I thought her op-ed was much better than the awful one Michael Eric Dyson wrote in those pages a few days earlier. But I can see your points.

I only know her as Phillip Petit's love interest in The Walk. You bring up an obviously good point: why aren't there mainstream Armenian actors in Hollywood? I don't know. It's a pretty small country that probably isn't well known in the US outside of the coasts. But then there should be more American-Armenian…

Okay then. Just to be clear, I'm not defending him nor telling people to see the movie, only saying how the marketing team could have dealt with the issue better. But yeah, if he did rape her and deeply regrets it, a direct movie mirroring his story would be good.

If Parker picked Union specifically because of her history, that could be spun as he addressing sexual assault as a big theme of the movie. Which lends itself to a redemption arc, but only if he were completely honest and regretful about what he did, if he did in fact commit a crime (I don't know what he did beyond…

Obligatory: Well, Ms. Henson's figure certainly isn't hidden. Damn. More respectful comment: the movie's artistic merits should be graded on a curve (math pun, y'all) when it does have a chance to inspire its POC audiences. I mean, I'm sure it'll be sentimental at worst, but I think sentiment is too heavily knocked…

As cold as this sounds, just purely on a PR level, the campaign was fortunate in having a rape survivor as part of the cast praising the movie for dealing with sexual violence. Perhaps Parker could have been more contrite and forthcoming, so that the press would have considered this a redemption story of a fallen man…

Sully's story doesn't appear partisan, though, unless those geese were liberals.

I may need to watch Embrace of the Serpent again. Once a negative feeling is inculcated in you, it's hard to watch the rest of the movie without it.

Make sure King and all the other fiction writers pay for it. Actually, that's too bad. Whenever I read too much nonfiction, I get antsy to read fiction again.

Fuck a duck, Trump.

He's not so bad on Twitter. His tweets can be broken up in three categories: book/TV/movie recommendations, liberal outrage, cute photos/video of his dog. He doesn't overuse it, Joyce Carol Oates.

I agree. I thought of Romney's 47% comment when I first read about it. Nothing like condescension to get people to the polls in spite, though I think she won't be affected too much, as most people paying attention have said much harsher things about Trump. Honestly, if I were her, I would have a hard time not yelling…

I've been periodically checking in at my local library for the Whitehead novel, but, no dice. Oprah should start her own national chain of libraries, dammit.

To further muddy these peoples' motivations, there's how racism spreads: using the economically marginalized and disadvantaged as a viral host. My life sucks but at least I'm above those blacks, Mexicans, etc. Trump appeals to the victims of globalization who, like their English cousins with Brexit, find it…

Oh, he joined in. Nice.

I gave up her book on the Roman Triumph this week. I don't find analyzing parades all that compelling.

If you haven't read the final Strain book, just wait: Zach will become much more annoying.

Stephen King tweeted that he's sick of Trump and will go see the movie to see a real American hero. That's a good reason why it could be successful this weekend. The trailer made it look like Flight and I loved that movie. But no real desire to this.

That's the stuff! Moar of that. More press conferences. I've said here before that she should do a thoughtful, emotionally honest speech on her reputation, delving into the damn emails thing, but also calling out the very real and crazy unbalance of how the media treats her vs. Trump. Like Obama's personal race speech…

I hope the rules of that particular game have abated a bit since last century and even the last fifty years, so that women politicians can show emotion without a significant number of idiots thinking that they're hysterical. Even if not true, I think Clinton should just go for it.