Let's Make a Deal - An international diplomacy critique

This is a political post. 

There is a lot to unpack with the trade to get WNBA star Brittney Griner out of a Russian gulag.

I mean, it is truly amazing how I'm just finding out so many regular folks do a lil' international diplomacy on the side. And how they all suddenly appeared on social media swearing this was a bad deal. Well, in MY side capacity as an quasi semi kinda pretend international diplomat, astronaut, chef and chicken plucker I disagree. So let me tell you why.

First, this was the only deal on the table. This wasn't a maybe I can talk them into more, this was Griner or nothing situation. And like a coach trying to figure out do you take the field goal or go for the touchdown or fourth down, you take the points. Sure the ones we talk about go for it all, but the guys who win consistently year after year send out the kicker. Here, the points were getting at least one someone home. I've seen the article which indicated that at one point it maybe was one or the other - at which point I'm almost certain the ask was for both. Because a two-for-one is a good trade. Theoretically. But even if it was that fabled either or situation, why would you take the trained "soldier" and leave the citizen. I mean, that's just bad business.    

Then, the other half of this, claiming Viktor Bout is the "Most Dangerous Man in the World." Yes, and Micheal Jordan is the "Greatest Basketball Player in the World." And while it arguably was true when he was in his prime, in real terms it's been a long time since Viktor was in the gym shooting free throws. Bout was taken into custody in 2008, so it's been almost 15 years since he was truly connected. I'm only a geopolitical expert on the odd Tuesdays but I'm pretty sure whatever channels or networks Bout had in place have long since evaporated. Guys like him got their power from knowing who to call or where to go to get what was needed. And all of that, all of it, has changed since he was last in the game. Yeah, I'm certain he's still knows a guy or two who is doing something, but most of his resources are gone if not completely usurped, the circles he operated in have collapsed, transformed or shifted, and a lot of new players would happily knock him off for s-and-g on three ruble bet. He's still dangerous, but I doubt he'll be able to return to his previous level of infamy simply because getting back in just ain't easy.

(Note: Bout's main hook was that he used to sell surplus Russian gear. Well, unless he's going to Ukraine to pick it up where the deserters dropped it, he's got a minor inventory issue I don't see him fixing.)   

And finally, if this "trade" upsets you, congratulations, you've just been played. Because if you think for one minute that the Russians didn't calculate the outrage over a "black gay athlete" going home while a "former Marine" was "left behind" when setting this up then this is your first day. Framing is important here. I keep seeing it as a portrayed even in US media as the government freed a druggie black lesbian athlete over a proud US marine captured behind enemy lines. Why not say that a Two-time American Olympian freed from a hellish gulag? She hates America conservative pundits scream, because she knelt for the national anthem. But this is America, and believe it or not hating America is allowed because we have that thing called freedom. Remember that? Also, why no mention of why that proud US Marine is even in custody, er I mean former Marine. I mean aside from Whelan having been dishonorably discharged for stealing, lied about being a police officer, was arrested on espionage charges, had four passports, well, obviously the situation is exactly the same as some empty cartridges that once held some weed? Why have we taken to referring to him only as "former Marine"? While technically true, it seems like some people in the conservative media are trying to push folks buttons instead of inform them and let them make up their own minds. You know, like the slogan says.

In any case, Brittney needs to get her a big pizza, roll up one and relax. And I for one ain't mad.

Gotta get your mind right...

Ramblings Post #408
I dunno even know anymore. The days all seem to mush together. The weather is all wonky. When I laid out my complete and total plan for how my life was supposed to go when I was in the fifth grade, sitting at home playing video games wasn't on my list. Mostly because at that age, the only video game was like PONG or something, but totally not the point. There were supposed to be yachts, penthouses and jets, and I supposed to be up for my fourteenth Oscar or something. Okay, I had a good imagination as a kid. Dream big. 

Next year I'm stepping outside of my comfort zone. It's pretty comfortable in here, but you can't grow in your comfort zone. And I need to grow. I mean, at this point I need to do something, I've gotten pretty damned lax. So we're gonna get up off our ass and do...something. 

I want to wake up in a villa by the beach and drink coffee as the tide rolls in.

I want to eat foods I've never even heard of while sitting in a country I hadn't been to, with the people who made it.

I want vistas and sunsets. I want guitar solos and singing at the top of my lungs the words to song I don't even know.

I want to dance. 

I want to see the places I told myself I would go when I wrote my bucket list some 30 plus years ago. 

And as much as I wanted someone to share the adventure with, I see now I may have to go it alone. 

...

And I can't do that from the comfort of my couch.

Oh, and I'm gonna get a new couch!

Barkeep. I'm gonna need a flask. Full of whiskey.

 

I need a break...

Ramblings Post #407
Where will you be when you get where you're going? This was a question asked by an old country comedian Jerry Clower. It's one of those things what with his accent just sounded funny, but is more a question that makes you question yourself. We wake, wash, work and waste away in this funny little thing called life. Do we know where we're going? Will we even know when we get there? And how much to get in? 

So yesterday I took a sleep.

I had my usual day. I'm ranching from the house, so I logged in early and got started. My breakfast was a pair of sausage biscuits. Not the big ones like fast food places make, but this little one I found that you can microwave. Now I take them out of the package and quick fry them and put them back in the bun because I'm extra. And with the right seasoning and a bacon press they taste like the sausage biscuits from this little spot in my home town. But I digress. And lunch was a salad, my now usual at least four times a week. Ruff-agê!

After work I was a little tired. Okay, a lot tired, I started nodding off in front of the computer while I was playing games instead of actually working on something towards self improvement or something that might make me some money. It's been that kinda season. Ugh. But I was down bad. I'd grabbed a small bowl of Crunchy Cheez Doodles to tide me over until dinner, which was supposed to be chicken curry, but I wasn't going to make it. So I figured, a quick thirty minute nap. I put the iPad on some light jazz, crawled on the couch and pulled up the throw. It was about a quarter after Seven.

So at when I awoke at One AM I was a wee bit confused.

Okay, no, I haven't been getting a solid eight hours lately. One rabbit hole after another on the internet, dumb games, etc., AND no I hadn't been eating right lately, you leave the house to run an errand and the burgers start calling my name. So too much red meat, not enough fish and chicken, and too much sugar because red velvet cupcakes are from hell. I've been pushing it lately not achieving. So maybe I just needed it.

Still. Damn. Hell of a nap.

Barkeep. Tall glass of ice water. I got gaming to catch up on! Okay fine, some work. Ugh. 

Under the sea. They're there too.

Ramblings Post #406
Long is the night, the sounds of traffic and the city outside my window, the last of the summer air hanging about my house. Quiet reigns, and in the stillness the weight of years presses down upon the soul and mind drifts back along the halls of memory, looking for something. It finds words. It's always the words there, waiting to dance, scurrying about, waiting to sing, waiting for me.   

There is so much to unpack here.

Just as my feed became dotted with collages of images of young black girls - and some older black girls - excited to the point of tears of seeing The Little Mermaid's Ariel as portrayed by Halle Bailey, as if on cue, triggered by the idea of some iota, some of a sliver of joy for someone other than themselves - those people arrived. You know who I'm talking about. And in my feed I found where someone had pointed out this comment. And honestly, it begs the question.  

Why would changing this character "fix" the whole movie?

I once theorized in long ago entry that one day something like this would come pass for the film industry. Where the tech would be so good you wouldn't really need actors, just the specs of the people you wanted in the film, and we'd be able to create films whole cloth for a few thousand dollars that looked like they cost a many millions to make. Of course that cheap price tag would be bootleg, as famous actors (or just beautiful people) would definitely charge big bucks to license their images just like now. And I imagined studios remaking films from the libraries with actors who previously could never have worked together, like a prime Marlon Brando co-starring with a young Humphrey Bogart and Brad Pitt in something together. I follow a guy on Instagram who makes posters and everything. It's pretty cool.

But in my naivete, I missed this concept as a possibility.

In retrospect I should have been able to put to the pieces together. There are already a few firms that specialize in sanitizing films for religious audiences, Ala edited for TV only in those cases edited for sin. And the ongoing shenanigans over the very existence of non-white folks in fantasy settings, where people are okay with dragons, magic that works and demons but draw the line at black people. I mean, that's just too unrealistic. And I know that new generation deep fakes which are going to be a real headache for politics in the future. So the idea that somewhere a guy wouldn't work overtime to remove what he might see as "undesirable elements" from his favorite piece of cinema shouldn't have been a stretch at all.   

Why would changing this character "fix" the whole movie?

It's the use of the word "fix" that gets me. As though the idea of a non-white version of an entirely fictional character being the center of the story somehow breaks that story. (Point of order - Disney's live action remakes of cartoon classics have been of dubious quality of late, so I hope they realize they're on thin ice here and take extra care.) It is a STORY, purely fiction and as such it can always be revised. The previous Disney version isn't even the original story. Let's be honest, when studios want to they don't even care if it was a true story,  they switch facts all the time to fit the tale that sells tickets..um, I mean, that they want to tell. So why the outrage? 

These are the stars of 2016's Gods Of Egypt. They gonna "fix" this too? 

Well, the other word he used, the term "woke." It's become the new slur that fills in for the N-word to certain crowd, much like "Brandon" fills in for another not polite term they can use in public. That's the tell here. And the quick realization of what they'd done, that they were no longer just talking to friends but possibly to the whole world - they offered up some sort of half-assed attempt an apology. I mean, not even the courage of conviction at the end. And I say the end because Twitter swiftly suspended this account not long after it hit critical exposure. Yes, the use of the word woke tells me why he was mad.

And I for one hope he stays mad.

Barkeep, let me get some whiskey and Sprite. Two cubes of ice. Long day.  

Long live the Queen....

To be honest, the phrase "The King of England" sounds like something that should only exist in movies or video games. It's been so long now that the very sounds feel strange in the mouth. But now, in 2022.... here we are. She lived a good life.

As much as I can understand a lot of the feelings of...um, less than grief..being offered today by individuals who had...issues... with even the idea of a real life monarchy still existing in the twenty first century, I'm not one to pick apart the life of someone who has passed on. At the very minimum, they no longer have a chance to atone for those misdeeds in this life, and that alone is very sad. Now is not the time for a rehashing of a long life which by definition is polarizing, she wasn't a starlet or some singer but the head of a nation and empire, so let history be the long judge that determines her place. When you get down to it, she was still a mother, a grandmother and great grandmother. And so a family grieves as an era ends within themselves.  

She served. Queen Elizabeth II. 1926 - 2023

She did the damn thing

Ramblings Post #405
We idolize whom we idolize. It's personal most of the time. Most people like to think of Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player of all time (so far). In my opinion it's a toss up between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Some others might say Bill Russell, or maybe Bron Bron. The metric we use in our head for really constitutes greatness varies. It's part of what makes sport a thing, facilitates argument and discussion, and in some cases causes men to do the only real research they'll ever do after they've gotten their diploma. 

By artist Yung Yemi

Well, to say she had a good run..is an understatement. Of Biblical proportion.

Unlike the arguments for greatest football team, best golfer, best home run hitter, there is no question who the greatest women's tennis player in the world was. Serena.

I hope her future is as bright as past.