Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, January 25, 2025
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48 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Small bit of good news: season 5 of Harley Quinn is out.
@Kathy: I want to watch it but my best friend told me I’d hate it because it’s too gory for my taste 🙁
Boo.
@DK: That’s is my feeling about “The Boys”. Interesting premise, first couple of seasons entertaining. Then it just went off the rails and I couldn’t watch it any more.
@DK:
It is rather gory. I tend to try to ignore much of that, with varying degrees of success.
@Scott:
IMO The Boys can’t be satisfying, since our brave heroes have to keep fighting the evil corporation without end. If they ever win, there’s nothing left for them to do. This is why Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Superman, etc. have a roster of different, mostly independent villains to fight.
Sure, the Joker will escape, after Batman foils his plan, or he’ll break out of Arkham, or be paroled, or something. So no victory is ever definitive. But if it was Batman v Joker all the time, it would grow tedious.
President Retrograde moves this country in a direction away from rational sustainability and a survivable future.
All these back-assward moves will add up —- impairing the function of NIH, wrecking international commerce, upending security agreements, obstructing climate warming remediation efforts, and all the oncoming brainfarts. The additive impacts will likely position the electorate to stiffen opposition in a much shorter time frame.
In 2020, Trump’s incompetent management of a global pandemic served to magnify the impact of supply chain disruption. He leaned into the external sourced crisis, exacerbating it’s negative effect. This time, he is the source of the crisis.
Some industry reports are saying that the production gains from fracking oil fields has peaked out, and output shows signs of decline. We will likely see durable increases in gas prices in the near future with all the knock-on impacts that will bring.
Continuing a transition to EVs, positions this nation for a more efficient “digital solid state” future drawing upon renewable energy sources. Electrons are more efficient to acquire, transport, and distribute than complex carbon chains.
Bragadacio Trump has a “loser” internal process locked in a time warp and held in place by the rigidity of his narcissism. He is a dinosaur and represents “loser” policy concepts for this society.
I am all of a sudden getting a lot of spam in my email. They all seem similar, financially oriented, all LLCed in Delaware and operate on similar tech platforms. Minor irritation.
As was completely predictable, Susan Collins seemed to develop a spine only when her vote made no difference
TIL: the Episcopalian bishop who stood up to Trump at the national prayer service this week was the same bishop who interred Matthew Shepard’s remains 20 years ago
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/01/24/bishop-mariann-edgar-budde-matthew-shepard/
Sitting here in the Dominican Republic, the USA seems like a shitshow right now.
As bad as I thought it was going to be, I actually think its worse, and my wife and I are thankful every day that we were able to get out.
I am keeping the house in LA and condo in Atlanta just in case I have to go back there to work, but other than that, this is where we’re going to be for at least the next four years. And with people like @Andy and @JayLGilcher, among others, saying a Nazi Salute isn’t a Nazi Salute, I only see it getting worse. We’re now at the point of excusing outright Nazi symbolism as trolling or “not intentional”. Awesome. Meanwhile, Trump has released criminals back into the population who have the belief that they’re protected by the President. Anyone remember the Brownshirts? It’s coming, people. It’s coming.
Oh… The price of eggs here yesterday: 130 Dominican Pesos… OR…. $2.11USD, per dozen. The last eggs I purchased in California about five days ago, $8.67 a dozen for the cheapest ones at Aldi.
According to a known expert in the field of fire prevention, the problem with Californians is that they don’t water their tumbleweeds enough.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/25/2299067/-Drifting-along-with-the-Trumpling-tumbleweeds-and-the-management-of-the-floor#
Odd music find for the weekend: Rhapsody in Blue played in five pianos, no orchestra.
@EddieInCA: “Sitting here in the Dominican Republic, the USA seems like a shitshow right now.”
If it helps at all, it feels like that in New York, too.
Trans and non binary people are already experiencing difficulties at the passport office, with rumors spreading that not only will passports not be renewed, but current documents confiscated.
Kristi Noem is now Secretary of the DHS.
@EddieInCA:
This is what happens when people are committed to being seen as centrists. They’re independent thinkers, you know.
@Kathy: During my time as an amateur musician at the fringes, I’ve performed in orchestras for 3 or four different soloists. Five pianos make an interesting advertisement for Steinway, but the effect is as frail and faint as the shellac recording I heard once of a ~20-piece jazz orchestra supporting the soloist.
Thanks for the trip to an alternate world. (And for the fond memories of Elmer Mangubat–who absolutely kicked ass on the opening clarinet solo. Best evah–at 16 years old.)
@drj: The center is where progress goes to die. What we’re seeing now is where progress gets murdered in plain sight. As if on…
…say 5th Avenue.
@CSK:
No dogs are safe.
@Daryl:
Yeah, I know. I was just telling my sister’s mini dachshund that if he doesn’t behave, I’ll send him to Kristi Noem.
@EddieInCA:
We’re starting the visa process for Italy, with Spain and Portugal as back-ups.
@Kingdaddy:
Not only is he, clearly, one of the dumbest people alive but he leads the largest cult of dumb people ever (neglecting religions, of course), a cult whose members hang on his every dumb word.
@Kathy:
Astute observations.
The problem of superheroes is finding properly-calibrated super-villains. It’s why Superman sucks and Batman, Spiderman and Iron Man, don’t.
Then you have the episodic vs. arc structure. Arc gives you the MCU culminating in Avengers: Endgame. Followed by a collapse when your arc is done. The two times I’ve written super-powered people I did episode/arc about 70/30. One of the issues with that is resisting the urge to top the previous story. I had this issue very much in mind while writing Gone. You can’t just go bigger, badder, longer for long. You need a steady supply of challenges, each difficult, but not necessarily more difficult.
Marvel has been limping miserably because they went all-in on Thanos, and had nowhere to go then. What would Frodo and Gandalf have battled after defeating Sauron? Go after pickpockets? Arcs have ends, staying episodic or mostly episodic gives you 9 billion episodes of Law and Order.
Worst is when you lean into arc and don’t know where the fuck you’re going: Lost. I think that’s where The Boys is.
@just nutha:
I find it ok from time to time.
My problem with listening to music performed on a single instrument, is that after a while I grow tired of the sound of that instrument. So, I can hear a few piano pieces, then I can’t take any more piano.
Orchestral music is varied enough I don’t grow tired of it so quickly.
@Michael Reynolds:
Maybe the big failure of the Justice League movie lay in bringing in a very powerful, apocalyptic* enemy to start off. They might have done better having the heroes fight a less awesome foe. But then what reason to resurrect Kal El, right?
I’m working long term on a kind of super hero story, with an arc. What I think, and hope, is different, is that the protagonist sets herself the task of building a world without war, poverty, and tyranny. Good thing she’s immortal. It’s also set in the Bronze Age.
*No pun intended.
@Michael Reynolds:
FWIW, friends of ours moved to Ireland for the warm months and Portugal for the winter. (Nothing to do with Trump; their two kids now live and work in Europe so it was for family reasons.) They can’t say enough good things about Portugal.
@Michael Reynolds: be aware that Spain is a BRIC nation and DT is plenty mad about it. He really said it. There are witnesses.
Su casa es mi casa.
The “rule of law party” has chosen for their leader a person who respects no law, and channels the pathological imperialism of Putin.
@CSK: Okay. We have a Secretary of Defenselessness and a Secretary of Homeland Insecurity. The Director of National Unintelligence gets approved in 5 days. Things are proceeding apace.
@EddieInCA:
Everyone, keep your eye on the national pain meter. It will be a clue to capitulation or resistance.
@Michael Reynolds:
This is a really dumb cliche.
Pretty much every Superhero is ridiculously overpowered. Superman just leans into it.
And that requires writers to understand that a good story is about character conflict, rather than just powerscaling. It’s why his arch rival is a xenophobic billionaire rather than some big monster that can punch really hard.
The core of his character is that the ends don’t justify the means. (This is also why he works better when Lois knows he is Clark)
And there are amazing Superman stories — I’d recommend All-Star Superman by Morison and Quitely, and Superman for all Seasons by Loeb and Sales. The first starts with Superman learning he is dying, and trying to sculpt his legacy, and the second is a more cliched story of having to choose between who to save (spoiler: Lex wins)
There has to be loss to balance the invulnerability and power. Infinite power isn’t enough. You get back up, you do your best, you try to inspire others to do their best. It’s about optimism in the face of everything.
Otherwise it’s just a pointless slug fest that is boring, but so is the perpetual “Joker escapes, kills people, gets caught, goes back to Arkham” even if they add in the wrinkle of whether Batman should break his “no killing rule”.
On TV, the recent My Adventures With Superman has been excellent, and Superman and Loisis good.
Meanwhile, Man Of Steel is a bad movie, but it’s a terrible Superman movie. And Batman v. Superman is somehow worse?
A bad Superman story is generally worse than a bad Batman or Spider-man story. That’s just in general though — the Schumacher Batman films and the Spider-man comic book story “One More Day” are as bad as any bad Superman story.
Now is the time for Dem Governors to publicly bus and fly “migrants” to Alabama, Texas, and Florida to “safety” because Ice won’t be conducting raids there.
When Trump talks about turning on a giant faucet to deliver water to Southern California, what does he mean? https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/trump-keeps-urging-california-to-turn-on-its-giant-faucet-15550896
And apparently at the Department of “No State Left Behind,” thing are proceeding apace 🙁
Fortunately, things are not completely bad.
Because reasons, of course.
Eh ohhhh…
@Jim Brown 32: Glad I’m not a “migrant.” I dunno how I feel about being uprooted and transported to a place where the state government will be happy to arrest me for deportation just to be a pawn in Kabuki ICE theater.
@Slugger: Trump’s ramblings about this may be some sort of weave on the status of the reserves in the Palisades Reservoir, but even that is confusing as in the article, Senator Schiff asserts “My initial understanding is the reservoirs that the Palisades were drawing on, these three-million-gallon reservoirs, were full at the initiation of these fires,” whereas the opening of the article describes the Palisades Reservoir as 117 million gallons.
But mostly, it’s just the usual Trumpish BS.
Newsom meets Trump at the airport. Interesting body language ensued.
@Gustopher:
Wrong, Superman fan boy. First, most superheroes are not OP. Daredevil, Iron Man, Spidey, Batman, Cap, and they’re the ones that have the best stories. Superman is god not man, he is not relatable, and his movies suck because he can only be on equal terms with other gods. Basically aliens. Supe vs. the Joker? Supe vs. Kingpin? Please. Those are 30 second movies.
Superman, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel all have crap movies because they are not relatable. Poor James Gunn has had to resort to Superdog FFS.
Corey Lewandowski wants Trump’s face to be blasted into the side of Mt. Rushmore.
@CSK: Wouldn’t that be a bit bloody?
The University of Colorado has changed its DEI office’s name to the Department of Collaboration. Chancellor Baldrick was unavailable to comment on his cunning plan.
@Stormy Dragon:
Re: Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde
Standing up to the “Kooky Monster”
@Rob1: The CHINOs are out in force.
Mmmm, smell the respect.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Of course, the ‘migrants’ would be brown US citizens. Freedom riders if you will.
This is an optics battle. It won’t matter if that they really aren’t migrants. It matters that the look like migrants and Trump is trolled for this social media deep mass deportation.
But make no mistake, there will be collateral damage. It’s unavoidable. Dems have a year to get this clown approval rating in the 30s– by any means necessary
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Schiff meant water tanks. There are three nearby water tanks, each with a storage capacity of about a million gallons, that ran dry due to the extreme demand. Those tanks could not be refilled quickly enough from the trunk line supplied by LA’s reservoirs due to the continuing demand.
@Slugger:
WRT to the great big giant faucet, this guy thinks he’s talking about the pumps of the federal Central Valley water project, which provide water primarily to Central Valley farms. Not surprising, since 80 percent of California’s water is used for agriculture, including The Wonderful Company farms in the Central Valley that are owned by a billionaire couple.
Maybe what we need right now is that Musk-Zuckerberg fight that was teased over the last two years. The last suggestion of such a fight that I can find is Zuckerberg reportedly saying “Send Me Location” last summer, after Musk said “I’ll fight Zuckerberg any place, any time, any rules,” in a response to a question from a reporter. Somewhat relevant to the excuses heard for Musk’s sieg heil gesture this week, Musk was in Washington at the time of his challenge to Zuck–as Netanyahu’s guest, with a seat alongside Netanyahu’s wife during the Prime Minister’s address to Congress.
I’ve decided what I’m going to do. I am a tiny blue dot in a sea of red, but my position in the community is such that people listen to me. I haven’t posted anything political on Facebook since the first Trump term, ALSO because people see what I write, and I am in a job description where people might take it out on my cattle if I piss them off.
I’m not going to post or respond to the major bullshit, as much as I’d like to. I AM going to post about the NIH and cancer research, and all the other things Trump is shutting down.
Because fuck you, Paul L. And you too, Fortune. And Jack/Drew/Guarneri. You guys are fucking assholes. Good luck esplaining all this stopping of cancer research bullshit, and $852,000 per flight for 80 fucking immigrants.
There’s going to come a time when you have to answer for what you’ve done, on a human level. You’re going to come up lacking, on a human level.