The Hobbit

I’d already done a blog on Lord of the Rings (LOTR), now it’s hobbit time.   For some reason I had tackled LOTR in print, and even digested The Silmarillion as well, but had never read this one.  With the new Peter Jackson film coming out, I decided to read the book once and for all.  I enjoyed it. 

The original 1933 book by J.R.R. Tolkien came long before LOTR was published in the 1950s.  It’s considerably shorter and warmer and casual than LOTR (Central Scrutinizer: “Hey, it’s me again.”), which makes it somewhat easier to read.

Plot:  Hobbit (Bilbo) goes on adventure with Dwarf (Thorin) and his friends, plus a powerful magic guy (Gandalf), to win the dwarves’ treasure back from the dragon (Smaug) who took it.  Along the way the group meets trolls, goblins, High elves, wood elves, spiders, eagles, wolves, and even humans.  Bilbo finds a magic ring which makes him invisible, but this upsets its prior owner, the freak (Gollum).    Bilbo talks to the dragon, and learns a weakness.   Told of this weakness, Archer (Bard) shoots down the dragon.  Dwarves refuse to share treasure with Bard.  War breaks out between dwarves, elves and men.  Goblins attack.  Dwarves, men and elves team up and defeat goblins.  Dwarves reconsider and share treasure.  Everyone goes home.  Happy ending.

The 2012 movie is part one of a trilogy to be released in subsequent eons.  Back in the 1970s, the Rankin-Bass people (responsible for such holiday classics as “The Year Without A Santa Claus”) took a stab at doing an animated film of “The Hobbit”.  This version adds some goofy music, and really makes Bilbo look like a dull tub of inoffensive goo.  The best which can be said for this effort is that it is very quick and efficient.

Jackson’s effort seems like an intense steroid injection to get “The Hobbit” bulked up to the heavier specs of LOTR.   Freeman is a substantial figure, even with hairy feet.   The biggest boost is explaining what Gandalf was up to during the brief interludes of the story where he leaves Bilbo and Thorin to their own devices, which means including characters who were in LOTR but not The Hobbit itself.   The intensity is also dialed up – yes, to LOTR spec. 

At first I was upset that “Hobbit” was split into three like LOTR instead of kept at one – until I actually watched the film, in 48 fps format – and understood what Jackson was trying to do.   I suppose ultimate judgment should be deferred until the final installment is released (and I’ve had a chance to see it) but if the first of the trilogy is any indication, I’d say I agree with both the attempt and the execution.   Huzzah!  Bully!

Gun Control Revisited

In the wake of the Newtown shootings, yet another call for “increased gun control” has gone up.  The other night, Piers Morgan got in a name-calling match with a non-NRA gun rights advocate, Mr. Pratt.  Obviously tempers are flaring left and right.  The issue isn’t guns per se, but illicit use thereof.  As yet we have no self-shooting, self-aware AR-15s lurking in school hallways, movie theaters, or other places taking out innocent bystanders.  Despite consistent liberal misperceptions to the contrary, weapons do NOT fire themselves.  Some living, breathing, conscious person has to make the fateful decision to pull the trigger.

Morgan made some remark to the effect of, US has a population of 300 million, and it has 211 (?) million guns, so how can this not be a problem?  Well, if all those guns were in the hands of sensible gun owners, that would not be a problem.  If they were all in the hands of homicidal maniacs, I’d say that would be a problem.  But it’s too simplistic to say “there are too many guns”, as if, every July 4^th, Ted Nugent flies over the country, coming down our chimneys, distributing Bushmasters and Desert Eagles to every household, even those with small children, crazy maniacs, or Obama voters.  The guns in our country tend to be concentrated in the hands of gun owners and criminals.

For the purpose of this debate, I see there being two types of potential gun owners in this country, Type A and Type B.  Type A are the law-abiding, sensible, intelligent, sane, responsible gun owners who don’t break laws, don’t shoot up schools, or otherwise cause any problems.  Type B are the others who we wouldn’t trust with guns: children, criminals, the insane, and otherwise attitude-misadjusted types.

The majority of private gun owners fall into Type A.  To the extent they use their weapons at all, it’s at ranges, safely banging away at paper targets.  Like me, they may never have actually shot at anyone in anger or in combat.

The gun control types have this image in their heads of gun owners as dangerous lunatics, cleaning their guns while naked children run around, with a fifth of Jack Daniels in front of them and a cigarette dangling from their lips, wearing a dirty wife beater and soiled boxers.  As a child, this man tortured animals.  He married his sister and beats her regularly.  And having guns around, at all, is like keeping a rattlesnake as a pet, slithering through the house.  No private citizen has any legitimate need for a gun.  To keep any kind of weapon shows unspeakably vile judgment.  Why should innocent children die so that these inbred vermin can keep assault weapons?  So goes the Piers Morgan argument.

Was Newtown a tragedy?  Certainly.  No one wants to be callous and say that these deaths didn’t matter.  They certainly matter to the parents and families of the victims.  But as dramatic and tragic as these shootings are, the fact remains that the vast majority of gun deaths in this country are due to suicides, not mass killing sprees.  Moreover, this ignores what the NRA could tell you in the National Rifleman each month:  ordinary people can and do use firearms to legitimately protect themselves and their families – far more lives saved by responsible gun owners (more so than even the police) than lost by crazy maniacs or criminals. 

The Type B’s assaulting us are not getting their weapons directly from gun sellers.  It looks like they get their weapons from Type A’s in their same household.  This woman in Connecticut knew her son was a wackjob but still kept guns in the house; appropriately she was the first victim of his killing spree.

What I, and most gun rights advocates, find annoying is this vague demand that “something should be done”.  What would that be?  “More gun control.”  Please be more specific.   And let’s be clear about this:  instantaneously eliminating ALL guns from the US is NOT a realistic option short of… I don’t know…MAGIC???   And expecting gun owners (of either type) to simply cough up their weapons?  Not going to happen.  Forget it.   We’re either going to shoot them at you or hide them somewhere.  

Fact:  Any gun control policy initiative has to take as a given assumption that no matter how hard we try to ban or eliminate weapons, it is IMPOSSIBLE to completely disarm the entire country.  Like it or not, some people are going to have weapons, and many of those people are going to be Type B’s who we’d prefer were unarmed.

So what exactly are they proposing?

A complete ban on firearms across the entire country?  This blatant violation of the Second Amendment would not withstand Supreme Court scrutiny and would require a repeal of the Second Amendment, which in turn requires more political capital than even the Newtown tragedy could elicit.  Even if, SOMEHOW, it could be pushed through Congress AND survive judicial review, it would still not do anything about the millions of guns already in circulation.  In the short term it would dramatically boost gun sales in the months leading up to its going into effect, which would seem to be somewhat counterproductive.  Moreover, even when it did go into effect, it would only prevent Type A’s from acquiring weapons.

To the extent Type B’s are getting their guns from Type A’s in the same household, I’d say some restriction on that would be the only sensible “gun control” anyone could propose.  If you’re a Type A gun owner, you have some responsibility to secure your weapons to make sure Type B’s do not get access to them.  Gun safes, gun locks, etc. are all options.  How about that business in the movies where a closet or panel opens up to reveal the guns hanging up on the wall – maybe IKEA has some ideas for that.  Let’s try a little harder to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people, without depriving Type A’s of their lawfully and peacefully owned weapons – regardless of whether those weapons are hunting rifles or “assault rifles” with high capacity magazines. 

Another problem are Type A’s who purchase their guns legally while sane and normal, and then descend into Type B neighborhood later.  Anyone who loses their job and family and goes off the deep end could rapidly turn from a well-adjusted, normal person to a crazy disgruntled maniac in a matter of months or even weeks.  But most Type A’s tend to remain Type A’s.  I would argue that any attempt to disqualify someone from gun ownership after the fact due to such an onset of diminished capacity should put the burden on the party attempting to revoke gun ownership rather than on the party seeking to keep his/her weapons.

Some gun rights advocates, e.g. Mr. Pratt (for all his causticness and animosity, itself a reaction to Morgan’s arrogance and contempt, he is right about this point) have attracted contempt and scorn for making the following observation:  these massacres consistently occur in places where guns are prohibited.  “How can MORE guns be the answer????”  It’s as obvious to me as it was to Mr. Pratt:  If the killer knows his “audience” is unarmed, he has no deterrent.  Arming elementary school children is obviously silly, but arming the teachers and school staff is considerably less ludicrous.  But that’s a downstream solution.  The upstream solution, as noted above, is restricting the flow of guns from Type A’s to Type B’s.

Look at drunk driving: every year hundreds of people are killed in automobile accidents, either due to their own negligence or that of others.  Clearly, in the wrong hands, a car is a deadly weapon.  The same could also be said of a jumbo jet flown into the Pentagon or World Trade Center.  But no one is proposing to ban cars or air travel simply because people have been known to die of these causes.  There is no reason why guns should be any different.  It’s simply UNFAIR that innocent, responsible gun owners who have never murdered a child should be punished and otherwise held responsible for what a handful of dangerous nutjobs do with guns.  Two wrongs do not make a right. 

Finally, one possible problem is political.  A local sheriff might seek to classify his buddies as Type A’s and everyone else as Type B’s, or some similar attempt to inhibit or interfere with gun rights not based on a legitimate fear of imminent meltdown or catastrophe but rather a principled objection to private gun ownership per se, a blanket conviction that there are no “Type A’s”, period.  This “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” is the #1 fear of gun owners in the wake of Newton-type massacres.  But again, any attempt to disarm the entire country will be a messy affair.  

Gone But Not Forgotten

Hostess has been in the news lately as imminently disappearing, though I believe the brand is too strong to stay dead for long; someone will resurrect it…I hope.  Here are others which have yet to rise from the dead.

Tower Records.   I loved this record store.  The branch at Tyson’s Corner consistently had a great selection, and I got quite a few Hawkwind CDs here.  The staff were arrogant hipsters, I know, but I’d take that if it meant a better selection than what we could find at FYE or Sam Goody.  Objectively, though, it’s hard to beat Amazon’s model of online buying, especially if you’re looking for something you’d never find at Best Buy.

Borders.  My two favorites, books & music, in one place.  I’d lose myself at the Bailey’s Crossroads branch (now an Ashley Furniture) reading the Osprey Men-At-Arms books.  Borders kept them all together on a spinning rack, while Barnes & Noble spreads them out by era throughout the military history department.  WRONG!

Burger Chef.  The food itself wasn’t that special – generic burger-oriented fast food.  But they served it in these very clever boxes that opened up.  THAT was imaginative.  Each time you went, you had NO idea what the theme would be, like the Grateful Dead of fast food.

Mr Hero.  This was  a fast food place at Bailey’s Crossroads, in Virginia.  Although it looked like a franchise, it was the only one.  They served excellent steak & cheese subs with fantastic waffle fries.  The owner lost the lease, and now it’s a Quiznos.  ZZZ.

Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Purple Potamus Video.  Most people know of the first two.  I joined the third, formerly on King Street near NOVA, because they had a naughty movie section…then never rented a single one.  Instead, I rented movies like “Repo Man” which BB & HV didn’t carry.

The Village Mall.  I came back from Paris (France) in August 1990 and looked for this in Montgomery Village.  I looked, and looked, and couldn’t find it.  Finally the CVS – formerly People’s Drug – people informed me that the Mall was gone.  It had been a very 70s place, with wooden signs, cobblestone floors, huge fountains.  I have to ask if the equivalent in Columbia is still around.

Rockville Mall.  This was in downtown Rockville near the Montgomery County courthouses.  It wasn’t too special, but it was a mall.  The 50’s era Giant down the street is closed too.

Malibu Grill & Greenfields.  These two Brazilian steakhouses, churrascarias, have gone out of business, plus the similar one in Paramus, NJ, on Route 4 at Continental Plaza, next to Riverside Mall.  These featured a flat rate for all-you-can-eat steak, which is typically delicious.  Greenfields was considerably more expensive than Malibu Grill.  The remaining chains, Texas do Brasil and Fogo No Chão, are still around, but are very expensive.

Close, but not quite.  Jack In The Box and Dairy Queen disappeared.  Jack is still in business on the West Coast, whereas Dairy Queen made a comeback in my area in recent years.

Grover Cleveland

Time to throw another curve ball at everyone.  My obsession with the late 19^th century is probably not much of a secret.  I didn’t think a blog on all the US Presidents from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt would be all that interesting, so I split the difference on this one.

First off, here they are:  Lincoln (1860-1865), Andrew Johnson (1865-69), Ulysses Grant (1869-77), Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-81), James Garfield (1881 – assassinated by a disgruntled gov’t employee), Chester Alan Arthur (1881-1885), Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), Grover Cleveland (1893-1897), William McKinley (1897-1901)(assassinated by an anarchist) and Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909).

Cleveland served as mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York.  He was an upright Democrat – the only Democratic president between Lincoln and Roosevelt.  He served two non-consecutive terms, the only President to do so.  He attracted many Republicans who were fed up with James Blaine (the “Mugwumps”).  Back then, the US government had a tendency to corruption, a “spoils” system.  Tools like Roscoe Conkling and James Blaine were ideologically committed to such a system, but there were plenty who felt the stench of political manure needed be to blown away, which is how Cleveland defeated Blaine in 1884. 

Sure enough, on taking power he kept on competent Republicans rather than sweep in Democrats.  He opposed tariffs and vetoed many relief bills – this during economic depression.  He was non-interventionist in foreign policy, though he did help beef up the Navy by striking down shipbuilding based on pork rather than quality, including ordering the USS Maine (later blown up in Havana Harbor), which was itself a reaction to Brazil’s Riachuelo. 

Finally, to wrap up with two nuggets of trivia:  the rest stop on northbound New Jersey Turnpike, around Exit 11, is named after him, and I had to laugh at The Onion’s article, “Activision Reports Sluggish Sales for Sousaphone Hero”, in which the Activision spokeswoman promises that "if you score enough points, you can unlock the ultimate level: playing in the John Philip Sousa-led Marine Band at Grover Cleveland's inauguration."

Game of Thrones

Having recently trashed 50 Shades of Grey, and also having finished Dance of Dragons, the 5^th installment of George R. R. Martin’s popular Game of Thrones series of books – also a very popular HBO series - it’s time to review the latter.  Anyone seeing my Facebook posts will know that I rate GoT considerably higher than 50 Shades.

I started by watching the HBO series on DVD, finishing season 1.  My access to season 2 has been limited to watching it on my brother’s iPad at his house, as I don’t have HBO and the DVDs won’t be out until February.  So, voracious and insatiable reader that you all know I am, I started reading the books, of which there are now five.  #6 and 7 are due out in the distant future.  Don’t ask when, as Martin takes his time writing these things.  I’ll keep my comments brief to avoid spoiling anything.

Think of it as Lord of the Rings with lots of intrigue, backstabbing, and juicy sex – LOTR + Fifty Shades, in fact.  Those of you who thought hobbits prancing around Middle Earth was dull, may find much more to watch and enjoy with this show.

It takes place in a fantasy world.  The main continent is Westeros, with another continent to the east called Essos.  Control of Westeros is nominally by the king, who sits on the Iron Throne.  As the story begins, that king is drunken, pompous and lusty Robert Baratheon, of the Baratheon family.  Robert stole the throne from the dragon-oriented Targaryens, who are now exiled to Pentos, a city on the eastern continent.  Robert’s “Hand” (his executive officer) Jon Arryn has recently died under mysterious circumstances, and he promotes his good friend Ned Stark (played by Sean “Borimir” Bean) to the position.   It’s probably best to reduce the analysis to a review of the various major houses/families.

Starks.  “Winter is coming” is their motto, and the dire wolf is their totem animal.  The Starks hold the most northern territory, their home castle is Winterfell, and they are essentially the “good guys” of the series.  Ned is the dad, Catelyn the mom.  Robb is the oldest son, followed by Bran (young boy), Rickon (very young boy), daughters Sansa (spoiled, self-centered princess) and Arya (bad-ass fighting tomboy), and a bastard son Jon Snow, who is about Robb’s age. 

            The Starks are unique in this series.  Not only are they the only family who are consistently good – there doesn’t appear to be a living Stark who is anything less than decent – but they seem to be the only ones in touch with their totem animals (with the big exception of Danaerys Targaryen, see below).  They actually find dire wolf puppies, which they adopt; they also dream of being wolves, which turns out to be more substantial for Bran than the rest of them.  I didn’t see Theon dreaming of krakens, Tyrion dreaming of lions, or Renly dreaming of stags. 

Lannisters.  “A Lannister always pays his debts”, as Tyrion likes to say.  He’s the #2 son, a dwarf, also called “The Imp”.  He is easily the most interesting character in the entire series.  He’s a regular brothel customer (most women wouldn’t have him without gold) but also talks his way out of trouble and consistently has an entertaining viewpoint.  Impressively cynical but still good-hearted.

            The Lannisters are easily the “bad guys” of the series.  Twins Jaime and Cersei have a cozy brother-sister relationship – a bit too cozy.  Married to Robert Baratheon, Cersei is the Queen,– a cold, ruthless, arrogant, beautiful 1000% bitch.  Jaime is an excellent knight and warrior, but somewhat unscrupulous and arrogant, but he can’t quite match his sister or father’s evil.  They have a younger brother Joffrey (complete brat bastard), a sister Myrcella, a younger brother Tommen (both of whom are young, innocent, and pretty much just pawns on the GOT chessboard), and an archduke of evil father Tywin.  Think of him as Asmodeus.

Baratheons.  In addition to King Robert, there is another brother Stannis – kind of an unpopular stick in the mud – and the youngest is Renly, who is actually fairly cool, even he does play for the other team.  These three do NOT get along with each other. 

Greyjoys.  Up in the Iron Islands west of Westeros, the Greyjoys’ totem is the Kraken, and their motto is “we do not sow”.  They’re pretty much brutal Viking bastards who prefer taking what they want by force (“the iron price”) vs. buying it (“the gold price”).  Theon, the heir, is a ward of the Starks; although nominally a hostage, they treat him well.  He repays their kindness…well, you’ll see. 

Targaryens.  The Dragon family is the only one who can get away with incest: they typically married brothers to sisters.  By this time Prince Viserys (arrogant asshole) and Princess Danaerys (cute virgin girl) are stuck in Pentos.  Viserys sells his sister to the horse nomads, the Dothraki, in the hopes that these warriors will bring him back to the throne that Robert Baratheon stole, but Khal Drogo, Danaerys’ husband, has other plans.  The majority of the Targaryen story winds up taking place on the eastern continent, even if they were originally from Westeros.  Danaerys comes into possession of three dragon eggs, which actually do hatch by the end of book/season 1, although at this point they’re baby dragons and too small for her to ride.  By book 5 she’s become the center of attention, with no less than 3 major characters attempting to either find her or marry her.

There are lesser families which are “vassals” and “bannermen” beneath these higher ones:  the Tullys (Catelyn Stark’s family), the Arryns, the Karstarks, the Boltons, the Freys, the Ulmers, the Martells of Dorne (far southeast, desert and Mediterranean), the Tyrells of Highgarden (southwest), the Tarleys, etc.  These lesser houses shift allegiances between Starks, Lannisters and Stannis Baratheon as the winds blow, so much of the intrigue is centered on efforts of major characters to secure alliances, e.g. through marriage, from the lesser houses.  

Religion.  There seems to be three tiers.  The “Old Gods” are worshipped in “godswoods” and “heart trees”, essentially a primitive spirit worship with no tangible benefits.  The Seven are the more modern group; it’s a collection of seven different deities.  They actually have temples and priests and priestesses (septs and septas), and is the most mainstream and widely followed religion.  There is a new religion, a Red God, Rh’llor, gaining converts; their deal is fire.  Stannis Baratheon has a red witch, Melisandre, who preaches this religion and claims to see the future in holy flames.  Theon Greyjoy’s uncle Aeron is a priest of the Drowned God, a water-based religion which doesn’t seem to have any worshippers beyond the Greyjoys.

Maesters.  These are what passes for doctors and scientists.  They wear grey robes and a chain around their necks, with links of different metals representing mastery of different sciences.  They train at an academy, the Citadel, located in Oldtown, Highgarden.  There is at least one “dark maester”, somewhat of a necromancer, Qyburn, who works for Cersei Lannister.

The Wall.  North of Winterfell is a massive wall of ice which protects Westeros from various threats.  The most mundane threat are barbarians called wildings led by a “king beyond the wall”, Mance Rayder.  Although very savage with no laws, the wildings are human and have no particular magic qualities.  The darker threat are “Others”, essentially undead wights.  The wildings typically attack the Wall.  The Wall is defended by the Night’s Watch, a motley brigade of misfits and losers, Westeros’ equivalent of the French Foreign Legion.  Given the alternative of execution or “taking the black” (joining the Night’s Watch), many choose the latter option.  They can’t marry or have children, but they aren’t eunuchs and don’t exactly have a vow of chastity. 

Sex.  Sex is a major part of GOT.  Whores, maids, rape, “moon tea” (GOT contraceptive), and raunchy language and behavior are prevalent.  Marriages cement alliances and the bride has to be a “maid” (virgin). 

Again, it’s interesting how injecting sex into a fantasy story does wonders for attracting female viewers.

HBO Series.  Now that I’ve read the books I can compare one with the other.  The series takes substantial liberties with the dialogue and injects a fair amount of nudity and sex which is absent from the book, particularly Renly Baratheon’s “relationship” with Ser Loras Tyrell.  On the other hand, they are essentially faithful to the characters and plot, and the book has more than its fair share of nudity and sex anyway.

The stories are told in the third person, but from the viewpoint of specific characters, and it jumps around considerably.  Books 4 and 5 are almost, but not quite, parallel.  At this rate, the HBO series may well catch up to book 5 before Martin finishes writing book 6.  Some characters disappear and reappear later, while others….I’ve never seen an author like Martin who is so ruthless about dispatching sympathetic characters in a surprising way.  You really never know what will happen next, which makes his stories literally impossible to put down.  Of course, the rutting, whoring, raping, drinking, etc. are also part of the fun.  

Moonlighting

When I started classes at University of Maryland, College Park, in fall 1986, I noticed a remarkable thing.  For the first time since January 1979, I was finally able to see new TV shows as they aired.  Since moving to Paris way back then, all I could see were summer re-runs or long-stale shows – “Mork and Mindy” or the AFN TV shows, with the big exception of the 1984 Olympics in L.A., which were obviously live.  One of the shows I did watch on my small TV in Hagerstown Hall, or the large TV in the common area of my 7^th floor dorm hall, was “Moonlighting”.  I can’t say I caught every episode or watched it diligently (I still can’t remember what night of the week it was on) but it was one of the few shows I did watch.

 Now, thanks to the marvel of DVDs, I finished watching all five seasons of the show, from start to finish.  It originally ran from 1985 to 1989, covering the second half of the 1980s.  This was Bruce Willis’ major beginning in show business, although “Die Hard” (the first movie) was done before the series ended.

 Premise.  Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is a retired model who wakes up one day to discover that her accountant embezzled practically all of her money and fled to South America.  Instead of being able to live off her accumulated wealth, she now has to work for a living – again.  She’s too old to work as a model, but her lawyer lets her know about one business she owns, a detective agency, which is nothing more than a passive loss generator to shield her investment income from tax liability.  The agency had hired a full staff of lazy bums whose job it is to siphon money and pretend to work.  Now she has to actually earn an income from this place, which she renamed “Blue Moon”.

 The guy running this is David Addison (Bruce Willis).  Given that his erstwhile task was pretending to work, Maddie’s initial impression of him is negative, and his ne’er-do-well attitude simply confirms her suspicion that he’s an irresponsible loser.  “Love at First Hate” rears its ugly head once again:  eventually his charm gets under her skin.  He’s actually not a bad private detective (Willis himself had worked as one in real life prior to this acting role) and together they solve a whole bunch of colorful mysteries while bickering non-stop.  They’re not particularly memorable, and even the “private eye plot twists” are common enough to be recognized fairly soon and often.  

 The real meat of the show is the chemistry and mutual antagonism between David and Maddie.  It’s very much Apollo (reason and logic – Maddie) vs. Dionysus (love and random chance – David).  But the clashing and inconsistent personalities, even disagreeing on which cases to accept, manage to complement each other when it comes time to actually solve cases.  The humor is also irreverent; Willis and Shepherd sometimes talk to the audience, and a few times the camera actually pans out to the set.

 They’re assisted by Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) the shy receptionist who answers the phone with an overlong rhyme, and (introduced in later seasons, winding up as a romantic partner to Agnes) Bert Viola (Curtis Armstrong, probably best known as “Booger” from the “Revenge of the Nerds” trilogy).  These two assume greater importance in season 4, when Maddie runs off to Chicago to see her parents because she’s pregnant and has no clue what to do about it.

 By season 5 the show had “jumped the shark” and run out of steam.  After having chosen David over Sam (Mark Harmon) then married Walter Bishop – and getting a rapid annulment of their Vegas marriage – Maddie STILL can’t make up her mind about David, who then has a brief affair with Maddie’s cousin (Virginia Masden).  This is also despite Maddie’s immense jealousy of Terri (Brooke Adams), a single pregnant mother who David assists in her pregnancy while Maddie is hiding in Chicago.  Rhett and Scarlett married, Han and Leia marry, but these two?  NO!  Enough already, pull the plug:  which they did.

 Notable episodes.  My favorite was the “Taming of the Shrew” adaptation.  I’d cite the “Honeymooners” homage, except that I’m not a big “Honeymooners” fan.  Another was the precursor to “Look Who’s Talking” (the movie in which Willis acts as the voice of a baby), sure enough Willis plays the baby in Maddie’s womb.  Though since the baby was Sam’s....

 I’d invite anyone with a nostalgia for ‘80s TV to watch, as not only were the shows fun and entertaining (if a little frustrating towards the end when David and Maddie STILL don’t hook up conclusively) but you can recognize a fair amount of other actors and actresses and even some cameos.  

Hurricanes

I just got back from NYC/New Jersey, which is still suffering the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy.  Power, gas, and Internet porn are all severely restricted.  Fortunately the DC area looks to have escaped any significant damage, and the gas stations are running normal.

 I think of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida as the main targets of hurricanes.  Come to think of it, when it comes to natural disasters, the US gets almost all of them.  Volcanos?  Yep, Mt. St.Helen’s in Washington State.  Earthquakes?  California.  Tornados?  The Midwest.  Floods?  The Mississippi flooded back in the 90’s.  Blizzards?  Mainly the East Coast, plus Chicago and Buffalo.  About the only one we don’t get are tsunamis.  Brazil, on the other hand, gets none of these (least of all blizzards!). 

 Back in 1988, when I was taking summer classes at the University of Maryland, we had a huge storm.  It knocked over trees and knocked out the power in College Park, although UMCP itself did not lose power.  As nasty as it was, suitemate Jeff, from Houston, Texas, claimed, “this was nothing compared to a hurricane.”

 I recall a weather channel documentary about “storm chasers”, these high-flying bombers which fly above the hurricanes and down into the eye.  The eye is truly bizarre, a round area of complete calm inside the swirling maelstrom of nature’s violence. 

 Although several hurricanes have come by the East Coast a few times, I’ve never been directly in the path of one, nor have I suffered any property damage, injuries, or losses of loved ones due to these storms.  I count myself lucky in that respect. 

 Katrina was the worst recent hurricane.  New Orleans is still trying to recover from it.  Galveston, Texas, was hit in 1900 and never recovered.  Sandy swiped by NYC and headed northwest, then circled up northeast, up around NYC, almost dancing around the Big Apple like one of those Mexican hat dances, Sandy swishing her skirt up left and right as she circled the Empire State Sombrero.  I see almost NO coverage of the hurricane’s impact on Philadelphia, which arguably was directly targeted by the hurricane – outside of Philly news coverage, which obviously focuses on that city.  But on Wednesday, the only NJ Transit buses running were in Camden!  Go figure.  NYC was hurt worse from the glancing blow of Sandy than Philly was head-on.  The PA death toll is 1/3 the NJ/NY toll.  I’m getting the big impression here that “national news coverage” pays too much attention to NYC and ignores everyone outside the NYC metro area as inconsequential.  World Series coverage dropped dramatically once the Yankees were knocked out.   Who won?  Oh, the San Francisco Giants.  Again.  (Yawn).

 Inevitably it’s impossible to completely protect ourselves from hurricanes, but New York’s recent problems suggest that a lot more can be done – and should be done - to reduce the effects.  Look at how little damage earthquakes do these days to L.A., now that they’ve re-engineered their buildings.  An earthquake hits L.A. and the death toll is negligible relative to the strength of the quake itself.  Over in Iran or Armenia a similar sized quake kills thousands of people.  Someone needs to study the weak, choke points here and address them.  Clearly Hurricane Sandy will not be the last one we’ll face.

 Finally, I couldn’t resist posting that pic of Nana Gouvea, the Brazilian model who tastelessly posed in front of pictures of hurricane damage, inspiring a spoof picture of her in front of another disaster, Ned Stark’s imminent decapitation in “Game of Thrones”.  Enjoy.

Grunge Revisited

Alice In Chains’ debut album Facelift came out in 1990; Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, Pearl Jam’s Ten, and Nirvana’s Nevermind all came out in 1991.  So it’s been over 20 years since grunge hit the US.  How are things today?

 Well, first off, I should backtrack and talk about two other bands.  The first is Mother Love Bone, the second is Temple of the Dog.

 My knowledge and understanding of grunge music was immensely improved by watching “Twenty”, which is Pearl Jam’s recent documentary (now that they’ve been around for 20 years).  If grunge music has a Syd Barrett, a whimsical, charismatic, inspired singer whose life was cut short by drugs, it’s Andrew Wood, the singer for Mother Love Bone.  Their only album, Apple, was released shortly after his death from a heroin overdose in 1990.  Chris Cornell talked about his death, saying that grunge’s “loss of innocence” wasn’t Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, it was Andrew Wood’s death in 1990.  After Woods died, the band broke up, but Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament recruited a surfer from California (Eddie Vedder) to form a new band….Pearl Jam.   Now that I’ve listened to Apple, I can say that it’s (A) decent music worth listening to in its own right, and (B) not similar enough to Pearl Jam that anyone should listen to it expecting to hear an early version of that band.  

 Shortly after Wood died, Chris Cornell put together a band to make a tribute album to Wood called Temple of the Dog.  They released one album.  I recall “Hunger Strike” playing nonstop on the radio, the video – featuring Eddie Vedder (the only song he’s on) – also playing incessantly.  The rest of the album is sung by Cornell and has a slight funk-soul groove to it (very Glenn Hughes), similar to Mother Love Bone and aside from Cornell’s distinctive vocals, not very similar to Soundgarden.

 Pearl Jam.  Of the big 4, only this band has remained together continuously.  Singer Eddie Vedder neither overdosed on heroin (Layne Staley), shot himself (Kurt Cobain), nor did he disband the group (Chris Cornell). 

For some reason, PJ never really did it for me.  I have Ten, which I purchased long ago (probably a free CD from Columbia House) and Live on Ten Legs, their most recent live album.  Classic Rock magazine reviewed a recent show and proclaimed Pearl Jam the successor to the Grateful Dead as America’s premier jam band.  ???  No way, no how, nowhere close.  Phish are clearly that band.  About the only similarity between Pearl Jam and the Dead is that PJ share the Dead’s policy of playing a different set each night.  But Pearl Jam do not actually JAM (!!!).  The live versions of songs are only slightly longer than the studio versions, and they do not go off into 10-15 minute improvisations.  They are NOT a jam band.  I like a few songs (“Alive”, “Evenflow” and “Black”, all from Ten) but this band is just too boring for my liking.   Hardly surprisingly, I have never seen them live, and Live on Ten Legs has not convinced me to see them now.

 Nirvana.  Only recently did I finally get, and listen to, Nevermind.  I was never a Nirvana fan and never saw them in concert.  Now having listened to all of Nevermind – the Deluxe edition with b-sides and unreleased material – I can say I’m still not a Nirvana fan.  Whereas Soundgarden and Alice in Chains – the two grunge bands I really do like – seem to take Black Sabbath as a foundation, Nirvana are more punk oriented and appear to take the Ramones as their basis.  The “deep cuts” from Nevermind, the non-single tracks, might as well be Green Day songs.  As far as I’m concerned, “Smells Like the Teen Spirit” has to remain Nirvana’s defining song, just as “Smoke on the Water” is for Deep Purple and “Stairway to Heaven” is for Led Zeppelin.  Whoever picked the singles from that album had a good ear, as they are all much better than the “deep cuts”.  My favorite is “In Bloom”, and among the non-singles, “Curmudgeon” has a nice Hawkwind (!) feel to it, and “Something in the Way” buried itself in my head and wouldn’t leave. 

            With Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April 1994, Nirvana went out of business.  Dave Grohl has kept the Foo Fighters going since then.  Heresy it may be, but I prefer to Foo Fighters to Nirvana – but not enough to see them in concert either.

 Soundgarden have reunited, and have a new album coming out in November, King Animal.  I missed the reunion tour, but did see them back in 1994 on the Superunknown tour.   Oddly, this band formed way back in 1984, and released their first album, Ultramega OK, in 1988 – two years before Apple.   I prefer the second album, Louder Than Love, to Badmotorfinger (album #3) which was the “breakout” album when grunge came to national attention. Arguably, Superunknown is their best album, which I won’t dispute.  The fifth album, Down on the Upside, was inevitably going to disappoint after its predecessor, and they broke up soon thereafter.  Only now have they reunited (not at Cinnabon).   I did not pay any attention to Audioslave, Chris Cornell’s band with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, nor to any of Cornell’s solo material. 

 Alice In Chains are also back together, with a new singer, William DuVall, who looks nothing at all like Layne Staley, but sounds exactly like him.  I recently saw them on their Black Gives Way to Blue tour (with the Deftones and Mastodon opening) – I got up way up front near the stage, at the Patriot Center.  On stage, DuVall has a kind of James Brown thing going, but less of a blatant homage or ripoff than Bruno Mars.  Prior to that, the last times I had seen AIC was back in 1991 – both times as an opening act:  Clash of the Titans (Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer), and Van Halen’s F.U.C.K. tour.  At both of those shows I was way up in the bleachers and could barely see the band.  I mentioned earlier, and I’ll mention again: as far as I’m concerned ALL of AIC’s albums are excellent, as was Staley’s side project band Mad Season.

 Crossover.  The bands have shared some members, e.g. Jason Everman & Matt Cameron.  Both were in Soundgarden AND Pearl Jam.  Everman was also in Mind Funk, on their fantastic (!!!) album Dropped.  Mike McCready is in Pearl Jam, and was in both Temple of the Dog and Mad Season.    

The Gay Brain

I remarked earlier about homosexuals, and have come up with a theory on this.  I believe that gays have the cross-gender brain. 

 Anyone with any appreciable experience with the opposite sex knows that men and women think differently.  This is not cultural, but physiological.  In the womb, when our bodies form either penis & testicles or clitoris and ovaries, subtle changes are also taking place in our brains.  We end up with a male brain or a female brain. 

 Men tend to think in linear terms:  A therefore B therefore C, or 1 >> 2 >> 3.  Women think in non-linear terms:  A therefore 2 therefore Tuesday therefore purple.  What a man thinks follows from A is B; what a woman thinks follows from A is 2.  This is why men and women have so much trouble dealing with each other.  “Why doesn’t he know that M goes to cabbage?” cries a woman, whereas her husband says, “M goes to N, it’s logical…why can’t she figure that out?”

 The male brain is physiologically oriented to respond sexually to exposed breasts and vagina – the female anatomy.  The female brain is physiologically oriented to respond sexually to broad shoulders, strong arms, and even the penis.  Switch brains and you wind up with a man attracted to other men, or a woman attracted to other women.  However, there is at least one study that shows that straight women respond not merely to straight sex porn, but also gay porn.  Among men, only gay men respond to gay porn. 

 The gay man has a man’s body and a woman’s brain.  The lesbian has a woman’s body and a man’s brain.  This is why straight women LOVE to have gay male friends.  A man who thinks like a woman!  Brilliant!  And he won’t be offended if she doesn’t make a pass at him!  Even better.  Of course, this makes gay men a poor source of information on how straight men actually think.  What it’s like to pee standing up?  Ok, he can handle that.  What a straight man looks for in a woman?  Eh, not so much.  It’s funny, though – I don’t see straight men seeking advice on women from lesbians.  

 Note, it’s NOT genes.  Identical twins have a slightly higher chance of both being gay, but not much higher, and it’s not 100%.  On the other hand, if it’s due to hardwiring in the brain, it’s still fixed from birth and not something that can be changed with hormones, behavior therapy, or Elaine Benes.  To fix it you’d need an actual brain transplant (ideally trading with a lesbian). 

 As for bisexuals….  I can’t really say how they fit into my theory, which would be all-on or all-off (heterosexual or homosexual).  My own experience with the GLBS community is practically nil – “Modern Family” and not real gay friends.  Therefore, what I say in this regard may come off as uninformed.  These are just my own subjective impressions.

            I noted earlier that bisexuality among women is rarer than porn would have us believe.  “Bisexuals” seem less to be people truly ambivalent and neutral in their preferences, than either homosexuals occasionally engaging in straight sex for various reasons, or heterosexuals doing likewise, again for certain specific reasons.

Reasons such as:  suitable partners of the desired gender are not available (e.g. prison); or economic incentive (porn stars) or duress (heroin junkies).  

            In men, my impression is that bisexuals are really gay pretending to be bisexual because of some latent social, cultural (or possibly even physiological) confusion about their orientation.  These are homosexuals who occasionally dally in opposite-sex fun, but who mostly stick with their own team.  I’d call these “promiscuously bisexual.”

            Contrast this with what I call the “expediently bisexual”, (mostly) men who only engage in homosexual behavior when females are unavailable but are exclusively heterosexual when they do have access to women, the most common example being prison inmates.  Are they gays pretending to be straight in regular society?  Or just straight men with extremely low standards?   My guess is…the latter, with the promiscuously bisexual being homosexuals with low standards.  For all I know, maybe both groups contain individuals best described as “confused.”  But since I’m not bisexual – of either type – I may have to defer to true bisexuals on if and how their behavior fits into my “gay brain” theory.  I know my brain is straight.

Islam Revisited

Quite some time ago I posted a blog, “Boom-Boom for Boom-Boom”, in which I argued that the Muslim suicide bombers were actually simply selfish:  killing innocents so they could go to Heaven and get their 72 virgins.   Recently I read a book called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, by Robert Spencer.  Like most of these “PIG” books, it takes a fairly strong viewpoint which is 180 degrees opposite what the Blue State people would have us believe, although it explains quite conveniently why some Muslims behave the way they do in much of the Middle East.

 First question, though.  If there is a God, surely there must be a Devil.  We’ll call him Satan.  From Abraham all the way up to John the Baptist, and then Jesus, God had sent a series of prophets down to Earth to tell us what He wanted us to do.  The biggie was Moses and his 10^th Commandments. 

 Where are Satan’s prophets?  Why didn’t he send anyone?  And does he, or did he, have a son (or daughter) to send down to us?  How would we know?  Would Satan’s prophet admit being from Satan?  Or would he claim to be from God?

 The reason this question comes up is because of the nature of the Koran, of Islam, and of Muhammed.  I was stunned to read Dante’s Inferno and see that Dante put Muhammed in Hell, as a fraud.  Presumably what he meant was that Muhammed claimed to be from God and led millions of people astray, away from God’s path.

C. S. Lewis, in The Last Battle (as the title indicates, it’s the last book in the Lion, Witch & Wardrobe series) suggests that the “God” of the Muslims, Tash, i.e. Allah, is really Satan.

For his part, Spencer brings up a number of important points, although he falls well short of Lewis’ conclusion.

1.   For all this talk of the Crusades, what apologists for angry Muslims leave out is that the Muslims invaded Christian Europe centuries before the Crusades, expressly to conquer and convert – or kill – the Christians.  I recall back in Paris we learned about Charles Martel, the French warrior who defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732 and sent them reeling back into Spain.  Moreover, the Crusades were a reaction to Muslims restricting access of Christians to Jerusalem and ambushing pilgrim caravans.  If US current foreign policy is a resurgence of the medieval Crusades, why do we form alliances with Muslim countries - including Saudi Arabia, which has implemented much of the Sharia in its own law?  Why didn’t we ban Islam from Iraq after defeating Saddam Hussein or from Afghanistan after defeating the Taliban?  Why is Turkey in NATO?   The simple answer is that the Crusades are a useful rallying cry to elicit anger among Muslims against the Western, Christian countries, but it has absolutely nothing to do with current US or NATO foreign policy towards the Middle East. 

 2.  The earlier portions of Koran which are more tolerant and lenient date from when Muhammed was in Mecca, which at that time was pagan and very unsympathetic to his views.  The later, more violent sections – which Muslim clerics consistently agree supersede the earlier sections – date from when Muhammed was in Medina, where he found a more cooperative crowd.  Whereas the Bible is the opposite: the Old Testament is the heavy-duty, violent part – e.g. Sodom & Gomorrah blasted out of existence, flood eradicates all but Noah and his family on the Ark, David leads armies against Philistines – and the New Testament gives us mellow, laid-back, tolerant Jesus.  Jesus was cool (“Peace be with you.”), Muhammed was extremely violent and intolerant (“join us or DIE!”).   Not only was Jesus a pacifist, if you read Ben-Hur (the 1959 movie doesn’t talk about this) you’ll understand that many of his followers hoped that Jesus would raise an army and throw the Romans out.  They were disappointed when he preached peace and allowed himself to be crucified.  He died for our sins.  Contrast that with Muhammed, who was essentially a warlord and general – a very successful one.  Granted, there are, and have been, bloodthirsty Christians invoking Jesus’ name to justify their atrocities, and there are peaceful, tolerant Muslims.  Even Dante recognized “virtuous pagans.”  But Jesus preached peace and love, Muhammed preached war and death.

 3.   According to the Koran, Muslims are not to make friends with “infidels” (nonbelievers), they can lie and kill them with impunity, and only three “fates” are open to unbelievers:  convert, pay tribute, or die.  We go from Jesus, who was extremely tolerant and pacifist, to “kill the nonbelievers.”  Practically everything in the Koran carries the death penalty, and anything goes so long as it advances the cause of Islam. 

            Spencer’s point is that the craziest, nastiest, most murderous behavior we see from Muslims in the world today is not an aberration but actually condoned and encouraged by the Koran and the Hadith (adjunct interpretations).  Suicide bombers are not defying, corrupting or perverting Islam, rather they are following its instructions, whereas the peaceful Muslims here at home are ignoring their marching orders from Muhammed and are not “true Muslims.”  But the world is full of Catholics (myself included) who don’t exactly obey all the Pope’s commands.  Most Americans claim to believe in God, but only a fraction of them actually go to church or actively follow any specific denomination.  The irony of Muslims pushing for Sharia in non-Muslim countries (e.g. Western Europe) is that you can probably find a very substantial number of Iranians – devout Shi’ite Muslims, no less - who would rather see an end to the theocracy in their country.  Again, Turkey gives us the example of a Muslim democracy which, while far from perfect, is also far from Iran (at least in nature, if not geographically). 

 4.  This recent video which caused the fuss in the Middle East and Libya – which I haven’t seen, by the way – supposedly accuses Muhammed of being a pedophile.  Yet it’s common knowledge that he married his favorite wife, Aisha, when she was 6, and consummated the marriage (i.e. took her virginity) at age 9.   To call the Koran misogynist would be a massive understatement.  Even Aisha herself complained that Muslim women have a rough time.

 5.  Then there’s this business of “Heaven”.  Muhammed describes it as a pleasure palace of unbelievable wealth and beauty, and of course the 72 virgins.  This sounds awesome, fantastic!  In fact, it sounds a little TOO awesome and fantastic.  “Kill all these people.  And when you die, you have unbelievable sex, we’re talking GROUP SEX.  Orgies for eternity.”  All these instructions, mind you, supposedly coming from the same God who sent His only son down to Earth to die for our sins.   

 6.  Again, Muhammed was essentially a warlord who conquered the Arabian peninsula in his lifetime (570-632 AD).  His “revelations” from Allah were mostly self-serving and arguably calculated to attract followers to his military cause.  At the time, Christian doctrine was that “Islam” was merely a sham designed to justify Muhammed’s military campaign.  Looking at it objectively, that appears to be pretty much right on the money.  Certainly if you’re an atheist you would be more inclined to believe this as well.

 Now, I do not believe that Muslims around the world honestly believe that they are praying to Satan, the Lord of Darkness, five times a day.  Nor do I believe that they consider Muhammed a prophet of evil, much less a simple fraudulent warlord.  Moreover, the more radical and bloodthirsty elements of Islam seem to register only with the poorest, most hopeless Muslims, in the poorest, most hopeless Muslim countries.  I don’t see rich Arab sheikhs blowing themselves up.  Likewise, with the 800 lb gorilla exception of the 19 9/11 hijackers, we don’t see Muslims in the US blowing themselves up.  The Onion ran a piece about an Al Qaeda cell in the US which was postponing its jihad until after its free Netflix subscription ran out, or the season of “Heroes” ended, as they’d just bought a new plasma screen TV (FARS seems to have missed that one).  Ahmed in the US with a wife and kids and a decent job doesn’t seem particularly inclined to strap explosives to himself and blow up a bunch of infidels; he’s more inclined to enjoy the good life in the US and otherwise remain a devout Muslim, praying to Mecca, eating Halal food, and going to the mosque on Friday.   But Ahmed in Gaza, a 16 year old boy too shy to talk to girls and with no job prospects, is probably more inclined to listen to the local madrasa cleric and trade a life of poverty and involuntary celibacy for an afterlife of untold riches and nonstop orgies. 

 To finish off with C.S. Lewis again, in The Last Battle, Aslan told the children that while Tash may be Satan, the situation is a bit more complex than that.  “Good works done in the name of Tash are in fact done in my name, and evil works done in my name are in fact done for Tash.”  He recognized that many of the Calormenes (his fantasy equivalent of the Muslims) were in fact virtuous, whereas some Narnians (Europeans) were evil and sinful.   Viewed that way, we could consider Muslims who mind their own business and live peaceful, decent lives just as favorably as we do fellow Christians who behave the same way, regardless of what some angry imam in Iran – chastising such Muslims as backsliders, non-devout, complacent, corrupt, etc. for interacting favorably with non-Muslims and abandoning the cause of advancing Islam and jihad – may bark and bray about from Tehran or wherever else he might be.  

Judge Dredd

Recently I had the pleasure to see the new film, “Dredd”, a second attempt to put the famous (?) British cartoon character Judge Dredd onto the big screen.  The prior attempt from 1995 was fairly disappointing.  This time around they got it right.

 2000 AD Comic.  Despite taking place in the USA in the 22^nd century, the cartoon is British.  It began in 1977.  One thing I learned living overseas is that British comic books follow a different format than American ones.  The Americans (DC, Marvel) tend to focus on a specific character or team (X-Men, Avengers) throughout the entire issue.  The British ones seem to offer a variety of different comics in the same book. 

            An Irish friend of mine back in 6^th grade turned me on to Beano, which included – among others – “Dennis the Menace”.  This DtM was completely different than the US variety by Hank Ketcham (both of which started in 1951, by the way).  The British kid had black hair, a striped sweater, and was malicious and mean-spirited, whereas the American was simply a boy being a boy, much to Mr. Wilson’s annoyance but far from being a nasty brat. 

            2000 AD was darker, more adult, closer to “Heavy Metal” though without the provocative cheesecake.  Its top cartoon was Judge Dredd, but this was by no means the only one.  My buddy Myles really liked Strontium Dog, but I really didn’t enjoy any of Dredd’s competitors in 2000 AD.

 Judge Dredd.   By the 22^nd century, urban sprawl on the east coast of the US has reached the point where the entire coast, from Florida to Maine, as far west as the Appalachians (not quite the Mississippi) has become one giant, continuous city, Mega City One.  There is a west coast version, and the vast distance between them is a nuclear wasteland, the Cursed Earth, home to mutants and outcasts.  Much of MC1 is “blocks”, huge apartment buildings with schools, hospitals, malls, and over 70k to 100k people each.  The blocks are so self-sufficient that many citizens can live their entire lives without ever leaving their blocks.  They also develop an intense loyalty to their block, which was exploited by the Sov (USSR) judges in a series called “Block Mania.” 

            Mega City One is patrolled by a force of judges.  These are highly trained and heavily armed police officers who have authority not merely to arrest, but also to try suspects on the spot and sentence them, possibly execute them if appropriate.  As ominous as this sounds, the judges’ policy is to arrest suspects whenever possible, and “summary executions” per se are rare, more like simple deaths in combat; the survivors are brought back to “iso-cubes” (incarceration) or banished to the Cursed Earth.  With the notable exception of Judge Cal, the judges rarely abuse their immense discretion and authority and consistently remain conscientiously devoted to enforcing the law, none more than Judge Dredd himself.

            Dredd himself is not even the chief judge – a position he consistently declines, as he prefers to remain “on the street” – but merely the most feared and respected.  He’s tough but fair, completely incorruptible (and there are corrupt judges) and as hard on his fellow judges as he is on perps (perpetrators, i.e. crooks).  Similar to Beetle Bailey, he never takes off his helmet – even at home – and we never see his upper face or his eyes.  He has no GF (or BF), no wife, no friends, no social life, no home life, no hobbies or interests. Dredd is essentially “on duty” 24/7 and doesn’t really have an “off switch”. That’s part of his charm.   

            His weapon – as that of all judges - is a multi-purpose blaster, the Lawgiver, which fires bullets, high explosives, or incendiaries, and is coded to his fingerprints.  As Jay discovers in “Dredd”, bad things happen to a perp foolish enough to try to use a judge’s blaster himself.  Dredd also has a beefed up combat bike, the Law Master, with cannons, which can drive itself if necessary.

 Baddies.  Most of the time he faces small-time crooks, who he dispatches without much difficulty.  Because robots have taken most of the jobs in Mega City One, ordinary citizens are unemployed and bored, and typically turn to crime simply by default.  Of all of Judge Dredd’s opponents, the most devious and dangerous were Judge Caligula (essentially based on the real Emperor Caligula) and Judge Death, an otherworldly judge who “judgessss” Mega City One’s entire living population as guilty of the crime of life.  I’m glad to hear that if the 2012 film succeeds in developing second sequel, that story line of the third film is tentatively planned to include Judge Death and his fellow Dark Judges.  Don't get your hopes up, though: Karl Urban says that as yet (2020), there are no plans for a follow-up.  Damn.

 Dredd as Fascist.  There is some issue or question as to whether Dredd is a fascist, or could be considered a fascist.  Dredd himself has no apparent politics and simply enforces the law.  Mega City One is not run by the judges themselves, as most cities it has a popularly elected mayor.  In fact, the whole Judge Caligula story could be interpreted as a strong counterindication, because when Cal takes over and turns the city into a dictatorship, Dredd and the other mainstream judges wind up in a guerilla war fighting Cal (and his Klegg hound mercenary enforcers) from the sewers.  Of course, what really puts the judges over the top is Cal’s plan to literally execute everyone in the city (!!!).  But it’s clear that even before that the judges had a problem with Cal’s administration.  The judges are conscientious about enforcing the law, not making it, but at some point they feel an obligation to make sure the law they’re enforcing is valid and legitimate, and Dredd is no different in this respect.

            It is clear that when enforcing the law, Dredd has almost no pity, sympathy, or compassion.  He can be fairly heartless and cruel about doing his job.  But to call such a law enforcement officer fascist, per se, goes a bit too far. 

 There have been two major attempts to bring Dredd to the big screen.

 1995 film with Sylvester Stallone as “Judge Dredd”.   I can’t say this one sucks.  Someone knew of the comics, because Rico Dredd (Armand Assante), the Angel Gang, and Fergie (Rob Schneider) were actual characters in the comic.  “Disappointing” is probably a more accurate description.  The biggest problem is that Stallone, as Dredd, took off his helmet.  A big no-no.  The people who made this didn’t bother trying hard enough to remain faithful, and despite the authentic elements of the story, it looked more like an unofficial but de-facto sequel to “Demolition Man” (1993).  The film had a $90 million budget, and while it recouped its investment worldwide eventually, it tanked in the US.

 2012 film with Karl Urban as Judge “Dredd”.  Fortunately someone took another stab at this, and this time around the results are far more worthwhile.  Original Dredd creator John Wagner, who (hardly surprisingly) didn’t like the 1995 film, seems to like this version.   Karl Urban was excellent as Eomer in “Lord of the Rings”, suitably dark and cynical as the young Dr. Bones in the Star Trek prequel, Bruce Willis’ CIA nemesis Cooper in “RED”, the Russian assassin in “The Bourne Supremacy”, and here he keeps the helmet on for the entire film and pretty much spits out his lines.  He makes Clint Eastwood sound like Richard Simmons. 

            Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) investigate a murder in the Peach Tree block tower.  It turns out they’ve stumbled upon a major drug gang.  The ruthless leader is a former prostitute, “Ma-Ma” (Lena Headey, probably better known as Cersei Lannister, the evil queen in “Game of Thrones” – scarcely recognizable here) who has not only effectively taken over the entire block tower, but also controls the city’s drug market for “Slo Mo”, a crystal meth-type drug which slows everything down considerably (excellent special effects).  Too bad “Heisenberg” and Jesse are absent.  Dredd and Anderson capture one of the killers, but Ma-Ma puts the building on lock-down and traps them inside.  Who is trapped in with who, however – Dredd then takes on Ma-Ma’s gang army virtually single-handedly.  Several teams of baddies, a brutal salvo from no less than 3 Gatling cannon, and a quartet of corrupt judges, all fail to dispatch Mega City One’s top bad-ass judge.               Ultraviolent?  You bet.  Sink your teeth into this and enjoy.  JUDGE DREDD has finally left the pages of “2000 AD” and conquered our movie screens.