While President Trump declaims that the war in Iran is materially over, he also asks Japan to send warships to the Gulf, something that will take one to three weeks to accomplish in the event that Japan actually sends the ships, something I doubt it will do. The price of gas at the pump is whipsawing—we have observed prices raised 10%, lowered 10%, and raised again at the same stations in the course of a single day. This morning one of the major “talking heads” programs interviewed the Iranian foreign minister, something hard to imagine in war time. Another program had one guest explaining that everything had been planned while the next reported that nothing had been planned for and then showed videos taken on smartphones of people rejoicing over the war in the streets of Tehran.
With the primary elections just two days away everyone is lying, everyone is corrupt, no one is competent to perform the offices to which they are aspiring or likely to accomplish any of the things they’re running on. Ideally, they would all lose.
I am still recovering from watching one of the worst productions of Madama Butterfly I have ever seen, redeemed primarily by a couple of good performances and Puccini’s beautiful music. I’ll post on this in more depth later. On our way to the performance we walked across a bridge over a Chicago River dyed green a few hours earlier. Tonight the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Awards will be televised. One of the movies expected to be a top pick for Best Motion Picture has been characterized by some of those who’ve seen it as the “worst movie they’ve ever seen”. I have seen none of the films nominated and I probably will never see most of them.
It appears inevitable that the Chicago Bears, who’ve played in Chicago since 1921, will leave Chicago.
In the weather today we expect clear, pleasant weather, rain, thunderstorms, “wintry mix”, and snow.
I am surrounded by a swirling kaleidoscope of irrationality.
I neglected to mention something else I found surreal. For the last two days Kiev has experienced one of the most severe Russian bombing campaigns so far this year and it has received very little media coverage here.
The Hammond Bears sounds like a high school team.
I don’t suppose they’d consider renaming to the Hammond Organs?
I enjoyed Sinners, which I imagine is the type of popular genre film that gives certain voters conniptions, but it stands out for its sense of history & place, and music & dance. I wasn’t surprised it didn’t win, and probably some of its supporters probably supported it with words like “representation,” when the movie really can’t be reduced to polemic; the vampires are a bit ambiguous in what they are up to.
IMO Sinners should have won. OBAO will join the list of worst pictures to be awarded Best Picture.
The Kiev bombing is surprising. Trump said he would solve this on day one. Anyway, I predicted this would only last for a few weeks. Trump didnt really set any goals, this is mostly to make Israel happy, so he can just arbitrarily say we have done enough damage whenever he wants. Whenever he stops will be too soon for Israel but I would expect them to convince him to repeat this again sometime before he leaves office.
I watched K-Pop Demon Hunters about 4 times with the kids but didnt see any other nominated movie.
Steve