Lit City Blues

One of the best classes I took as an undergraduate was a course on Chinese Foreign Policy taught by Professor Read- he was one of those Professors who really knew the subject matter of the course at an expert level and his enthusiasm for it was infectious. I appreciate Professors who know their shit and aren't just phoning it in- I think a lot of students can probably sense the difference as well, but as a result, I think I absorbed a ton of information about China and really had I been a little more focused in my career planning might have (and probably should have) doubled down on China as one of my serious areas of study for my Master's Degree.

But, c'est la vie- here I am, armchair political scientist and dabbler in the world of international relations and occasionally I follow news stories down rabbit holes and have to unload some of this excess knowledge I've accumulated over the years into a digestible form.

So, let's talk about Hong Kong for a second.

The T…

We're going back into the Lost Archives once more this week to take a look at two very different flags- both of which are from Africa. This week, we're going short and sweet with the flag of Tunisia and the flag of Mali.

First up, Mali:
The flag was predated by the flag of the Mali Federation which was more or less identical, except for the presence of a traditional kanaga figurrine. The Federation dissolved with the exit of Senegal and then the remaining colony of the French Sudan became Mali and dropped the kanaga and adopted the current flag on March 1st, 1961 and it's been that way ever since.

The tricolor pattern should be familiar: as a former French colony, it's a nice tie back to the colonial power- though I'm sure some folks were less than thrilled by that. So the color scheme of green-yellow-red are the traditional Pan-African colors and according to wikipedia, the green stands for the fetility of the land, gold is for purity and mineral wealth and the red…

Every time we'd sit down and do our taxes and the tax lady would ask us if we wanted to throw a couple of bucks at the Presidential campaign fund, I would respond with a firm 'No.' In general, I felt that there were few, if any politicians that had done anything worthy of my money and I sort of took the attitude of, 'don't give them money, it'll only encourage them.'

The interminable march toward next November has been underway for months now. At this point in the cycle, I don't know much. I may not pick a candidate at all. I might make the decision right then and there in the voting booth next year and just let it go. It might be dependent on what the polls look like in Iowa. It might be dependent on any number of factors I haven't even considered yet. But I know two things for sure:

1. I'm not voting for a billionaire.

2. I have real problems voting for someone who wants to eliminate private insurance.

The latter point isn't because I don…

I've never been big into collections of short stories. But lately, I've been hearing more and more about the rise of Chinese science fiction and when a preview for The Wandering Earth showed up on the interwebs a few months back, I decided to run down the original novella by Liu Cixin and give it a try-- I didn't know, however that it came along with more short stories. So, I worked my way through all of them and this is what I thought:

The titular novella, The Wandering Earth tells the story of a future where scientists detect an impending hydrogen burst from the sun which will wipe out all life in the inner solar system. In response, humanity unites to construct massive Earth Engines to first stop Earth's rotation and then start a journey out of the solar system and into the nearby star system at Proxima Centauri. Most of Earth's surface is ruined and then frozen by first stopping the rotation of the planet and then moving out into the darkness of space. Humanity…

Oh boy. The summer has not been kind to me-- my promise of consistency in May sort of failed to materialize and I was really hoping to get a decent chunk done during my hiatus. Needless to say, it didn't work out that way. The good news is that I added 92.4 miles to my end of April total of 223.2 miles, which moves us up a respectable amount to 315.6 miles and pushes us into Iowa. Here's what the map looks like as of today:
In terms of our view- this is where we were at the end of April:

And this is where ended up now:

To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to make this in a year, but I want to keep doing it anyway. I think it's kind of fun- and yes, I need to up my game a little bit- but both the Missus and I have recommitted to the whole diet and exercise thing heading into August, so I need to get back on this. I'll try and chew up more of this goal, but it's looking more and more like this is going to be a longer term goal and not just one I can complete …

Watched On: Hulu
Released: 2018
Directed By: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Jesse Plemmons
Rotten Tomatoes: 66%
Pick: Mine

Vice is probably the most fundamentally honest movie I've seen in years. And there's the rub of it all: it seems like Director Adam McKay is doing what you'd expect from a big budget Hollywood biopic of a Republican Vice President. You think he's trying to take Vice President Cheney down and there are the usual shots you'd expect: Halliburton, the 2000 election, Iraq, but none of it lands effectively- and maybe that's the point. Cheney is an enigma. He's powerful. You, a mere mortal of a film director aren't going to be able to take him down.

The story opens with Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) working hard as an electrical linesman in Casper,WY back in the early 60s. His wife, Lynn (Amy Adams) got him a scholarship to Yale, but he partied too hard and got kick…