Picture This

    My grandparents went on a short vacation to Buffalo, NY in about 1920.  Though they had been married 3 or so years earlier, I'm sure they went the few miles to Niagra Falls while they were there. While in Buffalo they found a Kodak 3A bellows camera that had been forgotten on a park bench. It was quite the find.  In those days that camera cost $20.  A week's salary.  It became the family camera. It took marvelous pictures. It had infinite focus.  I guess a kind of primitive, reflex lens.  Every find implies a loss. Lately, I've thought about that.
    There were hundreds of photos, each with a sweet story.  My parents had a Brownie Hawkeye and I had both an Instamatic and a Polaroid.  None as good as that old Kodak and none of them as good as the camera on my cell phone or yours.  The stories are every bit as sweet.  The message ignores the medium.
    A century of holidays, vacations, graduations, reunions, departures, arrivals, sunny days and winter storms. Decade after decade of family lore and old friends, all in albums and shoeboxes. They would be brought out every year or so and pondered again and the oral history would be repeated and to some degree re-lived.  Children's questions answered and the answers propelled into the future.
    Well, I put a stop to that shit. I lost all those pictures. They only exist in my aging memory which most certainly could be absent-mindedly left on a park bench.
    When video cameras were first available I refused to buy one. Looking at smiling wives throwing bouquets and baby's first steps, old Christmas trees just made me think, 'How depressing would that be if something went wrong?'
    The static quality of a moment frozen in time is much better to me than a living and breathing video.  I think it's better my memories are only captured just so much and imperfectly. I could not bear the smiles or frowns or tears of a departed loved one. My imperfect memories are just perfect enough.  To me.
    Still, I return to the regret of the loss of those old photos a couple times a week. For example, I'm writing about it now.  I berate myself for carelessness.  Pfft, yeah, who doesn't?

Stay Warm Old Man

    I rarely mention my faith because my faith tells me that's inappropriate. This time of year does kinda call for comments of affirmation.  So let me show you how I think it's supposed to work.
    Oddly enough, I was in jail. It was not quite yet Christmas and it was years ago. I wasn't particularly upset by the mere circumstance.  You adapt. This too shall pass.  I was awfully upset and resentful of how I had gotten there. LOL. I was wroth.
    These boys didn't like me much and dug up some crap from nearly a decade before which had been resolved, I thought.  As it turned out I was right about that but that didn't slow these boys down much. As a matter of fact, they actually tried to beat my ass. Had I not worked hard for forty some years they might have succeeded. I didn't resist. It was like some biting flies but they did throw my old ass in jail and it took about a month to sort itself out. It took me a bit to sort it out as well.  Did I mention I was wroth?
    I'm trying to think of all the ways I was upset. I felt violated. My sense of fair play had been just, trashed.  I'd been physically assaulted in my own home for no reason other than, they could.  I'd had to allow myself to be helpless in the face of outrage and lesser, seemingly evil men.
    Seemingly, evil men.  It finally occurred to me these men were no more than self-righteous. We do sorta pay cops to be self-righteous. They had merely been angered because I dismissed their righteousness. That had caused them to do demonstrable evil.  It was then I realized their souls had been stained, not mine and should, rightfully receive not my contempt but my prayer.  So, I certainly felt better and said my little prayer for these little men. They certainly have never gone up in my estimation but they were sincerely forgiven and I did and do have a concern for their souls.  Sorry, that's the best  I can do. Probably, being such a condescending bastard was part of the trouble.
    I'm trying to imagine how to relate this next part without being a total asshole. It's just what I have observed.  It doesn't have anything to do with my outlook, at least I hope not. There seem to be three types of black guys in a county lock-up.  One group are just folks who don't think much about race and freely associate with anyone.  The second and I would say, the largest group, are quiet, self- assured and contained. They'll associate with you but don't trust white folks in general and won't initiate contact.  It seems like a reasonable response to overall circumstances to me.  The third group is guys that will not acknowledge even the existence of white folks. They look thru you and merely walk around you like so much furniture.  I can't imagine a reason to disagree with that approach either. There is certainly a deeper dynamic to that whole thing too but not the point today. This is Faith, not sociology.
    So, I am in jail.  I know there's no reason for it.  I'm dealing with this inner rage, mainly because, on some level, I know the rage is wrong and I know I'm missing why it's wrong. It's not until I realize that I haven't been hurt, need no existential pity or justification and that my, would be, tormenters have seriously injured themselves that I find inner peace in the embrace of forgiveness.  It was a literal epiphany.
    County jails are cold. Ya got your skivvies, your socks and some ill-fitting PJs.  One thing you can buy from the canteen is a thermal undershirt but it's very expensive. At least twice what you would pay at Sears.  It's a prized possession and a foregoable luxury.  Hmm, simple comfort as a luxury.
    A few minutes after my epiphany and my brief but sincere prayer I was finally at peace, sitting in the common room watching television.  This guy walked over to me. I'd never spoken to him or he to me.  He was part of that second group I mentioned.  "Here ya go." Out of the fifty or so guys there and out of the blue he handed me a thermal shirt and walked away.
    A simple, unbidden act of kindness.
    That completed my epiphany and that epiphany remains a solid pillar of my personal faith.
    Here endeth today's lesson.

What If We Don't Get High?

    Thirty years ago a subversive sticker appeared for a brief while plastered in various places. It said, " Do not defy authority.  Ignore it."  I first saw it stuck to a toll booth which I thought was absurdly appropriate.  Most people, if pressed, would define anarchy as defiance of authority or rejection of authority but refusing to acknowledge authority as a viable concept in the real world is far more subversive and seems to really piss em off.  I realized that concept had become not just my unspoken motto but the unspoken motto of millions of passive-aggressives everywhere.  A lot of them stoned.
     Over 40 years ago people just started ignoring authority and started using marijuana among other recreational drugs.  When you consider what the penalties were in those days that was a pretty big rejection of authority as some sort of viable concept.  It was subversive and corrosive but not really.  In the end well over 99% of those people went on to become productive, willing participants in society and willing subjects of authority albeit with some reservations. Although, there is something about legalization that makes me uncomfortable on some level.
    Most people are honest but the idea that what the IRS doesn't know won't hurt them is pretty common.  Most people don't lie.  Well, that IRS thing again but as a general rule people only lie to their spouses.....their kids, well and bosses sometimes but for the major part.
    My point is, the average person, to this day wouldn't dream of committing a major felony or defying authority in any significant way but there is a kinda laissze faire attitude about the more prominent committing more prominent crimes.  The days of Pat Nixon's good, Republican cloth coat are long over. That scandal in 1952 or so was over a relative few thousands that Nixon couldn't really account for. It nearly ended his career. By comparison, Trump wrote a check for 25 million to settle fraud allegations the same week he was elected President and that, in the overall picture is just the tip of a very dirty iceberg. Nobody seems to care at least not in proportion to the fantastic amounts of money involved.  I wonder why that is.
    Is it possible our collective decision to roll a joint and ignore authority seeped into other areas?  Our elders said it was a decline in morality.  We didn't think so. What if that was right? What if we had recoiled from euphoria in favor of Sunday School morality?  I know, not likely but what if?
    I guess the question here is: Would society and we be different if we had been more amenable to authority just because it was authority?  Would frauds and thieves be less likely to rise?  Would nude models be less acceptable in polite society?
    My point is, we are seeing things today that just wouldn't have happened 40-50 years ago well outside of political conviction.  Is that at least, in part due to our casual attitude to morality?
    I don't think the morality of the fifties is going to make a comeback but maybe we shouldn't be so casual. Spin one up and we'll talk it over.

It's Just Never Discussed

    There are 144 million Russians.  They are the rightful owners of natural resources that rival any other region of the earth.  We see articles about the daily lives of the average American or Brit or Finn or what have you.  We don't see much about the average Russian.  I'm reminded, by saying that, that as a schoolboy I  used to receive a copy of the Soviet equivalent of Life Magazine on a monthly basis because I wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington and asked for some information.  I wonder what the FBI made of that?  I wonder what the Soviets made of that come to think of it. Hell, I wonder what our mailman thought of that.  My parents just thought I was a tad strange.  I just figured I needed more information.  They were used to it.
    I didn't imagine I got much real information about the average Russian.  Now, we still don't but it's different.  Our current ignorance is based on disinterest.  We're looking at trouble just because we aren't much interested.
    The first British envoy to the Moscovy Court was appalled to discover they were usually drunk to a man, all the time.  In modern times both Gorbachev and Putin have complained about pervasive drunkenness thru out Russian society. Another thing that has been constantly observed is the governments responsible for managing Russia's resources have been uniformly dishonest, incompetent and brutal. That means the Russian people have been uniformly subjected to dishonesty, incompetence and brutality from their representatives.  Now, rather than being a perennial Russian problem it's becoming a problem for the rest of the World.
    The malefactors of great wealth in Russia make our malefactors look like Boy Scouts.  Putin, though he has amassed great wealth is more motivated by power.  He doesn't want to see the glory of the Soviets restored.  He wants the previous glory of Mother Russia restored.  He wants the hegemony of Imperial Russia restored.  What can I say?  The heart wants what the heart wants.
    The oligarchs have a different problem.  They have stolen pretty much everything that isn't nailed down but their ill-gotten gains are in rubles which are essentially useless outside Russia.
    Putin wants international power for the sake of power itself and he uses the means that are familiar to him as a result of his career with the KGB.  This meshes with the oligarchs who want international power to further the greatest money laundering scheme in history.  Unfortunately, some of our malefactors are disposed to help.
    I think it's an undeniable fact that either Nixon or Reagan could have easily been bought. It just never occurred to anyone until the Bush family became a willing subsidiary of the Saudi Royal Family.  When that happened the gloves were off.
    Is there a solution to this assault?  I see two things that need done.  International financial transactions need to be more extensively monitored and misbehavior much more severely punished.  We were starting to do this until the current administration backed away.  International and extra-national access to the internet needs to be curtailed for any regime that continues to digitally assault other nations.  Well, how do we do that?  We created, control and own most of the internet.  Act like it.  That will take political will beyond the corruption we currently see.
    In the end, the Russian people need and deserve a break.  Bringing them more fully into their patrimony will benefit all of us.  Maybe we should be doing to the Russian State what they are doing to us.  I dunno.
    We should discuss it.

I Try Not To Do This

    This is what I've been trying to do with this public space.  If something in current events catches my eye, I try to relate it to the underlying principles involved rather than discuss the personalities involved and the daily wear politics.  I do that for a couple reasons.   First: My politics are too obscure and too extreme but my principles are about as mainstream as it gets.  Secondly: That kind of comment on current affairs involves a fair amount of prediction and I'm always wrong in the short term.
    On top of that, this kind of thing has the shelf life of a mayfly
    That being said; let's go.
    There are things involved with the Kavanagh hearings that need said and understood.  Because I worked alone for years I have listened to pretty much every major set of Congressional hearings for the last 30 years or so.  These particular hearings have been a near travesty.  Kavanaugh is a bald-faced liar.  I've never seen anything like it.  That's in addition to his record on the bench just being an outrage. The man has literally spit in the eye of anyone earning less than the one percent.  He, literally, has no appreciation of what being an average American is all about.  That leads to the real point.
    He worked for Ken Starr for 3 years and was the lead author of the Starr report which looked like a 50's porn novel written by a Sunday School teacher you wouldn't want around your kids.  It really kind of explains his behavior around women. The guy's a creep.

    He was an upper echelon participant in the GW Bush administration.  The truth is that group was engaged in criminality on a global scale. They ALL escaped prosecution because they had created such big problems we just couldn't afford that type of spectacle while trying to fix that mess.  That's why they have tried so desperately to hide the details of his participation.  Who the hell ever heard of the National Archives being blocked from releasing public information on the basis of party affiliation?
    The gentlemen's agreement was: They would be allowed to serve out their careers and retire in obscurity.  The first violation of that agreement was the appointment of the torturer Gina Haspel to head the CIA.  The second violation was the elevation of Bolton.  Those two could and would be credibly prosecuted at the Hague.  The latest outrage is trying to appoint this cipher to the Supreme Court.
    It's entirely possible Trump simply doesn't understand the concept of a gentlemen's agreement.  It's possible his advisors just chafe under the silent recognition of the criminality of the Bush people and themselves. It's possible a lot of these people don't understand the crimes they committed.  Who knows but this guy is totally unacceptable for those reasons and it's a damned shame this sleazy sexual abuse had to come to light.  It's just weird this is the only thing that gets republican's attention.

Let's Remember What Really Happened.

    We were talking about the turn of the new millennium and how brief it seemed between now and then. The tumult of current events seems to overshadow all the things in between.  We lose perspective.  We count the current presidency in days and forget that history is actually composed of decades, at least.  We tend to forget.  We tend to forget. Some people just never do know.
    Where to begin without covering a thousand pages with fact and conjecture?   I think a lot of things we face today began with the Reagan administration so let's go back 30 or so years to the flagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers.  I can see a lot of eyes glazing over but ya gotta start somewhere and nothing happens overnight.
    The flagging of the Kuwaiti tankers was seen as supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.  What it really was, was the rental of the US military by the Saudis and Big Oil.  It was also a genuine mistake that, as predicted, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and decades of regional instability.  I could tell you about millennia of hatred between the Arabs and the Persians, read Iranians but all that would do is point out the common American mistake of having no clear idea of what actually motivates most of the rest of the world.  We paint, haphazardly, with a broad brush of willful ignorance usually dipped in simple greed.  We faithfully imitate the British Empire, right down to the willful ignorance and the greed.
    Old habits die hard. During the Cold War, there was a default justification for interference in things that actually weren't our business. After all, we had the geo-political thingy to consider.  In most cases, it's easy to see now that was just nonsense. That was then, this is now. The important thing to understand is; at no point in history have the affairs of Iraq had any impact on the peace and security of the United States.  The only duty of the government of the United States is to address things that actually affect our peace and security. Violating that dictum negatively affects the peace and security of the United States and the World.  We sure have proved that.
    The flagging of the tankers and, by the way, giving the Iraqis nerve gas, convinced them we were allies. Silly boys. They actually came to the Bush people and asked if we'd mind if they took over Kuwait. The response was, " Local issue, why would we care?"  That's a fact. You can look it up. So, the Iraq touring company went to Kuwait and were really surprised when we demanded the show close on the road.
    Only 9% of the American public opposed the first Gulf War.  A friend of mine who happened to be a veteran asked me what I thought of it at the time.  I observed it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen but now we were committed, we had better win.  It was something new.  We were no longer constrained by the Soviet threat. The Russians were incapable of response or meaningful opposition. The men of the Bush 41 administration, steeped in the Cold War, were simply not up to the challenge of a free hand.
    We didn't win by any American definition and Bush 41 paid an immediate price for that in the following election.  It wasn't the "economy, stupid" as Bill would have us believe.  It was, just as Cheney and company thought.  Bush Sr was seen as weak and ineffectual for leaving Saddam Hussein in place.
    There were two other elements that weren't discussed. The Soviet Union was as dead as Casey's nuts but a large portion of their remnant economy depended on arms production and export. The Iraqis had the world's fourth largest military armed to the teeth with  Russian weapons.  Russia and the United States were the leading arms merchants to the world.  The whole thing was an advertisement for the Russian 'brand X'  against the American brand.  That didn't work out so well for the Russians.
    The other thing that went unnoticed was instead of addressing some Cold War related, geopolitical aim we were suckered into supporting Saudi regional aims that had absolutely nothing to do with our peace or security. That was a monumental mistake which is still playing out in deadly fashion.
    That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.  Well, as I've said before, most conspiracies are really confederacies of dunces. This is not an exception to that rule.
     I'm trying to call to mind the proximate casus belli for our invasion of Iraq either time. Oh, that's right.  There were none. Both times it was an irrational act. In point of fact if we were going to attack some country other than Afghanistan for 9/11 it should have been Saudi Arabia but realistically the only goal was to kill Bin Laden and smash Al Qaeda. It's part of our willful ignorance that we don't understand the importance of faction and Islamic regional sects.  We don't know these things because we insist on being lumbering fools.
    I'm going to be blunt. Cheney and company thought the reason they lost power to Clinton was the failure to remove Saddam.  They were right but that doesn't mean they were justified.  At that time GW's presidency was on the rocks.  He was known to be an ineffectual minority, illegitimate President lacking in gravitas.  He did get his tax cut. Without the 9/11 attacks, he certainly would have been a one-term president.  Our outrage was co-opted.  To this point at least a million innocent people have been murdered and a volatile region of the world has been plunged into chaos that will last for several generations.  Guys like Bolton see this as driving the eventual agenda. That's outright bullshit and will see no more success than that kind of thinking ever has.  He's wrong and it will lead to further chaos.
    Why bring this up?  Well, it's fun to point out I was right.  Everyone likes that.  Trump is doing terrible things to us domestically and that is certainly dangerous but at this point, it seems temporary.
    It's good to remember that he hasn't murdered anyone, at least not in great numbers.  It's really doubtful if he'd be allowed to employ the military.  His criminality, so far, has been strictly domestic.  The public is making a list and checking it twice to make sure his predations are immediately repealed.
   Our public life moves slowly.  That's a good thing.  Education will triumph over ignorance and racism will be forcefully corrected.  Classism will be addressed. We will learn to not judge progress by only success for the wealthy.  The coming, decade-long, prosecutions will inform the malefactors.
    We will emerge on the other side imperfect but having progressed.  That's the idea.
    The kids are pissed.  They can't understand why anyone would tolerate this bullshit.  They'll calm down but they won't forget.

    Now, a year after I wrote the above, Trump is being allowed to dabble in foreign policy.  It's an unmitigated disaster as anyone could have foreseen.
   Two years later Trump's  incompetence has killed at least 100,000 U S citizens.

Random Thoughts On The Movies

    A very good friend of mine owns a family bar and a family restaurant.  I haven't seen him in 20 years.  I would be welcomed like a long lost relative and also then treated as if I had been there yesterday, to this day.  Our acquaintance caused me, one time, to comment, that you can't make friends.  You have friends if you deserve them.  I digress but the memories are so pleasant it's hard not to comment.
    So, the movies.  At that place, at that time, Wednesday evening was Movie Night.  The owner of the local video store would bring over 3 new releases and we would watch one or all of them depending on the time we had. They all played but we had individual curfews.  How late we were allowed out.  That evening the first video was "The Terminator".  I don't know what your first impression was but the thing is riveting.  It was highly touted as futuristic/science fiction.  Time travel, cyborgs,  real Galaxy Magazine stuff.  About 2/3's of the way thru  I began to realize it was actually an old-fashioned monster movie, a lot like Frankenstein or Nosferatu. I kept that thought to myself and enjoyed the mayhem. "I'll be back."
    In that connection, someone asked what movie gave you nightmares as a kid.  Hell, I grew up in the 50's and 60's.  No movies; the evening news gave me nightmares. Forty years later the sequel to "The Terminator". depicted a nuclear explosion at a playground.  That scene gave this middle-aged man nightmares.
    Now, everyone is fascinated with zombies.  It's just stupid.  In the late 80's and 90's people loved Anne Rice and vampires. I never got that either but my kids (late teens, early 20's) loved it.  One day, I came in after work and they were watching "Near Dark".  In the course of maybe 15 minutes of conversation, I was exposed to 15 minutes of the movie I had dismissed as just more vampire nonsense.  I went on about my business but I noticed I kept thinking about the snippet I'd seen.  That always indicates to me I've seen something of artistic value that might be revisited.  I watched the movie the next day.  It scared the living bejesus outta me.  Lestat and all that gothic crap still seems like just crap to me. Sorry, Anne.  If I want chewing gum for my eyes I prefer Anne Perry.
    The thing about 'Near Dark" was it's just so naturalistic in its settings.  So contemporary. You can actually see yourself having a beer in some hole in the wall bar in the sticks and a bunch of people come in and murder everyone and you're helpless.  It still gives me the shivers.
    A few years later TV Guide published a list of the scariest horror films of all time.  "The Terminator"  and "Near Dark" made the list.   Everyone likes their thoughts confirmed.  "The Terminator" was a science fiction movie. "Near Dark"  was a vampire movie.  Nah, they are true horror movies and though my mind runs to "Bringing Up Baby" or 'The Front Page",  I recommend them both.
    Movies.  I just had occasion to rewatch "David Copperfield".  It made me think about the fact that as a vaudevillian, W C Fields always traveled with a trunk of books.  He spent an entire career imitating Mr Micawber.  Who better to play Micawber in the movie?  That made me think of what we think of as quintessential Bogart.  If you read Hammett,  you realize  Bogart was just taking stage direction right down to the smallest gestures.  It testifies to Bogart's power as an actor and his belief in Hammett's vision and it's testimony to Hammett's talent.  Interesting. Like everything else, the more you know the more interesting something is.
    I was thinking about authors and the movies made of their work.  You can always tell how much the movie makers loved the novel they're working on.  "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey is a good example of this.  I think it's one of the 10 best contemporary novels.  You can tell by watching that Fonda, Newman, Remick, et al just loved the book and wanted to be as true as possible to what they loved.  I watched "Nobody's Fool" years ago.  If you're an older guy it's just really great.  If you're from a small town, it's great.  It captures the rough and tumble and love of life-long relationships to a word.  To a touch.  Watching that movie got me to read Russo's novel.  I can't remember having done that before.  I normally read the novel and then make a point to see the movie.  Most people do, I expect.  I discovered why the people made the movie. The novel is great but the screenplay is so much kinder to the characters. It made me love the movie even more. I recommend both.  I liked Benton's touch so much better.  He polished the rough edges off of Russo and so doing brought out and enhanced the beauty of the grain.
    I just had occasion to rewatch the 2010 version of  "True Grit". That's been made twice from a novel.  John Wayne bought the film rights as soon as he read the book.  Eventually, the character of Rooster Cogburn earned the Duke his only Oscar for a specific performance.  I think the Cohen Brothers did a better job with the Charles Portis novel.  I can't ever fault the Duke but it's pretty obvious Jeff Bridges read the book pretty closely.
      In the spirit of random thoughts, I was thinking about "Big Jake".  I love John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the movies.  There is a scene in that movie where Wayne realizes O'Hara is in agreement with and instructing his more rigid nature.  He looks at her and says, " Is this the way you want it?" to which she replies, " These men should get exactly what they have asked for."  I actually get that.  My wife can look at me and instruct me to do the exact opposite of what anyone overhearing would think.  I just like that little moment.  Been there, done that.
     Sometimes the more you know, the dumber something is.  Here's something in the westerns, which I love, westerns that is.  A couple desperadoes will rob a bank and high-tail it out of town with a posse a couple hundred yards behind them.  Who saddled the horses that fast?  If you left a horse saddled all day it wouldn't be fit to ride. On top of that, how far are you going to ride a horse at full gallop? Not far. The old adage is: Run on four, walk on two.  it could never  happen that way.
    Another thing.  A man the size and weight of John Wayne would not have ridden a quarter horse. At least not far.  He's too big. If he wanted to ride all day he'd be on a plow horse.  Traditional cowboys were all little, wiry guys.  On top of that, about a third of them were black because it was one of the few jobs open to them.  Oral histories will tell you that but written history wasn't open to black folks back then.
     Here's another thing.  I really like the movie, " McClintock" but I was at a loss to see how it was made even then and it certainly couldn't be made now.  It's sometimes, violent misogyny throughout is kind of jarring.  It wasn't until I learned it was a conscious remake of "Taming of the Shrew " that I got it.  If the Bard can do it, so can the Duke.  I guess.
      Did you know that a silencer won't work on a revolver?  The side blast from the cylinder wouldn't and can't be suppressed.  Not only would it be just as noisy it would probably burn hell outta your hand if you tried it.  Well, it's just the movies but you'd think people would know that.  I don't know why I add that except it just annoys me.
    Speaking of things that annoy me. I watched "The Day Before Yesterday" a bit ago. It has a few deliberately mean, comic moments.  I'm sorry but the news reporter getting nailed with the billboard is funny. You would think it would be instructive but if recent hurricanes are any indication, apparently not.
    Now, this movie postulates global warming triggers a new ice-age. That's hilarious.  It just don't work that way.  In the process of this immediate freeze over the climatologist's kid gets trapped in the New York Public Library with a few friends.  Meantime, some sort of tidal wave they can't explain has brought a North Atlantic freighter to just outside the door.  They're inside burning books to try to stay warm. Outside is a freighter with probably several thousand tons of fuel oil equipped to handle North Atlantic conditions. It doesn't occur to them to not burn the books that would show them how to light the boilers and pretty much go wherever they needed.  Luke! Go to the ship! And by the way, call your Dad's cell phone.
    That's something that's changed a great deal in recent years.  I love film noir and mysteries but now I keep noticing that so much of some plots depend on the character being out of touch with his office or other characters. I find myself saying, "For God's sake, just call his cell!"  In that vein, you gotta wonder if Perry Mason's answering service wasn't clairvoyant.  He gets all his calls at just the right time and in obscure places.

    Star Wars was a shift in the way science fiction was made. There's been reams expended on how it changed the genre.  Here's what I noticed when I first saw it that set it apart.  Greasy fingerprints around the light switches. Ever before that the future had been very well maintained, groomed and dressed.  Uniforms were, well...uniform and freshly laundered and pressed. I think the future will actually be a cross between Star Wars and Spaceballs and parts of it will smell pretty bad.  The idea that men or women for that matter, will ever commonly wear clothing that zippers up the back is just stupid.
    As you can see I really enjoy the cinema.  After all, it's only a movie.