Sunday's Surmise

Taking a look back at the week, and preparing for the week to come.

• As expected, Middle Son attended the opening day showing of the new Star Wars movie.  He reports that it was awesome.
• I'll wait until it's in the dollar theatre.
• Guess I should say 'discount theatre', as even Cinemark's Movies 8 in NRH is two or three bucks these days.
• The mistrial of Officer Porter in the Freddie Gray case - what does it mean?
• It's widely accepted that the prosecutor thought she could best get a conviction for Porter, and then leverage him against the other five officers.
• Plenty of punditry going on about that issue.  Will Maryland continue with its retrial plans for Ofc. Porter?  If it does and he's acquitted, will the other officers be tried?
• Mr. Gray died while in police custody.  If any - or all - of the officers' actions were the direct cause of his demise, then of course they should be held accountable.  But if they're simply being tried in order to placate that element of society that is demanding its pound of flesh because of other perceived injustices - then shame on the prosecution.
• It's been reported that Mr. Gray had a history of  'crash-for-cash' lawsuits against police, though it's not clear if the ride leading to his death was one of them.
• Watched a few minutes of the Democratic debates on ABC last night, mainly HRC's close.  Although there's no way in the world I would vote for her, her supporters could reasonably claim that she gave a nearly flawless performance.  My belief that she has not the temperament or positive history of accomplishments to become President remains unchanged.
• To a large degree, I feel the same about Mr. Trump - his disposition does not well suit being President, although he has a slightly better résumé.
• Last night's SNL, with Tina and Amy hosting, was pretty good.  As well, it was a treat for Darrell Hammond to reprise his Trump impersonation, and Maya Rudolph had a small bit as well.  I thought that Springsteen was booed after his first performance, until I read that it's a tradition for his audiences to respond with elongated 'Bruuuuuce' after his songs.¹
• Full disclosure: I rarely stay up much past Weekend Update.
• While I do agree with Mr. Trump's assertion that we should control our own borders, his comments about banning all Muslims is crazy.  
• I assisted a hajib-wearing woman the other day at my work, with the same level of professionalism, courtesy and enthusiam as I give all of my customers.  It's the right thing to do.
• On the news yesterday or Friday, some local Muslim leaders were taking the initiative and contradicting some of the CAIR narrative.  They called for followers to denounce the bastardization of their faith and to openly show that they wish to support assimilation into American culture.  I think that's a good thing.
• I'm reminded that, in the late '80s or early '90s, I had a generally neutral-to-positive opinion of the Nation of Islam movement, as they seemed to be preaching a message of accountability and work ethic to a community that had - since at least LBJ's time - been indoctrinated into claiming perpetual victimhood.
• I have known for some time that the English actor Peter Mayhew, who portrays Chewbacca in the Star Wars franchise, lives in north Texas.  I had thought I read that he lived in the Granbury or Glen Rose area, but it's reported in Wikipedia that he lives in or near Boyd.

In this photo, he looks a bit like Marty Feldman,
except 19" taller.