Uncategorized
- I doubt we are going to get the title before Friday, but my three title choices are THE FINAL COMMAND, THE FIRST SKYWALKER, and REQUIEM OF THE JEDI.
- The film opens with the Knights of Ren storming Canto Bight and killing the stableboy who we saw had Force abilities at the end of The Last Jedi, solidifying this movie is going to upend the last one. It also establishes the Knights of Ren are baaaad.
- My two Rey predictions: Rey will chase Kylo Ren to Kamino, where she will learn she is a female clone derived from the DNA in Luke Skywalker’s hand lost at Cloud City. Yes, she’s a Luuke. OR We never learn anything about her parentage, they truly were nobodies, but she adopts Skywalker as a surname and prepares a generation of Force-users by naming them all Skywalkers (hence my title, The First Skywalker).
- Finn finds that he has some Force ability and joins Rey at the end of the movie and adopts the Skywalker last name.
- We will see a rainbow of lightsaber colors
- Lando will board the Millennium Falcon and say, “I’m home,” echoing Han from The Force Awakens.
- Maz and Lando are “business” associates
- Maz was on Cloud City during the Vader/Luke lightsaber battle and found Luke’s severed hand and lightsaber, preserving both (maybe just the lightsaber).
- Maz created Rey via the cloners of Kamino OR not.
- Poe, Rose, and Finn together will be one of the main storylines, with Rey anchoring the other one. They will converge and then will end up going off on separate missions.
- Rose Tico will die saving Finn.
- Poe will say, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
- We will see a flashback/Force-vision of Luke, Leia, and Han with young Ben Solo
- Leia will be in hiding most of the film
- The planet Batuu, the star of the new Disney park Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, will be featured at the end, which is where the major space battle will be.
- Luke will appear to Rey as a Force ghost
- Anakin will appear to Kylo as a Force ghost
- I would love for a young Ben Kenobi to appear also to Kylo, but I doubt it.
- At some point, Chewie, Rey, Finn, and Poe will be flying the Falcon.
- We will see a pretty epic fight between Kylo and the Knights of Ren
- Someone is going to lose a limb. I’m guessing Kylo Ren early in a fight with the Knights of Ren
- I really, really want to see Rey with a dual-bladed lightsaber, but I bet we don’t get it.
- Kylo hires a bounty hunter to find Rey
- Kylo visits Mustafar
- The Knights of Ren turn on Kylo. One of them will have a double-bladed lightsaber.
- Leia will say, “I am your Mother.”
- We see Lando’s son/daughter. Maybe… I don’t know. Better Lando’s kid than Finn’s sibling.
- In the end, Chewbacca and Lando will leave for new adventures in the Falcon.
My Star Wars Episode IX Predictions
Star Wars has dominated my life since I was nine years old. The only other “thing” that impactful was probably hearing KISS Alive! at my friend Mark’s house quite possibly that same year.
Since the sequel trilogy kicked off, I’ve been wondering how the whole saga might end. Unsurprising to no one who knows me, I have several ideas and scenes where J. J. Abrams will go with the final film in the sequel trilogy. These are not spoilers because the film doesn’t come out for several months and I’m just guessing and hoping here. These are educated assumptions. At best.
It may turn out that all my ideas are shite and J. J. has it all covered. It may also turn out that I’m going to like my ideas better than whatever Disney has conjured up. In any case, here are my tidbits and teases of what I want to see in Star Wars Episode IX (in no particular order).
Privileged
Kyle Korver, writing at theplayerstribune.com, put together a pretty powerful piece on him understanding his racial blindspots and the difference between guilt and responsibility.
Two concepts that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately are guilt and responsibility.
When it comes to racism in America, I think that guilt and responsibility tend to be seen as more or less the same thing. But I’m beginning to understand how there’s a real difference.
As white people, are we guilty of the sins of our forefathers? No, I don’t think so.
But are we responsible for them? Yes, I believe we are.
And I guess I’ve come to realize that when we talk about solutions to systemic racism — police reform, workplace diversity, affirmative action, better access to healthcare, even reparations? It’s not about guilt. It’s not about pointing fingers, or passing blame.
It’s about responsibility. It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word “equality,” for generations, what we’ve really meant is equality for a certain group of people. It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word “inequality,” for generations, what we’ve really meant is slavery, and its aftermath — which is still being felt to this day. It’s about understanding on a fundamental level that black people and white people, they still have it different in America. And that those differences come from an ugly history….. not some random divide.
Go read the whole thing. It’s good to reflect on this topic, especially in this day and age. Still, his point isn’t to just think about it, but to do something about it too.
Technically True
I have been jokingly introducing my wife as my “ex-girlfriend” because it’s technically true and funny.
— Jason Little (@BobIsInMyHead) April 7, 2019
And now @Little_kg76 has started to introduce me as her “first husband”...which is also technically true but not funny. pic.twitter.com/b4QvVpjdXA
My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have a wonderful relationship.
Recommended for You
I’m a big fan of Twilight Zone/Black Mirror-type anthology shows, so when I come across a really great short video with that same kind of vibe I get excited.
Have you ever noticed how Amazon always seems to have recommended products you were just in the market for? The short Recommended for You takes it to the next level. The app has a mysterious knack for anticipating exactly what our protagonist is about to need and that’s when it takes a turn for the worst.
In the Future 7
More from Nicholas Bate –
…we will consider: how could we ever have been too busy for music, cooking or conversation?
The Real Burger King
Every few years a variation of this story comes up into the blogosphere. This time Elizabeth Atkinson, writing for Eater, has just discovered the original Burger King is in Mattoon, Illinois.
The Burger King in Mattoon, Illinois, is not your typical Burger King. You won’t find Whoppers or chicken fries on the menu, and while there is a drive-up window, it won’t resemble almost any other modern drive-thru with a two-way speaker. Instead, you’ll find fresh burgers with beef straight from the meat market, a single window, and employees who run out to cars with a paper and pencil in tow when the line gets too long (a la Portillo’s, fellow Midwesterners). The biggest difference, though, is that this Burger King isn’t affiliated at all with the fast-food chain owned by the $28.65 billion Restaurant Brands International group, and it’s the one restaurant in the U.S. with a trademark that Burger King’s parent company has been unable to wrest away.
It’s one of those decent, hometown stories people love. You probably will too and when you take a scenic drive through southern Illinois, you should stop and eat at the real Burger King. It’s pretty great.
Shocking Report from Neptune
So, Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt and Mark Mazzetti, writing for The New York Times, has a report that investigators for Mueller’s team finds the Barr pamphlet misleading.
Some of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations.
Cue your favorite SHOCKED gif. Go on.
At stake in the dispute — the first evidence of tension between Mr. Barr and the special counsel’s office — is who shapes the public’s initial understanding of one of the most consequential government investigations in American history. Some members of Mr. Mueller’s team are concerned that, because Mr. Barr created the first narrative of the special counsel’s findings, Americans’ views will have hardened before the investigation’s conclusions become public.
….The special counsel’s investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report, and some team members believe that Mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions.
So summaries were already written and Barr didn’t use them? That seems… troubling. It’s like Barr doesn’t want to show everyone what’s actually in the report.
Ellen Nakashima, writing for the Washington Post, adds her reporting on this SHOCKING story.
Some members of the office were particularly disappointed that Barr did not release summary information the special counsel team had prepared, according to two people familiar with their reactions. “There was immediate displeasure from the team when they saw how the attorney general had characterized their work instead,” according one U.S. official briefed on the matter.
Summaries were prepared for different sections of the report, with a view that they could made public, the official said. The report was prepared “so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly,” the official said. “It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.”
Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.”
This whole thing is pretty ridiculous. I don’t understand why they thought Barr wasn’t going to simply protect the President. Ben Mathis-Lilley had the best summation of this story for Slate.
Trump selected Barr to become attorney general after Barr defended Trump’s right to mess with the Russia investigation both publicly and privately; Barr had also held the same office under George H.W. Bush, during which time he recommended pardoning four individuals close to Bush who’d been convicted of lying to investigators about the sale of weapons to Iran. Also, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. I’m not the first to point this out, but on what world could anyone be surprised that this particular president–attorney general tag team would “weaponize” any given piece of information in a partisan way? Neptune? Sure, maybe the special counsel’s office was on Neptune.
The Importance of Comics
Science fiction writer Jack McDevitt, in his most recent blog post, waxed poetically about newspaper comic strips and comic books of his youth.
How do we learn to read? The reality is that, at least for fiction, we need something we care about.
It certainly echoes my experience with reading and comics at an early age. When I was in grade school, I knew Fe was the chemical symbol for iron because of the Legion of Super Heroes and Ferro Lad. I knew what “invulnerable” meant because of Superman. I devoured my father’s silver age comic book collection and became a proficient reader at a much earlier age.
Do you want to get a young person to read? Give them an age appropriate comic with a character they already know from other mediums. Watch them tear through the book and want more.
Join the Battle
Dan Pfeiffer, writing at his Crooked Media site, implores Democrats and their Super PACs to start joining the real battle for the 2020 election right now.
While more than a dozen Democrats are criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire talking to Democratic primary voters, Trump is already running a general election campaign. Trump can be beat in 2020, but not if he is allowed to strengthen his position in 2019.
And right now, too many Democrats and progressives are distracted by the primary or Trump’s latest tweet for our own good. If we don’t focus, and soon, Trump may get the berth he needs to bolster his standing and beat us again.
It’s a call to get into the game and start fighting. The Democratic establishment is missing moments constantly because Trump and the Republicans are able to shape the narratives constantly throughout 2019 because he’s going to be the nominee barring some unforeseen event.
The Democratic Party and allied groups need to be in general election mode every day, filling the void as our candidates campaign for themselves. We need to define him, before his campaign, his army of free spending billionaires, and his propaganda apparatus can reset the table. We cannot rely on the media to litigate the case against Trump.
When will they figure this out?
The Inside Story How the Ricketts Family Purchased the Cubs
Tom Ley, writing for Deadspin, has an in-depth story about how the Ricketts family purchased a 95% ownership stake in the Chicago Cubs in 2009. It is a fascinating tale of the inner workings of an incredibly wealthy family and how they maneuvered around various tax issues and family squabbling to acquire the Cubs.
RSS is Better Than Twitter
Patrick Howell O’Neill, writing for Gizmodo, sings the praises of Real Simple Syndication. He calls it an “ancient and unsexy alternative to Twitter,” which is weird because personally, I don’t see Twitter and RSS really living in the same address.
Twitter is micro-blogging, and you follow a bunch of different micro-blogs to see what they say. Feedly (one of the better RSS readers) is a way for users to follow a wide variety of posts. Personally, I don’t really use my Instagram account, but I follow several Instagrammers via RSS. I could even do the same thing with Twitter accounts, but I don’t because I can’t then mute RTs, and that is one of the secrets to taming one’s Twitter feed.
O’Neill argues Twitter’s value proposition is up-to-the-second news, and I guess that’s right if you simply follow news feeds on Twitter. I prefer to read the actual news on the news websites via RSS in Feedly than just see a link to read the same story on Twitter. RSS isn’t really slow. It just feels slower because Twitter is a continuous stream of hot takes.
I prefer a little of both. I follow plenty of people on Twitter, but I curate who and why and always mute RTs because I only want a specific person or entity’s thoughts, not their curated RTs. Plus, with RSS and Feedly, I get the news with time to actually process.
He also mentions email newsletters as the wave of the future. Curiouser and curiouser.
Streaming Packages
MG Siegler, writing on his 500ish Words site, presents a full review of “Apple’s truly bizzare ‘It’s Showtime’ event.”
I believe I’ve seen every single Apple event over the past decade-plus. Yesterday’s was without question the weirdest I’ve ever seen. So weird that I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.
He then goes on for just over 4,000 words attempting to do just that.
Honestly, none of this really matters to me. Of course, I joked way back when that “iDidn’t need an iPhone” so take whatever I say with a grain of salt. Apple basically created the cable package and I don’t want a cable package. I mean I pay for a cable package already (and Amazon, Hulu and Netflix), but this service Apple announced doesn’t excite me. What I want is to curate my own entertainment by show.
Let’s say I want to watch Game of Thrones, Star Trek Discovery, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, all the seasons of Criminal Minds, Shameless, Doom Patrol, This is Us, Russian Doll, Cobra Kai and live sports. I’d have to subscribe to nine streaming services and probably a cable package to get it all.
Maybe I’m wrong and the future of television is streaming packages. I’m probably wrong.
Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction
Susana Polo, writing for Polygon, has a wonderful interview with comic book power couple Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction. They touch upon their lives as comic book creators, parents, and more.
I found it utterly delightful.
In the Future 6
More from Nicholas Bate –
…we will realise that we got the core school curriculum wrong. It should never have been the three Rs, but the three Cs: cooking, contemplation and classics (literature, music and landscapes).
In Whitman We Trust
Matt Fortuna, writing for The Athletic, has a great profile on University of Illinois Athletics Director Josh Whitman. Having been around the program and Josh a little bit, I know this piece is spot on. March Madness and the eve of Major League Baseball might be what’s taking up most of the sports reporting, but college football is also gearing up. It’s good to see the Illinois AD is lock in step with what Coach Lovie Smith has been building.
“I think we’re in a really strong position with football right now,” he says. “It’s been a tough three years. I think we’ve put a lot of heavy lifting in, laid a strong foundation. We’ve got a team this year that’s gonna be led largely by our junior class, a group that came in, Lovie’s first group, played a lot as freshmen and continue to play a lot. And so I really feel good about the leadership within the program. I feel good about the experience within the program. I think we’re finally getting old after being one of the youngest teams in college football for two years in a row. I’m really pleased with the recruiting that the staff has done — the classes haven’t been huge, which has obviously hampered some of our rankings — but in terms of the quality of players, some of the most highly ranked players we’ve seen in 10–15 years at the University of Illinois. And that’s the kind of success we need on the recruiting trail to turn the tide with this thing.”
This upcoming Illinois football season has all the makings of a bowl year.
Just win six men. Just win six.
Good as Gold
Bernie Miklasz, writing in The Athletic, has the right approach to the Paul Goldschmidt signing a five-year contract extension with the St. Louis Cardinals. He sees the organization acquiring a magnificent player for very little in an incredible trade for not just this upcoming season, but for the long haul. He is, of course, right.
Personally, I was certain this was going to blow up in the faces of Bill DeWitt Jr. and John Mozeliak. Thankfully, I was wrong. Goldschmidt is the perfect fit for the Cardinals and landing him through 2024 sets up sustained success.
Plus, he sees how the club will now look to find the extra pieces needed over the course of the season to fill holes and actually compete this year and the next.
Now that they’ve finally ended the chaos at first base, the Cardinals can shift their focus to other positions in the effort to “Win Now.”And “Win For A Long Time.”
It’s certainly a win for the front office.
In the Future 5
More from Nicholas Bate:
In the future, we will realise that the Whole Brexit Debacle was simple a long-needed deep spiritual cleansing.
The cluster of islands set in some cold seas but with a great sense of humour, staggering landscapes and cool bands will sort itself out.
We Know Nothing
So. That was super disappointing.
Mueller filed his report. Barr sent out a summary. Mueller couldn’t find sufficient evidence to convict anyone in the Trump camp of criminal collusion with Russia’s social media and hacking operations to influence the election.
That’s it.
Eric Levitz in New York Magazine tries to put it in perspective.
None of this should obscure the fact that Mueller’s investigation had previously produced criminal convictions of the president’s former campaign manager, national security adviser, longtime personal attorney, among others in his extended orbit. Nor should it banish from memory Donald Trump Jr.’s eager acceptance of an offer of aid from the Russian government, or his father’s decision to pursue a development project in Moscow while campaigning on an aberrantly Russia-friendly platform, or the president’s repeated insistence that Vladimir Putin’s word was more truthworthy than the CIA ‘s, or the myriad other undisputed acts that would, in normal political times, be seen as presidency-defining scandals, in and of themselves.
Of course, the full Mueller report hasn’t been seen by anyone besides Mueller, Rosenstein, and Barr. Plus, I’m sure there’s going to be more in the report, if it ever sees the light of day, that will add fuel to the dumpster fire of a presidency, but the bottom line is Trump will now campaign on the No Collusion Train and the 30–40% of the country who believe whatever he says will go right along with him.
Sigh.
Let’s all remember the multitude of other federal and state investigations into Trump and the Trump crime family. I mean, there are so many legal entanglements I can’t keep track of all of them (although Andrew Prokop at Vox has a decent breakdown).
There are the hush money payments, the inaugural committee financials, how security clearances were granted, his personal and business taxes, the Trump foundation corruption, all the sexual assault accusations, the violations of the emoluments clause, and probably a dozen more I’ve since forgotten because Trump, his family, and his cronies are nothing but career criminals.
Is it possible Robert Mueller did find potential conspiracy amongst Don Jr., Kushner, and Manafort for the Trump Tower meeting, but he’s handed that off to the Southern District of New York? It would make sense because if he had indicted Trump’s family, the case would have been fought for years with the hand-picked, partisan Attorney General possibly pulling the plug on the whole thing plunging the country into a constitutional crisis. This way, the SDNY, which already has a legal case against “Individual-1,” can bring the hammer of justice down within the Michael Cohen case and maybe unknown related cases.
We don’t yet know what’s in the Mueller report, we don’t yet know if Mueller handed off information to other prosecutors who can’t be touched by Trump, and we don’t yet know how the other legal jeopardy facing Trump, his family and businesses, and campaign/administration will play out.
Just like the Game of Thrones character Jon Snow, “We know nothing,” and it’s super frustrating.
The Voice Beneath the Surface
Dan Pedersen writes about a better way of thinking.
It’s a common habit to dwell on whatever thoughts pop into our mind. We dwell on our problems. We tell ourselves stories that make us feel superior to others. We pretend that we have answers that we don’t actually have. And when we’re not tooting our own horn, we’re criticizing ourselves and other people.
A lot of these things are inner conversations we have with ourselves — a running dialogue of praise, criticism, and self-delusion. This is the type of thinking we need less of.
The irony is that when we learn to think less in that way, we learn to think more in a different way — a better way. We learn to think without thinking. Instead of creating dialogue in our mind or replaying fantasies, we learn to quiet the distortions which drown out a much more subtle and profound voice beneath the surface.
My inner monologue is so unhealthy at times. I’m not good at quieting the distortions. It is definitely something I need to continuously work on.
Extinction-Level Event
Andrew Sullivan seems quite put out by Donald Trump.
In this post-truth world, where Trump has allied with social media to create an alternate reality, lies work. This week, he approached the press corps simply repeating, “No Collusion! No Collusion!” And he will continue to say this regardless of what the Mueller report may reveal, because it doesn’t matter what actually happened. Whatever Trump says will become the truth for 40 percent of the country, while the expectations of the opposition, troubled by pesky empiricism, may well be deflated. Fox, a de facto state propaganda channel, will do the rest.
This remains a surreal state of affairs, does it not? Life goes on; politics has the forms of democracy, even if the substance is now monarchical; and the economy continues to grow. And how did we respond to his usurping the power of the Congress with an emergency declaration, or his marshaling of the military for an election-eve stunt on the border, or his refusing any cooperation with the House committees, or his two-hour, delusional rant at CPAC, or his response to white nationalist mass murder by pivoting to an “invasion” of the U.S., or the blizzard of simply deranged tweets last Sunday? How did we react when he said, in the context of a fight with Democrats, “I have the military.” For what? Mr. President. What plans do you exactly have in mind?
Yes, we’re numb. Yes, this has become normal. And yes, as far as liberal democracy is concerned, this is an extinction-level event.
I disagree that it won’t matter what the Mueller report reveals. I think it’s what everyone is waiting for.
No one knows what the Mueller report is going to say, but I think it will show the Trump campaign and administration has been utterly corrupt from the beginning.
I don’t think 60-70% of the country is numb to the almost hourly scandals of the Trump presidency. I think they are waiting for him to be removed either by vote, resignation, or some other calamity. I think the country would rather vote for a Democrat in 2020 than Trump. The 2016 election foretells 2020.
Seriously, what everyone with a working brain really wants is Mueller to indict everyone in the Trump circle. And I mean everyone. Not just Trump and his immediate family (but that’s a good start), but everyone in the campaign, the inauguration committee (and that means Pence), and probably several members and former members of his cabinet.
Trump isn’t going to go quietly. Even if he is defeated in a 2020 election, he won’t leave until forcibly removed by the Secret Service. And then he’ll immediately be indicted by the SDNY for a variety of crimes which won’t be waved away by a federal pardon. To be honest, it’s entirely possible the SDNY will indict a sitting President for state crimes. Wouldn’t that be crazy?
In any event, I am confident the rule of law is going to ultimately win the day.