Goodbye, Joan

In other news, March Madness basketball stuff has pushed Elementary aside for the time being, and I've decided to not watch the show when it returns. I've watched almost three seasons, and this is as good a place as any to stop, given my continuing frustrations with the show. I suspect that they'll bring back Moriarty at the end of the season, and I don't wanna see that, even if they bring back Kitty or Mycroft or that drug dealer guy they introduced lately. The show continues to be obsessed with murders, while tantalizing us with throwaway references to cases involving stolen music and pit vipers. I can't take it. Also, Ms. Hudson hasn't been back, nor do they even care enough to give her a first name after all this time.

In the most recent episode, they brought back Joan's mother Mary for a puzzling and not entirely convincing story about dementia, and Holmes had the nerve to lecture Joan about her family. He claims that his family doesn't need a "referee" but then what did Sherlock think Mycroft was doing when he pretended to have a message from Father demanding that Sherlock move back to London? Then when Sherlock did move back to London, not a word was spoken about whether he interacted with his father or Mycroft or told Kitty about such things. The show seriously has forgotten the entire mystery of Holmes's father, and remains totally blind to Sherlock being a huge hypocrite living off his hated father's money (unlike Mycroft, whom Sherlock despises for no good reason). Plus it appears that the show feels that they already "fixed" the Holmes/Watson living arrangement problem just by having Watson make an office downstairs. Never mind that we never see her solve her client's case, nor tell Holmes that she was wrong to say that she doesn't deserve a normal life. They think it's fixed, but it's not. So I'm not gonna watch this dysfunctional garbage anymore.

There's plenty of other TV shows to watch, even some kind of zombie procedural that Veronica Mars fans are excited about, even though I didn't find it funny or charming at all. Anyway, FOX has just ordered a show about Houdini and Doyle, based on their real life friendship before it turned sour. Of course it will be heavily fictionalized, turned into a buddy-cop supernatural mystery, but I can shrug it off and think it's no different than the show with young ACD and Joseph Bell solving crimes. It's something to look forward to for next season, anyway. Oh, also, I hope that feminist Sherlock web series gets released soon.

Trying to Stay Positive

Obama says he should have closed Guantanamo Bay at the start of his presidency. (I think I remember that he signed something to that effect on that day, but could never get it though Congress obstruction.) He's been slowly releasing prisoners though, and I wish he could empty it and shut it down before he leaves office.

Anyway, that's the only bright spot in political news lately. I hate that Netanyahu won the elections in Israel, and I don't trust him at all now that he pretends he supports a two-state solution again. He showed his true colors already. I wish Obama would actually rebuke him by cutting Israel's damn funding. But nothing ever changes. I had hoped that Israel would have gone left this time, but no such luck.

I don't even wanna hear from fucking Rick Perry or any of the Texas GOP right now. They make all of us look like insane idiots, and I'm still worried about how the Supreme Court will rule regarding Obamacare.

International Exhibition of SH

I couldn't time my trip to London last year to coincide with the Sherlock Holmes exhibit at the Museum of London, so when I saw a similar exhibition in Dallas, I decided to go. It gave me something to do on the Ides of March, as I don't want to see the Cinderella movie. The museum tickets and parking cost a lot of money, though, so I decided to see this instead of the Watson intelligence play that I mentioned before.

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes is an interactive experience where you're given a notebook and are supposed to solve a crime while going on a tour. It was a little confusing at first as I tried to figure out that I was supposed to insert the pages of the notebook into various machines that would stamp, emboss, or punch holes to show that I had collected some evidence. It was also very crowded, so I often had to wait to get to each section of the exhibit. I messed up the first time through on one part, but was able to figure out which clue I got wrong, so I could fix it. The solution was appropriately weird, involving a Pinkerton detective and coded messages sent by seedpods.

Still Not Cancelled

So Netanyahu is still going to give the speech tomorrow. I haven't commented before because I kept hoping either he or the Republicans would back off and realize they'd gone too far. That the Democrats would really boycott the speech instead of being afraid of AIPAC calling them anti-Semitic. That Obama would "rebuke" Netanyahu not merely verbally but in some concrete way, like cutting off funds to Israel. But no, that's never on the damn table. Never. So nothing changes, and I'm tired of America being beholden to Israel. The most I can hope for is that Netanyahu will lose the Israeli elections I guess. But will his replacement be any better?

I'm glad that Juan Cole reprinted part of Leonard Nimoy's thoughts on peace from 2011, and his wish for a two-state solution in Israel. Too bad it's 2015 already, and they've still made no progress. Rest in peace, Spock.