HBO Game of Thrones: Thoughts on Episode 3 - The Long Night

I rewatched the most recent episode of HBO's Games of Thrones (episode 3). I debated it and discussed it with friends, family, and associates online and offline. I read other people's takes. I heard some of what Benioff and Weiss had to say. Now that I've come down from the sugar high of Arya's heroism I think I can provide more sober analysis of what I didn't like in the episode.

There are three points that bear mentioning. (1) Medieval Warfare is a wonderful magazine, one which I read religiously. My points about military tactics are generally based on my readings of various issues of that magazine and other historical books. Mistakes and omissions are mine. (2) Obviously this is just my pov which I am writing for my own enjoyment and hopefully yours as well. I am certainly not stating that I am "right". The show belongs to the showrunners, not viewers (3) Arya is one of my favorite characters. Criticism of her character arc isn't based in the modern bete noire of misogyny.

The episode was entertaining. I was a little disappointed at the episode's fit in the larger tale. GRRM has shared plot points and character fates with Benioff and Weiss. GRRM believes the show and book endings will be broadly similar, although the paths will differ. I'm no book purist. The showrunners occasionally improved the tale by changing or eliminating some GRRM inventions. For example, I don't think the HBO series should have included Strong Belwas, a not too bright black Daenerys devotee who speaks in the third person and defecates on the corpses of those he kills. The show didn't need vivid description of the Mountain and crew's vicious gang rape of a preteen girl and murder of her brother.

But, when I heard that the showrunners had decided about three years prior to have Arya be the one to kill the Night King, a character not present in the published books, I thought that the decision, no matter how much I enjoyed the knife drop move, was a mistake, and one likely made purely for fan service reasons. Let's discuss more.

Flooding in South East Michigan and Metro Detroit

It is a matter of increasing frustration, annoyance and black humor to me that almost every time we get more than two or three inches of rain in SE Michigan, entire sections of our roadways and expressways become impassable for days. This really shouldn't occur in the United States of America. 

Some people, including myself at times, might snark about crappy Third World standards or problems. Well. If you spent the past sixty or seventy years under the boot of European colonialism or fighting US funded civil wars at least you have a valid reason for not having solid infrastructure that's up to snuff. The US has no such excuse. 

Michigan Gerrymandering Case

Gerrymandering is when a political party redistricts in an unfair partisan method so that its political dominance and ability to win elections is maximized while the ability of rival parties or disfavored minorities to do the same are minimized. 

Both parties do this although the Republicans have arguably taken it to new heights, or lows, depending on your point of view. Courts have been reluctant to get deeply involved in such disputes, often taking the stance that with certain egregious exceptions, redistricting is an inherently political process and not so much a legal one. 

Parties compete to win control of government precisely to draw political boundaries for their own benefit. But courts do occasionally step in and force the legislative branches to make changes. We just saw an example of this in Michigan.

Detroit — Michigan must redraw legislative and congressional districts for the 2020 election because current maps drawn by Republicans represent a political gerrymander “of historical proportions,” a three-judge federal panel ruled Thursday. The blockbuster ruling — which a legislative leader said Republicans will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court — requires Michigan to conduct special state Senate elections for certain seats next year, cutting in half the four-year terms that current lawmakers are now serving. 

The “predominate purpose” of the redistricting plan approved by the Michigan Legislature in 2011 “was to subordinate the interests of Democratic voters and entrench Republicans in power,” said the unanimous decision written by U.S. Circuit Judge Eric Clay, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. 

Book Reviews: What the Night Knows

What The Night Knows
by Dean Koontz

I used to be a huge Dean Koontz fan. I picked up this 2010 book in a clearance sale. I liked the plot description and theme. But after reading it I was let down. Now bad Koontz is better than most other writers. However I thought that here one of the typical Koontz formulas (a decent man with a horrible secret must protect his beautiful wife and perfect kids from evil with the help of a loyal dog) ran out of gas. This softcover book was over four hundred and fifty pages. When I read a novel that length I expect something either meaty or epic. This wasn't the case.

It's been a while since I read Koontz so I'd have to go back and check his earlier works but I don't seem to remember his writing being so heavily weighted towards prose and away from dialogue. There's very little dialogue in this book. So the story feels very heavy to me, but not in a good way. YMMV. There is a disappointing literal deux ex machina ending. If we continue after death in some form that could be really wonderful news for those among us who are kind, helpful,and decent people. The flip side is that evil doers could continue their maleficent works.

John Calvino is a thirty-something homicide detective haunted by his family's murders two decades ago. Although John killed the perpetrator, John has never been able to forget the last words of the rapist-murderer, Alton Blackwood. When a young man named Billy Lucas commits atrocities and murders that clearly seem patterned after Blackwood's crimes, John is worried enough to visit Billy in a mental institution even though it's not his case. Billy is mostly uncommunicative but shares some private chilling information with John that Billy simply could not have known. 

Granny Says Batter Up!!!

Just because someone is a woman or is an old woman doesn't mean that they can't defend themselves or what is theirs. Gainesville, Florida resident Clarese Gainey recently demonstrated this lesson of life to one Antonio Mosley. GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WGFL) — It was early Sunday morning when 65-year-old Clarese Gainey heard a noise outside her apartment. As she looked out the window, she says she saw a man in his boxers pulling at her car door handle and knocking on the window, attempting to break in. Before calling police, she took matters into her own hands.
"I grab my bat, I brace myself, and I ease the door open," Gainey said.
That's when police and Gainey say 5'6, 300 pound Antonio Mosely charged her.
"I took that bat and hit him upside the head like 'pi-yah!' He said 'Ow!'"

Should We Make Everyone's Tax Returns Public???

How much money do you make? How many tax loopholes do you use? Do you have a bunch of medical deductions?  Are you or your dependents suffering from some expensive and possibly embarrassing medical condition that you would rather not discuss with most people? Did you properly report all of your income, investment income and capital gains for the past year? 

What has been your rate of income growth over your lifetime? Are you well paid at your job?  Are you a lagging performer? Are you only hanging on to your job because your bosses don't think you're worth the trouble to fire because you earn so little? Do you have a job or do you instead survive on some combination of disability, savings, capital gains, and family or spousal support?  Did you retire early thanks to wise investments, business ownership and inheritances? Well if you're like most Americans I know you probably think that information and data like it is strictly between you, the IRS and any really close friends, family or intimates that you decide have a pressing need to know that information. It's not for public consumption. It's private.

Well at least one person on the NYT editorial board thinks that information should all be public for everyone.

In October 1924, the federal government threw open for public inspection the files that recorded the incomes of American taxpayers, and the amounts they had paid in taxes. Almost a century later, it’s time to revisit the merits of universal public disclosure. Democrats in Congress are fighting to obtain President Trump’s tax returns under a separate 1924 law, written in response to related concerns about public corruption. That issue could be resolved, at least in part, if Congress embraced the broader case for publishing everyone’s tax bill.

Movie Reviews: The Possession Of Hannah Grace

The Possession of Hannah Grace
directed by Diederik Van Rooijen

At first I thought that this was just a distaff remake of The Autopsy of Jane Doe. It certainly had a lot of the same surface similarities. Someone is left alone with a dead body and starts to have hallucinations. Eventually the person comes to believe that the dead body isn't actually dead or at least not dead in the way that we would use the term. As HP Lovecraft once wrote "That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange eons even death may die." George RR Martin reworked the Lovecraft couplet into his own equally impressive Iron Islander chant/boast "What is dead may never die. But rises again stronger and harder."

What made The Autopsy of Jane Doe impressive or at least interesting to me was that the viewer was immersed in the same mystery as the characters. For much of the movie the viewer didn't know that much more than the characters. This allowed the viewer to be alternately surprised and worried right along with the two coroners. In this movie however I think the director/writer took a wrong turn from the start. The first five minutes of the movie explain in detail exactly what the titular character is and what has control over her.  So there's no mystery as to what's going on. 

The majority of the movie consists of watching fake scares and people doing stupid things. Now some cynics would argue that describes most horror movies. Well perhaps. But it wouldn't describe good horror movies, which The Possession of Hannah Grace is assuredly not.