Satisfied

Tonight was Minority Report's finale, and it was excellent. It really gave closure to the Precogs' story and even had time to provide backstory for Wally. He must have been wracked with guilt for lying to those kids years ago, for him to decide to kill Blomfeld to protect them. The Memento Mori terrorism plot didn't really interest me, but that was the only flaw in the episode. This show was much more satisfying than Almost Human, which was too procedural, ignoring the long-term mysteries of the show for too long. Sadly, Minority Report is probably cancelled, but it was good while it lasted.

Meanwhile, Supergirl got an order for seven more episodes. CBS is calling it a full season, though others are skeptical of its chances for renewal. I'll try to hold out hope. Tonight's episode definitely brought out more depth for Kara as well as Cat Grant. I really hope the show's planned Superman flashbacks won't be too intrusive. They shouldn't have to keep mentioning Kara's cousin so much.

Disgusting

I had hoped that America could through Thanksgiving weekend without another shooting or incidence of violence, but then a gunman had to terrorize a Colorado Planned Parenthood on Black Friday. The standoff with police lasted for hours, and I did see a report on the evening national newscast about some hostages being rescued. Really depressing and made me worry about what could happen here.

However, and this is the craziest thing, the local news report immediately after pretended that this story did not exist. The local affiliate usually at least acknowledges national headlines, even if they can't afford to send their own reporters to the scene. But this time the news was all about the rain and flash flooding in the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Granted, that's important locally, but then it was followed by feel-good fluff story after fluff story. In the last five seconds they had a headline about Breaking News, the gunman surrendered, but that was all in the 30-minute broadcast. Why didn't they acknowledge this before? What happened to the old mantra "if it bleeds, it leads"? Is this how insular and know-nothing the TV news has become? That nothing outside of Texas exists? It's unbelievable. No wonder you can only get informed news online.

Happy Thanksgiving

It's annoying how shameless stores are about advertising holiday sales even before Thanksgiving. I certainly won't go out to Black Friday, with all the crowds and Christmas music. I'll just stay home and eat and maybe watch my Tower Heist DVD too. Thanksgiving parades and football are boring, but maybe I'll watch the dog rescue special tonight.

I've watched various Native American specials on PBS lately including an fascinating history about the Choctaw Code Talkers in World War I. They also mentioned the Trail of Tears and boarding schools, so it was very interesting. I'm annoyed by the announcement that Supergirl is going to have flashbacks with a teenage Superman; what the hell relevance does that have to Kara? I thought they finally were going to stop mentioning her cousin after that chat session. I don't want him to take over the show, like Agent Carter kept mentioning Captain America (as well as focusing on Howard Stark). Let the woman stand on her own, please!

As for movies, I recently went to see Spotlight, and it was great, though sometimes I got the reporters and lawyers confused. I hope there will be other good films soon, now that the prestige pictures are coming out. I'm not interested in The Good Dinosaur and I'm not sure if I'll see the Danish Girl or not.

Shame

I couldn't watch more than 1 hour of the Dem debate on Saturday. After the initial questions about the Paris attacks and Syrian refugees, it seemed like most of the questions were issues they had already discussed during the CNN debate. Was CBS just assuming not enough people watched the cable debate, and needed to hear the same answers again? I was glad that O'Malley supported accepting 65,000 refugees, and got Clinton to agree. These Syrian refugees will be thoroughly screened, and we need to do our part, not repeat the horrible response we had to the migrant crisis from Mexico last year.

The xenophobia and fearmongering is really awful lately, especially since France is still committed to taking 30,000 refugees. I was really upset about that one mayor who talked about the Japanese internment camps as being a good policy for a "real" threat. It was not a real threat! It was paranoia and racism! Let's not repeat this shameful policy of FDR. (In fact I learned recently that immigrants of Italian and German descent were also classified as "enemy aliens" at that time as well.) I'm glad George Takei responded to that idiot who apparently doesn't know that American citizens were rounded up and imprisoned because of some imagined belief that they might be disloyal. I'm glad that Clinton dumped that mayor from her committee.

I'm from Vietnam. What would my life have been like if the US had refused to take my family after the Vietnam War? Or if the government made us live in internment camps?

Around the World again

I saw an ad for this week's Dr. Ken, with Margaret Cho guest starring as his sister. I do miss seeing Margaret Cho a lot, so I finally gave in and watched an episode. I don't really like the show; it's no better than the sitcommy ads for it. The main character is so annoying and him talking to the lamp was not funny. Doctor Wendi implied that her character might return for more appearances later. I do want to see Cho again, but not in this show. I miss Cristela.

Anyway, I finally decided to watch Jackie Chan's version of Around the World in 80 Days. I read the Jules Verne book and saw other adaptations years ago, but I resisted watching the Disney version back then, since it wasn't faithful to the book. But now I gave it a chance and was pleasantly surprised.

Paris Attacks

Wow, what an awful day yesterday. An unlucky Friday the 13th indeed. I'm glad I went to see The 33 yesterday, as the uplifting story of the Chilean miners was good for giving you hope in the world. (Well, not in the case of the mining company owners getting away scot free, and the miners receiving no just compensation, but I suppose the 33 all benefited from the book and the movie depicting their rescue.)

I hear that the Democratic debate tonight will have questions concerning the Paris attacks. I fear what kind of warmongering and anti-Muslim hatred will be stirred by this ISIS terrorism. They claimed responsibility for that plane crash too. Will war hawks here or in France use this excuse to escalate the war in Syria and elsewhere. Will we be caught in this perpetual, unwinnable "war on terrorism" forever? I mean, it's not that I think we should be isolationist, but I think at some point we have to cut our losses and try to concentrate on fixing our own country. It seems that the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are going nowhere, yet we can't find our way out. Can't even close damn Guantanamo.

Jason the Bateman

Wow, the latest Muppets episode featured Kermit singing The Rainbow Connection! I'm not sure why they split up the song with commercials, though. Bateman played himself as a jerk who manipulates Kermit, then gets him kicked out of yoga. I guess he likes playing bastards lately.

Fox announced a midseason schedule that will move some shows around. I'm glad I have a DVR to keep up with the changes. I was sad to find a Bones rerun airing instead of Minority Report this Monday, but at least it didn't get higher ratings than Minority Report in the slot. Anyway, I found out that Fox did that because Minority Report was behind schedule on producing episodes. As long as it returns and finishes its run I'm fine. Sleepy Hollow might not survive the move to Fridays, though. We'll see. I don't mind Brooklyn Nine-Nine going to Tuesdays as long as there are no DVR conflicts. I wonder when the other networks will release their midseason schedules.

BDS is not an attack

The European Union ruled today to label products from the Israel settlements. Hooray. When I took my trip to London, I was horrified to find that I accidentally bought stuff "Made in Israel". A European boycott might not make much difference economically to Israel, but it's good not to let them profit from such illegal occupation.

Netanyahu is asking for an increase of funding and he still says these boycotts are antisemitic. He never stops with these accusations and incitements. We're not trying to fucking eliminate Israel; we're trying to punish you and make you withdraw the settlements from stolen territory. Fuck you, Netanyahu, and fuck anybody defending you (including you, Hillary Clinton)!

Anyway, I didn't watch the Republican debate, because I don't enjoy circuses. The Democratic debate is this Saturday, though, so I'll tune in, despite my disgust with Clinton and Sanders.

Suffragette

Rachel Maddow hosted a "forum" for the Democratic presidential candidates on MSNBC. I don't have cable, though, so I didn't watch it. I hope it was good and informative. Even if I could have seen it, though, I was not in the mood to see two out of three of the candidates, what with the shit going down in Israel. The next debate is supposed to be on network TV, I think, so I can watch that.

I finally got to see Suffragette at last. It was a good movie about the militant British women who followed Emmeline Pankhurst. I think the main character Maud and her friends were fictional, though a couple of real historical suffragettes are included. It was a long hard struggle, even worse than was depicted onscreen.

It's sad that feminists still have to struggle for our rights, but at least we can vote and participate the way Maddow and Clinton are.

No to Netanyahu

So Hillary Clinton is continuing to pander to Israeli hawks with an op-ed praising Netanyahu. She continues to be anti-BDS, so she is still on my shitlist. Fuck Netanyahu and fuck anybody who believes his lies when he comes to visit. He doesn't give a crap about peace.

Just when I was feeling more positive about Clinton she does this. I'm not voting for her in the primary, and if she becomes President I shall view all her actions on Israel with suspicion. But perhaps she'll be too busy dealing with domestic issues and other Middle East conflicts for it to matter.

I'm not voting for Bernie Sanders either in the primary, given how bad he is on gun control. (His rabid supporters are also a huge turnoff.) I've tried to research his position on Israel, and it's muddled at best. Apparently, he'll sometimes say good things about the two-state solution and show sympathy for Palestinians, but he won't vote to cut military funding or really change anything. You'd think, because he's Jewish, that he'd be immune from charges of antisemitism, and could rebuke Israel in a real way, but no, he's apparently still taking the safe stance of kowtowing to our so-called ally. Fucking coward. He's just a politician like everybody else, not some savior.

So I'm not voting in the Dem primary at all. I'll wait to see whoever the party wants to choose, then I'll vote Democratic in the general election. That's it. There is no "lesser of two evils" on this issue. They're both crap candidates on Israel, but I'll have to default to one of them because of everything else that's so important. I hate politics.

Makeover

So apparently The Muppets is getting a retool. There's a new showrunner, and it will be relaunched in the spring. I hope this retool will not be as disastrous as the Up All Night fiasco. I read so many people complaining that the Muppets shouldn't do adult humor, in clear defiance of Jim Henson's wishes. Or people want to go back to a variety show format. Personally I think the "Up Late with Miss Piggy" format could work better if they stopped repeating the "Piggy has a feud with female celebrities" bit. Perhaps a woman showrunner would actually focus on how fucking rare it is for a woman to host a late night show. (I don't have cable, but I think Samantha Bee's show hasn't premiered yet.) Piggy could have been giving monologues all this time about how special she is for this achievement, and yay girl power! She could have mentioned that she got an award as a feminist recently. Being a diva, she could have decked out her studio to look like Colbert's cathedral of Stephen. We could have seen Piggy do more musical numbers, comedy skits, or interact with her sidekick and band. They are criminally underusing the late show to focus on behind the scene office manipulations. I hope this retool actually accomplishes something instead of fixing the wrong things.

As for Empire, I was totally right to abandon ship. From reading the recap, the kidnapping was just a cheap cliffhanger stunt that was resolved quickly. There were consequences in the form of Hakeem sleeping with Anika and having PTSD, but I can't believe how ridiculous it was for Cookie to take Laz's advice on hiring the thugs for security. I also don't appreciate reading that Laura, the singer who rejected Hakeem's sexual harassment, is suddenly falling for him now. Way to forget you have a career and aren't that kind of girl! (And I know that Camilla's going to come back eventually, so why do we need this crap?) Anika's treatment is all wrong too; it's like she's the new Vernon that the writers don't know what to do with. Now Anika's reduced to love triangles with Hakeem, when she should have been teaming up with Cookie to take Lucious down. In my opinion, Empire could do with a feminist makeover too. I give up on this absurd soap.

Fucked Up

Texas Tribune is saying that HERO is defeated according to early votes, but links to no numbers. Daily Kos said it's being defeated, but then links to numbers about the Constitutional Amendment, regarding property taxes. --Okay, I found the numbers on page 10 of 38 on the PDF from Harris County. How depressing, but definitely confusing, because there are multiple "Proposition 1"s on the list. The Houston Unites website says "don't be confused" there's three proposition 1s on the ballot. Why the fuck is an election run like this? How do we know that people didn't confuse these three propositions? Why not give them separate fucking numbers on the ballot?

Feminist 1995 Sherlock

I decided to check on the webseries made by Kate Tracey and Helen Davies again. This vimeo page seems to be recently updated with videos. Their tumblr page might also be current, although I can't find any date stamps on their posts.

Anyway, I think they may still make their November release date, but it might be only to their private backers on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. I really wish I could see all the cases shown in their Teaser from season 1.

Election Day

Everybody, get out and vote! Forget about the crappy 2016 elections, and pay attention to the 2015 elections going on right now. Many states have important races or propositions on the ballot, so if you're in one of those states, then do your part. I already early voted but am still nervous about what the turnout might be like today in Texas.

People in Houston especially need to care about the HERO ordinance. Vote yes for equal rights, and don't listen to the fearmongering about transgender people in bathrooms. It's gonna be nervewracking until the polls close tonight at 7 PM.