Book Reviews: I Would Die 4 U

I Would Die 4 U
by Toure

What makes someone become a creative talent? What makes a creative person become a star? And what makes a star become a generational icon? No one really knows. Most of this sort of thing is always discussed in hindsight when everyone is always right. It obviously helps someone's chances of success to be at the right place at the right time but as others have pointed out the harder they work the luckier they seem to become. Toure tries to answer these questions about Prince (this book was published three years before Prince's death). The questions are probably a little too big for Toure or for anyone. Prince was notoriously uncommunicative about his private or family life. He either gave deliberate misinformation or simply refused to answer those types of questions. There are only a few times that he discussed his parents or upbringing with the media. And the target audience would have no way of knowing what was fact, what was exaggeration and what was fiction cooked up for marketing purposes. On the other hand Prince lived for music. He may have, purposely or not shared the answers to those questions in some of his songs. That's where Toure, who did get his share of interviews with the late icon, looks for meaning. Toure also looks into Prince's childhood. Toure argues that Prince's dual rejections by his mother and father left him simultaneously craving a stable family situation and utterly unable to engage in any situation where he wasn't in absolute control. Because Prince shared a broken home with millions of Gen-X children, he became an icon of that generation, or so goes Toure's argument. Similarly Toure posits that Prince's skin tone and occasional androgyny and cross dressing (despite an apparently fierce heterosexuality) allowed him to position himself as a rock crossover icon in a way that wasn't as easy for darker skinned or more traditionalist black male musicians in a time before rap's explosion. Prince played this up by going out of his way to have backing bands that were mixed by gender and race, something that is quite unusual even today. Prince also used the Purple Rain movie to claim that he was biracial (he wasn't). Prince didn't attend either of his parent's funerals, something which at least hints at some unresolved family issues.

Bill O'Reilly and Slavery: Slaves were well fed

We spoke earlier how some people were taken aback by Michelle Obama's reference to the fact that the White House was built in part by slaves. The First Lady contrasted that history with the observation that she and her daughters, black women, now wake up in the White House as its most important residents. Ain't America grand? This was, as far as I was concerned, an obvious, non-controversial and even somewhat trite observation. America had formal slavery until 1865.The White House was built before 1865. It would have been amazing if the White House hadn't had some sort of connection with slavery. But for one Bill O'Reilly, self-styled historian and Fox News talking head, it was important to claim that the slaves were "well-fed and had decent lodgings". Right. Let's say that a man rapes a woman. At the resulting trial he argues for leniency claiming that "Hey let's not forget that I wore a condom!" Would that matter?
Could a commandant at a German death camp circa 1945 point to decent lodgings and continual exposure to Wagner's greatest hits as under appreciated benefits for his prisoners "customers"? 
When a parent spanks their child and sanctimoniously tells them that "This hurts me more than it hurts you!" are they really telling the truth?
The answer to each of those questions is of course no. 
As a matter of historical fact slaves were not well fed and did not enjoy decent lodgings. Some of the people who were there at the time reported that the slaves didn't enjoy the finer things in life, to put it mildly. Abigail Adams, First Lady during the construction of the White House, had this to say concerning slavery: 

The effects of Slavery are visible every where; and I have amused myself from day to day in looking at the labour of 12 negroes from my window, who are employd with four small Horse Carts to remove some dirt in front of the house. the four carts are all loaded at the same time, and whilst four carry this rubish about half a mile, the remaining eight rest upon their Shovels, Two of our hardy N England men would do as much work in a day as the whole 12, but it is true Republicanism that drive the Slaves half fed, and destitute of cloathing, or fit for  to labour, whilst the owner waches about Idle, tho his one Slave is all the property he can boast, Such is the case of many of the inhabitants of this place

So Bill O'Reilly was wrong. And the people who were enslaved also didn't seem to have much positive to share about the experience:

I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel
man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.

I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.

But the historical fact of slavery's reality is less interesting to me here than the fact O'Reilly and people who think as he does constantly feel the need to minimize the horror of slavery. It doesn't matter how well I treat you if I have a chain attached to you at all times and promise to beat or kill you if you ever displease me. And I or my children will do the same to your children and your children's children. Would O'Reilly sign up for that life? Would you? No you would not even if I fed you well and gave you particularly fluffy pillows to rest your head on at night.
Because slavery's sin is not just in the maltreatment of slaves, horrific though that was. The primary sin is in owning another human being the way one owns an animal. It's the elimination of someone's humanity and the reduction of them to nothing more than a piece of meat to be used for labor or breeding. My suspicion is that O'Reilly probably saw the First Lady's comment as an attack on white people and wanted to respond. Or maybe some of his ancestors owned slaves. Or maybe deep down inside despite his protestations O'Reilly has a guilty conscience. I don't know. The point is that O'Reilly's statements are part of a long history of people trying to paper over or dismiss the horrors of American slavery. Either they don't think that slavery was all that bad or they resent black people bringing it up. Slavery is one of America's original sins. No one today bears responsibility but the evil of slavery continues to bear toxic fruit. And it will likely do so for many more years. The country will never get past it as long as some people offer backhand defenses of slavery.

ObamaCare Revisited: Premiums Go Up

Surprise, Surprise Surprise! The premiums for most 2017 ObamaCare policies will go up even higher than expected. For example some non-profit companies are considering 60% premium increases. 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, which has about half the state’s exchange customers, wants to increase premiums almost 60 percent for 2017. Scott and White Health Plan wants to ratchet up premiums over 30 percent, and Cigna, 24 percent. Aetna and Oscar are planning double-digit increases, too. UnitedHealth, the country’s largest insurer, is pulling out of the exchange business in Texas and over a dozen other states. In justifying its rate increase to state regulators, the company said it paid $1.26 in claims for every $1 in premiums collected last year. For the state’s largest insurer, that resulted in a loss of $770 million in the individual marketplace. And Blue Cross is projecting another loss this year for its exchange business.

Every day there is a new story about this or that insurance company raising rates, leaving the exchanges or halting expansion plans.

Insurers want to crank up the cost of health insurance premiums by as much as 45 percent for Illinois residents who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, the most popular insurer on the state's Obamacare exchange, is proposing increases ranging from 23 percent to 45 percent in premiums for its individual health-care plans, according to proposed 2017 premiums that were made public Monday. The insurer blamed the sought-after hikes mainly on changes in the costs of medical services.

Aetna (AET) said Tuesday it is canceling plans to expand into five more states next year and will reassess its involvement in the 15 states where it currently offers coverage on the individual exchanges. Aetna -- which expects to lose $300 million (pre-tax) on its Obamacare business this year -- must conclude its review by the end of September and notify states where it intends to withdraw.
"...in light of updated 2016 projections for our individual products and the significant structural challenges facing the public exchanges, we intend to withdraw all of our 2017 public exchange expansion plans, and are undertaking a complete evaluation of future participation in our current 15-state footprint," said CEO Mark Bertolini in a second-quarter earnings statement.

More health care co-ops are failing. We now know that it is not possible to offer gender specific free services to half of the population, prevent insurance companies from charging age or gender based actuarially accurate insurance rates, force insurance companies to cover anyone with preexisting conditions, increase reporting requirements and transaction costs and still make premiums drop by $2500 for a family of four. Who knew?  Who could have guessed this? Wow! If only someone realized that despite good intentions it's not possible to revoke the law of supply and demand. If only someone could have pointed out that insurance packages priced for older people or those with families or chronic conditions will lack allure to younger people, childless people, single people or healthy people. And so, all else equal, those people won't buy overpriced policies. Or they will game the system to get coverage when they're sick and drop it later. So it goes. I just hope that the next time someone demands that the federal government do something right now because we have an "emergency", that we realize that not all of those opposed are inbred mouth breathing bigots who take perverse prideful pleasure in preventing policy progress. Some are obviously. But others really have examined the facts and reached different conclusions. The people who predicted that contrary to the President's claims, that all else equal exchange and individual deductibles and premiums would rise, not fall, were correct. The PPACA supporters were wrong. This bears repeating. One side was right. The other side was wrong. Sometimes even a broken clock is right. This doesn't mean that PPACA detractors were right about all aspects of the law. They weren't. PPACA supporters can still argue that there were several other reasons to endorse the PPACA. I don't say no to that. But cost of coverage for people who are not 100% subsidized wasn't one of them.

It's not simply a question of loving or hating the President, his political party or his rivals. This is an empirical issue now. People on the exchanges who are not completely subsidized will pay more for health insurance. Unless they all happen to come into inheritances, get themselves a Sugar Daddy or obtain job promotions with salary increases outpacing their increased insurance costs, they will need to make cutbacks elsewhere. Presumably, they won't like that. Some may drop the policies. And although those customers who are subsidized won't be paying the full increased cost, the government (which is to say the rest of us) will be. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Note that the President is not talking loudly about the PPACA cost benefits. Instead he's focusing on expanded coverage and the "moral rightness" of the PPACA. I've always said that the honest and fair policy decision would have been to directly raise income taxes to provide health care coverage for the needy. That path would have had fewer market dislocations. But what's done is done. The PPACA is here to stay for the near future, at least until it collapses under its own contradictions. If you are paying more for a policy on the exchange, I hope that you think it's worth it. Perhaps belatedly recognizing that PPACA cost increases are unpopular some PPACA supporters have retreated to their fallback position that things are fine because areas of the health care market that PPACA hasn't reached yet are doing well. This argument is unconvincing. I work in IT. I create and approve changes to critical company processes. If I delay or break my department year end processing I can't defend the resulting chaos by pointing to the other departments which I didn't wreck. Supervisors wouldn't be sympathetic to that line of reasoning. And the American public shouldn't be either. 

The next President will have the opportunity to make changes to the PPACA. He or she (most likely she) will need to take into account that people respond to incentives, good or bad. Just because it would be nice if people behaved in a way opposed to their economic best interest doesn't always mean they will. You can cajole them I guess but good luck with that. It would also be "nice" for PPACA diehards if companies just agreed to continue losing money for the greater good but life doesn't work that way. To paraphrase Bon Scott, even the kind man is going to ask his friends, what's in it for me? For too many people the answer in regards to ObamaCare will be not much. 

Book Reviews: Kill 'em and Leave, Lovecraft Country

Kill em and Leave
by James McBride

This was a short book. It wasn't a biography of the late James Brown as much as it was a series of stories about Brown and the impact he had, good or otherwise on the people he interacted with in his life. Brown likely never saw himself as a victim and would (and did) reject anyone who tried to view him through that perspective. But as McBride points out much of Brown's early life was heavily influenced by poverty, familial strife and of course Jim Crow in all of its forms. Some people who worked with Brown claim that his deepest emotion was fear of white racism. This could be expressed in a number of different ways, not all of which were positive. In some respects this is a sad book. Although Brown died a millionaire he didn't have as much wealth as he should have had. Brown's inability to trust very many people, dislike of banks and chaotic business dealings led him to hide cash all over the place. Some people stole this money. But the book's primary vitriol is resolved for the South Carolina good old boy political and legal network that used Brown's family strife to throw out a clear will and trust after Brown's death. This led to a decade long and ongoing court battle in which the money that Brown intended to be used for the benefit of impoverished children in South Carolina and Georgia instead flowed to the pockets of well connected attorneys, judges and accountants, all of whom were determined to prolong court proceedings until the very last penny was extracted from Brown's estate. Money can make even the best person greedy. Some of Brown's children sued him for royalties for songs he had ghostwritten in their names when they were children. At one point Brown became so reclusive and upset that he insisted his children and grandchildren make appointments if they wanted to see him. That may have been Brown's way of screening out people who just wanted money. This book is no hagiography. This book argues that Brown was at various times a distant father and husband, a tyrannical boss, and a horrible businessman. Brown also had substance abuse issues late in life. This is something which the workaholic and temperamentally conservative Brown always despised in others. But McBride also takes pains to point out and document all the ways in which the recent Mick Jagger produced film on James Brown (reviewed here) got things wrong, sometimes deliberately. McBride is also a musician. He provided some interesting insights into the differences and similarities between funk and jazz. Some very talented jazz musicians spoke of being unable to perform to Brown's expectations even though in some aspects jazz is more advanced music than funk.

McBride also put into context all of the ways that a musician can be ripped off. McBride interviewed many other musicians about Brown. Not all of these people had great love for Brown, either as a man or as a musician. But most conceded that Brown was, pardon the pun, instrumental in directing them to a higher level of musical performance. Brown's unchecked ego was a dangerous thing. There is a thin line between practicing a band until it is damn near perfect and calling grueling all night practices after a three hour concert because the second guitarist made a minor mistake on the intro to "Get on the Good Foot". Brown crossed that line too often. Despite his habit of referring to his employees and band members by their surnames he had no problem making it clear that he was the star, not them. He flew in a plane. His employees had to take the bus. If they didn't like his treatment they could leave. Over the years many of his bands did just that. It was very difficult to work for Brown and maintain your self-respect. Brown was obsessed with keeping his employees financially and professionally dependent upon him. He also wasn't above sabotaging opening acts if he thought they were getting too popular or taking too much time. Of course if you were a bandleader who must deal with musicians of varying talents and temperaments, crooked promoters and radio DJ's, dangerous criminals who want a "loan" from you, lawyers who will rob you blind with just a pen and paper, politicians who want to use your image, and IRS agents who just love making examples out of people like you, you also might put up a harsher front than normal. But for all of Brown's egomania and paranoia he could also be a kind man albeit a quite sensitive one. When Bill Cosby sent a plate of collard greens to Brown's room as a (presumably well meaning) joke about Brown's southern origins and funk exemplar status, Brown wasn't amused and had to be physically prevented from attacking Cosby. Brown took a fatherless Al Sharpton under his wing and taught him a great deal about show business. It was Brown who shamed Sharpton into helping Michael Jackson during the child abuse allegations. Brown was there with financial help for Isaac Hayes when Hayes was going through bankruptcy. McBride also investigates Brown's long term platonic relationship with one of his female employees, who over the years probably gave Brown more emotional support than most of his wives. Some of Brown's short fuse dealings with his bandmembers came from an inability/unwillingness to speak openly. Sometimes a Brown firing or fining was not to be taken seriously.

As mentioned this is a very short book (less than 200 pages). The title comes from a James Brown quote about leaving immediately after a show. The deeper meaning refers to Brown's refusal to share his true thoughts or his personal business. During his heyday and for most of his life Brown refused to be seen in public unless he was at his best. Brown considered the kind of salacious details or familial stories that sell magazines and books today to be private and none of your damn business. So although the book's subtitle is "searching for James Brown", most of the people who really knew Brown are either dead or reluctant to say too much to McBride. McBride details his distaste for the leeches and bottom feeders that surrounded Brown in life and death while struggling with the question of whether he isn't doing the same thing. McBride is adamant that as much praise as Brown received for his musical genius, he probably deserved more. I liked this book. And you will too if you want to know more about Brown and his influences on culture, music and performance. One interesting note about the book is that one of the people with whom I went to grade school is referenced within because of a news story he wrote about James Brown. I will have to reach out to this fellow on Facebook if he's there. Small world.




Lovecraft Country
by Matt Ruff

H.P. Lovecraft was one of the most influential horror writers of all time. He was also a racist of the most vile sort who always believed that black people were subhuman. Lovecraft's racism wasn't just incidental to his work. His work could not have existed without it. But sometimes flowers grow out of s***. Although ironically, Lovecraft wrote most of his best work during the Harlem Renaissance he seems to have been utterly unaware of that movement. The idea that blacks could actually create worthwhile literary or musical works would have been confounding and probably greatly amusing to Lovecraft. In his novels and short stories blacks were dumb savages for the most part. At best they might be submissive and silent servants. At worst, well never mind. There's not much you could reasonably expect on that front from a writer who was initially supportive of Hitler. Anyway this book imagines a Lovecraft setting except with black protagonists. This takes place in the early fifties. The supernatural elements of the story are less important than the everyday racism which impacts all of the characters. It's not discussed as often as it should be but although the South made a fetish of separating and subordinating blacks in exquisite legal detail the North often did so in less formal matter via housing discrimination, police harassment and of course Sundown towns: neighborhoods or cities in which blacks were legally or extra legally required to be out of town by Sunset. Or else. In order to know ahead of time which areas were safe, which hotels, motels or gas stations were black owned or at least black friendly and which areas should be avoided at all costs, black travelers before 1965 or so often relied on a travel guide which collected shared experiences. It was titled the Negro Motorist Green Book. It is fictionalized in this story as the Safe Negro Travelers Guide. The Green Book went out of business once desegregation became the law of the land but based on some ongoing incidents I imagine that the function of the Green Book if not its format will continue on in blogs and websites that cater to black travelers. There will be more on that in another post I think. Anyhow this story opens up with Black Korean war veteran Atticus Turner, who works for his uncle George as a researcher for the Safe Negro Travelers Guide, returning from his journeys across the South and lower Midwest to his uncle's home in Chicago. Turner has had the normal share of run-ins with racist and hostile police and other whites who don't like his looks or his seeming success. Turner's father, Montrose, who is open about his disdain for racist whites (and whites in general for that matter) has disappeared into New England, leaving behind strange clues as to what he's up to. Strangely enough, considering the elder Turner's views, he was last seen in the presence of a white man. Well there's nothing for it but for Atticus, George and Atticus' friend Letitia to take a road trip to New England to find and/or rescue Montrose Turner. It doesn't help matters that Montrose Turner and Atticus Turner aren't overly fond of each other.

This starts a multi-year adventure in which the Turners and their friends are manipulated by and battle against a shadowy cabal that has plans for the world that might not be all that wonderful for humanity. This group is linked to the Turners via America's original sin of slavery. The big bad of this group is not a fire-breathing bigot. He's rational and calm. He likes to position himself as a rational man as compared to some of his more traditionalist and irrational compatriots. All in all he would rather make deals and appeal to people's self-interest than to openly threaten people.Of course if he's pushed to extremes he might behave in a different manner. One of the more interesting ways that this man can seduce some of the black protagonists is to give them gifts which remove the stigma of their race. One woman finds it tempting to temporarily live life as a white woman. Another man finds that a car that deflects police attention is very useful. Thematically this book reads more like a collection of short stories than a novel. Each little adventure is complete in itself though the reader also knows there is more to come because smartly Ruff doesn't explain every little thing. I was reminded less of Lovecraft and more of Twilight Zone. I thought that Ruff did his research on how race was lived and experienced in 1950s America. From a thriller/horror perspective this is solid but not awe-inspiring work. There are a lot of the normal tropes and cliches employed: vicious dog packs, hostile small towns, teleportation to different universes, strange things locked in basements, haunted houses, crusty old wizards. It's not a overly or overtly violent book all things considered. There are some well drawn female characters who are arguably the book's centerpiece.

Movie Reviews: Green Room

Green Room
directed by Jerry Saulnier

Ok, first things first. If you are a person who is very sensitive to apparently realistic cinematic depictions of violence then this is most definitely not the flick for you. People are threatened, slashed, beaten, shot, stabbed, bitten, bludgeoned, spat at, choked, cut open, punched, kicked and otherwise harmed. Gender, age or formerly pacific nature is no protection from harm and no predictor of violent capacity. Anyone can get got and does. This movie is mildly transgressive not so much in its violence but in its unspoken assumption that despite their loathsome political and racial views and glorification of violence, white supremacists, white nationalists and Nazis are human too. I DEFINITELY don't mean this in any sort of goofy let's all find each other's humanity and love each other way. Only a masochist would love someone bent on their destruction. No rather, like any other group of humans, the bad guys here make mistakes and have internal romantic and business rivalries. They have a Bell Curve population distribution of leaders, followers, cowards and people who will go along to get along with whoever appears to be in charge. Just like Hitler loved his dog, a Nazi dog-handler is greatly dismayed anytime someone harms or misuses his animals. New information or a new perspective can make someone who was previously determined to kill you become an ally. This also works the other way, obviously. There may or may not be a world beyond our own but this world already has plenty of angels and devils in human form who are far more depraved or beatific than anything we could dream up. And some of them probably work and live right next to you. The Ain't Rights are a gritty punk rock band who haven't exactly fallen on hard times, because apparently they've never had too many good times. The only positive thing you could say about them is that they usually earn just enough money to make it to their next gig. Barely. Sometimes, well more frequently than they like, they have to steal (siphon) gas from other vehicles to make it to their shows. Tiger (Callum Turner) the singer, Reece (Joe Cole) the drummer, Samantha (Alia Shawkat) the guitarist, and Pat (the late Anton Yelchin) the bassist, drive their own van, set up their own gear and evidently aren't even well known enough yet to have groupies. That seems like a pretty crappy lifestyle for a band-no money, no roadies and no groupies. It doesn't help matters when one of the sleep deprived musicians falls asleep at the wheel of the van, leaving the engine running. 

But that's the life they've chosen, and they still love it. They are apparently young enough not to have spouses nagging them about getting a real job or needing to worry about children's college costs. But like the Albert King song Born Under A Bad Sign goes, if it wasn't for bad luck, they wouldn't have no luck at all. A gig that was supposed to bring them "big money" (i.e. hundreds of dollars each) is not as lucrative as promised, netting each member about $6. The magazine interviewer who was going to help break the band's music to a larger audience neglected to mention that he just got fired from his job. So the interview won't run. But never fear! He has a cousin who knows someone who can arrange The Ain't Rights a better paying opening act gig in a town near Portland, Oregon. The only drawback is that the audience will probably tend a bit more overtly right-wing than the band is used to drawing. But beggars can't be choosers, right? Right-wing money spends just as good as anyone else's. As long as The Ain't Rights keep their mouths shut off the stage and stay away from any overtly left-wing political statements they should be ok. After all they're all part of the punk scene. The band arrives at the club. The good thing about this gig is that the bouncers and managers are more professional about the money, the time and the sound. The bad thing is that the bouncers, managers and apparently all of the audience are white supremacist neo-Nazis. The style of dress, signs and graffiti all make it clear that this club is a no go zone for anyone who is non-white and/or to the left of George Wallace. As a joke and as a middle finger to the audience the band opens with an anti-Nazi Dead Kennedys song but swiftly moves to other material once the audience becomes a bit unruly. But music can soothe the savage beast. Before long everyone in the club is peacefully grooving to the music, or rather doing whatever passes for grooving in the Pacific Northwest. After all, this is an area that, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Jimi Hendrix notwithstanding, is not exactly known for funk or soul. 

The band finishes their set to applause. They get paid and start to leave. All's well that ends well. That is everything is just peachy until Sam realizes she left her phone charging in the green room, where the headliner band is preparing for their set. Pat runs back to retrieve the phone but has the misfortune to see something that everyone agrees he would have been better off not seeing. Hearing his dismay the other band members come running and also become witnesses. With that the ambitious head bouncer Gabe (Macon Blair) locks the band in the green room until he can decide what to do. Or rather he locks the band in the green room until he can contact his boss Darcy (Patrick Stewart) and Darcy can decide what to do. Locked in the room with the band to keep an eye on them is the large, physically intimidating and armed bouncer Big Justin (Eric Edelstein). Also in the room is Amber (Imogen Poots), a woman who constantly says she's not a Nazi though she may be a girlfriend of a Nazi. Amber is someone you want to watch out of the corner of your eye. As you might expect Stewart does a good job with a limited role that might otherwise have been cartoonish. His dulcet baritone and obvious leadership status makes you and some of the people inside the room want to believe that everything can be worked out. Obviously Darcy means that everything can be worked out for him. He couldn't give a **** about most of the people in the room. He has some ideas he'd like to try. And if nothing else his ideas will give some of his more dangerous followers a chance to get in some practice. The light and sound was realistic throughout this film. I was impressed. Often in movies like this the sound levels can vary and drown out dialogue but that wasn't a problem. The tension feels very real in the film. There are a few surprises judiciously spread throughout the movie. The acting is strong. This is a horror movie but without anything supernatural. The monsters are all human. There are a few plot holes and people doing stupid things to move the plot along but much fewer than you might expect. The plausibility of much of the movie is what gives it its edge. Well, it's the plausibility and Patrick Stewart. If you can appreciate siege films or movies where one slip up changes everything then you'll enjoy Green Room. 
TRAILER

Ailes Out at Fox News

Once a year everyone in my company has to complete online training on how to prevent or not engage in sexual harassment. It's painfully obvious stuff. You don't have to believe in or accept 100% of the most radical feminist worldviews to understand that putting hands on someone without their permission, commenting on their body parts without invitation or God forbid making their promotion, continued employment, assignments or pleasant work environment contingent upon them having sex with you is illegal and something which could cost you your job and your employer a lot of money. Some of the examples which are used in my company's yearly training are so over the top that I couldn't believe that even the densest rockhead out there wouldn't already know that this stuff is out of bounds. But there's always someone out there who thinks that the rules don't apply to him. The latest example of this was former Fox News Boss Roger Ailes, who was accused by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson of long running virtual textbook sexual harassment over several years of her employment at Fox News. You can read some of her complaint here. Among other things Ailes allegedly asked Carlson to turn around so he could look at her bottom and told her that she should have had sex with him a long time ago in order to help her career. Ailes' alleged statements to and activities around Carlson are exactly the sorts of things which I thought were so obviously sexual harassment as to not be worth mentioning in a corporate CYA training video. Now to be fair there are a fair number of married people who meet each other in a work environment. And I don't think that one pass is grounds for harassment. But Ailes was Carlson's boss. That alone should have made Ailes keep everything above board. Apparently Ailes' bosses, Rupert Murdoch and his sons, decided that Fox News could get along without Ailes. Ailes "resigned" with a reported $40 million payout. If someone "suggests" that you resign or be fired, resigning is probably the smart move, right? According to some reports the Murdoch sons and Ailes were never overly fond of each other. Ailes chafed at having to report to the younger Murdochs. Some other women, most of them anonymous, claimed to have been harassed by Ailes over the years. But what may have flipped the switch was alleged confirmation by Fox News' top star Megyn "Jesus is White" Kelly, that Ailes sexually harassed her some years ago. Kelly is the future of the network. Presumably the Murdochs want to keep her happy and around. It puts more money in their pockets.  

So Ailes will have to face Carlson's lawsuit on his own. Fox News is of course, depending on your POV, famous or infamous, for transparent desks, thigh level camera POV, and women who show off expanses of cleavage and legs. So all in all I'm not surprised that the man who created a sexually charged work environment allegedly sought to benefit from same. For most people it's usually a bad idea to get your honey where you get your money. And it's always a bad idea to tell someone to give it up or get out. Allegedly....

Jon Stewart and Late Show: Donald Trump

Jon Stewart has a special talent for the describing the phenomenon which is the Donald Trump campaign for President of the United States. Below is his appearance on the Late Show where he goes in on the double standards that the conservative media uses when discussing President Obama and the birther running for President, Donald Trump. I liked what Stewart had to say about conservatives not owning America. It's a point worth repeating over and over again. A lot of Trump's support comes from dismay with or fear of THOSE people. This fall election is going to be very interesting from a blogging perspective, regardless of who wins.