TNT unveiled its science fiction series, FALLING SKIES, from the childish minds of Steven Spielberg and his
gag writers last Sunday. Noah Wyle, the lead, claims he agreed to do the show (and I am not making this up) to gain creditably with his children. Poor kids, they must have seen old dad in an episode of ER.
Wyle has so little screen presence I have no doubt even he forgets he is on screen.
The story: six months before the opening, aliens attack Earth and killed off 90% of humanity. Why they are
here is never explained, other to kill Wyle’s wife, thereby eliminating the expense of paying an actress. It may be inferred Wyle is upset at her death, but his dull expression seems to suit his every emotion so we can’t be sure. Spielberg’s subtext of putting together families (can we forget the butcher’s work he did on WAR OF THE WORLDS? Did he completely miss the theme of that memorable book, even after Wells went to the trouble to explain it in the first chapter?), yes his family making is ever present, even when he stumbles through World War II in Pvt Ryan and a couple of other films. His reverence for the War was nowhere to be seen in the dreadful 1941. He managed to make a comic jackass out of General Joseph Stillwell, hero of Burma.
One of Wyle’s sons has been captured by the bad ETs. After capture human youngsters have something attached to their spines by these outer space folk. It looks like the tingler from the movie, THE TINGLER
("Terror is just over your shoulder!") and causes these poor kids, day players I’m sure, to wander around like zombies.
Which is just a step above the acting of the rest of the cast. Perhaps these kids are on their way to acting class? “What’s my motivation? What’s my motivation?” they must drone. A SAG card and
a weekly player’s contract, is the likely answer.
The aliens come in two forms: two legged robots that use the same laser targeting system the predators
in the Predator movies employ, and machine guns
behind their hands, like the mechanical Cylons in BATTLESTAR GALACTIA. The biological aliens look like six legged dogs, and act like an actor’s agent
chasing a free meal. You may wonder how such a creature with no arms, let alone hands with opposing thumbs, can build a ship that can travel to another star, but the minds behind this show are clearly
liberal arts majors who’s grasp of evolution is as shaky as their hold on the concept of “story”.
OK, Wyle was a teacher of history at Boston Collage who's read a lot of military history. He says crap like;
this is like the Scots against the English at
Stirling Bridge (forgetting the fate of William Wallace a few years later, and the fact his audience in the story and at home had no idea the Scots ever fought the English). He spouts this nonsense but his wisdom
is never acted upon, by him or anyone else.
While leading his first patrol he stumbles into a trap any boy scout could avoid. This stupidity is followed by yet another: he surrenders his guns.
He is in the Resistance, a unit calling its self the 2nd Massachusetts. There is no 1st or 3rd Massachusetts.
"Captain" Dale Dye (he insists on the honorific,
although he was a warrant officer for most of his time in the Marines. Warrant officers are addressed as, “Mister”. Oh, that wouldn’t do for the likes of Dye), veteran DI of many a war film, has been promoted to the rank of Colonel and commands the Resistance. Will Patton; the only actor in the bunch is Wyle's commander.
Anyway, the show's pretty much a dud and has none of the cleverness of BATTLESTAR GALACTIA.
I did detect a hint of Robert Heinlein's THE PUPPET MASTERS in this mess, without the Science Fiction Master's interesting characters, dialogue, or storytelling ability.
It should be noted the patriot Spielberg had this series shot in Canada, although it takes place in Boston.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Hospital CEOs: Naked Greed Heads
The LA Times articles outing CEOs of public hospitals and the venal yearly compensation they receive should cause our lawmakers to hold hearings, at the very least.
They might discover the job description of these greed heads is two fold.
1) To figure out new ways to screw the hospital employees, and
2) To figure out new ways to screw the patients.
The shameless spokesman for one hospital claims, without offering any evidence, hospitals must pay top dollar to these clowns because the are the best.
Now, how did he find that out? Did he Google their names? Check the ads in Naked Greed Monthly?
The spokesman went on to say the compensation for public hospital CEOs pales in contrast to what private sector CEOs receive. More like beyond the Pale.
The CEO of a local private hospital got his picture in the paper a few years back for his magnanimous act of handing out Snickers candy bars to employees he thought were caught in the act of doing a good job. One victim/employee is rumored to have told the sawed-off little squirt what he could do with his candy bar.
Consider the fact the million-dollar CEO makes five times the money of your average doctor’s income.
Next time you’re kicked out of the hospital the day after an operation when medical opinion concludes your condition merits a few more days’ hospitalization, just think of these CEOs. And the vulgar rich who run Medical Insurance Companies. And THEIR employees in Congress.
They might discover the job description of these greed heads is two fold.
1) To figure out new ways to screw the hospital employees, and
2) To figure out new ways to screw the patients.
The shameless spokesman for one hospital claims, without offering any evidence, hospitals must pay top dollar to these clowns because the are the best.
Now, how did he find that out? Did he Google their names? Check the ads in Naked Greed Monthly?
The spokesman went on to say the compensation for public hospital CEOs pales in contrast to what private sector CEOs receive. More like beyond the Pale.
The CEO of a local private hospital got his picture in the paper a few years back for his magnanimous act of handing out Snickers candy bars to employees he thought were caught in the act of doing a good job. One victim/employee is rumored to have told the sawed-off little squirt what he could do with his candy bar.
Consider the fact the million-dollar CEO makes five times the money of your average doctor’s income.
Next time you’re kicked out of the hospital the day after an operation when medical opinion concludes your condition merits a few more days’ hospitalization, just think of these CEOs. And the vulgar rich who run Medical Insurance Companies. And THEIR employees in Congress.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
If you don't call him traitor, what do you call him?
I've been reading Josephine Tey's DAUGHTER OF TIME courtesy of David Stokes, who sent me a copy. I'm 60 pages left to read and thoroughly enjoying it.
It is about a Scotland Yard Detective (or, a Detective from the Yard) who becomes intrigued by a print of a portrait of Richard III. He is a man who reads faces as part of his work, and becomes convinced Richard is not the murderer of Shakespeare's play. He begins research and concludes things don't add up. The man with the face in the portrait could not have murdered his two nephews. He just does not have a criminal face. The two boys ahead of him in the line of succession were killed by a a true villain, and Richard was not a villain. On the contrary, he was a good and just man.
And Henry Tudor, fated to be Henry VII, father of
Henry VIII and grandfather of Elizabeth, left his character open to question with his attack on the legal King of England. Tutor's Claim to the throne was on rather shaky ground. He defeated Richard at Bosworth Field with an army comprised of French mercenaries. Very unEnglish, ol' chap. So, in his lust for the Monarchy he led foreigners fighting for money, most likely loot, against his own countrymen for a Crown he had little claim to. In my mind that makes him a traitor. His son became a national disgrace, remembered a a fat, gluttonous swine obsessed with sex and looting the Church for the money to finance his obscene appetites. He did not create a new church as an act of conscious, but as an act of greed.
It was left to Elizabeth to build England's great navy, remembered as was Themistocles when he built a navy for Athens. The Greek navy destroyed the Persian navy for good. The Battle of Salamis in 480 BC insured Greek democracy until the Greeks destroyed it themselves decades later a result of the Peloponnesian War.
I've been consulting the final volume of a tetralogy about the Plantagenet Dynasty (Henry II was the Dynast and Richard was the last Plantagenet) . I first read them in paperback as a youngster, and several years ago I
found a boxed hardcover set in a used bookstore in Glendale at a reasonable price. The last 75 pages are about Richard.
I suspect Richard had been famed, and Thomas Costain, historian and author of historical novels like THE BLACK ROSE, and author of the Plantagenet histories, agrees. It was in Shakespeare's best interest to make the Tudors look good and Richard look bad. A child murderer. The only thing worse is a Tea Bag Republican.
Later I was thinking about THE THREE MUSKETEERS, which takes place right after the time of Elizabeth, with as King James and the Duke of Buckingham as featured players. In the films anyway, do we ever see the musketeers with muskets? No. Sword fighting only. Swords are expensive and it takes a long time to learn to fight with one. Fight well anyway. Fight so you can survive the experience. Fighting it out with muskets would be a dull affair. I don't think those guys were really musketeers. Mule skinners more likely.
As I recall they were at war; at war with who I don't know I'll ever remember. It may have been during the time of the the 100 Years War. The French are very crabby and were always ready to fight someone. It was a Century long slaughter between the adherents to two different superstitions, the major difference between the two was how money was to be exhorted from the working poor. The French needed money to buy food because they live to eat, not eat to live. The French will eat almost anything if its topped with the proper sauce. Depends what you consider what is proper and what is a sauce I guess.
I remember reading somewhere the Duke of Buckingham was the boyfriend of James I (who had been James VI of Scotland and was very gay, but not in the sense of being happy). I think its funny, both in the sense of strange and haha) that the man who ordered the Bible be translated into a language slightly more people than before could read, the Bible that mandated gay men be killed in some awful Christian manner for being gay, was himself gay.
Well, I suppose there was an upside. The James Court was chock full of hansom young men with a great fashion sense and were wonderful decorators (it would take several hundred years for them to get their own TV show, though).
The Duke may have paid a price for his Christian lifestyle. A Puritan Lieutenant in the army who went by the name of John Felton gave the Duke a blade somewhere in the torso. He went to Tyburn Tree for a necktie party crying like a little girl who's Christian faith was open to question.
James had to find a new Glory Hole.
It is about a Scotland Yard Detective (or, a Detective from the Yard) who becomes intrigued by a print of a portrait of Richard III. He is a man who reads faces as part of his work, and becomes convinced Richard is not the murderer of Shakespeare's play. He begins research and concludes things don't add up. The man with the face in the portrait could not have murdered his two nephews. He just does not have a criminal face. The two boys ahead of him in the line of succession were killed by a a true villain, and Richard was not a villain. On the contrary, he was a good and just man.
And Henry Tudor, fated to be Henry VII, father of
Henry VIII and grandfather of Elizabeth, left his character open to question with his attack on the legal King of England. Tutor's Claim to the throne was on rather shaky ground. He defeated Richard at Bosworth Field with an army comprised of French mercenaries. Very unEnglish, ol' chap. So, in his lust for the Monarchy he led foreigners fighting for money, most likely loot, against his own countrymen for a Crown he had little claim to. In my mind that makes him a traitor. His son became a national disgrace, remembered a a fat, gluttonous swine obsessed with sex and looting the Church for the money to finance his obscene appetites. He did not create a new church as an act of conscious, but as an act of greed.
It was left to Elizabeth to build England's great navy, remembered as was Themistocles when he built a navy for Athens. The Greek navy destroyed the Persian navy for good. The Battle of Salamis in 480 BC insured Greek democracy until the Greeks destroyed it themselves decades later a result of the Peloponnesian War.
I've been consulting the final volume of a tetralogy about the Plantagenet Dynasty (Henry II was the Dynast and Richard was the last Plantagenet) . I first read them in paperback as a youngster, and several years ago I
found a boxed hardcover set in a used bookstore in Glendale at a reasonable price. The last 75 pages are about Richard.
I suspect Richard had been famed, and Thomas Costain, historian and author of historical novels like THE BLACK ROSE, and author of the Plantagenet histories, agrees. It was in Shakespeare's best interest to make the Tudors look good and Richard look bad. A child murderer. The only thing worse is a Tea Bag Republican.
Later I was thinking about THE THREE MUSKETEERS, which takes place right after the time of Elizabeth, with as King James and the Duke of Buckingham as featured players. In the films anyway, do we ever see the musketeers with muskets? No. Sword fighting only. Swords are expensive and it takes a long time to learn to fight with one. Fight well anyway. Fight so you can survive the experience. Fighting it out with muskets would be a dull affair. I don't think those guys were really musketeers. Mule skinners more likely.
As I recall they were at war; at war with who I don't know I'll ever remember. It may have been during the time of the the 100 Years War. The French are very crabby and were always ready to fight someone. It was a Century long slaughter between the adherents to two different superstitions, the major difference between the two was how money was to be exhorted from the working poor. The French needed money to buy food because they live to eat, not eat to live. The French will eat almost anything if its topped with the proper sauce. Depends what you consider what is proper and what is a sauce I guess.
I remember reading somewhere the Duke of Buckingham was the boyfriend of James I (who had been James VI of Scotland and was very gay, but not in the sense of being happy). I think its funny, both in the sense of strange and haha) that the man who ordered the Bible be translated into a language slightly more people than before could read, the Bible that mandated gay men be killed in some awful Christian manner for being gay, was himself gay.
Well, I suppose there was an upside. The James Court was chock full of hansom young men with a great fashion sense and were wonderful decorators (it would take several hundred years for them to get their own TV show, though).
The Duke may have paid a price for his Christian lifestyle. A Puritan Lieutenant in the army who went by the name of John Felton gave the Duke a blade somewhere in the torso. He went to Tyburn Tree for a necktie party crying like a little girl who's Christian faith was open to question.
James had to find a new Glory Hole.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Sockdolagers
The Republicans, as the tools of the Ruling Class, are very clever (no one could claim they possess real intelligence). They somehow mesmerize
the right wing working class to act against their own interests.Residents of the US pay more money and get less in health care
coverage than those of any other industrialized nation. The CEOs of health insurance companies are paid in the tens of millions of dollars;
money better spent on the health care of subscribers.
Crystal Lee Sutton, the real life model for Norma Rae in the movie of the same
name, died last September of a brain cancer when her health insurance company delayed treatment that may have save her life.One
blogger wrote it was almost like murder. Depraved indifference. Depraved indifference to human life. The best adjective to describe the
health insurance companies.Depraved.Its part of ongoing assault on the working class and the working poor by the Ruling
Class. One can only wonder why the right wing working class insists on protecting the obscene accumulation of wealth by the Rulers.
Are they stupid?
Friday, January 29, 2010
Frontier Fraud
Monday night PBS broadcast a biography of Wyatt Earp on its American Experience
series. Its usually pretty good, but stumbled when it came to "The Frontier
Marshal"( the title of Stuart Lake's haliographic biography. Wyatt Earp was
never marshal of anything, least of all Tombstone. At the OK Corral execution,
he carried a badge that read "Special Police").
Alarm bells went off when I saw the Western "historian" and artist; Bob Boze
Bell was a commentator. His history is of the gee wiz school, and his art is on
the impressionistic side, bearing no resemblance to the work of Charles Russell
and David Powell.
This biography would have you believe Earp was an agent of modernity, bringing
the American West to a path to the 20th Century. He was, in fact, an agent for
prostitutes, a pimp, who lived off their earning and used their money for
gambling. Dealing cards was his idea of hard work.
When he needed money when the cards didn't fall his way, he'd find employment as
an assistant deputy marshal at $.50 an arrest. He always found a reason for an
arrest. In an addition to money, law enforcement allowed him to brutalize his
fellow man.
After the OK Corral execution he engaged in a life of killing. He murdered a
man named Frank Stillwell at the Tucson train yard. On his vengeance ride after
the murder of his brother, he is said to have killed upwards of thirty men.
Little of this was in the PBS documentary.
The Tombstone conflict could have been related in these terms:
The Clantions, McLaurys and the "Cowboys" (the name given the outlaw band that
terrorized the Tombstone area) were southern democrats with pro Confederate
views.
The Earps were badge heavy law and order, pro gun control Republicans who were
allergic to hard work.
The Cowboys didn't care to take orders from any Yankee son-a-bitches.
After Tombstone, Wyatt's life consisted of one get rich scheme after another,
although his common-law wife, Josie (or Sophie) came from a well to do family.
Her family, observant Jews living in San Francisco, didn't care for the
cold-blooded killer she had chosen as her life companion.
Josie was not mentioned until the last five minutes of the program, although she
was a witness to the OK Corral shooting.
Contrary to the commentators' story, Doc and the Earps were in dangered of being
lynched. They were arrested and tried for murder, but tried in a bench trial by
a judge with a pro Earp bias. He knew they were guilty, but apparently approved
of their actions.
Wyatt had a warrant for the murder of Frank Stillwell hanging over his head for
the rest of his life
The OK Corral incident did not bring law and order to Tombstone.
The American Experience needs warts and all biography, not what they gave their
Monday night.
series. Its usually pretty good, but stumbled when it came to "The Frontier
Marshal"( the title of Stuart Lake's haliographic biography. Wyatt Earp was
never marshal of anything, least of all Tombstone. At the OK Corral execution,
he carried a badge that read "Special Police").
Alarm bells went off when I saw the Western "historian" and artist; Bob Boze
Bell was a commentator. His history is of the gee wiz school, and his art is on
the impressionistic side, bearing no resemblance to the work of Charles Russell
and David Powell.
This biography would have you believe Earp was an agent of modernity, bringing
the American West to a path to the 20th Century. He was, in fact, an agent for
prostitutes, a pimp, who lived off their earning and used their money for
gambling. Dealing cards was his idea of hard work.
When he needed money when the cards didn't fall his way, he'd find employment as
an assistant deputy marshal at $.50 an arrest. He always found a reason for an
arrest. In an addition to money, law enforcement allowed him to brutalize his
fellow man.
After the OK Corral execution he engaged in a life of killing. He murdered a
man named Frank Stillwell at the Tucson train yard. On his vengeance ride after
the murder of his brother, he is said to have killed upwards of thirty men.
Little of this was in the PBS documentary.
The Tombstone conflict could have been related in these terms:
The Clantions, McLaurys and the "Cowboys" (the name given the outlaw band that
terrorized the Tombstone area) were southern democrats with pro Confederate
views.
The Earps were badge heavy law and order, pro gun control Republicans who were
allergic to hard work.
The Cowboys didn't care to take orders from any Yankee son-a-bitches.
After Tombstone, Wyatt's life consisted of one get rich scheme after another,
although his common-law wife, Josie (or Sophie) came from a well to do family.
Her family, observant Jews living in San Francisco, didn't care for the
cold-blooded killer she had chosen as her life companion.
Josie was not mentioned until the last five minutes of the program, although she
was a witness to the OK Corral shooting.
Contrary to the commentators' story, Doc and the Earps were in dangered of being
lynched. They were arrested and tried for murder, but tried in a bench trial by
a judge with a pro Earp bias. He knew they were guilty, but apparently approved
of their actions.
Wyatt had a warrant for the murder of Frank Stillwell hanging over his head for
the rest of his life
The OK Corral incident did not bring law and order to Tombstone.
The American Experience needs warts and all biography, not what they gave their
Monday night.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
An Immodest Proposal
The health care crisis seems to be beyond control. Cost will continue to rise beyond the rate of inflation. There is simply no controlling them. It's a fools fantasy to try.
Even if costs were halved, most families simply cannot afford the premiums. No one will accept a reduction in salary. Not the doctors, the nurses, or the highly payed hospital administrators, nor the corporate executives at the HMOs, insurance companies and drug outfits.
There is a solution, a low cost solution. A cost effective solution less costly than a years supply of medication for the elderly and the chronically ill.
The answer is so simple.
The cheapest funeral in this country, a cremation, is still around three thousand dollars. Too costly for the average family.
Forget costly medical care and sky high prescription costs; the government should simply get out of the health case business, dump Medicare and Medicade and offer free funerals to the lower classes.
No more monthly trips to the doctor and the drugstore. No more copays. No more hard x-ray tables, or high radiation CAT scans. No more lengthly and noisy exams in the claustrophobic MRI scanner.
Think of the money that could be saved to be spent on wide screen TVs, video games, corn chips and beer; and cigarettes (cut taxes on smokes so people can afford their pleasures, this isn't Russia!).
Give the people the best funeral money can buy. A real wood coffin, paid mourners, a band, a real dog and pony show with all the bells and whistles. A big send-off will make the loved ones of the dearly departed feel so much better. Maybe a cash prize to the most demonstrative mourner!
The friends and family would have to pay for the wake. Booze is expensive and the lower classes drink like fish. Even the cheap stuff. Fair is fair.
Another plus. An increase in the number of wealthy undertakers, paying more income taxes. The tax rate on the top ten present would have to be capped at 15%. They've been paying more than their share for decades. Fair is fair.
As the lower classes die off, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, relaxing in the Lazy-boy with a smile on their lips (what a way to go!) the practical and fair-minded Republican population might not increase, but they would soon come to out number the tax and spend, free ride Democrats.
America needs a return to sanity.
Write your Congressman, your Senators, even the President and suggest the simple solution!
Even if costs were halved, most families simply cannot afford the premiums. No one will accept a reduction in salary. Not the doctors, the nurses, or the highly payed hospital administrators, nor the corporate executives at the HMOs, insurance companies and drug outfits.
There is a solution, a low cost solution. A cost effective solution less costly than a years supply of medication for the elderly and the chronically ill.
The answer is so simple.
The cheapest funeral in this country, a cremation, is still around three thousand dollars. Too costly for the average family.
Forget costly medical care and sky high prescription costs; the government should simply get out of the health case business, dump Medicare and Medicade and offer free funerals to the lower classes.
No more monthly trips to the doctor and the drugstore. No more copays. No more hard x-ray tables, or high radiation CAT scans. No more lengthly and noisy exams in the claustrophobic MRI scanner.
Think of the money that could be saved to be spent on wide screen TVs, video games, corn chips and beer; and cigarettes (cut taxes on smokes so people can afford their pleasures, this isn't Russia!).
Give the people the best funeral money can buy. A real wood coffin, paid mourners, a band, a real dog and pony show with all the bells and whistles. A big send-off will make the loved ones of the dearly departed feel so much better. Maybe a cash prize to the most demonstrative mourner!
The friends and family would have to pay for the wake. Booze is expensive and the lower classes drink like fish. Even the cheap stuff. Fair is fair.
Another plus. An increase in the number of wealthy undertakers, paying more income taxes. The tax rate on the top ten present would have to be capped at 15%. They've been paying more than their share for decades. Fair is fair.
As the lower classes die off, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, relaxing in the Lazy-boy with a smile on their lips (what a way to go!) the practical and fair-minded Republican population might not increase, but they would soon come to out number the tax and spend, free ride Democrats.
America needs a return to sanity.
Write your Congressman, your Senators, even the President and suggest the simple solution!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
LIEBERCARE
It has been suggested members of the Senate who have done gross injury to the health care reform bill handed to them by the House be required to wear the logo of their sponsors on their jackets (like NASCAR drivers and other riffraff) while going about the business these sponsors (the business of the people and the Republic forgotten soon after the receipts from the first fund raiser were counted up).
The networks would never offend the owners of the country by broadcasting the evidence of corruption. Inquiring minds would have to turn to C-SPAN, or the biggest thorn in the side of the owners, the Net. The Net being too democratic for our Oligarchy.
The corrupt ones would have us believe they are exercising the will of the decafeinated tea baggers, who are demented enough to believe it.
The President hopes to mandate everyone to buy health insurance even in a non competitive market. I can only wonder how the Supreme Court will deal with the legal challenge to this unfunded mandate.
The networks would never offend the owners of the country by broadcasting the evidence of corruption. Inquiring minds would have to turn to C-SPAN, or the biggest thorn in the side of the owners, the Net. The Net being too democratic for our Oligarchy.
The corrupt ones would have us believe they are exercising the will of the decafeinated tea baggers, who are demented enough to believe it.
The President hopes to mandate everyone to buy health insurance even in a non competitive market. I can only wonder how the Supreme Court will deal with the legal challenge to this unfunded mandate.
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