This is so much in the spirit of Monty Python, I've never seen it before and it's glorious.
I'm picturing the interviewer played by Eric Idle and the interviewee by Graham Chapman.
This might be when that old iPod - sitting in a drawer for years - might come in handy. Or any little MP3 player that might be in the market right now, I haven't shopped for them in ages, but I imagine they're pretty cheap nowadays.
It's a soulless and savage (and ultimately mind-numbingly boring) spectacle, vulgar and cruel. As entertainment, I would put it on a par with dogfighting. By which I mean it should not exist, but there are too many psychotic people in society for it to ever be put out of its' vulgar, cruel misery.
EDIT: As power politics go, this is like the mafia or drug cartels, with a bunch of short-term clever but long-term stupid pigs jockeying for top position, using each other's families - their own wives and sons and daughters - as pawns, as collateral damage, as cannon fodder.
An amphibious and paratrooper assault in this day and age, as well as the inevitable international sledgehammer of sanctions, makes it look to me like the expense and risk outweighs the potential benefits.
There is a balance of peace and trade in the region. Who in their right mind would overturn this balance? There has to be an unholy alliance of sense of power-tripping entitlement plus a strong self-loathing inferiority complex. But goddamn it, we've seen too many hollow, noisy, vulgar, aggrieved billionaires and orange millionaires in the past decade or so, haven't we?
It's just hollow, mindless narcissism. Brought to you by the exact type of rude deadweight that cuts into an orderly line every time, expecting nobody to break the tension, confront and put them in their rightful place at the back of the line.
I have never, ever posted a picture of my kids online. I've sent a handful to family and friends via messaging apps, but only ones that are naturally flattering, and that is as far as it goes.
As it turns out, my overwhelming hunch that this is the only decent, respectful course of action in the mindless social media age, seems to be correct.
I love my kids, and I respect them as people, as individuals with a right to privacy at any age.
If true, it sounds like other penny-pinching Lucas stories I've read through the years and decades. Skimping on 2-3 million for a film that cost 32 million to make, and was all but guaranteed to make over 300 million at the box office anyway.
Then probably patted himself on the back for being so astute.
But do you know where the action could have taken place for the same type of texture, but with so much better impact?
Lucas supposedly intended to visit Chewie's home planet of Kashyyk for the '77 film, but didn't have the budget so he rewrote it out of the script, and didn't get there until '05 with Revenge Of The Sith... unless you count the Holiday Special, which one shouldn't.
So imagine that instead of the Death Star V.2 being built in orbit around that Endor forest moon, it's on the Wookie homeworld, with Chewie stepping forward as a combat leader among his people, Han fighting side by side with a Wookie platoon.
Now imagine a 1983 Kenner/Mattel toy line of Wookie warriors, with their crossbows and lances and booby traps for stormtroopers and such. Considering the cuteness overload we got instead, what a missed opportunity.
Even if you don't mind the insidious invasions of privacy that these companies have undertaken with relentless determination:
Because everything these companies touch, they sooner or later enshittify.
Because the past decade has shown that Facebook's intentions cannot be trusted.
they will at first lure you in with cooking, travel, and credit card tips
Holy crap. I had no idea. We've heard of a slippery slope, but this is a slippery sheer vertical cliff.
Like that toxic meathead rogan luring the curious in with DMT stories and the like, and this sounds like that particular spore has burst and spread.
Gardener's World, the way the show is presented is soothing yet fascinating at the same time. There are a lot of full episodes on YouTube, and it is healthy content for a 70-year old mind... or much younger, even.
You watch this one thing out of curiosity, morbid curiosity, or by accident, and at the slightest poke the goddamned mindless algorithm starts throwing this shit at you.
The algorithm is "weaponized" for who screams the loudest, and I truly believe it started due to myopic incompetence/greed, not political malice. Which doesn't make it any better, as people don't know how to take care of themselves from this bombardment, but the corporations like to pretend that they people can, so they wash their hands for as long as they are able.
Then on top of this, the algorithm has been further weaponized by even more malicious actors who have figured out how to game the system.
That's how toxic meatheads like infowars and joe rogan get a huge bullhorn that reaches millions. "Huh... DMT experiences... sounds interesting", the format is entertaining... and before you know it, you are listening to anti-vax and qanon excrement, your mind starts to normalize the most outlandish things.
In one of those 70s Fat Albert episodes, I think it was Rudy who one day showed up wearing a jacket of "genuine imitation leather". That term has stuck with me for decades.
This is so much in the spirit of Monty Python, I've never seen it before and it's glorious.
I'm picturing the interviewer played by Eric Idle and the interviewee by Graham Chapman.