation.

According to the GHTC analysis, for each of those dollars spent, 89 cents remained in the US, paying for US researchers and their work. This investment is calculated to have created 200,000 jobs and added $53 billion to US economic output.

“What really struck me was that every taxpayer’s dollar spent on basic research generates an additional $8.38 of industry investment over eight years,” says GHTC director Jamie Bay Nishi.

But president Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget, published in May, revealed plans to cut federal funding for programmes described as providing “little return to the American people”. The health budget was titled “Putting America’s health first”. The GHTC estimates that the cuts associated with these plans add up to around $5 billion.

You figure if the Gates Foundation, run by businessman Bill Gates, is involved, then the numbers should have a bit more credibility in the eyes of the private sector. But it appears that our fine GOP-led government has only the shallowest understanding of economics – and they won’t talk to experts, is my guess. On the other hand, Trump’s budget is hardly a done deal, especially given this report from John Harwood on CNBC:

Increasingly, federal officials are deciding to simply ignore President Donald Trump.

As stunning as that sounds, fresh evidence arrives every day of the government treating the man elected to lead it as someone talking mostly to himself.

On Tuesday alone, the commandant of the Coast Guard announced he will “not break faith” with transgender service members despite Trump’s statement that they could no longer serve. Fellow Republicans in the Senate moved ahead with other business despite the president’s insistence that they return to repealing Obamacare. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “we certainly don’t blame the Chinese” for North Korea’s nuclear program after Trump claimed, “China could easily solve this problem.” And Vice President Mike Pence said the president and Congress speak in a “unified voice” on a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill Trump has signed, but not publicly embraced.

It’s good to see Congress asserting some independence, but there’s little evidence of necessary expertise residing there, either.

Our Mayhem has been caught checking out Deb’s roses for their nutrition.

Since the roses had only just been brought inside, she was not a happy camper.

Which all jumped into focus for me in this Steve Benen piece on Maddowblog:

The headline on the Post’s piece yesterday read, “7 times the Trump team denied something – and then confirmed it.” This morning, it was updated to read, “8 times the Trump team denied something – and then confirmed it.” This afternoon, as more examples came to the fore, it reads, “9 times the Trump team denied something – and then confirmed it.” There’s no reason to believe it won’t be updated again.

The point, of course, is that anytime the president and the White House deny something, there’s simply no reason to accept the claim at face value. Members of Trump World have earned a reputation for lying reflexively, and they’ve been caught too many times for anyone to consider them credible.

Considering the GOP atmosphere of team politics and how this enables the habit of successful lying, we’re once again getting a lesson in why team politics is a very bad policy. Here’s the problem: within the toxic structure of the GOP, where criticism of policy is not encouraged, it becomes a hothouse for the self-serving lie. After all, if no one is to critique, then why even research a critique? Members are encouraged to accept it and move on. And thus a habit is ingrained.

But when our fresh-faced candidates and their assistants get out in the real world, where bad old media demands, say, truthfulness, then they get in trouble. Because they’ve learned in the school of hard knocks that lies work, they propelled them to success.

Except it wasn’t the school of hard knocks. It was the school of feather-beds.

But at this point lying is ingrained, they can’t help using a lie when it’ll make them look better, let them advance what passes for an agenda. And then they get torn to shreds, humiliated, along with their party. And there’s only two ways to fix it. Get rid of team politics.

Or render the electoral system impotent to get rid of YOU.

So, gentle reader, if you’re a GOP member, perhaps you should begin the campaign against team politics. If not for the good of the United States, at least for the good of the Party.

In case you’re here in the Twin Cities and aren’t paying attention, the Minnesota Fringe Festival opened last night for a ten day run.

Why they need to do this during all the Art Fairs is a bit of a mystery.

For an example of shallow analysis, go no further than White House advisor Sebastian Gorka in TPM:

Gorka — a controversial member of the Trump administration, given his affiliations with right-wing nationalist groups tied to anti-Semitism and the targeting of Roma people, among other things — said China’s use of North Korea as a “buffer state” was not be worth the instability that the missile tests brought the region.

Hemmer returned to Gorka’s earlier comment: “With all due respect, can a Twitter feed change the mind of those leading China?”

“If you can win a U.S. election with it, I think it’s pretty powerful, Bill, don’t you?” Gorka replied.

If you’re going to be a serious advisor, you’d better be asking yourself why, or even if, Twitter was a powerful in the last Presidential election. The answer, of course, is that it reached a sizable number of American voters.

Voters who have very little leverage when it comes to China.

Especially a country which is not a democracy.

Gorka seems to think Trump found himself a bazooka – point and shoot and watch the target explode. But that’s not even a close characterization. He found one of those funny little screwdrivers that only works with specialty products. And we all hate those damn specialty screwdrivers.

Bu the point is that Gorka apparently hasn’t given the least thought to the power of Twitter, or more accurately, its limitations. China doesn’t feel any pressure through Twitter, and even a call for boycott via Twitter isn’t going to be especially problematic. Twitter is how Gorka’s boss persistently shoots himself and all his subordinates in their feet.

If Gorka thinks Twitter is going to move international politics, he’s even more inexperienced than I thought.

callipygian:

having shapely buttocks [Merriam-Webster]

Observed in this edition of 9 Chickweed Lane.

Ah! I gave the answer, not the question!

Once again, Vincent fails to burn down his castle, which is unfortunate as it would have made a fine symbol of the central theme of the mysteriously titled The Oblong Box (1969), based (I do not know the level of fidelity) on the Edgar Allen Poe story of the same name. A movie of staccato, jarring scene changes, we are introduced to Sir Julian Markham and his older brother, the discovered Sir Edward. Cursed by an African witch doctor while they were at their plantation, Edward now lives in the upper story of their English castle, exiled due to his injury, while Julian cares for him and also woos and becomes engaged.

Somehow, Edward communicates with the outside world and engages the services of another witch doctor and some helpers, who get a pill to him that will render him unto death. Upon finding him in this condition, Sir Julian, arranges for his burial. However, a viewing by the village elders is necessary, and, well, family honor will not permit Edward to be viewed in this condition.

Another body must found.

So a man is murdered and substituted for Sir Edward, but it is Sir Edward who is buried, for what is one to do with the body otherwise? the other body is dumped in the creek. Worse yet, the helpers of Sir Edward simply shrug and enjoy their payments, leaving him alive in the ground. At this juncture, Fate sticks its ugly fingers into the mess, as the local doctor is carrying on some research into the ways of the human body, and requires same to further his research. Sir Edward is dug up and conveyed to the doctor, who takes him under his roof, donating a red mask for Sir Edward’s dignity.

Sir Edward has dedicated his life to revenge, but such are his human needs that he mixes in with the ladies, leading to fatal consequences, along with his expected victims. Before long, the capstone to this tale is revealed, and Julian is forced to shoot Edward dead.

But Edward dies with one fell nip of Julian’s hand, leaving Julian to visualize the termination of his family line – thus, the allusion to the burning of his castle.

The movie has plenty of sympathetic characters, yet somehow we never actually form an attachment. Perhaps because of the general atmosphere of casual brutality and violence, perhaps because these characters are here for the story, and not really anything else – despite some handwaves claiming they are. On the other hand, the plot has a few lovely, logical twists, and information is withheld in a well thought out manner, keeping the viewer at least somewhat interested. At best, an uneven movie. Good for a snowy January afternoon, or, as in my case, a day of food poisoning.

Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man’s Own Story (1954) is the film biography, allegedly based on the man’s own autobiography, of Caryl Chessman, executed in 1960 for multiple kidnapping convictions, and presented as a cautionary tale. We follow his life as his mother is badly injured in a car accident, and he becomes a bad boy, ending up in reform school after joining a gang pulling minor mischief. From there he moves on to multiple stays in prison, interspersed with various crimes which escalate in violence. From what I’ve read, his father tried to commit suicide, twice – I don’t recall if that was in the movie.

But we also see his loyalty to the woman he loves, as well as loyalty to his fellows in crime, which brings a measure of humanity to a film which would otherwise be mostly the hollow bravado of a narcissistic street criminal, convinced of his own invincibility to the point of suicide. When he is caught and put on trial for the kidnapping charges which will be his eventual undoing, we see him choose to take on the job of defending himself, rather than leaving it to a public defender, and, in a fairly shallow scene, his realization that he cannot convince a jury, merely on his say-so, of his innocence of the charges.

As the movie was made before his execution, we’re not privy to the controversy he stirs up with his literary efforts, and how his execution became integral to the effort to abolish the death penalty in California. This is unfortunate, as it deprives us of a deeper exploration of the moral questions of incarceration and execution, with that peculiarly emotional storm which must accompany each side of the question, and is such an important part of the temporary solutions we have for that controversy.

All that said, this movie starts slowly; we nearly didn’t get beyond the first half hour (at least of this TV version), and for that I blame some fairly flat acting in combination with a story that was perhaps told a little too straightforwardly. It might have benefited from compression, or from a more sophisticated use of chronology. But then we get away from just acting, moving onward to action, and then prison, where Chessman develops a lot of swagger, not to mention a haircut reminiscent of the King. This brings the movie to life. But the action is just to get the adrenaline going; it’s his interactions with those with whom he’s cast his lot which are most interesting, as they define his character best – from valuing friends and colleagues in crime on the high end, to his base impulsivity towards those he despises.

But a few critical questions remain open. Why did he stay in California once he had a good stash? Did he want to get caught? Or was his resentment of authority such that he felt it necessary to taunt the police as if he was invulnerable? Perhaps these are answered in the autobiography, but the answers are not clear in the movie.

And I must admit I was a little jarred by the unlikely ending in which he takes full responsibility for his crimes. It’s not other people, or society, or anything else at fault, his character narrates. It’s himself who is at fault. And even if he truly came to this realization, does it matter? Did he really have a choice, given the cards dealt to him? There is a certain emotional satisfaction at his admission of fault, but does it really mean anything?

Hard to say.

This guy stole every scene he was in. Therefore, I shan’t mention him in the review.

Disturbing Behavior (1998) explores an extreme solution to the ups and downs of adolescence: brainwashing. Teenager Steve has moved to Cradle Bay from Chicago following the suicide of his older brother, only to find the high school is mostly controlled by the “Blue Ribbons,” a group of former miscreants, now reformed and full of that old time school spirit.

And the occasional violent outburst.

On the outside, trying not to look in, are Steve’s new friends, an underutilized character named U.V. (he’s albino), Gavin, and Rachel. Falling into the miscreant category, they’ve been watching their former friends slowly being swallowed by the Blue Ribbons, with bitter teenage angst and puzzlement.

But when Gavin is sucked in, Steve and Rachel must cross the bay to Bishop Flats to discover the hazy antecedents of the school psychologist, the man responsible for the Blue Ribbons, and from there the action kicks into high gear.

It’s difficult to extract thematic material from this movie, probably because the vein is already played out. Perhaps the idea that adolescence is something everyone must endure, as a learning experience, is the best I can do.

On a more ulterior level, and doubtless without conscious purpose, one might consider the message that adolescence is not necessarily a barrier which all teenagers can conquer, and that we will lose some to the challenges, hormonal and societal, presented by it. The question then becomes, how do we deal with those losses?

This movie won’t ever tell you, though.

A friend on Facebook summarizes a show plot:

We were watching an episode of “Vega$” last night where a man was framed for murder. They never explained how it was pulled off, but during the course of the show, the framee:
– Assaulted a jail guard
– Impersonated said jail guard
– Escaped jail
– Stole a truck
– Kidnapped a TV reporter
– Assaulted another person (who was involved with the frame)
…And during the final scene, he was the guest of honor at a show featuring his paintings at the Desert Inn. I guess if you were framed for the original crime, you’re excused from anything else?

But let’s back up. A couple of decades ago, the violence wouldn’t have been necessary because the bad guys would have left a thread (or three) loose, and the victim (or the show’s star) would have grasped that thread and unwoven the entire tapestry of evil.

Today, apparently^[1], it’s all about the action and violence because evil is too darn competent. Is this a reflection of the entire right wing ranting radio hosts?

Oh, where’s Peter Falk when you need him? Or 12 Angry Men?

¹My TV watching habits do not follow the latest hits. For example, Game of Thrones is just a name to me. Maybe most shows are more cerebral. Nyaaaaaaaaaaaah.