In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I said on Sunday that I've been thinking about the Jason Bourne series of neo-noir movie thrillers since I started this blog. Some recent comments from Trump about his assassination strike me as pertinent: “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump told reporters from the New York Post and Washington Examiner aboard his plane to Wisconsin, where the Republican National Convention will kick off Monday. Then regarding the Iwo Jima-style photo of him pumping his fist beneath the flag, he said, “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump said in the new interview. “They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.” I'm not sure if I like the word "iconic" -- it's overused, and it seems to mean more than it really means; I prefer "paradigmatic". But insofar as it refers to a kind of subliminal appeal to the psyche, I'm on board with it. As soon as I saw the quo...

Here's what we know so far about thomas Matthew Crooks, Trump's attempted assassin, via the BBC : Thomas Crooks had not been carrying ID, so investigators used DNA and facial recognition technology to identify him, the FBI said. . . . Crooks worked in a local nursing home kitchen just a short drive away from his home, the BBC understands. Right away, this is a big difference from pretty much every successful or unsuccessful attempted assassin from John Wilkes Booth onward. They didn't want to hide their identities; they wanted their names out there. Most lived flamboyant and unstable lives without steady employment. Booth was a famous actor well known for his Confederate sympathies, and he made no attempt to conceal his identity or motives -- he leapt onto the stage at the Ford Theater after shooting Lincoln, after all. Charles J Guiteau , who assassinated President James Garfield, had a disorganized career as a failed writer and political advocate, but his ide...

🚨 Joe Biden has once again REFUSED to take a single question from the media, and announces he’ll be having yet ANOTHER address to the nation tonight This time, it’ll be from the Oval Office Biden is DESPERATELY trying to score points here. pic.twitter.com/xyXnMJjpAp — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 14, 2024 I double checked the president's schedule , just to be sure I didn't get anything wrong: he addressed the nation from Rehoboth at 8:00 PM Saturday night, then again at 1:30 yesterday afternoon, and he spoke yet again at 8:00 PM last evening. At the afternoon remarks , "We don't yet have any information about the motive of the shooter, we know who he is," the president said Sunday, without naming the suspect, who was identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper after opening fire. "I urge everyone, everyone please, don't make assumptions about his motives or hi...

One story that's been at the back of my mind since I started this blog is the Jason Bourne series of neo-noir movie thrillers, and as the details about Trump's attempted assassination have trickled out, I keep wondering how I might try to fit them into a Robert Ludlum style plot. Let me say from the start that this is pure speculation driven by an overactive literary imagination. We have Joe, an elderly, shallow, and self-absorbed president who's been propped up by the organs of state security since his time as vice president -- and as best we can determine, his son, a dissipated drug addict, has been one of his closest advisors since that time as well. Even while Trump was in office, the organs of state security coordinated an effort to impeach Trump on Joe's behalf; since Joe came into office, the same organs assisted the January 6 "insurrection" investigation and either conducted or assisted a series of criminal indictments and civil actions designed ...

The impression, possibly fostered by Fr Schmitz and his Bible in a Year podcast, has been forming in my mind for a while that belief in space aliens is a form of idolatry. It's been enough to make me put a limit on the shows I watch on History that cover the subject. Here's an example of what's begun to bother me, an episode of Ancient Aliens that aired Aug 26, 2022 : Ancient cultures around the world often referred to the gods as the "Immortals" - but could they have encountered extraterrestrial beings that had achieved eternal life? And if these visitors genetically engineered the human race, as Ancient Astronaut Theorists suggest, is it our destiny to become immortals as well? Note how quickly the story elides from archaeology through sci-fi to immortality, which is the province of religion -- if we somehow believe strongly enough that the ancient aliens were immortal, then maybe we can live forever ourselves, or sorta-kinda something like that. Nobody ...

I didn't watch Joe's big boy press conference last night, but I did check the aggregators later to see if there'd been any major blunders. My sense of things was that, although he'd started out by misgendering Vice Preasident Trump, his performance was good enough : The Democrat Party is left in limbo as President Joe Biden’s NATO press conference avoided total disaster despite several gaffes, and it could stave off internal efforts among Democrats to remove him as the nominee in the immediate future. . . . Biden’s former White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on MSNBC that she thinks the press conference “gave [Biden’s campaign] more time, which for the campaign is a win.” Nevertheless, the consensus that seems to be emerging is more aligned with Susan Glasser in the New Yorker : And sure enough, Biden was barely into his first response before he let loose another gaffe, arguably even cringier than the first. Asked about Vice-President Kamala Harris a...

Biden describes giving NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg the Medal of Freedom: "I sorta got on my knees and begged him." pic.twitter.com/ONvsEIcWbC — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 11, 2024 It took me some time to connect the dots between two cryptic clips of Joe's remarks surrounding the NATO summit yesterday. It looks as though he was trying to tell some sort of private joke that stayed in his mind over two separate contexts. The clip above was in a discussion with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, while the clip belolw that more or less explains it was made at the NATO summit itself in a direct exchange with retiring Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: 😳Oh boy… “I realize after _____ing your wife. “ “I personally ask you to extend your service….laughs......... Forgive me?” ⁉️What did Joe just say he was doing to his wife? pic.twitter.com/KHi4bojNfY — RoamingRN (@roaming_rn) July 9, 2024 Nobody is quite sure what the word was as Joe slurred out "_____ing...