Centrist Simon Steele

You know, after the ASOIAF adaptations, the Witcher series, and hell, even Wheel of Time, I thought: it must be me. I must be incapable of appreciating or even liking adaptations of stories I like.

These two Dune movies have shown me that's not true. Dune is one of my most beloved book series of all time, and these movies were phenomenal. Even when it strays from the source material, I feel like it's doing it to preserve Herbert's vision. Sure, I really wanted to that dinner scene in Dune Part 1--I remember just loving that whole section in the book. Or Momoa being cast as Duncan Idaho--I like Momoa, but he strikes me more as a Gurney Halleck type than a Duncan Idaho. But something in the way Villeneuve captures him just works well.

The ending of Dune Part 2 with Chani also worked for me. Her response to Paul was such a smart way to be faithful to Herbert's view of Paul: a hero that becomes a messiah is a bad thing. I was surprised to find myself siding with Chani at the end of the film. I've always loved Paul and believed he tried to do his best despite the horrendous consequences. I still believe that about him, but Chani's role in the story makes me think he is so short-sighted, which is obviously ironic given his foresight. 

I think removing the first Leto II from this part of the story helped with that. I just started rereading the book (it's been over a decade so the details are murky), but I believe the full-scale war already had started in the book when Leto II dies in the novel. But in the film, when Sietch Tabr is attacked, if Leto II had been born and died there, it gives the audience more reason to side with Paul. By removing that plot, Paul becomes a bit darker of a character we're not sure if we can trust.

Either way--I'm in awe of these movies. I'm so glad I can enjoy a well-done adaptation. 

13 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I can't say that sounds particularly familiar, but it sounds like the kind of story that W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear would write as part of their North America's Forgotten Past series...

Thanks, Jaxom--yeah, you're right, these aren't them, but they're absolutely in this genre. Maybe I'll check these out if I never find this other book.

Hey everyone--I have posted this in reddit a few times (different subreddits) to no avail, so this is kind of a last ditch effort before I give up.

Back in 6th grade (1990ish) my teacher would read to us. I remember two books: the Hobbit (which started my love of fantasy), and another book I'd like to go back and read but I can't remember it's name. 

Here is what I remember--and it has elements of fantasy to it (a party of warriors venturing out, each with their own strength) though I'd say it's probably historical fiction.

I remember the main character is a native American young man who can't become a warrior (I think) in his tribe because he has a bad leg. He hears about a place that natives believe has magic to it--a hot spring I think. So he sets out on a journey to go and see if he can heal his leg there.

Along the way, he collects a small party of warriors. I remember they each represent one aspect of strength--like one is super fast (but weak in other areas), one is really strong, and there is an old man native who I believe is good with a bow and arrow. There is a bad group of natives after them I think. I remember the old man has like 1 arrow in his quiver he never uses and keeps saying he'll save it, then at the end he kills the antagonist with it and says something like, "That's what I was saving it for."

I also remember the hot springs does not heal the protagonist's leg, but he does get attacked by a bear shortly after, and it slashes his leg before he drives it away or kills it. When his leg heals, it is better (maybe not fully healed, but he is no longer limited by it like he was). I remember my teacher pointing out that the protagonist was not an expert at any of the skills important to the warriors--running, shooting a bow and arrow, and being strong (each of his friends represents one of those), but that he good in all areas by the end of the book making him a good leader.

Anyway, that's about all I remember. I figure if you guys don't know, I'll just let it go. 

P.S. I think one reason it's hard to find when I Google for it is because it was likely written by a white author (given the timeframe) and (rightly so) most things that come up in my searches are written by indigenous authors. 

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

You don't want to watch the film. You're only 44, you're too young for anything that traumatising.

...I have heard that, lol. 

Just finished Watership Down for the first time. I'm 44 and nearly cried multiple times. What a great book. I think I shall watch the movie next.

ETA: As a dopey American, I subconsciously thought of the title "Watership Down" as similar to "Black Hawk Down"--which isn't so far off considering how the book unfolds--but, you know, we don't really have "downs" in the U.S.--which, I believe are a specific type of rounded hill unique to Britain. 

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Not saying Trump isn't making appeals to violence and all, but those blood bath comments do appear to be to hyperbolic and metaphorical language about China vs the US in the auto market.  Not clear if the "no more elections" is about China or something domestic, and I'm sure there is a dogwhistle element to it, but at least read the entire article LR linked.  

I agree, but Trump (and this is why I don't agree with the dementia argument) is an expert at dog whistles. Look back at his little speech with Netanyahu (2018, I think) where he kept saying "there is one solution I know we can agree on" and he kept playing with the words to promote a one-state solution. He's always done this--it's how he slips out of everything, I suppose. But his call for blood baths is heard the "correct" way by his "patriots" I'm sure.

11 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Tiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktik................

The clock is moving every closer to March 25th, the date by which Donald needs to put up over a half billion to cover a surety bond for any appeal of that NY Fraud judgement.

The suspense is gorgeous.

I'm guessing some foreign leader will bail him out--secretly, of course.

17 hours ago, DMC said:

Pence refusing to endorse Trump is not surprising.  What would be surprising is if anyone cares.

I don't know man, I'm a little surprised. The Republicans he has shit on only to then receive their endorsement used to be surprising. Then again, I guess Pence is the only one he ordered murdered, so maybe that left a bad taste in Daddy's mouth? 

On 3/14/2024 at 1:57 PM, Zorral said:

Schumer calls for new elections in Israel in scathing speech -

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/politics/chuck-schumer-israel-election-comments/index.html

Took him this long to notice ... suppose better than nothing, yah?

It's got to be the Democrats testing the waters for Biden, I think. 

On 3/13/2024 at 8:50 AM, Larry of the Lawn said:

Yeah, that's awful.  Nothing that horrific, but my little brother is 17 and it's been a nightmare trying to get him to unlearn a bunch of the shit pouring out of the right wing toxic masculinity Andrew Tate aligned crowd that he's come across through gaming and gaming discord. 

A big reason I chose to leave academia (aside from a huge pay increase) last year after getting my PhD was related to this. Back in 2019, I pitched to my committee (for a preliminary comp exam/dissertation proposal) the idea of researching how gamer culture is radicalizing young, white men. All they could hear were "video games." They literally said no, go do something with "veterans" (because I'm a vet). Within two years, this became a growing area of research. I remember one of my advisors brought it to me after hearing about it on a podcast saying, "That's kind of like your idea! Why didn't you do it?"

This issue is pressing and at least is beginning to be researched.

11 hours ago, DMC said:

On these threads?  Probably, yeah.  Among the American electorate?  Not so much, no.  What's dismissive would be ignoring/neglecting to emphasize the efforts your administration is employing to try and help you out.  Or even, say, getting the Republican House to pass a child tax credit extension last month.

I don't know--these reports often seem to be optimistic, but when you look around, it's hard to reconcile what the reports say versus what people are experiencing. 

I know where I live, our rent and housing costs are still rising consistently year to year. I'm in affordable housing, and my rent has gone up about 600 bucks a month since 2019. I looked around to see what's available, and everything (that's comparable to my current spot) is about 2300+ a month. Last year it was closer to 2100 a month.

The issue with data, I'm guessing, is that we have red states where housing costs actually are extremely low, and blue states where it's extremely high and we're not seeing any relief. The blue states struggling with this should be concerning for all of us who don't want to see a repeat of Trump.

That said, who knows what will ultimately resonate with voters. I just think being cautious about being optimistic on the economy would be the wise move. As others as said, maybe run on "we've made progress, but we have a long way to go."

7 hours ago, mormont said:

Biden's best weapon on this is going to be any time Trump talks about the issue. Trump loves some 'strong man' rhetoric and he's going to say more along the lines of his 'finish the issue' comments. 

That's fair--I think Biden should really bait him into his whole "one state solution" he loved touting while he was president. That's pretty hard to ignore if you're concerned about Palestinian people (which I think we all are).

7 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The Democrats have more money right now, they should use the momentum of the SoTU to start throwing shade on Trump's cognitive decline in some attack ads (Biden has leaned into his age in his most recent bout of ads).

I kind of feel like Trump's cognitive decline is overstated too, and that pushing it might result in a similar bind the Republicans now find themselves tied up in after the SOTU. Biden clearly is fine. I've seen Trump videos that claim to show his decline, but it seems like the same old idiotic bullshit as usual--and I think if Biden were to debate him and Americans saw Trump's decline as being trumped up (so to speak), then it would hurt Dems chances. Just my gut on this.

Trump has been an idiot since he rolled onto the scene, and I don't think that's going to hurt him now.

To your other point about the economy--I agree. Running on the economy, when lots of people are feeling squeezed dry, seems a bad idea. I know Biden can't do much in terms of deflation, but at the end of the day--wages are low, and people who rent are seeing skyrocketing rental rates, food is ridiculously overpriced--basic necessities feel out of reach. I'm not sure what the answer is on that, but I think running on the economy would feel like "oh, Biden doesn't care about our problems" whereas often what we hear is, "No, he cares, he just can't do much about it."

On 3/9/2024 at 10:42 AM, mormont said:

Not picking on Simon but this, for me, sums up the problem.

There is no division here. 'The voters the Democrats need' makes it sound like these voters are passive, an unshaped mass that is separate to the party and therefore not part of the solution. That's flat wrong.

Those voters are part of 'the Democrats'. If they don't like their choices, they need to change them. Policies, candidates, processes. Starting tomorrow and continuing for years to come.

If 'the voters the Democrats need' are sitting waiting for 'the Democrats' to give them what they want, they're part of the problem as much as the party higher-ups are.

Trump is vile, but he has power because he inspired a lot of his voters to get involved in the Republican party at lower levels. But it is not up to the higher levels of the Democrat party to go out and find a unique individual who can do the same. That's like asking them to come up with magic beans. The boring truth of the matter is that the party can't (not won't) do better until the voters do the work.

And it's way too late to do that now. The candidates in this election are already picked. If you think there's any way to ditch Biden that's not an electoral catastrophe, you're kidding yourself. But you can get involved now if you want to see a better candidate in 2028, or 2032. If you don't change things, you can't expect change.

I agree--especially because my phrasing "the Voters Dems need" is pretty vague, so it leaves a lot open to interpretation. I don't think you're wrong at all about those who are waiting to inspired won't vote.

I was thinking more about two specific groups: the Obama to Trump voters who, if I remember right, helped put Biden in office, and the young vote--which was big enough in 2020 and 2022 to not only stop Trump from winning with record turnout on his side, but stopped a red wave--allowing the Dems to gain an even stronger hold on the Senate, while giving Republicans newfound majority in the house a slim majority. 

I'm worried about the youth vote as they are particularly angry about Israel and Palestine. My son is 19--he's intelligent, thoughtful, kind--but when I try to talk to him about why voting for Biden is infinitely better for Palestine than Trump would be, he just can't accept it. I think a lot of young voters are in that conundrum. 

What seems so rational to me in my 40s would have been really hard for me to square in my 20s. I think Biden needs to get ahead of that one specifically if he wants those voters to keep turning out. He needs them, and we need them to be honest.

But to be clear, I don't know if young voters are expecting Biden to give them what they want so much as they just have trouble validating voting for a guy who is supporting Netanyahu's increasing aggression. I get it. I've heard Kamala starting to take on lead on this, and I think her voice will be really important in helping Biden secure a win. 

7 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Hey I definitely wish we as a nation could change the minds of ~180 million complete assholes, but before your call for a fundamental change to our entire government, let's just get the one old guy who isn't a dictator-in-waiting elected first. I'm absolutely with you in that I dream of a truly progressive America that catapults our grandkids into space and an ecologically stable Earth for generations, instead of our frightening trend toward a dystopian hellscape. But let's just make sure voters understand how important it is to not get Trump elected first!

I'm a socialist, and I legitimately don't mind Biden--he's been the best democratic president in my life, but you're saying what we've been hearing since 2016.

At some point this whole, "let's get past this one more election" wears thin for voters the democrats need. I think the same advice applies to them (the old-school liberal leadership): "you want to cling to your power and corruption, but you're going to have to let it go before Trump gets elected again." 

On 2/28/2024 at 1:59 AM, Ran said:

He also celebrated the death of three American servicemen in Jordan, associating their deaths with "ACAB" (i.e. the US military acts as the world's cops, and ACAB, so deaths of his fellow servicemen was a good thing.)

He fell down the left-wing rabbit hole and came out with a deeply warped sense of reality. We should be thankful he didn't get a gun and try to take other people with him, at least.

 

Lol, that's a left-wing rabbit-hole? I used to be in the military--the number of servicemembers I saw acting like sociopaths, excited to hurt and kill is only rivaled by U.S. cops. 

19 minutes ago, Underfoot said:

Just got back from voting in the Michigan primary, where there's been a big effort to get Democrats to vote "uncommitted" (an option on the ballot) to send Biden a message on supporting a ceasefire and to stop sending weapons to Israel. 

 

I'm pretty worried about Biden's chances due to this issue specifically. Young people are really moved by the horror of what they're seeing happening to Palestinians, and they're feeling unheard by the Biden administration. He needs to figure out something on this as the youth vote was instrumental in the midterms in not losing the Senate and not getting completely destroyed in the House.

2 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

@Kalbear,

Idk what you're on, but I clearly said you can't bitch and moan if you don't vote, but it's perfectly fine to complain about having to vote for someone you don't like. I strongly dislike Hillary, but I still voted for, however that didn't stop me from ripping her. 

I think people have a right to not vote and bitch and moan. I voted for Hillary (grudgingly) and Biden (grudgingly, but now I appreciate him), but I respect people who don't vote as a strategy. The two party system is beyond broken, and people have to send messages.

Of course it doesn't help that Trump is back, and him winning is going to hurt a lot of people. But I think Democrats have, for too long, campaigned on "we're not as bad as the others" which has really disenfranchised folk.

Additionally, I really don't think these kinds of voters are that numerous. If you look at states that make voting easy and accessible, their voting participation is really high. Typically people aren't voting because of Republicans making it really hard for them to vote.

In Colorado, our youth population is pretty active in voting--but voting is easy here. Would I like to see more vote? Certainly. But I just don't think we can sit here and say, "If you don't vote, you can't complain" hoping that will encourage and motivate. We need to give people a reason to believe that voting matters.

20 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Interesting.  Why would you say he's better than Obama?  Scaling back the War on Terror and drone bombings?  Or something else? 

Personally, precisely that for me. He ran on peace, on closing Camp Delta (in Gitmo), etc. Then he got in, upped the drone strikes, seemed to have little care for amassing civilian deaths, then instead of closing Gitmo, he worked behind the scenes to keep it open.

Also, Obama was a guy who ran on progressive change. Then, even while still in office, he starts lecturing voters who want actual progressives. He took clear sides on the young/old divide in the party, and he sided not only with the old, but the ancient. By 2020, his anti-left stances were infuriating. 

11 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

The best rationale I heard coming from the SCOTUS arguments is that we can't let states make these decisions on their own, which I think is reasonable. Not necessarily decisive, but reasonable. I am sure that if the courts let Colorado knock Trump off the ballot, Texas would move instantly to do the same for Biden, and Ohio would follow, and so on. This should probably be something Congress decides, but of course Congress can't do much of anything. If Republicans wouldn't pass their own goddamn border bill because Trump was opposed, they certainly won't move to disquality Trump from office. 

To me it feels unjust given how they gave states control over women's bodies. 

As to the "anyone can be banned"--the Supreme Court can 100% write the decision so that doesn't happen. It's clear Trump incited an insurrection--you'd need clear evidence that any other candidate did the same. The insurrection is specific to the 14th amendment, so you couldn't say "Biden's off the ballot because he wasn't tough on the border and that's insurrection"--the word has a specific, legal definition. The Supreme Court--if they had any scruples--could dismiss any BS cases that come their way. 

On the other hand, I guess never underestimate the discord Republicans will sow if given an inch. 

On 2/20/2024 at 4:11 PM, Larry of the Lawn said:

How about a compromise candidate and Biden steps aside for .... Jimmy Carter?

Is Carter younger than Biden? He has to be right??

11 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Why do you think Biden has done an excellent job?  I am not a Biden hater, but I feel like it's a pretty mixed bag. 

Biden's pushed through quite a bit of legislation in a difficult political climate--and despite the infrastructure bill not being what we need, that's not on him. It's a lot better than what we've had. Biden's done a lot of quiet things too--supporting unions (I know about the whole railroad issue too), hell, how is he the first President to formally acknowledge the Armenian genocide during World War I? He tells Putin to his face what he thinks of him, and let's be honest--he's the best democratic president lots of us have ever had (Clinton and Obama for me). 

He's not perfect, but I'm surprised how much he's accomplished. 

On 2/20/2024 at 6:01 AM, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Continue.

Supreme Court might rule on the Colorado case soon. I didn't mention it at the time, but I found it rather revolting that no justice chose to speak on the issue of whether Trump did in fact engage in or support insurrection. I know they're being "strategic" on this one, but to see even the liberal justices dancing around the issue despite the plain facts, not to mention the whole purpose of the clause coming from the Civil War, makes me retch a bit.

I'm pretty angry about how the Supreme Court case is looking to go. They're pro states rights as long as it doesn't hurt the white upper class. I live in Colorado, and I think it's pretty clear that the Colorado Supreme Court looked at the evidence and concluded Trump violated the 14th amendment by instigating an insurrection.

The arguments being made at the federal Supreme Court and the questioning line of the judges seems so far away from the case, I have little hope at this point. I know their justification is, "If we let this happen to Trump, it sets a precedent," but maybe work a little harder guys? Maybe make it clear in your ruling what counts as an insurrection (not a liberal being president), and what it takes to prove that. That evidence against Trump is substantial.

ETA: Since it's been awhile to post, I also want to say I'm extremely worried about Biden being our nominee against Trump. I hesitantly voted for Biden in 2020, and I'll happily vote for him this year (I think he's done an excellent job), but his age coupled with several other issues are going to make this a hard election to win, and if he doesn't win, it's going to be Trump.

I am teaching a Holocaust unit now, and I focused a bit more on Hitler's rise to power (in my prep for the unit) this time, and I'm devastated and terrified between the similarities. The one good thing in our case is Trump is way older than Hitler was.

4 hours ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

It's Liz, right?

I think the Lynn Cheney name could be a joke--I know people who watch the Majority Report tend to say it this way a lot because Sam Seder (the host) couldn't get her name right. 

20 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think Sarah Palin's main problem, back in '08, was that she was just a little too early for the GOP. Nowadays, she looks tame next to the likes of Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Kari Lake. With one major party a rogues' gallery of the incompetent, the disloyal, and the outright destructive, I agree that Americans are now always one iota away from electing Trump or someone worse.

Isn't it crazy to think that Palin was ahead of her time. Usually we say that as a compliment.