"who, lest we forget, are lowly-paid civil servants who do tremendously hard and dangerous jobs to keep the rest of society safe"

Okay. Sounds like you have essentially ideological objections to the movie, which is fine. (I don't mean that sarcastically. Star Trek is a franchise that takes ideology seriously, so there's no reason its fans shouldn't have ideologies about it.) But purely in terms of the quality of the films, there's no question…

Star Trek (2009) is clearly better than anything the franchise put out since First Contact. So I'm not sure what you mean. First Contact was better, sure, but the other TNG films were bad, and the TOS films were a long time ago and were extremely hit or miss.

Hmm. Streaming only (if I'm understanding this right) seems like they're kind of setting it up to fail. I hope that's not the case.

Well, yes it is. Humans have never been to Mars; positing a future in which we do travel to Mars is creating fiction.

As a litigant, you can't "file an injunction." You can file an application for an injunction, and then the court decides whether or not to issue the injunction. So it's not surprising that "there’s no word on if Kesha’s injunction has done anything," since by itself, it can't do anything.

"Interesting aspect? It can easily be seen as a criticism given the backlash."

The NAACP is an elite organization; policies and priorities are set by lawyers and development professionals, not by polling the communities they serve. (And although its leadership is generally black, some of the key figures, including its lawyer in the housing desegregation case, are white.) That's fine; it can be…

"Sounds like you would be one of those yahoos yelling at the city council."

Yeah, the council meeting was actually not the best example. I think you also don't see any people of color in the courtroom scenes, the conferences with the judge, or within the corridors of city hall. You don't see any of the black characters following the news about the political and legal drama. The one time black…

I don't actually watch this show at all, but I did see the trailer several times and thought it looked terrible. Glad to have my impression confirmed, Vikram, and don't let comment-section haters bring you down!

Interesting how they get the point across that this is principally an elite-driven reform effort by the absence of any black people at the city council meetings.

"Wasicsko quickly learns the folly of campaign pandering when a state
judge makes good on his promise to levy a million dollars in fines
against the city of Yonkers"

Yeah, I see that now. Thanks.

Lecturing the one “streetwise” black student in his class with, “You’d
be just another black kid thrown out of school for drugs” is as close as
Mr. Robinson gets to letting its lead inject some real-world experience into his role.

As a millennial who managed to dodge it until later in life: absolutely correct. Christmas Vacation is a bad movie, and Chevy Chase (who has never been funny in anything) is a big part of the reason why.

Is there a guide to why anyone who didn't grow up on this dross should care about it, though?

I had no idea Genovese was gay. Thanks for bringing it up.

Minerals are solid, while mercury is a liquid.

Aww, that's too bad. I had hoped this would be a feel-good story.