I’m not clear on how much time passed during the time that Rey and Luke were together, in relation to the attack on the Rebel ships. But even here, a couple of days and practically no lessons or training just does not seem to be plausible. But you make a fair point about Rey lifting the Jedi texts (something that I…

Great article. It might be worthy of reprint when California’s legalization kicks in.

This is kind of a chicken and the egg problem. The presumption is still that cannabis is a dangerous drug with no medical benefits, which hampers research.

Rey seemed to be marking the days and expecting her parents’ return. Making her abandonment so concrete just seems capricious and cruel.

So, if the Jedi don’t matter, the Force don’t matter, and the Rebel Alliance just a bunch of chumps who buy weapons from the same arms dealers as the Empire, why should anyone give a crap about these movies?

I almost feel sorry for Smiley. He doesn’t seem to realize the trouble he is in, and how his statements undermine whatever weak defense he is offering.

Sadly, there will be think pieces in conservative journals about how to more effectively suppress the black vote.

Seven percent of Black men and 3 percent of black women thought that they were voting for Rudy Ray Moore.

The jokiness and comedic choices are just part of the series. You gotta go with it, or move on. A captain with a hangover during duty, improbable and a terrible model for a crew. But played for the joke. Characters who never “stop to think.” Played for the joke.

RE: So yeah. White Democrats. They’ll fuck us over just slightly less than the GOP.

Odd how Ms Union apparently overlooked the women of color who were assaulted by Weinstein. And there are women of color who have not come forward because they still fear that there stories will be dismissed or minimized.

A racist woman’s only human
You should understand
She’s not just a plaything
She’s a stupid bigot just like her man
If you want an alt-right-all-day woman (woman)
You’ve got to be an alt-right-all-night man (man)

Some LAT executives deliberately stifled the development of their website because they did not want it competing with the print product. Also (semi-full disclosure) I approached friends and contacts to volunteer to help beta test their web site and to propose suggestions. I was turned down flat. It’s sad and…

Unfortunately, it is the end of an era for print media, especially newspapers and magazines. The Los Angeles Times simply is not relevant to the lives of people in Southern California. And fewer people, care about the LA Times as a brand (what a stupid idea).

I pick a side, and it’s easy to do so. Trump is an infantile petulant little man-child for demanding an apology. Shit, he could just walk it off by saying, “I’m the president. This is what I do.” And the reality is that the State Department and other agencies would have worked quietly to get this thing resolved…

Gee, this all sounds kinda mild compared to what sometimes happened in the historical Old West.

I am amused that supposedly hard-headed, business oriented Republicans apparently do not understand how insurance works. Equally puzzling, while the GOP is typically right in step with the interests of some industry or corporate lobbying group, in the case of the importance of the individual mandate, they plainly…

“Justice League” was probably not helped by debuting soon after the more lavishly praised “Thor Ragnarok.” And it’s future prospects will probably be hurt by the opening of Pixar’s “Coco.” A lot of fans seemed to be almost warily anticipating JL, not eagerly waiting to see it, and the word-of-mouth was not glowingly…

Yeah, John Wick 2 was kinda disappointing. They did not expand the fictional universe in an interesting way, and the action was just more of the same stuff from the first movie. And they seemed to paint John Wick into a corner, I suppose to set up a sequel, but they didn’t do it in a compelling way.

The whole thing is a veritable yellow snow job.