“Fall on me (if it’s there for long) (it’s gonna fall)”

Uppsala Image result for beautiful earth pictures

mail order disulfiram (To kick off 2020, the HB announces The Liminal Times, a media outlet that focuses on news that illuminates, not intimidates)

To watch news nowadays (which means to turn on your phone), you’d think we’d already set the microwave to “popcorn” when it comes to the globe. But the truth is, we are making real steps toward enlightenment regarding climate change (even if our Assassinater-in Chief refuses to acknowledge it’s getting stuffy in here). Image result for qassem soleimani

But witness what those with functioning frontal lobes have done on the climate front in the past decade alone:

WE’VE CUT OUR COAL USE

In 2010, 46% of the electricity generated in the United States came from coal. Now, that share has dropped to 25%. In 2020, coal is expected to only make up 22% of our electricity generation. Part of the reason why is the increase in renewable energy sources, and the fact that because wind and solar are so cheap now, coal and natural gas can’t really compete. Another factor: how much more energy efficient we’ve become. Whether it’s our light bulbs or washing machines or computers or entire buildings, we’re using less electricity to power all of our things. According to new data from the Resources Defense Counsel, every 1% growth in our economy used to require a 1% growth in electricity. That’s no longer true; in some cities, a 1% economic growth is actually reducing how much electricity people need.Image result for coal global warming

WE’VE GOTTEN RID OF OZONE-DEPLETING CHEMICALS

The Montreal Protocol, ratified in 1987, committed the world’s governments to a phase out of ozone-depleting chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. That phase out was completed in 2010. Along with helping restore the ozone layer, that action allowed us to avoid 1 degree of warming because CFCs are more powerful greenhouse gases than CO2 (though they were never as abundant as emission CO2 is). The RDC data suggests that 1 degree slowed warming by a decade. Related image

EMISSION STANDARDS HELPED ELIMINATE MORE THAN 400 MILLION TONS OF CO2

The Trump administration is moving to roll back emissions standards for the transportation industry, but that won’t change the fact that those standards have already eliminated more than 400 million tons of CO2 in this decade alone, according to the RDC. And electric car sales continue to surge: About 775,000 electric cars were sold in 2016. The next year, (the most recent data available), that number rose to 1.22 million, a 57% spike.Image result for electric cars

BIG BUSINESSES ARE STARTING TO GET ON BOARD

Climate activism may still seem a grassroots affair, and it’ is. But seismic change relies on global corporations to cooperate — and they have. This decade saw Google buy as much renewable energy as it uses globally. Apple made the first-ever purchase of carbon-free aluminum, and more than 700 major corporations, from McDonald’s to Microsoft, have committed to cutting emissions. And already, they’ve made verified cuts of 265 million metric tons of emissions to keep companies in line with the commitments of the Paris Agreement, despite Trump’s withdrawal. Because 100 companies are responsible for 71% of the global emissions since 1988, altered  behavior by large corporations will also be an outsized part of fixing the crisis.Image result for mcdonald's climate change

WE ARE AWARE, AND WE CARE

Climate change has been understood for decades by scientists and policy makers, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that the majority of the public accepted it as fact. A new study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that 71% believe global warming is happening. About 47% said they were “very” or “extremely” sure of it, while only 13% believe it is not happening. Image result for greta thunberg

Our president and his death cult are among the non-believers, but don’t surrender hope. Who know? Maybe Donnie Dimwit will watch another solar eclipse, blind himself and live unaware of the bills he signs. He sort of does, anyway. Image result for trump looks at eclipse

Tater Tots, the Nutritiously Delicious Morsel of Scrumptious Snacking

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Confession: I hate food words. I hate them as adjectives. I hate them as nouns. I hate them as verbs. Always have.

Dunno why. Dad railed against adjectives, so I do in echo. He never, however, railed against verbs and nouns. But if I am reading a profile of someone and the story includes a description of the person “noshing on a tasty morsel” of anything, I first will throw up on my shoe, then jump to the sports section.

This goes back to high school. Buddies on my basketball team would literally get centimeters from my ear and whisper that the school lunch menu surely contained something “nutritiously delicious.” Their whereabouts remain unknown.

So yeah, I said it. I hate food words. But I love food that thinks it’s people:

Teddy would get into shit, but never a toaster.

Ever been taunted by a sandwich? It’s horrifying.

Sadly, Timmy learned to feed his porn addiction with luncheon meats.

Wow, Trump even yells at eggs.

Why so cerealous?

I gotta be me!

A muffin never forgets.

“It’ll need an exorcism, ma’am. Please hand over the brownies.”

If more vegetables could dab, I’d eat them.

E.T., phone Cinnabon.

Whooo’s a good beer foam? Yes you are! Yes you are!

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a tomato.

You know you suck at cooking when even your eggs disapprove.

He said he was boiling lasagna, but fucker clearly murdered Grover.

Ever seen food that knew it was food?

How Star Wars Succumbed to the Dark Side

(Warning: Spoilers abound in this far away galaxy…)

And so, great empires fall and are forgotten.

No, not that Empire. Not the one with Death Stars and Stormtroopers and Darth Sinisters. That Empire didn’t fall. It exploded into a million incongruous pieces in a profitgasm called Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which opened this weekend and supposedly ended the nine-chapter saga that began four decades years ago.

No, it’s the Star Wars Hollywood universe itself that’s collapsed, black holing into a void that once held brilliant stars and (storytelling) order but now vacuums any child or merchandising opportunity into its vortex before crushing it into a Disney Singularity.

Its demise came from the very thing Star Wars — a straight-laced Western at its core — tried desperately to avoid: Irony.

  • How ironic that a franchise built by a rebel alliance (which included Coppola, Spielberg and Scorsese) would ultimately fall to an Emperic Studio.
  • How ironic that the father of the Jedi Universe, George Lucas, would sell himself to the Dark Side for $4.05 billion in Disney stocks and cash. (Apparently, hell doesn’t take Visa.)
  • How ironic that in the ashes of what remain of the Star Wars/Disney empire, the most iconic  survivor of the Resistance hearkens back decades, both in technology and sentiment: a Yoda Muppet that gives a Star Wars TV show its sole sense of heart.Image result for baby yoda boba frick

In a rare confluence of hubris, both critics and fanboys agreed the latest film suffered from a singular weakness: It apparently sucks.

I can’t say for sure. I haven’t seen it. In truth, the franchise faded for me and legions of original fans on May 25, 1983, the day Return of the Jedi was released. As we watched credits roll, the Empire finally fell and fans went home relatively satisfied with the trilogy (though purists could see the Ewoks were a cutesy harbinger of peril).Image result for furry animals in return of the jedi

Still, we still showed up for the second trilogy, for old times’ sake. And some diehards (like Mikey) even defended Lucas’ newest triplets, though they were cinematically stillborn).Image result for darth maul

Many of us, though, passed on the franchise as of Nov. 30, 2012, when Disney bought all Star Wars rights. Add to that Disney’s acquisition of Marvel and Pixar, and Emperor Palpatine couldn’t hope for more control over a universe.Image result for palpatine

But with the purchases came an odd Faustian bargain for the freshman franchises: Abide by Disney’s story arc, regardless of film genre, or lose your theme park ride.

The Disney story arc goes something like this: A tranquil world filled with tranquil denizens is threatened by the tyranny of Deadly Sin. Our denizens must then become a multi-cultural (ideally multiracial) familial tribe to defeat the evil band of Hoarders. Cue happy score.

Disney’s anti-introversion messaging is easiest to spot in Marvel comic-book movies. Remember when Superman lived in a Fortress of Solitude? Remember when Iron Man toiled alone and anxious in his ocean-view mansion? Now, even Ant-Man can’t get a flick without a Wasp sidekick. And Tony? He became starting quarterback for The Avengers.Image result for marvel movies

Star Wars could have been the counter intuitive option to that. Sure, it was a hodgepodge of misfit toys. But from the moment Luke Skywalker gazed into a double sunset in 1977 on Tatooine, the Star Wars odyssey has been about the strength of resolve that resides in a single soul. Everyone in the audience was Luke Skywalker, and he us. Even if it did look like he ran around in linen pajamas.

Still, that was okay. We were in pajamas too.

But when Luke nonchalantly chucked his lightsaber in 2017’s penultimate movie, The Last Jedi, the viewing Force awakened: Fans eviscerated director Rian Johnson for betraying both film and franchise. They boycotted the Star Wars spinoff, Solo. And their blood was still boiled by the time Skywalker was dropped like a doomed lobster. YouTube nearly broke. Fans posted vitriolic reviews that had to be divided in chapters to contain all the bile. One reviewer’s critique was more funereal than fuming, with Adagio for Strings wafting in the background.

Not that Disney needs our tears. The film still grossed a half-billion worldwide in its first week, and The Mandalorian, a live action show, will still be the touchstone for the emerging Disney+’s streaming service.

But Skywalker was to be the film that bowed gracefully from the silver screen — and our memories. Instead, it served as a mirror for how much we’ve grown. And lost. Digital effects had long ago replaced puppets and miniatures. Tunisia was replaced by green screens. By the turn of the millennium, Star Wars wasn’t even a film that you could say was beautifully shot. Rather, it had beautiful algorithms. The software certainly was certainly elegant.

Alas, that misses the story’s point. Perhaps it had to. Nostalgia is like aiming for the bullseye of an invisible dartboard. Even if you hit it, you’ll need at least 40 years to recreate that astounding shot. Maybe longer.

Maybe, a long time from now in a mindset far, far away, we’ll yearn for space adventure again. Maybe we’ll want a plucky hero that squares off against the Machine. Maybe we’ll once more send out an urgent distress call: “Help us, Yoda Muppet, you’re our only hope.”