It’s not often that you see DaTechGuy’s laws of media outrage get violated.
When I heard about the shooter in Nashville being Transgender I presumed like the school shooting in Denver that it would disappear under DaTechGuy’s Third Law of Media Outrage which states:
The MSM’s elevation and continued classification of any story as Nationally Newsworthy rather than only of local interest is in direct correlation to said story’s current ability to affirm any current Democrat/Liberal/Media meme/talking point, particularly on the subject of race or sexuality.
But looking at the responses online I suspect the media sent too “all in” on the story early and now being unable to pivot away quick enough to make it a local story per DaTechGuy’s 3rd law has decided to go all in on DaTechGuy’s 2nd Law of Media Outrage which states:
The level of acceptance of the positions and/or actions of any group or organization by the left and media is directly proportional to their current or potential value in electing liberal Democrats.
In other words it appears they’ve decided to use mass murder by an “Oppressed transgender shooter ” to attack Red states that might dare make any laws that they claim might drive such a person to murder.
In fact this usage actually fits under the 3rd law because such a narrative affirms a current Democrat/Media talking point on a matter of sexuality.
I would hope that to normal people this attempted pivot would be a bridge too far and the beginning of the end of celebrating mental illness as normal behavior to be celebrated but I suspect not because once a culture decides to go Godless it becomes a question of “how low can you go”.
As Christians, Jews, and Muslims observe the important religious rites of Easter, Passover, and Ramadan, I suggest that every believer and nonbeliever read the seminal works of Russian author Leo Tolstoy and his search for the meaning of life and religion.
Born into Russian royalty in 1828, Tolstoy became one of the most influential authors in the world. War and Peace and Anna Karenina are two of the greatest novels ever written.
As a member of the Russian elite, the young Tolstoy lived a dissolute life of gambling, drinking, and debauchery.
But a crisis of conscience, particularly after his service in the Crimean War in the mid-1850, sent him into a deep depression.
His search for the meaning of life led him to a personal belief in God that also emphasized nonviolence and asceticism. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged the importance of Tolstoy’s writings in their beliefs.
A Confession, published in 1880, chronicles Tolstoy’s search for the meaning of life and the influence of God.
At the outset, Tolstoy admits that his life and those of the elite lacked any significant meaning except to engage in debauchery. He writes: “I asked: ‘What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause, and space?’ And I replied to quite another question: ‘What is the meaning of my life within time, cause, and space?’ With the result that, after long efforts of thought, the answer I reached was: ‘None’.”
Tolstoy explores the sciences for the meaning of life and finds them wanting because they can only define the mathematical explanation of existence.
He writes: “It was long before I could believe that human learning had no clear answer to this question. For a long time, it seemed to me, as I listened to the gravity and seriousness wherewith Science affirmed its positions on matters unconnected with the problem of life, that I must have misunderstood something. For a long time, I was timid in the presence in learning, and I fancied that the insufficiency of the answers which I received was not its fault but was owing to my own gross ignorance, but this thing was not a joke or a pastime with me, but the business of my life, and I was at last forced, willy-nilly, to the conclusion that these questions of mine were the only legitimate questions underlying all knowledge, and that it was not I that was in fault in putting them, but science in pretending to have an answer for them.”
For the most part, he found organized religion wanting, mainly because of the hypocrisy of those heading the Russian Orthodox Church, and that got him excommunicated from the church. Nevertheless, he found the simple faith of the working and lower classes much closer to how he thought religion should be centered on faith.
Finally, Tolstoy writes about a dream in which he is pushed out into a river and understands the meaning of his life. He writes: “The shore was God, the stream was tradition, and the oars were the free will be given to me to make it to the shore where I would be joined with God. Thus, the force of life was renewed within me, and I began to live once again.”
Tolstoy’s Confession and his later books, The Kingdom of God Is Within You and Resurrection, became more important to him than his recognized great works.
This season may be a good time to read this great man’s search for meaning.
Sarah Hoyt completely nailed the problem with the entire Trump vs DeSantis argument in twelve words
I STILL SAY NONE OF THIS MATTERS AS LONG AS FRAUD REMAINS
I suspect the primary reason Trump won is because Dems who had been stealing these states for years figured they didn’t have to that time around
I remember an old skit from the pre-python show “Do Not Adjust Your Set” where everybody in a criminal gang turned out to be an undercover policeman. I thought of this when I saw this piece at Hotair:
Clearly this Administration’s demand for violent opponents of this administration from the right clearly exceeds the supply. So the idea is “do it yourself”
And of course who cares about the norms of evidence when there are political opponents to defeat.
Former soldier Kurt Schlichter notes trust in the leadership of the Military continues to sink as the mission is now wokeness
Why the hell should anybody join the military right now? Don’t tell me that it is “to defend the United States” because that’s not what the military’s primary occupation appears to be anymore. Let’s review. We just had former admiral and current Biden Baghdad Bob, smarmy State Department Spokesperson John Kirby, announce that a “core part” of United States foreign policy is “LGBTQ+ rights.” You know, not a lot of normal people particularly want to suffer and bleed for that blue coastal fetish. Maybe they do in the rich liberal neighborhoods where Kirby’s masters live – actually, they are happy for your kids to suffer and bleed for it, not their own.
At Don Surber’s substack today he notes how Trump played Allen Bragg and the media like a fiddle concerning an indictment. The best part of it is this:
NBC said, “Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week.”
As early as next week!
Politico said to Trump, I’ll see your Tuesday and raise you a Monday.
Reuters reported early last Monday, “Former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to be indicted by a grand jury late Monday or on Wednesday in a hush payments case involving a porn star, Politico reported on Monday, citing three unidentified people involved in the deliberations.”
The walls are closing in!
When the walls had not moved on Monday, Politico changed its story
It seemed that the media had plenty of sources ready to say the indictment was coming this day or that day or some other day but it just never came.
Yeah maybe Trump tried to game Bragg but every media outlet was ready quickly had sources to say something that didn’t come was coming.
amazing.
Finally former Magnificent Seven Writer Juliette Baldilocks Ochieng has the must read piece of the day on her substack on what she saw in CA during the early days of the “lockdowns” :
That first day when I went I out and headed east on I-10, I knew.
I-10 West was pretty much at a dead stop. Taking brief glances over the median, I could see that the traffic consisted mostly of work trucks. Construction workers, gardeners, handymen, plumbers, pool service. Free agents and companies. You name the type of worker, and they were chilling at 0 MPH on the I-10 at 6:30 AM on February 3 March 19, 2020. Bumper to bumper.
I-10 West leads to the 405, and obviously to all points west of that like Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and Beverly Hills. And the 405 North leads to cities where people of means live: entertainment professionals, actors, producers and the like – in other words, rich people. So, all these fine, working gentlemen were heading out to service the houses of these people – to cut their grass, to service their swimming pools, to fix any construction and plumbing issues, and so on. You have to remember how afraid everyone was back then – that some kind of new, virulent disease was destined to kill us all. But the rich did not believe it, and neither did I.
Juiliette might not be writing here but she’s just as worth worth reading as she’s always been.. Go over and subscribe if you haven’t yet.
If you like elaborate clothes, eye-catching special effects, and being transported 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.
With the second season, which began streaming mid-month, we have more of the same.
Shadow and Bone is based on a young adult fiction series of books, set-in an alternative universe centered mostly on the nation of Ravka, which in turn is based on circa–1880s Russia. The costumes are Emmy-worthy, as is the CG art direction. The acting? Not so much.
The central character of Shadow and Bone is a Grisha, Alina Starkova (Jessie Mei Li), a practitioner, although this term isn’t used much in the show, of magic. She’s a Chosen One character, an orphan like Harry Potter, who is dubbed the Sun Summoner. Alina is reluctantly placed in the position to heal the world of many ills, including disposing of “The Fold,” a smoke wall of sorts, inhabited by pterodactyl-like beasts that divides Ravka–kind of how the Ural Mountains separate European and Asian Russia.
The Fold is the creation of an evil Grisha, General Kirigan (Ben Barnes), also known as the Darkling. His dream is–along the lines of Darth Vader’s recruitment of his son, Luke Skywalker–to combine their talents and create a dark version of Utopia.
Season Two begins as Alina, accompanied by her love interest who she met in an orphanage years earlier, Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux), are headed to Noyvi Zem, an African-like nation. They are internationally known fugitives and…well really now, do you think they’ll go unnoticed? It is in Noyvi Zem where they connect with a key figure, Sturmhond (Patrick Gibson), a pirate, or as he calls himself, a privateer.
Also back for the second season are the Crows, a midlevel trio of organized crime schemers: Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), Jesper Fahey (Kit Young), and Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman). They were hired by an underworld figure to kidnap Alina. The Crows have returned to their base of Ketterdam, a thriving city of vice based on Amsterdam. The Crows have two new members, another Grisha, Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan), and an explosives expert, Wylan Van Eck (Jack Wolfe).
If there are midlevel hoodlums in Ketterdam, then of course there must be a Big Boss. That man is Pekka Rollins (Dean Lennox Kelly).
I observed in my Season One review that the Crows are much more interesting characters than Alina and Mal–and apparently, I’m not the only person who believes that, because a spinoff series centered around the Crows may be in the works. But if viewership of the second season tails off and the show is cancelled, we probably won’t see a Crows series.
As of today, Shadow and Bone is ranked fourth in viewership on Netflix.
There are many more Shadow and Bone characters–too many of them. And too many subplots.
What about those Grisha? Even they are confusing.
There are three levels, I think, of Grishas. They are the Summoners who have power of wind, water and fire, Alina is one of those, the Heartrenders, whose powers are over the body, and Durasts, whose domain is chemicals, rocks, and the like. But the Grishas are not explicitly defined in Shadow and Bone, unless I missed something. A vintage-era Hollywood scriptwriter could have solved that head-scratcher by adding a one-minute conversation between Alina and a random passenger on the ship to Noyvi Zem, who could ask her, “Tell me about all of the Grishas?”
One of my criticisms of Season One is that maps showing the different countries were needed for coherency. This season has them.
Are there monsters? Yes, some ho-hum smoke beasts who are impervious to gunfire. And as I’ve seen too many times in bad mid-20th century science-fiction serials, of course that doesn’t stop characters here from shooting at them again and again.
While the universe of Shadow and Bone is of the late 19th century, there are some 21st century flavors. Ravka (Russia) is predominately white but multiracial. Nearly all of the romantic pairings are interracial–and there is nothing wrong with that.
But rather than focusing on check-box casting, Shadow and Bone needs to present viewers plotlines that are easy to follow, stronger performances from lead actors, and more frightening monsters.
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