Bates Motel Series Finale

This A&E series lasted for five years. It didn't overstay its welcome. It featured very intense story lines and acting by the two leads (Farmiga, Highmore). But every recurring character in this story was well written. Even the minor characters fit well into the story. This series may have started out as a prequel to the Psycho film but the producers and writers made it clear that Bates Motel was much much ambitious than a prequel. It was something that may have been inspired by Psycho but was not tied down by that film. It was a re-interpretation and reworking of the Psycho movie. Although there was the obvious bad guy the viewers also came to understand that the man, Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) was not in control of himself. He was a very disturbed one. He was capable of great kindness upon occasion. He ran into more attractive women than you would expect a weird loner to find. But Norman was never going to enjoy happiness for long because he was increasingly divorced from reality.

At the end of Season Four a depressed and angry Norman decided to kill his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and himself in a murder-suicide. However although his mother died, Norman didn't. In a stroke of luck for Norman the authorities, with Norman's connivance, assumed that the breakup note that Norma wrote for her husband Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell ) was actually a suicide note.  So everyone believes that Norma was actually the crazy one who tried to kill her son via gas poisoning. Well that is everyone except Alex. He knows how dangerous Norman is. He blames Norman for his wife's death. And he intends to do something about it. He's put people in the ground before. Unfortunately for Alex though before he could make his move some of the evidence of his corruption has caught up with him. He's arrested and later convicted.

Elderly Woman Body Slammed At Pool Party

You must be able to get along with other people. You don't have to like them but you must live with them. Our actions continually impact other people. When you are neighbors with someone you recognize this. You and your neighbor can't solve every dispute by shouting and fisticuffs. When you are neighbors with someone there's a good chance that neither of you is going anywhere anytime soon. You and your neighbor may need each other's help someday, whether it's something as prosaic as your neighbor plowing your driveway during the Winter Deathstorm of 2017 or you being willing to let the police know the license plate of the van that was parked outside your neighbor's house while it was burglarized. 

So when your neighbor asks you to turn your music down you might be annoyed. But if you are normal you'd remember the time that your neighbor helped you to change a flat. You'd probably turn down the music. Even if you didn't know your neighbor from Adam, you might consider granting their request because, as mentioned, reciprocity often works. You and your neighbor will be in a position to help and hurt each other for a while. 

But people who aren't neighbors and who aren't normal may not recognize the benefits of relationship reciprocity, as 68 year old North Lauderdale, Florida resident Nancy James discovered when she asked a group of teens to turn down their music at a pool party. The teens, many of whom did not live in the complex, didn't appreciate her request.

China Destroys Ocean Fisheries

When people say globalization they usually are referring to the greater corporate economic integration between and among the so-called Third World and Europe and the US. Depending on whom you are speaking to, this can be a good or bad thing. The problem however is that different nations on the planet have different footprints in their economic impact on the planet. Numbers matter. If one or two people cut across your lawn once or twice a week it might not be worth your while to make a big stink about it and get into a nasty fight with the trespassers. I mean life is short right? Why waste your time in conflict? But if a few hundred people decide to do the same thing every day then you have to do something or soon you won't have a lawn. You might have to show a more unpleasant part of your personality. China is not the source of all evil in the world today. Not by a long shot. But China's immense population and ever growing demand for natural resources are putting immense stress on resources that may not be as renewable as we once thought. 

Joal, Senegal — Once upon a time, the seas teemed with mackerel, squid and sardines, and life was good. But now, on opposite sides of the globe, sun-creased fishermen lament as they reel in their nearly empty nets.“Your net would be so full of fish, you could barely heave it onto the boat,” said Mamadou So, 52, a fisherman in Senegal, gesturing to the meager assortment of tiny fish flapping in his wooden canoe. A world away in eastern China, Zhu Delong, 75, also shook his head as his net dredged up a disappointing array of pinkie-size shrimp and fledgling yellow croakers. “When I was a kid, you could cast a line out your back door and hook huge yellow croakers,” he said. “Now the sea is empty.”

Overfishing is depleting oceans across the globe, with 90 percent of the world’s fisheries fully exploited or facing collapse, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. From Russian king crab fishermen in the west Bering Sea to Mexican ships that poach red snapper off the coast of Florida, unsustainable fishing practices threaten the well-being of millions of people in the developing world who depend on the sea for income and food, experts say. But China, with its enormous population, growing wealth to buy seafood and the world’s largest fleet of deep-sea fishing vessels, is having an outsize impact on the globe’s oceans. 

Book Reviews: Carter & Lovecraft

Carter & Lovecraft
By Jonathan Howard

This story is miles apart from some of Howard's earlier work reviewed here. It doesn't have quite the same sheen of sarcastic humor laid over everything. That makes sense as the subject matter is different. This is another story in a crowded field of works inspired by the late writer H.P. Lovecraft. Although it has a few Grand Guignol scenes for the most part this story stays true to Lovecraft's trick of implying what was wrong as opposed to coming out and saying it. The mood is more important to this novel than some of the events. Of course Howard is a better writer than Lovecraft so his characters are better developed. Even though I didn't enjoy this as much as Howard's Cabal series I still thought it was worthwhile reading. The book is just over 300 pages and has more than a little in common with the film Angel Heart in some aspects.

The author H.P. Lovecraft lived at a point in time when science was rapidly advancing and overturning previously closely held myths. Einstein's theories of general and special relativity along with other later discoveries made some people think that maybe they weren't at the center of the universe after all. Worse, the idea of quantum physics made people deal with the idea that reality itself was random and unknowable and an illusion. Lovecraft didn't write down, as later speculative fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke did, the dictum that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" but it is a concept which pervades many of his stories, most famously "Dreams in the Witch House". If reality itself is only a set of probabilities and creatures or events can exist in mutually exclusive categories before we actually observe them, what would happen if someone or something was able to hack reality? What would that look like? What would happen if someone could alter reality via his understanding of advanced mathematics? These and more are the questions which are raised in this book. 

Babies Eating Lemons For First Time

This is a pretty clear example of why it's remarkable that any kids ever trust adults. People say that when life gives you lemons make lemonade. I say why would someone you trust give you a lemon to eat in the first place? That right there would ruin my faith in parents.😱 Are there any foods you won't eat under any circumstances?

Stephen King Dark Tower Trailer

Stephen King's The Dark Tower series has been made into a film which opens on August 4. The trailer looks interesting. I have not read the whole series which inspired this film. I understand that the series touches many (most?) of King's other works. I believe that King once wrote that this series contains many hidden and not so hidden sequels to some of his best loved novels. Certainly in many of his novels there are references to the Dark Tower and some of the characters within. Additionally, if I remember correctly, King also updated The Talisman and Black House to fit within the Dark Tower universe. The series touches on just about all of King's interests. It's not just horror. This movie is something that will be on my radar screen for the fall. This film will also provide an example of color reversed casting. The Gunslinger in the books is Caucasian. Idris Elba is not. Although an older white person I know tentatively expressed some concern over this I don't think that will make a tremendous difference in how most people approach the story. Either the movie will be good or not. From what I've read the film is not a straight adaptation of any of the books in The Dark Tower series but instead takes high points from the first and third books as well as mixing in stuff from the final book. 

I like that the book and movie accept that revolvers are just better. There is something particularly and peculiarly American about the longcoat clad gunslinger standing alone against onrushing evil. It's fascinating how creative types use our common myths and archetypes to spin brand new stories that yet seem so familiar.

Texas Cop Kills Black Child

You might ask yourself why some white cops are so quick to use deadly force against unarmed Black men and boys. You then might ask yourself how long it would take the cops to arrest a non-police officer who fired shots into a police car that was moving away from him. And after you pondered those questions you might wonder if the system would indict a cop who killed a child for no reason at all or if the jury would convict such a cop or if the judge would give such a cop the same punishment that he or she would grant to any other similarly situated criminal. But this is 2017 America so if you're honest with yourself you probably already know the answer to those questions. But hope springs eternal. We shall see what happens to Balch Springs Police Officer Roy Oliver who, upon responding to reports of a disturbance at a house party, shot dead an unarmed 15 year old black boy, honor student Jordan Edwards, who was a passenger in a car that was leaving the location. Oliver and/or his police department initially *misspoke* (lied) and claimed that the car was backing up aggressively towards the officer. But apparently the video shows otherwise. The police department has since fired Oliver, who of course is trying to get his job back. At the time of this writing there hasn't been any arrest of Oliver. It's important to point out that Jordan Edwards was killed in front of his brothers who were also jailed for absolutely no reason. Imagine, as a child, watching your sibling die in front of your eyes, killed by the very people who are sworn to "protect" you. What sort of issues are you going to have throughout life?