Both Sides Don't Do It

The practical effect of claiming that "Both sides do it."

From Nixon’s shame-faced, furtive political burglary to Bush’s eager, lip-smacking use of kidnapping, torture and lies to sell a lucrative war to Trump’s American banana republic, the right’s response when caught red-handed in acts of evil is always, “Oh, both sides do it, so it doesn’t matter.”

And there’s no one I despise more than the cringing “centrists” who deal with every critique of liars like Alex Jones by whining that "Both sides do it!" and stuffing their ears with old David Brooks columns.

At the GOP presidential debates YEARS BEFORE Trump, the audiences cheered wildly for poor people to die in agony without health care, for child labor and for wholesale executions. So the “bipartisan both siderists” can go right on dithering about “both sides being just as bad” until these knuckle-dragging fascists line them up and kill them.

Say a candidate is caught lying relentlessly, and reversing and re-reversing his positions on every major issue. If you reply, with blithe, self-serving cynicism, that “both sides lie,” then you are A) giving the worst candidate a complete pass for his dishonesty and B) awarding the office to the most accomplished con artist, thereby turning a vice into a virtue and deliberately establishing the practice of handing power over to the most corrupt possible candidate BECAUSE he is the most corrupt possible candidate. 

You could hardly imagine a more effective recipe for national disaster — the very national disaster we see unfolding all around us now.

What those Fighter Jets Fight For

Government is evil, but the Pentagon is God. That’s self-contradictory gospel of the American right. 

Propaganda and myth about “warrior heroism” perpetuates permanent wars that pay trillions to the profiteers of the military-industrial complex while feeding young Americans into the sausage grinder. That is their function.

Black Adam, Black Adam, He’s Not Very Bad Indeed

Black Adam meets the iconic DC Comics superhero Hawkman

Well, despite all the dreadful reviews, I went to see Black Adam this afternoon. I would say it’s a movie made for comic book geeks, not the general audience, but since I fit within those parameters, I quite enjoyed it.

The stoic protagonist is an ancient, problematic champion reawakened by a familiar magic word, and the superheroic Justice Society struggles to contain his seeming omnipotence. Black Adam wades through enemies like a more compact but equally effective Godzilla.

This is the first time we’ve seen the Justice Society on the big screen, despite the fact that they were the first superhero team in comics, created in the early 1940s.

As the colorful fireworks rolled on and on, I kept wanting to see the plot take an inobvious turn, and three-quarters of the way through it did, amping up the audience’s interest.

Pierce Brosnan’s long familiarity with action-adventure shenanigans lets him handle the role of the venerable superhero Dr. Fate with ease (and no, he’s not an imitation of Dr. Strange. If anything, it’s the other way around).

I was particularly impressed by Dwayne Johnson’s vastly and I think effectively underplayed Black Adam. Johnson has a rare, odd kind of otherworldly gravitas that lends itself perfectly to a superhero role (I’ve always thought that Uma Thurman has it too). It’s why I've long wanted to see Johnson playing the pulp superhero Doc Savage in a film project that’s now apparently dead.

The film should properly be counted as the second Shazam movie, for those who are bothering to keep score. A surprise credits sequence is a crowd pleaser, and sports one subtle touch that is truly delicious.

The film references without exploring the eternal theme of superhero stories, which is power and morality. But it’s pretty interesting that the villains Black Adam crushes like annoying insects are military “contractors” occupying and oppressing a Mideast country. 

I’m guessing the Pentagon didn’t kick in any funding for this one.

Beware of Confirmation Bias

Accepting lies as facts is a snake pit out of which all other evils crawl.

For example, when a show about basic science can be considered “controversial,” the United States has reached terminal velocity of idiocy.

But facts can only change the minds of those who value them. That doesn’t include people who choose to believe in fairy castles in the sky.

Don't Look Now, Darling

I dismissed the idea of seeing Don’t Worry, Darling because the trailer made it seem to be a Stepford Wives rip-off.  But at Bart’s suggestion, we went to see it this afternoon and I enjoyed it.  

The weird mystery element remains engaging throughout, and the vivid mid-century modern design dazzles the eye. The music is an enticing blend of jazzy standards that comment on the action and effectively eerie female a cappella. Harry Styles is fine, and Chris Pine makes an insidiously creepy cult leader. You can see touches of all sorts of things here, not just Stepford Wives but Twilight Zone, Carrie, zombie apocalypse movies and more. But the blend remains tasty.

And if you’d care read it as an elaborate MAGA metaphor, you're perfectly free to.

Fish Out of Water

Tiny fish darting,

glinting gray in the sunshine

in a drying stream.

Love in the Uncertain, Wintry World of 'Sup?'

Bart, Paul and I just saw Bros, which was in turns witty and hilarious and finally touching, just the way a romantic comedy is supposed to be. 

The heart swells in the right places.

The central conflict is emotional unavailability, which feels very 2022 to me.

There's a running joke about Debra Messing, and another one about Hallmark movies.