Sorry, The Force Awakens Put me to Sleep

On Sunday, I went to see Star Wars Episode 7.  The reviews and commentary on Facebook overwhelmingly positive, I still entered with a significant degree of restraint given the catastrophe of the prequels.

Let me divulge of few things first before rendering my decision. First, I love JJ Abrams.  Lost and the Reboot of Star Trek is all I’ll ever need.  Secondly, I’ve gone to quite a few very good movies and disliked them the first time.  Among them include, The Big Lebowski, Unforgiven, Fargo, Ocean’s 11 and even The Wrath of Khan. I have an idea of what the movie is going to be, and of course, I’m disappointed.  A second viewing usually does the trick though.

Read more : https://vocal.media/futurism/star-wars-the-force-awakens-put-me-to-sleep?via=rich

Word Origins put you in the Catbird Seat

Point Blank Range - The term derives from French middle age usage. Blanc translates to white and refers to the white circle found at the center of a target. Point references the point of an arrow. So if the point was aligned to the blanc on the target, the archer would hit it as long as he was close enough where gravity wouldn't come into play. In other words the shot was taken at point blank range

Indian Giver - This offensive term means giving a gift and then deciding you want it back. Its evolution has morphed from the misguided idea that the Indians gave us America and then wanted it back. But the real origin arose from the travels of Lewis and Clark. Indian tradition saw gift giving as an extension of trade. So the tandem felt slighted that Indians expected a reciprocation of equal value when for any gift presented. This was contrary to the idea that the giving of a gift from the European point of view could be left at that. This clash of cultural value gave rise to the term.

Dressed to the Nines - It was once said that tailors required nine yards of material to make a suit. So the more material used, the more impressive the attire, and the designation of a well dressed person ensued.

In the Nick of Time – In old England, meals began with pudding, which at the time consisted of a sausage or haggis stew. So if you made it for the beginning of the meal, you had arrived at “pudding time.”

The term was abridged to designate a more precise arrival than simply getting their about the time dinner started. As such, a nick referred to the manner in which people kept score by notching or cutting a surface. At the same time, pudding started to refer to a sweet dessert, which created an obvious discrepancy between the beginning and end of a meal. So nick replaced pudding and sufficed to describe getting there just under the wire.

Sitting in the Catbird Seat.  This has its origins in the American South.  Catbirds are proficient at imitation and their nemesis – the cat – is who they chiefly mock. Proudly, the catbird elevates to the highest perch so as to emote their preeminence. Once there, it is said, they have reached the cat bird seat – or in human terms – reaching the optimal position to sit pretty.

Kick the Bucket – Contrary to what some believe, it likely does not originate from the idea that someone would stand on a bucket and kick it away in order to hang themselves. In 16th Century Engand bucket also meant beam from the French trebuchet. Thus, animals awaiting slaughter hung from their feet until the fatal blow, and the final struggle was said to culminate when the animal’s death rattle kicked the bucket.

Firefly doesn't Flicker out in 2005 Film

As a science fiction fan, I was partially aware of Firefly’s cult status, and when coming across the movie adaptation a few years later, I was compelled to watch the 2005 sleeper. 

In the face of 26th Century overpopulation, human beings sought open outer space, and like in the settling of the American West, outliers resisted the centralization of government control. Devastating war ensued before “the Alliance” formerly brought human kind under the authority of “civilization.”

Read more : https://vocal.media/futurism/serenity-picks-up-where-firefly-let-off?via=rich

A bit of Hungary

Billy Idol at the Beacon

Romanticizing Guns – Don’t be so sure of your Amore

Guns, how some people lose all perspective at any consideration of curtailing them. Frustrated and exasperated, I try to understand and seek the psychology behind such irrational thinking. In my opinion, one aspect derives of over glorified historical interpretation. So I’m going to make my argument.  But the chance it makes an impact beyond my bubble are about as small as the possibility that Obama-care will provide enough penal implants to actually alleviate our gun crisis. Nonetheless…

We had a revolution. An armed populace certainly played its part, and that gets a rise out of every NRA member who lives to leave off the well-regulated militia part.

But revolution - did we really need one? Yes, the founding fathers had some pretty nifty ideas. The bill of rights and, separation of powers come to mind first. But my favorite is the protection of minority rights (or opinion), which is a crucial guard against the type of mob rule that has unraveled democracies to the present day.

On the other hand, people like George Washington took a look around the Ohio Valley during the French and Indian war and saw the opportunity to pad their patriotism with some sort of monetary successor to English poundage

And how much did they really care about having the consent of the common man when one man, one vote applied only to property owners. Still, a little democracy is better than none, and ours continues to evolve.

But patience wasn’t necessarily providing a murderous platform for Pol Pot or Stalin. The colonists were subjects of the crown and not being bled dry like South Africans at the bottom of a diamond mine. In fact, according to David McCullough’s 1776, when the British soldiers came to New York, they found the richest people in the world and had no idea why there was a revolt.

Additionally, England was clearly on its own way to a separation of power. Doesn't anybody remember, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Hey, they were talking about England.

So a whole lot of people got dead because rich people wanted to be more rich. In contrast, Canada signed the British North America act in 1867 to gain their Independence.

Who says the pen isn't mightier than the saber. But that's not really the point. Gun people romanticize the American Revolution, and the flint lock when waiting out a relatively benign authority would have worked out just as well for the rank and file.

Putting aside that the NRA does the same with its members by using their dues to lobby more profits for the gun industry, let's go west.

The gun had to be an essential tool to live the frontier. Hunting and the law sparse in the vast open space, the six shooter defines independence and self-reliance. Throwing off the yoke of the eastern elites makes the nostalgia all the more noble too.

But if you remember, a whole lot of space had to be cleared of indigenous people, and the Homestead Act is nothing short of an occupying force. So you're right, guns don't kill people, people kill people. This means you’re once again romanticizing the role the gun played - this time under the guise of genocide.

Now, I wish I was in Dixie. Given that three million human beings were being held in bondage, Southerners biggest fear was the real possibility of an all-out race war. The availability of guns certainly had to help allay the fear.  The same might have been said of ending of slavery, but replacing the curious institution with terror and segregation might not have so easily settled southerners.

Instead, they clung to their guns. Any chance the underlying fear is still there? Of course not, racism is gone. The southern strong hold just wants to be able to shoot rabbits with semi-automatics and put the final bow on the just society that President Obama ushered in when he walked into the White House.

So there you are. The key historical allusions that put such a strut in your red state open carry ties to fighting a war that was far from a necessity, an imperialistic expansion that nearly wiped out an entire continent and an inbred racism that you still cannot let go of.

I’m happy to clarify this for you…You’re welcome.

Star Trek : The Motion Picture Searches for the Original Series and Finds it

I was so into Star Trek as a kid – and its tragedy of lasting only 79 episodes – that I used to dream my own original episodes in REM sleep. Always awakened to the disappointment that the nocturnal adventure didn't really exist, it’s still unfathomable to me that when Star Trek : The Motion Picture came out, I didn’t go see it.

I can only imagine how the space time continuum of my consciousness would have erupted had I actually been present before the big screen for what I consider the 80th and final episode of Star Trek.

Instead, I saw it four years later – slightly more mature – and not completely engaged among all the goings on in my college dorm. Bored by the pace, I kept walking away – even while my Star Trek compatriot of a roommate implored me to stick with it.

Stunned by the ending, I realized that I lost the chance to actually see one of those dreams become real, and my awe would always have to be retroactive and after the fact. Today, I reaffirmed those feelings and my reverence for this film.

In doing so, I know I’m distinctly among the minority in terms of Trekkie's.

Yes, Star Trek II and IV are wildly entertaining, but they and the others are mostly soap operas in search of superficial friendship, manufactured feelings of family and grandiose visions of galactic congeniality. Ok, so was the TV series. The difference is 60's Star Trek was done by grinding out real conflict among the cast.

Star Trek:TMP shares this approach. Meaning, Kirk comes right out looking to kick some ass and not entirely in terms of the planetary threat involved. He wants the Enterprise and takes it. Unlike in Star Trek II when Kirk usurps Captain Spock, James Tiberius doesn’t ask sitting Enterprise Captain Will Decker how he feels about it, he just does it.

Going from this baseline, William Shatner recreates the command presence found at the helm of Star Trek’s original five year mission. At the same time, while always remaining open to discussion, the later films made Kirk seem like a consensus builder and put the main characters outside the triumvirate of Spock, Kirk and Bones on almost equal footing.

In earlier contrast, Sulu, Checkov and Uhura saw Kirk as their captain. They look to him for courage, inspiration and leadership - not a place at the three dimensional chessboard to chit chat. That’s real and only The Motion Picture has this crucial element that helped make Captain Kirk such an enduring figure.

And then of course, the most important lacking in the remaining sequels is something called Science Fiction. Of course, we know Trek two through six has whales, genesis and God, but TMP tries to truly penetrate what it means to be human – and actually searches.

Equally important, TMP largely does this within the confines of the Enterprise’s bridge - just like the series.

Of course, the humor is there – provided mostly in this adventure by the cynical, probing exchanges surrounding Bones, and true to form, it doesn’t overshadow the main course of bringing sense to the universe. 

On the downside, Spock is somewhat of a dolt but that's simply because Leonard Nimoy is trying to make sense of a character that is supposed to be lost.

Despite his failure and the fact that the plot is partially lifted from an original episode, all is forgiven as the omnipotent entity threatening the earth is stunningly unraveled in the simplest possible human terms. "Is this all that I am, is there nothing more," Spock voices the alien's disposition and reason for menace.

A question that's familiar to both gods and men, according to the stunted Spock - or just another day at the office for the Star Trek we grew up with and didn't really get until The Next Generation arrived. 

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