Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D) of Texas inspired beats and tunes last week. I may add the Motown-inspired song below to one of my playlists.
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The Seattle International Film Festival (the brick-and-mortar portion) wraps up this Sunday, May 19th. This year’s SIFF featured a total of 207 shorts, documentaries, and narrative films from 84 countries. The Festival will be immediately followed by a week of select virtual screenings from this year’s catalog (April 20-27) on the SIFF Channel. Hopefully, some of these festival selections will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you!
Luther: Never Too Much (USA) *** – I confess entering Dawn Porter’s Luther Vandross profile knowing little about the late singer beyond his association with David Bowie and a string of smooth groove hits I recall spinning on the AC radio station I worked at from 1983-1991.I emerged from this documentary with a new-found respect for the artist, learning that he also wrote and/or co-wrote a number of them (including hits for artists like Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, and Cheryl Lynn). Porter weaves a generous portion of archival performance clips and interviews with present-day recollections by creative collaborators and music mavens. An engaging, inspiring and ultimately moving portrait of an immensely talented artist who was not without his personal demons.
The New Boy (Australia) ** – Writer-director Warwick Thornton’s drama stars Cate Blanchett as a nun in the Outback charged with schooling a young, taciturn Aboriginal orphan who may harbor supernatural powers. The story is set in the early 1940s, at a monastery where Aboriginal children are cared for until deemed old enough (16?) to get packed off to earn their own keep. The students are largely portrayed by non-professional actors, lending the film a naturalistic feel. Despite an interesting premise (Western religious dogma vs. Indigenous mysticism) the film gets bogged down by its draggy pacing and an uneven narrative that vacillates somewhere between Peter Weir’s The Last Wave and (thanks to Blanchett’s over-the-top antics) Ken Russell’s The Devils.
Resynator (USA) *** – [shakes fist] “Curse you, Robert Moog!” They say history is written by the winners. Director Alison Tavel’s documentary may reinforce that adage. For as long as she can remember, Alison has been told that it was, in fact, her dad (who passed away when she was 2 months old) who was the “true” inventor of the synthesizer; namely, a prototype he dubbed as “the Resynator”. While not a musician herself, Tavel has pursued a career in the business as a roadie (currently for Grace Potter), which put her in a position to pull a few strings and do some detective work. Her subsequent journey to discover (and document) the truth of the matter is at once a fascinating glimpse into the fickle nature of the music biz and a genuinely touching story of a young woman finally “meeting” the father she never got to know.
Scala!!! Or, The Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World’s Wildest Cinema and How it Influenced a Mixed-Up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits (UK) *** – Lester Bangs defined ‘punk’ as “…a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they’ll be creative about it…and do something good besides.” That philosophy informed the programming for Scala cinema, where the audience was as outrageously transgressive as the film fare. Ditto Jane Giles and Ali Catterall’s documentary, which earns a 3 “Fuck off” rating!
Solitude (Iceland) ***½ – Ah, look at all the lonely people. Ninna Pálmadóttir’s quiet drama concerns an unassuming farmer named Gunnar (Thröstur Leó Gunnarsson) who reluctantly sells his beloved horses and relocates to Reykjavik after getting pushed off his land by a hydroelectric project. He has received a generous settlement, which enables him to offer cash for a condo. For Gunnar, moving to the city is tantamount to getting drop-kicked into the 21st Century; he is overwhelmed by the stimuli. He strikes up a sweet friendship with a bubbly 10-year-old paperboy named Ari. The boy’s parents are separated. While they try to share equal time with their son, squabbles arise over scheduling conflicts, frequently leaving Ari in the lurch. As a result, Gunnar becomes his de facto babysitter. Gunnar’s naivety eventually leads to a misunderstanding that could have serious consequences for him. A beautifully acted treatise on the singularly destructive power of “assumption”.
Previous posts with related themes:
More reviews at Den of Cinema
–Dennis Hartley
I’m still not sure I understand how this works but it does sound like the whole Marjorie Taylor Greene outburst may have been a set-up:
The following day, Ocasio-Cortez took to X (formerly Twitter) to break down how Greene’s outburst overshadowed—and aided—what Ocasio-Cortez describes as a “microcosm of what authoritarians do on a larger scale.”
“AFTER the Republican Chair and GOP members broke official House protocol to allow MTG’s horrific opening silo of rhetoric, they THEN made another change to dispense with the legislative process,” Ocasio-Cortez said on X (formerly Twitter). “THAT part is not getting enough attention.”
In a move Ocasio-Cortez described as “highly unusual and still unclear to me how legitimate it was,” the GOP-led committee vacated both the typical amendment process and legislative debate that follows, moving directly to vote on their own text without allowing for amendments or objections to be heard.
“That’s why this stuff isn’t just all-sides chaos, or mere distraction, or a pox on everyone’s house,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “They WANT you to think this was some random devolution of conduct instead of a structured GOP outcome. We must understand who and what actions created the situation. It matters.”
Thanks to MTG’s meltdown, the vote to initiate contempt proceedings against Garland was successful.
If it wasn’t a set-up, they sure seem to have taken advantage of Greene’s non-sequitor to ram through the contempt vote.
I also heard that there was quite a bit of drinking going on. Marbge is rumored to be in her cups frequently and apparently the clown show that made the pilgrimage to Dear Leader’s trial on Thursday did quite a bit of tippling on the plane back home. So who knows?
But we do know that a number of the people on the committee who refused to comply with subpoenas in the last congress voted to hold the Attorney General in contempt for only agreeing to release a transcript of the president’s testimony instead of the recording.
Here’s an article by Michael Thomas who writes about climate change:
In the last few months, the Biden administration has quietly passed multiple federal policies that will transform the United States economy and wipe out billions of tons of future greenhouse gas emissions.
The new policies have received little attention outside of wonky climate circles. And that is a problem.
Earlier this year, I wrote that Biden has done more to mitigate climate change than any President before him. For decades, environmentalists tried and failed to convince lawmakers to pass even the most marginal climate policies. It wasn’t until Biden took office that the logjam broke and the climate policies flowed. And yet few American voters are hearing this story in an election year of huge consequence.
It’s been two and a half months since I wrote that article. In that short time, the Biden administration has passed a handful of climate policies that will collectively cut more than 10 billion tons of planet-warming pollution over the next three decades, more than the annual emissions of India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the entire continent of Europe—combined.
In today’s story, I’ll share a summary of three of these policies and the impact they will have over the coming decades.
I generally write stories like this for Distilled’s paid subscribers. But in an election year as important as this one, I want to keep stories like this free to read and share. If you want to support this work please consider becoming a paid subscriber or sharing this article with a friend.
Do click over to read it if you have time. I didn’t know this and I follow the news, particularly the accomplishments of the Biden administration in this election year. It’s important, especially if you have young voters in your family. There’s nothing more important and Trump has openly vowed to the oil industry that he will reverse every single regulation and every bit of climate legislation if he wins.
Over the past several months, Donald Trump has told some of his advisers and friends that federal clemency for [Peter] Navarro, if Trump is back in office, is a “very good idea,” according to a person familiar with the matter and another source briefed on it. The former president, as some of his former staff say, often speaks in vague and thinly-coded terms that they refer to as “mob speak.”
Like a number of former Trump advisers, Navarro received a subpoena to testify before the House Jan 6. Committee about his work attempting to delay Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, and his role in producing a series of reports with bogus allegations of mass voter fraud during the election. Unlike most of his former colleagues, however, Navarro openly defied the subpoena, leading to a criminal referral by the committee, an indictment from a federal grand jury in June 2022, and his conviction in September last year. He received a four-month prison sentence, which began in March.
In the years since Biden’s inauguration, Navarro has surfaced on Trump and the MAGA elite’s informal shortlist of who should expect job offers for senior roles in a second Trump administration, according to numerous people familiar with the vast government-in-waiting preparations.
As Navarro’s legal odyssey has unfolded, Trump has privately marveled at the extreme loyalty of the former White House trade adviser whom Trump has affectionately referred to as “my Peter.” The former president has said that once Navarro is out of prison, “we’re going to take care of him,” a source with direct knowledge of this comment says. The ex-president has also repeatedly asked confidants how Navarro is doing behind bars, this source, and another person briefed on the situation, add.
Trump has dangled pardons from the beginning and he followed through. He pardoned Bannon, Manafort, Stone etc., all stand-up guys who never flipped. He’s promising to pardon all the January 6th insurrectionists. He’ll not only pardon Navarro, he’ll give him a powerful job in the administration if he wins.
And all I can say about “my Peter” is that I’m not sure it’s quite the compliment he probably thinks it is…
The New Republic has posted a 9-article special issue, “What American Fascism Would Look Like.” It’s just popped up and I won’t have time to study it until later. Not, at least, until I’ve had another cup of coffee. Heads up.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to restart its aggressive crackdown against payday lenders and other companies that offer high-cost, short-term loans to poor borrowers, after a Supreme Court ruling this week resolved a challenge to the federal agency’s authority to act,” reports The Washington Post. Yes, that Supreme Court.
The CFPB’s mom was more than pleased:
“The CFPB is here to stay. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court followed the law and confirmed that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional. For the last decade, the consumer agency has fought the big banks and predatory lenders that try to cheat hardworking people. As of this week, the CFPB has returned more than $20 billion in ill-gotten funds to American families. This isn’t the last attack on the CFPB we’ll see from Wall Street, the banks, and their Republican allies. When an agency is this effective at sticking up for working families against industry’s consumer abuses, it’s an obvious target for multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns. The CFPB will keep on doing its work to slash junk fees, fight giant banks when they cheat people, and level the playing field for everyone in this country. I commend Director Chopra for his leadership, the entire CFPB team for their determination, and President Biden for his commitment to protecting consumers.”
Axios reports, “Brown v. Board plaintiffs and their family members were invited to the White House Thursday to meet with President Biden in honor of the landmark school desegregation ruling’s 70th anniversary.”
President Biden means to remind Black voters he has their backs. In a speech Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C., Biden announced $16 billion in aid to historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.
Immersing oneself each day in politics in this fraught time, it is tough keeping your head on straight. The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell recounts the alternate realities one of her focus group participants, a two-time Trump voter, sees when switching between Fox News and ABC coverage of the Trump trial.
“Well, I turn on Fox, ‘The Five’ on Fox,” Longwell retells, “and they say this is going to get thrown out, that there’s nothing there. And then I turn on ABC and they say Trump is going to prison.” Because the trial is not broadcast, the trial is being filtered through press coverage. Whom to believe?
Conservative columnist David French sees the same American split-brain in himself. He recalls how, despite polls often misreading the electorate, partisanship colors how we read them. He offers examples and then (emphasis mine):
I write often about American polarization, including about how the red-blue divide is perhaps less illuminating than the gap between engaged and disengaged Americans, in which an exhausted majority encounters the highly polarized activist wings of both parties and shrinks back from the fray. This dynamic helps explain why our political culture feels so stagnant. The wings aren’t changing each other’s minds — hard-core Democrats aren’t going to persuade hard-core Republicans — but they’re also not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.
Even worse, partisans don’t realize they’re part of the problem. Their zeal isn’t persuasive; it’s alienating, and the examples above help illustrate why.
In swing states like Arizona and North Carolina, independent voters outnumber Democrats. In Arizona the split is R>Other>D. In North Carolina it’s Unaffiliated>D>R. The largest block of persuadables lie in the independent category, enough to decide statewide elections and perhaps the fate of the republic.
Democrats are “not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.” Their voter outreach strategies were designed decades ago for an era in which independents were under 20% of the electorate in such states. Base turnout decided elections and partisans were easier to identify. Not so today. Democrats have yet to adapt to the changed campaign environment. If, as French suggests, independents (most under 45) find partisanship alientating, a “Vote for Our Team” message may not be the most effective, as I’ve suggested:
Volunteers’ pitch to these untapped, young independents is not to evangelize for Democrats. Independents don’t like them. They don’t pay close attention to party politics. Independents “view themselves as proudly unmoored from any candidate or party.” Voting in 2024 has to be about them, about local/state issues to be decided in the election that may impact them or people they love. The ask is: Vote this fall for them.
But that’s not the message zealous candidates and party volunteers mobilize to send … to independents … if they engage enough of them … which they’re not set up to do. There’s still time to rethink, people.
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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
Baby Snow Leopards!
The forecast was right: we have snow in May!
Your Guardians of Wild are proud to share that overnight on Monday May 13th, three-year old snow leopard Jita gave birth to two cubs after a 97-day pregnancy.
Jita and her new cubs are NOT currently visible to guests visiting the Toronto Zoo, but updates will be shared in the days and weeks to come about how and when guests will be able to view these little snowballs.
Jita’s cubs, sired by nine-year-old Pemba, came into the world following a few hours of labour. Wildlife Care, watching on remote cameras, observed her laboured breathing as well as circling and rolling (signs of impending birth) around 7:30pm. The first cub was born at 7:45pm, followed by the arrival of her second cub in the early hours of Tuesday, May 14th.
Jita is doing very well as a first-time mother and is diligently nursing, grooming, and cuddling her “snowballs.” Her Wildlife Care team is monitoring the new family closely via CCTV cameras to minimize any disturbance, and will be closely observing the development of the cubs. More information will be shared as it becomes available.
The elusive snow leopard, also known as the “ghost cat”, is not often spotted in the wild and is listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list. The Toronto Zoo participates in the snow leopard Species Survival Plan® (SSP), a cooperative breeding program amongst AZA accredited North American facilities. Through the SSP, we maintain a sustainable population of snow leopards in human care to preserve their genetic diversity and allow them to serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts.
Through the Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy’s Adopt an Animal program, you can symbolically adopt a Toronto Zoo snow leopard and become a Guardian of Wild. Funds raised through the program support the ongoing conservation and research efforts of your Toronto Zoo, helping to save endangered species. For more information or to adopt, please visit https://www.tzwcadopt.ca/.
Some more baby leopards:
We have has the rather stomach churning experience of watching stars of the GOP establishment descend on Donald Trump’s criminal trial this week to defy a judge’s order and claim that the justice system is corrupt because it deigns to hold their Dear leader to account for his crimes.
If you want to see how this degradation of the rule of law is playing out in everyday life, witness this shocking move in Texas.
You may recall the case of Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 and was, as is legal in Texas openly carrying a rifle. A man named Daniel Perry drove his car into the protesters and Foster (who was white) confronted him without raising his gun, Perry shot him five times.
As JV Last points out in his piece on this at The Bulwark:
The case had everything Republicans love: A peaceful protest with people exercising their First Amendment rights. A veteran lawfully exercising his Second Amendment right. And before the murder the killer had been searching the internet for young girls and sending sexually explicit texts to a minor.
The only problem was the protest itself: It was a Black Lives Matter protest.
And so Daniel Perry—a groomer who was convicted of murder by a jury of his peers—became a conservative cause celebré.
The justice system worked in this case. Perry was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison (which seems low to me considering it’s Texas which usually loves to inflict the death penalty.)
Last explains why Perry did this:
First off, Perry is a racist. And when I say “racist” I don’t mean in the Archie Bunker sense. This is a guy who *hates* black people so much that he frequently talked about killing them for sport. The prosecution presented a mountain of evidence on this point and I won’t quote any of it here, but you can read about it if you like.
Second, there is ample evidence that Perry had been working himself up to seeking out a Black Lives Matter protest for the purpose of killing. Radley Balko has the full rundown on this here.
For instance, here is a something Perry wrote in June of 2020: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
At trial, prosecutors presented an exchange Perry had with a friend in which he had mused on how to create a situation in which he would be justified to kill:
Perry speculated about how he might get away with such a killing – by claiming self-defense, as he is now doing. Prosecutors presented a Facebook Messenger chat between Perry and a friend, Michael Holcomb, which occurred two weeks before he shot Foster. In it, Perry argued that shooting protesters was legal if it was in self-defense. Holcomb, who was called to the stand Wednesday afternoon, seemed to try to talk Perry down. “Aren’t you a CDL holder too?” he asked, referring to the men’s licenses to carry concealed handguns. “We went through the same training … Shooting after creating an event where you have to shoot, is not a good shoot.”
And yes, he is also a man who has been shown to be stalking underage girls. He is a sick, criminal piece of work who killed a man in cold blood.
And yet, Gov. Abbott pardoned him yesterday. Full pardon, the man is now free. His death cult MAGA constituents are thrilled.
Can you believe it?
As Last notes, that’s not the end of the story. Texas has a law designed to remove locally-elected DA’s ostensibly because they are too lenient on crimes. Guess what?
While pardoning Perry, Gov. Abbott claimed that Garza had “demonstrated unethical and biased misuse of his office in prosecuting Daniel Scott Perry.”
Texas Republicans are not content to allow Perry’s murder of Garrett Foster. They also want to send a message that even using the law to bring charges against members of the ingroup who kill members of the outgroup is verboten.
This is MAGA America, folks. The rule of law under these monsters will be the law that protects them and punishes their enemies, period. We’re seeing it play out with the national GOP which wants to throw the book at Democrats and calls any attempt to hold them accountable for their crimes a rigged, witch hunt. An we’re seeing it play out in states where MAGA racists are allowed to kill with impunity.
And, as Tom pointed out this morning, this extends all the way to the Supreme Court where we have a Supreme Court Justice flying an upside down American flag signalling sympathy with the insurrection back in 2021. This idea of “rule of law for me but not for thee” runs very deep in the American right.
Check this out: