Only a fiend

In 1925, when he was selected to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, George Bernard Shaw initially balked, stating, "I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize." 

So, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner is Maria Corina Machado, an opposition leader in Venezuela. Internal opposition, that is, at least officially. The external opposition is made up of the great world powers, led by the US. Any connection? One certainly does wonder.

It must be said that if Venezuela is undergoing a Color Revolution, Maduro's government isn't being that smart in their resistance to it. Still and all, the narrative building has been relentless. As Ron Paul puts it:

Is the Nobel Peace Prize just another deep state, soft-power tool intended to boost the US global military empire? The timing of the award going to the relatively unknown Machado is suspicious. President Trump has parked an armada of warships off the Venezuelan coast as his aides openly talk about “decapitation” strikes on the Venezuelan government. After the extrajudicial killing of some 20 civilians in his attacks on at least four boats off the Venezuelan coast, President Trump is openly bragging that no one dares launch a boat in the area.

The “Peace Prize” endows Machado with a new sense of moral authority and gives weight to any “green-light” she may again give to outside militaries to attack her own country.

It's probably not the first time the Nobel Prize has gone to a CIA asset, but they used to be better at laundering them.

Great minds think alike, I guess?

Saturday late morning/early afternoon I went to the library, where I needed to return a few things and pick up a couple of things. But the doors were locked, because it turned out they were closed a four day weekend for Indigenous People's Day. Usually I'm good about keeping up with stuff like this but there were extenuating circumstances. 

It got me to thinking, though, about Indigenous People's Day. It used to be Columbus Day. Now a lot of people feel a lot of different ways about Christopher Columbus. But the important thing is that he was an individual, and thus it's possible to feel affection or esteem for him. A faceless mass of Indigenous People, though? It's too bloodless to inspire positive or negative responses, really. And the substitution on what used to be Columbus's day just makes them look like objects of pity. 

I figured these were deep thoughts, and was still thinking about how to put them across, when I found something similar also expressed in, of all places, a Sunday Hi and Lois. Is it something in the water, or something in the air?

Ready or not

 

From what I gather, based on the superficial amount I know about his life, art was an escape for Carl Larsson. A private escape from the hardships of his early life, and eventually a means to leave them behind. 

So it makes sense that a lot of his work projects a peaceful domesticity. This isn't the easiest subject to make compelling, but he finds a way. In this painting, "Hide and Seek", it's an unusual angle. The girl hasn't found a good hiding place in most senses. That table is wide open. But it's not the first place you'd look, so the game can go on for a few minutes. Of course the high vantage point also allows for the display of the round vase and its shadow.

Down Under hounds

Interesting overview of dingoes. While they're not exactly dogs, or at least not the same species as domestic dogs, the difference is kind of subtle. They do resemble dogs more than other wild canids do. One might very well mistake them for such. It's only when you notice that they're traveling in packs and don't seem to have any humans in charge of them that the difference becomes glaring. What we seem to be looking at is a slightly earlier stage of canine evolution.

Ohne titel

From everything I've seen about Gretchen Felker-Martin, that author's literary career seems to be based on three things:

Being trans

Being a psycho

Really doubling down on that second one, in a keyboard warrior sense

Felker-Martin recently lost a comics writing gig at DC over some witless and, yes, psycho tweets about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Apparently you can only bluff your way so far with a pair of twos.

The incident made me think of someone else from the horror-fantasy field: Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Salmonson has been writing since Nixon was still in the White House. She also happens to be trans. But her much more low-key reputation is based on things like "finding a good story" and "writing well." Antediluvian stuff.

Din

My library has study booths for people who really need quiet. As seen here, they make the person using them look sort of like a contestant on a fifties game show. 

Why are these necessary? Because guests in the library are loud. Some talk on the phone. Some just blatantly rant to themselves. And the thing is that the library will just...let you. Shushing is a thing of the past. If you started screaming obscenities at other patrons, someone would probably tell you to stop. Probably, but I don't know for sure. Even then it would be awkward, and no one wants to be awkward. But as far as enforcing guidelines that mean you'll need to show consideration for everyone else, no, nobody does that.

Free Mason!

Since the Raymond Burr-led Perry Mason went off the air in 1966, at the end of the black-and-white TV era, there have been two attempts to revive the character with other actors. Neither really lasted. I haven't seen either, so take this all with a grain of salt. But I can sort of see why they haven't been successful. 

First there was The New Perry Mason in the early 70s. It starred Monte Markham, who's still with us at 90. Again, I haven't seen it, so I can't definitively speak to quality. But it was probably a little too soon. The old show had been filmed and preserved on video, and was now slipping into syndicated reruns. Viewers could be forgiven for doubting they needed a new one.

The HBO version is of course much more recent, about five years old now. Matthew Rhys is certainly a good actor, although by this point he was a little long in the tooth to play a Mason who hadn't even started practicing law yet. That last part seems to have been part of the problem. Moves like changing Paul Drake's race and making both Della and Burger gay/lesbian might have gone over, or at least one change like that could have. But anyone with a previous affection for the character wants to see Mason in the courtroom defending the innocent, not rooting around generalized corruption in interbellum America.

The character does have an enduring appeal, based on decency and an admirable commitment to justice. I wouldn't necessarily say that Burr is irreplaceable. But he would be very difficult to replace. History seems to show that.