1. While I remain mostly offline to do some ghostwriting, hear
Gerard Perry and me interview libertarian sci-fi author turned DIY filmmaker J.
Neil Schulman (and listen to future podcasts by Gerard after I exit said
podcasts and a few other activities). In this episode, you’ll also hear us
touch on Star Wars, immigration, Kevin Sorbo, Marvel, Interstellar, Theory of Everything,
Leo Strauss, Citizenfour, Nightcrawler, and Hunger Games 3A.
That last film is delayed, possibly permanently banned, in
authoritarian China and Thailand. In the latter nation, people have been
inspired to use the Boy Scouts-like salute from the film as a sign of rebellion
-- a sign the government there has duly outlawed. In the real world, mind you. JLaw: better than real law.
2. You can also
catch my (now former) cohost Gerard
on the Hispanic affairs show Tiempo
this coming Sunday at 11:30am, if you get New York City’s ABC Channel 7,
talking about immigration.
3. Of course, Washington Post didn’t
even want you watching SNL question Obama’s executive actions on immigration,
so if you watch Gerard, they really won’t be happy. (I’m more Neo than neocon,
really, ultimately wanting “a world without borders or boundaries.”)
4. Maybe I’ll come back to the Net and to frequent political
commentary myself around the time that recently-probed comet reaches
perihelion: August 13, 2015.
The real news on that, it almost seemed, was the feminist
overreaction to one comet scientist’s shirt. Naturally, the writer who started
the ruckus was a young, liberal, vulgar (she was the one who immediately called
the scientist an “asshole”), Brooklyn-dwelling female -- sparring not with
ogres of the patriarchy (as she and many other young lefty females imagine as
they try to “improve” tech culture) but merely with a rockabilly-loving, tattooed UK female
shirt designer. If rockabilly is right-wing, I don’t wanna be left, so to
speak.
But the swift reaction against the feminists was pleasing. America
has spoken: feminists are wrong (and, in both their female and male form, are a
mere 20% or so of the population, by the way, so their whole pretense of
speaking for the oppressed majority of the human race is no longer convincing;
the other 80% of the populace kinda likes the whole two-genders thing).
5. Gerard also draws my attention to a recent
debate at Brown over rape and feminism. Since one debater was libertarian
Wendy McElroy (hardly a right-wing social conservative -- more like a
near-pacifist, aging-hippie, Canadian porn advocate, and I don’t say that as an
insult), the campus practically had a mental meltdown, and the administration
felt obliged to schedule a more homogeneously feminist event at the same time. Such is the state of
rigorous debate among the Ivy League’s fragile minds.
6. But then, you
can’t even take a ride in an Uber cab these days without a psychotic
hate-campaign being directed against you, either by feminists or cab-union
supporters, stirred by the (far-sleazier-than-Uber) Paul Carr and his evil
hangers-on (the left almost prides itself on its ability to go into a mindless,
hateful tweeting-frenzy these days).
7. On a brighter note, Rand Paul (who reportedly may
announce his presidential candidacy in April and is already seen as a
peacemaker between libertarian, Tea Party, and mainstream GOP factions, which
is good) did
a fine job during this month’s midterm elections of trolling Hillary Clinton,
noting as the various candidates she personally supported lost.
8. Let us hope, then, there is some truth to this
odd but intriguing report of his inevitability as a nominee.
9. Speaking of odd but intriguing reports, this isn’t a bad retort to
the book I recently blogged about and called the closest-to-persuasive thing
I’ve seen arguing some UFOs remain extremely baffling.
10. But if you want to try seeing alien humanoids in a
universe that may not have other populated planets, you could just take the
drug DMT, described (along
with circus people) with incredibly poetic enthusiasm by Terence McKenna here.
But the girl in the NeuroSoup video series says: don’t inject it anally, the
way she did.
11. If she routinely does things like that, I hope she
doesn’t end up raided by cops, like
this family of homeschoolers.
12. It’s easy to look the other way when marginal
populations living out in the boonies get abused, but even my old East 20s
neighborhood is full of stranger beliefs and rituals than you’d think,
apparently, like these
folks who believe they’re Aryans from the Moon or Atlantis or something.
13. Speaking of odd beliefs, maybe Gerard’s best option for
a future cohost is this
man right here.
14. Or if Gerard continues our habit from the past several
months of reviewing films, he can certainly look forward to visiting weird
worlds next month, since December brings films inspired by Pynchon, Paddington,
Tolkien, Sondheim,
and of course Kim Jong-Un.
15. Or we could all just watch this trilogy of squirrel videos...
16. And how a transgression therein...
17. ...leads to vengeance.
19. Or if those leave you dissatisfied, jot down my list
here of the Ten Essential Nerd Movies to See in 2015 (I’ve left off the less
than perfectly confidence-inducing Jupiter
Ascending from the Wachowskis, which comes out in February, but the rest of
this impressive lineup begins in May):
Mad Max 4
Jurassic Park 4
Ted 2
Terminator 5
Ant-Man (NOT a sequel or reboot!!!)
Fantastic Four 4 (sort of)
Bond 24
Hunger Games 3B
Star Wars 7
Oh, if we could wean ourselves off sequels and remakes and
episodic franchises -- but we can’t. So start the next episode. (Movies are the
new television.)
20. But before all that, to stay, like, cultured and stuff, I’ll
read Mark
Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress, a short book on Twain’s growing doubts
about religion, imperialism, and other things as he aged. I sympathize.
And I’ll be back with some sort of new episode of Todd stuff
eventually. Apologies for any missed optional business meetings, dates, social
gatherings, etc., etc., in the interim.
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