Think the best I can do here is quote one of the commenters at the site:
God bless you, Mike, for what you do...BUT.... PLEASE let your experts talk!
There's unfortunately something about these alpha males which gets in the way, as the commenter indicates. If only they could see the big picture and let others speak - thinking Alex Jones here.
7. Distant Relative says
Maybe we should be keeping an eye on what's occurring in the Far East?
Longish thread pulling it all together - 24 tweets in total, in two parts:
My fave 60s actress is Suzan Farmer. There was a whole crop of them from Annette Andre to Justine Lord to Sylvia Sims but this one really had something special. Methinks it was that she was no femme-fatale, not a drop dead stunner, just an ordinary gal who could scrub up well and look the goods if she tried. And in my book, it's that very slight missing of the perfection ceiling which lifts her to the perfect. Imperfection is perfect.
Worth a listen, imho. Chris Miller on military stuff and gubermint.
"This is an episode of The Pomp Podcast with host Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano and guest, Chris Miller, previously served as Acting United States Secretary of Defense. Before that, Miller served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Prior to serving in civilian leadership at the Department of Defense, Miller was a Green Beret, commanding 5th Special Forces Group in Iraq and Afghanistan....."
4. Need to explore/analyse these
# Lunch was Baron Bigod on crackers - like Brie but better and British - followed by a wee bit of Gorgonzola (at least it's not French) and a pear. Really very agreeable. Dinner is a secret but we've got a bottle of Cape claret that we opened only last night. It would probably vote for lamb. Breakfast was unusual: a sourdough sandwich of air-dried duck. Mmmm. The Co-op's sourdough is not as good as its Crusty Cob but it's pretty good. Makes good toast. Why does the Co-op do better baking than the bigger supermarkets? Dunno. Its Speck (ham from the South Tyrol) is awfully good too.
# That Andy Serkis has nowt on Roddy McDowall."
# "Aye, Gimme Kim Hunter over Helena Bonham Carter any day."
# The Mail was spot on: reports by cholesterolphobe "scientists" instruct you not to eat eggs. Reports by sceptical scientists tell you what they found, even if it is pro-egg.
This was the confrontational interview in question:
[Now to Toodles's comments which I gave an undertaking to abridge and not lose the meaning.]
It is odd when I agree with the liberal intellectual rather than with a conservative....which in reality he was not nor those with whom he [supposedly] identifies. It is that 'both ends playing against the middle' thing. The liberals and conservative elites. What a joke on us.
I am thinking the Conservatives were worse than the out and out liberals. Even today we must be careful with whom we [align]. My nausea subsided as I saw Mark Lane nonchalantly hav[ing] ole Buckley Boy in a rope a dope as I continued to watch after the hair twirling and nose scratching of Buckley Boy.
Between the Kennedy boys and WFB, Jr., which would give Bug's Bunny [a better] run for his money? I am thinking WFB, Jr. could easily stand in for BB!
That's not all folks!
Then I started in on some more serious things ... the content of the debate of sorts and his [WFB,Jr.'s] statements and inconsistencies with prior statements that the 'Liberal' was mentioning. The fact that he cares not who murdered his president is strange to me. Also he does care that he was killed is nice of him ... or is it?
We can care about what happens to something or someone and despise the thing or person while 'caring'. I would care if a person or animal who hurt someone I loved died or not. It doesn't mean that I loved them. It would probably be a relief to me they died ... are out of misery.
In my opinion, his statement ...even that one about seemingly caring is ambiguous, especially in the light of the other things and leanings he had in this particular interview [towards] the man on the Warren report.
That statement is absurd and he is trying to put in a ridiculous perspective and people who thought he was [really] something probably adopted that viewpoint because he appears to be above the fray.
I contend that he IS the fray.
There were other things. His way of speaking is so affected it left a horrible effect on me I can tell you !!!
[The affected Trans-Atlantic accent I think Toodles is referring to.]
I remember him well, but perhaps never listened all the way through. Talk about a three dollar bill ...
I think I made a point in my comment that when he got behind closed doors instead of speaking so ridiculously with his drawn out endings and speech flow, from fast at first to strange holding patterns in mid flow, then often a drawn out ending of the last word or sound of a word in a sentence. He probably spoke Jive!
You can't get more Southern than Toodles in combining homespun with perspicacious and articulate - I'd rather have those perspectives any day over the pseudo-intellectualism of academia - one of the pet points of peeved provocation [by me] during my university career. People such as Eric Foner get on my wick and Mark Lane would have done that too, had he not been in the right on this particular matter.
How dare he smoke a pipe the way I did whilst pontificating in those days . At least I wore an unaffected giant bowtie [tied, not elastic] and smoked a straight stem Peterson in days of yore.
And by the way, if you're going that affectation route in attire and demeanour, make sure your shoes are up to scratch, otherwise it undercuts the whole effect.
1. Defending the “main protagonist”
Dearieme had a definition of protagonist but that in itself, plus this below, both beg the question of the use of singular or plural:
The concept of a protagonist comes from Ancient Greek drama, where the term originally meant, “the player of the first part or the chief actor.” In film today, the protagonist is the character who drives the plot, pursues the main goal of the story, and usually changes or grows over the course of the film.
The issue is the assumption that there is only one ... or that one eclipses the other[s]. And that is clearly what most writers have in mind, especially in screenplays but there is a specific reason why I do not in my stories.
In my latest story, the protagonist, by the definition above, must be the little lady who pulls strings from the side, as many women in history have done.
The main character who is visible upfront, leading the charge, is not the one who devises and then moves the action along. So "main" protagonist is a justified expression, I contend, in that there are two ... and there's a specific reason for it due to my worldview on man-woman teams, which we could write a tome or collection of tomes on.
Not just man-woman either. There are three main characters in this very post now - the one who took me to task first - Toodles - the second being Dearieme who also did from his angle ... the third being me.
The "player of the first part" is Toodles, the developer of the theme is Dearieme, the main mechanic behind the scenes and then upfront in the sense of publishing this post, is me.
This came out of a comment on my first and "long" book in which I strove, eventually unsuccessfully, to play down "Hugh" and make him but one of a few key plot-drivers. It is that most hateful term "Mary-Sue" or its male equivalent where the central person in the story assumes all sorts of almost supernatural ways to overcome obstacles - this is what I dislike in a story.
That whole notion militates against my idea of who or what drives action - were I to snuff out, to dismiss Dearieme's comment, then he will have proven his point. Were I not to dismiss the idea, then that would allow his action to move the plot forward as one of the main protagonists.
Also, who is driving this blogpost right now?
Eventually, it comes down to "primacy".
If one concedes there might be three major characters driving things forward, then it's an academic exercise to support the contention that there is no "main" protagonist here but just a protagonist with other main characters.
It's also an academic exercise to start speaking of "primacy", given that one character will always eclipse the others, despite any egalitarian moves on the part of the author.
Further - if the "pro" before 'tagonist' means "of the first part" [proto-tagonist?], then I counter that in my stories by introducing three concurrent pieces of action with different characters, in different places, and using a Roman numeric system to "split the screen".
The primacy comes through later in the readers' minds.
When that means man-woman primacy ... there we're getting into Pauline theology are we not?
And if I rail against the primacy of Jesus over the disciples/apostles still driven by Him, then is that reality or is it the pride of Lucifer wishing to dominate proceedings myself? Is that not the most overweening pride?
No doubt in these covid lockdown times, many of us are taking in copious movies and TV episodes and I was watching one which we might or might not run [not this Wednesday, another movie on Wednesday].
Plot was basically that someone had a vendetta against the main protagonist and not just he but the girl was in danger as well. Parallels with today were uncanny with all these psy-ops by govt - offering the hope and relief, then snatching it away, then later offering it again, to the point I'm seeing so many tweets, gabs, comments on blogs and in the MSM which show these ghouls that people are not coping well at all - this is all about demoralisation, final stage, after which the Great Hope comes in and offers to deliver us all from it, providing we snitch and turn in our neighbours, family etc. ... you know the pack drill.
Obviously the main protagonist is going to be Mr. Cool throughout and it struck me that there are RL parallels here. What they're feeding off, the ghouls, is despair and anger - they love it, so the obvious reaction is not to give them what they want. Trouble is, they then work on people close to you, go through them - you'd have to really hate someone.
But that was not the really intriguing part in this screenplay. When he finally came face to face with the tormenter, the tormentor's recollection of the incident in question was entirely different to that of the main protagonist, the latter stopping a maniac in his tracks years ago, now his brother wants revenge over a fantasy construction of the circumstances.
