Friday, August 25, 2017

Hurricane Harvey: Today's News for August 25th

Fox News:
People filled sandbags and loaded them into cars and vans Thursday on South Padre Island, Texas. They planned to take the sandbags to their homes and businesses, to protect them from Hurricane Harvey.

Others in the forecast path of the storm -- the first major hurricane to hit Texas in 12 years -- sought out generators, plywood and other goods from hardware stores.
Anyone who has ever lived through a hurricane knows this drill.

Here is what we are potentially looking at with this storm:

AccuWeather:

Note that the worst of it hasn't happened yet. So it should be too early for politics to enter into it, right?

Salon:
...Hurricane Harvey is predicted to be the first major storm in a decade — and Trump just tweeted a useless promotional ad in preparation.

According to the White House, Trump was briefed on the government’s hurricane preparation efforts earlier this month, but his campaign-style commercial — fitted with a dramatic soundtrack — failed to convey any of that information to worried residents in the storm’s path. His tweet did not include basic information, like who is in danger, how to be prepared or what the government is doing to prepare. 
Begin sarcasm...

Everyone should seek out the president's advice in preparation for any natural disaster.

I have no doubt that Salon goes to Trump's Twitter feed whenever they need advice on anything, but especially hurricane preparedness.

End sarcasm.

In other Trump news...

Real Clear Politics:
Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign advisor and personal friend of the president, says if Congress votes to impeach President Donald Trump, there will be all-out Civil War in the U.S.

"The people who are calling for impeachment are the people who didn't vote for him. They need to get over it," Stone said to TMZ in an airport baggage claim on Wednesday this week.

"They lost. Their candidate had every advantage: They spent two billion dollars, we spent $275 million. Sorry, we whipped their ass. It is over. You lost," he said.

He added, warning: "Try to impeach him. Just try it. You will have a spasm of violence --an insurrection-- in this country like you have never seen before... Both sides are heavily armed, my friend."  
...Asked if he is saying that Trump's removal from office would lead to a Civil War, Stone said: "Yes, that is what I think will happen."
Stone is right. But the bigger problem isn't the risk of impeachment now, but rather the way-too-early talk about it. If it ever comes to pass, it will look a lot like "the boy who cried wolf", and the people who supported Trump will be less likely to believe even a credible case against Trump.

By threatening impeachment now, the Left actually solidifies Trump's hold on power by making their claims seem exactly what they are: Motivated by political bias with no basis in reality.

In other news...

Entertainment Weekly:
James Cameron claims “all of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided.”

The Terminator director told The Guardian in a new interview that the Patty Jenkins blockbuster is just “male Hollywood doing the same old thing” on account of the fact that he feels Wonder Woman as a character is “an objectified icon.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards,” Cameron said.

Cameron is notable for putting actresses at the forefront of his action films, from Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor in Terminator and T2 to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Aliens (that character originated in Ridley Scott’s 1979 blockbuster Alien). But according to the filmmaker, Connor has an edge on Wonder Woman when it comes to authenticity.

“Sarah Connor was not a beauty icon,” he said. “She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit. And to me, [the benefit of characters like Sarah] is so obvious. I mean, half the audience is female!”
The reply from "Wonder Woman" director Patty Jenkins:
“James Cameron’s inability to understand what Wonder Woman is, or stands for, to women all over the world is unsurprising as, though he is a great filmmaker, he is not a woman,” Jenkins wrote in a note she posted to Twitter. “Strong women are great. His praise of my film Monster, and our portrayal of a strong yet damaged woman was so appreciated. But if women have to always be hard, tough and troubled to be strong, and we aren’t free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we haven’t come very far have we. I believe women can and should be EVERYTHING just like male lead characters should be. There is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman. And the massive female audience who made the film a hit it is, can surely choose to judge their own icons of progress.”
First, Cameron is being sexist when he says that only hardcore strong female figures are acceptable or good or even advancing women's rights.

Second, what movie did Cameron watch? Wonder Woman was quite a strong figure. One can argue she was a little too perfect, and in that regard above the audience's empathy. However, based on the movie's results ($800 million box office and climbing), the people seem to "get" her, so that argument doesn't really have legs.

The flaw in Cameron's thinking is that female role models in movies have to be Clint Eastwood. God bless Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver for their contributions to movie history, but to say ALL women have to be them is wrong in a different way: It creates a box of preconceived notions and forces all women into to live by them. This is every bit as bad as the old "all women are emotional fragile things".

Sadly, what Cameron is doing is Leftist thinking at its worst, trying to define people by their physical qualities instead of their individuality.

Patty Jenkins' response does EXACTLY the same thing, when she "womansplains" to him that he cannot possibly understand because "he is not a woman", thereby assuming that all men are incapable of empathy for women. Cameron does fall into that category, but Jenkins' use of that as a reason for why he is wrong is every bit as flawed as his reasoning.

Other than that, Patty's response was spot-on.
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