Bombs and Explosions and Shootings

What a horrible week this has been. You can only watch so much news before you go numb. It doesn't help when the various TV news specials go on speculating wildly about suspects and motives and connections. They also nauseatingly report Facebook/twitter postings as news. If you don't have actual facts to report, then just tell us how to donate to the Red Cross and help the victims. What a fucked-up media we have.

I read somewhere a snippet of Eliot's poem that begins with "April is the cruellest month." Apparently that line is utterly true.

More Pinkertons

Recently I finished reading both Pinkerton's Secret as well as the 1974 factual history The Pinkertons by Fred J. Cook, and I preferred the latter. Cook, while sometimes covering the same famous cases as Cleveland Moffett, has a fairly modern, balanced perspective which points out Allan Pinkerton's flaws as well has his strengths. I appreciated the post-Victorian view about the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, as well as facts about how and when William and Robert Pinkerton took over. Many names of other top Pinkerton agents like Timothy Webster and Hattie Lawton are mentioned along the way. Cook also discusses Adam Worth and the Gainsborough painting.

Pinkerton Prose

Well it's April already, and I hope that Spring will stick around instead of reverting back to winter temperatures again.

I'm currently reading about the Pinkerton Detective Agency again, but this time I'm not reading Allan Pinkerton's books any more. (His books are sometimes quite confusing and tedious to read.) This time I'm reading an ebook version of Cleveland Moffett's 1897 book True Detective Stories From the Archives of the Pinkertons. Because Moffett was a professional journalist and author, he seems to tell the stories better than Allan Pinkerton did. He summarized unnecessary details, such as each operative or "shadow" sent to follow a suspect around, and he provided endings, telling what happened to the criminals after they were caught. If a criminal has reformed and become a law-abiding citizen, his name has been changed in the story, which I thought was a nice detail. Moffett also reminded me that Allan Pinkerton also had a "General Superintendent" named George H. Bangs who ran many offices before he died. (So technically during the "missing year in America" that I want to place Holmes in the Pinkertons, it would be Bangs, not Robert Pinkerton, in charge of the New York branch.)

Renewals

Well I'm very happy that the Veronica Mars movie kickstarter was a success, and so was this Arrested Development documentary kickstarter. With the new AD season on Netflix coming in May, it's going to be a good time for cult TV fans.

Also I'm glad that Elementary was renewed for season 2, but I'll still say boo to CBS renewing The Good Wife. That show deserves to be axed for what a horrible season 4 they put on. Quality show, my ass.

Flotilla apology

While it's all very nice that Israel apologized to Turkey for the flotilla incident, and that Turkey apparently accepts this, I wish Israel would apologize to the Palestinians who continue to suffer daily from the Gaza blockade and the illegal settlements on their land. More useful than apologies would be to end the blockade and stop the settlements. I mean, they don't have to deal with Palestinians as equal partners in a diplomatic relationship, because the Palestinians have no state of their own, like Turkey, and are kept in a perpetual state of occupation and poverty. It's sickening.

It's good that Obama visited Israel, gave a humanizing speech, and got an award, but I'm so jaded about there ever being peace. I hope John Kerry can do something different, or I fear there will never be a two-state solution in my lifetime.

Bad Wife

Okay that's the last straw. I'm done with The Good Wife, and I hope it gets cancelled this year. This semi-spoilery article says that they'll be continuing the love triangle for the rest of the season, and I'm sick of it. Especially the part where they say Alicia won't pick anybody, just feel guilty. What has she been doing for the past four fucking years?

They also mention that after the governor's election they'll be looking at the White House next. "As soon as they win or lose one campaign, they’re onto the next." It's bad enough that real life is like that, especially with the news media. I don't want to see campaign after campaign after campaign on this show. You can't just have Peter stay in one office and, say, work on his racial bias in promotions? No, apparently. Plus constant elections make the perfect excuse for Alicia to never divorce Peter and keep supporting his career. The Kings have repeated themselves too many times, and they never learn their lesson. It's clear nothing will fundamentally change on the show, ever.