If his dudes are normal the rest of us are abnormal

My Sunday movie was this afternoon at the Detroit Film Theater. I watched Flow by Latvian director Gints Zilbaldis. It’s an animated movie and the viewpoint character is a black cat. There are no humans (though evidence humans were recently around) and the cat (and other animals) are not anthropomorphic. So no need for translation or subtitles. This world has quickly rising water and the cat is soon caught on a rapidly shrinking island. The cat is saved by a passing personal sized sailboat. Onboard is a capybara. Soon joining them is a golden Lab dog, a lemur (who likes glittery human things), and an injured secretary bird. They learn to get along and the cat even jumps into the water to catch fish to offer to the others. The journey continues until the water recedes. This is a beautiful movie. The scenery is almost photographic in quality. That’s even true for the camera dipping into and out of the water. The various animals act like that type of animal would, especially the cat and the dog. It’s also an interesting story. I highly recommend it. Even so, there were some disconcerting elements. While the background looks quite photorealistic the animals are much less so. I have strong doubts the animals could figure out what the boat’s rudder is for, yet they do. When the water recedes it happens way too quickly. And when the bird dies (ascends to heaven?) the scene is quite beautiful but out of realistic character of the rest of the movie. I still highly recommend it. Over the last eleven days the Syrian resistance to the tyranny of President Bashar al-Assad seems to have come from a dozen years of hiding to capture one major city after another, reaching capital Damascus this morning. Assad has fled and may have died in a plane crash. A few of the quotes in a pundit roundup by Chitown Kev for Daily Kos discuss the fall of the regime. These quotes and a roundup from Friday by Greg Dworkin explain why the downfall was so swift. Assad had been looting his country which put about 90% in poverty and the economy in shambles. Assad’s backers, the ones who made sure he stayed in power, were occupied with their own problems – Russia in Ukraine and Iran in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen. The resistance had many years to train. They made good use of their chance to strike. Dworkin also quoted Carlos Lozada of the New York Times who discussed comments by Pete Hegseth, nominated to head the Department of Defense. Hegseth said he wants for the military “normal dudes” who are “Strong. Tough. From Nowhereville, America, just like me.” Lozada added:

When you define one group as normal dudes doing normal stuff, the rest are reduced to various forms of abnormality. In Hegseth’s world, some people are just weird, at odds with his beloved normal dudes.

Greg Sargent of The New Republic wrote that the nasty guy wants to roll back the incentives for manufacturing green energy technologies. But Republicans are enjoying the money that came to their districts and want it to continue. Jesse Ferguson of The Hill suggests Democrats skip talking about “resistance” and instead should talk about how the nasty guy and Republican policies to benefit the rich are a “betrayal” of the working class voters who gave them the victory. Down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme of a woman holding a sign saying, “I’ve seen smarter cabinets @ Ikea.” And further down exlrrp posted a cartoon (uncredited) of a woman talking to her husband:

Do you think it might help to learn the difference between “being silenced” and just, like, a bunch of people not wanting to hear you talk any more?