Dead is Dead – Or Is It?

Posted on February 19, 2021 by Tom Garrett

Over the past three weeks, WandaVision has gone from “show I watch every week when I get a chance” to “a must-watch show the day it comes out” to “show I get up early on Friday to watch first thing.”  The only remaining rung on this maniacal ladder is “show I stay up until 3:00 AM Eastern to see the moment it’s available.”

While we’re not there yet, Episode 7 (“Breaking the Fourth Wall”) did a lot to set the stage for the final two episodes.

There were several curious aspects to this episode, but we also got some major hints as to what’s going on (and what’s to come).  In no particular order [*SPOILERS AHEAD*]:

Continue reading →

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The Truman Show Meets Field of Dreams

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Tom Garrett

I guess this is a WandaVision blog now!

Last time around, I made the following observation (among others):

Likewise, there are perhaps three explanations for Vision.  One, because he’s a synthetic being, albeit a sentient one, the “rule” about resurrection didn’t apply to him the same way it applied to her Pietro (or even to a dog), or the “rule” is purely one of self-restraint for Wanda.

Two, the rule does apply to Vision, but Wanda has somehow found a way to circumvent that rule, albeit at a cost.  Her defiance of the natural order and the associated strain are damaging reality and are what creates the blending of other universes into her own (which is how Evan Peters got there).

Three, the Vision we’re seeing on WandaVision is a different Vision.  The original MCU Vision is dead.  Wanda has his disassembled parts stashed away somewhere, and she pulled a non-dead Vision to her pocket reality the same way she pulled Evan Peters’ Quicksilver there, whether consciously or not.  Vision’s mind has essentially been wiped, pre-Westview, so it’s impossible to say if this could be the case yet.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

“Westview is charming as HELL,” huh, Quicksilver?

WandaVision is a weird enough show that I don’t think anything can be absolutely ruled out yet.  For example, why doesn’t Vision know who the Avengers are?  Has his mind simply been wiped, or is this a “different” Vision who comes from a reality where the Avengers don’t exist?  Even with that scenario still (barely) on the table, though, I think the sixth episode of the series makes the second possibility the current leader in the clubhouse.

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Ode to Government Efficiency

Posted on February 12, 2021 by Tom Garrett

Allow me to regale you with a tale of government efficiency and wayward contracting.

I own several acres of land in King William County, Virginia.  It’s a few acres of woods that my grandfather gave me when I was a child.  There is nothing at all remarkable about the land.

I received a new reassessment of my land’s value some months ago.  Despite not having any structures on this land (or even a road that leads to it), the company the county employed to reassess the land determined that said plot was wildly undervalued.

So undervalued, in fact, that they increased the tax assessment by 133 percent.

I should pause here to note that I have never had an issue with King William County, and all of my dealings with them have been courteous and ended in a satisfactory manner.  I have always enjoyed dealing with their staff in the rare instances when I’ve had occasion to do so.

With that said, this massive change in assessed value presented a potential problem.  In the past, I saw the incremental increases as good news—greater property value has an obvious upside.  However, an increase of this magnitude would simply stick me with a huge hike in property taxes, and, at the same time, I would never be able to get such a price if I actually decided to sell the land.

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A Gateway to Endless Possibilities

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Tom Garrett

Prior to the fifth episode of WandaVision, I was already enjoying the show quite a bit.  Probably more than most fans.  Some of the criticism I had seen online was from folks who either didn’t like the slow burn or didn’t enjoy (or were too young to “get”) the satirical waltz through the history of American sitcoms.

Neither issue bothered me.  I love a slow burn.  Hell, LOST is on my Mount Rushmore of TV dramas.  And, as someone who grew up at the dawn of “Nick at Nite” and perpetual syndicated reruns, I get the joke-within-a-joke about television’s longstanding tropes.

That all changed with the fifth entry in the series, appropriately titled “On a Very Special Episode . . . ”

More accurately, it changed with the final minute of that episode.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

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Take Your Pick of Super Bowl LV Match-Ups

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Tom Garrett

The content on this site (planet?) has been a little too heavy lately, so allow me to inject a little positivity into the blog.

As a lifelong Washington Redskins fan, my perspective on the past few decades of “Super Bowl season” has been that of a begrudging realist.  Knowing that the Team That Dare Not Speak Its Name doesn’t have a real shot at the conference finals virtually every year is as liberating as it is frustrating.

Since my team hasn’t been in the conference championship game since I was in the eighth grade (and I’m now in my 40s, so that’s quite a stretch), I focus simply on what Super Bowl match-up I want to see most and root accordingly.

Most years, there’s a very clear hierarchy.  Yet, I realized a few days ago that we are absolutely blessed this year.  Each possible combination boasts a solid storyline, thanks in large part to four great quarterbacks at various stages of their careers, all of whom are compelling in their own ways.

That fact will make my favorite football Sunday of the year even better.  I prefer conference championship Sunday for a number of reasons—actual home games (albeit with crowd restrictions this year), the potential for weather (as we’ll see in Green Bay shortly), two games instead of one (or three), and a greater focus on football (and less on fluff and hype).

As far as I’m concerned, there is no bad outcome today in terms of the Super Bowl pairing.  Here’s a rundown of the possibilities: Continue reading →

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How We Got Here. Where We’re Going.

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Tom Garrett

“[A] system of free speech confers countless benefits on people who do not much care about exercising that right.  Consider the fact that, in the history of the world, no society with democratic elections and free speech has ever experienced a famine—a demonstration of the extent to which political liberty protects people who do not exercise it.”

— Cass Sunstein, Conformity: The Power of Social Influences

Nothing is easier than giving in to fear.

Fear—even justifiable fear—can be used by those in power as a pretense for further exertion of control over lives they already substantially influence.  History provides an abundance of examples.

In the present case, the heinous violence we saw at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th has opened the door for a reinvigorated effort by powerful public and private institutions to de-platform, de-monetize, and otherwise suppress speech.  Naturally, the proffered rationale is “safety,” and opportunists are predictably using that reasoning as a way to be as broad as possible in clamping down on speech they find objectionable.

I default to skepticism when facing these sorts of potential anti-speech shifts in cultural or legal norms.  That skepticism also explains why I agree with those who have misgivings over the vigor with which influential entities are restricting speech.  I find myself in the (eclectic, perhaps strange) company of the ACLU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Glenn Greenwald, among others.

The worry here isn’t limited to Twitter’s erasure of President Donald Trump from its platform, which was followed in short order by every other meaningful social network.  These concerns also relate to the suppression of the pre-election New York Post story about Hunter Biden, as well as the selective and collusive destruction of the conservative-leaning Twitter alternative Parler—under the theory that it served to foment and coordinate the Capitol attack, even though, e.g., Facebook played at least as large a role.

This targeting based on politics is troubling enough.  Yet, it was the de-platforming of Trump that most strikingly prompted some of the same anti-speech arguments I’ve been discussing for years.  Specifically, critics dismissing free speech concerns by saying “Twitter (e.g.) is a private company, and can do what it wants.”

I agree.  But there is often a wide gap between “can” and “should.”

Continue reading →

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Best of 2020

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Tom Garrett

2020 wasn’t all bad.

I have to say that this was a good year for me personally, demonstrating the value of baseline reclusiveness and living practically as a shut-in even before a pandemic hit.

What seemed to many people to be a nightmarish existence was more or less a lateral move for me.  However, I did save significant time avoiding my heck-ish commute each day—approximately 90 minutes, minimum.  The upshot of this newfound savings is that I finally rededicated myself to this blog.

Ok, “rededicated myself to this blog” is too strong.  Maybe “remembered this blog exists and felt guilty about it” is more accurate.

Things had gotten so sparse ’round these parts that I didn’t even do a best-of piece last year!  That decision wasn’t an oversight.  I just produced so little content that putting together a best-of seemed absurd.

I did better in 2020, authoring 21 pieces of content (not counting this one), all of which published after March, when the pandemic fully “bloomed.”  Of those pieces, here are the handful I liked best:

Untimely Movie Review: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (5/4) – I’m including this one as sort of a representative example of my recommitment to (EVENTUALLY) getting through the Warner Bros. 50 Film Collection.  I managed to get through several entries this year, with more on the horizon.  I’m confident I can finish it at long last in 2021. 

Buy Physical Media (6/6) – Prompted by the sudden rash of digital deletions and warning messages for several series and movies, I wrote this piece as both a defense of free speech and an admonition about the durability of physical media.  It eventually led to a piece that published in the Washington Examiner, which was a personal highlight for me this year.

Destroying Unity Is the First Step (8/11) – In a somewhat prescient post, I noted that a news clip from 1983 discussed something that united people of different races, socioeconomic levels, and political views, but that this very thing had itself become just another divisive topic around which people virtue signal in order to separate themselves from “the other.”  Societal decay abounds.

Two Movies, One Screen (11/2) – Using the “two movies, one screen” metaphor as a jumping-off point, I discussed the political climate surrounding the presidential election, making some broader predictions that looked beyond the actual outcome.

The Worst Possible Outcome (OR: The Baby Hitler Hypothetical) (11/6) – And the inevitable companion piece to “Two Movies, One Screen.”  Here, I detail the election results and match their implications to my previous forecasting.

Overall, it was a decent “comeback” year for this site, unexpectedly bolstered by a bat-borne virus from the Far East.  I hope you enjoyed some of it.  The blog, that is, not the pandemic.  Happy New Year!

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The Worst Possible Outcome (OR: The Baby Hitler Hypothetical)

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Tom Garrett

A few days ago (which feels like weeks at this point), I made some predictions about Tuesday’s election, and I talked about the “two movies, one screen” phenomenon.  That concept is the idea that two people / groups of people can observe the same data, but process that data so differently as to perceive different realities.

Before I get to where we are with our electorate’s competing narratives, let’s review the particular points I made.  My overall, general prediction of a narrow Trump Electoral College win is doubtful at this point, but the enumerated specifics about which I felt confident largely came to pass: Continue reading →

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Two Movies, One Screen

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Tom Garrett

The outcome of the 2020 election is obvious.

President Trump has never led in the polls.  What’s more, the deficit he faces is far larger than the one he faced in 2016.  The quiet signs of trouble in key districts that plagued Hillary Clinton aren’t present this time around.  Trump trails in every swing state, sometimes by double digits.  Democrats (or, perhaps more accurately, Trump’s antics) have even made states like Georgia and Texas competitive, and Dems may turn parts of the South blue again for the first time in more than a generation.  Voters will also see Biden as a way to end the chaos that swirls around Trump at all times, and which manifests as the social unrest caused by right-wing agitators in cities across the country.  On top of all of that, Dems have been wildly out-raising and out-spending Republicans, reflecting the desire the country has to vote Trump and company out of office.

Tomorrow night should be a quick, decisive victory for Joe Biden.  Despite concerns around vote-counting that takes days or weeks, none of that will be necessary as Biden amasses more than 270 electors by midnight on November 3rd, and Democrats ride a blue wave to full federal control of Congress and the White House.

The outcome of the 2020 election is obvious.

Pollsters haven’t learned their lesson from 2016, and they don’t account for factors that point to overperformance by Trump.  What’s more, Trump voters are exceptionally “shy.”  Many of them don’t want to trigger insults and harassment from shrill, hectoring progressives by revealing their support for the president.  Some of them intentionally mislead pollsters to undermine media trust even beyond its current all-time low.  And, while rally size isn’t a pure indicator of electoral success, the pervasive contrast in voter enthusiasm between Trump voters and Biden voters highlights a Biden vulnerability.  Moderate and independent voters who otherwise may have been disposed to vote for Biden will vote for Trump due to fears and worry around the widespread vandalism and unrest that marked progressive protests around the country.  On top of all of that, Trump has quietly been shifting voter registration toward Republicans over the past four years—especially in key states. Pollsters haven’t properly accounted for this shift or the shy voter factor, and Trump will stun “experts” again on election night.

In short, Trump will secure close-if-decisive victories in most swing states.  So much so, in fact, that he may not even need Pennsylvania.  Despite concerns around vote-counting that takes days or weeks, none of that will be necessary as Trump amasses more than 270 electors by midnight on November 3rd, and Republicans retain control of the Senate for at least two more years, and the White House for four.

I have been reading and hearing both of these narratives since the summer.

They are mutually exclusive.

In his book Win Bigly, Scott Adams describes a phenomenon he calls “two movies, one screen.”  The idea is that two people (or two groups of people) are observing the same data, but processing the information so differently that they reach entirely different conclusions about reality.

Continue reading →

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Destroying Unity Is the First Step

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Tom Garrett

I watched this clip the other day, and it made me ponder how much our culture and our media have changed in just a generation.

 

The message here is obvious.  The Team that Dare Not Speak its Name used to be something that united Washington across racial and political lines, which was no easy feat.  Not only that, but also note that the media didn’t reflexively foment division.  Instead, in the simpler time of 1983, CBS News cheerfully celebrates the fact that the Redskins’ championship pleased Washingtonians of all stripes.

Continue reading →

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