Archive for 2022

Review: Season 6 of Peaky Blinders

Posted: June 19, 2022 by John Ruberry in entertainment, media
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Earlier this month Season Six of the BBC gangster drama, Peaky Blinders, began streaming on Netflix.

The show centers on a Birmingham Romani organized crime family, the Shelbys, and the leader of that gang, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy). He’s a World War I veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, who manages to build a business empire, while getting elected to Parliament as a member of the Labour Party.

This will be the final season of Peaky Blinders, although a movie is said to be in the works.

The next two paragraphs contain some Season 5 and 6 spoilers.

During Season 5 a new major character, Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin), a Birmingham member of Parliament like Tommy Shelby, is introduced. He’s the founder of a British fascist party–and Mosley was a real person. Shelby’s relationship with Mosley is complicated, which fits the show as the plot lines are anything but simplistic. Shelby’s plot to assassinate Mosley–the real Oswald died of natural causes in 1980–is foiled by the Irish Republican Army. The IRA kills the would-be assassin and other member of the Peaky Blinders, the “muscle” end of the Shelby operation.

While Tommy is the leader of the gang, his aunt, Elizabeth Pollyanna “Polly” Shelby Gray (Helen McCrory), was the glue of the enterprise, formally known as Shelby Family Limited. But McCrory died at 52 of lung cancer in 2021, just as production of this season started. Other than Tommy Shelby, Aunt Polly was the most important character in Peaky Blinders. Her off-screen death was a tough blow for the show. To compensate, the role of Tommy’s sister, Ada Thorne (Sophie Rundle), is elevated, but Rundle is placed in an impossible position. Meanwhile, Polly’s son, Michael Gray (Finn Cole), holds Tommy responsible for Polly’s murder.

Also back in Season 5, another new character Gina (Anya Taylor-Joy), Michael’s wife, makes her debut. We learn in the new season that Gina is the niece of South Boston gangster Jack Nelson (James Frecheville). He’s a not-too-thinly disguised characterization of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Like the patriarch of the Kennedy dynasty, Nelson has anti-Semitic and fascist leanings. Calm down my liberal friends, it’s true about Kennedy. With Prohibition over, Tommy and Nelson hope to offset the end of it by smuggling opium into Boston. 

Mosley has a new lover, Lady Diana Mitford (Amber Anderson). She declares herself to Ada, in cruder terms, as a bisexual but she also has her eyes on Tommy. The real Mitfort was the first cousin of Winston Churchill’s wife, Clementine. Unless this plotline is being saved for the Peaky Blinders movie, I am stupefied why this angle wasn’t developed into the storyline. The future wartime leader, amazingly is portrayed by three actors over the six seasons, makes a cameo appearance in Season 6. 

Season 5 ends and Season 6 begins with Tommy wallowing in mud. And mud is fitting metaphor for this season, while good, falls short of the greatness of Peaky Blinders, although I didn’t care for the Russian diversion in Season 3. The final episode of this last season, nearly 90 minutes long, is the best, as Tommy’s older brother, Arthur (Paul Anderson), emerges somewhat from his alcohol and drug induced haze as the Shelbys face a two-front war. A third front of sorts is there too as Tommy’s marriage with Lizzie (Natasha O’Keeffe) faces challenges. 

In regard to Nelson, Season 6 would have been much more interesting if instead Joseph P. Kennedy was the Boston foil for Tommy.

Surprisingly, while the show continues with a dark and gothic soundtrack, the unofficial theme song, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” is sadly missing. But arguably the worst song Bob Dylan ever recorded, “All The Tired Horses,” covered by Lisa O’Neill, is included.

All six seasons of Peaky Blinders are currently streaming on Netflix. It is rated TV-MA for nudity, drug use, foul language, and violence. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Honey bees and communism

Posted: June 18, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,
The author checking on one of his hives. These bees were removed from the third story of a home, hence the odd-looking comb.

A honey bee colony is composed of thousands of individual bees. Almost all of these bees are female workers. The workers spend their whole life working on behalf of the colony. Newly hatched workers take care of the inside of the colony, cleaning out honey cells, taking care of the young, and tending to the queen bee. As these workers get older, they begin flying out to gather nectar (which they use to make honey) and pollen (which is used to raise young bees).

Like all good little communist workers, the worker bees continue to work until they literally burn out. During the year, a worker bee lifespan is about 42 days. Some workers will get eaten by a variety of animals or other insects, while others fall victim to pesticides or bad weather. If she manages to survive all of these dangers, an old worker bee that can no longer contribute to the hive faces a dilemma. If she tries to retire to work a less intensive job, her sisters will pull her out of the hive and throw her off the landing board. Most spent workers instead commit a sort of bee-suicide, simply flying away and dying alone.

Life for the male bees, called drones, is not much better. Drones are larger and have better eyesight, but gather no nectar or pollen. Instead, they simply eat off the stores that their sisters build up. Drones fly out during the day looking for a virgin queen to mate with. If they succeed in this endeavor they die, as certain…body parts…break off during copulation. If drones don’t mate by the end of the year, before the onset of winter, the other worker bees will throw them off the landing board and keep them out of the hive, since they aren’t needed for the winter and take up space. I imagine this is a sort of “This is SPARTA!” moment for the worker bees, freeing themselves of the loafers that sat around guzzling their gathered honey all year.

Even the queen, who can live up to five years, doesn’t live the glorious lifestyle we would associate with her title. She lays anywhere between 800 to 3,000 eggs a day in the hive, allowing the hive to grow and stay strong. But as a queen ages and struggles to maintain this level of activity, the hive will begin building a queen cell, where it will raise a new queen. Once that new queen returns after mating, the honey bees will ball up around the old queen and smother her to death.

Honey bee society almost perfectly mirrors communism. No bee owns anything. The honey cells are open to all bees. Everyone does their job for the good of the hive. This model can be amazingly productive. Some honeybee hives can produce over a hundred pounds of honey in a year. Considering that a gallon of honey takes around 55,000 “bee miles” of flight to produce, the bees certainly prove that a communist society can produce good results when everyone is dedicated to the cause.

But bees also show the dark side of communism. Once a bee is no longer useful to the hive, its cast out to die without thought or mercy. Whether it is workers that are used up, drones that never mated with a virgin queen, or a queen that can’t lay enough eggs, the hive is fast to discard any bee deemed no longer useful. There is no bee retirement. Heck, bees can’t even live alone, as experiments have shown they die if not in the hive despite having plenty of food and water.

Honey bees give us a glimpse into what communist perfection looks like, a world that can be both amazingly productive and savagely dehumanizing at the same time. While not everything translates from bee to man, the similarities do exist. I wonder if bees were placed on this earth by God to teach lessons about ourselves. Wisdom is often described as learning from the mistakes and successes of others. Perhaps we would be wise to learn from the honey bee before attempting to model our society after a hive.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this article, consider purchasing a book from the author or donating to Da Tech Guy.

Lawrence MA, Indoctrinate Your Children Well?

Posted: June 18, 2022 by datechguy in education
Tags: , ,

And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

John 3:19-21

I don’t do as much investigative reporting as I used to but every now and then information falls into my lap that is…interesting such as:

This is one of several images provided to me as a tip concerning a workbook which is propertied to be used at elementary schools in Lawrence MA.

The images from the tipster came with a message that said in part:

All Teachers were given these workbooks to use in Circle time with students.   My friend knows of a couple other Teachers that feel exactly the same way as her, but don’t want to speak up in fear of losing their job

I spoke to the direct sources of the material who informed me that this had in fact been introduced at the start of the year and that this was part of a very “woke” bit of Critical Race Theory (relabeled as CRT has become toxic) that the system has been pushing for some time as the Valley Patriot had already reported:

Educators in Lawrence were encouraged to attend a race-based, segregated “Auditing” session being conducted by a radical left-wing, racist group called BlackPrint.

According to their website, BlackPrint teaches and encourages the teaching of “White Privilege” (that White people are inherently racist and enjoy privileges in society other races don’t enjoy).

BlackPrint first conducts an “audit” of the “feelings” of non-white teachers about race and racism, and then offers school districts “professional development” courses (teacher training) to change the “culture” in the classroom. BlackPrint is paid for their services by the district through grants.

Using the philosophy that only white people can be racist, PlackPrint calls their teacher trainings, and “audits” “anti-racism” while glorifying anti-white culture and vilifying “European colonization”.

I happen to work with a lot of people of color from Lowrance who might not be all that thrilled with folks pushing this type of stuff over reading and writing but I digress.

You might wonder why I’ve only got this cover sheet up rather than all that I have, nor have I mentioned any further details or the specific school in question that I’ve been informed this has been used in. This is because, not being a member of the MSM whose primary goal is ambush journalism I thought I’d give the school a call and confirm that:

  1. These are in fact materials given out to teachers for use with their students.
  2. They are suggested to be used in the low elementary grades
  3. That it is the intent of the school to teach these, shall we call them “theories” to young students.
  4. And of course if the parents of the students in question are aware that this is the plan.

So I’m going to give them till say Tuesday to get back to me by email and/or phone before I run with the substance here and let them respond. After that perhaps I’ll run with a bit at a time to make it a series.

It will be interesting to see what they say but for my money it will be more interesting to talk to the immigrant moms at my work who are from Lawrence with kids in the system to find out if this is the stuff they came to America to have their children taught.

Another Casualty of the Biden Administration Economy: My Favorite Restaurant and Our Plans for Our 35th Wedding Anniversary.

Posted: June 17, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Yesterday DaWife and I went out for lunch and started discussing what we were going to do next year for out 35th Anniversary and our 60th Birthdays which all fall within two months of each other.

We had talked about long road trips, maybe a return to the Missouri Star Quilt Company or perhaps visiting several Major League Parks. But with Gas already over $5 a gallon and the prospect of restricts of travel and hotels made such a choice complicated.

So yesterday we decided we would just have a big party and our first thought was to rent out our favorite restaurant Happy Jacks in Leominster.

We have been going there since before our kids were born, back in the days when it was the Border Bar and Grille. When they relocated closer to the house we would go there regularly and before COVID their lunch Buffett was our regular lunch spot.

Even with lunch dropped we would manage to get there. On Tuesday work was quiet and we were let out at 9:30. Me and some friends from work dashed down and enjoyed their all out can eat Tacos for Taco Tuesday till the Kitchen Closed.

They had survived the Downturns during the Bush and Obama years and had thrived during Donald Trump’s time in office but after over three decades they ran into something that even they could not endure.

The Biden Administration Economy.

Last night less than 6 hours after we decided to have them cater our party next year this appeared on their facebook page

I found out about it when I got home.

I have a lot of found memories of this place, too many to go through here, I won’t be having any more.

In the grand scheme of things it’s just one more business that has gone under thanks to the Biden Administration Economy and the steal of the last election. It’s just a few more jobs lost by people who worked there for decades, it’s just one more person whose decades of hard work building a business has gone for naught. Nobody in Washington will note it, it will not make the NY Time or the Washington Post or the TV news nor will those in the administration which insists we have a booming economy notice that it is gone.

But there are likely thousands of such causalities all over the country and the Biden Administration and those who helped them steal an election caused them, and no amount of spin will change that fact.

Older Entries
Newer Entries