4/28: Not Much Shaking Going On

 Another without any accomplishments - least ways of what was planned. I think I slept more than anything else. Posts were added to this blog. A couple of long ones. No church, no traveling about, but I got the laundry done.

I did spend time on Netflix. Finished off Black Monday (a farce that would be annoying without Don Cheadle and Regina King); Wake Up Dead Man(enjoyable, but I am a fan of both Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson); His Three Daughters (a bit rough in the opening, more of a filmed play, but ends wonderfully, but Natasha Lyonne is a weaknes of mine); and watched part of May December. I closed out the night with Bue Moon (is breaking my heart; not a date movie).

I remain appalled - a new sensation, this being appalled - by the mental midgets, the moral degenerates, the delusional crackpots of the  Trump government, and those who voted him into office. Transcript: Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult in Crazed Tirades at Media (The New Republic) is the current provocation in particular, the WHCD shooter being the general.

Karoline Leavitt (voiceover): Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than President Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party and even some in the media. This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump day after day after day for 11 years has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.

Sargent: Note that Leavitt appeals for calm and then immediately throws it all away by insisting that the primary cause of political violence in this country comes only from Democrats. Matt, you want to respond to that?

Gertz: This is the cynical, pathetic, cry-bully nonsense that we’ve come to expect from people like Leavitt. If the White House is really concerned that the rhetoric has gotten out of control, then they could do something about how the president of the United States has referred to Democrats as traitors seven times in one week. It was last week.

This is the rhetoric that we’ve come to expect from the president of the United States. The idea here appears to be that the president can say whatever he wants and that all of his critics can say whatever he wants as well.

Sargent: There’s another imbalance that we should home in on for a second, and the media is uncomfortable with saying this. It’s this: Trump and Republicans just don’t condemn political violence when it comes from their side with anything close to the vehemence that Democrats do when it comes from their side.

Trump and Republicans have a history of excusing political violence against Democrats and even at times joking about it. We all remember January 6—Trump pardoned hundreds and hundreds of people, many of whom committed serious political violence against the United States. Matt, can you talk about that history of Trump and Republicans essentially hand-waving away political violence when it’s directed at Democrats and liberals?

Death of the Co-Author: How Betrayal and Alienation Shaped The Last Movie ( CrimeReads). I am a Dennis Hopper fan but have never seen The Last Movie, only having heard of it as a failure. This article put a dent in my admiration for Hopper until this paragraph:

Dennis Hopper expounds even further on this urge to create, beyond just the joy of doing it. “Making things is agony. I hate to make movies. But I’ve got to do it. It justifies my existence. If I couldn’t, I’d destroy myself.”