It’s been two years since I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize, and I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with what that means. I suspect that won’t be ending any time soon. Over the course of this administration, my social media feeds have been peppered with reactions to outrages that were virtually [...]
Agents of SHIELD meets its “End”
It took only a week for me to catch the Season 5 finale of Agents of SHIELD, fittingly called "The End". It was pretty fantastic, actually, even if it barely tied into the Avengers flick. Agents of SHIELD has been the little show that could, toiling away while the MCU bounces from spectacle to spectacle. [...]
The best thing about The Last Jedi
I finally got to see The Last Jedi (after two previous failed attempts, both amazingly sold out afternoon shows, a month after the premier). I liked it a lot. My personal rankings of the "main" Star Wars movies is now something like The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars (A New Hope) The Force Awakens The Last Jedi [...]
The power of the dark side
[amazon_link asins='0785192557,0785192565,0785199772,0785199780,0785197893' template='ProductCarousel' store='gilroy0-20' marketplace='US' link_id='0a4327d5-eb7a-11e7-a142-c169eec473c4'] No, this is not a political post. 🙂 I absolutely tore through the omnibus Kindle editions of the Darth Vader comic (one of several in the rebooted Marvel line). I guess it really paid off for Amazon to make Volume 1 free to Prime members because it hooked me fast. I [...]
Happy New Year and Happy 2018
Just a quick maintenance post. In the new year I intend -- as anyone who writes does -- to write more frequently and more broadly. I don't expect it, but I intend it. 🙂
Facetious blueprint
An AI researcher (Kai-Fu Lee) has written an article ("A Blueprint for Coexistence with Artificial Intelligence") that fails at its own goal, spectacularly. He assures us we need not end up in the dystopias so common in movies and literature. And I wanted to his assurances to be convincing, because I happen to feel the [...]
Looking for hive mind help on a course
Actually, on two courses. The school I'm at (Newark Academy) ends the year with a nine-day "June Term", wherein students take one class for six hours a day. June Term classes are supposed to be experiential and rigorous, and maybe a bit weird. All teachers are supposed to suggest courses; I made three idea proposals and [...]
Unintended ironies
A GOP Congressman (Clay Higgins, LA) decided to film a selfie movie in the gas chamber at Auschwitz (no, really), in which he tells constituents that the horrors really spoke to him: "A great sense of dread comes over you in this place," Higgins says, leading the viewer on a five-minute, nine-second tour of the [...]
I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize
I am stunned. Although I spent the last week cautioning people from assuming a Clinton victory, although I told myself it’s never over until the ballots are cast, I realize now that I never actually entertained the possibility of a Trump victory. I had too much faith in the basic decency of the American people, [...]
In which Dinesh D’Souza proves he doesn’t know the difference between past tense and present tense.
(written in response to an insipid Facebook post by the -- thankfully -- inimitable Dinesh D'Souza, showing the idiotic comic copied above) "Is" is not the same as "was". But, hey, what would you expect from a hack? I think it's actually hilarious that defenders of the modern GOP think they can win [...]