38. Why didn’t the lady take her helmet off?

I mean, I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about how Rose was used in ROS, but that’s largely because of how poorly the character was written in TLJ.

Almost any time you’re diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it’s stage 4 and you have two or three miserable months to live. The pancreas is too deep inside, and you have to go out of your way to scan it. RBG is only alive today because she’s had so many bouts with cancer that she is basically getting full body scans…

If there’s anything that identifies me as an “old,” it may be the entire concept of social media stardom. I just don’t get it. Any of it. 

You asked what determines sex, fundamentally, the answer it genetics because the genes are what create the catalyst for development. Now, it’s accurate to say that there are exceptions (i.e., intersex) to this when the embryo has developmental abnormalities that counteract the genetic roadmap, resulting in the…

On the most fundamental level, genetics. 

Biological sex is a means of classifying organisms based on a combination of natural attributes that relate to the biological role in sexual reproduction (i.e., chromosomal, hormonal, physiological features). While the vast majority of sexual organisms fall on the male/female binary, there exists variation along the…

The point is to express a fact that both the text of the article and the comment I responded to were attempt to muddy or implicitly rebuke.

You keep claiming it’s unrelated, but...how exactly? The fact that the First Order has a financial benefactor class is not germane to the military threat they pose to the Resistance? The idea that the Resistance might be manipulated by the same forces is not related? In terms of the mechanics of the narrative, it’s…

In fact, I’d argue the folks who like TROS and dislike TLJ are the ones grading on a curve.

Star Wars was never a real world political allegory until, really, Revenge of Sith, and it was really hamfisted in that movie, too. But again, I don’t care if you want to use allegory. The problem I have is when we decide to grade that kind of thing on a curve and say, yeah, you didn’t do it very artfully, but at…

It’s not that I don’t understand the rationale. It’s that I think it is stupid, cynical, self-defeating and organizationally contrived to limit the number of viable candidates who can compete to those who begin with all the organizational and institutional advantages that make them the likely winners before anybody…

But that’s still not disenfranchisement. It may be disillusionment, disaffection, discouragement, and disappointment, but it’s not disenfranchisement. I’m not saying we shouldn’t attempt to empathize with them, but that cannot patronize them. 

Can we stop conflating choosing not to participate and being “disenfranchised”? They aren’t the same thing. Disenfranchisement is when you are denied a voice or role in the democratic process. As disheartening as not being able to develop a real sense of connection with a candidate or developing one with a candidate…

Well, Han Solo is not just a smuggler. He’s one of the heroes of Yavin 4 and somewhere between the end of A New Hope and the opening of Empire, he is granted the rank of captain in the Rebellion. The fact that he’s made a general in Jedi is, sure a bit of a plot hole, but it’s not an inconsistency in his character.…

I think she’s really miscalculating what her strategy should be now that she’s losing traction, which is something I’ve always worried about with her. I don’t think she’s got great political instincts.

That’s not really true, though. I mean, sure, the part about nostalgia glossing over imperfections in the OT is true enough, but even as TLJ was clearly both trying to mirror Empire’s structure while also subverting audience expectations, Empire had one Rebellion-themed B-story. TLJ had two (Poe mutiny and Finn/Rose…

The reason Last Jedi is bad (and it is pretty bad) is 100 percent about how poorly structured it is beyond its most important characters (i.e. Rey, Kylo and Luke).

I was curious about whether I could prove that his heart wasn’t in it. I seem to have. 

Now go take a screen cap of the comment I made that reads “Impeachment is pointless.” I mean, you put those words in quotation marks. I presume that means it’s a literal and direct quote, right? Right?