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Northeastern Travels

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A lot of noise in the New England press speaking up the anniversary and it’s all c-r-a-p like this:

The third anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings Friday was marked by solemn remembrance of the dead and wounded…”When you think about what happened three years ago today, and you think about what’s come of it, there is so much hope and inspiration”

“Remember the victims!” is the cry heard from on high.  Heaven forbid someone spend five seconds remembering the perpetrators so that there might not be any more victims.

It’s certainly nothing contained to this region but it seems more ingrained since these people are, well, insane; they’ve completely swallowed the blue pill.  When I travel to Colorado I always think that I could be one of them, just need to eat a little better, exercise a little more, and learn to breathe a little less.  However when it comes to New England I could ever be one of them.  Just a few pics:

The Tewksbury police headquarters, made famous for their attempt to outright steal a big piece of private property.
A strip mall like this could be anywhere (and everywhere) in America.
Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, where pedestrians and bikers outnumber cars about 2:1.  There were even some people surfing out in the frigid North Atlantic (all men, though some brought their girlfriends along so that they could snap action pics of them with cameras that had lenses as long as my forearm).
The reworked Ford Escape UI; someone’s cousin must be in the “button” business.  At least Microsoft’s Sync is now tolerable instead of painfully awful.  (I love the “Menu” button, I mean really?  They need another menu after slathering that many buttons on the car console?)
Fort McClary in Maine, just past the ginormous Portsmouth naval yard.
Couldn’t resist stopping to get one of these in Maine.  The place wasn’t exactly out of the way, but it wasn’t in the tourist area so the bartender thought I was a native, despite the fact that even people in Northern Ohio know that I’m not a local from the way I speak.

The last picture was extra amusing as a local came in and was talking about how messy it can be to eat lobster and related a tale about buying a lobster and going down to the beach to eat it because, like everyone else up there, she keeps lobster eating utensils in her purse at all times.  Oh to live in such a magical land where one must always be prepared for the threat of the lobster apocalypse!

The Force Awakens

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This post has some mild spoilers and catches on one of my primary complaints with the film: that it’s a rehash of the first Star Wars, only not quite as good.  The spoiler fight for this movie has been so successful in part because about five minutes in, even obtuse movie watchers like me have the whole movie pretty well figured out.  Announcing that people shouldn’t relate spoilers for Force Awakens would be like Warner Brothers announcing that spoilers should not be divulged for a Road Runner cartoon.

A TIE fighter-Millennium Falcon battle on a sand planet?!?  Mind: blown. 

There were some story and sci-fi quirks that I got hung up on as well (which is saying something considering the Star Wars reputation for ignoring both), but my big hang up was with the bad guys themselves.  Through the first two movies it was enough to know Empire: Bad, Rebels: Good.  Even by Jedi though this was starting to wear thin and into the newer Lucas trilogy one gets the impression that this whole galactic imbroglio is just some Skywalker intra/inter clan warfare writ large and Awakens does the franchise no favors by failing to resolve the whole good versus evil issue.

It would be rather easy to craft a narrative around a society’s never ending struggle to balance freedom (rebels) and security (empire).  However this narrative falls apart since the Empire doesn’t seem to have a desire to rule over anyone: they’re all about blowing up planets and building more crap with which to blow up planets.  If they wanted to rule over the galaxy it would be simple enough to use .00001% of the budget from one of their many Deathstar fiascos to buy off every politician in every governing body in the Galaxy (the Saudis have been doing it here for decades so that’s proof positive that it works).

Barring that, the only thing that seems to hold up is the Japanese anime view of the darkside consisting of evildoers whose only goal is to accelerate entropy or to embody entropy itself.  The only problem with this (and you may have noticed this), anime is not very popular with general audiences because this tact is stupid.  Bad guys who want to destroy the planet/galaxy/universe in order to “end suffering” or “eliminate the plague that is life” are not bad guys anyone outside of Japan can find any relation to.

This anime character wonders why his dreams can never come true.  Methinks that it might have something to do with, you know, trying to destroy the whole planet that everyone is living on.  Maybe he should start small, with a lego village or something.
Even for the worst of the 20th century’s tyrants they had a goal that they were trying to achieve.  It’s only when the bad guy has a goal that there can be an “anti-goal”, some motivation that drives the good guys and helps you sympathize with them.  There was one point in Awakens when I thought that the whole Republic/Rebel/New Order bit was going to come into focus: the rebels, abandoned by those that they fought so hard to free, are left to try and mop up the remnants of a technologically superior Empire with a mix of old war era equipment, older personnel, and reformed clones.  This would have been intriguing and would have given the audience something (anything) to relate to.  No dice though, that window closed in a matter of seconds and my brief look into a movie that could have been was gone.Three sandmiches: two for production values and one for one last race around the old track.

Extra Credit…
  • Black people came to the showing I was at and made a point to cheer on Black Jedi Dude.  It’s a shame because this character had the most complex possibilities but was pressed into a two dimensional form; good enough for some I suppose…
  • Some back and forth between friends about how Star Wars became a series of films even though it’s plain to see that it was never meant to be.  I thought this contrasted interestingly with Star Trek which could make a movie about the main characters (or even different characters in the same universe) playing poker all day and it would raise nary an eyebrow; at least if it was done properly (it certainly wouldn’t be the worst Star Trek film).
  • Hollywood has sadly gotten rather adept at crafting films like this that have no good or evil.  Liberalism would dictate that the bad guys are the freedom loving guys while the good guys are puritanical tyrants that want to force the galaxy to pay for midnight basketball on planet Brotha 9.  Well that doesn’t work, even for sympathizers, and the opposite would mean introspection of the horror of one’s ideals so…best to make an epic empty movie about nothing.  In the end this may have less to do with the Star Wars universe than the idiots tasked with creating the films.
  • There was a couple in the theater that stayed until the end of the credits.  I was hanging around out of site by the door waiting for Mrs. Sandmich when I heard the guy say “they nailed it”.  I wanted to ask him, “Nailed what?  The intro text?”.  Maybe this movie wasn’t made for me.  It did remind a bit of the Harry Potter films where if you aren’t enjoying it in the first few minutes then you’re watching the wrong movie.

Candidates

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Way early and way late at the same time, I need to write it down lest I forget myself!

  • Hillary Clinton: Quite possibly the worst candidate the Democrats could have found to run.  The personality of a porcupine combined with the moral code of a heroin junkie.  Her one notable, and now dated, attribute is that she’s still preferable to Obama.
  • Bernie Sanders: The one democrat who is not afraid to call himself the socialist that he is.  He’s late to the game in realizing that unlimited immigration is incompatible with his socialist dream.  Unfortunately for him the rest of his party party is even later and haven’t reached that conclusion yet.
  • That guy from Maryland: How did a Democrat forget that it’s all about the blacks?  Black, black, black, black; that’ll learn you O’Malley.  He could have stuck to his guns, but that would have automatically made him a Republican hate mongerer.
  • Jim Webb: He’s a Democrat?  Well, as the only common sense choice in the Dem grouping his fight is pointless.  It would be interesting though to see the Repugs run Jeb against him and then when Jeb wins all the Dem states and Webb all the Repug states the single party singularity would be complete and the utter pointlessness of American Federal elections would be cemented in place.
  • Joe Biden: Creepy, dimwitted Joe’s best attributes are that he’s neither Hillary nor Jeb Bush, which is more than enough to win.
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A weak slate of Dem candidates has drawn out every would be contender in the Repug field which is, in my mind, pretty strong, in no particular order:
  • Bobby Jindal: He made a name for himself by running as “not a criminal” in Louisiana and has somehow excelled there to the point that he’s found much success.  I like Jindal and in another age he’d have a better shot, but being the biggest fish in a little pond that will end up in the R column anyway isn’t enough to attract attention.
  • Lindsey Graham: If America wants a gay Democrat for President they’ll just vote for Hillary.
  • Rick Santorum: His policy positions are OK, but he tends to play up the religious aspect of his beliefs, a sentiment which gave us the nasty Big Government Religious Charities from the ‘W’ years.  If someone wanted to destroy religion I can think of no better strategy than joining it at the hip with the government.  All that aside, Santorum’s biggest fault is that he wouldn’t even be able to reliably deliver Pennsylvania to the Rs.
  • Rick Perry: This guy still doesn’t know what he’s trying to do, methinks.
  • Mike Huckabee: Basically a ‘W’ clone, but without the charm and political acumen.  A better pundit than a presidential candidate, which isn’t saying much.
  • Rand Paul: In my mind, the only candidate in the whole list who knows that we’re broke and that the Federal government cannot be trusted and isn’t afraid to say so.  Despite his rather odious immigration positions he makes my short list, though my guess would be that he’s reached the zenith of his political ability as a Senator.
  • Donald Trump: He is the knife that the long ignored GOP base is using to stick in the ribs of the Chamber of Commerce controlled GOP elite.  So long as the GOP elite insist that they’d rather get stabbed with a knife than acknowledge their woeful leadership, they will continue to get stabbed with the knife, possibly up to and including them getting stabbed to death.  Of note from the Sandmich, Trump is a real estate developer which makes his “evil” potential possibly even higher than that of Obama or Hillary. 
  • Marco Rubio: Tying his ship up to the sinking rocks of Graham and McCain may have just been a dreadful mistake by a rookie senator, but I’d like to see something where he admits that this may not have been the best idea.  Instead I get the faint impression from him that the “base just didn’t understand”.  Oh we understand Rubio, now go away.
  • Scott Walker: Walker has a brief, though impressive resume and the best immigration stance of any of the candidates* and my personal first choice of the bunch.  The fact that he could probably deliver D state Wisconsin to the R column would make his presidential fight a bit easier.  My only concern is his lack of action in regards to the illegal “John Doe” investigations in his state; he seems to have that ‘W’ belief that the system will properly work things out.  No it won’t, the system is out to get you and will consume you, it’s inherently broken and some cynicism is in order.  As well, his strong stands may make winning Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania rough.
  • John Kasich: A clever Twitter commentator noted that John Kasich is an endangered species: a moderate Democrat.  He’s had budget success in Ohio basically from many one time cash gimmicks that will leave a smoking crater in our budget long after he has left office.  His potential cannot be underrated however: his political capital in Ohio is strong and along with his policy positions he would stand a strong chance of putting all of the midwest sans Illinois into the R column in the general election which would make a near insurmountable hurdle for whoever was running as the Dem.  My guess right now is that he’s the GOP establishment choice after Jeb inevitably blows up.
  • Jeb Bush: Whatever.
  • Chris Christie: Congrats on the weight loss!  If he could deliver the northeast in the general his candidacy might be of interest.  That feat is extremely doubtful though and he would need to depend on many states whose voters couldn’t be bothered to show up to vote for Mitt who was a better candidate than Christie.
  • Carly Fero..Firo…F…Fiorina: Her years in backstabbing board rooms have served her well since she is quick on her feet and is always looking for an attack; as well, her knowledge and ability has won her proper accolades.  However, since there is no prayer of her pulling California into her column in the general, she’s a candidate without a country and I seriously doubt that she’d be able translate her big-business-California-elite persona into a candidate that people elsewhere in the country will vote for.  Her recent statements that seem to favor government data slurping don’t help her cause.
  • Ted Cruz: His back and forth with Huckabee in the debate proved that Cruz is not divorced from reality like much of the party leadership.  Like Rand Paul, he has picked all the right fights in the Senate and hasn’t backed down which makes him endearing.  Unlike Paul, he doesn’t have the libertarian baggage and is a bit more electable.  I should point out though that his stance on H1-B visas may be the worst of anyone with the possible exception of Rubio.
  • Ben Carson: Ben Carson seems like a great guy, but good guys finish last in this race.
It’s worth pointing out that the next President is going to face some very, very hard times in an era where 99.9% of our elites are the worst elites in modern history and the FSA (free-shit-army) making up half the population.  This makes Trump somewhat more appealing because the future President will have to ignore what s/he’s being told, a lot.  However my rankings are something like:
  1. Walker (a proven record of ignoring conventional “wisdom”)
  2. Ted Cruz (a proven conservative who is realistic about many of the challenges that we face).
  3. Carly/Paul/Trump (all of whom have endearing, though differing attributes that put them outside of the regular party hierarchy). 
That’s all fine and good, but how about candidates I won’t vote for?
  1. Ds/Graham
  2. Kasich
  3. Bush
  4. Christie
  5. Rubio
  6. Huckabee (who loses out for being clueless more so than having bad policy positions (which aren’t all the great either), but I would suppose a Huckabee/Biden debate would be pretty entertaining; it would truly be a sign of the end times as those two would spend hours getting everything wrong about crap that no one cares about).
* It’s a bit of a misconception that Trump has the strongest law and order immigration stance, at least on paper, but in fact Santorum’s is followed by Walker.