HBO Game of Thrones: Difference Analysis

Ok. I can't take it anymore. This post assumes you have seen both seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones. If you haven't seen them, don't know what happened and aren't interested in them skip this post. This post also discusses a few key differences between the books and the HBO series. I don't (and won't) mention anything that has yet to happen in the HBO storyline but again, if you haven't read A Game of Thrones or A Clash of Kings and don't want to know anything about what happens in those books, skip this post. And as always if you have read beyond A Clash of Kings and/or know exactly what happens PLEASE DON'T DISCUSS IT. This post is ONLY about some differences that annoyed the **** out of me in HBO's Season 2. I am not a book purist. I don't think GRRM is a god. I fully accept and am aware that a different medium requires different editing and writing choices. I think that Weiss and Benioff are doing a good job adapting, in general. I enjoy the HBO series and hope it continues for years to come to rave reviews. But I just have to say a few things:

SPOILERS FOR BOOKS 1-2 AND SEASONS 1-2 DISCUSSED BELOW!!!

Catelyn Stark was not well served in this season. She just wasn't.

Some of this was caused by aging Robb up. A 17-18 year old will not be as deferential to his mother as a 15 year old (Book Robb's age) would be. But having read a lot of blogs and listened to my partners' dismay and dismissal of Catelyn's actions I have to point out one key difference in the book. In the book, Catelyn Stark released Jaime Lannister ONLY AFTER hearing that Winterfell had been taken and Bran and Rickon Stark had been murdered. Now think about this. Lady Stark was already worried about her daughters in Lannister hands. Now as far as she knows her baby boys have just been murdered!!! She wasn't there to protect them. She doesn't think that Robb Stark is, due to the requirements of patriarchy, putting enough value or urgency into getting the girls back. So wild with grief and desperate to seize control of events rather than just react to them she makes a gambit.  Is this wise? I can't call it. But I hope that you can understand the difference in the book and why Lady Stark does what she does.
People simply do not make rational decisions when in a short period of time their home has been burned down, they have lost their spouse and two youngest children, and other relatives are in peril.

Like everyone else Catelyn has limited information. She is not as interested in justice or revenge as much as she is interested in getting her daughters back. Additionally in the book (and it was mentioned in season one but not shown in season two) Catelyn has blood family.  If you remember her arrest of Tyrion at the inn is ONLY POSSIBLE because she's on her family's land and reminds various bannermen of the loyalty that they owe her father. Her family of course supports Robb's secessionist claim and fights for him. We'll see Robb's maternal uncles and relatives in season 3. They should have been in this season. It is after all their lands where most of the fighting is taking place.  Robb Stark relies heavily on his Tully kindred. As the book points out over and over again, Robb Stark takes after his mother's side of the family physically. All the Stark children look more like Tullys than Starks except for (obviously) Jon Snow and Arya. And it is Robb's uncle's mistake that allowed Tywin Lannister to escape Robb's carefully laid trap and return to King's Landing in time to relieve the siege by Stannis. Book Catelyn does not see Littlefinger in camp but even show Catelyn would not have let Littlefinger escape alive had she known of his treachery. Grey Wind would have had a special treat that night.

Robb Stark is not an arrogant young lordling.

In the show "Talisa" is a spunky, sassy little proto-feminist who doesn't mind giving attitude to the self-styled "King in the North" and evidently just hangs around his camp flirting with him. Ok. That's that whole modern "I am intrigued by your sassiness woman, so I must have you" trope that really belongs more in 1940's screwball comedies than A Game of Thrones. In the book, "Talisa" (she had a different name and background) was helping the wounded Robb after he had stormed her castle. It was only then that Robb learned of his brothers' "deaths". Overcome with grief and guilt, he turned to physical interaction with "Talisa". The show makes it seem just like he was just a horny lad. Well maybe but there's more going on here. Book Robb is many things but an arrogant frat boy he is not. Robb married "Talisa" out of both love and obligation. He took her virginity. And a honorable man marries a woman after doing that. Again, consider that book Robb is only 14-15 years old. Many of his reactions are based on "What would Dad have done in this situation?". From Robb's POV he was faced with a choice between two warring concepts of honor. This goes back to Jaime Lannister's lament that there are so many different obligations that a man is unable to keep them all. Robb Stark was not crazy about marrying the Frey girl but in the book his decision to marry "Talisa" is based much more on the idea that a Stark man does not just copulate with a girl and leave her.

One theme that flows through the books is the difference between what we learn from our parents and how that fits with real word experience. Sansa is the child who most embodies this but all of the Stark children have to experience this, obviously much earlier than they should have. Part of growing up is learning to mix the lessons we get from our parents with what we learn every day in our varied environments. Often times a parent's wisdom will have to be modified to work; sometimes it may not work at all. Times change. Think of the lessons you've learned from your own parents.

Although there is some friction between Robb and Catelyn in the book it is minor and nothing compared to how much they rely on each other. Robb shares a lot of his fears with his mother, who does her best to support her first born without undermining his authority. It's a tricky situation. A lot of book Catelyn's insights, thoughts and dialog was given to Robb. I think the show suffers for that.

The Stark Wolves-I need more.

It's mentioned in season one that the direwolves haven't been seen south of the Wall in years. In the South they're even considered almost extinct or legendary. But the Stark direwolves all have a VERY strong connection to each of the Stark children (and possibly the North as a whole). They are just as much part of the return of magic as are the dragons.

In A Game of Thrones when Tyrion Lannister visits Winterfell, he is surrounded and stalked by a snarling Grey Wind and Summer, who herd him into a position where he can be attacked from behind by Shaggydog.  It is only Robb's embarrassed intervention that saves Tyrion's life. Ghost also attacks Tyrion when Jon Snow gets annoyed with him. Nymeria attacks Joffrey to defend Arya. Arya drives Nymeria away but Nymeria starts a wolfpack of her own, grows to become the biggest female direwolf anyone's ever seen and leads her pack to attack and harass Lannister troops across the South. It's actually Ghost, not Sam, who finds the ancient obsidian spearheads and the horn. All of the Stark children have dreams in which wolves play a part, though Bran's are the most vivid. The wolves are hypersensitive to dangers that the children face and seemingly in tune with the children's emotions without a word being said. Bran's connection with Summer is the precursor to greater abilities which I can't mention here. It's probably not an accident that the captured Stark child looks more like a southern princess (i.e. her mother) than a northern lady and not coincidentally is without her wolf, Lady, that was foolishly killed by Ned. The wolves are an incarnation of Northern "wildness" and an early warning system (the aborted attack on Tyrion) against Stark enemies. It is not just their size that worries Stark enemies but also their intelligence (Grey Wind finds the secret path that allows Stark forces to flank and destroy a Lannister army).

Cersei Lannister is pure evil.

The show has played up the wickedness of Joffrey (again he's been aged up somewhat) and given a slightly more sympathetic version of Cersei. I don't like this. In the penultimate episode we saw what I think of as the real Cersei. That's good. I hope that continues next season. In the book, it is Cersei, not Joffrey who orders the murder of all of King Robert's illegitimate children. Cersei and Joffrey are not at odds with one another. Although Cersei thinks Joffrey is hard to handle sometimes there is never any hint of physical violence between them and definitely not a threat of matricide. The fact that from her point of view Cersei has legitimate gripes about not being able to hold power in her own right because of her sex doesn't change the fact that she is a ruthless manipulative vindictive woman who employs murder and torture to get what she wants and thinks nothing of starving thousands of the smallfolk if that is what is required. Her attempted murder of Tyrion in the show is of a piece with previous attacks against her brother going back to childhood.

There is a lot more that I want to say but obviously can't so I'll stop now.
Please do yourself a favor and read the books. They're long but worthwhile. The first three books redefined fantasy literature and are just magnificent works with deep insights into human nature. If you don't have time to read them, check them out on audiobook versions. The shows are good works and stand on their own. But all in all season two deviated a bit more from the books than season one. So I didn't enjoy it quite as much. I'm not talking about changes done for budget or timing so much as I'm talking about storyline or theme changes which in my opinion weren't needed. But what do I know. Again, please read the books.

Movie Reviews-We need to talk about Kevin, Unknown

We need to talk about Kevin
directed by Lynne Ramsay

When I was raised there was a definite boundary between parent and child. The parent was not there to be the child's friend. There was no doubt about who was in charge and who wasn't. It was unwise for a child to give attitude or profanity or snark. Today things are different. Corporal punishment is often considered abuse. If someone sees you hit a child you may be pulled into the social services system, which doesn't really seem to accept the principle of innocent until proven guilty when it comes to adults.

But what if how you raise a child doesn't make any difference? Some traits are apparently hardwired. I was never particularly talkative or sociable as a child and I'm not now. That's genetic. It occasionally bothers some people (who are too talkative from my POV) but I can't and won't change that characteristic. What if other things are passed down? What if "evil" or psychopathy is genetic? What if there are some children that are such bad seeds that the parents would be wiser to do a "post-birth abortion" and go back to the drawing board? And if the parent knows there's something  wrong with the child what is his or her responsibility? Especially if the spouse can't see the problem or there are other, normal children in the household that might be victimized by the evil kid, should the parent act? This is more complex when the child is of a different gender than the worried parent and the same gender parent seems unconcerned.

Tilda Swinton is a very talented offbeat actress with a rather striking and occasionally unsettling appearance. She can look quite androgynous (witness her turn as the angel Gabriel in the film Constantine) or extremely feminine (title character in the film Julia). I'm usually interested in her films. In We need to talk about Kevin, she is Eva, a travel writer who, after a wonderful, nay ecstatic time at a gorgeously rendered Spanish tomato festival finds ecstasy of a different kind with Franklin (John C. Reilly). Well apparently one time was all it took because she becomes pregnant, marries Franklin, and bears their first child, Kevin. Of course this requires a lifestyle change. Although she does not remain a stay-at-home mother it appears she becomes one for a while. It's not explained what Franklin does for money but evidently both husband and wife are financially very successful judging by the homes they acquire.

Young Kevin ( Rocky Duer and Jasper Newell) however is a bit of a cipher and later a monster. What is evil? At the simplest level I think it is the taking of pleasure in harming others. Kevin shows this almost from birth. When he becomes capable of speech he refuses to do so out of what appears to be petulance and spite. Kevin has the same willfully negative approach to toilet training and causes chaos seemingly just to watch other people react. To an extent you can wonder if Kevin is just an incarnation of his mother's mixed feelings about him. Eva is now scarily intense and buttoned up. She shows little joy from being around her son. Her attempts at maternal bonding or play appear to be done out more from either grim obligation or from something she read in a book than from pure motherly love. After a scary interaction with Kevin she throws him against the wall and he breaks his arm. But what happens afterwards is even worse as Kevin (who could not be more than 4 or 5 at this point) lies to his father and tells him that he fell. He does this so he can blackmail his mother. This is a creepy little kid and definitely not one you'd turn your back on. He deliberately destroys things his mother loves and then says he was trying to help. He's smart enough as a toddler to express loathing in a scarily adult manner.

This is all told in a non-linear fashion. I wouldn't really call it flashbacks. Time is something that is meaningless in this film. The past and present are one. The movie opens with Eva living alone in a dinky little home, which is a far cry from the McMansion where she formerly resided. There is red paint thrown across her home and car. She cleans it off and the next day someone does it again. A woman who bumps into Eva on the street asks to confirm her identity. When Eva does the woman slaps her as hard as she can. Eva, who once ran her own business, is reduced to being a typist and admin at a travel agency. We learn that the teen Kevin (Ezra Miller) is even more disturbing than young Kevin. A boy in a wheelchair sees Eva and tells her that he may walk again. By the time Kevin puts his little sister's Celia's hamster in the garbage disposal (this is not shown but just heavily implied) you may start to wonder why his father hasn't picked up on his issues. Again, I wouldn't have wanted this guy around me as a toddler. As a sarcastic quietly contemptuous teenager he is even less pleasant. I would have thought alarm bells would have been going off. But again hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it.

It becomes pretty obvious what has happened. This film looks back across the years and ask if there is anything different that Eva or the mulishly optimistic Franklin could have done. Kevin is simply not like other people. It's a tragedy that the only person who sees that is his mother, who doesn't like him, but can't convince her husband that there is anything wrong. These looked like difficult roles for Swinton and Miller to portray but I liked what they did with them. You can almost see inside Kevin's head that the train is off the tracks. But things go to their inevitable conclusion nonetheless. This was an impressive and quite disturbing film based on the book by Lionel Shriver (despite the name the author is a woman) that digs deep into maternal ambivalence without blaming everything on Mommy, though some of the characters seem to do so. Is it nature or nurture? What are the limits of love? Is there redemption? You may be undecided about those questions after watching this movie. This film wasn't financially successful but I thought it was worthwhile viewing on DVD/on demand.
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Unknown
directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Liam Neeson is an A-List actor and brings a bit of gravitas to this film. Unknown is a great example of how great acting can make you watch and even enjoy films that otherwise you might not get into if you really really thought about them.
I'm not sure whether to call this a drama or action film as it has elements of both but since the "action" segments are short and mostly at the end I guess drama it is.

Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson) and his wife Liz (January Jones) arrive in Berlin for an international biotechnology summit. As they check into the hotel,  Martin realizes that he left his briefcase with passport and other critical information at the airport. Their taxi is just pulling away. He flags down another taxi driven by Gina (Diane Kruger) and tells her to step on it. However there is a bad accident and their taxi goes into the river. Martin suffers a minor head injury. Gina pulls him from the water. After 4 days in a coma  he wakes in the hospital. He has some minor personal effects like a notebook , watch and some cash but no id or cell phone. Martin remembers who he is and goes back to the hotel. However with no id he has trouble getting in. Being a rather convincing fellow he manages to bluff/schmooze/intimidate the staff into letting him talk to his wife, who he sees in the ballroom. But when he speaks to Liz she claims not to know who he is. She says he's not her husband and that she's married to a different man named Martin Harris. There's no footage which shows  Martin at the hotel. When he tries to bring up a picture of himself on the university website he finds that "Martin Harris" is actually the other man. Making a scene by this point, he leaves before the police can be called. He's confused because the doctor did tell him that his head injury might cause disorientation and confusion.

Martin notices a man following him on the subway. He finds Gina but she doesn't want to talk to him.  As it turns out she's an illegal Bosnian immigrant and lost her job because of the taxi accident. The next day, having written down in his notebook what he believes to be his itinerary, he goes to the University to meet with a professor but finds that the other Martin Harris is already there. This other man has id and even a picture of himself with Liz.

Martin passes out and wakes up in the hospital wondering if he is going mad, how damaged he was by the head injury and who he really is. And then someone murders his nurse and tries to do him in as well. This film is very reminiscent of North by Northwest before it starts to remind me of Taken. It ramps up the tension pretty effectively and although the final third of the film is somewhat predictable the first two parts are not bad. Not bad at all. It is scary to think about how would you prove you were who you said you are if you didn't have papers saying so. Is your identity based on your papers or are you you because of how other people react and respond to you? For a while this film looks like it's going into some philosophical questions raised by Camus and Sartre but shifts back to murderous Germans, time sensitive assignments, secret police, set ups and car chases.
Although there is some violence it is not that explicit. Again, Neeson holds it all together for me. But he has some help from Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella, Aidan Quinn, Rainier Bock, Sebastian Koch, and Eva Lobau. I liked this film.
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Detroit Messes Its Pants

I don't like being negative about my home town. Who does? I have previously written about the financial and criminal crisis that Detroit faces and the reasons that it has those problems. To paraphrase Ronnie Van Zant, there's good people in Detroit. And I hope that you all remember that!!! But sometimes it's hard to remember that because the political leadership has failed so miserably over the past few decades.


If you recall when last I wrote about this Detroit was facing an unpalatable choice among three outcomes.

1. Immediate Bankruptcy
2. Emergency Financial Manager
3. Consent Agreement

Now no one in Detroit political leadership liked those choices but there they were all the same. It wasn't necessarily the fault of the current political leadership that they had those choices but nonetheless they were the ones that had to make the tough call. Again, unless you are from here I don't think you can fully understand the (primarily but not exclusively) racial disdain and divisions that plague SE Michigan. On local message boards and newspaper comment sections the glee expressed by some suburbanites at Detroit's horrible dilemma was in direct proportion to the anger and frustration and blame placed on the state by some Detroiters. But still when it came to it, a consent agreement was the best of bad options. After some posturing and anger, the City Council voted 5-4 to accept a consent agreement. This agreement between the city and state allowed a mutual (though state dominant) working relationship between the city and state to attempt to stave off municipal bankruptcy, which could have unforeseen and unpleasant impact on areas outside of Detroit. The state sent Detroit funds to allow for bond refinancing and avoid missing paydays. So despite some final vituperation expressed by my friends among the kente cloth and kufi wearing set, all's well that ends well. Right? Well not exactly.

No, for you see Detroit had also recently changed its charter to allow the city legal department to act independently of the mayor and city council. And the chief city counsel, Krystal Crittendon, was quite close to the council members that had rejected the consent agreement. And since Detroit had enough money from taking the deal to last a little while longer, Ms.Crittendon decided that it would be a great idea to sue the state for money it allegedly owes the city. And to her mind, the fact that the state "owes the city" means that the consent agreement was null and void. Oh yes, some of the alleged debt includes parking tickets. 

MASON -- Detroit's top lawyer expanded a list of debts allegedly owed by the State of Michigan to include bills for storm-water disposal and lighting, along with $1,255 in unpaid parking tickets, in a lawsuit she filed in Ingham County seeking to nullify the financial stability agreement reached two months ago by state and city elected officials. Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon's complaint, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court on Monday, says Michigan is in "default" on an additional $1.6 million in alleged debts, and that the agreement violates the Detroit City Charter, which prohibits contracts with "one who is in default." Crittendon's lawsuit also cites $224 million in revenue-sharing payments and a $4.7-million water bill at the former state fairgrounds among state debts to Detroit, the issues she raised May 11 in a letter to state Treasurer Andy Dillon when she first claimed that entering into the financial stability agreement violated the charter.  Dillon responded that the state-city agreement, an alternative Gov. Rick Snyder had to naming an emergency manager to deal with the city's financial crisis, was valid "from both a legal and commonsense perspective," and had been entered into voluntarily by the City Council and Mayor Dave Bing.

LINK


The State of Michigan was not amused and pointed out that it would withhold the remaining monies under the consent agreement, since Detroit thought the agreement was null and void. And the Mayor's office admitted that without that money the city would be broke within a week.

Detroit— The city could run out of cash by next Friday if the dispute over a lawsuit challenging the consent agreement isn't resolved, opening the door to a state takeover, Mayor Dave Bing's administration said today.Bing, who spoke this morning flanked by high-ranking members of his administration, said he has urged the city's top lawyer to drop the lawsuit but added he is powerless under the new city charter to force Krystal Crittendon to comply. Political pressure on her would not work, he said.The mayor said the lawsuit has made this a "potential worse situation than we were in, meaning that we could eventually in a short period of time run out of cash.""It is an emergency," Bing said, indicating the consent agreement with the state would be violated if the city runs out of cash. "It is a crisis and we've been in a crisis for a long time. This just ups the ante more than anything else. And I think, from a leadership standpoint, it's incumbent upon us as leaders to deal with this expeditiously, which means ASAP."Jack Martin, the city's new chief financial officer, said the city would "probably make payroll, but we'd be in a deficit position." When asked directly if the city would be broke, Martin agreed that could happen.Martin said at least $35 million has been already drawn down from the city's escrow account, but based on a letter sent Thursday by the state Treasury Department, "we don't believe they will let us drawn down any more money against that escrow account." That account was where $80 million in interim financing from the state was deposited under the consent agreement to help the city get through its cash crisis.

LINK

So you see what a mess this is. To make this even more ridiculous the Mayor just admitted that the city could not pay for the annual fireworks show  and would have to ask for financial and security assistance from, you guessed it, the state and suburbs. So let me get this straight, Detroit. You're walking around with a big load in your diapers but don't want anyone to help you, clean you up and make sure you don't do it again? You're independent and reject the consent agreement you just signed but you still want suburban/state money? You're the most violent city in the nation, but think the most pressing problem is whether or not you choose a consent agreement or emergency manager? Okay. Fine. As I've said before I understand the fierce sense of anger and independence that is part and parcel of Detroit. It was passed down. It's part of our history. Heck, the white chairman of Compuware gets it. Racism is real and it has ongoing effects. 


But when it comes to the very particular question of what are you going to do right now at this instant, what happened in the past is just not material. The political leadership of Detroit is a joke. Who signs an agreement and then turns around and sues so that they can go bankrupt and have an emergency manager put in over their objections. Just stupid. I said before and I'll say it again. Given the extreme racial and other hostility between city and suburb, city and state, the state would have been wiser just to stay out of Detroit's affairs all together. Because it is more important to the political leadership in Detroit to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. I can (almost perversely) admire such bullheadedness. I just hope that the citizens of Detroit understand that no one is riding to the rescue. Times are tough all over. I still have friends and relatives in the city who are basically held hostage to the foolishness.
What's your take?

President Obama's Kill List: Murder Incorporated Drones

Obama kills children. I meant to write on this last week but due to work requirements I had to table it. Let's get back to some serious questions. You may not have noticed it what with all the media's fawning over the President at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the President's oh so brave announcement that he supports gay marriage that made some people fall out in Messianic ecstasy or the sudden Democratic "discovery" and "shocked outrage" (just in time for the November election) that the US income and wealth distributions have continued to ever more sharply tilt toward the well off but the undeclared war of worldwide drone attacks that the President has sanctioned and directed has continued. It's worse than I thought and probably worse than any of us know. 


No, while Democratic partisans were girding themselves for holy war over the pressing issue of forcing the Catholic Church to underwrite birth control for middle class women, hunting out homophobic heresies among comedians and preachers or stating with a straight face that a federal mandate to give money to huge corporate insurers without price controls was actually a progressive position, the Obama Administration was taking the so-called war on terror (a term it avoids because Bush used it) to a level of lawlessness and violence undreamed of by President Bush. The most striking aspect of Obama's first term has been not the ugliness with which some low-information racist voters oppose him, but the extent to which Obama's policies around war and civil liberties have been a continuation, well really a degradation, of Bush programs. 


That's right. There may be some mild debate among the elites on homosexual marriage or abortion but when it comes to killing or spying on people without warrant, judicial or congressional oversight, this Administration fits perfectly with the previous one. You can vote for a Republican and get war or vote for a Democrat and get war. Yummy. What great choices we have in our duopolistic plutocracy.
The New York Times, which is generally supportive of President Obama, recently did an expose of the Murder Incorporated campaign which the President is personally overseeing in contravention of law and morality. It is quite lengthy but I strongly urge you to take some time, okay a lot of time, and read it here.

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program. This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the “single digits” — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants. But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it “guilt by association” that has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties.“It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.

I am the law!

Did you get that? Everybody who looks like a terrorist is a terrorist so there haven't been many civilians killed because we only kill terrorists. The President said so. So it must be true. This is hogwash!!! The fact that a Black man is saying it doesn't change that fact. It shows how ridiculously premature and insane it was to give Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. But hey I'm sure that the families of those killed from afar by our brave philosopher warrior-king will take solace in knowing that their loved ones were either terrorists or up to no good. And it's not like the Third World is running out of people so what's the big deal, right? Every male we kill is a terrorist until someone can POSTHUMOUSLY prove otherwise. Hmm. Isn't that the EXACT same mentality of the NYPD supersized steroid gobbling thug who rousts, harasses or kills black men? You're black so you must be up to something. And even if you weren't doing anything wrong this time well let this arrest/insult/beatdown be an example to those who were. This is the mindset that is processing the Global War on Terror, uh excuse me Overseas Contingency Operation. 

But some State Department officials have complained to the White House that the criteria used by the C.I.A. for identifying a terrorist “signature” were too lax. The joke was that when the C.I.A. sees “three guys doing jumping jacks,” the agency thinks it is a terrorist training camp, said one senior official.  Men loading a truck with fertilizer could be bombmakers — but they might also be farmers, skeptics argued. Now, in the wake of the bad first strike in Yemen, Mr. Obama overruled military and intelligence commanders who were pushing to use signature strikes there as well. “We are not going to war with Yemen,” he admonished in one meeting, according to participants. His guidance was formalized in a memo by General Jones, who called it a “governor, if you will, on the throttle,” intended to remind everyone that “one should not assume that it’s just O.K. to do these things because we spot a bad guy somewhere in the world.”Mr. Obama had drawn a line.  But within two years, he stepped across it. Signature strikes in Pakistan were killing a large number of terrorist suspects, even when C.I.A. analysts were not certain beforehand of their presence.  And in Yemen, roiled by the Arab Spring unrest, the Qaeda affiliate was seizing territory. Today, the Defense Department can target suspects in Yemen whose names they do not know. Officials say the criteria are tighter than those for signature strikes, requiring evidence of a threat to the United States, and they have even given them a new name — TADS, for Terrorist Attack Disruption Strikes. But the details are a closely guarded secret — part of a pattern for a president who came into office promising transparency.

Future Terrorist Stopped!!!

Whoa Nelly... The Defense Department can target suspects in Yemen whose names they do not know. This is amazing. So we don't even need to know your name, what your alleged crime was or who you are. All we need is that some soft bureaucrat or politician without the stones to put his own life on the line gives an order, no doubt while munching on arugula salad or sipping decaf latte, and halfway around the world another human being is blown to bits. What a country we live in. How wonderful it is that a President's courage can be written down in the blood of other people's children. Historians will doubtless write admiring biographies detailing President's Obama's steadfast grim determination to stay the course in the face of absolutely no serious political opposition on this issue.


But hey he's a good guy because he's trying to get people to drive Volts and help women in their struggle for "reproductive justice". Perhaps this is just what President Obama had in mind when he said that after he was elected that this would be the moment when the planet began to heal. I think his idea of healing the planet and mine are somewhat different but what do I know. Maybe you really can bring peace to the world by dropping bombs on brown and black people you don't like. I had a much longer diatribe planned but this is long enough already. If you really think these actions are just fine there's not much I can write to convince you otherwise. I'll just make a few final points and stop since work beckons. 

• Drone attacks on countries with whom we have not declared war are a particularly odious and dare I say cowardly way of conducting foreign policy. The Constitution lays out a clear road map to declaring war. I don't care what other Presidents did in the past. You either do the right thing or you do not. 
• The US is setting a very very bad precedent here. Does the US think it's the only country with grudges to settle with so-called terrorists? Do you know the name Luis Posada Carriles? If you don't then you should. He is a terrorist with a very long history of violence against Cuban and Venezuelan people, including an airliner bombing. But as far as the US military and intelligence community is concerned, he was killing the right people so he is a popular fixture among the insane right-wing Miami Cuban-American community. Cuba and Venezuela would very much like to get their hands on him but the US has refused. Now what do you think would be the US response, what would be your response, if one or both of those countries started a series of drone attacks across south Florida, killing dozens or even hundreds of people until they got Carriles? And when the US protested, Cuba responded "Hey well, people knew who this guy was. The way we see it, anybody hanging around him was a terrorist so we won't lose sleep or apologize over what we did. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs so quit your crying."
• The US is making more enemies than it is killing with these drone attacks. Again, what would you do if someone starting shooting at your relative's wedding because they had information that your second cousin twice removed was there. And he was a bad guy. But let's say your cousin wasn't there and scores of your relatives and friends and their children were wounded and killed. Chances are you wouldn't be in a joyous mood. In fact you might be so angry and desperate that you and some other like minded people would get together to plan a little payback. It might take a while. It might happen two decades later and then just like with 9-11 naive and historically illiterate Americans would wonder why "they" hate us. It's already starting to happen. 
• It is of course I'm sure a mere coincidence that one of Obama's earliest big money contributors just happens to be the billionaire Lester Crown, a previous chairman of and primary stockholder in General Dynamics, which wouldn't you know, makes drones. How lucky Crown is then, that the politician he supported has increased demand for his company's product. 

The NYT story is only concerned with process and how this might play politically. The NYT is not that concerned with the number of children killed. If Bush or Cheney had been overseeing this program I suspect there might have been a different tone to the article. The ugly truth about this though is that the Times story not withstanding this system of extra-judicial murder and unsanctioned war is something that is deeply bi-partisan. Neither major party presidential candidate would stop this program. In my view, neither man is worthy of being President or has much use for either the Constitution or basic morality. Many people who got on their high horse and attacked President Bush over Guantanamo, torture, assassinations or cherry picked intelligence are quiet as church mice now that it's their guy sitting in the big seat. There are a few brave consistent souls, Ralph Nader for one or Jeremy Scahill, who have the integrity not to change their beliefs about murder, based on which party the President claims. Good for them. There's something rotten in America's soul when these actions pass without comment. Should we get a President Romney I don't want to hear a mumbling word from some snide slug of a delinquent Democrat who has, post-election, miraculously rediscovered his or her dedication to constitutional limitations on Presidential actions. Not. One. Word.

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'" -Abraham Lincoln

What's your take?

HBO Game of Thrones Recap: Valar Morghulis

Something that is true in life as well as the world of Game of Thrones is that sometimes you're on top of the world, thinking you're a player and a big time shot caller. Something changes and suddenly you discover that you're weren't the king; you weren't even a rook. You were just a pawn in someone else's game. That certainly was the case this week for Tyrion Lannister, last seen unconscious and possibly dying on the battlefield. Well he's not dead. But he wakes up and the first face he sees is that of Grand Maester Pycelle, who is pleased at Tyrion's discomfort. Frightened, Tyrion calls for his squire Podrick in order to prevent any murder attempts by Pycelle but for now Pycelle is content to stick the knife in verbally. Tyrion learns that he's no longer Hand. That job is Tywin's. Bronn has been removed as head of the City Guard. Tyrion's personal guard of Vale tribesmen has been paid off and sent home. In revenge, Pycelle flips Tyrion a coin for his troubles.


As discussed Joffrey formally makes Tywin the Hand. Remember that Tywin DID tell Tyrion that the appointment was only temporary. Joffrey grants Littlefinger Harrenhal and makes him an official Lord. Loras Tyrell claims that Margarey (and boy is that a revealing dress she's wearing or what-I like) is still a virgin and would love to marry Joffrey. In what is an obvious put-on for the court audience, Joffrey pretends reluctance to break his betrothal to Sansa. Cersei and Pycelle say that because of the Stark treason and revolt that it would be okay in this instance and the religious authorities concur. Joffrey states that he will marry Margarey, who cynically plays to Joffrey's arrogance. Sansa pretends disappointment and shock and leaves court but can't stop a smile from breaking out. Littlefinger tells Sansa that she's not out of danger because married or not Joffrey won't let her go. He also tells Sansa that he will help her because she reminds him so much of Catelyn. Right. If Catelyn Stark, who wasn't even in King's Landing, knows that Littlefinger betrayed Ned, surely Sansa would as well. Why would Sansa believe anything Littlefinger says and more importantly why would Littlefinger expect her to?
Ros is cleaning up in the brothel and is visited by Varys. She realizes who he is after she tries to grab his manhood and can't find it. Varys is evidently on a recruitment hunt. He agrees with Ros that Littlefinger is dangerous but says that Littlefinger has weaknesses just like everyone else. He also points out that if Ros were working for him she probably wouldn't be in a position where she would be raped or abused. I didn't really buy that Ros wouldn't have known who he was or that Varys would travel to a brothel. We already know that Littlefinger owns the brothel and spies on customers.


Brienne and Jaime are continuing their journey south. Jaime is telling Brienne his insulting ideas about her sex life or lack thereof when they run across three women hanged by Stark soldiers or mercenaries for the "crime" of sleeping with Lannister soldiers. Brienne intends to bury the women because it's the right thing to do (again shades of Ned Stark) even though it will cost precious time. The men who hanged the women come across Brienne and are amused beyond measure that she's a woman. They admit they killed the women; one man implies he raped a woman first. They are suspicious of Jaime and when they realize who he is, decide they will take him from Brienne. Bad decision. 

They must not have seen the previous episodes because once again Brienne demonstrates her sword is not for show. She quickly kills all three men. She stabs the rapist through his privates. Jaime is a bit put out by this as whatever their sins these men were fighting on the Stark side. Brienne reminds Jaime again that she's sworn to Lady Catelyn, not the Starks. I really liked this scene, not just because of Brienne's bada$$ery but because we get to see that no matter how just WE think the Stark cause is or how much we want Robb to rescue his sisters and kill Joffrey, a lot of innocents are going to be harmed or die for that. Once war breaks out, crimes are done by both sides. We also get a nice contrast between Brienne's oath to Catelyn and Jaime's (patriarchal?) assumption that the oath includes all Starks.
Catelyn warns Robb that Walder Frey is not a man to cross and that a leader breaking his word sets a poor example for his followers. She doesn't mention it here but Catelyn was born a Tully and the Tully words are "Family, Duty, Honor". Catelyn reminds Robb that her marriage was arranged.* It took time for she and Ned to love and respect each other but Robb is simply not listening. He leaves and shortly afterwards marries Talisa. He does so under the Seven, not the Old Gods.
Stannis wants Melisandre-in her normal cleavage revealing outfit-to explain why he lost. She gives him a "God works in mysterious ways" answer which he doesn't want to hear. He chokes her but can't go through with killing her. She challenges his faith and tells him the war will go on for years before he wins but he will win. Melisandre believes Stannis is the chosen one. She tells him to look into the fire. Evidently he does see something.

At Winterfell Theon is surrounded by Northern forces. He's in a pretty bad mood and ranting again about how irritating it was to (as he saw it) to be kept a hostage all those years by the Starks (who, along with Stannis killed his brothers) and have to hear how lucky he was to be a hostage. As he knows Bran and Rickon are alive, Luwin has pity for Theon and advises him to join the Night Watch. Theon says he can't get out of Winterfell and even he could he's convinced that Jon Snow would find a way to kill him. He also says that it's too late to change.
This is almost C.S. Lewis like in that people that go to hell are not condemned by God; they deliberately place themselves there through their own actions and rejection of grace. Every choice Theon has made has been the wrong one but you can certainly understand the rationale behind his decisions. The best villains have human motivations.
In the morning Theon gives a ROUSING speech to his small band of Northmen. I mean this rivaled Tyrion's speech last week. Theon name checks various Iron Isles heroes. He says they're not going out cheap and their names will be used to inspire Iron Islanders and bring fear to their enemies for years. In any other story this is the kind of epic speech that brings a tear to your eye as the men rush out to fight and die against overwhelming odds (ie. the two brothers in Takers or the final assault in Glory). But this is Game of Thrones and at the climatic moment Dagmar Cleftjaw hits Theon in the head. He then stabs Maester Luwin. 

Afterwards Osha, Hodor and the boys sneak out of the crypts. Winterfell has been burned and everyone is dead. They find the dying Maester Luwin who advises them to go to the Wall, charges Osha to protect the boys and gets Osha to grant him a merciful death. Where is Theon? Who burned Winterfell? We don't know.
Varys tells the badly scarred Tyrion that Cersei was behind his attempted murder. Varys says that Tyrion won't get any credit for the successful defense of King's Landing but that he will remember, even if for obvious political reasons he can't be seen as friendly to Tyrion. Shae chides Tyrion for self-pity and says she's staying with him. This is important because an essential part of Tyrion's personality is that he is convinced that because of his ugliness and deformity no normal woman would want to be with him and that the whores he's with are only with him because of his money and power. If Shae can break through that we could see some changes in Tyrion Lannister going forward. Time will tell.


Hot Pie, Arya and Gendry are traveling and are surprised to see that Jaqen H'ghar is ahead of them. Arya wants to know how he was able to do all the things that he did. He replies that she still has a lot of other people she wants dead and if she wants to know how to be a Faceless Man she has to come with him. She declines on account of her family. He gives her a coin and tells her that if she ever changes her mind just give that coin to any man from Braavos (where her fencing instructor was from) and say "Valar Morghulis". He also changes his face in an apparent display of magic.
North of the Wall Ygritte is smacking Jon in the head with his sword. Did I mention I like her accent? Halfhand manages to attack Jon. Evidently amused, the Wildlings allow them to fight. Jon kills the Halfhand, who reminds Jon of their oath as he dies. Impressed the Wildlings release Jon. Ygritte takes him to meet the Wilding King.

Daenerys goes to the House of the Undying and passes through several illusions, including one of her husband, Khal Drogo. Finally she finds her chained dragons. And don't they look so cute and pathetic. She is magically chained as well as the wizard Pyat Pree explains his magic is stronger with dragons nearby and the dragons are stronger with her so he will just imprison them all. He's not the sharpest pencil in the box because as the dragons are stronger with her she just orders them to burn the wizard. Which they do. It's rather impressive actually. Daenerys is unharmed by the fire which passes around her. Daenerys, Jorah and remaining Dothraki surprise Xaro in bed with a Dothraki woman (Doreah) that betrayed Daenerys. They force Xaro to open his vault and upon finding it empty decide to lock both traitors inside permanently. They loot what they can in hopes of getting funds for ships. I didn't really care for this storyline. It had a bit too much of the "Evil Overlord overlooks critical flaw in design". Like making a Death Star that has a special secret passage that if bombed will destroy the the entire ship or making a ring that can control everything but can be destroyed by the simple method of dropping it in a volcano, it seems like Pree didn't really unit test his plan. The dragons are STRONGER with Daenerys around and you're going to put Daenerys right next to them. Right. Well we see why most evil overlords don't last long. At least we didn't get a "No this cannot be!!! My plans were perfect!!!" from Pree as he burned.

Sam Tarly is boring his friends yammering on about Gilly. They point out that the only reason Sam is impressed with her is that most girls don't talk to him. Then they hear three blasts of a ranger's horn. This NEVER happens and means White Walkers. It gets very cold very quickly and a storm arrives. Sam's friends leave the fat boy behind as they run for cover. Unable to keep up, Sam tries to hide. He is right in the middle of an army of White Walkers and wights. Evidently they are headed for the Wall.


Well that's it for this season. This episode felt a little rushed and anti-climatic. Season 2 saw a lot more changes from the source texts than Season 1. Some of these worked, some didn't. I may do one final post on that soon but again I urge everyone to read the books. The books are not limited by budgetary or timing concerns. HBO is doing a good job overall but television is a different medium. Things would be much better if we had a longer season, even by two episodes, but financial and timing constraints mean that we're lucky to get as many as we do. 


*Catelyn Tully was originally betrothed to marry Ned's older brother Brandon. Brandon was the heir to Winterfell, not Ned. Brandon was murdered by the Mad King Aerys along with his father Rickon Stark when they demanded justice for the kidnapping of Lyanna Stark, Ned's sister. In order to maintain the alliance between the Tullys and Starks, Ned stood in for his brother and went through with the marriage.It was the right thing to do and Ned and Catelyn are very big on doing the right thing.

*This post is written for discussion of this episode and previous episodes. If you have book based knowledge of future events please be kind enough not to discuss that here. Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea

Book Reviews-The Winter King, The Best Of Simple, Florida Roadkill

The Winter King
by Bernard Cornwell

So let's say you're undergoing A Song of Ice and Fire withdrawal and want to read some more historical/fantastical fiction with morally ambiguous heroes and heroines, a fair amount of bloodshed and oh yes a death before dishonor desperate last stand against overwhelming odds. Well if that is you (and it's definitely me) then Bernard Cornwell's The Winter King is something you probably should have read when it first appeared in 1995.

The Winter King is a reinterpretation of the Arthur legend. Much like the movie King Arthur with Clive Owen, Cornwell strips away the glamour and beauty from the mythology until only the core remains. In post-Roman fifth century Britain, a Romanized Celtic (British) war leader arises in what is today Wales, to lead resistance against the brutal Saxon invaders. Arthur attempts to build a fair society that treats both pagan and Christian equally.

But we know the Saxons, and their cousins the Angles and Jutes did succeed in invading Britain, conquering, raping and subduing (if not eliminating the Celts) and driving many of them to the far reaches of the land or overseas to Ireland. And Christianity ultimately became Britain's dominant religion. Pagans were persecuted, converted or killed. So we know that in the long run, Arthur failed. But for a brief period he may have held back the darkness. There is some historical evidence that a Celtic warlord may indeed have beaten the Saxons at Badon Hill.

Cornwell takes the bits and pieces of the legend and reworks them into his own character driven story. The story is told from the POV of a Derfel Cadarn, a former Saxon slave, who was saved from execution by Merlin and grew up culturally Celtic. Derfel became a feared and respected warrior and one of Arthur's most trusted right hand men. Nearing the end of his life he retires to a Welsh monastery presided over by a Christian Bishop who despised Arthur. But as the Welsh Queen loves the Arthur story, the monk is forced to allow the somewhat Christian Derfel to stay there. In secret and at the Queen's urging, the elderly Derfel writes down the story. The illiterate Bishop is told that Derfel is writing the Gospels in Saxon. This is almost a gender reversal of the Scheherazade story as Queen Igraine is the only thing protecting Derfel's life and story from the increasingly suspicious Bishop Sansum. But Queen Igraine is discomfited to discover some truths behind the legends she loves (Lancelot was a handsome perfumed coward who avoided the front lines the way a vampire avoids the sun; Galahad was Lancelot's half brother and not his son; Queen Guinevere was a bit of a *****; Arthur tried so hard to be just and fair because in truth he loved war and killing more than anyone else but felt guilty about it). Derfel suspects that the Queen will alter his script to suit her own fancy.

Cornwell does a great job depicting Arthur as a more or less decent man who has to make some ugly choices in trying to unite the constant warring British tribes against the Saxon threat and reconcile his own romantic desires with the practice of arranged marriages. Merlin is the most powerful of druids. He may or may not be able to perform magic and his political ends don't always coincide with Arthur's. In some ways the relationship between Merlin and Arthur parallels the real life relationship between Tecumseh and his brother. Arthur is determined to defeat and remove the Saxons. He is not interested in religion. Merlin thinks removing Saxons is pointless unless Britain reconsecrates itself to the Old Gods. Merlin, though quite earthy and sarcastic, is extremely devout. Derfel is sworn to both Arthur and Merlin, something that causes him problems on a regular basis. Nimue, a one eyed druidess, is an occasional lover to Derfel (they grew up together) but is more devoted to Merlin. In this telling Mordred is not Arthur's son but his nephew. Mordred is the rightful King and Arthur is only the regent until Mordred comes of age.

I liked this quick moving story. There's not a huge amount of exposition or character internal thoughts. As everything is told from Derfel's POV I guess there couldn't be. Usually I am not a fan of first person narrative because we never know anything outside of what the narrator sees or feels. But for some reason Cornwell is able to brush aside this bias of mine. Cornwell writes intense battle scenes and does a masterful job describing the British countryside. This book is first in a trilogy. BTW Cornwell and GRRM are evidently friends. GRRM interviewed Cornwell here.



The Best of Simple
by Langston Hughes

If you are at all familiar with the author and poet Langston Hughes then you are probably familiar with one of his most famous creations, Jesse B. Semple. And if you aren't then you ought to be. Semple is a Harlem everyman, who the author uses to explore the issues of the day both big and small. Whether Semple is holding forth on the impossibility of finding any really good greens in New York or telling the unnamed author about his friend who suffers from "Jim Crow Shock" and refuses to set foot south of the Mason-Dixon line, explaining to his leeching cousin that no he will not borrow money to get her bailed out of jail, or explaining how housing segregation and white flight works, Semple always has something intelligent and insightful to say even though he may take a while to get there. He's a fount of street wisdom and knowledge earned from rough knocks-just being Black in America.

Hughes said that he received the initial inspiration for the character during World War Two while he was talking to a young man who worked in a war plant. Hughes asked the man what he did and the man said he made cranks. Hughes then asked what kind and the man said he didn't know. The man's girlfriend chided the man for not knowing what sort of cranks he made. The man responded that she had to know white people didn't tell black people anything and they certainly weren't going to start at this point.

Semple is pretty easy going but can be stubborn on matters of principle. When the author asks him why he refuses to pay for the divorce that both he and his wife want, Semple answers:

"I told Isabel when we busted up that she had shared my bed; she had shared my board, my liquor, and my Murray's but that I did not intend to share another thing with her from that day to this, not even a divorce. That is why I would not pay for it. Let that other man pay for it and they can share it together."
And when chastised by the author that he needs to stop running around, settle down and get married again as he is old enough to know better, Semple retorts:
I might be old enough to know better, but I am not old enough to do better.

This is really quick, fun and if you forgive the pun, simple writing. It is an excellent window into a time that's gone and yet isn't. Everyone knows someone who rolls with the punches in life but always seems to end up on his feet. He may not be the big winner but he's no loser either. Semple is that man. I love this collection of short stories. I originally read them as a kid and they bring back good memories. Actually these aren't really even long enough to be short stories. You could easily read the whole collection in an hour or two. And it would be time well spent.






Florida Roadkill
by Tim Dorsey.

This author's absurdist style is very similar to Carl Hiassen and Bill Fitzhugh. Very similar. I'm not sure who was published first but they all have styles which poke fun at the vagaries of life in very sardonic and strange ways. This book was first in a series. Unfortunately in later books I got a little tired of the main character but in this book it wasn't necessarily clear who the main character is.

This is an extremely funny book. It has Three Stooges-like slapstick and a more subtle (Monty) Pythonian style of humor. There's occasionally a hint of cruelty I guess but usually bad things happen to worse people. This all takes place in Florida so if you're familiar with the area you might get more out of this book. Dorsey gleefully skewers all the bad things and stereotypes about Florida, the racism, the corrupt land deals, simple minded inbreds, swamps, homophobes, strippers, tourists, everything. It is unfortunately a cliche to say something is Tarantinoesqe but that is a fitting description here. For example a white truck driver in a bad mood makes an insulting racial comment to a Black convenience store clerk and when urged to apologize by Hispanic customers compounds the error by making unflattering references to illegal immigrants and guacamole. By the clerk's description he then witnesses "an entirely new league of violence." The author is a former reporter for the Tampa Tribune. Given some of the stories we see today coming out of Florida, situations in the book that I thought were ridiculously over the top no longer seem so.

The storyline jumps around a lot and there are some subplots that don't go where I thought they would. Serge A. Storms is a mentally deranged Cuban American criminal who has become even crazier by refusing to take his medications or occasionally taking too many. He is something of a sadist but usually only against people he considers bad (racists, bullies, greedy people, ignorant people) Serge knows more than any living man should about the history, flora and fauna of Florida. When he's calm he's not a bad guy but inevitably he flips back and forth between manic and obsessive states. The intelligent Serge has hooked up with his muscle man Coleman and Coleman's sociopath stripper girlfriend Sharon. Sharon is as beautiful on the outside as she is cold and empty on the inside. Coleman is just a dummy that loves cocaine.

They intend to rob a dentist who defrauded his insurance company. However they lose the money to two tourists, Sean and David, who have no idea they even have the cash. There's a subplot with three bikers who can no longer make the cut as intimidating 1% club members and are reduced to looking for work at retirement homes. Mayhem ensures as everyone tries to get the suitcase with $5 million. Again, this is a really funny book and one that I enjoyed immensely. Serge is an everyman but a warped one. If you ran into him you might learn a lot about Florida landmarks, history and culture but you would also constantly be looking for a big rock to hit him with.