From the Desk of…
I woke up with a mindgrain, and I need to get to the airport, so I’ll not spend too much time up here.
Go to governor.ohio.gov/contact and tell him to veto HB 68. For those of you just tuning in, HB 68 is an odious anti-trans bill targeted at children that would ban gender-affirming care as well as ban trans athletes from sports participation. Again, Governor Mike DeWine can be contacted at 614-466-3555 or governor@governor.ohio.gov.
Speaking of odious, Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Secretary of State currently corralling state resources to advance his campaign for senate, was not endorsed by Trump. Trump, despite LaRose’s supplicating in the past few years, went for Bernie Moreno instead. A lot of ink has already been spilled this morning about how juiceless LaRose is, and you can go read the timeline of the LaRose War Room’s collapse over at The Rooster.
Speaking of Trump, the Colorado Supreme Court, in what will assuredly be decried as the political act of liberal judicial activists by gibbering fascist goons, has ruled that Trump is ineligible to appear on 2024 ballots in the state due to simple administrative and clerical errors such as “treason” and “insurrection” that happened in the end of his presidency. How will the Supreme Court find? Will they overturn precedent and federalize elections? Opens a mighty door if they do. Will they affirm that states can make such determinations? Opens a mighty door if they do. A smart judiciary probably wouldn’t even touch the case. Seems unlikely though!
Speaking of ineligible to appear, Jonathan Majors, who had been set up as the main villain of Phase 4—wait, this article says “Phases 4 through 6,” are we really into the sixth phase of this nonsense?—who had been set up as the main villain of a number of Marvel Cinematic Universe properties as indeterminable as they are interminable, has been found guilty by a jury of reckless assault and harassment. Majors, last seen loitering outside of a high school waiting for a fight to break out, vows to keep fighting to clear his name, but that’s too long a wait for the House of M(ouse) which has simply warped reality to be rid of him. [Ed. Note: if you chuckled at that one, go play outside for a bit.]
Speaking of vowing to fight, a Trumbull County commissioner was arrested during a meeting after criticizing the county sheriff. I know people hate clicking links, but I think this one might be worth it. The commissioner, Niki Frenchko, a Republican, gets portrayed as getting into disruptive antics during the meetings like one might expect, and she brings up interesting questions about the rights of prisoners and the treatment of inmates in the Trumbull County Jail, which state inspectors have cited for health and mental health issues as recently as last year and which is currently embroiled in a civil rights lawsuit regarding the death of Alfonso Askew. Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe, a Democrat, is now named among others in Frenchko’s civil rights lawsuit regarding her rights to speech during a public meeting. The article’s a real rollercoaster; read it or don’t. I don’t know what to make of any of it at this point. Let’s move on, shall we?
The Brain Dump
ah, finally off work. time to kick back and relax by ordering two bloomin' onions, a steak salad, lobster tails, a filet, a chicken sandwich and a sirloin from Outback Steakhouse on DoorDash before checking Twitter
maybe we should spend less time on Amazon clicking Add to Cart and more time in our amazing world using Add to Heart
[Bob Dylan voice] i took my love, i took it down
last night I dreamed that some raging party ended up at a dive bar for last call and Tom Waits was there perched by the taps like a gargoyle and I sat down and he started telling stories at me and I felt like the face of God emerged from the smoke and rack lighting
bad time to announce it but the colorado supreme court also holds that i am disqualified from holding the presidency
There are like twelve people on track to complete the Christmas Challenge. I’ll just have to enworsen it next year.
At the Movies
Once we’re through the season, this section is compressing back to three reviews tops.
A Biltmore Christmas (2023), dir. John Putch ⭐⭐⭐
maybe they should've biltless
Round and Round (2023), dir. Stacey N. Harding ⭐⭐⭐⭐
this is real close to bumping up to five, frankly. maybe if i watch it again next year. this is pretty darn good for its weight class.
i would be so good at getting groundhog day'd.
Full-Court Miracle (2003), dir. Stuart Gillard ⭐⭐⭐
easily my favorite Hanukkah basketball movie
A Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986), dir. Henry Winkler ⭐⭐⭐
this should've been about Mountain Dan fighting the witch
at Christmas, or whatever
Batman Returns (1992), dir. Tim Burton ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
My mother was an old-school movie pirate. She had two TVs next to each other with two VCRs hooked up so she could tape movies she rented. This had a couple effects on me. One was that it created unbreakable associations between unrelated films by putting them back-to-back on the same tape. Another was that sometimes parts of movies, often credits scenes or openings, would get lost as another film jumped on. Such was the case with Batman Returns. For years, the version of the movie I watched cut as the cameras panned up to show the Gotham skyline, leaving the ultimate fate of Catwoman wholly unresolved. I loved that ambiguity. It was so dark and unsettling and fit so well with such a moody movie. Color me surprised years later when I caught it on cable and found out Mom had just taped over the final shot!
Anyway, this movie exists in the center of a good many Venn diagrams of my interests. As I say often, I can't imagine why I have have such an affinity for the Batman movie where the gross weird resentful man from the sewers and his circus performers launch a failed bid for mayor during the German Expressionist Art Deco Christmastime and then try to punish the elites of Gotham. That's not even delving into the office worker getting some ultimate revenge on her boss, or the rampant weird sexual stuff, or the many great outfits. I have loved this movie for a long time, and I can't see myself stopping soon.
Also, Vincent Schiavelli.
One Picture
if you're looking for your DVD copy of dr. dolittle 2, i almost ran over it in the udf parking lot
In closing,
You know, Scrooged is an imperfect movie, but I love the final monologue that Murray delivers. His opener, that Christmas Eve is “the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more. For a couple hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be,” encapsulates my feelings about the season. I mean, to hell with the commercialization and the religion, I think we as people deserve a time of year where we make the effort to give, we make the effort to do and say nice things for each other, we make the effort to reach out to old friends and new friends and say hello, and it’s not just one person making that effort, it’s not just you making that effort, it’s everybody making that effort. Making that effort can be so thankless and it can be so fruitless, and it can be so draining when you give and give and give and it feels like you’re just screaming into the void, but you have to keep making that effort, and you have to try and recognize when people are making the effort towards you, and Christmas is the time of year when people who maybe haven’t been making the effort try to make the effort, and maybe it’s been a hard year, and maybe they don’t need a reason why they haven’t made the effort, but Christmas is when they make the effort and when they try to reciprocate and include and give, and that’s the magic. That’s the magic of Christmas, and that’s what it means to carry the spirit of Christmas throughout the year, to keep trying, to keep making the effort, and even when you screw up, you have to get back at it and just keep trying to be nicer and kinder and more thankful and more giving, and if everyone made a year-round effort at that, think of the world we’d live in.
Until next time, make the miracle happen. If you give, then it can happen, then the miracle can happen to you. Lot of people give.
Did ya give??