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Letters from an American – November 11, 2025 – Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American, November 11, 2025
By Heather Cox Richardson, Nov 11, 2025
WP AI image, listening in 1919 to a radio, on Armistice Day…In 1918, at the end of four years of World War I’s devastation, leaders negotiated for the guns in Europe to fall silent once and for all on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was not technically the end of the war, which came with the Treaty of Versailles. Leaders signed that treaty on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand set off the conflict. But the armistice declared on November 11 held, and Armistice Day became popularly known as the day “The Great War,” which killed at least 40 million people, ended.
In November 1919, President Woodrow Wilson commemorated Armistice Day, saying that Americans would reflect on the anniversary of the armistice “with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations….”
But Wilson was disappointed that the soldiers’ sacrifices had not changed the nation’s approach to international affairs. The Senate, under the leadership of Republican Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts—who had been determined to weaken Wilson as soon as the imperatives of the war had fallen away—refused to permit the United States to join the League of Nations, Wilson’s brainchild: a forum for countries to work out their differences with diplomacy, rather than resorting to bloodshed.
On November 10, 1923, just four years after he had established Armistice Day, former President Wilson spoke to the American people over the new medium of radio, giving the nation’s first live, nationwide broadcast.
“The anniversary of Armistice Day should stir us to a great exaltation of spirit,” he said, as Americans remembered that it was their example that had “by those early days of that never to be forgotten November, lifted the nations of the world to the lofty levels of vision and achievement upon which the great war for democracy and right was fought and won.”
But he lamented “the shameful fact that when victory was won,…chiefly by the indomitable spirit and ungrudging sacrifices of our own incomparable soldiers[,] we turned our backs upon our associates and refused to bear any responsible part in the administration of peace, or the firm and permanent establishment of the results of the war—won at so terrible a cost of life and treasure—and withdrew into a sullen and selfish isolation which is deeply ignoble because manifestly cowardly and dishonorable.”
Wilson said that a return to engagement with international affairs was “inevitable”; the U.S. eventually would have to take up its “true part in the affairs of the world.”
Congress didn’t want to hear it. In 1926 it passed a resolution noting that since November 11, 1918, “marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed,” the anniversary of that date “should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
In 1938, Congress made November 11 a legal holiday to be dedicated to world peace.
But neither the “war to end all wars” nor the commemorations of it, ended war.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: November 11, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson
#1918 #1938 #armisticeDay #congress #heatherCoxRichardson #legalHoliday #lettersFromAnAmerican #november11 #theGreatWar #treatyOfVersailles #warToEndAllWars
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CW: Long-ish post comparing twitter and Mastodon
Looking back at my tweets (while deleting them), I have to say there was definitely a different atmosphere there, at least on #SciTwitter, that I miss a bit on #Mastodon. Hard to say exactly what but I’ll try to formulate some aspects below.
I guess the main goal is that replicating these would improve the experience here? Let me know what you think or if you think of any other tweaks that would improve the Mastodon experience!
things seem more smooth on Twitter, technically speaking. For example the scrolling on Twitter is somehow much smoother than on Mastodon. Probably speed but also something else, the way it stops at the right time or keeps scrolling or something?
even visually, the tweets are more compact, so you can see more of them in the same space which helps with parsing more content.
I spent a lot of my time there (twitter) looking back for old tweets and reposting them in a new convo (in a useful way). This is practically impossible to do on Masto without search, hopefully the new search will help with that!
definitely, we used quote tweets a lot and 90% of the time for good things. It is really missing on here.
a lot more “self-promotion” -type posts, which were actually nice to see
a lot more “congratulation”- type posts (of course, following the self-promotion posts), also really nice to see
the threads just look good, ideal size, easy to scroll (again), nice that you can answer to each one separately and it is clear what you are answering to, unlike on Masto (for now).
answers were not spared, and we knew they’d boost the original tweet, so you’d be happy, grateful to get answers.
I was originally against having an algorithm here to show posts (other than the current chronological one), but I am starting to really miss the choice to have it. I know people are working on this on our instance at least and that’s great 😁
people maybe had a higher resistance threshold to criticism, and maybe because answers boost your tweet anyway, you would be more encouraged to engage with all answers. On Twitter you would rarely be left without an answer. On here it seems much more common (even if it’s not a criticism). Sometimes I even wonder if people are properly notified that they got answers to their posts. 🤔
Conclusion: The general impression is that on there (twitter), everything encouraged you to tweet, interact, engage because it was good for the original poster and good for you, and what you were saying was filtered anyway and would not invade others’ timelines. On Masto, there is always a tension before posting. Like a “Is it worth it?” Not exactly sure where it comes from but probably having an algorithm option will help with that, the challenge being to do that without turning Mastodon in the same addictive machine that #Twitter was.
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CW: Republicans Literally Laugh Off Idea of Taxing the Rich to Fix Budget The GOP couldn't care less about average Americans. They say they want to fix the debt, but really just want to stop any programs that don't benefit the wealthiest. Who has benefitted the most in the U.S. over the last few decades, the wealthiest. They can most afford additional taxes. Yet the GOP is not interested in even thinking about that.
The GOP couldn't care less about average Americans. They say they want to fix the debt, but really just want to stop any programs that don't benefit the wealthiest. Who has benefitted the most in the U.S. over the last few decades, the wealthiest. They can most afford additional taxes. Yet the GOP is not interested in even thinking about that.
Nothing could make it clearer that they are the party of the rich and don't govern for the country as a whole, but only for their obscenely wealthy donors. The obscenely wealthy and their puppets, the GOP, are all so selfish, no society could function for long if they were in charge or the majority. They are parasites who aren't even remotely interested in what is good for the majority of the country.
Republicans Literally Laugh Off Idea of Taxing the Rich to Fix Budget | The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/post/172782/republicans-literally-laugh-off-idea-taxing-rich-fix-budget
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#GOPInBedWithTheRich
#GOPIsTheBitchOfTheRich"Republicans have said they want to reduce government spending and increase U.S. revenue—but not if it inconveniences rich people, apparently.
When a reporter asked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy if he would consider raising taxes on wealthy Americans, he answered with a short “No” before the question was even finished. Republicans standing around him groaned and shook their heads. They then began laughing when McCarthy asked where the reporter was earlier.
McCarthy explained that wealth taxes weren’t necessary because the United States has a revenue of 20 percent of gross domestic product, as opposed to 17 percent in previous years. Instead, inflation was due to the Democrats spending $6 trillion after winning the presidential election in 2020.
McCarthy’s statement about revenue is technically true: The U.S. revenues in 2022 totaled 19.6 percent of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared to the annual average of 17.4 percent in the five decades prior. Most of that revenue comes from income taxes.
But raising taxes on the wealthy, even by a little bit, would produce huge amounts of revenue. In 2021, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed charging billionaires a 3 percent wealth tax, and households and trusts worth between $50 million and $1 billion a tax of just 2 percent per year.
This would only apply to a tiny fraction of Americans, but it could produce about $3 trillion in revenue over the next decade, University of Berkeley economists predicted.
In his budget, President Joe Biden proposed increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations and using the revenue to expand health care, childcare assistance, and housing aid. Not only have Republicans fought this plan, but their own budget proposes punishing lower-income Americans to benefit the wealthy.
Republicans’ solution to the debt ceiling crisis is focused on mere pennies in comparison to what a wealth tax would do. The bill calls for work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps, and cash assistance programs—which would barely make a dent in U.S. debt. Work requirements would save the government only about $1 billion per year, according to the CBO, nowhere near how much actually needs to be recouped. And that’s assuming, of course, that such requirements actually work.
The U.S. is just weeks away from defaulting on its debt, but Republicans and Democrats remain at a logjam over how to solve the problem. The GOP seems ready to take it out on the backs of people who can least afford it."
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Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel
“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.socialGood Day, Sky Dancers!
Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go. Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters. The only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable. You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable. I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!” She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer. She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she? She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture. Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first, and her poor puppy.This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.” I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those. She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour. This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.
When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.
The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.
“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.
Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.
“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.
“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”
While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far. We’ve already had children in cages and family separation. We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA. This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”
For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.
I have taught university classes for decades. Finance and Economic policy are inherently political. We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich. We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress. The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students will mean a lack of qualified professors after we old folks retire, which will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.
President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:
- Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
- Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
- Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services
These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:
- $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
- $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
- $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students
Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.
“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.socialThen there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment. Hey! Hey DOJ! How many kids did they kill that day? They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent. But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet. They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,
Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.
Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.
In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”
That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.
Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.
The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”
Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”
But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.
Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.
“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.
“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.
“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”
A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”
“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”
CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.
The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today. “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?” Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare. Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.
It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.
In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.
Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.
Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.
There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless. They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday. The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.” Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.
President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.
A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”
The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.
“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.
Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.
“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”
Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.What’s on your reading and blogging list today?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufw9dVys3t0
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks
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Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel
“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.socialGood Day, Sky Dancers!
Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go. Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters. The only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable. You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable. I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!” She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer. She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she? She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture. Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first, and her poor puppy.This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.” I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those. She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour. This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.
When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.
The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.
“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.
Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.
“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.
“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”
While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far. We’ve already had children in cages and family separation. We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA. This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”
For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.
I have taught university classes for decades. Finance and Economic policy are inherently political. We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich. We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress. The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students will mean a lack of qualified professors after we old folks retire, which will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.
President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:
- Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
- Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
- Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services
These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:
- $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
- $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
- $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students
Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.
“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.socialThen there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment. Hey! Hey DOJ! How many kids did they kill that day? They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent. But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet. They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,
Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.
Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.
In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”
That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.
Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.
The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”
Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”
But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.
Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.
“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.
“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.
“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”
A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”
“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”
CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.
The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today. “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?” Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare. Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.
It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.
In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.
Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.
Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.
There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless. They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday. The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.” Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.
President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.
A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”
The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.
“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.
Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.
“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”
Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.What’s on your reading and blogging list today?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufw9dVys3t0
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks
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Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel
“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.socialGood Day, Sky Dancers!
Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go. Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters, and the only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable. You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable. I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.
Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!” She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer. She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she? She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture. Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first, and her poor puppy.
This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.” I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those. She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour. This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.
When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.
The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.
“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.
Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.
“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.
“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”
While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far. We’ve already had children in cages and family separation. We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA. This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”
For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.
This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.
But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.
The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.
The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.
If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.
Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.
The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.
Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.
Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.
If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.
And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.
I have taught university classes for decades. Finance and Economic policy are inherently political. We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich. We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear that the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress. The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students we will not have teachers after we old folks retire will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.
This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.
President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.
This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.
The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:
- Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
- Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
- Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services
These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:
- $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
- $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
- $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students
Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.
This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.
“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.socialThen there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment. Hey! Hey DOJ! How many kids did they kill that day? They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?
This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent. But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet. They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,
Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.
Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.
In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”
That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.
Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.
The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”
Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”
But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.
Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.
“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.
“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.
“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”
A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”
“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”
CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.
The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.
Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today. “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?” Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare. Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.
It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.
In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.
Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.
Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.
There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.
It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless. They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday. The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.” Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.
President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.
A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”
The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.
An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.
Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.
“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.
Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.
“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”
Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks
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Nasty Savage – Jeopardy Room Review
By Steel Druhm
I did NOT have a brand new Nasty Savage album on my bingo card for 2024, or ever for that matter. I was a big fan in the 80s, finding the belligerent, over-the-top attitude of unhinged frontman/WWF wannabe Nasty Ronnie to be the perfect match for the band’s oddball blend of trad-metal and thrash.1 Their 1985 debut was like a loony hodge-podge of Venom, Manowar, and Mercyful Fate, with the Floridian bruisers trying to settle on the right tone and style. 1987s follow-up Indulgence was a tougher, meaner hombre full of technically precise thrash with proggy accents. 89s Penetration Point took the prog elements and pushed them further to join the wave of bands experimenting with tech-thrash in the late 80s like Watchtower and Toxik. After that the joy ride ended and the band imploded. They reformed to drop a respectable comeback in 2004 and then promptly folded again. An album 20 years later is a big surprise because Nasty Savage never seemed like it was made up of guys destined to live long, healthy lives. Nasty Ronnie was a trailer park psycho living with alligators and the rest of the band was equally sketchy. And yet Jeopardy Room finds Ronnie very much alive and kicking supported by an all-new lineup of unsavory riff-raff.2 What will a Nasty Savage album sound like in the modern age? I was a bit scared to find out, honestly.
After a short intro piece, the title track roars out with a shockingly ageless sound very much in line with their Indulgence era. Fiery caveman thrash is the rotgut of the day with Ronnie grunting and shouting over aggressive riif chaos just like in the olde days. In fact, Ronnie sounds exactly the same, which is crazy. It’s a classic Savage track with the same kind of burly, bullying thrash riffs and concussive force I depended on during gym time in my angry teens. “Brain Washer” is a big dose of low-brow speed that pays big, dumb dividends with Ronnie hysterically shouting “Brainwasher, Brainwasher!!” like an inmate at Arkham Asylum. It also weaves proggy ideas through the thuggish brutality in a way where you don’t even notice them at first. “Witches Sabbath” is a throwback to the debut where they dabbled in Mercyful Fate and King Diamond influences, going for a moody, mysterious atmosphere complete with horror movie keyboards. It’s cheesy and ham-fisted but somehow ends up working and those riffs are pure Sherman/Denner.
Jeopardy Room is a classic Savage album in that it tries to represent all the stages of their too-short career. You get the trad and thrash and prog, but thrashers dominate the day. “Blood Syndicate” hits especially hard toward the album’s conclusion as furious, weighty riffs run wild and Ronnie roars like an enraged silverback as a woman reaches ever closer to climax in the background for whatever reason. Classic Savage. Sure, not every track hits the mark. “Schizoid Platform” tries to balance hog-defiling speed and prog with awkward results, and “Operation Annihilate” is rudimentary idiocy but still fairly entertaining. The overall balance favors the nasty, as most tracks are good with a few rising higher. It’s a motley collection of metal zingers by a real motley crew of ne’er-do-wells and it’s surprisingly spry and energized.
The big surprise here is Mr. Nasty himself. Ronnie sounds like he’s been in cryofreeze since the mid-90s. His husky baritone bellows are still stuffed full of toxic masculinity and goonism and he’s highly effective. He foregoes the King Diamond-esque high-pitched falsettos he employed in the past but I don’t miss them. He’s still a massive presence behind the mic and he can probably still toss a few wimps ass-over-teakettle into the rotpit. New guitarist Dave Orman does an excellent job mimicking the axe styles of original members Ben Meyer and David Austin, which is no easy feat as they always had a very distinct and usual approach. His riffs are thick, razor-sharp, and oppressive with a slightly proggy flare often present even in the most thrash-tastical cuts. He’s slick as shit without departing from the mission statement of kicking poser ass. The whole band is tight and polished, making Olde Man Ronnie sound like an angry 20-something again. Kudos.
I didn’t expect much from Jeopardy Room, but it’s a fun and forceful throwback to the band’s early days of drunken excess and alligator humping. It reeks of 1987, warm beer, and moist BO, which means it smells like Nasty Savage sounds. Give this a loud, angry spin and rock the double-wide. After that, go discover or re-discover their classics and get swole.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: FHM Records
Websites: nastysavage.com | instagram.com/nastysavageband
Releases Worldwide: October 11th, 2024#2024 #30 #AmericanMetal #FHMRecords #HeavyMetal #JeopardyRoom #NastySavage #Oct24 #Review #Reviews #ThrashMetal
-
Nasty Savage – Jeopardy Room Review
By Steel Druhm
I did NOT have a brand new Nasty Savage album on my bingo card for 2024, or ever for that matter. I was a big fan in the 80s, finding the belligerent, over-the-top attitude of unhinged frontman/WWF wannabe Nasty Ronnie to be the perfect match for the band’s oddball blend of trad-metal and thrash.1 Their 1985 debut was like a loony hodge-podge of Venom, Manowar, and Mercyful Fate, with the Floridian bruisers trying to settle on the right tone and style. 1987s follow-up Indulgence was a tougher, meaner hombre full of technically precise thrash with proggy accents. 89s Penetration Point took the prog elements and pushed them further to join the wave of bands experimenting with tech-thrash in the late 80s like Watchtower and Toxik. After that the joy ride ended and the band imploded. They reformed to drop a respectable comeback in 2004 and then promptly folded again. An album 20 years later is a big surprise because Nasty Savage never seemed like it was made up of guys destined to live long, healthy lives. Nasty Ronnie was a trailer park psycho living with alligators and the rest of the band was equally sketchy. And yet Jeopardy Room finds Ronnie very much alive and kicking supported by an all-new lineup of unsavory riff-raff.2 What will a Nasty Savage album sound like in the modern age? I was a bit scared to find out, honestly.
After a short intro piece, the title track roars out with a shockingly ageless sound very much in line with their Indulgence era. Fiery caveman thrash is the rotgut of the day with Ronnie grunting and shouting over aggressive riif chaos just like in the olde days. In fact, Ronnie sounds exactly the same, which is crazy. It’s a classic Savage track with the same kind of burly, bullying thrash riffs and concussive force I depended on during gym time in my angry teens. “Brain Washer” is a big dose of low-brow speed that pays big, dumb dividends with Ronnie hysterically shouting “Brainwasher, Brainwasher!!” like an inmate at Arkham Asylum. It also weaves proggy ideas through the thuggish brutality in a way where you don’t even notice them at first. “Witches Sabbath” is a throwback to the debut where they dabbled in Mercyful Fate and King Diamond influences, going for a moody, mysterious atmosphere complete with horror movie keyboards. It’s cheesy and ham-fisted but somehow ends up working and those riffs are pure Sherman/Denner.
Jeopardy Room is a classic Savage album in that it tries to represent all the stages of their too-short career. You get the trad and thrash and prog, but thrashers dominate the day. “Blood Syndicate” hits especially hard toward the album’s conclusion as furious, weighty riffs run wild and Ronnie roars like an enraged silverback as a woman reaches ever closer to climax in the background for whatever reason. Classic Savage. Sure, not every track hits the mark. “Schizoid Platform” tries to balance hog-defiling speed and prog with awkward results, and “Operation Annihilate” is rudimentary idiocy but still fairly entertaining. The overall balance favors the nasty, as most tracks are good with a few rising higher. It’s a motley collection of metal zingers by a real motley crew of ne’er-do-wells and it’s surprisingly spry and energized.
The big surprise here is Mr. Nasty himself. Ronnie sounds like he’s been in cryofreeze since the mid-90s. His husky baritone bellows are still stuffed full of toxic masculinity and goonism and he’s highly effective. He foregoes the King Diamond-esque high-pitched falsettos he employed in the past but I don’t miss them. He’s still a massive presence behind the mic and he can probably still toss a few wimps ass-over-teakettle into the rotpit. New guitarist Dave Orman does an excellent job mimicking the axe styles of original members Ben Meyer and David Austin, which is no easy feat as they always had a very distinct and usual approach. His riffs are thick, razor-sharp, and oppressive with a slightly proggy flare often present even in the most thrash-tastical cuts. He’s slick as shit without departing from the mission statement of kicking poser ass. The whole band is tight and polished, making Olde Man Ronnie sound like an angry 20-something again. Kudos.
I didn’t expect much from Jeopardy Room, but it’s a fun and forceful throwback to the band’s early days of drunken excess and alligator humping. It reeks of 1987, warm beer, and moist BO, which means it smells like Nasty Savage sounds. Give this a loud, angry spin and rock the double-wide. After that, go discover or re-discover their classics and get swole.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: FHM Records
Websites: nastysavage.com | instagram.com/nastysavageband
Releases Worldwide: October 11th, 2024#2024 #30 #AmericanMetal #FHMRecords #HeavyMetal #JeopardyRoom #NastySavage #Oct24 #Review #Reviews #ThrashMetal
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Part 1 was a little tricky and fun. Solved it by just testing every combination, and sped that up by turning all the buttons and the goal light configuration into numbers that I could XOR together.
Technically, part 2 is done too, but it will never work on the real input. I threw memoization at this thing knowing that it wasn't going to work, but thought I might get lucky and the input would be constructed in a way that it would be fine. Nope.
I gave up and looked at the solutions thread on Reddit, and it looks like almost everybody is just throwing a solver at it (and the ones that aren't are using things like fraction-free Gaussian Elimination, which I can't hope to understand at this point in the night), and there are only 26 comments after 1.75 hours, so I guess this is a really hard problem this year.
I might come back to it tomorrow, but I doubt I'll find a good solution on my own. I don't want to just throw a solver at it if I don't have to.
#AdventOfCode #AdventOfCode2025 #AdventOfCode2025Day10 #Day10 #Rust #RustLang #Programming #CodingChallenges
-
Part 1 was a little tricky and fun. Solved it by just testing every combination, and sped that up by turning all the buttons and the goal light configuration into numbers that I could XOR together.
Technically, part 2 is done too, but it will never work on the real input. I threw memoization at this thing knowing that it wasn't going to work, but thought I might get lucky and the input would be constructed in a way that it would be fine. Nope.
I gave up and looked at the solutions thread on Reddit, and it looks like almost everybody is just throwing a solver at it (and the ones that aren't are using things like fraction-free Gaussian Elimination, which I can't hope to understand at this point in the night), and there are only 26 comments after 1.75 hours, so I guess this is a really hard problem this year.
I might come back to it tomorrow, but I doubt I'll find a good solution on my own. I don't want to just throw a solver at it if I don't have to.
#AdventOfCode #AdventOfCode2025 #AdventOfCode2025Day10 #Day10 #Rust #RustLang #Programming #CodingChallenges
-
Part 1 was a little tricky and fun. Solved it by just testing every combination, and sped that up by turning all the buttons and the goal light configuration into numbers that I could XOR together.
Technically, part 2 is done too, but it will never work on the real input. I threw memoization at this thing knowing that it wasn't going to work, but thought I might get lucky and the input would be constructed in a way that it would be fine. Nope.
I gave up and looked at the solutions thread on Reddit, and it looks like almost everybody is just throwing a solver at it (and the ones that aren't are using things like fraction-free Gaussian Elimination, which I can't hope to understand at this point in the night), and there are only 26 comments after 1.75 hours, so I guess this is a really hard problem this year.
I might come back to it tomorrow, but I doubt I'll find a good solution on my own. I don't want to just throw a solver at it if I don't have to.
#AdventOfCode #AdventOfCode2025 #AdventOfCode2025Day10 #Day10 #Rust #RustLang #Programming #CodingChallenges
-
Part 1 was a little tricky and fun. Solved it by just testing every combination, and sped that up by turning all the buttons and the goal light configuration into numbers that I could XOR together.
Technically, part 2 is done too, but it will never work on the real input. I threw memoization at this thing knowing that it wasn't going to work, but thought I might get lucky and the input would be constructed in a way that it would be fine. Nope.
I gave up and looked at the solutions thread on Reddit, and it looks like almost everybody is just throwing a solver at it (and the ones that aren't are using things like fraction-free Gaussian Elimination, which I can't hope to understand at this point in the night), and there are only 26 comments after 1.75 hours, so I guess this is a really hard problem this year.
I might come back to it tomorrow, but I doubt I'll find a good solution on my own. I don't want to just throw a solver at it if I don't have to.
#AdventOfCode #AdventOfCode2025 #AdventOfCode2025Day10 #Day10 #Rust #RustLang #Programming #CodingChallenges
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Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨
Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone -
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨
Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone -
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨
Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone -
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨
Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone -
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨
Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone -
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy
Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into horror writer Nat Cassidy’s creepy and hard-to-put-down book, When the Wolf Comes Home. While not the first of his reads I have picked up, I really enjoyed this one and found it to be unique, scary, and riveting. It made me really look forward to checking out more of his books in the future.
Main Characters
Jess: Our main girl and, honestly, one of my favourite parts of this book, she’s messy, flawed, and emotional. Her empathy drives a lot of her decisions, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. When Jess meets the boy, she is brought into a horror scene she never expected. In an attempt to save him, she is pushed to intense limits and is forced to put herself in danger to try and help save the day.
The boy: Running away from a monster, the boy crosses paths with Jess, and is forced to face his fears in no way a child ever should, but he also has much more control than we may suspect.
Cookie: Jess’s mother, who, while maybe not always the best mom, pulls through for her daughter when it’s needed the most.
The man: The boy’s father, who follows Jess and him in an attempt to get him back, however, follows at a distance due to the danger that follows his son.
My Review
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out some of Nat Cassidy’s other books and found them to be scary, but extremely enjoyable. When the Wolf Comes Home is an action-filled, thrilling novel, filled with horror and some people’s worst nightmares. The characters are enjoyable (and sometimes aggravating), but the plot itself is unique, and unlike anything I’ve ever dived into before. I gave it an 8/10 rating overall and am looking forward to diving into more of Cassidy’s spooky tales in the future.
The story follows Jess as she gets pulled into a deeply unsettling and increasingly terrifying situation involving a young boy and something not quite right. What starts as concern quickly turns into something much darker, with reality bending in ways that feel both surreal and way too real at the same time. As things escalate, the book leans hard into fear, what it does to us, how it changes us, and the choices we make when we’re pushed to our limits. Jess is forced to fight her greatest fears to protect the boy, but she also questions if she can really protect him from himself, or the realities of his world. The boy must question if he can fight off the monsters that haunt him, or crumble to the fear of his reality and what is chasing him.
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out other books of Cassidy’s, and when When the Wolf Comes Home came across my way, I knew I had to check it out. I saw lots of positive reviews and felt like it lived up to the hype for sure. This book is so unique. Like, genuinely nothing I’ve read before. The plot is wild in a way that somehow still works and makes sense, and I was completely locked in watching it unfold. The creativity here is insane, and the way everything comes together? So satisfying. It’s heartbreaking at different points, intense in others, but also loving and sweet in others. It has its gory parts, and some areas are a bit harder to stomach, but if you read lots of horror like I do, it’s really nothing crazy.
It’s fast-paced, emotional, and straight-up creepy. Not just surface-level scary, either, it gets under your skin. The kind of book where you feel uneasy even when nothing is technically happening because you are just waiting for that other shoe to drop. What really stood out to me is how much it focuses on fear. Not just the classic there’s something scary chasing you theme, but how fear actually changes people. The decisions, the reactions, the spiral, it all felt very intentional and honestly a little too real at times.
Jess carried this book for me. I loved her. She’s not perfect, and that’s exactly why she works so well. Her empathy, even when it complicates things, made everything hit harder emotionally. And yeah, the kid can be annoying, but in a way that makes sense. He’s a child dealing with trauma, and the book doesn’t shy away from that. If anything, it adds to the emotional weight.
This is not a feel-good book. Like, at all. My heart hurt more than once. But it’s a damn good one.
I had such a good time with this, and it definitely solidified that I need to keep reading more from Nat Cassidy.
Has anyone else checked out When the Wolf Comes Home, or any other of Nat Cassidy’s reads? What did you think, and what others would you recommend?
Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to subscribe to the page on the bottom of the site to be one of the first to know when I post a new review.
#bookReview #horrorBookReview #thrillerBookReview #bookBlogger #books #bookLover #fictionBooks #fictionBookReview #Fiction #BookBlog #ThrillerBooks #HorrorBook #BookReviewPage #HorrorBooks #HorrorBookReader #ThrillerBook #BookBlogs #BookReviews #Review #Reading #BookReader #BookPosts #BookRecommendations #HorrorBookReviews #HorrorNovels #Reader #Book #Recommendations #BookPost #Horror #BookOpinion #BookBlogging #WhenTheWolfComesHome #NatCassidy #WhenTheWolfComesHomeByNatCassidy #NatCassidyReview #WhenTheWolfComesHomeReview -
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy
Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into horror writer Nat Cassidy’s creepy and hard-to-put-down book, When the Wolf Comes Home. While not the first of his reads I have picked up, I really enjoyed this one and found it to be unique, scary, and riveting. It made me really look forward to checking out more of his books in the future.
Main Characters
Jess: Our main girl and, honestly, one of my favourite parts of this book, she’s messy, flawed, and emotional. Her empathy drives a lot of her decisions, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. When Jess meets the boy, she is brought into a horror scene she never expected. In an attempt to save him, she is pushed to intense limits and is forced to put herself in danger to try and help save the day.
The boy: Running away from a monster, the boy crosses paths with Jess, and is forced to face his fears in no way a child ever should, but he also has much more control than we may suspect.
Cookie: Jess’s mother, who, while maybe not always the best mom, pulls through for her daughter when it’s needed the most.
The man: The boy’s father, who follows Jess and him in an attempt to get him back, however, follows at a distance due to the danger that follows his son.
My Review
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out some of Nat Cassidy’s other books and found them to be scary, but extremely enjoyable. When the Wolf Comes Home is an action-filled, thrilling novel, filled with horror and some people’s worst nightmares. The characters are enjoyable (and sometimes aggravating), but the plot itself is unique, and unlike anything I’ve ever dived into before. I gave it an 8/10 rating overall and am looking forward to diving into more of Cassidy’s spooky tales in the future.
The story follows Jess as she gets pulled into a deeply unsettling and increasingly terrifying situation involving a young boy and something not quite right. What starts as concern quickly turns into something much darker, with reality bending in ways that feel both surreal and way too real at the same time. As things escalate, the book leans hard into fear, what it does to us, how it changes us, and the choices we make when we’re pushed to our limits. Jess is forced to fight her greatest fears to protect the boy, but she also questions if she can really protect him from himself, or the realities of his world. The boy must question if he can fight off the monsters that haunt him, or crumble to the fear of his reality and what is chasing him.
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out other books of Cassidy’s, and when When the Wolf Comes Home came across my way, I knew I had to check it out. I saw lots of positive reviews and felt like it lived up to the hype for sure. This book is so unique. Like, genuinely nothing I’ve read before. The plot is wild in a way that somehow still works and makes sense, and I was completely locked in watching it unfold. The creativity here is insane, and the way everything comes together? So satisfying. It’s heartbreaking at different points, intense in others, but also loving and sweet in others. It has its gory parts, and some areas are a bit harder to stomach, but if you read lots of horror like I do, it’s really nothing crazy.
It’s fast-paced, emotional, and straight-up creepy. Not just surface-level scary, either, it gets under your skin. The kind of book where you feel uneasy even when nothing is technically happening because you are just waiting for that other shoe to drop. What really stood out to me is how much it focuses on fear. Not just the classic there’s something scary chasing you theme, but how fear actually changes people. The decisions, the reactions, the spiral, it all felt very intentional and honestly a little too real at times.
Jess carried this book for me. I loved her. She’s not perfect, and that’s exactly why she works so well. Her empathy, even when it complicates things, made everything hit harder emotionally. And yeah, the kid can be annoying, but in a way that makes sense. He’s a child dealing with trauma, and the book doesn’t shy away from that. If anything, it adds to the emotional weight.
This is not a feel-good book. Like, at all. My heart hurt more than once. But it’s a damn good one.
I had such a good time with this, and it definitely solidified that I need to keep reading more from Nat Cassidy.
Has anyone else checked out When the Wolf Comes Home, or any other of Nat Cassidy’s reads? What did you think, and what others would you recommend?
Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to subscribe to the page on the bottom of the site to be one of the first to know when I post a new review.
#Book #BookBlog #bookBlogger #BookBlogging #BookBlogs #bookLover #BookOpinion #BookPost #BookPosts #BookReader #BookRecommendations #bookReview #BookReviewPage #BookReviews #books #Fiction #fictionBookReview #fictionBooks #Horror #HorrorBook #HorrorBookReader #horrorBookReview #HorrorBookReviews #HorrorBooks #HorrorNovels #NatCassidy #NatCassidyReview #Reader #Reading #Recommendations #Review #ThrillerBook #thrillerBookReview #ThrillerBooks #WhenTheWolfComesHome #WhenTheWolfComesHomeByNatCassidy #WhenTheWolfComesHomeReview -
The thread about John Paul Jones; the Scottish-American “pirate” who tried to capture Edinburgh and Leith but lived to tell the tale
This thread was originally written and published in December 2019.
It was on a day like this, 240 years ago, with a west wind howling up the Firth of Forth, rattling the window panes and lifting the roof tiles, that Edinburgh and Leith were saved from sacking by the fledgling United States Navy. The year was 1779 and it was the middle of the War of Independence when a squadron of American ships of war appeared in the Firth. Their objective; to disrupt shipping, spread panic and “raise a contribution” to the American war effort of two hundred thousand pounds from the wallets of the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith. These ships were the 36-gun Bon Homme Richard, the 32-gun Pallas and the 12-gun Vengeance and in command was one John Paul Jones. To the Americans a great hero, a father to their naval service:
John Paul Jones by Charles Wilson PealeTo the British, a common pirate. Of course, they would say that, because he beat them at their own game, rattled the establishment to its core and made the mighty Royal Navy look rather impotent.
“Paul Jones the Pirate”, a contemporary British caricatureSo who was John Paul Jones? For a start, he wasn’t born as John Paul Jones or an American, he was actually from Kirkcudbrightshire. He was born in 1747 as plain John Paul to John Paul (senior), a gardener and Jean Mcduff. In 1760, John junior was apprenticed to a sea captain in Whitehaven and took to the seven seas on the merchant ship Friendship. He sailed the Atlantic trade route, mainly between Britain and the colony of Virginia where his older brother was settled.
The cottage in which John Paul was born in 1747, now the John Paul Jones Cottage Museum. Pic © johnpauljonesmuseum.comFor quite a few years John kept this up, working his way up the ranks to First Mate by 1768. At this point fate begins to intervene and steer his life on a new course. In Jamaica, he decides to abandon his ship and work his passage back to Scotland. Once home, he finds a new ship – the appropriately named John – and is taken on as lower mate. When the master and leading mates unexpectedly die of fever, he takes command and brings the ship and her cargo safely home. In gratitude, the owners raise him to master. So at the tender age of 23, John finds himself a ship’s master with 10 years experience under his belt; life has worked out well for him. But then some things start to go wrong. On only his seconnd voyage as master he has someone flogged for insubordination. This was a very common and non-noteworthy act for the time, sailors were kept in check with fairly equal proportions of corporal punishment, alcohol and the promise of the occasional pay packet.
But the flogged man has connections back in Scotland and when he died (from Yellow Fever), the blame for his death is laid at the feet of John. As a young captain from a humble family he has little influence himself over matters once he’s off his ship and finds himself thrown in the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright to await his fate. But clearly he is not without any friends as he is bailed and given some quiet advice to get far away from Kirkcudbright before the law has its way. This was sensible advice, which was followed.
“The Old Tolbooth, Kirkcudbright” by Charles Oppenheimer © Manchester Art GalleryAs a result he quickly leaves Scotland for England and finds a new ship, the Betsy, and spends 18 successful months toing and froing in the Caribbean, before once again clashing with a subordinate crewmember. This time, he allegedly runs the man through with a sword in an argument over pay. He would claim this was self defence, but having fled from the law before he must have realised that he couldn’t go back and face any more music the music and so headed north to the Virginia colony in about 1772. He finds that his brother has died and so takes takes over his affairs there.
John Paul Jones. Quick, perhaps too quick, with his sword.Perhaps it is to cover his tracks that in Virginia he changes his name to John Paul Jones, with American folk legend suggesting that it was in honour of statesman Willie Jones. JPJ takes to his new home and when war breaks out with Britian he signs up to fight for his adopted homeland against that of his birth. Whether this was opportunism or patriotism is not clear but in 1775 he is part of the newly formed Continental Navy. As an experienced sailor and officer, JPJ’s potential is recognised by founding father Richard Henry Lee and he is appointed First Lieutenant of the frigate Alfred. Like most US ships of this time it’s a converted merchantman, but the line between smaller naval and civilian ships at this time was rather blurry so it was not that uncommon.
“Continental Ship Alfred“, W. Nowland Van Powell, 1974It is apparently JPJ who had the honour of hoisting the Grand Union Flag – the first national flag of the United States, on a US ship, for the first time. He and the Alfred sail to the Caribbean and raid Nassau, but after this this point he takes a demotion to a smaller ship, the sloop Providence, as a step on the ladder to commanding a frigate of his own.
Providence, flying the Grand Old Union Flag. W. Nowland Van Powell, 1974Long story short, JPJ rapidly impresses his superiors with a combination of skill, aggression and good luck. By 1778 he is in charge of the new frigate Ranger. On February 14th, on the Ranger, he took a salute from a French naval squadron under La Motte Picquet in the Robuste at Quiberon Bay, the first official recognition of the young American state by a foreign government.
“First Recognition of the American Flag by a Foreign Government”, Edward Moran, 1898He is now sent to take the war to the British on the other side of the Atlantic but finds that his crew – and in particular his officers – are completely lacking, unwilling to take risks or to follow his orders. A raid on the sloop HMS Drake fails due to poor seamanship. A raid on Whitehaven, his old home port, fails due to a combination of poor weather and an uncooperative crew who decided to visit the pub instead of set fire to the shipping in the harbour.
“Launching of the White Haven Raid” by Charles Waterhouse © National Museum of the Marine CorpsJPJ next hatches a plot to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk for ransom from St. Mary’s Isle, but this scheme is foiled as the Earl is away; the Americans are instead cordially entertained by the Earl’s wife before leaving after helping themselves to some silverwear. (JPJ would later buy the loot back, at his own expense, and return it to the Selkirks).
“John Paul Jones seizing the silver plate of Lady Selkirk”, his crew depicted as pirates. A print from 1903.The effect on British morale and general public alarm was much significant. Here were American rebels acting with impunity, not just in British waters but also on the land! It was a national scandal. But the reality was that his raiding around the Solway proved fruitless and resulted in a crew who were restless from the lack of prize money. And so JPJ sails the Ranger back across the Irish Sea and finally catches up with his previous quarry, the sloop HMS Drake, off of Carrickfergus. A roughly equal fight on paper, he deploys a ruse to get the initial jump on Drake before bettering her with skilful gunnery. Five of the British crew, including their captain and the first lieutenant, were killed in the fight and after an hour the Drake surrendered. This was another national scandal for the Royal Navy in home waters at the hands of the young man from Kirkcudbright.
The surrender of the Drake, from “The Boys of 1812 and Other Heroes” by James Soley, 1887.JPJ has Drake sailed to Brest to be sold to the French as a prize. This was finally a great victory for him and the Continental Navy, but there was much acrimony between captain, second in command Lt. Simpson (who he tries and fails to have court-martialled) and the crew. In France, JPJ is given a bigger ship, the merchantman Duc de Duras, which has been gifted to the US Navy by a sympathiser. On conversion to a 40-gun warship he has her named Bonhomme Richard after Ben Franklin, who used the pseudonym “Poor Richard” to publish his almanac in Paris
Bonne Homme Richard in 1779 by F. MullerJPJ assembles a little fleet and prepares for war in Lorient in June 1779 but is forced back from his initial cruise by bad weather and in need of repairs. A second attempt is made in August; Bonhomme Richard, Pallas and Vengeance are accompanied by the French naval cutter Le Cerf and two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. Monsieur falls out with JPJ only days out of port and leaves the fleet – falling out with his subordinates is quickly becoming something of a hallmark for JPJ’s expeditions. But this time the Royal Navy are better prepared and locate and attempt to chase the Americans. He is able to lead them on a merry dance around the north of Scotland before shaking the pursuers off. On his way, despite ongoing squabbles with other officers, he is able to take 16 merchant ships as prizes.
And so it was on the 16th September 1779 that there is great alarm on both banks of the Forth when John Paul Jones and his three remaining ships (the others had returned to France by this time with the prizes), appeared in the Forth intent on sailing up it and doing as they pleased.
Looking down the Forth towards Inchkeith in the distance in 1791, by David Allan.A panic spreads through Edinburgh and Leith. The moneyed classes secure their goods and flee the city for their estates. The banks are locked up, the garrison barricade themselves in Edinburgh Castle, the church bells are rung and “neither a carriage nor a horse [was] to be seen“. Leith’s fortifications, the great Marian walls and the Cromwellian citadel are decrepit, having been partially slighted and then left to the elements and those intent on pilfering the masonry for building material. A more fundamental problem is that they were never designed to offer defence from seaward, but from landward. But the enterprising folk of Leith try to mount a defence of sorts as best they can. Three spare old cannon were retrieved from the Naval Victualling Yard on Constitution Street and manhandled along to the walls of the Citadel.
The remains of the citadel do at least provide something of a raised firing platform to cover the mouth of the harbour, but this battery was “extremely perilous to those who worked it“. Edinburgh sent down a couple more old cannon and gunners from the castle and these were posted near Newhaven with small arms were handed out to the Incorporated Trades of Leith. With this meagre defence, the town battened down the hatches and awaited its fate.
But the folk of Kirkcaldy, on the opposite shore of the Forth, take an alternative approach to defence. They follow their minister, the Reverend Robert Shirra, down to the sea and begin to pray for almighty intervention.
The Reverend Robert Shirra by George Watson. © Kirkcaldy GalleriesNow deer Lord, dinna ye think it a shame for ye to send this vile piret to rob our folk o Kirkcaldy; for ye ken they’re puir enow already, and hae naething to spaire
Shirra’s sermon against John Paul Jones (translated, “Now dear Lord, don’t you think it a shame for you to send this vile pirate to rob our folk of Kirkcaldy; for you know they are poor enough already and have nothing to spare”)And would you know the almighty happened to be listening? For no sooner had Kirkcaldy prayed for salvation than, in the words of John Paul Jones, “a very severe gale of wind came on, and being directly contrary obliged me to bear away after having in vain endeavoured for some time to withstand its violence“.
“Inchkeith on the Forth in a Fresh Gale”. Ships in Leith Roads would shelter in the lee of the island from a gale. John Gabriel Stedman, 1781. CC-by-SA National Galleries ScotlandAs the wind blew up, JPJ’s ships were not yet in the shelter of Leith Roads in the lee of Inchkeith island where they could ride out the storm, so despite being “in a cannon’s shot of the town” they were obliged to follow the wind back out to sea. In the process, the ship Friendship they had taken in prize was lost. The little fleet was blown straight out of the Firth and down the east coast. Edinburgh, Leith and Kirkcaldy have been saved!
A week later the Royal Navy finally encounters JPJ off Flamborough Head when he runs into a convoy of merchant ships under their protection and a somewhat scrappy and confused battle takes place. In the course of the action, the Bonhomme Richard is damaged so heavily that she will sink the next day, but JPJ in return manages to capture the British flagship HMS Serapis and takes her instead.
The Battle of Flamborough Head by Richard Paton, 1780. HMS Serapis is in the foreground with “Bonhomme Richard” behind.The outcome of the battle is still hotly debated; JPJ and the Americans can claim another embarrassing Royal Navy scalp, in sight of British soil and once again they have failed to stop JPJ. But the merchant convoy – the real prize – has slipped away unharmed. However that is a somewhat hollow strategic victory for the Royal Navy. Once Again, the Americans press have their hero and the British their villain.
John Paul Jones the Hero.John Paul Jones the CorsairHeroes and Villains; Two different portraits of John Paul Jones at Flamborough Head.After the battle, JPJ wants to head for France, but his subordinates insist they follow orders and head for the neutral Dutch island of Texel in the United Provinces. A tricky diplomatic incident ensues as they have lost the Continental Navy’s flags when Bonhomme Richard went down, and couldn’t fly the Royal Navy’s ensigns from the Serapis and so were technically operating under no flag. This allowes the British to claim that they were pirates. So, based on only a written description, (“colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen… [with a] blue field with thirteen stars… in the canton“) JPJ had his men run up a new – and rather unconventional – Continental Navy flag. The Dutch dutifully checked that the flag matched the description (they were very unlikely to know what the flag of an American warship should look like as they’d probably never seen one) and entered it with a sketch in their records to make it official.
The “John Paul Jones” or “Serapis” Flag.With its 8-pointed stars and irregular groupings of red/white/blue tricolour stripes, the “Serapis flag” is unique, the true work of a sailor handy with needle and thread and not someone versed in the rigid conventions of vexilology. John Paul Jones’ wacky flag was enough to save him from international charges of piracy and now takes pride of place on the coat of arms of the US warships that have taken his name.
Coat of Arms of the US Navy Destroyer John Paul Jones, featuring the “Serapis Flag” on the left and a likeness of JPJBack in Leith, plans were immediately drawn up for a new artillery fort to protect the port and the city of Edinburgh behind from the sea. These were drawn up by local celebrated architect James Craig – who laid out Edinburgh first New Town – despite him having no background in military engineering. The fort and the land on which it was built were provided “at the expense of the citizens of Edinburgh and Leith“. It was a fairly straightforward defensive structure, a half-moon battery of cannon facing out to sea, protected by a perimeter ditch, low masonry wall and a large earthen glacis heaped up infront of it to seeward. To the landward there is were a pair of blockhouse corner bastions to protect it from rear assaults. The Fort’s battery of guns covered the navigable channel of the approach to the Port of Leith.
One of Craig’s original drawings. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandSo there you have it, the tale of the lad from Kirkcudbrightshire that the Royal Navy couldn’t sink, who tried to capture the Earl of Selkirk, who put the willies up the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith, who rocked the vexilogical world but who could not overcome a Kirk minister and the weather. Oh, and how this modern street on the site of Leith Fort got its name:
John Paul Jones View, Leith Fort council housing. © SelfNote to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
CW: Fedi meta
no wait im on wafrn. I need to use the power of tags
#According-to-all-known-laws-of-aviation #there-is-no-way-a-bee-should-be-able-to-fly.-Its-wings-are-too-small-to-get-its-fat-little-body-off-the-ground.-The-bee #of-course #flies-anyway-because-bees-don't-care-what-humans-think-is-impossible.-Yellow #black.-Yellow #black.-Yellow #black.-Yellow #black.-Ooh #black-and-yellow!-Let's-shake-it-up-a-little.-Barry!-Breakfast-is-ready!-Coming!-Hang-on-a-second.-Hello?-Barry?-Adam?-Can-you-believe-this-is-happening?-I-can't.-I'll-pick-you-up.-Looking-sharp.-Use-the-stairs #Your-father-paid-good-money-for-those.-Sorry.-I'm-excited.-Here's-the-graduate.-We're-very-proud-of-you #son.-A-perfect-report-card #all-B's.-Very-proud.-Ma!-I-got-a-thing-going-here.-You-got-lint-on-your-fuzz.-Ow!-That's-me!-Wave-to-us!-We'll-be-in-row-118 #000.-Bye!-Barry #I-told-you #stop-flying-in-the-house!-Hey #Adam.-Hey #Barry.-Is-that-fuzz-gel?-A-little.-Special-day #graduation.-Never-thought-I'd-make-it.-Three-days-grade-school #three-days-high-school.-Those-were-awkward.-Three-days-college.-I'm-glad-I-took-a-day-and-hitchhiked-around-The-Hive.-You-did-come-back-different.-Hi #Barry.-Artie #growing-a-mustache?-Looks-good.-Hear-about-Frankie?-Yeah.-You-going-to-the-funeral?-No #I'm-not-going.-Everybody-knows #sting-someone #you-die.-Don't-waste-it-on-a-squirrel.-Such-a-hothead.-I-guess-he-could-have-just-gotten-out-of-the-way.-I-love-this-incorporating-an-amusement-park-into-our-day.-That's-why-we-don't-need-vacations.-Boy #quite-a-bit-of-pomp-under-the-circumstances.-Well #Adam #today-we-are-men.-We-are!-Bee-men.-Amen!-Hallelujah!-Students #faculty #distinguished-bees #please-welcome-Dean-Buzzwell.-Welcome #New-Hive-City-graduating-class-of-9:15.-That-concludes-our-ceremonies-And-begins-your-career-at-Honex-Industries!-Will-we-pick-our-job-today?-I-heard-it's-just-orientation.-Heads-up!-Here-we-go.-Keep-your-hands-and-antennas-inside-the-tram-at-all-times.-Wonder-what-it'll-be-like?-A-little-scary.-Welcome-to-Honex #a-division-of-Honesco-and-a-part-of-the-Hexagon-Group.-This-is-it!-Wow.-Wow.-We-know-that-you #as-a-bee #have-worked-your-whole-life-to-get-to-the-point-where-you-can-work-for-your-whole-life.-Honey-begins-when-our-valiant-Pollen-Jocks-bring-the-nectar-to-The-Hive.-Our-top-secret-formula-is-automatically-color-corrected #scent-adjusted-and-bubble-contoured-into-this-soothing-sweet-syrup-with-its-distinctive-golden-glow-you-know-as...-Honey!-That-girl-was-hot.-She's-my-cousin!-She-is?-Yes #we're-all-cousins.-Right.-You're-right.-At-Honex #we-constantly-strive-to-improve-every-aspect-of-bee-existence.-These-bees-are-stress-testing-a-new-helmet-technology.-What-do-you-think-he-makes?-Not-enough.-Here-we-have-our-latest-advancement #the-Krelman.-What-does-that-do?-Catches-that-little-strand-of-honey-that-hangs-after-you-pour-it.-Saves-us-millions.-Can-anyone-work-on-the-Krelman?-Of-course.-Most-bee-jobs-are-small-ones.-But-bees-know-that-every-small-job #if-it's-done-well #means-a-lot.-But-choose-carefully-because-you'll-stay-in-the-job-you-pick-for-the-rest-of-your-life.-The-same-job-the-rest-of-your-life?-I-didn't-know-that.-What's-the-difference?-You'll-be-happy-to-know-that-bees #as-a-species #haven't-had-one-day-off-in-27-million-years.-So-you'll-just-work-us-to-death?-We'll-sure-try.-Wow!-That-blew-my-mind!-'What's-the-difference?'-How-can-you-say-that?-One-job-forever?-That's-an-insane-choice-to-have-to-make.-I'm-relieved.-Now-we-only-have-to-make-one-decision-in-life.-But #Adam #how-could-they-never-have-told-us-that?-Why-would-you-question-anything?-We're-bees.-We're-the-most-perfectly-functioning-society-on-Earth.-You-ever-think-maybe-things-work-a-little-too-well-here?-Like-what?-Give-me-one-example.-I-don't-know.-But-you-know-what-I'm-talking-about.-Please-clear-the-gate.-Royal-Nectar-Force-on-approach.-Wait-a-second.-Check-it-out.-Hey #those-are-Pollen-Jocks!-Wow.-I've-never-seen-them-this-close.-They-know-what-it's-like-outside-The-Hive.-Yeah #but-some-don't-come-back.-Hey #Jocks!-Hi #Jocks!-You-guys-did-great!-You're-monsters!-You're-sky-freaks!-I-love-it!-I-love-it!-I-wonder-where-they-were.-I-don't-know.-Their-day's-not-planned.-Outside-The-Hive #flying-who-knows-where #doing-who-knows-what.-You-can't-just-decide-to-be-a-Pollen-Jock.-You-have-to-be-bred-for-that.-Right.-Look.-That's-more-pollen-than-you-and-I-will-see-in-a-lifetime.-It's-just-a-status-symbol.-Bees-make-too-much-of-it.-Perhaps.-Unless-you're-wearing-it-and-the-ladies-see-you-wearing-it.-Those-ladies?-Aren't-they-our-cousins-too?-Distant.-Distant.-Look-at-these-two.-Couple-of-Hive-Harrys.-Let's-have-fun-with-them.-It-must-be-dangerous-being-a-Pollen-Jock.-Yeah.-Once-a-bear-pinned-me-against-a-mushroom!-He-had-a-paw-on-my-throat #and-with-the-other #he-was-slapping-me!-Oh #my!-I-never-thought-I'd-knock-him-out.-What-were-you-doing-during-this?-Trying-to-alert-the-authorities.-I-can-autograph-that.-A-little-gusty-out-there-today #wasn't-it #comrades?-Yeah.-Gusty.-We're-hitting-a-sunflower-patch-six-miles-from-here-tomorrow.-Six-miles #huh?-Barry!-A-puddle-jump-for-us #but-maybe-you're-not-up-for-it.-Maybe-I-am.-You-are-not!-We're-going-0900-at-J-Gate.-What-do-you-think #buzzy-boy?-Are-you-bee-enough?-I-might-be.-It-all-depends-on-what-0900-means.-Hey #Honex!-Dad #you-surprised-me.-You-decide-what-you're-interested-in?-Well #there's-a-lot-of-choices.-But-you-only-get-one.-Do-you-ever-get-bored-doing-the-same-job-every-day?-Son #let-me-tell-you-about-stirring.-You-grab-that-stick #and-you-just-move-it-around #and-you-stir-it-around.-You-get-yourself-into-a-rhythm.-It's-a-beautiful-thing.-You-know #Dad #the-more-I-think-about-it #maybe-the-honey-field-just-isn't-right-for-me.-You-were-thinking-of-what #making-balloon-animals?-That's-a-bad-job-for-a-guy-with-a-stinger.-Janet #your-son's-not-sure-he-wants-to-go-into-honey!-Barry #you-are-so-funny-sometimes.-I'm-not-trying-to-be-funny.-You're-not-funny!-You're-going-into-honey.-Our-son #the-stirrer!-You're-gonna-be-a-stirrer?-No-one's-listening-to-me!-Wait-till-you-see-the-sticks-I-have.-I-could-say-anything-right-now.-I'm-gonna-get-an-ant-tattoo!-Let's-open-some-honey-and-celebrate!-Maybe-I'll-pierce-my-thorax.-Shave-my-antennae.-Shack-up-with-a-grasshopper.-Get-a-gold-tooth-and-call-everybody-'dawg'!-I'm-so-proud.-We're-starting-work-today!-Today's-the-day.-Come-on!-All-the-good-jobs-will-be-gone.-Yeah #right.-Pollen-counting #stunt-bee #pouring #stirrer #front-desk #hair-removal...-Is-it-still-available?-Hang-on.-Two-left!-One-of-them's-yours!-Congratulations!-Step-to-the-side.-What'd-you-get?-Picking-crud-out.-Stellar!-Wow!-Couple-of-newbies?-Yes #sir!-Our-first-day!-We-are-ready!-Make-your-choice.-You-want-to-go-first?-No #you-go.-Oh #my.-What's-available?-Restroom-attendant's-open #not-for-the-reason-you-think.-Any-chance-of-getting-the-Krelman?-Sure #you're-on.-I'm-sorry #the-Krelman-just-closed-out.-Wax-monkey's-always-open.-The-Krelman-opened-up-again.-What-happened?-A-bee-died.-Makes-an-opening.-See?-He's-dead.-Another-dead-one.-Deady.-Deadified.-Two-more-dead.-Dead-from-the-neck-up.-Dead-from-the-neck-down.-That's-life!-Oh #this-is-so-hard!-Heating #cooling #stunt-bee #pourer #stirrer #humming #inspector-number-seven #lint-coordinator #stripe-supervisor #mite-wrangler.-Barry #what-do-you-think-I-should...-Barry?-Barry!-All-right #we've-got-the-sunflower-patch-in-quadrant-nine...-What-happened-to-you?-Where-are-you?-I'm-going-out.-Out?-Out-where?-Out-there.-Oh #no!-I-have-to #before-I-go-to-work-for-the-rest-of-my-life.-You're-gonna-die!-You're-crazy!-Hello?-Another-call-coming-in.-If-anyone's-feeling-brave #there's-a-Korean-deli-on-83rd-that-gets-their-roses-today.-Hey #guys.-Look-at-that.-Isn't-that-the-kid-we-saw-yesterday?-Hold-it #son #flight-deck's-restricted.-It's-OK #Lou.-We're-gonna-take-him-up.-Really?-Feeling-lucky #are-you?-Sign-here #here.-Just-initial-that.-Thank-you.-OK.-You-got-a-rain-advisory-today #and-as-you-all-know #bees-cannot-fly-in-rain.-So-be-careful.-As-always #watch-your-brooms #hockey-sticks #dogs #birds #bears-and-bats.-Also #I-got-a-couple-of-reports-of-root-beer-being-poured-on-us.-Murphy's-in-a-home-because-of-it #babbling-like-a-cicada!-That's-awful.-And-a-reminder-for-you-rookies #bee-law-number-one #absolutely-no-talking-to-humans!--All-right #launch-positions!-Buzz #buzz #buzz #buzz!-Buzz #buzz #buzz #buzz!-Buzz #buzz #buzz #buzz!-Black-and-yellow!-Hello!-You-ready-for-this #hot-shot?-Yeah.-Yeah #bring-it-on.-Wind #check.-Antennae #check.-Nectar-pack #check.-Wings #check.-Stinger #check.-Scared-out-of-my-shorts #check.-OK #ladies #let's-move-it-out!-Pound-those-petunias #you-striped-stem-suckers!-All-of-you #drain-those-flowers!-Wow!-I'm-out!-I-can't-believe-I'm-out!-So-blue.-I-feel-so-fast-and-free!-Box-kite!-Wow!-Flowers!-This-is-Blue-Leader #We-have-roses-visual.-Bring-it-around-30-degrees-and-hold.-Roses!-30-degrees #roger.-Bringing-it-around.-Stand-to-the-side #kid.-It's-got-a-bit-of-a-kick.-That-is-one-nectar-collector!-Ever-see-pollination-up-close?-No #sir.-I-pick-up-some-pollen-here #sprinkle-it-over-here.-Maybe-a-dash-over-there #a-pinch-on-that-one.-See-that?-It's-a-little-bit-of-magic.-That's-amazing.-Why-do-we-do-that?-That's-pollen-power.-More-pollen #more-flowers #more-nectar #more-honey-for-us.-Cool.-I'm-picking-up-a-lot-of-bright-yellow #Could-be-daisies #Don't-we-need-those?-Copy-that-visual.-Wait.-One-of-these-flowers-seems-to-be-on-the-move.-Say-again?-You're-reporting-a-moving-flower?-Affirmative.-That-was-on-the-line!-This-is-the-coolest.-What-is-it?-I-don't-know #but-I'm-loving-this-color.-It-smells-good.-Not-like-a-flower #but-I-like-it.-Yeah #fuzzy.-Chemical-y.-Careful #guys.-It's-a-little-grabby.-My-sweet-lord-of-bees!-Candy-brain #get-off-there!-Problem!-Guys!-This-could-be-bad.-Affirmative.-Very-close.-Gonna-hurt.-Mama's-little-boy.-You-are-way-out-of-position #rookie!-Coming-in-at-you-like-a-missile!-Help-me!-I-don't-think-these-are-flowers.-Should-we-tell-him?-I-think-he-knows.-What-is-this?!-Match-point!-You-can-start-packing-up #honey #because-you're-about-to-eat-it!-Yowser!-Gross.-There's-a-bee-in-the-car!-Do-something!-I'm-driving!-Hi #bee.-He's-back-here!-He's-going-to-sting-me!-Nobody-move.-If-you-don't-move #he-won't-sting-you.-Freeze!-He-blinked!-Spray-him #Granny!-What-are-you-doing?!-Wow...-the-tension-level-out-here-is-unbelievable.-I-gotta-get-home.-Can't-fly-in-rain.-Can't-fly-in-rain.-Can't-fly-in-rain.-Mayday!-Mayday!-Bee-going-down!-Ken #could-you-close-the-window-please?-Ken #could-you-close-the-window-please?-Check-out-my-new-resume.-I-made-it-into-a-fold-out-brochure.-You-see?-Folds-out.-Oh #no.-More-humans.-I-don't-need-this.-What-was-that?-Maybe-this-time.-This-time.-This-time.-This-time!-This-time!-This...-Drapes!-That-is-diabolical.-It's-fantastic.-It's-got-all-my-special-skills #even-my-top-ten-favorite-movies.-What's-number-one?-Star-Wars?-Nah #I-don't-go-for-that...-kind-of-stuff.-No-wonder-we-shouldn't-talk-to-them.-They're-out-of-their-minds.-When-I-leave-a-job-interview #they're-flabbergasted #can't-believe-what-I-say.-There's-the-sun.-Maybe-that's-a-way-out.-I-don't-remember-the-sun-having-a-big-75-on-it.-I-predicted-global-warming.-I-could-feel-it-getting-hotter.-At-first-I-thought-it-was-just-me.-Wait!-Stop!-Bee!-Stand-back.-These-are-winter-boots.-Wait!-Don't-kill-him!-You-know-I'm-allergic-to-them!-This-thing-could-kill-me!-Why-does-his-life-have-less-value-than-yours?-Why-does-his-life-have-any-less-value-than-mine?-Is-that-your-statement?-I'm-just-saying-all-life-has-value.-You-don't-know-what-he's-capable-of-feeling.-My-brochure!-There-you-go #little-guy.-I'm-not-scared-of-him.It's-an-allergic-thing.--Put-that-on-your-resume-brochure.-My-whole-face-could-puff-up.-Make-it-one-of-your-special-skills.-Knocking-someone-out-is-also-a-special-skill.-Right.-Bye #Vanessa.-Thanks.-Vanessa #next-week?-Yogurt-night?-Sure #Ken.-You-know #whatever.-You-could-put-carob-chips-on-there.-Bye.-Supposed-to-be-less-calories.-Bye.-I-gotta-say-something.-She-saved-my-life.-I-gotta-say-something.-All-right #here-it-goes.-Nah.-What-would-I-say?-I-could-really-get-in-trouble.-It's-a-bee-law.-You're-not-supposed-to-talk-to-a-human.-I-can't-believe-I'm-doing-this.-I've-got-to.-Oh #I-can't-do-it.-Come-on!-No.-Yes.-No.-Do-it.-I-can't.-How-should-I-start-it?-'You-like-jazz?'-No #that's-no-good.-Here-she-comes!-Speak #you-fool!-Hi!-I'm-sorry.-You're-talking.-Yes #I-know.-You're-talking!-I'm-so-sorry.-No #it's-OK.-It's-fine.-I-know-I'm-dreaming.-But-I-don't-recall-going-to-bed.-Well #I'm-sure-this-is-very-disconcerting.-This-is-a-bit-of-a-surprise-to-me.-I-mean #you're-a-bee!-I-am.-And-I'm-not-supposed-to-be-doing-this #Barry?-It's-pretty-big #but-they-were-all-trying-to-kill-me.-And-if-it-wasn't-for-you...-I-had-to-thank-you.-It's-just-how-I-was-raised.-That-was-a-little-weird.-I'm-talking-with-a-bee.-Yeah.-I'm-talking-to-a-bee.-And-the-bee-is-talking-to-me!-I-just-want-to-say-I'm-grateful.-I'll-leave-now.-Wait!-How-did-you-learn-to-do-that?-What?-The-talking-thing.-Same-way-you-did #I-guess.-'Mama #Dada #honey.'-You-pick-it-up.-That's-very-funny.-Yeah.-Bees-are-funny.-If-we-didn't-laugh #we'd-cry-with-what-we-have-to-deal-with.-Anyway...-Can-I...-get-you-something?-Like-what?-I-don't-know.-I-mean...-I-don't-know.-Coffee?-I-don't-want-to-put-you-out.-It's-no-trouble.-It-takes-two-minutes.-It's-just-coffee.-I-hate-to-impose.-Don't-be-ridiculous!-Actually #I-would-love-a-cup.-Hey #you-want-rum-cake?-I-shouldn't.-Have-some.-No #I-can't.-Come-on!-I'm-trying-to-lose-a-couple-micrograms.-Where?-These-stripes-don't-help.-You-look-great!-I-don't-know-if-you-know-anything-about-fashion.-Are-you-all-right?-No.-He's-making-the-tie-in-the-cab-as-they're-flying-up-Madison.-He-finally-gets-there.-He-runs-up-the-steps-into-the-church.-The-wedding-is-on.-And-he-says #'Watermelon?-I-thought-you-said-Guatemalan.-Why-would-I-marry-a-watermelon?'-Is-that-a-bee-joke?-That's-the-kind-of-stuff-we-do.-Yeah #different.-So #what-are-you-gonna-do #Barry?-About-work?-I-don't-know.-I-want-to-do-my-part-for-The-Hive #but-I-can't-do-it-the-way-they-want.-I-know-how-you-feel.-You-do?-Sure.-My-parents-wanted-me-to-be-a-lawyer-or-a-doctor #but-I-wanted-to-be-a-florist.-Really?-My-only-interest-is-flowers.-Our-new-queen-was-just-elected-with-that-same-campaign-slogan.-Anyway #if-you-look...-There's-my-hive-right-there.-See-it?-You're-in-Sheep-Meadow!-Yes!-I'm-right-off-the-Turtle-Pond!-No-way!-I-know-that-area.-I-lost-a-toe-ring-there-once.-Why-do-girls-put-rings-on-their-toes?-Why-not?-It's-like-putting-a-hat-on-your-knee.-Maybe-I'll-try-that.-You-all-right #ma'am?-Oh #yeah.-Fine.-Just-having-two-cups-of-coffee!-Anyway #this-has-been-great.-Thanks-for-the-coffee.-Yeah #it's-no-trouble.-Sorry-I-couldn't-finish-it.-If-I-did #I'd-be-up-the-rest-of-my-life.-Are-you...?-Can-I-take-a-piece-of-this-with-me?-Sure!-Here #have-a-crumb.-Thanks!-Yeah.-All-right.-Well #then...-I-guess-I'll-see-you-around.-Or-not.-OK #Barry.-And-thank-you-so-much-again...-for-before.-Oh #that?-That-was-nothing.-Well #not-nothing #but...-Anyway...-This-can't-possibly-work.-He's-all-set-to-go.-We-may-as-well-try-it.-OK #Dave #pull-the-chute.-Sounds-amazing.-It-was-amazing!-It-was-the-scariest #happiest-moment-of-my-life.-Humans!-I-can't-believe-you-were-with-humans!-Giant #scary-humans!-What-were-they-like?-Huge-and-crazy.-They-talk-crazy.-They-eat-crazy-giant-things.-They-drive-crazy.-Do-they-try-and-kill-you #like-on-TV?-Some-of-them.-But-some-of-them-don't.-How'd-you-get-back?-Poodle.-You-did-it #and-I'm-glad.-You-saw-whatever-you-wanted-to-see.-You-had-your-'experience.'-Now-you-can-pick-out-yourjob-and-be-normal.-Well...-Well?-Well #I-met-someone.-You-did?-Was-she-Bee-ish?-A-wasp?!-Your-parents-will-kill-you!-No #no #no #not-a-wasp.-Spider?-I'm-not-attracted-to-spiders.-I-know-it's-the-hottest-thing #with-the-eight-legs-and-all.-I-can't-get-by-that-face.-So-who-is-she?-She's...-human.-No #no.-That's-a-bee-law.-You-wouldn't-break-a-bee-law.-Her-name's-Vanessa.-Oh #boy.-She's-so-nice.-And-she's-a-florist!-Oh #no!-You're-dating-a-human-florist!-We're-not-dating.-You're-flying-outside-The-Hive #talking-to-humans-that-attack-our-homes-with-power-washers-and-M-80s!-One-eighth-a-stick-of-dynamite!-She-saved-my-life!-And-she-understands-me.-This-is-over!-Eat-this.-This-is-not-over!-What-was-that?-They-call-it-a-crumb.-It-was-so-stingin'-stripey!-And-that's-not-what-they-eat.-That's-what-falls-off-what-they-eat!-You-know-what-a-Cinnabon-is?-No.-It's-bread-and-cinnamon-and-frosting.-They-heat-it-up...-Sit-down!-...really-hot!-Listen-to-me!-We-are-not-them!-We're-us.-There's-us-and-there's-them!-Yes #but-who-can-deny-the-heart-that-is-yearning?-There's-no-yearning.-Stop-yearning.-Listen-to-me!-You-have-got-to-start-thinking-bee #my-friend.-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee.-Thinking-bee.-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-There-he-is.-He's-in-the-pool.-You-know-what-your-problem-is #Barry?-I-gotta-start-thinking-bee?-How-much-longer-will-this-go-on?-It's-been-three-days!-Why-aren't-you-working?-I've-got-a-lot-of-big-life-decisions-to-think-about.-What-life?-You-have-no-life!-You-have-no-job.-You're-barely-a-bee!-Would-it-kill-you-to-make-a-little-honey?-Barry #come-out.-Your-father's-talking-to-you.-Martin #would-you-talk-to-him?-Barry #I'm-talking-to-you!-You-coming?-Got-everything?-All-set!-Go-ahead.-I'll-catch-up.-Don't-be-too-long.-Watch-this!-Vanessa!-We're-still-here.-I-told-you-not-to-yell-at-him.-He-doesn't-respond-to-yelling!-Then-why-yell-at-me?-Because-you-don't-listen!-I'm-not-listening-to-this.-Sorry #I've-gotta-go.-Where-are-you-going?-I'm-meeting-a-friend.-A-girl?-Is-this-why-you-can't-decide?-Bye.-I-just-hope-she's-Bee-ish.-They-have-a-huge-parade-of-flowers-every-year-in-Pasadena?-To-be-in-the-Tournament-of-Roses #that's-every-florist's-dream!-Up-on-a-float #surrounded-by-flowers #crowds-cheering.-A-tournament.-Do-the-roses-compete-in-athletic-events?-No.-All-right #I've-got-one.-How-come-you-don't-fly-everywhere?-It's-exhausting.-Why-don't-you-run-everywhere?-It's-faster.-Yeah #OK #I-see #I-see.-All-right #your-turn.-TiVo.-You-can-just-freeze-live-TV?-That's-insane!-You-don't-have-that?-We-have-Hivo #but-it's-a-disease.-It's-a-horrible #horrible-disease.-Oh #my.-Dumb-bees!-You-must-want-to-sting-all-those-jerks.-We-try-not-to-sting.-It's-usually-fatal-for-us.-So-you-have-to-watch-your-temper.-Very-carefully.-You-kick-a-wall #take-a-walk #write-an-angry-letter-and-throw-it-out.-Work-through-it-like-any-emotion:-Anger #jealousy #lust.-Oh #my-goodness!-Are-you-OK?-Yeah.-What-is-wrong-with-you?!-It's-a-bug.-He's-not-bothering-anybody.-Get-out-of-here #you-creep!-What-was-that?-A-Pic-'N'-Save-circular?-Yeah #it-was.-How-did-you-know?-It-felt-like-about-10-pages.-Seventy-five-is-pretty-much-our-limit.-You've-really-got-that-down-to-a-science.-I-lost-a-cousin-to-Italian-Vogue.-I'll-bet.-What-in-the-name-of-Mighty-Hercules-is-this?-How-did-this-get-here?-cute-Bee #Golden-Blossom #Ray-Liotta-Private-Select?-Is-he-that-actor?-I-never-heard-of-him.-Why-is-this-here?-For-people.-We-eat-it.-You-don't-have-enough-food-of-your-own?-Well #yes.-How-do-you-get-it?-Bees-make-it.-I-know-who-makes-it!-And-it's-hard-to-make-it!-There's-heating #cooling #stirring.-You-need-a-whole-Krelman-thing!-It's-organic.-It's-our-ganic!-It's-just-honey #Barry.-Just-what?!-Bees-don't-know-about-this!-This-is-stealing!-A-lot-of-stealing!-You've-taken-our-homes #schools #hospitals!-This-is-all-we-have!-And-it's-on-sale?!-I'm-getting-to-the-bottom-of-this.-I'm-getting-to-the-bottom-of-all-of-this!-Hey #Hector.-You-almost-done?-Almost.-He-is-here.-I-sense-it.-Well #I-guess-I'll-go-home-now-and-just-leave-this-nice-honey-out #with-no-one-around.-You're-busted #box-boy!-I-knew-I-heard-something.-So-you-can-talk!-I-can-talk.-And-now-you'll-start-talking!-Where-you-getting-the-sweet-stuff?-Who's-your-supplier?-I-don't-understand.-I-thought-we-were-friends.-The-last-thing-we-want-to-do-is-upset-bees!-You're-too-late!-It's-ours-now!-You #sir #have-crossed-the-wrong-sword!-You #sir #will-be-lunch-for-my-iguana #Ignacio!-Where-is-the-honey-coming-from?-Tell-me-where!-Honey-Farms!-It-comes-from-Honey-Farms!-Crazy-person!-What-horrible-thing-has-happened-here?-These-faces #they-never-knew-what-hit-them.-And-now-they're-on-the-road-to-nowhere!-Just-keep-still.-What?-You're-not-dead?-Do-I-look-dead?-They-will-wipe-anything-that-moves.-Where-you-headed?-To-Honey-Farms.-I-am-onto-something-huge-here.-I'm-going-to-Alaska.-Moose-blood #crazy-stuff.-Blows-your-head-off!-I'm-going-to-Tacoma.-And-you?-He-really-is-dead.-All-right.-Uh-oh!-What-is-that?!-Oh #no!-A-wiper!-Triple-blade!-Triple-blade?-Jump-on!-It's-your-only-chance #bee!-Why-does-everything-have-to-be-so-doggone-clean?!-How-much-do-you-people-need-to-see?!-Open-your-eyes!-Stick-your-head-out-the-window!-From-NPR-News-in-Washington #I'm-Carl-Kasell.-But-don't-kill-no-more-bugs!-Bee!-Moose-blood-guy!!-You-hear-something?-Like-what?-Like-tiny-screaming.-Turn-off-the-radio.-Whassup #bee-boy?-Hey #Blood.-Just-a-row-of-honey-jars #as-far-as-the-eye-could-see.-Wow!-I-assume-wherever-this-truck-goes-is-where-they're-getting-it.-I-mean #that-honey's-ours.-Bees-hang-tight.-We're-all-jammed-in.-It's-a-close-community.-Not-us #man.-We-on-our-own.-Every-mosquito-on-his-own.-What-if-you-get-in-trouble?-You-a-mosquito #you-in-trouble.-Nobody-likes-us.-They-just-smack.-See-a-mosquito #smack #smack!-At-least-you're-out-in-the-world.-You-must-meet-girls.-Mosquito-girls-try-to-trade-up #get-with-a-moth #dragonfly.-Mosquito-girl-don't-want-no-mosquito.-You-got-to-be-kidding-me!-Mooseblood's-about-to-leave-the-building!-So-long #bee!-Hey #guys!-Mooseblood!-I-knew-I'd-catch-y'all-down-here.-Did-you-bring-your-crazy-straw?-We-throw-it-in-jars #slap-a-label-on-it #and-it's-pretty-much-pure-profit.-What-is-this-place?-A-bee's-got-a-brain-the-size-of-a-pinhead.-They-are-pinheads!-Pinhead.-Check-out-the-new-smoker.-Oh #sweet.-That's-the-one-you-want.-The-Thomas-3000!-Smoker?-Ninety-puffs-a-minute #semi-automatic.-Twice-the-nicotine #all-the-tar.-A-couple-breaths-of-this-knocks-them-right-out.-They-make-the-honey #and-we-make-the-money.-'They-make-the-honey #and-we-make-the-money'?-Oh #my!-What's-going-on?-Are-you-OK?-Yeah.-It-doesn't-last-too-long.-Do-you-know-you're-in-a-fake-hive-with-fake-walls?-Our-queen-was-moved-here.-We-had-no-choice.-This-is-your-queen?-That's-a-man-in-women's-clothes!-That's-a-drag-queen!-What-is-this?-Oh #no!-There's-hundreds-of-them!-Bee-honey.-Our-honey-is-being-brazenly-stolen-on-a-massive-scale!-This-is-worse-than-anything-bears-have-done!-I-intend-to-do-something.-Oh #Barry #stop.-Who-told-you-humans-are-taking-our-honey?-That's-a-rumor.-Do-these-look-like-rumors?-That's-a-conspiracy-theory.-These-are-obviously-doctored-photos.-How-did-you-get-mixed-up-in-this?-He's-been-talking-to-humans.-What?-Talking-to-humans?!-He-has-a-human-girlfriend.-And-they-make-out!-Make-out?-Barry!-We-do-not.-You-wish-you-could.-Whose-side-are-you-on?-The-bees!-I-dated-a-cricket-once-in-San-Antonio.-Those-crazy-legs-kept-me-up-all-night.-Barry #this-is-what-you-want-to-do-with-your-life?-I-want-to-do-it-for-all-our-lives.-Nobody-works-harder-than-bees!-Dad #I-remember-you-coming-home-so-overworked-your-hands-were-still-stirring.-You-couldn't-stop.-I-remember-that.-What-right-do-they-have-to-our-honey?-We-live-on-two-cups-a-year.-They-put-it-in-lip-balm-for-no-reason-whatsoever!-Even-if-it's-true #what-can-one-bee-do?-Sting-them-where-it-really-hurts.-In-the-face!-The-eye!-That-would-hurt.-No.-Up-the-nose?-That's-a-killer.-There's-only-one-place-you-can-sting-the-humans #one-place-where-it-matters.-Hive-at-Five #The-Hive's-only-full-hour-action-news-source.-No-more-bee-beards!-With-Bob-Bumble-at-the-anchor-desk.-Weather-with-Storm-Stinger.-Sports-with-Buzz-Larvi.-And-Jeanette-Chung.-Good-evening.-I'm-Bob-Bumble.-And-I'm-Jeanette-Ohung.-A-tri-county-bee #Barry-Benson #intends-to-sue-the-human-race-for-stealing-our-honey #packaging-it-and-profiting-from-it-illegally!-Tomorrow-night-on-Bee-Larry-King #we'll-have-three-former-queens-here-in-our-studio #discussing-their-new-book #classy-Ladies #out-this-week-on-Hexagon.-Tonight-we're-talking-to-Barry-Benson.-Did-you-ever-think #'I'm-a-kid-from-The-Hive.-I-can't-do-this'?-Bees-have-never-been-afraid-to-change-the-world.-What-about-Bee-Oolumbus?-Bee-Gandhi?-Bejesus?-Where-I'm-from #we'd-never-sue-humans.-We-were-thinking-of-stickball-or-candy-stores.-How-old-are-you?-The-bee-community-is-supporting-you-in-this-case #which-will-be-the-trial-of-the-bee-century.-You-know #they-have-a-Larry-King-in-the-human-world-too.-It's-a-common-name.-Next-week...-He-looks-like-you-and-has-a-show-and-suspenders-and-colored-dots...-Next-week...-Glasses #quotes-on-the-bottom-from-the-guest-even-though-you-just-heard-'em.-Bear-Week-next-week!-They're-scary #hairy-and-here-live.-Always-leans-forward #pointy-shoulders #squinty-eyes #very-Jewish.-In-tennis #you-attack-at-the-point-of-weakness!-It-was-my-grandmother #Ken.-She's-81.-Honey #her-backhand's-a-joke!-I'm-not-gonna-take-advantage-of-that?-Quiet #please.-Actual-work-going-on-here.-Is-that-that-same-bee?-Yes #it-is!-I'm-helping-him-sue-the-human-race.-Hello.-Hello #bee.-This-is-Ken.-Yeah #I-remember-you.-Timberland #size-ten-and-a-half.-Vibram-sole #I-believe.-Why-does-he-talk-again?-Listen #you-better-go-'cause-we're-really-busy-working.-But-it's-our-yogurt-night!-Bye-bye.-Why-is-yogurt-night-so-difficult?!-You-poor-thing.-You-two-have-been-at-this-for-hours!-Yes #and-Adam-here-has-been-a-huge-help.-Frosting...-How-many-sugars?-Just-one.-I-try-not-to-use-the-competition.-So-why-are-you-helping-me?-Bees-have-good-qualities.-And-it-takes-my-mind-off-the-shop.-Instead-of-flowers #people-are-giving-balloon-bouquets-now.-Those-are-great #if-you're-three.-And-artificial-flowers.-Oh #those-just-get-me-psychotic!-Yeah #me-too.-Bent-stingers #pointless-pollination.-Bees-must-hate-those-fake-things!-Nothing-worse-than-a-daffodil-that's-had-work-done.-Maybe-this-could-make-up-for-it-a-little-bit.-This-lawsuit's-a-pretty-big-deal.-I-guess.-You-sure-you-want-to-go-through-with-it?-Am-I-sure?-When-I'm-done-with-the-humans #they-won't-be-able-to-say #'Honey #I'm-home #'-without-paying-a-royalty!-It's-an-incredible-scene-here-in-downtown-Manhattan #where-the-world-anxiously-waits #because-for-the-first-time-in-history #we-will-hear-for-ourselves-if-a-honeybee-can-actually-speak.-What-have-we-gotten-into-here #isn't-it?-I-can't-believe-how-many-humans-don't-work-during-the-day.-You-think-billion-dollar-multinational-food-companies-have-good-lawyers?-Everybody-needs-to-stay-behind-the-barricade.-What's-the-matter?-I-don't-know #I-just-got-a-chill.-Well #if-it-isn't-the-bee-team.-You-boys-work-on-this?-All-rise!-The-Honorable-Judge-Bumbleton-presiding.-All-right.-Case-number-4475 #Superior-Court-of-New-York #Barry-Bee-Benson-v.-the-Honey-Industry-is-now-in-session.-Mr.-Montgomery #you're-representing-the-five-food-companies-collectively?-A-privilege.-Mr.-Benson...-you're-representing-all-the-bees-of-the-world?-I'm-kidding.-Yes #Your-Honor #we're-ready-to-proceed.-Mr.-Montgomery #your-opening-statement #please.-Ladies-and-gentlemen-of-the-jury #my-grandmother-was-a-simple-woman.-Born-on-a-farm #she-believed-it-was-man's-divine-right-to-benefit-from-the-bounty-of-nature-God-put-before-us.-If-we-lived-in-the-topsy-turvy-world-Mr.-Benson-imagines #just-think-of-what-would-it-mean.-I-would-have-to-negotiate-with-the-silkworm-for-the-elastic-in-my-britches!-Talking-bee!-How-do-we-know-this-isn't-some-sort-of-holographic-motion-picture-capture-Hollywood-wizardry?-They-could-be-using-laser-beams!-Robotics!-Ventriloquism!-Cloning!-For-all-we-know #he-could-be-on-steroids!-Mr.-Benson?-Ladies-and-gentlemen #there's-no-trickery-here.-I'm-just-an-ordinary-bee.-Honey's-pretty-important-to-me.-It's-important-to-all-bees.-We-invented-it!-We-make-it.-And-we-protect-it-with-our-lives.-Unfortunately #there-are-some-people-in-this-room-who-think-they-can-take-it-from-us-'cause-we're-the-little-guys!-I'm-hoping-that #after-this-is-all-over #you'll-see-how #by-taking-our-honey #you-not-only-take-everything-we-have-but-everything-we-are!-I-wish-he'd-dress-like-that-all-the-time.-So-nice!-Call-your-first-witness.-So #Mr.-Klauss-Vanderhayden-of-Honey-Farms #big-company-you-have.-I-suppose-so.-I-see-you-also-own-Honeyburton-and-Honron!-Yes #they-provide-beekeepers-for-our-farms.-Beekeeper.-I-find-that-to-be-a-very-disturbing-term.-I-don't-imagine-you-employ-any-bee-free-ers #do-you?-No.-I-couldn't-hear-you.-No.-No.-Because-you-don't-free-bees.-You-keep-bees.-Not-only-that #it-seems-you-thought-a-bear-would-be-an-appropriate-image-for-a-jar-of-honey.-They're-very-lovable-creatures.-Yogi-Bear #Fozzie-Bear #Build-A-Bear.-You-mean-like-this?-Bears-kill-bees!-How'd-you-like-his-head-crashing-through-your-living-room?!-Biting-into-your-couch!-Spitting-out-your-throw-pillows!-OK #that's-enough.-Take-him-away.-So #Mr.-Sting #thank-you-for-being-here.-Your-name-intrigues-me.-Where-have-I-heard-it-before?-I-was-with-a-band-called-The-Police.-But-you've-never-been-a-police-officer #have-you?-No #I-haven't.-No #you-haven't.-And-so-here-we-have-yet-another-example-of-bee-culture-casually-stolen-by-a-human-for-nothing-more-than-a-prance-about-stage-name.-Oh #please.-Have-you-ever-been-stung #Mr.-Sting?-Because-I'm-feeling-a-little-stung #Sting.-Or-should-I-say...-Mr.-Gordon-M.-Sumner!-That's-not-his-real-name?!-You-idiots!-Mr.-Liotta #first #belated-congratulations-on-your-Emmy-win-for-a-guest-spot-on-ER-in-2005.-Thank-you.-Thank-you.-I-see-from-your-resume-that-you're-devilishly-handsome-with-a-churning-inner-turmoil-that's-ready-to-blow.-I-enjoy-what-I-do.-Is-that-a-crime?-Not-yet-it-isn't.-But-is-this-what-it's-come-to-for-you?-Exploiting-tiny #helpless-bees-so-you-don't-have-to-rehearse-your-part-and-learn-your-lines #sir?-Watch-it #Benson!-I-could-blow-right-now!-This-isn't-a-goodfella.-This-is-a-badfella!-Why-doesn't-someone-just-step-on-this-creep #and-we-can-all-go-home?!-Order-in-this-court!-You're-all-thinking-it!-Order!-Order #I-say!-Say-it!-Mr.-Liotta #please-sit-down!-I-think-it-was-awfully-nice-of-that-bear-to-pitch-in-like-that.-I-think-the-jury's-on-our-side.-Are-we-doing-everything-right #legally?-I'm-a-florist.-Right.-Well #here's-to-a-great-team.-To-a-great-team!-Well #hello.-Ken!-Hello.-I-didn't-think-you-were-coming.-No #I-was-just-late-I-tried-to-call #but...-the-battery.-I-didn't-want-all-this-to-go-to-waste #so-I-called-Barry.-Luckily #he-was-free.-Oh #that-was-lucky.-There's-a-little-left.-I-could-heat-it-up.-Yeah #heat-it-up #sure #whatever.-So-I-hear-you're-quite-a-tennis-player.-I'm-not-much-for-the-game-myself.-The-ball's-a-little-grabby.-That's-where-I-usually-sit.-Right...-there.-Ken #Barry-was-looking-at-your-resume #and-he-agreed-with-me-that-eating-with-chopsticks-isn't-really-a-special-skill.-You-think-I-don't-see-what-you're-doing?-I-know-how-hard-it-is-to-find-the-right-job.-We-have-that-in-common.-Do-we?-Bees-have-100-percent-employment #but-we-do-jobs-like-taking-the-crud-out.-That's-just-what-I-was-thinking-about-doing.-Ken #I-let-Barry-borrow-your-razor-for-his-fuzz.-I-hope-that-was-all-right.-I'm-going-to-drain-the-old-stinger.-Yeah #you-do-that.-Look-at-that.-You-know #I've-just-about-had-it-with-your-little-Mind-Games.-What's-that?-Italian-Vogue.-Mamma-mia #that's-a-lot-of-pages.-A-lot-of-ads.-Remember-what-Van-said #why-is-your-life-more-valuable-than-mine?-Funny #I-just-can't-seem-to-recall-that!-I-think-something-stinks-in-here!-I-love-the-smell-of-flowers.-How-do-you-like-the-smell-of-flames?!-Not-as-much.-Water-bug!-Not-taking-sides!-Ken #I'm-wearing-a-Chapstick-hat!-This-is-pathetic!-I've-got-issues!-Well #well #well #a-royal-flush!-You're-bluffing.-Am-I?-Surf's-up #dude!-Poo-water!-That-bowl-is-gnarly.-Except-for-those-dirty-yellow-rings!-Kenneth!-What-are-you-doing?!-You-know #I-don't-even-like-honey!-I-don't-eat-it!-We-need-to-talk!-He's-just-a-little-bee!-And-he-happens-to-be-the-nicest-bee-I've-met-in-a-long-time!-Long-time?-What-are-you-talking-about?!-Are-there-other-bugs-in-your-life?--No #but-there-are-other-things-bugging-me-in-life.-And-you're-one-of-them!-Fine!-Talking-bees #no-yogurt-night...-My-nerves-are-fried-from-riding-on-this-emotional-roller-coaster!-Goodbye #Ken.-And-for-your-information #I-prefer-sugar-free #artificial-sweeteners-made-by-man!-I'm-sorry-about-all-that.-I-know-it's-got-an-aftertaste!-I-like-it!-I-always-felt-there-was-some-kind-of-barrier-between-Ken-and-me.-I-couldn't-overcome-it.-Oh #well.-Are-you-OK-for-the-trial?-I-believe-Mr.-Montgomery-is-about-out-of-ideas.-We-would-like-to-call-Mr.-Barry-Benson-Bee-to-the-stand.-Good-idea!-You-can-really-see-why-he's-considered-one-of-the-best-lawyers...-Yeah.-Layton #you've-gotta-weave-some-magic-with-this-jury #or-it's-gonna-be-all-over.-Don't-worry.-The-only-thing-I-have-to-do-to-turn-this-jury-around-is-to-remind-them-of-what-they-don't-like-about-bees.-You-got-the-tweezers?-Are-you-allergic?-Only-to-losing #son.-Only-to-losing.-Mr.-Benson-Bee #I'll-ask-you-what-I-think-we'd-all-like-to-know.-What-exactly-is-your-relationship-to-that-woman?-We're-friends.-Good-friends?-Yes.-How-good?-Do-you-live-together?-Wait-a-minute...-Are-you-her-little...-bedbug?-I've-seen-a-bee-documentary-or-two.-From-what-I-understand #doesn't-your-queen-give-birth-to-all-the-bee-children?-Yeah #but...-So-those-aren't-your-real-parents!-Oh #Barry...-Yes #they-are!-Hold-me-back!-You're-an-illegitimate-bee #aren't-you #Benson?-He's-denouncing-bees!-Don't-y'all-date-your-cousins?-Objection!-I'm-going-to-pincushion-this-guy!-Adam #don't!-It's-what-he-wants!-Oh #I'm-hit!!-Oh #lordy #I-am-hit!-Order!-Order!-The-venom!-The-venom-is-coursing-through-my-veins!-I-have-been-felled-by-a-winged-beast-of-destruction!-You-see?-You-can't-treat-them-like-equals!-They're-striped-savages!-Stinging's-the-only-thing-they-know!-It's-their-way!-Adam #stay-with-me.-I-can't-feel-my-legs.-What-Angel-of-Mercy-will-come-forward-to-suck-the-poison-from-my-heaving-buttocks?-I-will-have-order-in-this-court.-Order!-Order #please!-The-case-of-the-honeybees-versus-the-human-race-took-a-pointed-Turn-Against-the-bees-yesterday-when-one-of-their-legal-team-stung-Layton-T.-Montgomery.-Hey #buddy.-Hey.-Is-there-much-pain?-Yeah.-I...-I-blew-the-whole-case #didn't-I?-It-doesn't-matter.-What-matters-is-you're-alive.-You-could-have-died.-I'd-be-better-off-dead.-Look-at-me.-They-got-it-from-the-cafeteria-downstairs #in-a-tuna-sandwich.-Look #there's-a-little-celery-still-on-it.-What-was-it-like-to-sting-someone?-I-can't-explain-it.-It-was-all...-All-adrenaline-and-then...and-then-ecstasy!-All-right.-You-think-it-was-all-a-trap?-Of-course.-I'm-sorry.-I-flew-us-right-into-this.-What-were-we-thinking?-Look-at-us.-We're-just-a-couple-of-bugs-in-this-world.-What-will-the-humans-do-to-us-if-they-win?-I-don't-know.-I-hear-they-put-the-roaches-in-motels.-That-doesn't-sound-so-bad.-Adam #they-check-in #but-they-don't-check-out!-Oh #my.-Could-you-get-a-nurse-to-close-that-window?-Why?-The-smoke.-Bees-don't-smoke.-Right.-Bees-don't-smoke.-Bees-don't-smoke!-But-some-bees-are-smoking.-That's-it!-That's-our-case!-It-is?-It's-not-over?-Get-dressed.-I've-gotta-go-somewhere.-Get-back-to-the-court-and-stall.-Stall-any-way-you-can.-And-assuming-you've-done-step-correctly #you're-ready-for-the-tub.-Mr.-Flayman.-Yes?-Yes #Your-Honor!-Where-is-the-rest-of-your-team?-Well #Your-Honor #it's-interesting.-Bees-are-trained-to-fly-haphazardly #and-as-a-result #we-don't-make-very-good-time.-I-actually-heard-a-funny-story-about...-Your-Honor #haven't-these-ridiculous-bugs-taken-up-enough-of-this-court's-valuable-time?-How-much-longer-will-we-allow-these-absurd-shenanigans-to-go-on?-They-have-presented-no-compelling-evidence-to-support-their-charges-against-my-clients #who-run-legitimate-businesses.-I-move-for-a-complete-dismissal-of-this-entire-case!-Mr.-Flayman #I'm-afraid-I'm-going-to-have-to-consider-Mr.-Montgomery's-motion.-But-you-can't!-We-have-a-terrific-case.-Where-is-your-proof?-Where-is-the-evidence?-Show-me-the-smoking-gun!-Hold-it #Your-Honor!-You-want-a-smoking-gun?-Here-is-your-smoking-gun.-What-is-that?-It's-a-bee-smoker!-What #this?-This-harmless-little-contraption?-This-couldn't-hurt-a-fly #let-alone-a-bee.-Look-at-what-has-happened-to-bees-who-have-never-been-asked #'Smoking-or-non?'-Is-this-what-nature-intended-for-us?-To-be-forcibly-addicted-to-smoke-machines-and-man-made-wooden-slat-work-camps?-Living-out-our-lives-as-honey-slaves-to-the-white-man?-What-are-we-gonna-do?-He's-playing-the-species-card.-Ladies-and-gentlemen #please #free-these-bees!-Free-the-bees!-Free-the-bees!-Free-the-bees!-Free-the-bees!-Free-the-bees!-The-court-finds-in-favor-of-the-bees!-Vanessa #we-won!-I-knew-you-could-do-it!-High-five!-Sorry.-I'm-OK!-You-know-what-this-means?-All-the-honey-will-finally-belong-to-the-bees.-Now-we-won't-have-to-work-so-hard-all-the-time.-This-is-an-unholy-perversion-of-the-balance-of-nature #Benson.-You'll-regret-this.-Barry #how-much-honey-is-out-there?-All-right.-One-at-a-time.-Barry #who-are-you-wearing?-My-sweater-is-Ralph-Lauren #and-I-have-no-pants.-What-if-Montgomery's-right?-What-do-you-mean?-We've-been-living-the-bee-way-a-long-time #27-million-years.-Congratulations-on-your-victory.-What-will-you-demand-as-a-settlement?-First #we'll-demand-a-complete-shutdown-of-all-bee-work-camps.-Then-we-want-back-the-honey-that-was-ours-to-begin-with #every-last-drop.-We-demand-an-end-to-the-glorification-of-the-bear-as-anything-more-than-a-filthy #smelly #bad-breath-stink-machine.-We're-all-aware-of-what-they-do-in-the-woods.-Wait-for-my-signal.-Take-him-out.-He'll-have-nauseous-for-a-few-hours #then-he'll-be-fine.-And-we-will-no-longer-tolerate-bee-negative-nicknames...-But-it's-just-a-prance-about-stage-name!-...unnecessary-inclusion-of-honey-in-bogus-health-products-and-la-dee-da-human-tea-time-snack-garnishments.-Can't-breathe.-Bring-it-in #boys!-Hold-it-right-there!-Good.-Tap-it.-Mr.-Buzzwell #we-just-passed-three-cups-and-there's-gallons-more-coming!-I-think-we-need-to-shut-down!-Shut-down?-We've-never-shut-down.-Shut-down-honey-production!-Stop-making-honey!-Turn-your-key #sir!-What-do-we-do-now?-Cannonball!-We're-shutting-honey-production!-Mission-abort.-Aborting-pollination-and-nectar-detail.-Returning-to-base.-Adam #you-wouldn't-believe-how-much-honey-was-out-there.-Oh #yeah?-What's-going-on?-Where-is-everybody?-Are-they-out-celebrating?-They're-home.-They-don't-know-what-to-do.-Laying-out #sleeping-in.-I-heard-your-Uncle-Carl-was-on-his-way-to-San-Antonio-with-a-cricket.-At-least-we-got-our-honey-back.-Sometimes-I-think #so-what-if-humans-liked-our-honey?-Who-wouldn't?-It's-the-greatest-thing-in-the-world!-I-was-excited-to-be-part-of-making-it.-This-was-my-new-desk.-This-was-my-new-job.-I-wanted-to-do-it-really-well.-And-now...-Now-I-can't.-I-don't-understand-why-they're-not-happy.-I-thought-their-lives-would-be-better!-They're-doing-nothing.-It's-amazing.-Honey-really-changes-people.-You-don't-have-any-idea-what's-going-on #do-you?-What-did-you-want-to-show-me?-This.-What-happened-here?-That-is-not-the-half-of-it.-Oh #no.-Oh #my.-They're-all-wilting.-Doesn't-look-very-good #does-it?-No.-And-whose-fault-do-you-think-that-is?-You-know #I'm-gonna-guess-bees.-Bees?-Specifically #me.-I-didn't-think-bees-not-needing-to-make-honey-would-affect-all-these-things.-It's-not-just-flowers.-Fruits #vegetables #they-all-need-bees.-That's-our-whole-SAT-test-right-there.-Take-away-produce #that-affects-the-entire-animal-kingdom.-And-then #of-course...-The-human-species?-So-if-there's-no-more-pollination #it-could-all-just-go-south-here #couldn't-it?-I-know-this-is-also-partly-my-fault.-How-about-a-suicide-pact?-How-do-we-do-it?-I'll-sting-you #you-step-on-me.-That-just-kills-you-twice.-Right #right.-Listen #Barry...-sorry #but-I-gotta-get-going.-I-had-to-open-my-mouth-and-talk.-Vanessa?-Vanessa?-Why-are-you-leaving?-Where-are-you-going?-To-the-final-Tournament-of-Roses-parade-in-Pasadena.-They've-moved-it-to-this-weekend-because-all-the-flowers-are-dying.-It's-the-Last-Chance-I'll-ever-have-to-see-it.-Vanessa #I-just-wanna-say-I'm-sorry.-I-never-meant-it-to-turn-out-like-this.-I-know.-Me-neither.-Tournament-of-Roses.-Roses-can't-do-sports.-Wait-a-minute.-Roses.-Roses?-Roses!-Vanessa!-Roses?!-Barry?-Roses-are-flowers!-Yes #they-are.-Flowers #bees #pollen!-I-know.-That's-why-this-is-the-last-parade.-Maybe-not.-Could-you-ask-him-to-slow-down?-Could-you-slow-down?-Barry!-OK #I-made-a-huge-mistake.-This-is-a-total-disaster #all-my-fault.-Yes #it-kind-of-is.-I've-ruined-the-planet.-I-wanted-to-help-you-with-the-flower-shop.-I've-made-it-worse.-Actually #it's-completely-closed-down.-I-thought-maybe-you-were-remodeling.-But-I-have-another-idea #and-it's-greater-than-my-previous-ideas-combined.-I-don't-want-to-hear-it!-All-right #they-have-the-roses #the-roses-have-the-pollen.-I-know-every-bee #plant-and-flower-bud-in-this-park.-All-we-gotta-do-is-get-what-they've-got-back-here-with-what-we've-got.-Bees.-Park.-Pollen!-Flowers.-Repollination!-Across-the-nation!-Tournament-of-Roses #Pasadena #California.-They've-got-nothing-but-flowers #floats-and-cotton-candy.-Security-will-be-tight.-I-have-an-idea.-Vanessa-Bloome #FTD.-Official-floral-business.-It's-real.-Sorry #ma'am.-Nice-brooch.-Thank-you.-It-was-a-gift.-Once-inside #we-just-pick-the-right-float.-How-about-The-Princess-and-the-Pea?-I-could-be-the-princess #and-you-could-be-the-pea!-Yes #I-got-it.-Where-should-I-sit?-What-are-you?-I-believe-I'm-the-pea.-The-pea?-It-goes-under-the-mattresses.-Not-in-this-fairy-tale #sweetheart.-I'm-getting-the-marshal.-You-do-that!-This-whole-parade-is-a-fiasco!-Let's-see-what-this-baby'll-do.-Hey #what-are-you-doing?!-Then-all-we-do-is-blend-in-with-traffic...-without-arousing-suspicion.-Once-at-the-airport #there's-no-stopping-us.-Stop!-Security.-You-and-your-insect-pack-your-float?-Yes.-Has-it-been-in-your-possession-the-entire-time?-Would-you-remove-your-shoes?-Remove-your-stinger.-It's-part-of-me.-I-know.-Just-having-some-fun.-Enjoy-your-flight.-Then-if-we're-lucky #we'll-have-just-enough-pollen-to-do-the-job.-Can-you-believe-how-lucky-we-are?-We-have-just-enough-pollen-to-do-the-job!-I-think-this-is-gonna-work.-It's-got-to-work.-Attention #passengers #this-is-Captain-Scott.-We-have-a-bit-of-bad-weather-in-New-York.-It-looks-like-we'll-experience-a-couple-hours-delay.-Barry #these-are-cut-flowers-with-no-water.-They'll-never-make-it.-I-gotta-get-up-there-and-talk-to-them.-Be-careful.-Can-I-get-help-with-the-Sky-Mall-magazine?-I'd-like-to-order-the-talking-inflatable-nose-and-ear-hair-trimmer.-Captain #I'm-in-a-real-situation.-What'd-you-say #Hal?-Nothing.-Bee!-Don't-freak-out!-My-entire-species...-What-are-you-doing?-Wait-a-minute!-I'm-an-attorney!-Who's-an-attorney?-Don't-move.-Oh #Barry.-Good-afternoon #passengers.-This-is-your-captain.-Would-a-Miss-Vanessa-Bloome-in-24B-please-report-to-the-cockpit?-And-please-hurry!-What-happened-here?-There-was-a-DustBuster #a-toupee #a-life-raft-exploded.-One's-bald #one's-in-a-boat #they're-both-unconscious!-Is-that-another-bee-joke?-No!-No-one's-flying-the-plane!-This-is-JFK-control-tower #Flight-356.-What's-your-status?-This-is-Vanessa-Bloome.-I'm-a-florist-from-New-York.-Where's-the-pilot?-He's-unconscious #and-so-is-the-copilot.-Not-good.-Does-anyone-onboard-have-flight-experience?-As-a-matter-of-fact #there-is.-Who's-that?-Barry-Benson.-From-the-honey-trial?!-Oh #great.-Vanessa #this-is-nothing-more-than-a-big-metal-bee.-It's-got-giant-wings #huge-engines.-I-can't-fly-a-plane.-Why-not?-Isn't-John-Travolta-a-pilot?-Yes.-How-hard-could-it-be?-Wait #Barry!-We're-headed-into-some-lightning.-This-is-Bob-Bumble.-We-have-some-late-breaking-news-from-JFK-Airport #where-a-suspenseful-scene-is-developing.-Barry-Benson #fresh-from-his-legal-victory...-That's-Barry!-...is-attempting-to-land-a-plane #loaded-with-people #flowers-and-an-incapacitated-flight-crew.-Flowers?!-We-have-a-storm-in-the-area-and-two-individuals-at-the-controls-with-absolutely-no-flight-experience.-Just-a-minute.-There's-a-bee-on-that-plane.-I'm-quite-familiar-with-Mr.-Benson-and-his-no-account-compadres.-They've-done-enough-damage.-But-isn't-he-your-only-hope?-Technically #a-bee-shouldn't-be-able-to-fly-at-all.-Their-wings-are-too-small...-Haven't-we-heard-this-a-million-times?-'The-surface-area-of-the-wings-and-body-mass-make-no-sense.'-Get-this-on-the-air!-Got-it.-Stand-by.-We're-going-live.-The-way-we-work-may-be-a-mystery-to-you.-Making-honey-takes-a-lot-of-bees-doing-a-lot-of-small-jobs.-But-let-me-tell-you-about-a-small-job.-If-you-do-it-well #it-makes-a-big-difference.-More-than-we-realized.-To-us #to-everyone.-That's-why-I-want-to-get-bees-back-to-working-together.-That's-the-bee-way!-We're-not-made-of-Jell-O.-We-get-behind-a-fellow.-Black-and-yellow!-Hello!-Left #right #down #hover.-Hover?-Forget-hover.-This-isn't-so-hard.-Beep-beep!-Beep-beep!-Barry #what-happened?!-Wait #I-think-we-were-on-autopilot-the-whole-time.-That-may-have-been-helping-me.-And-now-we're-not!-So-it-turns-out-I-cannot-fly-a-plane.-All-of-you #let's-get-behind-this-fellow!-Move-it-out!-Move-out!-Our-only-chance-is-if-I-do-what-I'd-do #you-copy-me-with-the-wings-of-the-plane!-Don't-have-to-yell.-I'm-not-yelling!-We're-in-a-lot-of-trouble.-It's-very-hard-to-concentrate-with-that-panicky-tone-in-your-voice!-It's-not-a-tone.-I'm-panicking!-I-can't-do-this!-Vanessa #pull-yourself-together.-You-have-to-snap-out-of-it!-You-snap-out-of-it.-You-snap-out-of-it.-You-snap-out-of-it!-You-snap-out-of-it!-You-snap-out-of-it!-You-snap-out-of-it!-You-snap-out-of-it!-You-snap-out-of-it!-Hold-it!-Why?-Come-on #it's-my-turn.-How-is-the-plane-flying?-I-don't-know.-Hello?-Benson #got-any-flowers-for-a-happy-occasion-in-there?-The-Pollen-Jocks!-They-do-get-behind-a-fellow.-Black-and-yellow.-Hello.-All-right #let's-drop-this-tin-can-on-the-blacktop.-Where?-I-can't-see-anything.-Can-you?-No #nothing.-It's-all-cloudy.-Come-on.-You-got-to-think-bee #Barry.-Thinking-bee.-Thinking-bee.-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Wait-a-minute.-I-think-I'm-feeling-something.-What?-I-don't-know.-It's-strong #pulling-me.-Like-a-27-million-year-old-instinct.-Bring-the-nose-down.-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-What-in-the-world-is-on-the-tarmac?-Get-some-lights-on-that!-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Thinking-bee!-Vanessa #aim-for-the-flower.-OK.-Cut-the-engines.-We're-going-in-on-bee-power.-Ready #boys?-Affirmative!-Good.-Good.-Easy #now.-That's-it.-Land-on-that-flower!-Ready?-Full-reverse!-Spin-it-around!-Not-that-flower!-The-other-one!-Which-one?-That-flower.-I'm-aiming-at-the-flower!-That's-a-fat-guy-in-a-flowered-shirt.-I-mean-the-giant-pulsating-flower-made-of-millions-of-bees!-Pull-forward.-Nose-down.-Tail-up.-Rotate-around-it.-This-is-insane #Barry!-This's-the-only-way-I-know-how-to-fly.-Am-I-koo-koo-kachoo #or-is-this-plane-flying-in-an-insect-like-pattern?-Get-your-nose-in-there.-Don't-be-afraid.-Smell-it.-Full-reverse!-Just-drop-it.-Be-a-part-of-it.-Aim-for-the-center!-Now-drop-it-in!-Drop-it-in #woman!-Come-on #already.-Barry #we-did-it!-You-taught-me-how-to-fly!-Yes.-No-high-five!-Right.-Barry #it-worked!-Did-you-see-the-giant-flower?-What-giant-flower?-Where?-Of-course-I-saw-the-flower!-That-was-genius!-Thank-you.-But-we're-not-done-yet.-Listen #everyone!-This-runway-is-covered-with-the-last-pollen-from-the-last-flowers-available-anywhere-on-Earth.-That-means-this-is-our-Last-Chance.-We're-the-only-ones-who-make-honey #pollinate-flowers-and-dress-like-this.-If-we're-gonna-survive-as-a-species #this-is-our-moment!-What-do-you-say?-Are-we-going-to-be-bees #or-just-Museum-of-Natural-History-keychains?-We're-bees!-Keychain!-Then-follow-me!-Except-Keychain.-Hold-on #Barry.-Here.-You've-earned-this.-Yeah!-I'm-a-Pollen-Jock!-And-it's-a-perfect-fit.-All-I-gotta-do-are-the-sleeves.-Oh #yeah.-That's-our-Barry.-Mom!-The-bees-are-back!-If-anybody-needs-to-make-a-call #now's-the-time.-I-got-a-feeling-we'll-be-working-late-tonight!-Here's-your-change.-Have-a-great-afternoon!-Can-I-help-who's-next?-Would-you-like-some-honey-with-that?-It-is-bee-approved.-Don't-forget-these.-Milk #cream #cheese #it's-all-me.--And-I-don't-see-a-nickel!-Sometimes-I-just-feel-like-a-piece-of-meat!-I-had-no-idea.-Barry #I'm-sorry.-Have-you-got-a-moment?-Would-you-excuse-me?-My-mosquito-associate-will-help-you.-Sorry-I'm-late.-He's-a-lawyer-too?-I-was-already-a-blood-sucking-parasite.-All-I-needed-was-a-briefcase.-Have-a-great-afternoon!-Barry #I-just-got-this-huge-tulip-order #and-I-can't-get-them-anywhere.-No-problem #Vannie.-Just-leave-it-to-me.-You're-a-lifesaver #Barry.-Can-I-help-who's-next?-All-right #scramble #jocks!-It's-time-to-fly.-Thank-you #Barry!-That-bee-is-living-my-life!-Let-it-go #Kenny.-When-will-this-nightmare-end?!-Let-it-all-go.-Beautiful-day-to-fly.-Sure-is.-Between-you-and-me #I-was-dying-to-get-out-of-that-office.-You-have-got-to-start-thinking-bee #my-friend.-Thinking-bee!-Me?-Hold-it.-Let's-just-stop-for-a-second.-Hold-it.-I'm-sorry.-I'm-sorry #everyone.-Can-we-stop-here?-I'm-not-making-a-major-life-decision-during-a-production-number!-All-right.-Take-ten #everybody.-Wrap-it-up #guys.-I-had-virtually-no-rehearsal-for-that. -
Das Boot: The Limit of Human Endurance in The Boat 🌊
Wolfgang Petersen’s claustrophobic classic Das Boot (The Boat) remains one of West Germany’s most famous films. It was adapted from Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s 1973 semi-autobiographical book.
Set during WWII, the story follows the German submarine U-96 and the difficulties its crew faces. A relentlessly bleak film, it holds a clear anti-war message alongside several Nazi characters clearly having reached a point of total disdain for the regime. Timely, then, and still a very impressive film.
The Very Strong Anti-War Message of Das Boot
Interesting starting point, but Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1918-2007) didn’t make much of the film adaptation. He felt it didn’t properly convey his book’s anti-war message.
Our first viewing of the film wasn’t that at all. It has very clear anti-war messages and the bleakness of its ending alone makes that abundantly obvious. Not a big spoiler here, but after some horrendous ordeals out at sea the U-96 crew is all blown to smithereens by the Royal Air Force. On Christmas Eve when back on land.
What’s impressive about the film is how it portrays the ship’s crew. Although Nazi members, some have clear anti-Hitler stances, such as Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen (Otto Sander). Suffering PTSD and a clear raging alcoholic, he mocks Hitler during a party.
And if that seems like too convincing a bit of drunk acting, it’s because Sander was very drunk when he filmed it. Method acting.
Another cynic is the submarine’s Kapitänleutnant (Jürgen Prochnow) who openly mocks Nazi state messages and propaganda. His crew also just come across as desperate, trapped in the submarine whilst being bombed and spending months out at sea.
For viewers, Das Boot is a psychological onslaught. Seeing this in a cinema must have been draining, but the message is very clear. At 149 minutes, you don’t get any room to breathe.
There are the tense conflicts in confined quarters, flooding, and then the long periods of intense boredom for the crew. And as the viewer, you live through all that and feel the cold, sweat, and tears.
PTSD kicks in for several crew members. With Kapitänleutnant fighting to uphold morale as his belief in the war effort dwindles. All of which builds to a crushing conclusion of total nihilistic defeat—all the suffering, for nothing.
Yes, then, not an uplifting film in any respect.
But a technically very impressive one, with a very convincing set of actors. And as you can read below, they were so convincing as they genuinely had to endure a hellish time of it.
The Production of Das Boot
This was a major West German production involving the studios Bavaria Film, Radiant Film, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and SWR Fernsehen. They cobbled together the impressive budget of DM 32 million (€17.4 million in 2021 cash).
The film was a hit, too, making a 2025 equivalent of $283 million.
Production initially began in 1976 with Robert Redford involved in the project as Kapitänleutnant. But then the effort was cancelled, before being picked up to become the most expensive German film of its day (only beaten in expensive come 2006).
Rutger Hauer was also offered the lead role, but chose instead a role in a certain film called Blade Runner (1982).
Filming took 12 months and was chaotic and gruelling, with most of Das Boot shot in sequence (unlike most other films). This meant beard growth and weight loss is very real in the film, alongside the increasingly haggard looking actors.
The actors were warned to avoid sunlight as much as possible. The guys do end up looking very pallid by mid-way into the film and that’s why.
For scenes inside the submarine, a giant mock-up was created for the actors to do their thing in. Crew members would shake it, rock it, and tilt the shell at angles.
The director’s obsessive approach paid off with critical and commercial success.
It got six Oscar nominations, too, but didn’t win any. On the plus side, he did win the German Film Award for Best Film. All good going, even if the book’s author didn’t rate the work.
#antiWar #Cinema #DasBoot #Films #History #LotharGüntherBuchheim #Movies #TheBoat #War #WolfgangPetersen #WorldWarII #WWII -
Das Boot: The Limit of Human Endurance in The Boat 🌊
Wolfgang Petersen’s claustrophobic classic Das Boot (The Boat) remains one of West Germany’s most famous films. It was adapted from Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s 1973 semi-autobiographical book.
Set during WWII, the story follows the German submarine U-96 and the difficulties its crew faces. A relentlessly bleak film, it holds a clear anti-war message alongside several Nazi characters clearly having reached a point of total disdain for the regime. Timely, then, and still a very impressive film.
The Very Strong Anti-War Message of Das Boot
Interesting starting point, but Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1918-2007) didn’t make much of the film adaptation. He felt it didn’t properly convey his book’s anti-war message.
Our first viewing of the film wasn’t that at all. It has very clear anti-war messages and the bleakness of its ending alone makes that abundantly obvious. Not a big spoiler here, but after some horrendous ordeals out at sea the U-96 crew is all blown to smithereens by the Royal Air Force. On Christmas Eve when back on land.
What’s impressive about the film is how it portrays the ship’s crew. Although Nazi members, some have clear anti-Hitler stances, such as Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen (Otto Sander). Suffering PTSD and a clear raging alcoholic, he mocks Hitler during a party.
And if that seems like too convincing a bit of drunk acting, it’s because Sander was very drunk when he filmed it. Method acting.
Another cynic is the submarine’s Kapitänleutnant (Jürgen Prochnow) who openly mocks Nazi state messages and propaganda. His crew also just come across as desperate, trapped in the submarine whilst being bombed and spending months out at sea.
For viewers, Das Boot is a psychological onslaught. Seeing this in a cinema must have been draining, but the message is very clear. At 149 minutes, you don’t get any room to breathe.
There are the tense conflicts in confined quarters, flooding, and then the long periods of intense boredom for the crew. And as the viewer, you live through all that and feel the cold, sweat, and tears.
PTSD kicks in for several crew members. With Kapitänleutnant fighting to uphold morale as his belief in the war effort dwindles. All of which builds to a crushing conclusion of total nihilistic defeat—all the suffering, for nothing.
Yes, then, not an uplifting film in any respect.
But a technically very impressive one, with a very convincing set of actors. And as you can read below, they were so convincing as they genuinely had to endure a hellish time of it.
The Production of Das Boot
This was a major West German production involving the studios Bavaria Film, Radiant Film, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and SWR Fernsehen. They cobbled together the impressive budget of DM 32 million (€17.4 million in 2021 cash).
The film was a hit, too, making a 2025 equivalent of $283 million.
Production initially began in 1976 with Robert Redford involved in the project as Kapitänleutnant. But then the effort was cancelled, before being picked up to become the most expensive German film of its day (only beaten in expensive come 2006).
Rutger Hauer was also offered the lead role, but chose instead a role in a certain film called Blade Runner (1982).
Filming took 12 months and was chaotic and gruelling, with most of Das Boot shot in sequence (unlike most other films). This meant beard growth and weight loss is very real in the film, alongside the increasingly haggard looking actors.
The actors were warned to avoid sunlight as much as possible. The guys do end up looking very pallid by mid-way into the film and that’s why.
For scenes inside the submarine, a giant mock-up was created for the actors to do their thing in. Crew members would shake it, rock it, and tilt the shell at angles.
The director’s obsessive approach paid off with critical and commercial success.
It got six Oscar nominations, too, but didn’t win any. On the plus side, he did win the German Film Award for Best Film. All good going, even if the book’s author didn’t rate the work.
#antiWar #Cinema #DasBoot #Films #History #LotharGüntherBuchheim #Movies #TheBoat #War #WolfgangPetersen #WorldWarII #WWII -
Our Phones Are Wrecking Our Attention Span; Here’s What to Do About It – ELLE Canada Magazine – Beauty, Fashion and Lifestyle Trends & Celebrity News
Health & Fitness
Our Phones Are Wrecking Our Attention Span; Here’s What to Do About It
Anna Lembke, addiction expert and author of Dopamine Nation, calls smartphones “modern-day hypodermic needles,” as they deliver digital dopamine 24-7 and make users vulnerable to compulsive use. Is a “dopamine detox” the key to breaking the habit?
by : Jennifer Berry– Jan 6th, 2026
STOCKSYI sit down to respond to emails on my laptop. I make it through two messages before I grab my iPhone and open TikTok. I scroll through videos for five minutes (or was it 10?), send a particularly funny video skewering the faux urgency of corporate America to the group chat and put my phone away. Back to emails. A few minutes later, my phone is mysteriously in my hand again, and I’m seeing what’s happening on Instagram. Boring. I check text messages and respond to one. Ooooohhh, has the Ssense sale started yet? I stop myself. What was I supposed to be doing again?
Flashes of TikTok videos about adult women with ADHD are running through my head like a film reel when I remember an ad I was recently served for a habit-building app that promises to cure “dopamine addiction,” among other things. Am I a dopamine addict with a latent attention disorder? Or just the average chronically online (elder) millennial who’s glued to their phone for work and entertainment?
Harvard Medical School defines dopamine as a neuro-transmitter that helps us feel pleasure as part of the brain’s reward system. You know that flutter of good vibes you feel when clicking “purchase” in your favourite shopping app or after you’ve had a good old-fashioned roll in the hay? That’s a release of dopamine, or a “dopamine rush.”
While one can’t technically be addicted to dopamine itself, the role dopamine plays in addiction is very real, says Anna Lembke, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic and author of the book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. “Dopamine is the ‘go’ signal,” she explains—the one that tells our brains we should keep doing a particular behaviour. And over time, our brains get accustomed to high dopamine levels, which means we require more intense stimuli to feel the same amount of pleasure. “This leads to tolerance, where now we need more reinforcing substances and behaviours to feel any kind of interest or salience or pleasure at all,” says Lembke. “And when we’re not using, we’re in withdrawal.” This explains why scrolling sessions can get longer and longer—the behaviour needs to escalate to generate the same rush.
Lembke studies all forms of addiction, from drugs and sex to online gambling and digital devices. She’s one of many authors and academics, like The Anxious Generation’s Jonathan Haidt, who caution against our reliance on screens and algorithms and the quick, cheap hits of dopamine they’re laced with.
When I ask Lembke if my habitual phone-grabbing could be an addiction, she doesn’t attempt to diagnose me in a 30-minute interview but says that her threshold for a smartphone addiction would be much higher than what I’d described. (Phew.) “There’s problematic or risky behaviour that I would say most of us fall prey to, even if we’re not meeting the criteria for addiction,” she says. That doesn’t mean treating the device like an appendage is without consequences—like frying your attention span, which it seems to be doing to me.
“These devices have, in a sense, trained our minds to interrupt ourselves, thereby preventing the deep concentration and gratifying flow state—which are in themselves sources of healthy dopamine—we could get into if we weren’t intermittently distracted by these devices.”
“The fracturing of our attention [span] is something that is resulting from our use of these devices,” Lembke confirms. “They’re very engaging. So for our reward pathways, [using them is] soothing and frictionless. It’s not effortful, and it’s an instant feel-good. As a result, we’re not building up the kinds of mental calluses we need to tolerate frustration, to wait for answers, to be uncertain, to tolerate ambiguity.
“When it comes to what you described, that’s a great example of how these devices have, in a sense, trained our minds to interrupt ourselves, thereby preventing the deep concentration and gratifying flow state—which are in themselves sources of healthy dopamine—we could get into if we weren’t intermittently distracted by these devices.”
Lembke suggests that perhaps I’m reaching for my phone (and a quick hit of instant gratification) when I’m encountering something slightly uncomfortable in my work. “If you reflect on distraction and consumption, what you’ll probably observe is that the moments when you reflexively grab your phone are moments when you’ve encountered a little bit of a roadblock in the work you’re doing—a moment when you’re not exactly sure what the next step is.” This is the crux of digital addiction: We don’t want to feel discomfort for even a moment (and that uneasiness could be boredom, tension with a co-worker or household chores you need to tackle), so we keep reaching for the thing that offers a temporary respite.
Lembke says that we have to train ourselves to accept certain levels of pain in order to feel pleasure. In the case of my constant self-interruptions, that pleasure would be the satisfaction of getting into a focused state. “The best way to deepen your work is to actually pause there and let yourself just sit in those eddying waters for a while,” she says. “Eventually, your mind will produce what the next step should be.” In regularly reaching for my emotional-support device, I’m not letting myself get into deep, challenging work. And I’m also not reaping the bigger reward that comes from doing hard things.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Our Phones Are Wrecking Our Attention Span; Here’s What to Do About It | ELLE Canada Magazine | Beauty, Fashion and Lifestyle Trends & Celebrity News
Tags: Attention, Attention Span, Canada, Digital, Distracting, Elle, Emotional Responses, Focus, Jennifer Berry, Lifestyle, Magazine, phones, Prevents Concentration, Risky Behavior, Wrecking
#Attention #AttentionSpan #Canada #Digital #Distracting #Elle #EmotionalResponses #Focus #JenniferBerry #Lifestyle #Magazine #phones #PreventsConcentration #RiskyBehavior #Wrecking -
“I tend to think that most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism”*…
Further to Wednesday‘s and yesterday‘s posts (on to other topics again after this, I promise), a powerful piece from Patrick Tanguay (in his always-illuminating Sentiers newsletter).
He begins with a consideration of Peter Wolfendale’s “Geist in the machine“
… Wolfendale argues that the current AI debate recapitulates an 18th-century conflict between mechanism and romanticism. On one side, naive rationalists (Yudkowsky, Bostrom, much of Silicon Valley) assume intelligence is ultimately reducible to calculation; throw enough computing power at the problem and the gap between human and machine closes. On the other, popular romantics (Bender, Noë, many artists) insist that something about human cognition, whether it’s embodiment, meaning, or consciousness, can never be mechanised. Wolfendale finds both positions insufficient. The rationalists reduce difficult choices to optimisation problems, while the romantics bundle distinct capacities into a single vague essence.
His alternative draws on Kant and Hegel. He separates what we loosely call the “soul” into three capacities: wisdom (the metacognitive ability to reformulate problems, not just solve them), creativity (the ability to invent new rules rather than search through existing ones), and autonomy (the capacity to question and revise our own motivations). Current AI systems show glimmers of the first two but lack the third entirely. Wolfendale treats autonomy as the defining feature of personhood: not a hidden essence steering action, but the ongoing process of asking who we want to be and revising our commitments accordingly. Following Hegel he calls this Geist, spirit as self-reflective freedom.
Wolfendale doesn’t ask whether machines can have souls; he argues we should build them, and that the greater risk lies in not doing so. Machines that handle all our meaningful choices without possessing genuine autonomy would sever us from the communities of mutual recognition through which we pursue truth, beauty, and justice. A perfectly optimised servant that satisfies our preferences while leaving us unchanged is, in his phrase, “a slave so abject it masters us.” Most philosophical treatments of AI consciousness end with a verdict on possibility. Wolfendale ends with an ethical imperative: freedom is best preserved by extending it.
I can’t say I agree, unless “we”… end up with a completely different relationship to our technology and capital. However, his argument all the way before then is a worthy reflection, and pairs well with the one below and another from issue No.387. I’m talking about Anil Seth’s The mythology of conscious AI, where he argues that consciousness probably requires biological life and that silicon-based AI is unlikely to achieve it. Seth maps the biological terrain that makes consciousness hard to replicate; Wolfendale maps the philosophical terrain that makes personhood worth pursuing anyway, on entirely different grounds. Seth ends where the interesting problem begins for Wolfendale: even if machines can’t be conscious, the question of whether they can be autonomous persons, capable of self-reflective revision, remains open:
Though GenAI systems can’t usually compete with human creatives on their own, they are increasingly being used as imaginative prosthetics. This symbiosis reveals that what distinguishes human creativity is not the precise range of heuristics embedded in our perceptual systems, but our metacognitive capacity to modulate and combine them in pursuit of novelty. What makes our imaginative processes conscious is our ability to self-consciously intervene in them, deliberately making unusual choices or drawing analogies between disparate tasks. And yet metacognition is nothing on its own. If reason demands revision, new rules must come from somewhere. […]
[Hubert Dreyfus] argues that the comparative robustness of human intelligence lies in our ability to navigate the relationships between factors and determine what matters in any practical situation. He claims that this wouldn’t be possible were it not for our bodies, which shape the range of actions we can perform, and our needs, which unify our various goals and projects into a structured framework. Dreyfus argues that, without bodies and needs, machines will never match us. […]
This is the basic link between self-determination and self-justification. For Hegel, to be free isn’t simply to be oneself – it isn’t enough to play by one’s own rules. We must also be responsive to error, ensuring not just that inconsistencies in our principles and practices are resolved, but that we build frameworks to hold one another mutually accountable. […]
Delegating all our choices to mere automatons risks alienating us from our sources of meaning. If we consume only media optimised for our personal preferences, generated by AIs with no preferences of their own, then we will cease to belong to aesthetic communities in which tastes are assessed, challenged and deepened. We will no longer see ourselves and one another as even passively involved in the pursuit of beauty. Without mutual recognition in science and civic life, we might as easily be estranged from truth and right – told how to think and act by anonymous machines rather than experts we hold to account…
Tanguay then turns to “The Prospect of Butlerian Jihad” by Liam Mullally, in which Mullally uses…
… Herbert’s Dune and the Butlerian Jihad [here] as a lens for what he sees as a growing anti-tech “structure of feeling” (Raymond Williams’s term): the diffuse public unease about AI, enshittification, surveillance, and tech oligarchs that has not yet solidified into coherent politics. The closest thing to a political expression so far is neo-Luddism, which Mullally credits for drawing attention to technological exploitation but finds insufficient. His concern is that the impulse to reject technology wholesale smuggles in essentialist assumptions about human nature, a romantic defence of “pure” humanity against the corruption of machines. He traces this logic back to Samuel Butler’s 1863 essay Darwin Among the Machines, which framed the human-technology relationship as a zero-sum contest for supremacy, and notes that Butler’s framing was “explicitly supremacist,” written from within colonial New Zealand and structured by the same logic of domination it claimed to resist.
The alternative Mullally proposes draws on Bernard Stiegler’s concept of “originary technicity”: the idea that human subjectivity has always been constituted in part by its tools, that there is no pre-technological human to defend. [see here] If that’s right, then opposing technology as such is an “ontological confusion,” a fight against something that is already part of what we are. The real problem is not machines but the economic logic that shapes their development and deployment. Mullally is clear-eyed about this: capital does not have total command over its technologies, and understanding how they work is a precondition for contesting them. He closes by arguing that the anti-tech structure of feeling is “there for the taking,” but only if it can be redirected. The fights ahead are between capital and whatever coalition can form against it, not between humanity and machines. Technology is a terrain in that conflict; abandoning it means losing before the contest begins.
Wolfendale’s Geist in the Machine above arrived at a parallel conclusion from a different direction: where Mullally argues that rejecting technology means defending a false vision of the human, Wolfendale argues that refusing to extend autonomy to machines risks severing us from the self-reflective freedom that makes us persons in the first place. Both reject the romantic position, but for different reasons:
To the extent that neo-Luddites bring critical attention to technology, they are doing useful work. But this anti-tech sentiment frequently cohabitates with something uneasy: the treatment of technology as some abstract and impenetrable evil, and the retreat, against this, into essentialist views of the human. […]
If “humanity” is not a thing-in-itself, but historically, socially and technically mutable, then the sphere of possibility of the human and of our world becomes much broader. Our relationship to the non-human — to technology or to nature — does not need to be one of control, domination and exploitation. […]
As calls for a fight back against technology grow, the left needs to carefully consider what it is advocating for. Are we fighting the exploitation of workers, the hollowing out of culture and the destruction of the earth via technology, or are we rallying in defence of false visions of pure, a-technical humanity? […]
The anti-tech structure of feeling is there for the taking. But if it is to lead anywhere, it must be taken carefully: a fightback against technological exploitation will be found not in the complete rejection of technology, but in the short-circuiting of one kind of technology and the development of another.
As Max Read (scroll down) observes:
… if we understand A.I. as a product of the systems that precede it, I think it’s fair to say ubiquitous A.I.-generated text is “inevitable” in the same way that high-volume blogs were “inevitable” or Facebook fake news pages were “inevitable”: Not because of some “natural” superiority or excellence, but because they follow so directly from the logic of the system out of which they emerge. In this sense A.I. is “inevitable” precisely because it’s not revolutionary…
The question isn’t if we want a relationship with technology; it’s what kind of relationship we want. We’ve always (at least since we’ve been a conscious species) co-existed with, and been shaped by, tools; we’ve always suffered the “friction” of technological transition as we innovate new tools. As yesterday’s post suggested (in its defense of the open web in the face on a voracious attack from powerful LLM companies), “what matters is power“… power to shape the relationship(s) we have with the technologies we use. That power is currently in the hands of a relatively few companies, all concerned above all else with harvesting as much money as they can from “uses” they design to amplify that engagement and ease that monetization. It doesn’t, of course, have to be this way.
We’ve lived under modern capitalism for only a few hundred years, and under the hyper-global, hyper-extractive regime we currently inhabit for only a century-and-a-half or so, during which time, in fits and starts, it has grown ever more rapcious. George Monbiot observed that “like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good.” And Ursula Le Guin, that “we live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” In many countries, “divine right” monarchy has been replaced by “constitutional monarchy.” Perhaps it’s time for more of the world to consider “constitutional capitalism.” We could start by learning from the successes and failures of Scandinavia and Europe.
Social media, AI, quantum computing– on being clear as to the real issue: “Geist in the machine & The prospect of Butlerian Jihad,” from @inevernu.bsky.social.
(All this said, David Chalmers argues that there’s one possibility that might change everything: “Could a Large Language Model be Conscious?” On the other hand, the ARC Prize Foundation suggests, we have some time: a test they devised for benchmarking agentic intelligence recently found that “humans can solve 100% of the environments, in contrast to frontier AI systems which, as of March 2026, score below 1%”… :)
* Ted Chiang (gift article; see also here and here and here)
###
As we keep our eyes on the prize, we might spare a thought for a man who wrestled with a version of these same issues in the last century, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; he died on this date in 1955. A Jesuit theologian, philosopher, geologist, and paleontologist, he conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky‘s concept of noosphere. Teilhard took part in the discovery of Peking Man, and wrote on the reconciliation of faith and evolutionary theory. His thinking on both these fronts was censored during his lifetime by the Catholic Church (in particular for its implications for “original sin”); but in 2009, they lifted their ban.
#AI #artificialIntelligence #BernardStiegler #ButlerianJihad #capitalism #computing #consolidation #culture #Hegel #history #Kant #LiamMullally #noosphere #OmegaPoint #PatrickTanguay #PeterWolfendale #philosophy #PierreTeilhardDeChardin #socialMedia #Technology #TeilhardDeChardin -
How does using the #Jolla #JollaC2 (@jolla) with #SailfishOS for about a week as a daily driver now (with my old #iPhone at home as a backup)?
In general, it works much better than I had hoped after my experiences with other alternative #smartphone systems and it indeed is the first (and so far only) system that indeed works quite well. Also at around 285€ (https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone) it isn't too expensive, so one can simply try it out.
There are a few limitations though:
* I am really missing biometric unlocking
* There is no predictive text input, so typing could be more comfy
* The UX experience sometimes feels strange (but no no-gos for me)
* It is not a snappy and fast device
* Audio quality is so-so
* GPS really needs a GPS signal, so no WIFI-based locationWhat is great:
* It is a real #Linux, so it has a #terminal, #sshd, you can e.g. use the #Nix package manager etc.
* Android apps are running in a container
* You can have different users to limit data accessUnfortunately there are nearly no high-quality native apps so far and the built-in ones are very basic (e.g. email).
But: The #Android compatibility layer is very good, the system comes with #Fdroid and #AuroraStore (#Google store front-end) pre-installed, so you can easily install practically all official Android apps.
Most apps work very well, some (especially banking) apps do not though as they complain that the system is rooted, so YMMV regarding the apps you need.
In general I am really happy with this system.
And: All the de-ggoglefied Android phones like the #Volla will always still remain just that: A more limited Android. SailfishOS offers a path towards powerful native (#Qt/#QML/#Cplusplus/#Python/you name it) based apps.
I am hoping that Jolla will provide a significantly more powerful device option and that some of the problems above will be solved.
But already now, even with the limitations above, if you are somewhat technically inclined (but without the need to fiddle with a command line unlike with the open mobile Linux distributions), want to get rid of #Google or #Apple for whatever reason, want a #Linux #smartphone, support a #European company from #Finland, this phone is really usable.
-
How does using the #Jolla #JollaC2 (@jolla) with #SailfishOS for about a week as a daily driver now (with my old #iPhone at home as a backup)?
In general, it works much better than I had hoped after my experiences with other alternative #smartphone systems and it indeed is the first (and so far only) system that indeed works quite well. Also at around 285€ (https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone) it isn't too expensive, so one can simply try it out.
There are a few limitations though:
* I am really missing biometric unlocking
* There is no predictive text input, so typing could be more comfy
* The UX experience sometimes feels strange (but no no-gos for me)
* It is not a snappy and fast device
* Audio quality is so-so
* GPS really needs a GPS signal, so no WIFI-based locationWhat is great:
* It is a real #Linux, so it has a #terminal, #sshd, you can e.g. use the #Nix package manager etc.
* Android apps are running in a container
* You can have different users to limit data accessUnfortunately there are nearly no high-quality native apps so far and the built-in ones are very basic (e.g. email).
But: The #Android compatibility layer is very good, the system comes with #Fdroid and #AuroraStore (#Google store front-end) pre-installed, so you can easily install practically all official Android apps.
Most apps work very well, some (especially banking) apps do not though as they complain that the system is rooted, so YMMV regarding the apps you need.
In general I am really happy with this system.
And: All the de-ggoglefied Android phones like the #Volla will always still remain just that: A more limited Android. SailfishOS offers a path towards powerful native (#Qt/#QML/#Cplusplus/#Python/you name it) based apps.
I am hoping that Jolla will provide a significantly more powerful device option and that some of the problems above will be solved.
But already now, even with the limitations above, if you are somewhat technically inclined (but without the need to fiddle with a command line unlike with the open mobile Linux distributions), want to get rid of #Google or #Apple for whatever reason, want a #Linux #smartphone, support a #European company from #Finland, this phone is really usable.
-
How does using the #Jolla #JollaC2 (@jolla) with #SailfishOS for about a week as a daily driver now (with my old #iPhone at home as a backup)?
In general, it works much better than I had hoped after my experiences with other alternative #smartphone systems and it indeed is the first (and so far only) system that indeed works quite well. Also at around 285€ (https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone) it isn't too expensive, so one can simply try it out.
There are a few limitations though:
* I am really missing biometric unlocking
* There is no predictive text input, so typing could be more comfy
* The UX experience sometimes feels strange (but no no-gos for me)
* It is not a snappy and fast device
* Audio quality is so-so
* GPS really needs a GPS signal, so no WIFI-based locationWhat is great:
* It is a real #Linux, so it has a #terminal, #sshd, you can e.g. use the #Nix package manager etc.
* Android apps are running in a container
* You can have different users to limit data accessUnfortunately there are nearly no high-quality native apps so far and the built-in ones are very basic (e.g. email).
But: The #Android compatibility layer is very good, the system comes with #Fdroid and #AuroraStore (#Google store front-end) pre-installed, so you can easily install practically all official Android apps.
Most apps work very well, some (especially banking) apps do not though as they complain that the system is rooted, so YMMV regarding the apps you need.
In general I am really happy with this system.
And: All the de-ggoglefied Android phones like the #Volla will always still remain just that: A more limited Android. SailfishOS offers a path towards powerful native (#Qt/#QML/#Cplusplus/#Python/you name it) based apps.
I am hoping that Jolla will provide a significantly more powerful device option and that some of the problems above will be solved.
But already now, even with the limitations above, if you are somewhat technically inclined (but without the need to fiddle with a command line unlike with the open mobile Linux distributions), want to get rid of #Google or #Apple for whatever reason, want a #Linux #smartphone, support a #European company from #Finland, this phone is really usable.
-
Bloodred – Colours of Pain Review By Mark Z.Seeing an album described as “blackened death metal” almost always gets my juices flowing. The problem with that tag, however, is that it can mean anything from weird avant-garde blackened dissodeath (yuck) to Christcrushing necronuclear Blasphemy-worshipping goat metal (fukk yeah!!). But Bloodred are neither of those things. This German band is technically a duo but is really more like the solo project of vocalist, guitarist, and bassist Ron Merz, who’s been enlisting the talents of drummer Joris Nijenhuis (ex-Atrocity, ex-Leaves’ Eyes) since the band’s first releases back in the mid-2010s. I admittedly hadn’t heard of these guys when I saw their name crop up in our promo bin, but I decided to give their back catalog a whirl when I saw Amon Amarth was tagged as a similar artist on Encyclopedia Metallum. It turns out that comparison isn’t entirely off the mark, as the group’s three prior albums generally do sound like a band capitalizing on Amon Amarth’s more epic moments while increasing the black metal influence and stripping away a lot of the melody.
With fourth album Colours of Pain, Ron has again kept himself within the blackened death sphere, this time by producing what’s essentially a modern black metal album that still contains enough variety and heavier flourishes to keep it from being trapped solely within that genre’s confines. Roughly half the songs here are similar to the opener, “Ashes,” which faintly recalls Satyricon in how it bobs forward on rocking rhythms that support Ron’s wretched, raspy growls and headnod-worthy riffs. The song is a decent tune with guitar-work that’s clear and assertive, if somewhat unremarkable. Of the other songs in this style, “Mindvirus” and the closer, “Resist,” are the best of the bunch, with snappy mid-tempo drumming and catchy, “riding to war” riffs that are sure to earn them a spot on my future jogging playlists. In much of the record’s second half, things drift more into post-black metal territory, with tracks like “Death Machine” using slightly slower passages, flashes of melody, and high-register guitars to conjure the melodrama of stuff like Woods of Desolation.
On paper, Colours of Pain seems to be a pretty diverse set of songs. Yet, somehow, it still comes across as oddly homogenous. In part, this issue may be caused by Joris’s drumming: While I enjoy the man’s beats, I wouldn’t call his performance particularly dynamic, with much of the album cruising pleasantly along at a similar tempo. As a result, many of the songs end up having a similar overall feel, even when the underlying riffing is quite different. The blame is not solely his, however. While Ron employs some decent riffs here, he never delivers anything that truly grabs you by the balls, resulting in an album that requires a decent amount of undivided attention to reveal its charms. The production has a clear and balanced sound that reminds me of Art of Propaganda signees like Harakiri for the Sky, which works for Bloodred’s style but exacerbates the album’s homogeneity a bit by coming across just a touch too loud and clean for me.
Despite these shortcomings, Colours of Pain remains an enjoyable release overall, and its highlights become increasingly apparent with repeated listens. The title track, for instance, shifts between a nice shuffling, mid-tempo riff and more traditional black metal hammering, resulting in a cool song that sounds something like a socially-conscious version of Belphegor. “Heretics” is another good cut, featuring an odd sidewinding riff and a particularly combative tremolo line. The backing operatic vocals in “Winds of Oblivion” and the climax of “Ashes” are also a nice touch, with the former track also serving as one of the album’s only true “slow” songs (making it a perfect lead-up to the boisterous closer, “Resist”).
Colours of Pain is the type of album that you can put on for any extreme metal fan, and while they may not love it, they almost certainly won’t hate it. Although initial impressions suggest an album that’s too inoffensive for its own good, repeat listens reveal a record with enough quality ideas and variety to keep it from being just extreme metal elevator music. What’s more, a perusal of Bloodred’s website shows that Ron seems quite passionate about the music he makes and the politically tinged lyrics that color these songs. In all, if you’re looking for a modern extreme metal album that goes down easy, you could do far worse.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
#2026 #30 #AmonAmarth #Belphegor #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #Blasphemy #Bloodred #ColoursOfPain #DeathMetal #Feb26 #GermanMetal #HarakiriForTheSky #MassacreRecords #Review #Reviews #Satyricon #WoodsOfDesolation
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Massacre Records
Websites: bloodred.bandcamp.com | bloodredband.com | facebook.com/bloodredofficial
Releases Worldwide: February 13th, 2026 -
Battle for the Ballot: Best Dramatic Presentation 2026
The two Best Dramatic Presentation categories are among my favourites in the Hugos, because I consume a lot of SFF media and have a lot of thoughts and feelings about them. Since my post last year about why I had wanted Loki S2 to win a Hugo in 2024 (which I was working on for a while but ended up not posting it in time for it to sway anyone), I’ve been toying with the idea of producing more writing around some of my favourite things from each year, in case it helps anybody—least of all me, in getting it all out of my system.
I know I’m posting this with one day to go before nominations (these take so long for me! I must develop a better system for next year 🤔), but I’m really writing this to sound out my own thoughts about the DP categories this year, because it is absolutely bananas with how stacked they both are. There have been some truly great speculative television shows and films, stuff that I’m sure we’ll still be talking about for years to come, and making decisions to boil my favourite media down to just 5 per category—especially given the fiddliness of Long Form and Short Form where TV is concerned, which I’ll get to in a sec—is going to be excruciatingly difficult for me.
So come along on a journey with me as I parse my thoughts, and who knows! Maybe I’ll argue my way to your heart about some of this, or tell you about something you hadn’t heard of before—some of which I’ve already written about before, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
Let me know what your ballot looks like, and if you’re nominating any of the below shows, films, and other dramatic works, or if you’re including other things entirely. I’m curious!
TV series and the Long Form/Short Form debate
A big question for many fen every year is “do I nominate one episode from a TV series that stands on its own or that adequately represents the show in Short Form, or do I nominate the whole season in Long Form because it’s one complete narrative, and isolating one chapter of it would be unfair?”
Understandably, it’s a tough one; when a show inevitably gets votes in both categories, it can lead to headaches for the Hugo Administrating Team as they have to sift through the numbers and ultimately decide which category it should be nominated in1, which I don’t envy at all. But at the same time, as a voter, I have to go with what my heart says and name my favourite episodes in Short Form, regardless of whether I’ve also named the show/season as a whole in Long Form, because if enough others have put that same episode down, then that’s what’ll make it through to the shortlist, and I would want my vote to count towards those totals.
All that to say: if you expected a clear stance from me on this, HA! I’m afraid I don’t have one 😇—and to be perfectly honest, this is exactly the sort of thing where people’s mileage will vary the most.
My personal method of deciding whether to nominate entire TV seasons rather than one specific episode is purely based on ~vibes~, on whether or not I thought the season works better in its totality than through its individual parts, versus cases where one outstanding episode eclipses all the others for me. Not all shows are written the same, of course, and those that favour a longer narrative arc (as a lot of prestige TV does nowadays) tend to find their way on my long form ballot more often than not, as opposed to the more episodic writing that isn’t as popular now but used to be ubiquitous in the pre-streaming era.
Ultimately, you may agree or disagree with me on my reasoning for some of my choices below, whether on the LF/SF question or my actual opinions of the various media, and that’s fair enough. I welcome discussion in the comments, but please keep it civil!
Jump to:
- Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
- Long Form: Films
- Long Form: Non-Film/TV
- Short Form: TV Episodes
- Short Form: Non-TV
Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
You might see episodes from some of these further down in the episode/short form discussion.
Andor, Season 2+
This is kind of my front-runner among the TV seasons for the Long Form category. Overall, I enjoyed it slightly more than season 1 for a few reasons: first of all, the pacing was much more even, with a little bit more action and intrigue peppered throughout the season as opposed to having several quieter mini-arcs that slowed things down in places; and crucially, there was a lot less dithering from Cassian Andor, our reluctant protagonist, who finally comes into his own as a rebel after being passively tossed about this way and that in the first season. The agency he has in this one makes him much more interesting as a character, and brings him on the same level as other players in the budding rebellion front, like Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael. In fact, with all the different character arcs completed, Andor finally becomes what Rogue One always wanted to be: a testament to the great sacrifices necessary for revolution to take root.
I liked a lot of what went down in this season as tensions continued ramping up between the Empire and the Rebellion; the Ghorman subplot was outstanding, especially with Dedra and Cyril’s journeys as instruments of Imperial oppression and violence, as was Mon Mothma’s arc from quiet resistance financier to full-on political rebel on the run, with her heartbreaking arc where she realises the personal cost of rebellion. None of the individual episodes in season 2 came even close to the intensity or narrative brilliance of One Way Out, which was hands down my favourite episode of season 1, but that’s okay—I think this season works so much better in its totality, that I’ll be happy to nominate it wholesale.
I still need to re-watch Rogue One actually, to see if my (very mid) opinion on it changes at all, but ultimately I’m just really happy this show was made, and that it looked and felt amazing throughout. It’s probably my favourite Star Wars story, period, and I am so chuffed that so much of it was filmed in the UK (in locations I know and visit all the time, including my old workplace!2), and is full of incredibly talented and classically trained British theatre actors who fill the space with their physicality and make their performances memorable even in the smallest of roles3.
Severance, Season 2+
Another really strong contender for this category. If you ask me which TV show might win the LF Hugo between this, Andor, or Pluribus, my money would probably be on Severance, even if I personally prefer Andor thematically and Pluribus cinematically. There’s no doubt Severance is an absolute masterpiece of television—nay, of cinema—and the fact that the most anti-capitalist story of our time is coming directly from the big tech megacorp Apple is an irony that is as delicious as it is hilarious.
Aside from its bonkers world-building (which still has so many unanswered questions!), this season of Severance also dove pretty deep into its characters, whom we only got to know a bit in season 1. I don’t want to get too spoilery here, but there’s a handful of moments in this season that go SO HARD—particularly that one slow episode that everyone else hated for some reason, where we follow Patricia Arquette’s character as she goes to her dingy home town and fills us in on the cult lore around Lumon Industries, and of course the team building episode in which our intrepid heroes actually go outside, but it’s all weird in that trademark Lumon way where nothing really fully makes sense, and it leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, like something’s not quite aligned right.
But yeah, the world-building, man. It’s something else. I was glued to my screen and my mind was running a mile a minute trying to join the dots and figure out the answers to the show’s mysteries, much like our heroes consolidate memories refine macrodata—remember, the work is mysterious and important—and the excitement of getting it just before the show confirmed it was super fun. Yet, finally understanding what macrodata refinement is was actually a really tragic moment, and everything that happens after that made my heart break for the innies who are stuck living a half-life they can’t escape, on pain of death.
Ultimately, what I loved the most about the second season of Severance is its staunch anti-capitalist messaging that speaks to the average office worker today regardless of where they may be in the world, because corporate manipulation knows no borders:
- A job is a job, not a family.
- The company you work for does not deserve blind, cult-like loyalty.
- Your life is more than just work, and compartmentalising your work self and your out-of-work self might be a band-aid solution, but it doesn’t really work in the end.
- You are you, with all your complex layers of self, even if your corporate overlords (…or just your line manager 🤐) want you to think otherwise, or to act otherwise so you can fit into their office culture.
- Basically, it’s all dumb, and you deserve to live, not just to survive so you can punch your clock card and get meaningless little bonuses like finger traps or waffle parties.
This relatability is what keeps me hooked, and what I think elevates the show from pretty sci-fi to a classic of our times. It’s definitely got my vote.
Pluribus, Season 1+
God, talk about another cinematic masterpiece. When Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan said he was working on a new show (which he was writing specifically for Rhea Seahorn to star in), I was crossing my fingers and my toes that it would be sci-fi, and Pluribus has completely blown my expectations out of the water. Not only does it mark Gilligan’s return to science fiction for the first time since The X-Files, but he brings his now-trademark cinematic visual language to it, full of tight choreography and nuanced subtext through visual and music cues, which is what made BB & BCS so special.
The result is an unnerving combination of horror, absurdist humour, and subtle world-building, centered around a complex character named Carol Sturka, who is one of only a few humans not to join the weird hive mind connection that takes over all other human beings on the planet, and doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. I’ve seen many reviews call her unlikable and unrelatable, and while the first part may be true (I was really tired of her contrarian nature in the first half of the season), I think there’s something more going on here than just a selfish white American woman who expects the world to move just for her.
The thing is, Vince Gilligan does not talk down to his audience; he expects us to keep up and to pick up what he’s putting down, whether that’s subtle digs at the publishing industry (it is truly hilarious to me that the protagonist of this show is an actual romantasy author!), not-so-subtle digs about community building and the harm humanity has done to the planet and to each other (particularly around resource distribution, iykyk), and questions about human nature that we are left to ponder: would you trade world peace for the complete flattening of human culture? Are we capable of retaining what makes us human while not actively harming the world around us, or each other? What is humanity, really, or human nature even?
Big stuff coming from an Apple TV show, once again; should I even be surprised at this point?
I think the long game of this show is going to be Carol’s character development from grumpy selfish miser to someone who genuinely cares about other people—a reverse Walter White, if you will. Gilligan is all about the narrative arc, and he has been known to deliver some of the best narrative arcs in TV ever, even if they take a while to stick the landing. I have faith that he is cooking something we haven’t even yet begun to poke at, if Better Call Saul is any indication, and between the already great writing and the show’s superlative production value, I think Pluribus is going to be a low-key modern classic. Vince has my vote, now and always.
My Hero Academia: The Final Season+
I wrote about this extensively in my Hugo ballot recommendations post a couple of months ago, so I’ll pull a quote from that as to why I loved it so much:
Y’all, what can I say: this has been my favourite anime of the last decade, and the fact it is ending has had me in my feelings for months. I’ve been deeply invested emotionally for many years, watching the simulcasts on the same day as the anime airs in Japan since around season 2, and this last season has been all payoff for almost ten years’ worth of story. Every Saturday from October 4th till December 13th, I tuned in and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes straight, which for an anime aimed at teenage boys is an absolute feat. Defying every expectation, it stuck the landing for every little story beat, every subplot, and every theme set up over its ten year tenure perfectly, making it one of my absolute favourite stories in the superhero genre.
This is definitely one of those where context is essential, so I don’t think it can be viewed in a vacuum and appreciated to the same extent as having watched all previous seven seasons. You can try, but it wouldn’t be worth it just for the awards. Just watch the show so the ending can hit you like a ton of bricks in the best way possible, even if you miss the deadline. It’s fun, it’s moving, it’s made with so much love for American comics through a uniquely Japanese perspective. I can’t recommend it enough, and it’ll definitely be on my Long Form ballot even if I’m one of ten people who put it there 🤷🏻♀️
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Silo, Season 2: It’s definitely not as tight as season 1, and it was missing some stuff from the books that may well turn up in season 3. For what it’s worth, there’s a lot I enjoyed about this season, but unfortunately it’s simply weaker when Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette isn’t on screen, and there’s a lot of that unfortunately. I’m certainly looking forward to what season 3 will be adapting, and to see what format that will take, as I think they’re either condensing or axing the second half of book 2 to go straight to the dual narrative of book 3, which I have mixed feelings about.
- Murderbot: I never got into the books because of tonal whiplash (MB’s violence and misanthropy coated in dry humour just didn’t work for me), and while I thought the TV show was a little better in that regard, ultimately I thought the show was just okay. I didn’t actively dislike it, mind, but I watched most of it on a plane ride, didn’t finish it, and haven’t felt like picking it back up since. The story just doesn’t grab me, I think, and I never felt particularly attached to or compelled by any of the characters… and I’m okay with that 🤷🏻♀️. Not everything is for everyone! I expect it’ll be mass-nominated by all the book fans anyway based on the online discourse I’ve seen, so it won’t miss my vote.
- Invasion, Season 3: I didn’t even know this was out, lmao! I was deeply invested while watching seasons 1 and 2 (even though I disliked quite a few of the characters), but as soon as I was done with it I promptly forgot about it—and Apple TV didn’t even let me know that it was back on. Whomst can I shake until they fix the marketing situation over there?! Christ on a cracker!
- Stranger Things, Season 5: To my own surprise, I didn’t like this season nearly as much as season 4, let alone season 1, and so I will not be considering it for the Long Form category (including the last episode, which would qualify under Long Form on its own due to being 128 MINUTES LONG 🙄). It’s turned out to be one of those things where, while I enjoyed it a fair bit in the moment, the longer I think about it the more my feelings about it seem to change, and the ending has left me a bit… conflicted, shall we say. But it did have some great episodes in the middle especially, so I will consider a couple of them in the Short Form category.
Long Form: Films
Sinners+
This was probably my favourite SFF film of last year. Not only is it atmospheric, fun, and lush with cross-border folkloric world-building (Hoodoo magic and Irish vampires?! yes please!), but the story touches so many themes that a regular popcorn movie won’t even veer towards, and it does so brilliantly.
All the many layers of the Black and POC experience in the South during the Prohibition era (and beyond) are crystallised in the character arc of each ensemble cast member, with some absolutely outstanding performances by Hailee Steinfeld (whose character Mary is biracial, and torn between safety and belonging), Michael B. Jordan (who plays identical twins Smoke and Stack so well he walked away with an Oscar for it), and Wunmi Mosaku in particular as Smoke’s wife Annie (she’s such an underrated performer, but I’m so glad to see her actually flex her acting skills after her appearance in Loki). We’re talking themes like the push and pull of religion and its role in both keeping communities together and also oppressing them, the safety of BIPOC in a white supremacist society, and even the immigrant experience… the truth is your average blockbuster would never—but this is Ryan Coogler, and he won’t sugar-coat things for a mainstream audience, instead telling a story only he could tell, filled with truth, complexity, and nuance, something I really wish more filmmakers would embrace nowadays.
The film’s protagonist, Sammie (Miles Caton) has a preternatural gift with music, and the plot revolves around a juke joint Smoke and Stack put together, and the connection that music can create across time and even culture—with a wonderful supernatural twist.
One of my favourite moments is when the villain Remmick (an immortal Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell) turns up at their juke joint and cries with joy at the emotions Sammie’s music has brought him after years of numbness. He talks about his own experience of colonialism at the hands of the British Empire and the subsequent erasure of Irish culture through the centuries, which is a very real thing—but he’s also a predator who has been making his way through the land trying to trap people and turn them into vampires, chased away by indigenous people who could tell he was a monster before attacking a couple who are Klan members. It’s clear that he doesn’t want Sammie’s music in order to connect people, but to use it as a tool on his quest to propagate a vampire race, and that seemingly sweet moment of connection is exposed as the performative allyship that it is.
There are some phenomenal action sequences too, with the last third of the film keeping me on the edge of my IMAX seat4. Genuinely, this film was such a breath of fresh air: delightfully complex but also fun, in ways that cinema just doesn’t dare to be right now. I was sad they didn’t win all the awards they were up for, but perhaps we can give it a Hugo instead.
Frankenstein+
©️ Netflix 2025I have a full review of this here, but basically: the SFF-ness of this is lush, as expected from a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and for the most part it works well as an adaptation of the book. As I mention in my other post, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the NT’s theatre adaptation, which I still consider the ultimate version of this story, but it does similar things with the characters as Penny Dreadful, which is my runner-up favourite, save for the very end, and it’s that ending that makes the whole thing fall short for me, unfortunately.
To quote myself:
Why do we sing sad songs, when we know their ending is unhappy? When our instinctual yearning for a happy ending is met with the inevitability of human flaws getting in the way, that emotional release we experience is what my ancestors called catharsis. As the audience we accept that because of who these characters are, they would always make these choices and lead the story to the same outcome, time and again, even though we’d like them to change, to choose better, so they can be happy in the end.
What makes Frankenstein compelling in any iteration is its core conflict: Victor’s refusal to acknowledge the Creature as human, despite the fact that the Creature is deeply human, as much as his creator would like to think otherwise. We are invited to empathise with the Creature’s plight, to see how he thinks and feels, how he desires things we all do: safety, friendship, love. Victor is incapable of recognising this, and so the two clash eternally. Such is the tragedy, and no matter what minor changes are made to it, the good adaptations always recognise the impasse between the two at the end. It’s what makes the story tick.
My ultimate issue with the way Del Toro chose to end his adaptation of Frankenstein is that it ultimately robs us of our deserved catharsis by artificially resolving the incontrovertible stalemate between the two leads, giving us a happy(ish) ending in which Victor, at death’s door, forgives the Creature for the violence and destruction he’s wrought, apologises for what he did to him, and urges him to live on, free of guilt, yet completely alone. The Creature then walks off into the Arctic sunrise, liberated from his vendetta yet devastated at losing his creator.
It’s a lovely thought in principle, a Del Toro-ism about accepting one’s nature and walking away from one’s painful past, and if it were an original story without baggage I’d be all for it—after all, The Shape of Water had similar, pro-monster themes of letting go of trying to fit into a world that won’t accept you anyway, and I ate that up voraciously. But here, in taking a tragedy that is so classic and ingrained, loading it with a bunch of new traumas and subplots, and then resolving it all with a little monologue, the ending robs the story of its true conclusion, fundamentally missing the point of the source text, and doing a disservice both to Victor and the Creature.
I still think it’s a strong contender in the category, and definitely one of my favourite SFF movies I saw last year, despite my issues with it. However, given all my favourite TV shows above, I think I might eschew giving this one of my ballot spots, but I won’t be disappointed to see it on the final ballot, should it make it through.
Thunderbolts*+
I loved this movie A LOT, you guys, and it made me very sad that it flopped at the box office. I don’t blame people for being fatigued with Marvel’s mediocre superhero slop, but they should have given this movie a chance at the very least, because it might not have been the movie we wanted, but it was definitely the movie we needed right now.
(c) Disney/Marvel Studios, 2025I was very surprised with how deep it went into the trauma our various superheroes and anti-heroes have sustained through their previous adventures, and the level of empathy with which it treated them all:
- Yelena Belova, the last surviving Black Widow5, starts off depressed and morose, aimless, dissatisfied with running around and blowing things up for people with nothing to show for it except a path of destruction.
- Her and Natasha Romanoff’s father figure, Alexei Shostakov, is facing the music that his “Red Star” superhero persona is nothing but a figment of a bygone era, and is living a meagre life as a limo driver while reminiscing about his glory days.
- John Walker, the temporary Captain America replacement later dubbed “U.S. Agent”, is dealing with guilt after slaughtering innocent bystanders using Cap’s vibranium shield during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all while struggling through early parenthood.
- The Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—is running for office, in an attempt to turn his newfound and shaky inner peace into something productive. Yet, something keeps niggling at him about the power vacuum left in the wake of the Avengers disappearing, and he can’t help but get involved in ways political candidates really shouldn’t. See: taking a huge machine gun and riding a motorbike out to the desert to find out who is behind these shenanigans. Tut tut, Mr Congressman.
- Oh, there’s also Ava Star/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, probably my least favourite Marvel movie to date, whom I completely forgot about before watching this movie and while writing this review. Oops! Her thing is that she is constantly phasing in and out of a solid existence, and she has to keep shouting about how traumatised she is with no need for subtext because they know we’ve all forgotten about her and need to be reminded of her struggles. Normally I’d be mad at that, but they are not wrong this time 😅
And then, there’s Bob.
(c) Disney/Marvel, 2025Bob is a new guy, recruited to be experimented on in hopes of becoming a superhero. He seems normal, average even, and he reluctantly joins our motley crew as they escape from a trap set by their employer—but under the surface he carries a deep wound, a gash that opens up to swallow him whole and turns him into The Void, his mysterious alter ego who awakens when Bob’s absolutely OTT superpowers kick in. The rest, as they say, is plot.
There’s a lot of (predictably dark) humour in this, and I was surprised with how much I liked these characters once they were given enough room to be protagonists, rather than minor antagonists in someone else’s story. While they haphazardly join forces into a makeshift team, their trauma is taken seriously, coalescing into the film’s climactic battle that pits the reluctant heroes against The Void, who weaponises each of their subconscious against them. The Void is Depression, by any other name—it’s the dark voice inside that tells each of our anti-heroes that they are worthless, unlovable, guilty, and alone. In order to beat him they have to reach out with empathy to themselves first and then to each other, and literally hold each other in a tight embrace as a reminder that they are not alone. What wins the day is friendship, empathy, and love, not unlike the last season of My Hero Academia, which I also loved last year, or Superman, which I’m about to get into below.
I cried BUCKETS while watching Thunderbolts* in the UK’s largest IMAX screen alongside my Bucky Barnes-obsessed friend, who has since made this film her entire personality (affectionate), and honestly, I’ve also been thinking about it ever since. Again, it’s a delightful little irony that the megalithic Disney/MCU would come out with a narrative so introspective and empathetic, especially at a time that loneliness and isolation is rampant among the film’s core audience of young men. I really hope that watching this film inspired people to reach out and be less alone in their struggles, and that the financial hit Disney took with it won’t keep us from seeing more of these characters in the future.
Also! A fun fact I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was that the film’s main theme is a reversed version of the main Avengers theme; just listen to the first few seconds of both themes and you’ll hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Jzgp1jNiQ
Superman+
A good Superman movie?? In this economy?? Hallelujah!
I love a lot about what this film does with the core Superman premise. It gets Clark right, down to his farm boy roots and dorky kindness. It gets Superman right: his power isn’t unbeatable, and it isn’t even the most powerful thing about him (spoiler: it’s the dorky kindness). It gets Lex Luthor right—especially for our times—by having him be a smart but petty tech billionaire with an overinflated ego, someone who funds an invasion and even starts a pocket dimension on a whim, without once thinking of the consequences. It even gets Jimmy Olsen right simply by bringing him out of the margins where he’s been relegated for the last several Superman adaptations—and it’s actually really funny that he’s the one guy with the most game in this film, and that that’s how he gets to help out.
The structure of the film is an absolute delight, too. From the very start, we are thrown into the midst of a losing fight for Superman, which is a bold choice, as is having Clark’s relationship with Lois Lane already set up (and she even knows about him being Superman!). We don’t spend any time whatsoever on origin stories, budding relationship exploration, or long-winded exposition—we simply hit the ground running, and find out the particulars as we go along. It is assumed we know who Superman is, because… we all know who Superman is. And the themes around identity, responsibility, community, and how we should treat each other are laid bare without pretence, very directly speaking to the audience about contemporary problems we’re all facing day to day. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air not to be treated like an idiot, frankly.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it though. For one, the film feels very busy, with so many characters and subplots and easter eggs thrown in, that if you blink you’ll definitely miss something. Relatedly, not all of those characters or subplots are treated equally, because there simply isn’t enough screen time to go around for everything. So the Justice Friends get the short shrift, as do Papa and Mama Kent, as does Krypton6, so that we can focus on the personal and political stakes that Clark/Superman has to overcome.
This is another superhero story with empathy at its heart, where the answer to even the most cosmic problems is… just be kind. Kindness is punk rock. As one of my favourite YouTube video essayists put it, this Superman is the American hero we desperately need right now. Someone who will stand up for what’s right even when the rest of the world tells him not to, someone with an unshakeable moral compass that only points to goodness. Watch that whole video actually, Dove does such a fantastic job analysing the cultural geography that plays into this film, and how it all ties together to bring us this ray of f*cking sunshine:
All this to say, I love that James Gunn can make a superhero movie that aims to appeal broadly but doesn’t feel like it panders to the lowest available denominator, and that he had the guts to (a) make the story feel relevant to our current times, what with all the invasions/”wars” going on right now that are purely happening for profit and that no one is doing anything to stop 🙄, and (b) leave us with a message of hope, that we can imagine a kinder world and that we can be the instruments of making that vision a reality. That kindness can be punk rock.
Dare I say, this was the movie that made me go, “huh, maybe the genre isn’t dead yet”, which… please, let it not be dead, I really like superheroes!
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Mickey 17: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly for its world-building and Robert Pattinson’s performance. Unfortunately I think the Bong Joon-Ho-ness of it all kind of undercuts the story in favour of very on-the-nose political commentary, which was fun in the moment but in retrospect kinda leaves me a bit… “meh!”, probably because the current climate is so much worse than when this movie was made, and making fun of things/people just isn’t enough right now. So I don’t think this will be getting one of my spots, but it’s still totally worth seeing, if you haven’t!
- Fantastic Four – First Steps: I also enjoyed this a lot, especially in light of B-Mask’s excellent Fantastic Four video from a few years back which explained the classic comics and got me up to speed on the characters. It’s an honest-to-God decent, good Marvel movie, which as I keep saying is a rare sight these days, but that being said… I liked the stuff I talked about up top way more than this one, not to mention the TV seasons, so I just think it gets edged out by the competition.
- Hamnet: Technically an SFF movie! The trailer had me weeping, but the movie left me cold somehow, perhaps because it’s a little too obvious in its attempts to make people cry (Mark Kermode said it best! The bit with the song at the very end irked me too because I recognised it, and the moment was actually completely ruined for me.) It does have some wonderful and atmospheric visuals where it comes to the speculative aspect of it, and the soundtrack by Max Richter is predictably phenomenal (if only they’d used his original song for the climactic ending of the film!!), but it just didn’t move me in the ways I thought it would, so it’s a miss.
The “I haven’t seen these yet” caveat+
- K-Pop Demon Hunters: Yes, I know, somehow, I still haven’t seen this movie. I’m assuming it’ll get nominated to high heaven, so I’ll watch it ahead of voting, I promise.
- Weapons: I’ve heard fantastic things about this, and my husband is a big WKUK fan, so I might be watching this soon and revising my thoughts.
- Wicked: For Good: I liked the first film well enough, and I hear that a LOT happens in the second half of the musical, so I’m tentatively putting this on a hold list until I watch it. I don’t know if it would edge out any of my favourites, realistically speaking, but I suppose there is always room for surprises!
Long Form: Non-Film/TV
B-Mask’s “The REAL Thunderbolts Story: Marvel’s Greatest Scam“*
This is a 2.5 hour love letter to comics, and the first in a five-part series that tells the story of the real Thunderbolts from the comic books (a team that bears very little resemblance to the one portrayed in the recent MCU film discussed above). It features complex animations drawing from the original comic book art, as well as a full cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life with their performances.
* I’m personally torn on whether this would qualify for BDP-LF or BRW (seeing as it is technically a fanwork, and not an original work), but either way it is nothing short of a masterpiece—I wrote more about it in my 2025 underrated Hugo picks post, if you’re interested.
Short Form: TV Episodes
A caveat: my reasoning around nominating a particular episode is kind of like nominating my favourite chapter of a novel. Especially with how a lot of the prestige TV shows are made nowadays, individual episodes function as chapters in a longer story, so they have to be considered in the context of the wider narrative they’re a part of. If they are from a second, third, or even last season of a long-running show, even more so.
Also—and this might be a slightly spicy take—I personally don’t like that a lot of Hugo voters seem to only watch the individual episodes on the eventual shortlist without any context, and then complain that they didn’t get what was going on. That’s because context matters, and while I understand that it would take a lot of time to watch an entire season (or even several!) to be able to appreciate a single episode… if you want your vote to be informed, that’s the job, innit?
This has happened several times to me, where there’s an episode on the shortlist from a show I don’t watch (and have no intention of watching—sorry Lower Decks), so I just skip it and don’t put it in my ballot at the end, or rank it below my own favourites. I do the same with sequels to books I haven’t read, out of respect for the work itself as well as its author, but that’s just me I guess! 🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, here are some thoughts about my favourite episodes of speculative TV from this year, under spoiler tags for obvious reasons.
Two episodes from Stranger Things, Season 5+
‘Chapter Four: Sorcerer’
I loved, loved, loved this episode. The moment Will uses his new power… it gave me goosebumps, it was so good—and the fight sequence in front of the gate to the Upside Down is incredible. Rather than the writing, though, I want to praise the actors’ performances and the work of the crew who worked on the practical effects, stunts, and complicated cinematography in this episode. Especially given more recent revelations about how the Duffers went into production with season 5 without having ironed out the ending, and the stress that added to the poor production crew, I think any flowers should really be going to them for making such an outstanding piece of TV despite the challenges.
‘Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz’
Yes, the scene in this photo feels a little ludicrously long considering they’re both on the run and about to be caught by the Big Bad, but I loved the heart of this relationship and the character development for both Holly and Max in this episode. I had also seen the Stranger Things play in London a couple of years back, and this episode eliminated the issues I had with the world-building in that, which at first had seemed to contradict the revelations in season 4 about Vecna/Henry Creel’s agency as a villain and his role in shaping the Upside Down… I was glad to see that in fact all the loose threads from the various seasons did connect, and that the strands from the play were relevant too.
Various episodes from Severance, Season 2+
S2E4: ‘Woe’s Hollow’
I mentioned this episode in my discussion of the series earlier, but let me get into it here: this is one of the best episodes of TV ever made, period, and I will fight you on this. I don’t know if it would stand alone in any capacity, considering the weird tone is already a lot to deal with and there’s a lot of plot and character interaction that picks up from where the last season left off, not to mention a big-time betrayal that ends up echoing through the rest of season 2.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning wondering if this was a simulator or a dream sequence because it didn’t fully make sense for our protagonists to be outside the Lumon offices, and the uncanny doppelgangers guiding them through the forest seemed almost dreamlike, but the reality was much more sinister in the end, which tracks. If there’s a single episode from this show I’d nominate, it’d be this one.
S2E8: ‘Sweet Vitriol’
People hate this episode because it’s slow and follows an unlikeable antagonist whom we are invited to empathise with, and that’s precisely the reason I like it. First of all, we get way more insight into the Lumon cult corporation from Harmony Cobel, who ostensibly grew up in the cult and has invested her whole life into the company’s welfare. This is also where we begin to see cracks form in her resolve as an antagonist, as she has realised that the company sees her as an expendable cog despite her lifelong investment and dedication, and so she decides to fight them, to prove that this little cog is actually so important, it might well bring the whole house down.
It’s interesting also for thematic reasons, outside of the show’s world. On an individual level, the image of someone who grew up in poverty while idolising a particular company, then making their entire life revolve around it so as to gain favour and socioeconomic mobility, gaining that and then losing it when the company no longer sees them as valuable, is unfortunately too relatable. So is seeing a small town that once had its own industry and community be taken over by a mega corporation and become completely dependent on it, eventually falling into destitution once the corporation pulls their activities out of the town. The actual commentary here is silent, but extremely powerful.
I don’t think Cobel’s about-turn is enough to fully make her an anti-hero, but I really enjoyed this episode for all the insight it gave us both into her and the world of Severance outside of Lumon HQ.
S2E10: ‘Cold Harbor’
There is a strong argument to be made that the season two finale is absolutely worth a nomination as well, making this a really tough choice. Two seasons’ worth of mystery solving and internal corporate espionage culminate in this one-hour episode where our protagonists clash with one another and with the antagonists, and it’s just adrenaline all the way down.
Some spoilery thoughts here.While the big questions have been answered (where is Mark’s wife? what is Cold Harbor? what are they doing with all those sheep?), so many more remain. Is there a way to save the innies at all, if Lumon ends up falling? Can Mark S. and Helly R. ever hope to have a life outside these walls? And what happens to Gemma now that she’s out, even though she has 24 distinct, hand-crafted personalities inside her?
There’s actually a great take I hadn’t come across before I sat down to write this, and that is that the finale actually inverts the Orpheus & Eurydice narrative of Mark and Gemma, by having Mark’s innie actually choose to stay behind in Lumon so he can be with Helly. It’s less of a lack of faith and more of a conscious decision, which perhaps makes it even more tragic as Gemma watches her husband (sort of) run toward danger and another woman, leaving her alone at the exit, screaming for him to come back.
Having written about the other episodes already, I do think ep4 is a stronger contender purely from a craft/vibes standpoint, whereas the finale is more typical in many ways, as it focuses on exposition and plot and is faster paced. YMMV here, for sure, but I’m inclined to pick ep4 over this one, now that I think about it.
Two episodes from Pluribus, Season 1+
Episode 1: “We is Us”
It’s not often that a TV pilot stands on its own two feet well. It’s even less common for the film-making to be so good that one must gasp in awe at the choreography, cinematography, and editing, multiple times throughout the course of the episode. One of my biggest peeves is when a TV pilot is so mired in exposition that there is no room for characters or atmosphere until the next episode because they simply have to give you the setup quickly—it ends up feeling flat and boring and frankly, it puts me off more than it entices me to keep watching until it gets better.7
Well, this episode does none of that.
Gilligan’s forte is silent scenes that actually speak volumes. There is so much storytelling in this episode that has no words; we watch an intergalactic viral hive mind sequence take over the Earth in perfectly synchronised movement, and the storytelling is in the silence, the perfect unison, and the eerie smiles as the hive mind consciousness flattens the individuals inside. A lesser writer would put exposition in dialogue, possibly giving too much information for where we are in the story, but Gilligan knows that less is more. We get just enough to hook us in, and the rest is pure atmosphere and of course, character.
Carol is introduced as a grumpy romantasy author, a lesbian in a loving relationship who constantly finds reasons to be miserable, much to her partner’s chagrin. When the hive mind sequence is spread via planes in the air, Carol loses her partner, and simultaneously the world. The panic that ensues is completely understandable, and it gets worse at every turn as she is met with more and more hive mind people, but no one else like her. What a place for a pilot to leave us in! Aren’t you hooked just by reading this?? GO WATCH THIS SHOW!
Episode 7: “The Gap”
The title refers to a real place that Manousos (pictured) has to cross, but also I suppose to the gap between Carol and others at this point in the show. This is another masterfully crafted episode with a dual narrative point of view, where Carol continues her life in Albuquerque while Manousos is making his slow way up through South and Central America towards Carol, crossing cities, climbing mountains, and trudging through thick, treacherous jungles, all while refusing the hive mind’s help at every opportunity.
Some spoilery thoughts here.At first, it’s admirable; he won’t even take gas without paying for it somehow, even though everything he comes across is at his disposal. Soon enough, however, his steadfastness turns into stubbornness that does more harm to him than good. When he gets seriously injured in the jungle (something that was completely preventable, had he accepted the hive mind’s help and transited through safer means),
Meanwhile, Carol stoically endures complete and total isolation for a long time as a result of the hive mind evacuating the whole metro area of Albuquerque, which happened when Carol hurt one of them (and by extension, all of them) quite badly while trying to find answers. She is given resources and sustenance remotely, and for a while enjoys her peaceful environment, going around town and doing whatever she feels like… until she finally cracks under the pressure of extreme loneliness, and asks the hive mind to come back.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment actually, seeing someone as stubborn sturdy as Carol finally admit that she can’t live her whole life completely cut off from other people, even though she hates the hive mind on principle, and can’t wrap her mind around accepting this status quo. In fairness, she makes it to about a month and a half, which is pretty long, but her isolation was also so complete that there were zero people around her for that whole time—an unfathomable experience that’s so well depicted on screen. I personally love the rooftop golf scene as an example of how utterly devoid of people the landscape is, a mundane sort of post-apocalyptic image.
This is probably my favourite episode in season 1, and even think it could be presented without context and still mostly work alright for new viewers… Though I’d still hope that people would watch the whole season anyway. If I had to pick one episode to represent the series as a whole, I’d say it’s this one.
Short Form: Non-TV
‘Songs No One Will Hear’ by Arjen Lucassen (music album)
I wrote a fair amount about this pre-apocalyptic concept album in my underrated Hugo recommendations post; here’s a snippet:
The result is an album that grapples with the essence of the human condition (something Lucassen is very adept at), asking what makes life worth living from the perspectives of a bunch of different characters as they try to come to terms with the impending end of the world—including those who think it’s all a hoax, those who embrace it, and those who rage against the dying of the light. It straddles a weird and fun line between diegetic/in-world music that’s on the radio and telling the story as a sung-through musical, which is a little different than what you might expect, particularly for a progressive rock album. But that’s the Arjen Lucassen guarantee: big questions, big emotions, and a sound that isn’t afraid to change dramatically when necessary, even mid-song. Full of theatricality, Songs No One Will Hear is in some ways very similar to Lucassen’s Ayreon albums, but retains its own identity both musically and thematically.
We’ve been known to nominate SFF music albums when they arise, and on occasion those musicians have even responded to being recognised by fandom—seeing Clipping live in Helsinki was fun!—so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, though perhaps it is a bit of a left field suggestion for most Hugo voters as a progressive rock concept album.
While he’s extremely popular in his own niche, most of Lucassen’s fans aren’t in SF fandom and vice versa, something that I would love to help shift by talking about his work more to Hugo voters and talking to Ayreon/Lucassen fans more about joining our community and coming to Worldcon, especially as the next few years are looking quite international. Lucassen’s very obvious Golden Age influences are bound to have pointed many of his fans to the genre, so the bridge is already half-built.
I’m sure that I’ll be one of very few people longlisting this album, but 🤷🏻♀️! I really think If you see just a single, solitary vote for it in the full data, know that it was me!
Footnotes
- Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
- In addition to the more fannish post I linked above, I found another really cool essay about the Barbican as Coruscant from an architect who works in film and TV. ↩︎
- A special shoutout to Joshua James, who played the doctor who tortured Bix Caleen with the sounds of distant massacres; I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in Treasure Island at the National Theatre back in 2015 or so, and make a point to see him in every play he’s in when I can. He had a stint as Dr Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently which I unfortunately missed, but I bet he was perfect! ↩︎
- I’d like to thank Octothorpe’s Alison Scott for her recommendation to see the film in an IMAX theatre, as the experience was truly spectacular. ↩︎
- There is another Black Widow character played by Olga Kurilenko who turns up for literally five minutes, but she is so not present in the rest of the film that I’m not even going to go into it. If it weren’t for Yelena and Alexei, I’d say that movie had zero lasting impact on the MCU, given how late into Natasha’s journey we got it (literally after she was canonically killed off), lol (sarcastic). ↩︎
- I still don’t know how to feel about the plot twist around Krypton and Clark’s biological parents, brief as it was. I think it is intended to maximise the contrast between where Clark hails from and where he grew up and how that affected his identity, and the discomfort it creates is probably very intentional from Gunn. ↩︎
- I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎