I finally got around to seeing Season 4 of The Expanse. Went back and rewatched the first three seasons so my wife could catch up. So good. One of the highest peaks of peak television.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Stray (02-17-2020)
Anyone watching The Outsider on HBO? Also, the new 6 part documentary McMillions is very good so far.
Enjoying McMillions a lot. That FBI agent is a fun character to build the story around.
they had the wife, Robin Colombo on the podcast this week, and wow, she likes attention.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000465228507
McMillions...Episode 3...introduction to The Church of Fuzzy Bunny's....just classic.
History Channel is running a really good 3 night special series on George Washington.
no, it goes pretty in depth to his younger days as a British soldier, and highlights many of his faults/failures that likely led to his later success. It is one of those dramatizations that cuts away to historians and others like President Clinton speaking about the history. I enjoyed it.
marcshoe (02-19-2020)
I've read more books on GW than even Lincoln, I think, and that sounds like an interesting approach. I'll have to make time to watch this soon.
It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. Carl Jung.
In a weird way, it feels like his importance to the country is sometimes diminished behind people like Jefferson, then later Lincoln....and even 20th Century leaders. In reality, none of this happens without Washington, and he clearly is the most important man in American history. When you consider how often he answered the call, and how little time he lived post presidency....I am not sure any man or couple with Martha ever sacrificed more for the country.
Also enjoyed how it highlighted Hamilton as a great military leader. Modern history seems to focus on being the Treasury Secretary and his death in the duel with Burr. One thing I was unaware of is that his will emancipated his primary aide (Will Lee - slave) upon his death, and all of his slaves upon Martha's passing (Lee actually did not accept his freedom and served Martha until she passed). I get that he still had slaves, but he is the only founding father with slaves that emancipated them upon passing. In other Founding Fathers deaths including Jefferson, they were willed just as the rest of their property.
marcshoe (02-21-2020)
There's an interesting book called An Imperfect God by Henry Wiencek about Washington and his slaves that paints him in a fairly sympathetic light. I trust it a little less than I did when I read it because Wiencek followed it up with a book about Jefferson that was challenged by The Hemingses of Monticello auther Annette Gordon Read. I have that book (Master of the Mountain) but haven't read it yet. The Washington book, I thought, offered one of the more complete views of Washington's motivations that I've seen.
It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. Carl Jung.
Stopped watching the History Channel a dozen years ago (Smithsonian, National Geographic, etc.) when it was clear they were just making things up in order to slant whatever political message one party or another was trying to endorse. They just flat out lie about facts on these channels for purely propaganda reasons. It's not little facts, but major points and ideas. There is very little truth being told on the History Channel and Smithsonian. TMZ is a hundred times more accurate. The garbage on TV (news channels) is a waste of time, and actually much worse, because once you have seen and heard bad information, it can't be undone until you find information that shows it to be different. It's like reading anything by David McCullough. What did the character John Quincy Adams in "Amistad" say to the attorney when aked if "he'd read the news"? "Oh, you mean the real news?,...Why, yes. I have yesterday's transcripts of the House." He's implying that newspapers (or any other secondhand source) are not reliable enough to waste one's time viewing them (accept for entertainment value), and that all information and news should be gleaned from firsthand sources. There is always an agenda and something to sell beyond firsthand sources.
"One problem with people who have no vices is that they're pretty sure to have some annoying virtues."
^^^^I did not get the Washington series was pushing a political agenda. Many of the Historians on the series that I recognized, I have speculated they lean left in the past....yet I did not pick up on anything....but I was not really looking for anything. It painted Washington as a very important man, but it spent a large part of the beginning and ending highlighting very negative elements of his life when viewed from today's perspective. I mean it was hard to hear he paid his slave a few "schillings" for their teeth that were then put into his false teeth. I mean I am guessing they did not really feel like they had a choice. Or the way he would rotate slaves between Philadelphia and Mount Vernon as a loophole to avoid Pennsylvania's laws against slavery.....even sometimes having them transported to the border and back to restart the clock. So while they highlighted historic accomplishments by the man, they did not hesitate to highlight serious flaws in the man when viewed in 2020.
marcshoe (02-22-2020)
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