Reggie Jackson photobombs Blake Griffin Interview

The Detroit Pistons are a bad team. The previous coach/GM Stan Van Gundy proved to be a horrible judge of talent, drafting poorly and overloading the team with bad contracts and incompatible players. Van Gundy was finally fired. The new coach, Dwane Casey is perhaps doing the best he can with what he has. The results haven't been good, though considering the talent level, perhaps Casey is a great coach. 

The one consistent bright spot has been once and future all star forward Blake Griffin, who has provided the only spark of hard play and serious talent. Griffin takes things seriously. Recently after a close win over the New Orleans Pelicans, Griffin was trying to explain how the Pistons need to mature, close games out better and generally stop messing around. Of course point guard Reggie Jackson could not help himself from bombing Griffin's interview and depicting exactly the sort of tomfoolery Griffin was excoriating.

As some older men in my family were fond of telling me, you can't soar with the eagles when you're hanging out with turkeys. I like Griffin, but if he wants to win he would be wise to get out of Detroit.

Blake very seriously talking about how unfocused the team is down the stretch. Reggie Jackson picking the wrong time lol pic.twitter.com/3hwC20SPRV

— Isiah has 1 a (@riinawith2eyes) January 24, 2019

Australia Requires Back Door to Encrypted Communications

Let's say that you and a close friend or intimate created an impenetrable way of communicating with each other. No one else could understand it. Or perhaps you purchased a reinforced armored steel door for your home that can't be breached by anything short of a tank if the would be breacher lacks the key. Or imagine that you're a whistleblower journalist working on a stunning piece of work that will make the Pentagon Papers look like high school gossip. When you publish you will change American politics and history for ever. If anyone knew you had this information you or yours would have some "accidents" and/or the data would disappear. 

I think that most people would agree that the government shouldn't be able to demand that you provide them a codebook for your private conversations, a key to your door, transparent windows for your home and copies of your notes and contact information for your sources. Or at least the government shouldn't be able to do that unless and until you've been tried and convicted of some crime other than not letting the government know what you're talking about, writing about or doing in the privacy of your own home.

We hear a lot about how China continues to perfect the surveillance state. As it turns out although China is setting ugly new records in that regard, other countries are often doing their best to catch up.

SYDNEY, Australia — A new law in Australia gives law enforcement authorities the power to compel tech-industry giants like Apple to create tools that would circumvent the encryption built into their products.

MLK was a Conservative and other lies from the WSJ

In winter the snow falls. In autumn leaves change color and drop off the trees. Summer's days are long and hot. And in January on or around the MLK  federal holiday, some conservative media outlet, usually but not always the Wall Street Journal, will deploy someone to argue that MLK was colorblind, didn't support affirmative action and lined up with other modern day conservative stances. 

This is of course similar to saying that Jesus' primary message expressed in the Gospels was "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out." It's the BIG LIE. This year the dubious honor fell to one Coleman Hughes who makes more fact free assertions in one column than I ever thought was possible. 

In this view, King’s dream of a colorblind America—where the content of our character matters more than the color of our skin—is hampered by progressives’ focus on checking white privilege and stoking black grievance. With regard to the role that racial identity should play in politics, King was unequivocal: First and foremost we are human beings, not members of races. The verbal tic of modern racial-justice activists—“As a black man . . .”—would sound foreign on his lips. Even when fighting explicitly racist policies, he deployed universal principles rather than a tribal grievance narrative.

King also highlighted counterproductive behavioral patterns in the black community—the third rail for today’s racial activists. The current view among progressives is that cultural self-criticism is noble when whites do it but “victim blaming” when blacks do it. In contrast, King held that regardless of racial identity, “one of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self-criticism,” as expressed in a 1960 address.

King’s contemporary counterpoints were the Nation of Islam and the black-power movement, which emphasized racial division over common humanity. King didn’t mince words when addressing these movements in a 1960 speech at DePauw University. “Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy, and God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men,” he said. “God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and in the creation of a society where all men can live together as brothers.”

As Paul Harvey might say, and now for the rest of the story.

Movie Reviews: Sicario 2: Day of The Soldado

Sicario: Day of The Soldado
directed by Stefano Sollima

The first Sicario movie was a brooding examination of the moral costs of revenge, the war on drugs, and perhaps the standing of the souls of Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) and Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro). The ending let us know that as majestic and purposeful as one of those characters was, they were definitely going to hell when they died. 

Well that was one way to look at it. The other way is the Old Testament way in which we show no pity and pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot until the bitter cup of revenge is drunk in full by everyone.  The Old Testament is full of people taking righteous and not so righteous revenge upon people who harmed them or just happened to be in the way of some divinely ordered smackdown. 

This "kill em all" way of thinking can often be justified by the "good guys"-just ask any survivor of the WW2 firebombings of Dresden or Tokyo about that-but in most entertainment there's a line beyond which "good guys" don't cross, no matter how righteous the purpose may be. Alejandro crosses those lines in the first Sicario and doesn't appear to be in any need of forgiveness or redemption. He made his choice. You might understand his choice or despair at his choice but there is no denying that the character knew what he was doing. Like Marv in Sin City, Alejandro has decided that there are certain people or concepts worth killing for, worth dying for, and worth going to hell for.

Movie Reviews: Key Largo

Key Largo
directed by John Huston

In some respects this Bogie-Bacall collaboration, their last one, is a noir film and in another it's a movie masquerading as one. Its cynicism hides an optimism and can-do spirit. The other interesting thing about this film is how the actors of the time, even many of the stars, would be considered normal to average looking people today. Although Humphrey Bogart had massive screen presence would women today consider him handsome? I can't call it. Similarly Lauren Bacall could certainly be considered striking but I don't know that I'd call her beautiful. 

And Edward G. Robinson wasn't handsome by the standards of any time. And yet despite that, or even because of that this movie feels real. The stars and the character actors do not stand out from the film; they are the film. Like many films of the time and the genre Key Largo makes judicious use of lighting and setting to set up the internal and external battle between good and evil.  

The impending storms and resulting darkness and shadows match perfectly the emotional and psychological challenges being wrestled with by the main characters. Also this film shows that it is possible to make a tense, interesting adult movie without nudity, cleavage or even explicit violence. This movie produced a Best Supporting Actress win for Claire Trevor.

The Shutdown And The Wall

At the time of this writing it is day 21 of the government shutdown. On Friday January 11, thousands of Federal workers missed their first full paycheck. Although it is unwise to live your life paycheck to paycheck, fully 80% of Americans do indeed live paycheck to paycheck.  

 And that's not just impoverished people. 10% of people with a salary greater than six figures also say they live that way. Of course a six figure income is not what it was twenty years ago. The reasons for that are not really relevant to this post. The larger point is that plenty of federal workers will face some tough decisions over the next few days. The given reason for the shutdown is that President Trump wants $5.7 Billion for the creation and expansion of a hard border Wall. 

The Democrats, who won back the House, are offering $1.3 Billion for border security, some possible fencing, but definitely no Wall. In some ways however the fight isn't really over the creation of a wall. Democrats have voted for walls before. Some border areas already have effective walls. The larger fight is over the symbolism of a wall. Trump's rabid base despises illegal immigration and isn't that crazy about legal immigration. They want to see concrete evidence that Trump is making headway in the battle against both. When Trump looked like he was going to cave conservative enforcers Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh called him out in a mocking personal way.

Twenty Years Since The Sopranos Started

The Sopranos was one of my favorite television dramas. It wasn't the first show to have an antihero protagonist but it was one of the most successful ones to do so. This wasn't just great acting by the series star, the late James Gandolfini, but excellent writing, direction and production by series creator David Chase as well as wonderful support by many other actors and actresses, including Edie Falco. It does seem odd to realize that it has been twenty years since the series debut. Chase and Falco reminisce about the show and of course that ending.