Cobb

Bogotanos

I don't know much about Bogotanos or Bogota, but I like what I know. Then again I don't generally take much time to get to know what I don't like. But I have reignited some thinking about South America and our hemisphere. The occasion was, of course, the time this week that I spent down in Bogota. 

It must be said that when it comes to business travel in the West, everything is pretty much standardized to what one would expect to see in the post-WW2 America. The themes of planes, trains and automobiles, skyscrapers and luxury shops haven't changed. The modern hotel lobby is the same as it has ever been. People read the newspaper from their mobile devices, but it's still the news. Men with jackets and ties still walk with purpose through the business districts. People still stand waiting for the bus or the subway. Traffic. Coffee. Corner drug stores. 

I have come to understand something about change. It doesn't concern me, but I watch. I feel that I am more sensitive to what I think can happen to the average Joe. And I see how people with a bit of means protect themselves from the winds of change, and how those who think they can predict how those winds will blow, place themselves to be agents or at least harbingers of that change. I think that the more that I travel in the West, the more dimensions of up, down, left and right I see that the people might go. The price of gas. Strollers. Men on motorcycles. Grafitti.

The food in Bogota is not so spicy as I thought. The street grids are more logical than I expected, more logical than New York City. Bogota in pictures from the air gives no indication as to how large it actually is. Nor can one be prepared for how much a hike of three blocks takes the wind out of you at the 8500 foot elevation. The security preparations of buildings is impressive, perhaps reminescent of a more violent pass. The days when soldiers are posted outside of the Four Seasons Hotel suggest a people who haven't forgotten how wrong things might go. The evidence is in the ubuiquity of glass sharded walls and electric fences. But these do not block the view. The colors of the bricks show through. That which is new, is bright and well lit, dramatic, but not quite so open. I have never had a tamale that I ever liked before until yesterday. The beggars sell candy. There are cars from China. The radio fine print is truly incomprehensible. 

The people are smaller than Australians, who are a bit smaller than Americans. So it is something of a shock to see so many police in their fluorescent green jackets who look like they might be second-string highschool footballers. Since I was in the district where the banks headquarterd and Carocol Radio broadcast, they and their K9 patrols were ubiquitous. This provided an odd kind of sense of safety. A civilization of necessity that might under other circumstances start to resemble a police state, although a small shouldered one. So the nightlife was vivid, but not hectic. As a city, it is rather like Los Angeles. People are commuting the carreras in multi-linked buses and small taxis. There are probably more of them than private cars, and even in the upscale hills, there were only two Mercedes seen all week. People are on their way somewhere, and the style of getting there is not important. It is a city in motion whose sidewalks are busy but not crowded. 

There are the Carullo stores and the Exito stores, Mobil and Texaco gas stations. The drivers are on the right side of the road and the speed limit is in kph. Gasoline is sold by the gallon and the dollar buys about 3100 pesos. There are Starbucks, Burger King, Subway. There are Empanada shops and juice bars. Everywhere is a peluqueria or a gym. Women wear their pants tight and their hair long. Men on motorcycles are bold but not reckless. They wear their helmets. People are polite, then again, we were in the polite and expensive part of town. At Harry Sasson restaruant, the salmon carpaccio was exquisite and the shrimp fried rice was a pleasant surprise. The coconut ice cream did not need the chocolate sauce, and I enjoyed the hearts of palm more than I expected. Down on Carerra 14 with the massive lunch of beans, rice, chorizo, chicharones and three shots of aguardiente, the bustle is more down to earth. 

Monserrate provided the quiet time every business trip requires. Some simple cheese breads and hot aqua de panela was the perfect respite at 10,500 feet up overlooking the city at night. Even as the beats from the Friday night concert echoed up the mountain, it was just proper that such a city reserved its highest heights for a shrine. Surely it was once a monestary, but now the LEDs cycle from blue to green pastel on the white stucco walls of the church. And then it was back to Carrera 7, through the nightlife where the music stores and nightclubs drew crowds in the comfortable chill of January, four degrees north of the Equator. 

I can't help but think of Colombia as a nation reborn, even with its upscale Juan Valdez Cafes, there is in my mind a feeling of openness and optimism. This is a life and a city that works, that seems unshackled but not quite unshaken from dangerous days past. There is plenty to be proud of, and the new construction demonstrates much to look forward to. Here is a town where the national soccer stadium is not plastered with the billboards of sponsors. It has a barren kind of utilitarian look to my eyes, but then again, in the selfsame way it is not yet commercially polluted with the de rigeur luxury that floats like pond scum over the American cityscape. 

I found myself wishing that in Los Angeles, we would be more accustomed to a mix of Latins that weren't crowded into a few narrow socioeconomic rungs on the lower edges of society. This first look into Latin America reminds me of what is basic that works in modern society and emphasizes what is obviously wrong in the country next door. As my associates consider their prospects in Medallin, a city once irrevocably associated with drug cartels, escaping the rapidly failing Venezuela, there is most definitely optimism. Colombia is the up and coming digital hub of Latin America, and yes the digital workspace we rented at Impact Hub, is just what you expect. Some bandwidth for digital entrepreneurs and specialty coffee. Here is the place you can order paella for lunch. It comes in attractive boxes and is way cooler than pizza. 

As I sit in the ghetto airport that is Ft Lauderdale, waiting for my delayed flight to get me back to Los Angeles, I find myself missing the clean expanse of Bogota's El Dorado International. Then again, we have our airways for the class of folks that are on Bogota's busses. The future of the Western Hemisphere is not in doubt for me, and my company's alliance with Latin America and Australia is giving me a unique perspective in international business and living. I am proud to be Western. We know how to live, and I think we will survive with confidence any sort of catastrophe evil men are planning for us. We are working with optimism here, and we know how to build and rebuild. Our people expect it, and they are right to. 

Plural America: A Nice Borg

(A Chinese gent asks Cobb how is it that Americans get used to seeing people of different colors and backgrounds all as Americans.)

There is a great book by Thomas Sowell called Ethnic America. (Ethnic America ) It describes how, over many generations, each major group of immigrants to the United States gradually integrated into society. Each group was unique but they also had many similarities. I read it over 30 years ago, so I don't recall many details. But what I do remember is that in many cities, there were low rent neighborhoods where these immigrants started that gradually changed flavor as time went by. What may have started as an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn gave way to a Jewish neighborhood, then Caribbeans moved in and then Vietnamese. Some groups are larger than others so some parts of the neighborhood remain the same. But each group brings their own traditions and food and clothing styles.  So over time, Americans are accustomed to eating the food of many cultures and of doing business with many different cultures.

 

When we say work hard, speak English, respect the flag and obey the law, we mean it. It is the least you can do when you make America your home and many millions have done so over the years. This is all that is required. It remains simple, it remains easy. Americans want good neighbors, period.

 

We have traditions of ethnic comedy. As groups mainstream into America there are comedians and entertainers who exaggerate differences and make jokes. We have traditions of crossover music in which various styles and instruments are blended into pop music. We have traditions of churches being bought and sold. What started as a Jewish synagogue in one generation becomes a black Southern Baptist church in the next. We have traditions of specialty banks where immigrants run their own financial affairs and then over time sell the banks to larger American banks. Bank of America started as an Italian bank. Everywhere in every ethnic enclave, there are paths to integration and assimilation. Some characteristics change, some stay the same. Every group is different, and of course there are differences within immigrant groups. Americans are very comfortable with this.

 

Some cities are more accommodating than others. Sometimes several generations will pass and some fragment of people stay in the same place and same profession. California is geographically located at the southern border and western 'border', so many immigrants come from Asia, Mexico and South America. San Francisco, the great port city, is the home to many Chinese. People also forget that Americans of all sorts tend to be very mobile. There are regional differences of course, but it is common for families to live in many different states, especially those who serve in the Armed Forces as many immigrants and their descendants have. Everybody doesn't blend in everywhere, everybody doesn't want to. But it's a big country and people do find their way.

 

One time I had a thought experiment to try and figure out immigration and reduce the number of different statuses to a few. I was surprised to find that there are literally dozens of different statuses for immigrants, visitors, guest workers and other non-citizens. The government keeps way more of this information than the American people care about.

 

In America, as with any place, we have people who are very civilized & sophisticated and people who are less so. I choose to represent myself as one who tries to be wise. Human wisdom is the same everywhere, today and throughout history. You will find wise men and fools in America, but I assure you, that no matter what foolishness you may have seen, the wise have the all advantages. This is a very good place for civilized people.

 

Finally, I want to say that I watched Ip Man last night on Netflix. I have heard about it many times. It was a great movie, even though the first two films are very nationalistic, I know Americans love and respect heroes like Ip Man. In addition to everything I've said,  Americans  love movies and we watch a lot of foreign films here. Where I grew up in California, people don't say 'Chinese' kung fu movie, or 'Japanese' anime. Kung fu and anime (among many other things like pizza) are part of America. If an American told me he is studying 'Korean' Taekwondo, I would think that maybe it was a special kind of Taekwondo. The point I am trying to make is that people of the world affect and change America and American culture. We embrace the world. We feel as though we can understand the world. We even make songs like 'We are the world'.

 

We are kind of like the Borg. A nice Borg that lets you keep your own individuality.

 

Poor People Gonna Rise Up

I used to be a big fan of Tracy Chapman for more than one reason. Everybody liked the songs. Some people liked the lyrics. I liked both, and sometimes the lyrics more than the songs. While apparently there's no end to the amount of political correctness that can come from folk songs, there's only so much wisdom. Tracy did manage to outlast both Spearhead and Meshell N'Dgeocello on both counts. Sometimes I get nostalgic, thus the title of this essay, the core of which is the following rude observation.

Nobody got hurt in Oregon. Lots of people got hurt in Baltimore.

Now don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.  I'm researching and it seems that the web will not help me get to the facts, but there's opinionating and narrative all over the joint. For example. The Christian Science Monitor says of Baltimore: 

 “What’s so disturbing is that the news gives people the impression the entire city was in chaos, which wasn’t the case,” says Elizabeth Nix, an assistant professor of legal, ethical, and historical studies at the University of Baltimore and co-editor of a book on the ’68 riots. “But with social media, people see these images over and over, and they get conflated with fictional depictions of the city.”

and

Baltimore has public health problems. Its infant mortality rate is high, for instance. But Hopkins is a world-class hospital located in a high-poverty area that treats all comers. It is the centerpiece of a regional medical economy that provides thousands of jobs for Baltimoreans, from doctors and nurses to receptionists and maintenance crews.

Maybe arson and looting will cripple these places. That’s possible. It’s possible unrest will spread and consume whole neighborhoods. On Tuesday, though, volunteers were out cleaning up and relative calm prevailed.

The British bombarded Fort McHenry and tried to burn the city in 1814. It didn’t work then. And in 2015 when the violence cools and the camera crews depart, Baltimore will still be there.

But here are the facts:

Here are some preliminary assessments of the damage:

• 200-plus businesses destroyed, most minority-owned, many without insurance
• 113 police officers injured*
• 144 vehicle fires
• 15 structure fires, including $16 million senior housing/community centerthat was 40 percent complete
• 2,600 volunteers signed up for Saturday cleanup on Pennsylvania Avenue
• 3,000 National Guardsmen deployed
• 150-plus National Guard vehicles utilized
• 486 people arrested in protests and gathering-related activities**
• 578 Maryland police deployed
• 283 Pennsylvania police deployed
• 149 New Jersey police deployed
• 31,500 to 52,500 pounds of food delivered by Maryland Food Bank to pantries in Mondawmin, Druid Hill, Pimlico, Forest Park, Union Square, Howard Park and Irvington
• 5 nights of citywide curfew, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

 

You will notice that not much has been said about the occupation in Oregon over the past week. It's not a story because there has been no bleeding. So this is for the history books, another sad example of how racial theorizing gets immediately thrown into the media mix, and indicates how it will be retroactively resurrected. All of the 'unarmed black' protesters of rage destroy property and cause casualties. All of the 'armed white' protesters are negotiated with peacefully. There can only be so much stereotypical thinking until its falsity overtops the levees of society and the breakwaters of democracy and begins to drown our civilization in lies. We live in stormy times.

The Problem With Multiculturalism

The problem with today's multiculturalism is that it is different than pluralism. Pluralism is the proper ethos for America, multiculturalism is not. The difference can be explained simply by assuming Americans can be divided into two tribes:

Ideological Tribe A
We believe that America is at its best when its mainstream is maintained without regard to race, creed, color, sexual preference, etc..

Ideological Tribe B
We believe that America is at its best when its mainstream is maintained with special regard to race, creed, color, sexual preference, etc.

I could go on at length to describe the nefarious notions that are sustained in the American Culture Wars, begun in the late 50s taking shape in the 60s and blossoming  in the 90s, but the distinction above nails it. What's important is that multiculturalism is now clearly showing its philosophical weakness and that ordinary people are recognizing it.

The weakness of multiculturalism is that its advocates simultaneously emphasize the politics of difference as well as notions of equality, and they try to do so without being judgmental. It is a direct consequence of trying to nail down the precise weight of 'special regard'.

Multiculturalists will assert that Americans must pay attention to the history of X in order to properly understand and respect X-Americans. In this they will assert then, that the same is true of Y-Americans. And of course they consequently assert that we make America better, because the general history of America was neglectful and disrespectful of all of the Xs and Ys and now only today with the new multicultural perspective can true equality become reality (but we still have a long way to go), so they say. So multiculturalists will emphasize all these histories and develop a new 'special regard' which can be communicated through the convoluted narrative of respectful terms, aka politically correct language. Along with this pervasive demand of the general public, multiculturalists also demand special programs of 'inclusion' and 'empowerment' of institutions.

Of course X-Americans don't have to do this diligence or sponsor such regimes because they already know, right? Well, not exactly. Multiculturalism requires that its subjects toe the ideological line in expressing the particular history of the narrative of multiculturalism. This is where the whole ball of yarn unravels, because this requirement of 'authenticity' becomes untenable as soon as you get to a particular level of detail and especially if you happen to be some as of yet unclassified hybrid of X & Y. This particular knot is sending shockwaves through the efforts of the ever more stultifying alphabet soup of the LGBT... 'community' as various identity factions attempt to micromanage the weight of special regard for their distinctions.

Multiculturalists are the enemies of conformity and anonymity. They require that people represent their differences, except of course when they are not supposed to. Confusing? Of course it is. Multiculturalists will highlight the great benefits of 'diversity' but then assert that people just 'happen to be X' and contribute equally with everybody else. The only way this can happen is if all parties in the 'diverse' group accept with precision the special regard for the X person. Multiculturalists would be profoundly disappointed were people of X distinction refuse to apply for X scholarships, or if people of Y distinctions did not predictably support multicultural rhetoric 'in solidarity' with Y. They would haughtily say such people were working against their own interests. (Because multiculturalism defines those interests! Just read the history!)

Where the friction of this regime expresses the pain of its logical error is at border conditions. IE, hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, and all other sorts of transactions that move individuals from in-group to out-group status. All rationales for discriminations of any sort must now include politically correct rationales, each appropriate to their 'own' groups.

It goes without saying that the aim of multiculturalists is to sustain this politics of difference and to denormalize the normal to which they have attached the prefix of 'cis-'. The mainstream of America of multicultural dreams has a complete and total ontology of race, gender, creed, color, country of origin, sexual preference and religion, each which contributes to the de-emphasis of America's 'majority'. They have succeeded massively in enabling this narrow and particular set of demographic tags to drive analysis of Americans over all other sets. Things like 'years of education' pale in significance to 'race', for example, when looking at socioeconomic indicators. This is true across all media.

The impact is clear. Multiculturalists seek to maintain their success by enabling 'victims' of every stripe (with a meticulously maintained database of stripes) to raise suspicions about the motives and capabilities of every group they are not a part of, and a general assumptions about cultural and political 'authenticity' that maps properly to their regime of special regard. This makes a trainwreck of evenhandedness, undermines common cause for anything outside of the multiculturalist agenda and establishes a never ending crusade against the true spirit of competition, meritocracy and fair play.

Before multiculturalism collapses under the weight of its accumulated deceptions and Orwellian contradiction, it will drown the ambitions of millions and set up millions more for failure in the world where multiculturalism's narratives and machinations does not exist.

No Judgment: The Three Legged Stool of Opinion Equality

Opinions are all of equal value when you have:

• No understanding of the game.
• No skin in the game.
• No agency in the game.

Only when you have a rational investment in the outcome and understand something about the process and reason to believe it works for you, does the value of the opinions you hold and your take on the opinions of others take shape and become firm.

Scenario A. Understanding
Imagine that I know nothing at all about professional sports in America. I'm sitting in a bar and the person at my right might say that the Dallas Cowboys are the best football team this season. The person to my left might say that the Atlanata Hawks are the best football team this season. I'd have to say both opinions are about equal even though the Hawks are a basketball team. The Hawks fan could go on and tell me that the Hawks won each of their games by an average of 12 points, whereas Dallas only won by 3 points. I'm in a totally ridiculous conversation and I don't even know why. I may even come to support the person on the left after the person on the right says "You're an idiot!" and walks away.

Now I'm supporting an opinion I have no idea about, while forming another opinion. "Dallas Cowboy fans are assholes." based on this one particular encounter.

The more you know about something, the less tolerance you tend to have for people who don't. But lots of people who never develop any expertise, or skin in the game, adopt opinions on specious premises. We live in a consumer society in which information and opinions are marketed and people adopt them based upon context rather than content. This is a well-understood psychological phenomenon called (something I can't remember) in which the consumer falsely assumes what's inside the box is well-represented by the illustrations on the outside of the box, or the conditions under which the box was presented. The other standard logical fallacies apply.

Scenario B: Investment
My personal opinion is that all gambling in Vegas is the same and is for losers. Now I actually know that one has a better chance at winning at Blackjack or Texas Hold 'Em and that there are professionals who can legitimately beat the odds. But I don't care because I never waste my money gambling in Vegas or anywhere. I've already divided the world into two kinds of people, those who don't gamble at all and idiots.

Imagine that I was an atheist. I have reasons to believe that Islam and Christianity are equally dubious. Since I have no reason to invest any hope or trust in their various institutional manifestations, I'm likely to come to regard the defensive of Islam and of Christianity about the same. Basically, both have no value to me. I don't need to care because, as Childish Gambino might say "I ain't lovin' those fake hoes." So while I have some understanding, I can still be dismissive of informed opinions and not bother to weigh the differences between them. 

Scenario C: Agency
This one is especially interesting. It is the tragedy against knowledge and interest which is resignation. Imagine that I were a voter in a democracy and I understood the process. Not only do I understand the process, but I have a particular stake in the process. I want my party to win. But I live in a jurisdiction where the other party dominates. Say I live in Los Angeles and I want a Republican mayor. Or I live in Texas and I want gun control. Or I live in the ghetto and I want them to build a Nordstrom's. I know that pretty much no matter how much time and energy, knowledge I possess, what one guy like me can do against the system amounts to butkis. So I judge that everybody's opinion, not just mine, basically doesn't matter. What's gonna happen is gonna happen so yes I'll agree, I'll play along, but I really don't see the point in giving one opinion any more credibility than another.

--

When I was a kid at camp, we were organized into Adventure Groups. One boys cabin, one girls cabin, our two respective counselors and one staff member. These groups would get together on a daily basis and do our craft projects as a team. My group called itself The Mighty Flaming Armadillos. Already we were into Monty Python. We adopted purple as one of our banner colors, I do remember that. There was one group whose name I remember like it was yesterday. They were IIWI, pronounced Double I Double U I. It stood for "I don't know. I don't care. What's the difference? Incorporated". No matter what the project, half of them didn't show up and the other half did half-ass work. They refused to take anything seriously but they must assuredly said that their group was as good as any other group. Their banner was the four letters in plain black magic marker on a white cardboard picket sign, sans serif. 

There is logic to apathy and non-judgment. It's not hopeful or energetic, but there's logic to it. 

 

A Message to Assholes

Own the dimensions of your assholiness. Understand that you have to speak the truth as you see it, period. To hell with whomever doesn't like it.

 

"Look if you want to talk baseball, I'm like whatever. But if you're going to talk about Pete Rose, let me warn you ahead of time, I'm an asshole when it comes to Pete Rose."

 

Easy. Everybody's going to be an asshole about something. It's kind of hard to be an asshole about a lot of things without actually hating yourself. Because you're calling yourself an asshole and you know you're right. If you're that kind of asshole, a true asshole, well then you should get some counseling, or at least buy yourself a puppy.

 

BTW. I'm an asshole. And on a good day, I'm like this asshole. You want me on that wall!

 

Ultimately, you need to be true to yourself. Don't cover up your ugly bits. Don't be fake. Don't try to please people you don't actually respect. A douche is worse than an asshole. Make people say, yeah he's an asshole, but he's *my* kind of asshole.

Also, in admitting the dimensions of your assholiness, don't under any circumstances, confuse it with holiness. You cannot turn a vice into a virtue simply because it's the truth about you. You're still actually that asshole. You are a crude, undesirable, stubborn, wrong, insensitive, self-important, mouth frothing retard when it comes to X. You are not a saint in pig's clothing. You are a pig.

 

Try to be better.

Counting the Dead

  For many many years, I have had an abiding interest in the brutality and lethality of law enforcement. I have a number of experiences...

Today the subject is 'unarmed black men'. There is nothing more that needs to be done because it's not a significant pattern, there is no significant risk. You say 'unarmed black men' as if 'unarmed black men' were a special group at risk, but 20 million unarmed black men are not at risk. If I said 400 unarmed black men were killed by lightning strikes last year, would you consider it necessary to setup a national awareness campaign and change policy? Of course not. Because the number is so small, you cannot extrapolate a pattern.

This is precisely exactly demonstrably the problem with racialist thinking. You take something that happens to an insignificant number of people in reality, and then you apply it to a race of millions. Then you do everything possible to make everybody conscious of your little racial theory. You add racial consciousness by establishing a false causal relationship and substitute prejudicial associations instead of real logic. You turn 'who happen to be' into 'because they are'. Wrong.

Police shootings need vigilance and they get vigilance. Cops don't walk away from fatal shootings without administrative review, and those administrative reviews are under local control. That local control is all that is necessary - anything else takes power away from the people, and subjects local matters to millions of prejudiced eyeballs (through the lens of national media). But your town is not like my town. Every incident requires a case by case examination, in the context of exactly what happened, not according to some racial theory.

There are practical considerations. Consider the fact that there are 12,000 police departments in the US. Our best guess right now is that there are 800 - 1200 bungled arrests that end up fatal. That means in a bad year, the average precinct uses the new system once every 10 years. But we know the distribution is more likely to be the 80/20 rule, IE 20% of the departments are 80% of the problem.

So I know this because

A) my profession is business intelligence. I'm the guy who builds these kinds of databases for a living.

B) my brother is LAPD and I know the kind of paperwork he had to fill out under a similar consent decree.

When you mandate this kind of system it gets real expensive real fast for officers and departments who are not part of the problem. If you've decided that you can't trust the departments, the prosecuting attorneys and the whole system, having an accurate number won't help.

I'm curious to see who is going to pay to hire new FBI agents for this job and how much cooperation they expect to get. They have about 55 field offices, so that means (on average) > 200 departments per field office. Plus the cost of the new system. Heh. That's a contract I'd like to get.

But seriously, for what? If in 2 years we say exactly 1223 deaths, after we've spent a couple million for the new system, and taken the hit off the federal payroll to either dilute the FBI's manpower or increase it with new hires, what is going to restore the public trust when 99.9% is not good enough? Nothing.

What's needed here is a fabulously produced high-tech lynching with wall to wall media coverage in HD and some cops name that becomes as unforgettable as 'OJ Simpson'. So that everybody who doesn't trust the 99.9% can repeat that name for the next 20 years, and justify all their theories.

Why? Because when the Guardian UK put up their site, the facts became too boring to talk about.
(The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive) And nobody is talking about Oklahoma and New Mexico, where these statistics are telling us the most shootings per capita are taking place.

People who have volunteered there emotions into this circus will not be satisfied until somebody in uniform is burned at the stake and then beheaded. I expect to see lynching return in my lifetime, but I will have the comfort of knowing that the silent majority will be larger than it ever was. Will that be too small a comfort?  Hard to say. 

 

 

European Murder vs European Gun Ownership

100 Reasons to Hate The Reawakened Force

Of course I'm not going to list them, and quite frankly I think anyone capable of hating this film has got to be too dainty to sustain any of my well-considered backhands. But there were people who found Indiana Jones shooting the man with the sword anything but funny. They are the Worst Critics Ever, and it looks like there's some fraction of an army forming to pile on the latest Star Wars film. We know why, because some people see a barrel and they immediately go fishing with their shotgun, not realizing that it's a barrel of monkeys. I am as disgusted by such triumphal screeds as I would be at monkey meat. Let's face facts, Star Wars is a Disney PG13 movie, a merchandizing vehicle for kids toys and a bit of nerd fun. We should all be a little bit embarrassed that anyone bothers to criticize the movies as if they were films. I am, which is why I don't think I can do much more that heave all of my snide regard at this guy, which is the only review I have ever read about the latest installment. It's probably the only one I ever will read, because really, I do know how to think about Star Wars. Trust me.

There's only so much criticism Star Wars can bear. And then when you think about it, Star Wars was *always* just a Disney PG13 movie. And guess what? The books are better than the movies. So I was hoping that I might hear something comparing the actual Star Wars literature to the arc of the story because there is no way any story with this much inherent death and destruction can be done in a PG13 vehicle. Guess, what? A bunch of fascists just destroyed a planet and four moons. Gosh. What'll we do now? This is the only way a PG13 movie can handle genocide. If we accepted it with Alderaan, we should accept it now. So if there ever was an enjoyable Star Wars movie, then they all are by the standards of Star Wars, which are by definition, nerd fun fanboy standards. Yes FTL travel is possible and explosions make sounds in space. No matter what kind of unobtanium and extreme chemicals are used, when they explode it will all be the color and speed of gasoline explosions, OK? If you can get past that, please don't bore us with your insights about gender roles and father son relationships. Disney, remember? 

Star Wars is not a guilty pleasure, it's a simple pleasure, and it's something that we ought to have on the regular. There's no reason there shouldn't be as many Star Wars movies as Bond films, and if the producers at Disney don't understand that, then they are even dumber than George Lucas, who actually thought he was smart enough to control his comic book universe. Hello, Marvel took 60 years to figure that out, and they didn't need as much help as George did. 

There is something to be said about the kind of heroes we find heroic, because there is always something interesting to be said about the way power is used for moral or immoral ends. That's the only real stuff of criticism I can bear for this particular universe, and it's true that in the films, all too much nuance is only implied by plot and never fleshed out in the acting. But I speak as someone engaged in the the universe of games and fiction-lore along with the films. Sith vs Jedi is actually interesting once you get to know them. There remains , I think, excellent elements in Episode VII that could segue very nicely into interesting expositions in VIII. So let us explore a few things to anticipate cynically...

A. Kylo Ren as Aimless Emo Brat
I really like the idea that Kylo Ren is not a fearsome warrior out to control the Galaxy. He's a great analogy for the Millenial Occupiers having all the attention and the merest of talent, their whiney desires and sloppy indiscipline leaving them full of self-doubt when it comes to their destiny. So they must debauche themselves to prove themselves truly 'real', and it is only from that most ugly hunger can they become truly the empty uncaring loathsome creatures that deserve to be called evil. The character Fernando Vera in Mr. Robot, the psycho drug dealer is that evil. Kylo Ren has no spirit, only hunger. When he finally possesses the hunger rather than the hunger possessing him, we will have a crackerjack soulless badass. He will always be a wildcard, a madman who ultimately believes his own luck. 

B. Rey as Hardnosed Heroine
There's a couple places to go with Rey. She either becomes Ripley or she becomes Wonder Woman. I think it will be the latter because if I'm reading her right, she's got the skill for visions and mind control already without any Force training. She's terribly self-possessed but needs to have something more specific to love than BB8 and Finn. Otherwise she will run away from all the fighting, like any sensible person would. I say she finds the courage that Luke Skywalker did not. But of course the big question is who are her parents and why did they leave her on Jakku. If she becomes Ripley, then you can expect some Darth Maul skills emerging. Dual saber, coming next. She's a loner. 

C. Finn as Improbable Commando
It's nice to have an actor in the middle of all this rabble. He makes the simple lines sparkle like nobody ever quite has in the entire series. And oh by the way, it's time for Chewbacca to die. Finn is pure headstrong bravery without being overly stupid or clumsy; he's the natural quarterback ready for any bootleg play. This augers for him to get into ridiculously impossible situations and come out with better luck than Han Solo. That's a new kind of good guy in the series, genuine heartfelt heroics, with honest skin-saving practicality. It could get deliciously Lovecraftian with a guy like Finn around. 

D. Destroyed Wiser Luke
A man with a lifetime of regret will take the news of Han Solo's death right smack on the chin. If he hasn't felt the disturbance in the Force already, it makes for a chance for him to go Dark. It's actually what I wanted to see in Episode VII, Luke taking up the mantle of the Sith discipline having denied himself the use of his emotions for so long. But that would be too much to ask from Disney. But if this world were mine, Luke might take it upon himself to destroy all of the Force users because clearly he must come to regret his self-imposed exile. On the other hand, Yoda said something like this would happen back on Dagoba. If Luke doesn't go Dark, he needs to go Dead. Yeah Kylo Ren needs to take him out - first lucky break.

E. The Screaming Fascists of the First Order
Why did it take everybody so long to have Stormtroopers act like Stormtropers? We needed to hear them enthusiastically clomp their boots down the streets of cities everywhere in the Republic. Let's have more of that, shall we? Let's have them get away with murder in the Outer Rim, because they can. Let's have a whole league of minor tyrants of the First Order bringing scofflaws to heel all over the Galaxy. Who needs super weapons when you have enough police dogs? BTW, the right beasts on a leash will provide just the right touch to Stormtrooper patrols. 

F. A Force McGuffin
Both sides need to have a Crystal Skull or some kind of Rosetta Stone that will make Jedi in a Jar, or Instant Sith. Call it a Force Multiplier, the point is both sides need to get it, and getting close to it makes both sides do unpredictable despicables. 

G. The Alien Galaxy. 
Why can't this galaxy introduce us to a few more choice ecospheres? OK we've seen desert planets, ice planets, a cave planet, asteroid fields, a water planet, a lava planet. We need some kind of freaking anomoly Gamma Quadrant where time runs sideways and all the animals have three legs - someplace where the Force doesn't work or is actually controlled by creatures on the other side of a wormhole. 

Some fraction of this will never happen, but that's the fun part of watching nerd fun movies like James Bond; anybody can write 'em.