Black Woman Tourist Thrown Down Steps in Amsterdam

People place different values on time and its importance. One person may get very upset if a friend or family member who promised to pick them up from the airport is ten minutes late. Another person may not understand why their boss is seething when they consistently arrive to work two hours after what the manager considers to be an acceptable starting time. Sometimes these differences may be culturally or environmentally based, but even among people who share the exact same cultural and familial background there may be very disparate attitudes towards time. Of course time is money. 

Many people who evince cavalier attitudes towards other people's expectations of punctuality will often take a different viewpoint if their employer or customer decides to pay them late or less than what was agreed. So it goes. Ideally expectations about time and money should be worked out before you enter into a formal contract with someone. Because when there is a disagreement or misunderstanding about time and money more serious unpleasantness can arise. All sorts of prejudices and hatreds can come to the forefront. This shocking footage shows the moment a tourist was brutally pushed down a flight of stairs by an AirBnB landlord who could be facing charges of attempted murder. The push was the culmination of an argument that took place on Saturday afternoon in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam between four tourists who had rented the flat and the landlord.

According to local media, the tourists should have left the house at 11am but at 1pm, they were still not ready to leave. The impatient landlord then became angry at the group and decided to take matters into his own hands. The footage shows the man shouting 'out, out' as he chucks the clothes and suitcases of the women out of the flat and down the stairs. One women is heard saying 'don't be emotional' as she complains about the landlord chucking her stuff out the flat unceremoniously.

Fox News and Sexual Harassment: Charles Payne Suspended

Sexual harassment is wrong. Adultery is also wrong. But in the Hughes-Payne affair we only know for sure that one of those things took place. This incident shows why it's usually a good idea to keep your work life and your sex life separate. Because if things go sideways there are any number of ways that a scorned lover can make your life miserable, mess with your money and perhaps even derail your career. Of course sex is one of the strongest urges known to men and women so it's not surprising that people constantly ignore common sense for a little slice of heaven. Sin in haste. Repent at leisure. It's just part of human nature. The analyst whose accusations of sexual harassment have led to Fox Business Network's Charles Payne being suspended has been identified as Scottie Nell Hughes. It emerged Thursday that Payne, who hosts Making Money, had been accused of having a three-year affair with a married political analyst who had worked for CNN. 

That woman was Hughes and their relationship was well-known within Fox News circles, ten sources told the Huffington Post. Hughes is best known for her pro-Trump appearances on CNN during last year, when she made a string of gaffes, including referring to Molotov cocktails as 'Mazel Tov cocktails'. But she also worked as an unpaid guest commentator on Fox from 2013-2016 - during which time she struck up an affair with the married father, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Movie Reviews: Life, The Belko Experiment

Life
directed by Daniel Espinosa
Good B-movie that doesn't quite live up to its cast

This film is not in the same league as Alien or The Thing but that doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile Saturday afternoon B-movie which draws from the same Lovecraftian inspirations as the aforementioned movies. It also shows its debt to 40s noir and 50s monster films. If you go into this movie nitpicking every little thing then you're missing the point. Yes, there are a few pointy headed scientists who lack common sense. Yes, sometimes the movie's physics are dead on accurate; other times they are completely made up. And supposedly trained scientists and engineers at the top of their professions make horrible mistakes when faced with a crisis. But that last is human nature. Unless you train continually, chances are good that when faced with an emergency you may make sub-optimal decisions. Playing a video driving simulation is different from racing the Daytona 500. 

No plan survives contact with the enemy. And the arrogant scientist who is convinced that he alone has the ability to bridge the gap between humanity and a possibly hostile life form is a pretty old trope. So basically movies like this aren't meant for deep analysis. They are effectively haunted house movies without the supernatural elements. You're supposed to enjoy the thrills and imagine what you would do in that situation.

Don't Mess With North Carolina Women

I haven't been to Asheville, North Carolina, or spoken to maternal relatives in a while. I wonder what they would think of this story. I will check over the weekend. I think that although the woman's actions may have been a little over the top I would also bet that the thief will think twice before doing something like that again. If I were in charge of justice in this case I would probably just put the woman on a very short probation period. I would want to make sure that she understands when she can use that kind of force and when she can't. I think the thief already understands that if he wants to mess with his fellow mountain folk then he has to accept the risks of things like what took place. That had to hurt.  A pregnant woman was arrested in North Carolina on Wednesday after she reportedly mowed down an alleged thief with her SUV in a Wal-Mart parking lot, police said. After an investigation, police said that Christine Braswell, 26, of Canton, was returning to her parked car outside a Wal-Mart in Asheville on Wednesday afternoon when she saw a man enter her unattended, unsecured vehicle and rummage through her purse. 

When she confronted the man, he dropped the purse and ran across the parking lot in an attempt to flee, according to the Asheville Police Department. 

The Highwayman

The Highwayman
by Alfred Noyes

"The Highwayman" is a romantic poem created by the English writer, poet and playwright Alfred Noyes. I first encountered it as a young child in the Childcraft set gifted to me lo these many years ago by one of my great aunts. "Great" in that she was my father's aunt, not "great" in that she was a wonderful person, though indeed she was. Considering the subject matter it's unlikely that people would now consider the poem suitable for today's hypersensitive generation but kids were made of sterner stuff back in the day. And I think my aunt might have already known that I liked to read. Anyway the poem did leave an impact on me I think. I have saved and kept that Childcraft book which had the poem. I ran across it the other day while looking for something else. It's interesting what things from our childhood we keep.

The poem has a serious blues narrative. I suppose you could argue that things don't end well for the poem's doomed lovers. But you could just as easily say that the poem shows that true love will conquer all though death and hell stand in the way. The poem details the love between the titular character and Bess, the innkeeper's daughter. However jealousy and murderous soldiers end their love in this life, though perhaps not in the next. There's a balance between grim reality and romantic escape in this poem, which is echoed in many other works ranging from Tolkien's Beren and Luthien saga to the Gallows Pole traditional song made famous by Leadbelly and Led Zeppelin and even the infamous ending to Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. This poem lets everyone know that true love will conquer all. There's not a drop of cynicism to be found within. 

The poem is too long to reproduce in its entirety not that I want to do that here anyway but you can read selected portions below. Notice the poem's rhythm in the last three lines of each stanza. That's probably why many people have adapted the words to music and created songs based off of this work.

Trump and Mika Brzezinski

If I were a foreign agent or diplomat observing the President of the United States I would certainly be taking copious notes on how easily the President can be baited into saying or doing something silly or nasty. Over and over again the President finds it necessary to engage in puerile insults or get into back-and-forth with media personalities. He also has a two-year-old's attention span and need for validation. And he has extreme sensitivity to anything that hints that he's not the most virile and ahem..largest man ever. Not for Trump anything that implies that he's not always right, not always heh-heh, ready to go, and not necessarily swinging the biggest bat in town. This is information which could be of interest and use to foreign decision makers at some point down the line, if it hasn't been already. 

For someone who claims to disdain the mainstream media Trump seems remarkably well informed of what they are saying about him. It's apparent, that far from dismissing the media and so-called intelligentsia, Trump desperately craves their approval and adulation. He needs it. He must have it. And when he doesn't get it, like the two-year-old he resembles he throws temper tantrums.

A segment on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in which co-host Mika Brzezinski said President Donald Trump was "destroying the country" might have been what led Trump to attack her viciously on Twitter on Thursday morning.

The segment took aim at a fake Time magazine cover featuring Trump that reportedly hangs at a number of Trump's golf clubs and properties, according to The Washington Post.

"Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a magazine about himself, lying every day, and destroying the country," Brzezinski said. Brzezinski also noted that on the fake Time cover, Trump was covering his hands "because they're teensy.

Book Reviews: The 13 and 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear

The 13 and 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear
by Walter Moers

I am almost at a loss to describe this book. I liked it a lot. Truly did. But the combination of not wanting to divulge spoilers and not having a tremendous amount of time to ramble on about the book means that I will have to share the essentials of the book in just a few short  sentences. First of all you should get this book if you don't already have it. Next, just read it. It is a wonderful fantastical tale that takes place in an Earth that perhaps never was but certainly should have been. If you are tired of fantasies that are all about grim dark violence interspersed with dark grim bloodshed then you should probably take this book off the shelves and enter its world. I can't guarantee that you would like it but I can say that it lacks a lot of the dismal outlook which has become popular in many fantasy stories of late. This fantasy is more Moomintroll Valley, Phantom Tollbooth, or Through the Looking Glass than Storm of Swords.

Captain Bluebear, the name is evidently some sort of pun in the author's native German, is well a bluebear who lives in and around the fictional continent of Zamonia. The book's title comes from the fact that bluebears are said to have three times as many lives as cats. So Captain Bluebear describes the first half of his life. He wants some privacy so he's not telling you about the others. In addition to the fantasy stories I already mentioned there is a strong resemblance to some of Charles Dickens' work. I think it's probably deliberate. Not all of Captain Bluebear's lives terminate in his actual demise. Lives here, mostly mean a period before he transitions to something else. Occasionally one gets the very strong feeling that the good captain may not be the smartest bear in the woods.