Book Reviews: Monster Hunter Vendetta

Monster Hunter Vendetta
by Larry Correia

This is book two in Correia's Monster Hunter series. To recap, just about everything that goes bump in the night is real. The government pays mercenaries or "hunters" who kill or capture (mostly kill) monsters. The government also keeps a watchful eye on these mercenaries, often interfering with their activities for "national security" reasons. At every incident with monsters the government is there to clean up the mess, provide cover stories, handle the media and "convince" witnesses that they didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Particularly stubborn witnesses might find themselves "disappeared". The primary mercenary group is Monster Hunter International. They are overseen by the federal government's Monster Control Bureau. Owen Pitt is the hero of the series. He's a former accountant of rather large size, much like the author, who having survived an encounter with a werewolf with his body and soul intact, joined Monster Hunter International. Monster Hunter International is run by the Shackleford family. This includes Julie Shackleford, Owen's love interest and soon to be wife, and her great grandfather Earl Harbinger. Earl is an all around bad$$$ who also happens to be a werewolf. Earl is not eligible for any bounties, not that anyone would be stupid enough to try. In the first book Owen and his team, Julie, his buddy Trip and former stripper Holly, saved the world from being devoured by those beyond. As part of this process a nuclear bomb was detonated in the dimension where the evil Lovecraftian god The Dread Overlord existed. This didn't kill the Dread Overload. But it did make him pretty upset. And Owen Pitt has moved to the top of the evil god's sh**list. 

In this book the Dread Overlord has sent its cult and wizards after Pitt. It wants Pitt brought to its dimension. Preferably alive, but not necessarily with all of his limbs. To this end the cult has pulled out all the stops to get Pitt. This means destroying Monster Hunter International and going after Pitt's family. But Pitt is a surly wisea$$ at the best of times. He's not going to sit still while anyone threatens his family, even if said someone is an apparently invulnerable wizard known as the Shadow Man

Man saves Owl

Humans cause a lot of problems for animals, deliberately and otherwise. But humans can and do save animals' lives, even when there is no direct benefit to doing so.There was a recent example of this human beneficence in Texas, where a golf course superintendent by the name of Craig Loving recently saved a Great Horned Owl that had gotten tangled up in a fishing line that someone had stupidly left around. 

Given the size and fierceness of this particular owl it's a good thing that apparently the owl realized that Mr. Loving was trying to help it. Loving is not any sort of animal handling professional, just someone who stepped up to do the right thing.
When Craig Loving heard that there was a frightened Great Horned Owl trapped in the local golf course pond, he sprung into action. Without thinking twice, Craig jumped into the water and waded out to the helpless bird. Craig noticed that the owl's foot was entangled in a heap of fishing wire and knew that he had to work fast. But he also had to proceed carefully and use extreme caution.

The Lost Creek Country Club in Austin, Texas, posted the rescue online and praised Craig for his bravery. Numerous people chimed in, thanking him for what he did.
"The owl had been sitting in that location all night and into the day, when two of our employees, Devin and Dora, realized the owl was caught on fishing line. No wildlife rescue professionals were available, so Craig saved the day. Lost Creek Country Club cares about wildlife, and we are so thankful this owl was saved! Great job, Craig!"

Watch video below.

Trump Supporters

As we have discussed previously I do not think that every last single person who voted for Donald Trump as President is a snarling Neanderthal racist. Although it is tempting to think so sometimes, if that were really the case then people who did not and do not support Trump would be giving up on the possibility of ever convincing Trump supporters to vote for non-racist candidates. And given that Presidential elections are decided by winning a majority of state electoral votes and not by winning the raw majority of voters, a Democratic Presidential candidate must figure out how to at least staunch the Democratic vote losses among whites, particularly in the Midwest and South and maximize voter turnout among Blacks and Hispanics Often those goals seem to be impossible to reach at the same time. The problem is that some unknowable portion of the people who voted for Trump indeed are snarling Neanderthal racists or nihilists who are perfectly happy to drill holes in the hull of the ship and drown as long as their hated liberal rivals also drown with them. 

Neither of these types can be reached by reasoned debate or political horse trading. And on some level it's dangerous to try. After all their issues are not so much political as they are cultural and racial. They do not really accept the legitimacy of the political system or the legitimacy of non-white citizenship. I was reminded of these two subgroups of Trump voters by two separate incidents.The first involved a North Carolina Klan Leader, Chris Barker.

Movie Reviews: 68 Kill, Alien:Covenant

68 Kill
directed by Trent Haaga
Violent indie movie with great acting and obvious yet important message

There are two things you need to know upfront about this low budget award winning independent film. The first is that it is a very violent film. People die. People get very badly hurt. The camera doesn't shy away from that. In some aspects this is like a depraved live action adult Looney Tunes cartoon adaptation. So if a person whacking someone else upside the head or in the kidneys with a golf club because they are admittedly a sick evil individual makes you queasy, then you know what to do. The second is that by making most of the female characters more compelling and far more aggressive than the primary male character this film reverses the usual gender stereotypes and assumptions. Combine that with the fact that most of the women are also morally depraved and physically dangerous then you have a film that, if it had mostly male villains, would likely be cheered in some quarters as honest truth telling. But because the women are mostly bad some people called the film misogynistic. I didn't feel that way but that's just me. I can only call it like I see it. The film doesn't posit that women as a group are better or worse then men. It did very strongly suggest that one particular man needed to make better choices about the women he trusted and which body part did his thinking for him. I didn't expect the story to be as strong as it was. So that was a pleasant surprise.

Women in 68 Kill use sex to mark territory and express dominance. If you appreciate works by people such as Tim Dorsey, Bill Fitzhugh, and yes Tarantino then you might be able to accept some of the film's choices This was an adaptation of a novel by Bryan Smith. It's an absurd pulpy cheap romantic crime caper film. It also has elements of horror, comedy and strangely enough a coming of age storyline.  

Movie Reviews: The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower
directed by Nikolaj Arcel

This film is both based on and in some aspects a sequel to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. King has alternately described the series as his magnum opus and stated that sequels to many of his other works can be found within. I haven't finished this book series though it is one of my sister's favorites. King has placed references to and explanations of this series in many of his other novels. This series, or at least the books I've read, combines King's gifts for both High and Low art. In fact you could even say that it blows away those arbitrary distinctions. It's pretty complex stuff  with dense plot, conflicted characters who don't necessarily fall into neat boxes of good or evil, detailed universe building and intricate mythologies with lots of backstory. As with the Gormenghast or A Song of Ice and Fire works, some people thought that The Dark Tower series was essentially impossible to adapt to the screen. Almost by definition someone working in the visual arts would be unable to translate the soul of King's words to the big screen.

Because I have not completed The Dark Tower series I didn't have a solid idea in my head about what should be included in a movie adaptation. I had no fierce feeling about which characters should be included or dropped or how they should look or act, with the exception of the primary good and bad guy, Roland and Walter O'Dim. Probably if I had read all of the books I would have much stronger ideas about what the director and writers should have done with the source material. But in this case ignorance was bliss. Or at least it could have been. 

Charlottesville

An umbrella grouping of right wingers, including but not limited to college Republicans, neo-Nazis, Alt-Right supporters, neo-Confederates, white nationalists, and others descended on the University of Virginia campus at Charlottesville over the weekend to protest the planned removal of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, military leader of the most violent rebellion in U.S. history, and proud slave owner and white nationalist. This was part of their Unite the Right program, which as you might imagine is designed to rebuild the Right into more of a pure expression of white nationalism and separatism. Some would probably argue that the Right doesn't have too far to go in that regard anyway. Shouting such catchy slogans as "White Lives Matter" and "Jew will not replace us" along with all of the normal racist and anti-Semitic slurs which are common for them, the white nationalists scuffled with police. But of course the police were not the true target of their hatred.

The white nationalists had come ready for a fight, or had rather come ready to hurt people since almost none of them appeared interested in a fair fight. They assaulted counterprotesters of all colors with bats, sticks, fists, and poles, apparently particularly the black ones of course. In a move that was grabbed from the ISIS playbook one of the terrorists, James Alex Fields, also deliberately drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, wounding several and killing one Heather Heyer. Despite all of this violence coming from the right, President Trump could not and did not manage to specifically condemn the white supremacist violence. He only mumbled something about condemning the bigotry coming from all sides. 

Trump, Kim Jong Un, North Korea and Nuclear War

As you may have noticed President Trump and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un have been trading insults and threats over the past few weeks about just how bad they're going to curb stomp the other country. Kim has made threats to attack Guam while Trump has said that any North Korean bad behavior will be met by fire and fury the likes of which the world hasn't seen. Trump says that the US military is locked, loaded and ready to go. Many people, both intelligent and not, attacked Trump's statements as unpresidential. They were. But at the same time if someone is threatening your country you're probably going to threaten them back. There tends to be an expectation among some experts that whatever Trump says will be wrong. That's usually a pretty good expectation. But in the case of the North Korean regime there has been a decades long bipartisan failure to prevent what the U.S. sees as bad behavior by North Korea. North Korea has nukes. North Korea isn't giving up its nukes. North Korea has been continuing to test missiles. Those missiles have been getting better and better. This is simply not a problem that Trump created though he is certainly capable of making things worse.

There may have been, sixty years ago, a small window to settle the North Korean question militarily on terms favorable to the United States, as Douglas MacArthur would have told you (and did tell other people), but in the current day with a nuclear armed Russia and China, that window has likely closed.

Michigan Apples

Depending on which survey you happen to believe Michigan is consistently the state with the second or third largest crop of apples each year. The crop is coming soon. I like apples but even more than apples I like what apples portend: cooler weather, women in sweaters, football and fall. Those all kind of go together in my head. Apples also mean that there will be lots of apple pies, apple fritters, apple sauces and all sorts of other treats derived from that fruit. There are thousands of different kinds of apples. They don't all exist in Michigan but there are enough different Michigan varieties to keep a fan of this fruit well satisfied for the next three months as fall arrives, with its lower temperatures and overcast skies. Apple lovers won't have to wait much longer to sink their teeth into their favorite fruit: This year's Michigan apple harvest is ahead of schedule, with certain varieties' predicted peak harvest dates falling anywhere from a few days to an entire week ahead of normal. 

According to Michigan State University Extension, data collected from around the state suggests the apple harvest will be significantly early for certain varieties in some parts of Michigan, but that the cropload will be 65 percent of normal due to frost damage earlier in the year.  "As always, the weather seems to be unusual each year and 2017 was no different," MSU Extension posted in an article predicting apple harvest dates late last month. 

MacIntosh apples, for example, are 10 to 11 days ahead of normal in some parts of the state, and, in general, a few days ahead of the 2016 harvest. Meanwhile, peak harvest for Red Delicious apples is predicted to range from one to eight days ahead of normal, depending on what region they are in.
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Movie Reviews: Hacksaw Ridge

Hacksaw Ridge
directed by Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson may hold ugly opinions or beliefs that you don't like. He may occasionally make even uglier statements when he is drunk or upset. But since I don't know the man personally that doesn't impact my enjoyment of his film work. Maybe I would feel differently if I was the real life target of one of his volcanic bigoted tirades. But I haven't been. Sometimes people who have great skills aren't necessarily very nice people. Sometimes very nice people are utterly incompetent artists. It's just the way it is. This is a roundabout way of saying that I think this film serves as Gibson's re-entry into Hollywood royalty. It has A- list stars, excellent cinematography and impressive writing/storytelling. It helps that this is based on a true story, something of a tearjerker. Gibson pulls out all the stops to wring every bit of emotion out of the viewer. I think it works. He also brings his penchant for blood and martyrdom to the forefront but as this is a war movie, that makes sense. This is not a war movie like the old 50s and 60s war movies where someone would get hit and fall down. 

Maybe in the late 60s or 70s we'd see a splash of red. No. This is a post-Saving Private Ryan war movie. Gibson does his best, and his best is pretty damn good, to bring across the horror, carnage and randomness of war.  There is the danger of become too inured to such graphic violence but of course no matter how horrible these images are they are nothing compared to the reality of war. I don't think that you can watch this film and come away thinking that war is anything less than an obscenity to be avoided at almost any cost.

Book Reviews: Someone is Bleeding

Someone is Bleeding
by Richard Matheson

This is Richard Matheson's earliest story. It is very different from his sci-fi or horror work. It's a short story that I read in the "Noir" collection. I'm not sure if this was ever an American film but it's something that screams out to be made into a movie. The characters aren't super strong but there is a constant feeling that something isn't quite right. I guess you could call this American noir writing. Though the story is only 154 pages Matheson takes his sweet time developing the plot and themes. He spends a lot of time on description and dialogue. He doesn't explain every little thing. Although the story takes place in sunny California a lot of the action takes place at night. Given some of the dark deeds and aberrant sexuality this contrast between light and darkness works. There's a very strong Chinatown vibe to this story, if that comparison works for you. This story is the spiritual Godfather to works such as Chinatown and Blue Velvet. A psychologically and/or morally damaged hero risks it all to save a strange beautiful woman who may not be worth the effort. In post WW2 California a veteran, journalism grad and writer named David Newton is taking in the sun on the beach when he meets a remarkably curvy blonde woman named Peggy Ann Lister. Well David is not the sort of fellow to let good things get away from him if he can help it. Despite the fact that Peggy seems only marginally interested in David, David holds up his side of the conversation well enough to pique what seems to be something close to attraction in Peggy.

It's hard to tell what Peggy really thinks though because for reasons which don't need to be disclosed here Peggy has a profound distrust of the entire male gender. And once she knows David a little better she's not averse to telling him that even he is not really within her circle of trust. David flips back and forth between wanting to tell Peggy off and storm away from her and persist to break through her defenses to show her that he is that one in a million good guy who will never hurt her or make her do anything she doesn't want to do.

Trans Community, Consent and Scapegoating

Recently a comedian named Lil Duval appeared on a radio show and made a clearly hyberbolic/comedic threat of violence against any transperson who tricked him into sex/intimacy. There was an immediate backlash from some members of the trans community as well as from some liberal people who often appear to have a stick up their behind concerning heterosexuality, which they never tire of labeling as hegemonic or toxic or problematic or any of the other popular academic circle insults. I wouldn't really care at all about what amounts to a catfight but for the fact that both NBC news and the New York Times seized this opportunity to insult the black community, or to be precise, black heterosexual men, as violence prone, hypermasculine, and backwards when it comes to trans issues.

NBC, the New York Times and a fair number of people yelling at Lil Duval used black brute stereotypes straight from Birth of A Nation. They just repurposed them for a liberal agenda.

But when DJ Envy asked Lil Duval what he would do if a woman he had sex with later said she was transgender, he responded, “This might sound messed up and I don’t care: She dying.” The hosts quickly told him that killing a transgender person was a hate crime and that he could not do that. But Lil Duval continued to make jokes and said it was about manipulation and taking away his choice. Charlamagne Tha God, the show’s most popular host, agreed with that point, saying that by not disclosing she is transgender, a woman is “taking away a person’s power of choice,” and he added that “you should go to jail or something.” In a statement to The New York Times released through his publicist on Saturday, Charlamagne Tha God denounced all prejudice and hate crimes, emphasizing that he wholeheartedly believed that violence against transgender people was wrong. 

“Nobody should be killed just for existing,” he said. What needed to be discussed further, he added, was whether transgender people should disclose their gender identities to sexual partners. “To me, anytime you take away someone’s power of choice, it’s criminal,” he said. “Let me decide for myself if this is what I want. But if a trans person doesn’t disclose until after sexual acts have occurred, they shouldn’t be killed for it.”

I don't give a flying fig what people do in private. Not my business. If you want to cut off your male organs, get surgery and ingest/inject chemicals to attempt to give yourself a feminine appearance, that's you. If you change your name from a masculine one to a feminine one and demand to be addressed by the feminine name, I will call you by your new name. If you want to walk or talk like your silly stereotype of what a woman walks or talks like, fine. Yawn.

Trump Supporter, Foreigners and Housing Discrimination

The libertarian or traditionalist conservative would say that this is a white man's country that a man ought to have the right to do as he pleases with his own property. Although that is indeed an important value there are other values and goals which society has decided are equally important or even more important than the right to control your own property in every aspect. One of those values is anti-discrimination. 

There are limits on how the state or even private entities can treat you based on immutable characteristics such as your race, age, sex, nationality and occasionally even religion or sexuality or sexual identity. The law has been trending that way for at least the past seventy years or so. Why? Because there are unfortunately a lot of people who, given half a chance, would indeed discriminate against their fellow Americans or others based on some or all of the traits I just mentioned. One such man is Iraq war vet and former shady used car dealer, James Prater, a Mason, Michigan resident who has decided to put his house up for sale. There's just one caveat. Mr. Prater doesn't want to sell to anyone who is not a true blue American. Apparently he has a special dislike for people of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent. But rather than leave it up to the individual to figure out if they were sufficiently non-Middle Eastern/South Asian Prater decided to make it easy for everyone by stating "No foreigners". Nice and simple.

EMU Football Poster

Sometimes ideas are better in the concept phase then they are in the execution and delivery phase. It happens. No big deal. You can't necessarily figure out ahead of time how everyone will react and respond to your idea, particularly if you are trying to sell something. Everyone has different initial reactions to ideas and visual displays. If you are a member of the Eastern Michigan Hurons football team posing for a poster touting your upcoming fall schedule you probably want to channel the pride and fury of such former EMU (and NFL) football players such as John Banaszak, Charlie Batch, Vashone Adams, T.J. Laing,  and Darius Jackson among others. You want to impress and excite with your passion and strength. You want to get everyone fired up for the season! You want people to come see you do your thing on the field as you layeth the smackdown on your opponents.
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Movie Reviews: Detroit

Detroit

directed by Kathyrn Bigelow

The 1967 Detroit riot or rebellion started less than a mile from where I would later grow up. In separate incidents during this time both of my parents were shot at by police, soldiers and/or rioters. My mother, a paternal uncle and my paternal grandfather were nearly killed by police shooting at the car my grandfather was driving while he was trying to get my mother safely home. A bullet missed my mother and left a scar on my uncle's shin. Another paternal aunt would later regale me with stories of the National Guardsmen/Army troops riding in armored vehicles shouting racial slurs at black teens and threatening to shoot them. And of course many older uncles and second cousins would from time to time over the years mention the repressive and disgusting behavior of the police back in what I came to think of as the bad old days. I mention all this to say that although I wasn't on the scene or even yet thought of when the riot took place I feel as if I had a very personal stake in what was going on. Some of the buildings that were part of my panorama growing up were the same buildings that were seen on the newsreels of the events in 1967. People died in part so that I could walk freely in my city and succeed to the best of my God given abilities instead of being assaulted by police or trapped in a dead end racially segregated job. So I was intrigued to see what a strong talented director like Bigelow would do with this story. Would she mess it up? Would she get down to the nitty gritty? Would she confirm ugly stereotypes about whites working with "black" stories and themes?

Unfortunately I would have to say that as a storyteller Bigelow missed the boat here. Technically the movie is superb. The camera work, lighting, cinematography, settings and look of the film are all top notch, with one or two minor complaints I'll mention in a moment. Bigelow is a master (mistress?) of her craft and shows it here. But the narrative is too sharply focused on the incidents at the Algiers Motel. The Algiers Motel (which has since been torn down) was a place that was a sort of no-tell motel. People often went there to commit adultery. Some prostitutes worked that area. 

Chicago High School Graduation Requirements

In a decision which didn't attract much attention outside of Chicago, perhaps because people don't think it will make that much difference, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago School Board recently changed the law regarding high school graduation. Starting in 2020 in order to receive a high school diploma, a student not only must successfully complete the coursework but also demonstrate to the school's satisfaction that he or she has a plan for post-graduation success. Approved plans include college admission, military admission, a job or an apprentice program. In other words the government must approve of your plans post-high school. If the government doesn't approve then you don't get your diploma.

THE JOB of K-12 education traditionally has been considered complete when students walk across the stage to get their diploma. That is about to change in Chicago with an ambitious, and controversial, initiative requiring public school students to have a post-graduation plan to earn a diploma. Chicago leaders are right to make official what long has been recognized — the need for more than a high school diploma to succeed in today’s economy — and, more importantly, to accept responsibility for helping students meet that challenge.

Starting in 2020, under a plan championed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) and unanimously approved by the school board, diplomas will be tied to students devising post-secondary plans. High school seniors must show they’ve been accepted into college, or the military, or into a trade or “gap-year” program, or have secured a job. The idea is to raise expectations and thus produce better outcomes for students.

HBO's Confederate Show

As you may have heard the creators and show runners of HBO's smash hit series Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B Weiss, have decided to create and produce another show for HBO. Tentatively titled Confederate this show will imagine a modern day world in which the slave owning South won the Civil War as well as subsequent conflicts with the North. Slavery is still legal in the South but not the North. A black husband and wife couple, Malcolm and Nichelle Spellman, will also write for and produce the show. No scripts have yet been created. No storyline or theme has been divulged. And that is all anyone who is not named David Benioff, D.B Weiss, Malcolm or Nichelle Spellman, or who is not within the small group of HBO executives who greenlit the show or who is not married to or related to the show creators knows about Confederate at this time. 

Though the proposed show Confederate hasn't been viewed by a single mumbling soul many people immediately came out against the show. These reasons ranged from personal taste to fears that it would embolden the right-wing to concerns that whites would mess up the story to worries that it would by definition bolster lies about black inferiority to somewhat presumptuous fears that the American populace just didn't need to see this to accusations of cultural appropriation, imperialism and race-pimping/concern trolling. 

Book Reviews: The Last Mile

The Last Mile 
by David Baldacci

This book is second in a series but you shouldn't let that put you off from reading it first. I picked it up on sale. I was happy that I did. I didn't feel as if there was anything I missed by not reading the previous story. The Last Mile was a stand alone book. There was just enough description and backstory given to get the reader up to speed. The book is also atypical in that the protagonist is a severely out of shape middle aged man. He's trying to get back into a fit condition but it's a challenge. If this book is ever made into a film Hollywood shouldn't cast the normal type of leading man as the protagonist. The book was a little more than 400 pages but it rarely dragged. Baldacci pulls the reader in with meaningful action and brain teasers. Some of the characters are a little bit more strongly drawn than the others, but the villains are delicious.

Amos Decker is a genius bruiser. A former college football star at Ohio State, Decker made to the NFL for all of one game before he was knocked silly and knocked out of the league.The hit left him with some mild brain damage which fortunately for Decker was expressed in increased abilities in both deductive and inductive reasoning, an inability to ever forget anything down to the smallest detail (hyperthymesia), and the tendency to think in colors (synesthesia) when faced with certain emotional stimuli. All of these things made Decker a perfect fit for post NFL jobs as a police detective and later private detective. Decker's family has been murdered. It's not easy for him to make new friends although I think that Decker was blunt, socially inept and generally tactless even before his tragedy. As some people seek solace in alcohol or drugs, Decker patches his emotional wounds with food, the starchier and sweeter the better.