Archive for May, 2021

Review: Season 1 of Shadow and Bone

Posted: May 2, 2021 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s there was the hope, egged on by the music media, that soon “the next Beatles” would arrive. The Bee Gees, Badfinger, and the Knack were among those acts who failed to match the hype. And no band could match the Beatles’ level because even when they were together they were already legends. 

In that same time period there were even more “next Bob Dylans” heralded.

No one can supercede a legend.

Late last month the first season of Shadow and Bone began streaming on Netflix. 

And many are wondering if Shadow and Bone is the next Game of Thrones. 

Short answer? No. Longer answer? Not even close. And as HBO’s Game of Thrones has entered the world of legend, Shadow and Bone doesn’t have a chance. 

Call me sadistic, but I knew in the first episode of GoT, “Winter Is Coming,” that here was a series that broke the mold when Jamie Lannister pushed young Bran Stark from a high window ledge so to hide his sexual relationship with his sister, Cersei.

With Shadow and Bone you are exposed to an eight-episode muddled mess. 

The show is based on a trilogy of high fantasy books by Leigh Bardugo, and there are elements from two of her other works thrown in too. To understand what is going on you it seems you have to read all of these books first. And I’ve read none of them.

“Students,” I can see a teacher announcing, “your assigment is to read five books and then, only then, watch Shadow and Bone.” Uh, no.

The alternate world of Shadow and Bone is largely based on Russia of the late 19th century. The costume designers make the most of it and they deserve an Emmy nomination for their efforts. Soldiers wear fur ushankas and papakhas. Women don ornate dresses, the heads of civilian males are often topped with bowlers. While GoT and Lord of the Rings is rooted in the Middle Ages of western Europe, viewers here find themselves in the Russia of the Industrial Revolution. There are guns and a train. But no sword battles.

Ravka (Russia) is in the center of the continent and it’s separated by the Fold, a thick cloud wall inhabited by human-eating volcra, who are a cross between griffins and pterodactyls. Spoiler alert: there are no dragons. The Fold was created years earlier by an evil grisha, that is, a magic maker of Ravka. Maybe I’m a dope but it wasn’t until the third episode that I ascertained that the grisha were magicians. They are particularly adept at fire-starting. The grishas make up one of two armies of Ravka.

The central character of Shadow and Bone is Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), a woman in her late teens and a grisha who is half-Shu Han. The Shu Han nation, which we don’t encounter here, is the show’s version of China and they are enemies of Ravka. To the north is Fjerda, a stand-in for Scandinavia. We see the Fjerdans when they fight the Ravkans.

An orphan–just like Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins–Alina encounters racism because of her foreign looks. She has a puppy love relationship with a fellow orphan, military tracker Malyen “Mal” Oretsev (Archie Renaux), they’ve known each other since childhood. Alina is a mapmaker for the First Army, the non-magical one–and man oh man, could viewers use a decent map here to get a grip on the geography of Shadow and Bone. Only one is briefly shown. More time is devoted to Alina burning maps.

We quickly learn that Alina, like Harry Potter, is a Chosen One. The revelation brings her to a grisha leader, General Kirigan (Ben Barnes), and the capital city of Ravka, where she meets the king, who looks a lot like Czar Alexander III. Alina is declared a Sun Summoner, that’s a really big deal you see, and then begins her training to fully utilize her powers.

Word spreads about Alina–all the way to the island nation of Kerch–which is Shadow and Bone’s version of the Netherlands, complete with its largest city, hedonistic Ketterdam, which parallels another city. Do I really need to spell out which one? We meet three underworld characters there, Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman), and Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) who leave Ketterdam to kidnap Alina for a one-million kruge reward. The three criminals have an intriguing dynamic and they are more captivating characters than Alina and Mal. 

If you like elaborate clothes, eye-catching special effects, and being transporated to an alternative yet familiar civilization, then Shadow and Bone could be for you. But if you expect fully-developed characters and a coherent plot line, then stay away. 

If magic and the 19th-century interests you then instead I recommend streaming Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell on Amazon. In this series, among other things, the Duke of Wellington is aided by a magician to fight the French during the Napoleonic Wars. 

As for the grisha–if they are so powerful how come they are captured with relative ease?

Shadow and Bone is rated TV-14 for violence, adult situations, and brief nudity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

My Response to a Rather racist screed His right of speech and Mine of Association

Posted: May 2, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

One of the great advantages of Gab is that people are free to say what they want and you the reader have the option to accept or reject, ignore or engage , block or allow opinions in your timeline.

The disadvantage of course is that occasionally you get stuff that is beyond the pale. I saw such a thing in my timeline which I won’t repeat here but will link if you want to read it.

My first instinct was to block the person and the one who reposted it but I thought the argument that skin color is an indication of all sorts of undesirable qualities merited a response. My reply follows between the separators (you’ll note that gab allows a longer response in a single gab than twitter does in a tweet)

May I point out that the increase in crime rates among Black Americans have nothing to do with race and skin color and everything to do with the great society disincentives for two parent families within said communities, creating generations of absent fathers which is a statistical recipe for criminal behavior in any population. I submit and suggest that without this the history of the last 50 years in general and in the black community in particular would have been very different.


Furthermore you also have the component of the unnatural selection of slaveholders who treated their black slaves as cattle encouraging the physically strongest to breed while discouraging the most intelligent (and thus the most likely to revolt or escape) from doing so.. Given that said slaveholder saw slaves as property rather than people it is understandable but no less horrific.

It was a rather ghastly exercise in eugenics that only began to be reversed after slavery and can easily be spotted when you contrast black African immigrants whose families were not subjected to it.


This was the best argument for affirmative action when it was first proposed to give American blacks a few generations to catch up but now it’s become a source of power and advantage and as a rule no group will willingly give us power or advantage.


Human beings having a soul and the divine God given spark always have the potential to overcome such things, either by a change in circumstance, environment or by education (an actual education not the slop that’s taught today) however the Democrat left has an incentive to keep American blacks in such a state as it is a source of power and wealth for them in terms of the graft they syphon from government “solutions”.


That’s the real irony the party of slavery is still gaining wealth and power by exploiting the black community, but has managed to market this exploitation to that community as a desired feature rather than a bug.

If the Democrats had been this successful in marketing this crap 160 years ago to the black community as they have been today you’d not only still have slavery as an institution but you’d have black slaves telling abolitionists to get lost.

It’s worth noting that until the black community decides to revolt against this exploitation by the media/political and academic left that they’ve been sold and insist on being the makers of their own destiny and taking the responsibly and risks of such a move this condition won’t change.

Till then you will continue to have the spectacle of people who have never been slaves determined to punish people who have never been slaveholders for actions that neither they nor their parents over trauma they never experienced generated by wrongs that they never suffered.

In fairness it’s a whole lot easier to do the later than the former.

Oh and for the record the person in question took exception to my response threw some insults my way to go along with it and insisted that I not put such things in his timeline which is odd because I didn’t complain when someone put his words in mine.

He has a perfect right to this opinion and the beauty of Gab is that it protects that right of his. There is no “bigot” or “idiot” exception to the 1st amendment or to the principle of free speech. There is however also a right to free association and fortunately Gab protects my right to choose not to associate with such idiots and bigots who throw insults. Even better rather than making the decision for me as if I was not competent to do so they allow me to exercise that right myself and I was happy to do so right after his response.

As scripture says don’t bother throwing pearls before swine.

Take your negative Nancy attitude elsewhere

Posted: May 1, 2021 by ng36b in blogs, Uncomfortable Truths
Tags: , , ,

With rioting in major cities threatening due process, Congress wanting to print money until we look like Venezuela, and Gretchen Whitmer breaking her own travel regulations, its entirely OK to think that the United States has gone a little crazy. I can understand people wanting the way things were in 2019 back. I can understand people feeling cheated out of an election.

But I don’t get the “world is going to end now” attitude. I have friends and family that have said “We’re totally screwed, the United States is over as we know it.” Granted, they said this during the 2008 financial crisis and at multiple times during the Obama administration, but now, this time, its totally real.

If you are one of those negative Nancys, guess what: your crap attitude doesn’t help. Please keep your negative BS to yourself.

Now, if you’re mad at all this stupid situation and want to actually do something about it, then lets talk. Right now, people should be:

  • Securing your online information so that tech companies and antifa have less to exploit about you
  • Identify how you can volunteer at your local election
  • Identify your local election officials and make sure they know you want fair elections
  • Tell your state representatives you won’t tolerate unfair elections and they better do their jobs or they’ll be replaced
  • Band with your neighbors into a neighborhood watch to keep the antifa hoodlums out
  • Even better, identify these people and be prepared to out them to the police. They rely on stealth, once outed, they are pretty cowardly
  • Make sure you’re financially sound. Pay off your debt, get some investments in stocks, crypto and mutual funds, and put yourself on a path to financial freedom
  • Build a second income stream, even if its small it makes you a harder target to intimidate
  • Start meeting like-minded people in your community and build those relationships now

It’s infuriating to talk to people, especially older people that lived through the inflation of the 1970s, to continue to be gloom and doom. Newsflash: it doesn’t help anyone. Being concerned and taking action gets people motivated and excited, and might get the change started that our country so desperately needs.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, the negative Nancy that lives down my block, or any other government agency.

Dumb Expectations, Draft Misinformation, Narratives, Unexpected Future Traffic Stops, and Michael Corleone on the Deep State Under the Fedora

Posted: May 1, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

There is an article at the Washington Examiner about Catholics calling the 1st 100 days of the Biden Administration: “100 days of Disappointment”.

I can’t see how this can be the case for any informed person. To be disappointed requires expectation and anyone Catholic who has followed Joe Biden for the 50 years he has been on the public teat would not expect him to make any decision that was governed by the faith, even if he was actually in charge in DC.

If you actually had expectation of it being otherwise then I’m disappointed in you.

There is a lot of talk that the wokeness and sloppiness of the MSM has bled into the sport media but I actually think it’s the other way around and the best example of this has been the NFL draft.

For the last several months we have seen disinformation, speculation treated as credible evidence up for discussion and wholesale nonsense pushed on the public. Why here in New England today on a radio station that has spent the last three months insisting that Bill Belichick MUST trade up and pay any price to get one of the five elite QB’s available in this draft when he managed to get one of them (Mack Jones) with his 15th pick without you actually had a host complaining that Jones wasn’t a good pick because he he HAD been one they would have traded up for him.

Remember unless you are watching or listening to an actual play by play it’s just about winding you up to keep you there or if you have an “insider” advancing a particular front office’s narrative in exchange for access.

Yup just like regular media.

I found the whole “Cruz asleep during the Biden speech” story ironic because it remined me of the time Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal show approached me at CPAC to bring up solitaire on my new laptop so they could have an image to claim people weren’t listening to his speech and I called them out on it publicly that day.

It shows the double standard, if I had done what they asked they would have painted it as Trump’s fault for being boring rather than my fault for not paying attention in the press pool. With Ted Cruz the narrative is it’s his fault for closing his eyes rather than the fault of the Biden administration to make a boring presentation that means nothing.

Saw the same thing during campaign 2012 when I was covering the Santorum campaign, young reporters weren’t interested in reporting what was said but were dying to get a sound bite they could spin.

I bet the lot of them never got over being unpopular in highschool.

I keep reading about student government members anxious to hit police from their temporary pulpits.

The fact that employment managers will be googling them seems to be completely lost on them and that for all the woke positioning of major companies public most of these folks given the choice of someone who stirs controversy vs someone who will help sell their product or service will take the later every time.

I also have an odd feeling that these folks will find it odd that the moment they go over the speed limit, or fail to signal or violate various ordinances they will find themselves pulled over and or caught and somehow not escape with a warning.

Unexpectedly of course

I’m old enough to remember when the Giuliani story would have shocked me in terms of the abuse of power by the government/deep state.

These days the revelation that they’ve been going after him secretly since 2019 while President Trump was still in office elicits a yawn as I don’t expect better.

Michael Corleone had these guys pegged the year Biden got into office

Trump’s superpower was making these vermin come out into the open.

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