Brave whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler revealed how the IRS and Department of Justice slow-walked and obstructed their investigation of Hunter Biden’s wrongdoing. The obstruction included such acts as letting the statute of limitations run on certain crimes, and warning Hunter Biden of a planned search warrant. Shapley and Ziegler’s disclosures resulted in blowing up the sweetheart deal the DOJ had worked out with Hunter Biden, which would have resulted in no jail time, as well as ignoring any law-breaking that involved his father Joe Biden. Hunter Biden subsequently filed a frivolous suit against the IRS. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly to me, the Department of Justice has not vigorously defended Shapley and Ziegler in that lawsuit, and is opposing their motion to represent themselves. As the linked essay sets out, these two IRS agents “highlight the Kafkaesque situation they find themselves in, in which the “very parties against whom the[y] … blew the whistle (Hunter Biden, the IRS, and the Department of Justice’s Tax Division) are collectively asking this Court to prevent them from defending the clear legality of their actions by intervening as parties in this litigation.”
Reddaway was a pioneer in publicizing the dissident movement in the Soviet Union. He also worked closely with the samizdat (underground publishing) unit at RFE/RL, which is where I met him in the 1980s. He died at his home in Vermont.
Anyway, I thought notice should be paid.
Art Deco beat me to it!
I view this new testing of the age of The Shroud of Turin with both interest and skepticism. My faith does not rely on this piece of cloth.
The new test looked at the decay of cellulose in the fabric. Some are suggesting that the previous Carbon dating was off due to contamination from more recent sources of carbon on the cloth.
yes steven berry among others relied on the faulty test, and of course the sophists like ehrman and co, who insist on minimizing His name,
Is Neo a Girly Girl or what?
You can believe in Jesus and not believe that He appears in tortillas. Even in 1389, not long after the Shroud first was mentioned, there were Christians who thought the Shroud was a forgery, and said so.
As usual the journalist writing the article has misrepresented the findings. The scientists examined the structure of the cloth using x-rays and found the x-ray data to be similar to cloth known to be 2000 years old, but it could also still be of a newer date. They didn’t find something that would rule out that the Shroud is 2000 years old, which is very different from showing it to be 2000 years old.
Tucked in toward the end, the scientists say the Shroud cannot be dated by their method unless the cloth had been stored under very specific conditions for 2000 years, and for 700 of those years no one knows if the Shroud existed at all, much less where it was and how stored.
no its a different thing, altogether, they didn’t have the technology to establish such things, but it is part and parcel, of the de establishment of the foundations of our shared culture, which has endured for at least 2,000 years, over in the Holy Land the Awqaf under Authority control is destroying every semblance of Jewish identity they can find, Islam then appropriates the Jewish and Christian narratives, and bob’s your uncle,
Edna Mode, the fashion designer in Pixar’s “The Incredibles”, was based upon Edith Head. Mode was short and had the same style of eyeglasses and hairstyle, as well as the similarity of the names. It was a tribute to Head.
Once I noticed Edith Head in the film credits, I started noticing her name everywhere.
These costume designers are amazing; they are literally artists who work with fabric and real live people instead of paint and canvas.
Other great costumes can be seen in the show “Downton Abbey” ( just as an example).
Most likely anyone who like me grew up in the Delaware Valley during the ‘60’s will remember Gene London’s Cartoon Corner’s General Store. After his show was cancelled, Gene was a fashion designer, and a collector and restorer of many costumes worn by stars and starlets in Hollywood movies. I was lucky enough to meet Gene, a tremendously nice fellow, and see his exhibition of costumes at a Philadelphia Flower Show. An amazing collection of gorgeous dresses (as well as one of the outfits worn by Sean Connery in Zardoz). Stunning to see how tiny were the waists of some actresses – IIRC Audrey Hepburn was 22”.
Due to an activist with a great name, Robby Starbuck, conservatives are having some wins in the culture war. In the recent past, Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, and now Jack Daniels have pared back their DEI policies.
“ The maker of Jack Daniel’s whisky said it will pull back on its DEI initiatives, buckling to pressure on social media as an “anti-woke” activist said he was preparing to launch a boycott.
“Spirits giant Brown-Forman Corp. – with a market capitalization of $21.37 billion – is the latest company to scrap its diversity, equity and inclusion program, following Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply and John Deere.
“Major firms who rely heavily on a red state clientele have been caving to boycott pressure from corporate activist Robby Starbuck, who said Jack Daniel’s was next on the list, but that the company reversed its policies before he got the chance to lead a boycott.
Many, if not most, of the great American film directors of the 1970’s through the early 2000’s have mentioned that Hitchcock’s Vertigo is one of the most influential films for them. Brian DePalma has a longish monolog in the documentary film “DePalma” about Vertigo and how “Brechtian” it is.
He’s referring to the film’s Kim Novak character Judy being transformed back into her alter ego character at the beginning named Madeline. In the first half of the film, we meet the alluring Madeline and Jimmy Stewart is taken in by her. But we don’t exactly know why she is so alluring. Edith Head’s gowns are a big part of it.
In the second half, we see how Jimmy recreates the Madeline look on Judy one step at a time. But one of the things I’ve never heard discussed, and maybe it’s just me, is that the transformed Judy is never as alluring as Madeline was in the beginning. Why? It isn’t clear to me except that perhaps Hitchcock intended that result.
RE: Lue Elizondo’s book “Imminent,” and one possible reason for increasing UFO surveillance.
UFO activity first started to really pick up during WWII with the “Foo Fighters” and, then, it continued and has apparently continually escalated during our development and use of atomic weaponry, until today, UFO surveillance of all of our military assets—and especially covering our nuclear research, production, and storage facilities, and the nuclear powered warships and weapons we have fielded, all over the world–seems to be occurring almost nonstop.
Why?
(Some have proposed that such NHIs are benevolent, our “Space Brothers”–here to watch over us, and to guide us through the difficult and dangerous transition into a new stage of human development. Others have proposed that some of these NHIs might just be neutral, but others see some of them as far less benevolent, even malevolent.)
Here is how I read and understand what Lue Elizondo proposes as one possible reason for this surveillance.
The NHIs (the “people from out of town”) who are obviously running a surveillance operation against us humans, know, from experience, what the likely sequence of scientific developments–once we humans discover and develop nuclear energy and weapons–will be.
They know that soon–perhaps far sooner than might be apparent–humanity will have discovered and developed both the necessary sources of the incredible amounts of energy needed, and, then, the technology which will enable us humans—like the NHIs themselves—to have some control over Time and Space, which will enable us humans to travel to the stars.
(Ironically, the observations which have been made of the appearance, performance characteristics, and even the biological effects UFOs have had on people who have had close encounters with the UFOs which are surveilling us, have given some of our scientists valuable clues as to how these power levels and UFO performance capabilities are being attained.)
The NHIs are concerned about us–their new and often very aggressive, acquisitive, and violent neighbors–moving out, into their own stellar neighborhoods and their societies, disrupting things, and perhaps doing so violently.
Thus, their continuous and escalating monitoring of our capabilities, and our scientific progress.
The question is, how will some, or all, of these NHIs react, and what actions will these NHIs take, once we actually develop capabilities which may, even in some small way, rival theirs, and open up the stars to us?
Tommy Jay: “But one of the things I’ve never heard discussed, and maybe it’s just me, is that the transformed Judy is never as alluring as Madeline was in the beginning. Why? It isn’t clear to me except that perhaps Hitchcock intended that result.”
I never noticed it, nor ever thought about it before, but thinking about it now that you mention it, I think you are right. The transformed Judy does not seem as alluring” as the Madeleine in the beginning.
It is subtle but I do think it is there. And I am POSITIVE Hitchcock intended it.
I have never really been clear when it is actually “Madeleine” or when it is Judy that we see in the film. But I don’t think that ALL the times we see Kim Novak that she is Judy — either Judy pretending to be Madeleine, or Judy being Judy. And that may what you are talking about when you refer to her as “alluring.” I suspect that when James Stewart first sees Kim Novak, at Ernies, she is actually Madeleine. It is only when he starts following her to Mission Dolores, Palace of the Legion of Honor, the flower shop, the hotel, etc., that is is Judy he is following.
Obviously Judy is a dead ringer for Madeleine, or the scheme wouldn’t work. But also, Madeleine is from a different class background. Judy only had to pretend to be her for short bursts of time, but also pretend to be “possessed” by or the reincarnation of Carlotta Valdes.
About Madeline vs. Judy in Vertigo. It is Kim Novak all the time. One of the great instances of one actor playing two or more characters extremely well. Although Peter Sellers in Doctor Strangelove is a great one too.
Lee Also mentions that the class backgrounds of the two characters are very different. I do think that is part of it.
To me “Vertigo” is pretentious, overlong and overrated. My favorite Hitch movies are “Strangers On A Train”, “The Birds”, “North By Northwest” and “Rear Window”.
FOAF,
Vertigo does move very slowly, and is very reflective. Long films never bother me if it pulls me in. Actually, nearly all of Hitchock’s films can be dinged for being slow. North by Northwest is possibly an exception.
I recall bringing the film Psycho to a quarterly intra-departmental movie showing. They had been showing classic action films. It had never occurred to me that Psycho is a slow moving film in most places… but it is. The film was not appreciated by the group.
Vertigo was not a box office success and that was a big disappointment for Hitchcock. He later believed Jimmy Stewart was too old and generally miscast for the part, and never used him in a film again. And Hitch had originally cast Vera Miles in the lead, but she got pregnant before shooting. He wasn’t thrilled with Novak in hindsight, but that could be sour grapes.
“Shadow of a Doubt” is a good movie, and maybe the only Hitchcock movie I like.* But my liking it has as much to do with the great performances of Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten, rather than Hitchcock’s direction.
It also strikes me that Herbie Hawkins, played by Hume Cronyn in the movie, is a dead ringer for Josh Shapiro.
“Rope” might be the worst of them all.
* I guess I like Rear Window too, but because Raymond Burr is so menacing, and Grace Kelly so enticing, and Thelma Ritter so Stella. Much as I like James Stewart is most anything, I don’t like him much in any of Hitchcock’s films.
Rebecca my favorite Hitchcock film.
And Edna Mode one of my favorite characters ever. Thanks for posting Art Deco. I could watch that on a loop.
Don’t forget Hitchcock’s earlier film, “The 39 Steps”! A perfect B&W gem.
My other favorite is “North by Northwest” which is practically a remake of “The 39 Steps.”
* Handsome innocent man on the run
* Mysterious MacGuffin
* Romantic, comic, involvement with beautiful woman while on the run
* Chase sequences
So great!
BTW Edith Head (of course) did the costumes for many of Hitchcock later films:
Notorious (1946)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
The Birds (1963)
Marnie (1964)
I also like The Trouble With Harry and The Birds, though for different reasons.
My favorite Hitchcock film is “High Anxiety.” 🙂
A San Francisco girlfriend and I watched “The Birds” together. We decided to do a romantic bed and breakfast weekend at Bodega Bay (where “The Birds” was filmed) or near it.
My GF picked a BnB in Guerneville not far from Bodega Bay. Not long after our arrival, we realized that Guerneville had become a Northern California outpost of the Castro in San Francisco, i.e. we were the only straight couple in Guerneville so far as we could tell.
It was OK. The regulars treated us as a cute anomaly.
“Rope” is one of those experimental films that was made without any editing cuts, except mandated by the 10 min. (I think) maximum film reel size. It added tremendously to the shooting schedule which makes it expensive. And it generally interferes with flow, I think. Hitchcock gave up on it.
In 2015, the film “Too Late” was released. Made by a young new filmmaker, it utilized a then new double sized film reel that Kodak, in it’s death throws, had just come out with. So in that film, the scenes are 22 minutes long, without cuts.
It’s trashy, but kind of fun. And uses Tarantino style plot flow stucture, which is to say, the flow is not in chronological order. I watched it late one night, and thought, “There’s something odd about that film.” Later, I saw it again and realized that there were almost no cuts. It’s novel, but not a positive thing for filmmakers to do.
Always wanted to go to Bodega Bay. Someday.
So I have to tell this story to people who’d understand. As usual it takes place at a bar, one in the train station that I often stop at to have a beer before getting on the train – which I did today. Remember where I am, Chicago. Three women encroach on my sacred bar and they’re annoying immediately. All wearing identical red shirts, and one tries to give me a “Freedom From Gun Violence” button. Yes, they’ve come over from the convention. One starts crying about something, and apologizes to the bar about crying. One of the others says, “It’s Ok, we’ve been crying all week.” The other says, “We’ve pretty much been crying since Kamala announced.”
What in God’s name did I do to deserve that?
Re: “Rope”
TommyJay:
I tried with “Rope” but couldn’t get it into much (though I was aware of the no-cuts ambition).
Recently I was surprised to discover “Compulsion”, which tells the Leopold/Loeb story from the viewpoint of lawyer Clarence Darrow, played by Orson Welles, defending them in court:
Welles did win a Cannes Best Actor award. I’m a Welles fan, so I may get to it. I see that it is available on YouTube.
I’m a Welles fan
Ok, me too. So your thoughts on Citizen Kane?
RE: the UFO Phenomena, Elizondo’s “Imminent,” and “Woo”
It is often said that, when dealing with the UFO Phenomenon, you don’t want to sound like you’re crazy by diving too deep into, and discussing, the more “high strangeness” aspects of the UFO Phenomena, the so called “Woo.”
Well, in his book, Lue Elizondo dives deep onto some Woo, as he talks about the luminous, basketball sized orbs–witnessed by every member of his family–which appear in the rooms in his home, drift down the hallways and, then, disappear into the walls.
(Many of the people who are deeply involved in studying UFOs have also reported such strange things happening to them, and also to their families.
In the case of the very “high strangeness” Skinwalker Ranch, all sorts of even stranger phenomena–“hitchhikers”–have followed many of those doing research at at the Ranch back to their homes, to their families, and even, in some cases, then spread to other families in their neighborhoods.)
Elizondo also discussed an apparently Alien “implant,” “which looked like a microchip” enclosed in a slimy capsule of some sort of tissue? which a VA surgeon had removed from a veteran who had had a UFO encounter, and how the surgeon said that this object tried to move away, tired to evade the surgeon’s efforts to excise it.*
A sublime masterpiece, which created a whole new vocabulary for cinematography.
Also, I hold that when Welles as Kane declared, “I am an American,” he was speaking for himself as well.
Two Unicorns in one Open Thread, Lord have mercy!
@ Mike Plaiss > “So I have to tell this story to people who’d understand. ….
What — did I do to deserve that?”
Aside from living in Chicago, it happened precisely so you could relay it to us!
Would we believe anyone else?
But I don’t understand why they are crying since “Kamala announced” (what a strange new idiom!), because they should be happy she is the Democrat candidate.
Maybe this has answered my question:
mkent on August 22, 2024 at 3:38 pm said: (on the Round-up thread)
Concerning item #3, I guess Rush Limbaugh was right when he said “Liberalism is a mental disorder.”
“We’ve pretty much been crying since Kamala announced.”
You can just feel the joy!
I don’t like “Citizen Kane” either. Another crank opinion of mine though I realize why it was considered a cinematic milestone. But I do like “Compulsion”. Now whatever happened to Diane Varsi?
Come to think of it, did Kamala ever “announce” anything? It looks more like she was anointed. Definitely not elected.
TommyJay:
It had never occurred to me that Psycho is a slow moving film in most places… but it is. The film was not appreciated by the group.
————————————-
There are so many classics that I hesitate to share with my kids.
Fortunately they are all readers, so they are used to slower-paced fare as well as current fast-paced movies.
But sometimes I do get a glassy-eyed response.
Very sad – some of these movies are very powerful, even culturally important.
RE: The UFO Phenomena and NHIs.
Why isn’t this the primary issue that everyone in authority is grappling with, and working on, and that the public at large has been informed about, at least on a fundamental level?
I can think of a lot of reasons.
First of all, people do not want their world “turned upside down.”
A lot of people–perhaps a majority of us–just do not want to disrupt the current, essentially comfortable, relatively safe, consensus Reality–the familiar, fenced in, perceptual, philosophical, and ideological area within which we live–by admitting that Reality is far wider, more complex, deep, and stranger than we would like, as proved by the fact that there exist, and that we are being visited and surveilled by Non Human Intelligences, or that the unimpeded ease with which these NHIs and their UFOs go wherever they want to go, and do whatever they want to do, informs us that we are not really the masters of our own house, and not the Earthly “apex predators” we fancy ourselves to be.
The existence of NHIs is a challenge which every human Religion will have to face, and try to integrate—or not–into it’s theology, and practice.
The existence of NHIs also raises potentially uncomfortable questions about the deep origin and progress of our hominid line.
It appears that, over the decades since 1945, a small group of defense and aerospace actors have gained control over this knowledge and recovered NHI craft, and they hope to gain profit, power, and U.S. and/or their own personal dominance from this knowledge and technology, and they’re doing their damnedest to keep it Secret.
For our military generally (Air Force, I’m lookin’ at you) admitting that UFOs exist, and can do whatever they want here on Earth, and out into our Solar System—and we can’t stop them–is an admission that, in the face of these NHIs and their UFOs, our military, for all the trillions of dollars we have poured into it, is powerless–it has and is failing, in it’s primary function of protecting us from “enemies foreign and domestic.”
Solution?
In effect, close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and keep yelling, at the top of your voices—La, La, La.
Or, perhaps a better image is hiding under the covers, like a little kid, and pretending that, if you can’t see what is outside of the covers, then, it’s gone, it doesn’t really exist.
Gaslight the public, just pretend that, after 80 years of intense, behind the scenes study, you really don’t know anything at all about UFOs, or the history of UFOs during those last 80 years (see the testimony of Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie, two very high level government officials, at the first UFO Hearing on May 27, 2022)*, and/or that each and every UFO report is just nonsense—and ultimately explainable fiction, figments of often disturbed people’s imaginations, are ”swamp gas,” “ball lightning,” or misidentified aircraft, satellites, stars, the Moon, or planets, flocks of birds, or plastic bags floating through the air—just Air Trash–and, there you go, problem solved.
In actual Reality, what we are dealing with here is “force majeure.”
But, if neither NHIs, nor their “force majeure” don’t really exist, we can ignore these phony, illusory issues, and just move on to the actual, safer, much more mundane problems which need to be addressed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBqn6owoXHI&t=133s
==
[Have to restart].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frg2xBkS3BU
Brave whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler revealed how the IRS and Department of Justice slow-walked and obstructed their investigation of Hunter Biden’s wrongdoing. The obstruction included such acts as letting the statute of limitations run on certain crimes, and warning Hunter Biden of a planned search warrant. Shapley and Ziegler’s disclosures resulted in blowing up the sweetheart deal the DOJ had worked out with Hunter Biden, which would have resulted in no jail time, as well as ignoring any law-breaking that involved his father Joe Biden. Hunter Biden subsequently filed a frivolous suit against the IRS. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly to me, the Department of Justice has not vigorously defended Shapley and Ziegler in that lawsuit, and is opposing their motion to represent themselves. As the linked essay sets out, these two IRS agents “highlight the Kafkaesque situation they find themselves in, in which the “very parties against whom the[y] … blew the whistle (Hunter Biden, the IRS, and the Department of Justice’s Tax Division) are collectively asking this Court to prevent them from defending the clear legality of their actions by intervening as parties in this litigation.”
https://thefederalist.com/2024/08/21/bidens-doj-seeks-revenge-on-irs-whistleblowers-for-exposing-hunters-crimes/
Peter Reddaway died in late July:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/aug/11/peter-reddaway-obituary
Reddaway was a pioneer in publicizing the dissident movement in the Soviet Union. He also worked closely with the samizdat (underground publishing) unit at RFE/RL, which is where I met him in the 1980s. He died at his home in Vermont.
Anyway, I thought notice should be paid.
Art Deco beat me to it!
I view this new testing of the age of The Shroud of Turin with both interest and skepticism. My faith does not rely on this piece of cloth.
The new test looked at the decay of cellulose in the fabric. Some are suggesting that the previous Carbon dating was off due to contamination from more recent sources of carbon on the cloth.
https://www.newsweek.com/turin-shroud-study-claims-controversial-cloth-date-time-jesus-1942310
yes steven berry among others relied on the faulty test, and of course the sophists like ehrman and co, who insist on minimizing His name,
Is Neo a Girly Girl or what?
You can believe in Jesus and not believe that He appears in tortillas. Even in 1389, not long after the Shroud first was mentioned, there were Christians who thought the Shroud was a forgery, and said so.
As usual the journalist writing the article has misrepresented the findings. The scientists examined the structure of the cloth using x-rays and found the x-ray data to be similar to cloth known to be 2000 years old, but it could also still be of a newer date. They didn’t find something that would rule out that the Shroud is 2000 years old, which is very different from showing it to be 2000 years old.
Tucked in toward the end, the scientists say the Shroud cannot be dated by their method unless the cloth had been stored under very specific conditions for 2000 years, and for 700 of those years no one knows if the Shroud existed at all, much less where it was and how stored.
no its a different thing, altogether, they didn’t have the technology to establish such things, but it is part and parcel, of the de establishment of the foundations of our shared culture, which has endured for at least 2,000 years, over in the Holy Land the Awqaf under Authority control is destroying every semblance of Jewish identity they can find, Islam then appropriates the Jewish and Christian narratives, and bob’s your uncle,
Edna Mode, the fashion designer in Pixar’s “The Incredibles”, was based upon Edith Head. Mode was short and had the same style of eyeglasses and hairstyle, as well as the similarity of the names. It was a tribute to Head.
Once I noticed Edith Head in the film credits, I started noticing her name everywhere.
These costume designers are amazing; they are literally artists who work with fabric and real live people instead of paint and canvas.
Other great costumes can be seen in the show “Downton Abbey” ( just as an example).
Most likely anyone who like me grew up in the Delaware Valley during the ‘60’s will remember Gene London’s Cartoon Corner’s General Store. After his show was cancelled, Gene was a fashion designer, and a collector and restorer of many costumes worn by stars and starlets in Hollywood movies. I was lucky enough to meet Gene, a tremendously nice fellow, and see his exhibition of costumes at a Philadelphia Flower Show. An amazing collection of gorgeous dresses (as well as one of the outfits worn by Sean Connery in Zardoz). Stunning to see how tiny were the waists of some actresses – IIRC Audrey Hepburn was 22”.
Due to an activist with a great name, Robby Starbuck, conservatives are having some wins in the culture war. In the recent past, Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, and now Jack Daniels have pared back their DEI policies.
“ The maker of Jack Daniel’s whisky said it will pull back on its DEI initiatives, buckling to pressure on social media as an “anti-woke” activist said he was preparing to launch a boycott.
“Spirits giant Brown-Forman Corp. – with a market capitalization of $21.37 billion – is the latest company to scrap its diversity, equity and inclusion program, following Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply and John Deere.
“Major firms who rely heavily on a red state clientele have been caving to boycott pressure from corporate activist Robby Starbuck, who said Jack Daniel’s was next on the list, but that the company reversed its policies before he got the chance to lead a boycott.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/jack-daniel-s-maker-scraps-dei-policies-after-threat-of-anti-woke-boycott/ar-AA1pgcpu
Many, if not most, of the great American film directors of the 1970’s through the early 2000’s have mentioned that Hitchcock’s Vertigo is one of the most influential films for them. Brian DePalma has a longish monolog in the documentary film “DePalma” about Vertigo and how “Brechtian” it is.
He’s referring to the film’s Kim Novak character Judy being transformed back into her alter ego character at the beginning named Madeline. In the first half of the film, we meet the alluring Madeline and Jimmy Stewart is taken in by her. But we don’t exactly know why she is so alluring. Edith Head’s gowns are a big part of it.
In the second half, we see how Jimmy recreates the Madeline look on Judy one step at a time. But one of the things I’ve never heard discussed, and maybe it’s just me, is that the transformed Judy is never as alluring as Madeline was in the beginning. Why? It isn’t clear to me except that perhaps Hitchcock intended that result.
RE: Lue Elizondo’s book “Imminent,” and one possible reason for increasing UFO surveillance.
UFO activity first started to really pick up during WWII with the “Foo Fighters” and, then, it continued and has apparently continually escalated during our development and use of atomic weaponry, until today, UFO surveillance of all of our military assets—and especially covering our nuclear research, production, and storage facilities, and the nuclear powered warships and weapons we have fielded, all over the world–seems to be occurring almost nonstop.
Why?
(Some have proposed that such NHIs are benevolent, our “Space Brothers”–here to watch over us, and to guide us through the difficult and dangerous transition into a new stage of human development. Others have proposed that some of these NHIs might just be neutral, but others see some of them as far less benevolent, even malevolent.)
Here is how I read and understand what Lue Elizondo proposes as one possible reason for this surveillance.
The NHIs (the “people from out of town”) who are obviously running a surveillance operation against us humans, know, from experience, what the likely sequence of scientific developments–once we humans discover and develop nuclear energy and weapons–will be.
They know that soon–perhaps far sooner than might be apparent–humanity will have discovered and developed both the necessary sources of the incredible amounts of energy needed, and, then, the technology which will enable us humans—like the NHIs themselves—to have some control over Time and Space, which will enable us humans to travel to the stars.
(Ironically, the observations which have been made of the appearance, performance characteristics, and even the biological effects UFOs have had on people who have had close encounters with the UFOs which are surveilling us, have given some of our scientists valuable clues as to how these power levels and UFO performance capabilities are being attained.)
The NHIs are concerned about us–their new and often very aggressive, acquisitive, and violent neighbors–moving out, into their own stellar neighborhoods and their societies, disrupting things, and perhaps doing so violently.
Thus, their continuous and escalating monitoring of our capabilities, and our scientific progress.
The question is, how will some, or all, of these NHIs react, and what actions will these NHIs take, once we actually develop capabilities which may, even in some small way, rival theirs, and open up the stars to us?
Tommy Jay: “But one of the things I’ve never heard discussed, and maybe it’s just me, is that the transformed Judy is never as alluring as Madeline was in the beginning. Why? It isn’t clear to me except that perhaps Hitchcock intended that result.”
I never noticed it, nor ever thought about it before, but thinking about it now that you mention it, I think you are right. The transformed Judy does not seem as alluring” as the Madeleine in the beginning.
It is subtle but I do think it is there. And I am POSITIVE Hitchcock intended it.
I have never really been clear when it is actually “Madeleine” or when it is Judy that we see in the film. But I don’t think that ALL the times we see Kim Novak that she is Judy — either Judy pretending to be Madeleine, or Judy being Judy. And that may what you are talking about when you refer to her as “alluring.” I suspect that when James Stewart first sees Kim Novak, at Ernies, she is actually Madeleine. It is only when he starts following her to Mission Dolores, Palace of the Legion of Honor, the flower shop, the hotel, etc., that is is Judy he is following.
Obviously Judy is a dead ringer for Madeleine, or the scheme wouldn’t work. But also, Madeleine is from a different class background. Judy only had to pretend to be her for short bursts of time, but also pretend to be “possessed” by or the reincarnation of Carlotta Valdes.
About Madeline vs. Judy in Vertigo. It is Kim Novak all the time. One of the great instances of one actor playing two or more characters extremely well. Although Peter Sellers in Doctor Strangelove is a great one too.
Lee Also mentions that the class backgrounds of the two characters are very different. I do think that is part of it.
To me “Vertigo” is pretentious, overlong and overrated. My favorite Hitch movies are “Strangers On A Train”, “The Birds”, “North By Northwest” and “Rear Window”.
FOAF,
Vertigo does move very slowly, and is very reflective. Long films never bother me if it pulls me in. Actually, nearly all of Hitchock’s films can be dinged for being slow. North by Northwest is possibly an exception.
I recall bringing the film Psycho to a quarterly intra-departmental movie showing. They had been showing classic action films. It had never occurred to me that Psycho is a slow moving film in most places… but it is. The film was not appreciated by the group.
Vertigo was not a box office success and that was a big disappointment for Hitchcock. He later believed Jimmy Stewart was too old and generally miscast for the part, and never used him in a film again. And Hitch had originally cast Vera Miles in the lead, but she got pregnant before shooting. He wasn’t thrilled with Novak in hindsight, but that could be sour grapes.
“Shadow of a Doubt” is a good movie, and maybe the only Hitchcock movie I like.* But my liking it has as much to do with the great performances of Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten, rather than Hitchcock’s direction.
It also strikes me that Herbie Hawkins, played by Hume Cronyn in the movie, is a dead ringer for Josh Shapiro.
“Rope” might be the worst of them all.
* I guess I like Rear Window too, but because Raymond Burr is so menacing, and Grace Kelly so enticing, and Thelma Ritter so Stella. Much as I like James Stewart is most anything, I don’t like him much in any of Hitchcock’s films.
Rebecca my favorite Hitchcock film.
And Edna Mode one of my favorite characters ever. Thanks for posting Art Deco. I could watch that on a loop.
Don’t forget Hitchcock’s earlier film, “The 39 Steps”! A perfect B&W gem.
My other favorite is “North by Northwest” which is practically a remake of “The 39 Steps.”
* Handsome innocent man on the run
* Mysterious MacGuffin
* Romantic, comic, involvement with beautiful woman while on the run
* Chase sequences
So great!
BTW Edith Head (of course) did the costumes for many of Hitchcock later films:
Notorious (1946)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
The Birds (1963)
Marnie (1964)
I also like The Trouble With Harry and The Birds, though for different reasons.
My favorite Hitchcock film is “High Anxiety.” 🙂
A San Francisco girlfriend and I watched “The Birds” together. We decided to do a romantic bed and breakfast weekend at Bodega Bay (where “The Birds” was filmed) or near it.
My GF picked a BnB in Guerneville not far from Bodega Bay. Not long after our arrival, we realized that Guerneville had become a Northern California outpost of the Castro in San Francisco, i.e. we were the only straight couple in Guerneville so far as we could tell.
It was OK. The regulars treated us as a cute anomaly.
“Rope” is one of those experimental films that was made without any editing cuts, except mandated by the 10 min. (I think) maximum film reel size. It added tremendously to the shooting schedule which makes it expensive. And it generally interferes with flow, I think. Hitchcock gave up on it.
In 2015, the film “Too Late” was released. Made by a young new filmmaker, it utilized a then new double sized film reel that Kodak, in it’s death throws, had just come out with. So in that film, the scenes are 22 minutes long, without cuts.
It’s trashy, but kind of fun. And uses Tarantino style plot flow stucture, which is to say, the flow is not in chronological order. I watched it late one night, and thought, “There’s something odd about that film.” Later, I saw it again and realized that there were almost no cuts. It’s novel, but not a positive thing for filmmakers to do.
Always wanted to go to Bodega Bay. Someday.
So I have to tell this story to people who’d understand. As usual it takes place at a bar, one in the train station that I often stop at to have a beer before getting on the train – which I did today. Remember where I am, Chicago. Three women encroach on my sacred bar and they’re annoying immediately. All wearing identical red shirts, and one tries to give me a “Freedom From Gun Violence” button. Yes, they’ve come over from the convention. One starts crying about something, and apologizes to the bar about crying. One of the others says, “It’s Ok, we’ve been crying all week.” The other says, “We’ve pretty much been crying since Kamala announced.”
What in God’s name did I do to deserve that?
Re: “Rope”
TommyJay:
I tried with “Rope” but couldn’t get it into much (though I was aware of the no-cuts ambition).
Recently I was surprised to discover “Compulsion”, which tells the Leopold/Loeb story from the viewpoint of lawyer Clarence Darrow, played by Orson Welles, defending them in court:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsion_(1959_film)
Welles did win a Cannes Best Actor award. I’m a Welles fan, so I may get to it. I see that it is available on YouTube.
I’m a Welles fan
Ok, me too. So your thoughts on Citizen Kane?
RE: the UFO Phenomena, Elizondo’s “Imminent,” and “Woo”
It is often said that, when dealing with the UFO Phenomenon, you don’t want to sound like you’re crazy by diving too deep into, and discussing, the more “high strangeness” aspects of the UFO Phenomena, the so called “Woo.”
Well, in his book, Lue Elizondo dives deep onto some Woo, as he talks about the luminous, basketball sized orbs–witnessed by every member of his family–which appear in the rooms in his home, drift down the hallways and, then, disappear into the walls.
(Many of the people who are deeply involved in studying UFOs have also reported such strange things happening to them, and also to their families.
In the case of the very “high strangeness” Skinwalker Ranch, all sorts of even stranger phenomena–“hitchhikers”–have followed many of those doing research at at the Ranch back to their homes, to their families, and even, in some cases, then spread to other families in their neighborhoods.)
Elizondo also discussed an apparently Alien “implant,” “which looked like a microchip” enclosed in a slimy capsule of some sort of tissue? which a VA surgeon had removed from a veteran who had had a UFO encounter, and how the surgeon said that this object tried to move away, tired to evade the surgeon’s efforts to excise it.*
https://www.facebook.com/NewsNationNow/videos/ive-seen-possible-alien-technology-ex-pentagon-official/426734807072414/
So your thoughts on Citizen Kane?
Mike Plaiss:
A sublime masterpiece, which created a whole new vocabulary for cinematography.
Also, I hold that when Welles as Kane declared, “I am an American,” he was speaking for himself as well.
Two Unicorns in one Open Thread, Lord have mercy!
@ Mike Plaiss > “So I have to tell this story to people who’d understand. ….
What — did I do to deserve that?”
Aside from living in Chicago, it happened precisely so you could relay it to us!
Would we believe anyone else?
But I don’t understand why they are crying since “Kamala announced” (what a strange new idiom!), because they should be happy she is the Democrat candidate.
Maybe this has answered my question:
mkent on August 22, 2024 at 3:38 pm said: (on the Round-up thread)
Concerning item #3, I guess Rush Limbaugh was right when he said “Liberalism is a mental disorder.”
“We’ve pretty much been crying since Kamala announced.”
You can just feel the joy!
I don’t like “Citizen Kane” either. Another crank opinion of mine though I realize why it was considered a cinematic milestone. But I do like “Compulsion”. Now whatever happened to Diane Varsi?
Come to think of it, did Kamala ever “announce” anything? It looks more like she was anointed. Definitely not elected.
TommyJay:
It had never occurred to me that Psycho is a slow moving film in most places… but it is. The film was not appreciated by the group.
————————————-
There are so many classics that I hesitate to share with my kids.
Fortunately they are all readers, so they are used to slower-paced fare as well as current fast-paced movies.
But sometimes I do get a glassy-eyed response.
Very sad – some of these movies are very powerful, even culturally important.
RE: The UFO Phenomena and NHIs.
Why isn’t this the primary issue that everyone in authority is grappling with, and working on, and that the public at large has been informed about, at least on a fundamental level?
I can think of a lot of reasons.
First of all, people do not want their world “turned upside down.”
A lot of people–perhaps a majority of us–just do not want to disrupt the current, essentially comfortable, relatively safe, consensus Reality–the familiar, fenced in, perceptual, philosophical, and ideological area within which we live–by admitting that Reality is far wider, more complex, deep, and stranger than we would like, as proved by the fact that there exist, and that we are being visited and surveilled by Non Human Intelligences, or that the unimpeded ease with which these NHIs and their UFOs go wherever they want to go, and do whatever they want to do, informs us that we are not really the masters of our own house, and not the Earthly “apex predators” we fancy ourselves to be.
The existence of NHIs is a challenge which every human Religion will have to face, and try to integrate—or not–into it’s theology, and practice.
The existence of NHIs also raises potentially uncomfortable questions about the deep origin and progress of our hominid line.
It appears that, over the decades since 1945, a small group of defense and aerospace actors have gained control over this knowledge and recovered NHI craft, and they hope to gain profit, power, and U.S. and/or their own personal dominance from this knowledge and technology, and they’re doing their damnedest to keep it Secret.
For our military generally (Air Force, I’m lookin’ at you) admitting that UFOs exist, and can do whatever they want here on Earth, and out into our Solar System—and we can’t stop them–is an admission that, in the face of these NHIs and their UFOs, our military, for all the trillions of dollars we have poured into it, is powerless–it has and is failing, in it’s primary function of protecting us from “enemies foreign and domestic.”
Solution?
In effect, close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and keep yelling, at the top of your voices—La, La, La.
Or, perhaps a better image is hiding under the covers, like a little kid, and pretending that, if you can’t see what is outside of the covers, then, it’s gone, it doesn’t really exist.
Gaslight the public, just pretend that, after 80 years of intense, behind the scenes study, you really don’t know anything at all about UFOs, or the history of UFOs during those last 80 years (see the testimony of Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie, two very high level government officials, at the first UFO Hearing on May 27, 2022)*, and/or that each and every UFO report is just nonsense—and ultimately explainable fiction, figments of often disturbed people’s imaginations, are ”swamp gas,” “ball lightning,” or misidentified aircraft, satellites, stars, the Moon, or planets, flocks of birds, or plastic bags floating through the air—just Air Trash–and, there you go, problem solved.
In actual Reality, what we are dealing with here is “force majeure.”
But, if neither NHIs, nor their “force majeure” don’t really exist, we can ignore these phony, illusory issues, and just move on to the actual, safer, much more mundane problems which need to be addressed.
* See https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-hearing-congress-pentagon-watch-live-stream-today-2022-05-17/
* See full Hearing here at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-house-intelligence-committee-holds-hearing-on-unidentified-aerial-phenomena