M3GAN (2023)

Rotten Tomatoes

M3GAN (2023): Toy company rushes a robotic young girl to market before its programming is ready, and it's only a matter of time before the killing starts. More sci-fi than horror, it's safe for young teens, but there's nothing original for adults. Frankenstein did it better. C+

Random Thoughts: As Officers Beat Tyre Nichols...

2023-02-01: Irony: "As Officers Beat Tyre Nichols, a Crime-Prevention Camera Watched Over Them."

2023-02-01: "If football fans are far and away the most TV-destructive sports fans, then Cowboy fans are far and away the most TV-destructive football fans. In a way, this makes sense: No team has combined a sense of entitlement to victory with a consistent failure to achieve it in quite the way Dallas has over the past 25 years."

He's not wrong.

2023-02-01: The best of neighborhood Facebook:
"I did see several kids sliding down hills on the golf course. They have been reported to Oncor. Thanks!"
(posted on a snow day that closed schools in Texas)

2023-02-03: Judging by when I saw the announcements, Richardson ISD led Dallas ISD and Plano ISD in calling off school on Friday due to several factors related to this week's ice storm. RISD, always a step ahead!

Book Review: The 1619 Project

From The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones:

Amazon

  Why hadn’t any teacher or textbook, in telling the story of Jamestown, taught us the story of 1619? No history can ever be complete, of course. Millions of moments, thousands of dates weave the tapestry of a country’s past. But I knew immediately, viscerally, that this was not an innocuous omission. The year white Virginians first purchased enslaved Africans, the start of American slavery, an institution so influential and corrosive that it both helped create the nation and nearly led to its demise, is indisputably a foundational historical date. And yet I’d never heard of it before."

Book Review: The 1619 Project: American history as it's rarely told, with the true story of what's been done by and to Blacks. With separate authors on chapters on democracy, capitalism, politics, citizenship, religion, music, healthcare, and more, its power builds relentlessly to a call for action at the end.

After the jump, my full review.

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes

Triangle of Sadness (2022): Satire of social class on a cruise for ultra rich. Catastrophe strikes, roles are reversed and the real makers and takers are revealed. The satire is too blunt. The ambiguous ending is a cop out. Overall, it's too shallow to be great. But it's fun. B-

POTD: Pfifferlinge

From 2022 07 11 Bamberg

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Bamberg, Germany. It shows golden yellow mushrooms (pfifferlinge) offered for sale in a street market in the center of this medieval town.

Bonus photo after the jump.