The Month That Was - December 2020

Everyone seems quite happy to see 2020 go.  It certainly has sucked but I'm not going to pile on.  In fact, below you can read what will likely be the most positive take on the virus you could plausibly imagine.

Apart from the Covid update, just video consumables this week.  As far as bidding adieu to 2020, I think Robin Hanson said it best:  

"I am grateful to have been alive in 2020. I might have rather that better things happened in 2020, but re the choice to exist or not, it isn't close. Yay for existing!"

[Covid19] Coronatime, Month 10

[Movies] The Rise (and fall, and further fall) of Skywalker

[Movies] Wonder Woman 1984

[TV] Queen's Gambit

[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 10

I'm going to take a different tack this time and ask a stupid question: What if we are not doing so bad?  I know everyone is screaming and pointing about how horrible and uncaring everyone else is.  And I know there have been a lot of -- how shall we say it? -- sub-optimal decisions and actions.  But let's draw a big picture comparison.  

Hindsight grips us and tells us we should have done things better or faster, we should have been more stringent or more thoughtful. There will be lessons from this.  I hope we learn them. Personally, the lesson I see is that we need a better way of doing risk assessment when our standard environment of safety breaks down. But that is just what it is: hindsight.

In the 1918-20 .675% of the U.S. population was killed by the Spanish flu.  Rounding up, that's 7 people out of every thousand.  So far .129% of the U.S. population has been killed. Rounding up because it's not over yet, let's call that one-and-a-half people out of every thousand.  Put another way, at Spanish Flu mortality levels we would be looking at over 2 million dead instead of what is likely to be less than 400 thousand -- 1.6 million lives.  You can consider that a benefit bestowed by science and technology -- better health care, better hygiene, better communication, greatly enhanced scientific capability.

I am loath to even dip a toe in politics, but to the various factions that are trying to rip asunder our world social and economic order in the name of justice and/or freedom: you better be damned well certain your new world could do the same or better.  

I have become strangely optimistic about things.  Lost in the shuffle have been tremendous achievements that are going to pay off for years to come.  Bio-medical stuff like solving protein folding and more targeted cancer treatments.  New battery and microchip technology.  New nuclear power plant design approvals.  Peter Theil believes Covid is going to mark a new era.  I have mentioned before that I would not be surprised if all this leads to a second Roaring Twenties.  Given the pessimistic nature of our culture at this moment, I hope we don't use any newfound blessings as a reason to hate ourselves more.  That aside, I am indeed optimistic.  I almost wish I was young again so I could fully experience looking at such a bright future. Almost.

One last thing -- and this is very important: For most people, if you get a positive Covid test the thing to do is just ride it out.  If you know you are "high-risk" or start to get serious symptoms to the point where you are considering treatment, read this: Current Covid Treatment Advice.  It will step you through what to ask for from your doctors. 

But everyone should read that article all the way through.  If there is anything to be angry about in all this it is not the little political policy and behavioral differences that everyone screams about. It is the fact that our bureaucratic regulatory environment could not adapt to an extreme event.  

"If everyone in the world took just the fluvoxamine for 14 days after they learned they were COVID positive, our hospitals and ICUs would be nearly empty today. If everyone took doxazosin or metformin, we could cut the hospitalization rate in half. The problem is that double-blind outpatient RCTs take too much time to execute during a pandemic and doctors are trained only to accept RCT trial data and to ignore anything else. This has caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering and death. The fluvoxamine trial results were made public on October 6, but the mainstream media ignored it since it was a small trial (N=152)."

The Pfizer vaccine was created in a weekend. A life-saving treatment has been available for 3 months.  But people continue to die and businesses fail and lives ruined, all because we can't seem to see beyond our overhead.  If you want to get mad about something, get mad about that.

[Movies] Flick Check: The Rise (and fall, and further fall) of Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was bad.  I know that won't surprise you because everyone has seen it and read the reviews.  Let's consider all nine movies in order of release:

4 - Classic

5 - Arguably even more classic

6 - Pretty darn good but marred by Ewoks

1 - Godawful

2 - Crap

3 - Crap

7 - Crap adjacent

8 - Pukeworthy

9 - Crap

Given that, it's quite remarkable how this mess has remained a cultural touchstone. My first reaction was that it must be another instance of Boomers controlling the economy, but then I am a late Boomer and I was 16 when Star Wars was first released and 19 when Empire came out.  The bulk of Boomers were well into their 20s or even 30s.  You could argue that even a 30-year-old Boomer was an impressionable child, and I'm not sure I'd disagree, but I have to believe that the generation that has kept Star Wars at the forefront or pop culture because of sentimental attachment to the early films is Gen X.  Can't really blame this one on the Boomers.  

In fairness, I should point out that the stand alone movies were better -- Solo was OK and Rogue One was outright Good.  I have not seen The Mandalorian.

[Movies] Flick Check: Wonder Woman 1984

It's astonishing that Marvel has put on what is effectively a 10-year master class in action movies in general and superhero movies in particular, and Warner Brothers hasn't learned a thing.  There is simply no aspect of this movie that exceeds the mediocre.  The plot is pure formula, without the slightest twist to provide any interest.  With the exception of a single Gal Gadot scene, the acting is mailed in.  I take that back, Pedro Pascal, who played the villain, at least put in the effort to ludicrously overact.  It is too long, too repetitive, and too expository.  Even the special effects look amateurish.  Honestly, given the state of technology it seems you would have to try very hard to produce outright bad special effects, but they managed.  The cinematography is prosaic.  The dialog is juvenile and dull.  I only hope there was a PA or a Grip or someone who did something worth doing in this mess.

Strangely, it has an oddly poignant moral about accepting the truth even if it is painful, and understanding how your best desires can lead to disaster.  A good theme done disservice.

Warner made a big deal about streaming new releases on HBO Max.  HBO may regret that deal if this is the sort of thing they can expect.

[TV] Toob Notes: Queen's Gambit

So much good to say about this I don't know where to start.  Actually, I'll start by saying that it deftly sidestepped most of the pitfalls that have made TV a vast wasteland again.  Think of the premise: a young orphan girl in the sixties turns out to be a brainiac chess prodigy.  Aren't you anticipating a movie where the poor girl is crushed day after day by horrible men telling her she can't do what she wants yet she manages to succeed in spite of them, thereby teaching us all a lesson about the horrors of modern day sexism?  Well this ain't that.

Beth Harmon (the lead character) is orphaned when her mentally ill mother is killed in a car crash, or possibly suicide attempt, her illigtimate father having either disappeared or been chased away.  Here we have our first clue that this series is about humans and not ideology.  We are never really sure whether the mother was driven to madness or born that way or came to it through substance abuse.  We know the father made attempts to connect with the mother in the interest of Beth but we aren't sure if he gave up out of weak will or because it was made clear that he was entirely unwelcome.  (In a wasteland drama, he would have been the cause of the mother's mental illness and abandon them despite their pleas for help and who knows, probably laughed about it like Snidely Whiplash.)

In the orphanage, Beth is not -- repeat not -- abused.  It's not a warm and fuzzy place, but she is cared for thoroughly, and looked after probably as best as possible by the standards of the time.  Unfortunately the standards of the time also involved distributing tranquilizers each day, so she ends up with an addiction.  Still, in time, and with a little bit of creative dishonesty, she gets adopted.  More importantly, she forms a bond with the (male) janitor who not only teaches her how to play chess, but identifies her as a prodigy and makes sure she gets whatever exposure he can provide -- in this case the chess club at the local high school where she stomps everyone without breaking a sweat.

Beth's adopted parents are not ideal.  The woman has a fragile and precarious disposition along with her own addiction problem, and the man feels stifled by his wife's needs, likely has had his fill of her, and connives to escape.  They have no children.  The man has no interest in Beth, he only went along with the adoption in the hope that it would get his wife off his back.  If there is a villain in this it is the man. Although he doesn't abandon them without contact, he leaves on an extended business trip eventually making it clear that he will not be coming back. Simultaneously, we discover that Beth's ability to win chess tourneys can bring some money and fame. Once again, though flawed and marginal, her adopted mother, Alma, supports her next step.  In fact, I would argue Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays Alma, gives an Emmy worthy performance.  One of the best drawn and most well-shaded characters in TV history and she gets a tremendously touching story arc.

I'll stop with the play-by-play there to avoid spoilers, but in the end we discover that Beth has been blessed by wonderful caring people -- including the men in her life -- and that she would not be where she is without them.    

The lesson for TV producers -- which they will not get -- is that when you look beyond making virtuous, topical, socio-political statements you get to Humanity.  And Humanity is where art resides.  Queen's Gambit is really a meditation on addiction and recovery. And kindness.  How the small unseen acts of imperfect people can combine for miraculous results.  It's optimism worthy of David Milch.  That makes it rare and valuable.

Just a quick tangent:  A vblogger has posted a video appreciation of the most recently cancelled non-wasteland TV show Lodge 49, apparently in the hopes of saving it.  I don't see that happening, but you would do a lot worse than to binge the two seasons we did get.