As I get older I wonder if the saying that there aren't many new stories, just recycled ones actually has some truth to it. Certainly the film Focus hit on a great many themes which are common to stories you've heard before (fractured parent and child relationships, the inability to tell if something is truly love or just lust, and the dedicated player/con man/gambler, who like the people in the Bob Seger song Still the Same ,may never truly be made to go straight or change) So this movie will probably feel very familiar to you, albeit in a good way. I'd compare it to a favorite pair of slippers. Nothing special, just nice and comfortable. Unfortunately unlike the similar films Now You See Me or ContrabandFocus slightly misses its mark by not having a particularly strong, intelligent or dangerous adversary with whom the lead character can interact. Without this conflict you're not always able to admire the lead character's resourcefulness or shake your head in wonder as to how he got out of that jam. Focus does have one or two good set scenes where the viewer can really enjoy the intelligence and swagger of the lead character but overall this would have been a much better and more enjoyable film with a nastier or more intelligent bad guy to push the lead. On the other hand whereas many of these heist/con type films are concerned with the battle of wits between and among men, Focus features that only as a secondary issue. The film is far more interested with the professional and personal relationship between a man and woman grifter. So in some respects this is as much of a romance film mixed with heists as it is a drama film about the underworld of con men. There's some violence in Focus but not all that much. Con men almost by definition like to avoid violence. If they do their job correctly they're able to have their victims willingly give them money. A good mark never knows he's been conned. You can wonder a little bit about the sort of people who do this for a living but the film doesn't allow you to see the world any other way except through the con artist's eyes. As a result you end up identifying with the protagonists who, truth be told are exactly the sort of lowlifes who will steal your credit card number and ruin your credit, sell you ocean front property in Kansas, and get you to give them two tens for a five. You may end up admiring their panache even though, unlike the con artists in the underrated British series Hustle, these scoundrels have no interest in righting wrongs or only ripping off the greedy.
The male slickster is Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith), a debonair fellow who's equally adept with long complicated deception schemes and short cons. He'll spend 3 months hacking into your payroll system or 3 seconds palming your Bulgari watch. It's all the same to Nicky. He runs a large loyal diverse crew of con artists, hackers, gamblers, fences and all around thieves. In a nightclub/hotel Nicky runs into Jess (Margot Robbie), who attempts to con him via the old "we were just about to roll and tumble but my husband caught us so pay him and he won't kill you" trick. Nicky's not bothered. He's seen through the con already. He knows that Jess and her partner are inexperienced and more importantly, not dangerous. He walks away. A few days later Jess tracks down Nicky. She's dropped the loser she was with formerly. She's found out some of Nicky's backstory and learned that he's a legend among con men. She wants to become his apprentice and ultimately much more. Nicky's intrigued though he's not fond of mixing business and pleasure. Usually that just ends up with people getting hurt. Well you can imagine just how long Nicky holds on to that rule. Men generally don't turn down such requests from Jess. Despite his profession Nicky seems to be an otherwise moral person. He must decide whether Jess is ready for a big job in Argentina with Rafael (Rodrigo Santoro) and/or if he is ready to settle down and go straight with Jess. And Jess must find out if she can trust Nicky to keep his word. Is he truly the one? And both must discover if the other person is just running the long con on him or her. After all if you love a professional liar how do you really know when he or she is telling the truth. A con artist's truth can vary. A good con artist always has plenty of options available as the situation changes. Watching this movie you'll know from the very first setpiece that a big con is coming but some of them will probably come as surprises. This is the case even though the film, via Nicky, tells the viewer almost everything that is going to happen in the story in the first 10 minutes. It's just that you don't realize that until after the fact because of the misdirection employed. Both Smith and Robbie are in excellent physical shape and enliven the film's visuals. This film looks great! The film was shot in New Orleans and Buenos Aires. All in all this movie was passably good, but generic. It was worth seeing on DVD or VOD. I would have thought it a bit of a waste to see it in the theater. Farhad (Adrian Martinez) brings deadpan humor as one of Nicky's worldweary employees/partners. TRAILER
Why he can win Say his name! You know who he is. Everyone knows who he is. He's richer than Romney. He's tall. He's been a public figure for most of his adult life. He's usually surrounded by attractive women. His name is synonymous with an over the top wealth, pugnaciousness and clueless bigotry. He never stops talking about how great he is. If he says that often enough some voters might believe it. If nothing else he's not a politician. He could combine his salesmanship with a new found economic nationalism to convince people that they really ought to drop the middleman, and just vote for a dues paying member of the top 0.0001%. People of Trump's class are making many decisions behind the scenes anyway. Why not go full plutocracy? Part of Trump's brand is that he's a fighter who doesn't take any guff from anyone, especially those Chinese or Mexicans who are, in Trump's telling, responsible for everything that's wrong in your life. Why he can't win Trump has a very pronounced tendency to take every disagreement or criticism personally. Trump doesn't turn the other cheek or let any attack pass unchallenged. Revenge and payback are virtual Trump sacraments. For a man worth unbelievable amounts of money, Trump is quite thin-skinned. He will inevitably respond to any disapproval or disagreement by deriding his critic as a loser, stupid, fat, ugly, or poor. Obviously Trump considers wealth, success, and good looks to be of the highest importance. Trump's the king of ad hominem attacks. If he's in the televised Republican debates, his aggression and nastiness will entertain. But he won't go much further. Many Republicans simply don't like the man. If your base doesn't like you what do you do? Some of Trump's statements reveal an incredible ignorance of our political system. As both supporters and detractors of President Obama point out, the President can't just rule by fiat. A domineering personality will only get you so far. Once this reality starts to penetrate Trump's delusions about his popularity and applicable skill sets, the results won't be pretty. As mentioned, he doesn't handle rejection well. Rejection is for losers. If Trump is rejected then he will be a loser. But Trump can't be a loser. There could be a mental breakdown looming here folks. George Pataki
Why he can win Actually he really can't. Seriously are there Republican voters in the South, in the Midwest, in the West who are fiending for their Pataki fix? If there are, so far the polls haven't shown it. But you know people initially laughed at Clinton and Reagan. So you never know. Pataki is a polished but not exciting public speaker. He could inject some gravitas into the race. If he can win in the early Northeast primaries simply by not being a gaffe machine and showing contrast to the more exciting but unelectable hard right candidates, Pataki might hang around longer than some rivals would like. If that happens well I guess anything is theoretically possible. A flipped coin can land on its edge after all. Why he can't win Who is he? Has anyone outside of New York heard of this fellow? When I think of New York politicians I think of Rudy Giuliani, Anthony Weiner, Andrew Cuomo, Bill DeBlasio, Michael Bloomberg and Elliot Spitzer (who's in real estate now). I knew Pataki was a former governor but I was unfamiliar with his record. However one thing I did know is that Pataki is pro-choice. He's also not looking to fight to the last conservative in order to stop gay marriage. He says leave it to the states. Let that marinate for a second. That means that the Southern and Midwestern social conservatives would just not vote for him once they know his stance. They think they've compromised enough already by voting for McCain and Romney, whom they saw as wobbly on those issues. There are simply not enough pro-choice primary voting Republicans in existence to give Pataki the nomination. Lindsey Graham
Why he can win From the amount of media coverage that Senator Graham obtains with his constant and genially deranged neo-colonial pronouncements on foreign policy you would think that he's the majority leader of the Senate or some sort of special envoy. He's neither. But he can point to a number of foreign policy reversals, setbacks and a few mistakes which the Obama Administration has made or experienced. Graham will claim that he predicted them (even if he didn't) and try to brand himself as a military man who has the foresight and toughness to stand by America's friends and against America's enemies. It's a longshot because Presidents don't often win or lose the job based on foreign policy concerns. But if you don't have the guts to take a chance, don't run for President. If you're concerned about ISIS, if you think Russia and China have been getting too big for their britches, if you think that the US needs to increase military spending, then Graham's your man. Graham will look to take on and take down Senator Rand Paul. Why he can't win Graham is unmarried and childless without many (any?) publicly known former girlfriends. He's been derided as pro-amnesty. Either stance alone is politically challenging for someone trying to woo an aggressively pro-natal and occasionally xenophobic Republican base. Together, they make it almost impossible for him to win. The idea of immigration reform that gives legal status or citizenship to illegal immigrants is a non-starter to many Republican primary voters. The perception held by some people across the political spectrum is that Graham is closeted. It's difficult for a single man to become President. Fellow Republicans are already making fun of Graham for his lack of female companionship. Graham himself is evidently worried about these rumors. He's giving interviews talking about his past girlfriends and being pictured doing "manly" things like shooting pool. It's not fair. Graham's personal life is no one's business but public figures must accept a certain intrusiveness. Ask Gary Hart. Joking that white men in male only clubs would do great in his presidency was not a good move. Graham should win or lose on the issues but often elections are just like high school redux. The other reason Graham can't win is that judging by some past statements he would take the United States to war against, well just about everyone. The goofy grin and genteel accent won't help him sell more foreign interventions to voters. Jeb Bush
Why he can win The man dropped a significant amount of weight in a short period of time. He doesn't look portly any more. So there's that. Also although he is by any reasonable standard a man of the right, he's not (at least publicly) talking about the Obama Administration's secret plans to decrease the percentage of white voters or invade Texas or turn everyone Muslim. So Jeb Bush is electable. At least he would be if he can make it past the primary gauntlet. All he has to do is be just right enough to steal away enough primary voters to win and then remain slightly to the right of Hillary Clinton in the general election. Why he can't win Plenty of Republican voters and political handlers have not really forgiven Jeb's brother for making the Republican brand so toxic that Barack Obama won election twice. That still hurts. Another Bush on the ticket will bring back all of the previous bad feelings (and jokes) about George Bush's incompetence and cluelessness. Also like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush will struggle a bit to let voters know exactly why he should be President. Why does he want to be President? Does he really want to be President or does he just think it's expected of him. How does he differentiate himself from his brother and father without seeming to be disloyal or slick? How do you criticize family publicly or respond to other people making such criticism. His campaign's recent invocation of Pickett's Charge as a model for his political struggle going forward was telling. Leaving aside the distastefulness of giving a shoutout to a Confederate general, Pickett's Charge was a poorly conceived, poorly planned and ultimately disastrous maneuver that destroyed Pickett's division and was later studied as a model of what not to do. Is that how Bush or his allies see his campaign? Interesting. Bush is also considered a moderate within Republican circles. He's not a guy who's screaming invective at illegal immigrants. He's establishment. I don't think this will help in the Republican primary field where there is a seething hatred towards establishment Republicans who have after all, lost twice to the black guy. Martin O'Malley Lincoln Chaffee Why they can win They can't. Why they can't win These two guys are the mini-me's of the Democratic primary season. I'm not yet convinced that Clinton didn't entice them into the race just to give the whiff of actual competition. They're the sparring partners. All they are supposed to do is give the fighter a work out, make sure she's sharp and task her a little bit but that's it. Doing serious damage or God forbid, winning, is not on the agenda. Much like Chuck Wepner did against Ali, they might go the distance or even knock Hillary down but at the end of the day neither one of them will win. Although each man will run to the left of Hillary, their records show a similar dedication to the same sort of bland corporatism which Hillary represents. Rick Perry
Why he can win There are three reasons that Rick Perry can win in 2016. (1) He's healthy and prepared this time. (2) He looks Presidential, and that's half the battle. (3) I forgot. Seriously though Perry could be the breakthrough candidate who can, a la Saint Ronald Reagan, bring together most of the Republican feuding tribes. He can make a good play for the evangelical voters. He can speak to the pro-military/neo-conservative folk. He's got his share of the big business crowd. As former governor of Texas almost by definition Perry can be competitive with the law-and-order caucus. He could even appeal to some libertarians by dint of Texas' relatively light regulatory touch. As a son of the South with the accent to prove it he will have appeal to that region's social conservatives. He was one of the few Republican candidates in the 2012 primary season who wasn't calling for immediate public executions of illegal immigrants. So if he can get through the primaries he could be that rare hard right candidate who has just enough of the human touch to win over a few swing states. Difficult but not impossible. Why he can't win Just kidding. Been there, done that. There's a saying that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. It will be difficult for Perry to reverse the belief that he's just another bellicose Texas lightweight who's eager to shoot from the hip but has no idea what he's talking about. His current poll numbers seem to suggest that Republican voters have kicked the tires, looked inside the hood and moved on. Rick Santorum
Why he can win 2016 could see a massive change in the electorate. Out of nowhere voters will suddenly demand that their President be anti-evolution, anti-gay marriage, anti-contraception and pro-life with few if any exceptions. They will want a President who criticizes the Pope. It's time for Santorum! He's also no "free-trade" fundamentalist . If he can tone down his emphasis on social issues, he could have some appeal to working class voters who are not scared s***less about gays. Why he can't win The field is not big enough to hold multiple people who want to tout their fidelity to a particular interpretation of a faith tradition as primary proof of their fitness to be President. Huckabee, Cruz, Perry and Carson as well as a few undeclared candidates will all be appealing to the same subset of voters as Santorum. When there is that much competition you need to stand out and shine. You also need to have some pretty sharp elbows. Santorum has the second trait but I'm not so sure about the first. His sharp emphasis on social issues means that he can't help but take positions on gender and sexual questions that are easily caricatured by the media and a future Democratic opponent. Ultimately people don't want to elect a President who is a moral scold.
"For the Watch." Well another year has come and gone. And I can stop with these recaps. Thank you for reading and commenting though. I may write one or two more posts on Game of Thrones. Or I may not. I really wish that Martin was a faster writer because this season saw the greatest number of and most significant kind of divergences between book and show. Sometimes these differences worked. Sometimes they didn't. Although there is a great deal of book material which was left out or severely altered, more and more characters have reached the end of their storyline in the published books. So this season also enabled book readers to be just as surprised as show-only viewers. Benioff and Weiss either made changes to what we read in the books or possibly depicted events that Martin created but had not published yet. Anyway we open up in the aftermath of the horrible sacrifice of Shireen to the Lord of Light. Initially it looks like the magic delivered. There is a thaw. Melisandre looks approvingly at melting icicles. The way to Winterfell is open. Melisandre goes to crow about this to Stannis; she also wants to get a little cuddling in. Well it doesn't really matter that she's showing off the goodies, Stannis is in no mood to hear about the Lord of Light or canoodle with Melisandre. Murdering your own daughter tends to kill the mood. There will be no sexual healing for Stannis. But any grim satisfaction Stannis may have with the improving weather quickly dissipates when he gets bad and worse news. Apparently roughly half his already small army has deserted, presumably because they aren't too happy about fighting for someone who murdered his daughter. Even for money or loyalty there are just some things mercenaries or other soldiers won't do. The deserting mercenaries and regular soldiers have also taken all the horses. But wait, that's not all. In addition to that Queen Selyse has hanged herself. Melisandre didn't foresee any of that. How embarrassing. Well she rides off when Stannis isn't looking. It's bad enough to lose your wife but when your girlfriend dumps you it's going to be a long day. So, to recap, Stannis has virtually no men left, no siege engines, no horses, low morale and no family left. But Stannis being Stannis cannot admit defeat even as it's clear that he's an utterly broken man. The deaths of his wife and daughter have left him with nothing to fight for. Still he orders the march on Winterfell. A man has got to have a code. And Stannis' only remaining element of his code is that he's supposed to be king. It's all he has left.
At Winterfell we see that Sansa has used the tool she stole to unlock her door and make for the highest point of the broken tower where she finally lights the candle to signal that yes she really does need immediate assistance. The Bolton legions are making ready for battle or are in the process of leaving. Luckily no one notices Sansa. Or more likely they do notice her but don't want to be the one to stop her as the capricious Ramsay is just as likely to blame them for letting Sansa out as he is to reward them for recapturing her. I mean really, no one notices an almost six foot redhead walking around freely? Yeah. Brienne is watching for the lit candle but leaves just before Sansa lights it because Podrick notices the approach of Stannis' (much reduced) army. Brienne has sworn to kill Stannis, as you may recall. Like many people in Westeros, Brienne takes oaths very seriously. Meanwhile, Stannis is true to his nature to the bitter end. He tries to take control of a bad situation. He's ordering foraging parties and watches to be set but it's too late. The Bolton army has arrived. Most of them are mounted. They outnumber Stannis' group by at least three to one. There's a brief window of opportunity where Stannis might have ordered a retreat and lived to fight another day but as you should know by now, that's just not how the man rolls. He orders his men into battle. His army is wiped out. In the aftermath the wounded and weary Stannis takes down two more Bolton men, being wounded again in the process before Brienne finds him and explains who she is. It's payback time. Close to death anyway, Stannis admits to killing Renly and tells Brienne to do her duty. And that's the apparent end to Stannis.
A joyous Ramsay is sadistically putting an end to survivors who tried to surrender. Finally he gets bored and decides to head back to Winterfell. Seeing that the Boltons won and that the candle didn't work Sansa starts to sneak back to her room but is stopped by Myranda and Reek. Armed with a bow and arrow the gleeful Myranda explains that neither she nor Ramsay will kill Sansa until she delivers male heirs but that she probably doesn't need all of her body parts for that job. When Myranda is about to hurt Sansa Reek Theon pushes Myranda over the side of the wall. Splat. Exit Myranda. Well with Ramsay's return there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Going to a high point on the Winterfell walls, Theon and Sansa lock hands and...jump. We knew from last week that Meryn Trant has a sick thing for very young girls. Part of that perversion involves beating them. He has three children in his room. He whips two of them. The third girl does not cry out no matter how hard he whips her. Angered, he orders the other two girls out and punches the remaining girl in the stomach. Brought to her knees the girl's face changes. It's Arya Stark. It's Kill Bill time. Yes it is. She stabs Trant twice in the eyes, blinding him, before she starts to really go to work on him. It's a bloody brutal scene. Trant comes to know what pain really feels like. Arya makes sure that Trant knows just who she is before she puts his lights out. Say my name pendejo! And that is what you get when you f*** with Arya of House Stark. But wait, Arya may not be as skilled at deception as she thinks she is. Just because you're able to put one over on Meryn Trant doesn't mean you're able to fool more perceptive people like Jaqen. Jaqen has been at this for a minute now.
When Arya returns to the sub-basement of the House of Black and White to return the stolen face she's met by Jaqen and the girl, who inform her that she's taken a life that was not hers to take. There must be a settling of accounts. Jaqen takes out a vial of apparent poison. It looks like he and his creepy aide are going to make Arya drink it but instead he drinks it himself and drops dead. Arya is horrified. She's crying about the loss of her friend. The girl says that Jaqen was not her friend but was no one. And no one is who Arya should have been. The girl turns into Jaqen while dead!Jaquen turns into many different people. Arya pulls face after face off of the person she thought was Jaqen until she sees her own. Wow. How does that work. That's a new level of creepiness. Once again Arya learns that she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does. As new Jaqen tells Arya , wearing that face without permission and the right was like drinking poison. The face masks are only for people who are no one. Arya goes blind. She screams.
Jaime, Bronn, Myrcella and Trystane are leaving Dorne. Tyene and Bronn flirt. Or rather they flirt as much as two people who tried to kill each other can flirt. Ellaria Sand is also there. She wishes Myrcella happiness and gives the younger girl a very long goodbye kiss on the mouth. Later on the ship Jaime tries to use the strangeness and different nature of Myrcella's experiences in Dorne to explain to her that he's her father. It's very awkward. It's like a birds and bees talk gone very very bad. Eew. However, like apparently everyone else in Westeros, Myrcella has figured out her true paternity already. She's happy Jaime is her Dad. Shocked but happy Jaime embraces his daughter. But since this is Westeros there can't possibly be a happy ending can there? Myrcella has a nosebleed. She collapses, dying. It's apparently the same delayed acting poison that Tyene used on Bronn. We know because we skip to Ellaria and the Sand Snakes. Ellaria has the same nosebleed. She wipes off her lips and takes the antidote. Tyrion, Daario and Jorah are all in the throne room trying to decide what to do next. After some banter about who really loves Daenerys and who Daenerys needs, they decide that Jorah and Daario will head out to look for Daenerys while Tyrion, Grey Worm and Missandei stay behind to try to keep a lid on things. Varys shows up later to share some sarcastic banter with Tyrion and obliquely offer his intelligence gathering services. Somewhere north of Meereen Daenerys tries to get Drogon to take her back to Meereen but Drogon is tired, wounded and hungry. He's just licking his wounds. He briefly tries to do as his mistress commands but he's not going anywhere at the moment. Daenerys heads out to forage for food and/or return to Meereen but from out of nowhere she's surrounded by a Dothraki horde.
In King's Landing the prison experience has finally, if not completely broken Cersei, definitely taken the edge off. She decides to confess to the High Sparrow her sin of adultery with her cousin Lancel. She doesn't admit to incest with her brother because that would of course mean that Tommen is illegitimate. Say what you want about Cersei and her evil vindictive ways but it's unlikely in the extreme that she would sacrifice her children to save herself. Is that a saving grace? Perhaps. It's not clear that the High Sparrow really believes Cersei's denials. Revealing his own brand of sadism and bullying, the High Sparrow says that it's good that she confessed but that because there are other charges she's still going to trial. Being merciful though he agrees to let her return to the Red Keep, just as soon as she's atoned for her sins. Cersei doesn't like the sound of that. In a scene that is no less disturbing for its use of a body double, the Faith Militant chops off Cersei's long tresses and forces her to walk naked through the streets, while a septa chants "shame". The people of King's Landing come out to see the great Queen brought low. They're quiet at first but soon start hurling insults. They throw rocks, fruit and feces. They spit on her. A few of them flash her or try to physically assault her. Cersei, bloodied and shaken, does not give anyone the pleasure of seeing her fall apart emotionally until she reaches the safety of the Red Keep, where Uncle Kevan, Pycelle, Qyburn and the Lannister soldiers are there to greet her. Qyburn rushes to cover his Queen's nakedness. He's gentle and solicitous of her wounds. He also introduces the newest member of the Kingsguard, a giant of a man who has taken a vow of silence until all of his Queen's enemies are dead. Let's call this man FrankenGregor...
At the Wall Jon Snow tells Sam about his experience with the Army of the dead and of his inability to bring the dragonglass into use quickly enough. And there aren't enough Valyrian steel swords left in the Seven Kingdoms to make a difference. Jon is depressed about what he sees as his failure and about being hated by most men of the Night's Watch. Sam tells Jon been there done that buck up. Remember that no one liked Sam when he arrived. Speaking of the Night's Watch the death of Maester Aemon has left the Night's Watch without a maester. Sam wants to become a maester, something he should have done anyway. He also wants to get Gilly away from the Wall. He can't protect her from the more feral members of the Night's Watch or from the White Walkers should they come. He wants Jon's permission to take Gilly and her child to go to Oldtown, where he will study to become a maester. After a moment Jon agrees but reminds Sam that the maesters also have a vow of chastity. Sam accidentally reveals that he too knows how to make a woman smile, thanks to Gilly. Sam leaves. Davos arrives, arguing for assistance from the Night's Watch and wildlings. Jon responds that neither is his to give. This angry debate is stopped by the entrance of Melisandre, atypically no longer self-assured. Davos knows something is up and asks after Shireen. Melisandre says nothing. Davos knows. Later Jon is reading messages in his office. Is this news of the Bolton victory or of Sansa's marriage? We don't know. Olly comes into his office with good news! There's a wildling who saw Jon's uncle Benjen Stark at Hardhome and knows where to find him. Jon leaves his office, encouraged at last. He sees Alliser Thorne who points him to where the wildling is, surrounded by Night's Watch men. The men part for their Lord Commander. But there is no wilding there, no Uncle Benjen. There's only a sign nailed to a post that reads "traitor". The Night's Watch men have evidently been watching American Me on their DVD players because they proceed to enact that film's penultimate assassination scene. Alliser Thorne steps up and stabs Jon in the stomach, saying "For the Watch". And after he does this so does every other Night's Watch man in that group. Forced to his knees and with little time left Jon can only watch and silently ask "Et tu, Olly?" as the boy Olly steps up and repeats the mantra "For the Watch" and stabs Jon. The boy kills the man. Jon lies bleeding out in the snow, looking sightlessly up at the stars. And that's all folks!!!! What I liked
Arya's revenge on Trant.
Dillane really brought Stannis' arc to life. He rejected what he loved in order for what he thought was right. He lost everything but was stubborn and unyielding to the end. His final line about duty perfectly encapsulated the character.
I like that I don't know what will happen next.
Lena Headey really brought a perfect mixture of pride, rage, sadness and fear to her big scene in the Walk of Shame.
The High Sparrow is not as sadistic as say Ramsay Snow, but he definitely gets off on power trips. The scene with Cersei on her knees before him gives the lie to all his blathering about equality before the Seven.
What I didn't like
Although I knew some of this was coming, the episode and this season was almost unrelentingly dark and depressing and made more so by the excision of a few plot elements from the books.
Dorne almost redeemed itself with Ellaria's revenge but it might have been more effective if we had gone down that misdirection path in the first place rather than waste time with action girls. Even so, Trystane is on that ship. The Dornish (including Ellaria) do not yet know of the Lannister reversal of fortunes in King's Landing. It would seem imprudent to start a war that will kill your ruler's (Doran's) heir when you and yours are still very much within Doran's reach.
Again, the Boltons and Starks are not the only Houses in the North. The storylines suffered from too tight a focus on the Boltons. The North is a big place. I would have liked to see some focus on the other Houses and what their response to the Bolton power play is.
*This post is written for discussion ofthisepisode and previous episodes. If you have book based knowledge of future events or have seen future leaked episodespleasebe kind enough not to discuss that here. NO SPOILERS. NO BOOK DERIVED HINTS ABOUT FUTURE EVENTS.Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea....
The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien)
The famous fantasy/sci-fi author Michael Moorcock once called Tolkien's Lord of The Rings "Epic Pooh", a characterization which I thought wasn't entirely accurate or fair. It is true that Moorcock wrote work that was (occasionally self-consciously so) much grittier with more moral ambiguity of the sort that would become popularized by later writers such as Donaldson, Martin and Abercrombie , to name a few. But on the other hand Tolkien knew all about the uglier side of life. He was after all a WWI veteran who fought in and survived the war's bloodiest battle, The Somme. Two of his best friends were killed during that battle. So if some sections of the Lord of The Rings are not as dark or as explicit as some later fantastical novels, it's not because Tolkien hadn't seen evil and hardship in his life. One of his earlier works, although it was only published after his death, was The Silmarillion, which had all sorts of doomed heroes, grim people doing grim things for worse reasons and even a few families which didn't fork. The Silmarillion as published is a collection of Tolkien's older stories about Middle-Earth ,ultimately going back to its creation and corruption. Perhaps the most tragic tale in The Silmarillion involves the story of Turin Turambar and his sister Nienor. As the title indicates they were the children of the northern lord, Hurin, considered to be the greatest warrior to ever live. The events detailed in this story took place roughly 6000 years before the occurrences in the Lord of the Rings. So with the exceptions of immortals like Gandalf, a few surviving elves like Galadriel or humans like Aragorn who are descended from some of the protagonists, most people by the time of the Lord of the Rings consider these tales mere legends if they remember them at all. If you think Martin's Starks had a rough time of it well they got off light compared to Hurin and his children. This story is also a great example of how creative people build on what's been done before to construct their own works. The Children of Hurin bears a very clear (Tolkien readily acknowledged this) debt to such classic stories as Wagner's Ring Cycle and the Volsung saga, Oedipus, and especially the Finnish national saga, the Kullervo. There's a saying that your arms are too short to box with God. Well if that's true it's also probably the case that your arms are also too short to box with the Devil. Tolkien's primary evil force was Melkor, or as he became known, Morgoth. Morgoth vacillated between wanting to destroy all of creation, because he didn't make it, and wanting to rule it.
To this end he attempted to physically subdue all incarnate beings in the world and make them accept him as God. He was resisted in this by most of the elves and many of the humans who came later. Tolkien was a very religious man though as he hated allegory and heavy-handedness this wasn't always easily seen in his works. One theme that crops up over and over again is that humans won't win the battle against evil without some sort of godly intervention. Evil is too strong. And yet we must constantly try.
Hurin was a man who took up that struggle against evil. As lord of his group of men, he and his brother Huor led his army to join the elves, dwarves and other men against Morgoth's legions in what became known as The Battle of Unnumbered Tears. As you might guess from the title of that battle things didn't turn out so well for the good guys. Via betrayal and bad intelligence of their enemy's true numbers they got curb-stomped. Despite a truly legendary last stand in which Huor was killed and Hurin stood alone against Morgoth's entire army, Hurin was finally captured and taken before Morgoth. Morgoth wanted intelligence about the elves who had escaped and of course worship from Hurin. Hurin gave some very rude suggestions about just what Morgoth could do with his questions. Hurin could not be daunted by fear, torture or threat. But Morgoth is nothing if not malicious. He cursed Hurin and his children, promising that he would personally guarantee that nothing but horrible things would happen to his son Turin and his daughter Nienor. In fact, Morgoth via magic would give the imprisoned Hurin a front row seat to everything that would go down. So The Children of Hurin is a tragic story of the impact of Morgoth's curse on one man's family. It's also just as much a story of what happens AFTER a defeat and how people try to pick up the pieces when their father and husband is gone. It's expanded greatly from the version found in The Silmarillion. It has slightly more dialogue, some of which has even been written in a less stilted, less heroic manner. You probably won't like Turin very much. He's not really a sympathetic character. He makes tons of mistakes. He occasionally falls into evil. Sometimes even when he's trying to do the right thing, he ends up doing evil. But again, if the Devil took a personal dislike to you, I'm betting your life wouldn't be that much fun either. This was just under 300 pages and is a quick read for a Tolkien fan. Others might find there to be a tad too much description. I can't say. What I can say is that this is a story for adults. People are motivated by some of our highest and most ignoble emotions. If you are looking for grittiness or realism in your fantasy (aside from talking dragons and evil swords) you'll find it here.
One of the interesting things about Michigan is that although it has two Democratic US Senators and is a pretty reliable Democratic state in presidential elections it also has a large vibrant conservative electorate. That electorate is not all that happy with some of the recent changes in society. As you may have known if you read our previous post on gays in Michigan and some of the challenges they face around family law, sexuality is not a protected status in the state of Michigan. Theoretically then, there is no current state protection against discrimination against homosexuals in hiring, public accommodations, contracts or housing. Such protection is not in the state constitution or in state law. Those protections exist in Michigan not at all. However Michigan conservatives, religious and otherwise, can see which way the courts and more importantly the larger national electorate are both leaning on this issue. Michigan conservatives don't like it. They also don't like the fact that in certain other states or in Washington D.C. , adoption agencies who refused to place children with gay adoptive parents were forced to either change their policies or close. So yesterday Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed into law a measure that explicitly allows religiously based adoptive agencies to refuse to place children with prospective parents who happen to be gay. So if Pat and Pat show up and want to adopt a child, the agency, should it find same sex relationships (gay marriage is not legal in Michigan) distasteful can tell the two men or two women to take a hike. There's no longer any need to couch rejections in niceties. I think that some conservatives view this both as a rearguard action against a culture they no longer recognize and as a necessary and prudent preemptive strike.
Lansing — Gov. Rick Snyder signed a controversial package of bills Thursday allowing faith-based agencies to turn away gay and lesbian couples seeking state-supported adoptions. Snyder signed the bills without ceremony, just one day after the Legislature sent him the legislation. The law goes into effect immediately. The ACLU of Michigan vows to challenge it. The new law allows faith-based adoption agencies to invoke their sincerely held religious beliefs in denying adoption placement services to gay and lesbian couples who want to be parents. The agencies would be required to refer gay and lesbian couples to another adoption agency.
In a statement, the Republican governor emphasized the bills puts adoption practices, already in use, into law. Snyder’s office said that adoption rates in Michigan have continued to increase in recent years. In the 2014 fiscal year, 85 percent of children in the foster system were adopted, up from 70 percent in 2011. As many as 13,000 children reside in Michigan’s foster care system at any given time, according to lawmakers. “The state has made significant progress in finding more forever homes for Michigan kids in recent years and that wouldn’t be possible without the public-private partnerships that facilitate the adoption process,” Snyder said in a statement. “We are focused on ensuring that as many children are adopted to as many loving families as possible regardless of their makeup.”
In fiscal year 2014, Michigan spent $19.9 million on contracts with private agencies for adoption services, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. It accounted for about 85 percent of the $23.2 million the state spent that year on adoption support services. Seventeen of Michigan’s 62 adoption placement agencies are faith-based, according to the Michigan Catholic Conference.
The ACLU is threatening to sue. Perhaps one of the resident lawyers or other legal experts can explain what the grounds for such a lawsuit might be and how likely it would be to succeed in state or federal courts. The governor also signed into law the "Parental Responsibility Act". Despite what it sounds like this is not a law which sanctions busybodies who are offended at how some other parents raise their children. Nor is this a law which makes it clear that Child Protective Services actually can't take children first and work out parental guilt later. No. This law gives the state the ability to cut off welfare cash to a family if a school age child in the home is chronically truant from school.
LANSING, MI — A parent's failure to ensure his or her child is going to school could cost the family welfare cash under a new law signed Thursday by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. The so-called "parental responsibility act" gives the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services statutory authority to cut off Family Independence Program assistance if a child is chronically truant and interventions fail. Snyder, in a statement announcing he signed the controversial legislation, compared it to the Pathways to Potential program, which has seen the state put caseworkers into schools to work directly with students.
"Much like the Pathways to Potential program, this legislation brings together parents, schools and the state to determine obstacles that keep students from being in school and how to overcome them," Snyder said. "To break the cycle of poverty, kids need an education to position them for future success. We have to do everything we can to see that they are regularly attending school."
If a child who is younger than 16 regularly misses school, his or her whole family could lose cash benefits. If the child is 16 or older, they would be removed from the family group, which could continue to receive some assistance.LINK
It's important to note, that per article, in fiscal year 2104 less than 200 families or individuals were sanctioned for missing school. So I'm not really sure what huge problem this is supposed to solve, other than satisfying the never ending conservative desire to stigmatize and control poor people. There are a lot of problems in the schools but children from families on welfare missing school is really not the most pressing issue to address. As long as we are putting strings on acceptance of public monies should we also place restrictions and checks on the state legislators' family member's behavior? Or should all the social engineering experimentation and moral scolding be reserved for the impoverished among us. Presumably if two parents had decided that NO ONE in their family would eat for a month because a knucklehead sibling had done something wrong, people would want the entire set of children removed from those parents. They wouldn't be cheering the parents for their decision. What are your thoughts on these issues?
"I believe in second chances. I don't believe in third chances." Well I think it's safe to say that Stannis is out of the running for Father of The Year. More on that in a minute. First we open up in the North where Melisandre, apparently unbothered by the cold as she is wearing her normal plunging neckline gown, (heh-heh) seemingly senses something awry and walks out of her tent. She sees what is probably one of Ramsay's men scurrying away. Then fire breaks out across the camp. Tents, horses, and men are all set ablaze. It's chaos and near panic. The next morning Davos gives the grim report to Stannis. We see what Ramsay wanted those twenty men to do. Much of the food stores and all of the siege engines have been burned. Stannis' army has also lost horses, Going forward just became even more difficult. Even if they reach Winterfell they have no way to besiege it now. Stannis is, needless to say, more than a bit perturbed. He can't understand how twenty men can infiltrate his camp so easily. This lack of security around a ruler will be bookended in the episode's final scenes. Stannis is not mollified by Davos' excuse that the southerners are unused to the grim North and don't know the terrain. Not raising the alarm while you're on guard duty means that you're either incompetent or you're a traitor. Stannis has no use for either; he orders the guards hanged. His march looks like it's dead in the water...or rather dead in the snow I guess.
Later on Stannis summons Davos to undertake a new mission. He is to return to Castle Black to ask for food and supplies with the promise that once Stannis becomes King, he will ensure that the Night's Watch is provisioned and manned far beyond the skeleton crew it currently has. Stannis doesn't seem to care that this request would require the Night's Watch to break the neutrality it's supposed to maintain. And he cares even less that, as Davos angrily points out, that this message could and should be carried to the Night's Watch by someone far less senior than Davos, the King's Hand. But orders are orders. Right. Before he leaves Davos visits Shireen. He has carved her a beautiful wooden stag. A stag is of course the Baratheon sigil. It's a gift to her for not giving up on him, and for teaching him to read. There's some very obvious subtext here as to why Stannis wants Davos temporarily gone. You probably know what it is too. Davos may even sense it which is why he gave Shireen the gift. Just in case you're really thick, we see Stannis give a meaningful look at Melisandre. And I don't think he's checking out her womanly goodies though probably everyone else is.
Jon Snow and his ragtag alliance of Night's Watch men and wildlings make it back to the Wall. After a brief staredown, Alliser Thorne gives a disgusted look and opens the gate. Alliser says Jon has a good heart but that Jon will get them all killed. Jon admits to Sam that he thinks the mission was a failure but Sam points out all the people he saved. For the first time Jon looks around and really seems to notice that his fellow Night's Watch brothers not only don't seem happy with his decisions to let the wildlings in, they also seem downright upset. Nobody tells him good job, or glad to see you made it back or asks him how things went. There are just sullen looks and silence as the group of wildlings, including the giant, enter Castle Black. Hmm. In Dorne Areo Hotah leads Jaime to see Prince Doran, who is sitting with Ellaria, Myrcella, and Trystane. Doran asks Jaime why all the sneaking around? It's insulting and unnecessary. Jaime tells everyone about the implied threat of Myrcella's necklace received in a viper's jaws. Myrcella says that's the necklace that was stolen. Everyone looks at Ellaria who shrugs. Doran says that if his loyal ruler King Tommen, demands that Myrcella return to King's Landing then of course he will comply. He just insists that Trystane accompany his betrothed back to King's Landing and take a seat on the Small Council. That settled everyone toasts, well everyone except Ellaria, who ostentatiously refuses to do so. There's the small matter of punishment for Bronn, who struck Trystane. Although Doran is seemingly in a forgiving mood, he's not fond of people smacking his heir. That stuff won't fly. But he leaves the matter up to his son. Trystane will be running things one day. He might as well get some executive experience now.
Bronn is retrieved from his cell. Nearby the Sand Snakes are playing a slapping game. Bronn makes sure to respond affirmatively to Tyene's parting query of who is the most beautiful woman in the world. Taken before Doran and Jaime, Bronn is pleased to learn from Jaime that he will be set free. But there is one condition. At a nod from Trystane, Areo gives a quick brutal elbow to Bronn's face. Pow. Right in the kisser. Right to the moon!!!! Afterwards, as the manacled Sand Snakes look on sadly, Doran quietly and angrily explains to Ellaria that, family or not, he's done playing with her. Her disrespect and rebellion ends now. Or she dies. It really is that simple. After she kneels and kisses the ring, Ellaria goes to visit Jaime, who is trying to write left-handed. He's not very good at it. She lets him know that she knows all about his incest, but does not judge. After all the Targaryens famously wed brother to sister, uncle to niece, aunt to nephew. Love comes in many forms. She also claims she would not have hurt Myrcella. What's her game?
In Braavos, it's time for Arya to take out the corrupt insurance agent. She is about to do so, in her guise as a seafood vendor when she sees something that makes her forget all about her mission. She walks past her target, who is actually desirous of purchasing her wares. It's Ser Meryn Trant, with Mace Tyrell. If you recall Tyrell was sent to Braavos by Cersei in order to get him out of the way while she went after his children. But the cover story, which Tyrell was too dim to see through, was that he needed to renegotiate terms with the Iron Bank. But if you recall back further in the story, Ser Meryn Trant is the one who killed Syrio, Arya's sword instructor. Also, though Arya doesn't know this, Trant also beat and stripped Sansa Stark. Anyhow he's on Arya's list. She follows him and Tyrell as Tyrell ineptly (does he do things any other way?) tries and fails to charm the head banker, Tycho. At the day's end Arya follows Trant and two of his companions to a brothel. Arya uses her cover as an oyster seller to get inside. Oysters have zinc. So they are famously supposed to help put lead in a man's pencil. So a few of the ladies of the night want to buy some oysters. We see that Trant is a pedophile. He doesn't want older women. He doesn't even want young attractive women. He wants young girls. Arya's cover is almost blown when the house madam catches her spying and Trant seems taken aback by her face. But never mind. As he takes his child prostitute to the room, Trant reminds the madam he'll want someone new tomorrow. As she is kicked out, you can see the wheels turning in Arya's mind. When she returns to the House of Black and White she lies to Jaqen H'ghar by telling him that the insurance agent wasn't hungry today. Jaquen doesn't slap her. So maybe he believed the lie? Or maybe he didn't? But as we know, Arya is not no one. She is still Arya of House Stark, Princess of Winterfell.
As Shireen plays with the stag which Davos gave her, Stannis comes to see his daughter. She has been reading about the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of Dragons. Stannis is trying to decide whether to sacrifice his daughter. This is a pretty powerful scene. Stannis speaks obliquely about some of the problems he's having. Happy to see her Daddy and having no idea of what he's really talking about, Shireen says she would be happy to help. After all, as she reminds Stannis, using the same line he told her a few episodes back, she is Princess Shireen of the House Baratheon, and she is his daughter. Stannis tells her that actually she can her. Stannis embraces Shireen and mutters "forgive me." Cut away to Shireen being led to the pyre by soldiers. She's calling for her daddy. She's still holding the stag. At every point you think that someone is going to intervene because a few of the soldiers appear disgusted. Melisandre appears and tells Shireen that it will all be over soon. Stannis and Selyse are watching and holding on to each other. Shireen screams for their help. Selyse tells the shaking Stannis that this is the right thing. But as Melisandre lights the stake, it's actually Selyse, not Stannis, who reveals there's a drop of parental love still left inside. She runs to the stake, but soldiers catch her. Selyse collapses and sobs as Shireen screams for her parents and ultimately just screams. Still want Stannis to take Winterfell?
In Meereen Daenerys watchs the opening of the fighting pits. On stage she is joined by Hizdahr,Tyrion, Missandei and Daario. Hizdahr and Daario like each other about as much as you would expect, which is to say not at all. Daario can't stop boasting about his own time in the fighting pits and showing off his skills with daggers and short swords. He's doing this right in Hizdahr's face so it's less passive-aggressive and more "I don't like you one bit, pretty boy!" Daario and Tyrion are a bit taken aback when Hizdahr correctly predicts the outcome of the first match. Daario and Daenerys can't stop themselves from needling Hizdahr about his own lack of fighting experience. Hizdahr shrugs that off. He gives a very pragmatic defense of violence, saying that good or bad, everything that is accomplished relies ultimately on the threat of force. Daenerys is kidding herself if she believes otherwise. This prompts Tyrion to mutter that Tywin would have liked Hizdahr. Hizdahr is probably unaware that the sardonic Tyrion means this as an insult. Daenerys doesn't like the fighting. She is disturbed by how into it the crowd is. People are cheering for blood. But philosophical discussions and poorly hidden sexual rivalries will have to wait for later. The next match is about to start and wouldn't you know it's Lord Friendzone again, back for more. Yes good old Jorah Mormont is there to show these easterners how a Westerosi knight does things. The crowd boos him lustily, preferring their home town favorites. After a pause Daenerys gives permission for the melee to proceed.
Although he's not the quickest, youngest or largest opponent, Jorah does have the advantage of good protection, experience and a weapon (longsword) that if used correctly is one hit, one kill. He's last man standing, to the crowd's severe displeasure. Suddenly he grabs a spear and with surprising accuracy throws it right at Daenerys! Well of course he didn't throw it at Daenerys. He threw it at the Son of the Harpy who had somehow gained access to Daenerys' stage and was just about to kill her. Again, where's that security? Or perhaps the Sons of the Harpy were security. Suddenly there are Sons of the Harpy everywhere in the stadium. Some have swords and daggers, others have spears. And they aim to misbehave. It's the perfect kill zone. Their enemy is trapped and outnumbered. Hizdahr is killed. Daario, Jorah and the Unsullied make a shield wall around Daenerys. Or they would if they had the numbers. They don't. Still this is not a situation where surrender is an option. The butchery commences. Daenerys and Missandei think they'll be dead soon. Things don't look good for Team Targaryen. But wait. Look at the skies! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Drogon! You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit in the wind. You don't pull the mask off the Lone Ranger. And you don't mess with Drogon's mama. Drogon starts slicing, dicing and burning people. However he's apparently not at full growth and is still vulnerable to spears. Well what mother can stand to see her children harmed? Selyse ultimately couldn't. And neither can Daenerys. She yanks spears from Drogon's hide. She mounts Drogon and flies out of the pit. To where we do not know. What I liked
Dillane's acting as Stannis is something that needs to be recognized.
Arya's recognition of Trant and her refusal to forget herself.
Davos' gift to Shireen (and his request to take Shireen with him). He had to know something was up. This will really set up a conflict between Davos' morality and his sense of loyalty.
It appears that Daenerys is linked telepathically to Drogon (and her other dragons?)
The attack on Daenerys. Who knows if Hizdahr was in on it or not. But it was a perfect set up. Or it would have been if not for Drogon.
The sight of soldiers dragging Shireen raised some general questions. Any sovereign can give orders. But why do people obey? What would happen if soldiers refused to obey criminal orders. That question may not be answered unless we see Davos in the finale but very few people can wreak havoc without the active support of others. Just something to ponder.
What I didn't like
I don't know if this ultimately came from Martin or not but I didn't think Stannis' sacrifice of Shireen made sense for the Stannis character. The book mythical hero whom Stannis is emulating had a similar moment with his wife but I just don't think the Stannis who loved his daughter so much would have watched her burn. It feels like shock for shock's sake.
I thought Drogon should have been a bit larger but that's just a small nitpick.
Dorne continues to be a waste of resources and time.
There was a bit too much foreshadowing.
*This post is written for discussion ofthisepisode and previous episodes. If you have book based knowledge of future events or have seen future leaked episodespleasebe kind enough not to discuss that here. NO SPOILERS. NO BOOK DERIVED HINTS ABOUT FUTURE EVENTS.Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea....
All of the facts leading up to this incident are still up for debate. What's not up for debate are the apparently unprofessional, thuggish and dangerous actions of one of the police officers who responded. Knowing how police generally behave and their differing perceptions of threat based on race I'm not really too surprised by anything in the video, though I am angered. I really don't have a whole lot to add about this other than incidents such as these are precisely the reason that police officers ought to be better trained. But if someone is racist and hateful the level of training is meaningless. This is in many ways the historical and apparently current black experience in America in a nutshell. Blackness is considered criminal by definition when it's outside of its "place". In our (not so) post-racial America, black children, white children and hispanic children are apparently having a good time at a pool party. Apparently some white adults are put off by the numbers of black invitees or question whether they are all invitees. A security guard (white?) starts to evict the black children who were apparently invited. One white woman, who evidently feels that black children should not be at that particular pool party, starts hurling racist insults. When she is called out on this by another black woman, she apparently initiates a physical assault. The police are called. Like most black people, young or old, would do, many of the black children decide that now would be a good time to depart the premises. After all the police are quite comfortable beating or shooting black people. Everyone knows that. What the video seems to show is that one police officer, upset at having fallen down chasing someone, decides to unload his bile on any black teen in the vicinity. He curses and insults them and then takes down a young teen girl, grinding her face in the ground and sitting on her. He also pulls his gun and points it at the children when they protest. These children were treated as if they had just slaughtered nine people. Oh wait, no they weren't. The bikers who actually killed people and exchanged gunshots with the police were treated better than unarmed children committing the felony crime of being black in an area where being black is illegal. The officer has been placed on administrative leave...
WASHINGTON -- When Miles Jai Thomas arrived at a party at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool in McKinney, Texas, on Friday night, the pool was open to everyone -- until a security guard showed up and removed black partygoers from the area. “Then he started making up rules to keep us out,” Thomas, 15, told The Huffington Post.
A white woman at the pool started making racist comments, Thomas said, such as telling black teens at the party to get used to the bars outside the pool because that’s all they were going to see. Grace Stone, 14, who is white, told BuzzFeed News that she and friends objected to an adult woman making racist comments to other teens at the party and that the woman turned violent. This is when, according to Thomas, a 19-year-old black woman told the belligerent white woman to stop fighting with the teenagers. The white woman called the black woman a “young b***h,” then walked up to her. After the young woman said her age out loud, the older woman punched her in the face. Another unidentified white woman jumped in as well before Thomas, who was recording the incident, and his friends went to break it up.
It was after this incident that the cops showed up and “started cursing and yelling at us,” Thomas said. He described an officer manhandling a young girl, as shown in this video embedded above. “So a cop grabbed her arm and flipped her to the ground after she and him were arguing about him cursing at us,” Thomas said. When two teens went toward the cop to help the girl, they were accused of sneaking up on the cop to attack. “So a cop yelled 'get those motherf*****s' and they chased [us] with guns out. That's why in the video I started running,” Thomas said. "I was scared because all I could think was, 'Don't shoot me,'" he said.
There are a few takeaways here, besides the obvious one that white police officers are often very quick to resort to force or the threat of force with black citizens of any age. If you haven't been living in a cave your whole life you already knew that. The really sad infuriating thing on display here is what the black children learned. They learned that just being in a "white" area when someone thinks you shouldn't be there can be hazardous to your health. They learned that the police really don't care about their constitutional right to assemble or use free speech. Being polite and respectable won't prevent you from being detained or arrested. And the children also learned that no adult will come to their aid. That last thing is a horrible lesson to learn. I don't see where the young woman committed any crime. And I certainly don't see where it was necessary for the cop to body slam her and sit on her. What would you do if that was your daughter, your sister, your wife, your mother, your girlfriend? Could you live with yourself if you did nothing? Or if you were the young woman being so treated could you ever look the same way again at the men in your life if they didn't do something? Of course the police would be very happy to shoot anyone they believed was even thinking about "interfering". It's comforting to imagine that your loved ones would never be in that situation but that is not only foolish, but downright delusional. It's also tempting to believe that this is only a Texas problem but it's not. It's nationwide. But maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe the police were all in fear of their lives from the black kids (and apparently only the black kids), who after all may have had rifles and hand grenades stuffed in their swimwear. Of course, once again I look at the Cliven Bundy situation where police, faced with numerous men who had their own guns and weren't afraid to shoot back, somehow managed to show some restraint. There's probably a lesson to be learned there.
