Archive for the ‘media’ Category

Review: Season Three of Ozark

Posted: April 5, 2020 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media
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By John Ruberry

Late last month Season Three of Ozark began streaming on Netflix. The center point of the story is the Bryde family, father Marty (Jason Bateman), a former Chicago financial planner, mother Wendy (Laura Linney), a onetime Illinois Democrat political operative, and their children, teens Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz), and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner).

In the first season Marty, talks his way out of assassination by convincing his killers that he can be of great use to his Mexican drug cartel client, who turns out to be Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), by laundering even more money for him in the Lake of the Ozarks region of southern Missouri. He does that of course for self-survival, but also for his family.

If you haven’t seen Ozark yet the following paragraph and the trailer contains minor spoilers.

But being the money guy–with bloody hands–is a strain for the other Byrdes, even though Wendy is for the most part a willing participant as the family moves up from laundering cash though a failing restaurant, then a fledgling church, and finally a casino boat, which is how the second season ends–the final shot is a sepia still of the Byrdes–with none of them smiling–at the grand opening. 

Warning: “F bomb” in the trailer.

The second season introduced the cartel’s lawyer, the cold-blooded Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer), another Chicagoan. Like the Byrdes, she is facing a challenge by balancing her criminality with her family, specifically her teen daughter Erin (Madison Thompson). Helen and Erin in Season Three move to the Ozarks for the summer.

The primary new character in the third season is Wendy’s troubled younger brother Ben Davis (Tom Pelphrey), who offers the best performance so far in Ozark in an Emmy-worthy performance. Laura Linney is superb again too.

Meanwhile the Navarros are at war with another cartel. And as with most of the major European wars since the 17th century, the battles cannot stay contained in a tight geographic area. The cartels are always “all in” in their fights–and the title of the last episode of the third season is “All In.”

The FBI, which is not shown in a favorable light throughout the series, remains hot on the heals of the Byrdes. Which means Marty and Wendy not only have to balance their money laundering and shell companies with the needs of Navarro along with the demands of parenthood, but they are also under the constant scrutiny of the FBI, this time led by an agent of better character than what we’ve seen before here, Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Dukes). 

One one more headache for the Byrdes is the Kansas City mob.

Of course there was criminality in the Ozarks before the arrival of the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of Missouri, Marty and Wendy, who as F. Scott Fitzgerald said of former in The Great Gatsby, “smashed up things and creatures.” Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), the leader of that family’s small-time criminal family, is now an integral member of Bryde Family Enterprises. But the other homegrown female crime leader, Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery), an avowed enemy of the Brydes, revs up her operation after a respite.

This is the best Ozark season yet. The penultimate episode, “Fire Pink,” is the most powerful one and it contains an homage to the film noir classic The Killers, which starred Burt Lancaster. The 1964 remake, a thriller with John Cassavetes in the Lancaster role, is worth a look too. It was Ronald Reagan’s last dramatic film appearance. 

Ozark is rated TV-MA. It contains graphic violence, torture, obscene language, and nudity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

My Favorite Screwtape Quote, Journalists and #learntomanufacture

Posted: March 31, 2020 by datechguy in American Success Stories, business, culture, media, News/opinion
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If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that I like to quote the C.S. Lewis Class The Screwtape letters which is a series of letters from a senior tempter in hell, Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood who is assigned to tempt and help damn a particular Englishman during 1939 and 1940.

Of all the quotes I’ve used from the 39 various letters the one I’ve used most often comes from a letter excoriating Screwtape for allowing his “patient” an actual pleasure that resulted in repentance.

The characteristic of Pains and Pleasures is that they are unmistakably real, and therefore, as far as they go, give the man who feels them a touchstone of reality. Thus if you had been trying to damn your man by the Romantic method…you would try to protect him at all costs from any real pain; because, of course, five minutes’ genuine toothache would reveal the romantic sorrows for the nonsense they were and unmask your whole stratagem.

C.S. Lewis Screwtape 13

This has been the great reality of that our current situation has brought us. What has become rapidly apparent is that items that were considered critical for anyone of virtue, from discarding plastic bags and plastic straws to using the right pronouns are nothing compared to stocking shelves, and delivering food, to wit:

“We went from being nobodies to essential workers,” said Chad Montgomery, also a driver with Challenger Motor Freight. “I’ve never felt appreciated in my job until now. A lot of people don’t realize it takes a truck to get stuff on shelves. If it wasn’t for a truck driver, you would have nothing.”

via ace who likely already knew this, but a lot of people, particuarly those in elite media, either in news or entertainment do not grasp that while we can live without media reports or new movies, we can’t live without the food and goods the truckers deliver.

Nothing illustrates this better than journalists who when nuts when Mike Lindell of My Pillow took the podium at the president’s latest presser. Our media betters all had shocked reactions, great quips and clever one liners to deploy at his expense.

What could he offer that was more important than that? Only a factory being retooled to create 50,000 N95 masks a day that the country needs desperately right now.

The reality that is this crisis has illustrated what’s real and what isn’t to a culture that had forgotten.

So to our media and entertainment friends who consider themselves so vital I have some suggestions for you via hashtags

  1. #learntotruck
  2. #learntofarm
  3. #learntomanufacture
  4. #learntostock

When you can do those things, then you’ll be as important as a truck driver or a farmer or a grocery store worker or maybe if you’re very lucky someday, the MyPillow guy.

One point missing from Stacy McCain’s ‘Grisly Calculus’ on the Corona/Wuhan Virus

Posted: March 24, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, media, News/opinion, politics
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On Saturday Robert Stacy McCain put up an excellent post concerning the math of the Corona/Wuhan virus:

Notice I’m counting deaths, rather than the reported number of infections. The reason for this is that death is a fixed target, whereas identifying people who are infected is variable. It has been reported that about 80% of people infected with Wuhan coronavirus have only mild symptoms — a few days of sniffling and sneezing, no different than the common cold — and some have no symptoms at all. There has been a shortage of tests for the virus, and many U.S. patients have only been tested in the past few days, so we can expect a significant upswing in the number of known cases over the next week or so, but that does not necessarily mean the actual number of cases is increasing. Therefore, I’m focusing strictly on the number of deaths from the virus.

This is an important point because reducing the number of deaths is the actual goal of all the draconian measures taken to this point.

Stacy Also points out something I’ve mentioned on the Podcast more than once that blue urban areas are the ones most affected.

The key will be to keep track of (a) the total number of U.S. deaths, and (b) the percentage of deaths in the top 10 states in comparison to the rest of the country. As I say, the number of people reported as infected may increase rapidly without telling us very much. You could test positive for Wuhan coronavirus and never get very sick at all. It’s the serious cases requiring hospitalization that will put a strain on our health-care system, and the number of deaths will be a good barometer of how that’s going.

If you don’t have any symptoms, you don’t need to be tested. The media are panicking about the lack of testing because guess what? The media are based in urban centers where the risk of getting this disease is much higher than it is for Americans living out in the boondocks

That’s part of the key as well, if you are in an urban center and/or a place full of people who travel internationally you are much more likely to get the virus than if you are getting a scallop dinner for takeout at Mike’s Clam Shack in Wells Maine as I did with DaWife on Friday. Thus NY, Chicago LA & DC have cause more cause for concern than folks in Fitchburg MA or Wells ME.

But there is one other component of the math that Stacy is Missing concerning the hue and cry over testing. It a point I was making concerning the President’s handling of the case during my tale of Brer Donkey, Brer Rino, Brer Trump and the Coronabriarpatch

Meanwhile Brer Trump took Brer Owl and his team’s advice and coordinated with industry. He realized that while you couldn’t destroy the #coronabriarpatch he started taking the steps needed to keep the #coronabriarpatch under control and did such a good job that even Brer Newsom and Brer Cuomo who worked for Brer Donkey had some nice things to say about him.

Nevertheless Brer Media, Brer Deepstate Brer Rino and Brer Donkey kept insisting that millions of people where going to die and the economy of Brer Eagle’s land was going to tank in the #coronabriarpatch because Brer Trump was doing a bad job. They insisted be thrown in the CornoaBriarPatch and prove there was a safe way out. They were convinced that he wouldn’t be able to get out before election day to stop Brer Old Slow Joe.

Remember for the media and the left the Corona Virus isn’t a dangerous disease that needs to be stopped, to them Donald Trump is the disease and the Corona Virus and panic over it are the tools to use in order to destroy him.

That’s why they are so fixated on the number of infections vs the number of deaths and why they are so anxious to push the idea that not having a test for everyone is proof of failure. This isn’t about informing the public in a crisis situation, it’s about throwing that same “Orange Man Bad” pitch that they’ve been hurling for three years and tying to generate a metric to help that pitch alone.

As I noted on twitter a few days ago:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Anyone who thinks the media has changed its stripes over this crisis is a fool.

CNN Letter to Sean Davis (with apologies to Abe Lincoln & Horace Greeley)

Posted: March 23, 2020 by datechguy in elections, fun, media, News/opinion, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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There are many who seem confused by the MSM’s behavior toward China, Russia Iran and even towards the efforts to arrest the spread of the Corona / Wuhan Virus in the US. This behavior has drawn harsh responses from conservatives and confusion to those who believe the media operate in the pubic interest. For those who might be confused this letter might explain their actions:

CNN offices,
Atlanta, March 22, 2020.

Sean Davis The Federalist:
Dear Sir.

We have just read your tweet of the 21st. addressed to ourselves through that medium & previous statements through the Federalist. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which we may know to be erroneous, We and other mainstream media do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which we may believe to be falsely drawn, We do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, We waive it in deference to a fellow member of the media although as you are on the right you don’t really deserve such deference.

As to the policy We “seem to be pursuing” as you say, we have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

We would save the Union from Donald Trump. We would save it the shortest way under the Constitution or outside of it. The sooner the national authority of our allies in the Deep state in general and the Democrat party in particular, can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” before those horrible days of the internet, Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge in the days before he decided to join our noble cause.

If there be those who would not save the Union from Donald Trump, unless they could at the same time attack Communist China or Putin Iran and save the nation from the spread of the Corona Virus , We do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Communist China, Putin or even Iran, We do not agree with them.

Our paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union from Donald Trump, and is not either to save or to destroy Communist China, Putin Iran or even the Corona Virus. If we could save the Union from Donald Trump without helping Communist China, Russia, Iran or even the spread of the Corona virus we would do it, and if we could save the Union from Donald Trump by directly helping Communist China, Russia, Iran and the spread of the Corona Virus we would do it; and if we could save the Union from Donald Trump, by helping Communist China, Russia, Iran and the spread of the corona virus in some cases and hindering Communist China, Russia, Iran and the spread of the Corona Virus in others we would also do that.

What we write, broadcast and report about Communist China, Russia, Iran and the Corona Virus,we do because we believe it helps to save the Union from Donald Trump; and what we forbear, we forbear because we do not believe it would help to save the Union from Donald Trump.

We shall do less to help efforts to fight the Corona Virus in the US whenever we shall believe what we are doing hurts the cause of defeating Donald Trump in November, and we shall do more to help efforts to fight the Corona Virus whenever we shall believe doing more will help the cause of defeating Donald Trump in November. We shall try to correct errors when shown to be also errors in our efforts in obtaining that goal of Trump destruction; and we shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be in aid of that effort to destroy Donald Trump.

We have here stated our purpose, shared by other members of the media on TV, online and in print according to our view of the official duty of the media to destroy conservatism in general and Donald Trump in particular; and we intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free of Donald Trump in particular and conservatism in general.

Yours,
CNN.

If you wish to read a slightly modified version of this letter which was sent by some fellow named Abe Lincoln to a newspaperman by the name of Horace Greeley on August 22nd 1862 in response to critiques of his actions concerning fighting of the American Civil War you can read it here.

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