Former Defense Secretary, Mark Esper has a new memoir that is available, “A Sacred Oath”, in which he reveals his time spent during the Trump administration. And like many that have served under Donald Trump, Esper fell from his grace, getting fired several days after the 2020 election.
The book is a whopping 752 pages, where he holds nothing back, capturing Trump as the ill-tempered, ill-informed President who was overly concerned with power and self-image.
Below are just some of the headlines and quotes from his book released and available for purchase starting May 10.
‘Esper says Trump wanted to reactivate McChrystal, McRaven to court-martial them over criticism’ (The Hill)
“Worse yet, people were removed from positions simply because the White House wanted to replace them with more hard-core Trump loyalists, regardless of qualifications,” Esper wrote of Trump’s motive towards those that did not fall in line with his political agenda.
“We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’ … It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air.”
‘Mark Esper says Trump’s refusal to attend Biden’s presidential inauguration was ‘a final act of petulance’: book’ (Business Insider)
“Donald Trump did not even bother to attend the Inauguration — the first sitting and able president to skip his successor’s inauguration since 1869,” Esper wrote in his book, “It was a final act of petulance that defied tradition, tarnished our democracy, and further damaged Biden’s legitimacy with millions of Americans.”
‘Trump was the ‘biggest leaker of all’ in his administration and it was ‘generally bad’ for the country, his former Pentagon chief says’ (Business Insider)
“The individual motivations for the leaks ranged from advancing a preferred policy outcome to enhancing the leaker’s own role or credentials to currying favor with the president. It was a noxious behavior learned from the top. The president was the biggest leaker of all. It turned colleague against colleague, department against department, and it was generally bad for the administration and the country,” Esper writes in memoir.
As one would easily predict, Trump attempted to censor the release of the book. In response to a 60 Minutes interview with Esper promoting his book, the former President provided a statement on the interview, calling Esper a “Yesper”, “Weak and Totally Ineffective”.
So much is going on in the area of Crypto-currencies, Blockchain, Alt Coins, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) that it can make your head spin. And that is not to even mention Crypto Mining, Farming, Baking and Trading, all of which have had skyrocketing activity recently.
How much interest there is runs the gamut from the curious onlooker to the serious professional. And then there are predictions regarding the future of the world financial system, the political and legal ramifications of the rise of crypto and all the opinions going every which way, and more.
Based on all of the above it only makes sense to put together a list of fundamental ground floor guidebooks to help anyone who wants and needs to really understand what all the fuss is about. Bitcoin and the whole area of blockchain technology has come so far already, and is so established and entrenched that it is unlikely to disappear completely anytime soon, no matter which way the political winds may blow.
So if you are a beginner an intermediate or even advanced learner that wants to know more, these are the best books to really dig into the phenomena and explosion of information and viewpoints. To make it easier they are featured front and center, below, along with descriptions, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the various publishers), and with some links for a variety of options of where to purchase.
Mastering Blockchain – Third Edition: A deep dive into distributed ledgers, consensus protocols, smart contracts, DApps, cryptocurrencies
Blockchain technology is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, and it has applications in finance, government, media, and many other industries. With a legacy of providing technologists with executable insights, the third edition of Mastering Blockchain is thoroughly revised and updated with the latest blockchain research, including four new chapters on consensus algorithms, Serenity (Ethereum 2.0), tokenization, and enterprise blockchains.
Apart from covering the basics, including blockchain’s technical underpinnings, cryptography, and consensus protocols, this book provides you with expert knowledge on decentralization, decentralized application development on Ethereum, Bitcoin, alternative coins, smart contracts, alternative blockchains, and Hyperledger.
Furthermore, you will explore how to implement blockchain solutions beyond cryptocurrencies, such as the Internet of Things with blockchain, blockchain scalability, enterprise blockchains, and tokenization using blockchain, and the future scope of this fascinating and disruptive technology.
By the end of this book, you will have gained a thorough understanding of the various facets of blockchain technology and be comfortable applying them to diverse real-world scenarios.
Updated with four new chapters on consensus algorithms, Ethereum 2.0, tokenization, and enterprise blockchains
Dive deep into foundational pillars of blockchain technology such as decentralization, cryptography, and consensus protocols
Get to grips with Solidity, Web3, cryptocurrencies, smart contract development and solve scalability, security, and privacy issues
Discover the architecture of different distributed ledger platforms including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth, Corda, and Quorum
Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology& Altcoins For Beginners: Explore The Decentralized World, Investing in Crypto Blueprint, Mining Basics+
Do you want to understand what Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency actually is? Do you want to understand how it could change the world & finance industry FOREVER? Do you want to discover how you can get started investing in Crypto TODAY?
By now we’ve all heard of it, yet few of us understand it, and without understanding it how could you even dream of investing in it?
You hear all the tech ‘bros’ talking about it, you hear the media slandering it, you can see the bankers are scared by it’s potential, but you still don’t quite get the fuss.
Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.
But, luckily, this book has been written for people just like you.
The purpose of it is to demystify the world of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Decentralization & The Blockchain.
And, if those 4 words currently sound like a foreign language to you, you’re not alone. But, after this book, you’ll be the one explaining about the ‘Crypto Craze’ to everyone you see!
Inside, we will go over the origins & history of Bitcoin, it’s potential to change the world, as well as how it could all go wrong.
And, of course, we will go over how you can invest in potentially the greatest wealth transfer the world has ever seen.
Here’s a tiny Example of what’s inside..
Exactly What Bitcoin Actually Is And How It Is Drastically Disrupting The Global Economy
Everything You Need To Know About The ‘Bitcoin Halving’ Cycles & How To Maximize Your Gains From Them
What Is A ‘Blockchain’ And How It Could Quite Literally Revolutionize EVERY Aspect Of Your Life In The Coming Decades
What Are ‘Altcoins’ And How They Are Different To Bitcoin & What Their Purpose In All Of This Is…
Why We Are Still In The VERY Early Days Of The Crypto ‘Boom’
And SO Much More!
So, If You Want To FINALLY Understand The World Of Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency So You Can Actually Understand What All The Fuss Is About And Whether You Want To Get Involved, Then Scroll Up And Click
From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus–how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.
Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.
Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number–infinity–to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.
Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
When a pseudonymous programmer introduced “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party” to a small online mailing list in 2008, very few paid attention. Ten years later, and against all odds, this upstart autonomous decentralized software offers an unstoppable and globally-accessible hard money alternative to modern central banks. The Bitcoin Standard analyzes the historical context to the rise of Bitcoin, the economic properties that have allowed it to grow quickly, and its likely economic, political, and social implications.
While Bitcoin is a new invention of the digital age, the problem it purports to solve is as old as human society itself: transferring value across time and space. Ammous takes the reader on an engaging journey through the history of technologies performing the functions of money, from primitive systems of trading limestones and seashells, to metals, coins, the gold standard, and modern government debt. Exploring what gave these technologies their monetary role, and how most lost it, provides the reader with a good idea of what makes for sound money, and sets the stage for an economic discussion of its consequences for individual and societal future-orientation, capital accumulation, trade, peace, culture, and art. Compellingly, Ammous shows that it is no coincidence that the loftiest achievements of humanity have come in societies enjoying the benefits of sound monetary regimes, nor is it coincidental that monetary collapse has usually accompanied civilizational collapse.
With this background in place, the book moves on to explain the operation of Bitcoin in a functional and intuitive way. Bitcoin is a decentralized, distributed piece of software that converts electricity and processing power into indisputably accurate records, thus allowing its users to utilize the Internet to perform the traditional functions of money without having to rely on, or trust, any authorities or infrastructure in the physical world. Bitcoin is thus best understood as the first successfully implemented form of digital cash and digital hard money. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin’s real competitive edge might just be as a store of value and network for final settlement of large payments–a digital form of gold with a built-in settlement infrastructure.
Ammous’ firm grasp of the technological possibilities as well as the historical realities of monetary evolution provides for a fascinating exploration of the ramifications of voluntary free market money. As it challenges the most sacred of government monopolies, Bitcoin shifts the pendulum of sovereignty away from governments in favor of individuals, offering us the tantalizing possibility of a world where money is fully extricated from politics and unrestrained by borders.
This upcoming Horror-slash-Gore-slash Sci-Fi explores a future world where humans live in a more synthetic environment, forcing the body to undergo new mutations and transformations. And get this, in this world, the body has become so strong, that pain has been eliminated, which, strangely, now the characters experiencing pain through acts of self-mutilation and surgery has become the new “sex” (in other words pleasurable). Viggo Mortensen plays a performance artist named Saul Tenser, where he showcases the changing displays through the various forms of surgical alterations that his body undergoes.
If you’ve got the stomach for it, or an appetite for scaring yourself silly, this is the railer for you.
*Warning* the trailer is a bit much to watch if you are like most that don’t necessarily enjoy seeing people cut into themselves.
“Crimes of the Future” stars Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, as well as Kristen Stewart and Scott Speedman. When the movie was originally thought up, fun fact, Nicolas Cage was meant to play the lead, however due to the project being shelved for several years, recasting was done with Viggo.
The film is set for theatrical release this summer on June 3, 2022.
Those willing to watch the trailer, check it out below:
A new teaser trailer was released by Disney+ for the upcoming TV series “Obi-Wan Kenobi” starring Ewan McGregor. The episodic is set 10 years after “Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan is hiding on the planet Tatooine as he looks after the young Luke Skywaker.
The clip also finally reveals that Darth Vader will appear in the series and there will be an ultimate showdown with the former mentor. We see in the video, even though just for the last few seconds, his suit and iconic breathing.
In addition to McGregor, cast members include: Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, Benny Safdie and Maya Erskine.
The limited series which will consist of six parts will premiere the first two episodes starting May 27th, with the remaining episodes each Wednesday on a weekly basis, with the final date on June 22.
The 50th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade is approaching, we are also dealing with the likelihood that the Supreme Court is now reconsidering the ruling, as a result, an interest on the issues surrounding abortion and reproductive rights has peaked.
Reproductive justice, or the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy (in other words the ability to choose whether to have or not have children) has and most likely will always be a hot button issue, one that triggers immediate and intense reactions from both pro-life and pro-choice advocates.
Understandably so, abortion touches on huge subject matters that can intersect with religious beliefs, what qualifies as life and death in which people tend to have their own very strong opinions.
Below we have curated a list of 5 books that can help readers interested in educating oneself and understanding more on what is currently happening by looking at the past. These texts break down legal, political and social foundations regarding abortion. As well as speak to the very real issues surrounding abortion like violence, stigma, politics, race, access to medicine and law.
We have provided additional information on each book including publisher’s descriptions and where to learn more about each title:
Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade
Roe v. Wade’s 1973 constitutional guarantee of a woman’s right to choose abortion emerged from a long and remarkable battle to extend Americans’ individual liberties to include a fundamental right to sexual privacy. Only in 1965 had the Supreme Court first begun to protect such intimate personal freedoms by finally invalidating an archaic Connecticut criminal law that had prohibited the use of birth control.
Despite the landmark importance of this crucial struggle, not until now has this legal revolution received the comprehensive treatment it deserves. Roe v. Wade’s origins lie not in the U.S. Supreme Court’s dramatic internal deliberations of 1971-72 or even in the grassroots women’s movement of the late 1960s but, instead, in the 1920s and 1930s efforts to win repeal of the Connecticut birth control law. Those initial attempts failed, but twenty years later Connecticut Planned Parenthood director Estelle Trebert Griswold launched a new crusade against the statute. After one appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court lost by the narrowest of margins in 1961, Griswold and a medical colleague were convicted for providing birth control services in open defiance of the law. When their appeal finally reached the Supreme Court, the justices held that such a fundamental constitutional right to privacy did indeed exist.
That resounding Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut opened a previously unimagined constitutional door: the opportunity to argue that a woman’s access to a safe, legal abortion was a fundamental individual right. In 1969, the first abortion rights case was filed in federal court in New York, soon followed by others, including Roe v. Wade in Texas and Doe v. Bolton inGeorgia. After those two challenges were upheld by local federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court – which so far had confronted the abortion issue on only one occasion – agreed to review both decisions. The comprehensive, once-secret files of former Justices William J. Brennan, William
Before Roe V. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling
The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion-but the debate was far from over, continuing to be a political battleground to this day. Bringing to light key voices that illuminate the case and its historical context, Before Roe v. Wade looks back and recaptures how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution-and about how the nation could best honor its commitment to dignity, liberty, equality, and life.
In this ground-breaking book, Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered the Supreme Court for 30 years for The New York Times, and Reva Siegel, a renowned professor at Yale Law School, collect documents illustrating cultural, political, and legal forces that helped shape the Supreme Court’s decision and the meanings it would come to have over time.
A new afterword to the book explores what the history of conflict over abortion in the decade before Roe might reveal about the logic of conflict in the ensuing decades. The entanglement of the political parties in the abortion debate in the period before the Court ruled raises the possibility that Roe itself may not have engendered political polarization around abortion as is commonly supposed, but instead may have been engulfed by it.
Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe V. Wade
On April 16, 1972, ten thousand people gathered in Central Park to protest New York’s liberal abortion law. Emotions ran high, reflecting the nation’s extreme polarization over abortion. Yet the divisions did not fall neatly along partisan or religious lines-the assembled protesters were far from a bunch of fire-breathing culture warriors. In Defenders of the Unborn, Daniel K. Williams reveals the hidden history of the pro-life movement in America, showing that a cause that many see as reactionary and anti-feminist began as a liberal crusade for human rights. For decades, the media portrayed the pro-life movement as a Catholic cause, but by the time of the Central Park rally, that stereotype was already hopelessly outdated. The kinds of people in attendance at pro-life rallies ranged from white Protestant physicians, to young mothers, to African American Democratic legislators-even the occasional member of Planned Parenthood. One of New York City’s most vocal pro-life advocates was a liberal Lutheran minister who was best known for his civil rights activism and his protests against the Vietnam War. The language with which pro-lifers championed their cause was not that of conservative Catholic theology, infused with attacks on contraception and women’s sexual freedom. Rather, they saw themselves as civil rights crusaders, defending the inalienable right to life of a defenseless minority: the unborn fetus. It was because of this grounding in human rights, Williams argues, that the right-to-life movement gained such momentum in the early 1960s. Indeed, pro-lifers were winning the battle before Roe v. Wade changed the course of history. Through a deep investigation of previously untapped archives, Williams presents the untold story of New Deal-era liberals who forged alliances with a diverse array of activists, Republican and Democrat alike, to fight for what they saw as a human rights cause. Provocative and insightful, Defenders of the Unborn is a must-read for anyone who craves a deeper understanding of a highly-charged issue.
What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics
One of the Wall Street Journal‘s Top Ten Books of the YearA leading expert on public bioethics advocates for a new conception of human identity in American law and policy.The natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and therefore dependent, throughout our lives, on others. Yet American law and policy disregard these stubborn facts, with statutes and judicial decisions that presume people to be autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose. As legal scholar O. Carter Snead points out, this individualistic ideology captures important truths about human freedom, but it also means that we have no obligations to each other unless we actively, voluntarily embrace them. Under such circumstances, the neediest must rely on charitable care. When it is not forthcoming, law and policy cannot adequately respond. What It Means to Be Human makes the case for a new paradigm, one that better represents the gifts and challenges of being human. Inspired by the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, Snead proposes a vision of human identity and flourishing that supports those who are profoundly vulnerable and dependent–children, the disabled, and the elderly. To show how such a vision would affect law and policy, he addresses three complex issues in bioethics: abortion, assisted reproductive technology, and end-of-life decisions. Avoiding typical dichotomies of conservative-versus-liberal and secular-versus-religious, Snead recasts debates over these issues and situates them within his framework of embodiment and dependence. He concludes that, if the law is built on premises that reflect the fully lived reality of life, it will provide support for the vulnerable, including the unborn, mothers, families, and those nearing the end of their lives. In this way, he argues, policy can ensure that people have the care they need in order to thrive. In this provocative and consequential book, Snead rethinks how the law represents human experiences so that it might govern more wisely, justly, and humanely.
Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900a
“A fascinating book which sets to rest a number of preconceptions on the subject. Easy to read and yet hard-hitting.”–Marlette Rebhorn, Austin Community College
“Should be an eye-opener to those who think that religious objections were at the root of anti-abortion legislation and equally to those who think that abortion has been a matter of life and death.”–Carl N. Degler, Stanford University
“A superb example of the way history can inform a current contentious controversy.”–Journal of American History
“Mohr makes it abundantly clear that Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s were not a modern weakening of moral standards but a return to what Americans believed and practiced a hundred years ago.”–The Christian Century
“An altogether lucid review of American abortion policy in the 19th century.”–Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
“The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost…rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.”–Chicago Tribune
James C. Mohr is the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History and the Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Science at the University of Oregon. He is author of Doctors and the Law: Medical Jurisprudence in Nineteenth-Century America and Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics during Reconstruction, both published by Johns Hopkins.
For purchase information on Amazon, check out below:
Actor Bob Odenkirk, who portrays the iconic Jimmy McGill /Saul Goodman character in AMC’s “Better Call Saul” is currently wrapping up the show’s final season, which is now available to watch (or stream) weekly on AMC . And even though the show is coming to an end, there is still so much more in store for the actor; he is set to star in a new series, an adaptation, also on the AMC Network called “Straight Man”, as well as venturing out on a book tour for his newly released memoir “Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama”.
Starting to re-watch the series from scratch, it’s easy to see the why the show has been so incredibly successful. Odenkirk it’s a unique star with a wide acting range, playing an easily lovable character that you feel you can stand behind (as he cares for his mentally ill brother), even when he is doing sketchy things (bribing witnesses, forging documents, etc.) to get by.
Of course, not to be forgotten is the epic and one-of-a-kind construction that made ‘Better Call Saul’ into a 6 season prequel to ‘Breaking Bad’s’ 5 amazing seasons. Since the 6th and final season is currently underway – there will no doubt be an amazing opportunity to watch all 11 seasons in the binge of all binge marathons.
The shared characters and storylines, from Ignacio “Nacho” Varga to Michael Ehrmantraut to Walter White and Jesse Pinkman make for an amazing and truly gargantuan story arc. The final season of ‘Better Call Saul’ even includes a few “flash forwards’ to the post ‘Breaking Bad’ timeframe which currently also has the ‘El Camino’ feature in its time-space dimension.
Rising from his early origins as a stand up comic, then to writing for Saturday Night Live (SNL) to eventually an on-screen debut in “The Ben Stiller Show”, HBO’s “Mr Show with Bod and David” and of course, making his lasting trademark as Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad”.
If you want to learn more about Bob’s new memoir, more information about the book with a description from the publisher follows, below.
Bob Odenkirk’s career is inexplicable. And yet he will try like hell to explicate it for you. Charting a “Homeric” decades-long “odyssey” from his origins in the seedy comedy clubs of Chicago to a dramatic career full of award nominations–with a side-trip into the action-man world that is baffling to all who know him–it’s almost like there are many Bob Odenkirks! But there is just one and one is plenty. Bob embraced a life in comedy after a chance meeting with Second City’s legendary Del Close. He somehow made his way to a job as a writer at Saturday Night Live.
While surviving that legendary gauntlet by the skin of his gnashing teeth, he stashed away the secrets of comedy writing–eventually employing them in the immortal “Motivational Speaker” sketch for Chris Farley, honing them on The Ben Stiller Show, and perfecting them on Mr. Show with Bob and David. In Hollywood, Bob demonstrated a bullheadedness that would shame Sisyphus himself, and when all hope was lost for the umpteenth time, the phone rang with an offer to appear on Breaking Bad–a show about how boring it is to be a high school chemistry teacher. His embrace of this strange new world of dramatic acting led him to working with Steven Spielberg, Alexander Payne, and Greta Gerwig, and then, in a twist that will confound you, he re-re-invented himself as a bona fide action star. Why? Read this and do your own psychoanalysis–it’s fun! Featuring humorous tangents, never-before-seen photos, wild characters, and Bob’s trademark unflinching drive, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is a classic showbiz tale told by a determined idiot.
Books are still an incredible resource for learning, education, entertainment, reference and more. Just because a certain company has created an existential challenge for most independent bookstores, there are still many out there that survive and need your support. Lynxotic is directly affiliated with one such store and also with Bookshop.org that sponsors independent bookstores everywhere.
This weekend, as a way to celebrate, free standard shipping is available all weekend long!
Below we have provided some book ideas to consider:
Back in 2019 Greta Gerwig (known for work on “Lady Bird”, “Little Women” and “The Squid and the Whale”) and Noah Baumbach signed on to write a live-action Barbie movie for Warner Bros. By the looks of it, giving by a sneak-peak that it’s giving hot pink, retro 80’s Barbie vibes.
Some might find it anomalous that Robbie, famed for, among others, being Harley Quinn of suicide squad, a role that had the feel of a life-time type-casting dream, so Barbie might seem a stretch for those that feel married to her portrayal of a more, shall we say, dangerous female anti-hero.
And yet, perhaps it’s brilliant. Certainly the photo, released as a teaser at CinemaCon gives out a vibe that is spot-on for an inspired casting take on the doll come to life. Unfortunately the official trailer is still to come, so we’ve provided a “first look” video with clips from her that kind of visualizes a fantasy take in the meantime.
Alongside Margot Robbie as Barbie, Ryan Gosling will play the iconic boyfriend Ken. There are also a handful of crazy talent with fellow cast members to include: Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Simu Lui, Issa Rae, Michael Cera and Kate McKinnon.
The plot details for the film have not been shared and kept quite mum as of now, so we may have to wait closer to the release date next year to see Gerwig’s adaptation. Currently “Barbie” is scheduled for theatrical release on July 21, 2023.
During a screening at CinemaCon, Paramount held a debut for “Top Gun: Maverick” and thus far it has been enthusiastically reviewed, to put it mildly. Attended by film critics, some of the first ravings of the sequel included: “the perfect blockbuster”, “a total banger” and “a masterful adrenaline rush”.
Looking at the trailer, which is out now (below) it is clear to see where some of the excitement is coming from. The photography in the action sequences has a realistic feel that, when using the original film from 1986 as a reference, clearly shows an amazing upgrade. On a big screen at CinemaCon these sequences must have been amazing.
There’s also the sense that the storyline used Tom Cruise’s age in a clever way, turning it into an advantage throughout, and , as a result, turning the film into a sympathetic one for anyone older than 25 (most reviewers, in other words).
Finally, one has to wonder if the current situation in Ukraine, with the same enemy from the ‘Top Gun’ in 1986 – MiG-28s fighters from Russia (Soviet Union) played a role in the excited reactions in any way?
Not having seen the entire film, without any spoiler alerts, there could be an emotional connection with the sad and scary enemy that invaded Ukraine and the projected heroic power and potential of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, to counter that threat, were they to be real.
Please take this with a grain of salt, it could be way off base. But one thing is certain – the critics who’s reactions are already out there are wildly positive on the film and are predicting that it will be a huge memorial weekend hit, just for starters.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK is the perfect blockbuster. Not only did it feature dazzling aerial combat sequences, but I actually cried, it’s that emotional. And call me crazy, but I humbly predict that it WILL land a Best Picture nod next year. It’s not just THAT good, it’s VERY good. 😉
Yes. So much yes. #TopGunMaverick is a masterful adrenaline rush. Tom Cruise is our greatest movie star. This delivers EVERYTHING you want in a blockbuster. Aerial scenes are jaw dropping. Character work is fantastic. Pure action with massive heart. A must see! pic.twitter.com/c8WvoInUze
The film shows “Maverick” still pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot. The official plot synopsis says “Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.”
More than 30 years since the original 1986 action drama “Top Gun” has been released, the sequel starring Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell played by the one-and-only Tom Cruise is coming to the big screen .
Val Kilmer and Jennifer Connelly, also original actors from the first film, return as well. Additionally some new characters will be introduced which will be played by: Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Monica Barbara and Glen Powell.
“Top Gun: Maverick” will be held for theatrical release starting May 27 and will most likely have streaming capabilities on Paramount+ following its theatrical run time.
The award-winning documentary titled YOUTH v GOV premiered globally on the streaming platform Netflix Friday as the youth plaintiffs featured in the film await a decision that could put their historic climate lawsuit on a path to trial.
“In under two hours, you get an inside look at nearly seven years of Juliana v. United States,” said Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel at Our Children’s Trust, in a statement about the independent film. “And it’s not over. We are determined to get to trial because our young clients deserve to take the stand and have their evidence heard by a judge.”
The documentary—directed by scientist and filmmaker Christi Cooper—focuses on the federal suit filed in 2015 and its 21 plaintiffs. The Our Children’s Trust legal team, which represents the young people, argues that by contributing to the climate emergency, the U.S. government is violating their clients’ constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, and failing to protect essential public trust resources.
Shortly after settlement negotiations between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and attorneys for the Juliana youth ended without resolution last November, federal lawmakers and advocacy groups sent President Joe Biden and other leaders in his administration letters in support of the plaintiffs.
“The question now is whether the Biden administration will keep fighting tooth and nail to keep them silenced, and whether our courts will stand up for their constitutional rights,” Olson said Friday. “After 50 years of the government—both Democrats and Republicans—knowingly making the climate crisis worse, I’m not betting on partisan politics. But I do have faith in the judiciary.”
The plaintiffs—now ages 14 to 26—are waiting for a court to rule on a motion to amend their complaint, which could put the case on track for a trial.
Take a peek at the stories of the youth who sued the U.S. government through a campaign supported by @youthvgov and WITNESS!
Since talks with the DOJ concluded, climate scientists have reiterated warnings about the need for systemic changes on a global scale, Congress has failed to pass a package containing key climate measures, and Biden has facedcriticism for not taking executive action to address the planetary emergency.
“I think for a lot of young people right now, life is really scary, because we’ve never seen a moment like this in history, and our feelings about our life and our future [are] all because of choices that we had no participation in,” says 26-year-old Kelsey Juliana—the named plaintiff in the case—during the first two minutes of the film.
“And so the plaintiffs joined this case,” Juliana adds, “because we all know who’s to blame and what needs to be done.”
The Netflix release of the film—which has won over two dozen awards at film festivals worldwide—was met with excitement by climate action advocates.
“Put this on your must watch list this weekend!” tweeted the Wisconsin Environmental Health Network. “Let’s get this important documentary into Netflix’s trending now category!”
Noting that one of the plaintiffs—21-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Martinez—is based in Boulder, Matt Benjamin, a member of the Colorado city’s council, also highlighted the doc on Twitter.
“Make sure to check out this film streaming tonight on Netflix,” he said. “It’s inspirational. It’s emotional. It fills me with hope that our younger generations will take control of their future.”
Originally published on Common Dreams and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
For 50 years warnings have been ignored: now it will be actions and solutions that matter
As a child I was fascinated with the Geodesic Dome and other inventions, such as the Dymaxion Car by R. Buckminster Fuller. I devoured his books but one stood out in particular. ‘Utopia or Oblivion‘, an obscure title that was difficult to read due to the pregnant prose and the seemingly overwrought message ( and title), the text shocked my young mind.
Originally published in 1963, decades before my birth, is is now nearly 60 years since it came out. What was shocking to me, at the time I first read it, was that the warnings in the book, made abundantly and overtly clear in the title and body, were not heeded, and that basically after decades passed the issue of fossil fuels being a non-sustainable resource was virtually ignored, with prejudice.
In 1963 the ozone layer was for all practical purposes still intact. Climate change, and / or global warming, caused by massive carbon emissions and the whole nasty, familiar story of today, was not even a consideration.
It was enough to know, unequivocally, that oil and other fossil fuels were a finite resource, and therefore will one day run out, that made it imperative, according to Fuller, to begin the necessary journey to building a world without them.
A book written by a genius, scientist, innovator and sage
This book ‘did the math’ and the science and concluded that humankind (still called mankind in those days) would have two fates possible in the next century (our century, f.y.i.): Utopia or Oblivion. To understand why this is absolutely right, in my opinion, I recommend reading the 448 pages of the book, 8 times, as I have.
In the many years since I first read this, now 59 year old book, the only thing that has changed is that his predictions of a world where humanity would face extinction (or be rescued by the realization that utopia is possible once we, as a species, make it possible) are now more definitely certain than ever.
Elon Musk, someone who would likely agree with much of the science in the book, is trying to get the “light of human consciousness‘ to Mars, since Earth’s survival hangs in the balance.
In the years since the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) was released, scores of scientists and world leaders have repeatedly warned of the increasing dangers, with actual occurrences and measurements producing evidence, mountains of evidence month by month. It has reached a point where, even in the USA which has the highest percentage of climate change skeptics, over 70% of the population, nevertheless, believes the threat is serious, important, and real.
Image: SAP/Qualtrics
Finally, nearly 60 years after R. Buckminster Fuller’s seminal work, there is a consensus in the world that this is a problem that must be solved.
Not something to debate or consider. Nothing to prove or produce evidence of in order to justify acting on, we all believe (as a majority) that the solutions must be found and the actions needed to implement those chances must be started immediately.
Some of us, for example anyone who read ‘Utopia or Oblivion’ during the last 59 years, or anyone who ‘did the math’ and understood that oil and fossil fuels are not, and never were, meant to be a permeant source of energy for humanity, are ready to act.
Therefore, this article, and many more you will have the opportunity to read in celebration of Earth Day 2022, is designed to invite you to act now, if only by reading and learning about the challenges we face.
And then, armed with knowledge and understanding, to begin today, on 04-22-2022, the first day of a new era in human history, the beginning of transition to the sustainable, clean energy era. Utopia, then must be achieved, in order to prevent Oblivion.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW‘S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALISTA major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half-billion years, there have been Five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In prose that is at once frank, entertaining, and deeply informed, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Interweaving research in half a dozen disciplines, descriptions of the fascinating species that have already been lost, and the history of extinction as a concept, Kolbert provides a moving and comprehensive account of the disappearances occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind’s most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER – In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical–and accessible–plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet’s slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations.
Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions–suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability–at the level of literature, history, and politics–to grasp the scale and violence of climate change. The extreme nature of today’s climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres.
In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counterintuitive elements. Ghosh ends by suggesting that politics, much like literature, has become a matter of personal moral reckoning rather than an arena of collective action. But to limit fiction and politics to individual moral adventure comes at a great cost. The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence–a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer’s summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.
No Planet B: A Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis
An urgent call for climate justice from Teen Vogue, one of this generation’s leading voices, using an intersectional lens – with critical feminist, indigenous, antiracist and internationalist perspectives. As the political classes watch our world burn, a new movement of young people is rising to meet the challenge of climate catastrophe. This book is a guide, a toolkit, a warning and a cause for hope.
I hope that this book embodies Teen Vogue’s motto of making young people feel seen and heard all over the world. I hope that it forces their parents, communities, loved ones, friends, and–most importantly–those in power to see that the health of our planet depends on how quickly and drastically we change our behaviors. I hope it forces them all to respond. –From the foreword by Teen Vogue editor-in-chief, Lindsay Peoples Wagner
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”–Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon
With a new afterwordIt is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible–food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (TheGuardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it–the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation–today’s. Praise for The Uninhabitable Earth“The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”–Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times
Tend to your inner Green Thumb with these Great Reads
It’s never a bad time to try your hand in gardening. Now is actually the perfect time, spring, to get your hands in the dirt, whether it be to spruce up your garden in the way of planting flowers or growing your own produce.
Being outdoors and gardening is both peaceful and can be meditative, as well as a form of exercise. If you are new to the trade, gardening can be a bit of a learning process, from figuring out what are the essential tools you need and seeds to get, as well as any other supplies. So what better way to help and guide you than some gardening “bible” books, below we’ve chosen some of the best titles to get you started on your outdoor adventure.
Create the flower garden of your dreams. This comprehensive guide includes expert advice on everything from choosing an appropriate growing site to maximizing the lifespan of your plants.
Charming illustrations and photographs accompany helpful tips on how to improve soil, fight off pests, and make all your flowers bloom with radiant color.
Whether you’re a beginning gardener or a seasoned florist, The Flower Gardener’s Bible is a useful resource that will help you keep your garden healthy and beautiful for years to come.
From the beginning God made a garden, so it’s no surprise if you feel closer to Him with your hands in the dirt and the sun on your back. There is something profoundly soul-satisfying about creating and cultivating beauty. If you long to experience more splendor in your life, you can grow some of your very own.
Join kindred spirit Christie Purifoy as she helps you unearth the simple delights of growing garden flowers, from preparing and planning to creating beautiful bouquets and other arrangements.
Lavishly photographed and lovingly written, this all-seasons guide invites you to discover the innumerable joys and wonders to be found in the flower garden.
Smith’s legendary high-yield gardening method emphasizes wide rows, organic methods, raised beds, and deep soil.
Succeed with fussy plants, try new and unusual varieties, and learn how to innovatively extend your growing season.
With thorough profiles of hundreds of popular varieties, The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible provides expert information and an inspiring roadmap for gardeners of all skill levels to enjoy abundant homegrown vegetables.
Choosing perennials for a garden can be a daunting task, considering that there are thousands of choices. Yarrow? Columbine? Aster? To make the selection easier, this guide profiles the easiest-to-grow and best-performing perennials for both sunny and shady locations.
Each plant is shown in a beautiful color photo for easy identification. The photo is accompanied by information on where and how to grow the featured plant, along with horticultural tips to assist in making the perennial-gardening adventure an enjoyable endeavor. From controlling pesky bugs and deadheading to staking tall plants and taking root cuttings, everything a beginning gardener or new homeowner needs to start a garden is here. This colorful, photo-filled book takes the guesswork out of gardening. No trial and error–get it right the first time!
In Rodale’s Basic Organic Gardening by Deborah L. Martin, general garden-building skills (from Do I need to dig? to Where do I dig?) and specific techniques (from How do I plant a seed? to How much should I water?) are presented in growing-season order–from garden planning and planting to growing and harvesting.
Many other need-to-know topics like soil, compost, seeds, pest control, and weeds are explained in simple language to ensure success, even on a small scale, on the first try. More than 100 common garden terms are defined, and Smart Starts sidebars offer doable projects to build confidence and enthusiasm for expanding a garden when a gardener is ready. A flower, vegetable, and herb finder highlights easycare plants with good track records. Plus, there are no-dig garden methods, simple garden layouts, and many more tips and hints.
“The Northman” is a bloody Scandinavian Viking’s tale of revenge. The film follows Prince Amleth (played by Alexander Skarsgård) who vows to avenge his father’s death at the hands of his uncle.
While, perhaps, not everyone waits with baited breath for the next bloody Viking saga, this particular outing might have a shot at a wider audience due to the elevated filmmaking and stunning visuals.
The trailer (below) will give you a taste of this, and based on how you feel once having viewed it you may have a better idea of why you might want to visit a theater (later this month, only in theaters) to get the full treatment.
Along with Skarsgård comes a hard-hitting cast including: Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hake (plays King Aurvandil), Anya Taylor-Joy, Claes Bang and William Dafoe (witch).
Reviews for the film, directed by Robert Egger, are coming out now, since the theatrical release of the film will hit screens at the end of the month. Rotten Tomatoes calls it “bold, unflinching and visually breathtaking”. Eggers is known for the historical fables / period setting pieces that push the genre, such as in his previous films, for example, “The Lighthouse” and “The Witch”.
“The Northman” is set for theatrical release starting April 22.
In the event you haven’t heard, the Slough House Thrillers (inspired by the book set) is now an Apple TV+ Original series titled after Book #1: “Slow Horses“. The series stars Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.
The British mystery/thriller novelist, Mick Herron is responsible for the 8 book Slough Houses series that tells the story of MI5 “Misfits”. His last book “Bad Actors” is available for pre-order and will be released in May 2022.
As is the case with many television series, inspiration comes from reading a book. If you want to start from the beginning, we have provided the book order to read, I greatly enjoy reading a book first and comparing how stacks up when adapted to the screen. And if you get hooked into the TV series, you have 7 more novels to keep you nice and entertained until Season 2 comes about!
London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle–not unusual in this line of work.
One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another. When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be?
The disgruntled agents of Slough House, the MI5 branch where washed-up spies are sent to finish their failed careers on desk duty, are called into action to protect a visiting Russian oligarch whom MI5 hopes to recruit to British intelligence. While two agents are dispatched on that babysitting job, though, an old Cold War-era spy named Dickie Bow is found dead, ostensibly of a heart attack, on a bus outside of Oxford, far from his usual haunts. But the head of Slough House, the irascible Jackson Lamb, is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered.
As the agents dig into their fallen comrade’s circumstances, they uncover a shadowy tangle of ancient Cold War secrets that seem to lead back to a man named Alexander Popov, who is either a Soviet bogeyman or the most dangerous man in the world. How many more people will have to die to keep those secrets buried?
Real Tigers
Click photo for more on “Real Tigers” on Bookshop.
London: Slough House is the MI5 branch where disgraced operatives are reassigned after they’ve messed up too badly to be trusted with real intelligence work. The “Slow Horses,” as the failed spies of Slough House are called, are doomed to spend the rest of their careers pushing paper, but they all want back in on the action.
When one of their own is kidnapped and held for ransom, the agents of Slough House must defeat the odds, overturning all expectations of their competence, to breach the top-notch security of MI5’s intelligence headquarters, Regent’s Park, and steal valuable intel in exchange for their comrade’s safety. The kidnapping is only the tip of the iceberg, however–the agents uncover a larger web of intrigue that involves not only a group of private mercenaries but the highest authorities in the Secret Service. After years spent as the lowest on the totem pole, the Slow Horses suddenly find themselves caught in the midst of a conspiracy that threatens not only the future of Slough House, but of MI5 itself.
Spook Street
Click photo for more on”Spook Street” on Bookshop.
These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War-era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must figure out answers to now that the spy who raised him has started to forget to wear pants.
But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about. A bomb has detonated in the middle of a busy shopping center and killed forty innocent civilians. The “slow horses” of Slough House must figure out who is behind this act of terror before the situation escalates.
London Rules
Click photo for more on “London Rules” on Bookshop.
At MI5 headquarters Regent’s Park, First Desk Claude Whelan is learning the ropes the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he’s facing attack from all directions: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote, and now has his sights set on Number Ten; from the showboat’s wife, a tabloid columnist, who’s crucifying Whelan in print; from the PM’s favorite Muslim, who’s about to be elected mayor of the West Midlands, despite the dark secret he’s hiding; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who’s alert for Claude’s every stumble.
Meanwhile, the country’s being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks. Over at Slough House, the MI5 satellite office for outcast and demoted spies, the agents are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. Plus someone is trying to kill Roddy Ho. But collectively, they’re about to rediscover their greatest strength–that of making a bad situation much, much worse.
In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced MI5 spies, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him an outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.
Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . . And with winter taking its grip, Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible for killing a slow horse breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.
Slough House
Click photo for more on “Slough House” on Bookshop.
At Slough House–MI5’s London depository for demoted spies–Brexit has taken a toll. The “slow horses” have been pushed further into the cold, Slough House has been erased from official records, and its members are dying in unusual circumstances, at an unusual clip. No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew is feeling paranoid. But are they actually targets? With a new populist movement taking hold of London’s streets and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bidder, the world’s a dangerous place for those deemed surplus. Jackson Lamb and the slow horses are in a fight for their lives as they navigate dizzying layers of lies, power, and death.
In London’s MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster–a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate–has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect.
Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last? Meanwhile, her Russian counterpart, Moscow intelligence’s First Desk, has cheekily showed up in London and shaken off his escort. Are the two unfortunate events connected? Over at Slough House, where Jackson Lamb presides over some of MI5’s most embittered demoted agents, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . . There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.
The renowned American philosopher, historian and social critic, Noam Chomsky, has been a free-thinker almost all his life and has written books challenging the many ways society has programed us to think and believe. Chomsky is among one of the most cited living authors across the globe.
Growing up in a politically active household, he learned from an early age the concepts of politics and anarchism. By age 10 he had written an essay on fascism and by 16 years old he was studying philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. And although he has contributed greatly to the field of linguistics, below are some title, which are among the best and noteworthy books to read on politics, war and media.
For fifty years, Noam Chomsky’s writings on politics and language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as one of the most original and wide-ranging social critics of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the past century, since the 1960s Chomsky has also secured a place as perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States.
Chomsky’s many bestselling works–including Manufacturing Consent, Hegemony or Survival, Understanding Power, and Failed States–have served as essential touchstones for dissidents, activists, scholars, and concerned citizens on subjects ranging from the media to human rights to intellectual freedom. His scathing critiques of the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Central America, and the Middle East have been the intellectual inspiration for antiwar movements over nearly five decades. As the political landscape has changed over the course of Chomsky’s life, he has remained a steadfast voice on the left, never wavering in his convictions and always questioning entrenched power.
The Essential Chomsky assembles the core of his most important writings, including excerpts from his most influential texts. Here is an unprecedented, comprehensive overview of Chomsky’s thought.
On Anarchism
Click photo for more on “On Anarchism” on Bookshop
With the specter of anarchy being invoked by the Right to sow fear, a cogent explanation of the political philosophy known as anarchism has never been more urgently needed. In On Anarchism, radical linguist, philosopher, and activist Noam Chomsky provides it. Known for his brilliant evisceration of American foreign policy, state capitalism, and the mainstream media, Chomsky remains a formidable and unapologetic critic of established authority and perhaps the world’s most famous anarchist.
On Anarchism sheds a much-needed light on the foundations of Chomsky’s thought, specifically his constant questioning of the legitimacy of entrenched power. The book gathers his essays and interviews to provide a short, accessible introduction to his distinctively optimistic brand of anarchism. Chomsky eloquently refutes the notion of anarchism as a fixed idea, suggesting that it is part of a living, evolving tradition, and he disputes the traditional fault lines between anarchism and socialism, emphasizing the power of collective, rather than individualist, action.
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
Noam Chomsky’s backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control begins by asserting two models of democracy–one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky, propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state, and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States.
From an examination of how Woodrow Wilson’s Creel Commission succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population, to Bush Sr.’s war on Iraq, Chomsky examines how the mass media and public relations industries have been used as propaganda to generate public support for going to war. Chomsky further touches on how the modern public relations industry has been influenced by Walter Lippmann’s theory of spectator democracy, in which the public is seen as a bewildered herd that needs to be directed, not empowered; and how the public relations industry in the United States focuses on controlling the public mind, and not on informing it. Media Control is an invaluable primer on the secret workings of disinformation in democratic societies.
Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance
An immediate national bestseller, Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing-as in the Cuban missile crisis-to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks.
World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species. With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government’s aggressive pursuit of full spectrum dominance and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today’s most influential thinkers.
n an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky examines the way that the United States, despite the rise of Europe and Asia, still largely sets the terms of global discourse. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the sordid history of U.S. involvement with Cuba to the sanctions on Iran, he details how America’s rhetoric of freedom and human rights so often diverges from its actions.
He delves deep into the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel-Palestine, providing unexpected and nuanced insights into the workings of imperial power on our increasingly chaotic planet. And, in a new afterword, he addresses the election of Donald Trump and what it shows about American society. Fierce, unsparing, and meticulously documented, Who Rules the World? delivers the indispensable understanding of the central issues of our time that we have come to expect from Chomsky.
Get ready for Jimmy McGill’s transition into the iconic crooked criminal lawyer – Saul Goodman (played by the one and only Bob Odenkirk). The plot details have been kept hush hush so far, but below is what we do know about the official plot synopsis as of publication of this post:
“From the cartel to the courthouse, from Albuquerque to Omaha, season six tracks Jimmy, Saul and Gene as well as Jimmy’s complex relationship with Kim, who is in the midst of her own existential crisis. Meanwhile, Mike, Gus, Nacho and Lalo are locked into a game of cat and mouse with mortal stakes”.
It has also been confirmed that the farewell season of “Better Call Saul” which is the prequel for “Breaking Bad” will, wait for it!, absolutely feature appearances from both Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).
The announcement broke at the PaleyFest LA during a panel discussion with co-creators Peter Gould and Vince Galligan.
The first 5 seasons are, as before, available to watch on AMC+ and Netflix if you want to catch up or even start binge-watching before the final season airs.
The final season of “Better Call Saul” premieres on AMC on Monday April 18 starting at 9 P.M. ET/PT.
Sean 6 is set to be split into 2 parts; the first 7 episodes starting the 18th weekly and then the final 6 episodes will begin July 11th.
We do not know who first started applying mathematics to scientific study, but it is plausible that it was the Babylonians, who used it to discover the pattern underlying eclipses, nearly 3,000 years ago. But it took 2,500 years and the invention of calculus and Newtonian physics to explain the patterns. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rx-5dCXx1SI?wmode=transparent&start=0 Science Magazine looks at Babylonian clay tablets that contained mathematical formulas that are a precursor to calculus.
Since then, probably every single major scientific discovery has used mathematics in some form, simply because it is far more powerful than any other human language. It is not surprising that this has led many people to claim that mathematics is much more: that the universe is created by a mathematician.
So could we imagine a universe in which mathematics does not work?
The language of mathematics
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserts that you cannot discuss a concept unless you have the language to describe it.
In any science, and physics in particular, we need to describe concepts that do not map well on to any human language. One can describe an electron, but the moment we start asking questions like “What colour is it?” we start to realize the inadequacies of English.
The colour of an object depends on the wavelengths of light reflected by it, so an electron has no colour, or more accurately, all colours. The question itself is meaningless. But ask “How does an electron behave?” and the answer is, in principle, simple. In 1928, Paul A.M. Dirac wrote down an equation that describes the behaviour of an electron almost perfectly under all circumstances. This does not mean it is simple when we look at the details.
For example, an electron behaves as a tiny magnet. The magnitude can be calculated, but the calculation is horrendously complicated. Explaining an aurora, for example, requires us to understand orbital mechanics, magnetic fields and atomic physics, but at heart, these are just more mathematics.
But it is when we think of the individual that we realize that a human commitment to logical, mathematical thinking goes much deeper. The decision to overtake a slow-moving car does not involve the explicit integration of the equations of motion, but we certainly do it implicitly. A Tesla on autopilot will actually solve them explicitly.
When overtaking a car, a Tesla will explicitly calculate what a human driver processes implicitly. (Shutterstock)
Predicting chaos
So we really should not be surprised that mathematics is not just a language for describing the external world, but in many ways the only one. But just because something can be described mathematically does not mean it can be predicted.
One of the more remarkable discoveries of the last 50 years has been the discovery of “chaotic systems.” These can be apparently simple mathematical systems that cannot be solved precisely. It turns out that many systems are chaotic in this sense. Hurricane tracks in the Caribbean are superficially similar to eclipse tracks, but we cannot predict them precisely with all the power of modern computers.
However, we understand why: the equations that describe weather are intrinsically chaotic, so we can make accurate predictions in the short term, (about 24 hours), but these become increasingly unreliable over days. Similarly, quantum mechanics provides a theory where we know precisely what predictions cannot be made precisely. One can calculate the properties of an electron very accurately, but we cannot predict what an individual one will do.
Hurricanes are obviously intermittent events, and we cannot predict when one will happen in advance. But the mere fact that we cannot predict an event precisely does not mean we cannot describe it when it happens. We can even handle one-off events: it is generally accepted that the universe was created in the Big Bang and we have a remarkably precise theory of that.
Designing social systems
A whole host of social phenomena, from the stock market to revolutions, lack good predictive mathematics, but we can describe what has happened and to some extent construct model systems.
So how about personal relationships? Love may be blind, but relationships are certainly predictable. The vast majority of us choose partners inside our social class and linguistic group, so there is absolutely no doubt that is true in the statistical sense.
But it is also true in the local sense. A host of dating sites make their money by algorithms that at least make some pretence at matching you to your ideal mate. In a TED talk, futurist Amy Webb shows that mathematics actually works in dating algorithms.
A universe that could not be described mathematically would need to be fundamentally irrational and not merely unpredictable. Just because a theory is implausible does not mean we could not describe it mathematically.
But I do not think we live in that universe, and I suspect we cannot imagine a non-mathematical universe.
The United States has become a nation divided over importantissues in K-12 education, including which books students should be able to read in public school.
Efforts to ban books from school curricula, remove books from libraries and keep lists of books that some find inappropriate for students are increasing as Americans become more polarized in their views.
These types of actions are being called “book banning.” They are also often labeled “censorship.”
But the concept of censorship, as well as legal protections against it, are often highly misunderstood. A 2021 campaign ad for Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin focuses on a book with what one mother claimed was “explicit material.”
Book banning by the political right and left
On the right side of the political spectrum, where much of the book banning is happening, bans are taking the form of school boards’ removing books from class curricula.
Politicians have also proposed legislation banning books that are what some legislators and parents consider too mature for school-age readers, such as “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which explores queer themes and topics of consent. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s classic “The Bluest Eye,” which includes themes of rape and incest, is also a frequent target.
In some cases, politicians have proposed criminal prosecutions of librarians in public schools and libraries for keeping such books in circulation.
There are also some attempts on the political left to engage in book banning as well as removal from school curricula of books that marginalize minorities or use racially insensitive language, like the popular “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Defining censorship
Whether any of these efforts are unconstitutional censorship is a complex question.
The First Amendment protects individuals against the government’s “abridging the freedom of speech.” However, government actions that some may deem censorship – especially as related to schools – are not always neatly classified as constitutional or unconstitutional, because “censorship” is a colloquial term, not a legal term.
Some principles can illuminate whether and when book banning is unconstitutional.
For example, if the government tries to forbid certain types of protests solely based on the viewpoint of the protesters, that is an unconstitutional restriction on speech. The government cannot create laws or allow lawsuits that keep you from having particular books on your bookshelf, unless the substance of those books fits into a narrowly defined unprotected category of speech such as obscenity or libel. And even these unprotected categories are defined in precise ways that are still very protective of speech.
The government, however, may enact reasonable regulations that restrict the “time, place or manner” of your speech, but generally it has to do so in ways that are content- and viewpoint-neutral. The government thus cannot restrict an individual’s ability to produce or listen to speech based on the topic of the speech or the ultimate opinions expressed.
And if the government does try to restrict speech in these ways, it likely constitutes unconstitutional censorship.
What’s not unconstitutional
In contrast, when private individuals, companies and organizations create policies or engage in activities that suppress people’s ability to speak, these private actions don’t violate the Constitution.
A school board in Tennessee in February 2022 ordered the removal of the award-winning 1986 graphic novel on the Holocaust, ‘Maus,’ by Art Spiegelman, from local student libraries.
The Constitution’s general theory of liberty considers freedom in the context of government restraint or prohibition. Only the government has a monopoly on the use of force that compels citizens to act in one way or another. In contrast, if private companies or organizations chill speech, other private companies can experiment with different policies that allow people more choices to speak or act freely.
Still, private action can have a major impact on a person’s ability to speak freely and the production and dissemination of ideas. For example, book burning or the actions of private universities in punishing faculty for sharing unpopular ideas thwarts free discussion and unfettered creation of ideas and knowledge.
When schools can ‘ban’ books
It’s hard to definitively say whether the current incidents of book banning in schools are constitutional – or not. The reason: Decisions made in public schools are analyzed by the courts differently than censorship in nongovernment contexts.
Control over public education, in the words of the Supreme Court, is for the most part given to “state and local authorities.” The government has the power to determine what is appropriate for students and thus the curriculum at their school.
However, students retain some First Amendment rights: Public schools may not censor students’ speech, either on or off campus, unless it is causing a “substantial disruption.”
But officials may exercise control over the curriculum of a school without trampling on students’ or K-12 educators’ free speech rights.
There are exceptions to government’s power over school curriculum: The Supreme Court ruled, for example, that a state law banning a teacher from covering the topic of evolution was unconstitutional because it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the state from endorsing a particular religion.
School boards and state legislators generally have the final say over what curriculum schools teach. Unless states’ policies violate some other provision of the Constitution – perhaps the protection against certain kinds of discrimination – they are generally constitutionally permissible.
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Schools, with finite resources, also have discretion to determine which books to add to their libraries. However, several members of the Supreme Court have written that removal is constitutionally permitted only if it is done based on the educational appropriateness of the book, but not because it was intended to deny students access to books with which school officials disagree.
Book banning is not a new problem in this country – nor is vigorous public criticism of such moves. And even though the government has discretion to control what’s taught in school, the First Amendment ensures the right of free speech to those who want to protest what’s happening in schools.
One of the most fascinating topics related to the control of the american west in the 1800s is that of Quanah Parker, the greatest chief of the Comanches. While other tribal names Apache, Souix, Cherokee, may have a rightful and important place in that historical time, and in our minds as a result, it’s the remarkable narratives of the rise and fall of the Comanches that stand out as truly unique.
In books like the renown ‘Empire of the Summer Moon‘ , and others, it is the Comanche band of plains Indians, and in particular the last Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, that captivate and regale us to this day. The legendary fighting ability of the Comanches is well documented, of course, in both fiction and non-fiction books.
While in feature films there may have been some stereotyping of the Comanche warriors, we can get a more nuanced and accurate view by looking into history books and nonfiction books that depict the old west in a more detailed way.
Another great story thread from that era that is also chronicled in Empire of the Summer Moon is that of the sweeping narrative of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who was destined to be the last and greatest Comanche chief.
Empire of the Summer Moonspans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history.
The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, A New York Times Notable Book, Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award
Truly distinguished. Neeley re-creates the character and achievements of this most significant of all Comanche leaders. — Robert M. Utley author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull A vivid, eyewitness account of life for settlers and Native Americans in those violent and difficult times.
— Christian Science Monitor The special merits of Neeley’s work include its reliance on primary sources and illuminating descriptions of interactions among Southern Plains people, Native and white. — Library Journal He has given us a fuller and clearer portrait of this extraordinary Lord of the South Plains than we’ve ever had before. — The Dallas Morning News
In 1845, a son was born to a white mother and a Comanche Indian father. This child, named Quanah for the flower-filled valley of his birth, was to become one of the greatest Comanche chiefs ever to have lived.
As a young chief, Quanah was determined to fight the encroachment of pioneers onto Indian lands. His tribe became the most feared on the Great South Plains as they fought the invading Americans. The brave chief fought many bloody battles to keep his people free to live the life they were accustomed to before the arrival of the white man. Finally, after continued attacks by the settlers and the army, Quanah was forced to bring his people to the reservation by the severe lack of food, clothing, and housing that had been brought about by the senseless slaughter of the buffalo herds. He was the last Indian chief to surrender.
The son of white captive Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker rose from able warrior to tribal leader on the Comanche reservation. Between 1875 and his death in 1911, Quanah dealt with local Indian agents and with presidents and other high officials in Washington, facing the classic dilemma of a leader caught between the dictates of an occupying power and the wrenching physical and spiritual needs of his people.
He maintained a remarkable blend of progressive and traditional beliefs, and contrary to government policy, he practiced polygamy and the peyote religion. In this crisp and readable biography, William T Hagan presents a well-balanced portrait of Quanah Parker, the chief, and Quanah, the man torn between two worlds.
If you prefer to explore “Quanah Parker” at Amazon, links are provided below:
Two new Marvel heroes have been brought to the big and small screens that may be quite new to many people. The first is the titular character in the Disney+ series Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac, which is set in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe. The other is Morbius, an unlucky vampiric doctor, played by Jared Leto, who is the newest villain-turned-good-ish guy in the Sony Spider-Man Universe to get a film, after Venom.
These are stories featuring violent male anti-heroes – who are also characters fairly unknown to the general public. When the first Venom was released, The Hollywood Reporter noted: “The MCU makes it easy to be a Marvel fan without having ever read the source material”.
Morbius has not fared so well, bringing in the lowest box office numbers compared to its Spider-Man counterparts. Critics suggest that this might be due to the character’s “relative obscurity”. On the other hand, Moon Knight has garnered good reviews.
Like it or not, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is expanding and there are a whole host of new heroes making their way from the more obscure corners of the comic universe onto the screen. Here are five such characters who will be headlining new films and TV series as part of numerous forthcoming Marvel projects, from Disney’s Marvel Studios, and Sony.
1. Ms Marvel
The world’s first female, teen, Muslim superhero, Ms Marvel received a lot of praise when she made her debut in 2013 in a Captain marvel comic. Critics praised the character as a positive representation of a young Pakistani American woman who is also Muslim. This outing was so successful, the teen got her own comic the following year. She will also officially be joining Marvel’s Cinematic Universe in June 2022 with her own series on Disney+. https://www.youtube.com/embed/m9EX0f6V11Y?wmode=transparent&start=0
The series revolves around a young woman called Kamala Khan, who is a is a huge fan of superheroes. When she mysteriously gets powers, Khan is inspired by Captain Marvel to become a hero herself. Ms Marvel will be appearing alongside Captain Marvel and Photon in the 2023 film The Marvels.
Werewolf by Night will be MCU’s first horror outing. Marvel
Following the cinema release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this will be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first horror themed TV show. Featuring the somewhat prosaically named Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night ran for four years in the 1970s, following a relaxation on censorship of horror comics, which allowed for the creation of Marvel’s vampire characters Blade and Morbius in the first half of the decade.
Kraven is the orphaned son of Russian aristocrats with a penchant for hunting big game. While hunting in Africa, he ends up drinking a potion that gives him superhuman strength, speed and the instincts of a jungle cat. Bored of hunting animals he sets his sights on larger prey, Spider-Man.
Kraven first appeared in comics as Spider-Man’s foe in 1964. The maniacal hunter will be the third villain to lead a live-action Spider-Verse film. However, unlike Venom and Morbius before him, Kraven is not known in the comics for performing good deeds, so it will be an interesting challenge for Marvel to make an anti-hero of the artistocrat.
Kraven The Hunter is not a nice guy in the comics but is set to be an anti-hero in his first outing in the Spider-Man Sony universe. Marvel
Kraven rarely appears without Spider-Man in the comics so Sony have set themselves a challenge to flesh out the hunter in a film where his nemesis doesn’t appear. Kraven will be played by Aaron-Taylor Johnson, who is no stranger to a tight suit, having previously played the low-rent superhero Kick Ass in two films.
5. Silk
The first Spider-Man Sony universe TV show will feature Cindy Moon, a female student bitten by the same radioactive spider that gave Spider-Man his abilities. However, unlike Peter Parker who was left to swing around New York and discover his new powers, Moon was kidnapped and held in a bunker for 13 years.
Silk was turned by the same spider as Spider-Man. Marvel/Wikimedia
With Sony’s films only apparently allowing for Spider-Man to be shown or discussed in their end credit scenes, it will be interesting to see how Silk deals with the heroine’s creation without any mention of Spidey – unless given permission by Disney to do so. There has been speculation that Sony may revive Andrew Garfield’s incarnation of the character in the future, so time will tell how Silk proceeds.
I’m not worried that truly valuable art can ever be canceled. Enduring works of literature are enduring, in part, because they are capacious enough to be read critically against the vicissitudes of the present.
After World War II, German critic Theodore Adorno described the Holocaust as a profound blow to Western culture and philosophy, even going so far as to question the very ability of human beings to “live after Auschwitz.”
This idea, born of the very specific context of the Holocaust, shouldn’t be haphazardly applied to the present moment. But following Adorno’s moral lead, I wonder whether – after the brutal shelling of the city of Mariupol, after the horrors on the streets of Bucha, along with atrocities committed in Kharkiv, Mykolaev, Kyiv and many more – the indiscriminate violence ought to change how readers approach Russia’s great authors.
Confronting suffering with clear eyes
Upon learning that Russian writer Ivan Turgenev had looked away at the last minute when witnessing the execution of a man, Dostoevsky made his own position clear: “[A] human being living on the surface of the earth has no right to turn away and ignore what is happening on earth, and there are higher moral imperatives for this.”
Seeing the rubble of a theater in Mariupol, hearing of Mariupol citizens starving because of Russian airstrikes, I wonder what Dostoevsky – who specifically focused his piercing moral eye on the question of the suffering of children in his 1880 novel “The Brothers Karamazov” – would say in response to the Russian army’s bombing a theater where children were sheltering. The word “children” was spelled out on the pavement outside the theater in large type so it could be seen from the sky. There was no misunderstanding of who was there.
Ivan Karamazov, the central protagonist in “The Brothers Karamazov,” is far more focused on questions of moral accountability than Christian acceptance or forgiveness and reconciliation. In conversation, Ivan routinely brings up examples of children’s being harmed, imploring the other characters to recognize the atrocities in their midst. He is determined to seek retribution.
Surely the intentional shelling of children in Mariupol is something Dostoevsky couldn’t possibly look away from either. Could he possibly defend a vision of Russian morality while seeing innocent civilians – men, women and children – lying on the streets of Bucha?
At the same time, nor should readers look away from the unseemliness of Dostoevsky and his sense of Russian exceptionalism. These dogmatic ideas about Russian greatness and Russia’s messianic mission are connected to the broader ideology that has fueled Russia’s past colonial mission, and current Russian foreign politics on violent display in Ukraine.
Yet Dostoevsky was also a great humanist thinker who tied this vision of Russian greatness to Russian suffering and faith. Seeing the spiritual value of human suffering was perhaps a natural outcome for a man sent to a labor camp in Siberia for five years for simply participating in a glorified socialist book club. Dostoevsky grew out of his suffering, but, arguably, not to a place where he could accept state-sponsored terror.
Would an author who, in his 1866 novel “Crime and Punishment,” explains in excruciating detail the toll of murder on the murderer – who explains that when someone takes a life, they kill part of themselves – possibly accept Putin’s vision of Russia? Warts and all, would Russia’s greatest metaphysical rebel have recoiled and rebelled against Russian violence in Ukraine?
No writer captures warfare in Russia more poignantly than Tolstoy, a former soldier turned Russia’s most famous pacifist. In his last work, “Hadji Murat,” which scrutinizes Russia’s colonial exploits in North Caucasus, Tolstoy showed how senseless Russian violence toward a Chechen village caused instant hatred of Russians.
Tolstoy’s greatest work about Russian warfare, “War and Peace,” is a novel that Russians have traditionally read during great wars, including World War II. In “War and Peace,” Tolstoy contends that the morale of the Russian military is the key to victory. The battles most likely to succeed are defensive ones, in which soldiers understand why they are fighting and what they are fighting to protect: their home.
Even then, he’s able to convey the harrowing experiences of young Russian soldiers coming into direct confrontation with the instruments of death and destruction on the battlefield. They disappear into the crowd of their battalion, but even a single loss is devastating for the families awaiting their safe return.
After publishing “War and Peace,” Tolstoy publicly denounced many Russian military campaigns. The last part of his 1878 novel “Anna Karenina” originally wasn’t published because it criticized Russia’s actions in the Russo-Turkish war. Tolstoy’s alter ego in that novel, Konstantin Levin, calls the Russian intervention in the war “murder” and thinks it is inappropriate that Russian people are dragged into it.
“The people sacrifice and are always prepared to sacrifice themselves for their soul, not for murder,” he says.
“Again war,” he wrote. “Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for; again fraud, again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men.” One can almost hear him shouting “Bethink Yourselves,” the title of that essay, to his countrymen now.
In one of his most famous pacifist writings, 1900’s “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” Tolstoy presciently diagnosed the problem of today’s Russia.
“The misery of nations is caused not by particular persons, but by the particular order of Society under which the people are so bound up together that they find themselves all in the power of a few men, or more often in the power of one single man: a man so perverted by his unnatural position as arbiter of the fate and lives of millions, that he is always in an unhealthy state, and always suffers more or less from a mania of self-aggrandizement.”
The importance of action
If Dostoevsky would insist that one not look away, it is fair to say that Tolstoy would contend that people must act upon what they see.
During the Russian famine of 1891 to 1892, he started soup kitchens to help his countrymen who were starving and had been abandoned by the Russian government. He worked to help Russian soldiers evade the draft in the Russian empire, visiting and supporting jailed soldiers who did not wish to fight. In 1899 he sold his last novel, “Resurrection,” to help a Russian Christian sect, the Doukhobors, emigrate to Canada so they would not need to fight in the Russian army.
These writers have little to do with the current war. They cannot expunge or mitigate the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine. But they’re embedded on some level within the Russian cultural fabric, and how their books are still read matters. Not because Russian literature can explain any of what is happening, because it cannot. But because, as Ukrainian writer Serhiy Zhadan wrote in March 2022, Russia’s war in Ukraine marked a defeat for Russia’s great humanist tradition.
As this culture copes with a Russian army that has indiscriminately bombed and massacred Ukrainians, Russia’s great authors can and should be read critically, with one urgent question in mind: how to stop the violence. Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny noted during his March 2022 trial that Tolstoy urged his countrymen to fight both despotism and war because one enables the other.
And Ukrainian artist Alevtina Kakhidze cited “War and Peace” in a February 2022 entry in her graphic diary.
“I’ve read your f—ing literature,” she wrote. “But looks like Putin did not, and you have forgotten.”
Nicolas Cage is an actor and in his next role – which is to say, he also plays as an actor, a fictional one who just-so-happens to go by the name of Nick Cage, yes, extremely meta.
In the film, Cage is an unfulfilled actor that is on the brink of financial ruin (familiar, right?). The actor is propositioned with an offer he can’t refuse, $1 million to attend a super-fan named Javi’s (played by Pedro Pascal) birthday party.
Then things get ever-more-stranger when Cage is approached by a CIA operative (played by Tiffany Haddish) and asked to go on an unusual mission. The trailer is packed with expletives and outrageousness and looks like a buddy slash comedy slash Nick Cage-style action movie. In order to do so, Cage finds himself channeling his most iconic characters (referencing to his real life movies he’s played including: “Face/Off”, “The Rock”, “Leaving Las Vegas” and “The Wicker Man”) he’s played to save himself and those he loves.
The film was met with major praise during the South by Southwest festival (SWSW) and has already generated a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. The action comedy has also attracted major buzz ahead of its theatrical release on April 22.
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